Roundup: GE Earth Rewards Card & Al Gore’s Nobel Half-Prize
| by Jim Wang |  Print Article
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I learned two environmentally friendly things today: 1) GE Earth Rewards card is the latest “theme” card in which instead of getting 1% cash back, it’s donated to an environmentally friendly cause, and; 2) Al Gore won half of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize (sharing it with the Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change).
GE Earth Rewards Card – So how it works is that you “earn” 1% on all your purchases and then you can donate either half of it or all of it to environmentally focused charities that are working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This card will not directly benefit you personally, since you can at most get up to 0.5% cashback and 1.0% cashback is the minimum standard nowadays. However, what you do get is the warm fuzzy feeling of reducing greenhouse gases and saving the Earth. I won’t be personally getting the card but there are plenty of things regular cardholders can do to reduce waste and greenhouse gases such as going paperless (paperless statements, direct debit payments, opt out of mailings) even if you don’t get a credit card to do it.
Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Half-Prize – There’s been a lot of complaining from folks saying this was a political thing and how he doesn’t deserve it; I think that’s a bunch of crap. How many people are now more aware of climate change because of An Inconvenient Truth? I know several people who used to laugh at me and my fiancee collecting recyclables but now, after watching the movie, have started recycling themselves. That’s powerful and laudable and I’m glad he won half. He’s donating it all to the Alliance for Climate Protection.
- Nickel makes sense of tax efficient money funds.
- Flexo gives an update on the financial literacy challenge. I personally put a hundred bucks towards the Washington D.C. Lenny’s Loot because I saw it on Mapgirl’s blog so lend your support! (To be totally honest, I donated in part because she supported me when I called out for support for the Make A Wish Ghent Bar Tour).
- JLP is buying a new TV and needs some advice.
- JD has some clever ideas for saving money at swanky restaurants.
- NCN finangled a free Sirius satellite radio receiver!
- MBH tackles coupled finances and looks at whether you should keep accounts together or separate.
- FMF shares an interesting tip: those who show up at a hotel the day of can often pay less than those with reservations. Advice? Don’t make a hotel reservation!
- Lazy Man resigned from his job and may consider blogging full time! And in complement, Ben writes about whether losing your job could mean finding happiness.
- Golbguru keeps the plastic on all of his stuff until the very last moment, it’s something I, and a lot of other people, do too.
- If you want to measure performance, it’s important to measure it against the right benchmark!
- Earn six figures online, gauranteed!, haha, nice SVB.
- Sun shares with us Kiplinger’s Best list.
- The September foreclosure numbers, despite being down, are still scary.
- It’s important to remember inflation when planning retirement!
- Renters are 50% more likely to be burglarized but only 43% have insurance. Bad math.
- I’ve started a nascent Balance Transfer Arbitrage blog that I’ll start putting arbitrage tips at. If you have some good ideas as to what you want me to write about, please let me know and I’ll gladly oblige!
- Lastly, this past week’s daily freebies at Daily Gratis have been pretty good, if I do say so myself. One freebie every single day, I won’t let you down! Tonight you can rent a movie from RedBox for free.
 By Jim |
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Oct 13, 2007 | Read more in Personal Finance
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I also enjoyed An Inconvenient Truth (if enjoy is the right word), but honestly, it has nothing to do with peace. Seriously, how do opening up the world’s eyes to the plight of the environment compare to ending global or even local conflict?
Really, it’s like a baseball star winning the Super Bowl MVP. I agree that Gore is qualified for a Nobel Prize, but give him one in science, not THE peace prize!
Clever Dude: Read this.
Staving off global climate change will stave off massive conflict. And the opposite of conflict is peace. Actually, the cow is really out of the barn on climate change; we’re really entering the damage control phase right now. But the point still stands.
A science award wouldn’t make sense since he hasn’t personally made major scientific contributions in this area. Rather, he has worked to raise awareness. The Peace prize makes perfect sense.
Jim,
You’re entitled to your opinion but I think Gore is a putz and giving him a Nobel is a joke.
I heard if you don’t get this credit card, they club a oil soaked seal.
Funny how when Al Gore was in a position to actually make environment changes, we had some of the worst regulation of our time.
It’s ok to contribute quid pro quo. I’ll take the donation! Thanks Jim!
I have nothing against him raising awareness of global warming. It’s something that we all need to be aware of as we go through our daily lives. However, was it worth the Nobel Peace Prize? No.
considering the science in the movie is off, he shouldn’t be eligible for the Nobel in science either. giving someone a peace prize for environment with such a huge carbon footprint is ridiculous. it was completely political as were his emmy and oscar. there are far more deserving people for the peace prize, this was ridiculous.
Anonymous, staving off human population growth would also stave off the aforementioned catastrophes, too. global warming is the topic du jour, so the article argues based on that viewpoint. The flip side of it is population growth, not building cities in hurricane allies or in swamps, etc. etc.
i’m all for the environment, because i hate having to walk through trash.
this is a bad idea. promote buying more crap in the guise of saving the environment. what happens to all the excess consumer waste that we buy and how the crap is made. nice. moreover, we are saying hey, buy more crap so other companies/countries can buy carbon credits so they can pollute more. does anyone think this is a good idea except GE Money? oh, 32.24% default rate.
oh, and i wonder if the credit cards are made out of recycled material..probably not, otherwise they would have mentioned it.
oh, not to mention that the emission reduction partners in the program are GE companies. nice way to give back to the GE..i mean to the environment.
Feeling feisty today eh Tim?
no, just couldn’t think of everything at once and there is no edit feature