I’m excited to announce that I’ve moved the business website for Danenberg Consulting LLC to 100% solar powered web hosting! I’ve also become a reseller and joined their affiliate program. I’m a huge fan of solar power, by the way.

As a reseller, I interface directly with my clients to handle their support needs. It helps keep their management overhead down to one simple point of contact. I’m not looking to become some big web hosting company. The profit margins are very low, and support takes more time than it’s worth unless you have full control of your costs and are willing to devote ALL of your time to it. But for clients that I am developing custom applications for, it only makes sense to extend hosting services. It simplifies application development by having a known hosting provider. Subtle server differences can waste development time debugging configuration issues. It’s simpler management on my end dealing with fewer providers, and it can’t hurt to be a valued client who brings in a lot of business to one provider.

As an affiliate, I get a teeny commission whenever anyone signs up for service with my affiliate link. I don’t have to deal with support or anything. I don’t even have to know them. Not expecting much from this. Maybe I’ll put the proceeds toward my reed fund?

I’ve got my energy consulting client on board with this move. Currently, helping them move their site over. We’ve got future development in the works that will be hosted on solar-powered application servers. Very cool.

Here’s my business blog entry about the move to solar. I’ve also set up a page describing my web hosting services as a reseller.

I’m hoping to set up a Virtual Dedicated Server in the future so that I can move all my other sites over to solar power.

When I learned about endangered species and extinction in elementary school, lessons focused on fairly exotic extinct creatures like the Dodo bird and the Tasmanian Tiger. We talked about the once-common Passenger Pigeon, or how the American Bison was nearly hunted to extinction.

Like many kids, I was a dinosaur fanatic. I pored through my favorite dinosaur book Life Before Man (pictured top center) for hours, despite it having toxic-smelling paper fumes that made me feel nauseous. From that book, I learned about how the Moa survived on an island until the 1500’s, when it was hunted to extinction. It seemed like such a shame that a 12-foot-tall prehistoric bird nearly survived long enough, in relative terms, for us to actually see it live.

Still, the threat of extinction seemed rather limited to a small set of creatures when I was a child. I wanted to protect them all myself, but I thought surely people were taking care of the situation. I was just a kid, but people had written all these books. Perhaps it was too late to see the skies blackened by passenger pigeons, but no one would let elephants or gorillas go extinct, knowing what we know now, right?

Well, thirty years later, the list of critically endangered species is alarmingly extensive. Every day, creatures are added to the list that I never would have dreamed would be threatened when I was a kid. Species that I could have seen, including the Chinese River Dolphin (Baiji) and the Wester Black Rhinoceros have gone extinct due to direct human activity.

Not long ago, I found the website for the Lost Ladybug Project. Quoting from their home page, "Over the past twenty years several native ladybugs that were once very common have become extremely rare." The last twenty years! Not far away exotic creatures, but insects I grew up with in my own back yard! When you’re a kid, about two-and-a-half feet tall, you are acutely aware of the critters running around in your yard. Lady bugs, aphids on leaves, praying mantises, millipedes… I’ve spent time in recent years in my parent’s back yard in Connecticut, getting down on the ground, wondering if things these days are a lot different ecologically than when I was a kid. I’ve felt that things ARE so very different. I used to catch toads on a daily basis where I now see none. The dreaded White-faced Hornet of my childhood is a rare site these days. Summer choruses of Katydids seem never in session.

The Lost Ladybug Project struck me as proof of my observations.  I feel there is very little I can do to personally intervene, but this site seems like a good start. They are asking our help to collect and identify lady bugs. Their Kid’s Page is under construction, but it seems perfect to get children interested in conservation. When I was a kid, it seemed like something up to other people to do. Now, it’s more apparent than ever that every one of us must play a part, starting with the very insects in your back yard.  Will future generations have only a few oddballs like me who care about things like this, or will everybody care?

