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Manufacturing everything from tea to software, Indian corporate giant, Tata, has announced that it’s going to start manufacturing cars. Cheap cars. Really, really cheap cars. Tata, which is responsible for about 3% of the Indian GDP has announced that on Thursday, January 10, 2008, it will begin to sell a car that runs about $2,600. It’s launched at India’s rapidly emerging middle class.

India, with a population in excess of 1.1 billion, is expected to see its car sales climb to $145 billion in the next eight years.

Contrary to popular belief, the pollution that goes into manufacturing a car far surpasses anything the car will ever spew into the air, which means that India, already notorious for its terrible urban air, should be taking careful note.

In the meantime, we should hope that Indian middle class doesn’t continue to take its cue from the American middle class, succumbing to the temptation of ravenous consumption.

This entry was posted Thursday, January 10th, 2008 filed under: yatrips by kumar
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So oil just hit an all-time high of $100.05 a barrel. You probably figured this out when you paid $3.35 a gallon for regular unleaded in California around Christmas.

But the number is pretty abstract to you, right? It is to all of us. Save for you eco-terrorists who drive Hummers, most of us probably don’t buy oil by the barrel, so a price fluctuation from $90 to $100 isn’t going to alarm you much. But it really should.

See, a $10 increase on a barrel of oil generates about $57 billion in extra profit for Saudi Arabia, Dubai et al. Our friends in Russia get about $25 billion richer and Iran gets $10 billion richer. And Venezuela isn’t complaining, earning another $8 billion.

Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, Venezuela…? We’re just sayin’.

Anyway, there’s not a lot you can do about the cost of oil on a global level, but there is a lot you can do on a personal level to keep your costs down. Like ride sharing. Split the trip with a friend or two.

Call it your patriotic duty if you must. Your country and planet will thank you.

This entry was posted Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 filed under: yatrips by kumar
tagged with gas, middle east, oil, ride sharing | Dang, no Comments »

Yep, you read correctly: you are the problem. We’ll admit it wholeheartedly: so are we. We’re all the problem. Our trips to the grocery store, our commutes to and from work, or our personal favorite, driving to the gym (get over yourself, really), these are all reasons why our air quality sucks.

In fact, pretty much everything we do sucks. We spew carbon with any type of movement other than walking or riding a bike (which, actually, produced some carbon during manufacture). Even taking a bus to school has an impact (if you’ve ever been caught behind one of the black smoke-belching beasts, you’re well aware of this).

And it’s not just the stuff we do directly that sucks. What we do indirectly actually blows, as well. That burger you had for lunch? Before it landed on your plate, that cow was farting up a storm on a pasture somewhere. We’re not talking a “poot poot” here and a “poot poot” there; Bessie was actually ripping about 200-400 quarts of farts every single day.

A little fart seems pretty benign, right? Maybe even funny? Too bad how there are 97 million Bessies in America, each farting 200-400 quarts a day. Know how much methane that puts in the air in total? Somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 billion pounds every year.

Here’s a formula to help you remember how terrible you are to earth: Burger=methane=greenhouse gas=global warming=melting ice caps=rising sea levels=America is the next Atlantis.

See what we just did there? We pointed out why you’re contributing to global warming though everything you do (albeit, with hyperbole). Which is why you should help where you can. If we had less tact, we might use this occasion to insert a quip about why YaTrips can help you resolve the karma you incurred from your steak dinner. But we won’t. Because we’re classy. Just like you. And classy people use YaTrips.

This entry was posted Thursday, December 27th, 2007 filed under: climate change, ride sharing by kumar
tagged with cows, methane, yatrips | Dang, no Comments »

Ecological activism used to be confined to “crazy liberals.”  You know the stereotype well: a makeup-boycotting, doughy woman who wore knitted socks with Birkenstocks and had her car smugly decked out in green bumper stickers.  The hideous car was an early 80’s Mercedez-Benz that had been converted to run off of vegetable oil.  And every time said woman hit the “gas,” you’d smell french fries.

Well, not much has changed.  Except that the doughy woman has been replaced by Leonardo DiCaprio.  And the canola-guzzling Mercedes has been replaced by any number of innovative cars that don’t make the air smell like a McDonald’s kitchen.

See, while the doughy Birkenstock monger was on to something, she was alienating her audience.  It’s no longer only radicals who live off the grid who are using alternative fuels, it’s your favorite actor or singer.  There’s no need to write off the Green Revolution as extremist; everyone’s doing it.

Leonardo DiCaprio has been one of the environment’s most vocal defenders. Having starred in Titanic (the most successful film ever, grossing over $1.8 billion worldwide), Leo has used his fame to bring attention to the cause.  He drives a hybrid, has solar panels on his house, co-wrote, co-produced and narrated 11th Hour, a documentary about the state of our planet.

