Which Cities Are Working the Hardest to Save the Planet?

With more green space and lower greenhouse gas emissions, cities nationwide are striving to become leaders and innovators in the environmental movement.
Recently, the International Business Times decided to take a look at the cities leading the pack, and while the publication didn’t use exact science, it examined criterion such as carbon footprint, LEED certified buildings (LEED stands for leadership in energy and environmental design) and green space, among others to find the top 10 eco-friendly cities in the U.S.
Among their findings (in no particular order):
SAN FRANCISCO
Not only is it the first city to ban plastic grocery bags, but it also has a curbside compost pick-up program, among numerous other eco-friendly projects.
SEATTLE
This rainy town is a leader in green space with seven parks per 10,000 residents. It also has over 20 buildings that are LEED certified or are being built with the intention of being designated as such.
PORTLAND, ORE.
In addition to building a well-structured mass transit system, Portland has taken the bike craze to a new level. It also boasts loads of green space, a strong recycling program and its carbon emissions per capita rank it in the lowest 20 percent of U.S. cities.
CHICAGO
The Windy City is home to the most buildings with green roofs, which not only help to control temperature by heating and cooling the inside, but they also improve air quality – which isn’t a bad asset for any urban area.
BURLINGTON, VT.
With a third of its energy coming from hydroelectric dams, another third from wind energy and the final third from biomass renewal, this northeast city of 42,000 people just began the first city to be powered by 100 percent renewable energy.
While this is just a small sampling of what this country is doing to go green, it demonstrates how cities are working to be more environmentally conscious all the time. To find out the remainder of the top 10, click here.
MORE: Yet Another Reason to Love Leonardo DiCaprio

Burlington, Vt. is Leading America into a Future of Clean Energy

Vermont’s largest city, Burlington, is illustrating just what a greener future could look like.
The city now touts that 100 percent of its electricity is powered by renewable sources including wind, water and biomass. The Burlington Electric Department reached the notable figure following the purchase of  the Winooski 1 Hydroelectric Facility, located on the Winooski River, earlier this month.
While Burlington’s 42,000 residents have been encouraging electric utility providers to make the switch to greener sources, the city has been talking about achieving the milestone for around a decade. But in 2008, officials began developing an actual strategy.

“The transition in thought from 2004 to 2008 was ‘We want to do this’ to ‘This actually makes economic sense for us to do this,'” says Ken Nolan, the manager of power resources for Burlington Electric.

That “economic sense” means that residents will avoid rate increases, and according to Nolan, once the bonds for the Winooski One facility are paid off (around 20 years from now), the utility will see cost savings.
“A lot of times when you buy plants like this, you end up having to increase rates initially to drop them later,” Nolan tells The Burlington Free Press,  “and we were able to buy it without any impact and then lock in the benefits in the future.”
Of course, there will be instances in which there may not be enough wind and hydro energy to supply the city, which means they may have to generate electricity from traditional fossil fuel sources. But the goal is to amass a surplus of renewable energy when conditions are right — an excess that will be sold to other utilities.
Burlington joins a statewide movement toward ending reliance on harmful fossil fuel sources. The Washington Electric Co-operative, with around 11,000 customers throughout central and northern Vermont, reached 100 percent earlier this year.
The state has set a goal of reaching 90 percent of energy — including heat, electricity and transportation — from renewable resources by 2050. “We’re now in a position where we’re supplying Burlington residents with sources that are renewable,” Nolan says. “The prices are not tied to fossil fuels — they’re stable prices — and they provide us with the flexibility, from an environmental standpoint, to really react to any regulation or changes to environmental standards that come in the future.”
Around the country, more local governments and municipalities are working toward transitioning powering with renewable resources. For instance, after a tornado leveled Greensburg, Kansas in 2007, part of reconstruction included the installation of a 12.5-megawatt wind farm that began generating electricity in excess.
As more cities ponder ways to become greener cities, Burlington is proof that it can — and should — be done.
MORE: The United States’s First Carbon-Neutral City Is…

How One Organization Encourages the Love of Reading

Clifford. Harry Potter. The Boxcar Children. These storybook characters have entertained and inspired countless American children. And now, they can do the same for a whole group of immigrant kids.
Some new book worms at the Integrated Arts Academy, a school that serves many English-language-learning students whose parents emigrated from countries such as Somalia, Nepal, and South Sudan, in Burlington, Vermont, took home free reading material this week, thanks to the Children’s Literacy Foundation (CLF). This nonprofit aims to inspire a love of reading in low-income and rural children in New Hampshire and Vermont. According to CLF’s website, it has served 150,000 children since 1998 — donating more than $3 million worth of books. Donations from the community make it possible for the kids to start their own home libraries.
This year, Duncan McDougall of CLF gave the families a literacy seminar before the kids each picked out two free books at the book fair. McDougall spoke to the parents about how they can support their children’s reading habits, offering them techniques to engage the kids in the story, even if the parents themselves can’t read English well. Five translators were on hand to help the families select good books for their kids.
McDougall told Lynn Monty of the Burlington Free Press, “These children are all very eager to learn and to read more often, but many of them have few, if any, books of their own at home. Their parents often work multiple jobs which makes it hard to take children to the library, and many of the parents themselves have limited literacy skills.”
“We are newcomers who want to help our kids at home,” Mon Gurung, who moved to the U.S. from Nepal, told Monty.
MORE: Can a Book Make You a Better Person?