The Observation Deck

You can win a FREE Amaryllis with a suggestion or a green idea!

For those not familiar with the amaryllis, considered by many to
be a Christmas flower, Deb and I have been able to get two flowers
a year from our. The grow from a bul the size of a grapefruit into
a magnificent 3' flower in a pot just a little larger than the bulb!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA2ZCO06fiY
A short video


This make an amaryllis fun for the entire family. Children can
see it grow day by day then be amazed at the flower sometimes
as large as their head.





Every year the Lakewood Observer donates to the Huntington Disease
Awareness Fund, as LO member and supporter Eva Weissman is on
their board and has asked us for support which we gladly give.

This year we gave more than usual and received a full case of
amaryllis, and want to share them with the members.

So if you would like to win one for free, just send in ANY suggestion
for making Lakewood more green, and you will be entered into a drawing
for a FREE amaryllis. Drawing will be March 12. We have 16 to give away.

So get a free amaryllis, become aware of Huntington Disease, and
be rewarded with unparalleled beauty!

To submit, send you idea to: editor@lakewoodobserver.com, or click on one of the many suggestion boxes throughout the site. You can enter more than once.

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Jim O'Bryan wrote:You can win a FREE Amaryllis with a suggestion or a green idea!

Keep those suggestions coming in!


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forget about the flowers, who ever won the I-Pod?

http://blog.greenenergytv.com/blog/greenenergytv/0/0/mit-students-harness-energy-from-bumps-in-the-road

This could be a big win/win for Lakewood. MIT has developed shock absorbers that generate energy.

This is a major development and if this technology can be used on every vehicle, it would be the fastest ways to cut down on our dependence on oil. The team plans to have a final version ready for this summer. Imagine if they continue to improve the efficiency of this shock absorber year after year. In ten years, cars might run off of bumpy roads, and we will save tax dollars from not having to pave the roads or fill pot holes as much.

Okay, the last post was kind of a joke, but interesting idea for the future.

One of the most immediate things that we can do which my children brought to my attention was Heat Islands that British Meterologist Luke Howard discovered in the early 1800s. Building materials especially dark colors in general hold heat more so than light colors or farmland.

I'm excerpting some parts of Hunter's thesis here -

Bjorn Lomborg in his book Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming which I strongly recommend offers the following insights.
[quote]“The other main reason that cities are hotter is that they have a lot of black asphalt and heat absorbing dark structures. Although it may seem almost comically straightforward, one of the main solutions is very simple: paint the tarmac and the buildings white. Increase the general reflectivity and natural shading from building, and we can avoid a great deal of the heat build up. In London this can lower heat by 18o Fâ€

Okay, since I'm on a roll. One of Don's favorite ideas is what the City of Berkley has done. They have a FIRST (Financing Initiative for Renewable and Solar Technology) program.

http://www.cityofberkeley.info/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=26580

Berkeley FIRST is a solar financing program offered by the City of Berkeley. It provides property owners an opportunity to borrow money from the City’s Sustainable Energy Financing District to install solar photovoltaic electric systems and allow the cost to be repaid over 20 years through an annual special tax on their property tax bill. The tax will only be paid by Berkeley property owners who voluntarily participate in the Berkeley FIRST program.

The advantages of the Berkeley FIRST program are:There is relatively little up-front cost to the property owner. The cost for the solar system is paid for through a special tax on the property, and is spread over 20 years. The financing costs are comparable to a traditional equity line or mortgage. Since the solar system stays with the property, so does the tax obligation—if the property is transferred or sold, the new owners will pay the remaining tax obligation.

We could do this or we could do it for Geothermal energy or both or whatever form makes sense. There are calculators that can be used, but the goal is that these alternative forms of energy save you more than they cost, when spread over a number of years.

I bet we could use some of the Stimulus money for that. This seems to be in the weatherproofing your home area.

I haven't heard if there was a winner yet. Jim????

But if there isn't I have another idea. Maybe the schools can use this experimentally with a grant for green ideas.

