One could count a thousand ways humans have soiled the planet, from shearing off mountaintops to mine coal to dredging the bottom of the ocean with heavy, coral-destroying equipment.

Congress zeroed in on one needless wave of destruction this past week, introducing legislation in both houses to stop cruise ships from releasing untreated sewage into the ocean.

The Senate’s Clean Cruise Ship Act, proposed by Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), would extend the Clean Water Act to regulate the millions of gallons of waste water from cruise ships. The net effect would be a ban on the release of raw, untreated sewage.

In the House, Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.) introduced nearly identical legislation.

In the US, nearly 10 million people vacation aboard cruise liners that dump sewage into the ocean.

According to a news release from Durbin’s office, a single cruise ship can release more than 200,000 gallons of human sewage, one million gallons of gray water from kitchens and bathrooms and 10,000 gallons of sewage sludge each week.

Not to mention the small, but significant disgorging of hazardous waste and oily bilge. (Can we pause here for a collective “ick”?!)

Currently, this waste is regulated in some coastal regions, but unevenly so. Durbin’s Clean Cruise Ship Act would amend the Clean Water Act to:

• Place cruise ships under the EPA guidelines for pollution discharges (much as industries are).

• Prohibit the discharge of sewage, graywater and bilge water within 12 miles of shore

• Require state-of-the-art treatment of waste water that is to be released outside the 12 mile perimeter – Prohibit any dumping of sewage sludge, incinerator ash and hazardous waste in US waters

• Set up inspection and onboard observation to monitor the program.Durbin’s bill also would strengthen discharge requirements for cruise ships operating in the Great Lakes, holding them to the same 12 mile prohibition zone and requiring them to update their technology to treat sewage and gray water before it is discharged into the lakes.

Durbin’s office reports that several environmental groups support his bill, including: Friends of the Earth; Earthjustice; Oceana; Surfrider; Campaign to Safeguard America’s Waters; and Northwest Environmental Advocates.

Adam Archer thinks the world would be a much better place if people would only spend more time playing games on their computers and mobile phones. And he may just be right.

Archer, the founder and CEO of GamesThatGive, has a simple but compelling proposition: You sign on to play casual games on the site, designate a charity you want to support, and then sit back and have 70 percent of the revenue from advertising on those games go to your charity.

He calls the concept “guiltless gaming” and says it can get a child in Africa vaccinated against Polio, teach a low-income child to read, or help feed a family of four. Simply by playing online games, you end up making a difference in the world.

The GamesThatGive site is only a couple of months old, but has attracted 4,000 registered users and so far has raised almost $2,500 for charities. Leading brands such as Dominos Pizza, Pepsi, and Mastercard have signed on as charter advertisers.

Among the charities you can chose to support are Feeding America, the United Way, the US Fund for UNICEF, DoSomething, and about a dozen others. Archer said they are limiting the number of charities they will support in the early stages so they can raise a meaningful amount of aid for each, and not dilute their impact.

Archer first saw the need for something like this after graduating from college and spending two years backpacking around the world. He saw people who were barely subsisting and who lived in deplorable conditions.

“I came back to the States and this culture shock ensued. I started to notice all the opportunity and privilege here,” Archer said. “After backpacking through Africa for eight months, I actually flew back from Johannesburg into Las Vegas . It was like going through a time machine and literally people were throwing away money. I was like: There ought to be a way get people to give some of that money to the people I saw (who were less fortunate).”

After working a few years at Microsoft and Apple, Archer began thinking about connecting technology to the greater human needs he had witnessed.

“I started going around and asking people why they didn’t do more to help people who were less fortunate and I kept getting the same answer. Everybody said, ‘Well, I actually wish I was doing more.’ If you pressed them they would say, ‘I don’t have time’ or ‘I don’t have the money’ or ‘I don’t know how to help.’ So I started thinking about the ways we could use new technologies coming with mobile devices and the Internet and thinking about existing behavior.”

