OntheWilderSide

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The Weekend Summary
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Click the highlighted headlines for links to these stories.

Trees, Wind and Solar
Seattle Mayor Wants to Plant 649,000 Trees. By Lisa Stiffler, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 6, 2006. “That’s what it will take to reach Mayor Greg Nickels’ goal for regreening the city over the next three decades — the planting of 649,000 trees, plus keeping the tree cover we already have… Trees increasingly are being viewed as an asset to urban spaces. They clean pollution from the air and turn a key global warming gas into oxygen. They catch rainfall and slow the flow of contaminated stormwater from roadways into salmon streams.”

Tree-Planting Drive Seeks to Bring a New Urban Cool. By Blaine Harden, The Washington Post, September 1, 2006. “Sacramento believes an answer for global warming is growing on trees. About 375,000 shade trees have been given away to city residents in the past 16 years, and there are plans to plant at least 4 million more. To receive up to 10 free trees, residents simply call the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, a publicly owned power company… Three shade trees strategically planted around a house can reduce home air-conditioning bills by about 30 percent in hot, dry cities such as Sacramento, and a nationwide shade program similar to the one here could reduce air-conditioning use by at least 10 percent, according to Energy Department research… Although Bush administration officials say urban trees are a priority, spending on the federal Urban and Community Forestry Program has declined by about 25 percent in the past four years, from a high of $36 million annually to a proposed $27 million in the coming year.”

Manitoba to Quadruple Its Wind Power. CBC New (Canada), September 7, 2006. “The Manitoba government plans to build enough wind towers over the next two years to quadruple its wind-generated power, Energy Minister Dave Chomiak announced Thursday. The province, along with Manitoba Hydro, hopes to add 300 megawatts of wind power to the province’s energy grid — enough power for 100,000 homes. That could mean up to 160 more windmills, although newer and evolving wind turbine technology could make that number smaller… The strategy is expected to generate $2 billion in investments, $100 million in wind-rights payments to landowners and $150 million in property taxes to local municipalities, according to the province.”

Largest Wind Farm in the U.S. Proposed in Iowa. The Associated Press, September 1, 2006. “Northern Iowa could have one of the nation’s largest wind farms by 2008. Iowa Winds LLC wants to build a 200- to 300-megawatt farm covering about 40,000 acres in Franklin County. A county zoning board will consider approving permits for the $200 million project next month… Iowa ranks third in the nation in wind energy behind Texas and California, according to the American Wind Energy Association… The Franklin County Wind Farm would … involve 193 landowners in the townships of Grant, Hamilton, Ingham, Lee, Morgan, Oakland and Reeves.”

World Solar Power Projected to Increase by 25% this 2006. Green Building Press (UK), September 5, 2006. “According to speakers at the 21st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition in Dresden, world wide solar power generation is expected to increase by 25 per cent this year… However… only a fraction of 1 per cent of the world’s energy demand is currently supplied by solar power. Germany is the world leader, generating enough power from the sun’s rays to meet the needs of 590,000 households, according to the Solar Energy Association BSW.” The website for the conference [September 4-8, with 2,700 participants] is www.photovoltaic- conference. com.

New Findings
New Findings Show Methane Released from Melting Permafrost to be a Significantly Greater Threat. By Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press, September 6, 2006. “Global warming gases trapped in the soil are bubbling out of the thawing permafrost in amounts far higher than previously thought and may trigger what researchers warn is a climate time bomb. Methane — a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide — is being released from the permafrost at a rate five times faster than thought, according to a study being published Thursday in the journal Nature. The findings are based on new, more accurate measuring techniques… Most of the methane-releasing permafrost is in Siberia… Scientists aren’t quite sure whether methane or carbon dioxide is worse. Methane is far more powerful in trapping heat, but only lasts about a decade before it dissipates into carbon dioxide and other chemicals. Carbon dioxide traps heat for about a century.”

