There is an organization camped out in Copenhagen that calls itself the Copenhagen Consensus Center (CCC). Its director, Bjorn Lomborg, author of Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool It calls himself an ‘environmental skeptic’. He is an adjunct Professor of the Copenhagen Business School. The Consensus Center is comprised primarily of economists. Climate scientists were oddly absent from this group. They have come up with a list of 15 “fixes” for Global Warming. Actually there are really only eleven, as three are about taxing C02 in certain amounts and two are about reducing black carbon. Their professed goal was to suggest action “that actually does good.” The list left me somewhat dismayed, because it totally ignored what I consider one of the most important issues, one which is almost never discussed. Want to guess what it is?…

The Washington Post reported an enormous waste by the Energy Department complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, this week. The story was reported in the Arizona Daily Star here in Tucson, Arizona, today, September 21, 2009. The significance of the date is that the $850,000 spent on energy improvements on buildings in Oak Ridge resulting in credits to the contractors doing the energy saving retrofits happened in 2001. The buildings were subsequently torn down “several years ago.” The Webster American Heritage dictionary defines several as more than two or three. Let’s see; 2001 plus more than two or three (could be three or four) would be 2004 or 2005. Considering that the retrofit had to take at least a year that means the improvements were in place only three or four years before the buildings were torn down. That would make it smack dab in the middle of the previous administration. Where was the oversight?...

I listened to and participated in a webinar today in which Robert Glennon, author of the book on the water crisis, Unquenchable, talked about what we need to do to reduce our demand for water. There truly is a water crisis if you didn’t know it. He advocates conservation, but his real thrust is to make consumers of our most precious resource pay for the real cost of water. In some locations in this country people are not asked to pay anything for water. In most places water costs the consumer a fraction of what it costs to purify it and pump it to our homes and businesses. We still think nothing of pouring it on lawns, into swimming pools in the desert, or using drinking water to flush toilets. Do you try to conserve water in any way?….

I wrote here a short while ago about urine being a better source  for making hydrogen than plain water. It breaks down into its components easier. Here's a new wrinkle, not in fuel but in saving water, money and energy. In Brazil SOS Mata Atlantica Foundation has a TV ad campaign aimed at kids. The ad tells the little scapers to pee in the shower, saying that it saves a considerable amount of water over a year....

In part one and two of this blog subject, relative to how I live the green life, I revealed that I drove a a gas guzzler and why. I also revealed that I was a big water hog. I have a swimming pool. In my town, Tucson, Arizona, that's not unusual. Water is not only a vital resource, but it uses a lot of energy to purify and pump it around. We have passed peak water some time ago. I have done some really positive things too in spite of my hogishness...

Phillip J. Greene, M.Arch, MBA 

Phillip J. Greene, M.Arch, MBA
 I am a retired architect with 45 years of experience designing a wide variety of building types.  My client list includes many large companies, including Busch Entertainment Corporation, and Universal Studios, as well as the Army Corps of Engineers and the University of Illinois. I have a keen interest in wild life, conservation and the preservation of our environment. I first became interested in energy conservation during the first energy crisis in 1973.

Chapter 1: Is There Really an Energy Crisis?

 Not Fossil Fuel?

Just what are fossil fuels? The big three are oil, natural gas, and coal. There are other products derived from them, but they are the primary fossil fuels on which our economy runs and depends. The term fossil fuel refers to fuels originating from the remains of ancient plants and animals buried deep in the earth’s crust hundreds of millions of years ago, transformed into hydrocarbons by the earth’s heat and great pressure. They are not the result of dinosaurs dying and decaying as some suggest, but in the case of oil, they result from microscopic zooplankton deposited on ancient ocean floors. Coal is the result of plant matter from ancient forests being buried and subjected to great heat and pressure. Natural gas results from the same basic process, except that gas is the result of higher temperature and pressure. Gas is often found together with coal and oil. They all contain a mix of hydrogen and carbons in differing amounts and are therefore called hydrocarbons. Incomplete combustion of fossil fuels generates pollution, most of which is carbon dioxide (CO2). The hydrogen and carbon, when combined with oxygen, are what burns. Fossil fuels are finite commodities, and our use of them affects everything throughout our country and the world. Modern society can’t exist without them.  Unfortunately, one of these days they will be gone.