Tuesday, March 31, 2009
EH2ED Day Four: Brusha, Brusha Brusha
Turn off the faucet while you brush your teeth. You'll save up to 2.5 gallons of water each time you brush your teeth - up to 150,000 gallons over a lifetime.
Monday, March 30, 2009
ED2eH Day Three: Recycle Paper
ED2EH Tip: Americans toss out about 35 million tons of paper each year. Buck the trend and start recycling -- not only standard white printer paper, but all of the receipts, phone messages, and colored post-it notes that decorate your space. Recycled paper manufacturing generates 74 percent less air pollution, and saves trees, water, and energy.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
ED2EH Day Two: Buy CFLs
Now that your lights are back on, replace them with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), which require only 25% of the electricity used by incandescent bulbs. According to the federally backed Energy Star program, if every household in the U.S. replaced one light bulb with an Energy Star-qualified compact fluorescent bulb, it would equal removing 1 million cars from the road. CFLs are more expensive initially, but because they last so long, they end up saving you money. Especially target the 60W to 100W bulbs you use several hours a day. To learn more about CFLs and to find out where to purchase them, visit the Energy Star Web site.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Turn Off Your Lights at 8:30 p.m.
Show your support for global sustainability by turning off your lights at 8:30 p.m. as part of Earth Hour, an international show of support for climate change action. Help make Earth Hour a powerful statement on climate change that can’t be ignored by turning off your lights tonight. Then check back with us every day until Earth Day for ways you can make a difference as part of Earth Hour to Earth Day (EH2ED), an outreach initiative of Cool People Care.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Why Global Warming May Be Fueling Australia's Fires
By Bryan Walsh Monday, Feb. 09, 2009
The raging infernos that have left more than 160 people dead in southern Australia burned with such speed that they resembled less a wildfire than a massive aerial bombing. Many victims caught in the blazes had no time to escape; their houses disintegrated around them, and they burned to death. As firefighters battle the flames and police begin to investigate possible cases of arson around some of the fires, there will surely be debates over the wisdom of Australia's standard policy of advising residents to either flee a fire early or stay in their homes and wait it out. John Brumby, the premier of the fire-hit Australian state of Victoria, told a local radio station on Monday that "people will want to review that ... There is no question that there were people who did everything right, put in place their fire plan, and it [didn't] matter — their house was just incinerated."
Although the wildfires caught so many victims by surprise last weekend, there has been no shortage of distant early-warning signs. The 11th chapter of the second working group of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for example, warned that fires in Australia were "virtually certain to increase in intensity and frequency" because of steadily warming temperatures over the next several decades. Research published in 2007 by the Australian government's own Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization reported that by 2020, there could be up to 65% more "extreme" fire-danger days compared with 1990, and that by 2050, under the most severe warming scenarios, there could be a 300% increase in such days.
"[The fires] are a sobering reminder of the need for this nation and the whole world to act and put at a priority the need to tackle climate change," Australian Green Party leader Bob Brown told the Sky News. (See pictures of Australia's wildfires.)
Destructive wildfires are already common in Australia, and it's not hard to see why climate change would increase their frequency. The driest inhabited continent on the planet, Australia has warmed 0.9°C since 1950, and climate models predict the country could warm further by 2070, up to 5°C over 1990 temperatures, if global greenhouse-gas emissions go unchecked. Beyond a simple rise in average temperatures, climate change will also lead to an increase in Australia's extreme heat waves and droughts. Southwestern Australia is already in the grip of a prolonged drought that has decimated agriculture and led to widespread water rationing; the region is expected to see longer and more extreme dry periods in the future as a result of steady warming.
It's important to acknowledge that no single weather event can be definitively caused by climate change — and it's possible that the current inferno in Australia might have been as intense and deadly even without the warming of the past several decades. Police are beginning to suspect that many of the fires may have been deliberately set, and the sheer increase in the number of homes built in fire-danger zones in southern Australia today puts more people in harm's way, raising the potential death toll. Still, heat waves and drought set the table for wildfires, and temperatures in the worst-hit areas have been over 110°F (43°C) while humidity has bottomed out near zero. Climate change will continue to be a threat multiplier for forest fires. (See the top 10 green ideas of 2008.)
