One of my moments of environmental awakening came as I found myself driving my car four blocks to a town meeting on sustainability. The irony of the situation struck two blocks into the drive. Why was I using a car to transport myself four blocks to a meeting whose main purpose is to figure out how we can become less dependent on fossil fuels? As it happened, I was running late, and there was a light mist that could turn into rain--two factors that make me instinctively grab the car keys. I immediately parked the car and walked the rest of the way. To my surprise, the precipitation did not penetrate my clothes.
Since then, I have gradually expanded my tolerance for biking in mist, or drizzle, or even sometimes rain. This morning, for instance, a misty moisty morning, I taxied my daughter to school on the trailer bike, and found the mist to be even enjoyable. Another time, when the mist turned to rain while heading home, we experienced an unexpected euphoria. There can be a certain laboriousness to riding a bike, but it can also bring a sense of awakening, of being more alive.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Global Warming and the Silent Scream
I'm always amazed at those who study climate change. How congenial and patient they are as they tell us of the catastrophic direction we are taking the earth. They are messengers who, like most messengers through history, are being roundly ignored by most of humanity. They must go home at night, after yet another long day of throwing compelling data at the global wall of indifference, and scream into the dark.
The Scream is a famous painting by Edvard Munch. I think of it now, and learn from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream) that its inspiration came one evening when the sky suddenly turned blood red, and he "sensed an infinite scream passing through nature." "The person in the foreground may be the artist himself, not screaming but protecting himself or itself from the scream of Nature."
That is the scream that some of us hear right now, as humanity goes about its business of slurping and shoveling fossil carbon out of the ground and spewing it from tailpipes and chimneys. How fitting that, as industrialization gained speed in the late 1800s, the source of Munch's scream was the sky, whose disturbing color may have been caused by the eruption of Krakatoa a half a world away.
Munch wrote that he was walking with two friends at the time, and that they "walked on", apparently unaffected by the scene whose visual power left Munch physically stricken. And so today we are left to ask, why do so few see and react to the emergency we face? Why do so few of us hear the scream?
Free Leaf Compost and Wood Chip Mulch
If you're looking to improve your soil or put attractive, dark mulch around your flowers and shrubs, you can get composted leaves and/or twice-ground, composted woodchips for free about 5 miles out of town at the Ecological Center in Lawrence Township. Most of Princeton's leaves go there in the fall, and if you can borrow a friend's pickup or figure out some other way of carting it back, you're in luck.
For $9/yard during weekday hours, they'll load it on your truck with their front-end loader. No cash accepted. Take a checkbook. If you want it for free, take a pitch fork or shovel along.
Location is 3701 Princeton Pike (called Mercer in Princeton), and hours this time of year are 7:30 to 2:30 M-Sat. More info are at http://www.princetonboro.org/polDoc.cfm?Doc_Id=161.
According to the man on duty, the Center gets maxed out from all the leaves coming in in the fall, and does not accept the mixture of leaves and brush the town crews collect from Princeton streets this time of year. All of that goes to a private business a mile or two further down the road.
For $9/yard during weekday hours, they'll load it on your truck with their front-end loader. No cash accepted. Take a checkbook. If you want it for free, take a pitch fork or shovel along.
Location is 3701 Princeton Pike (called Mercer in Princeton), and hours this time of year are 7:30 to 2:30 M-Sat. More info are at http://www.princetonboro.org/polDoc.cfm?Doc_Id=161.
According to the man on duty, the Center gets maxed out from all the leaves coming in in the fall, and does not accept the mixture of leaves and brush the town crews collect from Princeton streets this time of year. All of that goes to a private business a mile or two further down the road.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Recycling at Outdoor Events Remains Elusive
Whether it be Communiversity, June Fete, or your school picnic, chances are that no one has made accommodations for recycling. Recycling bins, if they are present at all, are turned into trash cans by covering them with a black plastic bag so the identifying yellow is hard to see, and/or by placing them unpaired with a trash can.
This year, valiant attempts were made, in particular by Princeton native and Environmental Commission member Lexi Gelperin, to get Communiversity to integrate recycling into its operations, but results were mixed. Students ended up playing the role of "Roaving Recyclers", picking bottles and cans out of trash cans.
At the Princeton Environmental Commission table, we demonstrated the simple pairing of a recycling bin and a trash can. The recycling bin has a narrow top, well-marked, with a transparent body so the bottles/cans inside provide an additional visual cue that it's for recyclables only. When will we start seeing such pairings at public events in Princeton?
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Robert Socolow--Climate Change and Deja Vu
For thoughtfulness, clarity and deep caring about climate change and its gathering impact on the planet, I recommend a careful listen to Robert Socolow, a leading researcher on what to do about all the mischievous carbon dioxide we're pouring into the atmosphere. One serendipitous aspect of my having been transported out of previous lives and plunked down in Princeton, NJ is that I get to hear people like this talk. Below are some notes:
Having come of professional age back in the 1960s and 70s, Dr. Socolow now feels a strong sense of deja vu. The issues we are grappling with now, especially energy consumption and its impact on the planet, were being discussed back in the 1970s. (For my part, I took a course at the U. of Michigan in the late 70s called "Low Energy Living") What happened next, with Reagan's ascendence in the 1980s, was a shooting of the messenger. In the process, three decades have been essentially lost, and the problems we face have only grown deeper. Interestingly, Dr. Socolow pointed out that those of us who had come to hear his talk appeared to be evenly divided between two generations--those coming of age now, and those who came of age in the 70s.
To begin, Dr. Socolow gave an accounting of where we stand. There are now 3000 billion tons of CO2 in the atmosphere. Air trapped in ancient ice suggests that in the 400,000 or so years before the industrial revolution, the earth's atmospheric CO2 oscillated between 1500 and 2200 billion tons. Since atmospheric measurements began in earnest in 1958, atmospheric CO2 has risen from 2500 billion tons to the current 3000.
These 50 years of measurements were made by atmospheric scientists based on Mauna Loa in Hawaii, a location believed to be sufficiently removed from the industrialized world to allow for accurate data. At the ceremony marking the 50th year, Dr. Socolow said "Never has the work of so few led to so much being asked of so many." The so few were the scientists who revealed the dramatic and unprecedented rise of CO2 in the 20th century. The so many are the rest of us on earth being asked to change our ways.
And how much do we need to change our ways to avoid the worst consequences of climate change? Whereas the burning of fossil fuels spewed 6 billion tons into the atmosphere in 1950, that figure is now 30 billion every year. 15 of those go into the atmosphere; eight are absorbed by the oceans (apparently with disastrous consequences for marine life), and the remaining 7 are somehow absorbed by the land biosphere.
30 billion tons averages out to about 4 tons of CO2 per person per year. So, just to hold even on emissions, each of us passengers on planet earth would need to limit ourselves to 4 tons. Compare that to what we actually use. You consume four tons if you:
So, you see we're way over our individual allotments. Environmental values must co-habitate with others deeply held--democratic values, consumer values, and values of self-realization--that, for instance, slow our response to crisis, create an appetite for stuff, and cause us to burn energy as we travel to see the world.
But Dr. Socolow still sees reasons for optimism. The world is terribly inefficient with its energy use. Carbon emissions have just begun to be priced--already in Europe, and in less than a year utilities in NJ. If one goal is for humanity to actually start reducing its overall use of energy 50 years hence, it helps that most of the 2058 physical plant has not yet been built.
One of his main points is that solutions are not innocuous. Conservation can lead to regimentation. Renewable energy can compete with other uses for land. Nuclear power generates fuel that can be used in nuclear warfare. "Clean coal" has impacts on miners and land.
As often happens when you're trying to change the world, you find that the english language lacks current words to carry new concepts. Dr. Socolow proposes a new word for a new intellectual domain. Over the past 50 years, we've delved deeply into the history of the universe, the earth and of life itself. Can we achieve a comparable quantitative understanding of what human civilization will look like at various times in the future? This new discipline would be called prospicience--a combining of the words propect and science.
In contrast to Amory Lovins' talk, which seemed to imply that we can stop global warming without financial or personal hardship, Dr. Socolow sees solutions as possible but hard. He looks to the past to find comparable situations in which "What once seemed too hard has become what simply must be done." For precedents, he points to the abolition of child labor, the addressing of the needs of the disabled, and the mitigation of air pollution.
I'd suggest that the abolition of slavery is the most relevant precedent, since both slaves and fossil fuels have played the role of providing energy on demand. Only slowly do the beneficiaries of that energy explore the ethical implications of the comfort and convenience it brings.
One of the questions raised after the talk was why Mr. Socolow did not mention population as a factor. He acknowledged that population is a central aspect of climate change, and said that the severing of population from the discussion of energy had happened in the 1980s, and coincided with the shooting of the messenger.
Having come of professional age back in the 1960s and 70s, Dr. Socolow now feels a strong sense of deja vu. The issues we are grappling with now, especially energy consumption and its impact on the planet, were being discussed back in the 1970s. (For my part, I took a course at the U. of Michigan in the late 70s called "Low Energy Living") What happened next, with Reagan's ascendence in the 1980s, was a shooting of the messenger. In the process, three decades have been essentially lost, and the problems we face have only grown deeper. Interestingly, Dr. Socolow pointed out that those of us who had come to hear his talk appeared to be evenly divided between two generations--those coming of age now, and those who came of age in the 70s.
To begin, Dr. Socolow gave an accounting of where we stand. There are now 3000 billion tons of CO2 in the atmosphere. Air trapped in ancient ice suggests that in the 400,000 or so years before the industrial revolution, the earth's atmospheric CO2 oscillated between 1500 and 2200 billion tons. Since atmospheric measurements began in earnest in 1958, atmospheric CO2 has risen from 2500 billion tons to the current 3000.
These 50 years of measurements were made by atmospheric scientists based on Mauna Loa in Hawaii, a location believed to be sufficiently removed from the industrialized world to allow for accurate data. At the ceremony marking the 50th year, Dr. Socolow said "Never has the work of so few led to so much being asked of so many." The so few were the scientists who revealed the dramatic and unprecedented rise of CO2 in the 20th century. The so many are the rest of us on earth being asked to change our ways.
And how much do we need to change our ways to avoid the worst consequences of climate change? Whereas the burning of fossil fuels spewed 6 billion tons into the atmosphere in 1950, that figure is now 30 billion every year. 15 of those go into the atmosphere; eight are absorbed by the oceans (apparently with disastrous consequences for marine life), and the remaining 7 are somehow absorbed by the land biosphere.
30 billion tons averages out to about 4 tons of CO2 per person per year. So, just to hold even on emissions, each of us passengers on planet earth would need to limit ourselves to 4 tons. Compare that to what we actually use. You consume four tons if you:
- drive a car 10,000 miles at 30 mpg
- or fly 10,000 miles (oops, I used up my allotment flying to Rome last month)
- or heat a typical home in an average climate
- or use 300 kilowatt hours of electricity per month from a coal burning power plant, or 600 kilowatt hours of electricity per month generated by a natural gas plant.
So, you see we're way over our individual allotments. Environmental values must co-habitate with others deeply held--democratic values, consumer values, and values of self-realization--that, for instance, slow our response to crisis, create an appetite for stuff, and cause us to burn energy as we travel to see the world.
But Dr. Socolow still sees reasons for optimism. The world is terribly inefficient with its energy use. Carbon emissions have just begun to be priced--already in Europe, and in less than a year utilities in NJ. If one goal is for humanity to actually start reducing its overall use of energy 50 years hence, it helps that most of the 2058 physical plant has not yet been built.
One of his main points is that solutions are not innocuous. Conservation can lead to regimentation. Renewable energy can compete with other uses for land. Nuclear power generates fuel that can be used in nuclear warfare. "Clean coal" has impacts on miners and land.
As often happens when you're trying to change the world, you find that the english language lacks current words to carry new concepts. Dr. Socolow proposes a new word for a new intellectual domain. Over the past 50 years, we've delved deeply into the history of the universe, the earth and of life itself. Can we achieve a comparable quantitative understanding of what human civilization will look like at various times in the future? This new discipline would be called prospicience--a combining of the words propect and science.
