Posts Tagged ‘carbon dioxide emissions’
Businesses ‘Going Green’
January 14th, 2010 | 
Author: With the preservation of our planet’s natural beauty on everyone’s mind today, ‘Going Green’ not only helps the environment and protects our natural resources, but involves only minor lifestyle changes and minimal expense for individuals searching for ways to contribute to the ‘Green Earth’ preservation effort. When shopping for your favorite signature B&B recipe ingredients, bring along your own reusable bags. Green reusable bags reduce the amount of paper and plastic bags that are typically discarded after a single shopping trip. Plastic bags take thousands of years to decompose at local landfills, and if disposed of in our oceans, are often confused by sea creatures as food such as jellyfish, and they can be killed upon consuming them. There are many ways to save on electricity usage as well, therefore reducing power demands on local coal and nuclear power plants. Wash your clothes in cold water, open windows for natural lighting, turn off unneeded lights and appliances, and unplug or shutdown unused electronics such as computers and laptops. Automobiles are one of the largest contributors to global pollution, as every gallon of gasoline produces 20 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, so keep your vehicle tuned-up and tires properly inflated to conserve fuel. Going the speed limit and avoiding rapid acceleration also will save on gas costs.
Shop and support your local farmers markets. You can cook fresh, organic meals impressing your bed and breakfast guests while assisting a local farmer who uses less or perhaps no pesticides that contaminate soil and can seep into your water supply. Buy a reusable water bottle to take with you on the go and re clean with soap and water after each use. This will eliminate the buying of bottled water at the store, and save you money as most bottled water costs are comparable to soda or juice prices. And, below 20% of all water bottles purchased today are actually recycled, and they are quickly becoming the main trash item in most of our countries landfills. Also, most plastic water bottles are made with petroleum, and when the bottle warms, can leach dangerous chemicals into your water. As you can see, ‘Going Green’ does not require paradigm shifts in your current lifestyle, and with minor changes you can help preserve our planet’s beauty for generations to come. And don’t forget, be sure to share with your guests the various ‘Green’ environmental techniques your bed and breakfast inn has implemented, because we all care about the future of this beautiful planet and the preservation of it’s illustrious future.
David Ludwig Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/environment-articles/businesses-going-green-1716872.html
Blog/Marketing Director
The Bed and Breakfast Directory Blog
TheBedandBreakfastDirectory.com
Nature Reserves Is an Effective Method to Resolve the Climate Change
A new book published by World Wildlife Fund (WWF), along with International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, The Nature Conservancy, United Nations Development Program, Wildlife Conservation Society and the World Bank has pointed out that establishing nature reserves is an effective method to resolve the climate change. The foreword of the book wrote by Nicholas. Sir Nicholas Stern said how the nature reserves had played the important role in climate change was first introduced in the book called Natural Solutions. At the same time, how to reduce the impact of climate change by nature reserves was explained clearly in the book.
The nature reserves play an important role in reducing the amount of carbon dioxide emissions. 15% of the terrestrial carbon sink in the world was stored in nature reserves around the world. In Canada, more than 40 million tons of carbon dioxide being stored in 39 National Park, which’s value is equal to 39-87 billion dollars of carbon credits. In the Brazilian Amazon, about 670,000 square kilometers of the forest will be avoided being degraded in 2050 because of nature reserves. Some natural disasters such as flood, debris flow disaster and storm all can be relieved by nature reserves. It is estimated that 232 billion dollars was saved owing to avoid flood caused by the typhoon in American coastal wetlands every year.
Nature reserves can ensure the health and richness of natural resources, which leads to resist climate change and offers food, clean water, shelter and income for community residents. The drinking water of 33 cities, included in the global biggest 100 cities, are from the stored water in nature reserves.
Veerle Vanderweerd, a NDP Energy and Environment Officer, said the living environment in rural is being threatened by climate change. If there was no immediate action, the living conditions will worsen.
Trevor Sandwith, the vice president of Nature protection association and the IUCN world nature reserve committee said expanding the coverage of nature reserves, in fact, is an effective measure to resist climate change.
Climate negotiations are under discussion in Copenhagen and 2010, the year of international biodiversity, is coming. Expanding the range of nature reserves is an effective weapon to resist climate change.
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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch – A Primer
In recent months, media outlets and some celebrities have turned the spotlight on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Last August, a team of scientists, oceanographers, researchers, and ocean-lovers set sail in an expedition, known as the Project Kaisei, to the area to find out more about the severity of this threat to the ocean ecosystem.
What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
The Great Pacific Patch is a large swath of the ocean, estimated to be twice the size of Texas containing as much as 100 million tons of plastic garbage. In 1997, Captain Charles Moore, a California-based sea captain discovered the area, while passing through on his way home from a sailing race in Asia. The documentation and samples brought back by the researchers of Project Kaisei confirmed our worst fears – the area is much larger than was originally thought, it is filled with so much debris, and it is growing.
How was it formed?
The plastic now trapped in the patch have accumulated gradually through several decades from debris thrown or washed to the sea from the surrounding coastlines and from passing ships. This is garbage coming from every country in the northern Pacific basin from North America to east Asia to Australia. The garbage is drawn to what is known as the Northern Pacific Gyre, a system of currents in the northern Pacific, forced into the center of the huge vortex, and trapped there by the peripheral circulating currents.
Why should we be concerned?
Recently, a documentary film featuring Sigourney Weaver, explained the gradual acidification of the oceans from uncontrolled carbon dioxide emissions. It is estimated that by 2100, if the trend continues, the oceans’ acidity will be twice that of the pre-industrial era, effectively killing much of the marine organisms that form the base of our food chain. The plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is doing that already. It is estimated that a million organisms die each day from ingesting the minute fragments of plastic floating around in this lethal soup. The toxins released by the decaying plastics are also ingested by these organisms that are served on our dinner tables – the plastic we carelessly threw away has come back to us through the food that we eat!
What can we do?
One of the tasks of the Kaisei scientific expedition was to determine the viability of extracting the plastic from this area for commercial recycling. Until that is possible, it would be too expensive for any one country to undertake the clean up of this veritable mess.
What could be done at present is to try and reduce, if not stop altogether, the flow of garbage that gets added to the patch each year. We need strict solid waste disposal policies to prevent more garbage from spilling into the ocean. More and more cities are now banning completely the use of plastic bags and polystyrene containers, and this is an important step.
On the individual level, we can intensify recycling and reduce, if not eliminate, our purchases of plastic. BYOB – “Bring Your Own Bag” – is not just a catchy slogan but a significant factor that would greatly help the ocean – if we all do it.
Out of sight, out of mind. That’s the Great Pacific Garbage Patch for most of us. But it is real – as real as the plastic keyboard in front of you, right now – it is out there growing by the day from all the garbage we throw away so heedlessly. Time to put a stop to this killing of our ocean. Let’s all do our part.
Michael Arms writes about recycling and other environmental topics for the Pacebutler Recycling Blog. Pacebutler Corporation is a cell phone recycling and trading company – you can sell, recycle, or donate cell phones through Pacebutler.
Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/environment-articles/the-great-pacific-garbage-patch-a-primer-1394010.html
Posted in Environment | 
Tags: carbon dioxide emissions, ocean ecosystem, plastic garbage, project kaisei, sigourney weaver | 
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