Green Options

Global Solar Center just finished a comprehensive, 50-state survey of solar incentives and adoption. Who leads the nation? It is surprising. As they say, it is the states who were “solar laggards” that are now “solar leaders”. But incentives aren’t the only issue.

Is your Resolution to Kickstart the Next Clean Revolution?

A post by contributing writer Melissa Chungfat.

I talked to one of my friend’s yesterday and she told me that the staff Christmas party wasn’t nearly as joyful as in previous years. Half of the people who came to the party were let go. There have been record layoffs since the economy has gone south, and it’s hard to talk to someone whose family hasn’t been impacted in some way.

This post was originally published on the Eco-Libris blog on December 2nd.

The holiday season has just begun and if you already start thinking about gifts, we hope you think about books. A good book is always a great gift! So how about a green-themed book that is both interesting/fun/valuable (or all at once) and affordable?

To help you find the best green books to give as gifts this holiday season, Eco-Libris blog is continuing the tradition we started last year and presenting a new holiday guide. This year we have a very special guide with recommendations from people who are involved in the green economy, or as we call it “The Green Collar Holiday Gift Guide for Book Lovers.”

The guide includes 50 recommendations of great green-themed books that will be a good fit as holiday gifts. As you will see the guide is not only about the books, but also about the people who recommend it. We tried to personalize the guide as much as possible so we will learn not only about green books but also about the people who carry the green economy on their shoulders.

Therefore with each recommendation you will find a personal angle that presents the recommender, his workplace and/or why they chose that specific book to recommend on.

We will bring you the guide in five parts that will be published in the next 10 days, starting today. Enjoy!

A post by contributing guest writer Melissa Chungfat.

I’ve been seeing a lot of Thomas Friedman on the tube talking about his book Hot, Flat, and Crowded. The three-time Pulitzer Prize winner is getting a lot of buzz stressing the necessity of a green global industry. Ecopreneurs are key in developing innovative solutions to deal with the tremendous global environmental problems.

The book title refers to the convergence of global warming, the rise of the middle class, and the exponential population growth. These factors drive the following five trends over their tipping point:

• Energy and resource
• Petro dictatorship
• Biodiversity loss
• Climate change
• Energy poverty

In our culture of convenience, so many people want to help the environment – if they can keep all of their luxuries; they want to green their habits – if it’s convenient enough; they want to buy green products – if it’s easy enough to find. But this attitude won’t fly anymore with the problems we are facing.

This is a guest submission from John Addison, Publisher of the Clean Fleet Report.

My ninth trip to teach a workshop at Two World Trade Center never happened because of the great tragedy 9/11. On September 11, 2001, thanks to heroes like Avel Villanueva the hundreds of people working for Sun Microsystems in Two World Trade Center all quickly evacuated the building and survived. “Please, with calmness, go to the nearest exit. This is not a drill. Get out.” Only after several pages and inspecting the vast 25th and 26th floors did Avel personally leave. Three minutes later the second plane hit Two World Trade Center.

As our current president reminds us, “We are addicted to oil.” As we continue to spend billions for oil for countries hostile to our way of life, we continue in the words of Thomas Friedman to “finance both sides of the war on terror.” In his new book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, the Pulitzer Prize winning author shows us how to be free of this addiction.

Americans are not waiting ten years to replace a fraction of our foreign oil with new oil from Alaska. Americans are reducing our oil use now. Confronted with high prices at the pump, U.S. citizens drove 12 billion fewer miles in one month. People are taking advantage of flexwork, public transit, car pooling, sharing rides and sharing vehicles.

Tom Brokaw’s latest interview on Meet the Press with Thomas Friedman covers the politics of energy, the emergence of the United States as a leader in “E.T.,” and Friedman’s new book, Hot, Flat and Crowded. Friedman suggests that “E.T. (Energy Technology) is going to be the next IT.”

Related Posts

Opposition for Opposition’s Sake? Thomas Friedman Gets a Pie in the Face
Friedman Video Blocked on YouTube - Greenwas Guerillas Respond

Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens has received a glut of media attention recently for his plan to develop the largest wind power project in the world. Now the New York Times suggests that Pickens might have a visionary counterpart in Shai Agassi, an Israeli software entrepreneur obsessed with making Israel the world leader in electric cars.

Agassi, along with his company Better Place, have an Israeli government-backed plan to create an electric car program that will give subscribers access to a car, a battery, and outlets across Israel. Subscribers will also be able to swap dead batteries for fresh ones in designated garages.

Better Place will run the smart grid that charges the electric cars. The company is also currently contracting for enough solar energy energy to power the whole fleet, which will roll out next year with 500 cars built by Renault.

But Agassi’s vision doesn’t end with Israeli electric cars.

As we previously reported, New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman was officially “pied” last week, while giving an Earth Day Lecture at Brown University. Friedman was ambushed just as he began his talk, entitled “Green is the new Red, White & Blue.” The group that claimed responsibility call themselves “The Greenwash Guerillas.” In a statement issued today, they said they targeted Friedman…

“Because of his support for U.S. military intervention in the Middle East, neo-liberal economic policies that harm the world’s poor, and especially for promoting bogus solutions to the global climate crisis.“

“We sought to expose the hypocrisy of allowing Friedman, who is known for his influential support of U.S. wars for oil in the Middle East, to call himself an environmentalist,” said Margaret Little, the Brown University student responsible for the creamy projectiles.

As if on cue, the kind of oppositional tactics used by radical environmentalists at a few Earth Day 1970 events that I just wrote about, emerged on Earth Day 2008 when Thomas Friedman took a pie in the face at Brown University [jump to video]. Friedman, of the New York Times and author of the bestselling The World is Flat, was ambushed just as his Earth Day talk on the politics and economics of global energy use had begun.

The action, as well as the ensuing discussions over at the blogs It’s Getting Hot in Here, and the Huffington Post, underscore the longstanding divide within the environmental movement between those who believe we should work within the system to address our most pressing environmental issues, and those who believe that the system itself is the cause of the environmental problems.