Day: September 23, 2015

National Outdoor Leadership School offers Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability Internship

Full announcement at https://www.nols.edu/alumni/employment/nolsinternships/environmental_stewardship_internship.shtml

JOB TITLE: NOLS Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability Intern

REPORTS TO: NOLS Environmental Stewardship Coordinator and NOLS Sustainability Coordinator

JOB OBJECTIVE: The environmental stewardship and sustainability intern will assist the department director, the environmental stewardship coordinator, and the environmental sustainability coordinator with a variety of tasks related to sustainability initiatives at NOLS, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping, community outreach, public policy, and curriculum development.

QUALIFICATIONS: High school diploma. Current college students and recent graduates preferred, majoring in a related field. Familiarity with NOLS is a plus. Applicants are encouraged, but not required, to have prior experience with GIS. On the job training will be available as needed.

SKILL DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES: The environmental stewardship and sustainability intern will have opportunities to work with other departments and participate in educational activities, including:

  • Participate in a course issue day(s).
  • Attend environmental stewardship and sustainability-related meetings (e.g., with a land management agency, internal departments, etc.).
  • Develop content for the website, blog, and social media with guidance from the NOLS marketing and creative departments.
  • Participate in a NOLS seminar, space allowing
  • Attend the NOLS Faculty Summit.

STIPEND: $125 per week, dispersed every two weeks

RESPONSIBILITIES: Projects may include the following:

(30%) Assist in environmental stewardship campaigns. Work may include gathering information and data for a mapping/GIS initiative, writing comment letters regarding threats to public lands, engaging with land managers, and developing outreach materials for a grassroots conservation initiative.

(30%) Assist in sustainability initiatives. Work may include resource tracking, food mapping, and/or research into responsible gear purchasing.

15%) Assist in planning an Earth Day outreach event.

(10%) Research and assist HQ and school campuses with the preparation of curriculum fact sheets used to teach policy and environmental topics on field courses.

(10%) Write website content and blog posts.

(5%) Perform administrative tasks as needed.

CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECK: A criminal background check is required from all NOLS employees and interns.

E-VERIFY: NOLS participates in E-Verify.

WORK LOCATION: Lander, WY

HOW TO APPLY: Send cover letter and resume to: Environmental Stewardship Coordinator
evan_reimondo@nols.edu
(307) 335-2311
Contact Evan Reimondo with questions.

CLOSING DATE FOR APPLICATIONS: October 23, 2015

START DATE: January 11, 2016

DURATION: Five months

Natural gas rule begins final review

Read the full story at The Hill.

The White House has started its final review of a proposed regulation to limit natural gas waste on public lands.

The regulation from the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management is intended to reduce the frequency by which oil and gas drilling companies allow gas to escape from wells, known as venting, or burn it, known as flaring.

The review of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, which started Friday, is the final step before the regulation can be publicly released and opened for public comment.

The rule, which would only apply to wells drilled by private companies on leased federal land, is an important part of the federal government’s efforts to reduce emission of methane. Methane is the main ingredient in natural gas, and is a greenhouse gas with global warming power at least 20 times that of carbon dioxide.

Funding: Manufacturing Innovation Institute for Smart Manufacturing: Advanced Sensors, Controls, Platforms, and Modeling for Manufacturing

FOA#: DE-FOA-001263
Concept Paper Submission Deadline: 11/4/2015 5:00 PM ET
Full Application Submission Deadline: 1/29/2016 5:00 PM ET

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to establish DOE’s third Manufacturing Innovation Institute under the Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative (CEMI). The purpose of CEMI is to strengthen U.S. clean energy manufacturing competitiveness and to increase U. S. manufacturing competitiveness across the board by boosting energy productivity and leveraging low-cost domestic energy resources as fuels and feedstocks. Within CEMI, DOE uses Manufacturing Innovation Institutes to develop energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies in areas where an industrial consortium for research, development and demonstration has been determined through public engagement, requests for information and analysis to have high potential to address a significant and potentially impactful advanced manufacturing opportunity. The opportunity to be addressed in this FOA is the research, development and demonstration of Smart Manufacturing technology to enable cost effective information and communication technologies for the real-time management and control of energy in manufacturing across the unit-process, facility, enterprise, and supply chain.

