A record breaking flood that hit Middle Tennessee on the first weekend of May left 11 people dead and thousands of homeowners still do not have without power. With the flood waters receding, many fear that the death toll will rise as rescuers continue to search for victims.

Among those that have been affected by the flood is the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, which was forced to displace its 1,500 guests. Located north of downtown, the MetroCenter was also evacuated, displacing approximately 500 people.

According to Nashville’s city officials, one of the water treatment facilities had to be shut down to avoid further damage to it.

Mayor Karl Dean said that recovering from this natural calamity is going to take a long time. He added that some of the city’s infrastructures may no longer be safe because the damage was much more than he expected.

Over the weekend, 13 inches of rain hit Nashville. Over six hundred rescues had to be performed to save the lives of stranded motorists and residents. The official flood level of the Cumberland River is at 40 feet, but due to the recent flooding, it could reach to as much as 50 feet.

Despite the weather conditions, however, most of the city’s government offices opened on Monday, May 3. A few days after the flooding, the state’s governor, Phil Bredesen requested for the granting of federal disaster status for the state.

In addition to this, neighboring Mississippi and Kentucky were also affected by the weekend’s storm, causing 28 deaths across these three states.

An earthquake that hit China on Wednesday, April 14, 2010, left at least 400 dead and 8,000 injured, according to a Chinese television network. The earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.1, caused great damage to a dominantly Tibetan county in the western province of Qinghai.

The quake that shook an area 20 miles from the county seat of Yushu tore apart an elementary school, a portion of a Buddhist tower in a public park, the town’s main hospital and numerous houses, Chinese officials said to the media.

As stated by Zhuo Huaxia, a local Tibetan official, many were buried in the collapsed houses and several others were still injured and treated in the local medical centers.

The town of Yushu is located approximately 500 miles southwest of Xining, Qinghai’s capital. This town is home to about 100,000 people, many of whom are herdsmen. A number of houses that were affected by the earthquake were made of logs and mud.

“The death toll may rise as lots of houses collapsed,” said an army official. The official further added that the roads that lead to the airport has been slowing down rescue efforts because they were damaged.

According to the US Geological Survey, the quake was measured at magnitude 6.9. Additionally, there were at least six aftershocks, the strongest of which was measured at a magnitude of 6.2.

On March 9, 2010 in San Francisco, IBM researchers reported that they have found a way to create environmentally friendly plastic from plants that can take the place of petroleum-based products. According to IBM’s Almaden Research Center’s science and technology manager Chandrasekhar “Spike” Narayan, the findings guarantee that the eco-friendly plastics are produced by an energy efficient method.

In addition to this, the researchers at the IBM research facility and Stanford University revealed that this breakthrough can lead to an era where plastics can attain sustainability alongside the ecosystem, with the use of organic catalysts that can result to biodegradable molecules made from renewable resources.

Aside from its renewability, the plant plastics can also be turned “biocompatible,” which means that it can significantly enhance the targeting prowess of drugs in bodies; for instance, producing cancer medicines designed to kill the cancer cells while keeping the healthy ones safe.

The company is looking for new ways of applying technology in order to create a future that is focused on environmental sustainability. IBM is collaborating with scientists at King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia to make sure that the breakthrough findings work for the recycling process of plastics used for beverage and food containers.

Plant plastics that are used for other materials or objects like car parts can be produced and purchased at lower costs. More details about plant plastics can be found in a paper published in the American Chemical Society journal Macromolecules.

IBM (International Business Machines) is a worldwide computer, technology and IT consulting corporation with offices in the United States, North Castle, New York, and Armonk. The company is one of several IT businesses with a long history that dates back to as early as the 19th century. IBM produces and sells computer hardware and software, and presents infrastructure, hosting and consulting services ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology.

On Tuesday, March 9th 2010, Jolanta Gadek, speaker for Poland’s Podlasie province, revealed that Prince Charles and his wife will be visiting a rare European bison herd in their distinctive natural habitat. A unique herd of some 800 European bison subsisted in the Bialowieza forest, a wooded area that extends as part of Poland’s boundary with Belarus. The European prehistoric forest is said to be rare and is a protected national park. The European Bison herd is categorized as endangered.

The bison is a relative of the North American Buffalo and has existed in the forest since before the First World War. However as the years passed, the European bison was all but wiped out by German troops and local poachers. The existing herd found recently was bred from seven present animals.

The royal couple will also stop at a nearby mosque in the eastern Polish community of Kruszyniany on the Polish-Belarussian boundary occupied by descendents of Tatars who, at the closing stages of the 17th century, were given land by Poland’s King Jan III Sobieski as compensation for their service in the military. The country’s tiny Tatar community is also comprised of the predominantly Roman Catholic country’s native Muslim inhabitants.

According to a statement released by the British Embassy in Warsaw, the visit will center on mutual aid in the area of defense and matters concerning ethnic and religious minorities, and environment protection.

Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales was born on the 14th of November 1948. He is the eldest son of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and Queen Elizabeth II. Since 1958, his major designation has been HRH The Prince of Wales. Prince Charles is known as The Duke of Cornwall in Cornwall and as The Duke of Rothesay in Cornwall.

One of the world’s most beautiful volcanoes oozed lava last night, threatening to erupt over a tourist town in the Philippines.

Most of the 50,000 villagers living within 4-5 miles of the danger zone around Mount Mayon were evacuated earlier today. The red-hot volcano was spewing lava and ash that reached up to 100 meters high.

Renato Solidum, head ot the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, said that the magma has been rising at the volcano for the past two weeks and that an explosion could be imminent. The institute has upgraded Mayon’s status to level three, meaning that it could erupt in the very near future.

Jukes Nunez, a local emergency official, said: “It’s ten days before Christmas. Most likely people will be in evacuation centres, and if Mayon’s activity won’t ease down we will not allow them to return to their homes. It’s difficult and sad, especially for children.”

Mount Mayon is considered one of the world’s most perfectly formed volcanoes because of its symmetrical cone. Most recently, Mount Mayon was active over a four-month period in 2006. At that time, 30,000 people were moved to safety zones. Mayon’s most violent eruption in 1814 killed more than 1,200 people.

Source: Times Online UK

Though public opinion on whether or not global warming is a major threat is split in this nation according to recent polls, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Dec. 7 that greenhouse gases threaten the public health and welfare of the American people.

EPA also said that greenhouse gas emissions from on-road vehicles contribute to that threat.

According to a press release from the agency, it came to these conclusions after a “thorough examination of the scientific evidence and careful consideration of public comments.”

The agency asserted today that greenhouse gases are the primary driver of climate change, which can lead to hotter, longer heat waves that threaten the health of the sick, poor or elderly; increases in ground-level ozone pollution linked to asthma and other respiratory illnesses; as well as other threats to the health and welfare of Americans.

“These long-overdue findings cement 2009’s place in history as the year when the United States government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution and seizing the opportunity of clean-energy reform,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “Business leaders, security experts, government officials, concerned citizens and the United States Supreme Court have called for enduring, pragmatic solutions to reduce the greenhouse gas pollution that is causing climate change. This continues our work towards clean energy reform that will cut GHGs and reduce the dependence on foreign oil that threatens our national security and our economy.”

EPA’s final findings respond to the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that greenhouse gases fit within the Clean Air Act definition of air pollutants. The findings do not in and of themselves impose any emission reduction requirements but rather allow EPA to finalize the greenhouse gas standards proposed earlier this year for new light-duty vehicles as part of the joint rulemaking with the department of transportation.

On-road vehicles contribute more than 23 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, the report states. EPA’s proposed standards for light-duty vehicles, a subset of on-road vehicles, would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 950 million metric tons and conserve 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the lifetime of model year 2012-2016 vehicles.

EPA’s endangerment finding covers emissions of six key greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride – that have been the subject of scrutiny and intense analysis for decades by scientists in the United States and around the world.

According to EPA, scientific consensus shows that as a result of human activities, greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are at record high levels and data shows that the Earth has been warming the past 100 years, with the steepest increase in warming in recent decades.

President Obama and Administrator Jackson have publicly stated that they support a legislative solution to the problem of climate change and Congress’ efforts to pass comprehensive climate legislation.

EPA issued the proposed findings in April 2009 and held a 60-day public comment period. The agency received more than 380,000 comments, which were carefully reviewed and considered during the development of the final findings.

This past summer, two students at the Ross School did something unconventional for their senior project and took on a month-long sustainability challenge, living “off the grid.”

In a remarkable project, Karen Sanchez and Sylvia Channing, seniors at the Ross School in East Hampton, founded by Courtney Sale Ross in 1991, fished and grew their own vegetables in order to feed themselves. The two resourceful girls slept and lived in a 16-by-16 foot tent in Channing’s backyard.

The project grew from Channing’s creation of an environmental club at the Ross School.

“I wanted to do something with sustainability for a while,” Channing, 17, was quoted saying in the article. “I would always say to my friends, ‘Let’s live in the woods this summer. We can be totally self-sufficient in this amazing agrarian community we live in.’”

Channing and Sanchez hooked up for the project because Sanchez, whose family has a background in farming, wanted her senior project to center around animals.

The challenge the students purposed was to live off only what they could grow, catch, gather or raise for the entire month of August. The two used bicycles for transportation and milked goats.

Part of the test was figuring out what foods would grow in the natural climate, among other roadblocks the girls encountered along the way.

“What I really learned is that you can read about farming animals or anything like that as much as you want,” Sanchez said in the article. “But once you get down to the hands-on experience like that you realize there is no amount of books that can prepare you.”

Read more about the student’s project here from the East Hampton Press.

About the Ross School

Ross School, founded by Courtney Sale Ross in 1991, is committed to offering the highest quality education to the broadest range of students and developing, as part of the Ross Institute, a model for 21st century education that can be applied to transform education in public school settings world-wide.

The global, integrated curriculum at Ross School combined with on-site learning, peer teaching, mentoring, and technology ensures that students will have the skills and frameworks essential for the 21st century.

Now, you can put Afghanistan on your travel itinerary.

A piece of heaven exists up in the Hindu Kush Mountains in the Bamiyan Province, in the country’s first national park, the Band-e-Amir National Park, which was dedicated recently. The park, according to CNN Correspondent Atia Abawi makes you “feel like you are in heaven,” with its six crystal-blue lakes that are surrounded by heart-stopping cliffs and natural dams.

In the 1960s, the dedication of Band-e-Amir as a national park was canceled because of war. In 2004, Band-e Amir was submitted for recognition as a World Heritage site. Four years later, in 2008, it was finally declared Afghanistan’s first national park.

The previous Taliban rulers of the country had done much damage to the country’s historical heritage, like the famous Buddha statues, which were blasted off sometime in March 2001 and now, stand as mere crater remnants. These Buddha statues were called by some as a “wonder of the world,” being encompassed by sparkling jewels and perfectly chiseled.

During the opening ceremony, National Environmental Protection Agency Director Mustafa Zahir described Band-e-Amir as a beauty that was comparable to poetry “for the mind, for the eyes, and for the soul.”

Band-e-Amir is an azure expanse of a body of water that covers 59,000 hectares of desert land and rock that is surrounded by red limestone. The water that oozes out from the ground is clean and drinkable.

Afghans are proud of Band-e-Amir despite it being difficult to access by residents. The site is a nine-hour drive from Kabul.

Aside from the park being a sign of reconstruction and a renewal of their land, they rely on the national park to help create jobs for them.

One resident comments: “If the government wants to help, have them plant trees. This is the perfect climate. Have the people plant it and there will be jobs for them.”

CEMEX, the Mexico-based cement manufacturer, recently released a beautifully illustrated book describing the strategies of shared environmental responsibility between business and environmental groups in protecting wilderness preserves. Transboundary Conservation: A New Vision for Protected Areas covers the work of 50 conservationists, scientists, and photographers, focusing upon 29 transboundary parks around the world. These transboundary parks include El Carmen-Big Bend, Glacier National Park, and Kavango-Zambezi, among many others.

“This new book shows how transboundary conservation areas have a very special role in international conservation,” said co-author Dr. Russell A. Mittermeier, president of Conservation International. “It examines the importance of protecting land across borders as well as the impact on human populations if these areas of rich biodiversity are degraded or lost.”

The title Transboundary Conservation comes from the new terminology for international efforts to protect complete ecosystems that cross international borders. The first such park was Montana’s Glacier National Park, which was was joined with Canada’s Waterton Lakes National Park. Since then, the concept has expanded to more than 100 parks and protected areas throughout the world.

Transboundary conservation areas, or TBCAs, have several important advantages. They can reduce tensions between countries and help rebuild peaceful cooperation. Peace parks celebrate historically good relations along with a shared commitment to managing precious natural resources.

CEMEX, in partnership with Conservation International and the International League of Conservation Photographers, published Transboundary Conservation in accordance to CEMEX environmental policies and its efforts to be a good steward and promote air quality.

“Transboundary Conservation is the 13th in our series of conservation books,” said Armando J. Garcia, executive vice president of development, CEMEX. “Similar to its predecessors, this book illustrates methods on how to protect the world’s biodiversity and works to promote a culture of environmental awareness within our communities and our society at large.”

Sensitive to its impact on the environment and air quality, CEMEX strives to minimize its environmental footprint while still serving the needs of its expanding markets. CEMEX’s air quality and environmental stances are crucial to its success, as the quality of life and corporate responsibility go hand in hand with profits and competitiveness. Transboundry Conversation is just one part of CEMEX’s environmental initiative.

Conservation International (CI) uses innovations in science, economics, policy and community participation to protect the Earth’s richest regions of plant and animal diversity and demonstrate that human societies can live harmoniously with nature. Founded in 1987, CI works in more than 40 countries on four continents to help people find economic alternatives without harming their natural environments. The International League of Conservation Photographers works to promote the critical importance of photography for conservation, increase support for the creation of meaningful images, and stop illegal wildlife trade.

Green energy developers got a much-needed boost as the U.S. Energy Department offered loan guarantees amounting to $59 million to two American companies focused on developing alternative renewable energy sources.

Such guarantees are sourced out of the U.S. economic stimulus package, which earmarks $6 billion in renewable energy and electricity transmission projects.

A $43 million loan guarantee to build a 20-megawatt flywheel energy storage plant in Stephentown, New York was offered to Beacon Power Corp, an energy storage company.

The Energy Department also presented a $16 million loan guarantee to Nordic Windpower, to expand its assembly plant in Pocatello, Idaho. Nordic is a privately held company owned by Goldman Sachs and other investors.

Steven Chu, Energy Secretary says, “These projects represent the innovative technologies that will help America reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and fight climate change.”

Beacon Power is expected to introduce new technology that will deliver renewable energy to the electricity grid. Nordic Windpower plant’s expansion will supply a one-megawatt wind turbine that is 10% less expensive to manufacture, install, operate and maintain than other competing systems.

The department is reining in applications for green energy and hopes it builds momentum within the next three years. The loan guarantees are a way of encouraging green energy developers. If the companies default on their payment on secured commercial loans for their projects, the department will repay them.

The department has been swamped with applications for the program and a streamlining process is being prioritized to manage its flow.

Clean, renewable energy is a top priority for U.S. President Barack Obama as he leads the U.S. in the global fight against climate change and a revival of the ailing economy.

Climate change efforts have gained headway with the passage of the Waxman-Markey bill in the Lower House, putting a mandatory 17% emissions cap on manufacturers and industries by 2020 and 83% by 2050.

US lawmakers supporting the climate change legislation have found an extra hand in former US Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore. Calling the bill a “good start”, Al Gore has mustered his grassroots manpower and mobilized environmental organizations to secure the bill’s passage through Congress’ House Energy Committee.

Although the controversial bill has received criticism from environmental groups, Al Gore believes it has “reached the stage that a lot of people thought that it never would”. The bill has been seen as too lenient to utilities, coal plants and manufacturing companies. Republican and Democrat lawmakers from coal-manufacturing states disputed an earlier draft of the bill that required utilities to secure six% of fuel from renewable sources by 2012 and to 25% by 2025. In addition, the initial target of a 20% reduction of 2005 greenhouse gas (GHG) levels by 2020 in the first draft of the warming bill decreased to 17%.

In acknowledging that the bill did provide concessions, Gore was nevertheless optimistic about how it was moving the country forward in GHG emission reductions.

Aside from GHG emissions reduction, the Democrat-dominated House of Representatives is aiming to have 15% of US energy derived from renewable sources such as solar, wind, geothermal and biofuels by 2020. It also aims to achieve an annual energy savings of 5% by that time through energy efficiency measures.

Gore has been actively campaigning worldwide for countries to adopt green legislation in order to combat global warming. An environment champion, he formed the Climate Project and the Alliance for Climate Protection in 2006 as machinery for public dissemination of climate issues. Together, the two groups have poured in considerable resources and provided additional backbone for the nationwide effort to produce a climate bill, working in different congressional districts all over the country.

In the early part of May 2009, they launched two television ads focused on clean energy that encourages viewers to contact their representative to say ‘yes’ to the climate bill.

• Waxman-Markey Bill is detailed in this Committee on Energy and Commerce.
• The Atlantic Monthly offers some criticsms of the Waxman-Markey bill.

Ethical Corporation recently published a comprehensive, well-researched article called “Private Equity – Easing the barbarians through the gate.” The article is about how the responsible investment movement and private equity are learning to work together.

The first major example of this new style of business is the partnership between the Environmental Defense Fund and Kohlberg Kravis and Roberts (KKR). In February of 2007, Jim Marston, head of the EDF’s Texas office, met with KKR Chairman Henry Kravis.

The EDF had already waged a PR campaign against the plants, so they were surprised to be invited by KKR to discuss the issue. The EDF was intent on stopping KKR’s latest acquisition, Texas Utilities (TXU), from building eleven coal-firing plants.

But Henry Kravis was determined to revolutionize both the image and the practices of KKR. Henry Kravis understood that environmental groups now have considerable leverage, especially as public opinion continually grows in support of preserving the environment. He knew the getting the plants approved would entail an extremely difficult regulatory and public relations battle, and besides, Henry Kravis is sympathetic to many environmental issues. So, Henry Kravis decided he wanted the EDF and the Natural Resources Defense Council to enter the negotiations of KKR’s $44 billion buyout of TXU.

The result was TXU scrapping plans for eight of its coal plants, along with significant investments in renewable energy, conservation, and efficiency measures.

The astonishing KKR deal is just the tip of the iceberg the reform of private equity. According to the National Venture Capital Association, venture investment in clean technology has jumped from just 2% to 17% of the total money vested. In February of 2009, The Carlyle Group and KKR formed the Private Equity Council to encourage the implementation of ESG, or “environmental, social and governance” guidelines. These guidelines include anti-bribery measures, more open communication with shareholders, and stricter adherence to labor and environmental regulations.

The new face of private equity is at sharp odds with its old image, formed by the “barbarians at the gate” story of KKR’s takeover of RJR Nabisco. Ken Mehlman, the KKR head of global public affairs, says the barbarian image days are over. “I hate hearing that phrase. I don’t believe it’s an accurate portrayal of who KKR was then but it’s certainly not who we are today,” Ken Mehlman said. “We’re committed to responsibly steward the companies we own. We’re committed to sustainability.”

Ken Mehlman launched his career as an environmental lawyer for Akin Gump Strauss before he became the chairman of the Republican National Comittee. KKR hired Ken Mehlman so the firm could build a strong relationship with the EDF.

“There was instant chemistry at KKR,” Ken Mehlman says. “I believe strongly that free enterprise, when it’s focused, can bring value to all stakeholders, not just shareholders. We now use environmental, social and governance measures as part of our due diligence in acquisitions and across portfolios.”

KKR and EDF recently announced the Green Portfolio project. “[We worked] to test a set of analytic tools to help companies improve in several key environmental performance areas,” Ken Mehlman says, “including greenhouse gas emissions, waste, water, forest resources and chemicals. KKR and EDF released the results of their pilot partnership at three companies: US Foodservice, Primedia and Sealy. The total savings with the Green Portfolio practices amounted to $16.4 million, while preventing more than 25,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

“We’re making ESG part of our DNA. This is a process. We’re going to make mistakes, but we’re committed to learning and improving on our environmental and social practices,” Ken Mehlman says. “We’re already seeing the benefits and we are rolling initiatives out across our portfolio.”

In the United States, many people are getting up-to-date with their electronic devices and are cleaning their homes to make room for the more advanced TV sets and such. However, for the Environmental Protection Agency and activists who are concerned about soil, water and air pollution, careless ditching of old appliance is seen as something that must be hindered, if not stopped entirely.

EPA has made efforts to reduce pollution caused by careless waste management of electronic devices, such as TV sets and PC monitors, to name a few. Also called electronic waste, old appliance such as TVs contribute largely to pollution if not properly disposed of. EPA estimates that there about almost 100 million unused old TV sets sitting idly in millions of American households.

The call to surrender old TV sets to electronic waste recycling events has been quite effective, with many people coming out and lining to hand their decrepit electronic garbage to the EPA.

An old TV can be reduced to usable parts, as there are substantial amounts of cadmium, chromium, barium, and traces of gold and even mercury in the lamps of some flat screens.

For people who still own old types of television sets, EPA suggests that the best way to keep them is to use them. EPA is only after the unused ones to ensure that they are properly discarded and reduced to parts that are harmless to the environment.

TVs that are equipped with cathode-ray tubes, also known as the non-flat screen TVs, must not be disposed in landfills. There are already state-regulated laws that focus on TV disposal. According to Barbara Kyle of the San Francisco-based Electronics TakeBack Coalition, six states have already declared that improper disposal of TV sets is illegal. Five other states are slated to follow in 2010.

In a recycling event held in El Cerrito, California, TV sets were turned over for the recycling process.

The first step is dismantling the plastic case by removing the screws. Sometimes, a few medium taps with hammer is needed to loosen the really old ones. The cords are then taken out and put into a waiting bin. These are stripped of their copper. The fun part, according to the dismantlers, is the breaking of the vacuum seal on the cathode ray tube. Breaking this device is important since an intact cathode ray tube can “go off like a bomb” if it is accidentally dropped.

Using a hammer and an awl, methodical strikes are then made in the hole left in the tube when the air was sucked out of the tube when it was made. This helps fill in the vacuum safely.

Once the tube is broken, five to seven pounds worth of reusable lead can be collected from the funnel of the tube. However, the lead can only be extracted from recycling plants. Along with the funnel, the screens are also sent to the plants where they are melted down for reuse in new cathode-ray tubes.

In contrast, the old school method of dismantling a TV set is toxic not only to the environment but for the dismantlers as well. Recycling plants in Asia, according to the Basel Convention, follow hazardous processes that potentially poison the workers.

Additional Information:

Take Back Coalition’s The Problem with Electronics.

California Department of Toxic Substances Control’s analysis of e-waste.

This USAToday article warns to be very careful when you recycle e-waste.

President Barack Obama signed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (or the Stimulus Bill) last Feb. 17, 2009. Prior to the signing, there were many speculations with regard to the provisions included. However, energy and environment advocates have found several worthy green provisions. Actually, the bill is loaded with a number of laudable renewable energy benefits.

Under the Stimulus Bill, the Department of Energy will have $39 billion for use in developing clean energy. A significant portion of the amount is meant for creating jobs in demonstration, research, and deployment. An additional $8.5 billion targets renewable energy projects as well as expanded electric transmission.

Research, development, deployment, and demonstration activities in energy efficiency and renewable energy are allotted an estimated $2.6 billion. This funding also focuses on picking up the pace in terms of developing technologies aimed at energy supply diversification.

Another noteworthy provision is the $4.6 billion allotted for fossil energy research and development. This clean energy initiative is divided into several spectrums like zero emissions from power plants, carbon capture and storage projects, and clean coal projects.

With the Stimulus Bill already approved, energy efficiency and conservation takes a big boost with its $4.2 billion funding. Federal building repair for better energy conservation and efficiency is likewise prioritized with $2.5 billion. Working on buildings will greatly help advance energy efficiency because these structures are some of the biggest violators of clean living and environmental sanitation.

There are other notable green provisions in the bill including those that deal with coming up with more efficient government vehicles and the development of better car batteries.

President Obama’s main concerns for the stimulus package are the improvement of the country’s economy and the saving and creation of more jobs. With the inclusion of clean energy and green jobs in the bill does more than just boost the economy, it also drives the country towards a more sustainable, energy-independent future.

Official Department of Energy breakdown of the stimulus package.

Obama’s stimulus bill green lights green spending.

U.S. stimulus bill likely to revive green power.

Believe it or not, the next time you quaff a mug of beer or take a sip of a rum and Coke, you can call yourself an environmentalist! Just be sure it’s Abita beer or Bacardi rum you’re drinking.

According to an article published by Biomass Magazine, The Abita Brewing Company and the Bacardi Company are on the forefront of using renewable energy in the manufacture of their famous beverages. Abita Brewing, located in Albita Spring, Louisiana, is famous for their premium beers, such as Turbodog, Abbey Ale, and Purple Haze. What’s not as well known is how they convert their brewery waste into renewable energy.

A portion of this waste is transformed into animal feed and sold to a local dairy farmer. But the unused waste does NOT just go down the drain. Instead, the rest of Abita’s waste goes to a 570,000-gallon anaerobic digester, which can convert 75,000 gallons of waste per day into biogas. The methane-rich gas is then sent to the brewery’s boiler, so the brewery does not have to rely totally on regular electricity to heat up its boiler. In operation since April 2008, the anaerobic digester processes 45,000 gallons of brewery waste per day, creating a red hot 490 million cubic feet of biogas each month!

Bacardi environmental policy also makes use of anaerobic digester technology, allowing Bacardi to be its own power plant. The maker of Grey Goose vodka, Dewer’s Scotch whisky, Bombay Sapphire Gin, and the famous Bacardi rum has patented an anaerobic digester system specially suited for distilleries.

The anaerobic digesters at Bacardi’s Cataño facility process a whopping 1.2 million gallons of still bottoms, unfermented molasses and water every day. The result is an average of 7 million cubic meters of biogas each year, which in turn is sent to heat up the boilers. Bacardi gets an impressive 30% of its energy from this biogas. In the process, Bacardi doesn’t need the 5 million liters of oil it would need to heat the boilers.

Bacardi also employs this cutting edge technology at its Martini and Rossi plant in Pessione, Italy. That particular facility gets 50% of its energy needs from anaerobic digestion, fueled by wastewater creating during blending, filtration, clarification, and bottling operations. Bacardi can be proud to say that more than 92% of their waste is recycled into renewable energy.

Bacardi has licensed their ingenious technology to other distilleries, such as Cervecería India Inc. in Puerto Rico and Brugal & Co., C. por A. in Santo Domingo. More and more breweries and distilleries are now seeing the economic sense of upgrading to anaerobic digesters to take advantage of biomass.

When it comes to shrinking their carbon footprints, Bacardi and Abita are hard to beat. So let’s make a toast to Mother Earth and the recycling campaign…with a pint of Abita and a shot of Bacardi Rum!

Article Source: Biomass Magazine

Additional Information on Abita and Bacardi:

Abita Brewery solves its corrosion problems.

Classic City Brew takes a fascinating tour of Abita Brewery plant.

Learn the amazing history of the Bacardi Family on the Funding Universe site.

The Bacardi Family Foundation is an educational, religious, and charitable trust located in Arlington, Virginia.

Bacardi Environmental initiative: Bacardi Foundation, Stockholm Water Foundation Establish MIT Professorship.

Bacardi seeks to raise the retail environment in the Bahamas with the opening of the new Bacardi store.

Thomas Lauren Friedman, renowned New York Times Foreign Affairs columnist, presents world-wide issues in a simplified text. The 55-year old three-time Pulitzer Award winner wrote perspective-changing works on the Middle East, foreign business policies, September 11, and globalization. Among his prominent and award-winning books are The Lexus and The Olive Tree, The World Is Flat and most recently, Hot, Flat and Crowded.

Friedman is yet again proving his value as a visionary communicator whose insights and opinions are widely respected. Last December 9, 2008, in CNN’s segment “No Bias, No Bull,” he professed his confidence in President-elect Obama’s plans for America to become the leader in the environmental revolution. Both share the same vision of change, especially in creating green-collared jobs and green homes as depicted in his most recent book. Renewable Environmental Technologies (ET) is going to be the next great global industry according to the writer. This means a demand for clean water, clean power, and clean energy. “It simply has to be – otherwise, we’re not going to survive as a planet” Friedman emphatically concludes.
(December 10, 2008)

Friedman points out that it is now up to the president-elect to create the means to his ends through multi-sector reforms. There has to be a systemic change in how things are being run at present. Friedman goes on to illustrate this in how, for example, building environmental friendly homes with solar panels would require changing building codes across the country before implementation.

Tom Friedman graduated with an AB degree in Mediterranean studies from Brandeis University. He received his Masters of Philosophy degree in Middle Eastern studies from the University of Oxford. His career took off when he was dispatched to Beirut as part of his work for United Press International. He was reassigned there when he got hired by The New York Times as a reporter. It was Friedman’s coverage of the Israeli war, most notably the Sabra and Shatila massacre, which gained him recognition for the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. His second Pulitzer in the same category was for his coverage of the First Palestinian Intifada in 1988. Friedman claimed his third Pulitzer in 2002 for Commentary on Foreign Policy and Economics.

Article Source: Newsbusters.com.

Official site for Thomas Friedman.

A collection of New York Times articles written by Thomas Friedman.

THE HOME DEPOT LAUNCHES NATIONAL CFL BULB RECYCLING INITIATIVE
Also Implementing In Store Energy Conservation Program

ATLANTA, June 24, 2008 – The Home Depot ®, the world’s largest home improvement retailer, today expanded its long-term commitment to the environment and sustainability by launching a national in-store, consumer compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb recycling program at all 1,973 The Home Depot locations. This free service is the first such offering made so widely available by a retailer in the United States and offers customers additional options for making environmentally conscious decisions from purchase to disposal. The Home Depot Canada launched a CFL recycling program in November, 2007.

At each The Home Depot store, customers can simply bring in any expired, unbroken CFL bulbs, and give them to the store associate behind the returns desk. The bulbs will then be managed responsibly by an environmental management company who will coordinate CFL packaging, transportation and recycling to maximize safety and ensure environmental compliance.

In addition to the CFL recycling program, The Home Depot has also launched an in store energy conservation program to switch Light Fixture Showrooms in U.S. stores from incandescent bulbs to CFLs by Fall 2008 and save $16 million annually in energy costs. The CFL recycling program is an extension of The Home Depot’s Eco Options program. Eco Options, launched in April 2007, is a classification that allows customers to easily identify products that have less of an impact on the environment.

“The CFL recycling program is another example of how The Home Depot is empowering
customers to help make a difference in their own homes, and have less of an impact on the
environment,” said Ron Jarvis, senior vice president, Environmental Innovation. “With more
than 75 percent of households located within 10 miles of a Home Depot store, this program is the
first national solution to providing Americans with a convenient way to recycle CFLs.”

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The Amero Cabinet Collection has premium, semi custom kitchen cabinets, also specializing in green kitchen cabinets.

Pacific Crest Industries is well known for their seattle kitchen cabinets, detailed beautiful custom designs, both economical and environmentally friendly, like with their green kitchen cabinets.

USA Today reports on Jan. 21, 2009 that the journal Nature has presented a new study showing that Antarctica is in fact warming.

The study suggests that Antarctica’s temperature, when measured wholly, has risen about 1°F since 1957. This is contrary to the long-time speculations of scientists that although certain parts of the continent had been warming, a greater portion of it had been cooling over the past 50 years.

Another alarming fact brought out by the study is that a large part of West Antarctica is warming. In fact, scientists warn that West Antarctica is prone to a possible collapse in the future primarily due to global warming. If this happened, sea levels across the globe would rise to catastrophic levels.

In making this study possible, researchers developed a new method that involved consolidating data from several satellites and automated weather stations in Antarctica thereby arriving at the best estimate of Antarctica’s temperature at this point.

However, some scientists are quite concerned over the said method considering that Antarctica only has a very small number of weather stations and that data obtained from satellite have only been available for the past 25 years.

The study presented above is just one among the several conducted by various scientists regarding Antarctica and climate change. Findings of a particular study may contradict with the findings of another, but one thing holds true: global warming is real and it is evident.

The increase in global temperature implicates serious effects to our environment, economy, and perhaps the future of human existence. Effects of climate change include rising sea levels; ocean acidification; change in the amount and pattern of precipitation; more extreme weather events; glacier melting and disappearance; extinction of species; changes in agricultural yields, and increase in the range of disease vectors.

Scientists are concerned over how global warming specifically impacts Antarctica because of studies that have proven that ice sheets are indeed thinning in particular regions of the continent. One example is the break-up of the Larsen B ice shelf in 2002 during a 35-day period, wherein the shelf lost about 3,250 sq. km. of ice into the ocean.

The shelf was 220m thick and was believed to have already existed 400 years ago or even probably since the end of the last ice age. Since 1974, it has been shown that seven ice shelves in the Antarctic Peninsula have decreased by around 13,500 sq. km.

True, the rise in global temperature will cause the disintegration of ice sheets; however, what primarily causes sea levels to rise is the melting glaciers.

According to Ted Pfeffer, professor of The Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado, the largest contributors to the rising of sea levels around the world are the massive quantities of water that come from small glaciers and ice caps that are melting. Moreover, the breaking-up of ice sheets in the Antarctic region gives an even more alarming picture of the extent of impact of global warming.

Earth911.com’s November 24, 2008 issue ran a short feature on a record-breaking event that took place in New York City when 360,000 tons of e-waste was collected in one weekend.

New York’s Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg worked in partnership with NBC Universal in carrying out the “Green Screens” event where TVs, cellular phones, cameras, radios, telephones, and other electronic equipment and gadgets were collected by Electronic Recyclers International (or ERI) for free. ERI is the world’s largest recycler.

Michael Bloomberg stressed the importance of recycling but added that it is not only metal or glass, plastic or paper that can be recycled; electronics also need to be recycled especially since they form a big part of the waste stream. Michael Bloomberg further added that there is a great need for better strategies in “capturing” electronic wastes.

Michael Bloomberg, who was first known as a businessman, was born on February 14, 1942 in Boston. He grew up in a Jewish family of Russian and Polish descent.

Educated at Johns Hopkins University, Michael Bloomberg graduated with a degree in Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering. He then went on to attend Harvard Business School where he received his Masters in Business Administration.

Michael Bloomberg set up his own company after being fired from Salomon Brothers where he received a severance pay of $10 million which he used to put up his own company called Innovative Market Systems. Merrill Lynch was one of the company’s first customers. In 1986, it was renamed to Bloomberg LP. After several more years, ancillary products cropped up including Bloomberg Tradebook, the Bloomberg Messaging Service, and the Bloomberg newswire. Bloomberg also set up a radio network.

Michael Bloomberg is among the world’s richest with Forbes estimating his 2008 net worth at $20 billion.

He is currently the mayor of New York City taking over the responsibilities left behind by Rudolph Guiliani. Michael Bloomberg assumed the New York City mayorship on January 01, 2002.

Unlike other mayors, Michael Bloomberg chose not to receive a city salary and does not live at the mayor’s mansion but in his Manhattan residence. He also claims to frequently take the New York City Subway especially when traveling from his Manhattan residence to the City Hall.

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