Green Daily

Houston's big pain at the pump

Sea Stachura — 2008-05-10T17:05:00 00:00

Filed under: Cars and Transportation, News, Climate Change

Sometimes everyone wants to talk about the Yankees, and sometimes everyone wants to talk about gas prices. Personally, I'd rather not talk about either. But gas is on everyone's lips, from Hillary Clinton to Chris Matthews, the price of crude is just crude.

But gas prices are only one factor in how much consumers are spending for fuel. Congestion, vehicle size and distance also play major roles. According to Forbes cities like Houston have the cheapest gas, but drivers there are spending the most on gas.

You see, while drivers in Houston are paying a mere $3.44 a gallon for gas, they're also driving huge vehicles. According to a U.S. Department of Transportation study 20-percent of drivers in the south drive trucks and another 16-percent drive SUVs.
That data is about 10 years old. But remember that where gas prices tend to remain inexpensive, habits remain steady. So it's unlikely the numbers have shifted to compacts.

Not only does that mean drivers in Texas get fewer miles to the gallon, they halve that number again with traffic. Congestion and commutes in Houston and Dallas are some of the worst in the nation, according to Forbes. Washington D.C. and San Bernadino are up there as well.

A vehicle gets its best mileage at a steady 55 mph, stop and go traffic at 20 mph is a serious cut to efficiency. It's not just the idling and accelerating, speeds above and below 55 are simply less efficient. An 18 mpg SUV might get 10 mpg in rush hour. Account for an incredibly long commute where every driver is driving by himself and you've got a lot of wallets opening for Mr. Oil.

[via Forbes and me]

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Sierra Club takes on coal power nationwide

Josh Loposer — 2008-05-10T11:21:00 00:00

Filed under: Activism, Climate Change

At a time when so many people are enthusiastic about the possibility of renewable energy, it's almost hard to believe that developers are pushing coal power plants in almost every state in the US. An astounding 150 coal-burning power plants have been planned since 2002, and it seems like there's some kind of a race going on to get these plants built before the green movement can shut them down. The Sierra Club has reportedly put a halt to 63 of the projects already, and Tuesday they set their sights on 8 more.

In February, a D.C. federal appeals court ruled that the EPA had violated the Clean Air Act, and should have required mandatory cuts on mercury emissions for all new power plants -- thus giving the Sierra Club more ammunition to attack the mercury and carbon-spewing power plants. The leaders of 8 coal projects across 5 states got letters this week from the Sierra Club, saying that their plans should be resubmitted to their state agencies to get approved under the newer emissions standards -- or else get sued. Nice.

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Air travel more polluting than previously thought

Patrick Metzger — 2008-05-09T15:03:00 00:00

Filed under: Cars and Transportation, News, Climate Change

The mile-high club just got dirtier. A report by leading aviation experts says that CO2 emissions from air travel are some 20% higher than previously thought, and could reach 1.5 billion tonnes a year by 2025. That's roughly equivalent to the CO2 emissions for the entire country of Russia, with about 141 million people. The percentage of global greenhouse gases produced by planes is also expected to rise from the current 2% to 5% or higher.

The increase comes in spite of cleaner jet engine technologies and flying tactics designed to reduce fuel use and pollution.

The report, entitled Trends in Global Noise and Emissions From Commercial Aviation, was presented at an FAA organized conference in Barcelona last year, but never published.

Also, the number of people seriously affected by aircraft noise will jump from from 24 million in 2000 to 30.3 million by 2025. Good thing we'll all be deaf from iPod use by then anyway.

via [The Independent]

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Is investing in tar sands a good idea?

Shawn Schuster — 2008-05-09T09:31:00 00:00

Filed under: Cars and Transportation, Activism, Climate Change

Last year, the US Congress signed a bill preventing federal agencies from investing money into alternative fuel projects that produce more polluting effects than oil and gas. This was certainly a step in the right direction, but could it possibly be true that Congress is considering a repeal of that bill, in order to explore investments in Canada's tar sands and oil shale projects? Yes, it is true, but environmental groups across North America are fighting to do something about it by petitioning the government through their senators.

In case you're wondering what tar sand is, it's basically a heavy crude oil mixed with sand, clay and rock. The process of extracting and refining it into a usable crude for vehicle and industrial consumption is not only much more expensive to process, but its effect on our environment is much larger than convention oil well drilling. Tar sand extracting does currently occur in North America, and the US does currently invest in it, but with last year's Section 526 bill, we had hoped this practice would have slowed to a halt.

