Here Come the Holidays...

… and more opportunities to share a ride while you share the fun!

Let’s start with getting home. If you’re at school or even if you live and work just across town from your folks, you can probably catch a ride or provide one to someone who’d like to enjoy a family holiday without adding to the congestion and tension that trying to get home before the cranberry sauce is served can cause.

Speaking of cranberry sauce, what about that trip to the market to pick up the ingredients for that dish you promised to bring to the party or the high blood pressure inducing potential nightmare called “holiday shopping at the mall”? Wouldn’t it be more fun if you could save gas and reduce your carbon footprint by getting together with one or more to hit the stores and maybe the food court?

The holiday season is often blockbuster movie season, too. And parking, never great at the best of times, is even worse during the days leading up to New Year’s. This is also true of the many special plays and concerts, charity events, gift and art shows that happen around this time of year.

And then there are those winter sports you’ve been waiting for – snowboarding, skiing, or just taking time to go up into the snow covered mountains and enjoy the scenery and maybe a hot drink in a lodge with a view.

Simply put, this time of year is full of as many opportunities as you could hope for to have fun and share it with others. Why not make the most of it while doing yourself, your friends and family, and the planet a favor at the same time by using ZoomPool? Log in and post a trip that you are sharing with a friend or family member. That way you can fill an empty car seat while you both meet someone new.

Commuting over the holidays with a new rideshare partner increases the Zoom Pool of potential matches, increasing everyone’s chances of finding someone interesting to ride with. Tell folks you know about ZoomPool and recommend they register. That’s the best way to build our green social community!

Share Your Interests

Just a reminder – we’re on Facebook, which is a great place to “meet up” and talk about where to go and what to do. You can always post an event you’re interested in on our fan page and share it on your wall to let everyone in your network – and ours – know what you’re looking forward to over the next few weeks.

Also if you are holding an event or you are going to one that should be ZoomPooled, recommend and use our SmartBadge tools to help aggregate event attendees. It’s a great way to improve transportation efficiency and decrease parking needs.

The Move Toward Green Real Estate

image via The Mortgage Reel

You know a trend is becoming mainstream when certifications begin to be offered for it.

This is what’s happening in real estate, with a growing number of realtors and brokers learning what constitutes green housing and how to position themselves in an expanding market where green housing continues to sell even in slow times.

Portland Oregon’s regional multi-listing service for real estate will soon be calling out energy efficient homes due to a survey that showed that 78% of potential buyers would prefer an energy efficient home over others.

This greening of real estate buying and selling translates over a wider area than just the buyer and seller and their agents. It also encompasses the builders (LEED certification), the appraisers, the lenders and the licensing agencies. For example, real estate agents and brokers will want/need certification so that potential clients can choose them confidently and those agents and brokers will choose to work with lenders, appraisers and builders who are also certified and knowledgeable.

Green Housing Standards

Although green building is still done largely according to voluntary standards, the National Association of Home Builders is putting together a standard they hope will be widely accepted and adopted and the U.S. Green Building Council is putting together LEED certification standards for residential buildings.

All of this is good news to those concerned about reducing our energy footprints – in the long term there will be more green housing available and more incentives for it. But there’s another aspect of this increased interest in green housing that may not be so readily seen: while the professionals in real estate and the related fields are becoming certified and knowledgeable in the field of energy efficiency and sustainable building practices, they are more likely to talk about what they’ve learned with other professionals and clients. So that even those who previously did not have an interest in or knowledge of these practices and trends, will find themselves becoming more aware of them. The adoption of greener standards and more widespread understanding of them may fuel additional growth and understanding. With luck, there will soon come a time when green is the standard for building and renovating. And that will be a real estate move that will benefit more than just the real estate profession.

Home For the Holidays

While we’re on the subject of home, let’s not forget to make the holidays greener by thinking about the environment when purchasing gifts or when travelling. Some won’t be able to avoid flying home, but if you can, you should, since jet travel is extremely polluting and uses up an enormous amount of fossil fuel. And all of those drives to the mall, to visit family and friends while you’re home; those holiday events, parties and other outings can be made greener if you share them using social ridesharing with ZoomPool.

Share your holiday plans with us on Facebook or Twitter. Letting others know about events and gatherings they may not be aware of can increase your chances of finding a compatible rideshare partner!

Zoom green Zoom together ZoomPool!
Social Ridesharing

Is There Even Less Oil Than We Think?

image via NOAA

The UK Guardian very recently released an article about a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency (IEA), who says that the world is running out of oil faster than reports have told us – that the World Energy Outlook report that came out on November 10th downplays the real rate of depletion of existing fields while being over optimistic about the chances of finding new fields.

This serious allegation – that the U.S. and other countries encouraged the production of an unreliable report in order to avoid panic buying – means that such reports, if the allegation is proven true, are not trustworthy for planning for energy use or climate change legislation*.

Another thing it means is that we should be making greater strides towards reducing oil dependency through developing alternative fuel sources and working harder to conserve what oil remains. It took thousands of years to get the supply we have, so once it’s gone, it’s gone.

It’s Not Just For Transportation

Besides putting gasoline in a car, petroleum products are used in ways you might not think of:

• Deodorants
• Panty Hose
• Antihistamines
• Hair Dye
• Anesthetics

These are just a few. According to Ranken Energy, Americans alone consume 3.5 gallons of oil and 250 cubic feet of natural gas (created using petroleum) each per day through car fuel and other products.

