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Clean Wisconsin provides easy tips on how to stay Green during the holidays
Kermit the Frog might think it's only natural to be green during
the holiday season, and maybe you can too by making a couple of
easy changes to reduce spending and waste. For many people the
holidays signify stress and over-spending. This year...
Environmentally-Friendly Earth Homes
What are "Earth Homes?" Earth homes are houses that are basically constructed from the earth. Some earth homes are built from adobe, mud, straw or even underground as an earth-sheltered home. Environmentally friendly, earth homes are easy to warm...
Here Comes The Sun: Solar energy is becoming more attractive for mainstream consumers
The price of a barrel of oil has never been higher ($62.00+ in summer 2005 even before the chaos caused by Katrina). Some say this is a temporary spike, but more and more analysts are agreeing that this kind of pricing is here to stay. World...
So, Donald... An Open Letter to Donald Trump
Soaring oil and gas prices and the devastation of Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita have finally brought an issue into sharp focus
for the public: When it comes to energy, we're in trouble! We
import far more crude oil than we produce in the United...
Why Buy Energy Efficient Appliances?
When purchasing a new home appliance, a lot of people have the tendency to go straight to the discount department and select the cheapest models available. Sometimes the difference in price can be indeed significant, but is it really worth it?
You...
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Cities, States and Others Step up Action on Climate, Despite Federal Reluctance
Last year, Pentagon defense adviser Andrew Marshall issued a
harsh warning of the consequences of climate change: mass chaos,
national security crises and food shortages. If climate change
occurs abruptly, the report declared, there could be a
catastrophic breakdown in international security. Wars over
access to food, water, and energy would likely break out between
states. Even if climate change is more gradual, recent studies
have argued that as many as one million plant and animal species
could be rendered extinct by 2050 due to the effects of global
warming. Climate change is the most serious challenge facing
the international community. In order to plan for a sustainable
future - one that meets needs today without compromising meeting
the needs of future generations - global warming must be
addressed. We have arrived at a stage in human evolution that
requires international cooperation - a stage which demands that
world leaders put world priorities ahead of national political
agendas in order to halt the peril threatening humanity. In
1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED)
asked all nations to renew their commitment to implement
policies based on the three pillars of sustainable development -
economic, environmental and social - in order to arrest
environmental deterioration and revive world economic growth. In
particular, the report stated, poverty has played a major role
in environmental degradation. Not only is it our moral
obligation to eliminate poverty, the report revealed it is
essential to protecting and improving the environment. Further
reports have concluded that environmentally unsound technology
has been exponentially far more detrimental to sustainable
development than even population growth. In order to achieve
sustainable development, the Commission reported, our cities
must be considered in the global concerted effort. Since
three-fourths of the global warming pollution could be solved if
we decreased burning fossil fuels, one of the most effective
ways to transform urban growth is by switching to alternative
energy sources. Fortunately, there are many means of harnessing
energy which have less damaging impacts on our environment than
fossil fuels, and we already have developed all the
technological resources needed. Now we must admit there is a
problem and start working in the direction to make this
transition. If our current leaders do not want to face this
pressing challenge with integrity, then as Leonardo Dicaprio
urges, we need to vote for leaders who care about the
environment and our health and the future generations who will
bear the burden long after the Administration is gone.
A Call to Action
On October 25, 2005, Senator Hillary Clinton (NY) called for a
national energy strategy enlisting the oil industry in a process
that would help consumers while making the transition to
alternative energy technologies. Her plan redirects the hidden
"tax" that Americans are already paying to OPEC and the oil
companies, but lasts only long enough to" kick-start the
alternative energy market that we all know is out there," she
explained. Speaking to Cleantech Venture Network, a group of
venture capitalists who recently were named by Wall Street
Journal reports for their success in developing clean energy as
a viable investment category, Clinton emphasized the immediate
concern which is how to help citizens pay their bills and keep
the economy moving in the face of dramatically higher energy
costs. There is no question, she said, that our failure to make
better energy choices is sapping our pocketbooks, limiting our
competitiveness, threatening our environment and even our
national security. "Hurricanes Katrina and Rita made that
brutally clear." The far reaching problem we face, Senator
Clinton stated, is coping with the impacts of massive economic
development and competition for oil in other parts of the world
such as India and China in the next twenty years. "Loosening
environmental standards or opening up a new oil field or two is
not going to offset this seismic shift in energy demand," she
explained. Her plan unburdens the American people of foreign oil
dependence, investing a portion of the profits into the U.S.
