Driving Home Efficiency

hybrid rally richmond

This past Saturday I joined a dozen other hybrid owners on a gorgeous spring day to… Circle the Capitol in Richmond! Yes, you read that correctly, I woke up early and covered my friend’s Toyota Prius in streamers and balloons and battled downtown Richmond traffic and construction on Broad Street. I did this to send a message that was loud (horns were honked) and clear (in bold font across the side of each of our fuel efficient vehicles). We support Governor Kaine amending legislation that made it through the general assembly session to include the 19% efficiency target that his own Commission on Climate Change recommended this past fall.

19 percent standard

Energy efficiency is the cleanest, quickest and cheapest way to meet Virginia’s energy needs. With federal legislation in the works to regulate carbon to stave off the most devastating effects of climate change, the Commonwealth can’t afford to miss this opportunity. Energy efficiency equals tens of thousands of jobs for our state, how much longer do we plan to wait?

hybrid rally crowd

Historic Shift: Wind Cheaper than Coal in MD!

Like residents of most other states, Marylanders who wanted to buy 100% clean energy were used to paying a premium to be green. Starting this summer, the roles will reverse.

In Maryland, all BGE and Pepco residential customers (about 80% of the population or 1.73 million people) can now sign up for 100% wind power through Clean Currents at rates that are below Pepco’s and BGE’s rates for conventional coal-powered electricity!

CCAN director Mike Tidwell joined Clean Currents president Gary Skulnik (pictured at right) at a press conference last week to announce the historic shift. Standing before a gaggle of TV cameras, microphones and reporters, Gary began: “Usually renewable energy requires an upfront investment, but we’re in a unique situation where you can choose green power and save money at the same time. It almost never happens.”

And he’s right. This crossing of cost lines between wind and coal energy doesn’t happen often, but the shift is beginning. When a similar shift happened in Austin, TX three years ago, Lester Brown described it as “a milestone in the U.S. shift to a renewable energy economy.” A similar situation also unfolded in Colorado around the same time as in Austin.

So what happened in Maryland to make this price shift possible?
Here in Maryland, the decreased rates are the result of a steady decline in wholesale energy prices. Utility companies set their customers’ rates periodically and have not reduced them to reflect the lower prices they are now paying for energy to produce electricity. But Clean Currents and other companies have taken advantage of the downturn in the price and are offering residents as much as two years of power for 10 to 15 percent less than the utilities’ summer rates.

How do I sign up?
To sign up, simply go to www.cleancurrents.com and click on “residential.” It only takes a few minutes to complete the enrollment process (you will need your Utility Account #). Once switched, there will be no interruption of service. Power outages are still fixed by Pepco and BGE, and billing is still handled by the utility. The only difference is that you will save money and be supporting clean, renewable wind power.

Drilling for oil vs green jobs

I will admit that I don’t usually get really angry and pumped up about taking action online. But then I got an update from this organization called “White House 2,” which is basically an exercise in direct democracy, where citizens can post their priorities for Obama, and have other people vote to support or oppose them. Since they’ve gotten a bit of attention and are expanding to share the priorities of Real Americans with Congress, I figured I’d check it out and see how my priorities were doing.

Yay! “Invest in clean energy and create 5 million green jobs” is in the top 10! Woo! Oh wait a minute. So is “Drill for Oil in our own country.” I would encourage you to go and oppose that one.

This was not promising, so I decided to delve deeper. And – horror upon horrors – there are more people OPPOSED to “Joining the International Community on Climate Change” than there are in support of it. And there was NO priority calling for a science-based, industry-wide cap on carbon. Well, until I made one. (vote for it! It’s priority number 1061 or something really ridiculously low right now)

Come on, climateers! We’ve got to make sure that the discussion on climate change is not dominated by special interests and climate deniers. So take a few minutes for strategic clicking, and get our priorities back on the map.

The Budget Buzz

So what’s the deal with Obama’s budget? Why does everyone seem to care about it so much? Well, besides that whole part where the whole world is worried about money, Obama’s budget includes some pretty awesome provisions that we want to make sure stay in there. The key one: $646 billion in revenue from 100% allowance auctionsin a cap and trade system (i.e. making polluters pay for carbon emissions). Even if the targets in there aren’t as strong as we might hope, including the revenue will be a great leverage point for passing a strong carbon cap in 2009.

