Fact: America has an abundance of food.
Question: So why does anyone go hungry in this country?

A potato gleaning in Virginia (Photo: Society of St. Andrew)

Armed with this simple thought, the Society of St. Andrew (SOSA) took up the cause of feeding the hungry in 1979 with the idea of gleaning fields for salvageable produce.

“We do this in two says,” says Carol Breitinger, communications director. “We use volunteers in the field for hands-on gleaning, or we send out trucks to pick up surplus crops that farmers can’t use and would just end up in the landfill.”

Once SOSA obtains the produce, they distribute to food pantries around the country. Breitinger says they salvage 20 to 25 million pounds of food a year with the help of 30,000 to 35,000 volunteers. The volunteers come from church groups, schools, scout troops, and even from the people who need the food.

Becky and Dave Aduddell of Wake Forest, N.C., are two of SOSA’s veteran volunteers. “We’ve been doing this for five or six years now,” says Dave, who is a web programmer for a local community college by day and a bass player by night. The couple was hooked after a friend who was gleaning introduced them to the concept. “It sounded like such an eminently logical idea that we joined him very shortly after he started.”

Gleaning a field in North Carolina (Photo: Society of St. Andrew)

“Our interest in gleaning stems from that great desire within each of us to ‘do some good.’ We like it because it is very concrete and tangible. Writing a check to a charity gives one a good feeling and a sense of satisfaction, but going out and working to glean, then delivering the produce directly to the recipients is a very concrete act.”

The Aduddells bring their gleaned crops to a public housing complex in the small town where they live.

The couple acknowledges that the gleaning process wasn’t a big stretch – both of them come from farming families. “While we didn’t grow up on a farm, we spent time doing farm work as kids, so this is a nice déjà vu for us,” says Dave.

In mid-October the Aduddells joined several hundred volunteers for the 19th annual Yam-Jam, sponsored by SOSA. The group salvaged unharvested sweet potatoes from a 50-acre field in rural Johnston County, North Carolina. The area had already been harvested by professionals. In addition to sweet potatoes, Becky says the group has collected corn, green beans, collards, tomatoes, watermelon, squash and blueberries.

“A good 20 percent of produce is lost in the fields,” says SOSA’s Breitinger. She says the USDA calculates that 96 billion pounds of food is wasted in this country before it gets to market.

Why do farmers leave good food behind? “Sometimes commercial growers must leave one field to move on to the next crop,” says Breitinger. Other times, the produce isn’t “perfect” enough for market – not quite the right size or color, but perfectly edible. Also, sometimes the farmer can’t afford to pay another crew to come through his fields again.

Gleaning a perfect cabbage in Virginia (Photo: Society of St. Andrew)

Farmer Leo Stallings says he has leftovers because there isn’t a big market for produce in Franklin County, the area of North Carolina where his farm is located. Stallings, who has been in the farm business for 40 years, grows a number of crops including sweet corn, beans, cantaloupe, collards, peas, squash and string beans. “This area is not very commercial. There are few markets. Growing is not a problem, but selling is. We don’t have a co-op to handle acres of crops.

“I try to plant about as much as I think will sell. But because the market varies, I often have leftovers.”

Stallings says SOSA volunteers come out in the summer and late fall to salvage his fields. He says he doesn’t mind giving it away. “I don’t want it to go to waste and they give us a tax credit for it.”

When large growers donate a tractor trailer load of food, SOSA might contact a group of volunteers, often a church group, to sponsor a “potato drop.”

“Imagine 45,000 pounds of loose potatoes dumped into a church parking lot,” says Breitinger. “Volunteers then put 10 to 15 pounds of potatoes into mesh bags. We contact the local food pantries to come to pick it up.”

In an effort to bring attention to the nation’s outdated toxic chemical laws, Seventh Generation, the makers of many environmentally safe home products, has partnered with Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families in the Million Baby Crawl. This campaign is asking everyone, moms or not, to urge Congress for stronger chemical regulations.

