Sometimes powerful ideas are simple ones and are sitting right before us. One is the whole concept of an Act of Green. It’s a great idea. It’s effective, people have fun with it, it’s educational and people love to see that even if we each do only a small part, by working together it amounts to something bigger. It’s a great start, but yesterday I saw something that makes me realize we need to do so much more!

 

Times square in NY has seen a lot of interesting advertising and certainly the use of the incrementing counter has many previous examples. Sprint/MCI’s use of such a counter to show how much customers were saving was one such example and was a huge success. More importantly it was a truth in advertising issue since when challenged by their competitors they could verify that the number presented was accurate.

 

A few days ago, it was interesting to see Deutsche Bank group launch under the cover of many umbrellas (it was pouring rain) a massive new Carbon Counter. You can see the video and an on-line version of the Time Square counter too, and frankly it is scary! The only thing going up faster than those numbers for tons of CO2 emitted is the numbers for our national debts as the government bails out GM, Chrysler  banks and other financial institutions! Cynically one could say it’s a great distraction from bad financial news, but I’ll give Deutsche Bank credit for a good idea, because they did it and it’s effective. Maybe it will drive the message home about just how much CO2 we as a species are emitting.

 

It's a big problem, but if we can get enough people doing acts of green, maybe we can make a difference. In the last 9 months, our members have saved over 100,000,000 KG or about 50,000 tons of CO2. Impressive gain, for no pain, but no where near enough. We need more  of us walk  to work, turn off the lights, turn down the heat ( or cooling) or any of the many acts of green listed on this site.  Perhaps if millions of us, not just thousands of us, start acting green we can see that Carbon Counter slow down. In fact, I am issuing all members of One Million Acts of Green and everyone who thinks filling our atmosphere with CO2 and other waste gases is not such a smart move, a group challenge! Stop the Carbon Counter! It’s simple and it will be the hardest thing humans have every attempted. Good luck, we are going to need it!

Yesterday was a good day for the world and an interesting one for me. President Obama announced that his administration was bringing in minimal fuel efficiency standards for cars, pick ups and other vehicles that require a minimum 35.5 MPG or 6.6 L/100 KM. A meaningful 35% better than today’s average.

The new rules, which begin to take effect in 2012, state that by 2016 most passenger cars must reach 39 miles per gallon— up from 27.5 mpg today — while light trucks will have to run at 30 miles per US , up from 23 mpg. Cars will also have to be 30 per cent cleaner in exhaust emissions.

The President said that the move was equivalent to taking 170+ million cars off the road within seven years, and would save 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the lifetime of the vehicles. Strangely that appears to indicate that there are more cars than people in the USA! Wow! How? !!

Finally some real leadership, and clear targets that everyone can agree are achievable and meaningful. After decades of delays and procedural stone walling government is directing the industry to make cars that are more fuel efficient. Where just a year ago, such a move would have caused the Detroit big three to scream holy blue murder, today’s announcement comes with the apparent blessing of the major auto makers. This is no doubt in part because the US and Canadian governments are now the bankers and largest shareholders of two of the big three. Charitably though, I’ll hope that perhaps some wisdom is slowly sinking in. Despite what you may think those car companies do have a lot of smart people working for them still, and they can do the math and see that if you want to remain in the game they better build cars that people want and people can afford to drive. Volk Wagon and Toyota do, and interestingly Ford appear to have gotten it right  too. The new Fusion Hybrid is down right impressive! It looks good, is very nice to drive, has decent performance, is reasonably affordable and gets over 40MPG average (better than 50% over the current average!).

The gasoline saved means less oil needs to be bought, transported, refined and distributed so perhaps the overall effect will be even bigger. GreenNexxus’s  very own uber blogger Peter Corbyn is among other things, an expert in how to save money in automotive factories and even 10 years ago was showing manufactures how to achieve easy 15% energy savings in their plants. Might there be even more that we could do. I am guessing yes!   

Even if 1.8 billion barrels is the sum total, using less oil is just great as far as I am concerned. This is an environmental win, but it is also a win for the economy because now the car companies have a target they can focus on and consumers will get better cars that they will want to buy!

