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.

Second Nature, a nonprofit organization promoting sustainability in higher education, launched the Advancing Green Building in Higher Education initiative earlier this year to help under-resourced higher education institutions with a $1.2 million grant from the Kresge Foundation.

Today, Second Nature launched the Campus Green Builder, a part of the initiative, to help all schools further their sustainability plans. The program recognizes that colleges and universities are in a unique position to influence the future, as they shape the minds of tomorrow, and also that they are large consumers of resources.  While many institutions have already formed sustainable committees, there are still many more in the initial stages.

The website, which bills itself as the first of its kind in higher education, aims to build sustainability by giving all schools equal access to funding and resources for green building.

“Whether someone wants to learn about green building grants, financing renewable energy on campus, workshops on building renovations, hiring the right green contractor, or anything else pertaining to green building in higher education, this site is the go-to place,” said Ashka Naik, Program Manager at Second Nature, in a statement.

The Campus Green Builder offers information and opportunities such as:

• Links to green building resource websites and green building experts’ directories.
• Case Studies to serve as models and learning resources.
• Announcements of green building and campus sustainability events, conferences, workshops and webinars.
• Campus Green Builder Blog for peer-to-peer networking.

The Campus Green Builder is partnering with the United Negro College Fund, the US Green Building Council, the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment and Building Green LLC.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Kimberly-Clark Corp. and upcycling firm TerraCycle today announced they will partner on a program  to enhance the sustainability performance of some of K-C’s product packaging. The new program also will create fundraising programs that benefit schools and communities nationwide.

The new program allows participants to earn funds for their selected charity of choice for every used piece of plastic packaging associated with Scott or Huggies brands that they collect. The collected plastic packaging will be upcycled into affordable, high-quality products available next year at major retailers nationwide, the companies said.

“Kimberly-Clark is already making significant strides in reducing packaging waste from its products, but this program with TerraCycle will help us do even more,” Matt Kolton, brand manager of Scott Naturals, said in a statement. “No longer will all the plastic packaging from both our Scott brand bath tissue, towels, napkins and moist wipes, and Huggies brand diapers be considered waste. Rather, it can be used as a resource in a new generation of products.

Schools, business, houses of worship and even individuals can set up a “Brigade” to collect packaging.  For each piece of packaging a Brigade participant collects, two cents is paid to a school or non-profit group of their choice.

Each of these Brigade programs is diverting product packaging waste from landfills, giving much needed funding to local communities and helping to raise consumer awareness about reusing and reducing.

(HONOLULU) – Hawaii has found a new place in the sun. With a local in the White House and clean-energy tech booming, this sunny, windy island state is blossoming into an exotic garden of alternative-power innovation with nearly $1 billion in clean energy projects underway. The aggressive  initiatives are driven by history and necessity.

Wind turbines on Hawaii Island (Photo: Hawaiian Electric Light Co.)

Necessity, because Hawaii gets 90 percent of its energy from imported oil, while its isolation makes it vulnerable to frequent power outages (no neighbors to send in reserves – until wave power is tapped). Not-so-distant history, because native Hawaiian culture is rooted in respect for nature, a vibe that resonates “take no more than is needed and squander nothing that is taken”.

Currently, islanders pay 25 to 55 cents, per kilowatt hour for electricity – three to five times the national average. Gas prices are the highest in the country.

As solar-tech pioneer and Honolulu-based Sopogy founder Darren Kimura puts it, “We only have about 5 to 7 days worth of energy stored here. And if we were cut off, we’d be stuck. Tourists would be stranded, transportation would stop, food would run out. … We have a very small grid here, and power outages aren’t uncommon.”

Kimura, who just won the Blue Planet Foundation’s Honua (meaning “Earth”) Award for Clean Energy, illustrates his point with a lighter note: “Last year in December, President Obama was out here on vacation, and we had a minor incident and lost power to the entire island. Talk about being at center stage and the lights going off. The President’s visiting and at the house where he’s staying, the power goes out. … The unfortunate reality was (driven home) – how fragile the energy grid is here.”

