June 2008 Archives Week 2

News and ideas for a sustainable world

June 2008 Archives Week 2

June 20, 2008 | Cosmo Catalano

Veganic Agriculture: As Green as it Gets

People in the United States have rarely suffered for lack of food. It has been hypothesized that the first humans to settle permanently in North America over 10,000 years ago followed massive herds of big game animals. The first Europeans to arrive on the continent in the 1600s found the soil so bountiful that they created a holiday—colonial records tell of three days of feasting—quite a remarkable feat for a colony of religious separatists dissatisfied with the purity of the existing English Church.

Even in the depths of the Great Depression, when many people were still unable to afford food at record low prices, soup kitchens and other aid organizations kept starvation in check; though many went hungry, almost none starved to death. Even now, American harvests are so plentiful the the government pays many of them not to produce, to keep prices high and farms profitable.

With this great prosperity and supply has also come tremendous diversity of food options. The United States’ status as a melting pot nation has brought cultures and cuisines from all over the world to its cities and towns. Along with different foods have also come different methods of production; while a vast majority of foods eaten today are produced through environmentally-unfriendly industrial agricultural practices, a new movement is offering perhaps the lowest impact of any farming method yet devised.

It’s called veganic agriculture, and it acts as a sort of fusion between existing organic farming and a vegan diet. Throughout the farming process, no animal matter is used, not even manure for fertilization. Instead, composted plant matter is used to provide the soil with vital nutrients. The movement traces its roots to Europe, where smaller agricultural plots and a closer connection between producer and consumer have always garnered more interest in food production methods.

The practice has been popularized in the United States through the efforts of local farmers, like Don Bustos, of New Mexico, who reveled to the Associated Press that he was initially inspired by a former US Secretary of Agriculture. “"He was talking about ways to protect the safety of our food system,” recall Bustos. “But to me you still have things like e-coli and salmonella from manure. Now, I use no manures, no bone meals, blood meal, no pesticides, nothing."

Aside from reducing the threats posed by microbial organisms in animal-based manure, veganic farming also prevents hormones, antibiotics, and other chemicals manure-producing animals in confined animal feeding operations are exposed to from passing into vegetables, or running off into local water supplies. Veganic methods also provide an effective model for agricultural carbon reduction, as no feed is required to produce the green manures that fertilize veganic crops.

Photo by thebittenword

June 19, 2008 | Cosmo Catalano

Curbing Consumerism for Sustainability's Sake

Over the past century and a half, the United States has all but defined itself through its consumer culture. The unbridled prosperity of two post-World-War economic booms, and the huge increase in productivity that accompanied the rise of the information age thrust money into the hands of American consumers on a scale the world had never seen. While Americans—even rich Americans—living during the Revolutionary War had almost no concept of disposable income, by the mid 1800s, purchases had already begun their transformation from survival necessities to the complex social signaling mechanism they are today.

There have always been critics of this consumeristic approach to life. Philosophers, among them Karl Marx and Thorstein Velben, were some of the first to take issue with the idea that material purchases could bring happiness. In the United States itself, early dissatisfaction with the consumerist life set the stage for several great religious revivals, and inspired Henry David Thoreau’s excursion into the woods around Walden Pond, as an experiment with a simple lifestyle.

While successive waves of countercultural thought have turned to Thoreau’s experiences at Walden for inspiration in the 160 years since, perhaps at no time before the present has Thoreau’s maxim of “Simplify, simplify” been so pertinent and culturally relevant. With an economy weekend by the tremendous amount of money spent by Americans on foreign-made goods, and an environment battered by the side-effects of producing and shipping these goods, a reduction in purchases and possessions seems like an all-but-necessary course of action.

It is onto this stage that the 100 Thing Challenge has strode, gaining momentum with people strung up, struggling with, and stressed out by the myriad of devices, gimmicks and gadgets that complicate their everyday lives. As professional organizer Julie Morganstern says "It's a very emotional process. Often these are things that represent who you once were, but once their purpose is over, they just keep you stagnant."

