rock port, missouri: small city making big headlines.

before today, i'd never heard of rock port, missouri.

they're a town of 1,300 and they just made history as the first united states city to be 100 percent powered by wind. rock port will only use about 113 of the 116 kilowatts the wind turbine will produce. they'll supply it for a cost to neighbouring cities.

rock port, thank you for making the dream a reality and setting the example to everyone else. you have found the answer and yeah, it was blowin' in the wind.


bob dylan
"blowin' in the wind"

how many roads must a man walk down
before you call him a man?
yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail
before she sleeps in the sand?
yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
before they're forever banned?
the answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
the answer is blowin' in the wind.

how many times must a man look up
before he can see the sky?
yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
before he can hear people cry?
yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
that too many people have died?
the answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
the answer is blowin' in the wind.

how many years can a mountain exist
before it's washed to the sea?
yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
before they're allowed to be free?
yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head,
pretending he just doesn't see?
the answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
the answer is blowin' in the wind.

green-thinking entrepreneurs.

see how today's entrepreneurs are putting their money where their mouth is with carbon-footprint minimizing extreme ideas ranging from 3-wheel spaceship-like vehicles to gypsum-free drywall to a recycling bin equipped with a tracking device (recyclebank) that pays out to its clients based upon their recycling contribution to an idea that blows my own mind: a renewable plastic. really? wow.

if you had the money and time, what kind of innovative idea would you create to further the green cause?

look who's behind it all:
steve fambro of aptera
sungevity
ron gonen of recyclebank
pelamis wave power and enersys
saul griffith of makani power
nau
serious materials
amyris
david rosenberg of hycrete
frederic scheer of cereplast
howard levine and ian bruce of venture vehicles

note: gypsum plays a leading role in producing the global-warming toxin carbon dioxide.

do your part: lights out san francisco.

if you live in the san francisco area, join me and the rest of the city in a citywide act toward environmental awareness and energy conservation.

lights out san francisco estimates that turning your nonessential household light off for one hour on a regular saturday night from 8.00-9.00p--peak times for lights to be left on--we can save about 15 percent of the average amount of energy that would have been spent.

that's just for one hour. imagine what could happen if we were more aware of lighting needs and turned them off when they weren't being used.

in that one hour change your lightbulb(s) to compact fluorescent lightbulbs (cfl).

"do as i say, not as i do."

today is madonna's 49th birthday. happy freakin' birthday.

for the most part, i like madonna.

but then i learned how un-green she is and it all changed. she's truly a material girl--seeming more focused on investments financially than following the lead of her celebrity associates and large money donors to preserve and save our earth.

she sang at the live earth show earlier this summer and spoke as if she truly believed in the cause. maybe she does. but her actions suggest otherwise: she has invested about $2.7 million in companies that damage our environment instead of save or preserve it. (article from fox news below.)

she and jennifer aniston should join forces. together they could be trailblazers in destroying any environmental resources we have left.

===

Friday, July 06, 2007

By Roger Friedman

'Green' Means Money, Not Environmentalism to Madonna

Madonna had better clean up her business before she starts cleaning up the world.

The Material Mom is the headliner at tomorrow night's Live Earth show from London's Wembley Stadium. But guess what? For her, the word green means money, not the environment.

Madonna, who seems to be on top of all her many business endeavors, has actually invested about $2.7 million dollars in companies that are creating the destruction that Live Earth is trying to raise awareness about. She has invested in several companies named as the biggest corporate polluters in the world.

It's a cruel irony that Madonna's Ray of Light Foundation owns blocks of shares in companies that folks like Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio would like to see punished and rehabilitated for their attitudes toward global warming, climate control and basic pollution.

The companies include Alcoa, Ingersoll Rand, Weyerhaeuser, and several others associated with oil exploration, digging, and refining including British Petroleum, Schlumberger (a chief competitor of Halliburton), Devon Energy, Peabody Energy, Emerson Electric, Kimberly Clark and Weatherford International.

