Going Green Goes Mainstream

Nearly Everything Can Be Done In A More Environmentally Friendly Way

(CBS) 
The nation's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, is on a green campaign. It's built a demonstration store in Colorado, showing off efforts to cut consumption of energy and other resources. Wal-Mart is also moving into the organic food market in a big way. Rice Krispies is now sold in an organic version.

But do people want to pay more for green products? That organic food is generally more expensive. Those hybrid cars cost more too. In many states, consumers now have the option to purchase wind and solar power from companies like Green Mountain Energy, but it's a few dollars more per month.

"One of the reasons why organic and green things do cost more, they're more valuable," Danaher said. "They're better for you. So a product that's going to last longer and have a better impact, it should cost more, that's a market mechanism. Better products do cost more."

Americans may still need some convincing. In the CBS poll, we found fewer than half said they'd bought a higher-cost, environmentally-friendly product in the past year, although a majority say they do things to help the environment at least a fair amount of the time.

"That was a goal, to have people walk in and say, 'Oh, this is green. I can do this,'" Donald Albrecht, the curator of the National Building Museum in Washington, said.

When it comes to what you put in your house, there are lots of options, from high-cost to low-cost, on display right now at the Museum. There are kitchen countertops made of recycled paper and low-energy lights, low-flow toilets, and lots non-toxic everything. Albrecht brought an entire prefabricated house into the museum.

"The kitchen cabinets, for instance, are free of toxic formaldehyde," he said. "We're trying to say that you can go green, you can go sustainable. It's not very expensive. It's easy to do. You can do small things. You can do large things. You can change your behavior. That's the goal of the show."

Michelle and Jason Sullivan decided to make a big change. Amid the open fields of their central New Jersey neighborhood, they installed an array of solar panels.

"Rather than just saving a little bit of energy here and there, we could create our own energy," Michelle Sullivan said.

But it wasn't cheap — about $180,000. Government subsidies helped bring the cost down. The Sullivans estimate they'll break even in 7 or 8 years. After that, whenever they sit down to play computer games with their two little girls, the electricity will be essentially free.

"People are thinking a little bit longer term. We certainly were when we put this together," Michelle Sullivan said. "It's not a one year decision. It's not a two year decision. It's coming to a ten year decision."

In Wyandotte it's long-term thinking that motivates Father Morris.

"We, as 5 percent of the world's population, use up 28 percent of the world's resources," Father Morris said. "That's not, there's something really out of kilter here. Is that what Jesus would have us do?"

Father Morris isn't putting in solar and wind power just to save money. It's spiritual for him too. His church has joined 2000 congregations of all faiths across the country in an organization called "Interfaith Power and Light," dedicated to the environment.

"We are part of creation not apart from creation," he said. "And as a consequence everything else follows. And we forget that at our own peril."

Even death can have an environmental impact. At Greensprings Natural Cemetery in upstate New York and in half a dozen other states, you can now have a natural funeral. That's what the family of Joleene Uticone chose for her this summer, after she died of cancer.

Funerals like hers use a biodegradable casket or shroud, and no embalming fluid or tombstone. Instead the burial site is left in a natural state. You can find it using GPS.

"It can be a celebration almost," Greensprings trustee Matthew Pearson, said. "And you feel like in your death you're actually contributing toward something that you think is important."

[gaye5]

Perhaps some could look up...
http://www.intellicast.com/DrDewpoint/Library/1210/
Despite billions of dollars and millions of propaganda headlines, the global warming prophesied by the climate modelling industry is not scientifically real, see
http://www.oism.org/news/s49p1523.htm
A group of climatologists, scientists, professors and other experts in climate change on Tuesday pointed out two "misconceptions" on global warming see.
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=%5CNation%5Carchive%5C200409%5CNAT20040915c.html
Then we have ...Scientists Debunk 'Fairy Tale' of 'Global Warming' on...
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/5/14/161152.shtml
Record low temperatures in seven states - 14 Oct 06
This should have been front page news. But did you see it mentioned in your newspaper? I doubt it.
See Record Low Temperatures across the United States
.
Winter hits Canadian plains a month early - 12 Oct 06
See what's happening in other parts of the world
.
Glaciers are growing around the world, including the United States
See Growing_Glaciers

Click here for many more
Recent Great Links.. If these come up have a good read, these are just a few of many... but these guys are not the ones getting money out of scaring people...

[alphaa10-2009]

Gaye5 said-- "Thank goodness there Appears to be a growing backlash of Americans rejecting what they see as climate scare tactics ... "
-------

Is "backlash" a matter of science, or politics? The current (and growing) consensus of the scientific community in the US and abroad supports the global warming hypothesis, coupled with further research and prudent policy countermeasures to measurable crisis in environmental norms. It is a crisis not merely because such warming seems unusual, but because the role of human activity is highly suspect, with foreseeable and severe long-term consequences if ignored.

