Jun 06

The Disturbing State of Oil Production

The Ends - and how they are justified, Uncategorized No Comments »

The ongoing calamity in the Gulf of Mexico is disturbing in so many ways.

1- The inability of BP to effectively stop the leak one mile under water. I trusted the oil industry to take great care in exploiting the bounty of resources the Earth has available for human consumption.

2- Our  government’s inability (or disinterest?) to hold BP accountable and force BP to perform real, effective and immediate action to stop the leak. I too trusted our government to have the public’s best interest at heart in permitting oil companies to pull oil from ever more remote areas of this country.

3- The loss of so many families livelihoods in the fishing industry and in a growing number of communities-  the tourism/vacation industry. These livelihoods are in congruence with the values of protecting the ecosystems and environment.

4- The unknown and long term consequences of millions of gallons of oil and gas being released into the marine ecosystem. Make no mistake, BP nor our government is going to clean up the millions of gallons of oil and gas escaping into the marine environment.

5- The probable inability to do anything about the millions of gallons of gas and oil that have and will reportedly continue to escape into the marine ecosystem that DON’T make it to shore OR don’t make it to the surface of the ocean.

What seems obvious to me from absorbing the media attention to the leak is as BP has been incompetent in stopping the leak, there technical ability or interest at this point is to capture a small percentage of water free oil from the leaking wellhead and pump it to a tanker.  The last 7 weeks has shown us they are clearly unable to cap the wellhead. This proves to me there has been no engineering effort THAT HAS BEEN REQUIRED TO BE TAKEN to protect our ocean and shorelines from failures of deployed technology 1 mile beneath the ocean surface. This is morally apprehensible. It indicates a blatant disrespect for me as a consumer and citizen as well as for everyone else that shares a worldview expecting industries that exploit our natural resources to do so with the utmost care and respect for the ecosystems from which they operate in.

I have thought of many ways to capture all the oil that is escaping. My focus on capturing the oil and gas is focused on encapsulating all the oil and gas and surrounding water using a mylar type synthetic wrapper to guide the oil and contain it as it rises to the surface. The assumption I have is it is not possible to fully cap the crippled wellhead. If oil is going to escape, contain it so it doesn’t make it’s way into the marine environment and guide its movement to the surface inside a pliable and very strong material probably reinforced by metal wire that is secured to the sea floor and rises the full mile to the surface. All the contained material can then be REMOVED from the ocean by pumping into tankers. The unintended consequences of this are probably many- and not being an expert I am sure this idea has many flaws. The cost is probably exorbitant to do this. Charge me more money for gasoline if you have  to because it is the right thing to do.

What is different between my point of view and that of the oil industry and their supporters is how they view the world and what is acceptable and not acceptable in taking resources we should be using more wisely than we are for the sake of our children’s children. For them it is a business and therefore it is just about the money. Their PR firms can attempt to tell me otherwise, but I and many others can’t be fooled.  For me, it is about HOW they go about exploited our planet for the benefit of all- not just for the dividends and returns for their shareholders. In situations like this, the true colors, motivations and values of a company come to light. My move has been to never give BP  a dime because of how they disregard valuing HOW they do what they do. Your move BP (Bellowing Petroleum).

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Feb 16

Is It Time To REThink Our Man Made World?

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The REThink Project

I wonder a great deal. I wonder why are things the way they are? What forces at play make things the way they are? Why can’t they be different, why can’t things be better?

We stand on the shoulders of all those that came before us. The way we live, the lifestyle we have, what is possible and what is not possible is a construct of what we believe. What we believe to be true, not true and what we think is possible and not possible is the reality we forge.

The world I live in today, in Upstate New York, United States of America, in the beginning of the second decade of the 21st Century is chock full of man made systems. Systems of roads and bridges to transport me, my family and all the stuff I consume. Systems of power plants and electric transmission wires to produce and deliver the electricity I use to take for granted. These are man made systems that allow for our material success in the material world. There are also grander, more powerful natural systems that generate and sustain the life support systems for all life on this magnificent planet.

I read Einstein’s words in many places now-a-days that “we can’t solve a problem with the same level of consciousness that created it.” Consciousness in this regard is thought. To move forward, we must transcend. The same is true with the saying “if you keep doing what you have done, you will keep getting what you got.” Not sure who said that one but it is in the same vein as Einstein’s words. There is also, “continuing to do the same things expecting different results is the definition of insanity.”

