It’s always a good time to install solar panels, buy an Energy Star rated appliance or swap your clunker for a hybrid. But we all know Federal and state tax credits and grants make it easier to get the gain without the pain.

“Solar systems typically run $20,00 to $30,000 for homes but with the credits, including  new grants coming available in California, you probably won’t spend more than $10,000,” says Noel Cotter of Luminalt, a San Francisco solar electric and thermal contractor.

Cotter directs visitors to his site to various city incentive programs, such as GoSolarSF for low income residential projects, as well as  the California Solar Initiative, a state rebate that when combined with federal tax credits can cover half or more of the system installed in San Francisco. It’s good to locate programs in your own city, whole checking out the federal programs.

Here are a few credits to entice you:

Home Energy Efficiency Improvement Tax Credits

U.S. Department of Energy: Tax Credit of 30% of the cost up to $1,500 (Cash for Caulkers). Encourages home improvements through rebates for  installing energy-efficient windows, insulation, doors, roofs and heating and cooling equipment in existing homes through December 31, 2010. Energy Star has a list of some of the appliances (furnaces, stoves, water heaters) and materials (panels, bulk insulation, metal and asphalt roofing) that qualify for the credits while also giving you great returns in lower energy bills.

Replacing Your Windows: Part of the IRS Stimulus and Recovery package signed into law Feb. 17, 2009: Raises the level of credits for windows, doors and skylights to 30% and increases the lifetime cap to $1500 for installations prior to December 31, 2010. Which windows get a break? They must have a combination of a less than 0.30 or less U-Value and a0.30 or less SHGC (Solar Heat Gain Coefficient). Window manufacturers are stepping up the ad campaigns now to get you to make the switch. You are advised to retain your NFRC certification label with their records, even though you don’t need to submit it with your tax return.

Home Buying Incentive

The Fed: In some cities, it’s challenging if not impossible to live the American dream of owning your first green home, but credits take a bit of the sting out of the process for those who can buy. Congress has extended the $8,000 credit ($4,000 for those filing separately) for first purchases. And an amendment added gifts a $6,500 break to current homeowners who have owned and lived in a home for any five consecutive year period during the last eight years (and must close a sale after Nov. 6, 2009 and before July 1, 2010). Naturally, there are other restrictions. The home’s price tag cannot exceed $800,000 and the income limit for individuals is $75,000 to $125,000 and for joint filers, $150,000 to $225,000.

State Incentives: CA Franchise Tax Board: States like California are desperate to stimulate the economy. That is why Governor Arnold has proposed extending and expanding the $10,000 homebuyer tax credit to include the purchase of existing homes in addition to new homes for first time buyers. The buyer must be a dependent and must buy a home that doesn’t belong to a family member. The tax board will extend the credit to buyers until the $200 million dollars in tax credits have been used up. Check with your state and learn what is being proposed to get taxpayers back on track.

Green Jobs, Too: California green industries putting jobs in place by 2014 could get in on hundreds of millions of dollars in tax credits as part of President Obama’s $2.3 billion package to stimulate new clean energy jobs.

Buying or Leasing a Hybrid Car or Truck

The IRS: For vehicles in service purchased on or before December 31, 2010 that are primarily driven in the U.S. The amount of credit on new hybrid gas-electric cars or trucks depends on the fuel economy and weight of the vehicle. Sadly, Toyota and Honda hybrids no longer qualify. Hybrids that apply are those using less fuel than the average vehicle of a similar weight that meets an emissions standard qualify. These tax credits are phased out once the manufacturer has sold 60,000 eligible cars and trucks. A summary of the credit requirements for these cars is provided here. Various 2010 models can be found here.

Hybrid Cars says the biggest impact on green cars is the new tax credit for low-speed neighborhood electric vehicles, electric motorcycles, and three-wheeled vehicles. NEV’s – which cannot go faster than 25 mph – can earn the buyer a credit of up to $2,500, and has been slammed as “pork for golf carts.” Tesla Roadsters and a small number of other costly low-production plug-ins qualify.

Images: waynenf, jurvetson, Ian Muttoo, pfala

It has all the straight-faced sincerity of a legitimate PSA – the weepy, corny variety we usually see before a feature film.

But this mock Public Service Announcement – called Protect Insurance Companies – hits home with the kind of wake-up-and-smell-the-corruption sarcasm that makes you want to storm Washington and burn flags once again (even though we never really do it).

Written by Lauren Palmigiano, Chad Carter and Peter Koechley, it features Will Ferrell, Jon Hamm and other stars making the claim for why insurance executives shouldn’t have to sacrifice their profits and benefits for Obama’s health reforms.

