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Sometimes it's hard to understand that progress is being made because of the smoke and din around what constitutes "news" in the legacy media.  Especially when it comes to pollution.

But, I am here to announce that this is news.  The Environmental Protection Agency is about to declare carbon emissions hazardous to human health.

The Environmental Protection Agency,
about to declare heat-trapping gases to be dangerous pollutants, has
embarked on one of the most ambitious regulatory challenges in history.

Speaker: Neil Koch-former Hydrologist U.S. Geological Survey

Where: Spring Valley High School

When: Tuesday March 24th, 7 P.M.

Sponsored by the Spring Valley Earth Council- a WWISC Affiliate

See http://www.happytonics.org/events.shtml for more information

The economy is crashing around us on all sides, retail sales, stocks, unemployment, government receipts, yet, remarkably, there is one sector of the economy that continues to outperform all others:  organic food.

Check out the latest sales figures and insights on what's happening in the organic food industry.

Yes, the increase in sales has slowed on a percentage basis but the raw numbers are still going up.  Pretty impressive.

Typical growth rates of 20 to 30 percent for organic food sales in the
United States eased in the second half of 2008 as middle- and
upper-income families felt the strain of layoffs and declining
investment portfolios, said Tom Pirovano, director of industry insights
at market research firm The Nielsen Co. Sales in December were up 5.6
percent, year on year, against a 25.6 percent rise a year earlier.

Film festival starts Tuesday, January 27th at 7pm in Rice Lake.

The Organic Opportunity - a 25-minute film that tells the story of the first country in the US to promote local organic agriculture as economic development.

Check out this article on how "going green" is also a way to create good, local jobs. 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:  Sustainability is not just a strategy for achieving energy independence.  It is not just a means to mitigate the effects of climate change around the world.  It is, in fact, an economic development strategy, and a damned good one.

Currently, the United States has 40 plants manufacturing wind power
components. Eight of these plants are assembling wind turbines, 20 are
fabricating wind towers, and 12 are making blades. In addition, many
more manufacturing facilities are under construction, recently
announced, and in planning. Every billion dollars invested in wind
farms creates some 3,350 jobs--nearly four times the 870 jobs created
with a similar investment in coal-fired power plants.

And then there's the solar industry as well:

From the Nov. 7 issue of Isthmus, a weekly news magazine from Madison, WI:

Chuck Erickson thinks it's about time Dane County got serious in its efforts to become more sustainable. "We're trying to have a more coordinated approach," says Erickson, a county supervisor. Being green "should become part of the culture."

Together with Supv. Robin Schmidt, Erickson has proposed several amendments to the 2009 budget. One would establish a committee to oversee sustainability projects. Another would allocate $500,000 in the capital budget to create a "Green Energy/Green Jobs Project Fund."

This fund would subsidize sustainable projects by county departments. "In a lot of cases, [green building] is more expensive," says Erickson. "We make a higher purchase upfront to achieve a sustainable goal and maybe in the long run same money on utility costs."

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle's Office of Energy Independence has received a good deal of support from folks in Polk County. Created by Governor Doyle on April 5, 2007 with the mission to advance energy independence in the State of Wisconsin, the goals of the OEI include:

1. Generating 25% of our state's electricity and transportation fuels from renewable resources by 2025.
2. Capturing 10% of the emerging bioindustry and renewable energy market by 2030.
3. Leading the nation in groundbreaking research that will make renewable energy more affordable and will create good paying Wisconsin jobs.

Last February the Polk County Renewable Energy Committee invited OEI representatives to meet with local elected officials at the Paradise Landing restaurant in Balsam Lake. Secretary of Agriculture Rod Nilsestuen joined in addressing the large group that came to learn how state and local governments might work together to lessen our dependence on energy sources from outside Wisconsin.

A new study has put some hard numbers to the question of traveling to conferences, workshops, trainings and such, versus conducting them via the internet.

Now, on first blush, one might say that this is a no-brainer, and in some ways, of course, it is.  Staying put and letting the electrons do the traveling would certainly seem to be more eco-friendly.

But, don't forget that the world of the Internet is dependent upon servers and switches and hot and cold environments and a hell of a lot of computers being fired up.  So, doing the math and quantifying the different scenarios/outcomes is not as much of a "no-brainer" as first imagined.

To wit:  short travel by train to a conference, may, in fact, be just as eco-friendly as holding a video-conference.  Traveling beyond 150 miles, or using other liquid fuels in the process of virtually any kind of travel means that staying put and letting the electrons do the traveling is a better option.