Rental Car Companys Embrace Green Movement

Recently several rental car companies have introduced electric vehicles (EVs), also known as hybrid cars, into their fleets. Hertz offers the green collection; described as a group of preselected vehicles that are fuel efficient and environmentally friendly. They have approximately 35,000 fuel efficient vehicles with 5,000 of those being hybrid cars. Providing hybrid cars is only part of Hertz's plan to become a more sustainable company. They also provide pay-as-you-go car sharing programs and have outfitted most buildings with more eco-friendly technology. A recent demonstration in New York City, previewed the latest cars Hertz will be purchasing for its fleet. It also plans to establish charging stations in the city for those hybrid cars.

Enterprise is another major rental car company that is committed to reducing carbon emissions through it's "Keys to Green" campaign. They have recently established deals with Nissan and Coda Automotive to provide around 600 hybrid cars to it's fleet. These new hybrid rental cars will be available in early 2011 to major cities around the country. Enterprise has also committed to reduce its energy consumption and costs by twenty percent over the next five years. Like Hertz, this company is taking steps in the right direction to become more sustainable.

Hertz and Enterprise are just two of several rental car companies that have made promises to expand into the hybrid car market. I agree that this is one great way to start changing the minds of Americans everywhere. Most people are unable to commit to purchasing a hybrid car for themselves. But now they can get the experience for only a fraction of the cost. Slowly the average citizen will start to realize just how far technology has come. Although, I applaud these companies for their green efforts, not all are so enthusiastic. Many critics believe these companies should have invested in the technology long ago. However, they do bring up the point that only a small fraction of those car fleets are hybrids. Enterprise has over a million cars in its fleet currently but only several hundred will be electric vehicles. I firmly believe that Enterprise and Hertz have made the right decision by investing in new technology. Once people see how successful these programs are more companies will do the same.

-Mark McKenzie

Elephant Poaching

Elephants are one of the most endangered species in our world today. Up until the 1970s the poaching of elephants for ivory was not a popular practice. However, since the 1970s elephant poaching has become more popular and population levels have decreased dramatically. Part of the reason for the increase in poaching is urban sprawl. Elephants have started disturbing newly formed communities and posing a threat to farmers, during their normal migration patterns. Elephants wonder onto open farms, thus destroying the crops. Farmers then feel as though they have the right to kill the elephant and sell it’s ivory. The trade of Ivory is becoming extremely popular in impoverished states, such as Botswana. Botswana and similar states have turned away from agriculture and have made elephant poaching one of their main sources of revenue. In my eyes, this is a major issue. In 2004 alone there was over 60 tons of ivory sold and traded. Something needs to be done about this problem before elephants are completely extinct.

There are several policies that have been enacted in efforts to try and save the elephant populations. Most of these are policies were created by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Originally, CITES were put into place that banned all trade of elephants and ivory. These policies were then weakened to allow trade through systems like “Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants”. These systems were used to monitor several locations throughout Africa and collect data on elephant populations. These systems ultimately failed because data was not collected in enough locations and was inconsistent. I think that part of the solution to elephant poaching could possibly be found in this system. CITES need to work to come up with a more reliable system for collecting data and collect in more locations. I think part of the solution could also be having a separate staff, or police like force, that’s sole job is to find poachers. Another possible solution would be the creation of elephant sanctuaries. Although they would be taken away from their natural habitats, a safe place would be provided for the elephants to repopulate. There is not simply one solution to this problem. In order to save the elephant population there needs to be a combination of poacher regulation and safe habitat creation.

Aubrey Cross

Taking on Water

Ships dock at ports in Virginia everyday, the same way they do all over the world. Carrier ships unload their cargo, passengers step on and off of cruise ships, and people take their pleasure vessels for a ride. Water traffic pollution is not the primary thought on many people’s minds, rather many people think of how to prevent nonpoint pollution of waterways from on road traffic. The water traffic pollution I refer to does not involve oils or chemicals - it deals with invasive species.

Pumping out of ballast water is something that many ships can do. Water is pumped into ballast tanks in the boat to help create a more stable ride. What a lot of people don’t think about is what else is in that water. Import ships from all over the world come into ports in the Chesapeake Bay and may offload unknown cargo as they empty their tanks at the dock. For example, a ship takes on water in China and comes to port in the Bay. The ship’s crew waits until the ship is docked and then they remember to empty their ballast water. The water is pumped into our estuary, and anything else (including larval stages of foreign organisms) in the ballast tanks goes overboard. The Federal government and our state have strict policies on the discharge of ballast water in Virginia waters to prevent the development of invasive species.

