Author: GreenRightNow.com

By Harriet Blake
Green Right Now

The David Suzuki Foundation, a well-regarded Canadian environmental organization, has awarded the Vancouver Olympic Games a “bronze” award for environmental progress.

Despite the hype that these are the greenest Olympics ever – and they may be – the  Davud Suzuki Foundation believes the Vancouver Games could have done more.

In its climate scorecard, the foundation applauded the Vancouver Olympics for doing several things right, such as setting clear goals on energy efficiency and renewable energy; being transparent to promote accountability; making improvements over previous Olympics in measuring climate impact; leaving a legacy of energy-efficient arenas and buildings; using primarily clean energy; and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent.

Areas that need improvement, according to the foundation, include local transportation and shipping that could have had more lasting reductions in their emissions, and carbon offsets, which should have been higher (118,000 tons were offset but this represents less than half of all emissions).

In addition, Vancouver organizers should have been more vigilant in engaging the public and inspiring people with solutions to climate change. The report notes that despite the opportunity to reach out to billions, Vancouver’s Olympics are having little impact in providing much-needed inspiration to fix global warming.

“Climate change is a defining issue of our time, and the winter Olympics are an opportunity to show leadership by reaching and inspiring billions of fans and spectators with solutions to global warming,” noted the foundation’s Paul Lingl. “Despite some missed opportunities, the positive steps taken by the 2010 Olympics demonstrate that climate solutions are doable, affordable and can have a lasting legacy.”

Many of the athletes agree. Former Olympic speed skater Ingrid Liepa said, “The winter Olympics depend on snow and ice… It’s encouraging to see that the Vancouver Olympics are making a contribution, and I hope that future Olympic Games will raise the bar even higher for the sake of our winter sports culture – and our planet.”

Canadian Alpine Ski Team member Kelly VanderBeek added, “As a winter Olympian I see global warming firsthand: melting glaciers, changing snow patterns and the closing of lower-elevation hills. Winter sports are threatened by global warming and Canadian Olympic athletes are stepping forward and calling for action.”

Both athletes are members of Play It Cool, which is a collaboration between the Suzuki Foundation and the Climate Project of Canada. Liepa and VanderBeek have joined forces with more than 70 Canadian athletes who have called upon the Vancouver Olympics to address the games’ climate impact.

Canadian skier Jennifer Heil, who just took silver in the 2010 women’s moguls competition, also is a member of Play It Cool.  “ I have now traveled for 8 years on the World Cup Ski Circuit and I have witnessed first hand extreme recession of glaciers in Europe and at home in Canada where I train during the summer months.” she says on the website. “I can’t imagine a winter in Canada without skiing, the sport I love. But scientists say that this could be a reality if we don’t take action today.”

The connections are clear. “The fate of winter sports, and the potential to host winter Olympics in the future,” says Foundation founder David Suzuki, “depend on choices we make today to address climate change.”

Earlier the foundation had prepared a discussion paper for the Vancouver Olympic organizers, to show how the games could reduce their carbon imprint, how the Olympic committee could buy offsets for air travel and other carbon-emitting activities, and why the winter sports event should the public on climate change.

It noted that ski venues are already being affected by climate change, with mountain glaciers are shrinking three times faster than in the 1980s and Switzerland’s glaciers losing one-fifth of their surface in the last 15 years.

“It is expected that snow-making costs will increase considerably as temperatures warm and even artificial snow will not be viable if temperatures rise above a certain threshold.”

For more information on how climate change threatens winter sports see Suzuki’s report On Thin Ice, Winter Sports and Climate Change.

See also Green Right Now’s Global warming threatens ski industry with meltdown.

Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network

From Green Right Now Reports

Call it the Texas two-step.

Just after Texas Governor Rick Perry filed a lawsuit against the EPA on Tuesday, questioning the federal agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, Texas environmental groups parried back.

Texas’ Public Citizen and the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club announced they were issuing Perry a citizen citation to “cease and desist endangering the health of breathers, the economy and the climate in Texas by continuing to permit coal plants and other large sources of CO2.”

The groups explained in a joint news release from Tom “Smitty” Smith, director of Public Citizen’s Texas Office, and Ken Kramer, director of the Lone Star Sierra Chapter:

“This morning, Gov. Rick Perry attempted to show Texas voters that he is bigger than both Texas and federal law by filing a lawsuit challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) finding that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health. Instead, he just further highlighted his failure to protect Texans’ health and the safety and long-term stability of our economy and climate.

“Instead of suing the EPA, Perry should be taking proactive steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build up our clean energy economy. Perry likes to brag about his accomplishments in promoting wind and energy efficiency and the emissions Texas has avoided as a result, but he is also hammering through a second Texas coal rush that will negate all that hard work and add 77 million tons of CO2 to Texas’ already overheated air.”

The statement argued that Texas law requires the regulation of air pollution, defined as “air contaminants” in Texas state code.

These contaminants, according to Texas’ Health and Safety Code, include “radioactive material, dust, fumes, gas, mist, smoke, vapor, or odor, including any combination of those items, produced by processes other than natural.”

“Perry has proudly demonstrated willful ignorance of this portion of Texas law time and time again, and has ordered state agencies such as the TCEQ to ignore it as well,” the two environmental leaders said.

For more on the petition filed by Texas against the EPA see Texas challenges EPA’s designation of greenhouse gases as harmful.

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and the state’s Attorney General and Agriculture commissioner, announced Tuesday that the state will challenge the EPA’s 2009 finding that greenhouse gases are endangering human health.

Texas has filed a Petition for Review of the EPA’s finding with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit , questioning the science behind the EPA’s finding and whether the agency should be allowed to regulate industries’ greenhouse gas emissions.

The move follows a similar one by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce last week, when the Chamber filed a petition against the EPA to stop the agency from regulating greenhouse gases. The Chamber says it favors greenhouse gas reductions, but that giving the EPA the authority to assess fines against polluters is the “wrong way” to do it.

The EPA responded to the Texas filing with this statement from Dr. Alfredo “Al” Armendariz, EPA Regional Administrator for Region 6:

“Todays action is not surprising. Texas officials have repeatedly expressed opposition to the EPA’s common sense approach to begin reducing harmful greenhouse gases. Texas, which contributes up to 35 percent of the greenhouse gases emitted by industrial sources in the United States, should be leading the way in this effort. Instead, Texas officials are attempting to slow progress with unnecessary litigation.

“EPA is confident the endangerment finding, which was issued as a result of a 2007 Supreme Court decision, will withstand legal challenge.”               

Both the Texas petition and the one filed by the U.S. Chamber express concern that regulating greenhouse gases — or in the case of the Chamber’s suit, assessing fines to violators –  will be costly for businesses.

Perry’s suit, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals, specifically cites industries that depend on fossil fuels and the livestock industry.

“This legal action is being taken to protect the Texas economy and the jobs that go with it, as well as defend Texas’ freedom to continue our successful environmental strategies free from federal overreach,” Perry said in a news release.

The EPA officially deemed greenhouse gases to be a threat to human health in 2009 after the U.S. Supreme Court found that the Bush Administration’s reasons for not regulating these pollutants to be insufficient. The EPA is charged with regulating air pollution under the Clean Air Act.

Environmental Defense Fund Texas Regional Director Jim Marston said Gov. Perry’s action against the EPA represents a step backwards for Texas.

“The lawsuit filed by Governor Perry is asking the Environmental Protection Agency to ignore the Supreme Court’s decision in U.S. vs. Massachusetts. Their action invokes memories of a sad time in Texas history from the ’50s, when Texas politicians sought to nullify decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. Not only is it legally unsound, it puts Texas on the side of the 1950s economy, against the clean energy economy of the future.”

Perry and his co-filers, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, criticize the EPA’s “endangerment finding” on greenhouse gases, saying that the EPA wrongly relied heavily on the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has recently come under fire for having miscalculated or exaggerated some of the effects of global warming. For instance, a finding that the Himalayan glaciers would be gone in a few decades turned out to be based on one scientist’s estimation, and not any peer-reviewed study.

Leaders with the global alliance of scientists, however, have defended the panel’s basic conclusion that the world is warming, pointing to Arctic ice melts and rising seas.

But Texas Attorney General Abbott says that controversies around the IPCC call into question the EPA’s greenhouse gas position.

“With billions of dollars at stake, EPA outsourced the scientific basis for its greenhouse gas regulation to a scandal-plagued international organization that cannot be considered objective or trustworthy,” Attorney General Abbott said.

According to the Texas news release,  “the International[sic] Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)… has been discredited by evidence of key scientists’ lack of objectivity, coordinated efforts to hide flaws in their research, attempts to keep contravening evidence out of IPCC reports and violation of freedom of information laws.”

The EDF defends the EPA, however, saying the agency drew on science from many sources, such as NOAA and the USDA, not just the IPCC.

“Some of the challengers have claimed that the scientific underpinning for EPA’s action is weak. In fact, EPA’s decision is based on a two hundred page synthesis of major scientific assessments by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Research Council, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the NOAA National Climatic Data Center, CNA Corporation, and others.”
(The EPA “Technical Support Document for the Findings” is available at the EPA website on climate change.)

The EDF statement also notes that the U.S. Chamber has fought the Clean Air Act before, in 1997, when the EPA moved to regulate particulate and ozone pollution.

