Posted by Dave (in Anchorage, Alaska)

Well, it looks like we’re smack bang in the middle of conference season. Some delegates from the IWC in Anchorage barely had time to pack their Alaskan souvenirs before they were on planes again, jetting off to the Hague for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species conference (CITES). Damn – even conservation creates a carbon footprint…

So, less than a week since I wrote a blog called “Commercial whaling ban reinforced at IWC in Anchorage“, parties to CITES have sucessfully rejected an effort by whaling nations to undermine a related ban on the international trade in whale products.

Continue reading No whale trade: CITES keeps ban in place…

Uber-Eco-Towers: The Top Ten Green Skyscrapers
New Device Turns Waste Heat into Electricity
Sooty Vessels Try to Turn Green
Eating Radiation: A New Form of Energy?
Building Better Biofuels

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(Posted by David Zaks in News and Views at 6:49 PM)

Image source: AWEA

Editor's note: Since David was only able to spend one day at WINDPOWER 2007, we asked Jessica Jensen, co-founder of Low Impact Living, to offer her take on the rest of the conference. Here are her impressions of Day 2.

Day 2 at WINDPOWER 2007, the national wind energy expo hosted by the National Wind Energy Association (NWEA) continued to be exciting. With over 400 companies exhibiting and 6000+ visitors, this is by far the largest wind energy conference in the U.S. Yesterday's events focused on the small wind energy market. Small wind is defined as systems producing < 100 KWs. Home wind-power systems typically require 1-10 KW (generated by one turbine) and farms and small businesses can use anywhere between 10-100 KW.

The day started with an excellent session on "Growing the Market for Distributed Wind Energy." Trudy Forsyth of the National Renewable Energy Lab spoke both of very encouraging growth in the small wind market but also about the obstacles to greater growth. Certain states– including California, New York, Vermont and Massachusetts offer strong financial incentives for investment in wind systems and also make the permitting processes navigable.

After writing an article a few weeks back about a city in China where almost every roof is covered in solar, I've come to realize that we're obviously not taking advantage of the square footage above our heads. Everything from collecting rain to growing produce to harnessing the sun could be achieved using our roofs. We're not there yet, but I'm hopeful that change is in the air.

Helping my optimism along is a recent article of a firm in California attempting to take single-purpose parking garages and turn them into functional structures that harness the power of the sun. Already having raised $600,000, Envision Solar plans to take advantage of wasted space above these structures and line them with solar panels. That energy could then be used to either power a nearby building, fed into the grid, or leveraged to charge electric cars. Tesla Motors, makers of the upcoming Tesla Roadster all-electric super car, are also petitioning for a similar setup. Go figure.

One the easiest ways to give your place a facelift is to slap on a fresh coat of paint. But beware of that new paint smell – it can do more damage than you think, even after it's dry. Here's a few things to consider if you're thinking about throwing some color on your walls.

The old standards on the paint market are normally oil based or water based (latex) paints. Latex paints, most common for DIYers, are made up of pigments, binder, additives and water. There are also solvents and biocides (to prevent bacterial growth) that aren't always listed. All these things can add up to one giant headache – literally. When you get a headache or nausea from wet paint aroma, that is the VOCs affecting you (volatile organic compounds).

Image Credit: USDA/Wikimedia CommonsAmericans eat a lot of corn. Sure there's cooked corn and corn chips and corn flakes and cornbread and the myriad other varieties found in the average American market. And, with the arrival of summer, there is now corn-on-the-cob (though here in the upper midwest: the sweet corn at the local supermarket right now is trucked in from Florida, not locally grown).

But in addition to its recognizable forms, where the corn is recognizable as corn, there are untold numbers of additional places where we don't recognize it, but where corn forms the substance of our diet. And most of that has been highly processed.

I've been reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan recently, and it has been a very enlightening read. One of the most shocking things to discover was just how much corn is suffused throughout the typical American diet.

Last month in the UK, we launched a campaign with several other organisations for rigorous controls on biofuels. Governments across the EU are trying to force fuel companies to supply more biofuels and so cut carbon dioxide emissions, but while biofuels could make a small contribution in the battle against climate change, they could in fact do more harm than good.

If rainforests are cut down to make way to grow ‘green fuels’, it will not only destroy homes for animals like orang-utans, it will also be catastrophic for the climate by releasing more greenhouse gases by destroying forests than we will save using biofuels. The link between deforestation has been well documented so clearing forests to grow biofuel crops makes absolutely no sense.

Anyway, the campaign launched with a cheeky press ad (here’s a PDF version) warning of the perils of biofuels, which has now been made into a short, sharp shock of a film which is playing above. Enjoy.

We are pleased to announce the launch of Worldchanging’s new podcast series, hosted by our colleague and ally, Jennifer Leonard.
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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in About Worldchanging at 3:50 AM)

Editor's note: This week, Lighter Footstep's Chris Baskind shares some tips for making your refrigerator run more efficiently. This post was originally published on May 30, 2007.

So how old is your refrigerator?

 

More than five years? If your fridge is similar to most, it uses about 40% more electricity than the ENERGY STAR certified units being sold today. And given the fact that your fridge is one of a typical home's biggest energy gobblers, that adds up to a pretty good chunk of change each year.

Replacing your current refrigerator with a modern unit could save you upwards of $70 and reduce your home's annual carbon dioxide footprint by a thousand pounds a year. Given that the life cycle of a fridge is ten years or more, it makes sense to replace aging units whenever possible. But that's not always financially feasible.

If you're not ready to upgrade, there are some things you can do to improve the efficiency of your current model:

Reading aloud to a child is perhaps the single most important activity parents can do to help their child's developing mind. The benefits of reading aloud are numerous. Time spent snuggling up with Mom or Dad while listening to a story, provide children with a feeling of warmth, love, and security. The coziness and intimacy of sharing a book with a loved adult delights children. Evidence from research says that reading and talking to your child may be the single most important thing in determining your child’s intellectual, economic and social success.

The benefits of reading aloud to children also extends to seaking meaning from the messages present in the literature. Storybook content and illustrations provide a catalyst for discussing the green values expressed by the author and/or illustrator and espoused by your family. There are many wonderful children's books that use the narrative form to express green values and ideas, especially conservation. The following environmental children's books are amongst my five favorites as a teacher and a parent.