Long Island Needs Plan for Sustainable Future

Great article.  Just wanted to pass it along

by

John D. Cameron Jr. is the chairman of the Long Island Regional Planning Council.

Michael E. White is the council’s executive director.

from

Long Island Business News

The news, opinion pages and blogs of LIBN have been filled with the challenges Long Island is facing, and it seems that the very best of what “Our Island” has to offer is at risk. While we share many of the problems faced by other communities, we have regional challenges that make our plight unique and in some ways more desperate. The Long Island Regional Planning Council is tackling these challenges and will ascertain how Long Island may achieve a sustainable future. If we are to be successful in solving these challenges, Long Islanders must be ready to embrace a future that preserves appealing aspects of our suburban life, recognizes our remarkable assets and creates a community based upon the principles of stewardship and sustainability.

Our distinction as the most highly taxed populace, with the highest energy costs in the continental United States and a lack of housing options to meet the needs of our changing population has resulted in an accelerated loss of our talented and educated work force, particularly our young people. The affordability problems of our young work force are shared by our seniors, a growing segment of Long Islanders. You have heard this before.

“Our Island” also faces an aging and inadequate infrastructure. We cannot build or revitalize our downtowns without adequate sewer capacity and treatment to protect our drinking water. We cannot alleviate our traffic congestion without better transportation and transit choices. The natural resources that attract us to the Island are stressed or even disappearing. Failure to address global climate change and reduce greenhouse gases could bring more unhealthy air and permanent flooding. Our ability to attract and retain quality businesses which employ highly skilled, highly paid workers must be strengthened. These challenges threaten our quality of life and our economic viability.

Acknowledging these challenges and problems as daunting, there is hope that we can still right the ship. The council, with core support from our counties and in collaboration with our towns, villages, cities and an array of stakeholders, is embarking upon a sustainability planning initiative to ensure that not only does Long Island remain an economic engine, but that our quality of life will be preserved and enhanced. Our “LI-2035 Regional Comprehensive Sustainability Plan” initiative will produce an integrated sustainability action plan. It will NOT merely be another study of existing deficient conditions or a vision devoid of a charted course of how and what to change.

Assisting the council is a team of talented planners, engineers, scientists, economists and sociologists headed by Arup, an internationally respected firm, supported by local firms and community-based organizations in conjunction with federal, state and local government. The work product will draw upon sustainability successes from around the world with specific application to Long Island.

First, we will identify and assess the challenges we face in economy, infrastructure, resources and land use. We then will establish goals; develop a series of sustainable strategies with metrics to assess their impact on meeting our challenges; and identify the necessary governmental actions and funding mechanisms required to implement the strategies to reach the goals. Second will be the integrated action plan providing the “how to” and “who needs to do what” to reach a condition of sustainability by the year 2035.

The council is supported in the development of this plan by a Leadership Advisory Cabinet comprised of Long Island leaders in business and industry, institutions, regional government, the community, the environment and nonprofits. The cabinet is co-chaired by Bob Catell and Pat Foye. Supporting the cabinet will be stakeholder resource groups acting as technical advisors in specific thematic areas. The experience and expertise of our cabinet and stakeholder resource groups as well as broad public outreach will ensure that the critical issues affecting Long Island will be addressed, practical solutions proposed, information generated widely disseminated and that the action plan will be implementable.

The critical challenges and associated problems we face are real and significant. It is up to all of us to seize the opportunity to create a sustainable future for “Our Island.”

USGBC Wants an Environmental Label for Every Building

This article appeared in:

Environmental Leader

Every building in the U.S. should have a label as to its environmental impact, said the U.S. Green Building Council’s president at the Healthy Buildings meeting.  At the same event, IBM told how it is taking green buildings one step further with bright-green buildings, which converges green buildings with intelligence, said an IBM executive, reports Central New York News.

Rick Fedrizzi, president of the U.S. Green Building Council, would like to see a label similar to nutrition labels found on food packaging on the side of every building, that discloses the quality of the air, water and other environmental factors inside, reports Central New York News.  Fedrizzi was the opening keynote speaker at the Healthy Buildings 2009 conference.

Fedrizzi said in the article that indoor environmental quality ranks near the bottom of the nation’s policy issues, and to change that, more research is needed to demonstrate the links between health and indoor air quality. He also noted that green building research attracted less than 1 percent of all federally funded research in 2007.
Jane Snowdon, a key executive at IBM’s Intelligent Building and Smarter City Research at the T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., told an audience at the Healthy Buildings 2009 conference that buildings need to be smarter because they consume 70 percent of the world’s electricity, 12 percent of its potable water and 40 percent of the raw materials used globally, reports the newspaper. T hey also create 136 million tons of waste per year worldwide, she said.

The smart grid would play an integral role in making buildings more energy efficient.  As an example, National Grid, a utility in New York and New England, has applied for $200 million in federal stimulus money to create a smart grid in three states involving 200,000 customers, reports the newspaper.

Christopher Cavanagh, director of new products and services for the utility, told Central New York News that smart meters, appliances and monitoring systems will let consumers choose to consume energy when it’s cheaper — generally at night, or off-peak hours — and let the utility manage demand for energy.

To help building owners garner financial savings from green building practices, a new nonprofit organization was formed earlier this year to support and promote environmental sustainability among property owners and managers nationwide.

The Association of Green Property Owners and Managers (AGPOM) offers several services to members including a cost-effective Green Building Plan, green insurance products that provide discounts for going green, and Green Premium Plus, a program based on renewable energy credits (RECs).

Pumping Up the Grid: Key Step to Green Energy

Yale Environment 360, 8 Sep 09

by

Michael Noble

The U.S can build all the wind turbines and solar arrays it wants, but until it does something about improving its outmoded electricity grid, renewable energy will never reach its potential. What we need is a new electricity transmission system, with the costs shared by all.

As America gets serious about the twin crises of oil dependency and climate change, many analysts believe that wind power — and eventually solar power — will make the largest carbon-free contributions to a new energy supply. But America’s aging electrical transmission system is renewable energy’s Achilles heel, and unless a broad policy consensus to upgrade our electrical grid is forged soon, the potential of wind and solar power will be vastly diminished.

Three things are needed to solve the challenge of renewable energy transmission: good technical planning, permitting and siting processes that can win public support, and broad agreement on how to pay the high cost of new power lines. Of these issues, the last one — gaining agreement on how transmission costs are spread among players — is currently the most contentious. To solve it, policymakers must come up with a plan to allocate these costs as broadly across the electricity system as possible — utilities, renewable energy generators, and consumers — since ultimately the whole system and all its users will benefit from a 21st century grid.

Today, achieving a national consensus on the importance of a better electrical transmission system is the single most important step toward vast expansion of clean, low-cost sources of energy. With every passing day, we can generate more and more energy from wind and solar power. The challenge now is getting it to the population centers where it is most needed.

Wind is the prime renewable energy source in my region of the United States, the Upper Midwest, and last year the U.S. wind market enjoyed massive growth, increasing the country’s total wind power generating capacity by nearly half. New wind energy projects accounted for more than 40 percent of all electric generating capacity added last year, as the U.S. surpassed Germany as the world’s wind power leader. A recent federal study demonstrated how wind energy could grow from 1 percent to 20 percent of U.S. electricity generation by 2030. With automakers and policymakers increasingly agreeing that electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids are important to U.S. energy security, greening the electric grid is doubly urgent.

To reach this goal, wind turbines would have to be installed across the nation and offshore. However, in many cases the highest quality wind is distant from the most densely populated parts of the country, so a major investment in a more robust grid is essential.

Our current electricity transmission infrastructure — the power lines that stretch across the landscape, the substations, the power poles and distribution lines in America’s cities — is aging and severely strained. Though not on the brink of collapse, it is critical infrastructure that’s completely outdated for an economy that will increasingly run on clean electricity. Many lines and substations are old and operating at full capacity, unable to accept the energy from even a few dozen new wind turbines. Congestion bottlenecks limit the amount of energy that can flow across the landscape, like a multi-lane highway that narrows to a single lane.

Because wind and solar energy are variable in their output, having a strong interconnected grid system boosts the system’s ability to take on more and more renewables. For example, if it’s super-windy in Kansas, we could send the extra energy to Chicago where the wind is calm. Our current web of transmission lines is just not properly sized — or properly located — to allow vast amounts of energy to do that job.

Most Americans know little or nothing about how we manage electricity transmission, plan for it, and pay for it. Not only are these not popular topics for the public, they’re not an issue for most energy and environmental groups.

Here where I live in Minnesota, the Midwest Independent System Operator (MISO) manages and plans electric transmission in 13 states, from the Dakotas to Indiana. Its job, in part, is to run the electric system fairly and openly — like the interstate highway system — so anyone can get on and move from here to there, without discrimination against any power supplier. MISO is doing an increasingly aggressive and thorough analysis of the transmission upgrades — including beefier lines, new corridors, and new substations — for multiple wind deployment scenarios, including the vision that sees wind as providing at least 20 percent of the nation’s electricity.

