Managing Meals

On this beloved earth day I felt compelled to write a post. I’ve always thought a lot of things when this comes up every year, but never had a complete thought or a place to put it. Now that I have this blog I will make you suffer and give my unrequested opinions.

A little background, I love technology. If you couldn’t guess I spend about 10 hours on a computer every single day, and I don’t really get tired of it. In fact many days I listen to my podcasts about various computer topics in my truck as I’m on my way to and from work. This is an important note because i see technology and being green as closely related. It was my love of technology and efficiency that first drove me to begin researching the prius. I’ve since come to the conclusion that it is in fact the best vehicle created to date. I am a proud stock holder of Toyota, and won’t sell even if the company tanks. The car is simply a great vehicle made by a reliable company, made for the masses, and its all available today… for a great/affordable price.

What does this have to do with earth day? Well after i began researching i began reading all the awesome things that Toyota and other car companies are doing, it naturally led to solar energy. After all the new prius has solar panels, and they will soon be able to be plugged in. Wouldn’t it be sweet if i could I could charge my plug in prius with a battery array that gets charged every day as the sun shines down on my solar panels? I digress.

Technology is the key to efficiency, and efficiency and being green are synonyms. I was raised being taught that the earth is on a cyclical schedule, temperatures rise, they fall, species die, and life goes on. Sure polluting is probably not the healthiest thing, but it doesn’t do any long term damage, maybe a little smog…but if we clean up that will quickly blow away. While i still think the earths weather is cyclical i no longer believe that we aren’t damaging the earth. I now think that while weather may go in cycles we are changing the cycles and therefore may not have a consistent weather pattern for the future. But this opinion (while based on scientific facts) is not the point.

Rather, if we have the technology, we have the know how, why are we to lazy to be better. Regardless of your beliefs on global warming, why are we limiting ourselves by our laziness?

I was having a discussion with my father the other week about cars and what the next fuel source should be. I believe it should be electric for a few simple reasons. If we all drive electric we can:

• Charge from our own power source (wind/solar)
• plug into a grid that can be upgraded as the utility companies need to or are forced to. Instead of the government imposing strict rules on millions of people they can target a specific utility and try to make it more efficient. Whether its limiting nuclear waste, or cleaner coal burners with better exhaust filters. We centralize our efforts on a local area to improve the system. Other areas wont be polluting at all since they receive their electric from water, solar, and wind.
• dump excess electricity from the vehicle back to the grid and save money on our house electric bills
• charge vehicles over night from the grid when there is an excess of power, often this power is wasted or throttled back greatly to limit wasting.

After i said that i think cars will soon generate electricity and be able to dump it back to the grid my dad claimed that vehicles will always consume energy. I still disagree, sure in today’s world they must consume more energy to move through the air, but just 10 years ago (when the prius came out) everyone would have said it wouldn’t work. Batteries die and are costly. But look at where we are. Some of the first sets of batteries are still running, the wind efficiency is so high and being perfected its astounding. Along with many other improvements you can now buy a mid-sized vehicle and have it achieve 50 EPA. That means if your conservative you could see well over 70mpg. Now compare that to the vehicle your driving, yeah 10-20 mpg is disgusting. Yet your vehicle im sure isn’t that old. In such a short amount of time we’ve made amazing progress because we’ve felt like it. Technology costs have come down and advances have been made. Soon we may be able to use solar paint or more efficient roof solar panels etc. Cars will begin to generate electricity even with driving the average 40 miles a day. Earlier i stated that i drive a truck, i should quickly mention that i consistently get between 29-35 mpg. Its a small Toyota pickup simply called pickup. No its not a Tacoma.

Why the emphasis on vehicles? Because i believe that we should be recycling, and many people have been doing this for years. We should be using long lasting light bulbs, but really how much does that save, I’m not convinced that they last as long as they advertise (i know you need to use them differently). I know there are a million ways to be green but really i cant think of one way i pollute more then by driving my vehicle everyday to work. So that’s why im focusing on that.

So to summarize, our opinions of vehicles not contributing to global warming (if global warming exists)  is irrelevant. Our excuse that new technology is to expensive is just that. Our attitudes towards efficiency is laughable. We are lazy and greedy and have let big companies go by with lack of innovation. They purchase efficient technologies to store the building plans and theories in a hidden basement 20 stories below ground. Its absurd. I will never buy a vehicle from gm ever again (hope they go under), Chrysler will go under, and ford will need to do a lot to impress me before i purchase from them again. Until im convinced its only Honda or Toyota.

So happy earth day, i hope Ive encouraged you to take hold of your life and put your dollars where your mouth is. Being green is about so much more then saving money, its about being the best we can be, providing a better place to live for our children, simply doing the right thing.