Michael Prager

With its four wind turbines, Rock Port, Mo., is the first town in America to get all its electricity from wind, according to the Columbia Daily Tribune, via EcoGeek.com. The turbines can generate a max of 5 megawatts daily, which the post says would be more than twice what the town of 1,300 needs. It's worth noting, however, if you go there: There's lots of skepticism in the comments.

I'm still typing from flat on my back, which continues to lead to fewer posts and shorter posts. But I came across a list of 50 ways to help the planet, and thought it could help just about anyone do one more thing. That's my request/suggestion: No matter how many of these you do, how 'bout taking on one more?

A bit more than a year ago, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA had to regulate greenhouse gases. (They need to court to tell them what any 10-year-old could figure out? If not them, who?)

At the beginning of this month, the House select committee on global climate change subpoenaed the EPA for related documents.

I'm slow to the post on this one, but if you hadn't heard, John McCain has proposed a summer holiday from federal gas taxes, to ease the effect of high-market prices during the summer touring season. Unthinkers will love it — they save a few bucks at the pumps, and gee, ain't John a swell guy for looking out for us? Except he is not. Taxes — which I don't like, and no one likes, and gosh wouldn't it be swell if everything were free — are going to be one of the ways we change over from a carbon-based economy to a renewable one.

The words of author Jim Kunstler more than a month ago at a NESEA-sponsored forum still ring in my ears: "We're not going to organize our way out of [the climate crisis], and we're not going to tech our way out of it." I don't know if he's right (though I have to say that strong, declarative statements, forcefully stated from a public platform, do have a weight of their own), but he has certainly influenced my outlook. I thought of it several times at the show that followed, such as at BigBelly Solar's booth.

Sorry, Second Rotation, for calling you a leftover, and I do so only in the sense that I didn't follow up soon after the show.

Second Rotation has figured out a way to profit from buying used cell phones, computers, cameras, gaming consoles, GPSs, and other electronic gizmos that are sitting in your drawer, unused. (If you've already sent them to the landfill, too late.)