T. Boone Pickens TV Commercial

What is the Pickens Plan?
The Pickens Plan attempts to reduce U.S. dependency on foreign oil. We currently use natural gas to produce 22% of our electricity. Pickens believes that by harnessing the power of wind to generate electricity, we can shift natural gas away from electricity generation to use as a transportation fuel.

He is convinced that new wind generation facilities combined with natural gas resources can replace more than one-third of our foreign oil imports in 10 years.

Ten Questions About Evolution Answered

Intelligent design advocates work to prove the weaknesses in evolutionary theory.
The New York Times has printed those 10 questions, along with responses compiled by the National Center for Science Education.

More questions posed by intelligent design proponents can be found on the Discovery Institute site, http://www.iconsofevolution.com/

More information about biological evolution can be found at http://nationalacademies.org/evolution/.

A related story discusses how Florida schools are currently trying to implement the teaching of evolution as mandated by legislators this year amid a population increasingly advocating the teaching of intelligent design.

Ideas to Cool the Earth

Visit Discovery: Project Earth which promotes its newest series Fridays, starting Aug. 22 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. "See what happens when "what if?" meets "why not?" Discovery Project Earth re-engineers the planet's possibilities and literally spans the globe, pinpointing areas of both concern and opportunity in confronting climate change."
Ideas include:
Dr. Jason Box, a glaciologist from Ohio State University, wants to prevent glaciers from melting by covering them with blankets that will reflect the powerful rays of the sun.
Scientist Mark Hodges believes he has devised a way to reforest large areas of Earth from the air by using an aircraft to drop tens of thousands of canisters, each holding a tree seedling.
Atmospheric physicist John Latham thinks that by changing the size of water droplets in a cloud they can increase the cloud's ability to reflect the sun and stop global warming.
Canadian engineer, Fred Ferguson, has designed a revolutionary wind turbine that will use the constant winds that exist at 1,000 feet above sea level to produce energy.
Astronomer and professor Roger Angel thinks he can diffract the power of the sun by placing trillions of lenses in space and creating a 100,000-square-mile sunshade.
NASA physicist John Mankins plans to send thousands of satellites into space, which will gather energy from the sun and then beam the solar energy down to Earth as microwave energy.
Canadian professor David Keith believes we could solve the problem of global warming by just scrubbing the air clean of carbon dioxide, before it has the opportunity to add to the blanket of greenhouse gases smothering the earth.

Global Climate Impacts in the United States

This report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Commerce was released in July 2008. Key findings include information abouot impacts of climate change on various sectors and all regions of the U.S. Response strategies have been summarized.

Portal:Sustainable development

Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but in the indefinite future. The term was used by the Brundtland Commission which coined what has become the most often-quoted definition of sustainable development as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." (United Nations) In addition to the regular wikipedia site, there is a wikipedia "portal" which includes up-to-date news and links to more topics in sustainability and energy development.

Encyclopedia of Earth

Be sure to visit the "Climate Change Collection" of articles on climate change, organized by topic from the Encyclopedia of Earth.

This collection brings together some of the world’s leading scientists and organizations and presents the essential knowledge underlying the issue of climate change. — Cutler J. Cleveland, Editor-in-Chief

The Encyclopedia of Earth is supported by the Environmental Information Coalition and the National Council for Science and the Environment. What students will find useful is that "unless otherwise noted, all text is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license. Another useful feature are the energy profiles available for many countries, a location-based article search.

Pickens Pitches Wind Power to Congress

The Pickens plan starts with wind power and also capturing solar power.

Your Paycheck and Gas Prices

Fill out this simple form from CNN.com to calculate how many hours you have to work to fill a tank of gas.

National Parking Day is a celebration of parks and open space

What is Park(ing) Day?
National Park(ing) Day is an opportunity to celebrate parks in cities and promote the need for more parks by creating temporary public parks in public parking spaces. National Park(ing) Day is Friday, September 19, 2008.

Chicago is one of 25 cities which participate annually. Find out what's happening in some Chicago neighborhoods. See a YouTube video that discusses what was done in SanFrancisco to create awareness of the need for more parks and open space. See the photo gallery on Flickr for for National Parking Day. It's an interesting way to promote green activism.

Greenbook on Facebook

Tryout this Facebook application and send free trees to folks you know!
Read the explanation for how it works.