Can the car companies do it, darn right! Ford, Toyota, VW and others are already pretty much there on cars, and not far off on light trucks. The other car companies can get there too! One of the interesting side stories of the Chrysler Chapter 11 is that it was in part necessary to get the company debt restructured if Fiat was going to buy in. You may be saying who cares about Fiat. Fair enough, but Chrysler does because Fiat has proprietary  technology that gives 25% performance increases in terms of fuel efficiency to just about any engine, and could do much more than that when put on specifically designed units. So, Chrysler definitely wins big in this deal because with Fiat as a partner and part owner, it has the ability to reach the 30% improvement margin and probably go well beyond.

Yes, the cost of the average car may go up by $1300, but it was going up anyway because there is one mother load of debt and loan repayment any way you slice it. Keep in mind, the car will still be cheaper as a percentage of family income than it was back in the 70’s or 80’s. And even at today’s prices you will save more than $1300 in gas over 100,000 miles of driving. The amount saved would be over 800 gallons which at $2 per gallon would be $1600 and at $8 per gallon would be $6400!

Even if you are not really a person concerned with air pollution, and you don’t think all the CO2 actually makes much difference to the climate; I am sure you can agree that going say 50% further on a tank of gas is good for your wallet. It will get very attractive if oil goes up to $200 a barrel and gasoline prices are over $8 per gallon in the US and $12 in Canada!  Well this brings us to the interesting part of my day.  

I had lunch with an out of town friend of mine who dabbles in all kinds of fancy trading deals I don’t pretend to understand. This guy speculates on many things, but his real core knowledge is in resources, and minerals and oil in particular. He is just down right certain that we are going to see oil prices climb steadily over the next 24 months and that $200 is not out of the question. Why, well according to him, one big reason is that the current recession has put a hold on discovery and development of reserves for oil. Apparently when you dig deep down, pricing is tied into reserves as well as production. What that amounts to is the fact that any increase in usage, say from a recovering economy is going to drive oil prices up and up fast. This is not my area of expertise, but I trust my friend knows what he is speaking about as much as one can when dealing with such complex and chaotic issues. For sure we are already back to $60 per barrel and the economy has simply stopped going down as fast, no sign of up yet!

It appears a safe bet that oil prices and thus gasoline will be going up. Maybe in two years, maybe five, but it will be a significant increase. Today we praise President Obama and his Administration. All to soon we may accuse them of not having done enough! That said, this was step in the right direction. Perhaps if you believe the $200 dollars per barrel of oil figure you might want to consider buying the GM Volt when it comes out next year. Going that first 30 plus miles of your daily drive on affordable electricity might start looking really nice very soon! Of course you better hope you live in an area that doesn’t generate its electricity by burning oil!

Happy Earth Day!

 

First off, welcome to all of you in the US who now have your own One Million Acts of Green site. It’s great to have you aboard. In the past six months Canadian’s with a little help from our friends around the world have done over 1.4 million acts of green. Now with American’s able to more easily access the site and with some serious cooperation between leading US Corporations, industry and green not for profits, we are hoping to do so much more. How about 20,000,000 million acts of green by Christmas? How about 50,000,000? We could definitely do it! One act of Green at a time!

 

The great thing about committing acts of green is that it’s fun, easy, often saves you money, helps the planet and makes you feel good. It should, you are doing something positive, letting your friends and neighbors know that you are concerned about the environment that we all share, and the problems we are passing on to our children. You are acting for improvement, for better health and a more sensible and sustainable economy.

 

The other great thing about Acts of Green is that it doesn’t really matter if live in a city, or on a farm, think that an Inconvenient Truth is the greatest movie ever, or believe Climate change is simply a fact of life on earth, and we should just deal with it. There are small acts of green such as simply turning off the tap when you are brushing your teeth, or big acts of green such as installing solar panels to offset you home power needs, scraping your older car and getting a new fuel efficient one, or better yet, just walking and taking public transport. There are acts of green, big and small, there is an act of green for one and all!

