Last October, Iceland announced it would resume hunting great whales, breaking a 20-year moratorium on commercial whaling. Icelandic whalers will be allowed to kill nine endangered fin whales and 30 smaller, more abundant minkes by the end of August. The killing has already begun: By the end of last November, whalers had killed seven fins, producing a storm of international criticism.
When it comes to solid waste, most people think of candy wrappers, soda bottles and Styrofoam packing peanuts instead of the house they’re living in or the Target where they shop. However, the EPA estimates that up to 40 percent of U.S. solid waste is construction and demolition debris. Deconstruction—taking homes and commercial buildings apart, rather than landfilling the waste—does involve more labor than demolition, but it also avoids costly disposal fees. What had been a total loss—demolition and landfilling—turns into a revenue-generating opportunity to resell what was previously waste.
Last September, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 263 to 146 to pass H.R. 503, which bans the slaughter of horses for human consumption. The Senate will now consider its version of the bill, S. 1915.
Conscious consumers can pride themselves on pushing the global coffee market in a more eco-friendly direction, but what about the disposable cup industry? According to the Food Service and Packaging Institute, Americans use and throw out nearly 44 billion disposable cups for hot beverages each year.
It’s been a momentous year for cleaner vehicles (see "Getting There: A Guide to Planet-Friendly Cars," Consumer News, July/August 2004). DaimlerChrysler rolled out the first plug-in hybrid, albeit as a test vehicle, and announced it would soon import the fuel-sipping Smart city car. Several more manufacturers, including Ford, added new hybrids to their fleets. And the race to bring a fuel-cell car to market is getting hotter, as Honda and General Motors unveiled the latest versions of their hydrogen prototypes.
Like the beleaguered Cape Wind Project in Nantucket Sound, wind farms in Australia have faced opposition from communities that do not want their views disrupted by wind turbines. In 2004, Wind Power Pty Ltd landed government approval to build a 52-turbine wind farm in the rural area of Bald Hills, but then the locals protested, writing more than 1,500 letters to the planning board. So the governing party decided to kill the project and put the blame on an endangered local parrot.
Although it is the lightest element on the planet, liberating hydrogen from its molecular bonds can be a dirty process. However, a $250,000 demonstration project recently unveiled in Maine may be the bridge that leads to a clean hydrogen future.
According to Yale University’s Climate Initiative, this Ivy League school in New Haven, Connecticut produced greenhouse gas emissions of 285,000 metric tons in 2002, more than 30 developing nations. Most of those emissions come from power plants, purchased power and on-campus buildings. But things are looking up. Last year, Yale President Richard Levin announced the university’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent below its 1990 levels by 2020.
Dominica is now becoming known for something else than a long-ago visit by Christopher Columbus. The “nature isle” is now synonymous with longevity. At 29 miles long and 16 miles wide, with a population of 70,000, Dominica boasts 20 centenarians, and has the second-highest longevity in the western hemisphere (second only to Canada).
President Bush famously admitted in his State of the Union address last January that “America is addicted to oil.” E took a look at our addiction in The Outlook on Oil (cover story, January/February 2006). Now the International Energy Outlook (IEO) reports that the U.S. actually decreased its oil consumption in 2005.
