·:[ Environmental News Bits ]:·
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Listen to the story and read an excerpt from the book at NPR.

When it’s time to fill up the gas tank, many fear the price of gas will return to the $4-a-gallon days of last summer.

But according to author Chris Steiner, our lives would be a lot happier and healthier if gas prices rose into the double digits.

Steiner explains himself, and the title of his book: $20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better.

Read the full story at GreenBiz.

DSM, a Dutch chemical and materials company, plans to release a greener version of a chemical used in polymers, resins, food and pharmaceuticals later this year.

The company is working in a version of succinic acid that is derived from plant starch instead of oil or gas, according to the Financial Times. DSM accounts for 10-15 percent of global production of succinic acid.

Read the full post at Green, Inc.

A type of fuel once used in Japanese aircraft during World War II is slowly making its way again toward the market, and its backers say that it will work better in automobiles than ethanol.

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

Two pesticides used in highly populated agricultural areas of California appear to be killing frogs that live and breed in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, according to results from a study published in the August 2009 issue of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.

The study examined how chlorpyrifos and endosulfan used in the Central Valley of California affect amphibians that breed in the mountains to the east. Toxicity was measured to larval Pacific treefrogs (Pseudacris regilla) and foothill yellow-legged frogs (Rana boylii), which are among the amphibians with declining populations that often live and breed in meadows surrounding the Sierra Nevada. Winds blow insecticide residues into the mountains, and they fall as rain or snow. In these regions, insecticides have longer half-lives because of cooler temperatures and can be spread by melting snow to areas where amphibians live and breed.

As outlined in the article, “Toxicity of Two Insecticides to California, USA, Anurans and Its Relevance to Declining Amphibian Populations” by Donald W. Sparling and Gary M. Fellers, the study used laboratory testing to examine how the insecticides affected the two frogs at environmentally realistic concentrations. During testing, tadpoles were observed at various stages of development to see how the insecticides affected their growth and health.

Read the full story in Scientific American.

As government agencies and corporations scramble to cut expenses, one idea gaining widespread attention involves cutting something most employees wouldn’t mind losing: work on Fridays. Regular three-day weekends, without a decrease in the actual hours worked per week, could not only save money, but also ease pressures on the environment and public health, advocates say. In fact, several states, cities and companies across the country are considering, or have already implemented on a trial basis, the condensed schedule for their employees.

Read the full story at GreenBiz.

Twenty projects initiated by Xerox employees from around the world helped the company make big monetary, waste and energy savings.

The projects were recognized as winners of the company’s 16th annual Earth Awards. They helped Xerox save $7.3 million, eliminate 1.3 million pounds of waste and reduce energy use by 500,000 kilowatt hours.

More than 50 projects from 16 facilities vied for the awards, which are given based on innovation, direct benefits to Xerox, duration of the project and documented, measurable results.

Read/listen to the full story at NPR.

The desperate poverty in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, isn’t just a matter of economics. It’s also a matter of the environment.

Haiti is trapped in a classic downward spiral. Desperately poor people have stripped the mountainous land of its trees to use for cooking fuel. Rains then wash away the unprotected soil, destroying potential farmland and leaving people even poorer.

But several emerging programs hope to pull Haiti out of the predicament by planting trees too valued for their fruit to be destroyed, finding better crops to preserve the soil, and exploiting a new and plentiful source for fuel — garbage.

Read the full story at GreenBiz.

If you’re reading this column, there is a good chance that you’re interested in a career with a positive social and environmental impact. But given the current economic environment, you may be wondering where or how to find these positions. You may also be looking for ways to advance your career in your current organization or professional development opportunities that focus on sustainability.

One way to move your career forward despite the current recession is by becoming a social intrapreneur. Social intrapreneurs go above and beyond their traditional job roles to challenge the status quo and develop solutions to social and environmental problems from inside the organizations where they work. Applying your sustainability values to a social intrapreneurship project can help you develop leadership skills, position you for career growth, and add economic, environmental, and social value to your current organization.

Read the full story in the Chicago Tribune.

Doug Snower’s neighbors in Highland Park stared hard when the silver and blue wind turbine first appeared on his garage roof.

While it could pass for a kinetic sculpture, the shiny, spinning device he installed a few weeks ago has generated low-voltage electricity and a steady hum of conversation.

Unlike the monstrous bladed commercial turbines that have drawn controversy over their noise and environmental impact, Snower’s gadget is a quiet and modest 600-watt affair, working alongside a solar panel to supply a bank of four batteries. He uses it to power his electric lawn mower, the family’s laptops, phones, cameras and a small fridge.

Snower figures he saves about $10 to $15 monthly on electricity bills and is eligible for a 30 percent rebate on federal income taxes. But he intended the $5,000 investment as more of an educational tool for his teen daughters — as well as for curious passersby.

Read the full story at ClimateBiz.

San Francisco became the one of the first cities and counties in the country to adopt a mandatory recycling and composting ordinance for every building.

The ordinance was aimed in part at capturing food scraps entering the waste stream and turning it into a rich soil benefiting area farmers, rather than clogging up the local landfill.

Now that unwanted, thrown away food will soon find new life as electricity. The East Bay Municipal District (EBMUD), which supplies water and wastewater treatment to parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, plans to dramatically boost the amount of food scraps it converts to energy from 90 tons per week to 1,000 tons, or 200 tons per weekday.

Read the full story at ClimateBiz.

Companies using outsourced data centers can save thousands of dollars per year in energy costs, as well as make significant cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, according to a recent study.

Federal Research: Information on the Government’s Right to Assert Ownership Control over Federally Funded Inventions.  GAO-09-742, July 27.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-742
Highlights – http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d09742high.pdf

Air Pollution:  Air Quality, Visibility, and the Potential Impacts of Coal-Fired Power Plants on Great Basin National Park, Nevada.  GAO-09-788R, July 27.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-788R