For a very long time, money used for good will was called charity, while money used to earn more money was called investing. That’s not the case anymore.

Nowadays, the two ideas are combining into a financial area called socially responsible investing. And both investors and mutual fund managers are figuring out that this new idea can be very rewarding, as well as do some good for the environment and society.

“Socially responsible investing means you don’t have to compromise your own personal beliefs to make money on Wall Street… whatever those beliefs are,” states Bob Guthrie, who is an investment broker with A.G. Edwards in Burlington, Vt.

The idea of selectively choosing stocks for social reasons dates back to the early 1900s, Guthrie said, when church members banded together and refused to invest in tobacco or alcohol companies. The trend continued with investors dodging corporations involved in the Vietnam War, he added, and most recently revolved around companies investing in South Africa.

But growth in this type of investing has mushroomed during the past few years as more and more investors have moved social consciousness into the mainstream of investing. And the impact is being felt.

With help from stockholders, business practices concerning the environment are starting to change, said Rob Kruger, vice president of portfolio management at Progressive Asset Management. While the issues may vary, he said companies are realizing they will suffer if they aren’t viewed as being socially responsible.

Kruger said, “As this investing community continues to grow, a lot of proposals are being addressed by investors at annual shareholder meetings. A whole spectrum of issues and activities is now being put forward.”

As part of its operation, Progressive Asset Management conducts research for socially responsible and eco-friendly mutual funds. The firm screens companies for environmental problems or nuclear involvement… whatever social issues their clients want investigated.

“As time flies, companies are becoming more and more cooperative with us,” Kruger said. “Many of them are now very eager to talk about these social and environmental issues.”

Guthrie agrees that American corporations and business practices are aware of stockholders who are very concerned with social and environmental responsibility.

He advises, “Make sure your hard-earned money is not invested in companies with little concern for the environment. Keep these things in mind when you invest and the corporations will do the same too.

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Energy bills are becoming a problem for many people. As the recession bites and energy costs fluctuate the search for alternative energy solutions has become even more urgent for many. There are now many ways to transform your home and save money on utility bills.

Besides saving on energy costs, another concern for many people is environmental damage and climate change. If you are looking for a way to reduce your carbon footprint then there are two main areas to look at with regard to your house. Energy conservation is important. This can be achieved by using wind power or having quality insulation so that you can turn your boiler down. The other consideration is installation of a green energy technology.

It is difficult to produce figures for the possible savings when changing electricity supply as house size and location change the figures immensely. There really is no reliable average. However you can use an online energy calculator do a home energy check. You will input information about your house and the website can calculate how much money you are likely to save by using different sustainable energy technologies. This is a great way to decide which type of technology to use and it will help you to figure out how much you can afford to invest.

Wind and solar power are the most used forms of renewable energy in homes. The weather is usually the deciding factor when deciding between the two. It is a rare place that has as much sun as wind and so you need to choose the one which will generate the most power.

Solar power is harnessed using photovoltaic cells. These are put into panels which are usually installed on the roof of your house. One of the criticisms of solar power has been the cost of installation. For many years it was very high and people calculated that it could take as long as the life of the cells to recover their savings. However the costs have lowered in recent years as more companies provide the service.

The same was true for wind turbines for a long time too. They were expensive to buy and then often did not produce much electricity. In recent years developments in the technology have lead to lower prices and more efficient turbines. You still need to live in a place with strong winds to make the investment pay.

One way households can reduce the costs of installation and start saving money quicker is to build and install the new energy technology themselves. Building solar panels from scratch is possible from items available online or in hardware stores. There are also kits which have all the parts and instructions but they are a little more expensive. It is also possible to build wind turbines but if you intend to install a large one it is better to get professional help. However micro turbines can be built and installed even by people who do not have building experience. If you wish to investigate the self build route then there is lots of advice on the internet.

Finding alternative energy solutions is important for all of us so that we can mitigate the effects of climate change and reduce energy costs for our households.

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Over the last century there has been an explosion in human growth and innovation that has added to our lives through technology and has also expanded how we view and understand the world. Climate change has been receiving increased attention in the media and scientific community. Irrespective of the cause, there is a truth in the observation that the Earth is experiencing an increase in temperature that will have far reaching consequences. The Great Lakes and global warming will vastly alter the landscape and environment of that area of America in the coming future.