That's one more reason why the world must work together to reduce global carbon emissions to minimize the impact of climate change. The trouble is, though, CO2 cuts won't be enough. As a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science points out, even if we are successful in cutting carbon emissions rapidly — hardly an easy task — the momentum of climate change will continue for centuries. That means our ability to adapt to the impacts of warming, including more aggressive responses to wildfires like those in Australia, will become all the more critical, lest natural disasters turn into human catastrophes. But it also means that the world we've become accustomed to will change, perhaps irrevocably. The wildfires in southern Australia are already the worst in the nation's history — but they surely won't be the last.
The raging infernos that have left more than 160 people dead in southern Australia burned with such speed that they resembled less a wildfire than a massive aerial bombing. Many victims caught in the blazes had no time to escape; their houses disintegrated around them, and they burned to death. As firefighters battle the flames and police begin to investigate possible cases of arson around some of the fires, there will surely be debates over the wisdom of Australia's standard policy of advising residents to either flee a fire early or stay in their homes and wait it out. John Brumby, the premier of the fire-hit Australian state of Victoria, told a local radio station on Monday that "people will want to review that ... There is no question that there were people who did everything right, put in place their fire plan, and it [didn't] matter — their house was just incinerated."
Although the wildfires caught so many victims by surprise last weekend, there has been no shortage of distant early-warning signs. The 11th chapter of the second working group of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for example, warned that fires in Australia were "virtually certain to increase in intensity and frequency" because of steadily warming temperatures over the next several decades. Research published in 2007 by the Australian government's own Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization reported that by 2020, there could be up to 65% more "extreme" fire-danger days compared with 1990, and that by 2050, under the most severe warming scenarios, there could be a 300% increase in such days.
"[The fires] are a sobering reminder of the need for this nation and the whole world to act and put at a priority the need to tackle climate change," Australian Green Party leader Bob Brown told the Sky News. (See pictures of Australia's wildfires.)
Destructive wildfires are already common in Australia, and it's not hard to see why climate change would increase their frequency. The driest inhabited continent on the planet, Australia has warmed 0.9°C since 1950, and climate models predict the country could warm further by 2070, up to 5°C over 1990 temperatures, if global greenhouse-gas emissions go unchecked. Beyond a simple rise in average temperatures, climate change will also lead to an increase in Australia's extreme heat waves and droughts. Southwestern Australia is already in the grip of a prolonged drought that has decimated agriculture and led to widespread water rationing; the region is expected to see longer and more extreme dry periods in the future as a result of steady warming.
It's important to acknowledge that no single weather event can be definitively caused by climate change — and it's possible that the current inferno in Australia might have been as intense and deadly even without the warming of the past several decades. Police are beginning to suspect that many of the fires may have been deliberately set, and the sheer increase in the number of homes built in fire-danger zones in southern Australia today puts more people in harm's way, raising the potential death toll. Still, heat waves and drought set the table for wildfires, and temperatures in the worst-hit areas have been over 110°F (43°C) while humidity has bottomed out near zero. Climate change will continue to be a threat multiplier for forest fires. (See the top 10 green ideas of 2008.)
That's one more reason why the world must work together to reduce global carbon emissions to minimize the impact of climate change. The trouble is, though, CO2 cuts won't be enough. As a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science points out, even if we are successful in cutting carbon emissions rapidly — hardly an easy task — the momentum of climate change will continue for centuries. That means our ability to adapt to the impacts of warming, including more aggressive responses to wildfires like those in Australia, will become all the more critical, lest natural disasters turn into human catastrophes. But it also means that the world we've become accustomed to will change, perhaps irrevocably. The wildfires in southern Australia are already the worst in the nation's history — but they surely won't be the last.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Green Prisons
This story made me feel all warm on a cold Friday. I can't find a source to cite - it's a news article that was posted on a Charleston, SC Blog.
Of all the things convicted murderer Robert Knowles has been called during his 13 years behind bars, recycler hasn’t been one of them.
But there he was one morning, pitchfork in hand, composting food scraps from the main chow line and coffee grounds from prison headquarters — doing his part to “green” the prison.
“It’s nice to be out in the elements,” said Knowles, 42, stirring dark, rich compost that will amend the soil at the small farm where he and fellow inmates of the Cedar Creek Corrections Center grew 8,000 pounds of organic vegetables this year.
Inmates of the minimum-security facility, 25 miles from Olympia, the state capital, raise bees, grow organic tomatoes and lettuce, compost 100 percent of food waste and even recycle shoe scraps that are made into playground turf.
“It reduces cost, reduces our damaging impact on the environment, engages inmates as students,” said Eldon Vail, secretary of the Washington Department of Corrections, which oversees 15 prisons and 18,000 offenders. “It’s good security.”
