Archive for the ‘sustainability’ Category
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »Sustainable seafood: Does fresh vs. frozen make a difference?
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
The NY Times is running an op-ed, Catch of the Freezer, by a few ecological economists who were interested in learning whether it’s more sustainable to eat fresh or frozen seafood.
Focusing on salmon as a case study, they suggest that it does matter. Eat frozen when you can to reduce carbon emissions:
When it comes to salmon, the questions of organic versus conventional and wild versus farmed matter less than whether the fish is frozen or fresh. In many cases, fresh salmon has about twice the environmental impact as frozen salmon.
The reason: Most salmon consumers live far from where the fish was caught or farmed, and the majority of salmon fillets they buy are fresh and shipped by air, which is the world’s most carbon-intensive form of travel. Flying fillets from Alaska, British Columbia, Norway, Scotland or Chile so that 24 hours later they can be served “fresh” in New York adds an enormous climate burden, one that swamps the potential benefits of organic farming or sustainable fishing.
There are a lot of other important questions about sustainable seafood, including harvest rates, the industrialization and carbon intensity of the fishing process, genetic modification of farmed species, and organic pollutant loads in wild vs. farmed fish. In terms of transportation and climate warming, this article offers a useful point of view, but I think their statement dismissing the importance of organic and wild vs. farmed is a bit parochial to a discussion of seafood sustainability writ large. It depends on what part of sustainability—warming, human health, fish stocks, genetic alteration—matters most to you.
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Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/adactio/ / CC BY 2.0
Tags: seafood
Posted in energy, food and agriculture, shopping guides, sustainability, transportation | No Comments »
Innovative ideas for financing home energy efficiency
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
Let’s face it, how many people have a spare $10k lying around for a new furnace? Not me, and I could use a new furnace.
Home weatherization and efficiency upgrades can make a big difference in U.S. carbon emissions. As we saw in a previous post, American households (including personal transportation) are responsible for
- 38% of the overall US carbon emissions
- 8% of global emissions
- more emissions of any single country except China
Unfortunately, there’s a big disconnect between things we can do to to save home energy and the ability for folks to pay for these improvements. New insulation, solar hot water, solar photovoltaics, high-efficiency furnaces: Take your pick….Each can cost $10k or more.
Fortunately, there are a lot of creative ideas coming to the rescue to help people defray these up-front costs:
- Municipalities can issue bonds that homeowners can borrow from to pay the up-front costs of improvements. The costs of these improvements are then payed back over an extended periods of time through raised property taxes. Homeowners effectively get a zero-interest loan from their cities.
- Banks can issue higher mortgages that include up-front costs for major energy efficiency improvements. These added costs are then spread out over the life of the mortgage, resulting in manageable monthly payments for homeowners.
- Or, the federal government can simply reimburse people for part of the costs of improvements. The so-called “Cash for Caulkers” program reported today by CNN is an example.
These kinds of programs make a lot of sense and have the potential to be game changers, along with helping Americans transition to electric vehicles as soon as possible.
Related post: Behavioral changes at home can have big impacts on U.S. emissions
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Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicksee/ / CC BY-NC 2.0
Tags: energy efficiency
Posted in energy, policy, solutions, sustainability, urban | 1 Comment »
This week’s good ideas in campus sustainability: 12/7/09
Monday, December 7th, 2009
This week, it’s the University of Oklahoma and Florida Gulf Coast University:
(1) Regulators approve ‘OU Spirit’ wind farm plan
This will be one of the largest wind power projects among universities—44 turbines generating 101 Megawatts. Eventually, the university hopes to supply all of its electricity by wind. This is exactly what needs to happen throughout the Great Plains. Hopefully OU will serve as a model for all other states and schools in the region. Maybe we won’t need the Pickens Plan if enough people get on board.
(2) Florida College To Create Green Research Center
Another great example of public, private, and university partners coming together to spur technology, education, and green jobs.
As part of its goal to become a center for renewable energy and green technology research and education, Florida Gulf Coast University has joined the John D. Backe Foundation in a collaborative venture to create Florida Gulf Coast University Innovation Hub, a 1.2 million square-foot, state-of-the-art research and development area.
One of the primary goals of the initiative is to attract businesses and universities with an interest in renewable energy, and spur growth in green jobs, all of which are good for the region, the state and its residents. As more people realize the value of green initiatives and the vital importance of renewable energy, initiatives like the I-Hub and the work that will be conducted at FGCU will play an exciting role in the future growth and prosperity of the region and the state.
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For more information: AASHE Bulletin 12/7/09
Posted in campus sustainability, higher education, sustainability | No Comments »
This week’s good ideas in campus sustainability: 11/30/09
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
The showcase this week: Eastern Illinois University and the University of California, Merced.
(1) Honeywell and EIU Bring the Heat with Biomass-Fueled Plant
This is an impressive scaling of biomass energy. It sounds like it’s about two times the size of the biomass gasification plant at Middlebury. By displacing 10,000 tons of coal, this will go a long way in helping EIU move towards carbon neutrality (provided that the fuelwood forests are replanted). However, not everyone is going to be able to do this; otherwise, we’ll end up deforesting all of North America!
