The challenge, launched last year, honored its first winner this past June: a plan for a “Comprehensive Design for a Carbon Neutral World: The Challenge of Appalachia,” submitted by John Todd, a research professor at the University of Vermont and founder and president of Oceans Arks International. And just last month, the institute unveiled its Idea Index, which provides details on entries in every area from community and energy to transportation and water. It’s too much to take in all at once, so today, let’s look at some of the innovative ideas in one area alone: food.

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State Joins North Dakota in Seeking Permission from Feds to Grow Hemp

The Hemp for Vermont Bill was allowed to become law by Governor Jim Hughes on May 29th, without his signature. The bill overwhelmingly passed both the House and Senate several months ago, setting the stage for Vermont’s entrance into the industrial hemp arena.The non-profit advocacy organization Vote Hemp made the announcement, saying the new law regulates growth of industrial hemp by Vermont farmers. The interest in Vermont is for using hemp in food products and bedding for some of the state’s 140,000 cows.

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350.

350. That’s the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide, in parts per million, we need to achieve if we hope to avoid catastrophic changes to our climate and our civilization. The challenge here is that CO2 concentrations have already climbed to 387 parts per million and rose by 2.14 ppm, the highest rate of increase yet, in 2007.

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In Juneau, Alaska, for example, people are proving it’s possible to change our energy-hogging ways literally overnight and still keep a community up and running. The inspiration in their case: an avalanche that severed the hydroelectric power lines serving the remote Alaska capital, cutting off about 80 percent of the city’s available electricity.

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“In New Hampshire, New England Wood Pellet has been expanding its operations and has built a manufacturing facility in New York in order to keep up with the demand for pellet fuels. According to Steve Walker, CEO of New England Wood Pellet, bioheating and pellet fuels in particular are primed to take up a bigger share of the market in the coming years because consumers may be starting to realize that oil prices are going to remain high into the foreseeable future. He points at the cost to energy production ratio as the one of the most important reasons the pellet market will continue to grow.”

Shown here is the Harman Advance model.

“Our mission is to produce and sell high quality yarns from natural fibers and design classic Vermont patterns. Transforming the many types of raw fibers into luxurious and long lasting yarn. The Green Mountain Spinnery helps to sustain regional sheep farming, and to develop environmentally sound ways to process natural fibers,” says their website.

Using vintage equipment, Green Mountain Spinnery creates yarns that take any project from plain to prodigious. Also similar to Hope Spinnery, GMS will spin yarns from fibers that you provide as well. The company has also released its own book of patterns, called The Green Mountain Spinnery Knitting Book, featuring “30 of their best loved contemporary and classic patterns.”

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“These documents paint a picture of an Environmental Protection Agency in crisis. They show the dedicated professional staff of the EPA working hard to do what they are paid to do by the American people - protect our health and our environment. At the same time, we see more and more evidence of Administrator Johnson ignoring the science and the facts, and discarding the advice of his professional staff.”

“I believe this decision will be reversed by the next President or by the courts, but the Administrator can save the taxpayers time and money, and can get us started cleaning up our air if he would simply follow the law, the facts, and the advice of his agency professionals.”

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Photo courtesy of Aleks via Wikimedia Commons.

You might remember me mentioning Vermont Organic’s yarn in the Yearn-Worthy Yarns: Blue Sky Alpacas post. The particular yarn I used for the scarf was their O-Wool Balance yarn (shown at left), which is made from 50% organic wool and 50% organic cotton. The mildly marbled look is beautifully earthy and features a very low itch factor.

In addition to the O-Wool Balance yarn, which now comes in 18 unspeakably exquisite colors, Vermont Organic Fiber Co has two yarns made from 100% organic wool, which is certified organic in both the USA and Europe.

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Furthermore, the widespread state action on auto emissions could persuade the government to enact nationwide fuel efficiency laws, rather than leave a patchwork of state regulations for automakers to work around.

