Lately everybody seems to have videos on their websites. Usually I find it distracting from the real information I am trying to get. But, every once in a while you find a video that you feel everybody should view. If you want to know more about how the government is handling global warming you need to watch this fun and informative video. Take a few minutes out of your day to make a difference for you planet.

The Story of Cap & Trade from Story of Stuff Project on Vimeo.

• Greening Our New Home - So Far, So Good...Mostly. So here we are in week #4 in our new home, 1000 miles away from our old home. Back in California, we had our "green-ness" down pat - we knew where the good stores were, we knew how much water we were using, we watched our energy usage and knew......
• Creating a Blog Video Online About two years ago, blogging hit a surge that allowed its way into the mainstream, and now everybody is blogging for a wide variety of different reasons. Blogs resemble web-based public diaries of sorts, where the creator can record their thoughts, their opinions, questions and answers and essentially anything else......

I have written about LED lights before, I am a great fan. They use less energy and are quite bright, as opposed to some energy saving light bulbs. Now I have found a great home improvement product that will save you time, aggravation and money. Outdoor, solar powered, LED lighting. Now you can place a light post at the end of your driveway without running wiring underground or hiring an electrician, plus this is real lighting, not just accent lighting so you and your guests can really see your way in the dark. No leaving the light on before you leave for work in the morning, the lights come on automatically at dusk and shut off at dawn. All this for about what you would pay for conventional lighting and no electrician and no electric bills now or in the future.  Be the first in your neighborhood to have the greenest outdoor lighting available.

• Green Home Makeovers that are Easy and Affordable Are you looking to save the environment, but you cannot afford costly options like solar panels? Are you looking for a way to cut down on your energy costs, but are not all together sure about installing wind turbines in your back yard? Don't worry! There are plenty of things......
• How to Add Exterior Lighting Exterior lighting can add immediate value to your home, but there is often a lot of confusion as to how it should be added and whether or not you’ll need the help of a professional to get the job done. Whether you have questions about placement of your exterior lights......

It’s hard to believe,  it’s been since July since I posted to my blog.  Sorry folks, I let life get in the way.  Other than family issues which we won’t get into I have been going to school for Environmental Technology.  Other than being one of the dreams I’ve always had, it is given me a whole insight on where this blog should go.  Instead of focusing just on energy-saving products.  I think I should do a blog that concentrates on nothing but what is on my mind at the moment.

So for today, I want to talk about a search engine called Regoog.  Regoog through it is an environmentally friendly  search engine based on the Google platform.  They use a black screen, which is supposed to save 34% more energy over using a white screen.  I know this sounds inconsequential, but when you think about how many people Google everyday, every bit adds up.

So search away and save green and have a great New Year!

• Get The Word Out Internet Network Marketing Style! Image by magbag via Flickr Hopefully by now you realize just how powerful blogging is to creating your Internet Network Marketing business.  I am going to assume for a moment that you do in fact have a blog, next thing is to get some rankings so you can get......
• DoFollow Blog Search Dofollow vs. Nofollow The majority of blogs implore the nofollow tag in their comments. That means that when you specify your website URL when leaving a comment, the link created does not help to elevate your website's status in the algorithms search engines use. Although not really an "official" term,......

I don’t usually like to get political or get involved in the discussion of the national economy, but… It just seems to me that when a company from a foreign country comes in and buys a large portion of an American company it threatens our national security. Just my personal opinion. Now I am reading how companies from Japan and Germany are coming in and buying into American renewable energy to take advantage of new renewable energy initiatives (http://bit.ly/B5Byb). Are we selling ourselves and our wind overseas? I would love to hear your comments on this.

• HyMini Solar And Wind Small Electronics Charger. The people at HyMiniwere kind enough to send me one of their solar and wind power charging kits to try out, and I have to say that it is pretty cool. While I cannot condone buying one just for the sake of buying one, if you were actually in need......
• Quick Green Reads For The Weekend Volume 147. I will be headed back east in the next week for the holidays, so posting will probably be a little sporadic once I hit the road and spend time with family. Just an FYI. Oh, and if you are still in need of picking up any gifts for friends......

