The best case I've read to date for a gasoline tax is Thomas Friedman's article in the New York Times on December 28th.

I have a six year old mini-van. I'd love to say I have a Prius, or some other kind of hybrid, but I don't and no new car is on our short term horizon. I'd also love to say that we live in an urban area, within walking distance of most of the "stuff" we need to do. But we don't, and no new house is on our horizon either. We live in suburbs, where to do...well..pretty much ANYTHING, you have to get in the car.

So we modify our behavior as much as we can. We group errands for fewer trips and go easy on the gas pedal. And truthfully, the drop in gas prices has been good news for us. But, as Friedman reports in his article, it's also part of the reason that trucks and SUVs will outsell cars in the month of December. There are some folks that truly need larger vehicles (and by "need" I mean they haul large equipment to job sites). But for most of us, having a super-sized vehicle is nice but not all that necessary. Yet we will jump at the chance, due to lower gas prices and dealer incentives, to buy a vehicle that we need a ladder to climb into and then lead the public outcry when someone mentions a gas tax.

That's short term thinking, and that's what got us into this mess in the first place. I don't think there are any easy answers - and if there are, I'm certainly not going to be the source of them. But I do know that if we don't voluntarily change our behavior then Friedman is right - the only answer is to have a system that will "permanently change consumer demand". Like a gas tax.

So no, I'm not looking forward to it. But, in the face of our own inability to modify our behavior, what else is there to do?

Interested inDuke Energy Carolinas 2009 Distributed Generation Program?

Duke Energy's plan to install solar panels at several hundred sites in North Carolina - including homes, schools, office buildings, etc. - is still scheduled to start in "early 2009".

The plan is still pending approval by the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) but if/when that comes through Duke plans to spend two years installing the panels.

Duke Energy is either a white hat or black hat kind of company, depending on your perspective. But this plan is interesting either way. If you're interested in participating (having panels put on your roof or property) you can fill out a form on Duke's site to try to qualify as a host site. There are a number of requirements, including the obvious (you need to be a Duke Energy customer, located in NC) and some not so obvious (a roof less than five years old). Check out the Duke Energy site for more information and requirements.

NC GreenPower Offers Carbon Offsets

NC GreenPower now offers a carbon offset option. These are, as the NC GreenPower site says, opportunities to balance your impact on the environment. Offsets don't replace conservation - they are supposed to supplement your efforts to reduce your carbon footprint.

Check out the NC GreenPower site for information on purchasing offsets.

Terrapass has a good explanation about what the heck a carbon offset is (with graphics, which is always a plus for me!). Basically, you fund Terrapass, and they in turn fund carbon reduction projects (i.e. wind farms, solar energy). Yes - that's a very simplistic explanation of what is actually a very complex process. But hey - the bottom line is the goal is to offset the carbon dioxide that you produce in spite of your best efforts to be green. The thing I like about Terrapass is their business program, which I used for Bloom Writing Works. It allows you to calculate your offsets based on the size (in square feet) of your office, whether or not you own any computer servers and how many employees commute to work.

(Image source: NC GreenPower)

November 2008

Welcome Back

Here we are, just a few short months since the last issue and so much seems to have changed. In that time, the economy has become bigger-than-usual news, and everything else seems to have faded to background noise.

My efforts at hypermiling earlier in the year became lost in the daily search for gas. Compared to year to year, my monthly costs are still almost 70% higher. I can only wonder what it would have been if I hadn’t been trying so hard to ease up on the pedal.

We put the long days of summer to good use. I finally finished Animal, Miracle, Vegetable by Barbara Kingsolver, and ended up making my own mozzarella (it’s a long story)! I highly recommend it – it was fun and quite a learning experience. I also learned to like fried green tomatoes all over again (as long as my husband cooks them) and I have a lot of tomatoes chopped/pureed/peeled in my freezer for the off season.

In the excerpt from the November newsletter issue below we have an interview with Dana Sinkler, CEO of Just Fresh. The next issue will be out in January. Stay well and take care. – Kimberly



Just Fresh Is Just Right

G. Dana Sinkler, Jr. is all about the food. As the Chief Executive Officer of Just Fresh, the restaurant chain growing quickly throughout Charlotte, Sinkler can give you a run down on exactly why his fries taste so good (they’re made from Premium Yukon Gold Potatoes, for one thing). He can explain the difficulty of sourcing organic or local food for a chain while still keeping prices affordable, and why quality ingredients matter.

This is as it should be since he was, among many other things, an accomplished chef at some of New York’s finest restaurants. I, however, am about as close to being a chef as I am to being a neurosurgeon – which is to say not very close. Chatting with Sinkler was a bit like stepping into a foreign language immersion program in the middle of the semester. I got through by nodding and jotting down the occasional note at what I hoped were appropriate moments.

But no culinary degree is required to understand that the food is good at Just Fresh. It’s - well - fresh, and varied. Cedar Plank Salmon resides comfortably on the same menu as the kids’ Pizza Pie (which comes in cheese or pepperoni).

This pleases my husband, who loves going somewhere for dinner where the question of “what are we having” isn’t answered by me pointing to the cereal box. It pleases my son, because of the aforementioned pizza. But – with all due respect to those of you chomping at the bit to know more about the menu, you can look the rest up online or go grab a menu at one of the Charlotte locations.

What’s really interesting to me is that in addition to good food at decent prices, the building itself is green. The usual aesthetics are addressed: the restaurant is comfortable, clean and attractive. It manages to be kid-friendly yet casually sophisticated at the same time. It is, as Sinkler puts it, a combination of “quick service with the feel of full service.” You’d never know you’re making a greener dining choice unless you look a little closer. The ceiling tiles, for instance, contain 70% recycled content. Water based adhesives are used under the carpet tiles, which are produced from recycled fibers.

The list goes on. The most obvious eco-friendly fixture may be the Icestone counter top, which is made of 100% recycled glass. Eco friendly paint and wall coverings, water saving features and abundant natural light round out, but by no means complete, the list of “green” stuff going on underfoot and behind the scenes at the restaurant.

These building choices set Just Fresh apart from its competitors. The company has actively pursued the goal of bringing green to commercial interiors, and Sinkler has been a pioneer in many of these efforts. By combining great food with reasonable prices, Just Fresh has given us a place to go where we can grab a great meal at reasonable prices and hang on to our environmental convictions at the same time. That – and a coupon – gets me there!