OntheWilderSide

Long Island Climate Solutions Network Events and News Stories

The 9th Long Island Organic Turf Trade Show
Tuesday February 26, 2008
at the Old Bethpage Village Restoration Conference Center in Bethpage , NY (about one hour from NY City) from 8am to 4:00pm.

This unique Trade Show demonstrates to green industry professionals current “organic” methods that help reduce chemical pesticide use. It is the leading event of its kind for our region. The show features organic product vendors, and workshops on organic turf maintenance that offer DEC credits for certified applicators. Last year, about 250 people attended the show.

For more information about the show, DEC credits, and directions, click here:

http://neighborhood-network.org/events/trade_show.htm

Vamos a tener una clase con Fabian Sanin, Marders, en espanol @ 12pm sobre el mantenimiento de la grama sin quimicas!! Bienvenidos todos!

All welcome!

Attendees include: Landscapers, horticulturists, golf course & parks employees, school facilities managers, public officials, garden centers, non-profit groups, and interested individuals who want to learn about cutting edge organic methods and protect our environment.

The workshop program will include topics such as soil biology, native plants, diagnosing turf problems, legal issues for organic landscapers, and marketing.

Click here to download the registration form: http://neighborhood-network.org/events/TS_reg_flyer08.pdf

Please contact Beth Fiteni at 631-963-5454 for more information.

LICSN’s Next Meeting

Tuesday, March 4, 2008
6:30 pm to 8:30 pm
Levittown – Greening the Suburbs.
Speakers: Adrienne Esposito (confirmed) & Nassau County Rep.
W. Islip Public Library
NEWS STORIES

Study: Climate Set To ‘Tip’ This Century. By Pallab Ghosh, BBC, February 5, 2008. “Many of Earth’s climate systems will undergo a series of sudden shifts this century as a result of human-induced climate change, a study [PDF, 8 pp] suggests. A number of these shifts could occur this century, say the report’s authors… an international team [whose work is published] in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ‘Our findings suggest that a variety of tipping elements could reach their critical point within this century’… said Professor Tim Lenton from the University of East Anglia , the lead researcher. “The greatest threats are tipping of the Arctic sea-ice and the Greenland ice sheet, and at least five other elements could surprise us by exhibiting a nearby tipping point’… The researchers have listed and ranked nine ecological systems that they say could be lost this century… melting of Arctic sea-ice (about 10 years), decay of the Greenland ice sheet (about 300 years), collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet (about 300 years), collapse of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation (about 100 years), increase in the El Nino Southern Oscillation (about 100 years), collapse of the Indian summer monsoon (about 1 year), greening of the Sahara/Sahel and disruption of the West African monsoon (about 10 years), dieback of the Amazon rainforest (about 50 years), dieback of the Boreal Forest (about 50 years).”

Super Bowl to be powered by renewable energy. America‘s obsession with large men in tight tights will reach its annual peak at Sunday’s Super Bowl in Arizona , and organizers are working to make the whole sporty spectacle greener. Enough renewable-energy credits will be purchased to offset the power used in the stadium, the adjacent NFL theme park, and two nearby luxury hotels. The NFL will plant thousands of trees in fire-ravaged Arizona forests in an effort to offset the league’s 3,000-vehicle ground-transportation fleet. In addition, legendary sports agent Leigh Steinberg’s celeb-studded 22nd annual Super Bowl Party — to which you were not invited — will aim to be zero-waste and feature electronics recycling. While neither team will be playing at home, let’s not forget one potential sobering effect of climate change, says Nathan Willcox of Environment America: “Congress must get serious about global warming before rising temperatures fumble away cold-weather teams’ home field advantage.” We’ll guzzle beer to that.

They also gave away a HYBRID cadillac escalade to the main touchdown guy, Manning- (From Beth)

Earth is Us By Andrew C. Revkin. Some earth scientists are pushing to enshrine officially a decades-old idea — that Earth is now in a biogeochemical era of our own making that should be distinguished from the Holocene, the epoch that began with the end of the last ice age. They say the new period should be called the Anthropocene epoch — a name proposed in 2000 by Paul J. Crutzen, the atmospheric chemist (now at the University of California, San Diego) who shared a Nobel Prize for work on human-caused damage to the ozone layer, and Eugene F. Stoermer of the University of Michigan. (From Kasey)

What’s the Difference Between Obama and Clinton on the Environment? Posted by David Roberts, Grist, February 5, 2008. “Both would substantially cut greenhouse gas emissions and boost clean energy; both pitch sustainability as an issue of shared sacrifice and economic opportunity; both have an impressive grasp of the policy details… [But] there are [those] episodes… that give pause. Clinton burned all those tires (long story). As a Democratic power broker and high-powered lawyer of long standing, she’s been cozy with some fairly unsavory corporate players, from Alcoa to Wal-Mart. Obama, on the other hand, is an Illinois pol. That means he is, by necessity, a little friendlier with coal, ethanol, and nuclear interests than greens might like. Those allegiances led him to vote for the monstrosity that was the Energy Act of 2005, a porkfest that funneled subsidies to all three interest groups ( Clinton voted against it). Early last year, he pushed legislation boosting liquid coal. (When greens threw a fit he backed off somewhat, making clear that liquid coal is kosher only if it meets low-carbon fuel standards.)… He gets big campaign contributions from Exelon, a nuke outfit based in Illinois ; his campaign adviser David Axelrod once consulted for the company. There is, however, no smoking gun of quid pro quo in either’s career… In the end, if I was forced at gunpoint to pick the greener Dem, it would be Obama, but only based on second-order effects, and only barely. By far the larger story this season is that both… are advancing a green agenda substantially more ambitious than what was proposed by Kerry, Gore, or Clinton .”

Something Had to Give: How Oil Burst the American Bubble by Michael T. Klare.

The economic bubble that lifted the stock market to dizzying heights was sustained as much by cheap oil as by cheap (often fraudulent) mortgages. Likewise, the collapse of the bubble was caused as much by costly (often imported) oil as by record defaults on those improvident mortgages. Oil, in fact, has played a critical, if little commented upon, role in America ’s current economic enfeeblement — and it will continue to drain the economy of wealth and vigor for years to come. Continues here. (Published on Friday, February 1, 2008 by TomDispatch.com)

‘Plastic Soup’ in Pacific Stretches Across Pacific Ocean. By Xavier La CannaIt, Sydney Daily Telegraph, February 4, 2008. “It is a vast area of plastic debris and other flotsam drifting in the northern Pacific Ocean , held by swirling ocean currents. Discovered in 1997 by American sailor Charles Moore, what is also called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is now alarming some with its ever-growing size and possible [human health] impacts. The ‘Patch’ is in fact two huge, linked areas of circulating rubbish, says Dr Marcus Eriksen of the US-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation. Although the boundaries change, it stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the coast of California , across the northern Pacific to near the coast of Japan … ‘It is almost like a plastic soup,’ Dr Eriksen says. ‘It is endless for an area that is maybe twice the size as continental United States .'”

Study Suggests That, This Time, the Energy Lessons Will Stick. By Clifford Krauss, NYTimes, February 5, 2008. “The oil shocks of the 1970s produced a flurry of attention to alternative sources of energy, but it faded once prices dropped in the mid-1980s. Now, with oil prices again high and climate change moving up the list of public concerns, interest in alternative energy is once again at fever pitch. Is history about to repeat itself? Not likely, according to a leading energy consulting firm. In a report scheduled for release Tuesday, the firm, Cambridge Energy Research Associates, concludes that multiple factors will continue pushing the world toward greater use of alternative energy sources… ‘The focus today on clean energy is not a bubble or passing phenomenon,’ the report says. ‘Unconventional clean energy is now poised to cross the divide and move from the fringes of the energy sector to the mainstream.'”

Long Island Considers More Offshore Wind. By Tom Incantalupo, New York Newsday, January 30, 2008. “A Hauppauge company [called Winergy Power] is proposing its second wind energy project south of Long Island… to serve Nassau and Suffolk electricity customers… The plan is for 86 wind turbines with a peak output of 300 megawatts. ‘As well as New York City , Long Island needs clean reliable energy,’ [said Winergy president Dennis Quaranta]… The project also needs government approval and an arrangement made with the Long Island Power Authority to handle the electricity it produces… The proposed location, Quaranta said, is about 15 miles east of [another, 167-turbine project] Winergy proposed in November… Babylon Town Supervisor Steve Bellone said Winergy’s projects seem to make more sense economically [than a 40-turbine field proposed jointly by LIPA and FPL Energy, ultimately rejected last year] and probably will have less environmental impact so far out to sea, but he was still concerned about effects on the Great South Bay ecosystem.”

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3258

Monday, February 04, 2008. Published on Sunday, February 3, 2008 by Extra!.

Money Is the Real Green Power: The Hoax of Eco-Friendly Nuclear Energy

by Karl Grossman. Nuclear advocates in government and the nuclear industry are engaged in a massive, heavily financed drive to revive atomic power in the United

States-with most of the mainstream media either not questioning or actually assisting in the promotion.

Filed under: activism, Ecology, Environment, events, Global Warming, Long Island Politics, More Events Calendars, Solar, sustainability, sustainable, US Politics Tagged: | Climate Solutions, clinton, Environment, garden, landscape, Nuclear, Obama, oil, pesticide, renewable energy, school, super bowl, turf