Filed under: Ethanol, Flex-Fuel, GM

General Motors has been promoting the installation of E85 fueling pumps all around the country and today they turned up for the opening of the first two ethanol pumps in New York state. Station owner Christian King installed the pumps at his stations in Albany and Warrensburg. GM Vice President of Environment, Energy and Safety Beth Lowery was present for the opening and spoke about the company’s commitment to the biofuel. GM has a campaign going to get the two million owners of their flex-fuel vehicles to use ethanol when it’s available. Dealers will be letting their customers know about the presence of E85 stations as they open up around the country. The GM press release is after the jump.

[Source: General Motors]

General Motors Supports Increased E85 Availability For New York State Motorists

Two New E85 Pumps Open in Albany and Warrensburg

ALBANY, New York – General Motors joined The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), KNC Holdings, Inc. and public officials for the opening of the first E85 ethanol fuel pumps in the State for public use. Two new E85 pumps, installed by station owner Christian King, are located at the Campus Mobil station on Western Avenue in Albany and at a sister station in Warrensburg. The new fueling locations will be promoted by GM as part of a broader, ongoing national GM campaign to boost the use and awareness of ethanol-based E85 fuel in the United States.

“What we are showcasing today is what New York State has been striving for,” said Peter R. Smith, President and CEO of NYSERDA. “Increasing the use and availability of alternative fuels, such as E85, is of great importance to help move us away from imported petroleum and bring us closer to energy independence.”

There are currently almost 200,000 FlexFuel vehicles registered in New York that are capable of running on E85 ethanol. These vehicles are designed to run on either gasoline, E85 ethanol, or any combination of the two.

“We appreciate the efforts of NYSERDA and Campus Mobil to make E85 ethanol available to more New York drivers,” said Elizabeth Lowery, Vice President of Environment, Energy and Safety, General Motors. “At GM, we believe that the biofuel with the greatest potential to displace petroleum-based fuels in the U.S. is ethanol and we have made a major commitment to vehicles that can run on E85 ethanol-with over two million of our FlexFuel vehicles on the road today and plans to expand production going forward. We will continue to work with government, organizations and retailers to promote increased use and awareness of E85 ethanol across the country.”

As part of the partnership, GM will promote the availability of the fuel with consumer and dealer outreach. Local GM dealers will help promote these new refueling stations whenever customers purchase flex-fuel vehicles. Today’s announcement is part of a nationwide effort by GM to help grow the E85 ethanol fueling station infrastructure. Since May of 2005, GM has announced partnerships in 13 states ( South Dakota, California, Colorado, Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, New York and Virginia ) to locate more than 240 E85 fueling pumps at stations around the country.

GM’s E85 partnership and marketing campaign are designed to encourage greater E85 use and showcase GM’s E85 FlexFuel vehicle leadership to U.S. consumers. E85 FlexFuel vehicles can run on any combination of gasoline and/or E85, a fuel blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. E85 can contribute to energy independence because it diversifies the source of transportation fuels beyond petroleum, and it provides positive environmental benefits in the form of reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

Today, GM has over two million E85 FlexFuel vehicles on the road in all 50 states, and will produce more this year. For the 2007 model year, GM is offering 16 E85 ethanol-capable vehicle models, with an annual production of more than 400,000 vehicles. This is more than any other manufacturer.

GM believes that developing alternative sources of energy and propulsion is the key to mitigating many of the issues surrounding energy availability. Producing E85 FlexFuel vehicles is one part of GM’s strategy to help reduce the use of petroleum and also reduce vehicle emissions. GM’s strategy also includes improving the efficiency of the traditional internal combustion engine with technologies available today; and developing electrically-driven vehicles such as hybrids, plug-in hybrids, fuel cell vehicles, and electric vehicles.

General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM), the world’s largest automaker, has been the annual global industry sales leader for 76 years. Founded in 1908, GM today employs about 280,000 people around the world. With global headquarters in Detroit, GM manufactures its cars and trucks in 33 countries. In 2006, nearly 9.1 million GM cars and trucks were sold globally under the following brands: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, GM Daewoo, Holden, HUMMER, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn and Vauxhall. GM’s OnStar subsidiary is the industry leader in vehicle safety, security and information services. More information on GM can be found at www.gm.com.

