"It's amazing we have one very minor injury and that's all."
"We could see the explosions from here," Colvin said. "We saw pools of flames come up and we watched the billows of smoke. When we first went outside there was a distinct chemical odor, but now that the plume has risen higher, you can't smell it, it's not as noticeable."
Alcoholic beverages are a factor in cancers of the mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, colon and liver, the report says, urging that consumption be limited to two drinks a day for men and one for women.
"It doesn't matter whether you are talking about wine, beer or spirits. When it comes to cancer, even small amounts of alcohol raise your risk,"
A TOXIC BY FORMULA Unfortunately, experts say, deciphering the labels of personal and household products isn't as simple as selecting organic produce. There's no standard, enforceable definition of a "non-toxic" or "environmentally friendly" household cleaner, says Urvashi Rangan, senior scientist and policy analyst at Consumers Union. Such terms don't provide consumers with any real guarantees about products' ingredients, she says.
There's no real standard for "natural" or "organic" cosmetics, either, says Jane Houlihan, vice president for research at the Environmental Working Group.
The Food and Drug Administration requires that cosmetics companies test their products for safety so consumers don't develop a rash or eye infection. But it doesn't require companies to study whether products contain chemicals such as endocrine disruptors.
These chemicals which include preservatives called parabens that are found in many shampoos and conditioners act like hormones and are linked to reproductive and development problems in infants, Houlihan says.
TIMING OF EXPOSURE MAY BE CRUCIAL
For chemicals that alter the hormone system, the timing of exposure is critical, says Richard Jirtle, a professor at Duke University Medical Center.
His work suggests that endocrine disruptors such as bisphenol A, or BPA, may affect developing offspring in the earliest days of pregnancy.
In an experiment published in July in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jirtle found that feeding BPA to female mice changed the color of their babies' coats. BPA caused more than cosmetic changes. In this breed, brown mice grow up with healthy weights, while those with yellow coats grow up to be obese, with a higher susceptibility to cancer and diabetes.
In Jirtle's experiment, mothers fed BPA before, during and after pregnancy had twice as many yellow babies - which made up 21% of their litters - as mothers who weren't fed the chemicals.
In humans, endocrine disruptors are of most concern during critical windows of vulnerability, especially the first two trimesters of pregnancy.
The good news for moms-to-be is that, unlike toxins such as mercury and lead, which can remain in the body for years, these chemicals don't stick around. Tracey Woodruff, an obstetrician at the University of California-San Francisco, says because it won't be stored in bone or fat as some chemicals are, BPA quickly exits the body in urine.
By Liz Szabo, USA TODAY
Unfortunately, experts say, deciphering the labels of personal and household products isn't as simple as selecting organic produce. There's no standard, enforceable definition of a "non-toxic" or "environmentally friendly" household cleaner, says Urvashi Rangan, senior scientist and policy analyst at Consumers Union. Such terms don't provide consumers with any real guarantees about products' ingredients, she says.
There's no real standard for "natural" or "organic" cosmetics, either, says Jane Houlihan, vice president for research at the Environmental Working Group.
The Food and Drug Administration requires that cosmetics companies test their products for safety so consumers don't develop a rash or eye infection. But it doesn't require companies to study whether products contain chemicals such as endocrine disruptors.
These chemicals which include preservatives called parabens that are found in many shampoos and conditioners act like hormones and are linked to reproductive and development problems in infants, Houlihan says.
TIMING OF EXPOSURE MAY BE CRUCIAL
For chemicals that alter the hormone system, the timing of exposure is critical, says Richard Jirtle, a professor at Duke University Medical Center.
His work suggests that endocrine disruptors such as bisphenol A, or BPA, may affect developing offspring in the earliest days of pregnancy.
In an experiment published in July in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jirtle found that feeding BPA to female mice changed the color of their babies' coats. BPA caused more than cosmetic changes. In this breed, brown mice grow up with healthy weights, while those with yellow coats grow up to be obese, with a higher susceptibility to cancer and diabetes.
