Commuting could take on a whole new meaning with the Safe Road Trains for the Environment (SARTRE) research project funded by the European Commission.

The project, based on the concept of linking vehicles together using wireless sensors, is aimed at finding an inexpensive and environmentally friendly way of getting cars to travel together, convoy style.

The way to do this, according to project SARTRE, is to create road trains of up to eight separate vehicles – cars, buses, and trucks – which has the potential not only to reduce fuel consumption, but also improve journey times and reduce congestion.

Lead vehicles would be driven by a professional driver controlling the road train. Any vehicle could use their sat-nav sensor to determine if a road train’s going their way. If it were, they would be able to approach the moving road train and indicate that they wish to join. The lead vehicle would then take control of the vehicle, positioning it and pulling it closer, allowing the newly joined driver to sit back, relax and enjoy the scenery rather than focusing on driving.

The SARTRE project, scheduled to run for three years, aims to first determine the true feasibility of these “road trains” and then track test it in the UK and Sweden, with further plans for public road trials in Spain.

If successful, road trips as we know them will never be the same again.

Read more about this project here.

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A new study has found that the American health care sector accounts for 8 percent of the country’s carbon dioxide emissions.

The study, conducted by University of Chicago researchers and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, measured how much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases the health care industries (hospitals, scientific research, pharmaceuticals, etc) released. It is the first-of-its-kind calculation of health care’s carbon footprint.

Using the environmental input-output life cycle assessment (EIOLCA) model of environmental impact developed by the Green Design Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University, the researchers were able to determine exactly how much health care activities directly and indirectly affected the environment.

Not surprisingly, hospitals release the largest amount of carbon emissions, mainly due to their high energy needs for temperature control, ventilation and lighting in large and often aging and poorly structured hospital buildings. But interestingly, the second largest contributor of carbon emissions was the pharmaceutical industry, primarily because of associated manufacturing and transportation.

While the researchers realize that hospitals and pharmaceutical companies are more concerned with treating people than the environment, they hope that the results of this study will encourage them to look at ways of providing health care and researching and developing drugs in a more environmentally friendly way.

Image: tacitrequiem

Coffee makes the world go around. Well, at least my world anyway. Without it, I’m a bit like one of  Snow White’s dwarf’s – sleepy, grumpy and dopey.

But I won’t drink just any coffee. Bad coffee doesn’t get past my lips. It not only has to taste good to me but it also has to be good for the environment. Which makes the Seattle based roaster Grounds for Change my perfect coffee match.

And here’s why. Grounds for Change:

- Deals not only in certified organic and fair trade coffee but also shade grown coffee which helps ensure healthy and safe habitats for migratory birds.

- Contributes 1% of all their sales to environmental groups worldwide through the 1% For the Planet organization.

- Their policy of offsetting 100% of the global warming emissions associated with their coffee has resulted in Grounds for Change becoming the first U.S. coffee roaster to obtain a CarbonFree® Certified Product label.

- They use sustainable energy (wind, solar and biomass) through Puget Sound Energy’s green power program. In turn, the energy company gives its customers Grounds for Change coffee as an incentive to join the energy-saving program.

- They support community-based programs in coffee growing countries such as the Café Femenino Mexico program that provides a blend of coffee that is grown, processed and traded exclusively by a group of women in the southern Chiapas state.

In other words, Grounds for Change coffee is seriously green.

In fact, this company is so green that it was one of the top ten nominees for this year’s Green America’s Green Business of the Year award.

All in all, Grounds for Change may be just the right brew for anyone who has a well-developed coffee conscience.

Now, here’s the fun part: leave a comment on this post and you could be one of four EcoSalon winners to receive a free supply of Grounds for Change coffee!

Editor’s note: this is a sponsored post. See giveaway rules.

Energy, that is. With few energy resources of its own, Japan is literally reaching for the stars in its attempt to turn unlimited clean energy into reality by 2030.

The nation’s plan, known as the Space Solar Power System (SSPS), involves positioning huge, floating photovoltaic dishes to hover in the geostationary orbit just outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

These photovoltaic dishes would harvest the solar energy that, at this level, is at least five times stronger than on earth and beam it down to earth through lasers and microwaves. On earth, gigantic antennae, located in restricted areas at sea or on dam reservoirs, would collect and store the solar energy.

This controversial plan sounds like something you’d only find in a Sci-Fi novel.

But the Japanese government thinks it has huge potential. To that end, it has established the Institute for Unmanned Space Experiment Free Flyer (USEF), a consortium of companies (including Mitsubishi Electric, NEC, Fujitsu and Sharp) and scientists who will be working on finding ways of turning the SSPS into reality.

