Creative Greenius

The Cat Is On The Roof This Joke is at YOUR Expense...

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 07:40:14 -0700

There’s an old joke that most of us baby boomers first heard when we were kids. Here’s the version I remember:

A man goes on vacation and his brother agrees to housesit for him -- feeding the cat, picking up the newspapers and mail, watering the plants, etc. After the first week goes by the vacationing brother phones to check in.

"I’m sorry bro," his brother at the house tells him almost immediately, "but your cat died."

"What!? What do you mean my cat died?! How could you tell me like this? What kind of insensitive creep are you? You need to prepare someone for a shock like that!" exlaims the vacationing brother.

"How was I supposed to prepare you?" asks the man.

"Well," says the brother, "first you should have told me, the cat is on the roof.
Then you should have said, but don’t worry, we’re calling the fire department.
Then the next time I called in to check you should have said, the fire department was doing everything it could and not to worry.
Then the next time I called you could tell me that the cat had fallen, but not to worry -- the vet was doing everything she could to resuscitate him.
Then, finally, after all that, you could have told me, my cat had died. That’s how you break news like that."

"You’re right, bro, I’m sorry. I should have been more sensitive first," said the housesitting brother, who really did feel bad about it at this point.

His vacationing brother on the phone was quickly forgiving, "That’s okay. I understand. So anyway, how’s everything else? How’s mom doing?"

"Mom?" says the man, "Mom is on the roof...."

Guess what?

Right now, here in 2008 the cat is on the roof for global warming.

If that’s too Al a Gore-ical for you then understand this - we have already reached the emergency landing point of our flight. That tipping point you’ve been hearing about?

It’s here.

"'We’re toast if we don't get on a very different path," James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute of Space Sciences who is sometimes called the godfather of global warming science, told The Associated Press Monday.
"This is the last chance."

Is that clear enough for you? Are you getting the sense of urgency? Still think you’ve got your priorities in order?

You’d think news like this would be big enough to dominate the cable news networks for at least a few days like say a kid who fell down a well. You’d be wrong. The death of Tim Russert is apparently a much bigger story than the death of the planet. Who knew?

“Elements of a ‘perfect storm,’ a global cataclysm, are assembled,” said Dr. Hansen this same week testifying to Congress and that’s not all he said.

"…now we have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb.”

Dr. Hansen is giving us 12 months to get our act together:

“The next President and Congress must define a course next year in which the United States exerts leadership commensurate with our responsibility for the present dangerous situation. Otherwise it will become impractical to constrain atmospheric carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas produced in burning fossil fuels, to a level that prevents the climate system from passing tipping points that lead to disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of humanity’s control.”

Dr. Hansen goes on to say “The disturbing conclusion, documented in a paper I have written with several of the world’s leading climate experts, is that the safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is no more than 350 ppm (parts per million) and it may be less. Carbon dioxide amount is already 385 ppm and rising about 2 ppm per year.”

The world’s climatologists have already offered undisputed evidence of irreversible punishments to come, including huge risings of sea levels and massive changes in rainfall patterns, among them.

If you’re feeling the impact of today’s $5 a gallon gas and rising food prices and worried about the dropping equity in your home then wait till you see what’s coming in your immediate future. You don’t need to be physic to know that these are slated to be the good old days that you will wistfully pine for just a few years from now.

Your Creative Greenius isn’t trying to scare you so much as I am trying to slap you hard across your face -a la Cher to Nicholas cage in Moonstuck - and help you to “Snap out of it!”

You don’t have the time or luxury to wait for someone else to come to the rescue. You need to strap it on and report for duty. YOU are the one you’ve been waiting for.

But you better not be too patient with yourself because we don’t have time for you to put on your makeup and get ready.

Let me help you with the perspective here... that terrorist threat from Al Queda and all the other terrorist groups in the world? It’s less than a pimple on a flea compared to the reality of the global warming risk we’re facing today. That killer earthquake California has coming that’s long over due? A short jog through the park compared to what our retirement years and the rest of century will be like. don’t be looking for FEMA to bail you out.

So what steps should you take right now? How can you possibly make any kind of difference? Just what the hell is the Creative Greenius trying to motivate you into doing?

Tune in - Get up to speed on what’s really going on and stop pretending it’s all going to be okay without you - it won’t. You’ve got to make the time and do your homework. This is a pass fail class and you won’t like the consequences of getting an F.

Turn On - Turn your friends, your family, your co-workers, your neighbors, anyone that pays attention to you to what’s really going on and your concern about it.

Plug In - make your next car a plug in electric car and plug it into the new solar panels you need to get. You’ll have free fuel for life for your new clean burning electric car, you’ll end your dependence on gasoline of any kind and you’ll stop pumping more C02 into the atmosphere. You’ll also be finished forever with things like oil changes, tune ups, new air filters and the other maintenance that isn’t necessary with electric cars. So far GM, Toyota, Nissan, VW, Mitsubishi, have all announced plug in vehicles they will have for sale in 2010. That’s 18 months away. So don’t buy another car until you can go electric.

Power On - Once you see how well today’s solar panels work at making electricity you’re going to want to make ALL your electricity that way - especially since your electric rates are going to start doubling soon and then keep going up from there. You’ll be especially happy you made that switch when the energy shortages to come cause rolling blackouts for those reliant on the power companies.

Act Accordingly - Stop wasting so much time mindlessly watching television, playing video games and going to Las Vegas.
Stop pretending and sticking your head in the sand - you’re only exposing a large target when you do that.
Start devoting some of that time to working with other individuals and groups who are dedicated to cutting carbon to levels we can live with.
And start speaking up and speaking out against patently stupid and dangerous ideas like drilling for more oil domestically or using our abundant coal resources. Those are the killer carbons that caused this mess which we need to stop using now.
Walk the walk why don’t you?

Enjoy Yourself It’s Later Than You Think -
Enjoy yourself
while you’re still in the pink.
The years go by as quickly as a wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think

Lets face it, no matter what happens you’ve got to live and love and laugh.
With the odds stacked against us the way they are, it’s easy for you to conclude we’re already doomed and that the best response is to just party like it’s 1999 and use it before you lose it. I wouldn’t blame you if you did.

Just do it mindfully, fully aware, with your eyes open. Please have the courage and honesty to say you looked at the situation and decided to stick a fork in us because we’re already done. Feel free to explain that one to the kids too and let me know how that works out for you.

Tell them about this too:

Polar scientists reveal dramatic new evidence of climate change

It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.

The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.

And finally, just to masterfully connect all the dots for you in a way only the most conservative print publication can. In case you thought this was just the rant of a crazy environmentalist.

“Concluding that climate change will have wide-ranging impacts on U.S. security in the coming decades, a classified report complicates an already tangled debate by providing urgent new reasons to address the problem of global warming at a time when American voters are anxious about $4-a-gallon gas. Do something to lower gas prices, and you might exacerbate warming and, potentially, terrorism. Assist in the fight against global warming and risk economic hardship.

There’s a reason it takes a Creative Greenius like me to tackle this issue, but tackle it I am doing with renewed energy and a loud ticking clock reverberating in my brain when I‘m trying to think about the Lakers or organizing my digital photos.

Meanwhile I invite you one and all to get on board the Cluetrain with me and ride the rails to a much better way of life. Your first stop is clicking on all the links I have throughout this declaration of independence and getting your ticket punched.

Not An Environmentalist? Then You Are The Bad Guy In Today’s Story

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 11:51:36 -0700

Just who are these people that choose NOT to be environmentalists?

Should we call them monsters for all the harm and destruction they cause and support? Are they angry murderers or just cold blooded assassins, these killers?

Are they destroyers on a mission to cause as much harm as possible or do they wreck their havoc obliviously as part of their dinosaur-like behavior?

When it comes right down to it, are they in fact terrorists who value no life and show no mercy to little children, pregnant women, the elderly, the ill and the innocent? They’re bad. Really bad.

We may not know what they truly are these anti-environmentalists, but we do know what they are not.

They are not patriotic to the United States - or any other nation for that matter - for their actions harm the very land and way of life we hold so dear.

You are nobody’s patriot if you are not willing to fight and defend the many things that make your country so great.

If you’re not an environmentalist you can’t be very religious because all of the world’s major religions teach that the earth and its natural wonders are a gift to us from God and ours to be protected and cherished.

It goes without saying that if you’re not an environmentalist you’re not really pro-life.

If you’re not an environmentalist you’re also not a very good parent since you’re not doing the right thing for the environment your children will inherit.

The children are supposed to be our future, but if you’re not an environmentalist you probably don’t care much about the future.

So how come you haven’t heard these obvious BAD GUYS of the 21st Century referred to in these terms in the media - or anywhere else?

How come they haven’t been branded and tagged as the villains, the enemy of our future health and happiness?

Well first off, the media doesn’t have the benefit of Creative Greenius, but more importantly environmentalists have already been branded and tagged by these very same Bad Guys, those with a vested interest in having folks believe a different storyline. They’ve done a brilliant job of preemptively redefining and distorting our environmental brand image.

In today’s marketplace “Environmentalists” were long ago defined and remain branded as some kind of inconsequential fringe group of anti-establishment hippy, granola eating, Birkenstock wearering, treehugging, free-spirited bleeding hearts, drug-using Mother Earth-loving wackos who don’t hold real jobs and who want to wreck the global economy, ruin big business and end the free enterprise system just in order to save bugs, birds and plants nobody cares about.

