PickupPal Blog

PickupPal and the Clean Air Foundation are very excited about the government of Canada’s recent commitment to make a difference in getting old cars off the road and recycled properly. Vehicles built before 1995 produce about 19 times more air pollutants than 2004 and newer modeled cars. In fact, one-third of the vehicles driven by Canadians are responsible for two-thirds of the smog created. Canadian Federal Environment Minister John Baird said today the government will give the Toronto-based Clean Air Foundation $92 million over four years to run a national vehicle “scrappage” program - (Details Here). As a Clean Air Foundation partner we want to send out our congratulation’s to the Car Heaven Program team for all of their hard work and we look forward to being part of the solution that helps to reduce harmful air pollutants.

PickupPal was on hand at the press conference this afternoon and we took some pictures - behind the scenes.

Notes: Federal Environment Minister - Hon. John Baird announcing the Canadian governments support of the Car Heaven project and the commitment of 92 million over four years to expand the program.



Notes: Photo Ops in front of the Car Crusher!



Notes: Ian Morton (Founder & Chief Executive Officer - Summerhill Group) and myself.

Notes: O.K. we are on the move people!

Notes: Talking to the guys at Sonshine Auto Parts - “Hey man where do you get those sweet hats with the flames on them?”



Notes: Adam Elliott, Myself, Suesan Danesh from PickupPal. [Notice how I was able to score a sweet hat! - yeah man flames and all!]

The UK government is considering a carbon allowance for UK citizens to help it meet its targets for carbon reduction. Known as Personal Carbon Trading, the idea is that everyone will have their own quota so that somebody who uses too much can buy credits from someone who uses less.

Unfortunately, it’s looking as the though the UK government will abandon this idea in favour of higher taxation on motorists. Which will no doubt boost the government’s coffers, but will do little to reduce the effects of climate change.

Carbon Rationing

It’s much more progressive than taxation, it tends it re-distribute wealth from the rich to the poor. It’s transparent, it’s easy for everyone to understand. You all get the same carbon ration, if you use more than your ration you have to buy some extra from someone who’s used less. And it also contains an in-built incentive for people to think about their energy use and to think about how they’re going to stay within their carbon ration. So for instance you say: ‘Oh I better go and change my light bulbs, otherwise it’s going to cost me a lot of money’. (Source: George Monbiot on Today, BBC Radio 4)

Key to the whole concept is keeping the carbon allowances low, and lowering them further in the future. Low carbon allowances would create a more buoyant carbon market and people would have more incentive to trade their carbon with one another. So far, the UK government has been very reluctant to set hard targets on what this allowance would look like for fear of offending big business.

It’s an interesting idea, and one that works naturally with PickupPal as we calculate the amount the amount of carbon saved by PickupPal rideshare users. You can see what the overall total is on the bottom-right of our home page.

- Jonathan

I received an email today to sign a petition to put the polar bear on the US federal endangered species list. I signed it and I read on…the petition is sponsored by the We campaign (founded by Al Gore). The idea behind We is just that… “we” can make a difference. People are a force for change. We got us here, we can get us out. Yes, sign petitions for things you care about and yes, vote with your conscience. But the undercurrent of change is making personal choices to do things differently, and not necessarily a lot differently, sometimes just a little. “We” are the drops that fill the bucket.

On the We website, there is talk of turning down the heat, of turning off the lights, and of carpooling…this is what they write:

“Find a carpool buddy at least once a week. Sharing a ride to work is one of the most efficient ways to cut down on drive-time emissions. Ask around -odds are someone else is heading in the same direction already.”(source)

So say a person cannot ride with someone every day, they probably could once a week…and they could change it up, meet new people, help someone out. Because combating climate change it is as much about clean energy, renewables and leadership as it is about personal “choice”… A regular carpool may not offer enough of a choice but casual ridesharing sure does. Al Gore seems to understand that, and some people think he is a pretty smart guy.

-Suesan

With recent media attention I thought I would compile a handy list of media mentions for PickupPal.

