Upgrade to a Programmable Thermostat     Keeping your home warm in the winter, or cool in the summer, requires a lot of energy. Control these costs with an energy-saving programmable thermostat. This thermostat is programmed by time and temp so that your heating or central air-conditioning is on when you want it to be and at the temperature you choose.

It won’t happen without you.     The actions of federal, state and local governments are just the beginning of revitalizing the Bay. We are also counting on the partnership of millions of people who live in this region to join in protecting the waters that support their health, their environment and their economy.     So said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson this summer, speaking in her new role as this year’s president of the Chesapeake Bay Executive Council.

Dobbins Island in the Magothy River is a summertime attraction for boaters. On a warm summer weekend, the sandy north-facing beach becomes crowded with enthusiasts dropping anchor and floating languidly in the gentle current. Sooner rather than later, though, Dobbins Island will be reduced to a skeleton by rising sea levels. Water will cover the sandy shores, and the beach will turn into an obstacle course of submerged trees.

A boardwalk leads through pinewoods to the water. From its beginning, you see a sliver of shining Bay. As you walk along the worn planks raised over marshland, the Dominion Cove Point Liquefied Natural Gas facility — the industrial campus, the seven vast blinding-white storage tanks — disappear. At the end, the marsh and the tall reeds give way to the low dunes of Cove Point Beach.

The bigger, the better. That seems to be the theory behind Anne Arundel County’s push to distribute 65-gallon recycling containers throughout the county.     “Recycling is a budgetary priority of this administration,” says County Executive John R. Leopold. “I’m always looking for ways to enhance the convenience of our recycling plan.”

This is how you’d look if all you had to wear were the plastic bags you toted home all year long.     You’d look like a plastic imitation of New Orleans’ legendary Mardi Gras Indian tribes. But you’d be warm.

It’s been a wild weather year — record winter snowfall followed by record summer heat followed by record daily rainfall.  Weather that’s been inconvenient for most us has been terrible for Maryland farmers who grow conventional crops like corn and soybeans.  But for Maryland grape growers in all corners of the state, 2010 has been a very good year. 

 

Find a greener way to care for your lawn Saturday, August 14, at the Great Maryland Lawn Mower Event in Baltimore’s Camden Yards. The first 1,000 people who bring their gas guzzling power mowers to the event can exchange them for a discount in purchasing one of two environmentally friendly electrical Neuton mowers.