This morning, at a press conference in Buffalo, New York, with New York Governor David Paterson and Senator Chuck Schumer, we took another big step forward in addressing climate change. We announced plans to build one of the greenest, most energy-efficient data centers in the world.

This is significant because data centers represent the majority of our energy consumption. Keeping Yahoo! running smoothly for more than 500 million people around the world calls for a lot of server power. So we’ve made it a priority to become a leader in designing and building data centers that are environmentally sustainable, investing millions to design facilities that make the best use of the energy we consume.

Here’s what makes us so proud of our future New York data center plans. First, it will be powered by one of the cleanest utilities in the country – fed predominantly by renewable hydroelectric power from Niagara Falls. And second, a record 90% of that energy will power the servers. To put that in context, the industry average is 50% or lower, with the other half dedicated mostly to keeping the servers cool.

For data center geeks, we expect our Buffalo Lockport, NY, data center design will have an annualized average PUE (power usage effectiveness) of 1.1 or better. To achieve that, we’ve come up with a unique building design that we call the Yahoo! Computing Coop (because it looks like something chickens live in), which is angled to take advantage of Buffalo’s microclimate, using 100% outside air to cool the servers.

We’ve been pushing green data center standards since we started building our own data centers two years ago. For example, our facilities in Washington are powered by zero-carbon wind and hydroelectric sources, and we use free cooling for most of the year, dropping energy consumption by 40-50%. As we build more capacity to meet demand, we’ll continue to focus on innovations and inventions that improve energy efficiency. And we’ve been sharing best practices to encourage the entire industry to put smarter policies in play.

And we’ll continue to push ourselves hard to lower our impact. Today we’re committing to reduce the carbon intensity of our data centers by at least 40% by 2014. In other words, we’ll decrease our average electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from our data centers around the world. We’ll get there through a combination of innovative data center design, improving how we utilize our servers, cloud computing, and locating our data centers in areas where cleaner energy is available.

Reducing our carbon footprint has always been a priority and we’ve decided to focus all our energy and investment on that philosophy. We will no longer purchase carbon offsets as announced in 2007. Instead, we’ll focus our resources on reducing our carbon impact while helping the rest of the industry do the same. We believe creating highly-efficient data centers will have a greater long-term, direct impact on the environment and gives us the best opportunity to play a leadership role in addressing climate change.

So the next time you check your email, do a Yahoo! search, or get the latest environmental info on Yahoo! Green, you can feel good about putting some of the greenest data centers in the industry to work.

David Filo
Co-founder and Chief Yahoo

This weekend marks the 40th anniversary of Stonewall — widely considered the birth of the modern-day LGBT civil rights movement. It’s been quite a year for Yahoo!’s tens of millions of LGBT users – as well as their countless family members, friends, and supporters.

In the last year, we’ve seen civil marriage rights for gays and lesbians both granted and subsequently taken away from Californians, while also witnessing marriage legalized in 10% of U.S. states and even more countries in Europe. We’ve also seen a further explosion in LGBT pride celebrations across the globe. This year marks the first pride celebrations in China, several countries throughout Central America, and even Tahiti. There were multiple organized events for LGBT rights in cities across India, Russia, Cuba, and nearly 100 new pride celebrations throughout Brazil. Check out the map of over 1,000 LGBT pride events across the globe at pride.yahoo.com for more info.

On the home front, we had a great time again sponsoring San Francisco’s International LGBT Film Festival this past week. In commemoration of Stonewall’s 40th birthday, we hid free Yahoo! Mail Plus and Flickr Pro packages under the seats of 40 lucky audience members at two sold-out screenings at the historic Castro Theatre. It was an amazing experience to see a packed-house of 1,400 people simultaneously shout out the classic Yahoo! yodel when the prize packages were announced. Congrats to all the winners!

However, that was just the run-up to our big giveaway this pride season. We’re excited to announce that Yahoo! is going to send two winners on a week-long trip to the 2010 Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras in beautiful Sydney, Australia, next summer (that’s February, a nice treat for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere). Mardi Gras is a spectacular citywide pride event in Sydney, and the prize-winners will arrive in time for the big parade and extravaganza. You can enter to win either online at http://pride.yahoo.com through July 1, 2009, or in person at the Yahoo! booth at the San Francisco LGBT Pride Festival this Sunday, June 28. Please come visit us near the corner of Grove and Larkin Streets on City Hall Plaza, say hi to Yahoo!, and enter for a chance to win.

Again, Yahoo! wishes you and your loved ones happy LGBT Pride 2009!

