Our World and Everything in It

I read Mitch Albom’s column in the Free Press this past Sunday, and although I agree with him, I think it was well, um, a little bit dated. His perception that environmentalists are a league of people still derided as Chicken Littles is a little off. As long as I’ve been writing this blog, I think maybe I’ve been called a Chicken Little twice. I had one opponent that appeared to be a drinker going off into raves eventually calling me a cur so as to not get axed from the website for calling me something worse. But that was long ago. Another opponent eventually came to terms with the fact that on a lot of levels we are simpatico. We agreed that we do indeed create trash and should be cleaning up after ourselves, whether or not it does or does not contribute to global warming. Isn’t this moment of agreement in the environmental argument all that’s needed? Because cleaning up after ourselves is the first step to realizing just how much garbage we actually create, which should logically lead to more conservation efforts regardless of global warming.

In this light, how the pro-environmental argument is presented seems to make a heck of a lot of difference. Finding common ground brings people to agreement faster, and that’s what seems to be happening. Unlike Albom, I’m seeing a huge surge of environmentalism on TV and the Internet lately. My 85-year old mother pointed it out to me about 2 weeks ago. I paid closer attention after that and she’s right. There are all types of commercials on TV that are telling people to buy in bulk, don’t shampoo their hair every day, you know insidious mantra that eventually gets an entire population moving toward conservation without knowing it. Admit it. We’re herded more times than not and industry with the help of the media is like the rancher.

I blogged about industry moving the green market quite a while back. Industry’s push to go “green” is getting increasingly stronger because they can’t afford high energy costs either. GE can hardly keep up with the demand for its industrial wind turbines. Green rooftops are appearing on city buildings everywhere thanks to newly formed environmental organizations like Green Roofs for Healthy Cities. And just look up companies growing in leaps and bounds like Sun Edison, who provides an affordable way for industry to benefit from rooftop solar panels, that is, if they aren’t already planted green. Retail giant Wal-Mart starting moving to go green, and now companies like SC Johnson are looking to supply those big stores with their “totally” green .products. Even Conoco Philips (Big Oil) threw in the towel, and joined Tyson Chicken to create biofuel from chicken fat at no real profit, just because it’s the right thing to do for the environment. And when moguls like Ted Turner make statements that it’s absolute suicide to continue to pollute and consume the way we do, well, try calling terrible Ted a “CL.”

I’ve lost count of all the home improvement shows that tout “green,” as well as, media outlets like PBS, Discovery, Science, and National Geographic channels that consistently show the latest findings and discoveries regarding the environment and man. I’ve even watched Canadian TV like “The Outsider,” or “The Fifth Estate” air documentaries about U.S. government cover ups of scientific reports relative to global warming. I’m seeing more and more green shows coming out of Canada now. And I can’t say enough for organizations listed as links on my blog like EarthJustice, The Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, Union of Concerned Scientists, and many others that don’t think twice to take on the U.S. Government or anyone else over the environment and wildlife. While we sleep, or go about our usual day, these guys are out on cold oceans, at the edge of public forests, in congress, and everywhere they need to be to stop bad things from happening to our world and everything in it.

But best of all when I see Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich in a commercial urging citizens to contact congress to push ahead to embrace environmentalism, it’s a clear indication that forces are looking to gather against the old energy lobbyists and the spin machine. This was topped off last week when Henry Waxman, Chairman of the Committee for Oversight and Reform, sent a letter to EPA Administrator Johnson, that he need be prepared to testify regarding the recently released Union of Concerned Scientists Report documenting extensive and widespread political interference with the work of scientists at EPA. Yes!!!

Add to that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that the EPA should be regulating CO2 emissions from autos as part of the Clean Air Act, and the U.S. Court of Appeals vacating the EPA’s “Clean Air Mercury Rule,” literally throwing out the EPA’s cap and trade system for mercury, and demanding the EPA set new standards for the coal burning industry within two years. Concurrently, it also vacated the EPA’s “Incinerator Rule.” This bodes exceptionally well for the Chicken Little movement.

The timing is uncanny, but unlike Mr. Albom’s perception of environmental efforts, this past Sunday, for the first time in a very long time, I was optimistic about environmentalism, my faith in America restored. After researching the onslaught against our parks, our air, our water, animals, and their habitat for so long by the Bush/Cheney administration, I finally sensed a real, hardy shove back by the other powers that be, which is American industry and ingenuity. They don’t seem to suffer low self-esteem as a “Chicken Little” crowd at all. Had Mitch written about the “CL” complex a year ago I might have wholeheartedly agreed. But now, all I see is the “greening” of America, like it or not. As for “Chicken Little” calling, sticks and stones…

We’ll soon be seeing a new media blitz from the coal industry because people are catching on that coal is not clean. The industry is throwing $30 million dollars into an advertising and public relations campaign under the name of Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC). But the list that follows are all polluters like Billiton the largest mining company in the world, or CONSOL the largest producer of bituminous coal in America. They just don’t have motivation to cut into that kind power unless it’s from the kindness of their hearts.

