Dear EarthTalk: What is the environmental impact of so many people now using sites like Facebook and spending so much time online? -- Bob Yearling, Paris, TX

The environmental impact of so much online time really boils down to energy usage, which in turn affects the amount of greenhouse gases we pump into our atmosphere. For one, each of us can help by limiting computer time (whether surfing the ‘net or not) and shutting them down or putting them into sleep mode when we aren’t using them (this can be automated via the computer’s power management control panel).

Also, when shopping for a new computer, consumers and businesses alike can opt for models certified by the federal government as energy efficient with the Energy Star label. If all computers sold in the U.S. met Energy Star requirements, Americans could pocket $1.8 billion annually in saved energy costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an amount equivalent to taking some two million cars off the road.

Individual responsibility aside, the creation and management of more efficient data centers by the major online hubs—especially as we enter the age of “cloud” computing whereby most of the software, content and services we look to our computers for resides online and is served to us as-needed—is what can have the biggest impact. Google, Facebook, and Amazon.com are already deeply committed to the cloud computing model, with Microsoft, Yahoo and others following suit accordingly.

For its part, Google has been a real leader in the building of green data centers, even powering them with renewable energy. The company recently released environmental footprint scores for several of its data centers. While the energy usage required to run its cloud services (Google Search, Google+, Gmail and YouTube) seems huge in the aggregate—it used 260 megawatt hours to power its data centers in 2010—it boils down to only 7.4 kilowatt hours worth of energy annually per user. Google reports that to provide an individual user with its services for a month uses less energy than leaving a light bulb on for three hours. And because the company has been carbon neutral since 2007, “even that small amount of energy is offset completely, so the carbon footprint of your life on Google is zero.”

In an April 2011 report entitled “How Dirty is your Data?” the non-profit Greenpeace examined energy sources for the 10 largest IT companies involved in cloud computing, finding Apple, Facebook and IBM especially guilty of getting significant amounts of power from coal-fired power plants. (Facebook had come under fire earlier this year when reporters uncovered that the company planned to buy electricity for its brand new eco-friendly data center in Prineville, Oregon—one of the greenest such facilities ever designed and constructed—from a utility that derives most of its power from coal.) Yahoo, Amazon.com and Microsoft scored best in use of renewable alternative energy sources for cloud services.

In the long run, analysts think that the widespread shift to cloud computing will be a great boon to the environment. A report released in September 2011 by Pike Research, “Cloud Computing Energy Efficiency,” predicts that because of the shift to cloud computing and increasing efficiencies, data center power consumption will decrease by 31 percent between 2010 and 2020.

Photo: Jurgen Plasser/Flickr

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E - The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe. Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

Dear EarthTalk: I understand that fast-food giant YUM! Brands, owner of KFC, is under fire by Greenpeace and others for rainforest destruction. What’s the story? -- Betsy Barnard, Wellesley, MA

YUM! Brands, which operates 38,000 fast food restaurants in 110 countries (including not only KFC but also Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, WingStreet, A&W and Long John Silver’s), has come under fire of late from Greenpeace and other rainforest advocacy groups for sourcing palm oil, paper and other goods from suppliers notorious for destroying tropical rainforests in Indonesia and elsewhere. While McDonald’s and Burger King have worked in recent years to cut their ties with palm oil and logging companies linked to rainforest destruction, YUM! continues to ignore calls to source their resources more responsibly.

Indonesia’s tropical rainforests are home to orangutans, tigers, elephants, clouded leopards and dozens of other endangered plants and animals. Environmentalists report that 40 percent of Indonesia’s rainforests have been logged over in the last half-century, mostly to clear the way for palm oil plantations. The cleared timber is sold at huge profits for paper and pulp, while the palm oil brings in continuous revenue for multinational corporations despite denuding lands once rich in biodiversity.

Tropical rainforests also sequester significant amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) in their growing woody biomass; chopping them down only accelerates the rate of global warming by allowing more CO2 to escape into the atmosphere where it contributes to the greenhouse effect. Despite a partial moratorium on rainforest destruction announced by the Indonesian government in May 2011, analysts believe that nearly half of the country’s remaining tropical rainforests will be cleared within two decades.

