Starbucks-Has it taken steps to stop the environmental degradation it causes?

The largest coffeehouse company in the world, Starbucks is seattle based with over 19000 stores across the world.  People generally come to conclusions that when such a big company is running its centres all over the world, it would definitely be responsible for a lot of pollution and evnironmental degradation.
But it is always not the case. Like many other big companies, Starbucks also has environmental policies. Some of them are:

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES:
RECYCLING:
Starbucks has a policy of making environmental friendly cups and also is currently expanding its efforts to resuce the amount of waste it creates.
ENERGY:
Once a user of LED bulbs, starbucks has now turned to the use of GE energy saving bulbs which are very beautiful to look at and environment friendly. Then, their next focus was to reduce the energy loss because of air conditioning. Starbucks started employing Energy management Systems(EMS) which reduces 20% energy consumption by the HVAC Systems.
WATER:
In 2011, Starbucks installed a Water filtration system which provides the same supereb quality of water and at the same time reduces the wastage of water by 50% compared to their previous filtration system. They also are in the process of installing low-flow faucets and efficient water fixtures to wash the dishes and in the toilets.
GREEN BUILDINGS:
Starbucks is trying to make its stores as green as possible by using responsible building materials and energy efficient designs to reduce their environmental impact

This is a link made by starbucks to show its support as an environment friendly company.
http://www.starbucks.com/responsibility
Awards:
Starbucks was ranked #7 on the Environmental Protection Agency's top 50, a list ranking the top renewable energy purchasing companies in the US.
http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/toplists/top50.htm

Vaio Laptops- Know the truth

Here is a scenario. You want to get a laptop. Let's say since Vaio is among the best ranked laptops today, you wish to buy it. What do you think about? You see if it's the specifications you want. You see if its economical enough. If it has got a long battery life. Long warranty period. slim sleek name it you will think abou it. But have you ever thought "Is this laptop environment friendly?" I guess not. Because neither did I and i own a Vaio. Not until I read about it did I know how much of a non-friendly laptop this is.

"Sony Vaio laptops are among the three worst laptops when it comes to environment". This is a fact. News infact from a survey.
How?
Okay. First let me enlighten the good things(good for the environment) about Sony laptops.
They show a high power efficiency and can save a lot of power. Especially if you get a 9-cell battery you would be running your laptop for 7-10 hours straight without power and it requires for you to just charge it for about 2 hours.
Next is they reduce noise pollution. You might wonder how. Here it is. They are quieter due to the presence of slower hard drives. They require slower and fewer cooling fans which leads to less noise.
Sadly, these are the plus points about the laptop. Now going on to the negatives, although laptop conserves a lot of energy when it is running, it's production requires a lot of energy. Laptop production mainly depends on fossil fuels which leads to their depletion and their extraction and burning leads to climatic changes and in turn global warming. The fabrication of microchip is the most dangerous process of the production which results in causing the exposure to harmful chemicals leading to health hazards of the communities. Many components of the laptop contain hazardous chemicals which poses a great threat to the environment. The display screen and keyboard of Vaio contain harmful chemicals like lead, cadmium, chromium, mercury etc. These when dumped in the landfills causes serious environmental problems. Obsolete and used laptop computers eventually add to the e-waste, which gets dumped in environmentally-unsafe landfill sites. The metallic parts of the computers especially contain numerous toxic chemicals such as lead and mercury, which are considered to be chief contributors to the chemical pollution of the environment.
So what is Sony doing?

Sony has taken many policies to stop some of its degradation process:
The complete list is available here:
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/csr_report/environment/data/history/index.html
what i personally think is some big companies eventually start feeling guilty about the extent to which they cause harm to the environment and suddenly introduce environmental policies. But how much of it is true is actually very hard to tell. When it comes to the extent to which they cause damage the measures taken are zilch. Of course, I might be wrong about the whole assumption but then there can always be two sides to the story.

An Inconvenient Truth

An inconvenient truth - A movie by Al gore who was contesting for the president. Generally, presidents take a lot of oaths before they come into the office and promise to fulfill all of them and that's how they get to win in most cases - The higher you promise the more people like you. But Al Gore was a different contestant. He wanted to change the world-or should i say, change what America was contributing to the world in terms of pollution. The whole movie concentrates on global warming and Al Gore presents the facts so immaculately that it astonishes us. An inconvenient truth indeed.

Initially a book too, this was later made into a movie for people to know all over the world. the movie is kind of like a documentary which shows us Al's trips to many places around the world to make the people aware of the growing climate crisis. He presents slide shows showing the facts which makes us think for a moment that maybe he is actually telling the truth and that if we continue to exploit the environment, one day we might not have a place to live at all.
As there is a contradiction to everything , even here many people oppose Al by pointing out that there had already been a period in the world similar to now where the earth's temperature has grown up and then after many years gone back to normal. There is also another group which says Global warming is a myth and there is no such thing as the world getting heated up. But, Al had taken many efforts to prove that global warming is in fact a serious issue. He uses various methods to measure the thickness of ice and the level of carbon dioxide in the area surrounding the poles and shows us a drastic decrease in the thickness which will soon result in their melting. Also, there are many slide shows which show shocking pictures of seas or dry lands which once used to be glaciers.
Al Gore points out that America is one of the greatest contributors to global warming as they have employed many technologies which cause pollution. He makes an impression that he is not showing these facts to win the people's votes(which also has a very slim chance) but that he really wants to make a change starting with his own country.
As to the contradiction pointed out by many that this has already happened many years ago, Al points out that the temperature rise in the present conditions is far greater than then and that there is no way it can go back to normal unless we do something about it.
A very interesting movie indeed about environmental awareness although one cannot completely believe the facts even thought they are right in front of your eyes. The concept of global warming has many sides to it. But an enlightening one which will definitely make you think that you can do something to change the world.

