How to decarbonize America — and the world. How Bad Are K-Cups for the Environment? How to Get Wyoming Wind to California, and Cut 80% of U.S. Carbon Emissions. Several miles south of Rawlins, Wyoming, on a cattle ranch east of the Continental Divide, construction crews have begun laying down roads and pads that could eventually underpin up to 1,000 wind turbines. Once complete, the Chokecherry and Sierra Madre project could generate around 12 million megawatt-hours of electricity annually, making it the nation’s largest wind farm.
But how do you get that much wind power to where it’s actually needed? The Denver-based company behind the project hopes to erect a series of steel transmission towers that would stretch a high-voltage direct-current transmission line 730 miles across the American West. It could carry as much as 3,000 megawatts of Wyoming wind power to the electricity markets of California, Nevada, and Arizona. With the right deals in place, the transmission line could deliver solar-generated electricity back as well, balancing Wyoming’s powerful late-afternoon winds with California’s bright daytime sun. A macro grid Giant batteries. Batteries Impose Hidden Environmental Costs for Wind and Solar Power. Motor Mouth: Big rigs show us finding an emissions solution is no easy task. Here’s a surprise, I suspect, even to automotive experts like me, those who pride themselves in “knowing” the automotive industry.
The fastest growing source of transportation-based greenhouse gas emissions — the whole reason we’re supposedly going electric — is not from the diesel-powered cars or gas-guzzling SUVs environmentalists love to revile. Nope, despite our desire for ever-larger cars and pickups, the biggest increase in CO2 emissions is from the transport trucks that deliver the goods we eat, sleep (in) and wear. Consider the following statistics: According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, in 1990 cars and trucks accounted for 71.1 megatonnes of carbon dioxide tailpipe emissions; 18-wheelers just 20.7. Fast forward 25 years and, while passenger cars now account for 83 megatonnes of CO2, the over-the-road transportation industry pumps out 63.2 megatonnes. There are, of course, are flaws in my rather simplistic argument. What really happens to the plastic you throw away - Emma Bryce.
Wood-burners: London air pollution is just tip of the iceberg. Agencja Fotograficzna Caro/Alamy Stock Photo Last week, air pollution in London soared to heights not seen since 2011. The usual suspects were named and shamed, including traffic fumes and a lack of wind. But joining them was a surprising culprit. “We think about half of the peak was from wood smoke,” says Timothy Baker, part of a team at King’s College London that monitors air pollution. The trendy log-burning stoves producing much of this pollution are marketed as a source of renewable energy that can cut fuel bills while helping reduce global warming.
If nothing is done to discourage log burning in homes, it could become the biggest source of air pollution in cities like London. “I love sitting by a log fire as much as the next person but maybe we need to think again before it’s too late,” says climate scientist Piers Forster of the University of Leeds, UK. Air pollution is awful for our health. Natural killer Yet logs can still be burned in officially approved stoves in cities.
Greenpeace behaving badly. U.S. China. Sustainability. Nigeria. Everyday Petroleum-based Products. Forrest: A disproportional emphasis on upstream oil and gas is not a solution for reducing GHGs | Carbon & Sustainability | JWN Energy. Check out the insane number of cargo ships crossing the globe. A Map Of Where Your Food Originated May Surprise You. Some people may be dimly aware that Thailand's chilies and Italy's tomatoes — despite being central to their respective local cuisines — originated in South America.
Now, for the first time, a new study reveals the full extent of globalization in our food supply. More than two-thirds of the crops that underpin national diets originally came from somewhere else — often far away. And that trend has accelerated over the past 50 years. Colin Khoury, a plant scientist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (known by its Spanish acronym CIAT) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is the study's lead researcher. Khoury tells The Salt that "the numbers affirm what we have long known — that our entire food system is completely global. " Previous work by the same authors had shown that national diets have adopted new crops and become more and more globally alike in recent decades. Toggle caption The Royal Society Jeremy Cherfas is a biologist and science journalist based in Rome.
Hypocrite! Leo takes private jet to collect environmental award. Leo DiCaprio picked up an environmental award in NYC this week — but hypocritically expanded his carbon footprint by 8,000 miles when he obtained the honor, by taking a private jet from Cannes, then flying straight back to France on another jet for a model-packed fund-raiser a night later. DiCaprio was at the Cannes Film Festival this week, and was spotted there partying at club Gotha on Monday with model Georgia Fowler, then jetted back to New York for the Riverkeeper Fishermen’s Ball at Chelsea Piers on Wednesday, where he was honored by the clean-water advocacy group and Robert De Niro.
