The book “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” was very popular among women, but no one ever questioned that women are from a lava encrusted planed that would cook any normal man. 

At 863.33 degrees Fahrenheit, Venus is a very hot planet. Not nearly as easy to get a close look the way we are with the Mars Rovers. Some experiments have tried to get to the surface of Venus but failed to last very long. The Venera 8 used a refrigeration system on entry of the atmosphere to extend the life of the craft. The extreme heat caused the lander to fail after only 50 minutes. But efficiency changes everything. 

According to New Scientist, some NASA research groups may have found a way to make a rover able to survive for 50 days. This new idea is based on some old technology that can efficiently cool the electronics. This technology was patented in 1816 and is called the Stirling engine. This “Engine” works by using the difference in air temperature to drive pistons and work as a heat exchanger. Some new advances on this new technology would make the device small enough to create a manageable rover that can withstand the heat of the Venusian surface.

New, efficient technology does not only help save the environment but can also help us reach goals that we never though possible. For example without the advancement of transistors we would still be stuck with the Vacuum Tube, and you would not be reading this article right now. 

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Mars Rovers 
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What would happen if there was a car that could take you to work and back without ever going to the gas station. Or if you could drive the distance of Michigan’s Lower Pennisula from Ohio to the Mackinac Bridge… and then all the way west to Wisconsin on one tank of gas. Or even better, drive from Detroit, Michigan to Daytona Beach, Florida on less than two fill-ups.

Well it sounds like a good plan to me. According to the latest information this car may be available in the year 2010 –2012. But according to the way that every product gets delayed these days it will probably be around 2013. This car is called the Chevy Volt. 

The Volt has the potential to turn the car industry around with its unique way of getting power from electricity, biodiesel, gas and E85. This will give consumers a ton of choices for alternative fuel and make everyone less dependent on fossil fuels. 

The car looks rather sporty too, so you will not stick out like a sore thumb. You will be forced to brag to your friends so that they know how much money you are saving because you are using the electricity that you have at your house. 

As much as the outlook for this new form of car looks there are still some things that will be hard to predict. The car looks nice and it promises quite a bit but will it be able to deliver? Will they still be able to hit their goals of 40 miles on pure electricity and 640 miles on one tank of gas? Will Chevy be able to make the car ready for production by 2010? Currently Chevy has not given a price but says that it will be “Priced Competitively,” but competitive to what still remains to be seen. 

As long as Chevy can deliver on most of the goals they have set out for the Volt and keep the price low the car will turn out a huge hit. I am starting a savings account for 2010, I am ready to put the regular gas station visits in my past. 

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Chevy Volt

Walking around all of the orange and brown is nice for a change. Happy Halloween. I hope that you had some fun, but we are now back to Greener Thinking. While watching TV this week something caught me by surprise. NBC is having a “Green Week.” 

What is this you ask? Well I can’t tell you, it’s a secret… Okay, I guess, since you asked nicely. “Green Week” is a week worth of shows that all have green content in them. They also have a website that gives you tips on how to keep green. “Green Week” is scheduled to start on November 4th 

Some of the notable shows on their main website are “Heroes” and “Days of our Lives.” In “Heroes” there is week of green at Claire’s school to help get the students involved in the environment. The clip of “Heroes” on the site shows Clare cheerleading to plant a tree. “Days of Our Lives” is having a “Green Wedding” and there are also some tips on having a “Green Wedding.” From the preview their idea of “Green” in “Days of Our Lives” means organic food or organic plants… yeah… But there are also some better points such as the rings used in the wedding have jewels that are mined in a way that doesn’t desecrate the land. 

Pretty exciting I know, but at least NBC has taken a small step. This is not going to be the solution, but it is nice to see that people are beginning to take an interest where it counts, companies with enough money to motivate change. The only problem is that going green is still a new concept for big companies and they are still a little rusty on the delivery. I will be holding my judgment until “Green Week” is completed, but until then, go ahead and check out the NBC site and write us with your thoughts. 

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NBC – Green 
Green is Universal

If you didn’t see this past week’s episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, you missed an episode dedicated to making a new “green” home for a Navajo family. This episode was full of innovative ways to conserve energy and help ensure that the family would never have to pay an electricity bill for this big, beautiful new home of theirs. They had solar panels outside that moved throughout the day to follow the sun across the sky. This way, they are always collecting the maximum amount of sunlight all day long. Also, they had a wind turbine on their property to produce even more electricity for them. After all was said and done, they were able to produce more energy than was needed to power the home and were even able to put the excess back into the power grid to help the rest of the community. They also gave the family all Energy Star appliances in their home and really pushed for viewers to follow their example and do the same in their own homes. They even had plants growing on the roof of the home, which I had never heard of before, but apparently it helps cool the home and keeps the roof last much longer. In addition to all of the environmentally friendly parts to the home, they also handed over the keys to a brand new Ford Escape Hybrid to the family (not to mention there were several Escape Hybrid commercials throughout the TV broadcast). They showed off the car to the family as well as the viewers and educated people about what the environmental advantages are of having a hybrid. The show itself was quite entertaining and educational, but most importantly, it was of great importance that a popular TV show made a point to put the word out there about ways that we can all help the environment and keep our energy costs down at the same time. This may prove to be of huge significance if other shows follow their lead and especially if people start to learn more about the techniques used in the show and want to do more of it to their own homes. 

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Extreme Makeover: Home Edition 
Ford Escape Hybrid

Drifting through the infinite darkness of space, you find that everything that you know, everything that you have ever touched, and millions of people you have not even met yet are combined, smaller than your thumb. Only 12 people in human existence, as we know it, have ever set foot on the moon. Some people have conspiracy theories, but the most important people, the astronauts themselves still have the memories.

