5 Green News Stories of 2009

Phew, I think I'm still working off all that dessert that I ate during the few days surrounding Christmas... Well, it feels great to be back writing another entry for the Impractical Green Resource. Well, what do you know! My calendar is telling me that this here is going to be my last entry for 2009! And I think it is especially appropriate for me to do one of those year in review things that everyone seems to do this time of year. So without further ado, here's the Impractical Green Resource's 5 Green News Stories of 2009!

When I first came up with the idea for this last week, I was planning on doing a top 5 news stories of the year, but upon further speculation, I realized there were two reasons why that wasn't going to work. The first was that I have a staff of exactly one person (me) working at the IGR and it would take me until the end of 2010 to sift through all of the news stories and rank the top five. The second was that (no offense to 2009) this past year has been quite the disappointing year for environmentally friendly news. I mean think about it. The economy has stalled much of the growth in the large scale solar and wind power plants, the Copenhagen conference was marked by protesters and boycotts, and we've seen the price of recyclables drop dramatically, making less incentive for cities and businesses to recycle.

So here's five more or less random stories from 2009:

1) The Decline of the Newspaper Industry
Yes, I know I might be cold-hearted to secretly want some of these newspapers to shut down. I mean, the last thing we need now is for people to be losing their jobs. But I read that 142 newspapers in the US stopped operations in 2009. That means less paper that's being used to print the news and less gas used to deliver the papers. And it's not all bad news (no pun intended) for the news industry. Many of these papers have gone digital and still maintain online sites. And I think it's for the best this way. I can still keep up with the goings-on in Northwest Ohio by reading the Toledo Blade's website even though I've been in Willoughby for the past week or so. And yes, I know I'll be using electricity to read the news online, but if I weren't doing that, I'd probably be online anyway playing games on Facebook.

2) The US Becomes the World Leader in Wind Power
USA! USA! Go us! As of the end of last year/the beginning of this year the US passed up Germany for the country with the most power generated from wind power. That sounds pretty good, right? Well, let's look at the details. The US had a capacity of 31 GW during 2009 whereas Germany had only 25 GW. So.... we're the best, right? Not quite. The US used about 4100 TWh of power in 2009 compared with around 580 for Germany. The US only gets 1.5 % of its power from wind compared to over 7% for Germany. That's like praising California for passing up Iowa in total wind power. (Which is funny, because that hasn't happened yet. Iowa's clearly been reading the IGR based on how they're sticking it to California.)

3) We Have Too Many Solar Panels
I never thought I'd say this, but we've got a bit crazy with solar panels. During 2009, so many companies jumped into the solar panel manufacturing business that we actually have too many solar panels. A lot of the little start up companies can't live up to their forecasts because they didn't expect so many other companies to enter the market. Because of this, prices are down for solar panels. So if you're thinking of upgrading your house, now would be the time to do it!

4) Mushroom Insulation
Seeing as how this is the Impractical Green Resource, I really wanted to put something bizarre on this list. Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre, two "innovators" who met at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, have "come up" with a "new" way to insulate your home. They're working on a substitute for the traditional plastic and fiberglass based insulation. And it's made out of mushroom proteins. Hm, doesn't that sound familiar??? Green Tip #48 encouraged people to eat a mushroom protein based turkey substitute (sorry, I guess that ruins the surprise of what mycoprotein is...) and Green Tips #45 and #6 encourage people to stuff extra food into their walls. I'm sure half of my walls are filled with mushroom insulation already! Nice try, guys... I'm way ahead of you.

5) Pop (Soda/Coke) Bottle Christmas Trees
Okay, you have to do a search for these. They are so cool. This probably isn't exclusive to 2009, but I heard about it first in 2009, so that's why it's on this list. You take green, sugary, carbonated beverage (to avoid regional dialect differences) containers and string them together to make a Christmas (or President's Day) Tree! You can reuse your old cans and save from cutting down a tree every year! (Not that you'd need to if you followed Green Tip #58 anyway...)

Well, thanks for reading everyone! It's been a great year and I look forward to 2010! Keep up the fight against Global Warming and I'll see you next year!