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Do you Know:

Ice caps are white, and reflect sunlight, much of which is reflected back into space, in turn cooling Earth; but with the ice caps melting, the only reflector is the ocean. Darker colors absorb sunlight, further warming the Earth.

  Scientists blame global warming for the declining penguin population, as warmer waters and smaller ice floes force the birds to travel further to find food.

  Stressed by cyanide fishing, harbor dredging, coral mining, deforestation, coastal development, agricultural runoff, careless divers, and now global warming, there is a devastating loss of coral across the world.

  With accelerated global warming, and the ice covering melting, the earth would be absorbing more sunlight, and is on its way to becoming hotter than before.

  Due to global warming the polar ice cap in the Arctic region is shrinking and rupturing; if this continues, summers in the Arctic would become ice-free by the end of this century.

 

  Everytime we burn oil, coal and gas to generate electricity and power, we produce the heat trapping gases that cause global warming. 

    Deforestation is one of the main causes of atmospheric carbon dioxide; burning and cutting millions of acres of trees each year, it is responsible for 20-25 per cent of all carbon emissions.

  Water vapor is the most prevalent and most powerful greenhouse gas on the planet; it holds onto two-thirds of the heat trapped by all the greenhouse gases. 

  Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct!

    Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute! 

    One-third of the water used in most homes is flushed down the toilet. 

    A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

  Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.

  A modern glass bottle would take 4000 years or more to decompose -- and even longer if it's in the landfill. 

  Recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for four hours

    Energy-saving lightbulbs last around ten times longer than ordinary lightbulbs- over 10,000 hours.

    A laptop is more environment friendly than a desktop. It consumes five times less electricity.

    An aluminum can that is thrown away will still be a can 500 years from now!

  A single tree will absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime. Shade provided by trees can also reduce your air conditioning bill by 10 to 15 per cent.

    Tissue paper is a major source of waste. It takes 60,00,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world. 

    A ton of recycled paper equals or saves 17 trees in paper production.

  A plant on your desk acts as a natural filter, absorbing airborne pollutants and computer radiation while replenishing oxygen levels.

  Lawns only need watering once a week, post rain only after two weeks. Do watering early morning for minimal evaporation and water conservation.

  Crawling traffic contributes eight times as much air pollution as traffic moving at regular highway speed.  

  Avoiding just 10 miles of driving every week would eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year!

  Turn off the tap when brushing your teeth and soaping your hands. This can save around 16 litres a day. That's 11,000 litre of water per person per year.

  A dripping tap can waste over 20,000 litres of water every year.      

The Key to Online Success

Do You know how to build an Internet Business? Have you ever wondered why some go on to make a lot of money online, and others fail miserably. The key to online success is to make sure that you receive the right Internet marketing training. However with all the marketing hype, and Internet marketing strategies circulating around on the Internet, how can you be sure you are receive the right training?

Search Engine Optimization and SEO Tools

Its is common for people with no experience to come online with high hopes of working from home and creating financial freedom. With so many automated business claims on the Internet many believe that as long as you are a part of an Internet Business, then success is imminent. This belief is the number one reason that people fail online. The truth of the matter is, in order to make money online, there will be work involved and you will have a learning curve on how to market online. That is why obtaining the right Internet Marketing training is critical to your success.

Marketing strategies is the core of any Internet Business, and while many rightfully focus on the marketing strategies, it is also important to focus on the delivery of your business model. With these two very important strategies in place how can you be sure that you are receiving the right Internet Marketing Training? Below is a list to assist you in increasing your chances of success by receiving the right training and execution.

1.) Mentoring - Online Business Mentors are designed to give you Internet Marketing trainings. The key to getting the learning how to properly build, manage, and execute an Internet Marketing plan is to insure that you have the right mentor or mentoring team.

2.) Trainings - What type of training are you going to receive. How do they plan on training you. Many times a back office is used to educate business builders on the proper procedures of building an online business. While this is a great resource you are going to need more in order to learn and learn effectively. They should be running live webinar trainings, where you get to watch the trainings on your computer,giving you a visual effect on what steps need to be taken. The back office should be complete with video trainings showing people what steps they need to do. There should be more then one person holding the trainings and they should always offer numerous phone numbers for you to contact for support and questions.

3.) Marketing Strategies - This is the core of your business. Many times the reason people fail online is because they do not know how to market. Training that you get should not include buying leads but in fact how to generate you own leads. They should be teaching you free online marketing strategies. For example search engine optimization, video marketing, social media, and web 2.0 tactics. The best Internet Marketing strategies will train you on free online marketing strategies, and will not point you to paid advertising methods. Make sure that they offer you a wide variety of training on how to generate your target audience to your website.

4.) Website Development - While marketing strategies are the core of your business, at the same time it doesn't matter how many viewers see your business if your website is not designed to sell. A good Internet Marketing Training will train you on how to create a website geared to sell to your target audience. But to create a website takes time, you should make sure they are going to provide you with a high conversion website at the beginning until you learn how to create your own.

