Category: environment

water carbon footprint global warming human impact

Japanese mountaineer cleans up Everest

Ken Noguchi just returned from his fifth expedition to remove trash from Mt. Everest. The clean-up crew included 2 other Japanese mountaineers and 12 sherpas. I have often wondered, when I’ve seen documentaries about Everest; if people are so zonkered they don’t have the strength to carry their gear and trash out, should they really be up there? Noguchi thinks climbers are starting to take more responsibility for their junk.

“During this year’s cleanup expedition, I found that the amount of waste left on the mountain has been drastically decreased.”

Car idling and greenhouse gas

I was taught as a kid to turn off lights when I leave a room and not stand in front of the refrigerator with the door open. I was also taught to idle my car to warm it up on cold mornings. I stopped that 5 years ago when I got a Volkswagen TDI because I read that it was bad for a diesel engine to run while the car was not moving, particularly if the engine was cold. When I was out with Bonnie on the bike last week we passed a truck idling. A few days later, in the same drive, a car sat idling. It made me wonder if idling the engine was necessary for gas engines and how much greenhouse gas is added to the atmosphere each year just from people “warming up” their cars. In fact, the engine should only be run for 30 seconds before driving. It is also best to turn off the engine anytime your car will be stopped more than 10 seconds.