The underground Ogallala pool stretches underground from Texas to South Dakota and provides water to one-fifth of all the irrigated land in the United States.

According to a report by the nonprofit Environmental Defense group, between three and six gallons of water are needed to produce just one gallon of ethanol. This could increase the demand on the declining Ogallala aquifer by as much as 2.6 billion gallons a year just to process the corn and produce the fuel. That doesn't include the 120 billion gallons estimated for irrigation to grow more corn in the region. Nor does it include the water needed for other crops and livestock in the Midwest.

Meanwhile, nine new ethanol plants are already planned for some of the areas in that region.

As the United States has tried to release itself from the grips of foreign oil, many have turned to ethanol as the cure-all. But the alternative fuel caused some unexpected side effects. In addition to sucking up water, the transition to ethanol sent corn prices sky-high this year, affecting prices of everything from corn and tortillas to livestock feed.

About 20 million trees are cut down annually for paper used in the production of books sold in the United States alone. To help alleviate the problem, the company works with organizations that plant trees in developing countries in Latin America and Africa, many of which suffer from deforestation.

Customers can visit the website and decide how many books they would like to balance out. Then they pay about a dollar per book online and Eco-Libris sends them a sticker made of recycled paper for each book they balanced out.

Until the book publishing industry chooses to use more recycled paper, or we choose to consume less and visit the library more often, this seems like a pretty good deal.

The beta release of the program, Green Building Studio v3.0, includes features that compute each building's U.S. EPA Energy Star score, analyze the photovoltaic and wind energy potential, estimate the building's water needs, and determines (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) LEED Glaze factor for each room with lighting control energy savings, as well as determining the natural ventilation potential. Plus it estimates the costs of all changes.

Visit the Green Building Studio website to watch a web video showing a building being designed to be carbon neutral in five minutes

The companies wouldn't disclose the percentage of the final insulation product that is actually from natural products but BioBased says its portion of the mix of chemicals is about 96 percent soy-based.

Adding insulation reduces heating/cooling costs by up to 50 percent when combined with efficient windows. Another potential advantage for new construction is being able to buy smaller and less costly HVAC systems since more efficient homes require less BTUs to maintain comfortable a temperature.

Demilec has two new soy-based products, Heatlok and Agribalance. While they can cost up to twice as much as fiberglass insulation, the payback period can be as little as 24 months due to energy savings. Spray-on insulation requires an open area to be installed so their appropriateness in remodels is limited. Demilec's products can be sprayed on and left exposed in attics to reduce energy consumption.

As with many companies here, both vendors emphasizezd that no formaldehyde (the building industry's equivalent to energy's carbon emissions) is used in their products.

"I'm disappointed in what has been done so far.. It doesn't add up to much.... We need an order of magnitude change... I'm tired of creeping mediocrity and failing more efficiently."

Talk about a reality check to kick off a conference.. Wahoo!

Not surprisingly the partisan mayor took a few jabs at the lack of green initiatives by the Bush Adminstration. Since the Kyoto Protocol's requirement for reducing emissions was too tough for Bush, "we decided to double that."

Next he quoted some of San Francisco's recent achievements:

-- 20 percent of all cabs run on alternative fuels, moving to 100 percent in 2 years -- Starting in January, every buidling must be LEED certified, and by 2012 every development must be LEED Gold certified, -- 2/3 of muni buses are running on alt fuels -- 20 percent less CO2 emissions (based on 1990 rates) for the city 2012 -- 69 percent of demolition material from buildings is diverted instead of going into landfill

The Mayor wasn't overstating by much that when it comes to green building "Everything is being done at the city level."

He concluded by telling his constitutions to keep the city government on track.

"You have to hold our feet to the fire. "[We're] not close to where we need to be.. The worst thing is to have modest goals that we reach... I'd much rather have audacious goals that we fall short of."

The society just released a report showing the power of plants. It turns out the roof prevented more than 27,000 thousands of gallons of stormwater – nearly 75 percent of all precipitation on the roof – from running into the overworked sewer and stormwater system.

It also reduced building energy costs by hundreds of dollars a month, lowering energy usage in the winter by 10 percent and by about 2 or 3 percent in the summer. And the green roof lowered air temperature by as much as 32 degrees in the summer, a huge dip compared to the city's abundance of scalding tar roofs, which helped mitigate the urban heat island effect.

The full report can be found on the ASLA website.

