SOCIAL JUSTICE through Creative Thinking

Social Justice is the distribution of wealth. One of the popular methods is taxation of those who can and then the distribution to those who can not. This requires taking wealth from one group and distributing to another group through the auspices of the Federal Government.
What we can do as a conscious and educated society is to provide social justice by supporting the creative thinking and making choices that benefits ‘the many’ of our ‘one planet’ rather than the pocketbooks of the few.
. Most money in this country is made where there is monthly consumption and spending. The masses work for an income and spend their hard earned money on consumables like non-renewable energy, transportation, food, drugs, clothing, electronics and real estate and monthly mortgage payments or rent, all owned and controlled by the few. All of these industries are part of the present status quo.. The answer is to support creative thinking and technology that supports the sustainability of our ‘one planet’ and its people.
Most products are designed with built in obsolescence . Our resources are limited and we need to slow the burning, the consuming, and then the throwing away of our resources in the name of profit. By collectively making educated and conscious choices we can cause change, make a difference and help save our one planet and in the process have social justice by lowering the amount being spent every month..
The sun and wind are free and renewable. And as it will be shown there are now ways to creatively finance renewable energy projects and mortgages and debt without any out of pocket expense, without refinancing the mortgage and without increasing the monthly cash flow.

Creative Thinking and making a difference

There are things we all can do that will make a significant difference:

· First lower the energy needs for the house. These recommendations will lower your existing monthly utility bill.
· Design a system that will eliminate this lowered utility needs.
· Pay off the energy savings improvements to get the best ‘return on your investment’ and making these improvements affordable.
· Pay for these improvements and your mortgage in 6 to 12 years.

One of the first things everyone can do that takes very little effort but can make a big difference for the entire country is to change our incandescent lights as they fail and replace them with CFL’s (Compact fluorescent lights)

There are various sizes of incandescent light bulbs and CFL equivalents. For this example each 75 watt incandescent bulb will be changed to 23 Watt CFL which is actually about a 100 watt equivalent. If we assume an average usage 4.8 hours per day at a cost of 10 cents per kwh considering the life of each and the cost of each device bottom line savings is $10 per device per year. This is not a very significant number until we multiply this by the approximate number of households in the United States. There are approximately 100 million households in the U.S. This equates to a $1 billion in savings per device in each household used per year and then add in the total number of businesses and then this number gets even more significant Now throw in the cost labor of changing and disposing of a consumable light more frequently – every 750 hours as opposed to 10,000 plus hours and the total cost becomes even more significant. Strangely enough the cost of the device is not where the savings occur but the time on per year and the unit cost of the utility. I have shown this when I put together a spread sheet and by changing each variable for any given average usage of time. The savings of the CFL varies between $8 to $10 per year per device and there is always a savings using the CFL.
In a 24 hour restaurant where I have counted as many as 300 incandescent bulbs in the ceiling, the savings are very significant and then add in the cost replacing the bulbs more frequently and you get the picture. By the way there are CFL’s that look like incandescent lights. This and the following recommendations accumulatively result in less electricity per household and then when adding in a solar or wind system will require a smaller and less expensive system. The ultimate results is more money in the pockets of the participants and planet that uses less resources.

The next area that can make a big difference is to buy more efficient appliances with an Energy Star rating when replacing old appliances. High SEER A/C equipment and 19 SEER is now available. Most people will of course feel that the price at the time of buying is more important than the years of saving money and energy .

The next recommendation and where you can get the most ‘bang for your buck’ is solar hot water with a tankless hot water device (electric or gas are available) downstream of the solar equipment as a backup for the solar hot water.. This actual solar product will depend on your latitude and your pocket book.. While the solar hot water heater is working the tankless hot water heater will never come on but when it is needed it will only run while there is a demand for usage.

Another area of consideration is insulation and windows and window treatments. This is an area of expertise I have some understanding but it really needs to be addressed on an individual customer basis but will contribute in saving resources. The recommendations will be slanted towards the products each vendor offers and will also depend on the age of the house and the existing structure, the size of the house, and attic space available and orientation of the house.

The last energy recommendations will be using the sun and/ or the wind to produce electricity. The actual system design will depend on the homeowners wants, needs, utilities existing, rebates, incentives cost of the per kwh of electricity and whether the utility has net metering which is preferred or net billing. With true net metering the extra produced electricity can be stored on the utility grid and purchased back at the rate it is sold to the utility. On the other hand net billing favors the utility because the utility purchases the power at wholesale and sells it back to the consumer at retail.
(A kilo-watt-hour is the number of kilowatts equal to the power required to light ten 100 watt bulbs per hour)

Whatever system is selected the method of paying for the system will make or break the deal. The keys to determining the return on your investment (ROI) are the incentives and rebates, the ‘per unit’ cost of the utilities and the method of paying off the system.

It is obvious that the better incentives and rebates will improve your ROI because the lower the initial outlay the better your return. Also as the ‘per unit’ cost of the utility goes up the more that is saved per unit of time so this will also improve your ROI. Note the cost of the equipment remains the same but the money saved per month increases. For example if one utility in California charges twice as much as the utility in Arizona then the ROI in California will be twice as good as the ROI in Arizona.

The payment method is not so obvious and can be most significant with regards to the ROI and make the above two concerns almost insignificant.

Imagine being able to pay off all your debt including your solar and/or wind investment and your 30 year mortgage in 6 to 12 years with out increasing your cash flow or your out of pocket expense. With this one creative idea will provide social justice to those that grab unto this concept. This concept will work on all income levels and mortgage sizes.

Normally in a 30 year mortgage the homeowner will pay 2 and a half times the house value in interest with a 6% loan. While most people live in a home on an average of 7 years the actual interest paid over thirty years living in multiple houses for the average time the actual interest paid is much higher than 2 and a half times. If the house could be 80 to 90% paid off in 7 years and all of this extra interest is saved, the home owner can invest this new money or roll it over to the next house as a substantial down payment. This creative thinking is a way the wealth can now distributed from the haves to the have-nots without directly taking money from the haves and not requiring any legislation to do it.

Rather than me explain the entire process of paying off your debt faster go to http://www.renewableenergyoptions.com/ and look at a video link. If you want more information, there is contact information on the website

Each of the above recommendations increases the cash flow of the participant. By taking this creative thinking to other industries and through education people can make conscious choices to improve their cash flow and may even improve the quality of their lives.

Think of all the waste that is produced in the name of profit so new items can be sold to replace obsolete items. For example I am on my eighth computer. Where are all the computers I no longer have? Most products are designed with built in obsolescence . Cars are a good example.

Our resources are limited and we need to slow the burning, consuming, and throwing our resources away in the name of profit. By collectively making educated and conscious choices we can cause change, make a difference and help save our ‘one planet’ and in the process have social justice.
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