In Jirtle's experiment, mothers fed BPA before, during and after pregnancy had twice as many yellow babies - which made up 21% of their litters - as mothers who weren't fed the chemicals.
In humans, endocrine disruptors are of most concern during critical windows of vulnerability, especially the first two trimesters of pregnancy.
The good news for moms-to-be is that, unlike toxins such as mercury and lead, which can remain in the body for years, these chemicals don't stick around. Tracey Woodruff, an obstetrician at the University of California-San Francisco, says because it won't be stored in bone or fat as some chemicals are, BPA quickly exits the body in urine.
By Liz Szabo, USA TODAY
Labels: BPA
¶ 10/31/2007 09:05:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
"And you'd think walking would be free." Thanks to years of poor planning and an increasingly lazy (sorry, "busy") population, the U.S. federal government, through the Department of Transportation, is spending $612 million for a program called Safe Routes to School in about 20 states. This program sets out to "help build sidewalks, post traffic signs and find ways to make it easier for students to bike or walk to school."
[Source: autobloggreen VIA, Associated Press]"
¶ 10/31/2007 08:44:00 AM 2 Comments
Links to this post
Read it here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-10-30-plastics-cover_N.htm
People use lots of water for drinking, cooking and washing, but even more for producing things such as food, paper, cotton clothes, etc. The water footprint of an individual, business or nation is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual, business or nation.
Some facts and figures
- The production of one kilogram of beef requires 16 thousand litres of water.
- To produce one cup of coffee we need 140 litres of water.
- The water footprint of China is about 700 cubic meter per year per capita. Only about 7% of the Chinese water footprint falls outside China.
- Japan with a footprint of 1150 cubic meter per year per capita, has about 65% of its total water footprint outside the borders of the country.
- The USA water footprint is 2500 cubic meter per year per capita.
Visit http://www.waterfootprint.org to find out more or visit my water fact links below:
Water conservation facts http://neutralcleaning.com/Water%20Conservation.htm
Water facts http://neutralcleaning.com/Water%20Facts.htm
Labels: Waterwars
¶ 10/31/2007 07:40:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
Link ¶ 10/30/2007 02:00:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
Times of India: A report of United Nations Environment Programme, Global Environment Outlook-4, has warned that the consumption levels are fast depleting world resources. According to the report, 45,000 square miles of forest are being lost across the world each year, 60% of the world's major rivers have been dammed or diverted and the fresh fish populations have declined by 50% in the last 20 years. Meanwhile, the biodiversity register of the planet is becoming thinner by the day. Some 30% ...
Link ¶ 10/30/2007 01:58:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
No, I don't mean cost, safety, waste, or proliferation though those are all serious problems. I mean the Achilles heel of nuclear power in the context of climate change: water.
Climate change means water shortages in many places and hotter water everywhere. Both are big problems for nukes.
The Australians, stuck in a once-in-a-1000-years drought, understandably worry about this a lot:
Operating a 2,400 Watt fan heater for one hour consumes 0.01 litres of water if wind is the energy source, 0.26 litres if solar is the energy source, 4.5 litres if coal is the energy source, or 5.5 litres if nuclear power is the energy source.
Hotter water is another serious worry: (read more here )
Labels: Waterwars
¶ 10/30/2007 01:55:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
This change won't happen any time soon. GreenTech writes that, "In five years, Wal-Mart is aiming to make its existing stores 20 percent more energy-efficient and to reduce the energy consumption of new stores by 30 percent. It's also working to make its transportation fleet more efficient and to turn its trash into a revenue stream."
Wal-Mart is getting ready to launch a new website where green companies can offer their technologies to the retailing giant. If Wal-Mart thinks it can reduce its environmental footprint and its operating costs by using the technology, then it's off to the races. Wal-Mart's site will launch next week at www.cleantech.com/accelerato (it currently just says "Testing page").
