Billionaire Oilman T. Boone Pickens Backs Wind Power

(CNN) -- Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens is sinking billions of dollars into a new wind farm in Texas. It is likely to become the biggest in the world, producing enough power for the equivalent of 1.3 million homes. CNN's Ali Velshi asked the oil legend why he thinks wind could be the answer to this country's energy problems:

Ali Velshi: Tell me about the wind. Now, you are buying, for a start, more than 600 wind turbines from General Electric. You're going to put them on this big tract of land in Texas, and you're going to generate a lot of electricity.

What happens to that electricity? Tell me where you think you're going to make your money and how this is going to help the situation in America.

T. Boone Pickens: Well, that's the first step to a 4,000-megawatt wind farm. This is 1,000 megawatts.

We start receiving those turbines in mid 2010. We will have the total 4,000 megawatts finished by the end of 2015. That power will go into a transmission line that will tie into the Electric Reliability Council of Texas system in the state of Texas, and it will be transmitted downstate.

Velshi: What's your view of wind power? It's one of several things that we should be looking at in terms of powering our homes, electrical power? We get most of it from coal and natural gas, and some from nuclear. Are you thinking it's one of the formats of power we should be thinking about, or is this going to be bigger than we all thought?

Pickens: The Department of Energy came out with a study in April of '07 that said we could generate 20 percent of our electricity from wind. And the wind power is -- you know, it's clean, it's renewable. It's -- you know, it's everything you want. And it's a stable supply of energy.

It will be located in [the] central part of the United States, which will be the best from a safety standpoint to be located. You have a wind corridor that goes from Pampa, Texas, to the Canadian border. And it has -- the wind, it's unbelievable that we have not done more with wind. Look at Germany and Spain. They have developed their wind way beyond what we have, and they don't have as much wind as we do. It's not unlike the French have done with their nuclear. They're 80 percent power generated off of nuclear, we're 20 percent.

Velshi: I'm fascinated by wind power. I love going by a field of these turbines. And I think they're fascinating.

You don't happen to think they're attractive, and you're not really putting them on your land. You're going to be using other people's land to put these things on.

Pickens: That's right. And it's very clear, these are my neighbors. And they want them. It generates income for them.

A turbine will generate somewhere around 20,000 [dollars] a year in royalty income. And on a 640-acre tract, you can put five to 10 of these on the tract. And you don't have to have them if you don't want them.

Velshi: And it's quite common that people who maybe have a piece of land, they might be farmers or something like that, this is extra income to them by making a deal with somebody like you who is going put these things up, if they don't mind having them on the land. Do they get the electricity from it or do they just get a royalty check?

Pickens: A royalty check. But look at Sweetwater, Texas. That town was 12,000 people, then went down below 10,000. The wind came in, it's above 12,000 in population now. The local economy is booming.

That can be repeated over and over and over again all the way to the Canadian border. Then you have a solar corridor that goes from Sweetwater, Texas, west to the West coast, and that solar corridor can also be developed.

But we are going to have to do something different in America. You can't keep paying out $600 billion a year for oil.

EPA chief warned not to deny California on emission standard

WASHINGTON - A Environmental Protection Agency official warned her boss, EPA chief Stephen Johnson, that if he denied California's bid to enforce its own tailpipe emissions rules, the agency's credibility "will be irreparably damaged" and Johnson would have to think about resigning.

Margot Oge, the head of EPA's office of transportation and air quality, also told Administrator Johnson in an Oct. 17 memo that "there is no legal or technical justification for denying this," despite "alternative interpretations that have been suggested by the automakers."

These internal warnings were included in EPA documents released Tuesday by Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who chairs the Environment Committee and had requested the records.

Johnson turned down California's request for a waiver from the Clean Air Act on Dec. 19, after months of review. He overruled the recommendations of senior staff members, according to several media reports, and the documents released Tuesday provide some examples.

Boxer said the documents showed "an agency in crisis," and called on the EPA to release additional documents about meetings with White House officials.

"The documents show the dedicated, professional staff working hard to protect our health and our environment," Boxer said. "We see more and more evidence of Administrator Johnson ignoring the science and the facts, and discarding the advice of his staff."

Boxer plans to question Johnson today when he appears before the committee to defend the EPA's proposed budget.

Johnson has defended his decision, announced the day a new energy bill was signed into law. He said the higher fuel economy standards contained in that bill precluded the need for state initiatives to tackle greenhouse-gas emissions.

Oge's office and other legal and technical staffers sent e-mails and memos citing California's long history of receiving EPA waivers - only two of the state's 95 requests had been even partially denied - and the case California had made for its own greenhouse-gas emissions standards. At least 16 other states are prepared to adopt the California standards if they are approved.

"I think Johnson now appreciates that there are additional conditions in California that make them vulnerable to climate change," a staffer wrote others in the EPA climate change division on Oct. 31.

Oge's "talking points" for Johnson, prepared by deputy director Christopher Grundler, recognized the historic nature of the decision and the pressures Johnson faced. The auto industry and the Bush administration's Department of Transportation lobbied against the California regulations, which in the absence of federal regulations were the most ambitious effort to tackle emissions causing global warming.

"Clearly the stakes are huge, especially with respect to future climate work," Oge's Oct. 17 memo for Johnson said. "You have to find a way to get this done. If you cannot, you will face a pretty big personal decision about whether you are able to stay in the job under those circumstances."

William Reilly, a former EPA administrator in President George H.W. Bush's administration, also worked with Oge and other top staffers in an unsuccessful effort to persuade Johnson to grant the waiver, according to members of Boxer's staff.

On May 1, when Johnson prepared to attend a White House meeting on the issue, his staff prepared a power point presentation noting the history of California waivers, and that "Congress wanted California to be afforded the broadest possible discretion" with such regulations.

The EPA did not turn over documents about that May 1 meeting.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger quickly sued the EPA in early January to reverse its decision. Because of the litigation, EPA officials said they do not want to disclose additional documents that could be used against them in court. They had asked that the documents turned over to the committee be kept confidential, but Boxer decided to release them.

Boxer said she expected the next president would overturn the EPA decision because Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain support California's waiver request.

"But why on earth should we wait that long?" Boxer said. "We're only wasting time and money."

By Frank Davies Mercury News Washington Bureau
Article Launched: 02/26/2008 03:55:15 PM PST

AP Photo

A Better Way to Capture Carbon

New materials provide a potentially cheaper way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

Researchers have developed porous materials that can soak up 80 times their volume of carbon dioxide, offering the tantalizing possibility that the greenhouse gas could be cheaply scrubbed from power-plant smokestacks. After the carbon dioxide has been absorbed by the new materials, it could be released through pressure changes, compressed, and, finally, pumped underground for long-term storage.

Such carbon dioxide capture and sequestration could be essential to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, especially in countries such as the United States that depend heavily on coal for electricity. The first stage, capturing the carbon, is particularly important, since it can account for 75 percent of the total costs, according to the Department of Energy.

The new materials, described this week in Science, were created by researchers at UCLA led by Omar Yaghi, a chemist known for producing materials with intricate microscopic structures. They absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide but do not absorb other gases.

Techniques already exist for capturing carbon dioxide from smokestacks, but they use large amounts of energy--15 to 20 percent of the total electricity output of a power plant, according to one estimate, Yaghi says. That is because existing materials, known as amines, need to be heated to release the carbon dioxide they've absorbed. Indeed, capturing and compressing carbon dioxide through these existing methods can add 80 to 90 percent to the cost of producing electricity from coal, says Thomas Feeley, a project manager at the National Energy Technology Laboratory.

Feeley says that Yaghi's materials "compare favorably" with other experimental materials that absorb carbon dioxide that are being developed to help bring down these costs. Yaghi says that his materials could lower costs considerably since they use less energy, although exactly how much will require testing the materials at power plants.

Beyond being potentially useful in smokestacks, the materials could be employed in coal gasification plants. In these plants, coal is first processed to produce a mixture of carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas. The hydrogen is then used to generate electricity. The carbon dioxide could be captured using a solvent that increases energy consumption. But as in the smokestack-based process, the new UCLA materials could require less energy.

The materials belong to a class called zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs). They're made of metal atoms bridged by one of a number of ring-shaped organic molecules called imidazolates. Prior to Yaghi's research, 24 types of ZIFs had been developed over the course of 12 years. Yaghi made 25 new versions in just three months. These materials can be extremely versatile, since the metal atoms can act as powerful catalysts, and the organic molecules can serve as anchors for a number of functional molecules.

The new materials absorb carbon dioxide in part because they're extremely porous, which gives them a high surface area that can come into contact with carbon dioxide molecules. The most porous of the materials that Yaghi reports in Science contain nearly 2,000 square meters of surface area packed into one gram of material. One liter of one of Yaghi's materials can store all of the molecules of carbon dioxide that, at zero °C and at ambient pressure, would take up a volume of 82.6 liters.

While the exact mechanisms are not fully understood, Yaghi thinks that the slightly negative charge of organic molecules in his material attracts carbon dioxide molecules, which have a slightly positive charge. As a result, carbon dioxide is held in place, while other gases move through the material. This method of trapping carbon dioxide is better than some other methods because it does not involve strong covalent bonds, so it doesn't take much energy to release the gas.

The next step for the materials is commercialization. This means scaling up production and incorporating the materials into a system at a power plant, such as by packing the materials into canisters that can be filled with pressurized exhaust gases--something that the UCLA group says could be possible in two to three years. Yaghi estimates that the materials could easily be made in large quantities, since they are similar to other materials he has developed that can now be made by the ton by BASF, the giant chemical company. "Now it's in the hands of industry," Yaghi says. And he has developed automated techniques that could lead to more materials that could have even better properties.

source -- MIT Technology Review

U.S. Moving Toward Ban on New Coal-Fired Power Plants

In a report compiled in early 2007, the U.S. Department of Energy listed 151 coal-fired power plants in the planning stages and talked about a resurgence in coal-fired electricity. But during 2007, 59 proposed U.S. coal-fired power plants were either refused licenses by state governments or quietly abandoned.

In addition to the 59 plants that were dropped, close to 50 more coal plants are being contested in the courts, and the remaining plants will likely be challenged as they reach the permitting stage.

What began as a few local ripples of resistance to coal-fired power is quickly evolving into a national tidal wave of grassroots opposition from environmental, health, farm, and community organizations and a fast-growing number of state governments. The public at large is turning against coal. In a September 2007 national poll by the Opinion Research Corporation about which electricity source people would prefer, only 3 percent chose coal.

One of the first major coal industry setbacks came in early 2007, when environmental groups convinced Texas-based utility TXU to reduce the number of planned coal-fired power plants in Texas from 11 to 3. And now even those 3 proposed plants may be challenged. Meanwhile, the energy focus within the Texas state government is shifting to wind power. The state is planning 23,000 megawatts of new wind-generating capacity (equal to 23 coal-fired power plants).

In May, Florida’s Public Service Commission refused to license a huge $5.7-billion, 1,960-megawatt coal plant because the utility could not prove that building the plant would be cheaper than investing in conservation, efficiency, and renewable energy sources. This argument by Earthjustice, a non-profit environmental legal group, combined with widely expressed public opposition to any more coal-fired power plants in Florida, led to the quiet withdrawal of four other proposals for coal plants in the state. Republican Governor Charlie Crist, who is keenly aware of Florida’s vulnerability to rising seas, is actively opposing new coal plants and has announced that the state plans to build the world’s largest solar-thermal power plant.

The principal reason for opposing new coal plants is the mounting concern about climate change. Another emerging reason is soaring construction costs. And then there are intensifying health concerns about mercury emissions and the 23,600 U.S. deaths per year from power plant air pollution. (See data.)

Utilities have argued that carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal plant smokestacks could be captured and stored underground, thus helping keep hope for the industry alive. But on January 30, 2008, the Bush administration announced that it was pulling the plug on a joint project with 13 utilities and coal companies to build a demonstration coal-fired power plant in Illinois with underground carbon sequestration because of massive cost overruns. The original cost of $950 million when the project was announced in 2003 had climbed beyond $1.5 billion by early 2008, with further rises in prospect. The cancellation effectively moves the date for any coal plants with carbon sequestration so far into the future that this technology has little immediate relevance.

Some utilities are being refused licenses for coal plants because they have not examined alternative methods of satisfying demand, such as increasing the efficiency of electricity use. For example, insulating buildings greatly reduces energy needs for heating and cooling. Shifting to more-efficient light bulbs would save enough electricity to close 80 U.S. coal power plants.

The Sierra Club, the national leader on this issue, is working with hundreds of local groups to mount legal challenges in state after state. Other national groups that are actively involved include the Rainforest Action Network, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Environmental Defense. Information on the grassroots momentum to oppose coal plants is tracked on the Web site Coal Moratorium NOW!.

States that are working to reduce carbon emissions are banding together to discourage other states from building new coal plants simply because it would cancel their own carbon reduction efforts. In late 2006, for instance, the attorneys general of California, Wisconsin, New York, and several other northeastern states wrote to Kansas health officials urging them to deny permits for two new coal power plants of 700 megawatts each. The permits were subsequently denied, citing that carbon dioxide is an air pollutant and should be regulated, as determined in an April 2007 Supreme Court ruling. And in a letter on January 22, 2008, a similar grouping of states urged South Carolina’s Department of Health and Environmental Control to refuse a permit for the proposed 600-megawatt Pee Dee coal plant.

Coal’s future is also suffering as Wall Street turns its back on the industry. In July 2007, Citigroup downgraded coal company stocks across the board and recommended that its clients switch to other energy stocks. In January 2008, Merrill Lynch also downgraded coal stocks. In early February 2008, investment banks Morgan Stanley, Citi, and J.P. Morgan Chase announced that any future lending for coal-fired power would be contingent on the utilities demonstrating that the plants would be economically viable with the higher costs associated with future federal restrictions on carbon emissions. On February 13, Bank of America announced it would follow suit.

In August 2007, coal took a heavy political hit when U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who had been opposing three coal-fired power plants in his own state, announced that he was now against building coal-fired power plants anywhere in the world. Investment banks and political leaders are beginning to see what has been obvious for some time to climate scientists, such as NASA’s James Hansen who says that it makes no sense to build coal-fired power plants when we will have to bulldoze them in a few years.

In early November 2007, Representative Henry Waxman of California announced his intention to “introduce legislation that establishes a moratorium on the approval of new coal-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act until EPA finalizes regulations to address the greenhouse gas emissions from these sources.” If a national moratorium is passed by Congress, it will mark the beginning of the end for coal-fired power in the United States.

We may be on the verge of a monumental victory in the worldwide effort to stabilize climate. In our new book, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, I propose cutting carbon emissions 80 percent by 2020. The first step is to stop building any new coal-fired power plants. If the United States imposes a moratorium on such construction, as Denmark and New Zealand have already done, it would send a powerful signal to the rest of the world, bolstering the effort to cut carbon emissions. The next steps are to quickly exploit the vast worldwide potential to raise energy efficiency and to massively develop renewable sources of energy, such as wind, solar, and geothermal, in order to phase out existing coal-fired power plants.

The world is moving toward a political tipping point on the climate issue. If it comes soon enough, we may yet avoid catastrophic climate change.

Lester R. Brown -- Earth Policy Institute

'Green' becomes red-hot

Green was once just a color.

Of broccoli. Of preppy pants. Of Kermit the frog.

Now it's a call to arms.

With Al Gore's Oscar-winning "An Inconvenient Truth" as a wake-up call to the masses, the idea of green living and green building has taken off in the past couple of years, inspiring books, TV shows and hundreds of products. Environmentally friendly changes have come about in everything from exterior siding to countertops, fireplace logs to cutting boards, towels to toothbrushes.

"Things are evolving fast.... In the last year, it's really picked up for the average, everyday consumer. I expected it would be a couple more years before it got to this level," said Jeff Rogers, founder of New England Green Building Center in Provincetown. "There was a general shift that I could see was coming, but Al Gore just put it over the top."

Green "is the big topic of conversation right now," said Michael Dingley, senior vice president of programming for HGTV, which is in the middle of a "green testing season" to see how much viewers want to hear about environmentally friendly practices. While officials there saw the trend coming in 2006, now "we're pitched 'green' every day, from producers all over the world."

Sure, not everyone is making changes for unselfish motives. In a winter of high gas and heating oil prices, more people are finding it's cheaper to go solar or drive a hybrid. And some energy-efficient home upgrades can win a federal tax credit, with the new Commonwealth Solar program offering state rebates to homeowners getting energy from the sun.

