Daily Loaf

What’s the buzz on the latest issues in the Green Community? Check out what you may have missed this last week:

Fixing sprawl and redesigning suburbia- Grant Rimbey CNU explores a possible strategy towards improving existing sprawl. Fixing the sprawl that we have, along with sprawl demolition and recycling, are strategies that could be employed in the future as a new green industry.

Nation’s largest solar facility to be in DeSoto County by next year- Florida Power and Light is currently building the nation’s largest photovoltaic plant in DeSoto County, a $173.5 million, 25 megawatt solar generating facility.

Fresh: New Thinking About What We’re Eating screening – What’s wrong with the mega-industrial food industry- Struggling small farms, problems with food safety rules and the mega-industrial food industry, and a film about all of the above.
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The town of Arcadia in DeSoto County is currently building the nation’s largest photovoltaic plant.

According to Florida Power & Light (FPL) the $173.5 million, 25 megawatt solar generating facility should be operating by the second quarter of 2010.

In February, FPL broke ground on its DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center: Florida’s first commercial solar energy facility.  The facility is projected to produce an average of 42,000 MWh of electricity annually.  This enough to meet the needs of over 3,000 homes or over 7,000 people; nearly 20% of DeSoto County.
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What’s the buzz on the latest issues in the Green Community? Check out what you may have missed this last week:

The Earth Charter: How ethics can change the world (video) – The Earth charter was created by thousands of people representing hundreds of countries aiming at a universal ethical code of conduct for human beings. How do we treat each other? How do we treat the world? These questions were raised and answered.

City of Tampa Green Business Designation Program- As of this week, the City of Tampa became one of just a handful of cities nationwide to start a green business designation program.  Outside of the West Coast (California and Washington state), Tampa will join major metropolitan areas like Philadelphia and Knoxville in rewarding private businesses that have become or want to become more environmentally-friendly.

Why buying recycled, repurposed products is so important- Preserving the Earth’s natural resources is vital to the future of the planet and all of its inhabitants. Buying recycled and repurposed products is a great way to make a positive impact on the environment by cutting back on waste and the resources needed to make new items.
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Do you receive way too much junk mail? Here are some tips to lighten your junk mail load:

The issue:

-Every year, each of us receives almost 560 pieces of junk mail, accounting for 43% of all delivered mail!

-Every year, the US EPA estimates 44% of junk mail isn’t even opened, creating four tons of waste!

-Every year, junk mail uses as much energy as almost three million cars!

-Every year, junk mail consumes 100 million trees or approximately 550,000 tons of paper!
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What’s the buzz on the latest issues in the Green Community? Check out what you may have missed this last week:

Steps to becoming greener: Reducing your waste, reusing and recycling: Joshua Poll gives some useful tips for ways to start reducing, reusing, and recycling things you thought you could just throw away.

Genetically engineering cows that will produce less methane, reducing greenhouse gases: Geneticists in Canada are trying to engineer a cow that produces less methane, resulting in less greenhouse gases, reports Brian Roberts.
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This morning I came across an amazing article by Alex Pasternack on Treehugger that was accompanied by the Michael Jackson music video ”Earth Song”. Another extraordinary aspect to Michael’s passions.

Pasternak states in the article,

“Michael Jackson was famous for his socially-conscious music, but ‘Earth Song’, his big, bold environmental call-to-arms, is often overlooked. Still, by sheer dint of his reach, the song might have made Jackson (who bears no relation to U.S. EPA chief Lisa Jackson) a kind of super-sized Al Gore, a decade before An Inconvenient Truth.

‘Earth Song’ is indisputably the most popular green-themed tune ever. It remains Jackson’s best-selling song in the U.K. (yes, bigger than “Thriller” or “Billie Jean”), and beat out the Beatles’ first single in 25 years for the top spot on the British charts. But the song, and its lavish globe-trotting video, barely registered in the U.S.”
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At a time when many American companies are cutting back, Ford Motor Company is investing 550 million dollars retooling one of it’s Michigan based truck factories to manufacture smaller, fuel efficient cars and an electric version of the Focus sedan. The question is whether consumers will make the investment return if financial and political tides return fuel prices to previous lows.

This reporter does not know how Ford (whose Explorer line helped spark the S.U.V. craze) was able to avoid taking government bailout money while GM had to take billions to keep from going under, but this news is made even “greener” considering that the factory Ford is retooling is the same one that produced the gas guzzling Expedition and Lincoln Navigator. While Ford did not take federal aid, it is Michigan State and local government tax incentives and grants that allowed Ford to make the investment. Ford is also retooling two other plants to meet the current global demand for more fuel-efficient cars. Read the rest of this entry »

Source: Sarasota/Manatee Farmworker Supporters

What’s the value of a single human life? Under the Bush administration, writes Rebecca Clarren, about a million dollars less than it used to be worth.

Call it the dark side of “small government” that conservatives champion, an anti-regulatory stance designed to save dollars at the expense of lives.

Clarren, writing for Salon.com, details how little-known governmental offices led by Bush appointees have undermined the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to protect our nation’s citizens by giving non-health industries and agencies input on which chemicals are assessed and the ability to comment on scientific findings (comments that, oh by the way, are not for public view).

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