This area is already dealing with the deleterious affects of invasive species, and something like climate change will only act like fuel to a fire. Twenty percent of the world’s fresh water comes from the Great Lakes, it is a major source of this finite resource and any depletion will have massive and widespread repercussions.

The importance of the region cannot be downplayed. Outside of the manufacturing of drinking water, it is also a huge producer of hydroelectric power, is a thoroughfare for shipping routes, as well as being a tourist attraction. A variety of species, both plant and animal, make their home along the shore and within the lakes themselves.

All of the benefits come hand in hand with issues that result from extended urban development. These issues include pollution, air and water, as well as the invasion of a habitat by building. Because of the growth of the last century the great lakes are in a position to be easily affected by global warming. The smallest shift in temperature can have widespread repercussions.

At this point there is still a thin layer of ice that builds up along the lakes at certain times of the year, but with increased temperature the ice will disappear. When the ice leaves, the lakes will evaporate at a higher rate and bring down the water levels.

Lake Superior was at its lowest levels in seventy seven years as recently as last year and the future could bring another meter of water loss. The effects of low water levels will impact shipping routes and will concentrate the pollutants left behind which will damage overall water quality, as well as the tourism industry such as cruises.

At the present, there are preliminary measure being discussed to restore the grandeur to the Great Lakes, but it will require billions of dollars over a number of years. Updating antiquated sewage treatment systems and cleaning up the already polluted sediment will be coupled with a natural buildup of wetlands that will act as a natural filter and barrier from invasive species.

Climate change is not just increased temperature and decreased water levels, it can wreck havoc on weather systems. It is proposed that within the region there will be more storms, as well as more drought seasons. This will increase pollution run off, it will act as a viral incubator and the lakes could be littered with dead zones. Dead zones are the result of algae overgrowth that creates oxygen free zones.

The predicted future statistics are not encouraging. The temperature itself will be increased two to four degree centigrade with lake levels falling anywhere from 1.5 to 8 feet! Weather wise, the increase in storms may be 25%.

The future may seem to hold a number of destructive elements, but they can be tempered by being proactive in the present and working to make the Great Lakes as great as they once were.

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One of the many concerns we have today is finding a solution that can help stop the temperature increase we face with every passing year. As more and more coverage and attention are given to the increased melting of the Arctic ice, we have come to terms that the world is heading to doomsday and global warming is the cause of it. Thus, it is no wonder that we are scrambling to find a cure and a way to stop this increase in temperature, and we need it now before it reaches the boiling point, and as such many countries are putting in a lot of effort in search of a long term as well as short term solution for it.

One solution that have been suggested is by planting more trees, however experts have since found out that about 6 billion or more tress are needed in order to quickly turn the tide of global warming, the magnitude of such efforts have left us baffled, not forgetting that we also need to stop our indiscrimination of tress cutting and land clearing.

The reason why six billions tree are needed is simply because trees help us convert the CO2 we releases into oxygen, planting eight billion tress would no doubt solve our problem of climate change and greenhouse problems.

The disappearance of a whole forest due to unchecked land and trees clearing have been evident in Easter Island, as well as in Bangladesh, and as such it effectively shows us how thin a line we are walking on.

Greenhouse effects aside, there are more drawbacks to excessive tree cutting that we just have no way to tell of yet, only way to find out might be until it had happened which by then could be a tad too late. That being said, we still need to do our part to save the planet as a citizen of this planet.

One way to stop global warming is to simply stop consuming or producing harmful byproducts which emits carbon emission to our atmosphere. Choose to use biodegradable minerals and stopping our wastage on various harmful fuels and energy can be a start. While all those seemed small compared to six billion trees, it is needed because the sooner we can stop polluting and killing the environment, the sooner the healing process can begin.

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Is global warming real or is it just a myth? If you take a look at just how fast ice are melting at both end of our world, you’ll know that it is indeed happening and no doubt that if we leave it be, human will face extinction from the rising temperature that makes the world inhospitable for us.

Just how dangerous is global warming?

It is certainly untrue to think that melted ice would not affect you, although it would not directly affect us, we will still suffer in the long run. This is because with the increase in sea level, the temperature will be changed and thus many marine life might not be able to adapt to that and will eventually die off. When that happens our food chain and balance is affected, and thus in the long run we might end up starving due to a lack of food.

