The depth of the world’s air pollution and transportation problems is such that we need to embrace reasonable solutions wherever we find them, even if they are short-term remedies. It’s just that simple. The auto rickshaw, long a staple of urban transportation in many of our largest cities, has the potential to contribute greatly to our quest for permanent solutions.

Consider, it already is a popular means of metropolitan transport. Because its construction can be a combination of components both new and used from a variety of sources, there are fewer entrenched manufacturers to convince to build the machinery. Arguably best of all, since most of the vehicles have owner-operators who are interested in steady profits and cleaner air, engaging them to become part of the solution is relatively easy.

That’s why Tata Motors, one of the largest auto manufacturers in the world, is engaging the auto rickshaw marketplace with full force. Now with a voice just as loud as that of Ford and Chrysler, Tata Motors has realized that the future of its profit margins comes in affordable transportation. This also is the reason that local governments in India and elsewhere are awakening to the need to formalize an auto rickshaw-based transportation system, especially in those places where there is little or no funding for large infrastructure improvements such as bus rapid transit and light rail.

Where the auto rickshaw becomes really interesting is in the move away from fossil fuels. The first and arguably easiest step is toward clean-burning natural gas. Still a fossil fuel and thus a contributor to global warming, natural gas makes sense as a very short-term modification because it tends to be more plentiful than petroleum fuels and the engine modifications needed to use it in an auto rickshaw are relatively minor. Ethanol, hydrogen and/or ultra capacitors for running on electricity would be far better choices but also much more complex and expensive.

Naturally, this global warming expert knows that fossil fuels must become a thing of the past if we are to save the planet from ourselves but victory will not occur in one giant leap. It will be gradual. Our daily goal must be to accelerate the changes but perfect cannot be the enemy of good. The auto rickshaw is good because it is better than many alternatives but not perfect. For now, that suits me just fine.

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

The concept of reducing food miles in order to fight global warming is a somewhat controversial topic within the environmental community. Measured globally, it makes sense that transporting food from one nation to another for consumption can help fight global warming if production and shipping methods are highly efficient in the exporting nation and grossly inefficient in the importing nation.

Of course, such an approach also provides the luxury of having many types of produce in season during all 12 months of the year. My point is this: importing food from another nation because we cannot reform the production methods in our own is a harmful concession not unlike the American practice of shipping electronic waste to China where it can be dumped in environmentally sensitive areas without repercussions.

Put another way, since we all must fight global warming together, we all must become locavores, people who take into account the distance our food traveled when making our retail purchases.

Nutritional science has evolved to the point that we all can feed ourselves adequately during all 12 months of the year consuming food which is grown or produced locally. The definition of local in this case is about 100 miles. I encourage you to adopt this mentality while at the supermarket or green grocer.

Of course, since many of us go so far as to drink bottled water which is shipped from the other side of the world, the move to 100% local food cannot occur overnight. I don’t expect immediate results from you and would like to recommend a very valuable tool to assist in the step-by-step process of going green by going local.

LocalHarvest.org is a wonderful website which assists consumers in calculating food miles and finding local vendors who offer the items they need which are grown or produced within a reasonable geographic distance. You can feel confident in using the free service as a key starting point in coming to grips with just how far your food travels. I maintain that local is better and I have a feeling that you will come around to my way of thinking after visiting LocalHarvest.org

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

Despite what many political candidates and incumbents espouse during election years, there is no such thing as clean coal. That being said, the immense contribution to global warming of the mining and burning of coal has the potential to be offset to a certain extent. To be clear, what I am about to share with you in no way addresses mercury hotspots or other mercury-related issues which arise from our reliance on coal.

Coal mines often contain byproducts which in some cases we capture and in other cases we vent into the atmosphere. Methane gas in a common example and, tragically, its ubiquity in mines is a leading cause of sudden disasters in mining communities. The geological history of our planet is one of the main reasons that the methane is present. The gas was created and compressed over eons of planetary evolution and then trapped beneath the surface. Slicing into the Earth’s crust to extract the coal can allow the methane to escape.