"It's not a political issue, it's an environmental issue," said Nicole Goldman, owner of 'g' Green Design Center in Mashpee Commons. "People think it doesn't address them, they think it's not affecting them, but as soon as they see it in their pocketbook, they wake up."

"The majority of Americans are usually motivated by, 'It's impacting me, OK, it's saving me money,' " Dingley said.

And, for some, there are health issues. Using chemical-free products can literally make a home's air cleaner to breathe.

That's not to say a world view, a desire to help "save the planet," plays no role in consumer choices.

"It's the impact on global warming and on consumption of foreign oil, both of which are big factors right now," explains Laela Sayigh of Woods Hole, whose family's home largely runs on solar energy and who recently bought a hybrid car. "We try to live in a way that can minimize both of those things."

"I look at the whole green movement as a way to save money as well as reduce your carbon footprint," said Scott Beels of Marstons Mills, who changed almost all of his home's light bulbs to compact fluorescents, uses a wood stove for part of his heating and last year bought a hybrid car. Going green, a little or a lot, he said, "is a great chance to not only save money, but to make a contribution."

"Green" may be a trend, but it's not a fad, emphasizes Goldman, who said it's a "moral imperative" to act now.

A growing trend

So how much are we paying attention to environmentally friendly living? Consider:

• The green building industry, barely a blip at the turn of the century, is now worth about $12 billion annually, according to the U.S. Green Building Council.
  
• The number of building materials made with recycled content that can be found on the Internet has more than doubled in each of the last few years, according to store owners who seek out green building materials to sell.
  
• Close to 60 percent of consumers were taking steps in 2007 to make their home more environmentally friendly, according to an American Home Furnishings Alliance survey.
  
• By late 2007, more than half of National Association of Home Builders members — who build more than 80 percent of America's homes — were incorporating green practices into the development, design and construction of new homes, according to an association survey. About 20,000 homes a year are now built nationally using green guidelines.
  
• Last month, Congress and President Bush approved an energy bill that included increased efficiency standards for light bulbs, appliances and buildings — including the phasing out of incandescent light bulbs by 2012 in favor of compact fluorescent bulbs.
  
• Home Depot had a 30 percent increase in sales of Energy Star appliances in 2006 and sold more than 50 million compact fluorescent bulbs.
  
• HGTV has added a second home giveaway this year — a "green home" in South Carolina, designed to show "you don't have to be extreme to be green." Last year's main project on PBS's "This Old House" was a green remodel in Texas.
  
• Energy code changes adopted as part of the state building code at the start of this year include requiring a tighter "thermal envelope," or insulation, of a home, as well as more energy-efficient windows.
  
• Locally, Cape Cod Community College's Environmental Technology program will add a "sustainable design" course for builders, architects and homeowners next fall, and the Cape chapter of the National Association of the Remodeling Industry's "green team" will begin offering information and education in March.

"It's definitely become more and more of a focus for the building industry," said Alison Alessi of A&E Architects Inc. in Brewster. "You hear green this, green that, especially in the last six months to a year. It's in every magazine."

Right at home

Nowhere has the idea of "green" made more of a personal impact than in home-related industries.

With homeowners wanting to make their dwelling and yards efficient and "friendly," the idea has reverberated from architects to construction crews to designers to landscapers.

"Homeowners are demanding more energy-efficient products and sustainable designs," said Kermit Baker, chief economist of the American Institute of Architects. "Structural insulation panels, geothermal heating and cooling systems, tankless water heaters, and green flooring products such as bamboo and cork are all in high consumer demand."

And suppliers say new products are being created every day.

Take your kitchen, for example: A survey by thisoldhouse.com last fall found cabinets of recycled wood pulp with non-formaldehyde glue; butcher block made from bamboo; pendant lights and backsplashes of recycled glass and aluminum; cabinet hardware of lead-free pewter and recycled-material eco-resin; and terrazzo flooring made from 90 percent recycled material.

Recycled materials are, in fact, a hot component of the green building movement — both from post-consumer waste, such as milk jugs and shampoo bottles, and post-production wastes, materials that weren't ever used, such as glass left over from window-making. Products include roofing tiles from recycled vinyl and cellulose and countertops of recycled newsprint.

Furniture displayed at a national market show last fall included steel springs made of 50 percent recycled metal; "organic" cotton fabric; and throw pillows with fibers from recycled soda bottles.

Both New England Green Building in Provincetown and 'g' in Mashpee sell insulation made of blue jeans. A fabric wallcovering recently cited by BuildingGreen Inc. is made from 100 percent recycled polyester. At this month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, manufacturers were talking about new products that don't waste as much electricity, are easier to recycle and even have components made of plants.

And if the environmental friendliness of their product doesn't go far enough, some manufacturers are getting proactive. Last fall, Vaughan-Bassett announced a plan to plant one tree for every tree it uses to produce furniture; the company estimated it would pay for 150,000 saplings each year.

"Green" standards

So what makes a home product "green"? There has been no strict definition for it, though regional and national standards in everything from electrical, water and chemical use to wood sustainability have recently been created or are now being formulated to help consumers make choices.

They'll need that help because, if the trend continues as experts predict, they will only have more products to choose from.

Last spring, Home Depot began putting its Eco Options designation on more than 2,000 new and existing products that have "less of an impact on the environment," including all-natural insect repellents, cellulose insulation, front-load washing machines, programmable thermostats and certified- sustainable wood products. Since then, the number of Eco Option products has risen to more than 2,800 and is growing — as is customer interest.

"People are catching on," said spokesperson Sheriee Bowman. "The small step is changing the light bulb. If they want to make a bigger impact, there are all sorts of ways they can do that."
And on a regular basis.

"We're hoping 'green' settles down and becomes not the exception, not something special," said Dingley from HGTV. "We believe it should be a part of everyday life."

source - Cape Cod Times

Bush, EPA Mercury Loophole Struck Down by DC Court

by Glynn Wilson

QUINTON, Ala., Feb. 9 - A mentally retarded boy stood in the middle of the country road, in front of a ramshackled house trailer and a burned down shack, as I came around the last bend and saw Alabama Power’s mammoth coal-fired Miller Steam Plant rising out of the strip mines and clear cuts in what used to be piney woods.

As I pulled alongside him on the edge of Jefferson and Walker counties northwest of Birmingham and rolled down the van window and was about to ask him what it was like to live in the shadow of one of the most foul, polluting power plants in the country, before I could say anything he started signing me, letting me know he could not hear, or speak.

The experts say mercury from power plants, a potent neurotoxin, causes brain damage and other serious health problems in at least 630,000 babies born each year, just in the United States. Their blood is contaminated when their pregnant mothers eat mercury-laden fish, most of it caught in water from polluted power plants.

With this information well established and widely known, however, mercury advisories are in place on about one-third of America’s lakes and one-fourth of its rivers. Experts say a single gram of mercury, or just 1/70th of a teaspoon, is enough to contaminate a 25-acre lake so that fish caught there are totally unsafe to eat.

Yet under the administration of President George W. Bush, the Environmental Protection Agency changed course from the years when the Clinton EPA wanted every one of the 1,100 power plants in the country to take concrete steps to reduce mercury emissions.

Under Bush, the EPA opted instead for a so-called “free market solution.”

The agency passed rules it claimed were legal under the Clean Air Act to allow a “cap and trade” system of pollution credits designed to lower the overall level of mercury pollution nationally, while allowing some power companies to continue dumping massive amounts of mercury and other pollutants into the air and water in places where management doesn’t want to spend the money to clean up its plants. Coal and power operations scar the American South landscape and devastate its people. Many of those places are mostly populated by poor people and minorities.

The Bush EPA market system would have allowed some companies, such as Southern Company’s Alabama Power, to purchase so-called “pollution credits.” In other words, they would have allowed them to send payments to other, cleaner plants, while spending nothing to clean up their own dirty plants.

According to scientists, health experts and environmentalists, this would have created “hot spots” of contamination in some places, such as the air over the city of Birmingham - and the water in the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River around the Miller Steam Plant, which discharges more than 1,500 pounds of mercury each year - the fourth-worst in the country.

