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Topic Page: Green Communities
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Webisodes
Beer as a Model for Sustainable Business
THIS WEEK: Holy cow! This week Planet Forward got up close and personal with some Virginia livestock. DC Brau, the first local brewery in D.C. feeds their organic waste to livestock in the Virginia area. Take a look!
Learning How to Adapt from our Ancestors
THIS WEEK: This week Planet Forward is taking a look at the work PISA, a GW-based group, is doing in Nam Dinh, Vietnam. The women in Nam Dinh are adapting to a changing planet and they say they learned their tricks from none other than their ancestors!
An Innovative Approach to Water Conservation
THIS WEEK: Our rapidly increasing consumption of water is creating concerns about what the world would be like without any! One team, however, created an innovative solution to the planet’s quickly disappearing water. Check it out in this week’s webisode!
Living Sustainably on a College Campus
We profile three schools that are working toward more sustainable college campuses.
Empowerhouse: Community-Based Sustainable Living
THIS WEEK: How to turn a Solar Decathlon house into a home. GW students Melissa Turley and Jon Fenech followed Team Empowerhouse through the Solar Decathlon. Their innovation? Making it affordable enough to be a Habitat for Humanity home.
WATCH!
A Solar Conversation with Secretary Chu
THIS WEEK: In this week’s webisode, Planet Forward’s Frank Sesno interviews Secretary of Energy, Dr. Steven Chu at the 2011 Solar Decathlon! Chu talks about the coolest innovations, and even wonks out a bit on r-values and building materials.
‘The Big Uneasy,’ The PF Interview with Harry Shearer
In this week’s WEBISODE Planet Forward host Frank Sesno sits down with Harry Shearer, the multi-talented comedian who is the voice of more than 21 Simpsons characters about his documentary on Hurricane Katrina The Big Uneasy
WATCH!
Bangkok Underground
In this week’s WEBISODE we travel to Bangkok to see what they are doing to cope with floods. PF Producer Victoria Riess talks with Porntep Techapaibul, the Deputy Governor of Bangkok.
Wind Beneath Their Strings
Here is a new way to deliver energy to those who need it. The women in one small community in Guatemala have wind, they just need a way to harness it. Enter enthusiastic students from the University of Michigan College of Engineering.
Could Palm Oil Biofuels Work?
This WEBISODE focuses on Dom Bosco Catholic University’s biochemistry laboratory in Campo Grande, Brazil. Dom Bosco is experimenting with a plant called bocaiúva, a native palm which could yield a new source of renewable energy.
Energy Secretary Bill Nye?
Planet Forward met up with Bill Nye at the Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVision Awards last week. See the first item on his #EnergyToDo list. Tell us yours on twitter. (@Planet_Forward)
ICLEI’s Martin Chavez On Sustainable Growth & Smart Cities
This week, Planet Forward host Frank Sesno sits down with Martin Chavez, Executive Director of ICLEI. The focus? Smart cities! Learn what your city can do to grow and adapt to a changing planet. More>>
TV Segments
Filtering Dirty Water, By Losing the Filter
This week, tackling one of the great challenges of our time – water. The engineers at Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) say they have the answer that could make it cheaper and less energy-intensive to clean water. It has no moving parts and no filter. Instead, it uses a vortex to separate the contaminants from …Read More…
Solar Innovations at the Solar Decathlon
Lean green design teams from around the world produced some winning ideas at this year’s Solar Decathlon. Maryland won DOE’s top prize, but we staged our own vote. From Vermont, Middlebury College got the nod.
Watch
Amphibious House (Your Loss, Hurricane Irene)
As the east coast picks up after Hurricane Irene, ask yourself this: would you invest in a house that can float only when it needs to? Planet Forward host Frank Sesno, brings you the story for this month’s Nightly Business Report segment.
Solar Decathlon: The Race to Build the Most Efficient Solar Home
Peek into the solar powered house designs from Middlebury College in Vermont and University of Maryland. It’s all for the Solar Decathlon competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Building a Green Community
When Greensburg, Kansas was devastated by a tornado in 2007 the residents took it as an opportunity to rebuild as an environmentally friendly town. Watch our latest piece from PBS’ Nightly Business Report.
