2 from the NYT...I don't subscribe...
A New Way to Ask, 'How Green Is My Conscience?'
Christine Larson, NY Times
WHEN Anne Pashby moved to Baltimore last year, she was dismayed by the complexity of recycling in her new city.
"I can never get it right about which day is paper versus cardboard versus cans," said Ms. Pashby, 38, a human resources manager. "So I've given up on it."
But she wasn't ready to give up on the environment. Looking for an easier way to make her life greener, she tried a "carbon calculator" at the Web site of the Conservation Fund (conservationfund.org). She learned that the events of her everyday life, like driving the car, heating her home or taking plane trips, produced about 14 tons a year of carbon emissions, or "carbon footprint." The Conservation Fund, a nonprofit group in Arlington, Va., offered to neutralize that amount for $57, by planting 11 trees in the lower Mississippi Valley - enough to remove 14 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. She happily complied.
"It felt pretty good," she said. "I could pat myself on the back and not lay out a whole lot of cash."
Call them green upgrades: easy ways for consumers to help the environment without changing their behavior. Such upgrades have been proliferating: Skiers, for example, can spend an extra $2 at some resorts to offset the pollution produced in a drive to the mountains; the money goes to environmental organizations. On Web sites like TerraPass.com or CoolDriver.org, drivers can total a car's pollution for a year and direct a corresponding sum to clean-energy projects.
... Green upgrades appeal to a sense of personal responsibility. ...The challenge for consumers is to understand exactly what their money goes for, and how much the upgrades actually help the environment.
(25 June 2006)
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A Waste of Energy
Editorial, NY Times
The House leadership has proclaimed this week "House Energy Week," as if nomenclature alone could conjure up a useful response to the country's dependence on foreign oil, or the threat of global warming, or even $3-a-gallon gasoline, which - let's face it - is what really worries our elected representatives as they head home to face the voters over the July 4 recess.
As the nickel-and-dime agenda suggests, "energy week," which may not last even five days, is a joke. There is one bill calling for further research into hybrid cars, another subsidizing solar demonstration projects, another encouraging more efficient tires. All are useful, all terribly modest given overall needs. And then there's our personal favorite for the fox-in-the-henhouse award, a proposal to give $10 million to the automobile and oil industries to teach the public how to save gasoline.
The only big item is a bill from Representative Richard Pombo, the California Republican, that would end a longstanding federal moratorium on oil and gas drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf, subject to state approval. While perhaps three-quarters of known coastal oil and gas reserves are already open for drilling, mainly in the Gulf of Mexico, and while the environmental problems of further drilling are obvious, Mr. Pombo's proposal would be worth entertaining if it were linked, say, to a serious effort to reduce demand by sharply raising fuel economy standards.
But the House is dominated by people who believe that a country that consumes one-quarter of the world's oil while possessing 3 percent of the world's reserves can somehow drill its way to energy independence. And that means that the worthy proposals that do exist to increase conservation and efficiency won't get the time of day.
If there is any serious conservation to be had this year on energy, it is likely to take place in the Senate, which has before it two similar, comprehensive bills aimed at reducing oil dependency and, in the bargain, sharply reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These bills would require that oil consumption be cut by 50 percent over the next quarter-century and would provide a broad array of tools to get there - loans, direct subsidies, tax breaks and other incentives to encourage the production of fuel-efficient cars, for instance, as well as alternatives to gasoline like cellulosic ethanol.
Just getting a start on one of these big bills would be a plus. House members have introduced 267 energy-related bills this year, and senators have introduced 210. Everyone wants to be seen to be doing something. What those numbers really add up to is close to 477 excuses to do next to nothing.
(26 June 2006)
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