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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Understanding the electric bike phenomenon is like anything else: the more I learn, the more I see how ignorant I am. 

At first blush, how appealing is a foldable e-bike?  Can’t you just use a bike rack, like everyone else?  But check out the video linked above, and then think about people with boats, or even planes, who come into an area and want to get around.  Think about throwing a couple of them in the trunk of your car, for a fun day tooling around some remote spot.

They’re not for everyone, but there really are some neat applications for people who are rethinking how they get themselves around.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainable Building

I just had a wonderful talk with Tina Vasile, CEO of  Swing Green, purveyor of heat exchangers of various types.  The company’s expanding, and that’s good, but Tina and I agree that it’s sometimes hard to get people excited about a set of technologies that are so “unsexy.”  People tend to want some big, conspicuous thing on their roof generating clean electricity and making their electric meter run backwards, not a coil of pipe underneath the floor of their bathroom, cost-effectively but invisibly recapturing some of the heat from their shower water.

I’m not sure exactly what to do about that, except to persevere. Tina and her team are talking to engineers, architects, government purchasing agencies – all the right people; if they stick with it, I know they’ll succeed.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

During a 30-minute drive I took earlier today, I had the pleasure of listening to a 1964 talk that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered at the Baccalaureate sermon at the commencement exercises for Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, which included that fabulous line: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”  For what it’s worth, this quote has a long and very interesting history, an article on which is linked above.

Regardless of its history, we’d all like to believe that its message is, in fact, true, insofar as it forms the basis of our optimism – at least our hope – that humankind can somehow find its way to a just, kind, and sustainable world. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I’m headed out in a few minutes for another hike at the same place (Gaviota, CA) I mentioned a year or so back, and with the same friend – a fellow who shares my concern for the direction in which humankind is headed vis-à-vis sustainability and our environment. He told me on New Year’s that he intends to make 2014 “a year of taking action” to forward his progressive ideals. Sounds good to me, and a fine topic for discussion as we take in the scenery.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

My friend Larry Miles, whose breakthrough in wind turbines I prominently feature here on my list of clean energy investment opportunities (it’s #6), writes:

I was thinking about your piece on the sad state of the non-existent U.S. Energy Policy, I remembered the quote from Machiavelli (pictured).  Here it is, lifted from Wikipedia:

This quote from chapter six of The Prince on initiating change struck me, “We must bear in mind, then, that there is nothing more difficult and dangerous, or more doubtful of success, than an attempt to introduce a new order of things in any state. For the innovator has for enemies all those who derived advantages from the old order of things, whilst those who expect to be benefited by the new institutions will be but lukewarm defenders. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

2013 saw a significant uptick in the amount of mainstream news coverage of climate change – normally in connection with pollution and other environmental issues.  Here’s a CBS news clip in which Charlie Rose covers the air in Beijing, recently measured to be 20 times dirtier than “safe” levels.  According to the report, China consumes almost half the world’s coal.  Officials closed freeways due to inadequate visibility.  Another 15 years of unchanging behavior could put the world to a point where we would be unable to correct climate issues, even if we wanted to.  (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

In the world of sustainable lumber certification, a lot of hard knocks have been traded between various organizations, mainly over the issue of acceptance by the United States Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, the current standard in green building certification. As of 2014, the only organization that the LEED program recognizes as eligible for additional credit “for the use of responsibly harvested wood from any state or region” is lumber certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Biofuels, Electric Vehicles

Hyundai has been developing alternative-fuel vehicles for a long time, and has been offering several electric and hybrid models for a while now, which have made them one of the leaders in green vehicles. In recent years, they have been developing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, which are considered to be cleaner, more efficient, and have better range than other types of alternative vehicles. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Today everybody is talking about green cleaning. This is a process that involves using eco-friendly ingredients for the preparation of cleaning products. If you want to keep fresh water clean and toxic-free, you need to consider green cleaning.

The benefits of green cleaning are numerous, starting with improved health and cleaning efficiency but there are many other as well. Here we want to show you what advantages green cleaning has and how it can make your life better. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainable Building

In this day and age, as we consider climate change, global warming, and other scientific phenomenon, we’re all looking for ways to help reduce our carbon footprint.

For homeowners, one of the easiest ways to help reduce their carbon footprint, is to consider ways they can help cut down on home energy heating costs. Spray foam insulation, is one of the best ways to make this happen. Spray foam, is one of the most advanced, and safest, ways of insulating ones home, in this market. It can be used to insulate homes, roofing, and nearly any other type of structure. (more…)

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