Then, the Chamber claiming that it would harm manufacturers, farm interests, cement makers, auto manufacturers, the pulp and paper mill industry, petroleum refiners, iron and steel firms, home builders, mining interests, and power companies, the EDF said.

“Today, millions of Americans have been protected with healthier air and the science is only more compelling in documenting the harm from particulate and ozone pollution.”

In its current petition against the EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gases, the Chamber says it would favor a Congressional bill on climate change over direct government regulation.

“The right way” to regulate carbon pollution, according to the Chamber’s news release “is through bipartisan legislation that promotes new technologies, emphasizes efficiency, ensures affordable energy for families and businesses, and defends American jobs while returning our economy to prosperity. ”

The House of Representatives passed a bill to address climate change last summer, but the Senate has remained stalled on the issue for months.

Green Right Now Reports

A new Harris Poll finds that Americans are still acting cautiously when it comes to weathering the sour economy.

And some of  the money-saving steps they are taking qualify as green behaviors, though whether or not this has been intentional was not addressed in the poll of 2,576 adults surveyed online between January 18 and 25, 2010 by Harris Interactive.

The poll found, for instance, that:

• 34 percent of Americans polled said they had switched to using refillable water bottles instead of purchasing pre-bottled water.

• 22 percent said they had cut down on dry cleaning

• 14 percent said they had begun carpooling or using mass transit

The switch to refillable water bottles will save on landfill space, and the manufacturing costs of disposable plastic bottles. Even though this type of plastic bottle is recyclable, studies show that the vast majority are simply discarded, filling up landfills and persisting in the environment for hundreds of years.

Reducing one’s exposure to dry cleaning chemicals can be a healthful switch because the main dry cleaning agent, perchloroethylene, known as “perc,” is considered to be a likely human carcinogen, according to government reports. The dry cleaning industry says personal exposure to perc from dry cleaned clothes is small and not harmful, and it points to recapture efforts that are reducing the amount of perc released into the natural environment. Still, a robust alternative network of cleaners is emerging. These new green cleaners shun perc.

As for the shift to mass transit, the Harris Poll found that this behavior was most evident among the youngest generation of adults, with those in middle age preferring to remain in their cars. Moving to mass transit or carpooling is among the biggest green shifts that a person can take to reduce their carbon footprint, because vehicle emissions are a leading cause of dirty air.

The Harris survey aimed to see what Americans were doing to cope with difficult times and whether they were feeling more at ease with recent improved economic predictions. It asked, simply: “Have you done, or considered doing, any of the following over the past six months in order to save money?” It then offered a menu of choices.

The results:

• 63 percent said they are purchasing more generic brands

• 45 percent are brown bagging, at least part of the time, instead of purchasing lunch

• 39 percent are going to the hairdresser/barber/ stylist less often

• 34 percent have switched to refillable water bottles

• 33 percent have canceled one or more magazine subscriptions

• 22 percent have cut down on dry cleaning

• 22 percent have cut back on cable television service

• 21 percent have quit buying coffee in the morning

• 19 percent have canceled a newspaper subscription

• 17 percent have canceled cell phone service

• 15 percent have canceled land line service and only use  cell phones

• 14 percent have begun carpooling or using mass transit

Where have Americans refused to cut back? On their cell phones. The poll found that 52 percent said they have not, and were not considering, canceling that service.(Though, obviously, 15 percent did cut cell phones from the budget.)

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

If you had the money and connections, you could build a snappy green house these days. Sink a geothermal heat pump to tap Mother Earth’s energy, slap up some solar panels, finish it out with non-toxic drywall, cork floors, denim insulation, recycled glass countertops and floors made from sunken ship decking.

But does a green house a green home make? The answer to that is….of course not. Green builders, and those who live in green houses, soon bump up against what some land planners have known all along: It takes a village to bring green to its fullest expression.

Sure it’s cool that net zero houses can push the meter backward. But it is far better to have that household ticking away in a neighborhood where the kids walk to school, mom and pop hop a train to work, and gramps shops for pickles down the street – when the community garden’s cukes have been exhausted. The whole works would be powered by clean energy, connected to local food sources and friendly to local wildlife.

This is not a vision that most of us live, or even recognize, especially those of us in sprawling suburbs, where the tomatoes come from diesel trucks, work is over the horizon and our ‘hood was built to the unwritten specs of tract housing — build first, ponder later.  We are stranded us in spots that fail to take advantage of solar or wind power, in subdivisions isolated from basic services; where getting to the “corner store” can require a two-mile drive and you couldn’t get there greenly anyway because no one saw the need to install a bike lane, trolley or bus system.

But new, more sustainable living arrangements needn’t be unattainable. We can’t roll up the suburbs. But with the right community leadership, open-minded homeowners and creative developers, they can be reshaped to be more green, and we’re not talking about the lawns. All these engines of change are engaged in hundreds of projects across America that will — if circumstances favor their development — create new paradigms for the 21^st Century of community sustainability.

The very best designed green neighborhoods may still be on the drawing board, evolving, but striving projects are on the ground right now.

Suburban green, bringing it home in St. Charles Maryland

Head south of the nation’s capital into Maryland and you see a rolling mix of  rural communities and tract housing  interspersed with McMansions encased by private turf fiefdoms.

About 22 miles south of the capital off U.S. Highway 301, an aging middle-class development of traditional houses appears. This master planned community launched in the 1960s and known as the St. Charles community has neither the glitz of the mansions nor the quaint appeal of surrounding towns, but its density, once something shunned as suburbanites spread their wings, has made it prime for new life as a green town.

Developer ACPT is building an adjacent community of 11,000 new homes that will be green from the ground up, while also offering the existing 13,000 homeowners energy retrofitting assistance.

This grand vision byACPT calls for new housing units to be connected to centralized solar and geothermal power stations and form the center of one huge affordable, regenerating oasis of sustainability.

Make that salable sustainability, too. CEO Steve Griessel wants to provide something average Americans can afford, and he’s nearly certain that customers won’t be able to resist the triple appeal of reasonable upfront costs combined with ongoing energy-savings, enhanced by nearby schools and work centers.

“Until now, everyone looks at this stuff, anything green — the first assumption is that it’s interesting but expensive and people are not willing to pay the premium,’’ Griessel says. “Our entire thesis here is to say that’s just not true.”

Actually, St. Charles is joining a list of green building enclaves, some more green than others, that are finding that eco-friendly can be wallet-friendly, from the spare but elegant homes replacing lost houses in parts of New Orleans to the prairie versions popping up in Greensburg, Kansas.

Griessel’s determined to prove the economics can work. He’s worked out a plan that will save the development money by recycling natural resources at every turn and employing the latest technology. Dirt from prepping house sites will be folded into road beds instead of being trucked out. Felled trees will be chipped and reused on site. Software for the entire project will streamline the building process, helping contractors avoid costly mistakes and duplication. Just the new software alone will save 22 percent on what builders call the “horizontal infrastructure” costs – the initial phase of putting in the houses’ foundations and setting plumbing access, Griessel says.

Homes will be built by known builders in the area, such as Ryan Homes and Richmond American Homes and frankly, won’t look much different from other suburban dwellings. Some green building experts would say that ACPT is missing a beat by not orienting the houses to passive solar building standards that can absorb and retain the sun’s heat.

Michael Kinsley, a development expert with the Rocky Mountain Institute says that every municipality and developer should be looking at orientation today, or risk muffing an opportunity to conserve energy. When sustainable siting is not considered “that’s a deficiency on the part of the developer and the local authority” that is “committing the residents to much higher energy costs for generations, when a very simple regulatory change could have avoided that.”

Kinsley, however, speaks highly of communities that pursue retrofitting of homes and businesses. Greening the community is win-win, he says, because it “plugs a leak” in the local economy by putting the building trades to work and keeping more dollars in the pockets of homeowners. “Any community where the building trades are out of work, they should be emphasizing energy efficiency…the markets are right there. You have a low risk, high return opportunity and it’s largely ignored by economic authorities.”

From that perspective, St. Charles’ above-average energy aspirations will help provide. The community will need just about every trade and building expert imaginable to finish the gargantuan neighborhood which will be powered by a 75 acre, 10 MegaWatt solar farm, an underground geothermal plant, and a nearby natural gas plant (which Griessel endorses because it burns cleaner than other fossil fuels). The houses will have Smart Meters and Energy Star appliances. They will be LEED-certified and right-sized for families (starting at 1,650 square feet), enabling residents to save money on electricity, commuting and mortgages.

The community will incorporate several schools (up to nine), within walking distance of homes, and a job center where businesses will be offered incentives to congregate. All of this will cut down on the St. Charles community’s carbon footprint, improve the quality of life and reduce commute times and energy costs. Wild lands will be preserved on the community perimeter, adding another livability element, and keeping to the spirit of St. Charles 1.0, it is expected to house 40 percent of the county’s population on two percent of its land.

Master planned communities of the past took some of these matters into account, earmarking spots for gas stations and grocery stores, but rarely, if ever, did they seriously, let alone simultaneously, address energy efficiency, restrain sprawl and pursue work major work centers.

St. Charles will be different. “Ten years from now people will be living in homes they can afford. Their children will be going to school down the road,” Griessel said. “They’ll be closer to work and there will be less need for a second motor car… And this will also come with 50 percent smaller utility bills.”

