A Message From Greenpeace

Dear Greenpeace Activist,

February 9, 2009

This Thursday, February 12th, people will be getting together all over the country to kick-start the energy revolution. Will you be one of them?If you don't have plans this Thursday evening and you haven't already signed up for a Clean Power to the People house party, it's not too late. You can either RSVP for an existing party in your area or sign up to host a party yourself if there isn't one already planned where you live.

The parties are in support of the March 2nd Capitol Climate Action in Washington, D.C. At the house parties, you'll be creating personalized "pinwheels" -- symbols of both clean power and the many people behind this movement. The pinwheels will be used by the activists in our nation's capital to represent those who couldn't make it to D.C. You'll also be joining an exclusive conference call with Mike Clark, interim executive director of Greenpeace USA, and Matt Leonard, Capitol Climate Action coordinator, to get the inside scoop on the action and to find out how you can get more people from your community involved on this important day.

It's our moment. Be a part of history and sign up today for a house party in your neighborhood.

Sincerely,

Ben Kroetz
Greenpeace Online Organizer

Obama Drops Challenge to Mercury Emissions Rules

In a sharp departure from Bush Administration policy, the Obama Justice Department today informed the Supreme Court that it is dismissing a challenge on rules dealing with allowable mercury emissions from power plants. The end result is that EPA "has decided consistent with the court of appeals' ruling to develop appropriate standards to regulate power plant emissions," the filing said.

EPA had set up new rules under which it would drop some power plants as the sources of mercury emissions, loosening more rigorous controls set during the Clinton administration. The appeals court had essentially struck down that new regime, and the Bush administration had appealed. The decision to withdraw the case leaves the older, more stringent rules in place.

Spin Madly On

I wrote this about five months ago and came back upon it today. Thought I should post it.

From 9.11.08

This morning I was cruising southbound on I-95, just before the merge with the Beltway on my way to the Greenbelt Metro station for the daily commute. Without warning a car cut across four lanes of traffic about half a car length in front of me and t-boned the auto next to me. Both cars spun into the trees in the median. If I hadn’t been driving the speed limit it could have been me crashing into that copse of oaks. I stopped and ran over to the car that had caused the accident and the driver was out, his face a sheen of blood, his head against the windshield. Another driver stopped and helped out until the ambulances came. Thankfully, none of the drivers/passengers appeared seriously injured. So I clambered back into the car and the world spun madly on.

Events in the day often make me muse about connections. That this event occurred on September 11 was not lost on me. It reminded me that seven years ago I flew into LaGuardia airport on the morning of the terrorist attacks. Again, if I had taken a later flight, flown out of National instead of BWI, overslept, missed my original flight, etc…

Anyways, what I’m getting at is that our lives can change for better or worse in the blink of an eye. A thin thread is all that stands between us and complete joy or utter destruction. What I learned (or perhaps re-learned) this morning is that each of my actions and decisions either strengthen or stretch that thread, each has implications for good or bad, irrespective of how tiny those decisions may be. If I drive the speed limit, choose to lie or to be honest, kiss Patrick on the forehead or let him go without displaying my love for him, respect my sobriety, cuss at the driver cutting me off or simply wave him/her through – all of these decisions have import, at least in my life. So I am trying to choose to make the right decision every time.

This morning, I choose to tell everyone receiving this e mail that you are important to me and that I love all of you unconditionally.

Let this great world spin madly on.

My Favorite Poem

Eldorado

by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,

Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

But he grew old-
This knight so bold-
And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow-
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be-
This land of Eldorado?"

"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied-
"If you seek for Eldorado!"

GE To Break Smart Grid Campaign During Super Bowl

My friends at GE continue their efforts to do well and to do good and demonstrate that making money while doing good for the environment are not mutually exclusive.

For the first time in its history, GE will advertise during the Super Bowl.

GE will launch its new advertising campaign, called “NOW,” with the theme of “innovation you don’t have to wait for.” The campaign will incorporate three themes including ecomagination, healthcare and global research, with a key focus on Smart Grid technologies.

