Published on May 7th, 2008
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Today’s post is by Mel Peffers, a project manager in the Living Cities program at Environmental Defense Fund.
May 6 was World Asthma Day. Since car exhaust can lead to asthma as well as global warming, we thought it would be a good day to highlight the importance of not idling your car or truck engine.
What makes idling especially bad for health is that drivers tend to idle in gathering places - by sidewalks, schools, playgrounds, homes, and offices. Breathing in pollution close to the source is more dangerous than farther away.
Take a look at the evidence. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on April 30th, 2008
Written by Dr. Bill Chameides, dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and lead author of the forthcoming blog The Green Grok.
This post is Part 1 of a 2-part series on biofuels. Today’s post looks at corn; Part 2 will examine the most promising biofuels.
Who doesn’t want to be green? But beware of automobile ads claiming environmental benefits from home-grown ethanol. Almost all U.S. ethanol comes from corn and, as a fuel, corn just isn’t as “amaizing” as they say.
“What if we could live green by going yellow?” one TV spot asks. “What if we could lower greenhouse gas emissions,” it continues, promisingly, “with a fuel that grew back every year?” Sounds great doesn’t it? Sorry folks, it’s just not so. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on April 24th, 2008
Spiritual practices often make use of powerful symbols to stir people into action.
Earth Day fell during Passover this year causing Jews to reflect on how an important tradition offers some wisdom about environmental challenges. Rabbi Jeff Sultar, director of The Green Menorah Program at the Shalom Center, took the three necessary elements of the Passover Seder and used them to symbolize the struggle with personal, economic, or political “pharaohs” putting limitations on a healthy planet.
He advocates holding “street seders” this year during Passover. These seders are part religious observance, part political demonstration. Possible locations include regional E.P.A. offices to demand they allow states to raise emissions standards above federal standards, ExxonMobil offices around the country, and congressional offices to urge politicians to pass “America’s Climate Security Act.” Read the rest of this entry »
Published on April 17th, 2008
Faith has always been a factor for voters. We all know the usual issues that religious leaders bring up every election year, but this time around climate change has been added to the list. The appeal for green values was at the forefront of the Compassion Forum that aired last Sunday on CNN.
Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals, has been leading a compaign to instill “creation care” as a religious imperative. He attended the forum and this was his exchange with Barack Obama:
REV. CIZIK: How do you relate your faith to science generally and science policy, and let’s take an issue like climate and flesh that out, or take stem cells, something like that. Just give us a little more indication of how you think.
OBAMA: Well, first of all…
CIZIK: Is that fair enough?
OBAMA: It is fair enough. And you guys have done some terrific work on this. So I want to congratulate you on that.
OBAMA: And should it be part of God’s plan to have me in the White House, I look forward to our collaboration. (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: So, look, the — one of the things I draw from the Genesis story is the importance of us being good stewards of the land, of this incredible gift. And I think there have been times where we haven’t been and this is one of those times where we’ve got to take the warning seriously. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on April 16th, 2008
This post is by Dr. Bill Chameides, Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and lead author of the forthcoming blog The Green Grok.
Everyone knows we need green energy to fight global warming. But there’s another big reason to tap renewable power sources –- not enough water.
Large swaths of the Southwest and Southeast are in the throes of debilitating droughts. North Texas and Oklahoma’s recent dry spell dragged on from 2003 to the spring of 2007 (more on U.S. droughts). Droughts have even wiped out entire civilizations like the Anasazi (see Jared Diamond’s Collapse and Eugene Linden‘s Winds of Change).
But today’s water problems are far more profound than those of the Anasazi. The huge quantities we use — unprecedented in human history — make us more vulnerable to drought. Our water woes stem from an ever-increasing demand for water to slake the thirsts of a growing population on the one hand and to irrigate crops to feed that same population on the other.
Few people appreciate that yet another sector is clamoring for more water — the power industry. Fortunately we have the technology to wean this one from our dwindling supplies. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on April 9th, 2008
This is National Public Health Week, and the focus is on the impact of climate change on our nation’s health. Knowing about the risks you face will help you better prepare for the dangers.
PHOTO CAPTION: An evacuated family driven from their San Diego home by the 2007 wildfires. Photo: Michael Raphael/FEMA
Do you have children?
Because they are still developing physically, breathe faster than adults and rely on adults for care, children are more vulnerable. Watch out for:
- Heat waves. Infants and children up to four years old are particularly sensitive to heat and also rely on a care-giver to keep them adequately hydrated.