Just 24 hours later, DiCaprio reappeared back in France for amfAR’s glitzy Cinema Against AIDS gala, where he gave a speech. Modal Trigger DiCaprio’s foundation just pledged $15 million to environmental causes at this year’s World Economic Forum. And during his Oscar acceptance speech, he said, “Climate change is real. But he’s also been slammed for his use of private jets and yachts. Everyone is completely ignoring a huge impact of eating meat. Over the last decade or so, the media have slowly but steadily fed the public information about the staggering impact of our meat-eating habits on the environment, and on climate change in particular. For instance, one recent study found that a global transition toward low-meat diets could reduce the costs of climate change mitigation by as much as 50 percent by 2050. From scientific reports and articles in magazines, to viral Facebook videos to documentaries like Cowspiracy and Meat the Truth, the news about the exorbitant contribution of a carnivorous to the greenhouse problem is clearly spreading.
However, despite all these messages, new research by my colleagues and myself shows that most people are still not aware of the full extent of meat’s climate impacts. We examined how citizens in America and the Netherlands assess various food and energy-related options for tackling climate change. That is remarkably low! This is of crucial importance. References: Michaelis, Laurie. (2007). Almost everything you buy, from cereal to mascara, is killing the rain forest. A monkey carries her cub in a rain forest in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Tropical forests across the world are at risk, thanks to deforestation . (AP Photo/Juan Karita) I’m an environmentalist, and I try to make green choices. I take public transportation, recycle and program my thermostat.
Forests cover 30 percent of the Earth’s land, but they’re disappearing fast. Deforestation contributes to biodiversity loss, threatens clean water sources and infringes on the rights of the 1.6 billion people who depend on forests for their livelihoods. As I began researching this problem, I realized that I played a role, since many products lurking in my refrigerator, kitchen cabinets and even shower contained traces of tropical forests that once were. I wanted to get a handle on the scope of the problem and my contribution to it.
My first task was sorting out what I could and couldn’t buy. Paper was the easiest. Soy was harder. Avoiding deforestation-related consumption wasn’t easy. Aircraft and ships must not be exempt from emissions cuts. THE Paris climate agreement, sealed last December, was a first in many respects: the first truly international climate change deal, with promises from both rich and poor nations to cut emissions; the first global signal that the age of fossil fuels must end; the first time world leaders said we should aim for less than 2 °C of warming. Aiming for a 2 °C limit would have been considered ambitious, but leaders seized the moment and went for 1.5 °C. According to our analysis, this is achievable, but only just (see “The big carbon clean-up: 2 steps to stop global warming at 1.5 °C“). It depends on two very difficult conditions being met. One is to decarbonise the economy very quickly.
The immediate task, though, is to stop emitting carbon. Advertisement Following on from Rio, the Kyoto protocol of 1997 – the first serious international effort to tackle climate change – also let shipping and aviation off the hook, allowing them to deal with their emissions separately. More on these topics: Oil Has a Reality Check for Those Elated by the Climate Deal. For anyone elated by the climate-change accord in Paris, the commodity markets have a reality check for you. World leaders may have vowed to wean the world from fossil fuels, but prices for oil, coal and natural gas are at their lowest in years. Crude, which touched an 11-year low Monday, will probably decline even more with the U.S. ending its 40-year ban on oil exports. So is that bad news for people hoping to switch the world to cleaner fuels? The answer is pretty complicated. The International Energy Agency in May analyzed the impact on greenhouse-gas emissions if global oil prices remain below $50 a barrel for the rest of the decade, pulling down coal and natural gas prices as well.
The results, shown above, were mixed: total carbon dioxide emissions from coal will go down by almost 6 gigatons from 2014 through 2040, largely because low prices will accelerate the shift to cleaner gas for producing electricity. But inexpensive fossil fuels will also undercut sales of electric vehicles.
What’s Inside Dry Shampoo? Alcohol, Petroleum, and Clay. Cruise Lines Are Urged to Cut Fuel Emissions. Care About Global Climate Change? Then Fight Local Air Pollution. Leaders of developing countries should take a look at a new study by professors and researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the University of Chicago, and keep it in mind when they go to Paris to discuss a global climate agreement this December. According to the study, published in the journal Economic & Political Weekly (EPW), “India’s population is exposed to dangerously high levels of air pollution.”
Based on ground-level measurements and satellite data, the paper estimates that 660 million Indians live in areas exceeding the Indian government’s air quality standard for fine particulate pollution. The causes are the same as they are everywhere: cars, industrial activity, and electricity generation. Coal is India’s primary source of power, accounting for more than half of its energy portfolio.