But MISO and similar agencies can only do so much with our outdated grid, which requires an overhaul involving government and the energy sectors at all levels — local, state, and federal.
The first hurdle is to streamline the permitting process. Wind energy farms can be built in a few months, but securing permission to construct high-voltage transmission lines can take five years or longer. This is not so much a technical problem as a social and political one. Face it: Nobody likes new transmission lines in their community or near their property.

Just last month, the Transmission Agency of Northern California (TANC), including the iconic green Sacramento Municipal Utility District and the federal Western Area Power Administration, was forced to pull the plug on a 600-mile transmission project in northern California. I cannot speak to the merits of the line or its need, but there seems to be broad agreement that because the public process was poor, the affected communities essentially killed the project. Transmission proponents often act as if public support is an afterthought, presenting the lines as a fait accompli, and assume the public will simply go along with their assurances that the lines are well sited and critical to the electric system.

Too often the public does not get a real opportunity to clearly understand the purpose of the proposed transmission line, or a meaningful chance to help select the best route. If citizens along the proposed route feel that they are being taken for granted or treated unfairly, they will fight the project rather than shape it. Even a handful of dedicated opponents can delay a necessary transmission line upgrade for years.

The standard argument for opposing new transmission lines is the potential for conservation, rooftop solar, and other community energy solutions. Diversifying our energy sources in these ways is good. But remember that over the next two to three decades we must replace virtually all of America’s existing coal-fired power stations or retrofit them with carbon-sequestration technology (a dubious proposition) if we hope to avoid the most serious consequences of a changing climate. To make this switch without large-scale wind and solar power — and new power lines — will be impossible.

As difficult as siting is, we face an even more urgent problem — fair allocation of the costs of upgrading the grid. In my home state, Minnesota utility Otter Tail Power Company attests that MISO’s current rules for sharing the cost of new transmission to wind farms are unworkable.

Currently, if a wind developer wants to connect to the electric grid of a utility, the wind developer pays half the cost, and the utility pays half. That seems reasonable, but wind energy resources in Otter Tail’s western Minnesota and North and South Dakota service area are so vast that the utility currently has connection requests for wind farms equaling 10 times the utility’s total energy need. To burden Otter Tail Power with these excessive interconnection costs simply doesn’t make sense. Without a fix, Otter Tail threatens to leave the MISO system, opting out of a voluntary wholesale electricity market that is, by all accounts, essential for the economically efficient operation of the U.S. power grid.

Unfortunately, MISO has proposed a remedy that’s worse than the problem. The power generators and transmission owners who have the majority voice in MISO now say that Otter Tail should pay nothing, but the wind developer should pay the whole freight. That proposal is pending at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and a broad campaign is afoot to inform FERC that it’s a non-starter. In fact, it’s a solution guaranteed to stop wind energy development in its tracks.

What’s needed is what FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff has proposed to Congress: to give his agency the authority to broadly allocate the transmission costs throughout regional operating systems, like MISO. We should treat new transmission as a public infrastructure, like natural gas pipelines, bridges or transit, or high-speed rail. The solution is to spread the cost — which will reach many tens of billions of dollars — equitably across all electricity consumers. Not surprisingly, Wellinghoff’s proposal is generating opposition from some utilities and their political supporters. But the role of renewable energy transmission is too important to our energy future to let politics as usual stand in the way.

Over the past few months, parochial interests have hammered away at national grid reform in the House-approved energy legislation awaiting action in the U.S. Senate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has identified upgrading the grid for renewable electricity as a key priority.

Reid, his colleagues, and federal regulators must make it clear that transmission for clean energy is a pressing national priority — for our security, our economy, and our climate goals — that should be an important component of any climate and energy legislation.

Congress should mandate that the regional independent system operators plan the transmission systems we desperately need. We must have laws that require meaningful public participation in routing of new transmission lines; but environmental opposition must not stop transmission that’s crucial to protect the environment and slow global warming. Finally, our policies must spell out a method of sharing the costs of building a 21st century grid.

If the President, Congress, and FERC act together to create a new transmission system, America will inevitably realize its potential for renewable electricity. Otherwise we will stymie development of the clean energy that could be a cornerstone of America’s economic and environmental future.

This piece originally appeared on Yale Environment 360CC photo credit

The Rights of Future Generations

Some people seem to have a hard time even understanding the concept of the rights of future generations. The idea that people who do not yet exist have the right to assert their needs in our lives is one that seems to be hard to fully grasp.


Think of this example: If someone set a bomb to go off in a public square 100 years from now, is he committing a crime? Should he be stopped? Almost everyone would say yes. Should he be tried before a court of law and prevented from doing further harm? Most of us would agree that he should.


Now, here's the tricky part: climate change is the bomb, and our great-grandkids are the victims. By transgressing planetary boundaries, we are seriously and effectively permanently undermining the ability of the planet to provide the kind of climate stability, ecosystem services and renewable resources that future generations will need to maintain their own societies. In the worst case scenarios, we are in fact dooming many of them to extreme suffering and early death. Life on a planet 10 degrees hotter is not something we would wish to have inflicted on ourselves.


And we don't really have the ethical or legal right to inflict it on our descendants. There is no legitimate basis for thinking that we have the right to use the planet up, that the property rights of our generation trump the human rights of all generations to come.


Put it another way: ethically, our riches are not our own. We hold the planet in trust, and as long as we don't use more of the planet's bounty than can be sustainably provided in perpetuity, we have the ethical right to enjoy the best lives we can create. But the minute we stray into unsustainable levels of consumption, we're not in fact spending our own riches, but those of future people, by setting in motion slow-fuse disasters that will greatly diminish their possibilities.

Unfortunately, nearly everyone in the developed world now enriches their lives at the cost of future generations. As Paul Hawken says, “We have an economy where we steal the future, sell it in the present, and call it G.D.P."

Now, obviously, most of us did not intend to find ourselves in this situation, and so we have a legitimate argument that we need a reasonable amount of time to change and eliminate our ecological impact. What a reasonable amount of time is, though, is becoming the subject of fierce debate, especially since it's clear that many people's definition of a reasonable time for change is sometime after they're dead.

The really interesting question: if future generations have legal rights -- and it's pretty clear they do -- in what courts might those rights be defended, and how?

Planetary Boundaries and the New Generation Gap

This is a great article I figured I would share with everyone.

by

Alex Steffen,

www.worldchanging.com

June 30th 2009

A sort of generation gap on global issues is emerging around the pace of change. The older generation, especially the older generation of well-heeled white men, today respond to our calls for rapid change by urging "realism" -- meaning an expectation of delayed action and minimal commitment. We saw this most recently in the U.S. debate about the Waxman-Markey climate bill, which both takes effect too slowly and demands too little, in comparison to what we know we need to do based on climate science.

Those of us with a little clearer grasp on reality know that every moment lost now has real consequences. Ecological crises and development challenges are combining in ways that make solving both issues much more difficult with every passing day. Clear thinking people -- and at this moment, polls show, most of us tend to be on the younger side -- get that we do not have decades to act. We hear the clock ticking.

We're about to hear a lot about "planetary boundaries." Planetary boundaries reflect the idea that the limits of the Earth to support human civilization can be measured across several natural systems. They're a scientific attempt to describe the base conditions for global sustainability. If we've going to thrive, we need to figure out how to do it within these limits.

Last year, a group of scientists led by the Stockholm Resilience Centre took a shot at defining those boundaries. They found three hard targets:

Climate Change: Stabilized concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at 350 ppm

Stratospheric ozone layer: A decrease of five percent in column ozone levels at a given latitude with respect to 1964-1980 values

Ocean acidity: Concentration of carbonate ions in surface sea water of the Southern Ocean should not fall below 80 µmol per kg-1


In addition, they defined seven other boundaries for which specific hard targets were more difficult to pin down but which nonetheless demanded attention: freshwater consumption and the global hydrological cycle; deforestation; interference with the global nitrogen cycle; terrestrial biodiversity; chemicals dispersion; marine ecosystems.

We're in the process of straying beyond every single one of these boundaries. Of course, each of these boundaries is a massive issue in its own right, the subject of a global debate involving hosts of experts and advocates; but put them together -- as we must, since they are all tied together and affect one another -- and we begin to see just how massive the ecological crisis at hand is.
But, as useful as the concept of planetary boundaries is, it also leaves out another critical interplay, the one between human aspirations and abilities and the very real generational thresholds we face.

We are headed towards a peak population of at least nine billion people shortly after mid-century. Almost all of those people will aspire to greater prosperity, quite reasonably in most cases (I think that trying to talk the world's poor out of their aspirations is a fool's game). That means we need to expect to see billions more people reaching for what they see as the good life.

