Left In Lowell

[Bumped, as a reminder.]

The Lowell Dem caucus will be held this Saturday, Feb 7, at 10am, at the East End Club on 15 West Fourth St. This is for all Lowell wards.

Catch you there!

Well, I just sent in my Intent to Apply form for the Getting to Zero program that the City of Lowell is putting together, with a $25,000 prize to the project that brings one’s energy footprint down closest to zero. (Deadline for Intent to Apply is Feb 20th.)

As I go through the process, I hope to document it and make this a broader educational moment for our readers.

For my household, the outlying costs might be an obstacle we can’t find a way to overcome in the end. Many of the incentives for getting home owners to invest in efficiency and renewable energy generation is to reimburse them with grants after the fact. You need the capital up front to actually do the work. (That may change if the stimulus bill includes the building weatherization grants, which I am hoping it still does once it overcomes the inevitable Republican filibuster attempt…)

However, at a minimum, going through this process will allow my husband and I to formulate some sort of plan. It puts your home on the priority track for the National Grid MassSave energy audit. Otherwise, I hear there’s quite a waiting list. Then, the city is working with UMass Lowell students to do a more comprehensive audit on your home.

This alone will help us determine the best ROI, or return on investment, the lowest hanging fruit that will help us reduce our energy bill and at the same time our carbon footprint. Are our vinyl windows too old to be very efficient? Or should we really be spending money on insulating our basement? Or perhaps our first action ought to be our home heating and hot water systems? Can we afford a PV (photo-voltaic) installation? Or maybe a solar hot water heater? Can our old house even handle the roof load? All of these questions are daunting to a home owner, and therefore a blueprint to navigate your investments for the short and the long term would be very useful.

So I’ll be writing my thoughts and experiences as we go through this process, however far we can get. Hopefully it helps other homeowners who might be contemplating how they too can be part of the movement to reducing their environmental impact while lowering their energy bills at the same time.

One of the memes being touted (in comments on this blog and elsewhere) is that the public is turning against the spending stimulus as outlined by the winners of last November’s election, ie, Obama and the Democrats.

This dkos diary outlines, in depth, a Gallup poll showing both of these ideas as blatantly false.

Sorry, guys. But please, by all means, after we saw a devastating 598,000 jobs lost last month, keep on obstructing the stimulus bill and insisting on promoting your obviously failed concepts of how to deal with this crisis. 2010 is right around the corner. Oh, and we’ll probably pick up Kansas at a minimum, if Sebelius runs.

Update: the new Research 2000 poll shows everyone lost popularity this week. Yup. That includes our little stuntmaster Boehner, who goes a net -8 on his fav/unfav.

And take a look at these:

Yup, we’re really losing that battle to the Republicans, aren’t we?

And before anyone complains this is a liberal Daily Kos poll, this poll company they engage is very reputable and proven.