Smithsonian Folklife Festival 2012: Sustainable Solutions

The annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. this year celebrated the 150th anniversary of public land-grant universities and the founding of the United States Department of Agriculture. Different land-grand universities participated in a sustainable solutions competition. These universities demonstrated their sustainability projects to the thousands of visitors to the nation's capital.

Mississippi State University showed off their EcoCAR plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, Oregon State University showcased wave energy technology and how to build sustainable structures to withstand hurricane and tsunami ocean waves, UC Davis raised awareness about the environmental threat of plastic shopping bags, University of Florida focused on sustainable water uses, the University of Tennessee demonstrated their Living Light solar-powered house, and Washington State University explained the development of different biofuel feedstocks.

Guest Post: Embracing the Sun

Artist rending of Solar Impulse's solar plane. Credit: Solarimpulse.com

By Brent Hardy

On May 24, 2012 the company Solar Impulse launched an entirely solar-powered airplane to complete the world's first solar powered transcontinental flight; a practice run, they say, for an around-the-world flight in 2014. That same month, the boat PlanetSolar completed a solar-powered trip around the world, becoming the first solar-powered vehicle ever to circumnavigate the globe.

We're living in an exciting time when the advent of the practical and economic use of solar power is now at the cusp of going mainstream. As with any beginning, these first steps will be a bit awkward and may seem at times impractical, but already we can see signs of improvement. The cost of building and installing solar panels has dropped dramatically over the past few years and people all over the world are discovering new – and sharing tried and true – ways of harnessing the power of the sun.

Science Starting to Win Climate Change Debate

Climate change convert Richard Muller with his daughter Elizabeth at home in Berkeley, California. Photo credit: AP.

Global warming is real and humans are causing it. That greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to climate change is as accepted among mainstream scientists as the earth revolving around the sun. A recently published story on climate change denial in Australian current affairs magazine The Monthly cites a survey that found 97.4 percent of climate scientists agree that "human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures."

But what about the few scientists still skeptical of climate change? They are starting to come around as evidenced by the highly publicized conversion of UC Berkeley physics professor and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory faculty senior scientist Richard A. Muller. On the well-read pages of The New York Times, Muller explained his conversion was a result of research done on the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project, which concluded that global land temperatures have increased by 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) over the past 250 years, including an increase of 1.5 degrees F (0.9 degrees C) over the past 50 years. And that "it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases."

Nation's Capital Gets Greener

Bicycling past the Lincoln Memorial on a sunny day in the nation's capital.

I've been writing for the past few years about how my hometown of Washington, D.C. is leading the way in America's transition to a sustainable economy. The wildly successful Capital Bikeshare program that recently celebrated its two millionth ride, will soon be the second largest bike sharing system in North America when later this summer New York launches Citi Bike.

But bikes aren't the only mode of transportation being shared in The District these days. Car sharing service Zipcar now has some competition in D.C. with the recent launch of Car2Go. The subsidiary of Daimler AG features Smart Fortwo microcars that easily fit into the smallest parking spaces and are great for zipping around the city. Plus, unlike Zipcar you can pick up and drop off the Car2Go vehicle at any metered parking space in most places throughout The District city limits. While in D.C. and other cities the Car2Go vehicles are gas-powered, in San Diego and Amsterdam the company launched electric vehicle service with a fleet of Smart Fortwo ED (electric drive) vehicles.