In Durham, N.C., homes will get an energy retrofit. In Salt Lake City, they’ll develop a plan to reduce auto pollution.  In Sacramento, they’ll be improving the landscape around a river to reduce pollution runoff. And in Denver, they’ll be looking at a little bit of all that — energy efficiency for homes and businesses, bike sharing and renewable energy.

It’s all being made possible by $10 million from the EPA’s Climate Showcase Community Grants, set up to help communities develop their plans to reduce greenhouse gases and lighten their carbon footprint.

Durham, N.C.

Retrofiting by insulating pipes in Durham, N.C.

In the city and county of Durham, N.C., the community will use the grant to retrofit homes in selected neighborhoods. Tobin Freid, sustainability manager, says one of the most effective ways to change behavior is to see that everyone else “is doing it.” In other words, if the neighbors are all getting retrofitted, the mentality is “I should do that, too.”

The federal grants will have a double benefit by providing much needed green collar jobs for those employed by the program.

“We are starting with 2,000 square-feet or less homes, all of which are single story and free of un-vented combustion appliances.
The houses in these neighborhoods tend to be similar, three to four styles,” says Freid, and by beginning with simple designs, “it is more efficient to quickly assess [the retrofitting needs].”

Single story homes are easier to retrofit because the duct work is all on one level. The other advantage is that the smaller homes are a good training ground for the retrofitters before embarking on larger projects in the future, Freid said.

The Durham crew is not doing an energy audit on each of these homes, instead, “we are focusing on four retrofits: a programmable thermostat, sealing air ducts, adding insulation and sealing leaks/cracks in floor boards. Most houses need these.”

The homes to be retrofitted will be selected this spring and the work will begin in July. Currently, Freid says, “volunteers are going door to door to educate homeowners on energy savings and tax incentives. We will also have workshops on easy energy fixes such as caulking windows or wrapping hot water pipes.”

The homes chosen will be tracked for energy use, before and two years after, the retrofits. “We realize energy consumption changes depending how many people live in a house. For example when a child is born, energy usage goes up; or when a child goes off to college, energy usage should go down.”

Residents will pay $300 to participate; the grant will provide up to $1,200 per home. Depending on what a family’s income is, they may qualify for the federal weatherization program. In which case, they will be encouraged to do so. A family of four earning $44,000 or below, would qualify.

Salt Lake City

In Salt Lake City, the EPA grant is being used to figure out how to make sustainable transportation a priority — and for good reason.

Bike racks at the new Salt Lake City transit center

“Salt Lake City experiences very poor air quality, especially in winter,” says the city’s environmental manager, Renee Zollinger. This is due to an air inversion that sets in and traps pollutants in the valley. Air quality isn’t much better in the summer due to ozone production. “We frequently have the worst air quality in the nation, which is clearly a health concern. About half of the pollution that accumulates during those periods is from vehicle exhaust. These vehicle emissions also include a lot of greenhouse gases. “

To combat the air quality issue, the Salt Lake has initiated several outreach campaigns to reduce community vehicle emissions. Zollinger says that while these have been successful, “we felt that these programs…would benefit by stepping back and taking a holistic approach to identifying our audiences and their respective priorities, and then developing very tailored messaging that brings those groups into the effort.”

That’s where the EPA grant come into play, she says.

“The grant will allow us to collect data from surveys and focus groups to identify the perceptions of different audiences, especially those that have been difficult to reach so far,” Zollinger says.

The problem that Salt Lake City has is not different from many other communities. “We are still a very car-oriented population. The goal of the grant is to create more behavior changes. We have the infrastructure…We need to study the things that will change behavior,” she says.

Salt Lake City has a well-regarded light rail system, as well as heavy rail that runs north and south along the Wasatch Front, a robust bus system, and bike paths, she says. The city is building a bicycle transit center that will be located where the light and heavy rail intersect and will include showers, lockers and a bike repair shop.

If Salt Lake City can identify the triggers that make people change their environmental behavior, Zollinger believes that this data could help other communities with similar demographics.

Denver

In Denver city and county, the EPA grant will fund the Neighborhood Climate Prosperity Project. It is a four-pronged project that will target residential energy efficiency; small business energy concerns (mom-and-pop pizza shops don’t usually consider energy efficiency a top priority); sustainable transportation options such as bike sharing; and renewable energy challenges that include using wind and solar energy through local utility companies.

