Green News Update- July10, 2009

Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.

International

Obama: Leaders will work together on climate

G-8 Summit-

L’AQUILA, Italy (CNN) — Leaders of both industrialized powers and emerging economies have agreed to work together on setting a goal to limit global warming to levels recommended by scientists, U.S. President Barack Obama said at the G-8 summit.

The G-8 countries — comprising the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia — agreed to a target of reducing their carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent by the year 2050 to try to prevent the Earth’s atmosphere from warming by more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), Obama said.

Thursday’s meeting with emerging economies including China also secured a commitment from the developing countries to work for limiting global warming to the 2 degree Celsius threshold, Obama said.

“Developing countries among us will promptly undertake actions whose projected effects on emissions represent a meaningful deviation from business as usual in the midterm, in the context of sustainable development, supported by financing, technology, and capacity-building,” said the declaration from Thursday’s Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate.

The declaration stopped short of setting targets for the developing nations. Obama said the emerging economies agreed to work toward setting specific targets

He called the commitment of the emerging economies “an important stride forward” in minimizing climate change, but acknowledged that the issue he called one of the most challenging of our times would be difficult to confront.

The vast majority of climate change scientists warn that warming above the 2 degree Celsius threshold would mean potentially catastrophic impacts on Earth.

U.N.-led negotiations on a new global climate change treaty are aiming to conclude with an agreement among 192 nations in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December. Obama said the G-8 targets and work with developing countries are intended to support the international climate change treaty that will succeed the Kyoto Protocol in 2012.

In the United States, Congress is debating a new energy policy that could codify the G-8 target for emissions reductions in law. A House bill that recently passed has the same target of an 80 percent reduction by 2050, but Senate passage of a measure remains uncertain.

Republican opponents contend the United States would put itself at a competitive disadvantage by setting firm targets when China and other emerging economies would be free to pollute without limits. Some Democratic senators also fear harmful effects on fossil fuel industries in their states.

The Major Economies Forum led by Obama included the G-8 countries along with Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Australia, South Africa and others. The Forum nations account for 80 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Its declaration Thursday outlined a range of actions including funding mechanisms for both reducing greenhouse gas emissions and helping nations and ecosystems adapt to global warming, along with more money to pursue alternative energy sources.

The declaration said the world’s emissions should peak as soon as possible and then start going down. It acknowledged that industrial powers have emitted most of the pollution causing climate change and therefore have a greater responsibility in responding.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced the creation of an institute to study and advance so-called clean coal technology intended to reduce the harmful pollution from coal-fired energy.

In addition, the declaration recognized “that the timeframe for peaking will be longer in developing countries, bearing in mind that social and economic development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities in developing countries and that low-carbon development is indispensable to sustainable development.

Todd Stern, Obama’s special envoy for climate change, noted that China and other emerging economies had never previously acknowledged the 2-degree Celsius threshold or committed to reducing emissions from current levels. He called those steps “significant”, but conceded they fell short of binding commitments to meet specific reductions goals.

However, Stern said the 2-degree threshold was the “underpinning” of the global goal for an overall 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, including the 80 percent cuts targeted by the G-8 countries.

Obama acknowledged the United States has previously failed to meet its responsibilities regarding climate change, and he pledged a renewed commitment and leadership. In his remarks, Rudd made a point of welcoming the new leadership role by Obama and the United States.

Obama will meet Friday with Pope Benedict XVI, who launched a verbal assault on global capitalism ahead of the G-8 meeting, lambasting “grave deviations and failures” and calling for a “profoundly new way of understanding business enterprise.”

The pope challenged bankers to turn away from the practices blamed for bringing about the global economic crisis and instead use their power to help the world create wealth and economic development.

“Above all, the intention to do good must not be considered incompatible with the effective capacity to produce goods,” Benedict said Wednesday.

After his meeting with the pope, the first U.S. African-American president will make his first trip as chief executive to Africa, traveling to Accra, Ghana. Obama’s father was a native of Kenya.

source:cnn

G8 leaders declare support for REDD forest conservation initiative

A declaration issued by political leaders meeting at the G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy, included a strong statement on the need to include forest conservation in a future climate agreement. Deforestation accounts for nearly 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, a larger source of emissions than all the world’s cars, trucks, ships, and airplanes combined.