Webinar: Seize the Day – Using Building Milestones as Energy Efficiency Opportunities

Tue, Oct 6, 2015 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM CDT
Register at https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/4186036848941266689

Attend this webinar to learn more about transforming building milestones such as purchase, sale, tenant transitions, etc. into energy efficiency opportunities. Presenters from Better Buildings participants University of Virginia, the City of Hillsboro, Oregon, and Arby’s Restaurant Group share their strategies for taking advantage of these milestones to get more from their buildings.

Growing Sustainable Communities Conference

Dubuque, IA
October 6-7, 2015
More information: http://www.gscdubuque.com/

Hosted by the City of Dubuque, Iowa and Sustainable City Network, the Growing Sustainable Communities Conference will be held at the Grand River Center located in the Port of Dubuque at 500 Bell Street (View Map). The 8th annual Conference is two days of education, inspiration and collaboration on topics of interest to anyone who cares about the convergence of economic prosperity, ecological integrity and social/cultural vibrancy in community design and development.

In 2014, approximately 400 people from 100 different cities in 21 states attended the 7th annual event. This year, the conference will feature 30 workshops, two keynote luncheons, a networking reception, three mobile tours and a vendor exhibition. Attendees will include municipal leaders and staff, elected officials, college faculty, administrators and students, business leaders, nonprofits and sustainability managers from both the public and private sectors.

More in C-U answering call of ‘duty’

Read the full story in the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette.

Scott Willenbrock’s two-story brick home in Champaign looks like any other. Built in 1929, it used to be drafty, racking up big energy bills. It would leak heat in the winter and cool air in the summer.

“I thought it was a lost cause,” said the University of Illinois physics professor.

But after doing some research, he discovered it wasn’t. He weatherized the home, sealing cracks and adding insulation. He put in LED lightbulbs and replaced appliances, installing a heat-pump dryer that dehumidifies clothes. He added geothermal heating and cooling, using the ground’s natural 55-degree temperature to regulate his home’s air. He added solar panels, providing enough energy for his entire home and one or two of his electric cars, depending on the year.

But the easiest thing he did was recycle.

​Volkswagen apologizes, stops diesel sales in wake of US emissions cheating scandal

Read the full story at CNET.

The emissions cheating scandal has cost the automaker nearly $18 billion in lost stock value and could end up costing $18 billion more in federal fines.

One-Two Punch of Rising Seas, Bigger Storms May Greatly Magnify U.S. East Coast Floods

Read the full story from Columbia University.

Many studies predict that future sea-level rise along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts will increase flooding. Others suggest that the human-caused warming driving this rise will also boost the intensity and frequency of big coastal storms. Up to now, though, these two hazards have been assessed mostly in isolation from each other. Now, a new study quantifies how they could interact to produce alarming spikes in the combined height and duration of flooding. It projects that coastal flooding could possibly shoot up several hundredfold by 2100, from the Northeast to Texas. The study appears this week in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Microbeads Entering Our Water Daily Could Cover 300 Tennis Courts

Read the full story in the Huffington Post.

Scientists are calling for a total ban on microbeads — the tiny plastic pieces used in soap, toothpaste and face wash for exfoliation — after an analysis estimated that 8 trillion of the beads wind up in aquatic habitats every day in the U.S. alone.

That’s enough to cover more than 300 tennis courts every day, according to a scientific opinion article published this month in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

The leading cause of death in developing countries might surprise you

Read the full story at Ensia.

What’s the leading cause of death in low- and middle-income countries?

A.  malnutrition and undernutrition

B.  tuberculosis, malaria & HIV/AIDS

C.  pollution

If you guessed “C,” you got it. Exposures to polluted soil, water and air (both household and ambient) killed 8.4 million people in these countries in 2012.