I've learned over the last few years that government policy does matter. It began in October 2008 when I heard that the City of San Diego was going to follow Berkley's lead and adopt a mello-roos property tax district. This was an ingenious way to allow individual homeowners to opt-in to a Property Tax District that would allow them essentially to choose to create their own energy (electric, heat, efficiency) or stick with their centralized utilities.
The problem is simple really, we have to switch over from environmentally destructive carbon-fuels to Energy Efficient Renewable Energy (EE/RE) but the cost of this infrastructure is extremely expensive (about 20 years of current energy usage). If we had wisely invested 10% of our money in EE/RE each year, over the last 20 years or so, as Germany is doing, we would be free of carbon-pollution. However, the energy industry would rather that we continue to use their infrastructure, and they hire lobbyists to influence our representatives on every level.
Now we are in a recession, arguably caused by those same corporate powers, and people in houses have no money, because they lost all their equity and their savings, too. With massive credit card debt and high unemployment there is no capital to invest in EE/RE infrastructure.
The genius of Property Assessed Clean Energy programs (PACE) was that they didn't require capital, they used the value of the property and its tenants future energy needs to secure a long term loan that would increase energy efficiency and allow each property to become a net positive energy generator.
The really interesting part was that these programs were designed to get around the necessity of state and federal bureaucracy that usually stops such energy innovation in its tracks. Each municipality could decide if it wanted such a program, and each individual property owner could design their own system and financing terms. This frees up the whole energy delivery system, and creates jobs and industries out of future potential. This could have jump-started the whole economy.
Alas, it was not to happen. The corporate powers stepped in, The Federal National Mortgage Association, nicknamed Fannie Mae, and the Federal Home Mortgage Corporation, nicknamed Freddie Mac, two private, for-profit, government-insured corporations (which we had just bailed out using $Trillions in Federal Reserve Emergency Loans and the TARP) went to the Federal Housing Administration and put a stop to PACE programs nationwide. They did so on the grounds that a new primary lean for EE/RE, on the very homes their mortgage loans depended upon for collateral, would put them at further risk, as more and more people default and go into foreclosure (tells you what they think of the future).
Essentially, if you live in a home with a mortgage, you really don't own that home, and your landlord, the lender, decides from whom you can, or can not, buy your energy. Also, this means that municipalities can not choose to create local tax structures to fund local infrastructure improvements. Seems unconstitutional to me, and also to 37 State Attorney Generals who are currently suing the Federal Government to overturn this ruling.
In the mean time, utilities with energy monopolies like Sempra owned SDG&E, have successfully lobbied for Public Bonds to fund their centralized energy infrastructure "improvements" like the $3-billion "Sunrise Powerlink". These bonds will be funded by private capital at interest and repaid with your tax dollars. Sound familiar? The only difference between this and PACE, is that as soon as this expensive and environmentally damaging infrastructure is created, it becomes the private property of the Investor Owned Utility (IOU), not a public asset, not owned by the property owners or the municipalities, but by the middle-men.
The tragedy is that in crushing PACE, the banks have crushed our future economy. They not only failed to see that home-owners would save money by switching from paying "public" utilities to building their own private energy generation, but those individual EE/RE projects would create jobs, industries, and the very kind of productive financing loans that banks need to become profitable again. This is terribly short-sighted.
Now, our future is bleak. As mega-energy corporations and private utilities control our centralized energy infrastructure, only wealthy home-owners have the capital necessary to invest in their own private energy generation equipment. Furthermore, the environment is under greater threat from carbon-pollution as property-owners have little or no financial incentive to be energy efficient or invest in expensive renewable energy generation, leaving them dependent upon utilities and oil companies to power their vehicles.
Germany is 11 years into a plan to free themselves from energy imports by 2050. China is converting to Renewable Energy, even while they build a new Coal Power-plant each week. California, once a new energy economy, is stagnant, while New Jersey converts to solar power.
We have chosen our future through our government policy.