Over-exploitation of natural resources—and deforestation in particular—is a huge obstacle to Indonesia’s growth. According to the Rajawali Institute for Asia at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, by eliminating its natural capital for negligible gains, Indonesia lost $150 billion in future revenues between 1990 and 2007, wiping out one-third of the country’s national savings in the process.

There are “major economic risks for Southeast Asia’s agriculture and timber sectors if they don’t take prompt action to conserve their forests,” reports Glenn Hurowitz, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. “Global consumers are increasingly demanding deforestation-free products,” he says, adding that Nestle, McDonald’s, Unilever and others have pledged to obtain their palm oil from sources certified “sustainable” by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.

YUM! Brands is not the only offender. Greenpeace has also targeted Mattel toys for supporting suppliers that contribute to Indonesian deforestation. And two Michigan girl scouts were shocked to find out the cookies they were selling contained palm oil obtained from deforested land in Indonesia. They spread the word to fellow girl scouts across the country, thousands of whom have stopped selling cookies as a result.

Concerned consumers should write the company a letter asking them to stop using products derived from deforested rainforest lands. Greenpeace makes it easy by hosting an online form letter that sympathizers can sign onto and the group will take care of delivering your message directly to YUM! executives.

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E - The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe. Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

Dear EarthTalk: I saw a TV ad for toilet paper with no cardboard core to save paper. I understand that green groups recently struck a deal with Kimberly-Clark to protect eastern U.S. forests from decimation for, among other things, toilet paper. Can you tell me if any efforts are underway to protect Canada's boreal forest, also long used for making tissue paper? -- K. Douglas, Winthrop, ME

In August 2009, Kimberly-Clark, the paper giant behind the Kleenex, Cottonelle and Scott brands and the largest manufacturer of tissue products in the world, gave in to pressure from Greenpeace and other environmental groups to clean up its act in regard to how it sources its wood fiber and how much recycled content it includes in its products. After various forms of public haranguing from Greenpeace, the company committed to sourcing 40 percent of its North American tissue fiber—some 600,000 tons yearly—from recycled sources or from forests certified as sustainable by the nonprofit Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Also, by the end of 2011 Kimberly-Clark will stop buying non-FSC-certified wood fiber from Canada’s vast but fast-shrinking boreal forest—the largest old growth forest on the continent.

One outgrowth of this landmark agreement is Kimberly-Clark’s launch of Scott Naturals Tube-Free toilet paper which, to reduce waste is wound in such a way that it doesn’t need cardboard tubes. The company estimates that the 17 billion toilet paper tubes produced yearly in the U.S. account for some 160 million pounds of trash—most of us discard instead of recycle them. By eliminating the tubes, the company hopes to both save cardboard and allow customers to use every last piece of toilet paper, since the last one won’t have any glue on it to stick to the roll. The tube-free TP is being sold initially at Walmart and Sam’s Club stores in the Northeastern U.S. and will be launched nationally and beyond if it catches on with consumers.

Kimberly-Clark’s green awakening will no doubt benefit the tree farms and forests of the Southeast—the locus of logging operations in the U.S. these days—and it will also benefit Canada’s boreal forest, from which the company still sources a large amount of its wood fiber. North America’s largest ancient forest by far, the Canadian boreal forest provides habitat for more than a billion birds as well as many a threatened species, including woodland caribou, bald eagles, golden eagles and wolverines. It is also the world’s largest storehouse of terrestrial carbon—all those miles of trees, moss, soil and peat soak up an estimated 186 billions tons of carbon that would otherwise contribute to global warming. Despite its value to the environment, some 60 percent of Canada’s boreal forest has already been allocated to forestry companies for development and less than 10 percent of it is formally protected in any way. Clear-cut logging by Kimberly-Clark and its competitors has claimed half a million acres of boreal forest annually in Canada’s Ontario and Alberta provinces alone in recent years.