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

Photo Credit: Sasquatch!
This weekend at the Sasquatch! Music Festival in Washington, you can hear the likes of Bjork, The Arcade Fire, Manu Chao and the Beastie Boys. And if you listen closely, you might also hear the sigh of atmospheric relief as Carbon Harmony neutralizes the effects of all carbon dioxide emmissions resulting from this year’s Sasquatch!

You may remember from my previous post that the United States produced at least 6,008.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2005 alone. With a number this outstanding, how can music fest lovers feel rest assured they won’t add to it when they make the trek out to see their favorite bands?

With Carbon Harmony, a festival can actually neutralize its carbon footprint and then some by calculating its carbon emmissions and then purchasing “a larger amount of carbon reduction credits” to actually lower the total amount of CO2 in the ozone layer. This allows for a festival to not just prevent further global warming, but to actually contribute to the growing movement in global cooling.

“Carbon neutral is a start,” says founder John Humphrey. “That gets you to zero. But why not go a step beyond and reduce the overall amount of CO2 in the atmosphere?”

Founded by Sustainable Energy Partners, Carbon Harmony begins by purchasing 10% more carbon reduction credits than you need to neutralize your carbon footprint. With the Carbon Harmony mindset of “Why stop at neutral?” you can choose to go above and beyond with as many carbon credits as you want.

To see how you can be a part of a more carbon neutral music experience, visit http://carbonharmony.com

What the heck is Fair Trade doing on Green Options? Well, there are many ways in which it intersects with the environmental movement.

For example, the most recognizable poster child of Fair Trade the delicious coffee. In the 1970's coffee demand grew and a high-yield tree was developed that flourishes in direct sunlight but requires heavy pesticide use to do so. Many coffee producing countries have no laws regulating the use of these pesticides and the effect on local communities and the environement can be devastating. In Columbia in 1993 &1994 “the insecticide endosulfan resulted in more than 100 poisonings each year, and four deaths."

Conversely certified Fair Trade coffee requires farmers to use eco-friendly practices, with 60% having already achieved organic certification and the remaining utilizing organic practices such as integrated pest management. Not only are many crops organic, but the coffee is frequently shade grown, which allows natural habitats beneficial for wildlife to grow around and amongst the coffee crop. According to the Sierra Club, rainforests are vanishing at 40 million acres a year, which makes these habitats increasingly vital to tropical wildlife. Small traditional coffee farms also cultivate other crops such as fruit, cacao and trees used for firewood creating a diversity which benefits both farmer and land. Fair Trade also offers social premiums and resources for “organic conversion, reforestation, water conservation and environmental education.” These benefits are found through all Fair Trade agricultural products, including chocolate, tea and bananas.

Mother Nature is not only being helped by Fair Trade produce. Many crafts produced by Fair Trade artisans are created from recycled materials; intricate purses are made from salvaged sari’s which would otherwise be burned, totes made from recycled rice bags and juice wrappers, floor mats from old flip flops. There are fun decorative chickens formed from old plastic bags and jewelry from melted old coins. Frames and coasters from rolled paper and cards from recycled pulp.

And most importantly, Fair Trade is about a sustainable trade system that is fair to all parties. It offers people in poverty a chance at a secure future, so that they may look forward and invest in the betterment of their community and land. A sustainable and fair economy cannot be acheived without environmentally sustainable production methods.

This is the third in a series of posts discussing the Fair Trade criteria. Also check out Fair Trade: Transparency and Fair Trade: Fair Wages.

Mayors from the planet’s largest cities gathered in New York last week to discuss how global warming is impacting their cities now, how it may in the future, and what immediate action needs to be taken to slow it.

The “C40 Large Cities Climate Summit” has partnered with the Clinton Climate Initiative to tackle climate change now, rather than waiting for action from national governments. At the Summit, mayors shared best practices, identified collaborative projects, and planned for future action together. The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, explained why:

"The fight to tackle climate change will be won or lost in cities…We are not going to simply talk about what we could do, while the window of opportunity for preventing catastrophic climate change disappears. Every city here today is a leader in at least one aspect of the fight to tackle climate change."

