Portland

A view of Deering Oaks Park...

GigaPan(SM)

"GigaPan is the newest development of the Global Connection Project, which aims to help us meet our neighbors across the globe, and learn about our planet itself. GigaPan will help bring distant communities and peoples together through images that have so much detail that they are, themselves, the objects of exploration, discovery and wonder. We believe that enabling people to explore, experience, and share each other's worlds can be a transforming experience. Our mission is to make all aspects of the GigaPan experience accessible and affordable to the broadest possible community.

GigaPan consists of three technological developments: a robotic camera mount for capturing very high-resolution (gigapixel and up) panoramic images using a standard digital camera; custom software for constructing very high-resolution gigapixel panoramas; and, a new type of website for exploring, sharing and commenting on gigapixel panoramas and the detail our users will discover within them. The GigaPan website allows hosting and sharing all kinds of panoramas, and so the robotic GigaPan mount is recommended but is certainly not required to be part of this community.

In addition to the individual user community, we have are working with a number of partners, including The World (BBC/WGBH), and projects like the Pennsylvania Civil War Trails. Stay tuned for announcements about several other professional and educational applications of GigaPan which are currently in development. We hope to disseminate the GigaPan technology as broadly as possible for cultural and environmental understanding and for education."

From GigaPan website

Front Pages

Looking down...

From CNN

Change has come!

Taking the oath of office

Obama's Inaugural Address

• Story Highlights
• Obama: The crises we face are strong, but so is America
  
• We gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity over conflict, he says
  
• He says nation's past achievements show that we can overcome problems
  
• To terrorists, he says "our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken"
  

(CNN) -- Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States and the nation's first African-American president Tuesday. This is a transcript of his prepared speech.

My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often, the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land -- a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America: They will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the fainthearted -- for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long, rugged path toward prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again, these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions -- that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act -- not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions -- who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them -- that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works -- whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account -- to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day -- because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control -- and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart -- not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: Know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort -- even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West: Know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment -- a moment that will define a generation -- it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends -- hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism -- these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world; duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence -- the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed -- why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent Mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world ... that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive... that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested, we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back, nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

16 inches later...

...from my cellphone.

We Are One

History

Poster by Shepard Fairey

Feeling Good

Feeling Good

Birds flying high you know how I feel
Sun in the sky you know how I feel
Reeds driftin on by you know how I feel

Its a new dawn
Its a new day
Its a new life
For me
And Im feeling good

Fish in the sea you know how I feel
River running free you know how I feel
Blossom in the tree you know how I feel

Its a new dawn
Its a new day
Its a new life
For me
And Im feeling good

Dragonfly out in the sun you know what I mean, dont you know
Butterflies all havin fun you know what I mean
Sleep in peace when day is done
Thats what I mean

And this old world is a new world
And a bold world
For me

And Im feeling good

Stars when you shine you know how I feel
Scent of the pine you know how I feel
Oh freedom is mine
And I know how I feel

And this old world is a new world
And a bold world
For me

And Im feeling good

Anthony Newley, Leslie Bricusse

Green

Green Tips


Green Gifts

Green Geeks

Green Blogs

Bee on Lace

Just got married...

...and did the cake and decorations myself. I am still recovering.

Tattoo

Designed by my son - kind of cool that I'll be carrying a piece of his artwork for the rest of my life.

Strong coffee, much strong coffee, is what awakens me. Coffee gives me warmth, waking an unusual force and a pain that is not without very great pleasure. I would rather suffer with coffee than be senseless.

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

Coffee

Coffee is real good when you drink it it gives you time to think. It's a lot more than just a drink; it's something happening. Not as in hip, but like an event, a place to be, but not like a location, but like somewhere within yourself. It gives you time, but not actual hours or minutes, but a chance to be, like be yourself, and have a second cup.

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946)

Grace

Divine love and protection bestowed freely

A state of being protected or sanctified

To honor or favor

Merciful or compassionate

To give beauty or elegance

A favor rendered by someone who need not do so; indulgence

A reprieve


The winds of grace are always blowing, It is you that must raise your sail. Rabindramath Tagor

NYT

June 19, 2007

Editorial Observer

Millions of Missing Birds, Vanishing in Plain Sight

By VERLYN KLINKENBORG

Last week, the Audubon Society released a new report describing the sharp and startling population decline of some of the most familiar and common birds in America: several kinds of sparrows, the Northern bobwhite, the Eastern meadowlark, the common grackle and the common tern. The average decline of the 20 species in the Audubon Society’s report is 68 percent.

