Green Options

The energy giant BP and Martek Biosciences, a Maryland based company that uses micro algae to produce oil-based nutritional and dietary supplements, signed a Joint Development Agreement (JDA) earlier this month to produce microbial oils for biofuels applications.

They are everywhere. We can’t see them, but little by little they are destroying our way of life. But for the first time ever, they are being caught red-handed. They are greenhouse gases. And today Deutsche Bank unveiled the world’s first real-time carbon counter to measure these microscopic murderers.

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.”

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.

The UN’s top Climate Scientist, Rajendra Pachuari, will speak in London at a meeting organized by Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), urging people to fight global warming by taking meat off their menu.

For those who fervently follow global warming to the secret labyrinths of the White House, we all know what the professional spinners did with that email attachment from the Environmental Protection Agency about how greenhouse gasses were polluting the environment and should be checked.

Instead of acting upon it or even printing copies to president George Bush and his handlers, they tossed it in a cyber trash bin called Spam folder as if that was the only green thing to do.

Many months after Scott McClellan quit spinning for Dubya, climate watchers are crying foul that he never ever touched the seemingly hot subject in his recently released book, What Happened. But in his famous spins, he had blamed human activity - you and me - as responsible for global warming on more than one occasion.

Spin can be clever tomfoolery sometimes but the White House stance on global warming is well known and George W. Bush has never disappointed with his public statements that smack verily of official ignorance or pretense on the subject as an inconvenient truth.

Aw, c’mon, pull my finger!

You’ve probably had that one pulled (pardon the pun) on you at least once in your life, and the old guy got a good laugh out of your response. It’s ok, old guys do strange things, I know.

Well, this isn’t about old guys, but sheep, cattle, deer and goats, the premier emitters of methane gas in the world. In this case, nature is “pulling the finger.”

Those extra pounds Americans are carrying around are causing climate change. Considering eating more food requires more agriculture production and transportation costs, obese people are contributing to food shortages and higher energy prices, according to the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.  “We are all becoming heavier and it is a global responsibility,” said Phil Edwards. “Obesity is a key part of the big picture.”  20 percent of greenhouse gas [...]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been ordered to release all documents pertaining to Administrator Stephen Johnson’s controversial blocking of California’s waiver to control greenhouse gasses in that state.

The announcement came in an email released by Public Employees forEnvironmental Responsibility (PEER), saying Johnson has bowed to a Congressional request for the information, following the controversy sparked by his controversial decision.

PEER’s Executive Director Jeff Ruch is quoted as saying: “What made Johnson’s decision so striking is that for months he said he was basing it on the scientific and legal merits and then did the precise opposite. One employee told me ‘I am ashamed to admit that I work at EPA’ and another asked ‘What am I supposed to tell my children when they ask me what I am doing to fight global warming?’”

Johnson has said he will not attend a field hearing of Senator Barbara Boxer’s (D-CA), Senate Environment & Public Works Committee on January 10th in Los Angeles. His appearance before Congress, however, promises to be contentious at best.

It's a good thing that I can't afford this camera. It'd probably be fine here in Ireland, but just imagine using it in NYC or any other big city.

You can now buy a camera that can detect greenhouse gases. Infrared-imaging company FLIR Systems recently revealed the GasfindIR-LW, a thermal imaging camera that can detect sulfur hexalfouride SF6 and 20 other environmentally perilous gasses. If you ever wanted to hunt down acetylchloride; allyl flouride;

[...]