Sunday, September 27, 2009
It’s officially Climate Week, so in the spirit of being environmentally proactive, we’re providing tips about how to take Earth matters into your own hands. In case you feel discouraged that you can’t do enough, remember Gandhi’s words: “Almost everything you do will seem insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.” we can stop the global warming but to stop we have to do some simple work to understand the earths prblem that is to prohibit pollutions........you can do it SAVE EARTH , SAVE YOUR SELF......
"THE GREAT MAHATMA GANDHI"
Sir Richard Branson Joins Global Advisory Committee
September 25th, 2009 Earth Day Network No comments
Sir Richard Branson is not only a world renowned entrepreneur, but a philanthropist who cares deeply about tackling important environmental and social problems. He has joined Earth Day Network as a member of our Earth Day 40 Global Advisory Committee and has recently co-authored an op-ed with our President, Kathleen Rogers which is currently running on the front page of CNN.
Global leaders, such as Richard Branson, Al Gore, Shaquille O’Neal and Maya Lin along with thousands of organizations and individuals are joining us to prepare for the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day in April. We are asking the world to work together to halt climate change, promote a green economy and ensure a sustainable future for generations to come.
As global leaders convened in New York City for UN climate change talks this past week at the Clinton Global Initiative and the United Nations, we learned how the world is in greater peril than ever, but there are things we can do.
Participating in activities like our Billion Acts of Green™, volunteering in service projects, advocating to our elected officials and educating the public about easy tasks they can undertake to help achieve real change for the environment are all activities we need your help to achieve. Please join us on this campaign.
Now is a pivotal time for people, businesses and governments to join together to create a global green economy. We have to serve the Earth as well as its people, and come together as we face this defining challenge of our time.
Read Let’s launch the ‘next revolution‘!
Categories: Earth Day Tags: richard branson
Education and Action for Green Jobs
September 24th, 2009 Earth Day Network No comments
Green jobs were a hot discussion topic at the recent American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) convention. With the help of the Apollo Alliance, the conference focused on a seminar called “Building Green Jobs from the Ground Up.” According to the Apollo Alliance Web site, the seminar covered job creation opportunities in building energy efficiency retrofits, the potential for clean energy measures to revitalize American manufacturing, and the need for labor unions to work in coalition with other interest
groups.
While the AFL-CIO was educating its members on the importance of green jobs, Senator Sherrod Brown’s program, Investments for Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology Act, the IMPACT ACT, was also making strides. The IMPACT Act is a bill to improve domestic clean energy manufacturing and ensure that new clean energy jobs stay in the United States (ww.apolloalliance.org). Over 200 businesses are affiliated with IMPACT and that number is growing steadily.
According to the Sustainable Energy Coalition, at least 4.2 million new green jobs will be created over the next three decades. Organizations like the AFL-CIO and programs like the IMPACT ACT that are advocating for new green jobs are not only on the cutting edge of environmental responsibility, they are also working to decrease the United States’ unemployment rate and stimulating the economy.
Find additional green job resources from Earth Day Network at http://www.earthday.net/greenjobs.
Categories: Uncategorized Tags: green jobs
Earth Day Network Unveils Key Environmental Commitments at Clinton Global Initiative
September 23rd, 2009 Earth Day Network No comments
Earth Day Network is unveiling several key environmental initiatives at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) meeting this week in collaboration with international partners to achieve individual and corporate action in honor of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. The Clinton Global Initiative brings together business, government and civil-sector leaders each year, to plan and launch Commitments to Action to address global economic, environmental and social challenges.
Today, Earth Day Network President, Kathleen Rogers, is attending CGI sessions and two additional team members are onsite staffing the Earth Day Network booth and networking to raise awareness of the A Billion Acts of Green™ campaign.
This week, Earth Day Network and partnering organizations’ commitments will be made public at the CGI meeting and carried out leading up to Earth Day, April 22, 2010. These actions, which will also contribute to Earth Day Network’s A Billion Acts of Green™ campaign, include the following:
• International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), Local Governments for Sustainability USA, is partnering with Earth Day Network to organize and host a Global Day of Conversation on Climate Action on Earth Day. Together the groups will engage 500 mayors worldwide to convene their constituencies for a focused conversation on the power of local action to curb the impacts of climate change.
• Earth Day Network is partnering with VANOC, the organizing committee for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, which will broadcast a series of Public Service Announcements in Olympic and Paralympic venues and in countries focusing on the impact of climate change on sport and the earth. This initiative is part of Earth Day Network’s Athletes for the Earth™ campaign, which will connect well known athletes with the climate change issue.
• Philips is committed to re-lamping 25 under-served American schools. Philips is also encouraging customers, partners and 116,000 employees to join Earth Day Network’s Green Generation™ and perform individual acts of green, starting with replacing inefficient lighting.
