The Green Spotlight’s Daily Links and Highlights

We post briefer and more frequent green blurbs on our Facebook page than we do on this site. Please visit The Green Spotlight’s Facebook Page. You can view the page even you don’t have a Facebook account. But if you do have an account, click on the “Like” button (if you’re not already a “Friend” of the page). Then you can get a daily dose of The Green Spotlight in your Facebook news feed, and you can share your comments and recommendations with a large audience.

Take a look at the Page to get a sense of the wide variety of topics that have been touched on or linked to. Here’s a sampling of past topics:

  • Biomimicry in product design
  • Solar window shutters
  • Ecovative’s alternative to petroleum-based plastics
  • Biofuel made from whiskey-distilling by-products
  • Dog poop converted into electrical energy
  • Landfill gas turned into fuel for garbage trucks
  • Organic farming programs in India, Mexico, Detroit, etc.
  • Gardening tips
  • Non-toxic cleaners and household products
  • Green-certified restaurants
  • Net-zero-energy and “passive” homes around the world
  • The Yes Men satirize Chevron
  • Daryl Hannah
  • Rachel Carson
  • The greening of corporate supply chains
  • Solar panel recycling
  • Electric cars, motorcycles, trucks, scooters, ATVs, and other vehicles (Green Lite Motors, Barefoot Motors, Mission Motors, Brammo, ZAP, Bright Automotive, etc.)
  • World Green Building Council
  • Living Building Challenge
  • Bioneers
  • Farm Aid
  • Teens Turning Green
  • League of Conservation Voters
  • Trees for the Future: Haiti
  • 350.org
  • California Brightspot
  • Green Economy Roadmap
  • TED videos
  • New films: e.g., Big River; Dirt!
  • Interesting facts and stats
  • Quotation of the Month
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November 5, 2010
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Green Curricula and Environmental Learning Activities

Whether you’re a teacher, parent, school administrator, or homeschooler, you might be interested in taking a look at some of these online resources related to green/environmental education. These websites provide ideas for curriculum, lesson plans, and hands-on activities for teachers and students. Many of these resources are related to K-12 education, but some also apply to higher education.

Alliance for Climate Education

Sequoia Riverlands Trust environmental educationCenter for Ecoliteracy

Center for Environmental Education (University of Minnesota, Duluth)

Children & Nature Network

The Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education

Earth Day Network: Educators’ Network

Eco-Schools USA (National Wildlife Federation)

Energy Education: Teach and Learn (K-12 energy-related lesson plans and activities, from the U.S. Department of Energy)

Energy Kids (U.S. Environmental Information Administration)

Green Education Foundation (GEF)

Greening Schools project (Illinois EPA):  “Green Your Lesson Plan” directory

National Environmental Education Foundation

North American Association of Environmental Education

U.S. Department of Education’s Green Ribbon Schools

U.S. EPA Environmental Education resources

U.S. Green Schools Foundation: Education/Curriculum

Outdoor education is an important branch of environmental education. The concept of “nature-deficit disorder” is described in the bestselling book Last Child in the Woods.

It’s especially important for urban youth, who may never have spent any time outside of their cities, to be given opportunities to explore and learn in nature/wilderness settings. At-risk and urban youth can benefit greatly from outdoor learning experiences provided by wilderness programs such as Outward Bound, as well as farm-based camps or programs like those offered by the Center for Land-Based Learning.

If you know of other useful resources related to environmental education, please share your suggestions in the Comments section below.

Related Post: Green Schools Resources and Links (mostly related to greening school buildings/facilities)

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October 4, 2010
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Green Schools: Resources and Links

Green school buildings have multiple benefits and advantages, including:

  • reduced use of energy and water, and reduced materials waste;
  • lower operating costs, i.e., financial savings that can be used to fund other improvements or activities;
  • a healthier and more comfortable learning (and teaching) environment, resulting in better student performance (including higher test scores), improved health of all of the schools’ occupants (and therefore, fewer sick days), as well as more satisfied teachers and staff; and
  • new opportunities for on-site, hands-on environmental learning.

Whether you’re a teacher, parent, student, school administrator, or building professional, you may be interested in learning more about green schools. Here is a listing of many of the key websites, organizations, guidelines, and initiatives related to green schools, with a focus on school buildings/facilities (design of new buildings, retrofitting existing buildings, as well as the daily operations and maintenance of the buildings). Most of these resources are related to K-12 schools, but some of the information also applies to higher education facilities.