Unwilling to live with that situation, however, a number of health and environmental organizations, including the Waterkeeper Alliance with a chapter here called the Black Warrior Riverkeeper, sued in federal court two years ago to stop the rules from going into effect.

And this past Friday, they won a major victory for all of us when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rebuked the Bush EPA and ruled the regulatory loophole illegal under the clear language of the law passed by Congress and signed by President Richard Nixon in 1970.
The Clean Air Act listed mercury as one of the pollutants to be regulated. The Bush EPA wanted to remove it from the list - without going to Congress to ask for a change in the law.

Sound familiar? The Bush administration doesn’t much like the law, whether it applies to torture, spying on Americans - or cleaning up the environment.

“These rules represented what was perhaps the biggest sellout to industry in the history of EPA,” said Waterkeeper Alliance legal director Scott Edwards, interviewed Saturday in New York. “It’s a real tragedy that we’ve had to spend two years getting this industry-scripted scheme struck down while energy companies continue to poison our children with mercury.”

Fourteen states, including California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Wisconsin, challenged the EPA’s rules in 2005, along with dozens of Native American tribes, public health and environmental groups and organizations representing nurses and doctors.
Notice Alabama is not on the list. Attempts to reach the Riley administration in Montgomery and Alabama Power for comments on the ruling failed over the weekend.

Southern Company’s Alabama Power is one of the worst polluters in the world and is known for manipulating politicians and the corporate press with its monopoly money, using its economic power to keep politicians on a leash, like wining and dining the state’s top law enforcement officer, Attorney General Troy King, in an Atlanta Braves sky box. It also uses “green washing” advertising campaigns - NOT to reach out for new customers, but to keep chain press outlets such as the Birmingham News and local TV news stations from covering its pollution critically.

Anyone in Alabama should be familiar with the blue bird ad campaign that has been running in newspapers and on TV stations for years, featuring two blue birds on a power line in ostensibly funny conversations. But critics of the program are beginning to ask why the power company needs a rate increase every year when it has a virtual lock on the power business with no real competition and it spends so much money on advertising. And it spends next to nothing on pollution reduction, a few paltry million each year while it racks up billions in profits, some say the highest guaranteed profit margin of any power company in the nation.

The Spin

Power industry groups are already hard at work trying to spin the story to blame the environmentalists, lawyers and the “liberal” courts for preventing the Bush EPA from implementing it’s plan to “clean up” the mercury pollution by getting the overall amount down nationally.

Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a power industry trade group, issued this statement late Friday afternoon.

“Today, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia vacated the so-called Clean Air Mercury Rule … the first ever national rule to address mercury air emissions. Ironically, with their aggressive litigation posture, the environmental community and their state allies have again caused uncertainty and delay in regulating mercury,” he said. “The Environmental Protection Agency essentially must return to the drawing board in developing a new mercury rule.”

Does that statement remind you of a movie called “Thank You For Smoking?” It should.

The Facts

Coal-fired power plants like the Miller Steam Plant are by far the largest source of airborne mercury in the U.S., releasing more than 50 tons of deadly mercury into the air each year. Gravity pulls much of it down to the earth, where it ends up in our waterways.

Delayed developmental milestones, reduced neurological test scores and cardiovascular disease also result from mercury exposure, and it has been linked to serious physical and central nervous system disorders such as various sexual dysfunctions and, according to numerous scientific studies, mental retardation.

Even the Bush EPA recently raised the estimate on the number of women whose mercury concentrations in umbilical cord blood is significantly higher than the mother’s blood concentration to 1 in 6 women nationwide.

Yet the most industry-friendly administration in the history of corporate capitalism spent a billion dollars of your hard-earned tax dollars to try and pass the illegal rules anyway.

More Reaction

Here are some other reactions to the DC court ruling.

Vickie Patton, an attorney with Environmental Defense, which along with Sierra Club and the National Wildlife Federation was represented by Earth Justice in the lawsuit, said: “The federal court agrees with the American Medical Association that EPA’s flawed mercury program for coal plants is hazardous to our health. This decision is a victory for the health of all Americans, but especially for our children who can suffer permanent brain damage from toxic mercury pollution.”

Alice McKeown, a coal analyst for the Sierra Club, said: “Coal company claims of ‘clean coal’ will now be put to the test. These mercury pollution reductions will be an important trial run to see if coal is still viable in a cleaner energy future.”

Ann Weeks, an attorney for Clean Air Task Force who represented U.S. PIRG, Ohio Environmental Council, Natural Resources Council of Maine, and Conservation Law Foundation in the case said: “The court has now told EPA in no uncertain terms to follow the law as it is written. We are looking forward to working on rules that reflect the most stringent controls achievable for this industry, as the Clean Air Act requires. That’s what is needed now, if we are ever to alleviate the problem of mercury contamination in fish and wildlife.”

John Suttles, attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center who represented Physicians for Social Responsibility, American Nurses Association, American Public Health Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics in the lawsuit, said: “With today’s decision, EPA will now have to get back to the business of protecting people’s health rather than higher profits for electric utilities.”

“The Bush administration cannot ignore its responsibilities to bring power plants’ mercury pollution under control,” Earth Justice attorney James Pew said. “We hope the administration will gain some new respect for the law in its last year and start working to protect Americans from pollution and stop working to shield polluters from their lawful cleanup obligations.”

John Walke, attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the court’s ruling “should show power plant companies and the EPA once and for all that they may cheat and delay required clean-up obligations, but the law will catch up to them. Electric power plants are America’s worst polluters of mercury, smog, soot and global warming pollution, and their days of reckoning are long overdue.”

“This is a very positive ruling, but we should not forget that no matter how much this industry reduces mercury emissions, coal will never be clean,” added Waterkeeper Alliance President Steve Fleischli. “From mining to burning to toxic ash, ‘clean coal’ is a sham, a dangerous diversion at a time when we must move our national energy strategy to sustainable, renewable energy sources.”

The Ruling

A copy of the DC court decision is available in pdf format here.

Car-Free, Solar City in Gulf Could Set a New Standard for Green Design

In an ever more crowded world facing environmental limits, the push is on to create entire communities with reduced needs for energy, water, land and other resources.

The latest effort comes not in some green hub like Portland, Ore., but in the Persian Gulf, fueled as much by oil wealth — and the need to find postpetroleum business models — as environmental zeal.

Groundbreaking is scheduled for Saturday for Masdar City, a nearly self-contained mini-municipality designed for up to 50,000 people rising from the desert next to Abu Dhabi’s international airport and intended as a hub for academic and corporate research on nonpolluting energy technologies.

The 2.3-square-mile community, set behind walls to divert hot desert winds and airport noise, will be car free, according to the design by Foster + Partners, the London firm that has become a leading practitioner of energy-saving architecture.

The community, slightly smaller than the historic district of Venice, will have similar narrow pedestrian streets, but shaded by canopies made of photovoltaic panels. It will produce all of its own energy from sunlight.

Water will flow from a solar-powered seawater-desalinization plant. Produce will come from nearby greenhouses, and all waste will be composted or otherwise recycled, said Khaled Awad, property manager for the project.

The first phase, to be completed over the next two years, will be construction of the Masdar Institute, a graduate-level academic research center associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Readers can see a simulated video tour of the city and post comments on the Dot Earth blog.
Attempts at such green communities have had mixed results. Arcosanti, the ecotopian town in the Arizona desert, was started three decades ago. Still a work in progress, it is now being encroached on by Phoenix’s suburban expansion.

China, with help from American partners, has embarked on building instant rural communities and cities designed to limit environmental impacts, but recent reports have disclosed many problems.

Still, environmental campaigners appear enthusiastic about Masdar City, which is part of a planned $15 billion investment in new energy technologies by Abu Dhabi.

At an international energy conference in that city last month, Jean-Paul Jeanrenaud, director of the One Planet Living initiative of the environmental group WWF International (known in North America as the World Wildlife Fund), said independent monitoring would help ensure that the project lived up to its billing.

the source

The sixth mass extinction to affect life on Earth.

All the creatures we share the Earth with are important in some way, however unprepossessing or insignificant they may appear. They and we are all part of the web of life.

From the dawn of time, extinction has usually progressed at what scientists call a natural or background rate. Today the tempo is far faster.

Many scientists believe this is the sixth great wave - the sixth mass extinction to affect life on Earth.

We were not here for any of the previous mass extinctions, but this time our sheer preponderance is driving the slide to oblivion.

