SUNDAY, JUNE 10, 2007
Monday Edition: Answer to Greenhouse Emissions from 'Cap and Trade' Business
I know issues like controlling greenhouse gases can be
thick and confusing. But I am also convinced there is a big public demand for
journalists to get more aggressive in reporting environmental stories. I want
to help you understand one of the leading movements going on to turn pollution
reduction into big bucks for businesses.
There is a fascinating story unfolding about how big businesses are joining environmental
groups in asking Congress to get off its behind and pass new pollution
laws. These are not the hammer-on-the-head kinds of regulations such as a
carbon tax. Instead, the coalition -- the United States Climate Action Partnership -- sees economic opportunity in all of this, which
I will explain. Just look at the coalition's vision statement: "In
our view, the climate change challenge will create more economic opportunities
than risks for the U.S.
economy."
In 2002, President
Bush proposed substantial reductions in power plant emissions by 2018. But environmental
groups said the president's plan would actually weaken the nation's Clean
Air Act. Congress has mostly stalled legislation to reduce greenhouse emissions,
but a Senate committee is working on five bills right now that would create a "cap and
trade" plan.
This idea is that there would be an overall cap for
greenhouse emissions, and companies could buy and sell credits to emit. Major
industries are already operating as though the cap-and-trade plan will
happen. The Washington Post says those credits would be worth trillions of dollars
within just three years. The idea is that over time, the cap would be lowered
and the credits would get more and more valuable. The reason businesses like this approach is because caps and trades create
tangible financial rewards for environmental performance. If a company has a
permit to pollute, but no longer needs it, it can turn that permit into big
financial rewards.
The companies that have joined a coalition asking for the
cap-and-trade program are impressive, including General Electric, Alcoa, Dow
Chemical, BP America, PepsiCo, Johnson and Johnson, General Motors and
Caterpillar. They are joined by the National Wildlife Federation, The Nature
Conservancy and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The cap-and-trade idea is not new. California
is working on a state-level cap-and-trade program. As part of the 1990
Clear Air Act, coal-fired power plants used a similar cap-and-trade program to
dramatically reduce sulfur dioxide emissions. It has been
called one of the greatest green success stories of the decade.
Here is an MIT study [PDF] of how the program worked so effectively.
Here is the Environmental Protection Agency's cap-and-trade page.
The big trick behind making such a program work is not
granting too many credits to businesses at the start of the program. That has
undermined the European cap-and-trade notion. Critics say it just gives
polluters permission to keep polluting. The
San Francisco Chronicle says:
This mistake has severely shaken the European Union
Emission Trading Scheme, set up to comply with the Kyoto Protocol, as
prices have collapsed from about $38 per ton of carbon dioxide in 2004 to […]
$1.40 [in March].
The Role of Power Plants in
Greenhouse Emissions
Power plant emissions are a big part of any discussion about greenhouse-gas pollution.
In
2004, an environmental coalition,
using EPA statistics, estimated that pollution from
power plants causes the premature deaths of 23,600 Americans each year.
The Sierra Club
says:
Power plants are a major source of air pollution,
with coal-fired power plants spewing 59 percent of total U.S. sulfur dioxide pollution and
18 percent of total nitrous oxides every year.
Coal-fired power plants are also the largest polluter of toxic mercury
pollution, largest contributor of hazardous air toxics, and release about 50 percent
of particle pollution. Additionally,
power plants release over 40 percent of total U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, a
prime contributor to global warming.
The Commission
for Environmental Cooperation, using EPA data, estimated that 10 percent of the total U.S. facilities emitting sulfur dioxide in 2002 produced 59 percent of the emissions. The lowest-emitting plants, which would equal half of all the country's power plants, produced less than 1 percent. You can see the
cleanest are very clean, and the dirtiest are very dirty. (Page
13 of this PDF report.)
The major issues
with power plants involve these pollutants. Click on each one for background:
Check out
this interesting interactive map that zooms you in to every power plant in
the country and lists the emissions from each one.
In 2005, the EPA put in place a "Clean Air
Interstate Rule," which affects Texas and 27 states east of Texas that the
EPA said "contribute to unhealthy levels of
ground-level ozone, fine particles or both in downwind states."
You can click here
to see what the initiative means to each state.
Al's Morning Multimedia: Get Local on Air Pollution
I wanted to point you toward this online project from VoiceofSanDiego.org, a
nonprofit, Internet-based news site. Using training from the Society of
Environmental Journalists, the site built a project that helps San Diego
residents look by zip code at emissions in that community. SEJ went behind the scenes to find
out how this story came together and to help other journalists build similar projects.
A Greener Home
It doesn't have to take a G8 agreement to go greener on your
own. Just for example, The Fresno (Calif.) Bee
explains 10 easy ways to "green" your
bathroom.
The Petting Zoo Ick
During this vacation season, it might be worthwhile to
remind folks to wash their hands a lot when they visit petting zoos.
Canadian
researchers watched visitors at 36 petting zoos and found:
About 70 percent of visitors failed to disinfect
their hands before leaving, food and drink were spotted near animals 82 percent of the time, and children were allowed to drink bottles or suck pacifiers
in the petting area at more than half of zoos.
Petting zoos are a rich
source for E. coli and salmonella.
Last year we
took our kids to the Florida State Fair and were struck by how many of those
waterless hand disinfectant dispensers there were in the petting zoo exhibit.
Our hands were clean enough to perform surgery by the time we left.
Tagging Gun Injuries
This is something that didn't occur to me until I saw this
in TechJournal
South. The article explains new technology that is designed to protect
workers who use tagging
guns -- the devices retailers and retail-distribution centers use to
attach price tags to clothing. Those tag guns use needles, and workers get
stuck all the time.
One study at a retail-distribution center
in England [PDF] said nearly one person an hour was stuck by these tagging guns.
But the injuries are rarely reported.
States have been watching this problem. California, for example,
issued a warning that retailers should handle the guns with care
because of the danger that bloodborne illness could spread from worker to
worker.
The first place I would look for information on this story
would be your state OSHA office or your local garment/apparel workers union.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's
Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story
excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as
original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly
from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided
whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the
accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and
inaccuracies found will be corrected.
Posted at 10:57:08 PM
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