GroovyGreen.com – Start Today :: Save Tomorrow

Environmentally-conscious PC owners beware! There’s a fairly recent spyware virus out there that takes advantage of the green movement to promote an entirely different agenda.

Called “Eco Antivirus”, the app poses as green security software — offering to help conserve the energy your computer consumes while searching for malicious bugs. Unfortunately, the app is a malicious program itself that “bombards the screen with a series of fake security warnings, deceiving scans and aggressive marketing designed to persuade the user to visit the Eco AntiVirus website to purchase the malicious software.”

While those infected have reported it being something of a nightmare to remove the spyware, there are now legit apps to handle this wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Lesson here? Don’t download suspicious software without first doing a bit of googling to pull back the curtain on any BS green claims. Even software can greenwash.

Bottled water is surely one of the biggest jokes ever played on humanity. With plentiful supplies of clean water, first world countries still spends a horrifying amount of money on boutique water — some sourced from half-way around the globe.

The image above is but a piece of a stunning infographic from Online Education detailing the damaging effects of bottled water on our planet — and wallets. Check out the full image after the jump below:

Read more »

I’m a big fan of straw bale homes — one of the most efficient building methods available. So it was with great interest that I spied a headline saying one had been burned down — a rarity since such homes are also highly resistant to fire. Of course, reading a bit further revealed the cause. From the article,

A family of six was burned out of their straw-bale home in Boulder County early Friday after an attempt to thaw pipes with a blowtorch set the structure on fire. Cmdr. Rick Brough, spokesman for the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, said the owner, Eric Akia, was in the crawl space attempting to thaw frozen pipes when the fire started. The family lost almost everything, including their pet fish, Brough said. The family’s three dogs, cat, parrot and pig were saved. The secluded home was on an unplowed road, making it difficult for firefighters to reach. Snowplows had to first clear the road.

Obviously, we’re happy that everyone escaped (sans fish, RIP), including the pig — which just adds a bit of humor to the whole straw theme. As one commenter noted: “Cable TV (DIY Network) has taught me never to attempt to thaw frozen pipes with a torch, but with a hairdryer. Fire is one risk, but so is boiling the water inside the pipes and damaging them.” Good point.

We wish this family the best in recovering from their loss — and hope they’ll once more consider building a straw bale home.

Like Colorado, Utah has laws on the books that make it illegal to collect rainwater that falls on one’s property.  A Utah car dealer installed a cistern and rainwater collection system to feed a on-site car wash that has water recycling technology. This was in an attempt to “go green”.  He was thwarted by the state government, and eventually had to work out a deal.  Local residents who collect rainwater will not be bothered at this point because “there are bigger fish to fry”.  Video clip of news report below.

via puppetgov

I won’t go so far as to say I’m against lifting the ban on drilling for oil off the east coast of the United States of America. I say that because the only reason the idea is being bandied about is that the last two Republican presidents were oil tycoons and that party is desperate to reframe the rise in the price of gasoline as the fault of the Democrats.  And they need to do it before November.  Perhaps Democrats should agree to lift the ban and when the price of gas doesn’t go down, Republicans will be left without that political punch to throw.

Having said that, I am not in favor of lifting the offshore drilling ban because drilling for oil off the east coast of the U.S. is stupid. Here’s why.

The USGS says there are 17.8 billion barrels of undiscovered recoverable resources(read Not Proven Reserves) currently unavailable for leasing. The EIA says production couldn’t really get started until 2017 and wouldn’t be fully ramped up for another 15 years until about 2030. Remember the U.S. uses more than 7 billion barrels a year. Great, there might be two and a half years worth of oil. Even if we could start pumping at full capacity today when my daughter is 2 ½, she’ll be 5 when all that oil is used up.

Even when production is pumping at full capacity, additional offshore drilling facilities would amount to about 200,000 barrels per day (bpd). The US currently uses 21 million bpd. This does not taking into account the increase in oil consumption necessary to continue to grow our economy. The bottom line is that additional offshore drilling will provide 1.2% of the oil we use every day if we don’t increase consumption and we’re willing to wait 20 years.

Oh and if the oil companies don’t sell that oil to other countries. Remember, we currently export about 1.5 million barrels of oil from the US every day. There is no guarantee that big oil will even keep this measly 200,000 bpd in the US.

