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 14

The enemies within

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I share this information below because it’s important to know how the other side thinks. It helps shape our case when debating the issue.

“. . . . That’s why I recently joined in cosponsoring legislation that will increase access to domestic supplies, expand the nation’s refinery capacity, and promote market-based alternatives for our energy future. Importantly, the bill includes key provisions of my legislation designed to improve the permitting process for the expansion of existing and construction of new refineries. . . .”

That’s Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), the former chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and the current ranking member.

He calls global warming “a hoax.”

He said he would attend the Climate Conference in Copenhagen to make sure that the U.S. – specifically John Kerry and Barbara Boxer, the current chair of the committee —  does not make commitments he objects to, which is basically any commitment.

From an oped of his:  “No matter how many times Gore and others say the science is settled on human-caused global warming, it’s not.”

From an oped of his in The Oklahoman challenging the focus of Earth Day: “Despite spending enormous sums of money on massive advertising campaigns promoting the false notion that man-made greenhouse gases threaten our very existence, the American public remains unconvinced that climate change is a pressing concern . . . . . Therefore, the question must be asked on this, the 39th anniversary of Earth Day: at what expense are we ignoring many of the most pressing issues, environment in particular, to advocate for action on extremely costly policies that will have almost no impact on Earth’s climate?”

From another oped:

“Unfortunately, the Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress seem too narrowly focused on pushing the agenda of the so-called environmental community. That agenda focuses obsessively on global warming and it involves job-killing regulations that would dramatically expand the government’s power, with no impact on climate change.”

From his web site:  “Jim has also been a champion for restoring common sense and sound science to important environmental and regulatory issues like clean air mandates, wetlands, and endangered species.”

Other random quotes from him:

“You would think that, instead of considering legislation that would raise the cost of gas at the pump, Congress would have spent its time doing everything in its power to bring down the price at the pump. “

. . . . According to the Energy Information Agency, the average American consumes 500 gallons of gasoline every year and the average vehicle is driven more than 12,000 miles per year. At $4.00 a gallon, people are spending $2000 a year on gas – and those are hard-earned, after-tax dollars. Even so, these national averages don’t tell the whole story. The gasoline price increases resulting from the Boxer Climate Tax Bill would have had a more harmful impact in the nation’s rural areas, like Oklahoma, where people must drive more than in heavily populated states. “

Inhofe, who has been elected three times to the Senate and will likely continue winning as long as he runs (he’s 75 years old), recently issued a U.S. Senate Minority Report titled “More Than 700 (Previously 650) International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims.”

Along with is usual claims, he quotes dozens of scientists with ambiguous credits, like “published over 200 scientific papers” to validate his science.

“So far, real measurements give no ground for concern about a catastrophic future warming.”

“It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.” -

A large number of critical documents submitted at the 1995 U.N. conference in Madrid vanished without a trace. As a result, the discussion was one-sided and heavily biased, and the U.N. declared global warming to be a scientific fact.”

“I am convinced that the current alarm over carbon dioxide is mistaken…Fears about man-made global warming are unwarranted and are not based on good science.”

I just wanted to remind everyone what we are up against. Now let’s get back to work.

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.”

Dec 05

Everyone cries economics, unless it’s convenient

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There are 22,000 buildings in New York City. Some, including the City, claim that these buildings account for 80 percent of total carbon emissions (alternative-transportation advocates would probably argue that autos are responsible for more than the unclaimed 20%, but that’s splitting hairs).  The city’s mayor wants to reduce the city’s total emissions by 30 percent by 2030. Sounds like too little too late, but it’s something.

His recent proposal was to conduct energy-audits of all buildings more than 50,000 square feet, determine how to make them more energy efficient, and then for the owners to pay for some of those changes. He was forced to drop the part of the proposal that calls for building owners to make the recommended changes. You could imagine the roar of opposition from building owners, who see no financial benefit in any of this.

“Where’s the economics?” they cried. “We don’t have the money for this.”

The proposal didn’t even require the owners to make all the changes, but only the changes that would save them enough money on their energy bill after five years to make back what they spent. Apparently that’s asking too much.

So now the mayor wants to push for the energy audits, and not require building owners to do what the report recommends. That much seems to be acceptable to building owner organizations. And that’s a heck of a start. For one thing, the audits will recommend what owners and tenants can do to reduce their energy use – new windows, new boilers, insulation, etc.  (Of course there are plenty of building owners opposed to paying for the audit. After all, why do they care about their carbon footprint? Let someone else deal with it.)

While it might not change the behavior of building owners, it might affect the behavior of the tenants. Good information like this is bound to raise consciousness, lead to new behavior and possibly real energy reduction.

(Sadly, the media reporting on this topic, like all the mainstream reporting on any energy-related issue, including the NY Times in this case,  never touches the real impact –  what it means to our future planet. Instead, the focus is on what it means to the city’s economics, the jobs it might create, the political fallout, etc.)

Enough of big picture policy-talk looking down from the Hubble. Let’s get closer to the planet and look at one person: my friend. My friend took the bus from Boston’s Chinatown to New York’s Chinatown for $15 on Thanksgiving weekend. That means he saved on gas money, no wear and tear on the car, no tolls, he got to read, nap, listen to music, meet someone new – and yes, save the world a little pollution. The outcome: he’ll never do it again. Too much hassle, not worth the effort, he thinks he caught a cold from the people, etc. I didn’t get into a debate with him. In fact, I can understand: We’re American. We need convenience, we come first and everything else second. So I didn’t argue.

But after reading about the New York City building energy issue, and then talking to my friend, I thought: these are people somewhat tuned in. These are people who understand the issue, but still don’t feel engaged. What about the billions who are unaware of the issue, and have not even reached the starting point to form a judgment?

Which leaves those of us who care to take this on by ourselves, to continue to raise the alarms louder, until everyone can hear it – even the deaf ones — and then we raise it louder so that they can’t hear anything else, until every sound they hear is the sound of the planet suffocating.

Too  often those are the only sounds I hear.

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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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Nov 01

Outrageous Solar Gadgets

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Some outrageous solar powered gadgets featured in Fast Company magazine’s November ’09 issue.

Auto Mower by Husqvarna: 104 photovoltaic cells cover the lawn mower. The mower can cut, silently, half an acre. On cloudy days it can be charged using conventional power.  $3000

Revue lamp by Regen: A lamp that generates only 4-watts per hour while powering the equivalent light of a 75-watt bulb using five LED bulbs. The back angles to the sun for the solar panels to collect light.  It stores enough power for six hours of use. It can also be plugged in. No price yet.

SolarPort by Brunton: A portable solar array with two polycrystalline PV panels. Brunton makes high end camping gear. This solarport can be linked together to two other solar ports. A single unit can put out 4.4 watts, enough to charge four cell phones. It can charge AA and AAA batteries. $187.

ReNu by Regen: A 9-inch by 9-inch portable solar tablet for apartment windows (or anyone who doesn’t have a roof or property for panels). It can be attached with a suction cup or attached to a window frame. Its battery recharges in four hours and can drive an iPod for six hours.  $199

Blue Earth cell phone by Samsung: The phone has a PV panel on the back that complements the wall charger. The phone itself lowers brightness to lessen battery use, and a pedometer calculates the carbon you reduce when you don’t drive. It’s not yet out in the United States. No price yet.

ReBob by Regen: An iphone and ipod docking station with charger and speakers. It details energy use. Solar panels on the back, speakers on the front. $699

Fast Company slide show of items above: http://bit.ly/1n1i6O

Some other cool Solar Gadgets

Solio: A portable solar charger that holds 10 hours of power to charge a whole host of handheld devices. Price ranges from $89 to $199. http://bit.ly/2xk96P

Harvester Micro Utility System: Portable solar panel and battery on wheels. System supports 1 to 3 solar panels for larger charging capacity. From $3795 http://bit.ly/pAKi5

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Oct 18

The Carbon Footprint – One Small Step for Humans, One Giant Step for Earth

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When you buy a can of soda, a pound of meat, a pair of sneakers, a few gallons of gas, cat food, the newspaper and a stick of butter, you mark the end of a long line of events that occurred before you purchased the item, and the start of a continuum of activities that will occur afterwards.

You have a carbon footprint. We can trace it back from where your steps have come, and we can trace it forward, to where your steps will go.

The trail starts with the extraction of the raw material itself. The trail widens with the processing of the raw material into the end product. Each step in the transition from raw material to end product requires things to move from place to place.

To bring this point home, let’s trace one small purchase on a given day of your life.

The path of Aluminium Foil

  • the mine
  • to the processing plant
  • through the processing plant
  • to the manufacturing plant
  • through the manufacturing process
  • to the warehouse
  • to the retailer
  • to the store
  • to the home to be consumed
  • to the garbage collector
  • to the landfill – or hopefully to the recycling plant to start the process all over again starting at the processing plant instead of the mine.

This is not including the paper material that makes up the packaging, which has its own trail starting with the fall of a tree, which moves to a printing plant that uses colored ink to cover the paper.

We can do this with the fast-food hamburger someone in your family ate this week, which may have involved clear-cutting parts of the Amazon for cattle grazing.

It’s quite simple to disregard – keep out-of-mind– this concept, since we are so far removed from the process. So we ignore it. It takes effort to comprehend the ramifications of every act. Afterall, a bike ride to work is not a political statement, it’s just a bike ride. Buying local fruit, local milk and local clothes is not a protest against national products. Or is it?

Shrinking your carbon footprint requires very active living.

Even the consumption of water contributes to your carbon footprint, since water systems need energy inputs to pump water – whether it’s town water or well water.

Think Global Footprint, Act on Local Footprint

We can’t do it all, we’ll drive ourselves crazy. Our kid wants a Nike sweatshirt with a hood more than the hand-made sweater you saw at the crafts fair Saturday. You don’t have much choice if you want to participate in mainstream America. Some people are able to opt out, head to the hills of Maine and never return. But for those of us who want to live in the system, there’s ample room to improve our footprint without a lot of effort.

Becoming aware of your footprint is the first step. From there you can diminish the direct, obvious products.

  • driving the automobile
  • powering the lawn equipment
  • powering the electrical devices in the home
  • heating and cooling the home
  • using any electrical appliance
  • shutting computers at night
  • shutting lights

If we all did this little bit . . .

It is a mind-boggling amount of lives that consume a mind-boggling amount of products that sustain the ostentatious lives we all live. Today, in America, we each enjoy the luxuries of, say, a royal prince from the ‘30s.

There is no end in sight. There’s no finish line. In fact, it’s inherent in the system to have no finish line. There is no established point where we will say, “Ahhh, we’ve reached maximum speed. Let’s all agree to stay at this pace and enjoy ourselves.” The alarming speed of commerce is bent on getting speedier; the constant increase itself nourishes our economy.  Consume more, produce more; consume faster, produce faster. A steady pace is considered no growth, and the corporate power-structure then jolts the system to increase the pace of spending.

We can slow it down, we can gain control of our own pace, even act thoughtfully.  But it takes work.

Your carbon footprint directly relates to the speed of our consumption and activity. We are far over the speed limit. Collectively, we can slow down, and eventually, catch our breaths, walk a little, maybe even rest. That’s the power of paying attention to your personal footprint.

One small step for humans, one giant step for the earth.

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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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