The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is launching a new design competition called the Campus RainWorks Challenge to encourage student teams on college and university campuses across the country to develop innovative approaches to stormwater management. Stormwater is a major cause of water pollution in urban areas in the U.S., impacting the health of people across the country as well as tens of thousands of miles of rivers, streams, and coastal shorelines, and hundreds of thousands of acres of lakes, reservoirs, and ponds. The competition will help raise awareness of green design and planning approaches at colleges and universities, and train the next generation of landscape architects, planners, and engineers in green infrastructure principles and design.

Student teams, working with a faculty advisor, will submit design plans for a proposed green infrastructure project for their campus. Registration for the Campus RainWorks Challenge opens September 4, and entries must be submitted by December 14, 2012 for consideration. Winning entries will be selected by EPA and announced in April 2013. Winning teams will earn a cash prize of $1,500 – $2,500, as well as $8,000 – $11,000 in funds for their faculty advisor to conduct research on green infrastructure. In 2013, EPA plans to expand Campus RainWorks by inviting students to design and complete a demonstration project assessing innovative green infrastructure approaches on their campus.

“Reducing stormwater pollution requires innovative approaches and America’s college students are incredibly creative and talented,” said Nancy Stoner, acting assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Water. “The Campus RainWorks Challenge will engage students across the country in tackling one of the toughest challenges to clean water and show them the opportunities in environmental careers.”

EPA is encouraging the use of green infrastructure as a solution to help manage stormwater runoff. Green Infrastructure uses vegetation, soils, and natural processes to manage stormwater runoff at its source and provide other community benefits, including economic development.. Green infrastructure is increasingly being used to supplement or substitute for single-purpose “gray” infrastructure investments such as pipes, and ponds. The Campus RainWorks Challenge will help encourage the use of green infrastructure projects on college and university campuses to manage stormwater discharges.

More informationvisit the EPA Campus RainWorks Challenge

The European Environment Agency (EEA) Generation ’92 Video Competition asked young people across Europe to submit a short video depicting their idea of a sustainable future. Enjoy these winning videos:

First Prize: Every Problem Has A Solution by Sorin Vestemean of Romania

Second Prize: Bud by Ana-Maria Lemnaru

Third Prize: Sustainability Visions by Geisler Krogsgaard of Greenland

Special Mention: It’s Time to Start Again by Raffaele Pio Allcino of Italy

National Wildlife Federation’s Campus Ecology Program collaborated with Lucid Design Group, Inc, United States Green Building Council and the Alliance to Save Energy to create The Campus Conservation Nationals (CCN). CCN is a nationwide resource-use reduction competition which invited students, faculty and staff from college and university campuses to attain the greatest electricity and water use reductions during a three week period this spring.

This year’s competition included over 150 schools, 1700 residence halls and over 250,000 students. To see the winners of this year’s competition visit CNN.

Enjoy this selection of videos created for the competition – featuring ever-popular energy-saving super heroes and ninjas:

Cal Poly: Save So Hard: Mr. Eco

UNC-Asheville’s Flash Energy Commander

Mizzou Dashboard Ninjas!

This year, students from hundreds of colleges and universities can feel even better about their commencement ceremonies as they don graduation gowns made from post-consumer plastic water bottles.

University of Houston, University of Michigan, Syracuse University, Johns Hopkins University, Boston University, Unity College, Caltech and Providence College are just a few of the educational institutions to add environment-friendly commencement gowns to their sustainable campus initiatives.

There are a growing number of fabrics made from recycled plastic, and a growing number of companies specializing in graduation garb embracing these new fabrics. An average of 25 plastic bottles are recycled into the fabric required for one graduation gown. Gowns made from recycled plastic bottles can also be recycled again.

Recycled plastic bottle fiber is a high-quality polyester fiber, which can be used for nearly any textile product. Traditional polyester fabrics are made from petroleum products, so producing nearly identical fabric from recycled materials rather than non-renewable petroleum products is a positive development. According to Earth911, producing new products from recycled plastic uses two-thirds less energy than producing the same products from raw materials, and reduces landfill space used for discarded bottles.