Do bear in mind that with the rise in sea levels will means some low land island and countries will be covered in water in no time if something is not being done to combat it. As of now, many have reported that the country is sinking at an alarm rate and very soon it will be submerged.

Aside from food and land, they have also predicted that more and more hurricanes and thunderstorms will happen as a direct result of it. Unfortunately not every countries have the ability to detect and prevent it from happening, making it a grim scene for many people around the world.

With a change in climate and temperature, it could very well affect the chance of spreading new disease that were evolved from this climate change. Diseases and viruses evolves, can our technology and scientist keep up to combat them?

Another notable effect of global warming is the fact that it will affect our crops, higher temperature will make growing crops harder because of the increase in rain fall as well as the decline in snow fall. Crops that depends on cold weather will especially suffer.

So if you’re still wondering if global warming can kill us, yes it can, in fact it has the potential to end our civilization if we do not do anything about it! So start doing your part by cutting down on waste and carbon emission to the face of the earth.

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Until approximately a hundred years ago in the West, people only had recourse to renewable energy for heat and light for their homes. They burnt wood and sometimes coal or peat (OK, fossil fuels) and got up when the sun came up and went to bed with the sun too. In, fact a large part of the world’s population still lives like that.

Things altered with mechanized industry and night shifts. Electricity providers sold the populace on being able to do more instead of just sleeping when it became dark, and the Western population got hooked on buying huge amounts of energy, mostly electricity and engine fuel, which was usually made from from oil and coal.

This idea soon travelled around the world and with rising prosperity came emulation and other countries wanted the same. Now we are in the sad situation where we have to confess that we rode the fossil fuel gravy train to its last stop without thinking about what we would use when fossil fuels ran out.

This is where the typical citizen comes in. You have to think about how you want to draw energy in the future. Do you want to be powered by keeping sucking unrenewable resources out of the Earth, or do you want to have as little to do with it as you can? Would you prefer to have everything you have now, but know that the resources that are powering your lifestyle are renewable?

If, like millions of others around the world, you would rather say ‘No!’ to traditional power production methods, then you have to take a stand. But not only in words, you really have to do some something about it physically.

This will mean investing a lot of money up front, which might not be a problem for you or you may even think that taking a stand is worth looking for a bank loan. These are admirable sentiments, but I would like to propose that there is another way to self-sufficiency.

You could make your own!

Why not? The technology has been around for decades and is pretty straightforward. Most moderately capable teenagers can assemble a bank of photovoltaic cells into a solar panel and then plug that into your home’s electrical system. And if a teenager can manage it, so can you. All you (and the teenager) will need is a solar panel kit and a schematical diagram. A plan in other words.

A solar panel kit can be bought locally from a DIY shop or from the Internet. A typical solar panel will take a few hours to put together and will produce 100 watts of electrical energy. The electricity produced from these panels is then passed through an inverter that changes the current from DC to AC, making it utilizable by household appliances and the utility grid.

Do yourself and the planet a good turn, get off the grid and start saving money and the planet’s resources, you will be surprised how easy it is once you get going. And do not forget, you can do it in stages of, say, one 100 watt panel a month until you hit self-sufficiency. It is not a question of ‘All or Nothing’.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with a favourite subject, types of renewable energy. If you are interested in Sustainable Energy At Home, please click through to our site.

There is life off the grid. You only have to have the grid to buy electricity if you cannot generate your own. Living on the grid has made too many of us lose our independence. We slavishly buy energy off the big providers and pay through the nose for it at the end of the month.

How many days a month do you have to work just to pay your electricity bill? What could you do with that time or money if you did not have to use it to pay for your electricity?

The fact is that you can come off the grid and you can even sell your surplus, home-made electricity back to the grid. This is not likely to make you a lot of money, but it is a nice feeling after only paying out for decades. However, the savings of life off the grid do not end there. There are ecological savings and the saving of human life too.

Soldiers would not be sent to combat for oil if we were not so reliant on it. The fact is, that if more people came off the grid, the price of oil would fall, because demand would fall and the oil-producing countries that believe they have a stranglehold on the West would lose their power. And that can not be a bad thing either, can it?

It is easiest for people who live in their own houses to come off the grid. They have more jurisdiction over their own premises and can make their own choices about what to do with it. Drill a hole here, cut a hole there – that sort of thing. Alterations or home improvements. Life off the grid is also most beneficial for families as they use the most electricity.

