Time for Time of Use Rates

Hot enough for you yet? I hear it is supposed to start cooling down again by tomorrow, thank goodness, I am not ready for extreme summer weather yet.

Anyway, since it's so hot I think it's time to start talking about those summer power bills. I've already discussed the money saving option of Nevada Power's Cool Share Program, but are you ready to save some more on your bill? Nevada Power has another program that they guarantee will save you money.

Interested? The program is called Time of Use Rates. Basically Nevada Power lowers your rates from what you're paying now for all times of the year except for June 1 - September 30 between 1 P.M and 7 P.M each day when the rates are higher than what you are paying now. I know - lower rates for 93.75% of the year!

The time of use rate plan mirrors the way Nevada Power pays for energy, which just makes more sense anyway, but maybe that's just the economist in me. Usage is generally highest during the afternoon hours and Nevada Power has to pay more to fill the need during this time. But rather than just average out the cost and pass it on to you so you pay the same no matter what, this way you can make the choice about when you want to use energy and come up with some serious savings by making a few small changes. And if for whatever reason you can't make it work after the first year, Nevada Power will give you back the difference of what the standard pricing would have been.

But I think time of use can work for so many people in Las Vegas. Air conditioning is the largest power draw for most houses around here during the summer months, however, most of us are gone at work for a good part of that 1 P.M. to 7 P.M. time slot and really don't care what temperature their house is at. Granted we don't want it to shoot up to 110, but I've found that shutting off or increasing the temperature of the A/C for a few hours really won't do that. You can use your programmable thermostat (if you don't have one, sign up for the Cool Share Program and Nevada Power will give you one for FREE), you can choose to have the A/C at a higher temperature (lower energy draw) during the expensive times, which hopefully coincide with when you're not home. Then just schedule it to come on 15 minutes or so before you get home again. You can also move other energy intensive chores like laundry to the morning or evening. Not that I'm an expert or anything, but I figure if you then use your A/C normally on the weekends and times when you are home, you'd still be saving money even if overall you're still using about the same amount of energy.

Ready to sign up? You can do it on the website here, by downloading this PDF or by calling (702) 367-5555.

Are you wondering why Greener Vegas is giving you money savings tips instead of energy savings tips? Well, it just so happens that the two often go hand in hand. In this case, if Nevadans can reduce the stress on the system at the times when it gets the most use (afternoons during the summer) then Nevada Power won't have to build more power plants or buy from other sources that have had to build more power plants, which is good for the environment. The energy infrastructure has to be large enough to meet demand at peak times even if the rest of the time the system sits idle (brown and black outs in California are what happens when its not). What a waste to keep building more infrastructure that's just needed for a couple of hours a day in the summer. So there you go, saving money is green too!

A gold star goes to Jackie for taking my advice about laundry soap and making her latest purchase a cardboard box instead of a plastic bottle.

Drop me a line when you sign up for Time of Use Rates and I'll give you a gold star too!

The Whole Foods (Internal) Debate

I should hate Whole Foods.

Their big, corporate, gobble up the small business competition attitude really bothers me. I know that although they sell almost all organic produce that they are buying from other big, corporate farms that pretty much go against what organic is supposed to be. Many of these farms are in Mexico, Argentina and Chili - not exactly local. In the last year Whole Foods purchased Wild Oats grocery store chain effectively getting rid of the only other health food grocery store that we have here in Clark County (the stores still exist, but they are changing over to Whole Foods so now there isn't any price or selection difference). Whole Foods is expensive and elitist. I don't get the feeling that that they offer their healthy and/or organic and/or local products because they feel it's the right thing to do to keep farming sustainable and slow the coming of global warming. No, when I wander around Whole Foods I feel like they exist because selling expensive "green" food is trendy.

But here's my problem, I still love Whole Foods.

Despite all of the things that really bother me about Whole Foods, they are my best option in town to find all of the things I am looking for in food and finding those things makes me happy.

1) Local, organic produce with minimal packaging. I count California as local (although I am seeing more and more items all over the store labeled local - from Nevada!) and I don't use produce bags anymore. If I buy something small like beans I re-use my own bag that I bring from home. Otherwise it goes straight into the cart sans bag.

