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Don’t Forget the Green Collar Entrepreneurs
November 23, 2008

I wrote this article for the Huffington Post.  It can be seen in its original context here.



Van Jones and others have so successfully argued for green collar jobs—defined by Green for All as a job that does something for the planet, pays family wages and provides opportunities for upward mobility–that the term has become ubiquitous among politicians, environmentalists and social activists.  This should come as no surprise, particularly in the current economic climate: after all, who can argue against creating more jobs for American families, jobs that also enhance our infrastructure, national security and environment?  In fact, President-elect Obama recently announced a plan to create 2.5 million jobs over the next two years, and many of those will certainly be green collar.

But lost in all the talk of green collar jobs is the fact that there is a significant portion of the target population–low-income, people of color, the unemployed and underemployed–who want to be green collar entrepreneurs.  For example, roughly 25% of the people that graduate from a green job training program in my hometown of Providence, Rhode Island want to start their own business.  According to Mark Kravatz, who runs the program, the enthusiasm among these entrepreneurs is inspiring; they see how green can be good for them, their family and their community, and they want to get in on the game. So what’s the problem? Simply put, they have little to no options for accessing the capital they would need to make their idea a reality. 

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environment  / Huffington Post

Why We Just Need 306,000 People to Say Thanks, But No Thanks, To Offshore Drilling
October 1, 2008

Just because Congress has allowed the ban on drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf to expire doesn’t mean we need to throw our hands in the air and watch idly as the oil companies swoop in and make a profit.  In fact, we don’t even need to allow all this petty, ridiculous talk about “Drill Here, Drill Now” to distract us from the larger challenge of lowering energy prices, getting off foreign oil and addressing climate change.  Despite the fact that our leaders have already said ‘yes’ to offshore drilling, it isn’t too late to change that answer to ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ All we need is for 306,000 people willing to show our leaders how eager Americans are, as Thomas Friedman likes to say, to do nation building here at home.

Let’s first, as many have already done, put the whole offshore drilling debate in perspective.  The U.S. currently imports 630 million gallon of oil a day.  According the Department of Energy, additional offshore drilling would bring online an additional 153 million gallons of oil A YEAR by 2017, reaching a maximum of roughly 300 million gallons by 2030.

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environment  / Huffington Post

How About A $700 Billion Bailout for the Climate?
September 23, 2008

I wrote this article for the Huffington Post.  It can be seen in its original context here.

There are a lot of similarities between the current financial crisis and the climate crisis, except for the urgency with which the two are being addressed.  On the one hand, the present state of the financial markets hasn’t been seen since the Great Depression of the 1930’s; on the other, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in on pace to reach levels not seen in the last 500,000 years.  There is a near consensus among economists that something needs to be done to stabilize financial markets, with the only debate being about how best to do that.  Likewise, there is a near consensus among scientists that climate change is happening, is man-made and must be addressed, with the only debate centering around the cost of mitigation and adaptation, as well as the implication of various scenarios (e.g., how much sea level rise at a given CO2 level).

In response to the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the collapse of Lehman Brothers and other storied financial institutions, both Democrats and Republicans have set aside their traditional core “beliefs” (not that it’s hard for them to set those beliefs aside), with Republicans temporarily forgetting about their hatred of government regulation, and the Democrats doing away with their dislike of giving a government official unlimited powers-in this case the Treasury Secretary (I know, they did the same with Bush after 9/11; I’ll get to that in a moment).  And despite the fact that there has recently been some opposition from both sides to the current proposal for a $700 billion bailout plan, in all likelihood the plan will pass, albeit with some minor changes.

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environment  / Huffington Post

A Conglomerate for Good
September 12, 2008

Conglomerates Abound

There is no shortage of conglomerates whose purpose is to maximize profit, at any cost, provided that no laws are broken (of course, we all know that laws are stretched and often broken).  In fact, publicly traded companies have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to maximize profit; that is, they are required by law to do so.  What this means is that a company cannot focus on social or environmental goals unless working towards those goals somehow helps the bottom line.  As a result, the traditional approach taken by corporations with respect to social and environmental goals has been to 1)influence laws to their benefit, 2)avoid litigation, and 3)lower operating costs (e.g., by installing CFL light bulbs, cutting wages or benefits, or reducing packaging waste).

