If anyone can find or knows of a really good database of environmental boycotts, protests, or other campaigns against companies, I'm desparate to find one for an upcoming research study.
- posted by Chuck Eesley @ 2:36 PM

 
Anyone ever ask you to change your long distance service? This one is actually worth it. Imagine a company that donates 100% of it's profits to environmental causes . . .

Earth Tones
- posted by Chuck Eesley @ 1:37 PM

 
Re: Precautionary Principle

I think that biotech will probably push this along. However, I think a key consideration is how to structure pre-cautionary assessment so that it doesn't unnecessarily limit innovation. With the biotech corn project I worked on, it was already nearly impossible to bring any product to market because FDA limits placed nearly a 4 year time-frame when venture capitalists wanted to start seeing returns in about 4 years, thus making it nearly impossible to get significant funding.

Futures
Volume 24, Issue 3 , April 1992, Pages 219-231

Proactive and reactive approaches to risk regulation *1
The case of biotechnology
Joyce Taita, * and Les Levidowb, *

Abstract
The evolution of regulatory systems to control the development and use of products containing live genetically manipulated organisms (GMOs) is raising important questions about the nature and desirability of proactive approaches to risk regulation and their impact on industrial innovation. This article attempts to elucidate some of the complex issues underlying pressures for so-called product-based (as opposed to process-based) approaches to the regulation of GMOs, to relate the product/process argument to the more general objectives of promoting reactive or proactive approaches to risk regulation and to compare the situation of GMOs with broader issues of precautionary risk regulation. In conclusion the implications of these issues for the future development of the biotechnology-based industries and for risk regulation in general are discussed.

- posted by Chuck Eesley @ 1:22 PM

 
I'd like to officially introduce and welcome the first guest blogger to Envirotech, Mike, who after filling up my comment boxes I tapped with the ceremonial key to the Envirotech blog recently.
- posted by Chuck Eesley @ 1:19 PM

 
Precautionary Principle vs. Risk Assessment

...The good news is that the precautionary principle is steadily replacing old-style risk assessment as a way of making environmental decisions. The risk-based approach asks, "How much damage is acceptable?" In other words, "How much damage can we get away with?"

-cut-

The precaution-based decision-making system asks a different question. Under precaution, we examine all reasonable alternatives and ask, "How little damage is possible?" In the face of scientific uncertainty, the precautionary system urges a "better safe than sorry" approach to decisions, instead of the old approach, "I'm barging ahead until you can line up the dead bodies."

Read more here.
- posted by Buffalo @ 2:03 AM

 
Global warming to cost $18 quadrillion?
- posted by Chuck Eesley @ 12:04 PM

 
To quote a recent paper . . . this is the problem with trying to fight the legislative battle at least in the EU:

Big corporations set up associations, pressure groups or pay PR firms to lobby decision makers directly: one of the most effective ones, the ERT, European Roundtable of Industrialists, a coalition of some of the biggest European TNCs, has more or less written the first draft of the Maastricht treaty for the EU bureaucracy, and part written many programs such as the TEN (Trans Europe Networks) etc. The ERT has regular, sometimes exclusive, always behind-closed-doors access to the top European policy makers, including former EU president Jacques Delors and the current one, Jacques Santer. So there is a tremendous influence and control over the direction of EU policy by, to say it again, not democratically legitimised powers. (see: Europe, Inc. Dangerous Liaisons between EU Institutions and Industry, ed. by Belen Balanya et al. (Amsterdam: CEO, 1997; see also John Vidal: The real politics of power, ibid.)
The environmental movement, for example, has no chance whatsoever to match the industry's influence through lack of funds, access to high-level decision makers etc. (cf. Ibid., p. 57-59).

- posted by Chuck Eesley @ 2:16 PM

 
1. "In fact, most managers say that the way to convince an executive of an env. program is to frame it as an opportunity. It's almost like using their psychology against them"

Buffalo's response: Why would a company tell you how to beat it - how to regulate it - how to make it's job more difficult?

What the researchers did was ask managers who had championed environmental issues whether they framed the issue as an opportunity or as a threat/risk. Then they looked at whether the top executives did something about their env. project and correlated the two. Opportunity was more highly correlated with success.