I believe this definition was originally written by Dick Cheney in 1972 at the request of then President Richard Nixon.

But I’m here to tell you that in the reality-based world I reside in, everybody I know and I bet everyone you know is an environmentalist.

How can you tell if YOU are an environmentalist? That’s easy.

If you want clean air to breathe and clean water to drink and clean land to build and grow on - you are an environmentalist.
If you want to preserve and protect our great public lands like our national and state parks, our beaches, mountains, lakes and rivers and unmatched scenic vistas - you are an environmentalist.
If you want to leave our country and our planet a better, not worse place for the next generation than the one you inherited - you are an environmentalist.
If you believe we should be phasing out the use of polluting, carbon producing sources of energy like coal, oil an gasoline and replacing them with nonpolluting, locally produced, renewable sources of energy like wind, solar, wave, geothermal and others - you are an environmentalist.

So the truth is, here in 2008, the overwhelming majority of people in the United States, and in most other places around the world - are all environmentalists.

All of these people would say that they are NOT willing to sacrifice the health or future of either their local or their global environment in order to profit or gain a personal advantage of some sort. All of these people are environmentalists.

As the Creative Greenius I am here today to help reclaim and redefine the word environmentalist, to rebrand it and reintroduce it and towards that end I say the real questions to ask this marketplace are:

Who are the people that are NOT environmentalists and why do they mean to do us such harm?
Why are they willing to sacrifice rain forests, wetlands, natural habitats and forest lands when the harmful consequences of those actions can’t be undone?
Why are they willing to damage the environment and sacrifice the health of all the people we love and cherish in exchange for money or personal advantage? Have they no ethics or values at all?
Are they in fact the enemy of all mankind here on some kind of secret mission to destroy our planet and everything on it?
Are they motivated by hate and evil or are they merely mercenaries doing it all just for the money?

A big part of defining who you are is by identifying who you are NOT - that is what I am proposing we do now.

It’s time we planted revised mental images in people’s heads of who the anti-environmentalist are, these abusers, destroyers and killers who will stop at nothing to achieve their goals of personal gain and power.

Some might say that level of evil can only come from those aligned with Satan himself. Me? I just like to think of them as The Bad Guys.

Whatever your imagination conjures, it’s a grotesquely ugly picture when you think about it - and getting you to think about it is the whole point... Are you grokking where I’m coming from here?

The Creative Greenius says just because the Bad Guys have been successful in their identity theft of the word environmentalist is no reason to let them continue with their crime. You don’t just give up and change your name when someone steals it.

It’s time to take advantage of the ongoing green wave and the public’s attention to creatively set the record straight while we unite all the true environmentalists in our joint mission to respond to global warming and fight the powers who cause it and benefit from it. Does that sound like fun or what?

When it comes to the environment, the truth is it’s the defining issue of our time and you’re either with us or against us.

Sometimes it really is just as simple as the Good Guys verses the Bad Guys.

The Sharing Of The Green

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:13:38 -0700

Here in the South Bay of Los Angeles where I live and across our Palos Verdes Peninsula there is no greener time of year than these months of March and April. St. Patrick’s Day next week is famous for its “wearing of the green,” and Earth Day has been the nation’s greenest environmental holiday since its founding on April 22, 1970 by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin.
Even without a calendar, green is the color of our local So Cal scene as spring arrives here long before reaching the rest of the United States and bursting, budding nature abounds to bless us in dazzling displays of trees, plants and flowers.

The birds wintering here have all paired up by now and are busy building nests. The “Zing!” and supersonic aerial displays of our abundant crop of hummingbirds fills the skies and our hearts.

All of this intense green focus brings us the perfect opportunity to seize this verdant moment to reach out and help bring our well meaning friends, family and colleagues into a Greenius state of mind in a movement I’m dubbing, “The Sharing of the Green.”

We all know people (some of you are reading this right now) who have good green intentions but who, for a variety of reasons are just not yet walking the walk. Some of my friends say they know all about CFL bulbs and how much they’ll save in energy use and shrink their carbon footprint, but they’re not going to switch from their incandescent bulbs until they burn out one by one. Not exactly the most insightful or responsible thinking, but it is what it is and they’re not going to become part of the solution without our help.

I say it's up to those of us who have already gone green to help bring these slackers along, and there’s no better time of year to start sharing than right now.
St. Patrick’s Day takes on a whole new green meaning when you explain that Ireland now leads the world in not just four leaf clovers but also in their reduction of plastic bag use.

The Irish are smiling like a Lucky Charms leprechaun after cutting their plastic bag proliferation by 90%. They did it by imposing a 22-cent tax for each bag taken home from the store. So rather than bring your St. Patrick’s day party host a gift of green beer, I suggest bringing them some reusable grocery bags.

And instead of bringing a bottle of wine or some flowers the next time we’re invited over for dinner at a friends, I recommend we share the green by bringing our hosts a pack of CFL bulbs or rechargeable batteries. I’m saying let’s use birthdays, Mother's Day, anniversaries, baby showers and all the other regular gift-giving occasions to give our recipients things like a water filter pitcher and reusable water bottle to get them using tap water to replace bottled water.

We can give a gift basket of eco-friendly cleaning supplies to replace Mom's toxic soup versions. Microfiber “miracle” towels are a highly prized gift. A rain barrel, a push lawnmower or a composter all make great housewarming gifts.

A solar powered charger for the cellphone, digital camera and MP3 player is the perfect gift for your graduate, one they’ll appreciate and also find very cool indeed. I’m sure you can think of other great green gifts that would be perfect for your specific friends and their unique circumstances. Each one will make their own bit of difference and have the chance in their own subversive way of changing your friends forever more.

Many of these friends would never buy any of these green products for themselves, but they will give them a try if they receive one as a gift. And once they discover how easy and rewarding it is to be green we’ll have added another member to the green team.

Another easy way to drive the Sharing of the Green is to gift your friends with memberships in local park, beach and public lands support groups and larger organizations like the Sierra Club, National Audubon Society, Trust For Public Lands, Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, or the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society – to name a few.

This is the natural time of growth and renewal and here in my corner of paradise our local landscape is rewarding us once again with breathtaking scenes of joy and beauty.

But we Greenius types know that our idyllic slice of heaven – like the rest of the planet - is at great risk due to global warming, just as we know that we must vastly increase our ranks to meet the challenge. The enlightened on this subject are still a small percentage of the masses. Even our own seemingly intelligent and informed family and friends can easily become so overwhelmed with the pressures and stress of getting through their day and week that they just have no bandwidth left to go green.

Those of us who ARE doing everything we can to protect and improve our environment need to realize our own efforts will never be enough and that everyone we have any influence with must also come over to the green side to force a true tipping point. To make the force work for us, we’ve all got to be green Yoda-style, if you grok where I’m coming from.

Through The Sharing of the Green we can creatively exert that Jedi-like influence by enticing our friends using the same successful technique drug dealers have historically employed - The first time is always free. Once they get a taste of how easy and satisfying it is to be green they’ll be hooked and they’ll be one of us. Then we’ll begin to wield an impact far beyond our current numbers and we can become the weight that tips the balance and the straw that stirs the drink.

Yes We Can! We Just Beat Coal. Time to Go Nuclear?

Tue, 5 Feb 2008 20:44:31 -0800

Congratulations are in order for all of us who took on the myth of Clean Coal and who warned that it wasn’t real and would not make coal an acceptable fuel to generate electricity from. We won!
They said we couldn’t do it, that coal had too much money, too much power too much influence. But you can stick a fork in coal now when it comes to generating future energy in America. Coal just got its ass kicked. Just like I said it would.

Last Wednesday the plug got pulled on clean coal by its biggest financial backer and chief cheerleaders, the Bush administration and the Department of Energy in “a major policy reversal.”

The $1.8 billion dollar per plant cost was already double the original budget of $950 million and cost overruns were expected to bump the price up to $2 bill per plant. That’s a ton of money for technology that is just vaporware and not proven. Way too much money for the industry itself to pay. Their costs were going to be capped at just $400 billion with our tax dollars picking up the rest of their tab. Not any more.

Even worse news for coal was in yesterday’s morning’s headlines where I read in the Wall Street Journal that three of Wall Street's biggest investment banks are set to announce today that they are imposing new environmental standards that will make it harder for companies to get financing to build coal-fired power plants in the U.S.

This devastating news for the people who make their money as the biggest contributers to global warming is great news for the rest of us. Because it means the clean coal scam didn’t work and those 151 new coal fired electric plants on the books probably won’t get built. Which is just fine, since we don’t really need them. Americans can conserve the same amount of energy they were going to produce and we must.

We can only use our Creative Greenius on the Chinese and their coal fired electric plants if we first do the right thing here in the USA. Now that we’ve stopped the Clean Coal Carnival here we can start making the serious move to renewables and sell that same technology to the Chinese.

I believe our green movement will transcend governments and entrenched interests and connect at a people to people level. I’m talking about people both here and in China who won’t stand for being victims of global warming and who are willing to work together to change the world for our own self interest and survival. That change starts with us on an individual basis, then extends to our own countries and then to other countries.

