The project aims to do this by supporting the land acquisition and reforestation of 1,100 acres of habitat in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley in Lousiana. Each car's offset will be based on the government's expected average annual emissions for each VW model sold during that four-month period.

The Volkswagen website will also display the carbon footprint calculation of the various vehicles when visitors use the "Build a VW" feature.

Over the years Volkswagen has been touted as one of the Environmental Protection Agency's "fuel economy leaders," with the Golf, the Beetle and the Jetta showing up on the EPA's list for vehicles with highest overall fuel economy. But the company's vehicles were pushed off the chart for 2007 due to more hybrids on the market, which Volkswagen doesn't currently produce.

Even if the VWs don't still top the chart, offsetting their emissions is a close second.

But I see a few holes in Whole Foods' strategy. Paper may be more sustainable than glass, but who wants to drink wine from a reusable carton? Wine connoisseurs will likely thumb their noses at the taste coming from a carton.

Also, the wine is touted because it is lighter in weight than bottled wine, so transporting it reduces greenhouse gases, or so the company says. That is true when comparing it to other Australian wines. But the 6,000 or more miles that the wine travels to the U.S. emits some serious carbon when compared to domestic wines.

Whole Foods could have partnered with any of a number of domestic wineries to launch a "boxed wine is good" campaign. Imported wine is great, but selling it as eco-friendly leaves a bitter aftertaste.

The steak. The United Nations reported in November that livestock production must be cut in half to avoid further damaging the environment. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, livestock generates more greenhouse gas emissions, as measured in carbon dioxide equivalent, than transportation. So environmental groups have kicked off an advertising campaign to spread the veg-lovin' word.

The list of drawbacks from livestock is almost endless – methane and nitrous oxide pollution that contribute to global warming; soil erosion, antibiotics, hormones, fertilizers and pesticides that contribute to runoff and water pollution, etc. Livestock already take up almost a third of the Earth's entire land surface, and the business is still growing.

People want more meat and dairy. That means more forests will be turned into pastures, and more water and feed will be required – food that could go to hungry people rather than cows and pigs. Plus much of that feed is corn-based , which because of increasing ethanol production has already spiked land and feed costs for farmers, putting many out of jobs. Have we created a catch-22 for farmers?

Just as SUVs are still popular after much condemnation, I doubt many will lessen their meat intake either. But at least with proliferating cows environmentalists may take solace in the fact that we'll be able to harness more methane-based natural gas.

Office Depot took a huge jump towards efficiency by lowering its carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent in 2006. The company says it reduced energy consumption by retrofitting its lighting and adding light sensors that automatically turn off lights when areas like bathrooms and break rooms are unoccupied. Plus, it added high-efficient heating, ventilation and air conditioning units.

It seems like such a simple and obvious idea – why aren't all big stores doing this? Especially for all those big boxes just being built - these types of practices could be added at the start instead of retrofitting old stores later.

Maybe programs like the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Climate Leaders Program, which includes companies like Office Depot, 3M and Gap, Inc. will inspire more to jump on board. The program allows companies to set a corporate-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goal and inventory their emissions to measure progress. They then report their inventory data to the EPA, which records their efforts.

Meanwhile, other big companies like Nike have received some publicity about their environmental efforts by participating in other programs, such as Climate Counts . The nonprofit organization funded by Stonyfield Farm, Inc. aims to encourage consumers and companies to take action on the climate crisis.

But most of these fairytale plastics appear to have a secret dark side. If not disposed of correctly – which involves taking them to special industrial sites where they are treated like compost, they may not biodegrade faster than any regular plastic bottle. So putting them in the trashcan is a no, and recycling them only becomes a nuisance at recycling centers that have no place for such materials.

Plus, most industrial grown corn requires loads of insecticide, herbicide and nitrogen fertilizer – which can lead to soil erosion and water pollution. And corn production has hiked up food, land and animal feed costs.

Enter Plantic, an Australian company that claims to differ from the bioplastics that really don’t biodegrade (because no one knows what to do with them).

