Calling All Central Arkansas Locavores!

I wanted to pass along this email, which a family member forwarded to me.

December 30, 2008

Hello Locavore’s, we have big news!

It’s finally official. Argenta Market will be located in what is currently Argenta Seafood, at 6th and Main St. in the historic district of Argenta in downtown N. Little Rock.

You all have heard us talking about the new Argenta Market for over a year now, and we are incredibly excited to finally announce the big news of our new location. We hope this will be your favorite new community food source, with the widest and deepest selection of local foods in central Arkansas. We plan to start developing the store in January and open by March.

This all came together when the Isaac brothers (Brian and Eric), owners of Argenta Seafood and Ristorante Capeo, offered the ideal location with ample space for our entire concept(5,500 sq.ft). The Isaac brothers thought that our concept was so powerful and potentially beneficial to the future of Argenta, as well as the local food movement in Arkansas, that they agreed today to allow our group to begin the transition from a sheik seafood restaurant and bar to a model, gourmet-specialty grocery with a local foods mission.

Additionally, we have developed a very special, mutually beneficial relationship with the Isaac brothers over the last month while we discussed the possibility of Argenta Market. They have been most supportive while we’ve discussed ways to help each other, and with their experience and knowledge of food preparation, will all add a new and exciting dimension to the new business.

The New Argenta Group led by John Gaudin, have been instrumental in making this happen, and we are very grateful to them all. Also, the consistent support of Mayor Patrick H. Hayes and many others in the community have made this the most inspiring experience of a life time. With the energy and planning that we have put into this we are very excited to finally know what we will be doing next year, and many more. See you soon at ARgenta Market!

Happy New Year!
And, thanks for your awesome support in 2008. Our successes in 2008 wouldn’t have been possible without you.

Barbara Armstong
Jody Hardin
-Foodshed Farm, All Arkansas Basket A Month CSA (2007)
-Certified Arkansas Farmers’ Market, Inc.(2008)
-Argenta Market, LLC (2009)

P.S. I hope to have more info about our business concept on our web site, www.arkansasfood.net soon!

Better Life Through Science - The End Of Ageing

I've been following the discovery of the role of the SIRT1 protein in mammalian longevity and the ability of the substance Resveratrol to activate SIRT1's role in gene suppression. SIRT1 has also been shown to activate in calorie restricted rats, leading to longer life spans.

New research is showing that SIRT1 serves a dual role, both as a gene suppressor and also in DNA repair. As we get older, the research is showing the protein ignores it's suppressing role as we age.

This article in the New Scientist notes;

This raises the hope that, if gene-suppressing proteins become similarly overworked in ageing people, they could become prime targets for drugs to keep us young.

This possibility is boosted by the team's finding that mice engineered to over-express the gene for SIRT1 were better at repairing DNA, more resistant to cancer, and maintained a more youthful pattern of gene expression.

"The most exciting thing is that this work may unify in a single molecular pathway what we know about ageing in different organisms such as yeast and mammals," says Maria Blasco of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre in Madrid, who works on mechanisms of cellular ageing.

"It opens up the possibility of restoring youth in the elderly by re-establishing a useful pattern of gene expression," adds Sinclair.

There are several organizations promoting research into longevity. One of them is the Methuselah Foundation, which funds through it's SENS research fund which makes direct funding of research and it's Mprize offered to research groups who extend the lifespan mice past the present record.

Obama Appoints Actual Scientists to Science Posts

Hey, I know it's been all the rage the past eight years, to put idealogical hacks over the federal scientific community to make sure they don't say something to upset the "know nothings", but I think this Obama fellow has an idea here that just could work.

Put actual scientists in these positions, and let the science guide our policies, instead of our policies guiding our science. Call me crazy, but I think it's a good idea.

Loose Marbles At Conway's Toad Suck Daze

I was lucky to be introduced to the Loose Marbles last summer, along with the rest of those who wandered past this group of bohemian street performers at Conway's annual Toad Suck Daze festival. The voice of singer Meshiya Lake really knocked me out, and her delivery seemed to be from a ghost of day's gone by.

The group hails from New Orlean according to this article from the New Yorker. It is described as a loose collection of accomplished street performers who travel seasonally between New York City and New Orleans, making their living playing music and dancing on sidewalks and in parks.

A little time on Youtube.com will find videos of this plucky group playing to passerby's as far away as Berlin and Amsterdam. If you are ever in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, or in NYC in the summer, make the effort to look these wonderful performers up and drop some money in a hat. It'll be some the best money you ever spent.

The Crash Course

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a link to a story by the New Scientist about predictions by the Club of Rome made in the 70's about an impending world wide economic and agricultural collapse showing signs of now coming true.

In the vein of that idea, I'm going to spend my Friday's exploring, what I call in the back of my mind, Signs of the Apocalypse.

A friend of mine, suggested I take a look at the work being done by a gentleman named Chris Martenson.

Mssr. Martenson, who according to his bio has a doctorate in neurotoxicology from Duke, along with an MBA from Cornell, arrived at the conclusion that the world was headed towards a likely period of serious economic and enviromental turmoil in the short term of the next 20 years.

I found that on the surface, the arguement he makes to be convincing. He lay's out position in a series of related videos he calls The Crash Course starting with his assessment of what the problems are and proceeds from there to laying out planning guides for considering potential actions a person can take in response to their own individual assessment of the risks.

Below is chapter 19 of the series.



Among the idea's that Martenson champions is the value of relationships and community vs the value of money as having the most importance in dealing with the vagries of a discordant future.

Martenson's focus on the future is primarily financial in scope, and doesn't directly address issues of food security, environment or social discord, though he does make some mention of some of these issues. I get the feeling, that despite the potential disruptions Martenson thinks may be possible, over all he isn't willing to suggest a worst case scenario.

I recommend taking the time to visit his website, www.chrismartenson.com. I'd be interested in your thoughts.

The Green Team

On Tuesday, President-elect Obama announced his team to focus on green energy and the environment. I have high hopes for Team Obama where US enviromental policy is concerned. I feel that with Obama we have an administration which will be focused more on proactive solutions to our enviromental challanges.

The obstructionist, know nothing approach of the present administration has been very dangerous in my humble opinion, and was more about helping it's energy company constituents take money out of the economy, than it was about promoting the common good.

The transition website, Change.gov, lists the Obama appointments.

The nominees include Dr. Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy; Lisa Jackson, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator; Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality; Carol Browner, Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change; and Heather Zichal, Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change.

Catch the news conference below...




Of all the things Obama said, what struck me the most was his acknowledgment that he isn't the first incoming President to promise progress on alternative energy and energy independence and his words "This time must be different."