 

Deep Ice Reveals Still Longer Climate Story. By Jonathan Amos, BBC News, September 4, 2006. “Carbon dioxide levels are substantially higher now than at any time in the last 800,000 years, the latest study of ice drilled out of Antarctica confirms. The in-depth analysis of air bubbles trapped in a 3.2km-long core of frozen snow shows current greenhouse gas concentrations are unprecedented. The East Antarctic core is the longest, deepest ice column yet extracted. Project scientists say its contents indicate humans could be bringing about dangerous climate changes… Earlier results from the Epica core were published in 2004 and 2005, detailing the events back to 440,000 years and 650,000 years respectively. Scientists have now gone the full way through the column, back another 150,000 years. The picture is the same: carbon dioxide and temperature rise and fall in step…[Dr Eric Wolff, of the British Antarctic Survey, said] ‘The scary thing was the rate of change now occurring in CO2 concentrations. In the core, the fastest increase seen was of the order of 30 parts per million (ppm) by volume over a period of roughly 1,000 years. The last 30 ppm of increase has occurred in just 17 years. We really are in the situation where we don’t have an analogue in our records.’” Reuters: “The natural level of CO2 over most of the past 800,000 years has been 180-300 parts per million by volume (ppmv) of air. But today it is at 380 ppmv.”

WWF Warns that Climate Change Threatens Numerous Species in Australia. By Wendy Frew, The Sydney Morning Herald, September 7, 2006. “Today there is a new threat to flora and fauna: climate change. Higher temperatures, more frequent bushfires, rising sea levels and changing rainfall patterns will damage hundreds of ecosystems and push many more plants and animals towards extinction, [The World Wildlife Fund warned]… Climate change represents the biggest threat yet seen to Australian plants and animals.” 1683 native species are threatened with extinction.

Energy Action
Five-Day Global Warming March Ends with 600 Joining the Walk to Burlington Vermont. By Lisa Rathke, The Associated Press, September 5, 2006. “Forming a line that stretched nearly half a mile, more than 600 people marched into Burlington Monday in what organizers said was the country’s largest U.S. global warming demonstration to date. Carrying signs and banners, marchers called for political action to address climate change. Monday was the final leg of a 49-mile hike from Ripton that started Thursday. Several hundred people marched each day, with some camping at night, organizers said. The crowd grew on Monday as it made its way along busy U.S. Route 7 into the state’s largest city, where protesters planned a rally with speeches by political candidates. ‘I started working on climate change almost 20 years ago,’ said organizer Bill McKibben, an author of …‘The End of Nature.’ ‘This morning is the single most hopeful I’ve been in that 20 years, just to see the unbelievable level of response.’” Read > Bill McKibben’s daily dispatches in Grist Magazine.

Energy Action to Encourage Colleges to Buy Green Power in MTV Competition. By Timothy Gardner, Reuters, September 7, 2006. “An environmental group is teaming with MTV to encourage U.S. university students to demand their schools get more energy from renewable energy sources. “We believe students are especially well-positioned to be advocating for this because they more than anyone know what’s at stake,’ said Billy Parish, a coordinator for Washington D.C.-based Energy Action Coalition.” EAC website > www.energyaction. net.

Truth, Faith, and Al Gore. By David Funkhouser, The Hartford Courant, September 9, 2006. “Religious congregations will spread a different kind of gospel next month with 4,000 showings of “An Inconvenient Truth,” the documentary released earlier this year on former Vice President Al Gore’s effort to spread the word about global warming. The screenings – in all 50 states – are part of the “Interfaith Power and Light” campaign, which aims to foster a connection between religious faith and ecology and to get people to act on the issue of climate change.”

The Art of Recycling. By Derek Gentile, The Berkshire Eagle, September 5, 2006. [Great Barrington, Mass.] “When you see that funky-looking wrangle of copper pipes on the sidewalk, or maybe the giant urn, stop and drop your cans and bottles in. No one will be angry — that’s what they’re there for. The 15 pieces of art are actually recycling bins designed by 15 area artists designed to foster recycling. Each piece of art actually covers a recycling container. On Monday, at Lescano Gallery, the bins were on display, along with their creators. Today [Tuesday] they will be moved onto the streets in the downtown corridor… Raya Ariella, [coordinator for the project said] she wanted to make recycling interesting and fun. She helped form a committee of local artists who began raising money to pay people to design intriguing, one-of-a-kind pieces that could be used as bins. The rules were that the bins had to be 32 inches high and 38 inches in diameter to accommodate the rubber liner that will be placed inside the bin. The materials must be at least 90 percent recycled material.” (Raya Ariella also work for CCC at the coordinator of the ClimateUSA Campaign.)

Climate Policy
EPA Proposes Easing Pollution Rules. By Suzanne Gamboa, The Associated Press, September 10, 2006. “The Bush administration proposed easing environmental rules Friday to allow oil refineries and other industries to change how they calculate whether they need pollution control equipment. The oil refinery industry says the eased regulation would open the way for production of more oil and other products. But environmental groups say the proposed rules are gimmicks and loopholes allowing industry to emit more pollution, evade pollution controls and save money.”

Arizona Governor Moves to Cut Vehicle Emissions. By Howard Fisher, Capital Media Services, September 9, 2006. Gov. Janet Napolitano issued an executive order on Friday directing state agencies to adopt and carry out a “Clean Car Program” to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. “The Clean Car Program proposal would put Arizona in line with California and at least 11 other states that are adopting emissions standards for greenhouse gases stricter than those being weighed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It is aimed toward Napolitano’s goal of getting greenhouse gas emissions in Arizona back to year 2000 levels by 2020. Ultimately, she wants them at half the 2000 levels by 2040. Whether Napolitano has the authority to implement such an order remains undetermined.”

Going to Court over Climate Change. By Amanda Leigh Haag, News@Nature, September 8, 2006. A review of Massachusetts v. EPA and other court cases.

The Costly Road to Clean Energy in the U.S. By Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post, September 7, 2006. “Worried about global warming? Two experts say there is a way out of our carbon-based economy: But it’s going to cost a pretty penny — $200 billion a year for the next 30 years or so… two chemical engineers at the Clean Fuels Institute at the City College of New York, published a paper in the current issue of the journal Science that estimates that for that amount of money, the United States could reduce its fossil fuel use by 70 percent within three decades… [One of the authors, Reuel Shinnar, said] the government would have to foot much of the bill initially because ‘nothing can compete with dirty coal in a free market. We need federal intervention.’ Shinnar — who has worked as a consultant for Exxon Mobil Corp. since 1967 — said he knows that spending $200 billion a year for the next 30 years would be a hard sell to policymakers, but he argued that it’s worth it in light of how climate change is transforming Earth.”

Debate on Peak Oil Stirs in Washington. By Andy Lenderman, The New Mexican, September 3, 2006. “Rep. Tom Udall and others in Congress have positioned themselves at the center of an uncomfortable idea: Eventually the planet will run out of fossil fuels. Udall is pushing for open discussion of peak oil, the concept that world-oil production will someday reach an all-time high. After that, oil production will decline because there’s only so much of it in the ground. Oil production has already peaked in the United States at more than 3.5 billion barrels per year in 1970, just as a geophysicist predicted in the 1950s. Last year’s domestic production was about 1.8 billion barrels. Some energy experts say a permanent fuel crunch could be a disaster for the global economy because this decline in production would most likely happen at the same time that demand reaches an all-time high. Government reports have suggested that widespread social and economic disruption, including gasoline shortages, are possible… [Yet] in the House, just eight U.S. representatives joined Udall and U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., in their House Peak Oil Caucus founded last October.”

Kyoto Ramifications
Dutch Greenhouse Gas Emissions Now at 1990 Levels. By Toby Sterling, The Associated Press, September 5, 2006. “Greenhouse gas emissions in the Netherlands fell by around 2 percent in 2005 from a year earlier and were at approximately the same level they were in 1990, a government agency said Monday… John Hay, spokesman for the U.N.’s climate change agency UNFCCC, said the Dutch announcement was ‘a good sign of sound international policies,’ and added the U.N. would be releasing a broader report on the international emissions landscape in October.”

Canadian Concern About Climate Could Be Reaching ‘Tipping Point’. By Dennis Bueckerk, Canadian Press, September 6, 2006. “Climate change has jumped dramatically on the scale of Canadians’ worries over the last year… according to an environmental poll. Global warming is second place as a top-of-mind environmental issue, next only to air quality, says McAllister Opinion Research, an international firm known for its research on environmental issues… Concern seems to have reached a tipping point and the Conservatives neglect the issue at their peril, said Angus McAllister, president of the company… Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Conservative) has rejected the Kyoto Protocol, an international pact to cut greenhouse emissions that cause global warming, and federal officials suggest their top priority is air and water quality, not climate. McAllister’s poll suggests that the great majority of Canadians don’t agree with that stance. It found that 77 per cent believe Canada should meet or exceed its Kyoto targets for cutting emissions.”