AMEREN, American Electric Power, Arch Coal, Arkansas Electric Coop, Associated Electric Coop, Association of American Railroads, Basin Electric Power Coop, BHP Billiton, Buckeye Industrial Mining, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Group, CONSOL Energy, CSX, Detroit Edison, Duke Energy, Edison Electric Institute, First Energy Corp, Foundation Coal, Hoosier Energy, Massey Energy, National Mining Assoc., National Rural Electric Coop, Norfolk Southern, Peabody Energy, Southern Co., Tri-State Generation and Transmission, Union Pacific Railroad, Western Farmers Electric Coop.

This group is using other groups like America’s Power and Clean Coal USA to advertise across the country to make their coal look green. So be alert. There is nothing new. There is not a new kind of coal plant that generates electricity with lower CO2 emissions. There is coal that has very low sulfur content. And sulfur content and other particulates can be removed by what is termed “scrubbers.”  That’s not new technology, but it will help alleviate lung problems. Until something drastically changes coal users like the cheap dirty stuff because everything else costs money. This is a good article about it from the Wall Street Journal: http://www.mindfully.org/Energy/Clean-Coal-Oxymoron-WSJ.htm

In 2001 President Bush committed to more advanced clean coal technologies. According to an article on DOE’s website: “The Clean Coal Power Initiative is providing government co-financing for new coal technologies that can help utilities meet the President’s Clear Skies Initiative to cut sulfur, nitrogen and mercury pollutants from power plants by nearly 70 percent by the year 2018. Also, some of the early projects are showing ways to reduce greenhouse emissions by boosting the efficiency by which coal plants convert coal to electricity or other energy forms.” Come on, 10 more years to just get sulfur, nitrogen, and mercury pollutants down? That’s lame. http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/cleancoal/.

Not much is new with coal except for trapping the gas, and where to put it. Our Michigan CO2 well should be about full this weekend. It didn’t hold nearly enough liquid CO2. It’s not a solution. How many more holes are we going to rip into the earth? We have over 500,000 mines in the U.S. Many are old and abandoned. We have over 500,000 oil wells, many are done, fini. That’s a lot of holes in the ground. Will the earth heal quickly from the millions of holes we’ve drilled?
 

I ran across a good website that explains RPS or Renewable Portfolio Standards. A state’s RPS spells out what is being enacted within the state to lower the state’s dependency on fossil fuels through conservation and alternative energy initiatives. And it draws jobs—many, many jobs!  An  analogy would be that an RPS is like a state’s environmental resume for new green businesses looking for a home for their headquarters/operations.

So all RPS’s aren’t the same of course. An RPS must be tailored to the state. All states won’t lean equally on the wind, solar, or geothermal power mix that are major parts of a state’s RPS.  Some states will rely on solar more than wind, or wind more than geothermal power. An article that discusses Michigan’s RPS and how it already leaves solar out of the picture is http://www.photon-magazine.com/news_archiv/details.aspx?cat=News_PI&sub=america&pub=4&parent=624. That’s too bad because solar has been really good for me this winter in Michigan.

There is a lot of reading here and it’s very interesting. Twenty-four states have already established RPS’s and are experiencing a lot of job growth. Considering Michigan barely regulates its CO2 emissions, and keeps inviting more polluting industries into the state, I don’t find it surprising that Michigan doesn’t have an RPS yet. Of all the states that have suffered heavy job loss, an RPS should have been first on an agenda for our congress. Contact our reps. and senators to get moving on “green” job opportunities in the thousands in Michigan and cut the polluters loose.

The tax benefits to states that court “green” business is good also. The sercoline website below stated that in Nevada, one geothermal plant paid “$800,000 in county taxes and $1.7 million in property taxes. In addition, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management collects nearly $20 million each year in rent and royalties from geothermal plants producing power on federal lands in Nevada – half of these revenues are returned to the state.” In Iowa, “the 240 MW of wind capacity installed in 1998 and 1999 produced $2 million per year in tax payments to counties and school districts and $640,000 per year in direct lease payments to landowners.”

So having, as well as, advertising a good RPS will garner states more jobs, a greater tax base, and a much healthier environment while helping alleviate overall global warming. The big bonus: it entices more business to come on board, like Minnesota: “The 143 wind turbines in the 107-MW Lake Benton I project in Minnesota, installed in early 1998, brought $250 million in investment.”
 
