ABA Journal - Law News Now

Comments

• Report Abuse

1. Posted by Jay - 2 months, 1 week, 3 days, 7 hours, 23 minutes ago

   I’m working to reduce population growth by trying to eliminate illegal immigration while limiting new legal immigration.

   In California, for example, 98% of the state’s population growth is due ENTIRELY to immigration.

   This means a need for more roads, more schools, more malls, more cars, etc. And it means more pollution.

   The Sierra Club used to be concerned about mass population growth via open borders. Then, in the mid-1980s, when mass immigration really picked up, the Sierra Club decided to put its collective head into the sand. Fear of reprisal from radical racialist groups won out over the environmental protection.

   Fortunately, 80% of America understands that illegal immigration needs to be stopped, and legal immigration needs to be reduced. It’s the policymakers who are trying to massively increase U.S. population through amnesties and open borders. Oh, and the ABA is working towards that end as well.

2. Posted by LMD - 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 14 hours, 5 minutes ago

   Fluorescent lightbulbs everywhere at home; plus trying to be sure unused or unneeded lights aren’t left on at home and at work.  Also, at the office, we have a paperless system for filing documents which has been a great help, but I wonder if it’s really much more green than paper when you factor in the electricity use.

3. Posted by Lauren Ruff - 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 13 hours, 3 minutes ago

   Quite frankly, going green may not be helpful. There is no firm definition of “green.” Just because you start recycling paper does not mean you are actually helping the environment. It only means that you are shifting the problem to some other area; water conservation. For this reason, I have devoted my time to research.

   My current project deals with the Power Grid. Lots of groups are focused on reducing CO2 emissions, yet we are cutting down trees for powerlines. In some places in California, you must cut trees in your yard if they block 10% of your neighbors solar panels. This is just another instance of shifting the burden, rather than solving the problem.

4. Posted by Steve Latimer - 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 13 hours, 2 minutes ago

   I use compact fluorescent bulbs at home exclusively. I’ve just upgraded my home heating and air conditioning system to energy efficient models.

   And of course keep thermostat in home and office low, 68 degrees, in winter and high 75 degrees in summer.

   I’ve driven fuel efficient cars for decades. I won’t even touch a car that is rated less than 30 mpg.

5. Posted by Laurie - 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 12 hours, 40 minutes ago

   Fluorescent light bulbs in the home.  Unplug appliances (TV, coffee maker, etc) when not in use.  Anything with a remote is unplugged because it is always using energy to “tune-in” to the remote.  Down to one car, I take the bus most days.  My husband is starting to bike multiple days to work and I am thinking about doing that.  We keep the thermostat down in winter and up in summer.  AC doesn’t come on until about mid July.  Compost heap for organic trash and recycle, so only one small bag of garbage a week.  Water conservation tricks, shower with low flow faucet that can be stopped, low flow toilets, and minimal water use for dishes. 

   Eventually our goal is to go off the grid completely.

6. Posted by Eddie - 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 12 hours, 36 minutes ago

   In addition to playing with the thermostat and lighting, we have put in power strips on the computers and major devices like the copier. We turn the power off at the end of the day. The hope is it reduces a good bit of vampire energy usage over just turning the machines “off” (which leaves many of them in suspend or sleep mode drawing power).

7. Posted by liz - 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 10 hours, 31 minutes ago

   Also changed out all our lightbulbs at home & energy efficient appliances.  Drive a Honda Civic Hybrid b/c I’m the main commuter (45 mpg - really!).  Try to buy local & organic whenever possible.  Looking for other ideas . . .

8. Posted by Steve Perkins - 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 10 hours, 9 minutes ago

   One of the main things I’ve done to “go green” is to STOP using the phrase “go green”!  This buzzword is pure marketing and makes me cringe.  It has devolved into a method for companies to say, “We switched over to compact-fluorescent lightbulbs in our main office, so buy more of our cars!” If companies have a choice between spending $10 on genuine social good, or $9 on marketing to SAY that they’re about genuine social good, they tend to choose the latter in a pure cost-benefit analysis.

   My fear is that this “go green” thing will be just another flavor-of-the-week Atkins Diet fad.  Something that people play around with to feel good about themselves, but that doesn’t accomplish any substantive change… and that people get bored with after a couple of years.

9. Posted by Mark Gilbert - 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 10 hours ago

   I bought a townhouse in the downtown area with geothermal heating and cooling, PV on the roof that turns my electric meter backwards, tankless waterheaters, and non-toxic interior finishes such as wood floors and low-no VOC paint etc.

10. Posted by Bob in Juno - 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 7 hours, 59 minutes ago

    we have two hybrid cars now.  the Honda Civic gets better mileage than the Prius given the type of driving we do.  for past 10 yrs I have been chained to the car for kid transport, 9 miles each way from town to home, but have finally arranged a schedule that let’s me drive the kids home from after-school activiites only on MWF.  By leaving either the car or the bike at the office, I can either ride to work or home each day, with another trip on Saturday.  If I can figure out how to shower, I will drop the club membership and get my exercise on the bike exclusively, except in winter when the bike paths are filled with snow....then I will take the bus, and walk in the snow (or with creepers, on the ice) at lunchtime.