Erin Brockovich

Synthetic chemicals are currently regulated by the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). This out-dated law still allows the existence of materials that some experts have said not only harm the environment, but cause cancer and many other serious illnesses. Under the TSCA, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not have the authority to get the information it needs to evaluate a chemical’s risk. The EPA has only been able to require testing on 200 of the more than 80,000 chemical compounds currently in use. The time is overdue for toxic chemical policy reform.

Well-known environmental activist and mom of three, Erin Brockovich has joined forces with Seventh Generation to lead the campaign. Saturday, she called upon some other famous Hollywood moms to join in on her efforts. Amy Smart, Kellie Martin, and Catherine McCord are some of the eco-celebrities that came out to The Little Seed, a children’s boutique for eco-moms, to kick off the Million Baby Crawl campaign.

“I am an advocate for awareness, the truth, and a person’s right to know. I believe that in the absence of the truth, all of us stand helpless to defend our families and our health, which are the greatest gifts we have,” said Brockovich in a statement. “In many instances, our issues may seem to fall on deaf ears, but I’m living proof that when we speak loudly enough, change will occur. I’m urging everyone to join me in the Million Baby Crawl to help make that difference and make sure all our voices, young and old are heard.”

So far, 6,300 crawlers have joined the campaign. You can join the crawl.  You can name your crawler, and even customize his/her skin tone and clothing color.

Do what you can, not just for the environment, but for the health and safety of your family and yourself.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

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

The US Department of Energy’s 2009 Solar Decathlon showcased the best in solar-powered home design as conceived by colleges students. Over 20 teams from across North America and Europe competed in this year’s competition.

1st Place Solar Home

Team Germany came in first place overall with a score of 908.297 out of 1,000. Team Germany also won the last competition in 2007. The team’s philosophy of “pushing the envelope with as many new technologies as possible” took them straight to the top.

Out of the ten categories, Team Germany’s “SurPLUShome” won Net Metering and scored very highly in the other categories. The team’s two-story home has furniture and appliances that either fold away or can be transformed into something else to serve additional purposes. There are photovoltaic panels on the roof and all sides of the home, even the north side, to produce 200% of the energy required for the house.

The type of solar panels used are less efficient than some, but collect power even on cloudy or rainy days. The aggressive covering of the home with the panels led to the excess energy produced. The panels collected power even on rainy days.

Construction costs for Team Germany’s home was estimated from $650,000-$850,000.

See a video about the house on You Tube.

The University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana’s Gable Home came in second with their home that produces up to four times the energy needed. The team focused on performance but “also achieved elegant simplicity in design,” according to the judges.

This home uses 90% less energy than typical construction. Laminated bamboo was

2nd Place Solar Home

used in construction, which is stronger than wood and more rapidly renewable. This home’s construction costs are significantly lower with a range of $250,000-$450,000.

Team California, made up of Santa Clara University and the California College of the Arts, finished in third place with its Refract House. This home’s temperature and lighting can be controlled from anywhere with a simple iPhone application. The judges gave it first place for Architecture and Communications and raved about its aesthetics.

“Beautiful in every respect, Refract House broke out of the box and masterfully executed the melding of interior and exterior spaces,” they reported.

3rd Place Solar Home

To conserve space, the team equipped the house with built-in furniture. Team California’s construction costs were $450,000-$650,000.

Congratulations to all the Solar Decathlon participants for their efforts to make the future greener.

For details about other winners, see the Solar Decathlon website.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

This Saturday is International Day of Climate Action — a chance for everyone to take a stand on behalf of the planet and possibly participate in one of 4,300 actions that are planned in 171 countries.

With participation numbers like that, the number “350″ is becoming a popular rallying cry.

“We had no idea it would go viral like this. It seems far-fetched that you could get that many people to rally around a scientific data point, but the number just keeps climbing. It shows just how scared of global warming much of the planet really is, and how fed up at the inaction of our leaders,” said Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org.

Added Matt Fitzgerald, a organizer for the group: “We’ve been hearing from the politicians and the corporations, now we’re hearing from the people. And in over 170 countries they’re calling for a Copenhagen agreement that sets us on a rapid path to 350.”