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About A Billion Acts of Green™
The centerpiece of Earth Day 2010 service activity is A Billion Acts of Green™, a campaign focused on building significant commitments by individuals, corporations and governments to reduce energy consumption in honor of Earth Day. Additionally Earth Day Network seeks commitments from individuals to participate in the Global Day of Action, which includes the global day of conversation and letter writing, texting and calling government officials about resolving climate change and building green economies.
For more Earth Day Network updates from CGI follow us on Twitter at @EarthDayNetwork.
Categories: environment Tags: cgi09
Costal Clean-Up Day
As waves lapped at the grassy sand of Heron’s Head park on San Francisco’s industrial eastern shoreline Saturday, 85 volunteers picked up old cans, plastic bags, pieces of metal, cigarette butts, beer bottles, paper, glass, knives, shoes and more and put it all in trash bins.
Though just one coastal clean-up effort of 800 happening in California and about 8,000 worldwide on Saturday - International Coastal Clean-up Day – the work here perhaps epitomized both the hope and dire need represented in this annual event. Heron’s Head shoreline park lies in the shadow of a shuttered electric power plant whose waste is alleged to have caused high rates of illness in the neighborhood. And it’s less than a mile upstream from an EPA Superfund site where lead and radioactive waste are being culled from the sandy soil.
“This is part of the mitigation of all the burdens this neighborhood has endured. There are a disproportionate number of folks with health problems here and over 300 toxins have been found in the soil around here,” said Anthony Khalil, an ecologist and educator with the Literacy for Environmental Justice, a local community organization which set up the coastal clean up at Heron’s Head and numerous other parks along the eastern shores of San Francisco.
The 24th annual International Coastal Clean-up on Saturday, which was organized by the Ocean Conservancy and co-sponsored by numerous organizations including Earth Day Network, is expected to have drawn 400,000 volunteers cleaning up more than 7,000 sites around the world. Some are beaches and parks used for recreation but many others are sites being reclaimed from decades of disregard by industry and people dumping garbage into the ocean.
Heron’s Head shoreline park and Khalil’s organization are located in Bayview Hunter’s Point, San Francisco’s poorest neighborhood and a new epicenter of the environmental justice movement. A bitter paste when local industry spewed all sorts of things from these sandy shores are being met here with a new determination among residents to take back their neighborhood and create open spaces for recreation as well as saying ‘enough’ to water pollution.
“It’s really important to show the solidarity among people wanting to clean up our coasts,” said John Viet, a 24-year-old volunteering here that day. “To have a day when folks come to the coasts all around the world and take care of them is amazing.”
Last year, the International Coastal Clean up removed 6.8 million pounds of debris from 6,485 sites in 100 countries and 42 U.S. states. The importance of the day was illustrated by what they found among the garbage: last year volunteers found 443 animals entangled or trapped by marine debris. About half of them were alive. The Ocean Conservancy has not yet reported on the findings or total beach clean-ups of this year. But last year they also found, in places where environmental laws are lax, beaches so choked by debris that plants could not thrive and the local drinking water was contaminated.
“Trash littering our beaches and choking our ecosystems is a threat to wildlife, our coastal economies, and ultimately to the ability of the ocean to sustain us,” said Ocean Conservancy President Vikki Spruill. “The Cleanup gives everyone a chance to work in their backyards and be a part of this special movement to protect our ocean. Trash doesn’t fall from the sky, it falls from our hands, and what falls from human hands – can be prevented.”
In Richmond, California, on Saturday families spread out at the Point Isabel state park shoreline and picked up bits of trash while learning from organizers of the clean up just what harm the garbage was doing. About 120 high school students from nearby cities participated.
“I’m here because it is lab work for my class,” said Jennifer Xhang, a 16-year-old from Berkeley who is part of a whole new generation studying Environmental Science and thinking seriously about what to do to save our oceans and reverse climate change. “I feel like we’re telling people it’s time to care about the environment.”
Categories: environment Tags: india
Earth Day Network’s Education Director Featured in Eco-Structure Magazine
September 21st, 2009 Earth Day Network No comments
In 1970, the first Earth Day had a strong educational message and was intended to raise awareness about environmental issues. This month, Eco-Structure magazine featured Sean Miller, Earth Day Network’s Director of Education who discussed how Earth Day Network implements yearlong campaigns to broaden the environmental movement. Through the National Green Schools Campaign, we made a commitment with the William J. Clinton Foundation, the U.S. Green Building Council, Second Nature, and several other groups to help green America’s schools within a generation. Read Sean’s interview about how we’ve been working to incorporate that idea into our message and programs: http://www.eco-structure.com/toc/the-magazine.aspx
Help Green Your School this year!