A consequence of this paradigm is that, at least in America, public policy is too often shaped by what benefits corporations rather than individuals; getting corporations to follow the law is time-consuming and expensive, since large companies have a fleet of high-powered attorneys at their beck and call; and only limited inroads have been made on fair trade, environmental sustainability, and other important issues. 

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Business  / environment

Fossil Fuels Are the Bottled Water of Energy
August 31, 2008

I wrote this article for the Huffington Post.  It can be seen in its original context here.



We already know the numerous reasons why bottled water is bad, including the energy and water it takes to manufacture, ship and discard the product, as well as the fact that tap water must meet more stringent water quality standards.  But here’s the interesting thing: fossil fuels are essentially bottled energy.  And just as the green alternative to bottled water is tap water, the logical alternative to fossil fuels is renewable energy.  Why?  Well, here are just a few reasons (hint: both depend on current flows and are locally available):

1) Like bottled water, fossil fuels are mined from countries around the world, processed, shipped and then, finally, consumed.  This process is wasteful and contributes to environmental degradation, to be sure, but perhaps the greatest downside of a global energy supply chain is that it makes for unstable geopolitics. This may sound like an argument against globalization, but it is nothing of the kind; rather, it is an argument against the globalization of energy. Think about it this way: Thomas Friedman has argued that no two countries that have a McDonalds–that is, two countries that have opened themselves up to global markets–will go to war with one another, because they stand to lose more than they gain.  That theory more or less holds up as long as we are talking about consumer products, fast food chains, and the like, but it falls apart when we start talking about natural resources.  Simply put, energy and water are not Barbie dolls and McDonalds; nations cannot do without them, and therefore the countries rich in fossil fuels hold too much sway on the global stage.

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environment  / Huffington Post  / Renewable Energy

I Am Now A LEED Accredited Professional!
August 25, 2008

Passing the LEED Exam

Last Thursday I took–and passed!–the LEED accreditation exam.  LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and it is a performance-based rating system for green buildings established by the U.S Green Building Council.  It has come to be accepted as the benchmark for green building, and covers all aspects of a building, from materials, to energy, water and building operation.  Becoming a LEED accredited professional (LEED AP) allows you to be a consultant on a LEED project, and it is also something you can put after your name to improve your credibility.

How LEED works

I studied for about a month to pass the exam, which consists of 80 questions covering all aspects of the rating system.  The way LEED works is that the points are broken down into 5 topic areas: Sustainable Sites; Energy & Atmosphere; Water Efficiency; Materials and Resources; and Indoor Air Quality.  A final category rewards efforts that don’t fall under the other topic areas.  Within each category, points are awarded for achieving environmental performance.  For instance, 1-10 points can be earned in the Energy & Atmosphere, depending on the energy-efficiency of the building.  Each category has pre-requisites that must be earned, and depending on how many points the project is awarded a building can be rated anywhere from LEED certified to LEED platinum.  (Learn more about how LEED works here)

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Business  / environment  / News

The Garmin 705: Making Cycling Even More Efficient and Fun
August 25, 2008

I wrote this article for Treehugger.  It can be seen in its original context here

garmin gps unit photo

The Garmin 705 Mounted to my Touring Bike



GPS Units Are Useful

Affordable GPS units are tremendously useful, enabling scientists to track global warming, drivers to save fuel, indigenous groups to document environmental destruction, and so on.  GPS is also used for fun and recreation; for instance, geo-caching is a popular “high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world” that gets people outdoors, and for several years Garmin has sold GPS units for bicycles that display speed, distance covered, etc.