Are Michigan’s tradeoffs to polluting industries for a few hundred jobs saved here and there being offset against higher health care expense due to bad air, or water pollution, and include the loss of new “green” jobs that bring more tax revenue, and entice more businesses to invest in Michigan?  I’d like to see that equation. I don’t think Michigan is heading in the right direction, except for the very temporary oil drilling blitz that will probably occur, whether we want it to or not. But at some point, our demand will exceed our supply and we won’t have oilmen in the White House to push that agenda any longer.
http://www.serconline.org/RPS/fact.html.

http://www.michigancleanenergy.com/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC=%7B43B4E9A9-4132-4A0D-A15F-39434E54B50C%7D.
 

I’m sorry to read that Michigan persists with pollution policy instead of sound environmental policy. We need to get the corporate friendly senate moving in a cleaner direction. We have an obligation in this state to at very least try to keep the water clean. If we keep goofing off, someone might decide we are poor stewards and should share the wealth and management of our water. Does adding more coalburners to the list of 19, including the country’s second largest in Monroe, sound like anyone here pays attention to health issues, future problems with water shortages, or the earth? The latest out of MI senate is a push to alter abortion issues in Michigan. That’s the big priority? People need jobs; we need a decent and moral economy. By moral, I mean we do our utmost not to disturb life in the process of living and producing.  A green economy can offer plenty of jobs but that ride is being held up either on a state or federal level and benefits the oil industry.

We know for instance about oil leases that have been sold in pristine areas and/or habitat for polar bears, seals and all types of birds. Drilling there is pending and the oil industry wants to get moving. It’s becoming obvious that placing the polar bear on the endangered list is purposely being stalled. All that is needed is a great motivator. Bingo, gas will go up beyond $4.00 per gallon shortly. We’re already being taunted by that forecast. People are expected to cry drill, drill, drill and to hell with the animals. And we’ll probably do that, instead of seeing the big picture and how we’re being manipulated by the utilities. Even Warren Buffet commented that we’ve been sticking straws into the earth and sorry but it’s a finite practice. We will eventually run out. We collectively had over 500,000 wells. Our demand is ridiculous, and growing and it all revolves around the same fossil sources.

Heaven forbid we advance in technology and perfect wind and solar power for the individual home, and make it cheap. Houses would stand-alone without need for utilities. It’s almost laughable isn’t it? We are street smart enough to know the powers that be won’t let that happen. Anyway, our airwaves will be controlled shortly. Can’t even get free air anymore, besides there is that ever lovin entertainment/sports world that’s always going to charge too.

We could practice conservation. We could develop an RPS for Michigan, (more on that in another blog), which would entice green developers to come here. I’ve been saying this for quite awhile. What green industry is going to plant themselves next to a bunch of pollution? We’ll never get away from polluting industries once they are established without paying for it dearly. The buck will pass on to us for corporation’s stubborn business sense if and when in the future a big conservation effort needs to be enacted because, gee, we really are polluting ourselves to death. 

I was reading the Sierra Club’s “The Mackinac” and it states what I’ve been reading elsewhere, that many places in this country are not giving permits to more coalburners. The front-page article said 44 proposed coal-fired plants were either denied or withdrawn in 2007 thanks to The Sierra Club. So what happened here? 

There were five more coalburners looking for environmental permits in Michigan, with three more new plants under discussion the article said. It also stated that the challenge to put a moratorium on coal-fired plants in Michigan is daunting. Well I guess, especially with a corporation friendly senate. It said, “The state has refused to regulate the CO2 from coal plants that contribute to global warming (so long as the applicants address other pollutants, the state will let them be built). So that’s why the rush to install scrubbers? The scrubbers address other pollutants that are breathing irritants, but not the mercury that is permeating through the water to the fish, to the birds, and eventually anyone who drinks the water—one of the world’s largest freshwater supplies that is no longer so fresh. Or the CO2, that’s warming us up and causing some really bad weather—almost tornado season. What’s the sense of the Great Lakes Legacy Act?  What a tail chase, and meanwhile the water and Michigan loses, while the polar bears, seals, fish, and birds, the entire earth, take a back seat to our excess.

 Take a stand and participate. Read: http://michigan.sierraclub.org/.

(more…)

I don’t know if any other people interested in moving forward with all types of alternative energy have noticed the purposeful placement of the word “foreign” in many of the presidential contenders, Bush/Cheney, and legislator’s speeches. When a politician says they will make sure to fund research for new technologies to get us away from “foreign” oil dependence, they are probably talking money for a new type of oil drilling process. Technically, they won’t be lying, just misleading, if you tend to disregard that tricky little word “foreign.”

