I’m sitting at the airport right now waiting for my flight back to the US and my itinerary for this trip just happened to fall out of my bag. After some review I realized that I’ve been on over 8 flights for this trip alone.

Being at an airport and watching the crew dump thousands and thousands of gallons into the planes I started thinking about everyone going “GREEN” and how they are all avoiding this “UNGREEN-NESS”. I make this type of trip maybe 3-4 times a year, our product development director (Haney) makes the trip about the same number of times, and that’s pretty much it, we’re a pretty small company so hopefully we’re not making too big of a dent.

“How little of a dent is it really?” I thought myself, so I looked it up.

Figuring between Haney and myself, our Asia trips a year equate to roughly 144,000 miles traveled. This is what our carbon footprint is (assuming 0 for everything else except air travel). So how little was our dent actually?

“MUCH LARGER THAN AVERAGE” apparently. In just our air travel to Asia, we exceed the national average of by about 4 times. This is 4 times what the average person’s carbon footprint is calculating ALL travel and ALL other carbon creating activities. Guess it’s a bigger dent than expected. I can’t even begin to imagine the dent that bigger companies with entire sourcing departments pumps out. Talk about some ridiculous Carbon tonnage.

But what can we, at Red Ledge, and as an industry do? I guess first off is we can reduce the amount we travel, but given the scope of the industry now and how much product is being made overseas, I don’t really see the travel dying down excessively, especially seeing how global the world economy is today.

So unless they come out with some sort of hybrid airplane or electric airplane, I doubt we can solve this problem this way.

Fear not though, the ingenious people who brought you the carbon footprint calculator also (conveniently) suggests that we can buy off our carbon sins with so called Indulgences RECs (Renewable Energy Credits). Basically we give them money and they invest it into wind power or harvesting methane from poop.

Sweet deal I thought, nothing beats throwing money at a problem to make it go away. Credit card in hand, I was ready to save the planet. Then I saw some fine print about the terms of the REC:

Hmm. So when the project is done, it will take 20 years for 1 ton of our carbon usage to be offset. So for the 30 tons we used for traveling to Asia this year and with only this share of the wind turbine, it would take…let’s see:

30 tons x 20 years = 600 years. Fantastic.

So for 10 years of Red Ledge operations (assuming 2 travelers), our Carbon tonnage should be wiped clean by the year 8009 (assuming our wind turbine doesn’t break down or need additional maintenance and improvements). Nice. In addition to my wind turbine I’m also going to start telling women that I’ve taken my 30 tons of carbon and put it in a nice little spot in the ground and eventually after a couple years, they can go and collect a diamond.

Well, I guess if Indulgences RECs aren’t the answer, I’ll just have to figure out some other way to get around the world for now.

With the passing of Summer it is time to reflect on our failures to reach our summertime goals.  And by “our goals” I clearly mean Andy’s goal to reach peak physical condition by the end of the summer.  Located in his office was a picture of a professional Australian swimmer(note below) which we all believe was there for motivation.  

 Somehow he lost site of that goal; I suspect his gym partner Haney had something to do with this upset.  They started off strong from what I gather, protein shakes and 6am workouts.  Tales of Haney helping Andy squat 250lb, things looked promising, goals obtainable.  Unfortunately, that picture has long been removed and the locker room stories are all distant echos.  What we have to live with now is acceptance of who we are meant to be…I give you Andy at his finest.

I have returned from Asia, unscathed from the terror of Sinlaku.  According to my family, who was here in the States during my ordeal and quite certain that this typhoon would only chose me for destruction, not a lot of media coverage on the typhoon was given in the shadow of hurricane Ike.  And since my mother couldn’t find any news about the storm, her first rational conclusion was that the ocean had swallowed all of Asia.  That might be overstating things a bit.  However, I’m pretty confident I can say what I wish about my beloved mother because I’m equally certain she won’t be reading this, as my best guess is that mum thinks that the blogosphere is the newest planet chosen to replace Pluto after it was officially downgraded from our solar system.  Sinlaku was my first typhoon experience, and thus why I’m probably writing way too much about it.  I was aware of the common dangers associated with such a storm, well pretty much just the wind and rain part.  However, I had no idea of the hidden danger.  Let me explain.  The key to international travel is packing light.  Never take more than you need.  If you can recycle a few outfits, then do it.  I had planned for a 10 day trip, but when the storm rolled in that trip was extended to 17 days.  Here in lies the danger.  Working a shirt or two back into the wardrobe is one thing, but having to reuse undies leaves potential for disaster.  Going commando under jeans in a humid climate is not an option…just imagine the diaper rash.  So what options is one left with?  You’re absolutely right, laundry done prison style.  I spent my last day riding out the storm in my hotel room, washing boxers in the sink with a bar of soap and then drying them to a toasty perfection with the hairdryer offered as part of my accomodations.  I’ve seen some survival expert on TV showing people how to get water out in the desert if you’re ever stranded.  It’s an important skill to have.  How else would you clean your underwear without water?

Sinlaku and Ike, done and done.

Nothing like another Typhoon to close out a trip. But that’s how we do here at Red Ledge, XXXTREME.

So apparently there’s been some bickering going on in the Red Ledge office, something about state pride, photoshopping, Haney hating everyone and Survival of the Fittest. Being the gracious overlord I am I decided to take a non-partisan stance on this issue and let them figure it out themselves, Social Darwanism, if you will. I figure who ever has the best point will come out on top, but I will apologize ahead of time for all of you if there happens to be “Haney can Eat it” outerwear or “Ashley SUX” outerwear in the market anytime soon.

So today as I visited a restroom in China I thought to myself, “Maybe I’m being a little too hardcore. Maybe I should step in, spend some time, and try to resolve this issue.” Then I came across this:

Apparently in China they take “Survival of the Fittest” to the next level, not only do they preach the practice but actively label and segregate the “Strong” from the “Weak”.

After seeing this I decided that I’d let the team at home deal with this situation themselves because obviously,  there are those more hardcore than I.