But before we get to the solar, wind and other renewables we’re waiting for you’ll need to get ready for the marketing campaign and media blitz to position nuclear energy as our savior from global warming.

Nuclear generates no greenhouse gasses, they’ll tell us. You’ll hear how no one has ever died from any nuclear power plant accident. They’ll say that today’s nuclear plants are much safer and far more advanced than the old Three Mile Island that scared us all or Chernobyl - which wasn’t really as bad as we remember. And they’ll say that those of us who oppose them are a bunch of aging hippies who have all been brainwashed by Al Gore.

But what they WON’T say is that they’ve solved the nuclear waste problem. Unless you talk to my friend, Dr. Robert Schenter, PhD.

Dr. Bob, as he is endearingly called by his many friends around the world, is a brilliant nuclear scientist who has used his time and talents working with radioactive isotopes for medical purposes, primarily in the cancer field. He is the inventor of Smart Bullets that target cancer cells far more precisely than traditional radiation or chemo.

Dr. Bob is active with several Cancer Foundations, is an American Nuclear Society Fellow, a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on the medical uses of Isotopes, and has testified before Congress on Medical Isotope Supply and Applications.

But when I spoke with him last month, he was testifying to me about Nuclear Waste Transmutation. Dr. Bob believes that transmutation using Fast Flux nuclear reactors can render nuclear waste into safe, valuable commodities, eliminating the need for places like the Yucca Mountain waste depository. Dr. Bob raises the question - if I can solve nuclear energy’s waste problems for you, why wouldn’t you support nuclear as the green, zero-carbon producing source of electricity that is the holy grail of the environmental movement?

Dr. Bob reminded me that one of Greenpeace’s founders, Patrick Moore is now a supporter of nuclear power and I know from my own research that Whole Earth founder Stewart Brand is on board for nukes.

So what exactly are we talking about with Transmutation? In a nutshell we’re talking about using a fast flux nuclear reactor to burn up the most dangerous long-lived fission products, the ones with half lives of thousands of years and in so doing transmute them into either stable or short-lived isotopes not requiring very long term “storage.”

According to Wikipedia, “Transmutation of transuranium elements (actinides) such as the isotopes of plutonium, neptunium, americium, and curium has the potential to help solve the problems posed by the management of radioactive waste, by reducing the proportion of long-lived isotopes it contains. When irradiated with fast neutrons in a nuclear reactor, these isotopes can be made to undergo nuclear fission, destroying the original actinide isotope and producing a spectrum of radioactive and nonradioactive fission products. Isotopes of plutonium and other actinides tend to be long-lived with half-lives of many thousands of years, whereas radioactive fission products tend to be shorter-lived (most with half-lives of 30 years or less). From a waste management viewpoint, transmutation of actinides eliminates a very long-term radioactive hazard and replaces it with a much shorter-term one.”

It’s not often that I get to talk to a nuclear scientist about the technical side of their work and employ my own microscopically small expertise in the field. But as the former co-chair of the Coalition for a Nuclear Free Harbor in Long Beach, California, I am familiar with the substandard quality of the nuclear workforce and those who handle nuclear materials in general.

For example, during the 1970s and 1980s, the US Navy, who operates a wide range of nuclear warships and submarines, reported that they had recorded over 375 nuclear incidents and accidents. They’ve dumped radioactive waste in the waters all around the planet. Not surprisingly they don’t like to talk about their record and you have to use the Freedom of Information Act to find out the truth.

And you don’t have to look far doing a news search today for information on current screw ups at nuclear plants. Just read my last post. This is an industry and technology that has not earned our trust. I trust Dr. Bob, but the rest of the nuclear industry doesn’t operate at his high standards.

So even if the US could build a new nuclear power plant every one-to-two weeks for the next 50 years as the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research said we need to in their 2006 study it would be an awful use of our money and it would be the wrong direction for us to turn. We already waste way too much of our taxpayer money on nuclear industry subsidies which in 2006 brought them $9 billion and which brought you and me a big fat nothing. If we were spending anywhere near that same amount of money developing wind, solar and other renewables we’d already be plugging into a greener grid today.

So even though I don’t have a PhD, I’m going to tell you that Dr. Bob’s well meaning transmutation solution is not the answer. I wish it was and I wish I agreed with him, but I don’t. We just don’t need a world filled with nuclear reactors in every country big and small even if we could all use a time machine to have them built in enough time to make a big difference in climate change.

The right answer is a mix of energy conservation, a Manhattan Project-sized national commitment to developing and expanding renewable energy and just as importantly, a decentralization of power generating. We need to change the whole concept of the grid as it exists today. We need to see power generated at the local level by big commercial buildings, schools, shopping centers, hotels, office buildings and neighborhoods. Power that’s far cheaper and safer in the long run than nuclear could ever be.

We’ve made the first big, smart move already by busting the clean coal scam. Now it’s time to keep moving in the right direction and not fall for greenwashing by the nuclear industry who see coal’s demise as their opening.

Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and I were right when we talking about No Nukes in 1979 and we are still right today. Can we stop them? YES. WE. CAN.

Check out their most recent video as we continue the Creative Greenius approach to turning energy green. They’re talking about last year’s energy bill but the same nuclear bailout money is in the President’s brand new budget:

Clean Coal, Healthy Cancer & Evil Jesus - Did I mention safe, green nuclear?

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 22:41:35 -0800

If any terrorist organization ever caused the kind of damage to our nation and our people that the coal industry does every day, those terrorists would declare victory and be celebrating on the Al Jazeera network. And our government would be proclaiming coal an unacceptable weapon of mass destruction and declaring war on coal.

Does that sound a little over-the-top to you? Are you concerned that this is hysterical thinking and not a rational argument? If only...
I’ve been reading about, researching and tracking this coal issue for months now and the truth is coal is your enemy if you are fighting global warming (and really who isn’t these days - except the bad guys?)

So then, let’s calmly consider these well-supported facts:

According to EPA data, annual carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants are greater than the emissions from all cars, trucks, planes, trains, and other forms of transportation combined. 34% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the US come from coal - making coal the King of Carbon.

The serious environmental and public health impacts of coal-generated electricity include damage, death and destruction from - say them aloud with me:

Coal mining
Air pollution
Coal plant waste
Water use

Coal is dirty every step of the way.

There are now about 600 conventional coal plants in the US burning on average about 1.4 million tons of coal each every year. There are also over 150 new CO2 belching coal-fired plants on the drawing board in the US.

There are currently over 1,000 new coal-fired electric plants being built in China with a new one going on line every single week and bringing the planet that much closer to the global warming tipping point... And not in a good way.

While enlightened state and local governments, grassroots coalitions and organizations like the Sierra Club, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and environmental groups large and small are all making the case with citizens and uniting to stop new plants from being built or opening, the coal industry is spending millions on a blatant and aggressive propaganda campaign using scare tactics, misdirection and pushing the fairy tale of “clean coal.”

The “clean coal” campaign says nothing about coal’s role in global warming.

The FTC won’t let companies lie in their erectile dysfunction commercials but the coal industry is held to a “softer” standard of truth.

There is no such thing as clean coal. It is a myth. (You know, like the lottery helping the school system.) No grid-connected power plant anywhere in the world is a clean coal plant and no technology currently exists to build or operate a clean coal plant. It would be swell if it did, but it don’t.

Many billions of our tax dollars have been spent to try and invent clean coal but no breakthrough has happened. And we are not close to a breakthrough. An unproven theory about carbon sequestration is being pushed by the coal industry but no such technology currently exists.

The coal industry will never tell you the truth about this.

Here’s a brilliant concept to remember - The ONLY time coal can be considered clean coal is when its left in the ground untouched, because it’s full of carbon that’s being kept out of the air.
Coal in the ground is its only proven form of carbon sequestration. It has worked for thousands of years. The minute you start to mine it, move it and especially burn it in any way it becomes dirty, polluting and a global warming enemy

Coal is promoted as America’s cheapest and most abundant energy source, but coal’s price needs to include the true cost of coal’s impact on our environment and our health.

The truth is - our entire planet will be better off when all the electricity currently generated by coal-fired power plants is generated instead by renewable energy - wind, solar, biomes, geothermal, wave power and other now proven, reliable and grid-ready alternatives. The sooner we make that move, the better off everyone -except the coal industry - will be.

Right now billions and billions of tax dollars are being spent funding the development of “clean coal.” ALL of that tax money should be spent on real, honest clean energy. The technology is ready. The people are ready. All that is lacking is for the leaders in charge to do the right thing. To make that happen you need to know the facts and use those facts to make things change. I’m talking about speaking out whenever you can.

The coal industry should be spending their own money searching for clean coal, just as they should be spending their own money cleaning up the damage they have done. Instead, they’re spending their money trying to scam people and trying to influence elections so they can get still more tax breaks and favorable legislation. We can’t let them get away with that.
And we won’t - we’ll keep the spotlight on them and we’ll creatively tell their story in a way that will expose their brand as empty and without value. Just as importantly we’ll offer the viable alternatives that can help solve the environmental problems coal causes.

The world’s most respected and accomplished climate scientists will tell you that the smarter, more beneficial and logical use of those tax dollars at this point in the global warming timeline would be spent replacing all coal-fired electric plants with renewables.  
That’s certainly a lot less pie in the sky than the fantasy of “clean coal”. And the sooner we get started the sooner we begin mitigating the damages of global warming. and the sooner we begin building a thriving, growing new economy.