An invasive species in the Bay that scientists believe came from the uptake of ballast water off of China is Rapa venosa, the veined rapa whelk. The first whelk in the Bay was discovered in 1998 and has quickly and efficiently populated the Bay. The Bay’s benthic habitat and the whelk’s thick shell allow it to live at biotic potential. It has a tolerance for a wide range of temperatures, salinity, pollution, and dissolved oxygen concentrations. This whelk feeds on different species of mollusks, including the native Virginia oyster: Crassostrea virginica. If the population size of this whelk becomes too large, it may overtake the oyster population and other native species and push them to unrecoverable levels. This organism alone has the potential to destroy a large portion of the benthic habitat in the Bay the same way it has done in the Black Sea and other saltwater bodies around the world.

Federal and Virginia laws give suitable locations for the pumping out of ballast water that are clear and concise. They specifically state when and where ships are allowed to empty their bilge water in hopes of protecting our water. The problems with these laws come from not being able to enforce them effectively. Monitoring every ship and vessel that enters waters of Virginia to make sure that no foreign material is introduced is impossible. In my opinion, I believe that following these laws is not a big of a deal for vessels and with some planning on the captain’s part the laws can effectively be followed. I understand that some ships may pump out a little too close to land and that many people do not have environmental protection on their mind all the time. What I do not understand is how ships at berth can say they don’t care and dump foreign water because it was too much of a hassle to get that water pumped to a land tank. Is the hassle of attaching a hose to the discharge pipe too much to do to try to keep a habitat pure?

Decision Rescinded on Oil Expansion

Nearly everyone with a television instantly became fixated to the BP oil spill coverage last April, when an explosion caused a deep ocean wellhead to gush freely for three whole months. Not as many people were familiar with the fact that just before this took place, the Obama Administration had just proposed a plan that would end a moratorium on drilling on the eastern seaboard, allow further drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, and begin exploration for oil discovery in Alaska. Of course, once the spill occurred, a moratorium was placed on drilling in the gulf, as oil quickly became very unpopular in the public eye.

Four months later, on the first day of December, Obama announced a new plan. This new plan is more consistent with what democratic voters thought they would be getting from President Obama, and also reflects the need for regulatory overhaul. As Interior Secretary Ken Salazar notes: "As a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, we learned a number of lessons... most importantly that we need to proceed with caution and focus on creating a more stringent regulatory regime." The first step in regulatory reform on offshore drilling was to disband the Minerals Management Service, due to its lax behavior in overseeing offshore drilling issues.

While more stringent regulations are expected to be placed on the oil industry in terms of safety regulations and environmental impact studies, this decision isn't exactly a win for either Democrats, or Republicans. Under the new plan, the only areas now off limit to new expansion are along the East Coast and the eastern Gulf of Mexico. The new plan will do nothing to change the future drilling in the Arctic of Alaska. Democrats will be upset that future drilling in Alaska still looms large, while Republicans will take advantage of Obama's wavering on the issue and remain skeptical that future leases will be honored.

Of course this is all lost in the headlines, but President Obama has stated multiple times that future domestic drilling is not aimed to accommodate greater usage, but to diminish the need for foreign oil. It is a step necessary to reach future clean energy goals that Democrats don't understand, and Republicans see straight through. Short term domestic drilling is sadly necessary to revitalize the economy in order to create a clean energy industry for the long term. Hardly necessary to say, this climate bill is still in its early stages, and won't make much progress under such divided government. But sooner or later the majority of Americans need to realize that things like this do not happen overnight. Especially when it has been us who have been causing this issue for over 100 years now.

Is the Ocean the next big landfill?

Over this upcoming winter break, my friends and I are going on a cruise. As the days become less and less til we leave, I remembered talking about cruise ships in this class earlier this semester. I scavenged the scholar page until I found what I was looking for; cruise ships and waste.
In The Post and Courier, one writer talked about the negative effects of docked cruise ships. The writer, Dana Beach, first complained about the noise and soot problems of the ships. Every year hundreds of ships come into port at cities such as Charleston and Key West, and thousands of tourists pour out into these cities. While in dock, the cruise ships emit a constant stream of smoke while also releasing all their sewage and ground up waste directly into the harbor. In one such case, Carnival was fined 18 million dollars for dumping oily waste into the ocean and falsifying it in their log books.
Dumping sewage into the ocean during the cruise isn't a rare occurrence; it seems to happen on every trip. While on a trip to Mexico, a couple went to go snorkeling when their guide told them to get out of the water. A cruise ship less than a mile away discharged its septic system directly into the ocean. Along with sewage, food that guests do not finish gets ground up and dumped into the ocean as slurry. Neither of these things are good for the environment because they decrease the pH of the water, lower the amount of oxygen present, and destroy habitats for many species. The disturbing part of all of this is that the cruise lines have the money to make changes onboard the ships. They could add new technology to limit the amount of waste discharged. but all of the cruise lines have the money to pay the fines too. These fines are far cheaper than refitting all ships with environmentally friendly waste containers, so most cruise lines are ok with paying them.
Over the last decade, American regulations have gotten tighter for ships to discharge waste into the ocean. One way companies are bypassing these regulations is by dumping in Canadian waters. For the cruise ships that travel to Alaska, dumping into water off of British Columbia is ideal because there are no discharge regulations. Canda does not have any quality standards for gray water, so American ships can dump theirs straight into the ocean. Loop holes such as this need to be fixed so cruise lines are held accountable for their actions. It's sad to think, with all the money these cruise companies make, that cruise ships are still not suited for properly disposing waste.
The last article had an interesting part that talked about the amount of waste passengers would generate on a typical cruise line. According to the EPA: 21,000 gallons of sewage, one ton of garbage, 170,000 gallons of gray water, and more than 8,500 plastic bottles per day. 75% of garbage is incinerated which leads to increased smog. It is also legal to discharge untreated sewage farther than three miles off the US shore.
I feel that stricter punishments and better regulation should be done for cruise lines. So many ships go out to sea with thousands of passengers, and that equals out to thousands of gallons of waste. With the fines being cheaper than the actual cleaning devices, cruise companies have nothing to fear. Either the fines should become greater, or as has happened in the past, and environmental monitor should be aboard each vessel. Oceanic ecosystems are some of the last unknown treasures out there. If we continue to poison the water, the oceans are bound to become an underwater landfill.

Climate Adaption: Life After Our Homes

As everyone continues to concern themselves with how we are going to prevent future climate catastrophes, an important part of our future needs to be recognized: there will be climate refugees without homes. Whatever precautions we take to reduce the intensity of climate disasters, we can know that there will be some loss in homes. These people need to be cared for and a well thought out plan for post-disaster temporary housing needs to be addressed. Given FEMA's job concerning temporary housing, we may have a lot of ground to make up.

People all over the world are losing their homes and we can safely expect that as we keep losing land to desertification, as sea levels continue to encroach, as arable land loses productivity, and clean water disappears this trend will only continue. As people's homes are lost or their communities destroyed, it is often the case that those affected lack the means necessary to get themselves back on their feet and into a new home. Temporary housing gives them the security to find themselves again, but current approaches to temporary housing may not be the the most effective and certainly not the most environmentally friendly.

Some people are working on generating models that can help us quickly assess a situation and dispatch an appropriate response to a given crisis. Models like these are going to be indispensable in the future. Some forecasts estimate tens of millions of climate refugees, with so many displaced people it certainly behooves us to be able to easily map and model what our requirements for helping them will be.

Others are working on constructing sustainable temporary housing. If we're already losing people to climate catastrophe and finding them temporary homes it makes sense to keep our problem from getting worse. Current temporary housing is certainly not LEED certified construction, but reducing their environmental impact will go a long way towards cutting costs (economically and environmentally).

I believe that by combining scientific models for handling housing crises and developing sustainable techniques for temporary housing we can really scale down the problem at hand. Makeshift communities organized in the carnage after a flood or piecemeal-ed together slowly as homes erode away because of poor economics driven by environmental problems are obviously poor ways of handling temporary housing. These methods (as we might see in Katrina) often lack anything temporary. Educated planning, evidence-based discussion, and clean, sustainable housing are the keys to ensuring that we can adapt to our new world without homes.

Nutrient Trading to Clean the Chesapeake Bay

The Chesapeake Bay has been placed on the Environmental Protection Agency’s list of Impaired Waters due to nutrient pollution. The state of Maryland, in response to the Bay’s health, has suggested implementing a nutrient trading market. The nutrients that are being focused on in the market are nitrogen and phosphorus, found in fertilizer. This market would help reward farmers for their responsible management practices, while keeping run-off pollutants out of the Bay. “In these markets, farmers who reduce pollutants below a set level would earn credits. They would sell these credits to other operators, such as sewage and water treatment facilities or power plants that have difficulty meeting environmental targets.” The use of government subsidies would not need to be involved. This program would be effective because efficiency and cost-effective results would be increased under this market-based approach since the market determines the cost. Trades to achieve a “desired load reduction can take place between point sources, between point and nonpoint sources, or between nonpoint sources." The nutrient trading project would financially incentivize farmers to manage fertilizers in a responsible way because, if rewarded with credits, extra revenue would become available to them.

An additional idea to the nutrient trading program is whether to connect it with carbon trading, as well. Maryland, along with a couple other states, has been investigating whether the combination of the carbon and nutrient markets would be an effective way to fight climate change and pollution. A main question for policy makers is “whether farmers who achieve reductions in watershed pollution while also capturing CO2 should be able to sell credits in both markets and, in effect, get dual payments for single action.” The carbon trading network is already set up, and along with carbon, the Worlds Resouce Institute has created NutrientNet to facilitate market-based approaches by reducing transaction costs, standardizing calculations of nonpoint source reductions, and public participation and oversight.

If other states were to also adopt this nutrient trading market, the Chesapeake Bay would greatly benefit from the reduction of runoff in its watershed. If this were expanded and the market applied to the Bay area as a whole, then credits could be exchanged across state boundaries and among the rivers. Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL) set up by the EPA would be much easier to achieve with a Bay-wide system. According to a paper by the Worlds Resource Institute, depending on credit prices, trading potentially could:

• Generate new revenue for the agricultural sector and other credit generators at an amount comparable to current levels of annual public funding for agriculture conservation cost-share programs for the Bay
• Reduce nitrogen removal costs for some in the wastewater sector by as much as 60 percent
• Save the municipal stormawater sector hundreds of millions of dollars per year

Redesigning Suburbs

We all know that starting in about 2007 the housing market collapsed in the United States. The collapse of the subprime housing market was actually a precursor to the collapse of the overall housing market. Many mortgage services and lenders offered mortgage products that were just too good to be true like no down payment, adjustable interest rate or interest only payment. Often credit scores had to be falsified for mortgages to be approved. Therefore people owned homes that shouldn’t, and when they couldn’t continue to afford their homes they defaulted their mortgage. With millions of homes being foreclosed on, the market was glutted with cheap homes. Many of these foreclosed homes remain abandoned.

The subdivisions that were abandoned tend to be the ones that were intended as starter rooms and were poorly designed and cheap. They are isolated from other subdivisions, retail/commercial space, and job opportunities. Research has found that people who live in areas with a high degree of urban sprawl are more likely to report chronic health problems. Also the vehicle dependant nature of suburbs is contributing to our national health problem. Developments that are mostly abandoned face higher crime rates.

Contributing to the glut of housing in the suburbs is the fact that consumer tastes are changing. A one report claims that within two decades two thirds of households will prefer smart growth. For all the reasons I have talked about so far, the demand for suburban living is starting to decrease.

Suburbs will always be a popular form of housing in the United States. However many of these abandoned suburbs are unlikely to ever recover on their own. Many experts and myself believe there that Retrofitting or redesigning developments is a possible solution. Retrofitting or reshaping suburbs can address a host of issues like transportation, employments, health, and improve property values.

A retrofit can be comprised of a few simple fixes or it can be a total re-haul. The most basic step is to improve the transportation networks. Connected isolated suburbs to each other and the community is key. It is also important to incorporate the concept of “walkability”. By adding some mixed use and commercial/retail with in a walking distance of homes it creates convenience and instills a sense of community. Besides increasing property values it creates a community better insulated from the economy. Instead of having only similar single-family homes, they contain a mix of housing styles and sizes. Retrofitting sounds amazing, however it is very difficult, almost impossible in some areas. Zoning that allows it and having the capital to do it is rare. In many communities it will not be possible for economic, demographic, or political reasons. However it is a fascinating concept with a lot of potential.

