Pragmatic Environmentalist

Rainwater Collection Barrel

2009-04-12T09:41:00.000-07:00

I installed my first rainwater collection barrel on Friday (see picture). Saturday night it rained. The 55 gallon barrel was filled to overflowing. The barrel sits about 20 feet from my vegetable garden. The water from the barrel will be perfect for watering the garden. The barrel should reduced the amount a city water I need for my garden.

I obtained the barrel at a class my city presented on rainwater collection. As part of the $10 class fee, each student received a water barrel. The barrels came from a food supplier who had used them to shipped tomatoes or jalapenos. In class, the students added a hole in the cover and a spigot to make the barrels suitable for rainwater harvesting. At home, I moved the barrel next to a rain gutter down spout and ran the spout into the barrel. I put the barrel on some cinder blocks so the spigot would be high enough to place a bucket under. Seems to work great.

Composting

2009-03-21T20:24:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about composting for a while. Several weeks ago I purchased a SoilSaver composting bin. I thought about making a homemade bin which is easy enough to do but never gotten around to it. I decided to purchase the SoilSaver bin when I saw it as Sam Clubs for $40. This is not a bad price for a retail compost bin. The bin itself is made from 100% recycled plastic.

I began filling it with leaves and grass from the yard. I've also been adding plant based food wastes: vegetables and fruit scraps, tea bags and coffee grinds. The bin is about 15 cubic feet. It takes a lot of organic stuff to fill it up especially since the grass hasn't started growing and leaves won't be available in quantity until fall. However, I hope to have some composted soil from want I can put in it now in a couple of months. I'll write updates as I get results. In the mean time, I am keeping some food wastes out of the trash bin.

The Agricultural-Industrial Complex

2009-02-17T20:13:00.000-08:00

I've been reading a lot lately about how food is manufactured in this country. The natural process of growing food, raising farm animals and processing food had become totally industrialized. Today's global corporation can't wait on nature to provide the food they want to sell. Nature is two slow and unpredictable for today's executives and boardrooms. Food must be able to be manufactured on a predictable time schedule just like any other manufactured good or commodity. Even farm animals have been reduced to "meat production units" which are a given growth hormones and antibiotics to maximize their production.

Today integrated food conglomerates control everything from the genetically engineered seeds to the final processed product we purchase in a cardboard box that contains a list of ingredients we can't pronounce and can't comprehend. The food produced is not to provide nutrition for people but to provide profits for corporations. The way the food is produced may not be friendly to the environment or healthy to consume but it ensures a large supply of edible stuff that can keep corporate profits high.

The most common name for the industrial food business is Agribusisness. It is a portmanteaux that combines Agriculture and Business. Other terms include Corporate Farming and Factory Farming. I don't think any of these words captures the complexities of the physical processes, corporate entities, food processing factories and relationships between agriculture, business and the government that exist in bringing edible food substances to the tables of America. So I coined a new term:

Agricultural-Industrial Complex

Agricultural-Industrial Complex borrows from the Military-Industrial Complex that was in common use in the 1960s and 1970s. The term military-industrial complex represented the essense of tight relationship between the military, defense industry and the civilian parts of our government including the Congress. The same type of relationship exists today between agriculture, business and the government. The governments support of industrial agriculture is inherent in the farm bill passed last fall and all the farm bills for the lass 30 years. The subsidies in the bill support industrial agriculture and the comgalmorate food processors. I think Agricultural-Industrial Complex is the best term to describe how food gets manufactured and delivered from the farm all the way to our mouths.

The Corporate Farming page in Wikipedia provides a great overview of the Agricultural-Industrial Complex

Autumn Leaves

2008-12-26T14:23:00.000-08:00

In North Texas, leaves don't begin to fall off the trees in earnest until December. My red oak tree still had nearly all its leaves when I snapped a picture on December 13. So even though it is now winter, the pragmatic environmentalist is just now having to clean up the autumn leaves from his yard.

The pragmatic environmentalist does not like dealing with the autumn leaves that fill his yard any more than the next person. The one thing he wants to avoid is and raking and bagging all the leaves. He further does not want to haul all the bags to the street for the trash pickup. It is just too much work. Its not environmentally friendly either. A neighbor used more than twenty 30 gallon plastic trash bags to hold the leaves from his yard. A trash truck then needs to burn fuel to hall these leaves away. It doesn't make use of all the good organic material in the leaves. There must be a better way to deal with these leaves.

