Web Conferencing Helps Companies Go Green

With climate change and other environmental issues posing real and significant concerns these days, it's no longer enough for businesses simply to be efficient and productive. Now it's just as important for companies and corporations to be environmentally conscious and to take as many steps as possible to protect our planet. From recycling and reducing waste to eliminating the use of harmful chemicals and substances, there are many ways in which businesses can greatly decrease their negative impact upon the environment. One of the best ways that companies and corporations can make a truly significant change for the better is by substituting unnecessary travel with online meetings through the use of web conferencing solutions.

Web conferencing is a way of conducting virtual meetings over the Internet. Each person participating in the conference uses their own computer and either an online or downloaded application to join the web meeting. Generally, web conferencing solutions offer a wide array of features that allow these virtual meetings to be very dynamic and flexible. For example, common features of online conferences include PowerPoint presentations, live audio and voice communication, whiteboarding, instant messaging, and desktop and application sharing. With the help of such tools, web conferencing provides users with diverse options for communicating and allows meeting participants to interact as if they were in the same room.

As a result of their many features and outstanding versatility, online conferences are conducive to any number of different uses and applications. For instance, with the ability to quiz and poll participants, it's easy to provide productive and engaging web-based training sessions. Whether you need to train new employees or conduct educational sessions for clients and associates, web conferences provide an excellent way to achieve all of your training goals. Other ideal uses of online meetings include launching new products, dealing with technical support issues, delivering presentations, demonstrating software and hosting collaboration sessions.

No matter what particular applications your business decides to use online conferencing for, such virtual meetings allow for a very high level of interactivity. As a result, people are able to communicate very effectively even though each participant may be separated by hundreds or even thousands of miles. This means that online meetings eliminate the need for a significant amount of business travel. While it still may be necessary to travel on certain occasions, web-based meetings can easily and effectively replace many in-person encounters. By staying out of cars and off of planes more often, the benefits to the environment will be considerable. Even by eliminating the need for one employee or associate to fly across the Atlantic to give an in-person presentation can save over one ton of carbon dioxide emissions. So by decreasing business travel for entire teams and on a continuing basis, the potential reduction of your company's carbon footprint is truly enormous.

Of course, making use of web conferencing solutions and traveling less often will also provide your business with additional benefits. To begin with, you'll save plenty of money. Especially considering the price of fuel these days, traveling is expensive. So when you can achieve the same results by remaining at your office and interacting with clients and colleagues via online conferences, stretching your budget to go back and forth across the country or across the globe simply becomes unnecessary. In addition, you'll also save significant amounts of time with web conferencing. Not only do you not have to spend time getting to and from meeting locations, online conferences can be initiated instantaneously and with a simple click of your mouse.

With web conferencing offering so many benefits and advantages, both for businesses and for the environment, it's easy to understand why online virtual meetings are becoming more and more popular with companies of all sizes and in all different industries. As business sectors around the world are becoming more aware of green issues, many people and associations are very interested in helping companies and corporations to understand their impact on the environment and to make a variety of positive changes. This holds true for providers of web conferencing solutions, several of which are now focusing on helping businesses transition to more environmentally friendly practices.

While such service providers are dedicated to promoting the sustainability of the planet and its ecosystems, they also understand the need to promote the sustainability of businesses. By offering comprehensive service packages and highly flexible web conferencing solutions, online conferencing providers allow businesses to go green without sacrificing productivity, efficiency and success. In fact, by switching to Internet meetings, companies can experience enhanced productivity and efficiency in addition to environmental sensitivity, thanks to the time, money and energy savings involved.

Since promoting a healthier and sustainable environment is not just a good idea but also a responsibility, it's up to all companies and corporations to step up and make a difference in local communities and the global community. So to take a stand and help lead the way to a greener environment, consider integrating web conferencing solutions into your business' daily operations, because a few changes today can make a big difference for tomorrow.

Climate crime

TOKOROA, Greenpeace sends a clear message that conversion of forestry land to intensive dairy farms is a crime against the climate. c) GREENPEACE/COWPLAND

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Tokoroa, New Zealand — Greenpeace took action against New Zealand's biggest contributor to climate change -- intensive corporate dairy farming.

Two teams of activists halted a major conversion of forest land to dairy farming in the central North Island, locking on to forest logging equipment and using rotary hoes to plough 5m-high letters reading CLIMATE CRIME into fresh pasture.

