While going green is sometimes seen as an economic inconvenience, many companies are thriving and making hefty profits while helping the environment. Each year Inc. magazine names the Green 50—a group of entrepreneurial companies that have committed to green initiatives and environmental sustainability.

Five of the 50 companies named on the 2006 list are based in New York. One company, Verdant Power, was in the news this week because of the underwater turbines they installed to convert currents in the East River to household electricity last December. The New York Times reported that after preliminary maintenance, the company has great expectations for the new technology that allows Verdant to foresee exactly when the turbines will generate power by monitoring current activity.

Another New York company on Inc.’s list, Voltaic Systems, has transformed environmentalism into a fashion accessory with the creation of solar powered backpacks made from recycled plastic products that are capable of charging electronics on the go.

Josh Dorfman, author of The Lazy Environmentalist and producer of a nationally broadcast radio show of the same name, also made the list with his Brooklyn-based company, Vivavi, which offers modern, eco-friendly home furnishings and a way for consumers to use the web to find green homes to rent or buy. Other New York area Green 50 companies are IceStone building products and Green Order sustainability consulting.

Just how much impact can one green idea have? CNN reported financial group Credit Suisse’s cooling system that uses blocks of ice to channel cool air throughout their Manhattan office building reduces greenhouse gases equivalent to “taking 223 cars off the streets and planting 1.9 million acres of trees.”

These companies demonstrate business savvy can turn green ideas into greenbacks. To help translate ideas from the laboratory to the marketplace, the New York Science Alliance is hosting a 12 week Technology Venture Course at the New York Academy of Sciences beginning September 4.

More advice for aspiring tech entrepreneurs is on offer at Financial Research Associates’ Green Building & Technology- Finance, Construction and Investment summit on September 24-25.

To learn more about Trey Taylor, the president and co-founder of Verdant Power visit the archives of the New York Academy of Sciences Magazine. To sign up for the Technology Venture Course visit Science & the City.

*Image above of Vivavi’s tonecoon chair

According to a study conducted at Johns Hopkins University, students in the U.S. lose on average approximately 2.6 months of grade level equivalency in math computation over the summer months, while loss in reading varies depending on family income.

The study also found that students who attend summer camps and enrichment programs displayed increased self-esteem, leadership skills, and improved peer relationships. Luckily, you can fight the summertime learning lull by bringing your child to some of the many science-related activities happening this month.

Rather than hire a babysitter, working parents can enroll their child in drop-off programs this August at the New York Hall of Science, Brooklyn Children’s Museum, and many more.

Week-long camps are still open for registration, including two at the New York Aquarium that start August 13: Aquatic Adventures for ages 6 to 8 and Marine Explorers for ages 9 to 12.

The Brooklyn Botanical Garden offers children’s summer classes that look at nature through poetry, painting, and even culinary arts.

This Saturday, children as young as pre-K and kindergarten can learn about animals and their adaptations at the Staten Island Zoo’s Kids and Critters program, which explores a new topic each month.

Or, families can join the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for nature walks, environmental games, crafts, and cake in celebration of Smokey Bear’s 63rd birthday this Saturday.

Check out more science events for kids going on this week including Family Science Workshop: Volcanoes Rock!, Greenhouse Exploration, and Larry Cat in Space by searching for “Kids & Families” events in the Science and the City Events Calendar.

New innovations in technology and communication have sparked a generation-defining activist movement — mostly advertised in the color green. While the “going green” revolution often focuses on what we can individually do to narrow our ecological footprint, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has taken a responsible statewide approach with the Leading the Way in Energy Innovation initiative released in June.

The initiative was developed to address three main themes: climate change, economic development, and energy infrastructure reliability. Among many goals, by 2010 NYSERDA hopes to lessen the environmental impacts of energy use by “encouraging the development of support services for renewable energy resources and optimizing the energy performance of buildings and products.”

The New York legislature hopes to create a framework to encourage environmentally efficient technology and education to its residents and businesses. Next month, construction will be complete on the Saratoga Technology and Energy Park (STEP), a 280-acre complex of office and manufacturing space for the new energy industry. STEP will also house the new Department of Environmental Conservation’s Alternative Fuel Vehicle Research Lab to promote the transition away from petroleum-based transportation.