2) Milk from cows that haven't been treated with artificial rBST and that has not been super pasteurized. Most organic milk is super pasteurized but Straus isn't and it comes in a glass bottle that you return to the store when you're done (added bonus, less packaging)

3) Meat that has not been treated with hormones or antibiotics for Hubby. I don't buy much meat, so I also like that I can buy a single chicken breast from the meat counter. This also avoids the Styrofoam and plastic wrap that most meat comes in.

4) Lots of bulk bin choices with lots of local (California) and organic choices. I bring my own re-used bags from home and get $.05 off of each item and reduce plastic bag waste at the same time. I think I'm the only person in the valley that does this by the amazement of the cashiers but they all seem to love it and don't make fun of me - to my face at least.

That's it. Whole Foods is the only place I've found in town that comes close to meeting all of these goals. And although it's trendy haven in there, I feel like I still need to vote with my dollars for what I want to see available in food choices. How will the dairy farmers ever know that we don't want them to use artificial rBST with their cows anymore if those of us who can afford to make a choice still choose milk treated with rBST? If enough people who can afford to choose a more expensive, specialty milk make the switch then demand will grow enough to convince dairy farmers to supply all mike from rBST free cows at a price that everyone can afford. And for now, Whole Foods is the only place I can do that in town.

I know many people complain about the price of groceries at Whole Foods, which I totally understand. I keep my groceries at a reasonable price by staying away from frozen and prepared foods, but that means I spend more time cooking than many people have.

What's important to you in the food you buy? Low price, easy to prepare, local, organic, healthy, yummy?

All About Plastic

I really hate plastic and I try to avoid buying new plastic whenever I can. Here are some of the reasons that I don't like plastic:

-Plastic never biodegrades, it just breaks into smaller and smaller pieces that pollute our water and soil and eventually get eaten by animals lower on the food chain that we end up eating again. Every piece of plastic that has ever been made it still on this planet in some sort of plastic form or another

-Plastic is a petroleum product and we are quickly running out of oil, not to mention the Middle East political issues surrounding using oil

-Plastic leaches all sorts of scary chemicals that can get into food and water and then into us like Bisphenol A (BPA) which is thought to be carcinogenic and mess up all sorts of things in the human endocrine system

-Very few plastics can or are recycled. The process of recycling plastic is very energy intensive and polluting. On top of that, plastics can only be recycled into a limited number of other products. Unlike glass that can be remade into a new bottle over and over, a recycled water bottle can not be made into a new water bottle.

And here are a few super easy things you can do do reduce how much new plastic you bring into your life:

-Switch to powder laundry and dishwasher soap that come in cardboard boxes

-Buy juice in frozen concentrate or in glass bottles

-Carry your own water bottle. Look for a non plastic brand like Sigg or Klean Kanteen and then use it - all of the time

-Reuse your grocery store bags or bring your own

I have more suggestions but I won't overwhelm you all at once!


And on a lighter note, I have three gold stars to pass out:

* Sean and Katie for carpooling to work together
* Jill for bringing her own bags to the grocery store (quite appropriate for today!)
* Brandi for signing up for recycling bins

Good job everyone! Keep up the good work and send me your new green changes you make at rebecca162 [at] aol [dot] com so you can be famous on the web too!

Shopping!

I received a question about greener shopping options in Las Vegas. As my buy nothing new challenge has ended and the warm weather has made some of you think about a new Spring wardrobe, I thought I would see what I can come up with for you in Las Vegas.

Of course, not shopping at all would be the most environmental thing to do, which I learned all about last month, but I realize a total cold turkey approach is not a realistic goal for everyone. Personally, it's my new goal to try to stick with just a few new purchases occasionally that I really like and that I know are at least slightly better for the planet.

In Las Vegas the "better for the planet" choices seem pretty sparse. One of the few I have for you is American Apparel, which has a location in Boca Park in Summerlin and one in the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace.

American Apparel is committed to sewing all of their clothes in the US using "sweatshop free" labor and they have a limited line of organic cotton clothes (and plenty of 80's inspired style). Now, considering that they have stores all over the world, I'm not sure how much fuel the company as a whole saves, but at least you can know you're supporting a company that treats its employees with respect.