Now, while this effort is noble, if Wal-Mart truly wants to green all of its operations, I'd say that will have to include the many factories that produce all those products Wal-Mart sells. Sure, it's a huge challenge, but there's no time like the present to get started.
Related: From Source: autobloggreen.com
Wal-Mart's Thermal King diesel-hybrid trucks are biodiesel-ready
"In the race to profit off the scramble to go green, there will be winners and losers. Here's how the players currently stack up."
And a host of middlemen have sprung up to make markets in new financial instruments created by the proliferation of green-oriented subsidies and mandates. All these players are jostling to shape the new government rules to give them the bulk of the benefit -- and hit someone else with the bulk of the burden. Ultimately, the cost will be passed on to consumers.
Big energy burners are experimenting with ways to use fossil fuel more efficiently -- and to roll out supplemental fuels. General Motors Corp., for instance, is developing more hybrid gasoline-and-electric cars, a technology it dismissed a few years ago. ConocoPhillips plans to start brewing small quantities of diesel fuel from animal fat. Utilities are experimenting with a technique to turn coal into electricity that would shoot the resulting greenhouse-gas emissions underground instead of up into the air.
Alternative-energy producers are having a field day as new regulations and subsidies, and improving technology, make their power more attractive to investors. Hosts of new projects are springing up as Wall Street sinks money into everything from wind turbines to solar panels to ethanol. Credit Suisse Group just introduced a new "global-warming index" of stocks its analysts believe will benefit from the push toward lower emissions -- one of several new green-investment instruments from major banks.
Still, skepticism is warranted. A great green future has been heralded before -- and then it fizzled. In the wake of the 1970s energy crisis, Washington adopted generous subsidies for synthetic fuel and solar panels, the oil patch diversified into nuclear energy, and Detroit retooled to crank out fuel-efficient cars. Then oil prices fell back down, and those experiments fell by the wayside.
Two factors suggest today's energy crunch -- and resulting green interest -- may prove more enduring. Unlike the 1970s oil-price spike, which was due to the temporary supply disruption of the Arab oil embargo, today's oil-price rise is due largely to rising demand from the developing world, a trend many analysts predict will intensify. By 2030, annual global energy demand is projected to grow 53% above the 2004 level, according to the International Energy Agency. Even if governments adopt more aggressive policies to encourage energy efficiency, global energy demand would still rise 37% by 2030.
What's more, there's rising pressure to confront an environmental issue virtually unmentioned a generation ago: global warming. In 2005, European governments slapped utilities and some other big industrial sectors with caps on their emissions of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, which is produced when fossil fuel is burned. Now Europe is toughening those constraints. The U.S., the world's top greenhouse-gas emitter, is considering imposing a carbon cap, too. That would amount to a new tax on fossil-fuel consumption -- over time, a spur for corporations to make serious changes.
The financial flows in this green push remain relatively small for now. And they're competing against a huge, and cheap, installed energy base. But investment is growing fast. What follows is a snapshot of potential winners and losers as business tries to shift its green portfolio from the red side of the ledger into the black.
Read more from --Mr. Ball is The Wall Street Journal's environmental news editor,
Labels: greenwashing
¶ 10/30/2007 01:36:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
"Despite decades of government attempts to regulate it, ban it and erase it from household use, the poisonous metal mercury remains a threat to the environment and public health, especially to children and to women of childbearing age. As many as 600,000 babies may be born in the USA each year with irreversible brain damage because pregnant mothers ate mercury-contaminated fish, the Environmental Protection Agency says. Medical researchers are just beginning to explore such mercury exposure in adults, which can leave some people struggling through life in a disorienting 'fish fog.' Nationwide, more than 8,000 lakes, rivers and bays are compromised by mercury's toxic effects. Where is all the mercury coming from and can something be done to stop it? A partial answer can be found in the nearly 500 coal-burning power plants that supply half the nation's electricity. The $298-billion-a-year electric utility industry is the nation's largest source of mercury air emissions and the latest target of federal and state clean-air regulations. Mercury emissions in the USA have been cut nearly in half since 1990 as municipal, medical and hazardous-waste incinerators closed or installed modern pollution controls. But mercury from coal-burning power plants has risen, largely because there have been no federal limits on such emissions." Larry Wheeler reports for Gannett News Service in USA TODAY Oct. 30, 2007.
