Blogs

A truly underground movement

Suzi Blakley — Wed, 14 May 2008 14:40:27 PDT

Today, we salute a little-known holiday celebrating an unusual underground cause.

While you may have heard of underground music and the Underground Railroad, this is something altogether different: May 14 is Underground America Day, a day to recognize the subset of North Americans who make their homes in the Earth, not just on it.

Even if you are not a Hobbit, there are huge benefits to dwelling beneath the Earth's surface. Since there's little or no need for insulation, underground houses are naturally energy-efficient, with heating and cooling systems utilizing the Earth's geothermal energy.

Subsurface homes also provide shelter from the elements and forces of nature -- an abode and a storm shelter all in one.

As more people strive to live in tune with their environment, this movement encourages sustainable architecture and green building practices, and the aesthetics of nature are of the utmost importance.

What can you do to celebrate this occasion?

It may not be practical to bury your home, but why not start with small steps? Take an underground tour, or use public transportation -- specifically a subway.

Or begin a green roof project. It technically counts as living beneath ground (or at least beneath soil and plants), while at the same time cleaning the air. And the types of rooftops that can go green are limitless.

Suggested sites:

About Malcolm Wells - biography of the creator of Underground America Day.

Unusual Hotels of the World - a listing of worldwide underground hotels.

Sustainable Architecture - Wikipedia - describes environmentally conscious design techniques in architecture.

Greenroofs.com - the green roof industry resource portal.

Directory categories: Geothermal Energy, Energy-Efficient Construction, Sustainable Architecture, Geodesic Domes, Green Roofs

Originally posted on The Spark, a daily blog where Yahoo! Directory editors highlight new and interesting content on the Web.

Grow your own

Jay Weinstein, Forecast Earth Food Correspondent — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:27:55 PDT

While your neighbors might prefer to look out on a fertilized, dandelion-free lawn, there's no doubt that growing vegetables in your yard makes good eco-sense. The debate about whether economies of scale beat local food distribution methods becomes moot when the produce at your table used absolutely zero fuel to get from your garden to your kitchen.

Front-yard farmers are taking a bite out of global warming by planting oxygen-generating, vegetable-producing green plants on their property in both cities and suburban areas. While planting melons, tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant and peppers in front of your house might not yield the 6000-pound harvests that the Dervaes family produces on their 1/10-acre urban lot in Pasadena, CA, it can go a long way toward cutting your own carbon footprint, and slash your grocery bill at the same time.

For those who wonder if it really matters if they grow their own, when the scope of the global warming problem is so huge and developing countries are starting to emit faster than we are cutting down, sustainable food author Michael Pollan has an answer: It does matter. In addition to policy changes in government and industry, it will take changes in personal behavior to turn things around. He points out that consumer spending represents 70 percent of our economy, and so in the end, it really is all about us.

However long the growing season is where you live, you can supplement your food supply with healthy foods that are usually much more delicious than store-bought by growing them at home. Even apartment dwellers can grow lettuces and herbs in window boxes. By updating the World War II-era concept of victory gardens, urban and suburban residents can make a big difference, and enjoy the fruits of their labor in ways they may never have imagined.

LifeWire provides original and syndicated content to web publishers. Jay Weinstein, a chef trained at the Culinary Institute of America, is a New York based food writer, editor, and cookbook author. His food articles and recipes have been featured in The New York Times, Travel & Leisure, Newsday, Time Out New York, National Geographic Traveler, and numerous other publications. His latest book, The Ethical Gourmet, focuses on ecologically sustainable fine foods. He's currently working on a book about sustainable use of water.

Carectomy week in review

Joshua Liberles — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 08:37:08 PDT

Eight ways to overcome excuses and start cycling

You havenât yet begun bike commuting, but youâve considered it. Whatâs putting the brakes on your brilliant plans? Perhaps a handful of good excuses that have made cycling to work a mere pipe dream. Whatever your reason for continuing to take the car, thereâs likely a simple means to make bike commuting an efficient, reliable, and sustainable way to get to work. Here are eight common (probably lame) excuses -- and how to overcome them with chutzpah. Prepare to dust off your helmet.