In contrast to Amory Lovins' talk, which seemed to imply that we can stop global warming without financial or personal hardship, Dr. Socolow sees solutions as possible but hard. He looks to the past to find comparable situations in which "What once seemed too hard has become what simply must be done." For precedents, he points to the abolition of child labor, the addressing of the needs of the disabled, and the mitigation of air pollution.
I'd suggest that the abolition of slavery is the most relevant precedent, since both slaves and fossil fuels have played the role of providing energy on demand. Only slowly do the beneficiaries of that energy explore the ethical implications of the comfort and convenience it brings.
One of the questions raised after the talk was why Mr. Socolow did not mention population as a factor. He acknowledged that population is a central aspect of climate change, and said that the severing of population from the discussion of energy had happened in the 1980s, and coincided with the shooting of the messenger.
Amory Lovins--Will the Future Ever Come?
Amory Lovins, founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, lives on another planet, and has spent his life encouraging us to join him. It's a much more sensible planet, where most of the intimidating problems we earthlings are struggling with--climate change, energy independence--have long since been solved. His embassy on planet earth is located 7000 feet up in the frequently frigid Rocky Mountains, where he lives comfortably and grows bananas year after year in a house so sensibly and cleverly designed it doesn't need a furnace. Inbetween banana harvests, he comes down from the mountain to point out sensible ways for humanity to avoid destroying the planet.
I witnessed his recent visit to Princeton, where his imaginative approach to increasing energy efficiency contrasted nicely with the setting--an old lecture hall lit by chandeliers fitted with wasteful incandescent light bulbs. His information-packed powerpoint presentation quickly outstripped my ability to take notes, but here is a gist:
When it comes to steering civilization and the planet clear of the looming danger of climate change, Mr. Lovins believes we have been offered a false choice. Do we want to die from climate change, oil wars, or nuclear holocaust? To avoid these unsavory options, he points to a future that is dependent neither on oil nor nuclear energy.
This better future is driven largely by negawatts, and the magical sources of this magical energy is efficiency. If you find a way to avoid burning a barrel of oil, it's the same as having produced a barrel of energy in your own backyard. Does everyone wish for energy independence? Well, there's a Saudi Arabia-sized deposit of negabarrels easily within our reach, on our home turf, right under Detroit in a rich, efficiency-laden deposit he calls the "Detroit Formation".
To access all this energy, we must first drill through thick layers of false assumptions, beginning with the assumption that climate protection is costly. On the contrary, Mr. Lovins points out that smart companies are racing for the profits to be had by becoming more efficient. DuPont, for instance, now uses 80% less energy than it did in 1990. BP increased its profits by $2 billion through efficiency improvements. IBM, ST Microelectronics, Dow, GE, Texas Instruments--all these and many others have jumped on the efficiency train in a big way, and have made money in the process.
The motherlode of negabarrels awaiting exploitation in Detroit has to do with the gross inefficiencies of the automobile. Only 0.3% of the energy used by a car actually moves the driver, whose weight is a mere pittance compared to the massive metal hulk of metal and rubber we must drag around with us on errands. "Lightweighting" is the future, which has much to do with replacing automobiles' heavy metal frames with carbon materials that are both lightweight and strong. To demonstrate the safety of lightweight car frames, he showed a spectacular crash by a race car made of carbon, from which the driver walked away unscathed. The higher cost of the frame will be offset by the savings in the much smaller engine needed to propel it.
Mr. Lovins believes the technology for radical reductions in energy use is at hand, and pointed out that, with government intervention, it took only six months for car factories to switch over to making tanks and bombers back in World War II. Conversion this time, to much more efficient cars, will be much easier, since carbon frames for cars can be made with far less equipment and robotics than metal chassis.
Though he mentioned government intervention in World War II, Mr. Lovins' philosophy is based primarily on getting government to step out of the way. He pointed to perverse incentives in 48 states that reward power companies for selling more electricity. "Let all ways to save or produce energy compete fairly," he says. "Our current energy policy is the biggest threat to our achieving rational energy security."
Another notherlode of negawatts can be found in the gross inefficiency of our electrical power distribution. According to my notes from the talk, for every 100 units of energy consumed by power plants, only 10 units actually get utilized by consumers. That would suggest that the desktop computer I'm using to write this post, which uses 150 watts of electricity, is actually producing 1500 watts worth of CO2 at the power plant. If I were using a more efficient computer, say, my old desktop, which used only 35 watts, I would in fact be reducing my carbon footprint by 1150 watts.
And therein lies the tremendous frustration I felt after Mr. Lovins' wonderfully hopeful presentation. Though his facts and figures were compelling, his words and ideas didn't magically replace the wasteful incandescent bulbs that still light that charming lecture hall at McCosh 50. We all stepped out into the night to return to homes and offices equiped with energy guzzling furnaces and air conditioners. The local auto showroom offers no deals on cars made of lightweight carbon.
In fact, the world, our world, seems to be drifting ever farther from the desired orbit. My newer computer, which I naturally assumed would be more efficient than the old behemoth it replaced, turns out to use four times more energy. The auto dealership parking lot is lined with 17 mpg minivans and SUVs, and the electronics outlet is packed with big-screen TVs. Solar panels remain too costly to install without big subsidies.
For decades, we've heard these teaser stories on the news about one scientist or another doing promising research on new technologies, alternative energy sources that show great potential but aren't quite ready for the market. And yet here we are, still driving dinosaurs and paying ever more to heat and cool our leaky caves. The artist's rendition of streamlined trucks that Amory Lovins showed us looked eerily like the futuristic vehicles I saw in magazines in the 1960s.
The future stubbornly remains an appealing drawing on a piece of paper, a mirage that keeps us trudging through the desert, a brilliant 21st century lecture deluminated and belied by 19th century light bulbs.
I witnessed his recent visit to Princeton, where his imaginative approach to increasing energy efficiency contrasted nicely with the setting--an old lecture hall lit by chandeliers fitted with wasteful incandescent light bulbs. His information-packed powerpoint presentation quickly outstripped my ability to take notes, but here is a gist:
When it comes to steering civilization and the planet clear of the looming danger of climate change, Mr. Lovins believes we have been offered a false choice. Do we want to die from climate change, oil wars, or nuclear holocaust? To avoid these unsavory options, he points to a future that is dependent neither on oil nor nuclear energy.
This better future is driven largely by negawatts, and the magical sources of this magical energy is efficiency. If you find a way to avoid burning a barrel of oil, it's the same as having produced a barrel of energy in your own backyard. Does everyone wish for energy independence? Well, there's a Saudi Arabia-sized deposit of negabarrels easily within our reach, on our home turf, right under Detroit in a rich, efficiency-laden deposit he calls the "Detroit Formation".
To access all this energy, we must first drill through thick layers of false assumptions, beginning with the assumption that climate protection is costly. On the contrary, Mr. Lovins points out that smart companies are racing for the profits to be had by becoming more efficient. DuPont, for instance, now uses 80% less energy than it did in 1990. BP increased its profits by $2 billion through efficiency improvements. IBM, ST Microelectronics, Dow, GE, Texas Instruments--all these and many others have jumped on the efficiency train in a big way, and have made money in the process.
The motherlode of negabarrels awaiting exploitation in Detroit has to do with the gross inefficiencies of the automobile. Only 0.3% of the energy used by a car actually moves the driver, whose weight is a mere pittance compared to the massive metal hulk of metal and rubber we must drag around with us on errands. "Lightweighting" is the future, which has much to do with replacing automobiles' heavy metal frames with carbon materials that are both lightweight and strong. To demonstrate the safety of lightweight car frames, he showed a spectacular crash by a race car made of carbon, from which the driver walked away unscathed. The higher cost of the frame will be offset by the savings in the much smaller engine needed to propel it.
Mr. Lovins believes the technology for radical reductions in energy use is at hand, and pointed out that, with government intervention, it took only six months for car factories to switch over to making tanks and bombers back in World War II. Conversion this time, to much more efficient cars, will be much easier, since carbon frames for cars can be made with far less equipment and robotics than metal chassis.
Though he mentioned government intervention in World War II, Mr. Lovins' philosophy is based primarily on getting government to step out of the way. He pointed to perverse incentives in 48 states that reward power companies for selling more electricity. "Let all ways to save or produce energy compete fairly," he says. "Our current energy policy is the biggest threat to our achieving rational energy security."
Another notherlode of negawatts can be found in the gross inefficiency of our electrical power distribution. According to my notes from the talk, for every 100 units of energy consumed by power plants, only 10 units actually get utilized by consumers. That would suggest that the desktop computer I'm using to write this post, which uses 150 watts of electricity, is actually producing 1500 watts worth of CO2 at the power plant. If I were using a more efficient computer, say, my old desktop, which used only 35 watts, I would in fact be reducing my carbon footprint by 1150 watts.
And therein lies the tremendous frustration I felt after Mr. Lovins' wonderfully hopeful presentation. Though his facts and figures were compelling, his words and ideas didn't magically replace the wasteful incandescent bulbs that still light that charming lecture hall at McCosh 50. We all stepped out into the night to return to homes and offices equiped with energy guzzling furnaces and air conditioners. The local auto showroom offers no deals on cars made of lightweight carbon.
In fact, the world, our world, seems to be drifting ever farther from the desired orbit. My newer computer, which I naturally assumed would be more efficient than the old behemoth it replaced, turns out to use four times more energy. The auto dealership parking lot is lined with 17 mpg minivans and SUVs, and the electronics outlet is packed with big-screen TVs. Solar panels remain too costly to install without big subsidies.
For decades, we've heard these teaser stories on the news about one scientist or another doing promising research on new technologies, alternative energy sources that show great potential but aren't quite ready for the market. And yet here we are, still driving dinosaurs and paying ever more to heat and cool our leaky caves. The artist's rendition of streamlined trucks that Amory Lovins showed us looked eerily like the futuristic vehicles I saw in magazines in the 1960s.
The future stubbornly remains an appealing drawing on a piece of paper, a mirage that keeps us trudging through the desert, a brilliant 21st century lecture deluminated and belied by 19th century light bulbs.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
How to Parallel Park in a Parallel Universe
If you don't like the sight of parking garages, and the thought of how much fossil fuel oversized cars are consuming, then the old neighborhoods of Rome can come as a relief. Narrow streets and very limited parking has created what for an American is a parallel universe populated by scooters and tiny cars.The "smart" car--a small car with an attitude that is coming to the States this year--is a common sight. It's so short it can park like a scooter if the space is too minute for parallel parking.
I had read that Rome's streets are noisy and dangerous, but in the old district, at least, there was a lot of gentle driving going on, and the reported racket of car horns turned out to be only a periodic, polite peep.
When I was ten years old, I visited Europe and, when I wasn't throwing rocks in alpine streams in an imaginative effort to re-sink the Bismark, I was admiring the scooters that quietly zipped people around. Decades later, I have the same reaction. Motorcycles without the macho connotations.A web search suggests that the 'smart' cars don't get particularly spectacular gas mileage--in the 30 to 40 mpg range. Scooters are up around 85 mpg.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Biking--A Slow Shift in Thinking
As you can see, now that everyone is feeling an urgency to do something about climate change, even the neighborhood lawn ornaments are taking to their bikes.In fact, if people are changing their ways, it's hard to tell from this outpost, where the stream of cars passing by appears unabated. Even living right in town, where the shopping center is four blocks away and schools are a ten minute bike ride, there always seems to be some excuse to jump in the car. Maybe we're running late, or the clouds are threatening, and besides, it's just a short drive, not much gas consumed, so no harm done.
People are faced with a double abstraction: that the oft-declared global emergency of global warming will dramatically affect each of us and all we care about, and that our individual actions can actually affect the course of global warming. Though government can have an influence, the human impact on the planet comes down to the cumulative effect of individual actions. As individuals we feel peripheral, inconsequential, but are in fact central--the only show in town.
