<![CDATA[Grist - Placemaking]]> http://www.grist.org/kingdom/placemaking Grist Kingdom Feed Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:25:33 -0800 en <![CDATA[Simple people]]> http://feeds.grist.org/click.phdo?i=3325807663da814a1fbbcbe75d7c9596 http://www.grist.org/article/2009-11-04-simple-people/ Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:58:10 -0800 http://www.grist.org/article/2009-11-04-simple-people/

I don’t dislike No Impact Man. He is more intentionally political than his detractors portray him to be, and I think his yearlong stunt of living without toilet paper in NYC has been eye-opening for a lot of people, and amusing for many others. I admit that the “happy green” genre of books that are appearing a lot now, exemplified by Sleeping Naked is Green (by Vanessa Farquharson), make me nauseous: a hot twentysomething journalist makes sacrifices such as “buying only green cosmetics” while traveling to eco-resorts by plane and making amends with carbon offsets.  But I was, until recently, a less ostentatious personification of the same middle-class green guilt, and I understand the way we anxiously try to bargain with our angry planet by promising to be better consumers. No one wants to admit that we may not be consumers at all in a few years.

What I want to point out here is that simple living, simple people, are everywhere, and always have been. We recognize the extreme varieties: back-to-the-land types, monastics, Mother Teresa and Ralph Nader, not to mention the homeless, addicts, that crazy lady who takes in all the stray cats. Really they live among us, quite unobtrusive in most cases, and most of them are sane.

My friend Catherine has worked all her adult life in administrative jobs, minimizing her material needs and ignoring most external definitions of success, in order to write poetry. She’s needed to get off the computer for health reasons lately, and is diligently working to set up a small business as a personal organizer (if you’re in Boston and having trouble finding your passport in that firetrap you call your office, check out Catherine’s services at ARoomofOnesOwnOrganizing.com). Another friend, Rick Zemlin, lives on $10,000 a year in San Diego. He feels that working more than 20 hours/week is unhealthy and leaves no room for his spiritual development, which is the focus of his very intentional life. Rick doesn’t write a snappy blog, or have a book contract that I know of, but his Facebook posts are honest and detailed. He did write a disarming article for his church newsletter, detailing his personal expenses, and he’s allowing me to cite it here.

Current Annual Personal Consumption Expenses

5,200 Rent & utilities (bedroom in a 2 bedroom apt. in high-priced California. House phone. No cell.)1,500 Food (lacto-ovo vegetarian, with an emphasis on good nutrition)100 Misc household and personal items100 Clothes (thrift stores provide all of my clothing)1,000 Health care & supplements (no health insurance)750 Transportation (public transit fares & tennis shoes. No car)500 Recreation (movies, eating out, retreats, coffee shops, etc.)650 Travel: to see family & friends550 Gifts consumed (items received gratis & low income medical discounts)—–10,350

I say disarming because Rick’s expenses are remarkably low. He has obviously given up much of what defines the rest of us, including owning a home and having children. But he has a special clarity and warmth, and he seems to be enjoying his life as much as anyone I know.Here’s Rick’s philosophy: “I believe we are each on a journey with our Creator, moving deeper and deeper into the gift of our lives—into the fullness of living. This core life purpose of living fully is joined by a second one, equally important: to help create a world where all are able to do so—a world in which all 6.8 billion of us can thrive. I see this thriving world as the Grand Dream that God holds for us. I believe that we are given all that we need to live into this vision for the world, and that because God is infinitely patient with us we will eventually arrive. It is our destiny, our home.It’s going to cost us, though. (And I think we will gladly pay ... one day.)”Read Rick’s full article here.

I learned a lot about the relative definitions of prosperity by living in Europe in my twenties. (Czechoslovakia, 1990-92, the Czech Republic 1992-95. Same town, same apartment.) When I arrived, shortly after the Velvet Revolution in 1989, a four-member family was typically living in a high-rise apartment with one or two bedrooms. No kudos to the repressive and corrupt regimes of communist Eastern Europe, but material prosperity was adequate, and no one seems much happier 20 years later now that they all have new cars and TVs and debt.

These friends, these memories of other places, and my own experiences of living out of a car or a backpack, are comforting to me now in moments when I’m anxiously scrutinizing the household budget, or wondering where that last 30k we need for the house is going to come from. I remember to breathe deeply and recite my mantra, “In the end, it’s six by six and nothing more.”

Related Links:

Ask Umbra on her hotness, corporate gift baskets, and more

Ask Umbra on canned and frozen foods

Ask Umbra on bike helmets



]]>

I don’t dislike No Impact Man. He is more intentionally political than his detractors portray him to be, and I think his yearlong stunt of living without toilet paper in NYC has been eye-opening for a lot of people, and amusing for many others. I admit that the “happy green” genre of books that are appearing a lot now, exemplified by Sleeping Naked is Green (by Vanessa Farquharson), make me nauseous: a hot twentysomething journalist makes sacrifices such as “buying only green cosmetics” while traveling to eco-resorts by plane and making amends with carbon offsets.  But I was, until recently, a less ostentatious personification of the same middle-class green guilt, and I understand the way we anxiously try to bargain with our angry planet by promising to be better consumers. No one wants to admit that we may not be consumers at all in a few years.

What I want to point out here is that simple living, simple people, are everywhere, and always have been. We recognize the extreme varieties: back-to-the-land types, monastics, Mother Teresa and Ralph Nader, not to mention the homeless, addicts, that crazy lady who takes in all the stray cats. Really they live among us, quite unobtrusive in most cases, and most of them are sane.

My friend Catherine has worked all her adult life in administrative jobs, minimizing her material needs and ignoring most external definitions of success, in order to write poetry. She’s needed to get off the computer for health reasons lately, and is diligently working to set up a small business as a personal organizer (if you’re in Boston and having trouble finding your passport in that firetrap you call your office, check out Catherine’s services at ARoomofOnesOwnOrganizing.com). Another friend, Rick Zemlin, lives on $10,000 a year in San Diego. He feels that working more than 20 hours/week is unhealthy and leaves no room for his spiritual development, which is the focus of his very intentional life. Rick doesn’t write a snappy blog, or have a book contract that I know of, but his Facebook posts are honest and detailed. He did write a disarming article for his church newsletter, detailing his personal expenses, and he’s allowing me to cite it here.

Current Annual Personal Consumption Expenses

5,200 Rent & utilities (bedroom in a 2 bedroom apt. in high-priced California. House phone. No cell.)1,500 Food (lacto-ovo vegetarian, with an emphasis on good nutrition)100 Misc household and personal items100 Clothes (thrift stores provide all of my clothing)1,000 Health care & supplements (no health insurance)750 Transportation (public transit fares & tennis shoes. No car)500 Recreation (movies, eating out, retreats, coffee shops, etc.)650 Travel: to see family & friends550 Gifts consumed (items received gratis & low income medical discounts)—–10,350

I say disarming because Rick’s expenses are remarkably low. He has obviously given up much of what defines the rest of us, including owning a home and having children. But he has a special clarity and warmth, and he seems to be enjoying his life as much as anyone I know.Here’s Rick’s philosophy: “I believe we are each on a journey with our Creator, moving deeper and deeper into the gift of our lives—into the fullness of living. This core life purpose of living fully is joined by a second one, equally important: to help create a world where all are able to do so—a world in which all 6.8 billion of us can thrive. I see this thriving world as the Grand Dream that God holds for us. I believe that we are given all that we need to live into this vision for the world, and that because God is infinitely patient with us we will eventually arrive. It is our destiny, our home.It’s going to cost us, though. (And I think we will gladly pay ... one day.)”Read Rick’s full article here.

I learned a lot about the relative definitions of prosperity by living in Europe in my twenties. (Czechoslovakia, 1990-92, the Czech Republic 1992-95. Same town, same apartment.) When I arrived, shortly after the Velvet Revolution in 1989, a four-member family was typically living in a high-rise apartment with one or two bedrooms. No kudos to the repressive and corrupt regimes of communist Eastern Europe, but material prosperity was adequate, and no one seems much happier 20 years later now that they all have new cars and TVs and debt.

These friends, these memories of other places, and my own experiences of living out of a car or a backpack, are comforting to me now in moments when I’m anxiously scrutinizing the household budget, or wondering where that last 30k we need for the house is going to come from. I remember to breathe deeply and recite my mantra, “In the end, it’s six by six and nothing more.”

