America’s new energy grid gets smart. What does the new stimulus package mean for your electric bill?
President Obama’s recent stimulus package includes large resources devoted to energy efficiency, renewable energy research, guaranteed loans, and tax credits. This means big changes on the horizon for the way America produces the energy it needs to run itself.
The challenge is that renewable sources like solar and wind deliver power sporadically which means a new grid will have to be laid out in order to regulate the flow.
According to IBM and the Global Intelligent Utility Network Coalition, the so-called “smart grid” dramatically reduce outages and faults, improves responsiveness, handles current and future demand, increases efficiency and manages costs. Consumers benefit with new power options like customized pricing and real-time monitoring of their usage and costs.
The Intelligent Utility Network also helps consumers actively participate in solving critical energy problems by making “smart” homes and energy-conscious choices possible.
For a complete breakdown of how the smart grid works, check out IBM’s awesome podcast presentation:
When it comes to what plagues our environment, one of the major topics of discussion has always been greenhouse gases. The idea of dangerous gases that emit radiation into our atmosphere is not a foreign one to anyone who has a vague knowledge of our current climate concerns.
But despite its reputation as a environmental household name, it has never been officially addressed by the government as a real concern. Until now. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced its plans in regulating this damaging gas in hopes of curbing the effects of global warming as well as to determine its effects on people’s health. The EPA’s plans actualizes of the dangers greenhouse gases present and will hopefully the awareness many have still ignored up until now.
Grassroots movements converge on Washington to urge the Obamas to appoint the nation’s First Farmer.
It wasn’t difficult for the first family to decide on a personal chef - Sam Kass has been preparing them local and organic meals since their Chicago days. But now that the Obama’s every morsel is up for discussion, some feel that the food eaten by the President should come from his own land.
In response, three separate organizations have sprung up, all calling for one thing: Turn the White House lawn into farmland.
The first, called the White House Organic Farm Project is touring it’s “topsy-turvy” bus around the nation teaching the code of the green thumb.
Another group called “Eat the View,” with its 1,600+ members are all buying up virtual plots of the First Lawn as donations.
Lastly, a local Illinois farm family created WhiteHouseFarmer.com and attracted over 100 nominees for the position of First Farmer. Out of 56,000 votes, three emerged and have been recommended directly to the President.
$6 billion for clean and safe water, creating more than 200,000 jobs
This insures critical funding for the nation’s pipes and treatment plants. We don’t often worry too much about where our clean water comes from and this line seeks to keep it that way.
$4.5 billion for greening federal buildings
The Federal building codes and standards apply to buildings constructed or used by any Federal agency that is not legally subject to state or local building codes. This means that any building, not just the White House, Pentagon, Capital Building, etc., ANY building paying their energy bills with Federal money will be subject to completely revised energy efficiency performance standards which have been set by the DOE.
State energy grants, issued through the Treasury Department, that will fund renewable energy projects that are eligible for the available tax credits.
As of October of last year, the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008 prolonged tax credits in solar, fuel cells, and microturbines; increased the credit amount for fuel cells; established new credits for small wind-energy systems, geothermal heat pumps, and combined heat and power (CHP) systems; extended eligibility for the credits to utilities; and allowed taxpayers to take the credit against the alternative minimum tax (AMT) subject to certain limitations. If you’ve got these systems already in place are are planning to build new ones, you should apply here.
Funding for the state energy program, which includes important utility reforms and building code conditions.
$2.5 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy Research and Development.
In many cases, the technology just isn’t there yet and it takes resources to get there, hence, this line item.
$5 billion for the Weatherization Assistance Program, creating approximately 90,000 jobs
The expansion of this service will help the program reach a critical mass and deliver what it was designed to do - help low income families make energy efficiency improvements on their homes and spend less on utilities. See if you qualify here.
A multi-year extension of the renewable production tax credit.
Even greater insurance to individuals and corporations interested in these upgrades that their renewable energy improvements will be rewarded for many years to come. This is the kind of thing that boosts investor confidence in green stocks.
A more effective tax credit for home efficiency upgrades.
If you’re not eligible for the Wheatherization Assistance Program, now you can receive the big discounts on the home energy improvements you do yourself.
