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ALGIERS (Reuters) - Barack Obama’s pledge to work to reduce emissions sharply by 2020 is a “huge signal” of encouragement to countries negotiating a new climate pact, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat said on Wednesday.
Where did Henry Ford go wrong? When he first designed the Model T, he wanted it to run on an agriculture-based fuel — ethanol. But it wasn’t long before those plans were switched to use a petroleum-based fuel — gasoline.
As anyone who drives a gasoline-powered vehicle knows, the rest is history. Americans have since accepted the economic and environmental consequences.
Had Ford’s plan to use ethanol been realized, America might have looked very different today. However, ethanol still has many benefits and its not to late for America to take advantage of them, said Mark Dunn, director of the Northwest Ethanol Fuel Association.
“Ethanol is fermented and distilled from agricultural products like corn, wheat, barley and potatoes,” he said. “This makes it a renewable resource — unlike fossil fuels.”
By combining gasoline with 10 percent ethanol, the new mix will actually gain a higher octane rating and burn more efficiently, Dunn said. Equally important, however, vehicles burning this fuel called “gasahol” will emit about 25 percent less carbon monoxide.
Since roughly 60 percent of all carbon monoxide pollution is created by vehicles, these reductions can be significant. Several U.S. cities already have started “gasahol” programs and have noticed the benefits of ethanol in dealing with air pollution problems.
Ethanol has other environmental advantages, as well. Some production methods can use agricultural waste like potato skins. Sending these wastes to an ethanol manufacturer can keep them from contributing to America’s solid waste problem.
Ethanol also has some impressive economic advantages. In Bend, Ore., the Oregon Ethanol Co. is building a small refinery that will employ more than 40 people.
“From our workforce, even more jobs will be created,” said Terry Lynch, president of the company. “For every job we create, another seven will be created indirectly.”
A study by the Illinois Corn Growers Association revealed that for every 100 million bushels of corn used for the production of ethanol, 2,250 new rural jobs would be created. Additionally, the ethanol industry could put 50 million idle farming acres back into production.
Last year alone, 34 states sold more than eight billion gallons of ethanol, which was blended into only eight percent of the gasoline burned in the United States.
Perhaps it’s time to put Henry Ford’s original plans back on track.
Tip/Stat — For more information on ethanol or other alternative fuels, call the Renewable Fuels Association at 1 (800) 543-3802.
Technorati Tags: fuel efficiency, ethanol, ethanol industry, environmental consequences, renewable fuels, renewable energy, gasahol, carbon monoxide pollution
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Half the world’s population could face a shortage of clean water by 2080 because of climate change, experts warned Tuesday.
Wong Poh Poh, a professor at the National University of Singapore, told a regional conference that global warming was disrupting water flow patterns and increasing the severity of floods, droughts and storms — all of which reduce the availability of drinking water.
Despite new leadership in the United States promising to cap the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, some environmental leaders say it is unlikely that an international climate treaty will pass in the next year.
During his campaign, U.S. president-elect Barack Obama supported a global cap-and-trade agreement for regulating his nation’s carbon emissions. As a result, many international observers are hoping the United States will agree to binding emissions-reduction targets at thehigh-profile climate change negotiations scheduled for December 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Australians took part in mass protests around the country Saturday to call for tough government action on climate change, organizers said.
The demonstrations were held as Australia prepares to set national greenhouse gas emissions targets, expected around the end of this month. Environmentalists accuse industry of pushing for targets that are likely to compromise the environment.
Global warming will have a broad and devastating impact on California’s economy over the next century, according to a report released Thursday.
Roads and bridges, the water supply, agriculture, public health and even winter skiing all will be affected by global climate change, said the report by University of California-Berkeley agricultural and resource economics professors David Roland-Holst and Fredrich Kahrl.
BOSTON, Nov 12 (Tierramérica) - The Antarctic holds the world’s largest amount of fresh water in its icy grip, and it is most certainly warming as a result of greenhouse gases, say new scientific studies.
“We’re able for the first time to directly attribute warming in both the Arctic and the Antarctic to human influences,” said Nathan Gillett of the University of East Anglia, in Britain, who led the study.
OSLO (Reuters) - This year is on track to be about the 10th warmest globally since records began in 1850 but gaps in Arctic data mean the world may be slightly underestimating global warming, a leading scientist said on Tuesday.
