There are a lot of small, easy things you can do to get the most out of your AC and lighten the energy load for savings in your energy bill.

Don't touch that thermostat
The magic number is 78 degrees. In most climates this is a comfortable temperature setting. Each degree higher than that will save you 6 to 8 percent in cooling costs. You can also set it a couple degrees higher when you're not home.

Lowering the set temperature won't cool your place any quicker and will only wind up costing you more energy. Keep it at a constant temperature. The AC unit will regulate itself as designed.

Fair Trade is certainly not perfect, and I think in the honest interest of bettering the global economy, we are obligated to highlight its failures when they become apparent, and offer suggestions for improvement. We've discussed some other failures in previous posts and comments but a recent allegation in the UK highlights one of the major shortcomings of the movement in accomplishing its goal of a fairer trade system for the global economy's most disadvantaged citizens.

The BBC reported on May 23rd that workers at Pratt's Bananas, the UK's largest banana ripener (yes, they buy bananas, import and ripen them), and a ripener of some Fair Trade bananas, has been exploiting workers in just the ways Fair Trade attempts to stem. Workers complained of working six to seven days a week for 10-12 hour shifts, sometimes without breaks, if they did not meet strict quotas. One woman is taking the company to an industrial tribunal claiming her forced exertion caused her to miscarry.

The Ford Model T and the Chevy Volt: Image Sources: University of Houston, Edmonds.com

I was reflecting over the weekend on just how far we’ve come in the past 100 years or so, and I’d like to do some reminiscing. Old folks are prone to do that since we have so many “miles” stacked up. So humor me.

This was a little before my time, but back in the early 1900’s, Henry Ford began production of his Model T, the Volkswagen of its time. The really interesting thing about his new car was that it ran on ethanol, or gasoline, or a combination of the two. As a matter of fact, Ford was quoted as predicting ethanol was the fuel of the future. His vision was to “build a vehicle affordable to the working family and powered by a fuel (ethanol) that would boost the rural farm community.” He also became fascinated with soybean-based plastics through his relationship with George Washington Carver.

In 1942, Ford patented an automobile using a tubular welded frame and a body made almost entirely of plastic derived from soybeans. According to Wikipedia, the vehicle weighed 30% less than a steel car, ran on ethanol instead of gasoline, and could withstand impacts ten times greater than could steel. WWII was underway, and the concept was lost in the demand for war materials.

Erik Blachford is the new CEO of TerraPass, a carbon offset company. When a consumer buys a carbon offset to offset the emissions from their driving, a trip, or even a wedding, TerraPass uses that money to fund renewable energy products.

Erik has never been a full-time environmentalist, although he is member of a few national organizations. In a former life he was the CEO of Expedia, although he left the company before its partnership with TerraPass was established. Erik is excited about the new venture, explaining on a recent blog post,

“Back in Internet pre-history, at the dawn of online travel, nobody knew you could even check airline ticket prices online, much less book tickets. Now almost half of all travel is booked online. I think we’re at the beginning of another explosion in consumer awareness, this time in the voluntary carbon markets.”

I spoke with Erik by phone on May 25th.

Green Options: How do you respond to carbon offset skeptics? For example, the argument that offsets are just an easy way for people to pay off their pollution without much sacrifice.

Erik Blachford: I hear that argument a lot, but it’s not accurate as to what TerraPass does. People who buy carbon offsets aren’t just sitting back afterwards and thinking they’ve done their duty. These people are active in other ways, too: they’re very in tuned to the problem and the other solutions. Furthermore, carbon offsets are a voluntary enterprise; no one is forcing someone to buy carbon offsets.

However, there is also a lot of talk about common umbrella standards for carbon offsets, and I think TerraPass and our customers would be better served with them. Our industry needs consumer protection standards. Right now it’s unregulated, and the consumer has to be very cautious. Consumers are taking the initiative and doing the research on which carbon offset programs are legitimate, but they shouldn’t be expected to do all of the work.

Sureerut Taechusakul (Ning) is a community leader from Thailand’s Prachuap Khiri Khan (PKK) Province. Ning has been spearheading the fight against dirty coal plants in Thailand and is in Bali with a Greenpeace team, to be a thorn in the side of a huge gathering of the coal industry, the people responsible for fuelling climate change.

[photo: Ning in middle, in green © Greenpeace]

Bali plays a critical role this year as it hosts the most important climate negotiating process for Asian countries, the next stage of the Kyoto Treaty negotiations in December. Ironically Bali is also playing host to another gathering this time of the people responsible for fuelling climate change – Coal Trans 2007.

Ning has been campaigning against coal and for cleaner safer energy options for her country for years and led a successful campaign against two large-scale coal plants in PKK. Recently, however, the government has revived its plans to build a coal plant and Ning is again leading the community struggle against it. Theirs is a story of persistence, and relentless dedication to the campaign for a cleaner safer energy future even if they face great risks.

Continue reading Climate killers’ conference…

by Adrian Muller Trends come and go, and the media’s attention lasts only so long, which means that if, down the road, a new idea pushes sustainability out of the cultural spotlight, we’ll need to have established systemic mechanisms that guarantee continued popular commitment to sustainable lifestyles. One way to keep the transformation moving independent of the tides of trend is through incentives. Creative Economist, Steven Levitt, states that an incentive is simply a means of urging people to do more of a good thing and less of a bad thing, and that the world has not yet invented a situation that cannot be forced given the right incentive scheme. Philadelphia-based company RecycleBank has come up with an innovative recycling incentive that rewards households for the amount of recyclables they collect each week. Using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips embedded in bins, garbage trucks scan and weight the bins, automatically recording each household’s contribution. This amount is translated into RecycleBank Dollars that can be spent at participating stores, such as Starbucks, Home Depot, HP, Coca Cola, etc. Some of these companies have also established community funds for local non-profit groups, community projects, charities, and environmental organizations. Customers are provided with… (more)

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