GoingTrueGreen's Blog Postings

We Have Been Misinformed

2/26/2014

media, misinformation, reporters, news, documentaries, Nat Geo, History Channel, Discovery Channel, sensationalism, shroud, shroud of turin, turin

Media Sensationalism = Dunce

Far too many times I see or read information in the media about saving energy that is grossly incorrect or pitifully insufficient. On Monday evening I learned just how wide spread misinformation can be.

As some of you know, the Going True Green blog that I write is supported by my small Eco-friendly publishing business. (More info on BBV Publishing is at the bottom of this Blog posting)
So on Monday evening, because of my publishing business, I had the honor to introduce Mr. Barrie Schwortz for a presentation that BBV Publishing arranged at Saint John's University in New York. He is the official photographer who went with the U.S. science team to study the cloth known as the Shroud of Turin.

Barrie Schwortz, Shroud of Turin, Bill Lauto, St. John's University, Upper Room The Way, Jesus, Jesus the Christ, Christ, talks on the shroud

Bill Lauto and Barrie Schwortz

I became friends with Mr. Barrie Schwortz in early 2012, when Mr. Schwortz was kind enough to assist with confirming facts about the shroud. This friendship developed when I was editing a historical novel recently published by our new Eco-friendly Press BBV Publishing. The novel is called: Upper Room, The Way: 33AD to 57AD by L. J. Williams and the Shroud of Turin is the theme. All proceeds from the sales of this novel go to charitable causes and BBV Publishing has the novel available in print and digital formats.

Upper Room was published as a vehicle to expand knowledge of the Shroud for the public through historical fiction that has been carefully researched. After hearing Barrie Schwortz's presentation we are proud that we did. Mr. Schwortz gave an amazing presentation and stated that we need to stop watching mainstream media along with cable documentaries. Allow me to paraphrase what he said: 'Most documentaries about the Shroud of Turin are 50% wrong, I know, because I have been in most of them. And if they try really hard, they get it 70% wrong. They do not report the boring facts, because they are an entertainment industry with the goal of making money.'

Jesus the Christ

Mr Schwortz then continued with his scientific presentation. He exposed all the misinformation including the Carbon Dating test that was done on only one piece of cloth made up of a different composition from the rest of the shroud and contained dyed cotton. This tested material had been proven to be woven onto the shroud in the 1300's. So it was not the Carbon Dating test that was incorrect, but rather the piece that was used for the test. Then after systematically providing facts, some of which have never been reported by the media, there is no doubt that Shroud of Turin is 2,000 years old and covered only one man known as Jesus the Christ. Still to this day, the scientific community can not explain how the image on the shroud was created and not one person has come close to reproducing the image with all the unique qualities it holds.

So please check and double check your information as we do here at GoingTrueGreen.com, because misinformation also applies to saving energy and our environment. I will continue to work hard and provide only the facts. I don't want to entertain you, with God's help I want us to decipher facts together as one team for humankind.

Bill Lauto, GTG

More on BBV Publishing:

BBV Publishing, digital books, amazon kindle, kindle, e readers, BBV

BBV Publishing's Home Page

Websites and blogs are published material and with the new age of digital publishing, creating BBV Publishing became a logical step. In addition, BBV Publishing hopes to tell the untold stories by publishing books that are thought provoking, virtuous, inspiring, and educational, while entertaining! Our authors are committed to inspire positive change in our world and in humanity through stories that are often rejected by large Publishing Houses whose main objective is only to obtain the highest possible profit with sensationalized tales. For BBV Publishing, accessibility of quality reading comes before profits.

Our mission to accomplish this is achieved by printing here in the United States as we keep in line with what we sell. This ensures that our process leaves no waste, saves trees and energy while allowing the reader to still hold a book in their hands. Of course with our commitment to help the environment we also offer all of our books in a variety of digital formats. In fact, we were one of the first to start working with Amazon's Kindle because we realized the paradigm was shifting in the book publishing industry. So please stop by BBVpublishing.com for a visit some time.

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Solar Energy & Killing Heat

2/17/2014

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Ivanpah solar project, Ivanpah, solar power, solar energy, solar mirrors, cooking birds, scorching birds, solar electric, goingtruegreen, gtg, going green, sustainability

The Ivanpah Solar Project

This week solar energy is officially on line in California to make clean electric power for about 140,000 homes, but some people are already saying this type of energy production will be the last of its kind. A serious turn of events has developed, but I am presenting this one step at a time:

The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Project is a solar farm sprawling over five square miles with three towers as tall as a 40-story building. Each tower is surrounded by mirrors that are about ten feet by ten feet in size and total 350 thousand. Sunlight is reflected onto the towers that contain boilers. The boiling water creates steam and that steam turns the generators that make electricity. This project of great expectations has a 2.2 billion dollar price tag and 1.6 billion in federal loan guarantee. Our environment, plant owners and tax payers are heavily invested, but all systems were GO before Nature appeared to become a casualty. Very disconcerting events began at the start of test runs...

