Sustainable agriculture group asks Congress to act on climate change legislation
The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition joined seventy-six other sustainable agriculture and environmental groups to urge Congress to pass climate change legislation during this current congressional session.
In a letter delivered today to the US Senate, the Coalition said any climate change and energy legislation “must include measures to increase the use of sustainable and organic farming systems to increase the ability of our nation’s agricultural soils to sequester large amounts of carbon.” These systems would, the group said, improve the soil, lower farmers’ contribution to greenhouse gas levels and help farmers adapt to and survive rapid changes in climate.
For more on this story, see http://3.ly/r6sw.
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Solar Day – celebrate the opportunities of renewable energy
After thirty years, the importance of Earth Day is recognized globally. But another environmentally-related celebration is fast on its heels.
June 19th is the second annual celebration of Solar Day, an event honoring solar as an alternative way of providing electricity and light to an estimated more than 1.6 billion people with no direct access to it.
Solar Day will focus on aspects of green living and climate change, with events throughout the U.S. to educate consumers about renewable energy programs, rebates and incentives that are available at city, state and federal levels.
Last year was a sort of virtual event, said Addison Huegel, Executive Director of Solar Day 2010, with one physical [...]
Green Events Update
2010 has seen some fantastic green events already. As eco innovation develops and more and more consumers demand sustainable companies it is important to keep on top of the new trends, technologies and fashions in the eco-friendly world! Eco-online stores are your first stop to learning more about going green but if you want to check out the products, services and technology first hand look no further than these fantastic events:
Earth Day – The 40th Anniversary – April 22nd 2010
Marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970.
Real Food Festival – 7th to10th May 2010, Earl’s Court
Discover some of the best food and drink [...]
Earth Day – Reflect and Celebrate!
Today, 22 April is Earth Day. I wanted to think about the past year and what has happened. No, I don’t want to regale you with more horror stories from the Grass roots today, I want to instead tell you some of the things I notice about this past year.
The awareness of the damage we are doing to our precious Earth, with pollution, extinction of species, contribution to acceleration of global warming and reckless pursuit of industrials in fragile areas – has never been so high!
Thanks to everyone at the grass roots that tried to make a small difference.
Thanks to the people who wrote blogs, created green awareness websites, talked [...]
Taxpayer Dollars Subsidizing Destruction
By Lester R. Brown
One way to correct market failures is tax shifting—raising taxes on activities that harm the environment so that their prices begin to reflect their true cost and offsetting this with a reduction in income taxes. A complementary way to achieve this goal is subsidy shifting. Each year the world’s taxpayers provide at least $700 billion in subsidies for environmentally destructive activities, such as fossil fuel burning, overpumping aquifers, clearcutting forests, and overfishing. As the Earth Council study Subsidizing Unsustainable Development observes, “There’s something unbelievable about the world spending hundreds of billions of dollars annually to subsidize its own destruction.”
The perverse nature of harmful subsidies is especially apparent [...]
Coloring Earth Green with Aaron Brothers
Climate change and the environment have captured national attention.
Getting kids involved in the conversation is key to inspiring the younger generation. Aaron Brothers Art & Framing has come up with a fun way to do just that.
In honor of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, art store Aaron Brothers is sponsoring a national kids art contest called Coloring Earth Green.
Teachers can use a free kit called “Green Thought Starters” for ideas and “eco-easy” tips to teach children how to go green. The kit - which teachers can download - includes “Coloring Earth Green” art entry examples, along with coupons for teachers, parents and friends.
The contest has two age categories – children ages 5 [...]
Climate Citizen of the Week: Shilpi Misra
Congratulations to Shilpi Misra this weeks Climate Community Citizen of the Week!
Shilpi is a High School student in Tennessee, and has been involved with several eco-organizations including working with The Climate Project (TCP) and Inconvenient Youth- both of which have their roots in the importantwork of former Vice-President Al Gore. We met Shilpi through our friends at TCP, and have been very impressed with her. In addition to her school work and current efforts – Shilpi has written several posts for us – and will soon be posting several videos that she and her classmates have made!
The following is a breif bio that we asked Shilpi to [...]
Climate Citizen of the Week: Archibald England
Congratulations to Archibald England this weeks Climate Community Citizen of the Week!
Archibald is a student at The University of Chicago and participated in our recent Chicago Challenge. In the Challenge students were asked to comment on the proposition: Agree or Disagree: The United States should end ALL fossil fuel subsidies. The entire question can be found at Citizen of the Week Special Contest and was posted by another one of our winners Kyle Gracey who is a teaching assistant to Professor Sabina Shaikh (one of our founders and authors).
The following is the answer that Archibald submitted:
Agree: Fossil fuels create negative externalities in production and consumption, with this cost coming [...]
Link Sunday
A download of our favorite stories and links from the past week. Enjoy!
1. From Scraps to Seedlings explores how to use eggshells, cardboard, and other household waste to grow vegetables. Hooray for reuse! And cool photos.
2. The Double-Edged Sword of Incentives for renewables, an excellent look at what is needed to really help the renewables industry grow (and what would be well-intentioned but could lead to collapse.)
3. Ok, it’s not hard news, but this video of a golden retriever in a small boat watching orcas swim mere feet away is a GreenPress editor’s favorite. Give it a shot! Some cute on a Sunday never hurt anyone.
4. Climate Change in the [...]