'Green' Packaging sources

· 1% for the Planet is a growing global movement of companies that donate 1% of their sales to a network of more than 1,500 environmental organizations worldwide.

· VCI2000 Anti-Corrosion Packaging

· Danny Seo is the authority on eco-living. His bestselling books, articles and television programs revolve around the theme Simply Green.

· www.greenseal.org Founded in 1989, Green Seal provides science-based environmental certification standards that are credible, transparent, and essential in an increasingly educated and competitive marketplace.

· www.greenamericatoday.org Green America is a not-for-profit membership organization founded in 1982. Our mission is to harness economic power—the strength of consumers, investors, businesses, and the marketplace—to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable society.

· www.greenpages.org The National Green Pages™ is a directory listing nearly 3,000 businesses that have made firm commitments to sustainable, socially just principles, including the support of sweatshop-free labor, organic farms, fair trade, and cruelty-free products. Green Packaging, Inc. is an approved National Green Pages company.

· www.greenfestphilly.org GreenFest Philly is a one-day street fair FREE to the public. Green Packaging, Inc. is one of over 200 exhibitors at GreenFest Philly. More than 20,000 people are expected at the area's largest environmental event.

· www.treesftf.org Since 1989, Trees for the Future has been helping communities around the world plant trees. Through seed distribution, agroforestry training, and our country programs, we have empowered rural groups to restore tree cover to their lands. Planting trees protects the environment and helps to preserve traditional livelihoods and cultures for generations. Green Packaging, Inc. has partnered with Trees for the Future to offset our carbon footprint.

· www.twicegreen.com Twice Green Consulting can assist Green Packaging’s customers to increase the sustainability – both environmental and economic – of packaging products. Green Packaging, Inc. sells you green packaging materials. We know that you place a high priority on being environmentally responsible. But we also know that there are probably additional things you can be doing to reduce the environmental impact of your packaging use and also improve your bottom line. Green Packaging, Inc. has teamed up with Twice Green Consulting to help you discover how you can become a “greener” company. Twice Green assesses companies’ current packaging profiles. It then develops plans to more responsibly source materials, including using renewable energy in their production, using materials that can be recycled and “upcycled” for subsequent use, are safe and effective for people and the environment, and achieve the ultimate goal of the package – to safely transport, protect, and promote the product contained within.

· http://your.kingcounty.gov/solidwaste/ecoconsumer/index.asp Tom Watson is the “ECO Consumer” for Seattle’s King County. Tom manages the EcoConsumer public education program for King County Solid Waste Division. As part of this effort, Tom writes a column for The Seattle Times and appears on local TV including regular EcoConsumer segments on the KOMO4 TV news and the Green Watch feature on "KCTS Connects", a public affairs show on Channel 9. In his work with King County, Tom has been involved in a wide range of projects and research on waste prevention, packaging, junk mail reduction, natural gardening, reuse, toxics reduction, electronics recycling, greening the home and product stewardship. Green Packaging, Inc.’s products have been featured in Tom’s reports.

More on the ocean...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090729092538.htm

Tony Robbins@TED

Tony Robbins spoke at the prestigious Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) Conference, attended by the world's most influential thinkers and leaders. Check it out on his website:

p.s. If you have any experience with TED or Robbins, let me know.

And what a Full Moon it was!

2009	Sep	4	16:05	Fri
2009	Oct	4	06:11	Sun
2009	Nov	2	19:15	Mon
2009	Dec	2	07:33	Wed
2009	Dec	31	19:15	Thu

Bon Jour....

Inspiration is so easy and yet so hard. Good weather, a beautiful piece of music, perhaps someone passing just beyond your periphery. It takes so little and yet one must be totally attuned to ones inner compass and the world around you. The glass needs to be half full , not leaking out of a hairline crack.

Yuck to Evian!

Will doing what I'm good at make me happy?

In my ?0s and confused

Will doing what I'm good at make me happy?
By Cary Tennis

Aug. 05, 2009 |

Dear Cary,

I'm writing to you because I've never been this confused before in my life.

I graduated from college (del.) years ago and have worked at a couple of jobs since then, the most recent one being at an (del.). This led me to want to become a teacher, so I applied and was selected (del.). In order to join this program, I obviously had to quit my job. I completed the (del.) training, and now cannot find a job.