Read it here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-10-29-mercury-cover_N.htm
"By 2050 or so, the world population is expected to reach nine billion, essentially adding two Chinas to the number of people alive today. Those billions will be seeking food, water and other resources on a planet where, scientists say, humans are already shaping climate and the web of life. In Dot Earth, reporter Andrew C. Revkin examines efforts to balance human affairs with the planet's limits. Supported in part by a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Mr. Revkin tracks relevant news from suburbia to Siberia, and conducts an interactive exploration of trends and ideas with readers and experts."
Read it here: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/
Newspaper Tests Show High Levels of Mercury in People Near Hot Spots
As part of a three-part series called "The Mercury Connection," The (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier identified two areas in South Carolina with high levels of mercury in fish and collected hair samples from people who eat from these waters. Tests showed 17 people had levels higher than a federal safety benchmark and six had levels that rank among the highest tested in nation. The series comes amid a growing debate over a proposal for a new coal-fired power plant near one of the mercury hot spots identified by the newspaper. The series also showed how South Carolina government officials have had advanced equipment to test people with mercury contamination for three years but have only done one test for a member of the public. Tony Bartelme reports Oct. 28-30, 2007.
Read it here: http://www.charleston.net/news/2007/oct/30/whos_checking20508/
Read it here:
Read it here: chicagotribune
Even so, most designers see CFLs as an interim technology, which will be phased out as soon as LEDs become affordable. "
In the future, lights need no longer be independent objects, hanging from the ceiling, or perching on a table or floor. The Japanese designer, Naoto Fukasawa, is experimenting with the integration of lighting and other domestic functions that are now executed by separate objects, into the modular panels of "intelligent walls." Ingo Maurer has already sunk LEDs into walls and tables in one-off commissions.
treehugger.comThat's what a lot of Great Lakes states and provinces are saying; as John noted earlier, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson from New Mexico said "States like Wisconsin are awash in water" and wants some.
He backed down, but the Chicago Tribune suggests that will not be the end of the issue. "The fires in Southern California, the prolonged drought in the Southeast and the shrinking flow of the Colorado River, which feeds seven Western states, have underscored the importance of water supplies in rapidly developing regions and the determination of a handful of states to hold on to a resource they see as key to their economic future."
With fresh water supplies dwindling in the West and South, the Great Lakes are the natural-resource equivalent of the fat pension fund, and some politicians are eager to raid it. The lakes contain nearly 20 percent of the world's surface fresh water.
"You're going to see increasing pressure to gain access to this [water] supply," said Aaron Packman, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University. "Clearly it's a case of different regional interests competing for this water."
The Great Lakes states and provinces are trying to put together a water compact to protect the water, and it is, of course, an international issue. In a world where planning principles and logic prevailed, one would look forward to a reversal of the migration to the southwest as people come back north for the newly temperate climate, but no, according to an environmental lawyer: there is "no way for the Great Lakes states to prevent the U.S. government from taking the water if the federal government wants to do so."
"It doesn't make economic sense to send Great Lakes water to the High Plains or the Southwest, but we know the thirsty will be calling." Read full at Chicago Tribune
Labels: Waterwars
¶ 10/30/2007 07:21:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
quotes from Prince Charles- "The simple fact is that combating deforestation is likely to be one of the quickest and most cost-effective means of reducing carbon dioxide emissions" -"Wood can be the perfect sustainable material; it sucks up CO2 and once cut, it holds it for the life of the building." a reader writes: " I was going through the feed today and noticed a story that made me think about the other. I don't believe that there is any contradiction here. HRH is talking about the burning of forests, particularly the rainforest, to clear land for agriculture (including palm oil plantations) or to use as fuel. There is also rainforest habitat loss due to illegal logging of exotic woods for architectural uses.
