This past weekend, I attended the Wild and Scenic Film Festival in Boston, hosted by e-inc.  Though I had already attended Maynard’s top notch version of the Festival a few weeks back, I was pleasantly surprised by how little overlap there was between films at the two events. That said, one of the films I was able to see in Boston was Spoil, put out by The ILCP, EP Films and Pacific Wild. While I tend to consider myself someone who’s current with pressing environmental issues, I must admit – I was stunned. The potential devastation taking place in one of our planet’s most majestic and critical natural habitats, the Great Bear Rainforest, needs immediate attention. One of the largest tracts of temperate rainforest left in the world, the Great… [view entry]

A coal-fired power plant in Shuozhou, Shanxi, Chin

Unrest in the Middle East has yielded change in the region, but the effects of anti-government protests are slowly being felt globally as oil soars to its highest price in over 2 years. The New York Times reported that Chinese Energy Specialists revealed that the government plans to announce strict goals for energy conservation.

Make no mistake, this is not an altruistic attempt by the world’s leading energy consumer and greenhouse gas emitter to go green or make strides to curb carbon footprint (energy security far out ways climate change in Chinese policy priorities). China views energy as a national security issue; the concern here is how rising oil prices will effect inflation, export competitiveness, and the country’s… [view entry]

The Environmental Protection Agency recently announced updates to its Energy Star Rating requirements on televisions and cable boxes. The revisions are the first in a list of about 20 products that will receive updates to their Energy Star Rating requirements this year.

Currently, Energy Star rated televisions hold at least 70% of the Market Share. The stricter standards mean, according to the EPA, “substantial overall energy bill reduction, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reductions.”

The new standards are requiring a 40% reduction in watt usage. For example, a 60 inch television currently averages about 282 watts, but the come September the same 60 inch TV will be required to use less than 108 watts to receive an Energy Star Rating. Talk about saving a… [view entry]

After the devastating 8.8 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck Japan last week, millions are without power, adequate food or water supply.   The earthquake was so powerful, that Japan moved 8 feet and the axis of the Earth shifted. The human death toll is still being determined, however, recent reports are comparing this natural disaster to the massive destruction caused during WWII; nothing has taken a similar toll on Japan since.

To add confusion to chaos, Japan is now dealing with a number of nuclear power plans that may face possible meltdown.  A cause for local and global concern, Japanese officials have resorted to using sea water to cool a reactor that exploded a couple of days ago in hopes to keep it under control while electricity… [view entry]

Photo by flickr.com/photos/arimoore/

On February 26th, The New York Times released a front page exposé on the new “gold rush” of natural gas exploration in the United States: Hydrofracking.  Natural gas is a relatively plentiful domestic energy resource and some environmentalists and policy-makers alike have heralded the recent jump in natural gas exploration as a means to curb carbon emissions (natural gas, supposedly, releases less carbon into the atmosphere than fossil fuels like oil and coal).

Nevertheless, the NYTimes article presents a disturbing case against such massive, and oftentimes unregulated, exploration. Hydrofracking, or the injection of water and chemicals under high pressure into rock formations to extract natural gas, can directly impact the quality of groundwater, and inevitably, our drinking water.  Drilling supporters have responded that no contamination of groundwater… [view entry]

Green jobs, no longer just an environmental buzz phrase, represent a critical component to the progressive growth of the US economy. On February 23rd, the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) announced the availability of $40 million in green jobs development grants.  The funds are authorized for the Green Jobs Innovation Fund (GJIF) and are meant to encourage the growth of the green economic sector, which includes everything from renewable energy technology and implementation, to policy and programmatic work.  The announced grant will also support individual training and development within the green jobs sector to ensure interested candidates receive the proper credentials to be competitive within the green economy.

Following the release of President Obama’s 2012 federal budget, buzz around high speed rail projects in the US has increased. In the budget, $8 billion is allocated for high speed rail projects in FY 2012 and $53 billion is allocated over the next six years. Vice President Biden, a self-proclaimed train lover and regular rider, stated recently “We know that public infrastructure investment increases private-sector productivity, promotes growth, and creates jobs.”

Nevertheless, debate on up-front costs, accessibility and ridership continues to haunt the high-speed rail future in the US, even though Ray LaHood, the current Secretary of Transportation, believes that no realistic alternative currently exists that makes more sense stating “…there is no amount of money that could build enough capacity on our highways and at airports to keep up… [view entry]

President Barack Obama

In the 2011 State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama highlighted many goals as part of the administration’s “winning the future” campaign. Energy efficiency was one such goal, and last Thursday the President, speaking at Penn State, unveiled the Better Buildings Initiative, a plan for a 20% improvement in energy efficiency in commercial buildings by 2020. It’s no coincidence the plan was reveled at Penn State, a school with more than 500 researchers working on energy and environmental studies. The President touted Penn State as a leader in the research towards a clean energy future.

The initiative also strives to reduce companies’ energy bills by $40 billion per year. The plan aims to achieve these… [view entry]

Many Massachusetts residents want to live in a healthy and thriving green community, but don’t know how or where to start considering many of the broader environmental challenges that are so vast they can be paralyzing. With such a wide assortment of programs, subsidies and rebates, it can be a challenge for Massachusetts residents to stay on top of state and local energy efficiency options available to them [even though some communities have organizations like CEA to help navigate].

One useful state-wide resource was established under the Green Communities Act, which was signed into law by Governor Patrick in July 2008 and created the Green Communities Division within DOER to serve as the hub for all cities and towns on all matters related to energy. The Green Communities Act established… [view entry]

The NYTimes recently cited that current NASA data matches NOAA data making 2005 and 2010 the two hottest years on Earth in recorded history. [NASA data is available here.]

From extreme flooding in Pakistan, California, Australia and Tennessee, to significant snow fall in England and France, to raging fires in Russia and extreme heat in New England, 2010 was indeed a notable weather year. While climate deniers continue to correlate varying weather patterns with the natural cycle of the Earth, climatologists disagree stating that the global average surface temperature was 1.12 degrees Fahrenheit above the average for the entire 20th century. In fact, according to the NYTimes article, 9 of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since the year 2000. It will be interesting – and perhaps… [view entry]