Life
The Tree Hugger Of Kansas
Simran Sethi may not need to actually go and hug trees to save them from being chopped, but she’s doing all that she can to make sure the earth remains green. She was on the Oprah Winfrey show recently, along with that famous environmentalist Al Gore, and then she was on Martha Stewart’s show, talking about green home interiors. She also oversees audio and video for TreeHugger.com, the much acclaimed site for a better environment, and is editorial director for TreeHugger TV, which recently won the Vloggie for the Best Green Vlog.
“We live in an era where most young people get their information from the internet,” says Sethi. “All major broadcasters are making a move to broadband, and TreeHugger.com has been one of the pioneers in creating green content for the web in print, video and radio.” A graduate of Smith College, Sethi has had a long career in advocating issues in various venues from PBS to MTV. She is also the anchor and scriptwriter of Ethical Markets, a PBS program on corporate social responsibility and sustainable business practices. She says the most satisfying part of her work is seeing people actually change because of what they’ve viewed. She remembers a neighbor opting to buy fair trade coffee after seeing one of the shows she hosted on PBS.
So what small effort can we make in the new year to ensure that our good ol’ planet earth stays green? Says Sethi: “Traditional or incandescent bulbs are extremely inefficient.We burn a lot of energy in using them, most of which is converted into heat rather than light. So if every household in the US changed one incandescent light bulb to a compact florescent light bulb, we would save the same amount of carbon dioxide emissions as taking 1.3 million cars off the road!”
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