World of evasion: 2009

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Five Ways to Help Save the Planet in 30 Minutes or Less

Change Your Light Bulbs

Compact fluorescent light bulbs and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are more energy efficient and less expensive to use than the traditional incandescent bulbs invented by Thomas Edison. For example, compact fluorescent light bulbs use at least two-thirds less energy than standard incandescent bulbs to provide the same amount of light, and they last up to 10 times longer. Compact fluorescent light bulbs also generate 70 percent less heat, so they are safer to operate and can reduce energy costs associated with cooling homes and offices.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, if every U.S. household replaced just one regular incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb, it would prevent 90 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the equivalent of taking 7.5 million cars off the road. On top of that, for every incandescent bulb you replace with an approved compact fluorescent light bulb, you will save consumers $30 in energy costs over the life of the bulb.

Five Ways to Help Save the Planet in 30 Minutes or Less

Switch to Reusable Shopping Bags

Producing plastic bags uses a lot of natural resources, and most end up as litter that fouls landscapes, clogs waterways, and kills thousands of marine mammals that mistake the ubiquitous bags for food. Worldwide, up to a trillion plastic bags are used and discarded every year—more than a million per minute. The count for paper bags is lower, but the cost in natural resources is still unacceptably high—especially when there is a better alternative.

Reusable shopping bags, made of materials that don’t harm the environment during production and don’t need to be discarded after each use, reduce pollution and save resources that could be put to better uses than making plastic and paper bags. Reusable bags are convenient and come in a variety of sizes and styles. Some reusable bags can even be rolled or folded small enough to fit into a purse or pocket.

Five Ways to Help Save the Planet in 30 Minutes or Less

Invest half an hour to protect the environment by changing how you live each day

By Larry West

Drive Less, Drive Smart
Every time you leave your car at home you reduce air pollution, lower , improve your health and save money.

Walk or ride a bicycle for short trips, or take public transportation for longer ones. In 30 minutes, most people can easily walk a mile or more, and you can cover even more ground on a bicycle, bus, subway or commuter train. Research has shown that people who use public transportation are healthier than those who don’t. Families that use public transportation can save enough money annually to cover their food costs for the year.

When you do drive, take the few minutes needed to make sure your engine is well maintained and your tires properly inflated.

Five Ways to Help Save the Planet in 30 Minutes or Less

Invest half an hour to protect the environment by changing how you live each day

By Larry West

Eat Your Vegetables
Eating less meat and more fruits, grains and vegetables can help the environment more than you may realize. Eating meat, eggs and dairy products contributes heavily to global warming, because raising animals for food produces many more greenhouse gas emissions than growing plants. A 2006 report by the University of Chicago found that adopting a vegan diet does more to reduce global warming than switching to a hybrid car.

Raising animals for food also uses enormous amounts of land, water, grain and fuel. Every year in the United States alone, 80 percent of all agricultural land, half of all water resources, 70 percent of all grain, and one-third of all fossil fuels are used to raise animals for food.

Making a salad doesn’t take any more time than cooking a hamburger and it’s better for you—and for the environment.

New Nuclear Reactors Will Produce More Radiation Along With More Electricity

A new generation of nuclear reactors designed to generate more electricity more safely than previous technology may actually produce radioactive waste that is more toxic and would be released more quickly in case of a nuclear accident, according to information contained in industry documents and brought to light by Greenpeace.

France and the United Kingdom are already on track to build new nuclear reactors using EPR technology, which are expected to generate 1,600 megawatts of electricity while using 15 percent less uranium and producing 30 percent less waste.

Meanwhile, other nations, including the United States, are studying the technology and may decide to construct EPR nuclear reactors. U.S. President Barack Obama has said he believes the United States will need to continue, and probably expand, its use of nuclear power to meet its energy and climate goals, but not until there is a safe and effective way to manage nuclear waste and to minimize the national security risks posed by nuclear power.

Safety features built into EPR reactors would make a nuclear accident less likely than ever before, but one study suggests that an EPR reactor or waste accident could kill nearly twice as many people as an accident at one of the atomic reactors they are designed to replace.

The study, conducted by independent nuclear consultant John Large, compared the consequences of an accident at the new EPR reactor being constructed in Normandy with one at an existing reactor in the same area. Large concluded that, in the worst case, the number of deaths would increase from 16,000 to more than 28,000.

EPR reactors are designed to burn nuclear fuel almost twice as thoroughly as atomic reactors, but that process also increases the toxicity of the nuclear waste EPR reactors produce. Various industry documents show that, compared to atomic reactors, EPR nuclear reactors would produce:

Four more radioactive bromine, rubidium, iodine and caesium, according to a report by EDF, the French company that is planning to build four EPR reactors in the UK;
Seven times as much iodine 129, according to Posiva Oy, a nuclear waste company owned by two Finnish companies that build nuclear reactors; and
Eleven times as much caesium 135 and 137, according to the Swiss National Cooperative for the Disposal of Radioactive Waste.

The most troubling thing about these reports is not the specter of a potentially deadly nuclear accident—despite some problems, the nuclear industry has a remarkably good safety record when it comes to operating reactors—but rather that the nuclear industry failed to put all of its cards on the table while selling EPR technology as a safer alternative to atomic reactors.

However large or small the risks, the people assuming those risks have a right to know exactly what they are.

By Larry West