350.org began the International Day of Climate Action campaign not only to wake up politicians, but wake up the world. The group wants everyone to know about and understand the number 350, which signifies the level many scientists have identified as the safe utmost limit for CO2 in the atmosphere, in parts per million.

Here are a few unique events around the US:

Austin

• Get Clean to Get Green

The Guadalupe Neighborhood Development Corporation’s (GNDC) extremely affordable, net-zero energy subdivision is truly raising the bar for local, affordable, community-based development. This large infill project involves subdividing approximately 7.2 acres into four tracts, which will be developed into both multi-family condominiums and single-family homes. Currently the land is vacant, and remediation of the brownfield is starting Saturday. Every unit on this property will have net-zero energy bills. A large portion of these units will be affordable to extremely low-income households. Join in and get dirty.

• Education Stroll

Join in a moving forum that will not only be good for you, but for the planet. Participants will take a walk in their neighborhood or across the city to talk with people about the urgent need to reduce our carbon emissions so we can quickly scramble back to 350ppm. Walkers/educators are asked to carry signs illustrating important concepts and will stop in businesses along the way (where appropriate and arrangements have been previously made) to speak with larger groups. Spread the environmental word.

Chicago

• Chalk Walk

Columbia College Chicago will be celebrating the arts and bringing awareness to the environment. The college will demonstrate how one can make their own paper by reusing old paper and turning it into pulp. Later, each person will be given a piece of chalk in to use to trace their “carbon footprint” on the sidewalk. Participants will make a pledge, write something meaningful, and decorate their footprint however they would like. There will be volunteers and organizations showcasing art and visual displays along the walk. There will be art stations, tables, and anything else participants want to use to express themselves.

• Go Go Green

The 2009 Go Go Green 5K will raise awareness about the urban ecosystem and educate the community on eco-friendliness on Saturday at Diversey Harbor. People of all ages are welcome. Participants are encouraged to bring household recyclables, old batteries and gym shoes to the race. The race begins at 9am.

Dallas

• Boomer Green Teams

Volunteers will be saving money while saving the environment for area senior citizens. Participants will be installing free compact fluorescent light bulbs for low-income senior citizens. This simple task will reduce electricity consumption and carbon emissions.

Los Angeles

• Eat Locally, Think Globally

Enjoy socially responsible fine dining, with locally sourced foods and wines at unique sophisticated venues. Created and produced by Chef Rico Mandel & Helen McHugh, their new concept “Restaurant without Walls” blends the social consciousness of environmental awareness with a luxurious gourmet culinary theme at specially contracted, interchangeable locations.

New York

• Dance to Save the World: Studio 54

Join 250 movers and shakers at Studio 54, for StartingBloc’s second annual Fellow-run fundraiser, BLOC PARTY II. This year they will be celebrating “social innovators”, presenting an inaugural award to Majora Carter, an environmental justice and green jobs pioneer from the South Bronx who has worked on climate change initiatives most of her career.

• Climate at the Cathedral

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine invites the community to come join in ringing bells, delivering messages and taking photos to commemorate IDCA. The cathedral will ring its iconic bells 350 times.

Anywhere

• Twitter Hour

Maybe you do not have a couple of hours to get out this Saturday. It is OK. You can still make a difference from the comfort of your own home. Twitter has swiftly become the new communication tool for people everywhere, even celebrities and politicians. So TWEET it.

President Barack Obama is one of the people with the most power to create a positive outcome at the upcoming Copenhagen meeting. Let him know that 350 ppm target is the only way to stop the planet tipping into climate crisis. From 12-1 EDT, send “USA MUST formally adopt the 350ppm CO2 target at Copenhagen 09 – the ONLY WAY to prevent runaway climate change NO EXCUSES!” All the tweets sent to President Barack Obama need to contain the same message, to create maximum impact, according to 350.org.

It is not too late to join an event or even register your own. Either way, make this Saturday about something much larger than yourself.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Health reform has gripped your attention and dominated your computer and TV screens for weeks now.