The actors tells us as the health care debate heats up, we have to remember who the real victims are: the insurance companies, who have been looking out for us for so long. It’s time we look after their interests.

“Why is Obama trying to reform health care when insurance companies are doing just fine making billions of dollars in profits?” asks Ferrell. “Insurance company CEOs have the right to their American dream!”

Among the dreams cited, $500 million in your pocket, several homes and a zoo in your yard for exotic animals like white tigers and Pigmy horses.

Among the most laughable lines of this send up (sponsored by Moveon.org) is that insurance companies offer great variety. “They can change the price and terms of your plan at any time or stop covering you all together. Do you want to get rid of those options?”

Is this a good way to get the word out? You betcha!

Fighting for a hybrid in every garage is cake compared to the battle to allow an outdoor clothesline in every yard. Still,  advocacy groups like Project Laundry List are urging a return to the days before newfangled cleaning machines drained our electric bills and resources – a time when nobody flinched at the sight of a big bra or jockey shorts flapping in the wind.

Why do these soldiers refuse to fold?

The advocacy group New American Dream calculates that if every American home switched to cold water for four out of five loads, together we can save $6.7 billion per year and keep nearly 50 million tons of carbon out of the atmosphere – the equivalent of removing 10 million cars from the road.

If only 40% of those households also line dried their clothes, the annual carbon savings would more than double.

Founded by Alexander Lee of Condord, NH, Project Laundry List has established a website that tracks states with ordinances banning outdoor clotheslines, such as Oregon. You can watch a compelling CBS video on the site of a feature Bill Geist did about a Bend woman engaging in civil disobedience in her subdivision by fighting for her right to conserve energy.

Nationwide, some 300,000 communities with home owner associations restrict outdoor laundry hanging, according to the Community Associations Institute.

Lee and others argue it is ridiculous to have to fight to hang clothes in your own backyard, and has spurred a national movement of likeminded enviromentalists. He has gone so far as to suggest the Obama White House reinstate clotheslines on the lawn as it once had in the early 1900s. You can vote for this as well, on the site.

Lee and his Laundry List have weight behind them with board advisors that include famed forward thinker,  Dr. Helen Caldicott and Dick McCormack, a former Vermont State Senator who re-introduced the Right to Dry bill in 1999, which his brother had introduced almost 10 years earlier. It resulted in passage this year, making it no longer a crime to do the right thing.

Helping push the bill along in Vermont was the owner of the wholesome Vermont Country Store. Owner Lyman Orton has written editorials in his national catalog and other media to egg on  homeowners to “set up a clothesline and hang your wash out even if you live in a neighborhood or subdivision where doing so is prohibited.” He asks rhetorically, “Is it not the height of snobbery to ban hanging clothes out to dry?”

Even before Vermont lawmakers got their act together, Orton was selling clothesline products, such as sheets specifically designed to billow in the breeze.

There are many such “Laundry Heroes” identified by Project Laundry List, including actress Daryl Hannah, Vermont Governor Jim Morris and Premier Dalton McGuinty of Ontario, Canada (above), who signed a rule allowing millions in the Province of Ontario to hang dry to their heart’s content.

To review more of the group’s accomplishments, check out the site and see what you can do to further the cause. Your backyard is standing by and waiting for you to feed it a line.

Ontario premier lifts outdoor clothesline ban (CTV.ca)

Images: Cyron, Vermont Country Store, CTV

The Department of Energy was asleep at the wheel, but  tough new national appliance standards for 26 common household and business products during President Obama’s term could slash total U.S. electricity use by over 1,900 terawatt hours (1.9 trillion kilowatt hours) by 2030.

The savings to the consumers and businesses: Over $123 billion.

This was the findings of a report released by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) and the Appliance Standards Awareness Project (ASAP). It  figures the standards will make a huge contribution to our efforts to cut global warming pollution by eliminating 158 million tons per year by 2030, roughly the amount emitted by 63 large conventional coal-fired power plants.

It’s a win-win situation when the feds  commit to working with makers of water heaters, home furnaces and refrigerators to cut emissions and return money to the American taxpayer.

In the report, called Ka-BOOM, U.S. electricity use in 2,000 saw a 2.5% reduction due to existing standards, before all the power players were on board.

By 2010, the savings will grow to a projected 7% reduction and a 12% reduction by 2030. The authors say even greater gains could have been met had the DOE met the legal deadlines for updated standards that passed without any action between 1994 and 2004.

Here are some of the numbers highlighted by Grist:

• Over 1,900 terawatt-hours saved by 2030, or roughly enough power to meet the total electricity needs of every American household for 18 months.
• About 65,000 megawatts of peak demand savings in 2030, or around 6 percent of total U.S. generating capacity projected for 2030.
• About $123 billion in net present value benefits from products purchased through 2030.
• 158 million metric tons of carbon dioxide avoided in 2030, or 2.6 percent of total U.S. projected emissions in that year—equivalent to taking 30 million cars off the road.
• Existing standards have saved every household $2,800 dollars and standards set in the next few years will save an additional $1,100.

The Obama administration has put energy standards as the top priority of its energy plan. The President’s memorandum, combined with court orders and Congressional deadlines, require that the DOE complete new standards for 26 products by 2013.

Among the products targeted are pool heaters, incandescent reflector lamps, refrigerated vending machines, residential water heaters, furnace fans, battery chargers, commercial clothes washers and walk-in coolers and freezers.

Why are standards so crucial? The benefits are huge for the nation in terms of lowering bills, reducing greenhouse emissions and other pollutants, lowering peak electric demand levels and reducing the strain on the electric grid. Plus, it minimizes the need to build new costly power plants and alleviates the pressure on overall energy prices.

Image: pasukaru76

When you’re curled up on the couch, sniffling and shivering, with a pounding headache and aching body, it’s hard to imagine any such thing as a good virus. But according to scientists, many viruses have the potential to help, rather than hurt, humans. Over the years, this has been proven time and again. For example, in 1952 Martha Chase and Alfred Hershey used viruses to help establish that DNA, rather than protein, forms the basis of heredity.

And now, some MIT researchers have figured out a way to genetically engineer common bacteriophage viruses (that is, viruses that infect bacteria but are harmless to humans) and put them to work building rechargeable lithium-ion batteries in the form of a plastic film. The result – a new generation of batteries that would have the energy capacity to power personal electronic devices such as iPods and cellphones and might even be powerful enough to be used in plug-in hybrid cars.

As described in the April 2nd online edition of Science, these new batteries could be produced cheaply and be nontoxic to the environment. A prototype of the battery was taken to the White House last week when the MIT president met with President Barack Obama to discuss federal funding needs to help advance research and production of new clean-energy technologies.

Image: dawnzy58

I’d like to say that Michelle Obama is one smart lady. She’s doing something that many of us garden-loving idealists have been wanting for a long time: planting a White House veggie garden. Not since Eleanor Roosevelt’s WWII Victory Garden has there been such extensive planting at the White House.

Visible from E Street, an 1,100 square foot piece of south-facing lawn is being filled with raised beds and will be planted with 55 varieties of vegetables, berries and herbs, with surplus to be donated to a nearby soup kitchen. Michelle Obama said that feeding her own children was what inspired her to start a garden, as they have been more curious about trying new fruits and veggies if they’ve seen where they’ve been grown or met the actual farmers.

Of course the fresh, local produce will be greatly enjoyed by the First Family and the White House staff, but this garden will have eco-educational value as well; the highly visible White House garden’s soil will be amended with kitchen compost, crab meal and other natural fertilizers, and will use beneficial insects for pest control. Obviously our First Lady doesn’t want her kids eating petroleum-based fertilizers or chemical pesticides any more than you do!

This action shows the Obamas literally putting their walk where their talk is, and, dare I say it, it’s (eco) change we can believe in.

Source: NYTimes

Image: Treehugger

Our planet is in peril and it seems there’s more grim environmental news every day. Of course, it’s important we recognize the gravity of the situation so we can change rather than continuing blithely in our old, polluting habits. But the relentless delivery of bad news makes it easy to succumb to despair and the natural human reaction to despair is inaction.

We need hope. Not blind optimism that it’ll be all right in the end, even if we don’t change our ways. But genuine hope that if we all pull together and make a sustained, dedicated effort, then we can turn the ship around.

We’re not praying for a magic wand (though that would be nice), but we want to believe that our efforts will not be in vain. Together we hope to achieve our realistic goals of preventing the worst effects of climate change and species loss and eventually to start healing the planet.

We also know that living a sustainable life is the right thing to do regardless of the outcome. It brings its own rewards in terms of personal happiness and fulfillment but it’s not without sacrifices and frustrations. You need inspiration and friendly advice rather than hectoring.

It’s about kaizen – the Japanese term meaning ‘continuous improvement’ rather than black or white (or should that be green?). It’s not do or fail – we’re all on a journey and hopefully it can be fun, too.

The truth is, there is plenty of good news out there but it often gets lost among all the doom and gloom. The environmental movement achieves victories, big and small, all the time. The environmental agenda is becoming more mainstream among policymakers and the business community.

Years of hard work to rehabilitate formerly polluted eco-systems can pay off and species on the brink of extinction can return. People can change their lifestyle habits, companies can reformulate their products and packaging, and green technology can solve problems overnight – all of this can have a huge aggregate impact.

Good news shouldn’t close our eyes to the enormity of the problems, but it’s important to cherish the victories as a powerful antidote to despair and to provide inspiration for and motivation for our efforts.

With that in mind, we plan to bring you a monthly round-up of good environmental news stories. Enjoy!
Despite the global economic downturn, the market for recycled materials is proving resilient, according to the Waste Resources & Action Program in the UK. In fact, greater demand from China is pushing up prices for recycled materials. That means less trash going to landfill waste sites and fewer raw materials being used to make glass, paper, plastic, tin and aluminum.

The Fair Trade movement is going mainstream. Chocolate giant Cadbury has announced it’s using fair trade cocoa in its popular Dairy Milk bar in the UK and Ireland and will take its other products fair trade as soon as it can. Fair trade guarantees fair prices – a surplus above the cost of production – for farmers in developing countries. As well as the obvious social benefits, fair trade also helps the environmental agenda by protecting the viability of small, family-owned farms with mixed crops. It helps keep people on the land growing their own food, instead of swelling the world’s slums, and growing mixed crops rather than industrialised monoculture farming generally means fewer chemicals.

The City of San Francisco has submitted a proposal to U.S. federal authorities to build a wave power project about eight miles off the Pacific coast. Mayor Gavin Newsom writes a guest post on CleanTechnica where he says that the power plant could create significant amounts of electricity and around 100 jobs.

EcoGeek reports that Mexico City is trying to improve the quality of its air by integrating vegetation into the urban environment with a new project called Sustainable Housing Units. The project will place vertical gardens, rain water filters and solar panels in newly constructed housing towers.

In related news, Taiwan is building skyscrapers with rooftop gardens, according to InHabitat. While the Mexico City project was focused on air quality, the intent here is to insulate the interiors, reduce rainwater runoff, and mitigate the urban heat island effect.

A sustainable village in Nepal – including super adobe domes, solar panels and a bio-gas plant – is housing former street children. EarthFirst has the details.

The economy might be tanking but the solar energy industry is expanding thanks to the extension of tax credits. If you’re looking for a new job or career, you could do worse – the sector is set to create 440,000 new jobs by 2016, according to TriplePundit.

TriplePundit also brings news of how the economic downturn is improving air quality in industrialised parts of China such as Taiyuan province.

Sales of the Toyota Prius hybrid car in Europe are expected to rise 15% this year, according to the Guardian. Great news, assuming they replace ordinary cars, rather than adding to the vehicles already on the road.

President Obama has been busy rolling back the anti-green laws of the Bush years – most recently removing laws weakening protection for endangered species.

And finally…Nuns are going green in the  name of God. Treehugger reports that the Episcopal Sisters of the Community of the Holy Spirit in West Harlem, New York are building their very own eco-convent. (Catch our report here.)

Image: Darwin Bell

As we’ve mentioned before, there’s a growing trend for municipal authorities taking matters in the own hands when it comes to the environment. And why not? When their own governments get it wrong or take too long to implement innovative new measures, it’s local government that misses out on the benefits, such as substantial savings on power and waste management.

This article from the Wall Street Journal (via Kottke) looks at nine such examples, including:

• rooftops in Chicago that are kept cool by gardens, lowering air-conditioning bills
• a suburb of Mumbai, India, using solar water-heaters
• New York taking the first steps towards hydroelectric turbines providing power for 8,000 homes
• the streetlights of Ann Arbour (near Detroit) shifting to LED bulbs, with a projected power saving of $700,000.

In the U.S., President Obama couldn’t be firmer on his commitment to switching America over to sustainable clean energy production over the coming years. However, that will take time – meanwhile, many municipalities already have their own plans in motion. Take California, where the state government is chasing the “zero net energy” standard of building efficiency. The city of Berkeley’s FIRST (Financing Initiative for Renewable and Solar Technology) program is providing the means for property owners to invest in cutting-edge green efficiency. Or how about Riverside’s sweeping Green Action Plan looks to providing a third of the city’s energy needs from renewable sources by 2020? Further afield, there’s the impressive greening of Grand Rapids under its eco-progressive mayor George Heartwell. And on…and on. These initiatives complement the national energy goals nicely, but they’re all proudly homegrown. (Over the border, Canada is similarly busy).

And what about political action? More than 160 countries have now signed the Kyoto Protocol for ecologically sound industrial and economic development. Under the Bush administration, the U.S. rejected it (happily, President Obama has a rather different view). For more than 800 American mayors in 2008, this was unacceptable ““ so they signed their own agreement to adhere to Kyoto’s guidelines.

Support your local city government: there’s no telling what it’s capable of.

Image: jmcmichael