2. I have a feeling that allowing corporations to have so much say in "how they protect the environment" is kind of conceding that they have power of you. I don't think corporations should have power over the state when it comes to public health. I think the state should be able to regulate whatever they deem necessary to protect the public health. Otherwise corporations are given the power over public health when that should not be their domain. I'm not advocating the state takeover of industry (I'm no Marxist) but I do think that in the public interest, the corporation has no right to set where and when they want to protect the environment. Saying otherwise gives them the power. It's like a recent bill in California where Senator Barbara Boxer wants to give tax breaks to U.S. corporations so they bring their profits that they store in offshore banks back to the U.S. She says that by giving them these tax breaks, then they will put their money back in the U.S. WEll, I say why should a corporation be permitted to keep their profits in offshore accounts so they don't have to pay taxes. Boxer is essentially admitting that she and the government are held hostage to the corporations' wishes which say that "they won't bring back their profits to U.S. banks until tax rates are lowered." Well, forget that. These corporations should never have the right to store their U.S.-made profits in offshore accounts in order to avoid taxes.

Mussolini said that the merger of the corporation and the state was the definition of fascism - well what is called when the corporation hold policy makers hostage? I'm not saying the U.S. gov't is fascist... I'm just sayin'... come on.

Response:

So essentially what you're saying is that anyone working on environmental issues should focus all of their efforts on more stringent legislative regulations?

I don't know that that is the best strategy. It seems like in that case you are perhaps leaving on the table so to speak environmental improvements that might be gained in an easier way. Say it takes two years and $300,000 to get a piece of legislation passed to cut emissions of a certain chemical by 50% a year after it's implemented. Say the other strategy is to collaborate w/ the industry to create a voluntary agreement and it ends up only cutting emissions by 30% but only takes 6 months to develop, costs $10,000 and does it in a year. If the industry typically pollutes 100 units / year. Then the first route pollutes 400 units over the next 5 years and the second, voluntary route, only pollutes 375 units. If those units are millions of pounds of a chemical, that's a big difference. Sure, the calculations change the longer you measure, 10 years, 20 years, but by that time, perhaps you create a new voluntary initiative or maybe some legislation gets passed, or a new technological development is made to cut emissions, who knows. And you still have the $290,000 and all the saved time to devote to some other environmental legislative lobbying. So your net gain is far greater.

Business may feel or appear that it is getting to have say in when and how to cut pollution, but you can see that the state is clearly benefiting in this scenario. Now obviously the numbers and time frame that I invented is completely made up and who knows what the real values are . . . but that's just my point of why I feel this research is interesting and valuable . . . someone's got to come along and empirically determine what all these variables that I've just made up really are in order to know what the best strategy is.



- posted by Chuck Eesley @ 12:26 AM

 
2. Do voluntary initiatives work better simply because they are being asked to "volunteer" to cut pollution in areas that are easier for the company to do so (i.e. a company that can cut SO2 emissions without losing profit is asked to do so but not asked to cut it's CO2 emissions because doing so would require a tightening of the belt?) - in other words, do voluntary initiatives only appear to be more effective because they are used in "safe" situations for the company but on pollutants that will be more costly - are those laws and regulations held up committee after committee by lobbyists? The result would be that volunteer initiatives look more efficient but that is only because they are only put in place when it is easy to do.
Does this make sense?

I have no proof that this occurs, just a paranoid hunch.

In otherwords, in areas where it would be more difficult to comply, do the lobbyists never suggest voluntary initiatives because the company would never volunteer to implement them? And then, in order to stop command-control regulations, the regulations are held up in hearing after hearing and the lobbyists and their buddies at the EPA/Congress block any attempt to impose controls. By the time they make it law, millions have been spent, the law is so gutted by so many corporate interests, much time has passed, and the resulting legislation is largely ineffective.
In otherwords, the corporate lobbyists artificially frame the game to make voluntary initiatives the new buzz.

Ok, understand?
It's hard articulating minor-conspiarcy theories in a comment box.