As around-the-clock operations, prisons are voracious resource hogs, and administrators are under increasing pressure to reduce waste and conserve energy and water.
In 2007, states spent more than $49 billion to feed, house, clothe, treat and supervise 2.3 million offenders, the Pew Center on the States reported this year.
As the prison population has grown this decade, up 76 percent from 1.3 million in 2000, the number of prisons and jails has risen with it. The latestdata show 1,821 facilities in 2005, up from 1,668 in 2000.
To keep costs down, the Indiana Department of Corrections installed water boilers that run on waste wood chips, and built a wind turbine at one prison that generates about 10 kilowatts an hour and saves $2,280 a year.
At Ironwood State Prison in Blythe, Calif., 6,200 solar panels send energy back to the grid, enough to power 4,100 homes a year. The prison was trying to meet an executive order requiring state agencies to reduce energy use by 20 percent by 2015, said a spokeswoman, Lt. Sue Smith.
North Carolina’s Department of Corrections switched to chemical-free cleaners and vegetable-based inks. This summer, because of a water shortage, inmates converted 50-gallon pickle barrels into small cisterns that capture rainwater.
Under a state mandate to reduce energy use, the Oregon Department of Corrections replaced old appliances with energy-efficient ones, installed solar water heaters and used a geothermal well to heat water. It also modified washing machines so they could reuse rinse-water to wash about a million pounds of clothes a month.
At Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton, Ore., inmates recycle scraps from old prison blues to make diaper bags for women’s shelters and dog beds for animal shelters.
“We try to model prosocial behavior,” said Vern Rowan, business manager for the Oregon Department of Corrections. Being sustainable “is something that everybody should be doing, regardless of where they’re at.”
Cedar Creek, in the heart of a forest, feels more like an outdoor retreat than institutional lockup.
Most of the 400 inmates are in a work program, and put in between six and eight hours a day.
The responsibility of caring for the prison’s three hives of Italian honey bees falls mostly to Daniel Travatte, 36, a soft-spoken former drug addict who is serving 10 years for attempted armed robbery.
Under the supervision of prison counselor Vicki Briggs, Travatte has learned to harvest honey — which inmates occasionally eat with breakfast biscuits — and use beeswax to make lotions. He’s become an expert on their habits.
“I’m trying to change myself,” said Travatte. “A lot of people go through prison with no intention of changing. I love working with the bees. It keeps me busy. I have a lot of responsibility to take care of.”
While there isn’t scientific evidence that such activities are helping inmates, Nalini Nadkarni, an environmental studies professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., notes anecdotal evidence that it’s working.
“They were stimulating their minds and having conversations that were different than ‘How much more time we have left’?” said Nadkarni.
One inmate went beyond conversations, enrolling in a doctoral program when he got out and co-authoring a research paper with Nadkarni on a moss-growing project she started to help reduce the impact of wild moss harvesting on forests.
While Cedar Creek went green out of economic necessity — it had to conserve because it didn’t have the wastewater capacity to expand four years ago — it is now embracing other benefits, said Dan Pacholke, a state prison administrator who helped implement many of the practices.
Cedar Creek uses 250,000 fewer gallons of water a year, saves $6,000 to $8,400 annually on garbage bills and avoided a $1.4 million sewage treatment plant upgrade.
A large “Con-Post” marks the prison’s composting station, made of recycled concrete blocks and reclaimed wood, where Knowles spends about six hours a day, making sure the compost gets enough heat, moisture and air to break down food scraps.
“They trust me to do all this with no supervision,” said Knowles, who is serving time for the hit-and-run death of an off-duty police officer.
“I like growing the vegetables,” Knowles said. “My mom had a garden. I can see having my own garden.
Of all the things convicted murderer Robert Knowles has been called during his 13 years behind bars, recycler hasn’t been one of them.
But there he was one morning, pitchfork in hand, composting food scraps from the main chow line and coffee grounds from prison headquarters — doing his part to “green” the prison.
“It’s nice to be out in the elements,” said Knowles, 42, stirring dark, rich compost that will amend the soil at the small farm where he and fellow inmates of the Cedar Creek Corrections Center grew 8,000 pounds of organic vegetables this year.
Inmates of the minimum-security facility, 25 miles from Olympia, the state capital, raise bees, grow organic tomatoes and lettuce, compost 100 percent of food waste and even recycle shoe scraps that are made into playground turf.
