What Happened to the Seasons?
Source: Oxfam, UK

The timing of rain, and intra-seasonal rainfall patterns are critical to smallholder farmers in developing countries. Seasonality influences farmers’ decisions about when to cultivate and sow and harvest. It ultimately contributes to the success or failure of their crops. Worryingly, therefore, farmers are reporting that both the timing of rainy seasons and the pattern of rains within seasons are changing. These perceptions of change are striking in that they are geographically widespread and because the changes are described in remarkably consistent terms. In this paper, we relate the perceptions of farmers from several regions (East Asia, South Asia, Southern and East Africa, and Latin America) of how seasons are changing, and in some cases, how once distinct seasons appear to be disappearing altogether, and the impacts that these changes are having. We then go on to ask two critical questions. Firstly, do meteorological observations support farmers’ perceptions of changing seasonality? Secondly, to what extent are these changes consistent with predictions from climate models? We conclude that changing seasonality may be one of the major impacts of climate change faced by smallholder farmers in developing countries over the next few decades. Indeed, this may already be the case. Yet it is relatively unexplored in the literature. We also suggest some of the key adaptation responses that might help farmers cope with these changes.

+ Direct link to document (PDF; 221 KB)

Fossil Fuel Production Up Despite Recession
Source: Worldwatch Institute

World production of fossil fuels-oil, coal, and natural gas-increased 2.9 percent in 2008 to reach 27.4 million tons of oil equivalent (Mtoe) per day. In the first half of the year, producers strained to meet global demand, but when the recession took hold later in the year the market was swamped by excess supply. Energy prices reflected this shift: oil peaked at $144 per barrel in July, then fell to $34 per barrel in December. Continuing a decade-long trend, most of the growth was in the Asia-Pacific region, where production grew 6.3 percent.

Although the global economic crisis has caused a temporary slump in demand, the longterm trend is clear: fossil fuel consumption in developing countries has surpassed that in industrialized countries. With four times the population and a vast demand for economic development to raise standards of living, developing countries will see energy use rise further.

For six years running, coal has led the growth in fossil fuel production. In 2000, it provided just 28 percent of the world’s fossil fuel energy production, compared with 45 percent for oil. But by 2008, coal production reached 9.1 Mtoe per day, representing a third of fossil energy production and a 0.7 percent increase over 2007. The growth in China’s coal consumption since 2000 dwarfs that of all other countries combined. India, second in growth, added less than an eighth as much coal consumption as China during that period.

2010 Annual Fuel Economy Guide Now Available
Source: U.S. Department of Energy

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy today unveiled the 2010 Fuel Economy Guide, which gives consumers important information about estimated fuel costs and mileage standards for model year 2010 vehicles.
…
Fuel-efficient models come in all types and sizes, so consumers can save thousands of dollars over a vehicle’s lifetime without sacrificing performance. Model year 2010 fuel economy leaders include a wide range of hybrid models, from compact cars to sport-utility vehicles.

Each vehicle listing in the Fuel Economy Guide provides an estimated annual fuel cost. The estimate is calculated based on the vehicle’s miles per gallon (mpg) rating and national estimates for annual mileage and fuel prices. The online version of the guide allows consumers to input their local gasoline prices and typical driving habits to receive a personalized fuel cost estimate.

+ Full Document (PDF; 530 KB)

EPA made available new summary reports and data from 2004 through 2008 on EPA and state enforcement program performance with Clean Air Act (CAA) and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) requirements.  The reports include online graphs, trend information on enforcement and compliance in each state, and comparative reports.  Data such as compliance monitoring activity, violations discovered, enforcement actions taken, and penalties assessed are available.

EPA also updated the agency’s Enforcement and Compliance Online (ECHO) Website to allow users to view current information on facility compliance with water, air, and hazardous waste requirements in relation to pollutant release data from EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory and National Emissions Inventory databases.  This provides the public with more information on the overall environmental footprint of each facility.

In the agency’s reviews of both EPA and state enforcement program performance, it identified several concerns with some programs, including uneven enforcement response, failure to identify high priority violators, and inadequate penalty assessment.  The recommendations that EPA made on how to address these concerns are now available through the ECHO website.

ECHO allows users to find permit, compliance monitoring, violation, enforcement action, and penalty information over the past three years.  ECHO provides communities with important enforcement and compliance information about regulated facilities.  Included in the new information released today is a list of commonly asked questions about the CAA and RCRA programs, such as air quality, pollutant releases, state performance, and overall compliance rates.

The compliance data posted today tells only one part of the story and does not relate directly to overall hazardous waste management or air quality, which have improved in the United States over the past 30 years as the result of local, state, and federal implementation of environmental programs.