If we think of mines as rudimentary tombs, the potential for repurposing becomes an intriguing concept. After all, if the Earth’s crust was solid enough and strong enough to create and retain billions of BTUs of methane, might it not be possible to use this tomb concept to store other substances? Indeed it can and sequestration is the operative word!

Environmentally speaking, we should desist all coal mining today, right now as you read this. For a variety of reasons, that won’t happen so let’s make the best of a dirty situation. The same politicians who love to blather on about clean coal also are enamored with the concept of carbon sequestration as a means of fighting global warming. The hard science behind such positions indicates that it can help but is very, very far from being a panacea.

Nevertheless, the sequestration of carbon in mines can be an important stop gap measure which I support, mostly for sentimental reasons since it was the bitumen and coke previously located in the mines which brought us the climate crisis of the new millennium. What more logical place to store some of the byproducts is there?

In my next installment, I will share with you an encouraging yet distinct repurposing of abandoned mines. It does not sequester carbon directly but can result in significant decreases in the use of fossil fuels, having a similar net effect.

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

Last time, I told you about repurposing abandoned mines for carbon sequestration. While better than leaving them as useless crevasses, this approach has a new rival, aquaculture. You may be wondering how this could work. As it turns out, in some places it is highly effective.

One of the greatest impacts on the planet caused by global warming is shifting weather patterns, especially precipitation. This is the main reasons that Mount Kilimanjaro will be free of its permanent snow pack very soon. Fortunately, some places continue to have adequate rainfall throughout the year. One such location is the mountainous terrain of West Virginia, a spot, not coincidentally, with many abandoned mines.

The rainfall in West Virginia often accumulates in the mines. Luckily, the state of some of the mines is such that the water is suitable for raising fish with the only technical need being of circulating and purifying the water on a regular basis.

HOW ABOUT THAT!

The situation gets better, too. Because the large bodies of water are located deep underground, the temperature is fairly constant throughout the year and there is very little sunlight, which means that they are suitable for raising species of fish which grow naturally in the Arctic Ocean!

This wonderful practice is very real and occurring today. Ponder the possibilities! Appalachian aquaculture allows many of the most popular species of fish to be harvested much closer to most of North America’s urban population centers without endangering scarce natural stocks. What’s more, by growing millions of pounds of fish every year in close proximity to cities, carbon emissions are reduced greatly since much less fuel is consumed in the process.

TALK ABOUT A WIN-WIN!

Needless to say, I am very excited about aquaculture in abandoned mines and can’t think of a better way of repurposing these scars on the face of the Earth. It represents real progress and a delightful departure from the old ways of doing things!

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

Green Jobs Benefit Everyone Who Breathes

I would like to congratulate Van Jones and the members of his coalition for the broad success of the inaugural Green Jobs Now Nationwide Day of Action. The gleeful passion with which the message of Green Jobs Now was received is further proof that citizens of the industrialized world are receptive to the notion that embracing a sustainable future does not mean suffering a reduction in quality of life.

Of long standing in the green jobs community is the wonderful organization the Apollo Alliance. Named for a grassroots initiative to call upon the President of the United States to declare a national initiative for clean energy just as John F. Kennedy did in launching the American space program, the Apollo Alliance gains strength with each passing day. Now that a pattern has emerged of announcements of groundbreaking renewable energy projects, including the massive wind farm off the Atlantic Coast of New Jersey (unveiled just a few days ago) the message of the Apollo Alliance is at the cusp of achieving critical mass.

For this reason, it is eminently appropriate that the Apollo Alliance has launched version 2 of itself, The New Apollo Program. Complete with compelling quotes and multimedia content, the New Apollo Program strikes me as containing the ideal blend of a pro-jobs, pro-environment, country-first group of themes.

Here are the key points:

1) Rebuild America Clean and Green

2) Make It in America

3) Restore America’s Technological Leadership

4) Tap the Productivity of the American People

5) Reinvest in America

Strong words! Best of all, even though it is targeted right at all levels of government in the United States, the strategy and tactics of the New Apollo Program can be copied in any nation.

Surf on over today to ApolloAlliance.org to learn more.

