November 2008
25 posts
Sex Toy Recycling Program →
While we clean all toys upon receipt, we would appreciate it if you wash your toy with soap and water before shipping it to us….
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“Cap and trade doesn’t lead to all reasonable action being taken to reduce...”
– David MacKay, a professor of natural philosophy in the physics department at the University of Cambridge // via MoJo
In an interesting article critiquing some of the favored approaches to the climate crisis, Chris Lehmann writes that “you see the strong business bias of the sustainability...
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2.5%
That’s the average premium on green buildings, according to a study by the US Green Building Council and partners. (NYT).
That’s far less the public believes — and well worth it, because the savings start as soon as the building goes “live.”* Efficient heating and cooling systems mean lower energy bills, and green buildings with good indoor air quality and...
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GM Goes Grassroots. A Son is Torn. →
Last week, GM sent out an email to its employees urging them to demand that Congress pass a $25 billion “loan” for the American auto industry. For Jake Brewer, a grassroots clean energy advocate and Internet Director for the Energy Action Coalition, the issue is complex and deeply personal. His father is a GM employee who helped to build the ground-breaking Saturn brand from the...
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Daylight savings time: what, exactly, is the...
It’s meant to reduce energy use but a recent study in Indiana, where the policy was instituted for the first time in 2006, has found that it led to a 1% increase in energy use. The result was $9 million more in electricity costs for the whole state or $3.39 per household, and a commensurate increase in greenhouse gas emissions. The authors of the study theorize that the effect is worse in...
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How much damage can one sitting duck president do... →
In The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert, one of my favorite environmentalist journalists, writes about President Bush’s “midnight regulations,” rules put in place in the last three months of an outgoing presidential administration.
Among the many new regulations—or, rather, deregulations—the Administration has proposed are rules that would: make it harder for the government to...
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“It’s not that we like lower prices, but our competitive advantage is more...”
– Rex W. Tillerson, the chairman and chief executive of Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest oil company (it’s worth about $375 billion). The company is confident it “can weather the slowdown and uncertainty better than its rivals” (NYT).
Exxon’s view is that while oil is getting...
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WatchCradle to an early grave: where the discarded electronic goods of developed nations end up. (The Electronic Wasteland Video - CBSNews.com)
Via grapefruite, ericlodwick, mattlehrer.
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“Even if growth in global demand was at zero for the next 22 years, in order to...”
– Fatih Birol, author of the IEA’s World Energy Outlook which published today. (via dihard)
Most of our foreign oil goes straight into our cars. So weatherizing our homes and commercial spaces, building a new electric grid, and developing massive-scale renewable energy farms (all good, necessary,...
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The Climate for Change →
In a New York Times op ed, Al Gore delivers “the good news” — “the bold steps that are needed to solve the climate crisis are exactly the same steps that ought to be taken in order to solve the economic crisis and the energy security crisis.”
But of course it’ll take a lot more than saying so. And with that in mind, Gore lays it on us. A few of the...
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Michael Pollan for Secretary of Agriculture →
We need to resolarize the American food chain while weaning the nation from our dependence on foreign oil. We cannot keep subsidizing corn crops to make unsustainable fuel while most of the world is starving for grains. We need to get closer to the source of our foods for the health of our bodies, our children, and our planet.
Michael Pollan understands this. Join me in urging President-elect...
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“For 35 years, I pounded my body to the ground. Now, I feel like I’m doing...”
– Arie Versendaal of Newton, Iowa. For decades, he worked in a Maytag factory, but the plant closed last year, “taking 1,800 jobs out of [a] town of 16,000 people.”
Today, he has a new job in a manufacturing plant across the road from the old Maytag factory. He’s making blades for...
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“When Brian Williams is asking me about what’s a personal thing that...”
– Barack Obama, “How He Did It,” Newsweek.
When I do my “3Qs,” I ask people the top three things they do to actively reduce their carbon footprint and one that they don’t.
I do this because I want to illustrate the personal commitments of these environmental leaders...
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Hat in hand, they come a-callin'
CEOs of the Big Three American automakers have convinced Congress to give them $25 billion in low-interest loans.
What a joke.
Maybe they shouldn’t have spent the 90s pouring federal dollars into developing foolhardy, pointless diesel-electric hybrid cars that got nowhere, while putting all their eggs in the SUV and truck basket. (Hummers for all! Or at least an Expedition.)
Meanwhile,...
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Obama's Apollo mission →
Obama said last week that his top priority as president is to launch an Apollo-style national project to build a new, clean-energy economy.
Consumer spending drove the economy over the past two decades, fueled on easy credit (and actual fuel, straight down the gullets of our gas-guzzling cars). But that model has shown its inherent, untenable flaws, and Obama has promised to replace it with what...
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A change is gonna come to the U.S. Department of...
I woke up this morning with the strangest thought.
I want to work for the Department of Labor.
Obama’s landslide indicates that, despite what right-wing ideologues tell us, most Americans want “big government” — so long as it is for the people and by the people.
Under President Obama’s guidance, government agencies can improve the lives of American people. That...