Issue #5 of the Max Gladwell newsletter was sent last week. You can subscribe to future issues by entering your email address to the right.

Max Gladwell launches new blog aimed at the issues of health in education environments.

MaxSchoolBus.com is “the nexus of health and education.” It is our second blog project, and it will cover a broad range of health issues as they relate to educational environments…such as riding school buses.

Prior to Max Gladwell, we worked on the Citizen’s School Bus initiative, which enjoyed support from Julia Roberts, in an effort to broaden awareness about the health risks of riding diesel-powered school buses. In short, diesel emissions cause asthma and cancer, and these emissions accumulate in concentrated levels inside school buses. The solution is quite simple: switch to biodiesel, which can be used in 95% of today’s school buses. It’s simply a matter of switching fuel suppliers. We also worked on legislation with California State Senator Dean Florez, though the Governor refused to sign it.

Despite the health issues, which are easily addressed with alternatives, school buses are integral to our education infrastructure. We need more school buses. They are the safest and most efficient way to transport kids to and from school. They also shuttle kids to sports and field trips, which are essential to a rounded education. So one of our missions is to address this issue by covering the topic and working on innovative solutions that will involve schools, parents, and the private sector. However, this is just the start.

For us, the school bus serves as an excellent metaphor. By integrating renewable fuels like biodiesel, together with new plug-in hybrids, the bus becomes a teacher. At the high school level, kids can even refine their own fuel from waste vegetable oil recovered from the cafeteria. The school bus becomes a symbol of change…a transport to a healthier and more sustainable future.

This same philosophy of facilitating healthier and greener learning environments while providing valuable lessons can extend throughout all aspects of our education system, from public to private and from the football team to the science team. Just as we should take a holistic approach to learning, we should take the same approach to healthy education environments. They go hand in hand. That’s the nexus of MaxSchoolBus.com.

So to paraphrase Ken Kesey, you’re either on the bus or off the bus. Which is it going to be?

Our three-month birthday calls for a bit of reflection and self-analysis.

It was on April 1st, 2008, that we decided to give life to Max Gladwell. The blog launched two days later with the Primo post:

Used properly and effectively, social media and green living are ways that we can improve our quality of life. We can stay better connected with our friends and family; we can reduce our environmental impact and live healthier lives; we can stay better informed about any issue we care about; we can support organizations or brands that we like and make our opinions heard about those we don’t; we can tailor the media to suit our needs and make discoveries about our planet and ourselves in the process; we can learn from the wisdom of the crowd and leverage the power of the long tail in this ever-flattening world.

The mission of Max Gladwell will become more clear as we explore these issues through this social media channel of choice.

The mission has, indeed, become more clear. The true “nexus of social media and green living” is embodied in our company profiles and entrepreneur interviews. This is our core space, and we love it. But they’d be pointless without the broader context of the issues, technologies, tips, and trends that define social media and green living. That’s the balance we seek to achieve.

In terms of our approach, Max Gladwell is not a breaking news blog like our friends at TechCrunch, Mashable, TreeHugger and EcoGeek. Our approach is analysis, insight, and filtration. The goal is to provide the most reasonable points of view by drawing from top sources and trying to make as much sense as possible. Rather than break news, we collect it and then boil it down. Because news doesn’t happen in a vacuum. That’s why we’re such big fans of The Economist. The most important aspect of a story is its context and relevance. What does it mean for me and you? We don’t mean that every post will have the same depth, but those that do form the backbone of Max Gladwell.

Though we don’t write about everything in the green or social media universe, we do our best to link the right headlines. This is one way we function as a filter. Toward the top of the left column, you’ll find “MG’s Shared Items.” These are hand-picked headlines, served from our Google Reader, that we’ve chosen to highlight. At last count, we had 45 different feeds generating hundreds of stories each day. The few that end up here are pretty relevant.

Below this is the top Digg stories for the environment. The social news site filters by user-generated voting, so you know that these are popular stories with good conversational content in the form of comment threads. In addition, there are green feeds from The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and The New York Times. Net, net, net: Max Gladwell can be a pretty thorough, one-stop resource.

