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.

“The first Earth Day was a success because 20 million Americans demonstrated an urgent need for environmental protection and action,” said Kathleen Rogers, President, Earth Day Network. “Together, we can make the 40th anniversary of Earth Day a pivotal moment in the environmental movement. We will use the next 40 days to build momentum around a demand for comprehensive climate legislation…”

Clean energy legislation would not only protect the environment, it would create jobs and improve national security, the leaders said.

“For too long Big Oil and their special interest allies have stood in the way of a clean energy revolution. It’s time for lawmakers to listen to the millions of citizens who will recognize this Earth Day by demanding the Senate gets working to pass comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation,” said Gene Karpinski, President of the League of Conservation Voters. “We need more Clean Energy Patriots this year. We need an Earth Day Revolution, not just another celebration.”

The campaign will wind up with a Climate Rally on the Sunday after Earth Day, on April 25.

The following groups have signed the Earth Day Declaration:

1Sky

Audubon

American Hunters and Shooters

American Rivers

American Values Network

Campus Progress

Center for American Progress Action Fund

Clean Water Action

Chesapeake Climate Action Network

Climate Protection Action Fund

Climate Solutions

Defenders of Wildlife

Democracia Ahora

Earth Day Network

Environment America

Environmental Defense Action Fund

Environmental Law and Policy Center

Green for All

Hip Hop Caucus

Interfaith Power and Light

La Onda Verde

League of Conservation Voters

National Catholic Rural Life Conference

National Wildlife Federation

NWF Campus Ecology

Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund

Oceana

Operation Free

Rock the Vote

Sierra Club

Southern Alliance for Clean Energy

SACE

Southern Energy Network

StudentPIRGs

SustainUS

Truman National Security Project

Union of Concerned Scientists

Veterans for Common Sense

Voces Verdes

World Wildlife Fund

The Wilderness Society

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa today confirmed earlier reports that the city will partner with RecycleBank to launch an incentive program that will reward households for Blue Bin recycling. Initially, a pilot program will serve 15,000 single family homes along selected routes in the West Valley and North Central sections of the city.

The program is designed to encourage additional Blue Bin recycling.

In announcing the pilot program, the mayor said it is designed to encourage additional Blue Bin recycling, increase recycling rates and put meaningful savings in the pockets of participating residents.

“The City of Los Angeles has worked tirelessly to ensure that recycling is accessible to every single resident. Los Angeles’ ambitious environmental agenda is one of the reasons why we already recycle more than any other big city in America and why we will be the cleanest, greenest big city in America,” Mayor Villaraigosa said in a statement. “To reach our goal of zero waste, we are building innovative partnerships that will employ outside resources. We are proud to be the biggest city to work with RecycleBank, since the program will motivate residents to recycle more and will pump money directly back into the local economy.”

RecycleBank measures the amount of material recycled in a community and converts that amount into points that can be redeemed for rewards at hundreds of local and national RecycleBank Reward Partners. Rewards come in the form of groceries, gift cards, school supplies, restaurants, among other choices. RecycleBank works to involve local merchants so residents can enjoy savings while helping the local economy.

There also is an option to donate reward points to local schools through the RecycleBank Green Schools Program. National RecycleBank partners include retailers and brands such as Kraft Foods, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Bed Bath & Beyond, Ruby Tuesday and CVS/pharmacy.

The goal of the pilot program is to elevate environmental stewardship, personal responsibility and volunteer action in recycling on a community wide basis. Residents in the pilot areas must sign up for their personal RecycleBank account, either online or by phone, to begin earning reward points.

Officials said the 12-month pilot program will be studied by the City’s Department of Public Works’ Bureau of Sanitation, which implements the city’s solid waste recycling and collection programs. The City will evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the program in raising its leading 65-percent diversion rate of residential and commercial waste out of the nation’s 10 largest cities.

The City said no money from the its general fund will be used for the test. Citywide, the residential Blue Bin recycling program collects an average of 4,600 tons of recyclables every week or more than 240,000 tons annually.

Reward points will be earned on a community weight based approach with points and rewards shared equally with participating households on each collection route. Once a RecycleBank member, program participants can redeem their points online, where they can also learn about their personal environmental footprint through recycling. Participants can also access their account information by calling the toll free RecycleBank Customer Care Center, 1 (888) 727-2978.

Currently, RecycleBank services more than one million people across 25 states and also provides service in the United Kingdom. These households have cumulatively saved more than 4.3 million trees and more than 292 million gallons of oil through their recycling efforts, according to RecycleBank.

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.

Sure it’s cool that net zero houses can push the meter backward. But it is far better to have that household ticking away in a neighborhood where the kids walk to school, mom and pop hop a train to work, and gramps shops for pickles down the street – when the community garden’s cukes have been exhausted. The whole works would be powered by clean energy, connected to local food sources and friendly to local wildlife.

This is not a vision that most of us live, or even recognize, especially those of us in sprawling suburbs, where the tomatoes come from diesel trucks, work is over the horizon and our ‘hood was built to the unwritten specs of tract housing — build first, ponder later.  We are stranded us in spots that fail to take advantage of solar or wind power, in subdivisions isolated from basic services; where getting to the “corner store” can require a two-mile drive and you couldn’t get there greenly anyway because no one saw the need to install a bike lane, trolley or bus system.

But new, more sustainable living arrangements needn’t be unattainable. We can’t roll up the suburbs. But with the right community leadership, open-minded homeowners and creative developers, they can be reshaped to be more green, and we’re not talking about the lawns. All these engines of change are engaged in hundreds of projects across America that will — if circumstances favor their development — create new paradigms for the 21^st Century of community sustainability.

The very best designed green neighborhoods may still be on the drawing board, evolving, but striving projects are on the ground right now.

Suburban green, bringing it home in St. Charles Maryland

Head south of the nation’s capital into Maryland and you see a rolling mix of  rural communities and tract housing  interspersed with McMansions encased by private turf fiefdoms.

About 22 miles south of the capital off U.S. Highway 301, an aging middle-class development of traditional houses appears. This master planned community launched in the 1960s and known as the St. Charles community has neither the glitz of the mansions nor the quaint appeal of surrounding towns, but its density, once something shunned as suburbanites spread their wings, has made it prime for new life as a green town.

The St. Charles plan calls for large work zones and schools close to housing

Developer ACPT is building an adjacent community of 11,000 new homes that will be green from the ground up, while also offering the existing 13,000 homeowners energy retrofitting assistance.

This grand vision byACPT calls for new housing units to be connected to centralized solar and geothermal power stations and form the center of one huge affordable, regenerating oasis of sustainability.

Make that salable sustainability, too. CEO Steve Griessel wants to provide something average Americans can afford, and he’s nearly certain that customers won’t be able to resist the triple appeal of reasonable upfront costs combined with ongoing energy-savings, enhanced by nearby schools and work centers.

“Until now, everyone looks at this stuff, anything green — the first assumption is that it’s interesting but expensive and people are not willing to pay the premium,’’ Griessel says. “Our entire thesis here is to say that’s just not true.”

Actually, St. Charles is joining a list of green building enclaves, some more green than others, that are finding that eco-friendly can be wallet-friendly, from the spare but elegant homes replacing lost houses in parts of New Orleans to the prairie versions popping up in Greensburg, Kansas.

Griessel’s determined to prove the economics can work. He’s worked out a plan that will save the development money by recycling natural resources at every turn and employing the latest technology. Dirt from prepping house sites will be folded into road beds instead of being trucked out. Felled trees will be chipped and reused on site. Software for the entire project will streamline the building process, helping contractors avoid costly mistakes and duplication. Just the new software alone will save 22 percent on what builders call the “horizontal infrastructure” costs – the initial phase of putting in the houses’ foundations and setting plumbing access, Griessel says.

Sketch of a home planned for the St. Charles community

Homes will be built by known builders in the area, such as Ryan Homes and Richmond American Homes and frankly, won’t look much different from other suburban dwellings. Some green building experts would say that ACPT is missing a beat by not orienting the houses to passive solar building standards that can absorb and retain the sun’s heat.

Michael Kinsley, a development expert with the Rocky Mountain Institute says that every municipality and developer should be looking at orientation today, or risk muffing an opportunity to conserve energy. When sustainable siting is not considered “that’s a deficiency on the part of the developer and the local authority” that is “committing the residents to much higher energy costs for generations, when a very simple regulatory change could have avoided that.”

Kinsley, however, speaks highly of communities that pursue retrofitting of homes and businesses. Greening the community is win-win, he says, because it “plugs a leak” in the local economy by putting the building trades to work and keeping more dollars in the pockets of homeowners. “Any community where the building trades are out of work, they should be emphasizing energy efficiency…the markets are right there. You have a low risk, high return opportunity and it’s largely ignored by economic authorities.”

From that perspective, St. Charles’ above-average energy aspirations will help provide. The community will need just about every trade and building expert imaginable to finish the gargantuan neighborhood which will be powered by a 75 acre, 10 MegaWatt solar farm, an underground geothermal plant, and a nearby natural gas plant (which Griessel endorses because it burns cleaner than other fossil fuels). The houses will have Smart Meters and Energy Star appliances. They will be LEED-certified and right-sized for families (starting at 1,650 square feet), enabling residents to save money on electricity, commuting and mortgages.

The community will incorporate several schools (up to nine), within walking distance of homes, and a job center where businesses will be offered incentives to congregate. All of this will cut down on the St. Charles community’s carbon footprint, improve the quality of life and reduce commute times and energy costs. Wild lands will be preserved on the community perimeter, adding another livability element, and keeping to the spirit of St. Charles 1.0, it is expected to house 40 percent of the county’s population on two percent of its land.

Master planned communities of the past took some of these matters into account, earmarking spots for gas stations and grocery stores, but rarely, if ever, did they seriously, let alone simultaneously, address energy efficiency, restrain sprawl and pursue work major work centers.

St. Charles will be different. “Ten years from now people will be living in homes they can afford. Their children will be going to school down the road,” Griessel said. “They’ll be closer to work and there will be less need for a second motor car… And this will also come with 50 percent smaller utility bills.”

Everyone is told to recycle because it is good for the environment, but what if it was also good for you? RecycleBank is a program that financially rewards households for recycling. And the concept is sweeping the  country, with small and large cities signing on. Even cities that already offer recycling, such as Chicago and Los Angeles, are looking at the independent program as a way to raise recycling rates.

When a person uses RecycleBank, their community money by conserving natural resources, and diverting trash from landfills — and they earn points for discounts at stores. The bins are weighed each week, and for every pound of recycling a person collects, he or she receives 2.5 points. The more one recycles, the higher the reward, up to the maximum of 450 points per month.

The average RecycleBank member collects $240 in reward value each year, according to the company. The points can be redeemed at more than 1,500 local and national retailers including:

• Bed Bath & Beyond
• Hobby Lobby
• Olive Garden
• Ruby Tuesday
• Sam’s Club
• Seventh Generation
• Sunglass Hut
• Whole Foods Market
• Zales

Aside from the typical paper, plastic, and aluminum, RecycleBank accepts “e-waste,” which includes laptops, cell phones, iPods and mp3 players. Since these items cannot be thrown into the recycle bin, the company provides shipping labels online so members can mail the products to the appropriate location and still receive points.

“RecycleBank has seen dramatic results across the country. We have doubled, tripled and even quadrupled recycling volumes wherever we launch our program. This creates a quadruple win scenario as residents gain savings and free products through the rewards program. Local main streets see a stimulus as over 50 percent of all rewards redeemed are redeemed locally,” said Lisa Pomerantz, vice president of communications for RecycleBank.

RecycleBank, which was founded in 2004, is growing quickly. It currently operates in 300 cities in 24  states, including major markets such as Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia and Phoenix. Just last summer, RecycleBank took its program international by launching in the United Kingdom in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, as well as Halton Boroughs.

Currently, Chicago is in the middle of a six month pilot program, in which 10,000 houses in Wards 5, 8, and 19 were selected to participate. Chicago expects to redirect approximately600 tons of waste from landfills, as well as producing more than $500,000 in local economic stimulus.

“Chicago is a beautiful place to live, work and raise a family,” said Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley in a statement. “Working with RecycleBank will enable us to meet our recycling goals while giving something back to our residents. During these rough economic times, saving money on groceries, clothing, at the pharmacy, or even on free movie tickets is of significant value.” Results of the pilot will be available once the program is complete this spring.