“Aware that deforestation accounts for approximately 20% of annual CO2 emissions, and that forests are an essential repository of biological diversity and key to the livelihoods and rights of many people, we remain engaged in seeking the reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and in further promoting sustainable forest management globally,” said the statement. Leaders said they would support efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) by combatting illegal logging, addressing drivers of deforestation, and promoting “conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.”

The following is the section of the declaration related to REDD:

Aware that deforestation accounts for approximately 20% of annual CO2 emissions, and that forests are an essential repository of biological diversity and key to the livelihoods and rights of many people, we remain engaged in seeking the reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and in further promoting sustainable forest management globally. We will:

0915logging Green News Update July10, 2009

Some environmentalists are concerned that “sustainable forest management” under the proposed “REDD Plus” approach will enable logging of old-growth forests.

source: mongabay.com

National

Environment Groups Find Less Support on Court

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court heard five environmental law cases in the term that ended Monday, and environmental groups lost every time. It was, said Richard J. Lazarus, a director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown University Law Center, “the worst term ever” for environmental interests.

The court allowed Navy exercises using sonar that threatened whales off California. It limited the liability of companies partly responsible for toxic spills. It made it harder to challenge Forest Service regulations and easier to dump mining waste into an Alaskan lake. And it allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to use cost-benefit analysis to decide how much marine life may be killed by cooling structures at power plants.

Business groups expressed measured satisfaction with the decisions.

“The court does seem to be bringing more common sense back to environmental law,” Robin S. Conrad, a lawyer with the United States Chamber of Commerce, said at a recent news briefing.

In the past 40 years or so, ever since environmental law emerged as a separate field based on major statutes enacted in the 1970s, the Supreme Court has been reasonably receptive to cases brought by environmental groups.

That seems to have changed under the court of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

“It has taken a little while, but we are finally seeing how much the changes in 2005 and 2006 moved the court in important areas, including in environmental law,” said Douglas Kendall, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, a liberal research organization and law firm. Chief Justice Roberts joined the court in 2005, and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. in 2006.

Last term’s environmental decisions are consistent with larger trends at the court, which has leaned to the right recently and seems poised to make significant moves in a conservative direction in important areas of the law.

Justice Alito replaced Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who often voted for environmental interests. Justice O’Connor’s background may have helped shape her thinking: she has written fondly of growing up on the Lazy B ranch in the high desert wilderness in Arizona and New Mexico.

“We experienced nature in an intimate way,” she wrote in a 2005 foreword to her memoir, “Lazy B.” “We learned to respect the environment.”

Justice O’Connor’s departure had a powerful impact and played a part in last term’s 5-to-0 rout, said Amy Sinden, who teaches environmental law at Temple’s law school. “These could all have come out very differently if we still had O’Connor on the court,” she said.

At the same time, the principles announced in some of the court’s environmental rulings, which generally favored presidential power, may aid the Obama administration as it moves away from the previous administration’s policies.

“It’s become a cliché to say the Roberts court is about the expansion of executive power,” Professor Sinden said, “and I think it’s true of these environmental cases as well. The court gave the Bush administration discretion. That certainly leaves the Obama administration with discretion to act as well.”

While the court’s environmental rulings may help the administration as it issues regulations to carry out existing laws, the harder questions will arise as Congress enacts new laws.

“The real test will come when the Obama administration tries to implement new legislation, like the climate change legislation, assuming it passes” the Senate, said Professor Lazarus, who represented the losing side in one of the recent environmental cases.

The climate change law, he said, will “raise a huge number of legal issues when implemented and will face of barrage of legal challenges from industry, some of which will find their way to the high court.”

The Bush administration was largely but not entirely aligned with business interests in the five environmental cases the court decided. That meant it was easy to tell who was losing — the environmentalists — but hard to tell who was winning.

Should the Obama administration take a more adversarial stance toward business, plainer fault lines may emerge.

“You might be able to tell whether the court is pro-business or pro-government,” said Jonathan Z. Cannon, who teaches environmental law at the University of Virginia.

The four members of the court’s conservative wing — Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who is often the swing vote, were in the majority in all five decisions. (Justice Kennedy, Professor Lazarus said, has been in the majority in all but one of the more than 50 environmental cases he has heard since joining the court in 1988.)