 

One of the amazing things that us GreenNexxeans have witnessed over the last six months is that everyone has something to contribute, and a unique and valuable perspective. Kids love doing their act of green, and are amazingly well informed on, and concerned about the need to reform how we live and interact with our environment. This is great, because ultimately they are the ones who suffer the most if we ruin our environment, and benefit the most if we improve it. Senior’s grew up in an age where “being green” was simply good common sense and saved you money! Resources were more scarce and expensive so you conserved, repaired, innovated and spent less green backs while being more green! This was just reality sixty play years ago. University students are passionate and active on a wide range of matters concerning green and ahve hands down beign teh most active at creating groups and challanging each other to do more acts and be more green. All of us who are

be it at home, in a office or on the road have had one of those moments looking at a traffic jam, waiting in an airport, standing in line at a store where we look around and think, “there has to be a better way.” There is! You know it, and now you can show it.

 

With One Million Acts of Green we can all start by doing a little. If you want to do more, that is great. If you want to share your ideas, projects, favorite healthy food receipt or tip for saving power, you can. You can start a group, join an existing one and get better educated by some of the world class people who use and contribute to One Million Acts of Green. The key thing is sign up and record a few acts of green. You will quickly see that you either are or can easily do a small act of green. You might think that your little act does not count much, but if millions of people all do a little, the next effect is pretty huge. How does 350,000,000 pounds of greenhouse gases saved sound? Well, we have done that in the past six months in Canada with a population of just over 30,000,000 people. So if America with over ten times the population does the same, then over 3,500,000,000 pounds will be saved by year end.  To put that in perspective that is equivalent in mass to 20 giant cruise ships worth of carbon dioxide saved. And it’s only a beginning!

 

Happy Earth Day and welcome to the all of you in the USA. We active green Canadians are sure glad to have you involved. Acting together we can really make a difference!

Happy St Patricks Day!, or the worlds most popular and celebrated Green Day!

I grew up in a pre global climate change era. My first public figure stimulated “green” awareness was a the love of the sea germinated in part I am sure by the incredible voyages of Jacques Cousteau and his team. As a teenager I read the works of great Canadian author John Buchan, and Rachael Carson’s “Silent Spring”, and David Walker’s, “The Lords Pink Ocean”. I became aware of David Suzuki a dynamic and impassioned  young scientist who had a great show on CBC Radio and then on TV, and I had the pleasure to interact and have as a mentor world class scientists like Dr. W. B Scott and Dr David Scarett. I learned about and worried about acid rain, a host of toxic chemicals and the likelihood that by 2000 the world would be out of food, fresh water. As a population we worried about possibly glowing radioactively in dark (“end of days” man made version -talk about man induced climate change!), and what if anything lay beyond the year 2000 (Y2K bug, 2nd coming, etc.)

In the 80’s I put my way through college diving professionally for various government groups including Huntsmann Marine Laboratories, Fisheries and Oceans and Environment Canada. I met and worked with fishermen, fisheries scientists, film makers, celebrity activists and a host of every day people who were simply concerned with environmental degradation. I was privileged to be paid to do what I loved; spend time underwater, collecting, observing, helping conduct experiments and generally first hand witnessing the impact of man on the environment.  I did ecological impact diving on some of the first sea farms in Canada, lobster surveys, snow crab tagging, scallop studies, shad tagging, rescuing dolphins, filming whales and salmon, you name it, we studied it, tagged it, tracked it and… watched it decline. I worked on fishing boats and saw fishermen throw back tonnes of dead and dying perfectly good fish because they did not have a quota for it. I filmed scallop drags bull dozing the bottom of the ocean and turning everything in their path from a living garden into a dead or dying graveyard which would take years to recover.

