HARTFORD,
Conn., Sept. 28, 2007 -- ING announced this week its intent to buy
enough renewable wind energy to power its U.S. operations.
The announcement is one of several corporate environmental
initiatives unveiled this week. For instance, Dell said Wednesday it
planned to neutralize the carbon dioxide emissions of its worldwide
operations beginning next year.
ING, a global financial institution, also plans to go carbon
neutral. The purchase of 70 million kilowatt-hours of wind energy
credits will help it achieve its goal of becoming carbon neutral by the
end of this year.
"We make decisions about sustainability every day at ING, which is
why we are part of a worldwide dialogue that addresses climate change
and why we focus on developing strategies to mitigate ING's impact on
the environment," Tom McInerney, ING Executive Board member and
chairman and CEO of ING Insurance Americas, said in a statement.
The company announced its plans to meet its carbon neutral goal
earlier this year by reducing emissions rooted in energy consumption
and travel.
For example, the company retrofitted its Windsor, Conn., office
building currently under construction with energy-efficient products
and systems, such as sensors that turn off lights in unoccupied spaces.
The two-year wind energy purchase will power the company's 11 large
facilities across the country, as well as nearly 100 smaller regional
offices.
ING also offsets it international business travel by supporting the
planting of 300 hectares of degraded tropical rainforest in Malaysia,
the company said.
Mining the Opportunities in Global Carbon Markets
Abyd Karmali, Managing Director and Global Head of Carbon Emissions at investment bank Merrill Lynch, will discuss the recent surge of interest and activity in climate change-related investments among the world’s biggest investment banks, fund managers and other financial institutions in his presentation, "Investment Banks Jump on Board: Mining the Opportunities in Global Carbon Markets." Mr. Karmali will discuss how such firms identify, evaluate and maximize the financial and strategic opportunities within greenhouse gas emissions trading regimes. In addition, he will offer examples of other cutting-edge financial instruments developed specifically in response to address climate change.
Date: October 31, 2007 from 3:30 to 5:00. Reception to follow. Luce Hall at 34 Hillhouse Avenue. Visit the website for more information. Thanks to Dan Olson for the tip!
Spotlight on Green Schools Advocates: As the name suggests, this will be our opportunity to highlight your successes. Please keep us posted on your advocacy efforts: speaking engagements, green school victories and other noteworthy milestones.
Resource Library: This is only a preliminary list. We intend to expand this section considerably. If you know of a Web site that belongs on this page, please email me with the site address and a 2-3 sentence description.
Contact: Those interested in joining your Green Schools Advocacy Teams will be able to link directly to you. Please go to this page and click the Green Schools Advocate link that corresponds to your region. Confirm that your email address is correct or if you would like to use a different email address as a contact, please let me know and I will have it swapped out right away. Also, note that your regional chapter coordinator will be copied when someone sends you an email from the Web site. This will allow us to gauge the volume of emails going to different regions and provide you with additional resources and support where necessary. Get ready to start plugging interested individuals into your Green Schools Advocacy Teams!
MySpace profile and discussion group: We have created a discussion group through MySpace for all who are interested in promoting green schools to get together and share their vision! Hopefully, the discussion group will foster some great dialogue. To participate you will need to create a MySpace account which is free and only takes a few minutes. Added benefit: If you have teenagers, this will earn you cool points.
The Web site is a work in progress and I encourage all of you to offer feedback as to how we can make improvements. I would encourage you to become familiar with the content of the site so that you can refer others to appropriate information and resources. LEED for Schools 101 Online course, Generation g, LEED for Schools checklist and Rating System and the full Green Schools press kit can all be accessed from buildgreenschools.org.
Check it out and let's get green schools booming in Connecticut!
We had a great turnout at Splash in Westport and thought it would be helpful to post links to the attendees websites. If you would like to add a website, name, other contact information or make a correction, please email Fairfield County Green Drinks.
