Ready, set, go -- you have two years to build a better solar home.

Teams from Stanford and Santa Clara University are participating in the sixth Solar Decathlon, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

A project of the U.S. Department of Energy, the contest involves designing, building and putting online a home that creates all of the energy it needs.

The houses are judged on energy output and affordability as well as "aesthetic" touches, like design and feel. Points are deducted if the cost to build the house exceeds $250,000, so frugality is key.

The homes are assembled on campus but then disassembled and trucked to the competition site in Orange County, where crews have eight days to put them back together again. In other words, it's a mobile solar home design that can be put to use by normal citizens following the contest.

Santa Clara teams placed third in 2009 and 2007, the newspaper reported. This year, the school's builders met six days a week to build a bamboo home. Stanford's entry is all about tech, with a central core module that contains a "hard drive" -- i.e. all of the power, pipes and appliances.

Students get $100,000 in start-up money to start building their homes but then must raise the rest. Stanford's team budgeted $1 million for their home, and Santa Clara is trying to raise $900,000.

Building will continue all summer, with the house contest on Oct. 3 in Irvine.

No one’s debating whether the Bay Area should have a bike sharing program. They’re just arguing over whether it will be pretty successful -- or super-wildly successful.
   
As the program edges closer to launching in August, bicycling advocates say the program’s initial launch of 700 bikes just won’t cut it.
    
“When you look at Washington D.C.’s experience,” said Leah Shahum of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, “they started too small and it really hindered the program.”
    
The prime movers of the $7 million project, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, plan to spread 70 kiosks from San Jose to San Francisco, with the bulk in San Francisco.
    
People will pay an annual membership fee to “check-out” the bikes. They’ll have 30 minutes to ride the bike to another kiosk, or pay an hourly fee after 30 minutes. They’ll have the option to check out another bike.
   
“The idea is to help folks to be able to connect from one place to another,” said Karen Schkolnick, of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, “like say from a transit stop to their home, to their work.”
   
The bicycle advocates want the program to begin with 3,000 bikes and then expand. On Tuesday, San Francisco’s Board Of Supervisors passed a resolution calling on the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency to launch a full program with 3,000 bikes by 2014.
    
Schkolnick said the air district wants to see how the program fares before expanding. She said the initial offering is limited by funding.  
   
“So far there’s about seven million dollars that are going into this program,” Schkolnick said. “To expand we’re going to need some additional funding.”
    
Schkolnick said her agency estimates the program could eventually expand to between six to ten thousand bicycles.  The agency hasn’t yet determined the annual fees, but she expected it to be similar to New York’s bike share program, which runs about a $100 a year.
      
Bike Share programs are already popular in Washington D.C., Minneapolis and Miami. Unlike bike rentals, bike sharing is aimed at short trips.
   
“This is really being seen as a great extension of the Caltrain service in particular,” said Shahum. “For people that maybe take Caltrain but need their bike for an extra mile or two, it’s a great option.”
    
Bicyclist and Peninsula-based Caltrain commuter Ryan Berggren imagined the program coming in handy on days when he didn’t have his bike with him.   
   
“I don’t like taking cabs and sometimes walking’s rough,” Berggren said. “So if there’s drop off points, U-Haul-like thing… could be cool.”
    
Organizers of the program are hoping people will get a taste of bicycling, and go on to buy their own bikes. In San Francisco, the bikes will include GPS, so the program can follow how people use the bikes.  

Ben Cowden pushed a shopping cart toward a mound of garbage, mentally sifting through its heap of grimy contents. He dug into a pile, flipping an unrecognizable gizmo into his cart, smiling at the find.

With his castoff treasures rattling in the cart, he wheeled back toward his art studio in San Francisco's Recology Recycling Plant to continue work. "Really, the things I see the most coming through are televisions and microwaves," Cowden said. "And toilets for some reason -- a lot of toilets."

Cowden isn't interested in toilets or microwaves. But the motor from a copy machine, a bowling bowl, and an umbrella denuded of its fabric have all found their way into his mechanical art contraptions.

Back in the studio, he blows into the tip of what appears to be a black and red umbrella, launching it into a heaving motion reminiscent of breathing. In another device, the motor from a windshield wiper propels a pair of colorful paddles made from kite parts and plumbing pipe into a swimming motion.

"I'm surprised at the amount of perfect good things that come through," he said, gesturing toward a pile of miscellaneous items some might mistake for regular old garbage.

Cowden, along with fellow artist Ian Treasure, are the current artists in residence at the Recology plant.

In a tenure that began in February, the two artists are spending four months rummaging through the loads of trash, finding items to turn into art. The things they find inspire the art, they said.

