By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
As debates about climate change — does it exist and how serious is it? – rage on, many scientists continue to uncover more and more evidence that atmospheric pollution is having negative effects on Earth, right here and now, climate change or not.
Scientists studying the chemistry of lakes reported in [...]

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From Green Right Now Reports

California American Water has designated the week of Nov. 9 as “No Drugs Down the Drain” Week in its Los Angeles service area as part of a national campaign to reduce pharmaceutical pollution in water supplies. Items such as aspirin, prescription drugs and other medications should never be thrown down the drain or toilet, where they can seep into the ground and find their way back into the public water supply.

Los Angeles County residents will be encouraged to contact the County of Los Angeles’ Department of Public Works at 888-253-2652 or visit www.888cleanla.com to find out where they can drop off expired or unwanted pharmaceuticals and other household items free of charge.

California American Water also will sponsor the “No Drugs Down the Drain” outreach campaign in San Diego and Ventura.

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Gucci Group said it plans to implement an industry-leading paper policy.

From Green Right Now Reports

Luxury brand Gucci Group said today it is joining forces with Rainforest Action Network and will eliminate all paper made from Indonesian rainforests and plantations and by controversial suppliers such as Asia Pulp and Paper. The company said this is a first step in its plan to implement an industry-leading paper policy.

Rainforest Action Network officials said they are pleased to sign up the famous luxury house in its ongoing effort to protect Indonesian and other endangered forests. Since the beginning of Fall 2009, RAN has been urging the fashion world to more closely examine their paper supply chains and to sever any connection with paper suppliers like Asia Pulp and Paper who are actively destroying Indonesia’s rainforests.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

While the world scrambles to find clean energy solutions, somewhere, every minute of every day, saws buzz through a forest, cutting down one of nature’s antidotes to carbon pollution.

Saving forests in the Congo will help save endangered gorillas (Photo: John Martin)

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From Green Right Now Reports

The US Environmental Protection Agency said today it is hitting the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency with a $250,000 civil penalty for federal violations of the Clean Water Act and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

The Department of Justice, working on behalf of the EPA, lodged a proposed consent decree with the US District Court for the Northern District of California against the city and county of San Francisco for releasing at least 940 barrels of diesel fuel — some of which entered into Islais Creek, a tributary of the San Francisco Bay.

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By Ashley Phillips
Green Right Now

In June, Greenpeace released “Slaughtering the Amazon,” a three-year investigation into deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Greenpeace found that people were taking over protected lands in order to expand their cattle ranches. This was not only illegal, but large quantities of greenhouse gases were being released into the atmosphere as a result of the rapidly depleting forests.

Adidas, Nike and Timberland have committed to cancel supplier contracts unless their products were guaranteed to be free from Amazon destruction.

Deforestation accounts for around one fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than all the world’s trains, planes and cars combined, and Greenpeace estimates that the cattle industry is responsible for 80 percent of all deforestation.

Now, just four months after the release of “Slaughtering the Amazon,” positive steps are being taken by some of the big companies implicated.

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From Green Right Now Reports

In an effort to protect public health, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District will open the Winter Spare the Air season on Sunday, Nov. 1, and begin enforcing a regulation that restricts wood burning in the Bay Area through Feb. 28, 2010.

Wood smoke is the largest source of wintertime air pollution in the Bay Area. Certain weather conditions in the wintertime cause the air to remain still. When these conditions occur, the Bay Area Air District calls a Winter Spare the Air Alert.

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From Green Right Now Reports

New ground measurements made by the West Antarctic GPS Network project, composed of researchers from The University of Texas at Austin, The Ohio State University and The University of Memphis, suggest the rate of ice loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet has been slightly overestimated.

“Our work suggests that while West Antarctica is still losing significant amounts of ice, the loss appears to be slightly slower than some recent estimates,” Ian Dalziel, lead principal investigator for the project, said in a statement. “So the take home message is that Antarctica is contributing to rising sea levels. It is the rate that is unclear.”

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Greenland Ice Flow (Photo: NASA)

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

By now you’ve heard the dire predictions for how sea level rise would affect Miami. Basically this city, already imperiled by worsening hurricanes is in the bulls-eye for rising oceans too.

But did you realize that a one meter sea level increase — now believed by many scientists to be a likely outcome of global warming by 2100 — would put Philadelphia underwater?

Yes, the city of Brotherly Love would be among the large family of coastal cities potentially devastated by coastline changes. And not in the too-distance future either.

According to glacier and ice shelf expert Dr. Gordon Hamilton, Philadelphia could experience troubles decades before that 2100 benchmark if storm surges pushed rising oceans inland.

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From Green Right Now Reports

Ocean waves near Freeport, Texas (Photo: National Weather Service)

Ocean waves off the coast of Texas may soon provide the first commercial wave power in the US to generate electricity and desalinate water.

Renew Blue Inc. said today that the Texas General Land Office has granted it the first-ever state off-shore wave energy lease. The company said it will use ocean water and waves to produce desalinated water; the first 100 percent fossil-fuel-free bottled water.

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By Abrahm Lustgarten
ProPublica

A version of this story appeared in the Albany Times-Union [1] on Oct. 8, 2009.

A preliminary report [2] from a consultant hired by New York City warns that “nearly every activity” associated with natural gas drilling could potentially harm the city’s drinking water supply and that while the risk can be reduced with strict regulations, “the likelihood of water quality impairment…. cannot be eliminated [2].”

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

January Jones, star of the Mad Men TV series and an ocean advocate, went to Washington this week to lobby for the Shark Conservation Act of 2009 and stronger US leadership for saving the ocean’s top predators.

“We should be scared FOR sharks, not of them,” said the Golden Globe nominee. “The survival of sharks and the health of our oceans depend on it.”

Jones met with various members of Congress, including Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.).

The actress, best known for her role as Betty Draper in the critically acclaimed Mad Men series on the American Movie Channel, became a spokesman for Oceana’s Save Sharks campaign earlier this year.

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