Age: Paper has taken the greenhouse challenge to heart with a new product – carbon-neutral paper. Called ENVI, the paper is produced at the Wesley Vale mill in Tasmania. Its "carbon-neutral" status is recognised under the Department of Climate Change Greenhouse Friendly program. This means users of the paper can display the Greenhouse Friendly logo. Australian Paper executive general manager Jim Henneberry said carbon-neutral status had been obtained in two main ways: by making huge ...

Australian: THE majority of executives want tax incentives to invest in climate change and will push the Henry tax review to offer generous concessions to big business. Almost 60 per cent of executives surveyed by accounting firm Ernst & Young said the Treasury review should offer corporations a tax break to prepare businesses for the emissions trading scheme slated to start in 2010. The corporate sector was yesterday considering the likelihood that the Government would cut the 30 per ...

Issued May 2008 - NOAA's Weather and Water Program Goal

Issued February 2008 - Observing Earth from Space

Issued November 29, 2007 - International Collaboration of Climate Systems

The new Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 is mainly intended to address the U.S. mortgage crisis, but it may also promote the use of energy efficient mortgages. Such mortgages can provide long-term financing for energy efficiency improvements to owner-occupied homes.

General Motors Corporation (GM) and the Electric Power Research Institute are teaming up to study how plug-in hybrid electric vehicles will integrate with the electrical grid. Studies have concluded that a large number of plug-in hybrids could be charged by today's power plants using off-peak power.

This week's "Energy Connections" examines a new study that claims that natural gas production from shale formations in the United States could boost domestic production enough to eliminate the need for imports. That could provide the price stability needed to encourage utilities and automakers to rely more heavily on natural gas.

