Photo by www.collegeparkmd.gov

Today, Mrs. Green Guest and I enjoyed a leisurely bike ride up the Northeast Branch Trail, around Lake Artemesia, past the University of Maryland, and back again. While out, we ran a few errands via bicycle that we might have normally driven to in a car. By taking the lovely and wooded trails instead of roadways, we also enjoyed views of wildlife, fresh air, and a lack of murderous drivers on Rhode Island Avenue.

I try to ride my bike to work as often as possible, and take the bus the rest of the time. Lately, the weather has kept me off my beloved bike more often than not, and I definitely feel a bit sore already from our ride today. Thankfully, the days are growing longer again, and the Washington, D.C. area is blessed with lots of sunshine, even in the winter.

What is the point to this post? Bicycling is a great form of transportation. Not only did we burn a chunk of calories, but we didn’t contribute to global warming by driving our car to locations we could easily reach by pedaling. Our moods are elevated from the exercise, our hearts are a bit healthier, and we spent some wonderful time together. We hereby resolve to do this activity more often, and will bring you pictures from the local bike trails whenever possible. Sphere: Related Content

The Flintstones were ahead of their time.

From CNN.com - it isn't just a car - it is a way to keep those New Year's resolutions!

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Spread the word!

No sooner had I posted about the myth of clean coal, than we run across this at DC’s Metro Station.

The entire station was filled with similar lighted billboards, all about the myth of clean coal. Sponsored by www.reality.org, the message is a welcome sight to me. Here’s hoping it saves a mountain top or two, or perhaps helps to provide more clarifying and educational information in light of the billion gallon-plus sludge spill in Tennessee. Sphere: Related Content

In the News: Coal Sludge Spill

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/23/tennessee.sludge.spill/index.html?iref=topnews


(CNN) -- A wall holding back 80 acres of sludge from a coal plant in central Tennessee broke this week, spilling more than 500 million gallons of waste into the surrounding area.

The sludge, a byproduct of ash from coal combustion, was contained at a retention site at the Tennessee Valley Authority's power plant in Kingston, about 40 miles east of Knoxville, agency officials said.

The retention wall breached early Monday, sending the sludge downhill and damaging 15homes. All the residents were evacuated, and three homes were deemed uninhabitable, a TVA spokesman told CNN.

The plant sits on a tributary of the Tennessee River called the Clinch River.
"We deeply regret that a retention wall for ash containment at our Kingston Fossil Plant failed, resulting in an ash slide and damage to nearby homes," TVA said in a statement released Tuesday.

TVA spokesman Gil Francis told CNN that up to 400 acres of land had been coated by the sludge, a bigger area than the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Video footage showed sludge as high as 6 feet, burying porches and garage doors. The slide also downed nearby power lines, though the TVA said power had been restored to the area.

Francis said Environmental Protection Agency officials were on the scene and estimated the cleanup could take four to six weeks.
Some of the goop spilled into the tributary, but preliminary water quality tests show that the drinking water at a nearby treatment plant meets standards.
"I don't want to drink it. It doesn't look healthy to me," Jody Miles, who fishes in the Clinch River, told CNN affiliate WBIR. "Do you reckon they can bring all this life back that's going to die from all this mess?"
Still, there is the potential for more sludge to enter the water supply through waste runoff.

"We're taking steps to stabilize runoff from this incident," Francis said.
Although video from the scene shows dead fish on the banks of the tributary, he said that "in terms of toxicity, until an analysis comes in, you can't call it toxic."
One environmental attorney called that statement "irresponsible." The ash that gives sludge its thick, pudding-like consistency in this case is known as fly ash, which results from the combustion of coal.

Fly ash contains concentrated amounts of mercury, arsenic and benzine, said Chandra Taylor, staff attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center.

"These things are naturally occurring, but they concentrate in the burning process and the residual is more toxic than it starts," she told CNN.

Appalachian environmentalists compared the mess with another spill eight years ago in eastern Kentucky, where the bottom of a coal sludge impoundment owned by Massey Energy broke into an abandoned underground mine, oozing more than 300 million gallons of coal waste into tributaries.

The water supply for more than 25,000 residents was contaminated, and aquatic life in the area perished. It took months to clean up the spill.

"If the estimates are correct, this spill is one and a half times bigger," said Dave Cooper, an environmental advocate with the Mountaintop Removal Road Show, a traveling program that explains the effect of an extreme form of mining.

While the full scope of the TVA spill is being determined, coal critics are already concerned about its long-term effects.

Cleaning up the mess, which could fill nearly 800 Olympic-size swimming pools, could take months or years, Taylor said.

"We're very concerned about how long it's going to take" to clean the spill, she told CNN.

Cooper agreed, saying, "It's 4, 5 feet deep. How are you going to scoop it up? Where are you going to put it?" Sphere: Related Content

What if every time you flipped a light switch, a mountain exploded?

At the risk of sounding sensationalist, this scenario involving electricity from coal isn’t that far from the truth.

But first things first. Information taken directly from the Department of Energy’s website has this to say about electricity from coal:

“Coal is one of the true measures of the energy strength of the United States. One quarter of the world’s coal reserves are found within the United States, and the energy content of the nation’s coal resources exceeds that of all the world’s known recoverable oil. Coal is also the workhorse of the nation’s electric power industry, supplying more than half the electricity consumed by Americans.

Coal-fired electric generating plants are the cornerstone of America's central power system. To preserve this economically-vital energy foundation, innovative, low-cost environmental compliance technologies and efficiency-boosting innovations are being developed by the Energy Department's Fossil Energy research program.

To tap the full potential of the nation’s enormous coal supplies, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy is working with the private sector to develop innovative technologies for an emission-free coal plant of the future.

This research and development program is pioneering more effective pollution controls for existing coal-fired power plants and an array of new technologies that would eliminate air and water pollutants from the next generation of power plants. Research is also underway to capture the greenhouse gases emitted by coal plants and prevent them from entering the atmosphere.”

From a clean air perspective, this sounds fantastic. President Bush’s Clean Coal Power Initiative provides government co-financing for the research and development of new coal technologies to reduce sulfur, nitrogen and mercury levels from coal-fired power plants by 70 percent by the year 2018. The same Department of Energy website gives information about the status of that project: From its inception in 2002, milestones have included two rounds of selections of projects – one in 2003 and the second one in 2004 – in which a total of twelve projects were selected for development. Only six have made it through to the actual development stage. It should be noted that these projects are not six new clean coal-fired power plants – these are six new projects to research how coal can be burned cleanly. A third round is underway currently, with a focus on projects to that utilize carbon sequestration technology. So, not so much about reducing toxic emissions, but more about how to make part of them conveniently go away after production. And the bottom line is, of the 600-plus coal-fired power plants currently operating in the United States, there are zero coal-fired power plants in operation that capture significant amounts of global warming pollutants. The impact of burning coal to generate electricity is undeniable, with carbon emissions and other dangerous greenhouse gases predicted to continue to rise if we stay on the same path.

The lesser known but equally damaging impact of burning coal for electricity is in the destruction of some of the most beautiful mountains in the world, and the coal-rich Appalachians are the primary target.

The history of coal mining in the United States brings to mind images of the soot-smudged faces of the hard working coal miner working in under ground mines. However, the petroleum shortages of the 70’s increased the demand for coal, and the mining industry began the controversial strip mining method known as mountaintop removal (MTR). Coal could be extracted more efficiently through mechanization and with fewer paid laborers. While the coal companies save money with this method, the environmental price is steep – very steep.

I won’t spend this particular post outlining the details of how MTR works – you can read a general outline here . In a shortened and editorialized version, forests are being razed, topsoil is being cleared (supposedly saved for later restoration), and substrate (all the rock that makes up the mountain from the top down to the coal seams) is blasted away with dynamite and then dumped into valleys and streams. Regardless of the permits required and the EPA “oversight”, toxic waste slurry regularly finds its way into Appalachian streams. Ecosystems are permanently altered, and mountains don’t just grow back. A sludge spill in Kentucky in 2000 contaminated hundreds of miles of the Tug Fork River tributaries. Not only was water for 27,000 residents contaminated, but all aquatic life in that stretch of water was killed.

As Americans, we are generally oblivious as to where our electricity comes from – all we are concerned with is the amount we have to pay each month to our local electric company. We grumble about the cost of cooling our homes in the summer, yet we fill our homes with electricity-sucking appliances and entertainment. We light our homes brightly, we leave TV’s running when we aren’t even in the room. We have one or more computers operating most of the time. Wii’s, Playstations, and DVD players hook up to our enormous HDTVs. Our razors are electric, and our appliances are all sucking electricity even when they aren’t turned on via those ubiquitous digital clocks. This time of year, homes are decorated in holiday splendor that usually requires electricity.

So what is my point in all of this?

I have been a typical American up to this point… blissfully unaware of MTR. The documentary “Kilowatt Ours” certainly opened my eyes, and I’ve been feverishly researching MTR and coal-as-power ever since. The coal industry has commercials in heavy rotation, advertising “clean coal”, when in fact it is anything but clean. Whether coal is being burned in ways that pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, or mined in ways that destroy mountains forever, it is ruining our Blue Planet.

So how can we solve the problem?

Just like petroleum and mountains, coal doesn’t grow back. As a nation, we must switch from dirty and non-renewable fuel sources to clean, renewable resources such as wind and solar energy. We must press our elected officials to encourage the growth of the renewable energy program, and in the protection of our beautiful mountains. At the very least, we must… must… MUST reduce our individual energy use. The less energy we use, the less coal required for power. Simply put, turn off lights that you don’t need, unplug systems you aren’t using, and use CFLs instead of traditional incandescent bulbs.

It should also be noted that coal mining has a significant economic impact on the residents of the Appalachians, one of the poorest areas of our nation. However, that is another post for another day. For now, I’m off to unplug some things.


Sources:

http://www.energy.gov/energysources/coal.htm (12/2008)
http://action.thisisreality.org/facts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountaintop_removal_mining
http://www.ilovemountains.org/resources
http://www.kilowattours.org/

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From University of Maryland

Clean water AND biofuels?

What will they think of next? Sphere: Related Content

Study: Leaner nations bike, walk, use mass transit

I love this kind of news! Check out the support from his employer - this is the kind of shift in thinking we need in order to make significant progress on climate change.

I have a deep and abiding love affair with my own bicycle. Beyond the physical health benefits, and beyond the benefits to the environment, I love how much I see while biking.

You wouldn’t think that the DC Metro area has much to offer in the way of wildlife viewing, but I’m lucky enough to have the greater part of my commute through Northeast Branch Trail. This trail is part of a growing web of mixed-use trails through greenways, connecting various parts of the Metro area together, and increasingly used as commuter routes for cyclists. Because they connect parks and usually run along the rivers, streams, and creeks, these trails act as important wildlife corridors. I’ve been lucky enough to see a nice diversity of wildlife, from foxes to blue herons to white-tailed deer. As the season turns again and I find myself able to bike in daylight hours, I’ll be posting photos from my daily commute.

10:07 AM CST on Monday, December 15, 2008

Associated Press

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Jim Richards is no kid, but he loves to ride his bike. At 51, he has become a cycling commuter, pedaling 11 miles from his home in the suburbs to his job in downtown Knoxville.

"It really doesn't take that much longer" than driving, he insists.

And he gets 40 minutes of exercise twice a day without going to the gym, which he attributes to a 20-pound weight loss.

New research illustrates the health benefits of regular biking, walking or taking public transportation to work, school or shopping. Researchers found a link between "active transportation" and less obesity in 17 industrialized countries across Europe, North America and Australia.

"Countries with the highest levels of active transportation generally had the lowest obesity rates," authors David Bassett of the University of Tennessee and John Pucher of Rutgers University conclude.

Americans, with the highest rate of obesity, were the least likely to walk, cycle or take mass transit, according to the study in a recent issue of the Journal of Physical Activity and Health. The study relied on each country's own travel and health data.

Only 12 percent use active transportation in the United States - 9 percent walk, 1 percent ride a bike and 2 percent take a bus or train - while a quarter to a third are obese, the study said.

