Jon Warren Lentz, Inc

Oceans of issues, and this is one not to miss out on. As though getting BP’d weren’t enough, Costco is killing our oceans, too. http://tiny.cc/jfvm0

Nationwide, this weekend, more than a hundred thousand people gathered in about 900 locations to join “Hands Across the Sand” to protect our beaches - indeed, our future generations - from offshore oil drilling. Here’s a report:

http://www.grist.org/article/2010-06-28-hands-across-the-sand-protests-slideshow/

Said Bill, attending the Carlsbad event, “What a big disappointment! There were more people crossing the street on a single green light.”

We attended Ponto, where the response was disappointing. People on the beach to swim and run (what I usually go to Ponto for! - not to protest . . .) were like deer in the headlights when asked to join a line of people holding hands for a moment to keep oil off their beach.

We have an education and awareness problem that is complicated by a sense of entitlement that may not be in alignment with physics. We are puny compared to the power of nature and the forces of our planet.

On the other hand, 100 people, each showing up at their local beach, adds up in a global moment, like grains of sand adding up to a movement. There is always hope.

Today is the day to link up with others, nationally, peacefully showing your opposition to “business as usual” ruination of the planet. Time for humans to evolve.

…..

Is it nonsensical to call upon creationists to evolve?

No.

Even if you give God righteous credit for creation, for making this world in 6 days and then resting, you can still acknowledge that humans have an opportunity to mature beyond war and greed and killing the planet. Such a maturity could be called an “evolutionary” change for humans. Indeed, it just might be what God provides for our survival, to bring a living heaven to earth.

BP just bought the Gulf of Mexico. But who will pay? The US, after the banks and the Valdez, shouldn’t let BP walk. But will immediate damages be assessed and paid? Immediately? I doubt it, even though both the economy and environment of huge swaths of coastline have been compromised in the US, Mexico, and the entire Caribbean including PR and Cuba. Ok, maybe not compromised. More likely, destroyed. Lands and people suffer while the goofers get rich. What about the guy who hung onto his house and his fishing boat through Katrina and the recession only now to lose it to … a leaky valve with no backup?

Is that what we want in California? More risk?

At this moment in time, as the Gulf of Mexico fills with an unplanned, unstoppable oil slick, we have a choice here in California. We can chose to intentionally modulate our economy towards cleaner, safer, and more dependable energy and infrastructure – thereby ensuring that the greatest number of Californians will have reliable, clean, conscionable jobs. Or we can choose to drill into the past and risk the regrettable waves of unplanned, disempowering job loss that flows – like an oil slick – into every corner of communities that are exposed to the dirty, incautious operations of fossil fools.

The choice of clear intention, the choice for a clean secure energy future is implicit in AB 32, while choosing to scuttle AB 32 isn’t really a choice; it’s a willingness to be manipulated by the slick machinations of big oil.

As I’ve said on previous occasions, AB 32 is an investment in our children’s future that protects our own present. Those who would stall AB 32 choose dirty skies and dwindling opportunities for our children’s future.

Climate Change Is NOT A Belief System

No matter how you parse it, Climate Change is not a belief system. If it were, then your car, which must “logically” operate under those same beliefs, would not and could not work absent belief in the same fundamental science.

If one insists that they can pick and choose in which arena they believe – alternately believing in the infernal combustion engine™ and disbelieving in climate science, then that is called “magical thinking,” which is the province of children and the obstinately in-educable.

For good reason, children are not allowed to vote. Lamentably, the obstinate are.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that
makes the existing model obsolete.”
- Richard Buckminster Fuller

Q: What’s the Idea?
A: Greening the Ethernet

A few years back, Green IT was concerned with the relative environmental friendliness of the components inside computers, the processes used to make those components, and the energy efficiency of the units themselves.

More recently, Green IT is concerned with power usage in data centers. That’s because the aggregate carbon footprint of Data Centers in the US is greater than the airlines, accounting for over 2% of our Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. Plus, the collective Data Center footprint continues to grow as more people go online, and more companies institute policies to reduce travel and utilize sophisticated video conferencing instead.