And don’t forget the hurricanes.

Notice I didn’t even mention the possible environmental catastrophes or the hit tourism might take if lounging at the beach starts to include a beautiful view of the flare from a drilling rig.  Well I didn’t mention them until now.

Offshore oil is politicians playing the blame game and that’s all it is. The sad part is that a majority of Americans are falling for it while their leaders, Republicans and Democrats alike, continue to refuse to act appropriately.

If you want a quick test of whether or not a politican understands energy issues ask her if she’d like to see the cost of gasoline go down. If she says yes, she doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about.

I think that Joel Satalin can add another chapter to his book Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal after reading this story.  I mean, really, a child’s veggie stand shut down for lack of permits?  What’s next, no lemonade stands or car wash fundraisers?

ABC News via ABA Journal:

Call it a rite of passage: children by the roadside peddling their homemade goodies to adults who are more than eager to drop a few cents into a makeshift cashbox.

But Katie and Sabrina Lewis’ veggie stand, in the town of Clayton, Calif., where they sold homegrown watermelons for $1, has been shuttered by town officials who told the girls’ parents that their daughters’ venture violated local zoning ordinances.

“I think that they’re wrong,” dad Mike Lewis said of the town officials. “Kids should be able to be kids.”

Of course kids should be able to be kids!  I think that this touches on a separate issue as well, one not mentioned in the article.  Shouldn’t people have the right to sell the food that they produced on their (albeit small) piece of land?  How does a roadside veggie stand devalue our neighborhoods?  Especially when it is selling organic food much cheaper than one can find in the “super” grocery store.  The last question is, what kind of ultra-conformist calls the mayor to complain about an “illegal” activity like this?

But Clayton Mayor Gregory Manning said he first heard of the girls’ operation this past April, after two residents called to ask if it was legal. Two months later, a police officer was sent to the stand to tell the Lewises that the girls were violating zoning regulations that prohibit commercial activities in a residential area.

The stand also violates health regulations, he said, which state that food can’t be sold without a permit.

Please check out the full ABC News article (video too).  If you feel compelled, here is the phone number for the City of Clayton government office - (925) 673-7300.  Be civil and constructive if you call.

The Sierra Club Blog – Compass (which you should be reading!) tipped me off to the following information about US oil production and exports during a time when Republican leaders are pushing for increased access for oil companies to off-shore and Alaskan oil fields.

US refined oil product exports soared in the first four months of the year, reaching 1.6 million barrels a day, according to this Reuters article.  February exports hit a record 1.8 million barrels a day.  (The average export amount is 1.2 million barrels a day.)  We’re literally shipping away our own gasoline and diesel fuel to other nations. 

The surge in exports appears to contradict the pleas from the U.S. oil industry and the Bush administration for Congress to open more offshore waters and Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

“We can help alleviate shortages by drilling for oil and gas in our own country,” President Bush told reporters this week. “We have got the opportunity to find more crude oil here at home.”

“As a nation, we can have more control over our energy destiny by supplying more of the oil and natural gas we’ll be consuming from resources here at home,” Red Cavaney, president of the American Petroleum Institute, said in a letter last week to U.S. lawmakers.

But environmentalists and other opponents to expanding drilling areas could seize on the record exports to argue Congress should not open more acres if U.S. refineries are churning crude oil into petroleum products that are sent out of the American market.

“It doesn’t look good to say: ‘We need more oil.’ But then export the refined products that you’re getting. It doesn’t seem to be consistent,” 

The article goes on to say that the 1.6 million barrels a day of refined petroleum products is equal to 9% of domestic refining capacity, and half of the 3.2 million barrels worth of refined products imported into the US each day.

Of course, we’re the US, and we believe in the INVISIBLE HAND…

“The fact is that the (United States) participates in global markets for both crude and refined products, and there are any number of variables that impact supply and prices in those markets,” said Bill Holbrook, spokesman for the National Petrochemicals and Refiners Association.

The White House said it was against requiring U.S. oil products to stay at home.

“Forbidding exports of U.S. petroleum reduces the incentive for domestic suppliers to produce, and could potentially lead to higher prices if U.S. production or refining declined,” said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.

If I were a independent trucker, I’d be a little pissed to find out that we’re exporting up to 9% of our diesel refining capacity, and then paying the Saudi’s or other nation to import twice that amount.

