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Volunteering; a path to a stronger community, and helping the poor in the vicinity. As they say, “charity begins at home”. Yet, finding the freedom for this can be a bit tricky in its own right, and arranging what you want to do can easily eat up free time better used in actually volunteering. On the other hand you’ll have more fun volunteering with your friends from work getting involved right along with you.

This is a call, then, for companies to look to the example of firms like Adaptive Marketing LLC. As well as shopping programs like Your Savings Club (MVQ*CLUBSAVE) made for the benefit of consumers, Adaptive Marketing handles the organizational duties to give its employees more time to help the local community. Company-supported charitable work now goes beyond blood drives and once-a-year collections. To take one example, Adaptive Marketing has provided its staff members with an opportunity to help with anything from athletic shoe recycling campaigns to local tree-planting events. For these events, the times, locations and dates that had been arranged were published well in advance, making sure that employees knew what to expect, and how much time each event might specifically require from them.

Giving volunteers their say in which programs the company sponsors is important. At Adaptive Marketing, the company bringing you Your Savings Club (MVQ*CLUBSAVE), staff members are given the chance to choose from a wide variety of projects in their local area. When looking for possible projects you see so many, after all; working with children, lending a hand to green programs, or improving the area’s look through artists among others. The result is that Adaptive Marketing volunteers have the opportunity to use their time in meaningful, important ways and have fun participating in the process.

When firms urge their staff to consider volunteering at homeless shelters or local schools, it tends to be for an individual event or a regular undertaking. There will probably be people who assert they haven’t the time, but even they may be able to arrange a Saturday morning park clean-up or the public library’s sale of used books.

Providing a helping hand is a practice with a long pedigree at many firms. The activities of the employees at Adaptive Marketing create valuable good feeling around their home base. Helping around your hometown leaves you feeling a lot better about yourself — just the sort of thing to motivate staff members both in their volunteer activities and back behind their desks, too.

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In recent years the press coverage of environmental issues has increased greatly, causing commercial manufacturers to realise the benefits of having green credentials. This is driving companies to access the way they run their businesses, the buildings they work in and their carbon outputs. To address environmental issues the HVAC industry has investigated alternative solutions such as heat pump systems. These developments mean that solar power has now finally emerged as a viable way of powering, or partially powering, an air conditioning system.

The solar air conditioning units are not only limited to daylight however as the come with batteries last between twelve and twenty-four hours, which can then be recharged in the sunlight. The energy for the air conditioners comes from solar panels placed on or around the building, the panels heat up water until it evaporates, the water vapour extracts heat from the ventilation air flowing into the building thus making it cool and dry.

The air conditioning unit works using photovoltaic cells. These cells, either in banks or individually, use semiconductors to generate electricity directly from sunlight, they have only recently become more commonly manufactured due to a recent reduction in manufacturing costs and the range of cost-effective uses for solar power is growing. Universally, solar energy is being used extensively, from the illumination of road signs, to generating residential electricity. Its popularity is enhanced by schemes where excess generated electricity can be sold back to the national grid.

Solar air conditioners have no harmful effects or waste products, using water instead of other chemical coolants. They are independent of the power grid and so save energy by eliminating heat and friction produced by the wires of a conventional air conditioner. Solar air conditioners work best in sunny, dry climates, i.e. Southwestern United States or Northern Africa, however they can also be run on battery power, so can be used in wetter, cloudier climates, although as humidity tends to shorten the life of this appliance so areas of regular rainfall are not particularly practical.

In the most commercially used AC models, the photons in the sunlight hit the solar panel cells and are absorbed by silicon which is a semi-conducting material. Negatively charged electrons are then knocked loose from their atoms, which in turn facilitates flow through the material to produce electricity. This electricity enters the inverter as DC electricity. The inverter then turns this DC electricity into 240-volt AC electricity, necessary for air conditioning. The AC power enters the utility panel and is distributed to the air conditioning system. When the air conditioning is not being used, the electricity can be diverted to power other facilities, or flow into the national grid. Solar power should be seriously considered as an option, not only for air conditioning but to produce electricity all kinds of things.

Hannah Walker is the solar panels expert at EcoSwitch The environmental social network.

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In the present period the United States of America hands down is the greatest and most wealthy nation in the history of the human race. And as we look at the other players out there, well there is not even a close second. Our GDP alone is 5 times as great as the second highest nation. Our population of 300 million is the third largest in the world and we have the greatest middle class lifestyle of any civilization ever created. And our middle class is the largest in the world.

The United States has the most honest government and one of the freest and most healthy populations on the Planet. America also has the world’s most powerful military and is able to defend the nation against any enemy. The United States has one of the cleanest fresh water supplies and the best over all sewer treatment systems. It is readily apparent that the United States is at the top of this food chain for a reason.

Well, Quite Frankly, this is not good enough yet! As I am impressed with what our ancestors have achieved here, I see a lot of work to be done. And now is no time to rest on our laurels and sit in bathhouses and slap each other on the butt in celebration. No Sir, this is but Act IV of a set of books which will encompass three trilogies or nine books in all and we are not even thru the fourth act of a 26 Act play in the first book of the first trilogy. So it is time we collect all the frolickers and kick them in the ass and tell them to stop sitting on it. There is work to be done, because as good as we are and as far as we have come, quite frankly this is not good enough yet. Think on this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” – Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

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