I always thought it would be easy to find a job (del), but apparently in this economy, it's not. On top of that, throughout the training, I had nagging and persistent feelings that this wasn't what I was meant to be doing.

Now I'm faced with confusion. Should I keep trying to find a job as a teacher, which will require a great deal of energy and time, when it's a job I'm not even sure I want anymore? Or should I pursue something else? The problem is, I don't know what.

I always thought I would go to (del.) school, since that's what I would be good at, but a part of me said, No! You're meant to do something more meaningful, something where you can give back. I know I would be good at being a lawyer, I just don't know if it would make me happy. The problem is, I don't know what makes me happy anymore. My boyfriend and I broke up (del.) , and now I am lost and alone and don't know what to do or where to turn.

I could just wait tables for a while and figure out my next step, but nothing I think of sounds appealing or like it would make me happy. I always thought I would be successful at whatever I pursued and to have to face this failure is difficult. I struggled with the training, and I honestly don't know if I would make a good teacher, which makes it very hard for me to go out and sell myself at interviews in a very competitive job market. I'm trying to see this as an opportunity to find myself and what truly makes me happy, but every day I feel like I'm slipping further and further away from happiness. I have no idea what I want to do now and everything seems like a dead end.

I'm getting sick of talking about my predicament to friends, because I feel like I'm boring them with my endless indecision. Why can't I just be happy? All of my friends (del.) and they're happy just doing that and drinking and hanging out with friends. I don't know, it doesn't sound like a bad life, but what about my grand goals for myself? Are those going to be sidelined if I work in the service industry for a while? I wish I could do something like move to another country or travel for a while or something similar, but money is of course an issue. I feel like a failure and I don't know how to stop these feelings of self-doubt and unhappiness. What should I do?

Confused (50)-Something

Dear Confused 20-Something,

What you have is a set of wrong assumptions. It's not your fault you have these assumptions. They were probably conveyed to you by teachers, parents, friends and various media -- advertising, popular culture and the like.

These assumptions are that success and achievement would follow an orderly path, that whatever you encountered in life would lead to greater happiness and freedom, that you would excel at whatever you attempted and that any opportunity you chose to pursue would bear fruit.

You've had a setback. Because you were not prepared to have setbacks, you've interpreted this setback as a failure. It is not a failure. It is just an encounter with life as it is lived by millions of people all over the world. You have begun to find out what the world is like. I hope you can now turn your intelligence and your heart toward a deeper understanding of what the world is like, and thus be relieved of the pain that comes of battling against the world and what it is like.

It is natural, I suppose, during our many years of preparation, to acquire the habit of assuming that by excelling in our assigned tasks we will find happiness, or by finding one kind of occupation or profession we will find happiness. In fact, it is probably a useful misconception to believe that excelling in school or work will bring us happiness. If we believe such a thing, we are more likely to do well at our tasks. But such a belief acts only like a carrot dangled before a racing greyhound: It keeps him running after something that stays always out of reach.

Doing well at our tasks does not bring us happiness.

You broke up with your boyfriend. You are alone and feeling lost. That is how you are supposed to feel. Yet you are fighting this feeling, as though this is wrong, as though this is not how you are supposed to feel. And you are torturing yourself, holding yourself to some cruel, impossible standard. The truth is that you've been hurt and you're going through a tough time. This is a good thing. This is your chance to admit some new knowledge into your core being -- knowledge of setbacks, lostness, the difficulty of making your way, the many false starts and illusions that are placed in your path.

This is the classic course of youth into adulthood.

If I were you, I might be a little angry that my culture neglected to tell me the truth about these things, that my education did not prepare me for adversity. I might be upset that I had not gained an understanding of economic forces, of class forces, of the way power is wielded in hidden ways in the workplace, how we are led to believe that things will be easy when they are actually hard. I might be angry that I did not study how advertising and popular culture portray a world in which problems can be solved instantly, by making certain purchases or wearing certain clothes.