Self-denial is not in the national psyche, so any change in individual behavior needs to be driven by positive, self-actualizing factors rather than a willful forgoing of comfort and convenience.
Tipping the balance towards jumping on a bike, rather than crawling yet again into the stylish metal hulk, requires a cumulative change in thinking, until the pros of riding a bike in any given situation start to outweigh the cons. It helps to be aware that short, in-town drives are not good for a car, since the engine never quite warms up. The $50 refill at the gas station the other day was a fine wakeup call.
For those who can connect the dots between personal action and the nation's future, it's also possible to view walking and biking as patriotic acts, a way to incrementally reduce all sorts of undesireables: dependence on foreign oil, the national trade deficit, gas prices and inflation. There's also the unsettling thought of what sorts of corrupt regimes all that gas money is supporting.
Factor in a desire not to add to global warming, air and water pollution and the congestion of local roads, and before you know it the sway of your thinking has you on your bike, feeling empowered to change the world in some small way, immersed in the richness of the great outdoors, improving your circulation as you circulate through town.
The more one chooses the bike over the car, the more it becomes a habit, until the first response is to head for the bike rather than grab the car keys. There's also an expansion of acceptable weather that happens gradually, until even a light drizzle is no longer a deterrent. Water, I discovered after a couple years of periodically biking around town, is not toxic, and there was a raincoat hiding in my closet that is actually designed to shed it. Such are the rediscoveries that await in the long process of shedding car-dependency.
And then there is the fun aspect, which I discovered after reconditioning a trailer bike that someone had left on the curb (shop local). Get a kid on the trailer seat strong enough to contribute to the peddling, and the sensation is of flying down a sled run, or team rowing on Lake Carnegie. Even if the cold weather discourages biking to school in the morning, I can still pick up my daughter with this rig in the warmed afternoon.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Recycling and the Missing Feedback Loops
Recycling rates have dropped significantly in the past ten to fifteen years, not only in Princeton but throughout New Jersey. Nearly every county is out of compliance with state mandates to recycle.
The state recently passed the New Jersey Recycling Enhancement Act, which will raise money to support local recycling initiatives by adding a landfill fee for garbage generated in the state. Municipalities will see more money for recycling over the next year.
Sounds like a great idea, but I see the problem as having much to do with a lack of feedback at all levels of the recycling process. At the residential level, homeowners who chronically include non-recyclables in their recycling bin are not given any note telling them what they've done wrong. Though the county recently mailed a very informative photo showing what's recyclable and what is not, it's obvious that many homeowners don't look at it.
At the municipal level, Princeton borough and township recycling coordinators collect data each year on the quantities of various items being recycled in town, and send this raw data off to Mercer County. In return, the borough and township each receive annual grants of about $8000 from the state to support the coordinator positions. There appears not to be, however, any annual report generated from that data by the borough and township that would give a clear indication of trends and where to focus energy to improve participation. Without this sort of feedback loop, residents and their representatives run the risk of being unaware there is any problem.
In other words, residents receive no feedback on their recycling, and city officials apparently receive no feedback on their town's recycling. It's no surprise, then, that the town is not meeting state goals for recycling, and that the master plan for Princeton includes only boiler plate language with no indication that recycling needs to be improved.
The state recently passed the New Jersey Recycling Enhancement Act, which will raise money to support local recycling initiatives by adding a landfill fee for garbage generated in the state. Municipalities will see more money for recycling over the next year.
Sounds like a great idea, but I see the problem as having much to do with a lack of feedback at all levels of the recycling process. At the residential level, homeowners who chronically include non-recyclables in their recycling bin are not given any note telling them what they've done wrong. Though the county recently mailed a very informative photo showing what's recyclable and what is not, it's obvious that many homeowners don't look at it.
At the municipal level, Princeton borough and township recycling coordinators collect data each year on the quantities of various items being recycled in town, and send this raw data off to Mercer County. In return, the borough and township each receive annual grants of about $8000 from the state to support the coordinator positions. There appears not to be, however, any annual report generated from that data by the borough and township that would give a clear indication of trends and where to focus energy to improve participation. Without this sort of feedback loop, residents and their representatives run the risk of being unaware there is any problem.
In other words, residents receive no feedback on their recycling, and city officials apparently receive no feedback on their town's recycling. It's no surprise, then, that the town is not meeting state goals for recycling, and that the master plan for Princeton includes only boiler plate language with no indication that recycling needs to be improved.
Monday, March 10, 2008
New Way to Increase Recycling in Princeton?
Though you hear little talk about it being a problem, Princeton and just about every other town in New Jersey has for years been out of compliance with state mandates to recycle. The percentage of the solid waste stream being recycled in New Jersey has been dropping since 1995, from 45% down to 34% in 2004. More recent statistics are hard to find. The state mandate is to recycle 50% of the municipal solid waste stream.
Part of the solution to dropping participation rates may come from a new company doing business in New Jersey and nationwide. They're called RecycleBank, currently serve seven towns in south Jersey, and claim that by offering an incentive, they can often double recycling rates.
Part of the solution to dropping participation rates may come from a new company doing business in New Jersey and nationwide. They're called RecycleBank, currently serve seven towns in south Jersey, and claim that by offering an incentive, they can often double recycling rates.
The program works something like this: Recycle Bank works with the existing waste/recycling hauler to refit their trucks, and supplies new rollout bins to residents. Recyclables are all put in one bin. The bin has a bar code, which allows the truck to identify and weigh each bin as it is unloaded into the truck. Over time, each resident will accumulate points according to the weight of materials he or she recycles. These points can then be cashed in for merchandise at a selection of retail outlets. This gives residents an economic incentive to recycle as much of their waste stream as possible.
Recycle Bank is essentially paid through the savings the hauler incurs in landfill fees, since the amount of garbage will decrease as recycling increases. Though the town can encourage the hauler to enlist in the program, it sounds like the hauler makes the ultimate decision, and may or may not want to change the existing contract it has with the town. One advantage for the hauler is that workman's comp expenses should go down, since the workmen will no longer need to lift heavy containers of recycled paper into the trucks (the Recycle Bank bins hook onto a lift fitted on the trucks).
Recycle Bank is essentially paid through the savings the hauler incurs in landfill fees, since the amount of garbage will decrease as recycling increases. Though the town can encourage the hauler to enlist in the program, it sounds like the hauler makes the ultimate decision, and may or may not want to change the existing contract it has with the town. One advantage for the hauler is that workman's comp expenses should go down, since the workmen will no longer need to lift heavy containers of recycled paper into the trucks (the Recycle Bank bins hook onto a lift fitted on the trucks).
The recycling committee of the Princeton Environmental Commission will be doing more research into this option for Princeton residents.
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Recycling Fluorescent Light Bulbs
Since it's now widely known that fluorescent light bulbs contain small amounts of mercury (sealed within the glass chamber), there's lots of curiosity about what to do with them when they burn out. One option is to take them to periodic disposal days at the Mercer County Improvement Authority site.
Since a long drive to dispose of a couple bulbs makes little sense, members of the Princeton Environmental Commission have been seeking out a location in Princeton where residents can drop off burned out fluorescents. Fortunately, a local business is generously offering to recycle your bulbs at no cost. You can take them to The Light Gallery at the Princeton Shopping Center. They accept fluorescent bulbs of all kinds--long, short, compact--from any resident of Princeton (not from businesses). If you have more than a few bulbs, you'll want to check with them first (924-6878).
The people at The Light Gallery then put the bulbs in specially designed boxes and ship them off to a plant in Bethlehem, PA for recycling.
More info:
According to Chip Crider, a local resident and businessman who looked into the matter, there are six companies recycling CFLs in the U.S. They crush the bulbs in sealed chambers and retrieve as much mercury as they can. The Bethlehem, PA recycle plant is the only one that also tries to retrieve the portion of mercury that becomes adhered to the glass, apparently by heating the material to high temperatures.
Since a long drive to dispose of a couple bulbs makes little sense, members of the Princeton Environmental Commission have been seeking out a location in Princeton where residents can drop off burned out fluorescents. Fortunately, a local business is generously offering to recycle your bulbs at no cost. You can take them to The Light Gallery at the Princeton Shopping Center. They accept fluorescent bulbs of all kinds--long, short, compact--from any resident of Princeton (not from businesses). If you have more than a few bulbs, you'll want to check with them first (924-6878).
The people at The Light Gallery then put the bulbs in specially designed boxes and ship them off to a plant in Bethlehem, PA for recycling.
More info:
According to Chip Crider, a local resident and businessman who looked into the matter, there are six companies recycling CFLs in the U.S. They crush the bulbs in sealed chambers and retrieve as much mercury as they can. The Bethlehem, PA recycle plant is the only one that also tries to retrieve the portion of mercury that becomes adhered to the glass, apparently by heating the material to high temperatures.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Notes From a David Suzuki Talk
For those who missed the talk by David Suzuki at Princeton University on Feb. 12, here's a writeup. Suzuki is the eminent Canadian scientist perhaps best known for his many television documentaries.
Dr. Suzuki described humanity's long arc, beginning 150,000 years ago, when we were a minor species in Africa, our numbers dwarfed by the spectacular fauna that dominated the world at that time. What was it about us back then that would eventually make us the most numerous mammalian species on the planet, more common than rats, rabbits or mice, dominating the planet as no other species has ever done? We were equipped with a brain able to process and hold more information than any other species. With that extraordinary mind, we invented the future. Our foresight allowed us to anticipate future circumstances in ways no other species could.
Suzuki sees this as the defining characteristic that allowed us incomparable success as a species--and yet we are now ignoring those who offer the best insight into the future. In 1992, half of all nobel prize winners signed a document warning that humanity had only one or a few decades to act before our future as a species would be irreparably diminished. He read some compelling excerpts from the document, which was ignored by the news media. You'd think, he said, that if half of the most celebrated scientists in the world speak out in unison on a pressing problem, the world would take notice, but no.
As an example of what happens when society ignores scientists, he offered up Hurricane Katrina, whose catastrophic consequences confirmed everything scientists had been saying for 30 years.
After 8 years studying at U.S. universities, Suzuki returned to Canada to begin his professional career in 1962. As chance would have it, that was the year that Silent Spring was published. He described the huge impact that book had on him and on the world. Silent Spring showed him that what he could learn from test tube experiments in a lab was only a minute part of reality, since anything being studied in a lab enters into tremendously complex interactions when put back into the environment.
He was in Vancouver, involved in various early environmental battles, when Greenpeace was born, in a fight to stop nuclear underground testing off the coast of Canada. Human beings, he realized, were "taking too much stuff out of the natural world, and putting too many toxics back in." And those toxics accumulate at each trophic level, as they move up the food chain. There is no place in the world that is free of manmade pollutants. Some scientists studying toxics in breastmilk in urban Canada needed a control group of mothers who had not been exposed to PCBs. They tested eskimos in the far north, and to their horror found the highest concentrations of PCBs ever recorded.
In the 1970, Suzuki felt despair at how little we knew about the environment and what we were doing to it. He sought out the ancient wisdom of what he calls the "1st nations", the tribal cultures, from whom he learned that humans are composed of the four sacred elements: earth, air, water and fire. He believes science has confirmed this view, that we essentially are the environment--there is no separation.
He then described each element, beginning with air. With each breath, we draw air into extraordinary intimacy with the interior of our bodies. He described the special membranes in our lungs that allow the air to become essentially one with our tissues, as the gases become attached to blood cells and carried throughout our circulatory system. He told a magnificent story of how the inert argon atoms we breath in each breath, some 30,000,000,000,000,000,000, include atoms that were breathed, let me say without too much exageration, by everyone and everything that ever lived. (The full story can be found at http://www.sacredbalance.com/web/arg.html.) In other words, he said, there is no line between the inner and outer worlds. We ARE air. "I am you. You are me."
That 15% of Canadians have asthma speaks to the consequences that all we put into the environment has on the inside environment of people.
He then suggested that with each of the other sacred elements there is a similar intimacy and universal sharing. Fire is the solar energy that we take in through our food to power our systems.