About a year and a half ago, he finally arrived at the solution: Let people play games and have fun and marry that with advertising that supports leading charities.

“It’s pretty simple,” he said. “The better you do at these games, the longer you play, the more you donate. There’s 145 million casual gamers in the US alone and they play on average over 5 hours a week, so that’s more (time) than magazines or newspapers, that’s more than they’re watching online video, that’s even more than they’re spending on social networking sites.

“But you’ve got to make it fun, you’ve got to make it easy, you’ve got to use technology and you’ve got to get people to tell their friends – and that’s games.”

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

LOS ANGELES — Lobbyists for Los Angeles County will work against state legislation that would ease environmental and planning regulations to make way for a proposed 75,000-seat professional football stadium in the city of Industry. >> Read the full story

Golf courses and environmentalists have had – and still have – a rather rocky relationship.

The land that courses are built on and their impact on habitats has been fiercely debated. As huge users of pesticides, fertilizers and water, golf courses have faced criticism for fouling the environment with chemical-filled runoff, potentially harming humans and wildlife and wasting huge quantities of precious water, even in drought-plagued areas.

Public pressure over the last few decades has led the country’s major golf and golf-course associations to create programs and conduct research into more natural ways to maintain their prized pristine grasses.

Fourteen years ago, major golf group representatives sat down with environmental experts and started talking. The result was the Golf & The Environment Institute that has worked since then to guide golf course clubs away from green grass perfection toward green-thinking environmental concern. With an estimated 20,000 golf courses in the country, there is a lot of land at stake.

The United States Golf Association has been looking at environmental concerns on their member courses for years. They offer a long list of research and reports on the topic, and work with environmental groups to study long-term solutions.

The nation’s association for golf course superintendents has created the Environmental Institute for Golf to develop alternatives to heavy pesticide and fertilizers, and massive water consumption. They urge golf course superintendents to participate in and respond to surveys and research on creating more environmentally friendly courses.

Despite the national groups’ efforts, the vast majority of golf courses still rely on chemicals to keep their courses pristine. The primary reason for that is golfers themselves. They expect to see impeccable swaths of perfect green turf and immaculate greens.

The organizations’ say their ongoing struggle is to inform golfers that it’s OK to play on a course with a few brown spots.

In America, there is only one totally organic golf course: Vineyard Golf Club on Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. To the surprise of many, the courses there look like any other top golf courses in the country. That’s due to the work of Jeff Carlson, the Vineyard’s golf course superintendent.

His goal is a great course that isn’t always perfect looking, he has said. At the Vineyard course there are no pesticides or fertilizers or any products with synthetic ingredients. They take many extra steps, such as whisking away dew on greens and fairways.

Carlson has said weeds are still a problem, and he misses being able to use a pesticide every now and then. Trying to have an organic course in the South would be impossible, he told Golf Digest. And, interestingly, one of the driving forces behind the green Vineyard course are women club members.

Another course that strives to minimize chemical and water use (but is not totally organic) is the Arbor Links Arnold Palmer golf course near the Arbor Day Farm in Neb., which makes extensive use of native grasses and trees as well as retaining edge areas for wildlife.

The Audubon International Sanctuary Program (not affiliated with the Audubon Society) works with the USGA (which is its primary sponsor) to promote ecologically sound use of the land and protection of natural resources. The group awards certificates of recognition in several categories, working closely with golf course superintendents to create environmental improvement plans. According to the USGA, more than 500 courses in the U.S. have received Audubon Sanctuary certification. The program provides a list of all certified courses.

Another program, Wildlife Links, promotes wildlife conservation on areas within golf course lands.

So what can your area golf course do?

When it comes to employing green practices, golf courses have been pretty much buried in a sand trap. That could change, with the help of a new best practices handbook from the Pennsylvania Environmental Council (PEC) and LandStudies, Inc.

Golf course superintendents can now take advantage of the new Water Resources Best Management Practices Handbook to help make their courses truly green. The handbook includes a detailed description of each recommended practice, its environmental benefit, and a local example with contact information so that superintendents can learn first-hand how to install the practice. There also are links to additional online resources.

“Pennsylvania has over 800 public and private golf courses covering thousands of acres of open space, streams and ponds,” Don Welsh, president & CEO of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, said in a statement. “With this Handbook, superintendents can improve water quality and watershed habitat at their courses using proven best management practices that in many cases will also lower maintenance costs.”

The handbook provides information about how the best practices, such as created or restored wetlands and natural floodplains, can generate environmental service credits, including nutrient reduction, wetland mitigation and habitat credits.

Among the techniques included are ways for capturing and mitigating storm water runoff and increasing groundwater recharge at golf courses. These storm water management practices can be integrated with local watershed management strategies in cooperation with local municipalities.

The handbook was published with financial assistance from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Growing Greener Grant Program.

Related story:

Plants can help “green” golf courses

Phoenix Sun’s all-star guard and environmental advocate Steve Nash worked with Nike to this week launch the new Zoom MVP Trash Talk that is made from scrap materials left over from the footwear manufacturing process.

The shoe also will be packaged in Nike’s new Considered Design shoebox, made from 100 percent recycled fiber and featuring a design that reduces the fiber content by approximately 30 percent. Nike says the Considered Design shoebox will be fully launched across all Nike footwear styles by 2011, which is expected to save nearly 12,000 metric tons of cardboard or the equivalent of 200,000 trees. Achieving this goal would mean waste in Nike’s supply chain will be reduced by 17 percent and the use of environmentally preferred materials will be increased by 20 percent.

The Nike Zoom MVP Trash Talk has a number of green characteristics:

• The upper is stitched together from leather and synthetic leather waste from the manufacturing process.
• The outsole uses environmentally preferred rubber that reduces toxics and incorporates Nike Grind* material from footwear outsole manufacturing waste.
• The shoe laces are made from 100 percent recycled polyester and sock liners use recycled Ethylene Vinyl Acetate, commonly known as “foam rubber.”
• The shoe will be packaged in a corrugated shoe box made from 100 percent recycled fiber, using 30 percent less material compared to the previous design.

Nike will make available a limited number of the Nike Zoom MVP Trash Talk shoes at the House of Hoops by Foot Locker in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. The suggested retail price is $92.

Consider golfing in a downturn: On the one hand, golfers might find the club a great place to forget their troubles. On the other hand, country clubs are sure to be tightening their beltways, just like everyone else.

We recently stumbled on one way country clubs might keep their greens tidy, while keeping green, and saving cash – a triple win! Simply, it’s a robot.

Precise Path Robotics of Indianapolis recently announced (at the 2009 Golf Industry Show in New Orleans) that it had created a robotic lawnmower for golf greens.

This first fully automated mower, called the RG3, happens to also be electric. So it can condition and maintain smooth turf, without any noisy, polluting gas-engine huffing carbon dioxide into the air.

The company touts “dramatic increases in productivity and efficiency” as well.

“The RG3 will advance golf course maintenance to a degree not seen since the advent of the gasoline engine,” said Brian Wheat, Precise Path’s vice president of sales and marketing in a statement. “Our technology will undoubtedly help golf course superintendents achieve uniformity and outstanding course conditions while allowing crew workers to tackle other tasks during the greens-mowing process, such as raking bunkers, plantings, turf repair, and so on.”

We can only hope that this increased efficiency doesn’t cost anyone a green job.

But then maybe the gain in jobs producing the robots cancels out the loss of the jobs driving the old-style mowers. And probably the former are better jobs. Something to ponder while putting, or mowing.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Photo: Natural Lighting Co.

Arizona Department of Transportation

The 2008 Green Power Leadership Awards were presented in conjunction with the National Renewable Energy Marketing Conference, held October 26-29 in Denver, Colorado.

Green Power Purchasing Award

Headquartered in Park City, Utah, Powdr Resorts owns seven resort complexes across the United States, including Park City Mountain Resort in Utah, Killington Resort and Pico Resort in Vermont, Mt. Bachelor in Oregon, Boreal Resort and Soda Springs Resort in California, Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort in Nevada, and Gorgoza Park, a tubing park in Utah. Powdr Resorts’ annual purchase of nearly 50 million kilowatt-hours of wind-derived renewable energy certificates (RECs) is enough to supply 100 percent of the operation’s total electricity use.

With many visitors each season, Powdr Resorts recognizes a great opportunity to reach out to its guests and share its story about green power. On its website, www.saveoursnow.net, the organization prominently provides details about its renewable energy purchase, and also holds community meetings to educate others on what they can do. Powdr Resorts also shares green power news in vacation planning guides provided to hotels and resort visitors.

In the future, the organization plans to place interactive kiosks in key locations around the resorts. Each kiosk will provide information about wind energy and show the energy generation capacities of a small wind turbine. Powdr Resorts expects the kiosks to receive more than one million visits per year.

The 2008 Green Power Leadership Awards were presented in conjunction with the National Renewable Energy Marketing Conference, held October 26-29 in Denver, Colorado.

Green Power Purchasing Award

The Philadelphia Phillies are the first Major League Baseball team to join EPA’s Green
Power Partnership. The club currently buys 20 million kilowatt-hours annually, enough to power 100 percent of the annual electricity use for Citizens Bank Park. The Phillies’ purchase of renewable energy certificates (RECs) are from wind and biomass resources.
The Phillies “Red Goes Green” announcement included notable attendees such as EPA’s regional administrator, the governor of Pennsylvania, the mayor of Philadelphia, Major League Baseball’s executive vice president and chief information officer, as well as the Phillies’ president and chief executive officer. A Major League Baseball game followed the announcement, where players sported green hats, drawing questions from both media and fans. Broadcasters explained the significance of the green hats and the REC purchase to viewers during a live TV broadcast. The media event drew attention from local, regional and national news agencies including ESPN, FOX, CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, Sports Illustrated and many more.

Since the event, four other major league clubs have contacted the Phillies to learn more about its REC purchase.

Hollywood is known for conspicuous environmentalism, but its legendary movie studios were built many decades before anyone thought about a production’s environmental impact. Now a team including former Paramount Pictures president David Kirkpatrick hopes to change that by building “the first all-union built, green, SMART studio facility in the world” — in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

The team behind Plymouth Rock Studios announced this month that it “has registered its entire development project with the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) in order to pursue campus-wide, new construction certification under Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED(R)) standards.”

This will be no rinky-dink, hangar-plus-solar-roof affair. The entire project, scheduled to break ground in spring 2009 and open a year and a half later, is expected to cost $422 million and will include “fourteen sound stages, ranging in size from 18,000 to 24,000 square feet” in addition to “10-acre backlots [that] will provide easy access to the cobblestone streets of Paris or Rome, the bustle of Los Angeles or New York, the glamour of Beverly Hills or any other city in the world you wish to capture.” (The campus will go beyond production features as well, with a “studio as city” ideal that already has the developers recruiting office tenants.)

Designed by Gensler, an architecture firm that among other green achievements just built the country’s first LEED-certified car dealership outside Dallas, the site will not only produce solar- and wind-generated electricity, but promises to offer such unpredictable amenities as onsite organic gardens and composting facilities.

And for anyone asking “why Massachusetts?,” the branding-conscious entrepreneurs are quick to describe Plymouth as “America’s Hometown” and the area as a nascent “Hollywood East” with a history of regionally-shot hits like Jaws and Good Will Hunting under its belt. Big new tax incentives have brought productions like Martin Scorsese’s upcoming Shutter Island to the area, and one imagines this new studio could only sweeten the deal.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media