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Show SPRINGVILLE HERALD Thursday, January 3, 2008 Earth Talk: Carbon Dioxide and carbonated beverages 8 Dear EarthTalk: How much of an effect, if any, does the carbon dioxide in carbonated beverages have on global warming? -- Michael Holmes, Shenandoah, VA A typical 12-ounce can ' of soda contains up to six grams (.013 pounds) of carbon dioxide (C02) gas, ; which either escapes into ; the atmosphere from the liquid upon opening, or from your body after you consume the contents. So ;yes, drinking carbonated .beverages does contribute to youV "carbon footprint," but only ever so slightly. To provide some context, every time you burn a gallon gal-lon of gas driving from point A to B in your car, about 20 pounds of carbon dioxide wafts skyward (if you find this hard to believe, visit the U.S. Department of Energy's fuel economy website at: HYPERLINK "http:www.fueleconomy. govfegco2.shtml" www. fueleconomy.govfegco2. shtml). So, extrapolating out, a typical car commute to work produces upwards of 700 times the greenhouse gases as drinking that can of Coke. But Cans and bottles of carbonated (or non-carbonated) drinks are still no friends of the environment. environ-ment. The production and distribution of single-serving beverages of all kinds generates untold millions of tons of greenhouse gases and other pollutants every year, while also wasting billions of gallons of fresh water. And once the drinks have been consumed, all those cans and plastic bottles bot-tles have to go somewhere. Some communities are diligent enough to capture more than half of all such containers for recycling an activity which itself generates gen-erates significant amounts of greenhouse gases but that still means that more than 40 billion cans are ending end-ing up in landfills each year, or even worse, as litter, according ac-cording to data compiled by the non-profit Container Recycling Institute (CRI). Each un-recycled can or bottle then must be replaced re-placed by an equivalent one made from virgin materials. materi-als. CRI reports that just the manufacture of these replacement aluminum cans each year generates about 3.5 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions, while1 also causing other environmental damage from the extraction of the bauxite from which aluminum alumi-num is made. Even a larger amount of resources are used (petroleum-based in this case) and greenhouse gases emitted from the significant sig-nificant number of plastic single-serving drink bottles that are thrown away and not recycled each year. Consumers pan take a bite out of all this resource waste and pollution by remembering re-membering that, first and foremost, water is the least costly and healthiest beverage bev-erage of all (on virtually all personal and ecological counts). And water drawn from the kitchen faucet requires re-quires no disposable pack aging or shipping to get there, thanks to the highly efficient water-delivery systems that have been in place in developed countries coun-tries in the vast majority of communities for a very longtime. For those who cannot get by without their soft drinks carbonated or otherwise the best way to lower that carbon footprint foot-print is to buy them in large containers and parse out servings in cups or glasses. A typical two-liter (67.6 ounce) plastic soda bottle holds five and a half times the liquid of a 12-ounce container con-tainer and over four times that of a 16-ounce container, contain-er, so it is easy to imagine the resource savings over time. CONTACTS: Container Recycling Institute, HYPERLINK HY-PERLINK "http:www.con-tainer-recycling.org" www. container-recycling.org, fueleconomy.gov, www. fueleconomy.govfeg co2. shtml. New Year brings new child protection laws (""A V. i f K M :.' r " lmx) ' r' hl'sk ,. ' sy?& : -i? J9m . I u- H Lho-v a0A,MLcAs to he.-ikhiiare has meant coverage in The Wall Street Journal . -Tlx New York Times and others. But its meant far more to our patients. X - What it comes down to is healing. Hie awards and recognition are significant because of what they mean for our patients: higher quality medical care, allowing for a better chance at healing. "Intermountain Healthcare's program has resulted in plunging C-section rates, fewer newborns in intensive care and fewer medical interventions in delivery." Los Angeles Times V... . -.t: Better costquality, according to The Wall Street Journal. ( )ne story in Tlx Wall&reet Journal named Intemiounuin Hcaltiicirc, along with the Mayo Clinic, as the nations best at keeping costs low and quality high. Two other stories focused on how