The most important part of doing anything in life is motivation. You can think it, you can dream it but unless your motivated you cant do it. Some people have amazing ideas, and have the potential to make a fortune, but haven't even lifted a finger, why? Because these people lack the most important ingredient in doing anything, MOTIVATION. As I said on the front page I'm writing this to help people not to mislead them down the alley of broken dreams. For those that are easily motivated and don't need help you may skip to the fun part :D

To those like me who want to make something out of their selves but for some reason cant get the mind set to do so stay, it would be wise to stick around and listen. I'm not a very motivated person especially when it comes to money. I really don't know why, it could have something to do with the way I believe. Most people will fight over a 5 dollar bill lying on the ground but to me moneys not important, it only matters most when I need it really bad. I'm more of the sentimental type. But enough about me, lets help you.

Making the mind motivated:

This is probably the most difficult task of all, but its the most important.

You see motivation comes from the mind, I'm not talking about being motivated just as long as your reading this. I'm talking about building a commitment.

You need to train your mind to have a desire, a goal, a commitment to accomplishing something. What works for me may not work for you so I'll list a few ways of motivating the mind.

Affirmations:

This is by far the most powerful, useful and vital tool to induce any kind of change in the mind. So maybe you've heard of affirmations before or maybe your new to the idea, either one this is what helped me.

Have you ever met people who constantly say their sick, who are always sick?

Well, the body is a reflection of the mind and vice-versa, So saying or even thinking your sick often, can lead to actually becoming sick.

This is a type of affirmation, a very common one. But luckily the opposite can occur, if you say or think that this cold is nothing and forget about it, over time your immune system will become drastically stronger thus resulting in you hardly never getting sick, for whats sick in another persons mind isn't nothing of concern in yours. Pretty neat huh? We'll this same train of thought is what were gonna use to motivate you :)

First pick a time, like before bed or when you wake up, I suggest these times because in morning your mind is more susceptible to information and at night your able to remember things better, especially right before bed.

Then think about about a few phrases, not very long, keep it simple but yet powerful and say it out loud(you can say it silent but its more potent if said out loud) 10-15 times slowly an d try to focus on what your saying. I did this for about a weak and a halve and my level of motivation was increased greatly, I wrote this book, thats living proof :D

Example Affirmations:

I will learn to draw

I can do anything I put my mind to

I am motivated

I am motivated to make money

I look great

I am a good person

I can make money

My mind can do anything

I believe in myself

I can make a difference

I will learn from my mistakes

Results!

Some people are driven from progress, if your one of these type of indeviduals then why not set some small goals for yourself?

You always start of small in live, rushing for big results only leads to frustration and failure. You have to start somewhere and taking that step is one more to victory!

So if you want to for example start a at home business, doing something you like or are good at, its best if you first plan. Sit down grab a piece of paper and figure out what your gonna do, don't dwell on the end results, just think about the now. Brainstorm a bit and when you find a good idea, write it down. After you do that list what you need to start, how your gonna market your product or service and how much time your willing to invest in this endeavor.

Now you can accomplish one thing at a time, first the plan, then the product and service and finally the marketing. Each step adds a sense of accomplishment, so you can see the progress as you work towards your prime goal. :)

Reading influences the mind:

Another good way to motivate yourself is to read and see for yourself how others were successful. Success stories can add a spark to a persons lack of motivation. One may read of a couple who made $3400 last weak selling quilts and think, man! thats not that hard, I could do that!

Thus resulting into a more motivated state of mind.

Always remember the mind is an amazing tool and with it anythings possible.

This is a global law.

Chapter 2: When nature calls, moneys waiting

Alright now its time for the fun part :D

Making money with berries and jam, yummy!

There are many many blackberry, dewberry and raspberry patches scattered all over the world. These berries make yummy preserves thus can be picked and sold as the berries or if you or someone you know,(I bet your grandmother could make some yummy preserves) can turn them into preserves or jam you could make even more money .

I remember right across the street from my dads place theres this area everyone calls the dunes. Me and my best friend would go over there and pick buckets full of raspberries and sell them to his momma for 5 bucks per each small bucket load. We could make around $15 - $20 an hour doing this, and it was easy!

