Kate the Great - Don't be Late!

The Portsmouth Brewery is saving the planet one ticket at a time. This year’s Kate the Great event will support two environmental, non-profit organizations. The Brewery is pleased to announce that their partners this year are the Seacoast Land Trust of New Hampshire of Exeter, and the Center for Wildlife in York. The plan this year for the release of the world-famous Kate the Great stout was to sell scratch tickets at the Brewery for two dollars each, and they sold 10,000 of them. Out of those 10,000 tickets, 900 are the winners that will have the ability to come into the Brewery for a 22-ounce bottle for fifteen dollars starting on “Kate Day,” which is March 7th.

Kate the Great scratch tickets went on sale on January 29th, and were sold in only 28 hours. No need to fret, if you bought a ticket that was not a winner, you still have the ability to enter for the Second Chance Contest. The prize: a day of brewing with Head Brewer and mind behind Kate the Great, Todd Mott. If you did win, you can collect your prize bottle any time from March 7th to April 15th.

Since its release in 2005, the Russian Imperial Stout has become increasingly sought after, reeling in international followers to this event. Kate Day has become somewhat of a holiday for some, camping outside overnight to buy a pint of the beer ranked number two in the world in 2006, and the best beer in America that same year by Beer Advocate Magazine. General interest in Kate the Great has flourished into full Kate Mania. In fact, they added to the event a creative writing competition. The winner receives a bottle of Kate the Great, and the submission must be an essay, short fiction form, or poem related to Russian Imperial history or beer. The deadline is February 19th, so find some inspiration swiftly!

A remedy for your snow plowing and removal needs - Cornerstone Tree Care (and plowers!)

Winter's not over yet - in fact, more snow is in the forecast for the Seacoast next week. At this point, your back may be hurting from shoveling, and neck may be hurting from trying to see over the huge snowbanks that are blocking your view of the road. And that's dangerous!

But Micum Davis and his crew at Cornerstone Tree Care are on the scene to help. In addition to accepting new customers, he's got an awesome promotion where Green Alliance cardholders receive 25% off any plowing contract or individual plow job in Cornerstone's coverage area of Portsmouth, Rye, and Kittery (not including Kittery Point).

And if snow removal is your biggest problem, Cornerstone is also capable of hauling snow out of tight areas using his Bobcat A300. So whether you're a homeowner who wants snow plowed and removed, or a commercial property owner whose parking lot area seems to shrink with every storm, give Micum a call at 603-436-8733 and leave the snow removal to a contractor who knows his stuff! And he's always happy to talk with you about tree work, as Winter is an optimal time for pruning!

Old-Fashioned Durham Restaurant Shows New-fangled Ingenuity with Extensive Energy Audit and Improvements

Don’t let the name mislead you; Young’s Restaurant is not immature when it comes to green business practices. Owners Ken and Cathy Young have been dreaming in green since the inception of the Durham eatery almost forty-two years ago. Their most recent initiative is that of energy efficiency. Although Young’s has been making small changes to reduce energy use and costs for years, this year they leapt ahead and underwent an energy audit inspired and facilitated by their membership in the Green Alliance – a unique green business union that pushes businesses and consumers to go greener.

GUEST BLOG: Statewide video contest to promote energy savings

The New England Carbon Challenge (NECC) and its partners announced today the My Energy PlanTM (MEP) Video Challenge 2011 for New Hampshire residents.

Between January 3 and February 28, the NECC invites individuals (age 13 and above) and groups from across New Hampshire to submit 1- to 4-minute videos about their energy plans.

This unique short-video contest is the centerpiece of My Energy PlanTM, a new suite of web tools designed to help households reduce their energy consumption. Created by the NECC, with the NH Sustainable Energy Association and the University of NH Cooperative Extension and housed at myenergyplan.net, these web tools help individuals make a plan to increase energy and cost savings over time. MEP helps individuals act on the power they have to make changes in their life.

Green Alliance is a sponsor, so winners will receive free Green Cards as part of their prize packages!

The NECC is a joint initiative of the University of NH and Clean Air-Cool Planet, the leading non-profit dedicated solely to delivering solutions to global warming.

GUEST BLOG: Should Shell Oil be allowed to put America’s Arctic Ocean at risk of another major oil spill?

By John Demos (Northeast Field Staffer for the Alaska Wilderness League)

Presidential Commission Urges Caution

“Shell’s spill response plan in the Arctic includes much of the same failed technology that was used after the Deepwater Horizon disaster,” said Cindy Shogan, Executive Director of Alaska Wilderness League. “The Obama administration must heed the recommendations of the president’s oil spill commission and be sure that the Arctic – the next frontier area for drilling – is accorded the protections that were lacking in the Gulf. We only have one Arctic and a spill there would be devastating to not only some of our nation’s most unique wildlife, but also the future of our planet.”

Earlier this month, the National Oil Spill Commission released its final report on the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the future of offshore drilling. The report reinforces the call for more science and proven oil spill response capability in America’s Arctic Ocean.

The report proposes that oil spill response plans must be adequate for every activity undertaken by oil companies, with “underlying financial and technical capabilities…satisfactorily demonstrated in the Arctic.” In addition, the U.S. Coast Guard, which is widely acknowledged to lack the capability to respond to a spill in the Arctic, must be given the resources necessary to adequately respond.

Ridgeview Construction's fantastic home maintenance plan!

As most homeowners know, a home is an ongoing investment. Failure to perform preventive maintenance can end up costing a bundle when small issues balloon into big issues.

That's why Ridgeview Construction owner Shane Carter has come up with a superb home maintenance plan - with a special price for Green Alliance members - to protect your biggest investment, and make sure you don't end up with nasty surprises. And you'll love your home even more when his crew is done!

Under this plan, you'll get 3 visits from the folks at Ridgeview Construction, one of NH's premier sustainable building and remodeling companies, to hanlde home maintenance projects that you either don't have time for, or outsource to multiple contractors that don't communicate with each other. They'll perform seasonal activities, such as gutter cleaning and storm window removal in the Spring, deck staining and waterproofing in the Summer, and caulking and storm door installation in the Fall, for a shockingly-low price of just $350 for Green Cardholders! For more services that Ridgeview can offer, just scroll down to the bottom of this blog post and check out the flyer.

New Portsmouth Residence Inn a green trend-setter

When downtown Portsmouth’s new Residence Inn and Portsmouth Harbor Events & Conference Center opened in May 2010, they became the first Residence Inn hotel in the country – and the first conference center in the state – to be certified by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED).

No small feat for a hotel that features 5 floors, 128 rooms, and a 4500 square foot adjacent conference and even space.

While it’s only been open a short time, the new Residence Inn – located on Deer Street – is already making plenty of green waves. When they tore down the existing building to make room for the new hotel and conference center, 80 percent of the waste materials from the previous building ended up being reused in the new hotel, in the process saving 81 tons of debris from going to a landfill.

The newly minted LEED hotel uses 31% less energy than others of its size, and 40% of all the construction materials came from within 500 miles, making it a hotel that is as locally-oriented as it is green. And their emphasis on reusing as much as possible means the emissions for the project were far lower than they would have been for the average hotel.