Where Will They Draw The Line?, Going Green Options

[D-Man]

Apparently it's bad for the environment to eat meat... This is just getting out of hand...

http://www.thedailygreen.com/

And for all your Hyper-Miler's out there; Here's a "How-To" on Hyper-Mileing:

http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/articles/t-...rmile-1510.html

Seriously, it's like boost but in the other direction... Look at all the machines theese people are buying to measure the amount of fuel their saving... WTF?!

Sorry for my rant & rave today, but it's really getting out of hand...

[laff09]

You CAN get all your nutrients from vegetables/fruits and pastas...if you supplement correctly ..especially protein. However, pass me a quad stacker or a london broil on the grill ANY DAY.. If people want to live like this..well have fun and stuff, but just do it safely and be informed about it.

However, this whole 'going green' thing is pretty neat. Lets look at it from a business perspective.. What if we could produce the same product, more efficiently, for cheaper, that doesnt negatively impact the environment? I think it is a win-win for both right? Now a lot of ya will say "BS no way you can reduce emissions, and be more profitable". Let me stop here and define emissions as both by-products of production and also waste from production/running a business. SAY for instance, you own a garden/nursery and sell plants/ small trees/ landscaping design/installation.
Your Major Costs, after initial construction is complete, are going to be : Water, LABOR, GASOLINE, electricity, lease, and .. well your product (in this case, plants and landscaping services). Now what if we could eliminate one of those major costs, completely - or nearly completely..means the business owner is going to see a larger portion of that revenue in his very pocket (or the business' account ..either way ). Lets tackle water. Water is expensive, and getting more so these days.. if only I could find a way to trap rainwater in some kind of storage device that I could tie into my irrigation channels. There is a practice called rainwater basin savings. Simply you run your downspout from your gutter into a large barrel. you could easily tie this into your irrigation channels with some pvc and a valve that is controlled VIA a probe or probes in your garden that test for DEW POINT. Once your plants reach that dew point threshold, the valve opens sending water to all your plants and closes after either a predetermined time OR once that dew point has been raised to a sufficient level again. Your are now sufficiently watering your plants for the one time cost of 1) a barrel 2) several feet of pvc (lets compromise and say 30'?) 3) dewpoint probe (they use these in lawn sprinkler systems nowadays) 4)and your valve controlled via the probe(s). A few hundred dollar investment (tax deductible-booyah) could seriously lower your operating costs. But now your saying 'well, thats all nice and dandy .. but how can I make more for less??' Your nursery/garden center surely has a roof. For a 10-15k investment (ALSO tax deductible, ALSO possibly incentive ($$) bearing...ill get back to this) you could put high efficiently solar panels that run to a generator/similar storage device on the roof, that will soak the sun in 365 days a year (366 on leap year ). Solar panels do not need sunny days to operate, they still operate quite efficiently on cloudy, rainy etc days. Your tax deductible investment is ALSO possibly incentive bearing .. depending on where you live. In delaware if you use solar energy as part of your energy consumption, you get a check for $300 every year. PLUS your making massive savings by not having to buy as much electricity from the power company. In NEW JERSEY there is a bill getting ready to pass (or recently did pass) legislation that will provide that same incentive to New Jersey residents/business owners ..except they will give you $700! a year. The great thing about this is.. in 6-7 years (realistically, not something you read in a brochure to sell you a product) the power company will be BUYING your electric from YOU! Because the solar panel is essentially working 365 and storing all the excess energy in that generator, you will have energy left over - small amounts at first that add up over time, and eventually you will be producing more than enough to sustain your electric needs. Your nursery business just cut its major costs by 40%. If that 40% savings over 7 years doesn't net you $15,000, then your business has other issues .

Going green doesn't mean doing without, it means another way of doing it with more positive results. Sure there are a lot of "GOING GREEN" techniques, that actually cost you/your business more RIGHT NOW .. because these techniques havent been revised or made more logical or even simply because there hasnt been enough research on it yet to make it more efficient...We've been refining the industrial revolution methods for 200 years. OF COURSE overnight we aren't going to devise this all efficient, all profit producing method, it is something that is continually refined and reexamined and improved upon thousands upon thousands of times. Give it a chance, what do we have to lose?

[GriffGirl]

Simply you run your downspout from your gutter into a large barrel.

I'm actually going to set up for this this summer. I won't gain anything from it this summer, as it really doesn't rain here in the summer, but by connecting rain barrels to my downspouts and running overflow barrels, I can store enough rain from around October to next June when it stops raining again to keep my garden watered for free all summer. $25/barrel x2 + spigot and a little PVC=under $100 investment that will pay for itself as soon as I begin using it since most of the water I use is in the summer time for the garden! (forget the lawn- watering the lawn here in the summer is like trying to keep a lawn in Vegas. It's expensive, stupid, and usually futile anyway)

Also, because my downspouts are disconnected, the rain runs off into the ground rather than out onto the street. The water company gives a discount for this. Helps keep rivers clean by naturally filtering the water. I think they give a discount for rain barrels too. Everyone wins.

Turning your motor off is such a bad idea. I have been coasting when I can but I wouldn't ever turn the key off.

It's also illegal in many states. I believe in some hybrids, the motor shuts off when coasting anyway, so they're not actually always turning the key off, it's a feature built into the car. For gasoline cars, it's incredibly dangerous and like I said, illegal in many states.