Proposal inspired by Live Earth

Here's three ideas that came to mind while I was turning each over in my head at work after watching parts of the Live Earth concert before having to go to work.

The federal government, with Bush at the helm, is not going to do squat at the moment about the issue of global warming. However, in most states in this country we have the power to propose, draft, and put proposals on the ballot for the people to vote on and put into law completely bypassing the legislatures. While we cannot enact such policy at a federal level, we can on a state-by-state basis pass propositions that would create changes for the better for the environment and force the federal government to do something by pressure on congresscritters to act. Here's three that I thought of that I think would have substantial impact, none of which you could really call pie-in-the-sky far left idealism/socialism/insert your favorite strawman here, preferably all such proposals should be made in a fashion that would not have any easy to attack weak spots. Let's get some together and make it happen, here's mine:

1.) Get a bond measure and law passed that would outfit all government-owned buildings owned by the state and all municipal governments within the particular state with solar paneling and require such buildings in the future to be fitted with said panels. The savings gained from this upgrade following the bond measure should first be used for helping pay down debts owed by the state then towards education. It should also be included in said law to double the tax rebate given for purchasing solar panels for a private residence or business to further encourage people to purchase such panels.

2.) Give tax breaks to businesses for transactions that involve any goods sold that must be shipped for transactions within the state and a bigger break for similar transactions within the same county. This one is aimed at encouraging businesses to pursue business that does not cost as much in terms of oil and gas for shipping and reduce the carbon footprint as well as encourage local businesses with a local focus. Walk-in business would not count for this as the business is not paying for the cost of the customer coming to the place of business.

3.) Get a bond measure for the specific goal of funding the replacement of all Class C vehicles owned by the state or any municipal government with fully electric vehicles within three years, with one year given for American auto manufacturers to design and engineer an effective electric engine. If they moan about not having enough time or being given unrealistic requirements, GM pulled it off just fine in the 90s before they scrapped the designs, they should be able to handle it. The contract in question can only be offered to an auto manufacturer that is based in and pays income taxes in the US and can meet the size of the order and who gets it will be determined on a state-by-state basis as to who best meets the needs specified. This will both reduce the carbon footprint of each state by reducing how many fossil-fuel vehicles there are on the road and force American auto manufacturers to engineer an effective fully-electric car with designs that could quite feasibly be used for personal civilian use.

If we get such ideas hammered out now and start the petition drives by August at the latest and find people to get the specifics worked out and to get the on-the-ground work done we should be able to publicize and put this on the ballot for 2008, see how the people on the Right like seeing an important issue tied to their tails this time around like how they rammed all those ballot measures for same-sex marriage through in '04.

Great ideas. I'm sure there's even more that we can come up with.

The Libertarians should love it too, because they'll get interest AND lower taxes later when the utility bills fall.

The local business break is a good idea too. I'd like to see that expanded to recycled content purchased, etc. I mean they're still going to go to Staples or whatever, so we might as well try to promote better use of the "school supplies" these businesses buy.

Things that push businesses into being more green would have to be more subtle and encouraging as long as you aren't talking about pollution. In that case we need to have a big club to beat them over the head with.

Since you can't tax interstate commerce, you can't just add a tax to the Best Buys of the world to pay extra for the miles driven in their state, and pollution that comes with it.

So, it would have to be pretty creative.

We can't use what happens at a state level as a stopgap for something federal, we need something that works well locally then is made even stronger by federal reinforcement.

I'm tired of taxpayers subsidizing busness to quit polluting. No one subsidizes me for my exahust tests or my needed repairs.

They give me a ticket if my car smokes excessively. I say tax CO2 pollution and let busness figure it out for themselves.

We already have laws on the books for excess pollution, they need to be MUCH more stringently enforced but that's something done by the EPA, something we need to fix by getting someone in the White House who will actually uphold those laws. We give them a carrot for doing something green that we like, we whack them with a stick when they fall out of line. They need to be hit from both ways.

I was thinking how low-income people could get them and thought we could all donate them to our local food banks, with food as well, and they could hand out 2-3 at a time, to people who ask for them.

We also need to make sure all low-income housing has been switched.

Also, somebody needs to design a new kind of grocery carrier, something sturdy with pockets for eggs, bread, etc. Bags were always a kind of stupid idea, if we really stop and think about it.

Maybe encourage grocery businesses to implement policies that encourage people to re-use bags and boxes for carrying groceries, maybe something like a 10% discount, that would have to be by case-by-case pressure though.

