Archive for the ‘Climate Change’ Category

Can it really be done? Skeptical Science brings you “A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050.”

1BOG compiled this great infographic about a world without oil.

Home Solar Power Discounts – One Block Off the Grid

I’m posting a link to an interview that Grist did with Ray Kurzweil purely because it is so optimistic about the growth of solar energy.

Kurzweil, is considered a “futurist” – someone who tries to predict the future of human society or life on earth using systems thinking. He accurately predicted the growth and use of personal computers based on his law of accelerating returns. Now he is predicting that we can meet all of our energy needs from solar in 20 years.

Read more: “Futurist Ray Kurzweil isn’t worried about climate change,” by Lauren Feeney

groSolar’s Jeff Wolfe saw this t-shirt in Cancun at the Climate Conference and posted this from his Twitter account:

T-shirt @COP16, quotes a youth delegate “You have been negotiating my entire life. Don’t tell me you need more time.” So true.

groSolar’s CEO, Jeff Wolfe, is at the Climate Conference, COP16, in Cancun, Mexico. Follow him on Twitter @Jeff_groSolar.

It’s that time of year in New England – beautiful fall foliage, frosty mornings, vistas that take ones breath away. It’s also the time to put the gardens to bed and hope that we have enough food stored to last us through the winter. Who am I kidding? I, unfortunately, am not that good of a farmer. We’d surely starve if we had to live off my garden. Luckily, we can rely on local farmers to keep my family fed through the winter.
But there is one type of farming our family has excelled at – growing electrical energy at our home. Speaking as someone who works full time, this type of farming can’t be beat. I don’t need to put it away for the winter, I don’t need to mulch it, I don’t need to build a barn to shelter it from the winter winds. With the generation of solar electricity, you plant once and enjoy the harvest day after day, year after year. There is nothing we have found quite as satisfying as watching the electric meter spin backwards. We have managed, over the years, to conserve enough and “plant” enough to generate all the electricity we use each year.
We even grow some forms of heating energy too, the passive solar and solar hot water panel forms of heating. We have yet to fell and split our own fire wood – we get help from our neighbor with that. We stick to and recommend highly the no maintenance energy garden. It is an investment in the next quarter century of energy, with a great return on the investment both from price stability and environmental perspective. I sleep better at night knowing I am doing what I can to leave this planet a little greener for the next generations. 

As I wrote in the children’s song “What’s a Watt?”:
What’s a Watt? It’s what I’ve got, growing in the open air.
Out on a pole, or on the roof, raising them without a care.
They’re incredible, hardly edible; Watt’s don’t do any harm.
What’s a Watt? It’s what I’ve got, growing out on the farm.

We started out small, just a panel that’s all, added some more when we could.
They don’t need watering, no messy stalls. They don’t need any food at all.
What do you need to raise a Watt? Sunshine certainly helps.
They don’t pollute the environment. Energy that heaven sent….

What can you do with a bunch of these Watts? You might be curious to know.
Light up the night, keep computers bright, they can actually run the whole show.
We watch our Watts and how we use them. Conserving certainly helps.
No matter where you live or work, you can be an energy farmer too…

So if you care about keeping the New England landscape pristine and the maple trees beautiful, take action, small or large, but do something to reduce your use of fossil fuels. Become a farmer of energy. Whether you start with simple conservation measures – buying food locally, making a home-cooked meal using minimal packaging, weatherizing your home or whether you take the plunge into a renewable energy system or an electric vehicle, positive actions heal in more ways than one.
Now a word of warning – farming energy, while clean, quiet and non-polluting, is addicting. I confess – I am happily addicted to growing my own energy and then using as little of it as I can. There are a lot of addictive habits out there to lure us and ensnare us. Getting hooked on energy conservation and renewable energy production is the best. I encourage one and all to joining the quickly growing ranks of energy farmers. You won’t regret it.

Dori Wolfe
Co-Founder and Treasurer, groSolar
Strafford, VT Resident

Good news for the solar industry: the White House will be installing solar electric panels on the living quarters of the White House. See the full article on The Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/05/solar-panels-on-white-hou_n_750525.html

groSolar supports 350.org’s 10-10-10 Global Work Day to fight climate change. Here’s CEO Jeff Wolfe atop our corporate headquarters in White River Junction, VT showing support near the 100 kW solar electric array on our roof.

Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org and also a groSolar customer, was on David Letterman on Tuesday night talking about climate change, putting solar on the White House and the future of our little planet.


Bill has been involved in climate change since the 80’s and even wrote the first book on the subject back in 1989. The past two decades have seen the largest increases in carbon output during human history. For the first 10,000 years of human civilization our atmospheric carbon was about 275 parts per million (ppm). Right now we are at 392 ppm. Most climate scientists agree that we need to be at 350 ppm (hence the name of Bill’s organization).


So why aren’t we doing anything to change? Have we become complacent? Or are there enough powerful special interests in the world who don’t want to solve this problem?


Check out Bill’s interview below (and have a tissue handy to wipe away the tears of despair).