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L.A. Times - Environment
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  • Federal judge blocks National Defense Authorization Act provision
    In a stunning turnaround for an act of Congress, a judge ruled Wednesday that a counterterrorism provision of the National Defense Authorization Act, an annual defense appropriations bill, is unconstitutional. Federal district Judge Katherine B. Forrest issued an injunction against use of the provision on behalf of a group of journalists and activists who had filed suit in March, claiming it would chill free speech.




  • Clean Mobility Center, focusing on alternative fuels, opens in O.C.
    Jamie Caissie says he's picky about the gas he puts in his GMC Sierra truck. For years, the 35-year-old flooring contractor only filled up at 76 brand stations, but on a recent Monday, he decided to try something new: the Propel Clean Mobility Center in Fullerton, which sells E85 flex fuel and biodiesel, along with traditional gasoline, and also allows customers to purchase carbon offsets at the pump.




  • An electrifying freight solution on the 710? Siemens working on it
    Los Angeles may be one of the first global cities to adopt a new electric freight trucking system, unveiled by electrical engineering giant Siemens Corp. last week at the 26th Electric Vehicle Symposium, or EVS26.




  • Elusive California wolf OR7 is photographed
    The first color photo of California’s celebrity gray wolf, OR7, was taken this week as he loped across a sagebrush-covered hill in Modoc County.




  • Unabomber billboard continues to hurt Heartland Institute
    With a simple statement on Tuesday, State Farm Insurance became the latest company to withdraw its support from the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based think-tank which claims a “realist” position questioning that humans are responsible for climate change.




  • EV confab this weekend is about more than cars
    The electric car might not be enjoying a good moment as the Electric Vehicle Symposium, EVS26, powers up for its run this weekend at the Los Angeles Convention Center. GM stopped production for five weeks on the Chevy Volt, and sales of new all-electric cars such as the Volt or the Nissan Leaf are dismal. It's further evidence that transitioning American drivers to electric vehicles (EV) is simply a hard sell.




  • Settlement may bring EV infrastructure to California
    In an unforeseen upside to the electric-power market crisis of 2001, a new proposed legal settlement between utility NRG and the California Public Utilities Commission would bring more than $100 million in new electric-vehicle charging infrastructure to the state.




  • 'Whale Wars'' Paul Watson on Faroes killing, online debate
    The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, capitalizing on the tremendous success of their Animal Planet TV show, “ Whale Wars ,” has now taken on a new battle. With the Japanese fleet’s Antarctic hunt finished for the season, the skull-and-crossbones crew have turned their attention on the Faroe Islands with a new show: “ Whale Wars: Viking Shores .”




  • Activists urge Discovery to acknowledge climate change science
    Forecast the Facts, the activist group that first confronted GM about its support of climate change doubters the Heartland Institute, now plans to muster a public campaign targeting the Discovery Channel. The purpose: to get Discovery to acknowledge the scientific consensus on man-made climate change in its programming.




  • Sierra Club targets Puget Sound Energy in Beyond Coal campaign
    The Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, working in concert with a number of environmental and energy activists and researchers in Washington and Montana, announced Thursday a new push to get Puget Sound Energy to stop buying power from coal-fired Colstrip Generating Station in Montana. According to EPA rankings, the facility is the eighth most egregious emitter of greenhouse gases among power plants in the U.S.





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Green Facts

  • Washing your clothes in cold or warm instead of hot water saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and drying your clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds.

  • Recycling 100 million cell phones can save enough energy to power 18,500 homes in the U.S. for a year.

  • Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans every day.

  • One recycled aluminum can will save enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.

  • Nudge your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two degrees in the winter to prevent 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

  • The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million people die prematurely worldwide every year due to air pollution.

  • 77% of people who commute to work by car drive alone.

  • Shaving 10 miles off of your weekly driving pattern can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

  • A laptop consumes five times less electricity than a desktop computer.

  • Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct.

  • Current sea ice levels are at least 47% lower than they were in 1979.

  • Due to tiger poaching, habitat destruction, and other human-tiger conflicts, tigers now number around 3,200—a decrease in population by about 70% from 100 years ago.

  • A tree that provides a home with shade from the sun can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.

  • Americans throw away more than 120 million cell phones each year, which contribute 60,000 tons of waste to landfills annually.

  • States with bottle deposit laws have 35-40% less litter by volume.

  • A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

  • An aluminum can that is thrown away instead of recycled will still be a can 500 years from now!

  • Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch.

  • Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.

  • Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.

  • Recycling for one year at Stanford University saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone.

  • Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months

  • Refrigerators built in 1975 used 4 times more energy than current models.

  • American workers spend an average of 47 hours per year commuting through rush hour traffic. This adds up to 23 billion gallons of gas wasted in traffic each year.

  • Turning off the tap when brushing your teeth can save as much as 10 gallons a day per person.

  • In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you'll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel.

  • Glass can be recycled over and over again without ever wearing down.

  • You will save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive if you always keep your car’s tires fully inflated.

  • You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.

  • For every 38,000 bills consumers pay online instead of by mail, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved.

  • Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than equivalent stands of trees.

  • 82 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from burning fossil fuels.

  • It takes 6,000,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.

  • In California homes, about 10% of energy usage is related to TVs, DVRs, cable and satellite boxes, and DVD players.

  • You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), over the life of the bulb.

  • If every U.S. household turned the thermostat down by 10 degrees for seven hours each night during the cold months, and seven hours each weekday, it would prevent nearly gas emissions.

  • A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution, and mining wastes by about 70%.

  • Less than 1% of electricity in the United States is generated from solar power.

  • Recycling 1 million laptop computers can save the amount of energy used by 3,657 homes in the U.S. over the course of a year.