An alternative is composting. The pragmatic environmentalist also see this as a lot of work. It still evolves a lot of raking and hauling to get the leaves to the compost bin. Then over the next months it means tending to the bin. It you want to compost your leaves I think that is great. The organic soil created will be very useful when you start your spring gardening.

What the pragmatic environmentalist did do that is just as good as composting. He mulched the leaves into the grass. All one needs to do is first rake the leaves from the edges of the yard to the middle. Then, just get out the mulching lawn mower and run it over the leaves. All the organic material in the leave is mulched into the grass and the leaves are gone. It much less work than raking and bagging leaves and much easier than composting. It also adds good organic material to the soil in the yard.

Energy Debate

2008-07-17T19:39:00.002-07:00

It seems to me that the Republicans and Democrats just can't get over their petty politics, ideologies and ties to special interests long enough to put together a pragmatic energy policy that will be good for all Americans, break our costly dependence on foreign oil, improve our economic and national security and combat global warming.

The Republicans seem tied to drilling our way out of the oil crisis and continue to provide tax breaks and incentives to the oil, gas and coal companies. They can't break away from 20th century energy solutions that aren't working. Republican also seem to have no appreciation for the benefits the environment provides and hate energy efficiency and renewable energy. To most Republicans, global warming is not a problem that needs to be addressed.

The Democrats, on the other hand, love energy efficiency and renewable energy. They are big into environmental protection. They don't want to open up any new areas for more domestic drilling. Not only do the Democrats want to take away unwarranted tax breaks from oil, gas and coal companies, but also want to add a wind fall profits tax on oil companies to punish oil companies. Democrats seem to be opposed to any new fossil fuel energy development even if strict, effective and enforceable environmental safeguards are put in place. To Democrats, global warming is the biggest problem.

I think the Republicans and Democrats need to be aside their partisan, ideological and special interest dogmas and start working on a pragmatic comprise on energy policy.

The Democrats could allow offshore oil drilling if strict environmental safeguards are put in place. The Republicans should not object to these safeguards. With oil north of $130 per barrel, there is plenty of money to pay for the safeguards and provide oil companies big profits too.

Energy efficiency and renewable energy are a very important part of the energy future. The Republican should support the renewal of the investment tax credits for renewable energy. Republican need to stop protecting the oil can coal industries. Republicans should support that 20% of our energy come from renewable energy by 2020. By stifling U.S. efforts on renewable energy, the Republicans are simply letting foreign countries increase their technological lead over the U.S. They are also letting the energy hole we are in get deeper and deeper.

Both the Republicans and Democrats need to stop going after scapegoats like speculators, OPEC and environmentalist. A real energy plan would mitigate efforts by these groups and other to limit energy supplies and manipulate prices. Both the Democrats and Republicans also need to prepare for peak oil. Peak oil occurs when world oil production stops growing and eventually starts to decline as oil fields deplete. Sure we may have oil for another 100 years. But the production rates will be much lower than they are today.

Basically, we need Democratic and Republican statesmen and stateswomen to go beyond petty politics, ideologies and special interest to create pragmatic energy policies that will provide a healthy and prosperous future for America.

Hummer vs. Prius - Round 2

2008-07-17T15:02:00.000-07:00

Several years ago there was bogus information going around the web that the Hummer was the more environmental friendly vehicle when you considered cradle-to-grave total energy costs (see my previous post here)

Well now comes round two of the Prius vs. Hummer and I think the Prius is delivering the knockout punch. GM is considering ending Hummer production and closing the Hummer plant (see here). In the mean time, Toyota can't build the Prius fast enough to meet demand. Dealers can't keep them on their lots and Toyota will be starting Prius production in the US (see here)

With gas averaging over $4 per gallon, the Hummer just couldn't keep pace with the Prius. In the end, the gasoline price is what cleared the air on the Prius vs. Hummer energy obfuscation. The Prius won hand down. The debate is over.

De facto Carbon Tax is Here

2008-07-02T19:29:00.000-07:00

The most efficient way to regulate carbon dioxide emissions is to institute a tax on carbon. This is how many economists and environmentalists see it. However, creating a new tax is a non-starter since it is political suicide in the U.S. to propose any type of new tax even if it replaces an existing tax or funds are returned to the public. This is why complicated cap and trade emissions trading plans are being proposed. Cap and trade avoids the word tax and provides so called market incentives to reduce carbon.

