Green Drinks Babylon Next Event

Participate. Educate. Connect.

The next Green Drinks Babylon Event will be held on November 17th, 2009 at Horace and Sylvia's Publick House from 5:30pm to 8:30pm. There will be a $5 donation at the door.


Green Drinks Babylon is a monthly gathering of like-minded individuals committed to shaping our future and making Long Island a greener community. Come out and charge your eco-spirit and make some new connections.

We have a lively mixture of people from NGOs, academia, government and business from all over Long Island. Come along and you'll be made welcome. Just ask, "Are you green?" and we will introduce you to whoever is there. It's a great way of catching up with people you know and also for making new contacts. Everyone invites someone else along, so there’s always a different crowd, making Green Drinks an organic, self-organising network. These events are very simple and unstructured, but many people have found employment, made friends, developed new ideas, done deals and had moments of serendipity.

Tips for Building That Elusive Business Currency Called Rapport

by Jeffery Gitomer

Published: September 21, 2009

Long Island Business News

Jeffrey, In your presentation you said if you can’t build rapport, don’t start. I deal with attorneys. What is your recommendation if a prospect just won’t build rapport?

Kevin, if an attorney prospect “just won’t build rapport,” it’s because you haven’t asked him the right rapport building questions.  Ask about the toughest case he’s ever had or the reason he chose to get into law, or the most rewarding part about his career. Ask something significant about him.  I’ve never met anyone that won’t spend a minute or two talking about themselves.

Many salespeople make fatal mistakes trying to establish rapport around “things” – the weather, the ball game, the economy or the news.  That’s not rapport; that’s idle chatter. Real rapport has an emotional base to it.  And it comes from the prospect’s personal experience, personal opinion, and personal wisdom.  The key to earning rapport is keeping it light and keeping it positive.  There’s a secret of rapport, and the secret is “the link” – finding things in common that you both know about and like.  The easiest example is children who are the same age or who have gone to the same college.  These are things you can talk about with a smile and then move on to business.

Professional people tend to be self-indulgent people.  When you walk into their offices, their statues, trophies and educational achievements are always in plain view, as are pictures of their family.  Whenever I go into an office, I take a moment to walk around, not just look around. I look at educational achievements, other awards and family photos.  Sometimes the first question I ask is, “How old are your children?” because oftentimes the photograph will be several years old.  Whatever it is that I’m looking at, I try to ask a question that will elicit personal information, personal history or some type of positive emotional response.

That was Kevin’s issue.  How’s your rapport building going?  Do you understand that rapport is the gateway to an agreement?  Do you understand that rapport is NOT small talk or chit-chat?  Do you understand that rapport is the insight you gain about the person you’re trying to build a relationship with and entails giving them a little insight about you in return?  Do you understand that rapport is NOT qualifying the customer, it’s engaging her personally and intellectually?  Do you understand that rapport is a time when the customer is qualifying you?

Here is some additional insight into the rapport-building process:

• Rapport is delicate and must be professionally understood before you can be personally engaging.

• Rapport is exchanging information of personal value.

• Rapport is gaining insight into the person and their personality.

• Rapport is gaining an understanding of the other person.

• Rapport is the ability to begin the engagement process.

• Rapport is a learning time about them, not a bragging time about you.

• Rapport is asking – then creating dialog around the answer.

• Rapport is permission to smile, even laugh, without doing so at someone’s expense.

• Rapport is your opportunity to establish yourself as someone they would like to get to know better and maybe even do business with.

Is there a secret formula for building rapport?  No – but the key actions from you are friendly and approachable.  The key to success is “ask.”

And during the brief time you ask questions and exchange dialog, you may find the LINK.  Something you both like and know about.  The moment the link is realized, rapport deepens.

Maybe it’s a sports team, or a college or a child.  Maybe it’s a vacation spot or a piece of art.  Whatever it is, it’s personal and business gold.  Story exchange, smiles, mutual good feelings and emotional thoughts and memories.

Once you have built some personal rapport, it’s time to segue to business rapport.  Start with a career question – maybe something about length of service, the best accomplishment, goals for future success – and then say something about your business career.

When I finally segue to the business at hand I get right to the point. I tell my prospective customer, “The reason I asked for this meeting was to find out … .”

NOTE WELL: I DO NOT SAY, “The reason I asked for this meeting was to tell you about … .” Subtle, but powerful. Telling is selling.  I want my prospective customer to BUY. So do you.

Some people tell me that trying to build rapport is awkward.  Awkward is not a problem; it’s a symptom. The problem is a total lack of preparation on the part of the salesperson – that would be you.

Maybe if you spent less time boning up on the economy, and did some personal research on your prospective customer, YOUR economy would be better.