Related Links:

Ask Umbra on her hotness, corporate gift baskets, and more

Ask Umbra on canned and frozen foods

Ask Umbra on bike helmets



]]> <![CDATA[Why Does Oklahoma Want To Drown New York?]]> http://feeds.grist.org/click.phdo?i=ed1c13219eaa34f81b187146897b3854 http://www.grist.org/article/why-does-oklahoma-want-to-drown-new-york/ Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:41:00 -0800 http://www.grist.org/article/why-does-oklahoma-want-to-drown-new-york/ As the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee began hearings on carbon regulation, debate ran along traditional battle lines, but with a new script. Democrats Barbara Boxer (CA) and John Kerry (MA) moved away from discussing the environmental impacts of climate change - - and the reason, therefore, to take action to reduce carbon emissions - - and focused instead on the economic benefits of a domestic clean energy economy. Meanwhile, Republicans James Inhofe (OK) and Lamar Alexander (TN) complained that energy bills would rise and Americans would lose jobs.It’s a good thing that Congress is finally looking at the economics of climate change and carbon reductions, because the overwhelming amount of data - - buttressed by common sense - - shows that reducing carbon will be very good for our economy overall. One of the biggest sources of carbon reductions will be in the area of energy efficiency and that doesn’t cost money, it saves money. Walmart, for example, said that if each of their 100 million customers bought just one compact florescent light bulb to replace an incandescent bulb, those consumers would save over $3 billion in electricity costs over the life of the bulbs (after deducting the higher up-front cost of the new bulbs). Renewable energy, another carbon-reducing technology, creates jobs in the US and saves money too. Alan Horn, President and CEO of Warner Brothers, told me recently that his studio is covering large soundstages with enough solar to provide up to 10% of their massive energy needs. After a 7 to 10 year payback, they will get that amount of their electricity free for decades to come. Moreover, that multi-million dollar project put people to work in Burbank, California, not China or India, and didn’t take away a single job from anyone.It’s misleading when some Senators focus on trivial or entirely bogus costs, but especially troubling when their carbon smokescreen obscures a bigger truth - - inaction will cost far more than tackling the problem. No better example of the mammoth costs associated with denial can be found along our coastlines.As discussed at a the recent H209 Water Forum in New York, cities around the world are building barriers to protect against rising sea level and increased storm activity that is related to the impacts of climate change and it costs real money - -  Venice: $7 billion; London: $8 billion; New Orleans: $700 million; the California coast: $14 billion, plus $1.4 billion a year for maintenance.In New York itself, $400 million was just spent to upgrade pumps that remove rising waters out of subways. Experts at the conference predicted billions more will be needed to protect telecommunications, power lines, and other NY infrastructure that sits below sea level. Even at the lowest end of the range of catastrophic climate impacts predicted, NY will suffer massive street flooding and property damage unless more protections are built. Further inaction on reducing carbon will only drive these costs higher.“I’m sure the worker at a cement plant, when he loses his job, won’t find much consolation in green welfare programs,” said Senator Inhofe at the hearing. Ironically, building this entire additional infrastructure to deal with rising waters will use a lot of cement, so Inhofe was aimed in the wrong direction again. In fact, companies like W.L. Gore make devices to scrub carbon and other pollution from cement kiln smokestacks and create lots of American jobs in the process (and valuable exports too!). Given all of the obvious economic benefit of evolving to energy that is considerably more efficient/clean/domestic, one can only be left to wonder if Inhofe’s positions mean that Oklahoma just doesn’t like New York? Or California? Or Venice? Maybe the Senator is just jealous that his state doesn’t have a coastline, but unless he and his colleagues start making decisions based on real economic data, his state may also be left without a share of the 21st century industries that will power the globe and lead us out of the current recession.

Related Links:

Gore on the Daily Show: extended dance remix

Blowing up our clean energy future

Salazar cowboys-up to fight global warming



]]> As the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee began hearings on carbon regulation, debate ran along traditional battle lines, but with a new script. Democrats Barbara Boxer (CA) and John Kerry (MA) moved away from discussing the environmental impacts of climate change - - and the reason, therefore, to take action to reduce carbon emissions - - and focused instead on the economic benefits of a domestic clean energy economy. Meanwhile, Republicans James Inhofe (OK) and Lamar Alexander (TN) complained that energy bills would rise and Americans would lose jobs.It’s a good thing that Congress is finally looking at the economics of climate change and carbon reductions, because the overwhelming amount of data - - buttressed by common sense - - shows that reducing carbon will be very good for our economy overall. One of the biggest sources of carbon reductions will be in the area of energy efficiency and that doesn’t cost money, it saves money. Walmart, for example, said that if each of their 100 million customers bought just one compact florescent light bulb to replace an incandescent bulb, those consumers would save over $3 billion in electricity costs over the life of the bulbs (after deducting the higher up-front cost of the new bulbs). Renewable energy, another carbon-reducing technology, creates jobs in the US and saves money too. Alan Horn, President and CEO of Warner Brothers, told me recently that his studio is covering large soundstages with enough solar to provide up to 10% of their massive energy needs. After a 7 to 10 year payback, they will get that amount of their electricity free for decades to come. Moreover, that multi-million dollar project put people to work in Burbank, California, not China or India, and didn’t take away a single job from anyone.It’s misleading when some Senators focus on trivial or entirely bogus costs, but especially troubling when their carbon smokescreen obscures a bigger truth - - inaction will cost far more than tackling the problem. No better example of the mammoth costs associated with denial can be found along our coastlines.As discussed at a the recent H209 Water Forum in New York, cities around the world are building barriers to protect against rising sea level and increased storm activity that is related to the impacts of climate change and it costs real money - -  Venice: $7 billion; London: $8 billion; New Orleans: $700 million; the California coast: $14 billion, plus $1.4 billion a year for maintenance.In New York itself, $400 million was just spent to upgrade pumps that remove rising waters out of subways. Experts at the conference predicted billions more will be needed to protect telecommunications, power lines, and other NY infrastructure that sits below sea level. Even at the lowest end of the range of catastrophic climate impacts predicted, NY will suffer massive street flooding and property damage unless more protections are built. Further inaction on reducing carbon will only drive these costs higher.“I’m sure the worker at a cement plant, when he loses his job, won’t find much consolation in green welfare programs,” said Senator Inhofe at the hearing. Ironically, building this entire additional infrastructure to deal with rising waters will use a lot of cement, so Inhofe was aimed in the wrong direction again. In fact, companies like W.L. Gore make devices to scrub carbon and other pollution from cement kiln smokestacks and create lots of American jobs in the process (and valuable exports too!). Given all of the obvious economic benefit of evolving to energy that is considerably more efficient/clean/domestic, one can only be left to wonder if Inhofe’s positions mean that Oklahoma just doesn’t like New York? Or California? Or Venice? Maybe the Senator is just jealous that his state doesn’t have a coastline, but unless he and his colleagues start making decisions based on real economic data, his state may also be left without a share of the 21st century industries that will power the globe and lead us out of the current recession.

Related Links:

Gore on the Daily Show: extended dance remix

Blowing up our clean energy future

Salazar cowboys-up to fight global warming



]]> <![CDATA[The long and wind-powered road]]> http://feeds.grist.org/click.phdo?i=24c600a143f6939f13d19bba1d5e654a http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-29-denmark-energy-pbs-now/ Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:56:05 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-29-denmark-energy-pbs-now/ The Danes have an enduring relationship with wind.  This is symbolized by the big, honking wind turbine that looms like a bird of prey over the parking lot outside the Bella Center, the venue for the U.N. Climate Change Conference Denmark is hosting in December.

It was a Dane, physicist H.C. Oersted, who discovered electrical induction, the principle at work inside wind and other electric generators. Danish farmers brag they were the first in the world to generate electricity from wind.

The Danes are now hard at work cracking one of the great challenges of wind power: the fact that the wind blows when it darn well pleases.  Sometimes it blows hard when there isn’t much need for the resulting electricity.  Sometimes the air is becalmed when electricity is needed the most.

Wouldn’t it be nice if households in Denmark had nice batteries to store the wind power coming off the country’s wind farms?

Denmark’s plan is to get those batteries into households using a Trojan horse strategy.  The batteries will be mounted on four tires.  If lots of Danish people switch from gasoline cars to all-electric plug in cars, each of those cars will have a nice set of batteries that can suck in wind power when the wind blows and use the power whenever there is a need to drive somewhere.

If this tactic of sneaking batteries disguised as new cars into Danish garages is to work, the electric car has to become a mass market item. For that, two big things have to happen. First, electric cars have to be capable of driving longer distances.  To do that, a California company, Better Place, has come up with pit stops equipped with robots that will quickly swap out depleted batteries for charged ones.

Second, for electric cars to become widespread, they need to be comparatively cheap. The Danish government is pulling that off by making new electric cars exempt from a huge (180 percent!) environmental tax that applies to gas cars.

If all goes well, Danish roads could be swarming with mainly Renault-Nissan electric cars in a couple of years (Better Place has a strategic partnership with the carmaker).  If all goes especially well, Denmark could eventually end the import of oil, courtesy of the wind.

Watch David Brancaccio’s report on Green Denmark—airing this week on PBS stations nationwide (schedule).

Related Links:

Europe places outcome of Copenhagen squarely on Obama

Gore on the Daily Show: extended dance remix

Blowing up our clean energy future



]]> The Danes have an enduring relationship with wind.  This is symbolized by the big, honking wind turbine that looms like a bird of prey over the parking lot outside the Bella Center, the venue for the U.N. Climate Change Conference Denmark is hosting in December.

It was a Dane, physicist H.C. Oersted, who discovered electrical induction, the principle at work inside wind and other electric generators. Danish farmers brag they were the first in the world to generate electricity from wind.

The Danes are now hard at work cracking one of the great challenges of wind power: the fact that the wind blows when it darn well pleases.  Sometimes it blows hard when there isn’t much need for the resulting electricity.  Sometimes the air is becalmed when electricity is needed the most.

Wouldn’t it be nice if households in Denmark had nice batteries to store the wind power coming off the country’s wind farms?

Denmark’s plan is to get those batteries into households using a Trojan horse strategy.  The batteries will be mounted on four tires.  If lots of Danish people switch from gasoline cars to all-electric plug in cars, each of those cars will have a nice set of batteries that can suck in wind power when the wind blows and use the power whenever there is a need to drive somewhere.

