The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) which was suggesting the economic stimulus package had also come up with another policy; the “need of a strong domestic manufacturing sector in promoting renewable energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.” Since global warming and greenhouse gas is now the most important problem for all humankind, the idea of renewable-energy is effective. The nature has been destructed by the climate change cause by global warming. There has been a lot of rain in arid regions and vise versa. For example, a huge number of corals are becoming white (dead) because the water temperature has been rising (corals begin to die when the temperature is higher than 86F). Some countries are having strong winds blowing across their country (ex. France); which has never happened in couple centuries.
Countries around the world have gathered around to brainstorm ideas to reduce greenhouse gas. But the United States has withdrawn treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol. One of the reasons was that reports from think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation has claimed that, by reducing Greenhouse gases there would be a decrease in the economy; less energy, less economic growth. Another problem was the exemption granted to China; true it seems unfair observing China building a new power plant almost every week. But at the state level, local governments are working on reducing Greenhouse gas emission (RGGI; Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative).
There are pros and cons to new technologies related to the global warming. Ethanol use to substitute gasoline and bioplastics are some technology that is suggested to prevent the excess of carbon dioxide and global warming. It could be manufactured from glucose which could be made by sugar canes and other products that include sugar. Although ethanol does not increase the amount of carbon dioxide, it makes 34% less energy than gasoline. It may corrode rubber and plastic inside the fuel feed system or the aluminum used for the internal-combustion engine. More over it includes alcohol which has very high affinity with water. So when this is combined with the dew condensation— occurred by the difference of temperature between the fuel tank and outside temperature— and sent to the high pressure burner, there is a possibility that the fuel tank will corrode faster. In addition, ethanol discharges more NOx (nitrogen oxide) — which is harmful to human being— than gasoline.
Bioplastic is manufactured by corn and sugarcane which contains a lot of sugar and starch. Technically it is possible to make from wood, rice, milk and garbage (kitchen garbage that contains water, such as meat, fish and vegetable). It is said that bioplastic could be carbon neutral (zero carbon total release) and compared to the solubility of plastic (790F~1030F), bioplastic could be easily reused at 320F or from microbes, it could be decomposed to water and carbon dioxide and will make no dioxin; which is also harmful to human body. Although it takes some energy when manufacturing, the disposing of bioplastic by burning will not change the amount of carbon-dioxide as it would naturally. But some think tanks say that the amount of energy used to manufacture these products is not calculated (American Enterprise Institute). Some reports say that it would cause more Greenhouse gas as a result.
Xie xie
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Economic Recession by Going Green?
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10 comments:
hi mondo
so yeah, one nuance that i think the US prefers to neglect saying is that the reason why China was exempt was because they are still in a developmental stage industrially and economically and they need to be able to use energy in order to get to where the US is now, whereas the US really has no excuse. But hey, there are a lot of Green campaigns going on in the US too, like in San Francisco where I was just at, every where you look, people are pushing Green.
agnes>
yeah, the US is working on Green in state level.
I think it's not only countries' but all humankind's responsibilities to save our earth by going green. As the ruling country around the world, the U.S government should face this harsh environmental crisis immediately instead of abandoning it.
Last week I watched a show from History Channel called "Life after People", it just talked about our environmental problems and told us what would happen to planet earth if the human race were to suddenly disappear forever. It was a good show, you should watch it!(maybe you can find it on Youtube)Indeed the show scared me so much!
The point is, if the environment of the earth is still getting worse and worse, we will pay the price in our near future!
brandon hsu>
thanks for the comment Brandon!
very interesting.
yeah, I think it's a very important problem.
Mondo-
I'm still not sold on this whole 'green house gas' thing. Sure there is definitely global warming going on, but there is a lot of evidence that would suggest that the past 3000 years are in fact the anomaly as far as climate goes, and that sporadic, significant changes in temperature happen all on their lonesome.
The US should do more, but the PEOPLE are doing it. Even if the government is neglecting it. Hell just look at NYC. They have the million trees campaign, bunch of go green stuff, and even fordham is trying to become the flagship university for green technology in the NE.
The .gov will catch up to us eventually.
mike's spot>
I know what you mean.
I mean NY is really thinking about the environment.
But you have to understand the industries that we have.
New York is famous for insurance, real estate and finance.
They don't have big factories.
The problem is that the people in New York have to also think about other places in their country that are working in manifacturing.
mondo
i realize that it's a serious problem, scary thing i like how you have many research alternatives it's very interesting. did you see the video "thinking" by suga free? there are things we can do to avoid this from happening! economic recession? City of Santa Monica
Don't be so sure mondo- up until very recently NYS had Kodak, Allied Chemical, and a few other major chemical processors. we still have
new venture gear, Crucible steel, a variety of plastics manufacturers, and other industry.
We may be famous for the money makers, but we were a major manufacturing force as well.
Look at Alaska. probably the most conservation conscious state in the Union, but they have major oil production and drilling going on.
be more pissed at the companies who run to these restriction free countries and set up shop to screw workers and the environment over.
sure there are cities that are more environment-conscious in the US like NYC and San Fransisco but that cannot subsitute the need for the goverment to act on a national level. it is good that some people in some parts of the country trie to do their part and i personally im a believer of people's power, but people have limited capabilities in this case simply because the most damaging effects come from places like factories, etc, that people have no power on, except throuhg their elected representatives and ofcourse their goverment. agnes is right, there are no excuses for the american goverment not to act. i hope this issue will be a major one in the presidential debates so we could see if we're gonna have a change (starting november this year) and by whom..
I still maintain the US is greener then you realize. Sometimes to the point of running industry out of the country. The crucible steel example I made is a great one for this.
they have to 'scrub' the air after smelting the steel as not to release harmful crap into the air.
the result is the scrubbing sucks a lot of heat out of the process, requiring significantly more energy, raising the prices significantly for US production.
The US has some of the tightest regulations in the world for industry- if you want to support green business, buy American.
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