$6 billion in loan guarantees for renewables, transmission and leading edge biofuels
This is a great boon for companies investing in these industries. Now there will be real money to back up the loans guaranteed by the government. This comes as particular significance to the USDA.
$2 billion for advanced batteries
More than just rechargeable batteries for your TV remote, this category of tech development may be the most important. Certainly the automotive industry has a lot to gain with hybrid-electric vehicles seeking to replace the current fleet. Here’s an interesting piece from the US Advanced Battery Consortium (USCAR). The storage of electricity produced on a massive scale for residential and commercial use is also an integral component to making the new renewable grid happen.
$9.3 billion for intercity rail, including high-speed rail
With these new high-speed rail systems, the U.S. may actually be up to speed with the rest of the world. Here’s a little more on that idea.
$27.5 billion for highways (this large pot of money is not exclusively for highways, and states and cities must use this flexibility to invest in fuel-efficient public transportation)
While this may seem a bit imbalanced up against the public transportation budgets, the ethos behind it suggests the auto fleet will be markedly cleaner by the time the highways are improved. Like it or not, the U.S. is a car culture which means the industries and infrastructure must change to accommodate it.
$8.4 billion for transit
$1.5 billion in competitive grants for transportation investments (which could be used for public transportation)
These last two lines combined with the high-speed rail budget is a pretty formidable sum to help the country’s beleaguered public trans condition. However, it may also prove to be a mere drop in the bucket if the other energy system improvements are not met.
How is Twitter helping to provide clean water to developing countries?
Still fuzzy on what Twitter is? If you can express it in 140 characters, you’re ready to “tweet” yourself into the micro-blogging community some 750 thousand strong.
One thing you may find difficult to express in 140 characters, however, is the dire need for clean water in countries outside our own. Unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation cause 80% of all the sickness and disease worldwide. So how does a seemingly trivial web gadget help this planetary plight?
On February 12th, over 100 cities will be hosting Twestivals, bringing together Twitter communities to raise money and awareness for the non-profit organization called charity:water. All donations will directly fund costly yet vital clean water bearing systems.
Because of the power Twitter has to connect, mobilize, and inform people, these Twestivals have turned a quirky phenomenon into a force for global change.
Join the Twestival in your city by clicking on the following links:
In like a lion and out like a lamb. An unlikely green super-hero emerges to protect the fragile seas.
The Bush administration may not be remembered for it’s ground breaking conservation efforts but just before his departure from office, President Bush effectively protected a whopping 195,000 square miles of the central Pacific’s untouched ocean oasis. With the stroke of a pen, the President set aside an area the size of his home state of Texas as the largest swath of protected ocean on the planet.
And Bush didn’t skimp on the protection either: these marine monuments are granted the highest level of conservation, prohibiting commercial fishing, mining, and drilling of this newly safeguarded underwater Yellowstone. While the initial proposed ocean and island plot was over 700,000 square miles, Bush’s declaration went above and beyond expectations and is still a huge and important initiative.
Only recently have we come to discover the finite nature of our ocean as a natural resource and it’s efforts like this we hope will endure through our emerging administration.
For a look at the largest marine monument on earth, check out some of these images:
Thank you for your outpouring of support for a White House Farmer – we received nearly 56,000 votes from all across the country in just 10 days!
This amazing grassroots effort has sent a huge wave of awareness across the nation. You have spoken loud and clear — not only to encourage the new administration to make Michael Pollan’s call for a White House Farmer a reality — but also for the larger cause that we are working toward with our farms and with our forks, delicious food grown sustainably by farmers in our communities.
We offer our congratulations to all the nominees, and to farmers across the nation who steward the land and grow good food. You are all winners, and we are grateful for the work you do.
I just got off the phone with a brilliant young woman named Margaret Lloyd. She’s a grad student at UC Davis going for her Masters in International Agricultural Development and Plant Pathology.
Why is she so significant at this very moment?
Today, January 31st, is the FINAL DAY of her campaign to become the official White House Farmer! Margaret is one of over 100 nominees selected to till, sow, and harvest 5 prime south-facing acres of the White House lawn at the start of this year’s growing season.
Here’s Margaret in her own words:
Q: How’s the campaign going?
A:
Q: How did you become a nominee? What kinds of things on campus have you been doing?
A:
Q: Obviously you have farming experience but have you ever had 5 acres all to yourself? What kinds of crops do you intend to grow?
