A US Senator finally proposes the banning of bisphenol-A in the United States, NYC drafts a plan to combat climate change, a business proposal at Copenhagen, and the record high steel recycling rate in the US – these are among the Top 10 Stories of the week (Dec.14-20, 2009) – our selection from recycling and environmental stories submitted at Green Options environment:
US Steel Recycling Hits Record High
Pittsburgh, PA — The U.S. steel recycling rate hit a high of 83.3 percent in 2008 as the recycling rates for containers and construction steel continued upwards and others held steady.The Steel Recycling Institute recently released figures for recycling rates from 2008, based on information gathered from scrap processors, steel producers, the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
via: Eco Chamber
The Long Island Power Authority on Thursday agreed to buy nearly 50 megawatts of solar power, which will come from cells installed on the roofs of carports at railroad stations and other public buildings in Suffolk County, and on 200 vacant acres at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. The project is modest by the standards of California, but the authority said it was the largest in New York State.
via: Green Inc.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein: Time to Ban BPA from Food and Beverage Containers
No responsible parent would expose their infant to cigarette smoke or car exhaust. But every day in America, millions of infants are exposed to dangerous chemicals hiding in plain view. This exposure can lead to a wide range of adverse health effects later in life — from increased cancer risk to infertility.
via: Huffington Post
Tenfold computing power with energy-saving 3D chips
esearchers at IBM Research Lab, EPFL and ETH Zurich are working on ecofriendly chips that are much more powerful but consume a negligible amount of energy – chips that can transfer data 10 times faster and generate less heat using a revolutionary cooling system.
via: Eco Friend
Bloomberg Eyes Danish Offshore Wind Farm and Sees New York’s Future
The mayor and his sustainability director, Rohit Aggarwala (also along for the ride) are hoping that a consortium linking government agencies and utilities in Long Island and New York will begin fielding proposals early next year for what could become the world’s largest offshore wind power complex — a 700-megawatt affair that could cost up to $3 billion.
via: Green Inc.
New York’s Blueprint for Climate Resilience
As world leaders gather at the Copenhagen climate summit, New York City is working on ways to respond to expected heat waves and sea-level rise. A strategy devised by 15 experts, including eight from Columbia’s Earth Institute, will be published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences in January.
via: The Earth Institute – Columbia University
Bringing Hope to Copenhagen With a Novel Investment Idea
Governments from the developed world will never come up with enough money to help poorer nations adapt to global warming and implement renewable energy technologies. The solution may lie in using a modest allocation of government funds to spur private sector investment in green energy projects in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
via: Yale E360
Atlantic Ocean is Rising Faster than Previous 4,000 Years
An international team of scientists has determined that the Atlantic Ocean rose faster in the 20th century than at any time in the last 4,000 years, but not uniformly along the coast.
via: Eco Worldly
Tuvalu to Obama and the Senate: ‘The fate of my country rests in your hands’ [VIDEO]
Last week, Ian Fry, the Tuvalu delegate to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, made an impassioned plea for legally binding agreements to be made by world leaders to save his nation and other low-lying island states. The tiny Pacific island nation of Tuvalu and other small island states have proposed a new treaty to protect these nations. Fry noted that it is “an irony of the modern world that the fate of the world is being determined by some senators in the U.S. Congress.”
Watch: Ian Fry, climate negotiator at Copenhagen makes an impassioned plea to UN delegates in Copenhagen
via: Grist
Johann Hari: They Didn’t Seal the Deal; They Sealed the Coffin
So that’s it. The world’s worst polluters – the people who are drastically altering the climate – gathered here in Copenhagen to announce they were going to carry on cooking, in defiance of all the scientific warnings. They didn’t seal the deal; they sealed the coffin for the world’s low-lying islands, its glaciers, its North Pole, and millions of lives.
via: Huffington Post
Photo: Eco Friend
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