Citizen Smash on Environmentalism
Citizen Smash (aka Lt. Smash, or The Indepundit) runs a blog on many issues. For a while, he posted his experiences while called up as a reservist in Iraq.
Today, he has an entry on his blog about environmentalism and questions for the presidential candidates.
I’m sending you there because I find that his opinions and ideas on the issue match mine very closely. I’m a “practical conservationist” – if you give me an alternative to “dirty” methods for doing something (driving, washing, watering the lawn, producing electricity), I’ll use it even if it costs a little more. However, if you give me an impractical alternative (like using a hybrid compact car instead of my SUV – I can’t carry nearly the same amount of stuff), I won’t. It’s that simple. Make it easy for me to conserve and I will.
Solar energy doesn’t really pass the “costs a little more” test right now – the payback is very long. But then, I had other reasons to go solar.
New Jersey – the Green Power State
Word comes to us today from SolarAccess.com that the NJ state government is pushing hard to build a green power infrastructure in the state: Solar Energy Message Amplified in New Jersey
The truth is that NJ really is working hard on becoming green. The incentives right now are incredible – 70% on most small projects (under 10kW). With this effort, the state is trying to create a bank of installers for solar system for homes and businesses. Right now, there aren’t many installers (maybe a dozen in NJ that I found in my search), but this will dramatically grow that number. Of course, the downside to this effort with installers is that they’ll be taught the cookie-cutter method of installing solar. The current installers are likely to be much better at customizing each installation to the owner’s needs.
This effort also will be creating radio ads explaining the benefits of solar energy on their building. THIS part will be the greatest positive step for this effort – once we have many more solar installations, prices will come down along with pollution. (The price decrease won’t help me any, but at the very least I should be able to serve as an example.)
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