photo by Compassion in World Farming (Flickr Creative Commons)

Two rather informative articles from Mother Jones go over the environmental benefits/drawbacks of a vegetarian diet vs. one that includes lots of meat.

Kiera Butler’s ‘Steak or Veggie Burger: Which is Greener?’ – aka ‘Get Behind Me Seitan’ – may tread some familiar ground for those well versed on the relationship between diet and the environment, but it offers up some pretty important details, especially about processed meat substitutes.

A processed ‘pea-burger’ requires as much energy as a pork chop, Butler claims. I don’t know what a pea-burger is, but I’m guessing she is referring to the bulk of industrially produced meat substitutes in the US. There is also another worrying aspect about how some fake meat is produced in the States:

Consider the process that keeps your veggie burgers low in fat: The cheapest way to remove fatty soybean oil is with hexane, an EPA-registered air pollutant and suspected neurotoxin. A 2009 study by the Cornucopia Institute, a sustainable-farming nonprofit, found that Boca, Morningstar Farms, and Gardenburger (among others) market products made with hexane.

–Kiera Butler

I think I’d rather have my veggie burger higher in fat then, but I guess we can’t have our cake and eat it too. Or can we? I’ve made seitan (wheat gluten) in my own sink with nothing but flour and water. And from what I can find out hexane is used to make glue and in oil extraction procedures for seeds, not wheat gluten. At the risk of oversimplifying, just shop and eat smart.

Regardless of the above, plants are for the most part far more energy efficient than meat and produce far less greenhouse gasses. But traditional, local means of farming – whether carnivorous or vegetarian – are generally the ways to go in terms of the environment. That means cutting out meat unless it’s grass-fed and not eating over-processed food in general.

This is a simplification too, but a useful one. If you want to know the specifics of how each thing you eat affects the environment – and you should want to know that – you’ll have to do a bit of research. Start with Butler’s article and then check out ‘Bacon Lovers vs. Soy Huggers: The Smackdown’, with voices from different sides of the debate including Jonathan Safran Froer and farmer Joel Salatin. Experts from various fields give their informed opinions about the relationship between diet and the environment.

Pretty enlightening stuff, even without exploring the question of cruelty in both meat eating and especially factory farming.

Graham Land

Additional resources:

Trailer for documentary film Meat the Truth

photo by Nicolas Massé (Nicoze on Flickr Creative Commons)

A new study from the UK’s Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) reports that the state of British seas has improved since the last report in 2005.

Coastal waters are getting cleaner, fish stocks are improving and species diversity in estuaries is increasing, according to the most authoritative examination ever carried out of UK seas.

–Guardian

Yet despite these improvements, climate change is raising sea levels, temperatures and ocean acidity; and British coasts are trashier than ever – and they’re talking about litter, not the tackiness levels of seaside ‘resorts’ like Blackpool.

The changing climate, along with European fishing regulations, is also altering the proportionate populations of fish living in British seas.

For more details on this story check out the below article from the Guardian:

British seas: More fish, cleaner and greater biodiversity, says Defra

In related news, the government is announcing new ways to take care of the country’s marine environment. The UK Marine Policy Statement attempts to set out new systems of management for British seas involving both the devolved – Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish – and UK governments.

From a June 21, 2010 DEFRA press release:

Our seas are some of the most diverse in the world, providing us with food, energy and a home to over 8000 species. These new ways of managing our seas will help protect the marine environment, while allowing us to make the best use of the resources it offers, like renewable energy. It will also enable businesses that rely on the seas, such as leisure and tourism, to grow.

–Marine Environment Minister, Richard Benyon

stripped and unstripped cork trees – photo by Robert McIntosh (thirstforwine on Flickr Creative Commons)

The rise of inexpensive non-European wines and convenience-obsessed consumer culture are threatening the ancient and sustainable cork industry. But besides the potential loss of long-established ‘green jobs’ and the fact that plastic stoppers and screw caps are bad for the environment, the cork industry also sustains large areas of industry-managed forests, which are hotspots for biodiversity. Large bird populations depend on these forests, as does the endangered Iberian Lynx.

Cork forests are not cut down, but rather the trees are stripped of their soft bark every nine years throughout their 200-year lifespan. This makes the industry very sustainable because it requires no deforestation or biodiversity loss. Cork is also recyclable and 100% biodegradable.

From a piece in the Telegraph:

In the last ten years the proportion of wine bottles sealed by screw cap or plastic has grown from less than five per cent to 30 per cent of the 16 billion bottles sold every year. In the UK supermarkets, where more cheap wine is sold, screw caps can make up half the stock on the shelves.

The WWF estimates that as much as 1/3 of the Mediterranean’s cork forests could be lost if this trend continues.

It is Portugal that provides over half of the world’s cork and that is where much of the new promotional push for Cork is centered. And it’s not just for stopping wine bottles; cork products from jackets to flooring to umbrellas are selling both locally and internationally. My wallet is even made from cork.

The environmental benefits of cork are manifold and even include a possible application to use cork for soaking up oil spills.

