Daily Archives: December 16, 2009

New Colorado Facility Becomes First Carbon-Positive Library

Read the full story in American Libraries. Thanks to solar panels, a geothermal heating and cooling system, and a gift of carbon-offset credits, Rangeview Library District’s new Anythink Brighton, Colorado, branch is believed to be the first carbon-positive library in … Continue reading

Posted in Green Building, Libraries, Renewable Energy | Leave a comment

Great Lakes Restoration Initiative Interagency Funding Guide

The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative’s Interagency Funding Guide has been updated. It provides one-stop-shopping for applicants interested in applying for over $250 million in grants and project agreements available through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. These grants and project agreements … Continue reading

Posted in Funding Opportunities, Great Lakes Region, Publications | Leave a comment

Weather Device Also Tracks Greenhouse Gas

Read the full story in the New York Times. Aboard NASA’s Aqua spacecraft, the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder is used not only to aid forecasters, but also to gauge carbon dioxide flow and ocean evaporation.

Posted in Climate Change | Leave a comment

U.S. Unveils a $350-Million Energy-Efficiency Initiative at Copenhagen

Read the full story in Scientific American. Since the 1970s, refrigerators in the U.S. have swelled from 18 cubic feet to 22 cubic feet. But, at the same time, the energy consumption of such gargantuan coolers has dropped by 75 … Continue reading

Posted in Climate Change | Leave a comment

How to Make Plastic with Less Petroleum–Just Add CO2

Read the full story in Scientific American. Plastic may be fantastic, but it takes an awful lot of petroleum to make it. As such, efforts to cut oil use in the U.S. have produced, among other results, a budding bioplastics … Continue reading

Posted in Plastics, Sustainable Design | Leave a comment

EPA issues refrigerant rules

Read the full story in Consulting & Specifying Engineer. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued its long-awaited rules governing the availability and use of virgin HCFCs in 2010 and beyond. The new rules will go into effect on Jan. 1, … Continue reading

Posted in Air, Regulation | Leave a comment

Linkages Between Environmental Policy and Competitiveness

Via the RFF Library Blog. OECD, Environment Directorate, Working Party on Global and Structural Policies http://www.olis.oecd.org/olis/2008doc.nsf/LinkTo/NT0000B20E/$FILE/JT03268619.PDF [Key Findings 1-2 out of 15] 1. Environmental policy may force environmental performance improvements on a firm, and thus in effect impose on it … Continue reading

Posted in Green Business, Publications, Regulation | Leave a comment

No one villain behind honey-bee colony collapse

Read the full story in Science News. Jeff Pettis continues to break the hearts of mystery lovers. Two years ago he and other entomologists went to work on what sounded like the scenario for rip-roaring fiction: widespread, unexplained disappearances of … Continue reading

Posted in Natural history, Research, Wildlife | Leave a comment

Irrigation draining California groundwater at 'unsustainable' pace

Read the full story in Science News. In the past six years, the irrigation of crops in California’s Central Valley has pulled groundwater from aquifers there at rates that are unsustainable if current trends continue, scientists say. The Central Valley, … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Climate: Negotiating the brackets

Read the full story in Science News. Representatives of 193 nations are posturing and challenging, threatening and bluffing, as they wrestle to draft a successor climate treaty to the Kyoto Protocol. The chief objective is to lower global emissions of … Continue reading

Posted in Climate Change, International, Policy | Leave a comment