Carbonrally Blog - Rally Blog

Top Rallyers Knock-out 23 Tons of CO2 in August

2008-09-03T05:01:00Z

The Olympics might be over, but the League Competition in Carbonrally is going strong! Props to all the teams and individuals who led the Rally in August. It’s a diverse crowd, from hard rockin’ music fans to a team of perceptual scientists led out of Vanderbilt University… all sharing a similar goal to reduce CO2 and preserve our environment…

OTEP’s Green Team continues to dominate the General League and the Rally overall. With over 700 members and OTEP performances spanning the country, this passionate team will be tough to catch. Otep’s Rallyers pulled about 16 tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere in August. Rockin’.

Joining us from the Friendship Hospital for Animals in Washington, DC, FHA Team Green has climbed to the top of the Company League in just over 1 month. Wow. With close to 80 folks seeking to reduce “carbon pawprints” in the DC area, they’re delivering on their mission like loyal german shepards…. reducing 3 tons of CO2 in August and trotting past long-time Company leaders Redwoods Group. FHA even printed up T-shirts to fuel the CO2 frenzy. Check them out!

The Green Greebles are topping out the University League. The core of this team is a made up of perceptual neuroscientists based at Vanderbuilt University. They are part of the Perceptual Expertise Network. Have a look at some of their research. Their work is heady stuff, but their accomplishments are completely down to earth… 800+ lbs of CO2 reduced this month. With a new academic year upon us, we’re hoping to see other University teams challenging these guys for the lead, too.

Originating from Boulder Colorado, The Earthsavers are now carrying the torch for the School League. These 39 rallyers have relentlessly knocked off challenges to land them in the top spot this month. 2.93 tons in August… just inching past the current title-holders Royal Acorns at 2.83 tons. The Schools league should hopefully heat up this Fall. For more info on starting school teams, please check out the new Guide to Getting Started for school teams.

Together, these leading teams reduced 21 tons of CO2 in August, and over 47 tons since they joined the Rally. Nice goin’.

On the individual front, check out the top personal performers. Their secret is dedication to weekly challenges… these folks returned for more Rally action nearly every week since they joined. Together, they blew away 2+ Tons of CO2 in August.

#1 Vert Grun Verde from Harrisburg, NC,
#2 Brittany from Baltamore MD, and
#3 Carbon Clique from Summit, NJ.

Last but not least, the top Carbonrally ambassadors this month… sitting atop the Recruiter Leaderboard are CB (34 recruits) and Marcos Bensoussan (32 recruits). CB and Marcos have both been actively recruiting for the Team Nalco North America and Latin America Teams. Kmara0234 takes the #3 recruiter position by wrangling 27 new members for the FHA Green Team.

Please join us in thanking these leaders for their commitments to action and for motivating others to join. And, thanks to everybody who’s participated in the Rally so far. The site is now 10 months old and nearly 8,000 Rallyers strong! Stay tuned for more fun and CO2-crunching action ahead…

A Waste-Free Back to School Lunch

2008-08-28T02:34:00Z

It’s time again to head back to school, and start packing those lunches. If your lunchtime strategy includes a bag lunch, Carbonrally’s new challenge Green Ham and Cheese has some great tips on how to make it more environmentally friendly.

The waste generated by the average kid’s bag lunches amount to over 65 lbs of CO2 per year – that’s more than most average kids weigh!

But with a few simple changes, you can eliminate most of this waste. Just visit our new challenge to find out how.

P.S. – this one works for parent’s lunches too, not just the kiddies.

Rally On!

New American Dream Shares the C.R. Mission

2008-08-22T16:29:00Z

New American Dream, a site that “helps Americans consume responsibly to protect the environment, enhance quality of life, and promote social justice…” has joined Carbonrally in the quest to reduce our use of disposable water bottles.

Their new initiative, entitled Break the Bottled Water Habit, encourages us to drink tap water instead of buying bottled water from the corner store.