It should come as no surprise to any regular on the climate blogosphere that special interests (King Coal, to name just one) are not at all happy about this, and are lobbying to get this provision out.

To build the buzz around the budget, please take a minute to call your Senator. This is especially important for all you folks in MD and VA, as Senator Ben Cardin (MD) and Senator Mark Warner (VA) are both on the Senate Budget Committee, and are probably anxiously waiting by their phones just waiting for a constituent like you to call and tell them to do the right thing.

Call now!

Warner’s Office: 202-224-2023

Cardin’s Office: 202-224-4524

The message is simple: Tell your Senator to pass Obama’s budget without stripping the crucial provisions that make sure polluters and other special interests pay their fair share.

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Your vote = $200,000 for bold climate action

We just brought 12,000 people to Capitol Hill to demand bold federal climate and energy policy at Power Shift ’09, and now we have something even bigger up our sleeve.

Between now and the end of the year, we are about to take Power Shift ’09 home with one of the most comprehensive no-district-left-behind grassroots efforts for bold action on climate that’s ever been launched.

In order to pull it off in the biggest way possible (the only way to do things in our book), we’re going to need some serious resources.

And right now, there’s a very quick action you can take (without having to give a dime) to help us bring in $200,000.

http://www.justmeans.com/competitionidea/10404/promoteidea.html

Just click on the link and click “Support it!”
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ICC Action Alert!

Breathe the Air!
Breathe the Air!

Cross-Posted from: Here

If you live in Maryland(or if you know someone in Maryland who would be interested) this post is for you!

The bill being considered in the State Senate and House of Delegates right now would strip the Inter County Connector, a monstrous 18 mile highway being built in Maryland, of its 4 billion dollars worth of funding. The environmental implications of this road are far-reaching, and killing it would be a huge victory. Just related to global warming, the ICC is going to increase driving by 750 million miles a year by 2030, making it very difficult to reduce transportation emissions. At the same time it will deplete state funds that could go to mass transit.

Here are a couple of columns myself and a friend wrote on the ICC in case you want more info: column 1, column 2

I’m pleading with you to take 5-10 minutes of your time and e-mail or call all 3 of your delegates, and your state senator asking them to support to bill to defund the ICC. These are 4 calls/e-mails anyone who wants to stop global warming and protect the environment should be making. The action alert is below. Thanks so much.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————
ACT: Please call 1-800-492-7122 Ask your Senator and Delegates to vote FOR
House Bill 27 / Senate Bill 753 to defund the Inter County Connector highway.

FIND: your Representatives at http://www.mdelect.net/electedofficials/ or http://www.congress.org/
or call the General Assembly switchboard at 1-800-492-7122
State Senator’s emails are firstname.lastname@senate.state.md.us

STATUS: Soon, the bill to defund the $4 billion dollar 20 mile long toll ICC highway will be heard in the House Appropriations & the Senate Budget & Taxation committees.

Opponents will try to kill the bill in committee, because if the bill gets to the floor of the full House or Senate, it becomes very difficult for legislators to oppose such a common-sense measure in such difficult economic times. We need your support to get this bill out of committee with a favorable committee report.

This is a good time to contact your representatives in Annapolis to let them know you want them to reduce wasteful spending and take a stand against this environmentally destructive project.

DESCRIPTION: There is debate on the amount of money that would be saved overall by not building the ICC since money has been spent already, however, let’s not throw good money after bad. The negative effects of building it (increased traffic congestion, global warming gas emissions) are too great.
Text of the bill http://mlis.state.md.us/2009rs/billfile/hb0027.htm
More information: http://maryland.sierraclub.org/action/p0157.asp

Please join us AND write your legislators to ask them to vote FOR HB27/SB753 to come out of committee and onto the floor. Thank you!

LTE Opportunity: Time for federal action

Like me, I know that you are probably thinking about more than just green beer this St. Patrick’s Day. With global warming being one of the three main priorities laid out by President Obama, the state is set for action this year. But with the recession on everyone’s minds, we need to make sure that every member of Congress knows that America is ready for bold action on climate change in 2009.

