Not quite.
Earlier this year, we were thinking about possible vacation destinations, and cruising down the Mediterranean sounded like a cool idea. One of my coworkers raved about a 3 week cruise she took to Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, which compelled me to investigate further.
Just as I was starting to get excited about the prospect of taking a cruise, I came across this article in the NY Times. Basically, cruise lines are not well policed when it comes to compliance with environmental policies. For example, did you know:
- Most ships run on bunker fuel, which is the dirtiest and cheapest fuel oil
- A one-week voyage on a large ship is estimated to produce 210,000 gallons of sewage, a million gallons of gray water (runoff from sinks, baths, showers, laundry and galleys), 25,000 gallons of oily bilge water, 11,550 gallons of sewage sludge and more than 130 gallons of hazardous wastes
Until the industry changes its ways and makes significant strides in reducing its carbon footprint, I won’t be taking a cruise anytime soon.
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.
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 (Styrofoam™) 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.
The Olympics start in a mere 11 days.
As you’ve likely heard, China has embarked on several measures to improve air quality, such as limiting the use of cars and the closing of dozens of factories.
Apparently, these efforts have had little impact. The Air Pollution Index, or API, (the API measures particulate matter) in Beijing has hovered over 101. To qualify for a “blue sky day,” which is supposedly safely for athletes, the API must be below 101.
As a result, the Chinese are implementing an “Emergency Green Plan”, banning 90% of the 3.3M private cars from the roads, and temporarily closing even more factories.
What do you think? Is it going to work? Or is it too late?