That just isn't how it is. There are reasons for the distortions you have been shown. Our economy has a lopsided reliance on the production and consumption of nonessential goods; for these goods to be sold, certain messages must be promulgated; certain illusions must be upheld -- that these products and services will make you happy, that certain professions will make you happy, etc. These beliefs motivate us to continue, like the carrot dangled before the nose of the greyhound. They serve a purpose. But they are not always in our best interests. They serve the interests of other people, with whom we are in competition for finite resources.

You are beginning to see that much of what you have assumed to be true is false. That is a good thing. Now you must begin to replace your assumptions with a more balanced view.

That takes a lifetime.

Little men making Sunshine!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tZKZiIn1Yg

Cisco Outlines Strategy for Highly Secure, 'Smart Grid' Infrastructure -> News@Cisco

I wish I knew more about this:

Cisco Outlines Strategy for Highly Secure, 'Smart Grid' Infrastructure -> News@Cisco

Posted using ShareThis

The weather's just moving in!

Bang! with a wall of wind...

Stonington Village Fair This Weekend!!! (good weather Saturday)

STONINGTON VILLAGE FAIR

One of the premier events of the summer season in the Borough of Stonington and a major fund raiser for the COMO, the Village Fair will be held on Saturday, August 2, 2008, from 10AM until 4PM on Wadawanuck Square (the Village Green) in the Borough. For more than half a century, the people of Stonington and surrounding areas have come together to enjoy great food, entertainment and shopping in the picturesque environs of this classic New England celebration of community. This year's fair promises to be an eclectic mix of old and new events. Visitors can expect to find a fantastic Soup Kitchen featuring homemade soup specialties, amazing Portuguese sweet bread, bargains hidden amongst the bric-a-brac at the Treasures and Trifles tables, book titles of all types for the most discerning bibliophiles at the monster-sized book table, and some lovely floral creations from the Stonington Garden Club.

Ahhhh, you need more pictures!!!

Clink!

.

(yes, a plan....but executable???)

July 30, 2009

Efficiency Drive Could Cut Energy Use 23% by 2020, Study Finds

By KATE GALBRAITH

The biggest opportunity to improve the nation’s energy situation is a major investment program to make homes and businesses more efficient, according to a study released Wednesday by the consulting firm McKinsey. An investment of $520 billion in improvements like sealing ducts and replacing inefficient appliances could produce $1.2 trillion in savings on energy bills through 2020, the study found.

The report said such a program, if carried out over the next decade, could cut the country’s projected energy use in 2020 by about 23 percent, a savings that would be “greater than the total of energy consumption of Canada,” Ken Ostrowski, a senior partner in McKinsey’s Atlanta office, said at a forum in Washington on Wednesday. It would also more than offset the growth in energy use that would be expected otherwise.

“The scale is vast if we can put together the means to pursue it,” Mr. Ostrowski said.

Homes account for about 35 percent of the potential efficiency gains, according to McKinsey, while the industrial sector accounts for 40 percent and the commercial sector 25 percent. The report included only efficiency improvements whose long-term savings would outweigh the initial costs. It did not consider the potential environmental benefits of cutting energy use.

The report acknowledged substantial barriers to achieving the savings, foremost among them the initial costs. The $52 billion annual investment envisioned by McKinsey is four or five times more than the nation currently spends on energy efficiency, and would have to be maintained over a decade. The economic stimulus package passed in February barely makes a dent; by McKinsey’s estimate, it contains $10 billion to $15 billion in spending on energy efficiency.

Some home or business owners may not have the money to finance efficiency improvements, even if they would pay off in the long run. Other barriers include inertia (a homeowner may simply not feel like replacing an old air-conditioner); and poorly aligned incentives (a landlord who does not pay the electric bill has no economic reason to replace the old air-conditioner).

The potential gains are also spread across millions of homes and businesses, so getting widespread participation would be a challenge.

“No question, the potential is there theoretically,” said David G. Victor, an energy expert at the University of California, San Diego, noting that he had not yet seen the report’s details. “It’s really, really difficult to achieve that full potential in the real world.”

To achieve $1 trillion in savings, Mr. Victor added, would require “a lot of people and a lot of complex organizations to change their behavior.”

The McKinsey report’s recommendations include providing education and better information about the potential savings from energy efficiency, tighter building codes, stricter efficiency requirements for appliances and greater financial incentives for making efficiency improvements.

