Conservation 101: the Compete to Conserve Blog

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CEOs of some of the world’s most prominent companies are floating the idea that the U.S. “consider raising taxes on gasoline,” according to Real Time Economics on The Wall Street Journal Online.

Idea “Tucked Away”

The idea, which according to Journal editors was “tucked away” in a proposal on long-term tax policy, came about during a two-day session this week in which nearly 100 CEOs of global companies gathered to define the priorities they believe President-elect Barack Obama and the new Congress need to tackle when they take office in January. (Finance and the U.S. economy; energy and the environment; health care; and America’s role in the global economy were the four key issues the CEO Council discussed, underscoring that there will be no dearth of work Obama’s administration will face.)

Proponents of raising the gas tax say that it will lower gasoline consumption, encourage both the production and market for fuel efficient vehicles, lower imports, and decrease polluting emissions.

Critics argue that increased taxes unfairly burden consumers, especially the poor, and that reduced consumption hurts industry. (I haven’t found anyone yet that says pollution is good, but I’m sure there’s someone out there!)

Support Gaining Steam?

Raising the gas tax, of course, is nothing new. But until now its support has been limited. Because most Americans are dependent on cars to get to work, school, and every else, opponents have been able to build a broad coalition that makes politicians think that championing the cause would be certain political death.

But now something different is happening. There is an increasing awareness of the interconnectedness of energy use, economy, the environment, and public health. And when CEOs of companies that collectively employ 5.9 million people and $2.2 trillion in annual revenues say officials should consider raising the gasoline tax, my bet is that this idea won’t go away quietly this time.

The Wall Street Journal will report results of the CEO Council Monday, November 24, 2008.

More resources:

The Wall Street Journal CEO Council:
https://ceocouncil.wsj.com/index.html

photo credit: :: Suwaif ::

MPG, or miles per gallon, is a major selling point for cars, but as the website RealClimate pointed out recently, there’s a lot of confusion as to what MPG really means for consumers and for public policy.

Take RealClimate’s example:

Which driver will reduce fuel usage and emissions more?

A. The driver swapping an old 12 MPG SUV for a hybrid 18 MPG SUV

B. The driver swapping a 25 MPG compact for a new 46 MPG Prius

I subtracted 12 from 18 and got 6; then subtracted 25 from 46 and got 21 and compared the two. I assumed the correct answer is A. WRONG! The correct answer is B, the driver swapping the old SUV for a hybrid. (Of course, a driver who swaps a gas-guzzling SUV for a compact hybrid would reduce his/her own fuel usage and emissions the most.)

The mistake, which the writers assure me is common, arises because most people think of numbers linearly and assume that a reduction in MPG has a similar impact on fuel usage. It doesn’t. Assuming a driving distance of 100 miles, example B saves just 1.8 gallons (100/25 - 100/46 = 1.8), while example A saves 2.8 gallons (100/12 - 100/18 = 2.8).

This is an important point, because it demonstrates that efficiencies gained at the low end of the scale can have a much bigger impact than efficiencies gained at the higher end.

Read RealClimate’s column at: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/09/the-mpg-confusion/

photo credit: WTL photos

The crunch of fuel prices has driven airlines to charge extra fees for everything from baggage to blankets. Tired of rising fuel costs, Virgin Atlantic head honcho Richard Branson announced plans to start building cellulosic ethanol plants to make biofuel. The hope was to offset the 700 million gallons of fuel Virgin uses annually to power its fleet by replacing some or all of it with ethanol.

In theory, biofuel can be produced from any biological carbon source. Although many different plants or plant-derived materials are currently used in biofuel processing, the most common option tends to be photosynthetic plants that capture solar energy. While Branson aimed to accomplish this feat in 5-6 years, nearly three years after his announcement plans are still in the works.

Meanwhile, others have joined the fray, including Solazyme of South San Francisco, CA. This renewable oil production company claims to have created the “world’s first microbial-derived jet fuel” by genetically modifying algae to consume a wide range of feedstocks, including wood chips and sawdust. When the algae have, in a sense, overeaten, they produce oil as a storage mechanism. The result: non-toxic, renewable oil that can be “leveraged across a wide variety of industries and applications.”

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Saving fuel is on nearly everyone’s mind these days, and one area that sucks up a lot of petroleum and energy is food production and transportation.

According to Sustainable Table, a study done in 2000 estimated the food industry claims about ten percent of the energy used annually in the US. About 40 percent of that energy is expended making pesticides and artificial fertilizer. Another 23 percent goes to processing and packaging.

This doesn’t even touch on the energy used to transport food (and keep it cool en route). The Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan estimates that the average US food product travels about 1500 miles before it is consumed—that’s a lot of fuel and refrigeration.

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If you love seafood as much as I do, you should know that there is less of a reason to fear for your health or that of the ocean’s when you are armed with the knowledge to make educated choices about the type of fish that you buy (where it comes from and what species it is) as well as how you prepare it.  You can stop avoiding the fish market or the fish entrée served at your local restaurant if you follow a few easy guidelines in making your selections:

Sustainable Fishing Certification: One of the keys to making smarter choices when purchasing fish has been simplified through the sustainable seafood certification methods implemented by the Marine Stewardship Council. This non-profit organization works with independent, accredited certifiers to ascertain whether or not various fishery practices meet the following standards of sustainable fishing methods.

Every fishery must demonstrate that it meets 3 core principles:

Principle 1: Sustainable fish stocks
The fishing activity must be at a level, which is sustainable for the fish population. Any certified fishery must operate so that fishing can continue indefinitely and is not overexploiting the resources.

Principle 2: Minimizing environmental impact
Fishing operations should be managed to maintain the structure, productivity, function and diversity of the ecosystem on which the fishery depends.

Principle 3: Effective management
The fishery must meet all local, national and international laws and must have a management system in place to respond to changing circumstances and maintain sustainability.

The blue MSC ecolabel can be found on seafood products at fish markets and retailers throughout the world.  Check out their website (http://www.msc.org/) to see which retailers in your area are carrying MSC certified products.  You may be surprised to find retailers, such as Target and Walmart listed among the likes of Whole Foods.

Choosing Safe Fish: Different types of fish are known to be more harmful than others, depending on the general preferred fishing practices for each species. There are a handful of downloadable pocket guides that you can keep in your wallet and reference the next time you are out shopping for seafood.

Some safer seafood to purchase include:
Anchovies
Catfish (farmed)
Mussels (farmed)
Oysters (farmed)
Salmon (Alaska, wild-caught)
Scallops, Bay (farmed)
Striped Bass (farmed)
Tilapia (U.S. farmed)
Tuna: Ahi, Yellowfin, Bigeye, Albacore (pole/troll-caught)
White Seabass

Some seafood to avoid:
Cod (Atlantic)
Crab, King (imported)
Chilean Seabass (Toothfish)
Halibut (Atlantic)
Monkfish
Orange Roughy
Shrimp (imported)
Snapper (imported)
Swordfish (imported)
Tuna: Bluefin

For complete downloadable pocket guides, visit one of the following websites:

http://www.audubon.org/campaign/lo/seafood/
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/
http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=1521&redirect=seafood

Cooking Your Fish:
Since seafood can be contaminated with toxins, including mercury and PCBs, the way you cook your fish is another factor to consider since these toxins tend to build up in the fat of the fish:

• Before cooking, remove the skin, fat (found along the back, sides and belly), internal organs, tomalley of lobster and the mustard of crabs, where toxins are likely to accumulate.
• When cooking, be sure to let the fat drain away avoid or reduce fish drippings as much as possible.
• Grilling or broiling fish is much better than frying fish in order to avoid sealing in chemical pollutants that might be stored in the fish’s fat.

Additional Resources

Environmental Defense Fund:
http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=79

WWF:
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/marine/our_solutions/sustainable_fishing/sustainable_seafood/index.cfm

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In the world of medical imaging, picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) are computers or networks dedicated to the storage, retrieval, distribution and presentation of images.  Typically PACS handles the gamut of medical imaging instruments, including Magnetic Resonance (MRIs, or imaging which uses a powerful magnetic field, radio waves and a computer to produce detailed pictures of organs, soft tissues, bone and virtually all other internal body structures), Positron Emission Tomography (PET scans, which accurately image the cellular function of the human body), and Computed Tomography (CT or CT Scan, which uses special x-ray equipment to produce multiple images or pictures of the inside of the body and a computer to join them together in cross-sectional views of the area being studied).

