Wayneho Kam

Key factors can certainly influence people to eat at one particular restaurant instead of another: the eatery’s service, its sanitation grade, and above all, the quality of the food. But do you ever consider where you will eat based on how green a restaurant is? The next time you choose where to eat, check out izzitgreen.com. IzzitGreen provides online reviews for restaurants and other businesses, evaluating their degree of eco-friendliness. The site is driven by consumers like you and me because it is us who contribute our opinions, add the ratings, and inspire companies to become more environmentally conscious.  read more »

Are you an avid bottled water drinker? Do your H2O drinking habits have you go to the grocery store or put change into a vending machine? If so, you should stop and rethink the way you are getting your source of water. Bottled water takes a tremendous toll on the environment – the manufacturing and transporting of plastic bottles burn up oil, create pollution, and emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Not to mention, all the plastic waste they will end up becoming!  read more »

Let the games begin!

Every fall, the East Campus dorms at Duke University partake in a month-long waste, water, and energy reduction competition. Students earn points for their residence hall and prizes for themselves by doing their part to reduce their ecological footprints and to become educated about the environment. Here are the highlights:

Recycling Rate- Residence halls with fewer amounts of recyclable materials in their trash bags (on an unannounced day during the competition) score higher.

Energy Reduction- The greater the dorms reduce electricity usage below their per capita (based on historical consumption data), the more points they receive.

Online Impact Survey- Residence halls are scored according to the percentage of residents that finish a survey, thereby helping the university assess the level of environmental literacy of the freshmen class.  read more »

The War in Darfur began five years ago in western Sudan, and today, there is still no end in sight. Hundreds of thousands of people have died from violence and disease, with millions more being displaced from their homes. McCain and Obama have both pledged to pursue peace in Darfur once elected as President.

While on the subject, the two U.S. presidential candidates praised “young people” for their dedication toward curbing the Darfur Genocide. Here is what they have to say:  read more »

Ms. Frizzle's Magic School Bus may be able to glide through the Solar System, traverse on the ocean bottom, and cruise among human blood cells, but there's one indisputable feature the Scholastic-branded vehicle doesn't have: an environmentally-sound engine from the twenty-first century.

The Wake County Public School System, the 19th largest public school district nationwide, with 156 schools and 134,000+ students, has changed the notion of the conventional school bus.  read more »