Solar Tubes Make Great Lighting Alternative

Solar Tubes are a great way to harvest sunlight for indoor lighting.

They produce more light than a simple skylight does. By collecting and then magnifying sunlight using a mirrored tube, the system then uses a multi-faceted lens to diffuse the light through out the room. The system uses zero electricity and provides an amazing amount of light, even on a cloudy day.

A local business, Caldwell Toyota, which recently built a LEED certified retail store uses solar tubes manufactured by Solatube through out the building to reduce it's lighting costs and energy usage.

If you are building a new house or business, or simply remodeling to increase your homes efficiency, you would be well rewarded by this simple, sustainable technology.

New Technology Tuesday

Technology, particularly the accelerating rate of technological change and the vectors it follows, offer both the promise of hope for our future as a species and a planet, and in the opinions of many carry it's doom. It is industrial technology which has percipitated the climate crisis we face today, and it will be technology which will provides alternatives, along with changed human attitudes and behaviors, to help us steer away from it...hopefully.

I'm not sure if it's fair to say that it's technology (or misapplied technology and science, like say the application of behavioral psychology in marketing and media to promote consumerism for an example) or human behavior which is the culprit in our out of control ride to potential extinction.

I still hold the optimism of better living through science which I acquired as a youth, but I very much understand the menace of unintended consequences, particularly as it has applied to industrial pollution. Many of the wonders of the last century, turned out to be the bane of those who came into contact with them, whether we are discussing the wonderful insulating properties and applications of asbestos, or the insidious lung disease it caused in so many people, just to name one example.

Here are a few of the new developments in technology which I find hopeful. I'd be interested to hear your opinions on any of the items highlighted, or the general role of technology in our future.

* Better control of fusion power offers a lot of promise for escaping our addiction to fossil fuel. Researchers at MIT have developed a method for managing the hydrogen plasma in a fusion reactor. h/t Kurzweilai.com.

MIT's doughnut-shaped fusion reactor, the Alcator C-Mod, uses magnets to confine hydrogen in a turbulent, electrically charged state of matter called a plasma. By infusing large amounts of energy into the plasma, physicists can kick off fusion reactions that, in turn, release large amounts of energy. The MIT reactor is too small to generate practical fusion reactions that generate enough energy to keep themselves going--what's called a burning plasma. But the researchers have been working on ways to achieve this state in larger reactors, such as the planned International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).

* Australia plans to use market trading to help predict eco-disasters and in the future to help guide government environmental policy.

The Australian Knowledge Exchange works by giving traders A$100,000 (US$65,000) play money and 1000 stocks in each of five reservoirs in New South Wales. The stocks pay out each month according to the level of the dam. If the dam is full, they are worth $100. Traders can profit by buying stocks for less than their final value, or by selling them for more.

..."This approach has huge potential in the environmental sector where there is a lot of uncertainty," says Josh Donlan of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and Advanced Conservation Strategies, a Utah-based NGO.

The incentives are clearly not monetary - the trader who does best wins a paltry A$50 - but Whitten hopes people will be drawn to take part in what is a "public good" enterprise, much like Wikipedia. Although anyone can become a trader, the team's ideal players would be farmers, weather forecasters, people who live close to reservoirs, and computer modellers. The market currently has about 50 traders, and the team hope at least 50 more will join.

Donlan says the market's real value will come from the wide-ranging knowledge of investors. For example, when it comes to biodiversity, rather than rely solely on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, which may not account for all regional variations, markets that capture local knowledge could give a more accurate prediction of the size of bird populations, say.

* The Auto Industry is developing strategies for successful transition to electric plug in vehicles. The industry is considering implementing community out-reach strategies for plug-in electric vehicles first to make sure that they receive adequate support for success.

Car companies intend to target places where governments are willing to provide incentives to purchase plug-in electric cars and install charging stations. Utilities, too, need to be involved so that the grid doesn't become stressed by a rush of cars.

...Nissan will stage (their plug-in) car's initial introduction in the fall of 2010 in region's that have the right infrastructure in place, said Mark Perry, director of product planning for Nissan Americas. That will help it prepare for "mass market" availability in 2012, he said.

It is establishing "public-private partnerships" with governments and utilities in an effort to ensure things like favorable permitting and available inspectors for charging stations, Perry said. So far, it has agreements with Tennessee, Oregon, and Sonoma County, Calif., to set up a network of charging stations in public places.

"As we think about the individual consumer, you don't want it to be an open question--Ok, I want an electric vehicle, what do I do? We want to have those answers," said Perry. "It's not a technical hurdle. It's more a coordination and logistics hurdle."

I really look forward to plug in cars hitting the market. It doesn't address the fundamental problems of sustainability, but it does offer a solution to the contribution of vehicle emissions in climate change. The picture at the top of the post is the chinese battery manufacturer BYD's dual electric/gasoline car, the e6 (h/t treehugger.com)

Tax and Distribute Our Way To A Healthier Planet

The New Scientist Science and Society writer Michael Le Page has an interesting commentary and suggestion to incoming President Barack Obama. In a plea to Obama to take leadership on Climate Change, Le Page suggests updating Kyoto by creating a direct system of incentives and disincentives for both large economic players and individuals around the world to promote positive changes in our technologies and practices.

Le Page criticizes Kyoto as a joke, rightly pointing out it's fatal flaw, i.e. it's lack of enforcement, and a target setting process which is open to manipulation.

Cap-and-trade schemes might look good on paper but they are doomed to fail when it comes to weaning the world off its addiction to fossil fuels. For starters, without a strong enforcement regime, any cap is meaningless. Under the Kyoto protocol, for instance, countries that do not meet their targets just increase them next time around.

The solution offered represents thinking far outside the box, in my book, and reflects an approach which I believe conservative economists like Milton Friedman would agree with, i.e. the use of taxes as a method for creating disincentive and incentive, as opposed to the creation of a body of legislative regulations and the accompanying bureaucracy to oversee and administer it. It leaves companies and people free to choose solutions and courses of action which best fit their individual situations and interests.

So what's the alternative? In the US, there is growing support for a carbon tax on fossil fuels. Such a tax can be adjusted to reflect the harm done by different fuels: coal would be taxed far more heavily than natural gas, for instance, unless burned in a power station that sequesters the carbon. The tax should be raised each year to make fossil fuels ever more expensive and renewables relatively cheaper.

There are many arguments in favour of this approach, but perhaps the strongest is that a carbon tax will be hard to dodge. It's more difficult to smuggle oil or coal than cigarettes and cocaine. Those who use fossil fuels will immediately pay a higher price.

Your advisers will tell you this is political suicide: the last thing we need in a global financial crisis is higher fuel prices. Well, here's the clever bit that should make this tax popular with most voters: every penny raised from the carbon tax should be divided equally among a country's citizens. This is called the "tax and 100-per-cent dividend" approach, and it is advocated by leading climate scientist James Hansen of NASA.