"There's furniture, there's tools, there's sometimes money," said the appropriately named Treasure. "There's fixtures, fittings, woods -- virtually anything you can think of."

Among Treasure's mechanical pieces, was a motor-powered treadmill track striped to look like a road, with a small yellow taxi car running in place.

He called the piece, "Road to Nowhere." In another installation, Treasure was in the midst of installing motor-powered rulers on a dozen school desks that would slap the desks with a syncopated thwack.

"Like when I was in school when I was a kid," smiled Treasure. Somewhere, buried in the mounds of Recology's trash was an ecological message of some kind. 

"Not that you have to make artwork out of all your trash, but there is a different way to look at these things," said Cowden. "Just because you don't want it doesn't mean it's completely useless."

The artists will continue salvaging, tinkering and pondering uses for things, their manufacturers never imagined.

It will all culminate in an art show in Recology's studios starting May 17.

Perhaps, guests will recognize their broken umbrella, or a failed kite, or a semi-functioning telescope - never imagining how imperfect things can sometimes make perfect art.

A smartphone, a Smart Car -- and now a smart thermostat.

A "learning" thermostat designed by two former Apple engineers -- who also just so happened to have led the teams that created the iPhone and iPod -- is now being touted by utility companies across the country, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

A "big Earth Day" for the company indeed, as the newspaper reported.

The thermostat is called "Nest," and the $249 devices connects to the Internet via Wi-Fi and can be controlled remotely via a smartphone. The device "learns" household energy habits, and "learns" to do things like turn on the air conditioning when you get home from work.

Nest inked partnerships with utilities like Southern California Edison and others on Monday, the newspaper reported. Customers with the utilities get a discount.

We’ve all passed a formerly vacant lot, only to see it’s been seized and taken over by gardeners. There are rows of vegetables, maybe a few flowers and a sculpture of some sort.

The sculpture in San Francisco’s Alemany Farm is a full-sized windmill. That should tell you everything you need to know about its agricultural girth.

The farm, flanked at all sides by freeways, public housing or the slope of Bernal Heights, is carved out of a former junkyard. In the 1990s, the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners transformed the 3 1/2 acre site into a sprawling garden with avocado trees, artichoke bushes and lavender shrubs.

But the organization folded, the money ran out and the weeds reclaimed the site. Several years ago, a new volunteer group called the Friends of the Alemany Garden took over the farm and whipped it back into shape -- in a rambling, English garden kind of way.  

“We grow food, show people how to garden,” said volunteer John Stokes, “expose people to ecological gardening.”

The group hosts school groups, tourists and companies wanting to get their employees’ hands dirty while putting in some community service.

On Earth Day, a group of volunteers from the Emeryville company Plum Organics pulled weeds at the farm, while others planted seeds as part of a company outing. 

“I think what’s happening in cities across America, unused space is being reclaimed as farm land,” Plum Organics founder Neil Grimmer said. “I think everyone wants to get back to the roots of where our food comes from.”

Shirley Cornelius, who lives next door in the Alemany Public Housing Development, said the sprawling farm has become the backyard garden of the entire neighborhood. 

“Anybody from anywhere can come and harvest whatever they need,” said Cornelius, who remembered the lot when it was overgrown and filled with abandoned refrigerators.

On a warm Monday, Red-winged Blackbirds flitted back and forth from the farm’s swampy pond to an olive tree. Artichokes perched on shrubs and tiny leaves concealed strawberries. Across from the farm, the din of three levels of freeway traffic buzzed incessantly, reminding visitors the farm was indeed in the midst of a city.

Volunteer Brett Stephens scanned the landscape of trees and fennel plants, taking in the urbanized fauna.

“That’s why we volunteer,” Stephens said, “cause we like to see this place exist.”

A Seattle office building billed as the greenest in the world and powered entirely by a massive solar paneled roof is celebrating its grand opening Monday under the city's usual threat of cloudy skies.

If the clouds hold up, they'll provide an appropriate backdrop for the official unveiling of a project that aims not only to abide by the world’s strictest environmental standards, but also prove that anyone, anywhere, can heed its example.

"We wanted to show that you could in fact harvest enough sun beams on the roof of a six-story structure in Seattle to give all of the energy that is needed by a super-efficient building," said Denis Hayes, CEO of the Bullitt Foundation, the lead backer of the Bullitt Center. "In Seattle, most people don't think they can power their one-story houses with the sun that hits their roofs, so doing a multi-story office, I think, is an important demonstration."

Proving that sunshine can take the place of the fluorescent light bulbs that hum above the heads of most office-bound Americans, the building is also equipped with floor-to-ceiling windows that provide natural lighting to 82 percent of the 50,000-square-foot building.

For the last month, Hayes points out, the Seattle skies have been filled with clouds, and still, no one at the Bullitt Center has found the need to flick on a light switch during normal business hours.

"We've never had to turn on even task lighting inside," he said. "From 7:30 in the morning until 6:30 at night, it's perfectly well lit."

Nature also fills the building’s ventilation needs. Rather than rely on a power-draining air conditioning system, the Bullitt Center is equipped with operable windows that automatically open and close to adjust to temperature changes, both inside and outside.

But the building's smart design and technology alone are not enough to achieve its ambitious energy goals. To qualify for the Living Building Challenge, the most rigorous sustainable building certification in the world, the building must produce as much energy (and water) as it uses, among a host of other requirements.

To meet the energy goals in particular, tenants are required to stick to a strict power quota and pay overage charges if they don't. They’re also encouraged to choose the stairs over the elevator and anything over driving to work. As an incentive to consider those transportation alternatives, the Bullitt Center does not provide onsite parking for cars, though it does provide a garage for bicycles. It also  highlights the number of bus lines and Zipcars available within a half mile of the building (21 and 24, respectively).

Living Proof: Building the Bullitt Center from Brad Kahn on Vimeo.

So far, the stringent requirements have not appeared to scare tenants away. As of Friday, the building was 80 percent occupied and Hayes predicted that it would be filled by summer.

"The now-completely outdated concept of environmentally-sound buildings as a little bit granola-ish, dark, cramped and uncomfortable, is just wrong," Hayes said. "What you have here is the healthiest building in which we will have incredibly happy people surrounded by daylight."

However the experiment plays out will play out transparently so observers mulling similar projects will be able to learn from the Bullitt Center's endeavor. The first two floors of the building will be open to students, policy makers, and the plain curious, who are interested in learning more about green living and construction. The Bullitt Center will also make public a database it researched and compiled that lists suppliers of toxic-free building materials and may guide others working on similar projects.

Hayes and his team didn’t set out to be role models. Initially the Bullitt Foundation, which was located in what was previously a carriage house, simply wanted to revamp their space so they could "walk” the environmentally-conscious talk. But since the structure was historically protected, they ran into roadblocks and decided it would be more reasonable to build a new structure from scratch so they could have the flexibility to be more innovative.

"We considered doing a small [project] that just would be suitable for us, but then we decided — no. Proving that an environmental foundation could be comfortable in an environmentally goal-oriented building doesn't prove anything,” Hayes said. “We had to build something and lease it out like a commercial person would. We invested a third of our total endowment. This is not a grant that we made. This is an investment and it has to perform for us.”

As of Monday, the foundation was advertising space for just two remaining units: A 2,077-square-foot space that boasts 11-foot ceilings with operable windows, and a 7,949-square-foot suite with an outdoor terrace and showers for bike commuters in need of a rinse.

Hayes, one of the founders of Earth Day who has seen major environmental victories over the course of his four-decade career, acknowledges, but is undeterred by the obstacles to green building. There are zoning and building code challenges, as he encountered when attempting to modify the historically protected carriage house. There are appraisers who often incentivize features that leave a larger environmental footprint over those that do not.

But he's optimistic that over time, pure demand will force the laws to change, incentivize banks to give loans to green projects and transform what is now a niche experiment into the norm.

"I really genuinely believe that during my daughter’s lifetime, this sort of building is going to be commonplace,” Hayes said.

There is no shortage of ways to be a tree hugger today.

To celebrate Earth Day, the Environmental Protection Agency has offered a list of things around the country - and in the Bay Area - to do on Monday, which range from a big San Francisco Earth Day Festival, complete with "sustainability discussions" and music, to the 7th annual Lafayette Earth Day Celebration, complete with an organic lunch and live music.

There are also upcoming events this weekend in Santa Clara County, including Spring in Guadalupe Gardens on Saturday in San Jose and the California Native Plant Society's 40th Annual Wildflower Show this weekend at Mission College in Santa Clara. For South Bay countywide events, click here.

For a more complete list of Earth Day activities, click here.

In addition to activities, several businesses are trying to cash in on Mother Earth too, by offering deals on sustainable and environmentally conscious products. To find out more, click here.

Earth Day is now celebrated worldwide, in nearly 200 countries across the globe.

It was born at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco in 1969.

Earth Day is here and there is no shortage of opportunities to do something nice for the planet.