A PACS system usually includes a state-of-the-art Radiology Information System enabling images and data to be delivered to physicians anywhere in the world with access to a high speed broadband internet connection.  As the medium for medical imaging becomes more sophisticated, a PACS system is necessary to take full advantage of the higher level diagnostic studies.  Essentially, because the technological advances in MR, CT and PET imaging are so great, traditional “films” no longer suffice for an accurate patient study.

Translation: The radiology equipment in health care facilities has become so high-tech, doctors now need super-fancy machines to read the results. (more…)

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I’ll admit that there is nothing like coasting down the highway on a hot, hot day with the windows down and the music blaring. I don’t even like air conditioning. But since the kid came along, I’ve found A.C. to be a necessity.

The one issue: Kissing all of that extra fuel goodbye.

When Bankrate.com published a story recommending readers to go easy on A.C. and to enjoy the summer air, the onslaught on their email inbox was astounding. Although the site stands by the statistic that “Air conditioning can drag down your car’s fuel economy by 10 percent to 20 percent,” the insistence from readers that using AC saves gas in the end drove them to dig further.

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photo credit: Pear Biter

To some, hypermiling is an art, not a science.  Those select individuals who choose to drive their vehicles in such a way to maximize gas mileage, however, may soon find this form of art giving way to science.

Nissan has developed an accelerator pedal designed to “push back” on the driver’s foot if the pedal detects that the hypermiler is indeed not hypermiling.  While Nissan’s new feature comes with an on and off switch, it does push this eco-friendly driving technique further into the mainstream.

To learn more about Nissan’s “eco-pedal”, visit:

http://www.greendaily.com/2008/08/04/got-a-lead-foot-nissans-new-pedal-pushes-back/

and

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUST25709120080804?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews

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Tatsuo Yoshida died a year before Mario Andretti won his first and only Formula One Championship in 1978 (Andretti was 38 years old).  Andretti was the United States Driver of the Year in 1967, the same year that Yoshida’s Japanese animated series Mach GoGoGo debuted in the United States as Speed Racer.  Speed, the main character in Speed Racer had it all – an overly obsessive father, a submissive and practically non-existent mother, a long-lost brother who turns out to be the mysterious and flamboyant Racer X, and a girlfriend who just happens to fly around in a helicopter during Speed’s races. Speed Racer is a modern-day-ish odyssey about a teenage boy struggling to become a man, through his car.  Speed Racer was so good, that the episode in which Racer X (Speed’s brother) reveals his identity to Speed was selected by TV Guide as one of the most memorable moments in television history.

The history of race car driving dates back to the 1890’s, although the modern era of Formula One Grand Prix racing began in 1950.  By 1960 Mario Andretti had already started winning races.  By the time Andretti retired in 2000 (after originally retiring in 1994), he had raced stock car and NASCAR events, and he also competed in open wheeled and midget car races.  Andretti was well into Sprint and Indy Car races by the time Speed Racer first aired in the United States, and a year later, he mastered the Formula One, the highest form of open wheel racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA).  Mario Andretti was the best, and in 2000 the Associated Press and RACER Magazine honored him as “Driver of the Century”.

I will admit that I spent much more time watching Speed and his Mach 5 than I did Mario Andretti.  But if television has taught me anything, it is that fast cars are good, and Speed had the best.  Twenty-seven years after Speed Racer’s series finale first aired, Speed made it to the big screen, albeit in a live-action adaptation.  With me throughout my entire life, Speed Racer really can do no wrong.

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photo credit: jdurchen

Detroit’s last streetcars were put out of commission over 50 years ago, in 1956. But with rising gas prices and studies that suggest communities reap $7 in business investment for every $1 spent on public transportation, even America’s automobile capitol may be waking up to the benefits of mass transit. NPR reports that a bill working its way through the Michigan House is proposing to use property tax revenues to fund mass transit in the Detroit region.

Could this mean bluer skies for public transportation fans everywhere?

To hear NPR’s full story, visit:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92739732