Categories: green schools Tags:
No Idling Campaign featured on HealthDigestNews.com
September 15th, 2009 Earth Day Network No comments
Earth Day Network was featured on HealthDigestNews.com today in a story about idling. Recent studies show increasingly alarming results about the negative effects of emissions from idling vehicles. Earth Day Network has partnered with The Clean Air Campaign and The UPS Foundation to launch a national program to reduce idling. The “No Idling Campaign” aims to promote reduced vehicle emissions and healthy lung development in children as well as protect the environment. Read the story today!
To learn more about the No Idling Campaign visit www.earthday.net/noidling.
Categories: idling Tags:
Four years after Hurricane Katrina
September 4th, 2009 Barbara Grady No comments
Four years after Hurricane Katrina’s devastating onslaught of Louisiana, New Orleans is slowly rising from the floodwaters as a green city, building homes lit by solar energy and producing green jobs.
While the anniversary of Katrina reminds us of the destruction and human suffering that global warming can bring, a look at activity in New Orleans today reminds us of the power of human resilience in creating change.
New Orleanians took the environmental lessons of Katrina and developed a green strategic plan, GreeNOLA, for how to rebuild New Orleans as a sustainable, low carbon footprint city. This past year, they’ve stepped up rebuilding activity in implementing GreeNOLA. It covers everything from building energy efficient houses with green building techniques to creating markets for solar and other renewable energies. Plans include LED powered street lights and building LEED certified schools and libraries. With the widespread desire to rebuild green, whole villages are being built around a zero carbon footprint, such as the Holy Cross complex under construction by Global Green USA in the Lower Ninth Ward. And all this work is producing hundreds of green jobs.
“We’re really excited about everything we’re doing,” said John Moore, John G. Moore, energy and Environmental Policy Analyst in the city’s Office of Recovery Management and an author of many of the green initiatives in New Orleans.
While much more work needs to be done in a city where one-third of the housing stock remains boarded up from flood damage and thousands of people continue to live in temporary trailers, locals feel green may be the color of progress.
Among the “biggest success stories,” Moore said, is passage of state legislation creating a generous tax credit for homeowners and homebuilders who install solar panels or solar thermal units. Louisianans can recoup a tax credit of 50 percent of the cost of a solar system for up to $25,000.
“People are definitely making use of this,” Moore said. Buoyed by the success of this credit, the Louisiana legislature more recently passed measures making the tax credits transferable and available to developers and municipalities.
This innovative policy caught the attention of the U.S. Department of Energy which designated New Orleans as a Solar America City for ”using innovative approaches to remove market barriers to solar.” The money and technical assistance that come with the designation will likely accelerate New Orleans transformation to solar.
“So what you have is a big potential for solar to take off in this city as it rebuilds,” Moore said.
The GreeNOLA implementation also includes massive weatherization and energy efficiency work, expanded recycling, alternative energy exploration, flood risk reduction, environmental justices and green jobs creation. Two bio-diesel producers are planning facilities in New Orleans.
Through the federal Weatherization Assistance program available to cities, New Orleans has put hundreds of people to work this year weatherizing houses. But since 80 percent of the housing stock in New Orleans was destroyed by Katrina, a new effort, called the Build Smart Weatherization program, was started to encourage developers and homeowners to build using energy efficiency measures from the ground up.
The Conservation Corps of Greater New Orleans employed 800 New Orleanians in green jobs and green job training programs last year in wetland restoration and building recovery. Meanwhile the Louisiana Green Corps has trained more than one hundred at-risk youth in green jobs. The Louisiana Clean Tech Network has been turning out certified solar electric installers for the burgeoning industry here.
Categories: environment Tags: hurricane katrina
Earth Day Network Partners With The World’s Largest Volunteer Effort for Ocean and Waterways
September 1st, 2009 Earth Day Network No comments
Earth Day Network has formed a unique partnership with Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup, the world’s largest single-day volunteer effort to reduce trash in our oceans and waterways – a widespread pollution problem that is entirely preventable. In an effort to reach A Billion Acts of Green, Earth Day Network is working with Ocean Conservancy to engage individuals in taking steps to help overcome the significant environmental challenges in today’s world.
Last year, nearly 500,000 volunteers participate in the annual International Coastal Cleanup, held on the third Saturday of every September. This year’s event will be held on September 19, 2009. Volunteers will remove trash and debris from their local beaches, lakes, and rivers, as well as keep track of every piece of trash they find. Learn more about the program and find a 2009 Cleanup site.
This initiative will help bring additional awareness to the need for environmental action. As we approach the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day in 2010, we hope that groups will hold their own events to help make environmental changes world wide.
Categories: oceans Tags:
E-waste. American and European approaches
August 31st, 2009 Raul Cazan No comments
Photo by Mihai Stoica
Presently, in the United States (US), there is no Federal mandate to deal with e-waste. While there have been numerous attempts to develop a Federal law, there currently is not a consensus on a national approach in dealing with electric and electronic waste. Each state, however, has its own collection, recycling or reuse of e-waste targets or specific laws. In many ways, the US presents itself like a colorful puzzle where each state has its own approach on how to deal with old computers, TV-sets or phones.
