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And, don’t forget to report your results in the comment section at the bottom of this post… I offer myself as the green guineapig. You can see my carbon footprint below. |
Massachusetts has long poured its energies into environmental protection. Shift the focus to energy efficiency itself and the rose-tinted view gets murky. Recent studies estimate that the state pumps out 87 million tons of carbon per year. The Bay State is not an efficiency leader, but solidly in the middle as the 25th highest carbon emitter in the U.S.
So, can the Bay State lead from the center? There are those who say, yes. But not at the state level. They point to ciities and towns that are taking the lead in efforts to reduce global warming gas emissions. From the first-in-the-nation Cambridge Energy Alliance, to enery task forces from Amherst to Salem, Massachusetts towns are revitalizing that old bromide, "Think global, act local."
Listen to the full show:
Plus, in our web specials: David poses with wind-blown hair in a video-short from Salem, and add ‘energy efficiency’ to the eye-of-newt witches brew as Salem tries to put a hex on global warming…
Tell us your story. Is your town going green? Are you? Do you think it’s worth it? Or can the money and effort be better spent elsewhere?
Check out some pictures from Salem, where the mayor and several residents are working to green a city where David was blown away by the wonders of wind:
This is crushing! Apparently, even without a car, Yahoo says I emit 23.8 tons of CO2 per year. And the American average is 9.44 tons of CO2 per year!
It’s all the airline travel I do to visit my parents in Oregon. I don’t even have a car! Man. I never thought having family far away would be bad for the environment.
Ok, but there’s hope. The EPA says I emit 9938 lbs./year, in comparison to a US average of 41,500 lbs/year. But, then again, they don’t ask about airline trips.
I see an energy audit in my future.
I checked out my emissions too. So, the EPA’s calculator leaves out the airfare portion but is much more detailed about energy use in the home. I scored 14,665 lbs./year. Meghna and I answered all the questions exactly the same except my building is heated with oil rather than gas.
Luckily for me my family is only a one hour flight away and I don’t own a car which means that according to yahoo I emit 4.2 tons of CO2 per year.
Okay, here goes – the EPA calculator score was 21,982 & my yahoo was 10.2. I’m convinced much of the emissions are from my time-machine. The Byzantine trips alone are environmentally costly.
There was a caller earlier who mentioned she had a webpage about mining in Kentucky. Anyone catch the name of that webpage?
I took the Yahoo Green calculator test, and found it to be way too generic.
I drive a Honda Civic which has over 200,000 miles on it; it’s a 4 speep manual and gets over 40MPG hwy if I drive 55MPH [and I do]. Combined city/hwy, if I take it easy, I’ve noticed a difference between getting 30MPG driving “like everyone else”, speeding up and slowing down with traffic, and over 36MPG when I simply hang back a bit, anticipate stops in advance, rather than tailgating and slamming on the brakes.
We also have a Dodge Caravan: the differences there are even more extreme. I can get 26-27MPG on the HWY at 55MPH, but only around 22 at 70MPH. If I drive aggressively like ‘everyone else’ combined city/hwy is about 16-17MPG. Taking it easy, it’s 22-23MPG.
Thank you people for tackiing these huge issues that so many folks have been ignoring for so long…. and so many are still ignoring! Another common lifestyle characteristic that greatly increases environmental footprint is living in a single person residence.. or living in a too big residence.
I will check out the measurement programs youi used and report back.
I encourage everyone to enroll in wecansolveit.org as well as the many other good programs that have been established to provide opportunities for people to act and adjust their choices.
Partriculary important are the moments when major decisions are made.. like to live in the city and T to work or to live in the suburbs and drive everywhere. or buying a major appliance… or remodeling a home, its the time to augment the “building envelope” to a better than code, better than Energy Star level to save more and more as fuel gets dearer.
Let’s keep listening and talking.
Lots of email came into the Radio Boston Inbox about this show:
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Christine writes:
:”Why are they putting a new powerplant in Billerica if we are trying to get away from fossil fuel energy?
Â
–Christine Donoghue”
Mike from Hingham offers this:
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“If wind generators were put in wide highway median strips they would be in no ones backyard. Wide highway median strips are, in a way, lost or wasted land. Windmills placed at these locations can’t really be faulted for their noise, and if the strip is wide enough, even ice being thrown off the blades would not be an issue.
Once solar panels become efficient enough they can be placed on guardrails, guardrails would have no problem with shading.
Mike Adams, Hingham”
Thomas sent us an email wondering about Boston traffic lights:
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“Hello radioboston,
Thank you for that topic – it is important for us to be concerned
baout…
Here’s a thought:
Sometimes I drive around Boston late at night. There’s hardly any
other car on the road. Still the traffic-lights are working in their
regular red-yellow-green sequence.
In other parts of the world, traffic lights switch to a
red-blinking/yellow brinking mode after a certain hour, and revert
to their regular day-time mode sometime in the morning.
Our cars are getting heavier and heavier. It takes a lot of energy
to accellerate so much matter to the normal travel speed.Being
stopped fo rno reason, aside form it being a nuisance – is also a
big waste of energy…
Thank you for your forwarding this idea to many communities, the DOT
and other organizations that might need to know about it, or be able
to do something about it…
–
Best regards,
Thomas”