This weekend, Saturday, March 28th 8:30pm is Earth Hour. Switch off your lights! How are you going to celebrate it? There are events going on around the world with 83 countries particating. We’ll probably light the candles and hang out – nothing big. Several local places are having specials such as Uncommon Ground in Chicago which is having candle-lit festivities on it’s rooftop garden.
Anyway you celebrate, VOTE EARTH and help reach the goal of 1 billion people switching off their lights for 1hr on Saturday night.
BTW – you don’t have to wait until 2010 to celebrate Earth Hour again – you can do it anytime you wish.
Lately I’ve been watching a lot of TED Conference videos – hoping more 2009 videos will come out. As I keep checking back, I keep finding more that I like. They’re quite addictive. The best part is that you can add them like a podcast right to iTunes and voila, they’re on your iPod/iPhone/iTouch, etc…or you can download them and put them on any other device. They even have a section called “A Greener Future?” that contains a lot of eco-videos. Keep checking back because they’re putting new videos from this years TED Conference up all the time. I’m waiting for Ray Anderson of Interface Carpet’s talk. He’s a visionary and a great speaker.
So what are my favorites? Here ya go
Charles Moore discussing the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”
Capt. Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation first discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — an endless floating waste of plastic trash. Now he’s drawing attention to the growing, choking problem of plastic debris in our seas.
Michael Pollan on the Omnivore’s Next Dilemma What if human consciousness isn’t the end-all and be-all of Darwinism? What if we are all just pawns in corn’s clever strategy game to rule the Earth? Author Michael Pollan asks us to see the world from a plant’s-eye view.
Mark Bittman on what’s wrong with what we eat In this fiery and funny talk, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman weighs in on what’s wrong with the way we eat now (too much meat, too few plants; too much fast food, too little home cooking), and why it’s putting the entire planet at risk.
Andy Hobsbawm on how to Do The Green Thing
I’ve met Andy on a few occasions – whether he remembers or not. His main gig is being European Chairman of Agency.com where I spent 8 years in the Chicago office. Of couse I found out about his green passion just as I was leaving the company. He lanched a site called Do The Green Thing in late 2007.
A few non-green TED Talks to check out:
Evan Williams founder of Twitter
Keep hearing about Twitter and don’t know what it is or what the point is? Watch this 7min video and get addicted…then follow us @screamtobegreen
Mike Rowe of Dirty Job’s
Mike Rowe, the host of “Dirty Jobs,” tells some compelling (and horrifying) real-life job stories. Listen for his insights and observations about the nature of hard work, and how it’s been unjustifiably degraded in society today.
T Boone Pickens wrote an editorial that appeared in papers on Tuesday morning. In it, he applauded the new stimulus package that was approved last week. “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan has $90 billion of investments and incentives for energy efficiency in buildings and homes, renewable electricity and other clean-energy programs that could potentially create 500,000 jobs while reducing energy use and saving oil.” I’m actually on-board with what Pickens says next. He lists what he feels should be the top three priorities to come out of the stimulus package.
1) Fix the grid. The current energy grid is archaic and outdated. The new grid must be reliable, efficient, and have the ability to handle the transmission of new alternative energy sources.
2) Develop “smart grid” technology. A smart grid uses digital technology to efficiently deliver electric at a cost savings.
3) Reduce our foreign-oil dependency and develop a clean, alternative transportation fuel infrastructure.
They really boil down to two main points: a) fix the grid by updating it to this century and beyond and b) develop new alternative fuel sources for transportation. If we can fix these two things, then the United States can be well on it’s way to energy independence. People on the east coast could be receiving power from a solar concentrator in Arizona. Wind power could be delivered across the grid without much degredation. Tidal power, algae power, cowshit power, whatever could be delivered across the country if the grid were sufficient. Now we have that opportunity.
This leads to things that are available and could be even more readily available like smart meters. Meters that will give you real-time residential pricing on your kilowatt. Meters that can shut down your air conditioner for periods of time to save energy.
All in all – I liked the piece that Pickens put out. It didn’t overtly push his plan. I hope that some people who are already invested in this dream read it, too.
A section from our friends over at Green Options is a site called Green Building Elements and they have an article on their today about the 10 Dumbest Green Buildings on Earth. They take a look at several LEED buildings around the world and highlight the dumbest ones of all. They include a car dealer, a golf course club house (where they use tons of water and pesticides), an airport terminal, a gas station, a bottled water plant, and pretty much every new building Dubai, UAE.
I think the concept of the post is brilliant. It’s like the “old” adage where the person orders a dozen cheeseburgers with a diet soda. As more and more cities offer tax breaks and have mandates for LEED building, I’m sure we’ll see more and more examples of “dumb” green buildings. In all honesty, though, I think that any building that is built to be a healthy, green, LEED certified building is good. Who knows – it might not always be a Dunkin Donuts or a headquarters for a bottled water plant. Buildings emit the majority of CO2 – so even if there is irony in the purpose of the building – it’s not such a bad idea.
