The Green Challenges and A little Whining!

As many business leaders, builders and contractors continue to support green building and sustainability, the challenges remain in what I like to call "the emerging market." Laws are being proposed that appear to have some unclear standards and questions are being raised about how the laws being passed will be enforced. Today's Arizona Daily Star discusses those concerns around a proposed City rainwater law. It would require that by 2010, new business developments submit rainwater-harvesting plan. Developers would have to get 75% of their landscaping water from storing rainwater in cisterns or by building berms or large basins to hold rainwater on building sites. I have to say I hope the City stays the course and continues to work with developers to go strongly in this direction. As a desert dweller and as one who has listened to the water experts, doing this will be a win/win in the long run. We have got to figure out ways to make measures like this work - for all of us.

Now a bit of whining. I don't really know all that I need to about oil companies and how they spend their money. What I do know is that once again, all of the "BIG ONES" are posting record breaking profits - in the billions. Granted, many of the oil-firm investors will get the lion's share of the profits. What gets to me is the lip service oil companies pay to so much money going to research and development. FACT: the percentage they spend to find new deposits of fossil fules has remained flat for years, in the mid-single digits. The rise in gas prices is hurting millions of people who live paycheck to paycheck and retirees who have a fixed income and all businesses whose services involve driving (and what business doesn't to some extent?) So as oil company execs and oil-firm investors reap HUGE profits, I say let's put the pressure on wherever we can to find alternative fuels, become less dependent on oil and create new, exciting ways to move forward to a world where we are sharing the wealth AND preserving the planet.

Mrs. Green