Passing on Progress in Search of Perfection?
This morning I fed my daughter Keaton carrots. Not yet six months old and I am already learning from her. The task of introducing solid foods to our baby has fallen mostly to my wife. Today is was my turn. After a few successful bites I started to think to myself, “Maybe I can feed her all these carrots without getting any on her face.” What an impossible goal! As she first began to get dirty I felt a twinge of disappointment. I wanted to feed her perfectly without any mess. The goal was not achieved. I had failed. But wait; I stopped myself and realized that I was successfully teaching another human being to eat carrots. She was learning a skill she’ll use for the rest of her life. I was introducing a healthy food and even went to the trouble of preparing it myself. I boiled the carrots and mechanically smashed them with my own two hands (I did use a masher). I was raising a daughter. Not all at once and not with individual burst of perfection but I was making progress on the road towards a happy, healthy human. What a success.
Al Gore – Revisited.
Seems as though I forgot the golden rule – “don’t believe everything you read in the paper.” Al Gore is not the man he was made out to be. He doesn’t own Occidental Stock. He does opt for green power for his home (and according to Grist – is putting up a solar PV array).
I was so glad to hear that Al is walking the talk. I am sorry that I doubted it.
This whole arguement gets into the realm of how much is enough? How green do you have to be exactly? How many lifestyle changes do you have to make? What is the threshold? I think that that answer can only be answered internally. Am I doing enough? How can I strive to do better? Should we be criticizing, encouraging, or lauding others? Or, should we be focusing on ourselves first off? All questions that I personally have been struggling with, and will continue to struggle with.
It’s too late on a friday night to sort it all out. So for pennance, I’ll leave you with a little TANKcatwhat after the jump
Telling Somebody
Please allow me this chance to reprint a letter from one friend to another.
Marcus,
It was good of you to write and ask about how Jenn and I have been doing since graduation. It’s been a while since you and I have been able to sit and talk on the front porch like we use to do in college. I don’t want to go getting all sentimental on you but I did enjoy those conversations. Everything’s going well here. Our daughter Kay is growing up fast (I hope you got the baby announcement- Jenn made me give her all the guys’ addresses). Sometimes it feels like if I blink she’ll be all grown up. Work’s fine and we like living in a small town. I never thought I’d say that but Atlanta just wore me out. All that driving made me feel like I was spending my whole life in the car. So we made the move. Jimmie and the NYC crowd make fun of me for living in Smalltown, USA but we like it. I can even bike to work. We’ve got a garden in the backyard and it’s been easy to meet neighbors, especially with such a cute baby girl (says the proud papa). We live in a small neighborhood on the edge of a pretty cool little historic town. There’s a tavern about a mile away and all the other stuff too that comes with a small town of course- an ice cream shop, a local grocery, the usual. Now I’m just babbling so I’ll get to the real reason I wanted to write.
Verizon Using Fuel Cells To Offset Energy Consumption
They most likely control your cell phone, have used the talents of Darth Vader to promote their image, and now are harnessing the power of fuel cells to control their destiny. Yes, I’m speaking of Verizon Communications–who recently completed their first year of using Fuel Cell technology at their Garden City facility on Long Island. From the article,
“Verizon’s Garden City project is unique because it uses fuel cells as its primary source of energy. Seven fuel cells generate power for a 292,000-square-foot facility that provides telephone and data services to some 35,000 customers on Long Island. And it’s connected to the commercial power grid as backup. This is a complete paradigm shift for a company that traditionally uses diesel-fueled generators as backups to the commercial grid.”
Northern Ireland Mandates Green Energy For New Buildings
Now this is a little more like it. It’s amazing what can occur when an actual government gets behind renewable energy. In a step that’s sure to please environmentalists while making RE investors salivate, the ‘Government is proposing changes to the Building Regulations which will make the use of renewable energy compulsory in all new builds from 2008′ The new changes will apply to all new homes, company, and public buildings making solar hot water, roof photovoltaics, and small wind generation madatory in under two years.
Almost four thousand households will benefit immediately from the new systems. Those families on low incomes will also receive 100% grant assistance to install solar hot water systems for more than 500 homes. From the article,
‘Launching an 8 million renewable energy Household Programme, Peter Hain said that Northern Ireland is leading the rest of the United Kingdom in green energy. I Am fully committed to the use of renewable energy and I know how effective it can be. In my home in Wales, I have installed PV panels on my roof and this has resulted in my energy bill being halved. As a Government, we are also moving forward in changes to the building regulations to help and encourage greater use of renewable energy.’
