Well, there's some good news and some bad news this week. The bad news is that Chris Fields, one of the heads of the Nobel-awarded Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says that greenhouse gas emissions have been growing even faster than climate models projected. This makes the good news that President Obama asked Congress to send him cap-and-trade legislation to reduce global warming especially timely.
What's cap-and-trade? It's a market-based system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that was shown to be quite effective in reducing the sufur dioxide pollution that caused acid rain. It puts a strict limit on emissions, and the sources of these emissions then receive a permit to pollute, basically, up to a given limit. These permits are such that total emissions don't exceed the strict emissions limit. The system allows the emitters to stay within their limit any way they see fit. Those that emit less than their limit can sell allowances to those who emit more. Before you become horrified, realize that a) the limit is reduced every year and b) this system actually worked more quickly than expected to reduce acid rain emissions, and more cheaply than critics predicted. When's the last time you heard of anything working more quickly than expected in government? Let's get behind this effort, which has been in effect in Europe since 2005.
Read The Hot Topic, by Gabrielle Walker and Sir David King, for a good description of cap and trade, p. 156, and a wealth of good information on global warming solutions. And send me your tips and global warming info!
Bonney
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GO TO BOTTOM OF PAGE FOR 10 THINGS WE CAN DO TO KEEP GLOBAL WARMING IN CHECK
Facts and actions to reduce our carbon footprint
GO TO BOTTOM OF PAGE FOR 10 THINGS WE CAN DO TO KEEP GLOBAL WARMING IN CHECK
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About Me
- Bonney Hughes
- Santa Fe, NM, United States
- Ordinary mom looking for ways to keep the planet from overheating. M.S. in environmental toxicology. Worked for NM Environment Dept. for 10 years.
10 Things We Can Do to Reduce Global Warming
- 1) Buy energy-efficient appliances. Look for the Energy Star label. Refrigerators consume most electricity of any home applicance. Today's refrigerators consume less than one-fourth the energy of 30 years ago. If your fridge is more than 10 years old, you could save a lot of money and reduce global warming by buying a new one. Some utility companies will buy your old, working fridge.
- 2) Set your thermostat 2 degrees lower in winter and two degrees higher in summer to save about 2,000 pounds of CO2 per year.
- 3) Wrap insulation around your water heater to save 1,000 pounds of CO2 a year. Or install a tankless water heater, which instantly heats water when needed, can save 50% on utilities, and can get you a $300 federal tax credit.
- 4) Get your car's engine tuned up and keep tires inflated -- both help fuel efficiency. We just pumped up our tires and gained 2-3 miles per gallon. A new air filter could get you 10 percent more miles per gallon.
- 5) Contact elected officials and ask them to pass laws requiring higher gas mileage and cleaner emissions from cars, cleaner power plants, energy efficient buildings and more.
- 6) Sign up for an alternative power program if one is offered in your area. In New Mexico, PNM's Sky Blue can provide up to 90% of your household electricity from wind power for a small monthly fee.
- 7) Drive less. Take the bus or ride a bike. Combine errands to take fewer trips.
- 8) If you buy a car, pick the least-polluting, most fuel-efficient vehicle you can. A car that gets 20 miles per gallon will emit about 50 tons of CO2 over its lifetime. A car that gets 40 mpg will emit half that much and save you roughly $3,000 in fuel costs.
- 9) Replace regular light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. A CF bulb will lower your energy bills by $15 a year and more than $60 over its life and will keep half a ton of CO2 out of the air. Compact fluorescents last 10 times as long as incandescents, too.
- 10) Offset CO2 emissions generated when you fly with programs like TerraPass or others below.
I don't know if there is a way to post the link to this article in our local paper by my friend Lisa.
ReplyDeleteLewis: Another way to recycle
In these times of economic hardship and uncertainty, can we all just agree that it's perfectly acceptable - preferable, even - to give as gifts to our children things that otherwise might end up in the recycling bin?
http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/030109/liv_399646141.shtml#mdw-comments
Here's a project my group did for class, a game for kids about energy saving:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.lets-decorate.com/edit6100/conservation/player.html