So many of us want so much to live in greater harmony with natural systems. By learning from natural systems and working to mimic them, we move forward on the path to sustainability.

The world I live in is rooted in man made systems. These systems were devised decades and even a century or more ago. When these systems were devised, the level of consciousness was not where it is today. Everything has unintended consequences. That is the basis of what Einstein was talking about for what you can’t perceive, doesn’t exist – it is not comprehendible. It is only when you change your thinking that you may begin to perceive it. That change in perception ushers in the ability, or context, to perceive and then comprehend. It is by transcending the current level of thought that you expand into a new, higher level of thought. One in which solutions to problems can be had.

It is in this vein that I bring to you, REThink. REThink is a duel purpose word. REThink is to re-think- or take another look at a topic, issue, problem or solution in a new context, within a new paradigm, or through a new lens or different worldview. RE is an acronym for Renewable Energy. So the second meaning is Renewable Energy Thinking – comprehending renewable energy under new constructs, different paradigms or with a worldview that values all life, believes in human ingenuity to solve complex problems that moves the human experience forward and upward.

Our existence is by design, but our continued success it is not a foregone conclusion. Our ability to survive and prosper is not guaranteed. Our past actions create our current results which affect our current situation that place before us a set of choices we believe are within our ability to take. This is true individually and collectively.

I believe we are stuck. Our paradigms have gotten us so far in this experiment of life on Earth. To many, nothing is wrong. To others what is wrong is the desire of people like myself who are passionate about the need for change, for expansion, for renewal and considerable rethinking of the man made systems that have been created for they have reached limits. They don’t comprehend the limits that I see all too readily. They are staring me straight in the face encouraging me to act.

Here are a few areas ripe for REThinking:

REThink Energy

REThink Fossil Fuels

REThink Efficiency

REThink Nature

REThink Wetlands

REThink Water

REThink Transportation

REThink Housing

REThink Consumption

REThink Agriculture

REThink Consciousness

REThink Spirituality

REThink Community

REThink Business

REThink Hot Water

REThink Refrigeration

REThink Heating, Cooling and Ventilation

REThink Cooking

REThink Cleaning

REThink Electricity

REThink Building

REThink Everything

I will dive into each one and more, putting the topic through a lens of REThinking the topic. What underlying assumptions may not be valid any longer? The lens will be a different worldview than the one that originally perceived the topic or is at the mainstream today about the topic. What topics are you interested in REThinking?

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Feb 07

Climate Change…. Entertaining?

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I’m a big fan of Dave Matthews Band. Funny thing is I listen to music often but don’t really listen, if you know what I mean. I was in my car, listening to Dive-In, from Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King.  This was probably the one-hundredth time listening to this song.  This time I had a light bulb go off in my head after hearing “I think the suns a little brighter today.. Smile and watch the icicles melt away and see the water rising…”

HEY- Dave’s singing about global warming!!!  Ah… Duh. No kidding you say.

Sometimes I am slow (really slow) on the uptake.

Dave Matthews Band – Dive In (Lyrics)

I saw a man on the side of the road

with a sign that read ‘will work for food’

Tried to look busy, ’til the light turned green


I saw a bear on TV and his friends were all drowning

cause their homes were turning to water

A strange, kinda sad, big old bear

surely would happily eat me

he’d tear me to pieces that bear


Wake up sleepy head

I think the suns a little brighter today

Smile and watch the icicles melt away and see the water rising…


Summers here to stay, and all those summer games will last forever

Go down to the shore, kick off your shoes, dive in the empty ocean.


Tell me everything will be OK if I just stay on my knees and keep praying

Believing in something

Tell me everything is all taken care of by those qualified to take care of it all.


Wake up sleepy head

I think the suns a little brighter today

Smile and watch the icicles melt away and see the waters rising


Summers here to stay, and that sweet summer breeze will blow forever

Go down to the shore, kick off your shoes, dive in the empty ocean

One day, do you think we’ll wake up in a world on it’s way to getting better?

and if so can you tell me

how?


