Frankly Green

OSU Professor Questions Bottled Water Trade

Portland Business Journal - Wednesday, May 30, 2007

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God Bless Professor Jarvis for shedding light on this issue!!! The bottled water companies would like you to believe that the water from your tap is not healthy and that you should drink bottled water instead!! Not only is tap water safe, in many cases it is better than bottled water. And, most importantly, bottled water has a HUGE negative impact on the environment as Professor Jarvis points out!! Lastly, bottled water costs more per gallon than gasoline!! Think about that next time you reach for a bottle!!

Those ubiquitous containers carrying nothing but water are adding up to a substantial environmental headache, according to an assistant professor at Oregon State University.

Around the world, factories are using more than 18 million barrels of oil and up to 130 billion gallons of fresh water a year to create something that, by and large, most people don't need. But the product is so amazingly popular that sales are going up 10 percent a year.

Those resources are needed just to make the bottles. Filling them is another story.

Another 41 billion gallons of water is used to fill the bottles with water that is often just tap water, and other times has less frequent monitoring for safety or purity than if it had come out of a tap.

"Bottled water has become an incredibly big business, up to $100 billion per year," said Todd Jarvis, an assistant professor in the Water Resources Graduate Program at Oregon State University, and a research hydrogeologist with the OSU Institute for Water and Watersheds. "There are enormous amounts of money to be made here. Some of the profits make our business majors blush, and everyone wants in. It's just astonishing."

Jarvis, who has studied the issue for 15 years and makes frequent presentations on it, arrived long ago at a simple conclusion: Bottled water is not worth the price, and the people buying it often have no idea of the environmental repercussions.

Oregon lawmakers recently moved to address a portion of the problem by adding bottled water to the list of beverages needing a deposit payment.

NASA Study: Eastern U.S. to Get Hotter

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Future eastern United States summers look much hotter than originally predicted with daily highs about 10 degrees warmer than in recent years by the mid-2080s, a new NASA study says.

Previous and widely used global warming computer estimates predict too many rainy days, the study says. Because drier weather is hotter, they underestimate how warm it will be east of the Mississippi River, said atmospheric scientists Barry Lynn and Leonard Druyan of Columbia University and NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

"Unless we take some strong action to curtail carbon dioxide emissions, it's going to get a lot hotter," said Lynn, now a scientist at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "It's going to be a lot more dangerous for people who are not in the best of health."

Thanks to Bruce W. for this article (fortunately Bruce lives in the Midwest)

Italy Declares Drought Emergency

Italy just had its hottest winter in 200 years! Yikes! I sat next to a gentleman on a flight today who lives in Switzerland. As you may have heard, they had a very warm winter and the skiing was non existent in many areas. Several World Cup ski events were cancelled due to lack of snow. 

Link to Article

Italy declared a state of emergency in northern and central regions on Friday due to fears of drought following unusually warm and dry weather.

Farmers have been fretting as Italy's largest river, the Po, has dried up in recent months. The river, running west to east across northern Italy, feeds the broad Po valley which accounts for about a third of the country's agricultural output.

Environment Minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio said the state of emergency had been declared as a precautionary measure. It came a day after neighboring France imposed water rationing in several of its regions, also in fear of drought.

Italy's hottest winter in 200 years meant snowfall was light in the Alps, with little snow-melt to swell the Po. Then a hot, dry spring set in, with temperatures in April approaching levels usually seen in June.

Tesla Motors Raises $45 Million

I have written about Tesla several times before. I am excited about this company and by the fact that it is backed and run by smart, entrepreneurial, deep-pocketed people. They are working on an electric family sedan (code named WhiteStar)

Investors have juiced electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors with another $45 million in new financing just as the company puts the finishing touches on its first generation of electric vehicles.

Since its launch in 2003, the San Carlos, Calif.-based company has re-invigorated the market for electric vehicles, sparking investors to pursue other deals in the sector. Investors have backed REVA Electric Car Co. and re-launched Ford Motor Co.'s electric vehicle program as Norwegian company Think Global AS. Tesla itself has captured over $100 million in capital from leading investors.

"What this is used for is putting the roadster on the road and continuing the heavy development of WhiteStar," the company's four-door, five passenger sedan, said Tesla Motors Chief Executive Officer, Martin Eberhard.

Slated to come off the assembly lines in late 2009, the production of the sedan will require Tesla to significantly increase its staff, Eberhard said.

Right now, the company is building a factory in Taiwan to manufacture its engines and is in the early stages of building another manufacturing facility in Albuquerque, N.M. In addition, Tesla is quickly hiring engineers in its Michigan location, outside of Detroit.

Tesla also has plans to build out a company-owned sales and service infrastructure as it complete the mass production of its high-performance Tesla Roadster, which will ship in the fall of 2007. The company has already taken over 400 reservations for its first vehicle.

"My view of Tesla is that it's going to be one of the major car companies of the 21st century," Elon Musk, a serial entrepreneur and the chief executive of Space Exploration Technologies, which is also one of the original backers of the company. "We also think it's going to be a very big supplier of electric drive trains to other companies in the industry," Musk said.

New Test Means Lower Gas- Mileage Settings

Saturday May 5
Terry Jackson

Full Text Article

My friend Marc N., who works for one of the well known auto magazines, told me about this revision in fuel standards for 2008. Here is an article that explains the changes.

With gasoline prices once again firmly planted in the $3-per-gallon range, many people shopping for new cars this year will focus at least in part on fuel economy. And they're probably not going to like what they see on the window sticker. The news will be even worse if the sticker is attached to a hybrid.

As 2008 models get parked on dealer lots right next to those 2007 models, shoppers will notice that the 2008 incarnation of a seemingly identical 2007 car will show sharply reduced federal fuel mileage estimates.

That doesn't mean the 2008 model is thirstier at the pump than last year's model. What has changed is the decades-old testing procedures of the Environmental Protection Agency, which produces those city-highway mileage estimates printed on the window stickers.

In the old test, the EPA used a number of clearly outdated assumptions about how we all drive. For example, the old EPA test cycle, which was last overhauled in the 1980s and was based on standards written in the 1970s, tested vehicles at no greater speed than 55 mph. The air conditioner wasn't on, nor was the heater or defroster.

The tests, run on machines called dynamometers, were run at relatively warm temperatures and acceleration was at a pace that would elicit angry honks from other drivers if a real driver took off like that from a stoplight.

The new test runs up to 80 miles an hour, takes into account the use of air conditioners and heaters, and is run at both hot and cold outside temperatures. The testing is still done on dynamometers, so the results can't exactly recreate what an individual driver can expect.

The Latest Green Trend - Green Funerals

Link to Video on Green Funerals

Brazil Looks to Perk Up Country's Biodiesel Sales

By GRACE FAN
May 14, 2007

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If a local researcher is right, Brazilian coffee producers could begin brewing their own biodiesel as early as next year, even as they boost the quality of their country's coffee stocks at the same time.

The studies, which are being conducted at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, suggest that making both biodiesel and ethanol via coffee residues is technically and economically viable, at least for small-scale use within the country's coffee cooperatives, said Leandro Soares de Oliveira, a professor of chemical engineering at the university, in an interview.

Empowered Shopping: Tips From the Green Side of the Aisle

By Diane Marty

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Grocery shopping in greener pastures saves the environment from an onslaught of pesticides, hormones and other pollutants. Using simple strategies, you can make sure to reduce your footprint the next time you purchase food.

Some good shopping tips - Grocery shopping in greener pastures saves the environment from an onslaught of pesticides, hormones and other pollutants. Using simple strategies, you can make sure to reduce your footprint the next time you purchase food.

Here is a summary:
1. Buying local items eliminates some environmental transportation expense.
2. Go for recycled products—like tissues and paper towels.
3. Sidestep processed foods. They contain ingredients that create industrial pollution.
4.  Organic berries have a very short season, but they’re always available frozen.
5. Minimize the pollution and the trash caused by unnecessary wrapping.
6. Purchase in bulk. Bring hard plastic containers from home and you won’t need disposable bags.
7. Bypass those flimsy, non-biodegradable plastic bags in the produce section. The best solution is to keep some reusable cloth bags in your car so you don’t need bags at the store.
8. Conventionally raised animals exact heavy environmental tolls. For this reason, as well as the knowledge that pesticide and drug residues collect in the fat of animals, purchasing their organic equivalents makes more sense.
9. Finally, “explore the personality of the companies you patronize to verify that their business practices don’t conflict with green values,” says Minowa. Trace the background of manufacturers or producers (guides such as The Better World can help) to see if their company actually supports missions in sync with your beliefs.

Organic Farming Seen as Aiding World

UN told yield would fall less than thought

Associated Press

May 6, 2007

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Organic food has long been considered a niche market, a luxury for wealthy consumers. But researchers said at a UN conference Saturday that a large-scale shift to organic agriculture could help fight world hunger while improving the environment.

Crop yields initially can drop as much as 50 percent when growers trade the chemical fertilizers and pesticides of industrialized agriculture for organic methods. While such decreases may even out over time, the figures have kept the organic movement largely on the sidelines of discussions about feeding the hungry.

Researchers in Denmark found, however, that food security for sub-Saharan Africa would not be seriously harmed if 50 percent of agricultural land in the food exporting regions of Europe and North America were converted to organic by 2020.

While total food production would fall, the amount per crop would be much smaller than previously assumed, and the resulting rise in world food prices could be mitigated by improvements in the land and other benefits, the study found.

A similar conversion to organic farming in sub-Saharan Africa could help the region's hungry because it could reduce their need to import food, Danish agriculture scientist Niels Halberg told the UN conference on "Organic Agriculture and Food Security."

Farmers who go back to traditional agricultural methods would not have to spend money on expensive chemicals and would grow more diverse and sustainable crops, the report said.

Study: Southern Ocean Saturated with CO2

• Southern Ocean around Antarctica loaded with carbon dioxide
• Human activity is the main culprit, according to researchers
• Southern Ocean is one of the world's biggest reservoirs of carbon
• Research indicates it has been saturated with CO2 since the 1980s

Link to Article

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The Southern Ocean around Antarctica is so loaded with carbon dioxide that it can barely absorb any more, so more of the gas will stay in the atmosphere to warm up the planet, scientists reported Thursday.

Human activity is the main culprit, said researcher Corinne Le Quere, who called the finding very alarming.

The phenomenon wasn't expected to be apparent for decades, Le Quere said in a telephone interview from the University of East Anglia in Britain.

"We thought we would be able to detect these only the second half of this century, say 2050 or so," she said. But data from 1981 through 2004 show the sink is already full of carbon dioxide. "So I find this really quite alarming."