·:[ Environmental News Bits ]:·
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Read the full story in The Green Guide.

This Halloween, as parents gear up to decorate kids in scary makeup and gruesome masks, the last thing you want to worry about is what all that stuff is made of.

Sign up for an upcoming DOE Industrial Technologies Program Webcast to learn more about industrial efficiency and ITP’s latest tools and technologies. You’ll also get information on Save Energy Now assessment opportunities for your plant. The following Webcasts, held on Thursdays from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm EST, are being offered by ITP at no-cost:

• October 16, 2008—Energy Assessments: What are the Benefits to Large Facilities?
• October 23, 2008—ITP Software Decision Tools Awareness
• October 30, 2008—Quick PEP Tool Demonstration and Results
• November 6, 2008—Energy Assessments: What are the Benefits to Small and Medium Facilities?
• November 13, 2008—Assessing Data Center Energy Use
• November 20, 2008—Super Boiler Technology

Register today!

The National Technical Information Service now offers RSS feeds of recently cataloged publications in 39 major topical areas. They also offer an NTIS News feed. This is an excellent tool for identifying recently issued reports from a plethora of government agencies. Although NTIS charges for copies of the reports they distribute, I’ve often found them at no charge from the issuing agency when I Google the report title.

The latest issue of Renewable Energy Weekly is now available. Highlights include:

• Solar Power International Kicks Off with a Bang
• Green Collar Job Training Program Focuses on At-risk Youth

Read the press release.

The UPS Foundation, the charitable arm of UPS [NYSE: UPS], today announced five grants totaling more than $1 million to support a variety of environmental programs and organizations worldwide.

The grants, which include funds for planting trees, conservation, youth education and volunteerism, reflect the establishment of environmental stewardship as a new focus area by the Foundation.

The new grant awards include:

• $300,000 to The Nature Conservancy to assist with tree-planting efforts in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, conservation initiatives for rural residents in the Yunnan Forest in China and reforestation efforts in East Africa’s Highland Forest.
• $300,000 to the Earth Day Network to support its national civic engagement project to educate youth about environmental issues and provide teachers with lesson plans and environmental impact online tools.
• $220,000 to Keep America Beautiful (KAB) to support its environmental education initiatives, including the creation of KAB affiliates on college campuses, support for a community volunteer initiative, a challenge grant for KAB affiliates and an environmental partnership grant for UPS Global Volunteer Month to encourage employee participation.
• $200,000 to the National Park Foundation to fund youth-engagement programs, including First Bloom, which provides children in urban locations (grades 4 through 6) with hands-on environmental learning.
• $50,000 to the Arbor Day Foundation to plant one tree for each of the first 50,000 UPS customers to begin using UPS electronic billing solutions, which eliminate the need for paper invoices.

At the beginning of 2008, The UPS Foundation adopted a new global philanthropic strategy to strengthen its impact and better leverage UPS’s capabilities. In addition to the new environmental sustainability focus area, the Foundation’s other focus areas include community safety, non-profit effectiveness, economic and global literacy and diversity.

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

With the passage of the economic recovery package by Congress on Oct. 3, banks aren’t the only ones relieved; proponents of energy efficiency efforts are as well.

The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) commends Congress on including in the package provisions for the extension of expired and expiring tax incentives for renewable energy, energy-efficient building upgrades, and appliance and equipment purchases.

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) announced a new package of conservation incentives on Oct. 3 for wetlands restoration under the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Environmental Defense Fund experts are praising the plan.

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

As the United States and other nations commit to the path of biofuels production, a group of scientists is calling for sustainable practices in an industry that will, as MBL scientist Jerry Mellilo says, “reshape the Earth’s landscape in a significant way.”

In a paper published in the Oct. 3 issue of Science magazine, Melillo and 22 co-authors call for science-based policy in the emerging global biofuels industry, which by 2050 could command as much land as is currently farmed for food.