A:
Q: Do you think you’ll be able to fuel the farm with the crops you grow?
A:
Q: What other challenges are you facing going into this?
A:
Q: What do you have to say to the world in support of your campaign?
A:
Our guest has been Margaret Lloyd, grad student of International Agriculture and Plant Pathology at UC Davis and nominee for White House Farmer.
There’s only a couple hours left to vote so log onto WhiteHouseFarmer.com and vote for Margaret!
The endless supply of junk food in our society creates untold amounts of waste and causes health problems like obesity and diabetes but it’s not simply sugar and fat doing the damage. There’s a common ingredient found in almost everything sold on supermarket shelves from fatty beef to sugary soda - it’s corn.
Curt Ellis, one of the creators of the documentary film, King Corn.
Corn is the basis for fast food. When we go to McDonald’s, the hamburger is fed corn, the soda is almost completely high-fructose corn syrup, and the french fries are fried in corn oil or soybean oil.
The overproduction of low quality corn as a commodity is a huge problem but there’s a lot you can do to combat it. Buy locally produced vegetables, switch to grass fed beef, and avoid high-fructose corn syrup. These easy steps will help you right the wrongs of the American food industry and live well.
For the full interview podcast with Curt Ellis, click here.
I’m speaking today with one of the creators of the documentary film, King Corn, he’s also a Food and Society Policy fellow with the Kellog Foundation.
Q: At the very beginning of the film you talk about how our generation is at risk of having a shorter life span based on the foods we eat, specifically regarding the omnipresence of corn in our diet. Was there one thing in particular that really calcified this fear and got you off the coast and in the corn belt?
A: I think it was that announcement in a major medical journal. Around that time I was graduating from college, that my generation, I’m in my 20s, my generation is likely to have a shorter life expectancy than my parents generation and that’s something that’s really never happened before and it’s a result of this incredible explosion of obesity. The fact that obesity has doubled in the last 30 years in this country and now according to the CDC one in three kids is on a path to develop type-2 diabetes. So we’re seeing this tremendous explosion of healthcare problems that really are being caused by the way we feed ourselves.
Q: Specifically, how is corn putting us at risk of a shorter life span?
A: Corn is the basis for fast food in our country. When we go to McDonalds or Burger King and order a fast food meal, the hamburger is fed corn in confinement and as a result it’s higher in saturated fat than a grass fed cow would be; the soda is almost completely corn because of high-fructose corn syrup; and french fries are fried in corn oil or soybean oil and all those weird polysyllabic food ingredients like propylene glycol and citric acid, those are corn too. So really what we’ve done is, in the last half-century, create an industrial food system that uses these highly processed commodities like corn and soybean to fuel a conversion from eating fresh food and nutritious food to eating these empty calories like high-fructose corn syrup.
Q: You and Ian looked like you guys were having a pretty good time throughout the film, was there ever a point where farm life seemed to be getting just a little too much for you guys?
A: Definitely! We moved to Iowa with this expectation that we were gonna spend our first year out of college as farmers and I think we brought with us a lot of expectations as far as what that meant. I remember a friend of us gave us work gloves because he imagined we’d be out digging in the soil with a shovel but the reality was completely different and it’s a sign of just how disconnected from agriculture most Americans have become. For us, farming was not at all like gardening. If you’re growing 1000 acres of corn or soybeans, it’s about driving giant tractors, spraying some pretty intense herbicides, injecting gaseous ammonia fertilizer into the field. It was, to us, a totally different experience than we imagined.
Q: It’s all machines now.
A: You know, we didn’t touch the soil with our hands once in the course of growing 10,000 pounds of food and that, on a cultural level, was a real shock to us. We have this incredible bounty coming from the land but very little interaction with it.
Q: Disturbing. In your interview with former Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz, seemed to be one of the most tense and poignant moments on screen. Having served for 5 years in that position, Buts is depicted as having probably the greatest effect on the US farm program in history. Has there been much change to the Farm Bill he created in 1973 that indicates that the overproduction of commodity corn is being addressed?
