Publisher's Watch

Last week, Roger Meiners, a senior fellow a the Property and Environmental Center in Bozeman, MT and a professor of economics at the University of Texas, Arlington wrote an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal proclaiming the federal stimulus program directed at creating green jobs to be a "turkey." Meiners' reasoning is based on the cost of installing solar panels at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Ennis National Fish Hatchery at a cost of $179,000--all paid for by stimulus money.

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When shopping, how many times do you hear the cashier ask, "Would you like a receipt"? And how many times do you take one? Well, here's some eye-opening news that may help make that decision easier.

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The good news at press time is that the spill at the Deepwater Horizon oil well in the Gulf of Mexico has been plugged. Whether it will hold or not has yet to be seen, and what will ultimately be done with the well is also unknown. However, it's a great piece of news after 90 days of this environmentally devastating disaster.

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Verizon Wireless has announced the opening of the company's new state-of-the-art green store in the Bank of America Tower, located at One Bryant Park in Manhattan. Developed and constructed by The Durst Organization, the Bank of America Tower has received Platinum Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification designated by the United States Green Buildings Council (USGBC).

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In last week's Wall Street Journal blog, The Wealth Report, Robert Frank wrote about the "paralyzed plutocracy" and how the moneyed class of the country is still quite insecure about its wealth. Meir Statman, behavioral-investment expert at the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California, explains some of the factors contributing to these insecurities.

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The big news about former vice president and Nobel Prize and Oscar winner Al Gore is that he and his wife Tipper are separating after forty years of marriage. As surprising as this is, the one part of this "drama" that hasn't been covered is the actual implications in greenhouse gas creation. In other words, the Gores have just doubled their carbon footprint by creating the need for two residences, one for him and one for Tipper. Actually, their footprint has only increased by 65%, due to the fact that their residence in Tennessee is 10,000 square feet and the new one in California is only 6,500 square feet. Of course, if you consider the guest houses, swimming pools, and other luxurious amenities, this is really splitting hairs.

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What happens when millions of gallons of oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico, threatening environmental destruction and the loss of thousands of jobs? You'd think that a move toward renewable energy--such as the Obama administration's go-ahead last week for the Cape Wind project off the coast of Nantucket and Cape Cod--would be met with much fanfare.

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The impact from last week's oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico cannot be overestimated. There was loss of life as well as untold damage to the environment. The oil spill currently measures 1,800 square miles and it is headed toward the United States coastline. Where this ultimately ends nobody knows for sure. Transocean Ltd. owns the oil rig and BP PLC operates it. One imagines that these two companies are doing their best to stanch the gushing of 42,000 gallons per day.

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In recent published reports, the University of New Hampshire has found a new way to generate energy. The university's EcoLine project, four years in the making, is a gas-to-energy initiative that uses purified methane gas from a nearby landfill to power its operations. The campus, five million square feet in size, expects to garner 85 percent of its electricity and heat from purified natural gas.

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The U.S. Energy Information Agency just released its report ranking the fifty states in terms of renewable energy. The top five are Washington (hydroelectric), California (solar, wind, and geothermal), Oregon (hydroelectric), New York (hydroelectric), and Texas (wind). The bottom five are Delaware, Rhode Island, Nebraska, Indiana, and Utah. According to the report, nearly 50% of all energy generated in this country comes from the burning of coal. Although this has been known for some time, it's apparent that it's going to take more than legislation to make our way to a cleaner way of generating electricity.

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There aren't many people with Internet access who don't use Google's search engine. If you enter "Google" into Google's search field, approximately two billion items come up within .17 seconds and the first bit says Google "Enables users to search the Web, Usenet, and images." This is Google's service in a nutshell. Of course, Google has grown beyond a simple search engine and is one of the most powerful corporations of the digital era. With annual revenues reaching over $20 billion, it has expanded into everything from smart phones to mapping software. Basically, if you use any part of the Internet, there is a good chance Google will find a way to be there.

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This week I had the opportunity to moderate and co-produce a panel with Paul McGinniss, writer and green advocate and the SUNY New Paltz Environmental Task Force at SUNY New Paltz, "The Future of Gas Drilling in New York State," primarily focusing on the process of hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale formation, including parts that lay in the New York City watershed. Hydraulic fracturing, also known as "fracking," uses massive amounts of water and chemicals to access oil and gas trapped in hard-to-reach shale formations. The EPA has urged state regulators to further study the environmental impact of such techniques primarily because the federal government has no oversight in this matter.

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The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada have proven to be exciting and exhilarating save the one tragic death of the Georgian luger. The Olympic Village is a 1.4-million-square-foot eco-community with buildings achieving both LEED Gold and Platinum certifications. The structures have been fitted with solar panels and green roofs, in-slab hydronic systems used for heating and cooling, and other sustainable features. All in all, it's a prototype for future sports facilities as well as communities as a whole.

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If you haven't heard about it yet, the Oriental Co., of Japan, has created a paper shredder that converts used office paper into rolls of toilet tissue. Named "White Goat," the machine is said to weigh approximately 63,000 pounds and costs about $100,000. All it takes is electricity, water, and 40 sheets of paper, and in 30 minutes a roll pops out. Please excuse the pun.

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released its quarterly rankings of the nation's top green power purchasers, with Intel Corporation leading the way for the third year, followed by Kohl's Department Stores and PepsiCo. The rest of the top ten, in order, are Whole Foods Market, the City of Houston, Dell Inc., The Pepsi Bottling Group Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and Johnson & Johnson. These entities, along with twelve hundred others, are part of the Green Power Partnership, "a voluntary program that supports the organizational procurement of green power by offering expert advice, technical support, tools and resources." Green Power is defined as energy produced by renewable sources such as solar, bio-diesel, wind, geothermal, and biomass.

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As the New Year begins, it's a good idea to take a few steps back and review the year behind us. In 2009, we learned that the consumer isn't dead and is showing signs of regaining purchasing power.

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There should be a way to calculate how much a particular news story contributes to global warming through the amount of greenhouse gases utilized to cover it.

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