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By Stephen Leahy
BROOKLIN, Canada, Jan 17 (IPS) – Imagine it’s a glorious new era and everything you’ll do as part of your normal day helps to stabilise the climate and the global population, eradicate poverty, and restore the earth’s damaged ecosystems.
Sound unrealistic? It better not be because that is what it will take to prevent the end of human society as we know it, according to a new book, “Plan B 3.0: Mobilising to Save Civilisation”.
The crisis we face is both dire and urgent, requiring a transformative effort like the mobilisation of nations during World War II, says author Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, an environmental think tank in Washington.
Climate change is happening far faster than scientists predicted and the planet will inevitably experience at least a 2-degree C. rise in global temperatures, putting us firmly into the danger zone, Brown told IPS.
“No one currently in the running to be the next U.S. president gets the urgency of climate change,” he said. “We need greenhouse gas emission cuts of 80 percent by 2020.”
That is a far deeper cut than the emission cuts of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels over the same time period as called for by the world’s leading climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The IPCC based its recommendations on data that is nearly two years out of date, notes Brown. A number of more recent studies and observations — many reported on by IPS — show that climate change is accelerating.
Brown is confident that the IPCC will change its recommendation in its next report, but it is not due for another five or six years. “That’s too late when we need to act now,” he said.
Plan B 3.0 outlines how emissions could be cut by 80 percent, relying heavily on energy efficiency, renewable energy and expanding the earth’s tree cover.
Wind power could produce 40 percent of the world’s energy with the installation of 1.5 million new two-megawatt wind turbines. While that may seem like a lot, 65 million cars are built every year. And there are many mothballed automotive assembly lines in North America and elsewhere that could be converted to produce wind turbines, he says.
The state of Texas plans to build 23,000 megawatts of wind-generating capacity — the equivalent of 23 coal-fired power plants and enough electricity to satisfy the residential needs of over 11 million Texans, half the state’s population.
Turning to more efficient lighting can reduce world electricity use by 12 percent — enough to close 705 of the world’s 2,370 coal-fired power plants, Brown’s book notes. Retrofitting existing buildings can typically cut energy use by 20-50 percent. In the United States, buildings — commercial and residential — account for close to 40 percent of carbon emissions. The next step, shifting to carbon-free electricity to heat, cool, and light the building, completes the transformation to a zero-carbon emissions construction.
Another energy-efficiency measure is changing human “fuel” from a meat-based diet to a plant-based diet because the latter requires about one-fourth as much energy to grow. The reduction in carbon emissions is about the same as that in shifting from a Chevrolet Suburban SUV to a Toyota Prius hybrid car.
Brown is highly critical of the use of biofuels, which are made from food grains like corn and soy. Biofuels are driving food prices higher and will result in food shortages which will be disastrous for many of the world’s poor, he says.
Population growth is putting poor countries under enormous pressure. The annual addition of 70 million people to world population is concentrated in countries where water tables are falling and wells are going dry, forests are shrinking, soils are eroding, and grasslands are turning into desert. As this backlog of unresolved problems grows, stresses mount and weaker governments in Somalia, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, and Pakistan begin to break down.
Each year the number of failing states increases. “Failing states,” notes Brown, “are an early sign of a failing civilisation.”
Rising oil prices can be added to the accumulating backlog. Rich countries will continue to get all the oil they need, while poor countries will have to make do with less.
“Population growth and poverty need special attention from the developed world, but for the first time in history, we have the resources to properly address them,” he says.
As for transforming the world energy economy, all that is needed is to incorporate the indirect costs of burning fossil fuels, such as climate disruption and air pollution through a carbon tax.
Brown envisions a worldwide carbon tax to be phased in at 20 dollars per tonne each year between 2008 and 2020, stabilising at 240 dollars per tonne. The carbon tax would be offset at every step with a reduction in income taxes which would simultaneously discourage fossil fuel use and encourage investment in renewable sources of energy.
While solutions are readily available, what is lacking, he says, is awareness that our modern civilisation is at risk and a willingness to take action.
“Saving civilisation is not a spectator sport,” says Brown. “We have reached a point in the deteriorating relationship between us and the earth’s natural systems where we all have to become political activists.”
Speed is essential, however. Humanity is crossing natural thresholds and triggering feedbacks that may not be reversible, such as the melting of the world’s glaciers and polar regions.