At the same time, we can't repeat the path to wealth that made the developed world rich. We've already exceeded the planet's biocapacity; we're already beyond the planetary boundaries, meaning that business as usual has prohibitive environmental costs. We're running out of places to dump and spew waste without dire human cost. We've also used up a tremendous share of the planet's easy bounty -- from old trees to cheap oil to big fish to virgin metals -- meaning that conventional resource and energy use will largely come from more and more difficult (and often more and more ecologically costly) stocks. Peak everything will not only make getting rich the old fashioned way more expensive, it will also make it more destructive. The combination of what are technically known as declining stocks (less good stuff to use) and shrinking sinks (fewer places to safely put the bad stuff) will make development far more difficult for the world's poor this century than last.

Adding to that difficulty is the on-going waste of human potential, and the growing costs of lost opportunities to engage the world's poor in transforming their own situations.

Think in terms of medicine for a moment. We're starting to get our heads around the fact that compared to treating disease, preventing them is far cheaper, more effective and happier for the patient. Prevention, though, to a certain degree demands early commitment. Start a lifelong exercise, nutrition and stress-reduction program in your teens, and your results will be profoundly better than someone who starts one at 60 after a lifetime of smoking, eating junk food and working too hard. For that 60 year-old, it's still worth getting healthier, but there are hard limits on how healthy he will ever get.

What applies to medicine also applies to human development, especially now in countries with very young populations: the degree of sustainable prosperity we are capable of achieving depends to some large extent on how good a start we get, how quickly.

Even another two decades of the status quo will make many of our goals nearly impossible.

Needless deaths, injuries, sicknesses and malnutrition today will impose an astronomical cost on us over the coming decades. Missed opportunities to educate children (especially girls) leave lifetimes of limited opportunities. The trauma of conflict and collapse, of natural disasters or of family tragedies, could combine with the strains of living in extreme poverty to leave hundreds of millions with a lifelong difficulties coping. The disillusionment of a generation of young people, who find themselves trapped in corrupt or failing states, or simply shut out of opportunities for dignity and work in the global economy, can turn them away from productive engagement with the problems around them and turn some of them towards extremism and terror. As much as we want to believe in an endless potential for human transformation, the reality is that people's energies, spirits and opportunities for growth are themselves limited resources.

Right now, we're squandering them in mind-boggling volumes, and that waste has costs. With every passing year, the task of raising billions of people out of poverty to become parts of stable, democratic states with functioning economic, legal and health systems becomes more difficult.

And all this while climate vulnerabilities, food shortages and rising energy costs begin to undermine even the progress much of the developing world has managed so far. There are generational thresholds for change, and it is possible to fail to act boldly enough to move through them.

The brutal reality is that failure is possible in human societies as well as in ecological systems. There are points beyond which societal problems start to become effectively impossible to solves. And when you combine the two -- an on-going societal meltdown with massive ecological degradation -- the result can be real, catastrophic failure that lasts for generations, perhaps effectively forever.

Both the planetary boundaries we're exceeding and the generational thresholds we're failing to step through ought to be matters of concern for every person on the planet. We know now that in a thousand extremely practical ways we're all tied together through webs of ecological interdependence, global economics, culture, disease and public health, conflict and terror. It may be possible for large failures to happen while much of the rest of the world improves; some large failures may even be inevitable. But widespread failure to spread stability, human welfare and a reasonable degree of prosperity will ultimately doom any level of progress we make in keeping within our planetary ecological boundaries. And ultimately, a planetary collapse will leave no one -- not even the richest and best situated -- unaffected. Our children's hopes are dependent on the futures other children inherit.

This is why bright green solutions are so important. We here in the developed world need to not only redesign our lives to reduce our own impact; we need to reinvent prosperity itself, so that billions of people around the world can take the innovations we create and make their own versions of sustainable prosperity. And the reality is that it must be us; to think otherwise is to willfully ignore the massive disparity in research funding, institutional capacity and education levels that exists between the wealthy and the poor on this planet. (Besides which, we're responsible for causing many of these problems.)

We must also do it quickly. We need to do it yesterday. We can't simply plan to cut our own impacts down to a level that could be shared by everyone over the next four or five decades.

Even if we had that long a time to reduce our impacts -- and we don't -- there is no way the rest of the word can get stable and sustainably prosperous in that time frame unless we lead the way right now. Anything less than an all-out effort now is morally inexcusable. Small steps, incremental reductions, slow plans -- unless these are tied to big, systemic and quick solutions, they will not be enough. We need a bright green future, right now.

All that is the bad news.

Here's the good news: We can build that bright green future. We have the technological prowess, the design insight and even many of the working examples we need to transform our systems and reinvent our cities. We have the money. We may even be gaining the most needed components, vision and political will.

Here's the better news: Not only can we build it, but we'll be better off when we live in it. We will be better off in a stable world than a collapsing one, rather obviously. (It is a monumental failure of our public debate that our choices are still understood as an option between "going green" and the status quo; when in fact they are transformation or imminent ruin.) But most of the evidence indicates that we will be better off in a bright green future than we are now in our dark gray present: better off in crass material terms, with more disposable income, more comfortable homes, nicer communities and better food, but also better off in terms of quality of life, health, time demands and stress. What we gain outweighs what we lose, by far. Put simply, I believe that in almost every way a bright green future would be a better choice than the status quo, even if there were no planetary crisis at all.

There are plenty of reasons for despair and cynicism these days. But it's really important not to underestimate the power of the politics of optimism, the power of actually having better ideas and answers. They are especially powerful when the people opposing us have nothing whatever to offer besides a white-knuckled grasp on a broken status quo. Their only weapons are fear, uncertainty and doubt. It's time we counter with optimism, vision and examples. We need to counter with a future that works.

In the months leading up to Copenhagen we need to insist on the fierce urgency of now: on why we cannot wait, why we have no more time, why half measures and stalling tactics are no longer acceptable; why, in short, the day for real change has come. We need to make that point ring in the media, in political debates, in our corporate boardrooms, in our community meetings, in our classrooms, in our churches and at our cultural events. Everywhere people talk about who we are and where we are going, we need to loudly demand actual reality-based realism... and a bright green economy.

This summer is the calm before the clamor. This fall, we need to let the world know what time it is.

The Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch

Ever wonder where all the ocean garbage goes?

Research Teams Spend the Summer picking Through the "Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch"

By

Larry Greenemeier

60-Second Science Blog

It isn't the most picturesque of locations, but a number of scientists spent their summer taking in the 25.9-million-square-kilometer oval of the Pacific Ocean known as the North Subtropical Gyre, or "Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch," located about 1,600 kilometers off California's coast. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition's (SEAPLEX) research vessel (R/V) New Horizon returned to California earlier this week after spending about three weeks studying pools of plastic debris that have collected in the gyre, in particular their impact on marine life.

Scripps researchers engaged in 24-hour sampling periods using a variety of tow nets to collect debris at several ocean depths. On August 11, the researchers encountered a large net entwined with plastic and various marine organisms; they also recovered several plastic bottles covered with ocean animals, including large barnacles. "We targeted the highest plastic-containing areas so we could begin to understand the scope of the problem," Miriam Goldstein of SIO, chief scientist of the expedition, said in a statement. "We also studied everything from phytoplankton to zooplankton to small midwater fish."

Earlier this month, a team of researchers from the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, Calif., returned from its own two-month voyage to the garbage patch, aboard the 15-meter Ocean Research Vessel, Alguita. Scuba instructor and underwater videographer Drew Wheeler traveled on board Alguita and blogged about his experiences for Scientific American.com.

Wheeler's conclusion: "We must stop this from getting worse by reducing or eliminating the use of non biodegradable plastic for disposable products and product packaging. If the increasing rate of plastic in the ocean does not change, then I do not see how we can avoid catastrophic changes in the health of our marine ecosystem and, as a result, to human life itself."

Why to Go Green: By the Numbers

1 pound per hour: the amount of carbon dioxide that is saved from entering the atmosphere for every kilowatt-hour of renewable energy produced.

60 percent: the reduction in developmental problems in children in China who were born after a coal-burning power plant closed in 2006.

35 percent: the amount of coal's energy that is actually converted to electricity in a coal-burning power plant. The other two-thirds is lost to heat.

2.5 percent: the percentage of humans' carbon dioxide emission produced by air travel now, still making it the largest transportation-related greenhouse gas emitter.

5 percent: the percentage of the world's carbon dioxide emissions expected to be produced by air travel by the year 2050.

1.5 acres: the amount of rainforest lost every second to land development and deforestation, with tremendous losses to habitat and biodiversity.

137: the number of plant, animal and insect species lost every day to rainforest deforestation, equating to roughly 50,000 species per year.

4 pounds, 6 ounces: the amount of cosmetics that can be absorbed through the skin of a woman who wears makeup every day, over the period of one year.

61 percent: the percentage of women's lipstick, out of the 33 tested, found to contain lead in a test by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.

36: the number of U.S. states that are anticipating local, regional or statewide water shortages by 2013.

1 out of 100: the number of U.S. households that would need to be retrofitted with water-efficient appliances to realize annual savings of 100 million kilowatt-hours of electricity and 80,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

3 trillion: the number of gallons of water, along with $18 billion, the U.S. would save each year if every household invested in water-saving appliances.

64 million tons: the amount of material prevented from going to landfill or incineration thanks to recycling and composting in 1999.

95 percent: the amount of energy saved by recycling an aluminum can versus creating the can from virgin aluminum. That means you can make 20 cans out of recycled material with the same amount of energy it takes to make one can out of new material. Energy savings in one year alone are enough to light a city the size of Pittsburgh for six years.

113,204: the number, on average, of aluminum cans recycled each minute of each day.

3: the number of hours a television set can run on the energy saved from recycling just one aluminum can.

40 percent: the percentage of energy saved by recycling newsprint over producing it from virgin materials.

Sources: Consumer Reports, Environmental Health Perspectives, Raintree Nutrition, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and EPA Water and EPA Recycling, Worldwatch Institute, Energy Information Administration, Ready, Set, Green, Earth911.org, The Telegraph, Yahoo! News

That New House Smell

Love That New Home Smell?

Today's new-home construction materials contain an excessive amount of chemicals that evaporate and off-gas into VOCs, or Volatile Organic Compounds. Kitchen and bathroom cabinets, moulding and paneling, drywall, flooring and roofing materials are manufactured using toxic chemicals such as Urea-Formaldehyde and phenolic resins. Paints, stains, and sealants are used extensively in just about every room in the house, and contain VOCs that can cause serious health effects. A newly-constructed house will have a significant amount of VOCs in the air because the rate of off-gassing for VOCs is highest initially. This accounts for the “new house smell” that most new home buyers experience. After several weeks the rate of VOC off-gassing from building materials will decline; however, the off-gassing will continue at a slow and continuous pace and the gases will remain in the air for many months, and possibly years.

There have been many cases of homeowners who have developed mysterious health ailments shortly after moving into a new home.


Products that emit VOCs in Newly Constructed or Remodeled Homes:
Paints & varnishes
Building materials
Carpeting
Wallpaper
Vinyl flooring
Glues & adhesives
Cabinets and built-in bookcases made from pressed wood
Roofing shingles

All of these products are now available with low or no VOCs used in the production of these materials. New green products are made available every day. Stores like The Green Depot are popping up all over Long Island. Usually these products are cheaper as well as more sustainable.

What Makes A Product Green?

An important tool in the effort to build greener buildings and live greener lives is the selection of products and materials that were made using environmentally friendly processes and are used in environmentally friendly ways.

Green products are available for just about any daily need, and the ways they are green are many and varied:

They are energy or water efficient
They use healthy, non-toxic materials; they are made from recycled or renewable sources
They make current products you use more efficient or more durable
They are recyclable or biodegradable, among many other things.

But among all the truly green products comes the risk of “greenwashing;” that is, products that are advertised as green without truly offering environmental or health benefits. The directories below will help you sort through the claims and find the products that best meet your needs. But please note: Inclusion or exclusion of any product in these directories does not represent endorsement by ASID or the U.S. Green Building Council:

• GreenSpec Directory: The online GreenSpec® Directory lists product descriptions for over 2,100 environmentally preferable products. Products are chosen to be listed by BuildingGreen editors. They do not charge for listings or sell ads.

• GREEN BUILDING PAGES: Green Building Pages is an online sustainable design and decision-making tool for building industry professionals and environmentally and socially responsible consumers.

• GREEN2GREEN: Green2Green.org features comprehensive information regarding green building products, materials and practices. The site offers side-by-side comparisons of products using a variety of environmental, technical and economic criteria.

• OIKOS: Oikos is a World Wide Web site devoted to serving professionals whose work promotes sustainable design and construction.

• THE GREEN GUIDE: National Geographic’s Green Guide offers staff-written reviews of a host of products, ranging from appliances, home furnishings and home improvement products to personal care and pet supplies.

• GOOD TO BE GREEN: Good To Be Green is a directory of green building products, sustainable building materials and green building service providers. Products must: be made out of recycled materials; ensure a low environmental impact during the construction, operation and/or demolition of the building; conserve
natural resources like energy, wood and water; and improve air quality.

Questions To Consider When Buying A Green Product or Material

• MANUFACTURER COMMITMENT TO SUSTAINABILITY
• Is there a written, working environmental policy in
  place? Is it easy to find on their Web site or product
  literature?
• Does this policy strive to make important
  improvements in manufacturing, reducing and reusing
  first, then recycling?
• Do they comply with their industry’s voluntary testing
  programs?

• EXAMINE THE PRODUCT’S COMPOSITION
• What are the raw materials used to create the product? And where do they come from?
• Did the materials come from renewable resources?
• Is the manufacturing process energy efficient?
• Does the manufacturing process release harmful
  substances?
• Are adhesives needed to make the product viable? What are they using?
• Are coatings or finishes needed to make the product
  viable? What are they using?

• EXAMINE OTHER ASPECTS OF THE PRODUCT
• Does the product nurture the health and well-being of
  its occupants?
• Does the product do the job well?
• How much energy does it use?
  Does the product release VOCs? At what rate?
• How is the product packaged and transported?
• How is the product installed and maintained?
• Does it have a color or texture that can lead to reduced
  lighting energy or an expanded range of thermal
  comfort conditions?
• Can the product be maintained in a benign manner?
  Using safe cleaning products?

• EXAMINE STRATEGIES FOR DISPOSAL
• Is the product durable? Biodegradable? Recyclable?
• Can the parts be separated for recycling?
• Can it be made into something else?
• Can the product be returned to its manufacturer at the
  end of its useful life?

• COST CONSIDERATIONS
• What is the price range for the product?
• Does the manufacturer provide life cycle cost analysis
  on this product?

USGBC: Long Island Chapter

I am now a member of the Long Island Chapter of the United States Green Building Council.

The U.S. Green Building Council is a 501(c)(3) non-profit community of leaders working to make green buildings available to everyone within a generation.

This is the place to:

Certify your green building
Join USGBC as an organization
Join a chapter as an individual»
Sign up for courses and workshops
Purchase LEED Reference Guides
Learn about Greenbuild 2009
Sign up for e-newsletters
Become a LEED AP
Learn about green building

The U.S. Green Building Council is the nation's foremost coalition of leaders from every sector of the building industry working to promote buildings that are environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy places to live and work.

USGBC's core purpose is to transform the way buildings and communities are designed, built and operated, enabling an environmentally and socially responsible, healthy, and prosperous environment that improves the quality of life. USGBC-LI works to bring these values to the communities of Long Island.

The Strategic Plan 2009-2011

Vision:
The purpose of the Long Island Chapter of the US Green Building Council is to mirror and advance the core purpose of the US Green Building Council locally; to transform the way buildings and communities are designed, built and operated, enabling an environmentally and socially responsible, healthy, and prosperous environment that improves the quality of life.

Mission
The USGBC-LI is committed to working with our fellow Long Islanders to improve our quality of life by improving the quality of the structures we build, and the environment in which we all live, work, and play. We are committed to leaving the world a little better than we found it so that future generations have an unfettered opportunity to do the same.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Long Island’s economy has been driven by the real estate and building sectors. With these sectors at the core of the economic meltdown, the challenges for Long Island are particularly pronounced. The Presidential blueprint for addressing these challenges features energy efficiency in the built environment. Energy efficiency opportunities are abundant on Long Island. Both the interior and exterior atmosphere benefit as a result. Existing buildings account for 40% of U.S. energy use. A 25% improvement in efficiency would lower our carbon footprint by 10%, equivalent to the total output of the United Arab Emirates, the world’s third largest oil producer. To the list of efficiency benefits add energy independence and security. Over the last decade, the U.S. Green Building Council has set the bar for the new built environment. USGBC national has marked 2009 as the year for expanding its influence with the theme for Greenbuild 2009 being “Main Street – Beginning the Conversation.” The Long Island chapter of the USGBC has already established itself at the forefront, with eleven out of thirteen municipalities requiring Energy Star standards plus a role in crafting one of the country’s most rigorous municipal LEED standards for new commercial construction. Now, having supported the development of Long Island Green Homes, the residential energy retrofit program, the chapter is poised to establish itself as a model for suburban Main Street and partnered with the Town of Babylon to launch The Babylon Project. This project was designed and positioned to take this Long Island Initiative nationally.

The members of the USGBC-Long Island have come together to change Long Island’s status from the “birthplace” of suburban sprawl into one of leadership in environmental stewardship, through the construction of environmentally sound, healthy, and profitable buildings.

HISTORY OF CHAPTER
The Long Island Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council owes its foundation to the vision, and initiative of Catherine Shawn. Catherine Shawn was instrumental in assembling a group of like minded professionals and instilling in them the belief that together they could make a difference. It was her inspiration and driving force that propelled Peter Caradonna to believe that he could help start a local Long Island Chapter.