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

A Picture Could Be Worth A Thousand Tons Of Carbon

Here at Keyboard Culture, I utilize repetition sparingly and only for dramatic effect. Indeed, I almost never exceed 3 parts in a series or posts on a particular topic. The greatest exception was my Global Warming Loser series back in May. During the second half of this year, though, I have engaged in an accidental series on environmental contests, as in who can write the most clever poem or story about the environment.

This was never planned but I am deeply gratified to leverage the broad readership of this blog to disseminate vital information. The Environmental Defense Fund already has been featured here for another contest and the deadline for that one has not yet past You can read more here but this latest offering from Environmental Defense has the potential to change another whole demographic group and I just had to share the details with you.

First a quick explanation of the topic...

In previous threads, I have told you about carbon credits. In essence, they allow us to pay money to use clean practices elsewhere as a replacement for the carbon which we produce through daily living. They are not the cure for the disease which is global warming. However, much like fighting malaria, they are an important tool in bringing down the suffering until we don’t need medicine anymore.

Carbon caps are the next logical step. They are a self-imposed limit on carbon emissions which can be utilized by companies, government bodies, entire industries or people. Whereas carbon credits merely place us on the path to recovery, carbon caps are the cure. Both approaches cause us to be aware of our carbon emissions but carbon caps limit our production of carbon, a key difference.

Well, carbon particles in the air are invisible except in the smoggiest cities. They are, to most people, an abstraction. So, how do we communicate such an ethereal concept to people in a persuasive manner which compels them to care about their carbon emissions and take steps to reduce them permanently? That’s where the Environmental Defense Fund enters the picture once again!

A leader among environmental non-profit organizations the world over, the Environmental Defense Fund is running yet another contest, this time for video or graphic submissions which convey a simple point about a solution to the greatest cause of global warming, the use of petroleum products for energy. Way to go, EDF!

The content does not have to be produced in a fancy software environment like Illustrator or shot on a professional soundstage in order to be considered a valid entry. The message is the key so if you have a creative bent, enter today. The URL with all of the details is

http://edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=27811

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

Can You Hear Me Now?

Back in January, I shared with you the importance and convenience of cell phone recycling. Discarded mobile phones are a growing source of land and water pollution and the associated reclamation industry is trying to keep pace. Now, let’s approach the environmental impact of mobile telephones from a different angle.

With each passing day, mobile phones become more popular, not just in the industrialized world but most everywhere because of the relatively low expense of adding cellular infrastructure to population centers. Naturally, charging all of these devices can lead to a great increase in carbon emissions because they consume a great deal of electricity whereas conventional corded telephones use little if any mains current. The problem is compounded by the fact that old-fashioned bridge rectifier (wall wart) power supplies consume mains current even when the phones to be charged are disconnected from them.

In short, while mobile phones have added significantly to quality of life for nearly a billion people around the world, their penetration as a consumer device has caused a marked uptick in carbon emissions. Enter the ingenious software program for calculating carbon emissions from travel!

Except when traveling in outer space, a device which is enabled to access the satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS) can indicate where its owner is most anywhere on Earth. Since average folks are unaware of how much carbon they emit when they travel, why not offer a program for their mobile phone which crunches the numbers for them? The concept is simple but the folks at Carbon Diem deserve all the credit for their invention.

Already having received numerous awards and entry into the business incubation program of the European Space Agency, Carbon Diem is just the sort of technological solution to global warming which I love to feature here. So, if you have a mobile phone or would like to learn more, just visit

CarbonDiem.com

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

The Intercontinental Smog Express

I told you recently about the awful reality of the North Pacific Gyre, an informal oceanic garbage dump which is caused by casual dumping of solid waste at sea and along the world’s shorelines and formed by planetary wind patterns and water currents. Larger in area than the continental United States, the North Pacific Gyre is as large a stain on the face of the Earth as the unspeakable loss of tropical rain forests on most every continent.

Sadly, it turns out that there is something of an atmospheric cousin to the North Pacific Gyre, known affectionately among climatologists and meteorologists as the Chemical Equator. Confined to a range of latitudinal boundaries, the Chemical Equator is a vast pocket of dirty air which shifts throughout the year with monsoon winds but remains confined to the Intertropical Convergence Zone – a belt of low-pressure air which circles the Earth near the equator.