I have been thinking that lately the blood is increasing

the tourniquets not keeping hold in spite of our twisting

though we would like to believe we are

we are not in control

though we would love to believe


Wake up sleepy head

I think the suns a little brighter today

Smile and watch the icicles melt away and see the water rising…

Summers here to stay, and those sweet summer girls will dance forever

Go down to the shore, kick off your shoes, dive in the empty ocean.

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Dec 17

Copenhagen, Sure, But It’s Up to Us Individually

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All the superpower governments of the earth are in Copenhagen to negotiate large, complex treaties that mandate carbon output, which have implications for pretty much every aspect of an economy, a culture, and  life in the respective countries.

But all that could be made moot by us. We can change world energy on our own, decrease the carbon footprint as a grassroots project from the bottom up.

If each us, or even a quarter of us, installed solar panels on our roofs, and reduced our dependency on the grid by say, 40% to 50%, if a quarter of us did that, then we’d create a critical mass movement that would grow exponentially.

We could tilt on its head a local power plant by getting, say, a fifth of a local town to shift to solar. That would garner some local attention in the community, force some changes with the local company in terms of more generous compliance rules and regs, grab the attention of local politicos, and thus begin a mass movement. Scales of economy would kick in with costs. And who knows what contagious behavior would occur one town over, and the town over from that.

Before you know it, we’d have real policy change on a local level. And that’s how real change sticks, when it’s bottom up.

So lets broadcast, tell our neighbors, tell your aunt, tell co-workers. Yes, let’s hope good things come from the worldwide summit in Copenhagen. But really the true summit is in each of our neighborhoods, and it’s convening now.

Policy Level

As Al Gore says, “We have at our fingertips all of the tools we need to solve three or four climate crises, and we only need to solve one.”

While we force change on-the-ground level, the macro promises can follow. And while they discuss such policies in Copenhagen, there are a few zany geo-engineering ideas tossed about that hopefully never see the light of day from the authors of

SuperFreakonomics, who think a technology will come along that will simply wipe out the current carbon problem. They offer some suggestions.

-       A large man-made system that would force the deep cold water to the top of the ocean, a constant rotation so that we’re drawing the coolness of the deep water to the surface.

-       After volcanic eruptions, the sulfur dioxide reflects sunlight for months, creating a cooling effect. We should mimic that by shooting large amounts of sulfur dioxide 18 miles into the sky.

-       A massive amount of boats with the technology to create cloud cover over the ocean.

Critics are quick to debunk these ideas, but it does show ingenuity. Given the efforts any one of these would take, wouldn’t it be easier to give thousands and thousands of homes and businesses their own individual means to generate clean power?  Changing how we generate power is the solution. Conjuring up a magic bullet that keeps our behaviors the same is like doing the same thing and expecting different results… isn’t that the definition of insanity?

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Dec 13

Coke’s Environmental Plan: Ruin the Earth Slower than Before

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Coca-Cola Company has a goal to improve its water efficiency by 20 percent in the next three years, saving 50 million liters of water annually, the equivalent of 20,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. They hope to reduce carbon emissions by 5% in the next six years, which they say is about 2 million metric tons of carbon, or, the same as planting 600,000 trees. They also intend to create water-use standards for their sugar suppliers.

Clearly, water is a concern for Coca-Cola. In ’07, they sold 68 million cans of Coke, 35 million of Diet Coke and 103 million of My Coke. That’s a lot of water (go ahead and convert it to gallons).

Hence, they’ve teamed up with WWF – interesting bedfellows – for a $20 million dollar project to do some of the stuff noted in the first paragraph.

While a NY Times article said all kinds of gushy things about them on a recent opinion page – accolades abound in other places for Coke’s water program — the only thing worth noting is that they’re out to save themselves. Like the father who gets a community service award for coaching little league for nine years. That’s not community service, he was there to coach his son.

And $20 million? That’s probably a smaller percentage of what I spent on my neighbor’s daughter’s girl scout cookies against my annual net income. I’m just saying.

But, encouragingly, this kind of thing wasn’t happening 10 years ago. If it was, it was purely a PR move. And this is partially a PR move. But the message is the important difference. Coke is saying that this matters to its own survival. They’re not pretending that they’re doing it because they are good citizens – though they pepper us with that too – but they’re claiming it’s important to their business. Their environmental effort is aligned with their business model, which resonates with share holders, which is all good. And it’s going on across most, if not all Fortune 1000 companies.

