Browse and be green!

In my last post I talked about Ecocho, but really wasn’t that convinced by it! Well today I came across something that I am totally convinced about; Eco-Flock.

I’ve been using Flock as my preferred browser for quite a while now, not only because it’s based on Firefox, but also you can blog directly from it (as I’m doing with this post) as well as keep up to date with all your social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook. It also ties in nicely with YouTube and Flickr. All in all I’ve been very happy with Flock, it’s not the speediest browser I’ve tried but it’s far from the slowest and seems to run rings round IE7.

Today, in honour of Earth Day, Flock have released the Eco-Edition of Flock, which is basically the same as the great normal edition but with a green slant coming pre-configured with many green sites to keep you informed of global changes as they happen.

But the really great thing about this new browser is the fact that Flock will be donating 10% of its revenue generated by searches to green organisations. So the more you search using Eco-Flock the more money they will donate. At the end of the year the Flock community will then vote on which environmental charity the money goes to.

Installing the browser is a sinch and importing your current favourites etc. is simple, in fact as I was already using Flock I didn’t even have to go through this process.

So go ahead and use the Eco-Edition of Flock from today and make a real world of a difference.

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Tags: Flock, Eco-Edition, green browsing, green searching, environmental charities, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr

Carbon free Lent

Do you normally give something up for lent? Well if you do why not consider trying something different this year!

Today two leading Bishops in the Church of England have teamed up with development agency ‘Tearfund‘ in calling for a personal cut in our carbon emissions for the 40 days of Lent.

The general idea is that for each of the 40 days of Lent, we try a different item from a list of actions which will have a positive effect on our carbon emissions, and therefore help us think about our daily actions and the effects they have on the earth and more importantly the poorer communities in the world.

Many of the suggestions are quite well known and indeed some of them have been suggested on this blog, but all in all I think this is a really great idea, even if your not particularly religious.

So go ahead and make a difference to the world today.

 
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Tags: lent, fasting, tearfund, 40 actions, carbon emissions

Building Nostalgia!

One of the great advantages of having kids is that you get to play with all those toys that really you’re too old for. One of my favourites is LEGO!

Well, today the humble LEGO brick celebrates being 50 years old.

In those 50 years how much pleasure must this simple little toy have given many generations? It helps develop the imagination, dexterity skills and problem solving. All to help design the correct shape from a fairly uniform looking plastic brick.

I’ve never been to LEGOland, but I know a few people who have and it sounds fabulous. I just know the kids would love it. In fact I think I’ve just found somewhere to go in the next school holidays.

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Tags: lego, legoland, anniversary, 50 years, imagination, dexterity, problem solving

Forum one person to another

Just a quick post! I’ve been meaning to put something up about this for the past few days and keep forgetting. You know how you turn on the PC to do something and then for the life of you can’t remember why? Well I did this time!

Anyway, a good friend of mine (Wolfieb) has started a forum about, well anything you want! It’s fairly new at the moment, but that’s the good thing. Get in there and help shape the way the forum goes, make it your place.

So, see you there!

 

Tags: forums, one to one, your views

The Christmas Cake is finally iced

Back at the end of August, we decided to make a Christmas Cake, not in itself an unusual thing, but since then we’ve been adding capfulls of Metaxa, my favourite Greek brandy every couple of weeks! Boy does it smell gorgeous every time we take the lid off for the next instalment of brandy.

Well yesterday saw the final addition of the marzipan and the icing, after of course the last couple of capfulls of Metaxa

Yum yum, I think I’ll have to lock away the car keys for the next couple of days!

 

Tags: metaxa, christams, cake

I’m dreaming of a green Christmas!

This is just a quick post as I forgot to put something up about this a little while ago.

This year we’ve decided to try and have a greener Christmas! This started by us buying a real Christmas Tree, not from a car park to just sit there for a few weeks, drop all it’s needles on the floor and then get rid of, but a real living Christmas Tree.

We’ve picked a space in the garden for it to be planted after Christmas, with the idea being that as the kids get older the tree gets bigger.

Now all I have to do is hope I don’t kill it!

 

Tags: christmas, tree, festive, green

Do the Green thing!

I was talking to a good friend of mine earlier today, just shooting the breeze and we go onto the subject of green issues and I told him about this blog!

He seemed quite impressed but also told me about a new Green Community that he’d just come across, called ‘Do The Green Thing‘. This a new green community that basically sets a monthly task for everyone to do. The idea I guess being to show how little things can make a big difference if enough people do it. It also possibly gives people some alternative ideas as to what to do!

This months task is to switch off the lights earlier and perhaps do something different, like look at the stars!

Go on give it a go, I did an actually it’s quite fun (even got the kid involved!)

Tags: green, community, fun, stars, astronomy

No ditch for the Dutch!

A little while ago I posted a link to a piece of video about the great solar car race accross Australia, I also said I would be keeping an eye on things, unfortunately time ran away with me and I’ve only just go back to it! But, here it is, traveling over 3000 miles the Dutch team finally one the race by over one hour.

Well done, and lets hope the technology eventually works its way down to us lesser mortals!

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Starters Orders!

Despite the disapointment for Lewis Hamilton over the weekend, there today starts a race that hopefully will be great for everyone in the future.

I’ll keep an eye on this and inform you as the days go by. They should finish in about four days time!

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The Beast Stirs!

I’m fairly sure that one of the main reasons my carbon footprint is so high, is the number of vehicles we have in our household. When you calculate your footprint questions are asked about the types and numbers of vehicles in the household. My personal view on the issue is, you can only drive one car at a time, your not increasing the carbon you produce if only one car is running. If you only had one car and ran it for four hours a day you would not produce any less carbon than someone who has four cars and runs each for an hour a day.

This is of course might just be my internal justification for being a petrol head. I love all things internal combustion wise! I realise that this goes against the environmental grain, but as I said at the start of this blog, I try to be practical and realistic.

Anyway the real reason for this post is that my kit car has passed it’s MOT, which to be honest is a bloody miracle! 

So, now all I need to do is get the over heating sorted and we’re back in business.