Here's an excerpt of what American Apparel's website has to say about their labor practices

"The average sewer with experience at American Apparel is making about $25,000/yr (i.e. $12/hr, well over twice the federal minimum). This can be higher in some cases. We also offer parking, subsidized public transport, subsidized lunches, free onsite massages, a bike lending program, a program of paid days off, ESL classes and much more. Most importantly we guarantee job security and full-time employment; this is an anomaly in the garment industry, which has historically been dominated by seasonal work.

The organic line is currently pretty limited but there are t-shirts in lots of colors and a few other things for men, women, children and babies. What they do have seems to be pretty reasonably priced. You can use your dollars to make changes when you support their organic line and then tell them you want to see more organic clothes.

Time for more news, plus a little bit of my opinion.

I think Las Vegas sucks at recycling. The current residential rate is horrible - almost no one participates. I think that a big part of that is the twice a week garbage pick up and the every other week recycling pick up. People can't keep track of when to put their recycling out (and some complain that they have to pre-sort first) and they just find it so much easier to put their garbage out every couple of days. Everywhere else I've lived has had both once a week and the system seemed to work just fine, but most residents like the twice a week pick up and can't imagine life without it.

However, Republic has a pilot program running at Nellis at the base housing to do both recycling and garbage pick up once a week, no sorting necessary. According to an article in the Las Vegas Sun, this new program has increased recycling rates by 21 percent, from a measly 3.7 percent to a improved 24.6 percent. I would love to see the whole valley with rates like this!

Here's the whole article, Nellis households take to commingled recycling

Republic is planning to start some new pilot programs with different variables around town starting shortly, so if you're one of the lucky ones, I hope you participate!

Michael Pollan Speaks

I keep hearing about this article, Why Bother, written by one of my favorite authors Michael Pollan that ran in the New York Times Magazine's Green Issue last Sunday. So I decided I had better read it, and although it was a long one, I came away very impressed and invigorated to keep trying to make a difference.

If you would like to read the article in entirety (and I suggest you do, just make sure you have 15 minutes or so to dedicate to it and don't lose interest in the first page, there are many good points made later on) click here.

Otherwise, here are a few of the highlights (there are so many good parts, this was as brief as I could get it)

For us to wait for legislation or technology to solve the problem of how we’re living our lives suggests we’re not really serious about changing — something our politicians cannot fail to notice. They will not move until we do. Indeed, to look to leaders and experts, to laws and money and grand schemes, to save us from our predicament represents precisely the sort of thinking — passive, delegated, dependent for solutions on specialists — that helped get us into this mess in the first place. It’s hard to believe that the same sort of thinking could now get us out of it.

As Adam Smith and many others have pointed out, this division of labor has given us many of the blessings of civilization. Specialization is what allows me to sit at a computer thinking about climate change. Yet this same division of labor obscures the lines of connection — and responsibility — linking our everyday acts to their real-world consequences, making it easy for me to overlook the coal-fired power plant that is lighting my screen, or the mountaintop in Kentucky that had to be destroyed to provide the coal to that plant, or the streams running crimson with heavy metals as a result.

Of course, what made this sort of specialization possible in the first place was cheap energy. Cheap fossil fuel allows us to pay distant others to process our food for us, to entertain us and to (try to) solve our problems, with the result that there is very little we know how to accomplish for ourselves. Think for a moment of all the things you suddenly need to do for yourself when the power goes out — up to and including entertaining yourself. Think, too, about how a power failure causes your neighbors — your community — to suddenly loom so much larger in your life. Cheap energy allowed us to leapfrog community by making it possible to sell our specialty over great distances as well as summon into our lives the specialties of countless distant others.

Here’s the point: Cheap energy, which gives us climate change, fosters precisely the mentality that makes dealing with climate change in our own lives seem impossibly difficult. Specialists ourselves, we can no longer imagine anyone but an expert, or anything but a new technology or law, solving our problems.