Vanity Fair was so impressed with Leo that they granted him their cover for a second time. The May 2007 issue highlighted his work as an environmentalist.

And Leo’s efforts have had a ripple effect in Hollywood.  In February 2007, Orlando Bloom announced that he was building an eco-friendly home in London, complete with solar panels and energy-efficient light bulbs.

Resist the temptation to be snarky and say “Must be nice to be able to afford that.”   Unplug your stupid cell phone charger when you’re not charging it.  Turn off your TV when you leave the room.  Unlike our earlier blogs, this doesn’t take the handiwork of a rocket scientist to figure out.

Being green is easy. And cool. And as Leonardo and Orlando are proving, you don’t have to smell like patchouli to do it.

This entry was posted Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 filed under: yatrips by kumar
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Fresh from his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway on Monday, December 10, 2008, Al Gore announced to reporters at the United Nations Climate Change Conference that the United States was “principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali.”

He encouraged the the audience to wait for America’s next presidential election in 2008, stating, “One year and 40 days from today, there will be a new inauguration in the United States…I cannot promise that the person who is elected will have the position I expect they will have, but I can tell you I believe it is quite likely.”

Political affiliation aside, Al Gore is right that the United States has been a major roadblock toward international cooperation to help the environment. We’re immunized as a nation (for many reasons), but we must make an effort to help in any way we can. Sharing a ride to work or school will hardly have a negative impact on your life, but for our ailing planet, it will carry a substantially positive one.

This entry was posted Friday, December 14th, 2007 filed under: yatrips by kumar
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Knowing that governmental bodies are slow to reach agreements is not news, but being slow to reach agreements regarding the environment is even more detrimental than you think. Take the current situation at the U.N. as an example.

On December 12, 2007, it was announced at the U.N. conference on global warming that goals to slash global emissions by 25-40% have been met with a great deal of skepticism. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters that setting those guidelines now “may be too ambitious.” He added, “Practically speaking, this will have to be addressed down the road.”

Unacceptable. “Down the road,” really? It doesn’t take a conspiracy theorist to figure out that he’s not suggesting a coffee date next week to solve this problem.

See, addressing carbon emissions has to be a priority. Not curbing them means that we will continue (and quite possibly, accelerate) the rate at which our planet is warming. Each day that governmental action is delayed means another day of warming.

So let’s be realistic. Your hands are pretty tied when it comes to forcing the U.N. to speed up its process . What you are very able to do, however, is to take matters into your own hands. Using YaTrips to ride with your friends helps the environment out today. Now. Immediately. No pesky laws to pass, no filibusters, no political agenda.

Don’t wait for the U.N. to get its act together on global warming, make an impact now. Let YaTrips help.

This entry was posted Thursday, December 13th, 2007 filed under: yatrips by kumar
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Yatrips provides a friendly way for people to offer or participate in rides. Based on our Energy Technology (ET), we are committed to help people share rides and make new friends, while helping Mother Earth. We pair people together, based on their common interests in Facebook. Our sophisticated scheduling, matching, and communication technology makes sharing rides easy, convenient, flexible and reliable; and creates an easy transition from social networked-based relationships into in-person friendships. At the same time, we keep track of every pound of CO2 saved by each person and group who use Yatrips’ for Earth-friendly transportation. This is the easiest, most immediate way to get where you want to go and reduce your CO2 emissions on the way.

65 MPG Immediately

You effectively get 65 mpg (based on EPA averages of 21.5 mpg per driver) if you share a ride with two other people, while it will have taken the Federal government 35 years (from 1985-2020) to legislate a standards increase , from 27.5 to 35 mpg. That’s 35 years for a 7.5 mpg increase. Based on this time line, it will take the federal government 140 years to catch up to what you and two friends can do tomorrow (65mpg.) We believe change can come in small meaningful steps without radical alterations in our daily lives. Based on the innate goodness of the American people to help Mother Earth and powered by Yatrips’ Energy Technology, we believe can make a significant contribution. Our One Million Miles Less (link to million mile blog,) campaign utilizes ride sharing through the Yatrips community to reduce the output of over 440 metric tons of CO2. In weight, that equals 68 Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaurs (link to dinosaur blog)Ride sharing has been around for a long time but had never really worked because it has been almost exclusively based on physical proximity. Until now, ride sharing has been inconvenient and inflexible and quite boring. By combining good old American ingenuity and great technology, Yatrips is changing all that.Lean and CleanYatrips ET does not require several hundred million dollars to develop new technologies; nor does it take 10 years to implement government programs. When you share a ride with someone today, your CO2 emissions have been reduced by 50% as soon as you get out of the car. It’s a lean and clean approach to a problem that worsens, literally, by the minute.Ways to use YatripsUse Yatrips to share and easily arrange rides for

• rides home from college on holidays,
• for a last minute ride from your dorm to campus
• weekend trips otherwise too expensive to take,
• music concerts
• sporting events, like football and baseball games
• places where parking is likely to be a problem, like the movie theater ,downtown
• farmers markets
• employee sponsored carpooling programs
• car conferences ( meeting in the car to and from work, instead of the conference room)
• business and technology conferences
• special groups, like moms who school pool your kids

Use Yatrips for transport to share rides with your friends and with people with whom you share common interests and schedules, and to make new friends. It will make Facebook more meaningful, as well as providing you a way to directly reduce the CO2 emissions you release into the atmosphere.  It is the simplest, most direct way you can contribute to reducing climate change. By sharing a ride and making new friends, you are giving Mother Earth an imperative helping hand.

