There was very little new in Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford’s(D-AZ) wedding to Astronaut Mark Kelly. There was plenty of something old, borrowed and blue, however, as the couple were married in the small community of Amado, south of Tucson, AZ on Saturday.  Giffords, a staunch and outspoken proponent of solar power and everything environmental, made her statement well with a “low carbon footprint” wedding, complete with plates and forks made of sugar cane, a borrowed kiddish cup used in traditional Jewish wedding ceremonies, and homemade flower bouquets. Even her wedding dress was second hand, how’s that for a statement on sustainability?

Following the wedding on the Agua Linda Farm about 35 miles south of Tucson, the reception featured Mexican food with a person making tortillas on the spot, along with steak and potatoes.

Gifford’s husband, Astronaut Mark Kelly flew in a 14-day shuttle mission in 2006, his bride to be standing in the crowd watching liftoff. He’ll remain in Houston at the space center, while his congressional wife starts her quest for another two-year term in Congress. The democrat filled the seat vacated by Jim Kolbe in 2006.

Kelly will fly another shuttle mission in April, his third in 11 years and first as commander.  That puts their honeymoon on hold, since Kelly is grounded until the flight is finished, but they plan on seeing each other on weekends.

If you’d like to read more about this fairytale wedding in a rustic, southwestern setting, you’ll find it in the Arizona Daily Star.

Five Australian senior citizens who are committed to the environment, both in terms of reversing damage already done to our planet’s eco-system, and ensuring it doesn’t continue, are the subjects of today’s podcast. Their stories are featured in an article published by the Sydney Morning Herald.

More proof that individual effort, based on one’s skills and background, are empowering the groundswell of grassroots environmentalism around the world.

You can hear the podcast at The Lindberg Report.

She’s back, ready for another challenge and promising to stay active as an environmental protester. Betty Krawczyk is in the news again, this time planning to run for Mayor of Vancouver, BC, Canada in November of 2008. I talked with her after her release from the Alouette Correctional Center a few weeks after our first interview, and she spoke of many things: the new political party she’s joined as a candidate, the ills of Vancouver, and what she plans for it’s future should she be elected Mayor.

There’s more on Betty in the companion article I wrote that features several links to her personal website and blog, and to other articles about her. This is one tough lady, who’s as gentle and caring as you might imagine a great-grandmother to be. But she won’t back down from a fight; she picks them. Listen to the interview, then check out the companion article.

They have an honorable history, having survived the Depression, had a hand in defeating the enemies of freedom in World War II, created the United Nations, and overcame the Cold War. Some have called them the "Civic Generation" because they took an interest in voting, public affairs, civil rights and civil liberties. Today, they admit to exploiting earth’s limited resources, polluting the air and our drinking water and lumbering blindly on to global warming.

Today, a group of seniors at a retirement home in Hamden, CT, have formed their own organization, GrayisGreen, and authored The Handbook on Conservation for Retirement Communities (MS Word doc). They are another link in the expanding network of seniors stepping up and making a difference in their surroundings, and ours.

My thanks to Joyce Emery of Green Seniors for the lead to this amazing group of elders.

Just recently I received an email from a senior, Mr. John Lane, who’s become very interested in a group called “PETH,” but he failed to say what it was all about. So, being the curious one, I called him and had the most “interesting” conversation. Look out, PETA — here comes the People for the Ethical Treatment of Hops.

The podcast is here.

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

Here’s another one who thinks nuclear power is the energy panacea we all need, and that renewable energy production is, as he states, "a rape of nature." Strong words and I just had to talk about it. The story comes from Science Daily, and there’s also a link to Nuclear Waste Storage that pretty well explains the problem, and takes a good look at the controversial Yucca Mountain storage facility in Nevada.

The small (25,000 pop) South-Central Nebraska city of Hastings, recently captured the title of "America’s Greenest City". Hastings was one of more than 300 communities across the country competing in Yahoo’s "Be A Better Planet", Greenest Cities in America" challenge.

The city received a grand prize of $250,000, and Mayor Matt Rossen told me the community is now planning how to best use the money. Here is that interview.

When I was a kid on the farm, tiptoeing through a barnyard was a way of life. It was something like playing hopscotch with cow pies. When spring came, it was time to clean out the barn, transfer the winter’s supply of manure, one pitchfork at a time, into a “honey wagon” and take it to the fields to be used as fertilizer. It amazed me how much there was, and until I researched this project, I had no idea how much manure and gasses cattle produce each day, or the effect they have on the environment. No, this isn’t fart science.