“Because of Kimberly-Clark’s place in the paper products market, the company’s new policy will send a strong signal to its competitors, Procter & Gamble, SCA and Georgia Pacific, that creating a policy that protects ancient forests is a key element of sustainable business,” reports Greenpeace. Of course, there are plenty of other brands of tissue paper that already make use of primarily recycled and/or sustainably harvested fiber—check out Greenpeace’s Recycled Tissue and Toilet Paper Guide to find out which ones—but they are not easily found at mainstream grocers and big box stores. The more shoppers go for greener options, the more the paper industry will take notice and modify their offerings accordingly.

Photo by Michael Matisse, courtesy Thinkstock

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Dear EarthTalk: Where can I find information on which electronics and their manufacturers are greener than others, with regard to components, manufacturing processes and end use efficiency? -- John Franken, New York, NY

Nokia got top honors from the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics for the second year in a row. Pictured: The Nokia N97.

Now that many consumers are beginning to care about their own environmental footprints, manufacturers are responding with loads of greener offerings. One good place to find them is the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics, which ranks the 18 top manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones, televisions and game consoles according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change. Greenpeace hopes that by publishing and regularly updating the guide they can both educate consumers about their choices and influence manufacturers to eliminate hazardous substances, take back and recycle their products responsibly, and reduce the climate impacts of their operations and products.

According to Greenpeace, the top five electronics manufacturers from a green perspective are Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Philips, HP and Samsung. These companies get high marks with Greenpeace for eliminating or scaling way back on the use of hazardous chemicals linked to cancer and other health and environmental problems, which in turn makes recycling their products less problematic.

Nokia gets top honors from Greenpeace for the second year in a row: All of the company’s new phone models and accessories for 2010 are free of brominated compounds, chlorinated flame retardants and antimony trioxide, three of the most toxic chemicals used commonly in most mobile phones and other consumer electronics today. Toshiba, Microsoft and Nintendo are the last place finishers on Greenpeace’s list for various reasons, including backtracking on or failing to make commitments to phase out chemicals used in the production of vinyl plastic (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs).

Another good place to find info on green electronics and related products is the new website of TopTen USA, a non-profit that identifies and publicizes the most energy-efficient products on the market. The goal of the group—which is part of a global alliance of like-minded non-profits—is to make it easier for consumers to find the most energy- and money-saving models, which in turn encourages manufacturing innovations that will shift the whole market in a greener direction. Besides listing the greenest individual models of desktop computers, laptops, monitors and televisions TopTen USA also lists the greenest refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers, clothes washers and even vehicles.

The non-profit Green Electronics Council, initially set up to help government, institutional and corporate purchasers evaluate, compare and select electronic products based on various environmental attributes, has now opened up its EPEAT green certification database to consumers. Some 1,300 computers, thin clients, workstations and monitors from dozens of manufacturers now bear the EPEAT certification label ensuring compliance with green manufacturing and recycling standards. All federal purchasers are required to choose between EPEAT-certified models when possible, and the database has steadily gained traction across a wide range of industries. Now consumers can freely browse the listings to see how various items from the likes of Apple, LG, Panasonic, Lenovo and Sony, among others, stack up.

Photo by William Hook, courtesy Flickr

SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk®, c/o E – The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. E is a nonprofit publication. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe; Request a Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

by Peter Asmus

The radically altered political dynamics in Washington, D.C. due to the loss of a Democratic Senate seat in Massachusetts mean that so-called “cap-and-trade” climate legislation probably has little chance of passing this year.  The only hope for passing a bill in 2010 that would cut carbon emissions could involve what most pundits have long thought of as the least politically viable approach: a tax on carbon.

But if that’s going to happen, an alliance of strange bedfellows will have to coalesce in short order, bringing together extremes on the left and right.  Joining in a legislative push would be environmental advocates and some large oil companies – most notably ExxonMobil, long a chief climate change skeptic, but more recently a carbon tax advocate following shifts in upper management.

