Tag: alternative energy

By Posted on Posted in Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,
Artist sketch of the proposed energy wall along the border, published in Big Think

Wow, I found this fascinating idea on the Big Think website: a string of alternate energy facilities all along the US-Mexico border.

From the article on Big Think

Potentially, this could be a win-win for Democrats (clean energy, good jobs) and Republicans (border security).

However, it’s very rough and needs a lot of refining. Just on a quick glance, I had several questions:

  • How will it affect animal habitat as well as cross-border human friendship and commerce relationships (both put at severe risk by DT’s proposed wall)?
  • Who determines which side of the border gets all this new clean energy?
  • Can we do it WITHOUT the natural gas part–which has plenty of problems of its own?

What other issues come up, and how to we address them? Let’s start TALKING! I’d love to see some serious discussion of the merits or issues. And it would be great if some politicians join the discussion.

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By Posted on Posted in Branding, Business Ethics, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Environment, Green Business, Green Marketing, Innovation, language, Social and Economic Justice, Socially Responsible Investing, Technology Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I just took a first stab at writing an Environmental and Social Change Business Bill of Rights. Adopting these principles would level the playing field and enable green, socially conscious businesses to compete as equals—and in that competition, they will win almost all the time.

But this should not be just me spouting off. I got the discussion started, but I want to learn what others would be important in that kind of a campaign (and who has energy to work on it.

Also, I’ve got seven points here. If we continue to model it after the US Bill of Rights written by James Madison (who later became President of the United States), we need ten What did I leave out?

We, the people of Planet Earth, hereby declare that every nation and the planet as a whole have certain inalienable rights, including Life, Sufficiency, Peace, and Planetary Balance. To these ends, we call upon the governments of the world, at all levels, to establish these rights through mandating the following policies:
1. Manufacturers shall take full responsibility for their products at all stages in the product lifespan, including manufacturing, distribution, use, collection, reuse, disassembly, recycling, and disposal. Retail and wholesale channels shall accept used products and convey them back through the supply chain to the manufacturers.
2. Passing off costs to others, as externalities, is not acceptable. Pollution, waste, destruction of others’ property, etc. will be paid for by the entity that causes it.
3. All new construction or major renovation shall meet minimum standards of energy, water, and resource conservation, as well as fresh air circulation. Such standards shall be incorporated into local building codes, meeting or exceeding LEED silver or stretch codes.
4. All newly constructed or significantly renovated government buildings shall be Net Zero or Net Positive in energy and water use, producing at least as much energy and water as the building uses. Private developers shall receive incentives to meet this standard.
5. All subsidies for fossil (including but not limited to oil, diesel fuel, airplane fuel, natural gas, propane, and coal), nuclear, or other nonrenewable energy sources shall be phased out as soon as practical, to be completed within a maximum period of three years.
6. All subsidies that promote fossil-fuel-powered vehicles over cleaner alternatives, including subsidies to infrastructure exclusively or primarily for their use, shall be phased out as soon as practical, to be completed within a maximum period of ten years.
7. Average fleet vehicle mileage standards shall be increased to 70 MPH for passenger vehicles carrying up to six people, and to 40 MPH for trucks and buses within ten years. Non-fossil-fuel vehicles shall be designed to make a contribution to stationary power needs.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Energy & Sustainability, Innovation Tagged with , , ,

This morning, I chanced across Green Inventions: 10 Hot Eco-Innovations That Could Change The Planet on Huffington Post Green. It’s a good list, including such modern wonders as LED lighting, industrial-scale composting, and LEED green building certification. However, it’s far from complete.

At the end of the article, readers were offered a chance to add to the list. Here’s what I wrote:

There are so many wonderful innovations: Zero Waste, passive solar design, urban rooftop farming (something I’ve been advocating since about 1980), small-space vertical gardens for apartment dwellers, lower-impact adaptive technology like using a tiny wheelchair hatchback instead of a big galumphing gas-guzzling wheelchair van (the hatchback door becomes a ramp–no hydraulics needed), solar chargers, the Stretch building code…the list goes on and on.

It’s an exciting time, and I am optimistic. Yes, it would have been easier to make all the sweeping changes 30 years ago–and we already knew how. I know of a house deep in the Colorado Rockies near Aspen (think snow, cold winters) that was designed so well–in 1983–that not only doesn’t it need a furnace, it has banana trees in the sunroom. But we can still get it together and reverse the damage to the planet while creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. All we need is the will.

I realize I didn’t even mention the money we save when we do these things, though I did get one of the economic arguments in (jobs).Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail