Some questions about the environment?

Question

Hi! I would like to do something to help the environment, so please, if you could answer some question for me...

1) Can paper cups be recycled?

2) How are can tabs used and where best to recycle them?

3) Will turning off my computer at night save a lot of electrical energy?

4) Which garden trees produce the most oxygen (and are not outrageously expensive)?

5) Can styrofoam cups be recycled in an average American high school? If yes, how? And anyway, what is styrofoam made of?

6) What is better for the environment - taking a train or a plane? Do planes have an effect on air pollution? What do trains today burn, if not coal?

7) Do special paper farms exist, or are trees of the rainforests cut down for our paper?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Get the Feb. 25/08 issue of the New Yorker, which has this to say - and more - about global warming and how we need to think about it and respond to it:

"Greenhouse-gas emissions have risen rapidly in the past two centuries, and levels today are higher than at any time in at least the past 650,000 years. In 1995, each of the six billion people on earth was responsible, on average, for one ton of carbon emissions. Oceans and forests can absorb about half that amount. Although specific estimates vary, scientists and policy officials increasingly agree that allowing emissions to continue at the current rate would induce dramatic changes in the global climate system. To avoid the most catastrophic effects of those changes, we will have to hold emissions steady in the next decade, then reduce them by at least 60-80 per cent by the middle of the century. (A delay of just 10 years in stopping the increase would require double the reductions.) Yet, even if all carbon emissions stopped today, the earth would continue to warm for at least another century. ...

A person's carbon footprint is simply a measure of his contribution to global warming. (CO2 is the best known of the gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, but others - including water vapor, methane, and nitrous oxide - also play a role.) Virtually every human activity - from watching television ot buying a quart of milk - has some carbon cost associated with it. We all consume electricity generated by burning fossil fuels; most people rely on petroleum for transportation and heat. Emissions from those activities are not hard to quantify. Watching a plasma television for three hours every day contributes two hundred and fifty kilograms of carbon to the atmosphere each year; an LCD is responsible for less than half that number. Yet the calculations required to assess the full environmental impact of how we live can be dazzlingly complex. ... A few months ago, scientists at the Stockholm Environment Institute reported that the carbon footprint of Christmas - including food, travel, lighting, and gifts - was 650 kg per person. That is as much, they estimated, as the weight of "one thousand Christmas puddings" for every resident of England. ...

Many factors influence the carbon footprint of a product: water use, cultivation and harvesting methods, quantity and type of fertilizer, even the type of fuel used to make the package. Sea-freight emissions are less than a 60th of those associated with airplanes, and you don't have to build highways to berth a ship. Last year, a study of the carbon cost of the global wine trade found that is actually more "green" for New Yorkers to drink wine from Bordeaux, which is shipped by sea, than wine from California, sent by truck. That is largely because shipping wine is mostly shipping glass. The study found that "the efficiencies of shipping drive a 'green line' all the way to Columbus, Ohio, the point where a wine from Bordeaux and Napa has the same carbon intensity."

The environmental burden imposed by importing apples from New Zealand to Northern Europe or New York can be lower than if the apples were raised fifty miles away. "In New Zealand, they have more sunshine than in the UlK, which helps productivity," (Adrian) Williams (agriculture researcher at the Natural Resources Department of Cranfield University, in England) explained. That means the yield of New Zealand apples far exceeds the yield of those grown in northern climates, so the energy required for farmers to grow the crop is correspondingly lower. It also helps that the electricity in New Zealand is mostly generated by renewable sources, none of which emit large amounts of CO2. Researchers at Loncoln University in Christchurch, found that lamb raised in New Zealand and shipped 11,000 miles by boat to England produced 688 kg of carbon-dioxide emissions per ton, about a fourth of the amount produced by British lamb. In part, that is because pastures in New Zealand need far less fertilizer than most grazing land in Britain (or in many parts of the U.S.). Similarly, importing beans from Uganda or Kenya - where the farms are small, tractor use is limited, and the fertilizer is almost always manure - tends to be more efficient than growing beans in Europe, with its reliance on energy-dependent irrigation systems. ...

... We are going to have to reduce our carbon footprint rapidly, and we can do that only by limiting the amount of fossil fuels released into the atmosphere. ... Each time we drive a car, use electricity generated by a coal-fired plant, or heat our homes with gas or oil, carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases escape into the air. We can use longer-lasting light bulbs, lower the termostat (and the air-conditioning), drive less, and buy more fuel-efficient cars. That will help, and so will switching to cleaner sources of energy. Flying has also emerged as a major carbon don't - with some reason, since airplanes at high altitudes release at least 10 times as many greenhouse gases per mile as trains do. Yet neither transportation - which accounts for 15 per cent of greenhouse gases - nor industrial activity (another 15 per cent) presents the most efficient way to shrink the carbon footprint of the globe. ...