If this tactic of sneaking batteries disguised as new cars into Danish garages is to work, the electric car has to become a mass market item. For that, two big things have to happen. First, electric cars have to be capable of driving longer distances.  To do that, a California company, Better Place, has come up with pit stops equipped with robots that will quickly swap out depleted batteries for charged ones.

Second, for electric cars to become widespread, they need to be comparatively cheap. The Danish government is pulling that off by making new electric cars exempt from a huge (180 percent!) environmental tax that applies to gas cars.

If all goes well, Danish roads could be swarming with mainly Renault-Nissan electric cars in a couple of years (Better Place has a strategic partnership with the carmaker).  If all goes especially well, Denmark could eventually end the import of oil, courtesy of the wind.

Watch David Brancaccio’s report on Green Denmark—airing this week on PBS stations nationwide (schedule).

Related Links:

Europe places outcome of Copenhagen squarely on Obama

Gore on the Daily Show: extended dance remix

Blowing up our clean energy future



]]> <![CDATA[Energy Trust and the Big Hope]]> http://feeds.grist.org/click.phdo?i=ac86427686ef5f7971f034a4e651618e http://www.grist.org/article/energy-trust-and-the-big-hope/ Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:31:51 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/energy-trust-and-the-big-hope/ If you’re like me, and spend a lot of the day drinking coffee and getting increasingly paranoid with the creeping suspicion that solving climate may not be possible, it’s good when you find glimmers of hope in the wreckage. One of those glimmers (actually more like a tractor beam) is called Energy Trust, an organization in Oregon that, if widely copied, would move us well on the way to solving climate change.

I recently spent a few hours with my friend Greg Stiles, who helps run their business sector programs, and I was blown away by their creativity and success. Here are some tidbits: Energy Trust is funded to the tune of $130 million annually through a public purpose charge on Oregonians’ utility bills. That alone is arguably part of a solution to climate change—it’s a price signal on energy costs that will force people to conserve. (By the way—it’s also a sign of things to come, and the program’s enormous success puts the lie to the delusional notion that to solve climate we need to make energy cheap (that might happen one day, but first it will have to get expensive. No freebies on this one, techno-optimists.)

Two programs caught my attention. The first is one approach to solar electric installations. Most utilities offer rebates for residential and commercial systems, and that’s it. The problem is that these systems, even with good rebates, are still frickin’ expensive. (As an example, I’m putting 4.5 kW on my roof, and with three different rebates and a hell of a deal from my installer, I’ll see a return on my investment of 6 percent. It’s OK for me, but not for most.)

What Energy Trust did is a form of “end-use, least cost” planning, a term Amory Lovins coined. They asked: “What do we want, and what is the cheapest way to get that?” What they wanted was clean energy, in the form of solar on people’s roofs. So they brought together everyone interested into a bulk purchase. Then they bid the contract in one huge chunk. Economies of scale enabled everyone to get what they wanted—their own system, on their own roof—but at a 25 percent discount. Brilliant, right?

But we aren’t going to solve climate change with brilliance, we’re going to solve it with applied common sense. The next smart innovation came in the form of lighting retrofits. I’ve banged my head against this problem for a long time, and if I were to implement a program, I’d do the same dumb thing I always do—go to the owner of a property and try to convince him or her to upgrade. But that’s the wrong approach.

Energy Trust recognized that first, owners don’t listen to the random enviro dude. They listen to their contractors. And they know that only electricians have the time or interest to care what a T5 is vs. a T12, and to note the rebates available for a switch.

By reaching out to contractors and electricians with info on the best technology and the rebates available, Energy Trust created a free, motivated sales force, and one that could actually get the retrofits done. Granted, Energy Trust has lots of money to make these improvements happen, and it comes out of customers’ pockets. But that’s what it’s going to take—a tax.

Remember—solving climate change is going to hurt. And a few dollars on your utility bill is not the kind of pain I’m talking about. That’s a pleasure.

Meanwhile, with that public purpose charge, Energy Trust is achieving the holy grail of energy geeks: they are helping utilities actually meet growing demand with efficiency, not new power. The utilities love it so much they are kicking in more of their own money to fund the program. The customers get disproportionately good service and love that. And I love it because it gives me a massive dose of that heroin-like drug—hope.

Related: Portland weatherization program gives top billing to labor standards and community benefits

Related Links:

Climate change and God

New Agreement on Standards for Outdoor Lights Announced

Weatherizing Portland



]]> If you’re like me, and spend a lot of the day drinking coffee and getting increasingly paranoid with the creeping suspicion that solving climate may not be possible, it’s good when you find glimmers of hope in the wreckage. One of those glimmers (actually more like a tractor beam) is called Energy Trust, an organization in Oregon that, if widely copied, would move us well on the way to solving climate change.

I recently spent a few hours with my friend Greg Stiles, who helps run their business sector programs, and I was blown away by their creativity and success. Here are some tidbits: Energy Trust is funded to the tune of $130 million annually through a public purpose charge on Oregonians’ utility bills. That alone is arguably part of a solution to climate change—it’s a price signal on energy costs that will force people to conserve. (By the way—it’s also a sign of things to come, and the program’s enormous success puts the lie to the delusional notion that to solve climate we need to make energy cheap (that might happen one day, but first it will have to get expensive. No freebies on this one, techno-optimists.)

Two programs caught my attention. The first is one approach to solar electric installations. Most utilities offer rebates for residential and commercial systems, and that’s it. The problem is that these systems, even with good rebates, are still frickin’ expensive. (As an example, I’m putting 4.5 kW on my roof, and with three different rebates and a hell of a deal from my installer, I’ll see a return on my investment of 6 percent. It’s OK for me, but not for most.)

What Energy Trust did is a form of “end-use, least cost” planning, a term Amory Lovins coined. They asked: “What do we want, and what is the cheapest way to get that?” What they wanted was clean energy, in the form of solar on people’s roofs. So they brought together everyone interested into a bulk purchase. Then they bid the contract in one huge chunk. Economies of scale enabled everyone to get what they wanted—their own system, on their own roof—but at a 25 percent discount. Brilliant, right?

But we aren’t going to solve climate change with brilliance, we’re going to solve it with applied common sense. The next smart innovation came in the form of lighting retrofits. I’ve banged my head against this problem for a long time, and if I were to implement a program, I’d do the same dumb thing I always do—go to the owner of a property and try to convince him or her to upgrade. But that’s the wrong approach.

Energy Trust recognized that first, owners don’t listen to the random enviro dude. They listen to their contractors. And they know that only electricians have the time or interest to care what a T5 is vs. a T12, and to note the rebates available for a switch.

By reaching out to contractors and electricians with info on the best technology and the rebates available, Energy Trust created a free, motivated sales force, and one that could actually get the retrofits done. Granted, Energy Trust has lots of money to make these improvements happen, and it comes out of customers’ pockets. But that’s what it’s going to take—a tax.

Remember—solving climate change is going to hurt. And a few dollars on your utility bill is not the kind of pain I’m talking about. That’s a pleasure.

Meanwhile, with that public purpose charge, Energy Trust is achieving the holy grail of energy geeks: they are helping utilities actually meet growing demand with efficiency, not new power. The utilities love it so much they are kicking in more of their own money to fund the program. The customers get disproportionately good service and love that. And I love it because it gives me a massive dose of that heroin-like drug—hope.

Related: Portland weatherization program gives top billing to labor standards and community benefits

Related Links:

Climate change and God

New Agreement on Standards for Outdoor Lights Announced

Weatherizing Portland



]]> <![CDATA[Weatherizing Portland]]> http://feeds.grist.org/click.phdo?i=ecc56922c918b532b9f38f0298834e5b http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-28-portland-weatherization-program-gives-top-billing-to-labor-stand/ Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:44:23 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-28-portland-weatherization-program-gives-top-billing-to-labor-stand/ Clean Energy Works Portland is a groundbreaking new program that enables Portland residents to improve the energy efficiency of their homes and pay for the improvements over time through their utility bills.

A contractor performing a blower door test to identify air infiltration and leakage throughout a home.Energy Trust of OregonBut the most exciting and unique aspect of the program is the Community Workforce Agreement that was developed by representatives of labor unions, community groups, businesses, community colleges, and other stakeholders. It is a comprehensive plan to make sure that new jobs created by Clean Energy Works Portland are high quality, career-track jobs that offer family-supporting wages and benefits, and that they go to local residents from diverse backgrounds.

“We wanted to have this project reflect some higher set of goals beyond just retrofitting homes and reducing carbon emissions,” said Derek Smith of Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, the city’s go-to person on the Clean Energy Works Portland program.

The program uses $2.5 million in Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant funds the city received through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as seed money to start a revolving loan fund that will enable Portland homeowners to improve the energy efficiency of their homes at no up-front cost. The energy improvements that will be available to homeowners during the pilot phase of the program, which will cover 500 homes, include insulation, air sealing, duct sealing, and improvements to space heating and water heating systems.

The Energy Trust of Oregon will schedule home energy assessments for interested homeowners and help them choose the energy saving options that best meet their needs. To pay for the improvements, homeowners will receive low-interest, long-term loans and will pay them off via their monthly utility bills.

Once the pilot phase is completed next summer, some 100,000 homes in Multnomah County, which encompasses the city of Portland, could qualify for the program.

