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OAKLAND, Calif. -- Despite being a centerpiece of celebrations the world over, fireworks displays often release toxic chemicals into the environment; researchers are developing a new generation of fireworks that shine as bright but leave less of an impact.
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ELMSFORD, N.Y. -- Coca Cola signed a 10-year contract with UTC Power that will bring two fuel cells to a southern New York bottling plant, where they will produce enough heat and energy to satisfy nearly a third of the facility's needs. The state of New York also provided $2 million for the project.
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GENEVA, -- Efforts by the world's leading cement companies knocked down carbon dioxide emissions from the industry’s manufacturing process by 35 percent even while production climbed by 53 percent, according to a new report by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s Cement Sustainability Initiative.
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Election Day: We Must All Hang Together
As Americans go into today's election, we need to take an important vision with us into the voting booth. If we are to have a future -- as a country, as a species -- there cannot be a red America or a blue America. There must be a green America.
In some ways, this election cycle was actually a very good start. Energy independence and renewable resources were major topics addressed by both McCain and Obama. Our candidates discussed global warming and the urgent need to address the issue. Both candidates had platforms addressing environmental issues, and science was (to a certain extent) respected in ways it has not been for the past eight years. There are many environmental ballot initiatives across the country, including funding for public transportation in Washington, high speed rail in California, clean water in Minnesota and renewable energy in California, Missouri and Colorado.
In other ways, there were major disappointments. I was shocked that "drill, baby, drill" got any traction at all. The McCain/Palin call for additional carbon fuel use and potential environmental degradation was nothing more than short-sighted, election cycle pandering. We cannot drill our way out of the current dependence on fossil fuels, we must innovate our way out. Obama and McCain both support "clean coal" technology. There is no present clean coal technology available, and there is not likely to be cost effective clean coal in the foreseeable future. Sarah Palin's contempt for man-made causation of global warming, and her general disdain for science, left me deeply disturbed.
At the end of the day, we must all make choices regarding our future. In an earlier blog post, I compared the two candidates on their environmental platforms, and to my eyes at least, Obama wins that contest walking away. However, as Benjamin Franklin famously said, "We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." Our leaders must find a way to bring together red and blue America into a green American future.
Shari Shapiro, J.D., LEED AP, is an associate with Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel LLP in Philadelphia. She heads the company's green building initiative and writes about green building and the law on her blog at http://www.greenbuildinglawblog.com.
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mccain/palin position
I agree that the candidates have very different positions on energy, but I believe that the "drill, baby, drill" is a bit misunderstood. Drilling in the US for the fossil fuels that we already use would actually reduce carbon emissions. By providing our own resources, the supply chain would be shorter, not using millions of barrels of those very fuels to transport the raw and/or processed material to the US. It would also place the drilling and processing under US controls, allowing us to set our own environmental controls on their production. Other countries (middle eastern) have little to no such controls, which would in itself clean up the system if we moved it here.
The drilling is in addition to cleaner alternatives, and is not an attempt to "ramp up" usage. It is an attempt to MOVE the production closer, therefore giving us economic benefits, environmental benefits, and future market stability. Keeping money in our system rather than sacrificing it ultimately helps us have dollars to invest in cleaner technology.
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