This blog explores big bold ideas about ways that we can become more sustainable. It is meant to be a place to imagine what if, not we can't because...
This blog is about big blue sky ideas, a place to imagine what if we could...as opposed to we can't because...if that is what you are looking for, read on! If you are looking for practical ideas, we have a place for that as well so please click through to Live Green where you can find a simple annual Carbon Diet, Table of CO2 Impacts an a la carte menu for many of the things you do, or could stop doing. Projects to decrease your footprint from Renewable Energy Sources to Rainwater Harvesting and Basic Efficiency improvements for your home. In addition there is a great comparison of the lifetime cost (cost of buying a bulb as well as the electricity costs over its life) comparing LED Light Bulbs to CFL and incandescent light bulbs. Don't forget about your wheels, there is a great list of all the Hybrid and Electric Cars on the market today with prices and fuel consumption.
Inspiration or practical ideas? The choice is yours.
We ran a blog a few month ago to explore what Thomas Edison would have done if he had
solar, wind and biomass electricity generation options to choose from as well
the coal and steam generated electricity that were Edison’s only option at the
turn of the 20th century.
It was an informative exercise to use to take the forward
thinking style of an Edison and run the scenario for Solar. It seemed like a
good idea to take a modern business hero and a strong systems thinker like Edison,
Steve Jobs and ask the same question to see what big ideas it may lead us to.
If Steve Jobs had chosen to invest his time and energy in
electricity production instead of the personal computer, what would he have
done?
Thomas Edison was a giant, a genius who set
the tone for the modern technological development of the Twentieth Century. His
invention of the electricity grid provided a monumental shift in thinking for
mankind from stand-alone machines to enormous interlinked systems that
delivered us the electricity grid and paved the way for our modern convenience
society. I don’t think it would be overstated if I said that between Edison and
his best friend and past power station manager Henry Ford, that the two of them
basically defined our modern lifestyle. Cheap available electric power enabled
all of industry, our ability to live comfortably anywhere in the world and then
to be able to get from A to B, even if it meant sitting in gridlock for 3 hours
a day to go short distances of 20 miles. I find the immense influence that
these two men had on our lives fascinating, which leads me to ask, what two such
incredible thinkers would do if they had a chance to live and impact the world
today. Remember they were born around the start of the Industrial Revolution in
the mid 19th century.
It’s easy to blame dirty industries for the harm that is being done
to the natural environment. However, to think home owners do not have a
large role to play in environmental protection is false and has more to
do with the fact that its difficult to visualize home owners as a groups
impact on the environment clearly instead of just yourself or your
neighborhood as individual home owners. This article sets out to help
you see the effect of homeowners as a group and discuss a different path
that we could follow to play a much larger role in environmental
protection than we are doing at present. Home owners either directly use
or create the demand for the goods that are using the resources and
creating the resultant pollution and environmental degredation that is
gradually destroying the natural environment. We begin with a summary
of the home owners direct effect on resource usage, followed by a deeper
explanation of how these figures break down and finish with a proposal
of how we can radically change this picture in the next ten to twenty
years.
We need a game changing innovation in the solar power industry and it
is not in the technology which is already moving forward on an innovation track, but rather in the other parts that make up
the installation of panels on a domestic roof.
Ford's first car, hand built before he figured out how to send a product down a production line, controlling tolerances, differences in worker skill and component suppliers.
Its 2012, just over 100 years after Henry Ford figured out how to
take a product that was essentially handmade, expensive and a play thing
for the well to do and produce it on a production line. In so doing he
figured out how to manage the problems of tolerance and standardized
the units of production turning it into a game changing transportation
solution for millions of Americans. As he worked his way through these
issues, redefining how a new type of factory production should work,
inventing supply chain logistics and bringing down the time to produce a
vehicle, he also decided in a stroke of brilliance to double the wages
of his workforce because of the economies of scale that he had gained
thus creating a market of consumers who could afford his new product,
the Model T.