In Albany this week, The New York Academy of Sciences and New Energy New York, a consortium of energy-related technology organizations including NYSERDA, will organize the 2nd Annual New Energy Symposium. Due to increased interest in green energy, this year the conference has added an extra day devoted to a hydrogen expo at which participants will have the chance to present and discuss the latest research and technology.

If the trip from NYC to Albany seems too long — or you’d just like to lessen your carbon footprint by minimizing travel — you can enjoy two free lectures on energy and the environment close to home: New York City’s Renewable Energy Future by Tria Case of Bronx Community College and the Secret Science Club event called “It’s Hot, Hot, Hot” at which William Schlesinger, Professor Emeritus of Biogeochemistry at Duke, and co-principal investigator for the Free Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment (FACE) Experiment, will explain how CO2 emissions affect a forest’s ecosystem and what we can do to reduce our impact on climate.

After almost two years and $109 million of renovations, the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City will reopen Thursday, debuting new exhibits, refurbished old favorites, and the unprecedented Jennifer A. Chalsty Center for Science Learning and Teaching.

The new exhibit Skyscrapers! allows guests to explore a model skyline revealing the careful planning of these giant buildings, while kids and adults alike can join the action in a video game battle between invading germs and the immune system in Infection Connection. Just next door, Eat and Be Eaten houses some of the latest additions to the center’s family—leaf-tailed geckos, snapping turtles, mantids and many more exotic reptiles and insects.

The Communications exhibit features “The Eye Gaze,” a motion tracking device that allows visitors to use a computer without their hands. Instead of a keyboard and mouse, the users direct their eyes at an onscreen control to play music or turn on a light. The exhibit also looks at the history of writing. Guests can engrave clay, explore calligraphy, and even take the journey of a text message through fiber optic cable and radio waves.

Visitors should prepare to spend at least four hours if they want to catch most exhibits but should still save time for an IMAX show. The museum’s Dome Theater hasn’t changed and is still the largest in the world. Opening week will feature daily showings of Hurricane on the Bayou, Roving Mars, and Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs, which features the first scientists to extract DNA from ancient Egyptian pharaohs.

The Chalsty Center invites students and teachers from around the area to take part in hands-on labs. The popular Live From… lab will continue in the new center so that 7-12 grade students can once again watch live cardiac, neuro, or robotic surgeries while participating in on-site discussions with the surgeons and nurses as they work! As part of the museum’s refurbishment, handheld keypads were integrated into the exhibit so that students can respond to questions from the instructors and see how their answers compare to those of other students.

Also new to the center is the sophisticated Global Microscope, which shows digital images of global warming indicators, atmospheric changes, and other occurrences on earth’s surface as well as other planets in our solar system.

Best of all, the Liberty Science experience doesn’t end when you walk out the door. The Center has developed the Science Now, Science Everywhere program which allows guests to use their cell phones to download exhibit information not only while they’re in the Center but also long after they leave. To check out more information on exhibits, IMAX show times, and Learning Center activities, visit www.lsc.org and the Science & the City events calendar.

For 200 years Governors Island, a 172 acre piece of land in New York Harbor, at the mouth of the East River, was a military outpost. In 2003 the island was sold to New York State for the token sum of $1 — with the stipulation that there be no residential development on the property.

The planning and redevelopment of Governors Island is the responsibility of The Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation which recently shared with the public the five proposals they commissioned for the 40-acre park area at the southern half of the island.

You can see the five visions for Governors Island online here and in person at an exhibition on Governors Island entitled The Park at the Center of the World. The organizers of the exhibit write:

The title “pays homage to Russell Shorto’s book, The Island at the Center of the World, a history of the Dutch in Manhattan, and references not only Governors Island’s location at the center of New York Harbor but its potential role in future waterfront access and recreation in the region.”

