ecoComputing Update Center

A lawsuit between the US Navy and environmental groups in Hawaii has been settled with concessions on both sides. The Navy has agreed to curb its use of sonar waves that have been shown to be harmful to whale populations in its exercises in international waters off Hawaii’s coasts. According to The LA Times

The Navy agreed to add whale spotters during sonar drills and to expand a buffer zone where it would not conduct the active sonar drills. In exchange, the Natural Resources Defense Council withdrew its lawsuit…Under the agreement, the Navy promised not to use the sonar within 25 miles of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, recently established by President Bush as a nature preserve.

See the full article at http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-whales8jul08,1,741930.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Clean Energy Solutions, the most recent issue of the US State Department’s Economic Perspective series, is devoted to evaluating the current state of both fossil-fuel and renewable energy resources. A review at Treehugger.com sees the very existence of this report as a positive move from a federal government whose tendency has been to leave such concerns to state and local groups. The review concludes that:

Not all of the arguments made in this publication will please every Treehugger, as energy sources such as nuclear power and “clean coal” receive attention equal to more renewable methods of power generation and conservation measures. Eckhart’s article, though, presents a compelling case of why renewables are poised “to turn a corner” as prices come down and interest in addressing global warming rises. Eckhart notes that concerns about energy security are peaking along with awareness of climate change, and these dynamics, combined with the lowering prices, creates a sort of “perfect storm” in favor of renewable technologies. Perhaps one of the most important points the author raises concerns the “uneven distribution of renewable energy resources across the United States,” which mandates more grassroots approaches to creating a renewable infrastructure: a “one-size-fits-all” policy won’t work. Equally positive is the amount of investment funneling into renewables…

Read the full review at
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/07/us_state_depart.php#perma. The State Department Report is available in PDF at http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/ites/0706/ijee/ijee0706.htm

The state of Washington has recently passed a law requiring computer and other electronic equipment manufacturers to provide recycling facilities for their products. The law is an attempt to prevent dangerous chemicals from making their way into groundwater and consequently the food supply. According to The Olympian Online

The real solution is to ensure that products don’t contain the hazardous substances in the first place. Preventing pollution at the source by changing manufacturing processes was first introduced in the late 1980s. But until this can become mainstream practice, the recycling law is a great stop-gap measure. The Legislature passed Senate Bill 6428 in March, and the law goes into effect next month. Manufacturers of electronic equipment have until Jan. 1, 2009, to put a system in place to collect and recycle the electronic equipment.

See full text article
http://159.54.227.3/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060622/OPINION01/606220359/1005

Today’s The New York Times reports on the possibilities of economic growth and independence from foreign oil imports offered by developing new ethanol-based fuels, a trend which has already created a boost in the economy for small towns :

dozens of factories that turn corn into the gasoline substitute ethanol are sprouting up across the nation, from Tennessee to Kansas, and California, often in places hundreds of miles away from where corn is grown.
Once considered the green dream of the environmentally sensitive, ethanol has become the province of agricultural giants that have long pressed for its use as fuel, as well as newcomers seeking to cash in on a bonanza.Despite continuing doubts about whether the fuel provides a genuine energy saving, at least 39 new ethanol plants are expected to be completed over the next 9 to 12 months, projects that will push the United States past Brazil as the world’s largest ethanol producer.

See full text at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/business/25ethanol.html?hp&ex=1151294400&en=7ebb75da12ef90ec&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Despite the ethanol’s potential benefits, however, opponents of ethanol development remain skeptical about claims for its long-term benefits and economic and environmental efficacy. As the Pasadena Weekly reports, processing the fuel may ultimately create more pollution than the “clean-burning” alternative supposedly prevents:

“[Ethanol] plants themselves — not even the part producing the energy — produce a lot of air pollution,” says Mike Ewall, director of the Energy Justice Network. “The [US Environmental Protection Agency] has cracked down in recent years on a lot of Midwestern ethanol plants for excessive levels of carbon monoxide, methanol, toluene and volatile organic compounds, some of which are known to cause cancer.”
A single ADM corn processing plant in Clinton generated nearly 20,000 tons of pollutants including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in 2004, according to federal records. The EPA considers an ethanol plant as a “major source” of pollution if it produces more than 100 tons of any one pollutant per year, although it has recently proposed increasing that cap to 250 tons.