In case you’ve got little time to spare to study up on climate legislation coming down the pike soon after this huge debate, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change has boiled it down to a summary report.

Get up to snuff on what the Kerry-Boxer bill, called the The Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, by reading the Pew synopsis.

Willing to dig deeper? See Sen. John Kerry’s website for summaries by section of the bill. It’s written in even plainer English and makes it clear what’s in (natural gas and nuclear power) and what’s out (it does not raise the federal deficit by one single dime).

The bill developed as the Senate counterpart to the House’s Waxman-Markey climate bill, but it differs in key ways, for instance, focusing mainly on how to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Most notable, given the origins of the bill in the more conservative Senate, it aims higher, shooting for a 20 percent reduction in GHG from 2005 levels by 2020 compared with the Waxman-Markey goal of  a 17 percent reduction for the same time frame.

The ultimate goal: An 83 percent reduction in GHG’s by 2050, just inching past the standard 80 percent reduction that scientists argue for.

After setting that critical threshold, the bill, like Waxman-Markey, aims to create clean energy jobs and promote energy security by underwriting local, renewable energy sources and installing a cap-and-trade system that puts a price on pollution.

(The authors are Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

As the Nobel Prize Committee noted in awarding President Obama with the Nobel Peace Prize last week, the world is in a better place than it was a year ago.

The world also is in a better place thanks to six young people who are being honored on Tuesday for their heroic environmental efforts. The 2009 Brower Youth Awards, sponsored by Earth Island Institute, will be given to:

• Sierra Crane-Murdoch, 21, of Vermont, for helping unite the movement to fight coal.

• Adarsha Shivakumar, 16, of California, who has put into place a biofuel solution in rural India.

• Diana Lopez, 20, of Texas, who started an organic food source in San Antonio.

• Hai Vo, 22, of California, for transforming food purchasing at the University of California.

• Robin Bryan, 21, of Manitoba, whose project protects 1 million acres of forest in Canada from industrial logging.

• Alec Loorz, 15, of California, who initiated Kids vs. Global Warming and is the youngest presenter of Al Gore’s “The Climate Project.”

Each award recipient will receive a $3,000 cash prize and be recognized at 10th annual Brower Youth Awards Gala in San Francisco. The Earth Island Institute, which sponsors the Brower Youth Awards, is a nonprofit group that recognizes people who come up with solutions to protect the planet.

Sierra Crane-Murdoch

The common thread that connects the six winners is their youthful idealism and  shared passion. As Sierra Crane-Murdoch said via e-mail, “It’s our idealism that energizes our ideas, and it’s comaraderie that makes our ideas succeed.”

Crane-Murdoch says she became an organizer when she arrived at Middlebury College and joined an environmental forum called The Sunday Night Group.

“I’ve always loved the outdoors,” she says, “but I actually started to really care about the environment when I began to understand the human component…and realized that climate change is affecting disadvantaged communities that haven’t caused the problem in the first place.”

Her work with the Sunday Night Group led to Step It Up and 350.org, founded by Middlebury professor and environmentalist Bill McKibben, which she includes among her many mentors. She says that environmental organizing was considered their “5th class” at Middlebury, but “when Power Past Coal came along, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to commit entirely to the project and take classes.”

So Crane-Murdoch took a leave of absence to go live in the Coal River Valley of West Virginia and learn about the issues of dirty coal. She now has one more semester at Middlebury, after which she plans to return temporarily to Appalachia. She is a 2009 Middlebury Fellow in Environmental Journalism, which is directed by McKibben. Currently she is reporting on former union coal miners who are standing up to mountaintop removal coal mining.

Adarsha Shivakumar

Two years ago, at the age of 13, Adarsha Shivakumar of Pleasant Hill, Calif., co-founded Project Jatropha. The organization promotes the plant, Jatropha curcas, a small perennial shrub with oil-rich seeds. Shivakumar says the plant can grow on marginal lands without diverting valuable land from food production. It’s considered an ecologically friendly and economically profitable crop for the farmers of rural India.