A: No, there’s been piece meal change over the last 40 years. But the way our farm subsidy systems work today, like in the early 70s, channels an incredible amount of tax dollars to promote the production of a handful of commodities, the commodities that become the basis for fast food and processed food. In the last 10 years, we’ve spent more than 50 billion dollars just on promoting corn production through federal subsidies. And we’re not subsidizing fruits and vegetables, the kind of things we know are healthy for us so what we’ve done is tinker with the free market and create a new system in which fast food and processed food and processed commodities are artificially cheap and abundant. And the foods we know are good for us, fresh fruits and vegetables, and the things we know are good for the land like conservation practices, those things have not received their fair share of subsidies.
Q: Are we gonna need some new sort of fast food chain of natural foods in order to combat this? I mean, what can we do?
A: Well, there’s certain things consumers can do if you decide you don’t wanna feed your kids high fructose corn syrup it’s probably gonna make them healthier to not have too many empty calories in their diet but the bigger thing we can do is become policy advocates in however small a way. One reason the farm subsidy program has stayed intact for the last 40 years and is working against us as consumers and against farmers, family farmers, one reason that program has stayed intact is because there has been no outcry from the public. Most of us have just assumed that farm subsidies only apply to farmers or to the “farm states” but the reality is this is also a food bill, the farm bill is a food bill, and the way we grow food and the kind of food we promote affects our health down the line and affects what we see when we walk into the supermarket which right now is a whole lot of processed corn and soybeans.
Q: Have you continued your farming practices after this whole thing?
A: I haven’t. I will admit, I’m part of a growing number of people in my generation who want to get back to the land in some way and it’s pretty important. The typical farmer now is around 55 years of age so there’s about to be a tremendous turnover in who’s farming the land and what they’re growing. So I’m off the farm for now and making films like King Corn and traveling around showing them to people. My desire in the long run is to be a farmer and to not just grow commodities on a 2000 acre scale but also grow some food for direct consumption.
Q: Any more films of this nature that we can expect from you guys?
A: Yeah, we just finished a documentary about the first big green residential building in Boston. It’s a film called the Greening of Southie and it’s basically the story of couple hundred blue collar jobs going green and I think in many ways it comes from the same place as King Corn which is this idea that we live in the most advanced country in the world but we pay almost no attention to the fundamental things - food and clothing and shelter - which at the end of the day, are still the most important things. King Corn’s a film about where our food comes from and the Greening of Southie is a film about the buildings we live in.
In this City Spotlight, we travel to the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Better known for its brownstones than green space, it’s home to the the country’s largest oil spill and faces challenges that all growing cities face.
Residents and legislators have had their hands full treating hazardous conditions caused by it’s man-made industrial waterways like the Newtown Creek. An estimated 30 million gallons of oil has been leaking into the soil and water around it since the 1950s.
We have no choice. This is the future. It’s about our economy in the future. It’s about our health in the future. It’s about jobs in the future and we can’t allow the energy industry to get by us.
While your city may not be 2.5 million people crammed into 70 square miles like Brooklyn, increased awareness of your surroundings can secure safe living environments for your family and neighbors.
At the recent USGBC New York Chapter Gala, Borough President Marty Markowitz took the time to address a few things that are on the minds Brooklyn residents, small business owners, and the environmental community. It was clear from his direct and sometimes gregarious responses that while every politician is subject to criticism, Borough President Markowitz certainly isn’t afraid to express his personal views.
Markowitz became involved in politics in the 1970s, by organizing tenant and senior citizen organizations in Flatbush, Brooklyn. His role as a community leader got him elected to the State Senate in 1978, and spent over two decades as a New York State Senator for Brooklyn. During his time as a state senator, he was known for creating a series of oceanfront concerts and other festivals rather than drafting legislation.
Q: What’s Green about Brooklyn?
A: Well, listen, in fact if you look in New York City, the most environmentally active community in the city is Park Slope. We lead the way, it’s true! There’s no question about it.
Q: Can small business get help to clean up toxic industrial sites and move in safely?
A: The answer is yes but it’s going to require a partnership with State and Federal Government and as you know right now, finances are such in the State that are most challenging and I’m sorry to say that we’re on a cutting mode right now but once our economy becomes stronger it’s my hope that the Federal and State Governments will be eager participants and provide the resources to allow the city to clean up. First up, we need that property, we need that land and it’s environmentally a necessity. I can tell you that, for instance, there’s a business in Brooklyn, I think you know, Whole Foods, that is not able to really get going because of the toxic level of the property that they bought and that’s a shame for all of us, the jobs potentially that we’re losing not only there but other locations.
