BA (British Airways) have been flying phantom flights containing only pilots and freight between the UK and USA.

According to SMH “BA has been flying airliners from Britain to North America this month without a single passenger aboard because of a cabin crew shortage”.

Naturally environmental groups are enraged at this incident.

Fox reports that “the airline (BA) has been promoting its green-friendly policies and has even begun levying an increase on fuel surcharges to passengers”. And now they do this: emit huge amounts of pollution into the atmosphere all to send some cargo across The Pond and to retain their valuable slots at Heathrow and Gatwick.

Last week on the ABC show Difference of Opinion, the topic of discussion was Climate Change. Following the show the discussion forum was alive with varying opinions. Naturally there was the ‘left’ and ‘right’ discussions but the following really caught my eye and got me thinking as a marketing minded person:

User Builder wrote:

As a builder in the residential construction industry I see a massive potential for micro generation of power and water resources, ie all houses generating close to, if not more, than their needs. It is already being done to a very small extent. (currently very expensive) To me it seems the problem is marketing. We are currently being told you should do this, you must do that etc., but there is no real incentive for people to want to do it. It is a sad obsevation of our society but we need to appeal to peoples vanity. Over the last few years I have seen a large explosion in the Kitchen & bathroom design/renovation industry. Indeed there was no such seperate industry 10 years ago, it was a part of the construction industry. But some clever marketing has seen it become its own entity. The TV adds and the glossy magazines are all telling us we need to have such & such features in our kitchen/ bathrooms and because Joe Bloggs down the road has it so you need it too. I see this on a daily basis where people will spend $60 000+ on a kitchen but wont spend $1500 on a water tank unless they get a rebate from the govt. (sad but true) Get the people with extra disposable income to start requesting renewable technologies in their houses. This starts to drive the industry and investment/ research which then starts to make the technology cheaper and more people can afford it and so on. So my point is change the way the environment is marketed (make it cool and hip, not a moral crusade) and perhaps couple it with some tax breaks for those who do fit it to their houses and I think we will have a small part of the solution actually doing something relatively quickly. I hope this makes sense. Cheers.

User Naturalmiztic replied:

I agree, especially given the home renovation spending is so huge it makes sense to market more appropriately in order to channel this spending on more eco friendly products across all areas of home renovations. It seems the major aim of meeting baseload power needs is through centralised energy sources, but why not expand the diversity of energy sources and individualise, it’s totally in line with individualistic, independent, capitalist ecomony of Western society. It’s about the change in mind set about where people get their energy, and its inline with the current privatisation of the energy market. But its all about the marketing and advertising the rebates.

People could even make money from it, if they reduce their own power usage, and put power on the grid. That’s huge incentive.

Given that some home owners do home renovations to make their homes more comfortable for themselves to live in, most do it to improve their property values. So the market supply and demand can help with moving the trend and demand for more eco friendly housing to be worth more. Some real estate adverts are starting to show the energy ratings of properties. But consumers need to start asking and prefering eco friendly properties as well.

The technology and infrastructure is already there it’s just a matter of marketing, and consumers need to make their choices and preferences clear.

There’s little in mainstream renovation programs/marketing/magazine about the costs, what’s involved with installation etc.. It’s something you’d find in alternative or its a little special interest area one off within mainstream.

It’s sort of ironic though because when it comes to transport, there needs to be a shift in the opposite direction…from people using private modes to increasing uptake of shared modes and public transport. I think there’s little progress in increasing incentives and access to good public transport and reducing reliance on cars, eg grocery shops not delivering goods and groceries.

Enjoy!

Source: ABC

It’s interesting –well I think so– how I came to write this blog. I was talking to some random person via MSN who said they went to the drive-in and saw Saw 4 last night. I said how I am not a fan of the genre and he asked what sort of movies I am interested in. I told him that I am a fan of mostly “Art House” stuff and mentioned a few films I have seen and enjoyed: Friends with Money, An Inconvenient Truth, Jindabyne. I then decided to see what Wikipedia had to say about these films and the following excerpt is from the entry on An Inconvenient Truth:

“In September 2006, Gore traveled to Sydney, Australia to promote the film. Australian Prime Minister, John Howard said he would not meet with Gore or agree to Kyoto because of the movie: “I don’t take policy advice from films.” Former Opposition Leader Kim Beazley joined Gore for a viewing and other MPs attended a special screening at Parliament House earlier in the week”.

So, little Johnny doesn’t take policy advice from films? So does he maybe think this film is the first to mention the content? Or is he afraid that Gore is making the facts on Climate Change more accessible to the masses, so is dismissing it?

I think it’s interesting how Howard positions himself relative to anyone slightly to his left. He makes them out to be completely irrelevant. What would be do if Gore was President of the USA? Would be still upkeep an alliance of similar strength to what it is today? So many questions to pose, too hypothetical to answer.

PJGO

It’s been a long time since I have written a meaningful blog on here. So today is the day that I get back to it.

