If you own your home, you know that making sure the house keeps and increases its value is very important. There are ways to increase it cosmetically by painting, new flooring or a kitchen redo, but your style may not be the same as potential buyers out there. There is a way to increase the value of your home that will fit everyone’s style and that is to build solar panels.

So choosing to use solar energy for your home does not mean that you have to become the oddest looking house on the street, with a roof covered in solar panels. Solar energy is not like it used to be. In fact, you can build your solar panel yourself and even install it wherever you want on or around your house.

To build your solar panel might seem like a job that only a crew of construction workers and a group of engineers can handle, but just about anyone can do it in a weekend. You can purchase instructions and then gather the items from your local hardware store. It’s not as easy as building a simple bookshelf, but most people find they are successful and have their panels up and generating power relatively quickly.

There are many reasons why using solar energy can help you save money. Very soon after you install them, you will see your energy bills decrease and therefore the value of your home increase. Another reason is that solar is definitely environmentally-friendly. Even if you don’t consider yourself “green”, you cannot deny the importance using a natural, renewable resource like the sun. And future home buyers will see you as energy-conscious and that will invariably increase that value of your property.

You cannot argue with the fact that using solar energy to run your home will increase the value of your home, reduce your electricity bills, and is better for the environment. You should seriously consider building your solar panels and save money.

People were using common sense before the environmental movement ever began. We didn’t need doctors to advise us that breathing smoke from burning trash was not a good idea or that polluted drinking water could make us get sick and die. Nobody thought that breathing smog was healthy.

We still need common sense. The difference is that research provides us more information and a better understanding of how to make our environment healthier. “Environment” includes air, water and soil. By derivation it also includes food, medicine and all other substances that we breathe or ingest. More knowledge helps us use common sense more effectively. The first and most useful tool in the environmental arsenal is still the human brain! Some starting points:

• avoid obvious pollution such as burning of trash, dumping of toxins into water or undesignated areas, pouring poisons down the toilet, and littering.
• avoid subtle pollution: pouring unused medicines down the toilet; burning leaves and trees trees; ignoring failing septic systems and faulty exhaust systems.
• keep the use of salt and sand on roads to a minimum.
• divert storm water runoff to wetland sites or holding ponds.
• encourage recycling. Provide adequate containers for paper and plastics, toxic materials and unused medicines.
• keep the use of insecticides, weed killers and fertilizers to a minimum.

Another part of common sense: better to share the responsibility for sound environmental practices. We all live in the same environment. People appreciate tactful reminders and encouragement to do their part. Ask your customers for suggestions and post their ideas.

More heads are better than one.

It is argued by many that reproductive cloning (RC) would pull sharply at several threads of our social fabric. reproductive cloning is construed as a threat to family values, RC might enable de facto or full-on eugenics programs, and RC entails many concerns for the safety of mothers and children.

Reproductive cloning would make it possible for any sort of family configuration to have children. And much more than in vitro fertilization procedures, RC eliminates entirely the need for sexual reproduction. Single men who are infertile would be enabled to have children who are their genetic clones. A single woman could serve as her own DNA source for RC, an example of a woman having a child in the absence of spermatic services. All these possibilities, it is said by many, will destroy the traditional family along with its values that are the bedrock of our civilization.

Reproductive cloning raises the specter of eugenics, thoroughly discredited public policy attempts to “improve” the quality of the human race. RC would allow prospective parent(s) to select eggs from women who exemplify highly desired traits and qualities. For example, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but prized physiologic markers frequently include blonde hair, blue or green eyes, and athletic frames. Desired behaviors include above-average intelligence, artistic and/or aesthetic pursuits, and demonstrable achievements. A typical list, recently posted on a surrogacy services website, requests an egg donor who is “talented, intelligent, high achieving, humble, kind, organized, clean, healthy, attractive”.

The above list was compiled for a one-off surrogacy procedure. But such requests, when aggregated and multiplied, represent a de facto eugenics program. Reproductive cloning would streamline and simplify the processes used in IVF. For example, in RC no donor eggs are needed. A skin cell from the donor of choice will suffice. Highly attractive donors could sell ten skin cells a day or more, depending on the technology, indefinitely. The Alphas and Betas of Brave New World would soon become a reality. Unplanned (by the state, that is) eugenics would silently slip into the mainstream. Instead of being the world’s melting pot, it is said that RC would cause America to become a land populated by homogeneous Barbies and Kens.