The Environmental Protection Agency published a list of events that are taking place across the country to help us honor and celebrate Earth Day.  But for those who are less interested in planting trees and more interested in saving the green in their wallets, here are some great deals that also happen to be great for the earth.

The Body Shop - Use coupon code 3MINUTE for any online or in-store purchase and receive a free 8.4 ounce Earth Lovers shower gel. Valid on April 22 only.

Disney Store: Recycle five plastic shopping bags at the store on April 22 and receive a free "Brave" or "Cars 2" reusable shopping bag.

Caribou Coffee - Bring in your own travel mug and fill up with a free cup of coffee on April 22.

EVOS - The healthy fast food chain is giving out free organic milkshakes on April 22.

Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores - The first 50 customers at every store will receive a free tote bag.

Pottery Barn -  Visit the store between April 20 and 22 and kids get a free packet of seeds to plant at home.

National Parks - National Park Week comes right on the heels of Earth Day, which means earth lovers can enjoy all that nature has to offer for free. National parks are offering free admission from April 22 to 26.

H&M - This isn't billed as an Earth Day deal, but the planet will thank you: Bring in a bag of used clothes and receive a voucher for a discount on your next purchase. The donated clothes will be recycled or used for raw material for new products.

Best Buy - Save up to 25 percent on appliances until April 27.

Travelocity - The travel site is offering earth-friendly vacations that start at $76.

Twenty years ago, if you showed up at the supermarket with your own bags, you'd elicit eye-rolling and mockery. These days, however, failure to bring your own bags is seen as a moral failing that can inspire a different flavor of eye-rolling. There remain several similarly easy lifestyle changes we could all be making that could have just as big an impact. We've identified five:

Turn off your computer
According to the Department of Energy, if you're walking away from your computer for more than two hours, you should turn it off. Over the course of a year, you can save nearly $100 by some estimates. Now imagine if you turned off both you work and home computer every day? And you might as well turn off your iPad while you're at it.

Pay your bills online
You hate writing checks, you hate opening bills, you hate buying stamps, you hate forgetting to go to the mailbox… What part of paper bill paying do you like? Spare us this nonsense about how you don’t trust computers: They’ve had access to your money since ATMs appeared 40 years ago. Think of all the bills you get each month: cable, credit card, cellphone, mortgage, electricity, heat, gas. If everyone went paperless for all their bills, it could add up to a lot of trees.

Keep a fork and spoon at your desk
We get that disposable cutlery can come in handy in many situations — picnics, parties and the like. But, according to WorldCentric.org, Americans use roughly 40 billion plastic utensils every year, which translates to roughly total of 275 million pounds of plastic. It's a problem that's easily fixed: Bring metal cutlery to work and stop throwing away those plastic utensils. People wash their hands and brush their teeth at work. Would washing a fork or knife be so difficult?

Use the short cycle on the washing machine
For most white-collar workers, the regular cycle on your washing machine is probably a little more firepower than you need on a day-to-day basis. Honestly, how dirty are you getting sitting at your desk? Try the short cycle on your washing machine. You'll save water and electricity, and you probably won't even notice the difference. Using cold water and a little less detergent will help, too. The average home does about 400 loads a year, so these small changes can add up.

Update your thermostat
Yes, this one requires a little time and money, but has the potential for huge savings. According to the DOE, properly setting your thermostat can shave as much as 15% off your home heating and cooling bills — with a programmable thermostat, you don't need to think about it. The programmable thermostat has been around for a few years now, but setting them was so complicated that most people didn’t bother. Newer models, however, don’t require an engineering degree. Among the easier to install is one from a company called Nest. In about 30 minutes you can have the thing mounted on your wall and set to change the temperature multiple times a day. Nest estimates (PDF) they can save you an average of $173 annually, which means the unit pays for itself in about 18 months. Another great feature of the Nest is that you can control it remotely, via smart phone, tablet or computer. Forgot to turn off the heat before going on vacation? Pull out your phone. Flying home on a cold winter day? Pull out your phone and your home will be nice and warm when you there.

Now that President Barack Obama’s so-called “two-year silence” on climate change has given way to new promises, a question hangs over Washington: What exactly is he going to do?

One of the few things that appear certain is he won’t go to Congress for help. Obama seems to have given up on that strategy, which failed in his first term, when lawmakers refused to adopt more stringent limits on greenhouse-gas emissions.

For a long time after that, including his re-election campaign, the president dropped climate change from his talking points, angering the environmental community. That silence didn’t end until he made it safely back to office.