On the flip side, the European Union (EU) has developed an integrated policy regarding e-waste. It is possible that this format is probably overregulated, with too optimistic targets; however, it has generated a positive spill-over effect and NGOs, industry associations and companies across the EU work hard to phase out dangerous substances and to reuse or recycle good pieces of material.
EU legislation restricting the use of hazardous substances in electrical and electric equipment and promoting its collection and recycling has been enforced to Member States since 2003. The two directives provide for the creation of collection schemes where consumers return their used e-waste free of charge. The objective of these schemes is to increase the recycling and re-use of such products. It also imperatively requires heavy metals such as lead, mercury, cadmium, and chromium and flame retardants such as polybrominated biph
enyls (PBB) or polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) to be substituted by safer alternatives. THE TAJ MAHAL
These rules express a beautiful vision and a cleaner EU, yet still almost two thirds of the electric and electronic waste (WEEE) goes to landfills. Eastern European countries, new members of the EU, are rather champions in landfilling. The targets for WEEE collection are extremely high, 4 kg per person. Each individual Member State, however, reflects a different situation. Illegal trade of WEEE with third countries keeps going on a large scale.
Currently, the Commission proposes to set mandatory collection targets. These will amount to 65% of the average weight of electrical and electronic equipment placed on the market over the two previous years in each Member State.
E-waste can be collected and recycled in two different manners: take-back policies of the companies – producers, importers or retailers – or via collective organizations of the aforementioned companies.
Categories: e-waste Tags:
Earth Day Network School Greening Featured on GardenABCs
August 28th, 2009 Earth Day Network No comments
As kids, teachers and parents around the country are gearing up for back-to-school, there is a lot of buzz going around about school gardens. Thanks to Michelle Obama’s White House garden last spring (planted with help of DC Public School students from Bancroft Elementary!), new focus has been shifted to the health benefits and educational enrichments provided by schoolyard gardens and school greening projects. As part of Earth Day Network’s Green Schools Campaign, we have been working with schools around the country for the last few years to add green upgrades and enhancements to the facilities, classrooms and grounds. One of these projects, at Thurgood Marshall Academy in Anacostia, Washington, DC last May, was featured this week as a success story on the school garden share-site www.GardenABCs.com.
We hope this story will provide a successful example of how beneficial school gardens can be for the students, staff, parents and community of any school, and will inspire others to think about how to do this at their schools too! Learn more on how to green your school today!
Categories: green schools Tags: gardenabcs
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Earth Day 40 Continents
• Africa
o AlgeriaAngolaBeninBotswanaBurkina FasoBurundiCameroonCape VerdeCentral African RepublicChadComorosCote d’IvoireDemocratic Republic of CongoDjiboutiEgyptEquatorial GuineaEritreaEthiopiaGabonGambiaGhanaGuineaGuinea-BissauKenyaLesothoLiberiaLibyaMadagascarMalawiMaliMauritaniaMauritiusMoroccoMozambiqueNamibiaNigerNigeriaRepublic of CongoRwandaSao Tome and PrincipeSenegalSierra LeoneSomaliaSouth AfricaSudanSwazilandTanzaniaTogoTunisiaUgandaWestern SaharaZambiaZimbabweAmericas and
•
•
• Caribbean
o United StatesAnguillaAntigua and BarbudaArgentinaArubaBahamasBarbadosBelizeBermudaBoliviaBrazilBritish Virgin IslandsCanadaCayman IslandsChileColombiaCosta RicaCubaDominicaDominican RepublicEcuadorEl SalvadorGreenlandGrenadaGuatemalaGuyanaHaitiHondurasJamaicaMexicoMontserratNetherlands AntillesNetherlands AntillesNicaraguaPanamaParaguayPeruPuerto RicoSaint BarthelemySaint Kitts & NevisSaint LuciaSaint MartinSaint Pierre and MiquelonSaint Vincent and the GrenadinesTrinidad and TobagoTurks and Caicos IslandsU.S. Virgin IslandsUruguayVenezuelaAntarctica
• Asia
o AfghanistanArmeniaAzerbaijanBahrainChinaCyprusGeorgiaIndiaIranIraqIsraelJapanJordanKazakhstanKuwaitKyrgyzstanLebanonMaldivesMongoliaNepalNorth KoreaOmanPakistanQatarRussiaSaudi ArabiaSeychellesSouth KoreaSyriaTaiwanThailandTurkeyTurkmenistanUnited Arab Emirate (U.A.E.)UzbekistanVietnamYemenAustralia
• Europe
o AlbaniaAndorraAustriaBelarusBelgiumBosnia and HerzegovinaBulgariaCroatiaCyprusCzech RepublicDenmarkEstoniaFaroe IslandsFinlandFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryIcelandIrelandItalyKosovoLatviaLiechtensteinLithuaniaLuxembourgMacedoniaMaltaMoldovaMonacoMontenegroNetherlandsNorwayPolandPortugalRomaniaSan MarinoSerbiaSlovakiaSloveniaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandUkraineUnited KingdomFrench Polynesia
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Sir Richard Branson Joins Global Advisory Committee
September 25th, 2009 Earth Day Network No comments
Sir Richard Branson is not only a world renowned entrepreneur, but a philanthropist who cares deeply about tackling important environmental and social problems. He has joined Earth Day Network as a member of our Earth Day 40 Global Advisory Committee and has recently co-authored an op-ed with our President, Kathleen Rogers which is currently running on the front page of CNN.
