[teal-party] [sfba] PG&E's ClimateSmart™

[lwood]

By now, I'm sure most of you are familiar with the idea of buying "carbon credits" to offset one's carbon load on the environment. Really, for me, this is some sort of ecological indulgence--buying off one's eco-sins. Still, after one has replaced all the incandescent bulbs that one can^*, has shut off the computers when not in use, chucked the plastic bags, quit flushing the cat poop^†, started a worm bin^‡ and all that cool, groovy stuff...the lights still have to come on, and in my current situation that involves suckling at PG&E's great electric teat.

Now, one easy thing to do to reduce the amount of paper coming into your home, after you've shut off the danged junk mail, is to tell one's utilities to please not send you paper bills. This means they tell you by e-mail when you have your bill, and you then also pay electronically. This saves all involved money and paper--indeed, my auto insurance company's service fees went down to thank me, and PG&E made a donation of some pittance in my name in some appropriate direction.

When it comes to automated payments, however, I am firmly against them--every month, mindfully, I pay each bill, and I do it from "my checking account" instead of "by debit through the credit-card-branded ATM card attached to my checking account". The cc # on my ATM card is a fragile thing, but the checking account # isn't as likely to change on no notice, and/or fly to Mexico City without me (I hate that).

But this isn't about that!

No, it's about PG&E's current greenwashing campaign (I mean, they want to say green things, but are still doing coal plants, what can you do?), ClimateSMART. For about $5/month for the average household, PG&E will buy carbon credits to offset the carbon load of the electrical generation for your household.

I signed up straightaway--my first month's environmental indulgence costs $1.31 (see powersaving measures already taken, above). This post is to let all y'all locals know about this, and all y'all non-locals to see if your electric company follows suit, and to ask them to consider it if they don't.

-- Lorrie

^* -- In my kitchen, if I replace both the ceiling and oversink bulbs incandescents with CFL's, they buzz and pulse. Not only is it annoying, but they're not in sync, which is worse. Also, the overoven light doesn't, as far as I can find, come in CFL. The rest are, however, swapped out.

^† -- It's for the sea otters. I just checked with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, and while landfills suck, they're apparently the least-sucky cat feces solution at just this moment.

^‡ -- Of which I have not yet written, but will. I have a thousand new pets, and they walk themselves...

Comments

[kaffee-spinne.livejournal.com]

I'm happy to be in Austin where I subscribe to GreenChoice: (http://www.austinenergy.com/Energy%20Efficiency/Programs/Green%20Choice/programDetails.htm) My energy comes from renewable sources.

[kaffee-spinne.livejournal.com]

We signed up 4 years ago. :)

[lwood.livejournal.com]

We theoretically have a similar; I haven't looked at it in awhile. Thank you for reminding me!

-- Lorrie

[kaffee-spinne.livejournal.com]

I envy the Bay Area's curb-side compost-pickup.
I've written to Austin City Council about it.

That, and I still can't believe Austin hasn't banned styrofoam. I written them about that too. ;)

[lwood.livejournal.com]

In Berkeley, they dropped off, for each homeowner, a kitchen compost container and a small bag of the compost thus generated.

-- Lorrie

[murstein.livejournal.com]

Detroit Edison DTE Energy offers a program wherein (in theory) one's electricity comes from local renewable sources. (They mention a wind farm and some sort of "bioenergy" projects under construction; I've not yet found an explanation of what they're talking about.) I just received notice that they began the program this week, and your post prompted me to dig it out.

One of the interesting things they offer is an application to estimate one's carbon footprint. I must admit, I didn't realize my contribution was in the neighborhood of 22,000 pounds of CO₂ in the past year.

It looks like the "huge surcharge" for greener electricity amounts to 2 cents a kilowatt-hour; that's a tad over $7 a month, at the rate we've been using electricity here. And it took less time to sign up than to write this reply.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Yay!

-- Lorrie

[emberleo.livejournal.com]

Color me ignorant - I've heard of Carbon Credits, but I'm unclear why it's supposed to help.

You pay the government to ignore the fact that you're not fulfilling your eco requirements and this is a good thing because?

I presume what I'm missing is how the money is used?

--Ember--

[murstein.livejournal.com]

Folks who sell carbon credits are claiming they use the money to plant enough trees (or whatever) to suck X amount of carbon out of the atmosphere. I'm not aware of any government requirements for carbon credits in the US, which would probably be required if we ratified the Kyoto Treaty. There are businessfolk who call this just another tax; then again, the same folks often say not being allowed to dump toxic waste in handy rivers is an unwarranted burden on business.

