Environment

Environmentalists Sue Harper, Bali Begins

- Adam Clare

I’ve never been shy about my dislike of Canada’s current Prime Minister and today won’t be any different. Regular readers of Things Are Good may have noticed that other countries get mentioned often here because their national government take positive action. Three nations, though, get mentioned not because of federal efforts but because of local ones. Those nations are Australia, Canada, and the USA. I’m confident that there is a connection between the lack of good news coming from those national governments and how popular their leaders are. Howard just lost his election and Bush is at an all time low. (EDIT: Australia ratifies Kyoto Protocol! Way to go Rudd!)

The conservatives in Canada are now being sued by an environmental group. I’m sure that the timing of the lawsuit is to draw attention to the potential that Canada has for being a leader in fighting global warming at the UN’s climate change conference in Bali, which started today.

Major policies will be shaped by the countries listed above (among others) over the course of the next two weeks. Stay tuned for the good news that will come from the UN conference.

While in Canada, the environmentalist will continue to fight up north:

The group, Friends of the Earth, alleges that Environment Minister John Baird has broken the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, by ignoring a recent requirement of the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act.

The act was passed by Parliament in June 2007.

The lawsuit contends that Ottawa was legally required to publish draft regulations by Oct. 20, 2007, which would have enabled Canada to follow its Kyoto commitments, but failed to do so.

“This new application, while relevant to climate change, is all about holding the government of Canada accountable under Canadian law,” said lawyer Chris Paliare, who filed the legal challenge on behalf of the group.

How the USA Can Cut 28% of Greenhouse Gases

- Adam Clare

A new study has been released that looks at how the United States can cut 28% of their greenhouse gas emissions. They looked primarily at the wastefulness of energy use and notice problems that can be solved from the level of the consumer, to the landlord, and to every level of government. By knowing the problem, we can begin to solve and, indeed they have a couple suggestions.

“What the report calls out is the fact that the potential is so substantial for energy efficiency,” said Ken Ostrowski, a leader of the report team. “Not that we will do it, but the potential is just staggering here in the U.S. There is a lot of inertia, and a lot of barriers.”

The country can do the job with “tested approaches and high-potential emerging technologies,” the study found, but doing the work “will require strong, coordinated, economywide action that begins in the near future.”

Make Your Telecommute Even Greener

- Adam Clare

Telecommuting is good for the environment because it means that people don’t have to get in a car and not move during rush hour. Granted they can take transit or bike, but some people like the “freedom” of getting into slow moving roadways. Telecommuters have it even better because they can wear slippers and pajamas all day.

Over at Web Worker Daily, they recently asked readers how to make web working more green.

I don’t claim to have all the answers, but there are a few areas that seem to be obvious candidates for a web worker focus. Energy consumption is one: if we swap cars for more computers, our carbon footprint doesn’t go down as much as it might. We’ve looked at cutting down on vampire power as a way to attack this in the past. Virtual machines can also offer computer – and power – savings.

Google to Make Solar Energy Cheaper than Coal

- Adam Clare 3 Comments

Google logoGoogle is at it again, we’ve covered Google quite a bit, more than any other company I think. It’s just so nice to see a company with billions of dollars at their disposal directing their energy at improving the world (and yes, I know that Google is nowhere near perfect and Sun is more the environmentally friendly tech company).

This time around they are contuning their solar power drive by investing in companies that will encourage the use of renewable energy. They emphasize solar power, but they are not limiting the hundreds of millions of dollars they want to invest in solar power.

“Our goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal. We are optimistic this can be done in years, not decades,” Larry Page, Google’s co-founder and president of products, said in a statement.

One gigawatt can power a city the size of San Francisco.

Google is seeking to capitalize on the recent excitement among Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to apply the risk taking that computer, biotech and Internet businesses are famous for to the field of alternative energy production.

Google’s latest moves come as the price of a barrel of oil nears $100 and coal, which produces 40 percent of the world’s electricity, faces regulatory and environmental pressures that could drive up prices.

Vinegar to Solve all Problems

- Adam Clare 16 Comments

Vinegar is one powerful cleaning agent, and one that can be sued for almost anything it seems. People ought to use vinegar instead of all those freaky chemical based cleaning solvents.

Here’s a list of the powers of vinegar:

– Clean the microwave by boiling a 50/50 mixture of water and vinegar until it steams up. Wipe clean.

– Add vinegar to a hand-pump compressed-air sprayer to kill weeds and grass growing in crevices in a patio and walkways.

– Make any dried bean dish less gassy or stinky by adding 1/4 cup vinegar to the soaking water.

– Make catsup and other condiments last longer when the bottle is almost empty by adding a little vinegar and shaking.

– Spread a cloth soaked in vinegar over a price tag you want to remove and leave overnight.

– Get rid of fruit flies by setting out a small dish of vinegar—it will attract and drown them.

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