Catching crickets, worms and grass hoppers:

Now this one is easy. My older brother had a worm bed that he used to grow worms. He had hundreds of worms in his bed and its so easy to do, because worms feed off of the micro bacteria in the soil theres nothing to breeding them. You could make a worm bed or two and then sell the worms off to local fishing bait stores. How do you make a worm bed? Simple! All you need is to get some very fertile soil and fill a boxed in area with the soil (Bottom to, so worms want escape) And fill the area in with worms .

Catching crickets is a bit more challenging tho. You could use a net and head off to a big field at night and best your luck against these swift little critters or you can get on all fours and catch them with your hands. Crickets also make fantastic fish bait.

But, grass hoppers are another story. There allot easier to catch and can be several times bigger then your average cricket. You can get around 10 grass hoppers the size of your pinky and sell all 10 in a bundle for 3-5 bucks. But if you can get about 10 grass hoppers larger then your index finger, you know the huge ones just imagine what you could get for those?

Pine straw:

Pine trees are everywhere, on the side of the road, in wooded areas, even in most peoples yards. People normally pay others to rake their yards in fall, but if you could rake someones yard and sell the pine straw you get you would be doing good!

Not only is pine straw easy to get, but its also easy to sell, people buy pine straw for all kinds of uses. You could even sell it off in bulk to your local Dept. store, such as Lowes or Marvins and make a easy buck.

Or if you had the machinery, you could not only obtain the pine straw but clean and bail it also for an even bigger profit. The average price for pine straw(Or at least down here in the south) is $6 a bail. The size of a bail is around a full wheel barrow load, imagine how long it would take you to fill up a wheel barrow with pine straw? Not long at all!

Chapter: 3: From frogs to turtles

A tasty treat!

Who on earth would eat frogs and turtles?

Why we do! people from all over the world think of frogs and turtles as a delicacy.

And even better they are willing to pay a nice price to have such a meal.

You see really don't see turtle soup in the meat Dept. of any store now do you?

The supply for these kind of foods is very low therefore making a very high price for a rather moderate demand.

Now you may wonder how do I catch me some turtles and frogs?

We'll first off, there are certain ones you have to catch. Soft shell turtles are the most common for eating, and bull frogs are what people eat if their craving frogs.

There are many ways to catch these springy critters, to catch turtles you could use a casting net in a creek, lake or pond, especially creeks. Or you could just walk along the banks of rivers and creeks and when you spot one go after it.

But how would I catch a bull frog? Easy! All you need is a flash light and something to carry them in. Its best to go bull frog hunting at night tho. All you have to do is follow your hears, their croaks are loud and distinctive making it rather easy to locate the source of the sound. Shining the flash light in a bull frogs eyes will blind them so all you have to do then is pick em' up :D

The best way to sell something like is to ask around, You'll be surprised how many people like these odd delicacy's.

I hope you enjoyed this article on making money the green way, and as always I welcome any comments or ideas with open arms :)

~Peace~

Comparing Corporations

Think about it.  If Chevron was facing bankruptcy, do you think it would be worth its executives’ time to ask Congress for a bailout?  How about Microsoft?  And what (in then end) is really the difference between Citi Group and Detroit’s Big Three?  This is an unconventional take on the matter, but the fundamental different (I think) is that the Big Three are seen as wasteful, inefficient, and some of the worst American has to offer, while CitiGroup has refurbished its image with clever advertising (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/29/business/citi.php ) and, perhaps more importantly, its aggressive corporate giving program (http://www.citigroup.com/citi/foundation/ ). 

Citi is of course not the only corporation to try to refurbish its image.  Every time I turn on the TV, I see an advertisement assuring me that Chevron is green.  It’s part of Chevron’s “Image Fresh Program” (http://medallioncs.com/News/Current+News/89.aspx ).  For me at least, it’s not working because Chevron did not start investing in green technology until 2006, in response to the surging oil prices and the accompanying leveling off of demand for gasoline (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4716334.stm ).  So, before I believe the hype, I want to see what this oil company will do now that gas prices are coming down.  At the moment, I’m skeptical.  If asked, I may be slightly more willing to bail out Chevron than (say) Phillip Morris.  But not by much.