On August 9th, 2005 the Long Island Chapter Organizing Group held a successful Inaugural Event that helped begin the process of membership leading to the first official Board elections.

In November 2005, the first Board of Directors of the newly recognized Long Island Chapter of the USGBC was elected to a term beginning January 01, 2006.

I: Challenges
Many challenges face the Long Island community and must be responded to by the Long Island Chapter. Not only do we face the political and economic issues of the era, but how do we educate the community in the benefits of green construction and change the perception that green does not have to cost more.

The challenges for the chapter are both organizational and operational in responding to the community’s needs.

Challenges include:
Continuity in administrative staffing with integration of paid staff with our volunteer members

Increased value to membership

Change perception from “green costs” to “green saves” to address perceptions that green building is not cost effective and to make an effective case for green building to the financial community.

Expand knowledge and education programs.

Meet the demand for green building with regards to increasing the capacity and training of many sectors such as building trades, designers, developers, and code officials.

Meet the educational needs through the address the education needs for building owners, operators, and occupants on how to manage, operate, and inhabit green buildings.

Creating and maintaining consistent revenue streams to the chapter to maintain programs and operations.

Expand membership base and community involvement.

Developing meaningful and productive relationships with other Long Island not-for-profit organizations.

II: Principles
Promote triple bottom line by promoting and creating solutions that clarify and strengthen a healthy and dynamic balance between environmental, social and economic prosperity.

USGBC-LI will strive for honesty, openness and transparency.

Promote Design with nature - harmonizing human activities and natural systems.

Support efforts to develop affordable LEED-certified housing (in conjunction with municipalities, LIHP, Sustainable Long Island, and Habitat for Humanity).

Support efforts of other organizations in helping to expand ‘green’ residential development (such as LIBI, Neighborhood Network, Vision Long Island)

Reconfigure workplaces, homes and communities in consonance with eco-systems to mitigate building impacts.

Increase access of populations to the benefits of green building by educating building owners and occupants in mobilizing public and private capital for green building projects.

AGENDA: Goals and Objectives
Goal 1: Serve as the portal for USGBC national and the go-to organization for green building on Long Island.

Objectives:
1.1 Transform our web-site into a resource-rich, go-to destination for green searches from throughout the nation. Launch the national web-zine and blog-site, Green Burbs as a core attraction

1.2 Create Resource directory providing access to relative links and a directory of local providers.

1.3 Clearinghouse for policy makers and other advocates.

1.4 Develop relationships with media contacts at the local and regional level.

1.5 Develop replicable process for disseminating information to media contacts.

1.6 Build off the energy efficiency retrofit operations of Long Island Green Homes through directorship of The Babylon Project to promote Green Homes’ operations in other municipalities across Long Island and around the state.

Goal 2: Education - Increase the awareness and level of education to the general and professional communities on the benefits of green construction. Educate professionals and trades in green construction processes and techniques as well as occupants in green building operations and maintenance policies.

Objectives:
2.1 Provide education to building owners and users about the role of the built environment in climate change and resource depletion and the tools available to reduce carbon footprints and resource use associated with the built environment.

2.2 Promote the use of LEED programs, particularly Homes, Neighborhood Development, and Existing Buildings.

2.3 Offer technical training for both professionals and tradespersons in the region, work to promote good sustainable practices in their day-to-day businesses, and provide materials and resources to designers and builders at all levels in support of LEED guidelines and process.

2.4 Encourage the integration of relevant aspects of green building into the curricula of secondary, undergraduate, and graduate education.

Goal 3: Reach out to develop alliances with the building community, i.e. LIBI, AIA, etc.

Objectives:
3.1 Establish a steering committee of building stakeholders and NGOs who work in this area like Neighborhood Network, Sustainable Long Island, LIHP, Habitat for Humanity (provide not just a seat at the table, but entire table at the gala).

3.2 Partner with industry trade associations, professional societies, and other organizations. USGBC will continue to work with an ever‐widening range of public, private, and non‐profit organizations in pursuit of its strategic goals and objectives.

Goal 4: Organizational Stability and Growth

Objectives:
4.1 Develop consistent financial resources in order to provide capacity for growth in order to fully achieve our mission

4.2 Development of specific indicators and metrics to measure organizational growth with respect to; finances, LEED projects, program developments, membership perceived value, outreach and institutional involvement.

4.3 Develop a paid administrative staff.

4.4 Evolve the board of directors’ role, structure, and composition to provide the vision, high‐level strategic guidance, organizational direction, financial resource development, and diplomacy necessary to achieve USGBC-LI’s strategic priorities. Diversify the USGBC-LI board.

Goal 5: Expand the green building market

Objectives
5.1: Analyze, aggregate and disseminate information that demonstrates the environmental, health, social, and economic benefits of green buildings.

5.2 Identify gaps in the green building delivery chain and build capacity to bridge them.

5.3 Analyze the market and identify key stakeholders by researching comparable markets, identifying and incorporating elements from other municipal initiatives.

Goal 6:Increase advocacy efforts for the voluntary inclusion of green building procedures in new construction, existing buildings, and major renovations

Objectives:
6.1 Assess City and County policies and resources and advocate for; Low impact development requirements, Preferential permitting for green buildings, Develop incentives for green building practices, and Reduce barriers to green building.

6.2 Develop "starter kit" for states/local governments including model guidelines, model legislative language, and common indicators, utilizing USGBC resources and tools.

6.3 Develop database of information on state/local successful initiatives.

6.4 Serve as a resource to local businesses of all sizes and functions on greening business operations, products and services.

6.5 Develop Speakers Bureau available to businesses and organizations interested in how to be more sustainable.

6.6 Assess and promote municipality integration of sustainable design principles into the core competency skill-set of the County/Town planners, architects, engineers, and project managers.

6.7 Survey stakeholders to identify most important information needs, gaps and sources; generate additional data from regional summits.

6.8 Develop media-oriented materials to expand visibility and impact with building industry and mainstream consumer press.

6.9 Maintain and strengthen working relationship with New York Chapters (Upstate and NYC) on statewide issues.

Goal 7: Transform the programs committee into the nerve center for all programs, salons, workshops and events where previously little coordination and logistical support existed.

Develop a brand identity and consistency that positions the chapter as the experts in the field within our region through interesting topics and programs.

Objectives:
7.1 Create a committee structure with tools and procedures that were previously lacking.

7.2 Create Monthly Salons - Develop monthly salons that recur consistently throughout the year as opposed to ad hoc. Salons are an intimate classroom style atmosphere about 2 hours in length (45 minutes networking and 1 hour and 15 minutes for presentation and Q&A. Salons are usually topical and product and technology related.

7.3 Monthly Salons serving two regions - USGBC-LI membership is drawn from Nassau and Suffolk counties covering 1,200 square miles of some of the most populous and congested regions in the nation. USGBC-LI recognizes that travel considerations to salons during peak rush hour times would be difficult at best. Therefore, the chapter will host two salons, one serving Central/Western Long Island and the other serving Eastern Long Island. This strategy will maximize the ability for all members to enjoy the educational value of the chapter salons.

7.4 Create Salon 1 - Audience is generally Nassau County and Western Suffolk. Salons will be held the first Wednesday of every month.

7.5 Create Salon 2 - Second presentation for the east end membership comprising Central/Eastern Suffolk County including the North and South Forks. Salon 2 presentations are scheduled ad hoc.

7.6 Create Programs - Programs are major evening presentations often with a panel discussion and multimedia presentation. Programs are 3 hours in length (1 hour networking/dinner and 2 hours for presentation and Q&A.

7.7 Develop a sales package that excites and entices potential presenters that USGBC is the premiere organization to show their products, services and technologies.

7.8 Change the negative revenue structure into a profit center by charging appropriate fees to presenters and membership alike.

7.9 Recruit new committee members to support the stated goals and objectives.

7.10 Develop quarterly workshops in conjunction with USGBC National.

7.11 Organize tours of LEED Certified properties
7.12 Offer coordination and logistical support by serving as the conduit for other USGBC-LI committees’ program activities

IV: IMPLEMENTATION [years 1-3]
Develop action plan for operation to ensure sufficient income to meet or exceed financial plan.

Recruit Chapter and Program Sponsors.

Continue Annual Awards ceremony.

Hire a full/part-time administrative assistant and Executive Director.

Host regional summits and local programs to expand the local membership base, provide networking opportunities for existing and potential new members, address issues of national and regional interest, and heighten awareness and support for green building efforts at the regional level.

Develop and distribute Annual member satisfaction survey that will provide dynamic feedback to the benefits of local Chapter membership.

Spread energy efficiency retrofits for existing building retrofit operations to municipalities across Long Island and the state.