Granted, it’s been said that we do not have alternative technology available yet to take up the brunt of our oil demand, but it seems we keep looking to only one, and not a combination of alternative sources. What about a combination of alternative energy sources? I hear this idea floating around, but no gelling. The Sierra Club of Michigan has a very good presentation that shows a combination of energy sources, wind, solar, geothermal, etc., plus conservation programs like reclaiming wastewater, and recycling may meet all of our energy demands in Michigan. But we’re not advancing toward a future that will no longer be reliant on one big massive conglomerate like the oil cartel is to us right now. It seems we work toward monopolies in this country. Then we’re upset when we’re stuck with them without a choice. We should be looking to all venues to move forward for our energy future, not reinforcing the idea of fossil fuel again, like it’s all right because it belongs to us. 

I see the big push to get away from “foreign” oil as the big ruse to drill in the Arctic circle, the polar bear habitat, Utah, even Livonia, MI for Pete’s sake, and anywhere a slant oil drill can legitimately be utilized to “not’ enter our protected National Parks. They do so anyway at an angle right under protected habitat, while doing a great deal of damage with all the accompanying paraphernalia like roads, pipeline, trucks, heavy equipment, and trash. Ditto for coal mining. Using coal is getting away from “foreign” oil, all oil, but is still perpetuating the use of filthy fossil fuel that will eventually run out. Sure it might be thousands of years before it does, but at what price, gutting the countryside, ruining the earth trying?

So beware of that tricky little “foreign” word that comes before oil. It’s not a detail that should go unnoticed, because it doesn’t make any difference. It does, or they wouldn’t be slipping it in there.  It makes all the difference in our lives, our environment, and our world whether our future continues to poke around the earth and the oceans below for oil or coal that is “OURS.” Our oil and coal burn just as filthy as the “foreign” stuff.

I just got through reading some current worldwide environmental news and have to say, we don’t seem to have a clear-cut view of anything. What we profess, what we say, and what we actually do is all contrary.  First, I saw the Pope give his blessing and speak on behalf of peace and the environment over the Christmas season to over one billion Catholics. And the World Council of Churches that represents 560 million Christians worldwide is calling concerns over global warming a matter of faith. The WCC has had a program about climate change since 1992 and books about ecotheology (I’m interested).  Dr. Samuel Kobia the Secy. General of the WCC stipulates that Christians are well aware that dominion over all living things was given to us. He said that meant, “We were entrusted with the care of the rest of God’s creation.” The emphasis is on the word “CARE” here.

Care doesn’t come under savagely taking a machete to an orangutan trying to defend it’s young, or hooking a live dolphin in the side and sending it to be stripped of skin before it’s even dead, while the resulting meat is basically poison from ingesting too many pollutants, or shooting 6 elephants dead for stepping into a coffee field that is supposed to be their sanctuary. We should actively try to get this stopped, but our demands for things like lumber and coffee encourage it.  Oh and don’t forget about native animals and the latest Internet hunting websites that have yet to be banned in over 20 states.

Ever since I watched the series “Eco Tech” on the Science Channel I’ve been optimistic about going green in America relative to a new economy, one that most of America desperately needs. Along with thousands of other Americans who are embracing a new future, and huge corporations like GE that is having trouble keeping up with wind turbine demands, I see very little drawbacks to forging ahead in the world of green. I’ve listed all the positives before and it appears that others are trying to put all those positives into action.

An Oakland, California based human rights activist named Van Jones is seeing the future in green also. He believes it will be power for the people by the people, that there is a need in the green industry for blue collar workers redubbed “green collar.” Jones says, ‘Polar bears, Priuses, and Ph.D.s aren’t going to do it alone’ according to an article about him in Time magazines Dec. 3rd, 07 issue called “Bring Eco-Power to the People.” Green jobs need to find a way to expand to the rest of the economy.

Jones is a Yale educated lawyer who founded the Ella Baker Ctr. for Human Rights in Oakland. He sees the need to: ‘Give the work that most needs to be done to the people who most need the work.’ This man is figuring that many unemployable workers could easily be retrained for green jobs like installing solar panels, organic gardening, and green construction.

The article says that a study by the “Cleantech Network, which tracks green investment, found that for every $100 million in green venture capital, 250,000 new jobs could be created.”  Jones along with Majora Carter recently started a campaign called GREEN FOR ALL to secure one billion in government funding to train a quarter-million workers in green fields. Carter says in the article: “We’re looking for an environmental Marshall Plan for the 21st century.” Jones sees this as a way to reunite a very separated left and right. He wholeheartedly believes in bringing together the business, tech, and racial-justice communities. From that there will be no more blue and red division in America. We’ll all be working toward the green.