But we now have in effect a de facto carbon tax. We have the tax due to the failure of our political leaders to enact an effective energy policy. Oil is nearing $150 per barrel and gasoline is over $4 per gallon, which is double the price of only a few years ago. The ever escalating price of oil is just like having a carbon tax except for one thing: the money is going to Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and other foreign countries instead of the U.S. treasury. So the U.S. taxpayer and consumer gets no benefit from this tax and it damages our economy.

This de facto carbon tax is having the same effect as a real carbon tax to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. People are driving less and abandoning SUVs for fuel efficient cars. Detroit is scrambling to move from SUV and pickup truck production to high gas mileage vehicles. We don’t need CAFE standards anymore since Detroit is now being forced into building fuel efficient cars due to high oil prices and market pressures. Airlines are trying every way they can to reduce their fuel consumption to save costs. You can see people worried about living in car dependent suburbs and starting to change their driving and living habits. Cities are planning mix-use zoning plans to make walking to stores and work possible again. Mass transit is making a comeback. People are talking about bike trails and riding bikes to work. Motor cycle and motor scooter sales are rising. These are the things we need to do to combat global warming. These are the things a carbon tax is suppose to put in motion. This shows that a real carbon tax would very effective at limiting carbon dioxide emissions.

Who is to blame for this de factor carbon tax. There are many bogeymen. Speculators, OPEC, Congress, President Bush, American saber rattling against Iran, oil companies, auto manufacturers, environmentalists, SUV drivers, the ambivalent American public, new demand for oil from China and India, peak oil, the falling dollar, failure for the U.S. to enact an effective oil policy, terrorism, political instability in many oil producing areas of the world. Probably all of these factors have some part in the current high price of oil. Because of all the varied forces driving up the price of oil, don't expect the price of oil and the de facto tax on carbon to come down anytime soon if ever.

Only effective energy policies can reduce this de facto tax on carbon. I don't think our politicians have the guts needed to bring about the necessary energy policy changes.

Power Strips and Standby Power

2008-01-19T19:49:00.000-08:00

Most appliances and electronics in the home are never completely off. They are usually in standby mode ready for someone to touch a key or use the remote control. While in standby mode they are still drawing power twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Maybe its not much, perhaps only one to ten watts. But start counting the number of devices you have in your home and the standby power consumption can add up quickly.

It is estimated that 7% of the power used in a home is for devices in standby mode. It could amount to the equivalent of leaving two or three 100 watt light bulbs on all the time. These standby loads can add a significant amount to your electricity bill over a years time ($50 or more). They also add to the global warming CO2 going into the atmosphere since the electricity probably comes from a coal or natural gas fired electric power plant.

The standby loads also are called phantom loads and vampire loads. The devices that have standby modes include TVs, microwave ovens, cell phone chargers, battery chargers, computers, computer monitors, printers, video game consoles, VCRs, DVD players and stereos. Anything with a clock, remote control or LED ready light draws standby power.

What can be done to reduced these standby loads. There are two simple low cost ways to eliminate phantom loads. Unplug the device when not it use or use a power strip. The power strip is usually the most convenience since it can be used to turn off multiple devices with one flip of a switch.

I use power strips at home to turn my PCs completely off. One power strip is all that is needed to turn off the PC, monitor and printer. At my home, we usually only use our PCs in the evening. It makes sense to have them off the rest of the day. PCs can use up to 50 watts even in standby mode. So its good to shutdown PCs completely and then cut off their power with a power strip.

I also use a power strips at work. I have a laptop PC that fits in a docking station. Whenever I undock my PC, I flip the power strip off. That eliminates the standby load from the docking station and my desktop monitor.

I only plug my cell phone charger in when I am actually charging the cell phone. The charger will still draw some power even when the cell phone is not plugged in.

The only devices in my home I do not have on powers strips are the TVs. Its not just a matter of being able to use the remote control. It is that they also loose all their programming and need to search to fine all the channels again when power is re-applied.

For more information on Standby power see:

· Standby Power (.gov)
· Wikipedia – Standby Power
· The Earth 911 blog Adventures in Saving Electricity
· Phantom Load Pamphlet (pdf)

So unplug or use power strips to reduce the standby power loads in your home. You’ll save some money and help reduce CO2 emissions. That a win-win.

