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• Cap And Trade, But What Next?

  You may have heard the phrase "cap and trade" recently. It's one way we could rein in the greenhouse gases that are throwing our climate off-balance. What we'd do is this: set an economy-wide limit on emissions (the "cap"), and then let companies and industries buy and sell a limited number of permits to pollute (the "trading"). The free market would determine pollution's cost. But for industries that have been polluting for free since industry began, suddenly having to pay for it doesn't seem like such a great deal. Every industry will argue that it should get a chunk of the pollution permits for free. Figuring out how to allocate emissions permits isn't going to be easy, but it'll be one of the most important steps in actually getting a cap and trade system in place. If you've watched all the day's viral videos and want to get a little more detail on how we can save the planet, this manageably wonky piece from WorldChanging will leave you feeling like an expert on pollution permit allocation.
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  • Date: May 15 2008
  • Posted by andrewprice

• Sustainability With No Strings Attached

  In Issue 010 we mentioned The Science Barge, a sustainable urban farm floating on the Hudson River in New York City. Powered by solar panels, wind energy, and biofuels, the Science Barge grows tomatoes, cucumbers, melons and lettuce with "zero net carbon emissions, zero chemical pesticides, and zero runoff." The engineers behind the barge preach the power of hydroponics: growing plants in a liquid solution rather than soil makes for sustainable agriculture that uses less land and water and can happen anywhere. They hope these efficient urban farms will take root on New York's rooftops. Last Saturday we invited our friends and readers to visit the barge with us. Here's a virtual tour.
  
  
  The Science Barge's greenhouse grows enough veggies for 25-50 people for a year. It's all hydro.
  
  
  The plants' roots draw directly from the nutrient-rich water that flows through these tubes. The water falls into a tank filled with living catfish. Then, replenished with nourishing catfish waste, it's pumped back to the plants. It's a closed loop.
  
  
  Rainwater is used to flush the system periodically and for the greenhouse's evaporative cooling system. The water is caught on the greenhouse roof and stored below in these tanks.
  
  
  The barge's solar panels follow the sun, making them 20% more efficient.
  
  
  Field trippers enjoyed Smartwater, IZZE, Peak Organic Beer, free Urban Rustic Cafe & Market sandwiches, and Clif Bars. Thanks sponsors.
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  • Date: May 13 2008
  • Posted by andrewprice

• Urban Index

  Grist has some really fun stats in today's Urban Index feature. For instance, only 1% of the earth's surface is comprised of cities; however, by 2050, 70% of the earth's population will live in urban areas.
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  • Date: May 12 2008
  • Posted by Patrick James

• CO2 For Yourself

  Will taking dramatic measures to reduce carbon emissions throw our economy into a nosedive? Or will we make a relatively stable transition to sustainability? It's unclear to us. And economic models, for all their apparent certainty, are themselves based on speculative assumptions. That's what makes Yale professor Robert Repetto's website See For Yourself so useful. He lets you explore the economic effects of carbon reduction based on your own assumptions about the kind of carbon-limiting legislation that's likely to pass and how we'll all adjust to it.
  
  Repetto explains in this somewhat tedious video, but we recommend you just head here.
  
  
  
  Via Treehugger.
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  • Date: May 07 2008
  • Posted by andrewprice

• "Island" Of Trash Update

  A while back we posted about the Texas-sized "island" of trash floating in the Pacific Ocean, and marveled that there weren't pictures of the monstrosity. Now we have them, thanks to the folks at Vice. They hired a boat and struck out for the North Pacific Gyre, the vortex of currents where the trash apparently accumulates. Check out the 12-part "Garbage Island" video series. In episode nine they enter the gyre. What they encounter is an "unfathomable bummer." The trash hasn't gathered in a huge, amalgamated mass (this rumor was always a little suspect). That would have been a big problem, but one with clear boundaries. Instead, limitless volumes of plastic scraps are dispersed throughout the ocean, hopelessly entangled with the natural environment. It's bad news, we know, but worth confronting. Via PSFK.
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  • Date: Apr 30 2008
  • Posted by andrewprice

