Earth Hour 2009 - Saturday, March 28, 8:30 - 9:30 p.m.

Take part in Earth Hour 2009 on March 28 and help save energy. Join people across the country and the world for an Earth Hour. Turn off your lights at home for an hour from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. local time on Saturday, March 28.

For further information on Earth Hour 2009, visit: http://www.earthhour.org

E.P.A. Proposal Calls Greenhouse Gases a Danger to the Public

The headline says it all: the new administration changes course and moves towards allowing EPA to regulate greenhouse gasses; you can also see the British version of the news in The Guardian, for a spicier version of the commentary. Environmental sites seem to think this is a good idea. Finally!

PS: and if you miss posts on this site, bookmark NY Times Green Inc blog and be patient; I'll be back with more some day soon...

Green Chemistry

Green chemistry is chemical philosophy encouraging the design of products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances. It has well established principles just waiting to become routine practice.

The news is that California just released its report on the Green Chemistry Initiative. The report is comprised of six policy recommendations which include:

• Expand Pollution Prevention to assist California businesses to lead the world in greener design and production

• Develop Green Chemistry Workforce Education and Training, Research and Development, and Technology Transfer to meet global demand for greener materials and product

• Create an Online Product Ingredient Network to disclose chemical ingredients in products sold in the state to allow consumers and businesses to make safer choices

• Create an Online Toxics Clearinghouse to increase our knowledge about toxicity and hazards for chemicals

• Accelerate the Quest for Safer Products to make the transition to more sustainable, safer products more quickly using science-based alternative analysis and lifecycle thinking

• Move Toward a Cradle-to-Cradle Economy to leverage market forces to produce products that are “benign-by-design””

Very little is known about the thousands of chemicals that are in use without prior research of effects on human health and this initiative could be a promising start. However, let's not forget that this year California lawmakers rejected two important bills (Corbett’s bill and Migden’s Bill ) that would have banned the use of two harmful chemicals: PFOA from food packaging and BPA in products used for children under 3 years of age. But let's keep our hopes up!

New Green Team

President Obama has announced his new environment and energy team. This is going to shape our life for the near future and, hoping that this is a change for the better, for the long term. Here is a recent NYT article and an interview with him and he sounds like a pragmatist; I hope he will prove to be a great leader, this is a great time to take that position -- I happen to believe that there's a great opportunity in any crisis, and we're not lacking the latter :)

I truly hope this is the start of a new era and things will get better.

The Good Guide

A friend of mine just sent me a link to the Good Guide, happy that it has an iPhone applications; it is all new to me (I am talking about the guide) so I already spent one hour browsing through their web-site.

The Good Guide provides information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of the products in your home. The database contains about 60000 personal care and household chemical products for which they list their ingredients, certification (if available), manufacturer information and they also provide some advice on things to consider when you chose a particular product. This last one is an excellent source of finding out which ingredients are bad and you need to avoid when you buy personal care or household products.

GoodGuide partners with the top socially responsible investment research firms, as well as with leading non-profit organizations with high quality data on specific issues or industries. It also has a handful of advisors.

It is an excellent source and the only one I know so far that provides information on personal care and household products. It is worth trying it …. and it has an application for iPhone ;-)

REACH SIN List of Chemicals

REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals) was created in June 2007 by E.U. to make chemicals safer for human health and the environment and to stimulate innovation in the sector. These days, together with ChemSec they came out with the first-ever list of chemicals called REACH SIN list which is roughly comprised of 270 chemicals that need to be submitted for EU regulatory approval. The first list of hazardous chemicals to be submitted contains only 15 chemicals; all the other chemicals will be submitted in their order of hazardousness.

Among the 15 chemicals that are on the list, brominated flame retardant HBCDD is a common environmental contaminant used in plastics, textiles, electronic goods and three plastic softeners (the phthalates DEHP, DBP and BBP). These plastic softeners are suspected to seriously affect human fertility and are present in glues, inks, cosmetics and toiletries, and in many products made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Many companies have already started to phase them out, including major companies in the electronics sector that have eliminated the uses of brominated flame retardants and PVC.

