Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Pastor Joel Hunter invites you to celebrate Earth Day

Blessed Earth and Pastor Hunter believe the worldwide Christian community should be leading the conversation about protecting the planet. They invite you to celebrate a special 40th anniversary Earth Day event:



learn more: Blessed Earth's April 21 event
via Green4th.com
by Chris Searles





GreenFaith offers sustainable eating guide (free)


GreenFaith's Repairing Eden guide includes a host of sustainable food resources for houses of worship and faith-based schools.

Click here for a free copy
via Green4th.com

by Chris Searles



Interfaith group plans Earthday worship service

"Green by Faith"
A time to celebrate and grow
the faith commitment to environmental care...


Austin, TX -- Austin's Interfaith Environmental Network is planning a first-ever interfaith worship service in celebration of Earth Day 2010.

visit Green by Faith (event page) for more details
via Green4th.com
by Chris Searles





"People of Faith for the Environment"


The Sierra Club is doing an admirable job of aggregating people of faith from around the country on environmental concerns:

"There is a growing level of commitment and leadership among people of faith working to connect environmental awareness with widely shared values including stewardship, justice, and concern for future generations. As the implications of global warming and its disproportionate impact on the world's poor become increasingly clear, prophetic voices are being raised in religious communities around the globe. In the United States, 67 percent of Americans say they care about the environment because it is God's creation."

visit People of Faith for the Environment (group)
via Green4th.com
by Chris Searles





Episcopal Ecological Network promotes theology & ecology



The Episcopal Ecological Network (EpEN) is a nationwide network within the Episcopal Church USA that coordinates with the Church's Peace and Justice Ministries Office. The EpEN includes all concerned Episcopalians who are helping the Church assume a leadership role in the worldwide environmental movement.

One of the activities of the EpEN is to deepen knowledge of theological and spiritual, as well as scientific and ecological issues, facing members today...

Learn more via EEOnline.org
via Green4th.com
by Chris Searles





Thursday, March 11, 2010

Solar Breakthrough?

New "Hairy" Solar Cell is 98% Plastic, Catches 96% of Incident Light





"These solar cells have, for the first time, surpassed the conventional light-trapping limit for absorbing materials," says Harry Atwater, Howard Hughes Professor, professor of applied physics and materials science [...] The light-trapping limit of a material refers to how much sunlight it is able to absorb. The silicon-wire arrays absorb up to 96 percent of incident sunlight at a single wavelength and 85 percent of total collectible sunlight. "We've surpassed previous optical microstructures developed to trap light," he says...

Read full post here
via Treehugger
by Michael Graham Richard





Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Visualizing Smart Growth

Steve Price creates flash animations to help city planners
see the future.


Imagine some ugly, underused street in your town, marked by drab buildings, wide streets, and forbidding expanses of parking lot. If you have to go here, chances are you’d prefer to drive. Now imagine it remade into a place where you’d actually want to walk or bike. There would be broad sidewalks, trees, and streetfront buildings with ground-level windows. There would be other people walking around too. Picture this in your mind, if you can. If you can’t, digital artist Steve Price might be able to help...

Harrah’s Hits Recycling Jackpot


Two of Harrah’s Las Vegas properties have been recognized for waste-cutting efforts that include recycling 75 tons of paper, 18 tons of plastic and nearly 13 tons of glass. The two resorts, Bally’s and Paris Las Vegas, were recognized by the EPA’s WasteWise program with gold achievement awards...

Read full article here
via Environmental Leader





Post-Consumer Rigid Plastics Recycling Grows 11% in 2008


More than 361 million pounds of post-consumer rigid plastics were collected for recycling nationwide in 2008, up nearly 11 percent from 2007, according to a report released by the American Chemistry Council (ACC). Scientists also may have found a way to develop biodegradable plastics and extend the useful life of some plastics.

Approximately 62 percent of the 361 million pounds of materials were manufactured into new products in the U.S. or Canada, and the remainder was exported primarily to China...


Read full article here
via Environmental Leader





Saturday, March 6, 2010

Christian Debate: Creation Care and Climate Change


Let’s say hypothetically that climate change is false. Does that somehow change the fact that most of the garbage dumps are in impoverished neighborhoods? That in Chicago, the only two coal-fired power plants in the city itself are both in minority neighborhoods? That my electronic waste still ends up in the hands of Ghana’s children or India’s poor?

The real issue is how my life impacts the poor and those who cannot help the fact that my trash is seeping into their groundwater. Show me a place in the scriptures where it says to be purposefully wasteful, where we are told to take what we can get and then dump it and run when we are finished. . .

Read full post here
via Sojourners
by Racey Bianchi



Monday, March 1, 2010

Climate Counts launches i2 Innovators



Several American companies, including Amtrak, Timberland, and Clif Bar, are leading a bold initiative to signifcantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions...

visit ClimateCounts.org for more info
via GreenBiz
by Chris Searles



Walmart's Super-Sized Climate Commitment...

Walmart 2010:
(Greener Products & Green Supply Chain)



The world's largest retailer has set a new goal for shrinking its environmental footprint and is turning to suppliers to help achieve a 20-million-tonne cut in greenhouse gas emissions from the lifecycle and supply chain of its products by 2015...

Read full article here
via Greenbiz.com





Sunday, February 28, 2010

Innovative leader in electric utility management, retires


Austin, Texas -- The historically significant Roger Duncan, general manager at Austin Energy -- the City's municipally-owned electricity utility, retired Friday after more than 30 years of public service. During his Austin-centric career Roger achieved world renown in green utility implementation. A couple of examples:
  • co-founding one of the world's most progressive energy efficiency programs (dubbed "Energy Star" in the 80's, a name the federal government would later use)
  • co-creating the WORLD'S FIRST green building program (no kidding)

Roger's work is responsible for motivating people around the world to believe sustainable makes sense. Here's wishing Mr. Duncan and his family a very happy and fulfilling retirement.

See full post here
via BurntOrangeReport
by Chris Searles

##

A recent video of Roger:






Saturday, February 27, 2010

Fuel Cell Breakthrough?

Coke, eBay, Google, Wal-Mart Buy Bloom Fuel Cells

A host of major U.S. companies are becoming customers of the new Bloom Energy Server, aka "bloom boxes," which run on a variety of fuels, including natural gas and biogas. Fuel cells convert hydrogen and oxygen into electricity via an electrochemical process that produces little in the way of emissions.

Some in the financial community have compared this product's launch to the Google IPO. Each Bloom fuel cell currently produces about 100 kilowatts of electricity...

Read full article here
via Environmental Leader





2 huge icebergs let loose off Antarctica's coast



One of the new icebergs is 48 miles long and about 24 miles wide, holding roughly the equivalent of a fifth of the world's annual total water usage...

Read full article here
via AP/Yahoo News
by Owen Pye