I have a better opinion of Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and General Electric.  But then, these companies are among the biggest philanthropies in the United States (http://www.cnbc.com/id/27534835) .  And good corporate citizenship these days means more than writing a check.  According to Foreign Affairs corporate citizenship “includes Deutsche Bank offering innovative microfinance schemes or socially responsible investment products, the Toyota Motor Corporation producing a hybrid car, or Unilever empowering women to become entrepreneurs in rural India while at the same time raising awareness on the importance of hygiene and nutrition” (http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080101faessay87108-p20/klaus-schwab/global-corporate-citizenship.html ).  So there’s a good chance that these companies are as involved in your community as they are in mine.

Corporations Filling Community Needs

This is a trend.  Corporations are, increasingly, stepping in to meet community’s needs.  Whether its Microsoft Corporation’s information technology, cultural, and disaster response programs, IBM providing support in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/software/solutions/pdfs/10705499_katrina_cs_hr.pdf ) or various companies banding together to help clear landmines around the world (http://www.state.gov/t/pm/rls/othr/misc/52830.htm ), big and small businesses are trying to help.

And those businesses that are not are the ones that will (in all likelihood) be left to fend for themselves in these troubled economic times. 

If you help me, I’ll help you

This is not to say that I am thrilled with the trillion dollar bailout.  I’m not.  But I also don’t think that the bailout is an unmitigated disaster.  For the selective nature of the way the money is being given out is sending a clear message to corporations the world over: corporate philanthropy is good business.

If you help my community, when the time comes (and it will) I will be more inclined to help you.

The means for this is previously blogged about by myself and is used as follows; 1) Create the "Entity" by act of congress, 2) Fund this "Entity" with a lump of the "Economic Recovery Funds" already set aside in the amount of 50 Billion dollars with 1 billion directed to each state in a statewide office overseen by the "Entity" created by congress, 3) Start programs in each state to approach all privately owned property offered for rentals or sales be fitted with an array of Solar/Wind/Hydrogen power generation capabilities to enhance the lives of ordinary people and to then have the private/public partnership to start on economic recovery.

Now you ask how? Well, simply put, by fitting all the properties with the mentioned array, power generation for each residence would be engineered in such a way that the power used by the property is being enhanced by generating more in the overall time period than is consumed. The individual residence would have to be evaluated for overall energy needs but also peak demand times for energy so the production of the array would provide more power back into the power grid from each residence. All power that would be generated above the amount used by residence could be taxed by a small amount such as 2% for the first 5 years to 5% after that because if the plan works then all other proceeds from the power generated could return to the "Entity" in a pool for reinvestment into more residences as it expands.

This is a way to stimulate the economy and provide more useful jobs in manufacturing and construction as well as a new class of "Government/Private Jobs" that help to grow our economy. The existing jobs that are currently being eliminated by all of the economic distress could be reversed if such a plan was enacted. The multiplier effect would also be noticed as the numbers of jobs in all sectors expanded to keep up with growth. Moreover, our green initiative would be enhanced by such actions encouraging new and different ideas as it relates to applications of electricity.

As this blog is being written, all over America the cost on everyone's electricity bill is rising from 17% to 23%. By starting this type of a plan to enhance and expand our abilities to deal with more demand we help America in many unseen ways.

All of this is very possible if enough of us asked our congress to get involved in this kind of grass roots effort that helps everyone in America.

Being constructed from highly-specialized information processing and storage units; designed for high density plug "n" play implementations where future expansion, serviceability, versatility, scalability and flexibility are considered to be priorities blade computing offers enterprises of all sizes many benefits. A lot of which are not immediately apparent as the actual blade units are carefully secreted away in self-contained housing units known as blade enclosures.

The Blade Computing Model

Distributed centralized specialization and resource rationalization are the fundamental tenets of the blade computing model. This means that blade enclosures such as the HP C7000 depicted in Figure 1 can be deployed in geographically dispersed locations to provide an organization with a distributed specialized central processing and servicing functionality less prone to organization-wide single-point-of-failure scenarios.