Use of Carbon Credits Under Kyoto Guidelines Questioned in India. By Keya Acharya, Inter Press Service, September 8, 2006. “India is leading developing nations in carbon credits, expecting over 2.27 billion US dollars by selling certified emissions reduction units (CER) from approximately 300 Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects, according to the country’s ministry of environment and forests. But some CDM consultants cite low CER rates, non-enforcement of rich nations’ renewable energy investment commitments in poor nations, lack of transparency in the CDM quantification process and several other irregularities in the CDM market. The CDM, one of three mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol, allows Annex I or industrialized nations to buy emissions reduction units, called CERs, from non- Annex developing countries. Annex I rich nations can then count these credits towards their greenhouse gas emissions targets. The principle is to help rich nations reduce the costs of meeting their reduction targets by 2012 whilst mitigating climate change and helping developing nations… As per the CDM rules, the emissions reduction should benefit sustainable development, help alleviate poverty, create clean technology in a carbon-less economy and produce local benefits among others. But not a single one of India’s 252 CDM projects, as per the United Nations Environment Programme, deals with reforestation, agriculture or even rural development. The majority of that number are energy-efficiency projects from industries.”

U.N. Addresses Combination of Deforestation and Global Warming. Press Release, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, September 5, 2006. “Most people assume that global warming is caused by burning oil and gas. But in fact between 25 and 30 percent of the greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere each year – 1.6 billion tonnes – is caused by deforestation. About 200 experts, mostly from developing countries, met in Rome last week to address this issue in a workshop organized by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). ‘We are working to solve two of the key environmental issues – deforestation and global warming – at the same time,’ said FAO Senior Forestry Officer Dieter Schoene. Trees are 50 percent carbon. When they are felled or burned, the C02 they store escapes back into the air. According to FAO figures, some 13 million hectares (31.1 million acres) of forests worldwide are lost every year, almost entirely in the tropics. Deforestation remains high in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia. Delegates of the 46 developing countries present at the Rome workshop signalled their readiness to act on deforestation, 80 percent of which is due to increased farmland to feed growing populations.”

U.S. Oil and Gas
Major U.S. Oil Deposit Discovered in Gulf of Mexico. By Brad Foss, The Associated Press, September 6, 2006. “A trio of oil companies led by Chevron Corp. has tapped a petroleum pool deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico that could boost the nation’s reserves by more than 50 percent. A test well indicates it could be the biggest new domestic oil discovery since Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay a generation ago. But the vast oil deposit roughly four miles beneath the ocean floor won’t significantly reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil and it won’t help lower prices at the pump anytime soon… Chevron yesterday estimated the 300-square-mile region where its test well sits could hold between 3 billion and 15 billion barrels of oil and natural gas liquids. The U.S. consumes roughly 5.7 billion barrels of crude oil in a year.”

U.S. Funds Project to Pump Oil, Fight Global Warming. By Tom Doggett, Reuters, September 7, 2006. “The US Energy Department said on Wednesday it would spend $3 million to help fund an demonstration project in Alabama that will inject carbon dioxide (CO2) into a mature oil reservoir to push out more crude and also displace greenhouse gases. The department said once the field is depleted, it could then be used to store carbon dioxide, instead of releasing the gas into the atmosphere and exacerbate global warming.”

 

Court Ruling Blocks Alaska Oil Lease Sale. By Yereth Rosen, Reuters, September 8, 2006. “A federal judge issued a preliminary ruling on Thursday that temporarily blocks the U.S. administration’ s plan to allow oil development in the sensitive wetlands near vast Teshekpuk Lake in Arctic Alaska. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) failed to properly consider the impact of oil development in areas near the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska on the state’s North Slope region, U.S. District Court Judge James Singleton said.”

Coal Bed Methane Extraction Spurs Water Fight in the West. By Jim Robbins, The New York Times, September 10, 2006. Coal bed methane producers in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin are dumping wastewater that flows northward into Montana, where ranchers say the polluted waters are destroying their irrigated alfalfa fields. “The gas is found in subterranean coal, and companies are pumping water out of the coal and stripping the gas mixed with it. Once the gas is out, the huge volumes of water become waste in a region that gets less than 12 inches of rain a year… The fight pits Montana against Wyoming. Wyoming has thrown the door open to coal bed methane producers, with 20,000 wells in the basin. Wyoming says its water quality standards, while different from those in Montana, are more reasonable and still protect water quality.” Marathon Oil et al are challenging the Montana regulations in state and federal court.

