April 22, 2007
Happy Earth Day!!
I was going to celebrate this day by cutting down some trees to make a path behind the building I live in to make a fun place to hang out, but some friends convinced me to help out with another project instead. Anyways, I'm pretty sure our planet is cool enough not to need an arbitrary holiday, but just the same, it is a pretty amazing and precious gift that I know I often take for granted...So in honor of Earth Day, I've included some Environmentally-friendly related links to check out...Greenwire – A reporting agency about energy and environmental policy related news
Union of Concerned Scientists – An organization, started by MIT, of scientists and citizens alike who share many environmental ambitions. There is a lot of relevant information to look into on their site, and the way it is structured makes it helpful to categorize the issues that face our world.
UCS Hybrid Center – The most comprehensive independent source on the web about hybrid electric cars, a branch of the Union of Concerned Scientists
The Automotive X-Prize – Maybe you've heard about the X-Prize before--Essentially it's a multi-million-dollar prize offered to individuals who accomplish a breakthrough of some soft that is significantly beneficial to humankind. I first heard about it a few years ago when it was offered for the first private/non-governmental individual(s) to successfully create a spacecraft that could be launched into space at least two times. This was accomplished by SpaceShipOne by a private individual and as hoped the private sector has joined in supporting this cause—Virgin Group has started a space-flight branch known as Virgin Galactic, which will someday soon begin taking people into space.
The Automotive X-Prize however could have much greater impact on our society. It's offered to the first individual(s) who can create an automobile that gets at least 100 miles per gallon of any fuel type but equivalent to a gallon of gasoline. Just imagine how this could change our world, once that goal is achieved, companies will hopefully be competing to develop better and more enegy efficient modes of travel. According to an interview I heard on NPR, the reward will be significantly more than the 10-Million dollars given for the Ansari X-Prize.
