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On Energy, We’re Finally Walking the Walk

McDonald’s Aims for a Low Pesticide for its French Fries

EPA to Monitor 62 Schools’ Air

Environmental Threats to the Latino Community

Mexico Aims to Cut Emissions

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On Energy, We’re Finally Walking the Walk

The United States has entered a new energy era, ending a century of rising carbon emissions. As the U.S. delegation prepares for the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December, it does so from a surprisingly strong position, one based on a dramatic 9 percent drop in U.S. carbon emissions over the past two years and the promise of further huge reductions.

Prominent among these carbon-cutting initiatives are stronger automobile fuel-economy standards, appliance efficiency standards, and the potential to heat, cool and light buildings with carbon-free sources of electricity. On the supply side are efforts supporting the development of U.S. wind, solar and geothermal energy resources.

Even though part of this decline in carbon emissions was caused by the recession and higher gasoline prices, part of it came from gains in energy efficiency and shifts to carbon-free sources of energy, including record amounts of new wind-generating capacity. This impressive drop in carbon emissions should enable the United States to push for a steep cut in Copenhagen.
Although Congress is considering legislation that would cut emissions only 15 or 20 percent by 2020, it’s clear to me that with just a little effort, the United States could far surpass this. Given the potentially catastrophic climate change the world is facing, we should push in Copenhagen for an 80 percent reduction by 2020.

The really big gains in fuel efficiency will come with the shift to plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars. Not only are electric motors three times more efficient than gasoline engines, but they make it possible to run cars on domestic wind-generated electricity at a gasoline-equivalent cost of 75 cents a gallon. As the low fueling cost becomes more apparent, the shift to plug-ins and all-electric cars will come far faster than most policymakers anticipate.

With carbon cuts, it’s time to stop talking about political feasibility and start talking about scientific necessity. The science is scary. We need not go beyond ice melting to see that civilization is in trouble. The Greenland ice sheet is melting. If it were to melt entirely, and that obviously would take a few centuries, sea level would rise by 23 feet. The latest reports suggest that we are looking at a rise in sea level of up to six feet this century. Such a rise would inundate part or all of many low-lying coastal cities, such as London, Miami, New Orleans, Alexandria and Shanghai, producing millions of refugees. Such a rise would also inundate the rice-growing deltas of Asia, devastating harvests in Bangladesh and Vietnam.
The melting of the glaciers in the Himalayas and on the Tibetan Plateau will deprive the Indus, Ganges, Yangtze and Yellow rivers of the ice melt that sustains their flow during the dry season and the irrigation systems that depend on them. Let us not forget that China is the world’s leading producer of wheat and rice. India is number two in each. Anything that reduces their grain harvests will raise food prices everywhere.

If the United States pushes for an 80 percent cut, will the rest of the world follow? In particular will China, now the world’s leading carbon emitter, cooperate? And what about India?

In times past, if countries resisted international initiatives, the international community could resort to trade boycotts, export embargoes or tariffs on exports from the offending countries. Bilateral penalties are also an option. The United States is, after all, China’s largest export market.

On the renewable front, China’s wind-generating potential is seven times its current electricity consumption. Although a late starter, China is building wind farm complexes on a scale the world has not seen before. In recent years, the United States has led the world in new wind generating capacity, but within the next year, China will overtake the United States, moving so fast we might not even see it go by.

Source: The Washington Post

Author: Lester R. Brown, the president of the Earth Policy Institute and author of the forthcoming “Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.”

McDonald’s Aims for a Low Pesticide for its French Fries

“You want fries with that?” It’s safe to say that most of the 47 million customers that McDonald’s serves every day answer “Yes.”

But those customers, it’s safe to say, did not know they were ordering up pesticides with that, too.

McDonald’s, the largest fast-food chain the world and the largest buyer of potatoes in the United States, is under pressure from shareholders to do something about pesticide use on the potatoes it buys.

Potatoes have been on or near the list of the Environmental Working Group’s dirty dozen foods with the most pesticide residue for years. That means, according to a government analysis, that after a typical person buys a typical potato and prepares it in a typical way, it’s among the fruits and vegetables most likely to be laced with pesticides.

The spud is the No. 1 most popular veggie in the U.S. The average American eats 130 pounds of potatoes every year — that’s 44% more than the next veggie on the list, the tomato.

The bigger concern with pesticide use, typically, is the health of farm workers, farm soils and the wildlife and people living on or near farms. Potatoes are the largest vegetable crop in the U.S., accounting for 15% of farm sales receipts, according to the Department of Agriculture. Roughly 50% of the U.S. potato crop goes to French fries, potato chips and other potato products.

 ”Potatoes … use more pounds of pesticides per acre than most crops,” according to Beyond Pesticides:

Most of these pesticides are linked to serious chronic effects such as cancer, endocrine disruption and reproductive/developmental effects. Many leach to groundwater and contaminate surface waters. Intensive potato cultivation and pesticides usage have been implicated in the high rates of rare cancers in young children in rural western Prince Edward Island (PEI), Canada.

McDonald’s, for agreeing to survey its potato suppliers — which include two of the largest U.S. potato businesses, ConAgra Foods Inc.’s Lamb Weston unit, and J.R. Simplot Co. — deserves credit for working to reduce the use of toxic pesticides on food crops. The shareholder groups that pressured McDonald’s to make this move — the Bard College Endowment, Newground Social Investment and the AFL-CIO Reserve Fund — deserve even more. That’s what socially responsible investing is all about.