Beginning in April, RecycleBank will launch a pilot program of 15,000 homes in the West Valley and North Central sections of Los Angeles.

City leaders like the program because it offers a reward to residents for doing what cities want them to do in the first place.

“Partnering with RecycleBank is a great way to protect our environment, invigorate our local economy, keep our community clean, and deliver meaningful, everyday savings to the residents of Westland,” Mayor William Wild of Westland, Mich. said. “Everybody wins.”

RecycleBank has been receiving accolades for its efforts. It was named the 2009 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer and the United Nations Programme 2009 Champion of the Earth.

To date, RecycleBank has saved 4.3 million trees and 288 million gallons of oil, the company estimates. Its formula: For every one ton of paper that has been recycled, 17 trees are saved. For every three pounds of plastic, aluminum and glass that is recycled, one gallon of oil is saved. RecycleBank keeps an ongoing tally of its positive carbon footprint, and each member’s impact also is tracked by total recyclables.

Call RecycleBank to find out if their services are offered in your community, 1(888)727-2978.

Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Robert Caffro found a solar solution for his home, then acquired a problem that’s cast a cloud on his plan.

The front of Bob Caffro's house; solar panels would be on the rear roof.

Caffro’s homeowners association in his neighborhood in Chester County west of Philadelphia denied his request to install the low-profile rooftop solar panels that he’d arranged to buy at Home Depot.

The governing group sent him a letter on Jan. 5 citing this clause in the neighborhood’s rules:

“Any addition, enclosure, garage, appurtenant building, fence, wall, planting or other improvement or modification erected, placed or maintained within a Unit shall be harmonious in design with the single family residential dwelling within the Unit.”

Which left Caffro, 45, scratching his head over the meaning of the word “harmonious.”

He thought the black rooftop solar panels he had selected were harmonious with the traditional homes in the Brook Crossing subdivision where he bought his four-bedroom home about five years ago. The 34-panel array by BP Solar was to be affixed to the back-facing slope of the roof of his two-story home, rising less than four inches above the shingles, and following the same grade of the roof, he said. It would be architecturally unobtrusive.

His neighbors to the rear of the house would see “essentially a black roof” that would blend in, he said. Caffro also reasoned that such a home improvement would add value to his house, a positive for the neighborhood, and the earth. It would have powered his entire house, virtually eliminating his reliance on fossil fuels and greatly diminishing monthly electricity bills.

“Who stops someone from doing something that’s good for the planet, lowers your costs for energy and helps you survive?” he asks.

In this case, the “who” appears to be two members of the HOA: President Thomas Madonna, and the vice president, Marc Marucci. Both are named on the denial letter to Caffro, which is signed by Marucci, who did not return an email asking for more information on the denial issued to Caffro. Madonna also did not respond.

Solar panels that would be similar to Caffro's, on a nearby house. Caffro's would be framed in black. (Photo: Bob Caffro)

Whatever Marucci and Madonna were thinking, they are not the only ones who view solar panels with trepidation. Across the U.S., there have been countless neighborhood skirmishes over solar panels, sometimes leaving embittered homeowners with no choice but to move away from their carefully controlled housing developments to places where they can exercise their on-site energy plans. Perhaps more often, homeowners likely just gave up on the idea.

But discouraging homeowners from becoming solar consumers is less in fashion than it might have been at another time. With federal and state incentives aimed at helping property owners make the leap to renewable energy projects, states are passing additional laws to shore up homeowners’ rights — and homeowners’ associations are finding that they don’t always have the authority to intercede.

The state of Arizona has a law dating to the 1970s that protects homeowners’ private property rights, allowing them “solar access” that supersedes any conflicting language in their deed restrictions. The law survived a legal challenge in Maricopa County in 2000, when a Superior Court judge ruled against an association trying to force homeowners to take down their rooftop panels.

A recent Arizona law clarified matters, stating that homeowners’ groups cannot deny a resident’s right to add solar energy devices, but can adopt “reasonable rules” about their placement. While the law returns some authority to the neighborhood associations, it also confirms the rights of homeowners, stating that the rules around solar devices should not  “prevent the installation of devices” or impair their performance.