our birth practices lead to healthier babies, and how our ICUs better involve family members with patients. A top system according to Modem Healthcare. Intermountain Healthcare has been ranked one of the nations top integrated health systems by Modern Healthcare. '3his means our hospitals and doctors wotk with our health plan to deliver better care for our patients. For nine years, we've been ranked first or second in the annual study. LD5 Hospital and Primary Children's among best, says U.S. News & World Report. Inrermountain Healthcare's I..DS Hospital has again been named one of America's best hospitals by U.S. News & World Report, ranked in more specialties than any other in Utah. Ituermountain Primary Children's was ranked as a top children's hospital, with the lowest mortality rate in the U.S. for highly complex procedures. Less need for newborns in intensive care according to the Los Angeles Times. The Los Angeles Times published a story focused on Intermounrain's 39-week induction protocol. It has resulted in a reduction in the need for C-sections, fewer newborns in intensive care and fewer medical interventions and problems occuring in delivery. The New York Times says Intermountain is example in cutting medical costs. Intermountain Healthcare was highlighted by 'flieNew York Times for cutting -healthcare costs and doing things "right: the first time" in reducing infections and drug errors, and in helping newborns better avoid needing intensive care. Using computer technology to aid in patient care. For the eighth time in nine years, Intermountain has been named by Hospitals and Health Networks as one of the top tech-sawy hospital systems in the US. We arc the only Utah provider to make the list. ; "If everyone got care at Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City, our health-care costs would be lowered by one-third." -The Wall Street Journal It all leads back fo the patient Hie awards and honors are good to receive, but: only because they are an indication of the skill and compassion of Intermountain's ; ' caregivers. They also point to the act that our approach to healthcare serves the people of Utah well. ; Intermountain Healthcare The Associated Press Laws that protect children from abduction and help their divorced parents meet child support conditions passed by the 2007 Legislature Legisla-ture became effective Tuesday. Tues-day. House Bill 18 allows courts to approve a method of child support other than income withholding, which legislation legis-lation proponents say has boxed-in some parents. Under Un-der the new law, noncustodial noncusto-dial parents can pay support through bonding or savings plans. The law also gives the Office Of-fice of Recovery Services, which handles delinquencies, delinquen-cies, to collect electronic payments. Senate Bill 35, also known as the Uniform Child Abduction Ab-duction Prevention Act, changes child custody laws and sets new guidelines for the courts in deciding when a child could be a risk of abduction. ab-duction. Included in the legislation are provisions for international interna-tional abductions. The law allows a court to issue a warrant war-rant for immediate physical custody of a child believed to be at risk of abduction. Of the more than 260,000 children annually abducted, 78 percent are taken by divorced di-vorced parents or their family fam-ily members, according to statistics from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Ex-ploited Children. The Pet Dish Pet food safety Dr. Harold Davisa D.V.M. ' MT. WEST ANIMAL HOSPITAL . Pet food safety standards have now become Federal Fed-eral law. New rules have been put into place to strengthen what the government already does to oversee pet food safety. In September, the U.S.D.A signed into law Amendments Amend-ments Act of 2007 which requires Health and Human Services, along with veterinary and animal health organizations, to establish a new ingredient, labeling and processing standards for the pet food industry within two years. Another regulation included in the act was an early ear-ly warning system that would identify impurecontaminated impurecon-taminated food and associated outbreaks of illness. This must be ready to go by September 2008. Information about recalled pet food is now listed on the FDA's website and will be in an easy format for the public to be able to search and also thanks to the new act, manufacturers must report the contaminated contami-nated food to the FDA within 24 hours. Criminal and civil penalties mav aDDlv if thev do not renort. 'Mm, t I Let the Sunshine in! 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