Air Date: Week of January 16, 2009

A Massachusetts listener suggests a real estate tax break for green homes.

Transcript

CURWOOD: It's Living on Earth, I'm Steve Curwood. Coming up: the secret life of power lines.

But first, listener Alex Lehar of Lexington, Massachusetts wants to give green homeowners a tax break. Here’s his Cool Fix for a Hot Planet.

[COOL FIX THEME]

LEHAR: Currently real estate taxes are levied on the basis of how big your house is, how many windows there are, how many bathrooms there are, and so on. Why not extend that assessment method by introducing a green co-efficient for a house, which is an assessment of how much energy efficiency might be built into the house? And give people a tax break based on that and, thereby, achieve some of the objectives of energy efficiency in our society…and, also, generate a whole industry, which would supply the services needed to do that.

CURWOOD: And if you have a Cool Fix for a Hot Planet, let us know. If we use your idea on the air, we'll send you a sleek cool-blue Living on Earth tire gauge. Keep your tires properly inflated and you could save over $280 a year in fuel costs. That according to a study done at Carnegie Mellon University. So, call our listener line at 800-218-9988, that's 800-218-99-88. Or email coolfix—that's one word—at loe.org. That's coolfix@loe.org.