Car ownership is rapidly becoming more widespread, and Indian cars often run on diesel, which generates more particulate pollution than gasoline. Other industrializing nations aren’t there yet. The Invasion of the K-Cup and its ‘monster’ environmental problem. No wonder when they set out to make a short film about this creeping monster within our midst, they portrayed it as an alien invasion that destroys the world. Farfetched, perhaps, but it gets your attention.
Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but the once-wide aisles of grocery stores – not to mention Canadian Tires, hardware, electronics and office supply stores – are being increasingly squeezed by … coffee. It is called the Invasion of the K-Cup: pre-packaged single servings of ground coffee that require a bar-code-reading machine to decipher and, sadly, no instructions at all as to what to do with the little plastic pods after the coffee has been poured.
To call them ubiquitous is to devalue the word. These machines and their small plastic-foil-and-paper pods first took Europe, then Australia, now North America. Two years ago, the industry was said to be worth $12-billion. Mr. “Let’s not talk about global warming here,” he says. “Once the beans are ground they start losing flavour. Mr. These are the Most Toxic Places on Earth - NewsZoom. Over the last 100 years or so, humanity has made astounding technological advances at an overwhelming pace. These advances in science and technology may have made our lives easier and more exciting, but the trail of waste we have left (and still continue to leave) behind is simply horrendous. Pollutants of all kinds – chemical, nuclear, basic garbage, electronic waste – have seriously ruined our environment.
Many locations have been so drastically impacted that living in them is a near impossibility. Chernobyl, Ukraine is a great example, the town witnessed the worst nuclear power plant accident in human history and since then has been an uninhabitable ghost town. Although this list doesn’t feature any locations in the United States, they do exist. Along with the ten places mentioned in the video, here are other toxic places in the world that deserve an (dis)honorable mention. Rondonia, Brazil: This is the most deforested region of the Amazon Rainforest. How China's Filthy Air Is Screwing With Our Weather. As the snow began to fall earlier this week in the lead up to the season's first major blizzard, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters that the Northeast was witnessing "a pattern of extreme weather that we've never seen before.
" Climate change, Cuomo argues, is fueling bigger, badder weather events like this one—and like Hurricane Sandy. While the science that links specific snowstorms to global warming is profoundly difficult to calculate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says it's "very likely"—defined as greater than 90 percent probability—that "extreme precipitation events will become more intense and frequent" in North America as the world warms. In New York City, actual snow days have decreased, but bigger blizzards have become more common, dumping more snow each time. Mashable reported that all of New York City's top 10 snowfalls have occurred in the past 15 years.
But climate change may not be the only way that human activity is making storms worse. Why electric cars aren't always greener. These 6 Countries Are Responsible For 60% Of CO2 Emissions. European Commission Six countries produce nearly 60 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. China and the United States combine for more than two-fifths. The planet's future will be shaped by what these top carbon polluters do about the heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming. How they rank, what they're doing: China Photos/Getty ImagesChina accounts for about 30 percent of global CO2 emissions. It emits nearly twice the amount of greenhouse gases as the United States, which it surpassed in 2006 as the top emitter of carbon dioxide.
That changed when Beijing announced last month in a deal with Washington that it would stem greenhouse gas emission growth by 2030. 2013 CO2 emissions: 11 billion tons 2013 Population: 1.36 billion It has never entered into a binding treaty to curb greenhouse gases. Carbon emissions are up, though, as the U.S. rebounds from recession. 2013 CO2 emissions: 5.8 billion tons 2013 Population: 316 million The U.S. 2013 CO2 emissions: 2.6 billion tons.
Solar energy that doesn't block the view -- ScienceDaily. A team of researchers at Michigan State University has developed a new type of solar concentrator that when placed over a window creates solar energy while allowing people to actually see through the window. It is called a transparent luminescent solar concentrator and can be used on buildings, cell phones and any other device that has a clear surface. And, according to Richard Lunt of MSU's College of Engineering, the key word is "transparent. " Research in the production of energy from solar cells placed around luminescent plastic-like materials is not new. These past efforts, however, have yielded poor results -- the energy production was inefficient and the materials were highly colored. "No one wants to sit behind colored glass," said Lunt, an assistant professor of chemical engineering and materials science.
"It makes for a very colorful environment, like working in a disco. One of the benefits of this new development is its flexibility. Free exchange: Sun, wind and drain. Hey, Congress, Oregon Has Your Long-Term Highway Funding Solution Right Here. Is Nuclear Power Ever Coming Back? - Celeste LeCompte.
The Good Country Index. If nothing else, green power has to be green.