For about $2/mo, I signed up for PGE’s Green Source Renewable Energy at my house.
According to PGE, “Green Source electricity is approximately 50 percent new wind power, 40 percent new geothermal and 10 percent new biomass (wood waste) power.”
I can’t remember now where I read it, but supposedly by switching to green energy for a year it is almost equal to the typical car owner not driving as far as carbon emissions go. Not sure if there’s any truth to that, but for the small amount extra it costs, this is totally worth it.
I think this kind of stuff is a joke! We all need to step up and recycle more, and those of us who own companies need to focus on being the most effective and efficient because as a whole companies have much more impact than one individual does. Recycling should not be a commodity market. I would be a proponent of no-flexibility for the companies and requiring them to comply, with the exception of allowing for an average of recycled materials used in all their containers rather than requiring each and every one to have that percentage of recycled material. I think we should also raise the percentage to 35% if feasible, and have a tiered structure that increments the required recycled content up in the future.
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What’s the point in buying a movie anymore? First, many can be downloaded free online, although that’s considered unethical/illegal. Second choice: rent them.
If you rent movies, you won’t have all that plastic packaging to toss (if you throw it away) and you won’t be supporting a one-time use production of materials that here in America is so prevalent.
Other reasons you might consider renting instead of buying:
- You can copy them if you like, using your computer.
- You probably won’t watch the same movie more than a few times, and you get much more bang-for-your-buck from renting
- If you use Netflix, there are no late fees, and they’re delivered to your door and you re-use the envelope to send it back.
How many times are you driving along, just minding your own business on an empty road, just to have the stop light turn red in front of you, with no one else anywhere remotely in sight?
Being the law abiding citizen that I am, I stop for the light. Most of the time I even sit all the way through it, but I think this is about the dumbest thing in the world of traffic management, and changes here could help to contribute to less vehicle emissions.
In this time of technological advances, each stop light could be easily retro-fitted with a radar sensor that detected traffic levels in each direction at an intersection. The default would be to have the more major (if any) street be always green unless there are approaching vehicles from the other street. Then, after x period of time of these vehicles waiting (or no waiting if there isn’t cross-traffic) the lights change.
Why would this help? If you took 1 minute at each stop light away, that could add up somewhere in the 5-10 minute range of idling time eliminated per vehicle on a fairly typical short commute. This vehicle would consume less gas (an object in motion… et al.) due to less idling, and less accelerating.
Also think of the road rage reduction benefits, and lower gas consumptions over an annual period. If you’re less frustrated by the stupid stop lights and from spending so much money on fuel, you’re going to be in a better mood and less likely to start a brawl because you just got passed by a silver truck.
Just think of all those pennies you’ll save every year if you turn off the lights you’re not using. It’s got to add up to at least 40-50 cents.every year. Maybe even more.
But it will save a boat load of fossil fuel or dam power if lots of people did it.
Hey, even my ex-father-in-law does it, although he is monetarily driven as opposed to ecologically. He unscrews the bulbs too so other people in the family can’t turn them back on. I wonder why they’re even in the lights in the first place…
