energy efficiency, sustainability, green buildings, solar, hybrid cars and alternate fuels.
"A society built on green design, sustainable energy and closed loop systems, a civilization afloat on a cloud of efficient, non-toxic, recyclable technology."~~Alex Nikolai Steffan
Wednesday, July 29th, beginning at 5:45 PM Waterworks, 1133 Thomasville Road
Sponsored by Sustainable Tallahassee. the monthly meeting provides an opportunity to network with others in the community interested in sustainable issues, including alternative energy.
This month's speaker is Miss Louise from Turkey Hill Farm who will chat about "What is Seasonal and what exactly IS "locally grown?"
Clean: The Humble Art of Zen-Cleansing by Michael de Jong is a book I came across while wandering through a bookstore while enjoying much cooler temperatures out-of-state. Using five basic ingredients, (six counting water), the book includes recipes to clean everything with a combination of baking soda, borax, lemon, salt and vinegar. That's it.
Clean Body: The Humble Act of Zen-Cleansing Yourself carries the same premise for cleansing yourself with combinations of baking soda, lemon, olive oil, white vinegar and salt. A review of that book is at the blog critics website.
Revisiting the previous green cleaning post reminded me that green cleaning is not only good for the environment, but saves money, too.
By the way, Tallahassee, I came across a college student-oriented book store that sells used fiction and non-fiction books for 99 cents each, which helps lower the cost of the used text books they also sell.
I hope to meet-up this week while I'm out of Florida with Jake who was featured with his 'grease car' in this post.
Also check out the Sustainable Tallahassee web page for some links to more information about biofuels, (scroll down to the bottom) including a manual for home and farm production of alcohol fuel.
Last year in this post, we talked about the home being built in Myakka City, in Manatee County (southeast of Tampa) that is calling itself Florida's first "Earth Ship."
Earthships are low tech, made out of earth and recycled materials such as tires and soda cans and claims to have no impact on the environment. The most famous earthships have been constructed in Taos by Michael Reynolds. Pictures of his concept are at the green home website.
A video interview with Bryan Roberts, general contractor for the project near Bradenton, is now on You Tube:
Interesting to note the number of people standing vs. the number of people actually performing work.
Additional advocacy for bike lanes as a part of the revitalization of the Gaines Street area continues. The next meeting will be this Sunday, July 19th at 7:00 PM. Details at Green Calendar.
E-mail your comments about the bike lanes or any other issue related to the Gaines Street project to: http://www.talgov.com/email.cfm?id=gainesstreet Don't forget that the portion of Gaines closes each night for construction. Detours are a challenge!
Over thirty people filled the solar advocacy meeting this afternoon at the County's Railroad Avenue community room.
Representatives from several local solar businesses, the City, County, and interested citizens met with the meeting's sponsor, Sustainable Tallahassee.
The major theme was lack of access to capital for residential and business investment in solar systems.
The solar advocacy group is a project of Sustainable Tallahassee and is looking for citizen participation from all sectors. Future meetings will continue the dialogue.
Meeting details to follow, when Green Tallahassee locates wi-fi while on the road.
Sustainable Tallahassee, in conjunction with Leon County and the City of Tallahassee, is hosting a Solar Advocacy meeting on Thursday, July 16th, at 2:30 PM in the Amtrak building at 918 Railroad Ave.
Solar professionals and other interested citizens are invited to attend as we celebrate successes and identify local barriers to solar power installations. Both the City and County will be represented at this meeting and have a high level of interest in ideas that will help remove barriers and increase the use of solar power in our area.
This will be the first meeting of the Sustainable Tallahassee Solar Advocacy group, its goals are:
a) To increase the implementation of the use of solar power by the City of Tallahassee's, Leon County, Leon Schools and TEC.
b) To increase the use of solar power by residences, non-profits and businesses by improving utility incentives and removing barriers.
c) To research better methods of encouraging citizens to acquire solar like the Gainesville FiT and the Berkeley model.
d) To provide accurate, unbiased information to citizens about solar power - production and cost.
For questions, contact James Young, Project Leader, Sustainable Tallahassee at 850-322-0564.