Global leaders, such as Richard Branson, Al Gore, Shaquille O’Neal and Maya Lin along with thousands of organizations and individuals are joining us to prepare for the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day in April. We are asking the world to work together to halt climate change, promote a green economy and ensure a sustainable future for generations to come.
As global leaders convened in New York City for UN climate change talks this past week at the Clinton Global Initiative and the United Nations, we learned how the world is in greater peril than ever, but there are things we can do.
Participating in activities like our Billion Acts of Green™, volunteering in service projects, advocating to our elected officials and educating the public about easy tasks they can undertake to help achieve real change for the environment are all activities we need your help to achieve. Please join us on this campaign.
Now is a pivotal time for people, businesses and governments to join together to create a global green economy. We have to serve the Earth as well as its people, and come together as we face this defining challenge of our time.
Read Let’s launch the ‘next revolution‘!
Categories: Earth Day Tags: richard branson
Education and Action for Green Jobs
September 24th, 2009 Earth Day Network No comments
Green jobs were a hot discussion topic at the recent American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) convention. With the help of the Apollo Alliance, the conference focused on a seminar called “Building Green Jobs from the Ground Up.” According to the Apollo Alliance Web site, the seminar covered job creation opportunities in building energy efficiency retrofits, the potential for clean energy measures to revitalize American manufacturing, and the need for labor unions to work in coalition with other interest
groups. While the AFL-CIO was educating its members on the importance of green jobs, Senator Sherrod Brown’s program, Investments for Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology Act, the IMPACT ACT, was also making strides. The IMPACT Act is a bill to improve domestic clean energy manufacturing and ensure that new clean energy jobs stay in the United States (ww.apolloalliance.org). Over 200 businesses are affiliated with IMPACT and that number is growing steadily.
According to the Sustainable Energy Coalition, at least 4.2 million new green jobs will be created over the next three decades. Organizations like the AFL-CIO and programs like the IMPACT ACT that are advocating for new green jobs are not only on the cutting edge of environmental responsibility, they are also working to decrease the United States’ unemployment rate and stimulating the economy.
Find additional green job resources from Earth Day Network at http://www.earthday.net/greenjobs.
Categories: Uncategorized Tags: green jobs
Earth Day Network Unveils Key Environmental Commitments at Clinton Global Initiative
September 23rd, 2009 Earth Day Network No comments
Earth Day Network is unveiling several key environmental initiatives at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) meeting this week in collaboration with international partners to achieve individual and corporate action in honor of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. The Clinton Global Initiative brings together business, government and civil-sector leaders each year, to plan and launch Commitments to Action to address global economic, environmental and social challenges.
Today, Earth Day Network President, Kathleen Rogers, is attending CGI sessions and two additional team members are onsite staffing the Earth Day Network booth and networking to raise awareness of the A Billion Acts of Green™ campaign.
This week, Earth Day Network and partnering organizations’ commitments will be made public at the CGI meeting and carried out leading up to Earth Day, April 22, 2010. These actions, which will also contribute to Earth Day Network’s A Billion Acts of Green™ campaign, include the following:
• International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), Local Governments for Sustainability USA, is partnering with Earth Day Network to organize and host a Global Day of Conversation on Climate Action on Earth Day. Together the groups will engage 500 mayors worldwide to convene their constituencies for a focused conversation on the power of local action to curb the impacts of climate change.
• Earth Day Network is partnering with VANOC, the organizing committee for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, which will broadcast a series of Public Service Announcements in Olympic and Paralympic venues and in countries focusing on the impact of climate change on sport and the earth. This initiative is part of Earth Day Network’s Athletes for the Earth™ campaign, which will connect well known athletes with the climate change issue.
• Philips is committed to re-lamping 25 under-served American schools. Philips is also encouraging customers, partners and 116,000 employees to join Earth Day Network’s Green Generation™ and perform individual acts of green, starting with replacing inefficient lighting.
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About A Billion Acts of Green™
The centerpiece of Earth Day 2010 service activity is A Billion Acts of Green™, a campaign focused on building significant commitments by individuals, corporations and governments to reduce energy consumption in honor of Earth Day. Additionally Earth Day Network seeks commitments from individuals to participate in the Global Day of Action, which includes the global day of conversation and letter writing, texting and calling government officials about resolving climate change and building green economies.
