Someone was really thinking when they did this one. Check out this subverted SUV commercial. You can even make your own!

Edit: Treehugger has picked up this story and has included some favourites of it's own:

• Total Tactics
• Grist
• Warren

Even more available on Total Tactic's website!

I saw this commercial for Indigo's Love of Reading campaign the other day and was so impressed that I had to find it online and see it again. If you haven't seen it yet, I invite you to download it now. It's really quite beautiful.

Audrey Wong, a good friend of mine from back home in Vancouver has recently setup her own online store to sell her handmade wings at fairyfly.etsy.com. When I met her, she was toiling in her little apartment stitching mountains of fabric into the art you see on that site... It's just nice to see all that hard work paying off.

If you like wings, know someone else who does, or just have some money you'd like to contribute to some beautiful art, I encourage you to check out her site.

I saw V For Vendetta last night. It was beautiful, inspiring, and one of the best movies I've ever seen. I very much recommend it to anyone and everyone.

Environmental Defense and Ad Council have released a excellent new ad campaign to get people on side in the fight against global warming. Watch the video. It's exceptional.

Link via Groovy Green.

For those who suffer from the same problem, Don't Push The Big Red Button!

Thanks to Amy for the link.

On Tuesday night I joined an assortment of environmentalists, activists, politicians and business people at City Hall to hear two very smart people speak. The guests were veterans of the California energy economy and had a lot of very interesting information to share.

California realised a long time ago that while they needed a great deal of energy to run the state, they didn't need to continue building new power plants. Getting the populace to use less was just as effective and often cost billions less than constructing brand new infrastructure.

Sounds like a neat idea, but how'd they do it and where are the numbers? This is what made the presentation so interesting: Between the two presenters, we had coverage from both the government and business side of the issue.

Dr. Arthur H. Rosenfeld represented the government side. He brought up detailed graphs of power consumption in the state from as far back as 1975 and included projections up to twenty years from now. More importantly though, he showed how dramatic the savings were once they started in on efficiency. Measured in actual dollar cost (because no one really does this for the environment) he illustrated how building a nuclear power plant was far more expensive than simply offering rebates to consumers to consume less.

The math works like this:

Say a nuclear power plant generates 100MW of power. After the cost of building the plant and that of paying the staff, and storage, AND the loss of said power in transmission (8%) you're left with X dollars total cost to power N homes

However, if the state were able to not use 100MW, your total costs include: Rebates to consumers, disposal of inefficient appliances, and public awareness campaigns.

This is a no-brainer.

So the government down there decided to offer the (privately-run) power utilities various incentives to choose efficiency over production. With the incentives (and support) in place, the corporations went out of their way in pursuit of efficiency because it's the cheaper option.

Enter Michael Messenger, Demand-side policy maker for one of the biggest utilities in the state. He explained how California was successfully moving toward a completely renewable power system as a result of the above policy and how it has corporate backing because more than anything else, it's financially sound.

He stressed the importance of government allowing the utilities to change plans and policy quickly, rather than waiting for political review. So long as the utilities remain under strong, but wide regulations, business can move at the speed required and everybody is happy.

A great evening really. Very enlightening. The organiser from the Sierra club let us go with one final plea: Please, please write your MPP about this issue and get them to reconsider the nuclear question. Both Messenger and Rosenfeld agreed that it was crazy for the Ontario government to be choosing this route and made special note of the fact that a number of the suggested studies on efficiency and renewables simply haven't been done for this province. "There's no rush" Rosenfeld said, "the research hasn't even been done yet".

And so here I suggest that if you live in Ontario (hell, even if you don't it's still a good idea) write to your MPP and again to McGuinty himself because he's the idiot making the decisions on this. Also, the Ontario Clean Air Alliance has a great site that makes it even easier.

And remember, a handwritten letter counts as 1000 emails with these people.

A 15yearold kid, crossing his neighbour's yard is killed by a fucking crazy old man that was so angry that his lawn was being walked on, he saw fit to shoot the boy twice in the chest.

People wonder why I hate guns.

This is why.

The Ontario government is gearing up to make a decision on whether it should build new nuclear power plants based on the flawed and incomplete preliminary report from the Ontario Power Authority. According to the Sierra Club of Canada, when California was faced with a shortage of power, it turned to conservation and efficiency and reduced its demand for electricity by 10% and plans to eliminate 45%-60% of future growth in demand through efficiency measures.

The Sierra Club is bringing three experts, who engineered California’s great conservation success, to Toronto to share their experience and knowledge. They will take part in a public meeting with Sierra Club Executive Director Elizabeth May on Tuesday, March 21 at 6:30 p.m. in the Toronto City Hall Council Chamber. All are welcome.

"These experts can show Ontario how to avoid wasting billions on power plants," said Dan McDermott, Director of the Ontario Chapter of the Sierra Club.

Dr. Arthur H. Rosenfeld, California Energy Commissioner, heads the California delegation. Joining him will be the Manager of the Demand Response Program at the California Energy Commission, Michael Messenger and Steven McCarty, Director of Demand Side Policy, Planning and Analysis of the state’s largest privately owned utility, Pacific Gas and Electric.

For more information, please contact Jamie Kirkpatrick of the Sierra Club. Telephone: 416-960-9606; Email: ontariochapter at sierraclub dot ca.

Please pass this message on to your friends.

It looks very interesting, but it conflicts with the TPSC Art Attack meeting on the same night. I'm not sure which one I'll go to. However, I thought I'd pass on the info here for those who would be interested.