Shivakumar says every year he and his sister spend time with their grandparents who live on a farm in south India. “During that time,” he says, “we regularly visit the nearby villages…to see the work done by Parivarthana, a non-governmental farmers aid organization.” Many of the villagers grow tobacco for a living, but to do this the farmers must burn large amounts of firewood to cure the tobacco leaves. Because the farmers do not have a lot of wood on their land, they have turned to cutting down the trees of the local national park.

“My sister and I realized that if we do not make an effort to wean the farmers off tobacco, then the whole forest and all of its incredible biodiversity would disappear,” Shivakumar says.

Shivakumar’s group collaborated with Parivarthana and a plant biotechnology company, Labland Biotechs, to convince farmers that Jatropha seeds could be converted into biofuel.

“Carbon dioxide emissions are local,” says Shivakumar, “but their effects are global.” Though the project is based in India, he hopes it will influence others to help curb global warming and decrease dependence on fossil fuels.

Diana Lopez of San Antonio got excited about social justice and the environment after one of her high school teachers introduced the class to the Southwest Workers Union. The union had a youth chapter that focused on living wages, youth organizing, environmental justice and border global organizing.

Green Right Now

Halloween is still a few weeks out, but for farm animal advocates, it is time to talk turkey.

Ginnifer Goodwin at the Farm Sanctuary (Photo: Ryan Pfluger)

That is, if you want to save a turkey this Thanksgiving, instead of eating one (or instead of eating a factory-farmed animal), the sign up is underway. The Adopt-A-Turkey Project, run by the Farm Sanctuary, has announced its latest sponsor, Big Love star Ginnifer Goodwin, and the details of its program to rescue factory-farmed turkeys.

The group, which has rescued more than a 1,000 turkeys over the last 20-plus years, wants people to consider what they’re eating for the holidays, and also to adopt a rescued bird (for $25) at either of their two shelters in New York and California.

Turkey adopters or sponsors (”sponsored” turkeys stay at the farm) get a certificate with a color photo and fun facts about their gobbling friend. Those who want to actually rescue a bird (they’re said to be sensitive and friendly) can apply to provide a lifelong home for one of 500 rescued turkeys through an adjunct program called “The Turkey Express.”

This year, as in years past, appealing rescued birds will be trotted out as turkey representatives to “vie for the hearts of potential adopters.”

These special ambassador turkeys are Bubbles, Mello, Rhonda, Gideon, Olive and Hawthorn. They will help deliver the Farm Sanctuary message that factory-farmed turkeys are typically raised in tight confinement in dark sheds where they are de-beaked and de-toed without anesthetics and raised so that they “gain weight at an unnaturally fast rate.”

Or as Bubbles notes on the website: “Friends don’t let friends eat turkey at Thanksgiving.”

To learn more, and possibly select a turkey to adopt, see the website, adoptaturkey.org, or call 1-888-SPONSOR.

To find a turkey alternative at the holidays, see the Tofurkey options. The makers of this popular soy-based faux turkey have put together an interesting fact sheet about why eating vegetarian is healthier for the environment and how producing meat uses more resources. They point out, for instance, that 90 percent of the soybeans and 80 percent of the corn raised in the US is used to feed livestock.

Can’t  give up the poultry habit? Find an heirloom, pasture-fed and humanely raised bird through Local Harvest.  You’ll be eating a more nutritional product, full of Omega oils if the bird was pasture fed, and you’ll be supporting more humane treatment of animals.

Mello may or may not be down with that.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

For a fledgling environmental group, Arkansas Interfaith Power and Light has hit the ground running.

The two-week-old organization called on people of faith this week to phone their Arkansas congressmen – Democratic Senators Blanche Lincoln and Sen. Mark Pryor – to urge them to “protect Creation and public health by voting for the Clean Jobs and American Power Act.”

The act, which reached the Senate floor Wednesday, was introduced by U.S. Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA). The legislation aims to help develop clean energy jobs, reduce pollution and protect U.S. security by improving national energy production and fighting global climate change.

