·:[ Environmental News Bits ]:·
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Includes impact calculators, green projects, and a product and services directory. From the web site:

At Low Impact Living, we want to help you lower the environmental impact of your home and your daily life. To do that, we help you find the best green products, practices and service providers to help you achieve your environmental goals. And we will also help you understand the environmental benefits and economic trade-offs of your choices. Our primary goal is to make the path from inspiration to implementation as short and as smooth as possible. Only by taking action will we collectively reduce the damage to our planet and ecosystems.

Manufacturing Climate Solutions presents new research linking U.S. jobs with selected low-carbon technologies that can help combat global warming. In the series, we ask, “In a new global economy increasingly affected by the threat of climate change, what are the U.S. job opportunities in technologies that can reduce carbon emissions?”

This ongoing series builds upon a five-technology report released in November 2008 with two new chapters made available in February 2009.

Read the full report, available as a free PDF download.

The world’s climate is changing, and it will continue to change throughout the 21st century and beyond. Rising temperatures, new precipitation patterns, and other changes are already affecting many aspects of human society and the natural world.  In this book, the National Research Council provides a broad overview of the ecological impacts of climate change, and a series of examples of impacts of different kinds. The book was written as a basis for a forthcoming illustrated booklet, designed to provide the public with accurate scientific information on this important subject.

From the National Academies Press.

Read the full report.

How much energy could be generated by states tapping into internal renewable resources? To date, no study has addressed this question comprehensively. This report is a first attempt to do so. The data in this report, while preliminary, suggest that at least half of the fifty states could meet all their internal energy needs from renewable energy generated inside their borders, and the vast majority could meet a significant percentage.

Produced by the New Rules Project.

Web site devoted to information about making your home environmentally friendly. Includes a green products and services database.

Vendor of posters, decals, handouts, booklets, signs, displays, and brochures on energy conservation, recycling, safety awareness, environmental issues, water conservation. Includes products made with recycled materials. Also has good information on promoting events.

Includes links to resources on many aspects of sustainable living. Also includes how-to videos and an online community. From the web site:

Each one of us can make a difference- by changing how we use energy, how we use water, what we buy or don’t buy and how we think: but shifting 2 generations of habits in consumption can be a challenge.

Where to start?

• New section:  Get Organized: The GoGreen approach to stuff- and Green Cleaning
• GoGreen ROOM-BY-ROOM progressively make changes in each room of your house
• Start with the BIG 10: check off the most impactful household changes
• Invite your friends and neighbors to form groups and GoGreen together. Earn pointsfor learning, and growing the community.

Looking for a green collar job? Check out the Green Careers Guide for career opportunities, required training, and a directory of training providers. Tip of the Cubs ballcap to Mary Wilkes Towner, Urbana Free Library Reference Goddess, for the link.

Read the full post in the GLRPPR Blog.

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) facilitated specialized training sessions with KERAMIDA, Inc., to help businesses and communities around the state “jump start” their environmental management systems. Staff from KERAMIDA provided on-site sessions to 25 manufacturers and two communities, under the Jumpstart© Environmental Management System (EMS) Program.

The Spring/Summer 2009 (Volume 5 Issue 1) issue of Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy is now available at http://ejournal.nbii.org. Highlights include:

Articles

Large footprints in a small world: toward a macroeconoics of scale by Lenore Newman & Ann Dale (Royal Roads University, Canada)

An evaluation of criteria for selecting vehicles fueled with diesel or compressed natural gas by Thomas Hesterberg, William Bunn, Charles Lapin (Navistar, Inc., USA)

Toward a typology for social-ecological systems by Lilian Alessa, Andrew Kliskey, & Mark Altaweel (University of Alaska Anchorage, USA)

Community Essay

Identifying management needs for sustainable coral reef ecosystems by M. James Crabbe, Edwin Martinez, Christina Garcia, Juan Chub, Leonardo Castro, & Jason Guy (University of Bedfordshire, United Kingdom)

Book Review Perspectives

The Jevons Paradox and the Myth of Resource Efficiency Improvements (John Polimeni, Kozo Mayumi, Mario Giampietro, & Blake Alcott)

Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Responsibility (Ted Nordhaus & Michael Shellenberger)