Lubbock Left

Plastic shopping bags are one of the biggest little polluters in our lives, especially in an urban environment. As beautiful as a single bag dancing in the wind may seem, the sight of them every day in gutters and on sidewalks gets old.

According to the New York Times, Ireland has done something about it. Several years after passing a 33 cent per plastic bag tax, the use of plastic shopping bags has all but disappeared. Perfectly sensible and reusable cloth bags have taken their place as the ubiquitous haulers of stuff:

Within weeks, plastic bag use dropped 94 percent. Within a year, nearly everyone had bought reusable cloth bags, keeping them in offices and in the backs of cars. Plastic bags were not outlawed, but carrying them became socially unacceptable — on a par with wearing a fur coat or not cleaning up after one’s dog.

I have started using baggu bags at the grocery store. They are really handy and compress to tiny little squares of nylon when not in use. Normally I put them in my backpack or in my car when I’m not using them.

More permanent replacements for disposable stuff can be found at resuablebags.com.

According to Time magazine, Texas is now the biggest carbon polluter in the nation.

A multitude of factors contribute to the carbon output, among them: Texas’ 19 coal-burning power plants; a heavy concentration of refineries and chemical plants; a lack of mass transit; and a penchant among ranchers and urban cowboys alike for brawny, gas-guzzling trucks — sometimes to haul things, but often just to look Texas tough.

Not much to say about it, other than it’s sad, it’s hard to fix, and Texans are notoriously reluctant to tackle problems like this in a meaningful way.

A friend linked me to this article about a car modder named Johnathan Goodwin and his unique ability to create superpowered hybrid cars. It’s floored me! I am simply amazed by this guy’s achievements. Goodwin is building or has built:

• Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1987 Jeep Wagoneer, converted to biodiesel
• Neil Young’s 1960 Lincoln Continental, converted to electric+biodiesel
• H1 Hummer running on a combination of hydrogen and biodiesel
• A 2005 H3 Hummer JET ENGINE hybrid (!!!)

This stuff is COOL — the kinds of things that car fanatics will really drool over. Goodwin convinced Schwarzenegger, a muscle car guy if ever there was one, to get the biodiesel conversion after one of his biodiesel hybrids that he built on Pimp My Ride beat a Lamborghini in a drag race. Simply amazing proof that (1) going green and being awesome are very compatible, and (2) American entrepreneurship will save us from the dregs of corporatism.

The article is a bit of a long read, but well worth it.

This is some great news to wake up to on a Friday morning! The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize: Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The good people at draftgore.com hav a feature about the Nobel Prize as well.

Thank goodness that Nobel Committee lives in the real world, unlike our Lubbock area wingnuts who have gone so far as to attack Texas Tech’s own scientists who are hard at work on solutions to the climate change issue.

Also this morning, Al Gore sent the following to his email list:

I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change–the world’s pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis–a group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years. We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level.

My wife, Tipper, and I will donate 100 percent of the proceeds of the award to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan non-profit organization that is devoted to changing public opinion in the U.S. and around the world about the urgency of solving the climate crisis.

Congratulations, Al!