I'd like to do something like carbon credits, but to own the trees, and the land they're grown on. It's looking like it may be within my grasp, in two or three years.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

I'm growing vegetables and herbs on my porch, and houseplants and kittygrass inside.

Well, and a Venus flytrap; this is my weirdo answer to the current infestation of fungus gnats (harmless, but annoying, litle flying bugs that aren't fruit flies).

-- Lorrie

[murstein.livejournal.com]

We (well, laureth is, but I help by lifting and hauling, and occasionally paying for) grow as many vegetables as we can cram on the back deck. Since last night was the first frost, we're almost out of that for the year; the two tomato plants that are still most productive spent the night in the bathtub, so it's not completely over.

How cool can a Venus fly trap handle weather? I believe they like it far too warm to be more than annuals up here, unless I really increase my wintertime carbon footprint. Otherwise, they might be my weirdo answer to the moths and fruit flies and such that just won't leave the food-hoard alone.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

A Venus flytrap can apparently take it outdoors to hardiness zone 9, and must overwinter at fifty or less.

Or not.

You know how Internet research goes, and I can't help you from experience, as I only got mine Saturday!

-- Lorrie

[murstein.livejournal.com]

Somehow I was anticipating a longer acquaintance with the species than that.

Since I live in zone 5, it's just a teeny bit colder here. And I'm unwilling to pay to heat this place enough to make up the difference. Money, carbon footprint, it all adds the same place for this question.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Somehow I was anticipating a longer acquaintance with the species than that.

Er...no. I've been fond of carnivorous plants for a long time, but the ones in the drugstore always seemed sad. This one didn't, so I brought him home.

Since I live in zone 5, it's just a teeny bit colder here. And I'm unwilling to pay to heat this place enough to make up the difference. Money, carbon footprint, it all adds the same place for this question.

*nodnod*

-- Lorrie

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Right--the money is used to offset whatever sins PG&E has committed by burning coal and so on. It doesn't make them not have done it.

I was precise in my use of the term "ecological indulgence".

-- Lorrie

[dasubergeek.livejournal.com]

I won't do auto-debit of changeable payments until I'm satisfied that there are no bugs that are going to come bite me in the arse -- a friend having his current account debited $1,680 for a month's electric service on a two-bedroom flat in South Florida (instead of $168) was enough to kill that idea.

Anaheim Public Utilities have a scheme whereby one donates money to increase the green-to-shitbrown ratio of Anaheim's power mix. One can also donate to convert the public schools (in the Anaheim district, not in the Orange or Magnolia districts) to solar power, since we're not short on sunshine down here.

LADWP did have the system whereby they would guarantee your power was from 100% renewable resources for something like $3 a month.

We do have yard waste picked up curbside (brown barrels in Anaheim, green in Los Angeles) for composting, and compost is free to any resident (in theory you must prove it, in practice they couldn't give a damn who you are) who will go to the city yard in Blue Gum Street and pick it up. The city will also give up to six trees (five shade and one citrus) to anyone with a backyard that they own (townhouses OK, condominia not) and send a consultant to suggest planting locations so that the trees shade the house during the hot months without posing fire danger by actually touching the house. That's where our banana and lemon trees came from.

One nice thing about living in a place where the utility company is city-owned (and the city in question is only 350,000 people) is that suggestions are often taken more seriously than they would be if you were approaching, say, SDG&E or Edison.

[dasubergeek.livejournal.com]

Oh, and of course, like everywhere else, APU give rebates for the purchase of equipment that treads slightly less heavily on the earth, so we have a high-efficiency washer/dryer, our building is getting whole-house fans in the upper crawlspace when the roof gets replaced next year, and Energy Star refrigerators get money back too.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Nice!

These don't necessarily offset much of the expense, though--dpaxson swapped out one of her toilets recently, and EBMUD gave her $50 when the toilet cost $500.

She was Not Amused.

-- Lorrie

[dasubergeek.livejournal.com]

The idea isn't that the utility district pays for your part, the idea is twofold: (a) that you aren't paying a "surcharge" for an energy-efficient part over the old wasteful kind of part, and (b) if there's no price difference between the old and new part, to give you incentive to buy the new kind of part.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know--she was just expecting it to cost less to get a new, more responsible toilet.

-- Lorrie

[lwood.livejournal.com]

I won't do auto-debit of changeable payments until I'm satisfied that there are no bugs that are going to come bite me in the arse -- a friend having his current account debited $1,680 for a month's electric service on a two-bedroom flat in South Florida (instead of $168) was enough to kill that idea.

Exactly. Fuck that. I do online payments, but I'm the one who initiates the payment every month.

-- Lorrie