Are You Thinking About an EV?
Cool Choices
by Kathy Kuntz
5y ago
Recently we participated in an Earth Day event at a library in Door County, Wisconsin. The event offered us an opportunity to interact with the general public so we decided to conduct a short survey on electric vehicles (EVs). Now attendees at an Earth Day event aren’t “typical” consumers. We knew this audience would tilt green but we also thought it would be useful to understand what this greenish audience thought about EVs. Just under 40 people completed our survey, which means it’s a small sample and we won’t draw any big conclusions. More, folks did this survey on their phone or our iPad ..read more
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Achieving Big Climate Goals: What It Takes to Succeed
Cool Choices
by Kathy Kuntz
5y ago
It’s exciting to see numerous communities committing to 100% clean energy. At this point half a dozen states and more than one hundred local communities have committed to eliminate carbon emissions. That means about 1 in 5 Americans live in a community that’s committed to eliminate fossil fuels by mid-century. These commitments are important and exciting. As we’ve discussed before, public commitments are a great way to jump start action while also influencing others to act as well. To address climate change it’s critical, of course, that these communities succeed in transitioning away from fos ..read more
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EV Owners Talk About Why They Love Driving an Electric Vehicle
Cool Choices
by Kathy Kuntz
5y ago
In preparation for an Earth Day talk about electric vehicles (EVs) I did an informal survey of EV owners. The survey was not scientific, but it was informative. I simply posted a question in the Nissan Leaf Owners Group on Facebook to which I belong. The results surprised me and they might surprise you too. The Many Benefits of an EV When I asked drivers what they liked best about driving an EV, the most frequent responses had to do with torque. In case you didn’t know, EVs have a lot of torque and feel very responsive compared to gas-fired cars. Respondents wrote: I’ve driven stick shift t ..read more
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Accelerate EVs by Learning from Energy Efficiency
Cool Choices
by Kathy Kuntz
5y ago
In the US about 30% of all emissions come from the transportation sector with about two-thirds of that from personal vehicles. The emissions from an EV vary, based on how clean the electricity charging the EV is. (Union of Concerned Scientists has a great calculator where you can explore this.) In Wisconsin, where we still get 55% of our electricity from coal, an EV emits 37% less carbon that the typical gasoline vehicle. The emissions reduction is even better in states with cleaner electricity. Transitioning from gas vehicles to EVs will help us reduce our emissions. The faster the transitio ..read more
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Achieving Our Moonshot
Cool Choices
by Kathy Kuntz
5y ago
I spent a few hours at the Kennedy Space Center recently. In the course of the tour there were at least three times that I saw footage of President John F. Kennedy’s 1962 speech urging Americans to work together to reach the moon. In the clip Kennedy talks about the need for US leadership and our collective willingness to take on hard tasks. The third time I heard the speech—when it was coupled with a dramatization of engineering challenges NASA scientists overcame during the space program—I started thinking about climate change. What if US leaders talked about the challenge of climate change ..read more
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Clear Signals Make It Easier to Do the Right Things
Cool Choices
by Kathy Kuntz
5y ago
I saw the best sign last week. We were on vacation in Florida when I spotted the sign (yes, geek alert…she takes pictures of signs while on vacation…). If you own an electric vehicle (EV) or follow the technology, you might be aware that sometimes EV drivers have challenges accessing public charging stations because non-electric vehicles are parked in front of the chargers. (In the EV world this is called being ICEd—an internal combustion engine (ICE) is in your way.) In some regions of the country ICEing seems to be the latest exemplification of ongoing culture wars—a Tesla versus pickup tru ..read more
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Culture Change
Cool Choices
by Kathy Kuntz
5y ago
Culture Change—You Need It So How Do You Know If You’ve Got It? Achieving aggressive sustainability goals—whether within corporate operations or as part of a community’s quest for zero carbon emissions—is an enormous task. In the early phases of any entity’s sustainability efforts a committed green team can do a lot. A small group of people can identify and address opportunities. As a company (or community) become more efficient, though, the projects get more complicated. And the projects involve more stakeholders. One of the ironies of sustainability efforts is that the more you succeed the m ..read more
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