But taking a radically reductive approach may have benefits well beyond a simple self-assessing, self-relieving purge; as the saying goes, the greenest product is almost always the one that never gets bought. By reducing both the need for goods to be produced, and the need to heat, cool, and otherwise maintain the space to hold all these goods, limiting the number of possessions you have is an excellent way to increase the sustainability of your day-to-day activities.

Of course, literal adherence to the 100 Things Challenge isn’t a silver-bullet climate solution. What exactly constitutes a “thing” can be notoriously hard to define, and the whole experiment is largely a self-exploratory trend, not a hard-and-fast rule for more environmentally-friendly living. Still, the underlying philosophies of the project could have a very promising impact in the creation of a smarter, less-consumptive way of life.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

June 18, 2008 | Christopher Jones

Making the Case for Sustainable Home Design

Green architecture has been a part of the Austin cityscape for many years, from cubist-style condos on the east side to LEED-certified municipal buildings downtown. But now the green scene is reaching out to the suburbs, where a new Austin-based company called Green Builders is putting its (recycled) stake in the ground. The company is building green homes on a large scale, and giving home buyers an opportunity to cut their energy usage dramatically while enjoying the health benefits of environmentally-sensitive construction.

The cost of all this green opulence? About the same as you'd pay for a run-of-the-mill new house. In the past, one of the main drawbacks of green construction has been the added costs of specialized materials and building techniques, but Green Builders set out to build environmentally-sophisticated homes at an affordable price.

"People may or may not buy into the green movement, but they sure like the energy savings," said Clark Wilson, the founder and CEO of Green Builders.

With 2,000 lots over 500 acres, the company's new development in Georgetown Village, just north of Austin, is poised to become one of the biggest green home communities in the U.S. Green Builders also has two smaller developments south of Austin, and Wilson said he knows of no other green home builders operating on the same scale as his company. The Georgetown development is located in a somewhat conservative area, where one might expect home buyers to be skeptical of newfangled green home designs.

The houses have a classic Texas Craft style, range from 1,500-4,000 square feet, and come with all the modern conveniences one would expect, but with energy costs up to 50 percent lower than in a similar new home. Some of the homes available in Georgetown Village include a 2,000 sq. ft, 4 bed, 2 bath house with a 2-car garage for $238,000, and a two-story 2,800 sq. ft home with a studio above the garage for $316,000. Since the homes are competitively priced for the area, Wilson says business has been steady even in a down market.

"The biggest challenge is surviving the market downturn, but we're taking way more than our share," says Wilson. "We outsold the competition ten to one last month in Georgetown Village, so we're in good shape in getting our share of the now smaller market."

Outside Looking In

Green Builders' homes are built from the ground up, and while they all use similar plans for the insulation, plumbing, heating/cooling, and other parts of the infrastructure, home buyers can customize many other parts of the interior and exterior – bamboo floors, recycled carpets, and other products made from sustainable materials. Also on display at the model houses are tables, chairs and other green-living accessories from local suppliers. Soy foam couch, anyone?

Green Builders had the house plans drawn up by several green architect gurus in the Austin area, and after touring a few of the houses you can appreciate how much thought and detail has gone into the construction and design. While many of the green features are in plain sight, some of the most significant parts are behind the scenes.

Looking at the front of the house, the deep (2-foot) overhangs keep the sun from beating on the walls and windows around the house to reduce heat inside. The windows are double-paned, and stretch up on the wall higher than normal to take advantage of the shade provided by the roof overhangs. The sides of the houses are covered with limestone that is mined from local quarries, and Wilson says that all the materials are supplied by local distributors -- yet another way the company is able to keep its costs, and carbon footprint, down.

Sitting right off the front porch is a rain-collection system with a nice aesthetic touch: recycled wine barrels capture rain from the gutters, which can be used to water plants in the yard. Of course, the plants don't require much water, because they are all native to Central Texas, and primarily drought-tolerant varieties.

Below the surface of the plant soil is a combination of granite, loam and mulch to help retain moisture, and below the lawn is a 4-inch chocolate loam topsoil that acts like a sponge. Rain sensors and programmable irrigation controls make the whole watering system extremely efficient, and Wilson estimates that only one-inch of water per week is necessary to keep the lawn happy.

But where are the solar panels? Well, there are none. Since the return on investment for solar panels is still about 5-10 years, Wilson said they aren't included, but the houses are designed with conduits so they can be added in the future.

Air-Tight and Green All Over

One of the first things I noticed inside the model house had nothing at all to do with energy efficiency, but it showed the aesthetic possibilities of using sustainable materials. On the side of the entryway, the wall was covered with big chunks of bark from a Birch tree – functional wall art. Very cool.

Walking around the house, you see splashes of green almost everywhere: walls and cabinets are painted with low-VOC paint and varnishes, and Energy Star appliances, programmable thermostats, and low-flow showerheads and toilets conserve water and electricity. The biggest energy savings comes from the Icynene foam insulation that's sprayed into walls, floors and ceilings to create an air-tight environment. This allows for smaller and more efficient heating and cooling equipment, and since the foam doesn't sag or turn to dust, it's R-value (insulation properties) remains constant over time. A bonus is the foam's sound-proofing qualities, so you can just barely hear the AC running, or cars passing by on the street.

One concern with the Icynene is that it's a petroleum-based foam, and may not seem as green as other insulation products, including foams that use soy or castor oil as a base. However, all insulation types have trade-offs, and Wilson said he made his choice based on the performance, consistency and strength of Icynene. He's also somewhat skeptical of the claims made by bio-insulation products.

"The agricultural products cost more energy to produce, so when you think the food chain through, you haven’t really done anything other than add a marketing schtick by putting a cup of castor oil in your foam," Wilson says. He also noted that off-gassing of the Icynene only happens for a split second after it's applied, so there's no harmful health consequences associated with seepage.

When houses are designed and built from the ground up, builders can locate the heating, cooling, and plumbing equipment for maximum efficiency. Here, the ducts and plumbing lines primarily run up the center of the house, into a control-room closet and foam-insulated attic. The closet has a tankless, on-demand hot water heater, situated near the bathrooms and kitchen to keep plumbing lines as short as possible. And with the foam insulation, the attic was remarkably cool -- only about 10-degrees hotter than the rest of the house – and completely free of dust. Outside, the electric heat pump and AC use Puron, a refrigerant that doesn't damage the ozone.

A Healthier Environment

One part of the Green Builders' equation that's hard to quantify is the health benefits inherent in its home designs. The Icynene foam insulation all but eliminates the dust, allergens and pollutants that seep through traditional insulation such as fiberglass, so the air quality is significantly better than in most homes. Humidity can also be controlled more easily, which eliminates mold and mildew concerns. Termites, ants, and cockroaches are regular house visitors in Central Texas, but the dense foam prevents them from traveling through walls, and virtually none of the materials used in the construction of the house provide attractive food.

Most of the Green Builders homes have garages built onto the house, but since the walls are sealed with foam, chemicals and other toxins in the air won't seep or "off-gas" into the living quarters. Vents on the side of the garage are used to let fumes escape, and introduce fresh air.

Looking ahead, some of the technologies that Wilson might include in the homes are solar and geothermal products, on a large scale. Wilson says that if he's able to put a community on a shared electrical grid, with solar or geothermal energy providing the juice, the savings could be dramatic. In this scenario, the solar technology might be embedded in shingles and walls and then electricity could be shared throughout the community, and possibly sold back to a utility company.

"You'd be off the grid, de-centralized, generating energy via the technologies out there in a concentrated way, instead of one-off systems," says Wilson.

With all the advantages that green homes offer, all at a reasonable price, one can only wonder why more home builders aren't jumping on the green bandwagon. Wilson, who spent several decades in traditional home construction, offers one explanation.

"It's hard to turn the ship around when you're in a canal, and most of these guys just aren't paying attention to the green movement," he explains. "Some even scoff at it as a trend."