The power consumption of Data Centers and their related carbon footprint is huge because the servers, routers, and switches suck up a tremendous amount of electricity and generate an enormous amount of waste heat which, in turn, requires even more electricity to run the cooling units to dissipate that heat.

So far, greening this data infrastructure, or IT, has been concerned with efficiencies that can be obtained within the existing mind-set of servers, routers, copper wires, and air conditioners. Typical initiatives have included raised floors, the placement of fans, reduction of the number of underutilized servers, cogeneration, insulation, and even the placement of server farms in modular trailers in close proximity to hydroelectric facilities in the cold north (where air conditioning is free). Lately, the urban-located industry has also been revolutionized with a breath of fresh air; IT leaders cite the innovative use of cold air. Now, when it’s colder outside than in, they turn off the air conditioning and import and filter that free cold air.

Some of these ideas are basic, albeit expensive to implement. A recent article in Environmental Leader cited “major savings” by reconfiguring the Data Center with overhead air-conditioning inputs and a concrete floor, which provides cold mass that draws chilled air down through the server racks, cooling the equipment as it falls, in accordance with the laws of physics, thereby reducing the electric load required to drive cold air with fans.

Yet all of these solutions are rather like polishing a big fin ‘59 Cadillac, with the intention that a smoother surface will deliver better gas mileage. Perhaps what’s needed is “a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” One new model is to reduce the number of circuits by aggregating them onto fewer (and different) data lines; a smart solution that will reduce or eliminate as much equipment (heat) as possible, while introducing a technology that requires less space, less electricity, and deploys new equipment that generates substantially less heat. Beyond Green IT^TM does just that. It accomplishes savings on multiple levels by Greening the Ethernet, or network portion, of enterprise computing.

Benefits:

1) Installation: This idea, Beyond Green IT^TM, is important because it can reduce the cost of installation by as much as 40%. What does that mean in dollars and sense? Well, if a legacy installation of switches, routers, and cabling for a new data center were to cost $10 million, the cost to install this new idea, Beyond Green IT^TM, could be, depending upon the specifics of the installation, as low as $6 million.

2) Manpower Efficiencies: Due to the reduction of equipment (through the elimination of switches and repeaters in multiple riser closets distributed across the campus of a typical LAN), Beyond Green IT^TM can dramatically reduce the manpower needed to maintain an active legacy Ethernet system. With Passive Optical Networking (PON), Beyond Green IT^TM can deliver manpower savings of as much as 80%.

2) Reduced Power Consumption: Once installed, Beyond Green IT^TM can (again, depending upon the specifics of the installation) dramatically cut electric power consumption and hence operational costs by as much as 80%. Thus, if the power bill for a legacy installation had previously been $10,000 per month, it could be reduced to as little as $2,000.

3) Additional Benefits. Beyond Green IT^TM offers speeds up to 2.4 Gigabits downstream with no jitter and with latency near instantaneous. 9 Gigabit speed is projected in the near future. With Beyond Green IT^TM, “local” network is redefined in terms of miles, meaning that it distributes data as much as 40 miles (or more, depending upon the specific configuration) without additional data closets, switches or repeaters. Plus, this technology converges voice, video and data on a network that is not only far more secure, but also more reliable.

4) Carbon Footprint, Carbon Credits: Reduced power consumption equals reduced carbon footprint. Regardless of one’s personal opinion of carbon legislation, the smart companies are preparing for this inevitability. It may be 2009, it may be 2010, but it is coming. The Obama Administration has implemented a brilliant “pincer” strategy whereby the EPA will promulgate regulations if Congress fails to produce legislation. Few Congressional Leaders and Senators will choose to abdicate their legislative imperative to EPA regulation. Why? Because failure to participate in such pivotal economic and environmental legislation is the shortest path to un-election. Riffing off the Gentrys’ 60’s hit, they are all literally, “dancing in a frying pan.”

But I digress… Once the inevitable carbon legislation is enacted, all companies will be looking for ways to cut carbon. And the smart ones are done looking, they’re already implementing!

