More on Green Finance: Part 1

GREEN HOME SHOW #39: More on Green Finance: Part 1 Real Estate to Coal

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The following content is from THE GREAT GREEN HOME SHOW #39.

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The content of the GGHS is solely the responsibility of the ECF and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of WILM, its sponsors or Clear Channel Radio.  Any rebroadcast, reproduction or use of the Great Green Home Show or its contents without written permission from the Green Fox, Paul Hughes, Doug Hunt, Aunt Jean, Brenna Wallace, Brooke Chase, the Watson Brothers, The Snap and the Sin City Band is strictly prohibited.

Overall Segment #1 – 9:00

Music & Introduction – 4:30

Introduction – Good Morning!!! Welcome to another edition of the Great Green Home Show... Well, I don’t know what you're doing, but we’re sure glad that you joined us this morning.

As always, we’ll try to stay up-to-date with the best research on the most relevant green topics of the day. We’ll bring you the latest green news and the best information presented in a format that is entertaining and digestible.

It’s been an eventful week around the world and in particular in the world of green finance. With the way our Radio brethren are spouting economic doom and gloom, renewable tech and sustainable investments are looking better and better all the time. Green IS the New gold. We're going to try to combine those two themes today and talk about how to save and / or make money by using your dollars wisely, responsibly and sustainably in the future. Yes Virginia… it is possible, and people all over the world are doin’ it right now. This week’s theme is all about finances, how to make your money work for you and hopefully, also make it work for the planet. Our guest today is Peter Krull of “Krull and Company” from Sapelo Island, GA, where he walks the walk of living greener and financially smarter and knows of what he speaks... but more on that later…

Some of you are just waking up and some of you are driving home from church or from the donut store. So, write it down if you can. If you can’t, don’t worry, you can go to our website right here at WILM.com... keyword green... any time, and listen to any of the segments from this week’s show or any week’s show for that matter. It should be informational and fun! So grab your Sunday morning beverage of choice, pull up a chair, or pay attention to the road and let's get to it.

I’m Doug Hunt and next to me is my co-host, Paul Hughes. What’s on your mind this week?

Paul: Good morning everyone. I don't want to take too much of the time in this first segment, but I do want to talk about two things that came to mind this week. Considering the financial theme of this show, I want to talk about two ways that you should be thinking in terms of real estate (still one of your best investments you can make - and rates are still low)

OK, so one train of thought is, when you're looking for a home and want to save money, you should now be thinking green strategies when considering buying a new home. The first one is 1) does the roof line face south or close to south and is it clear of shade trees? This one factor can improve the value of the home you pick over the home you don't pick by quite a bit. The “solar advantage”.

In California, builders are no longer giving solar power is an option... they're automatically building it right in. Here in Delaware and on the East Coast, that hasn't quite caught on yet, but with the rebate program at 65% of your cost and rising, having a roof line that faces south is going to add a great deal of value to your house as opposed those that don’t. By the way, when you put a PV system on your roof, it is not subject to property tax. Just one of the advantages of having solar power, along with instant equity, lower electrical bills, now you can add “it can't be taxed” to the list. And obviously, it’s great for the resale value.

Also, think about other things such as: proper insulation, efficiency of the HVAC system, availability of natural gas or propane, high R-value windows, programmable thermostats, passive solar gain, Energy Star appliances, and room to hang your laundry. You don’t want to be using a dryer unless you have no other options.

Here’s something else to think about. For those of us who are looking to downsize, but want to continue to live a healthy and wonderful lifestyle… maybe you just want to save some money but you don’t want to work so hard in order to do it… consider moving into the city. I'm going to be highlighting this for the next six to twelve months. I've been privileged to get a new tour of the S. Market St area and the new market Street renovation south of the train station. All I can say is wow....I have lived here all most all of my life and the size and scope of these downtown projects are just what our city needs...

If history, demographics and economics teach us anything, then the powers that be in Wilmington are getting ready for a migration back to the city. It’s a renaissance here and it’s a renaissance we need, because if we are to reduce Global Warming and pollution, we’re all going to need to live smarter. And that means: closer to mass transportation, reduce our driving, reduce oil consumption, walk to work or bike, live close to fresh produce in a grocery store, and possibly reduce our living quarters footprint/square footage.

I know this sounds strange to some of you and make sense to others. It’s almost counter to the American dream... BUT NOT REALLY... a dream of living well, family and neighbors... In Europe, where they've been conserving for centuries, most everyone lives close to a mass transit station, somewhat smaller living quarters, central to or in and around a city where mass transit is available. They live low-cost and keep a lot of cars off the road. And if all of the surveys I read are correct, the Europeans have a much lower stress level, more time off, considerably lower cancer levels, and a much higher rated lifestyle overall. They do it for less, and they do it better. And now the Euro dollar is outpacing the US dollar by quite a bit.... We have a lot to learn. We need to learn from others in order to survive and...They do it well... In essence that is so hopeful and sounds really fun to me and really exciting.

I'll be putting a lot of my Real Estate efforts into finding energy-efficient homes for people, trying to work with the available real estate and the upcoming real estate in our city so that people can afford a nice place to live and reduce a lot of their major living costs. Don't forget that living in the city and driving your car less reduces our carbon and our pollution by quite a bit. So take a look at what's happening in the city and I’ll be giving you a lot more updates on all the amazing projects and transformation that is happening right here in Wilmington.