Soft Drinks - Just Another form of Bottled Water

2008-01-13T20:23:00.000-08:00

The Fanatic Cook wrote a blog called How America Eats in which she has a picture of a huge soft drink display in a supermarket foyer. The Fanatic Cook is concerned about the health effects of the soft drinks. When I saw this I started thinking about the environmental impact too. My thought was how is bottling all these soft drinks in aluminum and plastic bottles any different than just bottling water?

The major content of soft drinks is water. Its as much as 99.8% water. The rest is just some added flavoring, sugar usually in the from of high fructose corn syrup, carbonation and caffeine. So soft drinks are just bottled water in an unhealthy disguise of caffeinated sugar water. We still have the problem of transporting all the water in these soft drinks and disposing of all the bottles just like plain old bottled water.

To learn more see the following links:

If you still need sugar water, buy powdered drinks like Kool-aid or Gatorade powder and mix them with tap water. If you don’t like straight tap water, just use a carbon filter on your tap. A carbon filter makes tap water as good or better than most bottled waters. My filters work great. Drink the mixture from a reusable glass or bottle.

So do the environment, your waistline and your health some good by cutting out the soft drinks.

China Restricting Plastic Bag Use

2008-01-10T20:30:00.000-08:00

One of the simple ways we can reduce waste, reduce oil consumption and help the environment is to forgo the plastic bags we get stores. I try to take my clothe bags to the super market whenever I remember. When I just pick one or two items, I will carry them out without the bag. Checkout clerks just put things in the plastic bags instinctively. Its a bit of a shock to them when I refuse a plastic bag. Its like I’m the only one who does this.

However, I am no longer alone in my in trying to reduce waste from plastic bags. I now have China behind me. National Geographic is reporting that “China is banning free plastic shopping bags and calling for a return to the cloth bags of old.” The Chinese seem to be taking the plastic bag restrictions in stride with many realizing it’s a good thing. Click here for the complete article

Some other insights from the article are:

San Francisco last year became the first U.S. city to ban plastic bags
The United States throws out one hundred billion plastic bags per year!
Other countries have restrictions including South Africa, Ireland, Taiwan and Bangladesh

One other note I would like to add is Sam Club does not provide plastic bags or bags of any kind at their stores. They do keep used cardboard boxes from goods shipped to their stores at their checkouts for customers to use. I also know that Ikea is charging their customers a nickel per plastic bag in an effort to get their customers to use reusable bags. (click here). It think both of these stores should be given credit for not fostering plastic bags.

I hope you too will follow China’s lead and reduce your use of plastic bags.

Gas Saving Tip when Parking the Car at the Store

2008-01-03T20:36:00.000-08:00

The Pragmatic Environmentalist is all about saving energy whether its in the home, office or car. There are many tips on how to improve the energy use of your car and save gasoline like the ones I found on Yahoo! Green. But I never heard the tip I am about to give you here.

When going to the supermarket, mall or big box discount store (e.g. Wal*mart), park in a spot near the parking lot entrance. Just pull in the lot, take a space at the back and turn off your engine. You can waste a lot gas (and time) trying to get that space close to the store door. Some of your worst gas mileage come when inching through a parking lot.

In a busy store parking lot you can spent a great deal of time idling the engine or inching along waiting for people to move out of your path. There are drivers stopping their cars by the store entrance to pickup passenger or load their vehicles who block your way. There are drivers cruising around to get that close in space that slow everyone down.

Then there is the driver who blocks a lane waiting for another shopper to pull out of their close in space. The shopper usually must first put their purchases in the car, then take his time getting in the car, before finally pulling out of the space. Then the blocker finally pulls in the space and out of your way. This process seems to take 5 minutes or more. All this time, the blocker is wasting your gas, his gas and the gas of many others caught in the gridlock.

The are other advantages to parking in a space near the lot entrance is that they make it easy to get in and out of the lot. This reduces the stress of navigating the parking lot. Sure you have the walk a little further, but it’s a good way to get a some exercise too. With shopping carts its usually not a problem getting your purchases back to your car.

So save a little gas and get some exercise by parking in a space in the back of the lot.

Electronic Waste

2007-12-29T21:03:00.000-08:00

The January 2008 issue of National Geographic has a great article, High Tech Trash, about electronic waste. This e-waste is generated from old computers, computer monitors, cells phones, televisions, electronic game consoles and other electronic devices we no longer use and throw away.

