Environmental Concerns? Start with traffic.

I often become frustrated with all the focus the cap and trade legislation gets in the media. Seems that congress wants to regulate how much energy we use. I'm not familiar with all the details of the plan, but my understanding is that companies will be allowed a certain amount of pollution and if they exceed that, they'll have to pay fines or trade capacity from other, non-polluting companies. Leaving aside the merits of such a system (and the obvious corruption that would ensue), I propose a new focus in the war on climate change, or the global warming crisis, or whatever clever name they've come up with. Instead of killing industry by laying more taxes on our already expensive energy, why don't we focus on getting rid of or at least lowering the effects of what is probably the biggest source of ubiquitous pollution in our nation - cars sitting in traffic.

Every city in America is inundated with cars and traffic. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. We all use cars to get around. Perfect. However, they cause tons of pollution, and when they're stuck in traffic, they're at their worst. Emitting tons of carbon dioxide and other noxious gases that make our air foul and dirty looking. Here I will present two ideas that will be not only beneficial to everyone, but improve our environmental impact as well.

In my experience, when I am stopped at a stoplight, probably 50-60% of the time spent waiting for the light to turn green I am staring at an empty intersection. Granted, this is not true of every intersection, but it is certainly true of some, if not most. Why not start making smarter stoplights that will recognize when no one is going and act accordingly?

My wife and I traveled to Israel this year and one of the things that I remember best about the country is that the stoplights have a yellow light for the red light as well as for the green light. That way, if the light is red, you know when it is about to turn green, so you don't slow your car to a complete stop, only to immediately speed it back up again - a total waste of gas and a cause for increased pollution. I don't have any numbers to tell how much gas that would save or pollution it would eliminate, but the cost would be virtually nothing. You can reprogram lights easily, pay someone 10 bucks an hour to go around making the changes, and presto, you're done. A simple idea that would be both convenient AND have positive environmental effects. More ideas like these are sure to follow.

If and only if

I was thinking today about all the things I'd like to change about the way things are run and my wife encouraged me to put these things in a blog. Probably for her own entertainment. Anyway, the purpose of the blog is to share these constructive ideas for improving our society.