EcoLocalizer

The home of my blessed Toronto Blue Jays have started a program that, just maybe, might get them closer to their goal of reducing its carbon footprint by 6% by 2012. The program is called “Live Green Toronto,” and with $20 million in its coffers, the program is designed to provide financing to those who want to go green.

“We won’t meet our ambitious targets if we don’t have the support of every Torontonian and every Toronto-based business,” said David Miller, Toronto’s mayor, at the Green Living Show last Friday.

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Biofuels have been widely touted as a solution to redressing the world’s overdependence on oil and a significant part to resolving the climatic crisis  particularly in the developed world. But according to new report by Oxfam, the fascination with biofuels may not be a solution to either the climatic or oil crisis and is instead fueling a third crisis: food.

According to the report, interest in biofuels has intoxicated rich country governments to the extent that they are foregoing difficult but urgent decisions about how to reduce consumption of oil.

Sadly, the cumulative effect of the over-dependence on biofuels as a solution to the energy crisis is being felt in developing countries. Read the rest of this entry »

By now, we all know it’s cheaper — and more environmentally friendly — to walk or bike to places than to drive a car or SUV. But is the low-cost, low-impact way always feasible in the motor-happy, open-freeway-obsessed U.S. of A.? That’s what we’ll be exploring this week at EcoLocalizer in a feature we’re calling “Walk This Way.”

The question of whether to walk, bike or take public transportation is a no-brainer if you live in a city like New York, where driving can often be more of a pain than a pleasure. But what about the rest of the country? Not every community is large enough or dense enough to offer the auto alternatives the Big Apple does. And what about people who live in rural areas where everything is a half-hour’s drive away or more? Can we refashion our country’s way of getting around to be more European? Or are those of us in unwalkable communities doomed to either move elsewhere or live like so many billions do in the rest of the world, consigned to life in a radius of space measured in only a few miles?

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The developers of Medina Palms, an eco-friendly residential development, have determined to set eco-standards in Africa and are donating a percentage of its income to the international wildlife charity, Born Free Foundation, to help preserve marine life.

Medina Palms also supports a billfish tagging initiative to monitor fish populations in the Indian Ocean by The Billfish Foundation, a non profit dedicated to conserving and enhancing billfish populations around the world.

The Foundation claims that over 90% of marlin mortality is the result of bycatch in commercial fisheries outside the US yet tremendous pressure continues to be placed on oceans from fishing fleets trying to meet the demands of a hungry world.

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One of the great things about living in a developing country like Peru is that you can buy DVDs of new movies for a very low price. For instance, if you want a DVD of The Dark Knight, the new Batman movie, you can already buy it here. Not too shabby, eh?

Of course, you cannot be a stickler for quality with such DVDs, or you will be sorely disappointed. But if you like laughing along with audiences, wearing a hearing aid while watching movies, or pride yourself in your non-humble ability to tell people to sit down and shut up in the theater, then I’ve got a Kungfu Panda DVD that will be perfect for you.

It will probably come as no surprise to you that these kinds of DVDs are made by pirating businesses who use digital cameras to record new movies in theaters. They then distribute them quickly to the masses for profit. Peru, as well as many other developing countries where pirated DVDs are sold will unquestionably suffer over time from the pollution these DVDs will cause. To better understand why the environmental effect of DVDs will be proportionally greater in Peru than in a country like the United States, read on. Read the rest of this entry »

Converting the U.S.’s ample and renewable volumes of cow manure into biogas could provide as much as 3 percent of the nation’s electricity needs, say two researchers at the University of Texas at Austin.

In a new study published in the online journal Environmental Research Letters, Amanda Cuéllar and Michael Webber conclude that harnessing the full potential of cow poop power could not only help generate as much — or more — electricity as wind and solar power do today, but could greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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Down in Menlo Park, where Tesla Motors recently opened its industrial chic showroom, people might not think “Who Killed the Electric Car?” but rather “Who Can Afford the Electric Car?”. Nevertheless we’re totally juiced about the nearby showroom that displays a half dozen juicy Tesla Roadster electric car models that make the Prius look like a gas guzzling Hummer. It’s our checkbooks that aren’t as excited.

If you happen to be one of the numerous stars like Matt Damon or green politicians (like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Gavin Newsome) then it’s easy to tool around in one of these electric beauties but with the current $98,000 price tag (going up to $109,000 for the 2009 model) it isn’t exactly priced like a Buick. Even, with the cash, the waiting list sits at about 1100.

At least these guys continue to drive in the right direction instead of General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrysler which, according to The Detroit News, spent more than $15 million in the first six months of 2007, mostly to lobby against large hikes in federal fuel-economy standards.

We know what you’re thinking, you want to just stroll in and ask for a test drive. The local dealership will offer test drives with a $5000 deposit or a convincing story that you are a legitimate buyer. We plan to re-visit the showroom soon after we scrape up $5,000 from our sustainably built sofa.

Photo courtesy of Tesla Motors

Following the lead of our progressive neighbors to the north, San Francisco, the City of Los Angeles has decided to ban plastic bags by 2010. A bit of a disclaimer, though - the ban will be implemented only if the State does not impose a 25 cent fee for each bag requested by a customer. This bill (AB 2058) is coming up for a vote in August. Still, it’s a step in the right direction, putting pressure on lawmakers to reduce the 2.3 billion bags used by consumers in Los Angeles.

The announcement comes after Los Angeles County supervisors caused disappointment in January when they abandoned a threat to ban the bags, choosing instead a voluntary program where stores were to “encourage” customers to bring reusable bags. In other words, the status quo.

The City Council also voted to ban Styrofoam at all city-owned facilities, including LAX, by 2009. Though Los Angeles collects Styrofoam for recycling, there isn’t really a market for it - by the time it is melted down, very little material is left. Last I heard, Styrofoam was being stored until another solution could be found…like a ban! Ta da!

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Tucked away in the northeastern most part of India, with snow-capped Himalayas in the north and the plains of Brahamaputra river valley in the south is the diversity rich state of Aruanachal Pradesh. But for its geographic location and other political factors, the state would have been an ideal eco-tourism destination and an ultimate getaway for the rest of India and the world.

Presently, it’s a region hidden away from repeated human intervention, aptly tagged: Paradise Unexplored! Such is the lack of information about the biodiversity of Arunachal Pradesh that the Arunachal Macaque (Macaca munzala) - a species of monkey already known to the native people of Arunachal as Munzala or the “monkey of the deep forest”, remained unknown to scientists and biologists till it was “discovered” in 2004. The so called “discovery” was waiting to happen and it was after more than a hundred years that a new species of macaque was discovered (the last recent discovery being the Indonesian Pagai Island Macaque in 1903).

Now, for the past few years, the Prime Minister of India has had a vision. A vision to make India energy secure. And this is to be achieved beyond just the Indo-US nuclear deal, by tapping the over 50,000 MW hydroelectric potential from the state of Arunachal Pradesh.

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Scientists in California are setting out to create a new kind of agriculture: farming for carbon capture on degraded land in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

The concept works like this: researchers will plant things like cattails and tules (a type of rush that grows in freshwater marshes) in parts of the delta that have been subsiding and giving off greenhouse gases thanks to unsustainable agricultural practices in the area. Over time, the marsh plants will reproduce, die, decompose and rebuild the region’s peat soils … all while also soaking up carbon dioxide and creating new, sustainable wetlands.

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