In recent days I’ve started reading a book called Earth: The Sequel, which offers an exciting perspective on current efforts, both public and private, to “reinvent energy.” With a renewed sense of hope in mind, I did a little web-surfing this morning and found an article with some exciting news about our regional power company, Georgia Power.

Georgia Power has, in the last month, launched a green energy program for both business and residential customers in which customers can buy 100 kilowatt-hour blocks of renewable power (solar, wind, water, and biomass) to replace roughly 10% of their normal power consumption at a rate of $4.50 per month. The program has just been certified by an independent consumer protection program called Green-e,¹ which certifies renewable energy programs in a similar way to how LEED certifies green construction projects. Georgia Power’s site claims that buying one 100 kilowatt-hour block monthly for a year will reduce the customer’s carbon footprint the equivalent of a 2,000 mile drive in a car.² Nate and I just purchased two monthly blocks of renewable energy, adding an affordable $9.00 per month onto our power bill. Read the rest of this entry »

1. http://www.green-e.org/ [↩]
2. http://www.georgiapower.com/green/home.asp [↩]

Though we’ve been getting a lot more rain in Atlanta lately, I’ve clearly been in a blogging drought. Life has gotten in the way, but hopefully a revised shorter-entry approach will get me back on track.

Lord knows, there is a lot to talk about! While critical questions about climate change have gotten little airtime in the presidential race thus far, the “go green” movement is all the rage and countless corporations are hopping on board. I was most amused with a recent Chevy truck ad that featured two men driving other brands of pickup truck who were stranded and out of gas on the side of the road, until a Chevy truck driver who was clearly getting better gas mileage rescues them. Sheesh, I thought, that takes some major spin to get the consumer to be impressed by Chevy truck gas mileage.

Which leads me to my renewed purpose for this blog: what choices can we make that will have the greatest positive effect on our warming planet, and which choices are red herrings?

Read the rest of this entry »