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A Green New Year | Earth Wise

December 30, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Every year, millions of people around the world make resolutions in hopes of sparking positive changes in the new year.  Popular resolutions include improving health and fitness, traveling more, spending less, and so on.  With the New Year just around the corner, here are seven resolutions we all could make that would collectively have a major impact on the planet: 

1) Eat less meat.  Resource-intensive animal-based foods like meat, dairy, and eggs are one of the chief contributors to climate change. 

2) Get a home energy audit.  It’s a great way to understand your home’s energy footprint and discover ways to improve the energy efficiency of your home. 

3) Buy local whenever possible.  Shopping locally supports the local economy and dramatically cuts down on the carbon emissions associated with shipping.

4) Carry reusable shopping bags on errands. While disposable shopping bags are convenient, they are difficult to recycle and are often thrown away. 

5) Air dry your laundry whenever possible.  Drying clothes outside or using an indoor drying rack can save money and energy.  Americans spend about $9 billion a year on electricity to dry clothing. 

6) Purchase used or pre-owned items.  The market for second-hand items is booming, making it possible to purchase pretty much anything you want at thrift stores or online. 

7) Bring a reusable water bottle everywhere.  According to the EPA, Americans throw away enough plastic bottles each year to circle the earth five times.  Carrying your own bottle helps reduce this waste and will save you money.

As we ring in the new year this weekend, let’s raise our glasses to a cleaner and greener 2023. 

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Web Links

10 Sustainable New Year’s Resolutions!

New Year’s Resolutions

Photo, posted December 31, 2014, courtesy of Doug Anderson via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Online Shopping And Greenhouse Gas Emissions | Earth Wise

April 3, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Carbon footprint of online and traditional shopping

These days, consumers have multiple choices for how to shop for even the most mundane products.  There are both traditional and online ways to buy most so-called fast-moving consumer goods, such as cleaning supplies and packaged foods.  Price, quality, convenience, and time-frame guide our choices.

In the past, these things were always purchased by going to “Bricks & Mortar”, that is, physical retail stores. But now, we can order them from physical stores and have them delivered directly by the store – which is known as “Bricks & Clicks” – or we can order them online from an e-tailer and have them delivered by a parcel delivery company or the post office, so-called “Pure Play” online purchasing..

The carbon footprint of these three approaches depends on multiple factors according to a new study published in Environmental Science and Technology.  The study looked at the impact of transport, warehouse storage, delivery, and packaging.

Overall, the greenhouse gas footprints per item purchased at Bricks & Mortar were higher than those of Bricks & Clicks but lower than that of Pure Players.  But the results were highly dependent upon how many items were actually being purchased, and where the consumers lived.  The type of items also mattered.  For example, clothing purchased from a pure-play online source is much more likely to be returned than if purchased in a store.

Bricks & Mortar shoppers could reduce their footprint by 40% by walking or biking to stores, and Pure Players could cut emissions by 26% by switching to electric vehicles for the delivery of products from parcel distribution centers to consumers’ homes.

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Web Links

Comparing greenhouse gas footprints of online versus traditional shopping

Photo, posted July 15, 2017, courtesy of Elaine Smith via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Amazon And Climate Change

October 30, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Online shopping giant Amazon has unveiled a Climate Pledge, committing to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement ten years ahead of schedule, and to be carbon neutral by 2040. This is the company’s most ambitious push yet to reduce its carbon footprint, which currently rivals that of a small country.  In fact, Amazon is responsible for 48.9 million tons of carbon dioxide last year, which is about 85% of what Switzerland typically emits in a year. 

Amazon, which ships more than 10 billion items a year on fossil fuel-intensive planes and trucks, has ordered a fleet of 100,000 electric vans that will start delivering packages to doorsteps in 2021.  The vans will be made by Rivian, a Michigan-based company that Amazon invested in earlier this year. 

Amazon plans to get 100% of its energy from solar and other renewable sources by 2030.  Currently, it gets about 40% of its energy from renewables. 

Amazon is also investing $100 million in nature-based climate solutions and reforestation projects around the world in order to remove carbon from the atmosphere. 

While announcing these initiatives recently at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said the company needs to be a leader on the climate change issue:

We want to say look, if a company of Amazon’s complexity, scale, scope, physical infrastructure, delivering 10 billion items can do this, so can you.

After revealing Amazon’s Climate Pledge, Bezos said he would talk with CEOs of other large companies to try to get them to also sign it.  You can find a link to Amazon’s progress on its commitments by visiting this website.

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Web Links

‘Middle of the herd’ no more: Amazon tackles climate change

Amazon: Committed to a sustainable future (track progress here)

Photo courtesy of Amazon.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Tourism And Greenhouse Gas Emissions

June 29, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/EW-06-29-18-Tourism-and-Greenhouse-Gas-Emissions.mp3

Tourism is a significant contributor to global gross domestic product.  Furthermore, it is growing at an annual rate of 4%, more than many other economic sectors.  There are many places around the world where it is the largest industry.  But until recently, there really wasn’t very good information about its carbon footprint.

[Read more…] about Tourism And Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Celebrity Organisms

November 24, 2017 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/EW-11-24-17-Celebrity-Organisms.mp3

The holiday buying season is upon us, and as always, people are looking for creative gift ideas.  One that pops up every year is naming a distant star after a gift recipient.  This dubious enterprise results in a handsome certificate and a promise to enter the person’s name in some mysterious book.  Sorry to say, astronomers around the world do not start calling some far-flung sun Aunt Gussie.

[Read more…] about Celebrity Organisms

Greening Vacations

April 18, 2017 By EarthWise

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/EW-04-18-17-Making-Vacations-Greener.mp3

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, more than one billion international tourists travel the world each year.  Tourism has become a powerful and transformative force for many millions of people.  But all this travel is not as positive for the planet.  To that end, the luxury travel network Virtuoso assembled a short, simple list everyone can follow to reduce the environmental impact of their travel. 

[Read more…] about Greening Vacations

Restoring The Taste Of Tomatoes

March 1, 2017 By EarthWise

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/EW-03-01-17-Restoring-the-Taste-of-Tomatoes.mp3

Over the years, tomatoes have been selectively bred for qualities such as size and firmness for shipping purposes and appearance, but selection for flavor has generally been overlooked.  Many of us find that the tomatoes we buy in the grocery store just don’t taste like they used to.  In fact, often they don’t taste like much of anything.  Comparing them to the delicious local-grown varieties we can find during the summer provides evidence for this conclusion.

[Read more…] about Restoring The Taste Of Tomatoes

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