climate change

Whole Foods dumping super greenhouse gases into the atmosphere

/ Ren

Angry, Hot Planet

Whole Foods lags behind several U.S. supermarkets on HFC and refrigeration policies, even finishing behind grocery giant Walmart.  Whole Foods also lags behind supermarkets in Europe, Canada, South Africa, Brazil and Japan, thousands of which are transitioning to natural refrigeration technologies, such as carbon dioxide, hydrocarbons, and ammonia cascade systems. With more than 4,000 supermarkets using these climate-friendly systems across Europe, and more than 50 stores in just one province of Canada alone, it is shocking that Whole Foods has only one HFC-free store in the works and has stated that it does not plan any others.

An international phase-out of HFCs would mitigate 88-143 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalents (CO2e) by 2050.

While Whole Foods has recently taken a small step towards controlling leakage, piloting EOS Climate’s Refrigerant Asset System, more needs to be done to institute climate-friendly refrigeration technologies and roll out these leakage control systems and maintenance in all stores. Additionally, while the EOS system monitors and evaluates a store’s use of refrigerants, it does not eliminate the use of HFCs.

Technology exists to transition to climate-friendly options now and reduce these emissions close to zero. This Thanksgiving, we hope Whole Foods steps up and gives us something to be thankful for — a supermarket that is truly tackling their greenhouse gas emissions by pledging to make all new stores and retrofits HFC-free.

Tapped, the Movie

/ Ren

“With style, verve and righteous anger, the film exposes the bottled water industry’s role in suckering the public, harming our health, accelerating climate change, contributing to overall pollution, and increasing America’s dependence on fossil fuels. All while gouging consumers with exorbitant and indefensible prices.”  –Organic Consumers Association

By 2030 the United Nations estimates two-thirds of the world will lack access to clean drinking water.  Tapped will illustrate the impact of the global water crisis on America and what we can do as individuals to enact change sooner rather than later.

Tapped examines the role of the bottled water industry and its effects on our health, climate change, pollution, and our reliance on oil..

The documentary also includes scenes shot in Corpus Christi, Texas, where filmmakers speak with people who live near an oil  refinery that makes paraxylene, the primary ingredient in the PET plastic used to make bottles.

“It takes 17 million barrels of oil to produce the plastic bottles used annually in the United States,” Soechtig (the films’ director)  said. “That’s not including refrigeration, or transport.”

Two million plastic beverage bottles are used in the US every five minutes (photo Chris Jordan)

Please visit the movie’s site to learn more about the issues and find out what you can do about them


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