In most cases, cutting carbon will be regarded as an outright capital expense to be earned back, or as the least expensive alternative between action and the punishing cost of inaction. For example, a dirty industry might need to invest in scrubbers to pull carbon from their smokestacks. But there’s another way, an opportunity path where two ways diverge in a carbon world. One way is the expense path, while the other is the profit path. The expense path, which really is the bumpy road of begrudging compliance, differs substantially from the profit path for which the first step is early implementation of Beyond Green IT^TM.

All industries and companies have a substantial IT department. So let’s look at a dirty industry, since they are typically regarded as the most difficult to bring into profitable compliance. What if a coal-fired electric generator’s first carbon cutting action were to go after the IT sector? Well, doing this would deliver immediate substantial infrastructure efficiencies, plus savings in the installation, while routine operational costs will be reduced across the board. So instead of an added expense, they can implement an investment with a near-term ROI.

But remember, the initial driver was to obtain a compliance-driven reduction of their carbon footprint, thereby earning carbon credits. So here is where Beyond Green IT^TM gets sweet: the operational savings, plus any applicable energy efficiency rebates, coupled with the capital value of reduced carbon emissions, will deliver a positive return that can be applied to other carbon reducing initiatives - which means that, by first implementing Beyond Green IT^TM, a company’s first play in the carbon market can be regarded as the down payment on a new business unit, which will deliver the first trickle of an income stream that can be allocated to defray the cost of other, otherwise more costly, carbon reduction measures. It just makes sense.

5) Why is Beyond Green IT^TM Important? The critical point of the previous section (4 above) is that under cap and trade legislation, or any other carbon regulation, carbon reductions can have a substantial income component; it is simply a matter of strategy. Because of the substantial manpower efficiencies, electrical power savings, and carbon reductions, Beyond Green IT^TM couples this strategic income component with an almost immediate ROI. Thus, the initial investement in carbon reduction pays for itself and provides an income stream for further, lucrative, carbon reductions. Carbon reduction can become a business unit for nearly every intelligent entity. Wake up and smell the carbon!

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 Green Careers & Recovery

This paper was largely developed from talks given during Earth Week 2009 at Green Career Events at San Diego State University, at the University of California at San Diego, and at San Diego Loves Green; my thanks to all for these opportunities to hone my thoughts in your presence and to those who offered personal insights and encouragement.

Recovery with Renewables

In late March, President Obama announced the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate saying, “We can allow climate change to wreak unnatural havoc or we can create jobs preventing its worse effects. We can hand over the jobs of the 21st century to our competitors, or we can create those jobs right here in America.”

We now have an opportunity in America to turn the adverse tides of climate, energy, national security, and the troubled economy by turning our attention to the opportunities implicit in those problems. Americans use nearly twice as much energy per capita than Europeans. We’ve entered an era where we fight wars for the tacit lure of oil. We allow our carbon-centric energy companies to promulgate falsehoods in order to protect their record profits, while they simultaneously reap the subsidies borne of slippery lobbyists who glide through Congress unimpeded by truth, science, or regard for their own future - much less the future of their children.

America’s energy appetite and the destabilizing political ills borne of the energy power nexus call for a sustainable resource that does not create more greenhouse gases, pollution, or waste for future generations. In order to ensure our prosperity deep into the millennium, we must prepare now to use sustainable forms of energy. In order to restore, maintain, and then secure America’s leadership position in the emerging world order, we must lead the charge in all areas of renewable energy; industrial scale wind, solar (both industrial and ubiquitous distributed rooftop generation), geothermal, tide, biomass, and biofuels.

Wind is an Answer

The answer to our near-term energy challenges could well be, blowin’ in the wind. Of all the renewables, wind power is considered the most viable, mature, scalable, and ready-to-go alternative source of power. Wind is both predictable and clean. Substantial capacity can be built up quickly, offering energy independence almost immediately to the world’s largest and fastest-growing economies.

According to the Department of Energy (DOE) and the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), approximately 6% of the continental US is prime territory for wind generated electricity. If these wind-rich areas were fully utilized, we could generate between one-and-half-to-double the total amount of electricity now generated from all sources in the U.S.

