Lower Your Cholesterol and Save the Planet!

Check out this Washington Post article entitled Gut Check: The Meat of the Problem by Ezra Klein.

It discusses a 2006 United Nations report which finds that the production of meat is one of the worst sources of greenhouse gases, trumping even the global transport sector. It also says "a study out of Carnegie Mellon University found that the average American would do less for the planet by switching to a totally local diet than by going vegetarian one day a week."

While I am a biased vegetarian, I think the article (and the Carnegie Mellon study, which is readable by a layperson such as myself, although there are some econometrics that are above my head) is a fairly mild rebuke of meat eaters and meat production with the modest recommendation for people to cut back, not eliminate, their consumption of meat and dairy products.

So what do you carnivours think?

ReBurbia

Living in the vast suburbs of Dallas-Ft. Worth, I have a true
understanding of the need for "re-burbinization." Check out this
competition:

http://www.re-burbia.com/

That Would Save Some Trees

From The New York Times:

"Democratic Group's Proposal: Give Each Student a Kindle"

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/democratic-groups-proposal-give-each-student-a-kindle/index
.

I'm an avid reader, and I own a Kindle, and it's way, way better than
reading a paper book. Plus, think of all those trees.

Mahout'n it Up in Thailand

In about a week my wife and I are flying to Thailand for a vacation to celebrate the defense of her PhD dissertation.

Let's get the dirty part out of the way.  Between the two of us, we are laying down an elephant-sized carbon footprint with our flights half-way around the world. This is slightly tempered by the fact that we have not flown much at all in the last few years.  Certainly not a greenius move though.

We are going to be doing some so-called ecotourism by visiting and staying at the Thailand Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang, Thailand.  We will be doing one of the Mahout Training Courses. 

A Mahout is essentially an elephant master.  Southeast Asia has a long history of domesticating elephants and Mahouts have been an essential part of this process.  For thousands of years Mahouts and their elephants were employed in agriculture, most recently in the logging industry in Thailand. Recently though the Thai government outlawed the use of elephants for such purposes. This has led to hundreds of Mahouts and their elephants being out of work and it is not cheap to keep a multi-ton animal well fed.  A lot of these pairs now roam cities begging for money in exchange for quick rides on the elephant or worse the elephants are killed because the Mahout can not take care of it anymore. (For a more in-depth account and interesting commentary from someone who has gone to the TECC go here.)

As you may know, Marija and I are both vegetarians and vocal advocates for animal rights. We did a lot of research in trying to decide whether or not to visit this center. Marija is pretty much completely against zoos and the like that keep animals in captivity. I am a good bit more torn on the issue.  I would love to see man stop encroaching on the natural world and even revert a lot of "civilization" back to a more pristine state, but I know this ain't happening.  I think the best we can work for is a sustainable hybrid existence between civilization and nature, which I think if stable over time the natural world can adapt to eventually.  In my opinion, well-run nature-like zoos and ecotourism sites fit within this thinking, especially if they are able to keep a threatened species going through captive breeding programs.

So off we go to Thailand to experience for ourselves whether this ecotourism business is sustainable and an acceptable home for these threatened giants. I'll post a follow up in this regard when we return.

Have any of you done any ecotourism and if so what is your opinion of it as a green or not so green enterprise?

Google Rolls Out Home Energy Software - Green Inc. Blog - NYTimes.com

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/google-rolls-out-home-energy-software/

A Greenius On Hold

In an effort to perhaps nudge my fellow greeniuses and myself out of hibernation, I thought I would ramble on for a few paragraphs. That is, a stream of consciousness(well one edited for grammar at least) to answer this question: Why have I stopped blogging?

Reason 1: I Got Busy
I am working full time and taking MBA classes part time. This semester did seam to be more time consuming than last semester. This excuse no longer holds (at least not until September) since I am done with spring classes and not taking summer classes. Actually, this excuse can never hold, as all adults who care about meeting their responsibilities are always busy. Since this is de facto reality, one can only learn to do things faster(smarter) and/or cut out those things that are not important to free up time.

Reason 2: A Sort of Stretched Out ADD
I do not posses the manic constantly shifting thought process of someone with true ADD, nor have I ever been accused of being the least bit hyperactive (Mike can attest to this). Nonetheless, I do have a sort of stretched out ADD in that I lose and regain interest in things, not second by second but at least month to month. This is certainly a part of the human condition. That is why sticking to a cause is such a challenge. You have to constantly remind yourself how important certain things are to you.

Reason 3: Laziness
While Reason 1 has merit, but as I said being busy is just the way of life, and Reason 2 explains why my interest has waned, laziness is certainly a big part of my lack of blogging. Even with my busy semester there have been ample moments when I could have read and/or blogged on green subjects, but I decided to do some mindless activity like watch television. Sure I was busy and tired, but what I do here is important. Not important in that I am going to change the world through my brilliant and insightful prose, but in that I am changing myself and perhaps nudging my friends, family and acquaintances in the same direction.