Fortunately, America’s 44th Commander-in-Chief was born and partly raised in Honolulu; he’s probably used to the outages. Kimura guesses it didn’t freak him out too badly.

But there’s been plenty for Hawaiians to ballyhoo in the news lately, besides ‘ownership’ of a President: In January 2008, during her State of the State address, Gov. Linda Lingle told constituents she would make energy a priority. Within a few days, Honolulu had signed the historic Clean Energy Initiative with the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), whereby America’s 50th state would shift from a fossil-fuel driven economy to one that buzzed with power from wind, sun, water (and biofuel and geothermal tech and hydrogen fuel…) by 2030. Specifically, the plan calls for Hawaii to get 70 percent of of its power from clean energy – 40 percent from actual renewable power, 30 percent from energy efficiency and consumer conservation.

Since then, several other major policy changes have occurred.

• Last year, the state passed a law requiring all new homes to have solar-heated water. Jeff Mikulina, executive director of Hawaii’s influential Blue Planet Foundation (started by Blue Planet Software founder Henk Rogers) does the energy math: “We’re building about 5,000 homes a year in Hawaii, and most experts say the measure will save four or five barrels of oil, per household per year,” Mikulina says. So…that’s 20,000 to 25,000 barrels per year that we won’t consume.”

• In December 2008, California-based Better Place, an alt-energy outfit, announced it would use Hawaii as a test site in setting up an infrastructure for electric cars (Israel, Denmark, Australia and California are other test sites). The plan, agreed to by Hawaii’s utility service, calls for Better Place to build 50,000 to 100,000 recharging and battery-swap stations by 2012; they will be run using renewable energy purchased from the local utility. Various electric-car manufacturers have expressed interest in the plan, and recently Hawaii’s governor signed a law requiring large parking lots to provide additional space for electric cars by 2011. The state hopes to see 10,000 electric cars on the road by 2014. Experts say Hawaii is an ideal place for them, because travel distances aren’t very far (usually less than 100 miles). It’s a series of islands – eight in all, thank you.

• And most recently, Mikulina – whose name is familiar to many eco-advocates because of his long career with first the Sierra Club’s Hawaii Chapter and now with Blue Planet – points to the Feed-In Tariff, announced by the state’s Public Utilities Commission on Sept. 25th that levels the price-point playing field for alt-energy providers, knocking down hurdles for clean-energy development. (Essentially a feed-in tariff sets a price that utilities must pay to renewable energy providers, removing uncertainties in the market that hinder development.)

So, the groundwork for a clean-energy conversion has be laid, and the sky literally is the limit.

Hawaii Island gets about 30 percent of its power from geothermal (Photo: John Lund, Geothermal Heat Center)

With its sun, wind and surf, Hawaii is ideally positioned for such a sea change. Here, solar energy is a given, wind power a duh, and wave-power possibly just a Hang-Ten away. Not to mention the geo-thermal power contained in all that volcanic activity. In fact, with policy wonks, techno geeks and eco-interests all looking toward the same goal, the Aloha State is poised to become a global force in sustainability, exporting know-how and technology instead of importing fuel and food.

Blue Planet Foundation’s Mikulina and Rogers believe Hawaii can be energy-independent within a decade.

But what, more specifically, makes Hawaii a mecca for alt-fuel seekers while simultaneously making it vulnerable to fossil-fuel peddlers?

“First of all, there’s the geographic isolation of the island,” says Kimura. “We’re one of the most, if not the most, isolated locations in the world. We’re literally in the middle of the Pacific Ocean – 2,500 miles from LA and 4,000 miles from Asia in general… It’s not like it’s convenient to get here (ditto for imported foods and fuels). … We import I’d say 50 to 60 percent of our food, and as a result of that – and importing oil – we export $7 billion of our capital. We spend $7 billion annually for that energy. When you take all of those factors together, the fact is that we have no economic security, and Hawaii needs to move toward an oil-independent, clean energy/fossil-free future. … Also, take into account that the economy here is largely tourist based, and the cost of living is almost two times higher than in  just about every major city in the United States.”

