·:[ Environmental News Bits ]:·
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August 10-13, 2009
Collinsville, IL

Conference website: http://www.conferences.uiuc.edu/mississippiriver/index.html

Join a diverse group of participants with interest in our nation’s largest river, including stakeholders in the recreational, navigation, and agricultural sectors, researchers, and natural resource professionals.

Through conference presentations, panel discussions, and workshops, attendees will formulate policy recommendations on four issues critical to the sustainable management of the Mississippi River and the human communities that depend on it.

The conference will culminate with a special Policy Forum where recommendations will be delivered directly to key elected officials and decision makers.

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

The Vegetation Drought Response Index, or VegDRI, is a computer modeling and monitoring method that provides continuous drought information over large regions and supplies finer spatial detail than other commonly used drought indicators.

The index is now available at two-week intervals across the conterminous 48 states of the United States.

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

Ernest Moniz, director of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) and former undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, on June 19 unveiled a report on reducing carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal plants.

The report is based on the findings of a major MIT symposium on retrofitting coal-fired power plants and identifies a range of possible next steps for the consideration of policy makers, industry, and others engaged in CO2 emissions mitigation.

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

Insecticides used in and around homes — including products voluntarily removed from the market years ago — were measured on the floors of U.S. residences, according to the first study large enough to generate national data on pesticide residues in homes.

The study was slated for publication in the June 15 issue of the American Chemical Society’s semi-monthly journal Environmental Science & Technology. Scientists at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development collected samples with surface wipes from U.S. kitchen floors. Additionally, occupants were surveyed regarding pesticide use and housing factors.

The June 2009 issue of Scientific American features environmental issues. Contents include:

• Bamboo Boom: Is This Material for You?
• The Arctic Thaw Could Make Global Warming Worse
• Can Captured Carbon Save Coal-Fired Power?
• Top 25 Green Energy Leaders
• How Local Solutions Can Have Global Climate Impact
• Population and Sustainability: Can We Avoid Limiting the Number of People?
• The Persistent Prophet–Lester Brown’s New-Found Optimism
• Cash for Clunkers: A Fair Trade for the Environment
• Agriculture’s Sustainable Future: Breeding Better Crops
• Is Ocean Zoning the Solution to Dying Marine Ecosystems?
• Saving the Disadvantaged from Pollution
• 5 Steps to Clean Up Air Pollution

Read the full story in Scientific American.

Millions of printed circuit boards from discarded electronics are tossed into landfills every year. In addition to the volume of waste, the material can leach chemicals into the soil. As an alternative, researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China are finding various ways to reuse the panels, including as an additive in asphalt.

Read the full post at Dot Earth.

There’s a batch of new proposals for breaking the persistent global deadlock over dealing with global warming, all coming as world leaders prepare to meet at the Group of 8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy, and in parallel sessions of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases. Britain’s former prime minister, Tony Blair, rolled out a list of climate and energy strategies. A couple of other new ideas are summarized below. I’ve added reactions (in the comment string) from other specialists immersed in the ugly nexus of economics, climatology, demography, diplomacy, energy policy and politics. (Just looking at that list of intersecting arenas, is there any wonder that people deeply disagree over climate science and solutions?)

Read the full post at Green, Inc.

T. Boone Pickens, the legendary oilman, has abandoned his plan to build the world’s largest wind farm, according to a report in The Dallas Morning News that was confirmed by a spokesman for Mr. Pickens.

Read the full post at Green, Inc.

Shoe manufacturers have been busy burnishing their green credentials over the last few years, incorporating everything from recycled rubber soles to hemp shoelaces.

But one company appears to be taking the green theme to an extreme, integrating recycled CDs, old sofas, and even water bottles, among other materials, into a new running shoe.

Read the full post at Green, Inc.

Conventional farmers, organic farmers, giant agribusiness companies, environmentalists — all have varying views on what “sustainable agriculture” really means.

Perhaps not for long.

The Leonardo Academy, an environmental think tank in Madison, Wis., is busy refereeing a debate over a new “National Sustainable Agriculture Standard,” under the guidelines of the American National Standards Institute.

Read the full post at Green, Inc.

Rural electric cooperatives across the country are adding more wind power, but it is not always easy.

Read the full post at Green, Inc.

With a $200 million plant due to open next year in Omaha, and American and European renewable fuel standards on the way, the Danish enzyme giant Novozymes A/S sees itself as well-positioned in the market for second-generation biofuels.

Read the full post at Green, Inc.

The Senate is holding its first hearings on pending climate change legislation, and disagreements among senators are stark.

Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat and the chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, accused Republicans of blocking climate and energy solutions and perpetuating “a pattern of no — no, we can’t. No, we won’t.”

Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican, fired back. “Once the American public realizes what this legislation will do to their wallets, they will soundly reject it,” he said.

The top-level panel addressing the senators included Energy Secretary Steven Chu; the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Lisa Jackson; Interior Secretary Ken Salazar; and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. Hearings with an additional panel will continue this afternoon and can be watched live here.

Read the full story at GreenBiz.

For many years, if you were an environmentalist you either worked in the environmental movement or you worked for government, but chances were good you didn’t work in corporate America. Most likely you’d be hidden from the world of business or you’d be considered an enemy of business.

In the last few years there has been more and more movement across these silos – for example, investment bankers working with the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and a former Sierra Club executive working with Wal-Mart. This article is about one woman’s journey from being an environmental activist to becoming Hewlett Packard’s Director of Environmental Sustainability. It’s quite a trip. And hopefully there are ideas in this story that will help you find your way to your green job, and perhaps in areas that just yesterday might have seemed unattainable or unthinkable.

Read the full story at GreenBiz.

HVAC, building automation, elevator, rail propulsion and water treatment systems are among the Mitsubishi products that may qualify for Recovery Act funding, the company’s U.S. operations said.

Read the full story at GreenerDesign.

The EcoLogo Program has started developing a standard that will allow toys to receive EcoLogo certification for meeting certain environmental criteria.

Read the full story in GreenerComputing.

It’s well-known that information can make the difference in modifying behavior. Cisco is taking this concept to the operational level by installing Power Distribution Units on racks in data labs. PDUs don’t save energy themselves, but instead provide users with consumption and energy load information that can help users identify opportunities to improve efficiencies.

Read the full story at GreenerComputing.

At the end of my talk with IBM’s John Lamb about his book, “The Greening of IT,” and the state of green IT globally, I asked him to walk me through a little thought exercise.

In talking to companies both in the IT industry and beyond, I’m always struck by the range of levels of awareness about green issues in general and green IT in particular, so I asked John to do a quick rundown of the kinds of steps that he urges customers to think about taking when they look at green IT projects.

Starting with a company that’s brand-new to this to the next step of a company that has done some level of green IT project and has got buy-in at a higher level, and then finally looking at what a company should do once all the low-hanging fruit is done?

Read the full story at GreenerComputing.

John Lamb, an IT architect with IBM, is the author of the new book, The Greening of IT, a guidebook for optimizing IT infrastructure from top to bottom. Aimed at any level of the organization, from CEOs or CIOs to data center managers and sysadmins, the book digs in deep to some of the best existing ways for making IT systems as energy efficient as possible.

Read the full story at GreenerComputing.

Fairmont Hotels & Resorts are adding eco-friendly IT strategies to the company’s Green Partnership environmental program and are developing power management, procurement and recycling plans for their facilities.

Read the full story in Technology Review.

Solar technology that generates both heat and electricity could make solar energy practical in places that aren’t sunny.

Read the press release.

Leonardo Academy is now accepting applications for membership on the National Sustainable Agriculture Standard Subcommittees. The subcommittees, which will play a key role in the standards development process, are open to membership by all interested parties.

The subcommittees that have been established to move the next phase of the Sustainable Agriculture Standard development process forward are: 1) Criteria Development – Economic Sustainability, 2) Criteria Development – Social Sustainability, 3) Criteria Development – Environmental Sustainability, 4) Reference Library and Information, 5) Structure and Process of Standard Development, 6) Fundraising and Communications.

Specifically, these subcommittees will be exploring a range of key issues, engaging additional stakeholders, crafting draft criteria and developing recommendations and guidance to the Standards Committee, the body charged with identifying, deliberating and building consensus around issues relevant to the standard under development, and determining the criteria that will be included in the framework of the final standard.

Read the press release.

EA Logistics has released the company’s first whitepaper on green transport entitled “Getting It There Green: Why and How to Choose Sustainable Transport Partners.”

Available for free download at www.ealogistics.com/whitepaper_form.html, the whitepaper represents an effort by the company to educate customers and peers about the need for sustainable transportation. “We want to raise awareness about how important it is to reduce transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions and explain how simple and profitable it can be for everyone involved,” said Mike Ellis, EAL’s president.

Read the full article at New American Dream.

If we wish to pass on a high quality of life to our descendants, we must, in the rich nations of the world, immediately begin to trade advances in labor productivity for free time instead of additional purchasing power.