Latest Articles
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Helping homeowners monitor electricity use
One piece of the smart-grid puzzle is home electricity monitoring — allowing homeowners (and eventually business and factory owners) to track their electricity use in real time. As the old saw goes, what gets measured gets done. Simply making people aware of energy flows is the first step to helping them modulate those flows efficiently. […]
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There’s more room than you think
(Part of the No Sweat Solutions series.)
As almost everyone who studies the subject concludes, one key to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions is efficiency. Renewable sources generally provide energy at a slightly higher market price than fossil fuels. Oh, there are exceptions: passive solar heating, wind electricity, biofuel from waste. But overall, if we get all our energy from low-emitting sources, we will spend more overall per BTU. If we can use those BTUs efficiently, our overall energy bill can be the same or lower.
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Warming Law: new blog on green court cases
Did the EPA really think the Mass. v. EPA decision was a "stunner"? Isn’t that the kind of thing you prepare for? On that note, check out a new blog: Warming Law. It was started in the wake of Mass. v. EPA to analyze that decision and its effect on other important pending environmental cases. […]
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Or, what I learned watching The King of Queens last night
What I learned while watching The King of Queens last night: Once you give up meat, it’s a slippery, slippery slope to becoming one of those nagging, know-it-all, hemp-hawking, finger-pointing, tree-hugging, self-righteous environmentalists we’re all trying to distance ourselves from (or most of us, anyway). The episode begins as main character Doug Heffernan — a […]
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If you won’t go after them, we will
The IPCC reports are some of the most highly anticipated of 2007. An obvious sign? Within two weeks of one report's release, papers are already covering a leak from the next.IPCC Working Group III's focus is on mitigation, meaning a fair number of policy implications can be derived from its conclusions. So here's a hint for America's auto industry: the report calls for urgent action on road pollution.
In the United States, there are 483 passenger cars per 1,000 people (EarthTrends). The world average is about 100, and few countries outnumber our car count (Australia, for example, had 492 in 1996).
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In nearby Bothell
The Seattle Times is reporting on a Bothell family -- the Fraleys -- who are attempting to cut their family's greenhouse-gas emissions by 15 percent in May. Bully for them, and best of luck!
Still, there's something about the Times account of their experiment that rankles, just a bit. It leaves a casual reader with the impression that reducing carbon emissions is a total pain in the behind. To wit:
[The Fraleys] will try to reduce the household's greenhouse-gas emissions by using some common-sense ideas that nonetheless may be inconvenient. [Emphasis added.]
And ...
"I realized this wasn't going to be a cakewalk. The easy changes were already made, and the next one will be more -- painful is not the word -- but will take more effort."
Jeez, that makes sustainability sound like hair shirts and broccoli. Good luck getting people on board with that.
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Learn how to recognize the shills
Yesterday I wrote about an energy conference in Utah at which Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer enthusiastically shilled for coal and demanded more federal money for it. Looking more closely at the conference, I see I shouldn’t have been surprised. The Salt Lake Tribune story from yesterday is all but a press release for Utah Gov. […]
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USDA Seeks to fill enviro slot on Organic Board
The United States Department of Agriculture seeks to fill an "environmentalist" slot on the National Organic Standards Board, an opening announced in an April 16th press release. Why should you care? The NOSB makes recommendations to the USDA on what is allowable under USDA Organic Standards. Cloned animals? Recombinant DNA? Sewage sludge? The Board influenced all the decisions to keep these substances out, and will make important future recommendations as well.
Contact Katherine E. Benham, of the National Organic Program. Nominations close August 17, 2007. The position will probably be filled around January, as that's when environmentalist Andrea Caroe's term ends.
More in the press release here. Holla, people! I know you know someone!
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Um, overseas
“As part of efforts to shed its image of closeness to the motoring lobby, the party wants the government to commit immediately to key rail expansion projects …” That’s the conservative party. The dawn of hope and sanity? Yes. In the U.K.
