Posted on 02/09/2006 9:58:57 AM PST by calcowgirl
SACRAMENTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 8, 2006--Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration today unveiled a sweeping new "Green California" Web site, based on his vision of an energy efficient and environmentally friendly California.
The new Web site is filled with ideas, guidelines, reference materials, engineering data and environmentally friendly purchasing information to assist state and local government agencies and California businesses with the shift toward environmental sustainability, energy conservation and the reduction of landfill waste.
"We believe this new Web site will become the primary "go to" site - the new, centralized, electronic reference library - for engineers, architects, building managers, contractors, purchasing agents and other business and government officials and environmentalists in their quest for a Green California,'" said State and Consumer Services Agency Secretary Rosario Marin. "It will be a constantly expanding resource, as more and more links, Web pages and data are added. We believe it will demonstrate with facts and figures that environmentally smart business decisions can also save big bucks, while making life healthier for all of us."
The site, www.green.ca.gov, is focused primarily on two broad areas. It provides, in a single location, vital reference materials for the design, construction, benchmarking and operation of "green buildings." It also provides government and business purchasing officials with detailed information on environmentally friendly products and services, such as office supplies, paper products, office machines, vehicle supplies, building materials, medical supplies, etc.
In a December 2004 executive order, Governor Schwarzenegger launched an aggressive action plan to reduce California's energy purchases for the thousands of state-owned buildings by 20 percent by 2015, while conserving other scarce natural resources. The executive order also urged local governments, K-12 schools, universities, community colleges and business organizations to adopt the same ambitious goals. The new Web site provides vital reference material and "how to do it" guidelines to implement that vision.
The governor proposed to achieve the 20 percent energy reduction by designing, constructing, operating and renovating state-owned buildings to meet the high standards of the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design silver rating ("LEED Silver") and by leasing office space in buildings with a federal "Energy Star" rating - both of which are explained on the Web site. He also directed the State Architect in the California Department of General Services to adopt guidelines to encourage California schools built with state funds to be resource and energy efficient.
In the private sector, the governor pointed out that commercial buildings use 36 percent of California's electricity and account for a large percentage of greenhouse gas emissions, raw material consumption and waste. By adopting the practices outlined in his executive order, Schwarzenegger said, California could save $2 billion of the $12 billion in electricity consumed every year by the state's commercial and institutional buildings.
California law now requires all departments of state government to practice EnvironmentalIy Preferable Purchasing (EPP), buying goods and services that have a reduced impact on human health and the environment. The "Green California" Web site includes a complete online version of the EPP Best Practices Manual. Among other things, it shows officials how to write environmental specifications into their bid solicitations.
I guess this means California is neither a Blue or a Red state.
It's a Green state. :)
Holy Shades of "Soylent Green". Californians better watch their dead to make sure they don't surface in their morning cereal.
Reason Foundation
Policy Report No. 165
September 1991
Executive Summary
Americans are being besieged with advice on how to be "good environmentalists." Advice on what products to buy and what actions to take is routinely given to consumers, legislators and even school children. The problem is the advice is often wrong and, if followed, could cause environmental harm. What follows are some common myths.
MYTH NO. 1: We are running out of landfill space. All of the garbage America produces in the next 1,000 years would fit in a landfill that occupies less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the continental United States.
MYTH NO. 2: Americans are especially wasteful. When a common definition of garbage is used, American households produce only 7 percent more solid waste than the Japanese. Moreover, careful studies show that the amount of waste we generate per person may have been virtually constant over the past two decades and the amount of waste per dollar of GNP has been falling.
MYTH NO. 3: Packaging is bad. Because of state-of-the-art packaging, the United States wastes less food than any part of the world except Africa, where the threat of starvation means that even rotten food is consumed. Because of packaging, we can meet our consumption needs while producing less food - which means fewer pesticides, less pollution and less energy use. The same principle also applies to non-food packaging.
MYTH NO. 4: Plastics are bad. Without the use of plastics, our total use of packaging materials (measured by weight) would increase four-fold, our energy consumption would double and the garbage we dispose of would more than double.
MYTH NO. 5: Disposables are bad. Careful studies show that disposables are not necessarily worse than reusable or recyclable products. For example, aseptic juice boxes (which are usually disposed of, rather than recycled) have a clear edge over their alternatives by most measures. Consumers who care mainly about landfills may choose cloth diapers. But consumers who care more about air and water pollution and conserving water and energy might choose disposables, which may also be preferable on the grounds of health and convenience.