An issue often favored by naysayers, is the supposed issue of wind ‘intermittency.’ Yet there are many areas where it is perpetually windy. (One thinks of Congress!) Still there are solutions for wind intermittency. We have viable energy storage schemes, such as compressed underground air, kinetic water schemes, and batteries - all of which hold promise, with the right fit determined for each unique location. Other ideas include the use of electric cars and plug-in hybrids, which would usually be plugged in at night, as a fleet of mobile night-time energy sinks. Another potential energy holding tank, or place to divert excess wind energy, could be the development of wind driven facilities for the production of hydrogen fuel.

A major plus for wind is that it is relatively inexpensive. Currently, the price of wind generation is about 4 cents per kW, which compares to 3.5-4 cents per kW from coal. But since the price of coal fired electricity doesn’t include the externalized costs to respiratory health, or the toxic pollution of the environment with mercury and soot, or climate-changing carbon, wind is not only financially competitive, but it’s a better deal on all points. Plus, there are moral, environmental, and aesthetic issues associated with mountain top removal and other extractive methods, as well as massive government subsidies extracted from taxpayers for fantasy research into the neverland of clean coal.

In as much as we are all concerned about jobs and the economy, how does wind energy look as an employment sector? Wind energy is more productive for the economy in creating jobs, and at much a lower total cost. From an investment perspective, a dollar invested in wind will generate three times as many jobs as that same dollar invested in coal.

Wind has the potential to provide a substantial portion of our energy needs with clean, inexpensive electrons that won’t burden future generations with our mistakes. Both the Department of Energy (DOE) and the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) have researched and promulgated the idea that the U.S. has the capacity and therefore should derive 20% of its electricity from wind by the year 2020. This insight is reinforced by the National RES (Renewable Energy Standard) which will require all utilities to obtain 25% of their electricity from renewables by 2025. Consequently, continued growth of the wind power sector is a crucial component of this renewable energy mix.

So if our nation intends to obtain 20% of its power from wind by the year 2020, and is mandated to obtain 25% of its power from the aggregate portfolio of alternative sources by 2025, then how are we doing now, as we approach the mid-year mark of 2009? Well, “currently,” wind power provides less than 1% of our electricity.

In regards to the work force required to deliver that scant 1% of electrons to our sockets, the wind industry employs about 85,000 wind technicians - or windsmiths - who are the workers that climb up those towers 300 feet to monitor and service the equipment in work are of the turbine, which is called the nacel.

In addition to the windsmiths, there are countless other workers employed in all other areas of the industry, including development and design, parts supply, manufacture and assembly, software, accounting, and finance - essentially, the wind industry, like all businesses, employs a cadre of support professionals, whose broad range of skills and expertise are necessary to support the business and logistical aspects of any industry.

But the critical sector of the future wind industry work force will be windsmiths. In order to meet the a goal of 20% wind energy by 2020, an additional 425,000 to 500,000 windsmiths will need to be thoroughly trained and brought into the work force. And when the U.S. becomes deadly serious about climate change and begins curtailing carbon emissions by moving aggressively to end dirty coal and to maximize clean wind energy, then the work force of windsmiths will swell by at least another million - or possibly more, for a total of at least 1.5 million.

That number of 1.5 million new green jobs for windsmiths doesn’t include all of the other professionals who will be hired to support the more mundane facets of the wind industry.

How Does Wind Make Electricity?

It may not be apparent from a distance, but wind turbines are larger than a semi-truck and they weigh 30 or more tons. When a worker pokes his head out of the hatch of the nacel, the scale of the turbine dwarfs the windsmith.

In a typical wind turbine, wind energy is converted to rotational motion by a rotor, or propeller, which turns a shaft that passes into a gearbox, or transmission. The transmission increases the rotational speed and is attached to a high-speed output shaft, which in turn drives an electrical generator. There are a number of variations on the familiar three blade tower, including horizontal cages, helix, and others.

