Control Climate Change

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The sea level in Israel has been rising and falling over the past 2,500 years, with a one-meter difference between the highest and lowest levels, most of the time below the present-day level. This has been shown in a new study supervised by Dr. Dorit Sivan, Head of the Department of Maritime Civilizations at the University of Haifa. “Rises and falls in sea level over relatively short periods do not testify to a long-term trend. It is early yet to conclude from the short-term increases in sea level that this is a set course that will not take a change in direction,” explains Dr. Sivan.

How all the components are assembled ends up being just as important as which pieces are selected.

Novo Nordisk slashed greenhouse gas emissions and water consumption in 2009, at the same time the Danish pharmaceutical giant boosted sales and profit over the year before.

This slideshow, a companion to Saul Griffith’s lightning-paced presentation at the State of Green Busines Forum 2010, offers a look at the personal and global levels of responsibility for reducing our environmental impacts.

Scant ice over the Arctic Sea this winter could mean a “double whammy” of powerful ice-melt next summer, a top U.S. climate scientist said on Thursday.

“It’s not that the ice keeps melting, it’s just not growing very fast,” said Mark Serreze, director of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.

In January, Arctic sea ice grew by about 13,000 square miles (34,000 sq km) a day, which is a bit more than one-third the pace of ice growth during the 1980s, and less than the average for the first decade of the 21st century.

As the parade of progress marches inexorably forward, a growing number of innovations have a distinctly green tinge, significantly reducing material, chemical, water and energy inputs.

The Green Label program is replaced by the stronger and more comprehensive Green Label Plus standard.

Does the regulatory deadlock on the domestic and international fronts put the onus on businesses to do more to address climate change or does it let them off the hook?

Green business lobby the Aldersgate Group is calling for policy makers to take a closer look at resource efficiency, arguing that those economies that get ahead of the game in this area stand to profit in the long term.

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn has said it is time to scrap not just waste itself but the very concept and should see it for what it is - a resource to be utilised.

A New Mexico radio station is using sunshine to increase its listening audience tenfold… and in doing so has become the nation’s only radio station transmitting solely on solar power.

Thanks to its solar boost, KTAO-FM, located in the resort community of Taos, can now tap an additional audience in New Mexico’s capital of Sante Fe, said Brad Hockmeyer, the station’s owner and general manager.

The system uses 135 photovoltaic panels to collect the sun’s energy, then stores the power in a bank of batteries weighing 44,000 pounds. The batteries can hold more than five days’ worth of power to transmit the station’s signal. And a six-day stretch of sun-less weather is unheard of in Taos, Hockmeyer said.

The solar system was built on top of 10,800-foot Picuris Peak overlooking Taos, a town of about 4,000 in the mountains of northern New Mexico. By transmitting KTAO’s signal from such a high elevation, the station’s potential listening audience grew from 15,000 people to 150,000.

Getting electricity to the top of the mountain would have cost at least $300,000, Hockmeyer said, and would have required an eight-mile trench through an archaeologically rich area. So solar power became a cost-effective alternative.

“I didn’t consider alternative energy until I had to,” he said. “Conventional power ended up being too expensive, so this became the best way we could get it done.”

Hockmeyer said he estimates the station will save $4,000 a year in electricity costs, making pay back on the $60,000 project very reasonable — especially considering the alternatives.

Since hooking up the system, Hockmeyer said he has been contacted by a number of radio station owners trying to find out if solar might be an option for their stations.

“I’d love to get people thinking solar,” he said. “The benefit that comes from just thinking of an alternative method — even if they can’t do it — is better than not even considering it.

“If this project gets them looking into the possibilities, maybe they’ll say, ‘Well, I can’t do it for my radio station, but I can do it for my hot water heater at my house or maybe I can do it to power part of my radio station.”

Earth Fact — The housing unit for KTAO’s new transmitter was built out of recycled tires and aluminum cans, then covered with adobe plaster to blend into the natural landscape.