“We’ve already done some residential energy outreach,” says Matthew Marshall of the city’s Environmental Health Department. “We want to focus on low-income housing” so the project is sending out volunteers to go door to door, giving residents free street trees, CFL porch bulbs and information on recycling. The volunteers also are letting residents know about free programs such as the federal weatherization program. In some cases, they may be eligible for a new refrigerator and/or furnace.

The stimulus package gave Denver a good boost, Marshall says, but the grant money enables the city and county to provide even more services to its residents.

The Department of Environmental Health accomplishes its goals with the help of nonprofits such as Groundwork Denver and the Mile High Youth Corp to get the word out and in some cases, to do the energy retrofits needed. Groundwork Denver organizes the door-to-door effort. The Youth Corp trains young adults in job skills, in this case, green job skills, that enable them to do in-home energy audits that include installing low-flow toilet and faucet fixtures.

Sacramento

In Sacramento, the EPA grant will go to expanding river-friendly landscaping. Jeanette Watson, the lead environmental specialist with the Sacramento County Storm Water Program, and Dave Tamayo, the technical environmental specialist, were  both involved with the

River-friendly landscaping curbs run off in Elk Grove, near Sacramento

grant application. Sacramento already had a storm water project in the works. It focuses on reducing pollutants in storm water that come from landscaping. The project takes a holistic approach by coordinating with the different aspects of water pollution: solid waste, water conservation and air quality.

“The EPA grant will demonstrate the benefits of river-friendly landscaping,” says Watson. It will  focus on greenhouse gas reduction in terms of water conservation and better management of green waste, says Tamayo, noting that, “Water takes energy to deal with. If you save water, you save energy.”

By designing river-friendly landscaping, homeowners and businesses can control green waste, he says. For example, by reducing the turf area of a lawn and using plants that don’t require a lot of trimming, a resident can create a more energy efficient landscape. Gardening without the use of a lot of machinery is preferable. Shipping out yard waste – such as grass cuttings in the summer or leaves in the fall – requires energy. It also takes energy to process and then more energy to sell it back as compost or mulch.

“Leaving grass cuttings on the lawn, benefits the soil; and instead of raking and removing leaves, leave them on site and use as mulch for shrubs and trees. The leaves will also crowd out the weeds, retain water and reduce soil erosion,” he says.

“We realize, especially in Sacramento, the city of trees, that all leaves can’t be left on site. But if we can just establish practices. Whatever you can do, will make a significant improvement.

“Looking at the right design and maintenance practices, such as using the right plant in the right place,” makes a difference, he says.

Roger Dickinson, a Sacramento county supervisor, has been involved with lobbying for the creation of the Climate Showcase Community Grant from the start. Bringing more resources to the local level is key, he says. This is where actions need to be taken.

“Think globally, act locally” is his motto. “We’re very excited about this,” he says. “Climate change is the quintessential issue. Hopefully, [these grants] will be very smart for the environment.” Using basic landscaping and gardening techniques to reduce waste make sense, he says. “Our approach is to demonstrate techniques that work in reducing greenhouse gases and use this as a foundation for others who are building in the future.”

Congresswoman Doris Matsui (D-Sacremento) is very pleased with the EPA grant. “This federal funding will support our efforts to continue reducing our community’s greenhouse gas emissions and thus serve a broader purpose in helping to preserve our local natural resources, improve the community’s health, and bolster our regional economy,” she says.

Cincinnati

The city of Cincinnati also will be augmenting an existing program, started in 2008 and called the Green Cincinnati Plan (GCP). Larry Falkin, director of the city’s Office of Environmental Quality, describes it as a road map to making the city more sustainable. The EPA grant will help fund the outreach and education elements of GCP, he says. “The grant will help us with the leg work to communicate the plan and help motivate participation.”

The GCP offers many recommendations to reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions and improve the environment and human health — and save residents money.

“We need to rely more on renewal energy, reduce the number of miles we drive, be conscious of land use such as living closer to our destinations, focus on reducing the landfill and look at our dietary choices and how they impact greenhouse gases,” Falkin says.