We’re glad to see the word getting out there. And New American Dream’s website offers a slew of green consumer tips that can help you painlessly kick the bottled water habit. Their website is definitely worth a look for any Rallyer who wants tips on buying green.

Rally On!

Help OTEP Rock the Vote

2008-08-15T19:10:00Z

Is this cool, or what? We’ve got a chance to make a big difference for one of our very own Rallyers. OTEP is a singer in L.A., and she’s one of three artists competing for a chance to perform at the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Denver!

We can help get her there. All OTEP and her band need is for their fellow Rallyers to vote online at Rock The Vote before Sunday (August 17 2008) at midnight.

In case you haven’t seen OTEP and her Green Team around the Rally – you can check out their team page here and their stats here

Go OTEP! We’ve got your back.

Welcome Natasha & The Ecoists

2008-08-14T00:57:00Z

We’re excited to welcome Natasha Bedingfield and her team Natasha’s Ecoists to Carbonrally! Natasha has a long history of activism, including her involvement in VH1’s Save the Music Foundation and the children’s charity Global Angels, so we’ve got high expectations for her and her team.

Some of us here at Carbonrally are long-time fans of Natasha’s music, and are digging her new single, Angel. Her previous U.S. hits are Love Like This and Pocketful of Sunshine.

You can find out more about Natasha on her profile page and join her team on the Natasha’s Ecoists page.

Rally On!

New Challenge: Curb Your Hunger

2008-08-12T19:54:00Z

If you’re a drive-thru user, join hundreds of Rallyers who’ve already taken our new challenge Curb Your Hunger. The challenge asks all of us to walk to the counter instead of using drive-thrus this month. Think of it as a way to save gas, get a little exercise, interact with a person face-to-face, and just slow your roll a little bit.

Did you know the average drive-thru user in American uses them about three times a month? The amount of time spent idling in that line results in around 60 lbs. of CO2 per person every year. Add it up and you get some pretty big CO2 numbers.

For example, a study by the HERO Program at Clark University found that cars from a single drive-thru in the town of Worcester, MA produced over 73 tons of CO2 in one year!

So if you use the drive through, take our challenge and park your car instead. We’ve got more info and suggestions from fellow Rallyers on how to avoid drive-thrus at Carbonrally . Your mind, body, wallet, and planet will thank you for it.
:-)

Rally on!

Green Is Universal

2008-08-05T15:00:00Z

NBC-Universal is doing some great things to weave green themes into their TV, film and web programming. They are also helping to recruit folks to Carbonrally through a new “Green is Universal” Rally team and and a blog post today. Thanks NBC… and bring on the team!

Please check out the Green is Universal Website to learn more about how NBC is using their huge platform to promote environmental themes. Nice.

Introducing Carbonrally LEAGUES

2008-08-04T06:28:00Z

To celebrate the Olympics, we’re announcing another competition with global significance… Carbonrally Leagues!

Now you can see how your team is performing relative to others in your category. For example, if you play on a college team with fellow students, you can now face-off directly against other college teams across the country. We’ve started out with four leagues, but this is just the beginning. Stay tuned for the creation of more leagues, and let us know if you have ideas for new leagues we should consider.

Here’s a bit more detail:

University League includes teams registered as colleges, universities and grad schools

School League includes teams registered as high schools and middle schools

Company League includes teams registered as companies (teams of work colleagues)

General League includes all other teams not registered as colleges, schools, or companies. This is where you’ll see neighborhood teams, family teams, fan clubs, and other teams formed around certain interests or social ties.

We’re still posting an “All Teams” leaderboard where the ultimate carbon busters can vie for the top spot, regardless of category. But, if you know of other groups that might be worthy of competing in your league, get them into the Rally…. and show them who’s boss!

Pinksoysauce's Cheat Sheet

2008-07-29T04:08:00Z

Hi All,

I came across this little Carbonrally cheat sheet posted by pinksoysauce on the Eldorado team page. It’s a very nice and simple guide for first-time rallyers.

Thanks Pinksoysauce for spreading the word and for leading a rockin’ team out of Louisville, Colorado too!