For a few more rapport insights go to http://www.gitomer.com/ and enter RAPPORT in the GitBit box.

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).

Green Drinks Babylon

A Force for the Sustainable Development and Future of Long Island.

Green Drinks Babylon is a monthly gathering of like-minded individuals committed to shaping our future and making Long Island a greener community. Come out and charge your eco-spirit and make some new connections.

Our 1st meeting is set for Oct 14th, 2009 @ Horace & Sylvia's Publick House in Babylon, NY.

Signup for Free@ Green Drinks Babylon

For more info email me @ emartin@advancedrestoration.com

We have a lively mixture of people from NGOs, academia, government and business.  Come along and you'll be made welcome.  Just say, "Are you green?" and we will look after you and introduce you to whoever is there.  It's a great way of catching up with people you know and also for making new contacts. Everyone invites someone else along, so there’s always a different crowd, making Green Drinks an organic, self-organising network.

These events are very simple and unstructured, but many people have found employment, made friends, developed new ideas, done deals and had moments of serendipity.


Find us on FaceBook.

Orrino Capital Services, LLC

Gino is one of my closest friends. He handles all my insurance needs. Here is his new website.

Orrino Capital Services, LLC

Orrino Capital Services, LLC is an independent agency operating out of two locations in Corona, NY & West Babylon, NY. OCS provides all lines of insurance including business, personal, life, health, and bonds. We represent a multitude of national and regional carriers such as The Hartford, Metlife, Magna Carta Company & Interboro Insurance Company among others. We are proud to service clientele in the 5 Boroughs of NYC, Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Putnam & Rockland Counties, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Vermont. Our professional personalized approach has fostered our market presence and recognition.

Orrino Capital welcomes the opportunity to service your commercial, personal, life & health insurance needs. Our personal touch evaluates every risk to tailor a program unique to your needs and budget

Orrino Capital Services understands every business is unique. From the sole proprietorship to the multimillion dollar corporation you require an professional independent agent that will review your operations to tailor necessary insurance coverage that will protect your business and assets. Our team delivers experience in securing insurance coverage for a multitude of businesses. We forge relationships with some of the most financially sound and reputable insurance companies to deliver premium coverage at affordable rates. At Orrino Capital Services there is no “boilerplate” approach to assessing your risk, we provide a personalized insurance program to each and every client. Whether you are the new venture or established enterprise we are there to deliver experienced professional service every step of the way.

Coverage Types:
Property
Commercial Fire (Building & Business Personal Property)
Commercial General Liability
Products Liability
Commercial Umbrella / Excess Liability
Workers Compensation
Disability Insurance
Business Auto
Inland Marine
Ocean Cargo
Surety & Fidelity Bonds
EPLI (Employment Practices Liability Insurance)
Garage Keepers Legal Liability
Garage Liability
Beauticians Professional Liability
Errors & Omissions Liability (accountants, lawyers, doctors, technology consultants)
Liquor Law Liability
Directors & Officers (D&O) Liability
Commercial Flood
Crime & Employee Dishonesty

Gino A. Orrino: Agency Owner and President, Licensed Representative

Mr. Orrino began his career working at Goldman Sachs & Co in both their New York and London offices. His entrepreneurial spirit coupled with dedication to customer satisfaction drove him to open his own insurance agency. Enthusiastic about the prospects of the independent agency system, Mr. Orrino sought out more effective ways to service the insurance community by participating in the PIA and Young Insurance Professionals. Mr. Orrino has served as PIA/YIP liaison on the Government and Industry Affairs Committee, in an effort to bring grassroots efforts to enact legislative change that will benefit the insurance consumer in NYS.Currently he serves a director on the Board of Young Insurance Professionals of NY. Mr. Orrino is dedicated to the development of young, bright insurance professionals statewide. In June 2008, Mr. Orrino was awarded the Corona Lions Business Community Award at Russo's on the Bay & The NY-YIP Volunteer of the Year award in June 2009 at the annual PIA NY/NJ Conference at the Trump Taj Mahal. In his spare time Mr. Orrino is an active volunteer with St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.Gino A. Orrino is a licensed insurance broker in NY, NJ, CT, PA & VT. He graduated from the University of Scranton in 1998 with a BA in Economics and was a four year letter winner on the lacrosse team. Currently he is pursuing his CPCU designation.

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 Age of Stupid" Trailer

This is a trailer to a new movie

The Age of Stupid

The Age of Stupid Global Premiere Trailer from Age of Stupid on Vimeo.

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

It's Starting.........

