LBK Green

  This blog is devoted to global warming and how local governments are in a unique position to take effective measures to combat greenhouse gas emissions. Initially I want to post a sort of manifesto, proclaiming that political pressure at the grassroots level may be the most viable avenue open to concerned residents, in that individuals are able to effect actual change in the actions of their local governments. Please read the following report on the state of the planet. Note that at the end, the writer advocates action at the local level, since national political action appears to be not currently possible. If everyone believes that everyone else will solve global warming, who is left to actually make things better? Gene Jaleski TAKEAWAYS FROM THE United Nations IPCC REPORT •Hundreds of climate scientists, thousands of research studies, eight years of work—building on more than three decades of research before that—have been boiled down in the past fortnight to a singl...

 Your home accounts for around 24% of your personal contribution to global warming. If there were no people, there would be no global warming as is happening currently. There are several things each homeowner can do to reduce his/her carbon footprint. Once again, if everyone decides that everyone else can solve climate change, that leaves no one left to do anything, and we will most likely see an acceleration in unwanted weather and tidal events. There is an argument that individual actions have little impact on the overall problem. That is true if only a few try to reduce their carbon footprints. It will take a concerted effort by the great majority of individuals to make a difference. I believe local government can have considerable influence on reducing global warming through community awareness, codes and ordinances. I am presenting this material in hopes that enough residents voice their concerns to our commissioners that they are moved to take action. Insulation : R-values of...

 I believe there are few Longboat Key residents who mow their own yards. I am one of them.  Mostly what I see are numerous lawn service companies mowing yards on a regular basis, regardless of the season and growing conditions. I estimate there are around five thousand properties on Longboat requiring lawn maintennce, including all our condominium grounds, twice a month, or 10,000 lawn mowings, string trimmings and leaf blowings a month. A am asking if you believe we can continue caring for our lawns, using gas equipment, without unwanted repercussions? If Longboat Key was the only source of small engine pollution, no problem. Unfortunately there are 130 million homes in America. So the pollution created from lawn care is enormous. We will talk about fertalizer and noise pollution in future articles. What can we, as citizens, do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from all the millions of small gas engines, each running hours a day? So far California is the only state to ban sm...

 I estimate that Longboat is 99% built out, but only 15% rebuilt out. Over the next two decades I believe there will be a new home building transformation on Longboat, where existing older homes are replaced with new, larger and more expensive houses and condominiums. This will also mean that existing occupied homes are facing prolonged periods of construction next door or across the street. In the village we are seeing two replacement houses being constructed on either side of occupied homes. For those who have already experienced year long struggles with noise, dust and congested streets, you know that you wished things could have gone differently. Unfortunately the town codes only control hours of construction and do not address high noise levels, having to repeatedly deal with consruction dust and constant movement of construction vehicles. And importantly, the large amount of pollution created by small gas engine construction site generators and compressors. Introducing Green ...

It is difficult to blame developing and 3rd world countries for complaining that America now expects everyone to sacrifice in order to clean up the environmental mess created mostly by the US and Europe over the past century. I tell everyone I know about Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) and Arcadia Power that enables households, companies and governments to have all their electric power supplied by solar and wind energy generation via RECs. On the whole, most people I talk to are uninterested. I wonder about the sickness unto death that pervades our country. Refusing to acknowledge in any meaningful way, that anything needs to be done at the individual level, and that we are responsible for the great a majority of greenhouse gas emissions, that are rapidly altering the environment, does nothing to avert certain disaster for our planet.

At this point in the world's utilization of green energy, there are few choices available to home owners and small businesses and governments.  Roof Solar requires an initial investment, either by the owner or a lender. Home solar power is less efficient than utility genertated green energy.  If we look at our problem as global, which it is, then we might want to weigh the agregate cost/benefit of any renewable energy source. Certainly there is a strong need for roof solar where no power infrastructure presently exists. Local Solar enables groups of investors or residents to buy into a larger scale efficient solar/wind instillation usually in the megawatt range and located in the general area of the investor cluster. Local solar energy producers often rely on the existing power grid, which receives a transmission fee to offset infrastructure costs. Florida does not allow the formation of local solar consortiums, leaving the few state power utilities in absolute control of gr...