Want to advise LUCAP?

LUCAP needs a new adviser, since our beloved Rick Yelton is leaving.

Do *you* have what it takes?

Link.

Colbert rips apart ethanol

Stephen Colbert hits upon energy conservation in an April 28 segment of "tonight's wørd." Colbert pokes fun at the fact that it takes over 120 gallons of oil to make 100 gallons of ethanol, suggests CFLs as the solution to all our woes, and suggests that a gas tax holiday is sacrificing our need to sacrifice. Enjoy.

Orthorexia in America

Michael Pollan, author of the Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, delivers a talk on food vs nutrition at Google. For those worlds healthiest pizza obsessed LUCAPers, this is a very good thing to watch.

Vampire power

If you've been keeping up with environmental issues, you know that vampire power is the power that your electronic gadgets use when they're turned off but still plugged in.

Good Magazine did a great graphic comparing amounts of vampire power used by common gizmos.

Easiest solution to stop losing power to the vampire effect: plug your electronics into a surge protector and turn off the surge protector when the gadgets aren't in use. Or you could get a fancy surge protector that does it by itself.

NOLA residents want recycling, survey says

Over the past few months, the city of New Orleans conducted an opinion poll on attitudes toward a city-wide recycling program. The results are in and they're awesome:

• 10,000 households responded of 120,000 households
• 9,000 (of 10,000) households indicated they would "voluntarily subscribe" to a recycling program.
• When asked how much residents would be willing to pay
• 2,570 would pay nothing
• 2,858 from $1 to $3.50 a month
• 2,127 from $3.50 to $6 a month
• 1,671 from $6 to $10 a month
• 772 would pay more than $10 a month

One would think that Sanitation Director Veronica White would take this information and start a kick-ass recycling program. But no - the City has allocated $500,000 toward recycling, which is roughly enough to fund 6 months of pickup. And don't expect glass or cardboard to be picked up. Link.