Let me start with as a kid I always loved the idea of being like the hippie treehuggers... I was a nature buff, I spent a summer digging up baby maple trees in my yard and giving them to people to plant, I ALWAYS recycle, try and use/buy recycled materials, reduce power use when possible, etc.
I think all of the ideas here are great ideas, along with many others. We as a world need to reduce the energy we use and be conscious of it. As robotics teams, immersed in technology, its a great thing for us to support.
However I want to say that Im NOT doing this in support of reducing global warming... before I decided to become an engineer, I wanted to study glaciers, and despite Al Gore's movie, glacial studies actually showed that melting and freezing (the earth warming & cooling) was natural. Its a little early for me to find all the sources I read back then, but a quick google search on "what is global warming" brought up some of the top ideas...
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...31/ai_60597890
http://www.lse.co.uk/ShowStory.asp?s...ms_documentary
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/
http://www.askquestions.org/details....ifHgodQSRmy w
But again, Im in full support of doing things for our environment, we should all do more to not be so wasteful. And in reality, I dont think there is enough evidence on either side to totally prove or disprove global warming. But as Ed points out, I think FIRST has the right idea with the Animation, and Dan points out the fuel cell competition (for which 1511 was a participating team). Lets do what we can for our environment because its the right thing, not because its the trend, or because of buzzwords.