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Carbon Footprint

Who are the world’s biggest polluters? Carnegie Institution takes a different look

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

Image: Carnegie Institution for Science

From Green Right Now Reports

Assessments of which nations are the world’s biggest polluters can be deceiving. A study by the Carnegie Institution for Science has determined that over a third of carbon dioxide emissions stemming from the consumption of goods and services in developed countries are actually released outside their borders.

For instance, if Americans buy goods produced in China, they are effectively “outsourcing” the carbon footprint while not technically doing the polluting on home soil.

According to the study, about 2.5 tons of carbon per person are consumed in the U.S. but produced elsewhere. Europeans, on average, top four tons per person.

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NYU releases carbon reduction plan

Friday, March 12th, 2010

logo From Green Right Now Reports

New York University released its Climate Action Plan (CAP) today, which outlines the first steps toward achieving carbon neutrality by 2040.

The plan was developed after the university took a greenhouse gas inventory, and it outlines the projects and methods it will use to reduce or offsets its emissions.

NYU officials credited both Mayor Bloomberg’s PlanNYC Climate Challenge and the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) for initiating and helping shape its actions. The school is a signor of the ACUPCC .

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Walmart plans to lower carbon emissions across its vendor network

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Walmart CEO Mike Duke annoucing carbon reduction goals

By Barbara Kessler

Walmart announced a plan to reduce carbon emissions across its global supply chain today, saying it intends to shave 20 million metric tons off its greenhouse gas emissions through 2015.

The reductions will come from Walmart’s own operations and from “the life cycle of the products we sell,” said Walmart CEO Mike Duke, adding that the savings would be the equivalent of taking 3.8 million greenhouse gas-emitting cars off the road for a year.

“It’s a very sizable goal, as we often do here at Walmart,” he said.

Calculated another way, the reductions represent 150 percent of Walmart’s anticipated carbon growth over the next five years.

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Darden will roll out sustainable restaurant designs

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

From Green Right Now Reports

Darden Restaurants today announced that it has begun a system-wide sustainable restaurant design initiative involving the use of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards in its restaurant design process for all new restaurants and, where feasible, restaurant remodels.

The company, which operates 1,800 restaurants, said the initiative is part of its broader sustainability efforts aimed at limiting business impact on the environment while also enhancing the operational efficiency of its restaurants.

Darden’s three largest brands – Red Lobster, Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse – are designing eight restaurants to achieve LEED certification from the United States Green Building Council. The company said it plans to apply learnings from those eight restaurants to new restaurants and remodels in the future.

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Report says some of NYC’s most iconic buildings are big polluters

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

The Flatiron Building was identified as one of NYC's top polluters.

From Green Right Now Reports

About 9,000 large buildings in New York City are spewing out about 1,000 tons of toxic soot pollution every year because they burn the dirtiest heating oils available, according to a new report released today by Environmental Defense Fund.

Eighty-seven percent of NYC’s heating oil soot pollution is created by only one percent of all buildings in New York City, the report said. Soot pollution has been shown to aggravate asthma, increase the risk of cancer, exacerbate respiratory illnesses and cause premature death.

EDF’s study, “The Bottom of the Barrel: How the Dirtiest Heating Oil Pollutes Our Air and Harms Our Health,” shows that the city’s levels of nickel — a heavy metal that increases the risk of cardiovascular disease by thickening the walls of arteries — are nine times higher than other U.S. cities.

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Asking for a ‘Real Deal’ at Copenhagen

Monday, December 7th, 2009

By Barbara Kessler

Student groups and environmental activists are not happy about the U.S. presenting what they see as weak emissions targets for consideration at the Copenhagen Climate Conference.

A "die in" by students from around the world. (Photo: Its Getting Hot in Here.)

Instead of the 17 percent cut in carbon emissions proposed by the Obama Administration (by 2020), they want steeper reductions that scientists say are needed to escape the tipping points the earth faces if carbon pollution continues to build unabated.

Check out the blog Its Getting Hot in Here or 350.org or TckTckTck for more about how climate activists are trying to push the debate, which is, in the end, a discussion of their future. As TckTckTck notes, Copenhagen is “the most important meeting of our lives.”

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Copenhagen Notes: rich and poor

Monday, December 7th, 2009

Monday, Dec. 14

The Copenhagen climate talks began with an uneasy feeling for many poor nations. Countries like the Maldives and Tuvalu, resting barely above sea level; Kenya, dealing under drought; Nepal, coping with melting glaciers, face perilous futures under climate change. Indeed, they suffer today.

These nations, and others, came to the table in Denmark wanting help from the developed world, because the developed world is largely responsible for the carbon emissions causing climate change. The U.S. and China together account for more than half of global greenhouse gases.

But the U.S. never signed onto any legally binding emissions via the 1997 Kyoto Treaty, and China, now building coal plants faster than one a week, has promised emissions cuts without verification.

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JC Penney dumps big book, saving money and forests

Friday, November 27th, 2009

The 2009 Big Book - Collector's item?

If anything makes as big a thud on your doorstep as the Yellow Pages books, it has been the JC Penney semi-annual “Big Book.”

But the retailer has decided that that thud has outlived its impressiveness and is taking a heavy toll on marketing costs and forests, announcing today that it will no long print the giant catalog. Instead, JC Penney will dedicate its resources to specialty catalogs and online services.

Explained the press release: “The discontinuation of “big book” catalogs aligns with JC Penney’s ongoing commitment to promote the sustainability of forests and other natural resources, and builds upon its legacy of operating in an ethical and socially responsible manner.”

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Palm oil industry’s big carbon impact

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

By Shermakaye Bass

It’s The Year of Living Dangerously all over again.

Orangutan (Photo: Tom Theodore/Dreamstime)

On Tuesday, two journalists were arrested in Sumatra while covering a politically sensitive topic – palm oil harvesting and the ensuing decimation of Southeast Asia’s old-growth, carbon-capturing rainforests, and the subsequent release of giant CO2 pockets that lie beneath the forests and their peat swamps.

More disturbing than the reporters’ deportation, though, is how little we consumers seem to realize that, not only are we what we eat, but when it comes to palm oil, we are eating our own lifeblood. We’re ‘eating’ our oxygen, we’re ‘eating’ our fellow species. We’re consuming our own future by driving up carbon emissions much faster than we can offset them. We are the snake eating its own tail.

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Second Nature launches website to help colleges build greener

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

By Ashley Phillips

Second Nature, a nonprofit organization promoting sustainability in higher education, launched the Advancing Green Building in Higher Education initiative earlier this year to help under-resourced higher education institutions with a $1.2 million grant from the Kresge Foundation.

Today, Second Nature launched the Campus Green Builder, a part of the initiative, to help all schools further their sustainability plans. The program recognizes that colleges and universities are in a unique position to influence the future, as they shape the minds of tomorrow, and also that they are large consumers of resources. While many institutions have already formed sustainable committees, there are still many more in the initial stages.

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