» 2007 » October

Meat is not the No. 1 cause of global warming. Yet our diet is cooking the planet, and one surprising staple turns down the heat.

At lunchtime in late September, on a relatively untraveled stretch of sidewalk outside the U.S. State Department, demonstrators from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals attempted to catch the attention of, well, anyone.

Inside the building, Condoleezza Rice was trying to convince world leaders that the U.S. was serious about global warming; outside, two PETA members handed out fliers featuring a photo of Paul McCartney. “Think you can be a meat-eating environmentalist?” it read. “Think again!” Two other protesters, dressed in chicken suits, displayed a green and chartreuse banner: “CliMEAT Change,” it read. “Meat: #1 cause of global warming.”

Source: www.salon.com/…

LS »  It’s a relief to know that we can still be environmental-minded and enjoy the odd plate of chicken wings (preferably not an industrially raised chicken, mind you). Here is an interesting statistic: “if the entire U.S. population went vegan, we’d reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by only 6 percent.” I don’t know about you but I would rather walk for some chicken wings than drive for some tofu.

In the last few weeks, I happened to visit Doha and Dalian, and I must say: I was stunned.

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But this, alas, is not a travel column. It’s an energy column. If you want to know why I remain a climate skeptic — not a skeptic about climate change, but a skeptic that we’re going to be able to mitigate it — it’s partly because of Doha and Dalian. Can you imagine how much energy all these new skyscrapers in just two cities you’ve never heard of are going to consume and how much CO2 they are going to emit?

Source: www.nytimes.com/…

LS » It doesn’t mean we should just not bother with all of our small individual steps to living in a sustainable manner, it means that we are in need of a technological paradigm shift to go along with a global philosophical paradigm shift.

So why can’t we find any place to park? Because parking is one of the biggest boondoggles — and environmental disasters — in our country.

In Tippecanoe County, Ind., there are 250,000 more parking spaces than registered cars and trucks. That means that if every driver left home at the same time and parked at the local mini-marts, grocery stores, churches and schools, there would still be a quarter of a million empty spaces. The county’s parking lots take up more than 1,000 football fields, covering more than two square miles, and that’s not counting the driveways of homes or parking spots on the street. In a community of 155,000, there are 11 parking spaces for every family.

Bryan Pijanowski, a professor of forestry and natural resources at Purdue University, which is located in Tippecanoe, documented the parking bounty in a study released this September. When it made the news, Pijanowski got puzzled reactions from locals. In short, they said: “Are you crazy? I can never find parking where I’m going!”

Source: www.salon.com/…

LS » Great, parking is going to go up again. But shouldn’t it?

SFU Prof. Mark Jaccard, a leading mind on the environment, no longer ardently believes that renewable energy is the only answer to climate change.

Mark Jaccard has seen the future and it involves burning more fossil fuels but in a way that doesn’t pollute the atmosphere or bring on global warming.

Jaccard’s vision — seen in his new co-authored book, Hot Air: Meeting Canada’s Climate Change Challenge, and in his 2005 book, Sustainable Fossil Fuels — has pushed the B.C. economist into a leading role in the debate over climate change and energy needs.

Source: www.canada.com/vancouversun/…

LS » As much as we all want to eradicate the use of fossil fuels in favour of renewable energy sources it probably isn’t feasible so a more pragmatic approach is necessary, such as using economic incentives that are the initiative of governments using taxes and regulations and things.