A major factor causing the BP oil spill to be the disaster that it is turning out to be is deregulation of the oil industry. You would think that if people, especially politicians, learned one thing from this disaster, it would be that we need strong government oversight of risky technologies.

It seems right now that some in the nuclear industry and Congress have missed that completely or just haven’t heard the news about the BP oil spill at all.

Certain nuclear energy supporters are trying to weaken regulation of new nuclear reactors in any proposed climate and energy or energy-only legislation.

On Wednesday, the California Assembly passed legislation prohibiting pharmacies and grocery, liquor and convenience stores from giving out plastic bags. The bill passed the California State Senate today, and if signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, it will be the nation’s first statewide plastic bag ban. But the bill doesn’t stop there… customers will be charged for using store-issued paper bags as well.

Of course, banning plastic bags is good for the environment and reduces our use of petroleum products. I’m all for it, but I’m a little hesitant supporting the fee for store-issued paper bags. Could it have a negative impact on lower income families or does it matter?

The U.S. EPA is working on new rules for the disposal of coal fly ash, which is the stuff left over when coal is burned at power plants.  And not a moment too soon!  For the past few weeks attention has been focused on British Petroleum’s devastating oil spill, but it wasn’t too long ago that a manmade lake holding 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash slurry gave way in Tennessee and released a flood of coal ash that smashed through 300 acres of rural neighborhoods and into the Emory River.

Cleanup for the Tennessee disaster alone is estimated to total about $1.2 billion over the next few years and with about 900 other coal ash landfills and liquid impoundments peppered across the U.S., that’s a lot of expensive accidents waiting to happen.  The race is on for EPA to establish some kind of order in what has been a regulatory free-for-all.

A Republican Senator joined with Democrats representing coastal states threatened by the massive oil spill in voicing continued alarms over including off-shore drilling in a climate and energy bill. As new reports reveal that the oil spill is now five times worse than estimated: “We need to move heaven and earth to stop this from becoming an environmental disaster.” said Florida’s Republican Senator, George LeMieux.

“The continued failure to stop the leak threatens to wreak untold damage on Florida’s coastlines” says Republican Senator LeMieux – albeit along with his diatribes against “government spending” – on his YouTube web page.

As many of you are for sure now aware, on April 20th a massive explosion rocked the Deepwater Horizon, an oil rig situated off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico. The resulting explosion sunk the rig two days later… unserendipitously on Earth Day. As a result we won’t soon forget Earth Day 2010. Initial reports started that the oil spill wasn’t that bad, leaking about 1,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf. Still sounds terrible to me, but it doesn’t sound so bad a week later.

New estimates say that 5,000 gallons of oil are leaking into the Gulf of Mexico per day. BP, who leased the platform, has not been able to plug the leak yet. The Coast Guard has suggested lighting the slick on fire. And what could be one of the worst oil spills in history shows no sign of slowing down.

“It’s 36 percent more efficient to grow grain for food than for fuel,” said the lead author of a paper that looked at 17 years worth of data to help settle the food versus fuel debate.

“The ideal is to grow corn for food,” said Ilya Gelfand , a Michigan State University postdoctoral researcher, “then leave the leftover stalks and leaves on the field for soil conservation and produce cellulosic ethanol with the other half.”

“It comes down to what’s the most efficient use of the land,” said Phil Robertson, University Distinguished Professor of crop and soil sciences and one of the paper’s authors. “Given finite land resources, will it be more efficient to use productive farmland for food or fuel? One compromise would be to use productive farmland for both — to use the grain for food and the other parts of the plant for fuel where possible. Another would be to reserve productive farmland for food and to grow biofuel grasses — cellulosic biomass — on less productive land.”

Are genetically modified foods costing farmers billions of dollars every year? Greenpeace finds that genetically modified soy is.

Genetically modified (GM) foods are infamous due to numerous health, safety and social justice concerns. A common counter-claim that genetically modified food advocates make is that genetically modified foods are cheaper. However, Greenpeace has recently compiled numerous non-genetically modified academic studies (yes, the “non-GM” part is a joke) showing that GM soy, a leading GM crop, produces lower yields and costs farmers billions of dollars every year. It estimates that the cost to farmers was over $11 billion from 2006 through 2009.

President Obama’s new health care reforms will help millions more people in the U.S. get access to modern medical care and preventive health services, just like every other country in the developed world.  All things being equal, that would lead to a rapid surge in greenhouse gas emissions attributed to the health care industry, which is already notorious for its resource-gobbling ways.  However, things never are actually equal.

In terms of greenhouse gas emissions and waste reduction the health care industry has already been laying the groundwork for dealing with a potentially huge surge in demand for its services.  That will not only come from Presidents Obama’s new health care reforms.  It will also come from a rise in the population of older (and very older) people in the U.S., and from new energy demands by emerging high tech health care equipment.