A state law, Oregon’s Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Technology Act of 2009 (HB 2626), made the Portland financing mechanism possible. “Portland is the first pilot project for this new statewide, low-interest loan program for weatherization work that you can pay back on your utility bill. That’s how we’re going to spread this idea around the state,” said Barbara Byrd, who wears many hats in Oregon, including secretary-treasurer of the Oregon AFL-CIO and coordinator of the Oregon Apollo Alliance, which strongly supported passage of HB 2626.

Fifty-five direct jobs will be created by the pilot program, but many more are expected to be created after the pilot phase. In order to make sure those jobs will have good wages and benefits and be accessible to community members with previous barriers to employment, the city pulled together approximately 60 stakeholders to develop a Community Workforce Agreement that would complement Clean Energy Works.

Smith of the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability said he got the idea to bring labor and training standards and community benefits into the program from being part of the Green For All “community of practice.” The community of practice connects people throughout the United States who are working on green jobs programs and helps them share their learning experiences with others in the field. Green For All is a partner in Clean Energy Works Portland, along with the Energy Trust of Oregon, Portland General Electric and others.

Maurice Rahming, president of the National Association of Minority Contractors of Oregon, participated in the Clean Energy Works Portland stakeholder meetings that culminated in the Community Workforce Agreement. “I think it’s a tribute to the mayor that he got minority contractors involved early on, rather than having them involved at the very tail end. It shows he’s looking to diversify the contracting pool,” Rahming said.

“Construction isn’t always the most diverse workforce that’s out there, and we wanted to set up an understanding that let’s have the workforce and the contractors reflect the city of Portland,” he added.

In addition to minority contractors, the stakeholder meetings included many groups that offer pre-apprenticeship training to prepare people in basic work skills so that they can then enter training programs that teach skills specific to an occupation. These groups included the Native American Youth and Family Center, which offers employment training courses to Native Americans; and Oregon Tradeswomen, which offers women training courses to prepare them to enter the building and construction trades. Pre-apprenticeship training programs like these will funnel participants into weatherization technician training courses linked to Clean Energy Works Portland.

Many labor unions also participated in the development of the Community Workforce Agreement, including the Laborers union, which is about to begin offering training courses in weatherization that will be available to graduates of the pre-apprenticeship programs described above. “A part of what we wanted to see [in the Community Workforce Agreement] was that people were going to get quality training, because then they’re going to come into the market with better skills, and that’s a chance for them to get their wages up,” said Al Davita, the training director of the Laborers Training Program in Oregon and southern Idaho.

Davita said the Laborers will be providing three levels of training in weatherization-an 80-hour entry-level class for weatherization installers/technicians that will require 80 hours in general residential construction to get into the class; a 40-hour weatherization supervisor training; and a 40-hour energy auditor training. This means that trainees who become weatherization technicians through Clean Energy Works Portland will be able to move into other careers with additional training.

“Our plan is to recruit people who are out of work, give them quality training so they can go out and do this work, but also give them a career pathway so that they can potentially stay in weatherization for the next 20 years or may be able to move into commercial building construction or demolition, where the wages are higher. So we’re looking to give people the chance to change their lives,” Davita said.

After five weeks of meetings, the stakeholders came to consensus on a Community Workforce Agreement for the Clean Energy Works Portland pilot program that lays out requirements for worker training, wages and benefits, local hiring, contractor standards and more. Key goals and targets of the agreement, which was passed by the Portland City Council on September 30, include:

Local hire: at least 80 percent of employees used in the pilot program will be hired from the local workforce.

Family-supporting jobs: workers will earn no less than 180 percent of the state minimum wage.

Diverse workforce: historically disadvantaged or underrepresented people, including people of color, women, and low-income city residents, will perform at least 30 percent of total trades and technical project hours.

Diverse business participation: twenty percent of the dollars that flow through the project will go to businesses owned by historically disadvantaged or underrepresented people.

Prevailing wage: contractors will pay wages that are at least 180 percent of Oregon state minimum wage or the prevailing wage for weatherization work, whichever is higher.

Worker training: contractors will hire 100 percent of new weatherization employees from designated training programs until 50 percent of the contractor’s non-supervisory work hours are performed by these training program graduates.

Labor peace: contractors will sign a labor peace agreement that includes a majority sign-up provision (meaning that contractors will respect the will of the workers if a majority of them signs up to form a labor union).

The Community Workforce Agreement also sets up a system of “best value contracting,” which means that contractors wishing to join the pool of qualified contractors for the Clean Energy Works Portland program will be scored on a range of attributes. They will earn points for having a successful track record of hiring and retaining historically disadvantaged people; having a plan for establishing sub-contracting relationships with businesses owned by people of color and women; and hiring graduates of pre-apprenticeship training programs, among other criteria.

Clean Energy Works Portland’s criteria for qualified training programs requires the programs to have at least three defined partnerships with state recognized pre-apprenticeship programs or signatory community organizations that service underrepresented populations, and to make sure a majority of trainees are women, people of color, low-income people or people from disadvantaged communities.

“In Oregon, a state with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, Clean Energy Works Portland stands to provide a scalable national model by leveraging federal recovery dollars to put people back to work and achieve significant carbon reductions,” said Portland Mayor Sam Adams. “With our community workforce agreement, we have the ability to promote social equity in a measurable way, providing an opportunity for under-employed youth and adults to gain career training in the sustainable building industry, and ensure that Portland stays at the forefront of the green economy.”

For other cities that are considering designing programs similar to Portland’s, several of the people who participated in the process that created the Community Workforce Agreement emphasized the importance of involving stakeholders early in the process. “My bottom line advice is that if you want to do this, you have to involve the stakeholders from the very beginning of the process,” said Barbara Byrd. “It’s not something the city can put together and ask people to sign on to. It was the involvement of the stakeholders that not only created the workforce agreement, but will also make sure it works.”

Rahming said that the early involvement of minority contractors will help them be able to participate in the program. “In contracting, time is everything,” Rahming said. “A lot of times, larger companies can put proposals together more quickly, because they have more staff. This time, because the project was presented to my contractors at the front end, it will allow them to be able to meet the wage and benefits and training requirements.”

Now that the Community Workforce Agreement is in place and the pilot program has already begun converting loans for homeowners, some of the same people who were involved in the stakeholder process will oversee how the program is run.

“The side benefit of this whole effort is energizing a community,” Smith told Oregon Live in a recent interview. “People are really interested in this. It’s good for the economy. It’s good for their home energy bills and (the environment). It seems like one of the promises of the new clean economy could be realized here.”

For more information about Clean Energy Works Portland, go to www.cleanenergyworksportland.org.

Read the Community Workforce Agreement.

Related Links:

One year after his election, Obama on verge of audaciously fulfilling his promise as the green FDR

New Agreement on Standards for Outdoor Lights Announced

Green jobs for real people: The story behind the recovery numbers



]]> Clean Energy Works Portland is a groundbreaking new program that enables Portland residents to improve the energy efficiency of their homes and pay for the improvements over time through their utility bills.

A contractor performing a blower door test to identify air infiltration and leakage throughout a home.Energy Trust of OregonBut the most exciting and unique aspect of the program is the Community Workforce Agreement that was developed by representatives of labor unions, community groups, businesses, community colleges, and other stakeholders. It is a comprehensive plan to make sure that new jobs created by Clean Energy Works Portland are high quality, career-track jobs that offer family-supporting wages and benefits, and that they go to local residents from diverse backgrounds.

“We wanted to have this project reflect some higher set of goals beyond just retrofitting homes and reducing carbon emissions,” said Derek Smith of Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, the city’s go-to person on the Clean Energy Works Portland program.

The program uses $2.5 million in Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant funds the city received through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as seed money to start a revolving loan fund that will enable Portland homeowners to improve the energy efficiency of their homes at no up-front cost. The energy improvements that will be available to homeowners during the pilot phase of the program, which will cover 500 homes, include insulation, air sealing, duct sealing, and improvements to space heating and water heating systems.

The Energy Trust of Oregon will schedule home energy assessments for interested homeowners and help them choose the energy saving options that best meet their needs. To pay for the improvements, homeowners will receive low-interest, long-term loans and will pay them off via their monthly utility bills.

Once the pilot phase is completed next summer, some 100,000 homes in Multnomah County, which encompasses the city of Portland, could qualify for the program.

A state law, Oregon’s Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Technology Act of 2009 (HB 2626), made the Portland financing mechanism possible. “Portland is the first pilot project for this new statewide, low-interest loan program for weatherization work that you can pay back on your utility bill. That’s how we’re going to spread this idea around the state,” said Barbara Byrd, who wears many hats in Oregon, including secretary-treasurer of the Oregon AFL-CIO and coordinator of the Oregon Apollo Alliance, which strongly supported passage of HB 2626.

Fifty-five direct jobs will be created by the pilot program, but many more are expected to be created after the pilot phase. In order to make sure those jobs will have good wages and benefits and be accessible to community members with previous barriers to employment, the city pulled together approximately 60 stakeholders to develop a Community Workforce Agreement that would complement Clean Energy Works.

Smith of the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability said he got the idea to bring labor and training standards and community benefits into the program from being part of the Green For All “community of practice.” The community of practice connects people throughout the United States who are working on green jobs programs and helps them share their learning experiences with others in the field. Green For All is a partner in Clean Energy Works Portland, along with the Energy Trust of Oregon, Portland General Electric and others.