At the top of the right column, we prominently feature the submission box for our email newsletter, which provides news not available on the blog. The RSS Feed is above that, and we hope you’ll subscribe to both.

Below it is our important links. The most important ones can be found in the “The MG Network”. These provide direct access to the numerous Max Gladwell networks, such as Facebook, MySpace, StumbleUpon, Twitter, FriendFeed, Ning, and Technorati to name a few. We encourage you to join us, as the MG conversation takes place in many venues.

As entrepreneurs and marketing professionals, we also offer social media, sustainability, and management consulting for startups, established companies, and nonprofits alike. Please forgive the shameless plug.

In three months, Max Gladwell has achieved an Alexa ranking of 172K. And our Compete ranking is 235K (see graph below). These aren’t entirely accurate but offer a general snapshot. We’ve done no paid advertising, PR, or SEO. Our success is purely a function of content and social media optimization (SMO). And by “our” we mean Max Gladwell founder Rob Reed.

Update: The second we posted this, our Alexa ranking jumped to 165K.

Get your MG News online.

If you subscribe to the bi-weekly Max Gladwell Newsletter, you’ll get it delivered directly to your Inbox. If not, you can wait a couple days and access it online. Issue #4 is ready to go. So is Issue #3.

The MG Newsletter covers the most relevant stories that affect and shape our quality of life. Subscribe now.

In this era of dear oil, every pound counts.

Anyone who’s ever flown on small aircraft knows the importance of weight. They tally both luggage and passengers, which dictates how much fuel the plane will need and probably tells the pilot a thing or two about takeoff and landing. As the price of oil climbs, airlines may want to take this into account. There could be a considerable cost difference between a 30-pound child and a 200-pound adult, yet the price of those tickets today are the same. This could also be yet another reason to address the obesity epidemic.

This photo, courtesy of Flickr, shows the American Airlines seatbelt extender. If you need one of these, perhaps you should also pay extra for the fuel it will take to haul your butt from LAX to JFK? There are families of three that don’t weigh as much as someone who needs a seatbelt extender.

What are your thoughts?

Update: There is an airline that charges by the pound called Derrie-Air. It’s $2.25/pound from Philly to LA.

Alanis Morissette partners with Mercedes-Benz and its “Mixed Tape” online music magazine for “Underneath,” the first video/single from her new album Flavors of Entanglement.

From MBUSA: Seven-time Grammy winning artist Alanis Morissette has partnered with Mercedes-Benz and its “Mixed Tape” online music magazine for “Underneath,” the first video/single from her highly anticipated new album Flavors of Entanglement (Maverick/Reprise Records). Alanis, a strong supporter of environmental causes and organizations, chose the fuel-efficient Mercedes-Benz E320 BlueTEC for the music clip.

“Making green choices on a local level is important in creating global change,” says Alanis. “I’m glad that Mercedes-Benz is introducing a great option with the new E320 BlueTEC, and thrilled to include it in the video for my new song ‘Underneath’ as it fits right in with the concept.”

In the video, which was shot in Los Angeles, Alanis is sitting at a bus stop wearing a “Save the Earth” t-shirt and distributing fliers to encourage concern for the environment. When a Mercedes-Benz E320 BlueTEC passes by, Alanis salutes the Mercedes driver in appreciation for their environmentally aware choice.

Flavors of Entanglement will go on sale in Italy and Germany on May 30, and June 2 in most other countries except Japan and United States where it will arrive on June 2 and June 10, respectively. The new video is in extra large rotation on VH-1 following its debut on May 20. In June, the “Underneath” video featuring the E320 BlueTEC sedan will appear online both at Mixed Tape, the downloadable Mercedes-Benz music magazine (www.mercedes-benz.tv/mixedtape), and at the Mercedes-Benz USA BlueTEC micro site (www.mbusa.com).