Demand Response: Enernoc Applies Social Media Tech to the Power Grid
Social networks have the power to link cultures across continents. See how energy demand response companies, such as Enernoc, wired their networks to fend off this summer’s heat waves, which scorched communities from New York to Texas.
Articles From the Blog Related to Green Communities
Minnesota Goes Green
Happy Birthday, Minnesota! Today in 1858, Minnesota was admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state. To celebrate, we’re going to take a look at what’s going on in the land of 10,000 lakes to make the state turn from blue…to green! We’ve partnered with Minnesota 2020 to get great stories from the north. From …Read More…
What’s in a Vision? Mayors Discuss Sustainability
At last week’s Innovation Summit, DC Mayor Vincent Gray said that he would make the city “fossil-free” by 2030. Yesterday, he released his vision for a “Sustainable DC,” and how we would get there. Although he didn’t reiterate the goal of becoming fossil-free by 2030, he does have a comprehensive plan to reduce energy use …Read More…
Introducing the Green Apple Day of Service
Last week, I was able to visit one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to make an exciting announcement, recognizing the Green School in Bali as the Center for Green School’s “2012 Greenest School on Earth.”
The Center for Green Schools and Princeton Review Release Free Guide to 322 Green Colleges
By Kristin Simmons Ferguson Higher Ed Associate, Center for Green Schools For the third year in a row, we at the Center for Green Schools are pleased to celebrate today’s release of The Princeton Review’s Guide to 322 Green College: 2012 Edition. This year’s guide profiles 322 institutions of higher education in the United States and Canada that demonstrate …Read More…
William Paterson University Wins!
Planet Forward was proud to host the video competition for Second Nature’s Climate Leadership Award Finalists. Schools from across the country submitted videos and competed to win the title. After more than 14,000 votes were cast, we are proud to announce our winner: William Paterson University, of Wayne, New Jersey. All of Second Nature’s Climate …Read More…
What’s Your #InnovationChallenge?
We’ve seen businesses, colleges and communities turn energy innovations into action, but what are you doing? We challenge you to make a difference in your daily life. Is this the year you install a rain barrel and use less water? Are you going to save your company energy and money by linking your building to its neighbors or …Read More…
Aloha Alternative Energy
In the past week I was lucky enough to be asked to travel to Hawaii with a good friend of mine over spring break. It was my first trip to Hawaii and I was unsure of what was to come—I knew there would be beaches, surf and sun but what surprised me most when I …Read More…
Planting Season
Tis’ the Season for Planting! This week’s newsletter focuses on promoting the innovation of produce. With the recent spikes in temperatures across the globe, it seems as though spring is right around the corner, which means planting season is not far behind. Lately natural gas, green technology, solar panels and things of the like have …Read More…
The Urban Umwelt and You: Conservation Across Scales
Although you can fish for salmon in the Great Lakes, us Midwesterners consider them a delicacy. Restaurants fly them in daily from the Eastern Seaboard and Norway. Rarely ever do we eat a Lake Michigan salmon—especially at a fair price. I grew up hearing the legends of my grandfather catching salmon in the northern reaches …Read More…
The Unsettling Attacks on Green Cities and Counties
Glenn Beck and other Tea Party Groups have been shutting down town halls and disrupting local plans for energy efficiency programs around the country. Why? Find out.
Solar: Does Size Matter?
A key issue for scaling up solar is where to put it: on every home or in huge arrays on the desert? Some businesses, like Sungevity, are trying to get solar panels on every home by breaking down the up-front cost barrier. They partner with financial institutions to spread the cost of going solar into …Read More…
Low-carbon Cement Paves a Development Path
By Miranda C. Spencer, The Daily Climate Cross-posted from Climate Central. PHILADELPHIA — The source of 5 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions is hiding in plain sight, in the sidewalk beneath our feet. It is cement, a key ingredient of concrete, the most widely used building material on the planet. And manufacturing conventional “Portland” …Read More…
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