greensportsalliance.org

The Green Sports Alliance is a non-profit organization with a mission to help sports teams, venues and leagues enhance their environmental performance. Alliance members represent over 230 sports teams and venues from 20 different sports leagues.

Since February of 2010, the Alliance has brought together venue operators, sports team executives and environmental scientists to exchange information about better practices and develop solutions to their environmental challenges that are cost-competitive and innovative.

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Young and old hockey stars reach for the puck in a game of shinny on a frozen pond in Palgrave, something the NHL worries may become less possible as the climate changes.  Jim Wilkes / TORONTO STAR

Hockey is taking steps to reduce its carbon footprint, for good reason: more than other pro sports, it depends on cold weather and clean water.

thestar.com - by Kevin McGran - July 23, 2014

NHL Commissioner to receive 2014 Environmental Leadership Award

nhl.com - July 21, 2014

The Green Sports Alliance will honor NHL commissioner Gary Bettman with the 2014 Green Sports Alliance Environmental Leadership Award for his visionary work and guidance in establishing NHL Green and promoting sustainable business practices across the League.

The Green Sports Alliance Environmental Leadership Award is presented to a member of the sports industry who has demonstrated leadership and has provided significant contributions to environmental sustainability. The award is voted on by the Green Sports Alliance Board of Directors, which is comprised of representatives from professional sports organizations, leading environmental nonprofits and other organizations affiliated with the sports industry.

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Of 178 homes whose water was shut off last week, 79 had restarted their supplies, triggering $21,750 in fines on top of what the residents already owed. Photograph: James Fassinger

The beleaguered city says a water shutoff is essential to recoup $89m in overdue bills. But the decision has outraged thousands of Detroiters – who have taken matters into their own hands

theguardian.com - by Jon Swaine - July 21, 2014

When the coast is clear, and the trucks from the contractor shutting off water for the city of Detroit have rolled away, the men with water keys come.

They offer residents whose supply has just been shut off a tempting deal. For $20, they will use their tools to turn the water main back on immediately, and illegally, sparing the household the agonising days spent without showering, cooking or flushing that have already been endured by at least 16,000 of their neighbours so far this year.

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Some 10 percent of households in Hawaii have installed solar panels like this one.  Al Jazeera

Energy collected by homeowners’ panels taxed the state’s power grid, and the local utility has stopped connecting them

america.aljazeera.com - by Jennifer London - January 10, 2014

For more than four decades, sunny Hawaii has led the way in clean, renewable energy.

Today 10 percent of households in the Aloha State have rooftop solar systems to generate electricity, compared with no more than 3 percent in California. But now Hawaii is facing a problem: the increase of privately installed solar panels has overloaded the power grid.

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huffingtonpost.com - AP - by Jason Dearen - July 18, 2014

ST. AUGUSTINE BEACH, Fla. (AP) — The Obama administration is reopening the Eastern Seaboard to offshore oil and gas exploration, approving seismic surveys using sonic cannons that can pinpoint energy deposits deep beneath the ocean floor.

Friday's announcement is the first real step toward what could be a transformation in coastal states, creating thousands of jobs to support a new energy infrastructure. But it dismayed environmentalists and people who owe their livelihoods to fisheries and tourism.

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cdc.gov - Press Release
For Immediate Release: Thursday, July 17, 2014
Contact: CDC Media Relations
(404) 639-3286

Seven months after the mosquito-borne virus chikungunya was recognized in the Western Hemisphere, the first locally acquired case of the disease has surfaced in the continental United States. The case was reported today in Florida in a male who had not recently traveled outside the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working closely with the Florida Department of Health to investigate how the patient contracted the virus; CDC will also monitor for additional locally acquired U.S. cases in the coming weeks and months.

