One thing you can say about the politics of climate change — people are getting hotter about it.

As we approach the Copenhagen world conference (Dec. 6 – 18), those close to the negotiating progress are becoming more frustrated with the plodding pace of official change.

This week in Barcelona, where negotiators met for pre-talks, activists and leaders of African nations demonstrated to try to win more concessions from industrial nations.

Student activists staged a sit-in at the doors to the conference to press for greater reductions in greenhouse gas targets, beyond even the 30 percent reduction by 2020 proposed by the European Union. What this portends for the US, which hasn’t yet put numbers on the table, is anyone’s guess.

The African group pleaded for wealthier nations to commit more money to helping poor countries fight global warming. Their disgust was evident; their vulnerabilities well known: Africa stands to suffer drought, increased water shortages and increased disease if global warming is left unchecked.

“There is no progress whatsoever being made in these negotiations, there is no need to continue like this,” said Gambian chief delegate Pa Ousman Jarju, at a news conference after African leaders walked out in protest, shutting down several planned meetings.

While emotions flared in Barcelona, the US also felt the heat. In Boston, students announced they’ll continue sleeping out on Boston Common to press the state government to commit to running Massachusetts on 100 percent clean energy by 2020.

In DC, people were protesting too, but it was like stepping into a time warp, with several lawmakers fuming over whether we need to take any action on climate change — a debate many would say was settled in the early 1990s.

A handful of Republican senators chose to boycott Senate committee hearings on the Kerry-Boxer climate action and jobs security bill. But instead of boycotting for a change to the status quo, the usual course of boycotts, this one was about maintaining the status quo (or maybe that’s a quid-pro-quo, considering all the oil and coal money greasing this debate).

These senators see no need for action, or at least significant action or expenditures, on this problem.

Tragic. No, earth shattering.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

From Green Right Now Reports

Star Market at Chestnut Hill in Newton, Mass., recently became the first grocery store in the nation to receive US Environmental Protection Agency’s GreenChill Partnership platinum store award. The advanced refrigeration technology in the new store, which is part of the Shaw’s line of supermarkets, significantly reduces its impact on climate change and the stratospheric ozone layer by cutting the use of refrigerants by 85 percent compared with the typical supermarket.

Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, called the store’s efforts “wicked cool.”

“This store shows that smart design and advanced technologies help us right now to better protect our climate, the ozone layer, and our health,” McCarthy said in a statement.

The GreenChill Advanced Refrigeration Partnership is an EPA cooperative alliance with the supermarket industry to promote advanced technologies, strategies, and practices that reduce refrigerant charges and emissions of ozone-depleting substances and greenhouse gases.

GreenChill partners emit about 50 percent less emissions than the industry average, and have pledged to continually lower them as part of the program. EPA estimates that if every supermarket in the nation joined GreenChill and reduced emissions to the current GreenChill average, the U.S. would prevent 22 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and 240 tons of ozone-depleting substances annually, and save $108 million in refrigerant costs each year. GreenChill has 46 partners, with more than 6,500 retail food stores in 47 states.

Under the program, GreenChill Partner stores agree to:

• Transition to non-ozone-depleting refrigerants;
• Reduce refrigerant charges;
• Reduce both ozone-depleting and greenhouse gas refrigerant emissions; and
• Promote supermarkets’ adoption of advanced refrigeration technologies

Earlier this year, the EPA honored a handful of supermarkets for reducing their use of greenhouse gas refrigerants that deplete the Earth’s ozone layer and contribute to climate change. Awardees included  Sprouts Farmers Market, Whole Foods, and Hill Phoenix.

Sprouts Farmers Market, which owns stores across California, Arizona, Colorado, and Texas, received a New Partner Award.

New partners pledge to go above and beyond regulatory requirements by measuring and tracking refrigerant emissions that affect climate change and the Earth’s ozone layer, and then setting reduction targets for these emissions. Partners also agree to use only ozone-friendly alternatives in all new and remodeled stores.

“We look forward to a productive and mutually beneficial partnership with Sprouts Farmers Market,” Keilly Witman, GreenChill Program Manager, said in a statement. “The public wants to do business with companies that share their environmental values. By joining GreenChill, Sprouts Farmers Market is proving to consumers that they care about the Earth’s ozone layer and climate system.”

Whole Foods Market’s newest store in the North Atlantic Region, located at Legacy Place in Dedham, Mass., was recognized for its environmentally friendly design, construction, and operations with the Green Building Initiative’s (GBI) Green Globes certification and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) GreenChill certification.

For the Green Globes certification, the Dedham store was evaluated in six categories, including energy, water, resources, emissions, indoor environment and environmental management systems, and received a three out of four “Green Globes” rating. The EPA’s GreenChill certification program promotes advanced technologies, strategies, and practices that reduce refrigerant charges and emissions of ozone-depleting substances and greenhouse gases.

“With the combined power generated from our fuel cell and solar panels, the Dedham store is essentially able to generate almost 100 percent of its power needs on-site with clean energy resources,” Kathy Loftus, global leader of sustainable engineering, maintenance, and energy for Austin-based Whole Foods, said in a statement. “We are the first supermarket to use fuel cell technology in the state.”

By generating most of its power on-site with a fuel cell, Whole Foods’ Dedham store will prevent the release of more than 764 metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere annually, the equivalent of planting more than 175 acres of trees and removing over 90 cars from the road, according to the natural foods grocer. The peak power generated from the photovoltaic (PV) solar energy system is enough to meet the store’s entire lighting power needs.

To achieve a Green Globes rating, Whole Foods used Green Globes’ online and interactive program to monitor the environmentally friendly building upgrades. A GBI-authorized third-party building science expert was engaged to review the building documents, conduct an on-site inspection and assess an official Green Globes rating.

As debates about climate change — does it exist and how serious is it? – rage on, many scientists continue to uncover more and more evidence that atmospheric pollution is having negative effects on Earth, right here and now, climate change or not.

Scientists studying the chemistry of lakes reported in a study published this week that atmospheric nitrogen released from the burning of fossil fuels and the widespread use of fertilizers in agriculture is altering the makeup of even remote bodies of water.

Green Lake 5 in Colorado (Photo: James Elser/ASU)

The study,  published in Science, found elevated nitrogen levels in alpine and subalpine lakes in Colorado, Sweden and Norway.

The added nitrogen changes the food composition of the aquatic environment, first by feeding the phytoplankton, and then other organisms as it moves up the food chain. With the lake’s plant life getting a disproportionate amount of nitrogen relative to other necessary minerals, like phosphorus, the “fundamental ecology,” of the lake is changed, according to the researchers.

This result of this new balance of minerals means that the phytoplankton, in essence, are eating differently (rather like when we hominids don’t get all our vitamins). The excess nitrogen restricts how much phosphorus they can absorb, and they become, in scientific lingo, “phosphorus limited.” And that’s not a good thing.

“We know that phosphorus-limited phytoplankton are poor food – basically ‘junk food’ for animal plankton, which in turn are food for fish,” said James Elser, a limnologist (people who study fresh water environments) in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University, who lead the study of collaborating US and Scandinavian scientists.

“Such a shift could potentially affect biodiversity,” Elser said. “However, we don’t really know, because, unlike in terrestrial systems, the impacts of nitrogen deposition on aquatic systems have not been widely studied.”

In other words, it’s possible that the lake life will adapt. Or not.

Elser’s collaborators include researchers Tom Andersen and Dag Hessen from the University of Oslo; Jill Baron of the United States Geological Survey and Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at Colorado State University; Ann-Kristin Bergström and Mats Jansson with Umeå University, Sweden; and Koren Nydick of the Mountain Studies Institute in Colorado, in addition to members of his own group in ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Marcia Kyle and Laura Steger

Elser and colleagues were supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

California American Water has designated the week of Nov. 9 as “No Drugs Down the Drain” Week in its Los Angeles service area as part of a national campaign to reduce pharmaceutical pollution in water supplies. Items such as aspirin, prescription drugs and other medications should never be thrown down the drain or toilet, where they can seep into the ground and find their way back into the public water supply.

