Hello again.

Sorry for the long silence, I had a Jan. 20 date in Washington I couldn't break.

And while I was there, this new president dude was sworn in and he's already making all kinds of radical changes.

For example, it turns out President Obama didn't think much of his predecessor's policies as they relate to this global warming thing threatening the existence of life on Earth. Turns out, he's against it and intends to adopt a "pro-Earth" policy. Who knew?

So among the first things he intends to do once he'd finally mastered that pesky Oath of Office (both he and Chief Justice Roberts have pledged to take remedial Swearing In classes) was to issue executive orders increasing fuel efficiency standards on automobiles and to allow states to impose limits on carbon dioxide, something the Bush administration rejected.

As Reuters reported here, "if the EPA reverses the previous ruling, more than 12 U.S. states could proceed with plans to impose strict carbon dioxide limits. California wants to reduce the emissions by 30 percent by 2016 -- the most ambitious federal or state effort to address global warming."

Obama "is scheduled to deliver remarks on jobs, energy independence and climate change in the East Room of the White House on Monday," Reuters reported.

By March, he wants the Department of Transportation to set the new mileage guidelines, that will be in effect by 2011.

As The New York Times reported here, once states freed to enact standards do so, "automobile manufacturers will quickly have to retool to begin producing and selling cars and trucks that get higher mileage than the national standard, and on a faster phase-in schedule. The auto companies have lobbied hard against the regulations and challenged them in court."

Seems to me, those auto makers have a choice, get with the program or give back the bailout money. It's not as if they haven't seen this coming for years. Hell, if they had spent half the money re-tooling their plants that they've spent on lawyers fighting the obvious need to re-tool their plants, their plants would be re-tooled by now.

(Strange, don't you think, how the words "tool" and "auto companies" keep coming up in the same sentence?)

Not satisfied there, Obama "will also order federal departments and agencies to find new ways to save energy and be more environmentally friendly. And he will highlight the elements in his $825 billion economic stimulus plan intended to create jobs around renewable energy," the New York Times reported.

Speaking of which, let's consider how well that might work. If only there were some kind of real-life example we could turn to....hmmmm.

If only there were some sort of report showing how green technology might affect growth...

We take you now good citizens to the pages of the Los Angeles Times where we find evidence of -- wait for it -- yes! a report on a report that shows how green technology might affect growth.

In two words or less -- "very well."

The report, by a non-profit research group called Next 10, found "Green-collar jobs are growing faster than statewide employment. Clean-tech investment in the state hit a record last year, despite steep stock-market declines. California leads the nation in patent registrations for green technology. Efficiency measures pioneered (in California) over the last three decades have created 1.5 million jobs and allowed California businesses to generate many more goods and services per unit of energy consumed than other states."

"Those green jobs encompass a variety of occupations, including research scientists, wind-energy technicians and solar panel installers. Such positions are growing fast, the report showed. Green employment was up 10% between 2005 and 2007. Statewide job growth was 1% over the same period," The LA Times reported.

California has already adopted the toughest energy efficiency standards in the country. "The result is that the state's energy productivity -- energy consumed compared with economic output -- is 68% higher than that of the rest of the country, according to the report."

"Venture capital investment in clean technology in California totaled $3.3 billion in 2008, more than double the amount invested in 2007. Between 2002 and 2007, 607 green-technology patents were registered in California, the study said. That's more than any other state," the LA Times reported.

Hm. And all without cutting taxes for rich people.

But really, who can believe some wacky non-profit with a weird name out on the left coast?

OK, would you believe Wal-Mart?

"When Wal-Mart first embraced green initiatives, its fortunes were sagging," The New York Times reported in this article.

"After blanketing the country with its giant, all-in-one stores, it began cannibalizing its own sales. Older stores looked tattered and tired, and Wal-Mart’s flirtation with higher-end merchandise, like skinny jeans with fur trim, alienated low-income shoppers who preferred unadorned basics. "

So CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. did what smart business people do, he stepped back, looked at the big picture, saw the future and then, by virtue of what the Times calls Wal-Mart's "Herculean size," it led.

"By virtue of its herculean size, Wal-Mart eventually dragged much of corporate America along with it, leading mighty suppliers like General Electric and Procter & Gamble to transform their own business practices.

