Vertical Farming – A Revolutionary Way To Grow Food In City Center

MIAMI, FL (February 28, 2011) – Concise Conferences, LLC. will be hosting a Vertical Farming Conference with some of the world's best known experts in the field, (there is no registration fee).
Vertical Farming is a concept that argues that it is economically and environmentally viable to cultivate plant or animal life within skyscrapers or high rise buildings. With 60% of the world's rising population now living in urban areas, the demand to produce food efficiently and environmentally friendly has never been greater.
The organizers have recruited five of best known personalities in this space.
Hans Hassle is a pioneer in Corporate Social Responsibility and CEO of Plantagon. January 20th 2011, Plantagon signed a letter of intent with the Botkyrka municipality in Sweden for establishing a vertical greenhouse. The construction of a vertical greenhouse in Botkyrka, (Sweden) will be one of the first of its kind within the Vertical Farming concept.
Dr. Dickson Despommier, Ph.D. is a full-time professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University and arguably the best known personality within the community.
Gordon Graff is responsible for designing the Toronto Skyfarm. The Toronto Skyfarm is a self-sustaining, low impact system, equipped with its own bio-gas plant able to produce methane from its own waste which could be burned to generate its own electricity.
Nick Brustatore is a partner at Converted Organics & Owner of TerraSphere Systems LLC. Nick is an eco-entrepreneur and owner of a series of green tech and socially responsible companies. His team have rolled out several exciting initiatives that include models in waste management, energy saving technology, recycling, upcycling, and vertical farming.

Stephen Fane is the CEO of Valcent Products Inc. Stephen became a hydroponic greenhouse entrepreneur twenty years ago. In 1990, he acquired a five-acre hydroponic greenhouse operation that produced bell peppers, which he expanded to over 75 acres under glass.

Human Health is an Environmental Concern

Human Health is an Environmental Concern

Posted by johntarantino1 on Thursday, February 10, 2011 · Comments (0)

Environmental health is not limited to plants and animals – it also encompasses human well-being in relation to the natural world. Just because a substance is naturally occurring does not mean it cannot be a pollutant. Some plants give off VOCs, the same dangerous substances found in certain paints and solvents, and so should not be kept in unventilated indoor environments. Another natural material that humans have turned into a pollutant, an extremely fire-resistant mineral whose use has dire consequences for both human and environmental health.
If asked, most Americans will likely say that asbestos is dangerous, but they may mistakenly think it is no longer used in the United States. They also may or may not know that it is the main cause of mesothelioma, a rare and aggressive cancer of the lining of the chest or abdomen. Mesothelioma symptoms may take between 20 and 50 years to manifest after asbestos exposure, so we are just now seeing an upswing in the numbers of cases thanks to the ubiquity of asbestos in construction and manufacturing industries through the majority of the 20th century.

The International Ban Asbestos Secretariat routinely compiles a list of the countries that have placed a ban on the use of asbestos. The most recent list is from January of this year, and the United States isn’t on it. In 1989, the EPA issued a ban on most asbestos-containing products, but the ban was overturned by New Orleans’ Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Asbestos is regulated under the Clean Air Act and the Toxic Substances Control Act, but certain materials are still allowed to contain more than 1% asbestos, and the EPA does not oversee the manufacture, processing, or distribution of these products.
To see the devastation that asbestos causes, you have only to look to the vermiculite mines in the small town of Libby, Montana. Mining itself can be extremely detrimental to the environment, as the land is often stripped of vegetation and then polluted with runoff. While vermiculite is not dangerous in itself, it is often found in the same deposits as asbestos, and miners are exposed when they break up the rocks to harvest the vermiculite. Though the EPA had been aware of the asbestos-related health problems in Libby since 1978, the mine remained open until 1990 and the cleanup did not begin until 1999. To date, it is the nation’s deadliest Superfund site, with over 400 deaths directly attributable to the mines. The clean-up is ongoing, and will most likely continue for at least the next few years.
Mesothelioma symptoms, which have been documented as occurring in animals as well as humans, are serious, and the average life expectancy after diagnosis is only 9-12 months. Doubling this tragedy is the fact that approximately 80% of mesothelioma cases are preventable by avoiding exposure to asbestos. The EPA needs to use a firmer hand in regulating the toxic mineral, keeping careful track of its use until it can be phased out entirely and replaced with alternative insulating materials that are just as energy-efficient. Though asbestos itself is cheap, the cost on human and natural health is more than we can bear.

