How to control your garbage
Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got… until it’s gone?
This morning the fine folks of my fair city of Toronto woke up to a strike by city workers, including the outside workers responsible for garbage pickup.
This is as good as a time as any to provide few tips on how to manage your waste when you don’t have he convenience of regular door-to-door pickup.
Carbon pricing debates are ridiculous: France
It wasn’t long ago that policy analysts in North America were circling around each other arguing which was the better policy for pricing carbon: Implementing a cap-and-trade system that would regulate large emitters but give them the flexiility to meet them by trading emissions credits; or setting a carbon tax on all greenhouse gas-producing fuels so that everyone pays the price of pollution?
As the North American debate winds down more or less in favour of implementing a cap-and-trade system sooner than later, the Europeans are having a completely different and far more advanced discussion on the role of taxation on carbon.
The Business Case for Sustainability
Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface, one of the world’s largest manufacturer of carpet, talks about the business case for sustainability.
Interface’s story is inspiring, particularly as they recognize:
Business and Industry is (1) the largest culprit causing the decline of the biosphere and (2) the only institution large, pervasive and powerful enough to lead humankind out of this mess.
Importantly, Interface recognizes that getting to sustainability is a multi-year process. Their leadership in sustainability research and development has been tremendous.
Methane Bomb in the Arctic
Permafrost – ice in polar regions that remain throughout the year – is melting. In addition to having an impact on surface structures, like creating drunken forests, the permafrost has also been trapping enormous pools of methane, another potent global warming pollutant that is 21 times more effective than carbon dioxide in warming the climate.
With the permafrost thinning and melting, this stuff is now being released into the atmosphere. If all the permafrost would melt, atmospheric methane would increase by a factor of 10.
With an estimated 5.6 billion tonnes of methane in the atmosphere now, such a release would be the global warming equivalent of releasing 1.2 trillion tonnes of CO2.
How many tonnes of carbon dioxide are in our atmosphere now? 760 billion.
Abandoned Renewable Energy Plants
Webecoist looks at 10 abandoned energy plants that once produced clean, renewable power but, through neglect and/or changes in policy or business fortunes, have since gone under or have been decommissioned.
10 Abondoned Renewable Energy Plants