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#Post#: 970--------------------------------------------------
Re: Pollution
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: April 26, 2014, 1:13 pm
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--- Quote from: Surly1 link ---
>
> I watched the first two on cable, but I'll try to keep an eye
out.
>
> BTW, does your "quote" function work properly-- or is is just
my browser?
>
--- End Quote ---
It's still a pain. You have to right click on "quote", then
"open in new tab" and copy the quote in the new tab to your
reply like I just did. :(
#Post#: 1005--------------------------------------------------
Shocking Success! Supreme Court Rules For Clean Air
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: April 30, 2014, 2:43 pm
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Shocking Success! Supreme Court Rules For Clean Air ;D
[img]
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SustainableBusiness.com News
Given the decisions issued by the US Supreme Court of late,
today's ruling that upholds a critical EPA rule is pleasantly
shocking.
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In another 6-2 vote, the court ruled in favor of EPA's
Cross-State Pollution rule, issued in 2011, which would regulate
emissions that travel from coal-heavy states in the Midwest and
Appalachia to eastern states that have cleaner air.
Should a coal plant in Ohio be able to pollute New York's air,
for example? Besides sending polluted air their way, it also
makes it unfairly harder for states to meet federal ambient air
quality standards.
Coal emissions
When it finally goes into effect, an estimated 240 million
Americans will benefit from cleaner air.
HTML http://www.clker.com/cliparts/c/8/f/8/11949865511933397169thumbs_up_nathan_eady_01.svg.hi.png<br
/> It cuts sulfur dioxide emissions across the US by 73%
(compared
with 2005 levels) and nitrogen oxide emissions by 54%.
Both pollutants can travel long distances, forming smog and
soot, which are linked to respiratory illnesses and other
disease. It is expected to save 34,000 lives each year and
prevent 400,000 asthma attacks, for example. Overall, the
economic and health benefits are in the range of $120 billion to
$280 billion in exchange for an $800 million investment by the
coal industry.
Today's vote reverses the US Court of Appeals ruling against the
EPA, brought by guess who - coal companies and utilities that
use lots of coal, such as Southern Company and Peabody Energy.
14 "upwind" states challenged the rule, while "downwind" states
defended it.
In writing the majority decision, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
calls the rule a "permissible, workable, and equitable
interpretation" of the "good neighbor" provision of the federal
Clean Air Act.
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Learn more about the Cross-State Pollution rule:
Website: www.epa.gov/airtransport/
HTML http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/25677
#Post#: 1032--------------------------------------------------
Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: May 2, 2014, 2:56 pm
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HTML http://www.seafoodwatch.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/sfw_whatsnew.aspx?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRoksqvJZKXonjHpfsX66OgpXaO3lMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4CT8FkI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFS7jNMbZkz7gOXRE%3D
--- Quote ---
> Why are farmed Atlantic salmon rated “Avoid”?
>
> The salmon farming industry has made improvements in the past
decade to reduce its environmental impact, but additional work
is needed in order to address remaining concerns. Though the
scope of problems varies by country, chemical use and disease
are two areas of environmental concern that exist across each
assessment.
>
> Salmon farmed in open net pens are highly vulnerable to
infection from diseases, or parasites such as sea lice, and as a
result require treatment with antibiotics and pesticides. The
use of antibiotics in salmon farms increases the risk of
antibiotic resistance in human diseases, and there is a high
concern regarding the use of antibiotics that are listed as
critically or highly important to human health by the World
Health Organization.
>
> Sea lice parasites and viral and bacterial diseases can be
passed between farmed fish and wild fish populations, and are a
high concern in Norway, Scotland and British Columbia where wild
salmon or sea trout populations are vulnerable to such impact.
>
> What salmon should I buy?
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>
> Seafood Watch has published recommendations regarding a range
of salmon options, from wild to farmed. View our salmon
recommendations here (at link).
>
> For what other countries or regions is Seafood Watch assessing
farmed salmon?