But for Coke, and all the other conglomerates, this is one little baby toe inside a giant carbon footprint. For we all can imagine the life span of a Coke can from birth to death: the material of the can, the print of the design, the shipping, the factories, the disposal, etc.

It was only five years ago when a 10-day march in India from one Coke bottling plant to another – 150 miles away – drew thousands to rally against Coke for sucking up its water supply and polluting their communities. “Drinking Coke is like drinking farmers’ blood,” said one marcher. India has revoked plant licenses due to drought. Yet at the same time, to the dismay of villagers, governments like China and India hand out environmental awards to the local factories.

The WWF and Coke program has a five-point mission:

1 Conserve the world’s important freshwater basins. They have targeted six areas around the world.

2 Improve water efficiency inside Coke.

3 Reduce the company’s carbon emissions

4 Promote sustainable agriculture. Why this? Because agriculture (sugar cane in this case) uses a large portion of the world’s water supply – 70%, according to Coke.

5 Inspire a global movement to conserve water

You can’t argue with any of these goals, except, of course, the irony of the source – Coca-Cola — which happens to be a deplorable offender and that it needs to create these goals.

They will continue to ravage and plunder the earth, but at a 5% slower pace. So it’s a game we’re still losing, only a drop slower.

To take a giant leap, we need to ask ourselves the point of a company like Coke. It’s an unnecessary product, an unhealthy indulgence, a psychologically addictive vice, a blemish on capitalism’s better intentions. It’s inherent of any company to fight for its survival, but it may incumbent upon us – as part of our strategic effort to save the planet –  that we recognize and “out” the conglomerates that prosper at our expense

Perhaps we need to aim higher. Yes, companies like Coca-Cola are heading in the right direction, saying the right green things, and following up slowly. Ultimately, though, they need to be pressured into standing up and saying, “We manufacture artificial sugar water, we know we’re a parasitic corporation, and we have a five-year plan to re-employ our workforce as we dwindle down to nothing.”

Nov 21

As Went the Whale-Oil Industry, So Will Go Exxon and Shell

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It’s hard for average Americans to make sweeping changes to their lifestyles when there isn’t a lot of incentive. We’re told to do a number of things to lower our energy consumption, but in the end, we are always compromising on some part of our lives, always doing something for someone else, so energy consumption is part of a long list, and not such a very important item on the list to most of us. So what’s another $50 per month. To many that’s a lot, but for many others – usually families with large houses, three cars, and little reason to conserve — $50 or $100 per month, or even $200 per month, is no reason to keep the house colder, or not run the lawn sprinkler.

The only way to get change at a critical mass level is for the cost of energy to sky rocket, for every single person rich or poor to get hit hard, real hard, in the wallet. We saw this happen for a fleeting moment with gas prices last year. Until the market drives change, until the cost of fossil fuels skyrocket and suddenly cost more than alternative sources to light your house, heat your house, wash your clothes and drive your car, things will pretty much continue as is.

It’s hard to picture how the current dominating energy industries will one day fall to these comparably tiny alternative fuel companies. The buzz is out there, the talk is constant, yet the market hasn’t really shifted in any big way and no frontrunner has come close to displacing the current power structure. But if we look to our history, we find hope easily.

The dominating industry source for petroleum has been displaced once already in the United States. For centuries Europe and the United States depended on whale oil to light their lamps. The whale oil industry was giant, employing some 70,000 people in this country in the middle 19th century.

It wasn’t necessarily the scarcity of whales that led to the industry’s demise. It was more the increasingly high costs of whale expeditions, while at the same time new sources of oil were being discovered, shifting venture funds from whale expeditions to new investments, like kerosene. As whale oil began to lose its market share, the industry launched a PR blitz to discredit oil from other sources as inferior and flawed. The shift in the market eventually took down the industry. By 1890 there were only 200 U.S. whaling ships, down from 700 some 40 years earlier.

This didn’t happen because people cared about saving the whales. This happened because people cared about their bills.

That is why smart people in government (yes, there are smart people in government) see over the horizon what is in store for our future with the status quo and current mindset about energy. Tax incentives and rebate programs have been put in place in New York and other states (see www.dsireusa.org to find out what’s available in your state) to drive the early adopters to implement alternatives. The idea behind tax incentives and other programs is to kick start the industries of tomorrow we need today.