Drew Geishecker
Co-chair, Yahoo! Pride

Ten years ago, our cofounders and a group of employees gave all Yahoos a really unique way to give back to their communities – they established the Yahoo! Employee Foundation (YEF). Since then, it has generated some pretty impressive statistics:

• More than $8 million in grants to 275 nonprofit organizations;
• More than 225 passionate Yahoo! employees have successfully championed grants for their favorite nonprofit;
• At least 1 in 3 Yahoos in the U.S. have donated to YEF.

Needless to say, these figures make me proud, but they don’t tell the whole story. It doesn’t give credit to the incredible generosity and compassion of Yahoos who rallied together to raise a record $2.1 million in October 2008, just one week after the Dow took the biggest tumble in nearly a decade. This is just one instance of where, in the midst of tough times, my colleagues found it in their hearts to give back to those who were less fortunate.

YEF is unique in that it is 100% run by Yahoo! employee volunteers. Yahoos donate all of the money, champion all of the grants, and organize all volunteer activities, whether building playgrounds or renovating homes. And YEF funds projects that focus on the areas of youth and education, community building and families, and the environment which are chosen by, you guessed it, our employees. One of the best parts of YEF is that by simply donating $50, an employee can champion their favorite organization for a grant of up to $40,000. That’s powerful.

We marked our 10th anniversary milestone with events in U.S. offices from Sunnyvale to New York yesterday. These celebrations were our way of thanking the donors and volunteers who have made YEF what it is today. The Yahoo! Employee Foundation brings out the best in Yahoos, empowering us to give back and make a difference, and is a huge part of why I’m proud to work for Yahoo!.

Here’s video and photos of our thank-you event at our Sunnyvale headquarters:

Rachana Choubey
President, Yahoo! Employee Foundation Board
Sr. Product Manager, Global Front Doors

Video produced and edited by Bart Bishoff, Yahoo! Broadcast Bureau

I don’t typically look at frogs as being all that intelligent or pithy but after a few years of replacing all my light bulbs with those swirly ones and dragging my recycling bins to the curb each Tuesday night (rain or shine) now I understand and appreciate what Kermit was talking about all those years; it ain’t easy being green.

It’s not that I’m lazy or don’t care. I tell my son a hundred times a day to turn his bedroom light off when he’s not in his room, my security lights are on a timer so I don’t forget to turn them off, I’ve learned how to brush my teeth with a few drops of water, I use organic cleaners, I eat organic food, etc.

But I’ve found that there just aren’t that many useful and truly ‘green’ consumer products on the market.

I’d love to own a small hybrid car but I don’t think my wife, two kids, baby, blind black lab and a I would fit very well, even though I am on a diet. I recently found some interesting looking coasters made from recycled CD’s, but just because I think it’s cool to have a Def Leppard coaster on my coffee table doesn’t really help anything, does it?

Yahoo! Green’s Make it Green campaign (launched last month) could tangibly help change all of this by inviting regular people from around the world to submit ideas that will improve our lives and ‘green up’ our planet.

You don’t have to be a scientist to enter and you don’t have to have a patented product either. That’s because Yahoo! has teamed up with the company I work for, Edison Nation. We have tons of expertise and experience reviewing products, handling intellectual property, and partnering with manufacturers and retailers to put products onto store shelves.

If your idea is selected, you will earn $2,500, a share of sales for up to twenty years and possibly be featured on PBS’ Emmy award winning invention show Everyday Edisons.

So if you think you have a great green idea, don’t delay — Make it Green ends June 30th!

Kermit and the planet thank you.

Michael Cable
Director, Edison Nation

Douglas Crockford performs tests on human subjects. He likes to make them struggle and then learn from their experience. But it’s all for a good cause.

Douglas is Yahoo!’s resident JavaScript software architect. He has literally written the book on the coding language and his job involves training engineers at Yahoo! and industry-wide to use the code effectively. But he’s long lamented that there isn’t a good reference book for beginners. So he decided to take matters into his own hands and write it himself. But he quickly faced the dilemma of every expert – trying to think like a beginner.

Enter Mountain View High School.

Douglas decided that teaching a course in the principles of computer programming could prove mutually beneficial. So as a school volunteer, he worked with administrators to recruit a handful of willing students (mostly seniors) whose only prerequisite was experience in calculus. For most, this was their first exposure to software. Before long, they were thrown into the deep end of the pool to learn about values, variables, functions, recursion and other complexities of programming. By the end of the 12 weeks, the kids had conquered the basics and Douglas had experienced JavaScript through the eyes of a novice. Everybody won.

