Going GREEN is the way to go

As always, we can count on the folks at Google to come out with an original design of their logo in line with the significance of the day in question. Not long ago there was the green logo on St. Patrick’s Day, which I forgot to download. Then today, on Earth Day, is the icy logo (see left), symbolic perhaps of the consequential aftermath of a warming world.

That was when I was googling the documentary, Green: the new red, white and blue, hosted by none other than Thomas L. Friedman of the World is Flat fame, for the Discovery Channel, and aired at 9.00pm last night (April 21, 2007).

Since our monthly HOA dues include basic cable, I kind of chanced upon the documentary while channel surfing just when it was about to begin. Traveling in search of carbon-free electricity, Friedman found himself in the bowel, literally, of the Dulles hydroelectric dam built across the mighty Columbia River where over-sized turbines deliver green energy to Google’s server center located several miles downstream at a former site of a smelting plant where a perpetual low cloud hovers above the complex, water vapor released from the cooling of the servers embedded in the complex.

We might never think of water cooling a bundle of computers, conditioned by the sight and sound of cooling fans in our CPUs, an air-cooling alternative. But the tremendous heat generated by clusters of servers delivering our search results to our screens with hardly any time delay is in a different realm altogether, one which we are oblivious to. So that scene and the scenario presented are an eye-opener to the fact that number crunching begets energy guzzling.

The scene then switched to Fluorescent Lights (CFLs), which I happened to blog earlier on here about its compact genre, being used by Wal-Mart stores to save their energy bill. This is part of the go-green shift evident in this retail monolith, embracing the sale of “earth-friendly products at budget-friendly prices, one prime example of which is CFL, which is at the center of their advertisement taken from the April 22, 2007 issue of the Parade Magazine distributed with St. Pete Times. Headlined in the form of a rhetorical question, Can a funny looking light bulb change the world? the advertisement states that “if every Wal-Mart shopper bought just one compact fluorescent light bulb (and at these prices, why not buy a 3-pack?) it would be the oil-burning equivalent of taking over a million cars of the road.” [A good sales pitch no doubt, but I went one step further by buying a 8-pack from Sam's Club some time ago, see image below.]


Then it was on to another form of green energy, wind energy. The documentary credited the then Governor of Texas in approving the plan for a large-scale wind farm in 1996, multi-story high wind mills with giant wind blades weighing 3-tons each and installed by towering cranes. At the moment, wind energy contributes less than 1% of the energy requirement in US but the wind farm project in a state long known for its oil-rich heritage could prove to be a viable component of the renewable energy mix that would inexorably become imperative when the oil reserves dry out. To refresh your memory, the then Governor of Texas has since ascended the political ladder to assume the helm of the whole country today.

Nuclear energy, which suffered a low ebb in confidence in the aftermath of the 1976 Chernobyl and 1979 Three-Mile Island meltdown, has since grown in stature as a viable alternative, a fact no doubt boosted by the success stories being bandied about in Europe. For example, it was stated that France derives about 80% of her energy requirement from nuclear power generating plants while Belgium meets hers from a similar source at about the 70% level. The paramount apprehension remains the disposal of nuclear waste, the spent fuel. However, the documentary also pointed out that while the waste streams from fossil-based energy generation, chiefly CO2, is world-wide, the nuclear waste issue is local.

It is claimed that about 20% of the CO2 production emanates from individual homes, both from the home and from the ubiquitous automobile that represents mobility at the individual level. While GM and Ford are just now coming out with their hybrid versions, Toyota is enjoying a brisk sale of its Prius model, a perfect example of the success of the first-to-market strategy. Other versions in the horizon are automobiles powered by fuel cells.

In addition to another segment devoted to the sun energy, the documentary also conducted an energy audit for a typical American family, a software engineer with a stay-home mom and three young kids. However, I did not stay awake long enough to find out the outcome and instead succumbed to sleep before the show ended. This is in no way a reflection of the appeal, or the lack thereof, of the documentary which seemingly failed to sustain my interest. It was more of an indication of my poor time management, having spent too much time watching the other TV programs, a smattering of movies, drama series, sports telecasts, and even commercials, prior to the documentary.

From what I managed to see as well as the play on the documentary title, it’s clear that it has to be a concerted effort from all to go green, despite the underlying differences in political ideologies of pro-Republican, pro-Democrat, or neither.

"The Green Environment" and "Them" instead of "You"

Putting a damper on the ensuing euphoria from the Time’s Person of the Year honor are two online articles, in addition to my puny voice of dissent here .

The first one felt that nature has eclipsed the most important species on earth, Homo Sapiens, in terms of changes sustained and the change implications, and thus should merit precedence over the latter, even though the very nature of the change affecting nature could be anthropogenic in origin.

A renowned NewYork Times columnist and the author of the popular book, The World is Flat, Thomas L. Friedman put up a convincing case that Time would have run the headline "Color of the Year", if he were the editor calling the shots. And he would have bestowed that honor to the color GREEN.

The article, And the Color of the Year Is ... by Thomas Friedman, appears on the Dec 22, 2006 issue of New York Times, but I saw the online version here. But before that, I first read about it in print in today’s Tampa Tribune, under “Other Views” (p. 13 of Nation/World), with a slightly altered title, And the Color of the Year Is … GREEN.

Corporations are now embracing green policies where it matters most: profits. But it’s not only the share-holders who benefit, the beneficiary includes the customers, and the environment too. Citing the case of WalMart, Friedman writes, “…But the world’s biggest retailer lately has gotten the green bug — in part to improve its image, but also because it has found that being more energy efficient is highly profitable for itself and its customers.”

How? A wide range of innovations really, though some are still at the experimental stage: alternative building materials, lighting, power systems and designs (e.g., , “big wind turbine in the parking lot”, “solar panels on key walls”, “the cooking oil from fried chicken that is recycled in its bio-boiler and heats the store in winter”, and “the shift to L.E.D lights in all exterior signs and grocery and freezer cases”.

He concluded his article with a dire caution that “the tipping point on climate change and species loss is also fast approaching, if it’s not already here. There’s no time to lose.”

I hope that Friedman’s clarion call for action could serve notice and rally bipartisan action in the US Congress where others, such as the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" by Al Gore, have not seemed to garner substantial support for change.

The second article is more direct, and argues that the honor should have gone to “them”. Written by Dante Chinni, the article is entitled “'They,' more than 'You,' are revolutionizing media” and appears in the Dec 26, 2006 issue of the Christian Science Monitor.

Chinni’s premises echo my view, though his was framed with much more citations. Not mincing his words, Chinni writes that Time’s premise is flawed and claimed “that only a small percentage of Americans are really contributing to the Web in meaningful ways - or even at all.”

“Of the small percentage of people who actually blog, tens of thousands post to blogs that have an average daily viewership of ... one. In other words, the scope of the Web's populist revolution shouldn't be overstated; it should be understood,” Chinni continues rationally. And he ends with a sober reminder to all lurkers: “As for you, don't feel too bad. You can still proudly display the latest issue of Time, lousy mirror image and all. And don't feel bad if you don't go out and start a blog tomorrow.

If everyone did, who would have time to read it all, anyway?”

Makes sense to me.