Green Party Story - Sept 27th 2008

Picture: . The new director of Sustainable South Bronx organization is Ms. Miquela Craytor with hat, and unidentified colleague, while the well-known former director, Ms. Majora Carter has gone on to other related endeavors.


It was a nice day to go out for a little neighborhood party. The weather was warm for late September, though a bit rainy. The party was sponsored by the Sustainable South Bronx Organization which claimed that it was coordinating parties with environmental organizations across the country. I took my son Bert along for the ride. Bert loves to be driven for hours in his little car seat in the back, while I get to be his chauffeur. However, when we parked and I took him out of the car, he was a bit frightened, the way he gets sometimes when he goes to some place new. He insisted that I carry him to the party. It was in a big musty warehouse, almost by Southern Boulevard, near the Bruckner Expressway, called Rebuilders Source, in the South Bronx. more on this event at green jobs event here.

There was lots of food, music and information there. In fact, the music was mostly lousy, with various crazed individuals doing their karaoke type imitation of famous rap stars unknown to me, as well as old rock groups that I vaguely remembered. Different bands and individuals took turns playing live music and singing, much to the entertainment of the large crowd. It only got a bit cute, when a little black girl got up to the microphone, and without accompaniment sang a sweet version of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” In the back of the warehouse, children had their faces painted with amusing designs. I thought this might appeal to Bert, but since he is only 2, I thought it would scare the crap out of him, more than anything.

Warren Buffet, for Global Warming help, Bail me out

My greenie friends, said Warren Buffet, off the record, and off camera, you must bail me and Berkshire Hathaway out, as sure as you stop global warming. I and Bill Gates, of Microsoft have been using our billions to support such wonderful things such as solar power, appropriate technology, great slave labor projects for the third world, and such, and now you must pay back. If Marie Antoinette said, let them eat cake, I say, we can eat (so to speak) solar power. So bail me out, and soon a feudalistic, peasant beautiful lifestyle will arrive in the United States, the land of the brave. I do not ask you give me royal titles, as in Great Britain, the British Empire, the sweet mother country. Only, please, pass Paulson's bailout plan and bail me out. None of that commie, bankruptcy Franklin Roosevelt stuff, you hear. (spoof of Marie Antoinette, the late queen of France).

Biodiesel- Way Down Below the Ocean

Hail Atlantis!! Is the biodiesel source that you've been looking for really way down below the ocean? Solazyme Inc. says they have the answer. More on using algae to produce biodiesel fuel. Check out the UNH Biodiesel Group.

Superman and green Lantern going, down into the sea;
Gonna scoop up some biodiesel, the juice is on me;
Running huge industrial economies, with some greenie gook;
It sounds incredible, but who knows, let's have a look;
When the green gook powers your car, it will be the gook-mobile;
You'll be such a green macho, just think how it'll feel;

(spoof song, Donovan, Sunshine Superman)



Sapphire Energy announces it received $100 million from investors to make the algae biodiesel thing happen.

Translation: They are getting a huge tax break, to help offset their computer control business on nuclear missiles.

Involved are Bill Gates investment company, Cascade Investment, LLC, Heliae Development, LLC and Science Foundation Arizona (SFAz)working to develop a kerosene-based jet fuel derived from algae and also UOP, a Honeywell company. Solazyme Inc. announced it produced the first algae-derived jet fuel. To date, the company is the only one that has produced fuels that passed specification testing.

So, I guess that Bill Gates wants to be your sun shine superman.

Green Cooperative Block Party in Bronx NY

I've been invited to a Green Cooperative Block party in the South Bronx, NY. It’s going to be a fun event. Come and meet new people, celebrate green jobs in the South Bronx, tour the ReBuilders Source Cooperative’s warehouse, spread the word about your organization, and have a fun time. There will be plenty of information tables about green activities in the Bronx. There will also be: face-painting, BBQ (meat and veggie, music, games for kids, home improvement demonstrations and more.

The block party will be located in front of ReBuilders Source (461 Timpson Place). They're taking over the entire block between East 147th Street and East 145th Street, just one block east of Southern Boulevard and two blocks from the East 149th Street Station on the 6 train.

Composting to Reality- SF Style

San Francisco has been working hard over the last decade to lower its carbon footprint by diverting 70 percent of its trash from landfills through a composting program. The idea behind the program, called “Fantastic 3” is simple but good. As in the Edgar Allen Poe poem, "The Conquer Worm," using worms and microbiotic organisms, "the mimes become its food, and the seraphs sob at vermin fangs in human gore imbued." Though in this case, what is recycled by the worms is not human bodies but the waste of human activity.

The methane is reabsorbed into produce and farm products such as grapes from vineyards and lawns in the large oligarchical golf courses of Northern California. It is quite oligarchical, and should be adopted by Great Britain and Australia for all the royal and noble lands and hunting pastures. San Francisco has been able to curb a lot of its emissions by reabsorbing methane and ultimately ending up with viable products. San Francisco is looking to reach 75 percent recycling citywide by 2010 and the recycling business there has become a holy and religious ritual, to the supreme goddess, Gaia, mother earth. Hail our sweet mother!


The motivation for the project stemmed from a waste characterization study that showed people were throwing away 200,000 tons of waste, much of it organic wastes. Residents sort their refuse into three 32-gallon carts, while (in some cases) merrily chanting a hymn to the earth goddess. Food scraps and recyclable material are picked up for free, but the city has a pay-as-you-throw system (PAYT) where if you recycle more, you pay less! see more at my green click.

There was a recycle cart playing in my mind;
And I felt like getting high;
Dreaming about a recycle scheme;
I was hoping it wasn't a lie;

(Spoof song, Neil Young, After the Gold Rush, Mother Nature on the Run in the 1970s)

Solar Panels- Can You Afford Them

What makes solar panels on your home roof financially possible are government subsidies, and that is what you need to look for. Yet let's also look at some of the companies in the solar panel business:

Citizenre, from Wilmington, Delaware, offers a plan where the company pays for, installs, owns and operates the solar installation and the homeowner pays a flat, monthly fee. They are training installers and and trying to create a workable rental model for consumers. Maybe they are directly getting some cash from Uncle Sam. SolarCity, Foster City, California, is taking a solar lease program approach where customers can purchase a financing option that allows them to get solar panels with an up-front, down payment and a leasing payment. SunRun, of San Francisco, California, offers the opportunity for customers to buy the electricity the panels generate through its power purchase agreement (PPA). The company knows how to benefit from California laws that allow solar rebate incentives, which help finance the contracts, and Calif. electricity rates are at least 50-percent higher than anywhere else.

Remember that the cost to purchase the panels can be quite steep, with up front costs over 40,000 dollars in many cases, depending on the size. These high costs have served as a barrier for wide adoption of solar electricity. Although solar is still a relatively small market and finding installers in a given region can be hard, government subsidies are changing the situation. Wall Street lenders are already participating in financing corporate solar installations through companies like SunEdison and SunPower, and Morgan Stanley is in on the deal as well. For more info go to Green Click blog.