The Best And Worst Of Each State

Lately I have been doing a lot of research on single-use bag reform and various renewable energy initiatives for work. I love trying to be an overachiever, so I have been doing a lot of work outside of the office, but an unintended result of that is I have been finding it difficult to find the time to really dive into a blog post.

Luckily, one of my readers submitted a link to me last night and I figured that this would be a fantastic opportunity for me to not do any outside research OR write original material!

A round of applause for procrastination, please.

The charts below come from the Mother Nature Network and outline each states most positive environmental statistic along with its most negative. You can click each picture to make them bigger, but I personally find the Texas statistics the most hilarious.

There is something ironic about a state having both the largest presence of clean wind power along with the most carbon dioxide emissions, but it is what it is.

It is probably safe to say that you shouldn't write any term papers on the correlations between these two charts, but if you do, pick Utah and title your paper "Breast Feeding Is Destroying Green Jobs."

You'll get an A just for creativity.

Copy and Paste

Not often will I blatantly quote the New York Times, but it is Thursday and I have turned almost all of my attention towards my costume for Halloween this weekend - so...

Plagiarism on!

Updating and expanding the electrical grid to accommodate new sources of energy will be the biggest challenge, and will require partnerships among states, federal authorities, the utilities and private investors. The Google project could be crucial to delivering wind power to Eastern cities, but major investments will also be needed in the West and Southwest. President Obama recently declared that no industry has greater potential to create jobs than clean energy. He is right. But it is never going to happen unless the administration and Congress do a lot more to push it ahead.

The entire article can be found here at the NY Times' website, but essentially it talks about how America needs to pick it up when it comes to alternative energy programs.

I will hammer this point forever.  You don't have to be a hippie or some idealist to see the benefits in alternative energy and energy efficiency along with other sustainable movements.

These things create jobs.
                 Jobs create money.
                            Money buys things.
                                    Things being bought sustain other jobs...and so it goes.

I can go on a huge rant about national security and environmental benefits that stem from these things, but I'll save that for another day.

Try to tell me that pursuing these technologies and practices are not the rational next move.