Obama threw down the gauntlet in his inaugural address, and again in his February State of the Union speech, saying that if Congress didn’t move on a “bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change,” he’d manage on his own, by pushing rule changes at the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy and other regulatory offices under his control. He nominated new members of his cabinet to press for those changes.

But Obama hasn’t said much since then. Much of that has to do with a barrage of more pressing concerns: gun control, immigration reform, and, now, the bombings in Boston.

But while the silence on climate change may be disconcerting to environmental activists, it doesn’t necessarily mean the issue is returning to the depths of Obama’s domestic agenda.

That’s because Obama’s new strategy doesn’t require him to take his case to lawmakers, or the public, for that matter. This time, he’s working behind the scenes.

“The president has put a very visible take in the ground in his State of the Union and inauguration speeches, and so he’d be hard-pressed, and his people would be hard-pressed, not to take a host of actions allowed under the law,” said Philip Sharpe, president of Resources for the Future, a non-partisan environmental think tank.

So, as Obama rushes from one crisis to another and spars with Congress on all sorts of contentious issues, he’ll be free to work within his administration on new regulations to control heat-trapping pollution from power plants, to tighten emissions standards on cars and to set new efficiency standards for appliances.

Guns, immigration, terrorism — none of those ongoing issues should derail the environmental effort, Sharpe said.

“Is all this public activity detracting from the issue? Of course it detracts from the president’s ability to make it a big public agenda item, to educate the public and bring along more groups,” Sharpe said. “It is a diminished opportunity, but not a deal killer.”

But there is a limit to the president’s power. And there remain political and economic considerations he has to make. So Obama’s regulatory push is expected to be more modest than what environmentalists hope to see — and what is needed to slow global warming.

Another big test will be the president’s decision on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would deliver oil derived from the tar sands of Canada to Texas. Environmentalists oppose the plan because it would produce more greenhouse gases. But the project would also lead to new jobs and create a new source of oil from a friendly source.

Obama is widely viewed as leaning toward approving the pipeline.

“A lot of environmental groups are making it a litmus test for the administration on whether they’ll take action on the climate,” Sharpe said. “It’s going to be interesting to see how the administration handles this.”

Denis Hayes dropped out of Harvard's Kennedy School in 1970 to help organize the first Earth Day—an event that mobilized more than 20 million Americans and helped pave the way for the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency.

That day, some planted trees and cleaned up parks as a rowdier set took to the streets to demand reform from corporations they accused of recklessly harming the planet. In Minneapolis, protestors crashed a General Electric stockholders’ meeting; others in Washington delivered dead, oil-soaked ducks to the steps of the Department of the Interior. Congress adjourned for the day as lawmakers from both parties capitalized on what NBC News characterized then as the “most popular and least risky election issue” of the time. 

Over the next two decades, Earth Day continued to evolve. In 1990, Hayes, who had been pursuing a host of other enviornmental endeavors, returned to push it internationally. Two years later he was tapped to lead the Bullitt Foundation, a Seattle-based environmental company that is slated to formally open one of the greenest corporate buildings on the planet this Earth Day.

Leading up to the anniversary of one of the hallmarks of his career, Hayes looks back at the birth of popular environmentalism, the progress of the movement, and the challenges of addressing a threat that “dwarfs earlier perils”: climate change.

Here are his thoughts on key environmental issues, in his own words:

On the success of the first Earth Day:
At the time, the vast majority of people, 95 percent of Americans, could not have given you a coherent explanation of what the word "environment" meant. We were really taking this huge array of issues that did have constituencies—people worried about DDT, people worried about endangered species or the American military dropping Agent Orange on Vietnam—and we lumped them all together under a new banner.

We were hoping it would be successful and had no expectation that it would be three or four times larger than the largest anti-war rally back then.

Why climate change is a tougher adversary than the environmental villains of the 1970s:
The most important thing is visibility. When the first Earth Day came in 1970, for much of the year if you walked around Los Angeles it was like walking around Beijing today—the air pollution was so thick you could almost cut it with a knife. Pollution was a visible thing that you could taste and you could smell and was linked to rivers catching on fire and very serious warnings that unless we reverse course, the Great Lakes would become biologically sterile. So this visible tangible kind of thing was something  that you could mobilize people around much more easily than you can an invisible gas that has no smell, has no taste.

I mean heavens—every time we breathe, we emit carbon dioxide. It’s hard to cast it as a villain the way you could with the components of smog, for example. So it's just a much more nuanced issue and yet with incredible capacity to change the world into a type of environment that has not existed since the evolution of Homo sapiens. That’s a tough issue.