Technorati Tags: radio stations, solar powered, solar energy

With congressional action on climate legislation in doubt, two House committee chairmen have filed a bill to block the government from regulating greenhouse gases under its own power.

The lawmakers say Congress, not “unelected bureaucrats,” should set environmental policy. Congress has squabbled for months over a comprehensive climate change bill. Some members say the best bet is to encourage renewable energy production.

Climate Group report concludes aggressive federal clean energy policies could generate billions in additional market revenue and create more than 100,000 jobs in a region whose manufacturing sector has been hard hit by the economic recession.

A leading Irish think tank has published recommendations outlining how the country’s municipal waste could be managed in a more cost effective and less polluting way.

Does your university conduct research for the water sector? Are you working on an exciting water related research project?

Kicking off the release of the third annual State of Green Business report, we present the first of our look at the 10 biggest trends in the greening of mainstream business: Radical Transparency Goes Mainstream.

In a world in which vast amounts of information are available about companies and products, the rules of green marketing have changed. It’s no longer just about making claims and sporting logos. Today, companies must respond to green ratings and rankings from websites, media companies, nonprofit organizations, and big players like Walmart. In a world where consumers have unparalleled access to data about products and companies, how does a company truly be seen as green?

These tools and resources from some of the world’s largest IT companies serve as a companion to the discussion at the State of Green Business Forum 2010, looking at how technology can address  the 98 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions it is not directly responsible for.

President Barack Obama acknowledged on Tuesday that a controversial “cap-and-trade” mechanism to fight climate change could be separated from other aspects of an energy bill before the U.S. Senate.

A cap-and-trade system would set limits on greenhouse gas emissions and allow companies to trade permits to pollute. The system, a version of which was approved by the House of Representatives, is controversial, especially among lawmakers who represent states with big coal reserves.

Why and how HHI supports HVI.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy have formed an action group to help states achieve the maximum cost-effective energy efficiency improvements possible in offices, buildings, industries and homes by 2020.
 

A specialist conference organised by Cranfield University is being held to educate waste, water, catering, public health and environmental professionals on the effective management and removal of fats, oils and greases (FOGs) in drainage systems - a problem that currently costs over £5 million each year to clear in the Anglian region alone.

When Chris McKenna, who manages a fleet of trucks for Poland Spring, learned that the company’s drivers were racking up as much as 1,400 hours a month of idle time, he saw an opportunity to make a difference.

Could MAX pass federal safety standards for mass-produced cars? Nope. Should that matter?

The last Neanderthals in Europe died out at least 37,000 years ago — and both climate change and interaction with modern humans could be involved in their demise. The Neanderthal is an extinct member of the Homo genus that is known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia. Neanderthals are either classified as a subspecies of humans or as a separate species. How and why they died out is a matter of debate.

Well, what about that lofty conference theme, “Rethink, Redesign, Rebuild”? The one-line answer: It stayed in Rethink, with brief examples of Redesign. But even that is worthwhile — getting opinions and challenges from different viewpoints is valuable in itself.

Scotland has moved a step closer towards its goal of a zero waste society in announcing how it plans to deliver on its aspirations.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to tighten the ozone standard for smog will have an unfortunate side effect: Because of a quirk of atmospheric chemistry, those measures will hasten global warming.

There’s no question that smog is a hazard that deserves attention. Lydia Wegman of the EPA says the new ozone limits would have significant health benefits.

Less smog means fewer asthma attacks, fewer kids in the hospital, fewer days of lost school, “and we also believe that we can reduce the risk of early death in people with heart and lung disease,” she says.

Here’s the tough part: The way many states and localities will reduce smog is by cracking down on the chemicals that produce ozone. And those include nitrogen oxides, or NOx.

A restaurant owner has been fined and had his car crushed after an uncover operation revealed he was dumping waste in the street.

It’s been a hive of activity at Davos as business leaders and politicians discuss some of the biggest global issues on the table in 2010. It’s clear from conversations and many of the sessions that carbon is still a burning issue here.