As the temperatures outside drop this winter, keep your home’s interior warm and comfortable with these effective heat-saving strategies. These tips will also help your household conserve energy and reduce utility costs throughout this season.
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Change the World: Investing for a Fossil Fuel Free Future
Climate change is one of the concerns driving money into Sustainable, Responsible and Impact investing. SRI funds have grown by 76 percent between 2012-2014.
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Green Collar Jobs
We are on the verge of technological breakthroughs that promise stimulating new careers and may transform old occupational niches.
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How to Stop Energy from Leaking out your Windows & Doors
In an economy struggling to recover, businesses and individuals alike are trimming costs wherever possible. Many homeowners are choosing to put their budgets on a diet — and a good place to start eliminating unnecessary costs is with energy use. Most homeowners pay dearly for the convenience of appliances, climate control, and electric lighting. Among the top home energy expenses are heating and cooling. There are ways, however, to reduce the cost of these conveniences with little effort. Climate Control By far, the largest energy expense in the home is space heating, which accounts for 45% of home energy usage. Cooling accounts for another large chunk. Together, these two forms…
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Time Flies
A Five Year Trend Towards Renewables They say that time flies when you’re having fun. If that’s true, then we’re having a ball, because it seems like only yesterday that the first issue of our Green Living Journal hit the streets of Portland in 2008. That’s right, we are five years old, we have published 360,000 copies of our Journal, and we are optimistic about the future because of the changes that have taken place in those five years. Optimistic? How can we, or anyone else, be optimistic, given the present state of affairs? With civilization on the brink of collapse, are we not all in the proverbial handbasket? Where…
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Remotely Monitor Your Home Energy Use
Dial In Your Home’s Temperature from Anywhere Whether your home’s heating and cooling system runs on natural gas, coal, nuclear power, geothermal, wind, or solar, maximizing the system’s efficiency will benefit both you and the environment. Of course, there is plenty that we can do to our homes to control their climate more effectively: Improving insulation and eliminating gaps around doors and windows is a good place to start. The biggest factor in lowering heating and cooling bills, however, often boils down to our own behavior. Fortunately, technology is making the control of building temperature far easier than ever before, and a lot more fun! Remotely programmable thermostats are quickly…
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Clean Energy Victory Bonds
Green America has, for several years, been promoting the idea of Clean Energy Victory Bonds which would make it possible for Americans to invest in clean energy . The problem has been that it takes an act of Congress before the U.S . Treasury can issue these bonds. According to the Green America blog, such a bill was introduced to the House of Representatives in August of 2012. From the Green America blog here’s a brief overview of this program: “Clean Energy Victory Bonds (CEVBs) are proposed U.S. Treasury bonds modeled after Victory Bonds sold during the First and Second World Wars. During World War II, 85 million Americans purchased…
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3rd Annual John Day or Bust at Solwest Fair
Drive your electric vehicle to John Day, OR. This a call to action for all electric vehicle (EV) enthusiasts. Join in and support the vision of replacing the internal combustion engines that are now powering America’s fleet of personal vehicles with electric drive systems. It’s the quickest and cheapest path to breaking our addiction to oil, cleaning up our air, and stopping the flow of our dollars to OPEC.This adventure will coincide with the SolWest Fair that takes place July 27, 28, & 29, 2012.The goal is to promote the wide- spread adoption of the EV as a vehicle of utility and adventure as well as be- ing good for…
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John Day or Bust 2011
Editor’s prologue - Interstate 84 wasn’t exactly choked with electric vehicles leaving Portland for John Day to take part in the SolWest Fair and the John Day or Bust EV convergence that took place the last weekend in July. However, there were three hardy souls and two EVs that did strike out on Thursday, July 28, thereby keeping this event alive for another year.
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Behavior and the Human Dimensions of Energy Use
This is a growing area of research and activity for customer energy efficiency programs. Behavior is clearly a cornerstone of energy efficiency: it affects the purchases we make, the buildings and systems we design, and how we use energy-consuming equipment. To leverage technology and practices for greater savings, energy professionals can use social science to understand both how customers use energy and how programs can benefit customers. This goes beyond simply providing information. Understanding how customers think about their energy use can help programs select technology and engage participants in reducing their energy use through energy efficiency improvements. Considering energy users as members of communities and social networks suggests some…