Driven by Hadley cells, the same results of solar radiation on the atmosphere as give us jet streams, trade winds and subtropical deserts, these cells occupy the intersection of the oceanic and atmospheric patterns of each hemisphere. Strangely enough, this chemical equator generally is dirtier in the north because the land mass north of the Equator contains millions more people than the south and thus millions of additional sources of air pollution.

What strikes me the most is that smoggy metropolitan and industrial areas have an effect so vast that it can be measured on a global scale. Now, thanks to the fine work of the Natural Environment Research Council in the United Kingdom and Clean Up The World in Australia, it is possible for each of us to see with amazing accuracy just where the results of the air pollution which we create will be trapped in the sky and rotated as the planet spins on its axis.

That’s right, through the power of Google Earth, we can see where the dirty air which we caused is located. Give it a try. You may find the results quite compelling. I know I did. Just visit the interactive map at

activities.cleanuptheworld.org

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

Photocredit: sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov

During my first few weeks as a founding expert here at Keyboard Culture, I wrote that the quest to go green in the consumer marketplace (and thus score an important victory in the battle against global warming) necessitates  two key steps:

1) Enabling consumers to create their own demand for green products and services; and

2) Making the effort cultural

Simply stated, the environmental community faces something of a chicken-and-egg scenario in going green but market leaders such as Citibank are helping advance the dialog through broad efforts such as paperless initiatives. Operating in a manner which encourages customers and vendors to obtain their account statements exclusively over the Internet and pay their bills in the same manner, we can chip away at entrenched practices.

I am somewhat embarrassed to share that despite my passion for environmental causes, I resisted paperless statements from Citibank and other financial providers for many years. Because I also work in the information technology field, I had just as many technical reasons as I did emotional ones but it wasn’t until I had been an Internet power user for nearly a decade that I went fully paperless with my monthly bills.

The good news is that most financial services providers now offer paperless options, not always for the same reasons but the results are the same. Just look at the results which Citibank achieved with its credit card customers in the first 18 months of its cultural shift toward 100% acceptance of paperless statements:

• 1.8 million trees planted

• 6,800 trees saved thus

• helping make 14 national forests greener

Citibank is far from perfect, persisting in dirty lending practices to resource extraction projects in emerging nations (and we must continue to advocate for an end to such loans). Nevertheless, there can be no denying that customers of the credit card division of Citibank are experiencing a cultural shift, one which helps expand their comfort zone with respect to paperless billing statements and thus making them more open to doing business the same way with their electrical utility or their local tax directorate or other entity with whom they conduct commerce.

I commend Citibank and encourage its peers to emulate the mission statement listed below. It constitutes a very solid beginning for one of the world’s largest financial services institutions.

"We’re on a global mission. Citi is committed to directing $50 billion over the next 10 years to address global climate change through investments, financings and related activities to support the commercialization and growth of alternative energy and clean technology among the clients and markets it serves, as well as within its own businesses and operations."

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

Despite important gains in energy efficiency through the Energy Star program, Americans cause more air pollution per capita than their counterparts in most every other nation. As consumption patterns shift, the lead position in this ignominious category may change but what is unlikely to alter anytime soon is the love of the personal automobile on the highways and byways of the United States.

Even after suffering through more than a year of record petroleum prices, much of American popular culture is steeped in the driving experience since Yankees invented the mass production automobile and because of our pioneering spirit. However, since Americans produce 25% of the world’s pollution and 40% of that comes from transportation, we will not tackle global warming in a meaningful way until we learn to harness sustainable locomotion.

Fortunately, government bodies, business groups and blocks of citizens are taking steps to help everyone drive in a manner which is economically and environmentally sound – or at least better than the old ways. A leader in the campaign to help Americans be more green is the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers with its EcoDriving USA campaign.

Comprised of 9 of the world’s largest automakers, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers has gained significant traction, pun intended, in helping drivers understand that embracing sensible driving and maintenance practices is easier than they may think.

The EcoDriving USA website has several handy features which make it easy for drivers to go green, or at least clean up their act, including a flyer with more than a dozen tips in the categories of driving practices and maintenance practices.