That’s where you all come in. One of the most effective tools of advocacy is the letter to the editor – you get your message out to hundreds of readers, including citizens, newspaper editors, and politicians. The next two months are going to be crucial in ensuring that Congress gets the message, so I’m asking you to make a commitment now to submit 3 letters by Memorial Day. Why Memorial Day? Because Congressman Henry Waxman, head of the Energy and Commerce Committee, has pledged that he will get a carbon cap out of committee by Memorial Day, and he needs our support!

The first thing to make clear? The urgency of taking climate action!

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Who wants a green job?

The real question is: who doesn’t want a green job?

Right now, we have a really amazing window of opportunity to bring green jobs home. In the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ie Stimulus Package), there was a whopping $87 billion of investments in awesome green stuff, including investments in clean energy, energy efficiency, and green jobs training.

This is sort of old news, though, so why am I bringing this up now? Right now, states, cities, and counties across the nation are deciding how this money will be spent. And you can bet that corporations and the folks who are used to business-as-usual are in City Halls and State Houses across the nation lobbying to be the ones who get those investments to create “green jobs” – that help their bottom line, of course.

What do we want? We want green jobs to really be for everyone. And there’s a very small window to make sure that this happens – localities are setting up programs as I’m typing this post, and the window of opportunity will end in the next month. So Green For All is working with citizens across the nation on setting up actions so that we make sure that all voices are heard as local governments are making these important investments. Want to get involved? Sign up for an action, learn more about the green recovery, and bring those green jobs to everyone in your hometown.

Shell-Shocked

This has been cross posted from: here

It’s a shame that after a couple of posts involving businesses making the right decisions in the renewable energy market and taking action on climate change, I end up having to break the news that Shell has eliminated all investment in renewables besides biodiesel. It’s not as though Shell was doing very much anyways, they have invested 1.7 billion dollars over the past 5 years in renewables. In comparison, they spend 32 billion total on investments in 2008 alone. Still, this is a sign that Shell is moving in the opposite direction of a lot of businesses and corporations. While we’re seeing an increase in renewable energy output and investment amongst companies, Shell is taking theirs away.

Obviously I’m not one of the “experts” in Shell making these kinds of multi-billion dollar decisions, but I have to wonder what is going through their minds. Let’s assume the obvious, which is that Shell has no moral conscience at all when it comes to climate change or environmental protection. Their bottom line is more important than the public good. I got it, they’re a business. Unfortunately expecting a moral conscience of some corporations is expecting too much.

But even if you’re only thinking of your bottom line, how do you come to this conclusion that no only will we not invest much money in renewables, but we won’t invest ANYTHING. I can see how this would’ve been a good move in 2000 when we had oilmen coming into the Whitehouse. There were lots of calls for increased drilling, removal of environmental protections, and no action on climate change. At this point, putting all the eggs in the oil basket might make sense. But let’s look at what the state of things are now with the next 8 years in mind, as opposed to the last 8 years.

We’ve got an anti-drilling Democratically controlled Congress and Whitehouse. Environmental regulations are going to be popping up all over the place. If you look at the stimulus, the overwhelming majority of the money relating to energy was clean energy. There was also a record amount of money invested in mass transit. Whatever tax breaks the oil companies got during the last 8 years are likely going to be removed. There are now new and far reaching tax breaks at the Federal level for solar, wind, geothermal, biodiesel, and plug-in hybrid-electric cars. These kinds of credits are also showing up all over the states. My own state of Maryland has a 10k credit for solar, similar incentives for other alternatives, and my county Prince Georges County has a 5,000 dollar property tax credit. General Motors and Toyota are coming out with plug-in hybrids within the next few years. Other auto companies are taking a stronger look at it them, and are introducing more hybrids. Oh, and the US and other countries around the world either have passed or are about to pass climate change cap and trade policy that will inevitably drive up the price of gas and decrease consumption.

I could go on. Hopefully you get the point. What are you thinking Shell? The problem I see with this when you’re purely looking at a bottom line is that the trends are moving in the opposite direction of Shell’s actions. It’s not smart investment to put none of the $$$ into renewables when you consider the trends I listed above. I predict that Shell is going to find itself at a big competitive disadvantage a few years from now when they suddenly realize they “want in” on this clean energy economy, but other companies beat them to the investment, research, and start-up and have achieved greater economies of scale and efficiency. At this point, entry into the clean energy market will hurt Shell, and they will look back on their decision in 2009 to cease renewable energy investment as poor planning.