By Matter Network •
April 20, 2009
On an unusually warm and sunny April Sunday, Portland Mayor Sam Adams accepted a Solar America Cities Award from the Department of Energy and pledged to greatly expand the amount of solar power in the city. Portland was one of 25 cities to have earned the Solar City award in 2007-8 which included a matching grant of $200,000 to be used for outreach to consumers about the viability of solar in the often cloudy Northwest, and to work with private [...]
By Becky Striepe •
December 22, 2008
Jaime Lerner is obsessed with cities. Specifically, he is obsessed with improving their sustainability through urban planning.
[Curitiba, where Jaime Lerner served three terms as mayor. Creative Commons photo by Felipe Freeze]
He transformed the city of Curitiba, Brazil while he was mayor there and now helps urban planners across the world build and improve cities.
Live in one of the U.S.’s 50 largest cities? SustainLane wants to hear from you.
The group that brings you its annual SustainLane U.S. City Rankings wants to jazz up this year’s listings with resident-written reviews and commentaries about how green — or not — the cities they live in are. Submissions that make the cut will earn you $100 … but you’ve got to move fast, because the deadline is tomorrow, Friday, Sept. 12.
By mygreenelement •
June 24, 2008
Over the weekend, former President Bill Clinton addressed the U.S. Conference of Mayors, urging them to go green for the sake of the planet and their economies. Clinton boasted that his Clinton Climate Initiative will pump $5 billion into building retrofits in over 40 U.S. cities.
Large companies are also investing in green cities. CBS just announced a private-public partnership to bring green solutions to Miami, Chicago and San Francisco.
In many ways, cities have been ahead of State and Federal environmental efforts for the last few years. In July 2007, 600 U.S. Mayors signed a Climate Protection Agreement, pledging to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. There have been numerous notable investments across North America in public transportation and green roofs (Chicago comes to mind) and buildings. To learn more about one of the greenest cities in North America, I would check out Vancouver’s Sustainability website.
By Max Lindberg •
November 13, 2007
Not only have the survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita had to suffer unimaginable indignities, now an exclusive report from MSNBC says nearly all the trailers and mobile homes offered as housing contain high levels of formaldehyde gas. According to the report, some levels were 70 times the long-term standard.
The Sierra Club and a Galveston, Texas law firm conducted the tests. The law firm is involved in federal litigation against the manufacturers of the travel trailers and [...]
By Max Lindberg •
September 20, 2007
85 year old Liz Moore is nobody’s fool. The minute she laid eyes on Syncrude’s Canadian Oil Sands operation in Alberta, Canada, she knew some terrible things were happening to the ecology of that area. While touring the company’s site, she took pictures of land not reclaimed, a few snapshots in the visitors center, and came home to Colorado bound to tell a story. She set
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By Max Lindberg •
September 6, 2007
If a person pays attention, they can turn common situations into a positive energy saving message. That’s what today’s guest does very well with an interesting and informative website called Energy Boomer.
He tells the story of a bat that helped him find areas that would leak heat, and the story of that grasshopper. He shares his views on ethanol and electric automobiles, but you may not agree [...]
By Max Lindberg •
August 31, 2007
The people whose land we occupied so many years ago have not been given their fair share of our prosperity. Right now, there are more than 10,000 Native American households in Arizona that have no access to electricity. Shamefully, that’s 7% of all Native American households without electricity in America.
Arizona is making an effort to bring electricty to it’s Native American residents through a new program called the Tribal
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By Max Lindberg •
August 2, 2007
This is the story of three women, two sisters from Chile and an activist who lives in Canada. Ten years and several thousand miles separate their stories, but the message is the same: seniors get things done.
The first picture is that of Nicolasa Quintreman, who lived in an area of southern Chile along a river called the Biobio. She and her sister became active protesters when plans were made to build
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By Max Lindberg •
July 26, 2007
Here’s another one who thinks nuclear power is the energy panacea we all need, and that renewable energy production is, as he states, "a rape of nature." Strong words and I just had to talk about it. The story comes from Science Daily, and there’s also a link to Nuclear Waste Storage that pretty well explains the problem, and takes a good look at the controversial Yucca Mountain storage facility in
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By Max Lindberg •
July 20, 2007
The small (25,000 pop) South-Central Nebraska city of Hastings, recently captured the title of "America’s Greenest City". Hastings was one of more than 300 communities across the country competing in Yahoo’s "Be A Better Planet", Greenest Cities in America" challenge.
The city received a grand prize of $250,000, and Mayor Matt Rossen told me the community is now planning how to best
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