As you may remember from my previous post, Grid Alternatives is a Bay Area non-profit that teaches volunteers how to install solar panels while helping low income residents cut costs on installing a new solar system for their home.
This weekend I took the plunge and found myself standing on top of a roof, where I discovered there are many steps involved in a solar installation, only the last of which involves the panels.
When we arrived, the team leaders quickly divivded us up into a ground team and a roof team and then launched right into the project. While the ground team stayed below to size up the inverter and electrical circuits, the rest of us went up to the roof to learn how to set the feet and tracking system that support the rooftop panels.
I quickly learned that setting the feet can be a messy process. Applying tar to secure the feet and to stop up any potential roof leaks, I soon had tar all over my pants, hands, feet, and even in my hair… Luckily, the Grid Alternatives team came prepared with some biodeisel to clean all it off and I was soon reabsorbed in the next steps of aligning the tracking and testing the efficiency percentage of each panel.
The teams were an interesting mix of Grid Alternatives veterans and newcomers, and it quickly became apparent why people get hooked on volunteering for installs with Grid Alternatives: not only were the team leaders easy-going and interested in sharing their seasoned knowledge, the other volunteers were also quick to exchange practical and scientific experience with the those who didn’t have as much familiarity with the solar realm.
All in all, it’s safe to say I’m officially hooked. Learning how to install solar panels (for free!) was one of the easiest and most fun ways to spend my Saturday, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. If you’re interested in signing up for a training and an install day, check out www.gridalternatives.org, and I will probably see you there.
This weekend at the Sasquatch! Music Festival in Washington, you can hear the likes of Bjork, The Arcade Fire, Manu Chao and the Beastie Boys. And if you listen closely, you might also hear the sigh of atmospheric relief as Carbon Harmony neutralizes the effects of all carbon dioxide emmissions resulting from this year’s Sasquatch!
With Carbon Harmony, a festival can actually neutralize its carbon footprint and then some by calculating its carbon emmissions and then purchasing “a larger amount of carbon reduction credits” to actually lower the total amount of CO2 in the ozone layer. This allows for a festival to not just prevent further global warming, but to actually contribute to the growing movement in global cooling.
“Carbon neutral is a start,” says founder John Humphrey. “That gets you to zero. But why not go a step beyond and reduce the overall amount of CO2 in the atmosphere?”
Founded by Sustainable Energy Partners, Carbon Harmony begins by purchasing 10% more carbon reduction credits than you need to neutralize your carbon footprint. With the Carbon Harmony mindset of “Why stop at neutral?” you can choose to go above and beyond with as many carbon credits as you want.
To see how you can be a part of a more carbon neutral music experience, visit http://carbonharmony.com
If not us, WHO? If not here, WHERE? If not now, WHEN?
These are the questions that gave birth to the Bay Area Urban Alliance of Sustainability three years ago. With a mission to "Inspire and integrate the sustainability movement,” and a vision to "Support the transformation of the world into a harmonious social, economic and natural environment for the benefit of all," UAS is working to connect local green organizations and individuals through programs centered around networking and community education — essentially giving people a platform where they can access and collaborate with others in the local green scene.
Being a volunteer-run organization, the easiest way to get directly involved in UAS is through volunteering or becoming a member.
As a member you get a number of benefits, including an individual, hour-long sustainability consultation about easy ways to reduce your eco-footprint. You can find out more about anything from feasible food options to green jobs in your local area. You can also ask about other help topics or discuss various green solutions you’ve seen or been involved in.
When people in your zip code sign up, UAS will organize an area-specific potluck to connect you with other green people in your neighborhood.
Members also have access to sustainabilty consultants via phone and website. Check out www.uas.coop for the e-newsletter, or to find out more on collaborative green solutions in the Bay Area.
What if your commute to work included an experience in the following:
Plant and pedestrian-friendly plazas
Pedestrian streets
A bike ride
Rooftop gardens
Bridges between buildings
Car-free streets
And neighborhood waterways
How different would we feel if our cities were designed “for the long term health of human and natural systems?”
At Ecocity Builders, this question is asked every day with an urban re-design approach that treats each city as a giant living organism, with each building an organ, and each human being a cell in it.
Blending social and environmental ecology to reshape our cities by “returning healthy biodiversity to the heart of our cities, agriculture to gardens and the streets, and convenience and pleasure to walking, bicycling and transit,” Ecocity Builders uses various educational materials, world wide conferences, and local hand-on projects to provide a medium for integrating urbanism with dynamic living systems.
Coming up in 2008, the next Ecocity World Summit will be held in San Francisco. “We want to encourage people who have great ideas and projects to write it up and present it at the academic and talent scouting sessions,” says executive director Kristin Miller. Click on the website’s call for papers to learn more, or check out www.ecocitybuilders.org and read the newly released EcoCities: Rebuilding Cities in Balance with Nature, second edition, by Ecocity Builders founder Richard Register.