The architecture and construction we show on TreeHugger (and the wood construction we promote) is built from sustainably harvested forests, usually close to the location of construction. Our favorite woods are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) who say "In many forests around the world, logging still contributes to habitat destruction, water pollution, displacement of indigenous peoples, and violence against people who work in the forest and the wildlife that dwells there. Many consumers of wood and paper, and many forest products companies believe that the link between logging and these negative impacts can be broken, and that forests can be managed and protected at the same time. Forest Stewardship Council certification is one way to improve the practice of forestry."
TreeHugger suggests that one should Choose their wood wisely, and avoid phony industry-run certification schemes.
Pick the right wood and use it wisely and there are few better, greener building materials.
FROM mongabay.comMadagascar is world-famous for its lemurs, a diverse group of primates that are endemic to the Indian Ocean island nation. Madagascar is also known for widespread bush fires that are usually set by farmers and cattle herders seeking to clear land for subsistence agriculture or promote the growth of new vegetation for animal fodder. These fires sometimes escape scrub areas and spread into parks and endangered forest areas.
While the Malagasy government has tried to crack down on burning, the lack of an effective monitoring system has made it difficult to track fires and keep them from spreading. The new Fire Alert System a collaborative effort between Madagascar's ministry of Environment, the International Resources Group, and Conservation International with USAID funding -- allows anyone with an Internet connection to see where fires are burning. The system includes email alerts that notify subscribers when a fire has been detected in a specified area.
Data from the Fire Alert System can be viewed using Google Earth
http://firealerts.conservation.org
James Kunstler, for instance, argues in his 2005 book The Long Emergency (see Rolling Stone excerpt here) that after oil production peaks, suburbia "will become untenable" and "we will have to say farewell to easy motoring." In Rolling Stone, Kunstler writes, "Suburbia will come to be regarded as the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world." (No -- that distinction probably belongs to China's torrid love-affair with coal power.)
But suppose Kunstler is right about peak oil. Suppose oil hits $160 a barrel and gasoline goes to $5 dollars a gallon in, say, 2015. That price would still be lower than many Europeans pay today. You could just go out and buy the best hybrid and cut your fuel bill in half, back to current levels. Hardly the end of suburbia.
The 'Comments', not this article by the GRIST were great... http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/10/29/01347/293
"Comments on ..latest post: It never ceases to amaze me how informative and helpful Romm is concerning the science of global warming, and how incurious he seems to be about solutions. In particular, he obviously is not very interested in trains or walkable communities, and I don't just mean the occasional reference.
He obviously is not doing much reading on oil. $5/gallon by 2015 is also pretty funny, if it wasn't tragic, because it will likely be much higher by then. But the point [odograph] is not exactly what the price of oil will be when, the point is that we should be seriously considering alternatives to classic suburbia, which fortunately many contributors to gristmill do."
Labels: HybridHype
¶ 10/30/2007 06:22:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
- Coca-Cola - for continuing the international marketing of its bottled water, Dasani, despite admitting it comes from the same sources as local tap water.
- Kellogg's - for the worldwide use of cartoon-type characters and product tie-ins aimed at children, despite high levels of sugar and salt in their food products.
- Mattel - for stonewalling US congressional investigations and avoiding overall responsibility for the global recall of 21 million products.