In addition to more sustainable graduation attire, sustainably trending schools are adding other positive practices to their graduation traditions. Diplomas and programs printed on recycled papers with soy-based inks, serving local, organic food with reusable or compostable table wear, composting, and banning plastic water bottles are becoming common practices.

Congratulations Graduates!

 

By G. Rendell

That’s not the amount of CO2 you emit each and every day, but it might just be the amount you’re responsible for.

One of the challenges with getting people (including, but by no means limited to, students) to really believe in the impact of greenhouse gases is that the one everybody talks about — the one that stands as a proxy for all the others — is generally thought of as odorless, colorless, almost massless. Methane you can think of as swamp gas, so it’s easy to envision a damp, smelly substance hanging low in sumpy places and occasionally glowing after dark. Nitrous is easy to think of as the stuff that makes you laugh or that will make your car’s engine run REALLY fast. But carbon dioxide — how does anyone think about carbon dioxide? It’s invisible. Almost intangible. You can comprehend carbon dioxide in your mind, but it’s hard to really believe it in your gut. So it’s hard to really commit to the idea that CO2 has enough substance to be dangerous.

We need to do something about that. And I think we just got the data to do it with.

King County, in the state of Washington, just did us all a favor. With the help of the Stockholm Environment Institute, they conducted a laborious study to estimate the GHG emissions county residents are responsible for. Not just the emissions which arise from the county itself and the activities therein, but the emissions created by county residents’ activities and consumption. If you are what you eat, then you emit what you consume (and I don’t mean just food).

The SEI’s estimate for King County, based on the year 2008, is 54.99 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent emissions. Convert to pounds and divide by a population of 1.88 million, and that’s almost 64,500 pounds for every resident. Divide by 366 (2008 was a leap year) and unless the back of my envelope is lying to me, it comes to a bit over 175 pounds. Per person. Each and every day.

That’s a lot higher than other per-capita daily estimates I’ve seen, including King County’s previous efforts (which already attempted to reflect a broader scope than any campus GHG inventory to my knowledge). The reason is simple — some 62% of the emissions for which each of us bears responsibility are generated by the creation (resource extraction, transportation, manufacturing, packaging) of the goods we use, not by how we use those goods. And (as anyone looking at international balance of trade can tell you), the stuff we use is generally manufactured and grown a long distance from where we use it.

Read More…

From the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

50-Year Model Suggests Regional Pollution Obscured a Global Trend

Climate scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have discovered that particulate pollution in the late 20th century created a “warming hole” over the eastern United States—that is, a cold patch where the effects of global warming were temporarily obscured.

While greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane warm the Earth’s surface, tiny particles in the air can have the reverse effect on regional scales.

“What we’ve shown is that particulate pollution over the eastern United States has delayed the warming that we would expect to see from increasing greenhouse gases,” says lead author Eric Leibensperger (Ph.D. ’11), who completed the work as a graduate student in applied physics at SEAS.

“For the sake of protecting human health and reducing acid rain, we’ve now cut the emissions that lead to particulate pollution,” he adds, “but these cuts have caused the greenhouse warming in this region to ramp up to match the global trend.”

At this point, most of the “catch-up” warming has already occurred.

The findings, published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, present a more complete picture of the processes that affect regional climate change. The work also carries significant implications for the future climate of industrial nations, like China, that have not yet implemented air quality regulations to the same extent as the United States.

Read More…

Courtesy of A&M University Tamu Times

Algae, tobacco, the food scraps from a discarded cafeteria tray — they may seem like an unlikely club, but all of these items are playing major roles in the world’s hunt for suitable alternative fuels. The earth’s supply of fossil fuel continues to diminish and oil prices are skyrocketing. However,  Texas A&M researchers are convinced that by helping the earth give back to itself through converting natural products like these into fuel, they can revolutionize the world’s fuel consumption.

Algae

Using algae to fuel a jet or power a diesel truck may seem like a farfetched idea, but researchers at Texas AgriLife Research — a member of The Texas A&M University System — are well on their way to making it a reality.