On the public's interest in environmental reform:
I think that [the public has] the same level of concern now for things that immediately affect themselves and their families, their neighborhoods and their nation that are easily identified, which is what we were able to capitalize on back then. But with regard to the climate issue, it is much more difficult to get people to get their arms around intellectually and it’s much more difficult to come up with a solution or series of solutions in the current anti-tax, anti-regulatory environment.  

Remember, in 1970 we had a Republican president who was okay with signing a Clean Air Act and creating an Environmental Protection Agency, and that has just dramatically changed. Richard Nixon, for all of his conservatism, was arguably more progressive than the majority of the current democratic members of Congress.

On getting climate change legislation passed after President Obama's first and only attempt—the American Clear Energy and Security Act—was squashed by Congress in 2009:
The climate legislation that was proposed was 1,400 pages long, breathtakingly complicated, laced with tons of loopholes that were put in there by various special interests in order to get a vote here and there and it was based on a cap-and-trade premise that had already pretty much failed when applied in Europe. So that’s kind of a tough thing to mobilize a vast constituency around.

If we had a solution that was two pages long—I'll be realistic, twenty pages long— that was very clear, that had provisions in it that people can comprehend, had a straight-forward solution to a problem and we did not have the relentless drumbeat of Fox News and the anti-science folks who manage to command the airwaves and the digital sphere today, there is no question in my mind that two-thirds or three quarters of the American public that cares about this issue and wants to get it solved could be mobilized.

The movement has not put together the right kinds of vehicles … we’re beginning to see some of that, the 350.org organization—but we need to get vastly more of that to people with the large constituencies. 

On the legacy of Earth Day:
[Earth Day has] been hugely vibrant in that sense all the way through the United States, something on the order of 90,000 schools still annually participate in it. Then in 1990 we took it internationally and is now out there in more than 170 counties and serves each year as what I genuinely believe is the largest secular holiday in the world.

If you were in the human rights field or the anti-war field I think you would love to have an instrument like Earth Day that every year gives people pause—a chance to reflect upon the values that you’re promoting.

Climate change could dampen spirits. Literally.

That's according to a new worldwide analysis of global warming on wine production, which appeared this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers found the area suitable for wine production will shrink by as much as 73 percent by 2050 in certain parts of the globe — about 70 percent in California — with high potential for stress on rivers and other freshwater ecosystems, as vineyards use water to cool grapes or irrigate to compensate for rising temperatures and declining rainfall. 

Scientists, including those at Stanford University, have long known that land suitable for winegrowing was in deep trouble because of the heating of the Earth.

But the new study suggests wine production will shift to new areas — such as the Rocky Mountains near the Canadian-U.S. border and New Zealand — as climate change makes the existing ones less hospitable.

The move, the scientists say, puts other species, such as the grizzly bear, gray wolf and pronghorn, at risk.

"Climate change is going to move potential wine-producing regions all over the map," Lee Hannah, the study's lead author and senior scientist for climate change biology at Conservation International's new Betty and Gordon Moore Center for Ecosystem Science and Economics, said in a statement.

"These global changes put the squeeze on wildlife and nature's capacity o sustain human life in some surprising places," Hannah said. "Consumer awareness, industry and conservation actions are all needed to help keep high quality wine flowing without unintended consequences for nature and the flows of goods and services it provides people. This is just the tip of the iceberg — the same will be true for many other crops."

The researchers looked at nine major wine producing areas: California, Western North America, Chile, Mediterranean Europe, Northern Europe, Cape Floristic region of South Africa, parts of Australia with Mediterranean climate, parts of Australia with non-Mediterranean climate and New Zealand.

Most American wine comes from the West Coast — Napa and Santa Barbara Counties in California, Yamhill County in Oregon's Willamette Valley and Walla Walla County in Washington's Columbia Valley.

California alone, according to Stanford, produces on average more than 5 million gallons per year, accounting for about 90 percent of the nation's total wine production, according to the Wine Institute, a trade organization representing California winemakers. The institute estimated the retail value of the state's wine industry in 2010 at $18.5 billion.

With nearly 1,100 sea lions found ill and stranded on Southern California beaches this year, rehabilitation facilities are full, and newly sick marine mammals must be treated on the sand, a federal scientist said Thursday.

The stranding epidemic — mostly affecting sea lion pups born last year — began in January and has not ceased since, said Sarah Wilkin of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on a conference call with reporters Thursday.

The pups, which are part of a broader "robust and healthy" sea lion population in California, are being found underweight, suffering from starvation and dehydration, she said.

"You can see bones through their skin," Wilkin said.

Wilkin, who is the coordinator for NOAA's stranding program in California, said an initial hypothesis is that the high number of sick young sea lions is due to "environmental factors that would limit prey availability for the pups."

