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Welcome to the Isle of Wight: yachting mecca, tourist haven … and eco trailblazer
John Vidal, Guardian
Plan to become world’s greenest island by harnessing energy from wind, tides and farmyard waste
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Its dramatic coastline, sunshine and sea breezes attract more than 2 million visitors a year, but now the Isle of Wight’s natural resources could be harnessed as part of a plan to make it the world’s largest eco island.
In the next few weeks, plans will be unveiled to run the island entirely on renewable energy, develop tidal power to export to the mainland, harness the waste of its 5,500 cows to run its buses, and encourage people to leave their cars on the mainland.
Other ideas being considered include turning some roads into single track lanes to give cyclists and horse riders equal space with motorists, and offering free power to all electric vehicles.
The intention is to make Queen Victoria’s favourite holiday destination completely carbon neutral within a decade, with some of the most energy-efficient public buildings and housing estates in Britain
(2 November 2007)
Green roofs start to sprout on urban homes
Caitlin Carpenter, The Christian Science Monitor
Low-maintenance sedum cuts energy costs as well as greenhouse gases. Roofs are costly, though.
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New York – Every time it rained, Majora Carter cringed. “I lived in mortal terror whenever I thought it was going to rain,” Dr. Carter says, remembering how the rainwater seeped from the street into her Bronx brownstone.
Then she and her husband, James Burling Chase, realized that the source of the problem wasn’t on the ground, but on the roof. The stormwater system in their neighborhood backed up so quickly that the water rushed straight from their roof to the street – and into their home.
They decided to try a new strategy to fix an old problem: a green roof.
Now, after a substantial renovation, their flat roof has come alive – literally. Flowers and baby sedum are anchored in a thin bed of soil and gravel covering the roof. Golf-ball-sized stones frame this rooftop oasis.
Now their roof will retain about half the rainwater that falls on it, once the sedum matures in about two years. But besides finding a practical solution to a recurrent problem, Carter and Chase wanted a tangible way to show they were “walking the walk” when it came to their environmentalism.
Their home is the first in New York to feature such a roof. Green roofs have taken root on numerous commercial buildings across the country, but now people are exploring the possibility of planting a little shrubbery atop their own homes.
(31 October 2007)
U.S. mayors meet in Seattle to push for a green revolution
Lisa Stiffler, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Fluorescent bulbs were climate change activism on training wheels. For the next generation, it’s time for a green revolution, for overthrowing the old order and ushering in the new, environmental and local elected leaders say.
They talk about a campaign as passionate as the civil rights movement, as nationally unifying as World War II patriotism. They’re talking put-a-man-on-the-moon-sized investments in the development of clean energy. They want strict standards for vehicle greenhouse-gas emissions. They’re begging the public to pressure national politicians to champion ambitious efforts to curb global warming.
This week Seattle is the epicenter for city-led crusades to slow global warming as it hosts the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Summit.
(1 November 2007)
Monroe prison gets ‘green’ certification
Claudia Rowe, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
MONROE — The state’s largest prison, which houses 2,500 men, is about to expand still further, adding hundreds of beds for its worst-behaved inmates. Yet as they lie in their 12-by-8-foot cells, gazing up through narrow windows at a tiny slice of sky, the criminals in solitary confinement at Monroe Correctional Complex will be using low-energy lights to read by and collected rainwater to flush their toilets.
Theirs is the first prison unit in the state to be certified as “green” by the U.S. Green Building Council, and officials at the Department of Corrections believe it may be the first such cellblock in the nation. It cost $39.5 million to build and will hold 200 men.
The effort to build more environmentally friendly prisons dovetails with an ambitious, $500 million campaign to expand inmate space around the state.
(31 October 2007)