Maurice Rahming, president of the National Association of Minority Contractors of Oregon, participated in the Clean Energy Works Portland stakeholder meetings that culminated in the Community Workforce Agreement. “I think it’s a tribute to the mayor that he got minority contractors involved early on, rather than having them involved at the very tail end. It shows he’s looking to diversify the contracting pool,” Rahming said.

“Construction isn’t always the most diverse workforce that’s out there, and we wanted to set up an understanding that let’s have the workforce and the contractors reflect the city of Portland,” he added.

In addition to minority contractors, the stakeholder meetings included many groups that offer pre-apprenticeship training to prepare people in basic work skills so that they can then enter training programs that teach skills specific to an occupation. These groups included the Native American Youth and Family Center, which offers employment training courses to Native Americans; and Oregon Tradeswomen, which offers women training courses to prepare them to enter the building and construction trades. Pre-apprenticeship training programs like these will funnel participants into weatherization technician training courses linked to Clean Energy Works Portland.

Many labor unions also participated in the development of the Community Workforce Agreement, including the Laborers union, which is about to begin offering training courses in weatherization that will be available to graduates of the pre-apprenticeship programs described above. “A part of what we wanted to see [in the Community Workforce Agreement] was that people were going to get quality training, because then they’re going to come into the market with better skills, and that’s a chance for them to get their wages up,” said Al Davita, the training director of the Laborers Training Program in Oregon and southern Idaho.

Davita said the Laborers will be providing three levels of training in weatherization-an 80-hour entry-level class for weatherization installers/technicians that will require 80 hours in general residential construction to get into the class; a 40-hour weatherization supervisor training; and a 40-hour energy auditor training. This means that trainees who become weatherization technicians through Clean Energy Works Portland will be able to move into other careers with additional training.

“Our plan is to recruit people who are out of work, give them quality training so they can go out and do this work, but also give them a career pathway so that they can potentially stay in weatherization for the next 20 years or may be able to move into commercial building construction or demolition, where the wages are higher. So we’re looking to give people the chance to change their lives,” Davita said.

After five weeks of meetings, the stakeholders came to consensus on a Community Workforce Agreement for the Clean Energy Works Portland pilot program that lays out requirements for worker training, wages and benefits, local hiring, contractor standards and more. Key goals and targets of the agreement, which was passed by the Portland City Council on September 30, include:

Local hire: at least 80 percent of employees used in the pilot program will be hired from the local workforce.

Family-supporting jobs: workers will earn no less than 180 percent of the state minimum wage.

Diverse workforce: historically disadvantaged or underrepresented people, including people of color, women, and low-income city residents, will perform at least 30 percent of total trades and technical project hours.

Diverse business participation: twenty percent of the dollars that flow through the project will go to businesses owned by historically disadvantaged or underrepresented people.

Prevailing wage: contractors will pay wages that are at least 180 percent of Oregon state minimum wage or the prevailing wage for weatherization work, whichever is higher.

Worker training: contractors will hire 100 percent of new weatherization employees from designated training programs until 50 percent of the contractor’s non-supervisory work hours are performed by these training program graduates.

Labor peace: contractors will sign a labor peace agreement that includes a majority sign-up provision (meaning that contractors will respect the will of the workers if a majority of them signs up to form a labor union).

The Community Workforce Agreement also sets up a system of “best value contracting,” which means that contractors wishing to join the pool of qualified contractors for the Clean Energy Works Portland program will be scored on a range of attributes. They will earn points for having a successful track record of hiring and retaining historically disadvantaged people; having a plan for establishing sub-contracting relationships with businesses owned by people of color and women; and hiring graduates of pre-apprenticeship training programs, among other criteria.

Clean Energy Works Portland’s criteria for qualified training programs requires the programs to have at least three defined partnerships with state recognized pre-apprenticeship programs or signatory community organizations that service underrepresented populations, and to make sure a majority of trainees are women, people of color, low-income people or people from disadvantaged communities.

“In Oregon, a state with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, Clean Energy Works Portland stands to provide a scalable national model by leveraging federal recovery dollars to put people back to work and achieve significant carbon reductions,” said Portland Mayor Sam Adams. “With our community workforce agreement, we have the ability to promote social equity in a measurable way, providing an opportunity for under-employed youth and adults to gain career training in the sustainable building industry, and ensure that Portland stays at the forefront of the green economy.”

For other cities that are considering designing programs similar to Portland’s, several of the people who participated in the process that created the Community Workforce Agreement emphasized the importance of involving stakeholders early in the process. “My bottom line advice is that if you want to do this, you have to involve the stakeholders from the very beginning of the process,” said Barbara Byrd. “It’s not something the city can put together and ask people to sign on to. It was the involvement of the stakeholders that not only created the workforce agreement, but will also make sure it works.”

Rahming said that the early involvement of minority contractors will help them be able to participate in the program. “In contracting, time is everything,” Rahming said. “A lot of times, larger companies can put proposals together more quickly, because they have more staff. This time, because the project was presented to my contractors at the front end, it will allow them to be able to meet the wage and benefits and training requirements.”

Now that the Community Workforce Agreement is in place and the pilot program has already begun converting loans for homeowners, some of the same people who were involved in the stakeholder process will oversee how the program is run.

“The side benefit of this whole effort is energizing a community,” Smith told Oregon Live in a recent interview. “People are really interested in this. It’s good for the economy. It’s good for their home energy bills and (the environment). It seems like one of the promises of the new clean economy could be realized here.”

For more information about Clean Energy Works Portland, go to www.cleanenergyworksportland.org.

Read the Community Workforce Agreement.

Related Links:

One year after his election, Obama on verge of audaciously fulfilling his promise as the green FDR

New Agreement on Standards for Outdoor Lights Announced

Green jobs for real people: The story behind the recovery numbers



]]> <![CDATA[WWLD: What Would Lincoln Do?]]> http://feeds.grist.org/click.phdo?i=de4265ec320f0981ea7247e1ba1445fe http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-28-wwld-what-would-lincoln-do/ Wed, 28 Oct 2009 06:34:46 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-28-wwld-what-would-lincoln-do/ Dear President Obama,

cc: Sen. Kerry, Rep. Markey

Our nation faces the gravest threat to our security and well being and the most profound moral challenge since the great struggle to end slavery. We were blessed, then, to be led by another tall, slim politician from Illinois. However, the terrible prospect of climate cataclysm, though just as grave, is more encompassing and final and calls for Presidential leadership of a higher order then even President Lincoln displayed.

Lincoln triumphed over partisan politics and a ghastly civil war, but he did so by hewing to a moderate course, never straying beyond the boundaries of the national civic debate. As a student of Lincoln, you know well that the 16th President long resisted efforts to change the character of the national conflict from a political matter of secession to the moral imperative of ending slavery. When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, he was fully convinced that no compromise measure would be acceptable to proponents of slavery.

The immense, rushing threat of climate catastrophe allows no such middle course, because there is no time for evolution of the political debate. You must decide the essential moral and practical question now; geophysical reality does not permit the luxury of waiting to be “controlled by events.” If we delay until climate impacts—such as rising sea levels, drought and severe weather events—begin to tear at the very fabric of the nation, then it is probable that the planet will have passed the climate point of no return. In such circumstances the fine distinction you have drawn between “the good” and “the perfect” is meaningless. It is more accurate to say that “half measures avail us nothing.”

Maggie Zhou and Ken Ward ask: “What would Lincoln do?”It is now imperative that you accept the great responsibility of recasting the fundamental question facing humanity—there is no one else in the world with the authority and power to do so. The question before us must be simplified and the scale, nature, and timing of a functional global response set before the nation and the world. The first, inarguable step in that direction is to endorse the goal of 350 ppm (or less, as most recent evidence suggests). We must acknowledge the challenge, no matter how high the hurdles.

By embracing this necessity, you bring policy and politics into line with climate realities. You also take a tremendous political risk, it is true, and open a Pandora’s Box of challenges to the utterly inadequate mechanisms of the American Clean Energy Solutions Act. This is necessary if we are to even begin grappling with the true scale of risk and fundamental nature of the solutions we must embrace.

Eventually, President Lincoln came to the right decision, choosing Emancipation over gimmicks like repatriation of slaves to Africa. Given his strength of character and acuity of sight, it seems likely that he would have reached the same conclusion without the luxury of time, as you must now do. We urge that you consider the question, “what would Lincoln do?” and act accordingly.

Sincerely,

The Rev. Dr. Jim AntalConference Minister & President,Massachusetts Conference, United Church of Christ

Ross GelbspanAuthor

Marla MarcumChair, Climate Change Task Force,NE Conference of the United Methodist Church

Andrée Zaleska & Ken WardCofounders, Jamaica Plain Green House350.org hubClimate SOS

Maggie Zhou, PhDMassachusetts Coalition for Healthy CommunitiesClimate SOS

Related Links:

The ‘party of no’ becomes the ‘party of slow’

Seventh Generation launches anti-toxics campaign with wee gimmick

Europe places outcome of Copenhagen squarely on Obama



]]> Dear President Obama,

cc: Sen. Kerry, Rep. Markey

Our nation faces the gravest threat to our security and well being and the most profound moral challenge since the great struggle to end slavery. We were blessed, then, to be led by another tall, slim politician from Illinois. However, the terrible prospect of climate cataclysm, though just as grave, is more encompassing and final and calls for Presidential leadership of a higher order then even President Lincoln displayed.

