wrdforwrd

A pox on both their houses. Legal battles surrounding the Deepwater Horizon 2010 drilling disaster will be just as messy—and way lengthier—than the spill incident itself.

The latest shots in what bids to be a never-ending exercise in passing the buck and liability were fired last month when oil giant BP went to court in New Orleans claiming that the U.S. contractor Halliburton (you know – Iran, Dick Cheney? That Halliburton) botched the cement work on the doomed oil rig. Read the rest of this entry »

Hey kids! Here’s an idea: Let’s inundate the global market with our cheap dirty coal! We won’t be burning and polluting the atmosphere here in the U.S., merely transporting the coal on 1.5-mile long trains through densely populated areas of the Pacific Northwest, where it will be exported to foreign markets. We’ll boost our exports, help our balance of trade and create jobs!

That’s the gist of the coal industry’s argument for proposals to export tens of millions of tons of coal through the Pacific Northwest to China and other Asian nations.

But major organizations including the Sierra Club, the Sierra Student Coalition, Climate Solutions and Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility are gearing up to derail the coal train idea. Read the rest of this entry »

Shipping lines, shipbuilders, banks, insurers and shippers are joining forces on a major sustainability initiative that’s “designed to help the industry make long-term plans for future success.”

They call it the Sustainable Shipping Initiative/Vision 2040. They even assert that “radical changes” are needed to make the global shipping industry more energy efficient, environmentally-friendly and sustainable for the long haul.

The initiative unites maritime-related companies from across the industry with the NGO’s Forum for the Future and WWF, including:

• Ship owners, charterers and operators: BP Shipping, Bunge, Cargill, Carnival Corporation, China Navigation Company, Gearbulk, Maersk Line, Rio Tinto Marine and Tsakos Energy Navigation.
• Shipbuilders, engineers and service providers: Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering; Wärtsilä.
• Banks and insurers: ABN Amro, RSA.
• Classification society (which set technical standards): Lloyd’s Register
• Representing shipping customers: Unilever Read the rest of this entry »

A few measly drops of mercury can contaminate a twenty-acre lake and the fish that happen to reside there, and you can thank coal-fired plants for that largesse.

A Sierra Club article by Dashka Slater, “This Much Mercury… How the coal industry poisoned your tuna sandwich,” explains a situation in which people who think they are eating healthy are in fact poisoning themselves.

It’s a lengthy, compelling and well-researched article, well worth a read on Blog Action Day.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mark your calendars: The Amsterdam-based GreenTouch™ Consortium, a global research initiative that wants to improve the energy efficiency of information and communications technology (ICT) networks by a factor of 1,000, will reveal a comprehensive Roadmap at an Open Forum on Thursday, November 17, in conjunction with the organization’s Members Meeting November 14-17 at the Edgewater Hotel in here in Seattle.

The GreenTouch Roadmap will be presented to consortium members and the public during the Open Forum’s morning session, and expert speakers will make presentations on energy-efficient network technologies, eco-sustainability, climate change and related topics during the afternoon. There is no charge to attend the GreenTouch Open Forum, but advance registration is required.

GreenTouch is a global consortium of leading service providers, academic and industrial research institutions and non-governmental organizations working together to “define the challenges, identify the trends and issues and develop solutions that will achieve the goal of delivering within five years the architecture, specifications, roadmap and demonstrations of key components needed to increase the energy efficiency of ICT  networks ‒ in particular, the service provider networks that make up the Internet ‒ by a factor of 1,000 from current levels.”

Since its formation last year the consortium has grown rapidly and now includes more than 300 participants from 50-plus member organizations in 19 countries. GreenTouch is comprised of diverse constituencies, including global telecommunications industry leaders, acclaimed research centers and premier academic institutions.

It’s a very good thing when a manufacturer decides to operate in a sustainable and socially responsible manner, but knowing what to do next to implement an effective, sustainable operation is the real challenge.

That’s why the OECD’s “Sustainable Manufacturing Toolkit” is a useful place to start for businesses that are serious about implementing sustainability measures. It provides some answers to the age-old question: What do we do now?

The mission of the 34-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is to “promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.” The organization provides a forum in which governments can work together to share experiences and seek solutions to common problems. Read the rest of this entry »

An International Maritime Organization panel adopted what it is called “mandatory” design and operational measures to reduce greenhouse gases from international shipping.

According to the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee, which has met 62 times on this issue, last month’s action is the “first ever mandatory greenhouse gas reduction regime for an international industry sector.”

Read the rest of this entry »

The Sierra Club and its Beyond Coal Campaign received a huge boost last week when New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Bloomberg Philanthropies committed $50 million to the campaign.

Sure $50 million—to be paid over four years—is a very big deal. Beyond the dollars the partnership between Bloomberg and the club takes the fight to end the coal era to a new well-staffed and nationwide level. Read the rest of this entry »

Goods movement stakeholders in port areas and the Environmental Protection Agency have launched an initiative that’s designed to help clear the air and reduce emissions in the nation’s port areas.

The EPA SmartWay Drayage Program builds on clean truck programs that have been around at various port regions for several years.

The players with the EPA in the nationwide initiative include: The Coalition for Responsible Transportation and the Environmental Defense Fund. The CRT partners comprise: Best Buy; Hewlett Packard; Home Depot; JC Penney; Lowe’s; Nike; Target; Wal-Mart; and the following port trucking carriers: California Cartage Express, LLC; California Multimodal, LLC; Container Connection; Evans Delivery Company, Inc.; GSC Logistics; PDS Trucking Inc.; Performance Team/Gale Triangle; Total Transportation Services, Inc.; and the Western Ports Transportation.

The launch was announced recently at the Port of Charleston, SC. According to the joint announcement, the program “builds a partnership between numerous goods movement stakeholders including major national retailers, trucking companies, port communities, environmental groups and the U.S. EPA to solve a critical health and environmental challenge: how to reduce harmful air emissions from port drayage trucks.”

Drayage trucks, which haul cargo containers arriving at ports to storage areas, transload centers and nearby distribution centers, are usually old and a major source of diesel emissions in and around port areas. Getting those vehicles off the road is one of the thorniest and most controversial port and transportation issues around.

In a statement, Rick Gabrielson, who is the CRT President and is Target’s Director of Import Operations, said, “This partnership will generate private sector investment in clean technology, improve the environmental quality of our nation’s port communities and demonstrate the commitment we have made as the shipping industry’s leaders to emissions reductions.”

The program “offers great incentives for independent owner operators and trucking companies to replace their older drayage trucks with cleaner, less polluting models,” said Marcia Aronoff, the EDF’s senior vice president for programs. “With the rise in population and the growth of the freight transportation industry, we must be vigilant, forward thinking and creative in finding solutions that reduce toxic emissions and embrace market-based sustainability efforts.”

The drayage program is based on the EPA’s SmartWay Transport Partnership, generally regarded as an innovative and successful collaboration between the EPA and goods movement interests. The voluntary program provides a framework for assessing and addressing transportation-related emissions and energy efficiency while recognizing superior environmental performance through market-based incentives.

Under the program, port trucking companies and independent owner-operators sign a partnership agreement and commit to track diesel emissions, replace their older dirtier trucks with cleaner, newer ones, and achieve at least a 50 percent reduction in particulate matter and 25 percent reduction in nitrous oxide (NOx) below the national industry average within three years.

Then the SmartWay retailers sign a partnership agreement, committing to ship at least 75 percent of their port cargo with SmartWay trucking companies within three years.

“By giving business priority to SmartWay drayage carriers, the program creates a market-driven approach to incentivize emissions reductions at port communities across the country,” EPA says.

This approach has worked well in the Pacific Northwest, where market-based clean truck programs between stakeholders at the ports of Seattle and Tacoma have been around since 2008 and have removed hundreds of dirty drayage trucks from those port areas.

Algae-based crude oil

Pacific Northwest aviation and renewable energy interests say there are encouraging signs of an emerging market for sustainable aviation fuels. And those same interests want to make it real.

The Sustainable Aviation Fuels Northwest consortium, in a report this month, concludes that no single feedstock or technology pathway is likely to provide sustainable aviation fuel at the scale or speed needed to produce and maintain jet fuel supply.

Therefore, the 132-page report, “Powering the Next Generation of Flight,” focuses on a portfolio of options, including different conversion technologies and sources of potentially sustainable biomass, including oilseeds, forest residues, solid waste, and algae.

Instead of trying to single out the best source of aviation fuels, SAFN emphasizes the need to create “complete supply chains that can draw upon diverse feedstocks.” Read the rest of this entry »