Former Vice President Al Gore and Paul and Anne Ehrlich, the prize-winning ecologists and authors at Stanford University, have weighed in with suggestions for President-elect Barack Obama. Mr. Gore gave his updated prescription for climate and energy policy in an op-ed article in The Times on Sunday
Administrative and technical problems mean that Africa cannot profit from schemes to tackle climate change through projects to cut carbon emissions in developing countries, climate specialists meeting in Dakar said.
A fight within the Democratic Party over control of the House Energy and Commerce Committee could influence the outcome of President-elect Obama’s efforts to limit the heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming.
(NEW DELHI) One of India’s leading climate change scientists says the country needs to address the impact of climate change on its agriculture, water resources and health “right away”, as projected temperature rise will far exceed the increase in rainfall by the end of the century.
It’s possible to save money while saving the environment — that’s the message the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is promoting through its innovative Green Lights program.
By encouraging U.S. corporations to install state-of-the-art lighting in their facilities, the EPA is promoting both energy efficiency and pollution prevention. Companies that join the program will profit by lowering their energy bills and improving lighting quality. As a byproduct, these companies also will help reduce the air pollution caused in the generation of electricity.
Lighting consumes nearly 25 percent of the electricity used each year in the United States. And commercial and industrial lighting represents 80 to 90 percent of that electrical demand.
By installing “green lighting,” companies can reduce the electrical power required for their lighting systems by 50 to 75 percent, said Maria Tikoff, manager of the Green Lights program for the California EPA. This in turn reduces the amount of pollution produced at power plants.
“One of the misunderstandings we need to overcome is that energy efficiency means a sacrifice of some sort,” Tikoff said. “When it comes to lighting, that’s just not the case. In most instances, the quality of lighting is improved.”
Since the voluntary Green Lights program started last January, more than 125 corporations and five state governments have joined the effort. This means more than one billion square feet of building space has already been dedicated to energy efficient lighting, she said.
Under the program, participants sign an agreement committing their organization to survey all of its facilities and install new lighting systems that maximize energy savings and do not compromise lighting quality.
To simplify the process, the EPA has a computer program to help participants quickly survey their lighting systems. The program assesses various options and can even make final recommendations. The EPA also offers product information and can help organizations find grants or low-interest loans for the new lighting.
California was the first state government to join the Green Lights program. The state estimates that by installing “green lighting” in its buildings, taxpayers eventually will save $255 million in annual energy costs, Tikoff said.
Along with the monetary savings, the new lights also will keep more than two billion pounds of carbon dioxide, two million pounds of sulfur dioxide and six million pounds of nitrogen oxide out of California’s air.
Not a bad gain for changing a few light bulbs.
Tip/Stat — One compact fluorescent light bulb can last as long as 13 incandescent bulbs, while saving about $57 in energy costs over the life of the bulb.
Technorati Tags: saving the environment, environmental protection, pollution prevention, energy efficiency, green lighting, green lighting systems
President-elect Obama will shred the Bush administration’s energy policies and introduce a major climate change bill in an attempt to bring the US back into the international environment fold according to his senior advisers.
One of Barack Obama’s first tasks will be to lead the United States back into the heart of the global debate on climate change, ending the country’s years of isolation and skepticism.
His victory will spark intense relief among negotiators in Europe and Asia.
Back on September 9, John Podesta’sCenter for American Progress released a study called Green Recovery <>, which promised two million new jobs from a $100 billion investment over two years. That day was also my birthday, so my attention was elsewhere. But nearly two months later in the wake of the financial meltdown, taking a second look at the report seems worthwhile, since now more than ever, a road to recovery for the United States and the world could very well be paved with green bricks.
DHAKA (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon urged developed countries not to neglect climate change as they tend to a global economic slowdown and called on rich nations to help poor countries prone to global warming.
Opponents have taken a small lead in the latest poll on a California ballot measure that calls for half the state’s electricity to be generated by renewable sources by 2025, a Field Poll issued on Friday shows.
In its landmark Fourth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declared in 2007 that human influence on climate “has been detected in every continent except Antarctica”. Now a paper inNature Geoscience says that our impact can be found even in the last wilderness/
Global business leaders meeting Wednesday in Warsaw endorsed the United Nations’ drive to clinch a new global framework to curb climate change at its December 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen.
Carbon pollution levels are rising so fast that the world has no realistic chance of hitting ambitious climate targets set by Britain and the G8, an influential report to the Australian government has warned.
