Environment

earth, the final frontier

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Green Options is your one stop shop for enivronmental education, resources, and discussion. Our team of writers deliver tons of fresh original environmental content everyday.

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Greenify Your Life By Going Green

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Last news: June 30, 2008 14:39:44

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Higher fuel prices means more than taking a beating at the pump—it also affects the prices of the foodstuffs you buy. From Brazilian bananas to Moroccan couscous, the price of food is directly related to the energy it takes to cultivate, harvest and transport it.

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Billings, MT plays host to three petroleum refineries, which fuel the local economy. I was fortunate to receive an invitation from the American Petroleum Institute to come out as their guest and tour the ConocoPhillips refinery and meet a few of the local citizens to hear their thoughts on big oil.

Out of the three refineries located in Billings, one has a very unique story and position in the world of refining. The ConocoPhillips refinery is the first Energy Star certified refinery in the world (two years in a row). Not bad for an industry that is not highly regarded in public opinion given the current prices we are paying at the pump, but sustainability and environmental factors actually rank very high on the list of priorities for this tightly run operation.

Not only is ConocoPhillips the most energy efficient and least polluting out of the three, it was also the first to form a Citizen’s Advisory Council comprised of community members unafraid to speak up about their concerns with having a refinery located in town - the most prevalent, of course, being air quality control.

Stepping off of the plane (from LA granted), the air in Montana is crisp and clear, which is amazing given the fact that there are three refineries that are emitting sulfur and CO2 among other elements into the air. However, even walking around the Conoco plant, it was hard to smell any evidence of “refining” going on. The community members that I got to speak with (including Stella of local Stella’s Kitchen and Bakery fame) excessively praised the efforts of the Conoco team for this reason and for the EPA air quality reports (which I’ll post on later) showing ConocoPhillips leading the pack in terms of lowest amounts of Sulfur Dioxide and other irritants.

This plant, the smallest of the ConocoPhillips refineries, sits on 200 acres in very close proximity to the town - in fact, when it was built in 1949 it sat right in one of the neighborhoods until it began acquiring the surrounding property to build out a larger campus. What this refinery has been able to do that the others have not, is reach out to the citizens and develop an “open door” relationship with them that has lasted nearly 20 years. The steps that they have taken and the positive economic impact are clearly well received within the tiny community.

However, where the refinery team seems to reach an impasse is where to go from here - how do we get beyond petroleum. You can’t run biofuels through existing pipelines (unless maybe it’s LS9), and replacing the pipelines would be a nightmare. They are a heavy crude production facility though, and they do have the ability to process heavy crude as well as the oil from tar sands in Canada, where all of their crude currently comes in from. Of course, the energy used to produce oil from tar sands is astounding, but it’s certainly open for discussion.

At the end of the day, we are still a petroleum-dependent society, and while we are seeking for alternatives to fuel our energy needs, it’s nice to see examples of big oil companies with good town/gown relationships making strides to reduce their environmental impact. It would be nice if this weren’t the only shining example of that.

I’ll have more information from the tour in the coming weeks!

Say hello to Pharmaka, a sustainable art gallery who’s mission is to use art as a guide to instigate and inspire discussions about relevant world issues. The impressive downtown LA-based space, which is eco-friendlier thanks to the recent help of HBO’s new show, Alter Eco, will begin hosting curated exhibitions, lectures, panel discussions, podcasts, and accessible community programming and events.

The original founders: Shane Guffogg , John Scane and Vonn Sumner, will focus on contemporary art as catalyst for good dialogue on current issues and events. The gallery is currently hosting an exhibit on abstract Latino art, called Rebel Legacy and will be offering Artwalk Thursdays as well as hosting an upcoming LA Green Drinks meeting.

Renewable Energy World reports that Ecovation will create energy from distillery waste at the Maker’s Mark distillery in Kentucky. Ecovation, acquired by Ecolab in February, specializes in generating green energy from organic wastes created by distilleries and wineries, and other businesses using organic inputs, from paper mills to cheesemakers. Their website is full of cheese-related puns, as in The Whey to Renewable Energy.” To quote from the Renewable Energy World article:

“Maker’s Mark’s new facility will anaerobically treat the liquid portion of the whole stillage and process waters produced during bourbon-making, generating methane-rich biogas, a renewable energy source, that will offset 165 MMBtu, or 15 - 30%, of the facility’s natural gas consumption.”