Wind turbines come in a variety of sizes depending on the planned use for the electricity. Some wind turbines are used to charge batteries for buildings not connected to the utility grid. Some turbines can supply all or part of the electricity used by a business or farm. Large-scale wind farms with multiple turbines are used to harvest the wind above acres of land, usually to feed power into the electrical grid. (Theoretically, these wind farms are so immense that they diminish the power of the wind substantially enough to make some storms pause.)

Today, the world’s largest wind turbine is the Enercon E-126, which has a rotor diameter of 126 meters (413 feet). Officially rated at 6 megawatts, it can produce over 7 megawatts, or 20 million kilowatt hours per year. That’s enough power to run about 5,000 households of four in Europe. Or, here in the U.S., where energy use is much higher, it would power about 1700 households.

Wind Advantages

The advantages of wind power are that electricity derived from wind will eliminate the need to build more polluting legacy power plants, while generating no pollution of air, water or soil. Wind power is renewable (non-depletable) and, as stated above, there’s enough potential wind energy in the U.S. to power the entire country.

Additionally, because of its modular nature, it’s easy to add wind generation capacity as needed. That’s because, compared to the construction time for a legacy fossil fuel or nuclear power plant, the installation of wind turbines is relatively quick. Plus, the price of wind power isn’t affected by increases in fuel price or supply disruptions. And, because the towers are high in the air, and because they are broadly spaced, wind farms allow multiple uses of land; crops, livestock, recreation, and (offshore) slalom courses are often found between wind towers. In fact, on any wind farm only 5% of the land is “occupied” by turbines and support structures, the remainder is still available for other uses.

Now the Bad News

The wind sector has already experienced tremendous growth. This growth has continued with a series of dips due to inconsistent government policy and the whipsaw effects of the ups and downs of the price of gasoline upon wind development.

So if, as appears to be the case, wind truly is a key component of our clean and independent energy future, then we are not preparing.

This is troubling because this is an important energy source upon which our nation will long be reliant for dependable, clean electricity. As such, there is a conspicuous lack of planning to provide educational opportunities to ensure that the required cadre of qualified windsmiths will be ready to meet the expansion of wind.

In order for the U.S. to get serious about clean energy and energy independence, there should be clear paths for kids graduating from high school this spring, but there aren’t.

There should be information on wind careers available to our soldiers returning from Iraq, who have arguably served in a war for oil that might have been unnecessary had our nation paid attention to the ramification of the first oil crises back in the glam rock 70’s.

There should be grants and scholarships for inner city people, and there should be programs for those who are reentering society after serving time for a nickel bag of weed! But, disappointingly, there are few opportunities and even less information available for any prospective windsmiths. Even the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) is remiss for failing to providing substantial information to students, vets, parolees, and the disenfranchised - all of whom are entitled to participate in the new green economy.

Trapped on Blind Island

Imagine an island nation, busily building boats to navigate towards a green horizon, yet neglecting to shape the oars or to select and train the paddlers. Are they going anywhere soon?

Yet there are jobs! Recently, GE announced that they would guarantee a job to every qualified graduate of the Mesalands wind program in Tucumcari, New Mexico. Students graduating from the Iowa Lakes wind training program report that they receive offers for two to three jobs.

According to research among windsmith recruiters, the most common source of new employees for a wind farm is… to lure experienced windsmiths away from another farm, by offering better pay and benefits.

Although there’s plenty of demand for windsmiths, there are too few opportunities to prepare for the work. There are only a handful of classes and even fewer programs that offer full training beyond an initial entry-level certificate. The only institution that offers a fully-developed curriculum with an option to pursue wind education to the PhD level is Texas Tech. Yet to implement a full-scale energy renaissance, won’t we need highly trained and deeply specialized wind scholars, engineers, and inventors?

The classes that are available fill up as soon as they are announced. For example, Cerro Coso Community College, near Tehachapi, California, recently reported that upon opening their 28 week wind program for enrollment, all 15 of the slots were filled within an hour. The next session was filled immediately as well.

This is a curious problem, because a windsmith’s job is probably the most demanding of all jobs in the alternative energy and green jobs sector. Consequently, the more training prospective windsmiths receive, the better able they are to work well and work safe.

