What Can I Say?

This week the first African-American (and bi-racial person for that matter) was sworn in as president of the United States of America.  He is a man who has promised an open government that makes decisions based on science and reason.  To move our country towards the future and to stop clinging to an outdated past.  To move towards green energy and away from black oil. If he does 10% of what he has promised, he will be a 'philospher king.'  I am so damn proud. What more can I say?

If you missed his innaugral address, you can watch it here: Whitehouse.gov

Getting Off my Ass for Obama

After watching the speech and video describing President-elect Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, I decided to do my small part to support the effort. Here is the e-mail I sent to Senators Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker and to Representative Gene Taylor:

Dear Senator Cochran,  

As a Mississippi resident and state employee at the University of Southern Mississippi I wanted to voice my support of President-elect Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan. This is where I want my tax dollar spent; retooling America to be a leader in sustainability while fixing our crumbling infrastructure and creating millions of jobs. Know that I speak for many 30 somethings who believe that green is not only good for the planet but good for the American economy. This is the time for us, the greatest nation on earth, to lead. This is the time to show the world that we are the innovators, able to harness the collective good of humanity to revive the ailing world economy and save mother earth in the process. At a more local level, the state of Mississippi needs new jobs especially with events such as the unfortunate postponement of the planned Toyota Prius plant. Please support the President-elect's plan and let's move our state, our nation, and the world towards a brighter future.  

Sincerely,  

Matt Stambaugh

Would you like to do the same? If so, visit senate.gov and house.gov to find contact info for your senators and representative.

Getting Political

Merry Christmas(or Xmas), Happy Hanukkah, Festivus, Kwanzaa, or whatever you celebrate! I'm sure you are all spending time with your family and friends and not reading this post. Nonetheless, I did not want to miss doing my weekly post on green politics.

I'm sure most of you do the individual things to be green; recycle, walk instead of driving short distances, turn off the lights, etc. For those who want to do more here is a list of ways to get political. I'm lazy myself, so I've organized them from easy to hard.

The easy ways:

1. Contact your Senator and tell him or her what green initiatives you support. You can find contact information here: Senate.gov
2. Ditto with your Congressperson (and state and local reps). Contact info: House.gov
3. Check out Change.gov. This is the Obama transition team's official site and will be the public point of contact for the new administration. Here you can read blog posts about what Obama is up to and get involved in discussions. Obama is touting an open and communicative administration, but of course only time will tell.
4. Read and understand a candidate's (for local, state or federal office) platform before voting for them. This is usually published in the newspaper but you should be able to find it on their website (personally if they don't have a website, I would not vote for them).
5. Write letters to the editor of your local paper. This is especially useful for speaking out for or against local policy.
6. Start a green political blog. We use Blogger, which is free. Given the sea of green blogs out there, including ours, it might be wise to focus on you local government and try to get you fellow citizens to read and participate.

Harder:

1. Organize or join a protest.
2. Campaign for a green candidate.
3. Attend your City Council's meetings and speak about what you want changed.

Hard:

1. Become a green lobbyist at the state or federal level. You probably will need a lot of green cred first.
2. Run for office at the local, state or federal level. Only masochists need apply.

As for myself, I have done everything on the easy list except number 5, but I need to do it all a lot more. On the harder list, I did a bit of unofficial campaigning for Obama, i.e. word of mouth, but I don't think that really counts.

For number 3, if you read the comments for my December 10 post you will know I was challenged to stop just talking green politics and start walking the walk. I accepted the challenge and will be preparing a proposal requesting the City of Hattiesburg (MS) to initiate glass recycling (we currently have only paper, metal cans and plastic) and to offer curb-side recycling. I will attend the February City Council meeting and present my proposal.

I know Trevor has said he will do a similar thing in Lake Alfred, FL. What about the rest of y'all? Want to share your own political actions or other ways to get political?

The Greeniuses Buffet: Now Serving Tasty Green News

We're dishing out links hand-selected by The Greeniuses for your consumption.  Here are the daily specials:

• Green Building:  "First Net Zero Energy Commercial Building in Florida" from MarketWatch
• Green Investments:  "Profits triple at Envrionment & Ecology" from BusinessFirst
• Green Living:  "Downhill trend seen in number of miles driven by Americans" from The Dallas Morning News
• Green Politics:  "Obama Should Implement Carbon Tax" from TreeHugger
• Green Technology:  "Tokyo Station Installs New Floors to Generate Electricity" from GearCrave

Hungry for more?  Click here:  The Greeniuses Buffet

Obama Rounds Out his "Green Dream Team"

Today President-elect Obama announced that he has chosen Colorado Senator Ken Salazar for Secretary of Interior and Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack for Secretary of Agriculture. 

On Ken Salazer and Tom Vilsack, Obama had this to say (excerpts from speech given today):

"Ken will bring to the Department of the Interior an abiding commitment to this land we love. 

His family has farmed and ranched the same land in Colorado for five generations.  As a Senator from the great state of Colorado, he has been a champion for farmers, ranchers, and rural communities – from building a clean energy economy to setting aside 250,000 acres of Rocky Mountain National Park as wilderness."

"To lead a Department of Agriculture that helps unlock the potential of a 21st century agricultural economy, I can think of no one better than Tom Vilsack. As Governor of one of our most abundant farm states, he led with vision, promoting biotech to strengthen our farmers and fostering an agricultural economy of the future that not only grows the food we eat, but the energy we use. Tom understands that the solution to our energy crisis will be found not in oil fields abroad but in our farm fields here at home. That is the kind of leader I want in my cabinet." (And yes that is his Myspace profile picture)

Go to the change.gov blog post for more on this announcement and to read or watch Obama's speech.