MYTH NO. 6: Recycling is always good. Recycling itself can cause environmental harm, e.g., more fuel consumption and more air pollution. As a result, the environmental costs of recycling may exceed any possible environmental benefits.
MYTH NO. 7: Nonbiodegradable products are bad. For two-thirds of the nation's landfills, (those without liners), it's the products which degrade that pose a potential environmental threat. Degradation can lead to leaching, as chemicals reach the water supply and cause a health threat to fish, wildlife and humans. The other one-third of landfills are completely sealed and allow very little degradation. For those landfills, consumer choices regarding degradability do not matter.
MYTH NO. 8: Recycling paper saves trees. Since most of the trees used to make paper are grown explicitly for that purpose, if we use less paper, fewer trees will be planted and grown by commercial harvesters. Recycling paper doesn't save trees, it reduces incentives to plant them.
MYTH NO. 9: We cannot safely dispose of solid waste. This was a valid concern in the past. In fact, 22 percent of Superfund sites (hazardous waste disposal areas) are former municipal landfills. But things are different today. Government regulations and new technology permit the safe disposal of solid waste - in landfills or by waste-to-energy incineration - without threat to human health or the environment. Even without new improvements, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the aggregate risk from all operating municipal solid waste landfills in the United States is one cancer death every 23 years.
MYTH NO. 10: We are running out of resources. Although all resources are finite, technology and markets make it possible to use resources without exhausting them. That's why the international price of virtually every raw material went down (reflecting abundance), not up (reflecting scarcity) over the past decade.
Actually, we are a desert - we are brown... trimmed in deep ocean blue. Its nice to know while standing on the beach, 95% of America is standing behind us.
Good post. But they might want to change #10. "MYTH NO. 10: We are running out of resources. Although all resources are finite, technology and markets make it possible to use resources without exhausting them. That's why the international price of virtually every raw material went down (reflecting abundance), not up (reflecting scarcity) over the past decade."
That's not true of a great many commodities. Most commodities have risen strongly in the past few years. Not, probably, because of shortages but because of depreciation of currencies and the entry of China and India into world markets. Still, the statement is'nt quite true any longer.
Wonder how much this cost?
More regulation, more subsidies. What progress, huh?
-Its nice to know while standing on the beach, 95% of America is standing behind us.-
Yes, and sometimes 50% of us want to push y'all in! :)
"We want to make sure that the children are not left with without any books. We want to make sure that our children have the books, that they have their place in the classroom. We want to make sure hay they have after school programs. We want to make sure the mothers have affordable daycare. We want to make sure the older folks have their care that they need. That everything has to be provided for the people."
More like standing at the edge of the cliff.
Dan is correct. The statement has been true, is true and will always be true by definition. Resources will always be available. Their nature and cost will change with supply and demand but they will always be available, relative to our species, in unlimited supply.
Energy is an excellent example. Our species has always relied on our sun for energy. An energy source that was available well before the rise of our species. A source that will be available long after we're gone.
Early man utilized photosynthesis directly for energy. As the demand rose for more energy our species resorted to the use of animals, still powered by photosynthesis. More demand dictated new alternatives and stored photosynthesis was developed as an economic alternative. Still more demand and the power of earth's water cycles and wind cycles was employed, all powered by the sun. As demand continued to grow, man developed economical energy from a rudimentary, physical process within our sun. The continuing demand will force our species to develop more economical alternatives utilizing more sophisticated processes that power our sun.
It has nothing to do with wasteful usage or failure to recycle or anything like that. It's a function of Federal Reserve policies and current account deficits. But the wording is, nevertheless, not quite accurate as it stand. Why give the enemy ammunition by making an apparently false statement?
This chart of uranium typifies the situtation with hard commodities and energy sources:
Myth 10, does indeed need to be modified.
BTW, according to the chart, the statement wasn't false, just dated.
I thought he ran as a Republican not on the green party ticket.
The ten-point statement correctly refutes the preposterous predictions of the Club of Rome, Erlich of "Population Bomb" fame, and others. It was literally true until a year or two ago, as the chart suggests, but conditions have changed recently.
Moreover, metals prices have not been rising because we are running out of anything, but for other reasons. Erlich and the Club of Rome were still wrong, and the self-proclaimed environmentalists are mostly wrong.
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