For more Earth Day Network updates from CGI follow us on Twitter at @EarthDayNetwork.
Categories: environment Tags: cgi09
Costal Clean-Up Day
As waves lapped at the grassy sand of Heron’s Head park on San Francisco’s industrial eastern shoreline Saturday, 85 volunteers picked up old cans, plastic bags, pieces of metal, cigarette butts, beer bottles, paper, glass, knives, shoes and more and put it all in trash bins.
Though just one coastal clean-up effort of 800 happening in California and about 8,000 worldwide on Saturday - International Coastal Clean-up Day – the work here perhaps epitomized both the hope and dire need represented in this annual event. Heron’s Head shoreline park lies in the shadow of a shuttered electric power plant whose waste is alleged to have caused high rates of illness in the neighborhood. And it’s less than a mile upstream from an EPA Superfund site where lead and radioactive waste are being culled from the sandy soil.
“This is part of the mitigation of all the burdens this neighborhood has endured. There are a disproportionate number of folks with health problems here and over 300 toxins have been found in the soil around here,” said Anthony Khalil, an ecologist and educator with the Literacy for Environmental Justice, a local community organization which set up the coastal clean up at Heron’s Head and numerous other parks along the eastern shores of San Francisco.
The 24th annual International Coastal Clean-up on Saturday, which was organized by the Ocean Conservancy and co-sponsored by numerous organizations including Earth Day Network, is expected to have drawn 400,000 volunteers cleaning up more than 7,000 sites around the world. Some are beaches and parks used for recreation but many others are sites being reclaimed from decades of disregard by industry and people dumping garbage into the ocean.
Heron’s Head shoreline park and Khalil’s organization are located in Bayview Hunter’s Point, San Francisco’s poorest neighborhood and a new epicenter of the environmental justice movement. A bitter paste when local industry spewed all sorts of things from these sandy shores are being met here with a new determination among residents to take back their neighborhood and create open spaces for recreation as well as saying ‘enough’ to water pollution.
“It’s really important to show the solidarity among people wanting to clean up our coasts,” said John Viet, a 24-year-old volunteering here that day. “To have a day when folks come to the coasts all around the world and take care of them is amazing.”
Last year, the International Coastal Clean up removed 6.8 million pounds of debris from 6,485 sites in 100 countries and 42 U.S. states. The importance of the day was illustrated by what they found among the garbage: last year volunteers found 443 animals entangled or trapped by marine debris. About half of them were alive. The Ocean Conservancy has not yet reported on the findings or total beach clean-ups of this year. But last year they also found, in places where environmental laws are lax, beaches so choked by debris that plants could not thrive and the local drinking water was contaminated.
“Trash littering our beaches and choking our ecosystems is a threat to wildlife, our coastal economies, and ultimately to the ability of the ocean to sustain us,” said Ocean Conservancy President Vikki Spruill. “The Cleanup gives everyone a chance to work in their backyards and be a part of this special movement to protect our ocean. Trash doesn’t fall from the sky, it falls from our hands, and what falls from human hands – can be prevented.”
In Richmond, California, on Saturday families spread out at the Point Isabel state park shoreline and picked up bits of trash while learning from organizers of the clean up just what harm the garbage was doing. About 120 high school students from nearby cities participated.
“I’m here because it is lab work for my class,” said Jennifer Xhang, a 16-year-old from Berkeley who is part of a whole new generation studying Environmental Science and thinking seriously about what to do to save our oceans and reverse climate change. “I feel like we’re telling people it’s time to care about the environment.”
Categories: environment Tags: india
Earth Day Network’s Education Director Featured in Eco-Structure Magazine
September 21st, 2009 Earth Day Network No comments
In 1970, the first Earth Day had a strong educational message and was intended to raise awareness about environmental issues. This month, Eco-Structure magazine featured Sean Miller, Earth Day Network’s Director of Education who discussed how Earth Day Network implements yearlong campaigns to broaden the environmental movement. Through the National Green Schools Campaign, we made a commitment with the William J. Clinton Foundation, the U.S. Green Building Council, Second Nature, and several other groups to help green America’s schools within a generation. Read Sean’s interview about how we’ve been working to incorporate that idea into our message and programs: http://www.eco-structure.com/toc/the-magazine.aspx
Help Green Your School this year!
Categories: green schools Tags:
No Idling Campaign featured on HealthDigestNews.com
September 15th, 2009 Earth Day Network No comments
Earth Day Network was featured on HealthDigestNews.com today in a story about idling. Recent studies show increasingly alarming results about the negative effects of emissions from idling vehicles. Earth Day Network has partnered with The Clean Air Campaign and The UPS Foundation to launch a national program to reduce idling. The “No Idling Campaign” aims to promote reduced vehicle emissions and healthy lung development in children as well as protect the environment. Read the story today!
To learn more about the No Idling Campaign visit www.earthday.net/noidling.
Categories: idling Tags:
Four years after Hurricane Katrina
September 4th, 2009 Barbara Grady No comments
Four years after Hurricane Katrina’s devastating onslaught of Louisiana, New Orleans is slowly rising from the floodwaters as a green city, building homes lit by solar energy and producing green jobs.
While the anniversary of Katrina reminds us of the destruction and human suffering that global warming can bring, a look at activity in New Orleans today reminds us of the power of human resilience in creating change.
New Orleanians took the environmental lessons of Katrina and developed a green strategic plan, GreeNOLA, for how to rebuild New Orleans as a sustainable, low carbon footprint city. This past year, they’ve stepped up rebuilding activity in implementing GreeNOLA. It covers everything from building energy efficient houses with green building techniques to creating markets for solar and other renewable energies. Plans include LED powered street lights and building LEED certified schools and libraries. With the widespread desire to rebuild green, whole villages are being built around a zero carbon footprint, such as the Holy Cross complex under construction by Global Green USA in the Lower Ninth Ward. And all this work is producing hundreds of green jobs.
“We’re really excited about everything we’re doing,” said John Moore, John G. Moore, energy and Environmental Policy Analyst in the city’s Office of Recovery Management and an author of many of the green initiatives in New Orleans.
While much more work needs to be done in a city where one-third of the housing stock remains boarded up from flood damage and thousands of people continue to live in temporary trailers, locals feel green may be the color of progress.
Among the “biggest success stories,” Moore said, is passage of state legislation creating a generous tax credit for homeowners and homebuilders who install solar panels or solar thermal units. Louisianans can recoup a tax credit of 50 percent of the cost of a solar system for up to $25,000.
“People are definitely making use of this,” Moore said. Buoyed by the success of this credit, the Louisiana legislature more recently passed measures making the tax credits transferable and available to developers and municipalities.
This innovative policy caught the attention of the U.S. Department of Energy which designated New Orleans as a Solar America City for ”using innovative approaches to remove market barriers to solar.” The money and technical assistance that come with the designation will likely accelerate New Orleans transformation to solar.
“So what you have is a big potential for solar to take off in this city as it rebuilds,” Moore said.
The GreeNOLA implementation also includes massive weatherization and energy efficiency work, expanded recycling, alternative energy exploration, flood risk reduction, environmental justices and green jobs creation. Two bio-diesel producers are planning facilities in New Orleans.
Through the federal Weatherization Assistance program available to cities, New Orleans has put hundreds of people to work this year weatherizing houses. But since 80 percent of the housing stock in New Orleans was destroyed by Katrina, a new effort, called the Build Smart Weatherization program, was started to encourage developers and homeowners to build using energy efficiency measures from the ground up.
The Conservation Corps of Greater New Orleans employed 800 New Orleanians in green jobs and green job training programs last year in wetland restoration and building recovery. Meanwhile the Louisiana Green Corps has trained more than one hundred at-risk youth in green jobs. The Louisiana Clean Tech Network has been turning out certified solar electric installers for the burgeoning industry here.
Categories: environment Tags: hurricane katrina
Earth Day Network Partners With The World’s Largest Volunteer Effort for Ocean and Waterways
September 1st, 2009 Earth Day Network No comments
Earth Day Network has formed a unique partnership with Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup, the world’s largest single-day volunteer effort to reduce trash in our oceans and waterways – a widespread pollution problem that is entirely preventable. In an effort to reach A Billion Acts of Green, Earth Day Network is working with Ocean Conservancy to engage individuals in taking steps to help overcome the significant environmental challenges in today’s world.
Last year, nearly 500,000 volunteers participate in the annual International Coastal Cleanup, held on the third Saturday of every September. This year’s event will be held on September 19, 2009. Volunteers will remove trash and debris from their local beaches, lakes, and rivers, as well as keep track of every piece of trash they find. Learn more about the program and find a 2009 Cleanup site.
This initiative will help bring additional awareness to the need for environmental action. As we approach the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day in 2010, we hope that groups will hold their own events to help make environmental changes world wide.
Categories: oceans Tags:
E-waste. American and European approaches
August 31st, 2009 Raul Cazan No comments
Photo by Mihai Stoica
Presently, in the United States (US), there is no Federal mandate to deal with e-waste. While there have been numerous attempts to develop a Federal law, there currently is not a consensus on a national approach in dealing with electric and electronic waste. Each state, however, has its own collection, recycling or reuse of e-waste targets or specific laws. In many ways, the US presents itself like a colorful puzzle where each state has its own approach on how to deal with old computers, TV-sets or phones.
On the flip side, the European Union (EU) has developed an integrated policy regarding e-waste. It is possible that this format is probably overregulated, with too optimistic targets; however, it has generated a positive spill-over effect and NGOs, industry associations and companies across the EU work hard to phase out dangerous substances and to reuse or recycle good pieces of material.
