Get Energy Smart! NOW!

Last week, the New York Senate passed legislation to take revenues from New York’s ‘cap and tax’ on carbon emissions and leverage these funds into the private financing market to make energy efficiency improvements more affordable and more accessible to New York’s homeowners.
Passed unanimously in the New York House, a Republican Senator played a key [...]

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A guest post from Craig Severance at Energy Economy Online discussing Ed Mazria’s Architecture 2030 concept for job creation and economic stimulus through a massive energy efficiency investment in America’s buildings through a mortgage subsidy program. Quite simply, this is perhaps the most valuable W5 strategy (win economically (stimulus, competitiveness, etc), win on energy, win [...]

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Stimulate
Etymology: From Latin stimulatus past participle of stimul? (“goad on”) .
Verb: to stimulate: To encourage into action. To arouse an organism to functional activity.
Synonyms: encourage, induce, provoke, animate, arouse, energize, energise, excite, perk up
Antonyms: de-energize, sedate, stifle
For eight long years, this nation has been de-energized, had productive advancing of the economy stifled, and good [...]

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The incoming US Congress will be running full out in January to develop a stimulus package to have ready, potentially, for signature by President Barack Hussein Obama minutes into his Presidency. Organization after organization, business after business, motivated citizen after motivated citizen are knocking on every door conceivable with ideas for funding that [...]

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Last month, to far (FAR) less attention than it merited, the House of Representatives (facing an Administration veto threat) passed the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act with $20 billion for greening public schools across the nation.
Taking aggressive action to green schools is about one of the smartest steps the nation can take, [...]

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As we looked toward the devastation of New Orleans, from the first moment, amid great pain, there were those of us who looked at the disaster as opening a (painful) opportunity. A chance to take a leadership position globally, to create something better out of the wreckage, to build Eco New Orleans: ‘A Shining Example [...]

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Monday’s Washington Post business section has an excellent set of articles examining local green businesses.   They provide a window on those pursuing green productivity for, it seems, ethical/moral issues first (and financial as corollary) as per Honest Tea and those who started entirely with financial reasons (with any environmental/ethical/moral issues secondary, a corollary) as per Marriott (article [...]

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There are many rows to hoe to foster an Energy Smart culture, one that will enable us to create a Prosperous, Climate Friendly Society.  Being Energy Smart begins at Home, but individuals will not, cannot create this path toward a sensible future alone, we work, live, and prosper in communities. And, well, isn’t that what [...]

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This is something that we should hope to see spread globally, but it would be a tremendous step forward toward something like Architecture 2030 if California adopts its proposed building codes.  The proposal: 

all new residential housing developments  energy self-sufficient by 2020
all new commercial buildings be “zero net energy” by 2030.

Wow …

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The Globe faces many challenges, that intersect in very complex system-of-system ways.  There are not Single Shot/Silver Bullet solutions out there. But, in some ways, there are solution sets that provide an integrated solution set that make them a potentially valuable Silver BB.
Our challenges include Peak Oil, Global Warming, clean water constraints, food supply challenges [...]

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