Los Angeles County residents will be encouraged to contact the County of Los Angeles’ Department of Public Works at 888-253-2652 or visit www.888cleanla.com to find out where they can drop off expired or unwanted pharmaceuticals and other household items free of charge.

California American Water also will sponsor the “No Drugs Down the Drain” outreach campaign in San Diego and Ventura.

“Ensuring that our water sources are protected and maintained is as important as ensuring we have enough water to meet our demands,” California American Water’s Los Angeles district manager Garry Hofer said in a statement. “Water utilities like California American Water treat drinking water to ensure that it meets or exceeds USEPA standards, but the best water treatment is to prevent water pollution at the source. Environmental stewardship can begin right at home through how we use and dispose of old medicines as well as other hazardous items such as used motor oil and paint.”

California American Water, a wholly owned subsidiary of American Water, provides water and/or wastewater services to more than 600,000 people. California American Water’s Los Angeles service district includes approximately 28,000 households and businesses, or a population of about 100,000 people, in the cities of Bradbury, Duarte, El Monte, Irwindale, Monrovia, Rosemead, San Gabriel, San Marino and Temple City, as well as unincorporated portions of Los Angeles County and the Baldwin Hills area.

As we were prowling for practical green gifts to feature in our coming 2009 Green Gifts Lists, this simple T-shirt caught our eye. It’s green, unisex and made with organic cotton. And you’ve got that iconic Panda there on the side. What more could a greenie want?

Organic cotton T from World Wildlife Fund

It’s your gift — to re-gift at Christmas or Hanukkah — with a donation of $50 to World Wildlife Fund.

A gift to the WWF is a no-brainer for conservationists concerned about polar bears, tigers, pandas, penguins, moose and countless other creatures threatened by global warming and loss of habitat.

For the person on your list who’s wild about saving a certain favorite animal, check out WWF’s pewter earrings that depict wolves, rhinos, whales, turtles, tigers, frogs, dolphins and more. These are also a gift option when you make a $50 donation.

Handmade pewter earrings from WWF

To read more about WWF’s work, check out their list of 19 priority areas where the organization is working to restore or preserve lands that hold some of the world’s most exotic and threatened animals. (Many of these areas, the Amazon, Yangzee Region, the Congo Basin and the North American Great Plains also serve as areas where carbon is naturally sequestered, helping in the fight against global warming.)

World Wildlife Fund offers other thank you gifts, for young and old, including tote and aluminum water bottles. And, as always, you can “adopt” an animal — in fact, you can choose from 100 animals to adopt. Each adoption entitles the giver to a certificate of adoption and depending on the donation, a stuffed animal and other goodies. Great stocking stuffers.

Snow Leopard (Photo: World Wildlife Fund)

Chimpanzee (Photo: World Wildlife Fund)

Today, environmentalists, climate change activists and Americans who want legislation to control carbon pollution were cheered to see climate action take another step forward.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed the Clean Energy Jobs for American Power Act, meaning the full Senate will now get to debate the bill which aims to put America on a clean energy path. (Other Senate committees will add components before a complete bill is assembled.)

This isn’t quite like being a gladiator pushed into the Coliseum to meet the lions. But the hotly fought bill is expected to get full scrutiny, and climate change deniers were gathering stones within minutes of the bill’s committee unusual passage.

Typically bills in committee are voted upon by all members. In this case, though, Republicans had boycotted the hearings this week, saying they wanted another analysis of the bill’s effects by the Environmental Protection Agency. Democrats felt the bill had been vetted enough, and one EPA official testified that the requested additional analysis would have delayed the process by another five weeks, effectively killing action on the bill for 2009.

Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) appealed to Republicans to participate in the process, reaching out to ranking minority member Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.). Inhofe, who has famously denied that globally warming exists, rebuffed the invites, saying that the bill is too costly.

Other Democrats also called on Republicans to get involved and debate the merits of  the legislation in committee.

“The party of no has now devolved into the party of no show and I hope they will reconsider their strategy,” noted Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) on Wednesday.

Finally, Boxer broke the boycott, calling for a vote on Thursday, and passing what’s known as the Kerry-Boxer climate action bill on a vote of 10-1 with all those in favor being Democrats. The seven Republican committee members declined to register a yea or a nay.

