My publisher and I still haven’t come up with a title that works.  The problem is that there are a great many books on climate and/or clean energy solutions coming out right now many with similar sounding titles.

I do think this collection of blog posts accomplishes what I try to do on my blog — save readers time, cut through the crap and focus on what’s important in climate science, solution, and politics (with a hefty dose of old-media critiques).  The trick is it making that all clear in a few, catchy words.

I prefer figures of speech — The Hype About Hydrogen is my best-selling book.  And don’t worry too much about the subtitle — it will explain what the book covers, and I have a pretty good idea for that, but don’t want to thwart any of your creativity by putting out any ideas right now.

If we end up choosing your suggestion (or something very similar), you’ll get free copy of the book (woo-hoo) and you can write a guest blog post!  For similar sounding suggestions, the earliest entry wins.  You can build on someone else’s idea — in fact, that’s usually how the best title is ultimately found.

Enter as many suggestions as you want.  Do use Google to check whether the title is sufficiently original.

The guest blogger today is the Nobel prize-winning Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, by way of HuffPost.  As you’ll see, he’s the mirror image of Bush’s Energy Secretary (see “Bodman as Orwell: DOE erases ‘most successful’ weatherization program from website“).

I’ve always been a bit of an energy efficiency nut.

I’ve made it my mission to cut the utility bills at every home we’ve owned. Long before I learned about the risks of climate change, I was fanatical about energy efficiency because I’m cheap.

Whenever my wife and I move into a new home, I check the attic for adequate insulation. I look for leaks around doors and windows and install a programmable thermostat if needed. In our latest home, I’ve also insulated our water pipes with inexpensive foam from our local hardware store and painted mastic sealant on the seams of the air ducts. When our hot water heater needed replacement, we installed a tank-less water heater which decreased our summer-time gas use by 50%. In the summer, we found that setting the thermostat at 77 – 78 degrees and a gentle breeze from a fan was all that is required to be comfortable.

So far, we are on track to cut our utility bills by about half compared to the previous owner, but we are doing more. Our home has two large skylights that funnel too much heat out in the winter and let too much heat in the summer. We intend to replace these older windows with modern widows with five times the efficiency.

Taking these steps is called “weatherization.” I would rather call it “saving money by saving energy.” Over the next several years, we want to help millions of American families seize the same opportunity to cut their utility bills by making their homes and appliances more energy efficient while increasing comfort.

We are making a major down payment on this effort through the President’s economic recovery plan.

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