“This is a security bill that puts Americans back in charge of our energy future and makes it clear that we will combat global climate change with American ingenuity. It is our country’s defense against the harms of pollution and the security risks of global climate change,” Sen. Kerry said. “Our health, our security, our economy, our environment, all demand we reinvent the way America uses energy. Our addiction to foreign oil hurts our economy, helps our enemies and risks our security. By taking decisive action, we can and will stop climate change from becoming a ‘threat multiplier’ that makes an already dangerous world staggeringly more so.”

Scharmel Roussel, founding member of Arkansas Interfaith Power and Light, says the organization was established by individuals, like herself, who share a concern for the earth’s environment from a nonpartisan and theological perspective. Since starting in mid-September, the group has had 60 people sign on.

Members took part in a phone bank “party” on Wednesday, encouraging Arkansas residents to phone their senators regarding the Clean Jobs bill.

InterFaith Power and Light organizations are located in 29 states. The effort began in 1998 in San Francisco where a group of Episcopal churches joined forces to purchase renewable energy. By 2001, the group became California Interfaith Power and Light, which now helps people of faith organize and promote positive environmental change.

The national umbrella group that oversees the state-wide coalitions is the Regeneration Project, based in San Francisco. Later this month, the Regeneration Project’s founder and president, the Rev. Canon Sally G. Bingham, will participate in a climate change conference in New Orleans with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, head of the Orthodox Church.

Like the other Interfaith Power and Light groups, the Arkansas chapter, says Roussel, is not just “group therapy for folks from different houses of worship…It’s more than just awareness and education. It’s about outreach and advocacy.”

And they’re not wasting any time in getting out the message.

Copyright © 2009 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Call it a sign of the times. The PNC Financial Services Group has unveiled the largest green wall in North America as a unique way to make its Pittsburgh headquarters building more energy-efficient.

(Photo: PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. | PR Newswire)

The 2,380-square foot, soil-based wall is similar in size to a doubles tennis court and features a variety of regional plants grown into living art on the south-facing wall of One PNC Plaza at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Wood Street in downtown Pittsburgh.

The company estimates that each of the 602 panels, with 24 plants in each 2-by-2 square-foot space, will offset the carbon footprint of one person. The vertical garden, similar to a green roof, will help to cool the 30-story building. Preliminary studies show the south-facing living wall will be 25 percent cooler behind the wall than ambient temperatures.

“The wall is a fitting reminder that PNC is the world leader in green building,” PNC Director of Corporate Real Estate Gary Saulson said in a statement. “City sidewalks are cooler and quieter thanks to shade and sound absorption by green walls and urban planting. Together with our recently completed PNC Triangle Park just one block away, the wall creates much needed green space and offers a distinctive welcome to PNC’s headquarters campus.”

PNC says it has more newly constructed buildings certified by the United States Green Building Council under its LEED program than any other company in the world. Its roster includes 64 trademark Green Branch locations and two office buildings. About 20 environmentally friendly branches and two other major buildings are under construction or awaiting LEED certification.

PNC’s green wall is mounted with a stainless steel bracketing and panel system anchored directly into One PNC Plaza’s reinforced concrete masonry.

Also nearing completion is Three PNC Plaza in downtown Pittsburgh. The 23-story multi-use high rise building is expected to receive various LEED® certifications within the complex structure. The adjacent PNC Triangle Park, with bench seating and drought-resistant plantings, opened Sept. 18. PNC’s flagship branch opened on the first floor of the tower in early August, and an environmentally friendly Fairmont Hotel, offices and condominiums are also part of the project.

Project facts:

• The wall will weigh approximately 24 tons when fully saturated via an internally controlled irrigation system. It is estimated that the wall will require just 15 minutes of watering once a week.
• PNC acquired all hardware, plants, materials and installers within a 500-mile radius of downtown Pittsburgh. Of the eight varieties, some plants will change in the winter and some will bloom in the spring.
• The wall is a product of Green Living Technologies of Rochester, N.Y., and designed by Kari Katzander of Mingo Design of New York. Plant Connection is the US Distributor and Lead Grower for Green Living Technologies.
• Cenkner Engineering Associates of Coraopolis, Pa., and BD&E Strategic Branding and Design of Pittsburgh provided engineering and additional design.