Pups are being likely disproportionately affected because they're not as experienced in foraging for alternate prey, and they can't swim as deep or as far as older animals, Wilkin said.

Last week, after a review of the evidence by an international scientific panel, NOAA declared the stranding epidemic an "unusual mortality event." The title comes even though most of the animals stranded are still alive when found, Wilkin noted.

About 20 to 30 percent of those sea lions that have entered facilities have died – a figure that's fairly low for wildlife rehab work, Wilkin said.

With the "unusual mortality event" designation, NOAA is forming a team of scientists to investigate the causes of the illnesses. In addition to looking at prey-related causes, researchers will also consider infectious diseases, parasites, and toxins and pollution in the water as causes of the strandings.

The 1,100 figure is for sea lion standings from Santa Barbara County south to San Diego County, she said.

In Northern California, 83 strandings have been reported. The numbers correspond to animals that have entered rehab facilities, she said.

Those figures will likely go down as facilities are unable to accept new sea lions, she said.

Those pups being found going forwarded will be triaged at the beach, sometimes being moved away from the public, and left under observation, Wilkin said. Lifeguards began helping out last month.

Rescuers will try to find rehab spots for the worst cases, she said.

The first puck of the 2013 NHL season finally drops Saturday after a 113-day labor dispute wiped out 510 games -- nearly half the entire season. But now that labor peace has been restored, something a little more surprising -- and much more difficult to solve -- threatens the long-term future of hockey: climate change.

Hockey was born more than 150 years ago in Canada, where the defining image of childhood is kids playing hockey on a frozen pond. Those kids serve an important purpose to the NHL: From the ponds come the next generation of hockey players and fans.

But as the average temperature across the globe has risen, the outdoor skating season in Canada and the northern U.S. has begun to shrink, as temperatures cold enough to keep the ice safely frozen becoming rarer and rarer.

David Phillips, a senior climatologist at Environment Canada, says the message from the data is loud and clear.

"It's not as cold and white as it used to be," he said. "If you look across the country, the one season that has shown truly dramatic changes in the last 65 years are winters."

The NHL is aware of the threat posed by climate change, and players have tried to raise awareness. In 2006, the Boston Bruins' Andrew Ference spearheaded a carbon-neutral movement with the David  Suzuki Foundation, getting more than 500 players to buy carbon offsets for all the travel they do during the season.

The NHL runs NHL Green, a web site dedicated to raising awareness of issues such as global warming. Headlines on the site warn of impending doom: Canada's Rinks Now Need Cooling, and Pond Hockey in Peril.

Across the whole of Canada, the average winter (December through February) temperature has risen  about 5 degrees, said Phillips. The increase has been most severe in Northern British Columbia, the Yukon and Northwest Territories, where the temperatures have jumped more than 9 degrees — making a frozen pond much rarer.

The rise in temperature has shortened the outdoor hockey season by as much as 15 days, according to a study released last year by Nikolay Damyanov at McGill University's Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.

The Suzuki Foundation in Canada has been fighting climate change since its inception almost 20 years ago, enlisting NHL players like Ference to help promote its cause. It's been a difficult fight -- even though 98% of Canadians believe climate change is real, the government was recently ranked fourth-worst in the world in terms of environmental policy.

"Here in Canada we're quite strong in natural resources," said Jean-Patrick Toussaint, head of science projects at the Suzuki Foundation, who noted that Canada was the first country to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. "Not only water, but we've also got the tar sands, and this has become a top priority for our current government, to make sure that there's continuous economic growth."

The problem does cross the border. Outdoor hockey is popular in America, too, as evidenced by the the NHL's Winter Classic, an annual outdoor showcase.  Five of the top six-rated regular season games since 1975 have been Winter Classics.

Last year, though, even the Winter Classic was threatened. The NHL had to delay the game between the Rangers and Flyers at Philadelphia's Citizens Bank Park until later in the day to ensure temperatures were low enough to keep the ice frozen

Rising temperatures have endangered the U.S. Pond Hockey Championships in Minnesota since their inception in 2006, founder Fred Haberman said.

"Last year was one of the worst winters we've ever had for outdoor hockey," Haberman said. "If we'd tried to have the tournament last week, we would have had to cancel because it rained — it was 40 degrees.

"When I arrived in the Twin Cities (24 years ago), I was playing a minimum of 10 to 12 weeks outside. Today, we're lucky if we get eight."

Not only does the shortened outdoor hockey season deny aspiring NHLers countless hours of practice time, it also stunts their development because they grow accustomed to the perfectly groomed ice of indoor rinks, and so are less adept at handling bad hops.

