Green Options

San Ramon, CA - Much will be said at the Chevron Corporation’s shareholder conference this week; the agenda is full.  However, there will be little said about Chevron’s involvement in controversial projects concerning tar sand.  Despite the requests of shareholders owning $31.4 billion dollars, Chevron will remain quiet, keeping the Alberta tar sand projects off the agenda.

Tar sand, a source of non-conventional oil, consists of bitumen, a sticky, tar-like form of petroleum which is so thick and heavy that it must be heated or diluted before it will flow. Harvesting tar sand requires huge amounts of energy and water.

In addition to heavy water use, extraction of Alberta’s Athabasca oil sands also involves clear-cutting of the Boreal Forest, formation of toxic “tailings” lakes, habitat destruction of iconic species such as the woodland caribou, and up to five times higher greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil extraction. All of these factors lead Canada’s Environmental Defence to label tar sand development “the most destructive project on Earth.”

The India’s stand that the current climate change negotiations under the auspices of UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) are being skewed in favor of of the industrialized nations got another shot in the arm this week. Purported pre-release of a McKinsey report projects that India will continue to be one of the LEAST Carbon Intensive countries in the world despite an economic growth rate of 7.5%. This second endorsement follows the recent report  by the World Bank saying that India is right in resisting the mandatory emissions reduction.

Picture: A Coal Man in Mysore (India)

A recent NY Times articles brings to fore the contribution of Soot, also known as Black Carbon, in the global warming. And how efforts are underway to reign in the global warming by replacing the mud-stoves in villages of India! On the Earth day, a legislation was introduced in US Senate for EPA to assess the options for reducing the black carbon pollution.

Jacksonsays the California waiver on emission standards should be re-reviewed. She is currently New Jersey’s Chief of Staff. New Jersey is one of the 16 states that filed suit along with California.

New York’s new cap-and-trade program has better emission standards than those of the EPA and it begins in March of this year. This is after many battles between the state and the Bush administration trying to lower pollutions standards.

Ten credible on line calculators gave Carbon Footprints that ranged from 27 000 to 76 000 pounds of carbon emitted a year for the same input data. An understanding of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with what we do and consume will give us a better chance of reducing our emissions than using such inaccurate calculators. 

What’s the problem?

J. Paul Padgett and collegues at Vanderbilt University and the University of Washington analysed the results obtained using 10 carbon footprint calculators from credible organisations including; American Forests, Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF), CarbonCounter,The Conservation Fund and the Environmental Impact Agency (EPA). Their results are published in the Environmental Impact Assessment Review 28 (2008). They identified the massive range refered to above, that ammounts to a difference of  180% between the lowest and highest figures and concluded that “Given their prevalence and potential influence, CO2 calculators can provide even greater public benefit by providing greater consistency and clarity.

Consumers in Europe are likely to increasingly see fruit and vegetables with less than perfect appearance (the so called “wonky” produce) on their supermarket shelves from July 2009 as the EU tries to reduce its bureaucracy

Attractive and wholesome fruit and vegetables like these feed the world but have, over the last few decades, lost their place in the “First World’s“ supermarkets to perfectly shaped and coloured specimens. Through the supermarket pushing “quality” and bureaucrats busying themselves, visual standards gained a status that has had negative impacts for the consumer, the farmer and the environment.

The European Union is well known for the banana standard which, after a year of study, stated that a banana should be “5.5 inches long and 1.1 inches wide, and could not be abnormally bent”. This allowed the EU to advantage bananas from the Caribbean (mainly its former colonies) that met the standard to the disadvantage of Latin American producers who were backed by USA based multinationals. Rulings by the World Trade Organisation and the threats of the US lead to a truce with the tariffs being removed progressively.

But now regulations on 26 fruits and vegetables have been repealed while member states can allow the sale of 10 other products which do not meet the standards, so long as appropriate labeling is used.

More than 900 mayors have signed a Climate Protection Agreement. Under the agreement, they pledge to reduce carbon emissions by 7% by 2012, and to meet or beat Kyoto Protocol targets.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) ruled today that the EPA had no valid reason for refusing to limit from new coal-fired power plants the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming.

Well, this may not be a hidden issue, but I think it is a highly under represented issue. Transportation is the leading contiributor to greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the country, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and is also the fastest growing contributor, at a time when we are supposed to be making a U-turn in our GHG emissions.

When we talk about addressing global climate change, the talk is often about greening our homes, changing our source of energy, and cleaning up industry.

In my previous post, I briefly discussed the critical issue of food in addressing this problem.

In this post, I am bringing to attention the great relevance of transportation and our transportation patterns and habits in addressing this critical concern for our planet and our future generations.

Automobile travel is a major cause of greenhouse gas emissions according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Department of Energy reported that the transportation sector accounts for approximately 33% of GHG emissions in the United States. Approximately 61% of these emissions are from automobiles and light duty trucks. The Department of Energy’s findings put the transportation sector as the largest contributor to GHGs in the country. Unfortunately, it is also the fastest growing contributor according to the DOE’s findings.

You’ve probably heard about carbon offsets. They’re everywhere these days, and it seems not a week goes that I don’t hear about a company pledging to go carbon neutral. And yet, it all seems so…full of hot air. What’s real? What do they really do? Which will make the most impact? How are the different purveyors, well, different?

I have a suggestion: Take a look at LiveNeutral.

Why? Well on a basic, financial level, they are a non-profit. And? And that means that offsets purchased through them are tax deductible. More, you say? The resulting lower overhead means better priced offsets as compared to similar for-profit companies offering similar quality offsets.