"Your introductory monologue is very beguiling, Thanks" - A Reader
"I would say that from here on in, every day has to be Earth Day." Energy Secretary, Steven Chu
Chill Out 2009 Winners
Multiply Your Stimulus Dollars: 14x Stimulus
Home Green Home: Our Audit Results
State, City, and Industry: April's 2030 Challenge Trifecta
Poisoned Waters - Frontline
Portal Enables Local PBS Stations to Access Unprecedented Video Library and Share Local Content with National Audiences
Sediment in the Gulf of Mexico
Southern Miss Celebrates Earth Day; SGA President Signs Climate Commitment
In springtime, our thoughts turn to muck
PERU: Water Isn't for Everyone
Climate risk for Yangtze river: Report
LA Passes Ordinance for Green Building Retrofits
Study: Cuts in Greenhouse Gas Could Lessen Warming
The great (green) debate in churches
Survey finds pastors split politically on global warming
Conservatives in the House and Senate
House GOP leader Boehner on ABC: "The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical."
Chill Out 2009 Winners
Eight colleges and universities from across the United States won national recognition in the National Wildlife Federation's annual competition, Chill Out: Campus Solutions to Global Warming. This award program is the nation's only campus competition to promote sustainability and honor U.S. schools that are advancing creative solutions to global warming on their campuses.
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Multiply Your Stimulus Dollars: 14x Stimulus
A Plan for State and Local Governments
What if there was a way for states, cities, and counties to leverage each $1 of federal stimulus money spent to generate $14 of private spending, create 14 times the number of jobs, reimburse the federal government $3, and get $1 back to boot? Well, there is a way, the '14x Stimulus' plan.
The plan, being proposed by Architecture 2030 and its partners ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, RESNET, and Veterans Green Jobs is a state/local version of Architecture 2030's Two-Year, Nine-Million-Jobs Investment Plan.
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Home Green Home: Our Audit Results
As many Green Inc. readers will remember, my wife, Kathy, and I recently had an energy audit performed on our home.
The results are in and well, it seems a bit grim.
The thermal imagery taken by our contractors from Green Tree Energy revealed several spots where cold air was sneaking into the house -- and more importantly, where the heat generated by our oil furnace was seeping out.
The insulation in our attic -- old and thin -- was also providing little benefit, and the thermal camera revealed that much of the heat in our living space downstairs was drifting right through the ceiling and into the rafters -- the equivalent of sending dollar bills out into the cold.
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State, City, and Industry: April's 2030 Challenge Trifecta
STATE: Washington Poised to Make History with 2030 Challenge Legislation
Washington State is just one step away from being the first state to legislatively adopt the 2030 Challenge into their building code.
The State Legislature last night approved SB 5854, which would require meeting the energy efficiency reductions of the 2030 Challenge for new construction and major renovations throughout the state. The bill now awaits Governor Chris Gregoire's signature.
CITY: Portland, ME Passes 2030 Challenge Into Law
On April 6, the Portland, ME city council unanimously passed a green building ordinance requiring that municipally owned new construction and major renovations meet the energy reduction targets of the 2030 Challenge.
INDUSTRY: HDR Architecture Signs on to the 2030 Challenge
HDR Architecture, a global architecture and engineering firm with more than 7,700 professionals in more than 165 locations worldwide announced this week that it has officially adopted the 2030 Challenge.
Poisoned Waters - Frontline
Watch the full program
More than three decades after the Clean Water Act, iconic American waterways like the Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound are in perilous condition and facing new sources of contamination.
With polluted runoff still flowing in from industry, agriculture and massive suburban development, scientists note that many new pollutants and toxins from modern everyday life are already being found in the drinking water of millions of people across the country and pose a threat to fish, wildlife and, potentially, human health.
"Poisoned Waters," airing nationwide on PBS, (check local listings) reveals new evidence that today's growing environmental threat comes not from the giant industrial polluters of old, but from chemicals in consumers' face creams, deodorants, prescription medicines and household cleaners that find their way into sewers, storm drains, and eventually into America's waterways and drinking water.