...People who live in a huge house, drive gas-guzzling cars and fly lots will lose out under this regime. The dividend they receive will be outweighed by what they pay for fuel, flights and heating. Most people, however, will be richer. Families and retired people struggling to make ends meet would gain far more from the dividend than they lose in higher bills.

Did you get that? Tax carbon, and give the money back directly to individual citizens, just as Alaska provides direct disbursements from it's Permanent Fund to residents of that state. Those who act in ways which use less carbon, get taxed at a lower rate, and keep a larger portion of the direct carbon tax distribution.

The tax-and-dividend approach is easier to implement, harder to cheat and provides a stronger, more immediate incentive to change. It applies to everyone, not just big companies, and rewards those who genuinely emit less CO2, rather than lawyers and accountants. It's bold, simple and our best hope of averting catastrophe.

Now maybe, for the sake of argument, we can also consider a scheme by which a portion of the carbon tax receipts go to basic research in alternative energy creation and storage, say 10-25%, and rest directly back to individuals...but regardless, I like the idea, and think it would produce the change we need, as well as a direct benefit to individuals and to the economy as a whole.

Different Currents In The Stream

Here are a few of the stories or websites I thought were of interest this past week.

Cool Solar Calculator - This website at CoolerPlanet.com has some informative interactive maps of the country, with different solar power ratings for the various states, local and state and federal incentives for solar systems. You will also find Solar Resource links to solar tools and calculators.

Our Oceans may be a limitless source of clean energy. The idea was first conceived in the 1880's by a french physicist Jacques d'Arsonval. Called Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Technology (OTEC), the system takes advantage of the temperature differences of the different depths of the ocean.

First, warm surface water heats a fluid with a low boiling point, such as ammonia or a mixture of ammonia and water. When this "working fluid" boils, the resulting gas creates enough pressure to drive a turbine that generates power. The gas is then cooled by passing it through cold water pumped up from the ocean depths via massive fibreglass tubes, perhaps 1000 metres long and 27 metres in diameter, that suck up cold water at a rate of 1000 tonnes per second. While the gas condenses back into a liquid that can be used again, the water is returned to the deep ocean. "It's just like a conventional power plant where you burn a fuel like coal to create steam," says Cohen.

I hope the Obama administration pays attention to efforts like the Google 2030 project.




The online mag, the New Scientist makes an argument that limits on growth are leading to economic collapse prophesied 30 years ago by the Club of Rome in the book Limits of Growth, published in 1972. According to the article we may have approx. a decade to prepare for this eventuality.

Changes in industrial production, food production and pollution are all in line with the book's predictions of collapse in the 21st century, says Turner. According to the book, the path we have taken will cause decreasing resource availability and an escalating cost of extraction that triggers a slowdown of industry, which eventually results in economic collapse some time after 2020.

A President Who Will Take Climate Change Seriously

A Future For Household Cisterns

Ensuring a steady supply of fresh drinking water has been a problem facing humanity for all of it's history. For most of that history, the use of cisterns has been a major method for storing fresh water.

In the United States, family cisterns were once found at many homesteads, farms and small towns across the country. I first really became aware of cisterns while visiting the village of Mendicino, CA, where many of the old Victorian houses still have and use cisterns as their primary source of household drinking water.

The only cistern I'm aware of in my community is the cistern shown above, located at Caldwell Toyota. It is an 8600 gallon cistern which collects rain water from the roof of the building, and is used by the business for landscape irrigation, rather than using treated city water.

This year, the State of California is reporting that it is projecting that it will only be able to deliver just fifteen percent of the fresh water needed by California towns and farms, due to drought conditions and reduced snow accumulations in the mountains.

According to the Sacramento Bee, California is calling for conservation efforts on the parts of homeowners in order to deal with the crisis.

Snowmelt stored in California reservoirs is at its lowest level in 14 years.

"In fact, the entire state is wrestling with very serious drought conditions," said Tim Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. "Wherever you live in California, start conserving water because you are going to be affected if drought conditions persist."

In the United States we have built up very centralized and connected water systems, with many states being dependent up on rivers which are increasingly drying up.

It seems to me that as pressure on fresh water supplies gets more prouounced, one solution many homeowners, even those in metropolitan areas, may turn to, are household cisterns which harvest rain water from roofs, and store it for use either as a fresh drinking water source, or to augment irrigation for gardens and landscaping.

Natural Resource Meltdown Dwarfs Banking Meltdown As World Wide Danger

A new paper released today by the World Wildlife Fund titled the Living Planet Report 2008 indicates that the world is headed towards a natural resource crisis which will dwarf the credit crisis as a danger to future prosperity.

The paper cites reckless over-consumption by what it terms as ecological resource debtor nations. The definition of an ecologicical debtor nation is one "where national consumption has outstripped their country’s biological capacity." The report puts world wide over-consumption at a third higher than the earth's carrying capacity while biological diversity continues to decline at an alarming rate (Any rate of decline is alarming in my book). Also mentioned was the number of countries who are slipping into permanent or seasonal water emergencies.

“The world is currently struggling with the consequences of over-valuing its financial assets, but a more fundamental crisis looms ahead – an ecological credit crunch caused by under-valuing the environmental assets that are the basis of all life and prosperity,” said WWF International Director-General James Leape, in the foreword to the new report. “Most of us are propping up our current lifestyles, and our economic growth, by drawing - and increasingly overdrawing - on the ecological capital of other parts of the world,” Leape said.

Not surprisingly, the United States was in the top three nations with the biggest ecologicical footprints. The Living Planet Report also included water footprint measurements for the first time which illustrates how products we consume here, have very large water footprints in third world countries. A WWF press release adds..

...for example, the production of a cotton T-shirt requires 765 gallons of water. On average, each person consumes 327,177 gallons (about half an Olympic swimming pool) of water a year, but this varies from 654,354 gallons per person a year (USA) to 163,325 gallons per capita annually (Yemen). Approximately 50 countries are currently facing moderate or severe water stress and the number of people suffering from year-round or seasonal water shortages is expected to increase as a result of climate change

In a BBC interview with WWF President David Norman said at our present state of consumption, by 2050 we will need two planets to keep up.

This report is just one more dire warning that the world as we know it is rapidly approaching a point where serious consequences will start to be felt by us all. WWF's Director General Leape sums it up well.

“These Living Planet measures serve as clear and robust signposts to what needs to be done. If humanity has the will, it has the way to live within the means of the planet, but we must recognize that the ecological credit crunch will require even bolder action that that now being mustered for the financial crisis.”

