McCain and Obama aren’t going to fix anything, so I’m running for president!

This is a guest post by Benjamin Jones of EcoModder.com.

For a few months now, I’ve been running EcoModder.com, a site of DIY car mods and fuel economy. In the course of running the site, I realized there was something else that a lot of members and I were interested in: home energy consumption.

For most people, home energy use will always be higher than vehicle energy use. It’s also a lot easier for most people to do basic home improvements, and things like payback and energy consumption are a bit more straightforward. There’s certainly a lot of info out there on home improvements and saving energy, but there’s still not a community built around it.

EcoRenovator.org, with its blog and the forum, wants to be a place for that community to gather. The site is new, but come check it out, we’d love to see you around!

NWF is looking for a few good neighbors! Are you into greening you house, making your yard into a habitat for nature, saving fuel, and generally doing good things for the planet? If so NWF is looking for new members to take the good neighbor pledge. Take the pledge here and join our friend Danielle’s Neighborhood. She is a dedicated NWF employee that has started a online good neighborhood. Once you have joined she’ll post up your picture and a link to your website if you’d like.

To join up requires a $15 donation to NWF which goes toward protecting wildlife and the environment. The good neighbor program is a great way to affirm your dedication to taking care of the planet, your community, and joining a community of like minded neighbors.

NWF Good Neighbor

A big part of sustainability is building community and that includes  getting out there to support local business and local services.  The fashion industry is not often equated with much of anything nice other than looking good.  It is particularly not known for being sustainable, but here is your chance to look great, support locally owned businesses, and contribute to a life saving cause. Paradise Valley Community College is holding an upcoming event to provide you that opportunity. They have put together an event called Fashion of Compassion, showcasing fashions from local boutiques with the proceeds going to the Phoenix Children’s Hospital.

It can be tough to find local clothing stores and the allure of convenience of big names and mega malls can be too much to resist when you don’t know where else to go. This is your chance to get informed on who is out there locally.  Just browsing through their websites (links below) there’s a lot to look forward to.  A worthy cause, supporting local business, with loads of fun fashion, sounds good to me! Be sure to tell your friends, the more people who attend, the more donations to the hospital and the more publicity for these local boutiques!

[Visit LocalFirstAZ.com to view more local boutiques]

PVCC Fashion of Compassion Evening Sept. 17

Alpha Omicron Chi, Paradise Valley Community College’s chapter of the international honor society Phi Theta Kappa, presents The Fashion of Compassion event from 5 to 9 p.m., Wenesday, Sept. 17 in the Center for Performing Arts on the PVCC Campus at Union Hills Boulevard and 32nd Street. Proceeds benefit Phoenix Children’s Hospital.

Following the opening reception, Alexis Vance of Fox 10 News will emcee the fashion show from 6 to 7 p.m. Students and staff will model clothing from shops participating in the on-site bazaar including Roka Boutique, Spoken Boutique, Estilo Boutique, Red Haute Boutique, Rowdy Boutique, Wink Boutique, Strawberry Mondays, Prima Divaz, Grandma’s Lullaby Loft plus Bella and Gracie’s.

Laurie Bachand, PVCC President of Alpha Omicron Chi, says that in addition to the fashion show and clothing bazaar, there will be a silent auction for packages such as Dinner at Earl’s and a Harkins movie; horseback riding in Sedona with Red Rock Western Jeep Tours; gift certificates from Tesori Jewelers, Electric Lady Land, Divaz Boutique, T’s Accessories and Brass Heart; and hair styling with products from Carolyn’s Hair Salon.

Also, please bring your gently used CDs and DVDs to donate to the hospital’s play rooms. Keep in mind they are for youths up to age 17.

Tickets for the fashion show are $10 each, available at the door and include light refreshments from 5 to 6 p.m. provided by Bruce Brown Catering. Tickets are also available on campus in the Kranitz Student Center and by calling the CPA box office at 602-787-7738.

With fierce storm after storm hitting the Caribbean and threatening our coasts this hurricane season seems to illuminate the ever more apparent effects of climate change.  While we do not have more storms than usual the intensity appears to be on the rise, i.e. more storms are reaching higher categories thus our extremes are getting more extreme [Science].  This alone calls for our attention and efforts to make changes to decrease the greenhouse effect that is warming the Earth and causing greater highs and lows but there is more to this than meets the eye.

It is clearly necessary to work to decrease emissions that are contributing to climate change but what we may unknowingly be doing is exacerbating the problem by not fully understanding the complexity of the system. Now I am not saying we should allow massive amounts of pollution, I am merely suggesting it is more complicated than the simplified version we get watching TV or the glossy greenwashed sound bytes we are so often exposed to.  Even this write up is overly simplified but such is life.  The main complication I speak of is the phenomena that is termed “global dimming.”  Just like it sounds, global dimming describes the decrease in sunlight that is actually reaching Earth’s surface.

Over the past 4 decades scientists have watched the global incoming solar radiation decrease by 12% [American Geophysical Union]. TWELVE PERCENT. That is huge! Breaking it down for each continent the drops in sunlight recorded between the 1950s and 1990s are staggering. The level dropped 9% in Antarctica, 10% over the U.S., nearly 30% 13% over Russia, and up to 60% 16% in parts of England (thanks for pointing out this misunderstanding).  With that you would expect that we should be cooling down, right?  It is logical to think if less sunlight reaches Earth the temperature would drop, just think of a cloudy day or even just standing in the shade.  It makes a significant difference but we are not cooling down, we continue to get warmer.

With this in mind it may be that global dimming is masking or delaying the potentially far more extreme effects of global warming.  Particle pollution, like ash, soot, and sulfur dioxide, in the atmosphere is believed to be the culprit for global dimming.  Just like sunlight bounces off the top of clouds, so too will it bounce off of polluting particles. The compounding factor though, is that the polluting particles apparently make the clouds themselves far more reflective. 

If we were to eliminate global dimming all together without addressing global warming the increase in temperature and extreme weather might be more significant than previously predicted.  This has been recorded with one full degree temperature change in just a few days of decreased pollution in the days following the 9/11 attacks [Nature].  This reverse effect of dimming has been has been blamed along with global warming for increasing temperatures, appropriately called global brightening [Geophysical Research Letters]. No one wants smoggy skies but it could be smog and particulates that may be shielding us from the full consequences of the greenhouse gases we pump into our air daily.  Clear blue skies are something many folks thinks of when they think of “going green” but those clear blue skies may hold more heat than we can handle.

NOVA Global Dimming Website

BBC Special on Global Dimming on YouTube:  Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4