The flip-side, Kimura says, looks better.  “I see two opportunities here. First of all, the opportunity for us to be self-sustaining. We have some of the best wind, some of the best solar, some of the best access to the ocean and to waste-biomass because of our agriculture industry. … All these are natural resources that could be converted into power, or even just fuel for our cars, like biodiesel. I think that’s step one — becoming energy efficient. Step two is exporting our knowledge and our technology. … It might not be mission-critical for others today, but it will be. These problems are magnified in Hawaii, but they become a reality within ten years in other parts of the world. That second point could become a key economic driver for Hawaii.”

All across O’ahu are impressive indicators for the future.

Hickam Air Force Base has a hydrogen fueling station where many of its vehicles – electric-drive vehicles, be they fuel-cell or internal-combustion that burn hydrogen – can fill ‘er up. That was built about three years ago. Now the station is powered by 146 kilowatts of solar power – enough to energize about 30 homes. The 180-watt panels were manufactured and installed by Honolulu based Sunetric. The hydrogen plant itself was a joint venture between the state of Hawaii and the United States Air Force.

Nearer to Waikiki, the historic Punahou School, where President Barack Obama graduated high school, class of ‘79, has green shoots sprouting every which way. The circa-1841 campus is home to one of the most aggressive pushes toward sustainability of any school in the nation. Across 76 acres, 44 school buildings are spread, many with solar panels and other signs of sustainability. But since 2004, Punahou has taken greenness to a whole new level, with the opening of the LEED Gold Case Middle School in 2004-2005, and, now with construction underway on the uber-clean Omidyar K-1 Neighborhood and Tennis Complex, which Punahou hopes will receive LEED Platinum upon its completion in 2010-2011.

In 2006, Punahou’s Case Middle School was named “Greenest School in America” by the GreenGuide. It features waterless urinals, photovoltaic arrays, as well as curricula and field-trips that focus on all elements of sustainability, from eating local food to being socially responsible and community driven, to being environmentally active. Oh, and the vending machines don’t have candy.

Over at Sopogy, the company is, to use surfer lingo, throwin’ some serious heat.

Sopogy's Solar Nova Concentrator (Photo: Sopogy)

Founded by Kimura in 2002 (one of several clean-energy/eco-friendly companies he’s pioneered over the past 17 years), Sopogy introduced a new product yesterday at the Solar Power International Conference and Expo in Anaheim, Calif. – the first commercially available rooftop Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) collector – called the SopoFlare. CSP’s have previously been designed for deserts, or spread across acres and large fields.

“These are about 30 percent cheaper than traditional solar collectors. And the cool thing is that when we launched the product, we had so many hits on our website that it went down. It’s back up now. But people were freaking out!” Kimura said.

But that’s only the beginning, local entrepreneurs say. A number of new projects are coming online – have actually been announced – that amount to almost a billion dollars worth of clean-energy projects in Hawaii. They span the universe of clean energy, from activated carbon to burning sugarcane to create power, to biodiesel projects to Sopogy’s own steam-energy advances, which use mirrors to intensify the energy of the sun, creating steam and then collecting it.

It could be colder in Boston this time of year. With overnight lows in the upper 40s, it’s not the worst or best condition for sleeping outside.

"Sleepers" gather in Boston

Still, that’s what dozens of college students and environmental activists across the state have decided to do to make a point about clean energy and press Gov. Deval Patrick to promote a bill that would power Massachusetts with 100 percent clean energy by 2020.

The students, organized through the student-led Leadership Campaign, began their “sleep out” protest this past weekend with about 70 students and community members sleeping out in Boston Common.

Participants came from Harvard and Boston Universities; from Clark University and Worcester Polytechnic Institute and even from Westfield State College and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in the western part of the state. Community members came from all over the state and included ordained clergy, according to organizers.

The plan: To sleep outdoors instead of in dormitories and houses powered by “dirty electricity”, until a plan is in place to power homes with clean electricity. Monday morning, after the first sleep in, students lobbied legislators at the Statehouse.

How long will the students shiver in the night? They’ll be back every Sunday night in Boston Common, and on other campuses students will continue to sleep out through the week,  until early December, if necessary. The activists want Patrick to introduce and pass a bill before Dec. 7, when global climate negotiations begin in Copenhagen. (Find out more about sleeping out on their website.)

“Massachusetts has already led on this issue,” said protest coordinator Craig Altemose. “When the science said 450 parts per million [of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was the safe upper limit], the Legislature passed a bill putting the Commonwealth on track with this target.

“But now the science says 350 is the highest safe level.  We’re now at 390, so we know that the Legislature and the Governor will again step forward and lead us to a clean energy future with accurate science-based targets.”

What the students and activists are asking for is realistic, says Dan Abrams, a spokesman for the Leadership Campaign.

Tents in Boston

“…There have been numerous reports that state that we can get a very high percentage of our energy in Massachusetts from wind and solar alone.  I have read a report that says we can get around 60% of our energy from wind alone. I also have heard of a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists that says we can get 92% of our energy from wind and solar (and that doesn’t include off shore wind or energy conservation),” Abrams said.

But moving to clean energy is not really a choice dictated by how easy or not it will be to shift the infrastructure and electricity generation, he said.

“The science has clearly stated the world needs to cap the carbon in our atmosphere at 350ppm and we must do whatever it takes to get us below that number; 10 years is how long we are giving our government because it’s very scientifically possible to get to this goal much sooner but it is the politics that take a little bit longer.”

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Austin's Liberal Arts and Science Academy (Photo: AISD)

From Green Right Now Reports

The US Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Partnership released its first-ever list of the 20 primary and secondary schools nationwide using the most power from renewable energy sources. The Austin Independent School District and Round Rock (Texas) Independent School District, both of which purchase their energy from Austin Energy, topped the list.

The top Green Power Partner schools are buying nearly 113 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power annually, equivalent to carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) that would be produced from the electricity use of 11,000 American homes for one year.

“Our green powered schools are giving kids a brighter future in more ways than one. They’re leading the way in protecting our health and environment, and moving the country into the clean energy economy of the 21st century,” EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said in a statement. “This is a great lesson on how we reduce harmful pollution in our skies and get America running on clean energy.”

Green power is generated from renewable resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, biogas, and low-impact hydropower. Green power electricity generates less pollution than conventional power and produces no net increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

EPA’s Green Power Partnership works with more than 1,100 organizations to voluntarily purchase green power to reduce the environmental impacts of conventional electricity use. Overall, EPA Green Power Partners are buying more than 17 billion kWh of green power annually, equivalent to the CO2 emissions from electricity use of nearly 1.7 million American homes annually.

Here is the EPA’s top 20 list of k-12 schools that purchase the most green power:

If anyone doubted that there’s a global grassroots movement to fight climate change, they may reconsider after viewing the photos that streamed in this weekend from the International Day of Climate Action.

Demonstrators in Sydney at the Opera House

From Sydney to Barcelona; the Himalayas to Hollywood, people in more than 180 nations gathered to display the number 350 — the benchmark that many scientists consider to be the safe upper limit for carbon in the air. Above 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide (Earth’s atmosphere is already at 390), greenhouse gases play havoc with arctic ice and the oceans, sending Earth toward a tipping point that climatologists around the world would bring disastrous floods, coastal losses, droughts and vast alterations in farmland.

The organizing group behind the demonstrations, 350.org, asked concerned citizens and like-minded groups to coalesce around this single number to make a point that the people across the globe want solutions.  Specifically, they want their national leaders to take serious steps to curb global warming at the upcoming United Nations’ climate negotiations in Copenhagen.

