What if ..... The "Green" movement

I get excited when folks talk about the "green" movement for a number of reasons. General Electric (GE) has aligned themselves very well to support "Green" and I own a bunch of their stock from my early GE corporate days. They have been working on industrial gas turbines (IGT), turbines for wind power, more efficient locomotives, lighting options, etc. On top of all that, PCC ticker symbol PCP supports the entire product series of wind power and IGT's. The Chatt family has a TON of stock for PCC. Yeeeaaaah, good stuff.....

Ha, ha, ha while this is true it's not quite my first reason I get excited. Ok, maybe my third or fourth reason but NOT the biggest reason. The biggest reason I think we all get excited... we all want our children to have a better life than ourselves and unless the environment does not play a factor in your world, we need to be concerned for our children! Sure, some politicians sargue nothing has changed, others say watch out. It seems as though 80+% of the "experts" agree that the polar ice cap as well as our planet seems to be getting warmer. Not good.

So what are you doing to help our environment? Recycling? Using your own coffee cup at work instead of a styrafoam cup? There are lots of little things we all can do. In the past year the Chatt's purchased an electric low speed vehicle. It goes about 25 mph and is perfect for the island. It most resembles a golf cart and for a family of three it provides a great transportation alternative. Just plug it in and it costs about $300 per year in electric power consumption.

On our vacation to Upstate NY and Ohio, Mike and Renee were nice enough to invite us over to their gorgeous home in Upstate NY. Mike has been working on some very interesting projects in the past few years. He has quite a bit of land and has set up his own solar panels as well as wind turbine. He has started the process of pulling his family off the "grid." Mike has even written his own computer program to tell him when his batteries are full. He flicks a switch and whala, he is running off nature. How cool is that? Sure, Mike is an electrical engineer and this stuff comes easy but prices for solar panels are getting lower and lower every year. Thank's Mike for doing more than your part to be sure our children's children can enjoy the outdoors.

So where does the title come in to this blog? What if....?

So what if we don't change our consumption patterns? Many say our ice cap will continue to melt and therefore raise the ocean's level. There is a wonderful website that shows what if scenarios based on a water rise.

So what does our paradise look like in Florida when the water rises 3 M? Take a look at the Anna Maria Island link. Looks normal however I am sure a 3M rise would mean several roads need to be elevated AND many homes will need to be ripped down making way for a non living ground level.

So what does AMI look like if our water table rises 5 M? Take a look at what could be, Anna Maria, FL flooded in water. It shows a dramatically different picture where our Electric vehicle will most likely not be operational in such an environment. A boat will be more practical.

I don't think we will ever see this day because New York City as well as areas that affect alot more people than our small paradise will be affected prior to AMI. But we should be concerned, we all have to do our part to conserve. What are you doing to conserve our natural resources?