More information on RCRA data: http://www.epa.gov/compliance/data/results/performance/rcra/index.html
More information on CAA data: http://www.epa.gov/compliance/data/results/performance/caa/index.html
More information on ECHO:  http://www.epa-echo.gov/echo/

National Clean Diesel Funding Assistance Program–$64 million
EPA requests proposals for the National Clean Diesel Funding Assistance Program. Through this program, EPA seeks projects that will achieve significant reductions in diesel emissions in terms of tons of pollution produced and diesel emissions exposure, particularly from fleets operating in designated poor air quality areas. Eligible entities include regional, state, local, or tribal agencies or port authorities with jurisdiction over transportation or air quality, and nonprofit organizations. Up to 80 awards are anticipated. Proposals are due 12/8/09.
For more info:  http://www.epa.gov/air/grants_funding.html.

Clean Diesel Emerging Technologies–$8 million
EPA requests proposals for the Clean Diesel Emerging Technologies Funding Assistance Program. Eligible diesel emission reduction solutions are listed at: http://www.epa.gov/otaq/diesel/prgemerglist.htm. Eligible entities include regional, state, local or tribal agencies or port authorities with jurisdiction over transportation or air quality, and nonprofit organizations.  Six to 10 awards are anticipated. Proposals are due 12/8/09.
For more info: http://www.epa.gov/air/grants_funding.html.

SmartWay Clean Diesel Finance Program–$12 million
EPA requests proposals for the SmartWay Clean Diesel Finance Program. This program will support projects that reduce diesel emissions through the creation of national, tribal, regional, state, or local finance program(s). Eligible entities include regional, state, local or tribal agencies or port authorities with jurisdiction over transportation or air quality, and nonprofit organizations. Up to six awards anticipated. Proposals are due 12/8/09.
For more info: http://www.epa.gov/air/grants_funding.html.

Environmental Education–$3 million
EPA requests proposals for Environmental Education Grants. This program supports environmental education projects that promote environmental stewardship and help develop knowledgeable and responsible students, teachers, and citizens. Eligible entities include local and tribal education agencies, colleges or universities, state education or environmental agencies, nonprofit organizations, and local or state agencies that conduct educational, environmental programs. Up to 95 awards are anticipated. Responses due 12/15/09.
For more info: http://www.epa.gov/enviroed/grants.html.

Environmental Justice Small Grants Program–$1 million
EPA requests proposals for the Environmental Justice Small Grants Program. This program supports projects that address a local environmental and public health issue within an affected community. This year the program will emphasize the disproportionate impacts of climate change in communities with environmental justice concerns. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to, energy efficiency, renewables, water efficiency, green jobs and green economy capacity building, and smart growth. Eligible entities include city, township, and county governments; tribal governments; and nonprofit organizations. Up to 40 awards are anticipated. Responses due 1/8/10.
For more info: http://www.epa.gov/compliance/environmentaljustice/grants/ej-smgrants.html.

Brownfields Job Training–$2.6 million
EPA requests proposals for Brownfields Job Training Grants. This program supports the delivery of environmental job training to communities that currently receive, or have received, financial assistance from EPA for brownfields-related work. Eligible entities include state, local, and tribal governments; regional councils or groups of local governments; and nonprofit organizations. Twelve to 13 awards are anticipated. Responses due 12/1/09.
For more info: http://www.epa.gov/oswer/grants-funding.htm#EPA-OSWER-ORCR-09-07

Green and Healthy Homes–$2.4 million
HUD requests proposals for the Green and Healthy Homes and Technical Studies Program. Through this RFP, HUD seeks to improve knowledge of the effects of residential green construction on both indoor environmental quality and occupant health, with a particular focus on children and other sensitive populations. Eligible entities include state, local, and tribal governments and academic, nonprofit, or for-profit institutions. Up to seven awards are  anticipated. Responses due 11/17/09.
For more info: http://www.hud.gov/offices/adm/grants/nofa09/grplead.cfm.

Solid Waste Management–$3.4 million
USDA requests proposals for the Solid Waste Management Grant Program. This program supports projects that assist communities through free technical assistance and/or training geared toward reducing or eliminating pollution of water resources in rural areas, and improve planning and management of solid waste sites in rural areas. Eligible entities include public bodies, tribal governments, academic institutions, and nonprofit organizations. Up to 40 awards anticipated. Responses due 12/31/09.
For more info: http://www.usda.gov/rus/water/SWMG.htm.

Since writing the first part of the eBook mini-series, I have been interested in the life cycle assessment comparison of books and eBooks. This concept may sound simple at first, but it quickly becomes much more complicated. While a true analysis (one worthy of publishing in a scientific journal) would require months of work, data collection and analysis, calculations, and report-writing, I opted for a much simpler approach (one that may be publishable on an informal blog, such as this one).

In order to complete a very simplistic life cycle analysis, I had to take into account books and e-books. This in itself presents a significant problem when taking into account the boundary of book sales. To keep things simple, I decided that my boundary will include the first Harry Potter book. How did I choose this boundary? It was the first thing that popped into my head, since this was a very popular book that was read by a wide range of age groups. My boundary for e-books included just the Amazon Kindle. I figured that focusing in on just one, very popular e-reader would be the best course of action.

I completed my life cycle analysis on the Life Cycle Analysis Calculator, which can help you create a simple LCA using very basic information. Keep in mind that the simpler the LCA, the more uncertainty and potential errors there are. With that, I want to emphasize that this was an exercise is very simple comparison, and not one which should be taken as fact. This is more of a possible general trend, rather than scientific fact.

The plan sets an energy savings target of 2.4% for electricity sales in 2012. Utility energy efficiency programs have traditionally produced savings of 0.8% to 0.9 % annually, backers said. If energy efficiency investments reach the 2012 target, it will save 2,648,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity, or 15% of the utilities’ annual residential customer usage. With energy savings of 2.4% per year going forward, Massachusetts would meet 30% of its electricity needs by 2020 through improved energy efficiency, rather than additional generation. Now that it has passed the state’s Energy Efficiency Advisory Council, it will go to the Department of Public Utilities for final approval this fall. See the Massachusetts governor’s press release.

The new agreement follows the Interior Department’s opening of a new Renewable Energy Coordination Office in California on October 9. The department previously established similar offices in Arizona, Nevada, and Wyoming, along with renewable energy permitting teams in six other western states. These offices and teams support the speedy permitting of renewable energy projects and supporting power transmission projects on public lands. To lead the overall initiative, the Interior Department has also established a National Renewable Energy Office at the Washington, D.C., headquarters of its Bureau of Land Management (BLM). See the Interior Department press release.

One successful conclusion to such federal and state cooperation occurred on October 12, as Secretary Salazar inaugurated Arizona’s first commercial-scale wind project. The Dry Lake Wind Power Project is located on a combination of BLM-managed federal lands, Arizona State Trust Lands, and private lands on the Rocking Chair Ranch in Navajo County. The project required the cooperation of the Interior Department, the Arizona State Land Department, Navajo County, Rocking Chair Ranch, the project developers, and the Salt River Project, which has agreed to buy the power from the project. Phase I will generate 64 megawatts of wind power with 30 wind turbines. When fully constructed, the project could provide up to 378 megawatts of wind energy from 100 to 200 turbines. See the Interior Department press release.

Utilizing the waste heat generates considerable savings for the Jefferson City Correctional Center and the Algoa Correctional Center on their utility bills. Altogether, the project will save Missouri taxpayers an estimated $400,000–$500,000 in energy costs each year plus an additional $670,000 in annual operating costs by shutting down the boiler at Algoa.

The project represents the state’s second landfill gas facility. For more information, read the governor’s October 19 press release.

By requiring car drivers to pay a fee to drive in a city at peak hours, congestion pricing reduces traffic and raises money that can be used to support public transit — both worthy goals.

Yet congestion pricing has dubious environmental value. Traffic jams, if they’re managed well, can actually be good for the environment. They maintain a level of frustration that turns drivers into subway riders or pedestrians.

Hazardous Chemicals in Health Care: A Snapshot of Chemicals in Doctors and Nurses (PDF; 2 MB)
Source: American Nurses Association, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Health Care Without Harm
From press release (PDF; 58 KB)

Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) in partnership with American Nurses Association (ANA) and Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) released the “Hazardous Chemicals In Health Care” report today, detailing the first investigation ever of chemicals found in the bodies of health care professionals. The inquiry found that all of the 20 participants had toxic chemicals associated with health care in their bodies. Each participant had at least 24 individual chemicals present, four of which are on the recently released Environmental Protection Agency list of priority chemicals for regulation. These chemicals are all associated with chronic illness and physical disorders.

NSF Releases Online Multimedia Package on Marine “Dead Zones”

The Earth currently has more than 400 so-called “dead zones” — expanses of oxygen-starved ocean covering hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles that become virtually devoid of animal life during the summer; the worldwide count of dead zones is doubling every decade.

Most dead zones, such as the Gulf of Mexico’s notorious dead zone, are caused by pollution that is dumped into oceans by rivers. But every summer since 2002, the Pacific Northwest’s coastal waters — one of the U.S.’s most important fisheries — has been invaded by massive dead zones that are believed to be caused by an entirely different and surprising phenomena: changes in oceanic and atmospheric circulation that may, in turn, be caused by climate change.

How could climate change cause dead zones? What do dead zones look like and what are their ecological impacts? And how, on Earth, are scientists sleuthing out the causes of perplexing marine processes that cover such huge swaths of the sea? Find out in the National Science Foundation’s new online, multimedia package on dead zones.

