Connecticut Green Living

As I write, I'm in a cool room in Windsor Locks, Connecticut , enjoying the way my skin feels after walking to the hotel from the restaurant next door. Just a few minutes in this weather made me dizzy, and tomorrow and Wednesday will be worse. For those of us who take public transportation, extreme heat and humidity is dangerous. I spoke to Dr. Kenneth Gillingham , Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, Yale School of the Environment, about why this "heat spell" is threatening. We also spoke last April about our state's "green" rating (#9). "My primary concern about the heat is for low-income people who don't have access to adequate cooling. This will be exacerbated in the upcoming years," he wrote in an e-mail. I had asked him if our current presidential administration is having an adverse bearing on climate change. He said, "A presidential administration can affect your carbon footprint by influencing the carbon intensity of ele...

Starting today in Austin a conference designed to bring a confluence of parties together, from environmentalists to business leaders, hopes to make a dent in the nation's water crisis. It is not just our country, of course, that is suffering myriad challenges when it comes to water. One Water Summit 2019 is being billed as "the premier national conference focused on sustainable, integrated, and inclusive approaches to managing water, our most precious natural resource," according to Water Research Foundation. The new mindset or movement aims to change "siloed" thinking and make it a more "holistic" concept. For example, waste water and storm water should not be wasted and in many cases in 2019 are not. Laura Huffman, Texas State Director of The Nature Conservancy , spoke to me by phone yesterday and shared that "waste water can be refillable" and that in places such as Las Vegas, fountains have reused such water. In San Antonio at the Ri...

Today, on the first anniversary of the historic climate change accord signed by nearly 200 nations, the Paris Agreement, social media brand GOOD is continuing the conversation. Through its Earth to Dinner , the clarion call is for the public to reach out to friends and even strangers and discuss climate change more deeply by sharing a meal. To prod this, participants can download the ETD toolkit, designed by Michael Hebb, founder of Death Over Dinner . A mix of environmental leaders, celebrities, and chefs are hosting dinners from Iceland to Chile to North Carolina. Those who sit down and discuss the Paris accord with friends and family tonight are urged to connect socially with the organizers. Tweet #EarthToDinner and share your photos and experiences in real time. Hebb told Connecticut Green Living that they will be geolocating the participants through the hashtags on Twitter and Instagram, as well as through Facebook posts. "The number we had on the board was 500 (dinn...

Environment New York, part of the national federation Environment America, said in a press release today, Nov. 9, that they have joined other environmental groups in reacting to the 2016 election outcomes. Heather Leibowitz, Director of Environment New York, issued the following statement in response to the 2016 election results: “This isn’t the outcome we had hoped for. At a time when sea levels are rising, temperature records are being smashed and extreme weather events threaten Americans across the country, we need to rapidly shift to 100 percent renewable energy and away from dirty fossil fuels. At a time when children are being poisoned by lead in their drinking water, and sewage and manure pollute our rivers, we need to strengthen our clean water protections and invest in clean water infrastructure. So we were dismayed to hear President-elect Trump deny climate science, vow to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency during...

For those of us who realize climate change is the top issue facing the world, this election did not go in our favor. Donald Trump has scoffed about climate change and dismissed Obama's activism on the matter, whether it's the Paris Agreement, negotiated by nearly 200 countries and enacted just this Nov. 4, or favoring fossil fuel sources like coal instead of alternative energy. Now that the dye has been cast, green-minded Americans have no choice but to press the president-elect on moving toward a clean energy future. The Paris Agreement, which spun out of last year's Conference of the Parties, has been enacted - but countries are still able to pull out, should they wish to. Right now, COP22 is happening in Marrakesh, where world leaders and activists from around the world have convened. Last year, Trump dismissed the event, and in May the BBC reported that Trump would cancel the Paris climate accord. The world is getting warmer, as Democrats' chances of making chan...