One of the challenges we have in reducing carbon emissions is that (as far as I know) there's no priority list. Which is worse: leaving your computer on all night or not having the windows weatherstripped? Which is worse: driving a car to Boston or going by plane with 200 other people? Is it worth driving across town to buy a pint of organic strawberries or should I get the ones from the nearby store that came from California? If you have a thousand dollars to invest in making a reduction in greenhouse gasses, should you buy new tires, switch to local foods or perhaps send $900 to help a factory in China switch away from coal and then use the other hundred to have a massage?
Without a list, you can see how making intelligent decisions is impossible, so we resort to confusing activity with productivity.
Back to your office: do you have a list? Have you figured out which metric you're trying to improve? Can you measure the impact of the choices you make all day?
DRIVEN by Governor Deval Patrick’s energy policies and fueled by private
innovation, Massachusetts is rapidly becoming a national leader in the
production of green energy from alternative sources such as wind turbines and
solar panels.
But generating sustainable green energy is only half the equation - the
supply side. The best minds in Massachusetts in architecture, engineering, and
construction are now focusing on demand. In particular, that means creating
homes, schools, and office buildings that do not need to use power from the grid
or that produce the energy they require from renewable sources.
The New York Times has an audio slideshow that provides a brief overview of geothermal energy. The audio slideshow is the accompaniment to an article about the dangers of drilling deep into the Earth. The slideshow provides an explanation of why the western United States is one of the easier places to access geothermal energy. The slideshow offers good visual aids depicting how geothermal energy is harnessed.