"Today, the roughly 200 million customers who pass through Wal-Mart’s doors each year buy fluorescent light bulbs that use up to 75 percent less electricity than incandescent bulbs, concentrated laundry detergent that uses 50 percent less water and prescription drugs that contain 50 percent less packaging," the Times reported.

"By selling only concentrated liquid laundry detergent, an effort it began last year, Wal-Mart says, its customers will save more than 400 million gallons of water, 95 million pounds of plastic resin, 125 million pounds of cardboard and 520,000 gallons of diesel fuel over three years," the paper reported.

"Wal-Mart says it now saves itself $3.5 million a year just by recycling loose plastic and selling it to processors. After changing the design of its trucks and how efficiently it loads them, its fleet had a 25 percent improvement in fuel efficiency. Amory B. Lovins, a MacArthur fellow and chairman and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit research organization, said Wal-Mart would save nearly $500 million a year in fuel costs by 2020. "

So, "as the saying goes, Wal-Mart has also done well by doing good. Along with the McDonald’s Corporation, it was one of only two companies in the Dow Jones industrial average whose share price rose last year.

"Profits climbed to $12.7 billion in the 2008 fiscal year, from $11.2 billion in the 2006 fiscal year, while sales jumped to $375 billion, from $312.4 billion, during the same period" and this as the recession was beginning to take hold.

Hmm, Go Green, Make Green.

You can use that if you want.

These are dark days for Big Water.

America is finally waking up to the observation comedian Dennis Miller made so many years ago: that only in America could a company make money selling something that falls for for free from the sky.

Leave it to an economic cataclysm to make us re-assess some of our assumptions.

With the perfect storm of a faltering economy, concern for the environment and consumers increasingly questioning the assumption of health that was the foundation of the bottled water business, Big Water is worried.

If you need proof (and why would you? Have I ever lied to you?) take a look at this article from The Miami Herald.

It seems that Miami-Dade had the gall to run a series of advertisements telling people how great the water coming out of their tap really is.

(Quality aside, South Florida is being developed in such an unsustainable way that eventually, it will not have enough of this water to supply its population. A recent notice from the South Florida Water Management District, announced plans for year-round conservation rules to be enacted in an effort to save water. But that's not what we're here to talk about today.)

And while everything the radios ads said is true, that public water is generally cheaper, safer and purer, the Nestle Waters North American company decided it was time for their lawyers to get involved.

In a legal action that they made sure to call The Miami Herald about, Nestle argued that promoting public water was "an attack on the integrity of the company."

Folks around here will remember Nestle as the company that raised a fuss with its plans to sink wells all over Chester County to re-sell in a bottle.

Pottstown residents may also remember them as the company that donated palette upon palette of bottled water to the borough when the boil water alert hit town three or four years ago.

But people in Miami may remember them as the company that threatened to sue them over false advertising claims.

If this seems a little desperate to you (and it does to me), that's because Big Water has reason to be desperate.

Just two days ago, The Mercury ran an Associated Press story in its business section about Pepsi-Cola cutting 3,300 jobs.

The story talked about how the economy was affecting the company and stock shares, but the crux was near the end. Buried at the bottom of the AP story was this sentence: "Bottled water sales volume slid by double-digits as consumers drank more tap water."

Given that this was the company's focus because of an earlier (and sustained) drop in the carbonated soda market and you can start to see why suing your way to profitability starts to look like a good strategy.

By contrast, The New York Times story on the same announcement put the drop in bottled water sales right on top, which is where (I think) it belongs.

An analyst the Times interviewed "found that 34 percent of consumers say they are reusing plastic bottles more often and 23 percent say they are cutting back on bottled beverages in favor of tap water or beverages in containers that create less waste."

Another firm found that water filter sales, the kind you attach to your tap, were up 16 percent in the first half of this year. Yikes!

"Volume for noncarbonated beverage sales dropped 5 percent in the quarter, led by double-digit declines in Aquafina and Propel, a flavored and vitamin-enhanced water drink," the Times reported.

The dirtly little secret of the bottled water industry is that much of the bottled water marketed with pictures of mountains, clear streams or wild animals, actually comes from the very taps people buy the product in the hopes of avoiding.

