The guy is creepy. Ever notice how he constantly nods his head up&down while someone is talking to him? Creepy.

tell me some thing. on the subject of so called clean coal, which its not! why the hell dont the eco geeks support the use of nuclear energy! it dpes not release radation into the air and we can reprocess the fuel rods! for thirty years the eco freaks have been so xxxxx stubborn not to budge on this fuel sorce! china and india are going to build a couple to 3 thousand coal plants in the next 20 years when are you people going to get your heads out of your asses?

for thirty years the eco freaks have been so xxxxx stubborn not to budge on this fuel sorce!

Coming to a site called "Treehugger" and screaming about "eco freaks" probably won't help people listen to your argument.

LA: and that is after I edited out the obcenities.

As the editor of EcoGeek.org, I'll take this one.

Some EcoGeeks do support nuclear. At EcoGeek.org, we don't talk about it much, because it is, among us, a pretty divisive issue.

However, this EcoGeek is agains nuclear...for the following reasons.

1. Just like coal, uranium must be acquired, and that means strip mining vast areas of land.

2. Nuclear material, while not as emininent a threat as global warming, is just as big a threat if placed into the wrong hands. I hope for a world that someday has no nuclear material, so that potentially world-destabilizing force is under control.

3. Right now, solar power is just about as cost effective as nuclear power. And Wind power is more cost effective. If solar and wind got the same subsidies as nuclear, we wouldn't even need to think about nuclear.

4. We have no idea what to do with the waste.

If one or two of those problems could be solved, I'd be in favor of nuclear power. But, as I see it, it's not gonna happen.

Hey Tom,

Consider this:

Even if there was only 1% chance of a serious accident, is it worth the consequences of tens of thousands of square miles going uninhabitable for decades/centuries/milennia?

Remember, this has already happened.

Worst case scenario of any other energy source is nowhere near this.

So, in theory, nuclear is a very good choice. Unfortunately, humans are, by default, flawed creatures. So real world, it is a very dangerous choice.

Now then, you want to call me an eco-freak to my face? I'll smile back and you and agree 100%. Get testy with me and I'll knock you on your ass. :D

Well, for once I agree with Billionaire Tom Friedman (google that phrase for some interesting information). What I still maintain is that there is far, far too much focus given to trying to run Business As Usual -- i.e. preserving the suburban dream of the Easy Motoring Drive-In Utopia (© Jim Kunstler), and far, far too little energy spent on thinking about new living arrangements that require much less energy input in the first place.

things like:

• Changing the tax code to favour dense urban development instead of sprawl suburbs
• Re-densifying existing suburbs (replace older single-family houses on separate lots, with duplexes, triplexes, row townhouse-style development)
• Making cities vibrant places to live and work in their cores; i.e. no dead downtowns after 5pm
• Properly funding schools so that no neighborhood is disadvantaged educationally, eliminating that jockeying for 'the good neighborhood with a good school'
• subsidize public transit, not highway construction
• maintaining local, organic agriculture
and city gardens
• Encouraging mixed-use neighborhoods (shops, light industry, offices, apartments, townhouses, etc.)
• Lower people's health insurance premiums if they give up their cars and take up biking / walking / a sport, etc.

Tom Friedman is clearly an asshole who lacks vision and 99% of his fossilized heart. A new era has begun whether you want it nor not! If you keep burning coal, you will - literally - end up a "fried man".

Dear Mr. Friedman,

Hi, my name is Andre Williams and I am a student at the Bronx Guild High School. I am currently doing a project on the lack of healthy food choices in bodegas in the Bronx. I have held an internship at a bodega in the Bronx for about a year now. During that internship I became curious about the amount of candy sold at the bodegas versus the amount of fresh food and vegetables sold. This led to me to investigate this issue.

So far, I have handed out surveys to many bodega owners in both the Bronx and Manhattan. My results found that people in Manhattan are more open to having healthier food options were as people in the Bronx seem to want to keep selling candy and unhealthy food for profits reasons. Because I really care about health and fitness, I am trying to get involved in changing attitudes and habits of people selling food in bodegas. I am also interested in making fresh healthy food available to people living in the Bronx.

I came across your name doing background research on this topic. I have read some of your articles on childhood obsesity and I am interested in possibly interviewing you for my project either by e-mail, by phone or in person. If you are interested please respond when it's convenient for you.

To A. J. Candy: I live 30 some odd miles out in the country and would find it extremely difficult to give up my car which I need to get to work so I can make a living for my family (no one anywhere nearby goes to work in the same direction, I'vechecked) but, please note, when they do develop an efficient and cost effective electric or hydrogen fuel-cell car I will purchase one since I hate the price of gas even more than my neighbors in the cities and town. I do walk at least every other day, I do yoga every day (what a wonderful way to defuse my mind and maintain my body tone and agility at the same time!), and I grow as many of my own organic vegetables as I can. Am I to be left out of the lowered insurance premium because I am unable to give up my car (which is a 2004 Dodge Neon and gets 32 mph hwy, 28 in town)? Many of your in-city idea's are very good but please be sure to remember the needs of your countryside neighbors as well. I think that all homes should be required to have solar panels or shingles (especially since the nano technology being integrated into the panels and shingles will make them cost effective to regular electricity in less than 5 years) and each home installing them should be given credits by the government that are in line with the initial cost and installation price. High-rise apartment buildings in cities and towns would greatly benefit from having numerous wind turbines on the roofs - with proper support reinforcement of course even though the weight of these units has greatly decreased over the last few years and the designs have improved immensely so that long blades are no longer required -they can consist of a hollow oval metal ball that is divided into sections and is twisted to a specific degree. Have you ever had a chance to stand on the roof of a tall bldg? Even those 5 or 6 stories tall have a wind that is fairly steady during the day and that even increases when the temperature goes up during the day. Once again, credits in line with the cost of equipment as well as installation fees should be provided by our government. The new designs and technologies have made these types of power less expensive and more visually pleasing than ever before and; like the calculators, digital cameras, and computers before them; the more they are purchased by consumers the lower the price will go and the better the technology will get. I remember paying $99.00 for a 1gb SD card for my camera in 2004 (and felt I was getting a really great bargain in the process!), now I can purchase that same SD card for less then $10.00!
It is up to us as a people to purchase the things we feel are best for our environment as well as demanding that our government provide sufficient credits for those purchases. It is also up to us as a people to realize that all of these so called "free programs, including the medical ones" ARE NOT FREE!! We, the people of the United States of America, will be footing that bill through higher taxes for many years to come. Last, but definitely not least, if the Federal government would put back into our Social Security program all of the "excess monies" that it borrowed out for other programs, we probably wouldn't be having anywhere near the problems and worries with Social Security that we are currently facing. If we borrowed money from the federal government for any reason, they would be raising 6 kinds of cain until we paid it back AND with interest. Shouldn't the American people be able to hold their government as accountable for the money it has 'borrowed' from us as our government holds us accountable for any money we borrow from it?

For a fascinating look into the coming energy revolution and the potential for a "green bubble," we recommend Robert Bell's book of the same name:

http://www.abbeville.com/bookpage.asp?isbn=9780789209559

Thanks!