By Jean M. Wallace, MAEd
CEO, Green Woods Charter School, Philadelphia

As a young girl, I spent every summer at the Jersey shore.  I loved the beach! I’d stand by the water’s edge and simply marvel at the vastness of the ocean. With my red plastic bucket in hand, I would spend countless hours exploring the small tide pools and discovering the diversity of life that lived within the ocean current. It was fascinating to me and, looking out over the horizon I always imagined to myself, “What is out there?”

When I went to high school, I had to meet with my high school counselor to help chart my course through high school and beyond.  The defining moment for me was when my counselor asked me, “What do you want to do in life?”  My response was clear and direct, “I want to be a marine biologist!” I said.  The counselor then asked, “Can your parents afford to send you to college?”  “No” I replied.  “Then I will put you in the Commercial Course track so that you can learn something productive and get a job.”

I spent the next three years learning how to cook, sew, do bookkeeping and stenography, be a salesperson in a “Retail Selling” course for which I received an F. Best of all I learned how to work a keypunch machine.  Not one of these courses interested me. I hated high school and I missed more than 30 days of my senior year. I graduated in June of 1970 with all As and Bs as an unmotivated, miserable, but “productive” member of society.

Getting past the obstacles

I always knew that I wanted to work with animals. But not living near a coastal environment, I decided that the next best thing to working with marine animals, would be working at the Philadelphia Zoo.  After graduating from high school I landed a summer job as the Children’s Zoo and spent the next two summers educating the public about the animals under my care.  I searched for full-time work at the Zoo and learned of an opening as a Zoo Keeper. I went to apply for the position, but was told that I was a “woman” and the job of Zoo Keeper was a job for a man.

My family was a family of very proud blue collar workers.  My father and mother, as well as my brother, grandmother and grandfather all worked for the City of Philadelphia.  One day my mom came home and told me that the City was looking to hire women as police officers.  This came as a result of a court order to settle a gender discrimination suit. I applied, took the test, and was accepted as one of the first 100 women on the police force in Philadelphia.

The next 18 years were spent working in a job that was very exciting and, in many ways, extremely rewarding.  Most of my work was undercover and I enjoyed the many roles I got to play. It also gave me the job security I needed and, as a result, I was able to help provide for my daughter so that she could attend some of the best private schools in the city where I knew there would be no barriers placed on her dreams or her opportunities.  She is now exploring a master’s degree in “green” architecture.

After almost 18 years with the City, I was retired from the Police Department due to an injury.  But I was too young to simply do nothing. Although my dream of a career in science wasn’t realized after high school, my love of animals and the environment never faded.  I set out on a new course and took my first class in college when I was forty years old.

After many years of taking courses, I now hold a Bachelor’s Degree, Master’s Degree, and four Pennsylvania Certifications in education. The one that allows me to have the most influence on young women, and all of my students, is my Principal’s Certification. With this certification, I now have the ability to successfully and enthusiastically mentor and motivate an entire generation of young women to go into the field of environmental science.  My girls – and all of my students – can be anything they want!

Taking steps toward a greener planet and a relevant education

I joined Green Woods Charter School in 2004 as the person responsible for guiding the development of, what is now, our award-winning curriculum.  After many years of hard work and the opportunity to work with a talented and dedicated team of educators, our school now enjoys both a local and statewide reputation for excellence in teaching environmental science.  Our students (boys and girls) outscore their peers in state-wide science exams.  As a result, they are recruited from 8^th grade into some of the top high schools in the city.

What is most exciting for me, however, is that my girls actively seek the opportunity to apply to the Science Leadership Academy (SLA), an amazing high school in Philadelphia that operates in partnership with the Franklin Institute.  SLA is operated by Chris Lehmann, a progressive leader in education who believes, as I do, that all children should be given an opportunity to learn in a challenging environment and that girls and boys should be encouraged and motivated to follow their dreams.  My girls and boys both go on to high school learning about how the environment works, as well as their place in it and their responsibility to it.

Through our actions, as well as our words, we should never stop challenging children to excel in school.  But, we also have to change the way that education is delivered so that children find meaning in school and understand that high school, in particular, is another step on the road to what they will be in their life as an adult.  Too many children see no point in high school as they aren’t able to see that they have any future beyond the high school years.  Believe me, I understand that feeling.  Not only was my dream of becoming a marine biologist not encouraged, it was crushed by a system of education, and a society as a whole, that either tracked my academic ability based on my financial status or decided my professional ability to do a job based on my gender.

This may sound simple, but I believe that we can all be mentors to both young women and young men.  As adults, we need to be sure that no doors are ever closed on children that will create barriers to their education or their dreams.  More importantly, as adults, we need to ensure that a quality education, for all children, remains a civil right that should not be taken away from any child.

(The Green Woods Charter School offers a K-8th grade curriculum that emphasizes interconnectedness among people and the natural environment. Learn more at its website.)

By Harriet Blake

Snowboarding, skiing and skating will be front and center when the 2010 Winter Olympics open in Vancouver this week. But not far behind is another S-word: Sustainability. Sustainability has generated a lot of momentum, so much so that the Olympic website devotes numerous links to various aspects of the subject.

There we find out that hydrogen-fueled buses will transport people at some of the venues, several of the buildings are LEED-certified and many of the medals are made from recycled electronics. And, energy provider British Columbia Hydro has teamed with a local software company, Pulse Energy, to monitor energy usage at the games.

John Furlong, CEO of the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee, says these games will establish a blueprint for Olympics of the future; a benchmark for others to follow.

The objective, he says. is to manage the environmental and economic impact of the Games
to create “lasting benefits, locally and globally.”

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson has noted that these Olympics will have the greenest venues of any previous games and despite some criticism for the price of the new structures, he believes it has been a good investment.

Helping the Olympic committee track energy consumption at the games is the aforementioned Pulse Energy, a software company that has partnered with utilities company, BC Hydro. Their joint venture, the Venue Energy Tracker Project, will monitor energy and energy management of nine Olympic venues: the Richmond Olympic Oval, UBC Thunderbird Arena, GM Place, Southeast False Creek Community Centre, the Vancouver Olympic/Paralympic Centre, the Athletes Villages in Vancouver and Whistler, the Whistler Blackcomb Roundhouse Lodge and Snowmaking Facilities.

Pulse co-founder and CEO David Helliwell says the company has installed their energy management technology in each venue, then built a micro site to communicate the project’s objectives, features and results. The project’s mission is to showcase the green features of the Olympic venues and be the first Olympic Games to track its energy, communicating real-time consumption data.

Olympic visitors will be able to view the games’ energy consumption in real time on screens located in several different pavilions as well as at the media centers.

“At Pulse, we’ve developed software to keep track of energy and see where energy is wasted,” says Helliwell. The company has created user-friendly energy intelligence that allows buildings to save up to 25 percent on their energy costs, ranging from light bulbs to heating and cooling systems. Pulse measures a building’s performance and works with a variety of customers including engineering firms and utility companies, such as BP Hydro.

“It seemed like a natural step when the Olympics came to us and asked to help them be more energy efficient,” he says. Based in Vancouver, Pulse employs 40-plus workers. Their work with the Olympic Committee started in full force last September.

Helliwell points out that over the years, the Olympics have made some progress in sustainability, but the Vancouver Olympics will be the first time it’s been measured. And looking to the future, he says, “The 2012 London Olympics may be the biggest one yet.”

Another demonstration of sustainability at work will be the hydrogen fuel cell buses that will transport spectators at the Whistler venue. Developed by the Vancouver company, Ballard, the buses have around since 1991 and are operated by British Columbia Transit.

Fuel cells, says Ballard’s vice president of operations Paul Cass, have no emissions except water vapor because they make electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen without combustion.

“These buses,” Cass said in a recent interview, “tie-in to the sustainability theme of the Games, . . . this is a real, live demonstration of green technology at work.”

The traditional gold, silver and bronze medals will also have a “green” component. The Canadian mining company, Teck Resources, has discovered a way to retrieve the gold, silver, and bronze from the circuit boards of old computers. They then have it melted down and recast into new Olympic medals.

The Vancouver Olympic Committee has a number of sustainability stories detailed on their website. One features an out-of-work man living at the Salvation Army who was trained in the CORE (Construction Orientation to Retain Employment) program and eventually became one of the many carpenters who helped build some of the Olympic structures. Another story chronicles an outreach program that partnered with the Aborigines of Canada to establish an official licensed merchandising program to showcase Aboriginal arts, culture and enterprise.

The Olympic Committee also recognizes their “sustainability stars” on the website. The 62 organizations or structures include:

• BC Hydro and Pulse Energy as well as Canadian Pacific Locomotives which moved game equipment and goods by train.
• Coca-Cola for its waste diversion program that will recycle 95 percent of waste materials and divert them from landfills.
• Panasonic for co-sponsoring a youth digital video contest and presenting an eco-ideas exhibit.
• The Richmond Olympic Oval, a LEED silver- targeted structure which was built by the City of Richmond with help from the Canadian government and is best known for its one-of-a-kind “wave” roof made from pine-beetle salvaged wood.
• The Whistler Olympic Park, also targeted for silver LEED certification (which can take more than a year to verify), because it is reusing wood waste, issuing contracts to Aboriginal companies, protecting local surface water through high-quality wastewater treatment and creating a sport and recreation legacy.

Meanwhile, as green as these games hope to be in terms of the environment, “green” is not something the Olympic Committee wants to see on the ground. The Winter Olympics typically are a snowy series of events.