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Celebrating Britain's cleaner lakes and rivers

Shawn Schuster — 2008-05-08T18:01:00 00:00

Filed under: Movies, TV and Books, Travel and Vacation, Climate Change

Have you ever heard stories from your parents or grandparents about how they'd take a dip in a local pond, or grab an inner tube and float down the river for hours without a care in the world? That's almost unheard of these days. Sure, you could still do it, but you had better make sure you've had all your shots.

To showcase the improving state of natural waterways in the UK, photographer and travel writer Daniel Start recently released a new photo-guide book entitled "Wild Swimming: 150 Hidden Dips in the Rivers, Lakes and Waterfalls of Britain". In this book he explores the freshest of the freshwater "wild swimming" spots across the country. In a time when we hear more and more about the contamination of our water, it's nice to hear some good news for once.

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Cleantech looking better and better to investors

Patrick Metzger — 2008-05-08T11:32:00 00:00

Filed under: GreenFinance, Alternative Energy, Climate Change

Global warming and peak oil might sound nasty to you, but for some folks working on green technologies it sounds like "Ka-ching." With growing concern about CO2 from fossil fuels that may or may not be running out anyway, venture capitalists pumped a record $2.2 billion into cleantech last year, says a report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers entitled "Cleantech Comes of Age."

Much of the boom is focused on alternative energy sources such as wind, solar, and biofuels with total investment in that area reaching $1.1 billion. However, pollution mitigation and recycling also attracted funding, with 29 recorded deals totalling over $202 million.

It'd be nice to think that the surge in interest in eco-friendly tech has to do with our collective consciences driving us to better stewardship of the planet, but we all know it's because oil is at $123 a barrel and rising, making alternative energy and straight-up conservation look a lot more attractive. But whatever the reason, it's all a step in the right direction.

via [Green Tech Blog]

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CO2 is poisoning cute Koalas

Josh Loposer — 2008-05-08T09:00:00 00:00

Filed under: News, Climate Change

According to the research of Sydney University's Ian Hume, rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere can turn eucalyptus leaves -- the Koala's favorite food -- into a toxic salad of death. Apparently, the heightened level of carbon dioxide not only saps the nutrients from the leaves that Koalas need to survive, but it also increases production of toxic "anti-nutrients" in the eucalyptus plant. Bummer.

The Koala's eucalyptus diet is notoriously low in nutritional value as it is, and they've adapted to it by sleeping nearly 20 hours a day. Now with strange anti-nutrients blocking the digestion of the few proteins in the leaves, the Koala is faced with any even greater uphill battle. With the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere, Hume expects a steady decline in Koala population over the next 50 years due to a lack of edible eucalyptus leaves. This is obviously bad news for one of Australia's national symbols. At least the kangaroos are mating like rabbits.

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Sorry Apple fans, IBM is greener

Shawn Schuster — 2008-05-08T08:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Gadgets and Tech, Climate Change

IBM has some bragging rights in the climate-friendly front today after a recent report by ClimateCounts gave the computer manufacturer top honors. The company scored 77 out of 100 possible points on the ranked list, which beat out such electronics powerhouses as Canon, Toshiba, Sony and most notably, Apple. Even Microsoft, with a lower-than-average 38 points had more than three times that of Apple's meager 11 points.

So how much of an impact does this report actually have, and how were these companies ranked? Well, according to their scorecard, they scored companies based on their climate footprint, how effectively they've reduced their climate impact, whether they've supported or blocked progressive climate policy initiatives and if they've made their climate protection efforts public or not.

Check out the complete report and see what you think. You may be surprised.

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Spawn of climate change: the grolar bear

Rebecca Onion — 2008-05-07T15:13:00 00:00

Filed under: Climate Change

If grizzly bears keep getting forced further north by the adverse affects of climate change, scientists say that we may see more and more grolar bears - hybrid offspring of the polar bear and the grizzly. (What was wrong with "pizzly"? I think I would have chosen that over "grolar.")

Mixed polar/grizzly bears have already been spotted, namely one which a hunter killed in April 2006. The unfortunate bear, which biologists said must have been a hybrid offspring of a male grizzly and a female polar bear, was confirmed by DNA tests to carry genetic material from both types. The bear was mainly white, with a few fuzzy brown patches. (Next up: a kids' book which explores how the poor grolar bear is an outcast at his school, because he's different...)

Some point out that at least if polar and grizzly bears mate, we won't end up losing polar bear DNA altogether - a serious threat if the ice that supports polar habitats disappears, as it well may. That seems to me to be a major case of straining to see the silver lining...