Creating community progress through cooperative solutions. This is about the future of San Diego, we focus upon renewable energy technologies, and our shared environment: food, water, and land use issues.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
None of us need ever buy gas again.
Last year, Electric-car maker and distributor ZAP said today it agreed to acquire Zhejiang Jonway Automobile Co. Ltd., a Chinese maker of electric vehicles. Zap said the move will expand its distribution network and give it access to the Chinese market where demand for electric vehicles, particularly among consumers, is growing rapidly.
The Santa Rosa, Calif., company says it has sold more than 117,000 electric vehicles in 75 countries since 1994. Most of its sales are to military, government and corporate fleets. The company also makes electric motorcycles, scooters and all-terrain vehicles. For U.S. car shoppers the acquisition should eventually result in more choices as tthe electric-car market develops here... [Read More]
With a few solar panels on your house, and a normal three prong, 110-volt, extension cord, you never need gas again.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Game The Future
Reality is broken, says Jane McGonigal, of the Institute for the Future, and we need to make it work more like a game.
Jane insists that if we empowered people to change the world, and rewarded them as today's video games do, then they would work hard to build a cooperative team and solve the problems of the world. Can that be true?
The problem is that unlike the game-world, in the 'real world' we don't make the rules ... or do we?
What are laws, but rules of the game? So, why don't we work together to solve the worlds problems just like we solve puzzles in 'World of Warcraft'? The answer is obvious, we don't share the same goals. We compete with our peers and create the very problems that we need to solve. Infinite complexity defies our ability to survive, much less create meaning from the chaos of global conflicts. Besides, in real life most of us are not allowed to kill, and none get multiple lives.
But just imagine, if you still can, a world where we could trust others. Where shared goals and commitment actually bound us in a tight 'SOCIAL FABRIC', and we all had hope and courage, an 'URGENT OPTIMISM' that we could successfully create our future. Wouldn't all of us work together in 'BLISSFUL PRODUCTIVITY' to achieve a world with 'EPIC MEANING'?
With the scope and complexity of the problems ahead we need a world of heros, and I believe we have one. If everyone could be 'SUPER EMPOWERED' to change the world, we might survive. Check out the solutions at SuperStruct and Evoke.
Jane insists that if we empowered people to change the world, and rewarded them as today's video games do, then they would work hard to build a cooperative team and solve the problems of the world. Can that be true?
The problem is that unlike the game-world, in the 'real world' we don't make the rules ... or do we?
What are laws, but rules of the game? So, why don't we work together to solve the worlds problems just like we solve puzzles in 'World of Warcraft'? The answer is obvious, we don't share the same goals. We compete with our peers and create the very problems that we need to solve. Infinite complexity defies our ability to survive, much less create meaning from the chaos of global conflicts. Besides, in real life most of us are not allowed to kill, and none get multiple lives.
But just imagine, if you still can, a world where we could trust others. Where shared goals and commitment actually bound us in a tight 'SOCIAL FABRIC', and we all had hope and courage, an 'URGENT OPTIMISM' that we could successfully create our future. Wouldn't all of us work together in 'BLISSFUL PRODUCTIVITY' to achieve a world with 'EPIC MEANING'?
With the scope and complexity of the problems ahead we need a world of heros, and I believe we have one. If everyone could be 'SUPER EMPOWERED' to change the world, we might survive. Check out the solutions at SuperStruct and Evoke.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
The case for Collaborative Consumption

"Sharing is something you only do with people you trust. To bad you don't trust anyone." - Rachel Botsman (HOT!) challenges you to collaborate.
Are you ready to wake up?
- Reduce.
- Reuse.
- Repair.
- Re-purpose.
- Recycle.
- Redistribute.
"You need the hole, not the drill"
Swap.com
Thursday, November 18, 2010
"FIXING THE FUTURE"
"Do people exist to serve the economy, or does the economy exist to serve people?"
Watch this short interview with David Korten and begin to dream again.
Watch the full episode. See more NOW on PBS.
Watching PBS NewsHour on KPBS Channel 11 last night, I caught a glimpse of something absolutely AMAZING! In a clip from NOW with David Brancaccio.