Having recently purchased a Sony reader (similar to the Kindle that Oprah discussed) I realized how wonderful it was and how I wasn't taking up space or killing trees. I have well over 100 books on my Sony.

I thought how cost effective it would be for text book publishers and schools to put the text books for a year on a Sony/Kindle. If the school was buying one for every student - there would be a huge discount. Then when it came time to upgrade, there wouldn't be the huge cost of reprinting out of date books. Actually publishers could update books yearly for corrections and new materials.

I student would be given one for a year and all of the books they need could be on it. For grade school, these books could be turned in every year, for HS, a system would have to be developed. Even required reading books could be downloaded to these systems. No muss, no fuss. The student wouldn't develop problems carrying heavy book bags around. The units stay charged for 2 weeks of pretty continuous use.

Plus your child only has to remember to bring one book home and he/she has them all. That is a huge benefit particularily if your kids are anything like my son. He continuously had to go back to school to get a book he forgot.

Kindle right now controls the text to audio feature by rights management based on the book (because audio books sell so well). But this could easily be adapted with dyslexic children or really any child to read the information aloud to them.

New York times did a survey and found that they could save a lot of money every year by buying their subscriber these devices and allowing them to download instead of printing and delivering the paper every day.

Obviously we aren't talking delivery costs, but think of the trees we could save and the benefit to the kids of being able to update textbooks yearly.

Lynn

Do nopt have a complete list here. But Steve Hoffert won one, Kit won one, Mat Markling won one, Ken Stevens won one, Betsy Voinovich won one, Tina at Lion n Blue won one, Pat Murphy won one, Four blumed, and are awaiting being turned dormat.

Will check the list later this afternoon.

Big morning, another launch.

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Jim O'Bryan wrote:Matt Markling won one ....

Thank you, by the way. The boys had fun growing it!

Seems like someone likes my idea!!!! My alma mater is trying it.

Maybe Lakewood School Board could try this too - be a test site for them. Save money and be green at the same time.


http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/amazon-plans-kindle-for-school-books/

From the Wall Street Journal:

Amazon.com Inc. on Wednesday plans to unveil a new version of its Kindle e-book reader with a larger screen and other features designed to appeal to periodical and academic textbook publishers, according to people familiar with the matter.

Beginning in the fall, some students at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland will be given large-screen Kindles with textbooks for chemistry, computer science, and a freshman seminar already installed, said Lev Gonick, the school's chief information officer. The university plans to compare the experiences of the students who are issued the devices and those who use traditional textbooks, said Mr. Gonick.

Amazon has worked out a deal with several textbook publishers to make their materials available for the device, Mr. Gonick said. The new device will also feature a more fully functional Web browser, he said. The current version of the Kindle, which debuted in February, contains a Web browser that is classified as "experimental."
With a fully-capable Web browser and college (or high school) textbooks available on the spot, I can see this device becoming a behemoth on campuses world-wide. I'm sure Amazon can as well.

-- Stephen C. Webster

Looks like I'm on a roll. They say if you toot your own horn, at least you know it is getting tooted.

But my idea (or Hunter's idea) is being suggested by our own Nobel Winning Secretary of Energy.

The Nobel laureate in physics called for a "new revolution" in energy generation to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

But he warned there was no silver bullet for tackling climate change, and said a range of measures should be introduced, including painting flat roofs white.

Making roads and roofs a paler colour could have the equivalent effect of taking every car in the world off the road for 11 years, Chu said.

It was a geo-engineering scheme that was "completely benign" and would keep buildings cooler and reduce energy use from air conditioning, as well as reflecting sunlight back away from the Earth.

For people who found white hard on the eye, scientists had also developed "cool colours" which looked to the human eye like normal ones, but reflect heat like pale colours even if they are darker shades.

And painting cars in cool or light colours could deliver considerable savings on energy use for air conditioning units, he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090526/sc_afp/climatewarmingusbritainchu

Seems like the city could use white material on municipal roofs and parking lots and start helping our global warming and reducing our energy costs.