Key Organizations and Information Websites

Center for Green Schools (U.S. Green Building Council)

Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS)

Council of Educational Facility Planners International (CEFPI)

Earth Day Network: Green Your School

Eco-Schools USA (National Wildlife Federation)

EnergySmart Schools (U.S. Department of Energy)

Global Green USA: Green Schools program

Green Schools Alliance

Healthy Schools Network

High Performance Schools (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)

LEED for Schools (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Rating System, USGBC)

U.S. Department of Education’s Green Ribbon Schools

U.S. Green Schools Foundation

For information on getting financing for green / energy efficiency projects, check out these sites: the National Education Foundation/ U.S. Department of Education’s Qualified School Construction Bonds, the California Energy Commission’s Energy Efficiency loans, PG&E’s School Resource Program (for schools within the PG&E utility area), and the DSIRE Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency. For additional links related to funding for green projects, see my post on Green Tax Credits, Rebates, and Other Financial Incentives.

Examples of Local and Regional Initiatives


Related Post: Green Curricula and Environmental Learning Activities (i.e., environmental education)

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October 1, 2010
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Switch to High-Efficiency Plumbing Fixtures to Save Water, Energy, and Money

Reducing your water use has multiple benefits. In addition to helping to conserve and protect your community’s vital water supplies, saving water also helps you save money and energy.

According to the U.S. EPA, if all U.S. households installed water-efficient fixtures and appliances, the country would save more than 3 trillion gallons of water and more than $18 billion dollars per year.

Conserving water also conserves energy, because energy is used to treat, deliver, and heat water. If one out of every 100 American homes were retrofitted with water-efficient fixtures, that would save about 100 million kWh of electricity per year—avoiding 80,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions: equivalent to removing nearly 15,000 automobiles from the road for one year. For additional information on the benefits of saving water, see this EPA webpage.

Low-flow fixtures have been on the market for a while. These days, there are also many ultra-low-flow fixtures that conserve even more water without compromising performance. The EPA’s WaterSense program labels ultra-low-flow, highly water-efficient plumbing fixtures that have been independently tested and certified to meet efficiency and performance standards. In addition to being approximately 20% more water-efficient than average products, WaterSense labeled products have been verified to perform “as well or better than their less efficient counterparts.”

To select the most water-efficient plumbing fixtures, you should look for products with certain flow thresholds. The following sections outline the thresholds to be aware of when selecting ultra-low water-use toilets, showerheads, and faucets:

HIGH-EFFICIENCY, WATER-SAVING TOILETS

Toilets are often the source of the most water use (and water wasting) within a home, accounting for nearly 30 percent of an average home’s indoor water consumption. If you have a toilet(s) that uses more than 1.6 gallons of water per flush (gpf)—as do almost all toilets installed before 1994—replace it with one of the following:

If you have a 1.6 gpf (post-1994) toilet, you can make it more water-efficient by putting a small water bottle (filled with water, with the cap on) into the toilet tank for displacement. (It’s not a good idea to put a brick in the tank, as it will erode and the sediment can clog up the works.) Soon, these fake “bricks” should be available.

In California, new legislation has mandated that all new toilets sold or installed in the state after 2014 must be high-efficiency toilets. At some point, federal standards might also be raised to this standard.

For commercial/office-building bathrooms, install ultra-low-flush (ULF) urinals in lieu of regular urinals.

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August 25, 2010
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Model Sustainable Neighborhoods: LEED ND Developments in the U.S., Canada, and China

Among LEED ND (Neighborhood Development) certified projects that have been built or are currently being built (i.e., construction is already well underway), the following have gotten the highest ratings (as of summer 2010). All of the developments listed here have achieved either a Gold or Platinum LEED rating.

UNITED STATES

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Maryland

New York

  • SALT (Syracuse Art, Life and Technology) District, Syracuse (Gold, Stage 1): Official Site

North Carolina

Oregon

Tennessee

  • Cummins Station: Gateway to Nashville (Gold, Stage 2): Official Site

Washington DC

CANADA

CHINA

  • Beijing Olympic Village (Gold, Stage 2)
  • Chongqing Tiandi Xincheng Development, Chongqing (Gold, Stage 2)
  • Wuhan Tiandi Mixed-Use Development, Wuhan (Gold, Stage 2)

For more information about LEED ND, as well as info about other certifications and resources related to green neighborhood development, see this earlier post:

Sustainable Neighborhoods and Communities: Certifications, developments, organizations, and websites

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August 5, 2010
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Fuel-Focused Films and Climactic Climate Cinema

In the past couple of years, several documentary films have come out that are focused on the folly of fossil fuels (such as oil, gasoline, and natural gas), and new films have also been made to bring attention to the broader climate crisis. Most of these movies have been critically acclaimed.

Recent fuel films include:


Gasland (2009): about drilling for natural gas by “fracking” (hydraulic fracturing) (Gasland is currently airing on HBO and via HBO On Demand.)