Unlike the bastion host, standard rack mounted servers or even traditional clustered servers the blade computing model generally uses more specialized units dedicated to performing fewer more specialized computing functions and processes.

To this end; many blade units are shipped with various combinations of different hardware and support systems normally associated with computers and server-class devices absent. This is because those specific functionalities are provided by the blade chassis/enclosure.

Having the blade enclosure provide many of these integral functions rather than having them duplicated by each individual blade component type saves considerably in the numbers of components incorporated into the manufacturing of each blade unit. This as you can imagine provides substantial cost savings including transport charges. In other instances other specialized blade units will be dedicated to these “missing” functionalities.

In this way many systems that have been massively duplicated and hence often grossly underutilized in the more traditional server and computing models are not to be found in the same massive numbers in the blade computing scenario. This has resulted in blades that are specialized for processing, network, storage, Input / Output (I/O) and memory subsystems.

“A blade for every function” is the phrase that comes to mind. The IBM HS20 Blade server pictured in Figure 2 has provision for two compact high-performance 2.5” SCSI hard drives.

If you need more processing power then add a blade that is loaded with multiple multi-core CPUs and oh-la-la, more processing power to brag about is yours. Similarly if it's more memory for those graphics rendering intensive applications that you require, then add a memory blade. You can even get “general purpose” blades.

Task and component specialization along with purpose-driven blade design are but two of the ways that blade computing provides greater economic rationalization and more efficient use of computing resources at all levels within the blade system.

Space and Energy Savings

The idea behind this approach is that through removing many of these over-duplicated under-utilized components considerable space savings are achievable. In addition; removing the need for at least one power supply unit (PSU) per server results in a considerable reduction in the numbers of power supply units (PSU) built into or supplied with each individual server unit.

This not only saves considerable space it also reduces the overall excess thermal energy produced during normal and stress level operating conditions. The less floor space occupied by your data center, communications, networking and computing infrastructure the less cooling it requires and the less rent you have to pay.

The result of reducing the amount of excess (waste) thermal energy production during processing is that substantial savings can be delivered on cooling solution energy requirements. This also serves to deliver the “green points” or the carbon production reduction contributions that companies are now being asked for by government, environmentalists and the general public alike.

Everyone who has placed their hand at the top rear of a switched-on ATX tower PC is only too well aware of the amount of heat that the PSU generates. Factor in the fact that the PSU is the most common component of all computers to fail and you see the sense in replacing thirty or forty cheaper PSUs with two to four more robust and reliable units.

From a big picture perspective; the fewer more expensive higher performing more efficient power supply unit solution actually has a far cheaper setup cost than the former multiplicity of PSUs solution. The HP Blade Enclosure pictured in Figure 1 only uses two superior Uninterruptable PSUs and this particular system has 16 blade servers installed.

Through the wholesale removal and replacement of older technology PSUs with dedicated leads from DC units of superior performing, less failure-prone, higher quality redundant sets of PSUs blade computing can indeed deliver considerable energy and accrued downtime loss savings.

Remember; that traditionally, it has been PSU issues that contribute nearly 75% of all IT service-related site visits. Because; datacenter downtime is the most expensive of all outage types experienced by enterprise today, reductions in this area immediately deliver considerable fiscal savings.

The Blade Enclosure

The big thing in blade computing is the engineering technologies encompassed by the blade enclosure. This is what makes it all possible. Here are some of the support features that the blade enclosures deliver:

Unit Housing - Each blade enclosure is capable of providing housing for multiple blade servers at far higher densities than traditional rack mount implementations. In fact; up to three times the number of units in the same 3D space.

Specialized Support - Blade enclosures provide housing and specialty support for specialized blade units e.g. compute, memory, storage etc.

Connectivity - The blade enclosure provides the specialized interfaces by which each individual blade units are connected (plugged into) to the chassis. As IBM make a big point of in their advertisements this can be done as a hot install without the need for attention to cabling.

The reason for this is that each blade enclosure is engineered to be preconfigured and “pre-wired” ready to accept additional post-implementation reconfiguration regardless of whether they be removals, additions or just rearrangements of the blade units housed within each enclosure.

