Repower America

An open letter from Al Gore

Today, I will be testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about repowering America and the need for us to resume global leadership on the climate crisis. As you know, it's a critical time in our country and we all have a role to play.

I've recorded a short video message to share my perspective on what's at stake right now. Take a moment and please watch it:

www.RepowerAmerica.org/fbRecoveryVideo

In Congress, our leaders are debating an economic recovery package. It includes unprecedented support for putting Americans back to work building a clean energy economy.

But entrenched interests in Washington will be working hard to weaken the legislation -- opposing funding for clean energy programs that support things like wind, solar, energy efficiency and a new national electric grid.

As members of Congress work out the details of a bill that can pass both the House and the Senate, it's important that you let each of your elected representatives know that you want the recovery to be about repowering America.

You and I know that continuing with the status quo will not revitalize the U.S. economy. Please make sure your elected officials know, too.

Watch the video and send a quick note to Congress:

www.RepowerAmerica.org/fbRecoveryVideo

Today, we can start to get America back on track.

Thanks for everything,

Al Gore

www.RepowerAmerica.org

5 Green Habits That Matter More Than Recycling

You're a faithful recycler, now do even more with these tips.

So, like every person trying to do their part to reduce their personal carbon emissions and make the most of the natural resources we all consume you recycle right? If you're an average Planet Green reader you probably do a bit more than the average US citizen who recycles about one third of the waste they produce, preventing about 1600 pounds of carbon being released into the atmosphere. That's a good thing, but do you want to do even more? Here are five things you can do which reduce your emissions as much or more than recycling:

1... Drink Less Bottled Water = 2.6 Tons CO2
2... Skip One Mid-Range Flight = 1 Ton CO2
3... Go Vegetarian (or Vegan) = 1 to 2 Tons CO2
4... Wash Your Clothes in Cold Water & Air Dry Them = 1 Ton CO2
5... Sign Up For Green Power = 7 Tons CO2

Read the full article at Planet Green

Kabi Organic Golf Course

From Australia...

Here are 18 holes worth of organic certification by the Biological Farmers Association (BFA). Meaning it’s free of “any synthetic fertilisers, pesticides and or any other chemicals that are traditional ones used on golf courses.”

What’s more, the clubhouse restaurant lists a menu of organic beef, chicken, and herbs. Or feast upon oranges, lemons, limes, mandarins and grapefruits from the courses’s organic orchard.

And if you need to take a load off your hind, then the compost toilets await your deposit, so they can feed any liquid nutrient back to the courses’s forests, via sand filters.

Aside from the prolific bird life that enjoys the 120 acres of such forests (covering over a third of the property) there is also abundant wildlife, such as wallabies and kangaroos (see below), who “have the right of way on the course at all times.”

To their knowledge, they are the only certified organic course in the southern hemisphere, and possibly the planet. Though, no doubt, one of our white ball bashing readers can hit us for four on that one. ::Kabi Golf

Drive Wise (the other kind of driver)

drive wise, originally uploaded by GWSA.

Constable Keith Robb with the OPP., at the Drive Wise program at the Evergreen Seniors Centre Guelph, Ontario CANADA ...for more information about the GWSA visit our website at www.gwsa-guelph.ca

Grocery Shopping Tips For Husbands

... Because I am pretty well house bound because of severe health issues my wonderful husband goes to the store with his cell phone and I'm here at home with the landline. He does this on the weekend when we have free time that doesn't use up the paid minutes. If he's not sure on any item I wrote on the list he gives me a call to talk about what ever it is. Might be as simple as the brand I put down is out of stock but we still do our shopping together in a way that works for us. Hubby does a super good job shopping but he feels better when we use this method.

...My tip for making grocery shopping easier. I bring my wife and follow her around while she picks the groceries. I find it to be a lot easier than going by myself. - by Donald Cash

Editor's Note: It can be nice to have company while shopping, I just hope you help your wife carry the groceries to the car.

... There are a lot of us guys who are more than happy to help out with the chores, but as we all know we never get it right, despite the fact we mean well. I find that rather than waiting to be told i'm doing something wrong i'll ask. After all, the only dumb question is the one that wasn't asked. Eventually after enough practice we can be trusted to fly solo with the shopping list.
You go for it Don

New Bike Technology

You Shall Have Bike Lanes Wherever You Go

Some cities are slow getting around to approving bike lanes; others don't bother. Here is a way to carry your bike lane with you wherever you go: project it onto the road with fricking lasers. Alex Tee and Evan Gant of Altitude write:

"Our system projects a crisply defined virtual bike lane onto pavement, using a laser, providing the driver with a familiar boundary to avoid. With a wider margin of safety, bikers will regain their confidence to ride at night, making the bike a more viable commuting alternative."

more Bike Technology at TreeHugger.com

Off the Wall

"When you get to the end of all the light you know and it's time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly." - Edward Teller

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, ”Wow! What a ride!” - Unknown

"Hockey is a sport for white men. Basketball is a sport for black men. Golf is a sport for white men dressed like black pimps." - Tiger Woods

Hole in One

Adam Hogg of Conestogo, Ontario, Canada scored a hole-in-one on 08/09/06. The ace occurred on Hole 17, a par 3, 185yd hole at Conestoga Golf and Country Club located in Conestogo, Ontario, Canada.