It is amazing where much of our old electronics end up. Places like West Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, and Ivory Coast), China and other Asian Countries. This waste has many negative environmental and human impact it has. The sure amount is also staggering. The EPA estimates between 1.5 and 1.9 millions tons of e-waste is generated yearly in the US.

There are two things I think we should take away from this article:

Understanding of what happens to our old electronics and the negative environmental impact it has.
There are things we can do to lessen the impact of our old electronics.

On the last point, National Geographic gives us some E-cycling Etiquette which provides web links to help us recycle our old electronics properly.

My Thoughts on the Prius Part 6 - Final Word

2007-12-29T20:29:00.000-08:00

This is the last of my six part series about my new Prius. I discussed some miscellaneous features about the car and then provide a final word.

Miscellaneous

I love the Smart Key feature that come on many Prius models. I never have to take the key out of my pocket to get in and out of the car.

The backup camera is a great feature, especially when backing out of a parking space between two SUVs or full size pickup trucks.

Backup Beep that sounds when every the car is put in reserve is annoying. There is a way to turn it off. However, my wife likes its, so I have to live with the beep.

The Prius now comes with side curtain airbags standard. This is a great safety feature, especially in Texas, where over half the vehicles are full size SUVs and pickup trucks.

Final Word

Prius is still a car that uses gasoline so it still has environmental impact. It's not perfect from an environmental standpoint. It needs to be manufactured. Steel, aluminum and nickel need to be extracted from the earth to for its manufacture. It may have much lower impact than most cars and trucks on the road but it is not zero. It think the Prius is a good first start to making cars with lower environmental impact. However there is much more work to do. I hope to see even better cars from an environmental perspective in the future.

Green Hypocrisy - Greensumption

2007-12-28T10:26:00.000-08:00

Check out this very interesting video by the International Forum on Globalization. I learned of it from a Living In A Toxic World blog. The video points out the hypocrisy of many forms of "green consuming." I think its important that when we buy things, we should consider the environmental impact in our choices. But we shouldn't kid ourselves that we can simply buy our way to a green world. For example, the Prius may be a better choice in vehicles since it has a lower environmental impact than most cars, but it still has negative environmental impact because its a car that consumes oil.

Greensumption

Consequences of Mountain Top Removal Coal Mining

2007-12-26T18:50:00.000-08:00

Extraction of natural resources can have devastating consequences for our environment. The NASA Earth Observatory Feature on the Coal Controversy in Appalachia explains the environmental consequences of the mountaintop removal mining of coal. After reading the NASA article, it makes me think twice about turning on a light powered by electricity from a coal fired power plant. It shows coal has devastating consequences beyond the global warming CO2 emissions from coal fired power plants. Its another illustration why energy conservation and alternative clean energy sources are so important.

Bring Your Lunch to Work

2007-12-26T09:02:00.000-08:00

Bringing your lunch to work is one way to lower your impact on the environment. It can have other advantages too. Every day that I don’t have a lunch appointment, I bring my lunch to work.

There are several ways bringing a lunch reduces my environmental impact:

I stay in the office, thus I don’t burn gasoline driving to a restaurant. A trip to the nearest restaurants involves about 4 to 5 mile round trip drive. I save about one gallon of gas per week which reduces my CO2 emissions by 20 pounds and I also avoid putting other tail pipe pollutants into the air.

Using reusable containers and an insulated lunch box reduces wastes from plastic lunch bags and paper sacks. I just used a couple of paper towels as a napkin and to clean my containers after lunch. My waste is much lower than that of a typical fast food meal with all its throw away papers bags, cups, wrappers and napkins. Many of these items are made from Styrofoam or plastics which increases their environmental impact.

Some of the other advantages of eating lunch at work include

Saving money. My lunches cost less to make than a typical fast food meal. I save even more over a full service restaurant. I am also not using gasoline to drive to a restaurant. I probably save $25 a week by bringing my lunch.

I eat healthier. Most fast food meal are low in nutrition and contain much more salt (sometimes double or more -- see A Calorie Counter) than we need for our daily intake. Excess salt can lead to high blood pressure. I usually include fruits and vegetable plus some walnuts and almonds with my lunch. I can also limit the portions so I don’t over eat.

I have time for a short walk which provides exercise and helps clear my mind so I am ready for an afternoon of work.

I often have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (PB&J) with my lunch. Lately I replaced my PB&J with peanut butter on a celery stick as an even healthier alternative. I didn’t realize that eating a PB&J may be better for the environment then eating a burger until I learned about The PB&J Campaign. By replacing a hamburger with a PB&J you can reduce of carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 2.5 pounds and reduce water consumption to produce the food by about 280 gallons.