Here’s a simple and powerful truth for you - we can eliminate the need to add all those coal fired electric plants through conservation efforts and green practices. That’s right, we have the ability and know how today to save all the energy those plants would produce and erase them from the drawing board. Clearly that’s the smartest possible thing we could do, isn’t it? Damn right it is.
Can we do it? Yes we can! We did it before. Over an 11-year period (1973–1983), the United States built approx. 30 billion square feet of new buildings, added approx. 35 million new vehicles and increased real GDP by over one trillion dollars (in year 2000 dollars) while decreasing its energy consumption and CO2 emissions.

When it comes to telling the truth, the coal industry has proven time after time that it cannot be trusted. They’ll say anything to keep raking in the billions of dollars they reap while their product acts like a weapon of mass destruction all around the globe.
They will pretend that only coal can give us the power filled future we all want and can afford. They will even pretend that using their deadly product makes us somehow “more secure.” They count on our ignorance and fear to keep us from seeing them for who they really are. That’s the way criminals and terrorists work... I’m just saying...

The latest evidence of the true unethical nature of the coal industry are the record fines just leveled against Massey Energy Company. Massey is the country's fourth-largest coal producer, and they’re being forced to pay a $20 million fine to settle federal charges that they repeatedly dumped dangerous amounts of mine waste and sediment into creeks and rivers in three Appalachian states over a seven-year period.

They got off pretty easy based on all the harm they caused. But typically they admitted no wrong doing. How could they when they’re busy telling us that coal is "an American resource that will help us with vital energy security" and "the fuel that powers our way of life?"

The coal industry is frightened about having to take responsibility for their industry's actions and impact and they will resort to the worst levels of FUD - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt - employing it to discredit solar and wind energy and using it to try to position a carbon tax as an economy killer. So okay then, don’t think of it as a tax, think of it as a Carbon Cost, a part of coal’s business budget. A bottom line cost you should have to pay if your product produces greenhouse gasses.

So now you know why I start thinking about concepts like Healthy Cancer and Evil Jesus when I hear the words, “Clean Coal” and why you should start thinking of other ridiculous cynical oxymorons when you hear blatant greenwashing designed only to con you and your family.

Maybe you’ll think of “That Idiot Einstein!” the next time one of those GE Ecoimagination commercials comes on. Perhaps Chevron’s farcical claims to be the environmentally green oil company will instantly make you or one of your kids blurt out “Soothing Mayhem!” or “Powdered Water!”

Mocking and derision are powerful tools to use against bullies, con artists and grifters because their scam relies on you playing the role of clueless sucker. Well I’m here to offer you the much more fun and rewarding role of enlightened creative greenius. We’re going to make our voices heard above the FUD and make sure our leaders at the local, state and federal level hear us. Word-of-mouth and the Internet are the most powerful and effective communication tools today. I’m using it right now and you need to as well.

One final thought as a tease for my next post - If you want to know how bad coal really is, consider that the “green” nuclear power industry is counting on Americans finding coal so self-abusive to use that we’ll be willing to turn to nuclear energy to replace it.

They’re hoping we’ll be so frightened and panicked over global warming that we’ll be willing to overlook the issues of radioactive waste, terrorist attraction or their industry’s practice of living up to the Homer Simpson standard of worker excellence.

It’s the nuclear industry’s own track record that makes me think of glowing neon green radioactivity when I hear about the “green nuclear energy.” All you need to do is read the newspaper to learn the truth. Just last week the San Onofre nuclear plant just a couple of hours south of here was busted for safety and security violations “including a worker who falsified records for more than five years to show that operators made hourly fire patrols when they had not.”

Last month a Canadian nuclear power plant that supplies critically needed radioactive medical isotopes for cancer patients was shut down over other serious safety violations. "A significant risk to the successful completion of the project has been the unresolved technical issues related to operating in compliance with regulatory requirements," the federal auditor general warned.” Now thousands of cancer patients aren’t receiving their treatments as a result.

True to form, the nuclear industry didn’t accept responsibility for their screwups either or offer any real hope that they’ll do better in the future. They’re too busy lobbying in DC for billions in tax breaks and fast track approval for new nuclear plants. “Aging hippies,” “Al Gore worshippers” and “treehugging granola eaters” is how the nuclear industry looks at those of us who don’t trust them and who call attention to their lousy record.

That’s right - they go straight to the Montgomery Burns playbook. It’s only natural - the Simpsons offers the most accurate and honest look at the nuclear power industry ever produced. Monty Burns is as green and credible as the United State nuclear power industry has ever been.

I’ll share the reasons why and the nuclear record with you in our next Creative Greenius.

Let’s Go, Let’s Go, Let’s Go!

Thu, 3 Jan 2008 17:56:27 -0800

The late, great Chick Hearn, play-by-play broadcaster for the Los Angeles Lakers for 42 years and one of my true role models, is famous for his incredible work ethic, never missing a game for a streak of 3,338 from 1965 to 2001. He not only invented the terms “slam dunk,” “air ball,” and “no harm, no foul” among dozens and dozens of others, he united Los Angeles in a way no mayor, business leader, celebrity or religious figure ever has or ever will. He transcended the sport of basketball and his death in 2002 has left a void in Southern California’s spirit ever since.
 Chick had an enthusiasm, drive and a sense of urgency that were legendary among those of us who studied him. Hearn was always the first guy in his plane or bus seat whenever the Lakers returned back home from a road game. The second Chick could confirm that all the players, coaches and staff were on board he’d want to know why the pilot hadn’t taken off yet. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” Chick would yell out.

Nobody had better timing than the man who offered us his “words eye view” in real time based on what he saw happening in front of him.

Lately I’ve been feeling like yelling “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” to the pilots who are supposed to be flying us into the future, because while they wait on the runway fueled by incremental changes, half measures, baby steps and compromised goals designed not to offend or antagonize anyone, our flight is already so late we’re not going to land on time. Worse yet, the pilots are still in no hurry to take off.

Never mind the analogies, let me give it to you straight - If you think there is still time to stop global warming and the effect it’s going to have on all of us for the rest of our lives, I’m afraid you’re wrong. We’re already past that point now. We’re already at the point that demands a sense of urgency and bold, decisive action starting today. You may think that’s an exaggeration or an overreaction to what’s happening, but I believe most people have no clue about what’s happening.

That’s one of the dangers of really studying and learning about this issue - you have to face the ugly truth. Not only that, but if you’re a Creative Greenius, you not only need to clue people in, you’ve also got to have a positive solution for them. Rest assured I do.

Here’s why YOU need to have a sense of urgency:

In November 2007, the head of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) tried to issue a warning. He said, “If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.” Do you remember reading that headline? Me neither.

What part of that wasn’t urgent enough? And Rajendra Pachauri, fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner, along with Al Gore, isn’t known as some kind of wide-eyed radical given to making outrageous statements. He was chosen to head the IPCC because he was a soft-spoken moderate.

The IPCC climate change report itself was the work of more than 2000 of the world’s top climate change scientists who conducted the most detailed and exhaustive review of all scientific knowledge about global warming. The report leaves no doubt about the sense of urgency or the defining moment we are now at. No doubt.

But you no doubt heard a lot more about the baseball steroid scandal or Britney Spears sister getting pregnant than you did about the fact that we have two to three years to determine our future. I bet you probably saw the video of the beauty pageant bimbo bumbling her question about why so many Americans can’t find the USA on a map or the YouTube video offering those Asian prisoners dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

But I know you didn’t see the video of the world’s greatest climate scientists begging government leaders in Bali to take “radical action to slow global warming because ‘there is no time to lose.’

On December 5, 2007, the Associated Press ran a story headlined, “Scientists Beg for Climate Action.” 215 climate scientists, frustrated and fed up, signed a petition calling for the the world to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050. The scientists made their plea to the group gathered in Bali, Indonesia to negotiate the new global warming treaty.

These scientists have never issued a plea like this or signed a petition on this issue before. In fact, the scientists have stayed away from issuing calls to action, leaving that for green advocacy groups. But now they can’t wait for someone else to act. But I bet you didn’t read about this or hear about it on the radio, or see it on TV.

Instead you heard a big deal being made over the new “energy bill” and how US car makers will have to average 35 miles per gallon by 2020. How’s that for a sense of urgency? Seems as if the members of Congress and the Bush Administration didn’t hear the scientists or understand the UN report either.

Maybe that’s why there is no funding for solar or wind and why the requirement that by 2020 15% of electricity come from clean, renewable energy was eliminated from the bill. We need to take urgent action in the next 2-3 years, but 15% renewable energy is too ambitious for us. Where is the leadership? Where is the intelligence?

It isn’t coming from the crop of Republicans or Democrats who want to be the next leaders of the USA either. None of the Presidential candidates has made the global warming issue their chief cause, none of them have separated themselves from the pack by becoming the undeniable green candidate. Not a single one of them mentions any of what you’ve just read in any speech or position paper. Why? Isn’t it a big enough issue? Don’t they think people will get it?

