Carbon Output Must Near Zero To Avert Danger
Carbon Output Must Near Zero, New Studies SayFindings suggest that industrialized, developing nations must wean themselves entirely off fossil fuels to prevent dangerous warming. Article by Juliet Eilperin in Washington Post
Limits Upheld on Sonar Use in Navy Tests
In NYTimes on 3/2/08 – By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal appeals court has ruled that the Navy must abide by limits on its sonar training off the Southern California coast because the exercises could harm dozens of species of whales and dolphins.
In a decision released on Friday night, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected most of the Navy’s appeal of a ruling that banned high-powered sonar within 12 miles of the coast and set other limits that could affect Navy training exercises scheduled to begin this month.
Also on Friday, a federal judge in Hawaii issued a similar ban for that state’s coastline.
In the California case, the three-member appellate panel let stand most of a lower court injunction that set the limits. But it did change two restrictions that the Navy argued could harm the readiness of its ships for potential combat duty.
Conservation groups that had sued to block use of the sonar welcomed the decision. “The court is saying that neither the president nor the U.S. Navy is above the law,” Joel Reynolds, director of the Marine Mammal Protection Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement Saturday.
“The court found that the Navy must be environmentally responsible when training with high-intensity sonar, and that doing so won’t interfere with military readiness,” Mr. Reynolds said.
The Navy said it may seek a review of the ruling.
Southern California’s coastal waters are home to dozens of species of whales, dolphins, seals and sea lions. Nine species are federally listed as endangered or threatened.
A spokeswoman for the Navy, Lt. Cmdr. Cindy Moore, said Saturday that officials were “heartened” by the decision because it “at least temporarily provides us some relief from the district court’s overbroad injunction.”
The Dairies Are Half-Pint, but the Flavor Isn’t
The Dairies Are Half-Pint, but the Flavor Isn’t
MARIAN BURROS [ NYTimes | 2/20/08 ] writes about small, organic dairies, many in Vermont, which are selling high quality butter and other milk products, making both money and happy customers.
Crude oil goes over $100 mark
Supply Fears Push Oil to Triple Digits
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS | NYTimes | 2/20/08
See accompanying chart showing that the cost of crude has just about doubled in the past year!
Big Foot
In measuring carbon emissions, it’s easy to confuse morality and science.
Michael Specter writes in the New Yorker (February 25, 2008) about the difficulties in assigning carbon costs to various food products and activities and raises a number of issues of ethics and economics. This is a good background piece on the issue of “carbon footprints” – about the relationship between carbon and pollution and the marketplace with advice on how to succeed in doing what must be done
That Newfangled Light Bulb
That Newfangled Light Bulb
Editorial | NYTimes | 2/17/08
Across the world, consumers are being urged to stop buying outdated incandescent light bulbs and switch to new spiral fluorescent bulbs, which use about 25 percent of the energy and last 10 times longer. In Britain, there is a Ban the Bulb movement. China is encouraging the change. And the United States Congress has set new energy efficiency standards that will make Edison’s magical invention obsolete by the year 2014.
Now, the question is how to dispose of these compact fluorescent bulbs once they break or quit working.
Unlike traditional light bulbs, each of these spiral bulbs has a tiny bit of a dangerous toxin — around five milligrams of mercury. And although one dot of mercury might not seem so bad, almost 300 million compact fluorescents were sold in the United States last year. That is already a lot of mercury to throw in the trash, and the amounts will grow ever larger in coming years.
Businesses and government recyclers need to start working on more efficient ways to deal with that added mercury. Ellen Silbergeld, a professor of environmental health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, is raising the cry about the moment when millions of these light bulbs start landing in landfills or incinerators all at once. The pig in the waste pipeline, she calls it.
Even when warned, public officials are never great at planning. The Environmental Protection Agency now focuses mostly on the disposal of one bulb at a time. If you break a fluorescent bulb, there is no need to call in the hazmat team, the agency says. Just clean it up quickly with paper (no vacuuming or brooms), keep the kids away and open the window for a 15-minute douse of fresh air. Tuck the debris into a plastic sack and, if there is no special recycling nearby, discard it in the regular trash.
Interestingly, one of the main reasons to use these bulbs is that when they cut down on energy use, they also cut down on mercury emissions from power plants. And even with their mercury innards, these bulbs are still better for the environment than the old ones.
For all that good, the dangers are real and growing. It is time to find more efficient ways of recycling these fluorescents or, better yet, to invent light bulbs that don’t leave a toxic hangover.
“Eco-Moms”
For ‘EcoMoms,’ Saving Earth Begins at Home
By PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN | NYTimes | 2/16/08
Article on what homekeepers are doing to become eco-freindly…
Going Out to Eat, but Staying Green
When does Woodstock get a green restaurant?
FLORENCE FABRICANT writes in the Times about “Green Restaurants” -
The seal of approval for many environmentally concerned dining places around the country comes from the nonprofit Green Restaurant Association, founded by Michael Oshman in 1990, when, he said, there was no green business movement.
Now, his organization, based in Boston, has more than 350 members, which for an annual fee of $500 to $4,000, depending on their size, get a “Green Restaurant” seal for their windows once they replace all polystyrene foam products, agree to recycle as much as possible, and begin to phase in other environmental measures, including composting, conserving water, disposing of grease responsibly and using chlorine-free paper products.
To check on compliance, the association occasionally inspects restaurants, but more often it looks at invoices to confirm that they are buying nontoxic cleaning products, energy efficient light bulbs and the like.
“We have to make these certifications credible,” Mr. Oshman said. “We’ve had issues with some clients, like one who had a contract with a recycler but the recycling company reported that the bins were always empty.”
