Green Options

Without pavement and parking lots we would still be traveling cross-country in Conestoga wagons on 6-inch deep ruts and be breathing lungfulls of dust every time a vehicle drove by at the Kwik-E-Mart. Needless to say, pavement is one of the many things that makes modern life possible.

But, like everything else in our modern life, the more advanced we get in our ability to collect and analyze data, the more we realize that the good stuff always seems to have its awful consequences too. It’s the same story with pavement.

You knew you keep a fire in a box in your laundry room, right? Not only is that kind of a scary thought, but it’s an extremely inefficient way to dry clothes; lighting a fire every time you turn on the clothes dryer. Lint catches fire all the time. But even worse, that natural gas emits carbon dioxide and is likely the second most extravagant energy expenditure in your home after the fridge.

We can do something about the fridge by buying an Energy Star rated efficient one, but until now, inexplicably, clothes dryers have not been rated under the Energy Star program.

You have to wonder why there has been so little move to improve energy efficiency in the second biggest energy guzzler in most homes…in a nation that uses 25% of the world’s energy.

Here’s a company that can make a clothes dryer 50% more efficient with a heat exchanger. Hydromatic. So why has their idea not been incorporated into clothes dryers?

Following action by Nike, the nation’s leading utility company, and others, Apple resigned from the US Chamber of Commerce this week, and in force.

Nike just announced that it is leaving its position on the US Chamber of Commerce board of directors because of the business organization’s opposition to climate action.

Nike doesn’t beat around the bush on why it is leaving the board.

Most of us would consider a trip to a state or national park to be a chance to get away from the pollution that plagues our cities. But it’s seldom easy to escape the effects of urban and industrial air pollution. Now, with a new art project called ECLIPSE, the web viewer or park visitor can see real time air quality data “imposed” on the otherwise scenic landscapes of our state and national parks.

John Rowe, Exelon CEO, said yesterday that climate change legislation is an urgent issue. At the same time, he announced that the nation’s largest utility would not be renewing its membership with the US Chamber of Commerce because of the Chamber of Commerce’s opposition to climate legislation.

In the midst of a week when climate change finally stole back some of the spotlight that had been hogged by health care reform for months, the Senate fought off a potentially devastating attempt to emasculate the EPA and its recently won power to regulate greenhouse gases.

Today the Obama Administration released a 1,200 page document of proposed regulation changes that will drastically alter the fuel economy and emissions standards that auto manufacturers are required to meet in the US. Although it could be an incredibly contentious topic, it seems that so far the proposal has gained wide support from all sides of the spectrum including environmental organizations and industry lobby groups.

The changes — which would alter both the Department of Transportation’s and the Environmental Protection Agency’s rules — call for what amounts to about a 5% increase in fuel economy standards per year from 2011 to 2016 starting with 27.3 mpg in 2011 and ending with 35.5 mpg in 2016.

In addition to the new economy standards, the White House has outlined the first ever greenhouse gas emissions limits for new cars sold in the US. Starting with model year 2016, each manufacturer’s new car fleet would have to meet an average limit of 250 grams of carbon emitted per mile driven.

We tend to think that if a company is big, it is automatically bad and doesn’t care about it’s environmental footprint.  This couldn’t be farther from the truth.  Just take a look at the Top 10 Green Energy Users according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Surprising, isn’t it?  Now, I’m not saying that all large corporations are doing their part.  Some aren’t.  But we should applaud and recognize the ones who are.

Every year the EPA co-sponsors the Green Power Leadership Awards in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Center for Resource Solutions (CRS).  The Green Power Leadership Awards recognize the leading actions of organizations, programs, and individuals that significantly advance the development of green power sources. While the DOE recognizes green power providers and the CRS recognizes advancements in the green power market, the EPA specifically focuses on outstanding green power purchasers.  So let’s take a closer look at the EPA’s 2009 Green Power Purchaser Award winners.

Oh, they call him a communist. They call him a Red. But the actual problem is that President Obama is too Green. Barack Obama is our first truly Green President.

This is the real reason the fossil industries whose profits are threatened by renewable energy go after him - and stir up emotional opposition groups to threaten him with outlandish attacks. Because he has already implemented or funded an extraordinary string of renewable energy initiatives.

He will likely be remembered as an [...]

In the wake of the Sigg/bisphenol-A controversy, a top researcher and CEO of Environmental Health Sciences fills us in on the news: endocrine disruptors such as BPA and phthalates are indeed toxic at low-level doses, too. And they’re toxic in entirely different ways than at the traditional high-dose testing indicates.

The way the tests work today is we think that by testing at high doses we’re gonna see everything. So that once we get to a dose that’s intermediate and we don’t see anything, we’re golden.

But the science is telling us that at really low doses as contaminants mimic hormones. They can have effects that are totally unpredictable by what happens at high doses.

Pete Myers spoke to Living on Earth about the consequences of current testing.