350 in Bangladesh

The wave of actions that rippled across the planet this past weekend began in the Pacific, where many islands could be inundated by the rising seas created by greenhouse gases. It moved with the time zones around the planet, to the mountains where glaciers are thinning to Africa where the ability to grow food is threatened.

In Bonn, activists make their desires clear (Photo: Robert von Waarden, Spectral Q)

In Europe activists used the day to express their hopes that political leaders will act decisively. Environmentalists are concerned that politicians may move too slowly, and that without a firm move toward clean energy and away from polluting fossil fuel industries, the planet’s atmosphere will continue to fill with greenhouse gases.

At 11 a.m. on Saturday, Columbia University’s two largest student environmental groups gathered in the middle of campus to bang on drums, strum guitars, blow through horns and yell at the top of their lungs. For one ear-throbbing minute the campus erupted– all in the name of the environment.

The literal wake-up call to the Upper West Side of New York City kicked-off the day-long festivities, organized by Green Umbrella and Eco-Reps, for the International Day of Climate Action, a world-wide day of events organized to deliver a unified call to action for bold leadership on the climate crisis.

Demonstrators at the Brooklyn Bridge

“This movement may be small today, but we’re not alone at all,” said Greg Tulchin, the head organizer of Columbia’s 350 Event. “We’re connected to all these millions of people around the world.”

Despite the relentless downpour in the city, scheduled events carried on in NYC, with the grand finale in Times Square including supporters chanting and carrying signs as jumbo screens streamed climate day slogans. At Columbia, a small group of students and neighbors huddled under tents while creating their own 12-foot banner for Times Square. They made newspaper pots for planting and watched eco-related performances.

Students at Columbia College (Photo: Sommer Saadi)

“There is a lot of information out there [about climate change] and it can be really overwhelming,” said Elizabeth Kipp-Giusti, publicity director of EcoReps, one of the organizing groups. “If we can do a little bit to facilitate that process of going through it all, then that’s a step toward having people be more environmentally aware and that’s all we can ask for.”

With the goal of the day being to raise awareness about 350 and the December UN Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen, being in the middle of the campus, in the middle of the city, making lots of noise translated to success—no matter the weather.

Theater Troupe in Trujillo, Peru (Photo: Valkiria)

While rained soaked events from Boston to Washington D.C., demos in the rest of the US fared better, with people turning out in tiny towns like Orono, Minn., and major cities, including larger gatherings in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles. Everywhere people made a point about the effects on climate change on their corner of the world, declaring “We love our snow” in Alaska, with that changing to “Save Our Coasts” on Manhattan Beach in Los Angeles.

The sun shone also on events in South America, which has been losing natural habitat to over-development, and in Africa, is already hitting hard. Many island nations and countries in low-lying areas, which stand to lose coastal lands to rising seas as well as worsening storms, participated in the demonstrations, from the Maldives and Micronesia to the Caribbean.

School children in the Dominican Republic

Bill McKibben, environmental activist and founder of 350.org, declared the day a huge success to supporters and urged anyone who’s curious to visit the website and see the photos.

“It was so sweet to watch the day move around the globe, with thousands upon thousands of pictures appearing, sometimes a dozen a minute! There were photos of climbers high on the glaciers of Switzerland holding 350 banners, of bicycle parades from Copenhagen to San Francisco, of organizers in Papua New Guinea beating their church gong 350 times while churches in Barcelona rang their bells 350 times.”

“…Together, we’ve shown the world that a global climate movement is possible and set a bold new agenda for the upcoming United Nations Climate Meetings in Copenhagen this December,” he said. “The 350 target is the new bottom line for climate action and world leaders must now meet that target.”

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

It seems fitting that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s first 100 percent recycled text books are a series for K-5th graders called “Go Math!”

Because the math (and the science) tells us that the earth is warming and we’d better figure out how to recycle, reuse and reduce or plan to jettison the planet in a big spaceship in the not-distance future.