The Obama administration has been pursuing many of these avenues — for example, some energy-efficiency funding in the stimulus bill requires states to promise to strengthen their building codes.President Obama has also made stricter appliance standards a priority.

Jon Creyts, a McKinsey partner in Chicago, said that energy efficiency presented the “most compelling” way to combat climate change, as well as to achieve energy security and affordability. It is not, however, a panacea, he said.

“Energy efficiency is an important and compelling low-cost option,” Mr. Creyts said, “but there are reasons that we need to innovate and continue to develop clean sources of energy.”

Peter Lehner, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said even greater savings were possible. The McKinsey report made conservative assumptions, he noted, and it did not account for savings from changes in behavior — people turning out lights in empty rooms or turning down the thermostat in winter, for example.

Nor did the $1.2 trillion figure take account of a possible cost for greenhouse gas emissions, which could be capped under climate legislation pending in Congress, and could bring about increases in energy efficiency.

“Even if we don’t get a climate bill this year, it’s extremely conservative to think there will not be a price on carbon in the next decade,” Mr. Lehner said.

The study was partly financed by McKinsey, and by a group of co-sponsors that included the Southern Company, a utility holding company, as well as the United States Green Building Council and the Department of Energy.

A separate study released on Tuesday by the National Research Council cited potential energy savings of 15 percent by 2020 and 30 percent by 2030 if more efficient technologies were adopted. Unlike McKinsey, the research council included transportation, acknowledging that it would be a difficult sector to transform quickly.

f.y.i.: Twitter Guidebook

"Twitter is a social network used by millions of people, and thousands more are signing up every day to send short messages to groups of friends. But where's the user manual for Twitter? Where do new Twitter users go to learn about Tweeting, retweets, hashtags and customizing your Twitter profile? Where do you go if you want to know all about building a community on Twitter, or using Twitter for business? How can you find advanced tools for using Twitter on your phone or your desktop? To answer all these questions and more, we've assembled The Twitter Guide Book, a complete collection of resources for mastering Twitter. Happy Tweeting!"

- Pete Cashmore, @Mashable

http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/

Alternative meanings for common words.

Once again, The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly neologism contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternative meanings for common words. The winners are: 1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs. 2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained. 3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach. 4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk. 5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent. 6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown. 7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp. 8. Gargoyle (n), olive-flavored mouthwash. 9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller. 10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline. 11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam. 12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists. 13. Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist. 14. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms. 15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die, your soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there. 16. Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men The Washington Post's Style Invitational also asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are this year's winners: 1. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future. 2. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period. 3. Giraffiti (n): Van dalism spray-painted very, very high. 4. Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it. 5. Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late. 6. Hipatitis (n): Terminal coolness. 7. Osteopornosis (n): A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.) 8. Karmageddon (n): its like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer. 9. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you. 10. Glibido (v): All talk and no action. 11. Dopeler effect (n): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly. 12. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web 13. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into you bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out. 14. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.

Mandatory 15-Second Voicemail Instructions

Personal Tech

The Mandatory 15-Second Voicemail Instructions

By DAVID POGUE

Last week, in The Times and on my blog, I've been ranting about one particularly blatant money-grab by U.S. cellphone carriers: the mandatory 15-second voicemail instructions.

Suppose you call my cell to leave me a message. First you hear my own voice: "Hi, it's David Pogue. Leave a message, and I'll get back to you"--and THEN you hear a 15-second canned carrier message.

* Sprint: "[Phone number] is not available right now. Please leave a detailed message after the tone. When you have finished recording, you may hang up, or press pound for more options."

* Verizon: "At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, you may hang up, or press 1 for more options. To leave a callback number, press 5. (Beep)"

* AT&T: "To page this person, press five now. At the tone, please record your message. When you are finished, you may hang up, or press one for more options."

* T-Mobile: "Record your message after the tone. To send a numeric page, press five. When you are finished recording, hang up, or for delivery options, press pound."

(You hear a similar message when you call in to hear your own messages. "You. Have. 15. Messages. To listen to your messages, press 1." WHY ELSE WOULD I BE CALLING?)

