Unconventional Sources

They caught my attention with an article on a proposal to paint the roofs of buildings white in an effort to reflect solar radiation back into outer space as a way to combat global warming. They kept my attention with a broad variety of worthwhile environmental articles, on topics such as making pedestrian friendly roads, and the problems of transit-oriented development in Seattle. It’s a great source of environmental stories from around the world – read Planetizen, and become a planetizen.

Environmental protection takes on a completely new tone on the EPA fugitive page. The site is filled with the profiles of people who have committed environmental crimes and become fugitives from justice. If you’re tired of Sierra Club stories about restored marshes, these fugitives give you something a little bit more exciting to read about.

It’s become clear that alternate energy isn’t just good for the environment, it’s desperately needed for the economy as well. The fossil fuel economy has failed us, as stocks are crashing downward and foreclosures are rocketing upward. The Earth’s climate is careening on a helter skelter path of wild fluctuations that are sending natural ecosystems and human communities alike into crisis.

For too long, corporate right wing political leaders have pretended that nothing is wrong. They’ve left us a disaster of neglect and denial. It’s time to consider the alternative visions offered at AlternativeEnergy.com instead. Alternative Energy offers news and social networking centered around cleaner and more efficient ways to power our lives.

When we think about how far our society is willing to go in fueling its rollocking good time disposable material culture, this ought to be an icon in everyone’s memory: A mountain gone where once it stood, and the land all around laid to waste. Mountains are supposed to be eternal – at least in the scope of human imagination. Now, they’re regarded as just more resources for corporations to exploit.

This is not a mythological fantasy imagined by Lorax-mimicking tree huggers. It’s a reality, and it’s been documented by a dedicated non-profit organization: Appalachian Voices.

Recently, they’ve teamed up with Oil Change International to produce the database behind the following widget, which you can use to see how much dirty coal money your congressional representative in Washington has taken.

(I find that incoming U.S. Senator from New York Kirsten Gillibrand has taken $1,000 in dirty coal money from Entergy Corporation, for example.)

U.S. Senators and Congressional representatives have accepted $40,404,519 from the coal industry since 2000.
Enter your zipcode to see how dirty your congresspeople are:

The hour of the Earth is not quite yet here… It’s on March 28th at 8:30 PM. That’s the time of Earth Hour this year.

During Earth Hour, people across the world will make a simple act: They will turn off the lights. Wherever they are, at home or at work, they will choose not to participate in the unsustainable economy of artificial energy.

Will this one hour make a big difference, in the economy or in the ecology of the planet? Well, for that one hour it will.

Think of it as a warmup exercise. Right now, the idea that we can exist without artificial lights after dark is perceived as something radical. In fact, it’s the most natural thing there could be.

With 6 billion people on Earth, an Earth Hour is something we need a lot more of. Maybe after this year, people could celebrate a true Earth Day, expending no artificial energy. In 2010, we could extend that to an Earth Week, and from there on in, we might start to actually make a difference.

I recommend going over to the blog Groovy Green, which was started just down the road from me in the small city of Ithaca, New York. Groovy Green has got a lot of great articles that show how people around the world are working hard and thinking smart in order to try to diminish the environmental crisis that we’re all suffering under. Kudos to them for their hard work… and one pesky question…

Is Groovy Green really groovy? I have to say no. It’s a serious information resource with lots of great technical information and links to detail-oriented engineers. It’s got stuff that you just won’t find on in mainstream news channel, much less your morning paper. But groovy? No.

That’s just fine with me. If you ask me, the world is suffering from an overdose of groove. Groove is funky, but it’s also junky. Groove doesn’t think about the future. It just blisses out in the now.

It’s time for us to get serious, and get to work. Economically and environmentally, we’re up to our necks in groovy mess. Thanks to Groovy Green for giving us some tools for digging ourselves out.