Adam scored the hole-in-one with a 6 Iron and had this to say about it:

"It was a Wednesday Men´s night and I was playing with the club superintendent, the assistant superintendent and one of the other guys I work with on the greens crew. Beer girl probably 30 yards away which made things very convenient....then I had to go to the club house....on Men´s night. There was a couple dollars spent that night."

Dirk Sjoberg LeBreton of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada scored a hole-in-one on 08/17/06. The ace occurred on Hole 6, a par 3, 172yd hole at Conestoga Golf & Country Club located in Conestogo, Ontario, Canada.

Dirk scored the hole-in-one with a 6 Iron and had this to say about it:

"It was pretty sweet. I mean, I was looking all over the place and finally checked the hole and it was there. I knew that I had struck it solid, and that it was probably tight, but I couldn´t see it, so I didn´t know at the time where it had ended up. It was pretty awesome. "

Peter Marzo of Guelph, Ontario, Canada scored a hole-in-one on 08/14/06. The ace occurred on Hole 5, a par 3, 137yd hole at Wildwinds Golf Course located in Rockwood, Ontario, Canada.

Peter scored the hole-in-one with a 8 Iron and had this to say about it:

"My playing partner and I saw it disappear on the green, but we both thought that it had gone off the back into a trap. When we got to the green and looked in the trap, then the rough and found no ball. It was then that I realized that the unimagineable could have happened. I sheepishly went to the cup and found the ball. Then there was the usual yelling and high fiving."

Loud Golf Clubs

Study Finds Loud Golf Clubs Can Damage Hearing

Of all the mind numbing, ear drum bending, noise pollution that bombards us, who would have thought that the impact of a flattened composite on a one and half ounce sphere could hurt your hearing?

A British study has found that some golf clubs can cause hearing damage.

" That ping is high volume, that’s what hearing loss is about in 21st century America, " explained Kathlyn Maguire, an expert and an advocate on hearing loss.

She says the study on tinnitus and reduced hearing in golfers conducted at Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in England, makes sense.

20 years ago impact of wood on ball generated a healthy click on the range. Now it is something akin to a small sonic boom

Recent tests at Florida’s North Palm Beach Country Club with director of golf Mike Gray measured decibel levels on impact.

"They design them to be louder, its more exciting. If it sounds louder, it feels like it will go father" said Gray.

Time and again the impact pinned the meter past 130 decibels.

80 decibels equals the noise level in close proximity to a jackhammer.

On the range the tiny sonic booms were swept away by the wind but the British study was food for thought.

"Its kind of annoying to hit a drive that loud," said one golfer.

"If I hit it in the fairway, I'll go with it regardless," chuckled another.

The study recommends wearing earplugs.

Did you know...

... that December 30 is the birthday of Tiger Woods (1975)? At the
mere age of 2, Tiger played with comedian and golfer Bob Hope
on the Mike Douglas Show. He was featured in Golf Digest at
age 5, after having already succeeded in shooting 48 for nine
holes while the same children his age were still playing with
building blocks. Happy birthday, Tiger!

"If you are given a chance to be a role model, I think you
should always take it because you can influence a person's
life in a positive light, and that's what I want to do. That's
what it's all about." - Tiger Woods

"In Quotes"

"Never tell anyone that you're writing a book, going on a diet, exercising, taking a course, or quitting smoking. They'll encourage you to death." - Lynn Johnston

"Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things." - Robert Louis Stevenson

"If you want to feel rich, just count the things you have that
money can't buy." - Unknown

"All of us every single year, we're a different person. I
don't think we're the same person all our lives." - Steven Spielberg

"Happiness depends more on how life strikes you than on what
happens." - Andy Rooney

"War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige as the warrior does today." - John Fitzgerald Kennedy

"Always tell the truth, not only because it is the decent
thing to do, but because it gives you such an advantage over
the man who is trying to remember his lies!" - Sam Brookes

Earthrise Photo Launched a Movement

Earthrise Photo Launched a Movement
from Treehugger.com

It has been said that pictures taken on Christmas Eve forty years ago created the environmental movement, that for the first time people really could see that we really were all together on one little boat floating in space. These images, along with hundreds of other Apollo helped drive the momentum of a burgeoning green movement during the 70's, fuelling an awareness of vulnerability. "One thing was obvious to all, while the moon was 'dead as an old bone,' the Earth was 'the only exuberant thing in this part of the cosmos.' " More