New Challenge: Raise Your AC by Two Degrees This Week

2008-07-28T13:52:00Z

Hi folks. Our newest carbon challenge is up, and it asks us to make some small adjustments in the way we use air conditioning. Did you know that if you raise your AC thermostat just 2 degrees for a week, you can reduce your CO2 emissions by 5.4 lbs?
Here are a few other facts we picked-up while writing this challenge…

The central air conditioner of an average American home uses enough electricity each year (2800 kWh) to cause the release of over 2 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, and drain $280 from your wallet.
Ceiling and window fans use MUCH less energy than AC. In fact, you could use over 40 fans in your house and still use less energy than your central AC!

So, check out the Two Cool challenge at Carbonrally.com to learn more, and consider joining hundreds of rallyers who have upped their AC since we published this challenge 3 days ago.

Carbonrally on Twitter

2008-07-24T04:39:00Z

Is it called twittering? twitting? tweeting? Either way, using Twitter is a lot of fun, and a great way to stay up to date while away from the computer. People have been following their friends on Twitter for a couple of years now, and it’s such a cool tool that we thought Carbonrally should get in on the action.

Now you can follow Carbonrally on Twitter. We’ll keep you up to date with new challenge releases, new website features, and other special announcements. Now you don’t need to check your email to see what’s new at Carbonrally.

Follow us Carbonrally on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Carbonrally

If you are not already on Twitter, consider joining Twitter and set it up so you can “tweet” from your phone. Then you can let your Carbonrally teammates & friends know whenever you’ve successfully biked instead of driven, used a re-usable coffee mug, chosen tap water over bottled, or other Carbonrally-related musings. You may find yourself hooked on Twitter like thousands of other people out there.

Rally On!

Rallying in Style

2008-07-22T04:51:00Z

Huge thanks to fellow rallyer Michelle Slatalla of the New York Times for her recent piece about her trials and tribulations getting a Rally team going in her family. For a great read and some hilarious details, take a look at her Cyberfamilias article that ran in NYT’s Styles section last week. There’s even a quote from another top rallyer Trogg.

Michelle highlighted the importance of saving money as another big motivator for taking challenges. She crunched some numbers associated with Sheets to the Wind and Top-off The Tires, and that has inspired us to add more $$ information to challenges that can help all of us save money. Thanks for the idea, Michelle, and for spreading the news of Carbonrally far and wide…

The Lifecycle Mindset

2008-07-16T02:47:00Z

You’ve probably been hearing the words Life Cycle and Life Cycle Assessment more and more in the past few months. That’s because Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is increasingly recognized as the most complete way to measure the environmental impact of a product or service. At Carbonrally, LCA is at the core of the way we think about our Carbon Challenges and calculate our CO2 numbers.

What is an LCA? According to the EPA,

LCA is a technique to assess the total environmental impact associated with a product, process, or service, by:

* compiling an inventory of relevant energy and material inputs and environmental releases;
* evaluating the potential environmental impacts associated with identified inputs and releases;
* interpreting the results to help you make a more informed decision.

But as you can probably tell, actually doing a complete LCA is difficult. As the name implies, LCAs are comprehensive, and encompass raw materials extraction, manufacturing, transportation, use, maintenance and re-use or disposal. The sheer volume of data required for a complete LCA makes them expensive and time-consuming. LCAs can include hundreds of inputs and sometimes thousands of choices about which data to use and how deeply to dig into the dozens of processes that go into the life cycle of a product. One might even ask: what is the LCA of an LCA? As you can imagine, such complexity opens LCAs up to lots of debate and scrutiny.

Take, for example, the question of locally-grown versus imported food. Local-food advocates suggest that besides tasting better, local foods have a lower environmental impact than imported foods because they don’t travel as far, and therefore less fossil fuel is used in taking the food from farm to table.

But expand the LCA of local and imported foods to include on-the-farm inputs such as fertilizer and feed, and the picture can look quite different. Research by scientists at Lincoln University in New Zealand compared the LCAs of apples, onions, dairy and lamb – either locally grown in the UK or imported to the UK from New Zealand.

