Category: Environment

Global Recession Saving Globe

The great thing about this global recession that we’re in is that the planet has a bit of time to breath and recover from the destructive force of modern hyper-capitalism. I honestly hope that as we start to recover from this recession we’ll have realized that we need to work with the ebbs and flow of ecosystems and not just exploit what finite resources the ecosystems create.

An interesting theme has begun to emerge in Copenhagen: that the financial crisis might end up saving the world. Sure, it’s painful now, this line of thinking goes, but it gives us a chance to build a low-carbon global economy that we might not have had otherwise. And in the meantime, greenhouse-gas emissions could fall sharply as a result of depressed economic activity — factories closing, less driving, less flying, and so on.
Two influential English economists argued as much today at the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change. In a morning plenary talk, Nicholas Stern of the London School of Economics and Political Science explained the reasons why he’s more optimistic about the likelihood of a new, effective global climate agreement today than he was two years ago: the rapid advancement of low-carbon technology, the deepening of public awareness, the Obama administration’s commitment to cutting greenhouse-gas emissions to 80 percent of 1990 levels by 2050 — and the fact that the recession provides an opening for completely remaking the global energy economy. “It should be easier because we have an economic crisis,” he said. Labor is cheap, after all. That will make it cheaper to hire the workers to, for instance, rebuild the electrical grid in both the U.S. and Europe. Besides, he argued, the financial crisis offers a clear lesson. With this financial catastrophe fresh in our minds, we should realize more than ever that if we wait to address a looming crisis, it will bite us that much harder in the end.

Ten Ways to Save the World

There are many ways we can save the world and some may sound crazier than others. The independent has complied ten ways to save the world that range from easy to the hard.

Rethink cars

Motoring could be revolutionised if cars were marketed like mobile phones – in a manner that would cut carbon dioxide and reduce the cost of driving. Motorists would get subsidised – or possibly even free – electric cars in the same way that customers currently get mobile phone handsets. In return, they would take out a contract for miles, rather than minutes, entitling them to get power either by plugging in to recharging points (at home, in car parks or on the street) or exchanging batteries at filling stations. The idea is the brainchild of a thirty-something former dot-com entrepreneur, Shia Agassi, who believes it would halve motoring costs. It sounds too good to be true, but Israel, Denmark, Hawaii and San Francisco are already starting to put the system in place – and even Gordon Brown has toyed with the idea. But to tackle climate change properly, the electricity has to be provided by renewable sources or nuclear power rather than fossil fuels.

Embrace scum

Slimy scum could prove our saviour, as algae are emerging as one of the most promising and environmentally friendly sources of biofuel. Algae can grow extraordinarily fast, doubling in weight several times a day. They produce at least 15 times as much fuel per hectare as conventional crops like corn or oilseed rape, and do not take up farmland needed to grow food; they can be grown in lakes, the sea or even in the process of cleaning polluted water. Algae take three times their own weight of carbon dioxide from the air while growing, and the fuel they produce packs much more power for its weight than other biofuels. It is therefore being developed as a potential carbon-neutral way of fuelling aircraft: Air New Zealand has already mixed it with ordinary jet fuel for test flights. Cars have run on pure algae biofuel, and big oil companies are investing in it.

Footprint Science

There’s already a lot of websites out there that help you asses your carbon footprint and that’s good, but now there are sites taking the footprint science to the next level. The Global Footprint Network is looking into the details behind making and living with a small footprint.

How can we all live well and live within the means of one planet?

This is the research question of the 21st century. If we are serious about sustainable development, there is no way around this question. If we do not design ways to live within the means of one planet, sustainability will remain elusive.

Institutionalizing the Ecological Footprint at the national level requires that statistical offices, policy advisors, academia, and businesses trust the methodology and data underlying the Footprint, which is comprised of 150 National Footprint Accounts.

National Footprint Accounts measure the ecological resource use and resource capacity of nations over time. Based on approximately 5,400 data points per country per year, the Accounts calculate the Footprints of 150 nations from 1961 to the present. These accounts provide the core data that is needed for all Ecological Footprint analysis worldwide.

Vertical Forests for Cleaner Air

A group of architects are proposing building a skyscraper that would house a small forest to act as an air cleaner near places of pollution production – a vertical forest.

‘It will also cool the air during the hot summer months via the temperature-lowering properties of hundreds of trees.

‘We thought of the CO2 Scraper as a way to place trees in areas where they would ordinarily be difficult or impossible to plant such as near a factory, major road or perhaps even in a densely populated urban area.

‘The idea here was to imagine a structure with relatively small footprint in terms of the amount of ground it covers.’

Scientist and sustainability specialist Joep Meijer, founder of theRightenvironment, has praised the ‘outstanding’ design.

He said: ‘The CO2 Scraper is an outstanding example of the kind of ideas we need to look at now.

This is Reality

This is Reality is project that is designed to counter the coal industry’s claim that clean coal is, well clean. Awareness projects like this are badly needed when there are multimillion dollar campaigns trying to convince people that burning a finite resource is good for the environment.

Today, coal power plants emit carbon dioxide (CO2), the pollutant causing the climate crisis. A third of the America’s carbon pollution now comes from about 600 coal-fired power plants. And of the more than 70 proposed new coal power plants, barely a handful have plans to capture and store their CO2 emissions. If these dirty plants are allowed to be built, this will mean an additional 200 million tons of global warming pollution will be emitted in America each year. Until coal power plants no longer release CO2 to the atmosphere, coal will remain a major contributor to the climate crisis.

Scientists indicate that we can avoid the worst climate impacts if we turn CO2 emissions around in the next few years. The Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, in 2007, said, “If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.” For coal to maintain a role in America’s energy mix, the industry must act quickly to stop emitting CO2.