Utility Services - The blade enclosure is usually responsible for the provisioning of redundant utility services such as electrical power and cooling for all units contained within each enclosure. I say generally since some implementations even use external power supply systems that are shared among multiple blade enclosures for additional cost and space savings.

Transformer related functionality is one aspect of power supply that does generate considerable excess thermal energy as a by-product and having this particular power supply function external to the blade does reduce the ambient temperature within each blade enclosure considerably thereby delivering additional energy consumption and fiscal savings.

Supporting Infrastructure - It is the job of the blade enclosure to provide infrastructure support such as communications, networking and various interconnects for all blade units housed within it as well as blade enclosure-to-blade enclosure interoperability.

Today this tends to be through the utilization of fiber optic networking technologies as they deliver the greatest performance, least excess thermal energy production and the greatest immunity to noise, Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) and environmental aberrations. Fiber optic networking and communications technologies are also more resistant to interception than copper and RF technologies.

Physical Security - The blade enclosure provides the physical security for those elements housed within it. Compartmentalized accessibility means that to physically access any individual blade component one need not necessarily be granted automatic physical access to every other blade unit housed within each blade enclosure by default.

Platform Management - The enclosure also either links to an administrative unit or contains an administrator interface that allows for authorized authenticated administrative functionalities to be performed upon all units contained within each enclosure. In circumstances that require it; remote administration is also possible.

Blade Unit Manufacturer Variation - Different manufacturers do have different ideas of what should be included with each blade as well as what should or should not be provided with the blade enclosure. However, it is all of these elements in combination that make the blade computing platform.

Blade Computing Benefits

The benefits of the blade computing platform include:

Minimum Size Limit Restrictions Removed - Removal of the 1U minimum size limit requirement which the traditional rack mounted server platform is stuck with. This permits greater freedom and initiatives for blade system designers and increases the overall versatility and adaptable flexibility of the blade platform as a technology and each blade enclosure and blade unit as an enterprise asset.

Higher Unit Densities - Instead of the 42 unit maximum of the standard rack it is not unusual for blade systems to hold up to 100 or more individual blade units per blade enclosure. These higher densities translate into greatly reduced floor space being occupied by the data center which in turn reduces the amount of cooling required thereby producing greater energy cost savings and a far more rounded, greener, less carbon producing computing solution.

Specialization - Through blade unit specialization further additional significant size reductions are achieved and will no doubt continue to do so. These all combine; a little by a little, eventually producing massive savings organization-wide. Larger enterprises will obviously derive greater initial savings here. The rest of us will benefit from the domino effect this produces.

Improved Energy Efficiency - The “Greener IT” motivation is becoming an ever increasing influence in technology today and will undoubtedly continue to do so in the future. Not only does blade computing reduce an organization's energy costs it also represents a much “greener” computing initiative.

Organization-Wide Consistency - Through organization-wide component consistency blade units can deliver a more uniform organizational computing environment throughout a geographically diverse enterprise.

Scalability - Enterprise scalability issues are greatly simplified with blade computing. If you require more processing power then you simply install additional compute blade units into select blade enclosures throughout the enterprise or data center.

Redundancy - For mission critical functionality and the truly paranoid blade enclosures do allow for varying degrees of redundant multiplicity of systems in highly customizable configurations and arrays.

Future-Proofing - The concept of using the blade enclosure to provide infrastructure services to multiple blade units allows much greater freedom in future proofing an organization's information technology and infrastructure investments. Even when fully loaded upgrading can mean swapping out lower performing or lower capacity blade units for better performing higher capacity units. Once again real estate savings are a strong driving factor here.

Recyclability - Blade units swapped out of their enclosures can be reused in other enclosures or even in blade enclosures at different geographical locations. In this way upgrading can become more of hand-me-down oriented which does prolong the useful life-expectancy of IT resources considerably. Through reusing units already manufactured considerable carbon production savings can be realized.

Flexibility - In today's economic climate business requires its processing facilities and solutions to be built around genuine flexibility from both the hardware and the software perspectives more than ever before. Here is one area where blades can excel by using general purpose blade units for general purpose processing tasks and specialized blade units to deliver specialized processing services where required.

