Recycled Thought

heros

posted by Tom @ 9:29 PM 0 comments

Quote of the Day

"May all your expectations be frustrated, may all your plans be thwarted, may all your desires be withered into nothingness, that you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child and sing and dance in the love of God who is Father, Son, and Spirit. And today on planet Earth, may you experience the wonder and beauty of yourself as Abba's child and temple of the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ our Lord."
- Brennan Manning (Thanks to Gary Zeus)

posted by Tom @ 8:45 AM 0 comments

The Greening of Evangelicals

From The Washington Post, Sunday, February 6, 2005

Christian Right Turns, Sometimes Warily, to Environmentalism
Thanks to the Rev. Leroy Hedman, the parishioners at Georgetown Gospel Chapel take their baptismal waters cold. The preacher has unplugged the electricity-guzzling heater in the immersion baptism tank behind his pulpit. He has also installed energy-saving fluorescent light bulbs throughout the church and has placed water barrels beneath its gutter pipes -- using runoff to irrigate the congregation's all-organic gardens.

Such "creation care" should be at the heart of evangelical life, Hedman says, along with condemning abortion, protecting family and loving Jesus. He uses the term "creation care" because, he says, it does not annoy conservative Christians for whom the word "environmentalism" connotes liberals, secularists and Democrats.
Read More

posted by Tom @ 3:58 PM 0 comments

Ray Anderson: Sustainable Carpet

I had a revelation about what industry is doing to our planet. I stood convicted as a plunderer of the earth. In the future, people like me will go to jail.

Ray Anderson has been called a “born-again environmentalist.” He is an industrial engineer by training and is the founder, chairman, and chief operating officer of Interface, Inc., the largest commercial carpet manufacturer in the world. Anderson relates that he had never really been concerned about the environment or sustainability until he read Paul Hawken's The Ecology of Commerce in 1994 and had what he calls an "ecological epiphany," literally crying while reading the book.

Since then, Anderson has taken steps to make Interface a sustainable corporation. Currently, it practices in-house recycling, makes carpet from recycled soda bottles, and even recycles discarded carpet from other manufacturers. However, unlike some corporations with "green" programs, Anderson admits that these steps are not enough. He hopes to attain "closed-loop recycling," in which there will be no waste products or pollution produced.

Anderson has quickly become a world-renowned advocate for sustainable industry. In 1997, he was named co-chair of the President's Council on Sustainable Development. In 1999, he published a book, Mid-Course Correction: Toward a Sustainable Enterprise -- The Interface Model, about his conversion to sustainability. He now travels the world, spreading the "gospel" of sustainability with an energy and dedication reminiscent of the Baptist preachers of his Georgia childhood.

Watch Ray Anderson Video

posted by Tom @ 7:42 AM 0 comments

God's Earth is Sacred

In Open Letter, Theologians Warn of 'False Gospel' on the Environment, Call Christians to Repent of Sin
In an effort to refute what they call a “false gospel” and to change destructive attitudes and actions concerning the environment, a group of theologians, convened by the National Council of Churches USA, released an open letter Feb. 14 calling on Christians to reject teachings that suggest humans are “called” to exploit the Earth without care for how our behavior impacts the rest of God’s creation. The statement, “God’s Earth is Sacred: An Open Letter to Church and Society in the United States,” points out that there is both an environmental and a theological crisis that must be addressed.
Read 'God's Earth is Sacred.'

posted by Tom @ 7:02 PM 0 comments

Super Mileage Competition

Once a year colleges and universities compete in an national engineering contest called the “SuperMileage Competition.” The objective is to build car that get great gas mileage, and the car with the best fuel economy wins. The students who won built a car that got more 1,700 miles to the gallon. They were from Canada and have become the talk of the country. Some students from Cal Tech came close with a car that got about 1,600 miles to the gallon. It’s incredible, but also obviously very feasible. Yet American companies claim they can’t increase the mileage cars get. Maybe some of the automakers in Detroit need to take a page from the book of these students to improve their cars

posted by Tom @ 10:59 AM 0 comments

Smog Contributors in The Valley

posted by Tom @ 3:45 PM 0 comments

Valley Air: What Can You Do?

Excerps From Valley Air Quality

1) Carpool or ride a bus.

2) Maintain your car. You will cut back on pollution by keeping your car properly tuned and inflating your tires to the proper level. Also, don't top off the tank at the gas station because it releases more vapors.

3) Walk or ride your bicycle to the store.

4) Don't warm up the car for long periods of time.

5) Avoid idling the car at drive-up windows or at train crossings.

6) Avoid aggressive driving. Hard acceleration puts the car in a mode called "power enrichment" in which extra gas is forced into the cylinders, resulting in a spike of pollution emissions.

7) Minimize use of off-road motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles. The state Air Resources Board estimates such vehicles often produce many more pollutants than modern automobiles.

8) Consider trading in your 1980s or older vehicle for a newer, cleaner-running car. Your choices now include electric, hybrid electric-gasoline and natural gas vehicles. The electric vehicles emit zero pollution. The others put out 50% to 90% less pollution than a conventional gasoline-powered vehicle.

9) Buy energy-conserving refrigerators, washers, ovens and other appliances. The less energy you use, the less fossil-fuel plants need to run and send out pollution.

10) Consider installing solar power at your home. Each kilowatt-hour produced by "renewable" power producers means a pollution savings from fossil-fuel power plants.

11) Switch from your gasoline-powered mower to electric. In fact, go electric on as many yard tools as possible -- hedge trimmers, edgers, chainsaws.

12) Buy a gas grill. Or switch to a chimney starter for your charcoals and don't use starter fluid, which sends out pollution.

13) Stop burning your wood in a standard, masonry fireplace. Use a federally certified wood stove or similar device. Or don't burn at all.

14) Seal all paints and solvents in the garage. Escaping fumes contribute to air pollution.

posted by Tom @ 2:28 PM 0 comments

Upcoming Rebate on Electric Mowers

Just got off the phone with the Valley Air District. On Sunday, May 15 (20005) they will be giving rebates for purchases of new electric mowers at the Home Depot store in Riverpark. A working mower, drained of all fluids, will be needed for turn-in. They are going to email me the details when they are finalized.

From Valley Air...
"Gasoline-powered lawn mowers are not required to meet the same emission standards as automobiles. They are major contributors to summertime air pollution problems. There are 250,000 gasoline mowers in the Valley emitting high levels of carbon monoxide and smog-forming gasses. One standard gas mower running for one hour emits as much pollution as 40 late model cars operating for an hour. Overall, gardening equipment produces as much as 5 percent of the nation’s smog."

"Electric-powered mowers are 95 percent cleaner running than their gas-powered counterparts. In 2004, the Air District distributed 1,200 electric mowers valley wide. The program reduced 1.66 tons of emissions last summer and 11.62 tons over the mowers’ operating lives."

posted by Tom @ 1:23 PM 0 comments

Lawn Mowers

Clean-running electric and reel mowers help reduce smog-forming emissions that add to the Valley’s summertime ozone-pollution problem. A typical lawn mower, which is an unregulated product, when used just 45 minutes a week spews the equivalent pollution of 43 new cars driven 12,000 miles a year. Electric and reel mowers work just as well and produce no emissions. Last June the local Air District gave a discount of $35 to $88 to Valley residents who purchase one of four new electric or reel (push) mowers at any of the 14 Orchard Supply Hardware stores in the San Joaquin Valley.
We'll be getting rid of our old mower this Spring, hope they offer this discount again.

I think I like this mower.

posted by Tom @ 9:59 PM 0 comments