See full text of this article at http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/article.php?id=3532&IssueNum=24 and more on the ethanol debate at the following sites: http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?section=local&id=4273625, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/06/12/MNGDPJCJMR1.DTL and http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/environment_sciences/report-66104.html

CNW reports on a plan set forth by the Asia-Pacific Partnership, a coalition including the United States and Australia, which attempts to create “less stringent” alternatives to the Kyoto Protocols that would focus less on reducing emissions and more on development of clean techonologies:

Greenpeace today condemned any attempt by the Harper Government, in collaboration with the Government of Australia, at presenting the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP) as an alternative to the Kyoto Protocol …

Liberal.ca likewise critiques Canada’s government for considering joining the Asia-Pacific Partnership:

This just speaks to the lengths Mr. Harper’s government is willing to go to ignore the facts when it comes to addressing global warming,” said Mr. Godfrey. “Canadians should be wary of any government that wants to sign on to a crumbling plan that the Climate Institute, a leading climate change think-tank, and others had previously concluded will fail to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and exists simply to provide political cover for American and Australian inaction…

See full text of both articles here.

China Daily reports on the recent China-Japan Energy summit:

China and Japan started a forum on energy saving Monday in Tokyo, aiming to enhance the two countries ‘ cooperation on energy efficiency and environment protection.

At the opening of the forum, visiting Chinese Commerce Minister Bo Xilai said China has set a goal of lowering energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product by 20 percent by the end of 2010 as against 2005 levels…

View full text here and further info here.

More than a century ago a blustery Wyoming politician named Fenimore Chatterton boasted that his state alone had enough coal to “weld every tie that binds, drive every wheel, change the North Pole into a tropical region, or smelt all hell!”

His words seem prophetic.

The future for American energy users is playing out in coal-rich areas like northeastern Wyoming, where dump trucks and bulldozers swarm around 80-foot-thick seams at a Peabody Energy strip mine here, one of the largest in the world…

See the full text from The New York Times here (free subscription required).

A study from the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration suggests that trade wind patterns are weakening due to the effects of global warming. Scientists argue that a disruption of atmospheric circulation could have devastating effects on oceanic ecosystems. The UK Guardian reports:

The winds, which bring rains to the west and churn up the oceans, turning surface waters into rich feeding grounds, cover 20,000km to drive weather conditions around the world.

Scientists fear that as the winds lose their puff, weather patterns will become less predictable and marine organisms will suffer, as fewer vital nutrients are forced up to the surface from the ocean depths.

Read the complete article from the UK Guardian here .

A federal study commissioned by the Bush administration concluded that lower atmospheric temperatures were indeed rising. The first of 21 studies by the Climate Change Science Program suggested that there was substantial evidence of human impact on the global climate system. An article in the New York Times reports:

The finding eliminates a significant area of uncertainty in the debate over global warming, one that the administration has long cited as a rationale for proceeding cautiously on what it says would be costly limits on emissions of heat-trapping gases.

Read the full story from the New York Times here .

The World Conservation Union has added polar bears and hippos to a list of 16,119 species that are at the highest levels of extinction threat. A recent study by the World Conservation Union, also known as the IUCN, reports that the number of critically endangered species has risen by 3% since 2004. An article in the UK Guardian reports:

At present, animals are believed to be going extinct at 100 to 1,000 times the usual rate, leading many researchers to claim that we are in the midst of a mass extinction event faster than that which wiped out the dinosaurs.

Read the full story from the UK Guardian here.