Combining the Fun and Functionality of GPS

All this is great, but what if we could combined the usefulness of GPS technology along with the fun?  Well, I recently purchased a Garmin Edge 705, which does just that.  The 705 has all the features of a standard GPS bicycle computer (speed, distance), but it also provides turn-by-turn directions and maps anywhere in North America.  Bicycles are already the most efficient form of transportation, but getting lost on a bicycle (especially at night) is not only tiring and frustrating, but can potentially be dangerous.  So I was especially excited about putting the 705 on my bike and testing things out.

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environment  / TreeHugger Job

Dealing With The Variability of Renewable Energy Forces Us To be Smart
August 24, 2008

I wrote this article for the Huffington Post.  It can be seen in its original context here



The thing about fossil fuels is that they enable utilities, planners and policy-makers to, in effect, be dumb.  Because fossil fuel is essentially stored solar energy, the fuel can simply be pulled out of the ground, transported to a large power plant and burned.  No attention needs to be paid to wind speeds, cloud cover or tides.  Of course, we know that the entire supply chain of conventional energy–from extraction, to processing, to transportation and on to burning the fossil fuel–lead to social, political and environmental degradation, the costs of which are getting higher and higher. 

Moving to renewable energy sources helps mitigate those costs, yet it also forces societies to be smart about energy.  To put it simply, that’s because renewable energy sources are variable, and different regions can posses vastly different renewable resources.  This variability can be a problem for utilities, because they need to constantly supply enough power to meet demand.  According to a recent study by the Rocky Mountain Insitute (RMI), “In the past, utilities believed that they had to compensate for this variability by installing more traditional, fossil-fueled power plants. The more wind or solar power on the grid, the thinking went, the greater the need for backup generating facilities to be there when the wind or sun wasn’t.”

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environment  / Huffington Post  / Renewable Energy

Two Models for Financing the Energy Revolution
August 17, 2008

I wrote this article for the Huffington Post.  It can be read in its original context here

We Don’t Need Better Panels but Rather Better Politicians and Bankers

One of the key aspects of Gore’s challenge to produce 100% of America’s energy from renewable sources within a decade is his belief that we already have the requisite technology to do so.  And in fact, most experts will tell you that while meeting his challenge will require a lot of innovation, (we need to develop better grid control and energy storage systems, for instance) the main challenge is not technological but rather political and financial.  In other words, we’ve got the engineers and designers, but we lack the right kind of politicians and bankers.

The political challenge is best exemplified by the fact that the Congress left for its summer recess without having extended crucial tax credits for wind, solar and energy efficiency.  As Thomas Friedman pointed out, “both the wind and solar industries depend on these credits—which expire in December—to scale their businesses and become competitive with coal, oil and natural gas.” As a result of political infighting, dozens of renewable energy projects slated to begin next year have been put on hold.

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environment  / Huffington Post  / Renewable Energy

Why Cycling is To Transportation What Efficiency is to Energy
August 5, 2008

cyclist going uphill image

The author, on his 2005 cross-country bicycle trip, proving that cycling can be sexy!

I wrote this article for TreeHugger.  It can be seen in its original context here



Until the recent spike in gas prices, much of the discussion about solving our transportation problems–namely, emissions from cars and dependence on foreign oil–centered on increasing the efficiency of the vehicles we drive through higher CAFE standards and new designs.  Lately, the discussion has expanded to include the importance of public transportation, walkable cities and, to a lesser extent, cycling.  However, even as alternatives to driving have become more prominent in public discourse, the fact of the matter is that people get far more excited about the Chevy Volt and the Tesla Roadster than they do about hybrid-electric buses and bicycle lanes.

Shiny Cars and Solar Panels Get More Attention

In much the same way, when it comes to solving our energy crisis there is always more enthusiasm for renewable energy technologies, like wind and solar, than there is for energy efficiency.  When it comes down to it, fancy cars and shiny solar panels are just sexier than riding a bicycle and installing triple-glazed windows.  At the same time, cycling–which is the most efficient form of transportation–and energy efficiency, are by far the cheapest means of addressing a wide range of issues, from climate change, to congestion to high energy prices.

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environment  / philosophy  / TreeHugger Job

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