In an analysis of the designs, the New York Times voiced the city’s high hopes for the site, writing:

Its history and location give the island the potential to become one of the great civic undertakings in New York City, a rival in beauty, if not in scale, to Central Park and Prospect Park.

Yet realizing that potential is not without its challenges. According to a recent New York magazine article about the options for the island’s development, the island is a “remarkably difficult development conundrum, whose recent history is littered with failed plans.”

To maximize the site’s potential, designers have had to address the two major questions New Yorkers have been asking themselves when thinking about the island and its redevelopment: 1) How do I get out there? and 2) Why should I bother going?

Future development will offer new answers to those questions, but even now there are ways and reasons to go to Governors Island. Weekends in the summer a free ferry service departs from the Battery Maritime Building located adjacent to the Staten Island Ferry in Lower Manhattan and CUNY is hosting an exhibit and lecture series on the historic island. The theme of this year’s second annual series is Stabilizing the Climate in the 21st century and Energy Solutions for the 21st century.

This Saturday William Solecki of Hunter College will give a lecture entitled Environmental Change and Urban Sustainability — The Case of New York City.

More information on the event can be found here.

For more about urban development and design check out these podcasts from Science & the City:

• Urban Sustainability — Albert Appleton.
• Skyscraper Science — Carol Willis, founder, director, and curator of the Skyscraper Museum.
• Is Sustainable Development Feasible? — Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute

The arrival of summer couldn’t be more pleasant in the city this week, with sunny skies, sailboats on the Hudson, and breezes rustling the trees. But summer solstice also marks the beginning of the terrifying smog season for asthma sufferers, and, as a meeting on new research on air pollution’s role in asthma held earlier this year at the New York Academy of Sciences noted, there’s an inordinate number of them in the Bronx. A report on the meeting posted earlier this month, and available unabridged to NYAS members, explains:

In the Bronx, rates of asthma, while somewhat lower than they’ve been, are still so high that asthma constitutes a chronic epidemic. The City’s Asthma Initiative reports that rates tend to be highest in the lowest-income neighborhoods; hospitalization rates are highest for children. New York City ranks third on a list of the 50 U.S. cities with the largest numbers of children exposed to dirty air.

Experts blame the major highways that carry asthma-exacerbating diesel trucks through the Bronx and a large number of facilities that emit other known air pollutants there.

In one step in the right direction, the EPA yesterday announced plans to strengthen air quality standards for ground level ozone for the first time in 10 years.

But ironically, today’s news revealed that one of Mayor Bloomberg’s initiatives aimed at cleaning up the city air, Congestion Pricing, was killed in Albany yesterday.

If asthma is a concern to you or your family, the Asthma Initiative at the city’s Department of Health is a great resource. In New York, you can also request brochures and other materials by dialing 311. And you can keep a daily eye on air quality in New York at the EPA Region 2 Air Quality Index online.

This week is the International Conference on the Biology, Ecology, and Conservation of Horseshoe Crabs at Dowling College on Long Island.

Horseshoe crabs, so named because they resemble the shape of a horse hoof, are not crabs at all. One of the oldest species still alive today, horseshoe crabs evolved about 300 million years ago — predating dinosaurs by some 100 million years.

If you’re on the water this summer, you can participate in a horseshoe crab monitoring study organized by the Long Island Horseshoe Crab Network and headed by Dr. John T. Tanacredi. The group says:

Anyone sighting a horseshoe crab, along the coast of Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island, is asked to make report through this form from May 1st. The information to be collected includes name, address, telephone number and e-mail of the reporter, date, time, location and condition of tide, number of Horseshoe Crabs, number living and dead, male, and female at sighting. Instructions are available for determining sex and measuring size by clicking this link.

This season will be the second year of data collection for this multi-year study. The data collected will be used to identify horseshoe crab population trends and to target sites for future research.

In honor of a creature who has evolved very little, check out Creatures of Accident, a Science & the City podcast with zoologist Wallace Arthur explaining how simple creatures evolved into complex ones via the accidental processes of duplication and divergence.