In years past, Justice Kennedy has been sporadically receptive to arguments made by environmentalists, particularly when they were sensitive to states’ rights and did not call for upending rules on which businesses had come to rely. Not this year.

The five more conservative justices were sometimes joined by Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who is something of a moderate on environmental issues, having written on regulation, risk management and administrative law as a professor before joining the court.

One case, Burlington Northern v. United States, about who may be held liable under the federal Superfund law for toxic spills, was decided 8 to 1, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in dissent.

Several scholars said that businesses had become more sophisticated in recent years in hiring Supreme Court specialists to tailor their cases to appeal to Justices Kennedy and Breyer.

As surprising as the results in last term’s five cases were, scholars added, what may have been even more surprising was that the court chose to hear some of them at all. In two, the government did not file an appeal, even though the Environmental Protection Agency had been on the losing side in lower courts.

Environmental interests had won in the appeals court in all five of last term’s cases, and the Supreme Court reversed each one. Four cases came from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, which has a liberal reputation. The fifth came from the Second Circuit, in New York, and was written by Judge Sonia Sotomayor, now President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court.

Should Judge Sotomayor be confirmed by the Senate, she will replace Justice David H. Souter, an avid outdoorsman who loves hiking in New Hampshire and tended to vote in favor of environmental interests.

There is little reason to think Judge Sotomayor’s approach would be very different. Indeed, the court reversed one of her decisions in Entergy Corp. v. Riverkeeper, the case that involved the use of cost-benefit analysis by the environmental agency. Justice Souter was in dissent.

Patrick A. Parenteau, who teaches environmental law at Vermont Law School, said he was disturbed not only by the substance of the court’s recent decisions but also by what they failed to address. None, he said, involved extended discussions of the environmental consequences, whether for the future of a lake in Alaska or the practice of forestry.

“The lesson from this,” Professor Parenteau said, “is to do everything you can to keep environmental cases out of this court.”

source: New York Times By Adam Liptak

A Push to Hide Solar Panels in Santa Monica

Want to put solar panels on a condo in Santa Monica, Calif.? Just keep them out of sight, please.

That’s the sentiment behind a pending city ordinance that would require solar panels to be installed in a way that is “least visible.” (Single-family homes are excepted.)

As explained in this city council document, the ordinance specifies that:

“A critical aspect in evaluating where to install photovoltaic systems, especially on an existing building, is the performance of the system. However, there is no reason that the solar installation professional should not also consider aesthetic aspects when designing a system. To address this concern while retaining a ministerial review process, the proposed ordinance would require solar equipment to be installed in the location that is least visible from the street, with the provision that energy performance is not significantly reduced or the cost of the solar system is not significantly increased compared to a location that is more visible from the street.”

A “significant decrease” in energy production is defined as a 10 percent loss, and a significant cost increase amounts to an extra $2,000 or more for solar-electric panels.

According to The Santa Monica Daily Press, the ordinance was adopted on June 30 with only one city council member dissenting, but still needs to go through a second reading before becoming final.

The city documents argue that requiring a “least visible” location will help streamline the permitting process for solar panels.

The provision has angered solar advocates — although California has recently been subject to a rash of solar panel thefts, so perhaps hiding the panels would deter thieves?

(Hat tip to the Greenspace blog at the Los Angeles Times for flagging this item.)

source: New York Times, Green Inc. by Kate Galbraith

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Decoder

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) signed into law by President Obama in February of 2009 provides some tremendous opportunities for homeowners. In the short run, it creates jobs; in the long term, homes that use less energy will save consumers money.

But what exactly does weatherization mean? How much will it cost the average family, and what exactly can homeowners do to reap the rewards? Green building efficiency expert Charlie Szoradi and his team spent the past several months reading and deciphering this 400-page piece of legislation to create a free resource for homeowners that decodes the Act. A free Federal Tax Incentive Decoder is now available for all individuals to download. Check it out athttp://www.greenandsave.com/homecheckup/free_federal_tax_incentive_decoder

This Green Decoder will help homeowners uncover information regarding various energy efficiency improvement tactics they want to pursue, including reducing utility costs, producing power, financing options, buying their first home and/or buying a new car.