Forty years ago, there were an estimated 31 million bobwhites. Now there are 5.5 million. Compared to the hundred-some condors presently in the wild, 5.5 million bobwhites sounds like a lot of birds. But what matters is the 25.5 million missing and the troubles that brought them down — and are all too likely to bring down the rest of them, too. So this is not extinction, but it is how things look before extinction happens.

The word “extinct” somehow brings to mind the birds that seem like special cases to us, the dodo or the great auk or the passenger pigeon. Most people would never have had a chance to see dodos and great auks on their remote islands before they were decimated in the 17th and 19th centuries. What is hard to remember about passenger pigeons isn’t merely their once enormous numbers. It’s the enormous numbers of humans to whom their comings and goings were a common sight and who supposed, erroneously, that such unending clouds of birds were indestructible. We recognize the extraordinary distinctness of the passenger pigeon now because we know its fate, killed off largely by humans. But we have moralized it thoroughly without ever really taking it to heart.

The question is whether we will see the distinctness of the field sparrow — its number is down from 18 million 40 years ago to 5.8 million — only when the last pair is being kept alive in a zoo somewhere. We love to finally care when the death watch is on. It makes us feel so very human.

Like you, I’ve been reading dire reports of declining species for many years now. They have the value of causing us to pay attention to species in trouble, and the sad fact is that the only species likely to endure are the ones we humans manage to pay attention to. There was a time when it was better, if you were a nonhuman species, to be ignored by humans because we trapped, shot or otherwise exploited all of the ones that got our attention. But in the past 40 years, we have killed all those millions of birds or, let us say, unintentionally caused a dramatic population loss, simply by going about business as usual.

Agriculture has intensified. So has development. Open space has been sharply reduced. We have simply pursued our livelihoods. We knew it was inimical to wolves and mountain lions. But we somehow trusted that all the innocent little birds were here to stay. What they actually need to survive, it turns out, is a landscape that is less intensely human.

The Audubon Society portrait of common bird species in decline is really a report on who humans are. Let me offer a proposition about Homo sapiens. We are the only species on earth capable of an ethical awareness of other species and, thus, the only species capable of happily ignoring that awareness. So far, our economic interests have proved to be completely incompatible with all but a very few forms of life. It’s not that we believe that other species don’t matter. It’s that, historically speaking, it hasn’t been worth believing one way or another. I don’t suppose that most Americans would actively kill a whippoorwill if they had the chance. Yet in the past 40 years its number has dropped by 1.6 million.

In our everyday economic behavior, we seem determined to discover whether we can live alone on earth. E.O. Wilson has argued eloquently and persuasively that we cannot, that who we are depends as much on the richness and diversity of the biological life around us as it does on any inherent quality in our genes. Environmentalists of every stripe argue that we must somehow begin to correlate our economic behavior — by which I mean every aspect of it: production, consumption, habitation — with the welfare of other species.

This is the premise of sustainability. But the very foundation of our economic interests is self-interest, and in the survival of other species we see way too little self to care.

The trouble with humans is that even the smallest changes in our behavior require an epiphany. And yet compared to the fixity of other species, the narrowness of their habitats, the strictness of their diets, the precision of the niches they occupy, we are flexibility itself.

We look around us, expecting the rest of the world’s occupants to adapt to the changes that we have caused, when, in fact, we have the right to expect adaptation only from ourselves.

7 Simple Ideas That Can Save the World

The need for more energy and rising greenhouse gases pose a dual challenge to global prosperity. A new vision of conservation—of doing more with less—may be the key.

