Turn out the lights

Ant Hill Communications supports Earth Hour which, this year will be on Saturday March 27 at 8:30pm local time.

The annual global event organized by WWF is held on the last Saturday of March. Households and businesses are asked to do something quite simple—turn off lights for one hour in a call for action on climate change. The collective actions demonstrate what can be accomplished when working together to protect the planet for future generations. Earth Hour 2009 gained support from nearly one billion people in 4,100 cities in 87 countries and we are expecting to increase this number considerably this year.

In the U.S. where we are already feeling the impacts of climate change, Earth Hour sends a clear message that Americans care about this issue and want to turn the lights out on dirty air, dangerous dependency on foreign oil and costly climate change impacts, and make the switch to cleaner air, a strong economic future and a more secure nation.

Participation is easy. By flipping off your lights on March 27th at 8:30 p.m. local time you will be making the switch to a cleaner, more secure nation and prosperous America. View the toolkits, to find out what else you can do to get involved including leading the Earth Hour movement in your community.

Set Your Clock

On Saturday, March 27, 2010 at 8:30 p.m. local time, Earth Hour will once again cascade around the globe, from New Zealand to Hawaii

Sparking a Movement

Since its inception three years ago, Earth Hour’s non-partisan approach has captured the world’s imagination and became a global phenomenon. Nearly one billion people turned out for Earth Hour 2009 – involving 4,100 cities in 87 countries on seven continents.

Last year, 80 million Americans and 318 U.S. cities officially voted for action with their light switch, joining iconic landmarks from around the world that went dark for Earth Hour, including:

• Empire State Building
• Brooklyn Bridge
• Broadway Theater Marquees
• Las Vegas Strip
• United Nations Headquarters
• Golden Gate Bridge
• Seattle’s Space Needle
• Church of Latter-Day Saints Temple
• Gateway Arch in St. Louis
• Great Pyramids of Giza
• Acropolis and Parthenon in Athens
• Christ the Redeemer Statue in Rio de Janeiro
• St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City
• Big Ben and Houses of Parliament in London
• Elysee Palace and Eiffel Tower in Paris
• Beijing’s Birds Nest and Water Cube
• Symphony of Lights in Hong Kong
• Sydney’s Opera House

To show your support for this simple but effective demonstration of unity please click the link below:
https://www.myearthhour.org/home?invite=xHAEVdAPof

Glass Ceiling and Sticky Floor?

In the last 5 years, since CREW’s 2005 benchmark study, “Women in Commercial Real Estate”, women’s advancement to top positions (CEO, CFO, COO, board member) in commercial real estate had stagnated, or even regressed slightly. CREW’s new white paper, “Glass Ceiling or Sticky Floor – The State of Women’s Advancement in Commercial Real Estate”, examines the reasons why and offers suggestions to reverse the progress. (http://www.crewnetwork.org/RESOURCES/WhitePaper_GlassCeiling_Dec09.pdf )

Some of the interesting observations found in the paper:

• Women leaders are perceived as competent or likeable, but rarely both.
• While recent female graduates entering the industry receive 89% of the compensation their male counterparts receive, as women approach age 35 and over receive only 75% of the compensation of their male counterparts..
• Both women and men were shown to perceive “taking care” behaviors as the defining qualities of women leaders, and “taking charge” behaviors as the defining qualities of men leaders.
• In Fortune 500 companies, those with the highest representation of women board directors and women corporate officers, on average, achieve higher financial performance than those with the lowest.
• Generally, women are perceived as working fewer hours than men. Studies also show that women are generally more productive than men while working.

New Paint Smell? - Quick Get Outside

Man has been decorating their homes for over 40,000 years. Early cave dwellers, probably those who were about to give birth and had a strong urge to nest, ground natural dyes into water and painted the walls with their fingers. Not a lot has changed on the nesting side, but the paint side is a whole different story.

Although we all know about the dangers of lead in paint, it is only recently that people have begun discussing VOCs and toxins and we all throw up our arms in terror of what might be hiding in the walls and air of our homes. But don’t panic. The cure for fear is knowledge and that’s exactly what we’re providing here. So sit back and relax and get ready for ‘everything you wanted to know about paint but didn’t know what to ask!”

So let’s start with VOCs – volatile organic compounds are a broad range of natural and synthetic products that evaporate at normal conditions and enter the air. We know for a fact that VOCs are greenhouse gases and contribute to global warming and so are restricted by the Government. However, what is less known is that VOCs are also instrumental in affecting the air quality of your home and have been linked to a variety of health problems. When you paint a room and smell that new paint smell, you are actually smelling the VOCs that are being off-gassed into your air. Although the smell goes away after a while, the off-gassing can occur for up to six years after application. In fact the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found concentrations of VOCs in indoor air commonly to be two to five times greater than in outdoor air, and during certain activities, such as painting, levels of VOCs may reach 1,000 times that of the outside air.

VOCs are measured as grams per liter on the side or bottom of paint containers. The average gallon of paint contains at least 150 grams of VOCs. Many of the large paint manufacturers now offer a choice of low VOC products, and several new companies have sprung up to meet the challenge of providing safe paints. But with these options comes a choice, and many people are learning that low VOC paints may not be low enough.

A low VOC paint is qualified as containing 50 grams of VOC per liter or less. But if you consider that a gallon of paint contains 3.8 liters then a low VOC paint still contains 150 grams of VOCs. That is equal to 30 nickels of VOCs in one low VOC gallon of paint. Tinting also adds VOCs to the paint, so it is smart to remember that the coloring process for most paints increases the VOC content along with the content of its toxins.

Thankfully though, we now have a wide variety of paint options that not only contain zero VOCs but also zero toxins, even when coloring. Milk paints have been on the market for years and provide coverage without the fumes – but are often not as durable as latex paints and can have application issues. Recent breakthroughs in polymer technology have created new products that offer greater durability and coverage than toxic paints, with zero VOCs, zero toxins and huge range of colors. Although more expensive than the toxic paints, they do offer the premium quality that we expect and need for our homes, but without all the fumes, toxins and VOCs that go with it.

The best advice for choosing a low VOC paint is to read the label and ask questions. If the paint can has a warning label on the side then it probably isn’t totally zero toxin or zero VOC. And when you choose your colors, ask your paint store if the tints contain VOCs. Many of the big box stores such as Lowes and Home Depot will offer lower VOC tints, but it always best to ask how many VOCs will be added when you mix your colors. More and more independent paint and hardware stores are offering high quality paints with zero VOC tints as a way to compete with the big box stores. And although their product is a little more expensive, many of them are educated about VOCs and toxins in paint and the best choices for your needs.

Ultimately, paint is a very low cost way to completely transform a room. It is worth putting in the research and perhaps a few extra dollars, to make sure that all you get is great color – and not all the VOCs and toxins.

David Bromstad and Mythic Paint

David Bromstad continues to be the perfect spokesperson for Mythic Paint. We started working with him in August of 2008 after he had won the first Design Star on HGTV and his own star was on the rise. It was a great match as Mythic had just launched and booth David and the paint were hitting the market with a brilliant offering, gorgeous packaging and an industry changing idea. :)

David hosts store events for Mythic where he talks about his own experiences, his thoughts on color theory and answers questions on what is new and fun in the world of design. For each event we leverage his activity by hosting competitions and pitching him to TV shows and local media.

Look out for a Mythic newsletter featuring David as well as some 'how to videos' which we are filming soon. But for now, here's an article from last Sunday's Chicago Tribune promoting David's visit to Colori.