I also have an slightly off topic thought to share regarding a few good weight loss tips by Dr. Mao: Dr. Mao’s New Year's Weight Loss: 6 Tips. Weight loss is not directly an environmental issue. But by not eating more food than we require, we will reduce our impact on the environment.

My Thoughts on the Prius Part 5 - Value

2007-12-22T15:46:00.000-08:00

This is Part 5 on my 6 parts series on my experience with my new Prius during the last 8 months

I needed an economical car but it had to be able to carry my son’s upright bass. In smaller cars, that meant getting a hatchback. The only other small car that worked was a Toyota Matrix and its twin, the Pontiac Vibe. The Matrix / Vibe is very close in size and features to the Prius. These car get around 30 mpg but cost $3,000 to $5,000 less depending on how the cars are equipped. The gas savings of the Prius doesn’t justify the additional cost even with gasoline at $3 per gallon.

Having said that, the extra passenger room in the Prius is a plus. It is just a few inches wider and has more rear leg room. From a status standpoint, especially a green status standpoint, the Prius is definitely a plus. People who do not necessarily care about green issues or cars take an interest when I tell them I have a Prius because it is still a novelty to most people.

Finally, comparing the Prius to mid-size cars that have about the interior space and comfort, I think it’s a better value. Compared to many bigger cars and SUVs simply used for commuting, the Prius is definitely be a better value. Compared to my Chevy Impala, it has almost as much passenger room and as much cargo capacity. A similarly equipment Impala also cost more. So the gas saving with the Prius is a bonus.

Since I purchased my Prius in March of 2007, I am eligible for a $1575 tax credit on my 2007 income tax. The tax credit is no longer available to people purchasing Prius now.

My Thoughts on the Prius Part 4 - Performance

2007-12-18T20:14:00.000-08:00

The Prius is a good handling vehicle. I had to make a quick maneuver once on the freeway going 60 mph when a car tried to change lanes into me. The Prius provided a quick solid respond. I felt like I had the car completely under control during the whole maneuver.

The Prius has a very tight turning radius. Its great for get in and out of tight places and quick turn-a-rounds.

The acceleration of the Prius is excellent. The combination the gas and electric engines provide deceptive power. When accelerating hard, one doesn’t hear the engine roar in the same way a with a conventional gas engine. The acceleration seems more quiet and reserved but one look at the speedometer or the cars around you know, you are moving out quickly. Getting onto a freeway is no problem. Driving at freeway speeds and accelerating to pass is also no problem. Driving at 70 mph on the Interstate and accelerating to pass a tractor trailer truck quickly is no problem. I can quickly from 70 to 85 mph and feel like I still had a lot of engine in reserve.

Prius vs. Hummer in Environmental Friendliness

2007-12-14T21:39:00.000-08:00

An organization called CNW Research claims in their report Dust to Dust: The Energy Cost of New Vehicles from Concept to Disposal “The Prius registered an energy-cost average of $3.25 per mile driven over its expected life span of 100,000 miles. Ironically, a Hummer, the brooding giant that has become the bête noir of the green movement, did much better, with an energy-cost average of $1.95 over its expected life span of 300,000 miles.“ Therefore, the Hummer is the more environmentally friendly vehicle. Of course the claim is bogus. What first made me suspicious was big difference in the mileage lifetimes.

Washington Post Columnist George F. Will publicized this information in his syndicated column in April 2007 (click here). I am particularly disappointed that a respected columnist and journalist like George Will would promulgate such information without proper fact checking.

The real facts are the Prius is much more energy efficiency over its life time, There are many good rebuttals to the CNW Research paper that get the facts right. All one need to do is a quick search on the web to find them. A few of the good articles are:

Sierra Club Mr. Green Rebuttal
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200711/mrgreen_mailbag.asp

Climate Progress
http://climateprogress.org/2007/08/27/prius-easily-beats-hummer-in-life-cycle-energy-use-dust-to-dust-report-has-no-basis-in-fact/

Rocky Mountain Institute.
https://www.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Transportation/T07-01_DustToDust.pdf

I suppose the CNW Research article is comforting to those who drive a Hummer or dislike environmentalist. But facts are fact.

