Thank you very much for your feedback. I had opened the blog for search engines indeed and I have to say I get quite a few hits through google.

I will have a look at the SEO pack you mentioned and I might install it in the near future.

Further tips are very welcome.

Thanks again,

Carsten

I really like your blog! Nice, clearly laid out theme and very interesting articles … as far as I can judge it as a non-engineer

It is great to have some news from you and that you share your thoughts and experiences in and about China.

Well … hard to say how to increase the number of visitors. First thing I would suggest is to open it for the data hydra/octopus google (private option in WordPress) – in case you haven’t done that so far – … so that relevant searches may lead to your site. There is also a quite popular plug-in for WordPress called “All in One SEO Pack” (Search Engine Optimization). I tried it once, but as I am not working with tags it was not really of any use to me.

When linking to other pages or posts, you can also use the trackback function of WordPress, so that your post is linked (in case this function is supported by the other side) at the referenced post.

Anyway … good luck and keep on blogging!

I wish you two a Happy New Year and hope we might be able to have an olut some time not too far in the future!

Moi moi,

Holger

“For example, fruit and vegetables trucked in from Spain could actually have a lower carbon footprint than those grown in UK greenhouses which use up lots of energy for heating.”
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jun/07/food.foodanddrink)

The following links briefly introduce an initiative in Germany of nine businesses to measure the emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases related to selected products and services. The project currently discusses the methodology of how to measure the emissions together with existing international initiatives. The outcomes are expected for the end of this year…

http://www.oeko.de/press_room/press_releases/dok/804.php
http://www.thema1.de/pcf_PM_eng.pdf

I hope you will strengthen the green ideas also in China. Sounds like an interesting topic of high relevance and I am looking forward following this blog and the further development of the research center in Ningbo.

In the UK attempts have been made (I think by Tesco) to put the embedded emissions on the packages of certain products. This turned out to be quite a difficult task even with ordinary items such as potatoe chips. Obviously, the emissions from the farming of the potatoes (fertiliser, fuel for tractors etc) and processing (electricity for “chips chopping” machines) would have to be accounted for as well as transport from farm to factory to store and the electricity consumed in the stores. But what about the less obvious things? Clearly, the tractor used for farming has its own embedded emissions from the mining and transport of the iron ore to the extraction and processing of the oil for the tires. And the same is true for the factory building and the machines which process the potatoes into chips, and of course the store etc.

So clearly, if it’s that hard to calculate embedded emissions for crisps, it would be much harder for a car with hundreds of sub-contractors and parts etc.

So I guess, at the core of the issue is the question, which measures give reasonable information to buyers who want to reduce their impact (e.g. mpg) but are at the same time easy to calculate and understand.

On the downside, too simple measures inevitably also neglect potentially important factors. This became clear in the footmiles discussion in the UK when a easy-to-understand number (miles that food travelled from farm to consumer) was overemphasised over total emissions and subsequently people stopped buying fruit that had been flown in from, say, Kenya, in favour of fruit that had been grown in heated greenhouses in Britain – with much more embedded energy than the Kenyan ones.