Each Friday we’ll bring you a round-up of the week’s green news from around the web. Please drop us a line if you know of a story we should include in the next round-up.
Barack Obama annouces high-speed rail plan
From The Guardian on 17 April 2009
Barack Obama today called on Americans to climb aboard with his ambitious vision of building high speed rail corridors along 10 of the country’s busiest routes. In a high-profile announcement, Obama said America could not let itself be shunted to the side while other countries invested in modern transportation systems. Obama said the funds would help ease traffic on roads and in airports that added up to $80 billion in lost productivity. “High-speed rail is long-overdue, and this plan lets American travellers know that they are not doomed to a future of long lines at the airports or jammed cars on the highways,” he said. [full article]
Spam produces 17m tons of CO2
From BBC News on 16 April 2009
A study into spam has blamed it for the production of more than 33bn kilowatt-hours of energy every year, enough to power more than 2.4m homes. The Carbon Footprint of e-mail Spam report estimated that 62 trillion spam emails are sent globally every year. This amounted to emissions of more than 17 million tons of CO2, the research by climate consultants ICF International and anti-virus firm McAfee found. Searching for legitimate e-mails and deleting spam used some 80% of energy. The study found that the average business user generates 131kg of CO2 every year, of which 22% is related to spam. [full article]
New Greenpeace chief prepares to take on coal
From Scientific American on 16 April 2009
Phil Radford, Greenpeace USA’s new executive director, has many goals, but landing on the speed-dial list of top White House and Capitol Hill officials is not among them. The path to his top goal – passage of climate legislation – starts far from Capitol Hill, he said. “Our major focus is having people actually in the communities, in the districts,” said Radford, whose own road to Greenpeace’s top job went through grassroots organizing. In an interview, Radford, 33, moved quickly past a question about the group’s relatively modest Washington lobbying efforts, which he said will grow somewhat, and arrives at what he really wants to discuss. [full article]
Carbon deal seen key to Amazon preservation
From Reuters on 16 April 2009
Deforestation in Brazil’s huge Amazonas state could fall to zero by 2020 if a global climate summit in Copenhagen in December adopts measures to put an economic value on preserving forests, its governor said on Thursday. Eduardo Braga’s state government has pioneered the preservation of the Amazon by granting financial incentives to forest dwellers, an idea that has gained ground in international climate policy ahead of the summit. The mechanism allows rich countries to offset their carbon emissions by paying to prevent deforestation, which accounts for about 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. [full article]
Electric cars to be mass introduced to the UK
From The Telegraph on 15 April 2009
The Prime Minister hopes to make Britain “a world leader” in producing and exporting electric cars and hybrid petrol-electric vehicles. As part of the plan, the Government will also open talks with power companies to ensure vehicles can have their batteries recharged at power points at the roadside. Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, is also planning to create 400,000 jobs in the green sector over the next five years. Other measures will include the Government relaxing planning rules to allow the building of more wind farms to ensure Britain hits its target to generate 15 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. [full article]
Police raid dozens of homes as climate change activists arrested
From The Guardian on 14 April 2009
Police have raided dozens of homes across the country as they questioned climate change protesters planning action this summer against coal-fired power stations and airports. More than 200 officers carried out a pre-emptive raid early on Monday, arresting 114 people thought to be preparing a protest at the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire. All of those arrested but not charged for conspiracy to commit criminal damage and aggravated trespass were released yesterday on police bail – many with onerous conditions, including bans on approaching any UK power station or attempting to disrupt their operations. [full article]
Consumption dwarfs population as main environmental threat
From Environment 360 on 13 April 2009
It’s overconsumption, not population growth, that is the fundamental problem: By almost any measure, a small portion of the world’s people – those in the affluent, developed world – use up most of the Earth’s resources and produce most of its greenhouse gas emissions. By almost any measure, a small proportion of the world’s people take the majority of the world’s resources and produce the majority of its pollution. Stephen Pacala, director of the Princeton Environment Institute, calculates that the world’s richest half-billion people – that’s about 7 percent of the global population – are responsible for 50 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. [full article]
Ships’ fumes kill thousands every year
From Times Online on 12 April 2009
Toxic emissions from ships are killing prematurely an estimated 39,000 people a year across Europe, with Britain among the worst-affected countries, research has shown. The report comes as the European Union is planning Europe’s first low-emissions marine zones, designed to limit pollution from the thousands of giant cargo ships passing along its coasts each year. Some of the vessels have engines so large that they can emit the same amount of pollutants as 50m cars in a year. Scientists have long known that particulates and the compounds of sulphur and oxygen emitted by such engines are a health threat, causing heart and lung diseases and cancer. [full article]
Don’t forget to drop us a line if you know of a story we should include in the next round-up of green news.
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Twitter: @GlobalPatriot
Another amazing collection of news, but I was most intrigued by the environmental cost of spam – maybe that will encourage politicians to finally up the criminality of sending spam!