One more time…for the environment!
It’s called “used media”, and it refers to the useful stuff that we consumers accumulate–like books, videos and CDs–over the course of our consumer lifetimes. Some of this stuff ends up in yard sales, but much of it is thrown away (still in good condition), or simply piles up in our basements, attics and storage containers.
For Seattle’s Eco Encore, this used media is the basis of its growing “eco economic” system which supports environmental work throughout the region. So, why not donate and support many environmental causes to boot?

The “largest corporation you’ve never heard of” — the first or second largest corporation in the US — is the leading source of funds for anti-climate science efforts.

It’s much more fun to write on the good stuff environmentally friendly people and businesses are doing, but occasionally we have to take a look at what is keeping the world down, too.

A new report put out by Greenpeace, Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine, uncovers where many of the leading anti-climate science campaigns, organizations and people get their money — from Koch Industries or affiliated charities.

No doubt the current Olympics has and continue to dazzle people with the drama (some outside of the venues) but somehow lost amongst the sports accomplishments remains the face that Vancouver touted this Olympics as the Greenest ever. It seems that China also made that claim a couple years ago. Instead of getting into a comparison of this green aspect versus that sustainable item, we took a look at the Vancouver Convention Center West, which marks the World’s First Convention Center to Achieve LEED Platinum Rating.

Yes, we’ve discussed our feeling about the LEED label and how we would like seeing more money going toward sustainable aspects versus a LEED plaque but nonetheless they built an impressive structure, which currently hosts the international media for the Olympic games. When the Olympics pack-up Vancouver will still have the dazzling sustainable structure.

We know that it is actually a positive thing these days to care about the environment. It is not a fringe, weirdo concern. For this reason, we now even have the problem of corporate greenwashing — companies (or politicians, people, etc.) trying to convince people they are green when they are not.

As we approach a major worldwide environmental event — Earth Hour — we can see that we have come a long way in the world of corporate environmental care. Currently, corporate support for Earth Hour is coming from a wide range of large, mainstream companies, such as Canon, Coca-Cola, HSBC, Nokia Siemens Networks, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics and Wells Fargo.

Are these companies really concerned about the environment, or are they just looking for good, easy publicity? Either way, their support for the event is going to make a huge difference.

“Thousands of offices of some of the world’s leading corporations will be supporting this year’s Earth Hour ‘lights out’ initiative for effective climate change action,” the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) reports. “Many of the companies will also be encouraging staff to individually join the expected hundreds of millions of others from every continent who will turn lights off for one hour from 8.30 pm on Saturday, March 27.”

Although it is just one hour, the effect may be large, especially when you consider the broader educational and habit-changing effects this may create.

“HSBC will switch off lights in its offices around the world to highlight to our employees, customers and the public the continued importance of thinking about the way we consume resources,” said Head of Group Corporate Sustainability for HSBC, Simon Martin.

When you consider that HSBC has 8,500 office locations in 86 countries, that makes a difference.

“Climate change remains a clear challenge to human society, and the symbolic act of powering down our offices for an hour is a way of heightening awareness of the need for everybody to act responsibly and cohesively to manage the challenge,” Martin said.

With this kind of corporate leadership, much more can be done in the realm of environmental sustainability. Hopefully, HSBC and all the other companies involved in this event will go beyond this one hour and look to implement more clean, green policies thoughout the rest of the year as well.

At the least, these companies’ creative and focused public education efforts for Earth Hour are sure to have a broader, long-term effect on the public.

Nokia
Nokia Siemens Networks, a world communications giant, will urge its offices worldwide to ‘flick the switch” on March 27, and, at this time, is also encouraging its 64,000 strong staff and worldwide customer base to be part of a global resolution to climate change.

Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola will be turning out lights in many offices and bottling facilities around the world while also helping to raise public awareness with the use of its iconic marketing assets.

Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo, which is committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 20% through energy efficiency efforts in its own operations, is encouraging its customers to participate in Earth Hour through messages on its ATMs. These messages are expected to reach more than eight million people. The company is also turning off its own non-essential lights where practical.

Wells Fargo Green Teams (grassroots groups of Wells Fargo team members that help drive environmental stewardship) are also encouraging co-workers to participate in the event.

Action that Isn’t Going Away

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the world’s largest professional services firm, has conducted a study of the international business community with regard to climate change.

Titled Appetite for Change, the world’s most comprehensive survey of its kind reveals that 84% of corporate executives believe global warming will change the way they do business over the next two to three years.

PwC has an extensive program of measured carbon emission targets to meet the impending changes to the international business landscape and it will show its commitment to climate action during Earth Hour by engaging its offices (located in more than 150 countries) to switch off their lights for one hour for the event and also encouraging its 163,000 staff to participate in the humungous global event.

Hopefully, all of this action will carry beyond one hour on March 27, 2010.

Source: GO Media - Written by Zachary Shahan - Image Credit: Earth Hour logo @ WWF / Andy Ridley