Plantic doesn’t even call its products PLAs. According to Plantic, it "has achieved a unique place in the world market for bioplastics through patented technology that delivers a completely biodegradable and organic alternative to conventional plastics based on corn, which is not genetically modified. Unlike other bioplastics companies who utilise organic materials but whose polymers are still developed in refineries, Plantic's polymer as well as its raw material, are grown in a field."

The company states that its products are certified home compostable, certified biodegradable and certified for disposal in wastewater all to European standards. I’m not sure how that compares to U.S. standards, but I’m curious to see how it fares in the market, and in the landfills.

Cadbury Schweppes recently announced that it plans to use Plantic products as wrappers for the company’s candy bars. Perhaps the Easter Bunny can now be environmentally friendly.

The collapse of a 400 foot wind turbine in Wasco, Oregon has prompted manufacturer Siemens to suspend work on its turbines worldwide, according to the Oregonian. The accident killed one worker, and occurred in light winds, leaving engineers scratching their heads.

According to BusinessWeek there have been thousands of accidents or service calls on wind turbines during the past few years, including a 100 meter turbine falling down in Germany last November.

I haven't heard of any problems with wind turbines breaking during tornadoes, but with the rise in wind energy in the Midwest, it's probably just a matter of time. Perhaps we've been rushing to embrace clean energy without sufficient engineering studies and standards in place. No energy source is benign, and hopefully the industry will learn from this unfortunate accident.

New Hampshire-based Microgy, Inc. works in California, Texas and Wisconsin (states full of cows) to extract methane from animal waste. Microgy will now sell this renewable gas to San Francisco-based Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), providing 8,000 Mcf of renewable gas energy to the most populated state in the country. Microgy plans to build four production facilities on large dairy farms in California. Farmers will collect manure from cows and separate the solids from the liquids. The liquids will go into a digester, which extracts the methane and then siphons it into PG&E’s extensive gas pipeline network.

Farmers around the country are looking for ways to harness their resources, er, cow poop, to power their own farms and team up with larger energy corporations. This could provide farmers extra support in a time when rising costs for land, cattle feed and electricity pose serious threats to the farming business. Higher corn prices due to corn-based ethanol production have significantly increased the costs of land and feed for cattle.

In addition to providing a form of renewable energy, the process will also capture more of the greenhouse gas methane before it contributes to global warming pollution.

I first wrote about commercialization efforts five years ago, but recent developments indicate that scientists are getting closer to the finish line.

Diversified Energy Corporation is working with XL Renewables to commercialize its algae production called Simgae (for simple algae). The companies say the process can cut the cost of algae feedstock (currently 60 percent or more of the total cost) by at least half.

Algae has been shown to produce 30X more oil and require 1/100th the water per acre when compared to traditional crops, according to Diversified Energy, but the upfront cost of up to $1 million per acre has hindered investment.

Here's Diversified Energy's description of the technology:

Simgae uses a "...thin walled polyethylene tubing, called Algae Biotape, similar to conventional drip irrigation tubes. The patent pending biotape is laid out in parallel across a field. Under pressure, water containing the necessary nutrients and a small fraction of algae are slowly introduced into the biotape. Carbon dioxide is injected periodically and after roughly 24 hours the flow leaves the Algae Biotape with a markedly greater concentration of algae than was started."

The companies say the capital cost can be as low as $45 K (I'm guessing per acre) and produce feedstock that is one third or less of the cost of fossil fuels.

The two companies also have broken ground on a $250 million, 2,700-acre biorefinery and dairy plant called XL Biorefinery in Vicksburg, Arizona that will live off grid and produce fertilizer, ethanol, and oh yeah, milk.

Meanwhile, algae-to-biofuels company LiveFuels snared a big brain in the biomass world, hiring former NREL algae-to-biodiesel program director John Sheehan as its Vice President of Strategy and Sustainable Development.

And finally, in the U.K., researchers have developed a Greenbox that can replace the exhaust of a car and trap the emissions in algae that can be taken off the vehicle and turned into biofuel.

This idea is hampered by having to remove the box every time you fill up, but perhaps the application could be used to capture CO2 from coal or natural gas plants (like the folks at Israel company Seambiotic, which would encourage more use of electric cars.