My Thoughts on the Toyota Prius Part 3– Interior Space and Cargo Room

2007-12-13T20:14:00.000-08:00

I bought the Prius because we needed an extra car since both my children now have drivers licenses. One criteria the car had to meet was that it had to be able to carry my son’s upright double bass and a front seat passenger. My Impala can carry the double base in the passenger compartment along with a passenger. However, the passenger has to sit in the rear seat behind the driver.

Not only can the Prius carry the upright bass, it can carry two passengers. Beside the front seat passenger, there is actually plenty of room in the back seat for a passenger. The bass takes up about have of the back seat and the cargo area. In fact, we took a summer road trip to take my son and his bass a to jazz camp in Louisville. It was an 800 mile trip one way. My wife, son and I piled in the Prius, along with the bass and all our luggage for a week trip. Everyone had plenty of room and everyone was comfortably.

My two boys often use the Prius to carry themselves and music gear to their jazz gigs around town. They carry the upright bass, a couple of amps, a guitar, music stands and other miscellaneous equipment. At one gig when they were unloading, a bystander was amazed at all the gear they carried. He said to them “you got all that in a Prius?”.

The Prius has a deceptively roomy interior for a compact car. The rear seat leg room in the Prius is as good as in most full size cars. It has equivalent rear leg room to my Chevy Impala. The interior space in the Prius is much better than the typically compact car. The Prius is a few inches than most compacts which makes it feel much roomier.

Christmas Lights

2007-12-08T20:48:00.000-08:00

The environmental scrooge would say don’t put out any Christmas lights. They just add to the electricity load which adds needless global warming CO2 to the atmosphere if your power comes from a coal or gas fired power plant.

However, the pragmatic environmentalist says, lights are part of the holiday spirit. It alright to put them up. Its even important if you have little children. Just use a little common sense to reduce energy consumption.

The first thing to do is be a lazy environmentalist like me. It takes time and effort on my part to put the lights up and take them down. So, I feel a small display is best. You don’t need to try and out do the neighbors. There is no need to have lights on every square inch of your yard and house. My advice is small, simple and elegant. Its just less work.

The next thing to do use LED lights. They use 80 to 90% less energy than traditional Christmas lights.

Finally, use a timer. There is no need to have lights on all night. I usually set my lights to goes off somewhere between 10 and 11pm. I see many of my neighbors burning their outdoor lights all night. Using a timer is also the lazy environmentalist thing to do. You don’t have to make the effort to turn them on in the evening and off again before you go to bed. Also, you don’t need to go outside in the cold and snow just to turn off the lights.

So use some common sense and be lazy. This will minimize your Christmas light energy use and has the side benefit of reducing your electric bill.

My Thoughts on the Prius Part 2 - Exhaust, Traffic Jams, Parking in My Garage

2007-12-04T19:41:00.000-08:00

This is Part 2 of my experience with my Prius after driving it for seven months.

Thought about the Toyota Prius Hybrid – Traffic Jams.

I discovered the Prius is a great car to have in during traffic jams. I only have a 4 ½ mile commute to work on surface streets. I rarely get stuck in traffics jams. Once in a while I do need to drive on the freeways. The first time I drove a freeway with the Prius was during a rush hour. I got caught in about a 3 mile backup. Overall, I was in the traffic jam for about 20 minutes before I reached my exit.

I was creeping along at 15 to 20 mph with an occasional stop. At such low speeds, sometime on a downgrade, the gasoline engine rarely runs. In fact, during this particular traffic jam, the gasoline engine did not run at all. The miles per gallon indicator on the Prius’ display was maxed out at 100 mpg the whole time. While the other cars around me were experiencing their worst gas mileage, my Prius was getting its best. Also, I was not putting noxious air polluting exhaust fumes into the air. At that time, I wished all cars could be like the Prius. The air in our cities would me much cleaner.

In general, my experience is that the Prius gets its best gas mileage in slow heavy freeway traffic. It takes a little of the frustration way from being stuck in traffic.

Thought about the Toyota Prius Hybrid – Exhaust in Garage.

One of the best things about the Prius is that it never leaves exhaust fumes in the garage. When the car is turned on it is powered by battery. There is generally plenty of time to back the car out of the garage before the gasoline engine kicks in. Thus no exhaust in the garage. On the return home, as I drive slowly down the alley, the gasoline engine turns off. So when I get to garage the car is running only on battery power.

