Laboratory tests found high levels of BPA on 40 percent of thermal paper receipts sampled from major U.S. businesses and services, including McDonald’s, Chevron, CVS, KFC, Whole Foods, WalMart, Safeway and the U.S. Postal Service, among others. BPA in paper receipts also contaminates paper recycling and is showing up in napkins, toilet paper and other common papers with recycled content. (Thinkstock)

Many of us already know the risks associated with regular use of products containing the plastic hardener and synthetic estrogen Bisphenol A (BPA)—and have switched over to BPA-free water and baby bottles and food storage containers. But the recent revelation that many of the receipts handed around every day in the U.S. contain the chemical has been a real shocker to those already worried about BPA exposure.

Many thermal papers used in the U.S.—receipts, event tickets, labels—contain so-called “free” BPA (that is, not bound into resin or plastic), which helps “develop” the inks to make the printed information visible. “While there is little concern for dermal absorption of BPA, free BPA can readily be transferred to skin and residues on hands can be ingested,” reports the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Laboratory tests commissioned by the non-profit Environmental Working Group (EWG) and carried out by the University of Missouri Division of Biological Sciences Laboratory in 2010 found high levels of BPA on 40 percent of receipts sampled from major U.S. businesses and services, including McDonald’s, Chevron, CVS, KFC, Whole Foods, WalMart, Safeway and the U.S. Postal Service, among others.

“The total amounts of BPA on receipts tested were 250 to 1,000 times greater than other, more widely discussed sources of BPA exposure, including canned foods, baby bottles and infant formula,” reported EWG. Wipe tests conducted by the lab easily removed BPA “indicating that the chemical could rub off on the hands of a person handling the receipt.”

While BPA contamination of food is still a bigger problem, says EWG, a large number of Americans—especially the seven million who run cash registers—are nonetheless exposed to additional amounts of BPA through handling receipts. An EWG analysis of U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data found that retail workers carry an average of 30 percent more BPA in their bodies than other adults.

Another more exhaustive study of BPA in thermal paper receipts and 14 other types of papers found the chemical in a whopping 94 percent of samples from the U.S., Japan, Korea and Vietnam. The State University of New York researchers behind the study, which was published in September 2011 in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology, estimate that receipts and other thermal paper products contribute around 33.5 tons of BPA to the environment in the U.S. and Canada each year. Even more disturbing was their finding that BPA in thermal paper receipts also contaminates paper recycling and is showing up in napkins, toilet paper and other common papers with recycled content.
On a more encouraging note, Wisconsin’s Appleton Papers, the world’s largest thermal paper maker, removed BPA from its products in 2006. And the EPA has since launched a program to evaluate the safety and availability of alternatives to BPA in thermal paper. Public health advocates and environmentalists, of course, would like to see BPA phased out entirely.

CONTACTS: EPA, www.epa.gov/oppt/existingchemicals/pubs/actionplans/bpa_action_plan.pdf; EWG, www.ewg.org; “Widespread Occurrence of Bisphenol A in Paper and Paper Products: Implications for Human Exposure,” Environmental Science & Technology, www.pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es202507f.

Obama's State of the Union address was, in the words of one prominent green leader, "a strong defense of the importance of clean energy to America’s long-term economic prosperity." (White House photo)

The economy dominated President Obama’s recent State of the Union address, but his discussion about energy and the environment took up almost seven minutes—or nine percent—of the hour-plus address. And while much of what Mr. Obama said was comforting to environmentalists, his statements about expanding natural gas production—albeit “without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk”—and opening up more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources did not sit well.

Even so, natural gas is cleaner burning than oil or coal, and reducing our reliance on foreign oil is a good thing overall. “Right now American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years,” Mr. Obama said, adding that “…last year we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past 16 years.”

Michelle Wilson Berger of the National Audubon Society points out that when George W. Bush told us in his 2006 State of the Union that the U.S. was addicted to foreign oil, some 60 percent was coming from foreign sources. “Now it’s just less than half,” Berger says, adding: “The trend is going to continue in that positive direction and within a couple decades, it’s going to be even less, say something like 36 percent.”

Nonetheless, environmental advocates were hoping for less bullish talk from Obama on expanding fossil fuel development of any kind, given the dire climate predictions we are facing. But Obama isn’t giving up his commitment to renewables, despite the recent bankruptcy of solar panel maker Solyndra after it had received upwards of $500 million in loan guarantees. “Some technologies don’t pan out; some companies fail,” stated Obama in the speech. “But I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy.”

Obama also called on Congress to pass a new standard aimed at boosting wind, solar, geothermal and other renewables, and to extend related tax credits to help diversify and green the country’s energy mix, adding that he wants to end tax subsidies for oil companies. In underscoring that Americans don’t have to choose between the economy and the environment, he cited the case of the revival of the American auto industry thanks in part to automakers’ willingness to innovate to meet aggressive fuel economy standards.

Fred Krupp of the Environmental Defense Fund considers Obama’s State of the Union “a strong defense of the importance of clean energy to America’s long-term economic prosperity.”

Speeches aside, 2011 wasn’t a bad year for Obama on the environment. He proposed raising the average fuel efficiency standard for new cars to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025—this alone, says Natural Resources Defense Council’s Frances Beinecke, “will save drivers more than $80 billion a year at the pump and cut our annual oil use by more than the amount we imported from Saudi Arabia and Iraq in 2010.” Obama’s recent rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline project—which would have transported dirty Alberta tar sands oil across U.S. soil—was another triumph, as were establishing the first national standards to limit mercury and other air toxins from power plants, proposing a visionary national oceans policy, protecting the Grand Canyon from uranium mining, and supporting clean energy investments at record levels.

CONTACTS: White House State of the Union 2012, www.whitehouse.gov/state-of-the-union-2012.

It’s a known fact that our oceans are becoming more acidic as a result of the increasingly large load of human-generated carbon dioxide (CO2) entering our atmosphere. About 25 percent of all the CO2 we send skyward out of our tailpipes and smokestacks ends up in the world’s oceans, where it triggers chemical reactions in the water column that lead to increased acidification. Researchers estimate that the acidity of our seas has increased 29 percent since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. If we do not slow down the pace of greenhouse gas emissions, our oceans could be two to three times as acidic in 2100 as they already are today, which could prove disastrous to marine ecosystems and the world’s food chain.

“When carbon dioxide is absorbed by seawater, chemical reactions occur that reduce seawater pH, carbonate ion concentration and saturation states of biologically important calcium carbonate minerals,” reports the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). These calcium carbonate minerals, typically abundant in areas where most marine life congregates, are the building blocks for the skeletons and shells of many marine organisms, from oysters to coral. “However, continued ocean acidification is causing many parts of the ocean to become undersaturated with these minerals, which is likely to affect the ability of some organisms to produce and maintain their shells,” adds NOAA. The process will not only wreak havoc on the shellfish we eat, but also on smaller marine organisms that are key components on the lower end of the marine food chain.

Ocean acidification is likely to affect the ability of some shellfish to produce and maintain their shells. This process will not only wreak havoc on the shellfish we eat, but also on smaller marine organisms that are key components of the lower end of the marine food chain. (Thinkstock)

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a leading green group, coral reefs around the world may face an even greater risk than shellfish because they require very high levels of carbonate to build their skeletons. “Acidity slows reef-building, which could lower the resiliency of corals and lead to their erosion and eventual extinction,” they write. This would be an unmitigated environmental disaster, given that an estimated one million marine species depend on healthy coral reefs for survival.

“Such losses would reverberate throughout the marine environment and have profound social impacts, as well—especially on the fishing and tourism industries,” NRDC reports. “The loss of coral reefs would also reduce the protection that they offer coastal communities against storms surges and hurricanes—which might become more severe with warmer air and sea surface temperatures due to global warming.”

Researchers are working on strategies to protect aquaculture farms from further losses due to acidic water, but any large-scale effort to address ocean acidification will require the slowing down or phasing out of fossil fuels. Powering our cars, heating our homes and running our machines and appliances all require burning fossil fuels which generate greenhouse gas emissions and in turn cause acidification. Cutting back on our consumption of oil, gas and coal and switching to renewable energy sources—solar, wind, biomass and others—will be a necessary part of the strategy to counteract ocean acidification.

We can all help by driving less and walking/biking more; upgrading our vehicles, light bulbs and appliances to more energy efficient versions; patronizing companies that work to reduce their carbon footprints; and pushing our state and federal governments to enact binding reductions in CO2 pollution.

CONTACTS: NOAA, www.noaa.gov; NRDC, www.nrdc.org.

Some 60 percent of our household indoor water usage happens in the bathroom. Toilets are the biggest water hogs, with older models using as much as eight gallons per flush. A shower, even with a low-flow shower head, can use up to 40 gallons of water, and a bath can use up to 50-60 gallons. (Thinkstock)

Some 60 percent of our household indoor water usage happens in the bathroom. As such, updating old leaky fixtures and changing a few basic habits could go a long way to not only saving fresh water, an increasingly precious resource, but also money.

Undoubtedly, the toilet is the biggest water hog in the bathroom. Those made before 1993 use up to eight gallons of water per flush, five times what modern toilets use. “It’s a good idea to replace pre-1993 toilets if you can,” says Patty Kim of National Geographic’s Green Guide. (FYI, usually a toilet’s manufacture date is stamped under the lid if you want to check how old it is.) If it is older and you can’t or don’t want to upgrade it, Kim recommends rescuing a two liter soda bottle from the recycling bin and filling it partially with some water and sand or pebbles and then putting it into your toilet’s tank, where it will take up space and force your toilet to use less water every flush. Or get a Toilet Tank Bank for less than two bucks; it hangs in your toilet tank and displaces almost a gallon of water to save water on every flush.

Plumbing leaks account for some 14 percent of the total water usage in an average U.S. home. Toilets are often a major culprit. Kim recommends testing your toilet by putting 5-10 drops of food coloring into the tank, then put the lid back on but don’t flush. Check back in 15 minutes or so to see if any of the colored water leaked down into the bowl. If so, you have a water-wasting leak, and it might finally be time to replace that aging toilet after all. The EarthEasy website reports that replacing an older18 liter per flush toilet with an ultra-low volume (ULV) 6 liter flush model “represents a 70 percent saving in water flushed and will cut indoor water use by about 30 percent.”

The shower can also be problematic as a water-waster, especially if the shower head in question was made before new regulations went into effect in 1992 mandating lower flow. Kim says you can check to see if your shower head is older or not by turning the shower on full blast and catching its output for two minutes in a bucket. If the bucket is overflowing, then your shower head is an older, more wasteful model. Newer low flow shower heads won’t come anywhere near to filling the bucket after two minutes. A new shower head costs around $10 and is a great investment because you can save water and money with every ensuing shower. Regardless of whether or not you have a newer shower head, you can save more water by turning off the shower to soap up, then turning it back on to rinse. Eartheasy reminds us that even with a new shower head, even a moderately short shower can still use between 20 and 40 gallons of water. But that’s nothing compared to a bathtub, which can hold as much as 50-60 gallons of water.

Additional pearls of wisdom in regard to reducing bathroom water waste include turning off the faucet while brushing teeth. Better yet, fill up a glass with just enough water to rinse after brushing. Likewise for shaving, stop up the sink with a little warm water in it and wiggle your razor around in the basin between strokes. And if you suspect your faucet may be spraying harder than it needs to, unscrew the aerator tip where the water comes out and take it into a hardware store for a more stingy replacement.

CONTACTS: The Green Guide, http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/green-guide/; EarthEasy, www.eartheasy.com.

In theory, burning any kind of plant material for energy is a carbon-neutral endeavor, but chopping down forests for ethanol is unwise because they cannot be regrown quickly. And tree plantations don't provide the clean water, storm buffers, wildlife habitat and other ecosystem services that natural forests do. Pictured: A wood biomass plant. (Thinkstock)

Typically unmarketable trees, brush and logging debris becomes the feedstock for biomass processing plants or for coal-fired power plants equipped to “co-fire” with plant material. But environmentalists warn that some timber companies and their utility and state customers are taking things too far by levelling entire forests—including some within publicly owned national forest land—to generate more feedstock for otherwise underutilized biomass energy production facilities.

Among the negative environmental impacts, chopping down forests to burn for ethanol production—even if replanted as tree plantations—is like biting the hand that feeds you. “Natural forests, with their complex ecosystems, cannot be regrown like a crop of beans or lettuce,” reports the non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a leading environmental group. “And tree plantations will never provide the clean water, storm buffers, wildlife habitat, and other ecosystem services that natural forests do.”

Another negative for biomass is that burning it, like coal or anything else, produces air pollution including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and a variety of toxic substances. According to NRDC, these pollutants increase the incidence of asthma, heart disease, lung cancer and other respiratory ailments, and premature death.

But perhaps most troubling about plans to cut down forests for biomass feedstock is taking carbon neutrality out of the equation, given the fact that tree loss in and of itself is already responsible for some 20 percent of the world’s total carbon pollution. “When biomass is harvested from forests, carbon stored in the soil is released into the atmosphere,” reports NRDC. “This is in addition to the carbon that is emitted when the wood is burned for energy. And there’s no guarantee the lost trees will ever be replaced.”

NRDC concedes that there is still a place for biomass in the alternative energy universe, but cautions that “only biomass that is carefully chosen, grown responsibly, and efficiently converted into energy can reduce carbon and other emissions compared to fossil fuels.” The group would like to see Congress put in place tighter regulations on biomass harvesting and processing. “Biomass can be harvested and utilized in ways that reduce pollution and protect forest habitats, but only with sustainability safeguards and proper accounting for carbon emissions—including carbon released due to deforestation,” concludes NRDC.

CONTACTS: NRDC, www.nrdc.org.

Ten Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states have, in the face of federal inaction, agreed on a region-wide greenhouse gas emissions limit, enforced through the sale of pollution permits to large fossil fuel power plants there. Money raised is invested in local businesses throughout the region that promote energy efficiency and renewable energy sources Pictured: The Big Allis Power Plant, Queens, New York City. (Thinkstock)

Given the lack of federal action to curb greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., several East Coast states joined together in 2008 to form the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), committing to a market-based system to cap carbon pollution and lower energy bills while creating more green jobs.

