Chocolates Go “Green” For Valentine’s Day
BY NBC NEWS
Step into Divine Treasures Chocolates in Manchester, Connecticut and you’re in for some divine smells and tastes.”They taste very much like delicious chocolates,” says customer Jane Low.
Chocolate Goes Green
“Every morning I have to have a piece of chocolate. It’s such a love,” says store owner Diane Blanchete-Wagemann.
But she wasn’t so crazy about all the sugar that comes with eating chocolate daily.
For that reason Diane Blanchette-Wagemann opened this business three years ago.
“I am a vegetarian, I don’t eat dairy and I used to work in a gluten free market so I know gluten free inside and out. And there was a lot of choc. out there even the dark choc have dairy,” she explains.
Diane adapted her grandmother’s recipes and developed a dark chocolate that’s vegan and gluten-free.
She also has a sugar-free selection.
“The organic Belgium chocolate that we use is very high end. It is not inexpensive chocolate that we bring in and when you tast it and you feel the mouth full of it, you just, people fall in love with it,” she says.
Jane Low makes a monthly stop to stock up.
She’s not the only one.
Diane now sells in dozens of stores in several different states, including Whole Foods.
The product has become so popular that Diane literally had to turn wholesale orders away during the holidays.
She also embraces a green approach to other areas of her business recycling packing supplies from neighboring business, and when it comes to eating chocolate healthy doesn’t have to mean missing flavor.
U.S. should lead the world in clean energy technologies, speaker says
Lisa O’Donnell and John Hinton
Media General News Service
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — The United States should lead the world in developing “green” – non-polluting and sustainable technologies – to meet the planet’s energy needs, Thomas Friedman said last night at Wake Forest University.
The federal government should establish an “ecosystem for innovation,” Friedman told an audience of more than 2,200 people at Wait Chapel. The country can develop green technologies to maintain its standard of living and help solve the world’s problems.
Friedman, 56, the foreign-affairs columnist for The New York Times, spoke for about an hour on themes outlined in his book, The World is Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America.
His lecture was part of conference at WFU, titled “Energizing the Future,” which continues on campus today.
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Goat Patrol Saving Trees
HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. — Sixteen goats roaming around in a wooded area is not something you see every day.
Goat Patrol
But the furry guys in Hillsborough Thursday are actually helping to save dozens of trees in there.
English Ivy is suffocating a number of trees at Hillsborough’s town hall, so local leaders called on the goat patrol to help get rid of it before it spreads.
Goat Patrol Owner Alix Bowman said the goats can cover 1,000 to 2,500 square feet per day.
“So what the goats are doing here is they’re both eating the ivy on the ground and stripping the ivy off the lower parts of the trunk, which allows me to go in and trim the vines to kill the ivy that’s up on the top of the trees and hopefully save the trees,” he said.
The Durham-based Goat Patrol says it offers a quiet, environmentally friendly and inexpensive alternative to loud machines and herbicides.
The town hasn’t made any decisions about using the goat patrol on a permanent basis. The Hillsborough Tree Board will meet next week to discuss the issue.
The service costs between $250 and $300 per day.
EHP Unveils New Website for Green News
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. – Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP), the leading monthly environmental sciences journal, announces its redesigned Web site.
Editors say the new look and feel allows for more intuitive navigation as well as easier and more efficient access to peer-reviewed research and news on the impact of the environment on human health.
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Chatham Offering Green Rebates
PITTSBORO, N.C.— The Chatham County Board of Commissioners has approved a building rebate program to encourage homeowners and homebuilders to include green building methods to conserve energy, protect natural resources and improve indoor air quality.
For eligible projects, builders and homeowners can receive a rebate for a portion of the building permit costs. A homeowner or builder may receive up to $450 per home, or a total of $1,000 per year for multiple projects.
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Chapel Hill Church Urges Giving Up Carbon for Lent
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — A church in Chapel Hill has a new suggestion this year on what to give up for Lent: Carbon.
The United Church of Chapel Hill will distribute Low Carbon Recipes on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 17. A lower carbon diet is essentially eating lower on the food chain – eating less or no meat (particularly beef), eating local, eating organic, reducing waste and increasingly eating a plant-based diet.
It’s not the first time the church has encouraged green behavior during fasting. In previous years, the church has given out compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs.
According to the church, to reach the goals of the Copenhagen Climate Conference of 50 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 and 80 percent reduction by 2050 will require changes in human behavior in all areas of life including food.
