The new green concerns itself not only with matters of energy and the environment, but it also reflects a change in people’s lives that will soon prove very real and transforming. Of late, nobody knows that better than the large multinationals who have begun to see going green not simply as good business sense, but as critical to the bottom line. Companies who promote environmental sustainability exude not only a sense of morality and decency, but in doing so they also tend to offset any perceived public negativity due to issues surrounding pollution, globalization, fair trade, and fair treatment of workers.

In January 2008, the closely watched Computer and Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas went green. Cited on their website was a variety of actions they took including carbon offsets, recycling, reforestation, and energy efficiency. Numerous tech companies rushed in with green products and services of their own. In that same month, the annual North American International Auto Show in Detroit also went green. In sharp contrast to the gas-guzzling muscle cars of the past, plug-in hybrids, electric vehicles, and futuristic hydrogen fuel-cell cars were enthusiastically showcased.

All over America, industry by industry, corporate boardrooms are adopting this new green morality. It says, “I’m doing something about the pressing problems of today. I’m helping shape the future of humanity. I care.” It’s a kinder, gentler capitalism. And it’s very profitable to boot.

But it’s not simply large corporations who are jumping on the green bandwagon. Amidst the scenic rolling landscape of central Vermont, entrepreneurial dairy farmers are selling electricity produced from methane biogas back to the Central Vermont Public Service power company using biogas-powered electric generators. It is truly renewable energy production every step of the way. Dubbed, “CVPS Cowpower,” each independent farm is home to over five-hundred cows that provide between 1.2 to 3.5 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year.

According to Jill Buck, Executive Director and Founder of the world’s largest environmental educational program, Go Green Initiative, China is going green. Though the country is still plagued by runaway pollution and other environmental problems, Buck opines, “The evidence of environmentally responsible efforts were literally everywhere I looked; some were large and expensive efforts, and some were simple and inexpensive, but what I saw convinced me that these

If necessity is the mother of invention, then bridges fit the clich beautifully. Before we had the ability to stretch concrete and steel across a river the alternative methods of crossing were precarious at best. Mid river crossing were accomplished on a ferry. No not the high speed ferry service your have from the Jersey shore to the Battery terminal (The Wall Street Express), but wooden platforms with muscle and innovation moving goods and people. This mission was subject to the weather! Or perhaps a flood and you were also at the mercy of the ferrymen.

We’ve had great technology past down to us from the Romans as is evident in arch bridge construction, but it had a severe limitation, it can only span the width of the arch, and the arch is usually a great mass of stone. This prohibits using an arch to span a large river, especially if it has shipping lanes. It took the combination of newly developed super strong steel wire, and the innovative vision of John A. Roebling to overcome this obstacle.

Roebling was the “living bridge” between stone age construction and modern steel building techniques. He used the strong building design of arched stone work to build two massive anchors and two huge towers, then spanned the distance with strands of modern steel wire 1,056′ from Covington Kentucky to Cincinnati Ohio in 1867. This structure stands in use today, as does the more famous Brooklyn Bridge spanning 1,595′ which Roebling built in 1883. He demonstrated the reliability of steel construction with a strong reliance on solid building principles. This has lead to the suspension bridge reigning supreme in the United States.

John A. Roebling and Son’s Company went on to build many more bridges with even more greater distances spanned. Many spans across the Ohio River valley and Pennsylvania, but New York with its need for bridges so great, necessitated The George Washington Bridge completed in 1932, with a mid span over the Hudson River 3,500′ from Washington Heights Manhattan to New Jersey, which displays the artistic flexibility of the design using the palisades as an anchor for the bridge on the Jersey side. But maybe their finest achievement is The Golden Gate Bridge 1937; San Francisco California with a 4,200′ span across the Golden Gate of the San Francisco Bay, gone was the stone work but in its place poured concrete and steel leaving a lasting tribute to this pioneering bridge building, family company.

Of course once an idea is established someone