Recession Cuts Pollution But Also Green Investment

Recession Cuts Pollution But Also Green Investment

NEW YORK - The environment won a temporary reprieve in the recession as Americans slammed the brakes on one of their favorite pastimes: consuming stuff.

But while the austerity brought by a battered economy has cut pollution, it has also hit investment in green technology, which could damage the environment in the longer term, experts say.

"Certainly, in the short-term we are using fewer resources ... (but) I'd much rather see a healthy economy," said economist Dean Baker, co-director of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research.

As the downturn has made people more frugal, landfill volumes have dropped and sales of appliances like air conditioners have plummeted.

Data suggests Americans are more open to using public transportation and reusing goods.

"There's an unavoidable benefit, in the sense that they do consume less. There's no getting around that. Fewer houses are being built, less sprawl," said David Cassuto, professor of environmental law at Pace University.

The construction slump is a key reason garbage-dump volumes have declined, according to those in the industry. Sector-wide estimates are not available, but Waste Management, the top U.S. trash and recycling company, said its landfill volumes fell 13.6 percent in the first quarter from a year ago.

Americans are driving less, even though gasoline prices have tumbled from last year's highs above $4 a gallon.

Many people are taking other small steps to cut costs where they can, even if it means appearing a little less crisp.

Dry cleaning has dropped about 20 percent from last year, the National Cleaners Association in New York estimates.

Lynette Waterson, owner of Crystal Cleaning Center in San Mateo, California, said the recession has made a big dent in dry cleaning frequency.

"I think people are probably not cleaning their clothes as often as they might under previous circumstances," she said.

Research shows people have shifted their perception of what they need.

A Pew Research Center poll in April found the number of people who viewed clothes dryers as a necessity tumbled by 17 percentage points in 2009 from 2006. There was a 16 point decrease in those who viewed air conditioners as a necessity.

Alexander Lee, executive director of Project Laundry List, a nonprofit group that promotes line-drying clothes to save energy, said the recession brought an uptick in interest in his organization.

According to the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, air conditioner sales in June plummeted 60 percent from a year earlier. Year-to-date, purchases are down 39 percent. Sales of all major appliances were down 29 percent for June and 19 percent year to date.

DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD

But reduced consumption may be temporary, said experts who bemoaned a decline in major investments in green energy that could benefit the environment in the longer-term.

"It's not a long-lasting or sustainable reduction," said Andy Stevenson, financial analyst for the National Resources Defense Council.

Americans are consuming less, but many have also lost their jobs and have little disposable income.

"If you're driving less because you are not employed, that doesn't really count to me," Stevenson said.

Recycling volumes have declined with the value of commodities and as municipalities try to cut costs, said Bruce Parker, president of the National Solid Wastes Management Association.

Although no major metropolitan areas have decided to abandon the practice, some have considered putting recycling programs on the chopping block, he said.

Some investors have scrapped plans for clean energy ventures as financing for major projects shrinks.

The amount of new U.S. wind-power development is expected to fall for the first time since 2004 as tight credit and lower oil prices prompt a focus on smaller projects.

"A lot of deployment of solar and wind were on a very aggressive schedule and now they are being pared back a bit because of the recession," Stevenson said.

T. Boone Pickens, the billionaire oil man, has scaled back his plan to build the largest wind farm in the country.

Others say costs of cleaning up or protecting the environment are easier to bear during good economic times.

A fuel tax to cut carbon emissions, for example, might be more palatable to voters when times are flush than when unemployment is in the double digits, Baker said.

"People don't mind paying a 50 cent tax on gasoline when they just got a two percent raise," he said.

Attorney Helps Algae Startups To See The Light Of Day

Putting the words "pond scum" and "lawyer" in the same sentence is no longer a slight; at least not if you're in the energy biz.

Attorney Todd Taylor has become expert in helping algae energy and other renewable energy startups to navigate the murky waters of becoming viable entities. Taylor, who has the unique title of "lead biomass shareholder in Fredrikson & Byron's Renewable Energy Group" in Minneapolis, has been active in the biofuel industry for more than a decade.