From an article in the Financial Times:

Green credentials are another argument in the cork industry’s campaign. Cork oak plantations are defended as intrinsic to the ecosystem of southern Portugal and an agricultural system known as montado, providing a habitat for endangered species such as the Iberian lynx, the Barbary deer and black stork. Cork forests are also described as an important resource for absorbing carbon dioxide.

Those concerned about TCA, or ‘corking’, when it comes to traditional corks, should read this article by a wine and spirits expert in the Kansas City Star:

For wines, synthetic stoppers and screw tops are not significantly better than traditional corks

Graham Land

photo by kqedquest (Flickr Creative Commons)

I’ve assumed that transport via boat, whether shipping goods or people, is less polluting and has a lower carbon footprint than flying or road freight, for example. Not so, according to both scientific research and inside information from the maritime shipping industry.

While diesel cars – once known as smelly, noisy polluters – have relatively cleaned up their act to the level of standard petrol or gasoline-fuelled cars, the heavy-duty diesel and low-grade fuel oil engines that power ships are a scourge on the environment and human health.

From an article in the Economist:

Research by James Corbett of the University of Delaware estimates that soot from ships’ diesels contributes to 60,000 deaths from and lung disease every year. Dirty ships’ diesels also produce oxides of nitrogen—the main ingredient of smog.

It is estimated that cargo ships currently produce 30% of the world’s nitrogen-oxide emissions.

But there may be a partial solution – and it’s as simple as H2O. Experiments have shown that mixing water with diesel and adding a surfactant – which prevents the oil and water from separating – eliminates soot and reduces nitrogen-oxide emissions by up to 80%.

Successful implementation of this technology, along with the new air quality standards in both Europe and the US, would be good news for both the environment and world health. According to an article in the Guardian from last year, a US study has shown that pollution from the world’s 90,000 cargo ships causes 60,000 deaths annually in that country alone and ‘$330bn (€260bn) per year in health costs from lung and heart diseases’. A Danish government study claims it costs Denmark £5bn (€6bn) per annum in health costs and .1% of Danes to die prematurely each year.

Confidential data from maritime industry insiders based on engine size and the quality of fuel typically used by ships and cars shows that just 15 of the world’s biggest ships may now emit as much pollution as all the world’s 760m cars.

–Guardian

That’s over 50 million cars per big ship.

Graham Land

Additional resources:

Treehugger – Could we Clean Up Air Pollution from Cargo Ships with… H2O?!

Royal Society of the Arts joins 10:10; photo by Jeff Moore (The RSA, Flickr Creative Commons)

The UK-based 10:10 global campaign was founded in September of 2009 by the director of the environmental documentary film The Age of Stupid, Franny Armstrong.

The idea of 10:10 is simple – to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 10% in 2010. This means everyone, on both individual and organizational levels – businesses, schools, religious organizations, sports clubs, hospitals and people – wasting less and saving more. Even the UK’s new coalition government, along with 9 other governments, has signed on.

To those who say this is insignificant, remember this: the UK’s public sector has a bigger carbon footprint than the entire waste industry. If we do this, we’ll cut the government’s energy bills by hundreds of millions of pounds.

–UK Prime Minister David Cameron

How’s it done? By cutting down on carbon and other greenhouse gas intensive activities like needless flying and fossil fuel-based transportation, over-consumption, wasteful use of water, electricity, gas and other resources; and by eating smart, healthily and locally. All these things both help the global and local environments as well as save us lots of money. By getting behind the 10:10 campaign we do these things as both organizations and individuals to make a difference together.

And 10:10 is not just for the UK – it is a global initiative. Other countries participating in the campaign include Ireland, Germany, Ghana, New Zealand, Nepal, France, Norway, Portugal and several Eastern European nations. Even the U.S. State of Washington is on-board.

Join up on the 10:10 homepage.

For an informative, international, celebrity-studded overview of 10:10, replete with timeline, see this PDF from the 10:10 homepage entitled ‘The Story So Far’.

Also check out this series of articles all about 10:10 from the Guardian.

Graham Land

Additional resources:

10:10 on Facebook

10:10 interactive carbon calculator

MediaWeek – NatMag becomes media partner of climate change campaign 10:10

source: gaslandthemovie.com

Gasland is a documentary film written and directed by Josh Fox which explores the practice of hydraulic fracturing, a widespread method used in drilling for natural gas in the United States.

Hydraulic fracturing, often referred to as ‘fracking’ (yes, like in Battlestar Galactica), fractures rock in order to get at natural gas deposits in shale reservoirs. Environmental concerns associated with fracking include the contamination of groundwater, issues with air quality, greenhouse gas emissions and areas surrounding sites becoming polluted with natural gas and toxic chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process.

Gasland starts out a bit haphazard, as if Fox doesn’t really know what he’s doing, but after a short while it really picks up. He’s been offered a tidy sum to allow natural gas drilling rights on his property in rural Pennsylvania, but has heard bad things about the process and the affects it has on the environment and on the health of the people who live near the gas wells. So he decides to check it out.

What Fox discovers is that since the Bush-Cheney administration took office in 2001, American land, private and perhaps more shockingly, supposedly protected federal public land has been extensively opened up for fracking, and made exempt from the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. The list of complaints is as long as it is shocking: gas clouds hanging over someone’s house, household water that smells like turpentine, highly flammable natural gas coming out of faucets and a variety of serious health complaints.