Honeywell today announced a $79 million renewable energy and building retrofit program with Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Ill. The program, which combines energy-efficient facility upgrades with one of the largest biomass-fueled heating plants on a university campus, will help EIU address deferred maintenance, improve its infrastructure, and save approximately $140 million in energy and operating costs over the next two decades.
EIU will finance the improvements and use the savings, guaranteed by Honeywell through a 20-year performance contract, to pay for the work. As a result, the program will not place a burden on the university’s budget or require additional taxpayer dollars or student fees.
The upgrades will impact all facilities on the 320-acre campus, and significantly curb the university’s energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. For example, they will reduce electricity consumption by an estimated 6.2 million kilowatt-hours per year — enough energy to power more than 580 homes annually. Carbon dioxide emissions will also decrease by nearly 20,000 metric tons each year. According to figures from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, this is equivalent to removing more than 3,600 cars from the road.
The focal point of the program is the construction of a new steam plant on the southeast corner of campus that will be driven by two large biomass gasifiers, the first application of this technology in the region. The plant will use wood chips sourced from the local logging industry to generate steam and heat buildings on campus. And it will replace the university’s aging steam plant, which is inconveniently located in the center of campus, consumes more than 10,000 tons of coal per year and requires constant maintenance.
(2) UC Merced Unveils New Solar Power System
This is another ambitious effort. Hopefully opportunities like this will become commonplace in the next five years as solar panel costs continue to decline.
The University of California, Merced announced today (Nov. 10) the completion of a 1 megawatt solar power system at the campus, marking the university’s inaugural effort to produce clean, renewable energy as the first American research university of the 21st century.
“We are here today to celebrate a remarkable milestone,” said Mary Miller, vice chancellor for administration. “The solar array project exemplifies UC Merced’s founding vision to become an international model for sustainable development and environmental stewardship.”
The system is located on 8.5 acres southeast of the Science & Engineering Building. It consists of 4,900 solar panels that follow the sun’s movement during the day. The system will supply two-thirds of the campus’ electricity on summer days and 20 percent of the campus’ annual electricity needs.
The solar array will provide UC Merced with an abundant source of clean, renewable power. According to conversion formulas provided by The Climate Registry, the system is expected to remove more than 45 million pounds of carbon dioxide over the next 30 years. That is equivalent to the emissions displaced from removing more than 3,600 cars from California’s roads.
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For more information: AASHE bulletin 11/30/09
Posted in campus sustainability, higher education, sustainability | 1 Comment »
The environmental toll of wasted food in America
Friday, November 27th, 2009
Roberta Kwok at Journal Watch Online highlights a new PLoS study1 describing the environmental cost of wasted food—almost 40% of our food supply. Here’s a summary of the study:
Food waste contributes to excess consumption of freshwater and fossil fuels which, along with methane and CO2 emissions from decomposing food, impacts global climate change. Here, we calculate the energy content of nationwide food waste from the difference between the US food supply and the food consumed by the population. The latter was estimated using a validated mathematical model of metabolism relating body weight to the amount of food eaten. We found that US per capita food waste has progressively increased by ~50% since 1974 reaching more than 1400 kcal per person per day or 150 trillion kcal per year. Food waste now accounts for more than one quarter of the total freshwater consumption and ~300 million barrels of oil per year.
The implications are significant:
- The 1,400 kcal of food energy wasted by each American every day is almost enough energy to feed another person each day. That’s roughly 300,000,000 more people on the planet we could feed with our food waste alone.
- The oil used to make wasted food is about a 15-day supply for the U.S.
- Let’s also not forget the fertilizers and pesticides used to grow this food, some of which ends up contributing to nutrient pollution issues like eutrophication.
- And if this food waste ends up in the landfill, it contributes to methane production and climate warming.
1 Hall, K. et al. (2009). The Progressive Increase of Food Waste in America and Its Environmental Impact PLoS ONE 4(11).
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Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paul/ / CC BY-NC 2.0
Posted in behavior, food and agriculture, sustainability | 1 Comment »
Important social and ecological dimensions to conserving and restoring marine environments
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
Since the industrialization of fishing in the 1970s, the combination of longlining, trawling, dredging, and other forms of seafood harvesting have decimated marine species populations.
Predatory fish, including tunas, marlin, cod, and sharks, have declined more than 80 percent (here and here) over the past twenty years as a result of overharvest and accidental bycatch. In the Caribbean alone, green turtle populations may have numbered over 90 million three centuries ago compared with 300,000 today.
That’s so staggering I have to repeat it—80% declines. This is some of the most visible evidence of global change on the planet. It’s almost unbelievable.
Because people preferentially remove top predators when harvesting seafood, this leads to what we call a “trophic cascade,” as the abundance of other species lower on the food chain adjust in response to the loss of predators. In cooler, temperate marine ecosystems, the loss of predatory fish and lobsters often causes an increase in sea urchins and gastropod species (e.g., snails). Many of these species are herbivores, grazing on algae. So an increase in their populations leads to a situation of algae overgrazing, sometimes creating what are known as “urchin barrens.” It’s analogous to a deforested area on land, where both habitat and food are lost.