Like many of EPA communities, the GCP relies on voluntary measures to achieve its objectives, and counts on participants to act both altruistically and pragmatically.

The EPA created the competitive grant program in 2009 to help communities establish and execute climate change goals. The agency’s hope is that the grants will inspire others to replicate these models and find cost-effective methods to curb greenhouse gases. The first round of grants ($10 million) went to 20 communities, with five more communities to come, pending final review. An additional $10 million in funding will become available later this spring.

Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network

As you get ready for the annual war on weeds in your front lawn this spring, you can choose to load up on conventional weed-and-feed and launch a chemical offensive, or you can call the local lawn service to begin the assault on your behalf.

Clean Air truck with solar panels charging lawn mowers (Photo: Clean Air Lawn Care.)

Or…you can skip the harsh chemicals and the usual services and find an organic lawn service.

Organic lawn care companies are pushing into the market. So much so, that even Chem Lawn, a king of the old guard, now goes by TruGreen and offers an all-organic plan. These days a check for “organic lawn care” will usually pop up someone in your region, if not your exact town. And a search for do-it-yourself organic lawn care products, like corn gluten pre-emergent weed killer or composts for fertilizing, will turn up products at hundreds of online and off-line retailers.

But we only know of one lawn service, the Clean Air Lawn Care franchise, that is aiming for green on a multiple levels, greening lawns with organic materials while also making its operations sustainable by using solar power and electric mowers.

Clean Air Lawn Care is a pioneer in its industry, based in Fort Collins, Colo., wants to live up to its name, offering customers a chemical-free lawn, mowed by electric mowers that are charged by solar panels mounted on the company trucks, offering a clean, quiet, non-polluting alternative.

“We’re providing sustainable lawn care; it take all facets into consideration. By using electric equipment we’re not contributing to emissions, to climate change, those type of things. We’re also quiet. In a neighborhood, you won’t even hear us. The noise pollution (reduction), that’s a huge issue,” said Skip Vest, owner of the Raleigh, N.C., franchise.

Vest has been an organic lawn care expert for years. His master’s degree from the University of Montana is in natural resources management. For years, he worked restoring natural habitat for industrial construction projects. He decided a lawn care franchise would keep him closer to home, so he searched for the right opportunity.

Green, the color of organically treated lawns (Photo: Clean Air Lawn Care.)

He hit pay dirt with Clean Air Lawn Care – a company devoted to improving lawns by caring for the soil organically and reducing not only pesticide pollution, but lawn mower exhaust also. Franchises use electric lawn mowers made by Neuton and Black and Decker.

Emissions from lawn mowers and leaf blowers are not regulated. According to Clean Air, electric mowers emit 5,000 times less carbon dioxide than gasoline powered lawn mowers, and zero emissions when they are recharged from clean energy sources. (Even electric mowers charged on the grid, with a coal-fired electrical plant or two providing the electricity, still come out with emissions far lower than gasoline models.)

A gas lawn mower operated for one hour emits greenhouse gas emissions comparable to running 40 cars for the same time period, according to the EPA.

So Clean Air comes by its name honestly. And people are noticing. Founder and CEO Kelly Giard was named Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year by Entrepreneur Magazine in late 2009.

The only not-green aspect of the Clean Air program has been that there are no electric light-duty trucks available for crews to use, says Vest. He is looking at buying hybrid trucks, Toyota Tacomas, but until then, all the crews can do is drive responsibly.

They can do much more in yards, where they reclaim a healthy environment by adding organic fertilizers that feed the soil and ultimately, sustain heartier grass. Crews also mow the grass at a higher level than other services, leaving taller grass to shade out weeds and form drought-resistant roots. And they leave clippings on the lawn, providing a free nitrogen boost.

“What we’re after is the soil,’’ says Vest. “And what we’ve seen is that by doing this (enriching the soil) after a while, you almost work yourself out of a job.”

Daniel Whittaker, owner of Green Planet Catering in Raleigh, is a customer of Clean Air Lawn Care. He started the service after scouring ads for an organic lawn service to revive and maintain the small front yard of his downtown area house.

Whittaker appreciates that when the Clean Air crew arrives to mow outside his bedroom window early in the morning, they don’t even wake him up. But his lawn is waking up after nearly a year of organic care.