We have more than doubled our numbers in half a century, and that is the most obvious reason why there is less room for any other species.

We are taking their living room to grow our food, their food to feed ourselves. We are exploiting them, trading in them, squeezing them to the margins of existence - and beyond.

Often the choice is hard: conserve a species or feed a community, tourists' dollars or turtles' nests.

In 2003 the World Conservation Union's Red List said more than 12,000 species (out of 40,000 assessed) faced some extinction risk, including:

• one bird in eight
• 13% of the world's flowering plants
• a quarter of all mammals.

That gives you a ballpark figure. Science has described 1.75 million species, some experts estimate that there may be 13 or 14 million in the world in total - but until they are catalogued, nobody knows.

Our pillage of the natural world has been likened to burning down the medieval libraries of Europe, before we had even bothered to catalogue their contents.

Many species keep us alive, purifying water, fixing nitrogen, recycling nutrients and waste, and pollinating crops.

Plants and bacteria carry out photosynthesis, which produces the oxygen we breathe. Trees absorb carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas given off by human activities.

Pandas and microbes

Some years ago, when the global annual gross product was about $18 trillion, US researchers calculated the value of the goods and services provided by the Earth to the world economy: $33 trillion.

Tropical cone snails contain toxins which show promise for treating some forms of cancer and heart irregularities. One toxin may be a thousand times more potent than morphine for pain relief.

But millions of cone snails are now killed annually for their shells, and their habitats are under pressure.

That is the argument for utility. But the creatures we can see, and those we can use directly, are just the start of the story.

Lord May, president of the Royal Society (the UK's national academy of sciences), has said: "Most conservation effort goes into birds and mammals - creatures like the panda, a dim, dead-end animal that was probably on the way out anyway.

"Yet arguably it's the little things that run the world, things like soil microbes. They're the least-known species of all."

Complex network

And we continue to tug at the loose threads of the web of life, thinking we can split it into its separate parts.

Brazil nuts are a lucrative harvest in the Amazon. But an experiment to produce them in plantations failed, because the trees bear a good crop in the forest, but are barren in isolation.

We are not removing individual species from the Amazon: we are destroying the entire forest.

US researchers estimate that by 2020 less than 5% of it will remain in pristine condition.

Within 15 years, about a fifth of central Africa's forests will have gone, by one estimate. And the forests of Indonesia are in headlong retreat.

Some species are bucking the trend towards extinction. In 1953 there were about 2.5bn people: today there are 6bn.

Ensuring other species keep their living space is not sentimental. It is the only way we shall survive.

Extinction, whatever Steven Spielberg says, really is for ever.

The web is unravelling...

Planet Under Pressure -- BBC News

World fells trees at ‘alarming’ rate, experts say

Scientists say global deforestation will feed global warming

ABO EBAM, Nigeria - In the gloomy shade deep in Africa's rain forest, the noontime silence was pierced by the whine of a far-off chain saw. It was the sound of destruction, echoed from wood to wood, continent to continent, in the tropical belt that circles the globe.

From Brazil to central Africa to once-lush islands in Asia's archipelagos, human encroachment is shrinking the world's rain forests.

The alarm was sounded decades ago by environmentalists — and was little heeded. The picture, meanwhile, has changed: Africa is now a leader in destructiveness. The numbers have changed: U.N. specialists estimate 60 acres of tropical forest are felled worldwide every minute, up from 50 a generation back. And the fears have changed.

Experts still warn of extinction of animal and plant life, of the loss of forest peoples' livelihoods, of soil erosion and other damage. But scientists today worry urgently about something else: the fateful feedback link of trees and climate.

Global warming is expected to dry up and kill off vast tracts of rain forest, and dying forests will feed global warming.

"If we lose forests, we lose the fight against climate change," declared more than 300 scientists, conservation groups, religious leaders and others in an appeal for action at December's climate conference in Bali, Indonesia.

The burning or rotting of trees that comes with deforestation — at the hands of ranchers, farmers, timbermen — sends more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all the world's planes, trains, trucks and automobiles. Forest destruction accounts for about 20 percent of manmade emissions, second only to burning of fossil fuels for electricity and heat. Conversely, healthy forests absorb carbon dioxide and store carbon.

"The stakes are so dire that if we don't start turning this around in the next 10 years, the extinction crisis and the climate crisis will begin to spiral out of control," said Roman Paul Czebiniak, a forest expert with Greenpeace International. "It's a very big deal."

The December U.N. session in Bali may have been a turning point, endorsing negotiations in which nations may fashion the first global financial plan for compensating developing countries for preserving their forests.

The latest data from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) helped spur delegates to action.

"Deforestation continues at an alarming rate of about 13 million hectares (32 million acres) a year," the U.N. body said in its latest "State of the World's Forests" report.

Because northern forests remain essentially stable, that means 50,000 square miles of tropical forest are being cleared every 12 months _ equivalent to one Mississippi or more than half a Britain. The lumber and fuelwood removed in the tropics alone would fill more than 1,000 Empire State Buildings, FAO figures show.

Although South America loses slightly more acreage than Africa, the rate of loss is higher here _ almost 1 percent of African forests gone each year. In 2000-2005, the continent lost 10 million acres a year, including big chunks of forest in Sudan, Zambia and Tanzania, up from 9 million a decade earlier, the FAO reports.

Across the tropics the causes can be starkly different.

The Amazon and other South American forests are usually burned for cattle grazing or industrial-scale soybean farming. In Indonesia and elsewhere in southeast Asia, island forests are being cut or burned to make way for giant plantations of palm, whose oil is used in food processing, cosmetics and other products.

In Africa, by contrast, it's individuals hacking out plots for small-scale farming.

Here in Nigeria's southeastern Cross Rivers State, home to one of the largest remaining tropical forests in Africa, people from surrounding villages of huts and cement-block homes go to the forest each day to work their pineapple and cocoa farms. They see no other way of earning money to feed their families.

"The developed countries want us to keep the forests, since the air we breathe is for all of us, rich countries and poor countries," said Ogar Assam Effa, 54, a tree plantation director and member of the state conservation board.

"But we breathe the air, and our bellies are empty. Can air give you protein? Can air give you carbohydrates?" he asked. "It would be easy to convince people to stop clearing the forest if there was an alternative."

The state, which long ago banned industrial logging, is trying to offer alternatives.

to the source

MASS - Commonwealth Solar Program is Open!

Massachusetts Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Ian Bowles has announced that Commonwealth Solar, the state's new program of rebates to encourage the installation of solar photovoltaic (PV) power is now accepting applications from businesses and homeowners looking to reduce the cost of putting solar panels on their roofs.

Announced in December, the program, which makes use of existing renewable energy funds, is expected to result in the installation of more than 27 megawatts (MW) of solar power capacity over the next four years. Commonwealth Solar is part of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's pledge to increase installed solar power from 5 MW today to 250 MW by 2017. This was made in April in connection with Evergreen Solar Inc.'s commitment to locate its first full-scale U.S. manufacturing facility in Massachusetts.

"Commonwealth Solar is open for business, and that's good news for the economy and the environment," Bowles said. "Solar energy is a key component of the clean energy economy we are developing here in Massachusetts, and a rebate is the most efficient, cost-effective way we can make solar power more affordable. Now is the time for businesses and homeowners to find out what Commonwealth Solar has to offer.

"Information on how to get a Commonwealth Solar rebate can be found at http://www.commonwealthsolar.org/.

the source

Pumping pollution beneath the desert

World's oil companies will be carefully watching Abu Dhabi's plan to capture carbon emissions underground

Abu Dhabi is planning to construct the world's largest carbon capture and storage project, as part of the oil-rich emirate's $15-billion (U.S.) bid to become a leader in clean technology and renewable energy.

While countries around the world are wrestling with the daunting economics of carbon sequestration, Abu Dhabi is planning to invest up to $4-billion to capture as much as 15 million tonnes of CO{-2} annually from eight industrial plants, and then inject the gas underground to enhance oil recovery.

Once injected, it is expected that the greenhouse gas will remain sequestered underground indefinitely.

The effort is being spearheaded by Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co., a state-owned company that has been endowed with $15-billion to spend on carbon management programs, alternative power sources such as solar and energy-from-waste, and a model, zero-emission city that would be powered by renewables.

