It seems that emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases took a dip in Maryland even before lawmakers in Annapolis agreed to reduce them.

Relying on federal data, Environment Maryland reports that carbon dioxide emissions in the Old Line State from burning fossil fuels declined 6 percent from 2004 through 2007. Maryland was in good company - 16 other states also trimmed their emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel use in that time period, according to the environmental group's latest report.

The decline is interesting because it predates the recession, which experts say has dampened energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions because of reduced economic activity. The US Energy Information Administration, for instance, projects that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use nationwide are likely to be 5.9 percent lower this year than last.

Environment Maryland says the decline in carbon dioxide emissions in Maryland and other states shows that climate-warming pollution can be reduced without harming the economy.  The group is pressing Congress to pass legislation aimed at curtailing emissions nationwide while promoting energy efficiency and renewables.  Much of the debate in Washington is over how much that will increase the costs of energy and whether that will hurt the economy at a time when the nation is still grappling with high unemployment.

Environment Maryland suggests that carbon dioxide emissions dropped in states with policies and standards promoting energy efficiency.  Maryland, which ranks 10th in per capita carbon dioxide emissions, came in 12th in a 2008 rating of its policies by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a Washington-based advocacy group. 

But all that happened before Maryland lawmakers approved the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Act this year aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions in the state, and even before the state approved EmPower energy-efficiency legislation in 2008 that was pushed by the O'Malley administration.  It was that bill aimed at achieving a 15 percent reduction in per capita energy consumption by 2015, that helped Maryland earn its relatively high ranking on energy efficiency.

I'm wondering if there weren't other factors at play in the 2004-2007 dip in CO2 emissions than a conscious attempt to improve energy efficiency or deal with climate change.  The decline apparently happened largely as a result of power plants switching from coal and oil to natural gas and other cleaner-burning fuels.  Could that switch have stemmed from government regulation of conventional air pollutants, which also are generated by burning fossil fuels, and big jumps in oil prices in the run-up to the recession?

Even if so, it's still noteworthy that climate-warming pollution dropped in Maryland and some other states while economic growth continued (albeit unsustainably). 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Air Pollution, News
        

Here's a listing where you don't want to be No. 1.  Forbes.com, which is fond of doing lists, has come up with "America's most toxic cities."  The business news site has ranked the nation's 40 largest metro areas by the dirtiness of their air and water, the number of places spewing toxic pollution and the number of Superfund hazardous waste dumps.

Atlanta earns the dubious distinction as forbes.com's most toxic city.  It lacks the smokestack industries one might typically associate with pollution, but the sprawl capital of America has some of the worst air quality, thanks to all the motor vehicles cruising its spaghetti bowl of pavement.

Following Atlanta are Detroit, Houston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Los Angeles.

Where's Baltimore? It ranks 32nd on the forbes.com list.  But that doesn't mean Charm City is all that clean, because oddly the list is in reverse order, with cleanest on top and dirtiest at the bottom.  When the list of 40 is flipped to rank the most toxic first, B'more comes in 9th. Not such a green showing. 

One has to wonder if forbes.com hasn't piled on a bit, though.  It lists 37 Superfund sites in Baltimore, when the Environmental Protection Agency only counts 11 in the city. The total doubles when the suburbs are included, but that's still well short of the figure used in the rankings.

But hey, look on the bright side.  Baltimore is only slightly worse than Portland, Oregon (#31, or 10th most toxic) often regarded as one of the crunchiest green places in the country.

Seem like a fair ranking to you?  Or a bad hit?

(2007 Baltimore Sun photo by Kim Hairston)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

Environmentalists worry that the push to clean Maryland's air could wind up degrading the state's waters.

Under the state's Healthy Air Act passed in 2006, coal-burning power plants are required to reduce their emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and mercury, which impair our breathing, foul the Chesapeake Bay and make some fish unsafe to eat in large quantities. Beginning next year, the plants are supposed to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by almost 70%, sulfure dioxide emissions by 80%, and mercury emissions by 80%.

To meet those requirements, the coal plants are in the process of installing "scrubbers" to clean the pollutants out of their smokestacks before they get into the air. But environmentalists are concerned that the pollutants scrubbed from the stacks may wind up in the water if there aren't adequate safeguards to clean the plants' wastewater.

Even before the scrubbers are hooked up, they note, at least one coal-burner, Mirant Corp.'s Morgantown plant in Charles County, is discharging hundreds of pounds of toxic chemicals daily into the Potomac River. Based on the company's own sampling, the water coming out of the Morgantown plant's outfall pipe into the river is carrying more than 200 pounds of arsenic and nearly 600 pounds of selenium a day.

"It's just shifting pollution from one medium to another in an area already suffering from pollution,'' says Jennifer Peterson, an attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project in Washington. The University of Maryland's environmental law clinic pressed the group's concerns with the state Department of the Environment.

Continue reading "Cleaning the air at water's expense?" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Air Pollution, Chesapeake Bay, News
        

You may be wondering: What's this guy doing, cooking out on a grassy parking space downtown?  No, he's not tail-gating before a Ravens game.  It's a somewhat unusual come-on for a novel approach to car-sharing that's getting a tryout in Baltimore.

Relay Rides is the brainchild of Shelby Clark, pictured above.  With a small but dedicated team, the long-haired Harvard graduate business student is signing up people in Charm City who want ready access to wheels from time to time.  Nothing unusual about that, you say?  Like Zipcar, right?  Well, he's also rounding up car owners willing to rent out their vehicles when they're not using them.  He wants to help the two groups find each other.

Clark, a Denver native, says he got the idea for "peer-to-peer" car-sharing after finding once that he had to slog two miles through wintry streets in Beantown to pick up the nearest Zipcar available on short notice. "I was biking through the snow and hating life,'' he recalls, "And, passing cars sitting on the side of the road, I was thinking how inefficent this is.  'These cars haven't been driven in weeks,' he says he thought to himself. 'Why can't I take one of these?'"

Not that he dislikes Zipcar.  Clark says he's used the car-sharing service a lot since his car died in San Francisco a couple years ago.  But he says he's learned the hard way you can't count on getting a convenient vehicle if you don't plan at least a couple days ahead.

"This idea makes a lot more sense - it's for the people and by the people,'' says the 27-year-old MBA student.  The appeal for car owners?  "Everybody could use a couple thousand dollars right now."  And for someone wanting to start a business on limited capital, he says, it helps not to have to buy the vehicles you plan to rent out. "Since we don't have to pay for these cars, we can grow the system much much quicker," he notes.

Continue reading "Novel car-sharing biz sprouting here" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)
Categories: Air Pollution, Going Green, News, Products, Urban Issues
        

There's a newly green dry cleaner in town: the Glyndon Lord Baltimore Cleaners.  The shop uses GreenEarth Cleaning, a solicone-based solution, which is like sand, instead of perchloroethylene. Perc is used by most dry cleaners and is considered a health and environmental hazard by the Environmental Protection Agency.

A few options for greener cleaning have cropped up in recent years, and experts don't agree that they are all perfect alternatives.

Here's what the Union of Concerned Scientists says about the silicone method: "Silicone cleaning is a proprietary technology that employs a silicone-based solvent to clean clothes. The solvent itself is currently considered safe for the environment because it degrades to sand, water, and carbon dioxide, but it has caused cancer in lab animals in EPA studies. In addition, it is manufactured using chlorine, which can generate harmful dioxin emissions."

The group points to other methods, including wet cleaning, which uses water and special computer-controlled washers and dryers and mild detergent. The EPA considers this among the safest pro cleaning methods. There is also carbon dioxide cleaning that uses liquid CO2 captured as a by-product of industrial processes. It the same stuff used to carbonate soda.

You fashionistas could consider not dry cleaning at all. Some stuff can go in the gentle cycle or be hand washed. You could try that special stuff meant to be used in the dryer in a bag. Or you could try not buying stuff labelled "dry clean only."

For its part, Glyndon Lord Baltimore Cleaners says it continues to research the best methods. In the meantime, operators also recycle hangers and containers, use earth-friendly soaps to clean most wet-cleaned clothes, drive high-mileage diesel vans and supply reusable bags to customers.

Anyone use Glyndon? Other dry cleaners. Or have you found alternative methods that are eco-conscious and actually clean?

Photo courtesy of außerirdische sind gesund via flickr

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 2:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Air Pollution, Fashion, Going Green, Products, Tips
        

The program is a little behind schedule, but Baltimore's new Charm City Circulator buses are definitely coming this fall, members of the Charm City Circulator Team say. The system will be made up of a fleet of 21 hybrid-electric buses that will pick up residents in close-in neighborhoods such as Federal Hill and Fells Point and take them to stops around downtown.

The idea is to get people out of their cars by making it really convenient and cheap -- FREE -- to get around downtown. The buses have been behind schedule because of the recession and problems in the automotive supply chain, the team says.

But in the next few weeks there will be visable progress, including info panels at stops, signs and street markings for the "buses and bikes only" lanes on Pratt and Lombard. (Hmm, how do we feel about buses and bikes sharing lanes? And if we're okay with that, wouldn't we like to see some north-south lanes as well? I believe the city is working on such lanes.)

Anyway, the buses are supposed to run seven days a week, every 10 minutes and along three routes. There's also a plan to allow people trying to get across the harbor to take the Water Taxi Harbor Connector for free. It will leave from Maritime Park at Living Classrooms Foundation in Fells Point and from the Tide Point dock in Locust Point every 10 minutes. Go to www.watertaxi.com for more info.

