Are There Good Ideas In A Bad Economy?

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After getting laid off by 2 architectural firms in 2008, architect John Morefield took his destiny in his own hands. He set up a booth at a local farmer's market in Seattle. Every Sunday he offers home improvement advice for 5 cents a question. Occasionally the questions lead to substantially bigger paying jobs. If not, he gets names to add to his e-mail list. John also gets business from his Web site, where customers drop a virtual nickel into a virtual tin can to ask questions. John still has his booth at the farmer's market, but he's building a business.

Holsum Elm Dairy in Wisconsin is one of the industrial dairy businesses making its facility greener. Having been Green Tier qualified - meaning it has voluntarily surpassed environmental standards required by law - Holsum keeps its 4,000 cows from polluting the environment by using a system called a "digestor", which is basically a big vat that decomposes manure, producing methane used to make electricity for about 400 homes a year. The leftover, sterile, dry product is used for cow bedding; and the wet waste is stored to be used for fertilizer. There's just one word for this process - cowabonga!

There are two words for the building replacing the towers destroyed on September 11, 2001 - Freedom Tower. Now the agency that owns the site says the 1,776-foot skyscraper will be named One World Trade Center. The name change was rebuked by New York Governor Pataki, who said the former name for the 102-story, $3.1 billion building was symbolic of U.S. commitment to rise above the attacks and shouldn't be renamed for marketing purposes. But doesn't the name One World Trade Center market the U.S. commitment not to be defeated, but to rebuild with pride and confidence?

In an attempt to rebuild the car industry, the Obama administration has raised fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks for the 2011 model year. This is the first increase in passenger car standards in more than 20 years. Cars will need to reach 30.2 mpg and pickup trucks and SUVs will need to reach 24.1 mpg. This is the first step in meeting a 2007 energy law requiring auto manufacturers to reach 35 mpg by 2020. While campaigning, Obama said he supported a 4% annual increase in standards so cars and trucks would reach 40 mpg by 2022. Hopefully that support won't run out of gas.


About the Author:
Knight Pierce Hirst takes a second look at what makes life interesting and it takes only second at http://knightwatch.typepad.com



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