From Green Right Now Reports

Image: Governors' Wind Energy Coalition

While there is no shortage of hot air swirling around various plans to harness wind energy to power our homes and businesses, a group of United States governors has hammered out a plan and is ready to take it all the way to the top.

On Tuesday, Iowa Governor Chet Culver and Rhode Island Governor Donald L. Carcieri released Great Expectations: U.S. Wind Energy Development, the Governors’ Wind Energy Coalition’s 2010 Recommendations. Culver and Carcieri are the chair and vice chair of the 29-state organization, which is attempting to shape a national policy to make wind power both viable and cost-effective.

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From Green Right Now Reports

Calling themselves “Clean Energy Patriots,” dozens of environmental leaders today asked the U.S. Senate to quit serving the interests of “Big Oil” and take action on behalf of Americans who want clean energy and climate solutions.

The leaders from nearly 50 environmental and social responsibility groups signed a declaration at the U.S. Capitol. It demands that the Senate quit stalling on climate action, and kicks off a 40-day countdown until Earth Day, which celebrates its 40th anniversary on April 22.

They urged citizens to join in what they are calling the Earth Day Revolution.

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By Harriet Blake
Green Right Now

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.

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From Green Right Now Reports

Even after monumental clean-ups that rescued the Great Lakes from acid rain and industrial dumping in the 20th Century, these national water resources continue to suffer environmental assaults.

Sewage overflows into the lakes — some 25 billion gallons of untreated sewage from 20 cities in 2008 — have resulted in waters that periodically test positive for dangerous levels of E coli in 2008, according to a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Asian Carp (Photo: US Fish and Wildlife Service.)

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Green Right Now Reports

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and the state’s Attorney General and Agriculture commissioner, announced Tuesday that the state will challenge the EPA’s 2009 finding that greenhouse gases are endangering human health.

Texas has filed a Petition for Review of the EPA’s finding with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit , questioning the science behind the EPA’s finding and whether the agency should be allowed to regulate industries’ greenhouse gas emissions.

The move follows a similar one by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce last week, when the Chamber filed a petition against the EPA to stop the agency from regulating greenhouse gases. The Chamber says it favors greenhouse gas reductions, but that giving the EPA the authority to assess fines against polluters is the “wrong way” to do it.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

If you had the money and connections, you could build a snappy green house these days. Sink a geothermal heat pump to tap Mother Earth’s energy, slap up some solar panels, finish it out with non-toxic drywall, cork floors, denim insulation, recycled glass countertops and floors made from sunken ship decking.

Green house (Image: Axepin/dreamstime.com)

But does a green house a green home make? The answer to that is….of course not. Green builders, and those who live in green houses, soon bump up against what some land planners have known all along: It takes a village to bring green to its fullest expression.

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By Ashley Phillips
Green Right Now

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 one key 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.

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From Green Right Now Reports

As mascots go, the U.S. Bald Eagle has been much beloved, but not always well tended. Once prolific in the U.S., the population wavered and fell dramatically in the 20th Century — until biologists discovered that DDT and other pollution was impairing the bird’s ability to reproduce.

That was one big canary in a coal mine.

With DDT now banned, the Bald Eagle has rebounded, and was removed from the Endangered Species list in 2007. There are now an estimated 9,000 or more Bald Eagles living in the wild in the U.S., according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

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From Green Right Now Reports

World Wildlife Fund announced today that Earth Hour 2010 will take place on Saturday, March 27, from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., with many of the nation’s most iconic landmarks dimming their lights for one hour in what is expected to be the largest call for action on climate change in history.

WWF said the initial list of U.S. landmarks taking part in the event includes Mount Rushmore, Empire State Building, the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign, Harrah’s Caesar Palace and the MGM Mirage on the Las Vegas Strip and San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. New Earth Hour participants in 2010 will include Montezuma Castle National Monument in Arizona and the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Indianapolis. Other local landmarks taking part include Atlanta’s Bank of America building and the Pike Place Market sign in Seattle.

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Green Right Now Reports

The two week summit on climate change in Copenhagen wound to a close Saturday with the United Nations issuing a news release that many nations had agreed upon the issues that need to be addressed.

The agreement, seen either as a foothold or a failure in the fight against climate change, fell far short of the hoped-for signed treaty that would have included firm commitments on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the countries around the world.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called it “an essential beginning.”

“The importance will only be recognized when it’s codified into international law … We must transform this into a legally binding treaty next year,” he told the BBC.

The accord provides for industrialized nations to commit to specific emissions reductions targets by stating them within the agreement by the end of January, 2010. The top GHG-polluting nations include China, the United States, Russia, India and Japan, followed by Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, South Korea and Iran.

Here is the news release from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the arm of the UN that oversaw talks:

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Collected here are some of the responses to Obama’s announcement this evening of an agreement between certain key nations at Copenhagen. They speak for themselves. We’ll add more as they arise.

Jeremy Hobbs, Executive Director of Oxfam International:

“This agreement barely papers over the huge differences between countries which have plagued these talks for two years.

“The deal is a triumph of spin over substance. It recognizes the need to keep warming below 2 degrees but does not commit to do so. It kicks back the big decisions on emissions cuts and fudges the issue of climate cash.

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Green Right Now Reports

As the Copenhagen climate talks moved into high gear on Tuesday, preparing for the heads of state to join the talks, the AP released a poll showing that more Americans believe action on climate change will help the U.S. economy than hinder it.

The Associated Press-Stanford University Poll found that 40 percent of Americans said that action to slow global warming would create jobs, and 46 percent said it would “boost the economy.”

Less than one-third of respondents felt that controlling climate change would hurt the economy.

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