My wonderful husband has taught our German Shepherd, Duke, to open and close the screen door by himself. It originally started innocently enough. We were remodeling downstairs and often times my husband would be carrying heavy things in and out and nobody was around to open the door for him. Duke would jump through hoops of fire for my husband and quickly mastered this trick. The problem is that now the remodel is over, I refuse to use the energy to turn on the air conditioner so the doors are always open, and now Duke uses the screen door as his private doggy door. Needless to say the screen has been pushed through and ripped and is now a public mosquito entrance.

 I decided to go online and see if any of the local stores carried that pet screening that stretches instead of ripping when an animal jumps up. What I found is a great energy saving screen. A company named Phifer, that makes the pet screening, makes a whole line of screening and fabric. I never even knew there was something called weave technology, where the type of fabric woven in different ways can have different effects. The one that caught my eye was the Super Solar Screen.

 The company claims the Super Solar Screening reflects 90% of the suns heat and glare, improves daytime privacy, and still allows for excellent outward visibility, not to mention it keeps the bugs out. Sounds like the claims on an infomercial, but at the Home Depot site the product had been rated and review by two individuals. Both reviews gave the screening 5 out of 5 stars and both said it performed as advertised.

 This will be a huge benefit for a house like mine that faces northwest. I get full sun at my backdoor every morning in the summer; I don’t like to open the door and shades because it raises the temperature in the house. Then in the late afternoon I get the full effect of the sun as it gets ready to set so I have to close all the doors and shades on that side of the house. I am hoping with my Super Solar Screen, I will be able to get airflow from the windows and doors without the heat and glare from the sun. If I decide to turn on the air conditioner it should not have to work as hard with the Super Solar Screen. But maybe with the heat and sun reflected away from the house I won’t have to turn on the air conditioner at all. Sounds like a huge energy saver to me.

 As for my screen door, apparently there is no pet friendly screen that can hold back a German Shepherd. I am going to replace the screen with the Super Solar Screen and buy pet guards to keep Duke from going through it.

• 22 Ways To Energy Efficiency, From The Free To The Expensive. From one of my favorite sites, Co-op America, here are 22 steps you can take -- each with the energy savings you can achieve each year. Pick the ones you'll do to get your first 10% energy savings. (These energy savings assume an average US home, which uses about 11,000......
• Available Energy Rebates For Going Green At Home. Looking to increase the energy-efficiency of your home this year? Well, you are in luck - if you purchase an energy-efficient product or renewable energy system for your home, you will probably be be eligible for a decent-sized Federal tax credit. Not bad, considering that whatever you do is also......

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. – Helen Keller

 Sometimes people don’t vote because they think “one vote can’t change anything”. I think the 2000 election proved that wrong, but some people still don’t believe. Now is your time to be counted by your elected officials. If you want this country to move forward with cleaner energy contact you Congressional Representatives and Senators today. It only takes a minute but can help save the earth a life time.

 Click here to email your U.S. Representative and Senators about the NAT GAS Act today!

• Personal Elemental Magic On a personal level, elemental magick is a great way to clarify problem solving. Every aspect of your reality falls into one or more elemental domains, as do various aspects of your health and personal growth or skill development. So to stick with the four element system for now, every......
• Green Hybrid Electric Vehicles and Toyota Prius Hybrid vehicles are being converted by their owners into vehicles that run purely on electricity. People who drive hybrid vehicles that are easy on gas to begin with are becoming increasingly interested in the idea of converting their vehicles from completely gasoline powered to completely electricity based. Drivers who own......

When it comes to clean energy, saving our environment and living green, the best and only place to start is energy conservation. For every unit of energy saved, a unit of energy does not need to be produced. That sounds so very simple, yet I see it over looked time and time again. People are so impressed with the newest solar product, the next residential wind turbine or if hydrogen technology will replace natural gas, that they forget that all this technology can replace a greater percent of our energy if we use less energy to begin with. In other words energy conservation and efficiency are very often more economically worthwhile than renewable sources and also helps bridge the gap between demand for and availability of renewable energy.

