Archive for carbon emissions

Welcome to the New Easier Being Green!

February 13, 2009 at 4:08 am · Filed under carbon emissions, carbon footprint, energy, energy efficiency, wind power

Welcome to the new home of Easier Being Green!

During the last few days, I’ve been at the Clean Energy Resource Teams Conference in St. Cloud, Minn. I ran into a few fellow college alumni who work for Kidwind, a group that creates lesson plans and trains teachers to teach about wind.

From the website:
Michael Arquin began the Kidwind Project when he was a 6th grade science teacher in California. Unhappy with the high price and poor quality of commercial products available for teaching wind energy science, he set out to develop his own.

Just a quick post to say hello, and welcome to the new site!

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Facebook Uses 3 kWh per Capita Per Day

February 6, 2009 at 1:48 am · Filed under carbon emissions, facebook

Yesterday was Facebook’s 6th anniversary. Steve Tuttle and I are quitting.

I had a brief return after calling it quits in December – but have finally decided to pull the plug for good. I think.
simple yet effective graphic from rmansfield

Disturbingly enough, Facebook has a carbon footprint big enough to compete with large cities. Engineer Doug Beaver estimates per capita daily energy use at 3 kWh, with most energy used to power servers handling photos.

That’s like me running a hairdryer for 3 hours every day. Assuming I use Facebook every day of every year, that’s about 1000 kWh per year.

So I quit, not just for energy efficiency – but for my own time efficiency too!

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Government Goes Green

November 12, 2008 at 2:36 am · Filed under carbon emissions, minnesota, politics

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty unveiled the “Green Jobs Investment Initiative” to the 2009 state legislature yesterday. It’s a group of tax exemptions, mostly for business, to invest in green jobs and renewable energy. In total, the initiative would spend $90.25 million in the next six years.

Image from Minnesota Politics blog.

Pawlenty has suspicious timing. He did not support a Green JOBZ initiative in 2008, and his proposal comes while a task force of department officials and other experts were in the midst of creating a similar proposal. JOBZ is Pawlenty’s job creation effort. Said Rep. Tim Mahoney, DFL – Saint Paul, “I didn’t know JOBZ was (a) chameleon – apparently if it isn’t working, it just changes color.”

Read more from the Pioneer Press, the Star Tribune, MSNBC, the Governor’s Office, Politics in Minnesota, and a related article on Pawlenty and climate change from MinnPost.

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Green-e

March 20, 2008 at 6:56 am · Filed under carbon emissions, greenwashing, offset, renewable energy


Green-e is Consumer Reports for renewable energy and carbon offset purchases.

I mean, come on. How easy would it be to peddle hogwash? So easy. “Buy Jennifer Carbon Credits today! I’ll just take that there credit card number… gooooood.”

Ratings are a good thing.

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Locavore

January 9, 2008 at 5:47 am · Filed under carbon emissions, food, local purchasing, locavore

The Oxford 2007 Word of the Year is out!

Ladies and gentlemen, make room in your vocabulary for locavore, the phenomenon of eating locally grown or raised foods that may or may not be more Earth friendly (in the broadest sense of the term, as debated by Macalester professor Bill Mosely in this recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle).

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Wave Energy

December 30, 2007 at 8:38 pm · Filed under carbon emissions, renewable energy, wave energy


Wind and solar and wave, oh my! What will they come up with next?
Wave energy (aka hydrokinetic energy) was even predicted in 1908 to be the energy source of the future. Wave energy, however, has not been fully studied; the large, delicate, expensive buoys concern fishers who don’t want to run into them, and nobody knows what the environmental effects will be… least of all Sonoma County residents responding to this November agenda item.

Hydrokinetic energy works by bouncing magnets in the rise and fall of ocean waves. If I had stayed in science classes I might be able to explain this more clearly and correctly. Apparently, 0.2% of the energy wasted in waves could power the entire world if harvested.

In related news, Google announced its intent to invest “hundreds of millions” of dollars in renewable energy to spark an energy revolution. And the ED’s name is Larry Brilliant. Nice.

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UN Climate Conference, Bali

December 16, 2007 at 10:18 pm · Filed under carbon emissions, carbon footprint, renewable energy, water


The UN finished up a climate conference in Bali (Dec. 3-14), Our friends Tim Anderson and Paul Kelley went to present the Sonoma County Water Agency’s plan to depend on renewable energy only.

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Proud to be an American..?

November 14, 2007 at 10:13 pm · Filed under carbon emissions


Did you know that the U.S. accounts for 1/4 the world’s carbon emissions?

Jesus.

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Green Wine

November 7, 2007 at 2:17 am · Filed under carbon emissions, carbon footprint, wine

No, it doesn’t come from green grapes. Green wine is what happens when you buy wine locally (even in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennyslvania).


And.. did you know that east coasters pollute less by consuming French wine instead of Californian wine?
Shocking! Shipping can be more eco-friendly than flying, and the United States are big.
This line comes from a study done by Dr. Vino (Dr. Tyler Colman, a wine blogger) and Pablo Paster (metrics specialist). Read more on TreeHugger.

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Dear old Macalester..

October 20, 2007 at 6:38 am · Filed under carbon emissions, college, sustainability, sustainability policy, university, waste

As a progressive liberal arts college, it’s about time my alma mater Macalester stepped up to the eco-plate.

Finally, more sustainable cups and napkins! They’re ordering the cups from Clovernook, a non-profit based in Cincinnati, OH. “75 percent of the people working in Clovernook’s factories are visually impaired, and the extra money collected from the cup sales is used to provide community outreach programs.”

They had a Zero Waste Picnic in September… set aside the Eco-House…

… and they are hiring a Sustainability Coordinator for 2008. Apparently, President Rosenberg was one of 414 college and university presidents to sign on to the Presidents Climate Commitment. “Presidents signing the Commitment are pledging to eliminate their campuses’ greenhouse gas emissions in a reasonable period of time as determined by each institution.” This involves setting up a task force, completing a GHG inventory, creating and implementing a climate neutral plan, taking 2 of the 7 immediate steps specified in the plan, integrate sustainability into the curriculum, and communicating to the public about all this.

An advisory committee of Mac students, faculty, and staff have been molding the Sustainability Coordinator position since this spring.

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