Food waste turns stomachs in environmental circles

Christmas has become a traditional time for over indulgence in Western countries. The holiday season seems to provide everyone with an excuse to eat and drink to excess. Supermarkets burst with sweet treats and a mind-boggling selection of festive fare.

While most of it will be ingested, more than a third of food in Europe and the United States will grow moldy fur in the back of the fridge, pass its use-by date and land in garbage.

Huge food waste problem developing in Europe



In the United Kingdom, one of Europe's worst food waste offenders, around 6.7 million tons of purchased and edible food, worth £10.2 billion (11.2 billion euros, $16.6 billion), are annually discarded. Around 4.1 million tons of this wasted food comes directly from food manufacturers.



Revelers throw tomatoes at each other during the annual food fight, the Tomatina, in the small Spanish town of Bunol, Spain, Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2007. Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: One third of the food produced in Europe is thrown away

"Only 30 to 40 percent of produced in Europe ends up at your table," Henrik Harjula, the principal administrator at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, told Deutsche Welle. "It is already disappearing when it is transported, when it is rotting and when it doesn't meet European standards. On top of this, in many countries in Europe, one third of the food that consumers buy is thrown away and 50 percent of that is thrown away without even being opened."

Add Europe's waste to that of the United States and the food waste problem becomes even larger. Around 40 percent of all food manufactured and put on sale in the United States is wasted, and studies show this trend is increasing. Food waste - including waste from farms, manufacturers, retailers and consumers - has risen 50 percent since 1974, reaching about 150 trillion calories per year in 2003.

more from Deustsche Welle

From bike lanes to wood chips, mayors from cities worldwide compare notes at climate talks

It isn't easy getting Italy's city dwellers out of their Fiats, off their Vespa scooters and onto bicycles to ride to work, "like here in Copenhagen," says an Italian environmental official.

"It isn't a matter of painting a right lane and saying, 'This is a bike lane,'" explained Emanuele Burgin, a Bologna provincial councilor. "We realize we're far away from this."

But Copenhagen's lord mayor has her problems, too. Finding enough parking space for all those bikes is just the beginning.

"First, we must get rid of our coal plants, and we need to get that subway expansion built," Ritt Bjerregaard told The Associated Press. She also wants even more Copenhageners cycling than the one-third who pedal each day to the office or school.

Bjerregaard and some 80 other mayors and local officials, including New York's Michael Bloomberg and representatives of Tokyo, Jakarta, Toronto and Hong Kong, have converged on the Danish capital in their own climate and energy summit. They'll compare notes on how cities can combat climate change and save money on energy and other costs.

This five-day "cities summit," opening Monday, will parallel the second week of the U.N. climate conference, intended to boost international efforts to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming. President Barack Obama and more than 100 other national leaders will attend that U.N. conference in its final days.

Today's cities and towns consume two-thirds of the world's total primary energy and produce more than 70 percent of its energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, the International Energy Agency reports. That will grow to 76 percent by 2030, the agency says. Most comes from electrifying and heating private, commercial and municipal buildings.

In a report last week, the IEA's executive director, Nabuo Tanaka, said local authorities "have significant potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions" through renewable energy and other means. "Yet relatively few are taking up the challenge," he said.

Cities face many obstacles to becoming more "climate-friendly" — from extensive old infrastructure that would be cost too much replace, to political interests that resist City Hall's plans. The New York example is illustrative.

New York City last week approved legislation requiring owners of larger buildings to conduct energy audits and replace insulation and take other steps toward energy efficiency. But under pressure from developers and real-estate interests, the measures were stripped of requirements for more costly improvements, such as total overhauls of heating systems and replacing windows.

Similarly, Bloomberg's efforts to cut traffic in Manhattan by charging fees to drive cars in certain neighborhoods was blocked by New York State politicians.

London succeeded where New York failed. In 2003, then-Mayor Ken Livingstone introduced a daily "congestion charge" — the equivalent of $16 — on cars and trucks entering the central city during business hours.

Other big cities are also trying to lead on climate. Sao Paulo, Brazil, for example, a sprawl of 11 million people, has by law set as a goal a 30 percent reduction in emissions by 2013. It has already achieved 20 percent since 2005, chiefly through its new system of generating biogas for energy at landfills, instead of allowing waste methane, a greenhouse gas, to rise into the skies.

Here in this city of 1.2 million, Bjerregaard also has set ambitious goals.

Copenhagen reduced its CO2 emissions by 20 percent from 1995 to 2005. The lord mayor plans to reduce it by another 20 percent by 2015, and then to become "carbon-neutral," free of fossil fuel for core needs, by 2025.

more from the LA Times

Urban planning and technology can change commuter ways

It would be tempting to view the construction in the past few years of a pair of elevated metro tracks next to Dubai’s Sheikh Zayed Road as a reverse for the motor car. The opening of Dubai’s metro system in September this year marked the first rail-based public transport system in the oil-rich Arabian peninsula, where rapid increases in wealth, cheap fuel and sprawling cities have produced high levels of car ownership and use. If upsurges in public transport use and walking and cycling elsewhere in the world in recent years are taken into account, the development might seem like part of a global shift towards more environmentally friendly transport modes.

Yet, in most cities of the world, car use continues to grow, no matter how good the alternatives. Shifts to cleaner modes of transport seem merely to free up road space for new motorists or for the existing ones to drive more.

The key question for urban transport is whether public policy should accept the dominance of cars and make them cleaner or make efforts to shift commuters to other forms of transport.

David Begg, a transport economist and former chairman of the UK government’s Commission for Integrated Transport, says shifts of journeys between modes can produce big reductions in carbon emissions. But they are not easy. “To achieve modal shifts, you need vision, determination and political will,” he says.

Alan Pisarski, author of the Commuting in America series of studies, believes cleaner cars are the most likely route towards long-term cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. He points out that even at the peak of US fuel prices in 2008 – when prices reached $4 a gallon, having been $1.50 as recently as 2002 – road traffic fell only 3.7 per cent year-on-year.

“If we’re going to have improvements in greenhouse gases – and I think we will – it will come much more from technological change – improvements in fuels, improvements in vehicles – than it will from people changing behaviour.”

At the heart of most countries’ debate over cleaning up urban transport is the taxation of car use. Most developed countries tax cars and fuel heavily. The proceeds meet the costs of road building and maintenance and make some contribution towards the costs of road transport such as pollution, congestion and accidents. In many countries, motorists believe such taxation is already excessive and politicians remain reluctant to confront such a powerful lobby group.

Consequently, relatively few have been willing to try charging to enter their cities at congested times – as happens in London, Singapore, Stockholm, Oslo and a few other cities. Professor Begg, a member of the board of Transport for London, the London mayor’s transport organisation, when the city’s congestion charge was introduced in 2003, points out that even excellent public transport has not been as successful at persuading motorists out of their cars as the congestion charge.

more from the Financial Times (UK)

‘Smart’ Electric Utility Meters, Intended to Create Savings, Instead Prompt Revolt

Millions of households across America are taking a first step into the world of the “smart grid,” as their power companies install meters that can tell them how much electricity they are using hour by hour — and sometimes, appliance by appliance. But not everyone is happy about it.

Customers in California are in open revolt, and officials in Connecticut and Texas are questioning whether the rush to install meters benefits the public.

Some consumers argue that the meters are logging far more kilowatt hours than they believe they are using. And many find it unfair that they will begin to pay immediately for the new meters through higher rates, when the promised savings could be years away.

Power companies say the meters will allow utilities to vary the price charged to their customers by the hour to correspond to what those utilities are paying for energy in the wholesale market. This can help consumers save money, they say.

They also say the meters will be crucial to remaking the electric system to handle intermittent power sources like wind turbines and solar cells while continuously meeting customers’ needs.

Pacific Gas & Electric, which distributes power to Northern and Central California, has so far installed four million meters in households and businesses and plans to install six million more within the next three years. The meters cost the utility roughly $220 apiece, including installation.

Elizabeth Keogh, a retired social worker in Bakersfield, Calif., who describes herself as “a bit chintzy,” has created a spreadsheet with 26 years of electric bills for her modest house. She decided that her new meter was running too fast.

Ms. Keogh reported to the utility that the meter recorded 646 kilowatt-hours in July, for which she paid $66.50; last year it was 474 kilowatt-hours, or $43.37.

At a hearing in October organized by her state senator, Ms. Keogh took out two rolls of toilet paper — one new, one half used up — and rolled them down the aisle, showing how one turned faster than the other. “Something is wrong here,” she said.

Scores of electric customers with similar complaints have turned out at similar hearings. At one in Fresno, Calif., Leo Margosian, a retired investigator, testified that the new meter logged the consumption of his two-bedroom townhouse at 791 kilowatt-hours in July, up from 236 a year earlier. And he had recently insulated his attic and installed new windows, Mr. Margosian said.

more from the NY Times

Adoption of Efficiency Measures Could Cut U.S. Energy Use 30 Percent By 2030

The adoption of stricter fuel economy standards, widespread improvements in energy use in office buildings and homes, and new efficiency standards for appliances could cut U.S. energy use by 30 percent below 2030 projections, according to a study by the National Research Council. The report said that deploying energy-efficiency technologies in buildings alone could eliminate the need to add new electricity generation capacity. Building owners could reduce electricity costs by 1.2 percent a year if they adopted cost-effective efficiency measures, the report said; buildings account for 41 percent of U.S. energy use. The report said that near-term efficiency gains in the transportation sector must come from improvements to the internal combustion engine, and that plug-in vehicles will offer a promising mid-term to long-term option. Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles may not enjoy widespread use until 2050, the report said. The report listed many potential barriers to energy efficiency initiatives, including high initial costs, a lack of incentives and information, and “Americans’ penchant for increasing vehicle size and performance.”

more from Environment 360

In Birthplace of Local Food, Fish Imports Take Over the Menu

Tadich Grill, San Francisco’s oldest seafood restaurant, now serves farmed salmon flown in from Scotland. Sam’s Grill & Seafood, which also dates to the Gold Rush, features shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico and Alaskan halibut.

The San Francisco region is where the locavore movement got its name. And decades before restaurants like Chez Panisse in Berkeley were recommending their local leeks, the establishments near San Francisco’s wharves took pride in their fresh, local sand dabs and petrale.

These days, fish flown in from around the world is more likely to be on offer. The change began gradually, but has recently sped up. Data from the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, a federal advisory group, reveal the cumulative effect: a 71 percent drop in commercial fishing revenue along the north-central California coast since 1990.

The effects are everywhere, seen in the number of idle fishermen or those who have left the profession altogether — membership in the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations is down by two-thirds in 15 years — and the fish markets filled with Vietnamese catfish and Mexican spiny lobster.

more from the NY Times

Lightweight 'triple-zero' house produces more energy than it uses

Overlooking the city of Stuttgart in southern Germany, a four-story modern glass house stands like a beacon of environmental sustainability. Built in 2000, it was the first in a series of buildings that are "triple-zero," a concept developed by German architect and engineer Werner Sobek, which signifies that the building is energy self-sufficient (zero energy consumed), produces zero emissions, and is made entirely of recyclable materials (zero waste).

Since the construction of the first triple-zero home, Werner Sobek's firm of engineers and architects, based in Stuttgart, has designed and built five more in Germany, with a seventh planned in France. The energy used by these buildings, including the four-story tower where Sobek resides, comes from solar cells and geothermal heating.

The most recent addition to the triple-zero series raises the bar for energy efficiency: It produces more energy than it uses, Sobek said. The one-story glass home, which seems to float in front of a backdrop of pine trees, "is a tiny power plant [which] feeds electricity into the public grid," he said during a lecture on his work on December 2. The lecture took place at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.