Image: Velo Steve

In a nation embracing all things green, it was just a matter of time before outdoor places – ranging from parks, parking lots and transport corridors to family homes and university and corporate campuses -  ended up with a “green” rating system similar to LEED for buildings and  energy star ratings for appliances (and even churches).

Three years of research by teams of landscape architects, ecologists and engineers from the American Society of Landscape Architects, the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C. and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas-Austin have resulted in the Sustainable Sites Initiative. It’s a 179-page report that includes voluntary national guidelines and performance benchmarks for creating sustainable landscapes.

The SSI is offers a four star rating system for landscapes based on a 250-point scale that measures all actions encouraging regeneration, improving and maintaining ecosystems, supporting sustainability and minimizing water and pesticide use.

To test this rating system, the SSI is currently looking for pilot projects. Any kind of designed landscape of 2000 square feet or more is eligible.

But while the Sustainable Site Initiative and rating system sounds like it’s only aimed at large scale public developments, guidelines and principles can be incorporated by anyone, including homeowners, who are developing or re-landscaping outdoor areas.

For those wanting to create their own sustainable garden, here are some helpful tips to get you started.

1. Create soil-enriching compost from food scraps, newspapers, garden pruning and grass-clippings.

2. Replace “thirsty” plants with indigenous, natives and exotic plants. These plants not only require less care and less water, but also have more resistance to harsh climate changes and local pests and diseases.

3. Planting natives will also attract wildlife to your garden, making it much healthier. Bees and birds will transport pollen around the local area, while other native wildlife often become natural pest removers by eating harmful insects.

4. Use recycled or local products when building garden features such as decks, fences and pathways.

5. Learn to plant strategically to shade the house and reduce runoff. Planting deciduous leafy trees near your home will assist with the energy efficiency of your house. In summer, they block the sun and provide shade, thus reducing the need to use the air conditioner. And in winter, when the leaves have fallen, the reverse happens.

6. Collect rain water in drums or barrels and use for irrigation. This will not only save you money but also will help conserve water.

7.  Consider replacing lawn with native plants, vegetables, or even permeable pavers or gravel.

8. Adding flowers that attract beneficial insects to the vegetable patch will limit the need to spray with chemicals.

9. Establish a drip irrigation system which will ensure water only goes where it’s needed.

Images: Jeremy Levine Design, one2c900d, one2c900d

Unsightly, decaying and unused, the “brown” industrial lands found throughout the United States serve only to remind people of changing technologies and economic downturns. The lands used to house factories and warehouses that hummed with activity and production. Now, they stand empty, overgrown, rusting, falling apart.

On the face of it, these lands appear only as environmental eyesores, but look a little closer and you’ll find these urban industrial sites can hold surprising ecological significance.

Scientists and ecologists around the country are working to redevelop many strategically-located “brown” sites into wildlife refuges and habitats.

Take, for example, the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge, where once chemical factories, power plants and a former missile site were operating. Now, it’s not only the stop-off point for over 300 species of migratory birds that rest, nest and feed there. It’s also home to foxes, raptors, lake sturgeon, the spotted turtle and eastern fox snake.  Aiming to maintain and encourage this activity, the area is due to undergoing revitalization, with plans to restore native vegetation, cap polluted soils, restore native vegetation, and re-establish the natural shoreline.

This is just one of many restoration projects happening around the country. To learn more, have a read at emagazine.

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Anyone who subscribes the KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid) philosophy will appreciate the results of this new study recently completed by Thomas Dietz and his colleagues at Michigan State University.

In a first of its kind study, the researchers examined the potential emissions reduction (PER) of 17 well-known energy saving actions that individuals already do or could do without any major lifestyle disruption and minimal to little damage to the wallet.

What they found was that if these 17 simple household actions were universally adopted by Americans, US carbon emissions could be reduced as much as 7% over the next 10 years. The actions include:

- Home weatherization

- HVAC equipment

- Changing HVAC air filters

- Tuning up AC

- Installing low-flow showerheads

- Using an efficient water heater

- Using energy saving appliances

- Buying low rolling-resistance tires

- Driving a fuel-efficient vehicle

- Sticking to routine auto maintenance

- Lowering the laundry temperature

- Lowering the water heater temperature

- Reducing standby electricity use

- Trying minor thermostat setbacks

- Line drying clothes

- Employing conservative driving behavior

- Carpooling and trip-chaining

They’re easy changes all. So, the next time someone asks you what the average person can really do to combat global warming, you can say that according to Dietz and colleagues, plenty.

Image: Andy_5322

It’s a question we may hear asked more and more. Judges in England recently had to decide whether green beliefs have the same rights and protections as religious or philosophical beliefs.

