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.

Guest Post: A Step Forward For Electric Cars?

Recently during my spring break I have been doing a lot of mindless browsing on the internet since contributing to society is so mainstream. Even though mostly what I was browsing through involved sports and websites that remind me that I still have the humor of a 13 year old, I stumbled upon something that prompted me to write another article for Sustainabili-City. BMW recently launched a program named BMW i that is focusing on designing and producing electric vehicles in the future. After spending twenty minutes reading through their website and watching their videos, they really caught my attention.

For the most part, what I read didn’t seem vastly different from other companies that are entering the electric car market. They promise to produce cars that are sustainable in every possible aspect. They promise to invest time and money to advance current sustainable technology and discover new ways to engineer their electric vehicles. They even have sexy, well-edited videos that make me wonder why my life doesn’t look as awesome as they portray it to be. What has my attention is frankly quite simple.

They’re BMW.

Now before I go any further, I can honestly say that I barely know anything about cars. You put some form of energy in and you drive to your desired destination. You can’t explain that. But what I do know is that BMW is a widely respected company that produces cars that people want. A major problem with electric cars right now is most people don’t desire to own them. As great as the Toyota Prius is, a lot of people are turned off by it’s physical appearance. I would know since my family owns a Prius. When I drove the Prius to tennis practice my friends made fun of our car by calling it ‘a box with wheels.’ I personally don’t mind how the Prius looks, but if BMW or some other well known company made a sexy electric car that was just as good or better than what is out now, then it would be hard to disagree with my friends.

Fact is people want to drive a car that they are proud to own and be seen in. With BMW planning to enter the market, I am fairly excited to see what the future holds for electric cars. It seems pretty reasonable why when thinking about it in economic terms: if people demand something then it will be supplied. In the past, electric cars have been seen almost as a downgrade when compared with the ordinary gas powered car. It’s exciting now that BMW can prove this false as long as they carry through with their plans and provide us with something such as the i8 or the i3.

But this isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. One problem that is most likely going to happen is the price range of these new vehicles. Even though it’s great that BMW, Lexus, and Chevy are coming out with electric cars, they are more likely going to be tailored for those whom are willing to write a hefty check for their products. But as we have seen in the past, there is typically an inverse relationship between the amount of time that passes by and the price of newly introduced products. It will be interesting to follow BMW i and see what happens in the coming years. You can learn more about BMW i at www.bmw-i.com.

Sunday Comics

A little late in the day (9:30 PM is still counted as the daytime, right?), but here is your Sunday Comic!

Obama's Renewed Focus On Clean Energy: Why Did We Stop Again?

A few days ago, President Obama rekindled his focus on domestically produced clean energy.

My reaction: Why did we stop hammering this point in the first place?

Clean energy provides solutions to our current political issues:

• Job Creation
• Market Volatility
• International Relations
• Sexiness

President Obama has wanted a large reduction by 2035 since he was first elected, but you wouldn't know it considering that there has been little to no actual legislation helping this become a reality. However, there is still hope that this issue will be revived again:

Obama will veer into domestic issues today, when he will announce new goals to reduce the nation's dependency on foreign oil while increasing homegrown energy supplies, including cleaner electricity. 

"Tomorrow's speech will mark a transition in our public communications," a senior White House official told reporters yesterday, referring to Obama's energy speech today and others. "You will see a concerted focus on energy." 

The White House's role in developing the electricity standard is reassuring to supporters, some of whom criticized the president's casual effort to pass climate legislation last summer. Key experts in the administration, including economist Nat Keohane, special assistant to the president, and Dan Utech, senior adviser to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, are working on the standard, according to sources.

Once this becomes a political issue, I believe that it will be hard for any politician to deny clean energy's need for growth. The NY Times makes a great point by saying "Republicans might suffer on Election Day if they're perceived as old-fashioned politicians supporting oil and gas companies while opposing alternative energies."

One can hope that things play out this way.