The “Go Math!” series will be available in spring 2010 and has already been adopted by the state of Florida. The company estimates that the green textbooks will save 40,000 trees and 8 million gallons of water in Florida alone. It will reduce carbon air emissions by 3.8 million pounds and eliminate 1 million pounds of solid waste, according to HMH.

The company reduced the carbon footprint of the book series by:

• Printing all student editions in domestic plants governed by U.S. environmental laws, which saved on shipping and waste

• Using post-consumer recycled fiber for the paper, which saves on trees and reduces manufacturing energy consumption

Boston-based Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company is the world’s largest publisher of educational materials for pre-K–12 schools. The company is committed to producing more green textbooks, said Mike Lavelle, K–12 president at HMH. “School districts across the county have expressed that environmental stewardship is a priority, so we will continue to build our Green Edition content to provide more sustainable solutions nationwide.”

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will be competing in a rapidly changing market in which many colleges and schools are turning to electronic textbook services. With higher level educational material scattered online and across other electronic formats, paper textbooks may soon seem environmentally weighty, even in recycled form.

California has announced it is going digital with public school textbooks.

By some calculations, electronic isn’t necessarily greener. It depends on whether you’re reading that textbook on a simple reader or a high-powered computer; how long you are plugged in and where the electricity is sourced. (See this Guardian article for more discussion comparing paper to electronic textbooks.)

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, in fact, offers some interactive educational programs, such as Destination Math.

Tomorrow’s leaders are already working towards a cleaner future — that could be as bright as the sun.

The Solar Decathlon, an international competition hosted by the US Department of Energy (DOE), is showcasing solar-powered home designs created by students from around the world.

Students selected to participate were given two years to design and build the prototype solar homes, which must be carbon neutral and completely powered by the sun. The projects, many costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, are on display at the National Mall in Washington through Sunday (Oct. 18).

Two thousand students came together to form 20 teams, which are competing to win prizes in several categories, such as best architecture or engineering or “comfort zone”.

The Solar Decathlon Proposal Review Committee, which is made up of engineers, scientist, and other experts from the DOE and its National Renewable Energy Laboratory, selected the teams that they thought had the ability to meet the strict structural and safety requirements. Once selected, each team was given $100,000 to get started. Projects often require more, so individual teams then raise any additional funds.

“The U.S. Department of Energy supports the Solar Decathlon to encourage young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. DOE also supports the event to help move solar energy technologies to the market place faster. The Solar Decathlon helps accelerate the research and development of energy-efficiency and energy production technologies,” said John Horst, spokesperson for the Department of Energy.

The Solar Village

The 800-square-feet homes must be completely powered by the sun. They are meant to be prototype zero-energy, zero-carbon homes. The hope is that this competition stimulates research that will reduce the cost of solar-powered homes and the advancement of solar technology. While the Solar Decathlon aims to find ways to save money with solar technology, design and comfort are important as well.

The student teams represent universities from across North America, and two from Europe:

Reflective Louvers

• Cornell University
• Iowa State University
• Penn State
• Rice University
• Team Alberta (University of Calgary, SAIT Polytechnic, Alberta College of Art + Design, Mount Royal College)
• Team Boston (Boston Architectural College, Tufts University)
• Team California (Santa Clara University, California College of the Arts)
• Team Germany (Technische Universität Darmstadt)
• Team Missouri (Missouri University of Science and Technology, University of Missouri)
• Team Ontario/BC (University of Waterloo, Ryerson University, Simon Fraser University)
• Team Spain (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid)
• The Ohio State University
• The University of Arizona
• Universidad de Puerto Rico
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• University of Kentucky
• University of Louisiana at Lafayette
• University of Minnesota
• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
• Virginia Tech
  

  A student built solar home

There are a total of 10 contests throughout the competition, which began Oct. 8.