And it’s not as if we’re not up to the challenge. We already have the renewable energy technology ready to go to start reducing those greenhouse gasses the way we need to. And we already know what has to be done. We could start today if the people blocking action would stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution.

But the people in the automotive and oil and coal industries made their fortunes on products that harm your health and the health of the planet and they are no different from the cigarette industry. The only way they will do the right thing is when they are forced to. So it’s up to us to force them.

And that’s going to mean people like you and me stepping up and providing leadership in the void left by our current elected officials. When the head of the Environmental Protection Agency strikes down the state of California’s tough air emission measures we need to speak out and support our state which has now filed suit to overturn the EPA’s move.

This is a key moment in time for us and the EPA has been dragging its feet for over 2 years now. When the one federal agency that is supposed to protect the environment is fighting a state with as much air pollution as we have in California and giving us lame, political excuses it’s time to step up, speak out and fight back.

The urgent threat we face toady does not need to become a disaster or horror story. This should be an exciting start of a new era of clean energy, fresh directions and an explosion of new industries, new jobs and the kind of future we all want to leave to the next generation. All it takes is some Creative Greenius.
Those of us who get it and understand the sense of urgency need to reach out to each other not just here in the USA but around the world. Billions of Chinese share the same need to act as Americans do.

And we need to do more than reach out, blog, write and talk. We need to do more than just green our homes and businesses. We need to get more involved and participate in the process. We need to serve on city commissions, citizen task forces and political action groups. That’s why I’m filing my application here in the City of Torrance to become a member of the Environmental Quality and Energy Conservation committee. It’s not a political move on my part, it’s an acceptance of my civil responsibility. It may take me a while to get there, but I’ve begun the process.

We cannot wait any longer for leadership that isn’t coming from the current establishment. We need to become the leaders and lead the way.

Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!

Charging Into The Future Today

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 09:38:49 -0800

Yeah, that’s me riding a very zippy battery powered Roth Motorboard at Saturday’s first annual Renewable L.A. in Van Nuys. That personal transportation device has a range of 20 miles and goes 15 mph. Apparently I was quite photogenic.

What a great event and I had a terrific time getting hands-on with all the renewable energy vehicles, the 100kw solar panel rooftop tour, the ecogift fest and especially the highly-charged people who turned out for this gathering of the mostly already enlightened green masses.

It takes a certain kind of person to get up on Saturday morning and then get on the San Diego Freeway to make the drive over the Sepulveda Pass into the San Fernando Valley during the holiday shopping season for the sole purpose of attending a renewable energy event - and those were exactly the kind of people i wanted to spend my day with. I got to meet and talk with plenty of them and I’m glad I did

I’m talking about the kind of people who filled the parking lot with hybrid cars and more electric cars then I’ve ever seen in one place (outside of a bumper car ride). The kind of people who couldn’t think of a better way to spend a beautiful fall day.

Besides getting to ride in a ridiculously fast eBox electric car built by AC Propulsions - which took off from the line faster than anything I’ve ever ridden in, including Maserati and Lotus vehicles - and getting to check out the Zenn electric cars, and the very cool Vectrix Maxi Scooter, I also enjoyed the seminars on Biodiesel, and “Why Population is an Environmental Matter.” I didn’t realize how green i’ve been by not having children. Turns out that had even more impact than those CFL bulbs we installed... who knew?!

I especially dug the presentation by Van Nuys Assemblymember Lloyd A. Levine on how to improve the California Solar Initiative. Levine is a young environmental mover and shaker in the California Assembly who’d like to move up to the California Senate. He really knew his stuff and I appreciate his understanding and opposition to coal fired electric plants.

He was quick on his feet during the Q&A session following his presentation and I came away from his session feeling like there was at least one guy in the California legislature who gets it and is trying to do the right thing. We’ll keep an eye on Lloyd and let you know what he’s up to in the future.

It was a real treat getting to meet event organizers Zan Dubin Scott and her husband Paul Scott, especially after watching “Who Killed The Electric Car” that same day. I also had a great conversation with Ben Zuckerman of Californians for Population Stabilization on some of our favorite things about children.

Ady Gil, the host of the event who generously donated his state-of-the-art American Hi Definition facility as the venue, and allowed all of us to walk around his new rooftop solar installation, seemed to be everywhere at once. I introduced myself to him during a moment when I saw him catching his breath.

I was very happy to see Moira Lerner Nelson there as well. I’m a big admirer of hers and hope to someday live as green a life as she and her husband Dency. Debra and I hadn’t seen her in years and we were thrilled to be reunited after so long.
The South Bay green community was especially well represented at Reneweable L.A. Al Sattler of the South Bay/PV Sierra Club was there helping to explain some of the more challenging scientific concepts to me and Michael Warren, long of Mattel and now one of the forces behind Greener Impact was there with his two kids.

Greener Impact is promoting their Million Lights Project, which sounds like a noble and worthy cause to me. They’re looking to distribute 1 million free CFL bulbs by Earth Day 2008 - April 22. It’s ambitious, but that’s exactly what we need right now. I’ll be talking to Michael and his partners about how I can help.

Debra and I and our friend Wendy left energized and full of green ideas and projects that we happily yapped about during the bumper-to-bumper drive home on the 405. I kept thinking about how much better that ridiculous Saturday afternoon traffic jam would be if all of us were in electric or hybrid cars. At least we wouldn’t be pumping tons more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

Deb told me later that she was thinking that if she had one of those battery powered Roth Motorboards in the back of the car she could have hopped right out and zipped on home.

Half a Dozen Green Things I Give Thanks For

Wed, 5 Dec 2007 22:39:42 -0800

As I had the pleasure once again of preparing my world famous rosemary smoked turkey (that’s it above) for my homeless and down-on-their-luck friends at the Barker Ranch out in the valley for Thanksgiving, naturally enough I was thinking of all the things I was thankful for. The list was quite long for I am a fortunate person indeed. But just because Thanksgiving was almost two weeks ago doesn’t mean that I’ve stopped thinking about what I’m thankful for on the green side of the ledger. And with the bird now just a memory - except for the extra pounds - here are half a dozen green things I am incredibly thankful for:

LIVING WITH ED
When it comes to using Creative Greenius to promote sustainable living, no one has done a better job than Ed Begley Jr. on his hit HGTV show, “Living With Ed.” It’s my wife’s favorite show and she’s not alone.

Ed co-stars with his own wife, Rochelle, who plays the perfect all-American consumer counterpart to Begley’s green purist. The show is funny, entertaining and highly informative with new energy saving and sustainable practices featured in every half hour episode. It’s clever, it’s inspiring and it’s effective.

Each episode also brilliantly features a celebrity showing off their own home’s eco features. Recognizing the power of celebrity in the “Entertainment Tonight” era we live in Ed features everything from Jay Leno’s legendary garage, Larry Hagman’s and Jackson Browne’s solar arrays, Supermodel Cheryl Tiegs’ house, Helen Hunt getting an energy audit or Ed’s neighbor Bill Nye (the Science Guy) competing with Ed for green supremacy.

The success of the show has led to Begley’s collaboration with Home Depot to promote their Eco Options line of energy efficient products. I admire the hell out of the work Begley has done and expect his influence and success to just keep growing.

And I’ve learned a lot from the show and been motivated to make many of the green changes we’ve made around our own home. Our latest – rain barrels connected to the downspout to collect rainwater for use in Debra’s gardens.

Living with Ed season two episodes have just started repeat broadcasts and can be seen on Sundays at 11:30 pm (ET/PT) on HGTV.

$100 A BARREL OIL
Even though we’ve only hit $99 a barrel so far, the mere threat of $100 and the certainty that it’s coming is serving as the catalyst renewable energy has long needed to be looked at with fresh eyes and considered seriously. And it’s the only way conservation efforts will become a reality for the average person when it comes to their personal transportation..

Just look at the energy bill currently working its way through Congress. For the first time ever, both the House and Senate are poised to mandate 35 mpg standards for car company fleet wide averages. They may still screw it up, but right now that’s here they’re at...
Sure, that standard is at least 10-15 years overdue, but it took $3.50 a gallon gasoline to finally make it possible.

Hell, even the American auto industry’s chief advocate and apologist, Michigan Congressman, John Dingall, is going along and he’s been fighting against safety and environmental regulations since he’s been in office – 1955! It’s not the threat of global warming or the collapse of the American industry that’s motivated Dingall it’s that $3.50 a gallon at the pump.

$4 a gallon is not far off either and I believe that’s what it’s going to take to get people convinced they need a plug-in or electric car – or even out of their cars and into mass transit – then so be it. Because let’s face it, the majority of Americans have proven that if gas is cheap enough they will drive as big a behemoth as they can finance and the mileage and emissions be damned. At least half the people looking at smaller more fuel efficient cars right now would go right back to giant SUVs if gas went down to $2.00 a gallon.

So making change happen is about making those same folks experience financial pain points that cannot be ignored and responding to them with green answers.

And yes, even though the people who are worst off economically will suffer exponentially until we move away from gasoline, they’ll also benefit exponentially from affordable, clean renewable energy – especially since the poorest neighborhoods also happen to be among the most polluted.

You might think it’s easy for me to say since I work out of my home studio and drive a car that already gets 35 mpg and you’d be right.

