Updates and Eco-news for our 8th Week

Marissa Knodel

Aug 12, 2009 10:20 am

Hello everyone!

Our eighth week on the road has taken us from Madison, Wisconsin to Oberlin and Cleveland, Ohio.

In Madison we parked near State Street and the student Union, opened our doors to the public, and met with a campus group called UW EnergyHub (www.uwehub.org). From Madison we went to Chicago to visit Motor Coach Industries and show off our creative eco-transformation of one of their coach buses. We also toured a local brewery and participated in an eco-fundraiser organized for us by a group called Green New Earth (www.greenewearth.com). We unfortunately had to miss the Saturday Farmers’ Market the next morning and took off for Ann Arbor, Michigan to visit one of our sponsors, Rosedale. Rosedale donated the filters for our waste vegetable oil system and proved to be very generous hosts as well, reserving us hotel rooms, treating us to lunch, and donating yet another filter to help remove the Epoxy glue that is disintegrating in our tanks. We had a quick stop in Detroit and camped in Sandusky, Ohio that night. The following day we drove to Oberlin where we had a lunch meeting and tour of the College with Nathan Engstrom, Oberlin’s Sustainability Coordinator. Yesterday we backtracked to Sandusky and had an exhilarating day at Cedar Point Amusement Park. We are now back on the road and heading to Columbus. More details on each of the previous stops will be coming on my Connecting Communities Blog.

Instead of an eco-tip this week, there were three very interesting pieces of eco-news that I would like to share with you:

1. On the front page of the New York Times on August 8^th, 2009, John Broder reports how military and intelligence analysts believe the changing global climate will pose many security challenges to the U.S. as it deals with the social, political, and environmental impacts of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/science/earth/09climate.html?scp=1&sq=Climate%20change%20and%20security&st=cse).

2. In late July, the government launched a $1 billion “Cash for Clunkers” program to get consumers to trade in their gas-guzzling “clunkers” for up to a $4,500 credit and purchase a more fuel-efficient car. In order to qualify, the car must be 25 years old and get no more than a combined city/highway 18 mpg (To determine if your vehicle qualifies, go to www.fueleconomy.gov). In order to get the full $4,500 credit, you need to purchase a vehicle that is at least 10 miles more fuel efficient than your current model. So far the program has been very successful, with 250,000 trades made in the first week. Congress plans to fund another 500,000 trades. According to the Department of Transportation, the program has had real benefits in terms of energy efficiency:

· The average fuel efficiency of cars traded in was 15.8 mpg.

· The average fuel efficiency of new vehicles purchased was 25.4 mpg.

· 83% of the trade-ins were trucks.

· 60% of new vehicles purchased were cars.

To find out how much money you may save from trading in your vehicle, visit the Sierra Club’s Cash for Clunkers calculator: http://sierraclub.org/transportation/clunkers/

3. Last week, the Obama administration awarded a number of companies and universities $2.4 billion to help stimulate the growth in production of the electric vehicle industry in the U.S.

Just a few more states to go and we're back on the east coast! The group is getting smaller and smaller. Anna Wearn has left for home in Portland, Oregon and several others are leaving for vacation shortly. This has been an incredible journey thus far and I'm not ready to think about the end yet.

Thanks for reading! More to come from Connecting Communities and Eco-Tips/News soon...

Peace and BigGreenBusLove, Marissa Knodel