With the overall prize going to:
- Takeda Pharmaceuticals - for taking advantage of poor US regulation and advertising sleeping pills to children, despite health warnings about pediatric use. ¶ 10/30/2007 06:03:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
Research by the government's waste reduction agency, Wrap, found that one third of all food bought in is thrown away - of which half is edible. Wrap will claim that this discarded food is a bigger problem than packaging, as the food supply chain accounts for a fifth of carbon emissions and decomposing food releases methane, the most potent of the greenhouse gases. 'If we stopped the amount [of food waste] that we could stop, it would be the same as taking one fifth of cars off the road,' said Liz Goodwin, Wrap's chief executive. The campaign will urge people to plan meals, write - and stick to - shopping lists, make smaller portions, and learn to prepare and cook leftovers and food which is past its prime. Among the supporters is the National Federation of Women's Institutes, set up during the First World War to help women make the most of the food available. Read more from Guardian
Last week Jean Ziegler, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, called for a five-year moratorium on biofuels, saying it was a "crime against humanity" to convert food crops to fuel at a time when there are more than 850 million hungry people in the world. Read more by Andrea Hopkins
¶ 10/30/2007 05:52:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
Read more from http://www.chemalliance.org/news/index.asp?StoryID=2194
¶ 10/26/2007 07:16:00 AM 1 Comments Links to this post
The sweet notion that making a company environmentally friendly can be not just cost-effective but profitable is going up in smoke. Read this monumentally silly article at Business Week but also look at the very good slide show, with their take on who is going green and who is just a greenwashing poseur.
Auden Schendler learned about corporate environmentalism directly from the prophet of the movement. In the late 1990s, Schendler was working as a junior researcher at the Rocky Mountain Institute, a think tank in Aspen led by Amory Lovins, legendary author of the idea that by "going green," companies can increase profits while saving the planet. As Lovins often told Schendler and others at the institute, boosting energy efficiency and reducing harmful emissions constitute not just a free lunch but "a lunch you're paid to eat."
Inspired by this marvelous promise, Schendler took a job in 1999 at Aspen Skiing Co., becoming one of the first of a new breed: the in-house "corporate sustainability" advocate. Eight years later, it takes him six hours crisscrossing the Aspen region by car and foot to show a visitor some of the ways he has helped the posh, 800-employee resort blunt its contribution to global warming. Schendler, 37, a tanned and muscular mountain climber, clambers atop a storage shed to point out sleek solar panels on an employee-housing rooftop. He hikes down a stony slope for a view of the resort's miniature power plant, fueled by the rushing waters of a mountain creek. The company features its environmental credentials in its marketing and has decorated its headquarters with green trophies and plaques. Last year Time honored Schendler as a "Climate Crusader" in an article accompanied by a half-page photo of the jut-jawed executive standing amid snow-covered evergreens.
But at the end of this arid late-summer afternoon, Schendler is feeling anything but triumphant. He pulls a company sedan to the side of a dirt road and turns off the motor. "Who are we kidding?" he says, finally. Despite all his exertions, the resort's greenhouse-gas emissions continue to creep up year after year. More vacationers mean larger lodgings burning more power. Warmer winters require tons of additional artificial snow, another energy drain. "I've succeeded in doing a lot of sexy projects yet utterly failed in what I set out to do," Schendler says. "How do you really green your company? It's almost f------ impossible."
But failed to mention : Johnson and Johnson has proclaimed a 17% reduction in carbon emissions since 1990, based largely on RECs. Without the credits, the pharmaceutical giant has seen a 24% increase.
That's true . . . apart from the fact that Johnson and Johnson is not merely a "pharmaceutical" company . . . but it also fails to tell the whole story.
At first blush, a 24 percent increase in carbon emissions since 1990 does sound significant. And contrasted with the company's claimed 17 percent reduction, it almost makes J and J sound dishonest or hypocritical.
Labels: greenwashing
¶ 10/26/2007 05:52:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
The City of Ann Arbor, Michigan, the newest LED City, expects to install more than 1,000 LED streetlights beginning next month. The City anticipates a 3.8-year payback on its initial investment. The LED lights typically burn five times longer than the bulbs they replace and require less than half the energy. The LED streetlights currently installed in Ann Arbor are based on the New Westminster Series made by Lumec, Inc., which contain LED light engines from Relume Technologies, Inc. The light engines are based on the performance-leading Cree XLamp® LED.Full implementation of LEDs is projected to cut Ann Arbor's public lighting energy use in half and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2,425 tons of CO2 annually, the equivalent of taking 400 cars off the road for a year. Detroit Edison, Ann Arbor's local utility provider, will meter the new LED streetlights with the intent to gather sufficient information to develop new LED-based tariffs.