Looking to improve the cost efficiency and aesthetics of solar power, a New Jersey company, EarthSure, has decided that solar panels should be buried in the earth.

No they’re not trying to win the “renewal energy miscalculation” award, they have developed a way to funnel solar light to the buried panels, which would gather solar power from the transported light (like solar tubes). The new operation would be unseen, and would not require that rooftops be converted into glassy conversation pieces.

Homeowner’s associations listen up:

“No unsightly above-ground solar panels need to be used anymore. This is an enhancement not only in economics and in the green movement, but a great technological improvement in the area of design and construction as well,” the company reports in a news release.

More importantly, says Ray Saluccio, the founder and CEO of EarthSure, burying the “Subterranean Solar” panels (also dubbed “Subsolar” panels) would take them out of the elements. And by placing them in sealed underground containers — essentially entombing them in prefabricated pressurized casings — they would be far better protected than a rooftop installation would be, he says.

With solar rooftop panels, “you have a leaking issue, you have an installation issue, you have the elements. I don’t know of any harsher atmosphere than somebody’s roof,” Saluccio says.

The Woodbridge, N.J., entrepreneur, who operates a commercial garbage collection company using automated sweepers, has not yet obtained funding to build a prototype.  He says he has received a lot of positive feedback from colleges and others interested in exploring his model and he believes that his new buried energy generators will generate interest among forward-thinking builders and architects.

The SubSolar system (patent pending) would have just a small rooftop presence, employing a solar collection disk that’s about three feet in diameter to capture and magnify the sun’s rays, which would be transferred via fiber optics to the underground storage panels.

Company tests show that the light can be transferred successfully, and while some is lost to diffusion, the Subsolar system can make up for that loss with collection efficiencies. Unlike a flat panel roof solar installation that can only capture a portion of the day’s sunlight (when the angle of the light hitting the panel is right) the Subsolar’s smaller mounted collection disk tracks the sun, collecting rays all day long, Saluccio says.

Furthermore, the underground chambers would keep the panels cool and dry, making them more productive and longer lasting, he says. Rooftop solar panels, by comparison, get baked in the sun and can be harmed by storms.

Will it all work? Time will tell. One thing’s for sure. It’s an idea that’s out of sight.

Considering how the desert challenges our green aspirations, it’s surprising there’s not already a reality show: Extreme Green — Finding eco-friendly solutions in hostile places.

OK, so the title could use some work. The facts remain – the desert is great for producing heat and making solar power. But when it comes to human habitation, it’s an air conditioning-dependent, rugged place.

They understand that in Palm Desert, a small city in Southern California’s Coachella Valley, which gets about 350 days of sunshine a year, endures four months of 100-degree-plus weather and would make a good candidate for the Extreme Green pilot show. Palm Desert both wrestles with, and accepts its environs.

“Palm Desert has a long history of interest in the environment both in energy conservation and saving water and respect for the environment,” said Lauri Aylaian, director of community development for the resort city of 50,000.

Let’s start with transportation.

Look around the town and you will see tourists on the main drag, El Paseo, browsing the shopping district from courtesy golf carts, residents running errands in golf carts and golfers in, yup, golf carts zipping around the environmentally conscientious Desert Willow resort.

In the 1990s, (practically prehistoric times in terms of the recent green movement), Palm Desert began a test program using the golf carts as a way to keep the town pedestrian friendly, avoid traffic jams and reduce exhaust fumes. The slow, emissions-free electric travel became so popular that city leaders later went to the state and won enactment of a law making it legal to use golf carts on the majority of roadways in Palm Desert.

“You can get to most places in the city using your golf carts, about the only thing you can’t do is go on state highway 11 that runs through town,” Aylaian says.