energy future, instead of regimes we would never choose to
subsidize. The oil industries can choose to either reinvest
their profits into America's energy future or contribute to a
new Strategic Energy Fund, she said. The Strategic Energy Fund
would help consumers cope with spiraling energy costs, promote
adoption of existing clean energy and conservation technologies,
while stimulating research and investment by the private sector.
She also recommends assessing an alternative energy development
fee for those companies deciding not to directly reinvest in our
energy future. That fee, she explained would help fund energy
transition. "The Fund could generate as much as $20 billion a
year to help with home heating oil costs and develop new energy
strategies." In this way, she explained, we would reduce our
reliance on fossil fuel, make existing alternative technologies
more affordable, jump start our technology, and regain U.S.
world leadership. It's got "Made in America" written on it, in
addition to providing a role model for developing nations. The
"energy revolution" can be as big and important as the
industrial revolution and the explosion of the information age.
However, we have to do what America has always done when faced
with a big challenge, she said, "roll up our sleeves and
dedicate this country to finding a solution." In effect, she
explained, "the country that put a man on the moon can be the
country to find new lower cost and cleaner forms of energy. Our
nation needs it. Our planet needs it."
Addressing Climate Change in the Environment of a Hostile U.S.
Administration One of the most important outcomes of the 2002
World Sustainable Summit Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg,
South Africa, was the decision to address climate change at the
global level, starting at the local level-- all mandates that
must be enacted locally as well as globally in order to begin to
impact the effects of climate change. A decade earlier, the Rio
de Janeiro Summit articulated the need to include humanity as
well as environmental protection in the sustainability equation.
Hence, it concluded, the critical problem of poverty must also
be addressed. When the United Nations authorized the World
Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, it had already
realized poverty had deepened and environmental degradation had
worsened since the 1992 Summit. The world needed a new summit of
actions with results, and not just intent. Managing urban
environmental conditions ultimately belongs with national
governments, businesses, scientific bodies, and communities
working together; but history shows us U.S. involvement has
always sped and strengthened global progress in improving urban
environmental conditions for sustainable development. Although
U.S. partnership is needed to meet the increasingly urgent
demands to make cities livable, the Bush Administration has not
been forthcoming. While the 2002 WSSD Johannesburg Summit was
the highest attended conference by world leaders, President Bush
was sorely missed. According to original plans, explained
participant Kaarin Taipale, "the 2002 WSSD summit would have
coincided with the first anniversary of 9/11." Conference dates
were changed at that the
last minute in order to make it easier
for the President to attend. Instead, Secretary of State Colin
Powell traveled to Johannesburg to speak on the President's
behalf, where as Taipale recalls, "he was infamously booed."
Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky
soon retorted by telling Summit attendees to focus on actions,
"actions being better than words." U.S. action has been remiss.
Vice Chairman of Friends of the Earth Tony Juniper said the
United States has a lot to answer for what has gone wrong since
the Rio de Janeiro Summit in 1992. Many trends that were
categorized as urgent at that summit - such as poverty,
biodiversity loss, deforestation, and overexploitation of
renewable resources - had either stayed the same or become
worse. First, the U.S. refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol at
the 2002 Summit - the single most important environmental treaty
to stop Climate Change. In addition, Juniper reported, the Bush
Administration had been telling the world about the importance
of free trade while protecting its own steel industry and hiking
agricultural subsidies to the degree of harming other nations.
In fact, heavy pressure on the U.S. Administration for Bush not
to attend the Summit, said Juniper, seemed to originate with the
big business and corporate lobby. U. S. representatives to the
Summit proposed business friendly partnerships, but opposed the
very necessary targetive actions on sustainable development.