The most common techniques of attaining a life off the grid is by the use of solar panels, hydropower and wind turbines or even good, old-fashioned wind mills. These devices are still expensive to buy and very expensive to have installed. A 2010 study in the UK estimated that it would take 10 years to recover the investment of a professional installation of energy-making equipment.

However, you could take out the expensive labour element by constructing and fitting the units yourself! This option is available to anyone in the world as the drawings and plans for making these devices are available on the Internet from specialist alternative energy web sites and the components are practically every day objects.

You will be able to get them from a hobbyist or DIY store. They are also very easy to assemble – most teenagers could do it and so could you. If you do not like that way, you could buy a self-assembly kit.

Once you have started to become free of the grid, you can make life off the grid even more rewarding by renewing your appliances, as and when necessary, with low energy models. If you approach life off the grid wisely, you could add new energy producing units every month until you do not get any electricity bills any more and then whatever further savings you can make will be sold back into the grid.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with a favourite subject, renewable energy advantages. If you are interested in Sustainable Energy At Home, please click through to our site.

I am sure that you would like to come off the electricity grid. Who would not like to put a stop to those growing monthly bills? The trouble is that no one is stepping up to the plate to tell us how to do it. Politicians are just starting to ring the alarm bells even though they have known about the predicted oil shortage for decades – just as we all have.

The difference is that we are not being paid to make the right decisions for the country like they are. We look to our chosen representatives for guidance, but there is not much forthcoming. Yes, there are a few grants available for the installation of replenishable energy sources, but they will only benefit the middle and upper classes who can afford them anyway. They will also benefit the firms that sell these devices, because they will get their asking price from the state, which will pay with poor people’s taxes. Great!

Where are the government hand-outs (not money) showing people how they can make and fit their own solar panels and wind turbines without having to make somebody else rich by doing so? Surely, if the government were serious about alternative energy, it would have worked out a way to allow average people to help themselves?

You can actually build a very effective wind turbine from scrapyard parts and components from a hobbyist store like Radio Shack. But no politician is telling you that. They want you to spend $45,000 on a green system and even better if you put it on your credit card or overdraft.

The reason why you should consider completing your own wind turbine is that you can probably get the parts for less than $500. It sounds like a massive saving and believe me, it is, but you will have to do a lot of work to carry out yourself, instead of lying back and watching a contractor do it for you. But I should imagine that you realized that already, eh?

I know that ‘building your own wind turbine’ sounds fantastic, out of the normal person’s capabilities, but in a way that is because we have become too focused. When asked your job, you might say that you are a data enterer of a maths teacher, a miner or a writer, but that is NOT all that you are and certainly not all that you could be.

Take a deep breath and buy some drawings to build a wind turbine or, if that is too intimidating a solar panel. Believe me, once you have built one, the next one is far easier and the icing on the cake, is when your energy device is standing there, hooked up to your home electricity supply and giving you a bit of independence from the grid.

It will inspire you to make another one and become even more independent and, who knows, you may even stop what you are doing now and build units for your neighbours. you may become an eco-warrior!

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with a favourite topic – alternative power sources. If you are interested in Sustainable Energy At Home, please click through to our site.

Free energy … What a dream, eh? One of the biggest household burdens is the cost of energy. The cost of energy is frequently 40% of total household bills. So, free energy would assist every family that is not rich a great deal. However, free energy is a pipe dream, is it not? There is alternative energy, that is non fossil fuel based energy, like nuclear energy, but that is not low-cost either.

Other alternative sources of energy include wind-driven turbines and solar power. In this piece, I want to talk about harnessing the power of the sun to create solar electricity. Creating solar power is nothing new and most people are acquainted with the general theory of how the scheme works. In deed, most of us have owned a solar powered pocket calculator or solar powered clock at one time or another.

Solar electricity is just as good and just as powerful as traditionally generated electricity and they can be utilized for exactly the same purposes. However, solar energy has one huge benefit, it is not ‘dirty’.

Electricity produced from the sun’s energy has not been made creating any greenhouse gases whatsoever. Additionally, because there are no moving parts in a solar panel, there is no wear and tear and so less maintenance.

Solar panel systems are more adaptable too. For instance, if you have a small house with couple of appliances, you still need the same method of delivering grid electricity as a huge house and you still have to have a metering system and a means of paying for the electricity consumed.