Entitled Dead Zones: Mysteries of Ocean Die-Offs Revealed, the multimedia package is posted at http://nsf.gov/news/special_reports/deadzones. It features:

• a webcast with Jack Barth, an expert on Oregon’s dead zones from Oregon State University;
• a dynamic, narrated slide show;
• compelling videos;
• eye-catching photos;
• enlightening illustrations
• informative, easy-to-understand texts; and
• downloadable documents.

Dead Zones: Mysteries of Ocean Die-Offs Revealed is ideal for reporters, general readers, fishermen, water-enthusiasts, teachers, students, researchers and conservation organizations.

Source: National Science Foundation

One year on: A progress report on the Government’s Greening Government ICT
Source: Cabinet Office
From Press Release:

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is responsible for up to 20 per cent of carbon emissions generated by Government offices. Each year it generates around 460,000 tonnes a year, the same amount created by a million households in a month or a jumbo jet flying around the world more than a thousand times.

Last year the Government was one of the first in the world to introduce measures to tackle the huge financial and environmental cost of ICT. Departments were asked to take 18 key steps including turning off all machines at night, extending the lifecycle of computers, reusing as much IT equipment as possible and increasing server efficiency.

In the first year alone some of the success stories include:
• The Department for International Development (DfID) donating old equipment to charities in developing countries
• The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) saving £2.35million by replacing 9,500  computers and 2,500 printers every five years rather than every three
• The Home Office (HO) saving £2.4million a year by removing unused IT equipment and improving efficiency
• The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will save 200 million sheets of paper a year through cutting down the number of printers in the department and changing the default setting to double-sided printing

+ Direct link to document (PDF; 912 KB)

“After years of delay, EPA is aggressively moving forward by ordering the testing of a number of pesticide chemicals for hormone effects,” said Steve Owens, assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances. “These new data will be carefully evaluated to help identify potential hormone disruptor chemicals.”

On Oct. 21, EPA made available the battery of scientific assays and test guidelines for conducting the assays, as well as a schedule for issuing test orders to manufacturers for 67 chemicals during the next four months. The data generated from the screens will provide robust and systematic scientific information to help EPA identify whether additional testing is necessary, or whether other steps are necessary to address potential endocrine disrupting chemicals.

Testing, conducted through the agency’s Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program, will eventually expand to cover all pesticide chemicals. Now that screening is under way for the first group of chemicals, EPA is preparing to review the responses, evaluate the data, determine the potential of endocrine interaction, and whether additional testing is necessary to guide further regulation.

The EDSP is the most comprehensive mandated testing program for hormone effects in the U.S. The program is the result of a multi-year effort that includes validation of the science through a transparent scientific review process.

More information about the screening program: http://www.epa.gov/endo

The Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, or ISTC, held the Illinois Governor’s Sustainability Awards at the I Hotel, 1900 S. First St., on Wednesday. Various companies and organizations throughout the state were awarded for their dedication to improving the environment through conservation and energy efficiency.

Outdoor air at the schools is being monitored for 60 days, and air quality monitors will collect at least 10 daily samples during the sampling period. EPA will use this information to help determine next steps, which could include more monitoring, if needed. Results are posted at http://www.epa.gov/schoolair.

Today, EPA is posting data for Olean Middle School in Olean, New York, Mabel Homes Middle School in Elizabeth, N.J. and Paulsboro High School in Paulsboro, N.J. The fourth school, IS 143 in Manhattan, New York, had its first data posted previously and it is also available at the web site.  The Agency is monitoring the air around these schools for several contaminants associated with industrial and mobile sources such as cars, trucks and airplanes.

Early sampling at all the schools show that levels of air toxics are below levels of short-term concern. EPA scientists warn against drawing conclusions at this point since the project is designed to show if long-term, not short-term, exposure poses health risks to school children and staff. Once monitoring is complete, the full set of results from all of the schools will be evaluated for potential health concerns from long-term exposure to these pollutants. EPA will post this analysis to the Web once it is complete.

To learn more about EPA’s efforts to study outdoor air near schools, visit: http://www.epa.gov/schoolair

Google rolled out a new initiative today honoring efforts to use Google Earth to improve the human condition or the home planet.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), a division of the U.S. Department of Energy, has selected 37 forward-thinking energy research projects to receive a portion of $151 million in funding. The $151 million is part of the $400 million that ARPA-E has received from the Recovery Act.

ARPA-E received 300 applications for the initial round of funding. Ultimately, 37 research projects in 17 states received funding with 43 percent going to small businesses, 35 percent to educational research teams, and 19 percent to large corporations.

Farms, freeways and front yards are flooding underground aquifers with dangerous toxins, slowly poisoning many communities’ water supplies. But how can this happen?

In a win for the environment, New York will expand its deposit laws to include water bottles starting Oct. 31. A five-cent surcharge will be added to the cost of each water bottle sold, which customers can then return to stores for a refund. About 80 percent of unclaimed deposits will go to the state as much-needed revenue, resulting in some $115 million annually.

A new analysis creates a better look at rising temperatures.

Climate change is anthropogenic – the product of billions of acts of daily consumption. That solutions need to be anthropogenic too is well accepted. Yet, suggested solutions are normally cast in the realms of finance and technology, often neglecting the primal root of the problem: individual behavior. An emerging body of social-psychology scholarship has examined the barriers and drivers of individual behavior in relation to both adaptation and mitigation. This paper reviews some of its conclusions, and suggests policy areas that should be considered in devising appropriate interventions.

A cap-and-trade system to control U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as proposed in recent draft legislation, for example in H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA), creates a limited and declining number of emissions allowances each year (the “cap”). Each allowance is worth one ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) or its equivalent in other greenhouse gases. The program requires firms with emissions that fall under the cap (the “covered entities”) to surrender to the government enough allowances to cover their emissions. The cap declines each year in order to satisfy long-run emissions targets. For example, ACESA sets U.S. emissions goals for 2020 and 2050 that are 17 percent and 83 percent, respectively, below 2005 levels. To achieve the capped levels at least cost, the program allows firms to buy and sell allowances (the “trade” part of cap-and-trade), creating a market that induces the least-cost emissions abatement. The allowance market thus creates a transparent price for the right to emit greenhouse gases.

Policymakers are keenly interested in the likely effect of the cap-and-trade system on their constituents. This paper summarizes the economic literature on the “incidence” (a.k.a. the “distributional effects”) of cap-and-trade climate policy, meaning all the ways people may be made better or worse off as a result of the policy.

One often hears about how a particular climate policy approach might benefit corporations as opposed to individuals or vice versa. This paper takes the perspective of the economic literature, which examines the effects of climate policy on individuals and different categories thereof, not the effects on individuals vis-à-vis corporations. Only people can bear the costs and benefits of the program. Although the legal system treats firms as if they were people, the ultimate economic burdens and benefits of climate policy fall not on legal entities but on the owners of firms (shareholders), workers, consumers, and other individuals.

This paper considers the distributional effects of cap-and-trade across different sets of people, including consumers, shareholders, household income groups, and geographic regions, and it explores the role of policy design in determining those effects. The paper describes how the incidence of the program depends on how market forces transmit the costs of emissions abatement through the economy and how the program can create large transfers from one group to another, especially through the way the government doles out allowances. Finally, it explains how the allocation of allowances can lower or raise the overall costs to the economy by reducing other economic distortions or by inducing higher-cost abatement.

Section 2 of this paper reviews existing studies of the incidence of a cap-and-trade system and explains how and when market forces transmit the price on carbon from covered entities to consumers. Section 3 explains how the ultimate economic incidence of the program depends critically on how the government distributes the value of the allowances, either in the form of the allowances themselves or via the proceeds of allowance sales. Section 4 explores how the way in which the government devolves allowances can affect not only the distribution of costs but also the overall level of the costs to the U.S. economy. It also examines other potential uses of the value of allowances, such as enhanced energy research and development funding. Section 5 concludes.

The potential range of affected sectors and the scale of impacts on domestic industries that would result from economy-wide climate legislation are unprecedented in the history of U.S. environmental regulation. Even a cursory consideration of how the balance sheets of American companies would be impacted by a price on their greenhouse gas emissions reveals the complexity of designing evenhanded domestic climate policies.

Pricing carbon emissions, either through a cap-and-trade system or an emissions tax, will not only adversely affect electricity and primary energy producers, but it will also hurt the competitive performance of heavy fossil-fuel users in downstream industries, especially in trade-exposed sectors such as steel and chemicals.

This gives rise to two overarching concerns. First, a small but prominent subset of domestic companies may be disproportionately burdened if carbon mitigation policies affect their operations but not those of their international competitors. Second, some of the environmental benefits might be eroded if increases in U.S. manufacturing costs from uneven international carbon pricing caused economic activity to shift to nations with weaker greenhouse gas mitigation policies or none at all.

This paper reviews the evidence on the competitiveness burdens imposed on domestic energy-consuming industries as a result of a unilateral or near-unilateral carbon pricing policy. We also examine the nature and magnitude of emissions leakage that could undermine the environmental effectiveness of such a policy. Subsequently, we analyze a range of options designed to address these concerns, with particular emphasis on the measures included in the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACESA). Overall, we find that this bill adopts a quite reasonable approach to the multiple challenges involved, although we do identify a number of possible refinements that might be considered as parallel legislation is discussed in the Senate.

Companies worldwide are recognizing the value of embracing green tech — and not just IT vendors such as HP, IBM, Cisco, and Dell. Organizations large and small, from universities to SMBs to sprawling corporations such as Procter & Gamble, have embraced sustainable technology practices for one (or more) of the usual reasons: saving money on various forms of waste, cutting carbon emissions, complying with current or future legislation, and simply being better environmental stewards.

Empowering young women through education will help reduce overpopulation in areas that cannot support it and avoid extremism in the children they raise.

The winners include an essay titled “A Fish with a Crab;” a poem called “Place of Peace;” a mixed media entry entitled “Pop-pop’s Garden;” untitled photo of a sunset on a beach; and a video by the Intergenerational School, Judson Park Assisted Living and the Shaker Nature Center.

Intergenerational teams, including the young and the old, explored the natural world to create their projects. Finalists in each category were selected by an intergenerational team of judges. The finalists were judged based on originality, its intergenerational teamwork and how the project brought the team in touch with the natural world.

The public selected the winners. More than 1,600 individuals from all over the country and world cast their ballots for the winners. The contest was sponsored by EPA, Generations United, the Dance Exchange, Inc. and the Rachel Carson Council Inc. Carson is considered the founder of the contemporary environmental movement.

More information: http://www.epa.gov/aging/resources/thesenseofwonder/2009/

“Runoff from parking lots and driveways is a significant source of water pollution in the United States and puts undo stress on our water infrastructure, especially in densely-populated urban areas,” said EPA Acting Regional Administrator George Pavlou. “By evaluating different designs and materials, this study will help us develop strategies to lessen the environmental impacts of parking lots across the country and make our communities more sustainable.”

This summer, EPA replaced a 43,000-square-foot section of the parking lot at its Edison facility with three different types of permeable pavement and planted several rain gardens with varying vegetation for the study. Over the next decade, EPA will evaluate the effectiveness of each pavement type and the rain gardens in removing pollutants from stormwater, and how they help water filter back into the ground. The parking lot will be functional during the study to accurately evaluate how the different types of pavement handle traffic and vehicle-related pollution like leaking oil.

Stormwater runoff is generated when precipitation from rain and snow flows over land or impervious surfaces, like parking lots or rooftops, and does not readily flow back into the ground. As the runoff flows over the land or impervious surfaces, it accumulates debris, chemicals, sediment or other pollutants that could adversely affect water quality if the runoff discharged is not properly treated.

This study is part of an effort by EPA’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory to evaluate permeable pavement as it relates to stormwater management practices on a national scale. While the installation of permeable pavement systems has become more prevalent, there is a lack of full-scale, outdoor, real-world permeable pavement research projects.

EPA also recognizes the potential of rain gardens as a green infrastructure management tool to lessen the effects of peak flows on aquatic resources. While local governments and homeowners are building many of these systems, relatively few studies have quantified the ability of rain gardens to allow the ground to better absorb and filter stormwater, which reduces peak flows.

For more information on how EPA manages and regulates stormwater, visit http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/home.cfm?program_id=6.

Ever wonder what happens to a billboard after it’s been taken down? Assumed they just wound up in a landfill?

At CNN, the vinyl promotional campaigns are escaping the dump and finding new life as fashion accessories. The vinyl used for CNN’s outdoor billboards is being recycled into tote bags as the company transitions to digital boards. The idea came about as CNN developed its outdoor marketing campaign for Planet in Peril; the company did not want to just discard the vinyl once the campaign was finished. An intern (who later landed a full-time staff position) suggested the idea to reuse the boards.

Have you heard that the world is now cooling instead of warming? You may have seen some news reports on the Internet or heard about it from a provocative new book.

Only one problem: It’s not true, according to an analysis of the numbers done by several independent statisticians for The Associated Press.

The case that the Earth might be cooling partly stems from recent weather. Last year was cooler than previous years. It’s been a while since the super-hot years of 1998 and 2005. So is this a longer climate trend or just weather’s normal ups and downs?

In a blind test, the AP gave temperature data to four independent statisticians and asked them to look for trends, without telling them what the numbers represented. The experts found no true temperature declines over time.

You recycle, ride a bike to work, and buy organic food. You pay extra for “green” electricity and have an eco-friendly car. So can you rest easy, with a clean conscience that your life is as sustainable as it can reasonably be?

Well … although many of us try our best to minimize environmental impacts, our actions don’t always achieve as much as we believe.

Expensive products that are marketed as eco-friendly may help us to assuage our guilt while drawing our attention away from the more pressing issues.

Meanwhile, other actions and products can be useful, but only when used as part of a wider environmentally aware lifestyle. Most worrying of all, some things marketed as sustainable can have negative side effects for the environment—that’s called greenwashing.

The Green Guide talked to several sustainability experts who highlighted five eco-strategies and products that may not be all they are hyped up to be.

The Printliminator bookmarklet lets you selectively remove any element from a web page to make it printer friendly in just a few simple clicks.

It (almost) goes without saying that such a tool minimizes paper use. :-)

Cereplast, Inc., manufacturer of proprietary bio-based sustainable plastics, has been developing a breakthrough technology to transform algae into bioplastics and intends to launch a new family of algae-based resins that will complement the company’s existing line of Compostables & Hybrid resins.

Melting glaciers in the Alps may cause severe environmental damage due to the release of pollutants which have been frozen in ice for decades, according to research by Swiss scientists. With glaciers predicted to recede further due to global warming, the resulting melt may contain chemicals which have been banned or are not widely produced any more.

Thirteen scientists and land use experts conclude in a new paper that an important but fixable error in legal accounting rules used to measure compliance with carbon limits for bioenergy could undermine efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by encouraging deforestation. Their paper is published in the 23 Oct. issue of the journal Science.

A separate paper published online in Science Express by researchers from the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole and MIT concludes that indirect land use change associated with global biofuels programs will be responsible for substantially more carbon loss (up to twice as much) than direct land use. Their model also predicts that because of predicted increases in fertilizer use, nitrous oxide emissions will be more important than carbon losses themselves in terms of warming potential.

An analysis of sediment cores from an Arctic lake indicates that biological and chemical changes occurring there are unprecedented over the past 200,000 years and likely are the result of human-caused climate change, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder. A paper on the work was published online 19 October in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

There has been a sharp decline over the past year in the percentage of Americans who say there is solid evidence that global temperatures are rising—from 71% in 2008 to 57% in 2009. And fewer also see global warming as a very serious problem—35% today, down from 44% in April 2008, according to the latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted 30 Sept. to 4 Oct.

A team at China’s Southeast University in Nanjing is developing a process to improve the thermal stability and heating value of bio-oil produced using catalytic fast pyrolysis. A paper on their work was published online in the ACS journal Energy & Fuels on 19 October.

For teacher Bob Smith, there’s no reason why his students’ brain power can’t help move them forward — literally.

Students at the small East Burke High School in rural Connelly Springs, North Carolina, are taking the chemistry lesson out of the lab by turning used cooking oil into bio-diesel.

In the past year, the students have made over 90 gallons of fuel from the used food product, which the local school district uses to power school buses.

As frugal consumers demand more from their vehicles, and bailed-out car companies scramble to manufacture affordable yet eco-friendly models, some drivers are turning to an alternative to the gas-guzzling status quo: vegetable oil.

A 1963 Chrysler turbine car and GM’s 1950s Firebird jet cars inspired Jay Leno to build another high-tech supercar. This new turbine supercar runs on biodiesel and could theoretically top 245 MPH.

New research suggests a link between women’s exposure to household insecticides — including roach and mosquito killers — and the autoimmune disorders rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.

The scientist did not find a direct cause-and-effect relationship between insecticide exposure and the illnesses, and it’s possible that the women have something else in common that accounts for their higher risk. But epidemiologist Christine Parks, lead investigator of the study, said the findings do raise a red flag.

Bioresin manufacturer Metabolix Inc. (Cambridge, MA) has genetically engineered tobacco to produce polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) as it works to create non-food sources for biobased polymers. Under a permit from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to perform an open-air field trial in March of 2009, Metabolix completed field-trial experiments in early October. The trial was undertaken on 0.8 acres of land, with the best plants producing 3-5% PHA. Metabolix said that the trial provided valuable data and information relating to polymer production, adding that the research “furthers development of Metabolix crop technologies for the co-production of biobased plastics in non-food bioenergy crops.”

When supermarket janitors in Local 1877 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) rallied last month at Safeway and Lucky stores in San Jose, Calif., they weren’t only demanding improved wages and health benefits. They were calling for the adoption of green cleaning standards to make their jobs safer.

Earlier this year, SEIU janitors in Southern California made similar demands. Union members even dressed up as fruits and vegetables and picketed outside the 2009 National Grocers Association Convention in Las Vegas. They were calling attention to the safety of chemicals used to clean supermarkets.

Putting green cleaning standards on the agenda with wages and benefits is evidence that one of the country’s largest unions is broadening its idea of a safe and healthy workplace.

Summary: Electronic waste (e-waste) is a term that is used loosely to refer to obsolete, broken, or irreparable electronic devices like televisions, computer central processing units (CPUs), computer monitors (flat screen and cathode ray tubes), laptops, printers, scanners, and associated wiring. E-waste has become a concern in the United States due to the high volumes in which it is generated, the hazardous constituents it often contains (such as lead, mercury, and chromium), and the lack of regulations applicable to its disposal or recycling. Under most circumstances, e-waste can legally be disposed of in a municipal solid waste landfill or recycled with few environmental regulatory requirements. Concerns about e-waste landfill disposal have led federal and state environmental agencies to encourage recycling. To date, 19 states have implemented some form of mandatory e-waste recycling program. These state requirements, mixed with increased consumer awareness regarding potential problems with landfilling e-waste, have led to an increase in recycling. With that increase have come new questions about e-waste management. Instead of questions only about the potential impacts associated with e-waste disposal, questions have arisen regarding the potential danger associated with e-waste recycling—particularly when recycling involves the export of e-waste to developing countries where there are few requirements to protect workers or the environment. Answering questions about both e-waste disposal and recycling involves a host of challenges. For example, little information is available to allow a complete assessment of how e-waste ultimately managed. General estimates have been made about the management of cathode ray tubes (CRTs, the only devices where disposal is federally regulated), but little reliable information is available regarding other categories of e-waste. For example, accurate data regarding how much is generated, how it is managed (through disposal or recycling), and where it is processed (either domestically or abroad) are largely unknown. Further, little information is available regarding the total amount of functioning electronics exported to developing countries for legitimate reuse. What is known is that e-waste recycling involves complex processes and it is more costly to recycle e-waste in the United States, where there is a limited recycling infrastructure. It also is known that most consumer electronics manufacturers (who provide the market for material recovery from recycled electronics) have moved overseas. As a result, the majority of e-waste collected for recycling (either for reuse or recycling) appears to be exported for processing. Although there may be limited data regarding how e-waste is managed, the consequences of export to countries that manage it improperly are becoming increasingly evident. In particular, various reports and studies (by the mainstream media, environmental organizations, and university researchers) have found primitive waste management practices in India and various countries in Africa and Asia. Operations in Guiyu in the Shantou region of China have gained particular attention. Observed recycling operations involve burning the plastic coverings of materials to extract metals for scrap, openly burning circuit boards to remove solder or soaking them in acid baths to strip them for gold or other metals. Acid baths are then dumped into surface water. Among other impacts to those areas have been elevated blood lead levels in children and soil and water contaminated with heavy metals. The impacts associated with e-waste exports have led to concerns from environmental organizations, members of the public, and some Members of Congress.

Consumer product companies need chemical information from their supply chains for many reasons, including the design of products that are safe for human health and the environment, regulatory compliance, participation in green certification programs, disclosure of chemical ingredients in products to retailers and customers, and preparation of Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS). Companies with large, complex, global supply chains face many challenges in getting this information.

The Green Chemistry in Commerce Council (GC3), a project of the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production, at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, commissioned three case studies of leading firms with complex supply chains to explore and share experiences on how companies gather chemical information from their supply chains and how they use this information to develop safer products. The three companies are Nike, S.C. Johnson (SCJ) and Hewlett-Packard (HP). The case studies conducted for this project examined a number of questions:

1. Why is the company seeking chemical information from their supply chain?
2. What types of chemical information is the company seeking?
3. How is the company gathering chemical information from its supply chain? What system is it using?
4. What systems are companies using to manage chemicals in products?
5. What systems are companies using to create safer products using chemical information?
6. What challenges have existed and what has worked well to gather chemical information, manage chemicals and design safer products?

All three firms studied are sizable, consumer product companies with large and complex supply chains. They are diverse with regard to the types of products that they manufacture and the types of raw materials that they procure from their supply chain. The reader should keep this in mind when reading the cases and lessons reported in this document.

Information gathered for the cases came from interviews with personnel at each firm, internal documents provided by the firms, and publicly available information. The companies were given the opportunity to review and comment on case study drafts. This summary report is designed to synthesize the lessons learned and best practices that were distilled from the case studies.

Legislation designed to keep old TVs and computers out of landfills is on its way to the governor’s desk.

The Senate on Tuesday gave final approval to the bill, which requires electronics manufacturers to take a more active role in recycling their old products. Currently, Dan Kohler of Wisconsin Environment says many of those end up in landfills, with an estimated 10,000 tons worth of computer monitors and 24,000 tons of old televisions being dumped each year in the state.

Let’s start this off with a quick clarification. When I say “LED light”, I’m not talking about the nifty, little blinky things that are frequently part of the ingredients list in Make projects. I’m talking about the Big Show: An LED light that can replace the incandescent bulbs and/or CFLs you have lighting up your home right now. To do it right, you don’t just need a single LED that works, you need an array of them…and you need them to produce enough light, and the right color of light, reliably enough that people can buy an LED bulb and know what they’re getting into.That ain’t easy. But it is getting easier.

Trouble is, they’re being oversold, like whoa. For about two-and-a-half years, I’ve been reporting on LED lighting for a trade magazine called Architectural SSL*. During that time, I’ve watched mainstream press and enviro blogs tout LEDs as the green energy miracle light. Often, with a level of enthusiasm seldom seen outside rooms full of puppies. Don’t get me wrong. LEDs are pretty cool. There are places where they’re useful now, and places they probably will be soon. But if you’re just hearing about the awesome, you aren’t getting the full story. And, as more LED products start showing up on store shelves, that really starts to matter.

Join me, won’t you, as we put on our Sober Assessment Goggles and take a peek at the current state of light bulb of the tomorrow…