A report by the Climate Communication scientific group ties global warming to the extreme weather patterns experienced this past year. As mentioned in an article by USA Today, specifically, it is the increase in levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, which prevent radiation from escaping into space and trap it in the earth’s atmosphere, that is responsible for the erratic weather.

Over the past century, the Climate Communication report says, a one-degree increase in the average global temperature caused by global warming contributes to extreme weather events such as increases in rainfall, drought, and flooding.

Though a link exists between human activity and changes in climate and weather patterns, scientists clarify that it is not clear exactly what percentage of the change is due to global warming and human influence.

In the political sphere, a lot of rhetoric has been thrown around about scientists and liberals and their “alarmist” theories. Yet what scientists are saying is that this isn’t an issue that can be explained by extremes. Changes in the climate are a natural occurrence but at the same time, human influence, especially the increase in greenhouse gas emissions, does cause an increase in the average global temperature.

While personal habits like using energy efficient light bulbs and taking the bus instead of driving help the environment, more often than not, major companies and manufacturers have the greatest impact on our planet. But just as companies can do things that are detrimental, they also have an enormous potential to promote sustainability by adopting green practices and utilizing their power as investors.

At this week’s Clinton Global Initiative and United Nations Private Sector Forum on Sustainable Energy for All, investors proposed several initiatives that would help nations and companies do just that.

As reported by Environmental Leader, B Lab, an organization that promotes the idea of businesses working to solve social and environmental issues, created the Global Impact Investing Ratings System (GIIRS) to rate the environmental and social impact of companies, giving investors and other businesses the information they need to put hundreds of billions of dollars towards “impact” investments. B Lab also announced its goal of rating over 2,500 companies in five years.

A group of organizations led by Aviva Investors want to take this idea further by asking UN member states to mandate that companies within their borders provide information on their environmental impact. The focus of this initiative is transparency on the part of businesses while nations do their part to keep them accountable.

Combine Los Angeles’ geography, climate, car culture, and enormous population and you get the perfect recipe for smog. Despite being a national leader in green initiatives and standards, our dependence on cars is one of the main factors that keep Southern Californian skies polluted.

That’s why a team of computer scientists, urban planners, and atmospheric scientists have come together to reduce air pollution by changing driving and traffic patterns that contribute the most to emissions and congestion.

As reported by the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, researchers at UCLA and Rutgers University are working on an ambitious project to create a system that will monitor traffic patterns and air pollution in real time and suggest alternate routes to drivers that reduce congestion and emissions in “pollution hot spots.”

Reducing emissions in pollution hot spots is an important part of urban air quality because higher concentrations of pollutants make it more likely for chemical reactions that produce smog to take place.

While expanding the underwhelming public transportation system in Los Angeles could certainly help with air quality, this unique approach of combining traffic management and real time air quality data offers a way to make our skies cleaner. And of course, there’s the added benefit of less time stuck in traffic.

New “green” inventions are sprouting up everywhere. Energy efficient light bulbs preserve bulb life, better insulation leads to lower energy bills, and solar panels use renewable resources to harness energy. One of the most unique and innovative new products is a design by Vivian Muller, a French designer. She created the Electree, a solar panel bonsai tree that can charge device batteries. Instead of leaves on the branches, there are 27 miniature solar panels, which need 36 hours of sunshine to be able to charge anything from a cell phone to an iPod.

Vivian Muller isn’t the only person designing “green” technologies, this spring Ralph Lauren unveiled a solar panel backpack that can harness the sun’s energy to charge mobile devices while people are on the go. Another European designer introduced a solar panel t-shirt that can also charge mobile phones.

Although these are positives efforts toward a greener environment, there are still some minor setbacks. First, the Electree cost almost $400 and so far there are less than 500 being produced. Second, the backpack and t-shirt are not as aesthetically pleasing as one might hope. However, once the design is perfected and made more affordable, solar panel inventions will be a consumer favorite.

With more and more people becoming increasingly concerned about climate change and energy efficiency, companies worldwide are brainstorming ideas for “greener” methods of doing just about everything. As reported by the New York Times, a net of businesses that include Lockheed Martin, Barclays Bank, Energi, and Hannover Re, will invest nearly $650 million over the next few years in an effort to decrease the amount of energy used in older buildings across California and Florida. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of this business venture is that no money would be needed from Washington. This is exciting news considering the benefits of this program, most notably, cutting energy bills by more than 30% at each property, without spending obscene amounts of money to do so.