• China's Green Brothers

  In honor of Earth Day, we'd like to point you to the Green Brothers, aka John Romankiewicz and Shane Zhao Xiangyu, enthusiastic young men in their early 20s whose shared interest in China's various efforts at sustainable energy has resulted in a series of enjoyable video podcasts exploring local initiatives in recycling, biomass power, solar water heaters and windfarming (for some reason, the video links from their own page aren't working; ergo, we've linked directly to their page on YouTube). If the sheer scale of Edward Burtynsky's pictures of industrial waste and environmental degradation can make you feel the problems are insurmountable, the Green Brothers provide a refreshing, humanizing perspective, a sense of life on the ground, including interviews with farmers and workers about recycling and alternative energy. Romankiewicz and Zhao's vivacity and good humor is infectious; the comments section on their intro page is already filling up with interview requests, and an invitation to screen their podcasts as part of a short film festival in Vancouver.
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  • Date: Apr 22 2008
  • Posted by Jaime Wolf

• Earth Day 08

  Today is Earth Day. Rejoice and plant trees! Following up with both Vanity Fair's and the New York Times Magazine less-than-green green issues, Time exchanged its iconic red border for a green border (the last time they changed border colors was on 9/11: That's how important this is!). On Drudge, the Matt-ster is crowing that a Canadian Earth Day celebration was snowed out. How could the world be warming if it is snowing in April, he gleefully implies. Well, Matt, that's because the climate isn't just getting warmer. It's just getting screwier. Duh. How are you planning to celebrate Earth Day? Any suggestions?
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  • Date: Apr 22 2008
  • Posted by Morgan Clendaniel

• Green Is Good

  Another mainstream magazine—this time, The New York Times Magazine—released its "Green" issue this weekend, but yet again, multitudes of the eco-conscious are up in arms about the fact that the product doles out "rhetorical green"—ideas for environmentally-conscious living and the presence of a hoard of new eco-advertisers—but doesn't deliver on a "practice of green." Like Vanity Fair whose third annual Green Issue is currently under fire for not being printed on recycled paper, the NYTimes Mag's self-proclaimed "Low-Carbon Catalog" relies on a faith that the issue's message will outlive the footprint of its publication. Via Folio
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  • Date: Apr 21 2008
  • Posted by danielriley

• Bush's Words On The Climate

  Bush gave his speech on climate change yesterday, and the media yawned. There was nearly nothing written about it. Maybe that's because Bush's words on the environment don't matter any more. Imagine Nero unveiling new plans to beef up the Roman fire department. The heart of Bush's "ambitious" plan is to halt the growth of carbon emissions by 2025. In other words, carbon emissions would increase beyond their current sufficient-to-screw-the-earth levels for another 17 years. And then hold steady. At 2025 levels. Here are the details from the president, such as they were: I believe part of any solution means reforming today's complicated mix of incentives to make the commercialization and use of new, lower emission technologies more competitive. First, the incentive should be carbon-weighted to make lower emission power sources less expensive relative to higher emissions sources, and it should take into account our nation's energy security needs. Second, the incentive should be technology-neutral because the government should not be picking winners and losers in this emerging market. Third, the incentive should be long-lasting. It should provide a positive and reliable market signal not only for the investment in a technology, but also for the investments in domestic manufacturing capacity and infrastructure that will help lower costs and scale up availability. Straining to find something newsworthy here, Andrew Leonard at Salon suggests that Bush's plan amounts to a cap-and-trade system. But the economic incentives outlined above don't come with a limit on the total volume of carbon dioxide emissions. We can't find that critical "cap" component in there anywhere.
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  • Date: Apr 17 2008
  • Posted by andrewprice

• Everyone Talks About The Weather...

  The old saying that "everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it" turns out not to be true in China. The latest issue of Plenty Magazine features an excellent article by Tom Scocca about the extensive effort currently being mounted by the Chinese government (whose Weather Modification Office employs more than 50,000 people) to ensure clear and sunny days in chronically smog-choked—and in July and August, rain-soaked—Beijing for the Olympics this summer. Weather modification turns out to have a long history in China; attempting to fulfill Mao Zedong's imperative "Ren ding shen tiang" ("Man must defeat the heavens"), the country spends $90 million annually on munitions shot into the sky in order to variously seed clouds for rain or head off precipitation.
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  • Date: Apr 16 2008
  • Posted by Jaime Wolf