Green Daily

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In this country, we're lucky to have the freedom to choose to act any way that we please -- whether it's good or bad for the environment.

Fortunately, more and more Americans are picking energy smart appliances, walking instead of driving, and encouraging our elected officials to support legislation that creates clean energy jobs.

On that last note, Repower America has a 4th of July pledge on their site, letting you declare that you want our country to:

Is Oprah trying to pick a fight with PETA? Will this battle eventually lead to the apocalypse? What's in your shampoo? Why is Leonardo DiCaprio no longer fit to serve as an environment advocate? Today's Eco-Beat has the scoop on all of the latest green news and tips.

Oprah Gives Away Free KFC Oprah has teamed up with the colonel to give everyone in the US a chance to try KFC's latest chicken-shaped meat pieces. If you've paid any attention to PETA over the last couple of years, you know exactly how much they love KFC. This isn't going to be pretty.

How'd You Like $4,500 for Your Hoopty? A "cash for clunkers" plan is inching its way through congress right now that could pay you up to $4,500 to trade in your old gas guzzler for a leaner greener model. Is congress is in the mood to give away more money? We'll have to wait and see.

DiCaprio's Egregious Eco-Blunder For a celebrity activist, one tiny mistake can ruin your reputation in the blink of an eye. When he thought no one was looking, Leonardo DiCaprio asked a waiter for a straw at an NRDC event. The waiter politely informed him that it was a plastic-free event. Oh snap!

Mobsters Breaking into Wind Power Officials in Sicily are investigating allegations that organized crime is trying to force their way into Italy's lucrative wind power industry. Imagine submitting a bid on a wind power contract and waking up the next day with a horse head in bed with you.

How Green is That Herbal Shampoo? Ever wonder just exactly what goes into that delicious-smelling herbal shampoo? If it's not on this list, you may be literally bathing in all kinds of nasty parabens and phthalates. Not such a refreshing thought, huh?

Green in a Flash:

• Giant spiders are invading Australia. Really.
  
• Are retailers going to cut back on their green initiatives?
• Puma has built a store out of re-purposed shipping containers in Boston.

Aside from adding a bunch of those sweet fake bullet hole decals, what could possibly make the Hollywood sign more iconic? Are tree-huggers ready to laugh at themselves? Are you comfortable paying $50K for a glorified golf cart? Today's Eco-Beat has got the scoop on all the latest green news and tips.

Hollywood Sign May Get Solarized The movement to add grid-connected solar panels to the iconic Hollywood sign is growing. Sure, the revolution has been met with some resistance, but now it's got a Facebook page, so it's totally official.

Mike Judge Takes Aim at Tree-Huggers We know that Mike Judge can create a hilarious caricature of conservative, suburban family life. Now, he's launching a new series that will make us laugh, cry, but mostly laugh about an eco-conscious suburban family just trying to make a difference: The Goode Family.

The Official Results are In According to Disney, 2.7 million trees will be planted as a result of Earth's opening weekend ticket sales. 2.7 million tickets = 2.7 million trees planted by the Nature Conservancy in Brazil's Atlantic Forest!

Congressman Backs Cap-and-Dividend Bill When it comes to cap-and-trade, Rep. Chris Van Hollen has a solution that all the fence sitters can understand: a bribe. He wants to divvy up the proceeds and send Americans a monthly check. Before I take a stand, how much might that check be?

Tesla's Model S Gets First Test Drive The Model S has officially been test driven by someone who doesn't get a Tesla paycheck. I'd say the review wasn't exactly glowing. The writer described the Model S as "more like a glorified golf cart than a harbinger of tomorrow tech." Ouch.

Green in a Flash:

• Want an easy way to recycle your households CFLs?
• Fed-Ex Paris is adding pedal powered trikes to its fleet.
• Chrysler's filing for bankruptcy may bring about a greener fleet.

Get ready for European style carbon trading, because here it comes. As the EPA tinkers with the idea of creating a carbon market they first need to know exactly how who's doing the emitting and how much. That's why they've gone public with a proposal to make heavy polluters in the steel, chemical, and auto, and hopefully coal power industries submit annual reports of their overall greenhouse gas emissions to Washington in an effort to monitor America's impact on climate change.

When the EU launched its carbon trading market in 2005, the first couple of years were a major debacle, because the government lacked sufficient data on how much pollution each facility was releasing -- they were also heavily lobbied to give the permits out for free (which they did). Learning from the EU's mistakes, the US plan will most likely have a few years of emissions data in the run up to the opening bell -- if indeed team Obama is able to successfully launch a GHG permitting scheme.

While it's pretty hard to imagine congress stimulating much of anything -- I believe CSPAN could put a raging meth addict into a deep REM slumber in a matter of seconds -- the green car gurus at Plug In America have released their take on the stimulus bill; and they say it's much more stimulating to their package than originally thought. According to PIA's legislative director Jay Friedland, instead of doling out $2B to boost the PHEV movement, there's actually a whopping $12.5B available.

A hefty $6B of this stimulus money comes from the fact that Energy Independence and Security Act which contained a major allotment for the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturers Grant Program, approved in 2007, was finally funded as part of the 2009 stimulus bill (there's that governmental efficiency we crave, right there). Big bucks are also headed towards PHEV charging infrastructure, hybrid car rebates, and advanced battery manufacturing.

Check out Plug in America's full breakdown after the fold.

[via Autobloggreen]

When you've got a spry, eighty-year-old billionaire using all available resources to singlehandedly change the way the entire US uses energy, you've definitely got a situation worth keeping tabs on. Unfortunately, it seems that there's very little good news to report when it comes to the Pickens Plan. Sure, his ginormous wind farm in Texas is proceeding with caution, but some are wondering how the broader movement will weather the hurricane of bad economic news.