We have all seen list after list of ways to save energy around our house; these should not be pushed to the side because you “did” the list last year. Like all maintenance around the house, conservation cannot be done once and forgotten about, that is why they call it maintenance. There are always new products coming out that can make energy conservation easier, more efficient and more affordable.

My attic is always the first place I look when thinking about energy loss. I have a cathedral ceiling in my living room and just never feel comfortable in the room during the cold winter months. Obviously I have insulated but I still just feel the heat escaping. So I went up to the attic at night leaving the living room lights on and the attic lights off. Bingo! I was able to identify several areas that were not completely insulated around the recessed lighting (make sure your recessed lighting fixtures are rated to have insulation around them). Next I went up to the dark attic on a very sunny morning, before the heat made it unbearable. Again, Bingo! There were a couple of places along the eaves where I could see daylight. Once these were fixed I started looking at different insulation products for attics that were DIY friendly and wallet friendly. Two products caught my eye: Super Insulating Radiant Barrier and the Battic Door Attic Stair Cover.

The Super Insulating Radiant Barrier is a fold out, insulating, reflective product that goes over your current insulation and/or over the roof rafters to create a barrier that actually radiates heat back down to the living space.

The Battic Door Attic Stair Cover is an insulating box that goes over dropdown attic stairs and keeps heat from escaping. This product is a huge improvement over ones of days gone bye. I have had a similar product for about fifteen years and can see this will pay for itself in very short time.

Take time to look at these and other energy saving products. A dollar spent today could save hundreds over a life time not to mention helping to save the environment. Never under estimate the heat, or cooling, loss in your home. Keep vigilant about conservation, any energy saved is energy that does not have to be produced.

• Ten Tips Toward a More Eco Friendly Home Tip 1 - Turn the lights off any time that they are not needed, even if you are just moving from room to room in the course of your day. According to Energy Star, as much as 20 percent of a home's overall energy use comes from its lighting. Using......
• Phony products impress federal energy program [/caption] By FREDERIC J. FROMMER, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON – Fifteen phony products — including a gasoline-powered alarm clock — won a label from the government certifying them as energy efficient in a test of the federal "Energy Star" program. Investigators concluded the program is "vulnerable to fraud and abuse."......

Thumbs up to Ken Salazar and the Department of the Interior, they have issued five leases to private companies to explore offshore sites for wind energy. All these sites are off the shore of New Jersey and Delaware. I hope this is only the beginning of government being proactive in helping private enterprise develop off shore wind sites.

Here in Massachusetts, where I live, Cape Wind has been fighting an uphill battle, at their expense, to get government approval for a project in Nantucket Sound. Eight years of pushing for wind energy is too long if we are actually going to make wind and renewable energy a reality. In order for individual states to meet any renewable energy quota we need more positive government actions like this.  

Lets all pray that the government will continue to put their money and decisions where their mouth is.

• AppGate: App review sites ask for money in exhange for reviews AppGate: App review sites ask for money in exhange for reviews by Nicholas Deleon on March 19, 2010 In the fine tradition of lazily naming any sort of controversy after Watergate, I hereby present AppGate. It seems that certain iPhone App developers are paying low-rent “review” sites for favorable reviews,......
• Weekly Roundup - Living On Nothing Edition Did you hear about the guy that lives on nothing? No seriously, he lives on zero dollars a day. Meet Daniel Suelo, who lives in a cave outside Moab, Utah. Suelo has no mortgage, no car payment, no debt of any kind. He also has no home, no car, no......

In a June 1^st article by Dan Cook, in Arizona’s The Daily Courier, he wrote about a Habitat for Humanity home that had been built as a “net-zero energy” house.  The idea is to use smart building products and techniques, as well as alternative energy sources, such as solar, so that the house does not use any energy from the grid or fossil fuel. This is a whole new niche in the building industry and there is an unlimited amount of products and services to choose from. The problem is that builders and prospective  homeowners, we don’t know which products are proven, or will work in our situation, or have a chance to see the product installed or talk to a builder who has actually installed the product.