But I’m also right in being thankful for oil and gas prices that force people to do the right thing despite their own bad instincts

BREAKTHROUGH IN SOLAR
The hottest buzz in the very hot solar field is solar without silicon – CIGS, which stands for copper, indium, gallium, and selenium. It’s a new semiconductor material that will compete with the more traditional crystalline silicon solar cells.

Popular Science just gave their Innovation Product of the Year award to Nanosolar. Imagine solar power without heavy, glass-based panels but delivered instead through flexible rolls of thin film material that can be installed not just on roofs, but also on the sides of buildings and almost anywhere else.

To quote PopSci: “The company produces its PowerSheet solar cells with printing-press-style machines that set down a layer of solar-absorbing nano-ink onto metal sheets as thin as aluminum foil, so the panels can be made for about a tenth of what current panels cost and at a rate of several hundred feet per minute.”

Here’s a video from CNN that shows how this stuff is made.

Here’s another video from CNBC on Nanosolar.

Nanosolar isn’t alone in the CIGS solar field and some analysts think that their competitor, Miasole, might be the leader in this new industry based on their technology having been used successfully in the disk-drive and optical industries.

Either way, these products will be a paradigm shift in how we think about and use solar. Imagine sides of buildings, sidewalks, the exteriors of trains, planes and automobiles as well as ships and anything else you can think of covered with inexpensive skins of thin film that is literally printed on presses.

The fact that there are already two industry leaders both attracting serious investor capital is a great sign of just how much promise this CIGS technology holds. Among the investors in Nanosolar are the founders of Goggle.

Speaking of Goggle...
GOOGLE TARGETS COAL

This could easily be my #1 in the list of things I am most thankful for because Killer Coal must be stopped right now.

The more you learn about how deadly coal is and how many coal-fired electric plants are currently being built in China and India… and the United States, the more you’ll want to see the use of coal banned once and for all.

Thankfully the big brains at Google get it. They know that coal is not just the dirtiest fuel on the planet it’s also the cheapest, and when it comes to energy Goggle also know that cheap will always win over clean. That’s why they’ve launched their new initiative to develop renewal energy that’s cheaper than coal.

I don’t have an ounce of faith that our government can get that job done but I do believe in Google and the way they’re approaching this global challenge.

Here’s what Larry Page, Google Co-founder and President of Products said: “There has been tremendous work already on renewable energy. Technologies have been developed that can mature into industries capable of providing electricity cheaper than coal. We are also very interested in further developing other technologies that have potential to be cost-competitive and green. We are aware of several promising technologies and believe there are many more out there.”

There better be, because right now the United States Department of Energy predicts the construction of more than 1,000 coal plants in just the next five years, primarily in China and India. Today China is opening a new coal-plant every single week. Not a single one of them is a “clean coal” plant either.

The real inconvenient truth today is that if all those plants get built then none of our conservation efforts will mean anything. Not to put a harsh on your mellow or anything but,

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK
When I get too worried about the implications of coal or the backwards steps the United States has taken during the last seven years of rule by the oil industry’s front men in the White House, I follow the advice of John Muir and I go to Yosemite.

Muir said, “Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountain is going home; that wildness is necessity; that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.” And I can testify that his words ring even truer today than when he spoke them.

I’ve been going to Yosemite for the past 25 years and it never disappoints. (These are photos I’ve taken in the last 12 months) It always renews my spirit and my soul. It is a constant source of joy and pleasure for me and I feel blessed to have it just a 7 hour drive away.
People come from all over the world to visit Yosemite, but it’s my home park and I don’t feel right if a year goes by without me spending some time there. I’m a proud member of the Yosemite Association and the Yosemite Fund and I’ve supported Yosemite financially for years through both.

I have to, because without their help the Park would not be the place I am so thankful for.
Despite the neglect by our federal government and the massive budget shortfalls for maintenance and repairs Yosemite remains a unrivaled masterpiece whether you go to overcrowded Valley, or the Wawona area, or the Tuolumne Meadows high country or the Hetch Hetchy Dam area or anywhere else in the park.

THE INTERNET & MY FAVORITE GREEN SITES
Finally, I am most thankful for the Internet that is linking us all and allowing us to discover the truth and teach ourselves about the facts. Because without the net the deluge of propaganda, misdirection and con jobs from the biggest polluters on the planet would overwhelm the public and effectively create a fog of noise that would obscure the truth.

Right now people are reading this blog all across the United States and in London, Hong Kong and even Dunwoody Georgia. And my readership is small enough to fit into the navel of a flea and still have room for George Bush’s moral values. But some of these great sites that follow are read by thousands and hundred of thousands of people all around the world. And for good reason too as you’ll discover when you check them out.

I spend hours every day reading, researching, learning and exploring green issues - and many others. It’s a great privilege for me to engage in such auto-didactic practices. Here are 25 of my favorite go-to sites and blogs:

Treehugger - The leading media outlet dedicated to driving sustainability mainstream. Partial to a modern aesthetic, they strive to be a one-stop shop for green news, solutions, and product information.
The Green Guide - Green living tips, product reviews, environmental health news
Grist - Environmental news, advice, cartoons, a blog, and more that'll make you laugh out loud.
ENN - Environmental News Network offers daily news and feature stories, press release service, and live chats.
Pure Waste Series Challenge - Become an agent against global warming and generate a $100 contribution to the Solar Electric Light Fund
The Daily Green - the Consumer’s Guide to the Green Revolution
Planet Green - Discovery & Treehugger work together in this Beta site
Auto Blog Green - For all green car lovers
Green Yahoo - Yahoo’s green portal
Wombat -Environment plus Technology
Green Biz - Daily News and Resources for Green Business
Marketing Green - Green Marketing Strategies for A Sustainable Future
The Green Office - an online retailer of recycled, environmentally friendly, and sustainable business products, school supplies, and paper
The °Climate Group - an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing business and government leadership on climate change.
Carbon Footprint - Calculate your carbon footprint, reduce it and then offset it.
Climate Counts - A nonprofit organization rating corporations on their efforts towards mitigating climate change.
Climate Crisis - Official site for the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” on the Earth's climate crisis.
The Nature Conservancy — the leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people.
The Green Grid - a consortium of information technology companies and professionals seeking to lower the overall consumption of power in data centers around the globe.
International Panel On Climate Change - the Nobel Prize winners
EV World - The Eco Friendly World of Electric Cars, Hybrids, Plug-In Hybrids, Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Vehicles
Plug In America - Plug In America advocates the use of plug-in cars, trucks and SUVs  powered by cleaner, cheaper, domestic electricity.
The Nature Conservancy - the leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people
THE GREEN - On Sundance Channel is television's first regularly- scheduled programming destination dedicated entirely to the environment.
Care 2 Make a Difference- The global network for organizations and people who Care2 make a difference

I’m Dreaming of A Green Holiday

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:11:42 -0800

Thanksgiving is this Thursday and the blur that is the holiday season is now officially upon us. But before the calendar gets all filled up with shopping dates and the usual ho ho ho, allow me to suggest that you join me, my friends and many members of the Southern California green community - along with everyone curious about solar energy, alternative energy vehicles and living sustainable lifestyles - at the blowout eco-fest of the year, Renewable L.A. on Saturday December 8, 2007 in Van Nuys.

It might even be worth a trip from out of town, because if you’re there we can get a rooftop tour of a brand new, state of the art solar panel panel system and learn all about it. It’s a 100kW system.

We can test drive electric cars, hybrid cars, plug-in hybrid cars, biodiesel cars, and electric scooters.

We’ll get the chance to get up close and personal with electric conversion vehicles like:

The eBox from AC Propulsion...

The electric Vectrix Maxi Scooter the world's first high-performance electric two-wheel vehicle to offer all the benefits of a traditional gasoline-powered scooter but without the noise, pollution, expensive maintenance, frequent oil changes, and regular trips to the gas station.

The company turning already extraordinary Prius hybrid cars into beyond extraordinary PLUG-IN Prius hybrid cars, Plug-In Conversions Corporation, will have cars there for us to test ride and find out about.

I’m talking about stuff like the breakthrough Nilar NiMh batteries they’re using today while the big auto companies are still keeping us waiting for our Plug-Ins...

And we can test ride the electric car you can buy right now, the Zenn from Zenn Motor Company...

We can also watch a special, digital screening of “Who Killed the Electric Car” in a luxury screening room and participate in a live, in-person Q&A with the director, Chris Paine and former GM EV-1 employee, Chelsea Sexton.

Chelsea Sexton, Executive Director of Plug-In America.

We’re also going to be able to attend expert seminars on how to finance our home’s solar system, how to purchase green power from our electric utility, the basics of biodiesel and much more.

We’ve all got questions, and Renewable L.A. promises to have answers from the people who know best, all in one very convenient location.

And you’re going to want to bring the kids and their friends too for the safest, most sustainable and greenest Kids Fun Zone ever with the Armory Center for the Arts Solar Print Making Using the Sun...

An innovative and irresistible Toy-Making from Recyclables workshop with Cy Tymony, author of “Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things”...

There’s going to be face painting with non-toxic paints and plenty of other non adult good times to be had as well.

This promises to be one of the greenest, safest, most creative events for both kids and their favorite adults.

And just in time for holidays a Green Holiday Gift Fest will feature eco-friendly gifts from green vendors as well as the easy opportunity to fuflill your holiday gift needs by donating in your recipients’ names to a long list of environmental and animal rescue organizations.