The Living Planet Report 2008 can be down loaded at http://www.panda.org/index.cfm

Cas Haley - Walking on the Moon

A friend just recently introduced me to Cas Haley. I don't know much about him, and can't tell exactly if he's on his own, or has simply changed the name of his band, Woodbelly. Cas has a cheerful approach to his music and this rendetion of Sting's Walking on the Moon is simple and fun.

New Solar Energy Material Overcomes Major Obstacles

Affordable solar power gets closer and closer.

Researchers at Ohio State University have developed a hybrid material which overcomes two obstacles that solar energy researchers have been trying to solve. A material which absorbs all wavelengths of energy in sunlight, i.e. the entire rainbow of colors, and which increased the effeciency of electricity production by producing electrons in two different states.

The Ohio State team was assisted by researchers at Taiwan University to develop and synthesize the new material. A story on the new development by Science Daily has more.

This new material is the first that can absorb all the energy contained in visible light at once.

The material generates electricity just like other solar cell materials do: light energizes the atoms of the material, and some of the electrons in those atoms are knocked loose.

Ideally, the electrons flow out of the device as electrical current, but this is where most solar cells run into trouble. The electrons only stay loose for a tiny fraction of a second before they sink back into the atoms from which they came. The electrons must be captured during the short time they are free, and this task, called charge separation, is difficult.

In the new hybrid material, electrons remain free much longer than ever before.

While this new technology is still years from commercial application and development, I find that innovations like this strengthen the likelihood of solar generated electricity reaching parity in price with other forms of electricity generation in just a few more years.

The Water Footprint Network

What is your water footprint?

In a world where fresh water may well become a scarcer and scarcer commodity, this is going to be a real question.

If you take the time to find out, what you will learn about how much water it takes to produce some products will astound you. Well, OK, maybe not, but it sure astounded me.

In order to make this type of information more available, and to establish some standards in how water usage is determined, a group of six global partners including the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and UNESCO, the University of Twente in The Netherlands have established the Water Footprint Network.

According to the ScienceDaily's online report, the water footprint was developed by UT professor Arjen Hoekstra, who heads the Twente Water Center, to give insight into the water consumption of individuals, corporations and countries.

The new network will promote sustainable, fair and efficient use of water on a global scale.

The ‘water footprint’ measures the amount of water that a country, company or individual uses each year. This includes the water needed to produce goods: the water withdrawn from surface as well as ground water and soil water.

For a simple cup of coffee, for example, an average of 140 litres of water is needed, 2,700 litres for a cotton shirt, 16,000 for a kilo of beef. Taking all this into account on a global scale, we get a water footprint of 7,500 billion cubic metres a year. Per individual this is an average of 1,250 cubic meters a year.

The Water Footprint Network website has an easy to use individual water footprint calculator. Other information you will find is a fairly concise definition of Corporate water footprints, including the example below, of how, where, and what kinds of water are used in the average manufacturing or agricultural processes.

The water footprint of a business - that is its 'corporate water footprint' - refers to the total volume of fresh water that is used directly and indirectly to run and support the business. It consists of two components:

the operational water footprint, i.e. the direct water use by the business in its own operations,
the supply-chain water footprint, i.e. the water use in the business’s supply chain.

Many businesses have a supply-chain water footprint that is much larger than the operational water footprint. This is particularly the case when a company does not have agricultural activity itself but is partly based on the intake of agricultural products (crop products, meat, milk, eggs, leather, cotton, wood/paper).

We live in a world of great interconnected complexity. Unraveling questions of how much water we use, takes a lot more than just checking the water bill. Finding ways to lessen our impact on our local enviroments, and to make sure we aren't just exporting our water usage elsewhere is a task we all have to share in.

A tool like the Water Footprint Network is going to be invaluable, in helping individuals like me find ways to cut my impact, and in helping national and international organizations work together to identify the best points in the worldwide economic system to make changes which will protect fresh water supplies all across the globe.

Trio Mocoto

Trio Mocoto is a group which always strikes my fancy.

I first stumbled upon Trio Mocoto about 10 years ago. After hearing Stan Getz's smooth brazilian sounds, songs like Desifinado or the Girl from Impanema, I went looking for more. This is one of the groups I found in that search and I've loved the creativity of Trio Mocoto ever since.

This set showcases the creative imagination these guys brought to thier music, and answered for me a long standing question as to the nature of the strange squeeking percussion sound in many Brazilian songs. While this isn't the smooth, laid back music I initially went searching for, the vibrant energy of this set is a lot of fun.

The Plug In Revolution...When is it really coming?

Steve Bennen over at the Washington Monthly has some interesting comments on a story on the electrification of transportation by Jeffery Leonard, who is CEO of the Global Enviroment Fund. Steve's point about energy policy, especially as it relates to alternatives, finally coming to the front of the national debate with both candidates giving it lip service is heartening.

But, Steve also highlighted a portion of Leonard's article which said that despite the good news of alternative energy policy getting attention on the national stage there is some bad news...

The bad news is that none of the current energy plans being debated in Washington or presented by the presidential campaigns adds up to sound long-term policy for dealing with the energy challenges facing the U.S. Most of the supposed grand solutions turn out to be half-baked schemes that pander to voters and vested interests. John McCain argues for more drilling in America. Barack Obama favors more subsidies for ethanol. Oilman T. Boone Pickens advocates retooling cars to run on compressed natural gas. These and many other big energy plans have at least one thing in common: they involve a multiyear, massive-spending, government initiative that will set America on the path toward displacing foreign oil with some kind of domestically produced liquid fuel. That may seem like a sensible idea, but in fact it merely postpones, and therefore makes more costly and wrenching, the energy transition that I -- and many other industry leaders I talk with -- believe will save America.

In the film The Graduate, Walter Brooks famously gives Dustin Hoffman a one-word piece of career advice: "Plastics." At the risk of sounding similarly glib, let me nevertheless suggest a one-word answer to our multifaceted energy problems: electrification. The basic idea is very simple. Over the next few decades, government policies should advance the aim of replacing oil and most other liquid fuels with electricity. It should also ensure that the way we generate electricity gets steadily greener and more efficient. Since about three-quarters of our oil goes into our cars, this means favoring policies that will encourage phasing out the internal combustion engine in favor of the electric engine -- a direction in which many automakers are already headed. Electrification as a rallying cry for American energy policy isn't perfect, but in my view it's the best and perhaps only way to get us to a clean and secure energy future.

More bad news for plug in transportation comes from Popular Mechanics recent article where they note Toyota representatives trying to put a damper on expectations for the plug in technology coming down the pike.