We are talking about rebuilding community.
"Creating wealth within the community requires life values."We need to get people engaged in their local economy. The power resides in Wall Street, not Main Street, wall street only recognizes FINANCIAL Values.
Alone we can not change the world, but we are not alone. Eighty communities around the USA and Canada, connecting 22,000 businesses and organization, growing exponentially. The potential for a global transformation of the economy is at hand.
"There are two competing paths of 'globalization' one is about CORPORATE Power, the other is about PEOPLE Power. They are diametrically opposed to each other."
If we are we going to evolve our society with the speed necessary to bring our population in balance with the resources and environment of the planet, we need to share our ideas and our knowledge freely.
Business must make a "LIVING RETURN", living owners within living enterprises with the goal of serving community. The real issue is not JOBS, its LIVELIHOOD. The less we are dependent upon the money system, the more we are in control of our lives.
- 1) What is the purpose of the economy?
- 2) What are you doing, today, to create an economy with that purpose?
- 3) How do we create the political power to put Main Street over Wall Street?
Join the Society for Media Justice to help create a Sustainable Future, in San Diego.
Monday, October 25, 2010
HomeSTAR - Why Haven't You Had an Energy Audit?
The proposed HOME STAR energy retrofit program is the focus of a report aired this weekend on NPR’s Weekend Edition, in which reporter Christopher Joyce follows a crew from Masco Home Services’ WellHome division as they conduct an energy audit at a home in suburban Washington, D.C.
The report delivers a solid introduction to Home Performance and the long-term benefits of investing in whole-house retrofit work, then concludes with a convincing summary of the economic logic behind HOME STAR:
Listen to the full report online:
"Cash for Caulkers" isn't just a good idea. It is the first step in transforming our economy over to renewable energy. It means jobs, and NO NEW POWERPLANTS! Weatherize and reduce your utility bill, better yet, make your building ZERO-NET Energy, then add renewable energy production, and power your car on the sun.
The report delivers a solid introduction to Home Performance and the long-term benefits of investing in whole-house retrofit work, then concludes with a convincing summary of the economic logic behind HOME STAR:
Some states, like New York, already pay homeowners for retrofits. So did President Obama’s stimulus plan last year. But Jeff Genzer of the National Association of State Energy Officials says the stimulus money was mostly for low-income families. HOME STAR is for all homeowners.
“And it’s really targeted to getting the money in the hands of underemployed building contractors,” Genzer says. Indeed, HOME STAR advocates claim that the $6 billion could create 160,000 new jobs in the flagging building sector.
Genzer adds that small-scale-efficiency programs are cheaper than building new nuclear plants or big wind farms. And homes are a fat target for savings — buildings use 40 percent of the country’s energy. But caulk and insulation aren’t very sexy either.
“Is it easier for a politician to cut a ribbon in front of a nuclear power plant than it is in front of a house that’s been weatherized?” he asks. “Well, maybe.”
Listen to the full report online:
"Cash for Caulkers" isn't just a good idea. It is the first step in transforming our economy over to renewable energy. It means jobs, and NO NEW POWERPLANTS! Weatherize and reduce your utility bill, better yet, make your building ZERO-NET Energy, then add renewable energy production, and power your car on the sun.
Friday, October 22, 2010
The US Gulf Cost is in Cardiac Arrest
Six months ago, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew up and sank in the Gulf of Mexico. The initial explosion grabbed the nation's attention, but few imagined what was to come. As the oil spread, writer Terry Tempest Williams felt compelled to bear witness to the devastation and share the stories of those most affected.
The amount of oil and dispersant chemical contamination is unknown and causing long term health problems for the people and the animals. The economy and the wildlife are toxic. The Cajun and Creole people are starving.
Listen to TOTN:
The amount of oil and dispersant chemical contamination is unknown and causing long term health problems for the people and the animals. The economy and the wildlife are toxic. The Cajun and Creole people are starving.
Listen to TOTN:
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