Other notes from the talk:
Reductionism--the study of pieces to understand the whole--doesn't work.
Emulate nature (biomimicry) rather than try to overwhelm it.
There is too much information today, which people use to defend any position. The dilemma is how to navigate through the information.
"News shatters the world" into two minute segments devoid of context, that fail to tell us why we should care about this or that happening in the world.
From 1900 to 2000, we went from being farming animals to city dwellers, in the process losing touch with the world that sustains us. He has found that many kids don't know where their food, water and other basic things come from. Many don't know that hamburgers and hotdogs come from animals.
If we don't know what nature provides, then we think the economy is the source of all things. We've elevated economy above ecology. He quoted someone as saying that "conventional economics is a form of brain damage," in which basic ecological services are categorized as "externalities". Conventional economics externalizes the world that keeps us alive. All the services provided by a living tree, for instance, are viewed as externalities. It only gains economic value when someone either buys it or cuts it down.
GDP, or gross domestic product, is a strange concept. It only adds, never subtracts. It views any exchange of money as good. Ice storms, car crashes--all increase GDP.
Fundamental questions to ask: "Am I happier?", "How much is enough?"
Clinging to steady economic growth is suicidal.
Suzuki described the efforts he's been involved in to bring about change. He collaborated with the Union of Concerned Scientists to come up with ten things people could do to improve the planetary situation, centering around what we eat, how we move, and where we live. It's difficult, because "people don't want to be fundamentally deflected towards a different way of doing things." But he sees the slow food movement as promising, a good place to start.
One thing that has worked for him is to create a vision--a target to reach in a generation. If one creates a vision, he finds that most people will be drawn in, will agree it's a worthy goal. Then it becomes a positive discussion of how do we get there.
One such vision is "Sustainability Within a Generation", which can be found at davidsuzuki.org.
Dr. Suzuki described humanity's long arc, beginning 150,000 years ago, when we were a minor species in Africa, our numbers dwarfed by the spectacular fauna that dominated the world at that time. What was it about us back then that would eventually make us the most numerous mammalian species on the planet, more common than rats, rabbits or mice, dominating the planet as no other species has ever done? We were equipped with a brain able to process and hold more information than any other species. With that extraordinary mind, we invented the future. Our foresight allowed us to anticipate future circumstances in ways no other species could.
Suzuki sees this as the defining characteristic that allowed us incomparable success as a species--and yet we are now ignoring those who offer the best insight into the future. In 1992, half of all nobel prize winners signed a document warning that humanity had only one or a few decades to act before our future as a species would be irreparably diminished. He read some compelling excerpts from the document, which was ignored by the news media. You'd think, he said, that if half of the most celebrated scientists in the world speak out in unison on a pressing problem, the world would take notice, but no.
As an example of what happens when society ignores scientists, he offered up Hurricane Katrina, whose catastrophic consequences confirmed everything scientists had been saying for 30 years.
After 8 years studying at U.S. universities, Suzuki returned to Canada to begin his professional career in 1962. As chance would have it, that was the year that Silent Spring was published. He described the huge impact that book had on him and on the world. Silent Spring showed him that what he could learn from test tube experiments in a lab was only a minute part of reality, since anything being studied in a lab enters into tremendously complex interactions when put back into the environment.
He was in Vancouver, involved in various early environmental battles, when Greenpeace was born, in a fight to stop nuclear underground testing off the coast of Canada. Human beings, he realized, were "taking too much stuff out of the natural world, and putting too many toxics back in." And those toxics accumulate at each trophic level, as they move up the food chain. There is no place in the world that is free of manmade pollutants. Some scientists studying toxics in breastmilk in urban Canada needed a control group of mothers who had not been exposed to PCBs. They tested eskimos in the far north, and to their horror found the highest concentrations of PCBs ever recorded.
In the 1970, Suzuki felt despair at how little we knew about the environment and what we were doing to it. He sought out the ancient wisdom of what he calls the "1st nations", the tribal cultures, from whom he learned that humans are composed of the four sacred elements: earth, air, water and fire. He believes science has confirmed this view, that we essentially are the environment--there is no separation.
He then described each element, beginning with air. With each breath, we draw air into extraordinary intimacy with the interior of our bodies. He described the special membranes in our lungs that allow the air to become essentially one with our tissues, as the gases become attached to blood cells and carried throughout our circulatory system. He told a magnificent story of how the inert argon atoms we breath in each breath, some 30,000,000,000,000,000,000, include atoms that were breathed, let me say without too much exageration, by everyone and everything that ever lived. (The full story can be found at http://www.sacredbalance.com/web/arg.html.) In other words, he said, there is no line between the inner and outer worlds. We ARE air. "I am you. You are me."
That 15% of Canadians have asthma speaks to the consequences that all we put into the environment has on the inside environment of people.
He then suggested that with each of the other sacred elements there is a similar intimacy and universal sharing. Fire is the solar energy that we take in through our food to power our systems.
Other notes from the talk:
Reductionism--the study of pieces to understand the whole--doesn't work.
Emulate nature (biomimicry) rather than try to overwhelm it.
There is too much information today, which people use to defend any position. The dilemma is how to navigate through the information.
"News shatters the world" into two minute segments devoid of context, that fail to tell us why we should care about this or that happening in the world.
From 1900 to 2000, we went from being farming animals to city dwellers, in the process losing touch with the world that sustains us. He has found that many kids don't know where their food, water and other basic things come from. Many don't know that hamburgers and hotdogs come from animals.
If we don't know what nature provides, then we think the economy is the source of all things. We've elevated economy above ecology. He quoted someone as saying that "conventional economics is a form of brain damage," in which basic ecological services are categorized as "externalities". Conventional economics externalizes the world that keeps us alive. All the services provided by a living tree, for instance, are viewed as externalities. It only gains economic value when someone either buys it or cuts it down.
GDP, or gross domestic product, is a strange concept. It only adds, never subtracts. It views any exchange of money as good. Ice storms, car crashes--all increase GDP.
Fundamental questions to ask: "Am I happier?", "How much is enough?"
Clinging to steady economic growth is suicidal.
Suzuki described the efforts he's been involved in to bring about change. He collaborated with the Union of Concerned Scientists to come up with ten things people could do to improve the planetary situation, centering around what we eat, how we move, and where we live. It's difficult, because "people don't want to be fundamentally deflected towards a different way of doing things." But he sees the slow food movement as promising, a good place to start.
One thing that has worked for him is to create a vision--a target to reach in a generation. If one creates a vision, he finds that most people will be drawn in, will agree it's a worthy goal. Then it becomes a positive discussion of how do we get there.
One such vision is "Sustainability Within a Generation", which can be found at davidsuzuki.org.
Friday, February 08, 2008
The Human Generator
For those who are of a practical sort, not apt to suffer unnecessary effort gladly, the concept of venturing onto a treadmill or a stairmaster remains an alien one. Perhaps there are primordial ancestors whispering through our genes, telling us to rest up for the big hunt, saying that exercise must have meaning and purpose beyond achieving a lively heart rate.
Needing motivation beyond simple longevity, I seek exercise in riding a bike to get where I need to go, or chopping wood, or cutting down invasive shrubs. This is all well and good, as far as it goes, but it rarely gives the sense of having tested the limit, of cleansing the pores, of flushing out the stagnant byways of the circulatory system.
To that end, I propose that someone of a mechanical bent devise an exercise bike that generates electricity. Domestic heroes, ready to take on global warming feet first, will trod down into the basement and spend a half hour generating an evening's worth of electricity for the family, and at the same time get that dose of intense exercise that a practical nature would otherwise deprive them of.
Of course, someone already has, as a "bike generator" web search will instantly show. One fellow produced 90 watt hours this very morning on his homemade bike generator, enough to run a laptop for three hours.
In this vein, below is an article encountered in the NY Times, about a way to generate electricity simply by taking a walk around the block. It attaches to the knee, and generates a steady flow of 5 watts. The article also mentions an invention that utilizes the jiggling of a backpack to generate 20 watts, more than enough to power whatever gizmos are standard equipment for hikes into the wild these days.
Embedded in the text is a stunning statistic: A person's body fat stores as much energy as a ton of batteries. Hope turns up in the most unlikely quarters. Given its reputation, the nation may be sitting on the key to its energy independence. No matter how dazzling the mechanical skin we wrap ourselves in, the solar-powered self remains the greatest marvel, now apparently with sophisticated battery power second to none.
Taking People Power to a New Level (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/us/08knees.html?ref=science)
Needing motivation beyond simple longevity, I seek exercise in riding a bike to get where I need to go, or chopping wood, or cutting down invasive shrubs. This is all well and good, as far as it goes, but it rarely gives the sense of having tested the limit, of cleansing the pores, of flushing out the stagnant byways of the circulatory system.
To that end, I propose that someone of a mechanical bent devise an exercise bike that generates electricity. Domestic heroes, ready to take on global warming feet first, will trod down into the basement and spend a half hour generating an evening's worth of electricity for the family, and at the same time get that dose of intense exercise that a practical nature would otherwise deprive them of.
Of course, someone already has, as a "bike generator" web search will instantly show. One fellow produced 90 watt hours this very morning on his homemade bike generator, enough to run a laptop for three hours.
In this vein, below is an article encountered in the NY Times, about a way to generate electricity simply by taking a walk around the block. It attaches to the knee, and generates a steady flow of 5 watts. The article also mentions an invention that utilizes the jiggling of a backpack to generate 20 watts, more than enough to power whatever gizmos are standard equipment for hikes into the wild these days.
Embedded in the text is a stunning statistic: A person's body fat stores as much energy as a ton of batteries. Hope turns up in the most unlikely quarters. Given its reputation, the nation may be sitting on the key to its energy independence. No matter how dazzling the mechanical skin we wrap ourselves in, the solar-powered self remains the greatest marvel, now apparently with sophisticated battery power second to none.
Taking People Power to a New Level (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/us/08knees.html?ref=science)
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Curious NY Times article on Fluorescent Lights
A NY Times article entitled "Any Other Bright Ideas?", on the pros and cons of compact fluorescent lights (CFLs), appeared in their House&Home section on 1/10. It had a lot of useful information, and provided interesting perspectives by various families that have tried the bulbs. Unfortunately, the article gave greatest prominence to the negative aspects of some bulbs, and at one point was completely contradictory. What the consumer needs is information on which bulbs produce pleasing light, yet this information was buried deep in the article, likely to be missed by all but the most thorough readers.
The kind of bulb that lights my workspace, a n:vision TCP, is described as harsh and hospital-like in one spot in the article, then as warm and pleasant in another. CFLs I've purchased in recent years don't buzz, flicker, or delay in turning on, so it was surprising to see these qualities given a high profile in the article. The stated price of the bulbs, too, was much higher than what they are being sold for locally. (see post on 1/2/08)
The n:vision bulbs are available at Home Depot, and perhaps other locations. They come in different warmths of light, so look for the color-coding on the package to find a bulb with more yellow and less of that "daylight" blue. Those with the green-colored packaging are the most pleasant indoors.
As I found out while helping a friend convert her office to fluorescents, the compact variety still take a minute or so to reach full brightness. When first turning on a 100 watt equivalent CFL, you're likely to think you got a raw deal, since it appears considerably dimmer than the 100 watt incandescent bulb it's supposed to replace. Give it a minute, though, and it will glow as brightly as the incandescent did, and use only a quarter of the energy. The 60 watt n:vision, however, instantly generates a bright light, so essentially imitates an incandescent bulb.
Some people are hesitant to use fluorescents, citing the dangers of the mercury they contain. There are various arguments against letting such a concern rule your decision: The amount of mercury they contain is minute and is sequestered in the bulb. Trace amounts of mercury are already present in our environment. Using fluorescents reduces the amount of mercury released from power plants. Anyone who has a manual thermostat or a non-digital thermometer in the house is already sequestering far more mercury than a household's worth of CFLs.
For more detail on mercury in CFLs, try http://www.slate.com/id/2183606/ and http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf.
The kind of bulb that lights my workspace, a n:vision TCP, is described as harsh and hospital-like in one spot in the article, then as warm and pleasant in another. CFLs I've purchased in recent years don't buzz, flicker, or delay in turning on, so it was surprising to see these qualities given a high profile in the article. The stated price of the bulbs, too, was much higher than what they are being sold for locally. (see post on 1/2/08)
The n:vision bulbs are available at Home Depot, and perhaps other locations. They come in different warmths of light, so look for the color-coding on the package to find a bulb with more yellow and less of that "daylight" blue. Those with the green-colored packaging are the most pleasant indoors.
As I found out while helping a friend convert her office to fluorescents, the compact variety still take a minute or so to reach full brightness. When first turning on a 100 watt equivalent CFL, you're likely to think you got a raw deal, since it appears considerably dimmer than the 100 watt incandescent bulb it's supposed to replace. Give it a minute, though, and it will glow as brightly as the incandescent did, and use only a quarter of the energy. The 60 watt n:vision, however, instantly generates a bright light, so essentially imitates an incandescent bulb.
Some people are hesitant to use fluorescents, citing the dangers of the mercury they contain. There are various arguments against letting such a concern rule your decision: The amount of mercury they contain is minute and is sequestered in the bulb. Trace amounts of mercury are already present in our environment. Using fluorescents reduces the amount of mercury released from power plants. Anyone who has a manual thermostat or a non-digital thermometer in the house is already sequestering far more mercury than a household's worth of CFLs.
For more detail on mercury in CFLs, try http://www.slate.com/id/2183606/ and http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf.
Compost Bucket Recommendation
When I was looking for a compost bucket to buy, I was glad for a friend's recommendation of a comparatively inexpensive, stainless steel model available from www.leevalley.com. They still have it, in two sizes, for around $17. (http://www.leevalley.com/garden/page.aspx?c=2&p=10025&cat=2,33140)
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Can-Do Water Heater Adjustment
Of all the houses I've lived in, this is the first in which it occurred to me to change the temperature control on the hot water heater. They're so quiet and unassuming, tucked away somewhere in a closet or the basement. If by rare chance you encounter it during daily domestic ramblings, it's not likely to give off that "Come and adjust me" kind of vibe.
Turning the water heater back on after a long vacation, I happened to adjust the temperature control so that the hot water for the shower was consistently just right. No cold water needed. Just turn on the hot.
Through this chance discovery, the hot water heater now burns less gas, and there's no longer a need to fiddle with the cold and hot water knobs before and during the shower.
Not to say this will work in all homes. Serendipity may be playing a role here, involving the rhythm of hot water use in the house, but for the sake of some simplicity and economy, it's worth a try.
Turning the water heater back on after a long vacation, I happened to adjust the temperature control so that the hot water for the shower was consistently just right. No cold water needed. Just turn on the hot.
Through this chance discovery, the hot water heater now burns less gas, and there's no longer a need to fiddle with the cold and hot water knobs before and during the shower.
Not to say this will work in all homes. Serendipity may be playing a role here, involving the rhythm of hot water use in the house, but for the sake of some simplicity and economy, it's worth a try.
Friday, January 04, 2008
Princeton Environmental Film Festival
Below is the link to info about the great film festival at the Princeton Public Library, in its second year, happening now through January 12. I'll be making a slide presentation entitled "Restoring Native Habitats In Princeton Preserves and Backyards" on Saturday, Jan. 12 at 1:30.
The 2008Princeton Environmental Film Festival
The 2008
Wednesday January 2 – Sunday January 6, and Saturday January 12
All screenings and talks are free and open to the public and are in the Community Room at the Princeton Public Library,
COMPLETE SCHEDULE and more information: http://www.princetonlibrary.org/peff/
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Partial Retrofits with Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs
Compact fluorescents have come a long way, but they work better in some spots than others.
Start with outdoor lighting that is on for long periods, and utility areas. I've been impressed with the fluorescent spotlights (though less advantageous for motion sensor lights, since the light is only on for brief periods), and have put the regular CFLs (Compact fluorescent lights) in enclosed outdoor fixtures without problems.
For indoors, the light they give off is much improved, and can be softened further by using them in lamps, where the glass or lampshade will add yellow to their glow.
For rooms with recessed or track lighting, or where dimmer switches make fluorescents problematic, it may work better to simply create a fluorescent alternative in those rooms rather than replacing the more wasteful bulbs. That way, when the room isn't being used but one wants some sort of light on, a lamp or overhead with a florescent can be turned on, with the other lighting reserved for times when you want additional or more ornate light.
Some people wait until an incandescent bulb burns out before replacing it with a compact florescent. My thinking is: Don't wait. Start reducing energy consumption now, and if you don't want to throw out a still-functional incandescent, then store it away, as a backup for those few spots where incandescents are more appropriate, for instance where a light is only used for a few minutes at a time.
Compact fluorescents are cheaper than most articles say. Recently, I found both 60 and 75 watt equivalents selling individually for 75 cents each at Walmart (strangely, packages of multiple bulbs in another display in the same store were more expensive per bulb) (One a subsequent visit, the bargain display had disappeared--a "one time deal" according to one of the employees). The big box hardware stores usually have 60 watt equivalents for $1 each these days (As of 1/16, they are more like 3 for $5).
Start with outdoor lighting that is on for long periods, and utility areas. I've been impressed with the fluorescent spotlights (though less advantageous for motion sensor lights, since the light is only on for brief periods), and have put the regular CFLs (Compact fluorescent lights) in enclosed outdoor fixtures without problems.
For indoors, the light they give off is much improved, and can be softened further by using them in lamps, where the glass or lampshade will add yellow to their glow.
For rooms with recessed or track lighting, or where dimmer switches make fluorescents problematic, it may work better to simply create a fluorescent alternative in those rooms rather than replacing the more wasteful bulbs. That way, when the room isn't being used but one wants some sort of light on, a lamp or overhead with a florescent can be turned on, with the other lighting reserved for times when you want additional or more ornate light.
Some people wait until an incandescent bulb burns out before replacing it with a compact florescent. My thinking is: Don't wait. Start reducing energy consumption now, and if you don't want to throw out a still-functional incandescent, then store it away, as a backup for those few spots where incandescents are more appropriate, for instance where a light is only used for a few minutes at a time.
Compact fluorescents are cheaper than most articles say. Recently, I found both 60 and 75 watt equivalents selling individually for 75 cents each at Walmart (strangely, packages of multiple bulbs in another display in the same store were more expensive per bulb) (One a subsequent visit, the bargain display had disappeared--a "one time deal" according to one of the employees). The big box hardware stores usually have 60 watt equivalents for $1 each these days (As of 1/16, they are more like 3 for $5).
An Energy Meter in Action
In Princeton, the town's effort to reduce energy consumption began with an assessment of the municipal buildings' energy use. If this makes sense for a town, then maybe it makes sense for a home.The Kill-a-Watt is a useful tool for getting a handle on some of your energy use. (They are available over the internet, but not locally.) It can test anything that plugs into a regular wall socket, up to 1850 watts.
Here it is in action, measuring how much electricity a toaster oven uses. 1400 watts is 100 times as much as a florescent bulb uses, and about half as much as a small electric dryer.
A toaster uses lots of energy but for a very short time. Press the red button on the right side of the Kill-a-Watt meter and it tells you how much energy the toasting of toast took--a grand 0.05 kilowatt hours. That's about one penny's worth of energy--about the same as having a 50 watt light bulb on for an hour.Obviously, toasters are not toasting the planet, but check other appliances and you're sure to find some unnecessary drains on energy. The device is particularly good for finding and measuring the energy used by electronics even when they are off. An October 21, 2007 post gives more info on what various appliances use.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Spiders--The Energy Detectives
Here's a post for all those seeking validation for having delayed deep cleaning of the house, thereby increasing home biodiversity and allowing some unexpected species to join your Domestic Energy Reduction Team.
Websites like (EnergyStar and ThisOldHouse) tell you that houses lose a lot of energy through leaks in the top floor ceiling. Light fixtures, ceiling fans, attic fan louvres, smoke detectors that run off house current rather than batteries--all can provide small openings for your heated air to escape into the attic. I've tried using incense to find these leaks (the smoke would supposedly show where the air is escaping), but the smoke is hard to see. An unexpected ally in a less than perfectly cleaned home turns out to be spiders. They seem only to build webs where there's airflow. Ceiling fixtures that are tight don't have them; ceiling fixtures that are leaking air into the attic do. Once you find the leaks, you can follow the directions on the websites to plug them up.
Websites like (EnergyStar and ThisOldHouse) tell you that houses lose a lot of energy through leaks in the top floor ceiling. Light fixtures, ceiling fans, attic fan louvres, smoke detectors that run off house current rather than batteries--all can provide small openings for your heated air to escape into the attic. I've tried using incense to find these leaks (the smoke would supposedly show where the air is escaping), but the smoke is hard to see. An unexpected ally in a less than perfectly cleaned home turns out to be spiders. They seem only to build webs where there's airflow. Ceiling fixtures that are tight don't have them; ceiling fixtures that are leaking air into the attic do. Once you find the leaks, you can follow the directions on the websites to plug them up.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Recycling in Schools--Lessons Learned
If you're trying to improve recycling in your workplace, these lessons apply whether it be a school, university, business, library, restaurant or any other building. They were learned during a mostly successful four-month effort to restart recycling in Princeton's district schools.
TAKE A LOOK OUT BACK
The only way to know whether a building is actually recycling is to check the bins out back, where they are picked up by the waste management service. The bins may be nonexistent, completely empty, filled with contaminants or, though this is less likely, actually filled with the intended recyclables. For optimal evidence, find out when pickup day is and check the day before.
SUPPORT FROM THE TOP ON DOWN
Get everyone on board, including administration, teachers, custodial staff and kids. A message that recycling matters, whether from above or from colleagues, has to be repeated many times for busy people to take heed and change habits.
A DESIGNATED RECYCLING COORDINATOR FOR EACH BUILDING
If someone in each building with passion for recycling is deputized by the leadership, the program has a much greater chance of succeeding and lasting.
EMPOWER PEOPLE BY LIMITING THE CUSTODIANS' ROLE
Unless the custodians are really committed to making recycling work, it's better if they play a minimal role in the process. Usually this means having a rollout bin not far from offices and/or classrooms that employees/students can take their recyclables to. Custodians then need only roll the bins outside for pickup. In cafeterias, custodians can play an important role in encouraging and monitoring recycling.
COLOR-CODE RECEPTACLES
People won't pause to read labels. There has to be an immediate recognition of what a container is for. It's best to try for the same color scheme people use locally for their residential curbside recycling.
KNOW WHAT'S RECYCLABLE
There are a lot of misconceptions out there about what's recyclable, so it may take some digging to get accurate information. In New Jersey, that means checking with the county government. (Note: If you check your hauler's website, they may have a more up to date list than the local government.) Chances are they have the information in both picture and text that can be printed out from a website. There is likely no difference between what is recyclable residentially and in the workplace. Post the information, particularly the picture, throughout the building, particularly above recycling receptacles. Misinformation reduces the quantity and quality of recyclables.
ALWAYS PAIR RECYCLING AND TRASH CONTAINERS
Any solitary recycling container quickly becomes contaminated with trash. This is a very common error. Most people will throw trash in whatever receptacle is nearby. Whether it be an event, a cafeteria or an office, make sure people have a choice by putting recycling and trash containers side by side, with a visible difference between the two.
TRANSPARENCY IS GOOD
Don't allow custodians to use black plastic bags. Transparent ones make it much easier to monitor whether recyclables are getting thrown out with the trash. Opaque plastic liners on recycling containers can also cover up the container's identifying color, making it look like a trash can.
MINIMIZE USE OF PLASTIC BAG LINERS ON RECYCLING CONTAINERS
Even when recyclables make it to the proper bin behind the building, they are often left inside a plastic bag. Plastic bags are contaminants in any recycling bin. When custodians put plastic bags on recycling containers, chances are greater that the contents will simply be thrown out with the trash.