These substances are used heavily in American industry as well and none of them is regulated. I hope that this E.U. initiative to regulate the chemical substances in consumer products will set in motion the U.S. government institutions to do the same. I hope so much for that day!

Amazon Green

It is not new, probably, for many of you but as a friend of mine suggested, I would like to mention about Amazon Green. I like Amazon a lot, especially for the good prices, and now with its Green line, I like it even more.

From their website:
"Amazon Green is a team of Amazonians dedicated to presenting the Greenest products available, sourcing new products and helping our customers better understand the myriad, and sometimes confusing, Green standards in the marketplace today.
Interests
Green Tech, Biodiesel, Hybrid autos, CFLs, LEDs, Certified Organic, ENERGY STAR compliant, water saving, Carbon Footprint reduction, Green Architecture and sustainable living for everyone".

It is a great place to start looking for green products. It is not very diverse though. It has a blog and a forum where people are sharing great green ideas. I like it a lot.

Congress Banned Three Phthalates in Children’s Toys

Good news parents! Congress has banned the use of three dangerous phthalates that are used in products for children under 12 years of age. Finally! The ban will take effect in 6 months so toys containing these chemicals may still be sold during the coming holiday season. Couple of years back, Europe banned six of the phthalates; in the U.S. the other three phthalates require extensive testing and is part of a major piece of legislation overhauling the Consumer Products Safety Commission. Arghhhhh! OK, let's focus on the positive: 3 down!

For getting tips on how to chose safe toys, go here!

The First Environmental Search Engine

The EcoSearch.org is the first search engine dedicated to support the environmental awareness and preservation. The search engine generates ad revenue and donates 100% of its profits to environmental causes. So, why not using it?

Cows Are Not Green, Neither Are Pigs

While some are trying to find ways to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions from energy production plants and cars, others are studying farming emissions, or more bluntly put: cow farts to help reduce the methane – another greenhouse gas. The greenhouse gas emissions are not coming only from passenger cars and factories but also from other sources. When I read an article in The Telegraph, I thought, at first that it was a joke and seemed to be funny. But it is real! Scientists are collecting cow farts in plastic tanks attached in the back of the cows to help combat the global warming. What a job! In Argentina, it was found that the methane from cows is responsible for about 30% of the country's total greenhouse emissions. Another group of scientists are studying the gas emissions in the swine industry. However, the Australian scientists seem to be on their way to resolve the problem by using the eco-friendly kangaroo farts to combat the global warming.

Well…it is kind of funny to find out that cows and swine are ruining our atmosphere. And a picture tells a thousand words. But seriously, it's interesting to see that creative solutions that look at the problem in a holistic way may find creative ways at solving the greenhouse gas problem by looking right under our nose (ahem!!) for solutions.

There was another NPR program recently that talked about pig farms and new breeds that produce less methane (but I can't find the link -- anyone has more details?)

The Earth Hour

In an effort to promote awareness about global warming, numerous cities around the world will turn off their lights for one hour on March 29, 2008. The idea - Earth Hour - was promoted last year by Sydney (Australia) when 2.2 million people turned off their lights .

The cities participating this year are Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco and Phoenix in the US; Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal in Canada; Dublin in Ireland; Copenhagen, Aarhus, Aalborg and Odense of Denmark; Perth, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane and Adelaide of Australia; Bangkok, Thailand; Manila, Philippines; Fiji's biggest city Suva; Christchurch in New Zealand; and Tel Aviv, Israel.

Participating cities will switch off their lights and appliances at 8 p.m. on March 29. The conservation of electricity will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to mitigating global warming.

I think that this is an event at which every one of us can be involved, whether our home city participates or not.

PowerUp - A New Game About Climate Change

IBM released PowerUp, a game that you can play for free online. In PowerUp the player has to impede an ecologic distruction of a planet named “Helios”.

The game is part of IBM’s TryScience initiative and it is about a planet in near ecological ruin where three missions for solar, wind and water power must be solved before sandstorms, floods or SmogGobs thwart the rescue. IBM stated that the game is meant to engage kids and educators in engineering, energy, and diversity awareness.