Lincoln triumphed over partisan politics and a ghastly civil war, but he did so by hewing to a moderate course, never straying beyond the boundaries of the national civic debate. As a student of Lincoln, you know well that the 16th President long resisted efforts to change the character of the national conflict from a political matter of secession to the moral imperative of ending slavery. When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, he was fully convinced that no compromise measure would be acceptable to proponents of slavery.

The immense, rushing threat of climate catastrophe allows no such middle course, because there is no time for evolution of the political debate. You must decide the essential moral and practical question now; geophysical reality does not permit the luxury of waiting to be “controlled by events.” If we delay until climate impacts—such as rising sea levels, drought and severe weather events—begin to tear at the very fabric of the nation, then it is probable that the planet will have passed the climate point of no return. In such circumstances the fine distinction you have drawn between “the good” and “the perfect” is meaningless. It is more accurate to say that “half measures avail us nothing.”

Maggie Zhou and Ken Ward ask: “What would Lincoln do?”It is now imperative that you accept the great responsibility of recasting the fundamental question facing humanity—there is no one else in the world with the authority and power to do so. The question before us must be simplified and the scale, nature, and timing of a functional global response set before the nation and the world. The first, inarguable step in that direction is to endorse the goal of 350 ppm (or less, as most recent evidence suggests). We must acknowledge the challenge, no matter how high the hurdles.

By embracing this necessity, you bring policy and politics into line with climate realities. You also take a tremendous political risk, it is true, and open a Pandora’s Box of challenges to the utterly inadequate mechanisms of the American Clean Energy Solutions Act. This is necessary if we are to even begin grappling with the true scale of risk and fundamental nature of the solutions we must embrace.

Eventually, President Lincoln came to the right decision, choosing Emancipation over gimmicks like repatriation of slaves to Africa. Given his strength of character and acuity of sight, it seems likely that he would have reached the same conclusion without the luxury of time, as you must now do. We urge that you consider the question, “what would Lincoln do?” and act accordingly.

Sincerely,

The Rev. Dr. Jim AntalConference Minister & President,Massachusetts Conference, United Church of Christ

Ross GelbspanAuthor

Marla MarcumChair, Climate Change Task Force,NE Conference of the United Methodist Church

Andrée Zaleska & Ken WardCofounders, Jamaica Plain Green House350.org hubClimate SOS

Maggie Zhou, PhDMassachusetts Coalition for Healthy CommunitiesClimate SOS

Related Links:

The ‘party of no’ becomes the ‘party of slow’

Seventh Generation launches anti-toxics campaign with wee gimmick

Europe places outcome of Copenhagen squarely on Obama



]]> <![CDATA[Why it’s better to invest in efficiency than to hold electricity rates down]]> http://feeds.grist.org/click.phdo?i=36229c7a650b85208d267f72cd06252d http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-27-better-to-invest-efficiency-than-hold-electricity-rates-down/ Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:15:34 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-27-better-to-invest-efficiency-than-hold-electricity-rates-down/ Joe Romm draws attention to some extremely interesting thoughts from Glenn English, head of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. NRECA represents 900-plus small, not-for-profit, typically coal-based utilities in the Midwest. We tend to think all coal utilities are after more free allowance allocations under a cap-and-trade system, but as Climate Wire (sub req) reports, last week English said that ...

... “the basis for a deal” on climate would not revolve so much around allowances, but around whether people in coal-dependent regions would get enough help with efficiency retrofits on homes so they can manage potential electricity spikes.

These are words of wisdom, the words of a man whose primary concerns are his region and his people rather than profit. I have no idea how widespread English’s view is among coal utility execs—probably rare indeed among the for-profit set—but I choose to take great heart from it.

Here’s the truth English has grasped: it is better to give people efficiency than to give them cheaper electricity.

Given free allowances, utilities are likely to do one of two things: keep the profit and raise electricity rates anyway (as economists fear), or use it to keep rates down (as economists fear). The former scenario is bad for obvious reasons, but the latter is a more subtle danger. Holding down rates will mute the carbon price signal for dirty electricity—meaning other forms of carbon (gas, heating oil, etc.) will have to rise in price disproportionately to make up the difference. Neither option serves the purpose of cost-effectively reducing emissions or protecting consumers.

Money invested in efficiency is a different matter: Electricity rates still go up, preserving the price signal, but electricity bills go down, because consumers use less. Here’s the thing: even if ratepayers end the month with the same total out-of-pocket expenses (paying the same rate for the same amount of electricity, or paying a higher rate for less electricity), the two investments are not equivalent.

Relying on carbon revenue to hold rates down ties ratepayers’ fate to the whims of utility execs, public utility commissions, and politicians. At any time, utilities could pocket more profits; at any time, politicians could change their approach to emission allocation. Efficiency savings, in contrast, are reliable and intrinsically local. Every reduction in demand pays back not just once but on every future electricity bill. Once the investment is paid off it effectively creates a permanent value stream. That value is controlled by, and belongs to, property owners. By lowering their energy demand, they increase their independence from distant powerbrokers. Holding down electricity rate increases can help ratepayers tread water, but efficiency investments raise property value. They add value to a region’s infrastructure and boost its economic competitiveness. What’s more needed in America right now than a program that staves off foreclosures by raising property values, not with financial gimmicks but with real upgrades in building stock?Using carbon revenue to hold rates down will not affect rising demand; sooner or later, new generation will be needed, and new power plants are a huge incremental capital investment. Using the revenue for efficiency, by contrast, prevents the need for those new power plant investments. Amortized over time, the avoided costs of those new power plants make a dollar of efficiency go farther than a dollar of rate assistance.

In short, efficiency investment has all sorts of social advantages, multiplier effects, and system-of-system benefits that rate assistance doesn’t.

Finally, there’s good reason to believe, especially in coal-dependent areas, which tend to have the least efficiency building stock, that efficiency savings can easily exceed the rise in rates that a carbon cap will generate. That means consumers will take money they used to spend on energy and spend it on something else—and as it happens, a dollar spent spent on energy and a dollar spent elsewhere are not equivalent:

Money spent on energy almost always leaves a community, while money spent on other goods is more likely to stay in the community. The energy sector has extremely low labor intensity; much spending on energy is simple scarcity rent. Dollars spent on energy create very few jobs relative to dollars spent on ... almost anything else, but again, especially efficiency. Money spent on non-energy goods and services creates somewhere between two to seven times as many jobs as money spent on energy.  (See Skip Laitner at ACEEE on this.)

Even if we keep overall consumer spending level, then, it’s better for that spending to go to non-energy sectors than to energy sectors. Efficiency shifts spending out of energy.

So, to wrap it up: English is right: the most important thing a federal program can do to “keep consumers whole” while reducing emissions cost-effectively is to invest heavily in energy efficiency. This may be the first and last time I ever say this, but: listen to the coal guy!

Related Links:

The ‘party of no’ becomes the ‘party of slow’

The Climate Post: The gods must be crazy

Senate Democrats push climate bill through committee



]]> Joe Romm draws attention to some extremely interesting thoughts from Glenn English, head of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. NRECA represents 900-plus small, not-for-profit, typically coal-based utilities in the Midwest. We tend to think all coal utilities are after more free allowance allocations under a cap-and-trade system, but as Climate Wire (sub req) reports, last week English said that ...

... “the basis for a deal” on climate would not revolve so much around allowances, but around whether people in coal-dependent regions would get enough help with efficiency retrofits on homes so they can manage potential electricity spikes.

These are words of wisdom, the words of a man whose primary concerns are his region and his people rather than profit. I have no idea how widespread English’s view is among coal utility execs—probably rare indeed among the for-profit set—but I choose to take great heart from it.

Here’s the truth English has grasped: it is better to give people efficiency than to give them cheaper electricity.

Given free allowances, utilities are likely to do one of two things: keep the profit and raise electricity rates anyway (as economists fear), or use it to keep rates down (as economists fear). The former scenario is bad for obvious reasons, but the latter is a more subtle danger. Holding down rates will mute the carbon price signal for dirty electricity—meaning other forms of carbon (gas, heating oil, etc.) will have to rise in price disproportionately to make up the difference. Neither option serves the purpose of cost-effectively reducing emissions or protecting consumers.

Money invested in efficiency is a different matter: Electricity rates still go up, preserving the price signal, but electricity bills go down, because consumers use less. Here’s the thing: even if ratepayers end the month with the same total out-of-pocket expenses (paying the same rate for the same amount of electricity, or paying a higher rate for less electricity), the two investments are not equivalent.

Relying on carbon revenue to hold rates down ties ratepayers’ fate to the whims of utility execs, public utility commissions, and politicians. At any time, utilities could pocket more profits; at any time, politicians could change their approach to emission allocation. Efficiency savings, in contrast, are reliable and intrinsically local. Every reduction in demand pays back not just once but on every future electricity bill. Once the investment is paid off it effectively creates a permanent value stream. That value is controlled by, and belongs to, property owners. By lowering their energy demand, they increase their independence from distant powerbrokers. Holding down electricity rate increases can help ratepayers tread water, but efficiency investments raise property value. They add value to a region’s infrastructure and boost its economic competitiveness. What’s more needed in America right now than a program that staves off foreclosures by raising property values, not with financial gimmicks but with real upgrades in building stock?Using carbon revenue to hold rates down will not affect rising demand; sooner or later, new generation will be needed, and new power plants are a huge incremental capital investment. Using the revenue for efficiency, by contrast, prevents the need for those new power plant investments. Amortized over time, the avoided costs of those new power plants make a dollar of efficiency go farther than a dollar of rate assistance.

