Archive for the 'Its Green!!' Category

25-year-old in a bottle

Published on November 22, 2009 in Its Green!!, This I like and Usual Ramblings. 4 Comments Tags: balsamic vinegar, truffle oil.

Too bad its not whisky though. Lyn (my boo) and I popped over to Takashimaya last weekend after picking up two important items for our big project and spotted a temporary stall selling all sorts of olive oils and aged balsamic vinegars. Managed by the folks from Crescendo, the oily goodness offered were priced slightly more affordable than those you will find at gourmet supermarkets.

Of course as curious chefs go (okay…how does home cook chefs sound like?), we inquired about their products hoping to pick up something nice to cook with. The lady who served us was rather knowledgeable and patient allowing us to sample a full range of oils and vinegars. After much debate over the age of vinegar we should buy, we decided to bite the bullet and picked up not only a bottle of truffle oil but a 25-year-old balsamic vinegar. At 25 years old, the balsamic vinegar has pretty much caramelised, and it tastes oh so sweet.

Our damage was a little under $50…I think. Those looking out for something green (as in environmentally) can bring their own glass bottles for refills. Well done folks, I can foresee myself popping over to get my oily fix in the near future. If my memory serves me right, they have a shop located at Orchard Ion.

Left: The 25-year-old balsamic vinegar | Right: Truffle (flavoured) oil

Lyn and I reckoned that it would be a waste to use the balsamic vinegar as a salad dressing and decided on using it for a dip for our bread instead. However, I did nudge her a little, challenging her to just try at least one time to see how it will taste like. Let’s just say that I’m looking forward to it. Unfortunately, our truffle oil was not exactly an extract. Mr Miyagi who also bought the same bottle of oil have more about it here. He is right though, we can consider picking up these bottles as a Christmas gifts…

NBA goes green

Published on April 6, 2009 in Its Green!!, This I like and Usual Ramblings. 2 Comments Tags: cleveland cavaliers, environment, green, nba.

No longer working in an environmentally conscious organisation, I do find myself slowly slipping away from blogging about green issues. Thankfully, I had the honour of participating in Earth Hour a couple of weeks back (although I felt it was somewhat incomplete) which reminded me to stay on track toward the environment and help spread the message. So when I chanced upon a green initiative from NBA sometime last week, I figured this effort is worth sharing.

Tipping off from 2 to 10 April, NBA is hosting its inaugural Green Week in a bid to become more environmentally responsible. Teams and players are all chipping in taking turns to dish out tips and advice on green issues such as recycling and energy conservation. Capturing my attention in their website is this one on top 10 team initiatives. I mean this guys are serious, one such example is the Cleveland Cavaliers swapping all traditional plastic glasses in their arena with biodegradable cups made up of corn plastic.

You can find out more about what they are doing in the video below. Once again, I don’t normally link videos to the jBlog but hey..its a good cause… .

Green limos for the Oscars

Published on February 19, 2008 in Its Green!! and Usual Ramblings. 0 Comments Tags: environment, hybrid, oscars.

Guess Hollywood celebrities are really buying into the environment sustainability bit, perhaps after two movies (i.e An Inconvenient Truth and The 11th Hour) that citied possible impacts the earth could be plagued with resulting from climate change. But it is a good start…

Red carpet goes green as Oscars stars opt for eco-limos - taken from Yahoo! News

As the environmentally friendly limo-driver to the stars, Y Fray does not like to talk about her A-list clientele.

But one look at the wall of her office — where dashboard placards bearing the names of previous customers are pinned — offers striking confirmation that the Oscars red carpet is turning a shade of green.

From Leonardo DiCaprio to Forest Whitaker, eco-conscious celebrities are increasingly shunning gas-guzzling stretch limousines to ferry them to the Oscars and preferring greener alternatives.

And that means business is booming for Fray and her three-year-old business Eco-Limo, which comprises a fleet of 14 cars all of which are either “hybrid” (gas/electricity) or run on bio-fuels.

“We’re dedicated to alternative fuel,” says Fray. “There’s no town car, no Hummer, no Cadillacs. Some other companies have a small number of hybrids, but they have hundreds of limousines.”

Fray launched her firm after purchasing a hybrid Toyota Prius — which can run for 100 kilometers on less than five litres of gasoline — using a third of the fuel of traditional Lincoln Towncar limousine.

After starting out with a small client base word of Fray’s company reached Global Green, an environmental awareness group, who soon directed Hollywood icon DiCaprio towards the firm.

“Leo is a client every now and then,” Fray says. “Things have just blossomed by word of mouth. We have not done any advertising or marketing.”

While the Prius is the most popular vehicle, Eco-Limo’s fleet also includes a Mercedes and a Ford sports utility vehicle that run on bio-fuel.

“Some companies that were laughing when we started are not laughing anymore,” says Fray, noting that several established limo companies had sought to emulate her firm by offering green alternatives.