“As far as the results, it’s a twofold thing,’’ he said. “One, the lawn looks really good and it was in horrible condition when he (Vest) started; it was nothing but crab grass and clover. He put down some organic pre-emergents and reseeded with some organic seed.”

Even casual visitors have noticed the turn-around.

“One guy said he stopped and ran his hands thru the lawn because he said it looked so soft.”

• To find a Clean Air Lawn Care service in your area, see the website location tool.
• Other organic lawn services are available, including  Natural Lawn, with more than 20 years in the business, and the green wings of TruGreen and Scotts Lawn Service.
  (Warning: Some of the organic lawns services are only partly organic because they kill pests like fire ants chemically, though sometimes with “safer” chemicals.

Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network

When President Barack Obama was sworn into office just one year ago, he promised hope to a country in the midst of economic, environmental, and political turmoil. Environmentally, however, the Obama administration that promised “change” has fallen a few cents short, according to the environmental group, The Center for Biological Diversity.

The administration’s actions (and inaction) are speaking louder than its words, in the view of the center’s Obama Administration First-Year Report Card. Obama’s overall grade:  a “C” in protecting (and failing to protect) the environment.

The report cites multiple contradictory environmental actions from this past year. While the administration has reinstated the Clinton-era Road-less Rule that protects millions of federal acres from development, it allowed the logging of road-less areas in Alaska to proceed. Also, while the current administration continued to grant permits and leases for fossil fuel exploration and extraction, it has also offered several tax credits and subsidies for improving energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.

The Center for Biological Diversity faults the administration in five areas:

Endangered Species – C

• Only two new species were protected as endangered (fewest since the Reagan administration)
• Weakened protection for gray wolves and polar bears

Energy – C

• For authorizations of mountain removal
• New coal-mining leases
• Approved offshore oil exploration

Climate – C-

• Failed to enact legislation regarding U.S. emission targets
• Proposed GHG emission targets far below necessary levels at Copenhagen

Public Lands – B+

• Authorized logging in Alaskan road-less areas
• Continual issuing of oil and gas and coal-mining leases

Oceans – B-

• Offshore oil drilling off the Alaskan coast
• Reduced protection for endangered sea turtles near Hawaii

The Obama administration has taken positive environmental steps that are praiseworthy, according to the center’s report card. Notably:

• Officials issued a finding under the Clean Air Act that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, setting the stage for stricter regulation/
• It began addressing ocean acidification under the Clean Water Act.
• It did away with the Bush administration’s weak rules on national forest management and is developing new regulations.
• It  proposed removal of 1 million acres of land around the Grand Canyon from uranium mining.

Others might add to that list, remembering that the Obama Administration immediately pushed for and won higher fuel efficiency standards for cars.

But then that was one project, and as the Center for Biological Diversity reminds us, they all count.

Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network

So often politicians obscure their message with caveats, euphemisms and wonky references to elaborately named legislation.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) took the conversation a different direction yesterday when speaking to student activists assembled for an online teleconference Tuesday night sponsored by Consequence09.org.

He appealed for clarity on cap-and-trade, suggesting that “cap-and-trade” is needless jargon, a “crazy name that everyone hates”  and has acquired too much baggage.

We need to heave  the insider-speak, he said, and call cap-and-trade what it really is: “Pollution reduction.”

This point has been made before. But perhaps if it were made by leaders like Kerry, and more often, it could get a foothold.

It is not obfuscation or over-simplification or a smarmy political move to say that what cap-and-trade manifestos are all about is controlling carbon emissions, that is, reducing pollution.

Sure, the devils in the details. By whatever name you call it, the new plan will zing polluters and reward those who do better. There will still be a lot of questions that need answering under the new “pollution reduction” program: How a big a price will polluters pay? Which greenhouse gases will be included? How long will companies have to get their act together before penalties are in full force? How big of a reward will the clean energy mavericks receive? How long will the rewards endure? These are critical details.

But in terms of winning people over, honestly, to the concept, and crawling out of the conversational tar pit where this whole cap-and-trade debate seems to have become mired, Kerry’s idea sounds like a good syntactical move. We need to focus on the core of what we want to accomplish, and most Americans, polls show, want a cleaner, more secure future — one that includes pollution reduction.

In fact, the latest poll out, one by CNN, reported just this week that 6 in 10 Americans support “cap-and-trade legislation” (though other polls have shown that far less than a majority understand cap-and-trade).

If Congress follows that same pattern, Americans could have a climate action bill — or energy security bill, but let’s not discuss those labels right now — later this year.

Kerry and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) are sponsoring the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act which has been characterized as a strong bill aimed at curbing climate change and helping America achieve energy independence. But many Republicans have reservations.

Kerry urged those listening to the teleconference to reach out to their senators now, especially those Republicans and fence-sitting Democrats, to let them know they want a clean energy, climate change bill with real, um, pollution reduction targets.

“All of you can have a huge impact on how this works,” he said. “If people in the grassroots will gin up the emails and gin up the phone calls…to calm political fears that they (undecided politicians) are somehow stepping out and cutting across the currents.”

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Palm Oil, an ingredient found in most processed food, has been the subject of much environmental debate in recent years over its role in deforestation. It is commonly found in cooking oil and as an ingredient in cosmetics, soaps, detergents, and some plastics. Palm oil also has been considered for use in the production of biodiesel.

There have been many attempts to make palm oil sustainable. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was even established in 2003 to do just that. Unfortunately, six years later, there is still no system that can effectively trace palm oil beyond the processor to the plantation level. Companies that manufacture products using palm oil have little way of knowing where the controversial substance originated — which leaves the question of whether and to what degree palm oil is sustainably farmed up in the air.

This week, a press campaign run by the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) and aimed at putting the best spin on the industry ran aground when Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned a magazine ad by the Malaysian boosters.

The headline of the MPOC’s magazine advertisement read: “Palm Oil: The Green Answer.”

As if that were not misleading enough, the ad made many more claims, such as:

• “Palm oil is the only product able to sustainably and efficiently meet a large portion of the world’s increasing demand for oil crop-based consumer goods, foodstuffs and biofuel … Malaysia’s forest cover is certain to be maintained.”
• “With the increased attention paid to oil crops, and oil palm in particular, a number of criticisms have been leveled at Malaysia’s palm oil industry, from accusations of rampant deforestation and unsound environmental practices to unfair treatment of farmers and indigenous people. These allegations – protectionist agendas hidden under a thin veneer of environmental concern – are based neither on scientific evidence, nor, for that matter, on fact.”
• “In addition to its green credentials, Malaysia’s palm oil industry also plays an important role in the industrialization of the country and the alleviation of poverty, especially amongst rural populations.”

The advertisement violated substantiation, truthfulness, and the environmental claims sections of the Advertising Standards Authority’s Code, according to the group’s assessment.

“Although we acknowledged that some Malaysian palm oil companies had sought certification from the RSPO [the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil], we understood that the scheme and the certification of biofuels in general was still the subject of debate,” stated the Advertising Standards Authority’s Assessment.

They report explained that “palm oil had played a role in the development of the Malaysian economy in its shift from reliance on rubber and tin mining” and it acknowledged MPOCs assertion that this created one million jobs.

But it also noted that environmental and human rights groups had legitimate complaints about palm oil producers. Friends of the Earth, for instance, contends that palm oil production creates adverse social impacts by displacing indigenous communities affected by deforestation.

Issues over housing and land rights and low wages and poor treatment of workers “compromised MPOCs claim that palm oil had a societal benefit,” the advertisers assessment stated.

The advertising regulators concluded that the magazine ad must no longer appear in its current form.

There is no such thing as sustainable palm oil, at least not yet, according to the ASA.

Malaysian leader presses palm oil’s virtues

The MPOC fired back on Wednesday, complaining that the ASA was relying on FOE’s biased environmental conclusions and arguing that palm oil, being the cheapest vegetable oil, should be available to consumers, especially the poor.

“Today, the ASA ruled that an advertorial in The Economist highlighting the economic importance and environmental sustainability of Malaysian Palm Oil should not appear in any other UK media outlets. The ruling followed a complaint by Friends of the Earth about the advertorial. By censoring our message, this relatively small group of people is blocking the entire British public’s access to a diverse range of views and information about Palm Oil,” wrote the Malaysian group’s CEO Tan Sri Datuk Dr. Yusof Basiron.