That is why I found this article interesting. If the companies offering these great new innovative energy saving products donated them to Habitat for Humanity, we would all benefit. First the company would win, getting actual exposure to the public with their product, as well as goodwill, for donating the product. Any builder interested in the product could donate their time to help install the product at the Habitat for Humanity job site. This gives them goodwill for helping, but also gives them experience with new products and techniques that they can sell to their clients. The homeowner wins because they are buying a product that they have seen work and are having it installed by someone who has had experience with the product. The recipient of the Habitat for Humanity home wins with lower or no utility bills. And last, but not least, the environment wins every time we do not use fossil fuel to power our world. This could be the ultimate win-win situation.

• PG&E To Donate Solar Panels To Every Habit For Humanity House Built In California. Habitat for Humanity builds houses for the needy throughout the country (world?) and now those lucky enough to have a house built for them will have minimal, if any, electric bills to go along with the house. Pacific Gas & Electric has agreed to a $1.2 million partnership with Habitat......
• Alternative Energy For Homeowners As home heating costs rise, and energy in general gets more expensive, many homeowners are turning to alternative means to power their homes. While many systems require a lot of effort to implement, there are quite a few that can be easy to install and quite economical. Whether it is......

According to Boston Business Journal, Boston’s Museum of Science announced this week that it will be putting a wind turbine laboratory on its roof. Apparently they have already done wind studies for a year and have come to the conclusion that there is not enough viable wind in their location to create any meaningful electricity. They already have two turbines up and intend to put up three more of varying shapes and sizes ranging from 7 feet to 40 feet. The idea is to “demonstrate small wind turbines that could be erected on small businesses and homes”.

The problem is that small wind turbines cannot be erected on any building, ever. Mother Nature is a very formidable force to deal with. Any and all wind turbines have an incredible vibration; this can cause both structural and noise problems. Roof top turbines have been known to cause nails to vibrate right out of the roof. While the museum roof may be substantial enough to withstand this, with a full time maintenance crew, the average home is not engineered to withstand these forces. 

Second, there is no usable wind on a roof. When you see a small wind turbine on a roof spinning wildly, it looks like it would be generating plenty of power. The truth is, all that spinning is the turbine trying to find a steady wind in a very turbulent area. Wind is invisible, and most people don’t understand what they can’t see. Think of a stick lazily drifting down a calm stream, making slow but steady progress, then there is a rock in the way, the stick goes around the rock but gets caught twirling in the eddy behind it, there is a lot of movement, but no progress. Wind is the same way, once it hits an object, such as a house or a tree; there is wind turbulence behind the object. Another way of looking at this is a sailboat in the lee of a bluff. You feel the wind on your face, it feels strong, but the sail is slapping madly and the boat is going nowhere. A wind turbine is the same way as it searches for the wind in the turbulence.

The Boston Museum of Science would be doing the public a huge favor by teaching the physics of wind and turbulence using smoke chambers and roof mock ups to show how a nail or a screw can be loosened due to vibration. They should teach the benefits of clean wind energy when placed in the right location and the uselessness of putting it in the wrong location. With all my heart I hope the Boston Museum of Science is not advocating building mounted turbines, not only would they be putting the public at risk physically and promoting a waste of money, they will be putting a black mark on wind energy when these turbines never produce any meaningful electricity.

Look for an upcoming blog on proper wind turbine location.

For more information check out the Warwick Wind Trials data on building mounted turbines.

• EnviroMission Solar Tower To Provide Electricity For 200,000 Homes. But can it be built? The company EnviroMission Ltd. is working on a giant Solar Tower in Australia that should have the capacity of providing electricity for at least 200,00 homes - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Solar Tower technology is created when the sun’s radiation is......
• Home Wind Turbine Study Reveals Shocking Truth According to a UK home wind turbine study, turbines are generating only a fraction of the power claimed by manufacturers, and some even use more power than they produce!  The results showed that the worst performers produced a mere 41 watt-hours per day - that's less than what a household......