My favorite part, though, is the endorsement of the campaign by high-profile individuals, including several governors. Greening the American roadway will be no easy task but the EcoDriving USA campaign from The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers represents a commendable first step which I am happy to recommend to you. Even if you do not live in the United States, you can benefit from much of the information contained at

EcoDrivingUSA.com

Point your web browser there today!

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

It goes without saying that without the Internet, you would not be reading these words. Hence, this environmentalist has a vested interest in seeing the backbone of the Internet remain up to the challenge of the huge increases in traffic and content which occur every day. Microsoft is a leader in maintaining a stable Internet but not without a cost to the planet.

With innovative programs such as Microsoft has implemented in order to reduce the impact of the hardware and energy needed to provide for Internet stability, the impact is mitigated but not enough. Hence, it is up to each Internet user to be part of the solution.

Purchasing carbon offsets is a good way of helping but now there is an easy way to do more at absolutely no cost to you. The good folks at FightGlobalWarming.com have made available a search tool for your browser which allows you to submit a portion of the revenue from each of your Web searches.

It’s a simple process which is compatible both with the Firefox and Internet Explorer web browsers. Just download it, install it and use it whenever you conduct a search on the Internet. That’s it! Every time your search results generate revenue, FightGlobalWarming.com will receive a portion.

The URL is

http://www.fightglobalwarming.com/page.cfm?tagID=29325

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

Since the beginning of scientific awareness of global warming, initiatives to reverse the climate crisis have carried with them a political charge, sometimes partisan but always controversial. However, numerous factors have aligned to chip away at the status quo and October has proved to be a watershed month in the move to bring the Sunshine State not only on par with such places as California and New York in investing public monies in green energy projects but trying to leapfrog ahead of them.

During a Columbus Day meeting of the Gainesville City Council, in the heart of the town which hosts the University of Florida, an unprecedented proposal for a feed-in tariff was announced. Designed to allow customers of Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) to install photovoltaic systems for a guaranteed return per kilowatt hour, if enacted, the proposal would be the first of its kind in the United States and exceedingly rare around the world.

This stunning development, while encouraging, was only one of two gigantic announcements from government bodies during the same week. Two days after the GRU announcement, the Governor’s Action Team on Energy & Climate Change published its phase 2 report on how the climate crisis affects Florida as well as an appropriate action plan. It contains 50 separate policy recommendations and a separate suite of other recommendations as guidance to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection in its development of a regulatory, market-based cap-and-trade emissions limiting program. Amazing!

You can read the entire document at

FlClimateChange.us

In light of the political climate in Florida, the recommendations of the Governor’s Action Team deserve an extra layer of accolades. I congratulate everyone involved for a job well done and look forward to assisting in the implementation of the policy recommendations. Likewise, the GRU board of directors deserves a round of applause from each of us for its bold proposal to advance solar energy in the United States!

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

When Jim Griffin and I created the Green Earth Expo, our vision was to bridge the gap between environmentalism and consumerism, to act as a nexus in which consumers who want to go green can meet vendors with green products and services who need more customers.

We hit the mark!

The Green Earth Expo was a successful culmination of the vision, as evinced by the feedback we received from exhibitors. Several of them told us that the quality of visitor which we attracted to the event was among the most receptive to their message they had seen in recent memory.

That made me smile!

In terms of our overall impact on commerce in the United States and around the world, though, the results of the Expo were middling. So, my good friend Jim Griffin has taken the vision which he and I originally conceived in a telephone conversation in February of 2007 and built upon it. The result is the United We Stand Expo, slated for August of 2009 in Washington, DC.

Jim’s move from Orlando to Washington is based on what I like to call version 2 of our vision for effecting real change in the green movement and it is based on a quest to create green jobs not unlike the good deeds of Van Jones and the Apollo Alliance.

Next time, I will share with you a telephone interview which I conducted with Jim in which he describes the United We Stand Expo and how it fits within the new partnership which he helped to form, Project Green America.

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

griffin photo: Julie Copeland

In this 20-minute interview with my good friend Jim Griffin, we discuss Project Green America and the United We Stand Expo in depth as well as the role which the Interstate Traveler Hydrogen Superhighway will play in his landmark activities.

Enjoy!

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler