JOINING SNCA
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GOOD NEWS FOR THE EVERGLADES AND FLORIDA
A great victory for climate activists: Florida Power and Light's proposal to build a dirty coal-fired power plant in the Everglades was turned down by the Florida Public Service Commission, thanks to sane leadership by Gov. Crist, timely communication by a large consortium of green organizations, and calls from many of us citizens. FPL's proposed " Glades Power Park " was more accurately labeled the "Everglades Coal Plant" by Mark Ferrulo, director of Environment Florida, the new home of the environmental arm of Florida Public Interest Research Group (FPIRG). To see what's up next, visit their Web site:
<www.environmentflorida.org>
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GOOD THINGS IN THE NEW FLORIDA ENERGY BILL
It's not perfect, but it contains lots of promise.

 The Florida legislature has passed a 2007 energy bill to promote energy conservation, renewable energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions- a $85,600,000 appropriation. . . . Governor [Crist] pushed for several of these provisions.

·        Energy Policy Governance Task Force created to provide report to the Governor, President of the Senate, and Speaker of the House by February 1, 2008 with recommendations for unified approach to state energy policy including energy conservation and renewable energy development

·        State buildings shall be constructed to meet USGBC LEED or Green Globes green building rating system

·        Preapplication form required to be eligible for state solar rebate payment

·        State shall develop an annual greenhouse gas inventory and establish criteria for major emitters of GHGs

·        Farm-to-Fuel Grants Program established under Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to award funding for projects that create bioenergy from Florida crops or biomass

·        Biofuel Retail Sales Incentive Program created to replace petroleum use in the state by 10% by 2011, providing payment of 1-5 cents for ethanol and biodiesel to retail fuel dealers

·        Biofuel Production Incentive Program created to encourage facilities that produce biofuels from Florida crops, agricultural waste, or biomass by providing payment of 5 cents for each gallon of biofuel sold to a biofuel blender

·        And lots more

Contributed by Nina Powers
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GOOD AND BETTER: ARE WE THERE YET?
Not quite. 23 states plus the District of Columbia have enacted renewable electricity standards. Better yet would be a federal renewable electricity standard. Have you contacted your senators and representative yet? If you receive Sarasota Network for Climate Action news and action alerts, you have already received at least one request to call Washington . This is vitally important. You can check the Web site, < www.sarasotaclimate.org> for information, or go to the Union of Concerned Scientists for the national perspective and action alerts:
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/clean_energy_policies/res_campaign.html
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A BEAUTIFUL WAY TO COMMUTE: solar scooter

Don Dunklee manages a Rite-Aid by day. By night, he's a DIY maverick who built his own solar-powered scooter that gets him too and from work without the hassle of gasoline. When he rides it, the solar panels are folded up unobtrusively on the side of the scooter. When he gets to work, he opens up the panels so they can soak up some rays. By the time he gets out of work, he's get enough juice to get him home again.

Sure, it probably doesn't hold enough to make it more than a day or two with cloudy weather, and he's sure to look like a dork tooling down the road on a yellow electric scooter, but kudos to Don for putting the time and energy into such a unique project. Even better? He made the plans available online on his website so anyone can build one too. — Adam Frucci

Article and photo: http://blog.scifi.com/tech/archives/2007/05/29/solar_scooter_r.html
Scooter plans; http://builditsolar.com/Projects/PV/pvscooter.htm

Link provided by Grist.org
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 OTHER BEAUTIFUL WAYS TO TRAVEL WITHOUT BUILDING IT YOURSELF
From Popular Science, May 2007:

In the "Green-Fuel" Guide, Popular Science predicts the future of the key technologies, that little by little, will replace gasoline by 2027. They predict for the US market:
Gasoline-only: 35%
Battery cars, whether hybrids or all-electric: 30% (Right now the hybrid Prius gets 45-50 mpg and produces half the CO2 of 30 mpg sedans. GM is working on the Volt all-electric, but the battery technology won't be ready until at least 2010. It could drive on electricity alone for about 40 miles, which would work for 78% of American commuters, and emit less than half the emissions of a typical new car now—even on power from the dirtiest coal-powered plants)
Natural Gas: 3% (though right now there are 1 million cars that run on natural gas in Italy)
Ethanol: 6% (heavily subsidized corn-based offers debatable CO2 reduction; cellulosic would be better but we've yet to figure out a cheap way to produce it)
Diesel: 20% (they deliver 20 to 40 % better gas mileage and a third less CO2 but still based on oil)
Biodiesel: 4% (CO2 emission about a third less than gasoline, more efficient than ethanol)
Hydrogen: 2% (would offer zero emissions but require billions of dollars investment)
Contributed by June Cussen
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THE TRUTH DAWNS ON THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY
Florida Trend, the business magazine, is beginning to get it. Here are quotes from two articles that appeared in April 2007, their Economic Yearbook edition.

In "Tallahassee Trend" by Neil Skene, Florida Trend, April 2007:

 Nine coal plants are in some stage of planning by Florida utilities--including plants at the edge of the Everglades .
            This is where government actually matters. The Florida Public Service Commission has to authorize any generating plant by certifying that it is economically feasible. But the PSC's political appointees have rebuffed environmental issues because their jurisdiction is economic. Never mind that environmental issues are economic ones. Emissions have tangential costs, such as healthcare. Besides healthcare and similar indirect costs, suppose that Congress, reacting to some future surge of concern over pollution and global warming, imposes a stiff carbon tax that renders coal a much more expensive fuel to use.
            Over in Texas , the huge power company Texas Utilities was proposing to build as many as 11 coal-fired plants in the next few years. Then, some private-equity firms--Kohlberg Kravis, Goldman Sachs and others--agreed to buy the company. Their plan is to drop the coal plants and go with green generation. These are cold-eyed capitalists who will have a lot of acquisition debt to service.
            If they think traditional coal generation is a bad business risk, shouldn't Florida be thinking about that? But the PSC lacks intellectual curiosity and, like any government agency, avoids political risk. How will we asses these politicians in 20 years if we're in political panic because the Florida Keys seem destined to become the Wet Tortugas?

In an article called "Adapting" by Cynthia Barnett, Florida Trend, April 2007:

  " Florida , with its already-hot summers and 1,400-mile coastline, clearly has a lot to lose in a world of warming temperatures and rising oceans. Early signs of global warming in the state include drought and increased forest fires, eroding shorelines, dying coral reefs, saltwater intrusion into inland freshwater aquifers and dying trees in low-lying areas such as Cedar Key, says Stephen Mulkey, director of special projects at the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Florida and science adviser to the Century Commission for a Sustainable Florida, which is charged with focusing long-term on Florida's essential interests. Perhaps the most interesting, the Century Commission is pushing the idea that Florida not only mitigate the impacts of climate change, but become a model for how to adapt. Florida could lead in areas such as:

-         demonstrating the potential for carbon sequestration--the idea of storing CO2 long-term underground

-         developing response plans for impacts to marine ecosystems such as dying coral reefs

-         taking the lead role in building a greenhouse gas trading system for the Southeast

-         research and development."

Contributed by June Cussen
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TRUTH DAWNS ON THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY: exposure due to hurricanes, floods, and droughts

Who is better equipped to assess the material cost of climate change than the insurance industry? 

 The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a report, requested by Congress, titled "Climate Change: Financial Risks to Federal and Private Insurers in Coming Decades are Potentially Significant.". . .The GAO points out that "catastrophic weather events" have generally increased between the period 1980 and 2005, the years the study examined. It also notes the "growth in population in hazard prone areas and increased real estate development" during the period. The two have combined to raise the exposure of the National Food Insurance program (NFIP) fourfold "to nearly $1 trillion in 2005," while the Federal Crop Insurance Corp. (FCIC) has seen its exposure increase by "26 fold to $44 billion."