Anyone who doubts man can have a direct and profound impact on the environment need look no further than the oceans to see it clearly. Herring, wild salmon, halibut, shad, hake, scallops, tuna, swordfish the list is almost too long, and far to shameful to recite. All have being brought to  economic extinction and in some case dangerously close to biological extinction in the last 40 years (many in the last 20) by mans directed activity to exploit them as a resources. I was often fascinated to compare the opinions of learned scientists with the equally learned if less formally educated fishermen who had spend 40+ years on the sea and had literally watched it happen. The funny thing was that if you translated properly, you could easily see that what they were both seeing and saying was the same, but they never appeared to be able to agree on matters. Scientists would want more data and a moratorium on fishing while they collected it. Fishermen wanted proper regulation from government to protect their fisheries, but generally favored some other guy as being the one who should pay, and government never knew what it wanted, so it chased votes and caved to big business or other government’s interests when ever it was faced with a tough choice. Meanwhile I swam a lot and realized that year by year I was swimming with less and less fish. Today, many fishermen or their kids, no longer work in fisheries, scientists spend more and more effort studying less and less..used to be Tuna and Salmon, now its jelly fish and Krill (not that they are not interesting, but they were certainly not previously viewed as being of economic importance), and governments for the most part continue to blow with the wind and talk out their proverbial hind quarters.

Does this sound familiar?

It should, because if you are a teenager or young adult today you are faced with the same thing happening, only the names have changed. Substitute Climate Change for Acid Rain or East Coast fisheries decline, All Gore for Rachel Carson and thank god we have a common link in David Suzuki. The scientists still study the issue, people like farmers and fishermen and Inuit Natives who live off the land still note the changes happening, people are concerned and governments still blow hot and cold and cave to big business interests when push comes to shove.

There is however a difference! People Power! Now if you are older, you laugh, and say hey boy, we had people power in the 60”s nothing new. Fair enough, but today, we have the ability to focus our collective power and channel it though this thing called the internet, or as CISCO calls it, the Human Network. If you are reading this blog on GreenNexxus or OneMillionActsofGreen you are doing something that was impossible 10 short years ago. Sure, David Suzuki and Al Gore might get their articles published in papers or have TV shows, but the average person had no chance to express their opinion or be heard without extraordinary sacrifice. Thus governments and corporations could pretty much ignore or safely assume that the odds of concerted pressure being maintained were pretty low and such populist matters as a clean environment or access to drinking water could safely be down played as real issues.

Not anymore, now we all can voice a say. We can record an act of green. We can make a pledge to do more. We can write a blog, set up a project, set up a group, challenge another group and share information with each other our friends and family and that is only on this one site!

The most important thing is we can make governments realize that there is a real popular will to make changes for the better, and to make companies realize that they will make more money and have better customer relations if they strive to be greener and cleaner. People, government, industry..we need to align them all.  Keep this in mind. It does not matter if you believe that man made global climate change is real or a hoax. What is for certain is that if your power company invests in long term renewables such as wind and wave power, then in 50 years when oil is running out and cheep oil is a historical memory, you will still be nice and warm or comfy cool, no matter which way the climate change wind blows. Oh, and you’ll be paying less too, or your kids will. How many times does that kind of opportunity come along for us to pass down as a legacy! I hope we can do better by our kids than we did by the east Coast fisheries for Cod and Salmon and Shad and a host of other species.

So, today, take moment, think a green thought and if so inclined hoist a pint of green beer and give thanks for the great life we lead. Tomorrow, get back to making damn sure we can continue to lead it, do another act of green and let your local business leaders and politicians know that it’s time everyday was a Green Day, not just March 17^th!

Last Friday a good friend called me. His father was in hospital and after a brief optimistic period things had taken a turn for the worse. His lungs were filling with fluid, the medical staff thought he had likely had a small heart attack the night before and it looked like his kidney’s were failing. We prepared for the worst. Last night I went over to my friend’s house to see him for the first time he had made it home in five days. His Dad was miracle of miracle’s doing well, or as well as someone who five days prior not being expected to live can hope to do. In fact the doctor’s are now talking about when he can be discharged. That said, he is never going to enjoy what most of us consider good health again. His heart is in terrible shape, his kidney’s barely work, he has diabetes and possibly cancer. What a roller coaster ride.

