GreenMaven offers a ‘green-focused’ search engine that takes advantage of Google’s Custom Search feature that makes it easy for any blog or site to add their own customized search engine. Theirs is a great implementation of this very cool technology.
In my other life as an SEO/SEM guy, I’m very interested in the potential of targeted search that combines Google results with expert editing by actual humans. For those interested in environmental issues, the GreenMaven people have assembled a very useful resource. If you have a greenish blog or site you might want to join them.

BTW, if you’re interested in making a few bucks with your site, Google will share ad revenues from clicks that take place in your custom search engine’s results.

And they apparently like being warmer in a place that was named Greenland as a PR move by Vikings who wanted to encourage people to live there.

“Already we are starting our sentences by saying, ‘In the days when it was cold,’ ” reflected Thomsen, 45, who in 1991 became the first Greenland woman to ski across the ice cap. “We’re starting to talk about it like it was history, and it’s only been about five years.”

11 degrees in 12 years in a place covered with miles thick ice sheets that, if they melt, basically destroy the world. Ouch. I hope they’re enjoying their tans…

Franke James is a genius and we have rocks in our heads. I can’t add any more to this because it is perfect.

It’s obviously not $3.00 or even $4.00 a gallon because we’re hitting those prices nationwide (today the average is around $3.30, in the Bay Area I understand they’re seeing gas over $4.00). So how high does it have to go before people start changing their lifestyle?
The circumference of the earth is 28,000 miles. The average American driver drives 12-15,000 miles each year. Is there a reason why we’re all driving halfway around the planet every year? This is simply insane, especially when you consider that we’re typically alone in our cars during our circumnavigation.
The craziness gets worse when you look at what we drive. Tiny housewives driving Yukons and Escalades are typical in my neighborhood. These things are trucks designed to carry tons of cargo. When you ask someone about why they drive one the answer around here (where there is lots of water) is towing my boat. Yet I know no one who tows their boat more than twice a year. The other answer is ‘I feel safer’ even though the safety record of these things is terrible. The reality is that these kinds of justifications are the fantasy reasons we’re using to justify a selfish act. So, at what point do gas prices burst the bubble?
Tipping points are a nice concept but this one has no simple resolution. The SUVs are not going to disappear, public transport is not going step up, our houses are not going to magically move closer to our workplaces, stores and schools and our suburbs are not going to deal with this. NYC and London can charge drivers during high traffic periods to cut congestion and push people to public transport. However. the average American city has terrible public transport that is associated with poverty or even decent transport that is associated with poverty- the association remains.
We’re not just addicted to gas, our entire society has been reorganized around its ready accessibility. Car ownership is an indicator of class. In the suburb I live in people on bus stops are laborers or disabled people. My neighbors are not going to take a bus to work.
This makes reaching the tipping point problematic. I suspect that even at $6 or $8.00 a gallon people out here are not going to stop driving. They will buy more efficient cars, they may cut down on unneccesary trips but I don’t think they’ll hop on a bus.