But if global warming skeptics need any further proof that climate change is a reality, they need only check out the current forecast for the Vancouver games. A city that regularly gets 48 centimeters of snow annually, has had one of the mildest winters on record. According to Environment Canada’s meteorologists, the average temperature in January was 44.9 degrees, much higher than the average of 37.9 degrees. It should be pointed out that compared to past Winter Olympic host cities (Calgary, Nagano, Salt Lake City, Lake Placid), Vancouver is probably the warmest of all. Currently the forecast is for mild temperatures and rain, not snow.

To combat the lack of snow, a massive snow-lift operation has been put in place. Copyright © 2010 | Distributed by GRN Network

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

You’ve got to feel for the dirty fuel lobbyist, adrift in a world where suddenly oil and coal energy has competition, where emerging clean tech companies are peddling cheap energy solutions like wind and solar power (cheap because they’re renewable and non-polluting) and environmentalists keep jabbering about how carbon in the atmosphere is ruining the planet. Sheesh!

Such a lobbyist needs respite from the tilting political landscape, someone with whom to cuddle up, share their story, bestow with lots of money — like a U.S. Senator or Representative!

What, you say, a match made in Washington? Yes. We know. Often these matches just come together on their own. It all clicks, and everyone — that is everyone from big established polluting industries and everyone who’s the lucky duck plucked from the U.S. Congress for the windfall — is well served. (You didn’t think we really meant everyone, like the public? Silly!).

But sometimes these potentially perfect pairings need a little nudging along.

Now our esteemed elected leaders and the lonely, over-funded lobbyists who crave their love can get help, and just in time for Valentine’s Day! Polluter Harmony, a matchmaking service just for lobbyists and politicians, can help pair up those who want to hold the status quo on dirty energy with those who need to finance their next election (or overseas junket). Neat, huh?

Here’s how pHarmony works.

Who said environmentalists don’t have a sense of humor? I mean, I laughed, I cried, I wished this satire wasn’t so dead on. Leave it to Greenpeace, which by the way has a completely serious goal in mind here, to expose politicians who’ve been corrupted by big dollars from dirty industries.

See more at the website.

Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network

By Shermakaye Bass
Green Right Now

Over the past year or so, there’s been a velvety, yummy buzz: Chocolate may just save the planet!

Actually, that’s a stretch. But in the months leading up to the Copenhagen climate talks last December, several chocolate-makers claimed they were venturing further into fair trade practices, including Nestle, Mars and Cadbury.

Add to that the promising method of “cabruca farming” in Brazil — a way of supplementing rainforests with valuable cacao plants to offset wholesale slash-and-burn techniques. Then multiply those happy developments by now-abundant data showing that chocolate — dark chocolates and bittersweets, specifically — are good for our health, and you’ve got a growing body of evidence that semi-sweet, Fair Trade chocolate is not only good for body, heart and soul; it could be good for the environment.

“Chocolate is considered to be a super food,” says Steven Flood, co-owner of Fat Turkey Chocolates, an organic chocolatier based in Austin, Texas. “You could actually live and sustain yourself on chocolate alone and get everything you need. And you wouldn’t get fat. Because there’s not a lot of fat in dark chocolate.”

According to the American Institute for Cancer Research and the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center’s  Cancer Prevention Center, among others, cacao contains potent antioxidants that reduce free radicals in the body much quicker and more efficiently than green tea or vitamin C, helping to prevent cancer. Also, the natural flavanoids in chocolate have a beneficial impact on our systems’ blood vessels, helping them pump that vital red fluid more smoothly, making heart disease less likely.

And, posits Fat Turkey’s Steven Flood, “The darkest chocolates have a chemical called theo-bromine, which is also a decongestant. It’s similar to caffeine in chemical structure. So if your kids are congested, you can give them a little bit of dark chocolate instead of medicines and chemicals.”

But you don’t need to wait for a cold or congestion, of course. For many of us, February is officially “chocolate month.” It’s the season where we say to all things chocolate, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. …”

CHOCOLATE: FUTURE RAINFOREST SAVIOR?

It turns out there’s a lot more to savor than just chocolate’s rich, almost primal flavor. Some farmers and scientists think they can use a certain type of farming to protect, and potentially, revitalize parts of the rainforest.

Back in December, the Swiss behemoth Nestle and Europe’s Fairtrade Foundation reached an agreement that would certify a certain type of Nestle’s Kit Kat bar, the choco-biscuit bar, as Fair Trade — the caveat: it’s only these certain size of Kit Kats, and they’re only sold in the U.K. and Ireland. But last October, Nestle launched its “Cocoa Plan,” a global, 10-year initiative that invests 65 million British pounds (about $102 million U.S. dollars)  to address fair trade issues that have plagued cacao farmers from Africa to South America, such as lack of health-care, educational and environmental protection plans.

Farmers in Côte d’Ivoire (the Ivory Coast)  – producers of more cocoa than any other country in the world — will especially benefit from the Nestle plan, which calls for farmers’ groups to receive extra Fair Trade premium payments, in addition to the Fair Trade price (or market price if higher) for their crop; these extra payments can be used as the cocoa growers see fit, but most experts expect the money to go toward the groups’ health-care, education and community improvements (water, sewage, preservation of farmland), along with reinvestment into more eco-sustainable farming.

In early 2008, Britain’s Cadbury announced its Cadbury Cocoa Partnership, which invests 45 million pounds ($70.5 million) into cocoa producing farms in Ghana, India, Indonesia and the Caribbean. Also, in 2008 it reached an agreement with Fair Trade bodies in the UK that would certify “Dairy Milk” bars as Fair Trade — though, as a result of the global economic crisis, Cadbury says, there have been delays .

Typically, a “fair trade” label means that the chocolate manufacturer has agreed to buy a certain percentage of Fair Trade cocoa — or to use a certain ratio of Fair Trade cocoa in a particular brand and size of candy bar — from Fair Trade providers who pay a decent living wage and adhere to other standards. Fair Trade products often employ sustainable models of production.

In fact, as Carmen K. Iezzi of the U.S.’s Fairtrade Federation cautions, these announcements and partial Fair Trade-purchases could be more PR campaigns than anything.

“These big companies aren’t interested in making that full commitment (to using only Fair Trade cocoa); they are selectively incorporating Fair Trade into their purchases for several reasons, partially because they want to capitalize on consumer’s growing interest in making responsible decisions,” says the federation’s executive director, Iezzi. “We want consumers to move in that direction and really harness the power that they have, but we want people to be clear on what’s really going on, and often it’s a difference between the messaging and marketing and the actual purchasing.”

What is provable, however, is that in the Brazilian rainforests, old-school farmers are working with scientists at the State University of Santa Cruz in Eastern Brazil, the World Agroforestry Center and chocolate manufacturers of Mars, Inc. to research a cacao-growing practice known as “cabruca farming.”

Essentially this means that cacao fruit trees are planted within rainforests, rather than in open spaces. Granted, it requires the felling of a relative few old-growth giants to make room for the squattier cacao plants, but since the forests will then shelter a valued commodity (the essence of chocolate!), governments, corporations and small farmers are less likely to take out entire swaths of forest.

It’s a long-shot — salvaging rainforests by growing cacao. And one that isn’t going to restore millions of lost acres, experts say. But it provides an example of a different way to farm cocoa and make money. Also, some scientists are noting that over a period of time, as fewer big trees are leveled and more crops are interspersed among the tall guys, carbon build-up in the soils is returning.

As a National Public Radio segment on “cabruca farming” stated… “There used to be 330 million acres of rainforest in eastern Brazil, called the Mata Atlantica. Settlers arrived hundreds of years ago and began destroying the forest for the wood, and to create fields for pasture and crops. Only 7 percent of the Mata Atlantica remains, and destruction is still going on. Every time a tree is burned, its stored carbon is released. As more carbon is released into the air, the planet gets warmer.”

The on-location report went on to explain how chocolate was once a major source of income for Brazil. But as the market for cocoa (made from the cacao tree’s beans) plummeted over the past 20 years, due largely to plant disease, the low price of cocoa discouraged farmers — who then began logging or harvesting the ancient carbon-storing trees, or simply burning down the forests for agricultural use.

But through “cabruca,” Brazil and other rainforest nations have an example of what can be done to halt and possibly reverse some of the slash-and-burn damage.

One family who has been growing cacao for four generations — the Joao Tavares family — has seeded 2,200 acres of rainforest with cacao. They cut only a few of the taller, canopy trees, adding the shorter cacao plants beneath. Over the past several years, the experiment has been successful, and the Tavares family are now seeing a replenished and reinvigorated soil, which again supports all kind of plant and animal life. They are learning that this may well mean salvation for some sections of rainforest.

“We understand that we have to preserve the cabruca,” Joao Tavares told NPR, “even if you have less production.

The upshot is, despite smaller yields, the quality and value of the plants is much greater, commanding higher prices from chocolate manufacturers. Farmers who grow in non-rainforest environments find their plants have many more diseases and insect problems. The other trade-off is that more and more consumers are demanding eco-friendly chocolates. So these specialty cabruca farmers have an already established market — and one that’s only growing, as people become more environmentally aware.

CHOCOLAT! SALUD? (WELL, IF IT’S DARK…)

Another boon to chocoholics is the fact that recent studies show that dark chocolate is good for the heart and circulatory system, as well as the immune system — and possibly the brain.

According to the American Society of Nutrition’s Journal of Nutrition and a story in ScienceDaily, the Research Laboratories of the Catholic University in Campobasso, Italy, published some interesting findings in late 2008.

Working with the National Cancer Institute of Milan, the university’s study was “one of the largest epidemiological studies ever conducted in Europe,” the Research Labs noted that inflammation of the cardiovascular system is notably less among people of a certain region in Italy where chocolate is a regular part of the diet.

Basically, the study indicates that by eating less than half of a 100-gram dark chocolate bar, consumers have less risk for heart disease, cancer and high blood pressure.

“We started from the hypothesis that high amounts of antioxidants contained in the cocoa seeds, in particular flavonoids and other kinds of polyphenols, might have beneficial effects on the inflammatory state,” stated Romina di Giuseppe, the study’s lead author. “Our results have been absolutely encouraging: People having moderate amounts of dark chocolate regularly have significantly lower levels of C-reactive protein in their blood. In other words, their inflammatory state is considerably reduced. The 17% average reduction observed may appear quite small, but it is enough to decrease the risk of cardio-vascular disease for one third in women and one fourth in men. It is undoubtedly a remarkable outcome”

Now for the not-so-good news. This only applies when we eat dark chocolate, and in moderation. The study proscribed an average of 6.7 grams per day – or a small square of chocolate up to three times a week.

“Beyond these amounts the beneficial effect tends to disappear,” di Giuseppe said. He also mentioned that previous research indicates that milk chocolate isn’t so healthy, and that the milk “interferes with the absorption of polyphenols. That is why our study considered just the dark chocolate”

Other professionals in the United States, including professor of nutrition Katie Eliot at Saint Louis University, in St. Louis, MO, say chocolate is having a renaissance because of its good qualities.

Dark chocolate products with a cocoa content of 60 percent or higher carry the desired flavonoids.

“Like green tea and berries, dark chocolate contains powerful antioxidants (flavonoids) that have been shown to reduce blood pressure and the bad LDL cholesterol to prevent cholesterol from collecting in the arteries,” Eliot said. “Most studies have used one 40-gram serving – or three large squares of dark chocolate-to show cardiovascular benefit. … (But) because one serving packs 200 calories, it should be your one sweet treat for the day and part of a balanced diet. If you just add 200 calories to your daily diet, you will gain weight.”

If you’re going for full-on Fair Trade chocolate that’s good for the planet and for your body/soul/conscience, here are three chocolate-makers in the U.S. where you can start your search:

• Divine Chocolates, owned by cocoa farmers in Ghana
• Alter Eco USA, sells various edibles, including Fair Trade chocolate bars. Find out where to buy locally here.
• Equal Exchange, Fair Trade 24/7.

Now — armed with all this feel-good data about chocolate — go forth and savor that midnight-colored, velvety, electrifying substance we know as chocolate.  After all, what’s not to love?

(The Fair Trade Federation in Washington D.C. is calling on teachers to educate about the value of Fair Trade chocolate this Valentine’s Day. Naturally, their offering enticements of…chocolate.)

Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network

(This article was first posted on Jan. 25, 2010, by the Natural Resources Defense Council on its Simple Steps website. It is a Q & A with NRDC Senior Attorney Daniel Rosenberg exploring why the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition, of which the NRDC is a member, wants tighter controls on toxic substances.)

By Paul McRandle

Q: Quickly, what is TSCA and why does it need to be reformed?

Daniel Rosenberg: TSCA is an environmental law first enacted in 1976 and never updated since, that was intended to regulate the safety of industrial chemicals—that is most chemicals that find their way into the stream of commerce. It is generally regarded to be the greatest failure of all the major environmental laws passed in the early 1970s. This is because there were 62,000 chemicals in use when it was enacted and all of those chemicals were grandfathered in, meaning they didn’t have to be tested or required to meet a safety standard. On top of that, the law makes it extremely difficult for EPA to take action even when they know a chemical is unsafe, like asbestos. The way the law is written, the burden is on the agency to prove a chemical is unsafe rather than the companies who make chemicals having to prove they are safe.

Some 22,000 chemicals have come onto the market since 1976, and for those new chemicals EPA’s ability to regulate them is also very limited. The companies did not supply information on the health or environmental effects of most of these chemicals, because they aren’t required to do so. To get that information, EPA would have to issue a separate rule for each chemical, which is a cumbersome, expensive, and lengthy process.

So, roughly 84,000 chemicals are allowed on the market without evidence that they are safe and for a number of them, we know they are not safe.

Q: Congress has been holding hearings about TSCA reform, but at this point where do things stand?

DR: NRDC is an active member of a broad campaign to reform TSCA called Safer Chemical Healthy Families. It includes a number of environmental groups as well as health-affected, healthcare, community and state groups,environmental justice and labor groups. That campaign released a set of principles for TSCA reform and EPA and several other stakeholders have done so as well, including the American Chemistry Council, the major industry trade association, and a dozen or so states. All these sets of principles were remarkably similar in their scope. While that doesn’t mean that all the interested parties agree on the details, it does suggest there is a clear set of issues everyone has identified that need to be worked out. Legislation is expected to be introduced in Congress by the end of February. When that happens, NRDC will work with our allies to educate members of Congress and their staff, as well as NRDC’s members and the general public about the legislation as it moves through Congress.

Q: Socioeconomic risk factors are also very important, given high asthma rates and incidents of early puberty in African American communities. Is environmental justice an element in TSCA reform?

DR: In our view, TSCA should be a place to address some of the problems for communities that are disproportionately exposed, and therefore vulnerable, to toxic substances. One of the platforms of our campaign is that “effective reform should contribute substantially to reducing the disproportionate burden of toxic chemical exposure placed on people of color, low-income people and indigenous communities.” That’s not a traditional part of existing TSCA but we think that’s an important concept that should exist in any reform.

Of the now 84,000 chemicals, EPA has taken action to partially regulate only five of those chemicals. The only chemical that was ever banned under TSCA are PCBs, which Congress passed as part of the original law. Of course, PCBs are still around, since they are so persistent, polluting rivers and triggering fish consumption advisories. There are dozens of other persistent and bioaccumulative toxic substances that have not been adequately regulated under TSCA (lead and mercury are two that are well known).

There are a number of other chemicals that we know are dangerous and that people are widely exposed to—for example, formaldehyde, asbestos, and solvents likeTCE—and those are commonly found in a lot of disadvantaged communities. So another plank of our platform is that these persistent, bioaccumualtive and toxic substances (PBTs) that people are exposed to should be phased out of use and new ones kept from entering the market. Exposure to other toxic chemicals, like formaldehyde, that have already been extensively studied, should be reduced to the maximum extent feasible.

Q: How can the public support TSCA reform

DR: One of the most important things people can do is pick up their phone or pen or mouse or portable texting device (not while driving) and communicate with their members of congress and state officials that this is an issue that you care about and you want to see reform. The statute has done almost nothing and hasn’t done nearly what the Clean Air and Clean Water acts have done, so most members of congress know very little about this law and how broken it is, although they do understand that there are a lot of people concerned about exposures to toxic substances. Perhaps they have family members or friends who have cancer, or have a learning disability, or have wrestled with infertility or other reproductive problems, all of which have been associated to some degree to exposure to toxic chemicals, which is what the report we released discusses. So they need to hear from their constituents and have a clear sense that those issues resonate with the public and that people want the law to be reformed and the lack of proper regulation of toxic chemicals to be addressed.

Although the law has been on the books for so long—34 years—in many respects this is still a new issue for members of congress. Every member of congress would benefit from hearing more about this issue and the public’s concern.

Q: Although the report doesn’t delve to the level of associating specific compounds with specific diseases, it does point out the general health effects associated with them, such as causing cancer, reproductive problems or harming the brain. The neurotoxicity list is particularly daunting. If we can’t substitute these compounds with healthier versions, what can we do?

DR: For many of these substances, we think safer alternatives do exist. However, part of the way TSCA is broken is that, because all this bad stuff has been allowed to be used forever, there is no federal force really driving innovation and development of safer chemicals So once there’s a law in place that’s going to phase out the use of chemicals that don’t meet a standard of safety, there’s going to be a drive for innovation that’s beneficial for the companies that can create the most effective but safe chemicals or non-chemical alternatives.

Another element of the platform is to get a minimum set of information – sort of a basic safety profile — about each of the chemicals. Not only will it help us find the chemicals that pose health or environmental risks, it will also help us identify some chemicals that are safe. We may have the safer alternatives already. You’re trying to sort the enormous haystack into two smaller piles, the unsafe and the safe.

Q: Out of the 80,000 chemicals that have been produced, how many have even kept their names trade secret?

DR: This is another area where TSCA hasn’t work well. There is legitimate confidential business information, known as CBI, but in our view the name of the chemical should not be CBI. But the problem is now that many companies submit all the information including the name as CBI since they rarely are called upon by EPA to justify the claim up front. EPA frequently doesn’t challenge CBI claims because it doesn’t have the time or the money. EPA recently announced a shift in how they will deal with that issue to require more scrutiny up front, but there definitely needs to be more reform on the process for determining what information is legitimately CBI and what is not.

Besides EPA not having enough information about these chemicals, the public doesn’t either. People do not know what chemicals are in products and there are not currently requirements for companies to disclose much information about their chemicals. That’s a very important reform.

