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Chris Martin posted to the Hyattsville HOPE list:

"Thanks to people like Jim Groves [of Hyattsville] the 2007 sales of ENERGY STAR® compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) have nearly doubled since 2006, according to the estimations of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 2007, 290 million CFLs were sold, and the special energy-saving bulbs now account for approximately 20% of the American light bulb market." [See our wiki page on Mercury in CFLs and Recycling for ways to safely recycle CFL bulbs in our area.]

http://www.eere.energy.gov/news/news_detail.cfm/news_id=11520


What can we do here, in Riverdale Park?
'A Final Warning to Humanity'

'Global warming is "unequivocal." Climate change will bring "abrupt and irreversible changes." The report …is: a final warning to humanity.'

--"Final Warning on Global Warming, Time, 11/17/07, referring to the recent report by the Nobel recipient Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

"The Stop Global Warming calculator shows you how much carbon dioxide you can prevent from being released into the atmosphere and how much money you can save by making some small changes in your daily life. It’s our hope that the calculator will promote action, awareness and empowerment by showing you that one person can make a difference and help stop global warming. "There are many simple things you can do in your daily life — what you eat, what you drive, how you build your home — that can have an effect on your immediate surrounding, and on places as far away as Antactica. Here is a list of few things that you can do to make a difference."
  • Resources for communities - Here is some information on what others are doing, or recommend that we can do:
  • Resources for the home
    • 1000 bulbs.com All kinds of Light Bulbs, Rope Lights, Halogen & Fluorescent Light Bulbs

What are our neighbors doing?

Banning Plastic Bags at Grocery Stores
  • Annapolis Kills Plastic Bag Ban Proposal
http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/1107/474141.html
"The Annapolis city council has killed a proposal to ban retail use of
plastic bags. Instead, a bill that calls for a comprehensive study of the bags'
impact was introduced."

  • San Francisco First City to Ban Plastic Shopping Bags
Supermarkets and chain pharmacies will have to use recyclable or
compostable sacks
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/03/28/MNGDROT5QN1.DTL

  • Bill Would Make New Jersey First State to Ban Plastic Grocery Bags TRENTON, N.J. - New Jersey would become the first state to ban the use of plastic grocery bags under a bill introduced in the Assembly.The measure would require supermarkets and other retailers with a minimum of 10,000 square feet of space to phase out the bags over three years. Each year as many as 1 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide, said Assemblyman Herb Conaway, a sponsor of the measure. (11/21/07)
Maryland Bottle Bill?
  • A bill in the 2007 Maryland legislature's regular session would have required a 5c deposit (and refund) on glass, aluminum and plastic beverage containers. Currently, 11 states have such laws already. The CURB (Citizens Using Resources Better) blog is devoted to this issue: http://mdbottlebill.blogspot.com/

What's being done at the state, regional and federal levels?
Maryland joined nine other states in this consortium of northeastern and mid-Atlantic states in 2007. RGGI-10 is developing ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions. One strategy that is in the process of being implemented is what they call a "cap-and-trade" system, where polluters (namely power utilities) have their allowable emissions capped at a certain level (which will be reduced in future years) and they can buy and sell the rights to exceed the permitted level. This provides incentives for them to be good steward-citizens while penalizing those who don't keep up. A similar (though more stringent) system is also being considered on Capitol Hill these days.

One idea is to install a "cap and trade" system, where the polluters buy polluting rights in a federal auction, and then to distribute the proceeds of that auction equally to every resident of the U.S. (similar to what Alaska does with oil revenues). It's projected these auctions would take in somewhere between $50B and $300B per year (somewhere in there I think we've achieved "real money"). It is further estimated that the distributions to low- and middle-income households would more than make up for the direct costs they'll incur as energy costs go up as we take steps to reduce emissions and combat the effects of global warming.

      Issues
      • Global Warming
        • How our high-carbon-emission lifestyle is like laying our seat backs all the way back, without regard for the guy sitting behind us on the airplane. David Sirota blogs The Last Row of the Plane.
      "The seat recliner uses the public domain — in this case, space — and we have gotten used to using as much of that domain as we can, not just on planes but everywhere. This is our destructive “me” culture: Anything we want in the public sphere, we take or use, with little regard for the overall ramifications.
      "A stranger reclines into your lap. Someone in a theater talks through the movie. The guy at the next table yammers so loudly on his cell phone that you can't hear your lunch companion. A passerby litters in the park. In each example, the public domain is trampled and usurped by the "me" culture. But what happens when this culture affects the really big stuff — like, say, planetary survival? It is a critical question because, according to the new book "Apollo's Fire," that's precisely what's going on."
      "After a rigorous multi-stage review process that includes 2,500 scientific expert reviewers, 800 contributing authors, and 450 lead authors representing 130 countries, the IPCC warns that "all countries" will be affected by climate change if carbon emissions continue to spiral. By 2100, global average surface temperatures could rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees celsius, and carbon dioxidein the atmosphere could lead to an eventual rise in sea levels of up to 1.40 meters. With "strikingly" blunt language, the report reads like "a final warning to humanity," notes Time magazine. "What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment," declared IPCC chairman Dr. Rajendra Pachauri."

      It certainly could, in the absence of specific policies designed to offset the impact of these costs. The Center on Budget & Policy Priorities -- leading advocates for policies to protect and support low- and moderate-income Americans -- spells out its initial proposals which, if implemented, will help to "...reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in a way that does not increase poverty or otherwise harm low-income households and is fiscally responsible. The Center is beginning a major new area of work on the effects of climate-change policies on low-income households, as well as these policies’ fiscal implications."


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