. . . .If the past serves as a guide to the future, the insurance industry may be in for some very rough going. "Major private and federal insurers are both exposed to the effects of climate change over coming decades," the GAO concludes. However the two sectors are responding differently. "Many large private insurers are incorporating climate change into their annual risk management practices, and some are addressing it strategically by assessing its potential long-term industry-wide impacts."

In contrast, the GAO notes, "federal insurers have not developed and disseminated comparable information on long-term financial impacts."

. . . .The GAO. . .advises. . .that "a strategic analysis of the potential implications of climate change for the major federal insurance programs would help the Congress manage an emerging high-risk area with significant implications for the nation's growing long-term fiscal imbalance."

....The GAO also found that weather-related losses accounted for 88 percent of all property losses paid by insurers during this period. All other property losses, including those associated with earthquakes and terrorist events, accounted for the remainder.. . .
In conclusion the GAO report recommends that the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Homeland Security direct the Administrator of the Risk Management Agency and the under Secretary of Homeland Security for Emergency preparedness to analyze the potential long-term implications of climate change for the FCIC and the NFIP, respectively, and report their findings to Congress.

Insurance Journal: The National Property Casualty Magazine, May 7, 2007, Southeast Region, Vol. 4, No. 9. <www.insurancejournal.com>

Contributed by Klaus Obermeit, Ace Insurance, Sarasota
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BEAUTIFUL BUILDINGS

For news of creative solutions for sustainable living, check out <Treehugger.com>. For example, a California architect's affordable, eco-friendly domed designs made of local materials can be used as shelters in earthquake-prone areas, elegantly natural houses, or moon settlements.


http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/06/california_eco.php
Linked by Grist.org
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TROUBLING TRUTHS FROM THE SOUTH
Southern Ocean Loaded With Carbon Dioxide
 

By Deborah Zabarenko
Reuters
WASHINGTON (May 17) - The Southern Ocean around Antarctica is so loaded with carbon dioxide that it can barely absorb any more, so more of the gas will stay in the atmosphere to warm up the planet, scientists reported on Thursday. Human activity is the main culprit, said researcher Corinne Le Quere, who called the finding very alarming. . .

"We thought we would be able to detect these only the second half of this century, say 2050 or so," she said. But data from 1981 through 2004 show the sink is already full of carbon dioxide.. . .This is significant because the Southern Ocean accounts for 15 percent of the global carbon sink, Le Quere said. Increased winds over the last half-century are to blame for the change,  Le Quere said. These winds blend the carbon dioxide throughout the Southern Ocean, mixing the naturally occurring carbon that usually stays deep down with the human-caused carbon. The winds themselves are caused by two separate human factors. . . Ozone depletion. . . [and] the uneven nature of global warming has produced higher temperatures in the northern parts of the world than in the south,  which has also made the winds accelerate in the Southern Ocean.

Contributed by Sigi Moriece
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GOOD NEWS ABOUT WIND, WATER, AND THE HUMAN INGENUITY THAT BRINGS THEM TOGETHER

Max Whisson's windmill . . . promises water out of air. . . .
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 report certainly makes it clear that . . . .
the effects of global warming will be with us for a long time. That means we must adapt to living in a disabled world. Max Whisson's windmill may well be among the significant adaptations we need to survive and thrive in such a world regardless. So, how does the Whisson windmill work? . . . .
Air is composed of oxygen and water. The Whisson windmill essentially is a wind turbine, connected to a refrigeration compressor. Compressed refrigerant cools the blades of the wind turbine, after which it is returned to the compressor. Design is possible with just one turbine or a bank of turbines.
Wind drives the cooled blades of the turbine and water is then condensed from the ambient air. This water is then collected.

http://www.alternate-energy-sources.com/Whisson-windmill.html

Contributed by Tony Obermeit, Australia
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  BELLA NOTICIA
 

Natural Resources Defense Council offers a new Spanish-language Website, Onda Verde: < www.nrdc.org/ondaverde>
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