BlueTEC denotes state-of-the-art engine and exhaust technology which produces the cleanest diesels available on the market today. Utilizing this technology, the V6-powered E320 BlueTEC diesel is able to provide the powerful torque of a large V8 engine with the low fuel consumption of a four-cylinder compact. This fall, the E320 BlueTEC sedan will be joined by a trio of Mercedes-Benz SUV’s using this advanced powerplant, including ML320 BlueTEC SUV, the larger GL320 BlueTEC, and the versatile R320 BlueTEC.

Beyond their fuel efficiency, from an environmental standpoint, BlueTEC vehicles are the cleanest diesels available in the world today. Since diesels inherently burn less fuel than gasoline vehicles, they also produce significantly lower emissions of carbon dioxide (C02). Also, in BlueTEC vehicles particulate levels are reduced to levels comparable – or better than – that of gasoline-powered vehicles. Last year, the Mercedes-Benz E320 BlueTEC was named the “2007 World Green Car,” an awards program initiated, organized, and conducted by automotive journalists from around the globe.

High gas prices are penalizing everyone, but none more than those who’ve made large bets on cheap oil.

The global economy depends on one thing above all else: petroleum. It touches everything. Now that the price of oil has been pushed to nearly $140 per barrel, driven almost entirely by simple supply and demand, the pain is being felt throughout said economy.

As we were (bike) riding down Main Street the other day, a bright yellow Hummer H2 passed going the other way. And it occurred to us that, “Wow, that guy is really paying an idiot tax.” He (or she) is being penalized at a far greater rate than non-Hummer owners, and it stems directly from their own stupidity. And by stupidity, we mean shortsightedness, naivete, and a general sense of importance or invulnerability. Not only does it cost more to fill the tank, but who’s going to buy a Hummer these days? Anyone who has a recent loan is probably already under water. The depreciation has to be accelerating.

The idiot tax is not limited to individuals. Companies like General Motors, who manufacture the Hummer, are also being penalized. The company made perhaps one of the largest strategic blunders in the history of business when it discontinued the EV1 electric car and destroyed all of them. Not only was it a poor strategic move, but it cost the company dearly in brand equity from all of the bad PR. GM figured it could muscle its way around increasing efficiency (CAFE) standards with litigation and lobbying, which would enable the company to keep churning out inefficient SUVs and Hummers. After all, that’s what the market wanted. Unfortunately, while the market may never be wrong, a company that bases its strategies on the market of today can be caught with their pants down in the market of tomorrow. We hate to say it, but if GM had listened not to the market but to the US government, it might have found itself in a better position to deal with these new market conditions. Which is pretty much what Toyota did.

Toyota prepared for the CAFE standards by developing hybrid technology. The company didn’t think that it could simply bully legislators into folding. Toyota actually thought it would have to comply. This is how the Prius came into being. Indeed, it seems like we’re living the ’80s all over again.

Last week, an article in The New York Times sought to quantify what we’re calling the idiot tax. It found that a typical Ford F-250 pickup truck would cost $100,000 to own for five years.

So it makes sense to consider the full costs of ownership, which include insurance, interest, repairs, taxes and, of course, gasoline. If gas remains near $4 a gallon, as many analysts expect, a big vehicle like the F-250 will cost $100,000 for an owner who keeps it for a typical amount of time (five years) and drives it a typical amount (15,000 miles a year). The gas alone would cost about $30,000, up from about $10,000 in the 1990s.

No wonder, then, that Americans are changing their driving habits so quickly. With sales plummeting, General Motors said Tuesday that it would stop making pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles at four of its North American plants.

The company is also considering selling its Hummer brand, an emblem of the megavehicle. Rick Wagoner, G.M.’s chairman, explained the moves by saying that he thought the shift toward more efficient cars was “by and large, permanent.”

The unyielding reality is that price matters, enormously. That’s all you need to know about the car market these days.

While the F-250 costs $100,000 and a fully loaded F-150 — the better-known, smaller Ford pickup — costs about $70,000, a Ford Focus still costs less than $40,000 over five years. A Honda Civic Hybrid does, too. A Toyota Prius costs only a little more. A Subaru Outback station wagon runs $50,000 or so.

