GLOBAL WARMING SOLUTIONS SUGGESTED

An Oakland global warming workshop was a veritable hive of creative thinking:

Palo Alto Mayor Yoriko Kishimoto proposed getting people out of their cars by hiking the cost of gas.

Bus advocate Lynn Conly suggested lowering the freeway speed limit.

An idea with a wider view came from Stuart Cohen, executive director of the Transportation and Land Use Coalition. "If we're doing more compact, well designed, walkable communities, near transit, we are going to greatly reduce the emissions from future generations," said Cohen. "We've got empty busses, empty bike lanes, and we could switch people over to more fuel efficient cars. Within a two year period we can really start to reduce our carbon emissions."

"Get those golf clubs out of the trunk of your car. They add a whole lot of energy inefficiency," said Ted Droettboom, with a regional agency on climate change.

Whew, problem solved and I didn't have to do a thing.

Update: Brit John Large did more than talk about global warming, he spent £13,000 having a wind turbine installed at his home. The results are, well, disappointing:

At this rate, it is calculated, it will take 2,768 years for the electricity generated by the turbine to pay for itself, by which time he will be past caring about global warming.

The wind turbine was installed at the engineer's home in Woolwich, southeast London, four weeks ago and has so far generated four kilowatts of electricity. An average household needs 23kw every day to power its lights and appliances.

Via James Waterton