California went through a similar process, with legislation in 2005 expanding upon the coverage of a 1978 “solar access” law.

In fact, more than half of states have laws pertaining to residential solar installations, according to the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE). Many of them are “access” laws that directly help protect a homeowner’s right to install solar power generation equipment. Many others, however, deal with mainly with easements for solar and wind installations. These easement laws also aid “access” by making it legal for governmental entities to create buffer zones and set up other provisions for wind and solar installations. These laws pave the way so that industrial, commercial or residential buildings can position  solar arrays to get adequate sunlight (or place wind turbines to catch the wind) and local authorities can permit such projects.

But many easement laws are silent on the dilemma of homeowners whose HOAs have issued ambiguous wording or outright restrictions against solar or wind projects.

So far, Pennsylvania currently has neither a solar easement nor access law, though neighboring Rhode Island and New Jersey have easement legislation.

Pennsylvania State Rep. Tom Houghton (D-Chester) proposed legislation earlier this month to remove obstacles for homeowners who want to install renewable energy. “As we continue to wage a battle between over-reliance on fossil fuel and rising energy costs, we must provide support to homeowners and consumers who wish to utilize alternative energy sources,” he said in a news release.

Caffro, a former safety director for a transportation company who was left with disabilities after being hit by a car a few years ago, lives partly on disability assistance. He said he checked the homeowner’s covenants when he moved in five years ago, and did not find any mention of solar panels. He assumed that meant they would be allowed.

The letter from Caffro’s homeowner’s association does not elaborate on any potential harm from the solar panels, but notes that the two officers of the HOA, after consulting an attorney, determined that  “… solar panel arrays are not harmonious in design with the design of your unit or that of others in the community.”

Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network

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 (Photo: Sommer Saadi)

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.

“This started as an attempt to create a viable commercial farm, an urban farm that really can pay for itself. And we did it,” Flanner said of his and Novak’s venture, which they named “Rooftop Farms”.

The plans first began to form in November of last year, when Flanner, who worked three years in the online marketing department of E*TRADE, decided to call Goode Green, a green roof installation company he’d read about. At that point, he’d already been fantasizing about a job without a dress code or a set time to clock in, but he wasn’t ready to leave the city. Flanner thought working on a rooftop farm would be perfect.

Ben Flanner (Photo: Sommer Saadi)

He took his idea to construct a farm in New York City to Chris and Lisa Goode. After considering the marketing potential of installing the nation’s first commercial working farm on a green roof, Goode Green agreed to do it free of charge. The company found a warehouse in Greenpoint, owned by Broadway Stages, a film set and stage production company that gave up the unused space to also be part of the experiment.

They put up the 200,000 pounds of soil—a custom mix of 35 to 40 percent compost and the rest expanded shale. The soil was hauled up over two days in late April after a structural engineer signed off on the plan. The average depth of the soil is 6 inches, and ranges from 4 to 7 inches between rows.

Goode Green paid for the initial set-up cost: $10 per square foot for a total of $60,000. Flanner and Novak agreed to maintain the plot in exchange for whatever profits it earns. Flanner worked at the farm full-time, harvesting, marketing, delivering orders and running the sale stands. Novak, who has farmed in nine countries and completed an apprenticeship on an organic farm in upstate New York, offers hands-on expertise several days a week when she’s not busy running the two-acre children’s garden at the New York Botanical Gardens. Plus, every Sunday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. a small army of loyal volunteers — initially made up of Flanner and Novak’s friends and later community members who wanted to lend support– arrive to plant, pick and prune the farm.

“Our volunteers found us all along,” Flanner said. “I can say that there is nothing more special than all of your friends showing up to help you without even being solicited.”

Within days of laying down the soil, sugar snap peas were planted and growing.

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.”

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

Northampton, Mass.-based non-profit Soldier On, which will break ground this month on a limited-equity housing project for formerly homeless veterans, said the project will use photovoltaic technology supplied by Berkeley, Calif.-based Borrego Solar to supply electricity to its 39 apartments.

Berkshire Veterans Village will house formerly homeless veterans. (Image: Soldier On)

Berkshire Veterans Village in Pittsfield is intended to serve as a new national model for transitioning veterans from homelessness to home ownership. The Soldier On, which has been helping get veterans off the street since 1994, said a second limited-equity housing project is planned for Leeds. The organization said it eventually hopes to take the model to a national level.