So, think you'd take the new bus?  

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Air Pollution, Going Green, News, Urban Issues
        

Well, hon, you better plan on sweating a lot more, and staying indoors for your own safety. It seems that global climate change could double the number of oppressively hot days in Charm City and significantly worsen our summertime smog pollution, making something as simple as breathing more perilous for those with asthma, lung or heart conditions.

That was the warning delivered today in Clifton Park by a handfull of scientists and environmental activists who called a press conference there to highlight the health threats facing urban residents as the planet heats up.

"Baltimore is facing a blistering hot future due to global warming," says Doug Inkley, senior scientist for the National Wildlife Federation.  Climate scientists predict that average temperatures nationwide could increase by 4 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit within the lifetime of children born today, Inkley said, but the extremes could be even worse.

Here in Baltimore, it could mean roughly two dozen extremely hot days a year, twice what we swelter through now, according to the federation's analysis.  To read the full report, go here.

About one in four Baltimore residents lacks air conditioning, Inkley says, making them especially vulnerable to the heat.  And with 20 percent of city households living below the poverty line, they can't afford to have or run the AC.

More and longer heat waves could translate into more people being felled with health-threatening heat stress, notes Dr. Cindy L. Parker, codirector of the program on global sustainability and health at Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health.  Without prompt treatment, Parker says, the headaches, nausea and faintness afflicting heat stress victims can worsen into heat stroke, leading to brain damage and even death.

As if the heat is not enough, Inkley pointed out there'll be a "double whammy" as rising temperatures worsen the city's chronic bouts of summertime ozone air pollution. With the outdoor air already unhealthy to breathe at times for sensitive adults and children, higher temperatures are likely to raise the ozone levels siginficiantly, Inkley warns. Ozone inflames the lining of the lungs, causing coughing fits and tightness in the chest and may actually send some people to the hospital with breathing or heart problems.

"A lot more of us are going to become ill if we don't act," says Parker. "We can't simply adapt to ever-rising temperatures."

As if to emphasize her point, the Clifton Park swimming pool, one potential oasis from the heat, sat empty. The group called the press conference to remind the public that once Congress gets through with the health-insurance reform debate, it has pending legislation to deal with climate change. The House has already passed a bill aimed at curbing climate-warming emissions of carbon dioxide, but the Senate has yet to take it up. An aide to Sen. Barbara Mikulski stepped up to point out that she is a cosponsor of the legislation.

(2006 Baltimore Sun photo by Karl Merton Ferron)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 3:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Time.com writes this week about a study that shows lower IQs in babies whose moms were exposed to polluted air.

I often wonder when I'm running along busy Fort Avenue to Fort McHenry if the exhaust is makes the exercise not worth it. I'm sure that not a good thing, but the story says adults have some coping mechanisms. Babies, particularly when they are fetuses, do not.

The story reports on a study in the journal Pediatrics that links mothers' exposure to high levels of environmental pollutants while pregnant to a four-point drop in children's IQ scores by age 5. They said that can be significant.

The researchers also point out that we know how to reduce pollution from cars and factories and are in many cases. Perhaps we should be doing more?

Associated Press file photo in Kansas

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 2:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Air Pollution
        

We may have been lulled by the wet, relatively mild spring we've had so far, but yesterday provided a reminder that summer is fast approaching - and with it worsening air quality, aka "smog."  Time to pay attention, especially if you have compromised breathing already.

Ozone in the air reached "Code Orange" unhealthful levels on Monday in Padonia, north of Baltimore city, for children and adults with respiratory and heart ailments, who are likely to be more sensitive to pollution.

It's not uncommon to have "bad air" days in summer, as strong sunlight is all that's needed to make ozone from the pollutants spewing from car and truck tailpipes, power plant smokestacks and a whole range of other sources.

Ozone is a good thing in earth's upper atmosphere, where it helps shield us from skin cancer by blocking out some of the sun's ultraviolet rays; closer to the ground, though, it can "burn" our lungs and bronchial passages if inhaled in the air we breathe.  High levels of ozone can cause coughing and wheezing, shortness of breath, chest pain, headaches and nausea, and eye and throat irritation. Even for health adults, exercising in ozone-polluted air may make it painful to take deep breaths. 

Last year, there were 25 bad ozone days in the Baltimore area.  Normally, they peak in June and July, though they can happen earlier, in May or even sooner.  The first Code Orange days this year actually hit during a brief warm spell on April 25 and 26.

When ozone levels soar on sweltering days, it's best to keep kids - and yourself - indoors, especially if you have health conditions already.  You can get daily air-quality forecasts and even check ozone levels real-time here.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Air Pollution, News