Car Sharing

On Monday, October 27th, Michael Hawthorne, the Chicago Tribune's exclusive local environmental reporter was the selected writer for "The Talk," the second page editorial that fills in for John Kass on off days.

Hawthorne provides us with a glimpse into his life, sharing a car.

Using a first-person point of view, but also incorporating facts and anecdotes, Hawthorne is able to describe to the reader what exactly it means to "share" a car. He talks about two Chicago-based car services, I-GO and Zipcar, and discusses how the work, and the benefits and disadvantages of these non-profit services.

At $8 an hour, Hawthorne and users like him can take a car out of a selected garage. That fee covers the cost of insurance and gas. The car is described as a practical option for those who do minimal local driving and can also access public transportation when needed. Hawthorne himself acknowledges the importance of living close to a train station. Of course the ecological benefits are mentioned in the piece.

However, Hawthorne also explains how it can be impractical; how the cars must be reserved in advance on weekends, and how it can be senseless to pay for a car sitting in a shopping mall parking lot. He also ties in some of his own personal experiences, explaining how his oldest son feels when they check out the car ("...my oldest son is convinced the neighborhood high schoolers mock us as we walk to and from the parking garage where I-GO cars are located.").

To close, Hawthorne muses that he often wishes he still had his own vehicle, and I think this is important to readers. Going green is something that is very difficult, and to see that the Tribune's beat reporter has difficulty with it makes us realize that this is something that really has to be worked towards.

Find the article here.

RSEI Ratings- Around the University

When logging on ChicagoTribune.com and going to their "Living Green" section, the featured link was to a United States EPA database. The database shows the RSEI ratings of different companies around the state of Illinois.

An RSEI rating is "based on these factors: the amount of chemicals 16,40

5 companies across the country released into the air, as reported in the 2005 Toxic Release Inventory; the toxicity of the chemicals; and the population of the surrounding area."

I thought it would be interesting to look at Champaign County. The biggest air polluter is "Guardian West," an Urbana company that primarily manufactures truck bumpers. The EPA has it ranked 480th nationally, but more disconcerting to UIUC students is that it is ranked 399th (out of 16,405 companies) when it comes to women age 18-44, and it comes in at 346th for men age 18-44.

Near my hometown in Chicago, I was especially scared to learn that I lived a long walking distance from the 18th worst polluter in the U.S., Corn Products International. 

Though this isn't an attributed story, it is an effective tool to help the Tribune promote its stories. It has, in the past, run several articles pertaining to air pollution around Chicago, which has been rated the 13th worst city for air quality.

While really just an entry point, this gets readers locally involved and allows them to make their own judgments regarding companies around their town.

Find the article here.

Frog population takes hit--by cars

This is an interesting story that ran on Oct. 19 and is by Thomas M. Maugh II.

The article talks about a Purdue study by biologists who studied an 11 mile stretch of road in Tippecanoe Co., just west of West Lafayette. The report found that of the total number of roadkill found, nearly 95 percent were frogs and other amphibians.  (PICTURED AT RIGHT is an image of the northern leopard frog, an endangered species. 74 of these frogs were found dead as roadkill in the study.)

Obviously, this story catches our attention because we certainly do not think of frogs as a group vulnerable to road killings, particularly the staggering figure that the study proposes.

The article quotes biologist David Glista as saying, "We think of deer as being one of the more common animals killed on the road, but they make up a tiny percentage of the total." Their study, which lasted 17 months, found just four dead deer.

I think that this story accomplishes two things; it provides somewhat of a lighter side of news (that's not to say dead animals is a light subject, but in this case it is perhaps more peculiar than earth-shattering), and it also proposes a bigger theme of species endangerment and the many ways that they can be affected by human activity. On the whole, this news story captures the readers attention by keeping it short, using an informative lead and nut graf, and implementing effective statistics.

Find the article here. This article was also found under the business section of ChicagoTribune.com, which was perplexing to me.

Greener Home in 5 Steps

This article is a useful, explanatory piece that shows readers how to make their home "greener" in five ways, but it actually provides 15.

In the story's five suggestions, it offers great alternatives for homeowners with different goals and budgets in mind. For example, one of the five points addresses lighting. The mainstream solution is to replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent, the greener solution is to install timers around the house and purchase LED lights, and the really green solution is to install solar tubes that collect and distribute natural light.

This is a great example of the writer, Kristin Taveira having her audience in mind. Instead of proposing only the extreme, typically costly ideas, she shows readers of all backgrounds how they can help the environment. This is a critical aspect of covering environmental news, in my opinion. Why should the average reader care? What can you do to make a difference?