Last September, GE and Google announced that they would lobby together in Washington D.C. for renewable energy and that they would collaborate on advanced energy technologies - including the development of a smart grid.

GE has a set of tools that can “enable grid intelligence processes” by “converting data into knowledge that decision makers use to drive greater productivity and profitability.” Hmmm — sounds like some mainstream BI or ERP talk. Either way, the point is that forward-looking CIOs can seize huge opportunities by getting out in front of how their companies evaluate, source, measure, adjust, and pay for their energy usage.

Sunday’s 30-second spot will feature a dancing scarecrow and discuss a” smarter, more efficient, and sustainable” energy grid as part of GE’s ecomagination initiative.
According to GE, “the ad is a modern take on the classic song, “If I Only Had A Brain,” from the film The Wizard of Oz, imagining what can happen when old technologies have a brain and become smarter.”

GE is incorporating augmented reality technology that will be featured on its new microsite – PlugIntoTheSmartGrid.com-This is the first time that augmented reality technology has been used to interact with a consumer in an advertising effort-Banner advertisements, print ads, and web films will drive consumers to the microsite to experience the augmented reality technology.

Pretty cool stuff.

Casualties of Misplaced Thoughts

About a year ago I heard this poem on NPR's "Writer's Almanac," hosted every morning at 630 by Garrison Keillor. I wrote it down and came across it again this morning while adding something to my journal.

Casualties of Misplaced Thoughts

i offer my apology
if my words burned your trust,
and if my actions betrayed my intentions,

sometimes the ones nearest to us,
the ones we wish belonged to us,
they become casualties of our misplaced thoughts,
and yet the sound of their tears
is bereft of hatred.

- dodinsky -

The Real Slumdog Millionaires

I recently saw Slumdog Millionaire.

It brings to light the terrible, horrible conditions for India’s child beggars.

Take Mumbai – formerly Bombay when under the rule of the British empire – a chaotic urban sprawl that is now India’s largest city and home to more than 20 million people. More than nine million of them live in slums, raising families in shacks built from rubbish on top of open sewers. It is a terrifying place to be, and I have been to Detroit.



Mafia gangs drug children take them to the hospital and have their arms or legs amputated. Why? So they will be more sympathetic while begging. Think about it: organized gangs of adults kidnap and intentionally cripple poor children and then put them back on the street begging. Of course, the gangs then take all of the money the children earn.



So just who would chop off the leg of a healthy child? The boys are victims of India’s so-called ‘beggar mafia’ — criminals so violent and amoral that they are prepared to hack the limbs off children, as well as steal new-born babies from hospitals.



They use the children as begging ‘props’ to maximize their earnings from sympathetic passers-by. The plight of India’s child beggars has been thrust into the international spotlight by Slumdog Millionaire.



Their suffering comes down to one thing: money. Goddamn money.



In a country of 1.2 billion people, where the gulf between rich and poor is vast, there are an estimated 300,000 child beggars. Perhaps unsurprisingly, almost all of these child beggars, whether mutilated or not, are addicted to solvents, alcohol and charras (a powerful Afghan hashish, often laced with opium), which are supplied by the gang masters to keep the children docile and obedient.



The shocking truth about the beggar mafia emerged last year. In what was dubbed the ‘arms for alms’ scandal, doctors were filmed by Indian journalists agreeing to cut off the healthy limbs of children for just $200. The maiming of children is now so widespread that even devoutly religious locals refuse to give disabled children money, knowing that it is passed straight to their ‘handlers’ and that they are the pawns of a growing organized crime syndicate.



In my travels to India, when I was approached by beggars – several times a day; if you go there, count on it – I never gave them money. I would offer them food, which they don’t want. I know that may sound harsh, but I quickly found that there is little room for emotion. This is a business — a mafia. These children are taught how to look as pitiful as possible to get money — and what they earn just gets taken from them.



Despite India’s economic boom, the future looks bleak for millions of the nation’s children. They never really get old, they just get replaced with new ones — and cast out on to the street to become beggars or die. That’s the way life is in India. It never changes.