“It reduces cost, reduces our damaging impact on the environment, engages inmates as students,” said Eldon Vail, secretary of the Washington Department of Corrections, which oversees 15 prisons and 18,000 offenders. “It’s good security.”
As around-the-clock operations, prisons are voracious resource hogs, and administrators are under increasing pressure to reduce waste and conserve energy and water.
In 2007, states spent more than $49 billion to feed, house, clothe, treat and supervise 2.3 million offenders, the Pew Center on the States reported this year.
As the prison population has grown this decade, up 76 percent from 1.3 million in 2000, the number of prisons and jails has risen with it. The latestdata show 1,821 facilities in 2005, up from 1,668 in 2000.
To keep costs down, the Indiana Department of Corrections installed water boilers that run on waste wood chips, and built a wind turbine at one prison that generates about 10 kilowatts an hour and saves $2,280 a year.
At Ironwood State Prison in Blythe, Calif., 6,200 solar panels send energy back to the grid, enough to power 4,100 homes a year. The prison was trying to meet an executive order requiring state agencies to reduce energy use by 20 percent by 2015, said a spokeswoman, Lt. Sue Smith.
North Carolina’s Department of Corrections switched to chemical-free cleaners and vegetable-based inks. This summer, because of a water shortage, inmates converted 50-gallon pickle barrels into small cisterns that capture rainwater.
Under a state mandate to reduce energy use, the Oregon Department of Corrections replaced old appliances with energy-efficient ones, installed solar water heaters and used a geothermal well to heat water. It also modified washing machines so they could reuse rinse-water to wash about a million pounds of clothes a month.
At Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton, Ore., inmates recycle scraps from old prison blues to make diaper bags for women’s shelters and dog beds for animal shelters.
“We try to model prosocial behavior,” said Vern Rowan, business manager for the Oregon Department of Corrections. Being sustainable “is something that everybody should be doing, regardless of where they’re at.”
Cedar Creek, in the heart of a forest, feels more like an outdoor retreat than institutional lockup.
Most of the 400 inmates are in a work program, and put in between six and eight hours a day.
The responsibility of caring for the prison’s three hives of Italian honey bees falls mostly to Daniel Travatte, 36, a soft-spoken former drug addict who is serving 10 years for attempted armed robbery.
Under the supervision of prison counselor Vicki Briggs, Travatte has learned to harvest honey — which inmates occasionally eat with breakfast biscuits — and use beeswax to make lotions. He’s become an expert on their habits.
“I’m trying to change myself,” said Travatte. “A lot of people go through prison with no intention of changing. I love working with the bees. It keeps me busy. I have a lot of responsibility to take care of.”
While there isn’t scientific evidence that such activities are helping inmates, Nalini Nadkarni, an environmental studies professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., notes anecdotal evidence that it’s working.
“They were stimulating their minds and having conversations that were different than ‘How much more time we have left’?” said Nadkarni.
One inmate went beyond conversations, enrolling in a doctoral program when he got out and co-authoring a research paper with Nadkarni on a moss-growing project she started to help reduce the impact of wild moss harvesting on forests.
While Cedar Creek went green out of economic necessity — it had to conserve because it didn’t have the wastewater capacity to expand four years ago — it is now embracing other benefits, said Dan Pacholke, a state prison administrator who helped implement many of the practices.
Cedar Creek uses 250,000 fewer gallons of water a year, saves $6,000 to $8,400 annually on garbage bills and avoided a $1.4 million sewage treatment plant upgrade.
A large “Con-Post” marks the prison’s composting station, made of recycled concrete blocks and reclaimed wood, where Knowles spends about six hours a day, making sure the compost gets enough heat, moisture and air to break down food scraps.
“They trust me to do all this with no supervision,” said Knowles, who is serving time for the hit-and-run death of an off-duty police officer.
“I like growing the vegetables,” Knowles said. “My mom had a garden. I can see having my own garden.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Does Google-Search Carbon Calculation Measure the Wrong Number?
via WSJ.com: The Numbers Guy on 1/22/09
Does a Google search lead to seven grams of carbon-dioxide emissions, as the Sunday Times of London reported last week? Or is it two-tenths of a gram, as Google Inc. countered on its official blog? Or is a Web query using the popular search engine a net positive for the environment? Check out The Numbers Guy take on it!
Does a Google search lead to seven grams of carbon-dioxide emissions, as the Sunday Times of London reported last week? Or is it two-tenths of a gram, as Google Inc. countered on its official blog? Or is a Web query using the popular search engine a net positive for the environment? Check out The Numbers Guy take on it!
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