Borrego, which has its East Coast office in Boston, designed a 40.32 kilowatt DC photovoltaic power generation system for the project. According to Borrego:

• The system will reduce carbon emissions by 71,012 lbs of CO2 annually.
• The reduction in carbon emissions is equivalent to the emissions from an average passenger car driving 135,625 miles every year for 30 years.
• This system will reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by 617 pounds over its life. Nitrogen oxides are a major contributor to smog and air-induced respiratory problems.

The housing project will give formerly homeless veterans the opportunity to become homeowners, in many cases for the first time in their lives. Veterans will have the opportunity to purchase an equity share that will be held in trust and will be available to them should they choose to move out, or will become part of their estate.

The housing units will be managed by the veterans who purchase equity in apartments. Those veterans will have completed a progression from Soldier On’s shelter in Leeds, Mass. to its transitional housing facility in Pittsfield. In the limited-equity housing project, they will continue to be surrounded by the services they need and the community of support Soldier On provides.

The Oct. 29 groundbreaking event for the project is scheduled to include as speakers Mass. Lieutenant Gov. Tim Murray and Stephen Coyle, CEO of the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust, along with Gordon Mansfield, former Deputy Secretary of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.

Isn’t it great when you can save green and go green at the same time?

Sopo Bike Cooperative in Atlanta

For serious and recreational bicyclists, bike cooperatives across the country are meeting that need. They offer tools to fix your bike, volunteers to teach you how and the support to keep riding. Cooperatives are located in nearly every major city and supported by volunteers, grants and donations.

Atlanta’s Sopo Bicycle Cooperative opened four years ago when one of the founders needed a $40 bike tool  and felt there should be a bike co-op to allow folks to share tools and expertise.

“It’s just a bunch of people interested in cycling,” said Dianna Settles,  Sopo’s volunteer coordinator and a Georgia State University student.

Since most traditional bike stores in Atlanta are north of Ponce De Leon Street, there was a big need to teach people to do bike maintenance south of Ponce. Hence the name – SoPo. The East Atlanta area also has a fair share of lower income residents who need reliable transportation.

The shop runs a youth program during the summer, but it also draws seniors, recreational bikers and commuters.

“It’s a pretty diverse crowd of people and the way the economy is right now it makes more sense to ride a bike,” Settles said. Adding that maintenance on a bike is also cheaper than car maintenance.

Sugggested donations are $5 per part and $5 per hour for use of the tools. Everyone seems happy to comply. And no one is turned away if they don’t have the money. They barter with volunteer time, food and other creative swaps.

The cooperative operates under three mantras:

• Each one teach one
• Right tool for the right job
• Bicycles make the world a better place

One of the rules is “never take a tool out of someone’s hand. We will show someone or get another volunteer’s help. We have books and different manuals,” she said.

On a recent Thursday evening, bicyclists of all shapes and sizes spilled out into Sopo’s parking lot. Bike stands were set up to hold the bikes while making repairs and every spot was filled. The shop is open three nights a week and Saturday afternoon. It’s housed behind a record shop in an up-and-coming urban village of Atlanta.

Bartender Kate Crosby stopped by to work on her bike and met fellow cyclist Stacey Sayles.

Stacey Sayles helps Kate Crosby fix her bike

“This is my second time. I had a flat and need to know how to change a flat,” said Crosby, who works nearby. She drives a “big ole’ truck” and needed to use her antique touring bike for the exercise and to be a little greener.

Sayles calls himself a bike fanatic and relies on two wheels for nearly all his transportation needs. He moved from New Orleans to Atlanta six months ago and said New Orleans has a similar bike co-op.

Longtime volunteer Dana Scott enjoys helping people with their bikes.

“I like teaching people the bike mechanics so they can do it themselves,” said Scott, who uses his bike for commuting, recreation and shopping.

Settles, the volunteer coordinator, agreed.

“We’re all here to help the community, fix bikes and make friends,” Settles said.

To find a bike co-op in your city, check out the International Bicycle Fund website, which also offers tips for Pushing the Green Envelope whilst biking.