It is already possible with today’s technology to increase
your homes efficiency and reduce your domestic utilities costs by over 90%
Buildings consume over 40% of all US energy. In fact 3/4 of our electricity is used to run buildings. What if they
were energy efficient? US buildings are already projected to double or triple their energy efficiency over the next 40 years to 2050 saving us $1.4T a year at that point. This would deliver a 33% rate of return, in other words the savings would return 4 times what they cost.
Imagine if we decided, as home owners that we were going
to commit to making our homes energy efficient and carbon neutral by 2020. In fact more than that, imagine we agreed to make them produce energy instead of use it. We might need to according to the New York Times.
A rainwater harvesting system? But water is cheap, abundantly available and a commodity that most of us don't think twice about. The reality is quite different though. The continued supply of fresh drinking water is a major problem in the world and is becoming more importance in the list of things that will become an issue in the USA in the next few decades. Rainwater harvesting could be a local answer to that problem. Local is good when it comes to moving water.
To produce fresh water, recycle storm and waste water and transport it to and from your home produces a hefty carbon footprint. In fact, water accounts for about 13% of US energy usage or the equivalent of the annual output of about 61 power stations! Rainwater harvesting systems at scale could save 5% of US energy usage! Now thats a big idea. The average CO2 Emissions per capita in the US are more than five times higher than the world average. Reductions in the water component would have a significant effect in reducing emissions, help to prevent toxic waste from running off into the rivers and oceans and contribute to maintaining your water table locally.
At the Kyoto protocol meeting on climate change in 1997 a goal was set for everyone in the developed world to reduce their carbon footprint by 1,500 pounds of CO2 emissions a year. The site Live Green offers ways that you can easily achieve that. Take a look. Make the saving for this year and start to look for ways to achieve it for next year. We're all going to have to at some point anyway. Where do those emissions come from? The EIA actually calculates it at 59,000 pounds a year, but the commonly quoted number is 50,000 (25 tons). This is more than5 times the world average. 12,400 pounds are produced from our homes, 11,700 pounds from transportation and 35,000 pounds from indirect sources such as commercial, industrial and transportation. Think all those services the government provides for you! If every household in the USA saved 1,500 pounds this year, we would save 75 million tons of CO2 Emissions. That is good, but if the government got behind sustainability in the same way that corporations have done so far...
Versus a few years ago, the news on sustainability has definitely decreased, perhaps not surprisingly as the economic outlook in general is so dim and the looming elections so negative.
Looking at treehugger.com’s declining traffic numbers since early 2011 seem to indicate that interest is in decline. However I believe that it is more likely another case of Gartners Hype Curve in action. According to this theory, there is an initial spike of media interest in a topic that sends awareness amongst the general population up a very steep curve, but then the amount of attention the huge media industry can bring to an issue is eclipsed by the amount of actual activity happening and the interest of the media wanes somewhat sending the curve into what is called the trough of disillusionment in the model where there is little hype or news about the topic. What is actually happening though is that a lot of smart people got the message and have started to think about real world solutions to the problems. This process takes a lot longer to develop and implement than writing an article and slowly but surely, if the initial hype is to become a long term industry trend, the number of solutions starts to increase generating news and articles that eventually bring the attention back to the topic, but this time about real outcomes, not just awareness and observations.
When you get right down to it, nature operates on an incredibly simple principle.
All living organisms ADD to the earth’s ability to support life rather than reduce its ability. Except us.
Man, at least industrial age man lives on the premise that the earth’s natural ability to support life is a god given right that we have free access to use at will without contributing to the planets ability to support life.
In order to guarantee man’s sustainability, survival and long term standard of living we have to change our fundamental operating principle.
Now THAT might catch your attention! Just in case this has not got you really thinking, let me put it this way. Today our behavior is completely bizarre. We go to work, work hard, bring home wealth that we have created, then go shopping, buy stuff and after a few short months/years (hopefully this long, though in some cases it is after just a single 15 minute use), we trash what we bought. Somehow bizarrely, we have convinced ourselves that there is no value left in the item when we trash it, so it is OK to do so! Is there another choice?
You got it this time right? We actually take our money, place it is a garbage bag and give it away free to the garbage man, who by the way then expects a Christmas present at the end of the year!