It is all part of the emirate's effort to invest its vast and growing oil wealth in new technologies that will broaden its economic base, while meeting international commitments to begin reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Though other countries have individual carbon capture projects - including one run by EnCana Corp. in southern Saskatchewan that is the world's largest - none has moved beyond single, isolated endeavours. As a result, oil companies from around the world will be watching the effort to determine whether a carbon-capture network can be economically viable.

In Alberta, where massive oil sands development is raising fears about rapidly rising greenhouse gas emissions, the federal and provincial governments have indicated a willingness to help finance a pipeline that would deliver CO{-2} to oil fields for use in enhanced recovery. However, industry officials say the gathering system represents a small fraction of the cost - the biggest expense is the effort to capture carbon dioxide from the emissions stream.

With Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. doing feasibility work, the Abu Dhabi project - known as Masdar - has identified eight sources of CO{-2}, including power plants and refineries. It initially plans to proceed with the "low hanging fruit" from four of them, said Sam Nader, the project's director of carbon management.

Masdar, established in 2006, is working with state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. - which produces virtually all of the emirate's 2.5 million barrels of crude per day - to identify oil fields that would benefit from CO{-2} injection to enhance oil recovery.

"This is a win-win situation for us," Mr. Nader said in a telephone interview from Abu Dhabi. "We get the environmental benefit from capturing the CO{-2}, and also enhance oil production."

As one of the world's most prolific oil producers, Abu Dhabi is also a major emitter of greenhouse gases - third in the world on a per capita basis after neighbours Qatar and Kuwait.

In addition to the revenue generated by replacing the natural gas that is currently used to enhance oil production, the Abu Dhabi company will profit from the sale of emission credits generated by the reduction in greenhouse gases.

SNC-Lavalin principal consultant Doug Macdonald presented the preliminary results of the feasibility study at an energy futures conference hosted by Abu Dhabi last week. He told the conference that up to six of the eight projects can be implemented in a "relatively short" amount of time, Bloomberg News reported.

"Our mandate is to act as an agent for promoting sustainability in this part of the world," Mr. Nader said. "The Middle East has been a laggard in terms of adapting to a carbon-constrained world, but we believe we can catch up."

As part of that overall $15-billion announced last week, Masdar Clean Tech Fund is investing $250-million in renewable energy and other clean technologies that would be appropriate for the desert conditions of the region.

Masdar fund manager Alex O'Cinneide said in an interview that he is looking for a commercial rate of return on the investments in industries like solar and energy-from-waste. But at the same time, the company is investing in technology "that can be scaled up for Masdar to deploy in the region."

Those technologies will then be featured in Masdar City, a planned six-kilometre-square development that the emirate unveiled last week. It will feature zero greenhouse gas emissions, zero waste, with no cars allowed. The emirate is also partnering with Massachusetts Institute of Technology to establish in the city a graduate level program in clean-tech engineering.

The urban centre, with a projected population of 47,500, will include an electric light-rail system, a solar-power plant and a desalination plant, with wastewater being used to grow plants for biofuels. Construction is to begin next month, and residents are to begin moving in next year.
Mr. O'Cinneide said the Abu Dhabi commitment is unprecedented for any government.

"There are plenty of funds our size," he said. "But from an all-encompassing perspective - building cities, building universities, building a manufacturing base - there's nothing like it," he said.

the source

Is Congress Finally Ready to Go Green?

As concern over global warming became more and more prominent in the U.S. over the past several years — in the media, in opinion polls, in business and in state governments — the one place where the issue seemed all but invisible was the one place that could really do something about it: Congress. But that began to change in 2007, and nowhere more so than in the Senate's key committee on the environment and public works, which drafts much of the country's environmental legislation. Up until last January, the committee was chaired by Alaskan Sen. James Inhofe, a Republican who memorably called global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." When the Democrats took over Congress in the 2006 midterm elections, however, the chairperson's gavel was handed over to Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, and the floodgates opened. Boxer began a series of open hearings on the science of global warming, giving airtime to the sort of experts — including former Vice President Al Gore — who had been suppressed under Inhofe. "As soon as the change took place, I realized that this was going to be one of my number one goals," says Boxer. "Elections have consequences, and this was one of the consequences."

Hours and hours of hearings finally led to a legislative breakthrough in December: the passage out of the committee of the first bill that would put carbon caps on the U.S. economy. Co-sponsored by the Republican Sen. John Warner and the Independent Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the America's Climate Security Act would cap U.S. carbon emissions at 15% below 2005 levels by 2020, with a 70% cut projected for 2050. If enacted, those carbon caps would all but force U.S. businesses to invest in cleaner technology and greater energy efficiency, and would help the country take a leadership role in international climate negotiations.

Similar bills had been put forward over the past several years, only to die in committee. This time, however, Boxer was able to help pull together not only Democrats but also several Republicans on the committee, ensuring relatively bipartisan support. That's key — given how narrowly divided Congress has become, meaningful climate change legislation only has a chance if its supporters can draw allies from across the political aisle. Boxer is confident she can. "The environment has been an issue that has pulled together Republicans and Democrats in the past," she says. "Everyone has to breathe the same air."

The Climate Security Act has passed the first barrier to becoming law, but the road is only going to get tougher. To have a chance in the Senate, the bill needs at least 60 votes — anything less, and opponents can stop it with a filibuster. That will require winning over more conservative Senators, while at the same time ensuring the bill doesn't become so watered down that it loses all effectiveness. And even if the bill were to pass the Senate, and then the House of Representatives, it still has to make it through President George W. Bush, who has shown little inclination to support it. Bush favors what he calls technological solutions to global warming, but without the pressure of carbon caps. "That's like saying let's meet at the field and play baseball, but you don't bring a mitt or a ball," says Boxer. "You can't play the game."

Critics like Bush tend to focus on the economic costs of reducing carbon emissions — through increased energy prices — but Boxer, and many of her supporters, believe that combating climate change can have a net positive effect on the economy. Boxer hails from California, which has already passed the strongest state legislation on climate change, cutting carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Far from hurting the state economically, Boxer notes, the carbon bill has helped California become the center for green innovation in the U.S., with Silicon Valley venture capitalists pouring billions into alternative energy start-ups. Those businesses will create new, green jobs that should make up for the short-term costs of cutting carbon. "The cure for global warming is positive," says Boxer. "That makes it easy for me to approach it with hope."

Emphasizing the hope, the positive possibilities of dealing with climate change, should also help Boxer broaden the appeal of the Climate Security Act. Americans are worried about global warming, but they're also worried about Iraq, the economy and health care. Make global warming into an economic issue, or an issue of national security, not just an environmental one, and there's a better chance of achieving broad, bipartisan support. Not all environmentalists are happy with the Climate Security Act — it has been criticized by the Sierra Club, among other groups, as too weak. While it could be tightened, the reality is that only a moderate bill is likely to pass soon, and with science telling us that we may have less than 15 years to turn around carbon emissions, we can't afford to hold out for a perfect law. "The longer we wait to do what we need to do, the harder the transition will be," says Boxer. "We're running out of time." She's absolutely right, but at least Congress is no longer standing still.

to the source

Lawyers Push for Energy Conservation

David White Jr. doesn't fit the mold of an environmentalist.

An attorney and partner in the Boston firm of Breakstone, White and Gluck, White is more comfortable in a suit and tie than tie-dye.

Before joining the Massachusetts bar, however, White was a student at the University of Vermont, where he received a degree in environmental studies. After graduation, he spent three years working as an environmental advocate for the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.

Now the president of the Massachusetts Bar Association, White is putting his environmental pedigree to use, leading the industry group in a push to encourage lawyers to be more environmentally friendly.

Called the Lawyers Eco Challenge, the program urges lawyers to sign an "environmental pledge" to take steps to implement a set of green guidelines drafted by the association.

"It's not a whimsy, it's a real concern," White said this week, of promoting "green lawyers." "The why of it is we all have a duty to fight global warming and protecting environmental resources, and one way we can definitely do that is by reducing our energy usage."

Taking even simple steps to reduce energy usage, like turning off lights or installing motion-activated lights in law offices, turning off computers and other electronics, reducing paper use and increasing recycling, White said, can have dramatic impacts.

Read more about green guidelines

"What we've done in my office is...we took out all incandescent bulbs and replaced them with compact fluorescents," White said. "We put the common areas on motion sensors, and we've just adopted good habits about turning off equipment that's not being used."

Those few steps, he said, combined with a plan to replace traditional fluorescent bulbs with the super-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs should cut the firm's energy use by as much as 25 percent.

"I'm pretty confident most firms around the state can do the same thing," he said. "We want to be an example for other businesses around the state. If lawyers can do it, accountants can do it, and insurance people can do it."

White's sentiment already seems to be catching on.

Barely a day after the Eco Challenge campaign was unveiled this week, more than two dozens lawyers and law firms had signed the online pledge. By week's end, more than 30 had signed up.

"My desire to go green started with my daughter" Rachel, said Alan Klevan, of the Wellesley firm Klevan and Klevan. "She's in middle school, and over the past several months she's become very environmentally conscious."

Spurred by his daughter and his work with the MBA's Law Practice Management Section, Klevan uses technology like document scanners to cut back on the amount of paper his office uses.

"I personally believe I'm 50 to 60 percent there," he said, of his goal of a paperless office.

"Lawyers have been so focused on their practice of law and doing right by their clients, they're not understanding the idea that there's other means out there to represent their clients as efficiently, if not better."

Even for lawyers who already consider themselves "green," the guidelines have been eye-opening.

"I've gotten all kinds of new ideas from this group," Sudbury attorney Susan Crane, who served on the MBA task force which helped draw up the guidelines, said this week.

"I've done a whole lot, but I could always do more, and I think we all could," she added. "A lot of lawyers focus on the environment and energy - this seemed like something we should be doing so our clients can model our behavior, and send a message out there that we're all trying.

"Lawyers need to be doing this. We can't just be taking on causes for others and forget what we're doing ourselves."

"For us, it was something that made a lot of sense, because it makes a good statement," said Tim Borchers, senior partner at Borchers, Ware and Guglielmo, which has offices in Medway and Franklin. "Every profession ought to have some kind of commitment to cutting back on the use of resources."

Like Klevan, Borchers is exploring the notion of the paperless office, and said the firm may purchase equipment and software to help cut back on paper usage.

"In our business, paper is king," he said. "We do a lot of printing. One thing we're actually studying right now is the impact of printing on both sides of the paper."

The firm has also urged employees to turn computer monitors off at night, switches to energy saving light bulbs and is upgrading its office to use programmable thermostats.

The idea of the challenge, though, isn't to mandate lawyers or law firms follow the MBA's strict rules on environmental awareness.

"It's more about planning," said Nancy Reiner, who co-chaired the task force. "The idea is just to get people and lawyers and law firms thinking about it.

"When you have a can, don't just throw it in the garbage. If we all, if a lot of firms do work to save energy, then it will have an impact."

"It's very exciting," said Philip Warburg, president of the Conservation Law Foundation, the MBA's partner in the Eco Challenge, of the commitment from lawyers and law firms. "I think that we are encouraging leaders in the Massachusetts professional community to walk the walk about climate change and other environmental practices they can show leadership on.

"It's a process of both thinking differently, and acting differently. We're not asking people to somehow reduce their efficiency on the job, or cutting into their profit margin. It's simply saying here are responsible choices you can make that can help us address a problem we can no longer afford to ignore."

to the source

Whole Foods Market Does Away With Plastic Bags

Whole Foods Market is joining the anti-plastic bag movement, announcing today it will end the use of disposable plastic grocery bags at all of its 270 stores in the U.S., Canada & the U.K. It says the goal is to be plastic bag-free by Earth Day, 4/22/08.

The first U.S. supermarket to commit to completely eliminating disposable plastic grocery bags, Whole Foods Market has declared today "Bring Your Own Bag Day" and will give out over 50,000 reusable shopping bags to customers at the checkouts to celebrate the announcement.

The company says beginning immediately, each store will work on depleting stocks of disposable plastic grocery bags at the checkouts and will help raise awareness about the benefits of reusable bags. Over the next three months, stores will reduce plastic grocery bag inventories and increase selections of reusable bags for purchase.

Although the natural and organic grocer says it hopes to inspire shoppers to bring their own reusable bags, the it will continue to offer 100% recycled paper grocery bags. Last year, Whole Foods Market became the first and only food retailer in North America to offer grocery bags made with 100% recycled fiber content.

A.C. Gallo, co-president and chief operating officer for Whole Foods Market, said "More and more cities and countries are beginning to place serious restrictions on single-use plastic shopping bags since they don't break down in our landfills, can harm nature by clogging waterways and endangering wildlife, and litter our roadsides. Together with our shoppers, our gift to the planet this Earth Day will be reducing our environmental impact as we estimate we will keep 100 million new plastic grocery bags out of our environment between Earth Day and the end of this year alone."

Whole Foods Market already encourages shoppers to bring their own bags by offering a refund of either five or ten cents at the checkouts. The company also sells different types of reusable bags, ranging from canvas to a new large bag made from 80% recycled plastic and costing only 99 cents.

Recently, Whole Foods Market stores began using all-natural fiber packaging at its salad and food bars. The fibers for the new containers come from plants that are cultivated or grow wild and are harvested annually. Additionally, the company says it continues to seek alternatives to plastic bags in its bulk, produce, bakery and seafood departments.

"We realize there are many more steps to take, and we recognize it's an ongoing process to provide as much Earth-friendly packaging as possible," said Gallo. "We will continue to evaluate each department within our stores as we seek to continually improve."

to the source

Beware Electronics “Recyclers” that Don’t Recycle

7 January 2008 (Seattle, San Francisco) – In the wake of the Christmas electronic gadget buying season, with many of us buying new flat screen TVs, cell phones and computers now faced with disposing of the old ones, the Basel Action Network (BAN) and the Electronics TakeBack Coalition (ETBC) today cautioned consumers not to be fooled by the majority of businesses nationwide calling themselves electronics recyclers who in fact don’t do any recycling at all, but instead ship your old equipment to developing countries.

The Recycling Lie

“We may think we’re doing the right thing by giving our old electronics to a ‘recycler’ or a free collection event,” said Sarah Westervelt, BAN’s e-Stewardship Program Director. “But most of those businesses calling themselves recyclers are little more than international waste distributors. They take your old equipment for free, or pocket your recycling fee, and then simply load it into a sea-going container, and ship it to China, India or Nigeria.”

Once on foreign shores your old computer or TV becomes part of a cyber-age horror story. In China, woman and children breathe in the toxic solder vapors as they cook circuit boards, dioxins are produced when wires are burned, and micro-chips are washed in strong acid baths and flushed into the rivers as primitive metals extraction techniques take their toll on the local environment and the health of thousands of migrant farmers. In Nigeria the imported techno-trash that is not repairable is dumped and burned in swamps. BAN revealed these sad truths as early as 2002 in their film and report “Exporting Harm: The High Tech Trashing of Asia” and again in another report and film entitled “The Digital Dump: Exporting Re-use and Abuse to Africa," in 2005.

Unfortunately, according to BAN and ETBC, this ugly waste trade continues unabated from the United States because the government refuses to ratify the Basel Convention and the Basel Ban Amendment – international accords prohibiting trade in hazardous waste to developing countries, and has otherwise expressed little interest in controlling its toxic waste exports as long as they are claimed to be destined for recycling or re-use. As such, US e-waste exports are in contravention of international law, but not US law, and thus US “recyclers” are able to claim they abide by all environmental laws and are even "EPA approved".

Doing the Right Thing: The e-Stewards Initiative

To help distinguish between these unscrupulous exporters and the responsible recyclers and refurbishers, BAN and ETBC created the e-Stewards Initiative – a program identifying North America’s most responsible e-Waste recyclers that have agreed to adhere to strict criteria created by the non-profit environmental groups. The criteria require that no hazardous electronics equipment or parts (as defined internationally) will be exported to developing countries or be processed by captive prison labor, and that none of it will end up in landfills or incinerators. These responsible recyclers can be found at: www.ban.org/pledge1.html or www.computertakeback.com/responsible_recycling/index.cfm.

Consumers are urged to avoid recyclers not on this list including free e-waste collection events that do not state that they only use e-Stewards recyclers.

“We strongly urge all consumers to avoid all but those recyclers that have qualified as e-Stewards. If your local recycler has not qualified for the program, ask them to do so. Otherwise while trying to do the right thing with recycling, you can unwittingly become a player in a global digital dumping game, and end up poisoning those in developing countries,” said Barbara Kyle, National Coordinator of ETBC.

