The Blog » Energy Politics & Policy

Intuit Inc. partnered with Emergent Research to release their Intuit 2020 Report, in which they outline what they believe will be the twenty trends that will affect consumers and small businesses over the next decade. While sustainability was an underlying theme across many of the trends, the prediction that I found most interesting was #7: Localism Creates a New Way of Life.

The New York Times has a fascinating article today in the “Room for Debate” section of their website. The article centers around a number of different opinions on whether we should be looking to conserve our open space or utilize it to build renewable energy projects.

David Roberts over at Grist.org makes an excellent point in this debate. We can transcend the whole issue by simply forgoing large renewable energy farms and capture the resources right where the energy is being used. As distribute energy systems become more efficient, and as communities begin to understand the true benefits of installing these systems, we will begin to see less and less need for large transmission lines leading to mega-wind and solar farms.

While I figure out how to post an audio MP3 file that’s larger than 2MB, please visit WJFF’s web site to listen to the radio show. The radio show is powered entirely by a hydroturbine located adjacent to the radio station building and a fairly large dam.

I’d like to thank Mr. Dick Riseling for having me on the show and introducing me to his incredible sustainably operated farm in Sullivan County, New York. Please, check out his farm’s website at http://www.applepondfarm.com/ . The farm acts as a working renewable energy education center to demonstrate that renewable energy technologies and sustainable living scenarios are practical in the world we live in today.

In a recent Op-Ed for the New York Times, Paul Krugman discusses the Waxman-Markey climate bill we’ve all been hearing so much about. Krugman notes that it’s not the barely passing margin the bill received but the 212 representatives, democratic and republican, who voted no. The climate change conversation should be one of whether the glass is half empty or half full; how do we address the potential dangers of human-induced climate change? Instead, almost half of our legislature refuses to acknowledge there is a glass on the table in the first place!

A Constant Shore

And through the ages of Impermanence
Through nations: rise and fall
Through long and short winters
The taste of Constancy has riddled our tongues

Last summer, I sat in the Town Hall in Merrill, Maine listening to the Town Clerk cry over the town not having enough money for road salt this winter; the town had no way to get the money, since they couldn’t raise taxes with such a depressed economy. The Clerk made it clear to me why she was so upset – she was afraid that one of her friends’ children will skid off a slick road and hit a tree.

We’re starting a movement. The Emergent Posse is an online group/movement/community of highly-motivated community activists spread across the nation working to educate and empower communities and community leaders in order to implement real sustainability programs and projects. We’ve hit a paradigm shift: oil isn’t cheap, the planet has a fever, and the economy is in the toilet. I’ve heard smart people calling for BIG government intervention and Europe-styled Socialism. That’s not the answer here in America.

If you google search (or yahoo, we don’t discriminate) for “Energy Bill” under news you get a bonanza of results for both the new national energy and climate bill, just released, as well as for numerous states who are all releasing their own far reaching bills. California just passed one which requires all utilities to purchase 33% of their power from renewable resources by 2020. Tennessee will be releasing their own in a few weeks for discussion and is expected to be a ‘lead by example’ type bill with much of the focus being on greening the government and its operations. It also may include a residential code for certain green and efficiency standards for new homes. And they’re not all rosey…

Emergent’s holding a webinar on March 25th at 10:00am to discuss the changes in federal legislation that affects wind power, and how the recent Stimulus Bill has increased the feasibility of wind power project development. We’ll also be discussing ways in which communities, schools, and other agencies can prepare for private wind power development or take advantages of the benefits of wind power.

I was caught off guard this weekend when reading an article about how high savings rates in Japan have had a devastating effect on that nation’s economy. According to Hiroko Tabuchi of the New York Times,

“The economic malaise that plagued Japan from the 1990s until the early 2000s brought stunted wages and depressed stock prices, turning free-spending consumers into misers and making them dead weight on Japan’s economy.”

This article ultimately warns Americans of the dangers of saving their hard-earned money. I was taken aback when I fully realized the predicament our nation is in. How can we continue living in a society that rewards consumers for taking unnecessary risks? And yet, how can we revive our economy without consumer-driven growth?