Climate 411

How Much Water Do You Use?

By Sheryl Canter / Published: January 8, 2008

Sheryl CanterThis post is by Sheryl Canter, an Online Writer and Editorial Manager at Environmental Defense.

water dropsWhen you save water, you save energy – and vice versa. Carbon calculators can give you some idea of your carbon footprint, but most don’t take into account your water usage. How much water do you use? Now you can find out.

A new Web site, H2O Conserve, offers an H2O Calculator. I tried it, and it said I used 479.88 gallons per day (I do?). The average American uses 1189.3 gallons of water per day, so I guess it’s not as bad as it sounds.

The site also includes a comprehensive tips section for learning how to use less water.

Posted in News / Read 1 Response

Picturing 21 Million Barrels of Oil

By Sheryl Canter / Published: January 7, 2008

Sheryl CanterThis post is by Sheryl Canter, an Online Writer and Editorial Manager at Environmental Defense.

 

Site member border2 posted this idea to our Suggestion Box:

I think it could be useful/interesting to have some sort of a comparison or perspective of how much oil is being consumed by the U.S. and the world. … Like every x number of minutes the U.S. consumes x number of Olympic-size swimming pools of oil. I really don’t have a concept of the massive amount of oil we are using – x barrels of oil doesn’t translate into something I can plug into my world.

I put this question to one of our numbers experts, Noah Greenberg, and here’s what he told me.

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Posted in Energy / Read 2 Responses

Inhofe's Report: Why It's Wrong

By James Wang / Published: January 4, 2008

James WangThis post is by James Wang, Ph.D., a climate scientist at Environmental Defense.

Climate change denier and U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla) published a report just before Christmas with the headline: "Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007." Does that leave you surprised and wondering? It shouldn’t. It’s a shocker of a headline, but the report itself doesn’t back up the claim.

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Posted in News / Read 4 Responses

Reducing Emissions on Rice Farms

By Eric Holst / Published: January 3, 2008

Eric HolstThis post is by Eric Holst, Manager, Center for Conservation Incentives, Environmental Defense.

Everyone can do something to help stop global warming. Here’s an example…

When California passed the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32), California rice growers wanted to explore ways to lower their net emissions. But exactly how to go about doing this wasn’t clear, so Environmental Defense teamed up with the California Rice Commission to work on the challenge.

As in other sectors of agriculture, rice farms both produce greenhouse gas emissions (mainly in the form of methane) and sequester carbon in field vegetation and soils. Our two-year project, launched in October, seeks to develop precise techniques – voluntarily implemented – to reduce emissions and increase sequestration, and to quantify emission benefits.

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Lawsuits Against EPA for Decision on Auto Emissions

By Vickie Patton / Published: January 2, 2008

Vickie PattonThis post is by Vickie Patton, Deputy General Counsel at Environmental Defense, and a former attorney in the EPA’s General Counsel’s office.

Two lawsuits were filed today against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which sits in San Francisco. The first lawsuit was filed by California, and the second by several environmental organizations – Environmental Defense, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Conservation Law Foundation, and the International Center for Technology Assessment.

The lawsuits challenge EPA’s denial of California’s request for a preemption waiver under the Clean Air Act to implement the state’s landmark standards for greenhouse gas emissions – requests that have been granted by EPA over 50 times in the past 40 years [PDF].

The EPA’s decision relies on a flawed argument that the federal courts already have rejected and are likely to reject again.

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Posted in Cars and Pollution / Comments are closed

Tips for Green Living

By Sheryl Canter / Published: January 2, 2008

Sheryl CanterThis post is by Sheryl Canter, an Online Writer and Editorial Manager at Environmental Defense.

Are you thinking about climate-related New Year’s resolutions? In addition to this list of ideas from our Web site, here are some articles we’ve posted on green living that can give you some ideas.

Your Home:

Your Car:

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