“Climate change is an issue we take seriously and (we) believe responsible steps should be taken to address the risk,” says Ken Cohen, the oil company’s vice president of public affairs.  “We believe a revenue-neutral carbon tax is a more efficient policy option to reduce emissions…and is more able to be applied on a global basis than a cap-and-trade system.”

ExxonMobil’s opposition to a cap-and-trade policy is based, Cohen says, on a belief that “we should not be creating a complex derivatives market for a new commodity called an ’emission allowance’ as the recent financial crisis demonstrates. There is no need to create an opportunity for traders to extract profits from a trading system.”

Getting 60 Votes

Cohen’s critique of proposed cap-and-trade legislation – long the favorite of Washington insiders – sounds almost identical to that of the system’s environmental critics, like Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the Sierra Club.

Under a cap-and-trade framework, a cap would be set on carbon emissions.  Then, large carbon emitters would be able to trade for “clean air” credits created by companies which either perform activities that allegedly reduce net carbon (like planting trees or controlling emissions) or deploy new energy technologies that displace carbon, like replacing coal with wind.

A carbon tax involves a tax on all fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas.

“In my view, there is zero chance that any [cap-and-trade] climate legislation will pass this year,” predicts David Bookbinder, chief climate counsel for the Sierra Club. “The only thing that really makes sense is a carbon tax – but that’s the big ‘T’ word. A carbon tax has no price volatility, there is no abusive manipulation or a market; it is a very rational policy approach.”

In January, 80 U.S. corporate leaders -- including CEOs from companies such as eBay, Virgin America and Pacific Gas & Electric -- signed a joint letter urging President Obama and Congress to pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation this year. The prime message in the letter is that unless the U.S. sets clear carbon reduction targets, it will fall behind in the current global race to develop new carbon-free renewable technologies.

But most of those companies hold little sway among conservatives in Congress.  ExxonMobil and other energy companies not invested in coal do carry weight.  If they place a high priority on passing climate legislation in the form of a carbon tax, they could bring with them the prized 60^th Senate vote environmentalists need to avoid a filibuster against climate legislation.

Changing of the Guard

Under its prior CEO, Lee Raymond, ExxonMobil earned a reputation as an eco-renegade.  A smart and hard-nosed chemical engineer, Raymond was tone deaf to the social and environmental investors and advocates who framed the sustainability movement a decade ago.  He proudly positioned the company as the world’s most powerful climate change denier.

Now, three years after the transition to current CEO Rex Tillerson, the company is gently edging out of its self-imposed period of sustainability exile.  Tillerson can’t be regarded as an unbridled green advocate, in the model of BP’s former chairman Sir John Browne, but an increasing number of one-time critics think that, when it comes to actual performance on the human rights and the environment, Tillerson and his company could be the real deal.

“ExxonMobil seems to have recently had a dose of reality pills, and is taking climate change seriously,” says Bennett Freeman, Senior Vice President, Sustainability Research and Policy, for Calvert Investments, a leading socially responsible investment company. “For example, they recently invested $600 to $700 million on developing biofuels from algae.”

Freeman suggests that ExxonMobil’s support of a carbon tax is not driven by any desire to woo environmental advocates. “ExxonMobil does not do the warm and fuzzy thing well,” he says.  On the other hand, the company could be a powerful force in the carbon tax debate.  Culturally, says Freeman, “they are very straightforward. If they tell you ‘no,’ they mean ‘no.’  They have a “command and control” culture that helps drive commitments through the company.”

Seasoned eco-warriors like Randy Hayes, founder of the Rainforest Action Network and former head of the International Forum on Globalization, are happy to see oil companies such as ExxonMobil supporting a carbon tax.

“Either cap-and-trade or a carbon tax can be made to work to reduce the damage our society does, but the carbon tax is cleaner and my choice,” says Hayes. He goes on to say that “I can't imagine the version [of the carbon tax] that ExxonMobil, the Wall Street Journal, or the Financial Times want is the same one that nature needs. That said, we need the captains of industry to back a plan commensurate with the scale and timing of the problem.”

