Mountain Biking: Rubber side down- Time for a TurnaroundWell, my friends, things are finally looking up, and good timing, too, since I’m sure you’re all sick of me bitching. Recent bike build, including wheels… fun! In what feels like a fairly short time, I’ve come from sitting around … Continue reading → […]
- This Raised My PulseHey, baby… wanna ride? I may be injured, but I’m not dead yet. I can still have racy thoughts. Here’s more info. In other news, UBI was an awesome success! I had a blast. I highly recommend it. Overhaul day…. … Continue reading → […]
- Time for a Turnaround
- Edgy Veggie
Electric lawnmower convert
Hey! It’s a guest post from Camera editorial page editor Erika Stutzman.
Erika
This weekend, we took advantage of a program that swaps carbon-meanie gasoline-powered lawnmowers for small, efficient electric ones.
We have a small yard; we leave the grass clippings mulch to keep them out of landfills. We have an organic garden that feeds us. We are persnickety about our water usage here in the dry American West, using as little as possible and only in the cool of early morning or late evenings.
But yes, our mower was powered by gasoline. Even last summer, when gasoline cost about $100 a gallon. Because in addition to trying to be green, we are also thrifty. The mower was from the 1970s and was a hand-me-down from our children’s grandpa; it was too small to be very useful (except for small yards, like ours) and it took some serious muscle power, as it was both old, and a push mower.
“Cash for Clunkers” a spendy way to cut carbon
Greg Signore, owner of Elm Auto Sales, is pictured at his used car business in Kearny, N.J. (AP photo)
Turns out that while the federal “Cash for Clunkers” program may be a great economic stimulus for hurting car dealerships — it’s not a great way (or at least not a cheap way) to cut the nation’s carbon footprint.
This is from the New York Times blog Green Inc.:
“The program is really not cost effective as a climate policy,” said Michael Wara, who is an assistant professor at Stanford Law School and a faculty fellow at the university’s program on energy and sustainable development. “It might be a great economic stimulus — we’re selling a lot of cars — but this is not the way to deal with mobile sources of climate change.”
Mr. Wara found that the program cost between $200 to $400 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions avoided, and Mr. Knittel’s estimates went up to $500 per ton. By contrast, the climate bill recently passed in the House of Representatives would result in a $28 per ton carbon price in 2020, according to analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.
Read Green Inc.’s full post on the high carbon cost of the “Clunkers” program, or read a story by Alicia Wallace in the Daily Camera about how the program is giving a boost to Boulder County car dealers. Check out the government’s cash-for-clunkers Web page for more information about the program, officially called the Car Allowance Rebate System, or CARS.