"The long-term, slow-motion risk is already being spelled out in large population studies," Dr. Robert Lawrence of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health tells correspondent and Pulitzer-prize winner Hedrick Smith. Those studies correlate health risks with exposure to chemicals in the environment known as endocrine disrupters because they disrupt the body's normal functioning.
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Portal Enables Local PBS Stations to Access Unprecedented Video Library and Share Local Content with National Audiences
PBS (WORLD-WIRE) ARLINGTON, VA, April 22, 2009 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- PBS announced today the beta launch of the PBS Video Portal (www.pbs.org/video), featuring full-length videos from PBS. The offerings span all PBS genres and the system's most renowned award-winning programs, as well as content from local PBS stations, and will ultimately include feature-length films and documentaries, and live events and performances, with more content arriving literally every week.
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Sediment in the Gulf of Mexico
Sediment-laden water pours into the northern Gulf of Mexico from the Atchafalaya River in this photo-like image, taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite on April 7, 2009. The springtime river plume is distinct in the sediment-laden coastal water, turning the water the color of land. The tan gradually fades to clouds of green and blue as the sediment disperses. The Atchafalaya is a distributary of the Mississippi River, a channel of the river that drains into the Gulf of Mexico west of the main channel.
The plume is most distinct in the spring, when rains and melting snow wash over the central United States and flow through the rivers of the Mississippi River basin. On its way into the Mississippi, the water lifts millions of tons of soil from the farms that feed us. Historically, when springtime flooding swelled rivers, the sediment they carried resettled over the flat land near the river. Such seasonal floods left behind richly fertile farmland.
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Southern Miss Celebrates Earth Day; SGA President Signs Climate Commitment
HATTIESBURG, Miss. - University of Southern Mississippi students, faculty and staff witnessed history Wednesday on the university's Hattiesburg campus with the signing of the American College and University Student Government Presidents Climate Commitment.
Southern Miss Student Government Association President J.R. Robinson inked the document, one of several activities held on campus in conjunction with Earth Day.
The commitment is considered the first of its kind in the nation. It is the counterpart to the College and University Presidents Climate Commitment signed last year by Southern Miss President Martha Saunders, affirming the SGA's support of the university's Green Initiative.
Robinson encouraged all Southern Miss students to do their part to make the university more environmentally friendly through support of its sustainability goals. "In signing this, we're taking Southern Miss one step closer to the top," he said.
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In springtime, our thoughts turn to muck
As winters warm, N.E.'s mud season gets longer and stickier. Also more costly, if you make your living from the woods
New England winters have warmed on average more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit over the last 40 years, allowing spring melt to begin earlier and the ground to freeze later in the fall. Add to that an increase in winter thaws, mini-mud seasons that are a preview for the main spring event. It all adds up to more muddy days per year.
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PERU: Water Isn't for Everyone
LIMA, Apr 18 (IPS/IFEJ) - The melting of glaciers resulting from climate change and the lack of adequate water management policies seem to be the main causes behind the water shortages that are fuelling conflicts in Peru.
This warning is being sounded from a variety of sectors.
Nearly 50 percent of the 218 social conflicts recorded by the national ombudsman's office as of February 2009 were triggered by socio-environmental problems, many of them related to water management issues, states the report "Water Faces New Challenges: Actors and Initiatives in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia", published by the international anti-poverty organisation Oxfam on Mar. 20.
Two southern departments, Moquegua and Arequipa, are at loggerheads over water. And rural communities in the Andean highlands region along the Yauca River have experienced violent clashes that have even claimed lives.
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Climate risk for Yangtze river: Report
The Yangtze Conservation and Development Report 2009, compiled by the China Academy of Science (CAS), states the basin of China's longest waterway has been hit by a yearly reduction in rain since 2006, brought on by global warming.
Annual rainfall dropped 10.3 and 6.9 percent respectively in 2006 and 2007, the report said, while severe droughts in 2007 and last year resulted in the shrinking of two of the nation's biggest freshwater lakes, Poyang and Dongting.
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LA Passes Ordinance for Green Building Retrofits
The Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved a first-of-its-kind Green Building Retrofit Ordinance to upgrade city buildings for energy efficiency.