This business plan was created by the Carbon War Room, a nonprofit environmental group founded by Richard Branson, which seeks to combat environmental problems at a low cost. Environmental groups and policy makers are ecstatic considering that such an initiative could create billions of dollars in investments, lower carbon dioxide emissions, and eventually maybe even shut down coal plants across the United States.

The Ygrene Energy Fund will lead this venture by offering energy upgrades to a particular community. These upgrades will include anything from better insulation, to new windows, as well as energy saving electric and mechanical systems. In order to pay for the upgrades, building owners will pay a surcharge on their property-tax bills, which will still end up being less than how much money is being saved overall. Barclays Bank will give short-term loans to pay for the upgrades and contractors at each property will offer a warranty to ensure that building owners receive the energy savings they were promised.

Although some people fear that contractors won’t keep all their promises, numerous environmental groups are praising this plan as a giant step forward. With so much momentum, it seems there is no way this initiative couldn’t be successful.

A UCLA professor of materials science and engineering is researching a new technology that could make cell phone display screens act as solar panels.

As reported in the Daily Bruin, energy wasted in generating the power for a cell phone’s backlight can instead be recycled. Sunlight can also be captured and used, giving a longer battery life.

The most obvious benefit is a longer battery life, saving you hundreds of dollars. Yet with the explosion of e-waste in recent decades, any technology that increases the shelf-life of electronics could be a major win on multiple fronts. Keeping e-waste out of landfills means less harmful chemicals polluting areas nearby, protecting the natural environment in addition to saving hundreds of thousands from cancer and birth defects caused by exposure to these harmful substances.

And of course, a longer battery life means less material and resources being used to make more batteries and cell phones, reducing the amount of greenhouse gases put into the atmosphere, and that’s something everyone can be excited about.

With the heavy blows UCLA is taking financially, we can hope that this research survives the recent round of budget cuts and lives to be incorporated into everyday technology soon.

Finally after years of urging major corporations in the United States, the Carbon Disclosure Project is beginning to see vast improvements in climate change policy. The 2011 S&P 500 reports how efficiently the top 500 companies in the United States improve their “green” performance by reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, making their business more eco-friendly, and setting future goals of reduction.

As reported by Market Watch, most businesses assumed they wouldn’t see financial benefits from reducing their carbon footprint right away, however the CDP found that more than 50% of green initiatives are offering payback in three years or less. And now that high-level executives are urging green initiatives, employee behavior is improving as well. Because energy costs are typically one of the highest expenses in any business, practicing energy efficiency is becoming increasingly more popular simply because it reduces a company’s overheard, which maximizes profit while minimizing cost.

With all these improvements, there comes some backward movement as well. Although there are 500 S&P companies in total, only 339 businesses disclosed information to the CDP, which was a drop from last year’s 350 respondents. Also, only 14% of companies who do report findings get them verified by a third party, which is a decrease from 23% in 2010.

Though it would be nice to see companies reducing their carbon footprint on their own accord, sustainability becomes less of an environmental issue and more of a strategy to increase profit. Whatever the reason for these companies change in behavior, the environmental will benefit no less.

It’s no surprise to hear that the California public school system is strapped for cash.  Budget cuts in the millions have caused some schools to lay off their staff and increase the number of students in each classroom.  Some schools however have chosen to spend millions of extra dollars to pay for solar panels instead.  The irony is that such a great expense will actually save even more in lowered electricity bills in the near future.  Five schools so far in the San Ramon Valley Unified School District have installed 10,000 photovoltaic panels using low-interest loans from the federal government.  Other colleges around the country have already headed similar projects in addition to the 90 systems in California that have chosen to use solar panels to cut costs.

The panels should be able to produce enough electricity to supply 67 to 75 percent of each school’s normal electricity use.  Savings produced initially will be used to pay back the loans, but spokesman Terry Koehne for the San Ramon Valley district told CNN that the panels should pay for themselves in 16 years.  After this time, the schools will be able to use the savings as pure profit.  Koehne estimated profits to be anywhere from $2 to $4 million a year.  Others expect electric bill savings to equal more than $100 million in just 20 years.  This means less money can be spent in facility maintenance and more money can go directly to help the students.  Many of the solar panels installed in California are traditional roof panels.  However, the variety used in the San Ramon Valley are solar canopies, which cover school parking lots and move in order to get the most energy by tracking sunlight throughout the day.

