by ken winston caine

Towns and cities could cut electricity use significantly — simply and painlessly.

Almost overnight.

All they have to do is to commit to quit trying to light up the night as though it is day.

Turn off, or turn down, street lighting, building lighting and after-hours electric signs on businesses. (This was decreed by President Nixon as national policy during the first oil embargo in 1973, alongside more drastic measures such as gas rationing and a national 55 mph speed limit.)

Cutting street lighting has been shown to CUT crime. (More on that in a moment.)

Bring back the night.

Bring back the stars.

If cities would turn off just every other streetlight, on alternating sides of the street, immediately they would cut streetlighting energy use in half. And cut the cost of streetlighting in half.

Why is no one thinking like this at a time when greenhouse gasses produced by coal-and-other-carbon-fuel-fired power plants are destroying the planet’s equilibrium and by extension, our current and future quality of life … and simultaneously, world-wide, we are facing an energy shortage?

Instead, power companies are calling for more power plants and, at the same time, (more…)

by ken winston caine

See the November 2007 Fast Company piece on Kansan “Johnathan Goodwin [who] can:

• “get 100 mpg out of a Lincoln Continental,

• “cut emissions by 80%, and

• “double the horsepower.

“Does the car business have the guts to follow him?” asks Fast Company in headline type.

His bio-diesel/hydrogen/electric hybrid Hummer gets 60 mpg, has double the horsepower of a stock model, and “does zero to 60 in five seconds.”

Goodwin transforms noxious polluting, gas-hog muscle cars into super-powerful clean green machines using current technology and readily available Detroit parts.

He charges $25,000 per vehicle to manage the metamorphosis. His clientele is mainly celebreties and industry titans — the ultra-rich.

Detroit IS paying attention. But how long ’til this super-low-emission, renewable-energy, power-doubling, fuel-stingy technology is available to the rest of us?

Click this link to read Fast Company’s fascinating article on this fascinating young innovator: (more…)

by ken winston caine

Are you getting the kind of gas mileage many people were getting in 1984?

I’ll bet you aren’t.

The sporty 1984 Honda Civic CRX coupe was rated at 51 mpg city and 67 mpg highway in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency tests.

It was a gas-burner. (A stingy gas-burner.) And it was peppy and comfortable and fun to drive.

This was more than two decades ago. Long, long before hybrids.

That same year the Pontiac Fiero 4 cylinder, 2.5 liter, stickshift got 27 mpg city, 47 mpg highway in EPA tests… The Chevy Camaro got 40 mpg on the highway. The Nissan Sentra got a whopping 50 mpg city and 66 mpg highway…

Those were official figures, but they didn’t tell the whole truth. They didn’t (more…)

by ken winston caine

It is possible that bottled water is making you fat . . . and that it causes cancer.

Really.

The plastic bottles of designer water that you see people carrying everywhere are NOT good for you…

Packaging water in small plastic bottles has staggering environmental costs — both in the manufacturing process and in the waste-stream created when the bottles are used and tossed in the trash. You’re beginning to read a lot about that aspect of the $15 billion bottled-water obsession.

What you’re not hearing about — yet — are the little-known, but severe, personal health costs — the long-term damage you can suffer from consuming foods and liquids packaged and stored in plastic or plastic-lined containers.

It may take mainstream health and media another 10 years to get onto this. But you shouldn’t wait. You should get onto it now.

Writer Charles Fishman’s fascinating and exceptional piece of in-depth health-and-business investigative journalism in this month’s Fast Company details exactly how the plastic bottled water craze is hurting you and the planet.

Click that link and read the article.

Should you stop drinking water?

Should you stop carrying water with you?

No.

No, no, no, no, no…

The solution is simple: (more…)

Not available in the U.S. yet, but a hot new Honda Accord (popular in Britain since February 2004) got 77 miles-per-gallon in a 419-mile real-world driving test and has set world speed records in its class.

(That’s 77 U.S. miles per gallon, calculated from the 92 mpg it got with Imperial gallons. … Would someone please check my math on this? I’m finding it hard to believe that European Accords get 77 mpg and U.S. ones don’t get 40.)

This spunky, full-size Accord goes from standing stop to 54 mph in a quarter mile. It looks just like the one in your neighbor’s driveway.

Oh. Did I mention that it runs on high-energy, low-polluting “clean diesel”? That’s (more…)

by Ken Winston Caine

Federal regulations require filling stations to pump low-sulfur “clean diesel” beginning in September. And a new breed of powerful, quieter, 97% cleaner diesel engine that takes full advantage of the more refined fuel will be under the hoods of cars on U.S. streets…sometime soon.

Vehicles running on “clean diesel” fuel don’t leave clouds of black soot in their wake, emit less carbon dioxide than gasoline-burning vehicles and get about 30% better mileage.

With all this, a J.D. Powers forecaster is predicting that 2008 will be the “year of the diesel” (the new diesel) in the U.S. and that clean diesel will become the new “green car” for the masses. It already is in Europe. And is moving into India big-time this year.

Mercedes, Volkswagen, BMW, Nissan and Honda are bringing “clean diesel” versions of their popular models to the U.S. market. Mercedes and VW models are expectred in showrooms this (more…)

The Czech Republic is the first country to adopt a dark skies law with real teeth.

Why can’t we see the stars any more?

One picture: worth a million stars. This NASA photo tells the whole story. It’s captioned simply “Earth’s city lights.” View it here: (more…)

by Ken Winston Caine

The air is NOT getting cleaner — despite the nonsense governmental hype that ABC reporter John Stossel has famously cited.

Yes, major cities now are reporting an impressively decreasing number of dangerous smog days compared to 30 years ago — even as populations have grown substantially. They’ve learned to control specific pollutants, scrub them from smokestacks, force industry to implement cleaner technologies, outlaw certain vapor sources, and we’re driving cars now that produce less of the measured pollutants. But that’s not the whole story.

Anyone who has driven around the country over (more…)