By Stefan Theil

Newsweek International

Jan. 29, 2007 issue - Forget the old cliche that conserving energy is a form of abstinence—riding bicycles, dimming the lights, lowering the thermostat and taking fewer showers. These days conservation is all about efficiency: getting the same—or better—results from just a fraction of the energy. When a slump in business travelers forced Ulrich Römer to cut costs at his family-owned Hotel am Stadtpark in Hilden, Germany, in 2002, he found that he didn't have to skimp on comfort for his guests. Instead, he replaced hundreds of the hotel's wasteful incandescent light bulbs with energy-saving compact fluorescent ones, getting the same light for 80 percent less power. He bought a state-of-the-art water boiler with a digitally controlled pump, and wrapped insulation around the pipes. Spending about €100,000 on these and other improvements, he slashed his €90,000 fuel and power bill by €60,000—a 60 percent return on investment, year after year after year. As a bonus, the hotel's lower energy needs have reduced its annual carbon emissions by more than 200 metric tons. "For us, saving energy has been very, very profitable," he says. "And most importantly, we're not giving up a single comfort for our guests."

Multiply savings like Römer's across the economy, and it's clear why energy efficiency is no longer an issue just for the eco-fringe, but one of the hottest topics in business—and a way to add billions of dollars to the bottom line. What's more, with the world worried about energy supplies, efficiency turns out to hold the key. As global leaders convene in Davos, Switzerland, this week at the World Economic Forum, they'll discuss power shifts, none of which has more positive potential than the move from squandering to saving energy. "Increasing energy efficiency is the largest, least expensive, most benign, most quickly deployable, least visible, least understood and most neglected way" to meet future energy demand, says energy guru Amory Lovins, head of the Colorado-based Rocky Mountain Institute.

It's an idea whose time has come, though. When oil spiked to more than $70 a barrel last year, oil use in the industrial world fell for the first time in 20 years, according to the International Energy Agency. That shows how quickly energy saving can come back in vogue, but the IEA is cautious. It warns that world energy demand will surge by 50 percent through 2030, outstripping even the most aggressive scenario for boosting alternative sources of energy, like biofuels or solar power. "Even moderate efficiency improvements will contribute more to meeting future demand than all the alternative fuel sources combined," says Paul Waide, an efficiency expert at the IEA.

Efficiency is also a great way to lower carbon emissions and help slow global warming. But the best argument for efficiency is its cost—or, more precisely, its profitability. That's because burgeoning energy demand requires immense investment in new supply, not to mention the drain of rising energy prices. In the IEA's emissions-cutting strategy, consumers and industry would have to invest $2.4 trillion over the next two and a half decades in more-efficient equipment, improved buildings and better-mileage cars. But those investments would slash fuel and electricity bills by an estimated $8.1 trillion and avoid another $3 trillion of investment in oil wells, pipelines and power plants. Each dollar invested in efficiency generates more than $4 in savings, while the "payback period" is usually no more than four years.

No wonder efficiency has moved to the top of the political agenda. On Jan. 10, the European Union unveiled a plan to cut energy use across the continent by 20 percent by 2020. Last March, China mandated a 20 percent increase in energy efficiency by 2020. Even George W. Bush, the Texas oilman, is expected to talk about energy conservation in his State of the Union speech this week.

The good news is that the world is full of proven, cheap ways to save energy. Here are the seven that could have the biggest impact:

INSULATE INSULATE
Space heating and cooling eats up 36 percent of all the world's energy. There's virtually no limit to how much of that can be saved, as prototype "zero-energy homes" in Switzerland and Germany have shown. From polyurethane "outsulation" that's sprayed on the outside of buildings to airtight, "superglazed" windows, there's been a surge in innovative ways of keeping heat in and cold out (or vice versa). State-of-the-art insulation follows the law of increasing returns: if you add enough, you can scale down or even eliminate heating and air-conditioning equipment, lowering costs even before you start saving on utility bills. That's what Texas Instruments discovered in 2005 when it cut construction costs by 30 percent for its new, hyperefficient chip-making plant in Richardson, Texas. The cost savings produced by reflective roofing (the firm junked 100 tons of AC equipment) and letting in more daylight (it reduced lighting costs by 80 percent) helped keep the plant's 1,000 jobs in the United States as well. Studies have shown that green workplaces (ones that don't constantly need to have the heat or AC running) have higher worker productivity and lower sick rates.

CHANGE BULBS
Lighting gobbles up 20 percent of the world's electricity, or the equivalent of roughly 600,000 tons of coal a day. Forty percent of that powers old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs—a 19th-century technology that wastes most of the power it consumes on unwanted heat.

Compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs, not only use 75 to 80 percent less electricity than incandescent bulbs to generate the same amount of light, but they also last 10 times longer. Phasing old bulbs out by 2030 would save the output of 650 power plants and avoid the release of 700 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year. In recent weeks, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, announced an ambitious plan to sell 100 million bulbs by the end of the year. Each $2 bulb can lead to savings of more than $30 in power and replacement costs down the road. In December, Dutch electronics firm Philips became the first major bulb manufacturer to announce a gradual phaseout of the production of incandescent bulbs. That's great news—of any conservation investment, replacing bulbs produces the quickest and easiest payback.

COMFORT ZONE
Water boilers, space heaters, air conditioners and other heating and cooling technologies have been notoriously inefficient—only a fraction of the energy pumped into them is actually used to change the temperature. The heat pump has altered that equation. It removes ambient heat from the air outside or the ground below and uses it to supply heat to a building or its water supply. In the summer, the system can be reversed to cool buildings as well.

Most new residential buildings in Sweden are already heated with ground-source heat pumps; George W. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, uses one for heating and cooling. These systems consume almost no conventional fuel at all. (They use liquid natural gas in a closed cycle to exchange heat, like Freon in an AC, and need a small electric current to keep the compressors going.) The payback time depends on local fuel costs and building size; in Sweden, it's typically six to nine years for residential construction, and one or two years for large commercial buildings. Several countries have used subsidies to jump-start the market, including Japan, where almost 1 million heat pumps have been installed in the past two years to heat water for showers and hot tubs.

REMAKE FACTORIES
From steel mills and aluminum plants to pulp and paper factories, industry eats up about a third of the world's energy. The opportunities to save are vast. Japanese steelmakers such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries have been leading the way since the 1980s, cutting energy use by more than 70 percent by using heat from steel furnaces to run turbines that generate electricity. In Ludwigshafen, German chemicals giant BASF runs an interlocking complex of more than 200 chemical factories, where heat produced by one chemical process is used to power the next, or create electricity for another. At the Ludwigshafen site alone, such recycling of heat and energy saves the company €200 million a year and almost half its CO2 emissions. Now BASF is doing the same for new plants in China. "Optimizing energy efficiency is a decisive competitive advantage," says BASF CEO Jürgen Hambrecht.

GREEN DRIVING
A quarter of the world's energy—including two thirds of the annual production of oil—is used for transportation. Some savings come free of charge: you can boost fuel efficiency by 6 percent simply by keeping your car's tires properly inflated (which is why carmakers are working on electronic tire-pressure sensors). Gasoline-electric hybrids like the Toyota Prius or Lexus RX400h improve mileage by a further 20 percent over conventional models. Hybrid technology, however, still costs a premium of as much as $6,000 per car.

Until those prices come down, the better deal is a diesel, which gets up to 40 percent better mileage versus gasoline-powered cars.

Unlike their smoke-belching, slow-igniting ancestors, modern direct-injection diesels like Volkswagen's Passat TDI are clean and powerful, especially now that sulfur-free diesel has finally hit gas stations in the U.S. If by 2025 diesels represent one third of America's personal-vehicle fleet (about what the European figure is today), the U.S. would save 1.5 million barrels of oil a day—the amount it currently imports from Saudi Arabia. What's more, today's diesel engines are certified to run on up to 100 percent biodiesel as well, so the potential to slash oil use and carbon emissions down the road is even greater. Next: the diesel-electric hybrid, under development by Peugeot and DaimlerChrysler.

A BETTER FRIDGE
More than half of all residential power goes into running household appliances, producing a fifth of the world's carbon emissions. And that's true even though manufacturers have already hiked the efficiency of refrigerators and other white goods by as much as 70 percent since the 1980s. More improvements are in the works, promises Henrik Sundstrom, VP for environmental affairs for Sweden's Electrolux, the world's biggest appliance maker, including vacuum insulation for refrigerators and heat pumps for clothes dryers. While it's true that such top-of-the-line technology still carries a hefty premium, prices have been dropping fast for other "green" models. According to an IEA study, if consumers chose those models that would save them the most money over the life of the appliance, they'd cut global residential power consumption (and their utility bills) by 43 percent. Luckily, more than 60 countries have in recent years passed labeling laws that make it easier for consumers to choose wisely. And it works: after the European Union began requiring manufacturers to classify appliances according to power use in 1994, sales of highly efficient Class A appliances soared from close to zero to more than 80 percent today.