5.) Testimonials - How do you know they are training the right way? Any good Internet Marketing training will have testimonials of people they have helped. If they are really doing as they say, and helping others create solid business then they should have testimonials stating to that fact. Look for testimonials with pictures, and they should have at least ten testimonials regarding their training. If they didn't have that I would question their authenticity.

I use The SpiderWeb Marketing System to expand my network because it works wider, faster, and more effectively than any other system.

As I’m sure you have, I quickly discovered that finding leads is difficult. Finding interested leads can sometimes seem just about impossible. That’s why The SpiderWeb Marketing System is so amazing. It brings interested leads to me.

If you contact me or view the testimonials on the website, you will see that The SpiderWeb Marketing System will leave you literally overwhelmed with leads. The key is what is called the funded proposal. It uses revolutionary Internet advertising strategies to perpetuate your network and the revenue it creates, with no extra effort.

The SpiderWeb Marketing System is the hottest new, cutting-edge system in the Network Marketing Industry. It was developed by experts after years of experience in MLM. Yet, the program is easy to learn through the 22 simple step-by-step tutorial videos. And most amazingly, its totally FREE. All I had to do was visit their website and grab my free system and training videos. That’s it. Other programs offering similar systems will charge you as much as $1500 for what The SpiderWeb Marketing System provides absolutely free of charge.

I don’t hunt leads anymore. The SpiderWeb Marketing System captures them and brings them to me. I’d love to show you how to get involved. Email me or visit my link, and I’ll show you how.

Tata Motors shifts Nano plant after land row

KOLKATA - Tata Motors Ltd will move the factory for its low-cost Nano car out of West Bengal after violent protests by farmers who lost landforced it to stop construction work last month, its chairman said on Friday.

“Taking all things into account, mainly the wellbeing of our employees, the safety of our contractors and in fact our vendors also, we’vetaken the very regretful decision to move the Nano project out of West Bengal,” Ratan Tata said.Tata made the announcement after meeting state Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in Kolkata.Tata Motors, the country’s top vehicle maker, had already started looking for other locations at which to build the Nano. It has said it hoped to launch the car this month.

“We will have to make the best of the deadline that we have,” Tata said. “We are going to do everything possible to come close to the deadline we had established.”

Tata said the firm had not made a decision yet on where the Nano factory would be relocated, but was examining offers from three or four states.

“We hope we would be able to find a location that has a congenial environment,” he said. “All these issues we will announce in the next fewdays when we have a clearer picture.”

The Nano is expected to be priced at just above 100,000 rupees, and has been billed as the world’s cheapest.The company, the third-biggest carmaker in India, had planned to make 250,000 cars at the Singur plant in West Bengal initially, increasing capacity to 350,000 units.Work at the plant was nearly complete when farmers, backed by the state’s main opposition party, stepped up protests, saying they were forcedoff their land without adequate compensation.

The dispute, which came on the heels of similar protests in other states, reflects a larger standoff between industry and farmers unwilling to surrender land in a country where two-thirds of the population depends on agriculture for a living. Cost overruns caused by delays at Singur, where Tata Motors had invested about $350 million, had already raised the cost of production of the Nano, which was unveiled to a rousing reception in January and sent rivals scrambling for their own plans.

Eventual demand for the Nano was expected to be about one million units, Tata has said.

The Story Behind the Tata NANO

At Tata's Engineering Research Center, near the bucolic surroundings of the Tata Motors [Get Quote]

factory in Pune, India, there are two cars on display.

One is a complete prototype of the Nano, the $2,500 compact car Tata unveiled in January, which has all the essentials and safety features of India's higher-priced automobiles along with a sticker price that will forever change the economics of low-cost cars. The other is a neat bisection, with the car's innards clearly visible.

"Every day we invite people to come and examine the car and ask: 'How can we make more savings?'" says Tata Motors Chief Executive Ravi Kant.

That quest to build the world's cheapest car hasn't ended. The Nano should be available this fall, but the mission began back in 2003, when Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Motors and the $50 billion Tata conglomerate, set a challenge to build a "people's car."

Tata gave an engineering team, led by 32-year-old star engineer Girish Wagh, three requirements for the new vehicle: It should be low-cost, adhere to regulatory requirements, and achieve performance targets such as fuel efficiency and acceleration capacity. The design team initially came up with a vehicle which had bars instead of doors and plastic flaps to keep out the monsoon rains. It was closer to a quadricycle than a car, and the first prototype, Wagh admits candidly, "lacked punch."

Even a bigger engine, which boosted the power by nearly 20%, was still dismal. "It was an embarrassment," says Wagh.

But the failure was also the catalyst for Tata's decision to build a proper car, not an upgraded scooter on four wheels or anything flimsy or cheap-looking. "We didn't want an apology for a car," says Ravi Kant. "We were conscious of the fact that whether it was a $2,500 car or not, it ought not to have looked like a $2,500 car."