In 2002, the University of Massachusetts' Political Research Institute ranked Alcoa No. 9 on a list of all-time toxic American companies. And I don't mean toxic as in toxic bachelor. This is toxic as in air pollution.

The same UMass PRI study ranked Ford Motor Company at No. 7 on the Toxic Top 10. Northrop Grumman was No. 17. Weyerhaeuser was No. 42. Emerson Electric was No. 56. 3M Corp was No. 70. Kimberly Clark was No. 96.

You get the picture. Madonna's Ray of Light Foundation has stock in each of these companies. Her last published tax statement claims $4.2 million in corporate stock, and only $620,000 in donations to other charities including her pet project: the Kabbalah Center.

Madonna even has 175,000 shares of Ford Motor Company, which in 2005 — the last year for which Ray of Light Foundation's tax form is available — had only one hybrid SUV in its fleet. Even now, but certainly then, Ford was/is not known as a green company. The only obvious thing Ford and Madonna have in common is Detroit — although it could be argued that only Ford has retained its Midwest accent.

Take Weyerhaeuser Corporation, a "forest products" company that is basically in the business of killing trees for paper and wood for housing. In 2005, Madonna owed roughly 1,100 shares valued at an average price of $63. Since then, the share price is up to around $80. If her number of shares remained constant, she's made a nice profit over the last two years.

But Weyerhaeuser is no friend of the green community. A story posted on the Rainforest Action Network details Weyerhaeuser's ongoing fight with environmental activists who call the Seattle-based corporation "a bad investment" and "one of America's worst environmental performers."

Even if more than half the Network's characterizations of Weyerhaeuser are hyperbolic, one has to wonder why Madonna has put even a penny into the company if she has any feeling for environmental causes. But that's an inconvenient question for the material girl as she prepares to close the Live Earth show live from London.

Worse — public relations-wise — than Weyerhaeuser is Madonna's investment in Alcoa, the Aluminum Company of America. Alcoa is under fire all over the world, especially in Iceland, for building aluminum smelters that some feel threaten the environment.

The Ray of Light Foundation's Schedule of Realized Gains and Losses is revealing in many ways. It shows that Madonna, while eager to espouse politically correct beliefs, simply does not put her money where her mouth is. The Ray of Light Foundation, for example, has only a few hundred shares of one media company: Viacom. Madonna didn't even carry an investment in Warner Music Group, the company that releases her music.

al gore: energy hog and hypocrite?

apparently the truth is too inconvenient for even al gore, the guy who told us we have 10 years to shape up or our planet will be sent free-falling. you know, the guy at the front of the documentary an inconvenient truth.

according to the article below, actions speak louder than words and he's being called an energy hog.

===

Al Gore's Mansion Described as Energy Hog
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Senior Editor
February 27, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - Former Vice President (and global warming aficionado) Al Gore deserves an award for hypocrisy, says the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.

The group, which studied Gore's electric and natural gas consumption, says his mansion in Belle Meade area of Nashville "consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year."

In his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, Gore urges Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home, the group noted.

"The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) a year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh-more than 20 times the national average," the Tennessee Center for Policy Research said in a news release.

Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh -- consuming more than twice as much electricity in one month as the average American family uses in an entire year. Gore's average monthly electric bill topped $1,359, the research group said.

Likewise, the natural gas bills for Gore's mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 a month last year.

"As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use," said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson.

In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research said.

===

Gore isn't quite as green as he's led the world to believe
updated 12/7/06 @ 5.45p ET

Al Gore has spoken: The world must embrace a "carbon-neutral lifestyle." To do otherwise, he says, will result in a cataclysmic catastrophe. "Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb," warns the website for his film, An Inconvenient Truth. "We have just 10 years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tailspin."

Graciously, Gore tells consumers how to change their lives to curb their carbon-gobbling ways: Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs, use a clothesline, drive a hybrid, use renewable energy, dramatically cut back on consumption. Better still, responsible global citizens can follow Gore's example, because, as he readily points out in his speeches, he lives a "carbon-neutral lifestyle." But if Al Gore is the world's role model for ecology, the planet is doomed.

