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In Brady’s report (and in his defense) he cited an action last week, when more than 150 environmental groups signed a letter to Obama backing Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva. But I still thought the instant assumption that “most environmentalists are fuming” was hasty. And then I got the following response from @HuffingtonPost/@COindependent:

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Video source: NPR

My colleagues at Red, Green and Blue have done a thorough job of covering the policy proposals of the presidential candidates. But the devil’s in the details, and NPR’s Talk of the Nation: Science Friday held a fascinating discussion last week on the issues that aren’t being covered in the political rhetoric: namely, the economic and technological challenges that both government and the private sector will have to address to get us to a clean energy future. Host Ira Flatow, New York University professor emeritus of physics Martin Hoffert, and Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in energy studies and associate director of the energy program at Rice University Amy Myers Jaffe took a look at the bigger picture of our energy challenges, and the kinds of leadership a new presidential administration will have to exert in order to facilitate rapid, even revolutionary, changes in how we power ourselves.

Among the questions raised during the discussion:

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The idea of edifying the EPA into a department that has a seat in the President’s cabinet may not sit well with some of her Republican colleagues who fear that such a move would only increase the size of the government. However, the EPA has hardly been the model of efficiency and effectiveness since its inception in the early 1970s. A restructuring of the EPA that created a cabinet seat might offer the type of coordinating capacity that our federal government currently lacks, in terms of creating coherent environmental policy set in the context of climate change.

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In a paper that is available online and will be published in an upcoming issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Goldberg and his colleagues write about how a basalt formation off of the coast of Oregon and Washington could potentially store anywhere from 120-150 years of carbon produced by the United States in its cavities (assuming current U.S. emission rates do not increase).

While initially I was extremely skeptical of this idea (because I thought that it might cause all kinds of unintended ecological havoc), by the end of the interview, I was somewhat more optimistic.

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As a passionate enemy of suburban sprawl, I listened intently to an interview this morning on NPR with Brookings Institution demographer William Frey in which he notes that housing prices are falling faster in the areas outside cities. Is this a permanent correction that is making “exurbs” less desirable overall? And how are gas prices influencing this loss of home value? Mr. Frey was cautious in his answer, saying “the jury is still out” and that Americans have a history of moving outward from cities in order to buy more housing for less, seeing long commutes as an acceptable trade off.

However, it doesn’t take a genius to see that, when a commute costs more than one is saving on housing, while sucking up hours of one’s valuable time, (and as the saying goes, “They aren’t making more of that”) why would one buy a home in the far suburbs? Why, indeed?

Sperling’s Best Places did a survey two years ago when gas prices were at $2.90 a gallon. The following were the most expensive cities in which to commute and listed the average annual commuting cost:

City Annual Commuting Cost (2006)

1. Atlanta $5,772
2. Birmingham, Ala. $5,464
3. Orlando, Fla. $5,404
4. Jacksonville, Fla. $5,360
5. Pensacola, Fla. $5,173

So, if gas prices reach $6.00, Atlanta’s commuting cost would be over $10,000 per year. Yikes.

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I’ve been smitten with tunes from Nellie McKay ever since I heard “the dog song” on the morning addition of NPR’s Live in Studio 4A.

In addition, Nellie has also graced the pages of ecozine Sprig to talk about her vegan life with an interview on living beautifully as a very concerned vegan and talented musician.

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The paper industry is one of the biggest environmental bad guys in big industry. According to NRDC,

"The pulp and paper industry may contribute to more global and local environmental problems than any other industry in the world. Paper manufacturers reach deep into species-rich forests for virgin timber, razing trees, polluting waterways and destroying precious wildlife habitat. Pulp and paper mills that use virgin timber are major generators of hazardous air pollutants, including dioxins and other cancer-causing chemicals. And the industry is the third largest industrial emitter of global warming pollution."

The average American uses 741 pounds of paper a year. We can reduce this excessive paper usage by narrowing the margins. Changethemargins.com is a campaign to do just this. The campaign’s goals are to:

• Convince Microsoft to change the default margin settings in Microsoft Word to .75 on all sides. The more convenient it is for people to change their habits, the better chance there is that they will actually do so.
• Persuade five corporations to officially sanction narrower margins for all company documents. In this way, people will get used to seeing documents with this formatting as the standard, as opposed to the exception. Never underestimate the power of peer pressure.
• Challenge five universities to adopt narrower margin settings as the standard for their students and faculty, and include this information in their course guidelines.

Changethemargins.com has started a petition to Microsoft to change the default margins to .75" on all of its software, of which there is no technical reason for the current default settings of 1.25". It has been my experience that some printers do not like margins smaller than this, but you can experiment with your own printer to see how small you can make your margins. Here are some more astounding facts on paper from Changethemargins.com:

• It takes 17 pulpwood market-sized trees and 390 gallons of oil to make a ton of paper
• That ton of paper, when disposed of, takes up nearly 8 cubic feet of public landfill space.
• That public landfill is approximately 36% waste paper products.
• Each one million pages of paper not printed saves 85 pulp trees.
• Americans discard 4 million tons of office paper every year — enough to build a 12 foot high wall of paper from New York to California.

There are other ways you can reduce your paper usage in the office. Use the print preview feature to be sure that there are no errors in formatting before printing. Furthermore, always print double-sided, or use scratch paper when possible. I am always shocked to find the majority of the paper in the bin at the recycling center has only been used on one side. The little things do add up! Even a fraction of an inch can save paper.