UPDATE: The, the following day as the sun rose over sleepy Helensville, we unfurled a truckload of Ready-Lawn around the outside of National Party leader John Key’s electorate office. Then came some pine trees, some two-dimensional cows and a smattering of stumps. Finally a billboard went up saying: “Would John solve this climate crime?” See the video and blog.

Greenpeace is calling for a halt to forest conversion for intensive dairy in light of the worsening global climate crisis.

The land being converted is part of the Kinleith Forest and is owned by Carter Holt Harvey. Twenty five thousand hectares is being cleared to make way for corporate mega farms.

Elsewhere in New Zealand, tens of thousands of hectares of forests have already been felled; another half million hectares is at risk - over seven times the size of Lake Taupo and a quarter of the nation's total forest plantation.

Dairy conversion of forestry land functions as a 'double whammy' on the climate; it destroys forests and replaces them with one of the most greenhouse gas intensive forms of land use.

New Zealand's agriculture sector already emits nearly 50 per cent of our greenhouse gas emissions and these emissions are growing dramatically. Deforestation for land conversion releases huge amounts of greenhouse gas. Emissions from the two largest corporate conversion projects in the Central North Island alone equate to the annual emissions from the Huntly coal fired power station.

Forests trap carbon beneath the soil and in trees. Like a sponge, they soak up carbon dioxide gas from the atmosphere - the main greenhouse gas contributing to climate change. The world needs forests to 'soak up' greenhouse gases whilst we reduce emissions drastically.

What are the politicians saying?

The National Party has labeled rates of deforestation a "chainsaw massacre" but refuses to talk about one of the main drivers - corporate dairy farming - or offer up any real solutions. Little more than hot air so far.

The Labour Party says that the introduction of the Emissions Trading Scheme has put an end to the logging. This is demonstrably untrue, given the continued clearance and conversion of the Kinleith Forest to corporate dairy farms. ,

All serious political parties need to front up to the problem of intensive dairying and land conversion and commit to an immediate halt to the deforestation for dairy farming

What needs to happen?

Intensive dairy farming - and the associated deforestation - is killing the climate. There needs to be an immediate halt to further conversion of forests to pasture, and agriculture needs to be brought into the emissions trading scheme, to create a more level playing field (forestry entered the scheme in January 2008, making it more economic to chop down trees and replace them with farms).

New Zealand's two main political parties must also set an overall emissions reduction target of 30 per cent by 2020.

What about farming - isn't it the backbone of NZ's economy?

We want New Zealand to be farming into the future. But the drive to large scale corporate farms undermines this. There is no advantage to farming intensively. It is bad for the climate, bad for the land, bad for animal welfare and bad for farmers' bottom lines.

There are better ways to farm and we have begun to outline some of the alternatives in our smart farming pages: www.greenpeace.org.nz/smartfarming

Climate Change

The Most Important Things You Can Do about Rapid Climate Change:

1. Understand the Problem
2. Do Something Today to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions

This website will help you learn the connection between human-made Carbon Dioxide and rapid climate changes and negative effects around the world. The hard fact is that despite what many nations, companies, cities and people are starting to do to reduce their global warming emissions, the world is putting more CO2 into the air than ever before. The current amount is 385 parts per million (ppm) -- higher than ever in the past 800,000 years.

At the same time, renowned American climatologist Dr. James Hansen of NASA says we already have too much CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the air: "If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted ... CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm."

This is scary and controversial, but Dr. Hansen and others believe we must act fast-- as a world of concerned people and leaders taking every action we can to limit greenhouse emissions. 350.org is a new movement of citizens from around the world which I recommend for its clarity of purpose and worthy goal.

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HOW WE KNOW WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT OUR CHANGING CLIMATE: Scientists and Kids Explore Global Warming.
Photographer and writer Gary Braasch and children's environmental book writer Lynne Cherry collaborated on this new book, which combines many photos from World View of Global Warming with the stories of scientists researching about global warming. The book also shows kids who are already studying weather and climate and what some of them have done with this knowledge in their schools and communities. Publisher Dawn Publications is also releasing a Teacher's Guide to information and curriculum on climate change.

Please see this book's preview and teacher resource site, HowWeKnowClimateChange.com

Teachers, school leaders, parents and kids
should know about

Climate ClimateChangeEducation.Org

Portal Web Site Dedicated to:
• Global Warming Education
• Climate Change Education
• Science, Solutions -- Resources Directory

An unparalleled resource for curriculum, lessons, classroom gear, and
books on climate and global warming.

This site is run by a volunteer organization of docents and interns at California science centers and museums; and students, scientists and staff at the University of California, Berkeley