LBK Green

  There are over two million pieces of construction and mining equipment in the United States, which consume over 6 billion gallons of diesel fuel per year ( U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA],  2005 ). The main environmental concern surrounding the use of construction and mining equipment is emissions of air pollutants that impact climate change and air quality.  On Longboat Key, not only air pollution, but unnecessary noise pollution are concerns. Including lawn maintenance fuel consumption, America burns 9 billion gallons of gas/diesel per year for construction and lawn care. A recent study from Stanford University highlights the upstream cost of burning fossil fuels that include drilling/transporting to a refinery/refining/transporting to a gas station or depot/and finally being burned in an internal combustion engine. The study estimates the combined greenhouse gas footprint is 20 pounds of pollutants per gallon. I don't even want to do the math. M...

     What does "Social Cost" mean? Simply put, the social costs or each extra ton of CO2 in the atmosphere is estimated to be $51. These social costs result from manifestations of climate change and global warming. Resulting in:  Increased forest fire damage, more severe storms, increased flooding, more severe tornados and hurricanes, drought, increased hunger, incursion of salt water into coastal aquafers, eco-migration, coral reef death, etc. The list goes on and on and already impacts every person and living creature on the planet in one way or another. The social cost of what we are doing is not showing up on people's electric bills or property taxes. Yet the costs are steadily mounting. Each household's electricity use generates a ton of CO2 every seventy days on average. or $20 a month in additional social costs. Pollution free sources of power are available as home solar or renewable energy certificates for about the same monthly cost.  I believe an ounce...

  The Case for and Against Electric Vehicles The information on this blog has been drawn directly from a wide variety of sources for the purpose of summarizing various perspectives as accurately and objectively as possible. The Issue: Climate experts advocate bringing global greenhouse gas emissions down to   near zero by the middle of the century to avoid the worst effects of global warming. Conventional gas-powered vehicles in the US are responsible for half of the urban pollution and one fourth of greenhouse gases. One-half of the oil produced in the US is consumed by gas powered vehicles. Annual global CO2 emissions exceed 36 billion tons.  If policy makers want to confront the issues related to cars and climate change, there are three major options: Reduce vehicle use Increase vehicle efficiency to reduce emissions significantly Switch to less polluting vehicles The Case for Electric Vehicles (EVs) Switching to e...