What do you guys think? Why has your green light bulb been turned off?

Where did everyone go?

It's been awfully quiet around here recently. I was sort of hoping for a raging debate centered on that last post, but you all let me down (except you Matt, thanks.) On a different note, I've recently caught the Investing Bug and have been spending more and more of my time eyeballing stocks and trading like a madman. I feel like a drunkard sitting in a sports book in Vegas; and with this stock market that's not altogether inaccurate. The reason for this post is to recommend a cheap stock I found that has done well for me. Here is a link that will give you more info if you're interested. I haven't bothered with editing the address, so it will take you away from this site when you click it. Just lazy.
http://bestgreenpennystocks.com/

I figured it was time for me to finally post something here since I am listed as a "contributor".

I read an interesting article today about Obama's new science advisor, John Holdren, and his ideas on how to cool the Earth's atmosphere. Holdren is a proponent of geoengineering the climate to lower global temperatures. An example of geoengineering would be building artificial trees that pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The most extreme option listed was to reflect heat from the sun by dispersing pollution into the upper atmosphere.



I'm excited to see new technology to deal with environmental issues, but Frankenstein's monster keeps popping into my head. Could we actually do more harm than good by playing around with the environment? What are your thoughts on geoengineering?

Not Dead

Just wanted to stop by the ol' blog and let everyone know I am still among the living. The MBA program has been very time consuming this semester and will continue to be so for the next month.

While I am not reading as much on green, I am still trying to live it as much as possible. A few updates:

1. I am still incessantly bugging my co-workers to recycle, turn computers off at end of day, and reduce their paper use. I can't directly quantify it but it does seem there has been slight improvement by most of them, although a few are still waste tornadoes who leave a trail of trashed recyclables and wasted resources in their wake.

2. I have greened my house a bit more. I now have every electronic gadget on power strips which I turn off when not in use.

3. I made my first green investment. I purchased 183 shares of General Electric stock, largely because the share price was so low but also because of GE's commitment to green technology.

4. I have not forgotten about my pledge to go before the Hattiesburg city council and argue for the implementation of a glass recycling program. I will find the time to do it this summer.

5. Finally, all of this greenius activity was completely negated when I flew to Chicago last week. Doh!

Wasteful Wendy's

When going through the drive-thru at Wendy's to pick up some dope Chili, I always ask for NO crackers. I don't eat crackers with my chili. So, they always comply by giving me 7 packets of crackers.  Lovely.  Think about how many thousands of times per day this happens.  That's a lot of wasted money for Wendy's and a lot of unnecessary trash headed to the landfill.

Green Building Tips from the Dilbert Blog

A pretty good primer on basic energy-saving building techniques from the Dilbert blog:

"Twelve Rules of Energy Efficient Building"

These principles are so easy for a builder to follow.  It's a shame that homes aren't built this way by default, as a standard.  Maybe some day soon.

Houston Bush Airport Still Sucks

Yeah, I pretty much hate going through Houston's Bush Intercontinental
Airport, but at least they have recycling bins. That should cancel out
about one second worth of air travel-caused pollution.

Cap and Trade

In an effort as much to get things going again around here as to make you all aware of this article, I have posted an article from the Wall Street Journal (I trust you have no objection to this as a credible news source, Mike) regarding the president's plan to put a price on carbon and the early resistance it is encountering. Without flying too far off the handle in expressing my extreme distaste for the socialist agenda being forced down our throats right now, I have to say that this "cap and trade" crap is just an absolutely awful idea. I'm all for the setting aside of millions of acres for wildlife preserves (and was disappointed but not surprised when that got shot down), but this strikes me as just another tax to pay for other changes. Climate change laws and taxes need to be fully debated and examined piece by piece, not forced on the environment and economy by an inexperienced team with an agenda. We all know I am extremely skeptical regarding man-made global warming, due to the fact that the long-range computer models used to prove man-made global warming are consistently proven to be inaccurate; among other reasons, but the idea of "ramming this through" aka "shoving it up the taxpayers' asses" is insanity regardless of what side of the isle you're on. Matt, I can hear your wheels spinning from here and I'm glad because this needs to be debated and then debated some more by all sides as this is something that will effect every one of us.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123679042118496965.html
P.S. For some reason, I can't get this link to work the way I want it to. Sorry for the inconvenience. I'll work on dealing with this issue for future posts, but I'm tired of fighting it right now.

A bank with a community first "green" agenda.

So it has been several weeks since I was willing much less able to post a green investment blog entry. The market in general has been so decidedly bad that unless you have been sitting on the sidelines in all cash you have most certainly been hurt by this downward movement.