The $23 million environmentally friendly initiative was met with surprisingly little opposition by the San Ramon community.  The school system has experienced a $20 million budget cut in the past five years, so residents seem to be open to suggestions for ways to save much-needed funds.  Even with the projected estimate of the project taking 16 years to pay for itself, the majority of community members are on board.  Sunpower, the manufacturer of the solar panels to be installed, however believes that the district will see savings even sooner.  Since the project planned on a large scale for 90 school systems, the managing director of SunPower Bill Kelly said that the schools should save millions of dollars in the first year alone.  Government incentives for green technology should help to offset the costs some.  Benefits to the community as a whole as well include putting electricians back to work and stimulating the growing green technology market.  As more communities and residences decide to switch over to solar energy, the price of the technology is dropping significantly.  These school districts’ decisions to reduce their carbon footprint while lowering their costs will hopefully encourage more people to go solar as well.

Burning Man is an annual festival unlike any other.  For one week every year, tens of thousands of people from all over the globe gather in Nevada to create the temporary Black Rock City.  Once it is over, the crowd scatters without leaving any trace whatsoever of its existence.  In the past four years, the festival has taken on a more sustainable spirit.  Larry Harvey, a co-founder of the event, wanted to connect Burning Man to what was going on in the world, so in 2007 he chose the theme of “The Green Man.”  Since that time, more and more environmentally conscious aspects have been incorporated into the festival.

Of course, it has been a slow process.  A longtime attendee and current member of the New Initiatives team James Hanusa was quoted in a Triple Pundit article saying, “ We still burned our man (it’s “Burning Man” after all, not “Composting Dude”), but we started to pay closer attention to the materials used on the sculpture, our organization, the entirety of Black Rock City to improve our approach and lessen our impact.”  The event is founded on the principle of leaving no trace of the city behind once the week comes to an end.  This ethos should then impact how the participants live the other 51 weeks of their year, which is a far greater influence anyways.

Burning Man has now become a stage for green technology inventions.  Participants often come forward to present early models of their ideas.  For example, Jim Mason showed a version of his biomass gasification alternative energy technology.  Black Rock Solar provided energy for the event and then installed solar panels in under-served communities nearby.  The major factor in the overarching carbon footprint from the event is naturally always transportation.  For the 2011 Burning Man though, ridesharing was organized and encouraged.  Event organizers have also purchased local storage spaces so that participants do not need to haul trailers of supplies each year.  Shop owners in the surrounding areas have lent a hand by agreeing to recycle everything from bikes to batteries and beer cans.  However, beyond the presentation of green inventions and the initiative toward more sustainable materials, the mentality of ‘leaving no trace behind’ is an important worldview that has a greater impact in the long term than anything else.  Burning Man will continue to integrate environmentally friendly aspects into the festival, but the greater change will be because of the development of a community of individuals who think twice about their everyday choices.  Hopefully some day they will all ‘leave no trace behind’ in their permanent home cities as well.

Forty years ago today, a small group of activists originally named the Don’t Make A Wave Committee set sail on an old fishing boat called “The Greenpeace,” with hopes that they could stop a US nuclear weapons test on the Amchitka island off the shores of Alaska.  The boat was stopped by the US Navy way before it reached the Amchitka testing site and was therefore unable to stop anything.  However, the voyage caught much public attention in the media, and this attention put enough pressure on the US government to stop the practice eventually.  Starting off as a small club of eager activists, Greenpeace has now become a global organization with offices in over 40 countries.  They are supported by over 2.8 million followers from a variety of disciplines from scientists to journalists to students and parents.  The entirely member-funded organization has become the world’s largest independent environmental organization, which staffs 1,600 employees across the globe.

On September 15, 1971 “The Greenpeace” set sail, and in 2011 the environmental group is returning to its roots to celebrate in Vancouver at the Vancouver Maritime Museum.  Ten-year veteran of Greenpeace, member Ta’Kaiya Blaney will be performing at the event.  She has written a song called “Shallow Waters,” which speaks about the dangers of oil spills.  At 1 pm, Mayor Gregor Robertson will proclaim the day “Greenpeace Day.”

Kumi Naidoo, blogger on the Greenpeace website, reflects proudly on the past, but believes, “Greenpeace’s ultimate success will be measured when we are no longer necessary.  Hopefully, in forty more years we will have averted climate chaos, ecology and economy will be balanced with considerations of equity and our job will have been done.”  Until then, Greenpeace will continue to be active, while celebrating its great progress in the past forty years.