In short, efficiency investment has all sorts of social advantages, multiplier effects, and system-of-system benefits that rate assistance doesn’t.

Finally, there’s good reason to believe, especially in coal-dependent areas, which tend to have the least efficiency building stock, that efficiency savings can easily exceed the rise in rates that a carbon cap will generate. That means consumers will take money they used to spend on energy and spend it on something else—and as it happens, a dollar spent spent on energy and a dollar spent elsewhere are not equivalent:

Money spent on energy almost always leaves a community, while money spent on other goods is more likely to stay in the community. The energy sector has extremely low labor intensity; much spending on energy is simple scarcity rent. Dollars spent on energy create very few jobs relative to dollars spent on ... almost anything else, but again, especially efficiency. Money spent on non-energy goods and services creates somewhere between two to seven times as many jobs as money spent on energy.  (See Skip Laitner at ACEEE on this.)

Even if we keep overall consumer spending level, then, it’s better for that spending to go to non-energy sectors than to energy sectors. Efficiency shifts spending out of energy.

So, to wrap it up: English is right: the most important thing a federal program can do to “keep consumers whole” while reducing emissions cost-effectively is to invest heavily in energy efficiency. This may be the first and last time I ever say this, but: listen to the coal guy!

Related Links:

The ‘party of no’ becomes the ‘party of slow’

The Climate Post: The gods must be crazy

Senate Democrats push climate bill through committee



]]> <![CDATA[Eve of Destruction (New Millennium)]]> http://feeds.grist.org/click.phdo?i=9f20cd7d5a39b67ac22fd83fde7e713b http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-22-eve-of-destruction-new-millennium/ Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:41:54 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-22-eve-of-destruction-new-millennium/ Ken rewrote this song—one of our favorites in the “music for the apocalypse” category—as a rallying cry for the Day of Climate Action this Saturday, October 24, everywhere. He had to smoke a whole pack of cigarettes beforehand to gethis voice that gritty. We’ll be at the BostonUnder Water Festival in downtown Boston.  Please join us in the spiritof 350, wherever you are. (Find an action near you at 350.org.)

Eve of Destruction (New Millennium)

music, Barry McGuirenew lyrics, Ken Ward

The Arctic ice, it is a’meltin’The polar bears, they are swelteringYou’ve heard about this, till your brain’s explodin’Your lightbulbs are changed, but what’s that car you’re drivin’And do you really think, we’ll save the world by recyclin’?

And you tell meOver and over and over again my friendAh, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction

Necessary conditions, for civilizationThree hundred fifty, there is no debatingThree ninety now and, acceleratin’Scientists say, we don’t need more explanationLook around you now, there’s chaos in the making

But you tell me…

I feel so sad, just contemplatin’what the world will be like, for the children we are raisin’How do we prepare them for a world disintegratingWhat good for them, is a liberal education?And what do we say when they ask for explanation?

And you tell me…

Big Green Groups, they are hesitatingTo tell the urgent truth, it’s so frustratingLobby hard they say, and pass legislationCap and trade alone, will be our salvationAnd BP, they tell us, is cooperating?

And you tell me…

But look around you now, it’s so energizin’October twenty four, we are organizin’A planet-wide Day, of Climate campaignin’To heed McKibben’s call for, global actionfor Three Five O, the only path to salvationThe most important number, in the whole damn nationLet’s not reverse course, of Almighty’s creation!

So don’t tell meOver and over and over again my friendsYou don’t believe we’re on the eve of destructionOpen up your eyes and and move your feet into action.

Related Links:

Seventh Generation launches anti-toxics campaign with wee gimmick

Europe places outcome of Copenhagen squarely on Obama

Blowing up our clean energy future



]]> Ken rewrote this song—one of our favorites in the “music for the apocalypse” category—as a rallying cry for the Day of Climate Action this Saturday, October 24, everywhere. He had to smoke a whole pack of cigarettes beforehand to gethis voice that gritty. We’ll be at the BostonUnder Water Festival in downtown Boston.  Please join us in the spiritof 350, wherever you are. (Find an action near you at 350.org.)

Eve of Destruction (New Millennium)

music, Barry McGuirenew lyrics, Ken Ward

The Arctic ice, it is a’meltin’The polar bears, they are swelteringYou’ve heard about this, till your brain’s explodin’Your lightbulbs are changed, but what’s that car you’re drivin’And do you really think, we’ll save the world by recyclin’?

And you tell meOver and over and over again my friendAh, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction

Necessary conditions, for civilizationThree hundred fifty, there is no debatingThree ninety now and, acceleratin’Scientists say, we don’t need more explanationLook around you now, there’s chaos in the making

But you tell me…

I feel so sad, just contemplatin’what the world will be like, for the children we are raisin’How do we prepare them for a world disintegratingWhat good for them, is a liberal education?And what do we say when they ask for explanation?

And you tell me…

Big Green Groups, they are hesitatingTo tell the urgent truth, it’s so frustratingLobby hard they say, and pass legislationCap and trade alone, will be our salvationAnd BP, they tell us, is cooperating?

And you tell me…

But look around you now, it’s so energizin’October twenty four, we are organizin’A planet-wide Day, of Climate campaignin’To heed McKibben’s call for, global actionfor Three Five O, the only path to salvationThe most important number, in the whole damn nationLet’s not reverse course, of Almighty’s creation!

So don’t tell meOver and over and over again my friendsYou don’t believe we’re on the eve of destructionOpen up your eyes and and move your feet into action.

Related Links:

Seventh Generation launches anti-toxics campaign with wee gimmick

Europe places outcome of Copenhagen squarely on Obama

Blowing up our clean energy future



]]> <![CDATA[Climate Corps interns save Fortune 500 firms $54 million]]> http://feeds.grist.org/click.phdo?i=2c3d5f14f0c35ad17d0e3bdad07d4ffc http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-21-climate-corps-interns-save-fortune-500-firms-54-million/ Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:48:21 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-21-climate-corps-interns-save-fortune-500-firms-54-million/ Climate Corps. Photo: Environmental Defense FundBack in May I wrote about the Environmental Defense Fund’s (EDF) Climate Corps, a cadre of 26 MBAstudents who were then prepping for summer internships at Fortune 500companies. Their mission was to green up corporate operations to save money andcut carbon emissions.

With winter on the way andschool back in session, I checked in to see how successful the Climate Corpswas at combining the students’ financial smarts, technological know-how—halfare engineers by training—and environmental ethic.

Pretty successful, it turnsout. According to EDF, the interns identified energy efficiency measures thatwill collectively save an estimated $54 million at 22 companies (and oneuniversity), including eBay, Dell and Sony Pictures Entertainment. Thattranslates into 100,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases avoided a year with anannual energy savings of 160 million kilowatthours.

A couple of caveats are inorder. Energy efficiency programs were already under way at many of thecompanies. And whether the projected $54 million in savings will actually berealized won’t be known until the energy efficiency efforts are completed—actual results may vary.

Still, anything close to $54million is quite a return on investment, given that the companies altogetherspent only $260,000 on intern salaries during the 10-week program.

But the long-term payoff islikely to be the emergence of a new corporate class- - the green financialengineer—and future CEOs—who reflexively view environmental performance asa bottom-line concern.

“Many of these companies have peopleworking on energy efficiency but it really helps to have another set of eyes onthe ground,” says Millie Chu Baird, the Climate Corps project director. “Evenif a company thinks it’s doing everything it can, we found often it can bedoing more.”

That was networking giantCisco’s experience. Last year, Climate Corps intern Emily Reyna made thebusiness case for installing intelligent power strips in the company’s labs toreduce electricity consumption. That will save an estimated $8 million annuallywith an 18-month payback period.

This year, intern Sarah Shapirohelped implement the power strip project while spearheading an initiative tocut power use by raising the ambient air temperature in the labs and in thechilled water that cools equipment. Projected savings? $1.8 million a year.

A Cisco manager had done aback-of-the-envelope analysis of such a project’s potential, but it wasShapiro’s job to gather the data to make the financial case for such aninitiative.

“I spent a lot of time bangingon doors and hanging out in data center to get the data,” says Shapiro, who ispursuing dual degrees from the University of Michigan business school and itsschool of natural resources.

“Day to day there was a lot oftalking to relevant people at Cisco, a lot of energy managers, human resourcesand workplace management,” she added. “I worked a lot with energy folks toprovide financial perspective on initiatives they were already working on.”

And that’s the missing link ina lot of corporate energy efficiency programs, according to Rob Rolfsen, whooversees Cisco facilities as director of workplace resources.

“Labs represent two-thirds ofour carbon footprint,” says Rolfsen. “Sarah brought a business side approachand could work with the engineers to develop a business case for what we wantedto do.”

Shapiro’s classmate, RyanWhisnant, found that being a liaison between the gear heads and the numbercrunchers allowed him to exert influence in subtle ways. Posted to SunGard, a$5.5 billion software and IT services company headquartered outsidePhiladelphia, Whisnant went for a meet-and-greet with a facility manager andmentioned the lack of energy efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs in thebuilding’s lobby.