Public Citizen Report: Oil Companies Manipulate Markets for their Own Advantage. Press release, Public Citizen, September 6, 2006.“The industry is taking advantage of its huge market control and lax energy trading oversight to gouge Americans, squandering the opportunity to invest in cleaner, sustainable sources and curb the nation’s dangerous addiction to oil.” View the report >  Hot Profits and Global Warming: How Oil Companies Hurt Consumers and the Environment.
Biofuels

Genetic Engineering for Biofuels. By Andrew Pollack, The New York Times, September 8, 2006. “Seed and biotech companies see a big opportunity in developing corn and other crops tailored for use in ethanol and other biofuels. That is the new mission of crop scientists. In an era of $3-a-gallon gasoline and growing concern about global warming from fossil fuels, seed and biotechnology companies see a big new opportunity in developing corn and other crops tailored for use in ethanol and other biofuels. Syngenta, for instance, hopes in 2008 to begin selling a genetically engineered corn designed to help convert itself into ethanol… Last week, DuPont and Bunge announced that their existing joint venture to improve soybeans for food would also start designing beans for biodiesel fuel and other industrial uses. And Ceres, a plant genetics company in California, is at work on turning switch grass, a Prairie States native, into an energy crop… Developing energy crops could mean new applications of genetic engineering, which for years has been aimed at making plants resistant to insects and herbicides, but would now include altering their fundamental structure.”

EPA Proposes Mandated Increases in Biofuel Production. Reuters, September 7, 2006. “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed new clean fuel rules to comply with a 2005 energy law that directs refiners and marketers to increase biofuel production from 4 billion gallons this year to 7.5 billion gallons in 2012. Specifically, EPA proposes 3.71 percent of all U.S. gasoline sold next year be a ‘renewable fuel.’ Currently the standard is 2.78 percent of all gasoline sales.”

Consumer Reports Tests Question Viability of Ethanol. Kansas City infoZine, September 6, 2006. “Tests and investigation by Consumer Reports conclude that ethanol will cost consumers more money than gasoline and that there concerns about whether the government support of flexible fuel vehicles is really helping the U.S. achieve energy independence.” E85, which is 85 percent ethanol, was found to have a 27% fuel-economy penalty over gasoline.
Ethanol Promises. By Pattrick Bedard, Car and Driver, July issue. An in-depth critical look at ethanol, from a magazine that most environmentalists would not look to for useful information. “Now, with gasoline prices high and more people concerned about global warming, Congress has gotten brave enough to bring ethanol in the front door, in broad daylight, with mandates. Farm-raising our own energy independence is a seductive idea, better yet if it comes with a clean-burning fuel. But will it work? Let’s examine the various promises for ethanol one by one, to see if it can deliver.”

Green Initiatives
New Website to Gauge How Green Your Diet Is .The Associated Press, September 6, 2006. “Two interactive online calculators let consumers gauge the health, environmental and animal-welfare impact of their diet. They’re available on the new Eating Green Web site, www.eatinggreen. org, of the Center for Science in the Public Interest [DC]… The Web site is part of a new strategy for the 35-year-old center as it makes an environmental case for more plant-based, though not necessarily vegetarian, diets.” To launch the project, CSPI has published Six Arguments for a Greener Diet – a review of the scientific literature that provides advice to consumers and policymakers.

Hertz Launches ‘Collection’ of Green Vehicles. GreenBiz News, September 7, 2006. “Hertz is launching a new collection of fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly cars, that can be reserved by specific make and model, with an EPA highway rating of 28 miles per gallon… With more than 35,000 cars in the Green Collection, Hertz guarantees availability at 50 major airport locations across the U.S.”

Swiss Make Breakthrough in Longest Rail Tunnel. Reuters, September 6, 2006. “Construction workers made the first breakthrough in what will be the world’s longest rail tunnel on Wednesday, meeting under the Swiss Alps to join up its northern and southern sections. Engineers and miners from the AlpTransit consortium made the breakthrough to meet at Faido, in southern Switzerland. The tunnel will be 57 km (35.4 miles) long when completed in 2016 and cut Zurich-Milan journey times by an hour compared to an existing tunnel link… Swiss authorities gave the green light last month to the world’s tallest elevator which will lift train passengers using the new rail tunnel 800 meters in the heart of the Alps.” The new train service will decrease fuel consumption by decreasing the mountainous climb for trains and by encouraging rail over automobile traffic.

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