“We can all make lifestyle changes, but unless we restructure the economy and do it quickly, we will almost certainly fail,” says Brown. “Time is our scarcest resource.”
(END/2008)
When it comes to automobile fuel consumption, Canada and the U.S. subscribe to very divergent world-views
For years, it’s been widely accepted that those government fuel-consumption ratings you see posted on the window stickers of new cars and light trucks are pie-in-the-sky estimates of what owners are likely to achieve in real-world driving.
Yet, although U.S. regulators finally mandated a tougher, more realistic test for model-year 2008 – and even though Canada usually harmonizes its automotive regulations with the Americans – we are sticking with the old test for now.
Why? In part, because we have always had a different outlook than the Americans.
Fuel consumption ratings – Click to see the complete gallery (photo: MSN)
“If the test results indicate a level that everybody can achieve, that doesn’t encourage fuel-efficient driving,” says Stephen Akehurst, senior manager of the ecoENERGY for Personal Vehicles program at Natural Resources Canada. “One of our goals has been to encourage consumers to drive fuel-efficiently. We believe those numbers are achievable in summer, driving very fuel-efficiently.”
So if you don’t ever match the government ratings, don’t blame the figures and don’t blame your car: blame yourself, and the way you drive. You’re not trying hard enough.
That 70s Show
The current tests were first instituted in 1975, following the 1973 Arab oil embargo. Since all vehicles are tested in laboratory conditions in exactly the same manner, auto shoppers get an apples-to-apples comparison of the fuel consumption of different vehicles.
Fuel consumption ratings – Click to see the complete gallery (photo: MSN)
Separate tests measure fuel consumption in “typical” city driving and highway driving respectively. A combined figure is calculated by adding 55 per cent of the city figure and 45 per cent of the highway figure.
In the mid 1980s there was an effort to make the published ratings more realistic by mathematically adjusting the lab results. The U.S. reduced the city-cycle miles-per-gallon by 10 per cent and the highway cycle by a whopping 22 per cent.
In Canada, however, our regulators opted to apply only a 15-per-cent adjustment for the highway figure. Thus the target fuel consumption for Canadians became even more optimistic than the American ratings.
Life on a treadmill
The tests themselves are laboratory replications of actual trips that were measured in the Los Angeles area in 1972. These are reproduced in the lab by driving the vehicle on a rolling-road dynamometer (think of it as a fitness-club treadmill for cars).
Fuel consumption ratings – Click to see the complete gallery (photo: MSN)
The city test (a.k.a. FTP75, which is also used for tailpipe emissions testing) represents a 29-km drive in mostly stop-and-go traffic. Speeds are usually less than 60 km/h, apart from a couple of brief bursts up to 91 km/h. The drive begins with a cold start (though at a mild ambient temperature of 20-30 oC). There are 18 stops with the engine idling and one 10-minute “hot soak” stop with the engine off.
The highway test (HWFET) begins from rest with a hot engine and covers 16 kilometres at an average speed of 77 km/h. There are no stops, but speeds fluctuate irregularly, remaining below 80 km/h for almost half the test. The highest speed reached is 96 km/h, and then only briefly.
Cruising in the slow lane
Fuel consumption ratings – Click to see the complete gallery (photo: MSN)
Right there you can see one big reason why the official ratings err on the side of flattery. The highway test speeds don’t even attain the lowest Canadian freeway speed limits, never mind the actual speeds at which most Canadians belt along on the highway.
It’s the same story with acceleration. The single fiercest burst of acceleration in the tests delivers 0-50 km/h in about 11 seconds (and most are much gentler than that). To put that into perspective, any modern car that couldn’t do 0-50 in fewer than 5 seconds would be a real slug.
There are other inadequacies. The balmy test weather is hardly typical of what we experience in most of Canada most of the time. Yet there is no requirement to use the air conditioning.
Getting real
To address these issues, the U.S. added three more test cycles – US06, SC03, and Cold FTP – for 2008. The results of those tests are then mathematically combined with the existing FTP and HWFET cycles to produce the new, more credible “5-cycle” ratings.
Fuel consumption ratings – Click to see the complete gallery (photo: MSN)
US06 is the high-speed test. A 13-kilometre drive comprises roughly three kilometres of stop-start driving involving quite aggressive acceleration (for example, 0-50 km/h in under 4 seconds), and 10 km of highway driving at speeds between 100 and 130 km/h.
