Five Percent: Conserve Energy

Our company moved from our bland, suburban, office in Needham, MA to a new space in Harvard Square last week. We picked this location not because it was more convenient, but because we all thrive on human energy, and Harvard Square is alive. But Cambridge is not a car-friendly place. There’s hardly any parking and what’s there is expensive. Driving to the office sucks. And I couldn’t be happier. (more…)

Monday, August 7, 2006, Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.

Oil prices did not hit their all-time high price today even after BP announced that they will be closing their tiny little Prudhoe Bay facility for a teensy-weensy little bit of time. Prices only got to $76.98/barrel which is far short of the current record of $78.00/barrel. Blowing things all out of proportion, today’s New York Times asserted that

Taking the field off line will reduce domestic oil production by 400,000 barrels a day, or 8 percent

. Typical ECLM (East Coast Liberal Media) take on things — doesn’t this just show why we need to open up the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)? (more…)

Over the last few days I have heard several times about a new Roadster car made by a new car company, Tesla Motors. The car sounds fantastic: it looks great, accelerates like a bat out of hell (0 to 60 in 4 seconds) and has zero emissions because it’s all electric. It also costs about $80K, so not the car for the rest of us … yet. But it sure is interesting, because it is dramatically new, and on the market.

I read Mark Morford’s column in SFGate and he has a very funny piece today on this car. As always, he rants (he’s not a big fan of Bush, for example), and raves (about the car) and, well hell, read the column — it’s hysterically funny. It’s nice to read this column for me because sometimes I feel like I rant and rave a little here. The main difference, I think, is that Morford is funny, whereas I am mostly just a downer. This is also probably why he gets paid.

So, here’s my minor little point about his column to burst the bubble: (more…)

MoveOn.org has a great and tremendously effective model for causing change on the broad issues in politics. They started just by sending a few emails to friends, and their message was good, and MoveOn caught on. They are now a major political force and very well funded.

The group Environmental Action seems to have borrowed this model, with a focus on environmental change. They have the right idea, but where MoveOn gets tens of thousands of contributions in a few days, Environmental Action is not yet of the same force and magnitude. But it’s clear that they have the right stuff, both technically, and more importantly in their message. They need your help to get the ball rolling. (more…)