Via ENN

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Global warming to kill off insects

Patrick Metzger — 2008-05-07T14:28:00 00:00

Filed under: News, GreenFinance, Climate Change

You may have to wave goodbye to your ant farm - climate change may prove to be a more powerful pesticide than DDT. New research shows that even relatively minor fluctuations in temperature could have devastating effects on insects, especially in the world's tropical regions.

An article in the Independent quotes Curtis Deutsch, who co-authored the study to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, as saying that although temperatures are not expected to increase as much in the tropics as at the poles, even a 1C or 2C jump could be fatal for insects already surviving at their edge of their climactic comfort zone.

While that doesn't sound like it's all downside, especially for anyone who's been up north during blackfly season, the repercussions could be pretty ugly. Insects in warm climates are key to a healthy environment, pollinating flowers and plants, carrying away organic waste (read: eating crap) and serving as dinner for various birds and animals. If the bugs fail to adapt to a changing climate, the consequences will be felt all the way up the food chain.

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Can Exxon freeze the CO2 out of gas?

Josh Loposer — 2008-05-07T08:30:00 00:00

Filed under: News, Climate Change

Exxon announced this week that it's developed an experimental process to affordably remove CO2 and hydrogen sulfide from natural gas. The plans include a $100M test facility, to be built this summer in LaBarge, Wyoming, where the petroleum giant will test out it's "Controlled Freeze Zone" technology -- attempting to freeze and remove many of the greenhouse components from natural gas.

If the freezing process turns out to be a winner, Exxon will be able to produce cleaner burning fuel while also making it cheaper to process "sour gas" -- that's gas containing high levels of hydrogen sulfide. The leftover CO2 could be used in oilfield recovery projects, or stored underground -- a pretty controversial idea in itself. Do you think it's crazy to keep working on ways to make fossil fuels cleaner, like freezing gas or clean coal? Or, should these oil companies be spending their money on a more sustainable technology?

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The environment vs. the economy: Yale website lets you 'see for yourself'

Josh Loposer — 2008-05-06T14:30:00 00:00

Filed under: GreenTech, Green by the Numbers, Climate Change

Yale economist, Richard Repetto wants everyone to know the score when it comes to the effect carbon-reducing legislation would have on the US economy. That's why he and his staff have developed a very user-friendly website that allows you to see the long term growth of the US economy with CO2 reductions in place. The See For Yourself website allows users to input their opinions regarding the economy and climate change, allowing them to compare their predictions with the Yale's.

Facts and figures are nice, but I think tools like this one are long overdue for people who want to get a little more hands-on with their understanding of climate change. The good news is that the Yale team predicts robust economic growth even in the face of substantial carbon emissions legislation. So, it seems that we don't have to sacrifice the economy for the environment. Yesss.

[via Treehugger]

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Beavers are friends, not foe

Ellen Slattery — 2008-05-06T13:00:00 00:00

Filed under: News, Climate Change

Okay, so they're kind of annoying, and they can destroy irrigation canals and be general pests.

But beavers might actually be a great resource to help quell the effects of climate change, as we suffer from warmer water, and less of it. Biologists in the Southwest explain that, when beavers built their dams, it slows down the water flow, making it last longer and giving it more time to seep into the earth.

Dams also hold back the melting snow that comes off of the mountains, and keeps the water at a slow, steady stream, making it last longer into the summer months. One biologist describes beavers as "cheap labor" - lots of management for a small about of money.

What's more, dams provide great habitats for trout, insects, and birds. See? Those cute little devils are more helpful than we thought.

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Are hybrid drivers driving more?

Josh Loposer — 2008-05-06T12:30:00 00:00

Filed under: Cars and Transportation, Green by the Numbers, Climate Change

According to an article in Forbes, the record oil prices that we're seeing now are resulting in a lot of weird, counter-intuitive responses from drivers. For the most part, our driving habits have remained astonishingly unchanged in the face of $3.50 a gallon gas -- some of us are even driving more. According to David Littman, an economist from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy:

"There's no doubt that hybrid owners end up spending just as much on gasoline as before because the added efficiency allows them to rationalize driving more miles."

I find the information about hybrid drivers believable, if not a little dubious. No numbers were offered to support the claim that hybrid drivers are driving more miles -- but if you can afford to, you probably will. Not to mention, a lot of the hybrids out there don't get very good fuel economy in the first place. Does this mean people should go around vandalizing hybrids on their lunch hour? No.