The ordinance calls for retrofitting all city-owned buildings larger than 7,500 square feet or built before 1978 with a target of achieving LEED Silver-level certification.
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Study: Cuts in Greenhouse Gas Could Lessen Warming
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A new scientific study finds that the absolute worst of global warming can still be avoided if the entire world cuts emission of greenhouse gases the way President Barack Obama and Europe want.
A computer simulation by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., looked at what would happen by the end of the century if greenhouse gas levels were cut by 70 percent. The result: The world would still be a warmer world but by about 2 degrees instead of 4 degrees. Arctic sea ice would shrink but not disappear, and sea level would rise less.
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The great (green) debate in churches
Some believers are balancing the green trend with "creation care."
The way the Rev. Rick Crook sees it, the Bible doesn't suggest Christians care for the earth. It orders them to.
In Genesis, God tells Adam and Eve to "tend to the garden [of Eden]'," said Crook, senior pastor at Arlington Assembly of God. "That means take care of the garden."
So why have Crook and other conservative evangelicals historically resisted the environmental movement?
Because that movement has become so commercialized and politicized, Crook said.
But there are growing signs that conservative evangelical churches, like those dominating the First Coast landscape, are beginning to come around on the environment.
Some local and national experts expect the "creation care" movement to pick up steam as awareness evolves, they say.
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Survey finds pastors split politically on global warming
Christian ministers are sharply divided over global warming along conservative and moderate to liberal lines just as they are in politics.
A poll of more than 1,000 ministers conducted last October by Southern Baptist-connected LifeWay Research shows a significant difference, with 75 percent of mainline pastors, such as Presbyterians and Methodists, saying global warming is real and caused by man. Only 32 percent of pastors serving conservative churches believe that.
Another poll by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life shows the division is less distinct in the pew. Forty-eight percent of white, mainline Protestant members believe global warming is real and caused by man, but only 34 percent of white evangelicals and 39 percent of black Protestants do.
About the same percentage of more liberal (19 percent) and conservative (17 percent) white Christians believe global warming is real, but is part of a natural pattern. Ed Stetzer, the director of Lifeway Research, pointed out a parallel with political affiliations.
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Conservatives in the House and Senate
Michelle Bachmann, like other conservatives in the House and Senate, has stated concern for her constituents over increased energy costs but consistently opposed measures that would have helped them, such as a minimum wage increase.
Conservatives have suddenly painted themselves as the dedicated protectors of America's poor in protesting global warming legislation on the House and Senate floors. After careers spent voting against measures to help low-income families, conservative legislators have abruptly rushed to attack programs that would reduce greenhouse gas pollution, falsely claiming that such cuts inherently hurt low-income households. Examining these conservatives' voting records, however, confirms that their newfound concern for America's poor does not extend beyond hollow rhetoric. And the programs they oppose would actually assist low-income families with energy costs and create new domestic jobs.
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House GOP leader Boehner on ABC: "The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical."
House Minority Leader John Boehner is a traditional anti-science conservative. His exchange Sunday with George Stephanopoulos is still notable for his utter lack of understanding of even the basics of the climate issue. Boehner said:
"George, the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you've got more carbon dioxide"
Almost comical? How about completely tragic?
One of the GOP's senior leaders thinks this debate is about whether carbon dioxide is a carcinogen? And thinks carcinogens harm the environment, rather than people? And thinks that cows are of concern because they produce carbon dioxide, rather than methane?
It bears repeating: Anti-science conservatives are now the cement shoes on the American people, pulling us down into the ocean hot, acidic dead zone.
We also see how he contradicts himself repeatedly in an effort to push out all the standard conservative disinformer talking points on global warming. On the one hand, carbon dioxide is something we exhale, not something harmful to the environment, but on the other hand, we can only solve this "problem" as one nation, if we "work with other industrialized nations around the world."
But if it's not a problem caused by humans, then how could humans possibly solve it whether we work with other countries are not? That's the beauty of not caring about science or logic. You can spew out all of your disinformation, and different pieces that can stick to different people.
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