I feel like I have finally found a company, a bank no less, worth keeping an eye on. Not only for it's stance on green but also as a potential future investment.

ShoreBank is the name, "Let's Change the World" is the motto.

If you click on the motto above it links you to the page on how ShoreBank is helping its customers become more enviromentally sound. This is done mainly through education of customers and providing loans aimed at renovating existing buildings to bring them up to "green speed."

ShoreBank is currently a privately head company operating mainly in the midwest and parts of the northwest. The company shows revenue of 97.1 million for 2007. It will be interesting to keep an eye on them to see if the business model is viable going forward.

(*as a side note I have been telling anyone who asks to move their 401k or other investment dollars into a money market and wait until we see some relief before jumping back into stocks. This bear market is not done with the punishment as we could very easily dip down to the 6000 level on the Dow.)

New Mexico Paradise

This is pretty much my dream project:

http://tinyurl.com/buksv4

Not the one home, but the whole concept for the community. Proceeds go
to preserving the preserve! Awesome.

Sent from my iPhone

More Gloom and Doom

Check out this article recently posted on FoxNews.com. I sure wish I could find something a bit more cheerful to post, but this is worth reading.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,499244,00.html

Hydraulic Hybrids

This is from my buddy Jake and since he's done all the work, I'll copy his email verbatim.

"So I guess this is a few months old now, but I just read about it the other day at the doc's office:

Car & Driver Article

Basically the hydraulic hybrid setup is slowly being adopted and tested on UPS trucks (just 7 planned for '09/10), which is a perfect market/test-bed for it. They get about 45-50% increase in fuel economy and 30% decrease in emissions. Plus all the trucks are centrally maintained so the data can be monitored closely.

Another article from Wired:"

What can Brown do for Green?

Best Buy Going Green

Best Buy is offering electronics recylcing nationwide. Most items are free, although some cost $10 but they give you a $10 gift card in exchange. Read more here: Best Buy Recycling Program

Cow Farts & Beer

Not to pander to the lowest common denominator, but like I tell my son, "Farting is always funny." Writing about farts is also pretty funny, so to honor fellow Greenius Pat, I'll link to an article that discusses how the Denmark tax commission is considering a greenhouse "gas" emissions tax on farmers. They estimate that a cow's carbon "output" is almost double that of a passenger car (which sounds absurdly high, but I have no idea about such things). Is this is a government's misdirected attempt to raise taxes under the cloak of environmentalism? Or is it the greatest idea ever? I guess if the farmers could actually do something about the "emissions" of the cows, I could "get behind" this. Thoughts? Sorry for the pun overload. It was necessary.

Remember this gem from Dubya...



According to this article, he may be right about something (finally). These guys have figured out a way to feed fish with the byproduct of brewing beer. So, in effect, the more beer we drink the more fish we feed. I loved the suggestion that their research must have been pouring beer into their fish tanks in college.

Remember in school, when you learned about native Americans and how they used every part of the animals that they killed. It's almost like our society is coming full-circle from those days to the wasteful years in between and now we may actually use our brains to reduce our impact on this world. And in doing so, we'll end up more efficient and wealthier. Have a great weekend, and do your part to save the fish.

I'm Becoming a Greench

One side-effect of my effort to become a Greenius is that I have become a Greench; that is a Green Grinch.  I try hard to reduce, reuse, and recycle.  At work I try to be aware of the resources I use. For example, I think whether a note requires a mini sticky note, a full-size sticky note, a printed page, or will suffice to stay purely in electronic format. Instead of replacing the shredder with a new garbage bag every time it gets full, I dump the shredded paper and reuse the bag. I’m not perfect of course and when the proverbial shit hits the fan and I’m busy multitasking these efforts often fall to the wayside. The point though is that I do make a concerted effort to reduce my environmental impact.

As I’ve ranted about in a previous post, my co-workers are not so thoughtful.  Many of them still throw recyclables in the trash, go through paper like hungry goats, drink 3 bottles of water per day, and generally just don’t care about reducing waste.  It’s not as if they don’t know better. I try to educate them and make it as easy as possible to do the green thing. It really comes down to not being aware of and trying to change their wasteful habits, something we all are guilty of at times

Despite this realization that nobody is perfect, I can’t help but feel that I am the only one who gives a damn about our home the earth.  I feel as if I am surrounded by uncaring houseguests who leave their crap out, eat all my food, and feel they are entitled to do so.  I have often been tempted to remove the 20 oz soda bottle from the garbage can and lob it at the head of the offender.  Fortunately for my job security I have to this point been able to control my spurts of rage.

I don’t want to become a Greench, whose heart has shrunk and who has given up on his fellow humans.  I want to continue believing that mankind will realize that you shouldn’t trash your home, especially when you have 7 billion roommates and trillions of pets.  What do you guys and gals think? Besides our efforts here on the blog, what else can we do to get others to buy into green?