Charlie Szoradi, a member of the Green Economy Task Force, explains, “Our research team has decoded the Act [American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] to find the most cost-effective ways for homeowners to save money on their utility bills. We may have read more of the details than the politicians that voted for it, and given our focus on Green Return on Investment there is some great news but also pitfalls. For example, you may be considering replacing an exterior door. You are eligible for a $1,500 tax credit, but the new door must have both a U-Factor and Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC) of 0.30 or lower to get the credit.”

source: celsias

Wicked Cool World of Organics

Jill Richardson reveals a recent FDA appointment that is less than desirable.

Obama White House Appoints Former Monsanto Lobbyist to FDA

The FDA just announced the appointment of Michael Taylor as a Senior Advisor to the FDA Commissioner , Margaret Hamburg.

Taylor previously worked at the USDA from 1976-1981 as a staff lawyer. He left government to work at King & Spaulding, a law firm representing Monsanto.

He returned to government – this time to the FDA – for a stint as Deputy Commissioner for Policy from 1991-1994. According to Marion Nestle in Food Politics:

[At the FDA] he was part of the team that issued the agency’s decidedly industry-friendly policy on food biotechnology and that approved the use of Monsanto’s genetically engineered growth hormone in dairy cows. His questionable role in these decisions led to an investigation by the federal General Accounting Office, which eventually exonerated him of all conflict-of-interest charges.

In 1994, he moved over to the USDA’s Food Safety & Inspection Service to serve as Administrator until 1996. Then it was back to King & Spaulding for a little bit, and – in 1998 – over to Monsanto, where he was a senior lobbyist (Vice President for Public Policy).

source: celsias

Environment

Buses May Aid Climate Battle in Poor Cities

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Like most thoroughfares in booming cities of the developing world, Bogotá’s Seventh Avenue resembles a noisy, exhaust-coated parking lot — a gluey tangle of cars and the rickety, smoke-puffing private minibuses that have long provided transportation for the masses.

But a few blocks away, sleek red vehicles full of commuters speed down the four center lanes of Avenida de las Américas. The long, segmented, low-emission buses are part of a novel public transportation system called bus rapid transit, or B.R.T. It is more like an above-ground subway than a collection of bus routes, with seven intersecting lines, enclosed stations that are entered through turnstiles with the swipe of a fare card and coaches that feel like trams inside.

Versions of these systems are being planned or built in dozens of developing cities around the world — Mexico City, Cape Town, Jakarta, Indonesia, and Ahmedabad, India, to name a few — providing public transportation that improves traffic flow and reduces smog at a fraction of the cost of building a subway.

But the rapid transit systems have another benefit: they may hold a key to combating climate change. Emissions from cars, trucks, buses and other vehicles in the booming cities of Asia, Africa and Latin America account for a rapidly growing component of heat-trapping gases linked to global warming. While emissions from industry are decreasing, those related to transportation are expected to rise more than 50 percent by 2030 in industrialized and poorer nations. And 80 percent of that growth will be in the developing world, according to data presented in May at an international conference in Bellagio, Italy, sponsored by the Asian Development Bank and the Clean Air Institute.

To be effective, a new international climate treaty that will be negotiated in Copenhagen in December must include “a policy response to the CO2 emissions from transport in the developing world,” the Bellagio conference statement concluded.

Bus rapid transit systems like Bogotá’s, called TransMilenio, might hold an answer. Now used for an average of 1.6 million trips each day, TransMilenio has allowed the city to remove 7,000 small private buses from its roads, reducing the use of bus fuel — and associated emissions — by more than 59 percent since it opened its first line in 2001, according to city officials.

In recognition of this feat, TransMilenio last year became the only large transportation project approved by the United Nations to generate and sell carbon credits. Developed countries that exceed their emissions limits under the Kyoto Protocol, or that simply want to burnish a “green” image, can buy credits from TransMilenio to balance their emissions budgets, bringing Bogotá an estimated $100 million to $300 million so far, analysts say.

Indeed, the city has provided a model of how international programs to combat climate change can help expanding cities — the number of cars in China alone could increase sevenfold by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency — pay for transit systems that would otherwise be unaffordable.

