14 DAY TRIAL // Here are just a few of the most important achievements that environmental organizations managed to obtain or lead to during 2008. The list of successes is much longer, but the current row of accomplishments only highlights the most important or groundbreaking of them, as seen by Planetsave.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tightened carbon emission regulations in the United States – coal power plants were directly targeted by the new measure, which was partially made possible through the efforts of the Sierra Club. Before these regulations, there were no guidelines to say how much CO2 plants could emit every year.
Incandescent light bulb bans throughout the world mean less electricity required from electric power grids in the European Union, which, in turn, decreases the strain that the power plants place on the environment. The measure will trigger a great deal of savings, both in terms of money and as regards emitted carbon, as fluorescent light bulbs – which last longer – take over the market.
California's Proposition No.2 is the most successful initiative-driven ballot proposition in the US, totaling 63.5 percent of all votes on the institution of better living standards for animals. Food companies pollute more than the transport industry, so they are targeted by environmentalists more. Animal rights groups managed to push their propositions through the ballot and are now aiming at pushing drastic regulations throughout the country.
Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace each managed to defeat the system on their own, when six GP activists, criminally-charged in the UK, were acquitted on all accounts, after wreaking havoc on a 650-foot tall smokestack at the Kingsnorth power plant. Sea Shepherd activists traced Japanese whalers throughout the Southern Ocean and stopped them 300 whales short of their annual quota.
In the US, the election of Barack Obama as the new president brings new hopes for the environment, especially given the fact that many organizations supported the candidate since the start of his run. After eight years of simply poorly-thought environmental administration, under George Bush, hopes are now high for the new president, seeing how he already pledged to reduce pollution 80 percent under 1990 levels by 2050.