|
IN THIS ISSUE |
Member Alert
In The News
Top Story
Partners
Washington Watch
|
 |
|
Member Alert |
Need Guidance?
Some Folks Recommend Talking To A Bartender Or Joining A Religion
We Prefer BWC's Hotel Guidebooks
Spring is here! Are you prepared for the upcoming travel season? To take advantage of car rental and hotel discounts please submit a request for our hotel guidebook. The form is in your member handbook on
pages 6 and 7. Please send us an
email if you cannot locate the form.
If you're planning a trip, you might need to order a map. Please keep in mind that we need two weeks to process map orders and trip routing requests. You may submit requests via phone, email, or fax. A copy of the order form can be
found
on our website. |
|
|
|
In The News |
BWC President Mitch Rofsky is Interviewed by sustainlane
Interview Highlight: Mitch Jumps Up and Down on a Couch and Professes his Love for Carbon Offsets
How does Better World Club compete against AAA? An interview with Mitch Rofsky, Better World Club's President and co-founder.
Virtually everything AAA does, Better World Club does with a green spin. Travel discounts at major hotel chains across the country as well as on eco-travel trips. Car rental discounts and up to 15% off on hybrids and biodiesel rentals.
Roadside assistance with discounts on membership fees for drivers of hybrids. And following the likes of Working Assets, 1% of annual revenues are donated to nonprofits working toward environmental clean-up and advocacy. President and
co-founder Mitchell Rofsky talked to us about the only environmental auto club in the United States.
Why did you start Better World Club?
I'd been managing the Working Assets Mutual Fund when the Board of Directors sold the company. There'd been an explosion of socially screened mutual funds, so I decided to apply the concept to insurance. Within a year or two, the
environmental community came to me and said, AAA is part of the highway lobby, can you help us fight them politically? And I said, maybe we can compete with AAA.
Why did you go after AAA's market?
For one thing, they don't tell their members what they're doing, politically. You can read a lot of their magazines and not have any idea that they opposed the Clean Air Act and mass transit funding in the past and bike paths and
greenhouse gas regulations today.
That must create some challenges for you.
AAA's image is fairly positive. Since nobody knows about their anti-environmental lobbying, we have to find a way to talk about it without focusing our marketing only on the negative. We feel we have to let people know, to a certain
extent, what AAA's track record is. Finding that balance is one of our major challenges. We try to do it in a light way.
How do you keep it light?
We try to have fun with everything we do. Take a look at our enewsletters. One of our newsletters, Kicking Asphalt, was labeled The Onion of corporate newsletters.
Complete Story
***
Learn more about the people brave enough to interview Mitch at
www.SustainLane.com.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Top Story |
We've Always Thought Of Ourselves As Rock Stars, So It Only Made Sense That We Go On Tour
Announcing BWC's Earth Day Tour 2007: Come See Us in Chicago, Portland, Seattle
Come See Our Brochures in Washington DC, Ohio, Oregon, and Massachusetts
Our Brochures Like to Travel, So Let Us Know If You'd Like Some
Earth Day is a busy time for us here at Better World Club, and leading up to it, the office is a flurry of activity (not unlike Mel Gibson's kitchen as he prepares for Passover).
This year, various BWC staffers will be hitting the road and running booths at
Green Festival in Chicago (April 21st-22nd) and the
Portland, Oregon Earth Day Celebration.
We're also mailing out Better World Club brochures to Earth Day events in Washington DC, Enon, OH,
Eugene, OR, and Gardner, MA. Please
send us an email if you would like us to send BWC brochures to an Earth Day event in your area.
Complete Story
‘Kicking Asphalt' Is Going Bi-Weekly!
Readers Can Now Enjoy Our Mostly-Errer-Free Newsletter Twice As Often
We at BWC (and some of our readers) have noticed that Kicking Asphalt has, over time, been slowly growing larger and more unwieldy (like Russell Crowe's ego). In order to make KA less cluttered but still provide a
wide variety of content, we've decided to slim it down and run it more often. So, instead of one huge enewsletter once a month, we will be producing two good-sized enewsletters twice a month. We're also opening a couple of girls' schools
in South Africa*.
Complete Story
[*Okay, this was Oprah, not us. However, Better World Club has paid to have cleaner, more efficient boilers installed in American schools.] |
|
|
Partners |
 All The Fun Of A Protest March, But Without The Pepper Spray
Step It Up 2007
This April 14th, tens of thousands of Americans will gather all across the country at meaningful, iconic places to call for action on climate change. We will hike, bike, climb, walk, swim, kayak, canoe, or
simply sit or stand with banners of our call to action: "STEP IT UP CONGRESS! CUT CARBON 80% BY 2050."