That trend is acknowledged by Alan Shandeling, president of the California Livery Association, who estimates that the numbers of ‘green limos’ in Los Angeles have increased by around 300 percent in the past year alone.

“A couple of years ago you’d never see a hybrid or a green car at the awards shows. Last year there were quite a few at the Emmys, and I assume there will be quite a few more at the Oscars,” Shandeling said.

Fray said meanwhile that her clientele is not just restricted to members of the rich and famous. Increasingly EcoLimo is attracting corporations keen to adopt greener policies by using her firm to ferry around their executives.

Nevertheless stars play a big role in helping change attitudes Fray said.

“I’m very grateful to the Hollywood community because people look at celebrities to set the trend, to do the right thing.”

According to Elizabeth Snead, a writer for the Los Angeles Times awards season blog, theenvelope.com, the clamor to be greener than thou had spread beyond Oscars transportation.

“It’s just become like a craze, everybody is promoting everything as being green, whether it’s a limo, a gifting suite, a party,” Snead told AFP.

“The hybrid limo is just the latest offshoot of this craze. It’s great that celebrities help get the word out. We just kind of wonder how much it’s hype as opposed to real commitment to the cause.

“As with everything in Hollywood, don’t believe anything you see or you read.”

Selling our environment koyok…

Published on January 15, 2008 in Its Green!!, This I like and Usual Ramblings. 2 Comments

I received a CD full of photos yesterday from the Asia-Pacific Centre for Environmental Law. It was a pleasant surprise considering that it has been about a month since I spoke at NUS and hey..they remembered me.

Allow me to give little background on what went on. About a month ago, I was invited to give an overview briefing of Singapore’s environment to some senior officials from various countries. These officials were in Singapore for a few days for a seminar on the Urban and Industrial Environment Management and wanted to understand the Singapore model.

Coming all the way from Georgia, China, Mexico, Suriname, Montenegro and other more exotic countries of which I can’t remember and pronounce, I must admit that I breathed a huge sigh of relief after learning that they all speak good English. For those who don’t already know, I am only effectively monolingual. I can’t speak Mandarin to save my life let alone writing.

Although I have conducted a number of such briefings to senior officials on various occasions, what sets this briefing apart from the others was the amount of time given to me. Normally, we would be given only 15 mins for such briefings, but in this case, I had a good hour and a half.

Not really knowing what else I could say, I went ahead with the talk anyway reminding them countless of times that I am just giving a brief overview AND THAT’S IT!! But what I initially thought would be a very quick briefing, I quickly found out that I was able to easily stretch it to over an hour. To me the audiences were amazingly engaging.

They sat and listened to what I had to say, laughed at my many weak attempts at adding humour and asked me quite a number of questions along the way (of which I was able to answer. Thank God!!). These officials are truly a speaker’s dream. At the end of the briefing, a number of them approached me saying how wonderful it was that I injected humour and was able to answer a number of burning questions they had. And all they while as they were commenting on my performance, the only thoughts that went through my mind was “Really? You guys gotta be kiddin’!!”.

Honestly, I have never thought of myself capable to speak in front of a huge audience. Sure I may have spoken to a huge group of people before…but seriously, I am not that capable. This is one of those feel good moments and seriously, very encouraging. So yeah, I am waiting for the next time I get arrowed by my bosses to conduct similar briefings again. Meanwhile, I will just practice in front of the mirror

Now that I have attended to my ego, tune in for more normal blog entries.

Sharks – save ‘em, not eat ‘em

Published on January 11, 2008 in Its Green!! and Usual Ramblings. 10 Comments

Woah, brudder Walter actually beat me to it and posted an article about it already. Firstly, many thanks to my friend Howard Shaw and the Singapore Environment Council for their invitation, I am feeling the love here. Yesterday, Brudder Walter, his wife Tina and a number of my colleagues had the privilege to catch the premiere of a documentary film on shark preservation.

Crossing over 15 countries over 5 years, Rob Stewart’s production Sharkwater takes us through the journey of his love for sharks leading to an adventure in discovering the multi-billion dollar shark fin trade setting off a chain of events that has to be seen to be believed. Produced in high definition, the documentary film includes stunning underwater videography so beautiful, I am seriously considering taking up scuba diving just to witness the ocean in its glory.

However, beauty aside, the film also captures the greed and merciless killings of mankind from corrupted government to mafia rings, as the sharks were hunted, sliced off their fins and thrown back to the ocean and left to die…all just for money. Let’s just say that film has changed the way I look at sharks and that bowl of sharks fin.

Although you can learn more about the shark finning facts here, I believe watching it will be a real eye opener for you. You can catch it at the sneaks today at Shaw Cinemas or when it is released on 17 Jan 2008.