While the G8 Summit convenes to discuss climate change, hundreds of coal-fired power plants are on the drawing boards in the US. An estimated 76% of the energy produced by these plants will go to operate buildings, according to the group Architecture 2030.
This group formed to challenge the architecture and building community to adopt a much more ambitious target that what the G8 is discussing: to reduce the demand for energy, slow the rate of growth of greenhouse gas emissions, then reverse the rate of growth over the next ten years to keep global warming under one degree centigrade (°C).The Challenge includes targets for new buildings and renovations, calling for a performance standard of 50% below the regional (or country) average energy consumption, including greenhuse gas emissions and to ultimately be carbon neutral by 2030. That means using no fossil fuel that emits greenhouse gas.
A chart of the 2030 Challenge Targets by building type is here. Architecture 2030 believes that these targets can be accomplished by implementing 'innovative sustainable design strategies, generating on-site renewable power and/or purchasing (20% maximum) renewable energy and/or certified renewable energy credits.'
Meanwhile, the Zero Net Energy Buildings Task Force (ZNEB) in Massachussets, as a part of its goal to achieve a zero net energy building sector by 2030, is proposing the creation of a mortgage buy-down program. The program is part of its two-year nine million jobs investment plan. The mortgage buy-down program would finance energy retrofits without increasing the mortgage payments. It would include incentives for local minicipalities that pursue energy reduction targets.
Nationally, NPR reported that the federally funded (US Department of Energy) weatherization program that provides energy savings improvement to low income families (insulation, weatherstriping, improvements to heating systems, replacement windows, etc.) through local, community-based organizations has not been able to quickly expand the program.
Local program operators were required to rewrite their funding plans to incorporate the new dollars from the stimulus bill. The well-intentioned incorporation of the federal Davis-Bacon Act (passed in 1931) that requires contractors to pay the prevailing wage for construction workers has increased delays. The skills needed to perform weatherization are not highly skilled trades jobs for which the Davis-Bacon is targeted. Plans are underway to amend this requirement.
Weatherization program average improvements of $6500 per household. These improvements lower energy bills for those who can least afford high utility costs. It also creates jobs for individuals often left unemployed because of the national down-turn in the building economy.
Local weatherization programs include Capital Area Community Action and Tallahassee Urban League. For more information on Florida's weatherization programs, is at Weatherization Works.
The news is filled with converstions about the G8 summit and the fact that countries of the G8 voted to approve a target of 2° C rise in global average temperature above the natural, preanthropogenic climate. (And preanthropogenic means before human activity--I had to look it up) People are arguing that 2 degrees isn't a lot to worry about or it's far too much. Good discussions in the issue over at Real Climate.
Check out summer reading of DirePredictions, Understanding Global Warming: The Illustrated Guide to the Findings of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). This book by two Penn State climate scientists presents easy to understand information. And, don't forget to support your independent bookstores!
The recent stimulus bill expanded the tax credit for the purchase of a solar water heating system. Previously the federal tax was capped at $2,000. This limit was lifted and the credit is now 30% of the cost of the system.
It's estimated that 25-30 percent of a home's typical energy usage is heating water for showers, laundry and washing dishes. Depending on the energy source a home is using, a solar water heating system could pay for itself in three to five years. Solar Estimate is a website that helps calculate solar savings.
Additionally, information on the City of Tallahassee's solar heater rebate, here.
From ideal over the hurdle to practice is often a matter of marketing.
Greenpeace reissued its Recycled Tissue and Toilet Paper Guide (subtitle: Did you know Americans could save more than 400,000 trees if each family bought a roll of recycled toilet paper—just once?) to help people make the switch to recycled paper. It comes in a foldable, handy pocket size version! Imagine the possibilities!
The guide recommends purchasing certain brands such as Green Forest and Seventh Generation, and avoiding others such as Kleenex, Cottonelle, and Bounty.
Recycled provides--er-- connotations. Maybe rebranding would encourage more people to save forests? Re-purposed toilet paper? Or?