Becoming a part of history

The tale of the creation and design of the Nano is one of innovation and ingenuity, both inside and outside Tata's own organization.

First, Ratan Tata called a meeting of his top parts suppliers and, after showing them the early, earnest but flawed prototypes, asked them to help. Companies including Germany's Bosch, which makes the computer that is the heart of car's engine, were skeptical. So were local Indian players.

But Tata persisted, pointing out that not only could a company's specific developments for the Nano help to make history but they could also improve their companies' businesses and bottom lines. Soon most of Tata's traditional suppliers were on board.

Rane Group, for instance, makes a rack and pinion steering system. It focused on reducing the weight of the materials used, replacing the steel rod of the steering with a steel tube -- a major cost-reducer. Typically, the product is made of two pieces, but it was redesigned as one to save on machining and assembling costs.

According to Harish Lakshman, director of the $317 million company: "The world has seen this sort of integration of two pieces into one, but applied differently -- not for a new car, and not to reduce costs."

GKN Driveline India, a subsidiary of global auto parts leader GKN, made the driveshaft -- the component that transfers power from the engine to the wheel. The team spent a year developing 32 experimental variants to create the perfect driveshaft for the Nano. It roped in designers from the company's French and Italian operations and changed the design to make it lighter and easier to manufacture.

For the Nano's rear-wheel drive system, GKN designed a smaller diameter of shaft, which made it lighter and saved on material costs. "We thought if we were successful in this, we could dictate terms to the market, and every other car manufacturer would want to work with us," says Rajendra Ojha, chief executive of GKN Driveline India.

Taking the pulse of the project

All the suppliers have similar stories. And although none would disclose specific cost savings, most stuck to Tata's mandate to cut costs. That was, as Kant acknowledges, the biggest hurdle for the company -- "then, now, and in the future," -- particularly as the price of raw materials like steel have more than doubled in the past four years, and the company has to follow new, tighter industry regulations.

Kant, who recently led negotiations to acquire luxury auto brand Jaguar Land Rover, has little time to get involved in day-to-day details of Tata's many projects. However, with the Nano, "every cost, every component price, has to be run by me," he says.

Coordinating the vendors with Tata Motors' team was a whole new exercise in logistics. Wagh quickly realized it was necessary to bring everyone on board, "else it leads to last-minute heartache and delays."

Every morning, he would spend an hour or two on the floor of the Pune factory, insisting that everyone involved -- designers, manufacturing teams, vendor development people -- be there to accelerate decision-making and problem-solving. "We had to have the pulse of the project and know exactly where the hurdles were," Wagh remembers.

Over time, Wagh's team grew to comprise some 500 engineers, an impractically large group to gather on a daily basis. So instead, a core team of five engineers gathered every day at 3 p.m. to discuss the latest developments. Each engineer represented a different part of the car: engine and transmission, body, vehicle integration, safety and regulation, and industrial design.

Attention to detail pays off

Fitting the parts of the car together required lots of little, head-breaking details, recalls Wagh. The engine, for instance, was designed three times. Initially, Wagh thought they'd buy an off-the-shelf engine and so studied all the small-capacity engines available. They were unsuitable, so in early 2005 he decided to build his own.

The first was a 540 CC engine that, when fitted on the prototype, lacked the necessary power. So its capacity was increased by 9%, then by another 9%, before Wagh finally settled on a 623 CC engine. Then the foot pedal had to be realigned to create more legroom.

The body had to be changed because Ratan Tata, over six feet tall himself, wanted it to be easy for tall people to get in and out of the car. "Imagine the plight of the body designer -- he went through hundreds of iterations, then at the last minute the car length was increased by 100 millimeters!" Wagh says.

The attention to detail paid off: When the car rolled onto the dais at the Auto Show in New Delhi in January, and Ratan Tata stepped out of the driver's seat with ease, it made an immediate impact.

What shook the automobile world most was the fact that the designers seem to have done the impossible: The sleek, sophisticated Nano doesn't look flimsy or inexpensive. If it had been an upgraded scooter on four wheels, Tata still would have been applauded for making a family of four safer on Indian roads. The Nano, however, affords both safety and status.

"The innovation wasn't in technology," Kant recalls. "It was in a mindset change." The Nano, he adds, has put an end to all discussions of having variants of scooters or quadricycles as passenger vehicles on India's roads.

Organizational innovation

Still, the story of the Nano is not confined to its impact on the auto industry. It's a tale that illuminates the India of today -- an eager, ambitious nation with a combination of engineering talent, a desire for low costs and value, and the hunger of young managers looking to break from a hidebound corporate environment.

Indeed, the team that worked on the Nano -- on average aged between 25 and 30 -- has helped to flatten Tata Motors' stodgy, multilayered management structure, which has resulted in an unexpected side-benefit Wagh calls "organizational innovation".

Tata Motors is determined to succeed in its mission, Ravi Kant says. "We are hungry for growth -- and innovation is a by-product of that."

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