The Benefits of Solar Shingles

The Benefits of Solar Shingles

Posted by johntarantino1 on Friday, February 11, 2011 · Comments (1)

It’s no secret that homeowners throughout the nation are looking for ways to cut down on their energy bills and go green. As a result, the solar technology market in the last five years has grown exponentially as homeowners install traditional solar panels on their roofs. Yet many of these households are running into problems, as their panels become the target of theft. Further, many Homeowner Associations don’t allow traditional panels on roofs because they jut up and can be seen by neighbors. This is keeping people from trying solar power, but a number of companies offer solar shingles as a solution. They are built to integrate with regular asphalt shingles, and don’t sit up on racks like traditional panels. And, since they are installed directly into the roof, they are much harder to steal. Here’s a detailed look at the more popular shingles available.
Powerhouse Shingle: Aided by $20 million in funding from the US Department of Energy and justifying their $1.5 billion annual investment in R&D, Dow CEO Andrew Liveris unveiled their Powerhouse Shingle in late 2009 and it is widely available to homeowners this year. They have received a lot of publicity since Dow's shingle uses a much more low-cost and sturdy material called Copper Indium Gallium diSelenide (CIGS) instead of the usual silicon. These shingles are meant to replace traditional roof tiles so they integrate seamlessly with the home. This means regular roofing companies can install them with an electrician connecting them to the home once installed, so homeowners don’t have to hire a separate solar installation company, which can often be very expensive. Dow’s extensive history with plastics allowed them to create an incredibly strong plastic cover to replace the glass most solar panels use, without allowing any less light through. This lets the shingles protect the roof from the elements just like a normal roof.

Sun Energy Shingles: Made by BIPV Inc, Sun Energy Shingles can provide up to 50 Watts of electricity per shingle. They are intended to sit directly over the already existing composition or asphalt roof, so they lay flat and provide a much more atheistically pleasing look than panels installed on racks. They use polycrystalline silicon, which BIPV claims makes them more efficient than other cells they produce using thin-film technology. Further, they have a Class A fire rating and a high wind and snow load rating, so they are rather durable and will continue to protect the home just like a roof is designed to do. The Sun Energy Shingles are currently available to homeowners, and have been installed on a number of homes in the western part of the country.
Other companies, like OK Solar, are also getting in on the action to help homeowners power their home by alternative energy without having to sacrifice the aesthetics of the house itself. Plus, because of their design and installation, solar shingles are a great substitute to the traditional panels, especially if dealing with theft or Homeowners Associations. If considering ways to green your lifestyle or home, solar shingles are a terrific option

global warming

We need to double the national gas mileage standard
This one move - completely possible with current technologies - would reduce our use of oil by 900 million barrels a year.
Setting new rules requiring automakers to meet that standard would:

• slash our nation's contribution to global warming by a quarter of a billion tons;

• save as much oil as we now import from the Middle East

• save consumers $45 billion over a decade

• set the cornerstone of a new, forward-looking energy policy
We Demand Action From Our Leaders
Congress and the president have the power to demand better gas mileage in cars and trucks.
Yet even though most of today's cars get worse gas mileage than when Ronald Reagan was president--even with gas prices hovering around $3 a gallon, and even with more Katrinas and Ritas likely to strike due to global warming's effects on ocean temperatures-our leaders in Washington are ignoring the obvious solution.
That's where Environmental Action comes in.
Person by person, door by door, we're mobilizing public support for change. We know that most Americans want to protect our environment and our health. We know that most of us are frustrated by the failure of our political and corporate leaders to embrace those goals. And we know that most people will jump at the chance to be a part of the action.
That's why we're building public support for the most ambitious proposals out there--the ones that will cut carbon pollution and help us break free from our addiction to oil.

The Role of Carbon Offsets in Climate Policy: Theory and Practice

A call for papers for a conference at Cornell on the role of carbon offsets in climate policy.

Verification, leakage and permanence are important obstacles to the effective use of carbon offsets and this is an important policy issue.

