Chasing Clean Air

President Bush News Conference & Clean Air

If I were to summarize the energy component of President Bush news conference this morning, he wants to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve ANWAR, increase biofuels, including corn and wood-chip based ethanol, and he sees our long-term solution in hydrogen and short term in biofuels and...

You can read more of Bush's ideas by clicking continuing this article below, or you can read someone smarter than Bush when it comes to energy solutions by clicking here.

The Atlantic's Waste Not! To Reduce Global Warming Reimagine The Grid & Recycle Industrial Waste

$50 billion worth of unused industrial energy in America--in the form of steam, furnace gases and heat--could be recycled and used for energy.

Electric companies waste energy with inefficiency, but it need not be so, according to Tom Casten, Chairman of Recycled Energy Development, one of the few gentlemen, making money from recycling steam.

By using "junk energy" -- making more efficient pipes at electric plants, using furnace exhaust mixed with oxygen to create the equivalent of natural gas, and using heat to generate more steam -- an industrial plant can create its own energy and buy less from the grid.

Reimagine the grid (how we all get electricity) into an open competitive system in order to reduce fossil fuel use and energy waste. According to The May issue of Atlantic Magazine's story Waste Not by Lisa Margonelli this is one of the best answers to create a more energy efficient America.

Recycling industrial energy sounds fantastic to me. To read more of Ms. Margonelli's Atlantic story, click here.

The Secret To Getting Happier with Age

I woke up thinking how happy my mom is. You should hear her voice, she's almost always happy, busy, and engaged with life. If my mom is any indication, life gets better with age. Besides the usual daily workouts, eating well, and dressing nicely for the occasion, I think her secret is learning from previous mistakes, and making decisions that suit her temperament, interests, and goals. When we're young, at least my friends and I, made decisions based on hopes, and then life taught us what's real. When we work with what's real in the world and in ourselves, and focus on what's good, I believe we get the happiness of my mom.

Monterey, Santa Cruz Aerial Pesticide Spray Postponed!

The pending Monterey, Santa Cruz County aerial pesticide spray postponed!  Today a judge ruled that an environmental impact report will be done before a spray decision is made. Democracy to the rescue. We the people. Right on. I'll bet San Francisco and Marin County gets postponed, too. Breathing easier now.

Fortune Brainstorm Green: What I Learned

I didn't just enjoy Fortune Magazine's Brainstorm Green conference, I felt a shift occur. An enlargement, if you will, of my capacity to see other viewpoints, which I believe must have been one of the goals of conference.

Any conference.

Fortune did a great job of bringing together diverse activists, NGO, and business leaders in order to share information.

That's what happened. A sharing.

Occasionally, a battle brewed.

And back to sharing.

In the past, I admit to turning away from organizations that I felt were unreasonable toward the environment. I was a purist with an "us" and "them" viewpoint.

I still discern right and wrong when it comes to toxic industries like nuclear and coal, and those industries that cover up toxic risks to nearby communities, but those polluters aside, I'll make room for traditional companies and government agencies, stepping into a transparent light and greener direction.

To read my reviews of conference, click to learn about Michael Dell's green innovations and "recycled" computer, Wall Street and climate change, and Cool Electric Cars.

In loving memory

Today's my grandma's birthday. She passed away five years ago. On this special day, I commemorate her place in my life with a tribute I wrote the day she...

In loving memory

Help! I'm drowning! Send me a lifeline!

"Here honey girl," Grandma Bernie emerged from the rose garden, "take this." And from her heart emanated a long invisible thread that miraculously attached itself to my heart.

It was my lifeline. Strong and sturdy.

"I love you with all my heart and with all my soul," she said from the depth of her being. "You'll always have this lifeline. So never feel alone, and neither will I."

Like two halves of the same loving spider, we wove our life thread into a beautiful shared web: Through chicken pox and cancer; rolling Romanian meatballs and chopping salad; knitting blankets and needlepointing pillows; playing golf and taking walks; playing favorites on her piano, Beethoven (A Farewell to the Piano) and Chopin (Preludes Op.28 numbers 3 and 4); reading Shakespeare and Edgar Cayce books; expressing love of grandpa, each other and more; vacationing in Yosemite and Lake Tahoe; playing Gin Rummy and Black Jack; Sunday family dinners and sleepovers; watching 60 Minutes and All In The Family in bed, laughing in bed, talking into the wee-hours in bed, sharing milk and cookies in bed and sometimes on the floor by the sleeping bag where my brother and I took turns sleeping; talking on the phone almost every single day for my entire life… through San Francisco, San Diego, New York, Washington, DC, Spain, Israel, France, Italy and Los Angeles… our line remained strong.

In recent years, since she broke her hip, I enjoyed flying to San Francisco for the day, and wheeling her around...