Markets shift much faster today. We’ve seen iconic giants like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers – names we’d expect to last several more generations –- disappear overnight. That same thing can happen to our energy giants overnight. The will of the people looking for environmental solutions won’t do it on their own, but the current momentum needs to be in place to push along the market forces. So when it’s time, the new, cheaper sources of energy – maybe wind, solar, fuel cells, geothermal, or something we don’t yet foresee –  will be positioned to overtake the market. It may be one alternative source, or two, or all of them. It may take decades, or may happen in a year. But rest assured, it will happen – hopefully sooner than later – and we all need to keep doing what we can, including banging our heads against the wall – to usher in this new age. We don’t have an alternative planet.

There are countless companies at all points of the delivery system and all sizes – from GE making wind turbines and fuel cells to small startups making more efficient non-silicon solar cells. The number and quality of corporate initiatives nationally and internationally is encouraging.

Google.org, for example, has a few initiatives focused specifically on developing electricity from renewable energy sources that is cheaper than coal-generated electricity with the goal of producing one gigawatt of energy capacity – enough to power a city the size of San Francisco. Called “RE<C,” Google.org provides grants and influences public policy to advance the effort.

The ultimate goal is to put on the market renewable energy that can retail for less than fossil-fueled electricity. For starters, they’ll focus on solar thermal power, wind power technologies, and enhanced geothermal systems. But they’re open to other game-changing technologies. Got an idea? Need funds? Support?  Contact renewables@google.com. For a closer look, read their project brief.

Along the same lines, Google’s project RechargeIT, according to the web site, “is focused on accelerating mass commercialization of plug-in vehicles by seeding innovation, demonstrating technology, informing the debate, and stimulating market demand.”  Launched more than a year ago, they purchased a fleet of hybrids to test, announced  over $1 million in grants to support plug-in vehicle adoption, and turned on their 1.6 megawatt solar installation to power their own buildings, which is comprised of 9,212 solar panels.

For more on Google’s commitment, go to clean energy future.

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Nov 15

Live Green and Prepare for Ridicule

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To live green in mainstream American society takes a thick skin. And since the culture makes little accommodations for green living – in fact, it presents obstacles at every turn — it’s easy to poke holes at one’s behavior. That is, those of us who make a genuine effort are often accused, at best, of contradictions, and at worst of of hypocrisy.

For onlookers, it’s easier to mock than give credit for effort.

For example, buying a Prius is a real effort at reducing one’s carbon footprint. It’s also a political statement, far more than a bumper sticker. It says: I care and I’m doing something about it.

Now there are times when a Prius owner needs to fly across the country for business or even for a family vacation. How fast will neighbors, coworkers and family members unfairly point out the irony here?

Thoreau was seen as ridiculous to his fellow Concordians. And his critics love to point out that he went to town several times a week to take care of something or another, as if that fact eradicates everything noble about a man living alone in a hand-built one-room cabin in the woods for two years, including through two New England winters.

On that note, New Yorker magazine environmental staff reporter Elizabeth Kolbert – who by the way lives in the Berkshires of Massachusetts – reviewed, or should I say mocked,  several recently released books that describe a variety of green adventures.

The review primarily talks about Colin Beavan’s “No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet and the Discoveries He Makes about Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process.” Beavan lives with his wife and daughter in a ninth-floor Manhattan apartment. They set out to have zero impact on the environment within one year. Yes, no elevator, no toilet paper, no heat – their walls are hot from their neighbors heat – no tissues, no newspaper, no subway, no bus, no car, his wife takes a scooter to work, and on and on ad infinitum.

Another book Kolbert knocks down a few shelf levels is “Plenty: Eating Locally on the 100 Mile Diet.”  Kolbert is quick to highlight their follies, like when they failed to find local salt, so they journey 12 hours to the Pacific Ocean for a pot of salt water. Kolbert says it would have been more ecologically sound to get a pound from the local store. That, of course is obvious, but missing the point. That the salt in the corner store had its own journey from somewhere far. What does it take, authors Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon explore, to eat locally in a real way?  And if everyone committed like they did, would that create real change in the marketplace?

