Much like Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration during the Great Depression, businesses who are environmentally friendly have begun to be labeled with "stamps of approval" of sorts, a vague and slightly off example being the "EnergyStar" label found on some electronics. A concerted effort to more standardize these approvals, along with a campaign to publicize and promote companies who put the effort into doing these sort of things would be a boon to the country and to the world. An example one can point to in history is the blue eagle symbol used by FDR's administration to signal to consumers which businesses conformed to the practices advocated by the government which included shorter work hours (so as to increase the number of jobs).

When I, for example, go to buy printer paper or what not, there are hardly any distinguishing marks between brands. What do I (and is my assumption, many consumers) look at? The price tag. Should, however, the fact be made more apparent that one brand has a large green smiley-face, say, then that would certainly weigh heavy on my purchasing consideration. One day on TV I saw a short piece on the canals of Venice, which have a seaweed problem of sorts. Some scientists were considering using the unwanted canal-clogging material as a wood-replacement in paper (with bleach to ensure the paper was no longer green). I wonder what became of that...

Another issue that comes up is that of alternative energy sources. While this is not as closely related to the rainforests as logging, it is an issue nonetheless. Though it be somewhat of a disservice to so briefly mention these, here are some alternative energy sources which have big futures(links soon to come as further research allows): * hydrogen fuel cells- already used in some buses, exhaust from these vehicles is literally water. * cold fusion- research is currently underway at many universities to replicate experiments which seem to have some sort of cold-fusion-like reaction in them. Skeptics should be reminded that at one time the transistor was thought to be as fantastical as cold fusion (and look where we are today, on computers... or with radios... or calculators... or-- the list goes on).

With something to think about, this is Vinny. Make it a good day for the rainforests...or not.