“Consumers have a right to have information about the various products and services available to them and a right to determine for themselves which they want. Consequently, we are deeply concerned that the ASA is acting as an interested party in the public debate on palm oil rather than as a neutral and objective arbiter.”

A majority of Americans – about 75 percent – support regulating greenhouse gases from power plants, cars and manufacturing that would reduce global warming, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

But only a bare majority – 52 percent – support a cap-and-trade approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and 42 percent oppose such a program, which is the type of approach taken in the Waxman-Markey climate legislation expected to be voted on in the US House of Representations, possibly Friday.

Support for controls on emissions wavered even more as those polled were asked whether they’d pay higher electricity prices to help bring about reduced greenhouse gases.

Only 44 percent said they would back a cap-and-trade system if it meant monthly electricity bills would be $25 higher. Support was stronger, at 56 percent, if the proposed monthly electricity increase was just $10 a month, according to the randomized poll of 1,001 adults.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that regulating greenhouse gases would cost the typical household about $175 a year in 2020, when the shift to clean energy and emissions controls would be in high gear.

But opponents of the pending climate legislation, especially conservative Republicans, argue that costs will be much higher.

The poll found that people living in households making less than $50,000 a year were the most concerned about the costs of the climate regulation.

Young people were the most supportive of federal regulation to control climate-related emissions (about 60 percent said they supported cap-and-trade) and senior citizens the least supportive (about 40 percent said they favored cap-and-trade).

Cap-and-trade is a market-based approach to controlling GHG emissions. It sets caps on the amount of pollution companies are allowed and lets them bid for extra credits if they go over their emissions allowance or sell credits if they keep under pollution limits. Limits for everyone are lowered over time to reduce carbon emissions.

Global wind power installations grew by 29 percent in 2008, exceeding past performance and bringing the world’s commercial wind power capacity to 120,798 megawatts.

Wind now produces 1.5 percent of the world’s electricity with 80 countries using commercial wind power, according to an analysis by the Worldwatch Institute released this week.

The U.S. claimed much of that growth, with more than 42 percent of the power capacity added in 2008. The U.S. was the leader in new installations (passing Germany), and also became the world leader in cumulative wind power capacity with 25,170 megawatts of capacity at the end of 2008, according to Worldwatch.

Natural gas still added capacity faster than wind; despite wind’s surging growth trajectory.

Elsewhere in the world, wind strengthened its position in several key population centers, according to Worldwatch:

• Wind became Europe’s leading source of new electric capacity with 8,877 megawatts added, outpacing new natural gas and coal facilities. Wind power now accounts for 8 percent of the European Union’s power capacity. Europe ended the year with 65,946 megawatts of capacity.

• Germany leads the region in new installations, and despite a slowdown in production in 2008, still expects to generate 31 percent of the nation’s power from wind by 2030. It ranks second in the world in total wind capacity with 23,903 megawatts, just behind the U.S.

• Spain was fourth worldwide in new installations in 2008, and ranks third after the United States and Germany for cumulative wind power capacity with 16,740 megawatts.

• Asia accounted for nearly one-third of the global wind capacity added in 2008, with China passing its 2010 wind power target of 10,000 megawatts and ending 2008 with 12,200 megawatts in place. China ranks 4th in the world for total capacity.

• India ranked third in wind capacity additions for 2008 with 1,800 megawatts of new wind added and now ranks 5th for total capacity worldwide.

• Nearly 400,000 people are employed in the wind industry across the world, a number that could temporarily decline because of the economic downturn, according to Worldwatch, which also predicts that lower construction costs could lead to a long-term boom in wind.

“We’ve seen rapid and consistent global growth in the wind sector over the past decade, with an increasing number of countries turning to wind as a source of power,” said the report’s author, senior researcher Janet Sawin. “If these trends continue as expected, wind energy will play an integral role in the transition to a low-carbon economy.”

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

The  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has recognized 25 U.S. cities for having the most Energy Star buildings in 2008.

The top 10 are Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Washington, D.C., Dallas-Fort Worth, Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Atlanta and Seattle.