For a free “DO NO HARM” bumper sticker (white-on-black or black-on-white) or a semi-translucent frosted wrist band, and/or a 3.5” round “NO HARM” decal: in Australia, Canada, the US, send a business size Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope; and in Europe, send a self-addressed standard envelope with an international reply coupon.Please note your preference of bumper sticker, wrist band, and/or round decal.
Your obligation to reduce this free stuff is literally--do no harm! See the Do No Harm website for more information.
According to the Department of Energy, lighting uses nearly 40% of all electricity used in commercial buildings! Does the Florida Department of Education read this? Or the Department of Revenue under construction across from Southwood? Lights there glow brightly 24/7. Speaking about this new construction, I did inquire about the huge expanse of asphalt parking lot going on top of former open spaces. Why couldn't it at least be made of permeable surfacing?
New federal lighting standards will take effect in 2012, will make fluorescent tube lamps more efficient and will phase out conventional incandescent reflector lamps, used in recessed lights and track lighting, as well as the already existing phase out of incandescent bulbs. If we all turn off all our house lights for fourth of July fireworks, whether we are viewing from Tom Brown Park, local neighborhood displays or in the comfort of our backyards--no DEET bug repellent*--we'll be doing our part to save a little energy tonight.
no DEET bug repellent*- plant lemon grass!
a combination of lemon grass oil, citronella oil and eucalyptus oil in a spray bottle gives good protectionor combine into a spray bottle and shake: 1/3 cup of apple cider vinegar 1/3 cup witch hazel (or cheap vodka)--I have been told that vodka works better than any other alcohol 5 drops of citronella or eucalyptus essential oil Neither concoction is water (or sweat) proof, but can be safely sprayed not only on one's body parts, but on surfaces.
Federal income tax credits for specific home improvements are available now through 2010 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which extended energy efficiency tax credits available in 2006 and 2007 but not 2008.
Every day, we can arrange our driving trips to be efficient, choose a route that means no back tracking and stay away from busy roads where we burn gas idling red lights
Not driving one day out of the year is a statement of conscience, but driving efficiently every day is what can make a difference. More on Eco-driving tips for this holiday weekend here and here. I think I'll do an 'Independence From Driving Day' on July 4th.
Green Readers following this blog know our philosophy has always been that local production of power for residential and small businesses makes a lot of sense. It makes so much sense that the huge utility companies reject this model as a serious threat to their monopoly on power generation and distribution.
The current issue of Fast Company magazine has an article on generating our own electricity, renewably and sustainably instead of concentrating on the 'electric superhighway's' massive upgrade to the existing of distributing power in the US.
What if we could go down to some place like Home Depot or Lowe's this long, holiday weekend and purchase a solar appliance that is easy to install and pays for itself over a few years? What if we had a system that had capacity to fuel our own house and our two neighbors, as well?
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Clean: The Humble Art of Zen-Cleansing by Michael de Jong is a book I came across while wandering through a bookstore while enjoying much cooler temperatures out-of-state. Using five basic ingredients, (six counting water), the book includes recipes to clean everything with a combination of baking soda, borax, lemon, salt and vinegar. That's it. 
The organization, MoveOn will send you a free sticker to show your support for clean energy by going to this web site. 
The Challenge includes targets for new buildings and renovations, calling for a performance standard of 50% below the regional (or country) average energy consumption, including greenhuse gas emissions and to ultimately be carbon neutral by 2030. That means using no fossil fuel that emits greenhouse gas.
because of the national down-turn in the building economy.
The news is filled with converstions about the G8 summit and the fact that countries of the G8 voted to approve a target of 2° C rise in global average temperature above the natural, preanthropogenic climate. (And preanthropogenic means before human activity--I had to look it up)
For a free “DO NO HARM” bumper sticker (white-on-black or black-on-white) or a semi-translucent frosted wrist band, and/or a 3.5” round “NO HARM” decal: in Australia, Canada, the US, send a business size Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope; and in Europe, send a self-addressed standard envelope with an international reply coupon. Please note your preference of bumper sticker, wrist band, and/or round decal.
or combine into a spray bottle and shake:
