Environment

FAA Plans to Green Planes

- Adam Clare

Air travel is fast! It can get you around the world very quickly and it also destroys our atmosphere quickly too – and this is why the FAA wants to make planes more efficient. The FAA appears to be taking a well-rounded approach. Airports can be designed to handle planes more efficiently, like towing planes places opposed to having the plane burn fuel to taxi. There are advancements that can be made in air traffic control as well. What I find most interesting is that the FAA is looking to test fuels that are nicer to the air

The FAA Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative, CAAFI , has two studies under way to develop a national roadmap on the viability of alternative fuels for aviation. The first study looks at feasibility, costs, barriers and technical issues. It’s going to answer the key questions that you need to get out of the way before taking big steps. The second study will take a look at the environmental benefits.

The recent announcement from the FAA comes one week after The Economist wrote on how planes can, should, and are becoming more efficient.

Bioplastics Making a Comeback

- Adam Clare

In order to make this post understandable to 210 million people, this needs to be said: plastic is made from oil.

Petroleum based plastics take forever to biodegrade whereas soy based plastics biodegrade a lot faster – thus making bioplastics friendly to our planet. The International Herald Tribune has a good article outlining the benefits of bioplastics and the current state of the industry.

Apparently Henry Ford loved soybeans! Maybe he knew that oil was a limited resource our something crazy like that 😉

Much of the early research on bioplastics was supported by Henry Ford, who believed strongly in the potential of the soybean. One famous 1941 photo shows Ford swinging an ax head into the rear of a car to demonstrate the strength of the soy-based biocomposite used to make the auto body. But soy quickly lost out to petrochemical plastics.

“In those days you had a lot more oil around,” Tao said. “You didn’t have to wait until the growing season.”

Planting Trees to Fight Climate Change

- Adam Clare

logoTree-Nation will plant 8 million trees in Africa in the shape of a huge heart to fight Climate Change and Poverty. We will create the park in Niger which is one of the poorest countries in the world, and one that suffers the most from climate change and desertification. Furthermore, we are affiliated with the United Nations Environment Program in support of each others projects.

We have built a great new kind of website that combines a community with our own mapping tool. Inspired by Google maps we built our own special version to be able to plant 8 million trees, all with blogs and profiles.

So via our website you can buy trees for yourself or offer and send one to someone you love, and people are doing this for Weddings, Valentines, new born babies, birthdays, to advertise a business, or simply to share some thoughts. You can plant a tree on a virtual map and a real tree will be planted in the same place in the real world. The virtual trees all have Tree-Blogs and Profiles so that you can keep in touch with the recipient and interact with others who have bought trees via our community. You can share ideas, photos, messages, make contacts and debate on environmental issues.

It really is exciting to see members buying trees, writing beautiful messages and then sending them to loved ones via our website.

Note: This was not written by me, but by Jeremiah from Tree Nation.

New York to Power Buildings Using Renewable Energy

- Adam Clare

Mayor Bloomberg shows no sign of slowing down his drive to reduce New York City’s carbon emissions, which is of course a good thing. He’s now set to announce that municipal buildings in NYC will switch to solar power and move from dirty regular oil to a less-damaging biodiesel. Other mayors (and North American federal leaders!) should follow NYC’s example of emission cutting.

On Monday, Bloomberg said the city will issue a request for proposals for a pilot program to install solar panels on city-owned buildings in hopes of generating 2 megawatts of solar capacity _ offsetting about 320 tons of emissions per year, equal to taking more than 50 U.S. cars per year off the streets. The city will not pay for the installation but will buy electricity from the provider.

Climate Savers Computing Initiative

- Adam Clare

earth.jpgComputers are not the most efficient when it comes to energy use. It is great to see that a lot of computer manufactures have teamed up to create the Climate Savers Computing Initiative to improve the energy efficiency of electronics. Even if this is greenwashing, its better than having the companies ignore the environment.

Improving the energy efficiency of computers is a cost-effective way to reduce electricity consumption and the emission of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

The Climate Savers Computing Initiative brings together industry, consumers and conservation organizations to significantly increase the energy efficiency of computers and servers.

Previously:
Greenpeace Influences Apple
Bamboo Ecobook
Sun is the Greenest
Use Linux and be Sustainable

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