Some Embrace Change – Others Have Change Thrust Upon Them

Already there are conflicts around the world about oil reserves – who actually owns them and who gets to decide what to do with them and even alternative fuels can generate clashes. The longer it takes to reach agreements and solutions, the more conflict is likely, the more change in the way we live our lives is likely.

Due to the Climate Change summit in Copenhagen coming up next month, this year’s World Energy Report includes information on how energy use affects the climate (Climate Change Excerpt). In part it says,

“Energy, which accounts for two-thirds of today's greenhouse-gas emissions, is at the heart of the problem - and so must form the core of the solution. We need urgently to set in motion an energy and environmental revolution, to transform the way we use energy and to deliver a sustainable future."

The report concludes that the major change in the way we use energy has to come from reducing the carbon footprint of transportation. The more efficient the energy use, the less greenhouse gases, the better and longer we and our planet will live. It’s that simple and that complicated.

Some Things You Can Do

• Read the ingredients - be aware of the things you use that contain petroleum and try to find alternatives.
• Use public transit or ZoomPool - ZoomPool was created so that people could lower their carbon footprint in transportation by having fun socially through ridesharing. It’s not just for commuting – share a ride home for the holidays, to the mall, to the grocery store, to the movies, to a seminar or museum exhibit. Sign yourself up, even if you don’t plan immediate use and encourage your friends and family – that way you’ll have a ready source of people to connect with; people you already know and people they already know.
• Encourage Others to RideShare – use ZoomPool’s FB Fan page to post events you’re interested in attending or events you think others might be interested in and encourage them to rideshare there.
• Email your government representatives and tell them you want climate legislation.
• Support global climate agreements.
• Use social media to support your efforts and encourage others to do the same

We all have to live here – it’s how we live that is determined by our actions – and our inaction.

* Note that critics of the IEA and the World Energy Outlook reports say that not only can the claims made in last year’s and this year’s reports not be supported by the data, but that the world has already passed its peak in production.

Clean Coal - An Oxymoron?

"Coal is an abundant resource in the world...It is imperative that we figure out a way to use coal as cleanly as possible."

Dr. Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy
Senate Confirmation Hearing
January 13, 2009

Because coal is considered an abundant resource, a couple of decades ago the US Department of Energy (DOE) began looking for methodologies to burn coal in a manner that would not contribute to acid rain, global climate change, or adversely affect peoples’ health. Called the “Clean Coal Power Initiative,” this government co-financed program supported a first round of eight projects, a second round of four projects, and the third round (for which proposals were due in July) has so far seen 2 projects selected. Read about the Clean Coal Power Initiative and the projects here.

Is Clean Coal Possible?

Given the above information, the DOE seems to think so, and so does some of the rest of the U.S. government, or the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) wouldn’t have added an additional $800 million to the funding for the 3rd round of clean coal projects. So does the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricty (ACCCE). But if you ask a number of other people, like Jeff Biggers at the Washington Post or This is Reality, which is solely about answering “misleading articles and false statements about coal,” “clean coal” is an oxymoron. Is it perhaps politics, rather than confidence in an eventual solution that drives clean coal project funding? And should we let the coal industry alone until we know one way or the other? Or will we find out too late?

Mountaintop? What Mountaintop?

Since the late 1960s, early 1970s, the coal industry in the rich fields of Appalachia have been using mountaintop removal to get at the coal seams. It’s popular with the industry because it allows access to all of the coal seam and requires fewer employees, but it also involves clearcutting the forests atop the mountains and the debris from the clearcutting as well as coal removal usually ends up in the streams and rivers, so it’s a method that’s less popular with the residents.

The Secretary of Energy was quoted at the beginning of this post as saying that coal is an abundant resource, but Dirty Coal says that’s a myth. Their position is that the studies showing large fields of coal in the U.S. was done in the 1970s and that study was based on data gathered in the 1920s, therefore no accurate data exists on how much coal really exists.

What Are the Options?

One method for cleaning coal involves washing it to separate the impurities. Another is to try to control the burn to minimize emissions vented with the flue gas that comes out of the plant smokestacks. Gasification avoids burning the coal altogether. Companies like Ergo Exergy use an injection process on non-mined coal fields to turn the coal to gas in the seam and integrated gasification includes using the heat energy from the gas powered turbine to power a steam turbine to produce even more energy. How clean UGC or IGCC can make coal power is disputed (PDF).

One of the more promising technologies is carbon capture and sequester, which is currently being tested in real power plants. The problem remains, though, with what to do with the captured carbon. And even if the technology proves viable, how will the coal industry pay for getting onboard with it and with the carbon disposal requirements? While the rest of us are driven by a desire for cleaner air and water, businesses are reluctant to move into new technologies without a clear idea of whether they are economically feasible for them.

The coal industry likes to point out that half of the country “depends” on coal for energy. But is it really a dependence or a habit? And how much would it cost to break that habit in terms of technological research, business disruption, cost to homeowners, including those with limited economic resources?

These are all questions that will have to be answered, and none of the answers will be easy or clean.

ZoomPool is committed to green business practices, which is why we’re Greenscroll Certified and why we support efforts to decrease carbon emission production by enterprise. We offer an easy way for corporations to encourage social carpooling to work and to events because we believe that ridesharing can make a difference and that making a difference is even better when it’s fun.