That’s what you get when you let an industry regulate itself and cut the claws off the Environmental Protection Agency. BP, Exxon and Halliburton make tons of money, ruin environments and destroy lives.

Watch the trailer for Gasland below.

Graham Land

Additional resources:

Official Gasland website

Gasland review from Variety

photo from US Geological Survey (public domain)

According to a BBC News report from May, rats are the top invasive species in Europe. This should come as no big surprise as the crafty, rapidly multiplying rodents are everywhere and seem to thrive in any environment that contains people. The more people, the more rats.

Surprisingly however, they haven’t even been in Europe for that long.

The brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) is found across Europe in all habitats except high mountain ranges. It was believed to have been introduced in the 18th Century as maritime traffic increased.

–BBC News

Brown rats muscled out native rodent species, but also birds and aquatics. They also caused significant economic damage by eating crops and food stores as well as damaging buildings. But perhaps rats are considered a lost cause because they are just so good at surviving.

Ireland has its fair share of rats and other invasive critters such as feral ferrets, North American grey squirrels, and even a type of duck. There is also concern over wild boars and deer.

However, a recent piece in the Irish Times, entitled ‘They came from beneath the water’, suggests a growing concern about aquatic non-native species and their effects on the local environment.

One invasive species – the Asian clam – has spread throughout continental Europe since it was first spotted the 1980s and is now showing up in Irish rivers, where it disturbs the ecosystem by fouling riverbeds. It has also been the cause of clogged pipes in American nuclear power plants, so it isn’t a clam to be trifled with.

Controlling the spread of the “invader” is very difficult. The innocuous-looking mollusc has a yellow-green shell, grows to a length of about 5cm and breeds prolifically – a self-fertilising adult can produce up to 100,000 offspring in just a few years.

–Irish Times

It is not known how the Asian clam arrived in Ireland or why, but there is speculation that it was introduced as a food source.

Other threats to Ireland’s biodiversity include ornamental plants that have escaped from their gardens and ‘gone wild’. Not exactly alligators running amok in New York sewers, but there you have it.

Graham Land

Additional resources:

Invasive Species Ireland – Most Unwanted list

Ireland National Biodiversity Data Centre – National Invasive Species Database

photo by Grzegorz Chorus (source: Flickr Creative Commons)

A new campaign by the Japanese government encourages people to go to bed one hour earlier in order to save energy and cut down on CO2 emissions. Not watching TV and having lights on late at night could cut household energy consumption by up to 20%

The campaign, launched by Japan’s Environment Ministry, is called ‘Morning Challenge’ is designed to change morning sunlight for nighttime energy use in the home.

From an article in the Independent:

A study by the Japanese ministry of environment has found that 20 percent of Japan’s electricity is consumed within the final hour before bed. As a result the government is running a campaign encouraging people to go bed and wake up earlier. It is estimated that the average family could reduce their carbon footprint by up to 85kg per year simply by not watching TV late into the night.

Five years ago the Japanese Environment Ministry launched the ‘Cool Biz’ campaign in order to persuade workers to wear short sleeve shirts during summer months to cut down on air conditioner use.

Some environmental campaigners in the UK would like to take this idea a step further and institute a time change. The 10:10 Lighter Later Campaign supports this initiative, which would mean officially moving the clocks back one hour, effectively taking one hour of daylight from the morning and giving it to the evening.

This may pose challenges, for instance children in Scotland having to walk to school in the dark, but perhaps this problem could be solved by simply having school start an hour later where this is an issue.

The proposed benefits of setting the clocks forward an hour in the UK include reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions, increasing road safety, cutting down on crime and boosting tourism.

See lighterlater.org for more information.

Graham Land

Additional resources:

Telegraph – Japanese told to go to bed an hour early to cut carbon emissions

last November’s flooding in Cumbria (source: Flicker Creative Commons)

Parts of northwest England may face hosepipe bans and drought orders after experiencing the lowest winter and spring rainfalls since 1929.

Areas in Cumbria, which were hit by flooding November, are now faced with rapidly decreasing water reservoirs after the region experienced only 38% of its normal rainfall for the month of May.

From a report in the Guardian:

The region traditionally has the highest rainfall in the country but has fewer natural underground water supplies, leaving it more dependent on man-made surface storage.

The UK Environment Agency has warned that water resources across the country are under long term threat due to climate change and population growth, though at the moment there is little threat to water supplies elsewhere in the UK.

From a report in the Telegraph:

It said that by 2050, many rivers could see a 50% to 80% reduction in average flows during summer months.

Regional water company United Utilities is applying to the Environment Agency for a drought permit, which would allow it to boost reservoir levels by taking water from lakes and other resources

‘Now, more than ever we need people to use water wisely’, a spokesman for the company was quoted in a BBC News report.

A hosepipe ban will be enacted if the unusually dry weather continues.

by Graham Land

photo by bdjsb7 (source: Flickr Creative Commons)

Palm oil has made its way into countless processed foods, soaps and cosmetics. It is also used to make ‘biofuel’ and even napalm – the gelled gasoline used to horrifying effect during the Vietnam War.

Now palm oil is engaged in another war – a war of the environment. Palm oil cultivation often destroys vital natural resources via the utilization of slash and burn agriculture and rainforest clearing in Indonesia and Malaysia. This type of cultivation not only results in the loss of habitats for many species including vulnerable Sumatran tigers and orangutans, but the burning of the forests releases high levels of black carbon (soot) and CO2. The palm plantations do not provide the same rich ecosystems nor sequester the same amount of carbon as the rainforests they replace. When peat forests or bogs are drained to make way for palm oil plantations, even more CO2 is released than with rainforest deforestation, not to mention the resultant acidification of local waterways.

Lush, a prominent natural cosmetics company based in Dorset, UK, is joining the fight. Though Lush still uses palm oil in some of its products, the environmentally conscious soap-makers have come up with an alternative; a mixture of ’sunflower oil, rapeseed oil and coconut oil with sodium hydroxide and water’. I hope they still smell and look good enough to eat.

Read more about Lush’s new palm-free soap base in the Guardian.

For more on palm oil and its manifold detrimental effects on the environment, check out this article from Greenpeace.

Additional resources:

Rainforest Action Network – Palm Oil

Palm Oil Action

photo by pppspics (source: Flickr Creative Commons)

The Guardian reports that BP has placed a cap on the broken end of the leaking wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico in order to capture escaping oil and collect it on ships above the shattered well:

The placement of the containment cap is another positive development in BP’s most recent attempt to contain the leak, however, it will be some time before we can confirm that this method will work and to what extent it will mitigate the release of oil into the environment. Even if successful, this is only a temporary and partial fix and we must continue our aggressive response operations at the source, on the surface and along the Gulf’s precious coastline.

– Admiral Thad Allen, US Coast Guard

If it works the cap will not capture all the escaping oil flowing into the waters of the Gulf. Hopes are that it will catch 90%, but it will take 12-24 hours to assess whether the operation was a success.

Read more in the Guardian and in this report from CNN.

Watch video footage of the capping operation below:

by Graham Land

photo by ProgressOhio (source: Flickr Creative Commons)

A UN report entitled ‘Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production’, released Wednesday, states that eating less meat and dairy is necessary to avoid catastrophic effects of climate change, global hunger and energy shortages.

From an article in the Guardian:

As the global population surges towards a predicted 9.1 billion people by 2050, western tastes for diets rich in meat and dairy products are unsustainable, says the report from United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) international panel of sustainable resource management.

There’s been a bit of a back and forth regarding how much the meat and dairy industries contribute to climate change. Back in March a study was presented to the American Chemical Society by Dr. Frank Mitloehner, which claimed that environmentalists have exaggerated the greenhouse gas emissions of meat and dairy production.

Right wing media like Fox News and the Daily Mail jumped all over this, claiming this proved that eating less meat has no impact climate. More responsible reports in the Telegraph and on BBC News simply pointed out that Mitloehner discovered a fault in the comparative analysis between emissions from livestock and transportation used in a UN report entitled ‘Livestock’s Long Shadow’ – a point which the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization conceded. Basically, the UN used a ‘confusing analogy’, but the bulk of the UN report was not discredited.

The new UN report states that economic growth needs to be ‘decoupled’ from the energy and agricultural industries due to the environmental impacts connected to increases in income. Population growth, combined with rising income and increased consumption creates more competition for dwindling resources and an unsustainable burden on the environment.

From an article in the Telegraph:

The report, that will be presented to world governments, said the only way to feed the world while reducing climate change is to switch to more a more vegetarian diet.

Meat Free Mondays, as recommended by Paul McCartney and IPCC chair Dr Rajendra Pachauri, is a pretty simple and tame way to move in this direction, yet it has also been met with ardent criticism. This is remarkable considering how these plainly unsustainable industries are growing in light of increasing meat consumption in both the developed world and the growing middle class of the developing world, especially in China.

And it’s not just meat, but industrialized agriculture and food production in general that needs to be examined.

From a piece in the Atlantic:

…all food production has global warming impacts, and some of the worst emitters have nothing to do with livestock. For example, wetland rice fields alone account for almost 30 percent of the world’s human-generated methane. British research has shown that highly processed vegetable foods such as potato chips have large carbon footprints. Some soy products in U.S. grocery stores are from croplands created by clear-cutting rainforests in Brazil. And researchers in Sweden discovered that the global-warming impact of a carrot varies by a factor of ten depending on how and where it’s produced. All of which shows that quitting meat does not absolve anyone’s diet of a connection to global warming.

Nor is it just climate change that factors into the environmental impact of agriculture – especially meat and dairy production – but also the massive consumption of fresh water, the use of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers, overfishing, deforestation and air and water pollution, just to name a few.

As the population grows, food production will also need to increase, which will require more efficient land and resource use. This is an advantage that vegetarian and vegan diets have over those high in meat and dairy.

by Graham Land

Additional resources:

UN report – Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production (PDF)

photo by Sosialistisk Ungdom – SU (source: Flickr Creative Commons)

Large spills in Nigeria are routine, and oil companies go largely unpunished for destroying the local environment as well as poisoning the human population.