I never paid much attention to exhaust fumes in the garage until I got the Prius. The first time I parked my Chevy Astro Van in the garage after getting the Prius, I began to notice the exhaust fumes. No exhaust fume in garage is a good thing since I have an attached garage and the fumes can get into the house.

My Thoughts on the Prius Part 1 - Gas Mileage

2007-11-27T19:42:00.001-08:00

This is Part 1 or a six part series.

My family and I had our Prius for seven months now. I really like the car. Here are some of my thoughts and impression on the gas mileage.

Thought about the Toyota Prius Hybrid – Gas Mileage.

The first thing everyone wants to know about is the gas mileage. Typically around town doing mostly short trips we get between 43 to 45 mpg. On a road trip driving at 70 to 75 mph, we got 45 mpg. We don’t try to do any special Prius tricks to maximize the gas mileage. There are four people in my household who drive the Prius and have different driving styles, so 45 mpg without working to optimize the gas mileage isn’t bad. Typically, we get over 350 miles between fill-ups.

During our road trip we spent a few days at Mammoth Cave National Park. Driving in and around the park we got almost 55 mpg. Typical we drove between 30 and 50 mph. There were few stop signs and not much traffic. The driving conditions in the park were ideal for maximizing gas mileage.

Considering my other vehicles are a Chevy Astro (@ 15mpg) and a Chevy Impala (20 city, 29 highway mpg) the Prius' 45 mpg is fantastic. Also, a gas fill-up only cost between $20 to $25. (> 325 miles) The Impala is $35 to $40 (< style=""> The Astro Van cost $50 or more (<>

Trash Walking

2007-03-17T18:25:00.000-07:00

A simple way to help the environment is to pick up trash in your neighborhood. It doesn’t take much effort. Just take a trash bag with you when you go for a walk. Pick up the litter as you walk along. Encourage your neighbors to do the same.

The picture show the trash I picked up when I did my morning run. Even the clear plastic bag was found on the walk. It collected quite a bit and I wasn’t trying hard. I just went along my regular route.

Besides making your neighborhood look better, picking up litter helps the environment in many ways. The trash in your neighborhood streets, alleys and yards will find their way into storm sewers. The storm sewers flow into rivers and streams. Eventually, much of this trash can make it to the oceans.

The marine environment is especially sensitive to plastic debris. Wildfowl and sea creatures are hurt or killed when they mistakenly eat or become entangled in it. Death can result form a blocked digestive tract or from toxic by-products of digestion of some plastics, or through starvation from a false sense of being full.

Ocean trash come from many sources. The litter in your neighborhood is only one of them. So, picking up this litter can eliminate one source. Prevention is also important. Don’t let your trash bins overflow. Of course don’t throw litter on the streets.

My New Live Oak Tree

2007-01-21T19:57:00.000-08:00

One way to help the environment is to plant a tree. Today I planted a new live oak in my front yard. The tree, when it grows up, will provide shade which will keep our house cooler in the summer. This will help save on air conditioning cost. It will also make a small contribution in the fight against global warming by removing carbon dioxide from the air.

The tree doesn't look like much now. But as its grows, will also add an attractive addition to my front yard year. A great feature about the live oak is that keeps its leaves all year long just live an evergreen.

Plastic Bags

2007-01-07T18:31:00.000-08:00

I went out for a walk with my son with my son in some local parks today. We walked alone Duck Creek and Spring Creek. The creeks cut through the rocks and soil so they run about 30 feet below the level of the ground in park. During a heavy rain event these creek can rise the entire 30 feet of the creek walls. When the creeks are running heavy there is a lot of debris in the water. One type of debris is plastic grocery bags. These bag get caught on the roots and tree branches that line the walls of the creek. After the rain runoff recedes, the plastic bags remain. There must be thousands plastic bags that line the 1 mile or so of creek we walked past. I know this type of thing is happening to creeks all around the country. The plastic bags are an eyesore and I know these bags aren't good for the environment. But what can be done stop this plastic bag scourge?

The answer is simply. Use reusable cloth bags to bring items home from supermarkets and discount stores. These cloth bags are very durable, hold more items than plastic bags and don't break like plastic. I can easily carry two gallons of milk in one cloth bag. A bonus is that the cloth handle is easier to grip and easier on the hands. Its easy to remember to bring the bags to the store. I just throw them in the trunk of my car after I empty the bags at the house.

Using reusable cloth bags is one simple, easy and inexpensive way to help the environment. It will also improve the looks of our creeks.