Now, this group may not have been statistically significant –- kids growing up in the Silicon Valley get plenty of exposure to technology, thanks to parents who often work at industry giants. And these students are headed to hallowed institutions like Cal Poly, Northwestern, and UC Berkeley to chase engineering degrees. But, nonetheless, they taught Douglas a lot about how to learn.

When Douglas sets off to write the book, I’m sure you’ll find some 17-year-olds in the acknowledgments. Also to be acknowledged are Mountain View High School Principal Keith Moody (also, incidentally, a former Raider defensive back) and teacher Madeline Miraglia, who made Douglas’ volunteer project possible.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Stephen Colbert doesn’t shave his head for just anybody. But sometimes that’s what it takes to get attention for a worthy cause.

This week, Comedy Central’s Colbert Report is broadcasting from Baghdad’s Camp Victory in support of U.S. troops serving in Iraq. In a show of solidarity, he’s now sporting a high-and-tight haircut. But he’s also putting the spotlight on a different part of the military –- the children who make great sacrifices of their own while their parents serve our country.

That’s where my organization, DonorsChoose.org, comes in. Together we hope to give these kids a leg up. I founded DonorsChoose.org nine years ago after witnessing the scarcity of materials in our country’s public schools, I never could have imagined the extent to which American citizen philanthropists have responded. In that time, we’ve raised over $34 million for public school classroom projects around the country.

As part of our “Support Our Troops” campaign, launched in partnership with Colbert, DonorsChoose.org is running a friendly competition among the Armed Forces –- Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy and Coast Guard — to see which branch’s supporters can have the biggest impact on classrooms. As of today, we have raised more than $130,000, and the Army is barely hanging on to the lead (check out the leaderboard as the tension builds in real-time).

Literally hundreds of projects have been submitted by teachers at military-serving schools across the country. Just a couple to inspire you:

1. Say Sí to the Army!
2. From A to Bravo Zulu!
3. Military Students Travel the World - Through Books!
4. General Lee’s Black Bears

I’d also like to give a shout out to Yahoo! for creating the Colbert Avatars. Now you can dress yourself as Stephen Colbert and accessorize with things like an eagle, bear, Colbert Nation hat, Che Colbert tshirt, fireplace, and a desk, and help us spread the word about the Support Our Troops campaign.

The good news is you don’t have to shave your head to help. Just please go donate to one of the many classroom projects waiting for funding. And if you need further inspiration, check out the video clips from this week’s Colbert Report.

Charles Best
Founder and CEO, DonorsChoose.org

Abebe Gellaw, the 2008-09 Yahoo! International Fellow at Stanford this year, is an example of how one person with a great idea can make a difference.

Abebe is an Ethiopian journalist, but the regime in his home country is too repressive to allow true journalism, so he is in exile. He had been in London for years before coming to the U.S. as the Yahoo! International Journalism Fellow at Stanford.

The Yahoo! fellowship was specifically established for people like Abebe, journalists from countries where there are strong challenges to a free press. Yahoo! and the Knight Fellowships agreed that supporting journalists who were directly or indirectly under attack should be at the top of the to-do list, and so we created the Yahoo! Fellowship in 2006, with a generous gift from Yahoo!.

Abebe is the third Yahoo! Fellow, following Imtiaz Ali, from Pakistan, and Violet Gonda, of Zimbabwe. Like Abebe, Violet was in exile, too. Abebe’s great idea is Addis Voice, a London-based website devoted to independent news about Ethiopia. It has become a trusted source of news and commentary for the Ethiopian diaspora. Here’s an interview with Abebe:

Abebe’s fellowship is ending, and we are ready to welcome Nadia Trinidad of the Philippines, one of the deadliest countries for journalists in the world. Nadia is a senior correspondent for ABS-CBN Brooadcasting Company in Manila. She will study the psychological and sociological aspects of corruption in the media. She will arrive in August.

Journalists are under attack around the world, and organizations like the Committee To Protect Journalists make sure that those attacks are brought to light. It makes me feel proud that the Knight Fellowships and Yahoo! have teamed up to provide a fellowship at Stanford every year for someone who is bearing the brunt of those attacks.

Jim Bettinger
Director, John S. Knight Fellowship for Professional Journalists
Stanford University

Filmed and edited by Bart Bishoff, Yahoo! Broadcast Bureau

I wish there were a bin that just magically sorted my recycling. Or a way to convert my car into a hybrid that isn’t complicated or expensive. Or maybe a garage door opener that turns off all the power in my house when I leave.

