May 3rd, 2013

Summer brings so much fun, but it’s also the dreaded season of the mosquito, and by that we mean, the Culex mosquito, which transmits West Nile Virus to humans. The virus can be deadly, so squelching the mosquito population and finding an effective repellent is important. Here’s a look at the latest thinking and the ingredients endorsed as effective mosquito repellents.

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April 24th, 2012

The Meadows Foundation has given the Texas Trees Foundation $96,000 to fund what could be the largest tree planting initiative in the nation.

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October 17th, 2011

Solar companies kicked off their annual convention, being held in Dallas this year, with a ceremony for 15 Dallas-area Habitat for Humanity homes that are receiving donated rooftop arrays.

The Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA) and several solar companies with a Texas presence — including SolarCity, Trina Solar, Solar US, SES 21 and SolarTek, Schletter and Bosch Solar Energy — donated the Habitat panels, which will reduce utility costs for the homeowners, add to the value to the homes and lessen their environmental impact.

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September 23rd, 2011

Dallas, with its tangle of freeways and well-irrigated suburbs, is almost certainly not the metro center that leaps to mind when people think about “Smart Growth” and green building.

It has sprawled too far, become too smoggy and been too much of a sustainability bystander for anyone to confuse it with Portland, San Francisco or even Austin, places where even prosaic issues like waste management get zealous attention.
And yet, Dallas has a surprisingly good green story to tell.

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August 24th, 2011

Get your gas masks out. Seriously, plan to hide indoors if you live in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston or the Beaumont-Port Arthur or Tyler-Longview areas, the next few days are promising air that’s “unhealthy for sensitive groups.”

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May 11th, 2011

Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida’s losses became gains for 24 states when the U.S. Department of Transportation announced $2 billion in awards for a variety of rail projects earlier this week.
The re-shuffling of federal dollars — necessary because the conservative Republican governors of Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida returned federal rail grants — will mostly benefit high speed rail projects in the Midwest, the Northeast and California, which is developing a Sacramento-to-LA high speed rail system.
But Texas, which has so far largely been on the sidelines in the rush to assemble a national train network, also was beneficiary of the new awards. The Lone Star state got $15 million for preliminary engineering for a high speed rail line that would link Dallas and Houston.

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July 14th, 2010

Solar World AG, one of the largest solar PV manufacturers in the world with factories in California, Oregon and Washington, has scored a dream advocate for its products: J.R. Ewing. Actually, the spokesman is Larry Hagman, who played the oilman on the long-running Dallas series. Hagman reprises his oil baron role in an ad for Bonn-based Solar World, where someone obviously decided the possibilities were too rich to leave untapped.

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June 11th, 2010

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and North Little Rock, Ark., Mayor Patrick Henry Hays have been selected to receive the 2010 Mayors’ Climate Protection Awards, a program sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

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June 3rd, 2010

One of the most recognizable residents of Frisco, Texas, is not yet 8 years old. In his short life, he has attended more school assemblies, parades and civic events than most public servants. He has posed for countless photos and received a lifetime of hugs. And he has helped shape attitudes toward clean, green living.

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May 27th, 2010

Irving Independent School District has broken ground on the largest “net zero” public school in the United States. The Texas school district’s Lady Bird Johnson Middle School is designed to produce as much energy as it uses, thereby reducing operating costs for the district and shrinking the school’s carbon footprint.

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May 25th, 2010

Mingyang Wind Power Industry Group, the third largest wind energy company in China, announced today that it will open a Dallas-based operations office. The new office will be a hub for the global expansion of the company, which is not government owned. Mingyang is backed by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, a major shareholder and recently identified as the largest bank in the world.

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November 10th, 2009

Green Right Now Reports

Where there’s a need, there’s a way. Turns out that the biggest proportion of ENERGY STAR homes are being built in steamy Sunbelt locations where keeping the AC under control is an urgent need.

The top market, with the most ENERGY STAR-qualified homes built since the program begin in 1995, is Houston, with 144,000 homes.

The next top cities with the most homes built to these guidelines include Dallas, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles

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