“Bogotá was huge and messy and poor, so people said, ‘If Bogotá can do it, why can’t we?’ ” said Enrique Peñalosa, an economist and a former mayor of the city who took TransMilenio from a concept to its initial opening in 2001 and is now advising other cities. In 2008, Mexico City opened a second successful bus rapid transit line that has already reduced carbon dioxide emissions there, according to Lee Schipper, a transportation expert at Stanford University, and the city has applied to sell carbon credits as well.

But bus rapid transit systems are not the answer for every city. In the United States, where cost is less constraining, some cities, like Los Angeles, have built B.R.T.’s, but they tend to lack many of the components of comprehensive systems like TransMilenio, like fully enclosed stations, and they serve as an addition to existing rail networks.

In some sprawling cities in India, where a tradition of scooter use may make bus rapid transit more difficult to create, researchers are working to develop a new model of tuk-tuk, or motorized cab, that is cheap and will run on alternative fuels or with a highly efficient engine. “There are three million auto rickshaws in India alone, and the smoke is astonishing, so this could have a huge impact,” said Stef van Dongen, director of Enviu, an environmental network group in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, that is sponsoring the research.

Bus rapid transit systems have not always worked well in cities that have tried them, either. In New Delhi, for example, the experiment foundered in part because it proved difficult to protect bus lanes from traffic. And a system that does not succeed in drawing passengers out of their cars just adds buses to existing vehicles on the roads, making traffic and emissions worse.

But with its wide streets, dense population and a tradition of bus travel, Bogotá had the ingredients for success. To create TransMilenio, the city commandeered two to four traffic lanes in the middle of major boulevards, isolating them with low walls to create the system’s so-called tracks. On the center islands that divide many of Bogotá’s two-way streets, the city built dozens of distinctive metal-and-glass stations. Just as in a subway, the multiple doors on the buses slide open level with the platform, providing easy access for strollers and older riders. Hundreds of passengers can wait on the platforms, avoiding the delays that occur when passengers each pay as they board.

Mr. Peñalosa noted that the negative stereotypes about bus travel required some clever rebranding. Now, he said, upscale condominiums advertise that they are near TransMilenio lines. “People don’t say, ‘I’m taking the bus,’ they say, ‘I’m taking TransMilenio,’ ” he added, as he rode at rush hour recently, chatting with other passengers.

Jorge Engarrita, 45, a leather worker who was riding TransMilenio to work, said the system had “changed his life,” reducing his commuting time to 40 minutes with one transfer from two or three hours on several buses. Free shuttle buses carry residents from outlying districts to TransMilenio terminals.

To the dismay of car owners, Bogotá removed one-third of its street parking to make room for TransMilenio and imposed alternate-day driving restrictions determined by license plate numbers, forcing car owners onto the system.

With an extensive route system, TransMilenio moves more passengers per mile every hour than almost any of the world’s subways. Most poorer cities that have built subways, like Manila and Lagos, Nigeria, can afford to build only a few limited lines because of the expense.

Subways cost more than 30 times as much per mile to build than a B.R.T. system, and three times as much to maintain. And bus rapid transit systems can be built more quickly. “Almost all rapidly developing cities understand that they need a metro or something like it, and you can get a B.R.T. by 2010 or a metro by 2060,” said Walter Hook, executive director of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, in New York.

Although TransMilenio buses run on diesel, their efficient engines mean they emit less than half the nitrous oxide, particulate matter and carbon dioxide of the older minibuses. Cleaner fuels were either too expensive or did not work at Bogotá’s altitude, 9,000 feet above sea level.

TransMilenio is building more lines and underpasses to allow the buses to bypass clogged intersections, but for the moment the real challenge is overcrowding. Juan Gómez, 21, a businessman, takes TransMilenio only on days when he cannot drive, and he griped that it was often hard to find a seat.

“It’s O.K., but I prefer the car,” he said.

source: New York Times, By Degrees, By Elisabeth Rosenthal

DIY

Power-Saving Tips for Your Home Theater

HDTVs are energy gluttons, but you can help them consume less.

Large high-definition televisions are voracious electricity consumers. Some 50-inch plasmas demand in excess of 400 watts of power when turned on. That’s more than a good-size, modern refrigerator requires, though the refrigerator stays on 24/7, so it probably devours more energy overall. The other components of your home theater–the DVR, the Blu-ray Disc player, and the separate surround-sound amplifier and speakers–have their own power demands. And the various parts of your home entertainment system suck juice even when they’re “off,” so that they can start up more quickly and so that you can turn them on via the remote control.

To minimize your home-theater bills, you need to examine both what you buy and how you use it. The good news is that you don’t have to cut back on your entertainment hours in order to save money and to reduce your carbon footprint.

Buy Green

Here are some guidelines to consider when you’re shopping for an HDTV.

Everyone loves to watch a wall-size picture, but a bigger screen isn’t better for the environment. On average, according to a study conducted by CNet, 42-inch plasma TVs use of 271 watts of electricity, versus 341 watts for 50-inch models. That’s a difference of more than 20 percent in the smaller screen’s favor.

Avoid plasma and you’ll save electricity. A typical 52-inch LCD TV, uses 278 watts of power–only a tad more than a typical 42-inch plasma. Rear-projection sets (I know, they’re not cool) save even more energy: On average, a 56-inch DLP TV runs at 171 watts. The new LED-lit LCDs save power, too. PC World Test Center tests show that the 55-inch Samsung LN55A950, the first such television that we’ve gotten our mitts on, uses about 38 percent less power than most 50-inch HDTVs.

When the Energy Star label appears on a TV, it means that the set lives up to the EPA’s standard for energy efficiency. But some companies go beyond that standard. Sony, for example, says that all of the 1080p models in its 2009 lineup surpass Energy Star 3.0 requirements by 15 percent. Sony’s VE5 Eco line goes even further; the 40-inch VE5 can have a power savings topping 50 percent, and the 52-inch model can save 65 percent. Check the Energy Star Web site for a list of qualifying HDTV models.

Many manufacturers have gone to great lengths to improve the energy efficiency of their 2009 models. Besides watching for the Energy Star designation, look for other energy saving options that a manufacturer may tout. For example, models in Sony’s Bravia VE5 series–the Bravia KDL-52VE5, the Bravia KDL-46VE5, and the Bravia KDL-40VE5–feature high-efficiency HCFL backlighting, which uses reduced-size cathode tubes to improve power efficiency by 40 percent over other Sony LCDs. They also feature a 0-watt standby power switch, a light sensor with dynamic backlight control to reduce the screen’s brightness for use in dim environments, and a motion sensor that turns off the TV if it doesn’t detect any movement for a specified period of time.

When buying components, pay attention to the relative power supply and the reported watts consumed for each device. You can find these specs for many devices, including Blu-ray players and DVRs, on the back of the unit. That’s how I found out that my Sony Blu-ray player uses 25 watts and that my Dish Network DVR uses 120 watts. Manufacturers’ Web sites sometimes list this information, but it can be buried in obscure places. Though amplifiers/receivers proudly advertise their wattage per channel (more is better for sound quality), you can always save power by lowering the volume.

DVRs are a special case when it comes to power savings. You can’t completely shut off a DVR without losing its scheduled recording ability, but an eco-conscious DVR will consume only a trickle of power when “off” and waiting for a signal from its timer or from the remote to come back to life. The popular DVR TiVo doesn’t quite reach this ideal mix: Even in its hard-to-reach standby mode, it keeps spinning the hard drive and recording whatever is on two different channels. TiVo says that the DVR consumes about 39 watts when on, and “slightly less” in standby mode.

Watch Green

Whatever you own, adopting a few good habits will help you cut down on the amount of juice you use.

Televisions leave the factory too bright because they’re optimized for use in showrooms, not in your living room. Lowering the brightness setting will save electricity, increase the set’s lifespan, and produce a better-looking picture.

Many newer TVs may have options that let you sacrifice power for performance. You’ll probably end up with an image that isn’t as bright (as recommended above) and a TV that takes a few more seconds to warm up when you turn it on. But it’s well worth it.

Your separate surround-sound amplifier and speakers greatly enhance a big action flick, but they add nothing to the director’s commentary. So turn on the amplifier only when the big sound makes a difference.