I, the voicemailbox owner, cannot turn off this additional greeting message. You, the caller, can bypass it, but only if you know the secret keypress--and it's different for each carrier. So you'd have to know which cellphone carrier I use, and that of every person you'll ever call; in other words, this trick is no solution.

These messages are outrageous for two reasons. First, they waste your time. Good heavens: it's 2009. WE KNOW WHAT TO DO AT THE BEEP.

Do we really need to be told to hang up when we're finished!? Would anyone, ever, want to "send a numeric page?" Who still carries a pager, for heaven's sake? Or what about "leave a callback number?" We can SEE the callback number right on our phones!

Second, we're PAYING for these messages. These little 15-second waits add up--bigtime. If Verizon's 70 million customers leave or check messages twice a weekday, Verizon rakes in about $620 million a year. That's your money. And your time: three hours of your time a year, just sitting there listening to the same message over and over again every year.

In 2007, I spoke at an international cellular conference in Italy. The big buzzword was ARPU--Average Revenue Per User. The seminars all had titles like, "Maximizing ARPU In a Digital Age." And yes, several attendees (cell executives) admitted to me, point-blank, that the voicemail instructions exist primarily to make you use up airtime, thereby maximizing ARPU.

Right now, the carriers continue to enjoy their billion-dollar scam only because we're not organized enough to do anything about it. But it doesn't have to be this way. You don't have to sit there, waiting to leave your message, listening to a speech recorded by a third-grade teacher on Ambien.

Let's push back, and hard. We want those time-wasting, money-leaking messages eliminated, or at least made optional.

I asked my Twitter followers for help coming up with a war cry, a slogan, to identify this campaign. They came up with some good ones:

"Where's the Beep?"

"Let it Beep"

"We Know. Let's Go."

"Lose the Wait"

"My Voicemail, My Recording"

"Hell, no, we won't hold!"

My favorite, though, is the one that sounds like a call to action: "Take Back the Beep."

And here's how we're going to do it.

We're going to descend, en masse, on our carriers. Send them a complaint, politely but firmly. Together, we'll send them a LOT of complaints.

If enough of us make our unhappiness known, I'll bet they'll change.

I've told each of the four major carriers that they'll be hearing from us. They've told us where to send the messages:

* Verizon: Post a complaint here: http://bit.ly/FJncH.

* AT&T: Send e-mail to Mark Siegel, executive director of media relations: MS8460@att.com.

* Sprint: Post a complaint here: http://bit.ly/9CmrZ

* T-Mobile: Post a complaint here: http://bit.ly/2rKy0u

Three of the four carriers are just directing us to their general Web forums. Smells like a cop-out, I know. (As for AT&T: Props to the guy for letting me publish his e-mail address! Hope he knows what he's in for!)

Yet all four carriers promise that they'll read and consider our posts. And we have two things going for us.

First, I have a feeling that the volume of complaints will be too big for them to ignore. To that end, I hope you'll pass these instructions along, blog them, Twitter them, and spread the word. (Gizmodo, Consumerist and others have agreed to help out.) And I hope you'll take the time to complain yourself. Do it now, before you forget.

Second, we'll all be watching. I'll be reporting on the carriers' responses. If they ignore us, we'll shame them. If they respond, we'll celebrate them.

Either way, it's time to rise up. It's time for this crass, time-wasting money-grab to end for good.

To which I responded (Verizon):

I would like the "feature" of the 15 second pre-message announcement to be shorter and optional. It costs me so much a day to waste that time on such redundant messages. It's probably my #1 gripe with you guys at the moment. Get serious and make a change.

We're free to use any carrier. Be my choice.

Follow-up from Pogue 7/31/09 reads: "...there are secret codes to bypass the obnoxious instruction messages. It’s * for Verizon, 1 for Sprint and # for T-Mobile or AT&T.But this is not a solution. It requires you to know in advance which carrier the person you’re calling uses, which is unrealistic! Making the instructions optional would be a far superior idea. Many of you replied: “Well, why don’t you give out the code when you record your voice mail greeting? For example: ‘You’ve reached David Pogue. Press star to cut to the beep.’”

So, when you call ME, Press star to cut to the beep!m ~A.

working out the local jr. clydes.

Should be a great season for rosehips!

keep it simple smartypants...

Experiencability a Lextant + IDSA Webinar

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