Happy Earth Day - thanks to all who are helping to save the planet!

As you probably know there is so much to cover on Earth Day and this past week, from corporate programs such as Home Depot's Eco Options, where they offered to give away 1,000,000 compact fluorescent light bulbs on Sunday ( I shop at Lowes!), to the special news programs on TV dedicated to the Global Warming crisis and then Yahoo!'s announcement this past week that they will become carbon neutral.

Personally, I think the carbon neutral thing is great but until we have two major changes the Global Warming crisis is not going away.

1. Shift from Coal supplied electricity to solar, wind, hydro, and even nuclear

2. Hybrid technology in every new car! There is no excuse for new vehicles to not have this technology - additionally - when is the cost of hybrids going to come down? When will plug in hybrids be available?

Okay, enough spouting off for now. So what did I do this weekend? Well, I was inspired by some debate over at Pittsblog about this article on Pittsburgh becoming more like Vermont. While I think Pittsburgh becoming Vermont (YEEAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!) is a major stretch, I do think the outdoor amenities of the Pittsburgh region are very under-appreciated. So, I was inspired by the article and debate so I finally made it over the Ohiopyle state park with my wife to check out the park and Frank Lloyd Wright's most famous building, Falling Water. The building was amazing to say the least, and the country side, river, and hills over in that part of the region were breathtaking. The beauty of the trip this Earth Day weekend is that we still have places like this where we can go to escape the smog, soot, noise and congestion that has become a part of our daily lives here in and around the city.

Another beauty of this Earth Day weekend is how all the media attention is converting non-believers and skeptics, or just your normal person who really never considered the environmental impact of their daily actions and rituals. Today, my wife, who initially thought I was crazy about this blog and environmental activism, bought some neat stackable recycling bins from Lowe's, a company I am proud to support and own stock in. We still have a lot work to do but we are finally getting on the recycling bandwagon....now I just have to hope to get her to switch all of our bulbs over to CFLs. Our next major green goal is to purchase a hybrid SUV. We drive SUVs because we have two VLDs - very large dogs (English Mastiffs). Because of these two beasts, a Prius is not an option for us, but hopefully the price of hybrids drop when we are ready to purchase a new car in the next year or two.


"GRRRRRRREEN IS GOOD!"