>
> The four regions assessed represent the large majority of
global farmed salmon, but Seafood Watch is currently working to
complete assessments for other regions that supply significant
amounts of farmed salmon to the U.S. market: the Atlantic coast
of North America (Atlantic salmon farmed on the U.S. and
Canadian east coasts), New Zealand (Pacific King salmon) and the
Faroe Islands (Atlantic salmon).
>
> Why is Verlasso® farmed salmon from Chile rated a “Good
Alternative”?
>
> Verlasso® farm operations use a unique feed ingredient that
reduces its dependence on fish oil and fishmeal from wild-caught
fish sources, but the main reasons for the “Good Alternative”
recommendation are that the fish are stocked in the pens at
lower densities than in other open-net pen operations and
documents show both limited pollution (effluent) levels at its
farms, and lower use of antibiotics than the industry average in
Chile.
>
--- End Quote ---
More good info here:
HTML http://www.seafoodwatch.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/content/media/Farmed_Salmon_FactSheet.pdf
#Post#: 1053--------------------------------------------------
The Time for Wind and Solar Energy Is Now
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: May 4, 2014, 3:34 pm
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The Time for Wind and Solar Energy Is
Now
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Elliott Negin, Union of Concerned Scientists
May 01, 2014
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC's)
latest report, which explores ways to cut carbon emissions, put
the world on notice. Despite efforts in the United States,
Europe and developing countries such as China to ramp up energy
efficiency and renewable energy, global carbon emissions have
been increasing at a much faster clip than they were just a few
decades ago. To avoid the worst of the worst, IPCC scientists
say emissions will have to be reduced 40 percent to 70 percent
by 2050 and warn that we only have a 15-year window to reverse
course.
"We cannot afford to lose another decade," said Ottmar
Edenhofer, a German economist who co-chaired the committee that
wrote the report. "If we lose another decade, it becomes
extremely costly to achieve climate stabilization."
As Edenhofer points out, the cost of doing nothing likely would
dwarf whatever we might spend today to address climate change.
That said, it makes the most sense to replace fossil fuels with
the most cost-effective, safest, carbon-free and low-carbon
options that can be deployed as quickly as possible.
For the biggest source of U.S. carbon pollution — electric
utilities — the best solution is wind, solar and other renewable
energy technologies, which, according to the new IPCC report,
"have achieved a level of technical and economic maturity to
enable deployment at a significant scale." In other words,
renewables are now a lot cheaper and better than they were when
the last IPCC report came out seven years ago.
Nuclear Not Economic
What about nuclear power? Although it now provides the most
carbon-free electricity in the country, without a national
carbon tax or cap-and-trade program, it's not economic, even
with more than 50 years of generous federal subsidies.
Over the last decade, the estimated price tag for a new reactor
has skyrocketed, jumping from $2 billion in 2002 to as high as
$12 billion today. Wall Street won't finance a project unless
Uncle Sam co-signs the loan, which leaves taxpayers on the hook
if a project fails. So while Southern Company and its partners,
with the help of an $8.3 billion federally guaranteed loan, are
building two new reactors at the Vogtle nuclear plant site in
Georgia, it's unlikely the industry will be able to muster more
than two or three more in the next decade. As recently as five
years ago, utilities applied for licenses to build more than 25
new reactors.
At the same time the nuclear industry's hoped-for renaissance
has fizzled, older reactors are shutting down. Four reactors
closed last year because of prohibitively expensive safety
upgrades or competition from cheaper energy sources, namely
natural gas and wind. Economics will close a fifth reactor,
Vermont Yankee, this fall, and the nation's largest nuclear
plant operator, Exelon, said in February that unless market
conditions improve, it will announce plant closings by the end
of this year.
Wind, Solar More Affordable
Unlike new reactors, the cost of solar and wind has dropped
dramatically. Solar panel prices have plummeted more than 75
percent since 2008, and the cost of generating electricity from
wind turbines declined more than 40 percent over the past three
years, sparking a construction boom. Last year, solar
installations in the United States amounted to a record 5.1
gigawatts, boosting the national total to nearly 13 gigawatts --
enough to power nearly 2.2 million typical American homes. And
by the end of December, there were enough wind turbines across
the country to power 15.5 million homes and cut annual electric
power sector carbon emissions by 4.4 percent.
Given solar and wind's exponential growth, experts see
tremendous potential. The Department of Energy's National
Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), for example,projects that
wind and solar could produce 15 percent of U.S. electricity by
2020, 27 percent by 2030, and 50 percent by 2050.
Still, naysayers harp on the fact that wind and solar power are
intermittent. The sun doesn't always shine, they say, and the
wind doesn't always blow. That may be true, but it's not a
deal-breaker. Studies by NREL and electricity grid operators in
the United States and Europe conclude that larger contributions
from solar and wind would not create significant technological
problems or impose higher costs.
"Meeting demand in the face of variability and uncertainty is
old hat for grid operators," said Mike Jacobs, a senior energy
analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) who used to
work at NREL. "They're already doing it with wind and solar here
in the United States and in Europe.
"Besides, spreading wind and solar installations over a large
enough area would help address the intermittency issue," he
added. "The wind is always blowing somewhere, and if we
increased the percentage of wind and solar to 30 percent — which
we should be able to do within the next 15 years — the system's
flexibility to manage supply and demand, along with a updated
grid, should be able to integrate that power."
Renewables Provide More Resilience
Ramping up renewables not only would cut carbon emissions, it
also would diversify the national electricity system and make it
more resilient, according to a new UCS report. That system —
which includes power plants, transmission lines and fuel
delivery networks — was not designed to withstand all of today's
extreme weather events, many of which have been linked to
climate change.
Sea level rise, for example, threatens nearly 100 coastal
electricity facilities, including power plants and substations,
the UCS report found. Water temperature and availability also
pose major problems. Older coal, natural gas and nuclear power
plants rely on a "once-through" cooling process that draws
hundreds of millions, if not billions, of gallons of water daily
from the closest water body. When that river, lake or ocean gets
too hot, which is happening with greater frequency, the plants
have to cut back production or shut down temporarily. Likewise,
droughts can substantially reduce water availability, while
flooding from extreme rainfall can overwhelm a plant, as it did
in June 2011 when a record-breaking Missouri River flood forced
the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant near Omaha to remain shut down
after a scheduled refueling outage two months earlier.
Renewables don't suffer from the same limitations. Rooftop solar
panels and wind turbines, for instance, rely on smaller, more
distributed units, which make it less likely that extreme
weather events would have the same dramatic impact. Moreover,
renewables are less vulnerable to drought and heat because they
don't require water.
Let's Stop Subsidizing Fossil Fuels
To get where we need to go, the federal government has to turn
its outdated energy subsidy policy on its head. The oil and gas
industry has been enjoying average annual subsidies and tax
breaks of $4.86 billion in today's dollars since 1918, according
to a 2011 analysis by DBL Investors, a venture capital firm. The
nuclear industry, DBL found, benefited from an average of $3.5
billion a year in subsidies from 1947 to 1999. And coal, which
has been getting federal and state subsidies since the early
1800s, currently receives at least $3.2 billion a year,
according to a 2011 Harvard study.
Renewables, on the other hand, averaged only $370 million a year
in subsidies between 1994 and 2009, according to DBL. The 2009
stimulus package did provide $21 billion for renewables, but
that support barely began to balance the scales that still tilt
toward fossil fuels. Just last December, for example, Congress
allowed a key wind industry tax break toexpire, but it continues
to support massive subsidies for coal, oil and gas.
Americans represent less than 5 percent of the world's
population, but we're responsible for 19 percent of the world's
carbon emissions. Despite the fact that China surpassed us as
the world's top carbon emitter in 2006, we're still the worst
offenders per capita. So after subsidizing coal for more than
200 years and oil and gas for nearly 100 — which inadvertently
got us into this mess — it's long past time to take fossil fuels
off the dole and go all out to promote renewables. Fifteen years
is just around the corner.