Response:

Of course! But in my view, it's not so terrible, nor is it a conspiracy. Sure, the ideal would be to cut the most toxic chemicals which are put out in the largest amounts first. And that is exactly what the EPA has been attempting to do with the Toxic Release Inventory information (TRI). There are voluntary initiatives centered around this data (which is the best data out there). But one of the advantages of voluntary or "carrot" rather than stick approaches is that they allow companies to have an incentive to cut pollution where it is easiest for them or where they can do it and add a competitive advantage at the same time.

The most extensive environmental programs within companies are more often motivated by opportunity than by threat (Khanna, Madhu and Anton, Wilma Rose. What is Driving Corporate Environmentalism: Opportunity or Threat? Corporate Environmental Strategy. Volume 9, Issue 4 , December 2002, Pages 409-417). In fact, most managers say that the way to convince an executive of an env. program is to frame it as an opportunity. It's almost like using their psychology against them (Anderson, Lynne M. and Bateman, Thomas S. Individual Environmental Initiative: Championing Natural Environmental Issues in the U.S. Business Organizations. Academy of Management Journal. Aug2000, Vol. 43 Issue 4, p548, 23p).

The way I see it, there are many "levers" that can be pushed to induce companies to improve env. performance. Regulations are one of those levers, and probably the most important one, but why not also make sure that all the other levers, especially the ones that don't involve fighting political battles, are pushed down all the way.

What we're going to be trying to figure out in this upcoming study is what piece of research is most needed to help in that process. That's what we're meeting about next Wed. One angle might be to ask what information NGOs could most use. Another angle might be to ask what information policy makers could most use. One important study shows how companies can manipulate NGOs and interest groups to take away their informativeness to policy makers (Maxwell, John W., Thomas P. Lyon, and Steven C. Hackett. 2000. “Self-Regulation and Social Welfare: The Political Economy of Corporate Environmentalism,” Journal of Law and Economics. 43: 583-617.).
- posted by Chuck Eesley @ 8:57 PM

 
Hmm, muy interesante. (Envirotech has now officially gone bilingual as well as interactive.)

I have a couple of questions:

1. I did not realize that voluntary iniatives could be set up with consequences in place if they fail to comply. Is 'voluntary' the right word to use? Am I misunderstanding something here?

Consequences can include shaming or expulsion from the program. Shaming is when the program publishes environmental performance data or when executives from other companies meet on a regular basis and admonish poor performers and/or help them find ways to improve environmental performance. Publishing environmental performance data can cause a drop in stock price which has been shown to correlate with improvements in env. performance (Konar, Shameek & Mark A. Cohen, Information as Regulation: The Effect of Community Right to Know Laws on Toxic Emissions, 32 J. Envt’l Econ. & Mgmt. 109 (1997).).

Being kicked out is bad because there are advantages to being in the program, (depending on which program it is) but generally can include, positive marketing publicity, help from other firms in complying with existing regulations, and possibly less chance of being targeted by environmental activists or lawsuits.

So, they are voluntary, and participation rates do tend to be low, however, the worst polluters in the most environmentally conscious states tend to be the ones who sign up.
- posted by Chuck Eesley @ 8:46 PM

 
Previous comment: "I'm not sure that voluntary measures are actually an alternative to the command-control measures put in place by the bulk of environmental legislation passed in the 1970's. Rather I would argue that the voluntary regulations be called a "GIFT" to the corporations. Voluntary regulations by their nature put the responsibility of environmental protection in an arena where the number one concern is the bottom-line. Sure we can do better than cumbersome bureaucratic legislation but merely giving the power to the corporations to protect public health and the environment is a disaster waiting to happen."

I'm not advocating voluntary initiatives as a replacement to legislated regulations, simply as a complement to them. Link Actually, it's interesting when you look at the empirical research that has been done on these issues a number of counter-intuitive results exist. The professor I am working with did a study of voluntary environmental initiatives and whether they actually worked to reduce pollution or not. His finding was that when there are consequences set up in the voluntary program for not complying, then voluntary initiatives do indeed work to cut pollution. However, when there are no consequences set up and groups cannot be kicked out of the volun. initiative, then they do not work to reduce pollution. It's tricky, in a global market, if you legislate tough environmental regulations, then all the polluting firms can just relocate to less stringent countries. However, most people take this as an argument that globalization will create more pollution. On the contrary, the research shows that firms that are bigger and that operate internationally actually pollute significantly less!

