Happy Green New Year - 5 Green Wishes for 2009

Looks like any other beautiful day with a view, but Happy New Year anyway.


Good riddance to 2008, a year that will go down in history. The year started great in the green world. The green movement was really taking off, you could feel it , read it and see it. Then boom. The natural human greed down in Wall Street was finally exposed and the fast train had to finally pull into the station. Ouch.

And so too did the green movement seem to come to a halt. But now that the shock of the crash and the election is behind us, environmental headlines are creeping back in. Perhaps the environmental train can back on track.

Instead of looking behind, I would like to look forward and be hopeful for a greener world, greener footsteps and greener efforts. Here are my 5 Green Wishes for 2009:

1 - Sustainability becomes the new buzz word and over takes global warming and climate change. After all, it is the umbrella under which all environmental efforts rest.

2 - Zero Waste becomes the new goal of families and businesses, beyond recycling. (and if you aren't recycling yet, you are so back in the 20th century, so get with it)

3 - Eat local and grow local take off as urban and suburbanites grow their own food, or at least support and buy local. What a great way to learn to appreciate nature.

4 - Renewable Energy explodes and takes hold as the only long term, sustainable (there's that word again...sustainable) solution for humans.

5 - Corporate Responsibility becomes a status goal from the car industry setting us free to fair labor practices all along the supply chain.

Is this too much to ask? Okay, so it's a green wish list. Here's to green wishing for 2009. Happy Green New Year.

Democrats Green? - Not Real-ly

Cool morning, signs of fall in the air.


From my view, the Democrats are trying to sit on the fence so they can fall to either side at their convenience when it comes to being green. Last night at the Democratic Convention, Brian Schweitzer, Governor of Montana, was the first to speak in truth about offshore drilling and basically what a waste of time it is to even consider the prospect. He got his numbers pretty straight enough to drive the point home. See : Offshore Drilling Is Not the Answer to High Gas Prices for excellent facts.

McCain even admitted that drilling is more of a psycho pill and would not add much to our needs, which is really irresponsible given the cost of drilling. I also recall that oil is a fossil fuel which spews out green house gases, the ills of global warming, so why even consdier it? So how in the same breath of wanting to tackle climate change would any candidate, from either side, even talk about more drilling?

Let me guess. Could it have anything to do with the big oil companies who give millions of monies to candidates at all levels who wink support for anything that has to do with oil? (including plastics) Or are they simplistically pandering to Joe and Josephine, who are hurting at the pumps and are desperate for relief now, and looking for a quick vote? Have the candidates not done a total cost analysis of even spelling offshore drilling?

And nuclear is no friend to the equation either and an easy way out. The bottom line is it is not renewable. Yes it provides energy without green house gases once it is built but there is a huge energy expenditure prior to up and running - mining, transportation, construction costs etc. And nuclear is water intensive which we can not afford to ignore. And what about nuclear waste? Does anyone care about what the heck happens to it?

If the candidates really want to talk about a clean, safe future, then the first words out of their mouth need to be renewable or sustainable energy, and yes, that means wind, solar and much more. I wish candidates would stop straddling that fence thinking that it will get them more votes. I am much more willing to vote for someone who has the courage to take a stand. It seems the Democrats have their feet dangling at least on one side of the fence for the environment but they have yet to take the jump and make the commitment to the environment and truly change the course of our future.

Until such time, I consider the headlining Democrats as not real-ly green.