Toyota confirmed that its plug-in Prius is scheduled to go on sale as a 2010 model with an EV-only range of about 10 miles after testing on li-ion models begins with North American fleets in about a year. But amid conversations that favored compressed natural gas (CNG) as a more economical liquid fuel than ethanol and biodiesel, company executives and other alternative-energy experts made a concerted effort to bat back some of the excitement that PHEVs would dominate the market right away.

I notice that while Toyota want's to lower expectations of PHEV's dominating the market right away, they don't suggest that plug in's won't be the end game relative to personal and public transportation. I think that as consumers and voters, we need to put pressure on our representatives to make substantive debate on the electrification of transportation a priority in the next Congress and the next administration, regardless of who ends up being our next President.

Wind Blade Manufacturer Polymarin Composites To Build Wind Turbine Blades In Arkansas

Wind Power is on the rise in central Arkansas! Little Rock, AR is quickly becoming a wind power mecca. Polymarin Composites USA announced that it is opening a wind blade manufacturing unit at a closed Levi’s distribution center in south Little Rock, and expect to be producing wind blades at full capacity within four years. The plant is expected to produce blades as long as 250 feet long.

Polymarin Composites will be joined at the new facility by Wind Water Technology, which is a supplier for the wind blade manufacturer. The Little Rock facility will be Polymarin’s first plant in the United States. As many as 800 people will be employed between the two companies when the facility gets up to full production.

Polymarin, based in the netherlands is owned by Energya. Energya produces DirectWind 900 kW and 750 kW turbines which were selected in the wind power category of the 2008 Guardian/Library House CleanTech 100.

Little Rock is also home to LM Glasfiber which is presently operating in a temporary facility. LM Glasfiber is spending $150 million on a manufacturing facility at the Port of Little Rock, and according to Forbes will eventually employ 1,000 workers.

Glasfiber, which has teamed up with German company REpower Systems to develop wind turbine blades, claims the distinction of building the world’s longest wind turbine blades.

With the rise in windpower capacity taking off, Little Rock will be churning out wind turbine blades across the country. That will be helped by a little add on to the $700 billion dollar bail out bill just passed by Congress, which gives a tax break on wind generated power. I hope that this leads to more growth in sustainable industries in our neighborhood.

Eating Locally Is A Choice To Act Sustainably

When I was young, produce was pretty much seasonal. We didn't get watermelons or strawberries in the winter. Or very good tomatoes for that matter. Now we eat grapes from Chile and Oranges from South Africa and tomatoes from all over the world, year round.

This complexity in our food delivery system is both a boon and a bane. The carbon foot print of a south african orange, is likely greater than the carbon foot print of a florida, texas or california orange. If the goal is reducing our individual carbon foot print, then let's face it...we're going to have to accept that some foods will be out of season.

There are a lot of great reasons why people should eat locally. Much, but not all of the time it can be done at a lower carbon foot print, simply because the food doesn't have to be shipped thousands of miles to get to your table. My favorite reason, is that it's likely to taste better.

In my neck of the woods, a local group called Conway Locally Grown which coordinates with local farms to bring a good collection of fresh, high quality foods, both produce and locally produced meats and milk, monthly by subscription.

This market is coordinating with local farmers to provide Conway with the freshest and highest quality fruits, vegetables, eggs, poultry, beef, pork, lamb, and dairy. All of the producers farm using strict standards that ensure clean, safe, humanely produced foods. The market will also coordinate with local craftsman to offer Conway locally produced artisanal crafts. All products sold at Conway Locally Grown are produced within 150 miles.

There are several networks that can help you find access to locally grown foods in your area.

Locally Grown Markets - www.locallygrown.net

Local Harvest - www.localharvest.org

Of course, you can visit your local farmers market, but be aware, that not all the produce you find at a farmers market may actually be locally produced.

The Great Schlep

An organized mass migration of jewish grandchildren to Florida began today, in an attempt to influence older jewish voters to vote for Obama. According to the BBC, the initiative, called The Great Schelp, was organized by Ari Wallach and Mic Moore.

Got Bubbies living in Florida? (That's a Yiddish term for grandmothers.) Or any other crucial swing state for that matter?

If so, you are qualified for this particular voyage - an organised effort to visit your Jewish grandparents and persuade them to vote for Barack Obama.

"Twelve per cent of the Jewish community is still undecided," Great Schlep co-founder Ari Wallach told BBC News. "That's a few hundred thousand people and they tend to cluster in swing states."

There are 600,000 jewish retiree's living in southern Florida. They will have a big impact on the outcome of the race in Florida, and as it has in the past, the outcome of the national election. Sen. Joe Lieberman has been campaigning for John McCain among the jewish communities of Florida for the past several months, seeking to gain votes among these older voters.

The organizers of the Great Schlep are inviting young jewish people to visit or call thier grandparents over the Columbus day weekend, starting today, and talking to them about Barack Obama. The Great Schlep website has downloadable talking points and information to help answer questions in the discussion.

The Great Schlep picked Sarah Silverman to deliver thier pitch. Silverman does an irreverently good job. The polished and competent execution of the campaign is characteristic of the whole Obama campaign. The intelligence of the concept is another example of paradigm changing, outside the box thinking that I think is representative of the competence the Obama campaign has shown since early on. It will be interesting to see if there is a measurable impact on the polls over the next week.

McCain reaffirming my faith in his honor....sort of.

I've had a pretty hard time the past few months holding onto the long standing respect I generally had for John McCain. I have to tell the truth, I've liked him for a long time.

And because of that, as I was with Hillary Clinton during the primaries, I have been very disappointed with the strategies employed by his campaign, because they stood in stark contrast with my image of the individual. Don't get me wrong, I don't think he ever was the best choice we had for President, now, or when he ran last in 2000. But, I've never felt for McCain, either the visceral unease nor the sense of impending doom that G. W. Bush provoked.

What caused me the biggest concern was the really out of control anger and hatred that was starting to be the main theme of his campaign stops and the over the top negative advertising his campaign as turned to, which seemed to cultivate that hatred and racial animosity. Indeed the ACORN ad he released today, seems to me to promote a sense of racial animosity and scapegoating which I think is really unhealthy for our country. UPDATE:the ad was pulled because of copyright claims by FOX

But...today in Lakeville, MN, McCain, at times visibly angry, seemed to try to take control of his campaign back from the crazies his campaign has been empowering. In a report filed by Time's Ana Marie Cox (who started the Wonkette blog) McCain has started to push back against the worst rhetoric of his supporters.

He acknowledges the "energy" people have been showing at rallies, and how glad he is that people are excited. But, he says, "I respect Sen. Obama and his accomplishments." People booed at the mention of his name. McCain, visibly angry, stopped them: "I want EVERYONE to be respectful, and lets make sure we are."