If you do bother, you will set an example for other people. If enough other people bother, each one influencing yet another in a chain reaction of behavioral change, markets for all manner of green products and alternative technologies will prosper and expand. (Just look at the market for hybrid cars.) Consciousness will be raised, perhaps even changed: new moral imperatives and new taboos might take root in the culture. Driving an S.U.V. or eating a 24-ounce steak or illuminating your McMansion like an airport runway at night might come to be regarded as outrages to human conscience. Not having things might become cooler than having them. And those who did change the way they live would acquire the moral standing to demand changes in behavior from others — from other people, other corporations, even other countries.

But the act I want to talk about is growing some — even just a little — of your own food. Rip out your lawn, if you have one, and if you don’t — if you live in a high-rise, or have a yard shrouded in shade — look into getting a plot in a community garden. Measured against the Problem We Face, planting a garden sounds pretty benign, I know, but in fact it’s one of the most powerful things an individual can do — to reduce your carbon footprint, sure, but more important, to reduce your sense of dependence and dividedness: to change the cheap-energy mind.

Ahhh, it's enough to make a girl want to go plant food...in fact I think that's just what I'll do tomorrow. I'll add a few more things to my tiny, hand watered garden out back. Maybe some zucchini - everyone is always saying one plant produces a ton, hopefully I can keep it alive long enough to to see that happen. And yes, here in Las Vegas we have a water issues, but I think considering all of the water used for non-food producing landscaping around here some could be redirected towards growing our own food.

Carpooling

You knew it was coming someday, but today's the day for the carpooling topic (see previous entry about Jackie's gold star for carpooling). This is brought on by, what I find, to be a very maddening opinion piece in today's Review Journal about this subject. If you want to know what I'm ranting about, click here.

The basic premise is that all of the commuters on the north part of 95 don't carpool so there shouldn't be a carpool lane and that it's not fair that we spent the money to put in the lane when it's rarely used. The RJ goes on to say how pleased they are to see that now the lanes will only be a carpool lanes during traditional commuting hours.

But here's my take on this. Those lanes have only been in place for less than 6 months (opened in November 2007) and they are the first carpool lanes in Nevada. Certainly we didn't expect that everyone was going to change the way they drive all at once, did we? And I feel like the people who bother to get two people into the same car and drive to work should get a benefit for doing so - in a perfect world that would be a lane with half as many cars. Currenlty it's even better, but that's the reward they get for being early adopters.

Plus, there have been plenty of studies done to show that over time adding new lanes for traffic doesn't decrease traffic, it increases it, see here and here. Go figure, more people move out that way and actually end up making the problem worse because then they drive more.

And who cares that often times the traffic is so light in that area that the carpool lanes aren't needed? Duh, the traffic is so light you don't need the extra lane. For now - but over time (see above) traffic is going to get worse and then we won't have a way to reward those people that carpool during non-traditional commute times.

I really hope that Nevada can stick with the carpool idea. But in order for Las Vegans to stick with it, it has to be worth it for them too. And for now, until the decision to carpool becomes a habit, that probably means that horrible traffic and expensive gas (I'm sure we're heading to worse of both of those) is what it's going to take for most people to seek out a carpool buddy but having a lane that cuts down on traffic (which saves time and gas) just might encourage people to make that change sooner.

And on a personal note, I know what a pain it is to carpool. I do it probably 4 out of 5 days every week. Hubby and I hop in the car together and drive to work together. We don't do it because of carpool lanes (although we pass the above mentioned carpool lanes, there is usually not enough traffic to warrant using them - for now) but to save on gas, save miles on the car, spend a little extra time together, and make it so we only have to drive one way to work. And after all that, I admit, it is still a pain some days to get our schedules to match up. But we carpool on because of so many reasons it's the right thing to do (well, really tele-commuting would be the right thing and we try to do that some days too).

To wrap this all up, carpooling is a great way to save gas, wear and tear on your car, spend some time with a friend, reduce the amount of time you have to drive (and therefore stress) and get places quicker when there are carpool lanes in use. Let's just hope that the NDOT doesn't try to take away our new car pool lanes before they have a change to succeed - and hopefully you can help them succeed by using them!


Opps, I realized I forgot to give Bridget a gold star for saving up all of her recycling at her apartment and carrying it all the way to campus to recycle since they don't recycle at her apartment but they do at school.