This is not the only article I’ve read about future green collar jobs. My husband’s skilled trades paper had an article about union trades people volunteering their own time to help learn as they constructed an environmental house with Lawrence Tech students for the Solar Decathlon 2007. The interest in green is there, but as the article stated, global warming must relinquish its narrow focus as just an existential threat and embrace the new look of an “enormous economic opportunity.”

Read my blog on Eco Tech if you haven’t done so. If you ever get a chance to catch the weeklong series again please do. There are green companies and inventions in place and ready to go. An example: Centia which plans on mass producing jet fuel from the thick grease, some 4 billion lbs. of it, discarded annually by restaurants. It is indistinguishable from the real stuff at only $2.23 per gallon, and creates far less pollution while eradicating the greasy, gobby stuff. And like Jones’s idea, another company RWA employs the homeless and unemployable to collect the grease for Centia. I’m waiting for Centia or RWA stock. Another company that is set to purify water from sewage came up with the same figure of 250,000 for new jobs in a green economy just to start.

Going green does not mean doom and gloom for the world’s economy, just ask Germany, the world’s leader in going green and quickly.  It’s a time of great opportunity because it is a time of great need. Every country must utilize their most ingenious, most intelligent citizenry for new invention, but there will still be the need for everyday people to finance, layout, truck, construct, assemble, and create those new ways to power the world.  It is truly “power for the people by the people.”

http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/?p=120

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1686811,00.html

To hear interviews with green movement leaders goto: time.com/going green also.

I’ve been interested in investing in “green” business and/or stocks but didn’t know who or where to look for these particular type of stocks and ran into this great website, InvestorIdeas.com, that lists almost 400 “green” stocks in 16 categories. There are a handful of mutuals featured too.

Every company listed is an active link and has a little description and history about the company. I especially liked the categories. Already people have preferences. I know I lean toward hydrogen fuel cell technology and yup it’s a category. There is the basic solar, wind, geothermal, and hydrogen technologies along with biogas, ethanol, and clean power plants to the companies that supply parts like turbines and flywheels.

So there are a lot of choices out there already. I guess I lean toward hydrogen fuel cells because Daimler-Chrysler was the company that supplied Iceland with their first commercial hydrogen buses back in 2003, and recently GM said that was an avenue they will pursue. Just yesterday I saw the commercial for Honda’s new fuel cell car that emits only “clean water vapor.” Hydrogen is on its way. If you ever get a chance to catch the Eco Tech series on the Science Channel watch for the engineer that invented hydrogen pellets that supply power on demand. He commented that we may be putting pellets in our tanks before long.

While I don’t know about that one, automakers are leaning toward hydrogen. Hopefully we will utilize hydrogen power and clean our water in the process. Now I would like a piece of that!

Check out this informative investment website: http://www.renewableenergystocks.com/Companies/RenewableEnergy/Stock_List.asp.
 

Google announced it would spend millions of dollars annually in search of alternative energy sources like geothermal, solar, and wind power. And no they aren’t doing it for the money, or the power. Google is worth $208 billion and has no debt. Boy I wish I would have caught that wave. Anyway the guys at Google have at least $13 billion in loose change to play with and why not? They earnestly want to slow climate change with alternative sources as cheap as coal within 10 years.

Google also plans to cut or offset its greenhouse gas emission by 2008. Joining Google is Yahoo and News Corp. If this chain reaction keeps occurring, it will really add up. There are many corporations and businesses with a conscience that are really trying to contribute like Google. I’ve run across more and more articles about businesses looking to both cut emissions and find ways to incorporate alternative energy into their daily usage. I already blogged about business pushing the environmental movement. Many are doing so because of the high cost of fuel. It worked for me. A few changes and I lowered my gas and electric bill combined to $114, $115, and finally to $103 this summer. I didn’t suffer for it either.

Meanwhile Silicon Valley is filled with start up companies working on green energy. After watching a week of Eco Tech with batteries made from viruses, and hydrogen on demand pellets, I’m keeping my eye on what comes out of Silicon Valley. Not long ago investing in anything technical was very profitable. Like I said, I wish I caught the Google wave early. Now is a very good time to keep an eye on the stock market for signs of “green.” I can’t find too terribly many things wrong with going green along with the opportunity to watch some really great inventors come forward. It’s exciting to work toward such a noble goal, to slow global climate change. Whenever there is purpose, there is passion and that usually results in amazing innovation.