·:[ Environmental News Bits ]:·
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Read the full story at News.com.

Urban planners, labor activists, and environmentalists blame Wal-Mart for decimating rural America, exploiting workers, and polluting ecosystems. Some green-business gurus, on the other hand, praise the retail colossus for turning over a new leaf with moves toward sustainability, such as reducing product packaging.

Wal-Mart’s latest green turn comes as nine of its Sam’s Club stores in Southern California are providing in-store solar power kiosks. Shoppers can look up information about home rooftop installations and get discounts meant to average $500 on solar orders.

Read the press release.

A new website launched by an international coalition of NGOs brings together GoogleMaps technology, environmental risks and manufacturing data on pulp and paper mills to reveal their practices and rate their performance on social and environmental criteria. The website will be a tool for paper purchasers to find information easily on how a pulp mill is performing and identify social and environmental risks associated with those operations, no matter where they are in the world.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

Dr. Natalie Jeremijenko caters to those who want to know more about what they can do to clean up their personal environment.

Read the full profile in the New York Times.

Diana Beresford-Kroeger brings together Western medicine and botany to advocate for the planting of trees with beneficial properties.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

At what point should we consider the long-term ramifications of technological developments?

Read the full story in the New York Times.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s experiment to introduce 35 “green” escalators in four subway stations started with a lurch.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

The Bush administration is proposing to let federal agencies decide for themselves whether construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants, according to a draft of rule changes.

Read the full post at Environmental Capital.

So you think you’re being virtuous by trading in the SUV for, say, a Prius? What if, instead, you’re really sticking the next guy in line with higher pump prices?

Via Lifehacker.

How-to web site Instructables has a step-by-step guide detailing how to repurpose your classic (but broken) NES as a lunchbox. All you’ve got to do is gut your Nintendo’s innards and add hinges (though a handle would be nice). You’ll also need a Sasquatch action figure if the guide is to be believed, but I’m guessing you can get away without it.

Read the full story in the Chicago Sun-Times.

If you have no plans to drive to class at college this fall, then Ripon College might be for you.

The school saw demand for parking about to outstrip the number of parking spaces on campus. But instead of building new lots, officials decided to offer students a trade.

In exchange for a pledge not to bring a car to the school 70 miles northwest of Milwaukee, Ripon offered students $300 Trek 820 mountain bikes, helmets and locks.

While most Illinois schools aren’t giving bikes away, some are lending them this fall in an effort to boost cycling on campus — and reduce driving. Others have taken other measures.

Read the full story in the Auburn Villager.

Bicyclists will find a more welcoming environment in Auburn and at Auburn University over the next few years — and the city is even offering to loan bicycles to residents interested in trying the sport.

Read the full story in the Chicago Tribune.

When a historic seminary in the heart of Manhattan went searching for a way to cut its energy costs in an environmentally friendly way, it didn’t turn to the heavens for sun or wind power but sought salvation in an unlikely direction for a religious institution. It looked underground.

Tapping the energy stored in the Earth, the General Theological Seminary, the oldest Episcopal seminary in America, is in the midst of a multiyear effort to construct the largest geothermal project on the East Coast. When completed, 20 wells reaching depths of at least 1,500 feet will supply water to heat and cool the seminary’s 275,000 square feet of space.

The institution — built on land donated by Clement Clark Moore, who wrote “The Night Before Christmas” — is hardly alone in seeing the potential for geothermal power. From large power plants in the West that produce electricity to a hospital in the Chicago suburb of Elgin to homeowners looking to save money on their utility bills, geothermal power is experiencing steady but largely unnoticed growth in America.