It's a common misconception that hybrid drivers are all staunch environmentalists in the first place. Maybe they just bought a hybrid to save on gas, or because they like new technology. Either way, they're still putting out less emission per mile that non-hybrids.

Overall miles driven in the US did decline in 2007, barely. Gas prices are having an effect on drivers, it's just not one that's proportionate to the level of whining that goes on. Seriously, if you're outraged by the price at the pump, don't make empty threats. Give your town's mass transit a try, or get out the old bike.

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Cuban wetland might be global warming's next disappearing act

Sea Stachura — 2008-05-06T12:00:00 00:00

Filed under: News, Climate Change

Did you know there was a wetland in Cuba? If you did, I must say I'm impressed. If you didn't, blame it on the U.S. embargo against Cuba and read on.

The Ciénaga de Zapata is considered one of the best preserved wetlands in the Caribbean. But rising temperatures and increasingly harsh hurricanes are threatening its existence. The Zapata wren, rail and sparrow are all native species that don't exist anywhere else. Mangroves and coral reefs also make up the preserve. And from what I've read, it's also home to much of Cuba's wildlife.

Oddly, people seem to also be living in the edges of this wetland, which is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. That in itself isn't so bad, but the increasingly extreme temperatures and conditions make wetland preservation all the more tenuous. With people and their homes and their pollution habits come more problems for the forest.

The director of the Cienaga de Zapata National Park Pablo Bouza says last year fires raged for 45 days damaging 70-percent of the forest.

"The hurricanes leave a lot of accumulated vegetation on the ground, which when it dries from the lack of rain, is converted into fuel for the flames. The fire spreads quickly when the marsh is dry," said Bouza.

Now, the effort is to educate people about the risks and encourage them to move out.

[via Tierramerica]

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Would you live in your car?

Shawn Schuster — 2008-05-05T19:02:00 00:00

Filed under: Cars and Transportation, Activism, Climate Change

I admit, I've often thought of just giving it all up and living in my car or a small RV. Just think of all the things you wouldn't have to deal with anymore. You could have a different backyard every day, anywhere in the country you'd like to visit. Your expenses would be minimal and the basic necessities of life are mostly all achievable through public means. You'd have the complete freedom to do whatever you like whenever you want, without being tied down to a crushing mortgage payment or rising utility bills.

This is the occasional life of Jassen Bowman who tells us an incredible story of his voluntary adventures in living the mobile life. While I admire his simplistic outlook on life and the way he distances himself from a dependancy on materialism, he also makes quite a point to relay the positive impact that a downsized life has on the environment. You may think living in a car or RV would be harmful with the gas usage, but consider the comparison to the energy used in an average American home.

I guess the argument could go either way, if you take long-term environmental impact into consideration. What are some of your opinions?

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Landfill gas powers garbage trucks

Shawn Schuster — 2008-05-05T18:01:00 00:00

Filed under: Cars and Transportation, Climate Change

It all comes full-circle eventually. The true definition of self-sustainability is supporting yourself with what you have available. The ideal situation for this has recently been announced: garbage trucks fueled by the trash they gather and dump. How perfect is that?

North America's largest waste management company, Waste Management is joining together with Linde, a leading gases and engineering company to produce a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility neat Livermore, California next year. This facility could produce up to 13,000 gallons of LNG a day!

So why stop there? If this project works effectively, the potential application for this type of natural gas project could not only halt the release of methane gas into the air (which is much more harmful to the air than CO2), but also help curb the ongoing gas crisis.

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Note to climate change deniers: It's real, you idiots

Patrick Metzger — 2008-05-05T15:30:00 00:00

Filed under: Activism, Climate Change

The news this week that natural climate cycles may see planetary temperatures plateauing for a decade or so was a gift to climate change deniers. That select group of fact-ignorers have pulled their heads out of the tar sands long enough to declare victory and claim the news as proof that manmade climate change is a hoax, and that humanity can now look forward to a future of worry-free polluting. Excellent stuff, and reassuring.

Unfortunately, real scientists don't agree, saying that the shift may disguise - briefly - some of the effects of global warming, but not much, and not for long. But that doesn't matter, because the war against the truth of climate change is about PR, not science.

Who are these so-called skeptics, or deniers? They claim that climate change isn't happening, and it's not our fault, and anyway it's too expensive or too late to do anything about the thing that isn't happening and isn't our fault. They present their case as if the topic were still up for debate, which it most emphatically is not. While experts disagree on many details about climate change - it's an immensely complex subject - there's an overwhelming consensus that it's here, we're a major cause, and we need to do something about it now.

