Although we like to think that the music we consume is planet-friendly (don’t groups do global warming benefits?) the truth is that CDs and big-ticket tours create carbon emissions and hefty material waste streams. The good news is that an industry vanguard is recognizing that impact and taking steps to neutralize it. Some performers even try to reduce carbon emissions above and beyond their own impact.
The nonprofit Rainforest Action Network urged 54 financial institutions last week not to participate in lending Texas-based TXU Corp. the $11 billion it needs for the construction of 11 new coal-burning power plants across Texas. The new plants would produce some 78 million tons of new carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions each year they are operating, which is more greenhouse gas pollution than is produced by 21 states or by small countries like Sweden, Denmark and Portugal.
A bipartisan group including the CEOs of Fedex, UPS and Dow Chemical, along with some of the nation’s best known retired generals, has come together to urge the White House to push for a new energy policy that reduces U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The group, which calls itself the Energy Security Leadership Council (ESLC), warns that weaning the country off foreign oil won’t be enough, and that the White House and Congress need to take decisive action to promote homegrown alternatives as soon as possible.
Just in time for the busy holiday travel season, the non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released a new report last week scolding the airline industry for the shocking amount of otherwise recyclable waste it discards every year. The report, entitled "Trash Landings: How Airlines and Airports Can Clean Up Their Recycling Programs," also details creative solutions undertaken by some airlines to boost recycling efforts.
India’s exploding housing sector in high-tech centers like Pune and Bangalore is finally seeing green development to satisfy the demands of more sophisticated and environmentally-conscious consumers—and improve the bottom line for developers.
The famed Appalachian Trail that stretches from Georgia to Maine may just become America’s largest living laboratory for environmental science, if an unlikely grouping of institutions has its way. The National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service are teaming up with Cornell University, the National Geographic Society, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and the American Hiking Society to launch the Appalachian Trail Mega-Transect, a comprehensive and ongoing assessment of various environmental indicators along the 2,200-mile hiking trail.
The nonprofit Land Trust Alliance (LTA) reported last week that Americans have increased the conservation of private lands by more than 50 percent in just five years. Currently about 37 million acres of private land has been set aside as natural areas across the U.S., as compared to just 24 million acres when the group last conducted such a tally in 2000. LTA works with local land trusts to help conserve private lands.
Last week I showed the Al Gore film An Inconvenient Truth to an audience in the basement of my church, United Congregational, in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It was, I imagine, an event mirrored across the country, as the producers of the film have made it very widely available without charge to community groups for free showings.
The nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council is hailing a recent decision by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to adopt stricter energy-efficiency standards for nearly two dozen commercial and residential appliances as a victory not only for environmentalists but for the American public.
In the latest flare-up regarding endangered species, two conservation groups have filed suit in federal court against the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) for refusing to place the mountain plover, a medium-sized grassland bird that has been in decline in recent years throughout the Rocky Mountain West, on the nation’s endangered species list.