What’s the kicker in all of this?  20 years from now, during peak production from off shore drilling, we’d be producing 200,000 barrels of oil a day (according to the EIA – warning .pdf)  This would continue to be a fraction of the amount of oil products that we would export.  Compass sums it up nicely:

And how much of that new production would stay here domestically and actually go to lowering gas prices? Oil Companies may claim that they want to produce energy for America, but as last weeks profits numbers proved, they really only care about one thing. Their own bottom lines.

We need real solution to our energy crisis, not handouts to oil companies who will send our American oil overseas.

Img via John at wikipedia

It was only a matter of time.

With most commercial turbines over 265 ft. tall, they were bound to attract the base jumping crowd. Thing is, they’re not the easiest things to get access to — so we’re wondering whether this crew has an inside man to let them climb to the top. Not to mention turn off the turbine for the jump. Nice view, though.

Via Daily Kos.  From Physorg.com:

Milk goes green: Cows that receive recombinant Bovine Somatotropin (rbST) make more milk, all the while easing natural resource pressure and substantially reducing environmental impact, according to a Cornell University study to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (June 30, 2008.)

[snip]

This research found that, compared to a non-supplemented population, giving rbST to one million cows would enable the same amount of milk to be produced using 157,000 fewer cows. The nutrient savings would be 491,000 metric tons of corn, 158,000 metric tons of soybeans, and total feedstuffs would be reduced by 2,300,000 metric tons. Producers could reduce cropland use by 219,000 hectares and reduce 2.3 million tons of soil erosion annually.

Hmmm.  As a good professor taught me, always check the assumptions.  Luckily OrangeClouds115 did so already, and put it very succinctly:

Why It’s a Load of Bull: Their entire argument assumes that you need to feed cows corn. You don’t. You actually shouldn’t. Cows evolved to eat GRASS. They evolved to graze. Grazing requires very little resources and energy. Here’s why:

First, grass is a perennial. You don’t need to plant it every year like you do with corn and soy. You plant it once, it grows, the cow eats it, it grows back. Planting stuff takes energy. Less planting = less energy.

Second of all, when cows graze, they harvest their own food. Harvesting food requires energy. You must harvest corn. You also have to process it and transport it before the cows can eat it. That takes energy too.

Click here for the rest.

Geez, I wonder who funded this study.  I don’t imagine that is public knowledge.

Yesterday, after I vented a bit on the lack of rain barrel options at Big Box stores, a reader tipped us off to a very interesting issue in her state of Colorado. Rain barrels there, you see, are outlawed. Colorado state law mandates that any water falling from the air is not yours. In fact, according to their site, its already been “legally allocated” — so, you don’t actually have any rights when it comes to using precipitation that falls on your property. Here’s the exact wording:

Colorado Water Law requires that precipitation fall to the ground, run off and into the river of the watershed where it fell. Because rights to water are legally allocated in this state, an individual may not capture and use water to which he/she does not have a right. We must remember also that rain barrels don’t help much in a drought because a drought by its very nature supplies little in the way of snow or rain.

Additionally, any and all water that comes from tap may only be used once. “Denver water customers are not permitted to take their bath or laundry water (commonly referred to as gray water) and dump it on their outdoor plants or garden.” Even if that said water is ecologically-friendly?

We’re not alone in thinking this is a stupid law. Last summer, The Colorado Springs Gazette said the following:

“The rain barrel is the bong of the Colorado garden. It’s legal to sell one. It’s legal to own one. It’s just not legal to use it for its intended purpose. Meanwhile, when rain does fall, the torrential flood caused by water running off a few thousand acres of roofs, roads and parking lots erodes downstream ranches, undercuts city sewer pipes and really makes Pueblo mad.

It’s gotten so bad that the city is taxing us all — excuse me, feeing us all — to pay for $295 million in stormwater projects. So wouldn’t it make sense to save a little rain when it falls, keep it from barreling down Fountain Creek, and use it when needed? Of course it would.”

So, to the people of Colorado, I’m sorry you have to deal with such inane laws. Not having any rights in the first place to something that freely falls over your head just seems bizarre.

Anyone out there actively breaking this law because it’s lame? Anyone ever seen it enforced?