 

So, my friend and I got to talking last night and at one point he said, “You know, he just does not get it, if he had read the warning signs 10 -15 years ago (heart attack, bad cholesterol, eventual bypass), he would not even be in hospital right now. The frustrating part is he is going to go home and get right back on his high salt, high fat diet (his wife apparently uses a bottle of olive oil per week in her cooking, which I must attest is wonderfully tasty), and he is going to land right back in hospital again.

 

So, what does this have to do with anything green? Well today I was reading that a newly released study indicates that Global Warming might be on hold! Kyle Swanson and team who are scientist’s at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and NOAA are now predicting a potential slowing or even slight reversal of the warming trends we have being told exist.

 

“It is possible that a fraction of the most recent rapid warming since the 1970’s was due to a free variation in climate,” Isaac Held of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Princeton, New Jersey wrote in an email to Discovery News. “Suggesting that the warming might possibly slow down or even stagnate for a few years before rapid warming commences again.”

 

Swanson apparently thinks the trend could last for up to 30 years.

 

So, does anyone truly know what is going on? NO, a lot of smart folks think they do, some may be right, no one knows for sure! That said, let’s suppose, just as with my friend’s father, that we acknowledge, that no matter the long term trend, we have being given a clear warning that “something” bad could happen, and probably will if we keep doing the global equivalent of the high salt, high fat diet. Ten years ago my friend father had his first bypass, felt fine afterwards, possibly even better than he had for years and went right back to bad diet, bad life choices and the fate which he now faces.

 

Okay, so back to the climate change issue where Swanson, for one, apparently thinks that the “on hold” trend is a hiccup, and when the warming trend comes back (did it ever disappear except in the realm of statistical analysis), it will be with a vengeance and be much more aggressive than what we have seen recently predicted. We would be talking the global equivalent of multiple organ failure in very short order if he is right.  Well, maybe Swanson and team are right, maybe not, but one thing is clear, we have a lot more options open to us if we act smart, make wise long term decisions now and keep trying to understand what is going on. Sticking our heads in the sand is not going to help solve anything. IF global warming is really being caused by man’s activities, or even if it’s a fully natural cycle which we are making worse, then it makes sense to do everything we can reasonably do to reduce our impact and keep improving our knowledge on how we might affect positive change.  IF as some claim, solar activity and long term natural cycles are taking us into a period of global cooling, we certainly do not hurt ourselves by using valuable resources like oil and coal wisely now and having the option of being able to use them ( to keep warm, or what ever else we choose) as needed when the planet cools. The fact of the matter is that just like my friends father, heeding the warning signs and adopting a sensible, sustainable, healthy lifestyle individually, as societies and as a species makes sense!

 

What matter’s is that we can not and should not be so stupid as to pollute and waste and generally act as spoiled greedy children (and I am talking both at the level of individuals consuming gluttonous amounts of resources and at the larger level as a species). Maybe global warming is going to disappear for 30 years! Maybe the solar out put is peaking and we will enter a natural cooling cycle.

 

My key message here is, do the right thing which is simply don’t waste resources! Don’t waste petro chemicals (oil, plastics, fertilizers etc.), don’t waste water, don’t waste soil , clean air, or anything else we need. Don’t worship ignorance! Don’t expect real understanding or real solutions to be easy or fast. Above all, don’t let politician’s and business leaders off the hook for one instant. It does not matter if we are heating the world, or cooling the world or having no meaningful impact at all! We can and we must be greener, clearer and leaner! We can live better, leave more for future generations and possibly save the world if we do so.

 

Most good (and I suppose bad too) suspense thrillers or horror movies have that part where the monster/bad guy is supposed to be dead or vanquished.  Typically that is the part where the good guys lower their guard, turn their back and get down right stupid, and then wham, he’s back and mayhem erupts. Lots of fun at the movie’s but can we afford to do that with our planet!

 

An article in the Economist today noted that America has overtaken Germany as the number one producer of Wind Power in the World. In 2008 year America's total wind-power capacity grew to to 25 gigawatts (GW), or just under 21% of the world's installed capacity. Not too shabby as this occurred under the reign of the Dark Sith Lords Cheney and Bush. Makes you wonder what can be achieved in the next four  to eight years.  