Think about the last time you ate a piece of organic fruit. Do you know where it came from?
Born from the desire to support and connect with local organic farmers, Bay Area start-up I Heart Organic is currently distributing sweatshop-free, and 100% organic American Apparel t-shirts at green festivals around the Bay Area. With 10% of all net profits to education and local organic farms, you may have also seen them at your local farmers market, on myspace, or on Earth Day at the Digital Be-In.
Recently meeting up with co-founder Rian Bedard for a chat about green living in San Francisco, I learned that I Heart Organic SF is as much a vehicle for green information and awareness as it is a really sweet American Apparel t-shirt.
Fully launching in the summer of 2007, www.iheartorganic.com will be a portal and an education tool for all local Bay Area organic businesses and organizations in the city. With an emphasis on organic farms, natural health, and green building, I Heart Organic will also feature documentaries from cutting edge filmmakers and a section of reviews on local green restaurants. With the latest from seasoned green and restaurant critics, this section will eventually grow to become more of a wiki/yelp-style review portal for everything organic and green in the city.
"When you go to your local farmers market, you are looking people in the eye who cultivated the food you'll be eating," says Rian. "How many times can you say that when you walk into a supermarket to buy your groceries for the week? It's important to support your local farmers, and we aim to educate people as to why it is so important, and why eating organic is better for you and better for the Earth."
Be on the lookout in the near future for Eco-friendly tote bags sporting the "I Heart Organic SF" that both supports and shows support for your local organic farmers.
For more information, or to get your very own I Heart Organic tee, stop by and say hi every Saturday at the Ferry Buiding farmers market, or visit www.iheartorganic.com and tune in every Saturday at 10am to 90.3 KUSF for the "I Heart Organic SF" radio show dedicated to increasing awareness about local people, projects, and happenings that are helping to make the world a greener place.
So, how do you turn 6,008.6 million metric tons of CO2 into something essential for human existence?
From the experts at the Chlorophyll Collective, the answer is simple: Take a bunch of algae, submerge it in water, blast it with carbon dioxide and sunlight, and get our essential OXYGEN as a waste product. (You may remember the basic equation for photosynthesis from your early days in Bio/Chem101)
In fact, did you know over 70% of the oxygen in the atmosphere is not produced by trees, but by algae? This means our very lives depend on algae for existence!
Given that we are now in an age where the U.S. contributes at least 6,008.6 million tons of CO2 to global warming every year, the Chlorophyll Collective has decided to start acting locally by creating basic air and water-cleansing machines using our CO2 emissions as fertilizer for the algae that in turn, give us back oxygen (as their waste product!) The machine, called a bioreactor, is pictured above and can be made very easily with plastic tubing and chicken wire.
Additionally, algae expert and CC counfounder Aaron Baum points out that algae are unique in their CO2 eating properties,
…because they thrive on concentrated CO2, which other plants can’t handle. This means they can eat the exhaust before it gets into the atmosphere! Algae also remove other damaging greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide and can also clean our waste water, such as agricultural run-off, sewage, and animal manure, transforming it into clean air, water, and fertilizer.
Taking it one step further with various experiments with intensive research, the Chlorophyll Collective has also discovered the benefits of growing algae with our CO2 waste far exceed original intentions to provide us with cleaner air and water. Using fat lipids and other algal nutrients for the latest clean technology, “We will be able to open up entirely new arenas in biodiesel, bioplastic, fertilizer, antioxidants, omega-3 fatty acids, & other health foods, or neutriceuticals,” says Baum. Potentially, we could even be making biofuel fertilized by its own waste products.
Using our CO2 waste to fuel the natural oxygen-giving processes of algae, the Chlorophyl Collective is creating natural global cooling methods to combat global warming while increasing our air and water quality to help us breathe better. In the city, this means setting up a bioreactor (or many) would help counterbalance the pollution and sickness that results from oxygen deficiency (or CO2 overload, depending on your view).
If you're interested in learning more about the Chlorophyll Collective, or want to start making you're own simple algae-based oxygen-machines, check out http://tribes.tribe.net/chlorophyllcollective
From 11:11am to 5:55pm on May 6th, San Francisco’s 8th Annual How Weird Street Faire will shut down 5 city blocks in a celebration of all things community, music, art, and GREEN.
Featuring 7 biodiesel-powered dance stages and a sound system run entirely by people on bikes, the theme of this year’s How Weird turns green as it aims to incorporate sustainable technology and solutions into all aspects of the Faire.