To read the full article click here.

Author: Lisa Baertlein

Source: Reuters

EPA to Monitor 62 Schools’ Air

In its most sweeping effort to determine whether toxic chemicals permeate the air schoolchildren breathe, the Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to monitor the air outside 62 schools in 22 states. Texas and Ohio have the most schools on the list, with seven each; Pennsylvania has six.
The plan will cost about $2.25 million and includes taking samples outside schools in small towns such as Story City, Iowa, and Toledo, Ore., and in large cities such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston. It comes in response to a USA TODAY investigation that used the government’s own data to identify schools that appear to be in toxic hot spots.

USA TODAY’s investigation, published in December, used a government computer simulation that showed at least 435 schools where the air outside appeared to be more toxic than the air outside Meredith Hitchens Elementary, an Ohio school closed in 2005. At Hitchens, the Ohio EPA found levels of carcinogens 50 times above what the state considered acceptable.
Children are especially susceptible to toxic chemicals; they breathe more air in proportion to their weight than do adults, and their bodies are still developing. Long exposures to some chemicals can exacerbate asthma, trigger learning disabilities or lead to cancer years later.

EPA spokeswoman Adora Andy said the agency also used computer modeling, information from state and local air agencies, and USA TODAY’s findings to choose the 62 schools.

Based on the model USA TODAY used, 28 of the 62 schools appeared to have air more toxic than the air outside the Ohio school that was shut down. Outside others on the EPA list, the model indicated fewer problems. At Enterprise Elementary in Enterprise, Miss., for instance, the government model shows less exposure to industrial pollution than at 81% of the rest of the nation’s schools.

Some of the schools, such as Soto Street Elementary School in Los Angeles, are in urban areas close to major roadways, where pollution from industries and automobiles might be most pronounced. The Soto Street school lies within a few blocks of three freeways.

Monitoring will begin as early as mid-April and be “phased in over the next three months,” Andy said.  She said regulators will sample for gases such as benzene and particulates such as hexavalent chromium, both of which are carcinogens. Monitoring will last at least 60 days. Based on what is found, Andy says the agency will evaluate the health risks students at each site might face.

Authors: Blake Morrison and Brad Heath

Source: USA TODAY

Environmental Threats to the Latino Community

Pollution in the United States poses health risks for everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, language, or country of origin. A large percentage of U.S. Latinos, however, live and work in urban and agricultural areas where they face heightened danger of exposure to air pollution, unsafe drinking water, pesticides, and lead and mercury contamination. These hazards can cause serious health problems, including an increased risk of asthma and cancer; waterborne diseases such as giardiasis, hepatitis, and cholera; and neurological and developmental problems.

Specific examples of pollution threatening U.S. Latino communities include the following:

• 
  Some 91 percent of Hispanics in the United States live in metropolitan areas, where polluted air may increase the risk of illnesses including asthma and cancer.
• One and a half million U.S. Latinos live in colonias (unincorporated communities with substandard housing) along the U.S.-Mexico border, where a lack of potable water and sewage treatment contributes to waterborne diseases such as giardiasis,hepatitis, and cholera.
• More than one-third of U.S. Latinos live in Western states, where arsenic, industrial chemicals, and fertilizer residues often contaminate local drinking water supplies.
• The great majority—88 percent—of farmworkers are Latinos; they and their families face regular pesticide exposure, which can lead to increased risks of lymphoma,prostate cancer, and childhood cancers.

Twice as many Hispanic children as non-Hispanic white children are likely to have lead in their blood at levels higher than the action level established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for risk of lead poisoning.

Read the full National Resources Defense Council report: Hidden Danger: Environmental Health Threats in the Latino Community.

Mexico Aims to Cut Emissions

Environmental News Network / Reuters:
Mexico aims to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by around 15 percent and wants to increase carbon trading as part of a global push to combat climate change, the environment minister said on Wednesday.

The country has a plan to cut the amount of carbon dioxide it releases into the atmosphere by between 75 million and 110 million tons a year, Environment Minister Juan Rafael Elvira told reporters.  The low end of the goal could be reached by 2012, as the government converts coal and fuel oil power plants to natural gas, improves efficiency at the state-run oil company and replaces old diesel buses and trucks with cleaner vehicles.

Mexico, whose belching factories and choking traffic have placed it 14th on the world’s list of top polluters, currently emits about 650 million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide, a gas blamed for a large role in global warming.

The government will unveil a detailed long-term plan for energy efficiency in February, which will include expanded carbon trading programs that allow rich-nation polluters to fund emission reduction projects in developing countries. Under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism, or CDM, countries like Mexico can earn money selling carbon credits on the international market.

Mexico has invested some $100 million in more than 100 CDM projects and says it has been able to offset 7.4 million tonnes of carbon pollution through the scheme. “For every new project we implement we are going to look for funding through the Clean Development Mechanism and the carbon markets,” Elvira said.

The minister will travel to Poznan, Poland, this week, joining delegates from 190 countries to work on a new climate treaty and backs the creation of a “Green Fund” to help poor nations pay for environmentally sensitive projects. “If international funds to prevent the destruction of forests are created through this negotiation, we will take advantage of that,” Elvira said. The government has invested heavily in programs to pay rural Mexicans to preserve native forests instead of cutting down trees for lumber, and an aggressive program to plant new trees has slowed deforestation, he said.

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Source: Environmental News Network