Business must play a key role in improving the environment in the future. But is the corporate world up to the task?
The Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI) is working hard to make sure the answer is “yes.” Formed in 1990, GEMI now has 21 corporate members focused on improving the business world’s environmental performance.
“The public is demanding that corporations improve their environmental practices,” says Andrew Mastrandonas, a project manager with GEMI. “Our hope is that business — by taking control of its environmental destiny — can spur change from within and create a forum for sharing solutions among industries worldwide.”
Already some big names have joined: IBM, AT&T, Boeing, Duke Power, Eastman Kodak, General Electric and Procter & Gamble. And GEMI is confident its list of member companies will continue to grow, Mastrandonas says.
The nonprofit organization is geared to help businesses improve their environmental management practices by sharing information and successful programs on the subject.
“The biggest polluter has historically been business, but companies are now getting together and starting to reduce that problem,” explains Mastrandonas. “By sharing information and the latest technologies, this effort is going to foster environmental excellence.”
GEMI does not hold fund raising activities — it is funded through member fees of $25,000 a year. The organization also does not take stands on public policy, he said, and is not an advocacy group.
Through research, workshops, conferences and discussion groups, GEMI is developing a large body of knowledge on environmental management practices. One of the issues being emphasized involves total quality management (TQM).
TQM aims at continuous improvement, Mastrandonas said, with an end point never being reached. Under this thinking, companies work to continually improve their environmental quality.
“First, companies have to figure out what they need to do to improve their performance,” he explained. “Then they need to track it and eventually communicate their results to employees, investors, environmentalists and other important groups.”
Because many of its member companies have operations scattered around the globe, GEMI plans to establish an international network and expand world thinking about sound environmental management.
“GEMI can provide a way for companies to tackle their own problems,” Mastrandonas said. “Through effective management, companies can take responsibility for their own actions and improve their environmental performance.”
Tip/Stat — For every ton of paper recycled by business, 7,000 gallons of water are saved during production.
Technorati Tags: environmental groups, environmental management, environmental business, environmental workshops
JOHANNESBURG, 24 October 2008 (IRIN) - People in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, prefer to commute in three-wheeled autorickshaws, taxis and buses that run on compressed natural gas (CNG), in their bid to slow down global warming.
CNG produces a lower level of greenhouse gases and is an environmentally cleaner alternative to petrol. Dhaka’s residents are among the most vulnerable to global warming and don’t want to become “climate terrorists”.
The chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the news media are not sufficiently addressing the severity of climate change at a meeting of U.S. environmental journalists earlier this week.
R.K. Pachauri, head of the 2,500-member IPCC, said that unless policies are enacted soon to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, the global perils from shifting weather patterns and sea level rise will become worse in the coming years.
Speaking yesterday at Harvard University, former vice president Al Gore renewed his call for an end to dependence on oil and other carbon-based fuels, blaming it for global warming and the United States’ problems in the Middle East.
SAN FRANCISCO—The presidential candidates certainly paid lip service to tackling the problem of climate change during their debate last night. But what would it actually take to slow down—or even reverse—global warming?
Climate change is happening faster and its extent is wider than the world’s leading scientists had predicted, according to a new report by pro-green group the WWF released on Monday (20 October), urging the EU to take ambitious action.
“It is clear that climate change is already having a greater impact than most scientists had anticipated, so it’s vital that international mitigation and adaptation responses become swifter and more ambitious,” Jean-Pascal van Ypersele - a professor of climatology at the Louvain university in Belgium and newly elected vice chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - said, unveiling the study.
A new study has found that an increase in average temperature of only two degrees Celsius could have a devastating effect on populations of Australias iconic kangaroos.
Our study provides evidence that climate change has the capacity to cause large-scale range contractions, and the possible extinction of one macropodid (kangaroo) species in northern Australia, said study authors Euan G. Ritchie and Elizabeth E. Bolitho of James Cook University in Australia.
Environment ministers and officials from more than 30 countries held an informal meeting in the Polish capital this week to prepare for a major UN climate conference.
WARSAW (Reuters) - Tackling climate change will help, not hinder, governments’ efforts to overcome the global financial crisis, the EU’s environment chief said on Tuesday.
The 27-nation European Union has set ambitious goals to curb carbon dioxide emissions by a fifth by 2020, compared to 1990 levels, partly by making power generators and heavy industry pay for permits to pollute in its emissions trading scheme.
