Control Climate Change

Date: 5/5/2008 to 5/10/2008
Location: Edgerton, WI

This six day workshop will involve participants in the installation of a residential 10kW, ARE 442 utility-tied system on a 140' freestanding tower using a crane. Please see the Web site for full information.

Date: 5/17/2008
Location: Hastings, MI

9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
The Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association's renewable energy seminars answer commonly asked questions about three of the most popular types of renewable energy applications: solar heating, solar electricity, and wind electricity. Space is limited. Pre-registration is strongly recommended. Please see the Web site for an agenda and for registration information.

Date: 5/19/2008 to 5/24/2008
Location: Forestville, WI

Building your own wind power system from scratch can be both rewarding and cost effective. The process of building a wind turbine involves basic electricity, wood working, metal working, resin casting, and a variety of other skills. During this workshop attendees will complete and test at least one 10' diameter (rated at approximately 700 Watts) wind turbine and work towards the completion of a larger 17' diameter 3000 Watt turbine and possibly a 3rd machine if time permits. These turbines are designed for battery charging systems. Please see the Web site for full information.

Please see the Web site for more information.

Date: 7/15/2008
Location: Custer, WI

This one-day course is a prequel to the Midwest Renewable Energy Association wind systems workshops and for people who have an interest in residential size wind systems for their home or business. This course will inform students as to what wind energy is, how it works and what it can do for you. Topics will include: wind resources, basic system components, system types, turbine types, applications, and tower types. Please see the Web site for full information.

Date: 7/16/2008 to 7/18/2008
Location: Custer, WI

This workshop will examine the design considerations that go into the manufacture of a wind generator. Components will be studied including their structure, function, materials, how they operate, and reliability to understand what choices various manufacturers have made for their products and why. All of the commercially available residential-sized wind equipment on the market will be considered. This workshop will help wind site assessors, equipment dealers, installers and home owners ferret out the pro's and con's of all the wind generator options in the market place. Please see the Web site for full information.

Date: 7/21/2008 to 7/25/2008
Location: Custer , WI

Participants in this course will perform repairs and annual maintenance on a number of area wind turbines and systems. This is a working workshop with optional tower climbing. Machines from 1 kW to 20 kW will be covered, including work on freestanding, guyed lattice and tilt-up towers. Please see the Web site for full information.

Date: 8/4/2008 to 8/8/2008
Location: Paonia , CO

Participants in this workshop will learn to design and install residential wind systems, up to 100kWh/day in capacity. The workshop will cover system sizing, site analysis, installation and safety issues, and hardware specification. Learn about the different commercially available residential wind turbines, how they work, and the advantages and disadvantages of each. Students will learn to estimate electrical production of a turbine given the parameters of the site, tower and turbine. Get hands on experience with wind generators, and designing a wind/PV hybrid system. Please see the Web site for full information.

Please see the Web site for more information.

Date: 9/15/2008 to 9/20/2008
Location: WI

This six day workshop will involve participants in the installation of a residential system. Mornings will be spend in class lectures on topics of wind energy basics and the afternoons will be dedicated to hands-on assembly of the wind system. This workshop is ideal for wind systems installers and homeowners who are planning to install a wind system. Comprehensive handouts are included. This is a working workshop. Please see the Web site for full information.

Date: 9/24/2008 to 9/25/2008
Location: Portland , OR

Modeling, analyzing, and assessing wind energy potential.

Date: 10/6/2008 to 10/7/2008
Location: New York City , NY

Covering financial trends, debt terms, tax equities and power output predictions.

Date: 11/16/2008
Location: Custer , WI

This one-day course is a prequel to the Midwest Renewable Energy Association wind systems workshops and for people who have an interest in residential size wind systems for their home or business. This course will inform students as to what wind energy is, how it works and what it can do for you. Students in this course will learn the basics of wind energy. Topics will include: wind resources, basic system components, system types, turbine types, applications, and tower types. Please see the Web site for full information.

Date: 11/17/2008 to 11/20/2008
Location: Custer , WI

This workshop will help participants learn how to evaluate a site’s wind energy potential, determine wind speeds at proposed heights, make a load profile for a client’s energy needs, determine appropriate tower heights and estimate kWh output for a system based upon wind resources. Please see the Web site for full information.

A do-it-yourself guide to keeping kids safe.

Date: 9/15/2008 to 9/17/2008
Location: Boston , MA

For information on attending, exhibiting, sponsoring or speaking, please email info@cardellexpo.com

As the eco-friendly alternative to AAA, the Better World Club provides 24/7 roadside assistance in all 50 states. In addition to services similar to AAA, such as assisting drivers with jumpstarts and tire repairs, BWC has a roadside assistance plan for bicycles, and a 15 percent discount on new memberships for owners of hybrid and biodiesel vehicles. Plus, 1 percent of their revenue is donated to environmental cleanup and advocacy.

You heard it here first – going on holiday could be better than any dating site when it comes to finding your long term partner. According to a straw poll conducted in our latest newsletter, 17% of you met your current partner whilst on holiday (and 6% hope to in the future)! We agree that there’s definitely something romantic about travelling...

Ideal place for a proposal
A beautiful sunset, fantastic scenery, delicious food or an erupting volcano perhaps. Here's your top places for a proposal:

• Almost a quarter of you danger-seekers choose “dining under the stars while marvelling at an erupting volcano (at a safe distance!)”
• One fifth of you opted for “watching the sunset from a tent in the desert”
• 14% thought that “by a roaring fire in a snow covered log cabin ” was the place to pop the question.