Trend Watch: Statewide Ban On Landfilling Plastic Bottles, Electronics, And More

by

John Laumer, Philadelphia

08.27.09

Somehow I had missed the trend of State government forcing recycling rates up on specific materials by banning landfill disposal. The Daily Southerner reports that a local "tip" in North Carolina, Edgecombe County Landfill, soon will no longer accept items that citizens and businesses are accustomed to tossing: wooden pallets; plastic bottles; used oil, yard trash, antifreeze, aluminum cans, whole scrap tires, lead acid batteries and oyster shells. Oyster shells. Who knew that was even an issue?

By 2011 the tip will also be banning disposal of electronic devices.

Per the Southerner story Plastic bottles, oil filters, wooden pallets on landfills’ new banned items list there are advantages to the new approach:

The state ban on disposing of those materials "will save space in the landfills, and it will help with the recycling part" of Edgecombe County's public utility, County Landfill Director Danny Bagley said.

What state is next?

The Enertia Home

This a great video. Really amazing green building technique. This is a segment from the Science Channel's Eco-Tech.

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?

Couple Brings a New Food Service Franchise to Long Island

by

Bernadette Starzee

Long Island Business News

Published: August 20, 2009

Laura Jankowski, a school social worker, and her husband, Walter, who worked in a car dealership and bartended part-time, were looking to start their own business and decided a franchise was the prudent way to go.

“We wanted it to be our own, but we wanted the support of a franchise that had proven to be successful,” Laura Jankowski said. Because of her husband’s background in the restaurant industry, they looked closely at food service. “We were looking to bring something unique to Long Island, that there was a need for,” she said.

In their extensive research, the couple discovered Tropical Smoothie Café, a 12-year-old franchise that now has about 280 locations. After dining in a restaurant while on vacation in Virginia, and then visiting the corporate headquarters in Destin, Fla., the Jankowskis were sold.

“It was a healthy alternative to fast food,” Laura Jankowski said, noting there were few similar options on Long Island. “And I liked how the corporate office treated its franchisees like family.”

Tropical Smoothie Café doesn’t only sell smoothies, although a menu of 40-plus smoothies accounts for about 50 percent of the Jankowskis’ business. The chain also serves up sandwiches, wraps, salads and soups, in an attractive setting with tropical décor.

The couple bought the rights to become area developers for Suffolk County in 2005 and then opened a Tropical Smoothie Café location in East Northport in June 2006.

Three locations have been opened by franchisees since, in Selden, Huntington Station and Centereach. In December 2008, the Jankowskis bought the development rights for Nassau County, as well.

As area developers, the Jankowskis have the rights and responsibilities to develop the Long Island market and provide store opening, operations and marketing support to all franchisees in that market. In exchange, they evenly split the royalties from those locations with Tropical Smoothie Café corporate.

“Ultimately, we would like to see at least 20 more cafés in their territory,” said Mike Rotondo, vice president of operations for the Tropical Smoothie Franchise Development Corp.

The total investment associated with opening a Tropical Smoothie Café franchise ranges from $254,000 to $385,000, which includes build-out, equipment, initial food and supplies and the franchise fee of $25,000. According to Laura Jankowski, the East Northport location and the area-development business have already become profitable. Tropical Smoothie posts a listing of weekly sales at its locations. The East Northport location and two of the three other local franchises consistently fall within the top 50, Jankowski said. Since nine weeks after it opened in March 2008, the Selden location has nabbed the top one or two spot week after week.

“The Selden location is in a shopping center with about 40 stores, so people come to the center for a lot of reasons,” Laura Jankowski said, noting that proximity to certain co-tenants, such as Weight Watchers and a gym, has been particularly helpful.

According to Rotondo, every site that a franchisee submits for approval is evaluated against 150 different metrics. “It is a very detailed program that takes several days to complete and takes the emotion out of making the best decision possible when it comes to selecting the right location,” he said.

To reach out to potential franchisees, the Jankowskis attend two annual trade shows as well as special events sponsored by WBLI, the radio station. However, franchisee candidates most commonly are customers that come into the store.

Two percent of sales for the Tropical Smoothie Cafe Long Island locations goes into a cooperative fund for local marketing (an additional percent goes toward national marketing). “The Suffolk County store owners meet once a month to discuss advertising and event sponsorship,” Jankowski said. The stores participate in National Flip Flop Day, a popular chainwide event, each June. In this event, which is promoted with print and radio advertising, the first 500 people who come in wearing flip flops get a free smoothie, with some of the proceeds going to a charity.

Walter Jankowski works on-site at the East Northport location, which also employs 18 part-time workers and an assistant manager. Laura Jankowski handles the financial side of the business.
While the eatery draws customers of all ages, most fall between 15 and 40. “We have recently started a Kids Eat Free on Sundays to appeal more to families with young children,” Laura Jankowski said.

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.

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