Masdar Building Brings Positive Energy
| Airlines Analyze Operations to Save Fuel Airlines have recently announced fees for checked luggage, flight reductions and jobs cuts in their bid to offset rising fuel prices. Behind the scenes, they are studying their business operations to find ways of becoming more efficient to take the sting out of fuel costs that have risen nearly 85 percent compared to last year. Fuel now accounts for about 40 percent of a typical airline ticket, compared to 15 percent eight years ago. |
| Shifting sands in Navajoland. Researchers debate the long-term effects of global warming on the regions precipitation–but a study of climate models published in the journal Science projected that the current drought could become “the new climatology of the American Southwest” in a matter of years or decades. |
| Floating Solar Island Concept Remember the Solar Lily Pads? Well, Swiss inventor Thomas Hinderling has taken that idea to the next level with his solar islands concept (check out the video). The 5km wide, 20m height island concept would be mobile and would adjust according to the sun’s movement across the sky. Each island would generate hundreds of [.] |
| Masdar Building Brings Positive Energy Chicago architecture firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS+GG) to design its headquarters in Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City, the world’s first zero-carbon, zero-waste city fully powered by renewable energy. The headquarters will be the world’s first large-scale, mixed-use “positive energy” building, producing more energy than it consumes. In addition to being the [.] |
| China leaps ahead of U.S. in gas emissions China has now clearly overtaken the United States as the world’s leading emitter of climate-warming gases, a new study has found. The increasing emissions from China - up 8 percent in the past year - accounted for two-thirds of the growth in global greenhouse gas emissions in 2007, the study found.The report, released Friday by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, is an annual study. Last year, for the first time, the researchers found that China had edged ahead of the United States as the world’s leading emitter. |
| Press Release: Landmark Chemical Safety Legislation Introduced to Protect Kids
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Sharyn Stein, 202-572-3396, sstein@edf.org
Richard Denison, rdenison@edf.org
(Washington, DC – May 20, 2008) New legislation to protect children from dangerous chemicals – the Kid Safe Chemicals Act of 2008, introduced by U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), U.S. Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA) and U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) – received strong support today from a leading national environmental group as a long-overdue reform of U.S. chemicals policy.
“More than 30 years after the passage of the Toxic Substances Control Act, at last we have a serious effort to bring U.S. chemicals policy into the 21st century,” said Dr. Richard A. Denison, a senior scientist for Environmental Defense Fund and author of Not That Innocent, a major report comparing U.S., European and Canadian chemicals policies. “Sadly, the United States has lagged behind in protecting human health and the environment from harm by hazardous chemicals. By modernizing the Toxic Substances Control Act, this legislation would close the gap between the policies of the United States and those of many other developed countries.”
The Kid Safe Chemicals Act of 2008 would require manufacturers of all chemicals in commerce to develop a minimum set of data on the chemicals’ hazards, uses and exposure potential. It would also place the burden on manufacturers to demonstrate the safety of their chemicals as a condition for entering or remaining on the market. Any uses of a chemical not shown to be safe would be prohibited.
“With rates of children’s diseases like autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders, asthma, and cancer all increasing over the past three decades, it is essential that we more closely scrutinize all chemicals to which children may be exposed,” stated Dr. John M. Balbus, Chief Health Scientist for Environmental Defense Fund. “Bisphenol A, a chemical widely used in baby bottles and infant formula cans and suspected of harming early development, is only the latest example.”
In its landmark 1997 report Toxic Ignorance, Environmental Defense Fund sounded the alarm about the dearth of even basic safety data available on the great majority of chemicals present in the products and materials we encounter every day.
“For too long we have granted chemicals in commerce a strong presumption of innocence,” said Denison. “One has only to look at how little we know about the growing list of chemicals being detected in our bodies and our environment to recognize that this continued ‘toxic ignorance’ must end.”
“We are all exposed to large numbers of chemicals every day – and the more we look, the more chemicals we find in our surroundings. We simply must require thorough testing and proof of safety,” Denison added. “The Kid Safe Chemicals Act would start us down this critical path.”
Denison also lauded the bill’s provisions to promote safer alternatives to hazardous chemicals and to advance green chemistry; to foster use of alternatives to animal testing where shown to be scientifically valid; to increase the reliability of and public access to chemical information; and to limit the ability of industry to claim such information as confidential business information.
“While some provisions of the bill will need further refinement to ensure its objectives are achieved, the basic framework is sound,” Denison concluded. “We look forward to working to advance this legislation, which will give the Toxic Substances Control Act the major overhaul it needs.”
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| Buckminster Fuller takes on big coal In the quest for coal, over a million and a half acres of Appalachia have been strip-mined, whole mountains removed, trillions of gallons of toxic slurry left behind, and communities devastated. Not exactly a promising place for a new green economy to arise. |
| Technology and climate change How much computing can mankind afford? That is a question the computer and telecoms industries hate to hear. They do not see themselves in the same dirty league as airlines or carmakers, sources of huge amounts of carbon dioxide, but instead as part of the solution. In a pre-emptive strike, a group of technology firms calling itself the Global eSustainability Initiative (GeSI) has joined the Climate Group, a non-profit environmental club, to examine how information and communications technologies (ICT) affect climate change. |
| Bloggers Unite for Human Rights Amnestry International and BlogCatalog are sponsoring today as a day to focus on human rights around the world.I’ll add a few personal thoughts in support of this effort. First, I would like to emphasize the value of people’s lives, no matter what they believe and where they live. When the historical changeover occurred [.] |
| How smoggy is your car? Before you buy your next car, you’ll be able to glance at a sticker in the window and know how much pollution that model spits out, relative to other cars in that model year. At least, if you live in California, you will. |