By comparison, 67 percent of commuters in Latvia, 62 percent in Sweden and 52 percent in the Netherlands either walk, bike or use mass transit. Latvia's obesity rate is 14 percent, the Netherlands' is 11 percent and Sweden's is 9 percent.

A similar pattern was found in Canada (19 percent active transportation, 23 percent obese) and Australia (14 percent active transportation, 21 percent obese).

Overall, Bassett said, "Europeans walk three times as far and cycle five times as far as Americans."

The authors say it's more than lifestyle choices that lead Americans to use their cars more. Europe's compact, dense layout and infrastructure are more conducive to getting around without a car.

Europeans on average walk 237 miles and cycle 116 miles per year; U.S. residents walk 87 miles and bike 24 miles. Bassett and Pucher calculated that translates into burning off 5 to 9 pounds of fat annually for Europeans compared to only 2 pounds for Americans.

While the analysis doesn't prove that transportation keeps obesity levels down "they make an excellent case," said Susan Handy, who heads the Sustainable Transportation Center at the University of California at Davis.

"The question, then, is what do we do?" said Handy, who was not involved in the study. "How do we get more people walking and bicycling in the U.S.?"

Anne Lusk, a research fellow at Harvard School of Public Health, said the study's results make sense.

"What I found most exciting about this excellent research is the applicability," she said. "The issue then becomes should we improve our transit, walking or bicycling opportunities simultaneously or should we focus on one of the three?"

Lusk said her first choice is bicycles - and not just because of global warming, fluctuating gas prices or the economic downturn. When Dutch researchers asked people to match emotions with various forms of travel, she said, "The greatest emotion was joy for bicycling."

Richards rekindled his love affair with a two-wheeler a few years ago while visiting bike-friendly Sweden.

Back home, he has a couple of things going for him. Richards lives in a medium-size Southern city where police officers can be found patrolling on bikes and the mayor sometimes cycles to city hall.

The car is still king here, like most places in the United States, but Knoxville has developed a 41-mile greenway system that keeps Richards mostly on paved trails and off city streets.

He also works for an environmentally conscious employer. The country store-themed Mast General Stores of Valle Crucis, N.C., pays Richards and his co-workers $4 a day to ride, walk or catch a bus rather drive than their car.

After a year, his annual checkup shows the results: his heart rate, blood pressure and cholesterol all are down.

"I just love riding," he said. "It's like a double-shot of caffeine in the morning."


Link to the article: http://www.kvue.com/projectgreen/greenarticles/stories/121508kvue_leaner_bikers-cb.66163056.html Sphere: Related Content

Wonderful news from the Aloha state!

GOVERNOR LINGLE SIGNS BILL TO INCREASE SOLAR ENERGY

For Immediate Release: June 26, 2008



HONOLULU – Governor Linda Lingle today signed into law a bill to increase the use of one of Hawai‘i’s most abundant renewable energy sources and reduce dependence on imported oil. With the Governor’s signature, Hawai‘i becomes the first state in the nation to require the installation of solar water heating systems on new single-family homes.

“This solar power legislation is another important step in our long-term plan for energy independence in Hawai‘i,” said Governor Lingle. “In addition to solar, it is critical that we continue to develop innovative energy solutions that capitalize on our natural renewable resource advantages in order to achieve our goal of having 70 percent clean energy in Hawai‘i by 2030.”

The measure, SB644 SD3 HD3 CD1, prohibits the issuing of building permits for single-family homes that do not have solar water heaters starting January 1, 2010. Exceptions will be allowed in cases where homes are built in locations with low rates of sunshine such as forested areas, where the life cycle analysis of the solar system proves to be cost-prohibitive, or if the dwelling uses a substitute renewable energy source.

The bill, which becomes Act 204, would also allow homebuilders to use gas-demand-water heaters, which use a small tank to heat up water quickly when the faucet is turned on, if the home includes another gas appliance.

Under the measure, the Public Utilities Commission is tasked with setting standards for the water heaters, and the counties would establish implementation procedures.

There are certain provisions and language in the bill that are of concern, including eliminating the existing 35 percent tax credit for solar water installations for residential developers of single-family residences starting January 1, 2009.