Although a competent contractor or electrician can be quickly trained within a few weeks to work install solar, and while a regular guy off the street can do energy efficiency (all it requires is a desire to work and relatively good hands), by comparison windsmiths are the special ops crew of the renewable energy sector.

The best windsmiths will combine the athletic agility and endurance of an alpine mountaineer, with the acumen of an engineer and will include a broad competence in many disciplines, including mechanics, hydraulics, aerodynamics, hydraulics, utility lineman, electrical engineering, structural engineering.. In addition to these skills and traits these windsmiths will have advanced first aid and safety training. In regards to safety, the training involves both safety procedures and preemptive thinking. That’s because most accidents in this sector don’t provide a second chance. Windsmiths must be hyper-vigilant; the occupation combines dizzying heights, tight spaces, high-voltage electricity, and merciless spinning metal. Although fatalities are rare, they are unquestionably gruesome: death plunges, flaming electrocutions, and being sucked into the turbine and ground to a pulp are among the more obvious risks.

The Solution

Our near-term need for clean renewable energy is most likely to be solved by industrial scale wind farm developments. If, in the next five to seven years we build our wind capacity to satisfy just 20% of America’s electricity needs, over half a million jobs will be created for windsmiths. More jobs will follow as the promise of wind energy is fulfilled until wind generation supplies as much as twice the electricity that is now generated by all sources. In order to realize the pending boom in wind energy it is imperative to expedite the graduation of a steady stream of highly trained technicians.

In this epoch of converging economic implosion, peak oil, climate change, and innumerable social issues exacerbated by limited budgets and broadening educational needs it is imperative, indeed crucial, to bridge the gaps between separate entities with obvious common interests and potential common goals.

In order to meet the need for that many windsmiths, a war-time approach is probably required. The most efficient path towards full deployment of windsmith curricula will be to coordinate between educational institutions within each state and to form alliances between the states themselves.

A key strategy for funding and supporting these windsmith training programs will be the development of industry liaisons to promote and support a spectrum of educational programs, that will run the gamut of educational levels, from certificate to PhD.

In this time of urgency and crises, the economy and enhanced power of enlightened synergies becomes more crucial. Yet individual states lack inter-state collaboration in their educational programs to train renewable energy technicians while the states themselves show little or no intra-state coordination between their own institutions which may, or may not, have programs to train renewable energy technicians. At the time of this writing, access to windsmith training is woefully inadequate and piecemeal.

It’s time to bring the universities, colleges, junior colleges, and technical schools to the table in order to develop a best practices forum for the training of windsmiths and to ensure the dissemination of a rapid, fully formed core curriculum that can be implemented wherever it is needed. In order for this to happen, it would make sense to bring other concerns to the party.

At least at the educational level, turbine manufacturers and other key players of the industry are not allied - neither amongst themselves nor with the array of educational facilities that offer turbine technician training - to promote either general or turbine-specific technical training. In addition to the turbine manufacturers, the power companies can be shown that they have a vested interest in the development of the wind sector in order to meet federal and state mandated Renewable Energy Portfolio (REP) standards and to hasten the maturity of alternative energy so that the power companies can progress from transition to profit.

Similarly, grid operators have a vested interest in hastening the development of this sector in order to make their pending investment in the smart grid deliver the greatest possible benefit for the least cost. Mindful that transition time is expensive, efficiencies of scale can be achieved by the coordination of both centralized and distributed renewable energy installations will pay huge dividends.

Who then should these training opportunities benefit? Training for the professional technical green arena should, of course, be open to high school graduates of merit. But at the most egalitarian level, consistent with Obama’s stimulus plan (as originally envisioned by Van Jones and promulgated in Jones’ book, The Green Collar Economy), these jobs should - through grants and scholarships and neighborhood workforce programs - be broadly inclusive of inner city citizens who have, until now, been excluded from the American dream. Yes, I mean people of all race and color, as well as those rebounding from life challenges, such as parolees for non-violent petty crimes, and who demonstrate a desire to improve the prospects for themselves and their families.

To those who would balk at such liberality, saying, “Why give these people a chance?” The simple answer is, “Because it’s in your best interest.”

