We Green Westport

No More Plastic Bags

Westport, Conn., this month became the latest of a handful of communities to ban some plastic bags. The bags, which have only a brief, useful life, can survive forever in landfills and are of enormous concern to not only environmentalists but local officials who are running out of places to put their trash.
Westport’s ordinance will take effect in six months and applies to bags dispensed at checkout counters. Others, like dry cleaning bags, will be exempted. The aim is to reduce litter and encourage customers to tote their groceries in reusable cloth bags.
The town’s stand is laudable but will have only a limited effect on what is, after all, a statewide problem. The Connecticut Legislature rebuffed a proposed statewide ban last year. Massachusetts and Maine considered similar bans and also backed down.

What is your opinion? What is the value of taking a stand? Can our actions motivate others…educate others?

Think Globally, Power Up Locally

The “locavore” movement is big, especially in California. With the bounty of food found locally in the Bay Area, living off the land - and sea - is not only possible, but also a delicious exercise. But there’s another, less obvious, revolution brewing here in the Bay Area: the “locavolt” movement.

In response to high gasoline and natural gas prices, global warming and an increasingly unstable, scary world, residents more than ever are looking to generate power right in their own homes and neighborhoods with free energy from nature.

Within the next year or so, the Bay Area may bolster its locavolt credentials with a California program that allows local governments to choose power supplies for their constituents. San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and Marin County are all investigating a plan that would allow them to stay with Pacific Gas and Electric Co. for billing, distribution and repair service, but allow local elected officials to choose more locally produced green power. In Marin County, for example, the long-term goal is 100 percent renewable energy.

Is there a future for this movement in other areas of the nation? Let’s hope so…

If truth be known, the technology is now available to secure up to 40 percent of our electricity from local, distributed renewable energy sources like wind and sun, if we stay connected and get creative with storage from batteries, cars and maybe fuel cells. Something tells me the locavolts are on to something big.