The bill also appears to eliminate the tax credit for owners of existing residential single-family homes after January 1, 2010. While this may not have been the intent of the bill, the language implies that existing homeowners would have had to seek a building permit to install a solar water heater prior to January 1, 2010 to claim the tax credit.

The bill also clouds whether existing single-family residences can obtain a 20 percent wind-power tax credit and a 35 percent photovoltaic tax credit for new single-family structures built in 2009 and for existing single-family residences after January 1, 2010.

The Lingle-Aiona Administration will introduce legislation in the next legislative session to clarify this language and ensure the tax credits for solar water, wind and photovoltaic systems for new single-family homes built in 2009 continue as well as ensuring access to this important tax credit for existing residences after January 1, 2010.


Additional information and full text can be found at http://hawaii.gov/gov/news/releases/2008/governor-lingle-signs-bill-to-increase-solar Sphere: Related Content

Green Guest Suggestion

In an effort to help spread the word about sustainability, I’ll be including some easy tips for one or more aspects of the Reduce/Reuse/Recycle model. I’ll always try to include the impact on the planet, as well as the benefit to you.


Reduce:

Change your light bulbs to Energy Star Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs. According to EnergyStar.gov, "If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an Energy Star-qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, save more than $600 million in annual energy costs and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars." Yes, those Energy Star bulbs are a little more expensive, but while you are saving energy for the planet, you are reducing your own electricity bill! And if one light bulb has this much impact, just imagine the impact of switching out all of the bulbs in your home. If you can’t afford that type of investment up front, consider switching out one, two, or even three of the light bulbs you use most. Your energy cost savings will quickly pay for the cost of the bulbs, and help you enjoy lower electricity bills throughout the life of the bulb. Sphere: Related Content

Whattya mean, “Green Guest”? According to the dictionary:

Guest: [gest]

1. a person who spends some time at another person's home in some social activity, as a visit, dinner, or party.
2. a person who receives the hospitality of a club, a city, or the like.
3. a person who patronizes a hotel, restaurant, etc., for the lodging, food, or entertainment it provides.

We are all guests on this Blue Planet, and at this point in time, it is our only option for a place to hang our collective hats. To that end, it behooves us to be on our best behavior and not risk being prematurely evicted. So how does being a “Guest” translate in to being a “Green Guest”? Let’s look at the definitions again, this time with an eye towards all things green:

1. a person who spends one lifetime (or more, depending on your spiritual path) living on the surface of Gaia, engaged in living, working, and generally surviving.
2. a person who receives the benefits of the resources from Earth. Resources such as clean water, clean air, plants and animals, and the raw materials to build and create comfortable lives are all gifts from our host, given to us free of charge.
3. a person who utilizes these gifts of the Blue Planet with wise stewardship. As any etiquette expert will tell you, good guests always cleans up after themselves. As Green Guests, we must not only clean up after ourselves, but we must embrace a style of life that drastically reduces the impact we have on our Blue Planet.

I don’t claim to be an expert on environmental issues (yet), or to live a flawlessly carbon-neutral lifestyle. In my attempts to learn more about climate change, I discovered many aspects of our impact upon the environment that I had no idea existed, much less that they were problems of such monumental importance. During a viewing of the documentary, “The 11th Hour”, one of the speakers paraphrased a Deepak Chopra quote by saying, “People are really doing the best they can, given their level of awareness.” And here is where my intentions turn from being interested in learning more about how I can make environmentally conscious changes in my daily life to helping to spread awareness about environmental issues.

There’s scarey stuff out there – news that is sometimes hard to face, with implications that are even harder to ignore. Happily, the good news is becoming more frequent, be it amazing new technology to capture solar and wind power, or proven tips on ways in which we can all be Green Guests. I’ll also be charting the changes to the way my family lives with regards to our impact on the Earth, as well as documenting the quality of the environment of the DC-Metro ecosystem where we currently live and work. I’d love to hear feedback from readers that are implementing their own green changes – please comment here, or send me an email: greenguestblueplanet@gmail.com .

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some lightbulbs to replace. Sphere: Related Content