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Infrequent But Delicious - The Mike Blog
Infrequent But Delicious - The Mike Blog


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Will you make your first car/next car a hybrid?
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

I'm very serious about it myself, and I think any car company not investing heavily in environmentally responsible technology is being incredibly short-sighted. Look at the combination of these news bits:

In Fortune this week:

In an industry where others are sputtering, Toyota is a juggernaut. It is producing nearly 50 percent more cars than in 2001 and this year it will almost certainly pass General Motors to become the world's largest auto company.

Toyota (Research) alone earned more than all the rest of the world's 12 largest auto manufacturers combined -- $11.4 billion. And it is pioneering a new technology for the 21st century that will shrink gasoline consumption and limit greenhouse gases.

And this from Auto Spectator:

Billboard tracks gasoline saved by Toyota hybrids: 100,000,000+ gallons

Toyota estimates that drivers of Toyota and Lexus hybrids have saved more than 110,000,000 gallons of gasoline as of January 31, 2006. An electronic billboard counter alongside the 405 Freeway in El Segundo, California updates the running total every four seconds. Toyota and Lexus hybrid drivers have also avoided emitting an estimated 900,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide and more than 3,000,000 pounds of smog-forming gases.

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You know, I'm pretty disappointed in Nissan... the car company I've supported to date. According to Fortune, Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Japanese rival Nissan, likes to poke fun at Toyota's supposed social responsibility. "Some of our competitors say they are doing things for the benefit of humanity," he says. "Well, we are in a business, and the company has a mission of creating value."

Value for who? For what? Shareholders? How about value for humanity! In the future companies will increasingly be judged by the value they contribute back to the world, not only the value of their products to consumers.

Why not start now? Kudos to Toyota for their success, they deserve it for being amongst the first to take many big steps in the right direction. Now it's up to everyone else to catch up, or fall behind.

Who can disagree with this copy from Toyota's site - and I wouldn't usually quote advertising:

"Life is full of truths. That cleaner air is better for all of us. That more power from less gas is smarter. That looking after our planet is not just a choice, it's a necessity."

February 22, 2006 | 1:46 AM Comments  3 comments

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Toronto will give you $50 to save energy!
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Toronto Hydro is running a brilliant campaign: they are giving away two free energy-saving bulbs to all Toronto residents to pick up at any Home Depot (Details here). Over the life of the bulbs, they will save you over $50, but more importantly, they will reduce energy use by 75% assuming they replace normal bulbs.

I've been keen to buy energy saving bulbs over the last few years especially after seeing them even in much simpler residences in Ghana, which got me thinking... it is a higher up-front cost, but it's a good investment that pays off financially (they last 6-10 times as long for 2-3 times the price) and environmentally!

Isn't this such a brilliant initiative? I'm glad our power company (although deregulated) is thinking innovatively!

Did you know? According to the Clean Air Foundation (CAF) if every household and business in Toronto replaced just two bulbs, we could eliminate 17,667 tonnes of green house gas emissions annually.

October 7, 2005 | 2:19 AM Comments  3 comments

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What's wrong with haggis?
About this event: World Youth Congress 2005 - Scotland
Related to country: United Kingdom

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Well it's been awhile hasn't it? 5 months is really not very 'with' the whole spirit/idea of blogging. Let's move on, I'll try harder.

So the latest in a flurry of events (I'll try to back-blog about the others soon) was the World Youth Congress last week in Stirling, Scotland. Actually it still is a conference - it doesn't finish until tommorow, but that's besides the point.

We launched V5 of the TakingITGlobal site on Saturday with Jenn keynoting the plenary session of the conference, and then held a TIG members meeting, 2 discussion sessions, and then three workshops on TIG in the computer lab on Monday! What a flurry of events... and pretty tiring too. In the end though we managed to distribute thousands of promotional materials, including over 600 MDG Youth Toolkits, and get over 100 new TIG members signed up during the workshops.

So due to a flight mixup, we had some extra time in Scotland, and visited Edinburgh with Ben Quinto from GYAN... and I had some lovely Haggis with dinner. Seriously, I would have sworn that knowing what it was I would never try it -- in fact I watched friends that didn't know devour it at breakfast a year ago... but I tried it and it was actually quite delicious. So there. Next time you're at a restaurant and they have Haggis, I say go for it!

Now: In Costa Rica for EDC's Power Users of Technology summit, I'll try to be a better blogger this week/month.

August 6, 2005 | 6:27 PM Comments  0 comments

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