The difficult thing is to capture this somehow. Well you are in luck “In The Shadow of the Moon” is a new movie that travels through the entirety of the missions to the moon through the eyes of the astronauts. This movie shows the difficulty and concern each of the astronauts faced while trying to accomplish the impossible. 

One of the biggest impacts the movie had on me was when each pilot bared their soul and explained what they saw from space. They said even today you can see how big cities have their own atmosphere of pollution and that we have to start thinking about saving our planet. One astronaut stated after his visit to the “beautiful desert” (the moon) that we live in the “Garden of Eden” (Earth) and that it is very delicate so we must be careful.

Another interesting note is that the movie claimed in its credits that it is carbon neutral. I am not really sure how I feel about being carbon neutral, but it definitely does not hurt. Plus the awareness that this could bring is huge; the only problem is that it does not seem to be at all of the big local theaters.

If you would like to hear the tales of great adventure and strife this should definitely be on your list of movies to see. An extremely well done movie that helps to disprove the conspiracy theory and gives you new insight into how difficult the moon missions really were. I will easily give this movie a 9 out of 10. 

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“In The Shadow of the Moon”

We told you so!!! Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to say that out loud… Well here at Greener Thinking we try to make easy ways for people to help the environment (Greener Thinking) and also save you money (Greener Thinking). You see it is kind of a dual meaning. 

We are not the only people trying to accomplish this task. There is a group of people in California that are having some of the same ideas and they have come up with a single day solution. Well I guess it’s not a solution, but a way to raise awareness.LightsOutSF.org is trying to get everyone in San Francisco to turn their lights off for one hour and replace one light bulb in your house with a compact florescent one. With this one-hour they expect enough emissions to be saved that it would equate to more than 48,000 cars off of the road for one hour. That is a pretty big impact for not so much impact on each individual person.

The current date for the Lights Out San Francisco event is March 29th 2008. There is only one thing that I can see wrong with it, that it is only for San Francisco. Well I guess that is their intention. Maybe we could make the Lights Out Everyone Else event. Tell us what you think at greenerthinking@greenerthinking.com 

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LightsOutSF.org

The Barenaked Ladies are releasing a new DVD next month of a concert they held earlier this year, right here in Michigan. The DVD, entitled “Talk to the Hand: Live in Michigan” (named that way due to the shape of our great state), will also be a statement by the known environmental activist ‘Ladies’. The video will go on sale November 6th and will be packaged in recycled materials. Also, the tray the CD comes in is biodegradable and the ink on the packaging is made of vegetables. The Barenaked Ladies have long been known for their entertaining shows and their large, devoted fan base. They are also known for their environmental concerns and trying to do their part for the planet. The CD trays are made by a company called Paperfoam in the Netherlands and have also been used in CD’s for Universal Music Group. 

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Barenaked Ladies 
Google Map 
Paperfoam

Once upon a time there was a planet in a galaxy far far away. This planet had many residents through out its lifetime. Some of these residents were kind to the planet and it made the planet happy. These residents were called “birds” and “animals”. There were also some residents who had learned if you burned things it gave off energy. With this newly discovered power these residents expanded quickly and desecrated the forests with new “Civilizations.” These residents were called “humans” and the planet they called home was “Earth”… Wait, that’s us! Oh, wait, that’s us…

There has been quite a bit of new information coming out in the last couple of days about Greenland and its glaciers. Most of it does not look good. Some have even stated things that you really do not want to hear such as “It is too late already.” Not very promising when you are trying to fight a battle against pollution and at the same time trying to supply more energy to more and more people. Greenland’s glaciers have been receding at an increasing rate. Some of the predictions made by scientists for the next hundred or more years have already come about. 

But as always there is an opposite side of the story. In Britain a judge has taken it upon himself to judge fact from fiction with Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and predict the future. According to the British Times “This is distinctly alarmist and part of Mr Gore’s ”wake-up call“. It was common ground that if Greenland melted it would release this amount of water – “but only after, and over, millennia.”

So between these newfound facts New York and Florida will disappear in the next couple of years or a few millennia. Me personally I would rather try to stop it in the next couple of years and later find that it was unfounded instead of a few million people losing their homes. 

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Recently, while watching t.v., an ad for Esurance came on. Now, normally I would flip the channel at a moments notice given that I like mundane televised advertisements as much as I am propponent for cancer (which I am not)… BUT, I was distracted for an instant and now glad that I was. Why? Because I learned something interesting about Esurance… and it is not their amazing quotes, though they may be good. 

Esurance is a company which is doing its part to inform people about ways to help the environment as well as doing something about it themselves. Being that this is thegreenerthinking.com way, I had to learn more and after checking out the green links on their website, I did. 

Because they make their policy documents available to their policyholders online, store all of their documents electronically, as well as communicate with their policyholders via email they save paper (trees). So far their estimate is a savings of 649 trees in 2006 alone… not to mention the 21,525 trees they helped to plant. 

Esurance also delved into the realm of air quality. They have purchased hybrid vehicles for their claims fleet wherever they’re available. Hybrid vehicles can reduce the emission of pollutants in the atmosphere by up to about 90% and cut carbon dioxide emissions in half as well. 

There is a lot more this company is doing to reduce its carbon footprint and make itself a greener part of the business world. If other corporations took a tip from these fine example-setters, the world would have a much brighter outlook. Please take a look at their site and learn all you can by following their links! Thank you Esurance. 

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