Taylor says his firm takes a "venture capital-like approach" to finding energy startups as potential clients. Fredrikson & Byron identifies promising young companies in renewable energy including wind and solar and advises them on negotiating contracts, obtaining financing, and finding industry partnerships.

By helping young companies -- often run by scientists with little business experience -- to become commercial successes, Taylor creates a stable of clients who'll keep coming back as they grow stronger. He counsels clients on how to find and secure financing, providing advice on questions such as "What should the terms be of $20 million investment?"

His long time in the industry and connections help Taylor to compare companies to existing technologies to determine if companies with good ideas can be commercially viable.

Taylor, who has no interest in being inside the courtroom, says he spends one-third of his day on business development for his firm and his clients. "I'm not a litigator. I'm a business attorney." One of the value-added services he provides is to connect startups with VCs and established industry players that are also Fredrikson & Byron clients.

Despite representing many of the Midwest's plethora of corn ethanol companies in the past and present, Taylor says he's "not naive about its drawbacks." He is currently working with lobbyists and the Algal Biomass Organization so that algae energy can have a fair shake in the marketplace.

"If you look at the (federal) renewable fuel standard, there is not fuel feedstock parity," Taylor says, pointing out that biofuel from algae doesn't receive the same treatment as more mature (and politically connected) industries

Taylor's mission also includes a strong component of education. To wit, he is chairing an all day seminar on August 18 on algae energy, entitled the "Fredrikson & Byron Midwest Algae Commercialization Conference."

As industries get increasingly specialized, the lawyers who represent them become equally as expert in their intricacies. Asking questions about other industry clients is wise, because as Taylor says, "You don't want to have a law firm that doesn't know your space."

John Gartner is Editor in Chief of Matter Network and an Industry Analyst for Pike Research

WASHINGTON - The world's commercial fisheries, pressured by overfishing and threatened with possible collapse by mid-century, could be rebuilt with careful management, researchers reported on Thursday.

In fact, a fisheries expert who in 2006 predicted total global collapse of fish and seafood populations by 2048 is more optimistic of recovery, based on a wide-ranging two-year study by scientists in North and South America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

Still, 63 percent of fish stocks worldwide need to be rebuilt, the researchers said.

"I am somewhat more hopeful that we will be in a better state ... than what we originally predicted, simply because I see that we have the management tools that are proven to work," said Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He is a co-author of a paper in the journal Science and also an author of the pessimistic 2006 report.

These tools include: restrictions on gear like nets so that smaller, younger fish can escape; limits on the total allowable catch; closing some areas to fishing; certifying fisheries as sustainable; offering shares of the total allowable catch to each person who fishes in a specified area.

Worm's optimism was provisional, however, because the current research only looked at about one-quarter of the world's marine ecosystems, mostly in the developed world where data is plentiful and management can be monitored and enforced.

Of the 10 major ecosystems they studied, the scientists found five marine areas have cut the average percentage of fish they take, relative to estimates of the total number of fish. Two other ecosystems were never overexploited, leaving three areas overexploited.

HELPING FISHERIES SURVIVE

One key to helping fisheries survive is to revamp a long-used standard called maximum sustainable yield, which means figuring out the highest number of fish that can be caught in an area without hurting the species' ability to reproduce.

The researchers recommended setting fishing limits below the estimated maximum sustainable yield. Maximum sustainable yield should be an absolute upper limit, they said, rather than a target that is frequently exceeded.

Ray Hilborn, a co-author from the University of Washington in Seattle, noted in a telephone briefing that fisheries are also likely to feel pressure from climate change and ocean acidification, which is exacerbated by emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

Hilborn said places with a strong regulations to protect fisheries will probably be in good shape by 2048, but areas that lack this kind of institutional framework could be "quite overfished" by that time.

Tim McClanahan of the Wildlife Conservation Society told reporters that efforts in the developed world to curtail overfishing could mean more overfishing in the developing world, especially in Africa.

The fisheries in the study are: Iceland Shelf, Northeast U.S. Shelf, North Sea, Newfoundland-Labrador Shelf, Celtic-Biscay Shelf, Baltic Sea, Southern Australia Shelf, Eastern Bering Sea, California Current, New Zealand Shelf.