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Taking The Plunge
-- Pete -- 11/08/2008
We took the plunge in 2006. It wasn’t easy but we felt we needed to put our money where our mouth is. We have kids and we are concerned about the world we are leaving them. I’m talking about buying a hybrid. With two kids we needed the space of an SUV so thank goodness
The mileage was advertised at 38 miles per gallon which is great for that size of car. Unfortunately, that was a bit of an overstatement and 30 mpg’s is more accurate. To get 38 mpg’s you would have to drive about 20 miles an hour under the speed limit and risk getting a ticket for going too slow, not to mention getting shot at by the people behind you trying to get somewhere.
As it is, you have so much information at your fingertips about how you are doing on gas mileage it becomes a game. For the first week after we bought it we hardly looked up. I want to take this opportunity to apologize to anyone unfortunate enough to be driving near me at that time.
During the last year, with gas shooting up over $4 a gallon it was a life saver to get 30 miles a gallon. It still cost $50-$60 to fill up but you didn’t have to fill up quite as often.
The best part of the hybrid is the fact that there is a sticker on the window that says, “This is a SULEV” This means that we are driving super-ultra-low emission-emission- vehicle. and that feels pretty good. The sticker was designed to come off soon after you buy the car. The sticker is staying.
A simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process
-- Amanda Meade -- 11/03/2008
"Sunlight has the greatest potential of any power source to solve the world's energy problems. In one hour, enough sunlight strikes the Earth to provide the entire planet's energy needs for one year."
The problem has always been how to store all that energy. Until now. Two MIT scientists have finally figured out how to use a system that mimics photosynthesis.
From MIT News:
"Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Daniel Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's lab, have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night."
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html
This paves the way for large scale solar use by allowing traditional photovoltaic use during the day, and then harnessing the excess solar energy into a fuel cell during the night. Nocera said this may end the need for electric wire from a central source within 10 years.
“Blah, blah, blah”
-- Amanda Meade -- 10/30/2008
A 1998 ruling by the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus states that the Nuclear Energy Institute should "discontinue" its "inaccurate" advertisements that claim nuclear power is clean.
In their decision, the NAD noted that nuclear energy cannot be considered "environmentally clean". First, the uranium enrichment process relies heavily on electricity generated from coal-burning plants that produce "a significant amount of greenhouse gases." And perhaps most importantly, unlike other forms of energy, nuclear power produces toxic, radioactive waste, for which no safe method of disposal has been approved.
The NAD called on NEI to terminate its advertisements to "avoid any potential for consumer confusion and that broad, unqualified claims that nuclear energy is 'Environmentally Clean' or produces electricity 'without polluting the environment' be discontinued".
-- Amanda Meade -- 10/27/2008 Last week the investigative news program Frontline asked some tough questions about global warming. “Heat” investigated and interviewed key players from government and corporations to find out what they're planning and how they are "responding to Earth's looming environmental disaster." The piece dug deep on energy issues looking at where and how its produced, its impacts from our consumption and how our use of energy is impacting our world. If you missed the broadcast the full episode is now online and worth watching to help explain the challenges we face. As “the world is changing faster, more dramatically than ever was anticipated” what’s being done to address this enormous issue? Find out.
“HEAT” asks tough questions
State of Mind
-- Amanda Meade -- 10/24/2008
Changing the way we think about energy and realizing we can't continue to rely on a petroleum based economy is the most important issue we face. We have to change. We have to transition to real, clean energy and not false choices that continue to enrich big oil and coal companies.
Big oil and coal only care about profits. “Clean coal” is a deliberately false choice. A misleading phrase created to keep the status quo in place and keep billions in subsidies going to fossil fuel companies instead of proven-to-work renewables, such as solar and wind.
Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) when asked why Congress is paying more attention to the energy business leaders than the legions of scientists who have been warning of climate change for years said "There's real money in that group."
Meaning the Big oil and coal lobbyist prime the campaign contribution pump and grease the wheels for favor on their kind of ‘clean energy’; the same old dirty oil, black rock of coal, and money sucking nuclear plants that cost an average of 4 billion government dollars.
We need to shift existing subsidies from big oil, dirty coal and extremely expensive toxic waste producing nuclear to real clean energy technologies of wind and solar. We can be energy independent in ten years. Drastically reducing our dependency on foreign oil and CO2 intensive coal is what we need to do to address climate change. It is a fight against industry giants to change the way we produce and use energy. The U.S. has failed to make progress because the current energy industry giants spend millions to lobby our government and protect profit rather than the common good.
Decisions, Decisions
-- Pete -- 10/22/2008
According to the news there’s a big election coming up. There are many issues to base your vote on. Unfortunately, it seems the more crises’ we face, the more immediate the need for action, the more likely the environment falls off the map as an issue. Global Warming is still considered by many as a long-term problem and not urgent.
My wife and I have two children and we have all the concerns of most families. We are keeping a close eye on the financial situation and hoping for the best but planning for the worst. We don’t have the luxury of seeing everything in terms of the environment and all other issues through that lens.