Under RGGI, the 10 participating states—Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont—agreed on a region-wide greenhouse gas emissions limit, enforced through the sale of pollution permits to large fossil fuel power plants there. The utilities that run the plants purchase the right (at quarterly auctions) to emit certain capped amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2). The money raised is in turn invested in local businesses throughout Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states that promote energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. RGGI’s overall goal is to reduce CO2 emissions from the power sector in the states involved by 10 percent by 2018.

The program was conceived in 2008 by then New York governor George Pataki based on a similar federal program launched by President George H.W. Bush in 1990 that successfully curbed emissions of other pollutants that led to acid rain.

While RGGI had strong bipartisan support at launch, changing priorities have since forced some states to reconsider their commitments. According to RenewableEnergyWorld.com, New Jersey is likely to back out, while factions in New Hampshire and Maine have also called for a withdrawal. “The political tides have turned significantly since the program was started, and many legislatures are now dominated by a new crop of lawmakers looking to cut spending in cash-strapped states,” the website reports.

Environmentalists and many business owners have banded together to try to save RGGI in the face of economic threats to its viability. Last July some 200 Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic businesses signed on to an open letter urging the governors of the 10 participating states to keep up with the program so that it can achieve its goals. “The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative shows that market-based programs can reduce greenhouse gas emissions while boosting our economy and improving energy security, and we encourage you to support and strengthen RGGI going forward,” the letter states. The letter goes on to cite research showing a $4-6 increase in economic output for every $1 invested in energy efficiency programs in the RGGI states. “Even better, these market-driven investments create jobs in the clean tech sector—one of the most dynamic segments of our state economies.”

Perhaps more important, RGGI “serves as a powerful model for what a comprehensive national energy policy should do” says the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a leading environmental group. Whether or not the economy will improve enough or climate change will become dramatic enough for Congress and the White House to take federal action to limit greenhouse gas emissions across the board is anybody’s guess. In the meantime, keeping alive programs like RGGI might be the best we can hope for.

CONTACTS: RGGI, www.rggi.org; RenewableEnergyWorld.com, www.renewableenergyworld.com; Businesses Letter to State Governors, www.cleanenergycouncil.org/files/RGGIJuly2011Final.pdf.

One out of three counties across the contiguous U.S., says a recent study commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council, should brace for water shortages by mid-century as a result of human induced climate change. (Media credit/Comstock)

Climate change promises to have a very big impact on water supplies in the United States as well as around the world. A recent study commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a leading environmental group, and carried out by the consulting firm Tetra Tech found that one out of three counties across the contiguous U.S. should brace for water shortages by mid-century as a result of human induced climate change. The group found that 400 of these 1,100 or so counties will face “extremely high risks of water shortages.”

According to Tetra Tech’s analysis, parts of Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas will be hardest hit by warming-related water shortages. The agriculturally focused Great Plains and arid Southwest are at highest risk of increasing water demand outstripping fast dwindling supplies.

While the mechanisms behind this predicted dwindling of water supplies is complex, key factors include: rising sea levels and encroaching ocean water absorbing lower elevation freshwater sources; rising surface temperatures causing faster evaporation of existing reservoirs; and increasing wildfires stripping terrestrial landscapes of their ability to retain water in soils.

Researchers have already begun to notice dwindling water supplies across the American West in recent years, given less accumulation of snow in the region’s mountains as temperatures rise. According to a 2008 study out of the Scripps Institute for Oceanography and published in the journal Science, Western snowpack has been melting earlier than it did in the past thanks to global warming, leading to markedly longer dry periods through the late spring and summer months in states already suffering from extended droughts. Given that the length and strength of these changes over the last 50 years cannot be explained by natural variations, researchers believe human induced climate change is the culprit.

The upshot of these changes is that Americans of every stripe need to curtail their water usage—from farmers irrigating their crops to homeowners watering their lawns to you and I taking shorter showers and turning off the tap while brushing our teeth. Even more important, water and resource policy managers need to conceive of new paradigms for the management of freshwater reserves to make the most of what we do have. And all of us need to work together to cut down on the emissions of greenhouse gases that have led to global warming in the first place.

Analysts also worry that warming-related water shortages could erupt into conflict, especially in parts of the world where one country or group controls water resources needed by others across national borders, such as the Middle East where already five percent of the world’s population relies on just one percent of the world’s fresh water. Parts of Africa, India and Asia are also at risk for water-related conflicts. American policymakers hope that the situation won’t get that dire in the U.S., but only time will tell.

CONTACTS: NRDC, www.nrdc.org; Tetra Tech, www.tetratech.com; Scripps Institute for Oceanography, www.sio.ucds.edu.

For the most part, companies offering energy audits are reputable and legitimate and will help you both save money and reduce your carbon footprint if you follow their advice in regard to upgrading things like insulation, windows and appliances. “A home energy assessment, also known as a home energy audit, is the first step to assess how much energy your home consumes and to evaluate what measures you can take to make your home more energy efficient,” reports the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). “An assessment will show you problems that may, when corrected, save you significant amounts of money over time.”

“During the assessment, you can pinpoint where your house is losing energy,” adds DOE. “Energy assessments also determine the efficiency of your home’s heating and cooling systems [and] may also show you ways to conserve hot water and electricity.”

You can conduct your own energy audit if you know where to look for air leaks (drafts), water waste and other key areas of a home’s inefficiencies. The DOE’s energysavers.gov website has guidelines to help homeowners conduct their own do-it-yourself home energy assessments. For instance, DOE recommends that homeowners make a list of obvious air leaks, such as through gaps along baseboards or at the edges of flooring and at wall and ceiling junctures. The potential energy savings from reducing drafts in a home can be as high as 30 percent per year, reports DOE. (The DOE website also provides information on other ways to save money and resources through less obvious things such as outdoor landscaping. It also posts guidelines for energy-efficient designing and remodeling.)

You should also check the filters on heating and cooling equipment to see if they need to be changed so as to keep your furnace and air conditioners functioning at maximum efficiency. And if these or other appliances over 15 years old consider replacing them with newer models that meet federal EnergyStar efficiency criteria. Also, swapping out older incandescent bulbs in light fixtures with higher efficiency compact fluorescent or LED bulbs will save money and energy.

A professional energy auditor with dedicated assessment tools and the knowledge of how to use them will in all likelihood carry out a more comprehensive assessment than you can do yourself. “Thorough assessments often use equipment such as blower doors, which measure the extent of leaks in the building envelope, and infrared cameras, which reveal hard-to-detect areas of air infiltration and missing insulation.”

If you are concerned about enlisting a for-profit firm that upsells its own energy efficiency upgrade services based on a “free” energy audit, check with your utility to see whether it offers unbiased, independent energy audit services (which it may do for free or for a nominal cost). The assessor from your utility may be able to recommend window and door replacement companies, heating and cooling specialists and other vendors nearby that do reputable work to make your home is not only energy efficient but warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer.

CONTACTS: DOE Energy Savers, www.energysavers.gov; EnergyStar, www.energystar.gov.

January 2012 marks the beginning of a planned phase-out of inefficient light bulbs in the United States that was signed into law five years ago by President George W. Bush. It was designed to reduce energy usage nationally from lighting by some 30 percent overall within three years. The benefits of the phase-out will be a savings of between $100 and $200 annually on electric bills in each American household—a total energy savings equivalent to the output of 30 large power plants—and reductions in global warming-inducing carbon pollution equivalent to taking 17 million cars off the road.

The first bulbs to disappear from store shelves are conventional 100 watt incandescents, but consumers can get compact fluorescent (CFL) or light emitting diode (LED) bulbs with similar light output instead. There are also some new more efficient incandescent bulbs that made the cut and will be available as replacements for conventional incandescents. In 2013, conventional 75 watt incandescents will be phased out, while conventional 60 and 40 watt bulbs will be phased out in 2014. Given the great alternatives available these days, most consumers will hardly notice any difference except lower electric bills.

As for what consumers should do to prepare themselves, the best advice is to get educated about the difference between power use and light output as we enter the brave new world of more efficient lighting. “Given the range of efficiencies the new bulbs provide, buying a bulb solely on the amount of power it uses no longer makes sense and we’ll have to shift to buying lumens,” reports Noah Horowitz of the Natural Resource Defense Council. “For example, a typical 60 watt light bulb produces around 800 lumens. The CFL that produces 800 lumens only uses 15 watts.” He adds that bulb packages will likely contain claims like “as bright as a 60 watt bulb” or “15W = 60W” to help consumers make the transition.

Horowitz adds that consumers looking to replace their old incandescents with new more efficient varieties should look for CFLs or LEDs marked as “warm white,” since the quality of light they give off will be most similar to that given off by old-school incandescents. “Those marketed as ‘cool white’ or ‘day light’ have much different light color, which only a small minority of consumers prefer,” says Horowitz.

Also, Horowitz warns that most CFLs are not dimmable and “may fail prematurely if installed in a dimming circuit.” So if your space features light sockets with dimming capability the best bet would be LED bulbs or newer more efficient incandescents. Specially marked dimmable CFL bulbs are also an option but at present are less commonly available.

As for whether to switch out your older incandescents with newer more efficient bulbs, the answer is maybe. According to Earth911, the leading source of information of how and where to recycle anything, consumers should consider the waste they will create by throwing out working albeit aging light bulbs. “If they aren’t spent, don’t trash them,” reports Earth911, adding that they can be used until they burn out—at which point more efficient bulbs can go in. Those who want to start saving energy now might consider donating older bulbs to local charities. Meanwhile, spent bulbs can be recycled. Earth911’s website can help find locations near you where old bulbs can be dropped off.

CONTACTS: Natural Resources Defense Council, www.nrdc.org; Earth911, www.earth911.com.

Recent experiments found that metal undergoes a never-before-seen transition when it is exposed to extreme pressures and temperatures, similar to those near Earth’s core.

Scientists at the Carnegie Institution for Science introduced Iron oxide to these conditions, and the metal was then able to conduct electricity.  Depending on the temperature, the metal has the ability to be a conductor or insulator. However, there were few changes in its structure, BBC reports.

These findings may affect our small understanding of Earth’s magnetic fields, although the implications are still inconclusive.

The scientists subjected the substance to temperatures up to 2,200C and 1.4 million times atmospheric pressure, according to BBC.

“Our new results show, instead, that iron oxide metalizes without any change in structure and that combined temperature and pressure are required,” said Ronald Cohen, a co-author of the study according to BBC.  “Furthermore, our theory shows that the way the electrons behave to make it metallic is different from other materials that become metallic.”

Iron Oxide and magnesium make up a lot of the Earth’s mantle, and these new results create an electric link between the mantle and the core, according to the new properties that Iron Oxide accepts under pressure and high temperature.  Therefore, scientists are able to peer a bit further into the magnetic field that radiates from the core .

Recycling and re-use have many environmental benefits, including reducing the amount of waste we bury in already overcrowded landfills and burn in polluting incinerators, like the one pictured here. (Thinkstock)

Recycling, which turns materials that would otherwise be incinerated or become landfill-clogging waste into valuable resources, has become second nature for many Americans. As many as four out of five U.S. households already take the time to separate recyclables from trash. Those hold-outs not yet willing to bother should consider the benefits to their household and society at large.

First and foremost for consumers is saving money. Many municipalities across the U.S. today don’t charge customers for curb-side pickup of recyclables but continue to charge for garbage pick-up, so recycling is a way to reduce a household’s overall waste expense. Otherwise, consumers who collect large amounts of recyclables may be able to find a local company willing to buy them in bulk. Some municipalities operate drop-off centers where consumers can trade in aluminum cans and other scrap metal (copper, steel, etc.) for cash. Yet another way to recycle and make some cash is to sell your old stuff in a yard sale. Likewise, shopping at yard sales and second-hand stores will also prevent the manufacture of new items altogether.

And there are many benefits to recycling beyond each household’s own bottom line. Recycling saves resources. By recycling paper we save oxygen-providing, carbon-sequestering trees from the axe. By recycling plastic, we save petroleum, contributing (however slightly) to national security. By recycling metals, we take a bite out of energy-intensive mining. And recycling anything saves large amounts of energy and water that would otherwise be expended in making new goods from virgin materials. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) adds that recycling “protects and expands U.S. manufacturing jobs and increases U.S. competitiveness.”
Yet another benefit of recycling is reducing the amount of waste we send to overcrowded landfills and polluting incinerators. At the other end of the consumer loop, buying products made out of recycled rather than virgin materials is another way to save money, as they are often less costly and just as good quality.

Beyond recycling, reducing our consumption of goods that are heavily packaged (often with materials not recyclable themselves) is another important part of any effort to spare bulging landfills and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And the re-use of materials that would otherwise end up in landfills is yet another way to conserve resources. It’s not difficult to think of many ways that used boxes, packaging, paper and plastic bags can be re-purposed to extend their usefulness and spare the garbage (or recycling) man. Also, composting food scraps—either at home or as part of a community effort—helps reduce the amount of waste sent to landfills and incinerators.

With world population still growing and developing countries now fully embracing an American-style consumer culture, recycling and other waste reduction techniques take on an increasingly important role in efforts to protect the environment. Indeed, there’s no time like the present to step up reducing, re-using, recycling and composting. To find out where to recycle just about anything near you, visit the Earth911 website, where you can search by entering your zip code along with the item you’re looking to unload.

CONTACTS: EPA, www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/rrr/recycle.htm; Earth911, www.Earth911.com.

Once mercury gets into the marine food chain, mostly from human industrial sources such as coal-fired electricity generation, smelting and the incineration of waste, it “bioaccumulates” in the larger ocean predators. That’s why larger fish -- like the bluefin tuna pictured here -- are generally riskier to eat than smaller ones. (Thinkstock)

Mercury in the fish we like to eat is a big problem in the United States and increasingly around the world. Mercury itself is a naturally occurring element that is present throughout the environment and in plants and animals. But human industrial activity (such as coal-fired electricity generation, smelting and the incineration of waste) ratchets up the amount of airborne mercury which eventually finds its way into lakes, rivers and the ocean, where it is gobbled up by unsuspecting fish and other marine life.

