Sit In the Dark For An Hour To Save the World-Does Earth Hour REALLY Make Sense?

OK, I see the value of the symbolism behind Earth Hour and appreciate the ‘awareness’ it’s raising, but do we really want to be telling everyone that the way to save the planet from ourselves is by sitting in a dark house? Doesn’t the other side accuse us of wanting to push the world back to a Stone Age of no cars, hot showers, or lighting after sunset? Doesn’t telling everyone that they have to turn off their lights for an hour kinda support that accusation? Isn’t the idea to find a way that we can all stay up after the sun goes down without having to destroy the environment to do it?

I’m just saying…

Link [Earth Hour]

Do Your Part- April 1st is Energy Wasting Day

Don’t forget, April 1st is Energy Wasting Day. Here at EarthFirst HQ we’ll be cranking up the thermostat to 95, opening the windows, and idling our cars all day long in the parking lot. How much energy can you waste in a day?

Link [Energy Wasting Day] via [Trend Hunter]

Excuse Me, I’m Going to Need This to Run My Car, Or The Insanity of Food Based Biofuels

I think this comic pretty much sums up the stupidity of using corn and other food crops to create ethanol to run in cars.

Cartoon by Michael Ramirez

Hillary Clinton Does the Waffle Dance Around Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

The word “jobs” is a magic talisman for politicians. When they want to push a dubious policy, they promise that “jobs” will come of it, and rarely does anyone note that some jobs are not worth having.

West Virginia is having a primary soon, and Hillary Clinton, campaigning there, had the following to say about mountaintop removal mining, a kind of Extreme Coal Mining that does what it says–it removes the mountain to get at the coal. She seems to be okay with it:

I am concerned about it for all the reasons people state, but I think it’s a difficult question because of the conflict between the economic and environmental trade-off that you have here.

I’m not an expert. I don’t know enough to have an independent opinion, but I sure would like people who could be objective, understanding both the economic necessities and environmental damage, to come up with some approach that would enable us to retrieve the coal but would enable us to do it in a way that wouldn’t damage the living standards and the other important qualities associated with people living both under the mountaintop and people who are along the streams.

You know, maybe there is a way to recover those mountaintops once they have been stripped of the coal. You know, I think we’ve got to look at this from a practical perspective.

Meh. Grist does a good job taking this apart. Strip mining for coal in Appalachia was never even good enough to be called a devil’s bargain; the devil got everything, and still does. It’s comparable to burning down your house in order to get a “job” hauling the remains to a dumpster. At the end, Hillary grasps for a tedious old dodge: once the mining is done, we’ll restore the landscape. In my experience of such restoration, the only thing left is rubble and toxins, and the only thing you can grow is noxious weeds.

Link [Gristmill]

New See-Saw Technology Harnesses The Power of Children

I’m into old-school devices re-engineered to create energy or somehow become more efficient. Take the newly released solar-powered vibrator. Now there’s something that finally has come into the 21 Century!

Today’s latest find is a See-Saw designed to harness the power of children (obese, sugar-fueled kids are probably best), which could then be used to power a school for an evening. The idea came from a 23-year-old consumer product design student who became inspired after helping build a school in Kenya. From the article,

He said: “The current need for electricity in sub-Saharan Africa is staggering. Without power development is extremely difficult. “The potential for this product is huge and the design could be of benefit to numerous communities in Africa and beyond.” He has calculated that five to 10 minutes use on the see-saw could generate enough electricity to light a classroom for an evening, for example. Many schools in Africa open their doors in the evening to much older pupils but are only able to light their classrooms with candles or kerosene lamps.

Later this year, a prototype sourced with locally made parts will be setup in a village in Uganda.

We’re jazzed over the See-saw idea — but would be equally enamored with an energy-generating spinnie-ride as well. Sure, they always made me sick, but at least I could feel better knowing my nausea was helping save the world.

via BBC

Coal- Cheap. Abundant. Cheap.

Our fearless leader Jordan sent me this gem last night after seeing my post about “Clean Coal” yesterday. I like it because it’s close enough to something the Coal Industry would actually put together. I want a Hummer.

EcoGeek Kills “Clean Coal” Ad and Calls Them Out for the Greenwash

Hank Green is my hero for the day. For those of you who don’t know Mr. Green, he’s the brains and geek behind EcoGeek- the authoritative green technology blog on the net. Hank and I have been blogging pals for the past few years and I’ve even done a bit of writing for his site.

Today Hank woke up to find an ad on his site from the Clean Coal Lobby, sitting pretty right at the top spot. He didn’t waste any time killing that shit and wanted to let the Clean Coal people know why he did. It’s a gem:

No…you’re not green. You’re full of crap.

Your industry turns mountains inside out, poisons the water of the rural poor in America and throughout the world. Your industry has never made an environmental move in its long and storied history without being forced to by a government. The promotional video for ‘clean coal’ at your lame PR site lauds a carbon sequestration plant that has now been canceled because it was determined to be pretty much impossible. The cleanest coal plants in the world still create more sulfer dioxide than the environment can deal with without acidifying the rain and the soil.

Of course, the future is in sequestering carbon, right? Pumping it into the ground so that it never hits the atmosphere. The problem is, building a sequestered carbon coal plant is actually more expensive than building a solar thermal plant. Why would we stick with you when solar is revving up to be cheaper than coal without expensive, unrealistic sequestration?

The only thing that makes you seem even a little green today is how extremely destructive you used to be. You cannot be, you will never be, green. Give up…go home…enjoy the next few decades because they will be your last.

We’re moving on without you, and you’re going to have to deal with that. Actual clean technologies are here now. We don’t need you anymore. There are 45 gigawatts of renewable energy planned for the United States. You are not renewable…you are not America’s Power…you are not the future and you sure as hell aren’t green. Stop pretending.

Sincerely,

Hank Green and the EcoGeek Team

Rock on Hank!

(In case you’re wondering, if we ever get a Clean Coal ad here on EarthFirst we’ll do the same as Hank but will probably drop a few more F bombs than he did.)

Link [EcoGeek]

The Internet Saves 10 Watts of Energy for Every Watt it Uses

Geeks are great. And a new study now shows that they’re are also green.

The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy did a study on computer usage and found that for every watt of energy used by the internet, 10 watts are saved elsewhere. EcoGeek has it:

They [The ACEEE] have put numbers to what I have long expected to be true. Folks who complain about how much energy computers waste are crazy. Computers save tons of energy, while, themselves, using less energy than the light bulb used to light the workstation. And now we know how much.

The study focused on a metric called “energy intensity.” Basically, that’s the amount of energy necessary to produce a dollar of economic output. The first major drop in energy intensity occurred after the oil crisis in the 1970s. That was a cost-based drop, not generally the ideal.

So how do computers save us energy?

• They have allowed everything to become more efficient.
• They people and things to travel digitally, instead of physically. For example: meetings online instead of driving your SUV to the office.
• They allow us to do our shopping online instead of driving your SUV to the retail store. (Did I already mention the SUV?)
• And lastly they allow me how to tell YOU to put the earth first, instead of me driving over to your house in an SUV, knocking on your door and telling you face to face.

I knew there was a good reason that I have this weird relationship with my laptop. Oh, and on a side note, I do not drive an SUV.

Link [EcoGeek]

Photo: Flickr user NaOH

« Previous Page