41 Innovative Environmental Projects Win Over $1 Million In Funding From Audubon And Toyota

Toyota and the National Audubon Society today awarded over $1 million inTogetherGreen Innovation Grants funding to 41 innovative environmental projects nationwide. This year’s winning projects involve more than 150 conservation, environmental justice and community organizations working collaboratively on habitat, water and energy conservation. Many of the projects focus on engaging audiences that have traditionally been underrepresented in the conservation movement, from landowners to religious communities to inner-city students.

“Groups that won Innovation Grants this year have ingenuity and creativity on full display. And that’s what it takes to tackle the environmental challenges we face today,” said Audubon President and CEO David Yarnold. “I’m proud to partner with these innovators in creative approaches to achieve healthier communities and big conservation results.”

Sample projects that will receive 2012 funding include:

• Habitat: In Connecticut, Audubon Connecticut and the Connecticut Student Conservation Association will create Audubon WildLife Guards, a Coastal Stewardship and Youth Conservation Training Program inBridgeport, Conn. The program will provide green job training, mentoring and employment opportunities for high school students who will work to protect threatened beach nesting birds on Pleasure Beach, the largest intact barrier beach in the state.
• Water: In Kansas, Friends of the Kaw, Inc., along with the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, Topeka Audubon Society and Jayhawk Audubon Society will launch the “Save Soldier Creek” campaign to minimize stormwater runoff  in the rural Soldier Creek watershed – reducing pollution and improving water quality and bird habitat).
• Energy: In Arizona, Nina Mason Pulliam Rio Salado Audubon Center and Arizona Interfaith Power & Light will broaden its Footprints of Faith campaign to African American and Latino churches in Phoenix and Tucsonpromoting steps congregations can take to reduce their carbon footprints.
• Engaging diverse audiences in conservation: In North Carolina, Wild South and its partners North Carolina Audubon Society, High Country Audubon Society, National Forests of NC and the Western North Carolina Alliance will reach out to military servicemen and women and nearby Asheville residents to involve them in controlling non-native invasive plants, monitoring bird populations, and educating the public on environmental issues. The goal of the project is to preserve the wilderness character and rare species habitat of the Linville Gorge Wilderness, one of the most rugged and scenic areas in the East.

“Toyota and Audubon really share in the belief that environmental change starts at the grassroots level,” said Patricia Salas Pineda, group vice president of national philanthropy and the Toyota USA Foundation. “We’re so proud to support this year’s Innovation Grants, which embody TogetherGreen’s commitment to conservation, innovation and diversity.”

Courtesy of US Politics Today

The Top 5 Electric Cars on the Market

With all of the dire predictions about the environment more and the high cost of gas, more and more people are expressing interest in purchasing completely electric cars. In the following breif post we will take a moment to list the most popular, gas-free vehicles on the market.

1. Nissan is the first automaker to produce an all electric volume in any real volume and, as we have already showcased in a previous post, this vehicle is the Leaf. Nissan Leaf The 2012 Leaf includes DC Fast Charge and backup camera and has a price tag of under $40K. The great thing about the Leaf is that it is battery-electric with a 100-mile range per charge.
   
2. GM currently offers the plug-in hybrid Volt but its first completely gasless vehicle will be the Chevy Spark. According to GM the Spark is the quintessential city-car destined to compete for parking spaces with Smart cars and Mini's from Manhattan to LA. Check out this interesting little blurb from the product page:
   

   Spark be nimble, Spark be quick

   Spark is compact, so we worked a little harder to pack in
   all the attitude we could. What is attitude? It’s five doors’ and
   four seats’ worth of “bring your friends along.” It’s parking
   where most fear to parallel. So the next time someone says
   it’s impossible to keep a car in the city, you can turn to them,
   smile and tell them why they’re wrong.

3. The Ford Focus Electric is available now and is meant to compete directly with the Leaf fro non-gas supremacy. The Focus Electric is, however, a little pricier than the $35K Leaf coming in at around $40K before taxes and title. An interesting side note us that, beginning in 2013, hybrids will also have electric motors and lithium batteries as Ford invests heavily in an electric future. 
   
4. The Mitsubishi i (poor name to be sure but maybe they're trying to capitalize on Apple's success with the vowel) can be reserved for a cool $30K which makes it a steal in comparison to the competition. Closely related but slightly larger than its Japanese cousin, the more powerful U.S. version of the iMiEV has an electric range of 62 miles (EPA adjusted) with a 16kWh lithium battery.
   
5. Our last entry for today is the 2013 Fit EV and will be priced at $36,625. The new EV will use Blue Energy lithium-ion batteries.
   
   Anyone who is interested in a more complete break-down of both the hybrid and completely electric vehicles beig offered in 2012 and 2013 should definitely check out the following link: http://www.cleanfleetreport.com/top-electric-cars-2010/
   
   Thanks for reading and look forward to our next post where we will look into the enviromental impact of all-electric as copared to gas only vehicles. Be well!