I recently came across a website with a new tool: Carbon Capture Report™, that I thought my readers would want to learn more about. This service is created by the University of Illinois.

The Carbon Capture Report monitors news services from around the world to offer the latest news on carbon capture, carbon sequestration, and climate change, updated every 24 hours, 7 days a week. Read more…

In a recent article on Greener Computing‘s blog titled, E-Waste Pops Back Onto the Nation’s Radar, author Matthew Wheeland notes the recent rise in e-waste news across the globe.

The article mentions recent lawsuits, both in New York and in California designed to stop those cities’ laws requiring manufacturers to set goals for e-waste take-back from taking effect. Read more…

In the past few days, many major companies have dropped their memberships in the US Chamber of Commerce because they feel the trade organization is out of touch with reality about cap and trade policy.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Exelon Corp. on Monday became the third big utility in the past week to quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over the influential business group’s stance against federal climate-change legislation.

The decision by Exelon, one of the nation’s biggest nuclear power-plant operators, to quit the Chamber follows similar moves by PG&E Corp. and PNM Resources Inc. and highlights a growing rift between the nation’s power sector and other industries over climate policy. Read more…

Finally, in the waning months of the Bush Administration, the EPA is slashing the amount of lead allowed in the nation’s air by 90 percent. Has the Environmental Protection Agency suddenly turned environmental?

Well, actually, they were under a federal court order to set a new health standard for lead by midnight Wednesday, so they had no choice.

Exposure to even low levels of lead early in life can affect learning, IQ and memory. Under this new regulation, the first lead update in thirty years (yes 30 years!), the new limit for airborne lead has been reduced by tenfold, to 0.15 micrograms per cubic meter; the current standard, which was 1.5 micrograms per cubic meter.

The new standard would require the 16,000 remaining sources of lead, including smelters, metal mines, and waste incinerators, to reduce their emissions.

According to many environmentalists, the key to this program is the monitoring of these sites. “We commend EPA for taking a giant step in the right direction, but they need to greatly expand the lead monitoring network if they hope to enforce this standard,” said Dr. Gina Solomon, a senior scientist with the Natural Resource Defense Council.

This is a positive step and one that we can hopefully see with a new administration.

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Robert Piller is President of EcoMarketing Solutions LLC, a company that helps businesses promote themselves to their customers and prospects at trade shows using environmentally-friendly promotional products that won’t end up in a landfill. He is a frequent speaker and writer on issues of green marketing. He can be reached at robert@ecomarketingsolutions.com. You can also visit his blog at www.greenspotblog.com.

Thank goodness for Global Warming and the melting ice caps. Now, because of melting ice caps in Alaska’s Arctic regions, oil tankers, fishing vessels and even cruise ships are able to “venture into a realm once trolled mostly by indigenous people”, according to the Associated Press.

That same report says that business is now growing so rapidly that the U.S. Coast Guard is opening up “two temporary stations on the nation’s northernmost waters, anticipating the day when an ocean the size of the contiguous United States could be ice-free for most of the summer”.

Scientists estimate that within 20 years, the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free during the summer. As the ice melts, sea levels will rise, so, in essence, we will turn land masses into islands in the summer.

What an opportunity for people who have previously vacationed at every land mass and destination around the globe and just want to set sail in waters that were recently covered by glaciers. Global warming will create an opportunity for millions of people to take a cruise ship to an area that was once covered with ice caps and visit the top of a mountain region that is now at sea level.

I can picture hotel development being planned right now for mountainous regions of Greenland for the upcoming summer traffic. All these hotels atop mountains may look strange in the winter, but come summer, it will be sail in, sail out—oceanfront property.

Forget sunny Hawaii and the Caribbean. Pretty soon, it will be “Viva Greenland” for the suntan of a lifetime. And to think, we have global warming to thank for this vacation fantasy come true.

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Robert Piller is President of Eco Marketing Solutions LLC, a company that helps businesses promote themselves to their customers and prospects using environmentally-friendly promotional products that won’t end up in a landfill. He can be reached at robert@ecomarketingsolutions.com.