Loved the cfl – mercury and how that compares to coal plants

I have one added concern these days: turbochargers get very hot, and in order to maintain the temper of the metal in the turbo’s components, it needs a constant flow of oil for a short while after being under load.

I still shut down at long red lights, and haven’t screwed up a turbo yet, but it is in the back of my head and I always idle for at least 30 seconds after high rpm driving.

I think one of the problems is that people mean two different things when they speeding. When I talk about speeding, I’m talking about technically going above the posted speed limit.

I live in the DC metro area now, and almost everyone technically speeds–including the police. The few who don’t are usually going below the speed limit. That’s because our population hasn’t been ‘harassed’ about speeding yet. (It’s starting to happen now.) So everyone, pretty much drives at the speed they feel is safe. Very RARELY do you see “real” speeders who are going noticeably faster than the flow of traffic or weaving. Usually if you see a police car, you feel a little self-conscious and maybe just check to make sure you don’t go 10 mph over, but that’s about it. And then the police car passes you.

People here in Maryland ARE conscious about aggressive driving though, because we have laws or programs about aggressive drivers. This is really a subjective decision of the police officer who can pull you over for aggressive driving (which would include the dangerous kind of speeding) and ticket with heavy penalties. I have to say, it was encouraging to see such a fair system that seemed to work well.

When I lived in Colorado the enforcement attitude and consequently the driving attitude were very different. A lot of people there go the speed limit or 5 mph above. (For some odd reason 5 mph above is rarely enforced as if THAT speeding is legitimate legally.) So basically you had a bunch of people who felt like they should be going faster, but were afraid to do so. I also noticed that people there were much more likely to block the left lane than in Maryland. When I moved here I was delighted to see how everyone for the most part tried to cooperate while driving, even if they were a bit slow to do so. (Don’t get me wrong, I still love Colorado.)

In fact after being in different states and countries, I see a correlation with driving skills and attitudes with how the traffic laws are constructed and enforced. It’s a bit of the chicken and egg problem: are the traffic laws creating that behavior, or was that behavior what lead to those laws? It’s ingenuous of me to suggest that I know, even though I think it’s the former. There just hasn’t been a study done on it.

“This is a great point, Leigh. One reason this article talks about people who are much more willing to beautify their home than spend money on energy efficient appliances is because of visibility: energy efficiency is just so hard to see. The only visible part of energy use is the number on the bill you have to pay at the end of the month, and if it’s always about the same, it just comes to be an expected cost. Most people don’t think the savings of energy star appliances or installing insulation will be worth it, or they do not want to take the time to actually think about it.

That’s why we have the Minnesota Energy Challenge- to show how much money and carbon will be saved with each action. We definitely encounter people who are not willing to do something, even if it seems logical and it will save money. Habits are some of the most difficult things to change about a person. The best way to counter this is leading by example: you are a powerful and influential factor in the decisions of your friends, family, and neighbors. If you buy an energy star rated dishwasher and recommend it to someone else, the likelihood of them doing the same is greatly increased, more than just educating them about the savings and carbon emissions. Good luck in fighting the apathy gap!”