tagged w/ Carbon Footprint
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"Hemp and straw are great sources of materials as they have an incredibly low carbon footprint. Craig White, director of ModCell (another company involved) had this to say about the project: “It is unacceptable that 27 per cent of CO2 emissions currently come from the energy we use in our homes, it is just as unacceptable to continue to emit CO2 through the energy we use to make them. If we are completely serious about being “carbon free” we need to rethink the design of our buildings on a large scale."
http://www.hatsradio.com/?p=612
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It's time somebody's doing this.
Watch the video below as well.
Join Organic:
http://current.com/groups/organicgreen/"Hemp and straw are great sources of materials as they have an incredibly low carbon... more
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We've already been over the environmental benefits of choosing poultry over beef and anchovies over haddock. But you're right to suggest that the same sort of logic can apply to picking vegetarian foodstuffs. Certain crops require loads of phosphate fertilizer, for example, which is mined from the ground and can eventually cause stream-choking algal growth. Other fruits and veggies are grown with heavy doses of pesticides, fungicides, and other chemicals that can pollute waterways and cause reproductive problems in animals. So how do you know which crops are best to eat? Here's the Lantern's rule of thumb: Try to keep your more extravagant fruit cravings in check, but don't sweat the low-impact calories that come with your carbs.
As it turns out, it's not hard to find digestible data on the use of fertilizers. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization offers a handy list of various crops and their associated fertilizer loads. (Check page 60 of this PDF.) Bananas consume the most by a very large margin, requiring a whopping 427 pounds of nitrogen, phosphate, and potash fertilizer per acre of cultivation. Sugar beets and citrus crops are next, followed by vegetables, tubers, and grains. Peas and beans require just 35 pounds per acre, in part because they have capacity to absorb nitrogen from the air. In short, eat more beans.
Numbers on pesticide use can be found in a database of California crops maintained by the Pesticide Action Network. According to the information compiled there, raspberries are the worst offenders, accounting for an average of 20.2 pounds of chemicals dumped on every acre of treated land. Other particularly noxious crops include carrots and strawberries. Wild rice also fares poorly by this metric, requiring nearly 6 pounds of pesticide per acre. In the middle of the pack are the tree crops, like avocados and oranges, and at the clean end of the list you'll find broccoli, leafy greens, beans and grains—which are grown with an average of less than 3 pounds of pesticide per acre. (Remember, we're talking about risks to the planet here, not risks to individual health. The Environmental Working Group has a list of the fruits and veggies that show up in stores—and on your plates—with the highest levels of pesticide residue. But that doesn't make them the worst offenders against the environment.)
It's useful to know the amount of pesticide or fertilizer that goes into each acre of a given crop, but there's more to the story. Some crops make more efficient use of the land than others, so their environmental impacts may be less intense on per-calorie basis. To figure out how all this fits together, the Lantern whipped out his solar-powered pocket calculator and compared overall pesticide and fertilizer use with California's agricultural yields from 2007 and nutritional information for each of 12 conventionally grown crops. White rice came out the big winner here, returning more than 2 million calories per pound of pesticide used and 82,000 calories per pound of phosphate. Onions and sweet corn ranked nearly as efficient as rice when it came to pesticide, but were only so-so in terms of fertilizer; the opposite was true for oranges and apples. Lingering at the bottom of both lists were strawberries, which returned just 121,000 calories per pound of pesticide, and 5,300 per pound of fertilizer.
http://www.slate.com/id/2234783/?from=rssWe've already been over the environmental benefits of choosing poultry over beef and... more
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We've reached the final frontier in the war on CO2...last night at 2:50 am Central European Time, two European Space Agency (ESA) satellites were successfully launched which will monitor the moisture exchange of the Earth between the ocean, air and land in an effort to better understand how these factors influence the climate of our planet.