The nation’s economy demands large quantities of fuel — the U.S. consumes more than 40 billion gallons of diesel a year, while the U.S. Air Force alone burns close to 3 billion gallons of jet fuel annually. But with the help of its Pecos Algae Research and Development Facility, a special algae test center in Pecos, Texas, Texas, AgriLife Research scientists are seeking to develop a technology involving microalgae that could potentially contribute to the United States’ energy security.

Algae is a particularly appealing natural product to transform into fuel because of its high oil content, researchers say. In addition to being renewable, it is a substance that can be produced on underutilized land with brackish water.

“Algae has the potential to produce about 3,000-5,000 gallons of diesel or jet fuel per acre per year, which is significantly more than most energy crops,” said Bob Avant, bioenergy program and corporate relations director at Texas AgriLife Research. “It would be produced on land and from water sources that are not being used for other agricultural production, so it would not compete with food production.”

Significant development work is underway by corporations, universities and federal agencies to transform algae into a commercial, economically viable energy crop, Avant added.

“Research is addressing a number of challenges to improve the production efficiency and reduce the cost,” he said. “Texas AgriLife Research is conducting a large program addressing issues such as increased biomass production and oil content, reduced construction and operating costs, improved separation technologies, and co-product development. This research is making significant progress toward commercialization of algae production, but it will be about five years before these technologies can be transferred into full-scale production.”

Read More…

Press Release from the Biomimicry Institute

Using the desert snail as inspiration for their design, a team of students from the Art Institute of Isfahan in Iran took the top honor in the third annual Biomimicry Student Design Challenge, organized by the Biomimicry 3.8 Institute. The team, consisting of master’s level and undergraduate students in architecture and business, conceived of a building that makes use of self-shading, surface reflection, and insulation to create a livable habitat rather than relying on air conditioning.

“The students from Isfahan created my favorite visual. When I look at this building, I want to see it in real life—want to visit it, spend a noon, night, and early morning in it—I can almost feel its shade and cool breeze,” said Janine Benyus, Biomimicry 3.8 Institute co-founder and design challenge judge. “While being completely modern in its sensibility, it is also incredibly ‘fitting’ to its place. I can give this form the highest compliment by saying that it looks like it belongs in the desert.  And indeed, it does, given that its inspiration comes from an ancient organism.”

“The team from Isfahan showed what is possible when we look to nature as a source of good ideas rather than a warehouse of goods,” said Megan Schuknecht, director of university education at the Biomimicry 3.8 Institute. “In this case, the students found inspiration from the desert snail, which has learned not just how to survive but to thrive in an arid, hot climate. Their snail-inspired building design is functional, beautiful, and energy-efficient, and has the potential for great impact in their home country.”

The team from the Art Institute of Isfahan will receive $5,000 for their first place design. They acknowledged their win with the following statement: “Winning this design challenge is overwhelmingly exciting. Biomimicry took our notion of nature to a higher level and structured our point of view and let us understand how to learn from nature in the path of design. We will surely look to it as a major resource of learning and designing.”

Biomimicry 3.8 Institute staff and a panel of designers, scientists, engineers, and business leaders judged the design challenge proposals according to their understanding and application of biomimicry, solution creativity, potential for impact, presentation quality, team collaboration, and Life’s Principles (design lessons from nature).

Abstracts from every design proposal that was submitted are available on www.biomimicrydesignchallenge.com.

Read More…

 

Find an Earth Day Event:

MobilizeU – Earth Day University

A Billion Acts of Green!

EPA Earth Day Event Finder

Earth Day Canada

 

 

Biologist, author and entrepreneur, Janine Benyus discusses the emerging concept of biomimicry – the application of the elegant systems and adaptations of the natural world to solve problems in our built world. Entrepreneurs and innovators are shifting from learning about nature to learning from nature for answers to today’s pressing challenges.

In her book, Biomimicry – Innovation Inspired by Nature, Benyus outlines a canon of nature’s laws, strategies and principles that humans would be wise to apply:

Nature runs on sunlight.
Nature uses only the energy it needs.
Nature fits form to function.
Nature recycles everything.
Nature rewards cooperation.
Nature banks on diversity.
Nature demands local expertise.
Nature curbs excesses from within.
Nature taps the power of limits.

Janine Benyus at the Stockholm Resilience Centre from Biomimicry 3.8 on Vimeo.