Author Archive

 Want to make yourself crazy? Next time you’re driving, pay attention to the astonishing number of plastic bags on the side of the road. In the trees, hanging on fences, floating lazily through the air on a summer breeze, clogging storm drain grates. continue

Are you a California business, government or organization that is particularly proud of your sustainability efforts? Would you like to tell the world about those efforts?

Well, the California Sustainability Alliance can help. continue

Anyone who lives or works near a landfill is intimately familiar with methane, the gas that produces that readily identifiable “landfill smell.” Created by decomposing organic matter, methane is 20 times better than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. But those same properties make it a fine source of energy, as more and more local governments are discovering. continue

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors this week overwhelmingly passed what is likely the country’s most comprehensive recycling and composting ordinance. The Board voted 9-2 to require residents and business owners to sort recyclables, food waste and trash for weekly collection, in an effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions and, ultimately, make the city landfill- and incinerator-free by 2020.
The ordinance, which will take effect this fall, provides fines for failure to comply with the recycling/composting regulations. continue

The World Car Free network www.worldcarfree.net is urging people around the world take the heat off the planet by giving up their cars for one day. International Car Free Day is September 22, and the organization, which promotes green transportation alternatives, is hoping that one day can turn into a week, then a month, and, eventually, a smaller carbon footprint for everyone.

According to the Environmental Defense Fund www.edf.org, the U.S. has 30 percent of the world’s cars but emits 45 percent of the world’s global automotive CO2 emissions; an estimated 450 million tons are emitted by personal vehicles alone.

So, on the 22nd, give your car the day off. Hop a subway or ride a bike. The planet will be grateful.

Novato, Calif.’s, Sustainability Committee is holding a public workshop to receive input and comments on the development of its Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy (EECS) and Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP).

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Farmers’ markets are sprouting up like, well, weeds in urban areas across the country. Some are wildly successful. Some never really get off the ground. continue

Minority women in New York’s South Bronx are turning three acres of “scruffy marginal land” into an herb and vegetable paradise. According to Treehugger.com, La Finca Del Sur, the “Farm of the South,” is an urban farmer cooperative with a goal of providing affordable, fresh produce to the community, while encouraging healthy living and educating the public about the environment and social equity. continue

If you live in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Kansas City, St. Louis, Louisville, Milwaukee or Minneapolis/St. Paul, you just got one step closer to a high-speed rail system that would link those cities in what will be called the Chicago Hub High Speed Rail (or Midwest) Corridor.
According to Environment News Service , a meeting of Midwest governors and rail executives, hosted by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Chicago Mayor Richard Dailey, has resulted in an agreement that establishes a Midwest steering group to coordinate each state’s individual applications and to lobby the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) for funding under the Obama Administration’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. President Obama has targeted $8 billion to jump-start a high-speed passenger rail system, along with five years’ worth of $1 billion budget requests.
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Think your town is too small to go big into sustainability? Think it takes too much money to make a real statement? Think again. Ashton Hayes, a village in Northwest England, is becoming a global model for how to live sustainably. And it’s doing so in ways that any town, no matter how small, can emulate.

The village has made becoming the country’s first zero carbon emissions community its goal, according to a piece by Sarah Mukherjee, environment correspondent for BBC News. continue