The Christian Science Monitor took a look at what’s happening across the U.S., and predicted some ramifications of the Vermont case:

• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may be prompted to grant California a waiver from the Clean Air Act. This would allow California, along with Vermont and the 10 other states with identical laws, to begin enforcing emission requirements for cars sold in their states.

• Six additional states – Arizona, Florida, New Mexico, Utah, Illinois, and Minnesota – may proceed with their own emissions requirements. All together, the 18 states that have vehicle emission laws or that are exploring them make up about half the U.S. auto market.

• Congress may have to reconsider new fuel-efficiency standards it’s currently weighing (which are not as demanding as Vermont’s). Or they could mandate a tougher federal requirement (more of a long-shot, I’d say).

• Federal judges in two similar cases brought by the auto industry in California and Rhode Island could dismiss those cases if they determine the industry has had its day in court and further proceedings would be redundant.

Groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, and Environmental Defense were party to the Vermont lawsuit, and are optimistic that the judge’s ruling will spur other states to action. The auto industry promised to stricter regulations.

The 12 states with emissions laws already on the books could cut up to 100 million tons each year. Overall U.S. emissions from cars and light trucks total about 1.5 billion tons per year.

Christian Science Monitor
Cybercast News Service

The small town of Brattleboro, Vermont recently announced that it has met the criteria to declare itself a Fair Trade Town. Brattleboro is the second Fair Trade Town in the United States and the third in North America after Woflville, Nova Scotia became the second in April and Media, Pensylvania led the way in January.

The creative Fair Trade Town campaign, which has helped to spread the word about the Fair Trade movement, began in Garstang, England in 1999. At its inception local representative George Foulkes set the bar high for the future of the campaign:

It is a great initiative by Garstang. Not just on behalf of myself, nor just on behalf of the department for International Development, but on behalf of the government I would really like to welcome what is a great initiative… I want to try to ensure that the initiative is followed in many other towns and cities throughout the whole of the United Kingdom and beyond, so that the beacon that has started in Garstang can spread like wildfire through the whole of the country.

His vision is slowly coming to fruition. Over 250 towns and cities are declared to be Fair Trade Towns in the UK and Europe. But what does it mean? Towns and cities that are Fair Trade Towns have met or pledged to meet five goals (PDF), summarized here:

• Sign a resolution pledging to serve only Fair Trade coffee, tea and chocolate at city meetings or in municipal offices.
• The town has a minimum number of retail outlets, based on population, offering at least two fair trade goods.
• As many of the town's major employers as possible have committed to using Fair Trade products.
• The town commits to promoting Fair Trade in cooperation with the local media.
• The town council forms a steering committee to direct promotion efforts and maintain commitment to the goals.

Most every Fair Trade Town resolution also cites a commitment to buying locally produced goods when available as well. The Fair Trade Towns movement is a shining example of grassroots organization and the power of communities to embrace and promote new ideas. In fact the Fair Trade Towns campaign has been so effective throughout the UK that Scotland and Wales have laid out mutual goals toward which to work for Fair Trade Nation status, which includes every town working toward Fair Trade Town status and over half having already achieved it.

During the trip Douglas and members of his delegation will meet with environmental and government officials to expand the market for Vermont businesses and products, and to share sustainable technology solutions as a way of helping to reduce the impacts of climate change. The delegation will also travel to the China International Environmental Protection Exhibition and Conference (CIEPEC), an exhibition for environmental protection products and services.

In January, the Governor introduced what is known as The Vermont Way Forward, an economic development initiative to create jobs through technological advancement, environmental leadership and innovative education. Douglas says that this visit to China will help further those efforts.

“An important part of the Vermont Way Forward is my plan to make Vermont a world center for environmental engineering and technology, I believe this represents the state’s best opportunity to influence climate change and to be a world leader in environmental protection and the development of sustainable technology.”

Vermont's environmental technology and alternative energy expertise includes landfill methane recovery and power generating facilities, wind farms, distributed energy research and development, and Cow Power - the production of energy using methane from cow manure.

Via Vermont.gov