We all have a responsibility to reduce our carbon footprint and lessen the impact of global warming. That’s why the 2013 Green Inaugural Ball, aside from “greening” the event, has teamed up with Carbonfund.org Foundation to reduce its carbon footprint with two carbon offset projects: The Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge Reforestation Project and the New Bedford Landfill Gas-to-Energy Methane Project.

As a green event, we just couldn’t miss out on the opportunity to reduce the Green Ball’s climate impact, and help pave the road toward a clean energy future.

Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge Reforestation

Photo via Carbonfund.org. 

This area was once covered in dense forests, but now it supports less than 20% of its original 22 million forested acres due to decades of land conversion for agriculture. Why are forestry projects important? They help offset the effects of climate change, and help improve the quality of top soil, reduce and control erosion, protect and filter water while reducing the threat of flooding, produce oxygen and nutrients and provide habitats for wildlife.

New Bedford Landfill Gas-to-Energy Methane Project

This landfill gas-to-energy plant, located in Greater New Bedford, MA., not only produces 3.3 megawatts hours of clean electricity, but also reduces the amount of methane released into our atmosphere. Why is the destruction of methane important? It’s approximately 21–to–23 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and a major contributor to climate change. A major concern about climate change is the release of an enormous amount of methane—previously trapped in permafrost in frozen tundra areas like Siberia and Northern Canada—into our atmosphere.

Want to reduce your carbon footprint? Check out this list produced by Carbonfund.org Foundation on how you can do just that:
http://www.carbonfund.org/reduce

About Carbonfund.org Foundation

Carbonfund.org Foundation is the leading nonprofit carbon-reduction and climate solutions organization, making it easy and affordable for individuals, businesses and organizations to reduce their climate impact by supporting third-party validated renewable energy, energy efficiency and reforestation projects. Carbonfund.org has over 600,000 individual supporters and over 1,800 business and nonprofit partners including Discovery, Motorola, Amtrak, Dell, JetBlue, Virgin America and Staples.

Haven’t purchased your 2013 Green Inaugural Ball ticket yet? Purchase them soon before the event sells out.
Heading to the Green Ball? Don’t forget to tweet using the #GreenBall2013 hashtag.

Shelley Cohen is Chair of the Greening Committee for the 2013 Green Inaugural Ball. Ms. Cohen is an urban eco-mom with eighteen years of experience in environment and energy-related fields. She currently serves as a Senior Project Developer for Ameresco where she specializes in developing renewable energy and energy conservation projects, and is responsible for developing over 15MWs of renewable energy. Prior employment included jobs with EPA, the White House, and the office of Senator Joseph Lieberman (CT). Ms. Cohen’s green home includes eco-friendly materials, 12kw of solar PV, a cool roof, rain barrel, organic garden, and has been featured in local and national media. Ms. Cohen serves on the board of the National Wildlife Federation, and in 2012 was trained as a Climate Leader through the Climate Reality Project.

Girl Power with the Construction of the Freedom Tower in the Backdrop.

On Saturday, June 23, 2012, thousands of amazing Girl Scouts converged at Liberty State Park for New Jersey Girl Scouts Council’s “BIG Celebration” (“Believe In Girls”).

National Wildlife Federation was the Eco-Service Project Partner for this special event, meaning we organized the service project to convert a grass field into wildlife habitat.

Everyone was in great spirits, lots of families and troops working together and the Girl Scouts got a service patch to recognize their contribution. For a great Star Ledger article about the event, click here.

Over the course of the day we transformed a 1,500 square-foot lawn into habitat for wildlife!

Here were the necessary ingredients to make the event so successful:

• 650 plants planted (600 were natives from American Beauties and 50 annuals)
• 600 cubic yards of mulch spread
• 1,500 gallons of water for plants
• 2,200 scouts and leaders
• 15 NWF Certified Wildlife Habitat owners
• 42 Verizon Employees (volunteers)
• 15 Liberty Mutual Employees (volunteers)
• 7 Liberty State Park employees
• 10 Girl Scout Employees of Northern New Jersey Council (volunteers)

Planting Trees in the Shadow of Lady Liberty

Girl Power + Shovels = New Wildlife Habitat

Digging holes, planting, watering and mulching almost what feels like right under the rising Freedom Tower and the Statute of Liberty made me proud to be American, a former New Jersey guy and NWFer. The Girl Scouts and our great partners made this special park even better.