I have my doubts on how effective carbon offsets will be given these difficulties. the post below on fraud in the EU carbon trading market gives pause for thought.

This is a timely conference. The forestry and agricultural sectors in the US in particular have powerful friends and the distributional impact will be important - unless this is fully understood there may be unintended consequences.

"Economic Instruments to Enhance the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity"

The Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, in association with Conservation International, DEFRA, Department of Land Economy of Cambridge University and European Investment Bank, announces the Eleventh International BIOECON Conference on "Economic Instruments to Enhance the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity". The Conference will be held at the Centro Culturale Don Orione Artigianelli, in Venice, Italy, on September 21st-22nd, 2009.

The Conference is targeted to researchers, environmental professionals, international organizations and policy makers who are interested in working in the management and conservation of biodiversity. The Conference is focused on identifying the most effective and efficient instruments for biodiversity conservation, such as auctions of biodiversity conservation contracts, payment-for-services contracts, taxes, tradable permits, voluntary mechanisms and straightforward command and control. Special emphasis will be given to policy reforms aimed at increasing the commercial rewards for conserving biodiversity, increasing the penalties for biodiversity loss and circulating information on the biodiversity performance requirements of firms. An increasing number of businesses, which were responsible for biodiversity loss in the past, are now supporters of biodiversity conservation. Markets for organic agriculture and sustainably-harvested timber are developing at double-digit rates, while rapid growth is observed in the demand for climate mitigation services, such as the protection of forests and wetlands to absorb carbon dioxide. Bio-prospecting, the search for new compounds, genes and organisms in the wild, is another biodiversity business on the rise.

Papers are specifically invited on the themes of:

* Assessment of the effectiveness and efficiency of biodiversity conservation instruments, taking into account spatial and governmental considerations;
* Development of new, incentive-compatible instruments to conserve biodiversity;
* Evaluation of the costs of conservation policies versus the costs of 'business-as-usual' within an existing policy framework (e.g. agriculture, fisheries, infrastructure, climate change, etc) that causes ongoing losses of ecosystems and biodiversity.
* Determination of the factors - including the choice of policy instruments - that increase or decrease a farmer's or public body's motivation to conserve biodiversity on their land;
* Application to strategies and projects of the ecosystem services approach for assessing and valuing environmental impacts;
* Benefit transfer methodologies to assess the socio-economic and monetary value of ecosystems services;
* Applications of economic instruments to enhance the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, with particular emphasis on case studies in biodiversity hotspots.

We are particularly interested in papers documenting practical applications and experiences on the above themes. Theoretical contributions are welcome (e.g., using computer artificial intelligence approaches), but also more applied work (e.g. how public bodies - managing for example flood risks - can innovatively deliver wider ecosystem benefits, or how private landowners can be encouraged to conserve biodiversity on their land). We are also interested in multi-disciplinary papers that combine scientific and economic assessments. However, we will also accept papers on a range of other issues related to renewable resources and biodiversity management.

The Conference will cover two days. Leading international environmental economists will present their latest research in two plenary sessions. The keynote speakers are: Professor Anil Markandya (University of Bath, UK and BC3, Spain) and Professor Edward Barbier (University of Wyoming, USA). Two special panel discussions are also scheduled. These are characterized by a round table and shall be focused on climate change, biodiversity management issues. One shall be co-organized with the European Investment Bank and the second by Conservation International, giving to the audience an interesting perspective that is the link between theory and practice.

Full/draft papers may be submitted for presentation and will be considered by the programme committee. Electronic copies (in WORD or PDF format) should be sent to Ughetta Molin Fop (ughetta.molin@feem.it) no later than May 20th, 2009. Acceptance of papers will be notified by email in June 2009.

The Conference will open with an evening reception at the Centro Culturale Don Orione Artigianelli on September 20th. Conference sessions will commence in the morning of September 21st and end in the afternoon of September 22nd. A Conference dinner will be organised on the evening of September 21st. Lunches and refreshments will also be provided. All the participants will be offered lunches and refreshments, the opening reception, the social dinner and the Conference package (program brochure with the book of abstracts, five hours of Internet connection, folder, bag, pen, badge, logistical information, Venice map). There is no registration fee.
Travel and accommodation expenses remain the responsibility of all the participants.