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Go Green: How to Build an Earth-Friendly Community (new book)
Nancy H Taylor, Gibbs Smith Publishers
There is no one way to solve the global warming crisis. Just as it will take many kinds of fuel to replace our appetite for fossil fuel, it will take many different approaches to reduce our carbon footprint. There are actions we can do at home and at work, easy things like changing our light bulbs, recycling and driving less. There are solutions at the community level, such as starting a CSA or a farmers market or a recycling center. And there are municipal, state and governmental programs we can start in our hometowns. A few ideas are: getting your mayor to sign the Climate Protection Agreement, starting a light rail program in your city, redirecting a highway project so it does not damage a fragile ecosystem and making sure there is funding for affordable green housing.
Be creative, do not waste time, get involved with your neighbors-become part of the sustainable earth family. It will change your life!
From Chapter 6, Local, Organic, Sustainable Food
Action Points:
1. Start small, raising a few successful plants at home. Herbs, a few lettuces and radishes are foolproof!
2. Think about where your food comes from. Are your apples from New Zealand, from Chile or Oregon? Do you buy strawberries all winter long?
3. Take your own bag to the market, neither paper nor plastic are good options for bringing our food home. Your own canvas bag will save trees and help stop the plastic proliferation we see hanging from our trees and plastered against fences.
4. Find a neighbor to share trips to the store, put a basket or rack on your bike or take the bus. Plan ahead so you don’t have to make several trips to the store.
5. Start a food co-op to order foods in bulk and share them with your community.
6. Start a Farmers Market; it can be small and fun, and supports local food.
7. Start a CSA, support a local farmer and keep the food dollars in your community.
8. Pay attention to your fast food diet. How do you feel when you rush by the takeout window and eat in your car? See the film ‘Fast Food Nation’.
9. Talk to your kids about their diet, where foods come from, how they nourish the body. Get exercise and fresh air, you will want to eat better food after that.
10. Don’t get discouraged. Changing our eating habits takes time. Start slowly and add what you can afford over the period of a year or two. Once you switch to healthy food, you will notice the difference and not want to turn back!
—
“The key word in this title is ‘community’-we need towns and cities efficient enough to slow down global warming and durable enough to ride out what we can’t prevent. What a handy guide for getting started!”
– Bill McKibben, author, The Bill McKibben Reader
Nancy H Taylor has writen a weekly column called “Going Green” for the last five years for the newspaper Planet Jackson Hole. She teaches the course “The Art of Green Living and Building.”
(April 2008)
How Green Is Golf?
John Barton, Golf Digest
In January 1995, 81 people got together in a conference room at Pebble Beach for three days to discuss what could be done to make golf more eco-friendly. Present were representatives from all the major golfing bodies, and all the leading national and local environmental groups, too. There had never been such a meeting before. “It was really difficult getting some people to come,” recalls Paul Parker, executive vice president of the Center for Resource Management, which orchestrated the meeting. “Particularly from the golf-community side, there was a lot of suspicion about who these environmental people were, and why they kept criticizing golf. They felt that the environmentalists didn’t understand the game and had not made much of an effort to understand it. They saw these guys as the enemy.”
“We really expected an explosive atmosphere,” says Ted Horton, who at the time was vice president of resource management for Pebble Beach, with responsibility for the whole property, including all the golf courses and 17 Mile Drive. “I had the job of welcoming the group on that first morning. My heart was in my throat. I thought, We could have some real fireworks here.”
But the attendees talked. And talked. And today, 13 years later, after five national conferences and dozens of smaller meetings and workshops, they’re still talking. Improvements have been made, reports, guidebooks and educational videos have been published, and the effort — which has become known as the Golf & the Environment Initiative — has allowed the game to claim that it’s cleaning up its act.
Wait, you say, hasn’t golf always been green?
(25 April 2008)
Efficiency Must Be Treated As Energy Resource – Report
SustainableBusiness
Energy efficiency improvements in the U.S. electric power sector could reduce the need for new electric generation by an additional 7 to 11% more than currently projected over the next two decades if key barriers can be addressed, according to a new analysis.
… The draft findings were presented by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) during an Edison Foundation conference, Keeping the Lights On: Our National Challenge, which examines strategies to meet the growing demand for electricity which is expected to soar 30% by 2030, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
That demand growth projection would be even higher without the implementation of existing building codes, appliance standards and market-driven consumer incentives, which will shave electricity consumption by 23%, according to the EPRI-EEI study. However, additional efficiency gains could be achieved only by overcoming major market, regulatory and consumer barriers, the analysis found.
… Essential steps include:
- increased consumer education
- adoption and enforcement of aggressive building codes and appliance standards
- creation of utility business models that promote increased efficiency within the power sector
- and adoption of electricity pricing policies that more accurately reflect the cost of providing electricity to consumers.
Website: www.edisonfoundation.net
(23 April 2008)