Q: Is there a way to screen for PBTs before they’ve become persistent in a community?

DR: There are characteristics of a chemical that identify them as persistent or bio-accumulative. Effective TSCA reform would ban use of chemicals that are known to have these characteristics.. A lot more is known about the persistence and bioaccumulation of toxics than when TSCA was written. There’s also so much greater knowledge now about small doses of certain toxic substances affecting people, the hormone disrupting potentials and cumulative exposures, but the way the law is written none of this new science has had any impact on the way things are done.

Q: What can readers do to reduce their exposures? How can they find out what chemicals are in their homes, water & air, workplaces and schools?

DR: The burden shouldn’t be on the consumers to do a huge investigation to find out what’s in it. That should all be known up front, that’s what industry should be disclosing to the public.

From Green Right Now Reports

While Washington leaders debate whether the stimulus money has done enough for the economy, Wisconsin has latched onto money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to kick start a wind turbine blade manufacturing plant in Wisconsin Rapids, a small city in the center of the state. The new factory is expected to be the most advanced in North America and employ more than 600 people.

The Energy Composites Corp. (ECC) facility will be built with the help of $238 million in municipal tax-free bonds from a pool of money (the state’s Recovery Zone Facility pool) created with federal stimulus dollars.

While the financial arrangements took several steps, including new legislation introduced by Sen. Julie Lass, D-Stevens Point, and supported by several other state legislators — the desired outcome is a straightforward effort by the state to capture manufacturing for the fast growing commercial wind energy sector.

“Tax-free bonds are a critical component of our financing plan for the 535,000 square foot plant,” noted Sam Fairchild, Energy Composites’ CEO, in a statement. “Development costs for our new factory are too large for traditional Industrial Development financing programs, and the Recovery Zone Bond program, which expires at the end of 2010, is precisely the right solution at precisely the right time.

“Senator Lassa recognized how critical tax-free financing is to our business model, and she moved with great agility and grace to ensure that we are eligible for this Federal program within a time frame that allows us to site the project in Wisconsin Rapids. For her diligence, foresight and confidence, we are most grateful.”

The 535,000 s.f. plant will be capable of making wind blades 65 meters in length that can supply both onshore and offshore wind farms, and will be build with “a maximum range of flexibility in production design” to be able to accomodate technological advances. The facility will partner with Mid-state Technical College, where prospective employees can get training in blade fabrication.

ECC’s founder and president Jamie Mancl, called the jobs that will be created “non-exportable” and thanked everyone involved from Lassa to Wisconsin Rapids Mayor Mary Jo Carson and many others for working beyond expectations to pave the way for the innovative project.

Fairchild said he expects the new plant to be in full production in the first quarter of 2011, in time to fill increasing demand for wind turbine blades.

Specifically, the company hopes to be a supplier for offshore wind operations in the Great Lakes region, said Adrian Williams, head of ECC’s WindFiber(TM) Division.  “…We believe that we will be in the right place at the right time.”

ECC already operates an automated 73,000 s.f. manufacturing facility in Wisconsin Rapids, WI, that creates “advanced composite materials” for a variety of clean-tech applications that touch on several industries, from wind to power plant operations. According to a corporate release, the company designs and engineers: wind energy system components, flue gas desulfurization for power plants, infrastructure for bio-fuel storage and processing, infrastructure for managing waste water and drinking water storage, advanced municipal utilities infrastructure, and caustic material storage and handling systems for the petrochemical, mining and the pulp and paper industries.

By Harriet Blake
Green Right Now

In his Jan. 27 State of the Union Address, President Obama included high-speed rail, stating, “From the first railroads to the Interstate Highway System, our nation has always been built to compete. There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains or the new factories that manufacture clean-energy products.”

He followed that up with a visit to Tampa the next day, where he stated that $8 billion in grants would be going to a Tampa-Orlando-Miami route in Florida, followed by similar rail projects in California and Illinois.

This is music to the ears of longtime train advocate Anthony Perl, a fellow with the Post Carbon Institute (PCI). The San Francisco-area institute is an apolitical think tank that envisions a world of communities and economies that thrive within ecological bounds. The president’s address spurred PCI to send Obama an open letter applauding the speech but imploring him to lead the transition to a post-carbon economy by, in part, preparing for the future with cost-effective energy, such as trains. In addition to his position with PCI, Perl is the director of the Urban Studies Program at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia.

“The Obama administration’s launch of a high-speed rail program is the most important transportation initiative that the U.S. has seen in my 47-year lifetime,” says Perl. “The program opens the door to a post-carbon mobility future in ways that tinkering with fuel efficiency, auto emissions and ‘intelligent’ vehicle and high designs can never accomplish.”

In an e-mail chat this week, Perl talked about why the President’s rail plan is so crucial.

“Rail offers the only proven surface transportation technology that can be run on renewable energy right now,” Perl says. “All other systems – hybrids, battery cars, hydrogen fuel cells etc. – are in the prototype (or earlier stages) and will not be ready in time for our society to survive oil depletion.”

Has the United States missed the window of opportunity for getting started with a major rail plan?

“It is not too late for rail to take up an increasing share of travel up to 1,000 miles as we reduce our use of planes and internal combustion-engine vehicles. Electric high–speed trains and electric freight trains are proven technology.”

Will Americans change their mindset about train travel?

“Of course they will. People love trains – when they are run well.”

How would a high-speed train system be financed?

“Just like air and road transport, government will pay for the infrastructure up front (airports and highways are built and owned by government) and operations will be paid for by the users – just as we pay air and bus fares, and for the cost of operating our cars. Whether those fares will be paid to a government-owned railroad, a privately owned railroad, or some joint venture, remains to be seen. Each model could work.”

How do you think oil and car companies will react to the competition?

“They will have bigger problems to worry about. [Problems] like inventing new business models that can cope with the energy and climate challenges ahead.”

What about the price of riding the rail? A recent trip on Amtrak’s Northeast corridor was pleasant and on time, but a bit pricey.

“Travel costs are a direct result of government policy. If the new trains pay low rent for the new tracks, they will charge lower ticket prices. If they pay higher prices to rent the track from public, private or mixed partnership owners, then ticket prices will be higher. U.S. train tickets are a bargain compared to those in the United Kingdom, where train-operating companies make good profits.”

Texas was supposed to get a high-speed rail system, but the plan seems to have “de-railed,” so to speak. Any updates?

“Texas tried to go for a fully private passenger train franchise (Texas TGV) in the 1990s. It collapsed and this has left a policy vacuum that other states like California and North Carolina were more advanced in filling.”

Perl suggests that the U.S. should partner with Europe and Asia on high-speed rail projects.

“Now is the time to recognize that the United States has a lot to learn from others when it comes to building modern passenger trains,” he says. “We face a steep learning curve in building modern electric railroad infrastructure and equipment after decades of neglect and disinvestment.

“We should partner with Asia and Europe to share their know-how, rather than reinventing the wheel at greater expense and with more mistakes… if we opt to ‘go it alone.’ If we can overcome the hubris of having only a ‘made-in-the-USA’ high-speed train, we will get where we need to be a lot faster, and generate more jobs and economic development as a result.”

Perl also believes that rail travel should be linked to the developing electric smart grid.

“All of these fast trains will be powered by electricity, an open-ended energy carrier that can blend renewable energy sources with a decreasing carbon content.

“Most of the major corridors in the U.S. will need to be electrified in the next 25 years. Meaning now would be the ideal time to connect the high-speed rail plan with the emerging ‘smart grid.’ New transmission lines could be run atop the tracks, with a periodic step-down of their current to power freight and passenger trains without using a drop of oil.”

Copyright © 2010 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

By Harriet Blake
Green Right Now

Audi’s 2010 Green Police commercial during Super Bowl was ingenious and hilarious.

You didn’t have to be an environmentalist to enjoy the plug for Audi’s A3 TDI clean diesel car. In fact, the commercial pokes fun at the extreme measures an environmentally conscious police force might take:

Arresting a customer for choosing plastic over paper at the grocery store; storming a home after finding a battery in the trash collection; arresting a man for possession of an incandescent bulb; swarming a homeowner for a compost infraction; chasing a speedo-clad hot tub user for setting the water temperature too high; stopping a driver for using a styrofoam cup – extreme tactics, no doubt, but too funny.

Of course, the guy with the clean diesel Audi is stopped and allowed to proceed, hassle-free. The commercial’s “Green Police” anthem is a re-recording of Cheap Trick’s “Dream Police.”

If you missed it, check it out here.

Copyright © 2010 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Recycling doesn’t mean settling for something less. It can mean adding value for less. But the end product might even be better than ever. (Hence, the term upcycling.)

But whether a first iteration or an item’s reincarnation is superior hardly matters when the end result makes the owner happy and the object serves its purpose well, maybe even rises above, to a higher calling.

Those who reclaim items for a second or third life are often driven by this reward, the thrill of taking something bound for the trash and rescuing it, restoring it and assigning it to a better life. We’re thinking of artists who meld old garden tools into garden sculpture or carpenters who assemble barn planks into gleaming table tops.

Suzanne Meyer – Pistorius of Springfield, Mass., has chosen chairs to fulfill her creative desires. A designer by training with a history in the fast-paced New York City fashion industry, Meyer-Pistorius began to dream about a new vocation while on long commutes into the city.

She wanted to combine her hand painted fabric business with a recycling enterprise.

She settled on chairs — so to speak – creating a unique, custom business called Blugirlart Inc. 

“In the summer of 2008 I started looking for chairs  – some were found on the side of the road, in cellars, auctions and flea markets. Some I literally did save from certain death by termites or just plain rot,’’ she says. “After hours of stripping and sanding they were then taken to the refinisher for professional repair and refinishing.”

After the wood frames are ready, Meyer-Pistorius doodles on fabric, expertly, to develop designs for each chair. Sometimes she paints samples to try out. Other times the chair’s new look just comes to her.

To keep the business green, she has found several upholstery fabrics woven in hemp, a sustainable fiber because hemp grows easily and without pesticides.

Once the painted fabric is ready, a chair is sent out for reupholstering, with instructions to save as much of the existing springs as possible. Finally, it is sprayed with VECTRA, a green alternative to Scotchguard, Meyer-Pistorius says.

The custom designed chairs, and some sofas, can be seen at Blugirlart website, where they retail for $600 and up (quite a bit up for the antique Betsy Sofa.) Selected pieces also are being shown at the Jia Moderne showroom at the Boston Design Center.

The chairs can be delivered in the Springfield area. Special arrangements are needed for shipping outside New England.

Meyer-Pistorius is no longer commuting to New York City, frustrated that she has no time for her home-grown enterprise, and her chair business is growing in unexpected ways. The Boston Design Center recently asked her to present her custom work to a group of designers, who were “very excited to be able to offer something so original to their clients,’’ she said.

She’s found that “with the magic of email” she can custom design pieces for projects even at a distance when a client emails photos and specifications for chairs they want recovered.

The Blugirlart website also features the recycled collage art of Max Rudolf, who constructs his pieces from discarded paper products and with scrap wood bases.

Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network

From Green Right Now Reports

As governments wrestle with the rules of the game for a greener future, businesses are putting their own playbooks on the table.

Alcoa, a longtime champion of environmental action, helped lead a team of 29 global companies, representing 14 industries, in developing a coordinated plan for how the world’s burgeoning population could live peaceably, comfortably and sustainably on the planet.

The plan, released today and called Vision 2050 lays out what human inhabitants – 9 billion human inhabitants – will need to do to live within their means on Mother Earth.

“The world already has the knowledge, science, technologies, skills and financial resources needed to achieve Vision 2050. However, concerted global action in the next decade will be required to bring these capabilities and resources together, putting the world on the path to sustainability,” said Alcoa Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Dr. Mohammad A. Zaidi co-chaired the 18-month project.

All the companies participating were part of The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), a global association of about 200 companies. The CEO-led group studies the intersection of business and sustainable development. Through the council, the companies share knowledge and best practices.

Vision 2050 spells out the actions and changes that must happen over the coming decade “to make a sustainable planetary society possible,” according to a news release. These include:

• Meeting the development needs of billions of people and enabling their education and economic empowerment, particularly of women.
• Developing radically more eco-efficient solutions, lifestyles and behavior.
• Incorporating the costs of “externalities” — starting with carbon, ecosystem services and water — into the structure of the marketplace. (In other words, putting a price on natural resources, thereby equalizing the playing field for businesses that practice careful use of those resources.)
• Doubling agricultural output without increasing the amount of land or water used
• Halting deforestation and increasing yields from planted forests
• Halving carbon emissions worldwide (based on 2005 levels) by 2050, with greenhouse gas emissions peaking around 2020 through a shift to low-carbon energy systems (i.e., renewable energy like wind and solar power) and highly improved demand-side energy efficiency (energy efficient buildings).
• Providing universal access to low-carbon mobility
• Delivering a four- to ten-fold improvement in the use of resources and materials. (Think recycle, reuse and reduce.)

Vision 2050, an 80-page document, calls out businesses’ role as integral to transforming world markets, but cautions that companies must not harm natural resources or reduce biodiversity. It is a self-described “best-case scenario for sustainability” intended not as a “definitive blueprint” but a launching point for developing strategies and dialogue with governments, the news release explains.

Alcoa has shown its own commitment to sustainability by reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by a 43% over its 1990 base year; setting up community programs worldwide and winning recognition for its ethical practices, ranking 11 out of 581 companies on the Covalence Ethics Index.

About 73 percent of the aluminum produced in the world is still in use, Alcoa reports, making the company’s core recyclable product more sustainable than many raw materials.

The company employs nearly 60,000 people around the world.

From Green Right Now Reports

Could Nissan’s marketers have planned this any better?

Just as the carmaker is in the midst of a national tour of the LEAF, its much ballyhooed new electric plug-in, competitor Toyota finds itself in a tailspin over mysterious sudden acceleration events that now affect even its energy-efficient darling, the 2010 model Prius, according to several news reports. (Here’s one from the Christian Science Monitor; ABC News also reports Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has experience trouble with his Prius.)

The Prius, the nation’s best-selling and highest mileage hybrid car, looked to have a  fruitful  future — until lately, when its reputation was sideswiped, along with other Toyota brands, in a safety scandal that grows larger with every news cycle.

Car reviewers have noted that the Prius, even on a scandal-free day, has plenty of competition emerging from hybrids like the Ford Fusion and the Honda Insight.

The new kids on the block might now have a wedge to muscle in. The LEAF is not a hybrid, but part of the new generation of all-electric, plug-in vehicles (EVs) that will go head-to-head with hybrids already on the road. Their appeal: Zero carbon tailpipe emissions and increasingly better range.

Due in showrooms this coming fall/winter, the LEAF is riding the leading edge of this new technology. It will offer a clean carbon footprint (especially if it’s charged on electricity provided by renewable energy sources) and have a range of 100 miles, a big deal in this new world.

The LEAF and GM’s new plug-in offering, the Volt, can expect competition from leading hybrid vehicles like the Toyota Prius, the Honda Civic and Insight, and the Ford Escape and Fusion, among others. These hybrids are road tested, energy efficient and don’t lack for places to refuel.

But of all the hybrids you can even think of, the Prius is king. It is the top-selling hybrid, around the world, and last year it was the top selling car in Japan, bar none.

At this point, how Toyota’s problems will play out and affect the Prius is just conjecture. Car chatter has centered on how to deal with the immediate problem, if the Prius suffers from the same sticky acceleration issues of its cousins. Earlier models of the Prius are being recalled. News about the 2010 model, just out this winter, is still too fresh.

But if the Prius takes a long pit stop, that’s one less hybrid option at the top of consumers’ lists. Such a shift in the landscape could fuel more interest in the coming EVs, now less than a year away from appearing in showrooms.

If Toyota’s problems prove scarier than the worries related to electric vehicles — Where do I plug in? Will the battery wear out? — the race gets even more intense.

And Nissan is heavily involved in addressing concerns upfront. It is making sure charging stations are available in many major metro markets — working with charging station provider Ecotality in several test areas, and with a U.S. maker of home charging stations.

The LEAF’s U.S. debut tour winds up in New York next week, after a stop in Houston this coming weekend, according to a map of the stops posted by Nissan. But the car will likely make other appearances before going on sale in late 2010.

To see the list of Toyota, Lexus and Pontiac vehicles being recalled for gas pedal “entrapment” issues, see the U.S. Department of Transportation website. The models are:

• 2007-2010 Camry
• 2005-2010 Avalon
• 2004-2009 Prius
• 2005-2010 Tacoma
• 2007-2010 Tundra
• 2007-2010 ES 350
• 2006-2010 IS 250 and IS350
• 2008-2010 Highlander
• 2009-2010 Corolla
• 2009-2010 Venza
• 2009-2010 Matrix
• 2009-2010 Pontiac Vibe

Toyota, Lexus and Pontiac vehicles affected by the related, but slightly different, “sticky pedal recall” are:

• 2007-2008 Tundra
• 2008-2010 Sequoia
• 2005-2010 Avalon
• 2007-2010 Camry
• 2009-2010 Corolla
• 2009-2010 Matrix
• 2009-2010 RAV4
• 2010 Highlander
• 2009-2010 Vibe

The DOT has advice for drivers experiencing a problem with their Toyota’s gas pedal, a serious issue that has resulted in critical injuries, even deaths.

• Brake firmly and steadily – do not pump the brake pedal
• Shift the transmission into Neutral (for vehicles with automatic transmissions and the sport option, familiarize yourself with where Neutral is – the diagram may be misleading)
• Steer to a safe location
• Shut the engine off (for vehicles with keyless ignition, familiarize yourself with how to turn the vehicle off when it is moving – this may be a different action than turning the vehicle off when it is stationary).
• Call your dealer or repair shop to pick up the vehicle.  Do not drive it.

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Recently I was hashing over with a family member about the reasons people are vegetarians, or vegans or mostly veggie. We agreed that people get off the meat, for a variety of reasons, often complex and intertwined, regardless of whether they’re just cutting way back or drawing a hard line deep in vegan territory.

I proposed that health reasons were the paramount motivator, given the United States’ high rate of heart disease, still the number one killer here. Not to mention our obesity issues. And I was about to further dominate the conversation when my companion blurted that he thought more people were primarily motivated by animal rights concerns, followed by health reasons. Vegetarians think that way, he said.

Come to think of it, animal rights probably are front of mind for most vegans and strict vegetarians. Thinking of my vegetarian kids, and my years as a vegetarian or mostly veggie person (don’t get me started on that, NO ONE likes you when you eat ethically raised meat sometimes), it made sense.

I mean, how many videos of some poor, limping cow being shoved onto an intake ramp does it take before you start to cringe at the sight of your hamburger? For some people, that visual message is indelible. And yet, I’m recalling Steve Kinnear in Fast Food Nation chomping away on a hamburger after a stroll through the packing plant. I think a lot of people are like that, also, divorced from what they feel about their food — or not wanting to think too much about where it came from. Or they’re simply OK with humans at the top of the food chain. After all, we aren’t the only carnivores/omnivores in the world. I can respect that.

On the other hand, maybe they also haven’t heard that the burger they’re eating has most likely been sanitized with an ammonia treatment to tamp down the E.coli that plagues ground beef, a necessary evil necessitated by the way industrial beef are speed-raised and handled.

Did I mention the muck and overcrowding these bovine endure? Consider that unmentioned.

After mulling these reasons for trimming back on the beef (and pork and chicken), I stumbled on some information that illustrates how difficult it is to separate the key twin issues — the well being of livestock and the healthfulness of the product they provide.

It comes from Dr. Samuel S. Epstein, a doctor and chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, a group that often stands just outside the mainstream cancer treatment community, hollering from the sidelines about matters others seem content to ignore.

The CPC is asking the Food and Drug Administration to issue “an urgent ban on hormonal meat” because it increases the risk of certain cancers in humans that eat it.

Not a new issue, true. But Dr. Epstein, a professor emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois School of Public Health, is an agitator. And agitators don’t give up.

Epstein, sincere and committed to his advocacy of showing how chemicals increase cancer risks, knows that the FDA is unlikely to drop everything and heed his call. In fact, his press release explains why: This is a matter that the federal government has side-stepped for 30 years.

But Epstein’s group sees that as no excuse for continued inertia. The coalition’s petition wants a label for meat similar to the admonishments on cigarette packages.

The warning  Dr. Epstein proposes for commercial meat – the vast majority of which is today “beefed up” with hormones: “Produced with the use of sex hormones, and poses increased risks of breast, prostate, and testis cancers.”

Cattle are routinely implanted with sex hormone pellets to fatten them on feedlots (a government- allowed practice), increasing their meat production — by about 50 pounds per animal, according to the coalition. The result is more meat, and, the coalition believes, riskier meat; meat pre-marinaded in chemicals that raise our chances of getting breast, prostate and testicular cancers.

Increased hormones, for example from birth control pills, have been implicated in cancers. And increased red meat intake also has been found to play a role in the development of the most common type of breast cancer, according to large studies of American women.

Of course it could be the meat itself that is the larger part of the problem, and not the hormone residues. That question is moot anyway, according to the U.S. government, which maintains that the meat produced by hormone-treated animals is free of harmful hormonal residues.

The FDA and the USDA both report that industrially produced meat is safe in this regard, even becoming embroiled in a long running debate with the EU, which refuses to import American meat because of the widespread use of growth hormones. (For more on how the EU does it differently, see this NPR report. For info on how some ranchers in the U.S. raise livestock humanely and healthfully see American Grassfed Association.)

Dr. Epstein simply points to an increase in hormonal cancers since 1975, which roughly coincides with the introduction of the wholesale use of hormones to grow livestock. He says that since that time:

• Breast cancer is up by 23%
• Prostate cancer by 60%
• Testicular cancer by 60%

In fairness, this is a debatable point. Some people believe we’re better at detecting cancers. There also have been studies suggesting that some early cancers, say some found on mammograms, might not ever become full-blown cancers, but because of our excellent screening system, they now get counted and treated.

So we have to add a caveat — these statistics may or may not be the ones to go by.

On the other hand, the practice of fattening animals on hormones raises many questions, even before we get to the one about the ethical treatment of animals, which this is surely not.

Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network

By Sommer Saadi
Green Right Now

New Yorkers have gotten pretty good at finding new places to grow plants: rooftops in Brooklyn, abandoned rail lines in Manhattan, and now they’re conquering the tops of old shipping containers.

At least Roberta’s pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn is giving it a shot. The pizzeria is housed in a former garage and tucked between rows of old, gritty warehouses and industrial factories. The wood-paneled walls match the wood picnic-styled tables, and prominently placed at the front of the restaurant is the bright red, wood-burning oven duly named Roberta.

But in the back yard is where they keep the main attraction.

Just outside of this one-year-old restaurant sit two 8 by 20 feet containers — the ones you see cruising on highways behind 18-wheelers. On the inside they house the Heritage Radio Network, an Internet-based radio station with programming that focuses on the local food movement. But on top, the containers have been turned into beds of greens, vegetables and herbs that are used inside the kitchen to make, amongst other menu items, Roberta’s acclaimed Neapolitan pizzas.

Through the double doors and around the restaurant’s outdoor picnic tables, a staircase leads up to the first container, covered in PVC and Visqueen plastic (there are plans to add bubble wrap for greater insulation). Still, the cold winter keeps the soil frozen and most everything but perennial herbs from growing.

In the connecting container, however, spinach starts and salad greens are holding out in a slightly warmer climate. The container is positioned right above the restaurant’s air compressor that is attached to its walk-in cooler, and the hot air pumped out by the big, cold storage unit is harnessed and used to heat the green house.

But even in the warmer months, admits garden manager Gwen Schantz, the restaurant only gets about 20 percent of its ingredients from Roberta’s garden and from a backyard garden at a friend’s home about five blocks away. Schantz estimates that the Roberta’s garden produced about 200 pounds of food last season. The restaurant goes through thousands of pounds a month.

“We have delivered a stack of boxes of vegetables each day,” Schantz explains, “and you just can’t produce that amount of vegetables here all year round, every day.”

“Maybe if this,” she motions to the entire backyard, “was all one big greenhouse.”

But even if the garden doesn’t grow 100 percent of the ingredients needed for the hot spot’s menu, the garden still makes Roberta’s special. And being special is important in a city flooded with places to buy a slice.

“In the summer our customers will come and lunch and bring their kids into the greenhouse and walk around and take pictures,” Schantz explains. “It’s an attraction and in that sense it adds value to the restaurant.”

The majority of rooftop projects commissioned by members of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, a 10-year-old Toronto-based association that claims more than 5,000 members, have a commercial or selling component. But as founder and president Steven Peck explains, it’s the sense of community they build that offers the greatest benefit.

Creating a community was a motivating factor for Roberta’s owners Chris Parachini and Brandon Hoy when they started the garden last April. It attracted a lot of partners and investors that helped the restaurant get going. An initial investment of $1,000 from Bay Area local food icon Alice Waters sealed the deal.

Now, after one season of trial and error with the crops, the restaurateurs are pushing to make the garden investment profitable.

By planting perennial herbs, which tend to be more expensive per pound at the farmer’s market, the restaurant is saving on supply costs. The operators also are saving on waste removal costs, which are determined by the weight of the trash. Instead of hauling food scraps to a dump site, they are composted and used as fertilizer for the garden. Even the kitchen grease, which can be expensive to dispose of, is recycled by a company that turns it into bio-diesel.

Space is a big obstacle for the garden, but after acquiring a neighboring lot and with plans in the works to acquire another building for a potential bakery and chicken coop, the restaurant operators know they have room to grow.

On the new lot Schantz is creating what she calls a “modular” farm. Because the restaurant sometimes hosts large events like concerts, banquets and weddings, the new space needs to be versatile. Rather than lay down soil into big, stationary beds, Roberta’s acquired 200 large plastic bins from an old brewery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn that it will fill with organic compost soil from Long Island.

“In one bed we’ll plant herbs, another tomatoes, maybe in one a tree,” Schantz said. “We’re turning the space into a flexible, modular garden that can be pushed back if we need it to.”

She’s excited to get the plans moving.

Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network

From Green Right Now Reports

Environmentalists in the U.S. often face derision and debate as they work to save species and protect the natural environment. But raising the ire of authorities in Russia can carries bigger penalties.

Last week, police officers from the regional offices of Internal Affairs virtually shut down the office of an environmental watchdog group by searching its office and confiscating 12 computers and a web server. The authorities, who did not have warrants, told members of Baikal Environmental Wave that they were looking for pirated software and fire safety regulations. But when presented with licenses for the software, they still confiscated computers with help from the local prosecutors office, according to accounts from the environmentalists.

Members of the BEW group believe the raid was staged to impede their efforts to protect Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest freshwater lake, which also contains 20 percent of the earth’s freshwater.

The officers, believed to be from the Internal Affairs Consumer Affairs and Anti-Extremism sections, denied through a spokesman that the raid was politically motivated.

Lake Baikal has suffered from decades of pollution from the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill, which had been shutdown in 2008. Last week, however, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced that the mill will be allowed to reopen.

The timing of the raid coinciding with the mill’s impending reopening has left the environmentalists suspicious. “It is clear that the stated reason for investigating Baikal Environmental Wave was just an excuse,” Marina Rikhvanova told U.S. environmentalists with the Pacific Environment, a San Francisco-based non-profit that works to protect Pacific rim resources. “The real reason for taking our computers is to paralyze our organization and keep us from protesting the January 18 decision to reopen the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill.”

According to Pacific Environment, the paper mill, which has been testing equipment for its reopening is already contaminating aquifers with effluent.

The mill’s reopening is an effort to bring jobs to the town of Baikalsk.