Another couple interesting theoretical papers that I read attempt to demonstrate that when companies can be induced to voluntarily reduce emissions without legislation then when you take into account the amount of public funds needed to create, pass, and implement legislation it turns out to be better overall for society to induce the voluntary actions than to legislate especially when the outcome of trying to pass legislation is uncertain.

There is a famous quote that it is not the business of the profit maximizers in society to be concerned about social welfare. That point is repeated in the documentary Life and Debt. I think it's true. However, environmental improvement is a complicated issue and as such it is often counter-intuitive. The largest increases in pollution reduction in the past 15 years actually happened in the early 90's when the EPA began releasing information on the emissions of 400 chemicals called the TRI. Just releasing that information, without any additional regulations caused a massive reduction in pollution from firms across the board (those with the biggest drop in stock prices reduced the most) the likes of which hasn't been seen since.

Legislation is getting increasingly difficult to pass as companies have a lot of funds to throw at the political system to fight back. But fortunately there are other "levers" that can be pushed and pulled to change how much firms pollute. I think it's to our advantage to optimize everything else that we can in addition to fighting for more legislation.
- posted by Chuck Eesley @ 12:54 PM

 
Cook with it, drive with it . . . vegetable oil it does it all.
- posted by Chuck Eesley @ 6:26 PM

 
This is almost exactly the research that I'm working on. Also, contrary to my father, a stockbroker's advice, I've got a little money squirreled away in an SRI myself. Which, by the way has done much better then dear dad's picks for me. :)

The Greening Of Capitalism

This article first appeared in the fall 2003 issue of NRDC's OnEarth magazine, and is reprinted with permission.

For decades the environmental movement has been characterized as being at odds or out of touch with the bedrock assumptions of U.S. capitalism. According to the common view, investors will sacrifice returns if they allow social values such as clean air and clean water to influence their investment choices. Similarly, any strengthening of environmental protections by the government will add deadweight costs to a company's bottom line, thus undercutting efficiency and dragging down general prosperity. For these and other reasons, even the simplest environmental reforms are required to run a gauntlet of dense cost-benefit calculations to win approval as sound economics.



But what if this familiar lore turns out to be dead wrong? In the realm of abstract economic analysis, the conventional logic may seem unassailable. In reality, however, companies with superior performance on environmental matters (as well as other social concerns) are producing better returns in the stock market for shareholders, partly because those companies face fewer environmental risks to their future profitability. I am not simply talking about green startup companies on the leading edge of innovation—the ones designing new solar panels. I am talking about the largest industrial corporations, from DuPont to Intel, across virtually every sector, including those sectors that are typically notorious polluters. In the bowels of capitalism, it turns out, environmental values make good business sense.

This revelation opens an entirely different path to achieving deep change in our economic and political systems, change that is driven from within the capitalist structure by people who act collectively as investors, consumers, workers, and citizens. Government at present is captured or stymied by dominant economic interests and unable to make fundamental advances, especially in the regulatory system. Business and finance, though, can become surprisingly pliable in their strategies and business models once citizens learn to locate the precise points of leverage. The connection between financial investing and environmental progress is one such point.

The bow wave for clarifying this issue was launched by the pioneers in socially responsible investing, or SRI. Often belittled by Wall Street, a number of the leading socially screened investment funds attracted notice during the 1990s, when they produced better records of return than did the broad market they compete with for investor dollars.

Mainstream brokerages, at the very least, recognized a new niche market and began opening their own SRI funds. Even the Dow Jones Company, which promotes its economic orthodoxy in The Wall Street Journal, caught the wave in 1999 with its global sustainability index, tracking the top 10 percent of the most environmentally, economically, and socially conscientious companies worldwide. (These companies, according to Dow, include 3M, Procter & Gamble, Intel, Volkswagen, Unilever, Siemens, and others.) The new index is beating Dow's broader global index by 2 to 3 percentage points. These differences are not trivial; when trillions of dollars are in play, 1 percent better adds up to real money.