Vertical Farming

What is it?
As the population of the world increases, the existing mankind is running out of a land to live in. And this is forcing them to look for alternatives to accommodate the existing and the ever growing population. The solution was simple. Instead of building houses one beside another let us increase the height to accommodate more number of floors to accommodate more number of people in each building. In other words, people began to build vertically. Now, here comes a need for land to grow crops to feed the existing population. In a similar way, this method of growing crops vertially inside the skyscrapers was introduced.
It cuts down on costs of transportation and also well, more space was created for growing crops. Erosion is prevented. The use of pesticides and other chemicals can be limited because the plants are grown in a controlled environment. Also, spoilage during transport is prevented. As most of the human population is migrating towards the urban areas it is better to grow the crops in proximity.
The immediate disadvantage that comes to our obvious view is the uneven growth pattern of the plants. Think about it. The plants growing near the windows will receive sunlight and hence will grow differently from the ones that grow with the help of artificial lighting. So, would this approach work? YES ! glasshouses. It is now possible to tailor the sunlight, humidity, lighting, airflow etc to get the best productivity indoors.

Antarctica- WOW!
This vertical farming is being practised in one of the most weirdest places possible(set up in 2004). And ya it's working perfectly. To supply food to the researchers at the Scott-Amundsen South Pole Station when the food supply is low, this was set up. And from this vertical farming technique, the people get atleast one fresh salad everyday. The main requirement although is the artificial lighting because during winter the place is dark for most of the time.

Okay, So how was this actually invented?
Interesting story indeed. Dickson Despommier, a professor in Columbia University was once teaching his class about parasiticm, environmental disruption and some other sad topics. Suddenly, the students complained and told the professor that they wanted to do something that would bring about some good change in this world. They came up with the idea of a 30-storeyed building with a greenhouse on every floor. Thus came into existence vertical farming.
But, just like everything has a dark side to it,

The dark sides of this practice:
Construction cost : very high to create such tall greenhouse buildings.
Energy cost : Unimaginable amount of energy would be used up as the number of vertical farms increase in number.
And traditionally grown crops will become much much more cheaper than these crops will would render it useless.
And finally, as expected
Pollution : Since we are dealing with regular green house produce it obviously increases the amount of green house gases which in turn increases the pollution in the atmosphere.

So,what's actually being done?
Researchers are considering alternatives to alleviate these problems. For example, instead of the huge amount of electricity they propose to be working on devices which will use solar power

Conclusion?
This is a really nice approach which will definitely feed thousands of people and is in close proximity to the urban areas. If the disadvantages are overcome, vertical farming is the future.

The Matix - Man vs Machine

A movie about the machines against the humans.

The movie depicts what will be the condition of the humans when the machines take control over us. Neo, a hacker tries to contemplate cryptic references about the "Matrix". Trinity, another hacker finds
Neo and tells him that a man named Morpheus can help him. As every good thing has a bad thing associated with it, there is a clan headed by a guy called Agent Smith who is destined to destroy Morpheus and his followers. Why? Well, apparently, this is set in the world 2199 where the machines invented in the 21st century have taken over the world. That is, humans' harvested energy is used by these machines(which are like humans in the form) to operate in the real world. Morpheus tries to free them all and in the process convinces Neo to take a red pill and enter a ship called Nebuchadnezzar.
The main aim of Morphes is to unplug the humans who are being used as a source of energy for the machines and join them in his rebellion against the machines. In this process, he comes to a conclusion that Neo is the one who can end the war and make them all free agin just as he wanted.
They soon visit the Oracle to know the truth or rather to hear the prophecy. The oracle tells Neo that he is not the one and that he has to choose between Morpheus' life and his.
Soon a guy named Cypher, a member of the rebellion betrays them for money and a return to the matrix. Morpheus is caught by Agent Smith and he lets Neo and the others escape. Morpheus is drugged and all the codes to access the refuge in the real world is obtained by Agent Smith and his crew and they start destroying it. Meanwhile Neo uses his hacking knowledge and manipulates the Matrix and somehow finds Morpheus and rescues him. Morpheus and trinity use a phone and return to the real world. The body(machine) of Neo is ambushed by Agent Smith and at first Neo fights him but then is killed by Smith.
In the real world, Trinity knows that Neo is the one and so she brings him back to life by kissing him. In the end Neo promises that he will free all the people caught up in the matrix.
This film is one of the best I have ever seen and is definitely worth a watch. It definitely depicts the fight that man and environment(here, the machines) encounter. It was man's own mistake that he created that powerful machines that rose up to destroy mankind itself. We could bring about changes in technology but not to the extent that it controls us and eventually kills us.