Renewable L.A. is the brainchild of Zan Dubin Scott, a remarkable member of the Southern California environmental movement. After 15 years as a staff writer with the Los Angeles Times, Zan struck out on her own and has run a very successful and highly effective public relations, marketing and writing agency ever since.

She has leveraged her media and marketing skills and expertise to promote clean transportation and alternative energy use. Her best known efforts include the documentary film, “Who Killed the Electric Car.” Zan not only helped to organize and execute some of the hit film’s key media events and other activities, but is also one of many grassroots activists featured in the movie.

Now Zan is calling attention to one of the largest and newest solar installations in the San Fernando Valley - that 100kW system I mentioned. It’s at a facility housing entertainment industry leaders American Hi Definition and Sweetwater Digital Productions.

Both companies are not only leading the way as they walk the green walk, they’re also co-hosting Renewable L.A. to help get the word out and give the green community a place and event to come together and build our momentum.

The third sponsor of the event, Energy Efficiency Solar is the company who installed the 100kW solar panel system for American Hi Def and Sweetwater and they’ve been installing commercial and residential solar systems since 1989. I’m looking forward to talking with them about what’s possible for my own home.
I’d like to talk to them about doing what Zan Dubin Scott already does - charging an electric car exclusively from solar. For anyone concerned about using coal fired power plant energy to charge their electric car or plug-in, solar charging is the answer that quiets any and all critics.

But more than anything else I’m looking forward to being there with all of you and so many other kindred spirits and like-minded green people.

If ever there were a time for the gathering of this clan, it’s this holiday season and it’s here in Southern California, the world capitol of both conspicuous consumption and conservation consciousness.

The time is especially opportune in light of last week’s news from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that global warming is "unequivocal"

That’s right, no more wiggle room for even the looniest of right wing fruitcakes or Fox News personalities. The UN report says climate change will bring "abrupt and irreversible changes." That’s “will” not “might.” It’s no longer just an Inconvenient Truth it’s now an Inescapable Truth.

The report, a plain spoken, high-level message for the world’s politicians distilled from three other IPCC panels convened throughout the year, read like what Time Magazine will call it next week: “A Last Warning to Humanity.”

"Today the world's scientists have spoken clearly, and with one voice," said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon. Climate change "is the defining challenge of our age."

One thing is certain - that challenge is not going to be met by anyone in Washington DC, it’s going to be met by people like you and me and the other kinds of people who will be attending Renewable L.A. on Saturday, December 8. We all need to meet and get to know each other. We need to be talking, sharing experiences and working together even more closely. People like me have got to do more.

Because we’re the people who ARE going to change this world, the same way we changed ourselves, and our families and our friends. The same way so many of you have already made a difference.

The same way citizen volunteers in the Bay Area didn’t wait for the “authorities” to take the necessary clean up action from the oil spill last week. They got out there and did it themselves. Read about the Kill the Spill efforts if you haven't already.

I’ve never found my own friends more responsive, more engaged or more passionate about any other issue we’ve had in common. And it’s not because of me - that fire is already burning inside them and I’m just discovering it now.

I know it’s burning in you too. And as in nature, when the winds of change bring all those individual fires together they combine to conflagrate into an unstoppable wildfire that cannot be contained.

I know it’s dangerous and maybe even crazy to be making fire analogies during these drought dry, red flag warning, Santa Ana blowing days - especially for this greenest of holiday events - but the heat is on, and I’m just saying how cool it would be if you were there.

Visiting NEPTUN - Source Of A New Light

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:00:12 -0800

If you’ve been following our CFL journey of learning so far, you know that I’ve replaced over 30 different incandescent light bulbs in our home with their equivalent CFL bulbs.

After making the switch I had questions about my new light bulbs and their performance - and so too did many of you.

To get the answers and learn more about today’s CFLs I reached out to four different CFL manufacturers. Neptune Light, Overdrive Lighting and Technical Consumer Products (TCP who make the DuraBright brand), all of whom make the new bulbs I installed. I also wrote to Greenlite, a favorite of our friend Burt.

One of the four companies got back to me less than 24 hours later. It was Jeff Beck writing on Neptun Lighting’s behalf.

Many of you know that Jeff Skunk Baxter, formerly of the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan, is today an expert on counterterrorism and missile defense, but who knew that guitar virtuoso Jeff Beck was now an expert on energy saving lighting?

As it turns out, Neptun’s Jeff Beck does his rocking as the company’s Director of Sales, which put him in an even better position to answer our questions about their new dimmable bulbs and to fill us in on Neptun’s story and place in the industry.

Beck told us that Neptun Light is the leading manufacturer of dimmable CFL’s with more than 25 models in various wattages and numerous shapes. You can see some of those bulbs in the photos throughout this post.

From doing our green homework we knew that Neptun’s CEO, Andrew Bobel, is also the company’s founder and its Chief Engineer and we were intrigued by the 40 patents their website says he holds. We wanted to know more and Beck filled us in on Bobel’s background and Neptun’s history.

“Andrew has been in the lighting industry for more than 25 years and holds key patents on linear lamp ballasts, CFL ballasts, dimmable CFL ballasts and many more. He is the inventor and patent holder of the End-of-Life Protection Circuit that has now been mandated in all Electronic Linear Lamp Ballasts,” Beck told us.

“You in fact may consider him one of the ‘Fathers of the CFL Industry.’ It was Andrew that first convinced TCP (Technical Consumer Products, which sells to Home Depot under the Commercial Electric and N:Vision brand names) to enter into the CFL industry in the first place,” Beck went on to say.

Beck shared more about Bobel’s relationship with TCP, the big dog in the CFL industry, “Andrew then spent the better part of seven years (1995-2001) designing and patenting additional CFL models, licensing them to TCP as their sales grew into the tens of millions at Home Depot alone. As of last year TCP sold more CFL's in the US than any other manufacturer.”

It will be interesting to see if TCP responds to the email we wrote them asking our questions about their products and their company. Jeff Beck has set a high standard in terms of responsiveness and direct, frank and thoughtful answers to our questions. We really appreciate that he didn’t just send us the usual boiler plate corporate verbiage.

Once upon a time, in the 1.0 era of the net, I contributed to the “The Cluetrain Manifesto” which declared:
A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies.

Jeff Beck and Neptun Lighting get that. Beck communicated with me as if we were having a real conversation. Clearly he got on board when the Cluetrain arrived at the station. Not everyone does.
These markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can't be faked.

According to Beck, after developing a full line of products for TCP, Bobel decided he would begin designing the next generation of products using more sophisticated materials and electronics. However this time he decided to start his own company, Neptun Light.

“He then spent the next few years in R&D designing, testing and perfecting his newer designs. We started selling standard CFL's nearly two years ago and released our dimmable lamps in January of this year,” Beck related.

Then he answered the questions I had for him:

Creative Greenius - Why does my dimmer switch on the wall buzz when I dim my CFLs?

Jeff Beck - The buzzing noise comes from the RFI Inductor Choke that every dimmer has. However older dimmers seem to have more of an issue with this than newer models which is one of the reasons we recommend using our lamps in conjunction with dimmers made after 1995. To further address this issue and other performance related issues Neptun has designed a line of dimmers which will eliminate all audible buzzing. Our line of dimmers are designed for both CFL’s and incandescent and they incorporate an adjustable range to eliminate flickering at levels below 10%.

Creative Greenius - Is there an initial burn in period for all dimmable CFLs or is it specific to the manufacturer?

Jeff Beck – As you can imagine I cannot speak for other manufactures, but considering the large number of individual electrical components used in dimmable CFL ballasts, I would recommend a burn-in for all dimmable CFL’s.

Diodes, inductors, and other small components are made in runs of millions at a time and though they are nearly identical they sometimes have the slightest tolerance variations. Then combining 30 components that may or may not have an initial variance causes the lamps to perform with slight variations from one another at the low end. However, as our lamps are burned in these variances dissipate and the lamps function more uniformly.

Creative Greenius – What range of dimmability should we expect from R20 type bulbs?

Jeff Beck – We expect a dimmable range down to 10% from all of our dimmable models. However, the obtainable low level is sometimes restricted by the range of the dimmer used in conjunction with our lamps.

Neptun dimmable CFLs were designed to work with all standard dimmers on the market today but with the vast number of dimmer manufacturers each having multiple models with different mechanical ranges, some existing dimmers are going to work better than others.

Furthermore, none of the mainstream dimmer manufacturers are making dimmers specifically for CFL’s, in fact many of them including Lutron print right on their box, “Not for Use with Compact Fluorescent Lights”. We often say that Lutron did not design their dimmers to work with our lamps; we designed our lamps to work with their dimmers.

We have approved numerous dimmers for use with our lamps but when an end user is not getting the expected range we have until recently recommended the Lutron SkyLark. However, as we come closer to full production of our dimmers we will simply sell one of our models instead. Our dimmers will be available by mid December and will retail for less than, if not all dimmers currently available further facilitating the use of energy efficient lighting.

Creative Greenius - What are the differences between Neptun’s CFL bulbs and your competitor’s products?