QUALITY CONTROL
Last but by far not least, have someone in charge of regularly checking the bins behind the building the day before scheduled pickup. This is the only way to know how much is getting recycled and the level of contamination. Without this information, the feedback loop is broken. Recycling is a collaborative enterprise involving everyone in a building. Negative results serve to cut through illusions, and positive results can be a source of pride.
TAKE A LOOK OUT BACK
The only way to know whether a building is actually recycling is to check the bins out back, where they are picked up by the waste management service. The bins may be nonexistent, completely empty, filled with contaminants or, though this is less likely, actually filled with the intended recyclables. For optimal evidence, find out when pickup day is and check the day before.
SUPPORT FROM THE TOP ON DOWN
Get everyone on board, including administration, teachers, custodial staff and kids. A message that recycling matters, whether from above or from colleagues, has to be repeated many times for busy people to take heed and change habits.
A DESIGNATED RECYCLING COORDINATOR FOR EACH BUILDING
If someone in each building with passion for recycling is deputized by the leadership, the program has a much greater chance of succeeding and lasting.
EMPOWER PEOPLE BY LIMITING THE CUSTODIANS' ROLE
Unless the custodians are really committed to making recycling work, it's better if they play a minimal role in the process. Usually this means having a rollout bin not far from offices and/or classrooms that employees/students can take their recyclables to. Custodians then need only roll the bins outside for pickup. In cafeterias, custodians can play an important role in encouraging and monitoring recycling.
COLOR-CODE RECEPTACLES
People won't pause to read labels. There has to be an immediate recognition of what a container is for. It's best to try for the same color scheme people use locally for their residential curbside recycling.
KNOW WHAT'S RECYCLABLE
There are a lot of misconceptions out there about what's recyclable, so it may take some digging to get accurate information. In New Jersey, that means checking with the county government. (Note: If you check your hauler's website, they may have a more up to date list than the local government.) Chances are they have the information in both picture and text that can be printed out from a website. There is likely no difference between what is recyclable residentially and in the workplace. Post the information, particularly the picture, throughout the building, particularly above recycling receptacles. Misinformation reduces the quantity and quality of recyclables.
ALWAYS PAIR RECYCLING AND TRASH CONTAINERS
Any solitary recycling container quickly becomes contaminated with trash. This is a very common error. Most people will throw trash in whatever receptacle is nearby. Whether it be an event, a cafeteria or an office, make sure people have a choice by putting recycling and trash containers side by side, with a visible difference between the two.
TRANSPARENCY IS GOOD
Don't allow custodians to use black plastic bags. Transparent ones make it much easier to monitor whether recyclables are getting thrown out with the trash. Opaque plastic liners on recycling containers can also cover up the container's identifying color, making it look like a trash can.
MINIMIZE USE OF PLASTIC BAG LINERS ON RECYCLING CONTAINERS
Even when recyclables make it to the proper bin behind the building, they are often left inside a plastic bag. Plastic bags are contaminants in any recycling bin. When custodians put plastic bags on recycling containers, chances are greater that the contents will simply be thrown out with the trash.
QUALITY CONTROL
Last but by far not least, have someone in charge of regularly checking the bins behind the building the day before scheduled pickup. This is the only way to know how much is getting recycled and the level of contamination. Without this information, the feedback loop is broken. Recycling is a collaborative enterprise involving everyone in a building. Negative results serve to cut through illusions, and positive results can be a source of pride.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Green Home and Garden Tour
Information and a map for this Saturday's free tour can be found by going to www.princetonboro.org and clicking on Nov. 17 on the calendar.
My backyard is one of the stops on the tour. For anyone wishing to overcome procrastination on multiple backyard projects, there's nothing like periodically inviting the public in to have a look.
I'm calling my stop on the tour "Conservation Without Deprivation". It will feature varied low-cost strategies to lower the carbon footprint of a home, garden and community. Small, ongoing changes in landscape and lifestyle can yield big results.
My backyard is one of the stops on the tour. For anyone wishing to overcome procrastination on multiple backyard projects, there's nothing like periodically inviting the public in to have a look.
I'm calling my stop on the tour "Conservation Without Deprivation". It will feature varied low-cost strategies to lower the carbon footprint of a home, garden and community. Small, ongoing changes in landscape and lifestyle can yield big results.
- Solar living without solar panels
- Energy monitors to help identify unnecessary energy consumption
- Manipulating rainwater runoff for a drier basement and greener garden
- Gardening without fertilizer and (mostly) without weeds
- No-work composting
- “Heron-Certified” miniponds (a heron came by one day to eat the goldfish)
- Low energy, non-toxic ways to battle invasions of bamboo and ivy
- Integrating autumn leaves into the backyard landscape
Monday, October 29, 2007
Resurrecting Recycling at Local Schools
There are a lot of things that can go wrong with recycling at any institution, be it a school, university, library or business. People can think recycling is going on, when in fact all recyclables are ending up in the dumpster.So much can go wrong because, for recycling to work, so much has to go right. Everyone needs to know what's recyclable and what's not, and act on that knowledge. The containers in the building need to be strategically placed and color coded, and then the recyclables have to miraculously make the journey all the way to the big containers behind the building.
Anywhere along the line, the system can break down. Indifference is contagious. Idealism quickly turns to cynicism when a conscientious employee finds out that his or her carefully sorted recyclables are getting thrown away by the custodian.
Recycling is mandated in the state of New Jersey, but from what I've seen, effective recycling is a rarity in buildings and at public and private events. To be successful, recycling requires participation by everyone. Everyone is responsible for the outcome, which is to say no one is. The cumulative effect of insignificant-seeming acts by insignificant-feeling people determines the result.
Adding to the problem, beyond widespread indifference, is what seems to be a cultural taboo against checking the rollout bins and dumpsters behind buildings. There is no other way of telling what recyclable "product" a building is producing. This is basic quality control--something we expect to be done with every other commodity in commerce, yet shun when it comes to recycling.
As you can see by the above photo from the high school dumpster, a lot has been going wrong. Cardboard, bottles, aluminum cans--all were getting tossed in with the trash when a few of us sought to resurrect a recycling program that had been stopped altogether through the summer.
THE GOOD NEWSWhen recycling was reinstituted in September, one thing immediately started going right. The custodians mostly do a good job of recycling cardboard.
Other materials, like cans, bottles, juice boxes and paper, are also now getting recycled consistently at two of the four elementary schools--Riverside and Little Brook--thanks to more than one hundred emails between school administrators, staff and a particularly persistent community volunteer, and most importantly a few passionate teachers who have helped institute a program in which the kids carry recyclables from each classroom to central rollout bins, and the custodians help monitor the kids' recycling during lunchtime.
Other than custodial supervision of recycling at lunchtime, the program at the schools aims to take custodians out of the picture as much as possible. The key custodians are those that work after hours, unsupervised, and for them, recycling is extra work. Since many people are careless, the custodians frequently encounter a lot of trash mixed in with recyclables. Who can blame the custodians for not wanting to sort through someone else's trash?
THE BAD NEWSAs of late November, there is no recycling of bottles/cans/milkjugs at Community Park Elementary, and there has been no news as to how Johnson Park is doing.
At the high school and middle school, the situation is particularly challenging, since the kids and teachers don't stay in one room all day, and so no one is responsible for any one room. The two schools have different problems. Though some recycling of bottles and cans is happening at the middle school, there is none at the high school, despite recycling receptacles in the cafeteria. Five rollout bins stand behind the school, ready for bottles and cans, and each week they are empty, except for an occasional black plastic bag with unwashed cans from the kitchen. The bag is a contaminant.
Despite the hundred-plus emails buzzing around, there has been zero recycling of paper at the middle school all fall (paper recycling is reportedly going to begin after Thanksgiving), and next to none at the high school. The bin in the picture shows shredded paper, still in a plastic bag, which is a contaminant. This week, however, for the first time, a "Paper Only" bin was completely filled with mixed paper, loose, unshredded, with no plastic bags. Thanks likely goes to the high school's student environmental group, which has been working to overcome the entrenched institutional realities and perceptions that make recycling such a challenge.Past personal experience suggests that there is no recycling going on at school events, like school picnics or Back To School Nights. If any recycling containers are present, they are typically unpaired with trash bins, insuring that they will be highly contaminated with trash, which in turn insures that their contents will be tossed in the trash dumpster by the custodians.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Energy Consumption of Various Appliances
If you’re trying to reduce energy use at home or at the office, one of the handiest aids is a Kill-a-Watt. There are other similar devices on the market, but this is the most widely known. You can use it to measure how many watts most any plug-in device is using in your home. Since electricity makes no sound, most people are in the dark about what is consuming electricity in the house at any particular time. Though not available in retail stores for some reason, the device can be purchased via the internet for about $25.
Plug your computer, toaster, various power strips, TV and so forth into it and you’ll undoubtedly find some unexpected energy drains. If you leave the appliance plugged into the Kill a Watt for a couple weeks, it will give you the total energy consumed in that time period, which will provide a good sense of how much the appliance uses per year.
Here’s what I learned by using it:
NEW ELECTRONICS OFTEN CONSUME MORE THAN OLD ONES
My thin-screen computer and All-in-1 printer use much more energy than the ones they replaced. In other words, as the need to reduce our carbon footprints becomes ever more pressing, many of us are unwittingly switching to the electronic equivalents of SUVs.
Dell PC (newer, with thin screen): 150 watts total
Dell PC (older, with big bloated screen): 35 watts total (50 watts when booting or with certain websites)
Mac Desktop (2003): 50 watts
Printers:
Old HP printer: Zero watts when on but not in use
Newer All-in-One HP printer/scanner/fax/copier: 19 watts when on but not in use, 8 watts when turned off.
Television
Old TV: 45 watts
New TV: Holding off on that one, but likely to be a big increase. A thin screen similar in size to our old 19" TV uses a similar amount of energy, so the new models are slim in looks only.
It's called a dehumidifier, and it runs and runs. Mine is an Energy Star model, but that doesn't keep it from drawing what averages out to a constant draw of three or four hundred watts during the summer, and that's with it's thermostat set at the highest (70%) humidity level. A lower setting would cause it to run even more. Multiply that consumption rate by all the houses with basements in NJ, and you have a major contributor to energy demand, and therefore global warming. It may be worth looking into whether a ventilation system using fans would achieve adequate results, simultaneously helping to reduce any risk of radon accumulation. Another measure is to make sure the ground slopes away from the house, and that downspouts discharge well away from the foundation, to reduce the amount of moisture seeping through the basement walls from the soil.
INSIDIOUS, SILENT CONSUMPTION
My refrigerator uses 170 watts when the motor is running. To my surprise, it can occasionally use far more when it is dead silent. Whenever the defroster kicks in, its energy consumption jumps to 630 watts. Not much to be done about that, except to minimize the time the door is open, and maybe check the settings to make sure it's not running colder than it needs to. One thing to look for inside the frig is the switch that "reduces exterior moisture". This is a heating element that's supposed to keep the door from sweating. I turned it off, didn't notice any sweating, and thereby avoided the constant draw of 7 watts. The light bulb in the frig also produces considerable heat when the door is open.
The DSL modem and router draw 9 watts combined. The TV/DVD/VCR draw 5 watts combined when not in use. Plugging these, along with printer and other computer peripherals into power strips that can be turned off reduces overnight consumption by about 30 watts. You can buy power strips that turn off peripherals automatically when the computer is turned off. I saw these on amazon.com, but have yet to try them.
LIKE USING PERRIER TO WATER YOUR LAWN
That's what they say about how comparatively expensive it is to heat anything with electricity. That little toaster oven on the kitchen counter, for instance, uses 1400 watts when on, nearly half of what the central air conditioner uses when it's cooling the whole house. Fortunately, toast is a quick operation. The hairdryer uses between 400 and 1500 watts, depending on the setting. The Kill-A-Watt wouldn't measure the electric clothes dryer's energy use, which turned out to be a mind-altering 3700 watts when measured with a whole house energy monitor called T.E.D. For comparison, a fluorescent light bulb uses 15 watts.
MICROWAVE OVEN
The Kill-a-Watt has its limitations. It would not measure the microwave oven, which apparently uses more electricity than the Kill-a-Watt is designed to handle. As it turns out, the microwave uses 1900 watts, not bad considering how quickly it heats things.
MISCELLANEOUS
Vacuum cleaner: 1000
3-Way Lamp: 50-150 (quickly replaced with a one-way switch and a 23 watt flourescent)
Old stereo: 30-60, depending on volume
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Gutter Upkeep, or Pro-Activity for Amateurs
The word "upkeep" may well have had its origin in the high-altitude art of keeping gutters from spontaneously turning into downspouts. If they aren't kept up, they fall down, which is what happened to the rental next door. People don't naturally turn their attention to the condition of their gutters, but thanks to the inspiration of my neighboring landlord's neglect, I was moved to take action on my own.Most likely what happened next door was that autumn's first falling leaves clogged the gutter, rainwater filled them up, and the resultant weight pulled the old nails loose from the fascia board. So I've been spending some quality time replacing every other old nail on my gutters with a screw, and adding gutter guards so that I don't have to keep climbing up there to clear them of leaves. Where would we be without inspiration, whatever its source?
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Household Batteries Go in the Trash
In case you're wondering why household batteries can now go in the trash, here is the explanation on the Mercer County website. Rechargeable batteries, on the other hand, are usually recyclable at RadioShack and other similar stores.
Household batteries may be placed in your normal trash due to the fact that mercury levels have been significantly reduced and fall within DEP standards.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Measuring Your Home Energy Use
Any effort to cut back on home energy use quickly runs into a problem: our homes are designed to keep us in the dark about the consequences of our energy consumption habits.
Though foods are labeled for caloric content, you'll have a hard time finding any label on your computer, dishwasher, water heater, or any other household item that will tell you how much energy it uses.
Go on a diet, and you can get instant feedback on your progress by standing on a scale. Newer cars will tell you how many miles/gallon you're getting at any moment. But in a house, the most expensive item you're ever likely to own, feedback on energy use comes in tiny print, once a month in the mail. The electric meter is outside somewhere in the bushes, the gas meter is in a cramped corner of the basement, and their dials are hard to make any sense of.
For the highly motivated, it's possible to track down devices to measure energy consumption on the internet. To measure my own use, I bought a Kill-a-Watt, which is a $25 handheld device that will tell you what most plug-in appliances in your home are consuming at any moment or over a period of time. It's very helpful, but not for measuring the big consumers, like the central A/C, the dishwasher and clothes dryer. For those, I had to buy a $150 device that tells me how many watts my whole house is consuming at any moment. Though a number of home energy monitors are available on the internet, I ended up buying The Energy Detective--TED for short. Now I can turn on the dryer or any other item and see immediately how much my energy use jumps.
I'm surprised how many people shrug at the notion that this sort of knowledge and instant feedback could have any impact on behavior. It certainly has changed mine, as another post will describe.
Though foods are labeled for caloric content, you'll have a hard time finding any label on your computer, dishwasher, water heater, or any other household item that will tell you how much energy it uses.
Go on a diet, and you can get instant feedback on your progress by standing on a scale. Newer cars will tell you how many miles/gallon you're getting at any moment. But in a house, the most expensive item you're ever likely to own, feedback on energy use comes in tiny print, once a month in the mail. The electric meter is outside somewhere in the bushes, the gas meter is in a cramped corner of the basement, and their dials are hard to make any sense of.
For the highly motivated, it's possible to track down devices to measure energy consumption on the internet. To measure my own use, I bought a Kill-a-Watt, which is a $25 handheld device that will tell you what most plug-in appliances in your home are consuming at any moment or over a period of time. It's very helpful, but not for measuring the big consumers, like the central A/C, the dishwasher and clothes dryer. For those, I had to buy a $150 device that tells me how many watts my whole house is consuming at any moment. Though a number of home energy monitors are available on the internet, I ended up buying The Energy Detective--TED for short. Now I can turn on the dryer or any other item and see immediately how much my energy use jumps.
I'm surprised how many people shrug at the notion that this sort of knowledge and instant feedback could have any impact on behavior. It certainly has changed mine, as another post will describe.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Energy Consumption and the Sound of Silence
Though most people are now aware that global warming is a problem, awareness does not necessarily spur a change in behavior. For me, a sense of urgency developed by degrees. A photo seen, an article read--all describing a radically changed world because of our consumption of ancient fuels. Oftentimes, matter-of-fact descriptions had a greater impact than high volume soundings of alarm. At some point--maybe it was a description of how our CO2 emissions are fundamentally changing the chemistry and ecological destiny of the oceans--I realized the status quo could not continue.
Strangely, the realization need not lead to a burden of guilt but instead to a sense of empowerment. Each of us has the power to reduce our impact. The first thing to do is to discern when you're consuming fossil fuels and when you're not. This is not so easy, particularly around the house, where silent appliances can nonetheless be consuming large quantities of electricity. Unfortunately, your electric meter is of little use, since it's hard to read and located outside somewhere in the bushes. Not a convenient setup for providing feedback. A separate post will describe how to measure your energy use at any particular moment.
Just as my sense of urgency was fed by quiet descriptions rather than loud pronouncements of imminent doom, there is another sort of quiet that can power change in our lifestyles. The silence I refer to in the title of this post has more to do with awareness than with sound. Right now, my computer is drawing nearly 200 watts, the refrigerator several rooms over is cycling on and off, using another 200 or so when it's on. The TV and cordless phone are drawing a few watts, even though they are turned off. Beyond that, things are pretty "quiet" around here. If I decided to use the electric dryer rather than a clothesline, the house would suddenly be drawing an extra 3700 watts! Though the dryer's quiet as a whisper, it's possible to "hear" this as a raucous noise of consumption.
Fortunately, the clothes are air-drying, and if I turn off the computer, the house's power consumption gets quieter still. To be aware of this sound of silence is to relax in a new way. This awareness can be applied to your personal energy consumption at any moment in your day. Even though the street traffic may be loud, to walk or bike somewhere is to experience silence, whereas to drive a car is to hear a racket (consumption speaking), even if the windows are up.
The impact each of us has on the world as we consume fossil fuels is abstract. But the evidence is in--our collective impact is real. As each of us comes to realize what is at stake, it's understandable if we all feel a growing sense of tension between our lifestyles and the planet's future. Develop an awareness, "listen" to how much power you're consuming, find ways to turn down the volume, and discover in this all-too noisy and abstract world a new feeling of relaxation that has silence at its core.
Strangely, the realization need not lead to a burden of guilt but instead to a sense of empowerment. Each of us has the power to reduce our impact. The first thing to do is to discern when you're consuming fossil fuels and when you're not. This is not so easy, particularly around the house, where silent appliances can nonetheless be consuming large quantities of electricity. Unfortunately, your electric meter is of little use, since it's hard to read and located outside somewhere in the bushes. Not a convenient setup for providing feedback. A separate post will describe how to measure your energy use at any particular moment.
Just as my sense of urgency was fed by quiet descriptions rather than loud pronouncements of imminent doom, there is another sort of quiet that can power change in our lifestyles. The silence I refer to in the title of this post has more to do with awareness than with sound. Right now, my computer is drawing nearly 200 watts, the refrigerator several rooms over is cycling on and off, using another 200 or so when it's on. The TV and cordless phone are drawing a few watts, even though they are turned off. Beyond that, things are pretty "quiet" around here. If I decided to use the electric dryer rather than a clothesline, the house would suddenly be drawing an extra 3700 watts! Though the dryer's quiet as a whisper, it's possible to "hear" this as a raucous noise of consumption.
Fortunately, the clothes are air-drying, and if I turn off the computer, the house's power consumption gets quieter still. To be aware of this sound of silence is to relax in a new way. This awareness can be applied to your personal energy consumption at any moment in your day. Even though the street traffic may be loud, to walk or bike somewhere is to experience silence, whereas to drive a car is to hear a racket (consumption speaking), even if the windows are up.
The impact each of us has on the world as we consume fossil fuels is abstract. But the evidence is in--our collective impact is real. As each of us comes to realize what is at stake, it's understandable if we all feel a growing sense of tension between our lifestyles and the planet's future. Develop an awareness, "listen" to how much power you're consuming, find ways to turn down the volume, and discover in this all-too noisy and abstract world a new feeling of relaxation that has silence at its core.
Monday, September 10, 2007
A Solar Powered Lifestyle (Without Solar Panels)
I looked into getting solar panels for my home. The roof's oriented all wrong, and there are some big trees in the way. The solar rep, slow to yield to reality, suggested we put the panels in the backyard. What a lovely sight that would be, and a perfect target for soccer balls and various other errant airborne objects.
That puts me in a group that includes most Princetonians, who by and large like the shade and don't have homes that will conveniently rotate to face south. After a few months of being discouraged, I realized that there are nonetheless large portions of my lifestyle that can be converted to solar power, without the substantial investment in solar panels.
Begin with the realization that all of us are solar powered. The food that keeps us going carries energy harvested from the sun over the last year or so. True, it took fossil fuels to grow, process and transport the food, but fossil fuels are also consumed in the construction, transport and installation of solar panels. An array of panels on your roof might be dandy, but there are other ways of harnessing the solar energy within you and without you. The most retro of lifestyles can suddenly seem cutting edge when looked at from this perspective.
For instance, most people already have a solar powered vehicle, better known as a bicycle. Steep hills somehow seem less onerous when you realize you're drawing your energy from the sun. An electric clothes dryer is one of the biggest energy hogs in your home (mine draws 3700 watts) and can be easily replaced by a solar-powered dryer, in the form of a clothesline or foldable drying rack. (Towels still go in the regular dryer, at least until the scratchy-towel-syndrome can be conquered.) My solar powered lighting system (windows) works from sun-up to sunset. And a solar-powered dishwasher frequently takes on the pile of dishes on the kitchen counter. A vacuum cleaner (ours draws a hefty 1000 watts while on) is still handy for rugs and carpets, but a solar-powered broom works just fine for smooth floors.
The body has solar-powered heating and cooling capabilities that can be optimized by matching clothing to the season. The solar-powered mind, too, can play a role. Though I doubt I could meditate naked in the snow, like Buddhist monks, I find my perception of comfort increases if I acknowledge that it is, in fact, summer, and maybe it's okay if the house feels just a wee bit warmer than during other seasons. Air conditioning can get consumed much like coffee. The first cup generates a vague appetite for more, whether it's needed or not.
News articles come and go about research breakthroughs that will make solar panels more powerful and affordable, but we're all still waiting for them to turn into products we can actually buy. In the meantime, and it seems to be taking a long time, the solar-powered self is the best solar cell we've got.
That puts me in a group that includes most Princetonians, who by and large like the shade and don't have homes that will conveniently rotate to face south. After a few months of being discouraged, I realized that there are nonetheless large portions of my lifestyle that can be converted to solar power, without the substantial investment in solar panels.
Begin with the realization that all of us are solar powered. The food that keeps us going carries energy harvested from the sun over the last year or so. True, it took fossil fuels to grow, process and transport the food, but fossil fuels are also consumed in the construction, transport and installation of solar panels. An array of panels on your roof might be dandy, but there are other ways of harnessing the solar energy within you and without you. The most retro of lifestyles can suddenly seem cutting edge when looked at from this perspective.
For instance, most people already have a solar powered vehicle, better known as a bicycle. Steep hills somehow seem less onerous when you realize you're drawing your energy from the sun. An electric clothes dryer is one of the biggest energy hogs in your home (mine draws 3700 watts) and can be easily replaced by a solar-powered dryer, in the form of a clothesline or foldable drying rack. (Towels still go in the regular dryer, at least until the scratchy-towel-syndrome can be conquered.) My solar powered lighting system (windows) works from sun-up to sunset. And a solar-powered dishwasher frequently takes on the pile of dishes on the kitchen counter. A vacuum cleaner (ours draws a hefty 1000 watts while on) is still handy for rugs and carpets, but a solar-powered broom works just fine for smooth floors.
