Category: Environmental News

Until recently, there was no place within the MLS to list energy-saving equipment, energy ratings, or ENERGY STAR certifications.

To address this concern the National Association of Realtors formed a group entitled, The Green REsource Council. This group has helped to “green” the MLS and define the energy efficiency fields and information that should be added to listing service software across the country.  As these additional fields are implemented, buyers will look to these areas to be further informed about the home before purchasing.

Source: The Green MLS: Energy Efficiency and the Multiple Listings Service

A significant environmental benefit of Brexit and model for other countries: rational, environmentally sustainable agriculture:

After the United Kingdom leaves the European Union at the end of the month, it will sever ties with Europe’s farm subsidy policies—and to many researchers, that is a good thing. This week, the U.K. government proposed radical changes to £3 billion a year in agricultural spending that will focus the money on benefits to climate, ecosystems, and the public.

Under the bill, introduced to Parliament this week and expected to become law within a few months, farmers will be given subsidies not simply for cultivating land—the current EU system—but for delivering “public goods.” These include sequestering carbon in trees or soil, enhancing habitat with pollinator-friendly flowers, and improving public access to the countryside. To ease the transition, direct subsidies will be phased out over 7 years beginning in 2021, and the new payments for environmental services will be tested in pilot projects.

After the destruction and starvation of World War II, European tariffs helped protect farmers from foreign competition and subsidies boosted their yields. “It was just about production, it didn’t matter what you did to the environment,” says Ian Bateman, an environmental economist at the University of Exeter.

Source: United Kingdom to embark on ‘agricultural revolution’ in break from EU farm subsidies (Science)

Garbage trucks are great candidates for electrification. They frequently need a lot of low-speed torque. There are electric motors powering hydraulic pumps that move all sorts of arms and whatnot. They drive a known distance before being parked at a central location. And of course, all that stop and go driving could be more efficient with regenerative braking.

EVs are also quieter, which would be nice, and of course, they would be locally emissions-free. Garbage trucks are really one of the best candidates for electrification.

The eActros has a 250 kW motor fed by a 240 kWh battery, presumably this will be shared with the garbage truck variant. Customer testing will start next year with series-production beginning in 2022.

Source: Daimler Announces Production Electric Garbage Truck (Gizmodo)

Source: The Guardian, “The case for … making low-tech ‘dumb’ cities instead of ‘smart’ ones”

There’s old, and then there’s old – and for urban landscapes increasingly vulnerable to floods, adverse weather, carbon overload, choking pollution and an unhealthy disconnect between humans and nature, there’s a strong case for looking beyond old technologies to ancient technologies.

It is eminently possible to weave ancient knowledge of how to live symbiotically with nature into how we shape the cities of the future, before this wisdom is lost forever. We can rewild our urban landscapes, and apply low-tech ecological solutions to drainage, wastewater processing, flood survival, local agriculture and pollution that have worked for indigenous peoples for thousands of years, with no need for electronic sensors, computer servers or extra IT support.

Book: The Power of Lo—TEK: A global exploration of nature-based technology

Article: Turning cities into sponges: how Chinese ancient wisdom is taking on climate change

Article: Time: How Australia’s Indigenous Experts Could Help Deal With Devastating Wildfires

Article: The Conversation: Aboriginal fire management – part of the solution to destructive bushfires

Not really, but still funny: Was a Man in Bear Costume Arrested for Tearing Apart Tents of Black Friday Campers?

An Italian council was flooded immediately after rejecting new measures to address the climate crisis that threatens to sink the city, and wreak havoc throughout the world.

The regional council of Veneto is situated on Venice’s Grand Canal. On Tuesday night, the office flooded for the first time in its history, right after rejecting measures to fight climate change.

More: Italy: Venice council flooded after ‘NO’ vote on climate change measures

More: Italian council is flooded immediately after rejecting measures on climate change

Champion Travel found that:

• The SpaceX Falcon 9 B burns 29,600 gallons (112,184 Kg) of highly refined kerosene
• 3.0 Kg of CO2 goes into the atmosphere per Kg of Kerosene burned
• 112,184 Kg x 3 Kg / CO2 = roughly 336,552 Kg of CO2 per Falcon 9 launch

More: One SpaceX Rocket Launch Produces the Equivalent of 395 Transatlantic Flights worth of CO2 Emissions

More: New Analysis Shows Billionaires’ Dream of Space Tourism Would Be Disaster for Emissions, Climate Crisis

This battery would charge the average US home for about 3 weeks:

According to the US Energy Information Administration, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 10,766 kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2016. This is an average of 897kWh per month, around 30kWh per day, or 1,250 watts. (source)

Maersk has teamed with Trident Maritime Systems to create a 600 kWh container battery that can be placed on a container-hauling ship to provide power. The battery is now en route to be installed on the Maersk Cape Town container vessel.

The Cape Town, built in 2011, is flagged from Singapore and carries cargo between West Africa and East Asia. The battery will be installed on the ship in December 2019 and its first voyage with the new technology will happen early in 2020. The battery module was designed to take the place of a cargo container on the ship and can be charged in port, will take charge from the ship’s generator, and from the Cape Town’s waste heat recovery system. The lattermost system is in place on most Maersk ships and recharges the ship’s batteries by using the heat created by engine exhaust to create electrical power.

More: Maersk puts a giant battery on a container ship to improve efficiency

Residents in each U.S. county can see how they are connected to all other counties in the country via food transfers. Overall, there are 9.5 million links between counties on our map.

All Americans, from urban to rural are connected through the food system. Consumers all rely on distant producers, agricultural processing plants, food storage like grain silos and grocery stores, and food transportation systems.

Below: Maps of food flow networks within the United States. Maps depict total food flows (tons) for the (A) FAF and (B) county scale. Links are shown for all FAF data and for the largest 5% of county links.

Read More: The first map of America’s food supply chain is mind-boggling
Article w/methodology: Food flows between counties in the United States