Latest Articles
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A small grocery chain uses food mileage as an advertising tactic
Roth's, a tiny (11 store) grocery chain in Oregon's mid-Willamette Valley, is promoting a "Go Local" campaign that's interesting in many respects, including its "Support our Northwest food system" slogan and ads:
- "Go Local" products are grown, caught, or produced in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, or Northern California.
- Look for the "Go Local" icon on products in your weekly Roth's ad. Buying these products will help build a regional food economy, ensuring farms in our community [sic] and protecting our food security for years to come.
- Where does your food come from? If it's a "Go Local" product from Roth's, then it comes from right here in the Northwest. If you think about the average distance food has to travel from farm to plate (around 1,500 miles), and think about how it got there (fossil fuels), you might be left wondering about the negative impact it will have on the environment. "Go Local" products are produced locally which in turn helps the environment and helps to support our local food system.
Perhaps even more interesting is that it gives the number of miles the featured foods traveled to reach the Roth's stores in Salem. A few items of note:
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Building professionals overestimate costs and underestimate benefits of green building
A new study (PDF) from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development finds that folks in the real estate and construction businesses overestimate the cost of building green by 300%. Specifically, the 1,400 professionals surveyed across the globe estimated that: green building costs 17% more than normal building, when the reality is 5%, and greenhouse […]
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Prius easily beats Hummer in lifecycle energy use; ‘Dust to Dust’ report has no basis in fact
A study came out recently claiming to prove a Hummer has lower lifecycle energy use than a Prius. Because the result was so obviously bogus -- and in sharp contradiction with every other major lifecycle analysis ever done -- I didn't spend time debunking it.But it made it into the comments of my blog and continues to echo around the internet, and the authors keep updating and defending it. A couple of good debunking studies -- by the Pacific Institute (PDF) and by Rocky Mountain Institute (PDF) -- haven't gotten much attention, according to Technorati, so let me throw in my two cents.
The study's title is revealing: Dust to Dust: The Energy Cost of New Vehicles From Concept to Disposal, The non-technical report, from CNW Marketing Research, Inc. Yes, although lifecycle energy use is probably the most complicated kind of energy analysis you can do, this 458-page report is "non-technical" and by a market research company to boot.
Their website says the report "does not include issues of gigajuelles [sic!], kW hours or other unfriendly (to consumers) terms. Perhaps, in time, we will release our data in such technical terms. First, however, we will only look at the energy consumption cost."
Wouldn't want to confuse consumers with unfriendly technical stuff like kilowatt-hours, like those annoying electric utilities do every month. No, let's put everything in dollar terms so no one can reproduce our results. When you misspell gigajoules on your website -- and have for a long time (try googling "gigajuelles") ... you aren't the most technical bunch.
I am mocking this report because it is the most contrived and mistake-filled study I have ever seen -- by far (and that's saying a lot, since I worked for the federal government for five years). I am not certain there is an accurate calculation in the entire report. I say this without fear of contradiction, because this is also the most opaque study I have ever seen -- by far. I defy anyone to figure out their methodology.
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More ammo against skeptics
If our How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic series doesn’t fully scratch your skepticism itch, check out Skeptical Science, a well-organized site devoted to tracking climate skeptic arguments and rebutting them.
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U.N.-initiated climate-change meeting kicks off
Some one thousand representatives of government, industry, and research institutions from more than 150 countries came together in Vienna today to kick off a United Nations-initiated week-long hobnob on WTF Should We Do About Climate Change. We’re betting relatively little of substance will come out of it, but check in for updates as the week […]
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New WA cell phone is ‘climate neutral’
In the interest of persuading the company’s extremely tenacious PR person to give me a moment’s peace, I’d like to direct your attention to the new (and world’s first!) "climate-neutral phone" from Working Assets. (Moral hazard alert: The phone is climate neutral through the purchase of offsets, which we all know are just medieval indulgences […]
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United Mine Workers of America provides fodder for time-capsule editorial on liquid coal
This editorial in the Niagara Gazette is from 2007, not 1977. Honest.
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China’s central government faces a choice between democracy and eco-collapse
"Choking on Growth" is the apt title of the new New York Times series on the "human toll, global impact and political challenge of China's epic pollution crisis." Epic, indeed. The first installment shows how "As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes." The statistics are daunting:
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East Asian countries could save money shifting to renewables, but aren’t gonna
According to Greenpeace International, East Asian countries can save about $2 trillion in fuel costs over the next 23 years by shifting to renewable energy (abandoning plans for both coal and nuclear plants). Said dazzlingly monickered Greenpeace campaign coordinator Athena Ballasteros … … investment costs for new power plants in East Asia projected by the […]