For someone who says the sky is falling, he does very little. He says he recycles and drives a hybrid. And he claims he uses renewable energy credits to offset the pollution he produces when using a private jet to promote his film. (In reality, Paramount Classics, the film's distributor, pays this.)

Public records reveal that as Gore lectures Americans on excessive consumption, he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.) For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself.

Then there is the troubling matter of his energy use. In the Washington, D.C., area, utility companies offer wind energy as an alternative to traditional energy. In Nashville, similar programs exist. Utility customers must simply pay a few extra pennies per kilowatt hour, and they can continue living their carbon-neutral lifestyles knowing that they are supporting wind energy. Plenty of businesses and institutions have signed up. Even the Bush administration is using green energy for some federal office buildings, as are thousands of area residents.

But according to public records, there is no evidence that Gore has signed up to use green energy in either of his large residences. When contacted Wednesday, Gore's office confirmed as much but said the Gores were looking into making the switch at both homes. Talk about inconvenient truths.

Gore is not alone. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has said, "Global warming is happening, and it threatens our very existence." The DNC website applauds the fact that Gore has "tried to move people to act." Yet, astoundingly, Gore's persuasive powers have failed to convince his own party: The DNC has not signed up to pay an additional two pennies a kilowatt hour to go green. For that matter, neither has the Republican National Committee.

Maybe our very existence isn't threatened.

[...]

The issue here is not simply Gore's hypocrisy; it's a question of credibility. If he genuinely believes the apocalyptic vision he has put forth and calls for radical changes in the way other people live, why hasn't he made any radical change in his life? Giving up [...] one of his homes is not asking much, given that he wants the rest of us to radically change our lives.

Peter Schweizer is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy.

who was at dick cheney's table to discuss his energy policy?

the energy task force: who was at the table

a lovely graphic demonstrating who at the table at what time.

see for yourself.

little thoughts.

three things to think on and remember.

one.
energy to create.
pollution to dispose.

two.
the more i use the more that has to be created.

three.
from edmund burke: nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

act.
change how you characteristically think about your day and in the end you will change the world.

live earth.

this just in from itunes:

"got a pen? mark down this date: 7/7/07--the debut of live earth, a go-green extravaganza boasting more than 100 genre-jumping artists, plus a worldwide, 24-hour broadcast audience of two billion. and not just any old lineup, either: we're talking nine overstuffed bills spanning all seven continents, featuring everything from hot-ticket reunions (the police, smashing pumpkins) to block-rocking rap (kanye west, ludacris) to household names like madonna and the red hot chili peppers. and it's all in the name of raising awareness about crucial climate issues like energy conservation, carbon emissions, and global warming. speaking of lowering carbon emissions, we've got the perfect alternative to boarding a plane to check out one of the live earth shows in person: our live earth playlist, packed with a hot track from every artist on every bill. get ready, earth: your axis is about to get rocked."

visit live earth for more details.

visit itunes for the entire playlist.

do your part. go green.

reduce your carbon footprint:

consume less.
share more.
live simply.
do your part.
learn how.



Ten Things You Can Do to Help Curb Global Warming
presented by the sierra club—10 things you can do to help curb global warming and in the end, save you money and create a safer environment for the future.

Ten Things to Do
10 simple things you can do to reduce your carbon footprint. it even tells how much carbon dioxide you can save if you practice any of the suggestions. inspired by "an inconvenient truth."

Top 50 Things to Do to Stop Global Warming
a series of global warming awareness pages listing facts and we can do to help our planet.

The Global Warming Survival Guide
published in a special edition of time magazine it lists 51 things everyone can do—both complex and simple ideas.

Cargo Plant Love
visit their website and learn more about their lipstick that could change the world.

Treehugger
how to green your gifts.

Greenpeace Energy Saving [R]evolution - first 7 steps
sign up and help the revolution with practicing a step a day! together maybe we can change the laws.