Some good ideas from The Daily Green. We'll run a couple a day:Have you started to think about positive changes for next year? Please send us your ideas as we work together in 2013 for a better, healthier world:Avoid Waste: RecycleCost: $0For every trash can of waste you put outside for the trash collector, about 70 trash cans of waste are used in order to create that trash. To reduce the amount of waste you produce, buy products in returnable and recyclable containers and recycle as much as you can..
Could there be more convincing proof of America’s debilitating addiction to oil than the recent calls to institute a gasoline tax holiday issued by two of the three presidential aspirants still in the race?
Imagine what would happen if a candidate for public office endorsed a repeal of cigarette taxes. Articulating such a position would instantly disqualify that candidate from serious consideration by rank and file voters. Indeed, it would stop a candidacy faster than you can say “macaca.”
Yet, while Sens. John McCain or Hillary Clinton, both advocates of suspending the 18.4 cents/gallon gasoline tax, have been excoriated in editorials for espousing such patent flim-flam, they don’t seem to have lost any ground with the voting public.
While the McCain-Clinton gas tax suspension proposal may have a set a new low in the public discussion of energy, it can’t be dismissed as mere election-year pandering. Instead, this proposal reveals a dark truth about ourselves: we Amnericans are psychologically unprepared to accept the energy reality we now inhabit, which is that oil is neither cheap nor plentiful (relative to demand). The same holds true for natural gas.
The factors converging to create global energy insecurity—diminishing output from supergiant fields, rapid demand growth in the world’s most populous nations, civil unrest in oil-exporting nations, etc.—cannot be held at bay with political stunts.
Whether its citizens like it or not, the United States will, going forward, consume a smaller portion of the Earth’s remaining petroleum than at any time before during the Automobile Age.
MANITOWOC - Mayor Kevin Crawford has agreed to serve as co-chairman of the Wind in the Great Lakes Work Group formed by the Wisconsin Public Service Commission.
The group will review the viability of wind power development on the Great Lakes. The commission is working with the Department of Natural Resources and the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands.
The work group includes representatives who have an interest or stake in the development of wind power.
"The future of our city, our state and nation is to be found in renewable resources and alternative fuels," Crawford said in a news release. "The Great Lakes are not only the largest fresh water resource in the world, but they may also be the solution to much of our nation's energy problems as they are a fantastic wind resource, as well."
City of Oconomowoc - For the next two years, Oconomowoc will partake in a communitywide effort that will raise even stronger conservation ethics by way of a pilot program awarded by Wisconsin Public Power Inc. (WPPI).
The program known as Leading by Example will give Oconomowoc Utilities the opportunity to better educate and demonstrate the effectiveness of energy efficiency, conservation and renewable resources development.
The program suits Oconomowoc well, based on its established environmental awareness and involvement, according to Wisconsin Public Power Inc. spokeswoman Anne Rodriguez.
"We were looking for a community where there is strong leadership in this area," she said. "Oconomowoc really provided that natural fit."
The only other two municipalities in the state to receive the grant were WPPI member communities River Falls and Columbus.
The program will reach out to, and help, citizens via ongoing conservation education efforts with local students, businesses and residential customers. It will also assist with energy efficiency improvements to municipal buildings and conservation projects in cooperation with industrial utility customers.
MENOMONEE FALLS, Wis., May 12, 2008 — Kohl’s Department Stores (NYSE: KSS) announced today that it plans to convert more than 50 of its existing New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland locations to solar power, representing nearly 80 percent of its locations in these three states. Currently, Kohl’s operates 34 stores in New Jersey, 17 in Connecticut and 16 in Maryland.
With the East Coast solar installation, Kohl’s is the largest retail host of solar power, and its distributed solar program is now the largest in the world among retailers. In a distributed solar program, silent, renewable energy is produced and used at the same location requiring no transmission infrastructure. Kohl’s has converted more than 25 of its 88 California locations to solar power with plans to activate approximately 50 additional sites in the state. Solar installations are also under way at three Wisconsin locations, and Kohl’s hopes to add other states to its growing solar offering before year-end.
Initial construction for the East Coast solar conversions began in January. On average, solar panels provide 30 percent of a store’s annual energy, or enough to power 54 homes annually. The total East Coast program is expected to offset 370 million pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) over the 20-year program and is equivalent to removing more than 36,200 cars from the road for one year.
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