The safety of RC is another important policy issue. At present most RC procedures in animals have a very low yield. Even if, for example, a live birth was possible for every ten procedures, a human mother-to-be would need to undergo ten implantations and early pregnancies before a living baby was born. Such repeated hormonal stress has unknown consequences, including maternal mortality due to such entities as eclampsia.

The child-who-is-a-clone would also be subject to a range of unknown health risks. RC attempts to replace physiologic processes that have developed over millions of years. Epigenetic reprogramming of gametes is an example of such a process that occurs over a long period of time. A second round of reprogramming on the sperm is performed by unknown factors in the egg cytoplasm after fertilization. Donor DNA obtained from an adult somatic cell is diploid, not haploid. It has not undergone primary spermatogenesis-related reprogramming, and egg-based reprogramming is significantly different than that occurring during sexual reproduction.

The above factors are representative of a much more detailed list of unknown variables that would have unforeseen consequences for the health of the clone. The long-term health of a clone is very much a roll of the dice at present. These issues will only begin to become apparent during the lives of the first few generations of human clones. What unfolds could possibly represent human experimentation at its worst.

In this modern era of technology, it is interesting to see how often scientists and engineers are turning to the past for some answers and solutions. If you consider the two most common sources of alternative energy – hydro and wind systems – it is easy to see how the past is inspiring the present, and the future.

The hydro electric water wheel is one of the earliest systems put to use by large and small enterprises alike. It required only that a building be situated directly adjacent to a body of water that moved at a fairly regular pace, and that the suitable water-wheel-technology to be installed properly as well.

The force of the water would spin the wheel and this would either power a turbine that generated electricity or it would somehow power the equipment contained within the building. While there are still some water wheels at work in the modern era, today this type of equipment is installed inside massive dams that supply enough electricity for entire cities or geographic regions. There are also small businesses and homeowners who look to a hydro electric water wheel for their electrical needs as well.

Regardless of the size of the home-based or business application, however, any system using water-wheel-technology is going to require a consistent supply of water without the building of a dam. This is due to the simple fact that most areas do not allow the sort of mass and widespread environmental changes that even a relatively small dam could create. The hydro electric power plants seen all around the world, on the other hand, tend to be government instigated or connected programs that are under a great deal of control.

For instance, any hydro electric power plant of substantial size is going to cause some impact on spawning fish populations, and this is the reason so many large-scale operations will have extensive “fish ladders” incorporated into their design. Clearly, a small home or business is not going to be able to offset the costs of such a facility, even one on a small scale, and this is the reason they are only in the most limited usage by individuals.

Because of these limitations those businesses and homes that implement hydro electric water wheel technologies are usually looking to it as a supplementary supply or something connected to a specific function. For example, many outlying farms or ranches will use water-wheel-technology to pump water to farm animals or into agricultural areas under irrigation.

There has been an explosion of interest in going green. Everything from cars to light bulbs are being pushed to new levels of efficiency. New industries are cropping up, it seems, on a daily basis.

But what about buildings; office buildings and schools in particular. These are the places that we spend most of our waking hours, and where we consume most of the energy.

There is a movement, led by the US Green Building Council, to establish standards to which buildings are designed and constructed by. Affecting more than just the energy consumption, but also the environment of the occupants inside. Buildings are certified, showing that it has met the requirements for a particular level of efficiency.

Not only do buildings get certified, but individuals also become accredited. There are thousands of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Accredited Professionals in the United States, all of whom had to pass a fairly difficult test covering the details of the “LEED” program. These “APs” act as a guide to design a building for the specific purpose of attaining high levels of efficiency.

Just as hybrid cars are more expensive than their normal, gas powered counterparts, buildings achieving, or attempting to achieve any level of certification will have an increased cost. The cost, if calculated properly, should be offset by the reduction in energy usage, and the increase in productivity of the occupants of the building. And the payback of the additional cost could come in 5 years.

A recent study released from the venture capital firm Good Energies, Inc states that around 50% of non-residential building will be green by 2015. That is five years from now. It must also be noted that these numbers also include buildings that did not obtain LEED certification, but did adhere to the guidelines. This should be recognized as tremendous growth.

Based on the ever increasing number of buildings being submitted for certification and the growing population of accredited professionals, it looks as though green building has only barely gotten started.