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/11/02/two-esa-satellites-launch-successfully/We've reached the final frontier in the war on CO2...last night at 2:50 am Central... more
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"Imagine the cityscape of the future. Forget skyscrapers studded with undimmed lights. Instead, think of crystal whites and luminous blues forging the city’s silhouette. Picture a city that sucks in carbon and uses bacteria harvested from dead fish to light the darkness. The city as a living character will no longer be a literary conceit, but a reality. From metaphor to concrete in one generation.
Dr Rachel Armstrong, an architectural researcher from University College London, wants to transform buildings from being sterile, inert objects into entities that interact and evolve with the natural environment. She sees this as the fulfilment of what architects have always seen as the purpose of their work. “We’ve likened the city to an organism, but so far it has been a symbolic description. In the future, architecture will be literally alive,” she said.
“When dealing with climate change we don’t always have to invent something new, we have to think very cleverly about what we already have,” Armstrong said. “It doesn’t take a massive leap of imagination to envisage how much more useful the surfaces of our buildings could become if covered in bacteria that glow in the dark or remove pollutants from the atmosphere.”
MUCH more at link, very cool stuff!"Imagine the cityscape of the future. Forget skyscrapers studded with undimmed lights.... more
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In an effort to reduce its annual carbon emissions, Sweden has mandated that all foods start carrying labels listing the carbon dioxide emissions associated with their production.In an effort to reduce its annual carbon emissions, Sweden has mandated that all foods... more
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Once we put Halloween behind us, everyone will move onto the next big holiday which is typically also one of the most traveled of the year.
If you'd like the heads-up on which airlines are making the greatest greenest strides, then please take a look at this article.
Since purchasing an airline ticket requires a sizable investment, it's always nice to support companies that are doing far more for the world than just collecting their ka-ching.
If you have the inside scoop on any other airlines that are flying greener skies, please share your insight below -- thanks!Once we put Halloween behind us, everyone will move onto the next big holiday which is... more
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Concerned to avert global disaster, the pressure group Climate Campers meet in the park to discuss radical solutions which include holding your breath to offset your carbon footprint. Will this prove to be too little too late, or does every little help?Concerned to avert global disaster, the pressure group Climate Campers meet in the... more
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You would have to go back at least 15 million years to find carbon dioxide levels on Earth as high as they are todayYou would have to go back at least 15 million years to find carbon dioxide levels on... more
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ScottP
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Recently dentistry has taken on a new role in our annual lives by adding an adjective to its process: comfort. No more stiff chairs, old copies of Highlights magazine, and outdated art on the walls like my childhood dentist; these days offices have waiting room chairs so nice you want to get there early to take a nap, iPods to listen to during your visit to help drown out the ugly sounds of the tools, and the newest copies of all the hip magazines and newspapers. What is next for dentists to adopt? Eco-friendly office environments, procedures, and equipment…also called “Eco-dentistry,” a practice that is quickly gaining popularity as more people would frequent the dentist when necessary if it were safer for their bodies and easier on the Earth.
In June of this year, the Eco-Dentistry Association launched internationally. There are dentists residing in 20 U.S. states, as well as some in Canada, who have joined the association in order to help offices around the world become better suited for the environment and there is no doubt in the industry that these numbers will continue to grow as this new wave of dentistry takes shape.Recently dentistry has taken on a new role in our annual lives by adding an adjective... more
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ajrmy
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Today is Earth Overshoot Day. This is the day when humanity will begin placing more demands on the planet's resources -- from filtering CO2 to producing food, fiber and timber -- than the planet can provide in this year. From this day forward until the end of the year, people will meet our demand for ecological services by depleting resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.Today is Earth Overshoot Day. This is the day when humanity will begin placing more... more
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UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Czech President Vaclav Klaus sharply criticized a U.N. meeting on climate change on Tuesday at which U.S. President Barack Obama was among the top speakers, describing it as propagandistic and undignified.
"It was sad and it was frustrating," said Klaus, one of the world's most vocal skeptics on the topic of global warming.
"It's a propagandistic exercise where 13-year-old girls from some far-away country perform a pre-rehearsed poem," he said. "It's simply not dignified."
Klaus published a book in 2007 on the worldwide campaign to stop climate change entitled "Blue Planet in Green Chains: What Is Under Threat -- Climate or Freedom?"
more at the link.
Al Gore is a fraud. Inconvenient Truth or Convenient Lie? Watch "Global Warming or Global Governance" for free on google video before you answer that question.UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Czech President Vaclav Klaus sharply criticized a U.N.... more
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Our world leaders possess such monumental power and yet when push comes to shove, they get locked in a notorious song and dance about a lack of funds and resources, never really ever getting around to actually DOING anything to heal our planet. We continue on -- business as usual -- pumping 20% of the world's greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as Mother Nature chokes on our ambivalence. Solutions, anyone?Our world leaders possess such monumental power and yet when push comes to shove, they... more
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Family planning is five times cheaper than conventional green technologies in combating climate change. That is the claim made by Thomas Wire, a postgraduate student at the London School of Economics, and highlighted by British medics writing in the Lancet on September 19th.
According to Roger Short of the University of Melbourne, the world’s population is 6.8 billion and is expected to reach 9.1 billion by 2050. Some 95% of this growth is occurring in developing countries. In a paper published on September 21st in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, he points out that fewer people would produce less climate-changing greenhouse gas.
A companion study published in the same issue by Malcolm Potts of the University of California, Berkeley, reckons that there are 80m unintended pregnancies every year. The vast majority of these result in babies. If women who wanted contraception were provided with it, 72% of these unintended pregnancies would have been prevented, according to a report by the United Nations Population Fund.
Mr Wire totted up the cost of supplying contraception to women who wished either to delay their childbearing years or to end them artificially but who were not using contraception. He examined projections of population growth and of carbon-dioxide emissions made by the United Nations and concluded that reducing carbon emissions by one tonne would cost just $7 spent on family planning, as opposed to at least $32 spent on green technologies.
Mr Wire points out that if all women who wanted contraception were provided with it, it would prevent the release of 34 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide between 2010 and 2050. Given the myriad of other reasons to limit human fertility (Dr Potts notes, for example, that slowing population growth is essential if poverty is to be eradicated). The Economist correspondent commends this report to the principal participants in the Bangkok meeting on September 28th to discuss the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.Family planning is five times cheaper than conventional green technologies in... more
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Researchers at MIT have shown the benefits of a new approach toward eliminating carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions at coal-burning power plants.
Their system, called pressurized oxy-fuel combustion, provides a way of separating all of the carbon-dioxide emissions produced by the burning of coal, in the form of a concentrated, pressurized liquid stream. This allows for carbon dioxide sequestration: the liquid CO2 stream can be injected into geological formations deep enough to prevent their escape into the atmosphere.
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It might seem paradoxical to reduce the carbon footprint of a coal plant by making its emissions into a more concentrated stream of carbon dioxide. But Ahmed Ghoniem, the Ronald C. Crane (1972) Professor of Mechanical Engineering and leader of the MIT team analyzing this new technology, explains: "this is the first step. Before you sequester, you have to concentrate and pressurize" the greenhouse gases. "You have to redesign the power plant so that it produces a pure stream of pressurized liquid carbon dioxide, to make it sequestration ready."
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Ghoniem says even though this process uses more energy at the beginning of the combustion cycle because of the need to separate oxygen from air and pressurize it, the increased efficiency of the power cycle raises the net output of the plant and reduces the compression work needed to deliver CO2 at the requisite state for sequestration, as compared to the unpressurized carbon-capture systems; in other words, the overall energy penalty is reduced. "You have to deliver carbon dioxide at high pressure for sequestration," he points out. The system simply introduces some pressurization earlier in the process, so the output stream requires less compression at the end of the process while extracting more energy from the combustion gases.