Your HDTV, amplifier, cable box, DVR, and DVD or Blu-ray Disc player all suck electricity when they’re switched “off.” Of those, only your DVR (and maybe your cable box, if it’s separate from the DVR) has a legitimate reason to remain on call in this way: Without a stream of constant power, the DVR can’t turn itself to fully active mode to record on schedule. The only advantage you get from the other gadgets that burn electricity continuously is the minor convenience of being able to turn them on with a remote and have them start up faster.

Adding a second surge protector to your home-theater setup will put a stake in the heart of those vampires. Plug your TV, disc player, and amplifier into one protector, and mount that one in a convenient location. Then plug your DVR and anything else into another. When you’re done watching TV, turn off the first protector.

Alternatively you can achieve the same result with a single surge protector, but it has to be a smart one. The Monster GreenPower Digital PowerCenter MDP 900 and the Belkin Conserve AV can shut off some of the plugs on their strip while leaving others live.

If you own two televisions, use the smaller, more modest one to view size-neutral programs. Case in point: Jon Stewart doesn’t look any better on a 50-inch screen. Really.

After all, if you don’t like what you watch, you’re wasting your time as well as your electricity.

source: Lincoln Spector, PC World

Opinion

Opposing clean energy hurts GOP

In attacking the clean-energy legislation just passed by the House, Republicans make three critical errors for which they may well pay a political price.

First, they confirm the potent role of the Flat Earth Society in their party. For years, many GOPers have embraced a contemporary version of the know-nothing philosophy, thereby alienating the party’s former base among better-educated, upper-income voters. In a country where 78 percent believe global warming is either happening now or foresee it in the future and where 69 percent believe global warming already constitutes a serious threat, allying themselves with the deniers only cements Republicans’ “know-nothing” image.

Because voters feel global warming poses a clear and present danger, they are demanding action. Our polling for the Pew Environment Group found a 77 percent supermajority wants the U.S. to reduce its carbon emissions. What’s more, support for action is intense, as 58 percent not only favor action, but do so “strongly.” Republicans stand with the mere 15 percent who oppose action. In this respect, GOP leaders betray their own partisans, 62 percent of whom want action to reduce carbon emissions.

Second, by opposing clean-energy legislation, Republicans reveal themselves to be anti-jobs. The economy and jobs are voters’ greatest concern and our surveys reveal that Americans believe efforts to curb global warming will be an engine driving job growth. A majority believes “efforts to reduce global warming will create new American jobs,” while just 21 percent side with Republican leaders who claim these efforts will cost jobs. Here again, in refusing to recognize the job-creating potential of a move to clean energy, Republicans are a party without a base — there is no segment of the population where a majority agrees with them.

Indeed, voters believe these efforts will create not only new jobs, but whole new industries — the kind of new enterprises we need as our old industries appear to fade. Refusing to recognize the job-creating potential that unfolds from technological innovation is a grievous sin, especially in this economy.

Finally, in railing against making polluters pay, Republicans reinforce their image as defenders of corporate greed at the expense of the national interest. Some energy prices may increase slightly in response to this legislation, and while GOPers want to call that a tax, voters reject that label — instead calling it corporate greed by a nearly 20-point margin.

In fact, when the tax argument made by Republicans on the floor last week is matched against a counterpoint making it clear that it is polluters, not taxpayers, who pay and that consumers will receive part of the money polluters pay as an energy tax credit, voters side with proponents of the legislation by a 42-point margin. In an environment where voters are 12 to 20 points more likely to trust Democrats than Republicans on taxes, the GOP is unlikely to get very far with baseless accusations.

You can see the ads now — Republicans repeating tired and discredited claims about Democratic energy taxes that no one will see, while Democrats argue that Republicans are trying to thwart efforts to create clean-energy jobs, increasing our dependence on foreign oil, refusing to make polluters pay and opposing an energy tax credit for American families. There is little doubt in my mind — or in the data — which side will get the better of that debate.

Voters want clean-energy legislation because they believe it will create jobs, reduce our dependence on oil and reduce the carbon pollution that causes global warming. By positioning themselves as consistent opponents of the majority’s will, Republicans risk deepening their isolation from America’s mainstream.

Mellman is president of The Mellman Group and has worked for Democratic candidates and causes since 1982. Current clients include the majority leaders of both the House and Senate.

source: thehill.com

Get Shareaholic

Eco-Rich Connections