I see the future as very bright, you know why? America has no choice! We have no choice. This is the future. It’s about our economy in the future. It’s about our health in the future. It’s about jobs in the future. And you know what, we in this nation better get on this curve because Japan and Korea and some of those Mid-East countries are already on the track and we can’t be left behind. We already failed in the automobile industry and unless we grab that industry back, we’re gonna be further behind and we can’t allow the energy industry to get by us as well. This is the future of America at stake so I’m convinced that we’ll make it happen.
A: I must tell you that I think we have to provide incentives to corporations to do what they have to do. First you entice then and then you slap them so let’s see what more we can do to entice them before we slap them. I always believe the first approach, the best approach, is to provide incentives and then if they don’t live up to their public responsibilities, then the hammer comes down.
A: Well, there’s some exciting things about the Gowanus Canal. There are proposals, as you know, of Toll Brothers to build new housing there and I believe the key, by having more development around the Gowanus and having more residential units, it will really really put the pressure on Federal, State and City Govern to clean up the Gowanus Canal once and for all.
Q: Are you involved in the Newtown Creek cleanup efforts?
A: Newtown Creek is another area. Riverkeeper and I have been very active, I’m part of the suit and there’s no question that Exxon/Mobil I believe, under Barack Obama and Congress, that we’ll have a much better opportunity to get the oil companies to clean up their garbage. It’s the truth! This is our shot, this is our chance.
If Green building can save the housing market, what’s holding us back?
Our Government holds the power to dramatically effect the fate of the housing market. Legislation that offers financial incentives to lenders helps developers and homeowners who put a premium on energy efficiency. The House Financial Services Committee decides whether a bill that favors Green building will be approved.
For a tax credit to be passed, it’s gotta be taken out of somewhere else so they have to look for offsets to pay for these tax credits in Green buildings and that has been the major obstacle.
While Republicans objected to the estimated $2.7 billion dollar cost associated with the bill, the Obama administration will surly create a strongly activist Congress to push progressive ideas like this ahead.
For more on the green path out of the housing crisis, check out some of the following links.
As founder and president of Fox Potomac Resources, Sean Todd has over a decade of work within the Legislative Branch, Executive Branch and private sector lobbying arena in Washington, D.C. Prior to founding FPR, he spent three years in the government affairs and marketing offices of International Technology Corporation. He is responsible for the development, implementation and management of firm’s activities, including client development, execution of work and deliverables, and sole P&L responsibilities.
Q: What is holding legislative bodies from passing Green building policies?
A: What’s holding back the House of Representatives specifically in passing financial incentives and tax rebates to promote the use of green technologies in buildings is a policy known as pay-as-you-go. Pay-as-you-go is a principle that if you’re passing tax credits, subsidies as some people call them, that the House of Reps, especially the “blue dogs, the coservative to moderate Democrats, want to make sure that we have a balanced budget. In other words, for tax credits to be passed it’s gotta be taken out from somewhere else in the general revenues. So they have to look for offsets, Rich, in somewhere else in the tax code or in the appropriations process to pay for these tax credits in green buildings and that has been, I would say, the major obstacle in finding those offsets to pay for green building tax credits.
Now in the Senate, there is no obstacle there because the blue dogs are a House body and they don’t have as much as a firm pay-as-you-go principle on the Senate side.
Q: What is the current status of the green building initiative before the House Financial Services Committee?
A: Well, Rich, the current status of Green building tax codes and tax legislation really goes before the House Ways and Means Committee which is responsible for all tax pieces of legislation. So Financial Services is the Committee that really has jurisdiction over mortgage credits, banks… the Financial Services Committee is more of an authorizer, if you will, the Ways and Means Committee has to do more with passing actual tax legislation.
Q: With Republicans objecting to previous bills and other like it, do you feel the new administration will be more aggressive to pushing incentives to building green and other environmental actions going forward?
