I just came back from a CommonWealth Club event titled "It's easy being green" about ways to "green" your life (reduce your carbon footprint, help save natural resources, reduce pollution, protect wildlife and improve our community) without spending a fortune on solar panels or fuel-efficient cars.
Inspite efforts from San Jose Mercury News Cleantech and Energy Reporter Matt Nauman, Sunset Magazine's retiring senior writer Peter Whiteley and moderator Jeffrey Schaub, the Green Beat Reporter for CBS 5 Eyewitness News, the panel of "experts" fell short on delivering "tips on eco-friendly household products, detailing the benefits of recycling and ways you can make conscious decisions in our homes, in our cars and in our gardens that will help our planet".
Actually, I almost felt I've wasted 2 hours of my time, hearing Nauman kept talking mostly about cars (and that's normal because he was the auto editor for the Merc for over 15 yrs!) and Schaub about homes and gardens.
Almost because PG&E "flack", Keely Wachs provided some interesting insights in how and why the electric company is helping all of us spend less and conserve energy. In a nutshell, PG&E is just respecting California Law enacted over 30 years ago. Here you'll find an interesting presentation from the electric company behind the success of "decoupling".

"Decoupling breaks the link between the energy we sell and our revenues. So ultimately what it does is that it disincentives us to sell more energy. It's counter intuitive to anyone who has grown up in a capitalist society because if you sell more, you make more... that's not the case in California!", said Wachs.

Watch Wachs video interview after the jump.

"For the last 30 years... we've helped our customers save over $20 billion, preventing 120 million tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere... we've kept California per capita energy use flat... the rest of the country has gone up by 50%", ads Wachs. This decoupling is without doubt a resounding success that should be imitated both nationwide and worldwide.

Here's a short video of Matt Nauman's introduction at the event. He has been with the Merc for 20 years!


Peter Whiteley has been with Sunset magazine for 37 years and is in the midst of retiring. In his introductory remarks, he said Sunset has 5 million readers across 13 Westerm states, 5 editions and that landscape was his favourite part of the magazine: