Sorry vegetarians, as this blog post may be offensive to you.
So meat eaters in Australia, there’s a new study out that indicates that if you want to reduce greenhouse gases by grazing livestock, you should switch to eating kangaroos.
Farming kangaroos instead of sheep and cattle in Australia could cut by almost a quarter the greenhouse gases produced by grazing livestock, which account for 11 percent of the nation’s annual emissions, said a new study.
Removing seven million cattle and 36 million sheep by 2020 and replacing them with 175 million kangaroos, to produce the same amount of meat, could lower national greenhouse gases by 3 percent a year, said the University of New South Wales study. [Source]
Unlikely that this will happen though, don’t you think? The mindset shift that would be required to start eating kangaroos seems like too big a barrier.
Not to be outdone by Toyota’s announcement of the plug-in hybrid Prius and Toyota’s Lexus hybrid and the small Toyota iQ, Honda has recently announced a new hybrid. Unlike the Civic hybrid, Honda’s new hybrid will be designed as a hybrid from the ground up. The recently captured spy pictures above show exactly what Honda is going after – Toyota’s popular Prius hybrid.
Honda’s new hybrid appears to be based off the FCX Clarity fuel-cell concept car. Rumors say this new hybrid will replace the Insight, while others claim this will be the new Civic hybrid. Honda is targeting this new hybrid as an entry-level car. Estimates are that Honda will produce 200,000 each year, with half of those sold in the U.S. Some say the price may be as low as $19,000 – no matter what the price is, look for it to be competitive and lower-priced than the Prius. The car will be a five-seater, 4 door hatchback, also similar to the Prius. This new model is not expected to use lithium ion batteries, and gas mileage is expected to be well above 40 mpg. Rumors have the car arriving in the U.S. late 2009. I’m crossing my fingers for it to come even sooner!
If you’re like me, you probably take less public transit than you could – I blame it on transit maps, which are always so freaking hard to figure out! But these days, with gas prices the way they are, and the whole planet melting and all, it’s a good time to find a workaround.
Fortunately Google offers great transit instructions in 50 cities worldwide, including the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, Austria, France, Italy, Poland, Russia, Swizerland and the UK? Just go to Google Transit, and enter your start point and destination!
This link shows the results I get from Google Transit for a trip from my alma mater, the University of California at Berkeley to the Google campus.
You can also get the same transit help on your mobile phone via Google Maps for Mobile (GMM), which is actually a great app that I use all the time. Go to the GMM page to download the app to your phone (works on some phones) or just to learn more. There’s even a video about how it works!
Regardless of your political inclinations, you have to admit that Mayor McHottie (aka Gavin Newsom) of San Francisco is doing a pretty decent job in promoting “greenness.” In fact, a recent independent study noted that San Francisco has cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent from 1990 levels and is on track to meet its goal of a 20 percent reduction in four years.
That’s pretty impressive if a 20% reduction can really be had in a mere four years.
Below are just some of the ways our city has taken steps to be more green (not all of these are necessarily related to greenhouse gas emissions):
- SF has the largest City-owned solar installation in the country – a 75 kilowatt solar array atop Moscone Center (convention facility)
- 100% of SF’s taxi fleets are to be converted to hybrid or alternative fuel vehicles by 2011
- SF has a new green building ordinance which imposes strict new green building requirements on newly constructed residential and commercial buildings, and renovations to existing buildings – by 2012, it is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by 60,000 tons
- Local restaurants are now banned from using Polystyrene foam (Styrofoamâ„¢) disposable food service ware
- In March 2007, SF became the first U.S. city to ban plastic shopping bags
- SF currently has a 70 percent recycling rate. The city’s goal is 75 percent by 2010 and zero waste by 2020
But enough about us – tell me how your city stacks up and what is being done to curb global warming in your neck of the woods.
I won’t write about the vices of smoking (we all know what they are) or the fact that the amount of money people spend smoking could end poverty (I’m exaggerating). I wrote a couple months ago how bad smoking is for the environment. Smoking isn’t just bad when people light up, but rather, it’s environmentally detrimental throughout the entire production supply chain.
In what was an extremely controversial move, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a law last week banning the sale of tobacco products in most pharmacies within city limits. San Francisco, the first city in the U.S. to pass such a ban, hopes this will spur other cities to action. Marin County has already taken notice and is thinking about a similar ban.
San Francisco spokespeople mentioned the law was to promote the idea of health in a pharmacy. They mentioned pharmacies should be places where people go to get healthy. Rite Aid and Walgreens spokespeople expressed concern about limiting customer choice in their stores, and noted people buying cigarettes in their stores could use also pharmacists as a resource to stop smoking. They also mentioned the law lacked basic fairness.
As much as I dislike smoking and as bad as smoking is for the environment, I’m a little torn. I would love for everyone to stop smoking, but I’m not sure bans like this are productive or fair, especially when they seem to single out certain types of retailers. What stops San Francisco from banning potato chips and other products?