Although the United States makes up four percent of the world's
population and produces 22 percent of the world's greenhouse
gases, it's refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol's call for
reductions in the greenhouse gases merely underscores Federal
unwillingness to address climate change. Claiming that the
treaty would raise energy prices and kill five million U.S.
jobs, the Administration has even raised questions about the
scientific legitimacy of climate change. As British Petroleum
CEO John Browne put it, "The time to consider the policy
dimensions of climate change is not when the link is
conclusively proven, but when the possibility cannot be
discounted." The Union of Concerned Scientists, a group of 6,000
scientists, including 48 Nobel laureates, warns that the Bush
administration's overtly anti-science bias undercuts scientific
integrity. This bias was clear when the The New York Times
reported that a White House official who once led the oil
industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases had
repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play
down links between such emission and global warming. The White
House response: the reports were "scientifically sound." As
Journalist and author Chris Mooney explained, the Administration
relied on those energy interests who have a documented history
of muddying the role that humanity plays in climate change while
consciously strategizing to "sow confusion on the issue and sway
journalists." According to a study published by Princeton
professors Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala, the U.S. could
reduce emissions to below the 1970 levels just with its current
technology. "We in fact already have everything we need to face
this challenge," Vice President Gore has said, "save perhaps
political will. But in our democracy political will is a
renewable resource." Because the Federal government has failed
to get involved internationally, state and local officials have
been left alone to address the gravity of excess greenhouse gas
emissions. Without Federal direction, Senator Clinton has
warned, the varying standards that result from the differences
in local policies could create havoc for the private sector. To
make matters worse, approximately 100 high-level Administration
officials who help regulate industries they once represented -
as lobbyists, lawyers, or company advocates - are all part of an
effort to avoid addressing global warming. (2004, Natural
Resources Defense Council (NRDC)). London's "Guardian" has
further reported that the environmental group Greenpeace
obtained documents indicating President Bush's global climate
policy was heavily influenced by Exxon, Mobil and other oil
companies. In briefing papers given to U.S. Under Secretary of
State Paula Dobriansky between 2001 and 2004, "the
administration is found thanking Exxon executives for the
company's 'active involvement' in helping to determine climate
change policy, and also seeking its advice on what climate
change policies the company might find acceptable." Quietly, in
the background of policy change, by mid August 2004 the
Administration had already rolled back more than 400 major
environmental mandates, causing the protection of our nation's
air, water, public land and wildlife to be severely weakened.
This anti-environment spirit, reports Robert Kennedy, Jr.,
pervades virtually all of the Sub-secretariats today, including
the Department of Agriculture, Interior, and Energy. In contrast
to entering public service for the public interest, these
officials are motivated by the intent to specifically subvert
the very law they are now charged with enforcing. "The current
Administration," he says, "has put the most insidious polluters
in charge of all the agencies that are supposed to protect the
American people from pollution." One notable exception was
Christine Whitman, appointed by Bush to head the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA). In 2002, she released a report stating
that Climate Change was an urgent problem created by human
activity that would quickly create other problems unless
immediately addressed. A public relations crisis ensued when
Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute declared
"someone should be fired" over this. Apparently, White House
Chief of Staff on Environmental Quality and former lobbyist for
the American Petroleum Institute Philip Cooney did not see
(edit) the report before it was released. President Bush
publicly discounted the report by calling it a report from "the
bureaucracy." Whitman resigned from the EPA soon after. At the
Clinton Global Initiative, a summit of actions and results held
by President Clinton in New York last September, Al Gore
reported that some of those who benefit from unrestrained
pollution from global warming also spend millions of dollars
each year creating pseudo-studies that cloud the issue. This is
not the first time this type of swaying from industry lobbyists
has occurred. After the Surgeon General warning of the dangers
of smoking, Gore noted, the tobacco industry hired 'scientific
prostitutes' to argue that smoking was good for people. While
such actions can be understood, he said, they are not
acceptable, "not when the fate of the earth - rather, the fate
of a habitable earth for human beings -- is at stake." He quoted
muckraker Upton Sinclair who wrote more than a century ago: "It
is difficult to get a man to understand something when his
salary depends upon him not understanding it."
