Earth Day: Congrats, Now Do More!

(image from GOOD.is)

There we are, Phoenix.  Number 12 on the survey for Least Wasteful Cities.

Not too bad.  Let’s see some of the details:

Ranked 12th in the nation as America’s Least Wasteful City
Ranked 20th in 2009

Phoenix’s high rankings:

• 5th Never driving their car for trips that are less than one mile from home
• 7th Participating in their city’s sustainability/environmental programs
• 7th Turning off the water when brushing their teeth

Phoenix’s low rankings:

• 23rd Shutting the lights off when not in the room
• 23rd Hanging their clothes out to dry when possible
• 24th Buying locally grown/produced foods

So oddly we’re good at walking for short trips, which I’d expect us to be awful at because of the heat, and we’re awful at hanging clothes to dry, even though it only takes 0.8342 seconds to dry off here.

But here’s the part I loved best:

Efforts/Decisions to more environmentally friendly

• 84 percent recycle
• 78 percent use energy efficient bulbs
• 75 percent shop locally

Hooray for shopping local!

So we moved up from 20th to 12th in one year.  No reason we cannot crack the top 10 next year.

To learn more about Phoenix’s environmental and sustainability efforts, visit http://phoenix.gov/greenphoenix/index.html

(This is Day 29 of the 30 Day Blog Challenge, be sure to check out the other participants at #30DayBC)

Great New Solar Idea

I’m continuously baffled by the lack of solar-energy policy and particularly how little it’s been adopted by public & government buildings here in Phoenix.  With 300+ (feels like 400+) days of sunshine a year, we’re literally letting money trickle into the gutter.

The best I can think of is that people don’t like the look of solar panels on the roof, and nobody has been daring enough to build solar panels into the walls of our high-rises.

So I was pretty psyched when I saw this product reviewed in INHABITAT:

Windows are a two-way street when it comes to efficient green building. We need them for light, fresh air, beauty, and the connection they create to the outdoors, but even the most efficient windows, installed perfectly, are akin to having a hole in the wall as far as energy is concerned. Enter Peer +, who has developed a new type of energy-generating smart glass that can change its opacity to filter sunlight, significantly reducing the energy costs of solar over-exposure. You can select settings from bright to dark to private (scattering), and the windows will actually generate electricity from the blocked sunlight. Pretty nifty!

Why not use that which makes us least comfortable (incredible heat) to power our recreation?  Hell, even if solar technology hasn’t reached a point for us to be able to power buildings entirely from solar, consider at least the costs that could be avoided, and/or profits that could be made, by capitalizing on what we can grab?

(This is Day 10 of the 30 Day Blog Challenge, be sure to check out the other participants at #30DayBC)

Here's an idea

Why we should be concerned about Global Climate

The Summer Olympics did a good job trying to hide how polluted cities in China are.  Many of us probably wanted to ignore it and think “yeah, well that’s China, that’s not here”.

Well, take a look at what’s really happening.

Yup, those of us living in Phoenix, LA, San Diego, etc, have been breathing in that lovely, unfiltered pollution as it blows around the world.

Thanks China, and thanks Bush & Obama for not pushing for tougher global standards.  My lungs love you guys!

A Year Ago

A Couple re-runs from my old myspace blogs. these are things I posted about year ago

Get Sustainable.
It’s not an option.

Not the Department of Redundancy Department

Since I’m sure you already noticed it on the calendar for this past weekend, Sunday was Anie’s (pronounce it however you like, she just loves the attention) B-Day. The party was on Saturday, and quite a few people were at non-sober.

Before I go any further, if you were looking here for a commemorative blog about how great Anie is and all the various reasons why she’s clearly worth the energy I spend each day coming up with new ways to con her into dating me… you’re in the wrong place.

As a further result of efforts to help the environment, Random & Awesome has decided it would be more sustainable to have everyone “carpool” over to here and read Holly’s blog on the same topic.

In my defense, I assert that Holly operates on Canadian-Time, and thus was able to beat me to the punch.

I promise to post later with some pictures from the weekend. It might be a few days as I should be switching out my laptop this week.