Currently, I am reading Quarterly Essays #27: Reaction Time: Climate Change and the Nuclear Option, a quarterly publication on various political, social and environmental issue –stuff that concerns us all. Here is an interesting excerpt:

“Fifty years ago, Australia was one of the most equal societies in the World. Today, we are one of the most unequal of all the industrialised nations. Again, the mineral export industries are influential. The industry is capital-intensive and commodity prices have been driven up by demand in China, so mining companies can afford to pay very high wages compared with manufacturing or services. In cities like Perth, the high incomes of mining workers on fly-in fly-out contracts are driving house prices to levels that put the Australian dream beyond the reach of more and more young families. While the good times of the mining boom roll on, we should be using the revenue to invest in a cohesive social future, rather than allowing the windfall gains to widen inequality”

This particular section of the publication focuses on the use of public money to fund things like tax-cuts. Tax-cuts seem great, but really, are they? If we have more discretionary income it leads to increase spending which leads to inflation. As the author, Ian Lowe points out, the resource boom has lead to extravagant lifestyles and spending behaviour for many, at the expense of other people; resource consumption; and pollution. The divide of rich and poor is increasing.

Something I find interesting is the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund. When Alberta stumbled upon coal and gas (I think it was?) they set up this fund, simply, for when these resources run out. What does Australian Federal Government do with proceeds of the resource boom? It promotes effluence!

Sure, Australia is a lucky nation but we do over indulge. I agree with Lowe in that we need to live simpler: smaller homes, smaller cars, energy-efficiency. Rather than finding better ways to produce more energy; we should find better ways of using less.

Anyways, those are my views at the moment. I shall move on to something a little lighter: cool links…

Angie’s List:- members submit more than 15,000 reports each month about the companies they’ve hired. They describe their project (including the cost), and grade the company’s response time, prices and quality of work - good or bad. In reading the reviews, you’ll know if a crew was conscious of children and pets, cleaned up after themselves, or just totally botched the job.

Quarterly Essays:- Quarterly Essay 27 Reaction Time by Ian Lowe was one of the bestselling books at the 2007 Brisbane Writers Festival. (The publication I talked about above).

In Rainbows:- You’d have to be living under a rock or in a town that is out of reach of the media to not know the circumstances under which Radiohead released their new album. They’re free of record labels and went it alone by releasing In Rainbows as a download through their website. But that’s not all, the buyer names the price. Any price, every price is a winner.

By the way, the album is a ripper. I have been a fan of theirs for years and it’s in their top three for me. Amnesiac, Kid A, In Rainbows –that’s my ranking.

Over and out.

PJGO

Apple has coped a bit of flack of late on its environmental policies. From environmentalists of course. Apple’s recycling program has come into question.

“Apple said it would stop using polyvinyl chloride and brominated flame retardants in its plastic parts and eliminate arsenic from its monitors by the end of 2008. Apple also said it would step up recycling efforts for its computers and iPod music players.”

CEO, Steve Jobs has talked up Apple’s policies going forward. Check out Apple’s stance of the environment.

Here is a sign of Apple’s commitment to the environment and also a good bit of PR:

“Purchase any qualifying Apple computer or monitor and receive free recycling of your old computer and monitor — regardless of manufacturer. Learn more.”

Last week on Digital Point I made purchase of Directory-Tree. I must say it’s one of the neatest web directory designs I have seen in a while: especially for the price.

The stats for the site are pretty neat. It’s Alexa ranked; has a PR1 (which I’ll soon change) and loads of potential.

This is my new pet-project so we’ll see how we go.

In other news, I have been on a domain name buying spree. Purchased four over the week. All have loads of potental. A couple I wish to build blogs around and flip. The others I’ll invest time and effort as they are associated with interests of mine, i.e. global warming and travel.

Pajago

Advertise Here

“BMW AG said it will conduct test drives of the world’s first mass-produced liquid hydrogen-fueled vehicles on public roads in Japan between July and December,” according to reports on ABC.

Currently there are 100 liquid hydrogen-fueled driving around the the streets of Europe and USA.

“The German carmaker will test two of the environmentally-friendly vehicles, which emit only vaporised water, in major Japanese cities. The company is aiming to appeal to consumers but problems such as the shortage of charging stations for hydrogen automobiles will need to be resolved if the vehicles are to become popular in Japan.”

BMW have done well in addressing this niche of green-transport currently dominated by Toyota. People in the position to buy a luxury vehicle will soon have at least one option. Soon I am sure we’ll see other prestige car brands offering their own green-models.

A greenhouse levy for domestic air-flights may be introduced to curb demand. A surcharge of $30 per ticket may apply.

Author of a study by the Australia Institution “think-tank”, Andrew Macintosh says the basic message of this initiative is for people to “fly less”: to do their part to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

It’s common knowledge that passenger jets emit large amounts of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere and this levy would help achieve reduction targets.

“Unfortunately for aviation, there are no technological options that will allow us to drastically reduce aviation emissions.” says Macintosh. Due to the dense nature of jet-fuel a replacement or substitute is a long way off.

With the introduction of high-speed broadband, video conferencing, voIP and the like. It’s easier for business people to keep in touch without the need to fly. This has positive effects, both financially and environmentally for businesses.

Some references for this article sourced at ABC.