Now that gas prices have retreated back from the stratosphere back to a very comfortable (sigh of relief) average of $1.60 nationwide -- is it time for policy makers to initiate a gas tax hike? Before you get too worked up, just let me say that this isn't my idea. A columnist at Forbes.com is arguing that a $1 hike in gas taxes could cut fuel consumption, increase demand for fuel-efficient vehicles, and net the federal government $137B that be used on transportation infrastructure. And if they did it now, it would only sting a little.

A spokewoman for the CPSC, Julie Vallese, says the agency has to carry out the law as written and new safety standards have never applied to items produced before those items go into effect. Vallese added that "The authors of the legislation should have done their homework." Ouch.

Despite congress' failure to pass the latest round of tax credits for renewable energy producers, it looks like the US has taken the gold medal in terms of the world's wind energy production. According to AWEA, the US is now harvesting 19,549MW of power from its windmills, up 2,700MW since the beginning of 2008. That's enough to take the top spot from Germany, although the future of US wind energy is less than certain.

As the number stand, Germany still has the lead in terms of MW installed, they've actually got 23,000MW worth of turbines spinning. It's the superior US wind conditions that T. Boone Pickens has been talking about that have lifted America's production over the threshold. This year, the US is expected to boost its production by 45% -- a pretty impressive jump. Beyond 2008, it's really anybody's guess, since congress has yet to figure out if and/or how they plan to incentivize the building of new wind farms, since the current PTCs expire at the year's end.

[via ENN}

The fact that food prices around the world are rising is not news. In April, we reported that fewer and fewer farmers are accepting payments from the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) to "take land out of production and use it to restore valuable ecosystems."

Intended as a way to create more habitat, prevent soil erosion, and improve water quality, there are roughly 35 million acres of conservation lands that would be farmland, if not for the CRP's efforts.

Currently, if landowners wish to back out of their contract for no-planting early, they face not only a penalty, but reimbursement for payments already received.

On Friday, the Bush administration decided not to pursue the regulation of greenhouse gases. This comes despite the recent G-8 summit at which he agreed to a policy declaration seeking a 50% reduction by 2050.

Why? They claim that such measures would be too hard on the economy.

Bush's Environmental Protection Agency, in a 588-page federal notice discussing whether global warming poses a threat to people's health, miraculously made no finding.

It's been over fifteen years since the Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janiero. In that time, scientists, analysts, pundits and politicians have spent millions of man-hours discussing the agricultural, biological and economic effects of global warming. In spite of all that, however, there seems to have been precious little analysis of the geopolitical security implications of climate change. After all, rising sea levels, decreased access to water, and reduced agricultural output will undoubtedly have a major effect on the stability and might of many countries. Weak governments may fall, strong governments will have to adjust, and people around the globe will find themselves living in a very different world.

The National Intelligence Council recently compiled a report on this very topic. The document, titled The National Security Implications of Global Climate Change Through 2030, is 58 pages long, and has been stamped "confidential," which means that it is a low-level classified document. In spite of this, most analysts assume that the majority of the material contained in the report will be released in a public hearing in Congress that is being held today.

The state joins North Dakota as the two states that now regulate the growth of industrial hemp by local farmers. Not surprisingly, the bill past overwhelmingly in the House and Senate, and was allowed to be passed without the Governor's official signature.

But what is surprising is that, despite coming so far in the biofuels sector, the general public - or at least, the lawmakers - still don't get that hemp is not cannabis. The two plants are cousins, and you'd have to smoke a telephone-sized pole of hemp to get high (and if you have that motivation, well, go for it).

Vermont wants to use the hemp for food products, and as bedding for the state's 140,000 cows. In addition hemp can be used for paper; textiles; insulation; animal food; nutritional supplements; personal care products; and tons more.

The next step? Convince the U.S. Congress that they need to pass the Industrial Hemp Farming Act. Check out Vote Hemp to see how you can help.

via [planetsave]

Last year, the US Congress signed a bill preventing federal agencies from investing money into alternative fuel projects that produce more polluting effects than oil and gas. This was certainly a step in the right direction, but could it possibly be true that Congress is considering a repeal of that bill, in order to explore investments in Canada's tar sands and oil shale projects? Yes, it is true, but environmental groups across North America are fighting to do something about it by petitioning the government through their senators.

In case you're wondering what tar sand is, it's basically a heavy crude oil mixed with sand, clay and rock. The process of extracting and refining it into a usable crude for vehicle and industrial consumption is not only much more expensive to process, but its effect on our environment is much larger than convention oil well drilling. Tar sand extracting does currently occur in North America, and the US does currently invest in it, but with last year's Section 526 bill, we had hoped this practice would have slowed to a halt.

2008 is on pace to be the windiest year ever for the US. That is, in terms of energy production. It's not a huge surprise to learn that wind turbines are selling like hotcakes compared to other years on record, especially with oil going for over $120 a barrel. In the first 3 months of this year, 1,400 MW of wind generating capacity had already already been installed -- that's enough to power 400,000 homes.


In total, 5,600MW worth of wind turbines will be cranking by the end of 2008, edging out the current record of 5,300MW set in 2007. One of the forces driving the wind boom -- aside from a public outcry for renewable energy like we've never seen -- is that developers are in a race to finish their projects by the 4th quarter this year -- just in case congress doesn't extend production tax credits that are now in place. It's hard to imagine lawmakers pulling the tax credits though, when there's $11.5B of wind energy investment capital at stake.