Though it may surprise you, the world's scientific community is rarely unanimous on any topic, since scientists are driven by only the body of evidence and independent verification and reasonable interpretation-- not by daily radio harangues, as from on high, to "make this issue clear for you people".

While you point to seeming ambivalence in two scientific journals, this position is not tantamount to a disproof, and these are but two of dozens of relevant journals. Likewise, the position of the (US) National Academy of Science counts as one voice among many, internationally.

While you note lack of unanimity among scientists (as some of your associates find with even the theory of evolution, itself), others point to a constant editorial theme from the tribe bringing us the term "Islamofascism"%u2013 whose principal concern is keeping capitalism safe from democracy and science.

[gaye5]

sorry, that address for Click Here To Watch or Read Full Speech from Monday Debunking Global Warming Hysteria was
http://epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id=263759

[gaye5]

thankgoodness there are still some people who think...
The National Academy of Sciences report reaffirmed the existence of the Medieval Warm Period from about 900 AD to 1300 AD and the Little Ice Age from about 1500 to 1850. Both of these periods occurred long before the invention of the SUV or human industrial activity could have possibly impacted the Earth%u2019s climate
In addition, something that the media almost never addresses are the holes in the theory that C02 has been the driving force in global warming. Alarmists fail to adequately explain why temperatures began warming at the end of the Little Ice Age in about 1850, long before man-made CO2 emissions could have impacted the climate. Then about 1940, just as man-made CO2 emissions rose sharply, the temperatures began a decline that lasted until the 1970%u2019s, prompting the media and many scientists to fear a coming ice age. Let me repeat, temperatures got colder after C02 emissions exploded. If C02 is the driving force of global climate change, why do so many in the media ignore the many skeptical scientists who cite these rather obvious inconvenient truths? 60 scientists wrote:

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=3711460e-bd5a-475d-a6be-4db87559d605

[gaye5]

Click Here To Watch or Read Full Speech from Monday Debunking Global Warming Hysteria

Over the last century, the media has flip-flopped between global cooling and warming scares. Both the journals Science and Nature have published studies recently finding %u2013 on balance %u2013 Antarctica is both cooling and gaining ice. The fact is that in the Arctic, temperatures were warmer in the 1930%u2019s than today.

the National Academy of Sciences and many independent experts have made it clear that the Hockey Stick%u2019s claim that the 1990%u2019s was the hottest decade of the last 1000 years was unsupportable.

Thank goodness there Appears to be a growing backlash of Americans rejecting what they see as climate scare tactics, and alarmist keep using the well worn tactics from their guidebook -- warning of heat waves, our Children in Danger, wildfires, droughts, melting glaciers, mass extinctions unless mankind put itself on a starvation energy diet and taxed emissions.

[dbmash]

An encouraging report. People will make significant changes in their life when they realize the importance of the situation. More and more folks are finally realizing that we our facing the most important fight in the history of man. I don't think you can overstate the problem. Our planet is in serious trouble. It is imperative that everything possible be done to convince those who believe that profit at any cost is no longer acceptable. Who better to take the lead in this fight than our spiritual leaders. Father Morris has shown us that one man can make a difference. The CBS news story has shown us that he is not alone. Imagine what can be accomplished when we all work to fix this problem. There will always be the naysayers. But then, some folks still think the world is flat.

[sharncedar]

Sorry, environmentalism is simply not compatible with capitalism and growth. Sorry, its just not. No, its not. Not compatible. Yes, I understand it would make your little small brain feel better if you could feel you were doing some good by being a mindless tool, but you are not. No you are not. You are destroying the environment. Sorry, you are.

Ok little corporate nothing? All clear now? What part of "growth" do you not understand? The part where more people use more water ... is that the part .. where more profit means faster consumption which means, brace yourself, even more destructive consumption.

There is no possible rapproachment between our system and environmental stewardship. Our system is predicated on interest ( and now even interest on interest, such as derivatives) and without a steady increasing rate of consumption of natural resources, the whole monetary system collapses.

Interest means capitalism. That is why in all Western religions, interest on moneylending is a sin.

Sorry. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all say the words "environment" three times and somehow interest would not be a sin anymore? Too bad natural law is sooooo stuborn. ***.

[lightnin38]

I wonder what the environmental implications of cremation are? Green or not, that's how I'm goin' down................L

[frankly6]

Well done.

[sue2982]

Excellent story. Ordinary people doing extrordinary things. Now the corporations need to follow suit. CEO's need to earn less to enable the lower levels to buy green products.