Green Wombat

Thirteen U.S. corporations today pledged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions between 9 percent and 100 percent over the next decade. The companies, which range from Fortune 100 behemoths like DuPont and Intel to the Sonoma Wine Company, signed up for the Bush administration’s voluntary global warming program called Climate Leaders. (The complete list is here.) So far 58 companies have taken the pledge, and to date five companies, including General Motors and IBM, have met their greenhouse gas reduction targets.

Participating companies agree to conduct an inventory of their greenhouse gas emissions and then develop a plan to reduce or offset them. Some smaller companies have gone completely carbon neutral. For instance, Silver Spring, Maryland, printing company Ecoprint reduced its emissions to zero by buying its electricity from a wind farm and purchasing renewable energy credits to offset emissions from employee commutes, manufacturing and heating. Conservation Services Group, a 270-person Westborough, Massachusetts energy consultancy, promised to slash its annual 2,036 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions to zip by replacing its vehicle fleet with hybrids, curtailing electricity use and buying credits from the Chicago Climate Exchange, a carbon trading market.

Part of the fun of living in Berkeley, California, is voting. Sure, there’s the usual bond measures and city council candidates – spanning the political spectrum from the left to the far left to the far out left. But in Berkeley we also like to weigh in on topics of international import, and the 2006 election is no exception. For instance, the November 7 ballot features Measure H, which calls on the city council to petition the U.S. House of of Representatives to impeach President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for various high crimes and misdemeanors. Then there’s Measure G, which would have Berkeley reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. The measure, which is advisory but backed by the mayor, urges the city council to set a 10-year emissions reduction target in 2007 and develop a plan to achieve that goal.

Now on many issues Berkeley tends to serve as a bellwether only for Santa Cruz, Santa Monica, Eugene, Boulder and other people’s republics. But on the environment the East Bay city has been a national leader: It was the first to adopt curbside recycling, now found in even the reddest of the red states, and in 2003 it began to convert all municipal vehicles to biodiesel.

In one of its periodic forays into foreign policy, Berkeley endorsed the Kyoto Protocol and then proceeded to make its rhetoric reality. Between 2002 and 2005 the city exceeded the Kyoto targets by reducing its greenhouse emissions 14 percent. The city also has joined the Chicago Climate Exchange, the North American carbon trading market. So as New York City and other municipalities now move to limit their own greenhouse gas emissions, they just might want to look to the left coast.

The rubber begins to hit the road on California’s landmark global warming law on Oct. 19 when state Air Resources Board members get briefed by their staff on their role and duties in enforcing limits on greenhouse gases. One of California’s most powerful environmental agencies – just ask the auto industry – the ARB has been handed the complex job of figuring out how to implement the law’s requirement that the state’s industrial polluters reduce emissions of greenhouse gases 25 percent by 2020. One thing’s for sure, there’s a lot of green in it for attorneys and lobbyists as the regulatory battle begins. Stay tuned to the wombat for further developments.

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy apparently don’t share the Bush administration’s skepticism about global warming. The agencies’ Energy Star program has embarked on a campaign to persuade Americans to replace conventional light bulbs with energy efficient ones “to help reduce the risk of global climate change.”

As of today nearly 125,000 people have promised to replace almost 200,000 lightbulbs. That small act alone will eliminate 82 million pounds of greenhouse gases, the EPA says. Energy efficient lightbulbs are more expensive than standard bulbs but use two-thirds less electricity, produce 70 percent less heat and last about 10 times longer. In other words, you’ll save money in the long run as well as help the planet.

According to the EPA, 800,000 cars’ worth of greenhouse gas emissions could be taken out of the atmosphere if every home in the nation changed at least one light bulb. Now just imagine the environmental payoff if every bulb in every standard-issue McMansion was replaced…..