This entry was posted Thursday, November 15th, 2007 filed under: ride share, yatrips by swami
tagged with energy technology, ride share | Dang, no Comments »

Amber, a rocket scientist, calculated that we drive over 2.6 trillion miles each year in America. So how can a campaign to drive A Million Miles Less matter? Because it’s a starting point. We have to begin someplace. Someplace, where each of us can participate in a small, practical way that collectively becomes a significant contribution. Whoever thought that the first 5 or 6 health food stores near college campuses in the Sixties would evolve into the mainstream organic food movement of today? Small meaningful contributions by many people can bring about enormous change.

We can no longer afford the luxury of indifference. Almost everything on Earth that is frozen is melting.

And if we…

If we wait to act, we’ll be in deep trouble. And deep water.

If we wait until we’re able to replace our cars with hybrids, we will have caused large-scale irreparable damage in the interim.

If we wait for government-legislated change, we’ll be waiting about 140 years.

If we continue to emit CO2 at our present rate, we’ll be putting 12,138 pounds of the stuff into our atmosphere every year. Each.

If we pretend that we can’t make a difference, we’re lying.
The greatest American Ambassador to the world in the last 231 years has been the innate goodness of the American people.

Create Good Carma through Yatrips

This is the purpose of A Million Miles Less: to create good Carma by doing something good for the world and ourselves. If we share a ride with two people, we get an effective 65 mpg immediately. That’s a great deal that’s hard to beat and amazingly easy to do, thanks to Yatrips. It’s a great way to do good

Social networking is one of the most dynamic contributions of technology on the internet by facilitating social relationships. Yatrips’ Energy Technology transitions these relationships into in-person friendships in a meaningful way that contributes to the good of the world and documents the difference we are making.

Yatrips’ makes it easy for you to share rides to the places you want and need to go with your friends and to make new friends. When you pick up a friend and go someplace together, you don’t think of that as ride-sharing. Use Yatrips in the same spirit; to share rides, make friends and help Mother Earth.

If only 20,000 people share rides for only 50 miles each trip, that will reduce CO2 emissions into the atmosphere by 971,000 lbs, or 440 metric tons, or 68 Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaurs, (slightly under-nourished) and that is what we call a good beginning.

This entry was posted Wednesday, November 14th, 2007 filed under: climate change, yatrips by Yadmin
tagged with million mile less, ride share, yatrips | 2 Yatrips Conversations »

When Bob Dylan penned the lyrics to his 1964 release, The Times They are A-Changin’, he encouraged us to

gather ’round people, wherever you roam and admit that the waters around you have grown.

Since Dylan recorded these lyrics in 1963, Peru’s Qori Kalis glacier has shrunk by 10 percent and the ice cap atop Mount Kenya has decreased in size by 40 percent. The Artic ice cap, not to be outdone, has accelerated its own melting; a gloomy prediction once forecasted its demise by 2050. In May 2007, that prediction was revised to 2020.It took over 40 years and some tremendously powerful imagery, but we’ve finally admitted that the waters, indeed, have grown.

This entry was posted Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 filed under: climate change by kumar
tagged with Bob Dylan, glacier, ice cap, yatrips | Dang, no Comments »

Americans are a busy bunch; we work, we shop, we play and most of us accomplish this with our cars; more than 127 million cars, in fact. Coupled with our SUVs and light trucks numbering approximately 73 million, Americans are armed with over 200 million motor vehicles. And we’re not roadshy. Each vehicle in the United States drives approximately 12,000 miles per year.

I’m not a rocket scientist, but my friend, Amber is, and according to her calculations:

200,000,000 automobiles x 13,048 miles per year= 2,609,600,000,000 miles per year

For those of you who are overwhelmed by zeros (and you’re not alone), that figure is over 2.6 trillion. Americans alone, drive enough to circle the equator of our planet roughly one hundred four million, seven hundred ninety-nine thousand times per year.The average passenger car gets 21.5 miles to the gallon. The average light truck gets 17.2 miles. (more…)

This entry was posted Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 filed under: climate change by kumar
tagged with carbon, climate change, global warming, ride sharing | 1 Comment »