a moment to think, conservatives can be environmental too

While driving today (tax day) my AM radio continuously spit reports of the variety of tea parties abound.  I rarely talk politics, in fact I avoid it!!  For various reasons but the main being that most people are so polarized to one side or another that true accomplishment and forward movement is stifled and anything that does get accomplished is often one sided (in both cases).

One of the most interesting things to see is the amount of argument and banter about the environment... To climate change or not to climate change that is the question.

Interestingly enough, I think both sides are arguing too much to get anything done, and it's so amazingly frustrating to be your average American with a brain.  So here I blog... my view on some things we can all do to help the situation whether you are a conservative, or a liberal, republican or democrat..  some ideas that would actually help?!  no way

Reduce plastics usage by avoiding bags, bottled water, and heavily packaged items (this ones a no brainer..)  This could be taken further if our politicians would focus more on their jobs than their egos.... 

Offer tax breaks (either credits or write offs) for businesses that trim down plastic packaging, remove plastic from their packaging, or introduce re-useable packaging (gee what a novel concept).

hrmmm okay so we need to reduce our energy consumption, consider for a moment a tax break for companies that can prove a percentage of tele-workers.  I work in technology, I can vouch that nowadays we can set up a home office with a network and phone connection as if the worker were at a desk somewhere in an office park... Imagine if 10% of "desk job" workers were able to work from home??  We could turn the lights off over cube farms, lower the heat in empty offices, reduce emissions and fuel consumed by commutes to work... turn off the PC's and radios, and electric heaters, and desk fans.... all the stuff that runs at offices..... 

Offer incentives for companies to adopt a "universal" power adapter!  This does not sound like much but it's a huge deal for engineers to re-design to accomodate but the results are also huge and hidden.  Consider how many "wall warts" most have at home constantly plugged in... these devices sap juice whether they are charging something or not.  Having a single universal allows multiple devices to be plugged in to one wart, less wasted juice.  While many will still just have 5 of these wall warts for 5 devices, it gives an option for the conscious power user to reduce waste

Offer some kind of incentive for local American companies to design and manufacture high quality LED and / or Compact Flourescent lighting...   wow this one sounds odd...  All the fancy new LED lighting is manufactured so cheaply overseas using a variety of poor quality materials... do you think it saves energy (manufacturing and shipping costs) as a whole if I have to replace my yard lights every year? or is it better to have a higher cost light last me several years.   The reduction in shipping alone would radically reduce the energy required to get  the so called "green" device to my door.

Offer tax incentives to companies that focus on captive bred marine ornamentals...  this would give shops even more incentive to purchase captive bred specimens from local breeders, which helps everyone from reef, to LFS, to breeder... no brainer

I'm sure I've pissed someone off, but this is what I see...  I started with the reduction in plastics because anyone who is into reef stewardship will tell you it is a huge problem!!!  Consider shooting the middle instead of always going one way or another...  conservatives get a tax break, liberals get a green improvement...

anyhow... I cut away from work to toss this rant up and suppose I should get back... enjoy your tax day!