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"After decades of decline, the people of the Scottish island of Gigha took things into their own hands, and it has really paid off... Ten new businesses have started in the past five years. Among them Gigha Renewable Energy, which built three wind turbines that generate all the island's electricity and earn a profit of £100,000 annually which is reinvested in the community-owned island." (
People who suffer
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Wonder Dog
How smart is your dog?
However clever your four legged friend may be, your pet likely can't hold a candle to a two-year-old golden retriever named Toby.
He lives with a woman named Debbie Parkhurt in the small town of Vert, Maryland. And what he did last week simply defies explanation.
The 45-year-old owner was alone in her home eating an Apple on Friday when a piece of the fruit got lodged in her throat. She began to choke and tried to perform the Heimlich maneuver on herself.
It didn't work.
She then began beating on her chest in an attempt to dislodge the obstruction, but that failed, too.
The jewelry designer was in danger of choking to death and didn't know how she'd get help in time.
That's when her 'wunderdog' went to work.
Toby suddenly came up to Parkhurst, got up on his hind legs, put his paws on her shoulders, pushed her to the ground and began jumping up and down on her chest.
Incredibly, his efforts succeeded and the apple bit came out of the relieved woman's mouth, allowing her to breathe again.
Most people aren't trained in the Heimlich procedure, let alone dogs, and Parkhurst has no idea how her furry companion knew what to do.
"I literally have pawprint-shaped bruises on my chest," she told her local paper. "I'm still a little hoarse, but otherwise, I'm OK.
"The doctor said I probably wouldn't be here without Toby. I keep looking at him and saying 'You're amazing.'"
After his effort was over, Toby kept kissing his owner to make sure she didn't fall back into an unconscious state, allowing her to get up and call for help.
It seems this pet went from Heimlich to dog lick. And it's one trick his amazed owner hopes he never has to repeat.
The story has spread like wildfire in the community, with many suggesting the dog couldn't possibly have known what it was doing.
But you'll never convince Parkhurst of that.
"I was in that house I know what happened," she contends. "I saw him and that's all that matters. I'm here."
And oh yeah - Toby wound up eating that fruit that caused the entire mess in the first place. "Yes, he ate the apple," she laughs. "I know it's disgusting but everybody's been asking that."
And there's one more incredible coda to this already amazing story. It turns out Toby may have just been returning the favour.
The animal was found abandoned two years ago going through a dumpster and taken to a local animal shelter. Parkhurst adopted him a short time later.
"Nobody wanted him," she beams looking at his constantly wagging tail. "And now look."
Legalising Sunshine
No doubt, you’re familiar with the Solar Opportunity and Local Access Rights Act, or, if you wish, SOLAR. How could you not be? It was all over the trade press. And, on a few environmental websites. And pretty much nowhere else.
Not quite the same majesty as Bush’s last State of the Union speech, which called for huge subsidies for ethanol production. There’s a reason for that, which I’ll get to, but first, SOLAR.
The earth receives as much solar energy in one minute as the energy burned in a year’s worth of fossil fuels. So, reserves are not the problem, conversion is. For the moment, the most universal way to produce power directly from sunlight is through photovoltaic cells. The problem is PVs are expensive to produce, and right now, it takes five to 10 years for a home system to fully pay for itself.
But even if not wholly self-supporting, “When grid connected, solar electric generation can displace the highest cost electricity during times of peak demand (in most climatic regions), can reduce grid loading,…” Moreover, when connected to the grid, excess home generation can be added to the overall electric supply. The more homes that add solar generation, the bigger the market becomes, and the lower the price of components will go.
In order to do that, though, building codes must be re-written, metering tools improved, and hardware standardized. That’s what this act is intended to do, as well as to “help protect prospective consumers from exorbitant permitting and licensing fees.” This is admittedly not an astonishing piece of legislation, and undoubtedly there are producers and installers in the solar energy business who stand to gain from the act. But, why does solar not get the attention that, say, ethanol, or clean coal, does?
Despite the fact that he doesn’t drink the stuff, Bush loves ethanol, and made it the centerpiece of his trip to Brazil last month. In the most cynical terms, Bush sees the present oil and companies switching to ethanol and keeping their massive industrial outlay and distribution systems in place, assuring a barely interrupted stream of profits to his favorite industry, into the foreseeable future.
Solar electricity generation, on the other hand, challenges both the extraction industries (coal, oil, gas) and hands considerable economic leverage over to consumers or at least to local levels. Solar arrays are, at the moment, comparable to air conditioning: there are dozens of manufacturers, and thousands of independent installers. There is the possibility that huge fortunes will be made on PVs, but absolutely no assurance. And the Bush administration is devoted to big business, and to the accumulation of capital. The more, the better.
The tide of history and technology is turning, but it needs help. Senator Menendez and has colleagues have grasped that even if the public sector does not directly subsidize green technology, the legal fabric of the nation can be rewoven to make innovations like PV arrays viable. Or, they can be stopped by lawmakers.
SOLAR is important and should be supported and publicized.
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