As America moves forward in this new millennium of unprecedented challenges, there can be no green revolution, and no lasting economic stability if it is not universal; energy apartheid would fail the dream of rebuilding and renewing America.

Conclusions: The Sooner the Better

The promise of clean, renewable energy security is at hand. While it is imperative to develop a broad portfolio of new energy sources, the most immediate, mature, and scalable source of renewable industrial scale energy is wind.

The war-time initiative would ensure that we seize this opportunity rather than “blowing it.” If we are fighting to stabilize our way of life, to secure our borders and to ensure an equitable future for all of our children, then we should be serious about it. In the bargain, we will attain a new level of camaraderie and move our nation back to the forefront of technology and industry.

To accomplish this level of cooperation, unprecedented since our country pulled together with unified purpose and resolve in World War II, we need a top-down imperative. At the national level, there should be a Wind Officer - either at the White House or at the Department of Energy. (Yes, Mr. President, Sir, my hand is in the air.)

Collaboration is Latin for, “work together.” The Wind Officer’s job would be to bring all of the players together, from across the now irrelevant borders of state lines, educational institutions, and industry. These players would be given a war-time edict to work together, to synergize and share, with the intention that we use wind to build a new model of collaboration.

We need to learn how to collaborate to obtain the highest and best use of existing curricula and facilities by recognizing the best plans and best practices and then duplicating them at as many campuses as possible all across America; then, and only then, will the promise of clean renewable wind energy be met. Collaboration in this manner to harness wind will provide the seeds for collaboration upon innumerable other challenges facing our nation and our world. Collaboration for wind energy is our highest and best hope to sail to a green horizon. The sooner we set sail, the better.

Will we do it? I don’t know. I certainly hope that answer is in our hearts and not, as the song says, just “blowin’ in the wind.”

______________________________________________________________________________________________

This paper is available in downloadable format at: www.jonwarrenlentz.com/downloads/Blowin_in_the_Wind.pdf

We All Need A U.S. Carbon Cap Today!

Avoiding the most disastrous effects of climate change will require a drastic reduction in the billions of tons of carbon we dump into the atmosphere. Otherwise, civilization - and the future of our children - is in jeopardy.

What can you do? For many, the most ambitious thing might be to tell your Senators and Congressional Representative, either via email or letter, that you support climate legislation that will put a cap on carbon emissions and will also phase out subsidies for legacy fossil energy. An easier path would be to talk to your friends, telling them of your concerns about the dangers of climate change, and the necessity for a cap on carbon emissions, NOW.

Personally, I’ve been working on a number of initiatives to promote a sustainable future and to ensure that carbon legislation is enacted this year. I’ve met with Congressmen, Senators, Mayors, and I also serve on a number of committees and boards. But hey, I’m a sustainability consultant.

Still, I’d been thinking that some folks might need something a little lighter; a simple way to promote their concerns about climate change. A few weeks ago I came up with this idea. Hoping to inject a little levity into this 11th hour situation, I lit upon “Carbon Cap” apparel; a hat that’s not only a pun, and fun, but also a hat that, when worn, would serve to spark a dialog with the people we meet.

For example, standing in line at the grocery store, a person might ask, “Hey there, why does it say ‘CARBON’ on your hat?”

In this context, if you were wearing the hat, then that inquiry would be your opportunity to, quite literally, speak truth to power - fossil power. If enough of us do that, we can support the changes that are needed in energy structure and policy.

In subsequent posts I’ll talk about the various arguments, pending legislation, and executive moves that are in play right now; initiatives from the Obama Administration and their concerned allies in Congress. In order for them to get sufficient traction to turn this climate problem around, they’re going to need our support. So, sport a cap and help cap carbon emissions with Carbon Cap Legislation this year.

We all need a carbon cap. Get yours here, today.

Green Jobs Can Turn Our Economy Around, Slow Climate Change, & Heal the Environment Too.

Tell Your Elected Officials, Talk With Your Friends, Neighbors, & Co-workers. Let Everyone Know That YOU Support Obama’s Initiatives In This Pivotal Arena.