Our World and Everything in It

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.

Organizers for the winter Olympic games of 2010 that will be held in Vancouver, Canada have set a goal of holding carbon-neutral events with no net emission of CO2. The organizers and the United Nation’s Environmental Program signed an agreement that together they will work together to become models of environmental performance and bring awareness to the importance of finding alternative sustainable energy.
 
I thought it was funny the article I was reading said that: “The agreement between UNEP and VANOC comes several days after the 7th World Conference on Sport and Environment, which took place in Beijing on October 25 to 27.” That was probably the clincher right there. The organizers got a whiff of Beijing. I’ve been concerned about the Olympics being held in China. Their air quality is very, very poor and the worst concentration of pollution is not far from the Olympic arena. I reported that a marathon in Hong Kong resulted in many runners passing out. The air quality there—not so good either.
 
It’s about time the Olympic committee got around to realizing they are definitely connected to the environment. Without snow there wouldn’t be much of a winter Olympics would there? And I imagine the first Olympians really counted on the weather to work in their favor, since they performed naked.
 
With so much interest in sports and the Olympics in particular, going green will get a great boost with the amount of exposure the Olympics can contribute. This was a great move by the organizers and the UNEP who stated: “In recent years, there has been an increasing awareness that environmental and sustainability considerations should be at the heart of the Olympic project. All Olympic Games are now expected to leave a sustainable legacy and promote environmental awareness.”
 
Read more at: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2007/2007-11-01-02.asp.

Germany is leading the world in a renewable energy surge. It truly believes that the world needs to turn around by 2020 and is aiming at a 100% green future. We have to remember that close to 40% of Germany’s energy is nuclear though. Some consider it a renewable energy source, so Germany may reach its goal easily. After all, Iceland plans to be totally hydrogen powered in the near future.

Germany has a lot of faith in wind and solar power. A double row of solar panels lines the Autoban Hwy. outside of Munich. And the government offers cash incentives to anyone that installs expensive solar panels. There is a price guarantee and they get the equivalent of 50 cents for every KW that goes back to the grid. People slapped panels up everywhere. Germany also got its farmers involved. They use part of their land for either solar panels or wind towers. Loans are easy to get because of price guarantees on renewable energy. Germany leads the world in wind power. 7.3% of all German electricity comes from it.
 
With the incentives, it looks like Germany may make the 30% mark by 2020. And switching to this economy created 170,000 new jobs. That’s a lot of jobs. It doesn’t look like it’s all that efficient a source of power yet, but with practice… The price of solar panels will drop with new innovation and better efficiency. Wind towers will come along that are quiet and not a risk to birds.

Perhaps when Germany becomes a model for other countries the U.S. will finally get in gear. We already have the innovation, we just need to set it free. Germany had virtually no alternative energy use 10 years ago, and now it leads the world. It can be done. Oh, and the first hydrogen powered Beemer is out already. Need hydrogen stations on the to do list!
 

I was reading my husband’s “The Building Tradesman” about Lawrence Tech’s participation in Solar Decathlon 2007. The students plan to construct a small house on a back parking lot at LTU, which is part of an international competition with other universities. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy sponsors the project.

The article said 20 student teams from colleges across the country and Europe compete to design, build, and display a highly energy-efficient solar home as part of a solar village that will be erected on the National Mall in Washington.

Lawrence Tech is the smallest college, and the only one from Michigan in the competition. The students have great plans and ideas but when it came time to actually construct the house well not so good. Some union trades workers are volunteering their time after work to help out. One of the students who is studying architecture and civil engineering said the skilled trades guys really saved their behinds. Sure, build one house…

I imagine it is interesting for the carpenters, electricians, and plumbers helping out. They get to build a solar home probably for the first time. That gives them a one-up on experience when contractors actually start building homes that way. It will be interesting to see how it all comes together.

This year’s race is just 2 months away in Australia. This year’s challenge: Design and build a car capable of crossing the vast and imposing continent of Australia using only sunlight as fuel and to prove it, in the spirit of friendly competition against others with the same goal. Read more about the race at:

http://www.wsc.org.au/.

Michigan’s contribution to the race is from U of M’s Continuum Team. The Continuum has the definitive look of a futuristic race car. Targus, a company many recognize immediately relative to its line of laptop accessories is the newest sponsor for the Continuum. U of M’s entry is in transit at present for the race down under.
Read more about the Continuum and U of M’s proud achievement at : http://www.engin.umich.edu/solarcar/.

I blogged about the Blue Planet Run, a 15,200 mile relay around the world, when it began June 1st. The relay was done to raise awareness for the millions of people worldwide that have no access to clean drinking water, something we sometimes take for granted.

 A Michigan native, Shiri Leventhal, from Canton was a runner. Her blogspot about her participation in this historic worldwide relay race is http://shirileventhal.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html.

Check it out. She’s got some great tales to tell and will probably never forget the experience or the people she’s met along the way. Congratulations to her for representing Michigan. It makes me feel a tad inadequate, changing lightbulbs, using a clothesline, not running my AC, while she’s out there running a gruesome race in foreign countries. She’s got to be proud and her parents have got to be proud, and deservingly so.

There is more about the run, the pictures, the highlights, and a map of where the races took place. It is sponsored by Dow Chemical to raise awareness and money to build pipelines and dig wells to get clean drinking water to so many people who spend their entire day in the pursuit of that water. It makes me feel guilty because again tonight I deemed a warm shower to be one of the biggest, greatest, most wonderful privileges on the face of the earth. After picking pears, getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, sweating to death from the humidity, and just plain groady from working in the yard, that shower was gold to me. I can’t imagine hiking miles everyday to bring buckets back just to drink, when we get to slosh around in the stuff. The Blue Planet Run is trying to catch the rest of the world up to standards that every human being should be afforded.