SRI's edge in performance remains in contentious dispute among Wall Street bankers and brokers, and most of them, it is safe to say, still don't buy it. Environmentalists, who start from a broader understanding of what constitutes efficiency and value, may find it easier to appreciate the underlying logic. American business, despite its inventiveness and supposed obsession with efficiency, actually operates in a swamp of everyday wastefulness, as environmental thinkers have contended for years. It stands to reason that a company reducing toxic effluence from its plants, or modifying products and production processes to reduce collateral damage in nearby rivers or forests, is also engineering internal efficiencies that will be reflected in the bottom line.

Innovest, an upstart financial advisory firm with offices in New York, Toronto, Paris and London, has taken this logic a step further, gathering abundant specific evidence that companies with better environmental records generally produce better returns for investors. Innovest has developed investment-risk ratings for 1,500 corporations, a grade that resembles the credit-risk ratings by Moody's or Standard & Poor's. In this case, a corporation's environmental performance and viability are evaluated according to 150 concrete indicators, including its liabilities for past pollution, risks of hazardous waste disposal, the energy efficiency of its production systems, exposure to future regulatory costs, and scores of other markers.

Based on these factors, the firm assigns risk ratings from AAA to CCC. The CCC rating signifies "a company where there are significant doubts about management's ability to handle its environmental/social risks and liabilities and where these are likely to create a serious loss."

The grading system allows Innovest to compare performance in the stock market; a portfolio of several hundred companies with higher eco-ratings is matched against several hundred "bad guys" with poor ratings. If a pension fund, for instance, invests its billions on highly rated companies and ignores those with lousy environmental records, it will reap higher returns—1.5 to 3 points higher than if the pension fund follows standard practice and invests passively across the entire stock market. Why then should pension trustees, mutual funds, and foundations park their money with the suspect performers?

The simple and obvious truth Innovest captures with its analysis is that companies are vastly different in how they perform and the risks they assume, even when they look alike by Wall Street's usual financial measures. Innovest ratings uncovered considerable differences within high-risk sectors like oil and chemicals. The performance of companies in the top half of the chemical industry—those more environmentally responsible—was 15.9 percent above the bottom half. In a sense, Innovest is separating the sheep from the goats. The firm also examined the potential financial risk of climate change to 26 American electric-utility companies and found company risk varied by a factor of 50. Suppose that as global warming worsens, public alarm finally overwhelms industry's political resistance, and that controls are enacted to compel utilities to reduce carbon emissions. What is the risk to their bottom line? Innovest, using a hypothetical carbon tax as a proxy, found tha! t one utility company would pay costs of only 38 cents per share, based on its relatively modest carbon emissions, while another company would pay $14 a share. Even if government does not act, imagine how this kind of information could affect stock prices once investors learn to consider the unseen risks in retrograde corporations.



"Our ultimate purpose is to reengineer the DNA of Wall Street," explains Matthew Kiernan, Innovest's founder and chief executive: "If you want to change corporate behavior, you have to start with their financial oxygen supply, producing solid information from social-environmental areas that have been completely opaque to financial markets."

American investors recently learned a lot about the opacity of Wall Street, not to mention its fallibilities and sly deceptions. The Innovest ratings may actually provide insight into what Wall Street analysts so often got wrong in the 1990s—the overall soundness of a corporation's top management. "What you're really discovering with the Innovest screen is something fundamental about the company," says Wall Street veteran Peter M. Camejo, who established the first environmentally screened fund at Merrill Lynch in 1990 and later founded Progressive Asset Management, a socially responsible investment firm now based in Oakland, California. "A company that has a very high rating on the environment is doing everything right," he observes. "The management team has got its head on straight. They avoid litigation; they know how to handle themselves; they're thinking ahead. With a company that's very bad, that cuts corners and gets into trouble all the time, you may be discover! ing that they have internal management problems they don't admit to, maybe don't even recognize."

The potential impact on investing practices is obvious. Here's a powerful tool to punish the bad guys and reward the virtuous in terms that they all understand: the cost and availability of capital. But that brings us to the hard part—overcoming the backward habits and assumptions of Wall Street institutions.

