The biggest news out of Copenhagen over the past 24 hours did not originate in the Danish capital, but rather from Washington DC, where the US Environmental Protection Agency declared that Carbon Dioxide and the five other major greenhouse gas emissions are harmful to human and environmental health. The annoncement makes the creation of a binding global agreement more likely, even if it doesn’t occur at this summit.
Yesterday President Barack Obama announced a total of $13 billion in funding for ten high speed rail networks across the US and painted a picture of the future of transportation in America: (more…)
CNN reports that Americans are drove billion fewer miles in May than they did in May ‘07.
With high gas prices and a slowing economy, Americans are now taking fewer trips by car and are starting to rely again on muscle power to get around.
If we assume that the average fuel efficiency for all vehicles is 23.1 miles per gallon, that translates to 4.3 million fewer (metric) tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
That’s the equivalent of 2200 tonnes of coal not burned.
T. Boone Pickens, a Texas oil man and a major donor to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth – the organization that discredited John Kerry and helped bring George W. Bush back to the White House in 2004 – has become one of the biggest backers of wind power in the United States.
Yesterday afternoon, former US Vice-President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore challenged the United States to drastically change how it produces electricity; by generating power using 100% renewable energy in 10 years.
Here’s an excerpt of his speech:
About 2800 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions are produced by electricity generation in the United States every year. That’s 40 percent of all the emissions for the entire country. If Gore’s goal is achieved, total world emissions would drop nearly 9 percent (source).