To date, the biggest melt of North Pole ice occurred in 2007 when the cap shrunk to 1.64 million square miles.  I can't even picture an area that size, but here's a statistic I can put into perspective: 

From AFP:

The North Pole itself could even become free of ice by September for the first time in modern history, setting a new milestone in the effects of global warming on the Arctic ice shelf, NSIDC glaciologist Mark Serreze told AFP in late June.

 

"We could have no ice at the North Pole at the end of this summer. And the reason here is that the North Pole area right now is covered with very thin ice, and this ice we call 'first-year ice,' the ice that tends to melt out in the summer," he explained.

The U.S. Department of Transportation released statistics on March driving and reports that the highway miles driven decreased by 4.3 percent compared with 2007.  That's 11 billion fewer miles and the largest decline since the late 1970's.

(Jason Reed/Reuters)

Chris Baltimore of Reuters writes: "The data marks the sharpest year-on-year drop for any month in the history of the agency's reporting, which dates back to 1942.

Transportation officials around the country report that more people are using public transportation due to the high price of gasoline. These are welcome unintended consequences.

 Times Online reports on a remarkable phenomenon: producing crude oil with genetically modified micro-organisms.

Unbelievably, this is not science fiction. Mr Pal holds up a small beaker of bug excretion that could, theoretically, be poured into the tank of the giant Lexus SUV next to us. Not that Mr Pal is willing to risk it just yet. He gives it a month before the first vehicle is filled up on what he calls “renewable petroleum”. After that, he grins, “it’s a brave new world.

The bugs eat any kind of sugar-based waste, such as left-over wheat straw, and excrete a type of crude oil that would then need only minimal processing before using it as fuel.  The big catch is that they have only produced about a liter of "Crude 2.0" but plans are under way to open a production-sized plant by 2010.  In order to build a plant large enough to match the current levels of crude usage in the US, serious real estate is required.  Estimates based on the current means of production are northward of 205 square miles, about the size of Chicago.

Grist.org has a great feature on 15 chefs who work toward eco-friendly cooking. 

Topping the list is Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Bekeley.  Her style of French Farmhouse cooking is a perfect match for using locally grown ingredients.  Waters first came to my attention when I read about Edible Schoolyard, a program to teach school kids about organic foods and sustainable farming.

My personal favorite on the list is the U.K.'s Jamie Oliver.  Not only is his TV show entertaining but he pressured the British government  into spending an additional $500 million per year on more healthy, home cooked food for school children.  Now he's pushing the government to add locally grown foods to the manifesto.

See the rest of the list of green chefs here. 

I'm a bad news first guy, so here we go...

A newly released report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration states that almost half of the coral reef ecosystems in the US are in poor or fair condition.

From the San Diego Union-Tribune (AP):

"They are a major indicator of something that could go wrong with the environment,” said Timothy Keeney, NOAA's deputy assistant secretary for oceans and atmosphere.

 

Keeney said 25 percent of all marine species need coral reefs to live and grow, while 40 percent of the fish caught commercially use reefs to breed.

 

Now the good news... Check out this picture:

That is a photo from a new reef found deep in the ocean off the coast of Brazil.  And it contains an abundant array of unique marine life.

From Treehugger:

"Due to their relative inaccessibility and depth, the newly discovered reefs are teeming with life, in some places harboring 30 times the density of marine life than the known, shallower reefs," says Guilherme Dutra, director of marine programs for Conservation International Brazil. "That's the good news. The bad news is that only a small percentage of marine habitats in the Abrolhos are protected, despite mounting localized and global threats."

 Despite the challenges and bad news it is crucially important to push governments around the globe to protect the earth's sea life.  The health of the planet depends on it.

As soon as I saw T. Boone Pickens' first wind power commercial I smelled a rat.  In his first ad he said that we can't drill our way out of the current energy crisis.  Now, seizing on the misguided popular support for off-shore drilling, and perhaps bowing to pressure from his Texas oil buddies.  Here's his flip:

Remember: drilling off-shore will have no impact for 10 years and that impact is estimated to be, maybe, 2 cents per gallon. Also remember, Pickens is only pitching this message because he wants government subsidies for his billion dollar investment in wind tech.

Tripplepundit.com reports on a new innovation in transportation and advertising: The Eco Cab.  Eco Cabs started in Dublin, Ireland where their first pitch was to pick up drunks and drive them safely home.  Now, companies from 7-Up to Smootheez offer riders a tour around town.  The only fare to be paid is to listen to a pitch or receive a coupon.

The cars are human-powered with an electric battery assist.  

From triplepundit.com:

EcoCabs is a Dublin based green taxi company who has created a win-win situation for all: A mobile billboard for the vehicle sponsor, on a vehicle that will likely attract much more attention, positive at that, then one of those trucks driving around city streets with billboards in tow. Riders get a safe, free ride home, or if they like, a tour around central Dublin. For everybody, they get reduced emissions in this often congested city, and reduced noise that would otherwise come from a typical taxi cab.

 

For sponsors, they do more than just coat their vehicle in your branding. For example, Eco Cabs drivers can tell passengers about the product or event that's related to the sponsor, give coupons and samples to passengers (who doesn't like to save money and get freebies?) and serve different areas of town in proximity to the sponsor's business.

As a chef and a fish lover I often agonize over choosing sustainable fish.  "Wild Caught" sounds natural but it doesn't necessarily mean that it is good for the environment.  Some Wild Caught fish come to market by being blown out of reefs with dynamite!

On the other hand, there is safer sounding Farm Raised.  That sounds harmless enough.  But the sustainability of Farm Raised fish depends entirely on how it is farmed and whether it pollutes more than it nourishes.

In trying to sort all of this out, remember 3 rules:

FishPhone is a texting service run by the Blue Ocean Institute. Just dial 30644 with the message FISH and the name of the fish in question and you will receive a text message back telling you if it is sustainable or not.

I'm adding FishPhone to my favorites today.

Treehugger reports an advance in LED lighting made at Purdue University that could ween us off of mercury tinged compact florescent light bulbs, or, CFLs (though the toxicity of these bulbs are low and they last a long time nonetheless they still contain mercury).

The advance made has to do with the material used in making the light-emitting layer.  In the past, LEDs used a type of crystal that must be treated with expensive materials.  This has kept the LED from being cost effective regardless of the environmental benefit.  The Purdue team has found a way to manufacture the light-emitting layer with standard silicon wafers.  This will make their price on par with incandescents and CFLs.

The incandescent lightbulb that wastes 90% of the electricity as heat is dying, we all know that. But a new breakthrough in solid state lighting might also kill compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) faster than some expected. Scientists at Purdue University have figured out how to manufacture LED solid-state lights on regular metal-coated silicon wafers (more details below). What this means is: much lower costs.

 

And since about 1/3 of U.S. electricity is used to produce light, this is major. "If you replaced existing lighting with solid-state lighting, following some reasonable estimates for the penetration of that technology based on economics and other factors, it could reduce the amount of energy we consume for lighting by about one-third. That represents a 10 percent reduction of electricity consumption and a comparable reduction of related carbon emissions," said Timothy D. Sands, professor of Materials Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering states at Purdue.

 

We might soon have to get used to changing lightbulbs every other decade. LEDs that are currently available convert electricity to light with an efficiency of 47 to 64%. It is predicted that LED produced with Purdue's process would have an efficiency in the high-end of that range, compared to about 10% for incandescent.

Do even the most die-hard off-shore drilling advocates claim those efforts can reduce dependance on foreign oil by 10%? I think not!

Edmunds Auto Observer reports that there is a "virtual" (not official) waiting list for the Chevy Volt which is scheduled to launch in 2010.

The plug-in electric vehicle will also use fuel but only after 40 miles of running on the electric charge. Seems to solve the long-distance dilemma as most commutes are less than 30 miles.

Sweden's Ikea with 283 stores in 30 nations may become a game-changing leader in sustainable home goods including solar panels.

From CNET News.com

Efforts to commercialize new and affordable green technologies within several years could lead to IKEA selling the resulting products among its growing collection of stores, currently 283 in more than 30 nations. The goods reportedly would relate to energy in the form of solar panels, efficiency meters, and lighting; as well as more sustainable materials, and water treatment and conservation.

 

In 2007, IKEA expanded sales of pre-fab, low-income, eco-friendly housing from Sweden into the United Kingdom. Could its catalog of 9,500 products someday add flat-packed, "smart" green homes available globally?

 

Given IKEA's sheer reach, an aggressive focus on green technologies might reshape the furnishings industry. For instance, green-business gurus credit Wal-Mart's controversial efforts to green its shelves and practices with shifting big-box stores and shoppers' tastes toward less toxic and wasteful products.

Ikea also currently stocks Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) wood products. Way to go!

In an article on National Journal Online (the web page is plastered with ads from ExonMobile) writer Amy Harder reports that the number of Americans who consider climate change personally important is down to 47 percent from 52 percent in April of 2007.

Citing a survey from ABC News, Planet Green, and Stanford University, the article reports that the drop in these numbers aligns with a drop of 50% of news stories on climate change.  The airtime is being sucked up by stories on the economy and the elections.  The bright spot in the data is in the number of Americans attempting to reduce their carbon footprint: 7 in 10. If the 7 in 10 number is correct, let's hope that actions speak louder than words.

There were two other poll questions I found interesting.  The first asked whether respondents preferred government-led initiatives or market-based solutions.  Apparently, the pollsters haven't read Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawkin, Amory Lovins & L. Hunter Lovins, which makes the point very clear that partnerships between government, Non-Governmental Organizations & the markets are essential to any real solution.  Polling this way does not help find a solution!

Finally, there is evidence in the poll that the GOP's efforts to obscure the science of global climate change is working.  Only 30% state that they trust the science completely, or a lot with 60% stating they believe there is a lot of disagreement in the science.  I find this to be the most troubling number because it means that the darker forces of 20th Century capitalism are making significant gains in manipulating the media and the American populace.

In the biggest change in environmental protection since 1986, the Bush Administration makes a big parting shot at the Endangered Species Act.

(AP Photo/Andrew Vaughan, File)

From the AP via Yahoo!:

New regulations, which don't require the approval of Congress, would reduce the mandatory, independent reviews government scientists have been performing for 35 years, according to a draft first obtained by The Associated Press.

 

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said late Monday the changes were needed to ensure that the Endangered Species Act would not be used as a "back door" to regulate the gases blamed for global warming. In May, the polar bear became the first species declared as threatened because of climate change. Warming temperatures are expected to melt the sea ice the bear depends on for survival.

 

The draft rules would bar federal agencies from assessing the emissions from projects that contribute to global warming and its effect on species and habitats.

 

Given that the next U.S. president can easily re-write the rules as Bush is doing now, one wonders why this action is being taken now with just over 4 months left in this president's term. Politically, this seems like a boneheaded move given that it will be very easy to pin this policy on candidate McCain. Sometimes a lame duck should just be a lame duck.

The Huffington Post's Andrew Smeall makes a great point that the Olympics provides a great opportunity to engage China in a serious dialogue to reduce global climate change.  His tone makes it clear that engagement, not castigation, should be the number one goal.

Unlike many of the issues seeking political spotlight at the Games, greenhouse gases do not recognize national borders. The pollution China emits affects the temperature in Los Angeles just as much as it does Beijing, and emissions from the U.S. similarly affect the rest of the world. As the world's leading emitters of greenhouse gases, the U.S. and China must work together to meet this global challenge.

 

We are right to call attention to China's pollution problems and their growing carbon footprint, but China is also correct in pointing out that we in the U.S. emit more than our fair share. Although China is now the largest greenhouse gas emitter by volume, it remains far down the list of per-capita polluters. On that front, America is still number one. As two nations that are, and will remain, heavily dependent on abundant coal, the U.S. and China need to start thinking about collaborative solutions to the climate change problem.

 

Here's a picture of the air quality taken by the ESPN crew from their lodgings:

The rollout of the Tesla Speedster, an all-electric sports car, was a great success.

But the $100,000 price tag is only fit for the most flush Hollywood greenies.

Now, Tesla announces that they are working on a sedan with a price tag of $30,000.  Sure, this car may still be out of reach for many but it does fit squarely in the price range of a loaded Toyota Prius or Camry.  Still, EV infrastructure has a long way to go before electric cars can become truly ubiquitous, but gains are being made.

From ecogeek.org:

Tesla still has no idea of the details of the car, let alone when it will arrive. But it seems likely that with the success of their roadsters, they'll be able to come up with something good.  It better be good because they're thinking of putting out about 200,000 of whatever they come up with - a whole lot more than the relative handful of roadsters and sedans they're putting out, and a whole, whole lot more than the number of EV's other car makers are currently putting out.

 

Tesla is banking on the growing infrastructure  for EV recharging to help the car for the masses venture farther from home than around town, which would be a factor for average consumers who need a  car to do more than turn heads.   Considering advances being made in San Jose, Oregon, Japan, and other places for EV charging infrastructure, it seems like a safe bet that in the next few years we'll have some reasonable resources to keep it charged up.

From the Environmental New Network:

Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification has now been achieved for forestry operations on 1.2 million hectares, a significant step towards WWF’s Green Heart of Africa network initiative goal of having certification achieved for 50% of production forest in the Congo Basin. The certification involves logging companies SEFAC, Transformation Reef Cameroon (TRC) and WIJMA in Cameroon and CIB in the Republic of Congo.

 

By 2012, WWF expects that 7 million hectares of forest in the Congo Basin will be under credible certification while another 5 million hectares will be progressing towards credible certification.

Growing up in Georgia I saw many a roadside covered in Kudzu, a plant nicknamed the "mile a minute vine."  It takes over telephone poles, utility boxes, abandoned cars.  A joke in many rural areas is that if you leaved your car parked too long it would be eaten by Kudzu.

Now, Kudzu is being studied as a second generation for switch grass (which was not very successful) as a source for producing ethanol.  Though Kudzu is edible, it is not commonly eaten so it is not as ethically troublesome as using corn or sugar cane.  Treehugger has the details.

It's not all doom and gloom in education these days.  There is a growing trend to bring environmental education and educational programs into American schools. In the photo below, a student is taught to "kiss her brain" every time she does something good for the environment.

Photo: Heather Wines, Gannett News Service

From USA Today:

Interest in environmental education appears to be soaring, buoyed in part by alarms over global warming and concerns over energy prices.

 In June, a key House committee blessed a bill that would provide money to help states develop environmental lessons and train teachers to deliver them. In addition, the National Environmental Education Foundation, which teams up with schools and other institutions to promote green curricula, has seen the number of partners jump from 330 in 2006 to 1,855 this year.

 The numbers are looking good.  Let's just hope that No Child Left Behind doesn't crash the party.