One of the reasons LED light clusters quickly became popular on traffic lights is because long-lasting LEDs reduce maintenance costs, increase public safety (no completely dead lights at rush hour) and avoid traffic blockages during maintenance. A similar rationale lies behind the increasing popularity of LED clusters in automotive lights. The advantages of LED street lights, similarly, are significant beyond mere payback on energy savings.
Via::Cree & Treehugger
¶ 10/25/2007 07:25:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
From SEJ.org:
When considering the impact of transportation on the environment, most people think of cars. However, air travel is gaining increasing scrutiny as a climate change culprit. Are people and organizations in your region aware of how their flying habits affect global climate? How significant is this impact? And what, if anything, are today's air travelers willing to do about it?
In June 2006, ABCnews.com reported that "Air travel accounts for about 3.5 percent of the human contribution to global warming," according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
At issue is not just today's air travel, but tomorrow's. IPCC says "CO2 emissions from aircraft in 1990 account for about 2.4% of the total; they are projected to grow to about 3% or more than 7% of all fossil fuel carbon emissions by 2050".
AIR TRAVEL GAINING POPULARITY - Air travel is now more popular than any time since 9/11. In March 2007, the Official Airline Guide (OAG, an air travel industry research and publishing organization) reported that the number of flights scheduled in October 2007 is 3% higher than in the same month last year. ..the highest October figure for more than five years."
Federal statistics also indicate the increasing popularity of air travel. On Oct. 15, 2007, the US Dept. of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) reported: "US. airlines carried 72.2 million scheduled domestic and international passengers on their systems in July, a record high for a single month and 2.2 percent more than the previous record of 70.6 million in July 2005."; release.
On the heavily polluted town of Port Arthur, Tex.:
¶ 10/25/2007 06:51:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this postWOW- I think they have a ton of jobs for a guy who thinks like this in China...
Read the full story in Water & Wastewater News.
¶ 10/25/2007 06:36:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this postRain and snow in rural areas of the Northeastern and Midwestern United States contain nitrate that has been traced to power plants and other industrial facilities hundreds of miles away, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study.
Although vehicles are the single largest emission source of nitrogen oxides in the Northeast and Midwest, distant stationary sources may have a greater impact on nitrate found in rain and snow, USGS officials stated. Link from Laura B.(www.lib.wmrc.uiuc.edu)
Contents of an albatross' stomach. . . R: A trapped turtle [An] enormous stew of trash - which consists of 80 percent plastics and weighs some 3.5 million tons, say oceanographers - floats where few people ever travel, in a no-man's land between San Francisco and Hawaii. Marcus Eriksen, director of research and education at the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, said his group has been monitoring the Garbage Patch for 10 years. . . The patch has been growing, along with ocean debris worldwide, tenfold every decade since the 1950s, said Chris Parry, public education program manager with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco."At this point, cleaning it up isn't an option," Parry said. "It's just going to get bigger as our reliance on plastics continues. ... The long-term solution is to stop producing as much plastic products at home and change our consumption habits."
Parry said using canvas bags to cart groceries instead of using plastic bags is a good first step; buying foods that aren't wrapped in plastics is another.
After the San Francisco Board of Supervisors banned the use of plastic grocery bags earlier this year with the problem of ocean debris in mind, a slew of state bills were written to limit bag production, said Sarah Christie, a legislative director with the California Coastal Commission.
But many of the bills failed after meeting strong opposition from plastics industry lobbyists, she said.
Meanwhile, the stew in the ocean continues to grow.
Read more from JUSTIN BERTON,- LA TIMES SERIES ON THE ALTERED OCEAN
Built right, green schools are productive learning environments with ample natural light, high-quality acoustics and air that is safe to breathe.
Schools everywhere are going green, nurturing children while saving money. Get the facts and learn how you can make the case to build green schools.