Jeff Beck – As far as differences between our CFL’s in general, we have incorporated a number of advancements that places us at the forefront of CFL technology. As I mentioned, we have over 25 models of CFL’s where you might find two or three from most other manufacturers. However in addition to that, all of our CFL’s, both dimmable and standard, use Amalgam rather than liquid mercury which eliminates the worry of mercury contamination if broken or when disposed.

Also all Neptun lamps have End-of-Life Protection Circuits and Electronic Preheat Circuits which protect the lamps from Hot Re-Strikes and prevent the lamp from over heating at end of life.

Finally, all of our CFL’s are certified for totally enclosed fixtures, on nearly all other CFL’s you will see printed on the box, “Not for Use in Totally Enclosed Fixtures”, in the case of Sylvania you cannot even read that unless you first buy the bulb and open the package as the warning is written on the inside panel of the package.

Creative Greenius - That’s great to know. Although I’m not surprised to hear that about Sylvania, who I consider a Legacy light maker. Thanks so much for your time and all the great info, Jeff.

Jeff Beck - My pleasure, I’m glad you found the information useful. And on a personal note, kudos to you for shining a light on the “20th Century Manufacturers” that resisted this industry simply to sell lights that have a shorter life span. Again, it is a pleasure corresponding with you, please let me know if there is anything else I can do.

Creative Greenius
I’ve got to say I dig Jeff Beck even if he’s not the former Yardbirds member and I dig Neptun Lights. I learned a lot from him and I’m impressed with their company, their approach and their products. I’m especially intrigued by Andrew Bobel and the talents and brainpower he brings to the operation. I admire a man who can both create new ways to do things and successfully turn that creativity into superior, marketable products.

Neptun lighting is located in Lake Bluff, Illinois in the Chicago area. They manufacture their product in China through their “NEPTUN China” manufacturing facility in Shenzhen which NEPTUN Light has full ownership and full control of giving them the ability to ensure the quality and consistency of their products.

I look forward to keeping in touch with Beck and keeping our readers up to date on Neptun’s continuing story. I found their bulbs on www.1000bulbs.com but they’re available at other on-line retailers too.

One last note - one concern that some folks express about Compact Fluorescent Lights is mercury and how to dispose of the bulbs. Uninformed nay-sayers declare that the energy saved is offset by the hazardous waste these bulbs are supposed to present. Those people are wrong.

CFL bulbs do contain mercury and cannot be thrown in your garbage. The mercury is about the amount that contained in this dot: As you’ll read in this link to Popular Mechanics, unless you get that dot on your hands and then lick your hands you’re not going to have a problem.

CFL bulbs are not as simple a device as incandescents. Take a look at what’s inside a CFL:

That’s not a Neptune bulb on the left, but it is typical of the electronic parts each bulb uses.

All CFL bulbs need to be properly disposed of and it’s not hard to do - especially since you’ll only be doing so every 4-7 years or so. And a growing number of retailers and city waste disposal sites and collections will take your bulbs.

The Creative Greenius says, if you’re really worried about mercury then your focus should be on shutting down all coal fired power plants - NOTHING on the planet puts more mercury into our air and environment.

We’ll have more on Killer Coal in an upcoming post.

Greenius Readers’ Lighting Reports

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 12:18:12 -0800

Green Greetings All,
The response to last weekend’s “Greening My Lighting” report has been fabulous. Several of our readers were kind enough to share their own experiences with us and here’s what they had to say:

Hey Joe,
OK, here are my experiences with CF lighting. As you know I travel to Philadelphia to visit my mom. She is 87 and has the usual issues with being that age. One thing she does which bothered me is that she feels safer with lights on in the house day and night! This habit drove me nuts because every time I would visit I would be replacing lamps since some were always burned out. Mom is on a fixed income and was paying a high price for electricity since her 1953 original Levittown house is completely electric.
Well, on one of my many visits I replaces every light in the house, which by the way cost me approximately $105.00, a high price you might think. Well I have to announce that she noticed a $20.00 dollar decrease in her bill the first month! It has been 2 years now and I have not had to replace a lamp and i estimate that she has saved almost $500.00 since the installation, great for her and the environment.
As for my own home I also did the same but was having a difficulty with the lights in the house that were on dimmers. The problem is solved "Greenlite" makes dimmable CF along with three way ones for your old style floor lamps. I found these on the web at "SmartHome.Com", they work great. I still have a few incandescent lamps left in the house but I am planing to exchange them by the new year. I will also say that my wife, Tracy, has noticed a difference on the electric bill which by the way she pays. My investment was minimal since you informed me of the "K-Mart" program.
Thank you Mr. Joe and keep up the green work.
Your friend,
Burt

Burt really knows lighting, - as well as electrical, plumbing, construction auto mechanics and probably quantum physics as well - he’s been a technical director for huge live shows and events for as long as I’ve known him. The “K-Mart” program he mentions is actually Southern California Edison’s lamp exchange program where they’ll take your incandescent desk lamps and halogen torchaire lamps and exchange them for compact fluorescent lights.

Joe,
This is such a great site!!
I have trouble with the bulbs when I need to put them on automatic on and off or photocell outside. I tried to go over to a lot of bulbs at the hangar but in most of our areas we have auto on and off and I have to find one that will work with that kind of switch especially for the long fluorescent type bulbs. Then at home on the exterior I like to use a photocell and the only place I found something compatible was at this bulb store in the Valley (I forget the name) and the fixture is expensive and blows out a lot. It is very inconvenient to go to
the specialty store all the time. So there is my comment. Let me know what you think.
Love ya,
Jude

Jude owns an airplane hangar which is used for TV/Film shoots, live special events and all manner of cool gigs for the Lakers, MTV, Nickelodeon and others. I have had the very same problem she talks about with the new Compact Flourescent Lights I used to replace my garage flood lights. They were the DuraBrite brand. I use screw in photocell adapters which have worked great for the last 15 years with my halogen floodlights. But the CFL bulbs flickered when I put them in and then went dead less than 24 hours later. It could be that they’re not compatible with my old photocell adapters. If that’s the case there’s money top be made for someone producing photocell adapters that WILL work with these bulbs. I’m going to contact the manufacturer and see what they say. I will say that the two bulbs I put in the motion sensor fixture on the back of my garage have worked great. Like other CFL bulbs though they take about 20 seconds to warm up to full intensity.

Joe,
The only problem I have with the bulbs that you didn't discuss (as an artist, I still don't particularly like the color they give off, either) is that if you're prone to headaches (luckily I don't get migraines, but have several friends who do), fluorescent bulbs make them worse and in some cases set them off. That's a bad thing.
There's a guy at work, for example, who works in the dark with just his desk lamp to prevent the fluorescent bulbs from setting off his migraines. It's a serious consideration for folks like that.
Kitten

Kitten works for an environmental engineering firm. Here’s what I wrote to her:
Hi Kitten,

Thanks for weighing in. You always bring up points no one else does.

I know quite a few people don't dig the CFLs because they don't think
the color is as good as incandescents. But I like the full spectrum CFL
bulbs in reading lamps like the ones Deb and I use at home from Full
Spectrum Solutions. We have a 55w and a 70w reading lamp. Here's a
link:

These produce pretty close to outdoor daylight in the color temperature.

I have heard people complain about the old style of long tube
fluorescent in terms of headaches and migraines but I haven't heard
anyone bring this up with the CFL bulbs.

Here's a possible LED based solution for that I just read about on Tree
Hugger. They're expensive but superior in a lot of ways.

Your friend,
Joe

One of my good friends who I first met in high school in New Jersey, Bets is a museum curator now living in London, England and provided this trans-Atlantic report about lighting there. She’s only been there about a year:

Hey friend,
Well...more complicated here, I think: we have little halogen spots in our rental flat, which probably eat up more energy than a resurrected jesus. The builder was obliged to have 10% 'energy efficient' lighting, which means that the lights in our hallway (only!) are of that type--I don't know if they are CFL or what. I don't know what sort of bulbs are available here--they're still using a perplexing variety of methods to fit the bulb in the socket--some
screw in (different sizes), some are 'torpedo' or 'bullet' fixtures, some have two little pins that you line up and turn to lock... If I can figure this stuff out and find bulbs that are compatible with whatever weird fixtures we have, I'd do it. If we owned our own
home, I would try to ensure that all were green fixtures. Recycling is pretty well the norm here (papers, plastics, cans and glass), and there's a lot of concern about one's 'carbon footprint'. For ex., in the travel section of the paper travel articles are accompanied by an estimate of carbon output the journo expended and what the paper did to offset that. And lord knows Britain's never been real strong on central heating so we're ahead of the curve there.
Looking forward to reading more on the website.
Love--
Bets

Interestingly England hasn’t standardized their lighting the way we have in the USA. They have many more types of bulb connectors as Bets reports. But one thing they are doing in England that we are not is by legally mandating better energy efficiency. Here’s a great article about what’s going on over the pond.
“The most energy-guzzling light bulbs in Britain will start disappearing from shop shelves early next year as part of efforts to cut CO2 emissions, Secretary of State for the Environment Hilary Benn said this week.
The voluntary initiative, which is being led by major retailers and energy suppliers, will see energy efficient light bulbs replace their least efficient equivalents on shop shelves over the next four years”

Thanks again to those of you who wrote in to tell me about your experiences. I’ll keep you updated on this issue and pass along other comments as they come in.