It's not like the truth isn't out there. For an excellent summary, I recommend a terrific site by former physicist John Cook which takes each denier argument one by one and demolishes them with a simple application of the facts. Cook also offers a list of major scientific organizations who support the idea of anthropogenic climate change (the short version is, pretty much all of them.)

So why do the deniers do it? In the case of the more organized groups, there may be a simple profit motive. One of the groups most active in promoting a denial agenda is the Heartland Institute, which according to Greenpeace site Exxonsecrets.org has received $791,000 in funding from ExxonMobil between 1998 and 2006 (The Institute's latest achievements include sending grade schools unsolicited DVDs which make wildly unscientific claims about climate change, and publishing a list of "500 Scientists WIth Documented Doubts About Manmade Global Warming Scares" , which, as DeSmogBlog.com notes, within a couple days of posting got at least 45 angry replies from scientists on the list saying that they refute unequivocally the Heartland Institute claims.)

Groups like this have easy but effective techniques to spread their distorted message - firstly, use the language of science, and put it in the mouths of people who sound like scientists, even if their expertise is not in climatology, or their findings have already been discredited. Send portentous bulletins to the press, pronouncing each industry-funded junk science study as a new discovery that disproves everything we know about climate change. Hold conferences where the various shills, cranks, and liars of the Anti-Global Warming movement can come together, wear ties, and pat each other on the back over lunch .

That's the aristocracy of deniers, but the core community of letter-to-the-editor blitherers and online trolls who surface, fists raised, at the first mention of global warming or even a nasty weather report, have a variety of motivations. While their continued belief is fed by the stream of disinformation from groups like the Heartland Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, there's evidently an array of unsettling psychological factors that draw individuals to this nonsense, including:

Politics. Liberal hippies types believe in climate change. I hate them, so they're wrong.
Fear. Global warming is scary, so I refuse to believe in it.
Economics. Fixing this might make gas prices more expensive, so it can't be broken.
Conspiracy. Big Solar is looking to shut down the struggling oil industry.
Psychosis. Things are only true if I think they are.

Scientists go where the science leads, and in this case that's to a theory of human-caused climate change. Deniers go where their agenda takes them, which is to an intellectual place that's becoming more bizarre and irrational every day. It would be quaint - like the Flat Earth Society - if it weren't for the fact that these people can create enough doubt in the public mind to prevent us from doing the things that need to be done to prevent catastrophe.

To the deniers I say, your schtick isn't cute anymore. Educate yourselves, and do the right thing - you've got to live here too.

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Burying CO2 may not be the answer

Shawn Schuster — 2008-05-05T15:04:00 00:00

Filed under: Activism, Climate Change

We've recently heard claims that capturing heat-trapping carbon dioxide from factory exhaust is going to save our environment. The captured CO2 would be entombed in porous rocks and buried beneath the earth. Does this sound like a safe alternative to you?

Well curiously enough, the WWF thinks so, and they're willing to fight for this type of environmental change to take place very soon. They say it's not an answer, but simply a method of buying time until something more effective can be created. Their argument is that it's better than nothing at this critical point. But many environmental groups, such as Greenpeace, are vehemently against this, calling it a scam and a way for more coal-burning power plants to be created under the veil of no newly harmful environmental impact.

I tend to agree with Greenpeace on this one. Locking away our toxicity hasn't worked for us before (see also overfilling landfills and nuclear waste storage). It only postpones the harmfulness for our future generations. That's certainly not saving the earth.

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Global warming suffocating oceans

Patrick Metzger — 2008-05-03T09:03:00 00:00

Filed under: Climate Change

As if it weren't enough that we're clogging the ocean with bird-choking plastic crap, now it looks like our climate-changing ways are sucking the oxygen out of the seas as well. A research study published in the journal Science says that warming temperatures are responsible for a rapid growth in low oxygen zones in oceans around the world, with potentially devastating consequences for already struggling fisheries.

There are two principal causes - firstly, warmer water simply holds less oxygen. Secondly, oxygen-rich water from the high latitudes that would normally sink and move towards the equators is no longer sinking as deep because it's at a warmer temperature. As a consequence, some oxygen-poor parts of the ocean are expanding both up towards the surface and downwards towards the sea floor, almost doubling in size in some places between 1960 and 2006.

Since most marine life requires oxygen to survive, the trend could ultimately have a serious impact on fish, fisheries, and your next trip to Red Lobster.

via [Wired]