NUCLEAR INFORMATION AND RESOURCE SERVICE 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 340 Takoma Park, MD 20912 301-270-NIRS (301-270-6477) Fax: 301-270-4291 nirsnet@nirs.org http://www.nirs.org
October 12, 2007
Dear Friends,
There are two major developments we want to tell you about regarding loan guarantees for new nuclear reactors and the pending energy bill in Congress:
First, we’re happy to tell you that Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, Keb Mo, Ben Harper and other artists have joined the effort to stop the loan guarantees in a major way. They’ve set up a new website, http://www.nukefree.org, and there you can sign a petition against the use of your tax dollars for new nuclear reactors. Please do so right now. They’ve also remade the classic Buffalo Springfield song, For What It’s Worth, and you can watch that on their website, on youtube, or from NIRS website, http://www.nirs.org.
Second, we have learned that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has given up on the idea of setting up a House-Senate conference committee to formally address the differences in the House and Senate energy bills. Instead, a more informal process will be used. Both Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid apparently want a final energy bill completed by November 1. That will be difficult to do in the little remaining time, and it means that some of the more controversial provisions in the two bills may be dropped entirely. We need to make the loan guarantees as controversial as possible.
So after you’ve signed the petition at http://www.nukefree.org, please call your Senators and Representative (Capitol Switchboard, 202-224-3121), and tell them: no taxpayer subsidies for nuclear power. Please call even if you’ve called before. Ask your friends and colleagues to call. This is the time to take action!
You should add that Congress should not cut itself out of the loan guarantee process—the Senate version of the bill would give full power to the Department of Energy to issue the guarantees, decide who gets them, and how much they should get. This is a job Congress has to stay on top of.
The Nuclear Energy Institute already has said it wants the nuclear industry to receive $50 billion in taxpayer guarantees over just the next two years. When that kind of money is at risk, Congress has to accept responsibility, not merely turn it over to the Energy Department.
Thanks for your help!
Michael Mariotte Executive Director Nuclear Information and Resource Service nirsnet@nirs.org
Thank you to everyone who already has donated toward greater outreach for the statement on nuclear power and climate. We appreciate your help! It’s not too late, however: please consider donating now to help us spread the word and obtain thousands more signatures! You can contribute online at our secure site: https://secure.campagne-online.com/registrant/donate.aspx?EventID=2927&LangPref=en-CA
Contributors of $60 or more will receive a free copy of Bonnie Raitt’s CD, Souls Alike, as our, and her, way of saying
THANK YOU!
Petition Signees Jackson Browne, Songwriter Graham Nash, Musician/Activist Bonnie Raitt, Musician/Activist Keb' Mo’, Musician/Activist Ozomatli, Musicians/Activists Ben Harper, Musician/Activist Harvey Wasserman, Author/Activist Tom Campbell, The Guacamole Fund Herbie Hancock, Musician/Activist Patti Smith, Musician/Activist David Crosby, Musician/Activist on Henley, Musician/Activist Emily Saliers, Indigo Girls Amy Ray, Indigo Girls Pearl Jam, Musicians/Activists R.E.M. Bruce Hornsby, Musician Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Environmental Attorney Pete Seeger, Songwriter Maroon 5 Emily Robison, Musician Natalie Maines, Musician Winona LaDuke, Author/Activist Ani DiFranco, Musician/Activist Henry, JoJo and Ringo Garza, Los Lonely Boys Melissa Etheridge, Musician/Activist Dave Stewart, Musician/Cultural Engineer/Activist Wynton Marsalis, Musician David Fenton, CEO Fenton Communications Shawn Colvin, Singer/Songwriter Robert Cray, Musician Dave Marsh, Author/Activist Mudhoney, Musicians/Activists System of a Down, Musicians/Activists Nanci Griffith, Musician/Activist Danny O’ Keefe, Musician/Activist Cris Williamson, Musician/Activist Dar Williams, Musician/Activist David Lindley, Musician Adam Gardner, Guitar/Vocals, Guster Holly Near, Musician/Activist Peter Coyote, Actor/Writer Joel Rafael, Musician/Activist Brett Dennen, Musician/Activist Michelle Branch, Musician/Activist Paul Hawken, Author/Activist Kenny Ausubel, Founder and Co-President, Bioneers Dan Shugar, President, Sunpower Corporation, Systems Randy Hayes, Founder, Rainforest Action Network Thomas Van Dyck, RBC SRI Wealth Mgmt Larry Fahn, Former President Sierra Club Conrad Mackerron, As You Sow Foundation Environmental Working Group Natural Resources Defense Council Greenpeace USA The Sierra Club League of Conservation Voters TrueMajority.com The Vote Solar Initiative Physicians for Social Responsibility Working Assets Wireless Nuclear Information and Resource Service Nuclear Energy Information Service, Chicago Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility U.S.PIRG: Federation of State PIRGs Friends of the Earth Beyond Nuclear at NPRI Southwest Information and Research Center REVERB Artists for a New South Africa
Recently my husband and I acquired a Connecticut-sized house and suddenly it occured to me that I needed stuff. Not just the decorative, make-it-your-own stuff, but basic, don't-want-to-look-like-a-squatter stuff: a rake, a lawn mower, bookshelves, lamps. Where we lived before, we had much less space, and no grass.