Once this mercury gets into the marine food chain, it “bioaccumulates” in the larger predators. That’s why larger fish are generally riskier to eat than smaller ones. Those of us who eat too much mercury-laden fish can suffer from a range of health maladies including reproductive troubles and nervous system disorders. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that human fetuses exposed to mercury before birth “may be at an increased risk of poor performance on neurobehavioral tasks, such as those measuring attention, fine motor function, language skills, visual-spatial abilities and verbal memory.” Up to 10 percent of American women of childbearing age carry enough mercury in their bloodstreams to put their developing children at increased risk for developmental problems.

In partnership with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the EPA issues determinations periodically in regard to how much mercury is safe for consumers to ingest from eating fish. State and tribal environmental authorities and/or health departments issue fish consumption advisories for water bodies in their respective jurisdictions based on federal guidelines. The EPA consolidates these local and regional advisories on its website, where concerned consumers and fisher folk can click on a map of the states to find out which advisories may be in effect in their area.

As for which fish to avoid, the non-profit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), which runs the handy Seafood Selector website, reports that people with mercury concerns should steer clear of bluefin tuna, walleye, king mackerel and marlin. Bluefish, shark, swordfish, wild sturgeon, opah and bigeye tuna carry a proportionately large mercury burden as well. Also of concern, but to a slightly lesser extent, are orange roughy, Chilean sea bass, blue crab, lingcod, Spanish mackerel, spotted seatrout, wahoo, grouper, snapper, halibut, tile fish, rock fish and sable fish, as well as blackfin, albacore and yellowfin tuna.

Beyond what individuals can do to avoid mercury, the U.S. government and states have begun working together to reduce mercury emissions from power plants. Earlier this year the EPA proposed new “Mercury and Air Toxics Standards” regulating mercury emissions from utilities across the country, with the goal of reducing the amount of mercury emitted by coal burning by 91 percent by 2016. Elsewhere, representatives from 140 countries signed on to reduce global mercury pollution at a 2009 United Nations Environment Program’s Governing Council meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. The agreement commits signatory countries—including the U.S.—to cutting back on the use and emission of mercury. A legally binding treaty mandating just how much each country will have to cut back mercury emissions takes hold in 2013.

CONTACTS: EPA Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, www.epa.gov/airquality/powerplanttoxics/; EDF Seafood Selector, apps.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=1521.

Only eight percent of U.S. homes use oil heat today. Natural gas is both cheaper and has lower carbon emissions than oil, though it is still a fossil fuel and its green-friendliness is overstated. Most eco-advocates would rather see a shift to truly renewable heating sources like geothermal or solar. (Thinkstock)

Natural gas has been a more affordable heat source than oil for Americans in recent years. The federal Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that the average American homeowner will pay only about $732 to heat their home with gas this winter season (October 1 through March 31) versus a whopping $2,535 for oil heat. While the price of natural gas has remained relatively stable in the last few years, oil prices have been high and rising thanks in large part to continued unrest in Middle Eastern oil producing countries. Just two years ago the average winter home oil heating bill was $1,752.

While oil prices are likely to remain high and volatile in the foreseeable future, most energy analysts agree that pricing for natural gas, much of which is still derived domestically, is not expected to rise or fluctuate substantially in the U.S. any time soon. According to EIA economist and forecaster Neil Gamson, the U.S. already has a glut of natural gas and expects even more domestic production to come online soon as drillers are set to open up the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania and New York to more gas development.

Only about eight percent of U.S. homes are on oil heat today. Most are in the Northeastern U.S. and were built back in the day when oil was the cheapest way to keep toasty through the long winters. Many utilities have since put gas lines into neighborhoods that didn’t have them in the past, opening the door for homeowners to switch out old inefficient oil furnaces for more efficient gas units.

The federal government’s 30 percent tax credit (capped at $500) for upgrading to a high efficiency furnace expires at the end of 2011 but will likely be extended in one form or another into 2012. In the meantime, some states, municipalities and utilities offer their own incentives and low-interest loans on upgraded, high-efficiency furnaces. Check what’s available in your area via a zip code or map-based search online at the website of the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE). Regardless of incentives, gas furnaces tend to cost less than their oil counterparts anyway, but installing one from scratch will incur an extra thousand dollars or two to run a gas line to it from the street. If natural gas continues to be substantially cheaper than oil, the fuel cost savings alone would pay back the up-front equipment and infrastructure investment within five years in most cases.

Environmentally speaking, gas has lower carbon emissions than oil, but hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”)—the highly controversial gas extraction method increasingly employed today (drillers inject water, sand and chemicals at high pressure underground to break through rock and access the natural gas)—takes a heavy toll on surrounding ecosystems and regional water quality. Most environmental advocates would rather see people transition to truly renewable heating sources like geothermal or solar. If you’re going to the cost and trouble of switching out an oil furnace for something new, a geothermal heat pump may cost more ($7,500 and up) than a new gas heating system but will save big bucks and emissions in the long run. For those in reliably sunny areas, a solar heating system will cost even more up front but can deliver similar long term economic and environmental benefits.

CONTACTS: EIA, www.eia.gov; DSIRE, www.dsireusa.org.

David Pimentel of Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences says that the grain currently fed to some seven billion livestock in the United States could feed nearly 800 million people directly. (Thinkstock)

Our meat consumption habits take a serious toll on the environment. According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), the production, processing and distribution of meat requires huge outlays of pesticides, fertilizer, fuel, feed and water while releasing greenhouse gases, manure and a range of toxic chemicals into our air and water. A lifecycle analysis conducted by EWG that took into account the production and distribution of 20 common agricultural products found that red meat such as beef and lamb is responsible for 10 to 40 times as many greenhouse gas emissions as common vegetables and grains.

Livestock are typically fed corn, soybean meal and other grains which have to first be grown using large amounts of fertilizer, fuel, pesticides, water and land. EWG estimates that growing livestock feed in the U.S. alone requires 167 million pounds of pesticides and 17 billion pounds of nitrogen fertilizer each year across some 149 million acres of cropland. The process generates copious amounts of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide, while the output of methane—another potent greenhouse gas—from cattle is estimated to generate some 20 percent of overall U.S. methane emissions.

“If all the grain currently fed to livestock in the United States were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million,” reports ecologist David Pimentel of Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He adds that the seven billion livestock in the U.S. consume five times as much grain as is consumed directly by the entire U.S. population.

Our meat consumption habits also cause other environmental problems. A 2009 study found that four-fifths of the deforestation across the Amazon rainforest could be linked to cattle ranching. And the water pollution from factory farms (also called concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs)—whereby pigs and other livestock are contained in tight quarters—can produce as much sewage waste as a small city, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Further, the widespread use of antibiotics to keep livestock healthy on those overcrowded CAFOs has led to the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria that threaten human health and the environment in their own right.

Eating too much meat is no good for our health, with overindulgence linked to increasing rates of heart disease, cancer and obesity. Worldwide, between 1971 and 2010, production of meat tripled to around 600 billion pounds while global population grew by 81 percent, meaning that we are eating a lot more meat than our grandparents. Researchers extrapolate that global meat production will double by 2050 to about 1.2 trillion pounds a year, putting further pressure on the environment and human health.

For those who can’t give up meat fully, cutting back goes a long way toward helping the environment, as does choosing meat and dairy products from organic, pasture-raised, grass-fed animals. “Ultimately, we need better policies and stronger regulations to reduce the environmental impacts of livestock production,” says EWG’s Kari Hammerschlag “But personal shifting of diets is an important step.”

CONTACTS: EWG, www.ewg.org; David Pimentel; NRDC, www.nrdc.org.

Green walls, or "vertical gardens," are walls partly composed of or filled in with live plant matter. They filter air and water, soak up carbon dioxide and help lessen the “heat island” effect of urban areas while reducing air conditioning costs in their host buildings. Pictured: a vertical garden at the Anataeum Hotel in London. (Media credit/Niall Napier via Flickr)

Green walls (also known as biowalls, vertical gardens or vertical vegetated complex walls) are wall structures partly composed of or filled in with growing plant matter. More than just easy on the eyes, green walls work like green roofs by filtering air and water, soaking up carbon dioxide and helping lessen the “heat island” effect of urban areas while reducing air conditioning costs in their host buildings.

The self-proclaimed creator of the vertical garden concept, French botanist Patrick Blanc, pioneered the use of hydroponic cultivation techniques—plants grow in an irrigated mineral nutrient solution without the need for a soil substrate—to create large green wall installations in both residential settings and within larger public structures and even office buildings from Singapore to San Francisco and points in between.

Blanc’s installations start by placing a metal frame on a load-bearing wall or structure. The frame supports a 10-millimeter-thick PVC plate, upon which are stapled two 3-millimeter-thick layers of polyamide felt. “These layers mimic cliff-growing mosses and support the roots of many plants,” he says, adding that a network of pipes and valves provides a nutrient solution of dissolved minerals needed for plant growth. “The felt is soaked by capillary action with this nutrient solution, which flows down the wall by gravity.”

“The roots of the plants take up the nutrients they need, and excess water is collected at the bottom of the wall by a gutter before being re-injected into the network of pipes: The system works in a closed circuit.” Plants are chosen for their ability to grow in this type of environment and depending on available light.

“Each vertical garden is a unique wall composition of various types of plants that has to take into account the specific surroundings of the place in which it is created,” says landscape architect Michael Hellgren, who founded the firm Vertical Garden Design in 2004. “It is not only the colorful interplay between the plants on a ‘green wall’ that is fascinating, but also the appearance of the wall itself, which changes daily.”

Hellgren, who has designed and implemented large green walls in his home country of Sweden as well as in Spain, Portugal and Italy, among other locales, sources plants for his projects from various climate zones around the world. His favorites are so-called “lithophytes”: plants that can grow on rocks, branches and tree trunks without necessarily being rooted in soil. “Among other things these climbing plants have the enormous advantage of their roots acting as excellent natural drainage on the wall,” he adds.

While large “vertical gardens” are surely impressive, critics question the sustainability of such endeavors, given the energy inputs needed to run the pumps and other equipment used to maintain proper nutrient and air flows, and the emissions caused by the manufacture and transport of specialized materials. Also, larger green walls need more water than rain alone can provide, and thus don’t necessarily save water. But as the field matures, practitioners are finding wider arrays of plants to choose from that are better at taking care of themselves—and scaling back on inputs and supporting machinery with the hope that one day many of the walls will be self-sustaining gardens that cleanse our dirty air and compromised storm water.

CONTACTS: Patrick Blanc, www.verticalgardenpatrickblanc.com; Vertical Garden Design, www.verticalgardendesign.com.

Advocates of thorium to power nuclear plants say that the element is safer than uranium, and that its waste cannot -- like the plutonium waste of uranium fission -- be re-formulated for nuclear weapons. Thorium plants, they say, also wouldn't need containment domes like those pictured here because the reactors can't "melt down" and release radiation. (iStock)

Thorium, a naturally occurring radioactive element found in abundance in the Earth’s crust all around the world, might well be a better fuel source than uranium for nuclear power generation for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, just one ton of the silvery metal can produce as much energy as 200 tons of uranium or 3.5 millions tons of coal, according to Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia of the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Another advantage is that it comes out of the ground as a 100 percent pure, usable isotope. Unlike uranium, which contains only 0.7 percent fissionable material, thorium doesn’t require enrichment to be used in nuclear reactors. Also, the spent-fuel waste from thorium fission cannot be re-formulated for nuclear weapons like plutonium, the waste product of uranium-based fission.

Also, proponents say that thorium doesn’t require the high temperatures and mitigation equipment of uranium-based reactors. “The plants would be much smaller and less expensive,” Kirk Sorensen, a former NASA rocket engineer and now chief nuclear technologist at Teledyne Brown Engineering, told the UK’s Telegraph last year. “You wouldn’t need those huge containment domes because there’s no pressurized water in the reactor.” With no high temperatures, thorium reactors can’t “melt down” and release radiation.

“Once you start looking more closely, it blows your mind away,” adds Sorensen. “You can run civilization on thorium for hundreds of thousands of years, and it’s essentially free.” The advocacy-oriented Thorium Energy Alliance reports that there is “enough thorium in the U.S. alone to power the country at its current energy level for over 1,000 years.”

Nuclear researchers in the U.S. first contemplated using thorium as a nuclear energy feedstock back in the 1940s, but its lack of feasibility in making nuclear weapons put it on the back burner, where it has sat for the last six decades despite various attempts to revive the technology for practical use. In Russia, China and India, thorium reactors represent the next generation of nuclear power. India possesses about a quarter of the world’s thorium reserves. The country is working to develop a network of large thorium-based reactors, and plans to meet 30 percent of its electricity needs with thorium by 2050.

Many nuclear advocates and environmentalists alike don’t see thorium as the savior its supporters make it out to be. For one, uranium is still relatively easy to come by and inexpensive, and the nuclear industry is set up to run on it. Changing over to thorium would be expensive, and who knows what unforeseen problems may arise with full-scale deployment. Perhaps most important, some analysts worry that putting more eggs into humanity’s nuclear basket will surely further delay the transition to a truly green economy that runs on clean renewable energy from the sun, wind and other so-called alternative sources.

CONTACTS: CERN, www.cern.ch; Thorium Energy Alliance, www.thoriumenergyalliance.com; Teledyne Brown Engineering, www.tbe.com.

A wide range of green gifts can be obtained from nonprofit organizations that use the proceeds to fund important work and from green companies, easily found online, that sell recycled, recyclable or otherwise sustainably sourced and produced merchandise. Pictured: Organic Bug's Tree of Life recycled metal folk art. (Media credit/Organic Bug)

The holidays are a great time of year to share your enthusiasm for protecting the environment with family and friends. One meaningful gift—a fashion-forward t-shirt from Rain Tees—can help fight environmental destruction far away while raising awareness here at home. Every Rain Tee is hand-made in the U.S. from eco-friendly fabrics and features original artwork created by children living in countries facing rampant deforestation. For every t-shirt the company sells, proceeds help the cause and Rain Tees’ charity partner, Trees for the Future, will plant a tree in a critically endangered part of the world.

Another way to link your gifting and philanthropic tendencies is to donate to the Paradigm Project to help purchase clean burning stoves for poor families in Africa. Your donation goes toward reducing deforestation and respiratory disease in a developing country, and the Paradigm Project will send you a unique holiday ornament in exchange.

Many other non-profits also provide holiday season incentives to donate to their causes in the name of a friend or loved one. To wit, the NRDC’s Green Gifts website offers dozens of gift opportunities related to various campaigns the organization is conducting around the world. By donating through the Green Gifts program, you and your gift recipient can help defend polar bears, protect clean water, revive rainforests or promote renewable energy, among other options. Similar land and species “adoption” programs that can be leveraged as holiday gifts are available from groups such as the Nature Conservancy, WWF, Defenders of Wildlife and the Whale Museum.

If not spending money is a priority this holiday season, you can make artwork or functional items out of leftover materials otherwise headed for the trash can or recycling bin. Handmade gifts in any form are always appreciated and will likely be cherished for much longer than anything store-bought.

But if making your own presents isn’t your thing, a wide range of green gifts, large and small, can be found online. Some companies that specialize in fairly traded, sustainably sourced gift-worthy items include The Hunger Site Store, Branch, Low Impact Living, BGreen Apparel, A Greener Kitchen, Green Heart and Organic Bug, among many others. And once you’ve completed your green shopping, wrap up your gifts in the festive designs of Earth Presents, which sells 100 percent recycled/recyclable gift wraps. For still more ideas on where to source that perfect green gift, check out the website of the non-profit Green America, which provides links on its website to dozens of firms that sell sustainable wares.

No doubt it feels good to go green over the holidays, given the excess we typically associate with gift-giving. And given the poor state of the economy, it makes sense to give gifts that will last, whether they involve furthering important environmental work or providing items that haven’t caused unnecessary environmental destruction in their manufacture and that won’t break down once the holidays are over.

CONTACTS: Rain Tees, www.raintees.com; Paradigm Project, www.theparadigmproject.org; NRDC Green Gifts, www.nrdcgreengifts.org; Nature Conservancy’s Holiday Giving, support.nature.org/site/PageServer?pagename=holidaygiving_xx_hgg; WWF Gift Center, www.worldwildlife.org/gift-center/; Whale Museum’s Orca Adoption Program, www.whale-museum.org/programs/orcadoption/orcadoption.html; Green America, www.greenamerica.org.

Eminent Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson says that fully half of the planet's higher life forms could be gone within 100 years, joining the dodo bird, sketched here, which has been extinct since the 17th century and whose fate was directly attributable to human activity. (Thinkstock)

Researchers believe that the rate of species loss currently underway is 100-1,000 times faster than what was normal (the so-called “background rate” of extinction) prior to human overpopulation and its negative environmental effects. But thanks to overhunting, deforestation, pollution, the spread of non-native species and now climate change, we are likely in the midst of the sixth mass extinction in the geologic history of the world. The previous mass extinction, 65 million years ago, wiped out the dinosaurs and other species; the previous one, 250 million years ago, killed off 90 percent of all species on the planet.

While the current mass extinction might in reality not be that bad—only time will tell—eminent Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson predicts that the rate of species loss could top 10,000 times the background rate by 2030, and that fully half of the planet’s higher life forms could be gone within 100 years. This jibes with statistics from the non-profit International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)—keeper of the global “Red List” of endangered species—which currently considers 37.8 percent of the world’s already classified species to be threatened. Of course, this is far from the whole story, as biologists think that we have only classified 10 percent or less of the world’s total number of plant and animal species.

Which types of species are being hit hardest? An analysis of IUCN statistics from 2008 found that of the world’s fauna (animals), invertebrates (animals without backbones, such as earthworms, shellfish and insects) were suffering the most, with 40.5 percent of those classified considered threatened. Next hardest hit were fish species, with 36.6 percent threatened, followed by reptiles at 30.5 percent and amphibians at 30.4 percent. Meanwhile, 20.8 percent of mammal species were threatened and 12.2 percent of birds.

More shocking was the statistic that some 70.1 percent of plant species are at risk. However, a more recent (2010) study found that only 22 percent of the world’s classified plants are actually facing extinction. This finding has led analysts to question conservationists’ estimates in regard to animal species loss as well.

In lieu of any direct way to measure the rate of species loss, conservationists have relied on reversing the so-called “species-area relationship,” whereby scientists tally the number of species in a given area and then estimate how quickly more show up or evolve as viable habitat increases (or decreases in the case of reversing the concept). But lately this method of tracking and predicting species losses has been criticized for generating overestimates. “The overestimates can be very substantial,” argues UCLA evolutionary biologist Stephen Hubbell, “…but we are not saying [extinction] does not exist.”

However many species may be dying, it’s clear we are in the midst of another mass extinction, and if you believe 70 percent of biologists, unlike previous mass extinctions humanity is most likely the cause. Conservationists remain optimistic that we can marshal the resources to turn the tide—and we’ll need to if the planet is to remain habitable for our species, given our own dependencies on the world’s biodiversity.

CONTACTS: E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, www.eowilson.org; IUCN, www.iucn.org; “Species-area relationships always overestimate extinction rates from habitat loss,” www.nature.com/nature/journal/v473/n7347/full/nature09985.html.

The practice of shark finning to make shark fin soup, a delicacy mostly in Asian cultures, has taken a serious toll on shark populations worldwide. Besides being inhumane to sharks, consumption of shark fin poses a serious threat to human health since they contain an extremely high concentration of mercury and other toxins now omnipresent in our oceans. (Media credit/Nicholas Wang via Flickr)

Shark finning is the practice of catching sharks, hacking off their fins, and returning them to the ocean (maimed and unable to swim or circulate oxygen through their systems) where they starve to death, suffocate or get eaten by other predators. Fishermen sell the fins, typically on the black market, for use in shark fin soup, a delicacy throughout Asia and increasingly in other areas of the world with large Asian populations. Analysts value the worldwide market for shark fins at upwards of $1.2 billion annually.

“As a result of China’s expanding economy and rising affluence, an increasing number of people can now afford the soup, priced at up to $100 per bowl, and demand has risen dramatically,” reports the non-profit WildAid. “Though shark fin soup represents status in Asian culture, the fin itself adds no flavor, nutritional or medicinal value.” The group adds that the consumption of shark fin poses a serious threat to human health since they contain an extremely high concentration of mercury and other toxins now omnipresent in our oceans.

Besides being inhumane, shark finning is taking a heavy toll on shark populations. According to the non-profit Animal Welfare Institute, upwards of 73 million sharks are killed each year for their fins alone. Another 50 million die annually as “bycatch” when they become entwined in fishing nets targeting other seafood (some fishermen do make use of this bycatch by selling off what fins, cartilage, liver oil and meat they can). As a result of these multiple threats, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimates that a third of all shark species are nearing extinction, with some species declining by more than 80 percent in recent decades.

In October 2011, California became the fourth U.S. state (after Hawaii, Oregon and Washington) to ban shark finning and the importation of shark fins. Also in October, Toronto, Ontario, Canada’s largest shark fin market, became the fourth Canadian city to ban shark fins, joining Brantford, Oakville and Mississauga, all also in Ontario, that had bans in place already. Campaigns are underway in both the U.S. and Canada to ban shark fins and shark finning outright coast-to-coast. Mexico has had such a nationwide ban in place since 2007, although enforcement there has been weak. The European Union banned shark finning in 2003 and recently beefed up significantly its own enforcement.

Concerned consumers can be part of the solution by not eating shark fin soup, and by encouraging restaurants not to offer it. The Animal Welfare Institute regularly updates a list of restaurants in major metropolitan areas of the U.S. that still serve shark fin soup, and encourages consumers to contact them if they encounter a restaurant serving shark fin soup that is not yet on their list—and to stop dining there. Whether or not such personal actions, added to the various bans in place, will make a dent in the international shark fin trade remains to be seen, especially given the delicacy’s increasing popularity and affordability.

CONTACTS: Animal Welfare Institute, www.awionline.org; WildAid, www.wildaid.org; IUCN, www.iucn.org.

Some 90 percent of gold mines around the world employ "cyanidation," the use of a sodium cyanide compound to separate the gold from finely ground rock. At a gold mine in Romania in 2000, the accidental release of 100,000 cubic meters of cyanide-rich waste into the local watershed killed all aquatic life in nearby waters and cut off water supplies for 2.5 million people. (Media credit/Kacos2000 via Flickr)

Although “cyanidation”—the use of a sodium cyanide compound to separate a precious metal from finely ground rock—has become less common in other forms of mining, it is still the dominant practice in gold mining. Some 90 percent of gold mines around the world employ cyanidation to harvest their loot.

“In gold mining, a diluted cyanide solution is sprayed on crushed ore that is placed in piles or mixed with ore in enclosed vats,” reports the State Environmental Resource Center (SERC), a project of the non-profit Defenders of Wildlife. “The cyanide attaches to minute particles of gold to form a water-soluble, gold-cyanide compound from which the gold can be recovered.”

But of course not all the cyanide gets recovered. Some of it gets spilled, and some is left within mine waste that is often buried underground woefully close to groundwater, leaving neighbors and public health officials worried about its effects on drinking water and on surrounding ecosystems and local wildlife.

“Mining and regulatory documents often state that cyanide in water rapidly breaks down in the presence of sunlight into largely harmless substances, such as carbon dioxide and nitrate or ammonia,” reports Earthworks, a Washington, DC-based non-profit. “However, cyanide also tends to react readily with many other chemical elements and is known to form, at a minimum, hundreds of different compounds.” While many of these compounds are less toxic than the original cyanide, says Earthworks, they can still persist in the environment and accumulate in fish and plant tissues, wreaking havoc on up the food chain.

In 2000, a breach in a tailings (mining waste) dam at a gold mine in Baia Mare, Romania resulted in the release of 100,000 cubic meters of cyanide-rich waste into the surrounding watershed. Nearly all aquatic life in nearby waters died, while drinking water supplies were cut off for some 2.5 million people.

In the wake of this accident, gold miners around the world have been taking steps to deal with tailings in a safer manner, through the use of special systems designed to prevent cyanide or its breakdown compounds from escaping into the environment. But such precautions at present are only voluntary. Regulators in the U.S.—the third largest gold producer after South Africa and Australia—don’t require mine operators to monitor cyanide and its breakdown compounds in nearby groundwater and water bodies, so no one knows just how big a problem might be.

One promising alternative to using cyanide in gold mines is the Haber Gold Process, a non-toxic extraction system that tests have shown can result in more gold recovery over a shorter period than cyanidation. Another alternative is YES Technologies’ biocatalyzed leaching process which proponents say is 200 times less toxic than cyanide. But with cyanidation well-entrenched in the industry and regulators looking the other way, these alternatives face an uphill battle in gaining widespread adoption.

CONTACTS: State Environmental Resource Center (SERC), www.serconline.org; Earthworks, www.earthworksaction.org; Haber Gold Process, www.habercorp.com/index.php?id=23; YES Technologies’ Cyanide-free Biocatalyzed Leaching, yestech.com/tech/gold1.htm.

Although “cyanidation”—the use of a sodium cyanide compound to separate a precious metal from finely ground rock—has become less common in other forms of mining, it is still the dominant practice in gold mining. Some 90 percent of gold mines around the world employ cyanidation to harvest their loot.

“In gold mining, a diluted cyanide solution is sprayed on crushed ore that is placed in piles or mixed with ore in enclosed vats,” reports the State Environmental Resource Center (SERC), a project of the non-profit Defenders of Wildlife. “The cyanide attaches to minute particles of gold to form a water-soluble, gold-cyanide compound from which the gold can be recovered.”

But of course not all the cyanide gets recovered. Some of it gets spilled, and some is left within mine waste that is often buried underground woefully close to groundwater, leaving neighbors and public health officials worried about its effects on drinking water and on surrounding ecosystems and local wildlife.

“Mining and regulatory documents often state that cyanide in water rapidly breaks down in the presence of sunlight into largely harmless substances, such as carbon dioxide and nitrate or ammonia,” reports Earthworks, a Washington, DC-based non-profit. “However, cyanide also tends to react readily with many other chemical elements and is known to form, at a minimum, hundreds of different compounds.” While many of these compounds are less toxic than the original cyanide, says Earthworks, they can still persist in the environment and accumulate in fish and plant tissues, wreaking havoc on up the food chain.

In 2000, a breach in a tailings (mining waste) dam at a gold mine in Baia Mare, Romania resulted in the release of 100,000 cubic meters of cyanide-rich waste into the surrounding watershed. Nearly all aquatic life in nearby waters died, while drinking water supplies were cut off for some 2.5 million people.

In the wake of this accident, gold miners around the world have been taking steps to deal with tailings in a safer manner, through the use of special systems designed to prevent cyanide or its breakdown compounds from escaping into the environment. But such precautions at present are only voluntary. Regulators in the U.S.—the third largest gold producer after South Africa and Australia—don’t require mine operators to monitor cyanide and its breakdown compounds in nearby groundwater and water bodies, so no one knows just how big a problem might be.

One promising alternative to using cyanide in gold mines is the Haber Gold Process, a non-toxic extraction system that tests have shown can result in more gold recovery over a shorter period than cyanidation. Another alternative is YES Technologies’ biocatalyzed leaching process which proponents say is 200 times less toxic than cyanide. But with cyanidation well-entrenched in the industry and regulators looking the other way, these alternatives face an uphill battle in gaining widespread adoption.

CONTACTS: State Environmental Resource Center (SERC), www.serconline.org; Earthworks, www.earthworksaction.org; Haber Gold Process, www.habercorp.com/index.php?id=23; YES Technologies’ Cyanide-free Biocatalyzed Leaching, yestech.com/tech/gold1.htm.