Los Angeles ranked first with 262 buildings earning the Energy Star rating, which can be applied to rehabbed and new properties. San Francisco had 194 buildings; Houston, 145; Washington D.C., 136 and Dallas, 126.

Energy Star, the EPA’s label for high efficiency, sets standards for everthing from light bulbs and appliances to buildings.

“An Energy Star building,” says Energy Star spokesperson Maura Beard, “uses 35 percent less energy and emits 35 percent less greenhouse gases than average buildings.”

Looking at the list, it might surprise some to see cities such as Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston — known more for their air quality challenges than for green building — at the top of the rankings.

Ms. Beard explains that the list reflects improvements in buildings, which will be reflected in air quality gains later on.

“In terms of this list, we looked specifically at [a building’s] reductions in greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. This is a big concern in states like California and Texas where there is a lot of demand on their infrastructure,” she says.

There were some standout buildings in each of these three cities, she says. She praised a retrofit of a JC Penney store that was built in 1969 in Downey Calif., in Los Angeles County. “They did a beautiful job improving the building’s energy efficiency, starting with its operating characteristics,” says Beard. (Also this week, JC Penney, an early adopter of the Energy Star program with 52 stores that have earned the label, won the first Energy Star Award for Sustained Excellence in Energy Management.)

In Houston, the Green Valley Elementary School involved the student body in its transformation. “Here the kids formed patrol teams making sure lights weren’t left on in the cafeteria and elsewhere when not in use,” says Beard. And in Dallas, the Hines real estate firm, won the Energy Star rating for its Galleria North Tower office building.

The Galleria office building is attached to a spacious, upscale, air-conditioned mall, which raises the question: What about the energy efficiency of malls in general?

“Shopping malls are difficult [structures] to measure efficiency in,” says Beard. “For Energy Star, we collect data from the Department of Energy, then build a model. There are 12 different types of buildings included in the Energy Star ratings. For example, you can’t compare a hospital to a small store. Your have to compare peers, apples to apples.

“For now, we can just measure the efficiency of the anchor stores at a mall. It’s difficult to measure each of the many small stores. We are working with the Simon group, who manages many of the country’s malls, to improve this.”

The EPA reports that in 2008, more than 3,300 commercial buildings and manufacturing plants earned the Energy Star rating. This translates into a savings of more than $1 billion in utility bills and more than 7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. The structures range from schools and hospitals to office buildings and assembly plants.

More than 6,200 U.S. buildings have qualified for the Energy Star rating in total, says EPA spokesperson Enesta Jones. This represents an annual savings in greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to taking 2 million cars off the road.

Depending on the climate and location, buildings, homes and offices and workplaces, are estimated to be responsible for about 40 percent of the world’s GHG gases.

The Energy Star rating system for buildings is similar to the green certification system devised by the U.S. Green Building Council known as LEED or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Efficiency and Design. But Energy Star is more focused on onsite power savings, while LEED looks at how building materials are sourced and considers broader environmental issues like how close a building is to mass transit opportunities.

“LEED certification tends to be more for new buildings and includes everything, green roofs, supplies and materials, recycling, even the commute,” says Beard. “Energy Star is purely about energy efficiency.”

“It works best if the two [certification systems] are used hand in hand,” she says. “Energy Star is more rigorous in terms of energy efficiency. With LEED, you can get a bunch of points for many different attributes. If a building doesn’t score highly on energy efficiency, it could still earn LEED certification because it might score well on other levels.” (Though LEED standards are currently being tightened and it would be difficult for a building to earn the highest level ratings without being energy efficient.)

EPA’s new chief Lisa P. Jackson is pleased with the results of the Energy Star cities. In a statement released yesterday, she said, “EPA commends all of these cities…[that] are now using more energy efficient appliances and dwellings. They are saving energy, saving money and protecting our environment.”

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Related stories:

• KTRK-Houston: Go inside Houston’s green school
• KGO-San Francisco: North Bay city makes ‘green living’ a law

To judge from the coverage of Earth-friendly measures and green innovations in the news, you might think that ever since An Inconvenient Truth Americans have been moving, however slowly, toward addressing the causes of climate change.