A year ago I had the pleasure to have some business meetings with the CEO of Vestas USA, Jens Soby . Vestas is a world leader in the design and development of ,and  major manufacture of, large Wind turbines. Jens indicated that they were seriously pursuing a target that 20% of the energy used by the USA would be made by wind turbines in the next ten years. I thought it impressive, and maybe a little optimistic, yet Jens was pretty adamant that they could do it. With recent US budget incentives it may well happen, perhaps we will even exceed Jens targets. 

More recently in talking with Mike Hess, the CEO of MariahPower I was told that they have similarly ambitious plans for small turbines used by homeowners and smaller properties for off grid or co-grid power. Tens of thousands of home owners will be looking to achieve energy independence, or even become net providers over the next ten years. Perhaps you will even be one of them. Couple a home turbine with an electric car and suddenly you are living the green life! 

It’s starting to look like maybe just maybe we will finally kick this oil habit. Now, perhaps some one could convince the generators of the major hot air currents in Ottawa that a meaningful investment in some of our own wind farms and manufacturers of turbines and related technology will have huge long term pay backs. If we are going to spend the children's money we should at least leave them something for it! Cleaner air and a power system that extracts its energy from the wind and waves sounds like a reasonable legacy doesn't it?

 

Put together, wind power, oceanic current, wave power and innovative technologies like Biodiesel from Algae make for a future that is non polluting and once paid for, very low cost. While the price of oil and coal will surely go up, wind, hydro and wave power are all relatively constant costs once initial capital outlays are paid off.  So come on Canada, let’s make being world leaders in “green energy” a strategic national goal. We may have lost our grip on communications tech, but if nothing else Nortel was a clear indication that we have the smarts and the capability to be world leaders in when we focus and put commitment to being the best. In the future it could well be "green power" is one area we can lead in.

If you are intersted in learning more here are some links to sites that you might find interesting: 

The report, "Forecasting the Future of Ocean Power," overivews technologies, players and market outlook for an emerging industry. By 2014, more than $2 billion will be invested to build commercial ocean wave power farms and another $2 billion will go towards research and development globally, said report co-authors Daniel Englander and Travis Bradford.

Here are a few interesting GreenPower companies that are worth your time to check out. Oneworld Energy :

BullFrog Power:

Finavera Renewables

AAER Wind Energy

A recent article on Yahoo and the Wall Street Journal indicates that US Legislators are likely to add a tax credit worth up to $4500 for consumers that replace older cars with more fuel efficent ones. Their problem is that of course they don't really want to boost the sale of Toyota or Honda, but US car makers and they are worried about the buy American aspects.

This is just another amazing example of loosing sight of the forest because they are staring at the trees. Actually they are arguing about what kind of trees to grow. The idea is a reasonably good one, since it weights making good products versus propping up factories and manufacturers that make bad ones. Having market demand drive teh markets is of course what market forces are supposed to do. That said a little helping hand to get some momentum behind it may well be timely. This proposed tax credit woudl stimulate the economy. Even if some people buy a Toyota Prius or Honda Civic Hybrid or VW TDI, there is considerable benefit to the local economy. Many parts in these cars are made in North America even if the head shed is in Japan, or Europe. Furthermore parts suppliers for GM and Ford and Chrysler are also suppliers to Honda and VW and BMW and many "foreign" car makers. The supply chain gets assitance and thus is less vulnerable while the BIG THREE retool and figure out how to become 21st century companies.

Furthermore, many cars made by Ford and GM are actually high milage models and would get bought in droves. Ford in particular has some exciting new models coming out in the next year and GM is of course launching the VOLT in 2010. The VOLT is said to be the first car to break 100MPG (<3L per 100KM) and will be quite something if they can deliver it at a good price. In short, the environment and the economy would both do well if this measure were put in place. More old gas gusslers off to car heaven, more cars sold and workers employed building the right cars and the BIG THREE get religion...fuel efficent and smart designs are the future!

