Fire and Knowledge

Yahoo! is going carbon neutral:

Yahoo! has committed to going carbon neutral this year. Essentially, that means we’re going to invest in greenhouse gas reduction projects around the world to neutralize Yahoo!’s impact on the environment. While doing our homework on this, we measured our carbon footprint and discovered that Yahoo! going carbon neutral is equivalent to shutting off the electricity in all San Francisco homes for a month. Or, pulling nearly 25,000 cars off the road for a year….

We know carbon neutrality isn’t without controversy. And it’s honestly deserved if companies and individuals don’t first make an effort to find direct ways to reduce their impact. We’ll continue to be vigilant about cutting ours, looking for creative ways to power our facilities, encourage even more employees to seek alternative commutes, and generally inspire Yahoos around the world to think differently about their energy use. (For example, in honor of Earth Day, we’re challenging Yahoos to decrease their consumption by 20% this week to help build lasting habits.) We’ll also be deliberate about investing in offset projects that can verifiably deliver their expected environmental benefits.

I think it’s great that more companies are getting on the “green” bandwagon. I hope it continues. I wonder when Christian organizations will start doing things like this. It will probably be a long while, unfortunately.

It’s taken a long time for awareness to get this far and to have so many people embrace it — though there are still many critics. (And I’m thankful for critics, as long as they are really trying to figure out what is right instead of just being stubborn and not wanting to change their ways.)

It is my hope that caring for our world will become a standard value of humanity. There is a chance!