Birmingham's big city plan

Leader of the Birmingham, UK, City Council Mike Whitby commissioned a study to move the city towards sustainability and revitalize the city centre. Dubbed the âBig City Plan,â the goals include decreasing the city's carbon emissions by 60% by 2026, revamping mass transit systems, and moving the city towards self-sufficiency with livable and walkable neighborhoods, local produce and products sold locally, and homegrown industries to support the residents.

Paris-Roubaix inspires commuters?

Paris-Roubaix is a âhard man's race.â If you never realized that cycling is one of the world's toughest sports, check it out. The event is so over-the-top difficult that it can't help but inspire everyday cyclists to stop making excuses and get out and ride.

Greening the concrete jungle

Asphalt gardening is growing in popularity, as green-thumbed urbanites reclaim the concrete and break ground to turn parking spots into lush, green space.

Eco-mythbusting

Trystan L. Bass — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:28:24 PDT

Think CFLs aren't worth it because of all that mercury? What about the idea that recycling costs more than chucking junk in a landfill? Hear the one about wine corks being endangered?

These and other myths keep many folks from going green and helping the environment. But a little bit of fact-checking shows that you can clean up the planet in lots of small, easy ways. And you may save some money too.

Compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) save energy and money, that's a fact. But the incredibly tiny amount of mercury they contain has scared off some people.

I can't remember the last time I broke an incandescent bulb (maybe when I was a teenager?), and I've never cracked any of the CFLs in my house and garage. If it did happen though, I'd head to the Environmental Protection Agency handy guidelines for cleanup and disposal. No big deal!

Recycling is another no-brainer that occasionally gets harassed. Sure, you might have to sort bottles from cans in the bins, but that's better than creating a mountain of garbage. The benefits of recycling are huge -- less trash in the landfills, energy saved from not using virgin resources, and more jobs are created.

The City of Fort Collins' recycling program notes that recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy that it would take to mine new aluminum. The Curbside Value Partnership (PDF) estimates that recycling 10,000 tons of waste creates 36 jobs -- but dumping that same waste into a landfill only creates six jobs.

Biodiesel has been the source of many eco-myths lately. I pointed to recent studies that decried biofuels, while also mentioning that different types have different impacts. Clayton B. Cornell goes into more depth on biodiesel and separates it from ethanol. Useful info if you want the real deal, not just the hype.

Have you heard that making little changes won't help the environment? What one person does can't possibly matter? Not so. In a detailed article on Bankrate.com, a spokesperson for the Natural Resources Defense Council reminds us that if everyone in the U.S. bought just one package of 100% recycled paper napkins instead non-recycled ones, we'd save 1 million trees.

And if you do want to go green on a larger scale, it's not that hard either. Building an eco-friendly house doesn't have to be expensive or horribly complicated, according to the home gurus at HGTV.com. Start with a tight building envelope, use low-flow toilets (which are mandatory anyway), and choose from the thousands of mainstream products that will make your new home or remodel sit more lightly on the earth.

For the garden out back, don't fall for those myths about composting either. The process doesn't have to be a lot of smelly work, and you can even compost in an urban setting. You'll keep useful organic matter out of the trash and improve your soil.

The myths just keep piling up! From computer sleep mode (which could waste 20% of your energy bill) to driving with the windows down (same as the AC), we get suckered in. Some folks even question whether local food really is better for the planet.

And what about that cork myth? Yep, there's a rumor that good old-fashioned wine bottles with natural corks are bad because the cork trees are endangered. Not so. Green Living Online says that the trees aren't chopped down to make wine corks -- the bark is merely stripped. The trees aren't damaged at all, and this has been going on since time immemorial.

So drink up -- you can enjoy life while saving the world.

Natural weed whacking

Trystan L. Bass — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 11:28:15 PDT

Spring showers may be making lawns green right now, but they can also help weeds sprout too.Â Plenty magazine reports that weeds are getting "more robust and aggressive, thanks, in part, to global warming."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service has found that rising carbon dioxide levels and overall warmer temperatures are helping weeds in urban areas grow like, well, weeds. The USDA has measured city weeds four times as tall as usual.

So how can we deal with these annoying plants -- without dumping nasty chemicals into the ground and contaminating nearby water systems?

The Green Guide has some handy tips. For spot killing, pour boiling water on a weed. Vinegar is also a good herbicide.

You can buy organic herbicides too. These rely on strong acetic acid (the active ingredient in vinegar), plus essential plant oils.

Another method for ridding your garden of weeds is soil solarization. Basically, you cover the area with plastic tarp for a few weeks and bake out the weeds. This also kills fungal pests.

Of course, the best way to stop weeds is to prevent them. About.com has useful info about mulching, landscape fabrics, and even using corn gluten to keep weeds from rooting in the first place.

Something to think about for the next growing season!

An extra hour of sun

Trystan L. Bass — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:08:36 PDT

It's not technically spring yet, but most of the U.S. sprang forward this past Sunday anyway. Daylight saving time (DST) started on March 9 this year, thanks to the changes brought about by the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Not everyone agrees that DST really saves much energy. As I mentioned when we fell back last November, studies in the 1970s suggested huge energy savings, but more recent savings looked much smaller.

Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported on a University of California-Santa Barbara study of Indiana households that showed DST actual cost raised electricity bills instead of lowering them.

The conclusion was that reducing lighting needs were offset by higher air-conditioning and heating needs. Then again, I wonder about more moderate climates -- few people I know here in California have AC, and we rarely have mornings cold enough to require a heater.

Regardless, the law right now is to set the clock an hour ahead. So why not take advantage of an extra hour of daylight in the evening?

Here are some great green things to do with the sunny time:

Use Walkscore to find new restaurants, cafes, shops, parks, and services that are within walking distance of your home or office. Check out a different place each week.

Take your dog for a walk -- and make sure to bring a supply of BioBags for the inevitable trail Fido will leave behind. BioBags are "plastic" bags made from starch and are 100% biodegradable and compostable (unlike standard plastics that are made from oil).

Water your plants and make sure you're giving them the just the right amount.

Go for a bike ride, either solo or take a friend, spouse, or the kids. Looking for bike rentals or help with repairs? Cruise through this directory of community bike programs.

Wash your car and clean out the inside. Carrying around junk in the trunk reduces your gas mileage significantly. Make sure to use an earth-friendly, biodegradable cleaner (I like Simple Green) on the outside, so any water runoff into the storm drains won't pollute.

Channel your old scouting days and carve a willow whistle.

Plan a microdrip irrigation system for a larger garden. You'll save water and probably money too in the long run.

String up a clothesline so you can start drying some of your clothes outside this year. Even if the weather isn't great right now, the heat will be on soon enough. Then you'll save money (and energy) by taking advantage of free sunshine.

Tee off at an Audubon-certified golf course (PDF). These are doubly green greens because they protect water quality and provide wildlife habitats, according to the environmental organization.

Get outside and enjoy the extra sunshine!

Preparing your organic garden for spring

Trystan L. Bass — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:58:39 PST

While much of the U.S. is still feeling winter's chill, gardeners know this is a great time to plan for spring planting. They pore through the seed catalogs and dream of lush green veggie beds.

Why not start an organic garden this year?

Cutting back on pesticides and chemical fertilizers is safer and better for your soil in the long run. And you'll find a wide variety of unusual plants to experiment with when you look for organic and heirloom seeds.

Many seeds sold in big garden shops are hybrids that have been breed to be uniform for commercial purposes. This sometimes sacrifices flavor and has put a dent in plant diversity.