Article Continues at: http://www.elizabethautumn.com/id97.html
About the author:
Elizabeth Autumn, MBA, is a freelance reporter. She covers
environment and corporate governance issues. Completing her
Masters in Environmental Management at Harvard University,
Elizabeth also writes for Crane's Magazine, Create Magazine, and
Publishers Weekly. Prior to this she was a freelance producer
for Fox News, in addition she worked for CBS News on the
Emmy-Award winning CBS Documentary "9-11", The Early Show, and
60 Minutes.
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| Department of Energy - Homepage |
| Governmental department whose mission is to advance energy technology and promote related innovation in the United States. |
| www.energy.gov |
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| Department of Energy - Page not found! |
| US Department of Energy information for consumers, business, and communities. Links to many energy pages of the DOE. |
| www.energy.gov |
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| Energy Quest Room |
| California Energy Commission's energy and environmental education site for students, parents and teachers. Includes information, Q&As, projects, ... |
| www.energyquest.ca.gov |
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| The Energy Story - Introduction |
| Detailed guide explains what energy is and where it comes from. |
| www.energyquest.ca.gov |
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| EIA Energy Kids Page - energy facts, fun, games and activities |
| Features various sections about energy including what it is and the forms it comes in. Find out how humans use energy through quizzes and a 'fun facts' ... |
| www.eia.doe.gov |
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| Energy Information Administration - EIA - Official Energy ... |
| Section of the US Department of Energy (DOE) providing statistics, data, analysis on resources, supply, production, consumption for all energy sources. |
| www.eia.doe.gov |
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| Energy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| Free encyclopedia article explaining the scientific notion of energy. Includes units of measure, energy transformation concepts, types of energy, ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
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| Department of Energy - Homepage |
| U.S. Department of Energy Awards Contract for Management and Operation of Ames ... The Energy Star label is the government's seal of energy efficiency. ... |
| www.doe.gov |
|
| Home : ENERGY STAR |
| US EPA Energy Star programs and products help save the environment and save consumers money by using less energy through advanced design or construction. |
| www.energystar.gov |
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| National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Home Page |
| Facility of the US Department of Energy (DOE) for renewable energy and energy efficiency research, development and deployment. |
| www.nrel.gov |
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| European Commission - Energy - Home page |
| Welcome to the European Commission's "Energy" website ... A European Strategy for Sustainable, Competitive and Secure Energy ... |
| ec.europa.eu |
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| DTI - Energy - Introduction |
| The DTI’s Energy Group deals with energy-related matters, ... UK energy statistics are provided, including production, consumption and prices. ... |
| www.dti.gov.uk |
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| U.S. DOE Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Home Page |
| US Department of Energy web site for information on energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. |
| www.eere.energy.gov |
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| Energy for America's Future |
| Provides an overview of President Bush's energy policies. |
| www.whitehouse.gov |
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| International Energy Agency |
| Energy Security, Growth and Sustainability through Co-operation and Outreach. |
| www.iea.org |
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| energywatch: Home Page |
| Independent gas and electricity consumer watchdog, providing help to domestic, commercial or industrial energy (gas and electricity) consumers. |
| www.energywatch.org.uk |
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| EnergyAustralia - Home |
| Details of one of Australia's largest and oldest gas and electricity supply companies. Includes information on accounts, energy saving tips, appliance sales ... |
| www.energy.com.au |
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| U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources |
| Has jurisdiction over energy policy, regulation, and research. Also deals with energy and mineral conservation, ports used for energy transport, irrigation, ... |
| energy.senate.gov |
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| bloomberg energy prices |
| www.bloomberg.com/energy/ - Similar pages |
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| Energy Bulletin |
| A clearinghouse of information concerning the peak in global energy such as oil and gas. |
| www.energybulletin.net |
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