|
The state of Wisconsin has undertaken numerous
upgrades and retrofits to water heaters,
air conditioning, cleaning systems and lighting
in government buildings throughout the state.
It retrofitted lighting in 53 million square
feet of office space and realized annual
savings of more than 15.6 million kilowatt
hours (kWh), which translates to 33,900
tons of CO2 emissions and $7.5 million saved.
The other building upgrades saved Wisconsin
108 million kWh and more than 42,000 tons
of CO2 and $11 million per year.
In Iowa, a program that helps schools, hospitals
and local governments install energy improvements
has saved more than $23 million yearly on
energy bills, and avoids the emission of
796,000 tons of carbon and 360 tons of nitrogen
oxides (NOx) per year. In Missouri, the
Gas Recovery Project created a system enabling
Pattonville High School in Maryland Heights
to burn methane from a landfill to fuel
its boilers. The project saves the school
$40,000 per year, and each year prevents
the emission of 2,000 tons of CO2.
Seattle is developing a public transportation
network that includes free downtown buses,
a monorail, waterfront trolleys and the
West Seattle Water Taxi. The monorail system,
known as the Green Line, is expected to
offer, by 2020, a car-free transportation
choice to 20 million riders per year. And
San Francisco counts many climate-friendly
initiatives including light rail, ferries,
buses and cable cars, widespread use of
solar arrays (the city recently put 60,000
feet of solar panels on Moscone Convention
Center), and agreements by 273 regional
employers to reduce pollution and increase
energy efficiency.
Portland, Oregon began plying its CO2 reduction
strategy a decade ago, and now has one of
the nation’s best public transit systems.
The city also requires companies that offer
employee parking to also subsidize bus riders.
Some other initiatives include: purchase
of renewable energy for over 10 percent
of municipal electricity use; the planting
of 750,000 trees and shrubs to absorb CO2
from the atmosphere; and the weatherization
of nearly 11,000 single- and multi-family
homes. The city has also replaced all of
its traditional traffic lights with energy-efficient
light-emitting diodes (LEDs), at a $500,000
annual savings.
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof
calls Portland a model city for climate
change reduction, rebutting claims that
the Kyoto accords would “wreck”
the economy. “Portland, America’s
environmental laboratory, has achieved stunning
reductions in carbon emissions,” he
wrote. “It has reduced emissions below
the level of 1990, the benchmark for the
Kyoto accord, while booming economically.”
CONTACTS:
Kyoto Protocol, http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.html
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources,
www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/aw/air/ED/fallwin982.htm
Portland Office of Sustainable Development,
www.sustainableportland.org/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear EarthTalk:
I’ve heard that a number of fish commonly
available in
seafood restaurants are now threatened with
extinction. Is this true?
—
Glenn Hammond, San Francisco, CA
No doubt the age of commercial/industrial
fishing, which dawned in the 1950s when
large offshore trawlers and at-sea processing
facilities first plied the open ocean, has
taken its toll on a number of fish species.
Atlantic Cod, for example, once teemed off
the coast of New England and sustained millions
of settlers and then immigrants. But populations
have been reduced by more than 90 percent
in the last half century, and diners would
be hard-pressed to find any for sale at
restaurants or fish markets these days.
Ocean activists have been working hard to
prevent another tragedy on the scale of
the Atlantic Cod, though several other endangered
fish species are still widely available
throughout the U.S. and elsewhere. Examples
include shark, red snapper, bluefin tuna,
wild shrimp, wild caviar and orange roughy.
Over-fishing, the illegal trade, habitat
loss and pollution have put these and many
other marine species at risk.
On the bright side, some threatened populations
are now on the rebound, thanks to efforts
to reduce consumption. Chilean Sea Bass,
for example, was all the rage at gourmet
eateries in the 1990s. But in just two decades,
the average size of individual fish caught
dropped by more than 60 percent, meaning
that fishermen were taking all the adults,
thus decimating their reproductive capacity.
By getting hundreds of restaurants to stop
serving the trendy fish, a coalition called
the Seafood Choices Alliance (SCA) was able
to significantly reduce the strain on the
species. Similar campaigns are underway
now to try to bring the Atlantic swordfish,
shark and bluefin tuna back from the brink.
SCA also works to educate seafood wholesalers,
chefs and consumers about which types of
fish consumers can indulge in guilt-free.
SCA lists 19 species on its SeaSense Safe
List for 2005, including abalone, Dungeness
crab, northern pink shrimp, oysters and
sablefish. The organization also produces
the “Sourcing Seafood” handbook
to help seafood buyers navigate the murky
waters of purchasing sustainably harvested
seafood.
Meanwhile, the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s
website features Seafood Watch, a free series
of guides to help consumers figure out which
types of fish are OK to eat. And the company
EcoFish sells a wide range of sustainably
harvested seafood products to more than
1,000 grocery and natural food stores and
to over 150 restaurants nationwide. Consumers
can buy EcoFish products directly via the
company’s website.
But eater beware: Even if the fish on your
plate is not threatened with extinction,
it might contain traces of mercury, the
heavy metal which is emitted from coal-burning
power plants and has been found to cause
a wide variety of human health problems.
As a result of the threat, the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), while acknowledging
that fish provide one of the healthiest
sources of protein in our diets, recommends
that pregnant women, nursing mothers and
young children limit their intake to two
meals per week of seafood such as shrimp,
canned light tuna, salmon, pollock and catfish.
|