SCO3 is the hot-weather A/C test. The 6-km drive takes place at fairly low speeds but at an ambient temperature of 35oC with the air conditioning running.
Cold FTP is, as the name implies, the existing FTP city cycle, but driven entirely in -7oC ambient temperatures.
Compared with the pre-’08 test methods, the U.S. EPA predicts that city fuel economy (as measured in US mpg) will drop by about 12 per cent on average, and by as much as 30 per cent for some vehicles. The highway mpg estimates drop on average by about 8 per cent, and by as much as 25 per cent. The difference will be greatest on vehicles that currently achieve the highest fuel economy – hybrids, in particular.
Rating the ratings
Meanwhile, how do-able are the current Canadian ratings, really? That’s a bit like asking, “how long is a piece of string?” But for the record, here’s how my own carefully measured fuel consumption results, from 160 vehicles I have tested over the past four years, compared with the official ratings.
Fuel consumption ratings – Click to see the complete gallery (photo: MSN)
Overall, more than half (54 per cent) of my test cars returned actual fuel consumption somewhere between the city and combined ratings. Another 17 per cent fell between the combined and the highway ratings, for a total of 71 percent that were within the span of the official city and highway ratings.
Of the remainder, three per cent exactly matched the city ratings, and 25 per cent (including almost all the hybrids) were thirstier than the city figure.
For context, I would rate my own driving style as “efficient.” I’m neither a leadfoot nor a rolling roadblock — I just try to drive smart. I typically cruise at no more than 10-15 km/h above the speed limit. But my usage patterns do vary quite widely, from long summer vacation drives in some cars to mid-winter short-trip suburban “hockey dad” driving in others.
No way on the highway
Note that not one vehicle ever achieved the highway rating. The closest I ever came to it was eight to 10 per cent worse, on long freeway trips in relatively mild weather. Frankly, the only way anybody is likely to match the highway figure is by regularly driving long distances at or below the speed limit on rural two-lane roads.
Meanwhile, Canada has not ruled out the possibility of adopting tougher tests some time in the future. But if so, they won’t necessarily be an exact copy of the new American system.
“The balancing of the 5-cycle test to come up with a final number is based on US climate data,” says NRCan’s Akehurst. “If Canada looked to implement a 5-cycle test, it would need to be on a made-in-Canada basis.”
Source: http://en.autos.sympatico.msn.ca/GreenCentre/article.aspx?cp-documentid=6785698
By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg – cpeytondahlberg@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Monday, April 7, 2008
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A1
In the unknowns of emerging nanotechnology, researchers are wondering if the science behind trendy no-smell socks, underwear and hunting gear might create unintended consequences in the environment.
Just a few simulated washings, for example, can pull nanosilver out of new socks that rely on it for killing odors, researchers said Sunday. That action sets the substance free to travel into wastewater and perhaps into fertilizer.
That prospect underscores the importance of studying nanosized materials that are increasingly a part of clothing and medical, electronic, and other consumer products, said UC Davis professor Alexandra Navrotsky.
“As a society, we should be doing research on these effects ideally before products go to market, not after,” said Navrotsky, who heads a campus nanomaterials research unit.
University of California, Davis, is competing for a five-year, $25 million National Science Foundation grant to create a center devoted to studying the environmental impacts of nanomaterials, so small they are measured in billionths of a meter.
The campus, which survived the first cut when 30 grant applicants where whittled to 10, could learn later this month whether it is among three semifinalists.
At nanoscale, the nature of things can change fundamentally; items can take on different shapes, colors, electrical charges – or toxicities.
UC Davis researchers want to explore what happens when such creations are released into the environment, and nanosilver is on the short list of substances the university would target first if it wins the grant, Navrotsky said.
In one study with mouse sperm stem cells, nanosilver was about 45 times more toxic than standard silver, said Jennifer Sass, a toxicologist with the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, D.C.
Nanosilver is more potent because, in proportion to its size, it has more surface area where chemical reactions can take place.
“There’s more killing activity per less volume,” Sass said.
For human health, though, she worries about cosmetics and lotions with nano-ingredients much more than the clothing that has incorporated scent-controlling nanosilver.
“Silver is not the most toxic thing to humans,” Sass said. “If you’re a microbe, you have to worry a lot about silver, and that goes to beneficial microbes on our skin that eat up dead cells and dead hair.”
The fear is that once it is washed out of socks or other clothing, nanosilver might keep on killing, taking out beneficial microbes in soil, groundwater or streams.