However, if you take the same small house as an example, you might find that ten solar panels will power it. Therefore, for a one-off expense, you are free of electricity pylons and their cables, the meter box and the monthly bills. A huge house would just have to fit more panels, say one hundred, to achieve the same freedom.

This freedom from the instruments of supplying electricity is a very real advantage if you live in a far-flung place, where you are expected to pay for the electricity pylons and their cables all on your own. The down side of using solar power is the cost of setting it up. A professionally installed solar energy system can cost about $30,000.

If you save $200 per month on electricity, then you will recover your outlay in about 300 months, which is 12.5 years. However, if you could get the system fitted more economically, you would recover your costs more rapidly.

This is possible, by building the solar panels yourself and installing them yourself. No matter what sort of a klutz you think you are, you can assemble and install the average solar panel kit. In fact, most teenagers can manage the job. If you choose to buy solar panel kits to assemble yourself, you can save about half of the above costs, but if you were to make the panels from parts that are easily available in DIY shops, you could be harnessing the power of the sun to make solar energy for up to 75% of the cost of a professional installation.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with a favourite topic, types of renewable energy. If you are interested in Sustainable Energy At Home, please click through to our site.

Global warming is one of the “hottest” issues nowadays. The current climate alter is the worst yet to happen. Global warming is an overall increase in world temperature which can be attributed to the increasing number of greenhouse gases trapped in the ambiance. Searching an alternative energy source is considered a way of decreasing the toxic emissions.

Greenhouse gases can be produced both by natural plus industrial processes. Carbon dioxide, water vapor, nitrous oxide, methane, ozone, and CFC’s (chlorofluorocarbons) are the most abundant greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere.
You will find several sources of greenhouse gases. Burning of fossil fuels plus deforestation lead to greater concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Without the trees and plants to take in the carbon dioxide emitted by burning fossil fuels, natural gas and petroleum products, all of the CO2 emitted stays inside the atmosphere.

Also the use of CFCs or chlorofluorocarbons in refrigeration systems plus in fire suppression techniques and other manufacturing processes also increase the greenhouse content of our ambiance. While the use of non-organic fertilizers in agriculture also lead to higher nitrous oxide concentrations, one more greenhouse gasoline.

Inside the United States, greenhouse gas emissions mainly arrive from your use of fossil fuels as power source. Approximately 82 percent with the greenhouse gasoline emission in the United States in 2006 came through the combustion of coal, normal gas and petroleum (United States Energy Info Administration). Meanwhile in Asia, Chine is expected to improve its emission of greenhouse gas because of the construction of old-fashioned power plants in its internal provinces. Currently, the carbon dioxide concentrations inside the atmosphere are the highest in 150,000 many years. The 1990s was most likely the warmest decade in history, whilst 1998 was the warmest year (Greenpeace).

Not controlling the greenhouse gas being emitted by human activity can boost climate transform the subsequent hundred years that may be much quicker than anything identified and recorded in history. You will find necessary steps being undertaken to control the toxic emission that will soon be killing us.

To minimize the consumption of oil, petroleum plus other fossil fuel, we ought to use power efficiently. Energy that we use ought to be generated from green energy resource, which would mean harnessing the organic vitality from the sun, winds, crops, tides and waves.

Green power is one more term used to describe sources of power that are regarded to become environmentally friendly, which can be also similar towards the green sources of power.

You will find numerous ways of generating electrical power and energy from renewable and organic sources that produce clean and safe power. Wind, sun, plus heat can produce electricity for much less cost plus much less carbon emission than those of coal and even gasoline.

Shifting the world’s attention to alternative fuel supply other than relying on fossil fuel is among the solutions in resolving the drastic climate alter. Greenpeace cited that with renewable vitality and using it smartly, can deliver half with the world’s vitality needs by 2050. Greenpeace also cited that it can be feasible to decrease carbon dioxide emission to almost 50 percent within the next 43 years.

Governments are taking steps to use and tap alternative energy sources as primary source of energy. The European Union leaders created an agreement in March 2007 to ensure that 20 percent of their nation’s energy must arrive from green fuels by 2020. This is part of their effort to cut carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gas. You will find even governments offering incentives to their residents who are utilizing green vitality.

Alternative energy source may not be the only method to lessen the greenhouse emission that human activity create. There are easy techniques in which we can do to contribute in lowering toxic gasoline emission plus mitigate global warming.

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