The primary target for leverage, therefore, has to be the fiduciary institutions that hold the vast savings of Americans at large and invest trillions on their behalf. These holders of great wealth, including pension funds and mutual funds, own 60 percent of the 1,000 largest corporations in America. They have decisive influence over investment values—if they will use it. Instead, more often than not, they meekly align their investment strategies with Wall Street's narrow-minded choices. This status quo is changing gradually, at least on the margins, as SRI firms demonstrate success and labor unions, environmentalists, progressive shareholder groups, and other activists raise challenges. Innovest, which counts former executives from Citicorp and TIAA-CREF on its board of directors, is slowly breaking into the larger market. The firm is now the strategic adviser for some $900 million in five investment funds, one of which is organized notably by ABP, the Dutch pension f! und that is currently the largest in the world.

Still, any strategy to move U.S. financial markets must work on two fronts. First, investors must organize to educate managers of mutual funds about what represents sound investment—and threaten to cut off their "oxygen supply" if they don't get it.

The second front involves pension funds, large and small, which are required by law to invest only in the long-term interest of their "beneficial owners," the future retirees. The fund trustees must be persuaded that they are likely in legal violation of their fiduciary duty when their investment strategies fail to distinguish between the social behavior of good guys and bad guys. Trustees could in theory be held liable for ignoring the facts and exposing pension returns to avoidable risks. If major pension funds absorb the message, they will be compelled at a minimum to begin auditing the behavior and potential risk of the individual companies. Then funds would have a clear basis for making active distinctions about where to park their capital.

Once a few of the largest pension funds begin using such assessments to guide their investing, Wall Street brokerages and other private firms will have no choice but to employ the same techniques—or risk losing their largest customers. And the corporations will have to do the same, if only to defend their share price. This leverage is real power that in time can alter the fundamentals of corporate behavior, with or without much help from government. As long as government remains unable or unwilling to seriously confront the destruction of nature, the capitalist road may actually be the most promising route to initiating real change.

[via Mike]
- posted by Chuck Eesley @ 9:30 PM

 
Below are some tips on saving energy. Buying compact fluorescent bulbs is an excellent place to start as it can cut the amount you spend on lighting by 1/2 and the bulbs last 10 times longer than conventional bulbs.

From all the research that I'm doing on corporate environmentalism, it's very important to signal environmental preferences to corporations, especially when more volutary environmental initiatives are being formed as an alternative to the old, cumbersome, regulations passed by legislatures.

Lighting

One of the easiest and cheapest places to start saving energy is with lighting.

Tip #1 -- Replace your most frequently used incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lights.

Compact fluorescent light bulbs use only about a third as much electricity as standard incandescents. And though the bulbs are slightly more expensive to buy, a compact-fluorescent will easily pay for itself by lasting up to ten times longer than regular bulbs. According to some experts, if you substitute compact fluorescent bulbs for a quarter of the incandescents used in high-use areas, you can cut the amount of electricity you use on lighting by half -- saving money and our environment.

Tip #2 -- Replace outdoor lighting with a motion-detector equipped bulb or fixture.

Now that your interior is lighting is more efficient, its time to look outside. Outdoor lights that are left on all night can add unnecessary costs to your power bill. Using a bulb or fixture with a motion detector solves the problem. Though installing a new fixture may require some professional assistance, it's probably worth the cost.

Hot Air, Hot Water

Tip #3 -- Lower your hot water heater to 120 degrees and drain any sediment.

Though changing light bulbs is easy, heating cold water is much more energy intensive -- and also a great place to save energy. Though you need to keep your water heater above 120 degrees to prevent bacteria from building up, many hot water heaters are set too high. Experts also recommend draining a pint or so of water from your water heater a few times a year to reduce sediment and increase efficiency.

Tip #4 -- Add insulation to your hot-water heater.

As long as you're dealing with your water heater, you might as well add some insulation. Since the standard hot water heater is on all the time, adding extra insulation will save more energy than you think. Most hardware stores sell pre-made insulator "jackets" that can be easily wrapped around one's water heater. Experts estimate that adding insulation to your water heater and any exposed pipes can knock up to 15 percent off the costs of heating water.

Tip #5 -- Install a low-flow shower head.

Low-flow shower heads are also a worthwhile investment (especially for renters, because you can take them with you) that will reduce the amount of hot water you use and hence the energy needed to heat it.

Tip #6 -- Check for and seal any cracks or gaps.