Ecovation is also working with Simi Winery in Sonoma County, to help lighten the burden on publicly-owned treatment facilities by using an ecologically sound method of pre-treating wastewater. The company won a 2007 Environmental Excellence Award from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for its dairy waste stream management solution for Breyers Yogurt Co.

Image Credit: Maker’s Mark

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A location often dreamt of in my household, for its summer weather and prime surfing, Hawaii now goes up another notch in my estimation with the passing of a bill which makes it mandatory for water heaters to be powered by solar energy.

Signed in to law by Governor Linda Lingle (there’s a name for you), a republican, the bill requires that the energy savers be part of the new home landscape starting 2010. It prohibits issuing a permit for building a single-family home without a solar water heater, and for a state that relied on imported fossil fuels more than any other American state, this can only be a good thing.

Hawaii manages to import about 90% of its energy from foreign countries, according to state data.

The measure was first introduced some five years ago, by state Senator Gary Hooser, also vice chairman of the Energy and Environment Committee. It was first introduced when a barrel of oil was said to cost only $40 dollars. Needless to say, times have changed since then.

“It’s abundantly clear that we need to take some serious action to protect Hawaii because we’re so dependent on oil,” Hooser said. “I’m very pleased the governor is recognizing the importance of this bill and the huge public benefits that come out of it.”

The measure allows for certain exceptions, such as for those houses being built in forested areas where the level of sunshine is not the same.

Source

Today is July 1, and that means North America’s first ever carbon tax will take effect in the Canadian province of British Columbia.

The carbon tax, introduced in the Feb. 19 budget, taxes carbon-based fuels like gasoline, diesel, natural gas and home heating fuel. The rate of taxation is $10 (Can.) per ton of greenhouse gases generated. The carbon tax will rise $5 a ton for the next four years until it hits $30 per ton in 2012. The tax increase works out to an extra 2.4 cents a liter on gasoline, increasing to 7.24 cents per liter by 2012.

The government has said all carbon tax revenue (roughly $1.8 billion over three years) will be returned to British Columbians through reductions to income and business taxes. But with rising gasoline prices, the addition of the new carbon tax will certainly be making some British Columbian drivers cringe when they fill up at the pump.

In an op-ed piece at the Globe and Mail, Gary Mason points to the political battle brewing as these two economic forces collide and drive up fuel prices. Mason cautions that knee-jerk reactions from the “well-orchestrated but morally bankrupt campaign led by the NDP Opposition” will only feed the division between those who think the tax is the right way and those who don’t. Mason writes:

“Suddenly, it’s being viewed as a financial burden in a way it wasn’t before. Now, combined with the current price of gas, the tax is forcing people to seriously contemplate changing their emissions-producing ways, which is precisely what it was intended to do.

Still, it wouldn’t take much for people in B.C. to recoup the money the carbon tax will cost them. They could do it by driving into the office four or five times less a year or taking transit the equivalent of a couple of weeks. They could also do it by implementing any number of cheap, energy-saving measures in their homes.

But the NDP in B.C. doesn’t want you to believe that. It just wants people to feel rage over how “wrong and exploitive” the tax is. I say don’t listen to the NDP’s leaders, because what they are doing is playing politics with the planet.”

Other posts about the BC carbon tax:

“Canada Unleashes First Carbon Tax in North America”:: gas2.0

Photo: woody1778a via flickr under a Creative Commons License

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I know, in order to improve the quality of our lives the first step to do is to respect our cities, our neighbourhood and people around us. While we run up and down to full every empty space of our days, the Italian cultural heritage takes a rest to tell us about ancient families and artists, old palaces and frescos. Rome, Florence, Venice and other historical cities that today have to face many social challenges: urban blight, social degradation and abandoning of public spaces. Italy spends hundreds of thousands of Euros every year cleaning up historical monuments that have been defaced by writing or graffiti art

To face urban blight and raise a common sense of respect Florence launches today a new idea: ten black angels passing through the city centre in order to guarantee decorum and educate people. Starting tomorrow, the group will go around the city talking with citizens and tourists, seeing that they respect the cultural heritage and don’t leave their garbage everywhere. The ten angels are citizens from Senegal living in Florence from a long time; they have been chosen and trained for this project by the consulate of Senegal and the council administration of Florence.

