The TH/Slate Green Challenge Redux
by Meaghan O'Neill, Newport, R.I. 
on 04.17.07
Al Gore's got an Oscar. More than 1,000 groups across the country rallied for Climate Change awareness this past Saturday during the grassroots Step It Up 2007 campaign. Earth Day is right around the corner. What better time to run an updated version of the Slate/TreeHugger Green Challenge?
If you're new to the idea of a carbon diet, welcome. If you participated in the Challenge last fall, welcome back. We know our first effort wasn't perfect, and thanks to your feedback about the first run, we've made some changes. This time, the Green Challenge will take place over seven weeks, with brief weekly quizzes (and no monster exams at the beginning or end). You'll still of course have the chance to shed carbon pounds by making pledges to reduce your footprint, and at the end of the Challenge, we'll compile your overall results. You can think of the new and improved Challenge as a diet--if you've got a heavy carbon load--or as an upkeep program to keep you committed to staying slim. The Green Challenge Starts again today, with our Transportation segment. We hope you'll cruise over and check it out. ::Slate/TreeHugger Green Challenge Intro ::Transportation
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Well I just tried out the first step of the quiz, and it seems to suffer from the same rather obvious flaw as last time.
In this case, when I answer that I don't own a car and indicate that my only land travel is by bus and rail, the subsequent actions/pledges ask me about car related things e.g. car maintenance for efficiency, carpooling, taking train/bus instead of driving (which I already do) ... The quiz could easily skip these for anyone who ticks the don't own a car box and indicates 0 miles travelled by car.
I'm not sure I like the questions about what I'll do to reduce my transportation emissions. Most of them I can't do b/c I've already reduced as much as possible (when living in the 'burbs). Like the 'drive 25 mi a week less'. I can't do that - that's equivalent of 2 days worth of commuting to work and that's the only driving I do on a regular basis. I can't use the train more b/c I have no need to go into the city more, and I don't take many trips to be able to reduce my travel - the question about not taking 1.5 hr flights - I already don't do that!
Bzzt on the first question: my car takes compressed natural gas.
Yeah, there aren't a lot of alternative fuel vehicles, but surely adding tick boxes for CNG, biodiesel, plug-in and the like would be a nice way to remind people that they exist? Especially in a quiz where the hope is that people will make changes so they reduce their footprint!
I attempted the quiz but am on my office computer where the only web browser I have is MSIE. The site started kicking off popups every page so I had to close it. We should not support web sites which have intrusive advertising like that.