Tests were going well for the new solar energy plant until employees started to find dead birds around the Ivanah plant. Federal biologists filed reports with California's Energy Commission documenting that the dead birds had feathers burned and singed. This can be feasible if a bird is flying around towers where a tremendous amount of heat is created by the reflecting sunlight to boil the water that runs the generators.

Harris's Hawk

Due to these findings many have already cried out to stop operations or prevent the construction of anymore solar farms like the Ivanpah project. Immediately I must suggest "team work" so that we can find a solution. Insight from experts in different fields may pose many solutions to this serious problem. I have already voiced my own input and I am repeating my contribution below in this GTG Blog posting:

Hope may yet exist for protecting the birds that would otherwise be killed due to the air temperature reaching 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit by the Ivanpah solar project.

As an energy consultant, one of my clients was Macy's department stores and some of the new energy saving sodium light fixtures were mounted on outside walls. In some cases, many birds would land on these fixtures, thus causing their droppings to fall on people walking below. One solution implemented was a speaker that gave off a sound in a pitch that only birds could hear. Birds stayed clear of the area to avoid hearing the sound broadcasted. As far as I know, the inexpensive system is still working fine to this day.

Though I don't have all the data, I believe a full evaluation will behoove the owners of this project greatly. NRG Energy Inc., Google Inc. and BrightSource Energy Inc., can easily put up test speakers around the perimeter and mount speakers at various heights all the way up the 40 story tall towers. The equipment has specs to show the distribution of the sound waves so calculations can be done to "fence off" the area. The electric power to operate the system would not be that significant and obviously the owners will tap right into their own production.

I believe that we can always find solutions because there is always another way of doing something. Producing innovative energy while protecting all God's creatures is possible when all humans participate, communicate and innovate together.

Bill Lauto, GTG

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Want Not, Waste Not

2/10/2014

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The sad truth is: "When it comes to wasting energy, statistics show Americans win the Gold medal." Then we complain about the energy bills being so high. Yes, we all know the electric cost per Kilowatt is expensive and that is harder for us as individuals to control, but we do have the ability to keep our bills low.

mall, crowds, shoppers, consumers, wasting energy, refrigerators, saving energy, energy efficientcy, side by side, freezer at bottom, talking refrigerators, smart appliances, accountability, going true green, going green, gtg

Consumers Are Guilty Too

Okay, I understand an example is needed that we can relate and act upon. Lets use the electric cost and refrigerators. We all get electric bills and hopefully we all have refrigerators. Now accountability and responsibility are two words used often in emails and comments I receive from readers. They talk about how Corporate America all too often fails to be accountable and responsible. Nevertheless, we consumers are also at fault. We don't take time to review the complete picture. We buy products, like refrigerators, irresponsibly. This causes us to spend more money on special features that we don't need and will barely use. In the long-run we have a product that uses more electricity, more energy, and costs us more money. Much more money. Corporations want more money from us so they sell us a "Bill Of Goods" and we want more bells and whistles all because of an ugly word spelled g-r-e-e-d.

...you can receive an alert message while on the toilet that your cheese
just became old and moldy.

Buy Milk

Why this example, because a while ago I heard about the new "Talking" refrigerators. No, not the kind with various sarcastic recordings that play when the door is opened to help someone lose weight. This is about the new line of appliances, such as refrigerators and ovens designed to communicate with a home network or your smart phone. Now your refrigerator can tell you to buy milk while you are trying to watch a movie or when you just fell asleep, because your teenage son arrived home and drank the remaining amount of milk. Thus causing your cell phone to wake you up for that all important alert message:
"Buy More Milk"

Image is a Link

In addition, if you take the time to rescan all your items you put into your fridge after buying them, you can receive an alert message while on the toilet that your cheese just became old and moldy. "Yeah right!" Is it not enough we scan our food at checkout, now we must rescan everything into the fridge just so it can tell us the cheese is bad. "Aah hello! I am already on the toilet, just a little too late!"

Wait, there is more! This French door designed talking fridge has a LCD panel that gives you access to online shopping, calendars, a list for groceries, and photos. Praise the almighty computer chip, I now have photos! Yet, I already have photos on my refrigerator, held up by various decorative magnets. Okay, but this computer stuff is better! Right? Yes, until the electric bill comes in the mail.