This Day In Tech: August 18th, 1868

Helium Discovered During Total Solar Eclipse

By

Hadley Leggett

Wired.com Aug. 18th, 2009

1868: A French astronomer spots an unknown element, now known as helium, in the spectrum of the sun during a much-anticipated total eclipse. The event marks the first discovery of an “extraterrestrial” element, as helium had not yet been found on Earth.

Astronomers had been eagerly awaiting a total solar eclipse since 1859, when German physicist Gustav Kirchhoff figured out how to use the analysis of light to deduce the chemical composition of the sun and the stars. Scientists wanted to study the bright red flames that appeared to shoot out from the sun, now known to be dense clouds of gas called solar prominences. But until 1868, they thought the sun’s spectrum could only be observed during an eclipse.

French astronomer Pierre Jules César Janssen camped out in Guntoor, India, to watch as the moon passed in front of the sun and revealed the solar prominences. Like other sun-gazers that morning, Janssen discovered that the prominences were mostly made of super-hot hydrogen gas. But he also noticed something extra: Using a special prism instrument called a spectroscope, he determined that the line of yellow light everyone had assumed to be sodium didn’t match up to the wavelength of any known element.

Janssen wanted to keep studying the mysterious line, and he was so impressed by the brightness of the sun’s emission lines that he felt sure they could be seen without an eclipse, if he could just figure out how to block other wavelengths of visible light. Working feverishly over the next few weeks, Janssen built the first “spectrohelioscope,” a device specifically designed to examine the spectrum of the sun.

Unbeknownst to Janssen, a second scientist was also working on the same problem 5,000 miles away. English astronomer Joseph Norman Lockyer succeeded in viewing the solar prominences in regular daylight in October 1868. In stunning scientific synchronicity, the two scientists’ papers arrived at the French Academy of Sciences on the same day, and today both men are credited with the first sighting of helium.

At the time, however, Lockyer and Janssen got ridicule rather than accolades for their discovery. Other scientists didn’t believe the astronomers’ account of a new element … until 30 years later, when Scottish chemist William Ramsay discovered a perplexing earthly gas hidden inside a chunk of uranium ore.

Ramsay sent the sample to Lockyer for confirmation. The scientist was thrilled by the element’s “glorious yellow effulgence,” which he described in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London in 1895. Finally vindicated, Janssen and Lockyer were honored by the French government with a gold medal bearing both their faces.

Staffers See the Need for LEED

by

Bernadette Starzee

Long Island Business News

Published: July 21, 2009

Nine architects and engineers at the Hauppauge office of Stantec recently became LEED accredited professionals. Stantec, which has more than 130 locations in North America, provides consulting services in planning, engineering, architecture, interior design and other disciplines.

According to Joe Lamagese, a senior architect who is one of the nine, getting employees certified fits with the company’s overall philosophy. “One of our company’s goals is to be the North American leader in sustainable design, and with 75 LEED certified projects in North America, we’re getting there,” he said.

More than 100,000 people have become LEED APs since the accreditation program was launched in 2001, said Paul M. Meyer, education chair for the Long Island Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, which administers certification for green buildings. Most LEED APs are directly involved in building design and construction.

VHB Inc., an engineering, planning, environmental and transportation firm with an office in Hauppauge, has 77 LEED APs among its 800 employees in 18 offices on the East Coast.

“It’s important for our staff to be familiar with the latest requirements and techniques so that we can contribute more effectively in our interactions with architects, building owners and others,” said Leo Pierre Roy, a principal of the firm. “The LEED program has led to a more integrated design process, in which many different professionals come to the table to determine how to make buildings that are more efficient, that use fewer natural resources and that have a healthful environment.”

E.W. Howell, a general construction and construction management firm with offices in Woodbury and New York, has three LEED APs on staff as well as three LEED certified projects under its belt, including two Brookhaven National Laboratory facilities in Upton.

“Having LEED APs is both a marketing and an operational tool for us,” said Dominic Paparo Jr., vice president of business development. “It’s an important element in our presentations when we’re competing against other firms. A lot of clients want to see LEED AP involvement on jobs.”

This is especially true among government concerns, universities and other institutions, he said. “The number of private companies that request it is in the minority, but it’s moving in that direction,” he said.

“Building codes will eventually be written to encourage sustainable design, and products are becoming more sustainable,” Lamagese said. “If a company doesn’t keep up, it will find itself out of the market.”

LEED APs understand the LEED rating system and how to handle documentation, and they can identify which areas to focus on to ensure that a project will be eligible for certification, Paparo said. The company’s APs are on the operations side of the business, but Paparo said E.W. Howell expects a couple of employees on the estimating side to become accredited by the end of the year. “It’s important, because there are costs involved with LEED,” he said. Besides knowing how to apply the point system, LEED APs bring a certain level of expertise to the table. “Going through the accreditation process opens the door to all the options that are available to improve the sustainability of a building, including all the resources that the USGBC offers,” Lamagese said.

For Ava Amrieh, an electric engineer at Stantec who also became accredited, an important takeaway was learning more efficient ways to accomplish sustainability. “I learned that it doesn’t have to cost that much more to build green if you’re cautious with the design from the beginning,” she said.

Because it is becoming increasingly important to have LEED APs on staff, companies generally pay for their employees to take preparatory courses and the accreditation exam as part of their professional development. However, according to Meyer, some companies only pay for the exam if the employee passes it.

While LEED APs have an advantage over their non-accredited counterparts when seeking a job, they generally do not command a higher salary simply because they have the credential.

“We see this credential as something folks should have as part of their training,” Roy said. “So we don’t offer a salary increase to someone who gets their LEED AP, unlike what we would do if someone earned a Master’s degree or passed the PE [Principals and Practice of Engineering] exam.”

In addition to those professionals who work directly in building design and construction, some in related fields are becoming accredited, as well. According to Meyer, LEED APs include real estate brokers, mortgage brokers, interior designers, attorneys, building managers and moving and storage providers.

“Being a LEED AP gives someone some credibility when dealing with other members of a project,” Meyer said. “For instance, if you have a roof salesperson that says he is offering a green roof, and he’s a LEED AP, you’ll know he knows what he’s talking about.”

John T. Proscia, president of Sutton & Edwards Management, a property management firm in Lake Success, recently received his LEED green associate certification, a new certification level that the GBCI began offering in June.

“With my new, intimate knowledge of the LEED certification process, I have a unique understanding of how to manage a LEED certified building,” said Proscia, who has an accounting background. “For those owners that do not have a green certified building, I can use my LEED knowledge to advise them on how they can make their buildings more efficient and, as a result, lower their operating costs.”

Two Levels, New Specialties
Significant changes to the LEED accreditation process went into effect in June. Those individuals interested in becoming a LEED AP must take two exams instead of one.

Individuals who pass the first test become accredited as a LEED green associate, which demonstrates general knowledge of green building practices.

Qualified GAs can then sit for a second specialty exam that corresponds to one of the LEED rating systems. The specialized exam categories are Building Design & Construction, Interior Design & Construction, Operations & Maintenance, Homes and Neighborhood Development.

“An interior decorator would probably go for the Interior Design & Construction exam,” Meyer said, “while a property manager would probably opt for Operations & Maintenance.”

In late August, the USGBC-Long Island Chapter will begin offering a seven-week course, with a two-hour session each week, to prepare individuals for the green associate exam. Preparatory courses for the specialty exams will follow.

How Long Island Is Setting the Standard for "Going Green"

If you have been watching the news or reading the paper, you're sure to have noticed that the latest trend is "going green." Various industries have been making news by "going green." Computer companies such as Hewlett Packard, car companies like BMW and giants including General Electric have all decided to join the "green" movement. It was only a matter of time before the real-estate industry caught on. But what do all those pictures of flowers, lakes and crystal clear skies mean?

In simple terms, "going green" means reducing the amount of energy and natural resources being consumed. In the real estate industry, the largest expenditure of energy and natural resources is office buildings. According to the U.S. Green Building Council, each day in the United States office buildings account for 42% of total energy consumption, 65% of electricity consumption, 40% of greenhouse gas emissions, 30% of both raw materials waste and landfill waste and 12% of potable water consumption. "The energy you use to light the space that you're in, the computer itself, the heating and cooling systems, all those systems are running," says Bob Rose of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that if each building owner took on the challenge to become green, by 2015, Americans would reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by amounts equal to the emissions from 15 million vehicles, while saving $10 billion. These undeniable facts and statistics jumped off the pages and inspired change through action. Some of the largest names in Long Island real estate have taken huge leaps in an effort to be more "green." From developers to landlords, Long Island has put itself on the map when it comes to "going green."