Only 10 U.S. states have "bottle bills" requiring deposits on some beverage containers so consumers will return them. Those states recycle 70 percent of their bottles and cans, 2.5 times more than states without bottle bills. The beverage industry has spent millions fighting bottle bill legislation, even though beverage containers make up 5.6 percent of the U.S. waste stream. (Media credit/Mr. T in DC via Flickr)

So-called bottle bills, otherwise known as container recycling laws, mandate that certain types of beverage containers require a small deposit (usually five or ten cents) at checkout beyond the price of the beverage itself. Customers can return the empty containers later and reclaim their nickels and dimes. The idea is to provide a financial incentive for consumers to recycle and to force industry to re-use the raw materials.

According to the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), a California-based non-profit which encourages the collection and recycling of packaging materials (and runs the website BottleBill.org), the benefits of bottle bills include: supplying recyclable materials for a high-demand market; conserving energy, natural resources and landfill space; creating new businesses and green jobs; and reducing waste disposal costs and litter. The 10 U.S. states that currently have container recycling laws recycle at least 70 percent of their bottles and cans; this amounts to a recycling rate 2.5 times higher than in states without bottle bills.

Beverage containers make up a whopping 5.6 percent of the overall U.S. waste stream, so every bottle and can that gets recycled counts toward freeing up landfill space. And CRI reports that beverage containers account for some 20 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from landfilling municipal solid waste and replacing the wasted products with new ones made from virgin feedstock. So by promoting more recycling, bottle bills indirectly reduce our carbon footprints.

The 10 U.S. states with bottle bills are California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon and Vermont. Delaware’s legislature repealed its bottle bill after almost three decades on the books last year as the state’s bottle recycling rate had dropped to just 12 percent due to more and more retailers refusing to deal with the hassle of accepting returned containers. In place of its bottle bill, Delaware enacted a $0.04/bottle recycling fee that will help defray the costs of starting up a curbside recycling pickup system to service the entire state.

“We are extremely disappointed they chose to repeal their law, rather than enforce it,” reported CRI’s Susan Collins, adding that the new fee places a burden on consumers only. “Consumers will be subsidizing the producers and that is unfair.” CRI supports “extended producer responsibility” where producers and consumers together pay for the life cycle costs of product packaging.

Beyond Delaware, the main reason bottle bills haven’t caught on is because of opposition to them by the beverage industry, which doesn’t want to bear the costs of recycling and claims that the extra nickel or dime on the initial cost of the beverage is enough to turn potential customers away. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (USPIRG) found that the beverage industry and its representatives spent about $14 million in campaign contributions aimed at defeating a national bottle bill between 1989 and 1994. Meanwhile, members of a Senate committee who voted against national bottle bill legislation in 1992 received some 75 times more in beverage-industry PAC money than those who voted in favor of the bill.

CONTACTS: Container Recycling Institute, www.container-recycling.org; USPIRG, www.uspirg.org.

As the future gets dimmer for traditional incandescent light bulbs, and compact fluorescents (CFLs) fall out of favor due to their toxic mercury component, light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, are beginning to come on strong. LEDs, which are clusters of small bulbs that come in many shapes and sizes, last five times longer than CFLs and 40 times longer than incandescents and use much less energy. (Media credit/Geoffrey Landis)

Just a decade ago, incandescent bulbs were just about the only game in town, despite their inefficient use of electricity to generate light and their primitive technology that had not changed since being invented some 125 years ago. But now that is all changing fast, with phase-outs of incandescents going on in Australia, Brazil, Venezuela, Switzerland and the European Union, with Argentina, Russia, Canada and the U.S. following suit shortly. The U.S. passed legislation in 2007 to increase the efficiency of light bulbs sold in the U.S. by 25 percent or more by 2014, and then by as much as 60 percent more by 2020.

For decades, those concerned with energy savings have been touting the benefits of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) over incandescents. CFLs use only one-fifth of the electricity of incandescents to generate the same amount of light, and they can last six to 10 times longer. But CFLs’ cooler color and inability to be dimmed have made them less desirable. Another hindrance to the widespread adoption of CFLs has been their higher cost (though most consumers would save plenty in energy costs over the life of a bulb). Also, CFLs contain mercury, a dangerous neurotoxin that is released when the bulbs break. And once CFLs do burn out they must be disposed of properly to avoid releasing mercury into the environment.

Given the issues with CFLs, LEDs (short for light emitting diodes) are beginning to come on strong. These highly efficient bulbs don’t generate heat like incandescents (which helps to keep air conditioning costs down as well) and can last five times longer than CFLs and 40 times longer than incandescents. Tiny LED bulbs have been around for years in specialized applications (such as stadium scoreboards), but lighting engineers got the idea to cluster them and use reflective casings to harness and concentrate their light for residential use. In recognition of the LED’s potential, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) set up a special “solid-state” (LED) lighting R&D program to hasten the advance of the technology.

In comparing the total cost to run three different types of 60-watt equivalent bulbs for 50,000 hours (factoring in the cost of the both bulbs and electricity), the EarthEasy website found that LEDs would cost $95.95, CFLs $159.75 and incandescents $652.50. The 42 incandescent bulbs tested used up to 3,000 kilowatt hours of electricity compared to 700 and 300 for CFLs and LEDs respectively. However, despite the savings most consumers are loath to spend $35 and up for an LED bulb (even though it will save more than $500 in the long run) when a traditional incandescent bulb right next to it on the shelf costs $1.

There are other newer technologies in the works. Seattle-based Vu1 now sells highly efficient bulbs based on its Electron Stimulated Luminescence (ESL) technology, whereby accelerated electrons stimulate a phosphor coating on the inside of the bulb, making the surface glow. One of Vu1’s 65-watt equivalent bulbs retails for under $20 and uses a similar amount of energy as an equivalent CFL. And incandescents aren’t out of the efficient lighting race altogether just yet. Top bulb makers recently released new versions that use as much as a third less electricity to operate (complying with 2012’s new federal standards) and are promising newer models still that will run on even less energy.

CONTACTS: DOE Solid-State Lighting Program, www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/ssl/; EarthEasy, www.eartheasy.com; Vu1 Corporation, www.vu1corporation.com.

Most of the nation's 34,000 dry cleaners still clean clothes using perchloroethylene, or “perc,” a hazardous air contaminant and a probable human carcinogen. But some cleaning professionals are moving to greener and safer methods, including the use of pressurized carbon dioxide, and "wet cleaning," which uses water, non-toxic detergents and conditioners inside specially designed machines. (Media credit/Simon Law)

The dry-cleaning industry has come under attack in recent years for its use of perchloroethylene (“perc”), a noxious chemical solvent that does a good job cleaning and not damaging sensitive fabrics but which is also considered a hazardous air contaminant by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a probable human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Also, exposure to perc can irritate the skin and has been associated with central nervous system disorders. Drycleaners are required to reuse what perc they can and dispose of the rest as hazardous waste, but there are still concerns about contamination at and around sites that don’t follow best practices. California has banned the use of perc by drycleaners beginning in 2023, and several other states may follow suit.

Given the issues with perc—and the fact that most of the nation’s 34,000 commercial drycleaners still use it—many consumers are demanding greener ways to get their fine clothes and fabrics clean. So-called wet cleaning—whereby cleaning professionals use small amounts of water, non-toxic detergents and conditioners (instead of perc and other harsh detergents) inside specially designed machines to get fine garments and other fabrics clean—is one of the most promising alternatives.

“The garments are agitated in the computerized wet cleaning machine just enough to extract the dirt and grime, but not enough to alter the structure, size or color,” reports the website Earth911.com. “The garments are then transferred to a high-tech drying unit that [that] automatically stops once the prescribed level of moisture is reached.” Earth911.com adds that after drying, wet cleaned garments are pressed, hung up and bagged for pick-up by or delivery to customers—just like at the drycleaners.

The EPA is encouraging drycleaners to make the switch to greener solvents through a cooperative partnership with the professional garment and textile care industry. The agency’s Design for the Environment Garment and Textile Care Partnership recognizes the wet cleaning process as “an environmentally preferable technology that is effective at cleaning garments.”

Another green alternative to perc is also starting to catch on: using pressurized carbon dioxide (CO2) to get fabrics clean. CO2 exists as a gas at low pressure but turns to liquid at higher pressure and can serve as a solvent in tandem with non-toxic soap to get materials clean. “Clothes are placed in the dry cleaning machine drum and cool CO2 is pumped in until, at high pressure, [it] becomes a liquid,” reports Corry’s, a leading drycleaner in the Seattle area. “After the wash cycle is complete the CO2 is filtered, and the pressure is released spontaneously converting the CO2 back to a gas from a liquid. The CO2 then goes back into the holding tank. The clothes are left clean, smelling fresh, cool and perfectly dry.”

There are other greener processes out there as well. If a new cleaner opens up in your neighborhood, chances are they are using something cleaner than perc. Or they should be. So make sure to go in and ask.

CONTACTS: Earth911.com, www.earth911.com; Design for the Environment Garment and Textile Care Partnership, epa.gov/dfe/pubs/projects/garment/; Corry’s CO2 Cleaners, www.corrysco2cleaners.com.

Politics still stand in the way of efforts to limit U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Two efforts, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) of 2009 and the American Power Act of 2010, got tabled or failed to make it to the Senate floor for a vote. ACES was, however, passed by a narrow margin in the House of Representatives, the first time the legislative branch has called for sweeping climate legislation. (Media credit/Rachel Johnson via Flickr)

Our best hope to date for limits on greenhouse gas emissions in this country was 2009’s American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), a bill that called for the implementation of a “cap-and-trade” system to limit carbon dioxide emissions by capping overall emissions and allowing polluters to buy or sell greenhouse gas pollution credits—similar to what the European Union has been doing since 2005 to successfully reduce its own emissions—depending upon whether they were exceeding established limits or had succeeded in coming in below them.

According to the bill, U.S. businesses needing to pollute more could buy emissions credits on the open market; those able to reduce emissions could sell their pollution credits on the same trading floor. Thus there is a built-in incentive to reduce emissions: If you exceed pollution limits you have to keep buying costly credits; and if you can get below limits you can profit from the sale of credits for the difference.

Among the bill’s key provisions was a 17 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 2005 levels by 2020, with a mid-century goal of an 80 percent reduction. Also, billions of dollars would have gone to initiatives bolstering green transportation, energy efficiency and related research and development. The bill was approved by the House in June 2009 by a narrow 219-212 vote. But Senate Democrats decided they didn’t have enough votes to get a version of the bill passed, and tabled the discussion.

While ACES may not have made it into the law books, its passage by the House was significant as it represented the first time the legislative branch called for sweeping climate legislation. Also, the bill’s provisions served as a guideline for U.S. negotiators heading to Denmark later in 2009 for the COP15 international climate talks (although in the end nothing binding was agreed upon there).

Then, in May 2010 Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman unveiled their own cap-and-trade climate bill for the Senate. Dubbed the American Power Act, it aimed to reduce overall U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by similar amounts as ACES. But with the nation still reeling from the effects of BP’s Gulf oil spill—the American Power Act include provisions for offshore drilling—and Senate Republicans leery of any climate legislation, the bill failed to make it to a floor vote. Some point the finger at a handful of Democratic Senators from coal-producing states for not supporting their party colleagues. Others say Obama wasn’t advocating strongly enough despite his campaign rhetoric on the topic.

“The best one could plausibly hope for in the next Congress, assuming only modest Republican gains, is some sort of weak cap on utility emissions, possibly with some weak oil saving measures, though that would still require Obama to do what he refused to do under more favorable political circumstances—push hard for a bill,” writes commentator Joe Romm of Think Progress, a liberal political blog. Romm adds that it’s inconceivable to think the next Congress would even contemplate strong climate or clean energy legislation “without Obama undergoing a major strategy change and taking a very strong leadership role in crafting the bill and lobbying for the bill and selling it to the public.”

CONTACTS: ACES, www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h2454/show; Think Progress, www.thinkprogress.org.

The environmental impact of so much online time really boils down to energy usage, which in turn affects the amount of greenhouse gases we pump into our atmosphere. Google, which has been carbon neutral since 2007, has been a real leader in the building of green data centers, even powering them with renewable energy. (Media credit/Jurgen Plasser via Flickr)

The environmental impact of so much online time really boils down to energy usage, which in turn affects the amount of greenhouse gases we pump into our atmosphere. For one, each of us can help by limiting computer time (whether surfing the ‘net or not) and shutting them down or putting them into sleep mode when we aren’t using them (this can be automated via the computer’s power management control panel).

Also, when shopping for a new computer, consumers and businesses alike can opt for models certified by the federal government as energy efficient with the Energy Star label. If all computers sold in the U.S. met Energy Star requirements, Americans could pocket $1.8 billion annually in saved energy costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an amount equivalent to taking some two million cars off the road.

Individual responsibility aside, the creation and management of more efficient data centers by the major online hubs—especially as we enter the age of “cloud” computing whereby most of the software, content and services we look to our computers for resides online and is served to us as-needed—is what can have the biggest impact. Google, Facebook, and Amazon.com are already deeply committed to the cloud computing model, with Microsoft, Yahoo and others following suit accordingly.

For its part, Google has been a real leader in the building of green data centers, even powering them with renewable energy. The company recently released environmental footprint scores for several of its data centers. While the energy usage required to run its cloud services (Google Search, Google+, Gmail and YouTube) seems huge in the aggregate—it used 260 megawatt hours to power its data centers in 2010—it boils down to only 7.4 kilowatt hours worth of energy annually per user. Google reports that to provide an individual user with its services for a month uses less energy than leaving a light bulb on for three hours. And because the company has been carbon neutral since 2007, “even that small amount of energy is offset completely, so the carbon footprint of your life on Google is zero.”

In an April 2011 report entitled “How Dirty is your Data?” the non-profit Greenpeace examined energy sources for the 10 largest IT companies involved in cloud computing, finding Apple, Facebook and IBM especially guilty of getting significant amounts of power from coal-fired power plants. (Facebook had come under fire earlier this year when reporters uncovered that the company planned to buy electricity for its brand new eco-friendly data center in Prineville, Oregon—one of the greenest such facilities ever designed and constructed—from a utility that derives most of its power from coal.) Yahoo, Amazon.com and Microsoft scored best in use of renewable alternative energy sources for cloud services.