Obviously, sung to the tune written by R.E.M., but on to serious matters…

Last Thursday, Sarah Palin campaigning in Wisconsin used the phrase "clean, green natural gas" in her speech.  I catapulted into virtual convulsions upon hearing this!  From the transcript:

"…I have secured agreements to build a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline to get our clean, green natural gas down to hungry markets like here in Wisconsin…"

It offended my sensibilities so much that I had to write about it.  Googling the phrase shows that it’s not the first time it’s been used.  Perhaps, it’s a catchy slogan by one of the oil and gas industry’s PR firms?  At any rate, it’s grossly inaccurate.

I suspect that most people are aware of this.  So I won’t bother exhaustively researching the topic.  (If you disagree, please exhaustively research the topic…)  However, a sobering article fell into my lap this weekend; lap being mailbox, fell being put.

You can read the New York Magazine article "The Catskills Gas Rush" online in its entirety, or just help yourself to my cherry-picked rant below.

The article tells of the prospecting and exploitation of natural gas reserves held within the Marchellus Shale, a massive rock formation that stretches from below Albany, New York, through Pennsylvania, and all the way to Ohio and West Virginia.   It is possibly the largest reservoir of natural gas in America.  However, until recent high oil prices, no one has bothered to extract it because of the difficulty and expense.  Unlike other reserves, this gas is tightly trapped in the rock.

Well, the article goes on to explain the process by which this gas is extracted:

 "But the greater concern is the horizontal hydraulic fracturing process—known as “fracing”—which rattles the ground like earthquakes. Out West, where fracing began in 2003, neighbors complained that the process spoiled their drinking-water wells and damaged their foundations. The water for blasting open the shale and freeing the gas is treated with chemicals, to help break up the stone, and mixed with sand, to hold open the newly created fissures. Exactly which chemicals are used is not publicly known. The recipe was pioneered by Halliburton. The company considers the formula to be a trade secret and guards it like Kentucky Fried Chicken guards its batter recipe. One large independent study of fraced wells in the West, by the environmental scientist Theo Colborn, identified over 400 chemical toxins in contaminated groundwater and soil, including the carcinogens ethylbenzene, chromium, and arsenic."

Not exactly "clean and green" is it?  But it doesn’t really matter to the oil and gas companies, because they have a free pass to pollute at will:

"No prosecutions were brought. I was astonished to learn that the Energy Policy Act of 2005, passed by Congress in part to reduce dependence on foreign energy, specifically exempts oil and gas companies from major environmental-protection laws. These include the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act."

Furthermore, regardless of how tidily natural gas could be extracted, it is still a fossil fuel…

"But natural gas is no solution to global warming. It still contributes greenhouse gases…"

The article focuses on the Catskills, a mountain range northwest of New York City.  So this really does hit "close to home" in way that even lifting the ban on offshore drilling doesn’t (which also sends chills up my spine in an age when renewable energy should be our first priority and is within reach if we try).  I’ve spent time in and traveling through the Catskills numerous time and it is beautiful countryside.  It’s vast and lazy, rolling, green mountains so close to industrialized and urban areas are a treasure largely unprotected outside Catskill State Park.  The range also is a fairly impoverished region, so the big gas money coming in is being widely accepted by landowners.

"Many residents eagerly sign without a lawyer; those who don’t are holding out for a better offer. He [the gas company prospector featured in the article] hasn’t found a single person who is anti-gas."

I’m sure the locals would take offense to my taking offense, being that it’s where they live and they need the money.  For me, it’s a wilderness playground away from city life.  But my concerns are of a global scale.

"There are 500 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Marcellus, enough recoverable fuel to meet all of the nation’s needs for two full years."

To me, that reads "only two years"?  How much groundwater do we pollute for decades and generations to come for a mere two years of one country’s energy supply?  And at what climate cost?  At what point do we focus on renewable and climate-safe energy sources exclusively?  I’m afraid it won’t be until after all fossil sources are exhausted.  What will be left of the planet for our children then?