The body has solar-powered heating and cooling capabilities that can be optimized by matching clothing to the season. The solar-powered mind, too, can play a role. Though I doubt I could meditate naked in the snow, like Buddhist monks, I find my perception of comfort increases if I acknowledge that it is, in fact, summer, and maybe it's okay if the house feels just a wee bit warmer than during other seasons. Air conditioning can get consumed much like coffee. The first cup generates a vague appetite for more, whether it's needed or not.
News articles come and go about research breakthroughs that will make solar panels more powerful and affordable, but we're all still waiting for them to turn into products we can actually buy. In the meantime, and it seems to be taking a long time, the solar-powered self is the best solar cell we've got.
Making Use of Fallen Leaves in Your Yard
The previous post (below) tells why raking all your leaves to the curb is not such a great idea. There are lots of reasons to think of leaves as an asset rather than a burden. Here are some ways you can use leaves to advantage in your yard, whether it be large or small.
1. The simplest thing to do is rake/blow them into a woodlot, if available.
2. Rake them against the fenceline, where they can serve as a mulch to keep down weeds that often dominate along fencelines. Or dump them on any other weeds or groundcovers that are getting out of control. A thick layer of leaves discourages weeds. For weeds/groundcovers strong enough to push up through the leaves, first place overlapping pieces of cardboard on the undesired plants, then use the leaves over top to hide the cardboard.
3. Rake them into a leafpile. A corral or circle of wire fencing will help contain the leaves and keep them from blowing around. A readily available fencing is 3 feet high, green, and comes in rolls at the local hardware store. (Photo shows enough fencing for several corrals). The corral is essentially invisible when tucked in a back corner of the lot. A U-shape may be preferred so that leaves can be dragged, blown or raked right into the enclosure rather than lifted over the fencing. The leaf pile quickly reduces in size over the winter. The leaves can be left to decompose, acting like a sponge to catch the rain, and releasing nutrients to benefit the health of all trees and other landscaping in the vicinity. Contrary to popular notions of composting, it's not necessary to laboriously turn the pile. Just let it decompose over time. My experience is that a pile of leaves does not create odors.
4. Spread them on the vegetable garden and leave them there to hold in moisture, prevent weeds from sprouting, keep the soil cool in the summer, and slowly release nutrients. Planting tomatoes, for instance, requires nothing more than parting the leaves to put the new plants in. The leaf mulch reduces rotting of any tomotoes that touch the ground.
5. Mulch them up with a mower so they can disappear back into the lawn. The fragmented leaves can also be raked onto flower beds as a mulch. Some leaves, like those of silver maples, crinkle up and all but disappear into the lawn on their own, even before mowing. For thick, persistent leaves like those from a red oak, a corral or the mulch mower approach will keep them from blowing back into the yard.
1. The simplest thing to do is rake/blow them into a woodlot, if available.
2. Rake them against the fenceline, where they can serve as a mulch to keep down weeds that often dominate along fencelines. Or dump them on any other weeds or groundcovers that are getting out of control. A thick layer of leaves discourages weeds. For weeds/groundcovers strong enough to push up through the leaves, first place overlapping pieces of cardboard on the undesired plants, then use the leaves over top to hide the cardboard.
3. Rake them into a leafpile. A corral or circle of wire fencing will help contain the leaves and keep them from blowing around. A readily available fencing is 3 feet high, green, and comes in rolls at the local hardware store. (Photo shows enough fencing for several corrals). The corral is essentially invisible when tucked in a back corner of the lot. A U-shape may be preferred so that leaves can be dragged, blown or raked right into the enclosure rather than lifted over the fencing. The leaf pile quickly reduces in size over the winter. The leaves can be left to decompose, acting like a sponge to catch the rain, and releasing nutrients to benefit the health of all trees and other landscaping in the vicinity. Contrary to popular notions of composting, it's not necessary to laboriously turn the pile. Just let it decompose over time. My experience is that a pile of leaves does not create odors.4. Spread them on the vegetable garden and leave them there to hold in moisture, prevent weeds from sprouting, keep the soil cool in the summer, and slowly release nutrients. Planting tomatoes, for instance, requires nothing more than parting the leaves to put the new plants in. The leaf mulch reduces rotting of any tomotoes that touch the ground.
5. Mulch them up with a mower so they can disappear back into the lawn. The fragmented leaves can also be raked onto flower beds as a mulch. Some leaves, like those of silver maples, crinkle up and all but disappear into the lawn on their own, even before mowing. For thick, persistent leaves like those from a red oak, a corral or the mulch mower approach will keep them from blowing back into the yard.
HARVEST GONE WRONG
But I would argue that this tradition is needlessly expensive, dangerous and destructive, and that there are alternatives that could easily be adopted by most homeowners without any aesthetic or physical sacrifice.
Consider the above photo, taken last fall, which shows how one homeowner goes to the trouble of cleaning a woods. The homeowner no doubt likes things tidy, which can be seen as admirable, but let's take a look at the string of events this purging of leaves from the property sets into motion:
Leaves that were providing nutrients for the trees, and protection against soil erosion, are blown by a hired crew out into the street, where they block traffic near a school, pollute the local streams and must then be hauled out of town at community expense. In other words, leafblowers are used to create a solid waste problem, requiring more machines to carry the leaves away, grind them up for industrial-scale composting, then haul the leaf mold somewhere for final use.
In the age of global warming, it's hard to rationalize the extravagant consumption of fossil fuels this landscape practice demands. If the homeowner is not comfortable with the blanket of leaves the trees are trying to lay down for themselves, a much less harmful alternative is to place them in a wire corral in the back corner of the property (see post above).
But needless fuel consumption is only one of many reasons why the status quo is harmful to the community:
Increased Flooding: The annual mass removal of leaves from the urban landscape reduces organic matter in urban soils. This makes the ground less able to absorb rainwater, which increases flooding in local creeks.
Water Pollution: Though it's not obvious from the looks of things, the streets we walk on, drive on and dump stuff onto are essentially dry creekbeds, directly linked to the town's streams. Leaves dumped in the street invariably get rained on, start to decompose, and then release nutrient pollution into waterways before they can be picked up.
Energy consumption: If the township and borough are going to reduce energy consumption by 25%, in an effort to reduce the local impact on global warming, one place to start is by reducing the need for big rig caravans scooping or vacuuming up leaves along the street. In the borough, it's impressive to watch The Claw deftly scooping up leaves, but it burns a lot of gas, as do the massive grinders that triple-shred the leaves out at the Ecological Center. The export of leaves from town also requires burning more gas to then haul them back into town, in the form of mulch and compost.
Safety: Leaves on the street force cars out across the center line, and can cause fires if hot mufflers or catalytic converters on parked cars touch dry leaves. Where there are no sidewalks, pedestrians and bicyclists are forced towards the center of the street. Blockage of stormdrains by leaves adds to these problems.
Tree health: If we want to promote healthy trees in town, it's hard to imagine a happier tree root than one infiltrating the rich leafmold on the underside of a leafpile.
Most properties with big piles of leaves out at the curb have room on their lot for a leaf pile that will quickly and dramatically reduce in size over the winter. Perhaps there's a way to mix education and an incremental change in policy that would allow Princeton to trade one tradition for another that makes more ecological and horticultural sense.
Expense and diversion of staff from other municipal services: Leaf collection increases wear and tear on town vehicles and draws town crews away from other services they would ordinarily provide yearround.
Grass Clipping Update
In response to a state law passed some time ago, Princeton Borough is no longer picking up grass clippings from the streets (http://www.princetonboro.org/public_works.cfm). Grass clippings clog drains and their nutrients can leach into local streams. The stormwater system underlying town streets feeds directly into streams, so dumping anything on the street is essentially the same as throwing it into the local brook.
Some homeowners hold to the belief that grass clippings left on the lawn cause thatch buildup, but the Mercer County Extension service does not recommend removing them. They are high in beneficial nutrients and decompose quickly. They can also be composted if mixed with other organic materials. Go to http://www.mgofmc.org/successfullawncare.html for more info.
Unfortunately, many homeowners, not having gotten any clear feedback from the borough, are still dumping grass clippings out on the streets, making ever larger piles. Maybe someday there will be a good feedback system developed so the policy is made clear to those who can't take a hint.
Some homeowners hold to the belief that grass clippings left on the lawn cause thatch buildup, but the Mercer County Extension service does not recommend removing them. They are high in beneficial nutrients and decompose quickly. They can also be composted if mixed with other organic materials. Go to http://www.mgofmc.org/successfullawncare.html for more info.
Unfortunately, many homeowners, not having gotten any clear feedback from the borough, are still dumping grass clippings out on the streets, making ever larger piles. Maybe someday there will be a good feedback system developed so the policy is made clear to those who can't take a hint.
Monday, June 18, 2007
What To Do With Batteries
Batteries can no longer be recycled curbside.
I just called up the Mercer County Improvement Authority, and they confirmed that alkaline batteries are safe to put in the garbage. They had no suggestions about how to recycle them. As stated on Princeton Township's website (www.princetontwp.org/n99insert2.html), rechargeable batteries can usually be recycled at your local Radio Shack or other similar store. For other sorts of batteries, you may want to consult the Mercer County website (http://www.mcia-nj.com/recycling.html). Our elementary school was collecting batteries for awhile--something to keep an eye out for.
I just called up the Mercer County Improvement Authority, and they confirmed that alkaline batteries are safe to put in the garbage. They had no suggestions about how to recycle them. As stated on Princeton Township's website (www.princetontwp.org/n99insert2.html), rechargeable batteries can usually be recycled at your local Radio Shack or other similar store. For other sorts of batteries, you may want to consult the Mercer County website (http://www.mcia-nj.com/recycling.html). Our elementary school was collecting batteries for awhile--something to keep an eye out for.
Leave Grass Clippings On the Lawn!
If the borough ordinance forbids putting lawn clippings out on the road, why do the street crews keep taking them away? Good question. Even in a government bureaucracy as small as Princeton Borough, there are contradictions. Though street crews are showing a generous nature, the result is that neighbors imitate other neighbors, and soon the whole block is violating an ordinance intended to prevent high-nitrogen yardwaste from polluting the nearby creek via storm sewers.
Sometimes, it's a misinformed landscape business that is first on the block to dump illegally.
Word has it that the borough may eventually start fining homeowners who put grass clippings out on the road.
The Mercer County Master Gardeners recommend leaving grass clippings on the lawn (http://www.mgofmc.org/successfullawncare.html). If you don't, you're lawn loses valuable nitrogen that must then be replaced by buying more fertilizer. The worst thing to do with grass clippings is to pile them up. The high nitrogen and lack of aeration favor anaerobic bacteria that raise a stink if the pile is disturbed.
Meanwhile, in the township, it appears that there is no yardwaste pickup at all in June and August. More info can be found at www.princetontwp.org/pubworkmain.html.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Yard Sale in Reverse
I almost missed my big chance to recycle old computers that had been sitting in the garage for most of a year. They weren't mine. I had seen them put out on the curb for the garbage, and couldn't stand the thought of all that lead and other heavy metals in the monitors heading to the landfill.Princeton Township lets its residents drop off computers for recycling year-round, but we boroughins end up waiting for the big annual recycling day in the township parking lot on Witherspoon.
Adding to the environmental good feelings of the event, it turns out that the computers (and TVs and various other electronic stuff accepted at this annual event) are not shipped oversees to some unregulated smelting plant, but are actually recycled right here in New Jersey.
Residents were also encouraged to bring in old financial documents for shredding.The whole thing was organized by Princeton Township's recycling coordinator, Janet Pellichero, with help and impetus from the Princeton Environmental Commission.
If you missed it, either wait until next year, check out what recycling days Mercer County offers (http://www.mcia-nj.com/recycling.html.) or, if you live in the township, check out http://www.princetontwp.org/computer_recycling.html for instructions on how to recycle your computer and related equipment.
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