The next book she batted around was Vanessa Farquhuarson’s “Sleeping Naked Is Green: How an Eco-Cynic Unplugged Her Fridge, Sold Her Car and Found Love in 366 Days.” The author’s premise is to make one new green life-style change every day for a year.  She does large and small things like sell her car and, on another day, give up using tooth picks.  Kolbert notes that she flies a lot and explains a few of the trips, implying that they were unnecessary trips, like a writers workshop, a bike trip, and to meet No Impact Man. She admits to no toilet paper for number one, but can’t for number two. No Impact Man claims no toilet paper for both. How’s that for impact.

Kolbert sums all these people up as stunts, more or less stumps to make a book. She lumps Thoreau into the group as a stunt. To do this, she brings into the mix a new book critical of Thoreau. It’s one thing to be unfair to the folks above, but it’s another to lower Thoreau into some wanna-be pop-culture phenom. Thoreau is an authentic father and friend of natural living and sought to do nothing but “live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. . . . To live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life . . . .to drive life into a corner and reduce it to its lowest terms .. . .

Being ahead of the green curve is hard work, and Kolbert should recognize that the modeling of good green behavior can appear ridiculous because the current system forces one to perform ridiculous acts. It’s a culture that promotes bad environmental behavior, so for those who seek to be good, it requires one to appear radical. In a time of war, those for peace look out of place.

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Nov 12

Local Municipalities Can Step Up Too

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The United States’ policy on climate energy is quite abysmal. Not only does it not serve as any model for industrial countries worldwide, it plays a significant part in holding back progress across the globe. There is no country more guilty than us in polluting our planet and doing little about changing direction.

But,  towns can take their own action and affect climate change through a number of strategies, like land use and planning policies, zoning issues, permits, transportation planning, green building incentives, and a variety of other strategies.

Patricia Salkin, a law professor at Albany Law School and a zoning and land-use expert who recently turned her energies toward green issues – specifically issues around wind turbine permitting and land conservation, has published a paper laying out her thoughts on the ability of municipalities to make a difference.

Towns can address environmental concerns on their own, and states can require them to do so.

Some examples she cites:

The state of Florida requires that local comprehensive plans address methods to discourage suburban sprawl, encourage energy efficient development patterns, and reduce greenhouse gases. It specifically creates disincentives for low-density single-use development which leads to “automobile-reliant” development.

States like Arizona force towns to address air-quality issues in their plans, and Connecticut wants to know how its towns will consider “solar and other renewable forms of energy and energy conservation.”

The city of Buffalo’s comprehensive plan states direly that “the gradual warming of earth’s atmosphere is one of the most serious environmental issues we face worldwide. . . and has “both local causes and remedies.” Pretty frank language for an official town document.

Seattle directs its new city building projects to be carbon neutral by 2030. It calls for no net reduction in the city’s “tree canopy.”

Colorado authorizes legislation for cluster development, where structures are crowded on a small portion of the property, the remaining part of the land deeded as open space. The need for automobiles are reduced by designing closely compact communities, equipped with the amenities needed to serve a residential development. Related to clustering are Pedestrian Oriented Development (POD); incentives for these elements have been popping up in local plans across the country.

In Blacksburg, Virg., the plan calls for “a reasonably compact development pattern,” and continue to expand the the town’s pedestrian and bicycle path network.” Yes, Blacksburg, Virg., has a more progressive long-term plan than the United States.

Buildings in this country account for more than 40% of greenhouse gas emissions, according to Professor Salkin’s paper, and she devotes a portion of the paper to local incentives related to energy-efficient buildings, which range from tax incentives to express-lane permitting.

The paper goes on to address storm-water and landscaping initiatives, and green roofs and cool roofs – perhaps a topic for another day, since it has residential implications.

For 50 pages she cites these kinds of things, shedding light on pockets of enlightened city and state planners around the country.

Given the unlikelihood of our federal government coming up with equally enlightened climate policy, perhaps the localities – collectively — will surpass federal efforts to the point that federal policy will be unnecessary. Wishful thinking.

Salkin ends her piece with this: “It will take everyone working together to continue to find creative and workable strategies that can be successfully implemented to accomplish the goal of slowing global warming…. There is no one-stop shopping or magic pill to problems that have been created from generations of combined neglect, ignorance and lack of information. Rather, we can slowly ‘green’ our communities, our country, and our world by, among other things, continuing to adopt the types of program and initiatives outlined in this article.”