Our beliefs underpin our everyday decisions and determine how we interact with other people. Unless we understand our core values, we may wonder how effective we can be in improving our community or environment; we may also feel awkward broaching environmental or political concerns with our friends and neighbors. Writing a short essay about what we believe is a rewarding way to better understand ourselves and affirm our aspirations. It also empowers us to articulate our goals to those around us by focusing on shared values.

Some of us spend hours arranging our layouts on Myspace and Facebook, writing blogs, and filling out Internet quizzes. These outlets give us a forum in which to express some of our beliefs to an audience of friends and strangers. However, such media frequently fail to capture the full breadth of our dreams, ambitions, values, and beliefs. So the next time your get the urge to jump online “just for a minute,” instead take up a pen and paper or use your computer writing application. Start with a blank page and title it “This I Believe.” When you’ve written out your beliefs, you can either keep the paper to refer back to, or you can choose to share your beliefs with others.

Jay Allison is the host of the NPR program, This I Believe, which airs essays submitted by people from all walks of life. “This is a time when belief is dividing the nation and the world,” says Allison. “We are not listening well, not understanding each other—we are simply disagreeing, or worse.” He adds, “[Sharing our beliefs allows us] to cross borders, to encourage some empathy. That possibility is what inspires me."

You can read or listen to some of these essays on the program’s website, thisibelieve.org, or you can submit your own. Educators and community coordinators will also find resources on this site for using the “This I Believe” essay format to bridge borders and inspire positive change.

Resources and References:

NPR’s radio program, This I Believe: www.npr.org or http://thisibelieve.org.

Michelle’s Earth Foundation, a website dedicated to Michelle Gardner-Quinn, whose “This I Believe” essay was read at the Live Earth concerts; Michelle was killed just two days after writing her essay: http://www.michellesearthfound.org.

Photo Source:

Original: http://www.flickr.com/photos/andre_mts/374880166/

Modified: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9472208@N08/1068784614/

Well wonder no more! This past month, our country witnessed another first in the world of green when Northern California’s KQED became the first ever carbon neutral public broadcasting station. For those of you new to the world of carbon offsets, this simply means that KQED is taking significant steps to reduce its climate footprint by neutralizing its net amount of carbon emissions through purchasing carbon credits and increasing a company-wide participation in green production practices.

But this is no easy feat! As KQED recently announced in a public statement, going carbon neutral included "establishing a baseline reading of carbon emissions and determining the amount of energy used in daily operations, from production vans, to transmitter towers, to the electricity used in the building. Carbon credits of the same amount were then purchased from the Chicago Climate Exchange, to promote energy efficiencies in other companies, or to be used towards renewable energy sources like wind power and bio-gas.”

On April 21, KQED will conduct a green pledge day to help support the effort in neutralizing the net total of this year's carbon emissions(!) Tune in from April 15 to Sunday April 22 for a weeklong Earthday celebration with KQED’s latest in noncommercial green tv and radio programming. Visit www.kqed.org/earthweek for an advance schedule. Also, if you’re interested in reducing or offsetting your own (or your company’s) carbon emissions, visit www.driveneutral.org/ for more info.

Finally, for anyone outside the Bay Area who’s interested in hearing more from KQED, a live webstream is always available at www.KQED.org.

Chameides argued that the fastest, most cost-effective way to reduce CO2 emissions is with a policy called cap-and-trade. This system tells big emitters – like powerplants, automobile manufacturers, etc – that they have to cut their CO2 emissions by a certain amount by a certain date. For companies that make deeper cuts than what is required, a credit is issued and can be traded (sold) to other emitters that don’t meet the targets. With this system, explained Chameides, government plays “a fairly light role” by ensuring that technologies are valid and are reducing emissions, while carbon dioxide becomes a commodity and sold on the open market. Companies are rewarded for innovations that take them beyond targets set by lawmakers.

Cap-and-trade isn’t a new concept: A cap-and-trade policy was enacted with the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments to cut emissions that cause acid rain. According to the current Bush Administration, the cap-and-trade system has been a “resounding success,” cutting annual sulfur dioxide emissions ahead of target dates and at one-third of the expected cost.

When a caller pointed out the lack of action from the federal government on CO2, Chameides noted that states have taken the initiative. For example, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is an effort by Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states to reduce CO2 emissions. RGGI employs a multi-state cap-and-trade program and requires electric power generators to make the cuts. California is also implementing a cap-and-trade system (one that targets all big emitters, not just the electricity sector, and which covers all six major global warming gases, not just CO2), and Europe’s cap-and-trade came into effect over two years ago. As important as it is for states to forge ahead, Chameides is concerned that without leadership from the federal government, we won’t get the cuts we need and we’ll fall behind in renewable energy innovation:

“Europe is way ahead of us in renewable energy technology and that’s where we’re really going to have to play catch up…If we wait long enough, we’ll have to be an importer of these technologies instead of an exporter.”

There are several bills in Congress that have cap-and-trade policies, and many see a “clear preference” for this approach among utilities, compared to a carbon tax. In fact, 91 percent of California businesses in one survey responded that a cap-and-trade policy was the best way to meet CO2 reduction goals. Chameides argued that a carbon tax – besides being “a political nonstarter” – doesn’t allow for measurable reductions, and the government sets the price on CO2 rather than the marketplace. The best way to slow global warming, spur technological innovation, boost our economy, and clean up our environment is with a measurable, market-based system like cap-and-trade.

UPDATE: See Maria Energia for another point of view: Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek argues that a global carbon tax is the most efficient, market-friendly way to cut emissions that cause global warming.

Business Wire, via Find Articles
Climate Action Network Europe
MarketWatch
National Public Radio
Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
Terra Daily
WhiteHouse.gov