Not so fast. According to the Department of Energy’s independent number-crunching agency the Energy Information Administration, greenhouse gas emissions in the United States actually rose in 2007 to a level 1.4 percent above the previous year. What’s more, that growth was higher than the average annual growth recorded since 1990.

The report, summarized in a press release and readable in full here, finds that “total U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were 7,282 million metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent” (including non-CO2 gases like methane) during the year, although “GHG intensity,” or the ratio of emissions to the nation’s gross domestic product, fell.

“Since 1990, U.S. GHG emissions have grown at an average annual rate of 0.9 percent” the summary reports, making 2007’s 1.4% figure quite a spike. In part, the researchers attribute the rise to “unfavorable weather patterns, where both heating and cooling degree-days were higher in 2007 than 2006, and an increase in the carbon intensity of electricity generation, driven by decreased availability of hydropower.”

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

In the race for top carbon emissions polluter, the United States is still Number One, but China is sprinting forward and could soon edge into the lead. The current Olympics host nation accounted for a “staggering 57 percent of the growth of emissions” worldwide this century, and will likely surpass the U.S. as the single biggest belcher of fossil fuel emissions sometime this year, according to the Worldwatch Institute.

The standings right now: The U.S. currently contributes 19.5 percent of global fossil fuel emissions compared with China’s 18.3 percent.

China’s pole vault onto the world stage of top polluters has been fueled by rapid industrialization and huge growth in coal plants, which provide about 70 percent of the nation’s commercial electricity, according to the Vital Signs Update released Thursday by Worldwatch, a Washington research and watchdog group.

Still, the United States can claim one title that leaves China far behind, the United States’ per capita carbon emissions eclipse that of all other nations. They exceed China’s by 4 to 1 and India’s by 13 to 1, according to the report.

The burning of fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – accounts for the majority of CO2 emissions, which means most industrialized nations contribute to the rising cloud of greenhouse gases (which include CO2 and other gases) encircling the globe. Coal is the worst polluter, giving off more carbon gases per unit of energy generated, and it is also the cheapest.

Globally, carbon emissions grew by 20 percent from 2000 to 2007, according to the Worldwatch analysis. Industrializing India contributed 8 percent of that growth. The United States’ and Europe’s emissions accounted for 4 percent and 3 percent, respectively.

As the report points out, accords between industrialized and developing nations, will be key to regulating spiraling carbon emissions. This is one race best run in reverse.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

California is at it again. The state stickler for clean air, which tried to regulate car emissions but was blocked by the federal EPA in late 2007, is now asking the feds to regulate pollution from aircraft, ships and off-road vehicles.

CA attorney Jerry Brown said that California, joined by other states and environmental groups, intends to sue the EPA if it continues to “wantonly ignore its duty” to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from these commercial vehicles and agricultural and commercial equipment.

“Ships, aircraft and industrial equipment burn huge quantities of fossil fuel and cause massive greenhouse gas pollution yet President Bush stalls with one bureaucratic dodge after another,” Attorney General Brown said in a news release this week.

The way California interprets the law: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is obliged to regulate greenhouse gases both under the Clean Air Act and under legal precedent set by a Massachusetts case. Brown has petitioned the EPA three times to begin regulatory action and the agency has responded with a preliminary notice that it is considering the issue.

The California news release calls the EPA’s response “pathetically weak” and serves notice that it will sue on ground the feds are delaying action on pollution that endangers the public. Under the law, the EPA has 180 days (about six months) to answer the petition.

Off-road vehicles (tractors, snowmobiles, riding lawn mowers), ships and aircraft emit greenhouse gases equivalent to those of 270 million cars, according to the California news release. The Attorney General’s office wants intervention to push airlines toward using cleaner fuels. Regulating the speed at which ships travel would reduce their pollution. Cruise and cargo ships account for about 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the news release.

The entities joining California in warning the EPA they intend to sue include Connecticut, Oregon, and New York City.  The AP has reported that New Jersey and Pennsylvania have similar intentions.

Environmental groups, including Earthjustice and the Western Environmental Law Center, have filed a similar petition.

In 2007 the EPA blocked California and 16 other states from setting their own regulations for greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, saying that the Congress had sufficiently addressed the issue with a law requiring better fuel efficiency. California is appealing that decision in court, citing its intent to enact stricter air quality regulations.

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