Green Options

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Here’s an idea even the most un-green person could warm up to: a four-day work week.

Several communities across the U.S. are considering four-day work weeks for government employees as a way to reduce commuting demands and gas consumption. The various efforts have typically been inspired by today’s record-high fuel prices, but the idea promises other benefits too: lower greenhouse gas emissions, happier and more well-rested employees and cost savings elsewhere (i.e., less energy to cool/heat and light offices, reduced need for work-time child-care, etc.).

Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva has introduced legislation to withdraw approximately one million acres near the Grand Canyon from mineral exploration under the 1872 Mining Act.

In a news release, the Congressman was quoted as saying:

“I was pleased to introduce this legislation which will forever protect the magnificence of the Grand Canyon and the people who live near and in the Canyon from damaging uranium mining,” said Rep. Grijalva. “The federal government and mining

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I was going through the headlines, just waiting for something to drag me out of my lethargy, and it happened. The New York Times posted a headline reading “Uranium Exploration Near Grand Canyon”, and that excited my first bit of exercise for the day; the hair stood up on the back of my neck.

What an outrage! But, before going on, I must say it isn’t the first time they’ve mined uranium in the Kaibab National Forest, near the Grand Canyon. That stopped when the price of uranium plummeted more than two decades ago.

Now, with the resurgence of interest in building new reactors across the country, the miners and prospectors are out again. Which I find rather interesting since the United States and Russia just signed an agreement allowing Russia to sell uranium to the United States. I gotta think about that one.

There was very little new in Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford’s(D-AZ) wedding to Astronaut Mark Kelly. There was plenty of something old, borrowed and blue, however, as the couple were married in the small community of Amado, south of Tucson, AZ on Saturday.  Giffords, a staunch and outspoken proponent of solar power and everything environmental, made her statement well with a “low carbon footprint” wedding, complete with plates and forks made of sugar cane, a borrowed kiddish cup […]

The people whose land we occupied so many years ago have not been given their fair share of our prosperity. Right now, there are more than 10,000 Native American households in Arizona that have no access to electricity. Shamefully, that’s 7% of all Native American households without electricity in America.

Arizona is making an effort to bring electricty to it’s Native American residents through a new program called the Tribal

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