Television:

• CBS 5 News - May 8 2008 - (PickupPal and rising gas prices)
• GlobalTV News - May 2 2008 - (Introducing PickupPal)

Blogs:

• About.com - June 24 2008 - (The Warped Tour and PickupPal are helping you get to the show - and save the environment)
• Footprint - June 23 2008 - (Calgary virgin music festival keeps it green)
• The Green Journal - June 23 2008 - (Put that thumb away)
• Going Green - June 22 2008 - (Creative Carpooling)
• Giver Culture - June 21 2008 - (Beat those Fuel Prices & Reduce Consumption)
• Uncover the Internet - June 10 2008 - (PickupPal - Connecting Drivers, Passengers and Packages)
• Tech Vibes - June 6 2008 - (PickupPal Makes Ride Sharing Easy For A Green Planet)
• Breaking News - Hub Canada - June 4 2008 - (PickupPal Picking Up the Business)
• NEWS.com.au - May 15 2008 - (Hitching a ride online)
• Virtual Economics - May 7 2008 - (PickUpPal is a great idea)
• Earth First - May 8 2008 - (New Green Carpool Service Matches You Up with Rides to Concerts)
• Mashable.com - May 7 2008 - (PickupPal Pushes Green with Carpools to Concerts)
• Clean Break - April 28 2008 - (Greentech and Web 2.0 collide with PickupPal.com)
• Hit Search - April 23 2008 - (PickupPal aims to ease congestion, cut greenhouse gases, make money)
• Mashable.com - February 6 2008 - (PickupPal is eHarmony for Hitch-Hikers)
• Mikel - January 16 2008 - (Another launch… Ride sharing 2.0)

Newspapers:

Boston Globe - June 26 2008 - (From Guster, Green Help For Rock Bands)

Pique News Magazine - June 27 2008 - (Seeing the big picture)

• Boston Herald - May 22 2008 - (Bands reduce carbon footprints - but their fans’ cars pollute)
• Toronto Star - April 28 2008 - (Buddy can you spare a ride?)
• LA Times - April 22 2008 - (It’s not too late to plan for Coachella, this weekend)
• National Post - April 27 2008 - (Stranded TTC riders have little sympathy)
• The Westerly - April 27 2008 - (Marathon goes greener with new initiatives)

Radio:

It is coming - just have to get the podcast setup.

O.K. so this has been a staggering week - on both ends of the week we were able to get some great media coverage. First it was front page of the Business Section, on Tuesday John was on a Talk Radio station for an interview and today it was a five minute segment on the morning news. The issue that has been getting us all this attention - Rising Gas Prices! Cost and the environment are two huge issues with transportation these days and we deal with both. In any event, enough of me going on about PickupPal - of course I am biased - however the one thing that I will say is that John did an awesome job on air today - live and broadcasting all across Ontario.

(NOTE: this is a super low quality version because we video grabbed it ourselves. GlobalTV is getting us a much better copy and when we get it I will put it up)

As a side note - when I asked John this morning if he was nervous he said he wasn’t once he got into the studio. As he said “once you are there sitting in the chair you don’t really have too many options you just have to go for it - it is not like you can get up and run out the door!”. Well John we are all proud of you buddy.

Cheers -Eric

Well what a week!

To kick things off we had an awesome article in the Toronto Star, (Here), front page Business Secton. A huge thanks to Tyler Hamilton for writing such a great article about PickupPal! So now that it is out there and we have seen the final product - there is a massive relief. Tyler is not some easy push over - he calls it the way he sees it and I was not sure what the article was going to be like at all before it was published. It turns out he likes what we are doing and that means a lot to us because he does not suffer fools gladly.

In any event the purpose behind this post is to showcase the craziness of making things look easy. I just had to post this picture from the photoshoot because we had to pretty much run around in traffic for 20 minutes without getting killed to get the right shot. The photographer - Bill Grimshaw - was awesome to work with. We had this shot of us almost getting hit by on coming cyclists and cars and it is totally real - John wanted me to get to the curb and I thought it would be best if I book’d it across the street to the other side. You see John and I are just a bunch of grown up kids - doing something we really love and having fun with it all.

For more press this week - John is going to be on GlobalTV at 8:30 a.m. on Friday May 2nd. They are covering PickupPal and we are excited to see how it all turns out.

Cheers - Eric