- Smog and soot pollution. Because their lungs are still developing, children can suffer irreversible lung damage as adults from breathing unhealthy air when young.
- Food- and waterborne diseases. Small children and children living in poverty are at higher risk for falling ill from diseases that climate change will likely exacerbate.
- Stress, anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder after disastrous extreme weather events. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on April 8th, 2008
As has been reported on the Green Options network in the past, enviros and music festivals go together like peanut butter and jelly. The synergy between the two may be no more evident than on July 4th weekend 2008, when the town of Rothbury, Michigan will play host to a “party with a purpose.” The four-day ROTHBURY music and camping festival is being promoted as a “cultural assembly; one where music fans, artists and progressive thinkers gather to celebrate much more than music.” It is Rothbury’s goal to harness the unique energy of the live music community into a durable social movement toward an important cause: Climate Change and Clean Energy Alternatives.
Promoters say that ROTHBURY is committed to producing a near zero-waste concert. The first to tackle a green program of this magnitude at an around-the-clock (camping) concert in the USA. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on March 28th, 2008
Candlelit services are nothing new for religious organizations. So when businesses, governments, and individuals turn off their lights Saturday at 8 p.m. local time, churches, synagogues, and mosques will be holding special gatherings. This global event is the second annual Earth Hour, the creation of the World Wildlife Fund to inspire people to take action on climate change.
In Toronto, The Church of the Holy Trinity in conjunction with KAIROS Ecumenical Justice Initiatives will be hosting an event called Songs, Stories, and Ritual for the Healing of the Earth with singing, poetry, and drumming.
In Atlanta, Georgia Interfaith Power and Light is persuading its 120 Christian, Jewish and Buddhist congregations to power down on March 29. The group is part of a national campaign led by Rev. Sally Bingham, that assists congregations in going green by doing free energy audits and offering teaching resources on the environment as a faith issue.
In Sydney, St. Mark’s Anglican Church has been transitioning into an “eco-church” since Earth Hour 2007.
Photo credit: Flickr
Published on March 27th, 2008
The new Green Options Media discussion forums have been live for almost two weeks now… have you stopped by to join in the discussion? If not, here’s a good excuse: today, we started our first “Live Debate” with a topic sure to generate some heat: nuclear power. Forum moderator Mark Seall has pitted Rod Adams, a nuclear proponent and the founder of Atomic Insights, against Matt (no last name listed), a sustainability consultant, regular contributor to Talk Climate Change, and “vocal opponent of nuclear power.”
Rod and Matt have started their discussion, and your invited to join in by 1) voting in the poll at the top of the forum, and 2) starting your own discussion on the topic in the Renewable Energy forum. While they’re focusing on a potential British-French partnership to ramp up the production of nuclear power, the topic and arguments have implications for all of us. So, whether you’re in London or Lincoln (any Lincoln), stop by and weigh in on this critical topic, regardless of where you stand on the issue.
Published on March 25th, 2008
Nearly three years ago, I took note of Bill McKibben’s Grist essay calling for more artistic expression about climate change, and lamented the most popular offerings on the subject at the time: the movie The Day After Tomorrow, and Michael Crichton’s global warming conspiracy novel State of Fear. This past weekend, I had the opportunity to read one of the latest efforts to address climate change within the framework of popular fiction, Marvin L. Zimmerman’s The Ovum Factor. This “eco-thriller” is the author’s first novel, and he demonstrates a real talent for spinning a page-turning yarn: I read the book in two sittings. Despite the story’s fast pace, though, Zimmerman succeeds in creating a work that a reader may finish quickly, but won’t simply put down afterwards. The thoughts that reader may have upon finishing The Ovum Factor, though, often won’t necessarily coincide with the author’s intentions..
Zimmerman’s protagonist, investment banker David Rose, isn’t particularly unique: like a number of John Grisham main characters, he’s successful, but unfulfilled. He’s looking for meaning in work driven almost solely by profit margins. Ironically, it’s the head of the firm for which David works that provides him an opportunity to find such meaning: billionaire Isidore Steinmartz sends the junior associate to Southern California to assess a project underway by Cal Tech professor and Nobel prize-winner Charles MacMillan. The project is titled PANDA, an acronym for Project for Accelerated Neural Development in Anthropoids. In short, MacMillan is studying how to increase the brain’s development during gestation, and produce super-intelligent children. Steinmartz, a member of an elite secret society charged with watching for, and heading off, the extinction of the human race, believes a generation of such beings will be needed to tackle the massive ecological challenges facing the planet and humanity.
Read the rest of this entry »
