What Green Lessons Can We Learn from COP15?
The UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, known as “COP15,” faced a simple problem – how do you hold a global conference on the environment without increasing greenhouse gas emissions, wasting paper and otherwise being un-green?
Not surprisingly, the Climate Change Conference answered all these questions correctly and more, producing a successfully green conference of an enormous magnitude. What can we take away from the UN’s success? The knowledge that if a large scale operation can be green, there is no reason that businesses can’t act similarly on a smaller scale.
First, start with a green city for the summit. The Economist Intelligence Unit just completed a survey of 30 European cities and found Copenhagen was the greenest based on: CO2 emissions; energy; buildings; transportation; water; air quality; waste and land use; and environmental governance.
Second, plan it to be green. The Danish Foreign Ministry said, “COP15 is organized following BS8901, a sustainable management standard. BS8901 was developed for the sustainable organization of the 2012 Olympic Games in London.” What was done and what effects it had will be published in March 2010 as the Copenhagen Sustainable Meetings Protocol. This will be a case study that future meetings can use as a guide. (more…)
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- Exposures to Metals and Diesel Emissions in Air Linked to Respiratory Symptoms in Children
- Glimpsing a Greener Future
Exposures to Metals and Diesel Emissions in Air Linked to Respiratory Symptoms in Children
Exposure shortly after birth to ambient metals from residential heating oil combustion and particles from diesel emissions are associated with respiratory symptoms in young inner city children, according to a new study by researchers at the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH) at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. The study is the first to analyze the effects of exposure to airborne metals in this very young population and the findings could have important public health implications.
Published in the December 2009 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, the study also contributes to a further understanding of how specific sources of air pollution may impact child health.
The study compared pollutant levels with respiratory symptoms of children between birth and age two living in Northern Manhattan and in the South Bronx, and found that the airborne metals nickel and vanadium, were risk factors for wheezing in young children. Residual oil combustion for heating is a major source in New York City of these metals. Elemental carbon, an indicator of diesel exhaust, was associated with increased frequency of coughing only during cold and flu season (September through April). (more…)
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Glimpsing a Greener Future
Shane Stephens-Romero built a computer model called STREET that foresees the effects of alternative transportation fuels. (Photo by Daniel A. Anderson / University Communications)
UCI computer model foresees effects of alternative transportation fuels.
It’s the year 2060, and 75 percent of drivers in the Greater Los Angeles area have hydrogen fuel cell vehicles that emit only water vapor.
Look into Shane Stephens-Romero’s crystal ball - a computer model called STREET - and find that air quality has significantly improved. Greenhouse gas emissions are more than 60 percent lower than in 2009, and levels of microscopic soot and ozone are about 15 percent and 10 percent lower, respectively.
“For the first time, we can look at these future fuel scenarios and say how they’re going to impact things like ozone and particulate matter, which have severe effects on people’s lungs and quality of life,” said Stephens-Romero, a UC Irvine doctoral candidate in the Advanced Power & Energy Program. (more…)
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- What Green Lessons Can We Learn from COP15?
- Exposures to Metals and Diesel Emissions in Air Linked to Respiratory Symptoms in Children
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