HTML http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/05/the-time-for-wind-and-solar-energy-is-now
#Post#: 1070--------------------------------------------------
Minnesotans vs. McDonald’s Toxic Taters
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: May 6, 2014, 1:49 pm
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HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF0z4YHuBxY&feature=player_embedded
Minnesotans vs. McDonald’s Toxic Taters
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Maryam Henein, The Green Divas | May 5, 2014 3:59 pm
HTML http://ecowatch.com/2014/05/05/minnesota-mcdonalds-toxic-taters/
HTML http://www.toxictaters.org/
#Post#: 1077--------------------------------------------------
Re: Pollution
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: May 7, 2014, 9:56 pm
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[move]Stanford Student Movement Inspires University’s $18.7
Billion Divestment From Coal[/move]
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;D
HTML http://ecowatch.com/2014/05/07/stanford-divestment-coal/
#Post#: 1084--------------------------------------------------
Warren Buffett to Close One of Nation’s Dirtiest Coal Plants
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: May 9, 2014, 2:12 pm
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Warren Buffett to Close One of Nation’s Dirtiest Coal Plants in
Favor of Solar Energy
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/>
Brandon Baker | May 8, 2014 12:20 pm
One of the dirtiest coal-fired power plants in the U.S. will
soon shut down, thanks to a well-known billionaire and
previously passed legislation.
As part of its acquisition of Nevada’s largest utility, NV
Energy, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway also inherited Reid
Gardner, a 557-megawatt (MW), coal-fired energy plant near Las
Vegas. The massive structure, which has a history of recognition
among the country’s dirtiest carbon polluters, won’t be a
lasting legacy of NV’s profile.
NV plans on shutting down three of Reid Gardner’s units that
generate about 300 MW by the end of this year, according to the
Las Vegas Review-Journal. The remaining 257 MW would be closed
by the end of 2017. In all, the company wants to end all of its
coal operations by 2019.
Coal-fired plants will soon be a thing of the past for NV Energy
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/>
As The Atlantic points out, the utility’s decision is tied to
state legislation passed last year requiring the company to
eliminate 800 MW of coal energy in favor of renewables. That
passage was influenced by years of fighting for cleaner air by
the Moapa Band of Paiutes, a Native American community that
lives near Reid Gardner.
The state utilities commission has 180 days to approve the plan,
which would also include a new solar project totaling 200 MW of
clean energy on the Moapa Band of Paiutes reservation. The land
is about 70,000 acres and has enough to space to also support
the 1.5 gigawatts of renewable energy the Moapa Band of Paiute
wants to construct through a joint venture announced last year
with Terrible Herbst Inc. and Stronghold Engineering Inc.
“This is going to provide a strong economic base for the tribe,”
Sandy King, director of renewable-energy project development at
Stronghold, told Renewable Energy World.
Last fall, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a
limit of 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour for
new coal plants.
HTML http://ecowatch.com/2014/05/08/warren-buffett-coal-plants-solar-energy/
#Post#: 1106--------------------------------------------------
Re: Pollution
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: May 12, 2014, 12:24 pm
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[move]Agelbert NOTE: ANOTHER "cheap"
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FOSSIL FUELS
MEGA DOLLAR SUBSIDY >:( BITES THE DUST! ;D[/move]
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Legal trifecta!
Another big EPA court victory — this time on soot pollution
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By John Upton
HTML http://grist.org/news/another-big-epa-court-victory-this-time-on-soot-pollution/
#Post#: 1124--------------------------------------------------
Re: Pollution
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: May 13, 2014, 11:10 pm
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[move]Citing Climate Change, Ethical Reasons, New Zealand Town
Divests From Fossil Fuels
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Aaron Packard, 350.org | May 13, 2014 9:23 am
Dunedin is closer to Antarctica than it is to the U.S., but this
city in New Zealand today joined 23 U.S. cities and one Dutch
town by announcing that it will divest from fossil fuels.
