By Bill Sullivan
Green Right Now

Image: cleanenergyweek.org

Legislators wrestling with health care reform, job concerns and a spiraling federal deficit have another group vying for their attention in Washington this week. Thanks to a hastily thrown-together coalition, it’s Clean Energy Week, with environmental activists and business leaders descending on Capitol Hill to press for money for more and better green initiatives.

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By Sommer Saadi
Green Right Now

New Yorkers have gotten pretty good at finding new places to grow plants: rooftops in Brooklyn, abandoned rail lines in Manhattan, and now they’re conquering the tops of old shipping containers.

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From Green Right Now Reports

Real estate developer and author Frank McKinney has built opulent mansions, including a $24 million oceanfront estate called Acqua Liana in Palm Beach that he promotes as the biggest green certified manse in the world .

But the Florida real estate entrepreneur also has been building sustainable housing for the poor for many years, including in Haiti. (Which is why we’re skipping the discussion today about whether ginormous homes like that Palm Beach manse are truly green, and will accept that this house, certified by the U.S. Green Building Council and Energy Star, occupies a special rarified category.)

Caring Village residents in Haiti, before the earthquake

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From Green Right Now Reports

The Coalition of Legislators for Energy Action Now (CLEAN), a national bipartisan group of state legislators working with the White House to pass federal clean energy jobs legislation, sent a letter to members of the United States Senate today pressing for urgent action on pending clean energy jobs and climate change legislation.

The letter, signed by 1,198 state lawmakers from both parties and 49 states, seeks energy reform legislation that would meet three goals:

• Strengthen America’s national security by cutting dependence on foreign oil
• Grow jobs and economic opportunity to every state in the nation
• Protect the environment by major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions

“Until now, states have been carrying the torch on clean energy reform,” state Rep. Jeremy Kalin (D –Minnesota), the chair of CLEAN, said in a statement. “State legislators have led the way on growing clean energy jobs and addressing climate change. Our ‘Made-in-America’ clean energy solutions are the key to our economic prosperity and national security. It’s time for Congress to pick up the torch and lead America into the 21st-century clean energy economy.”

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The historic Mountain View Grand Resort and Spa in Whitefield, N.H.

From Green Right Now Reports

Who would want to ruin this view? Not New Hampshire’s Mountain View Grand Resort & Spa. The resort has moved away from sky-polluting fossil fuels to using all green, renewable energy.

Not only did Mountain View Grand put up its own 121-foot wind turbine last year, it now buys all renewable energy from Constellation Energy, in the form of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). The RECs represent power that’s been produced by green sources, in this case, wind power.

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From Green Right Now Reports

Photo: Navy.org

With 40 installations in the Chesapeake Bay watershed alone, the United States Navy has an enormous environmental impact on the region. New construction and regular improvements of existing facilities pose a major challenge in terms of limiting damage to the local ecosystem.

Development in the region is increasing the number of impervious surfaces (roofs, driveways, parking lots, etc.) at a rate four times greater than population growth. As a result, stormwater runoff has become a major threat in terms of polluting the Bay.

The Navy has developed a low-impact policy aimed at maintaining or restoring pre-development hydrology. Using a combination of vegetation and retention devices, stormwater is managed at the source rather than allowing the water to travel downstream.

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From Green Right Now Reports

Government bureaucracies aren’t always the conservationist’s friend, but a convergence of federal, state and private funds will allow for an additional 3,200 acres and 10 linear miles of trails at Tennessee’s Cumberland Trail State Park.

Acquisition of the Graysville Mountain area in Hamilton and Rhea counties was made possible by a grant from the Heritage Conservation Trust Fund, federal grants and private funds raised by the Cumberland Trail Conference.

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From Green Right Now Reports

The images from Haiti are grim, and Americans already have rushed forward with millions of dollars in donations to help the residents of the earthquake-ravaged nation.

Cell phone users can contribute $10 by texting “Haiti” to 90999; the donation will be charged to their accounts with their service providers.

Most charitable organizations have discouraged donations of clothing, contending that money is the best way to make a difference. This leaves citizens to figure out which avenues will be the best to assure that their dollars make a difference.

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By Melissa Segrest
Green Right Now

The polar bear is the high-profile furry face of animals threatened by climate change. With Arctic ice melting at an increasing pace — due to global warming — its range and habitat is disappearing.

But, the polar bear is just one of many species endangered by a warming planet and other man-made threats. Beyond the tragedy of extinction of a species is the chain reaction in the environment triggered by that loss.

That complex web of life that connects people, animals, plants and places is known as biodiversity, and is the underpinning of life on Earth. To raise awareness of its importance to the planet, the United Nations has declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity.

Courtesy IUCN / Staghorn coral thicket © L De Vantier

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From Green Right Now Reports

Miss America Pageant contestants have been known to be green with envy when the winner is announced, but how green are they the rest of the time?

GreenTwithTamara.TV is trying to find out.

The Web TV portal is running a contest to determine which Miss America contender best embodies the notion of “Green is Gorgeous.” Host Tamara Henry has interviewed all 53 contestants about what “being green” means to them. Voters can check out the answers by using an interactive map.

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Taipei 101 is the second tallest building on the world.

From Green Right Now Reports

No longer the tallest building in the world, Taiwan’s Taipei 101 now hopes to become famous for another distinction — the tallest green structure on the planet.

The building’s ownership plans to spend about $1.9 million over the next year to qualify for an environmental certificate that would give it a different kind of distinction over Dubai’s recently-opened Burj Khalifa, according to spokeman Michael Liu. The 1,670-foot structure hopes to be certified by U.S.-based Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design some time in 2011.

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By Sommer Saadi
Green Right Now

Ben Flanner’s farm grows lush in summer with rows of squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce. And during all seasons, it provides a visual feast: a perfect view of the Manhattan skyline.

Rooftop Gardens in Brooklyn

That’s because Flanner’s farm is on top of a vacant three-story warehouse building in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

A 6,000 square foot slab of concrete covered in more than 30 varieties of fruits and vegetables (not to mention the herbs) is unusual, but it’s no longer rare. Communities are pushing for greater access to locally grown food, but with land in the city so expensive, non-profits, restaurants, residents and entrepreneurial farmers like Flanner and his partner Annie Novak are turning to the city’s most under-used and readily available spaces: its rooftops.

Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, a 145-corporate-member green roof and walls industry association, reported a 35 percent increase from last year in the number of constructed green roof projects nationally, which totaled more than 3.1 million square feet. That number is likely to increase as more city farmers discover, as Flanner and Novak did, that rooftop farms can be profitable ventures.

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