Buerger Bites
From the desk of the Jewish Times publisherAn Iceland Adventure
I recently returned from my annual fundraising expedition. Each year our group, Jodi’s Climb for Hope travels the globe to raise money for promising breast cancer research. Our mountain climbs often take us to remote, if not less developed countries. The past two years Jodi’s Climb for Hope journeyed to Ecuador and Tanzania.
After fabulous experiences, it’s always nice to return to modern civilization for hot showers and fast internet connections.
This year, we mixed it up a bit and hopped over to Iceland, a fabulously beautiful country where you have amazing diversity from barren lava fields to rich green fields, plentiful sea views and always a mountain in sight.
Instead of going back to the future at the expedition’s end, I actually felt, we were going back in time returning to the United States.
We had good look at a nice chunk of the Kentucky-sized nation, and we loved what we saw regarding their being green, which outpaces America. There were special parking spaces for electric cars that needed to be plugged in, hydrogen filling stations, and plenty of clean diesel cars.
Iceland has the benefit of geo-thermal resources; so much of the country takes advantage of this extremely cheap and energy efficient method to heat most buildings. They also employ simple inexpensive technology in most public spaces that it seems like no-brainers: hallways that have motion sensor lights and toilets with different flushes for #1 and #2.
Once upon a time, the U.S. used to lead the world in technology. We are rapidly falling behind. This hurts us, and slows down our fight again Muslim extremism. Using less oil for driving cars and heating buildings robs terrorists of their funding sources.
The U.S. Senate is taking up a House bill that will help in this area. As with most government sponsored programs, it won’t get us to where we need to be. Yet, it’s a start. I’m glad our country is finally taking action for the environment and against oil-funded terror. As least some other countries are already showing us the way.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/01/09 at 09:42 AM | Comments (0)