Let Your Voice Be Heard (UPDATED)

There are many ways to do good for the environment, and there are many things that you can do as an individual.  However, there are some things that are best done by governments, such as pass laws to fund large clean energy projects or set emissions limits.   When there is something you want to see the government do, the most effective way to let your voice be heard is to call your local, state or US representative and let them know what you think.  To be clear, unless you're calling your local town council person, you're not likely to get them on the phone, you're going to get a staffer in their office.  However, that staffer, and all their other staff, are keeping careful track of what issues people are calling about, both pro and con, and how many calls they're getting.   They monitor email as well, and it is not bad to send email,  but they know as well as you and I do that it is *easy* to get people to send an email, or fill out a form to have an automated email sent.   It's a lot harder these days to get people to make a phone call about an issue, so they're only getting calls from people who really care.  It also takes real time from real staffers to field these calls, so they get more attention from your representative.

 Today I got perhaps the most effective political action phone call I've ever received.   I must say that I'm not sure what group it was that called me,  but their goal was to get me to make a phone call to my new US State Senator,  Scott Brown.   The person who called asked me if he could connect me to Scott Brown's office so that I could tell his staffer that I am one of Senator Brown's constituents and that I'm in favor of the Clean Energy Jobs Bill and I want him to vote for it. [Note update on Jobs Bill at the end of the article.]

I try to be very careful about what I'm saying I'm in favor of, and I didn't want to find out later that this was one of those tricky things that sounds like one thing but is really something else, so I told him that I wasn't really familiar with this bill.  When he told me that it was co-authored by Senator Kerry, I said "stop right there, if Senator Kerry wrote the bill, then I'm sure I'm in favor of it." OK,  I'm a little biased, but I didn't want to waste his time if I didn't need any more information.   I agreed that he could connect me to the Senator's office because I have heard of the bill Senator Kerry had sponsored and I do support it.

When I was connected to the Senator's office I ended up speaking to his voicemail.  The message stated that if I have a specific need that I should fax it to them, but that otherwise I could leave a message.   I left a message with my full name, that I was a constituent,  my address and that I want him to support this bill and anything else that is in favor of clean energy.

It's easy to click on a form and send an email through sites like moveon.org, and I encourage you to get on their email lists and send those emails.  However,  to have your voice be really effective, it's important to pick up the phone and make the phone calls.

One site that provides you with information about who to call and what to tell them is 1sky.org.   This site actually has a tool that helps you make these calls without running up your phone bill (other than paying for incoming calls).  You enter your phone number and address and then their system calls your phone with a connection to your Senator's office.  They even provide you with talking points and what the important issues of the day are.  If you would rather call yourself, they also have a lookup based on zipcode to provide you with the phone numbers for your US Senators and Representatives.

1sky.org has a lot of great information about actions you can take in person as well as coordinating phone calls and other campaigns.   They focus on climate issues and have a page on their positions.

It's important that each of us continue to turn off the lights, compost our food scraps and recycle,  however, take a minute to reach out to your government as well.  Here in the US, the most effective way for most of us to do that is with a phone call (outside of voting on Election Day!)

Happy Greening,
Alicia

Feb 23, 2010: Update on the Clean Jobs Bill: It is going to the Senate floor for voting, because Senator Brown, the one I called, voted with the Democrats.   WBZ TV Boston Coverage   Wall Street Journal Coverage

Energy Saving Tips for Renters

One of the questions we've been asked numerous times is

What can I do as a renter to save energy?

A general rule of thumb is anything that is good for a home owner is also good for a rental property, but it is limited by what you are allowed to do by your landlord. The EPA has a Top 10 List for Renters that is worth a read for renters and home owners as well.  Even if you are limited as a renter by the changes you can make to the space, you can definitely make a difference.  I encourage you to talk to your landlord and find out if they are willing to make the improvements or at least permit you to do it and provide the raw materials like caulk and weatherstripping.   Often a landlord is happy to pay for materials if you put in the sweat equity as it is a win-win situation.

Take a look at the Top 10 Tips for Renters and see if you can work out a mutually beneficial arrangement with your landlord to save energy.

Happy Greening!
Jon

First Days with our TED-5000 Home Energy Monitor

Understanding your home energy usage is an important step to to reducing it.  You can get a good first start by just looking at your energy bills and thinking about why there are peaks and valleys and how this year compares to last.   To go beyond looking at your bills and save even more, you need a little help from some tools.

The beginner tool for measuring your electrical usage is a Kill-A-Watt electricity usage monitor.  You should definitely borrow or buy one if you haven't already, to measure the electric usage of devices like cable boxes, cell phone chargers, TV, etc. around your house - both in their on and off positions.

The advanced tool in understanding and therefore reducing home energy usage (in this case just electricity) is a home energy monitoring device such as the The Energy Detective (TED-5000).  There are a number of different home electricity monitors that measure and report your entire home electricity usage.  I like the TED-5000 because it logs usage so you can see patterns, works with Google Power Meter and can also monitor solar and wind installations.

The TED-5000 that Alicia bought for me as my Christmas and birthday present finally arrived this week after a known supply delay from the manufacturer.  We set it up and configured it to interface with Google Power Meter. We have been having lots of fun playing with it!  After a few weeks of usage I will write a more detailed post about the TED-5000, but for now here are my first impressions.

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Recycled Toilet Paper

Toilet paper is one of those things I just can't see us doing without in today's world.  Unfortunately most toilet paper on the market is made from virgin paper, which means it is straight from trees and does not have recycled content.  Fortunately there are a number of good options for recycled toilet paper available in your supermarket and online.  We recommend that you buy a small quantity to try it out before buying in bulk.  You can get a 4 pack or even a single roll in many supermarkets.  (Often you can find a coupon making a small quantity close to free.) A couple things to look for to make it greener are:

• High percentage post-consumer recycled content (75% or better is good)
• A non-chlorine bleach whitening process

As a bonus many recycled toilet papers are hypo-allergenic for sensitive types like me.

GreenPeace.org has rated 33 popular brands of toilet paper (and a bunch of other paper products) based on the % post consumer recycled content, overall % recycled content and the bleaching process in their Tissue Guide.  (Hint: to view the full guide click on the upper right corner of the big picture in the center of the page, where it says "Look Inside -> click here") They even have it available as an iPhone app.

Ten brands make the "green" list and include some names you might not expect, like CVS.  Be careful though, because while the Earth Essentials brand of CVS makes the recommended list, the regular CVS brand is on the bad list. 

We use the Seventh Generation 2-ply toilet paper in our house because of the reputation of the brand and because we are satisfied with the softness. We find it noticeably better than the last case of cheap stuff we bought from the wholesale club and better than the institutional paper used at my office.  Besides, I don't like the really soft stuff.  We order ours through Amazon.com. Be sure to check out the "Subscribe & Save" program for an extra 15% discount.  The toilet paper comes in recyclable cardboard box with paper wrapped rolls.  Many brands of toilet paper come wrapped in layers of plastic that are also bad for the environment!

Impact of using recycled content toilet paper

To quote from the Seventh Generation package:

If every household in the U.S. replaced just one roll of 500 sheet virgin fiber bathoom tissue with 100% recycled ones, we could save:

• 423,900 trees
• 1.0 million cubic feet of landfill space, equal to 1,600 full garbage trucks
• 153 million gallons of water, a year's supply for 1,200 families of four
  

Going even greener with toilet paper

For an added greeness factor, you can recycle the paper wrapper, (NOT the toilet paper - you wouldn't want to after it is used) and reuse the toilet paper tubes for craft projects.  The current favorite project around our house is to make toy binoculars.  They tape two toilet paper rolls together and decorate it.  One of our kids also made this project in Kindergarten recently, so if you don't have kids of the right age at home, check with you local elementary school, as they might be able to reuse the empty rolls for some sort of project.  If not, they too are recycleable.

Next time you're at the grocery store, check out what options of recycled toilet paper are available to you and try out a roll or two.

Happy Greening!
Jon

p.s. We also use Seventh Generation Paper Towels, Natural, 2-Ply Sheets (Pack of 30) [Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging] for the messes that are too disgusting to use cloth napkins.

Electric Snow Thrower in Action

Last week, when the mid-Atlantic was buried in snow, most of Boston shut down in anticipation of snow that never arrived.  This week, after actually receiving enough snow to shovel (about 8"), I took the opportunity to get some photos of our electric snow thrower in action.

In about 35 minutes, we (I had occasional help from my 5 year-olds) cleared about 8" of snow from the parking area in front of our house.  This included a decent amount of very wet slushy snow from the plows.  You can read more in our previous post about Green Snow Removal from December.

Enjoy the slide show!


Happy Greening!
Jon

Resource: EIA Energy Kids

Teaching our kids about saving energy and the environment is very important to me and Alicia.  The U.S. Energy Information Administration has an extremely useful site aimed at teaching kids about saving energy called energy KIDS.  The information is very useful for adults as well. It provides a good overview of how energy is generated and used in the US. 

A couple of my favorites sections of the site are:

• Energy Sources Recent Statistics provides useful facts about US petroleum production and consumption.  Did you know that in 2008 the US imported almost 10 million barrels of crude oil every day and another 3 million barrels of other petroleum products?
• Using & Saving Energy In Homes shows what we use energy for in our homes. It also  discusses from where energy like natural gas and electricity comes.  Did you know that 84% of single-family homes have air conditioning (either central air, window units or both)?
• Using & Saving Energy For Transportation shows that transportation uses 28% of all the energy in this country and what percentage of each fuel type (e.g. diesel, gasoline, etc.) is used.  Did you know that automobiles (not including light trucks) use 32% of the transportation energy?  That's a lot of gasoline.

The site has tons of additional information about what is energy as well as teaching tools including lesson plans.  You will also find useful energy calculators, a glossary and games.

Go check out the EIA energy KIDS site and share it with a kid or two.  I'm sure you will learn something along the way too.  I know I did.

Happy Greening!
Jon

Our Green Little Secret for Turning Up the Heat in Bed

We have a secret for staying toasty warm in bed so we can turn down the heat at night.  Our green little secret is an electric mattress pad.  In the olden days they used to heat up bricks and stick them under the covers to warm them up before crawling into bed.  Thankfully we no longer have to sleep with bricks to stay warm. 

An electric mattress pad works similarly to the electric blankets our grandparents used with some advantages:

• Your partner can't steal the mattress pad at night
• Your toes won't stick out
• You won't get tangled in the cords because you can safely run them under the bed
• With Queen and King sized electric mattress pads you get dual controls so you can adjust to different body temperatures
• The electric mattress pad we use (and recommend) automatically shuts off after 8 hours so you can't forget to turn it off.

We recommend using the electric mattress pad on your bed so that you can turn down the heat even farther at night with your programmable thermostats.  The US Department of Energy says that you can save about 1% on your heating bill for every degree you lower your thermostat for eight hours a day.  If you lowered your thermostat 5°F every night, you should save 5% on your heating bill.  Think about what it would mean if you could lower 10°F every night.  With a Heated Mattress Pad on your bed, you can easily drop the room temperature by 10°F and be even more comfortable in bed.  They even have  preheat setting that will warm up the bed so you can crawl into an already comfy bed.  One limit for families is that it is not recommended to use the electric mattress pad with kids or babies.  Therefore we do not turn our thermostat down as far as we would otherwise.  Alicia really appreciates our electric mattress pad when I don't come to bed until much later.

Beyond the luxurious comfort, the energy savings is significant.  The basic concept is that it require less energy to heat up a small important space, such as under the blankets, than to heat up a large volume of air in a room or the entire house.  So how do the numbers look?

Let's assume you lower the thermostat by 5°F (e.g. from 65°F to 60°F) for 8 hours each night during the 4 month heating season and use an the electric heated mattress pad for the same 8 hour period each night.  A 5% savings on space heating would be about 800 kWh. This is estimated based on 41% household usage for space heating of a 123 million BTU annual home energy usage from EIA Energy Kids.  I measured the energy consumption of our queen sized electric heated mattress pad for three cold nights.  We used 0.4 kWh for those three nights.  Expanded out over the entire 4 month heating season, that would only be about 16 kWh total.  So using an electric heated mattress pad could save you over 750 kWh per year (takes into account 3x heat to electricity efficiency conversion) if you also turned down the thermostat by 5°F while you sleep. 

• 5% of Space Heating Energy for a Typical Home: 800 kWh
• Electricity Usage by an Electric Heated Mattress Pad for a year: 16 kWh (roughly 50 kWh of primary energy)
• Savings for using an electric heated mattress pad per year: 750 kWh

We recommend that you put some heat under your covers with an electric heated mattress pad, and you can save a lot of energy in the process if you also turn down your thermostat at night while you are sleeping cozy and warm.

Happy Greening!
Jon

p.s.  For those of you with children or pets,  yes, it IS machine washable!  We have washed our several times with no difficulty.

Roses are Red, Not Green, Give Chocolates Instead!

Updated for Valentine's Day 2012

The number one reason to give chocolates instead of roses is of course TASTE! Have you ever tasted a rose? I don't advise it, especially with all those thorns. In all seriousness, roses, especially those flown in from Latin America for Valentines Day (or Mothers Day) are not environmentally friendly and have a whopping environmental impact.

So, how bad is the environmental impact of roses?  Let's take a look.

First, cut roses in the US during February are almost exclusively imported from Latin America by plane because they only last 10 days with refrigeration. William Armshaw wrote in The Environmental Impact of Cut Flower Imports in January 2009 that:

A bouquet of flowers has a high lifecycle carbon footprint: conservative estimates suggest that the air transportation to the United States alone creates 3.1 pounds of carbon per bouquet - and that does not include carbon released via constant refrigeration, by distribution within the US, in production, or in the manufacture of fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemical agents.

Estimates of roses sold for Valentine's Day in the US range from 189-215 million.  At a dozen per bouquet, that's 24-28 thousand tons of CO2 emitted as a conservative estimate for the transportation of the roses for Valentine's Day.

Next, let's consider the environmental impacts where the roses are grown.  Roses grown in Latin America are grown through the heavy use of fertilizers and numerous other chemicals to increase the yield.  Many of these chemicals, such as methyl bromide, are so dangerous they have been banned from use in Europe and the US.  The fertilizers and chemical use lead to water pollution through runoff.  William Armshaw writes: 

As with most monoculture agricultural production, large amounts of dangerous chemicals are used in growing operations, including many agents, such as methyl bromide and methyl parathion, which the United States and European Union deem to be too dangerous or too toxic for use within the US. Florverde, the primary Colombian growers' association, claims that exporters there apply nearly 90 pounds of active ingredient per acre per year. 36% of the toxic chemicals applied by Florverde plantations in 2005 were listed as extremely or highly toxic by the World Health Organization.

So if roses are out, what do you do for that special someone?

Give those you love something edible for Valentine's Day, like the delicious stone ground organic chocolates from Taza Chocolate.  Taza Chocolates are a real treat.  They are delectable and responsible.  Taza Chocolates supports sustainable agriculture and direct trade by buying direct from organic certified farmers in the Caribbean and Latin America (not Africa or Indonesia).  They have made it a point to keep their factory green by recycling, using CFLs, and running equipment only when actually in use.  I toured the factory in Somerville, MA and can report the lights were off in the rooms that were not in use.  They use recycled materials for packaging and even go as far as using pedal power to transport their products to various retailers around Boston through Metro Pedal Power.

For more details about how green the chocolate is, visit Taza Chocolate's Sustainability page.

And did I mention how delicious this Mexican style stone ground organic chocolate is?  It is the best I've ever had!

Another option for ordering chocolate online, is Chocolate.com.  Chocolate.com specializes in handmade, small batch chocolate from small American businesses.  Read my review from Summer 2011.

So don't give roses this year, give something much tastier like organic chocolates.  For other alternatives to roses your loved ones will love, check out Alicia's Green Gift Guide.

Happy Greening!
Jon

Disclaimer: Neither Taza Chocolate nor William Armshaw had any involvement in the writing of this article.

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Addendum Feb 9, 2010 - Recommended Reading:

A friend recommended the Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful by Amy Stewart as a good read on the considerable environmental and economic evils of the flower business in Ecuador and Columbia.

Updated 2/9/2010








Another Alternative to flowers and even chocolate - Solar Panel Jewelry!  


Now that Jonathan has started making his own jewelry out of pieces of solar panels,  and he's selling it online,  I'd like to humbly suggest that it would make a very unique Valentines Day gift.  Each piece is handcrafted and unique.  You can see his selection on http://solarpaneljewelry.com/   He is also willing to take requests for specific pieces as time allows,  just send us an email.

Getting Started with Bulk Purchasing of Dry Goods

I recently wrote an article on bulk purchasing that focused on buying things in larger quantities.  Two of the comments pointed out the environmental and local economic benefits of buying dry goods in bulk, however, I had never done this!  Somehow I had decided that that food in bins couldn't be as clean, or as fresh as packaged goods, and even if it was, it must be more expensive. I challenged my earlier impression and went to check it out, boy was I surprised.

Why is bulk food environmentally friendly? First, you can buy only what you need, so there is less waste.  It uses less packaging, so less packaging is made, shipped and thrown away.  Also the food is usually sourced more locally than packaged foods so there tends to be less shipping and it often supports local agriculture.

Where should you go to buy dry goods in bulk?  Jeff suggested that you should go to the local food coop because then you are definitely supporting local agriculture as well.  I fully agree with this,  but it doesn't look like that's an option in my area.  Some google searches on "Boston food coop" seem to support the thought that there are not any real food coops in the Boston area (a few that market as coops, but are not what you would picture if you're from the mid-west for example).   Also, I know that in our area there are farms that grow fruits and vegetables, and some dairy and meat farms,  but we don't really have wheat or rice in the New England area.   We have CSAs for fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy (which will make a great post later), farmers markets (mostly in the warmer months) and Trader Joe's and Whole Foods in our area. I recently learned that Whole Foods has a strong commitment to sourcing locally when possible,  so I headed over there to start my research.

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