It was 4 cents a bag, max 20 cents. Then it became 2 cents a bag, max 10 cents.

Now no benefit.

I'm going to be using my own bags, so it isn't a big deal to me, but I would like to see something come down that forces the stores to recycle bags at least.

It's a Hell of a lot easier to re-use them!!

The ones they had for holding the OJ cartons of tropicana I used for trashcans in the dorm for the bathroom and dorm room.

Something better than what we're doing, that's how you get people to change. Something collapsible, but sturdy when it's standing up, with pockets and dividers. Hehe, now that I look at the site, it's an "environmentally friendly reusable grocery bag".

Would be perfect for shopping for food and looks like they have sufficient carrying capacity and ease of portability that I could take the bus to Costco and back. Can you put in the link?

I'm not sure if you can buy one outright or not, it's a promotional item. I'm actually thinking of contacting these people and selling them online, because they're dang cheap.

http://www.supershowoffs.com/ProductDetail/ProductDetail.aspx?Ntt=bags%2c+packs%2c+totes&Ne=50&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&BWS=0%7c3&N=0&DPSV_Id=271827&Ntk=WordSearchAsiLinename&BSAS=1&Nr=LMSiteEligibility:1&id=5689860&pSRVC_Id=54

For seniors. Something like this could be made from recycled plastic, I'm pretty sure.

incandesent manufactoring. Just make them illegal to produce after a certain date. If industry switched over to all CFL, it would significantly lower the cost in a pretty short time, is my guess. I don't know enough about how they are made in terms of inputs/process though. It would be good to have an idea of what kind of production savings might be realistic to expect, in terms of long term cost curve.

A couple months back the Aussie Parliament banned incandescent bulbs to be phased out over a year or something I think.

It might have to be a statewide bond measure, or at least countrywide in order to provide services for small, semi-rural and rural areas.

Another important measure would be to ensure power companies buy excess electricity created by home and small business solar and wind power generators, at a price determined by a oversight board that includes citizens and elected officials. Then include a tax break for homes and businesses to install solar panels and wind turbines.

You might also want to add wind turbines to your solar panel bond measure.

Not sure how well wind turbines would work on a personal level but maybe something for funding to allow for municipalities to build publicly-owned wind turbines for the purposes of providing local green power.

This company says they can even be used on sailboats...



http://www.windenergy.com/index_wind.htm

http://www.windenergy.com/documents/downloads/skystream/Intro_FAQ_8-29-06.pdf

Definitely worth adding to the whole package deal, maybe also add that for the government buildings in instances where it would be practical like out in the deserts, the mountains, or by the coast.

energy ideas at this time.

They have it down to about 5 cent a kwh now, and dropping.

One idea I heard years ago was putting small wind turbines right on the tops of power poles and just feeding the electricity into the grid. Each turbine would produce a small amount but because of the large number of turbines it would add up quickly. This is an advantage over turbine farms in that you don't have to then build transmition lines to get the electricity into the grid.

Let's kick this kind of thing around, make it happen.

some locals than others. Some places it's not feasible. Have you done any cost analysis on Solar? I ask because my friend works in solar and he gets calls everyday from people who think they can run there house on it until they figure out it will cost them 80 thousand out front so they can run their fridge, their washer and dryer, there tv and computer. I'm not knocking what you are suggesting, only asking that you yourself take the time to understand what you are suggesting and if it's feasible. For instance, many government buildings in many locals couldn't run on solar alone.

2. I wrote about your tax break idea above. A carbon tax would be easier and simpler.

3. Where does the electricity come from that powers the cars? Hydro-electric power? Solar power? Natural Gas? (Co2) Oil? (Co2) Coal? (Co2) Atomic?

Electricity of course doesn't grow on trees. If it's being produced, as most is, from carbon producing fuels, then what is the Co2 savings by using electric? How far will it go between charges? Why is this a good idea? Why is it a better idea than a hybred?

So your ideas are great if you have the information to explain how it works and why it's a great idea. Do you have a background in alternative energy technology or are you just kind of brainstorming/wishful thinking?

I'm not trying to discourage you in either case, but I would definately encourage you to actually take the time and energy to understand what your ideas would entail,(cost/benefit) how they would work, and would they work as you envision them working.

I don't know the specifics, but if we all work together we can make change happen for the better.

For the second one its more an issue of something that would be able to work that wouldn't have any obvious soft spots and on its face is something the small government people would like while it also helps move in the direction of being able to put in something like a carbon tax. Have to do things in baby steps, as big as this is and as much as we need big movements in the right direction some things like tax on carbon can't be done easily or quickly but we need to lead people around to it.

For the third one the issue is more about combating the emissions. While it will increase demand in the power grid, if you also have mass application of solar and wind power where it is feasible then theoretically (I don't have the numbers for this to back this up, but they are definitely out there of how much would be taken out of the grid by increasing use of such power sources) that demand will be offset anyway, leading to hopefully no net increase from power plants in CO2 yet decreasing emissions by getting fossil fuel vehicles off the road. If the amount of power consumed by buildings now not consuming power from the grid that would then be using solar and wind power equals or exceeds that which you would need for electric cars then there is no problem, this is looking first at making government used vehicles on that list of green, when you start seeing this available on a larger scale then you would also see a shift in resources to provide for this whether voluntarily or not by energy companies.

Right now there are purely electric vehicles that are jury-rigged by the owners to use electric motors as well as custom jobs that have similar horsepower to commercially available models but have about a 100 mile range, if serious effort went into more efficient batteries then you could probably increase this, there's already more efficient batteries available than what are being used for electric car conversions and the like. As far as being better than a hybrid, a hybrid still has some emissions, something that runs purely on electricity with no fossil fuels results in no emissions whatsoever.

While these are ideas right now, getting people who know the specifics on these to talk about them and figure out what works what doesn't then these can go from just ideas to something that can really work.

At my day job we use bike messengers on company property for small deliveries, and electric carts (like golf carts) for big items. The cars are only used for short errands, but they're used all day.

We already can do vehicles that are effective on a larger scale. We might not be able to get something available for, say, police use yet but we can get things like public works pickup trucks stuff like that and with R&D we can do better.

I watched some of the live video Saturday afternoon. There was a ticker tape message running at the bottom of the screen, offering painless ways to help save the Earth's resources. One message said that if every family in the US would use just one roll of paper towels made from recycled paper a year, it would save "X" tons of corn.

Another example was the number of trash bags the average American family used per year. I don't remember the figure, but I do remember thinking that we use less than 15% of the number quoted.

Anyway, if I could find a list of these easily attainable goals, I would like to post it to the local Repub board to show that they don't have to give up their SUVs to make a difference.

Does anyone know where a list of these messages could be found?

It's for the Alliance For Climate Protection - - Gore is the Chairman of the Board.



There are a ton of suggestions there - - click past the pledge splash page to the animated town page.

He testified about enacting a program that is similar to what you proposed in your number 1. It's about insulation as opposed to solar, but the overall concept sounds very solid.

:)

snip>

8) Pass a carbon-neutral mortgage association. Here's why: buyers of new homes and buyers and sellers all focus on purchase prices. But the expenditures that go into more insulation and window treatment and those that don't pay back immediately but pay back over 2-3 years, those don't get counted as savings. Put those in a separate instrument - then have a Connie May which can create a separate instrument. So that people can save and reduce co2 at the same time.

snip>

http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=gore_returns_to_senate_to_butt_heads_wit&display=print&more=1

in CA in the 80's sponsored by PG&E (and mandated by the Public Utilities Commission- this was prior to the deregulation scams) that insulated low income houses - there was also a zero interest loan program for more affluent households, and a commercial program component. This was done in Northern and Central CA and should be done nationwide.

The programs saved enough energy that their combined conservation equaled three full sized power generation plants. We are talking at least hundreds of millions in construction costs here as well as the fuels to fire the generators (usually nat. gas, oil, or coal)

The free program component provided attic insulation, water heater blanket, weather stripping caulking, and, the #1 item in cost to benefit ratio........(drum roll please) .......a low flow shower head!

The largest single energy cost in the average home is hot water. I wonder when on demand hot water heaters are going to actually become standard in the US like they are in many European countries. They have so many advantages over storing hot water in a tank, from significant energy conservation, to space utilization, to not having to wait a half hour to take a shower while the tank re-heats, to longevity of function.

Do both effective insulation plus outfitting said buildings with solar and wind power where feasible. Think of how much power would be saved, how much cost could be put into things like education and further investments into the environment.

I think if low interest loans could be established for these things, and then the loan could be repaid by actually sharing the savings from the consumer's energy bill. If the payments were spread out over the whole life of a mortgage, for instance, then there would be no economic pain at all felt by the consumer. He gets to reap the benefits without having to cough up those high initial installation costs.

Kicked and recommended.