JUGGLE PAYMENT
Who says you have to pay for all your conservation investments? "Energy service contractors" will pay for retrofitting in return for a share of the client's annual utility-bill savings. "If I had a company I'd invest in my business, not my infrastructure," says Bernd Romanski, chief operating officer of energy-contracting business Hochtief Facility Management in Frankfurt, Germany; the firm's revenues have been growing by 30 percent each year. Hochtief recently renovated, at its own expense, the student union at cash-strapped Mainz University, splitting the 40 percent utility savings with the university for the next five years. In Beijing, Shenwu Thermal Energy Technology Co. specializes in retrofitting China's fuel-guzzling steel furnaces. Shenwu puts up the initial investment to install a heat exchanger that preheats the air going into the furnace, slashing the client's fuel costs. Shenwu pockets a cut of those savings, so both Shenwu and the client profit. In an even more novel approach, California utilities are paying consumers for "negawatts"—giving out extra rebates for cutting power use by 10 percent or more. California utilities like PG&E benefit by lowering peak electricity demand, which means they can avoid the billion-dollar expense of building additional power plants. There is even talk in California of creating a market to trade negawatts, passing savings along so that other utilities in the state can also avoid new plant construction.

If saving energy is so easy and profitable, why isn't everyone doing it? It has to do with psychology and a lack of information. Most of us tend to look at today's price tag more than tomorrow's potential savings. That holds double for the landlord or developer, who won't actually see a penny of the savings his investment in better insulation or a better heating system might generate. And in today's global real-estate boom, in which even a drafty hovel can fetch a fortune, efficiency standards rank unsurprisingly low on the list. "The savings rarely come in single, obvious chunks, but are hidden in a thousand little things," says Stefan Thomas of Germany's Wuppertal Climate Institute. In many people's minds, he says, conservation is still associated with abstinence and self-denial. Many environmentalists still push that view.

Smart governments can help nudge the market in the right direction. The EU's 1994 law on labeling was such a success that it extended the same idea to entire buildings last year. To boost the market value of efficiency, all new buildings are required to have an "energy pass" detailing power and heating consumption. Countries like Japan and Germany have successively tightened building codes, requiring an increase in insulation levels but leaving it up to builders to decide how to meet them. Tax breaks help owners of older buildings to retrofit. Today, the market for low-energy building materials has grown so big in Europe and Japan that many supplies—such as windows—come cheaper in the high-tech insulated version than in the old-fashioned, energy-wasting style. (And there's a boom in the insulation business to boot.)

A gradually rising fuel-efficiency minimum would do the same to vehicles; as an added carrot, Amory Lovins suggests a subsidy to help poorer drivers get their clunky old gas guzzlers off the road. Technically, since most energy savings pay for themselves, subsidies shouldn't be necessary. "But often they're the bait to get consumers to start thinking," says Thomas. Once the market is up and running, he says, they can be dropped—as in the Netherlands, where sales of efficient appliances remained high even after a temporary subsidy expired.

The most powerful incentives, of course, will come from the market itself. Over the past year, sky-high fuel prices have focused minds on efficiency like never before. Relentless pressure to cut costs has finally forced more companies to do some math on their energy use. Recent oil- and gas-price hikes by Russia have started to force some of the world's most energy-inefficient economies—Ukraine and Belarus—to think about efficiency measures. Even Russian energy giant Gazprom has caught on to efficiency, lured by the fledgling market in carbon credits. In a deal with Germany's Dresdner Bank announced last week, Gazprom plans to fix leaks in its infamously decrepit gas pipelines and replace its aging pumps and compressors, not only to cut energy waste but to generate up to €2 billion in carbon credits.

Will it be enough? With global demand and emissions rising so fast, we may not have any choice but to try. Efficient technology is here now, proven and cheap. Compared with all our other options, it's the biggest, easiest and most profitable bang for the buck, by far.

With Akiko Kashiwagi in Tokyo, Quindlen Krovatin in Beijing and Stephen Glain in Washington

© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.

Comet McNaught