Image: A screenshot of the Frog Watch map.

greenbiz.com - July 8th, 2014 - Yale Environment 360

By making the recording and sharing of environmental data easier than ever, web-based technology has fostered the rapid growth of so-called citizen scientists — volunteers who collaborate with scientists to collect and interpret data. Numerous Internet-based projects now make use of citizen scientists to monitor environmental health and to track sensitive plant and wildlife populations. From counting butterflies, frogs, and bats across the globe, to piloting personal drones capable of high-definition infrared imaging, citizen scientists are playing a crucial role in collecting data that will help researchers understand the environment. Here is a sampling of some of these projects.

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greenbiz.com - July 15th, 2014 - Todd Reubold

By 2050, seven out of every 10 people on Earth will be an urban dweller. What the cities of the future look like depends largely on decisions we make today.

Will we design a future where driverless cars zip around under skyscraping vertical gardens in hyperconnected, energy-efficient “smart cities”? Or will we be trapped in endless traffic jams while pollution overwhelms remaining green spaces and infrastructure crumbles?

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Submitted by Albert Gomez

crn.com - July 11th, 2014 - Robert Westervelt

The Identity Theft Resource Center, which tracks public reports of data breaches, said it has logged nearly 400 incidents exposing credit card data and sensitive information in 2014. While retailers gain the most attention as a result of attacks against their payment systems, healthcare data, university information was also exposed in attacks. Security experts say the incidents expose password management lapses, poor data base management and oversight and the failure to identify and correct common Web application vulnerabilities.

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The Centers for Disease Control plans to take measures to better protect lab workers and the rest of us from dangerous biological samples

scientificamerican.com - by Dina Fine Maron - July 17, 2014

Twenty-one dead lab chickens piled up this spring at a government facility before its researchers could pinpoint why. The team had requested and received what was meant to be a relatively harmless strain of avian flu. Instead, the virus killed all the test birds during experiments.

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Image: Eleni Kalorkoti

nytimes.com - by David J. Hayes - July 17, 2014

STANFORD, Calif. — AFTER years of hype, renewable energy has gone mainstream in much of the United States and, increasingly, around the world. . .

. . . But many communities that need small-scale renewable energy remain out in the cold — literally and figuratively.

In Alaska, for instance, the vast majority of the more than 200 small, isolated communities populated primarily by native Alaskans rely on dirty, expensive diesel fuel to generate their electricity and heat.

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Eric Thayer/Reuters

Some run dry—and others pay $30 for plumbers to illegally turn the taps back on.

theatlantic.com - by Rose Hackman - July 17, 2014

When the water trucks arrived near Arlyssa Heard’s home on the west side of Detroit at the end of June, the 42-year-old single mother of two said it felt like the entire neighborhood was being taken over. . .

. . . It may not have been a police crackdown, but what she witnessed was definitely a crackdown of a sort. Since last year, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department has been turning off water at the homes of customers behind on their bills.

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http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at1+shtml/085007.shtml?inundation

The National Hurricane Center’s new maps, released as the storm approached the U.S., predicted the location and severity of the surge

scientificamerican.com - by Kevin Schultz - July 14, 2014

Hurricane Arthur smashed into the North Carolina coast last week. Just before it hit, residents checked a new storm surge map, found on the National Hurricane Center (NHC) Web Site. It showed them whether they would be above the water driven onto land by the storm or need to evacuate to higher ground. Store owners used it to figure out how high they needed to move their goods off the ground to prevent water damage. Some emergency management crews even utilized it to predict where the hardest hit places could be.

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A jogger runs by a sprinkler that is partially watering a sidewalk in Golden Gate Park on July 15, 2014 in San Francisco, California. Justin Sullivan, Getty Images

cbsnews.com - AP - July 16, 2014

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Reservoirs are running dry, the Capitol's lawn has turned brown, and farmers have left hundreds of thousands of acres unplanted.

Even so, many Californians aren't taking the drought seriously. State water regulators are trying to change that by imposing fines up to $500 a day for wasting water.

The State Water Resources Control Board acted Tuesday amid warnings that conditions could get worse if it doesn't rain this winter.

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