Afterward, Inhofe accused Boxer of violating rules that require two minority party members to be part of the vote; but Boxer told Politico that the rules also allow for passage with a simple majority. (See Inhofe’s complaints on this YouTube video of an interview with Fox News.)

The bill calls for a reduction in greenhouse gases of 83 percent by 2050, a level that scientists around the world agree should help steer the planet clear of disaster.

Now if the climate bill can just steer its way through the U.S. Senate.

• (While environmentalists are happy with this progress, some experts consider it faint effort in the face of a large foe, with the bills in both the US House and Senate containing far too many concessions to entrenched industries and polluters. For this  analysis from the peanut gallery see the Institute for Policy Studies.)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Dr. James Hansen, the NASA scientist known for sounding an early alarm about climate change, will join student protesters at a “sleep out” in Boston this weekend.

The students, from Boston-area and other Massachusetts colleges, have been sleeping out on Boston Common and at various campuses to push the state to pass a law committing to clean energy. Their target goal: Have Massachusetts pledge to be using 100 percent clean energy by 2020.

They’ve asked Gov. Deval Patrick, already known for signing the Global Warming Solutions Act, to again put the state at the forefront of combatting climate change by introducing clean energy  legislation before the legislature adjourns later this month. The students have won a meeting with the governor on Nov. 17.

The sleep outs began two weeks ago, with the overnight campouts followed by lobbying with legislators on Monday mornings. Four Last week, police ticketed the campers for trespassing, student leaders said.

This weekend the group expects at least 100 student activists to meet with Dr. Hansen (whose Phd is in Physics from the University of Iowa) at a 4 p.m. Sunday rally, followed by the camp out. Dr. Hansen is scheduled to hold a press conference at 9:30 a.m. Monday morning (Nov. 9).

In June, Dr. Hansen, along with actress and environmental activists Daryl Hannah, was arrested for civil disobedience for blocking a road at a coal plant protest in West Virginia. The pair, along with several local residents, were protesting mountaintop removal.

Known for his testimony to Congress in 1988, alerting leaders to the dangers of greenhouse gases, Hansen has said that the world needs to move away from burning coal to create electricity.

The student sleep out was inspired by the idea that protesters would not rely on the “dirty energy” heating their homes and dorms until lawmakers pledged to move in a new direction.

How many more causes can we shop or tweet for? At least one more, hopes Haagen-Dazs, makers of those indulgences so inadequately called ice cream.

Haagen-Dazs has been running a campaign to raise awareness about the decline of honey bees due to Colony Collapse Disorder. It’s close to the ice cream maker’s heart, and also should we say vat? , because the bees help pollinate almonds and, obviously, supply honey, both vital ingredients for HD flavors.

Haagen Dazs announced it is extending the campaign through December and has invited the public to participate in a week of  tweeting for the cause via TwitCause, the largest social cause portal on Twitter. During the designated week, Nov. 5-11, Haagen-Dazs will donate $1, up to $500 a day, for everyone who tweets their support. The money will be sent to the University of California-Davis for a new Bee Sanctuary/Education Center and for research on how to help save the bees.

Honey bees in North America have been declining due to CCD for several years. The mysterious phenomenon claims entire colonies after the bees become disoriented and the adults fail to return to the hive.

If you’re the lead foot in your family — or if you’re just annoyed by the lead-footed driver in your family — you’ll enjoy this video about saving gas. It’s cute, and makes a good point.

This little ditty won the video contest sponsored by the Drive Smarter Challenge, a campaign by the Alliance to Save Energy, with support from many other energy-focused groups. It’s timely, as we prepare to hit the roads for the holidays.

Notice in the piece that how you drive can be a big factor when it comes to maximizing your gas mileage.

(For more about the Challenge, see our story.)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

The Alliance to Save Energy is promoting its Drive Smarter Challenge in anticipation of Americans being on the move for the holidays. The challenge offers tips to bolster your mileage and other ways to trim transportation costs, some more effective (rent a hybrid) than others (use the right oil for a 2 percent improvement in mileage).