Verizon employees also made the day special with an amazing turnout and energy. We had 42 Verizon volunteers participate in the event. It was exciting to see Verizon volunteers bring out their family to the event. All the volunteers made a real contribution to all the hard work it takes to get 650 plants in the ground.

Team Verizon Makes a Difference

Barry Sullivan and Marie Longo, both certified habitat owners for over 12 years, each gave two days of service (and took time off work) to  share their passion for wildlife and talk about their own habitats and the work NWF does with Girl Scouts and volunteers alike.

A special thanks goes out to all the volunteers, as well as my fellow NWF coworkers, who are doing a great job of getting kids outside and connected to nature.

Related Links:

• Garden for Wildlife – Learn how you can create wildlife-friendly habitat by providing food, water, cover and a place for wildlife to raise young.
• Certify your Wildlife Garden – Get your home, school, business or community designated as a Certified Wildlife Habitat.
• Volunteer with NWF – Find out how you can volunteer with NWF to help others learn about making wildlife habitat.
• Plant Trees for Wildlife – Learn how you can host a tree-planting event with your scout troop or community group.
• NWF’s Eco-Schools USA Program – See how NWF is helping inspire kids of all ages to help create sustainable schools and care for the environment.

Please consider becoming an NWF member to support these and other important activities >>

This underwhelming waterway is known as Kraut Creek to residents of Boone, NC, who remember the days when a local sauerkraut factory sent its runoff downstream, polluting air and water alike. Now that the factory is long gone, a group of professors, students, engineers and local environmentalists
who are inspired by the creek’s potential have teamed up to restore a 150-foot stretch of the stream to its former glory.

“When the project is completely finished, it’s going to be beautiful,”
says Jana Carp, pictured at left. “We have a landscaping plan that will filter storm water
runoff, stabilize the banks and incorporate native plants and shrubs
that will shade the creek and provide a better habitat for fish,
amphibians and birds.”

While the scope of the project is small, the Committee hopes that their work, in partnership with local organizations such as the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce, MountainKeepers, and the National Committee for the New River, will inspire other property owners along the stream banks to embark on similar projects.

The restoration is expected to take about four weeks to complete, although it will take much longer to see the return of wildlife and measure differences in water quality. For more information, click here.

Image: Members of the Kraut Creek Committee on the damaged banks. Photo taken by Marie Freeman, via Appalachian State University News.

In parks across the country, cell phone towers are starting to go up, suburbs are pushing closer and closer to park boarders, and funding to maintain parks is disappearing. And then there are the impacts of global warming – drought, increased forest fires, increased pollution, temperature variations and new invasive species. Putting a strain on these immensely important resources threatens wildlife and will be incredibly hard to reverse. The more we stress our national parks, the more important conservation will become.

Conservation and habitat restoration are areas that NWF fellows have worked on in the past and are currently working on this year as well. Melissa Fries and Edi Sonntag, both 2006 Campus Ecology Fellows, are working on habitat conservation projects. Melissa is working to protect fragile vernal pools around the Ohio State campus while Edi is completing an intensive survey of amphibians and reptiles on the Michigan State campus. As wild land encounters more man-made threats, this type of habitat work will become more and more important.

Campus habitats such as forests, prairies and gardens serve two very important roles: they provide a home for wildlife and they absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Trees and plants remove carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis; they return oxygen to the atmosphere, and use the carbon to make biomass in the form of roots, stems, and foliage. Every year in the U.S. and throughout the world a very large amount of CO2 – on the order of 100 billion metric tons – is sequestered in biomass. It is estimated that each mature tree consumes, on average, about 13 lbs. of CO2 per year.

Other NWF Campus Ecology members are also taking action: the University of West Alabama has restored 17 acres of prairie, Franklin Pierce College established a 46-acre conservation easement, and the University of Central Florida has a controlled-burn plan for 26 acres to restore native species.

Photo Credit: University of Central Florida, Alaina Bernard.