Green Options

It’s in the papers and on TV. It spreads across the Internet (including this very post), and it is finding its way into the classroom. Global climate change is nothing new. And it certainly isn’t going away. Not yet, anyway.

Once again it’s time for the National Audubon Society’s Annual Great Backyard Bird Count.

This event is in its 12th year, and for 2009 will be held February 13-16.

Over the four day period, birdwatchers count birds to create a real-time snapshot of where birds are across the continent.

People of all ages and birdwatching levels are invited to participate in this popular event, and what a great way to get children outside and take notice of the wonders of the natural world around them.

Money flowing into Canada’s government to protect the environment may actually never be going there… and nobody would know any better.

A startling new WWF study has revealed that people living in Hong Kong currently use twice as many resources as residents in China, more than double the sustainable level.

To feed the vibrant city’s massive demand for natural resources, and absorb the CO2 emitted, residents need an area of land and sea larger than 250 Hong Kong’s, an incredible seven-fold increase since 1965.

According to Mathis Wackernagel, Executive Director of the Global Footprint Network, “Although small geographically, Hong Kong not only has significant resource demands, but it also has an over-proportional influence on the world.

A new report says that global warming could cost the Californian economy billions of dollars each year, through a combination of rising sea levels, and the increased frequency of wild fires and extreme weather events.

European Union officials are studying plans for an international wind power grid in the North Sea that could provide energy generated from renewable sources to 70 million European homes. The proposed offshore grid would be more than 3850 miles long, and connect more than 100 wind farms, containing a total of 10,000 turbines to seven countries.

A new report by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Energy Initiative predicts that a 30-50% reduction in fuel consumption is possible in the US over the next 25-30 years. Initially, this will be achieved through improved gasoline and diesel engines and transmissions, gasoline hybrids and reductions in vehicle weight and drag. In the longer term, the study concludes that plug-in hybrids and, later, hydrogen fuel cells may begin to have a significant impact on fuel use and emissions.

The report, ‘On the Road in 2035: Reducing Transportation’s Petroleum Consumption and GHG Emissions,’ summarizes the results of an MIT research project that assessed the technology of vehicles and fuels that could be developed and commercialized during the next 25 years.

The research team assessed the effect of new vehicle and fuel technologies on the performance, cost and lifecycle emissions of individual vehicles. It then assessed the effects on the total on-the-road fleet of introducing these technologies using “plausible assumptions about how rapidly they could be developed, manufactured and sold to buyers to replace existing vehicles and fuels or to add to the existing fleet.”

Other key findings include:

The Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, a two-and-a-half year long study by a non-profit organization, calls for urgent and major reform of confined animal operations.

“One of the most serious unintended consequences of industrial food animal production is the growing public health threat of these types of facilities,” the report said. “There is increasing urgency to chart a new course” in agriculture, which has been shifting over the last 50 years from family farms to large livestock meat producers.”

The studies primary focus assessed four areas of impact by industrial farms:

• Impact on public healthy by overuse of antibiotics on food animals, primarily the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria
• Impact on the environment from animal waste
• The need for humane treatment of animals
• The impact on family farms from lack of competition and the consolidation of the agribusiness entities

Editor’s note: This week, Raz Godelnik at Eco-Libris takes a look at a new study of the book publishing industry’s environmental footprint. As gathering information is the first step towards making change, we hope this report provides the data necessary for this industry to continue moving in greener directions. This post was originally published on Wednesday, March 12, 2008.

This is a very exciting week for the book industry and anyone involved in the efforts to green it up. The reason? Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts:Findings from the U.S. Book Industry has been published.

This 86-page report was prepared by The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) and The Green Press Initiative (GPI) (with support from a number of industry sponsors). Seventy-six publishers, representing just under half of the market, participated in the study, along with 13 printers (about 25 percent) and 6 paper mills (about 17 percent).

Why is this report so important? Because this is an up to date analysis of the industry’s ecological footprint. This is the most detailed survey someone has done in years to create a clear picture of the book publishing industry’s environmental impacts.

These measurements will help not only to know better where the industry is standing now, but also to better plan how to move forward and green up the industry as well as to evaluate the progress later on. In one word: benchmark. Or as BISG describes the report on its website: “a benchmarking survey which will establish a baseline for tracking climate impacts and progress by the U.S. book industry in environmental improvements.”

By Ecotality writer Bill Hobbs. Originally published May 22, 2007.

It’s not going to be the most scintillating beachside reading this summer, but a new guide coming out in June from Duke University Press could help prevent rising seas from obliterating your favorite beach.

It’s called Harnessing Farms and Forests in the Low-Carbon Economy: How to Create and Verify Greenhouse Gas Offsets, and is described as “the first how-to manual

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