Confess Your Carbon Sins - CarbonConfession.org: March 2011

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

"Greener Than Any Mega-Yacht in Her Class..."

Comment from Fr. Paul R. Bear >>

"You go, girl!! We ice bears are left to wonder, "what will the humans think of next?" My you are a clever bunch. (Smart, but not wise...) Still, from where I sit, buying an energy-efficient yacht in even the smallest luxury boat class does not excuse you from going to carbon confession."

Motoryacht Ark Angel
By Keith Henderson at March 22, 2011 10:43
Maritime Propulsion

"...Sauter Carbon Offset Design recently introduced the superyacht Ark Angel with a design claiming to be faster and far greener than any megayacht in her class. The design aspires to achieve 50 to 100 per cent reduction in fuel consumption and GHG emissions.

The 78 m hull and decks are of Carbon/Kevlar composite construction, beam is 10 m and draft 2.4 m (at 50 per cent load): the superstructure is aluminum giving a displacement of 450 tons.

The total propulsive power of the ship is 4,000 kW, split between three electric pods with counter rotating propellers (CRP). A multi-mode solar hybrid propulsion arrangement offers flexibility in the choice of several power sources available to propel the vessel."

Read rest of article

Penance -- Then and Now

In the Middle Ages, there was no buying and selling of carbon indulgences. Now it's a booming business. "The worst of the carbon-offset programs resemble the Catholic Church's sale of indulgences back before the Reformation," said Denis Hayes, the president of the Bullitt Foundation, an environmental grant-making group. "Instead of reducing their carbon footprints, people take private jets and stretch limos, and then think they can buy an indulgence to forgive their sins." The New York Times, 4/29/07

The 12 Steps of Carbon Awareness

1. We admit that we are selfish users of the earth's limited resources. Standing alone, we feel powerless to stop our wasteful ways. We resolve to manage our lifestyles more effectively, to address the rapidly mounting ecological crisis.

2. We believe that through increased social awareness we can reduce our individual and collective carbon footprint.

3. We have decided to step up our social activism until such time that global warming is effectively stabilized and reversed.

4. We will conduct a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and our behavior together on this planet.

5. We will reveal the exact nature of our wrongs to the natural and social world.

6. We resolve to overcome the persistent defects of character that result in our imposing an excessive carbon burden on the planet and other human beings.

7. We invite other conscious consumers and natural beings to help us overcome our personal and collective shortcomings.

8. We will engage in a regular program of study and inquiry to understand all the persons, natural beings and planetary processes we may have harmed and disrupted, and to the extent possible, we commit to making amends to them all.

9. We will make direct amends to nature and other people injured by reckless use of resources wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. We will continue to take personal inventory, and when we are wrong, we will promptly admit it.

11. We will look within ourselves and our communities to mobilize a collective response that is fully commensurate with global warming and other pending ecological threats.

12. Having achieved profound clarification and inspiration through these steps, we will also carry this message to other compulsive consumers. By our example and leadership in increasing our social activism and changing our destructive lifestyles, we will encourage them to practice these principles in their affairs as well.

Common Carbon Sins

- Driving a gas guzzler
- Taking unnecessary personal car trips
- Failing to car pool
- Failing to take mass transit
- Using too much heat or air conditioning
- Buying a house that is too large
- Failing to us a programmable thermostat
- Overconsumption of clothes and footwear, when you already have plenty to wear
- Leaving lights on all over the house
- Using the dryer when you could use a clothesline
- Using disposable paper OR plastic bags, when you could have used a reusable canvas bag
- Printing large documents on only one side of the paper
- Using virgin paper when you could have used recycled paper
- Flying or driving a long way to meetings where little or nothing is accomplished
- Throwing away recyclables
- Using incandescent bulbs when you could use compact fluorescent bulbs

Confess Your Carbon Sins - CarbonConfession.org

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

"Greener Than Any Mega-Yacht in Her Class..."

Carbon Confessions from Earth Day 2009, Santa Barbara, CA

The Tree of Carbon Forgiveness

Penance -- Then and Now

Carbon-Neutral Is Hip, but Is It Green?

What's a Carbon Footprint?