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Ghoniem concedes that much more research is still needed for CCS technology. The three areas that need study most, he says, are systems' integration to determine the operating conditions at which the different components work together for highest efficiency; component-level research to optimize of the design of individual parts of the new system, especially the combustion chamber; and process analysis to examine the details of the physics and chemistry involved. His group has been concentrating on detailed computer simulations of the process to aid in the design of better systems.
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This caught my eye! It seems like an effective way to address CO2 emissions, but what are the costs of injecting liquid CO2 into the planet?!Researchers at MIT have shown the benefits of a new approach toward eliminating... more
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The United Nations is planning a form of diplomatic shock therapy for world leaders this week in the hope of injecting badly needed urgency into negotiations for a climate change treaty that, it is now widely acknowledged, are dangerously adrift.
UN chief Ban Ki-Moon and negotiators say that unless they can convert world leaders into committed advocates of radical action, it will be very hard to reach a credible and enforceable agreement to avoid the most devastating consequences of climate change.
As the digital counter ticking off the hours to the Copenhagen summit – which had been supposed to seal the deal on climate change – hit 77 days today, progress at the UN summit in New York is seen as vital. Nearly 100 heads of state and government are to attend the summit, for which a pared-down format has been devised.
"We need these leaders to go outside their usual comfort zones," said one diplomat. "Our sense is that leaders have got a little too cosy and comfortable. They really have to hear from countries that are vulnerable and suffering."
Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won the Nobel peace prize with Al Gore, agreed. Commenting on the leaders attending the G20 summit in Pittsburgh next week, he said: "We need to remind these people about impacts of climate change – the fact that they are inequitable and fall very heavily on some of the poorest people in the world. We are likely to see a large number of failed states if we don't act in time."The United Nations is planning a form of diplomatic shock therapy for world leaders... more
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Excerpts:
"You may have heard something about "No Impact Man" or you may have heard about the guy who was going to live in New York City without making any environmental impact for a whole year (crazy, right?)."
More:
"Colin Beavan decides to completely eliminate his personal impact on the environment for the next year.
It means eating vegetarian, buying only local food, and turning off the refrigerator. It also means no elevators, no television, no cars, buses, or airplanes, no toxic cleaning products, no electricity, no material consumption, and no garbage.
No problem - at least for Colin - but he and his family live in Manhattan. So when his espresso-guzzling, retail-worshipping wife Michelle and their two-year-old daughter are dragged into the fray, the No Impact Project has an unforeseen impact of its own."
Great example and definitely inspiring.
Join Organic:
http://current.com/groups/organicgreen/Excerpts:
"You may have heard something about "No Impact Man" or you may have heard... more
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Making a movie about No Impact Man means also going no impact during filming...or at least as low impact as possible. So just how does a movie get made? Justin Schein, the co-director of No Impact Man is taking us behind the scenes about how the movie No Impact Man was created with as little impact as possible. (By the way, the film premieres tonight!)Making a movie about No Impact Man means also going no impact during filming...or at... more
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French President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced plans for a new carbon tax aimed at combating global warming. The tax will be introduced next year and will cover the use of oil, gas and coal, he said.French President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced plans for a new carbon tax aimed at... more
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The average Australian now emits more carbon dioxide than the average American--which means Australia has surpassed the United States, claiming the dubious distinction of world's largest per-capita carbon emitter.The average Australian now emits more carbon dioxide than the average American--which... more
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A new version of the rural hippie commune dwellers who in the late '60s and early '70s were called "back-to-the-landers" has arisen, growing organic produce again, mucking out their own henhouses again -- but now they do it outfitted with Bluetooths, while researching animal viruses online. Yesteryear's back-to-the-landers were counterculturalists, dropping out of the mainstream. Today's version, as exemplified by the Netflix-loving Fine, desire not to leave the mainstream but lead it.A new version of the rural hippie commune dwellers who in the late '60s and early '70s... more
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