The Southern Arizona Green Chamber of Commerce is up and running and I am proud to be a member. They are a great bunch of merchants and others like myself interested in green living and doing things differently. There is a wide variety of business people who want to change our ways of thinking about sustainability. We have people interested in doing energy audits to help businesses and home owners save energy and money. We have contractors who can build green buildings, install energy saving devices and make a big difference in your carbon footprint. To join the group call Andrew T Greeley at (520) 296-2442

A report on NPR, on April 15, 2009, stated that the use of bottled water has decreased 1% in the past year, due primarily to the bad economy. The commentator was urging the public to use our excellent tap water that we enjoy here in the United States. The reason given to reduce the purchase of bottled water was concern over dumping the plastic bottles in land fills. Recycling was barely mentioned and the fact that the bottles were made from petroleum was not  mentioned at all. Most people couldn’t tell you what water bottles are made from. Even those few that are recycled are sent to China and then sold back to us. The main problem with bottled water, aside from the fact that the bottles contain a product we already get piped to our homes, is that the bottles are made from a non-renewable resource. They are made from petroleum. That’s why we need to stop buying them.

America has water in virtually...

On April 27 NPR had a story on All Things Considered with Michele Norris and Robert Segal about ideas to make the national electric grid  smarter without rebuilding all of it.

My power company instigated a new program which people could sign up for which promised to save energy and consequently money. They put a new meter on your service line and meter your power usage according to off-peak, shoulder peak and peak times, charging a different rate for each time. It varies depending upon the seasons, from winter to summer to fall and spring. It's strictly voluntary...

Here’s a new one on me, and yet another reason to head off global warming no matter what causes it.

Today I read a report from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. They produced a study that concluded that global warming, along with higher rainfall totals and longer warm seasons, resulted in the spread of West Nile Virus throughout the world for the period from 2001 and 2005.

I bet you know the answer to this intuitively. Yesterday I purchased a documentary at the Tucson Alternative Energy Expo titled “Who Killed the Electric Car.” I blew $10 because it is available on the web free at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5871495968130273402. I had never seen it before, or even heard of it, for that matter. It was produced in 2006. It was very enlightening and at the same time discouraging. The  question has a number of answers. Basically it was Big Auto, Big Oil and Big Government. The public was complicit too.

Everyone who cares about our planet should see the film. It’s 90 minutes long and I guarantee that your blood will reach the boiling point by the end...