The decision to form a special group of guards is the last effort to save Florence from degradation. On Monday a long article reported that Japan’s two largest newspapers, Yomiuri and Asahi, apologised to Italy on behalf of a Japanese tourist who has been scrawling his name on the walls of Florence’s famed 15th-century Duomo.
The 30-year-old Japanese high school teacher’s job hung in the balance after an anonymous message to his school revealed he had written his name and date on the marble wall of the Duomo’s panoramic terrace during his honeymoon in January last year.

”I did it without thinking much after hearing that writing your name on that stone brought happiness,” the teacher said.

Another anonymous tip-off led to three Kyoto university students being suspended after writing their names, the date, and the name of the university on the Duomo earlier this year. It’s very difficult to believe that this can be happening when the Japanese are known for their correctness! Florence city council’s security chief Graziano Cioni described the trend for writing on the landmark as shameful. “But I like the fact that there’s been a mass uprising in Japan against tourists who carry out these acts,” he said. ”It’s a question of culture. I hope that everyone will police themselves so that we can bring back decorum to the city,” he added.

Sources: La Nazione - La Repubblica

Image courtesy of Flickr under Creative Commons

It’s one thing to be appalled by the monstrous accumulation of millions of square miles of plastic waste spinning slowly in the North Pacific gyre. It’s another thing entirely to build an ocean-going vessel out of plastic waste and set out across the sea to call attention to the environmental catastrophe.

That’s exactly what two men, one from California and one from Hawaii, are now doing. The two — Marcus Eriksen, a Ph.D., Gulf War vet and director of research and education for the Long Beach-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation, and Joel Paschal, a former businessman in Hawaii and a one-time employee of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) — are sailing across the Pacific in a homemade vessel, Kon Tiki-style, to “raise awareness about plastic fouling our oceans.”

And foul it is: the “garbage soup” swirling in the North Pacific gyre stretches across some five million square miles, an area twice as large as the continental U.S. Worse still, the floating dump is steadily growing and threatening every level of the food chain … yes, all the way up to humans.

The big chunks of plastic — bottles, six-pack rings, caps and more — entangle wildlife or choke creatures that swallow them. But the smaller bits — broken-down fragments and microscopic nurdles from plastics manufacturing — are ingested without immediate harm. It’s then that the longer-lasting damage begins: the tiny swallowed bits attract DDT, PCBs and other poisons, and gradually accumulate in the tissues of jellyfish, fish and other creatures. Sooner or later, people end up eating that poisoned plastic too.

It might be “out of sight” for most of us, but Eriksen and Paschal are determined to make it “out of mind” no longer. That’s why they’re sailing from Long Beach to Hawaii in an ocean-going junk made of actual junk: a discarded Cessna cockpit rigged with plastic waste to 15,000 plastic bottles. The vessel’s name? “Junk,” of course.

Throughout their journey, Eriksen and Paschal will be taking ocean surface samples, reporting on their findings and blogging about their experiences. Through the Algalita foundation, they’re also seeking sponsors for their message-in-a-bottle campaign. After they finish their voyage, they plan to take those messages on a tour of the West Coast before delivering them to state and local lawmakers.

Tenfold Organic Textiles bills themselves as “specialists in providing naturally dyed organic cotton products.” In addition to towels and women and men’s clothing, they also sell their organic fabrics by the yard. Tenfold Organic Textiles was founded in January 2006 to provide organic fabric to consumers, manufacturers, and retailers.

Their fabric is a 200 thread count plain weave cotton, which they recommend for quilts, clothing, and bedding. Currently the only fabric colors available are solids: madder red, pom orange, myra yellow, kasam olive, ash pink, bark brown, soot black, and sun white.

Their dye process is certified organic, using “indigo leaves, madder root, aal wood, cutechu, turmeric, pomegranate rind, onion skins, alum and iron to create rich colors.” Their website notes that natural dyes may fade slightly with time, and they give detailed care instructions for their fabrics so they always look their best.

The fabric is available in 45 inch and/or 60 inch widths, depending on color, and white is available in a 114 inch width. The price goes down if you buy 10 yards or more of one color; for quantities under that, it’s $18-30 per yard. A swatch book is $5 if you need to check the colors and feel of the fabric before you buy.

Founder Leah Weinstein is also a quilter with a fine arts background. Tenfold Organic Textiles also sells her organic cotton quilts.

Tenfold Organic Textiles is also a member of the Organic Trade Association.

More Organic and Sustainable Fabrics:

• Organic Cotton, Denim, and Calico from Fabrics Ltd (UK)
• PM Organics Fabrics and Lace
• Michael Miller Organics

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