For example; web page retrieval and database searches do not require the advanced vector processing that many rendering applications demand. Through the blending of special purpose blade units with general purpose and storage blades all of these computing tasks can be performed within the same enclosure.

The additional administrative flexibility offered by blade computing allows the system administrator to selectively and electively assign and reassign resources between applications/customers. Physical configuration changes can be made on the fly without the need to power down every unit within the enclosure or to attend to laborious cabling issues.

Virtualization - Another technology that the blade enclosure does lend itself to with remarkable agility is the implementation of multiple virtual computing environments. The advent of massively available mainstream multi-core microprocessor technologies have played a large part in the expansion of the deployment of virtualization technologies hosted on blade server “farms”. Once again this is all about the rationalization of information technology resources usage.

Distributed Centralized Processing - Blades are particularly suited to a distributed central processing ethos. This makes them especially desirable for Web 2.0 applications, Software-as-a-Service (S-a-a-s) and cloud computing.

Thus web hosting and cloud computing service providers can distribute their resources more evenly on a usage basis. It is most profitable to have your facility in as close a proximity to your market, customers or user-base as possible without paying for highly prominent real estate or the rents these sites ask. Ideally as close as possible to the physical location of the Internet backbone would be the most desirable of all locations for a blade center.

Additional Information - Check out ServerWatch.com if you would like to find out more about various specialty servers and new developments in the server industry.

There was a time when the lament of those who embraced our connectedness to the planet resonated in the words of a favorite frog, "It ain't easy being green". What a relief to no longer have to deal with the dismissive "tree hugger, greenie" comments, hippie peace signs or eye rolls when innocently asking "Do you separate glass and plastic?". The union of a green personal and professional environment is beginning to take hold.

Our collective environmental consciousness has been raised, and it IS socially acceptable to be green,to practice green,to think green. In fact it is COOL!

The slippery slope of this social awakening is that if GREEN is only cool because of the social climate and economic pressures driving us to seek alternatives to our previous lifestyle choices, "Greening" runs the risk of becoming just another fad; a saturated concept that burns itself out in a few years. Then we will loose more than a great buzz word, a visually slick campaign or a catchy logo... much more. We simply can't afford to create another "Flower Power", "Generation X" types of marketing employing buzz words that burns themselves out from overuse or stagnation.

As advertisers, marketers and media leaders, we drive and shape the thinking of the planet. Our responsibility, indeed our challenge is weighty... To create "sustainability" for the "brand" (life as we know it) while our "Target", KENT or consumer (M/F, all socioeconomic levels, all educational level, age 0 to 100) come to grips with the realization that the "sunshine yellow" and forever blue sky "land of plenty" attitudes of our past must blend together to create a true, substantial GREEN LIFESTYLE.

The opportunity to facilitate global awareness,empower positive change,and enhance the "shades of green" that are part of this metamorphic period and personalize "environmental consciousness" are as rich, dynamic and essential as any message we have ever delivered, maybe more so. Our industry is in an awesome position to do that. The question is do we have the awareness,passion,commitment and creativity to do and most importantly, carry through? We must decide if we are fueling a movement or shaping a lifestyle. Shaping takes leadership. We begin leading with a look inward at our own organizations, carbon footprint, environmental impact and wanton wastefulness? 

Shifting the focus of environmental consciousness from "anywhere out side my door" to everywhere I interact (whether at home, in my car, at my workplace or in my recreational activities) is a fundamental. As we collectively burst foreword from the "chrysalis of separation" we have built between ourselves and our natural world, will our energies prove to be an extension of our own awakening, or another brand slogan with a hot logo?

Happily, there are a few advertising agencies and industry leaders already taking the point. They've been drawing the solid line between individual personal commitment to environmental changes and their business practices. Creating global impact one sphere at a time. 
Forging a union of green practices that include virtual officing, minimization of environmental waste, smarter and more efficient use of resources...without sacrificing delivery of superior advertising for the client. Some of the obstacles are daunting. Some of the changes are tough to get used to. But adaptation is key to survival.