If anyone out there has created these solutions, or has other green ideas that can improve our lives while helping the planet, we want to hear about them. We just launched Make It Green, a campaign to find the best new “green” products and do-it-yourself projects from everyday people. Make It Green is the newest addition to Yahoo! Green, the # 1 green site on the Web (Comscore, April 2009).

The best ideas will be brought to market as real products on store shelves, earning you $2,500 and a share of the sales. Plus, you could be on the PBS TV show Everyday Edisons. If you don’t have an idea (yet), you can give the “thumbs up” to your favorites to help us determine which ideas will be selected to go to market.

Some of my favorite ideas that have already been submitted include ultrasonic mosquito repellant, a solar clothes dryer, and a hybrid hair dryer. Check out the idea gallery to see other innovations. Who knows, you might get inspired enough to submit an idea of your own.

To take these products to market, we’ve partnered with Edison Nation. They have tons of expertise and experience reviewing products, handling intellectual property, and partnering with retailers to put the products onto store shelves. That’s why there’s a $10 submission fee – to help offset some of the cost of doing all that review.

We’ll also be showcasing some of the great green ideas at Maker Faire in San Mateo, CA, on May 30 and 31. The do-it-yourself community has been hacking solutions to everyday problems with everyday materials, so we’re excited to learn about those ideas, too.

With more than 500 million users, we know there’s phenomenal creativity and innovation out there. Whether you’re submitting an idea or just voting on one, we want to get great ideas in front of the right people to make a difference. So get busy – the program ends on June 30.

Oh, and by the way, our lawyers also want to make sure you understand that terms and conditions apply – see the Official Innovator Agreement (PDF) for details.

Erin Carlson
Director, Yahoo! For Good

Nothing brings a concept home to a kid like a movie. That’s why during Earth Week, we sent the entire 4th and 5th grades at San Francisco’s McKinley Elementary School to a screening of the Disney documentary “Earth.” Part of our Purple Acts of Kindness program, which aims to surprise and delight our local communities with random acts of generosity, this field trip was designed to do one thing – transport children from their urban environment to various corners of our fragile planet.

Before boarding buses wearing Yahoo! hats, the students spent the morning studying the movie’s instructional materials and concepts like animal families, habitats, migration, and hibernation.

With its stunning cinematography, the film’s message is clear. According to the teachers, “After the movie, some students expressed their sadness about the cycle of life, especially when the polar bear had a very hard time walking on almost melted ice, the elephants couldn’t find water for weeks, and the whale almost got eaten by the shark.”

As you can see from the video below, McKinley Elementary kids are already conscious of how their actions impact the Earth, but you can bet that recycling and conservation by nine- and ten-year-olds got a little boost. And parents are probably getting schooled, too.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Photo from wablao

As the head of Yahoo! Green, I see all sorts of odd stories related to helping the planet – world naked bike rides, homes made of recycled shipping containers, and even a Buddhist temple made of beer bottles. But they’re also great anecdotes that can help us feel optimistic about where this world is heading, especially amid the dreary economic news.

With all this recession obsession, we wondered whether people would focus on the other kind of green this Earth Day (which is tomorrow). That’s why we decided to take on the common misconception that being green costs more.

Our Earth Day site this year focuses on how you can save money by being green at home. We’ve created an interactive house tour with tips for each room. Some of my favorites include:

• Adjust the brightness of your TV to the “home” energy setting, and your favorite shows will use 30% less energy;
• Borrow designer handbags and jewelry from Bag Borrow or Steal, instead of buying new;
• Try cleaning products that are safe enough you can eat them.

We also have buying guides so you can choose the best cleaning products, water filters, and energy efficiency products for an affordable price. We know everyone is at a different point on their path toward green, so we have easy tips, more intermediate ideas, or even tips for the greenest among you. We also dissect those classic “what’s greener?” choices – you might be surprised that it doesn’t matter whether you use paper or plastic (though reusable is always best) or cloth or disposable diapers.

Every year our employees get caught up in the Earth Day celebration, too. In the past, we’ve watched our founders sumo wrestle after we reduced our resource use, and we hosted a reuse fair where people could swap stuff they no longer wanted. This year we’re playing “Tag, you’re green” in five offices across the country. If employees are spotted taking green actions (reusable mug, vegetarian meal, riding the train, taking the stairs), they’ll receive small prizes.

And finally a shout out to you for making Yahoo! Green the #1 green site (Comscore, March 2009) – you know that Earth Day is every day. I’m off to go unplug some energy vampires… and keep more green in my wallet. What’s your plan?

Erin Carlson
Director, Yahoo! For Good

Photo from noticelj