![CDATA[Canada's precious temperate rainforests are again threatened with industrial logging. Clayoquot Sound, which lies along the West coast of British Columbia (B.C.), is a spectacular mosaic of lush coastal rainforests, fjord-like inlets and islands covering 850,000 acres. Such intact coastal temperate rainforests are globally rare, covering only about one-fifth of one percent of the Earth’s land area, half of which has already been destroyed. They are amongst the most biologically productive temperate ecosystems in the world. Clayoquot Sound is the most magnificent expression of temperate rainforest in North America. There, ancient forest meets ocean, with some of the world’s greatest coastal marine diversity. The heart of Clayoquot's intact forest is composed of a series of pristine valleys, many of which remain unprotected. Large valleys such as the Sydney Inlet are cradled by smaller but equally important stretches of wilderness like Hesquiat Lake Creeks. In the ocean channels lie impressive islands carpeted in old-growth forest. Clayoquot Sound's magnificent landscape supports some of the continent's largest predators such as wolves, bears and cougars; numerous shell and finfish populations, including five species of Pacific salmon; hundreds of thousands of migrating waterfowl and shorebirds; and marine mammals, including two types of whales and the second largest shark. Forty-five endangered, threatened or vulnerable animal species live in Clayoquot’s undisturbed wilderness. Some of these animals have never seen a human or crossed a road. Clayoquot Sound is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and as such should be an example of the best in sustainable development, yet the area is under siege from industrial logging, mining, fish farming, dams and trophy hunting. An open pit copper mine is moving forward in the middle of the sound, huge toxic fish farms pump raw sewage directly into the ocean, and run of river hydro projects are proposed. Industrial logging of Clayoquot's intact valleys is poised to recommence in earnest for the first time since protests largely shutdown the industry in the early 1990s. Clayoquot Sound contains the largest intact forest remaining on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland of British Columbia -- a region that has been devastated by logging for more than 150 years. In 1993 Friends of Clayoquot Sound maintained a blockade of logging operations, which with 12,000 people and arrests of 900 peaceful blockaders, was the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history. Ecological Internet (then Forests.org) and many others around the world rallied to their support using the then new Internet to successfully globalize the protest. The protests were largely successful in ending industrial logging. A voluntary moratorium on logging in pristine valleys in Clayoquot was observed after the protest while a scientific panel reviewed how the areas could be logged in an "environmentally sustainable way". In the meantime, old-growth timber has continued to be harvested from previously developed areas, though not from the untouched valleys. This is about to change. In March, First Nations-owned MaMook Natural Resources Ltd. and partner Coulson Forest Products began building logging roads into Hesquiat Point Creek with plans to start logging as early as this fall. This will be the first time a company has begun logging in such a "pristine" valley in nearly 20 years. Some things have changed since 1993, as a company owned by five local aboriginal bands now plays a role in cutting the ancient forests. Local groups are threatening a return to blockades in the sound and other types of protests and global marketing campaigns. Some of the logging ramping up is even "FSC certified" as well-managed, falsely implying sustainability. Triumph Logging Co. in partnership with environmental group Ecotrust Canada has setup a native shell company named Iisaak that has gained FSC certification to industrially high-grade log old growth ancient forests for their valuable cedar. The damage to ecosystems has been acute, demonstrating industrial forestry practices can never be ecologically sustainable. It appears the logging industry is using native involvement as a means to advance projects that might otherwise be politically unpalatable. First Nation bands face high unemployment rates, yet high-impact mining and logging will provide at most a hundred short-term jobs. Unemployment is not an excuse to liquidate natural ecosystems that make life possible. Such a failed development strategy, pursued by indigenous peoples or anyone, means soon there will soon be no jobs, no ecosystems and no possibility of long-term sustainable alternative livelihoods based upon standing trees and fully functional ecosystems. Although Clayoquot Sound has been a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve since 2000, most of Clayoquot’s productive ancient rainforest are still not protected and are open to logging. The current protected areas in Clayoquot Sound are mostly too small and fragmented to sustain viable populations of all native species. Intact ecosystems, such as Clayoquot Sound, provide innumerable services essential to life, including clean air, clean water, soil retention, wildlife habitat, and climate regulation. The health of local, regional and global environments, and therefore all our health, depends on these intact ecosystems. National Canadian environmental groups continue to send confusing, mixed signals re: industrial logging in dwindling ancient temperate rainforests. Rather than working to end industrial logging and other developments throughout British Columbia, environmental groups including Greenpeace, Forest Ethics, the Wilderness Committee, Sierra Club and Friends of Clayoquot Sound have supported continued "certified" industrial logging, and in Clayoquot are pursuing a goal of a two-year moratorium on logging in pristine valleys. To what end is not clear. Do they still believe the myth that millions of year old ancient primary forests can somehow be "sustainably" industrially logged, if just they convince the loggers to be careful? Given their past record, it is uncertain whether these groups would support commitments for FSC certified logging in Clayoquot Sound as being a worthy solution. Given the ecological importance of Clayoquot Sound, it is critical its ancient forests are fully protected and all industrial development ended in order to preserve the biodiversity and health of this rare and irreplaceable ecosystem. There is no such thing as ecologically sustainable industrial logging or other industrial activities in a fully intact ancient forest ecosystem. Ancient forest logging must end worldwide to solve climate change, protect all biodiversity and achieve global ecological sustainability. Encourage all involved in British Columbia's forest policy to commit themselves fully to developing methods for employment and community advancement based upon standing forests and fully intact ecosystems. Or else promise you support a return to the blockades and protests that halted logging in Clayoquot in 1993, as well as a massive overseas campaign targeting B.C.'s markets. Surely rich Canada can find a way to spare Clayoquot Sound's vital ecosystems.]]

Cascades Tissue Group, the fourth largest producer of tissue paper in North America, announced the purchase of 11 million kWh of Green-e certified renewable energy certificates (RECs). The wind energy purchase offsets 100% of the energy required to manufacture the company's North River brand commercial towel and tissue products, the first such products to be manufactured with 100% renewable energy. Community Energy, Inc. will supply the RECs to Cascades.

The North River line ...

Sundance Square, a 35-block mixed-use residential, office, and retail development in Fort Worth, Texas, announced a five-year green energy purchase from Green Mountain Energy for the period from 2008-2012. According to the U.S. EPA, the purchase makes Sundance Square the largest green power purchaser among Texas real estate developments and the second largest in the industry nationally. The 2008 purchase of 6.3 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of wind energy represents about 10% of Sundance Square's electricity consumption.

Sundance ...

Appalachian Power, a subsidiary of American Electric Power serving 1 million electricity customers in Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee (as AEP Appalachian Power), has asked the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) for permission to offer its Virginia customers a voluntary option to purchase renewable energy beginning September 1, 2008.

Under the program, residential and business customers could purchase renewable energy through their monthly bills in one of two ways. ...