Offshore Wind Power Coming to the Atlantic Coast

On November 24^th, Governor O’Malley of Maryland, one of the members of The Interior Department, and the President of the Offshore Wind Development Coalition, Jim Lanard, announced that the Obama Administration has decided to start a project for renewable wind power off the shore of the eastern United States. This announcement is so important because our nation’s current energy use habits are harming the environment and running out. Wind power development is significant to our future as a country and a global society because we will need sources of renewable and inexhaustible energy. The fact that the federal government is pushing this project is a great sign to the general public to try and rally support for the development of renewable energy sources instead of continually depleting nonrenewable sources just because of lower price.

During the next 60 days, the plan sets out to have the administration collaborate with all of the eastern states to identify wind energy areas, which will be the most promising locations for the new clean energy sources. After the wind energy areas are chosen, within the next six months The Department of Interior with try and gather ocean based renewable energy development information from related agencies, including NOAA, DOD, EPA, and the Coastguard, to confirm that these specified areas would work well with the wind power turbines.

The next step in the process would be to review the lease sales and give investors all available information so that the initiative will be able to move forward. After the review of the findings by all involved, full environmental impact statement is required to officially approve the project. Once approved, attention will shift towards any transmission applications, which might help in making smart business decisions for companies looking to advance offshore wind power in America.

Furthermore, as a nation, we are heavily dependent upon oil as a main source of energy. However, some modern civilizations seem to be oblivious that we are running out of oil reserves
faster than anticipated in previous studies. Recent research shows that global production is likely to peak in 10 years, which is about a decade before some governments estimated. After a study of more than 800 oil fields all over the globe, it was found that even most of the biggest fields have already peaked, which has led to an increased decline in oil production that continues to drop at almost twice the rate that was calculated two years ago. Even if somehow the rapidly growing world’s population maintained a stead use of oil, it has been determined that between now and 2030, our world will still need the equivalent of four Saudi Arabias to keep up with current production levels.

As a result of the United State’s continued use of exhaustible energy resources, I believe that wind energy is a great step in the right direction. I think that it needs to become more accessible and more understood by the general public before it will be able to become a mainstream energy source, but this project will hopefully be the first of many. In the long run, wind power could be the most cost effective power source we have.

Texas vs EPA for Clean Water

Texas, the state with the most oil refineries, chemical plants and coal-fired power plants, is being demanded by the Environmental Protection Agency to reissue 80 Clean Water Permits to “facilities that have been operating without the necessary paperwork”. The demand specifically refers to sewage treatment plants and industrial facilities, which allegedly are releasing toxic materials into Texas’ waterways. The EPA fears that by not issuing the necessary permits, it is “authorizing” the release of toxic materials.

It was reported that in 2007 alone, over 13 million pounds of toxic waste was dumped in Texas waterways. This figure has serious implications, as Texas is one of the most populated states which relies heavily on safe drinking water for consumptions and agriculture. And while some blame the EPA for stifling progress towards safe drinking water and minimal toxic pollution through interference, others blame Texas’ conservative mentality for being ignorant towards issues such as that of the current Water Permit Distribution.

As discussed in class, issues often arise from a difference of opinion of the federal level and the state or local level. In this case, the governor of Texas and The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality oppose Obama’s “meddling in state affairs” as well as the EPA’s demanding requests for the state to issue Clean Water Act permits. It clearly makes sense to give the states control to issue Water Permit Acts, as it would be a much slower, less efficient process if it were done on a federal level. Yet after giving control to the states, it often causes conflict when the federal government tries to step in and retake control.

The issue also highlights another large problem in this country: political polarization. The fact that conservatives and liberals argue have and will continue to disagree on issues is clear. Yet the bipartisan nature of our government creates an arena where competitiveness prevails over cooperation. In this case, the conservatives (the Texas administration) are opposing the authoritarian requests of the liberals (the current EPA administration) in a battle to keep the drinking water of over 20 million people safe. Though competition and opposing ideas does sometimes create innovation and progress, cooperation is essential when dealing with human necessities such as safe drinking water.