For more tips on keeping green while biking see the Intern

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

The U.S. Green Building Council, started 16 years ago, has 20,200 members and more than 50,000 LEED registered and certified projects around the world (80 percent are in the US).

And the group plans to get even bigger as it turns its attention to college campuses and enlists the help of students.

The USGBC is helping universities across the country to establish sustainability courses and USGBC student organizations, and of course, to build green. The Washington-based NGO estimates that there will be 4,300 LEED projects registered (underway) and certified (completed) on college campuses at the end of 2009.

The USGBC defines a green campus as “a higher education community that is improving energy efficiency, conserving resources, and enhancing environmental quality by educating for sustainability and creating healthy living and learning environments.”

The colleges and universities that do all that will serve as examples, not only for students, but for the larger community, pushing the green envelope and raising a generation for whom green is the norm.

“We are going to develop a generation of people that just are absolutely hardwired for … sustainable living,” said S. Richard Fedrizzi, CEO and Founding Chairman of the U.S. Green Building Council, in a recent speech in Chicago to national university leaders.

Universities and students will incubate new, more conserving and sustainable ways of engineering structures and living spaces, Fedrizzi said, which will lead to more accountability and transparency in building.

“If you can take a 99 cent box of crackers that tells you how much fat, how much protein, how much carbohydrates, how much sodium is in that box, and you as a consumer have the ability to chose it based on your health, based on your values, based on a number of things or not, this is a striking contrast when you realize we’ll spend 30 or 50 million dollars on a building and prior to LEED we never had that nutrition label,” said Fedrizzi.

LEED, he explained, will be a road map. Through LEED certification, people will have precise measures of a structure’s air quality, energy use, and the quality and origins of its materials.

Helping the environment is not the only advantage, there are economic, health, and community benefits as well, Fedrizzi said. According to the USGBC, green buildings can significantly reduce energy use, carbon emissions, water use, and solid waste, with an average savings of 35-70%  in each of these areas per year.

Colleges, typically the nexus of any societal changes, will help perfect, promote and energize the green building movement.

“We (colleges and universities) may comprise only 3% of the carbon footprint, but we represent 100% of the student footprint,” said Michael M. Crow, President of Arizona State University.

• You can start a USGBC student group at your school.  With tools and resources from the USGBC you can pave the way on your campus.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

By Sommer Saadi
Green Right Now

You’ve only got one weekend left to witness the near impossible: a car-free street in New York City.

Summer Streets is back for its second year and is once again offering New Yorkers three weekends in August to play, walk, bike and breathe on a nearly seven-mile stretch of city streets void of any motorized distractions.

New Yorkers can join the festivities during this year’s final opportunity on Saturday, Aug. 22. The path runs along Park Avenue and its connecting streets from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park. The event starts at 7 a.m. and runs until 1 p.m.

Building off of last year’s success, the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) is using Summer Streets to once again inspire people to get more exercise and learn about sustainable forms of transportation. As part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s greening initiative, Summer Streets is encouraging city residents to embrace the ease and importance of eco-friendly modes of transportation.

And how do you encourage people to do anything? Provide them with free and fun activities.

The Summer Streets route includes free bike and skate rentals and free bike and skate repair. Stops on the path also are hosting a variety of activities, including free bicycle helmet fittings, tennis instruction, fitness classes, dance lessons, sidewalk chalk and picnic areas.

Although the disruption to traffic has stirred some complaints, the estimated doubling of last year’s turnout, which was said to be about 50,000 people on each of the weekends, is an encouraging sign that Summer Streets might become another New York tradition. Jen McKenna’s family attended Summer Streets for the first time this year and plans on coming back next year. She thinks complaining drivers just might need to adjust.

“It’s like most other things that are new,” McKenna says. “It might take some getting used to but once people do I think everyone will learn to enjoy it.”

Those who want to participate in Summer Streets can get to the route by NYC Subway, commuter rail or ferry. Group rides are being organized for bikers in neighborhoods around the city. Check the Summer Streets web site for more details.

And if you live outside of Manhattan or can’t make it to Summer Streets, don’t despair.  DOT is also partnering with groups citywide to organize 13 Weekend Walks from June through September in the surrounding boroughs. Check to see if one of the sites is near your neighborhood.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media