The Dunedin city council voted on Tuesday to remove existing
fossil fuel extraction investments—close to $2 million—and
prevent future investments in fossil fuels by its $75 million
Waripori fund. The move sees Dunedin City become the first New
Zealand city to divest from fossil fuels for ethical and climate
change reasons.
This move by the council comes at a time when the conservative
New Zealand Government, led by Prime Minister John Key, has been
pushing desperate plans to expand fossil fuel extraction across
New Zealand. Yet this vote, along with the divestment
announcements last September by five Anglican Dioceses in New
Zealand, and the months of campaigning to halt the Denniston
Coal Mine and offshore oil drilling reflect a growing disquiet
with the government’s fossil fuel plans.
In recent months the Australian owned bank, Westpac, has also
come under pressure to take steps to divest. Climate campaigning
groups 350 Aotearoa—the New Zealand arm of 350.org—and Coal
Action Network Aotearoa, are specifically calling on Westpac to
halt its funding of Bathhurst Resources, whose planned coal
mining project on the Denniston Plateau and surrounds would be
one of the largest new contributors to carbon dioxide (CO2)
emissions from New Zealand.
“It’s time for Westpac to front up and take responsibility for
the impacts of their financing, like Dunedin has today,” said
350 Aotearoa National Coordinator Ashlee Gross. “Financing oil,
coal and gas companies is playing a major role in determining
whether these companies go ahead with plans that would push us
well past safe CO2 levels, or whether we start to get serious
about the transition to clean energy.”
This growing discontent locally has in recent weeks been backed
by the rapidly growing global divestment movement. Last week,
Stanford University announced plans to divest its $18 billion
USD endowment fund from coal investments. Two weeks earlier, the
world’s largest fund manager, BlackRock, announced plans to
create a fund that will exclude fossil fuels.
The Dunedin city council’s ethical investment policy will
formally exclude the munitions, tobacco, fossil fuel extraction,
gambling and p o r n ography industries from its investment
portfolio. With an investment policy like that, it sure makes
living in Dunedin more tempting.
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HTML http://ecowatch.com/2014/05/13/climate-change-ethics-divests-fossil-fuels/
#Post#: 1125--------------------------------------------------
Re: Pollution
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: May 13, 2014, 11:51 pm
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A Look Back at the Town[b] That Didn’t Back Down
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Fracking
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[/b]
Brandon Baker | May 12, 2014 3:46 pm | Comments
A small-town fracking ban took place nearly three years ago in
upstate New York, but that doesn’t make it any less monumental.
That’s why Earthjustice produced a new video examining how
Dryden, NY’s ban happened and why it remains as an inspiration
to cities across the country hoping to fight fracking.
“My voice, by itself, carries very little weight,” said Marie
McRae, a resident who galvanized the community to support a ban,
“but when I join my voice with my immediate neighbors, with the
larger community that I live in, we all together have a voice
that’s loud enough for our elected officials to hear.”
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qxh7f3WJlc&feature=player_embedded
The town’s governing body banned fracking in August 2011 and
withstood subsequent, corporate lawsuits attempting to overturn
the decision. The short video was selected for the Gasland
blog‘s movie of the week. Lee Ziesche, Gasland’s grassroots
coordinator, said she thinks, “wow, that’s what democracy looks
like,” when watching the video.
“Every community across this nation can do exactly what Dryden
did,” resident Joanne Cipolla-Dennis said in the video.
“You have to care about each other. That’s the American dream …
you count on your neighbor.”
Agelbert NOTE: You HAVE to care for ALL of the life forms in the
biosphere because any other way of thinking and acting is STUPID
as well as being WRONG.
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/>;D I admit that I won't make a lot of friends and influence
many
people with that statement...
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BUT nevertheless, it's TRUE!
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