Heating one's home is the single largest use of energy for the average customer. And since experts estimate that all of the tiny gaps and cracks in an older home are roughly equivalent to a one-foot square hole punched in your wall, sealing any cracks or gaps with caulking and weather stripping can greatly improve energy efficiency. Advances in adhesives and stripping make this more efficient and easier than it used to be too.

After you've sealed the gaps, think about adding some insulation to your floor, ceiling or walls -- a bit of modern insulation can often work wonders for older houses.

Appliances and Electronics

Tip #7 -- Set your computer to go into "sleep" mode when not in use.

People who use computers at home or at work may have a "screensaver" program that floats animated toasters or whatnot across the screen when the computer is idle. And though these programs do prevent images from being burned into the tube, they also waste power by keeping your monitor on -- even when the computer is not in use. Instead of using a screensaver, program your computer to go into "sleep" mode when not in use. And be sure to turn off televisions, computers, stereos and the like when not in use.

Tip #8 -- Replace old appliances with more efficient models.

Though buying a new appliance isn't cheap, replacing an old dishwasher -- or an old refrigerator, washing machine, or furnace -- with a new, energy-efficient model can really save some energy and money. Look for the Energy Star label as a minimum; some models can be even more efficient. And though buying a new appliance is a major investment, many states and utility companies offer substantial credits or other incentives to replace an outdated appliance with a more efficient one.

[via The Sierra Club.]
- posted by Chuck Eesley @ 10:38 PM

 
Here's a picture of my home composter in it's spot under the deck. Note the duct tape repair job from the hurricane damage that was sustained.
- posted by Chuck Eesley @ 11:32 PM

 
Recycled pens, playground equipment, landscaping . . . you name it and if you look hard enough on the web you can buy it made from recycled materials. This is the crucial last step, not only do we need to recycle, but also to buy recycled.

Check out Amazing Recycled Products.
- posted by Chuck Eesley @ 8:31 PM

 
Sophomore year at Duke I worked on a project to try and get a grant to help convince Duke to switch to recycled paper for all of it's paper use. The project continued past my tenure with the Environmental Alliance, but it seems that it worked in large part as I see a lot of recycled paper around and the labs have implemented a new printing system to try to cut down on wasted printing.

Here is some information on recycled paper from Conservatree.
- posted by Chuck Eesley @ 9:59 PM

 
Natural Garden Pest Control

ants.. ... . .dust mites...... .. cockroaches..... . ..fleas,,, ,, ,,,mosquitos ...... ... flies .... ....wasps

Insect pests are an intimate part of every home. In the air, the carpet, the counter or cupboard, every home shares it's resources with these tiny, often unseen invaders.
Pesticides are available for most common household insect pests, but these potent chemical compounds may be more harmful to you and the environment than the pests.
Here are some natural, non-toxic ways to control household insect pests.
- posted by Chuck Eesley @ 5:38 PM

 
Bugs moving in for the winter?

As a side note, I tried a natural remedy for bugs in my apartment two years ago. I was told that nicotine kills bugs. We had a little infestation, so as instructed I soaked a couple cigars for 24 hours and then used a sponge to spread the tobacco water where the bugs were. For about a day I thought it had worked . . . and then they were back.

But that's not to say these others don't work! :)
- posted by Chuck Eesley @ 8:17 PM

 
This is disturbing, I just read a research article which has data showing that, "In the South, the nonwhite population percentage significantly affects the amount of toxic releases, while this variable is insignificant outside the South."

- posted by Chuck Eesley @ 10:10 AM

 
In honor of getting my gas heat connected today and the chillier weather here in Durham recently at night . . .

What is the most efficient thermostat setting for heating?

The best setting is the lowest temperature at which your family is comfortable. Most people are comfortable at a setting of 68 - 70 degrees. You can save up to 3% for each degree you lower your thermostat temperature.

Back to top

I've heard that setting back my heat can actually cost me more when I turn the thermostat back up - is this true?

With most heating systems, you will save money by turning your thermostat back when you are away from home four hours or more. Consider purchasing a programmable thermostat available at most home improvement stores. If you have a heat pump, you should either set the thermostat at a comfortable temperature and leave it or purchase a programmable thermostat specifically designed for a heat pump.
- posted by Chuck Eesley @ 9:57 PM