Last month the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative brokered an agreement with leading pharmaceutical companies to bring down the price of 16 medicines critical to fighting HIV/AIDS. The deal represents major progress on the foundation’s goal of making high-quality treatment equally available to people in need and represents the kind of good that non-governmental humanitarian organizations can achieve.

In a panel discussion with Bill Gates at the XVI International AIDS Conference, Bill Clinton discussed the importance of public-private partnernships, saying:

I think one of the things we try to do is make sure that we are all working together because any other option is crazy, it’s ego over people’s lives. I mean, people will die insofar as we waste money rowing our own boat when we could be working together. People will stay alive, more likely, if we squeeze every last impact out of every last dollar we spend.

But the collaboration between governments and NGOs is not always easy. Several events taking place in New York this week highlight the recent successes and ongoing challenges faced by global humanitarian organizations.

Today, an event entitled Public Private Partnerships in HIV/AIDS: Are They Working? Lessons from Botswana and the African Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Partnerships offered a panel discussion on the lessons learned from The African Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Partnerships, an organization that aims to achieve an AIDS-free generation in Botswanna by 2016 — a potentially daunting goal as recent estimates suggest 17.1% of Botswana’s 1.7 million people are HIV-positive.

Also this week, A Conversation With Doctors Without Borders: The Struggle for Humanitarian Space, a panel discussion with Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières aid workers, will address the challenges of delivering humanitarian assistance to people caught in the world’s most dangerous conflicts.

For more on AIDS and public health, check out these podcasts:

• The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative — a Science & the City interview with public health expert Seth Berkley

• Doctors Without Borders Frontline Report for May 2006 — which includes a discussion of the struggle to improve access in developing countries to critical new AIDS drugs.

Also check out:

• A Long and Winding Road: A Search for the AIDS Vaccine — summaries and audio recordings of presentations from the 2005 conference sponsored by NYAS and the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition.

It’s a sorry state of affairs when two young bloggers can draw crowds on a national speaking tour about America’s crisis communicating about science. Are scientists and the public really so inept at understanding each other?

Journalist Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science, and strategic communication expert Matthew Nisbet, a professor of communications at American University, offer help.

They’ve teamed up to give a presentation that aims to help scientists better communicate with the public. Drawing on case studies from the battles over stem cell research, evolution, global warming, hurricanes, and other subjects, and by exposing public opinion and media coverage of science issues, they coach scientists to frame old science stories in new ways, and to use the media to target specific audiences.

Mooney and Nisbet laid out the simple idea behind their speaking tour— “…scientists should package their research to resonate with specific segments of the public”—in a Washington Post article published in April. Perhaps more interesting than their essay is the stream of comments following it —evidence that the public is upholding their end of the conversation.

Catch Mooney and Nisbet live on Monday evening, June 4, at the Academy as they present Framing Science: The Road to 2008 and Beyond.

If theater is, as W. R. Inge said, a reflection of life, it stands to follow that practically every kind of person is likely to be represented on the stage. Yet even though theater audiences have embraced plays featuring pirates, trains, and African animals, there have been few plays about scientists.

Why are scientific themes — so important in this technology-driven modern era — rarely explored in drama? What barriers prevent producers from bringing science to the stage?

Chemist-turned-playwright, Carl Djerassi suggests in his essay, Contemporary “Science-in-Theatre”: A Rare Genre, that audiences might perceive a play about science as too educational. He writes :

The standard dictionary definition of didactic—“designed or intended to teach”—sounds harmless enough, and especially to a scientist, who after all is primed to write nothing but didactic prose. But listen to the literati say the word and the pejorative overtone is clear. “Didactic” is the sharpest stiletto in any dismissive review of a work of fiction or drama. People do not pick up a novel or go to the theatre to be educated, the professionals tell us — people go to be entertained.