But even though these travel tips are wildly divergent – take a train, drive during off-peak hours – they should get most families thinking about conserving in these still-tough economic times.

The Drive Smarter Challenge website offers some concrete help (get it?) with advice for creating a customized map for your route that identifies stops with inexpensive gas. The info page sends you to MapQuest’s Gas Prices, which samples prices around the country, finding, for instance, that Northfork W. Va. has gas for $1.99 a gallon (which is an interesting factoid but unhelpful if your relatives live in Missoula.

Drive Smarter also points you toward GasBuddy.com, which lists local gas prices for dozens of cities in the US and Canada and shows regional trends. (And yes, there’s a mobile phone app.)

Type in your city or destination at Gas Buddy.com and you can get a read-out of the “Lowest Regular Gas Prices in the Last 24 Hours.” Checking for Chicago that turned up gas prices ranging from $2.89 a gallon at a Shell and a Gas Depot on the Northwest side to $3.29 at a Citgo at DesPlaines and Taylor streets. The difference is probably not worth driving to a station outside of your neighborhood, for goodness sakes.

So what to do with this information?

It could conceivably help you decide whom in your clan to grace with your presence this holiday. Got relatives in Houston? It’s cheaper to drive there ($2.34 to $2.38 for a gallon of petrol) than to visit those fossil-fuel fancy pants in San Francisco ($2.87 to $3.49). Of course, once you get to the Bay Area you can at least take public transportation, something Houston is still working on.

Okay, so the price of gas probably won’t dictate where you go this holiday.

But it could be one thing on a list of ways you tighten up your energy profile.

Along with all the tips about how to make your car run more efficiently (inflate the tires, don’t idle, don’t drive like a jackrabbit), The Drive Smarter Challenge recommends that you incorporate public transportation, biking, walking or ride sharing in your travel plans.

Now there’s a smart driving plan: Don’t drive.

(The Drive Smarter Challenge campaign is hosted by the Alliance to Save Energy, but it has many other partners, from the American Petroleum Institute to the League of American Bicyclists.)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Gucci Group said it plans to implement an industry-leading paper policy.

From Green Right Now Reports

Luxury brand Gucci Group said today it is joining forces with Rainforest Action Network and will eliminate all paper made from Indonesian rainforests and plantations and by controversial suppliers such as  Asia Pulp and Paper. The company said this is a first step in its plan to implement an industry-leading paper policy.

Rainforest Action Network officials said they are pleased to sign up the famous luxury house in its ongoing effort to protect Indonesian and other endangered forests. Since the beginning of Fall 2009, RAN has been urging the fashion world to more closely examine their paper supply chains and to sever any connection with paper suppliers like Asia Pulp and Paper who are actively destroying Indonesia’s rainforests.

“The Gucci Group’s actions and commitments confirm its place as an industry leader,” Lafcadio Cortesi, RAN’s Forest Campaign Director, said in a statement. “This move sets a bar for others in fashion and retail and demonstrates the foresight our society needs for our children and grandchildren to have standing rainforests and a stable climate.”

The Gucci Group’s move commits some of fashion’s most famous brands, including Yves Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney and Balenciaga to perhaps the luxury industry’s strongest paper policy. With its new policy, the Gucci Group has pledged to reduce the amount of paper it uses, eliminate fiber from high conservation value forests, and only to purchase recycled products or those certified by the Forest Stewardship Council by December 2010. With this policy, they are ensuring that all paper categories used by the group, from copy paper to shopping bags, do not come from endangered forests such as those in Indonesia.

Gucci Group’s new policy puts them at the front of a growing list of major companies, including Tiffany & Co., H&M Group, Staples and Unisource who acting to clean their supply chains of rainforest paper and severing relationships with companies who continue to destroy rainforests in Indonesia or elsewhere.

“Standing rainforests are not a luxury, they’re a necessity if the world wants to stop climate change,” Mimma Viglezio, Executive VP Global Communications at the Group, said in a statement. “Our actions are lowering our own carbon footprint, but we hope that they will also raise awareness inside the fashion industry that it’s possible for our industry to make a difference for rainforests and for the climate.”