The very next questioner tried to push back on this request, noting that he needed to "tell the American the TRUTH about Barack Obama" -- a not very subtle way, I think, to ask John McCain to NOT tell the truth about Barack Obama. McCain told her there's a "difference between record and rhetoric, and I plan to talk about his record, respectfully... I don't mean that has to reduce your ferocity, I just mean it has to be respectful."

And then later, again, someone dangled a great big piece of low-hanging fruit in front of McCain: "I'm scared to bring up my child in a world where Barack Obama is president."

McCain replies, "Well, I don't want him to be president, either. I wouldn't be running if I did. But," and he pauses for emphasis, "you don't have to be scared to have him be President of the United States." A round of boos.

And he snaps back: "Well, obviously I think I'd be better. "
Of course, this is kind of the best of both world: Crazy base-world gets to bring up Ayers and whatever else, really, and he gets to say, "Be respectful." But I think he means it.

UPDATE: Indeed, he just snatched the microphone out the hands of a woman who began her question with, "I'm scared of Barack Obama... he's an Arab terrorist..."
"No, no ma'am," he interrupted. "He's a decent family man with whom I happen to have some disagreements."

I'd have to say, that right now, I'm feeling a little sorry for John McCain. I can easily understand his frustration to be losing the election, but it occurs to me, that considering the way McCain is flaming out, and the mounting rage and frustration of his supporters, the last thing McCain wants is to be remembered as representing the last gasp of overt bigotry, ignorance and racial hatred in a historic race for President,featuring the first candidate of color of any major party. It certainly has to be causing him pause, having it make the news that the Secret Service is opening investigations of what people say about Obama at his campaign rallies.

For my part, his actions today restored a little bit of the respect I have had for him. No one wants to lose, and fighting to win is exactly what we should have in a President...but it's my hope that John McCain is more willing to lose an election, than he is his honor, for no one in America will be made better by John losing both.

"A relentlessly negative, breathtakingly dishonest, anger-driven campaign"

This is what John McCain's once vaunted political brand has been reduced to. The once proud maverick brand is fast becoming a joke. A liar. A fraud. An opportunist with anger management issues.

More dangerous, his campaign has sunk to the level of fomenting anger and hatred as it's chosen road to electoral victory. He is unleashing the unhinged right.

At McCain's anti-Obama diatribe in New Mexico yesterday, McCain asked the question "Who is the real Barack Obama?" The answer yelled from the crowd..."A terrorist".



Also yesterday, as Palin slimed Obama with their renewed Ayer's attacks, another member of the crowd yelled out "Kill him!"

At the same Florida event, Republicans shouted abuse at journalists, hurling obscenities. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

Today you have the Palin promoting the lie that Obama is criticizing the troops in Afghanistan, prompting chants of treason from the crowd.

Add to that the Pennsylvania Republican Party's announcement yesterday, that Obama is a "terrorists best friend"...and you start to get an idea of just where the Republican party is taking American politics. It is a party mired in desperation, deliberately stoking the fires of hate and fear, and using disgusting lies to argue that Obama is literally dangerous.

This is dangerous territory. It is creating an environment where angry right-wing activists feel free to use racial slurs against journalists, and shout assassination requests at political rallies.

It is not the act of a Maverick...it's not the act of someone who loves their country.

It is the act of a party willing to divide the republic with destructive acts to stay in power. It is the act of a politician willing to do and say anything to win an election.

Steve Benen at The Political Animal calls for McCain and Palin to pull thier supporters back from the brink.

That said, McCain/Palin have reached a point where they have to decide whether whipping right-wing activists into a frenzy, based solely on lies, is the responsible way to seek national office. The Republican candidates are not literally calling for violence against their political rivals, but they're nevertheless standing by, saying nothing, while their supporters are shouting words like "kill," "terrorist," and "treason" at their rallies.

And given that this rage-filled hatred is in direct response to the McCain/Palin campaign lying to their supporters, now would be the ideal time for these candidates to take a look in the mirror and consider the consequences of a relentlessly negative, breathtakingly dishonest, anger-driven campaign.

It really makes my head spin...

Natural State Expo 2008 - Green Home Show

The Arkansas Sustainability Network (ASN) is hosting the Natural State Expo 2008 Green Home Show at the State House Convention Center this weekend, Oct. 11th, 2008. Admission is free.

This is the third annual Natural State Expo organized by the ASN. The first Expo was organizied in 2006, and featured participants ranging from eco-friendly insulation and tankless hot water heaters, to community gardens and small farmers, to electric-hybrid vehicles and bicycle advocacy organizations.

The Green Home Show participants page shows over 60 different participants. The Expo website says that the goal of the show is to help people explore the variety of choices available in the marketplace to make their homes more sustainable, and to promote safe sustainable habits in our homes and our daily lives.

The Green Home Show features the interactive Green Home - a walkthrough, open-walled display showcasing green building and remodeling supplies; natural product alternatives for every room; and simple everyday actions families can take to green their home. The event also includes exhibitor booths, youth activities, a marketplace, and a green playhouse competition for kids.

The Arkansas Sustainability Network is located at 209 S. Victory Ave. Little Rock, AR. Thier phone number is 501-372-6996. This Expo sounds like a great place to learn more about resources available to people wanting to learn more about how we can all contribute to living a sustainable lifestyle.

SNL Biden-Palin VP Debate

I've been watching SNL off and on since the 70's. These Palin skits by Tina Fey are some of the best skits that have ever aired. The Rawstory has links to videos of the first two Palin skits by Fey.



As I said a couple of posts ago...we just can't allow a "know nothing" on climate change, like Sarah Palin, to inhabit the White House, just as we have had to endure for the past eight years.

Google's Clean Energy 2030

It is my opinion that moving our society's primary energy technologies away from carbon is one of the most urgent actions we need to take in reacting to carbon driven climate change. Solutions for transportation, solutions for households, solutions for industry and commerce.

The Google Blog released an analysis of the challanges presented by creating and deploying new energy technologies and found them to be surmountable and greatly reducing our carbon energy usage. The analysis was led by Dr. Jeffery Greenblatt, Phd, Google's Climate and Energy Technology Manager.

Right now the U.S. has a very real opportunity to transform our economy from one running on fossil fuels to one largely based on clean energy. We are developing the technologies and know-how to accomplish this. We can build whole new industries and create millions of new jobs. We can reduce energy costs, both at the gas pump and at home. We can improve our national security. And we can put a big dent in climate change. With strong leadership we could be moving forward on an aggressive but realistic timeline and an approach that balances costs with real economic gains.

Google's answer is a three front initiative.

The first, reducing demand by doing more with less. Going after what Google calls "the low hanging fruit". Developing and adopting energy efficient technologies and individual practices using less.