“Thenext time I came back I saw that CFLs were in the lobby,” says Whisnant. “Ifound out that after our meeting the facility manager called and said to switchout the bulbs.”

Whisnant spent most of his timedeveloping energy efficiency measures for SunGard’s corporate headquarters,such as retrofitting lighting, heating, and cooling systems.

“We built a whole financial model on aproject-by-project basis in terms of lighting retrofits and to optimizebuilding management systems,” he says.

And it’s not just forward-lookingSilicon Valley-type tech companies that have embraced the Climate Corps. Amongthose cashing in on the interns’ expertise: TXU, the coal-dependent utilityonce the bête noir of theenvironmental movement, supermarket chain Stop and Shop/Giant and even the NBAbasketball team, the Houston Rockets.

Related Links:

New Agreement on Standards for Outdoor Lights Announced

Energy Trust and the Big Hope

Weatherizing Portland



]]> Climate Corps. Photo: Environmental Defense FundBack in May I wrote about the Environmental Defense Fund’s (EDF) Climate Corps, a cadre of 26 MBAstudents who were then prepping for summer internships at Fortune 500companies. Their mission was to green up corporate operations to save money andcut carbon emissions.

With winter on the way andschool back in session, I checked in to see how successful the Climate Corpswas at combining the students’ financial smarts, technological know-how—halfare engineers by training—and environmental ethic.

Pretty successful, it turnsout. According to EDF, the interns identified energy efficiency measures thatwill collectively save an estimated $54 million at 22 companies (and oneuniversity), including eBay, Dell and Sony Pictures Entertainment. Thattranslates into 100,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases avoided a year with anannual energy savings of 160 million kilowatthours.

A couple of caveats are inorder. Energy efficiency programs were already under way at many of thecompanies. And whether the projected $54 million in savings will actually berealized won’t be known until the energy efficiency efforts are completed—actual results may vary.

Still, anything close to $54million is quite a return on investment, given that the companies altogetherspent only $260,000 on intern salaries during the 10-week program.

But the long-term payoff islikely to be the emergence of a new corporate class- - the green financialengineer—and future CEOs—who reflexively view environmental performance asa bottom-line concern.

“Many of these companies have peopleworking on energy efficiency but it really helps to have another set of eyes onthe ground,” says Millie Chu Baird, the Climate Corps project director. “Evenif a company thinks it’s doing everything it can, we found often it can bedoing more.”

That was networking giantCisco’s experience. Last year, Climate Corps intern Emily Reyna made thebusiness case for installing intelligent power strips in the company’s labs toreduce electricity consumption. That will save an estimated $8 million annuallywith an 18-month payback period.

This year, intern Sarah Shapirohelped implement the power strip project while spearheading an initiative tocut power use by raising the ambient air temperature in the labs and in thechilled water that cools equipment. Projected savings? $1.8 million a year.

A Cisco manager had done aback-of-the-envelope analysis of such a project’s potential, but it wasShapiro’s job to gather the data to make the financial case for such aninitiative.

“I spent a lot of time bangingon doors and hanging out in data center to get the data,” says Shapiro, who ispursuing dual degrees from the University of Michigan business school and itsschool of natural resources.

“Day to day there was a lot oftalking to relevant people at Cisco, a lot of energy managers, human resourcesand workplace management,” she added. “I worked a lot with energy folks toprovide financial perspective on initiatives they were already working on.”

And that’s the missing link ina lot of corporate energy efficiency programs, according to Rob Rolfsen, whooversees Cisco facilities as director of workplace resources.

“Labs represent two-thirds ofour carbon footprint,” says Rolfsen. “Sarah brought a business side approachand could work with the engineers to develop a business case for what we wantedto do.”

Shapiro’s classmate, RyanWhisnant, found that being a liaison between the gear heads and the numbercrunchers allowed him to exert influence in subtle ways. Posted to SunGard, a$5.5 billion software and IT services company headquartered outsidePhiladelphia, Whisnant went for a meet-and-greet with a facility manager andmentioned the lack of energy efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs in thebuilding’s lobby.

“Thenext time I came back I saw that CFLs were in the lobby,” says Whisnant. “Ifound out that after our meeting the facility manager called and said to switchout the bulbs.”

Whisnant spent most of his timedeveloping energy efficiency measures for SunGard’s corporate headquarters,such as retrofitting lighting, heating, and cooling systems.

“We built a whole financial model on aproject-by-project basis in terms of lighting retrofits and to optimizebuilding management systems,” he says.

And it’s not just forward-lookingSilicon Valley-type tech companies that have embraced the Climate Corps. Amongthose cashing in on the interns’ expertise: TXU, the coal-dependent utilityonce the bête noir of theenvironmental movement, supermarket chain Stop and Shop/Giant and even the NBAbasketball team, the Houston Rockets.

Related Links:

New Agreement on Standards for Outdoor Lights Announced

Energy Trust and the Big Hope

Weatherizing Portland



]]> <![CDATA[A $4 billion push to make affordable housing green]]> http://feeds.grist.org/click.phdo?i=c42e21d0c2761bae4806ffa9ad359109 http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-21-a-4-billion-push-to-make-affordable-housing-green/ Wed, 21 Oct 2009 06:38:26 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-21-a-4-billion-push-to-make-affordable-housing-green/ Norton hit Congress to testify about the value of green building in 2008.globalwarming.house.govA major investment in making affordable housing greener—a $4 billion investment, to be precise—was announced Wednesday. The injection comes courtesy of Enterprise Community Partners, a 25-year-old non-profit dedicated to community development and affordable housing. With heavyweight partners including NRDC, HUD, and the Home Depot Foundation, Enterprise—which was founded by the grandparents of actor Edward Norton, who sits on its board—has set its sights on overhauling the entire affordable housing stock in this country.

Well, in that pebble-in-a-pond sort of way. The actual $4 billion will be split, with $2.5 billion going toward the construction or retrofit of 75,000 units across the country, and $1.5 billion going toward research and systems reform work. Through its work with state and local governments, Enterprise Green Communities hopes to have an eco-influence on hundreds of thousands more units, and leverage lots of dough. If that’s not enough, its leaders are calling for the country’s entire affordable housing stock—around 30 million households—to be green by 2020.

It’s the kind of energetic, solution-y plan that makes you have real hope for a millisecond. Even if the 30 million households vision doesn’t pan out, there’s real progress to be made. As speaker after speaker pointed out in a conference call this morning (in which Norton was supposed to participate, but he wasn’t there, not that it’s the only reason certain people called in, ha ha, but where was he?), this isn’t greening merely for the sake of environmental progress—it has tangible effects on the health and quality of life of residents, as well as holding the potential for green job creation, energy savings, and significant carbon reduction.

In fact, Enterprise has just rolled out the results from its work over the last few years. In conjunction with its splashy announcement today, it released a report called Incremental Cost, Measurable Savings: Enterprise Green Communities Criteria. Not the hottest title, but it gets at the point that green builders and fans of retrofitting try to make day in and day out: choosing greener options doesn’t cost that much more, and it saves a hell of a lot over the long run.

Related Links:

Cash for Clunkers brought us ... more clunkers!

Seventh Generation launches anti-toxics campaign with wee gimmick

Europe places outcome of Copenhagen squarely on Obama



]]> Norton hit Congress to testify about the value of green building in 2008.globalwarming.house.govA major investment in making affordable housing greener—a $4 billion investment, to be precise—was announced Wednesday. The injection comes courtesy of Enterprise Community Partners, a 25-year-old non-profit dedicated to community development and affordable housing. With heavyweight partners including NRDC, HUD, and the Home Depot Foundation, Enterprise—which was founded by the grandparents of actor Edward Norton, who sits on its board—has set its sights on overhauling the entire affordable housing stock in this country.

Well, in that pebble-in-a-pond sort of way. The actual $4 billion will be split, with $2.5 billion going toward the construction or retrofit of 75,000 units across the country, and $1.5 billion going toward research and systems reform work. Through its work with state and local governments, Enterprise Green Communities hopes to have an eco-influence on hundreds of thousands more units, and leverage lots of dough. If that’s not enough, its leaders are calling for the country’s entire affordable housing stock—around 30 million households—to be green by 2020.

It’s the kind of energetic, solution-y plan that makes you have real hope for a millisecond. Even if the 30 million households vision doesn’t pan out, there’s real progress to be made. As speaker after speaker pointed out in a conference call this morning (in which Norton was supposed to participate, but he wasn’t there, not that it’s the only reason certain people called in, ha ha, but where was he?), this isn’t greening merely for the sake of environmental progress—it has tangible effects on the health and quality of life of residents, as well as holding the potential for green job creation, energy savings, and significant carbon reduction.

In fact, Enterprise has just rolled out the results from its work over the last few years. In conjunction with its splashy announcement today, it released a report called Incremental Cost, Measurable Savings: Enterprise Green Communities Criteria. Not the hottest title, but it gets at the point that green builders and fans of retrofitting try to make day in and day out: choosing greener options doesn’t cost that much more, and it saves a hell of a lot over the long run.

Related Links:

Cash for Clunkers brought us ... more clunkers!

Seventh Generation launches anti-toxics campaign with wee gimmick

Europe places outcome of Copenhagen squarely on Obama



]]>