11. Posted by Eric Lane - 2 months, 6 days, 8 hours, 18 minutes ago

    I’m actively targeting my IP practice to clean technology and blogging about clean tech IP law at http://www.greenpatentblog.com/

12. Posted by TG - 2 months, 6 days, 1 hour, 1 minute ago

    Nothing.  I have always routinely sought not to be wasteful and to be reasonably respectful of the environment.  This, “green” hysteria is nothing but marketing hype, routinely touted by some of the worst among us.  I will not hold my breath to reduce CO emissions, and I’m not sure there are very many thinking people out there who are convinced that its the end of the world as we know it if it only hits 37 below in the Antarctic this year as opposed to 40 below, or that a 1 degree rise in global mean temperature since 1900 (if we were capable of validating the data from the beginning of the century) is enough cause to not only predict the end of creation but affix the blame on me, rather than the millions of metric tons of CO and sulfer dioxide spilled into the air each year from volcanic activity, and, as we now know, the rainforrests which they have only recently discovered to be net producers of CO.  What people know about this earth wouldn’t fill a thimble, yet people with training in anthropology, geology and law are all proclaiming themselves to be climatologists and taking prize awards for narrating films, thus undermining the value of actual contributions to the world and humanity.  Meanwhile, people with formal training, meteorologists are mostly saying the emporer has no clothes.  The glaciers are melting because they were formed during an ice age.  You wouldn’t have even seen any but for that, and now the ice age is over, thus the earth was warming even before humans occupied the planet.  The period of time we are monitoring doesn’t even fill the space of a single pixel on a page in the earth’s history.  Yet, we’ve got it all figured out.  There is another looming ice age . . . no wait, that is what they said in the late 70s and early 80s.  Now its warming, no wait, that claim is now over and has been shifted to talks of “climate change” because the earth is no longer warming but things are different.  After Katrina, Al Gore said this was just a sign of worse things for the foreseeable future.  The next hurricane seasons were all unusually mild.  In fact, the worst and most abnormal thing about Katrina was that it hit NO.  But, the folks in Miami will tell you Andrew was as bad or worse and it was a long time between those 2 storms. New ice age, global warming, climate change, whatever.  It doesnt matter to me.  Try to leave things as you find them.  Don’t litter, keep your car tuned properly and look for ways to minimize consumption or at least consume more efficiently.  That is the way I was raised since the 1960s, even before the current green hysteria.  But, the idea that cities want to outlaw grocery bags entirely and require people to bring their own, or that there should be a tax levied on every business based on their carbon footprint is just plain stupid.  Its just hype and an excuse for some to take money away from others.  The biggest problem is our federal and state and local governments.  All of their solutions seem to lead straight back towards taking more of my money, as if that would solve what ever problem may or may not exist, yet they sell the rights to pollute the environment for a price.  People have to stop getting stupid in the name of environmentalism.  Use some common sense.  I laugh at California because if this state wants to pass a new tax, they just name the bill with something to do with children or puppies and then tell everyone that if you don’t vote to allow casino gambling, you hate children and puppies.  The same thing is going on now with the environment.  Vote to send me 20% of all your money to protect the environment and children and puppies.  If you don’t, then you must hate the environment and children and puppies. Take mass transit to conserve, but wait, there are huge coal burning plants powering the trains almost 24/7.  Buy a hybrid, but wait, there will be lead acid batteries and smelting plants everywhere.  We need more wind power, but wait, the windmills are killing the birds.  Common sense would have dictated that when the oil companies want 1000 acres in AK to drill for oil, the price should be 100,000 acres of the land they currently own in Montana and the requirement that when they leave, everything looks exactly the way it did when they came.  If people work together, we can have clean air and televisions.  But, if the price is that I have to choose between pollution or returning to the stone age, I’d prefer just to vote all the greenies off the island.  That’s not a reasonable or even feasible choice.

13. Posted by B. Green - 2 months, 2 days, 12 hours, 52 minutes ago

    I’ve purchased professional repainting services for my entire home.  We chose a deep forest green for each room in the house though we picked slightly lighter shades for the dining room and kitchen.

    My wife’s minivan is green.

    I wear a green shirt once a week.

    I’m looking into trading in my white car for a green one.

    I try to make lots of money (only one side is really green, but I hope that is good enough).

    I can honestly tell you that these changes have improved the quality of life we are experiencing--I urge everyone to take this stuff seriously.

14. Posted by Rebecca Howe - 2 months, 2 days, 11 hours, 33 minutes ago

    I use CFL bulbs at home, reusable fabric bags for grocery & other shopping, recycle as much as I can, use a programmable thermostat with temperatures set low in the winter and high in the summer, belong to a local organic farm, bike to work when weather permits… will be buying a hybrid car in the near future.

15. Posted by Ben Franklin - 2 months, 2 days, 11 hours, 19 minutes ago

    I’ve been focusing on making the office more green:

    I’ve been working my b*tt off and billing like a demon--the green has been rolling in ever since.