The second, develop renewable energy that is cheaper than coal. Wind, solar thermal and advanced geothermal. Google makes the call for massive funding of R&D efforts in these technologies, along with incentives like tax credit's to promote the swiftest adoption of new sources. Also raised, is the importance of putting the real cost of carbon into it's price through the use of carbon cap and trade or a carbon tax.

The third, electrify transportation and re-invent the electric grid. Battery technology is getting very close for the practical production of electric power plants for transportation. Google has a fleet of converted Toyota Prius and Ford Escape plug-in conversions. The converted Prius plug-ins get 90+ MPG. Google calls for a smart grid.

However, to successfully put millions of plug-in cars on the road and fuel them with green electricity, we need a smart grid that manages when we charge and how we're billed. A smart grid could also provide for the two-way flow of electricity, as well as large-scale integration of intermittent solar and wind energy. Much of the technology in our current electrical grid was developed in the 60s and is wasteful and not very smart. We are partnering with GE to help accelerate the development of the smart grid and support building new transmission lines to harness our nation's vast renewable energy resources.

I don't know if 2030 is soon enough, but we have little choice but to make these three initiatives an urgent priority. In order to do that, we must elect candidates who share these goals. While McCain and Palin have given lip service to developing greener energy technologies, I just don't think they have a real comittment to cutting carbon emissions, except as it serves the nuclear power industry (and I think they are a part of the solution) and the "clean coal" industry. The Obama campaign has a much more convincing comittment to developing clean energy, and an understanding that development of those industries is an intergal part of building an infrastructure for the future.

Sarah Palin - A "Know Nothing" in the Climate Debate

Sarah Palin is a know nothing. We can't afford another "know nothing" White House.

I don't make that charge lightly. I make it because she, like Bush and others on the right who have made a practice of expressing skepticism about human driven climate change, equivicates her answers by making note of the "controversy" surrounding the question of human activity as a driving force and brushing off it's importance as a cause for the climate change.

Paul Krugman recently defined Know Nothingism this way:

Know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.

Palin's evasive answers about her views on climate change show that it is unlikely that she could ever provide the kind of nuanced and urgent leadership that our climate situation demands. She comes from that group of people, for whom ignorance is not only not a problem, it's positively a virtue.

With the challenges of rapidly increasing carbon dioxide levels that we face, and climate becoming more and more unpredictable, we just can't afford even four more years of inaction and kowtowing to the carbon based energy industries. And that is, for a fact, what we will get if Sarah Palin ever has a hand in what happens in the White House.

Carbon Nanotubes - Transparent and Stronger than Steel

Talk about science fiction, a breakthrough in a commercially viable production method of carbon nanotube sheets was announced by a partnership of the NanoTech Institute of the University of Texas at Dallas and an outfit named CSIRO. The carbon nanotube sheets have uses as diverse as clothing to artificial muscles to electrical conductors.

The Physorg.com story on the announcement in the journal Science, mentioned a variety of uses for the carbon nanotube sheets.

Carbon nanotube materials have a number of potential applications in, for example: organic light emitting displays, low-noise electronic sensors, artificial muscles, conducting appliqués and broad-band polarized light sources that can be switched on in one ten-thousandth of a second.

"...Transparent sheets that are stronger than steel sheets of the same weight."

The Physorg.com story talked about a sheet production method and also a twisted yarn fabrication technology which could be easily commercialized.

I have to say, I'm a little bit intrigued. Artificial muscles for an artificial skin/super suit? Now that's something I've been looking for.

Be A Water Hog

I've been giving a lot of thought to cistern systems, with an eye to adding one to my own household for garden irrigation.

Throughout history, cisterns have helped provide a steady dependable water supply for a variety of uses, from irrigation to drinking water. As more and more pressure is put on fresh water supplies in the United States, it only seems obvious that we will once again turn to cisterns to capture rainwater and store it for use around the house. At the college my daughter attends, Humboldt State University, rainwater is captured and used for the mundane task of flushing the toilets...saving treated water for human consumption.

This modular cistern system caught my attention as I was googling for different cisterns and rainwater catchment systems. I liked the modular design and it looked like it was fairly easy to work with. It is marketed as the Rainwater HOG by a company of the same name. The tank itself is recyclable, and the modular design makes it easy to put together a cistern to meet your exact needs.

The dimensions are such that it shouldn't take up much space, and will be easy to place in unobtrusive places. I thought it was an interesting design. Most of the cistern systems I've looked have been below ground systems. I wonder if a difference in water temperature, just by the nature of the Rainwater Hog being an above ground system, creates any issues with water treatment. Either way, there is a lot to like with the design of this Hog.

Innovative Sustainability embodied in new California Academy of Science building

A flying carpet of green grass floating in the sky. This is just one description of the 2 1/2 acre roof of the California Academy of Science's new building in Golden Gate park, just across the bay from San Francisco.

The many cutting edge environmental technologies that went into this 410,000 square foot demonstrates just what is possible in public building design, not to mention what is possible for retail and residential buildings.

The LA Times has a very good article on the new building.

Academy officials and Arup, the engineering firm that worked with Piano and a local firm, Stantec, to realize the building, have called the roof one of the museum's primary exhibits. Containing nine species of native plants, it will filter storm runoff and keep the building cool in summer and warm in winter. It is also ringed by photovoltaic panels that will produce somewhere between 5% and 10% of the building's energy needs. Although that's not a particularly impressive number, most green roofs have no energy-generating power.

The Story of Stuff

Where stuff comes from...where stuff goes. It is important to understand if we are to find solutions to the crisis we are in. Yet most people in our country, never give it a second thought.

Sustainability seemed like a amorphous concept to me for a long time. I generally understood the word, but what exactly that concept meant in day to day life was hard to see. Getting a good understanding of how our civilizations macro-scale processes worked is hard to do in our daily lives. We get up, open that box of cereal, maybe stop by Starbucks on the way to work, drop by Walmart to pick up a few things after work...these mundane, everyday acts, all have a cumulative impact on our world.

My daughter, Erin, sent my wife and I a link to this video called "The Story of Stuff". I think it does an outstanding job of creating a visual definition of how our society operates, and succinctly lays out the massive problem with the process, namely it's linear nature.

Below is a teaser to the video



Here is a link to the video itself. Watch It.

Carbon Dioxide rises by an unprecedented, worst case scenario 3%

This is not good news.

Even as bad as a financial crisis threatening depression might be, and how threatening a 700 billion dollar bailout might sound. (A bailout which may be only a down payment on a wave of financial pain this generation has never seen before.)

This news makes a financial disaster pale by comparison.

Let's say it together...a 3% one year rise in Carbon Dioxide is a very bad thing.