• Architecture: Architectural elements, holistic design, and inspiration are evaluated when looking at a house’s design. Market Viability: Houses are marketed to an audience of the team’s choice. Points are given based on a realistic approach to affordability, livability, ease of building, and marketability.
• Engineering: Houses are assessed based on reliability, innovation, efficiency, and functionality in engineering excellence.
• Lighting Design: Houses must include functional, energy-efficient, and aesthetically pleasing lighting systems. The judges score on the following categories: electric lighting quality, day lighting quality, ease of operation, flexibility, energy efficiency, and building integration.
• Communications: Teams are scored based on their verbal, written, and photographic communication of their houses. Messages must be consistent, effective, and able to engage a wide audience.
• Comfort Zone: In order to score points in this contest, houses must maintain a certain temperature and humidity inside during the competition.
• Hot Water: This contest displays how solar hot water systems are able to supply enough hot water daily.
• Appliances: House appliances must run like those of the average US home while using less energy. Throughout the contest, the houses must keep refrigerator and freezer temperatures within the typical range, wash and dry laundry, as well as run the dishwasher.
• Home Entertainment: This contest exhibits the houses’ ability to go beyond basic functions, like powering modern electronics and conveniences.
• Net Metering: The newest contest, measures how much energy the houses produce and consume throughout the competition, and rewards teams for producing more energy than they consume.

“Certainly it’s also important to raise awareness among the general public about renewable energy and energy efficiency and what technologies are available — that is, commercial off-the-shelf materials and supplies – today that can be used to help reduce energy use,” said Horst.

The Solar Decathlon encourages students to find practical solutions to a global problem. Their research is expected to be influential in the marketplace and bridge the worlds of science and business, showing that they have both dollar and environmental value.

The need for alternative energy is no longer an issue for the future. According to the US Department of Energy, the United States consumes about 100 quads of energy per year, with 22% of that coming from the residential sector. The cost of that energy is almost $1 million per minute, and the US consumes one-fourth of the world’s energy resources, but only contains 5% of the world’s population.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Just when we got clear of growth hormones in our milk, now comes news that estrogens and other hormones are floating around our waterways, interfering with the biological functions of fish and wildlife — and causing yet untallied health issues for humans.

These synthetic and natural hormones from plastics, pesticides and prescription drugs that have been flushed into sewer systems are “seeping into rivers and streams and having unintended consequences on wildlife, causing some male fish to become feminized and lay eggs,” according to a news release promoting a conference on the subject.

The Tenth International Symposium on Environment and Hormones will be held later this month at Tulane University, bringing together experts from around the world to consider the latest research in this field.

Some of those findings, according to a report in Aquatic Toxicology, are:

• That almost all of the rivers and streams tested in the United States contained some hormonally active chemicals.
• That nearly one-third of 111 US river basics sampled contained feminized male fish that scientists suspect have been altered by pollution from industrial byproducts, pesticides and other chemicals, possibly including antidepressants, contraceptives and other medications that end up in waste water and cannot be filtered by most city waste water treatment plants.

The conference will also look at how these ambient hormones affect humans, by disrupting the endocrine system and playing a role in diseases like breast cancer.

It will include sessions about DES (diethylstilbestrol), a synthetic form of estrogen linked to increased cancer risks and Bisphenol-A, a compound found in plastic food containers and the resin linings of food cans that has been implicated as a hormone disruptor.

Terry Collins, a chemistry expert and advocate running a campaign to get companies to anticipate how their products might act in the environment, will be a key speaker. He will discuss the potential human harm from these plastic byproducts and pharmaceuticals and explain why companies need to develop biodegradable forms.

“It is one of the hottest topics in environmental biology right now,” said John McLachlan, director of the Tulane/Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research, in a new statement promoting the conference.

“The biological activity of these compounds both in terms of other species and, potentially, ourselves is something that scientists are becoming more and more aware of through research.”

“They all [the chemicals] end up in different places in the environment,” he says. “What do they do to the wildlife that absorb them and, more importantly, what do they do to our water sources?”

The conference will be Oct. 21-24 at the Pere Marquette Hotel in New Orleans and is open to the public and students.