Better World Club is proud to be one of Step It Up 2007's allies. You can go to
Step It Up 2007's official website to start or join an action.
|
|
Enviroculture |  What Can You Do In Two
Minutes?*
The Green World Film Contest Is Accepting Submissions
If you had just two minutes to show someone what to see, feel and imagine about the future of our world and its resources, what would you do?
Get your message out to the world by participating in the GreenWorld Contest and get discovered as a powerful new talent. The winner will receive a $1,000 cash prize and have their work featured at our GreenWorld Celebration on May 9
during the 50th San Francisco International Film Festival.
Learn more.
[*We decided to take the moral high road on this one and not make any obvious sex jokes with this headline. We invite devotees who are disappointed with this unusual show of good taste to make up their own.]
|
|
TravelCool |
 Member Specials
INN SERENDIPITY
BWC Members Receive 10% Discount On Their Stay
Completely powered by the wind and sun, and recognized as one of the "top 10 eco-destinations in North America" by Natural Home and featured in USA Today, ABC News and the New York Times, the award-winning Inn Serendipity Bed
and Breakfast in southwestern Wisconsin, is also the setting for innkeeper-authors' book, RURAL RENAISSANCE, about their journey to live and operate their business in a way that is both fossil-fuel free and climate neutral. Two guest
rooms, starting at $105/night, double occupancy. Read the
Complete Story or go to
InnSerendipity.com for more.
Need To Get Out Of Town In A Hurry?
Try Our Spiffy New Booking Engine
TravelCool Website of the Month:
SeatGuru.com is the ultimate source for airplane seating, in-flight amenities and airline information. |
|
|
|
|
Washington Watch |
BWC Members Support Al Gore As He Testifies Before Congress
He Didn't Even Bring Us Back Any Souvenirs.
Is A Shot Glass Shaped Like The Washington Monument That Much To Ask For?
Oil State Senators Are Equally Disappointed With Gore Statements on Global Warming
Based on Associated Press reports.
Two weeks ago, Better World Club asked readers of its monthly action alert, Driving Change, to go to Al Gore's website and fill out postcards that would be personally delivered to Congress by the former VP. Wednesday, March 21st, Gore
marched to Capital Hill with 519,414 signatures, urging Congress to take immediate action to solve the global climate crisis. 1,500 of those signatures came from readers of Driving Change.
Although Gore testified that the issue should not be partisan or political, he faced a skeptical reception from Republicans who questioned his personal commitment to reducing energy usage and the science behind his film. Nearly all of the
skeptics are representatives of oil producing states.
"You're not just off a little, you're totally wrong," said Texas Rep. Joe Barton, the leading Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, as he challenged Gore's conclusion that carbon dioxide emissions cause rising global
temperatures. Barton and Gore's exchange grew testy at one point - Barton demanding that Gore get to the point and Gore responding that he would like time to answer without being interrupted.
Complete Story
We at BWC would like to thank all of those who read Driving Change and participated in Al's postcard campaign. If you've never read DC, you can check out archived issues or sign up to receive it
here.
The Dirty Secret About Clean Cars
Automakers Push Flex-Fuel Vehicles, Reject Efficiency Standards
President Bush enjoyed a high-profile photo-op Monday with the heads of the Big Three automakers and their latest clean-car models. The impressive lineup included a General Motors model that can run on
ethanol, a plug-in Ford powered by hydrogen, and a DaimlerChrysler Jeep filled with a biodiesel blend.
It was smiles all around as the automakers announced they would make half of America's vehicles ethanol-ready by 2012. "If you want to reduce gasoline usagelike I believe we need to do so for national-security reasons as well as for
environmental concernsthe consumer has got to be in a position to make a rational choice," said a beaming Bush.
But there's a dirty secret about clean cars. The policies for flexible-fuel vehiclesthose that can run on mixtures of gasoline and more than 10 percent ethanol are written in such a way that they result in a number of unintended
consequences. One result is that automakers gain some leeway in meeting fuel-economy standards if they produce flexible-fuel cars and trucks. So Detroit's automakers have been pumping out hundreds of thousands of the vehicles, even though
most consumers have no access to alternative fuels because they're available at only a fraction of U.S. gas stations.
Here's why that's an issue. Automakers need to meet certain government standards for the fuel economy of their fleets.
Complete Story
More Washington Watch in Driving Change:
- Auto Execs Make Tobacco Chiefs Look Almost Visionary
- Interior Dept. Energy Leases Prompt a Suit |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