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Oct 12

Global Warming: You Don’t Have to Believe in Dragons or Dinosaurs to Go Green

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Any reasonably intelligent person could recognize the damage we’re doing to our planet. But, like most ideas that challenge the status quo – in this case, information that would force us to change our behavior – it’s easier to ignore, and then, if pushed, deny.

The superpowers of the entrenched and long-established energy industry will continue to protect their own territories. They will smear information that works against them, and prop up information – be it true or not – that works in their favor.

So what should have been – and should be now — a simple issue of our well-being, of saving our planet, of living better and smarter and healthier, has become a question of politics.

The people who deny global warming are not denying the science; they’re denying the politics. They don’t want to give up a victory.

The most powerful message you can send – more than all the literature and opinion articles and lobbying anyone can do – is to “be the change you want to see in the world.”

Do the thing you want done. Be the thing you want to be.

That is the main reason I have spent considerable money, time and energy transforming my home into an energy-efficient one. This is how I want to spend my money. This is what is important to me – reducing my production of carbon dioxide.

At the same time, I model the behavior that I’d like others to follow (actually I’d like the whole world to follow my steps). This is a side-effect of my personal green pursuits, but a critical one. Role models inspire change. We all have them and we all know how influential they are at a very personal, private level.

I’ve decided to pursue my crusade at two levels – personally and publicly. Yes, I believe the world is ours to save. But it’s also ours to lose. I’m choosing the former as my lifelong pursuit, and part of that work requires educating, as well as helping, people follow my lead.

This blog is for those that understand the necessity of curbing our carbon use; it’s for the person that believes renewable energy is a legitimate substitute for our current energy sources. I am writing this for those who believe the solutions are here and now, and for those who are warm to the concept but not sure what’s out there or how to start. Specifically, I’m concerned with solutions regarding transportation and everything we do in the home.

So don’t argue about global warming with the driver of a Hummer. Or the owner of two “Cigarette” boats. The greatest scientific evidence won’t sway the religious. Millions in Iran will never believe that millions of Jews died in the WWII Holocaust, even if you showed them every body. The Hummer owner will never believe you; or can’t possibly admit to believing you; or believes you but doesn’t give a shit.

All you can do is live your life the way you need to live it. If you feel passionate about green living, then get to it. If you feel righteous about it, then be loud. Or be silent. But do it. For that’s the loudest message of all.

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Sep 07

Shopping for Energy: It’s Time We Start Reading the Labels

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The way we buy energy is like going to the supermarket, except the items you put in your cart have no price tags. You have no idea what you’re spending. So you go up and down every aisle taking all the groceries you want. When you have filled the cart with all the items you came to the store to get, you wheel the cart out of the store and bring the groceries home. You don’t pay for the groceries at the store.

Later on, 45 days after you consumed the groceries, you get a bill. Of course, you consumed a lot more than you would if you knew – in real time — what each moment was costing you. The three hours you spent cranking your 15-year-old air conditioner probably cost more than you think.

This disconnection between consumption and cost is by design. This paradigm has long been based on cheap energy. But energy is not as cheap as it used to be, nor will it get cheaper.

If you monitor your energy, you will manage it.

People that drive hybrid cars get instant feedback about fuel consumption. That instant feedback changes behavior. The same will happen when instant feedback is available in the home measuring in real time your energy consumption.

Introducing information technology into the utility grid is the logical next step for computer technology. The “SmartGrid” will help transcend energy consumption behavior, as well as affect the model for energy providers.

The SmartGrid — known also as “smart power grid,” among other names — would deliver energy to consumers using digital technology, making consumption transparent. There are initiatives that are moving the current grid toward this system in a few states, and technology already exists for this to happen. As you can guess, there is political resistance for such change and transparency in an aged industry that feels under siege when environmental concerns are addressed.

Gadgets already on the consumer market for energy users help monitor the energy you use in your home, though they do not align with costs from the supplier. That math you have to do on your own. I have recently ordered The Energy Detective (http://www.theenergydetective.com) that will give me real-time stats about my home electricity, including homes like mine that have solar panels (and other alternative energy sources). The system will report on the net amount of electricity being consumed from the grid, or sent to the grid, information I do not have at this point.

I’ll report back here with results as soon as I have them.

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