So there I was, wandering in Home Depot, depressed. I couldn't bring myself to buy that plastic rake and that shiny shovel. I mean, there is something wrong about buying a clean hoe. You just know the next day you'll turn the corner and spot "10 for $10" sign on a pile of rusty, dirty, perfectly good garden tools at a tag sale.
Letting the weeds grow and the garden fester, I researched. Craigslist was good. But Freecycle one upped it.
So what exactly is Freecycle?
The Freecycle Network is a web of individual groups across the globe. It's a grassroots and nonprofit movement of people who are giving away and getting stuff for free in their own towns. Currently, there are about 4100 local groups and almost 4 million members in the world. Groups are moderated by local volunteers. In the U.S. these groups are run through Yahoo Groups. Membership is free.
How do I join?
In Connecticut there are currently 34 Freecycle groups, including groups for New Haven, Stamford/Greenwich, Litchfield area, Torrington, Bridgeport area, Hartford, Shelton/Oxford area and many others. The Freecycle website makes it simple to find the groups nearest you, and you are welcome to join more than one. However, some groups may ask for a zip code to verify the area you live in. This is to limit the groups to the local areas and to prevent spammers on the web groups.
The Connecticut League of Conservation Voters recently released its annual score card, an effort designed to track legislators' voting record on bills that have an environmental impact. In addition to tracking votes cast by our legislators, the nonpartisan organization reports on the negative or positive impact on the environment of laws passed in the preceding year.
The League has three goals for its work in the state: to elect pro-environment lawmakers, to hold legislators accountable, and to engage the public in Connecticut's environmental policies.
They set off a bit of a fracas in the media as legislators complained that the scoring did not always do justice to their efforts on environmental issues.
The mission of Connecticut Innovations is to “guide good ideas from the mind to the marketplace.” They provide strategic capital and insight to push the frontiers of such high tech industries in Connecticut as energy, photonics, information technology and biotechnology.
Since its creation in 1989 by the CT state legislature, they’ve helped over 100 emerging Connecticut companies bring new products and services to the marketplace.
One good idea they’ve spearheaded in their effort to provide state residents with clean energy alternatives for home and business is the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund.
You can view their map giving examples of the use of clean energy in Connecticut at http://www.cleanenergytrail.com/ and read more about the biomass, fuel cell, landfill gas, solar, wave and wind energies in use in our state. Their quick glossary of these renewable forms of energy will help you learn more about all of these options.
At the upcoming Fairfield County Green Drinks event at Splash in Westport on October 10th, Bob Wall will give a brief talk on the Energy Fund. See you there!
Because of the way America is constructed, most of us shop at our local "box" store Home Depot, Lowe's, Target, Wal-Mart for our garden and home supplies. And why not? They're cheap, close by, and have nearly everything.
In the last few years, these stores have really been responding to our demands for more eco-geeky products: Target stocks entire aisles of eco-friendly cleaning products (Seventh Generation) and the prices are becoming so competitive enough to obliterate the guilt and frustration of on overspending.
At Home Depot the other day, my mind plagued with the vine weed taking over our lawn, I came across a ramshackle cardboard display that said, adorably:
Lawns Luv Worm Poop
The display was stacked with low-tech looking plastic bottle with sprayer attached. key ingredient? All natural worm feces "tea," fertilizer extraordinaire.