EU legislation restricting the use of hazardous substances in electrical and electric equipment and promoting its collection and recycling has been enforced to Member States since 2003. The two directives provide for the creation of collection schemes where consumers return their used e-waste free of charge. The objective of these schemes is to increase the recycling and re-use of such products. It also imperatively requires heavy metals such as lead, mercury, cadmium, and chromium and flame retardants such as polybrominated biph
enyls (PBB) or polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) to be substituted by safer alternatives. THE TAJ MAHAL
These rules express a beautiful vision and a cleaner EU, yet still almost two thirds of the electric and electronic waste (WEEE) goes to landfills. Eastern European countries, new members of the EU, are rather champions in landfilling. The targets for WEEE collection are extremely high, 4 kg per person. Each individual Member State, however, reflects a different situation. Illegal trade of WEEE with third countries keeps going on a large scale.
Currently, the Commission proposes to set mandatory collection targets. These will amount to 65% of the average weight of electrical and electronic equipment placed on the market over the two previous years in each Member State.
E-waste can be collected and recycled in two different manners: take-back policies of the companies – producers, importers or retailers – or via collective organizations of the aforementioned companies.
Categories: e-waste Tags:
Earth Day Network School Greening Featured on GardenABCs
August 28th, 2009 Earth Day Network No comments
As kids, teachers and parents around the country are gearing up for back-to-school, there is a lot of buzz going around about school gardens. Thanks to Michelle Obama’s White House garden last spring (planted with help of DC Public School students from Bancroft Elementary!), new focus has been shifted to the health benefits and educational enrichments provided by schoolyard gardens and school greening projects. As part of Earth Day Network’s Green Schools Campaign, we have been working with schools around the country for the last few years to add green upgrades and enhancements to the facilities, classrooms and grounds. One of these projects, at Thurgood Marshall Academy in Anacostia, Washington, DC last May, was featured this week as a success story on the school garden share-site www.GardenABCs.com.
We hope this story will provide a successful example of how beneficial school gardens can be for the students, staff, parents and community of any school, and will inspire others to think about how to do this at their schools too! Learn more on how to green your school today!
Categories: green schools Tags: gardenabcs
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Earth Day 40 Continents
• Africa
o AlgeriaAngolaBeninBotswanaBurkina FasoBurundiCameroonCape VerdeCentral African RepublicChadComorosCote d’IvoireDemocratic Republic of CongoDjiboutiEgyptEquatorial GuineaEritreaEthiopiaGabonGambiaGhanaGuineaGuinea-BissauKenyaLesothoLiberiaLibyaMadagascarMalawiMaliMauritaniaMauritiusMoroccoMozambiqueNamibiaNigerNigeriaRepublic of CongoRwandaSao Tome and PrincipeSenegalSierra LeoneSomaliaSouth AfricaSudanSwazilandTanzaniaTogoTunisiaUgandaWestern SaharaZambiaZimbabweAmericas and
•
•
• Caribbean
o United StatesAnguillaAntigua and BarbudaArgentinaArubaBahamasBarbadosBelizeBermudaBoliviaBrazilBritish Virgin IslandsCanadaCayman IslandsChileColombiaCosta RicaCubaDominicaDominican RepublicEcuadorEl SalvadorGreenlandGrenadaGuatemalaGuyanaHaitiHondurasJamaicaMexicoMontserratNetherlands AntillesNetherlands AntillesNicaraguaPanamaParaguayPeruPuerto RicoSaint BarthelemySaint Kitts & NevisSaint LuciaSaint MartinSaint Pierre and MiquelonSaint Vincent and the GrenadinesTrinidad and TobagoTurks and Caicos IslandsU.S. Virgin IslandsUruguayVenezuelaAntarctica
• Asia
o AfghanistanArmeniaAzerbaijanBahrainChinaCyprusGeorgiaIndiaIranIraqIsraelJapanJordanKazakhstanKuwaitKyrgyzstanLebanonMaldivesMongoliaNepalNorth KoreaOmanPakistanQatarRussiaSaudi ArabiaSeychellesSouth KoreaSyriaTaiwanThailandTurkeyTurkmenistanUnited Arab Emirate (U.A.E.)UzbekistanVietnamYemenAustralia
• Europe
o AlbaniaAndorraAustriaBelarusBelgiumBosnia and HerzegovinaBulgariaCroatiaCyprusCzech RepublicDenmarkEstoniaFaroe IslandsFinlandFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryIcelandIrelandItalyKosovoLatviaLiechtensteinLithuaniaLuxembourgMacedoniaMaltaMoldovaMonacoMontenegroNetherlandsNorwayPolandPortugalRomaniaSan MarinoSerbiaSlovakiaSloveniaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandUkraineUnited KingdomFrench Polynesia
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