The case in question is between an environmentalist, Tim Nicholson, who claims he was unfairly dismissed because of his “philosophical belief about climate change and the environment,” and his former employer, Grainger plc, who maintains that the dismissal was based “Solely by the operational needs of the company during a period of extraordinary market turbulence.”

Nicholson, who says his green beliefs affects the way he lives his whole life, wants to seek compensation from Grainger for unfair dismissal. In order to do so, he needed the court to rule on whether he could use the Employment Equality (Religion and Belief) Regulations, 2003 – special legislation which protects people’s rights to hold religious and philosophical beliefs at work – to bring his case to the employment tribunal.

In March of this year, at a pre-hearing review, an employment judge held the view that it did.

Grainger appealed against this, arguing that Nicholson’s views were not the same as religious or philosophical beliefs.

At the appeal, Mr Justice Burton confirmed the early view saying, “If a person can establish that he holds a philosophical belief which is based on science as opposed, for example, to religion, then there is no reason to disqualify it from protection.”

It’s a landmark decision which will, for the first time, provide to employees who believe that they are being discriminated against for having strong environmental views the right to bring compensation claims against their employers.

What do you think?

Image: smlp.co.uk

Watch out Washington, Erin Brockovich is coming your way. And it’s not a social visit. She’s on a mission to shake, rattle and overhaul the nation’s toxic chemical laws, in particular the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

The TSCA, which was passed in 1976, is seriously outdated and  offers the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) no real authority to obtain information needed to evaluate whether a chemical used in home products is or isn’t a health and safety risk.

A reformed TSCA, drafted by Senators Frank R. Lautenberg (NJ) and Representatives Holida Solis (US Secretary of Labor) and Henry Waxman (CA), will be going through Congress this fall. A main component of this draft is the requirement that chemical manufacturers conduct safety testing before a chemical is used in products. The new Act would further require that the safety testing information be made available to the public.

These are actions that you would think happen automatically. Sadly, that isn’t the case. In fact, in the past 33 years, the EPA, due to its limited authority under the TSCA law, has required testing on just 200 of the more than 80,000 chemical compounds developed for products used in the home.

And that’s where Brockovich comes in. She has teamed up with the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families (SCHF) coalition, Autism Society of America, Breast Cancer Fund, the American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and Seventh Generation (a  leading brand of non-toxic and environmentally safe household and personal care products).

Together, they have organized a Million Baby Crawl on Washington in support of the reformed TSCA or Kids Safe Chemical Act. The Million Baby Crawl, while symbolic in nature, aims to first of all create awareness amongst parents about the need for and the importance of the Toxic Chemical legislative reform, and second, to collect a million signatures to present to Washington in January 2010 when the voting on the toxic reform legislation occurs.

Further reading: Seventh Generation for EcoSalon

Image: brunkfordbraun

Buying food really was a whole lot easier a hundred years ago. There was less choice, the food was usually homegrown or locally grown, and there was little in the way of additives and preservatives. Plus, the shoppers back then didn’t have to read the food labels to find out how many nutrients, calories or fat content a product contained.

Today’s shopper, on the other hand, is spoilt for choice. But along with the choice come responsibilities and obstacles – the 100 mile rule, organic vs. non-organic, food labels, sugar content, trans fats, preservatives, packaging, BPA – that can make a trip to the supermarket seem more like a university exam than a shopping expedition.

And just when you thought it couldn’t get more complicated, the Swedes, who have been at the forefront of many new carbon emission reduction initiatives (including burning bunnies for fuel) have come up with new food guidelines and labels that will list a food’s carbon-emissions rating.

It’s part of an experiment that the Nutrition Department at the Swedish National Food Administration is running in an attempt to encourage people to consider not only their health but the health of the environment when they are choosing the food they eat.

This experiment came about following a 2005 study by Sweden’s national environmental agency that determined that a quarter of their national per capita emissions was directly attributable to the food Swedes ate, such as meat, farmed salmon, greenhouse tomatoes, bananas, rice, bottled water and soda.

As a result, the National Foods Administration has created food guidelines that highlights better food choices that work for both the environment and people’s health.

If all Swedes were to follow the guidelines set out by the National Foods Administration, it is estimated that Sweden could cut carbon emissions that result from food production by 20 to 50 percent.

Along with the guidelines, new “climate declared” food labels will be appearing on food products found in grocery stores and on restaurant menus around the country. Each label will list the amount of carbon dioxide emissions that result from the production of each food product.

It will be worth watching to see how effective Sweden’s new food guidelines and labels actually are.

To find out more, read this New York Times article.

Image: timsamoff