Earth Blog

Today the EPA released their annual top 25 metropolitan areas with the most Energy Star certified buildings.

Three California cities are in the top ten with Los Angeles ranked 1st, San Francisco at 3rd, and Riverside is ranked 9th. According to the EPA, Los Angeles has been in the top spot since 2008.

California has a total of six cities on the list with Sacramento (12th), San Diego (19th), and San Jose (21st) making the Golden State the host with the most.

How do Energy Star buildings differ from buildings that carry LEED certification?

“8+1” is not the name of Kate Gosselin’s new TLC reality show that will continue chronicling her life with her eight children: a pair of twins and a set of sextuplets. “8 +1” is a concept that could change the way the Gosselin kids or any Kindergarten through 12th grade student might  leanr about science and correlating subjects.  Current methods, in which science courses are taught serially with no connection to one other, and an emphasis on fact memorization (to pass standardized tests) don’t seem to be working.

One hundred years ago the Japanese capital of Tokyo gifted the United States capital with over 3,000 cherry blossom trees. That initial set of trees would be one of many sets exchanged over the years and across the Pacific ocean to symbolize friendship between the two countries. 

Sadly, the relationship between Japan and the United States would become tumultuous in the 1940’s as the countries fought bitterly against each other in World War II.  In 1941, four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, four cherry trees in Washington DC were chopped down in what law enforcement believed to be an attack of “retaliation.”  The vandals responsible for the crime were never found. During WWII the annual Cherry Blossom Festival was suspended and there wouldn’t be another festival until 1948.

Yesterday, the United States Postal Service unveiled the commemorative 45 cent forever stamps known as “Cherry Blossom Centennial” that will mark the anniversary of the donated trees and celebrate their legacy.

Starting on Wednesday you can bid on surplus and scrap metals from the "boneyard" at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona where decommissioned United States military aircraft sit in the hot dessert sun waiting to be stripped down to their base materials.

Right now the yard at Tucson's base is the only location where extra government planes  -over 4,200 to be exact- live. Some of the planes are operational or historic but the yard also acts as the military’s own giant pick-a-part for aircraft. Once a plane is no longer useful to the military it will be sold for scrap.

Did you ever play SimCity for the Super Nintendo or PC growing up? Not The Sims, the simulation game where a player basically creates a suburban version of his or herself, but rather the old school game rooted in city planning and map making. 

Do you remember the anxiety felt when building an airport in your simulated town because, yes the residents are demanding it but it’s going to create so much pollution! How did you fight pollution? Did you place the airport on an island, far away from residential areas but connected to the main land via rail? Did you surround it with park land trying to combat pollution with the power of trees? Did any of that even work to reduce pollution? Furthermore SimCity was just a game; you could always destroy your town and start all over.  That isn’t an option in real life when city planners look at their communities and airports.

The United States Census, a mandatory survey to be taken every ten years, is not just to count every citizen to determine the number of Congressional seats and legislative districts.

It’s not to annoy you by sending an enumerator to knock on your door to ask for the forms if you don’t mail them to the United States Census Bureau in a timely fashion. It’s definitely not a government conspiracy to collect information to use against you in some nefarious way.

The Census provides the government with important statistical information that will decide if communities are eligible for government funding while giving them a look at how Americans are living and what their households are like compared to each other. Sometimes the data can even be surprising, inspirational, and environmental. The data is now being compiled for a daily feature called “Profile America”.

Researchers in the transportation department are projecting a leveling trend and expecting to see it take effect this summer. Memorial day kicks off summer travel plans and though there will always be more people driving during the warmer months, it is thought that an overall plateau has been reached and record numbers will no longer be broken.