Earth Equity News

We Can't Afford More Greenwashing. Commentary by Sharon Begley, Newsweek, April 14^, 2008. "We can't afford to keep getting it wrong. We have already overshot the level of CO2 in the atmosphere that 'will preserve a planet [like] that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted,' climatologists James Hansen of NASA and colleagues argue in a new paper. Anything beyond 350 parts per million... threatens widespread glacial melting and a rise in sea levels. We are at 385 and counting. Yet errors have plagued efforts to green the planet... Perhaps the greatest folly, in time lost and dollars wasted, has been the push for ethanol to replace gasoline... [But] the greenwashing doesn't end there. Only half of all hybrid vehicles on the U.S. market are more fuel-efficient than their non-hybrid versions, researchers at the Union of Concerned Scientists find... [UCS's David Friedman says,] 'Don't assume that because something's a hybrid it's better for the environment'... (though the Prius is). The Web site www.fueleconomy.gov sorts out the true greens from the impostors. [But] if the complexity of all this makes you decide to live however you want and make it up to the planet by buying carbon offsets, [remember that] offsets... do not necessarily lead to activities that compensate for the carbon you're feeling guilty about... [And] we shouldn't fool ourselves that individual eco-conscious behavior can prevent dangerous global warming. That will require 'serious interventions from governments to change how we produce and use energy,' says Gabrielle Walker, coauthor of the new book 'The Hot Topic' with Sir David King, Britain's former science adviser."