A: Absolutely, Rich. The Obama Administration will be more aggressive in pushing green building tax credits. If you read Obama’s plan, he has a fairly aggressive plan to make all new buildings carbon neutral by 2030, he has a goal to establish new building efficiency by 50% and by 25% over the next decade, he wants to establish a competitive grant program for early adopters to make awards for those states and localities who take the first steps implementing those new building codes. As far as Federal buildings go, it’s even more aggressive under Obama’s plan; he wants to achieve a 40% increase in efficiency in all new Federal buildings within five years and also ensure that all new Federal buildings have zero emissions, in other words, a zero carbon footprint by 2025. Very aggressive goal.
Q: It seems most developers are on board with this and it doesn’t seem too far fetched.
A: Well, they are expensive and if you build green technologies into your mortgage they’re not as expensive but they are at the moment, sort of expensive to put in there. I think the first opportunity will be with Obama’s windfall profit tax initiative. He wants to all companies to take a share of their windfall profits and use it to provide direct relief to individuals and married couples, $500 for individuals, $1000 for a married couple, and I think that will be an opportunity, perhaps, to insert some of these green building tax credits. We’ll have to wait and see. It really depends on the leadership in the House and Senate, Max Baucus in the Senate and Charlie Rangel in the House.
Q: What is the relationship in your perspective between the economic crisis and the environmental crisis?
A: Well that’s a big question, Rich. I’m not sure I have the scope of a mind to tackle this. I think Obama recognizes that they’re both enormous challenges and Presidents can only do so much, they can only really focus on 4, 5, 6 things at a time and he’s gotta establish his priorities. He said in his second debate, then Senator Obama said that he would have energy as his top priority so we’ll see if he lives up to that commitment.
On a global stage, an historic election is settled but how much attention will President Obama give back to the globe?
Anxious enviros await appointments to Obama’s Cabinet-level environmental positions. Possibilities include loyal campaign supporters like Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, Iowa Governor and foreign oil reductionist Tom Vilsack, former Secretary of Energy and Governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson, and of course the face of the current environmental movement Al Gore.
But it’s not just cronies and politicians who’ve got a shot at contributing to Obama’s environmental team, it’s open to everyone! Readers of the New York Times column Dot Earth have been asked to submit climate and energy proposals and the 10 best will be delivered directly to Obama’s transition team.
Clearly, this President’s environmental strategy will include collaborative thinking in bringing people together in a new way to solve old problems.
For up-to-the-second coverage of the new Green administration, visit this special Green Air News vertical series.
Welcome to the first addition of “Renewed World Order,” a vertical news thread of opinions and observations concerning President-elect Obama’s emerging environmental agenda. Keep up with what gets passed and what gets passed on right here.
The plumage of clean coal puffs its way back into the political face at a special panel discussion at Stamford University with an emphasis on “dis.” Al Gore took aim at misconceptions of “clean coal” and “Big Coal” in his speech giving advice and awaking eco-demons summoned during this past election.
This article points out is how most swing states are coal states and how playing the sweet song of the clean coal peace pipe could soothe voters whose livelihoods depend on mining. As a tactic, it was used on both sides and we’ll see if Obama chooses to make good on his promises to develop clean coal technologies as did President Bush… and we can see how much got done there.
If you’ve got a suggestion for President-elect Obama, submit it directly to him on the official website of his administration, Change.gov.
President-elect Obama wasn’t the only one to receive overwhelming support from voters on Election Day. It seems the planet proved just as popular.
The Clean Air Initiative made the ballot in Missouri and was firmly approved 66% to 34%. It has created a renewable electricity standard that requires utility companies to gradually increase their usage of renewable energy to 15% state-wide and requires that energy rates not increase by more than one percent annually.
The requirement in renewable energy standards around the country has been demonstrated to be significantly more successful. When you look at the states that have renewable energy standards, all of those states are the leading states for renewable energy development and wind energy development.
With 86% of Missouri’s electricity coming from costly and dirty coal-fired plants, this is a breath of much needed fresh air.
For more on this and other planetary policies, click here for the results of the winning and losing policies from the 2008 Presidential Election.
Is it possible for America to save money and save the planet?
A recent Gallup poll found that 66% of Americans said the economic crisis was hurting their personal finances. Further, people are more willing to save the environment over economic growth, but not by much.
It’s misrepresented in the main stream media that the problems with the environment and the US economy are inversely related. There’s is no proof that sacrifices of one actually hurt the other.