Worldwide, the degradation and destruction of tropical rainforests is responsible for 20 percent of all annual greenhouse emissions. The carbon emissions resulting from Indonesia’s rapid deforestation account for around eight percent of global emissions — more than the combined emissions from all the cars, planes, trucks, buses and trains in United States. This huge carbon footprint from forest destruction has made non-industrialized Indonesia the third-largest global greenhouse gas emitter, behind only the U.S. and China.

Fact: America has an abundance of food.
Question: So why does anyone go hungry in this country?

A potato gleaning in Virginia (Photo: Society of St. Andrew)

Armed with this simple thought, the Society of St. Andrew (SOSA) took up the cause of feeding the hungry in 1979 with the idea of gleaning fields for salvageable produce.

“We do this in two says,” says Carol Breitinger, communications director. “We use volunteers in the field for hands-on gleaning, or we send out trucks to pick up surplus crops that farmers can’t use and would just end up in the landfill.”

Once SOSA obtains the produce, they distribute to food pantries around the country. Breitinger says they salvage 20 to 25 million pounds of food a year with the help of 30,000 to 35,000 volunteers. The volunteers come from church groups, schools, scout troops, and even from the people who need the food.

Becky and Dave Aduddell of Wake Forest, N.C., are two of SOSA’s veteran volunteers. “We’ve been doing this for five or six years now,” says Dave, who is a web programmer for a local community college by day and a bass player by night. The couple was hooked after a friend who was gleaning introduced them to the concept. “It sounded like such an eminently logical idea that we joined him very shortly after he started.”

Gleaning a field in North Carolina (Photo: Society of St. Andrew)

“Our interest in gleaning stems from that great desire within each of us to ‘do some good.’ We like it because it is very concrete and tangible. Writing a check to a charity gives one a good feeling and a sense of satisfaction, but going out and working to glean, then delivering the produce directly to the recipients is a very concrete act.”

The Aduddells bring their gleaned crops to a public housing complex in the small town where they live.

The couple acknowledges that the gleaning process wasn’t a big stretch – both of them come from farming families. “While we didn’t grow up on a farm, we spent time doing farm work as kids, so this is a nice déjà vu for us,” says Dave.

In mid-October the Aduddells joined several hundred volunteers for the 19th annual Yam-Jam, sponsored by SOSA. The group salvaged unharvested sweet potatoes from a 50-acre field in rural Johnston County, North Carolina. The area had already been harvested by professionals. In addition to sweet potatoes, Becky says the group has collected corn, green beans, collards, tomatoes, watermelon, squash and blueberries.

“A good 20 percent of produce is lost in the fields,” says SOSA’s Breitinger. She says the USDA calculates that 96 billion pounds of food is wasted in this country before it gets to market.

Why do farmers leave good food behind? “Sometimes commercial growers must leave one field to move on to the next crop,” says Breitinger. Other times, the produce isn’t “perfect” enough for market – not quite the right size or color, but perfectly edible. Also, sometimes the farmer can’t afford to pay another crew to come through his fields again.

Gleaning a perfect cabbage in Virginia (Photo: Society of St. Andrew)

Farmer Leo Stallings says he has leftovers because there isn’t a big market for produce in Franklin County, the area of North Carolina where his farm is located. Stallings, who has been in the farm business for 40 years, grows a number of crops including sweet corn, beans, cantaloupe, collards, peas, squash and string beans. “This area is not very commercial. There are few markets. Growing is not a problem, but selling is. We don’t have a co-op to handle acres of crops.

“I try to plant about as much as I think will sell. But because the market varies, I often have leftovers.”

Stallings says SOSA volunteers come out in the summer and late fall to salvage his fields. He says he doesn’t mind giving it away. “I don’t want it to go to waste and they give us a tax credit for it.”

When large growers donate a tractor trailer load of food, SOSA might contact a group of volunteers, often a church group, to sponsor a “potato drop.”

“Imagine 45,000 pounds of loose potatoes dumped into a church parking lot,” says Breitinger. “Volunteers then put 10 to 15 pounds of potatoes into mesh bags. We contact the local food pantries to come to pick it up.”