Global Warming is urgent. It may not always feel like it, but it is. When prioritizing your issues remember that many of the issues we face today, we could have dealt with in the past at a much lower cost. We are all excited that gas prices hover around $3 after topping $4 for a few months but we could have avoided a lot of pain if we had worked towards energy independence when it was first proposed- some 30 years ago.
If you live long enough you start to realize that many of the same issues come up every election cycle. They always seem so urgent but they are rarely addressed. We have a bad habit of waiting until we have a full-blown crisis before we act. When you see smoke in your house you should react while it’s just smoke and isolated. Obvious, right? Well, it’s obvious but not always easy. It requires true leadership to help people see the value in reacting while there is time.
I suppose it is human nature to put things off but now is the time to rise above our nature and act while we can make a difference. When you are deciding who to vote for look down at any little eyes that may be looking up at you; wondering if somebody is in charge and will do the right thing.
Heat and the City
-- Pete -- 10/15/2008
A report was released today that states that if we don’t do something about global warming our cities are going to overheat like a car stuck on the side of the freeway with the hood up on a mid-summer day. You don’t see that as much anymore but I remember those days. It was hot enough as it was and if you had a car that was prone to overheating you actually had to put the heat on in the car full blast to draw the heat away from the engine. In the mean time you and your passengers are hanging your heads out the window just to survive. Not fun. Our cities are like to those cars of old. In a planet that is heating up, our cities, often with populations unable to deal with the stress are susceptible to overheating and all the health problems that accompany this stress. One thing that struck me from the report is the fact that on hot days our bodies need the temperature to go down at night to recover from the heat of the day. If the cities aren’t able to cool down at night like the report warns, we will see many more heat-related deaths. We got a preview of this a few years back when tens of thousands died during a heat wave in What does this all mean? This is another example why urgent action is needed. Please do your part to fight this crisis for those, like the children in the inner cities, who cannot fight for themselves.
Spill, baby, spill
-- Amanda Meade -- 10/09/2008
"Hurricane Ike's winds and massive waves destroyed oil platforms, tossed storage tanks and punctured pipelines. The environmental damage only now is becoming apparent: At least a half million gallons (1,892,650 liters) of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico and the marshes, bayous and bays of Louisiana and Texas, according to an analysis of federal data by The Associated Press." Or here
Anyone want to rethink allowing drilling 3 miles off our coasts? The National Center for Atmospheric Research scientist Greg Holland says, "The increasingly dense development along our coastlines and our dependence on oil from the Gulf of Mexico leaves our society dangerously vulnerable to hurricanes." A new study by NCAR follows two major reports, by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which found evidence for a link between global warming and increased hurricane activity.
The only offshore locations left for drilling are very expensive to explore and produce oil. Drilling in the Atlantic and other offshore locations is far more expensive and won’t result in any substantive reduction in the cost of oil, even if it does contribute a small percentage to our supply. There are no quick and easy solutions to meeting our energy needs. The one thing that we need to take seriously into consideration is the fact that we have to change. Change the way we think about energy, change the way we use energy and change the way we develop energy. Is it really worth the risk to develop oil off our shores?
All of the above is not an energy policy. I don’t like any of the above if they don’t get us where we need to be – 100% renewable.
It’s All Political? Why?
-- Pete -- 10/08/2008
I know why global warming started as a political issue but I don’t know why it should remain that way. Sure, to most of us the original messenger was a certain former Vice- President known for starring in a certain movie and getting a few awards for his work but come on, this is the planet, the only planet we have to leave to our children. It is not about us and our political views; it’s about solving a crisis for those we love the most.
If you are reading this, chances are you are one of the ones not hung up on the political aspects of climate change. If this is true, what is our responsibility? If we are committed to solving this crisis we have to try to see the world through someone else’s eyes and bring those doubters along. You are armed with sound, accepted, peer reviewed science. You are up against a lot of bias and misinformation. We have to use these tools and not disparage someone’s politics if we hope to succeed.
Do we need to fight? I believe we do but we can’t ignore half the country and expect to get where we want to go. The fact is that this challenge is bigger than any one political party and elected officials from both parties need to lead and we are seeing that happen. We need good ideas from across the political spectrum. In order to get the broad support that is needed, we need to move away from politics and towards solutions.
I know, easier said than done but we need to try and it is certainly worth the try.
Onward and upward……
Take Heart and Keep Up the Fight
-- Pete -- 10/03/2008
In the fight against global warming it is easy to get discouraged and to think that no one is doing anything to fight this scary scenario. Some would probably believe that dealing with global warming day in and day out as an organizer would be depressing. The truth is that as an organizer I get to meet and work with people from all walks of life who not only care about this issue but are doing something about it. Knowing that is encouraging.
At the University of Maryland alone there are three separate programs that are dedicated to studying and fighting climate change. These are smart and serious people and they are doing great work. There are also many individuals and citizen groups who dedicate most of their free time to fighting global warming.
Now, we need to get our elected officials on board. They are a little distracted right now but we need to keep up the good fight and support those who are fighting the good fight.
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