As we reported in my Mercury series on water issues, "Ebb & Flow" (kindly preserved on the Web by the Green Valleys Association, but regrettably not to be found on The Mercury's own Web site), as much as 40 percent of bottled water is actually bottled tap water, sometimes with added treatment, sometimes not.”

Aquafina, the number one bottled water brand, made by Pepsi-Cola, comes from municipal sources like Wichita, Kan., while Dasani comes from sources in Queens, N.Y. and Jacksonville, Fla.

In a 2001 blind taste test, the vast majority of people selected New York City tap water as tasting better than Evian and Poland Spring.

"Americans drank more than 9 billion gallons in 2007, and fewer than half of 228 brands of bottled water reveal their source. Typical cost is $3.79 per gallon, 1,900 times the cost of public tap water," the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

And then there's the final blow.

If not for taste, the one thing most consumers assume about their bottled water is that its purer or more safe than that nasty old tap water.

Not according to this Oct. 15 story in the Chronicle.

According to that paper, "the Environmental Working Group tested 10 brands of bottled water and found that Wal-Mart's Sam's Choice contained chemical levels that exceeded legal limits in California and the voluntary standards adopted by the industry.

"The tests discovered an average of eight contaminants in each brand. Four brands besides Wal-Mart's also were contaminated with bacteria.

"Our study was a snapshot of the marketplace. We found some brands that provided good quality and other brands that contained various chemical pollutants. What this shows is that consumers cannot have confidence. They don't know what they're getting," said a group spokeswoman.

The group also singled out Giant Supermarket's brand Acadia for excessive levels of disinfection byproducts, the newspaper reporter.

"Also present in bottled water were caffeine and the pharmaceutical Tylenol, as well as arsenic, radioactive isotopes, nitrates and ammonia from fertilizer residue. Industrial chemicals used as solvents, degreasing agents and propellants were also found in the tests," according to the newspapers.

The study also found trace amounts of synthetic chemicals or degradation products from the manufacture of PET, or polyethylene terephthalate, plastic bottles were found, including acetaldehyde, isobutane and toluene.

"The environmental group filed a notice of intent to sue Wal-Mart Tuesday, alleging that the mega-chain failed to warn the public of illegal concentrations of trihalomethanes, which are cancer-causing chemicals. "

Hmm, wonder how long it will take the marketing department to divert us away from that that?
The cynic in me says that they will just discontinue the brand, then bottle the same water with the same procedures under a different name and wait for someone to catch them again.
(Why is it that no matter what happens, the lawyers always make money?)

But if the lawsuits keep coming, pretty soon, people start asking themselves the question Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola dread: "Why am I paying 1,000 times more for something that may be more dangerous and less frequently tested that the water that comes out of my own tap for just pennies?"

Why indeed.

And answer is marketing and what we've been trained think and assume.

Considering all this, it's no wonder the ad campaign in Florida had Nestle running to their lawyers.

Frankly, I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.

You hear it all the time.


"Government needs to be run like a business."


"Those tree-huggers are costing us jobs!"


After a brief review of the information omniverse, here are just a few of those nutty tree-huggers:

• Wal-Mart, Kohl's, Safeway, Whole Foods. These are just a few of those wacky extremists who are destroying our economy by putting up solar panels on their giant, football field-sized roofs. Apparently, in their misguided attempt to save the planet and cut down on fossil fuel consumption, they have this crazy idea about being efficient and saving money. They're practically Communists! Read all about it in The New York Times here.


• Integrys Energy Group Inc., Quicksilver Resources Inc., Tesoro Corp., American Electric Power Co. These are just four "out there" companies which, The Wall Street Journal reports here, are joining other fringe nut-jobs like Occidental Petroleum, DuPont Co. and Rohn & Haas in appointing environmental committees to their board of directors. They probably all wear Birkenstocks to work. The Journal reported that "About 25% of Fortune 500 companies now have a board committee overseeing the environment, compared with fewer than 10% five years ago, estimates Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres, a national coalition of activists, investors and others concerned with the environment. Such panels typically try to make sure that executives effectively handle conservation efforts, new environmentally friendly ventures like wind power, compliance with environmental regulations and related business risks." Why all this crazy hippie talk? apparently, "the Earth's sustainability 'has become a much more important part of every board's activities,' observes Lester A. Hudson, chairman of American Electric Power Co.'s governance committee, which monitors environmental concerns." Imagine, realizing you might not make money if the atmosphere disintegrates, perhaps because of your own company's activities. I tell you, it's nuts.