Electronic payments through direct deposit and paycards (such as available through Ecount) are touted as convenient by automatically making the money available to you. But in honor of this year's National Payroll Week (you had it marked on the calendar, right?), the APA is highlighting that convenience also means conservation.

We're all too familiar with having to wait in line or at the drive-through at the bank, and those trips also require burning fuel, especially if you haven't organized your errands or live close enough to a bank to walk. The APA didn't provide any stats, but I'm sure eliminating 26 to 52 trips to the bank each year and idling the car ads up to a few bucks in gasoline. Multiple that by 146 million workers who are paid by check,and it makes a difference.

Paycards also save money since they don't require paper checks or statements. The money is automatically in the card, and the transactions can be viewed online and printed at home if needed.

Like every other industry, banking is realizing the opportunity in going green and looking to cash in by cutting costs and developing new services. You can get all of the paper documents you need with electronic payments, so I can't really think of a downside, can you?

LIPA had originally estimated the project to cost $356 million, but that price quickly escalated to a hefty estimate of around $800 million this past year. The chairman of the agency, Kevin S. Law, will recommend to other board members to cancel the plan at its Sep. 25 meeting.

Meanwhile, other plans are picking up speed. Cape Wind, a company that plans to build 130 windmills in Nantucket Sound off the coast of Massachusetts, has not released what its project will cost. In Ohio, Cuyahoga County Commissioners hired Juwi International, a German company, to conduct a $1 million study into whether building up to 10 wind turbines in Lake Erie is financially feasible. The project could cost $60 million and produce 20 megawatts of electricity. Nonprofit group Environment Ohio reported that using wind to supply 20 percent of Ohio’s electricity by 2020 would create 3,100 permanent full-time jobs and would reduce carbon emissions equating to taking 2 million cars off the road. Developers in Delaware are also exploring offshore wind farms.

If any of these projects succeed, the United States could finally join Europe in offshore wind energy production.

Even if you are not a fan of the giants of the roadway, hybrid SUVs should be encouraged because they can save more gasoline and reduce emissions more than "hybridizing" smaller cars. The math may seem a bit reversed, but improving the fuel efficiency of vehicles that get less than 20 mpg can cut total fuel consumption by a greater amount than tweaking fuel-efficient cars by the same percentage.

For example, driving the hybrid version of the GMC Yukon (21 mpg) for 15,000 miles per year will cut 184 gallons of gasoline over the standard model, while driving a Honda Civic Hybrid (42 mpg) the same distance instead of the gas-only model will save 160 gallons of gas.

Regardless of any environmental arm-waving, people will continue to buy SUVs (and boat owners/haulers with good reason), so we might as well encourage that they buy the most fuel efficient option available. Along with the federal tax incentive for buying a hybrid of a few thousand dollars, hybrid SUV buyers will also save about $500 a year at the pump.

Hopefully the world HYBRID will be really big on the side of these new SUVs (a Chevy Tahoe Hybrid is also planned) so that the anti-SUV crowd will take pause. More diesel SUVs and trucks would also be welcome for their fuel efficiency.

Walk Score is a great website that shows how close any property is to essential services, such as grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops, movie theaters, parks, and gyms. The score is based on how far you would have to walk (or in many cases drive) to make it through the week.

While I love driving while on vacation or just to get away and see something new, I hate living where you must use the car to grab a snack or rent a video, so I've always tried to live places with facilities in walking distance. My quaint suburban neighborhood doesn't do a great job of that, with a score of 34 out of 100, compared with major cities that have neighborhoods that score in the 80s and 90s.

Where I grew up in Philadelphia (I didn't drive until I was 23) has a respectable 72, but my brother's new ritzy suburban enclave scores a miserable 12. People like the security of "gated" neighborhoods, but if a retail establishment (like a restaurant or dry cleaner) is in the middle of $750K homes, you're not really going to have to worry about the clientele. A check cashing place would not be welcomed there, but mixed use neighborhoods can be wonderful.

Walk-able neighbors reduce traffic, encourage community and local development, and encourages exercise since things are close at hand. Builders and urban planers should do as in Whitby Ontario and plan to make working, living, and shopping in one place as comfortable and sustainable as possible.

Hat tip to The Oil Drum