(John O.) Niles, the chief science and policy officer for the environmental group Carbon Conservation, argues that spending $5 billion a year to prevent deforestation in countries like Indonesia would be one of the best investments the world could ever make. "The value of that land is seen as consisting only of the value of its lumber," he said. A logging company comes along and offers to strip the forest to make some trivial wooden product, or a palm-oil plantation. The governments in these places have no cash. They are sitting on this resource that is doing nothing for their economy. So when a guy says, 'I will give you a few hundred dollars if you let me cut down these trees,' it's not easy to turn your nose up at that. Those are dollars people can spend on shcools and hospitals."

... According to the latest figures, deforestation pushes nearly six billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. That amounts to 30 million acreas - an area half the size of the UK - chopped down every year. Put another way, according to one recent calculation, during the next 24 hours the effect of losing forests in Brazil and Indonesia will be the same if 8 million people boarded airplanes at Heathrow Airport and flew en masse to New York.

... From both a political and economic perspective, it would be easier and cheaper to reduce the rate of deforestation than to cut back significantly on air travel. It would also have a far greater impact on climate change and on social welfare in the developing world. Possessing rights to carbon would grant new power to farmers who, for the first time, would be paid to preserve their forests rather than destroy them. Unfortunately, such plans are seen by many people as morally unattractive. "The whole issue is tied up with the misconceived notion of 'carbon colonialism," Niles told me. "Some activists do not want the Third World to have to alter their behavior, because the problem was largely caused by us in the West." (-- pgs. 44-52)"

This and LOTS more easily-digested factoids about all things GREEN  

http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php... Scroll down. There are about 10 really good posts, including a story by feminist icon Betty Friedan from Harpers in1958 in which she interviewed two scientists who predicted global warming (to be followed closely by global freezing).

Answer 2

How is doing your homework helping the environment?

Answer 3

I am so excited that you are the Earth Club prez! Congrats!!

1) I think most cannot be recycled. The best answer is to use compostable cups. http:// www.worldcentric.org/ store/fibercups.htm

2) They can be recycled along with the aluminum can.

3) Turning off your computer saves a little bit of energy. Most people still need to learn that appliances that are plugged in are still burning energy if they are plugged in. They don't use much energy, but they do use some! For example, my dvd player is off, but if I pick up the remote, I can turn it on. That means that the dvd player is not really "off" it's just on standby. But turning everything off doesn't do much. If you want to know your carbon impact, go to carbonfund.org. Most of our harm comes from transportation - planes and cars.

4) Sorry, not sure. And I'm not sure one tree's impact is going to be significantly more than another tree. Just plant more trees of any type.

5) It depends upon the county you live in. I live in Los Angeles county and I can recycle styrofoam, but my friend in Ventura county can't recycle styrofoam.

6) I can tell you that planes pollute more than cars because of radiative forcing. At high altitudes, the effect of greenhouse gases is considerably different than on the ground level. Aircraft also emit water vapor during flight that can cause the formation of ice clouds called contrails. Where contrails persist, cirrus clouds begin to form which have an additional impact on global warming. Clouds can have a double effect on radiation: they warm the earth by reducing the amount of radiation from the earth that escapes into space but also cool the earth by reflecting the sun's rays back into space. However, contrails lead to a net warming factor, about 2.7 times the normal effect.

7) There are no special paper farms. We are cutting down trees in the rainforests for stupid things like junk mail. It's a good idea not to use "virgin" paper whenever possible. Send an e-card rather than a paper card. Use recycled paper instead of virgin, bleached paper.

Here are links to some great websites:

Answer 4

no to everything.

Answer 5

1) Can paper cups be recycled?

--Yes

2) How are can tabs used and where best to recycle them?

-- Hmm. Dont know where. But they can be recycled.

3) Will turning off my computer at night save a lot of electrical energy?

-- Yes. If you cant turn off your computer, becuase some important programs are running, please turn off the monitor. Even laptop screens can be turned off.

4) Which garden trees produce the most oxygen (and are not outrageously expensive)?

-- Just plant a tree.

5) Can styrofoam cups be recycled in an average American high school? If yes, how? And anyway, what is styrofoam made of?

-- Use paper cups instead. They are supposed to be better than styrofoams

6) What is better for the environment - taking a train or a plane? Do planes have an effect on air pollution? What do trains today burn, if not coal?

-- Trains today run on electricity. Which one is better depends on scores of things like occupancy rate, whether the electricity used by the train was generated in a coal fired power plant or a hydro plant etc. I would suggest travel in whatever is convenient. But yes - avoid your car.

7) Do special paper farms exist, or are trees of the rainforests cut down for our paper?

- Depends where your paper company sources paper from. Just use less paper.

Help the environment, but dont go overboard as it may not be practical and you will loose interest.

http://www.greenfanclub.com