• Allegheny Energy, Ford Motor Company. As if that wasn't bad enough, now this insanity has spread to shareholders, who must have also swallowed the Kool-Aid. The Associated Press reported here that 2008 marked a new high in share-holder resolutions concerned with Global Warming. According to Ceres, support for these measures averaged 23 percent so far in 2008. "While that's not enough to pass a resolution, Ceres contends rising vote totals compel companies to act, like a plan by Ford Motor Co. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2020. 'It's easy to ignore 3 or 5 percent votes, but it's pretty hard to ignore 22 percent votes or 39 percent votes,' said Dan Bakal, director of electric power programs for Ceres," according to the story. Ceres says 57 climate-related shareholder resolutions were filed with U.S. companies in 2008, up from 43 in 2007 and 31 in 2006. Support likewise has climbed from an average of 17.8 percent in 2006 and 21.6 percent last year. This year, support averaged 23.5 percent, according to Ceres. It sounds the folks living near West Virginia's Coal Mountain, need to find some shareholders from Massey Energy, which has plans to shear the top off this mountain like it has so many others. But the locals are trying to convince the company to instead make the most of the mountain's most renewable resource -- wind. As reported in this story in Grist Magazine, Their plans call for at least 14 valley fills to deposit the debris, which is likely to bury at least six local streams. Residents in the area, led by a local group called Coal River Watch, "are hoping to convince state agencies, local landowners, and the coal companies to allow a 440-megawatt wind farm to be built atop the mountain while still allowing Massey Energy to mine beneath the surface, a compromised plan that they hope can start moving the state away from reliance on coal -- and protect one of the most endangered mountains in the country."


• Xcel Energy. Now this one really hurts. This company has a bunch of good old fashioned coal-burning power plants in Colorado and now, (sniff) they're closing them down to reduce emissions, the first in the nation. I tell you, this environmentalism thing is spreading like a virus. Now where are we going to get our pollution? What are the people of Denver and Grand Junction supposed to do for power? Apparently, according to this story in The Rocky Mountain News, still send their money to Xcel, which is replacing its coal burning power plants with solar power plants. The Colorado Public Utilities Commission "approved the utility's request for a 200-megawatt solar plant using concentrated solar technology that not only helps generate electricity from the sun, but also allows energy to be stored for later use." This may help the company meet Gov. Bill Ritter's goal to reduce greenhouse emissions by 20 percent by 2020.


• FPL Group Inc. Not to be outdone by their neighbors in the north, this Florida utility, which already bills itself as the nation's top producer of wind power, is investing $688 million in capital, the lifeblood of American capitalism, in this goofy new technology as well. According to this story by Reuters, "the new plants would take FPL more than a third of the way to a goal announced last year to build a total of 300 megawatts of solar capacity in Florida, and the company is more bullish than ever on the prospects for solar, Chief Executive Lew Hay told Reuters in an interview. Coupled with the skyrocketing cost of conventional power-plant fuels like oil and natural gas and the rising price of commodities to build such power plants, solar is becoming more competitive, Hay said. "


• Delmarva Power. And right down the road in Rehoboth Beach Delaware, the first offshore wind farm to be developed in the United States has already sold one-third of the power that will be generated during its first 25 years of operation before a turbine is even placed in the water. According to a story published by the Environmental News Service, Delmarva Power agreed in June to buy up to 200 megawatts of power from an offshore wind farm to be developed by Bluewater Wind Delaware. The company "believes this contract is a significant step toward developing Delaware's first offshore wind farm, which will almost certainly be the first offshore wind farm in the country," said Hunter Armistead, head of Babcock & Brown's North American energy group. Sunrise at Rehoboth Beach where the Bluewater wind farm will be constructed 11.5 miles from land off the coast of Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. "This offshore wind farm will bring clean energy, new jobs, and stable rates to Delmarva Power customers," said Armistead. According to this 25 year agreement, Bluewater Wind could begin delivering electricity to Delmarva Power's Delaware customers around the year 2012.
  