I have been losing more and more sleep over this in recent years.  Sometimes, I think maybe the thing to do is just seek refuge in a cabin in the Catskills and subsist on turnips…but even that plan is now in jeopardy!

I just wanted to share this site with everybody.  Inhabitat.com is a blog that provides a ton of fascinating content about sustainable design, architecture, and technology.  The homes and commercial structures featured are brilliant in design and function.  I originally discovered the site while browsing for articles passive solar housing.  However, far beyond building, Inhabitat showcases a whole array of design, including fashion, gadgets, transportation, household products, and lighting.

I read the feeds every day and am always amazed and heartened by the innovation happening out there these days to protect our planet for future generations.  Yet, when you look around, environmental sensibility still seems to be a fringe element.  I hope that sites like Inhabitat.com help spread the beauty and common sense of sustainable design.

Some recent favorites: 

• Electric cars can be fast
• A bizarre concept for a 2-MILE-HIGH  vertical eco city
• Beautiful prefab homes like this one
• Wind-powered swirly lights for your back yard
• The rise of solar power

Unfortunately, a lot of the innovations featured are rather expensive or targeted as high-end luxuries.  A lot of the technology is emerging and will become more affordable as it becomes more mainstream.  However, I’d like to see more cool designs and sustainable products available at prices that everybody can afford.  After all, protecting the environment only works if we can all participate, not just the few top percentiles of consumers.

To that end, I believe Inhabitat.com helps by generating interest in sustainable design.  The more people who catch on, the more demand and innovation.  Hopefully, this technology becomes ubiquitous.  It has to.

Here’s a little something awesome I found featured on Inhabitat.com, a blog that focuses on sustainable design and architecture.  You can order a plush mollusk called a Socktopus that is made from recycled sweaters and is "lovingly filled with hypoallergenic polyester".  I think it’s brilliant because the recycled result is convincingly a new product, whereas some recycled products fall short and just seem like stuff with garbage stuck to it.  And wisely, despite the catchy name, these are made of sweaters not socks!  Aren’t they cute?

Which got me to wondering…what would it look like if Bill Cosby recycled his sweaters?

This weekend, I learned that the tallest tree in the world is a coast redwood named Hyperion. He stands a towering 379.1 feet (115.55 meters) tall! The location in a remote region of Redwood National Park is kept secret out of fear tourists would damage the forest’s ecosystem. And what kind of forest is an old-growth redwood forest? Remember the Ewoks? The forested planet of Endor was certainly my favorite setting in the Star Wars trilogy, with it’s huge and majestic trees. You don’t need a spaceship to get there, though. It’s all right here on Earth…for now.

In the 1970’s, only 15% of the Californian redwood forest’s original range remained in it’s pristine old growth state, thanks to logging and development. Today, a shocking 4%* of old growth forest all that remains! And the logging continues!

Sometimes it’s hard to visualize a figure like 4%. Here are some examples that illustrate the magnitude of what has happened to our redwood forest:

• The estimated 2007 US population is 303,111,027. If there were 4% remaining, that would be only 12,124,441. That would be like only the populations of New York City and Los Angeles remaining!
• There are 30 Major League Baseball teams, each with a 25-man active roster. That’s 750 players. If only 4% remained, the league would consist of: The Boston Red Sox, and the 5-man starting rotation of the Colorado Rockies.
• That Grande (16 oz.) cup of Starbucks coffee you rely on every morning? Well, sorry, but you’re getting just 2 teaspoons now! Drink up.
• During the daytime, you can expect to catch a subway in New York City approximately once every 5 minutes. Uh oh…if there’s only 4% of trains remaining, you’re going to have to wait 2 hours for the next train!
• Eggs now come in cartons of 1/2 egg.
• The phrase 24/7/365 now only applies from January 1st through 14th. Sorry, you’re going to have to call Dell next year to get your laptop fixed.
• Good golly, the average adult penis size is less than a quarter of an inch!

