Monday, April 25, 2005

[Ecology] Unwittingly, Earth becomes a lab The ecological links between species aren't obvious, and even small changes can trigger big effects. [Christian Science Monitor | Sci/Tech] 4:01:12 PM Google It!    [Green products] Hot stuff for a cool Earth New Inventions and gadgets keep popping up to help make the planet a little bit better. [Christian Science Monitor | Sci/Tech] 4:00:38 PM Google It!    [Green products] Consumer Reports Launches GreenerChoices.org A new survey published by Consumer Reports to coincide with the launch of GreenerChoices.org gives a new face to what it means to be green in America. While only 5 percent of respondents consider themselves activists, nearly 9 out of 10 actively consider environmental and health factors when making purchases. More and more, consumers are making environmentally friendly choices through their purchasing decisions. They are actively seeking out organic foods, avoiding dangerous chemicals in products, and looking for energy-efficient appliances. GreenerChoices.org will offer consumers reliable and practical advice on how to be more environmentally conscious. The site launch will begin with a dozen products across several categories, including electronics, appliances, home & garden, autos and food. Consumers can easily find out how to incorporate environmental and health issues into their product purchases, uses, recycling and disposal. There will be an additional "green ratings" section, starting with eight products, which will provide rankings that include a product's energy, water and fuel efficiency performance. This is especially critical where Consumer Reports' in-depth testing offers more comprehensive and accurate information than standard environmental claims made on products, such as Energy Star. Broader-scale environmental issues concerning energy, climate change, agriculture, waste and dangerous chemical substances will also be discussed while making the connections to the products people buy. Consumers will also find tools such as energy calculators, rebate information, food label meanings as well as links to help consumers find out more about their local energy, water and sewage treatment services. In addition to being a stand-alone site, specific sections of GreenerChoices.org will be linked off the applicable product pages on ConsumerReports.org. 3:47:32 PM Google It!    [Publications] New open access sustainability journal Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy. That's the name of a new "open access e-Journal for sustainable solutions" published by the CSA and the NBII (neither of which I know -- if you can fill me in, please do). As Jamais Cascio at WorldChanging points out, it's definitely an academic journal vs. a more wide-reaching, even popular publication, but it's also good to see serious academic consideration of sustainability issues. It's also good to see that they're paying contributors -- that's unusual in the academic world (or, at least, my niche of it). Technorati tags: sustainability, journal By noemail@noemail.org (Jeff McIntire-Strasburg). [sustainablog] 3:44:40 PM Google It!    [Corporate sustainability] A Great Deal of Hope on Earth Day 2005 From sustainablog: Joel Makower has posted an Earth Day reflection on the state of sustainable development in the business world, and finds reasons to be optimistic. And while some may accuse him of being a Pollyanna, he's got the facts to back up his hope: The changes may be slow in coming and largely imperceptible to the general public -- but they're very real. Some of the world's largest companies are changing their thinking, their policies, and even their business models with an eye toward sustainability. In most cases, these shifts are still relatively small, limited perhaps to one business unit, facility, or product line. Few of these companies are talking publicly about what they’re thinking or doing, fearing the wrath of activists for not doing enough -- though I think that in the coming year we'll see more big companies putting a stake in the ground on their environmental commitments. Of course, Joel doesn't claim that everything's rosy and we can now rest knowing our work is done -- far from it. But one could certainly claim that there is momentum building in some of the right directions. Technorati tags: sustainability, business, Earth Day By noemail@noemail.org (Jeff McIntire-Strasburg). [sustainablog] 3:43:05 PM Google It!    [Corporate sustainability] JPMorgan Chase Adopts Comprehensive Environmental Policy From sustainablog: Yesterday I posted about Joel Makower's optimistic view of sustainability policy in the business sector, and this piece from Earth New Wire would seem to justify that positive outlook: Rainforest Action Network today commended JPMorgan Chase on its adoption of a comprehensive environmental policy to address the challenges of global warming and deforestation and recognize the rights of indigenous nations. The policy sets new best practices on the environment in several critical areas including carbon mitigation and reduction, endangered forest protection, independently certified sustainable forestry as well as land and consultation rights of native communities everywhere. It is the first policy of its kind in the financial sector to create a special heading acknowledging "No Go Zones," a major step forward in the effort to protect ecosystems that are most valuable intact and untouched by industry. Developed in cooperation with groups including Rainforest Action Network, the new policy marks another environmental milestone in the private financial sector and follows the adoption of similar policies by Citigroup and Bank of America last year. While I'm always skeptical of self-proclaimed "environmental policy" by big corporations, the imprimatur of the Rainforest Action Network and the World Resources Institute certainly gives this one some weight. I also think it's particularly hopeful to see financial institutions making these moves, as they, more than any other business sector, can grease the wheels towards sustainable development throughout the business world. Have to make sure to not cancel my Chase card... Technorati tags: sustainability, business, banking By noemail@noemail.org (Jeff McIntire-Strasburg). [sustainablog] 3:39:15 PM Google It!    [Corporate sustainability] Chinese Companies Greener than Expected From sustainablog: TriplePundit points us to some great news: Some of China's biggest and most important companies are intent on improving environmental standards and practices, according to a survey by WWF. All of the companies participating in the survey said protecting the environment was important, with more than half indicating that it was part of their company's core values. According to WWF, this is unexpected given environmental concerns associated with China's rapidly growing economy. "The survey shows that a significant group of Chinese companies are more environmentally aware than they are often portrayed," said Peng Lei, WWF Trade and Investment Programme. "If they can show global leadership, they could not only help solve many of China's environmental problems, but also the world's." Of course, China's economy is growing quite rapidly, so one has to wonder if this awareness, even at high levels, is enough soon enough. But, at the same time, it certainly undermines the Bush administration's claim that economic growth and sustainable development can't go hand-in-hand. Technorati tags: sustainability, business, China By noemail@noemail.org (Jeff McIntire-Strasburg). [sustainablog] 3:36:45 PM Google It!    [Patents] Wind energy conversion system A wind energy conversion system includes upper and lower wind turbines having counter-rotating blade assemblies supported for rotation about a vertical rotation axis, with each blade assembly carrying a rotor for rotation past a stator to produce an electrical output. The wind turbines are supported by a tower at an elevated position above the ground. Each wind turbine produces torque, and the wind energy conversion system provides for balancing the torques to avoid a net torque on the tower. Adjustment mechanisms are provided for adjusting blade pitch and for adjusting the size of an air gap between a stator and a rotor that comes into alignment with the stator as the rotor rotates therepast. The wind energy conversion system provides a hood for supplying intake air to a wind turbine and an exhaust plenum for exhausting air from the wind turbine, with the hood and the exhaust plenum being directionally positionable.  [FreshPatents.com: Notable Patent Applications - 04/21/2005] 3:35:11 PM Google It!    [Green lifestyle] America's Top 10 Green Cities With 80 percent of Americans living in urban areas, The Green Guide naturally wanted to find out which cities are kindest both to the environment and our health. [ENN Press News] 3:32:35 PM Google It!    [OSHA] Small Business Handbook Small Business--United States--Safety Occupational Safety Source: Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Small Business Handbook "The handbook should help small business employers meet the legal requirements imposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (the Act), and achieve an in-compliance status before an OSHA inspection." [ResourceShelf's DocuTicker] 3:31:43 PM Google It!    [Science and technology policy] Untapped Potential: US Science and Technology Cooperation with the Islamic World Middle East--Science and Technology Policy Source: The Brookings Institution Untapped Potential: US Science and Technology Cooperation with the Islamic World "Despite widespread and growing public hostility to the United States in the Islamic world, American science and technology are widely admired there. This provides a valuable channel for productive cooperation. By working wisely with scientists and engineers from the Islamic world, the United States could bolster economic and human development and aid in tackling important regional problems like natural resource management, all while strengthening American public diplomacy in the Islamic world." Full Paper (PDF; 774 KB) [ResourceShelf's DocuTicker] 3:30:47 PM Google It!    [Science research] U.S. States Eye Bonds to Boost Scientific Research CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. states are considering huge debt sales to raise money for fostering scientific research in order to retool their ailing economies by attracting new kinds of businesses and jobs. [Reuters: Science] 3:29:40 PM Google It!    [Perchlorate] 36 States Face Perchlorate Contamination (AP)  AP - An emerging threat of uncertain dimensions looms in this working-class suburb, where a chemical used in rocket fuel and defense manufacturing has befouled nearly half the drinking water supply. But Rialto is just one of many communities facing this problem. The choices faced here — when to close wells, whom to sue and how not to get sued — confront officials in 36 states where the Environmental Protection Agency says perchlorate has been detected. [Yahoo! News: Science] 3:28:48 PM Google It!    [Atmospheric science] ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE: Fat Coats It has been suggested that atmospheric aerosols (particles containing a hydrophilic core of sulfate, nitrate, or ammonium salts) may carry organic surfactants on their surface. If so, this would have important effects on the chemical and physical properties of aerosols, as well as consequences for climate and human health. Recent analysis has shown that some marine aerosols do, in fact, sport an outer layer of fatty acids, but whether this is true for other aerosols has been unclear. Tervahattu et al.report that some aerosols of continental origin are coated with fatty acids. They used time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry to detect the presence of these molecules in the outermost 3 nm (of a 0.1- to 1.0-m particle) in aerosols derived from forest fires and from the burning of coal and straw. -- HJS [Editors' Choice] LB Note: Full citation for article: Tervahattu T., J. Juhanoja, V. Vaida, A. F. Tuck, J. V. Niemi, K. Kupiainen, M. Kulmala, H. Vehkamäki (2005), "Fatty acids on continental sulfate aerosol particles", Journal of Geophysical Research, 110, D06207, doi:10.1029/2004JD005400. 3:21:46 PM Google It!    [Water pollution] ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE: Reduced Mobility Chromate ions (CrO4-), such as those in industrial waste streams, are highly toxic, and a better understanding of their transport properties in groundwater would be useful. In the outdoors, the flow of chromate ions can be influenced by myriad chemical and microbial interactions, which researchers usually lump together into measured retardation factors. Al-Abadleh et al.have used a model system to probe the molecular origins and details of retardation in silica-rich soils. They prepared monolayers of carboxylic acid- and ester-terminated alkyl chains, which were attached via siloxanes to a fused quartz substrate, and used second harmonic generation spectroscopy to monitor the reversible binding to these surfaces of aqueous chromate. In comparison to bare silica, the organic acid layers, which are analogous to the humic acids in soil, nearly tripled the retardation factor, whereas esters increased it by 50%. Moreover, the binding energy of chromate to acid increased with chromate concentration, and an analysis of this cooperative behavior quantified the lateral intermolecular forces in a hydrogen-bonded network of acids, perturbed by metal ions. -- JSY [Editors' Choice] LB Note: The full citation for the article is: "Control of Carboxylic Acid and Ester Groups on Chromium (VI) Binding to Functionalized Silica/Water Interfaces Studied by Second Harmonic Generation." Al-Abadleh, H. A.; Mifflin, A. L.; Bertin, P. A.; Nguyen, S. T. ; Geiger, F. M.; Journal of Physical Chemistry B ; 2005; ASAP Article;  DOI: 10.1021/jp050782o 3:16:30 PM Google It!    [Alternative energy] U of Minn Launches Wind-to-Hydrogen Project Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and other dignitaries dedicated the only public large-scale wind research instrument in the United States designed to conduct research on converting wind power into hydrogen. [Green Car Congress] 2:59:43 PM Google It!    [Energy efficiency] Iowa Governor Orders State Agencies to Improve Energy Efficiency; Mandates Hybrids, Alt- and Biofuels Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack issued a wide-ranging executive order (#41) Friday directing state agencies to improve upon their current practices of conserving energy. Among the directives stipulated in the order: To reduce energy consumption in all conditioned facilities owned... [Green Car Congress] 2:58:55 PM Google It!

© Copyright 2005 Laura L. Barnes. Last update: 10/25/2005; 12:09:56 PM.