How To Have A Green(er) New Years Celebration

New Years Eve marks one of the biggest celebrations.  Countries all across the map celebrate all the happenings of the past year and look forward to another year of possibilities.

Utilizing a special kind of backwards logic, many people embrace this gift of new beginnings by raging until the early hours of the morning, often not remembering large chunks of the previous night. I am not one to challenge "tradition," but one of the casualties of this rockstar lifestyle choice is the waste that is generated from this careless attitude.

While having fun this NYE, here are some things that you can do to minimize your ecological footprint:

If you are serving beer, buy a keg instead of multiple cases.

Kegs are reusable as well as more economical.  The only clean up that you are left with are the dishes if you are using reusable cups. 

Buying multiple cases of beer is wasteful because you doubling your waste by having to get rid of cans as well as cardboard cases. As much as I would like to believe that you would recycle all of the waste, the last thing on many drunk people's minds is the proper disposal of garbage, which brings me to my next point...

Provide more recycling bins than trash bins.

Lets face it. People suck at recycling, and they only get worse when they are drunk. I have had parties where I asked people to recycle, and instead they decided that the best place to toss their empties were in a lamp shade.

By providing multiple blue recycling bins and not too many trash cans, people won't have much of a choice to recycle.  The only trick is that you have to make sure that the cups you are handing out are recyclable, but that isn't too difficult.

86 the confetti.

I get it. Confetti is a large part of the NYE tradition. According to the zero amount of research that I did, the tradition of tossing confetti at midnight stems from when ticker-tape parades were cool.

This was exciting stuff in the early 1900s. You know what else was exciting? Dressing like this.

I think it is time we start making some traditions of our own that don't involve shredding countless pounds of paper just to be thrown in the air. Every year they say they are able to clean this up, but I'm calling shenanigans because there is no way they get all of it.

Rent a limo with other people or use public transportation.

The vast majority of people go to hotels or other venues to ring in the new year. Aside from the obvious point to not drink and drive, it benefits the environment when you share rides or use public transportation.

Less cars on the road means less carbon being emitted into the atmosphere.

Solar Projects Tripped Up By Environmental Litigation

One of the things that hampers many alternative energy installations comes from environmental lawsuits.  These lawsuits often don't completely stop an alternative energy plant from being installed, but it does end up extending the amount of time it takes to start and complete construction.

This is a problem because many of these projects require large amounts of external funding, and it is hard to go to investors and say you need a large sack of money when you have cumbersome lawsuits on the horizon.

Recently, a Native American group has decided to hold up a number of solar energy projects in California with claims that the full impact of these projects have not been taken into consideration.  Legally, this is a strong argument because NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) has been constructed so that any large projects that may impact the environment must complete an EIS (Environmental Impact Statement).

If these solar projects haven't properly filled out an EIS, then the Native American group has a legally valid point.  However, I still believe that this is a petty claim even if some extraneous environmental impacts have been overlooked.  This is because when you ultimately compare the environmental impact that these solar installations make compared to a coal-fired plant, solar is infinitely cleaner.

I have a high respect for NEPA and everything that it stands to protect, but when it comes to these installations, I feel that filing these lawsuits is just cripiling America's opportunity to move into a cleaner future.

High-Speed Rail: China Begins To Leave The US Behind

It is no secret that I think that high-speed rail is a necessary next step for the United States, because I have written on the subject multiple times in the past:

• Reader Email: High-Speed Rail
• November 12: Weekly Review, High-Speed Rail
• November 5: Weekly Review, High-Speed Rail

I have touched on this subject repeatedly in the past because I know it would improve our transportation system as well as reduce carbon emissions across the board.  There hasn't been too much talk about a system being placed in America lately, but China is forging ahead with their own system.

Crisp Green reports:

Developed through a partnership of the China North Vehicle Yongji Electric Motor Corporation and the Southwest Jiaotong University, the new energy fuel cell light-rail train combines hydrogen fuel cells and an advanced permanent-magnet synchronous motor/frequency converter to achieve top speeds approaching 220 miles an hour.

This is important for China for two reasons. One reason is that because China has quickly become the most pollution intensive country, providing a cleaner rapid transit system will help alleviate traffic as well as the carbon emissions that are smothering the country.

The other reason is that by developing their own high-speed rail technology, China is placing themselves in a position to sell their technology to other countries that are interested in installing their own high-speed rail systems.  This is something that the US could still pursue, but by putting off the development of our own high-speed rail system, the US is essentially handicapping themselves in the transportation marketplace.

Things That Should Be Solar Powered: Billboards

Alright, the holiday is over and it is time for me to get back at it. By "back at it" I mean "give you opinions you may not have asked for," but you are here reading what I write, so there you go.

Driving around any major city you will be inundated with ads from billboards along the major roadways.  Most of these draw electricity at some level.  At the low end you have billboards that have lights to illuminate the ads at night, and at the high end you have electronic billboards which flash animations at you in an attempt to make you crash into the read-end of that Mack Truck in front of you.

Regardless of the level of energy that these billboards require, I do believe that the owners of these billboard stands could make a profit by installing their own power sources in the form of solar panels which they could use to reduce their carbon footprint as well as the amount of money they spend on electricity.

In many cases, these billboard stand owners could actually make money by selling the energy that they aren't using back into the grid. I know that selling the electricity back into the grid is something that I have said time and time again, but it really is a great opportunity for business owners to earn money in an area they haven't enjoyed income from before.

So there you have it. Install some solar panels and thank me later, advertising industry.

Also, for all of those that emailed me yesterday complaining about the lack of a Sunday Comic:

1. How did you get my email address?
2. Here you go: