GRANTS PASS, OR (March 20, 2009) – EXCERPT: The new head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will not only be talking the talk on global warming, she will be walking the walk — eight blocks from the Metro station to her office. Former Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenco had planned to rent a small apartment close enough to walk to her offices in the nation’s capital, but got sticker shock when she saw the prices — $5,000 for a one-bedroom apartment — enough to finance a large house back home.
So she settled for a little place in the Cleveland Park neighborhood near the Red Line station. Lubchenco, whom the Senate confirmed for the NOAA job Thursday, has also signed up for the Zipcar car-sharing service to take the place of her Honda Civic hybrid back home in Corvallis. "I don’t see myself as a pioneer in this area, because I know a lot of people who are becoming more and more aware of their own carbon footprints," she said. One of the first things Lubchenco and her husband, fellow OSU marine biologist Bruce Menge, did for the new apartment was replace the incandescent lights with energy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs. She was encouraged by how easy it was to find them in neighborhood stores. "It used to be the case that it was hard to find compact fluorescents," she said. "Now, in many places that’s all you can find. In a relatively short period of time there has been a very rapid transition. It’s not fast enough. But it really is happening. Especially when doing the right thing is also saving you money in the long run."
Read the Associated Press story in full