The Team Greening Program, a collaboration of Major League Baseball and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), will provide to each Club an individualized NRDC Team Greening Advisor for Major League Baseball, which is a web-based software tool featuring advice and resources for every aspect of a Club’s operations. This unprecedented program, more than two years in development, will expand on the industry’s best practices, offering specific local advice concerning such topics as

• Adopting an official environmental policy

• Incorporating environmental language into contracts, purchasing policies and requests for proposals that specify preferences for environmentally sound products and services

• Encouraging the use of renewable energy

• Providing information about how to credibly offset the carbon emissions related to team and fan transportation

• Using post-consumer recycled content paper for all paper product

• Implementing paper reduction strategies in offices

• Offsetting the environmental impact of up to half team and employee travel

• Establishing Club eco-committee

Some of the local teams around here are way ahead of the game already. The SF Giants use 600 solar panels to power AT&T Park and feed back to the grid when the stadium’s use is low. Plus, its hi-def, LED scoreboard is sharper than the old one and uses 78% less energy. The Oakland A’s home, McAfee Coliseum, serves up its nachos and drinks in biodegradable cups, utensils, and containers, and sorts everything (food scraps too) for composting. That makes that $7 drink go down so much smoother.

Brian Segee, an attorney with Defenders of Wildlife, said, “It’s dangerous, it’s arrogant, it’s going to have pronounced environmental impacts and it won’t do a thing to address the problems of undocumented immigrants or address border security problems. It’s an incredibly simplistic and ineffective approach to complex problems.”
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has called the waivers a last resort, and department officials say the agency is committed to minimizing the impacts to the environment and wildlife and that many of the 470 miles have already undergone environmental review.

“If that was true, the waivers wouldn’t be necessary,” Segee countered. I completely agree.

The Republicans, however, are thrilled. “It’s great. This is the priority area where most of the illegal activity is going on and where most of the deaths are occurring,” said Rep. Brian P. Bilbray (R-Solana Beach), chairman of the Immigration Reform Caucus. “The quicker we can get the physical fence up, the sooner we’ll avoid situations like the deaths of agents. And it’s still a national security issue. You just have to stop this kind of open traffic along the border.”

Yeah, because Mexicans are causing so much trouble in our country. And I’m sorry, did he just say that the lives of Americans were more important that the lives of Mexicans? That’s what it sounded like to me. Anyway, putting up a fence only where most of the traffic is coming through won’t help at all. What’s to stop them from coming across somewhere else? And what about the land and wildlife such as the ocelot, whose mating habits may be affected?

I guess they’ll do whatever it takes to stop the illegal immigrants, even if it means destroying the environment.

“This is a matter of leading by example,” Nickels said. “The people of Seattle own one of the best water supplies in the country, every bit as good as bottled water and available at a fraction of the price. When you add up the tremendous environmental costs of disposable plastic bottles clogging our landfills, the better choice is crystal clear.”

This is a big step against the evils of bottled water, which I loudly applaud.  The order will also give the city a chance to do better things with the money saved and will keep their landfills that much emptier and cleaner. Last year the city spent $58,000 on bottled water for its employees. Think of the possibilities!

And this is only the beginning. According to the city’s press release, “The mayor’s order — which applies only to city departments — is the first step in an effort to promote Seattle’s water and get people to consider kicking the bottle habit.”

No matter how much beer you celebrate with, remember to be responsible. Environmentally responsible.

Cascade Brewery, from Tasmania and owned by Fosters, has declared their new Cascade Green as 100% carbon neutral from the picking of the locally grown hops to the eventual deposit in the recycling bin.

The carbon neutral aspect comes via the purchase of Australian Government Greenhouse Friendly certified carbon offsets that go to supporting the Hobart Landfill Flare Facility.

The brewery has also reduced its energy usage by 16% and water usage by 30% per unit of production over the last six years. The beverage comes in the lightest weight, highest recycled content glass bottle currently available in Australia, and is shipped in cartons of 100% recycled cardboard printed with two-color biodegradable vegetable inks.

Just be warned that Cascade hasn’t made any claims to be organic or vegan, it’s just carbon neutral.

If you do want a vegan beer, then try Green Man. It’s brewed from organic ingredients, and is free of added sugars. They reuse their bottles and many of their cardboard cartons too.

All good reasons to raise a glass and say Slante.

The magic goo is anatase titanium dioxide, a widely used pigment. Sunlight reacts with the coating to break apart organic molecules like dyes, turning them into carbon dioxide and water at room temperature. How cool is that?

The scientist coated some silk and wool with it, then stained both treated fabrics and non-treated fabrics with red wine and exposed them to simulated sunlight.

After 20 hours, the stains on the treated fabrics were almost completely gone, while the stains on conventional fabrics looked virtually the same.

When can we expect this magnificent marvel? “We are currently collaborating with a famous textile company for doing mill-trials,” said study co-author Wing Sze. “We believe it won’t be long before the product appears on the market.” They believe that clothes with self-cleaning properties will become a standard feature of future textiles. I’m willing to believe them too.

Genetic modification: who has the money for that? Experimenting on humans: it’s illegal so that one’s easy. But what about the animals? It’s ok to experiment on them? Polluting the environment: a bit harder to not do, but we’re trying our best here. That’s what we’re all about. Oo, do we get brownie points for that? Causing social injustice: most of us don’t really have the power to do this one so again, easy. Causing poverty: who does that? Besides politicians I mean. Becoming obscenely wealthy: again, pretty hard to do. What about being born obscenely wealthy? Is that ok? Taking drugs: That’s going be a toughie for the young people. And for old people if that includes prescription drugs and the like. I think we could use some clarification on this one.

All in all, I think I like these mortal sins better than the old ones. If I were a Catholic and believed this sort of thing, I might actually follow them.

“Johnson’s excuse that global warming is not unique to California is both factually and legally wrong,” said David Doniger, policy director for the National Resources Defense Council. Doniger said no other state can claim the same “severe impacts” from smog, wildfires, water supply problems, and agricultural losses. “The combination and severity of these impacts makes California’s conditions compelling and extraordinary,” he said.

But Johnson doesn’t care. Ah well, California is suing and no one thinks that they’ll lose. California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer said the EPA decision would not stand up in court but would result in “more delay in cleaning up our air and tackling the challenge of global warming.” Thanks a lot Johnson.

What about the automakers? Struggling U.S. auto manufacturers and overseas car companies have fought the California proposal, saying it would hurt their business, especially if adopted by other states. They say that trying to meet both federal efficiency standards and another, stricter standard adopted by states would add huge production costs and increases prices. Aww, suck it up. People are still going to buy cars.

Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco and other city officials announced in 2006 that they wanted to build turbines under the Golden Gate Bridge to harness energy from the tidal currents, expecting up to 38 megawatts (enough for approx. 38,000 homes). But a new study by URS, an engineering firm, says that there would actually only be just 1 or 2 megawatts produced at a cost of tens of millions to build, and high yearly maintenance expenses. Though the taxpayers’ money would clearly be better spent elsewhere, Mayor Newsom doesn’t seem to care. “I don’t care about the arguments against it. I care about the arguments for it. I am going to find a way to make it happen.”

I’m all for clean energy, but it has to make sense. This is a waste of money and resources for something that isn’t even worth it.