Cow manure has been discovered as an energy source: it has power and it’s being used to make electricity and ethanol. Take for example the E3 BioFuels Genesis plant in Mead, Nebraska. The $80 million facility began operation this summer, turning out some 25 million gallons of ethanol a year (a rather small amount, compared to other ethanol plants around the country). What makes this facility unique is it’s patented closed-loop system, the first of its kind in America, and quite possibly in the world.

The plant is old news, really, but here’s how it works. A nearby beef cattle feedlot provides 150,000 pounds of manure every day, which is processed through an anaerobic digester, and that produces methane. The methane is used to fire the plant’s boilers, replacing expensive natural gas, resulting in a large reduction in operating expenses. Company officials say the Genesis plant produces 46 units of energy for every unit of fossil fuel energy required, a 46:1 efficiency ratio. Conventional ethanol plants are rated at a ratio of 3:1.

A byproduct of ethanol production, wet distiller’s grain, is fed to the cattle in the feedlot and the process begins all over again. Now this is a very brief explanation of what’s happening at the Genesis plant. Their website explains it very well..

So why am I writing about this? Well, there’s more to cow manure, as you probably know. Millions of tons are produced every day by the estimated 1.5 billion cattle populating our planet. Let’s put this into some sort of perspective. The University of Wisconsin at Green Bay estimates the average dairy cow drops 148 pounds of manure each day. Do the math: that’s a lot of BS! And you thought it was all in Washington!

Dairy Farms

Haubenschild FarmSeveral dairy farms in America use the output of their cattle in much the same way as the Nebraska plant, with one exception. The Haubenschild Dairy Farm in Princeton, Minnesota, is a shining example. Instead of using the methane to create heat for boilers, it’s used to run generators that provide electric power for the operation, and supply electricity to surrounding homes as well. Anaerobic digester systems are expensive though, ranging from $200,000 to $1,000,000 depending on the size of the herd, so farmers with smaller herds have been reluctant to make that kind of investment. The USDA has free software for download that will determine digester size and cost based on the size of a farm’s herd. I found it fun, and very informative.

Hopefully, as the science of digesters improves, the process will become less costly, and more farmers and commercial operations will be able to take advantage of poop power. I was surprised to learn from The AgSTAR Program website that several pig farms are using digesters, and there’s even a duck farm in Wisconsin using a digester.

Belching

Here’s the capper: while manure provides greenhouse gasses, a cow’s breath introduces far more methane and other gasses into the air. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the six million tons of methane burped by cattle in the US each year is equivalent to 36 million tons of carbon dioxide. If you add the output of sheep, goats and other ruminants, they all account for more than 18% of the greenhouse gasses that cause global warming, and that, according to the IPCC, is more than cars, planes and all other forms of transportation.

So, is the world’s cattle population contributing to global warming? It would seem so with all the belching and pooping, and the IPCC makes a strong case.

While we’re beginning to discover applications for animal manure, what about the burping? I doubt gas masks would work well on cows, and there’s no way we’ll be decreasing herd sizes anytime soon. Diet seems the best way to reduce production of greenhouse gasses produced by livestock, along with more efficient and productive methods of dealing with manure.

I’m so proud of myself; I didn’t once say “shit."

Today’s guest is Ryan Chao, Executive Director of Satellite Housing, a San Francisco Bay Area not-for-profit corporation, providing affordable housing for low-income seniors, families and individuals with special needs. He is responsible for property management, resident services, financial management and affordable housing development activities for the organization.

Ryan has held past positions with the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, the Fund for the City of New York and Atlantic Bank of New York. He holds a B.A. in Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis and a MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business. Ryan is a member of the board of directors of the non-profit Housing Association of Northern California, and the Community Advisory Committee of Center for Elders Independence and Aging Services of California’s Chief Executives of Multi-Asset organizations.

Satellite Housing is making the move to green building with their new project, the 80-unit University Avenue Senior Housing facility. With a rooftop full of solar panels, the property becomes the second such Satellite Housing facility to go solar. In our interview, he talks about organizations move to green housing.

Paul Hawken"Something earth-changing is afoot among civil society, a significant social movement is eluding the radar of mainstream culture." That's the uplifting and optimistic prelude to comments made by environmentalist and author Paul Hawken in his new book Blessed Unrest, and in an article for Orion Magazine. I was inspired by his thoughts, and wanted to share them.