In the article the Sierra Club refernced a company called Greensender.  So I took a few moments and followed the link.  Greensender is the founder of “Green Pride” as well as a number of other “go green” products. Greensender exists to help bridge that gap between good intentions and taking action.

I personally am a single mom.  I recycle my aluminum cans and make sure they are out on the curb every Wednesday.  That’s about it for me.  I know that change is a necessity at this point.  My heart strings are tugged with every tree saving project.  I get nervous about the future for my child when I hear about global warming and pollution.

I know that it is time to make a change and that the time for procrastination has ceased.  That is why when I ran accross the last line of Michael Aaron’s (Founder of Greensender.com) mission statement, I knew exactly what to do.  Here is the mission statement that rang oh so true for me:

“No one can do everything today. And no one can do it by themselves. But, we all have the responsibility do something. So, let’s get started.”

There couldn’t be a better example of what the Internet is quickly becoming: a democratic, self-organized environment, where only the strong and valuable survive.

But that’s not what impressed me most about Josh. What impressed me is that on the night before his office closed for the winter holidays, during that time of year when most people stop answering their phones and start planning vacations, Josh called me to give me a $10,000 gift.

But he didn’t stop there. He then proceeded to ask his friends at ClearSpring to donate an additional $4,000.

Why would Josh do this—in a down economy, no less?

Because Josh believes in harnessing the power of people to effect change.

Josh believes in the mission of Privacy Council, the online organization we founded to simultaneously improve our lives and improve the environment.  Besides being a nuisance that fills our mailboxes, paper junk mail accounts for the harvesting of more than 100 million trees in America each year. Like his own company, PerfSpot, Josh believes that Privacy Council offers a unique value that will help its mission rise to the top of the Internet pyramid.

So Josh created a PerfSpot homepage takeover for the Privacy Council, and within hours of his launch, thousands of people from around the globe were busily helping to save 1 million trees in 2009. Josh’s gift represented the Internet at its best—web savvy and world passionate people sharing their skills and websites for the greater good.

This gift from Josh meant a lot to me, but it means more to our future generations. My hope is that my grandchildren will be able to experience the beauty of the same forests that I hiked in with my parents—instead of destroying this legacy by turning millions of trees into junk mail, most of which will be sitting in landfills for our children to deal with.

Help spread the word about Josh’s kindness, and the innovative campaign that he and the smart folks at ClearSpring put together.

As Josh put it, “Let’s save some trees.”

I was grocery shopping in the Navy Commissary recently (a store for military folks), when I noticed a big sign with a picture of a Compact Fluorescent Light bulb (CFL) that said “Change your light bulb, save the world”.  The sign is part of a promotion to raise environmental awareness among military personnel, and I was excited to see it. The U.S. military has historically been one of the worst polluters and, as one of the country’s largest bureaucracies, it is often resistant to change.

Digging into the campaign, I discovered that the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCa) had partnered with General Electric to offer discounted CPLs to military families with the goal of selling 1 million in 2008. CPLs are typically more expensive than regular incandescent light bulbs, but they last up to 10 times as long and use 75% less energy than typical bulbs. I was skeptical that military families would buy these bulbs, but when I did some research, I found that DeCa easily surpassed its goal, selling 1 million CPLs by August, 2008.

This is awesome news. If every American family swapped out five regular bulbs for five CPLs, in one year we would prevent greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to the output of 10 million cars, and we would save $8 billion in energy costs. There are roughly 3 million personnel in the US military; when their family members are counted, that number rises closer to 10 million. If the military commits itself to “going green”, the global impact would be phenomenal, not only pulling 10 million people into the environmental movement, but also greening the ships, vehicles, housing, and construction processes wielded by this powerhouse.
DeCa’s campaign is truly inspiring. If DeCa can convince military families to change out 1 million light bulbs in 8 months, I know that the Privacy Council can do the same for 1 million trees.  Environmental change is coming, people!

-Emily Paterson

White Trash by Barbara Hashimoto

American artist Barbara Hashimoto works with junk mail in her provocative and extremely popular installations. To date she has created the Junk Mail Experiment, Junk Mail with Grand Piano, Junk Mail Landscape and Junk Mail Xmas art installations. Barbara said she spent one year hand-shredding the collected junk mail, resulting in 3,000 cubic feet of shredded material.

To me, Barbara’s piece symbolizes the overload we all feel in our lives—being smothered by literally mountains of paper junk mail, office waste, and SPAM email. Her piece is a visual representation of the waste to which we all contribute—knowingly or unknowingly. For me, becoming part of the Privacy Council is my first step towards taking back that mountain.

-Michelle Amos