In 2003, Russell Albanese of the Albanese Organization together with Castagna Realty, the owner of Americana Manhasset shopping center, ventured to modernize an existing office building into the first green office building on Long Island. 1001 Franklin Ave. in Garden City set the standard for green buildings and revolutionized the future of Long Island's commercial structures. The building features recycled and natural materials including stone floors and recycled furniture fabric. Rainwater is collected and stored in a 5,000 gallon tank in the basement supplying water to irrigate the landscaping of the building. A state-of-the-art HVAC system reduces power use and features a high-quality filtration system designed to catch dust, pollen and impurities. The paints and adhesives used throughout the building are also environmentally responsible. Even the cleaners used to keep up the building are ammonia free and peroxide-based instead of chlorine
reducing the amount of pollutants being emitted into the air. Every detail of 1001 Franklin Ave. is carefully designed to minimize the building's environmental impact.

Since 2003, many of Long Island's landlords have been making similar upgrades and changes to their buildings' structure and function.

Long Island realizes that it is equally as important to build a green building as it is to operate it responsibly. Strict recycling programs have been implemented in buildings such as 600 Old Country Rd., owned by Vincent and Michael Polimeni. In addition to the new recycling program, new burners have also been installed to alleviate energy use. Improvements to existing structures are the key to ensuring an
environmentally conscious Long Island.

Aside from implementing changes to existing structures and building new office buildings from scratch, Long Island has been flooded with new ideas on how to solve the dilemma of environmental sustainability. Vincent Polimeni has proposed building a tunnel to connect Syosset on Long Island's north shore and Rye in Westchester County. The proposed project will save an estimated 24 million gallons of gas per year and reduce air pollution by 16.7% throughout the entire North Eastern region. Donald Trump has proposed building a green restaurant to replace the recently demolished Boardwalk Restaurant in Jones Beach.

RexCorp's Scott Rechler continues to introduce energy saving technologies in office building construction on Long Island. Rechler is also one of many Long Island developers who contribute to scholarship funds aimed at promoting a new generation of forward thinking Long Islanders.

With thousands of commercial properties on Long Island, the opportunities to build green are limitless. Revolutionary thinkers and ideas are the key to promoting a healthy and sustainable environment. Long Island's future depends on innovative thinkers. Judging by the recent surge of environmental initiatives, commercial real estate on Long Island is sure to flourish in a responsible way.

Really Cool New TV Channel: Planet Green TV

Ever since Advanced Restoration Corp. sent me to the Green Risk Professional Course a few weeks ago, I have been fascinated by the Green Building Movement. It is going to be the future and I have been trying to learn and educate myself as much as I can. Because now that I am a certified Green Risk Professional, that qualifies me to apply to get my LEED Green Associate certification by the United States Green Building Council. Which I am in the process of right now. That is the only LEED certification I am qualified for because to be a LEED AP or even a LEED Builder I have to have some experience working on a LEED green project. As of now I have none. Eventually I will get another certification but I hope to use the LEED Green Associate designation to open the door for me in this new industry. An industry I think all insurance agents, insurance adjusters, and insurance companies should learn more about.

What I wanted to share with everyone was that I found a new channel dedicated to the green movement, Planet Green TV. Now when I say new, I mean new to me. It might have been up for awhile, I have never noticed it before or noticed it but didn't pay it much attention. There are some very interesting shows on there that highlight all the different aspects of the green movement. Here are the links to the shows I have programmed into my DVR:

• Greenovate: Saving over 40% on energy bills while also increasing property value by 25% sounds impossible, but Greenovate shows viewers just how to make this lofty dream a reality in their own households.
• G Word: Being green is no longer just for granola-loving hippies. It's a lifestyle, an attitude, a state-of-mind, and it's shaking up the pop-culture landscape. Forget what you think you know about what being green means and get ready for G Word...
• Renovation Nation: T he green home building movement is unfolding in real time on each hour-long, information-packed episode of Renovation Nation, which answers the burning questions that every homeowner in America has about going green.
• Total Wrecklamation: Wrecklamation follows one determined demolition auctioneer, Jodi Murphy, as she tracks down a treasure trove of Chicago homes doomed for the wrecking ball that are full of recyclable materials she auctions off for deeply discounted prices. Viewers are exposed to the entire demolition auction experience, starting with the house scouting process, where Jodi culls through hundreds of homes to find the rare few that are full of premium content.
• Wa$ted!: This eye-opening half-hour reality series makes shrinking your ecological footprint appealing and virtually effortless. What's an ecological footprint? It's a way of describing the scope of the damage that each household does to the planet. (I have applied to have the Wa$ted show come out and shoot at Advanced Restoration Corp.)
• World's Greenest Homes: Be prepared to be taken deep inside the most stunning eco-friendly dwellings on the planet while watching World's Greenest Homes. Design expert Emmanuel Belliveau guides this whirlwind global tour of breathtaking green and glam residences.

Cablevision offers Planet Green on channel 172, as well as Planet Green HD on 846 as part of its HD service.
Verizon Fios offers Planet Green on channel 168, as well as Planet Green HD on 668 as part of its HD service.
DIRECTV offers Planet Green on channel 286, as well as Planet Green HD (coming soon) as part of its HD service.
DISH Network offers Planet Green on channel 194, as well as Planet Green HD (coming soon) as part of its HD service.
Hope you guys enjoy them and get as much out of them as I have.

"Don't take any s*** from anybody," Billy Joel

Short-Term Green Tips For Home

Here is some short-term quick and easy steps to help you get started on the road to green in your home


Tip 1:"Green" your laundry.
Detergents, fabric softeners and bleaches can be toxic to your family and to the environment. Some surfactants and fragrances in laundry detergents contain hormone-disrupting chemicals that can't always be removed by wastewater treatment plants and end up harming local wildlife. Chlorine bleach is not only poisonous for humans, but can create dangerous byproducts, such as dioxin, when flushed down the drain. Get your clothes clean without all of the pollution by switching to eco-friendlier cleaners. The companies Ecover, Sun & Earth, Seventh Generation and OxyPrime make less-toxic alternatives to traditional laundry detergents. Try nonchlorine bleach such as OxyBoost or Ecover's hydrogen peroxide-based option.

$ Factor: The eco-friendlier detergents and bleaches cost no more than standard products.



Tip 2:A little warmer, a little cooler.
About 47 percent of the average household's annual energy bills stem from heating and cooling. Every degree you raise your thermostat in the summer will reduce air conditioning bills by about 2 percent. Lowering the temperature by one degree in winter will save you 3 percent on heating bills. Regular maintenance and a tune up every two or three years will keep your heating, ventilation and air conditioning, or HVAC, system operating efficiently, saving energy and money. A programmable thermostat -- excellent for a family that spends a good part of the day at work or school -- will shave 10 percent off your bill.

$ Factor: Adjusting your thermostat is free, easy and can yield big savings. A programmable thermostat starts about $30 and produces an annual savings of about $100.



Tip 3:Switch to cold water.
Almost 90 percent of the energy used to wash clothes is used to heat the water, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Save money and energy. Wash your clothes in warm or cold water, instead of hot, using a detergent formulated for cold-water use.

$ Factor: Turning the dial from hot to warm will cut your energy use by 50 percent per load, and save you up to $63 a year, according to the Alliance to Save Energy.



Tip 4:Line dry -- like grandma used to do.
Dry your clothes on a laundry line rather than throwing them in the dryer. Clothes dyers are the third-largest energy users in the home, behind the refrigerator and washing machine, costing more than $100 a year to operate, according to Project Laundry List.

$ Factor: Drying your clothes on the line can save you as much as $10 a month, said Brad Stroh, co-founder of Bills.com. Laundry lines vary in cost, from about $5 for a simple rope line to $500 or more for deluxe models.



Tip 5:Stop the junk mail.
Each year, 100 million trees are cut down and turned into junk mail, with Americans receiving a total of 400 million tons of it every year. Earthworks Group, an environmental consulting firm, said cutting out junk mail is one of the most effective things people can do to reduce pollution. There are several ways to stop the flow of junk to your house.

$ Factor: For a $15 one-time fee, Green Dimes will send you a junk-mail opt-out kit that will remove your name from mailing lists for junk mail and catalogs. They then monitor the lists to make sure your names stay off of them, potentially reducing your junk mail by 90 percent. Green Dimes also plants 10 trees for each kit sold. Or, you can contact the Direct Marketing Association, and pay a $1 fee to be removed from some mailing lists.



Tip 6: Switch to Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFL).
Compact fluorescent bulbs use 75 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs and last up to 10 times longer. They're more expensive than traditional light bulbs, but it only takes about 3 months to make up for the higher sticker price in energy savings.

$ Factor: You will save $85 over the life of the bulb for each 60-watt light bulb you replace with a 15-watt CFL. You'll also save 543 kWh of electricity and reduce your CO2 emissions by 833 pounds.


Tip 7: Kill 'vampire' electricity.
Many appliances use electricity even when they're turned off. It's called a phantom load, or vampire electricity, and as much as 75 percent of the electricity used by home electronics and small appliances is used while they're turned off. The Ohio Consumers Council estimates that it costs consumers $40 to $100 a year.

