The military’s new campaign: Cutting its energy costs

This renewed look at saving whee the electricity and motor fuel gauges run is hardly a new initiative. I recall, with fond memories, my boss, the commander of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing (now just 8th Fighter Wing) one day dispatching a base photo lab cameraman to spend a day traveling around Kunsan Air Base, South Korea, for a day in late 985, with instructions to find and photograph every outside light he found burning bright in the bright Korea sun. A few days later, the photographer’s work of several dozen shots was shown during a a wing staff meeting. The offending units knew who they were without further elaboration. That day, and continuing into the next, those dozens upon dozens of outside lights shining over parking lots, alleyways, wash-racks, etc., had been extinguished and the base’s electricity bill fell substantially. This article, from the Norfolk, Va., Virginian Pilot paper, takes a new and refreshing look at the whole energy conservation activity across each of the four military services. And don’t tell U.S. Sen. James Inhofe this, but the article in a paper serving a huge active-duty and retired military audience mentions “greenhouse gases.”

Pa.’s governor turning the lights off on renewable energy

Increasingly, Gov. Tom Corbett is showing that he just doesn’t get it, and would much prefer the business-as-usual strategy across the state. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Don Hopey offers this look at Corbett and the polluters.

Conservation philanthropist does her thing – again

As this newspaper article from Maine shows. Way to go, Quimby.

Quote of the day

I was the first U.S. Central Command public affairs officer for the operation we called ELF-One (European Liaison Force) at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, back in the mid 80s. When Antony Zinni, a former commander of CENTCOM speaks on the record, I listen.

Here’s what Zinni says about climate change:

“We will pay for this one way or another. We will pay to reduce greenhouse has emissions today, and we’ll have to take an economic hit of some kind. Or we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives. There will be a human toll. There is no way out of this that does not have real costs.”
– General Anthony Zinni, Former Commander-in-Chief U.S. Central Command

It’s easy being green

another deliciously pointed column from Paul Krugman. The solution? Build another gas station, so more people can waste more fossil fuel.