So, if you are a US voter, call or write your Congress Men and get them to quit dithering and make it happen. If you are Canadian then perhaps we can get Mr. Harper and the "lost boys" to focus a little of the stimulus package they are saddling us with to drive the economy in a similar direction. Give consumers a motivation and cost advantage to buy fuel efficint new cars and many will. Way better than giving the car companies hand outs to keep building more SUV's and Pickup's and obselete cars that get 1980 type milage.

I don't wish for more cars, just that the ones out there are more efficient. Done on a wide scale replacing 20 MPG cars with 40 MPG cars would considerably lower both our demand for oil and our carbon foot print! So let's get on with it!

 

Supposedly that is the translation for a Chinese Curse, and if so, then we are all well and truly cursed! We live in very interesting times where everyday brings an increased awareness of environmental and economic issues. More often than not what is presented in the news is negative. That said, it’s amazing how to see how many people are responding positively and proactively to the world’s “Eco” problems. Interestingly the root of “eco” stems back to ancient Greek (oikos) and means house or household. Very appropriate, because collectively, we need to put our household in order!

 “Green” problems are essentially about Economics and Ecology, two “eco” words. Boiled down environmental problems comes out as what are the cost benefit tradeoff’s of using natural resources such are fresh water, hydro carbons, clean air, fertile soil and a host of other resources this wonderful little planet provides for us, beyond the rate at which the environment remains in an equilibrium state. Of course this answer will vary depending on who you talk to and thus this raises a lot of interesting questions, both moral and economic. Note I am taking very high level view here and staying deliberately clear of what has being accurately coined “the politics of greed” which has a definite skewing effect on matters that would appear most often to have common sense based desirable outcomes. Who would choose to live in a polluted world ravaged by poor air, catastrophic weather events, and other issues that we have well demonstrated await us if we do our worst and not our best. Probably no one, but a few of us are apparently okay with some else living that way! I like affordable Chinese products..just not the fact that affordable so often means "we saved money by poluting and and not caring about our workers health". Oh yeah, and the fact that here in North America the winds mostly come from the west!

 Some argue it does not matter what we do because the environment can recover or be recovered from humanities abuse. Well it may be so, but no one knows for sure. Even if this is true, all of us, our children and their children will live in a world substantially less pleasant and less healthy than we enjoy now while we wait for things to get better. The deeper you make the pit the longer it takes to climb out!

 Beyond the parts that can be healed, or will recover naturally, are the resources that can not be replaced. Substituted for yes, replaced, no. The big one, both economically and ecologically is of course OIL. Estimates vary, but most experts do agree that we have already used up a substantial percentage of all the accessible oil and hydrocarbon reserves. Of all the oil we know of, 50% has already being burned! Put another way, we are going to run out of economically available oil during the life time of most of you reading this. Yes, there may be some left, but it will cost huge amounts and will be more precious than diamonds, as opposed to less expensive than bottled water – yup, gasoline is still dirt cheep no matter what it feels like when you are at the pump!

 So it simply makes sense, no matter what your position, political affiliation, locality or economic status, that we all start actively using resources more wisely. Bottom line: If you like driving then you will drive longer and for less money if you have a high mileage car. In the future you will be driving a car that does not use oil as it’s power source. The sooner we get that through our collective skulls, the more oil will be left for other uses and future generations.

 The good news is humanity can make a positive difference not just a negative one. In future blogs I plan to write about  some of the many many interesting ways in which people and companies are working to come up with better ideas to save the environment and the economy. I am also interested in looking at some of the tough issues that come up when one looks at trade offs, short term versus long term thinking and economics versus ecology. In the end result I believe we can be green and clean and still have more green (as in green backs) in our pockets which is a win-win situation all around. We just can not do it without being willing to make a lot of changes, but hey, change can be exciting and interesting not just bad. After all, the major transportation problem in NYC in the late 1890’s was the build up of huge amounts of horse manure! The solution was a thing called the automobile. It’s good to live in interesting times!