Cattle to fart Kangaroo style

Published on January 9, 2008 in Its Green!! and Usual Ramblings. 2 Comments Tags: cattle, fart, global warming, greenhouse gases, kangaroo.

I know I know!! I’m supposed to be posting articles about my Hong Kong and Shenzhen trip but until I sort my photos out (which may take a while), I guess I would have to blog about other stuffs. And although I know climate change issues ain’t a joke, you can’t blame me for finding humour in this one.

A report from The Age noted that “AUSTRALIAN scientists are trying to give kangaroo-style stomachs to cattle and sheep in a bid to cut the emission of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming”. Basicially it is to enable cattle to fart like Kangaroos. I don’t know about you but I always find farting humourous. Partner it with science and BAM!!…you got yourself a guy cracking up the whole morning after reading the article.

Who says saving the environment can’t be fun .

Ireland bans environmentally unfriendly lightbulbs

Published on December 11, 2007 in Its Green!!, This I like and Usual Ramblings. 4 Comments Tags: ban, European Union, incandescent light bulbs, Ireland.

When it comes to really interesting, if not, really controversial environmental laws and issues in the European Union (EU), Ireland seems to be at the forefront. To start things off, they were the first country in the EU to ban smoking in pubs back in 2004 and now, they have recently announced plans to ban the sale of incandescent light bulbs by the year 2009.

According to EETimes, “Legislation is being introduced to ban the sale of the normal incandescent light bulb from January, 2009 so as the normal light bulb breaks, householders will have to replace them with the more environmentally friendly long-life bulb which uses far less energy.”

Not bad for a country famous for its stout, whiskey, rugby team and highlanders (amongst others). Guess they finally saw the light (pund intended) . I say we should celebrate with some Guinness goodness. Party?

You are clear for light up!!

[Sources from EETimes.com and Inhabitat.]

Charge your gadgets with solar bag

Published on November 27, 2007 in Its Green!!, This I like and Usual Ramblings. 6 Comments

Fashion and environmentally friendly, what else can you ask for? Introducing, the Noon Solar – “a transformative way to introduce renewable energy into your daily life”. Basically, its a nice little bag with a solar panel that allows you to charge your iPod or mobile phone. Yeah..its that simple.

So I guess owners need to develop some other excuses instead of “oh my phone’s battery went flat” or “opps, I forgot to charge”, if you want to avoid picking your friend’s call eh? Not very affordable for me though, at US$274 to US$412, think I rather pick up a nice Coach or Kenneth Cole messenger bag…and charge my phone

[Sources from Engadget and Inhabitat]

Tapping with your environmentally friendly fridge-freezer

Published on October 1, 2007 in Its Green!!, This I like and Usual Ramblings. 2 Comments

Yeah…we have heard and seen the evolution of fridge-freezers for years. Living in a world of multitasking, I guess companies researching and manufacturing these wonderful chillers figured they might as well join the bandwagon and introduce a variety of other jobs it can do apart from keeping your food fresh and your alcohol chilled.

With that, we began seeing fridge-freezers with functions like popping ice and cold water into your cup without lifting a finger to open them. There is also a time (like now) where these fridge-freezers can connect to the internet, allowing you to order food, milk, beer, etc, thus saving you time to fire up your pc, log on to the internet and then begin your purchase.

So just when you think that these smart alecks can’t think of any other better multitasking functions that will give us that wonderful fridge experience…enter the ASKO HomePub Fridge-Freezer.

This calls for another party!!

Yeap, your eyes are not fooling you. The nice people at ASKO have develop a concept of a fridge-freezer with a beer dispensing tap connected to a keg (of beer) providing us ‘cleansing ale lovers’ that malty goodness whenever we need it. I am thinking they might have thought about it over a few beer session and conceptualising their prototype on a few pieces of partially beer-soaked napkins, but that is another story.

Gone are the days of hardship where getting a bottle of beer requires you to open the fridge door, pick that selected beer bottle, uncap it and pour that goodness into a glass of ice (for uncles only). Now all you need to do is ‘JUST TAP IT’. And to top it off, the ASKO fridge freezer uses environment friendly cooling gas, Isobutane R600, and with noise level of only 38 dbA is very quiet. Who says good stuffs can’t be environmentally friendly

Info and image shamelessly pulled off from Appliancist.

Who is going to save the electric cars?

Published on September 18, 2007 in Its Green!!, This I like and Usual Ramblings. 0 Comments

CBS Sunday Morning, two days ago gave a feature on the current state of electric cars with the surrounding messages on saving the environment and to reduce their (mostly US) dependency from oil. And for those who just can’t bite those messages (yet), how about taking a look at the concept vehicles coming out of the R&D lab…totally sexy!!

From your Tesla Electric Roadster to your Chevrolet Volt, we could soon see them emerging in the Asian market soon…well..not exactly, but I am hoping they will pay us a visit real soon…at least concept wise anyways

Enjoy the full CBS feature right here.