Sustainability and Politics: Edison would've loved new light bulb law

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Edison would've loved new light bulb law - CNN.com

Edison would've loved new light bulb law - CNN.com

Happy New Year!!!

"But come January 1, when a light-bulb law setting new efficiency standards is set to take effect, it's out with those old incandescents and in with the new. My great grandfather's 100-watt incandescent will be replaced with new energy-efficient versions, including CFLs, LEDs, and -- yes -- new and improved incandescent bulbs. When better lighting is fully implemented throughout our country, we'll be saving $13 billion a year in electricity costs and we'll eliminate the need for 30 large power plants, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group.

And my great-grandfather wouldn't have it any other way.

For the record, Thomas Edison was a patriot, he was a futurist, and he was green. Edison's concern after the turn of the last century was with pollution and nonrenewable resources, not with freezing technological change at the level of 1879.

He wanted the Swiss to harness water power in 1911; he wanted Ford and Firestone to recognize that oil was nonrenewable but the sun was infinite and free; he wanted to use goldenrod—a roadside weed—to serve as a cheap and independent source to replace imported foreign rubber. He...."

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I've been thinking some about the Winter Solstice, the Mayan end of the 30,000-year-cycle on 12/21/12.

What if in fact the world did end? Even though this probably will not happen, to live consciously it is honest for us to take a bit of an inventory.

Am I happy with how I've lived my life? (Yesterday, I thought mostly yes, with some areas for improvement, as below.) Are there changes I would make?
Would I have tried to forgive those that were hostile or disappointing to me?
Would I spend more time with those I loved the most, telling them that, feeling that more?
Would I be happier, grateful for what I have, what I've experienced, the joy, the beauty in this world?

Maybe the answer is yes to all of the above.
So this time can serve as a point of rebirth for all of us. If we think about it.

Because somewhere along the line I realized I think maybe mankind deserves it. !
The way we are killing each other, killing the planet.
How selfish we are, and snotty to those around us. Petty, competitive. Why is this? Do we have to behave this way? (I say no, it greatly detracts and misdirects energy from the full-time celebration in which we could engage, the great multi-cultural, multi-rhythmic dance we can sustain here.)

Maybe God or the Great Universe is fed up, and will pull the rug out from under us.
Don't think I can say we could blame Him/Her/It.

But it probably won't happen. (Probably not! This time.)

Still we are finite on this ride.

It is a time to think, am I happy with how I've lived my life?
Hopefully most of us can say yes.

For the part of us that have a little worry, a little sadness....
This is the time to be present.
This is the time to be the person you want to be, that can die at peace, that can hope to every day be able to look yourself and the Universe in the eye and say, how beautiful, smiling, and thank you. Let's do that.