Let me just try to put this into perspective. It's worse than the worst case scenario laid out by the IPCC just two years ago.

From an AP article about the rise:

What is "kind of scary" is that the worldwide emissions growth is beyond the highest growth in fossil fuel predicted just two years ago by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said Ben Santer, an atmospheric scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab.

Under the panel's scenario then, temperatures would increase by somewhere between 4 and 11 degrees Fahrenheit (2.4 to 6.3 degrees Celsius) by the year 2100.

"We do have control over what happens over the next several decades," Santer said. "This illustrates the importance of exercising that control."

As badly as we here in the United States need to radically and urgently cut our CO2 emissions, the real challenges are in the developing countries which are now contributing 53% of the CO2 pouring into the atmosphere. Their contribution surpassed the emissions of the industrial countries three years ago, and are rapidly growing.

Part of the problem stems from industrial jobs which have been outsourced to developing countries, the other part, the need for energy to drive economic growth and the consumption driven by expanding consumer classes in the developing world, especially in India and China.

The real threat of all this, is that this puts us on track for the worst case scenarios regarding sea level rises...potentially 70 meters, and increases in temperature and erratic climate change.

One of our Presidential candidates, Barack Obama, laid out a 10 year plan to end dependence on carbon fuels. It's time to pick up that banner. We have no choice but to end dependence on carbon fuels for ourselves. And we have to solve the problem for the developing world.

And we have to do it quick.

Can it be done? I just don't know.

Twist of Green Festival in Fayetteville

For anyone interested in learning more about sustainable living practices we can implement in our lives today, take the drive to Fayetteville! To top it off, the world famous...( ok, state famous ) "Greasy Greens" will be headlining at the Green Bean Ball, the evening of Oct. 3rd.

You can learn more at Twist of Green.

Here are their goals...

The goal of this festival is to showcase our resources, research and opportunities in the Natural State, as we grow our Green Valley with the best choices of sustainability, efficiency, and responsibility.

We live in exciting GREEN times rediscovering our walk on this planet. TWIST OF GREEN will bring awareness that as concerned citizens, our purpose and assignment is in our legacy to teach our children and think seven generations ahead.

· Protect our environment instilling the practice of conservation, minimizing waste, and reducing toxic products and materials.

· Educate the public about renewable resources and efficient lifestyle practices.

· Integrate environmental values into the economy.

· Have a healthy eco-system and sustainable neighborhoods.

Our VISION for the October 4th event is to weave together "Town and Gown," (City of Fayetteville, regional community, and University of Arkansas) with corporate partners in a bio-regional spotlight of leadership. This consortium will unearth a treasure map of new information in cutting-edge sustainable practices, products, research and development, and education.
The by-product of this event is to establish Fayetteville as a MODEL city to watch--making wise, efficient sustainable choices geared towards Bio-regionalism and a green economy while staying connected to our round world.
This event adds a twist of FUN for dreamers of all ages. Expect a variety of topics and presentations to grace this weekend's Ozark Global Village which include: music, art, food, demonstration, inventions, speakers, and family activities.

Our main fund-raising beneficiary is to create scholarships and awards for Sustainable Science Fairs in the Schools, and to plant seeds of solution within our children to educate and enlighten our future generations.

Caldwell Toyota opens first sustainable retail store in Arkansas

It may seem like a contradiction for a car dealership to go green, but a local Toyota dealer, Caldwell Toyota-Scion had the Grand Opening for the first green LEED certified retail store in Conway, Arkansas on Thursday.

Caldwell Toyota has built a remarkably efficient building and has a very real commitment to recycling and sustainability. Jay Caldwell has made the facility available to green and sustainability organizations for tours, and a field trip to the facility has been made part of a sustainability class at UCA. Read Caldwell's Green Story

The "green" features of the new dealership include:

-- Waterless urinals that each save approximately 40,000 gallons of water per year.

-- A runoff collection system that collects roof runoff and air conditioner condensation in an 8,600-gallon cistern for landscape irrigation.

-- A carwash recycle system that reclaims water from the automatic carwash that recycles 80 to 90 percent of the water used to wash a car.

-- Carwash reverse osmosis that rinses each vehicle with "spot free" water, which reduces the amount of water that is left on each vehicle to evaporate or drip off. This saves two to three gallons of water per wash and also removes the necessity of using 45 hp blowers to dry each vehicle, saving an amazing amount of energy (and noise).

-- Light controls that have occupancy sensors (turning off lights in areas with no activity after a specified period of time).

As I mentioned, it is a bit of a contradiction for a car dealership to build a sustainable building, given the inherent unsustainable and linear nature of resource usage by the auto industry in it's present state.

None the less, it is gratifying to see a car dealer willing to tackle sustainability head on, and I suppose it should come as no surprise that it was a Toyota dealer who made that first leap, given the impressive investments Toyota has made in hybrid and alternative technologies and the commitment Toyota has to recycling and efficiency in it's industrial practices.

If any auto manufacturer is most likely to solve the problem of linear usage of resources, Toyota is my bet.

My path to environmentalism and sustainability

"The Future comes apace" - William Shakespeare

Growing up, among my passions was a love for the genre of science fiction. The yarns of Robert Heinlein, Arthur Clarke, Isaac Asimov not to mention the countless other imaginative and prescient authors of the 50's, 60's and 70's...leading up the the writers of today, painted a world of breath taking change, beauty and menacing danger to mankind. The abstract worlds of the future they painted are, in many ways, quickly becoming the tangible world I find myself living in today.

The warnings those early stories gave, echo in my head each day as I read about peak oil, changing climate, population growth, degradation of environment and the rapid rate of technological change we are experiencing today. While there are many aspects of the challenges we face which cause me great concern, I still maintain much of the same sense of wonder and optimism about the future we are entering, as I did as a teenager, first dipping the big toe of my imagination in the swirling water of the competing futures that science fiction offered.

I am now in my fourth decade on this shared trip through space and time, and I see that I must become an active participant in the daunting task of influencing the organic process of societal change in a direction which offers the best possibilities of survival of our world and our species.

None of us is alone in this whirling maelstrom of chaotic advancement. The unimaginably complex set of variables the problems of our future present seem insurmountable at times. But one fact remains above all others. We will all share the fate our future brings. We must shoulder our burdens and make the corrections to the path of our shared civilization and to our individual lives necessary to secure the blessings of a bountiful common future for life on earth.

In furtherance of that goal, to promote a sustainable common future, and to provide an outlet to my frustrations, fears, hopes and dreams, I will gather and share the flotsam of information on advancing sustainable technologies floating through the collective consciousness of the web as well as comment on local initiatives happening in and around my own community of Conway, Arkansas and the social and political currents which are shaping our shared outcomes.