Too often the extreme measures supersede the small things that anyone could do to help the environment, but stories like these with a true grassroots appeal help change that.

Also worth noting is the fact that this article originally appeared in Newsday, the Long Island -based publication. Hence LIPA standards really mean nothing to Chicagoans or anyone outside of New York, for that matter. I think when the Tribune borrows stories like these for their paper and to use as filler on their "Living Green" section, they should include a follow-up that could make the piece more local.

Find the story here.

Wind's Power Part Deux: Lake Michigan

Okay, this article was one that was published in Wednesday's final edition of the Tribune, on page 33 of section 1. It's a "charticle" by Michael Hawthorne, a tribune environmental beat reporter. I could not find it online so I will offer a summary and then some of my own opinions.

Summary: Wind farms in Lake Michigan? Doubtful.

Hawthorne begins by mentioning a Michigan State University report that shows how "the Great Lakes could help turn dreams of renewable energy into reality." Then he goes on to explain what obstacles stand in the way of watery wind power in Chicago. He focuses on three.

1. The number of bird deaths would increase because "the southern tip of Lake Michigan in particular is a major route on the migratory bird flyway."
2. It's less expensive to focus on land-based wind farms in the Midwest.
3. Yet again, the criticism that would be incurred if windmills were erected along the Chicago lakefront.

This article is much more pertinent for Illinois residents, and it could not be found on Chicagotribune.com. Though it may be difficult to reproduce some of the graphics online, showing where the most wind can be harvested in the Great Lakes is very important to residents of the midwest. 

For Chicago, the unsightly views of wind turbines could probably be better argued than New Jersey, and a large spike in bird deaths would not be an "okay" byproduct, so yes there are some big obstacles to overcome in southern Lake Michigan. But the graphic shows that this area wouldn't cultivate large amounts of wind energy anyway. 

Wind power from Lake Michigan doesn't look to be powering the Windy City in the near future, but this article does what Professor Follis often preaches--it takes a national issue and makes it local.

Wind's Power Part I: New Jersey's plan

In an October 7th article from AP writer Wayne Parry, the topic of New Jersey's plan to become a world leader in independent, renewable energy is explained.

The "what" of the article is this: "Last week, Garden State Offshore Energy, a joint venture of PSE&G Renewable Generation and Deepwater Wind, was chosen to build a $1 billion, 345 megawatt wind farm in the ocean about 16 miles southeast of Atlantic City. That plant would be able to power about 125,000 homes." 

This is the real news of the story, but there is an underlying issue discussed in the story that I felt more important and fit for another more important story.  At the end of the article, a director of one of the companies involved in building these wind turbines reassures tourists and residents that the windmills will not be an eyesore: "He also said swimmers and sunbathers would hardly be able to see the giant turbines from the beach. 'These things will appear to be half the size of your thumbnail and as thin as a toothpick,' he said."

Why is this even an issue? 

• First, it's New Jersey, and maybe it's just me, but when I think of New Jersey, I don't think of the state's beautiful costal scenes; I think of garbage dumps.
  
• Second, why has aesthetics become more important than our future and that of future generations? This is something fit for a great story.

It's clear that this plan is one that will be a case study for the future of wind power, and hopefully it will be a success story.

Find the article here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-wind-power,0,48653.story

Emissions for sale!

An article from September 29th by AP writer Mary Esch is a news piece covering a CO2 emissions auction between 6 of 10 states that are part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in Northeast U.S. The auctions sell allowances to companies (primarily big power plants), saying that they are alloted a certain amount of CO2 pollution. Essentially they pay to pollute, and this money is used to fund new technology research.

Quite frankly, this article did not do a good job appealing to the common reader who knew little about RGGI. I had to do some background research. Here is what I found:

• It was founded in 2005 but begins in 2009
• States can join and un-join willingly. I don't understand this exactly. Some are legally bound in while others are not.
• The goal is to stabilize CO2 emissions by 2015 and reduce emissions by 10% by 2020.
• It caps how many allowances can be purchased at auction.

The article, as implied in the headline, claims that it is costing these companies $3.07 to emit 1 ton of CO2. This adds up to some $40 million that will be used to fund technology research.

So what do we make of this auction? Well, it does sound bad that we are pretty much telling polluters that its OK if they pay off the government first. However, it does provide funding for new lower-pollution technology, which is critical to maintaining the environment while sustaining our energy-loving culture.

Find the article here.