While most cups designed for hot drinks have a petroleum-based coating, the Tully's ecotainer ™ cups use a bioplastic coating made from corn that comes from International Paper Co.

After a transition of up to six months, the cups that are disposed in any of the 92 company-owned stores will be sent to Cedar Grove Organics composting facilities. This move may bring the amount of company waste being recycled to 72 percent. Although most people on the run probably will have no way to compost the cups because many bioplastics require a bit more than burying the cup in the backyard compost pile.

According to International Paper, Americans use more than 15 billion paper hot cups, but the company expects that number to grow to 23 billion by 2010.

This new technology is a great start to reducing waste, but why don't more people just use their own coffee mugs?

The site, Eco Treadsetters, offers an online environment for people who want to connect about environmental issues. It includes personal profiles, eco tips on how to be greener, cool projects and a section for news about the environment.

This may sound funny coming from a tire company, but Yokohama insists that it is a company committed to the environment. It boasts that its management staff takes environmental conservation training, and that all its Japanese and overseas plants have had zero emissions to landfills as of 2004. And, the Yokohama Rubber Group reduced carbon dioxide by 383,000 tons, or 5.3 percent, as well as reducing the use of Volatile Organic Compounds by 44 percent in 2005.

However, the site does include online surveys asking people about their tire purchasing habits, such as what is more important – brand, cost or safety? I don’t remember seeing anything like that on MySpace or Facebook.

Will this site get people revved up for tackling environmental issues, or is it just another marketing scheme trying to make a buck off the environment?

The Wave Hub will cover an area of ocean measuring 2.5 miles by 1.25 miles. Up to 30 wave energy devices, developed by Ocean Power Delivery out of Edinburgh, will float on top of the sea, transferring energy on the waves to equipment on the ocean floor, which will then be transmitted via a cable to an onshore station. The Wave Hub should be up and running by 2009.

Surfers Against Sewage and the British Surfing Association support the technology but waiver about the effects - one study suggested wave height could be reduced by up to 13 percent.

Australia wants to build a wave farm by 2009 as well, but Carnegie Corporation, which owns the rights to the equipment, still needs $500 million. Carnegie's system, called Ceto, differs from the Wave Hub in that it hooks rows of buoys to the sea floor instead of riding the waves from above. As the buoys sway, they pump high-pressure water to shore and spin turbines for power. The equipment can also be used for desalination. Carnegie expects its future farm to generate enough power for 25,000 homes.

And other companies, and investors, are looking into wave power, experimenting with projects around the United States, Europe, South Africa and Mexico.

Even better than recycling a can or carton is not buying it in the first place, but marketing or legislating this idea goes contrary to our capitalist nature. So how can free enterprise and environmentalism both prosper?

My state of Oregon is considering ways to curb the enthusiasm for buying more. "Where are the advocates for prevention?" asked David Allaway, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality's point man for waste prevention, as quoted by the Oregonian. "Where are the businesses who have a financial interest in telling people to buy less stuff?"

Companies can benefit by telling people to buy in bulk (and shopping less) or choosing the most energy-efficient product. For example, buy 2-liter bottles of juice instead of those 8 packs of mini cartons. The same goes for detergents -- the big boxes give companies more dollars per sale, and saves on the trips to the grocery store since you'll run out less often. CostCo, Sam's Club and the other big box stores should be encouraged to market their bulk wares as a waste reduction strategy. .

Compact fluorescent bulbs are selling like crazy and are displacing incandescent bulbs, but eventually the volume of lighting products will dwindle as these longer lasting products take hold. But for now, there's a serious opportunity. Companies (unless they are cigarette companies forced to do so) aren't going to come out and say use less of our product, but they can say use it as wisely as possible.

Using less gasoline or keeping an outfit through two spring seasons today are personal choices, and legislating reduced consumption will be a slow and hard battle. This emphasis on reducing consumption will inevitably slow down our economic engine, or at least shift it to more sustainable activities. Perhaps the message should be about treating yourself to more entertainment. For example, if you spend less on junk food or cut down or leisure driving you could buy more iTunes or add an extra movie channel to your cable channel (or even buy a bicycle!), which each have a negligible environmental impact.

The partnership, launched by President Bush in November 2004, links 20 countries and 600 public and private organizations to support projects involving the collection and utilization of methane. The polluting greenhouse gas can be captured from the manure in dairy farms, as well as coal mines and landfills, and can be turned into energy.