The scientists found that local efficiencies in New Zealand (such as rich pasture land) make food imported from New Zealand to the U.K. less energy- and CO2-intensive than U.K. grown food. And that includes the plane ticket.

According to James E. McWilliams, author of “A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America”, More complete LCAs such as this one give us the chance to refine our…sustainability strategy by revealing hidden energy and environmental costs in the life cycle.

But others claim that the New Zealand LCA was flawed and biased – arguing that some of the measures used by the scientists were inappropriate. As you can see, there is plenty to disagree about when it comes to such large and complex studies.

Still, the concept of LCA is a powerful one. In theory, the LCA can give a more complete picture of the CO2 and energy impact of practically anything. At Carbonrally, whenever possible, we use existing LCA studies and concepts to calculate the impact of items such as bottles of spring water and farm-raised beef. But we have to admit that, in absence of full LCA studies to support our challenges, we sometimes need to make some conservative assumptions about the CO2 associated with some aspect of the challenge.

Our advice? When looking at an LCA for a given product or service, dig deep. Look around for competing assessments and professional critiques of the LCA in question. The EPA and Wikipedia both have good overviews of the methodology behind LCA, and the ISO 14000 standard provides lots of info on what goes into the products and services we use.

One good rule of thumb is that the true impact of a product or service is probably higher than any LCA assesses it to be. Of course, if you want to be sure you’re lowering your own impact you can simply reduce the amount you consume, which is what we often advocate here on Carbonrally.

Head spinning yet? If not, tune-in to the Carbonarally blog soon for a primer on Embodied Energy – a related concept that’s being applied to – among other things – alternative energy devices such as windmills and solar panels.

Rally on!

Lowrider

2008-07-12T02:54:00Z

You don’t need a ‘68 Impala & gold Daytons to be a lowrider. This week we’re challenging our Rallyers to save gasoline – and lower their CO2 impact by a whopping 133.9 lbs per month – by being a little cooler behind the wheel.

Here are a few facts that might surprise you:

Transportation is the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions, and is the largest end-use source of CO2. Source
Fuel Efficiency peaks at around 60mph – and every 5 mph over 60 lowers efficiency by an average of 5%. Source
Aggressive Driving means bursts of engine speed that can can lower fuel efficiency by 33% on the highway and 5% in the city. Source

So we challenge you to not only take it 5 mph slower on the highway, but also mellow out on the surface roads. You can take this challenge, view our CO2 calculation, and more at our Lowrider Challenge Page.

Think driving slowly makes you look like a grandma? No way Jose. Whoever drives the bad machine pictured above ain’t no leadfoot. She’s a lowrider.

Rally Machine Update: Teams, Maps, Search

2008-07-10T18:16:00Z

Hi. We’re excited to announce a few new features that will hopefully make the site more fun and easy to use. We’d also like to thank many of you for your ideas and feedback that have led us to these new features. If you have a minute, please check these out….

Invitation-only Teams. Team leaders now have an option to make their team invitation-only. Read more
Opt-in for special news and alerts. There is a new email preference to opt-in for Carbonrally special news and alerts. We encourage people to select this option if they want to receive important news from Carbonrally from time to time.
Mapping all locations. We were previously only mapping the top 100 locations, but now all locations are on the map of the United States. So, if you want to view your city and your neighboring cities, have a look at the Total CO2 Impact Map.
More flexibility when inviting people. When inviting people individually or inviting to your team, the list of email addresses may be one to each line (good when copying list from spreadsheets), separatedsemi-colons or commas. Of course, you can still access your friends’ email addresses using the Get addresses from my address book button.
Search Carbonrally. You may now search the Carbonrally site to find certain rallyers, teams, suggestions, and tips. Look for the search box on the left side of each page.
Delete comments on team page. Team leaders may now delete comments from their Team Page.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about these features or anything else at feedback@carbonrally.com