Some of the damage is due to actions by rebel groups and criminals, who attack pipelines, but rusty old pipes continually leak oil, while gas flares both waste a valuable natural resource as well as release toxic pollution and greenhouse gasses.

In fact, more oil is spilled from the delta’s network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico, the site of a major ecological catastrophe caused by oil that has poured from a leak triggered by the explosion that wrecked BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig last month.

–Observer

Neither the Nigerian government nor the oil companies demonstrate concern for the environment or the people suffering in this region, considered the oil pollution capital of the world. Environmental and human rights activists claim that hundreds of spills happen yearly in the Niger delta.

Deepwater Horizon may have exceed Exxon Valdez, but within a few years in Nigeria offshore spills from four locations dwarfed the scale of the Exxon Valdez disaster many times over. Estimates put spill volumes in the Niger delta among the worst on the planet, but they do not include the crude oil from waste water and gas flares. Companies such as Shell continue to avoid independent monitoring and keep key data secret.

– Ben Amunwa, London-based oil watch group Platform

Read the entire article ‘Nigeria’s agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it’ by John Vidal in the Observer.

photo by noodlepie (source: Flickr Creative Commons)

Belief in global warming plummeted amongst the British public after the climate change conference in Copenhagen last December, according to a BBC poll early this year. A similar poll commissioned by the London Times also showed increased skepticism regarding climate amongst those surveyed.

Belief in climate change amongst scientists has not changed, but in the war of the press, the climate skeptics – often called climate deniers – did gain significant ground in Copenhagen’s wake.

From a May 24th article in the New York Times:

Two independent reviews later found no evidence that the East Anglia researchers had actively distorted climate data, but heavy press coverage had already left an impression that the scientists had schemed to repress data. Then there was the unusually cold winter in Northern Europe and the United States, which may have reinforced a perception that the Earth was not warming. (Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a United States agency, show that globally, this winter was the fifth warmest in history.)

This was the case between November 2009 and February 2010, anyway. There’s been another three-month span since then and the conservative papers have quieted on the IPCC hacked emails scandal. After all, they want to sell copies, not flog dead horses. I wonder how things stand now. My cynical side thinks a ‘don’t care’ option might win out if included in a new poll.

The climate debate in the UK has often been characterized as one between the Right and the Left, but the leaders of all three main political parties in the UK support action on climate change. Skepticism – or outright denial – regarding a human role in climate change is really the domain of particular economic and political interests groups, which are aided by certain members of press. Besides right wing tabloids like the Daily Mail, the Times and the Telegraph – both Conservative papers – have been labeled as home to the skeptics, with the Guardian and the Independent being typically supportive of the scientific consensus. True, big time skeptic James Delingpole writes a blog for the Telegraph, but another anthropogenic climate change skepticism bigwig, Dominic Lawson, has a column in the Independent.

I regularly check out the Environment section of the Times and the Earth section of the Telegraph and lately haven’t found them inundated with climate skepticism. I think they’ve been pretty good recently, if a bit thin compared to the deluge of articles on the environment one finds in the Guardian. Perhaps the Times and Telegraph keep skeptical articles largely out of the environment sections – or on the other hand, debating climate change might not be selling so well these days.

by Graham Land

Additional resources:

Independent – Michael McCarthy: This is no forecast. Climate change is here and now

Telegraph – How big is your carbon footprint?

Times – EU sets toughest targets to fight global warming

photo by Pierre J. (source: Flickr Creative Commons)

The United States and France have a strange rivalry. American revolutionaries were helped by France and in turn inspired French republicans. One hundred years later, France gave the Statue of Liberty to the US as a centennial gift. Things soured after the World Wars and years of hegemonic struggle vis-à-vis Anglo vs. Franco cultural-linguistic dominance.

Huh?

In other words, to quote the Dandy Warhols: ‘a long time ago, we used to be friends’.

Nowadays anything the French do seems to raise hackles on the back of many red-blooded American necks, at the very least for ‘red state’ Americans. On the other hand, wine-drinking, cheese-eating, NPR-listening liberal do-gooders love French stuff. On the other side of the pool, France can’t get enough of Schwarzenegger films, hip-hop and McDonald’s – yet the French seemed to embody the anti-American sentiment of Europe during the Bush years, as opposed to the UK’s ‘New Labour lapdog syndrome’.

Let’s briefly compare the energy and environmental circumstances of the two erstwhile allies. The United States is a big oil nation – in case you didn’t know – while the French are big on nuclear power (see France’s energy stats from 2004 here).

The current massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico provides an opportune moment for a comparison between the two countries regarding energy and the environment. France 24 contrasts America’s infamous 1989 Exxon Valdez spill with France’s current plans to construct new offshore wind turbines:

In the short term, the slick killed 250,000 sea birds, 2800 otters and around 22 orcas. Today, at first glance, the shores look clean but scrap away the surface sands and the consequences of the accident can still be seen. Salmon stocks remain significantly lowered and commercial fishing of herring is still outlawed. Meanwhile off France’s oil free shores; ten sites have been picked to plant offshore windmills, part of new plans surrounding the renewable source of energy. The government has pledged to build at least 500 windmills every year.

Bit of cherry picking, for sure, but if the environment is a big laboratory – which is how energy and agricultural industries treat it – then can’t we at least learn from our successes and mistakes as well as those of our friends and rivals?

Check out the entire story from France 24, which includes a 9-minute video report and a feature on how to ‘make water’ with wind turbines.

I’m not saying we should put a giant wind turbine on Ellis Island in place of Lady Liberty – or in Paris in lieu of the Eiffel Tower, for that matter. But maybe if we saw wind power as something monumental rather than a necessary eyesore as many affluent Americans and Europeans see it, the future – and our transatlantic rivals – would perhaps look a little bit better as well.

by Graham Land

Image Source: Stock.Xchng. By: Mordoc.

I am not exactly fond of cars or driving, but many people around the world are. These days, it’s become more common for a car company to push out lines of hybrid vehicles, electric vehicles, or some other form of “green” transportation. While this step is nice and all, it made me wonder: what else are all the car companies doing to help the environment?

If you were to consider everything that goes into putting a car on the road—from mining and drilling for resources to fuel and build the car, to building all the offices, plants, dealerships, parking lots, gas stations, mechanic shops, highways and everything else—that’s a lot of habitat destroyed and resources consumed for one industry; not to mention all the emissions people are worried about. Fortunately, there are a few companies out there going the extra green mile (so to speak) to help the environment. Here is the list:

5. Nissan
Most likely, you have heard of their Leaf vehicle, but this company has slowly been working at more environmental efforts. They have implemented a Green Program to tackle the issues of reducing CO2 emissions; minimizing emissions to preserve the air, earth and water; and the recycling of resources. A number of their dealerships are designated Green Shops, where staff are appointed to be in charge of environmental activities. These activities include educating the public, recycling and disposing of waste properly, and so forth. Nissan has environmental education and training programs available for their employees and they also have conducted joint research with the UN University Institute of Advanced Studies on ecosystems and the like. Oh, and if you are interested in one of their zero emissions vehicles, you can learn about them at one of their many exhibits or even test drive one. Plus, they also promote eco driving habits.

4. Honda
This company has an excellent list of green initiatives on their record. If you check out the history of the company, you’ll notice that their efforts include: recycling industrial water, initiating Green Factory projects, installing solar panels at plants, and establishing green purchasing guidelines. Developments at their facilities include electric vehicles, solar cell technology, home energy stations, and a lot more. You can find environmental reports on their site and also information on their CO2 reduction targets and the progress they are making towards reaching them. Honda also has quite a few awesome global environmental projects going on, such as their Save the Sumatran Rhino initiative in Malaysia, Sea Turtle Preservation in Mexico, and Tree planting programs in Canada.

Image Source: Screen capture from PhotoShelter.

3. GM (General Motors)
Although this company has gone through some rough times, their environmental progress  certainly has not been hindered. Did you know they became the first major US automaker to manufacture electric motors? They make use of solar, hydro and landfill gas resources; have reduced overall global energy and water usage by more than 22% between 2005 and 2008, and they’ve also reduced CO2 emissions by 21% during that time, too. GM can also boast about having 55 facilities around the world that are completely landfill-free, which means that no waste is sent to a landfill—it is either recycled or reused to create energy. They are hoping to make half of all their global manufacturing plants completely landfill-free by the end of 2010. On top of all that, GM also takes part in a number of education initiatives, such as the Global Rivers Environmental Education Network (GREEN), which brings together GM employees, local environmental groups, community leaders, educators and young people to protect local water resources. They also sponsor the EcoCAR competition—an international vehicle engineering competition for college students that challenges them to design and build a vehicle with the goal of minimizing the environmental impact of personal transportation. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention their other initiatives, including involvement with the USCAP (United States Climate Action Partnership) and the EPA’s Climate Leader Partnership. They also work with a number of organizations, such as the World Environment Center (WEC), of which they serve on the board of directors and work to advance sustainable development; and also the Wildlife Habitat Council, through which they’ve helped designate over 870 acres in North America as habitat restoration projects and enhancement to provide food, water and homes for wildlife. GM has also earned WHC certification for 13 of their facilities in the US and Canada.