Clearly fire is the holiday essential for keeping the romance burning bright. You adrenalin junkies aren’t scared of heights either, almost a third of you thought that the most romantic place for a proposal would be ‘a mountain-top at dawn’.

Romantic (and eco!) transport options
As expected of responsible travellers, you’re also an eco-friendly bunch when it comes to choosing the most amorous way to travel. When we asked for your thoughts on the most romantic form of transport, you all turned your noses up at more carbon emitting options in favour of a river boat trip or a train journey

What makes a holiday romantic?
The survey has certainly sparked some interesting discussions in our office. There’s no doubt that responsible travellers are more adventurous in their holiday choices and we now have our suspicions that this is reflected in your love lives too…

When asked what was the most important element for a great romantic holiday (apart from your partner!), well over a third of you who answered opted for spectacular scenery or views. A fifth of you intrepid travellers said that any element of adventure was important.

On the trail for true love...
You don’t necessarily need to be with the partner of your dreams to have ‘a moment’. Travelling solo is a rising trend and there are plenty of fantastic group trips on offer that give you the chance to travel independently and meet new people along the way.

You never know, maybe you’ll be like one of the lucky 17% from our survey and meet your soul mate in paradise...

Whatever you're looking for, find romantic holiday ideas here

The target opening date for a controversial nuclear waste dump is "no longer realistic" following budget cuts, the official in charge of the project has admitted.

Plans have been unveiled for a development in Abu Dhabi that is set to be the world's greenest city.

Date: 1/17/2008

In March 2007, local agencies in Maine launched an effort to reduce energy costs for residents of a subsidized elderly housing complex in Winter Harbor, resulting in a federal Residential Energy Assistance Challenge grant that entirely funded the installation of a 10-kW Bergey Excel turbine.

Winning the competition to host the Olymipcs may turn out to be something of a poisoned chalice for a country with skeletons in its closet.
With the spotlight focusing ever more intensely on the hosts of the Games, some rather unpleasant practices are coming to light in the People's Republic of China.

Danny Penman writing for the Daily Mail reveals how cruelty to animals is becoming family entertainment at China's zoos.

To take a few examples:

• live goats are thrown to lions to be torn apart at Badaling zoo - just an hour from Beijing where the world will gather for the Olympics
  
• at the same zoo, visitors pay to use live chickens as bait seeing how long they can keep hold of them before the lion gets them
  
• at Qingdao zoo, a popular practice is to throw coins at tortoises in an attempt to hit them on the head (which means your wishes will come true - a less benign version of the wishing well). To stop them withdrawing into their shells their heads are held out by elastic bands
  
• in Xiongsen Bear and Tiger Mountain Village near Guilin in south-east China live cows are fed to tigers who, robbed of their killing skills through years of captivity, maul them until they have to be slaughtered by the keepers

In an interesting twist, you can even dine on the zoo animals with everything from lion steaks to wine made from tigers' bones - which, incidentally, is completely illegal.

The full article, which goes into each of the cases in much more detail, sparked off 25 outraged comments on the Daily Mail website - many keen to boycott Chinese products and China in the future.

Some comments, however, pointed out that this is how animals kill in the wild and we should not be shocked by it. But surely that is the point - the animals aren't in the wild, the prey has nowhere to run and there is no real challenge for the predator in capturing it. It is purely for the entertainment of the crowds.

The animal welfare group 'OneVoice' is calling for people to stay away from China's zoos if they are visiting the Olympics and to let the Chinese Embassy know why. We can only hope that the spotlight of the Olympics will cause the legislation to ban such activity that was proposed in 2004 but since abandoned to be re-examined. Games notwithstanding, it is high time China stopped subjecting its animals to the Gladiator's arena.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Jan. 16, 2008 -- "A New Mindset for Corporate Sustainability" emphasizes that a focus on sustainability leads to innovative activities as well as commercial success.

WASHINGTON, D.C., Jan. 16, 2008 -- Big names such as Alcoa, Shell, National Grid, and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. joined the coalition of states and municipalities that will track, verify and publicly report their emissions.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Jan. 16, 2007 -- Even though there are more CSR jobs available to business school grads than ever before, it's not enough to meet the demand, according to a new report from Net Impact and Ellen Weinreb Recruiting.

Andrew Burger posted two excellent articles on 3P here and here regarding the general state of research, science, and the modeling of climate change. I refer you to those article for a good foundation. There are also a variety of excellent resources on the web, some of which Andrew cites in his posts, and other worthwhile sources such as RealClimate, The National Academy of Sciences, USCap (an alliance of business and environmental research and advocacy groups), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

An international team of scientists, led by Dr Edward Hanna at the University of Sheffield, has demonstrated that recent warm summers have caused the most extreme Greenland ice melting in 50 years. The new research provides further evidence of a key impact of global warming and helps scientists place recent satellite observations of Greenland's shrinking ice mass in a longer-term climatic context.

The chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, Democrat John Dingell of Michigan, said on Tuesday he hoped to draft climate change legislation as soon as possible. Speaking to reporters at the North American International Auto Show, Dingell said he would like a fair "cap and trade provision" in the legislation and that he continued to weigh the possibility of a carbon tax on industry.

The waste crisis affecting Naples and the surrounding region has sparked national unrest and riots in Italy.

Water supplies will be cut for a week in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare as the state-run water company struggles to meet demand.