Anne Thompson, Chief Environmental Correspondent for NBC-Universal,
How do we become less dependent on foreign oil, that is first and foremost in everyone’s mind. I think that is what’s driving people’s interests to find more environmentally friendly ways to do all sorts of things today.
While there’s panic on Wall Street, the message is that the protection of the environment is directly related to a stabilization of our economy.
For more on the environment’s role in the economy, click here.
How safe is protected land and are logging, oil, and mining companies using our national parks for profit?
A land trust is a purchase of a large piece of real estate that in theory, remains protected from development. But it’s known that some of the biggest corporations and investment groups use the land for profit through logging, drilling, and mining.
Dan Tishman, Chairman of the Board for the Natural Resource Defense Council.
One has to define what logging is. There is good logging and there is bad logging. You can’t just tie up land as an eleemosynary thing forever. You have to understand that land is a valuable asset, it’s valuable for a whole host of reasons. And if in order to preserve land you need to figure out how to have some economic stream to preserve land, good sustainable certified logging practices might be the right sense.
One thing we can trust regarding our land is that not everyone has it’s best interests in mind regardless of what they say.
For more on American land trusts, visit some of the following links:
In this brave new world of deceptions and lies, few truths can still hold up. One of them being the government will never be a fan of activists. Despite the growing media coverage of all things Green and the increasingly alarming rate of climate change, climate activists are definitely not on the government’s Nice list this year. In fact, they have become new victims of a seemingly nonstop plot to rid as many people of their natural rights as possible. In other words, they have become terrorists (in the eyes of the government at least).
This is where it gets confusing for many. If the people whose only goal is to make the world a better place to live in are branded with the big T, who are the ones doing the branding? Certainly they must have something better to offer us. You know, something better than Earth. Surely…
Muncie, Indiana: Brevini USA, a wind turbine manufacturer announced plans for a new $60 million facility that will create about 450 permanent local jobs with annual pay averaging more than $46,000.
By now you’ve identified your carbon footprint but what about your carbon food print?
According to Michael Pollan’s most recent open letter to the President-Elect, issues like food prices and antiquated agricultural standards are being ignored.
He says, “After cars, the food system uses more fossil fuel than any other sector of the economy - 19 percent.” Clearing land for crops, chemical fertilizers made from natural gas,pesticides made from petroleum, farm machinery emissions, modern food processing and packaging and transportation all add up to a food industry that takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce one calorie of modern supermarket food.
The good news is that because of the two-headed crisis of food and energy in our country, Americans are more mindful of the food they’re purchasing, it’s safety, and healthfulness than ever before. Support for reform from both sides of the aisle suggests the current agricultural machine is decidedly broken and the market for organic, local, and humane practices is thriving as never before.
For more on Michal Pollan and ways to combat the food energy crisis, click here.
Jumbo shrimp, a parkway, pretty ugly, and now clean coal.
Do they think we’re oxymorons?
Talk of clean coal is polluting the air around the climate debate and stifling the discussion of alternative energy solutions. The fact of the matter is that coal extraction and incineration is a downright dirty process.
Additionally, this buzzword charade is being used by the two Presidential nominees as both a mudslinging tactic and vote generating accelerator. So what are they really talking about?
It’s basic shorthand for a technology that does not exist. The idea of carbon dioxide being separated from the exhaust of US coal plants is as likely to succeed as drilling for oil in ANWR will reduce gas prices significantly in 2009.
So while new coal technologies are experimental, the Politically infused notion of clean coal is nothing more than hot air.
For more on clean coal, check out some of the links below.
Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin said in the recent debate, regarding climate change, “I don’t want to argue about the causes.” She went on later to say, “drill baby drill,” referring to her advocacy for drilling in the ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) region of Alaska where she serves as Governor.
According to her opponent Senator Joe Biden, “The United States has 3% of the world’s oil reserves and consumes 25% of it… We know what the cause is, the cause is man made, that’s the cause.” Further, he made clear that it will take 10 years for one drop of oil to come out of any of the new wells proposed to be drilled.
So while irreverent disrespect for the environment in the form of domestic drilling is still on the table and long term sustainable solutions are years away from reality, we’d better take a close look at our role in this crisis to limit the damage done.
For things you can do that don’t involve drilling, click here.
Read the full transcript of the Vice Presidential debate here.
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