“The reason it’s in socks is it kills bacteria,” said Troy Benn, an Arizona State University doctoral student who outlined his findings Sunday at the American Chemical Society’s national conference in New Orleans.
Sock studies being done by Benn and professor Paul Westerhoff at Arizona State University are “going to be really helpful,” Sass said, because some people have suggested nanosilver wouldn’t wash out of clothing.
Andrew Maynard, who tracks emerging nanotech for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said the work sounded like “a very useful piece of research.”
The Arizona State research appears to be the first effort to measure how much silver comes out in the wash and to simulate what might happen to it during wastewater treatment, both Maynard and Sass said.
Benn collected his research material by shopping online for socks whose makers claimed they contained nanosilver. He chose seven different types made by five companies.
Researchers soaked and sloshed the socks in distilled water for up to seven simulated washings and found big variations from brand to brand when they tested the water.
One sock released more than a milligram of silver after a few washings, in the form of both nanosilver and one of its better-understood relatives, ionic silver. Some released much less, and at least one sock left no silver at all in the water.
That might not be surprising, though, since Benn did other tests – breaking down a sock with acid and analyzing what was left behind – to establish that one “nanosilver” sock contained no silver when it reached his lab.
It’s possible the material simply sloughed off during shipping and handling, he said in an interview before the conference, or it might never have been there at all.
The research, which is ongoing and hasn’t been published, didn’t stop with the wash.
Westerhoff and Benn then “spiked” the wash water with activated sludge from a wastewater treatment plant, in an attempt to roughly simulate what might happen next.
Almost all the silver settled into a clumpy mass of “biosolids,” separated from liquid effluent during treatment.
More than half of the biosolids produced by California water treatment plants are spread as fertilizer, which can interact with soil microbes and runoff.
Unique content, exceptional val
Source: http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/841669.html
2/20/2008 - TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AFPN) – Environmental Protection Agency officials recently named the Air Force to the agency’s National Top 25 List of green power purchasers.
Selected as No. 3, Air Force officials demonstrated their commitment to protecting the environment and built upon its existing affiliation with EPA’s Green Power Partnership.
Air Force officials purchased more than 899 million kilowatt-hours, or kWh, of green power annually, which is enough green power to meet approximately 9 percent of the organization’s purchased electricity use.
EPA officials updated each of its National Top Partner lists, highlighting some of America’s largest green power purchasers. The Air Force also ranked No. 1 on EPA’s Top 10 Federal Government List. Each list highlights EPA Green Power Partners that have completed the largest annual voluntary purchases through Jan. 8. EPA’s updates its Top Partner Lists quarterly at http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/toplists/.
“This is a huge honor and we are proud to be recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency,” said Lt. Col. Navnit Singh, the Air Force Facility Energy Center director at Tyndall Air Force Base. “Purchasing green power helps our organization become more sustainable, while also sending a message to others across the U.S. that supporting clean sources of electricity is a sound business decision and an important choice in reducing climate risk. The Air Force’s commitment to green power helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions while also supporting the development of new renewable generation capacity nationwide.”
Fifty-four Air Force bases as well as numerous Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard bases participated in the renewable power purchase program in fiscal 2007, including two — Minot AFB, N.D. and Dyess AFB, Texas — that purchased 100 percent of their electricity from renewable sources.
These initiatives are complemented by an on-base wind farm and photovoltaic system at Ascension Island, landfill gas power generation at Hill AFB in Utah, wind generation at F.E. Warren AFB in Wyoming, and a photovoltaic system at March Air Reserve Base in California, as well as installation of smaller renewable projects at other bases.
Green power is electricity that is generated from environmentally preferable renewable resources, such as wind, solar, geothermal, landfill gas, biomass and low-impact hydro. These resources generate electricity with a net zero increase in carbon dioxide emissions, while offering a superior environmental profile compared to traditional power generation sources. Green power purchases also support the development of new renewable energy generation sources nationwide.
According to the EPA, the Air Force’s green power purchase of more than 899 million (kWh) is equivalent to avoiding the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of more than 128,000 passenger vehicles per year, or is the equivalent amount of electricity needed to power nearly 90,000 average American homes annually.
Air Force Facility Energy Center officials provide engineering, management and legal expert services to support facility energy reduction and water conservation initiatives, and renewable energy development to Air Force bases to meet Air Force and federal policies and directives.
Source: http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123086987
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