Kudos to each and every runner, and to Dow Chemical as the sponsor for coming up with the idea, it was quite an event if you check out the Blue Planet Run website at: http://blueplanetrun.org/#.

As I blogged before, June 1st is an important date. It marks the beginning of this year’s Blue Planet Run, sponsored by Dow Chemical, to raise awareness and financial support worldwide for millions of people who need freshwater. With the world’s largest freshwater supply, it’s more than appropriate that Michigan is involved.  This is no easy feat. These runners must have a lot of heart to follow such a grueling schedule.

Leon Leventhal, whose daughter is a runner, has followed up on my inquiry as to how things are going. I’m posting his reply here as an update on this important run. His daughter the runner, has a website where more will be posted about this event. I can believe the miles they’ve run since June 1^st. I can’t even get myself moving to get my yard work accomplished. Here is Leon’s report.

   “Ria, we live in Canton, near Ann Arbor, and it is great to know that people like you know about this wonderfull run to improve people life in other parts of the world. I wish all people were so excited and committed as my daughter and the rest of her team. They are all splendid athletes and accomplished people, each and every one. They left jobs, schools and families to persevere and highlight the cause. They are doing it without much sleep, sometimes 36 hours straight, and not more than 5 so far, but they smile and run screaming the message in foreign lanaguages the best they know. They help each other and everything is going very smoothly. Today my daughter will leave Paris in the morning toward Belgium. So far they ran 1198 miles in 8 days. After reaching the coast of France they will continue on land without interruptions all the way to Beijing. The message is spreading. Yale professor joined in CT. Students in MASS asked questions and ran along briefly. Media in Ireland and UK was warm and ready to meet them. Things are going great. Thank you for caring. You can read on their blogs. My daughter’s is”   http://shirileventhal.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html 

Today, June 1st, an international team of 20 runners left New York in the Blue Planet Run 2007 sponsored by Dow Chemical Company. They will travel worldwide to draw attention to the growing water shortage crisis. U.S. News and World Report, June 4th, 2007, titled “Why You Should Worry About Water” reported the event.  The magazine said the 20 runners “will run 24 hours a day in 10-mile individual relay segments for 95 days, passing the baton at more than 1,500 exchange points worldwide.” The Blue Planet Run Foundation hopes to rally people everywhere to help get fresh water to 20 million people by 2015.

When they say, “get freshwater to” they’re talking about mostly women and children, one in every five people, who spend up to 6 hours per day getting water from somewhere else. The water is hardly clean to begin with, and by time they get it back home, it’s surely contaminated. Water borne disease is the largest cause of death in the world. 6,000 children die every day from unsafe water and our planets fresh water is dwindling.

The cover story states that in the U.S. “supply is shrinking, pipes are aging, and few are willing to pay the price.” Of the developed countries, we pay the least for water per gallon @ $2.49. Imagine Denmark and Germany that pay $8.50 per gallon. The United Kingdom pays $7.20. But here lies the problem also. We’re spoiled. Like most people who have access to freshwater, we take it for granted and think of it as a natural occurring element and don’t want to pay for it. It’s kind of like the way we kicked when we started paying for airwaves for TV.  $2.49 per gallon is a small price to pay, so small that our water mains and pipelines are in horrible disrepair in this country. Because we pay so little, there is little money to accomplish the repairs that are needed and soon.

Ask the citizens of New Jersey who suffered a water main break in the middle of the night. Imagine lying in bed and a wave of water rushes through your house high enough to go over your bed. We assume someone somewhere is taking care of things but in actuality funds to repair and maintain horribly aged pipelines, some are 80 years old, just don’t exist, and the problem continues to be overlooked year after year. We don’t seem to practice much preventative maintenance in this country. It’s more or less fix the disaster when it happens. Is this the way a wealthy, capitalist society operates? It’s shabby. I reported on the Bush administration cuts for federal money that affect community subsidies that would go to repair old water line infrastructures. What is everyone thinking? It looks like pass the buck again to me. But the pipes won’t hold forever. I wonder if they are that old, then how safe are they to carry drinking water?

Our drinking water in Michigan is not all that clean to begin with. A report on contaminants found in Lake Michigan showed traces of female hormone supplement, and ingredients from painkillers. It seems too many people do not think before flushing drugs down the drain or toilet. It is assumed it goes nowhere, is filtered and treated, but somehow it’s ending up back out into the lake where it’s in good enough amounts to be traceable. Anyone that says Americans don’t pollute any more than anyone else needs to stop and think many people in the 21st century do not have flushing toilets or hormones or painkillers to flush down toilets. These people are busy looking for food, water, and shelter.  Developed nations obviously pollute the worst. We need to start thinking of others because our turn at water shortage is not that far off.

In Florida, fires surround Lake Okeechobee that is already down to 8.5 feet from 13 ft. from dry, hot weather. It’s a large, shallow lake but is considered as a backup water supply for 5 million people. 8.5 ft. of water versus a raging fire is not a good thing. Hopefully residents of Florida won’t need a backup water supply too soon, but the weather and fires are not cooperating. Let’s hope we don’t take water for granted so long that we lose the privilege of having it at our disposal.

Do one thing. Every time you finish doing yard work late into the evening, covered with sweat, grime on top of that, and a random supply of mosquito bites, think about not having the luxury of  climbing into that warm shower. And when you do climb in, appreciate the heck out of it, enough to cut that shower short to conserve it for another time, for someone else. Funny what we relish so readily when we need it, we quickly forget when it’s over, something as simple as a shower.