Some of the cities' intiatives include:

• New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s controversial proposal for a congestion charge for Manhattan as part of the city's multi-billion dollar Green Plan.
• Toronto Mayo David Miller explained “Zerofootprint Toronto,” which helps residents understand how every aspect of their lives impacts the environment, and creates a network for people to join with friends, neighbors, and coworkers to create a virtual eco-community to create initiatives and measure results.
• Curitiba, Brazil’s Mayor Jaime Lerner described a bus rapid transit system for his city to cut down on pollution from cars.
• Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced GREEN LA, an action plan to reduce the city’s carbon footprint 35 percent below 1990 levels. Villaraigosa said it is the most ambitious goal set yet by a major American city.

Summit organizers also invited business leaders in an effort to involve the private sector. Both parties discused how to work together under the conviction that fighting global warming – through innovation, transportation, and energy efficiency – is profitable.

Peopleandplanet.net
Washington Post

Last week I wrote about how pet owners can make more sustainable choices when it comes to their pets. A few days later, Green Options received an e-mail from James, a pet owner whose Dalmation, Hamish, suffered grand mal seizures from what James believed were toxic flea/tick medications.

Upon further investigation, it turns out that the EPA didn't even regulate over-the-counter pet products such as these until 1996, and was still phasing out pet products containing certain chemicals as late as last year.

In fact, the Humane Society issued a warning about flea/tick medications, and the Natural Resources Defense Council released a report in 2000 titled Poisons on Pets: Health Hazards from Flea and Tick Products which linked these chemicals found in flea/tick medications to serious health problems in both pets and humans. The main offenders are organophosphate insecticides and carbamates, which interfere with nerve signals in the body. Though meant to work on insects, they can have similar effects on the nervous systems of pets and humans, particularly children because of their developing nervous system. There is also ample evidence to suggest that long-term exposure to products containing such chemicals can produce serious health problems, such as later-in-life cancer and Parkinson's, in children who were exposed at an early age. Kittens and cats are also particularly vulnerable when exposed to OTC products for dogs.

This doesn't mean that all flea/tick medications are dangerous: this mainly applies to older brands of OTC medications. Avoid products that list chlorpyrifos, dichlorvos, phosmet, naled, tetrachlorvinphos, diazinon, malathion, carbaryl, or propoxur in their active ingredients. Take the safe route and always get your pet's medication from your vet–it's not worth the few bucks you'd save by buying products over the counter. There are also safe non-pesticide methods to flea/tick control, including using flea combs, regular shampooing, increased vaccuming/sweeping, and keeping pets inside, but again, talk to your vet about what is best for your pet.

One thousand schoolchildren send an SOS for whale protection and launch the Migrating Human Whale Project from the shores of Loreto Bay National Marine Park in Baja, Mexico.

This is the first of eight Human Whale aerial images involving nearly ten thousand schoolchildren from Mexico to Alaska leading up to the International Whaling Commission
meeting in Anchorage on May 28.

If you want to add to the chorus of whale defenders worldwide, join the Big Blue March May 27th. Wear something blue!

Filed under: MPG, Transportation Alternatives

Perhaps I am showing too much of my inner scooter-geek-dom with this post, but I am really excited that Italjet scooters are coming back to the American market. One reason is that these scooters are really just super-cool looking. That means that America’s style-conscious buyers might be more inclined to consider them as a viable means of transportation. I mean, there is a good reason that Vespa scooters have become an icon, and it’s because they are fashionable. Just like a Prius is an eco-cool vehicle to be seen in, A Vespa can make the same impression. Considering the gas savings, congestion savings and other possible environmental benefits, scooters are a very good option for those who are not traveling too far and who don’t often need to carry passengers.

Let me also say that I agree with some of our past comments, whose authors have pointed out that riding a two-wheeler in a sea of four-wheelers (cagers for you cyclists) can be dangerous. I ride a bike, and practice what I preach. Make sure you are protected and consider a safety course. DiCaprio might not make the best role model for you in this regard. But, he is saving gas!

[Source: The Scooter Scoop]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.