It's Earth Day!

For Earth Day: Bella Gaia:

From Earthday.org: Our planet is at a turning point. The massive global migration underway now from countryside to cities will demand huge investments in energy, water, materials, waste, food distribution, and transportation over the next 25 years. If the correct investments are made now, this unique opportunity will be the catalyst for dramatic changes in the built environment and the fight against carbon emissions and climate change. 

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Plowshares for Security in the Pacific Northwest

by William S. Becker

Swords into Plowshares

While the nation's attention has been focused on ending one war (Afghanistan) and avoiding another (Iran), a different idea about national defense has been circulating lately among some of America's thought leaders.

The idea is this: National defense isn't only about containing foreign threats; it's also about strengthening the fabric of society. In other words, sustainable development is a critical component of national security.

This isn't a new thought, but new people are thinking it, including some whose job is to figure out how to prevent the foreign conflicts that end up costing U.S. lives and treasure.  Continued...

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UN: Climate, Food Pressures Require Rethink on Water

The United Nations has completed a study calling for a radical rethink on the use of water worldwide.

The world's water supply is being strained by climate change and the growing food, energy and sanitary needs of a fast-growing population, according to a United Nations study that calls for a radical rethink of policies to manage competing claims. 

"Freshwater is not being used sustainably," UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova said in a statement. "Accurate information remains disparate, and management is fragmented ... the future is increasingly uncertain and risks are set to deepen."

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Will Walmart's drive toward sustainability work?

by Janet Ritz

Walmart, the world's largest retailer, announced this week that they are planning to put green/sustainability labeling on all of their products within the next five years.

Walmart today announced plans to develop a worldwide sustainable product index during a meeting with 1,500 of its suppliers, associates and sustainability leaders at its home office. The index will establish a single source of data for evaluating the sustainability of products.

The company will ask their suppliers (all their suppliers) to answer fifteen questions and then will apply a rating to the products based on an algorithm yet to be announced. It is unclear is how they will determine the accuracy of the replies -- what oversight, if any, will be instituted and applied. Also yet to be announced will be how that rating will be displayed. It may be as simple as a green tag or as complicated as a link on the product to a customer's smart phone which will then give the customer detailed information about the product's sustainability.

Environmental groups laud this attempt to go green at the corporate level and point out that, as the world's largest retailer, Walmart may be best positioned to pull this off. Corporate associations and academics have raised concern of increased costs. Walmart's spokesman disagrees and says that with less packaging there will be lest cost ... Continued...

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Greening your office in a recession

by Janet Ritz

Cross-posted from The Green Office Blog

When my consulting clients ask me why they should green their office in a recession when monetary pressures are only expected to increase, I remind them that the Chinese use two separate brush strokes to write the word 'crisis':

危機

One character stands for danger; the other for opportunity.

In a crisis, be aware of the danger-but recognize the opportunity.

Never has that been more accurate than now, for with the green approach business can not only help the planet to forestall long term danger (for which they themselves will have to pay in increased costs as resources become scarce and as business becomes impacted by inclement weather), but they also reduce their bottom line while improving morale and productivity of their workforce.

How is this done? Continued...

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Art and the Environment

by The Environmentalist Staff

California mixed media artist, Sara Zimmerman, has come up with an innovative idea to combine her passion for the visual medium with her love for the environment -- helping to save on the cost of materials along the way.

Zimmerman, a fine artist working out of the Lake Tahoe area, has begun to utilize discarded cabinet doors, such as those replaced during construction, as well as paper and other recycled materials, as a mixed-media canvas for her art.

Part of a growing creative community along the Northern California/Nevada border, Zimmerman's work as a mix-media painter has long juxtaposed urban and natural landscapes with the detail of close-range subjects.

With the Sierra region as both subject and inspiration, it's not surprising that the artist's work would reflect the beauty of the environment that surrounds her studio.

By utilizing discarded materials, Zimmerman has provided an important example of how respect for the environment can help to preserve the subject of the art that it has inspired in its most pristine form...

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Golf and the Environment

by Janet Ritz

Golf courses can be breathtaking in their beauty, places where traditions have been passed on from parent to child, where business has long been conducted between peers and rivals, where some of the world's greatest athletes have provided decades of entertainment and, more recently, places of breakthroughs in race, gender and the awareness (not entirely solved) of the prior exclusion of both.

They have also been, historically, pesticide and chemically ridden in order to maintain the pristine environments.

That began to change after a 1995 meeting at Pebble Beach between the major golfing organizations and environmental groups. However, according to a survey conducted by Golf Digest Magazine for their May 2008 issue, there may still be some greens to reach in regulation:

Today, 13 years later [post the 1995 conference], after five national conferences and dozens of smaller meetings and workshops, they're still talking. Improvements have been made, reports, guidelines and educational videos have been published, and the effort -- which has become known as the Golf & Environment Initiative -- has allowed the game to claim it's cleaning up its act.

~snip~

Before the 1995 meeting, there were serious issues surrounding golf and its impact on the environment and, despite much self-congratulatory hyperbole from the gold industry about environmental sensitivity, sustainability and stewardship and the obligatory eco-claims of every new golf resort, there are still plenty of serious problems today.

The article goes on to cite current and upcoming problems and a general attitude that falls somewhere between genuine concern to doing just enough not to get criticized.

The problems? Where the courses are built and how they're maintained. The pending water crisis as climate change intensifies and the pesticides that blanket many of the courses in the need to keep the greens green...

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