A small circle of friends including myself have been looking at all the various ways we might transport ourselves to work efficiently. Electric bikes, scooters, mopeds, gas scooters, etc. Unforunately we live in a cold climate half the year with a lot of snow (well, except this past winter…) so these options are limited in use. Here’s a cool, if somewhat primitive (not necessarily bad) site devoted to electric personal transport.

We also have an extensive paved trail system in the greater Rochester area, much of which runs along the Erie Canal and a lot of old railway beds.

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Can I attach a wind mill to my suburban house? Should I?

My neighbors probably would say no! But people are starting to consider adding wind power to their homes. Find a wind map of your state (this is a commercial site with tons of good information, unfortunately it is built with ancient frame technology that doesn’t let me pick URLs for specific areas of the site- very bad SEO strategy guys!). It doesn’t show my area of NY (Rochester) being a good candidate for wind power.

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Malcom Gladwell offers a typically well-written piece on geothermal energy as used by his father in their family home in Ontario, Canada which is not far from here. Gladwell’s father offers a very clear explanation of how this clean technology works, including (fear not), some basic math.

It turns out that we can do a lot. This site has extensive lists of things you can easily change and their impact in the currency of climate change, pounds of carbon saved. There is a calculator that calculates how much you are personally spewing into the sky via your activities. My annual number is 23,000 lbs which is 8000 over average, probably because I live in a two person household. Time to change that number!
Check the list out- some of the little actions have real consequences.