All photos by Christopher Jones

June 17, 2008 | Cosmo Catalano

Agricultural Ingenuity Boosts Sustainability

If you’ve been watching the news lately, you’ve probably been steering clear of tomatoes. Salmonella poisoning is a serious medical issue, and while some companies, such as fast-food giant McDonald’s, have concluded that the danger has passed, the more cautious among us might remain wary for days or weeks to come.

In a world as full of industrialized agriculture as ours is , food scares are hardly new. Beyond the media frenzy over the link between Mad Cow and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, cases of everything from e. coli contamination to the ever-present specter of bird flu are now commonplace on news reports, even as confined animal feeding operations, commonly referred to as CAFOs, consume eight times the antibiotics used on the human population.

But as pressing as these potential hazards in our current agricultural system might be, they remain just that: potential. By far the most currently pressing negative aspects of our industrialized agricultural sector are not health risks, but the facts of global warming emissions. Each year, millions of tons of carbon dioxide are produced in the growing, harvesting, shipping, and refrigerating of produce alone.

Fortunately, the ingenuity and willpower of a handful of local business owners and farmers may provide insight into how our agricultural future can be made both healthier and more sustainable. In fields outside of Kalamazoo, MI, on the eastern fringes of the American Midwest, the growing season is fairly short, featuring long springs and cold, harsh winters. Yet using basic, low-impact technology such as high tunnels, also known as hoop houses, local growers like Dennis Wilcox of of Blue Dog Greens is able to grow crops well past the normal season, with some hardy plants growing year-round under their new-found protection.

“Without supplementary heating, the crops are protected more from snow and other elements than from the cold," Wilcox explains. But even so, the small amount of shelter lets Wilcox get an edge on the spring planting season as well. In warmer regions, too, the tunnels can be useful, protecting extremely fragile crops from the first frosts of the year.

But local, low-impact, organic agriculture is only part of the solution. It takes local businesses dedicated to serving fresh, local foods to make these crops viable products. Businesses like the Food Dance Café in Kalamazoo, which serves fresh, local produce year-round, creating demand and introducing the larger populace to the improved taste and safety of non-industrial agriculture. As Julie Stanley, head chef at Food Dance notes, “I started buying locally produced ingredients, which was unusual in Kalamazoo. My focus then was on flavor and freshness, which is still my top priority. But now I'm also satisfying a growing demand for local foods.”

Photo by ouvyt

June 16, 2008 | Amelia Timbers

Innovative Technologies Cool Cars, Save Fuel

According to the EPA, car air conditioners use seven billion gallons of gas every year. That translates into 16 million tons of additional carbon.

As part of its implementation of the aggressive California Global Warming Solutions Act, or AB 32, the California Air Resources Board is investigating what can be done to keep people from using their car's air conditioner. One solution under investigation is how to keep cars cool in the first place, including heat reflecting paint, solar fans and special glazing. Cooler cars are one of AB 32’s early action items, to be addressed by 2010.

Unprotected cars sitting in the sun for hours at a time can reach temperatures of 130 degrees and higher. In fact, temps inside cars can rise by 40 degrees in less than an hour. Under conditions like that, people understandably scramble to hit the AC button.

In an effort to keep the solution as simple as possible and keep drivers away from their AC, California is looking at how to cool cars down before they emit, using a variety of technologies.

1. Solar cooling paint: An exterior coat of paint that reflects solar rays of different frequencies, reflecting nearly 80% of rays to reduce the heat of a car by up to 19 degrees. Reflective paint is essentially a form of insulation and has been available for exterior buildings and roofs for quite a while, saving buildings approximately 5% in energy costs.

2. Solar ventilation: Powered by a small solar array, fans that turn on when triggered by intense sun or the heat of a vehicle, moving hot air out of the cabin. This approach is conducive to modifying sunroofs to slightly open when the car reaches a certain temperature.

3. Reflective Window Glazing: Similar to window tinting, reflective glazing coats the window and is specifically designed to minimize a vehicle's heat gain.

Initial tests indicate that these cooling technologies, working in tandem, can reduce a car’s internal heat by 39 degrees and have the potential to trim the AC fuel use of an automobile by nearly 30%. If California prevails, such technologies will be mandated for new cars in the near future.

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