Jenny Shultz, Director of Youth and Young Adults at United Church of Chapel Hill, has created a blog, “Confessions of Low-Carbon Cooking,” on United Church’s website, www.unitedchurch.org. Similar to the blog that evolved into “Julie and Julia,” people are invited to share their experience with new recipes and the challenge of moving towards a lower carbon diet.
Church officials say the 40 days of Lent are not about deprivation, but entering into solidarity with others including God and thus making a change in one’s life. During Lent an individual can commit to an action and perhaps the start of a new life.
IBM Unveils $360M North Carolina Data Center
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. (AP) – Big Blue is touting its efforts to go green with its new $360 million data center. IBM on Thursday unveils its massive collection of data processing computer servers that the company says uses half the energy of a typical complex.
The new data center in IBM’s largest worksite in the world was designed to support companies moving into cloud computing, where the operating and other software are stored at a remote site and used as needed instead of stored on a user’s computer.
IBM owns or operates more than 450 data centers worldwide.
Data center consultant John Boyd Jr. said he expects demand for data centers to grow because financial services reforms and electronic health care records will likely add new record-keeping requirements.
Raleigh Breaks Ground on New Part of Greenway
RALEIGH, N.C. — The City of Raleigh broke ground today to formally begin construction of the Upper Neuse Greenway Trail, the first link of the planned Neuse River Greenway Trail that will extend to the Johnston County line.
The 10-foot-wide asphalt trail will extend eight miles from Falls Lake Dam to the WRAL Soccer Center on Perry Creek Road. The trail also will include seven greenway bridges, an elevated boardwalk, a railroad underpass shelter, landscaping, and park furniture.
Connecting points for the Upper Neuse Greenway Trail will include the Bedford, Falls River and Riverside residential communities. Plans also call for the trail to connect to future park sites on Falls of Neuse Road and Thornton Road and at the North Wake Landfill recreation site.
Construction of the Upper Neuse Greenway Trail is scheduled to be complete in the spring 2011. The $3.9 million trail is being paid for by federal funds and City parks and recreation bonds approved by Raleigh voters in 2003 and 2007. Narron Contracting Inc. is the construction contractor for the Upper Neuse Greenway Trail. The company is proposing to subcontract 27 percent of the work to Disadvantaged Business Enterprises.
For more information about the Capital Area Greenway system, contact the City of Raleigh Parks and Recreation Department at 996-3285 or visit the City’s website at www.raleighnc.gov.
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Obama Pushing Clean Coal and Green Jobs
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is meeting with governors from coal-producing states, hoping to earn their support for a languishing energy bill and to bolster his image as a leader willing to work with Republicans as well as Democrats.
Obama planned to announce new steps Wednesday to increase the role of biofuels in powering the nation and to release a report detailing how Washington could increase investments in green technologies, an administration official said. The president was also expected to discuss so-called clean coal technologies, said the official, who spoke ahead of the announcement only on condition
of anonymity.
Many pieces of those proposals were likely to win Republican support on Capitol Hill, where GOP allies have been elusive for a Democratic White House looking to pass controversial cap-and-trade legislation that would limit the nation’s emissions. Wednesday’s plan also was likely to find support from GOP governors in states rich in coal and corn, which can be used to produce ethanol.
Republican Govs. Jim Douglas of Vermont – the chairman of the National Governors Association – Bob Riley of Alabama and Mike Rounds of South Dakota were scheduled to meet with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at the White House.
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NC Solid Waste Disposal Reaches Historic Low
Landfill
RALEIGH, N.C. – A state report finds that people disposed of less solid waste in North Carolina landfills last year than any previous year in nearly two decades, due largely to the economic recession.
Solid waste was disposed of at a rate of 1.07 tons per capita in 2008-09 – a sharp decline from the previous year and the lowest disposal rate since 1995-96, according to the “North Carolina Solid Waste Management Annual Report.”
“Our analysis indicates that the reduction in disposal is a direct result of the economic recession,” said Dexter Matthews, director of the state Division of Waste Management. “Waste previously created by the housing and building markets is not being produced and, therefore, is not ending up in North Carolina landfills.”
The annual report uses data and other information collected from 655 local governments, 371 solid waste management facilities and 152 state agencies, institutions and schools. Information gathered by the state includes how many tons of materials counties recycled, and how counties and facilities disposed of solid waste.
The state Department of Environment and Natural Resources, with assistance from the state departments of Administration and Transportation, generate the report each year, as required by the General Assembly. The current report represents activities from July 1, 2008, to June 30, 2009.
The report also found that:
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