To put this in perspective, the difference between a Focus and an F-250 over five years is $60,000. The annual pretax income of a typical family in this country is also about $60,000. So choosing a F-250 over a Focus is like volunteering for a 20 percent pay cut [or to pay an idiot tax]. The relative resale values might cushion the blow a little, but not much.

“The real concern,” said Nathaniel Keohane, the head of economic policy and analysis at the Environmental Defense Fund, “should be our vulnerability to $7-a-gallon gasoline that is a function of global demand and stagnant supply.” Goldman Sachs recently suggested that $7-a-gallon gas was conceivable.

As unpleasant as it’s been, the run-up in gas prices has brought one big advantage. It has shown how flexible American consumers are — how well they can adapt to new prices without turning their lives upside down.

Last month, according to the new sales numbers released on Tuesday, the Toyota Corolla and Camry and the Honda Civic and Accord all surged past the F-series. It was the first month since December 1992 that a car — not a truck — was the country’s top-selling vehicle.

A public service announcement about the dangers of leaving children in the car on a hot day.

File this under the obvious. Why you’d leave your child in the car unattended at all is a mystery to us. But over past decade, an estimated 36 children die every year from being left in a hot car, according to a study by the National Weather Service. Most hyperthermia deaths are accidental and many parents are unaware of how dangerous it is to leave children in cars unattended – even for a short period of time. For example, when the outside temperature is 75 degrees, a vehicle’s interior can reach more than 100 degrees in a half hour.

This was produced and distributed by General Motors. We post it in part because it’s good marketing.

Email newsletters now available online

We just sent out Issue #2 of the bi-weekly (or thereabouts) MG Newsletter. You can email subscribe to the newsletter and also view them online: Issue #1 and Issue #2.

Note: There was a link error in “Dirty Air Leads to Blood Clots“. This is the right one.

Fortune magazine didn’t go so far as to publish a full green issue, but this month’s issue features a special report on green business with some excellent insights.

The roundup of stories includes solar, biofuels, recycling, transportation, fashion, wave energy, green building, carbon trading, sustainable fishing, and Coca Cola. Here are the links and a short overview:

11 Green Ideas: Entrepreneurs are risking their money to develop everything from hybrid vehicles to home solar-panel systems.

MG: While none of the 11 use social-media technologies, Sungevity employs the web in conjunction with satellite imagery to bid and plan residential solar installations for maximum efficiency and cost savings. “After rebates, a standardized Sungevity solar array for a four-bedroom home in Northern California will cost about $21,000 and deliver an estimated return on investment of 13% over the system’s 25-year life.” The service is limited to San Francisco at the moment.

Carbon finance comes of age: The cap-and-trade market for emissions – coming soon to America – is creating huge new opportunities for business.

MG: The bottom line for carbon trading in the U.S. is “that passage of the Warner-Lieberman bill would create the world’s largest carbon emissions market…with a market value of $150 billion.” Unfortunately, this market will be entrusted to many of the same people who brought you Enron and subprime. We need to put a price on carbon, no doubt. It needs to be driven by markets and regulated by government. But it’s too important for us to rely exclusively on Wall Street geniuses (no offense).

Great green careers: Earth friendly jobs aren’t just about organic farming and installing solar panels. Meet the carbon traders, eco-bankers and corporate climate strategists shaping the new green economy.

MG: Christina Page is Yahoo’s director of climate change and energy strategy. This includes “building better data centers…and installing an energy monitoring system so that every Yahoo employee knows how much energy a laptop or an entire building consumes. It also means pushing out green tips to Yahoo’s users.” As the largest social network, Yahoo! and Page have tremendous potential to affect change.

The Search for the Perfect Fuel: A U.S. company thinks it has found the next big thing in energy. Anyone for pond scum? (Not available online)

MG: This profile of GreenFuel Technologies highlights algae-based biofuels. There is tremendous long-term potential as both an energy source and a means of sequestering carbon. But the hurdles are high.