2. Ford
The Ford Motor Company was launched in 1903. Considering that it’s been in existence for over 100 years, I would certainly hope they’d have a good number of environmental practices in effect by now and fortunately, they do! Apart from the typical reports you can expect, such as those on Air and Climate, one of the more recent efforts of Ford is the start of their Greener Miles program. This is a TerraPass Program that allows drivers to calculate the amount of CO2 their vehicle emits when they drive. Drivers have the option of purchasing a TerraPass, which funds renewable energy projects to reduce the CO2 their vehicle emits by the same amount. Ford has also made great efforts with water conservation. Between 2000 and 2006, global manufacturing operations reduced water consumption by 25% (roughly 6.8 billion gallons). US plants are on course to reduce an additional 10% year after year; and this includes municipal, ground and surface water. Another environmental practice of the Ford Motor Company that is definitely worth noting is their involvement in the Wildlife at Work program. This program is a joint effort with the Wildlife Habitat Council to encourage Ford employees to participate in a wildlife management team at their work site. Teams establish, develop and manage a wildlife program and work towards WHC certification. So far, at least 17 global facilities have received their certification and areas include wetlands, woodland, forest, prairie, and meadow. The facilities have nature trails, bird and bat houses, planted wildflower gardens, and even established wildlife habitats! Workers involved in the program also create community education programs to encourage a better understanding of the importance of corporate wildlife sanctuaries. Oh, and yes, there is still more. Aside from the Wildlife at Work program, Ford has also developed a Save the Mustangs program. No, this is not referring to the car. This is referring to the wild horses that roam the US. The program was developed in collaboration with the US Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management and also Take Pride in America, to raise public awareness on the plight the wild horses face. They are also working to fund their adoption by non-profit sanctuaries. Thus far, the program earned over $215,000 in donations, which are used to find homes for the horses. Ford is also dedicated to helping Zoo Atlanta and take part in a number of other environmental efforts, as well.

Image Source: Screen capture from Flickr.

1. Toyota
I’m sure this is no surprise to a lot of you, considering this company even went as far as creating their own special flower species to offset CO2 emissions. Toyota has several ongoing “environmental improvement” efforts. These include: Afforestation—which involves the planting of many eucalyptus trees in western and southern Australia to alleviate pulp shortage and help absorb CO2 emissions; Greenification—which is an effort to green buildings in urban areas and develop trees that can improve the environment; Floriculture—simply the growing and selling of many potted flowers; and Livestock Biomass—which uses their environmentally friendly system, resQ45, to compost livestock waste in a better, faster way. You’ll also find that Toyota is involved with a number of environmental projects around the globe. Some of these projects include the restoration and preservation of the Atlantic Forest in Brazil, preventing desertification in China, and working on conservation projects throughout the US; plus a lot more. As for bettering their own situation, many of their plants use renewable energy. They also use a number of methods to increase their employees’ environmental awareness, which ranges from clean up activities and plant festivals to the use of an eco point system. Toyota is also working on restoring ecosystems around their facilities by adding (or replanting) native plants. Community involvement is also a big deal for them, which can be seen through their eco tours, food planting efforts, and more. Aside from all of that, you can find out information and training on Eco-Driving, read their environmental reports, or simply check out the rest of their vast list of ongoing environmental projects and programs.

That’s the list for this week and if you’re wondering why some companies didn’t make the list, it was either because they had no environmental initiative or very little effort in progress. Plus, this was mainly focused on the main companies, rather than their divisions or whatnot. Now, if a company could create a vehicle that has zero environmental impact, I may actually consider driving—though I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

By Heidi Marshall

Image Source: Flickr. By: Tolka Rover.

It all started 5 years ago when Bieg was planting trees in the North Beach area of San Francisco. She realized that “it was really inefficient for one individual, or even a group, to go out with GPS units and survey trees”. So, she started on a plan to get the whole community involved. Bieg partnered up with ecologist, Kelaine Vargas, and the Urban Forest Map project was born.

The idea of Urban Forest Map combines citizen science and local data projects, and fortunately for your average citizen, it’s all really simple. All you have to do is go out and pick a tree—any tree in San Francisco—and collect information about it, such as where it’s located, the diameter of the trunk, and what it looks like. The website provides information and instruction on how to do all of this, so if you don’t really know much about trees, that’s okay! Then, you add the information to the website.

Apart from educating the community through the project, there are a couple other reasons behind it. When it comes to local governments doing all the tree work, the cost is not cheap. Bieg estimates tree surveys cost about $3 per tree. She explained:

“If you are in LA and you have 10 million trees, you’re spending 30 million dollars. That’s bigger than the entire urban forestry budget.”

Another issue is the number of trees may be off—by a lot. According to Bieg, “it’s projected that San Francisco has hundreds of thousands of trees, and we only have 90,000 in the database. We’re counting on people to help us improve that data”.

So, what’s the purpose of this giant, community tree surveying project? Well, the more information available about the trees, the easier it will be to design better policies. On top of that, Bieg and others involved will be able to determine the environmental benefits provided by the trees, such as how many pounds of air pollutants they capture, how many tons of CO2 they are removing from the atmosphere, and how many gallons of storm water they are filtering. It will also aid with zoning and planning, conservation, climate science, and future planting projects.

Oh, and it’s very likely the project will expand to other cities. NYC is potentially the next one on the list.

To find out more about the Urban Forest Map and help out with the project, check out the official site here.

By Heidi Marshall

In terms of development and environment, global capitalism can be compared to a dinner where a rich few eat all the food and leave the bill with their poor, unwilling hosts after tossing a stingy tip and some dinner notes onto the table.

The colonized, indigenous and poorest peoples of the world are the ones who suffer most from climate change, do the least to cause it and hold the least power to stop it.

The UNFCCC in Copenhagen last December may have called attention to the lower tier of the developing world, but it did not give them much of a say in the drafting of the accord. Copenhagen was largely considered a bitter disappointment for environmental groups and poor nations alike.

