With fuel costs breaking new records everyday, lots of people are considering curtailing their driving. For some people, this may involve putting a car into storage for months or longer. I was considering it and I realized that there are probably a few things that I should do to the car if I want it to stay in the condition that it is in. Here are a few links with helpful information:
AAA has advice that seems to cater to people with really nice cars.
After moving in 2005, we went carless for a whole year. It can be done. I consider my 1990 Skoda to be a time saving device. It is not a necessity and it is not a part of my identity.
I have not expressed my opinion about auto racing very often. This very stupid story about the Greenest-ever International race car has pushed me over the edge. I think automotive racing should be made illegal. It is a pointless waste of fossil fuels. Trying to green-wash auto racing is just beyond the pale.
I think that fans would continue to watch the racing if they switched to pedal cars. They might have to add some drama in much the same way as professional wrestling.
Reuters now has embeddable videos. They open with an advertisement. This week, you might see one from MSN that closes with some kid playing an acoustic guitar and singing the words No One Wants To Look Dumb. I was wondering whether there is a longer version of this jingle somewhere. I figured out the chords. They are G and D.
I remember back when I was a little kid hearing Rod Roddy mentioning something about California Emissions when he was gushing about A NEW CAR!!! on The Price is Right. I was living up in rural Canada where people where still tearing the catalytic converters off of their pickup trucks and I was mystified by the importance of these things. California is a big state with a huge economy and its progressive legislation usually reaches beyond its own borders.
The EPA recently refused to allow California to enact new laws regulating CO2 emissions from automobiles. The most recent news related to the fight between the agency charged with protecting the environment and the state of California involves EPA infighting. The word is that staff felt compelled to tell the EPA Administrator that the decision will likely be reversed by a federal judge.
I knew before I even looked it up that this administrator had been given his job by the GWB administration. I was surprised to see that he was a 27 year veteran of the EPA. Before that he worked as the Director of Operations at Hazelton Laboratories Corporation, a lab that has more recently been accused of rampant primate abuse. I don’t know if they were smashing monkey heads under his watch.
The Aptera has a certain appeal. It is an electric car that looks sleek and goes fast. It is competitively priced. I am not sure how the oil companies are going to kill it. It is interesting to note that the company thought outside the box when it came to dealing with present regulations. In the eyes of the DOT it is a motorcycle.
This truck would not be suitable for a lot of jobs. They are popular for city works departments, etc. in Europeans cities and from the photos that I have seen, they are almost ubiquitous in Asia.
I took the above picture myself while visiting Italy. I looked for these trucks on the web and I found a UK company that sells this model of truck completely outfitted for mobile coffee service. In North America, you will see a full size ‘half ton’ truck serving many of the same purposes that these little trucks serve elsewhere.
Solar energy is free. It is abundant. It is largely untapped. Most of our food supply relies on solar energy. Some homes are effectively trapping it as a heat source. Google has decided that it wants to be a driving source in the effort to develop technologies and systems that can convert solar power to electricity at a lower cost that what we presently spend using coal. We aren’t there yet.
I hope somebody is working on making two way meters cheap and abundant so we can all invest in our own solar panels and offset our electric bills soon.
This is a good example of what NOT to buy this Christmas. I am posting from a PC with no speakers, so I don’t even know how bad this gadget sounds. If you want to add some seasonal music to your home or workplace, why not put together a YouTube playlist of music that actually sounds nice?
Here is a really pleasant bit of music that I found, two instrumentalists going through some variations of Greensleeves. This is actually the perfect music for December since some people will hear it and think of the Christmas carol that appropriated the melody and others will simply hear some really old music.
I was just talking about cell phone recycling today. Now the news comes out that Greenpeace has deemed the iPhone to be toxic. One of their main problems with the phone is that the design is an obstacle to easy recycling of the battery. They also strongly disapprove of the lead soldering that exists inside these phones. Government bodies in the USA and the UK have approved the phone with reference to environmental standards.
I have not always agreed with everything that Greenpeace does, but I am happy to see them calling Apple on this. Companies who act like the leaders of an industry need to walk the walk.
I want to bring some attention to the cause of recycling with this post, but I also want to talk about celebrity endorsement.
The Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC) is a non-profit that was created in order to promote the recycling of portable rechargeable batteries and cellular phones. One important function served by their website is directing consumers to their nearest drop off site.
I was interested in the topic when I clicked on a link that somebody had placed in their article about using rechargeable batteries in digital cameras. The image of a familiar face on the landing page caught my attention. Richard Karn appeared in 192 episodes of the popular sitcom Home Improvement. I am glad that he chose something really positive to represent instead of some manly version of the Thigh Master.
I was just talking about cell phone recycling today. Now the news comes out that 
