The first Five Friday Facts of the month centered on the economic impact of environmental regulations on the economy. If not for President Obama’s announcement earlier this month that the administration has withdrawn support for tighter regulations on smog and air pollution at the risk of harming economic growth, this would not be an issue. [...]
Archive for the ‘Op-Ed’ Category
Environmental Regulations, Public Health, and the Economy
September 22nd, 2011 
Eric Wilson 
Posted in Business, Economics, Eric Wilson, Featured Posts, Op-Ed, President Obama 
Tags: Chemicals, Economy, Pollution, Quotations, Regenerative Economy 
No Comments »Bringing Electric Cars to the Public’s Consciousness
September 18th, 2011 Eric Wilson On several occasions I’ve written about the increasing visibility of electric vehicles. There was the post last fall about seeing three electric vehicles in one week and then a few months back there was the Chevy Volt plugged in at Canopy Airport Parking Lot. While laid up with a case of possible food poisoning, I [...]
Posted in Eric Wilson, Featured Posts, Op-Ed, Sustainability, Transportation Tags: Chevy Volt, Electric Vehicles, Tesla No Comments »Living Within Our Ecological Means
September 11th, 2011 Eric Wilson Several years ago while attending a conference in Dallas one of the keynote speakers, a Native American from Taos, New Mexico, recounted the following story: When the government came to my tribe’s elders and offered to provide running water, the elders said “No”, we go to the river everyday to fetch our water. We see [...]
Posted in Agriculture, Behavior, Eric Wilson, Featured Posts, Local Energy/Food, Op-Ed, Sustainability Tags: Farmer's Market, Food, Organic, Plan B 4.0 No Comments »Entering the Anthropocene Epoch?
September 10th, 2011 Nick Grue Geologic time periods of the past have generally been differentiated due to changes in landscape and organism populations. During some geologic time periods, certain organisms have thrived while others have faltered, and sometimes many organism falter as seen during mass extinction events. Humans first appeared during the Pleistocene epoch and have been in existence all [...]
Posted in Behavior, Guest Authors, Op-Ed, Sustainability, Sustainable Development Tags: Carbon Dioxide, Environment, Nick Grue No Comments »Energy Efficiency and Economic Recoveries
August 28th, 2011 Eric Wilson Although the United States economy generates something on the order of 15 trillion dollars in GDP, several figures in terms of expenditures have become particularly worrisome. A Five Friday Facts from a few months ago contained the following figure: $202 billion is spent annually on home heating and cooling bills in the United States. In [...]
Posted in Behavior, Energy Efficiency, Eric Wilson, Featured Posts, Op-Ed Tags: Coal, Electricity Generation, Energy, USGBC No Comments »Durability is the Key to Sustainability
August 20th, 2011 Eric Wilson Goods that need replacing every few years, what is known as planned obsolescence, deals a serious blow to the goals of sustainability. When a poorly made object fails, ends up in the waste stream, and leads a consumer to purchase a new widget, there are environmental ramifications for the planet and economic ones for the [...]
We’re 2nd Green Revolution. Wait…So Where’s the Revolution?
August 14th, 2011 Justin Manger The word revolution connotes upheaval, swiftness, displacement, and even violent change. We put revolution in our name when we founded the site because we believe the change happening now is phenomenal and will forever alter our relationship with energy. We are undergoing a “technological transformation of energy production, distribution, and consumption to green, clean, and [...]
Posted in 2nd Green, Justin Manger, Op-Ed, Sustainability Tags: 2nd Green Revolution, Environment No Comments »From Renewable Fuels to Sustainable Ones
July 31st, 2011 Eric Wilson The conflating of “renewable” with “sustainable” is not a perfect pairing. Consider the definition of sustainable, “of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged.” While renewable fuels offer the possibility of renewed sources of energy, they do not automatically represent [...]
We’re On Our Way to a Greener World
July 30th, 2011 Justin Manger Several articles and events recently have reinforced the optimism I sense in our switch to lower pollution, lower consumption, and more sustainable lives. The hope springs forth in part because there is not just one group or sector or even one reason why society is shifting to more sustainable options. Rather, the change is spread [...]
Posted in Behavior, Business, Clean Technology, Education, Justin Manger, Op-Ed Tags: Energy Conservation No Comments »More Roads Makes More Traffic
July 24th, 2011 Eric Wilson In a recent study out of the University of Toronto comes the startling revelation that “if you build it they will come.” While the line comes from Field of Dreams, the study’s findings say as much. The study’s official title, The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from US cities, demonstrates that increasing the volume [...]
Posted in Behavior, Eric Wilson, Featured Posts, Op-Ed, Transportation Tags: Bus, Cars, Los Angeles, Mass Transit No Comments »