We often don’t think about these connections—how removing tasty fish from the sea can lead to widespread loss in algae, causing ecological systems to collapse.
Over the past decade, marine protected areas (MPAs) have become a popular tool for slowing the decline in marine populations, especially in coastal areas where sensitive habitat (like coral and rocky reefs) and fishing grounds often overlap.
The idea of MPAs is simple: Cordon off an area and eliminate or restrict fishing within the zone. Over time, the populations of species (like fish) increase and animals get bigger. These animals can then disperse out of the protected areas into legal fishing zones where they can be harvested. In an ideal system, it’s a win-win situation—habitats and species are protected and sustainable fishing harvests can be maintained.
There are a few problems, however…
Problem 1: Most of these generalizations are derived from short term studies (< 3 years), that, while useful, may not tell the full story about how marine ecosystems change following protection.
Problem 2: New MPAs may have different histories, from lightly fished to severely depleted, leading to different post-protection legacies (i.e., we may not expect species recovery to be the same). This could skew our interpretation of how successful MPAs are. Enter the social dimension… As nations move to develop MPAs, fishers often co-opt good fishing grounds (ones that are often highly depleted) and leave the marginal, lightly fished areas for MPAs. Does this matter?
In the latest issue1,2 of Ecological Applications, Graham Edgar and colleagues report longer-term changes (up to 16-years) in MPAs located in southern (temperate) Australia. [Side note: Edgar (in Aussie, it's pronounced "aid-gaaah") also wrote one of the best Australian temperate marine taxonomy texts there is. So beautiful it makes a great coffee table book].
What did they find?
Tags: marine protected areas
Posted in biodiversity science, nature and culture, sustainability | 1 Comment »
What are green energy investors waiting for?
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
If Al Gore and others are correct that we already have available the kinds of renewable energy technology needed to decarbonize the economy, why is it taking so long? As we saw in an earlier post, part of the answer is carbon lock in resulting from our modern political economy.
Another way to examine this problem is to ask what motivates the investment community, particularly venture capitalists. What kinds of policies will entice these folks to plow $ billions into clean energy, and which ones will keep them on the sidelines?
In the current issue1,2 of Energy Policy, Mary Jean Buerer and Rolf Wuestenhagen examine this question by interviewing 60 senior fund managers around the world. They distinguished between policies that incentivized (1) “technology push”—forces like government funded research and development to increase the supply of renewable energy technology and (2) “technology pull”—things that increase the demand for green energy and the ability for businesses to provide it.
What did they find?
Posted in climate economics, energy, solutions, sustainability, technology | No Comments »
A big accomplishment in green design
Saturday, November 14th, 2009
When I taught at Carleton College (Northfield, Minnesota), I watched from across the river as St. Olaf College constructed a new science center. It is not just another college building; it’s the largest academic facility in the U.S. to receive LEED’s highest rating of platinum.
This past summer, I was back in Minnesota and toured it firsthand. It’s a great building—very functional but visually stunning. Congratulations, Oles. You deserve a lot of credit for setting the bar high.
The real value of this building, in my opinion, is whether St. Olaf can use it as proof of concept for all future construction rather than it becoming the token green building on campus. That’s when green design becomes a game changer in campus sustainability.
Excerpts:
St. Olaf College’s Regents Hall of Natural and Mathematical Sciences has earned platinum certification — the highest rating attainable — from the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system. The nearly 200,000-square-foot, $63 million building is the largest and most complex academic facility in the nation to earn the prestigious platinum rating.
“Actions speak louder than words,” says St. Olaf President David R. Anderson ’74. “The LEED Platinum designation for Regents Hall demonstrates, once again, St. Olaf’s leadership among American colleges and universities in sustainability practices.”
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Photo credit: Photo courtesy of St. Olaf College
Posted in campus sustainability, higher education, sustainability | No Comments »
Solutions
Friday, November 13th, 2009
There’s a new website/journal called Solutions, edited by Bob Costanza, David Orr, Paul Hawken, and John Todd that’s worth looking taking a look at.
Posted in solutions, sustainability, sustainable development | No Comments »
“Avoiding Factory Farm Foods: An Eater’s Guide”
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
Nicolette Niman has a new column, Avoiding Factory Farm Foods: An Eater’s Guide, this week at Huffington Post. This follows her NY Times column last week, Carnivore’s Dilemma, of which I was somewhat critical for the notable absence of land use concerns in the sustainable meat industry.
It’s a personal story that complements Jonathan Safran Foer’s recent thoughts on vegetarianism as a response to factory farming. I was surprised to learn that someone known for her family’s more-sustainable livestock ranch network is actually vegetarian.
Here are her main points on avoiding factory farmed foods. Her article provides more details on each:
Posted in behavior, food and agriculture, organic, shopping guides, sustainability | No Comments »
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