Crude (2009): about the lawsuit on Chevron/Texaco’s contamination of an Amazon community in Ecuador


Fuel (2008): about biodiesel made from waste vegetable oil


A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash (2007)

Also, in the years since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, several new films have been made about climate change; these include:


Climate of Change (2010: Coming Soon): This film was created to present inspiring, uplifting stories of regular people around the world who have spearheaded a variety of local initiatives to combat climate change.


The Age of Stupid (2008)


Climate Refugees (2009)


The 11th Hour (2007)

Click on the links to see trailers or to learn more about each film. Check sites such as IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, and Netflix for reviews.


If you’ve seen any of these films, let us know what you thought of them by posting a comment below.

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July 26, 2010
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Kicking the Carbon Habit: How to Reduce Your Dependence on Oil and Other Fossil Fuels

In these times of unnatural disasters—such as BP’s oil-hemorrhaging drill “spill,” as well as extreme weather events caused by increasing climate volatility—more people are seeking ways to reduce their carbon footprint: i.e., their consumption of fossil fuels (petroleum, coal, and natural gas). We are all essentially junkies—or oiloholics—who don’t know how to live without these substances.

Power plants (especially those that burn coal), transportation (particularly emissions from cars, trucks, and jets), and energy use for homes and buildings (e.g., for heating and cooling) are the primary sources of carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases, such as nitrous oxide and methane. [For detailed information on the percentage of emissions from different sectors, see the U.S. Energy Information Administration: Energy Consumption Data and Architecture 2030’s data analysis.]

Until government and industry help shift our infrastructure and economy away from dinosaur fuels and into clean, renewable energy sources, we’ll never be able to get really “clean”—so we should all be pushing for government to end the huge subsidies and tax breaks for dirty energy industries and to support cleaner energy sources (e.g., local solar, wind, tidal power, biomass, and some types of biofuels—a topic for a future post). But we can also do a lot right now, in our everyday lives, to start weaning ourselves off the junk.

In addition to the most obvious steps that can be taken to reduce our direct use of fossil fuels and electricity generated by fossil fuels — such as driving as little as possible and conserving energy and water at home/work/school— there are lots of other ways that each of us can lessen our dependence on filthy fuels. You can do so in every area of your life, from choices you make for your home and household and yard and garden, to your vehicle/transportation, travel, food, and other consumer choices. For example, plastics and many household products (such as common cleaning products and personal care products) contain petrochemicals, most of which are toxic to humans and other animals, so it’s best to choose alternatives to such products (e.g., glass instead of plastic bottles/containers, and natural rather than synthetic chemical ingredients for household/personal products).

I’ve compiled this compendium of several other online resources that list other specific ways that we can start tackling our individual and collective carbon addiction, to gain a decent measure of independence from dirty energy sources:

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July 6, 2010
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The Green Spotlight on Facebook

Take a look at The Green Spotlight’s official Facebook Page for more frequent postings of brief news blurbs and recommended links. And if you have a Facebook account, please consider connecting to the page by clicking on the “Like” button at the top. Feel free to share links, recommendations, or comments with The Green Spotlight community.

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July 6, 2010
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Net-Zero-Energy and “Passive” Homes: New Resources

If you’re thinking about doing a major renovation of your home or building a new home, I hope you’ll avail yourself of the growing number of resources on how to design and build houses that consume very little energy and that produce at least as much energy as they consume (i.e., net-zero-energy homes).

One of the most recent books on this topic is: Energy Free Homes for a Small Planet: A comprehensive guide to the design, construction, and economics of net-zero energy homes, by Ann V. Edminster (Green Building Press, December 2009). The publisher says: “Energy Free is designed to equip building professionals and homeowners alike with a toolkit for creating homes that use no more energy than they produce—this means homes that are free from the vagaries of energy-price fluctuations and that help to free society of the high political and environmental costs of fossil fuels. The author includes…step-by-step guidance on how to make decisions that will yield an energy-free residential project, whether a single-family home or multifamily building, new or existing, in an urban or a rural setting.” For more info about the book, click here.

One approach to designing and renovating homes so that they use very little energy is the Passive House approach, espoused by the Passive House Institute. The Passive House (or Passiv Haus) standard was originally developed in Germany. Passive houses are designed to reduce energy consumption by 80-90% compared to conventional houses. The first new home being built as a Passive House in California is a project of the Community Land Trust Association of West Marin (CLAM). The home, known as the Blue2 House, is an affordable second unit behind another home in Point Reyes Station; the main house was also renovated using some Passive House techniques.  CLAM is chronicling the home’s construction process and progress on a blog.

Other resources worth checking out include: GreenBuildingAdvisor.com, which has published several case studies of net-zero and near-net-zero energy homes; the Home of the Future program from the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD); the Department of Energy’s Building America program; and Affordable Comfort Inc.’s Thousand Home Challenge and Deep Energy Reductions programs.

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June 3, 2010
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