Finding the motivation to take action has become, by necessity, an easier first step. Confronting the challenges of changing time honored practices and traditions are not for the weak of heart. Finding the fortitude, guts, courage and vision to create change, even when the urgency is so pressing, takes a bit more. It takes a united vision, collective study, innovative thinking, committed passion and a daring to believe that each individual CAN make a difference...this time "they" can't do it without "me". Thanks to the "Hippie Tree Huggers" who are already a distance down the road, we aren't blazing entirely new trails.

Never before has a species been able to foresee the potential for it's own extinction with such measurable and predictable clarity. Never before has a species been able to so clearly articulate and comprehend the interdependence of all life forms; one to another and all to the planet that sustains them. Through scientific study and technological advances we are.

If science and technology are the eyes that can most clearly see the perils and possibilities, media is the mouthpiece that can deliver the message of sustainability, redefine environmental conscious and facilitate a union between the green movement and the green lifestyle. And we can.

If we fail to break out of our cocoon of "made by man"; fail to universally reintegrate ourselves with our natural environment; fail to act swiftly, deliberately and personally, fail to embrace every technology, tool and opportunity available to us; fail to re mediate the strain we've placed on our resources, ecology and diversity; we will emerge from out metamorphosis to an unrecognizable, flightless world.

Everything from sustainable packaging to hybrid locomotives, from inverters and grid ties to all things organic, fair trade - they're going stronger every day. Whether just sprouting or in full bloom, there are profitable companies working now to green every industry, every sector and every government in the world.

Investing in theses companies in 05-06 would have been brilliant. Starting in 07 is very wise. 18-24 months from now we will be seeing some pretty amazing highs and gains by green companies in every industry. From the most obvious such as energy and food, to the less obvious such as textiles and mining.

I recently started an investment club with 30k and intend to turn it into 100k by August 2008 and then to 500k by August 2009. The club will be trading/investing in companies that I have been scouting over the past 3 years. There some that I am particularly bullish on over the next 2 years. Here are a few that I like both for their business models and the deeply green perspectives that they infer:

• CERP-TSX: Sustainable packaging.
• XTX-TSX: Hardware for renewable energy storage and distribution.
• RZ-AMEX: Ground source energy lands.
• WWAT-OTCBB: Solar water pumping technology.
• USGH-OTCBB: Ground source energy lands.
• BQE-TSX: Water purification, resource recovery for mining processes.
• STKL-NASDAQ: Organic food distribution.
• COMV-NASDAQ: Waste heat recovery.
• P-TSX: manufacturer of recycled locomotives as hybrid diesel/electric.
• DWI-TSX: Next generation wireless communication infrastructure.

Except for the ethanol plays, which I'm not really interested in, these folks have a pretty good grasp on where the smart money is heading.

For me, I'm not convinced that ethanol is any solution to petroleum dependence, and that it doesn't create more problems than it attempts to address. However, I digress... Anyway, if you have the stomach for it, happy investing. Go Green!

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg states “There are an awful lot of taxicabs on the streets of New York City. These cars just sit there in traffic sometimes, belching fumes.” He further went onto comment that hybrids do the job with a lot less cost and pollution. For the City of New York this makes great sense as the goal is to reduce emissions by 30% before 2030.

If other cities, which have the highest concentration of residents within the U.S., follow New York's example it could end in a dramatic change for the environment and for the automotive industry. Let us say that if 10% of the Nation's emissions were reduced by requiring cities with over a million people to go Green, this could have a dramatic positive affect on the sustainability of our way of life.

If Americans truly believed in the process of preserving the economy there are numerous ways to cut back on pollution without damaging the way people live their lives. These changes include manufacturing more hybrid vehicles, increased ethanol production, increased public transportation both within and between cities, increasing diesel vehicle production, and the development of bio-diesel fuel which is made out of vegetable oil.

Public and business officials are beginning to worry about the rising cost of fuel and the rising cause of environmental pollution. Each of these costs has the potential to damage our economy in the next 10-20 years. The higher the cost of fuel the more expensive it is to manufacture products and ship them to consumers. The more environmental pollution, the more cost due to shifts in the weather, which can affect lakes, streams, forests and grasslands.