Well, that was shocking, wasn’t it? Then it should be equally shocking that so much old-growth redwood forest has disappeared! And what about that drop from 15% remaining to 4% remaining since the 70’s? That happened during my lifetime! Some of these trees are over 2,000 years old!

That’s right, any portion of redwood forest replanted today would take another 2,000 years to return to the pristine state we see in the present remaining forest!

I want to go to the redwood forest myself to experience it in person. I want our ancestors 57 generations from now to be able to experience the same thing, to see grand redwood forests planted today, and hopefully somehow still have rich biological diversity in their world, though it slips away from us each passing day.

* – I found these figures online, but I’m not sure how recent they are. They refer to old growth redwood forests (you know, with thousands-year-old trees and their original ecosystem intact), but an even smaller portion is protected park land. According to Jeff of Humboldt Forest Defense, California environmentalists are reporting less than 2% remain! Anyhow, this is far too small a number. It wouldn’t take more than a very localized disaster to wipe out what remains!

I’ve been giving Compact Fluorescent Lamps a try since early this year. They use far less wattage than incandescent bulbs, prompting Australia and Canada to begin phasing out incandescent bulbs to reduce energy consumption. A 14 Watt CFL outputs the same light as a 60 Watt incandescent bulb, and lasts up to 10 times longer. According to the math on the packaging, the electrical costs you save on one bulb over its lifetime pays for the bulb fivefold. Just reducing the environmental load of power generation is enough for me to get the warm fuzzies, so the cost saving is icing on the cake.

There is some controversy, though, about the “greenness” of these bulbs. As with any fluorescent bulbs, CFL’s contain mercury, about 4mg per bulb. So in order for this mercury to not pollute the environment, every you must recycle every bulb (See recycling information links below).

Consider the fact that coal-burning power plants release mercury into the atmosphere. Over the five-year lifetime of a CFL, the mercury emissions via coal-generated power are 2.4mg, plus 4mg in the bulb, for a total of 6.4mg. Equivalent five-year usage of incandescent bulbs causes 10mg of emissions. (US EPA, 2002) Of course, 4mg of that mercury is trapped in the bulb and can be recycled and needn’t ever be released to the environment! Conversely, you can’t recycle what goes up the smokestack once it’s release to the atmosphere.

I believe there needs to be more incentive for people to recycle their CFL’s. People get lazy, you know. It would be great if there was a deposit on each CFL, like with bottles and cans, maybe 50 cents or so? And how about more green energy?

Well, anyway, I’ve tried several brands of bulbs with mixed results. The earlier bulbs had a barely perceptible flicker to the light that I found a bit jarring. One bulb even had an annoying hum, but others of the same brand were fine.

I recently purchased several varieties of BlueMax CFL’s that I am quite pleased with! There is no detectable flicker or hum. Good fluorescent lights use three or four colored phosphors to blend into white light. Sunlight consists a full spectrum of colors. BlueMax bulbs use six phosphors in order to more closely simulate natural sunlight. After, comparing these CFL’s side by side with two other brands, I agree that the light is more natural.

I purchased two varieties, Daylight Spiral and Sunset Spiral. The Daylight bulbs have a color temperature of 5900° Kelvin, which approaches daylight. The Sunset bulbs are closer to the warm glow of standard incandescents at 3000° Kelvin. I much prefer the Daylight bulbs for my office.

Recycling information links:
http://www.epa.gov/bulbrecycling/
http://www.lamprecycle.org/

Here’s a fascinating site about urban planning for cities without cars:

Carfree Cities

These designs rely on circular districts interconnected by metro rail. Each district is walkable within five minutes and is totally free of cars. The resulting layout alleviates the congestion, pollution, and danger of modern urban environments that have become overrun by private automobile use.

It’s a book, too, apparently.