The Blog » Sustainability

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!

If you read any sort of energy or environmental news these days, you are certainly aware that  government initiatives to combat climate change are taking place from the local to state to federal level.  These laws and incentives offer great hope that renewable energy could serve a much larger portion of our energy needs in the years to come.  While large scale energy projects offer us great hope in making a sizeable impact in our energy dependence, we should not forget all the small projects that together will  make a huge change.

We have been working hard over the past few months to reduce both our costs and our carbon footprint. Here’s some of the stuff we’ve been doing

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/obamas-transportation-secretary-america-is-one-big-pothole.php

This is a transformational president, and the department is following the president’s lead. People haven’t really been thinking about these things. They have been thinking about how to build roads, how to build interstates, how to build bridges. People now are thinking differently about where they want to live, how they want to live, and how they want to be able to get around their communities.

Read More »

The Suburban parked at a Shell Station in New Jersey, behind a new Prius.

The Administration is sanctioning (through the “Stimulus Bill”) payment to anyone who brings in their old car, and uses that payment toward a new car. The environmental and carbon impacts of this program is devastating. The amount of new carbon dioxide that shall be spewed into the atmosphere by the recycling of old cars and creation of new cars vastly outweighs simply driving our old clunkers until they die. Preferably, we would repair our cars until they have literally rusted away. The amount of carbon dioxide and new pollution that is tacked onto the production of a new automobile is burdensome. I wish the U.S. Government would consult scientists prior to passing these programs that are meant to “bolster the economy.”

Fun Commentary on this:

http://www.journalgazette.net/

http://forums.treehugger.com/

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

Hey all – Greg and I treked down to the Garnerville Industrial Arts Center in West Haverstraw, New York (actually to take a headshot for me). The complex, which houses tons of artists and craftsmen, is called GAGA (SoHo of the north). It’s a fantastic place.

As you all might know, our Citizens Schools sixth and seventh graders have been learning about sustainability, renewable energy, and also have been building solar cars to race at the Junior Solar Sprint at MIT in a few weeks! In our last class, we focused on sustainability, in which we did a “web of resilience” exercize and then we finished off by discussing Peak Oil.

What if all brains/souls are connected through a device that automatically and unknowingly uploads experiences, knowledge, information, and various emotions into the brains of all of Humanity’s subconscious?