Sobek thinks that planners, builders and policy-makers must think about how to reduce the environmental impact of buildings at the same time that they try to reduce the footprint of the automobile and other industries. The building industry is responsible for 35 percent of the world's energy consumption and carbon emissions, and 50 percent of the waste produced in North America and Europe, Sobek said. His engineers and architects are working to reduce the energy required to maintain houses, office buildings, airports and bridges, as well the energy that goes into constructing and disassembling these structures.

Following the 1979 oil crisis, German engineers started to build "Passivhauses," or passive houses. These buildings retain comfortable interior temperatures without the use of active heating and cooling systems. Instead, passive houses receive warmth from sunlight through its south facing windows and underground air ducts in the winter, while the airtight seals prevent warm air from entering in the summer. But with the scant number of windows and 300 millimeters of thermal insulation, "you live like you are in a Styrofoam box," Sobek said.

Sobek strives for just the opposite effect of the Passivhaus, using thinner walls and bigger windows or, in the case of triple zero houses, all-glass walls. "I invented the so-called 'Aktivhaus' [or active house]—buildings which open your soul, which open your mind, which open your heart," said Sobek, who is also head of the Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design (ILEK) at the University of Stuttgart and is the Mies van der Rohe professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology. These glass walls still provide insulation, however, because they are triple-glazed, meaning they have three layers of glass with air space in between the layers.

more from Scientific American

California's water delivery outlook is grim

Operators of the sprawling state system that supplies water to 25 million Californians from Butte County to San Diego issued their lowest-ever estimate on the amount of water they will be able to deliver.

Officials predicted Tuesday they will be able to offer only 5 percent of the total volume of water requested by California cities and farms next year. That's the smallest water allocation the agency has released since its creation in 1967.

The estimate, based on current water conditions, is only preliminary and is almost certain to rise as the rainy season wears on. Still, officials expect a multiyear drought, low reservoirs and environmental restrictions on water pumping to keep supplies well below average in 2010.

"We have to assume we're heading into a fourth year of drought and we have to respond accordingly," said Lester Snow, director of the California Department of Water Resources, the state agency that operates the network of reservoirs, pumps and pipelines known as the State Water Project.

more from the SF Chronicle

Healthy, organic and cheap school lunches? Order up

On the combination plate of problems plaguing the USA's public schools, few are as intractable as this: Can you serve fresh, healthful meals each day to millions of kids without breaking the bank, or must you resort to serving up deep-fried, processed, less expensive junk?

For more than a decade, big food thinkers have chewed on this, making it a cause célèbre. But most often they find that feeding kids well requires one simple thing: more money.

The federal government pays, on average, $2.68 per child per meal – and most food advocates say that simply isn't enough. A few insist it can't be done for less than $5.

So it's big news when someone tries, even on a small scale, to feed kids well for under $3 a pop.

An all-natural meal

For the first time, a small, privately held start-up is pushing to do just that: producing what are by all accounts fresh, healthful, all-natural school meals for just under $3 apiece. Starting with just one school in spring 2006, Revolution Foods has quietly grown year by year and now delivers about 45,000 breakfasts, lunches and snacks daily to 235 public and private schools in California, Colorado and the District of Columbia .

Since April, about 14,000 of those meals each day have come from a 22,000-square-foot facility in an Oakland industrial park.

The growth is impressive, but what's perhaps most striking is what the meals look and taste like – and the rogues' gallery of components (fries, canned green beans, cling peaches in heavy syrup) that are missing.

Revolution shuns high-fructose corn syrup, artificial colors and flavors, trans fats and deep-frying. Its meats and milk are hormone- and antibiotic-free, and many of its ingredients are organic and locally sourced.

Company co-founder and chief operating officer Kirsten Saenz Tobey says Revolution's plan is to "take the school lunch problem off the schools' plates" with kid-friendly but healthful food. "A principal doesn't want to manage a restaurant."

more from USA Today