I tell you, it's just nuts out there. Clean energy, new jobs and stable electric rates? What is the world coming to?

Next thing you know, next thing you know one of the political parties will have a woman and a black man compete for the right to run for president.

These crazy kids. When are they going to wake up? What makes them think they can change the world?

As we have explored in this here blog oh faithful reader, it seems like there are few aspects of life that the green revolution doesn't touch.



There's your house, your car, your job so why not, your food?



There are a couple green things to consider while chomping away at the table, and I mean more than the broccoli you're pretending to enjoy.



One of the most important aspects of what we eat is the consideration of whether we'll be able to eat it tomorrow.



In other words, sustainability.



As we learned once (and then forgot) in the years of the dust bowl, there are sustainable and unsustainable farming practices.



We are entering a food crunch brought about the perfect storm of several aspects.



The first, as with everything in the American economy, has to do with fuel.



Higher fuel costs are making it more expensive to move food great distances, making locally grown produce suddenly more attractive not only for its diminished carbon footprint, but also for its diminished impact on your wallet.



For several years, some places, like Maysie's Farm Conservation Center in Ludwig's Corner have espoused a sustainable practice called Community Supported Agriculture, as I mentioned in my May 6 blog entry.



The idea is that you buy into a local farmer's crop ahead of time and when the crop comes in, you collect your share.



Another old idea that's new again is to have a backyard garden and actually (gasp!) grow some food of your own.



Of course some people, (me for instance) have a brown thumb and can only seem to grow weeds. For those, and those who haven't the time or the inclination but do have the desire, there are people like Trevor Paque.



As this article in The New York Times outlines, Paque is a new kind of farmer, the kind who comes to your house to tend your garden for you.



According to the article, "even couples planning a wedding at the Plaza Hotel in New York City can jump on the local food train. For as little as $72 a person, they can offer guests a '100-mile menu' of food from the caterer’s farm and neighboring fields in upstate New York."
"Locally grown food, even fully cooked meals, can be delivered to your door. A share in a cow raised in a nearby field can be brought to you, ready for the freezer — a phenomenon dubbed cow pooling. There is pork pooling as well. At Sugar Mountain Farm in Vermont, the demand for a half or whole rare-breed pig is so great that people will not be seeing pork until the late fall," the Times reports.



Then there's the issue of ethanol.



As well-meaning, but misguided officials try to push ethanol as an alternative to Middle East oil, they fail to recognize that growing food crops for fuel, creates a food shortage and further drives up the cost for food.



By next year, biofuels are expected to consume 30 percent of the corn crop.



Grain shortages are also being caused by the improving economic fortunes of billions of Chinese citizens who, newly wealthy by comparison, want to eat more meat.



Cornell University estimates that the U.S. could feed 800 million people with the grain eaten by livestock. Each year an estimated 41 million tons of plant protein is fed to U.S. livestock to produce an estimated 7 million tons of animal protein for human consumption.



For every kilogram of high-quality animal protein produced, livestock are fed nearly 6 kilograms of plant protein.



As a result, consumers and food suppliers are turning increasingly to fish for their protein.



Of course, we've treated the oceans like our farmland by which I mean we've nearly fished it into extinction, giving rise to another new industry, aqua-culture.



In the past, these operations, often experimental at first, have been criticized for clustering fish too closely together, fostering disease and causing problems at their locations, which are often too close to shore.



And so, sustainable agriculture has also spread to the seas.



As this article in The Washington Post shows, "Supermarkets are introducing new standards for the farmed fish and shrimp that make up roughly half of U.S. seafood consumption, riding a wave of consumer demand for environmentally friendly products. "



Whole Foods, Wegman's and even Wal-Mart are all getting in the act, consulting with the organizations which once criticized overly consumptive and practices to certify suppliers as farming fish in a way that doesn't harm the environment, damage sensitive eco-systems or over-use antibiotics.



However, although the nonprofit Marine Stewardship Council provides certification for suppliers of wild-caught seafood -- the labels are used in stores from Whole Foods to Wal-Mart -- there is no widely accepted standard for sustainable farming practices.



Don't be surprised to seen see labels on your flounder and tilapia.