Oh yes, we are re-building the Myecoagent.com website so it can accommodate more information about living a more sustainable lifestyle. We were reporting with a lot more features and information about where to live, how to live better, and how to upgrade your own home to reduce your carbon footprint, and energy use. So please bear with us. We should be up and running as soon as we can get everything downloaded and available.

Doug, remind us of that great green expo on March 29...“The Great Green Expo” on March 29th at the Chase Riverfront Center. I cannot over-emphasize the importance of the Great Green Expo on March 29th at the Morgan Chase Riverfront Convention Center. Please tell all your friends and bring all your neighbors. As an added bonus, we’re bringing in the heavy artillery. In order to get you there, we’re going to have great music at the show. We have a terrific world music group coming up from Washington, DC (?) name of the group) and they're actually going to be debuting their new CD (?). We also have Scott Bernie and the Sin City Band with a lot of friends like Mark Unruh and other great local musicians. Great music, great food, a chance to win a terrific door prize, all sorts of green entrepreneurs and businesses from all over the East Coast and beyond... great educational booths and a lot of really interesting lectures and relevant and useful information. What else are you gonna do on Saturday, March 29th?... Nothing else… you’ll be at the first ever Great Green Expo at the Chase Riverfront Center! Please tell ‘em what they’ve won Johnny! I mean, we have to thank our sponsors. Paul?

Thanks to: – CMI Solar Electric - Energy Services Group - Suntrust Mortgage of Christiana - Myecoagent.com and Option Insurance Group. Also, Mark Unruh for the great music… Protect us Doug…

Today’s Topic – 4:00 Sponsored by: Myecoagent.com

As you know the great green home show is always trying to present hopeful examples of progress on the environmental front. I just finished watching a couple of movies where the hero comes back in the end, hit's the home run, scores the winning touchdown, basically finally overcomes his/her own shortcomings and saves the day. I got to tell you, I love these movies. These are my favorite type of movies, where the world is against you, the odds seem too high and a lot of the time (for a while at least) the hero finds herself alone or sees himself as being alone. And then someone comes along or something happens and they find the strength to overcome their shortcomings and step outside of their old way of acting and seeing life, to become the person that they always knew that they were. And the cool thing about these movies is that's usually where it ends, and in our minds, that hero or heroine is forever transformed. I've got to tell you I really like that image.

Well it's the real world here but we're still on the same path everyday trying to find new ways of improving the health of the planet, improving the way that we live, and finding ways to highlight heroes and become heroes ourselves. Or as we like to say you can be a Great Green Fox too... okay on today's story...

In a report compiled in the early 2007 US Department of Energy listed 151 coal-fired power plants in the planning stages and talked about a resurgence in coal-fired electricity. But, here's the good part… during 2007, 59 proposed US coal-fired power plants were either refused licenses by state governments or were quietly abandoned. In addition to the 59 plants that were dropped, close to 50 more coal plants are currently being contested in the courts and the remaining plants will likely be challenged as they reached the permitting stage.

What began as a few local ripples of resistance to coal-fired power, is quickly evolving into a national title wave of grass-roots opposition from environmental, health, farm, and community organizations as well as a fast-growing number of state governments. The public at large is turning against coal. In September 2007 a national poll by the Opinion Research Corporation about which electricity source people would prefer, only 3% chose coal. (Is our Local Legislature listening?)

Okay, here's my point for everybody out there who's a tree hugger, or not... there are enough people out there, activist groups, enlightened local government organizations, mothers and fathers who want a healthy environment for their children, that it looks like coal is on its way out, at least in its present carbon belching form.

So... if you followed last weeks show, then you know we presented a lot of practical reasons and economic reasons why nuclear power wasn't going to happen anytime soon (at least not on any large scale) here in the U.S., and now we see a groundswell against new coal-fired plants...

Can anyone in the state of Delaware explain to me why we're not building a wind farm off of our coast? I have only myself and the net to research this data, and the local Legislature has so much more time and resources, yet they seem to be completely unaware of the larger picture...

If you take a look at the trends nationwide and worldwide and the protests and the effective legislative and court based initiatives which are now effectively eliminating nuclear and coal from the picture, it seems to me that we should be building alternative energy sources as quickly as possible. In essence, I am not sure that our local government is aware that the fervent protests against coal and gas and the overwhelming citizen support for bluewaterwind and their projects are not just a local phenomenon.

If you look at the national map we are eliminating everything but alternative energy. It is inevitable, it is a groundswell that will not be stopped and can only be delayed by local politicians who may or may not be playing power games within their own political careers and political debts. That remains to be seen.

What is certain is that this will happen... it's just a matter of time and a matter of cost. And for those who don't know, I do believe that Bluewaterwind has pledged a certain amount of manufacturing to the state, should this project go forward. Again I don't have confirmation on that, but it sure looks like something that we need with the layoffs coming at Chrysler and into some other banking institutions. How many long term jobs will a gas plant bring?

So let's get going people, we must make this happen as quickly as possible... it looks like the citizens of the United States want it... and If the court cases and the disinvestment in coal and Nuclear plants in other parts of the country is any indication, we will have it. By the way if you haven’t, watched: Coach Carter, Bull Durham, The Princess Bride, Glory Road, Hoosiers, or Remember the Titans... Treat yourself...We’ll be right back...

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