In the long run, analysts think that the widespread shift to cloud computing will be a great boon to the environment. A report released in September 2011 by Pike Research, “Cloud Computing Energy Efficiency,” predicts that because of the shift to cloud computing and increasing efficiencies, data center power consumption will decrease by 31 percent between 2010 and 2020.

CONTACTS: Energy Star, www.energystar.gov; Greenpeace, www.greenpeace.org; Pike Research, www.pikeresearch.com.

If you’re interested in cleaning greener, there are many sources of natural cleaning recipes online. Or check out the cleaning products aisle at your local natural food store, where you will find a wide range of cleaning formulations safe for your health and the environment. Pictured: Earth Friendly Products' “Safeguard Your Home” retail pack. (Media credit/Earth Friendly Products)

When it comes to household cleaning products, most mainstream brands make use of chlorine bleach, ammonia or any number of other chemicals that can wreak havoc on the environment and human health.

Ammonia is a volatile organic compound that can irritate the respiratory system and mucous membranes if inhaled, and can cause chemical burns if spilled on the skin. Bleach contains sodium hypochlorite, which can cause eczema and other skin ailments as well as breathing difficulties if inhaled. And when it reacts with other elements in the environment, toxic “organochlorines” can form, damaging the ozone layer and causing health issues such as immune suppression, reproductive difficulties and even cancer.

Fortunately, growing public concern about the health effects of toxic exposure have led to an “explosion of environmentally friendlier and non-toxic products,” says the health information website, WebMD. “There are many products in this category—from laundry detergents and fabric softeners to multi-surface and floor cleaners, to tile and bathroom cleaners—that are…safer for people and the planet.”

WebMD warns that while many are indeed safer, others are “greenwashed,” meaning they are “marketed as natural while still including suspect chemicals.” How does one know? “Get in the simple practice of looking at product labels to see if the cleaning manufacturer is clearly disclosing all ingredients,” reports WebMD. “If it is not…it could mean the manufacturer is trying to hide a particular suspect ingredient.”

Also, just because a product has an eco-certification printed on its label doesn’t necessarily mean it should be trusted. To make sure, check the Eco-Labels section of Consumer Reports’ Greener Choices website, which gives the low-down on what labels really mean and whether they are backed up by government regulations. Another good resource is the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Household Products Database, which provides ingredient lists for thousands of products on U.S. store shelves.

If you want to play it safe and natural when cleaning your home, WebMD suggests using white distilled vinegar—it kills mold and mildew, eliminates soap scum and sanitizes, all in one fell swoop—to clean windows, tile, cutting boards and countertops. Another effective yet gentle natural cleaner for countertops and bathtubs is baking soda, especially when mixed with a few drops of mild soap. Borax can be called in for tougher stains. If you’re interested in cleaning greener, there are many sources of natural cleaning recipes online. Or check out the cleaning products aisle at your local natural food store, where you will find a wide range of cleaning formulations from the likes of Seventh Generation, Ecover, Green Works and Earth Friendly Products (which sells a “Safeguard Your Home” retail pack that includes one each of a window cleaner, an all-purpose cleaner, a dishwashing liquid, an automatic dishwasher gel, a laundry detergent and a fabric refresher), among many others.

CONTACTS: WebMD, www.webmd.com; Greener Choices, www.greenerchoices.org/eco-labels/eco-home.cfm?redirect=1; Household Products Database, hpd.nlm.nih.gov.

Many major banks invest in companies that engage in the environmentally destructive practice of mountaintop removal coal mining, whereby the tops of mountains are blown up to expose the recoverable coal. Despite some banks' stated intent to limit such financing, a Sierra Club/Rainforest Action Network "report card" indicates that few are yet walking the talk. (Media credit/ilovemountains.org)

Yes it’s true that many major banks invest in companies that engage in the environmentally destructive practice of mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining, whereby the tops of mountains are removed by explosives to expose thin seams of recoverable coal. The wasted earth and other materials are either put back onto the mountain top in an approximation of their original contours, wreaking havoc on local ecosystems and biodiversity, or dumped into neighboring valleys, polluting lakes and streams and jeopardizing water quality for humans and wildlife.

According to the non-profit Rainforest Action Network (RAN), this dumping—especially throughout Appalachia where MTR is most prevalent—“undermines the objectives and requirements of the Clean Water Act.” The group adds that some 2,000 miles of streams have already been buried or contaminated in the region. “The mining destroys Appalachian communities, the health of coalfield residents and any hope for positive economic growth.”

This past April, RAN teamed up for the second year in a row with another leading non-profit green group concerned about MTR, the Sierra Club, in publishing a “report card” reviewing 10 of the world’s largest banks in regard to their financing of MTR coal mining projects. The new 2011 version of “Policy and Practice” takes a look at the MTR-related financing practices of Bank of America, CitiBank, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, GE Capital, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, PNC, UBS and Wells Fargo.

What did they find? Since January 2010, the 10 banks reviewed have provided upwards of $2.5 billion in loans and bonds to companies practicing MTR. While some of the banks—Chase, Wells Fargo, PNC, UBS, and Credit Suisse—adopted policies limiting their financing of MTR, few actually pulled funding in place from any such activities upon adopting such policies. Citibank, despite announcing publicly in 2009 that it would limit its involvement in MTR, doubled its investments in the business in 2010.

RAN and the Sierra Club are also keeping a close eye on UBS which, soon after stating that it “needs to be satisfied that the client is committed to reduce over time its exposure to [MTR],” went ahead and acted as a paid advisor on the merger of Massey Energy, which operated the West Virginia mine where 29 men died last year, and Alpha Natural Resources. This merger created the largest single MTR company in the country, now responsible for some 25 percent of coal production from MTR mines.

The report card grades each bank based on its current position and practice regarding MTR investments, and calls on the banks to strengthen their policies and cease their financial support for coal companies engaging in MTR. “The ‘best practice’…is a clear exclusion policy on commercial lending and investment banking services for all coal companies who practice mountaintop removal coal extraction,” says RAN.

RAN and the Sierra Club hope that by exposing the impact these banks are having on the environment through their financing programs, they can help alert the public and policymakers to the need to outlaw MTR coal mining altogether.

CONTACTS: Rainforest Action Network, www.ran.org; Sierra Club, www.sierraclub.org.

The release of genetically modified organisms into the environment threatens genetic diversity, which is essential for global food security. And a lack of genetic diversity in agriculture, says Greenpeace, can already be linked to many of the major crop epidemics in human history. (Media credit/Punch Stock)

Genetically modified organisms are those that have been altered by scientists to include genes from other organisms (known as transgenes) that may impart specific benefits. For instance, crop seeds that have added genes which resist the effects of herbicides can allow farmers to spray their fields liberally with herbicides to kill undesired weeds without the fear of killing their marketable crop along with them.

Genetic pollution is the release into the natural environment of these altered genes, creating the risk that they might breed with wild plants or animals and spread out uncontrollably. Reports author Jeremy Rifkin in his landmark 1998 book, The Biotech Century: “Some of those releases…could wreak havoc with the planet’s biosphere, spreading destabilizing and even deadly genetic pollution across the world.”

To follow through on the previous crop seed example: If herbicide-resistant, genetically engineered crops were to breed with their wild cousins, it could lead to the creation of super-weeds undeterred by control efforts. The weeds could, in turn, edge out native species and drive them to extinction, causing an overall loss of genetic diversity. According to Greenpeace, crop genetic diversity is “essential for global food security” and a lack of it can be linked to many of the major crop epidemics in human history, including the Southern corn leaf blight in the U.S. in 1970. They quote noted botanist Jack Harlan who said that genetic diversity is all that “stands between us and catastrophic starvation on a scale we can not imagine.”

To track the growing problem of genetic pollution, Greenpeace International, along with GeneWatch UK, launched the GM Contamination Register in 2005 (the “GM” stands for Genetic Modification). This free online database details publicly documented incidents of contamination arising from the intentional or accidental release of genetically modified organisms into the environment as well as any accompanying negative agricultural side effects. Individuals, public interest groups and governments make use of the register to see where, when and how contamination has occurred. So far in 2011 alone more than a dozen cases of contamination—from Australia, Asia, Europe and the U.S.—have been reported in the register.

Gene pollution as it pertains to crops is only part of the concern. A Canadian company, AquaBounty, is seeking approval from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to sell genetically modified Atlantic salmon in the U.S. These fish have a growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon (native to the North Pacific) and an anti-freeze protein gene from another fish, the ocean pout (native to the Northwest Atlantic). The resulting transgenic salmon produce growth hormones all year long—not just during the warmer months like other fish—and as such reach maturity faster than their non-genetically modified counterparts.

“There are concerns about the impact of GM salmon on wild salmon should it escape into rivers or the Atlantic ocean, because it could out-compete wild salmon for food, or breed with them producing offspring that may be less fit to survive,” reports GeneWatch UK. “This could have serious negative effects on declining or endangered wild salmon populations.”

CONTACTS: GeneWatch UK, www.genewatch.org; Greenpeace International, www.greenpeace.org/international; GM Contamination Register, www.gmcontaminationregister.org; AquaBounty, www.aquabounty.com.

Lester R. Brown's "Plan B" is an integrated program with four interdependent goals: drastically cutting carbon dioxide emissions, stabilizing population, eradicating poverty, and restoring the Earth’s natural systems. Pictured: Mr. Brown and the first Plan B book, published in 2003. There have been three subsequent editions.

What started as a book has grown into a movement known as “Plan B” which presents a roadmap for achieving worldwide goals of stabilizing both population and climate. According to Lester Brown, author of the 2003 book, Plan B (and three subsequent updates) and founder of the non-profit environmental think tank, Earth Policy Institute, the plan is based on replacing the fossil-fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy with a new economic model powered by abundant sources of renewable energy.

Brown argues for transportation systems that are diverse and aim to maximize mobility, widely employing light rail, buses and bicycles. “A Plan B economy comprehensively reuses and recycles materials,” he says. “Consumer products from cars to computers are designed to be disassembled into their component parts and completely recycled.”
Brown even proposes a budget for eradicating poverty, educating the world’s youth and delivering better health care for everyone. “It also presents ways to restore our natural world by planting trees, conserving topsoil, stabilizing water tables, and protecting biological diversity,” says Brown. “With each new wind farm, rooftop solar water heater, paper recycling facility, bicycle path, marine park, rural school, public health facility, and reforestation program, we move closer to a Plan B economy.”

Plan B is an integrated program with four interdependent goals: cutting net carbon dioxide emissions 80 percent by 2020, stabilizing population at eight billion or lower, eradicating poverty, and restoring the Earth’s natural systems. Where Plan B really hits home is in the numbers: Brown puts realistic dollar values on the various aspects of his plan, and compares these costs with current military spending. Needless to say, restoring the environment and economy looks like a bargain when viewed against what the developed nations of the world spend on being ready for battle.

The beauty of Plan B is that it is feasible with current technologies and could well be achieved by 2020 with a concerted international effort. Brown reportedly wrote the latest incarnation of Plan B as a warning call for leaders of the world to begin “mobilizing to save civilization” given that time is more than ever of the essence. Luminaries from Bill Clinton to E.O. Wilson to Ted Turner have spoken highly of Plan B, and at least one university (Cal State at Chico) has made the latest version of the book (Plan B 4.0) required reading for all incoming freshmen.

Those looking for more up-to-date information on the evolution of the Plan B model and progress toward its goals should tune into the website of the Earth Policy Institute, the think tank started by Brown in 2001 and currently used as a central node in the growing network of thousands of entities and individuals around the globe supportive of making Plan B into reality. Prior to founding Earth Policy Institute, Brown was well known in environmental and policy circles for his work with the Worldwatch Institute, a pioneering environmental think tank he launched back in 1974.

CONTACT: Earth Policy Institute, www.earth-policy.org.

Researchers have identified traces of pharmaceutical drugs -- including antibiotics, hormones, contraceptives and steroids -- in the drinking water supplies of some 40 million Americans. (Stockbyte)

Pharmaceutical drug contamination in our groundwater, rivers, lakes, estuaries and bays is a growing problem. Millions of us are flushing unused medications down the toilet and discharging them in our body waste—even though sewage treatment plants and septic systems were never designed to deal with such contaminants. Additional discharges by healthcare facilities exacerbate the problem. As a result, researchers have identified traces of pharmaceutical drugs in the drinking water supplies of some 40 million Americans.

A nationwide study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey in 1999 and 2000 found low levels of pharmaceuticals—including antibiotics, hormones, contraceptives and steroids—in 80 percent of the rivers and streams sampled. According to Citizens Campaign for the Environment (CCE), the effects of constant, low-level exposure of pharmaceuticals on ecosystems and humans are uncertain, though “possible health concerns include hormone disruption, antibiotic resistance and synergistic effects.” And antidepressants, says CCE, can “alter the behavior and reproductive functions of fish and mollusks.”

CCE cites a recent Stony Brook University study showing that some fish species in New York’s Jamaica Bay are experiencing “feminization”—the ratio of female to male winter flounder was 10 to one in the studied area—likely a result of flushed pharmaceuticals that can act as “hormone mimics” and cause such effects. New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation concurs, citing a number of other studies underscoring the impacts on aquatic life. What irks CCE about the problem is that almost all known sources of drugs in the environment first pass through wastewater treatment plants where they could be filtered out, but these facilities are not required to be equipped with pharmaceutical filter devices.

In light of the problem, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in 2007 established its first set of guidelines for how consumers should dispose of prescription drugs. First and foremost, consumers should follow any specific disposal instructions on a drug’s label or the patient information that accompanies the medication—and shouldn’t flush the drugs down the toilet. If there are no disposal instructions, the FDA recommends finding out from your municipality if any take-back programs are in place. Also, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration sponsors National Prescription Drug Take Back Days across the country at various sites a few times a year.

“If no instructions are given on the drug label and no take-back program is available in your area, throw the drugs in the household trash, but first take them out of their original containers and mix them with an undesirable substance, such as used coffee grounds or kitty litter,” says the FDA. This will make them less appealing to children, pets or people who may intentionally go through your trash, says the agency, which adds that a final step is to put the medication into a sealed bag or other container to prevent leaks.

CONTACTS: CCE, www.citizenscampaign.org; National Prescription Drug Take Back Days, www.nationaltakebackday.com; FDA’s “How to Dispose of Unused Medicines,” www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/BuyingUsingMedicineSafely/UnderstandingOver-the-CounterMedicines/ucm107163.pdf.

Major progress has been made in reducing the overpopulation of cats and dogs that had resulted in some 12 to 20 million being euthanized each year in the 1970s. Today, despite there being more than twice the number of companion animals in U.S. homes, the number euthanized yearly is down to three to four million. There is still clearly more work to be done. (Comstock)

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the leading non-profit devoted to animal welfare, reports that in the 1970s American shelters euthanized between 12 and 20 million cats and dogs every year at a time when there were 67 million pets in U.S. homes. According to statistics gleaned from the Asilomar Accords, which tracks animal shelter care and euthanasia numbers, U.S. shelters today euthanize three to four million animals, while there are more than 135 million cats and dogs in American homes.

“This enormous decline in euthanasia numbers—from around 25 percent of American dogs and cats euthanized every year to about three percent—represents substantial progress,” reports HSUS. “We will make still greater progress by working together to strike at the roots of animal overpopulation.”

These numbers are only estimates as there is no centralized reporting protocol for shelters. However, the Asilomar Accords method is gaining momentum as a standard for more accurately tracking animal shelter care and euthanasia numbers; it posts annual statistics for some 150 different U.S. shelters on its website.

And what exactly are the roots of the problem? Foremost is irresponsible breeding—pet owners failing to get their animals spayed or neutered, leading to unwanted offspring. Some 35 percent of U.S. pet owners do not spay or neuter their pets, despite increasing public awareness about the pet overpopulation issue.

Another factor is low adoption rates: Only 20 percent of the 17 million Americans that get a new pet each year opt for a shelter pet; the vast majority buys from pet stores, breeders, or through other private arrangements. And six to eight million pets are given up to shelters or rescue groups every year for one reason or another, leaving these organizations with many more animals than they can place in homes.

Beyond these factors, HSUS also cites our society’s “disposal pet” ethos, whereby owners are quick to relinquish their pets for any number of reasons. The majority of shelter pets are not overflowing litters of puppies and kittens, but companion animals turned in by their owners. “To solve this problem, we would need to effect a cultural change in which every individual fully considers all of the responsibilities and consequences of pet ownership before adopting, and then makes a lifetime commitment to their pet.”

The National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy is a coalition of eleven of America’s foremost animal welfare organizations concerned with the issue of unwanted pets in the United States. The Council and its partner groups, including HSUS, work to promote responsible pet ownership and reduce pet overpopulation through public education, legislation and support for sterilization programs.

As to what individuals can do, HSUS recommends spaying or neutering their dogs and cats, adopting from shelters or rescue groups, and considering all the ramifications of pet ownership before deciding to take on a cat or dog in the first place.

CONTACTS: HSUS, www.hsus.org; Asilomar Accords, www.asilomaraccords.org; National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy, www.petpopulation.org.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is evaluating 757 imperiled plant and animal species to determine if they should be added to the federal Endangered Species List by 2018. Among the wildlife getting a closer look is the walrus, pictured here. (iStock Photo)

Dear EarthTalk: What’s the gist of the recent agreement between the Center for Biological Diversity and the federal government regarding adding many more plants and animals to the Endangered Species List?      – J.J. Scarboro, Tallahassee, FL 

The agreement in question forces the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to make initial or final decisions on whether to grant some 757 imperiled plant and animal species protection under the Endangered Species Act over the next six years. In exchange, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), a leading advocacy group devoted to animal and plant conservation, will withdraw its legal opposition to a May 2011 agreement between USFWS and another conservation group, Wildlife Guardians. CBD argued that the agreement with Wildlife Guardians was too weak, unenforceable and missing key species in need of protection. The new agreement, if approved by the U.S. District Court as submitted in July 2011, would make many of the provisions of the old agreement obsolete.

“Scientists and conservationists have a critical role to play in identifying endangered species and developing plans and priorities to save them. The extinction crisis is too big—too pressing—to rely on government agencies alone,” says Kieran Suckling, executive director of CBD.

CBD reports that the work plan under the new agreement will enable USFWS to move forward with systematically reviewing and addressing the needs of hundreds of species to determine if they should be added to the federal Endangered Species List by 2018. Some of the species in question that will get a closer look—and which CBD hopes are “fast-tracked” for protection—include the walrus, the wolverine, the Mexican gray wolf, the New England cottontail rabbit, three species of sage grouse, the scarlet Hawaiian honeycreeper (‘I’iwi), the California golden trout, the Rio Grande cutthroat trout and the Miami blue butterfly, among others.

The 757 species up for listing consideration span every taxonomic group—including 26 birds, 31 mammals, 67 fish, 13 reptiles, 42 amphibians, 197 plants and 381 invertebrates—and occur in all 50 states and several Pacific Island territories. Alabama, Georgia and Florida are home to the majority of the species (149, 121 and 115 in each respectively). Hawaii, Nevada, California, Washington and Oregon each play host to dozens of unlisted imperiled species as well.

“The Southeast, West Coast, Hawaii and Southwest are America’s extinction hot spots,” says Suckling. “Most of the species lost in the past century lived there, and most of those threatened with extinction in the next decade live there as well.”

CBD considers the agreement a big win and a key piece of its decade-long campaign to safeguard 1,000 of the nation’s most imperiled, least protected plant and animal species. Some two-thirds of the species listed in the agreement were not previously considered to be candidates for protection for USFWS. “This corresponds with the conclusion of numerous scientists and scientific societies that the extinction crisis is vastly greater than existing federal priority systems and budgets,” adds Suckling.

CONTACTS: Center for Biological Diversity, www.biologicaldiversity.org; United States Fish and Wildlife Service, www.fws.gov; Wildlife Guardians, www.defenders.org/support_us/wildlife_guardians.

New efficiency requirements for light bulbs may sound the death knell for incandescents, which have not changed significantly since Thomas Edison invented them in 1879. Newer, more efficient styles cost more but could save consumers some $6 billion in annual energy costs by 2015 -- while also eliminating the equivalent of 30 large power plants' electrical output and 14 million cars worth of carbon emissions. (Media credit/Hemera Collection)

The Better Use of Light Bulbs (BULB) Act (H.R. 2417) was a failed attempt in July 2011 by some Republicans in the House to repeal a 2007 law mandating increased efficiency for light bulbs sold anywhere in the U.S. Sponsors of the bill cited the 2007 bulb efficiency requirements—whereby light bulbs must be 25 to 30 percent more efficient by 2014 and then as much as 60 percent more efficient by 2020—as a key example of how government overreaches its authority.

“The 2010 elections demonstrated that Americans are fed up with government intrusion,” said Representative Joe Barton, the Texas Republican who proposed the repeal. “The federal government has crept so deep into our lives that federal agencies now determine what kind of light bulbs the American people are allowed to purchase.” It’s ironic that the new standards were put in place by Republican President George W. Bush as part of his Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, a sweeping update of the country’s energy policy. At the time, the bill, including the provisions about light bulb efficiency, enjoyed widespread bi-partisan support.

The fact that the BULB Act couldn’t muster enough votes in the Republican-controlled House to pass by the required two-thirds majority shows that even many conservative lawmakers would rather have the country save money and energy than waste it unnecessarily on inefficient lighting. The repeal effort did garner 233 votes, but the 193 opposed were more than enough to override it given House rules.

Maryland’s Steny Hoyer, Democratic Whip in the House, derided the sponsors of the repeal attempt for focusing on the wrong priorities in these dire economic times. “By bringing misguided bills like this one to the floor instead of a comprehensive jobs plan, it is clear that House Republicans are still in the dark.”

Even the National Electrical Manufacturers Association and General Electric came out against repealing the increased efficiency standards, given the strides industry has made in recent years to roll with the punches and design more efficient bulbs, fixtures and electricity distribution methods.

Analysts wonder if the 2007 efficiency requirements will sound the death knell for incandescent bulbs, which have not changed significantly since first invented by Thomas Edison in 1879. While newer, more efficient styles of bulbs—from compact fluorescents (CFLs) to halogens to light-emitting diodes (LEDs)—may be significantly more expensive than their incandescent counterparts (by as much as a factor of 50!), consumers will likely make up the difference and then some over the long term as energy savings accrue. The Department of Energy estimates that the switchover to newer, more efficient bulbs will save American households upwards of $50 per year by 2015, or some $6 billion in the aggregate.

Besides saving money, the new standards will save the amount of electricity generated by more than 30 large power plants, according to the nonprofit Alliance to Save Energy (ASE). As for global warming, the new standards promise to save carbon emissions equaling the removal of 14 million cars off the road.

CONTACTS: H.R. 2417, thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.2417:; ASE, www.ase.org.

Nonpoint source pollution comes from many diffuse sources, but in the aggregate creates a formidable challenge for municipal, state and federal environmental and water control authorities -- and is likely the largest threat to our water quality. Pictured: Runoff of fertilizer-laced soil from a farm. (USDA)

Unlike pollution that comes from specific industrial factories, sewage treatment plants and other easily discernible ‘points’, nonpoint source pollution comes from many diffuse sources, but in the aggregate creates a formidable challenge for municipal, state and federal environmental and water control authorities.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), nonpoint source pollution is “caused by rainfall or snowmelt moving over and through the ground [where it...] picks up and carries away natural and human-made pollutants, finally depositing them into lakes, rivers, wetlands, coastal waters and ground waters.” Some of the most common pollutants in nonpoint source pollution include excess fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides from agricultural lands and residential areas and oil, grease and toxic chemicals from urban runoff and energy production. Sediment from construction, mining and agricultural sites as well as salts, acids, bacteria and atmospheric deposition from myriad sources also play a role.

While its effects vary region to region, nonpoint source pollution is likely the largest threat to our water quality. The U.S. has made “tremendous advances in the past 25 years to clean up the aquatic environment by controlling pollution from industries and sewage treatment plants,” says the EPA. “Unfortunately, we did not do enough to control pollution from diffuse, or nonpoint, sources.” The EPA also calls nonpoint source pollution the U.S.’s “largest source of water quality problems” and the main reason 40 percent of our rivers, lakes, and estuaries “are not clean enough to meet basic uses such as fishing or swimming.”

Because it comes from so many sources, regulating nonpoint source pollution is almost impossible, so it really comes down to individuals taking steps to minimize the pollution generated by their actions. The EPA reports that we can all do our part by: keeping litter, pet waste, leaves and debris out of street gutters and storm drains, which usually drain right into nearby water bodies; applying lawn and garden chemicals sparingly; disposing of used oil, antifreeze, paints and other household chemicals properly, that is, at your nearest hazardous household waste drop-off, not in storm drains; cleaning up spilled brake fluid, oil, grease and antifreeze, not hosing them into the street where they will eventually reach local waterways; and controlling soil erosion on your property by planting ground cover and stabilizing erosion-prone areas.

Beyond what we can do individually, local, regional and state governments can also help reduce nonpoint source pollution by enacting and enforcing building codes and other rules that can reduce outflows. The voluntary reduction in phosphates in dishwashing detergents in the U.S. last year, for example, was a big step in reducing the nutrient load into our streams and lakes. Some municipalities have gone so far as to mandate erosion and sediment control ordinances requiring the construction of natural buffers in building and landscaping projects to filter out pollutants before they reach local watersheds. If your community doesn’t have similar rules in place, encourage your local officials to enact them.

CONTACT: EPA’s Nonpoint Source Pollution Page, www.epa.gov/owow_keep/NPS.

Medical waste washing up on New Jersey beaches was a big problem in the late 1980s, closing beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the New Jersey shore. Although that problem was addressed for the most part, bacterial contamination from sewage treatment outflows, contaminated storm water and other sources caused more than 24,000 beach closures or advisories across the U.S. last year. Pictured: a washed-up syringe. (iStock)

Medical waste washing up on New Jersey beaches was a big problem in the late 1980s, closing beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the New Jersey shore. Officials scrambled for months to figure out where the waste was coming from, and eventually zeroed in on New York City’s Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island. Sub-optimal systems there were not successfully containing medical waste and other garbage on site, and New Jersey beaches—and vacationers and business owners—were paying the price. Although no one was injured or exposed to disease by the washed up waste, the public was especially alarmed given the HIV/AIDS crisis gripping the nation at that time. New York City was required to pay $1 million for past pollution damages and had to shoulder the cost of clean-up at Jersey Shore beaches as well.

The resulting loss of tourism cost business owners throughout the affected region as much as 40 percent of their revenue, with total losses estimated at well over $1 billion. Some New Jersey business owners remain upset that New York wasn’t forced to pay them reparations for lost revenue as well.

In the wake of the scare, Congress enacted the Medical Waste Tracking Act in 1988, requiring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to create a program to better track medical waste from cradle-to-grave so that it didn’t end up fouling beaches or any other environments. While the program was not renewed when it expired in 1991, it served as a model for how states and municipalities could better track potentially dangerous medical waste while also helping medical facilities institute systems and processes for making sure they knew where their waste was going and that it would be disposed of responsibly.

Meanwhile, New York and New Jersey have coordinated on setting up and maintaining their own systems to stem the so-called “syringe tides.” The cornerstone is a multi-agency program designed to intercept debris within New Jersey Harbor before it can get to tourist-crowded Jersey Shore beaches. Thanks to the plan—which relies on surveillance by environmental groups as well as routine and special clean-up sweeps by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the implementation of a communications network to facilitate the reporting of incidents and quick responses—beach closures declined from more than 70 miles in 1988 to less than four miles in 1989, with closures remaining at similarly low levels ever since.

Of course, medical waste is hardly the only problem facing America’s beaches and coastal waters. According to the non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), bacterial contamination from sewage treatment outflows, contaminated storm water and other sources caused more than 24,000 beach closures or advisories across the country in 2010 alone. NRDC reports on water quality at U.S. beaches every year in its series of “Testing the Waters” reports. Pressure from the group has helped spur the EPA to agree to overhaul Clean Water Act regulations pertaining to urban and suburban storm water runoff and update decades-old beach water quality standards by 2012. These improvements should help to keep beaches from the Jersey Shore to the Great Lakes to California, and points in between, clear of debris and safe for swimmers and sunbathers of every stripe.

CONTACTS: NRDC Testing the Waters, www.nrdc.org/water/oceans/ttw; Medical Waste Tracking Act of 1988, www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/industrial/medical/tracking.htm.

A new bill, passed by the House of Representatives and awaiting vote in the Senate, aims to strip the EPA of its authority over individual states' water quality. Pictured: The Cuyahoga River on fire in 1952. When it happened again in 1969 it helped kick start the modern environmental movement including the establishment of the Clean Water Act and the founding of the EPA. (Media credit/Wikipedia)

The Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011 (H.R. 2018), passed the House of Representatives this past July with strong support from Republicans and will likely be voted on by the Senate in the Fall. It aims to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (also known as the Clean Water Act (CWA) in order to give authority over water quality standards back to the states.

The bill’s backers—including most House Republicans and lobbyists for the mountaintop coal mining industry and factory animal farms—claim it will bring jobs to Appalachia and other distressed regions of the country where they say economic growth has been crippled by stringent environmental regulations. The bill would prevent the EPA from overruling decisions made by state regulatory agencies.

“By second-guessing and inserting itself into the states’…standards and permitting decisions, EPA has upset the long-standing balance between federal and state partners in regulating the nation’s waters, and undermined the system of cooperative federalism established under the CWA in which the primary responsibilities for water pollution control are allocated to the states,” says GOP.gov, the website of the Republican majority in Congress. “EPA’s actions have created an atmosphere of regulatory uncertainty for the regulated community, and have had a chilling effect on the nation’s economy and job creation.”

But those opposed to the bill, including the White House and many Congressional Democrats, say that its provisions would undermine stringent federal water quality protections some four decades in the making.

“H.R. 2018 could limit efforts to safeguard communities by removing the Federal Government’s
authority to take action when State water quality standards are not protective of public health,” said the White House after the bill passed in the House by a count of 239-184. Such changes, they added, could adversely impact public health and the environment through increased pollution and degradation of water bodies that provide drinking water, recreation and tourism opportunities, and habitat for fish and wildlife.
For their part, environmental groups couldn’t agree more. “Make no mistake: This bill would take the environmental cop off the beat and put at risk drinking water for millions of people, the habitat for scores of wildlife, and the jobs and economic growth that depends on a safer, cleaner environment,” said Larry Schweiger of the non-profit National Wildlife Federation, adding that, if enacted, the bill would take us “back to a time when rivers caught fire because of rampant pollution.”

Environmentalists are optimistic that backers won’t have enough Senate votes to pass the bill. Meanwhile, President Obama has pledged to veto any such legislation that does make its way across his desk. But political winds shift quickly inside the Beltway, and only time will tell if the bill will gain enough support to withstand a veto. The quality of the nation’s water supply hangs in the balance.

CONTACTS: H.R. 2018, www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-2018; U.S. EPA, www.epa.gov; GOP.gov, www.gop.gov; National Wildlife Federation, www.nwf.org.

Perhaps the most infamous U.S. dead zone is an 8,500 square mile swath of the Gulf of Mexico, not far from where the nutrient-laden Mississippi River, which drains farms up and down the Midwest, lets out.

So-called dead zones are areas of large bodies of water—typically in the ocean but also occasionally in lakes and even rivers—that do not have enough oxygen to support marine life. The cause of such “hypoxic” (lacking oxygen) conditions is usually eutrophication, an increase in chemical nutrients in the water, leading to excessive blooms of algae that deplete underwater oxygen levels. Nitrogen and phosphorous from agricultural runoff are the primary culprits, but sewage, vehicular and industrial emissions and even natural factors also play a role in the development of dead zones.

Dead zones occur around the world, but primarily near areas where heavy agricultural and industrial activity spill nutrients into the water and compromise its quality accordingly. Some dead zones do occur naturally, but the prevalence of them since the 1970s—when dead zones were detected in Chesapeake Bay off Maryland as well as in Scandinavia’s Kattegat Strait, the mouth of the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and the northern Adriatic—hints at mankind’s impact. A 2008 study found more than 400 dead zones worldwide, including in South America, China, Japan, southeast Australia and elsewhere.

Perhaps the most infamous U.S. dead zone is an 8,500 square mile swath (about the size of New Jersey) of the Gulf of Mexico, not far from where the nutrient-laden Mississippi River, which drains farms up and down the Midwest, lets out. Besides decimating the region’s once teeming shrimp industry, low oxygen levels in the water there have led to reproductive problems for fish, leading to lack of spawning and low egg counts. Other notable U.S. dead zones today occur off the coasts of Oregon and Virginia.

Fortunately, dead zones are reversible if their causes are reduced or eliminated. For example, a huge dead zone in the Black Sea largely disappeared in the 1990s following the fall of the Soviet Union, after which there was a huge spike in the cost of chemical fertilizers throughout the region. And while this situation was largely unintentional, the lessons learned have not been lost on scientists, policymakers and the United Nations, which has been pushing to reduce industrial emissions in other areas around the globe where dead zones are a problem. To wit, efforts by countries along the Rhine River to reduce sewage and industrial emissions have reduced nitrogen levels in the North Sea’s dead zone by upwards of 35 percent.

In the U.S., dead zones have also been reduced in the Hudson River and San Francisco Bay following clean-up efforts. Hypoxic conditions continue to plague the Gulf of Mexico, however, with matters made worse by pollution unleashed by Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill, as well as by a federal push to increase Midwest corn production, which effectively loads even more algae-inducing nutrients into the already overloaded system. The Mississippi Basin/Gulf of Mexico Water Nutrient Task Force, a coalition of federal, state and tribal agencies, has been busy monitoring the dead zone and recommending ways to reduce it since its formation in 1997. But with industrial and agricultural activity throughout Gulf and Midwestern states only increasing—and Mother Nature not making the job any easier—the task force has an uphill battle on its hands to say the least.

CONTACT: Mississippi Basin/Gulf of Mexico Water Nutrient Task Force, www.epa.gov/owow_keep/msbasin.

William Rees of the University of British Columbia reports that human society is in a “global overshoot,” consuming 30 percent more material than is sustainable from the world’s resources. Pictured: A "Buy Nothing Day" activist leaflets in San Francisco. (Media credit/Steve Rhodes)

There is no doubt true that our overly consumerist culture is contributing to our addiction to oil and other natural resources and the pollution of the planet and its atmosphere.

Unfortunately the tendency to acquire and even horde valuable goods may be coded into our DNA. Researchers contend that humans are subconsciously driven by an impulse for survival, domination and expansion which finds expression in the idea that economic growth will solve all individual and worldly ills. Advertising plays on those impulses, turning material items into objects of great desire imparting intelligence, status and success.

William Rees of the University of British Columbia reports that human society is in a “global overshoot,” consuming 30 percent more material than is sustainable from the world’s resources. He adds that 85 countries are exceeding their domestic “bio-capacities” and compensate for their lack of local material by depleting the stocks of other countries.

Of course, every one of us can do our part by limiting our purchases to only what we need and to make responsible choices when we do buy something. But those who might need a little inspiration to get started should look to the Adbusters Media Foundation, a self-described “global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age.”

Among the foundation’s most successful campaigns is Buy Nothing Day, an international day of protest typically “celebrated” the Friday after Thanksgiving in North America (so-called Black Friday, one of the year’s busiest shopping days) and the following Saturday in some 60 other countries. The idea is that for one day a year we commit to not purchase anything, and to help spread the anti-consumerist message to anyone who will listen, with the hope of inspiring people to consume less and generate less waste the other 364 days of the year. The first Buy Nothing Day took place in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1992 with a few dozen participants, but today hundreds of thousands of people all over the world take part.

In recent years some anti-consumerists have added Buy Nothing Christmas to their agendas as well. Some ideas for how to leverage Buy Nothing Christmas sentiment without looking too much like Scrooge include giving friends and family “gift exemption” cards and asking shoppers in line at a big box store, “What would Jesus buy?”

Beyond Buy Nothing Day and Buy Nothing Christmas, the Adbusters Media Foundation stokes the fire of anti-consumerism throughout the year via its bi-monthly publication, Adbusters, an ad-free magazine with an international circulation topping 120,000. Do yourself a favor and subscribe…and cancel all those catalogs stuffing up your mailbox in the meantime.

CONTACTS: Adbusters, www.adbusters.org; Buy Nothing Day, www.adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd.

Cyanide fishing began in the 1960s in the Philippines as a way to capture live reef fish for sale primarily to aquarium owners, but is today also done to supply specialty restaurants in Hong Kong and other large Asian cities. Pictured: The ocellaris clownfish, a popular aquarium fish often captured after first being stunned by bursts of cyanide-laced seawater squirted from a plastic bottle. (Metatron)

Cyanide fishing, whereby divers crush cyanide tablets into plastic squirt bottles of sea water and puff the solution to stun and capture live coral reef fish, is widely practiced throughout Southeast Asia despite being illegal in most countries of the region. The practice began in the 1960s in the Philippines as a way to capture live reef fish for sale primarily to European and North American aquarium owners—a market now worth some $200 million a year.

But today the technique is also used to supply specialty restaurants in Hong Kong and other large Asian cities. There high roller customers can choose which live fish they want prepared on the spot for their dinner at a cost of up to $300 per plate in what the non-profit World Resources Institute (WRI) calls “an essential status symbol for major celebrations and business occasions.” WRI adds that as the East Asian economy has boomed in recent decades, live reef food fish has become a trade worth $1 billion annually.

Of course, the cyanide itself is no good for the fish that ingest it. Internet chat boards are rife with comments about cyanide-caught aquarium fish developing cancer within a year of being purchased. And many aquarium owners are willing to pay a premium for “net-caught” ornamental fish as they have a longer life expectancy.

But perhaps the greater damage inflicted by cyanide fishing is to the coral reefs where it is employed, as cyanide kills the reefs and also many of the life forms that rely on them. Researchers estimate that more than a million kilograms of cyanide have been squirted onto Philippine reefs alone over the last half century. These days the practice is much more widespread, with some of the world’s most productive reefs being decimated.

“Despite the fact that cyanide fishing is nominally illegal in virtually all Indo-Pacific countries, the high premium paid for live reef fish, weak enforcement capacities, and frequent corruption have spread the use of the poison across the entire region—home o the vast majority of the planet’s coral reefs,” reports WRI. “As stocks in one country are depleted, the trade moves on to new frontiers, and cyanide fishing is now confirmed or suspected in countries stretching from the central Pacific to the shores of East Africa. Sadly, the most pristine reefs, far from the usual threats of sedimentation, coral mining and coastal development, are the primary target for cyanide fishing operations.”

While there is not much evidence of cyanide-caught fish poisoning the people who eat it—the dose retained by a fish after being puffed is relatively small—the risk nevertheless remains, especially for those who ingest a lot of it. Nausea and gastritis are the typical symptoms of cyanide poisoning, and of course larger doses can cause death. WRI estimates that some 20 percent of the live fish for sale at markets across Southeast Asia are caught using cyanide. Children, the elderly and pregnant women should be especially careful to avoid cyanide-caught fish.

CONTACT: World Resources Institute, www.wri.org.

The Green Café Network (GCN), a project of Earth Island Institute, seeks to green the coffeehouse industry and harness cafe culture for community environmental awareness. Pictured: San Francisco's Border Lands Cafe, a GCN member. (Media credit/Steve Rhodes)

The Green Café Network (GCN), a project of the non-profit Earth Island Institute, seeks to reduce Americans’ environmental impacts by greening the coffeehouse industry and harnessing cafe culture for community environmental awareness. By educating and working with cafe owners and staff, GCN helps network members reduce waste, save energy, conserve water and increase community stewardship. GCN’s 30-plus cafes scattered across Northern California (as well as one in New York City and another in Keshena, Wisconsin) are committed to reducing their carbon footprints, promoting environmental responsibility and generally operating in as sustainable a manner as possible.

The approach of the GCN is to build on the influence of key institutions—neighborhood cafes and Americans’ infatuation with coffee—to try to raise environmental awareness and spur individual action. The idea is that when people see their local café as a positive example of green business practices and community building, there is a ripple effect, and the community is strengthened accordingly.

For cafes interested in getting involved, GCN provides personalized consulting services to help owners reduce their ecological footprints, enhance and streamline their operations, and set a visible good example of environmental responsibility for the community at large. Services can address specific areas in need of attention, such as energy and water conservation, waste reduction, toxics minimization and eco-friendly purchasing, and also overall efforts to green the business from top to bottom. GCN can also consult on green building issues in the design, construction and remodel phases of a cafe’s lifecycle. With a project tagline of “Love Our Planet a Latte,” how could one not love what GCN is doing?

Cafes and coffee shops can take steps to align environmental considerations with business operations even without membership in GCN. The Barista Exchange website, for one, offers a treasure trove of information and tips on greening up cafes and coffee shops through energy and waste reduction, eco-friendly procurement and the sourcing of organic fair trade coffee. U.S. coffee shops serve up about 25 million cups every day, so coffee shops can make a huge difference by being green.

For its part, the nation’s leading coffee retailer, Starbucks, has been a pioneer in greening the coffee industry, and the company considers environmental stewardship a priority. With dedicated programs for increasing recycling, conserving energy and water, sourcing greener beans, using sustainable building techniques and materials in new stores, and offsetting carbon emissions, Starbucks has worked hard to set a green example.
Of course, cafe owners and staff aren’t the only ones responsible for greening your coffee habit. You can play a role too. One obvious place to start is to bring in your own reusable mug to fill up on your favorite blend to cut down on paper cup waste. And requesting fair trade coffee will help ensure living wages for coffee workers out in the fields and send a message to café owners that you value doing the right thing.

CONTACTS: Green Cafe Network, www.earthisland.org/index.php/projects/grn; Barista Exchange, www.baristaexchange.com; Starbucks Environmental Stewardship, www.starbucks.com/responsibility/environment.