Call it the Mediterranean solution.  Roofs painted a light color reflect up to 80% of the sunlight that falls on them (vs. 20% on buildings with darker roofs), making them much cooler, thus requiring far less air-conditioning.  By reflecting the bulk of the solar radiation back into space, it lessens temperatures, smog and carbon emissions.

There has been a lot of focus on developing woody biomass projects recently.  President Obama has directed the DOE to develop biomass as part of their sustainable energy options.  Brian Baird, who chairs the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee, held a hearing on wood products biofuels, also called woody biomass, last month.  Washington State, under the leadership of Peter Goldmark, is moving to incorporate woody biomass into their forest health program.

There are more and more businesses doing their part to prevent additional climate change.  The efforts on the part of companies like Caterpillar and Duke Energy, two of the business climate change leaders, are a welcome and impressive addition to the groups and individuals working to keep the atmosphere clean enough to support human and other living organisms on this planet.   

Before Gary Locke left office in January of 2005, he established a goal that all state agencies would use 20% biofuels by Sept. 1, 2009.  When Chris Gregoire came into office she strengthened the requirement, although there were still no penalties for noncompliance, and moved the date up to June 1, 2009 - next Monday.  Rather than using 20%, the total usage across all state agencies, was 2.07%, as of the end of 2008, when the last report was released.  Well, the state got to say it was 4.8% but that was only because the Ferry System, the largest user of fuel in the state system, was exempted for two years, in a back-door deal engineered by State Senator Mary Margaret Haugen.

Here's a cool trailer about an uplifting movie about the importance of fresh food.

The U.S. House recently passed the School Modernization Bill designed, among other things, to provide $6.4 billion to go toward more energy efficient schools.  If the bill also passes in the Senate, it will provide a small portion of the estimated $255 billion needed to renovate and repair all the schools across the country according to the American Federation of Teachers.  Rachel Gutter of the U.S. Green Building Council, says, in an article on CNN.com, that there is a large pay off to building green.  She disputes the idea that green construction is costlier and notes that the savings, typically $100,000 per school, per year, can go to other school operating expenses - year after year after year.  In addition, the money spent on renovation now will improve air and water quality, improve employee and student productivity and performance and provide 136,000 jobs.