In January, the EPA and its partners established "guidance" that can help farmers manage livestock waste and boost farm earnings by producing biogas from manure. The guidance provides a standardized method that allows farm operators and investors to compare the effectiveness of available waste methane recovery systems. Note – no financial assistance.

Wake up and smell the poop. Why does the United States choose to fund projects globally when we have ripe opportunities right here at home? According to Al Morales, formerly of Environmental Power Corporation, whose subsidiary Microgy, Inc. builds digesters that harness methane, the biogas industry needs much more support in America. Currently, biogas receives none of the subsidies that biodiesel and ethanol get, and it only gets a credit if energy is used to produce electricity, and then it's only half of what wind and solar receive.

As I said when this suit was filed, this was a huge waste of taxpayer dollars that would result in nothing. There was no legal merit to alleging that by following the emissions laws of the state auto companies were creating a nuisance.

While California has been leading the nation in most of their auto emissions policies, they got this one wrong, and it is good that the state will now focus on things like improving fuel economy.

Source: AutoBlogGreen.

So check out "Consumer Consequences", a sustainability game created by American Public Media. (Warning for those in the office – it has sound).

The game allows you to personalize your character, or avatar, with options that range from wacky to classy (hence, my posh pirate). Then you make choices about factors such as where you live, how you dispose of your waste, what you eat, how much you shop, how you get around, etc. Depending on your answers, the background can change from idyllic green hills to huge shopping malls, power plants and electricity lines, as you go through the game.

Unlike the real world, you can change U.S. policies with the click of a button to make buildings efficient, support alternative energy and low-emission vehicles.

When you reach the end, you find out how many worlds would be required if everyone lived like you. Then see how you stack up to American Public Media hosts, Democrats, people with incomes over $50,000, females, etc.

New hybrid vehicle registrations grew the most in the Midwest (news always travels slower there than at the coasts) at nearly 57 percent, while the South had the slowest growth in hybrid sales. Oklahoma (home to climate change denier Senator Inhofe) saw hybrid registrations rise 143 percent, while Hawaii saw hybrid registrations actually go down by 5 percent.

Toyota continues to own (78 percent) the hybrid market, with the Prius (88 percent increase) and Camry (215 percent) continuing to clean up. The Civic Hybrid and continues to do well, while the hybrid SUVs (Mercury Mariner and Saturn Green Vue) are barely on the radar. It is amazing that none of the Big 3 auto companies have directly taken on Toyota and Honda in the compact hybrid sector. Are they waving the white flag?

"While the overall U.S. vehicle market is down, hybrids are a bright spot in the automotive industry with this category projected to easily exceed 300,000 vehicles this year. At this point, hybrids account for more than two percent of the total U.S. vehicle market, which is supported by the regional growth we've seen," said Lonnie Miller, Polk director of industry analysis.

Yes, two percent may sound like a small number, but hybrids are driving much of the growth in new vehicle sales. The introduction of two-mode hybrids from GM and BMW, which have been optimized for city and highway driving, will accelerate the adoption of hybrids into the mainstream.

A recent study issued by 47 scientists shows that at 450 parts per million (ppm) carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a "dangerous climate change" will occur with potentially irreversible glacial melt and rapid sea level rise. We are already at 383 ppm and are increasing carbon dioxide by about 2 ppm annually.

The solution? According to nonprofit group Architecture 2030, which is trying to make the building sector carbon neutral by 2030, we must take two steps. Impose a moratorium on coal and dramatically reduce energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions from the building sector, which heavily relies on coal.

Buildings are the single largest contributor to global warming. The U.S. Energy Information Administration states that buildings are responsible for 48 percent of all energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions annually. Seventy-six percent of all power plant-generated electricity goes to operating buildings.

In the United States, 151 new conventional coal-fired power plants are in various stages of development, and at least one new conventional coal-fired power plant is being added around the world each week.

At this rate, the cheapest and dirtiest fossil fuel will cause many of our cities, including Boston, New York and San Diego (shown in picture with five meter rise in sea water), to be underwater.

That sure makes all our other carbon dioxide-reducing efforts seem pointless. Consider this: Wal-Mart is investing a half billion dollars to reduce the energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions of their existing buildings by 20 percent over the next seven years. That's a lot of Wal-Marts. But even if every Wal-Mart met this target, the carbon dioxide emissions from just one medium-sized coal-fired power plant would completely negate this entire effort in just one month of operation each year.