Chick Update :: Last Call
This is your last chance to submit names for the 10 urban chickens we’re raising here at Groovy Green. The winner of our contest to “Name That Chicken” will receive one of these sweet T-shirts. Reply below with one or more names you think we should use on our animal additions to my backyard.
The chicks themselves are doing fine. They’re growing with great speed and it’s becoming obvious which ones are roosters and which ones are hens. Can you tell the ladies from the gents? I’ve started to give them time outside of their enclosure when I get home from work. They stay close by. When I first started to raised backyard chickens I thought they would do their best to escape but in reality they never wander to far away. At the first sign of danger they take off towards the safety of their chicken house. They did eat several seedlings from the garden. I have to remember to keep them out of newly planted areas, but for the most part I like to let them wander through the garden. They eat bugs and deposit fertilizer and are just fun to watch.
Be sure to leave a few names in reply and who knows, maybe you’ll win the coveted chicken T-shirt for your efforts.
Bobolink
I’ve recently received a number of emails calling for me to Kick the Oil Habit by supporting E85 which is a liquid fuel made up of 85% ethanol and 15% regular gasoline.
Bobolink has the same email in his inbox starred and ready for comment, and has been wondering what to do with it.
It’s just his luck that James from the Alt-E blog took the words right out of his mouth…
Is Ethanol / E85 Fuel the Solution?
Bobolink (and Steve) think that Pocket Farm is one of the best green/local/sustainable/farming/simple living/…kitchen sink blogs out there. If you’re reading Groovy Green, you need to be reading Pocket Farm.
This post tackles frugality, and offers up some simple ways to save some dough:
GreenSprings Natural Cemetery
Life is filled with choices. Many of them are daily, some are monumental, others take us in new directions. We use our decision-making skills to forecast positive end-results for our own lives and the people around us. Choices, however, are not limited to the mortal coil–we can also make choices now that will decide our impact on the planet well after we’re gone.
I’m not talking about wills or trust funds, but more your organic relationship with the planet. In the United States, most people lean towards traditional burial: a nice casket, flowers, tombstone, concrete vault, and a small plot. We intentionally exit the planet in much the same way we lived on it; above nature. People readily embrace the notion of ‘dust-to-dust’, but then fail to let that very act occur. Do you believe that air tight vault with the air tight coffin is going to preserve your body? And what the hell are you preserving it for? Is it vanity? Is it fear? Are you thinking that someone might open you back up one day and you’ll be embarrassed by what they see? Since most of the world believes the human body is simply a container for something larger (think: soul), why worry about what happens to it? Why spend thousands on beautiful wood that’s placed in the ground? Why bother with expensive accessories and adorations?
China To Invest $200 Billion In Renewable Energy Within 15 Years
Can you imagine if the U.S. posted that type of initiative? Hey! You in the back that still believes the U.S. is the smartest country in the world, sit down. China’s economy isn’t the only thing roaring to life. Their renewable energy initiatives are quickly eclipsing anything close to what the U.S. is considering and American companies are eager to partner up and get a piece of the action. Sadly, if the U.S. does eventually wake up, most suppliers will probably be tied up in China! From the article,
“Beijing wants a tenth of its energy to come from environmentally friendly sources by 2010 – a desire driven by soaring air pollution and chronic environmental degradation that is swelling medical bills and provoking discontent.
Projects will need turbines, blades and other power components, which is why General Electric Co, Vestas Wind Systems and Gamesa, as well as homegrown firms China Solar Energy Holdings Ltd. and Suntech, are expanding capacity in the country. “Renewable energy will likely become China’s next boom sector with oil at historical high prices,” said Norman Ho, a fund manager at Value Partners, which has invested in Chinese wind energy components supplier Nanjing Gearbox.”
Wind developers in all areas from manufacturing to design have got to be especially pleased; the compound annual growth rate of China’s wind power capacity will be 39% in 2004-10 and 20% in 2010-20! Hit the jump for more!
GLOBAL WARMING: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Coming up this Sunday evening set aside some time to check out the Discovery Channel’s feature on global warming:
Discovery Channel visits global warming tipping points across the planet, talks to the world’s leading experts, and examines the latest evidence about global warming in GLOBAL WARMING: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW. Produced by Discovery Channel, the BBC and NBC News Productions, and hosted by award-winning journalist Tom Brokaw, the two-hour special presents the facts and leaves it up to viewers to determine their own opinion about global warming. GLOBAL WARMING: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW premieres Sunday, July 16, at 9 p.m. ET.
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