My 20 cubic foot refrigerator/freezer operates for the year at around $79.00 and I pay one of the highest Kilowatt rates in the country. If I went with all the electronic temptations, my cost can easily be $250.00 a year. I am saving over $170.00 a year and almost $3,000.00 since I bought the unit some 17 years ago. I would rather donate that amount to help others than pay it as an excess to the power company.

Here is a list of things that I DO NOT have because they would add greatly to your refrigerator's electric bill if you did:

GADGET

A Butter Warming Tray or Compartment inside the door

ABSURDITY

An electric heater inside a cold refrigerator just to keep the butter soft.

SOLUTION

Place butter out on your table 5 minutes before cooking and eating. Voilà! Just as easy to spread.

Freezer at the Bottom Design
French doors or Side By Side doors are also designs that puts the whole Freezer or part of the Freezer at the bottom

At the bottom is the HOT motor, fan, etc. that operates the refrigerator. So lets place the freezer, that is trying to freeze food, right over the HOT motors.

Buy a refrigerator with the most efficient design! Freezer at the top.
This lowers the electric bill because Cold Air drops into the fridge below. Thus, less operating time.

Condensation and Energy Saver Switch for electrical heater all around the fridge's door frame that evaporates any condensation on the door in the summer

Turn this switch OFF and you turn ON the electrical Heating element wrapped around the Cold refrigerator's door

Place your fridge away from a window and out of the sun light. Pull curtains closed and locate away from hot stoves and ovens.

Ice Maker and / or Water Dispenser inside or outside the door
NOTE: An Ice Maker came with my most efficient model. I made it more efficient by disconnecting the thing.

How lazy have we become that we can't fill an ice tray or pour a glass of water? Yes, not opening the fridge's door will save energy, but it doesn't off set the energy consumed by these gadgets!

Open the door take out the ice trays or water pitcher. CLOSE the door and do the deed. After you are done, return items to the fridge or freezer. Yes, close the door again.

Computerize Communicating Refrigerator to your Home Network and Smart Phone

Your fridge still can't cook dinner for you. However, it will raise your electric bill.

Continue to manage and live the way you always did and your mother/grandmother did and your Great Grandmother, who gave thanks for having an Ice Box.

Great Grandma was right when she said: "Waste Not, Want Not."

Today we need to Want Not, so we Waste Not or at least take the time to consider the complete picture. To be accountable for our purchases is no more than realizing the difference between what we need and what we want. If we do this and stick to what we need, then we will not be sold a "bill of goods" all the time. We will save energy, money and our environment for our own great grandchildren.

Bill Lauto, GTG

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Global Warming: Hot, Cold, or Medium Rare

2/3/2014

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Speaking Greenish: Part thirteen

Global warming, greenhouse effect, climate change, climate extremes, IPCC, greenhouse gases, CO2

Is Global Warming (Climate Change) real and what does this have to do with me?

The winter of 2014 is very cold for America, we have not seen a brutal winter like this since 1978/1979. So what is the story with our planet being warmer when this winter is so cold and we hear more and more about a Polar Vortex occurring?

Many factors come into play and one theory states: Melting ice from the North Pole, caused by global warming, will place more cold water into the warm gulf stream and this may actually cause a stall in the gulf stream's warm air and water. Thus causing colder weather.

Confusing? Yes, this is a complicated issue, especially since we do not have all the facts and data. So let us first go over what we do know:
Greenhouse effect, climate change or global warming, use whatever name you wish, but the indisputable data showing the continuing rise of Earth's average temperature is the definition.

Does science have a complete understanding of the causes and effects of global warming? No, but we do know the following facts:
Since the late 1970s most of the warming has been over our oceans. NASA's images of the North Pole from 1980 compared to 2012 show a 50% reduction in the pole's total ice mass. We are reaching almost a two degree increase worldwide since the start of the 1900s and over 75% of this increase in average temperature has occurred between 1980 and 2012. Evidence points more and more each day to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases as the cause.
So as an individual, what does this have to do with me and what can I do about global warming?

Greenhouse gases are from carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Emissions of CO2 come from many sources, and yes, all those fossil fuel combustion engines we use proves humankind is a contributing factor. The car we drive and the way we cut the lawn all play a part. Have you seen my video on a better way to mow lawns? Click Here To Watch

Now the real question is what will be the outcome from Global Warming? Will this spell d-o-o-m for the human race or will everything remain the same as always? We have heard the preaching of doom and gloom from Global Warming on one hand and a relaxed, "this is all normal" attitude, on the other hand. Either way, we do not have enough facts, data, or research to know the definitive answer to that question. Beautiful roses or dead roses as the outcome is an unknown. Therefore, it is important for humankind to play things safe and do as much as we can to maintain a normal average temperature on our green planet called Earth.

Bill Lauto, GTG

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