It was the first interview with the Energy Secretary since Obama took office and he didn’t sugar coat it. To quote the Grist book, people need to wake up and smell the planet, yo. “Climate change is real and it’s going to F us up – so pay attention peeps,” Chu said. Okay – so maybe that isn’t a direct quote.
In a worst case, Chu said, up to 90 percent of the snow pack could disappear in the Sierras by the end of the century, sucking the bulk of California’s water supply nearly dry. That’s sheer death for the agriculture of California.
Chu said the threat of warming is keeping policymakers focused on fossil-fuel alternatives, even though gasoline prices fell over the past six months from historic highs. But he said public awareness needs to catch up. He compared the situation to a family buying an old house and being told by an inspector that it must pay a hefty sum to rewire it, or risk an electrical fire that could burn everything.
“I’m hoping that the American people will wake up,” Chu said, and pay the cost of rewiring.
The energy challenges our country faces are severe and have gone unaddressed for far too long. Our addiction to foreign oil doesn’t just undermine our national security and wreak havoc on our environment — it cripples our economy and strains the budgets of working families all across America. President Obama and Vice President Biden have a comprehensive plan to invest in alternative and renewable energy, end our addiction to foreign oil, address the global climate crisis and create millions of new jobs.
The Obama-Biden comprehensive New Energy for America plan will:
Help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.
Within 10 years save more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined.
Put 1 million Plug-In Hybrid cars — cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon — on the road by 2015, cars that we will work to make sure are built here in America.
Ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025.
Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.
Energy Plan Overview
Provide Short-term Relief to American Families
Crack Down on Excessive Energy Speculation.
Swap Oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Cut Prices.
Eliminate Our Current Imports from the Middle East and Venezuela within 10 Years
Increase Fuel Economy Standards.
Get 1 Million Plug-In Hybrid Cars on the Road by 2015.
Create a New $7,000 Tax Credit for Purchasing Advanced Vehicles.
Establish a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard.
A “Use it or Lose It” Approach to Existing Oil and Gas Leases.
Promote the Responsible Domestic Production of Oil and Natural Gas.
Create Millions of New Green Jobs
Ensure 10 percent of Our Electricity Comes from Renewable Sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025.
Deploy the Cheapest, Cleanest, Fastest Energy Source – Energy Efficiency.
Weatherize One Million Homes Annually.
Develop and Deploy Clean Coal Technology.
Prioritize the Construction of the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline.
Reduce our Greenhouse Gas Emissions 80 Percent by 2050
Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.
Yesterday, President-elect Obama announced the nomination of a Nobel Prize winner to be our new energy secretary. No, it wasn’t Al Gore. It was physicist Steven Chu. Wait? A scientist? In the cabinet? That’s so…what’s the phrase? European? Smart? Common-sense? UnBushlike?
“His appointment should send a signal to all that my administration will value science,” Obama said Monday at a Chicago news conference. “We will make decisions based on facts, and we understand that the facts demand bold action.”
Very interesting words after the past 8 years of blindness and environmental corruption. A scientist is holding a top-spot in government – not a lawyer. After a period where NASA scientists were censored and EPA reports were hidden and lied about.
In addition to Chu, Obamaramadingalingadingdong also appointed Carol Browner to be the coordinator of energy and climate change policy (Kyoto for the next generation anyone? Lets giddy up). Lisa Jackson who ran than the NJ EPA is new EPA Administrator. He also named a council on Environmental Quality – former deputy mayor of LA, Nancy Sutley. Bring it on!
Here’s an excerpt from an RFK, Jr. speech from a couple years ago to give you and idea of where we were with the Bush administration:
…most insidiously, they have put polluters in charge of virtually all the agencies that are supposed to protect Americans from pollution. President Bush appointed as head of the Forest Service a timber-industry lobbyist, Mark Rey, probably the most rapacious in history. He put in charge of public lands a mining-industry lobbyist, Steven Griles, who believes that public lands are unconstitutional. He put in charge of the air division of the EPA, Jeffrey Holmstead, a utility lobbyist who has represented nothing but the worst air polluters in America. As head of Superfund: a woman whose last job was teaching corporate polluters how to evade Superfund. The second in command of EPA is a Monsanto lobbyist.
The New York Times reported a couple of weeks ago that the second-in-command of the Council on Environmental Quality, which is in the White House directly advising the president on environmental policy, is a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute. His only job was to read all of the science from the different federal agencies to make sure they didn’t say anything critical and to excise any critical statements about the oil industry.
“In the next few years, the choices that we make will help determine the kind of country and world that we will leave to our children and our grandchildren.” Obama also went on to discuss climate change and the imminent dangers we face.
So maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
T Boone Pickens wrote an editorial that appeared in papers on Tuesday morning.
It was the first interview with the Energy Secretary since Obama took office and he didn’t sugar coat it. To quote the Grist book, people need to wake up and smell the planet, yo. “Climate change is real and it’s going to F us up – so pay attention peeps,” Chu said. Okay – so maybe that isn’t a direct quote.