Not only was Palm Desert an early adopter of green travel, its neighboring Desert Willow Golf Resort, is greener than one might realize just looking at it, Aylaian says. The resort’s two golf courses use native landscaping on the land surrounding fairways, which is healthy for wildlife and water-conserving; irrigation systems use recaptured gray water, and the resort has applied for Audubon certification, available to golf courses that retain areas suitable for indigenous birds and wildlife, she said.

As for golf course water use, she says that the course defies the common conception that golf courses are water hogs; city surveys show that water use on the course is no more per acre than in residential areas. (Leaving aside that apples-to-oranges comparison, it’s safe to say that the golf course does far better than many of its kin, with native vegetation saving on water and reducing runoff.)

Many other activities in this vacation spot, just a few miles from better known Palm Springs, are relatively green pursuits, like hiking and biking in the surrounding San Jacinto Mountains. There also are hot air balloon rides offered in the Coachella Valley, and less-than green jeep tours (which Aylaian won’t dismiss, but does note that they occur outside the town’s boundaries).

But while Palm Desert displays many features of the usual glitz-plus-nature consumer-based vacation spot, there are more environmentally mindful — even ground-breaking — green developments happening at the municipal level.

The municipal fleet, including the service trucks, is almost 100-percent powered by alternative fuels. The cars and trucks include hybrids, natural gas and electric vehicles.

But the city knows the rubber meets the road when it comes to off-street power use, and has set up aggressive incentives for making buildings more efficient.

“Air conditioning is essential in the desert; same as in Phoenix or Las Vegas,” says Aylaian.

Palm Desert has confronted energy use head-on with a five-year plan to reduce consumption by 30 percent. Halfway into that program, the city is seeing results, she said.

A key way that the city fosters energy independence is through a direct loan program crafted by Palm Desert leaders and enacted into state law in 2008. Under the program, residents can use money provided by a city/power company collaboration to finance alternative power systems, such as solar photovoltaic rooftop panels. Once installed, the homeowner pays the loan back through an assessment on property tax bills, Aylaian said.

The “enormously popular” program, which is only available in only one other California city, Berkeley, is largely funded through a partnership with Southern California Edison and other power providers, she said, The initial $5 million and the second influx of $2.5 million has all been “been snapped up,” she said.

The money also can  be used to finance more efficient air conditioning systems, white roofs and insulation.

Like the golf cart initiative, the power loans required a new state law (AB 811 also known as the Energy Independence Act), which Palm Desert leaders helped craft and lobbied for.

Fortunately, the leadership of the city, founded in 1970, has always been environmentally aware, Aylaian said, providing the backbone for such changes.

“I think the city founders have long been sensitive to the fact that we live in the desert, which is a hostile and fragile environment, and they’ve been concerned with preserving the environment and developing a climate that will be attractive in perpetuity.

“People choose to spend a lot of money to vacation here, and it’s important that we preserve the desert and the natural attributes of the desert so people will continue to enjoy coming here.”

Palm Desert continues to look for ways, big and small, that it can make a dent in power use. The city encourages energy improvements by waiving permit fees for energy upgrades. It operates a LEED-certified visitors center and runs a trade-in program for Christmas lights in which residents can turn in outdated incandescent for a free new string of LED lights that use at least 70 percent less energy. That’s a way to light up for the season, put cash into residents’ stockings and still keep slowing the city’s electrical meter.

Residents can probably expect more green gifts from persistent Palm Desert, a city that’s growing comfortable with pushing innovation to get what it needs.

Take those courtesy golf carts on the main street. They’re not only emission-free, they soon could be carbon-neutral. Palm Desert has applied for a grant to develop solar panels for their rooftops, so they can recharge while on the go without using any electricity.

Already the city-owned courtesy carts are unique in another way: They’re completely wheelchair accessible. When the Palm Desert could find no golf carts that were already manufactured to accommodate people with mobility issues, it ordered them custom made.

Extreme Green? Bring it on.

(Photo credits: Palm Desert downtown, city of Palm Desert; Desert Willow golf course, Desert Willow Golf Resort; Electric courtesy cart, city of Palm Desert)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media