Along with the recycling, compost, and bike-powered educational exhibits, How Weird will also be documenting the process of going green (almost zero-waste!) to give others an opportunity to see the necessary steps involved in greening up an event.
If you go and find yourself looking for a calm oasis in the midst of this urban creative hub, visit the down-tempo scene in “Ambient Alley,” or flop down on the giant “mandala of grass” to relax and reconnect in the middle of 12th and Howard Street.
For more info, or directions, visit www.howweird.org/. And be sure to check out the bike parking valet service!
“Turn on, Tune-in, drop out.” The words that defined a generation were uttered by Timothy Leary at the first Human Be-in 40 years ago in Golden Gate Park.
Initially planned to address the eminent issues of the decade, the original Be-In has evolved into an art/music/digital cyberculture exploration that now focuses on the latest in the GREEN movement. The 2007 theme of Biomimicry is designed to be “a launching pad for sustainability initiatives that matter.”
Happening “on Earth Day Weekend in San Francisco,” the program will include a Biomimicry Symposium, a Green Techné Exhibition, Live Performances, and DJs with Interactive Installations. All of this will be centered around the theme of Biomimicry, defined by the Biomimicry Institute as:
From bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate, a new science that studies nature’s best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems.
An example of this happens when an eco paint-designer wanting to make water-repellent paint studies a lotus flower to copy its water-repelling qualities.
Calling all green NPR listeners: Have you ever wondered what it would take to green-up your local public broadcasting station (or any media organization for that matter)?
Well wonder no more! This past month, our country witnessed another first in the world of green when Northern California’s KQED became the first ever carbon neutral public broadcasting station. For those of you new to the world of carbon offsets, this simply means that KQED is taking significant steps to reduce its climate footprint by neutralizing its net amount of carbon emissions through purchasing carbon credits and increasing a company-wide participation in green production practices.
But this is no easy feat! As KQED recently announced in a public statement, going carbon neutral included "establishing a baseline reading of carbon emissions and determining the amount of energy used in daily operations, from production vans, to transmitter towers, to the electricity used in the building. Carbon credits of the same amount were then purchased from the Chicago Climate Exchange, to promote energy efficiencies in other companies, or to be used towards renewable energy sources like wind power and bio-gas.”
On April 21, KQED will conduct a green pledge day to help support the effort in neutralizing the net total of this year's carbon emissions(!) Tune in from April 15 to Sunday April 22 for a weeklong Earthday celebration with KQED’s latest in noncommercial green tv and radio programming. Visit www.kqed.org/earthweek for an advance schedule. Also, if you’re interested in reducing or offsetting your own (or your company’s) carbon emissions, visit www.driveneutral.org/ for more info.
Finally, for anyone outside the Bay Area who’s interested in hearing more from KQED, a live webstream is always available at www.KQED.org.
Looking for your local Environmental Resource Center, EcoLibrary or environmental education programs? How about an epicenter for your local recycling programs, farmers markets, and a store that features the full spectrum of green books and household products?
Berkeley’s Ecology Center encompasses all of this and more by implementing programs that educate, demonstrate and engage with the public in the latest green community services.
Started as a volunteer-run meeting place for the founders of first wave 60’s environmentalism, the Ecology Center has become an epicenter for many of Berkeley’s programs that have become so fundamental to the Bay Area’s cultural and environmental impact.
Among the diverse programs implemented by the Ecology Center, the Curbside Recycling Program has perhaps had the most influence nationwide. Beginning as a demonstration project to collect newspapers, it grew to become the first curbside recycling program in California, and is one of the only nonprofits of this sort still alive today. Additionally, based on the EC’s research, this program has “served as a model for thousands of municipal recycling programs.”
For those of you interested in Bay Area green projects, check out Terrain, the Ecology Center’s free quarterly magazine focusing on “a broad spectrum of issues ranging from wilderness protection to urban toxics and environmental justice.”
Also, feel free to look into any of their sponsored projects, including: the Bay Area Seed Interchange Library, Berkeley Biodiesel Collective, Berkeley Community Gardening Collaborative, and the Indigenous Permaculture Project. And the list of programs just keeps growing… See all of these and more at http://www.ecologycenter.org/
As you may remember from my previous post, Grid Alternatives is a Bay Area non-profit that teaches volunteers how to install solar panels while helping low income residents cut costs on installing a new solar system for their home.
Photo Credit: Ecocity Builders
, second edition, by Ecocity Builders founder Richard Register. 
Photo Credit: I Heart Organic
Bioreactor Photo Credit: Chlorophyll Collective
From 11:11am to 5:55pm on May 6th, San Francisco’s 8th Annual How Weird Street Faire will shut down 5 city blocks in a celebration of all things community, music, art, and GREEN.
Calling all green NPR listeners: 
Photo Credit: Ecology Center
