Category Archives: Websites

Global Institute of Sustainability @ Arizona State University

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I just read about the Global Institute of Sustainability in the table of contents alert of BioScience Vol. 60, Issue 7, Jul 2010. Michael M. Crow, the President of Arizona State University wrote this opinion piece
Organizing Teaching and Research to Address the Grand Challenges of Sustainable Development

Its Vision: "The Global Institute of Sustainability is the hub of ASU’s sustainability initiatives. The Institute advances research, education, and business practices for an urbanizing world."

Dr. Crow writes: "With the establishment of the Global Institute of Sustainability (GIOS) in 2004 and the first-of-its-kind School of Sustainability three years later, ASU has positioned itself in the vanguard of interdisciplinary research on environmental, economic, and social sustainability."

BuildingGreen Suite

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Princeton Univ. Library has now subscribed to:

BuildingGreen Suite

http://www.buildinggreen.com

From their "About" page:

"We are an independent company committed to providing accurate, unbiased, and timely information designed to help building-industry professionals and policy makers improve the environmental performance, and reduce the adverse impacts, of buildings."

One can sign up for alerts of news and new products.

Wetlands: US EPA website

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Wetlands US EPA

"Overall, this site is useful for background information about the state of US wetlands. Undergraduates and researchers would particularly benefit from this information and from the numerous links to additional resources allowing them to further expand their investigation of this subject."

Information from the Clean Water Act and scientific documents — about floodplains, watersheds, urban stormwaters, restoration, pollution management

From Choice Reviews online or Choice, April, 2010, Vol 47(8), p.1512.

Green Energy Portal from the DOE

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To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) has opened the Green Energy Portal. It offers to all — scientists, students and the public — quick access to research and development in the area of renewable energy. There are thousands of full-text documents.

"The DOE Green Energy portal is part of the DOE Open Government Plan, which furthers the Administration’s Open Government Initiative. DOE Green Energy contains both current and historical research, including bibliographic citations, technical reports and patent information on different types of renewable energy resources and energy conservation. Subject areas include but are not limited to solar, wind, bioenergy, hydroelectric, geothermal, tidal and wave power, and energy storage."

Source: Email from Tim Byrne at OSTI byrnet@osti.gov

This is most likely a just a short cut, but I trust that most all of these documents and their indexing is available via NTIS, NTRL, Science.gov and/or the DOE’s Information Bridge.

Green Chemistry & Techology funding from EPA & NSF

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EPA’s Office of Research and Development is currently requesting proposals for Phase I SBIR funding. Green chemistry technologies may be submitted under "Innovation in Manufacturing" or other topics, as appropriate. EPA will accept proposals from March 25 to May 11, 2010. Information is available at www.epa.gov/ncer/sbir/

In addition, the National Science Foundation (NSF) will be accepting proposals for SBIR funding for Environ-mental Technologies. NSF will accept proposals from May 9 to June 9, 2010. Information is available at www.nsf.gov/eng/iip/sbir/

A notice from the EPA’s Green Chemistry Program

World Water Day, Monday, March 22, 2010

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From Joanna Luz Siegel:

Amazing photos from Nat’l Geographic:
And the entire NG special issue available for download:
In honor of World Water Day, the Laureate of the 2010 Stockholm Water Prize was announced: “Dr Rita Colwell, distinguished Professor from the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health in the U.S., has been named the 2010 Stockholm Water Prize Laureate. Dr Colwell has shown how changes in climate, adverse weather events, shifts in ocean circulation and other ecological processes can create conditions that allow infectious diseases to spread, and through that link she has led the ability to craft preemptive policies to minimise outbreaks.”

Read more at: http://www.siwi.org/SWP2010 The prize will be awarded in September during World Water Week.

EPA’s HERO — public risk assessments database

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"US environment agency releases public database on risk assessments – 25 Mar 2010

The US’ Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced the release of the Health and Environmental Research Online (HERO) database. HERO seeks to provide access to the scientific studies used in making key regulatory decisions, including EPA’s periodic review of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for six major pollutants. It is part of the open government directive to conduct business with transparency, participation and collaboration.

The publicly accessible HERO database is projected to provide an easy way to review the scientific literature behind EPA science assessments, which are used to support agency decision-making. It includes more than 300,000 scientific articles including the authors, titles, dates and abstracts. In addition, through a keyword search, anyone can see information from the articles that were used to develop specific risk assessments.

HERO includes peer-reviewed literature used by EPA to develop its Integrated Science Assessments (ISA) that feed into the NAAQS review. It also includes references and data from the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), a database that supports critical agency policymaking for chemical regulation. More information on the database is available at http://www.epa.gov/hero "

Source: Knowledgespeak Newletter 3/25/10 & CHMINF Listserv.

Climate Change website from the European Union

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Don’t overlook the European Union network of websites — a portal — as a resource for information on the environment. Here is the homepage for Climate Change. Documents can be found on International Climate Negotiations, EU Domestic Actions, and Studies, and links and archives are accessible.

Also note the EU Environment homepage and the Site Map.

HAZ-MAP — occupational health database from NLM

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NLM® Resource — Haz-Map® Update from NLM-ANNOUNCES@LIST.NIH.GOV

[Editor’s Note: This is a reprint of an announcement published on NLM-Tox-Enviro-Health-L, an e-mail announcement list available from the NLM Division of Specialized Information Services. To subscribe to this list, please see the NLM-TOX-ENVIRO-HEALTH-L Join, Leave, or Change Options page.]

Haz-Map, a database from the National Library of Medicine® on the effects of occupational exposure to potentially toxic agents, has added 265 agents.

These agents include 60 assorted metal compounds, 100 rare earth metals, 10 uranium compounds, and 16 metallic perchlorate compounds. Also added are 9 thiols, 4 sulfites, 20 nitriles, 6 glycol ethers, 4 fluorides, 7 aldehydes, and 5 acid anhydrides.

Haz-Map is an occupational health database designed for health and safety professionals and for consumers seeking information about the health effects of exposure to chemicals and biologicals at work. Haz-Map links jobs and hazardous tasks with occupational diseases and their symptoms. It covers 3218 agents and 225 occupational diseases.

More information about Haz-Map can be found at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/hazmap.html

H1N1 (influenza) free Searchable Information Center (ebrary)

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The ebrary staff has created an in-depth searchable cluster of information about the H1N1 virus, sometimes known as the "swine flu". It consists of reports, papers, newsletters, and posters from government agencies and "other trusted souces". This database is highly interactive with options for searching, navigating and browsing, notes and highlights. Ebrary software, "InfoTools", renders each word a portal to further web searching. Text can be copied, pasted, transfered to folders, sent to others, and bibliographic citations and URLs are provided.