The Sustainable Endowments Institute released the 4th edition of its annual College Sustainability Report Card 2010, also known as the Green Report Card on Wednesday.

Founded in 2005 and supported by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, the Institute supports the advancement of sustainability in higher education. It boasts that its college ranking project had a response rate of 96 percent in 2009, giving the Green Report Card the highest response rate of any college sustainability ranking or rating service.

The Green Report Card graded 332 universities on a scale of 1 through 4 on their performance in nine categories:

• Administration
• Climate Change & Energy
• Food & Recycling
• Green Building
• Transportation
• Student Involvement
• Endowment Transparency
• Shareholder Engagement
• Investment Priorities

Twenty-six schools received a 4.0:

• Amherst College
• Arizona State University
• Brown University
• University of California – San Diego
• Carleton College
• College of the Atlantic
• University of Colorado
• Dickinson College
• Harvard University
• Luther College
• Macalester College
• Middlebury College
• University of Minnesota
• University of New Hampshire
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Oberlin College
• Pacific Lutheran University
• University of Pennsylvania
• Pomona College
• Smith College
• Stanford University
• University of Vermont
• University of Washington
• Wesleyan University
• Williams College
• Yale University

Out of the 26 schools that earned a 4.0, 20 belong to the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC).

“We believe that report cards like this offer important opportunities to raise public awareness and apply pressure to schools to improve their sustainability efforts.  However, there are other useful considerations too, such as membership in the ACUPCC, whether the school is working towards climate neutrality, and what sustainability courses and research the school is providing,” stated Gina Coplon-Newfield, director of communications and outreach for Second Nature.

The total endowment value of the schools surveyed for this year’s Green Report Card is $325 billion. While the average endowment value dropped 23 percent in the last year, schools are not making cuts in sustainability. In fact, they are using sustainability to their advantage.

“Surprising the skeptics, most schools we surveyed did not let financial reversals undermine their green commitments,” said Mark Orlowski, executive director of the Sustainable Endowments Institute, in a statement. “New financial realities encouraged saving money by adopting environmentally friendly innovations.”

“Colleges are now taking pride in greener campuses and sustainability-savvy investments—increasingly important concerns for parents and students in choosing a school,” Orlowski said.

The Green Report Card allows a person to compare up to 10 schools at a time, filtered by more than 100 categories, such as geographic region, athletic league, environmental studies majors, sustainability jobs on campus, renewable energy use and many other factors.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

The Baltimore City Public Schools system has announced it will participate in the Meatless Monday campaign — the first school system in the U.S. to do so. Under the program, the school district’s 80,000 students will begin each week with a Meatless Monday menu.

The Meatless Monday campaign aims to get Americans to cut out steaks and pork chops on one day a week as a way of trimming the greenhouse gas emissions produced by the livestock industry and as a way of supporting locally grown foods.

The school system’s actions yesterday earned it the 2009 Award for Visionary Leadership in Local Food Procurement and Food Education from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. Dr. Robert Lawrence, director of the CLF, and Dr. Michael Klag, dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, presented the award to Neil Duke, chairman of Baltimore City Board of Schools, and Tony Geraci, director of Baltimore City Schools Department of Food and Nutrition.

Geraci said the school system hopes the Meatless Monday program will inspire people to understand there are other options than just “meat and potatoes” for every meal. He hopes Baltimore can lead the country in reconnecting the next generation with food cultivation and preparation.

The school system has introduced a wide variety of projects to ensure its students eat and learn about healthy, environmentally friendly choices. School system staff have been working with local farmers to provide fresh produce, and with its distributors to find local suppliers. the City Schools also introduced a teaching farm, Great Kids Farm, and is developing the resources to establish a garden at each of its more than 200 schools.

Related stories:

• Meatless Mondays: A way to reduce your carbon output and sat fat intake
• Food vs. the environment: getting to the meat of the problem
• Recipes for Meatless Mondays
• Guide to Good Food: Eat less meat