"It's on these outdoor rinks where kids can just play and experiment, develop their skills without even realizing it," said Joe Pelletier of Greatest Hockey Legends. "Minor hockey is so structured nowadays that kids are essentially taught the game. But out on their own on the frozen ponds, kids actually learned the game. And the game was better off for it."

Ultimately, framing global warming as a hockey problem may be what forces Canada to confront the issue. If Canadians realize that climate change is slowly corroding not only the quality of hockey and the amount of hockey they can play in their backyard, they might force the government to act.

"The threat from climate change... Canadians are not worried about skinny polar bears," said Phillips, the climatologist at Environment Canada. "It's about, 'Gee -- will we have a white Christmas and will we be hockey players?' When it comes right down to it, it would probably drive us to action if people understood it in that way."

A Chinese businessman agitated by a polluted river devised a plan to address the problem. He is offering an environmental official $32,000 to swim in the dirty water, according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.

Jin Zengmin, chief executive of a eyeglasses retailer, will reward the official if he remains in the water for 20 minutes. His plan is to bring attention to the environmental concerns in China's eastern province.

He announced the dare on Sina Weibo, a China microblogging site similar to Twitter.

“If the environmental protection bureau chief dares to swim in [Ruian's] river for 20 minutes, I will pay  200,000 yuan [$32,062],” Jin wrote.

Jin also posted three photos of a river in Ruian, a small town in the east coast of China. In the photos, trash can be seen blocking the river's flow. Jin claims a rubber overshoe factory is to blame for refuse and industrial waste. 

Villagers used to use the river to wash vegetables and clothes during his childhood, Jin said to Chinanews.com.

When asked for a comment, Ruian’s environmental protection bureau chief, Bao Zhenmin, reportedly said that there was in fact a problem with pollution with the river, however he placed blame on the villagers, not the factories.

“Overpopulation of this region is the main reason behind the pollution…[The population] has largely exceeded the local environment’s capacity,” Bao told Chinanews.com.

Apparently there will be a new water recycling system put in place within three years that includes proper facilities for trash disposal, Bao said.

San Francisco is holding true to its green reputation with a day of free live music, eco-friendly art and speakers.

Civic Center Plaza will play host to Earth Day San Francisco, the day-long event featuring some of the best in Bay Area music and entertainment. The fun gets started Sunday around 10 a.m. and wraps up at 6 p.m.

Musical highlights:

Be sure to Check out Lafayette native Forrest Day. His band has been a local favorite for years.

They’ve got a full, rich sound that’s an infectious blend of rock, hip hop, ska, reggae and jazz.

Do yourself a favor and wear comfortable shoes because you’re going to want to dance. Forrest Day hits the “Earth Mother Stage” at 3:15.

Also- We’ve featured the pint-size rockers known as “The World’s Youngest Rock Band” on NBC Bay Area before.

The San Francisco natives met in pre-school and have been friends ever since. That’s a whopping eight years since they were all 11-years-old.

They’ve held their own on stages including at Candlestick Park and  Whiskey a Go Go in LA. They will take the Earth Mother Stage at 1:30 p.m.

Food:

The festival features a sustainable chef showcase. Some of the most renowned leaders in the raw food movement will share their tips in making everything from Italian dressing to chocolate food truffles.

Random:

You could reduce the sting of our effect on the environment by backyard beekeeping. That’s the philosophy behind the Marin Bee Company. They’ll share tips and material on how you could pick up the hobby at 1 p.m.

Whiskey Drunk Cycles describes themselves as a “20th century traveling bicycle show.” They’re mix of daredevils, inventors and entertainers that fit right into the Bay Area spirit of zanny innovation.

There’s also yoga, meditation, non-stop bhangra dancing, DIY green projects, eco-artists and tons of speakers to stimulate your minds.

The one thing there won’t be a lot of is parking so take advantage of their partnership with RideJoy to carpool, the bike valet, or catch Muni, BART and Caltrain.

Those with green thumbs will want to mark their calendars. This year’s Bay-Friendly Garden Tour is set for May 15 and runs the entire length of the Bay Area from Napa to Palo Alto.

The eighth annual tour guides folks to urban homesteads. Host gardeners include permaculturists, native plant enthusiasts, do-it-yourselfers and professional landscapers.

The gardens also represent the many different styles and varieties. You will see goats and chickens, fruits and vegetables, large and small gardens lovingly cared for by your neighbors.

The $10 for guidebook with descriptions and directions for all 68 host gardens can be purchased at this website www.BayFriendlyCoaliton.org.