Luckily, this summer’s spate of science-in-theater performances seem likely to entertain as as well as teach. Theater buffs with an interest in science might want to check out:

• Phallacy — a new play by Carl Djerassi, the chemist responsible for the birth control pill. The play, staged at the Cherry Lane Theater, tells the story of a struggle between an art historian and the chemist whose analysis casts doubt on the provenance of a Roman sculpture.
• Inherit the Wind — a new Broadway production starring Christopher Plummer and Brian Dennehy in Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s legendary 1955 drama about the Scopes “Monkey Trial.”
• Einstein’s Dreams — a workshop version of a new musical by Albert Innaurato, based on the novel by Alan Lightman.
• SeaChange: Reversing the Tide — a performance piece which combines the knowledge of science with the wisdom of poetry to argue compellingly that man an integral part of life’s complex web.

Learn more about science on the stage…

In this podcast, Carl Djerassi, “father” of the birth control pill and the playwright behind Phallacy, speaks to Science & the City about his journey from the lab to the theater and the difference between science fiction and science in fiction.

A former World Bank transportation economist named Gabriel Roth is critical of Mayor Bloomberg’s recent proposal to reduce emissions by charging a premium to drive on city streets during rush hours. Roth says the plan, which would impose an $8 fee to drive a car below 86th St. between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., would be little more than a commuter tax and would make hardly noticeable changes in traffic volume or speed.

To read more about the proposal, which mimics a successful policy in the UK, see the recent NYAS eBriefing, Congestion Pricing for New York: Lessons from London.

Roth, the editor of Street Smart: Competition, Entrepreneurship and the Future of Roads, said in a New York Times Op-Ed piece on Sunday:

If Mayor Bloomberg is really serious about his proposal, he needs to explain where road pricing will help reduce the amount of time commuters waste each day in traffic; assure those for whom the proposed charges would create hardship that alternatives will exist; develop a more sophisticated pricing system that recognizes that traffic patterns vary by place and time, and identify highway facilities that could be improved when payments by users exceed costs.

The proposal is one feature of the Bloomberg administration’s plaNYC, unveiled last month during Earth Day festivities. The ambitious 25-year agenda aims to:
• Reduce global warming emissions by more than 30%
• Achieve the cleanest air of any big city in America
• Clean up all contaminated land in New York City
• Open 90% of our waterways for recreation by reducing water pollution and preserving our natural areas.

To learn more or to get in on the action, consider attending one of these upcoming meetings:

June 5, 6:00 - 7:30 p.m., greeNYC meeting at Academy
June 11, 6:00 - 8:00 pm, Climate Change in NYC: How Should Architects, Engineers and Planners Adapt? at the Municipal Art Society of New York

Or, check out these S&C podcasts for more on climate change issues:
Albert Appleton on Urban Sustainability
Dave Jones on Raising America’s Environmental IQ
James Lovelock on The Revenge of Gaia
John Fitzpatrick on how Birds Speak for Nature

A decade ago there were almost no privately owned cars in China. In 2005, there were almost 25 million and analysts predict the Chinese car market will grow 20-25% in 2007.

China is in a state of “hypermotorization” — where the rapid growth of car ownership has outstripped the ability of public and private infrastructure to meet demand. Aside from increased traffic congestion, new cars also mean more urban air pollution; not good news for Beijing, which was named the air pollution capital of the world in 2005 and will host the 2008 Olympic games.

In a dress rehearsal of sorts for efforts by the city to reduce smog and airborne contaminants during the Olympics, the Chinese government imposed restrictions that took an estimated 800,000 of Beijing’s 2.82 million vehicles off the road during the three day Sino-African Summit in November 2005.

Researchers from Harvard University and Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute used measurements taken from space to evaluate Beijing’s air quality before, during and after the conference. They found that the reduction in vehicle emissions resulting from the restrictions temporarily reduced nitrogen oxide levels by 40%.

As China’s economy booms, the country will have to make decisions that balance environmental and quality of life concerns with the car-owning desires of a burgeoning middle class.

Lee Schipper and Wei-Shiuen Ng, editors of the forthcoming book, Urban Transport Options in China: The Challenge to Choose will speak Thursday about China’s urban transport system.

Click here for more information about the event.

If you’re interested in urban planning, you might also enjoy these podcasts from Science & the City:

• Jeffrey Sachs Is Sustainable Development Feasible?
• Albert Appleton Urban Sustainability
• Carol Willis Skyscraper Science