The World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth (WPCCC) which took place last week in Cochabamba, Bolivia, highlighted indigenous rights in relation to the climate crisis. The non UN-sanctioned talks were an alternative forum, unencumbered by the positions of the US and China that dominated Copenhagen. Despite distractions of football matches and strange comments by President Evo Morales about chicken causing baldness, the conference in Bolivia was a platform for voices that were barely included in Copenhagen’s ‘big boy’ talks.

The main points: a limit of one degree Celsius temperature rise, facilitated by a 50% cut in 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions by industrialized nations by 2020. These nations caused climate change and should therefore be required to pay a debt to for polluting the Earth’s atmosphere.

From an IPS article:

Among other proposals are the creation of a multilateral organisation to manage environmental issues, international recognition of the rights of Mother Earth, a ban on privatising knowledge, protection for climate migrants and the fullest respect for the rights and freedoms of indigenous peoples.

Here are quotes from two recommended opinion pieces concerning the conference in Bolivia.

Naomi Klein writes in the Nation:

Bolivia’s climate summit has had moments of joy, levity and absurdity. Yet underneath it all, you can feel the emotion that provoked this gathering: rage against helplessness. It’s little wonder. Bolivia is in the midst of a dramatic political transformation, one that has nationalized key industries and elevated the voices of indigenous peoples as never before. But when it comes to Bolivia’s most pressing, existential crisis–the fact that its glaciers are melting at an alarming rate, threatening the water supply in two major cities–Bolivians are powerless to do anything to change their fate on their own.

Joseph Huff-Hannon writes in the Guardian

“Including forests in the carbon market, it’s a terrible idea. They want to offset emissions by planting or protecting trees,” Jihan Gearon told me, an organiser with the Indigenous Environment Network, from Navajo country in the Southwest. “So corporations say, ‘Great! we’ll expand our emissions, but offset it by planting trees in the Amazon’. But in our network, which encompasses North and South America, we are seeing indigenous people displaced from their homes to ‘protect’ the land.”

I was amazed at the amount of negative comments about this conference following Joseph Huff-Hannon’s Guardian piece. Understandably, people don’t like to be blamed or lumped together due to the sins of their (maybe) ancestors. But I think a sense of entitlement sometimes runs even deeper. At the risk of making things a bit too black and white, never mind whose fault it is: inequality and injustice either bother you or they don’t. Climate change either worries you or it doesn’t. Plainly, platitudes about ’sharing the Earth’ don’t fit well with ideas of social Darwinism and Manifest Destiny, but those – obviously not yet outmoded – ideas are being put to the test by climate change. In other words, time to pay the bloody bill.

by Graham Land

Image Source: Screen capture from Ecobici.df.gob.mx.

At the launch of Ecobici, the city installed 1,100 bikes at 85 stations around the city center. Within the first 3 months, at least 4,000 people have used the program and a total of 50,000 trips have been taken throughout the city thus far. To make things even better, there have been no accidents and no thefts. The city hopes 24,000 will register within the first year.

Part of Mexico City’s 15-year Plan Verde, the Ecobici system is pretty simple: You can check out (or rent) a bike for 30 minutes. When the 30 minutes is up, simply return the bike to any of the available bike stations. You must wait 10 minutes before you can check out another bike and if you keep a bike out longer than 30 minutes, small fees will start to accumulate. The bikes have small racks to hold bags or groceries, adjustable seats, and automatic lights.

However, the program is not without its dangers. Every Ecobici user interviewed has expressed concerns about drivers who don’t follow rules that allow cyclists their own lane. They mentioned accounts of dealing with aggressive drivers, cars on sidewalks, cars going the wrong way on a one-way street, and so forth. Ecobici user, Gustavo Gonzalez, commented:

“Nobody respects the bicyclist, but I like it. It’s a very good program. I wish they’d extend it further.”

Well, good news for you, Gonzalez, and all other Ecobici participants: Mexico City leaders are planning to add designated bike lanes and thousands more bikes to the system. For anyone else interesting in bicycling (even if your town or city doesn’t have a program), here are some interesting bits of information:

• 15 minutes of bike commute can burn 11 pounds of fat per year

• Those 15 minutes of bike commute can also reduce the risk of heart disease up to 20%

• Cyclists are less exposed to air pollution than motorists

• One person switching from driving to cycling, for a 12 mile roundtrip (6 miles each way), saves 1.3 metric tons of CO2 emissions per year!

By Heidi Marshall

photo by Curt Carnemark / World Bank (source: Flickr Creative Commons)

Morocco’s farmers face soil degradation, air and water pollution and a changing climate. The North African nation’s coastal waters suffer from overfishing and contamination, which has negatively affected the local fishing industry. But Morocco also cherishes its environment and is making efforts to protect it.

For the first time ever, major Earth Day celebrations are happening in a North African City, in recognition of the Moroccan government’s promises to tackle environmental problems.

Rabat, the capital of Morocco, has been chosen because of the country’s initiatives to set higher environmental standards and introduce a “Green Tax”.

– Al Jazeera English

Check out this video report from Al Jazeera English to see what could make Morocco the greenest country in the region:

Going green in Morocco

by Graham Land

Additional resources:

Environmental News Service – Morocco’s National Earth Charter a First for the Arab World