The Business Virtues of a Tax

There are compelling business reasons for companies like ExxonMobil to support a tax on carbon.

First, if Congress fails to act on climate, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will be forced to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act, creating a library of complex rules that could be expensive and only marginally effective.

Second, if Congress enacts a cap-and-trade approach, ExxonMobil fears the price volatility that could come with a global carbon trading regime, which could wreak havoc on oil development planning and finance.

Third, a carbon tax will reduce demand for coal, the most polluting fossil fuel, and give a marketplace advantage to natural gas and biofuels, the most carbon-lean.  ExxonMobil has increased its investments in natural gas, and recently made major investments in advanced algae biomass energy conversion.

Fourth, ExxonMobil may want to counter competitors like Shell, who are highly invested in energy commodity trading.

Environmental groups have their own reasons for supporting a carbon tax. “The whole concept behind the House and Senate cap-and-trade bills – creating large, international markets for carbon – is flawed. Worse, it gives away incentives to polluters and the targets for reductions are woefully inadequate,” concludes Ben Schreiber, Climate & Energy Tax Analyst for Friends of the Earth.

Friends of the Earth is one of more than 400 organizations now collaborating under the broad umbrella of “Climate Reality Check,” an initiative contemplating alternative legislative approaches to those already being considered by Congress.  “We don't have the 60 votes in the Senate to get where we need to be: a 40% reduction in carbon from 1990 levels,” says Schreiber.  “Even if the offsets included in either House or Senate cap-and-trade bills were real and verifiable, the reductions in carbon from 1990 levels are still less than 10 percent.”

Members of the “Climate Reality Check” coalition – which includes environmental justice, low-income and faith-based organizations - signed a letter last year opposing the House cap-and-trade legislation sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman and Edward Markey.  The group had been exploring a "Plan B" even before the Copenhagen summit, but has yet to publicly come endorse a carbon tax or any other approach.

Elaine Kamarck, of the Kennedy School at Harvard University, and co-chair of the U.S. Climate Task Force, thinks the political viability of a carbon tax has actually increased over time.

“If a consensus emerges that cap-and-trade is just not going anywhere – and that seems to be just sinking in – then they will go back to the drawing board and examine other options,” she said. “You have to realize that cap-and-trade was initially being pushed before the economy fell apart. Markets were God and Wall Street was still filled with heroes. In that kind of political environment, cap-and-trade had some ‘oomph’ behind it. Now, Goldman Sachs and the rest of Wall Street are in the same category of bad guys as big polluters.”

Is ExxonMobil Serious?

Of course, any alliance with environmentalists depends on whether ExxonMobil is truly committed to a carbon tax.   Some critics claim the company’s public about face on climate change under CEO Tillerson is not heart-felt.

Robert A.G. Monks, a long-time ExxonMobil shareholder and critic, gives Tillerson credit for acknowledging “that there is such a thing as global warming” but harshly criticizes the ”inability of top management of this colossal company to understand, to take into account, to respond responsibly to the expressed concerns of entitled constituents.”

And there are lingering doubts regarding ExxonMobil’s role in the climate change debate. A recent story in the U.K.’s The Independent claims ExxonMobil was the funding source behind the rash of stories feeding skepticism about climate change in the lead up to the Copenhagen summit last December. While there is no doubt that ExxonMobil has delivered large financial contributions to think tanks such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation (in the U.S.) and the International Policy Network (in the U.K.) as late as 2008, there is a lack of current available evidence the firm is the largest funder of such activities in 2009.

Whether ExxonMobil is playing two sides of the climate change issue at once is intriguing, to say the least. It could very well be that the company is a bit schizophrenic, which would not be surprising, given the history and size of the firm.

If a carbon tax is to ride to the rescue for both radical environmentalists, the faith community, human rights activists and, yes, oil companies, then something had better happen soon, since the attention span of Congress is limited, and another election cycle is nearing.

Peter Asmus (www.peterasmus.com) is the author of four books on energy and has been covering energy policy for over 20 years.