$ Factor: The simple solution is to unplug small appliances and electronics when you aren't using them. Or, plug them into a power strip and turn the power strip off when you aren't using those items. Power strips cost $10 to $20 each, and can save you up to $100 a year, depending on how many electronics you have. Simply unplugging one television, computer monitor and fax machine when you aren't using it will save you about $6 a month, Stroh said.



Tip 8: Set up a compost bin.
Composting is a relatively easy and inexpensive way to reduce the amount of garbage your household produces. Through composting, yard waste such as leaves, grass clippings and food wastes such as vegetable scraps can be turned into a nutrient-rich soil amendment that reduces the need for commercial chemical fertilizers in home gardens.

$ Factor: Compost bins vary in cost, from a few dollars for a simple, homemade bin up to several hundred dollars for a ready-made system. Composting at home can make a significant dent in household waste. The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, estimates that about 25 percent of the 245 million tons of garbage going into U.S. landfills come from yard clippings and food.



Tip 9: Run full dishwasher loads.
You'll save up to 20 gallons of water per load, or 7,300 gallons a year. That's as much water as the average person drinks in a lifetime.


$ Factor: You can save even more money by running your dishwasher during off-peak hours, usually from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. Many utility companies offer off-peak energy rates. And don't pre-rinse if your dishwasher can handle it.



Tip 10: Don't preheat.
Don't bother if you are broiling, roasting or baking a dish that will cook for an hour or more. Don't preheat for more than 10 minutes for breads and cakes. And when roasting meats or baking casseroles, turn off the oven 10 minutes to 15 minutes before cooking time runs out; food will continue to cook without using the extra electricity.

$ Factor: By reducing the time your oven is on by one hour per year, you'll save an average of 2 kWh of energy. If 30 percent of U.S. households did this, 60 million kWh of energy could be saved.



Tip 11:Watch that pot.
Use the right-size pot on your burners.

$ Factor: You could save about $36 annually for an electric range or $18 for gas.



Tip 12:Filter your water.
Buy a water filter for your kitchen faucet and put to good use yet another way to do away with those plastic water bottles that are clogging landfills and burning up energy in recycling plants. About 1.5 million tons of plastic are used on the bottling of 89 billion liters of drinking water each year.

$ Factor: You can buy a water filter for as little as $29, or about a month's worth of bottled water.



Tip 13: Don't run while you brush.
Turn off the tap while you brush your teeth. You'll conserve up to five gallons of water per day -- which could add up to 1.5 billion gallons that could be saved across the country each day -- more than enough for all of New York City.

$ Factor: You could save time and money on water, up to 1,825 gallons of water per person each year. This much water would fill your bathtub more than 35 times. A family of four could save almost 7,500 gallons a year.



Tip 14: No hint of lint.
Clean your dryer lint screen with every use and don't overload the dryer.

$ Factor: You'll save up to 5 percent on your electricity bill -- which could mean an energy-equivalent savings of 350 million gallons of gasoline per year if everyone did this. Also, run your dryer during off-peak hours. Check with your utility company to see if they offer discounted rates during off-peak hours and verify when those hours are. Better yet, use a clothesline.



Tip 15: From warm to cold.
Set warm wash and cold rinse cycles and save 90 percent of the energy used when using hot water only. And run your washer during off-peak hours.

$ Factor: Together, all U.S. households could save the energy equivalent of 100 thousand barrels of oil a day by switching from hot-hot to warm-cold cycles. Check with your utility company to see if they offer any discounted rates during off-peak hours.




Tip 16:Use low-flow water devices.
Wherever you use water, there's a low-flow device to fit it -- from hose nozzles, to showerheads, to faucet aerators. Handy products, such as the WaterMiser Waterbroom, use water and air pressure to remove dirt from outdoor surfaces, reducing water use by up to 60 percent. Low-flow nozzles save about 5 gallons a minute for a standard garden hose, and a low-flow showerhead uses as little as 2.5 gallons of water or less each minute and would save 25 gallons of water per 10-minute shower. Toilets made after 1996 use no more than 1.6 gallons per flush, while earlier versions can use from 3.5 to 7 gallons.

$ Factor: Low-flow hose nozzles cost less than $20; showerheads cost about $12 at home-improvement stores. Low-flow items can save you about 750 gallons of water each month per person in showers alone. They also cut your hot-water heating bills by up to 50 percent. New toilets -- from as little as $100 -- can reduce water use by up to 73 percent per flush. An even cheaper tactic: Put a water displacement bag -- about $2 -- or even a 2-liter plastic bottle filled with water in the tank away from the mechanism and you'll save almost a gallon of water per flush. Faucet aerators cost about $2 each and can cut water use from as much as 2.75 gallons per minute to as little as half a gallon a minute. Households using low-flow aerators save an average of 1,700 gallons of water each year.



Tip 17: Watch the Watts.
Gadgets such as the Kill-A-Watt and the Watt Minder help you find the biggest energy users in your home. Plug an appliance into one of these devices and it will tell you how much energy it uses per hour, month, or year, and how much it's costing you.

$ Factor: Wattage meters cost about $20 to $30. If you are interested in the bigger picture, rather than monitoring one device at a time, the Power Cost Monitor tracks, in real-time, the electricity use in your entire house and shows how much it is costing you. The monitor costs about $130 and attaches to your electric meter.



Tip 18:Make your own cleaners.
Household chemicals, including some cleaners, contain volatile organic chemicals, which contribute to indoor air pollution and may cause disease. A cost-effective way to make your home greener is to make your own household cleaners. Many homemade cleaners use non-toxic ingredients and clean just as well as commercial cleaners.

$ Factor: Making your own cleaner costs about 10 percent of the price a bottle of commercial cleaner, according to Karen Logan, author of "Clean House, Clean Planet." She says a bottle of her all-purpose cleaner costs 23 cents to make, versus a price tag of $2.69 for the off-the-shelf equivalent. If making your own cleaners isn't an option, look for cleaners carrying the Green Seal. Green Seal is a nonprofit organization that certifies products based on their environmental impact, biodegradability and other factors.



Tip 19:Reuse your water.
Water is a precious commodity, and too much of it goes down the drain. Install a rain barrel that attaches to your downspouts and collect rainwater off your roof. Rainwater is relatively free of contaminants and can be used instead of tap water for all kinds of outdoor uses: watering gardens and lawns, cleaning sidewalks and washing the car. Add to the benefit by reusing your gray water -- the waste water from doing dishes, laundry and showering. It's fine for watering plants.

$ Factor: Rain barrels cost $100 to $300 and collect from 50 to 100 gallons of water each. Savings on your water bill will likely be nominal. Recycling gray water can be as simple as reusing the water last night's pasta dinner boiled in to water your plants. More sophisticated systems, such as the Aqus from WaterSaver Technologies, disinfects, stores then and reuses the water from your bathroom sink to flush the toilet. It costs about $200 and reduces wastewater by up to 5,000 gallons per year in a typical household.



Tip 20:Zap your meals.
Microwaves are between 3.5 and 4.8 times more energy efficient than traditional electric ovens. Cooking and reheating with a microwave is faster and more efficient than the stovetop or oven.

$ Factor: Cooking with microwaves can reduce up to 70 percent of energy use for cooking. What's more, using microwaves extends the life of your oven significantly. And one more thing: Cleaning a microwave oven is a snap and saves even more of the cash you would spend on energy with a self-cleaning oven or on toxic-chemical oven cleaners.



Tip 21:Get picky on phosphates.
Pick laundry detergents without phosphates, which deplete the oxygen in water and as a result kill aquatic life. And while you're at it, buy only powdered detergent in cardboard packaging as opposed to a liquid in plastic packaging. The liquid contains water, which you already have, so it takes more fuel to ship that heavier container of detergent and water, not to mention the energy and petroleum used to manufacture the plastic container. The cardboard container also requires energy and resources to produce, but many are now made from post-consumer recycled paper and the trees they originate from are a renewable resource.

$ Factor: The cost-per-load comes out pretty much the same for powder and liquid, so going with the non-phosphate powders give you the chance to help the planet without any real cost to you.



Tip 22:Use commercial car washes.
Getting your car washed at a commercial car wash is better for the environment than doing it yourself. C ommercial car washes not only use significantly less water per wash -- up to 100 gallons less -- but they often recycle and reuse the rinse water.

$ Factor: If every American who currently washes a vehicle at home chose instead to go to a professional care wash -- just once -- up to 8.7 billion gallons of water could be saved, and some 12 billion gallons of soapy polluted water could be diverted from the country's rivers, lakes and streams.



Tip 23:Clean air filters.
Check air conditioning filters monthly to either clean or replace them. This will help the unit run more efficiently. Better yet: buy a permanent filter that can be washed and re-used. This will save you money over the long run and keep all those disposable filters out of landfills. If your unit is outdoors, check to make sure the coils are not obstructed by debris, plants or shrubs.

$ Factor: Clogged filters can make electric bills skyrocket and eventually cause extensive, expensive damage to your air handler.