The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced the selection of 240 recipients recommended to receive $62.5 million in grants to protect people?s health and the environment in local communities. These new investments, funded by EPA?s Brownfields Assessment, Revolving Loan Fund, and Cleanup (ARC) grants, provide communities with funding necessary to assess, cleanup and redevelop contaminated properties, boost local economies and leverage jobs while protecting public health and the environment.
?Brownfields sites are community assets and a key component of the Obama Administration?s efforts to provide tools to sustainably revitalize communities and foster economic development,? said Mathy Stanislaus, assistant administrator for EPA?s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response....
Registration opened on May 7 for America?s Home Energy Education Challenge (AHEEC), a national student competition created to help families save money by saving energy. Administered for the Energy Department by the National Science Teachers Association, the Challenge is designed to inspire student interest in science, technology, engineering, and math, while encouraging elementary and middle school students to make smarter energy choices and save energy at home.
The AHEEC has two parts: the Home Energy Challenge and the Energy Fitness Award....
There are many reasons why biking to work rules. You save money, eliminate the stress of parking, get in a quick workout, and now, thanks to Aaron Latzke and David Delcourt, you can even charge your cell phone using kinetic energy generated from your ride! Yeah, we know, pretty awesome.
The Kickstarter campaign for the Siva Cycle Atom was launched a few weeks ago, and with only a few days left to pre-order, the project has already seen more than $110,00 pledged by 1,200 backers....
Clean water is essential to great-tasting beer. Even more, it's critical for public health and the health of a wide range of industries. That's why the Natural Resources Defense Council has teamed up with craft brewing companies to stand up for clean water and to enforce the Clean Water Act.
In April 2013 the non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) brought together two dozen nationally respected craft beer brewers to launch the Brewers for Clean Water Campaign, which aims to leverage the economic growth of the craft brewing sector into a powerful voice for bolstering clean water protection in the United States....
The Sierra Club featured this project in their latest newsletter and if you have a broken umbrella that you just can't seem to bring yourself to throw away, this is the project for you. With some basic sewing skills, you can repurpose that broken umbrella into a reusable shopping bag.
Difficulty Level: 4 | Construction time: 1 to 2 hours
What You'll Need:
?Umbrella ?Sewing scissors ?Pins ?Yardstick or tape measure ?Chalk ?Cutting mat ?Sewing machine ?Thread ?Cutting wheel (optional)
Snip the fabric loose from the umbrella spine, fold it, cut out two squares, and then sew them together along the sides and bottom....
The annual Peregrine falcon banding event will be shown in a live webcast on Tuesday, May 21. The 1 to 2 p.m. banding will be in the Rachel Carson State Office Building auditorium in Harrisburg, Dauphin County.
Biologists will retrieve the young falcons, called eyases, from their nest, weigh them and place a metal band with a falcon-specific code around each bird?s left leg. Wildlife officials and bird enthusiasts will use the band code to monitor the birds after they leave the nest....
The coastal village of Newtok, Alaska, located about 480 miles west of Anchorage, is in the process of being washed into the Bering Sea.
The Ninglick River flows past three of Newtok's sides on its path to the sea, and it's been chipping away at the village at a rate that's only grown more aggressive due to climate change (more than 100 feet of shoreline gone some years), which has been linked to melting permafrost and dwindling protective sea ice.
Have you ever picked something up off the shelf at the grocery store and read the label, only to be confused by what the label actually means? With so many misleading food labels on shelves today, it can be frustrating to try to make sense of them, know which to trust, and what to choose.
Sustainable Baby Steps has collected each one they could find to try to make sense of them for a sustainable and holistic viewpoint – everything from "added vitamins" to even the misleading information on "organic" foods- and to help you know the best choices to make....
Do you plan on spending time near a lake or river this summer? Have you ever wondered if those bodies of water are polluted, and if anything is being done about it if they are?
You might be surprised to learn that the answers have been publicly available for years, but that doesn't necessarily mean they were easily accessible, and understandable.
Recently, the U.S. EPA made it much easier to get this information by developing How?s My Waterway, which makes important water information more widely known and available to the general public. ...
This month will mark the 23rd anniversary of American Wetlands Month, a time to celebrate the vital importance of wetlands to the Nation's ecological, economic, and social health. It is also a great opportunity to discover the important role that wetlands play in our environment and the significant benefits they provide ? improved water quality, increased water storage and supply, reduced flood and storm surge risk, and critical habitat for plants, fish, and wildlife.
Consider doing the following to help celebrate the month, wherever you reside:
Time.com is exhibiting some startling images- timelapse sequences, actually- of the earth over the past 20 years.
Spacecraft and telescopes are not built by people interested in what?s going on at home. Rockets fly in one direction: up. Telescopes point in one direction: out. Of all the cosmic bodies studied in the long history of astronomy and space travel, the one that got the least attention was the one that ought to matter most to us?Earth.
That changed when NASA created the Landsat program, a series of satellites that would perpetually orbit our planet, looking not out but down....
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today approved Pennsylvania?s 2012 final list of impaired waters. The list is part of a bi-annual monitoring and assessment report characterizing the condition of Pennsylvania?s surface waters.
The 2012 list submitted by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) contains 7,009 impaired waters, of which 263 are newly listed including portions of Buffalo Creek and Plum Creek in the Upper Juniata watershed. The list also includes more than 650 stream miles within the Susquehanna River Basin that were added or updated in the 2012 list....
The Solar Impulse, a solar-powered airplane traveling across the United States, on May 4 completed the first leg of its journey after a 20-hour flight from Mountain View, California, to Phoenix, Arizona. The remainder of the itinerary will take the Swiss-made craft from Phoenix to Dallas, Texas, St. Louis, Missouri, Washington D.C., and finally New York City. Venture co-founder Bertrand Piccard piloted the craft. His partner in the venture, Andre Borschberg, will also pilot the plane during the final leg of the U.S....
Grace Communications Foundation has a great article that really sums up why it is important to eat local and support your local farmer! Here are a few highlights.
What is a ?local (or regional) food system??
The term ?local food system? (or ?regional food system?) is used to describe a method of food production and distribution that is geographically localized, rather than national and/or international. Food is grown (or raised) and harvested close to consumers' homes, then distributed over much shorter distances than is common in the conventional global industrial food system....
U.S. consumers spent 2.7% of their household income on home energy bills last year, which was the lowest percentage in 10 years, according to a U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) analysis released on April 18. Also, aggregate home energy expenditures by U.S. households fell $12 billion in 2012 from the 2011 level. Warmer weather contributed to lower energy consumption in 2012, and because household energy expenditures reflect both prices and consumption, these changes resulted in lower household energy expenditures.
On average, households spent $1,945 on heating, cooling, appliances, electronics, and lighting in 2012....
I saw a story about this documentary on CBS Sunday Morning. The film was recently screened across the U.S. during March & April & there are a few more screenings overseas coming up this month. You can buy it on DVD or Download now. Check out the trailer below.
Academy Award winning actor Jeremy Irons is no stranger to taking center stage, but his next role in a documentary highlighting solutions to the pressing environmental problems facing us all, could well be his most important yet....
The National Hockey League (NHL) has partnered with Sterling Planet to reduce the environmental impact of the 2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Sterling Planet is providing the NHL with 12.85 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of Green-e Energy certified renewable energy certificates (RECs) from U.S. wind projects. The purchase will help counterbalance the emissions generated from electricity used at playoff games and team travel to those games. Part of the purchase is being used to match 100 percent of the annual electricity use of the NHL's New York City headquarters....
The dead sea otters arrived at Melissa Miller's Santa Cruz, California, lab with bright-yellow eyes and gums, their livers destroyed.
One by one, Miller, a marine-wildlife veterinarian, eliminated the potential causes of death until "the last thing I was left with seemed so implausible that I thought I was going crazy."
The otters had been poisoned by a "nasty toxin" called microcystin, which is produced by cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae. Such toxins can appear when human sewage and fertilizers run into lakes and rivers, adding nutrients that spur the growth of algae "superblooms," Miller said....
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today released a comprehensive scientific report on honey bee health. The report states that there are multiple factors playing a role in honey bee colony declines, including parasites and disease, genetics, poor nutrition and pesticide exposure.
"There is an important link between the health of American agriculture and the health of our honeybees for our country's long term agricultural productivity," said Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan. "The forces impacting honeybee health are complex and USDA, our research partners, and key stakeholders will be engaged in addressing this challenge."
"The decline in honey bee health is a complex problem caused by a combination of stressors, and at EPA we are committed to continuing our work with USDA, researchers, beekeepers, growers and the public to address this challenge," said Acting EPA Administrator Bob Perciasepe....