Watch This Video: Obama Announces Energy Team

This is perhaps one of the most forward looking and important speeches a president has given in decades.

Update 12.17.08

In an admittedly self-serving post, change.gov compiled a list of praise for the "green dream team" announced on Monday. Check it out.

Global Fighting Over Global Warming

This Dot Earth blog story on the United Nations Climate Change Conferance which just convened in Poznan, Poland is perhaps the most important and underreported news story of the past two weeks. This conferance was essentially to discuss and negotiate the intitial terms for the next UN climate initiative which will replace Kyoto when it expires in 2012. This article discusses that things did not go so well.

The article is interesting, but I found the comments to be even more so with a mix of relevant comments and a spur of the moment "debate" between Global Warming believors and doubtors. 

Here is my addition to the fray:

I am another of the "fools" who has bought into the myth of Global Warming. It snowed here in southern Mississippi last week so that must mean Global Warming is a lie. Please. I think we should start using Friedman's term "Global Weirding" and perhaps these inane "But it's not hot here" arguments will end.

To not leave without being relevant to the article, I'll add my 2 cents. It's been said before, but I think the most important thing is to find solutions that have a relatively immediate and tangible benefit to rich and poor countries alike. I don't know what this is, but sadly if the only benefit is "for the good of mankind" many countries will not buy in. You can't blame the poor for this attitude and wouldn't expect anything less from the rich.

Matt Stambaugh
Webmaster and Contributor
www.thegreeniuses.com

Local Green

Last week I looked a few articles covering global trends in Green Politics, this week I’m going micro and discussing a couple of stories about local Green.

Florida is going Green from the Ground Up. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has launched an initiative that “provides the lodging industry with free technical assistance, encouraging hotels and motels to adopt cost-saving “green” practices that reduce waste, conserve natural resources and improve the bottom line.” My home state of Florida is a hotspot for tourists so this imitative could be a huge step towards Green if the lodging industry participates in this initiative.

Gwinnett County, Georgia is getting serious about recycling by imposing a $500 fine for those who don’t separate recyclables from trash. It is good to see my last state of residence taking such a strong step towards Green. I for one support punitive measures, if and only if the government has made things relatively easy for citizens to be Green. In this case it is warranted because you can't get much easier than curb-side recycling.

As for my current locale, after living in Gainesville, Fl and Athens, Ga, where curb-side recycling is the norm, it’s sad to live in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where not only is curb-side recycling not available but you can’t even recycle glass anywhere in the county. And Hattiesburg is a freaking college town! Imagine the rest of Mississippi. Not to be too hard on my new home, but we have a long way to go.

What’s going on in your local areas? What needs to happen?

(Side note: It's snowing, I mean full on snowing, here in Mississippi today. Crazy.)

Green is Not Just Local It's Global

Here are a few story as evidence of this trend.

• “Green” Politicians in Canada may gain majority due to missteps of conservative prime minister. It’s good to see our neighbor to the north going green. If Obama’s economic and environmental plan goes forward the U.S. could be in a great position to create a green coalition with other first world countries like Canada.
• Nations of Africa to vote as one bloc in support of tighter restrictions on carbon emissions in upcoming meeting in Poland to update the Kyoto Protocol, which is set to expire in 2012. More evidence that the world is starting to demand more sustainable systems. If things like Kyoto really begin to be accepted and are given teeth for enforcement, globalization will spread green like wildfire.
• The U.S. Army is taking a modest step towards green with the planned lease of 4,000 electric vehicles. How do you know a green revolution has started? When an ultra conservative and traditional institution like the U.S. Army starts embracing it. Green Government Contracts anyone?
  

I think this is a historic time, a chance for the U.S. to regain its positive image by leading the efforts towards a greener world economy. Perhaps though a little competition is in order. If another world power, say China, starts really moving towards green it could exhilarate global green efforts tremendously. Now before you call me a commy, look what we did during the Cold War. We put a freaking man on the moon, when less than 50 years earlier no one had even flown solo across the Atlantic Ocean! What do y'all think?

Green New Deal

Mike posted about this on Saturday, but I was reading an article this morning and came across the most amazing point.

"It's a smart thing to do for the economy and a strategically wonderful thing to do for the environment," said David Foster, executive director of the Blue Green Alliance, a partnership between the Sierra Club and United Steelworkers that works to develop green jobs. His group points to a University of Massachusetts report earlier this fall that said a $100 billion investment in clean technology could create 2 million new jobs in the next two years.

"It leads us down the path for energy independence," he said. "It's a historic opportunity."

That's 1/7 of the bank bailout, or roughly 10 months in Iraq to create 2 million new jobs. I think Obama needs to get rolling on this while he's got support in congress. Can't we inaugurate him now.

Obama's Energy & Environment Agenda

From the Change.gov web site:  Energy & Environment agenda

Some aspects of their agenda that could be good for start-ups:

1. "Deploy the Cheapest, Cleanest, Fastest Energy Source--Energy Efficiency"...This seems like a great endorsement for consultants who could help businesses and individuals maximize their energy efficiency.  Especially if Obama puts in place incentives for reducing energy usage.
2. "Weatherize One Million Homes Annually"...This is pretty obviously a good omen for a construction company who would focus on this.

What other opportunities might be good for start-ups?

Obama's weekly radio address on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y__slnk7oSU

This is the video of the speech that the article Lombard just posted references.

NY Times article: Obama Vows Swift Action on Vast Economic Stimulus Plan

Good article reinforcing yet again that the government will invest in our infrastructure, including a green energy system:

Obama Vows Swift Action on Vast Economic Stimulus Plan

The Green Revolution is inevitable in my mind.