For more information contact:

Sarah Westervelt at BAN in Seattle: 1.206.652.5555, or swestervelt@ban.org.Barbara Kyle at ETBC in San Francisco: 1.415.206.9595, or bkyle@etakeback.org.

Virtual Recycling Arrives in America

Following the amazing success and demand from the virtual recycling site Vskips in England – Vdumpsters has been launched in the US. http://www.vdumpster.com/

Covering every State and County, users can create their own virtual dumpster and put whatever they want into it to give away. This puts whole new meaning on dumpster diving as you can do it from the comfort of your own home, business or in fact any organisation or person.

The idea is to promote the reusing and recycling of people’s unwanted items.The main benefit environmentally is the reduction in land fill or stuff just being dumped when there is always someone who may want your “unwanted items;” as the old saying goes “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”.

Disposing of waste into landfill sites is detrimental to the natural environment around us. Conservation of natural resources is important for all future generations. It is estimated that over 400 million tons of waste was disposed into United States landfills in recent year and the situation is likely to be much worse. If this continues, we are likely to bury ourselves under a suffocating pile of landfill waste.

The fact of the matter is that much of it isn't really "trash" at all, but is good stuff that could be given a new home, reused or recycled. Computers, TVs, Antiques, Garden Tools, Wood, Toys, Bicycles, Musical Instruments - you name it, we dump it, and it all has an impact on the environment.

Your support of vDumpsters keeps stuff out of landfill, helping to protect your environment from further damage. Instead of using a real dumpster first, upload your unwanted items to a virtual dumpster (vDumpster) and then dive and claim other people's items for free.

Totally free to use, Virtual dumpster diving is set to become a national fun event, helping people to help each other and helping to protect their environment – what could be better.

World Scientists' Warning to Humanity

Some 1,700 of the world's leading scientists, including the majority of Nobel laureates in the sciences, issued this appeal in November 1992.

The World Scientists' Warning to Humanity was written and spearheaded by the late Henry Kendall, former chair of Union of Concerned Scientist's board of directors.

INTRODUCTION

Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about.

THE ENVIRONMENT

The environment is suffering critical stress:

The Atmosphere -

Stratospheric ozone depletion threatens us with enhanced ultraviolet radiation at the earth's surface, which can be damaging or lethal to many life forms. Air pollution near ground level, and acid precipitation, are already causing widespread injury to humans, forests, and crops.

Water Resources -

Heedless exploitation of depletable ground water supplies endangers food production and other essential human systems. Heavy demands on the world's surface waters have resulted in serious shortages in some 80 countries, containing 40 percent of the world's population. Pollution of rivers, lakes, and ground water further limits the supply.

Oceans -

Destructive pressure on the oceans is severe, particularly in the coastal regions which produce most of the world's food fish. The total marine catch is now at or above the estimated maximum sustainable yield. Some fisheries have already shown signs of collapse. Rivers carrying heavy burdens of eroded soil into the seas also carry industrial, municipal, agricultural, and livestock waste -- some of it toxic.

Soil -

Loss of soil productivity, which is causing extensive land abandonment, is a widespread by-product of current practices in agriculture and animal husbandry. Since 1945, 11 percent of the earth's vegetated surface has been degraded -- an area larger than India and China combined -- and per capita food production in many parts of the world is decreasing.

Forests -

Tropical rain forests, as well as tropical and temperate dry forests, are being destroyed rapidly. At present rates, some critical forest types will be gone in a few years, and most of the tropical rain forest will be gone before the end of the next century. With them will go large numbers of plant and animal species.

Living Species -

The irreversible loss of species, which by 2100 may reach one-third of all species now living, is especially serious. We are losing the potential they hold for providing medicinal and other benefits, and the contribution that genetic diversity of life forms gives to the robustness of the world's biological systems and to the astonishing beauty of the earth itself. Much of this damage is irreversible on a scale of centuries, or permanent. Other processes appear to pose additional threats. Increasing levels of gases in the atmosphere from human activities, including carbon dioxide released from fossil fuel burning and from deforestation, may alter climate on a global scale. Predictions of global warming are still uncertain -- with projected effects ranging from tolerable to very severe -- but the potential risks are very great.

Our massive tampering with the world's interdependent web of life -- coupled with the environmental damage inflicted by deforestation, species loss, and climate change -- could trigger widespread adverse effects, including unpredictable collapses of critical biological systems whose interactions and dynamics we only imperfectly understand.

Uncertainty over the extent of these effects cannot excuse complacency or delay in facing the threats.

POPULATION

The earth is finite. Its ability to absorb wastes and destructive effluent is finite. Its ability to provide food and energy is finite. Its ability to provide for growing numbers of people is finite. And we are fast approaching many of the earth's limits. Current economic practices which damage the environment, in both developed and underdeveloped nations, cannot be continued without the risk that vital global systems will be damaged beyond repair.

Pressures resulting from unrestrained population growth put demands on the natural world that can overwhelm any efforts to achieve a sustainable future. If we are to halt the destruction of our environment, we must accept limits to that growth. A World Bank estimate indicates that world population will not stabilize at less than 12.4 billion, while the United Nations concludes that the eventual total could reach 14 billion, a near tripling of today's 5.4 billion. But, even at this moment, one person in five lives in absolute poverty without enough to eat, and one in ten suffers serious malnutrition.

No more than one or a few decades remain before the chance to avert the threats we now confront will be lost and the prospects for humanity immeasurably diminished.

WARNING

We the undersigned, senior members of the world's scientific community, hereby warn all humanity of what lies ahead. A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated.

WHAT WE MUST DO

Five inextricably linked areas must be addressed simultaneously:

1. We must bring environmentally damaging activities under control to restore and protect the integrity of the earth's systems we depend on.


2. We must, for example, move away from fossil fuels to more benign, inexhaustible energy sources to cut greenhouse gas emissions and the pollution of our air and water. Priority must be given to the development of energy sources matched to Third World needs -- small-scale and relatively easy to implement.We must halt deforestation, injury to and loss of agricultural land, and the loss of terrestrial and marine plant and animal species.


3. We must manage resources crucial to human welfare more effectively.


4. We must give high priority to efficient use of energy, water, and other materials, including expansion of conservation and recycling.


5. We must stabilize population.

This will be possible only if all nations recognize that it requires improved social and economic conditions, and the adoption of effective, voluntary family planning.

We must reduce and eventually eliminate poverty.

We must ensure sexual equality, and guarantee women control over their own reproductive decisions.

DEVELOPED NATIONS MUST ACT NOW

The developed nations are the largest polluters in the world today. They must greatly reduce their overconsumption, if we are to reduce pressures on resources and the global environment. The developed nations have the obligation to provide aid and support to developing nations, because only the developed nations have the financial resources and the technical skills for these tasks.

Acting on this recognition is not altruism, but enlightened self-interest: whether industrialized or not, we all have but one lifeboat. No nation can escape from injury when global biological systems are damaged. No nation can escape from conflicts over increasingly scarce resources. In addition, environmental and economic instabilities will cause mass migrations with incalculable consequences for developed and undeveloped nations alike.

Developing nations must realize that environmental damage is one of the gravest threats they face, and that attempts to blunt it will be overwhelmed if their populations go unchecked. The greatest peril is to become trapped in spirals of environmental decline, poverty, and unrest, leading to social, economic, and environmental collapse.

Success in this global endeavor will require a great reduction in violence and war. Resources now devoted to the preparation and conduct of war -- amounting to over $1 trillion annually -- will be badly needed in the new tasks and should be diverted to the new challenges.

A new ethic is required -- a new attitude towards discharging our responsibility for caring for ourselves and for the earth. We must recognize the earth's limited capacity to provide for us. We must recognize its fragility. We must no longer allow it to be ravaged. This ethic must motivate a great movement, convincing reluctant leaders and reluctant governments and reluctant peoples themselves to effect the needed changes.

The scientists issuing this warning hope that our message will reach and affect people everywhere. We need the help of many.

We require the help of the world community of scientists -- natural, social, economic, and political.

We require the help of the world's business and industrial leaders.

We require the help of the world's religious leaders.

We require the help of the world's peoples.

We call on all to join us in this task.