But you can find a wide variety of seeds online. Heirloom seeds are for plants that were generally found before the 1940s and which are open pollinated. You can also get organic seeds that haven't been exposed to chemicals.

Here are some of the most frequently recommended sites:

Seed Savers Exchange: A non-profit organization selling seeds for heirloom veggies, flowers, and herbs.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds: Ozark Mountain-based company offering 1,200 unique heirloom seed varieties.

Seeds of Change: A research farm and business selling over 600 types organically grown seeds.

Wild Garden Seed: Pacific Northwest farm producing organic seeds for salad greens, vegetables, herbs, and flowers.

Also, Mother Earth News has an extensive list of seed companies in each U.S. state, plus some Canadian listings. This is a great way to find open-pollinated and organic vegetable and herb seeds near you.

Once the seeds are on the way, you'll want to get the soil ready and learn to maintain your garden without chemicals.

While soil prep is a a huge topic and will vary a lot depending on local conditions, several websites have good pointers to get started.

Organic Gardening: This is the mother lode of tips and techniques for all things about your green garden. Don't miss the simple seed starting article and slideshow.

HGTV's Organic Gardening: Tons of info., plus videos, on everything from picking the right plants to mulching to using water wisely.

The Organic Gardeners Podcast on Lime: Short weekly audio shows about gardening topics with handy advice.

G-Living also has some detailed articles on seeds and soil preparation in the organic gardening section. All this should be plenty to keep you busy before the spring thaw.

A light that grows greener ... literally

Jozef Winter — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 23:23:18 PST

A chandelier that doubles as a planter pot? Ok, that sounds kind of weird, but the folks xDesign Environmental Health Clinic at New York University have actually come up with an interesting concept: filtering air with plants (nothing new) and attaching a light source to those plants (intriguing!)

Essentially, as we all move toward homes and offices with more insulation and fewer drafts, we are trapping unwanted air pollutants inside. This can be anything from photocopier ozone to various pet pellets. Enter the Green Light. This chandelier turned flowerpot features a 6-watt LED in the centre, surrounded by plants growing from the base. The LED emits specific wavelenghts of light to encourage photosynthesis in the plants and thus:

absorb polluted air and destroy contaminants in a process called metabolic breakdown, according to Bill Wolverton, the environmental scientist and retired NASA researcher who pioneered this idea for flushing out the dirty atmosphere in long-term life-support space stations.

The LED can be powered by a solar awning, which can also charge the batteries for up to 4 days in case it's cloudy out, and it has an adjustable timer to program when to turn the lights on or off if you're away. Of course, at a price tag of $6000 apiece, I don't imagine this will be finding its way into our homes just yet.

via PopularMechanics

Save your scraps

Trystan L. Bass — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 10:23:52 PST

Green New Year's resolution: Start a compost pile or bin.

Want make your garbage can lighter and your garden greener? Put those kitchen scraps and grass clippings into a compost pile this year. Hardcore green-thumb types have known the value of compost as a natural fertilizer for ages, and new environmentalists are learning the benefits too.

Up to 40% of landfill space is currently hogged by organic matter like yard trimmings and vegetable peels that won't biodegrade inside the time-capsule-like modern garbage receptacles. Instead of tossing those apple cores, coffee grounds, eggshells, and even shredded newspaper, put it into a compost bin of your own.

Check out our recent post on composting for lots of how-to links. The Internet is full of resources and forums where experts can answer your questions. But the basics are pretty simple -- you need organic material in a warm spot, not too damp, watch it, turn it occasionally, and let nature do her magic.

Even apartment dwellers can get in on the act. New York City has a useful site with details about composting in tiny backyards and indoors.

You might want to get a compost bin to make the job easier and tidier too.

Once your scraps have turned into fertilizer, you can use it to enrich your garden and spread it around trees to prevent erosion. You'll reap the rewards in green throughout the new year.

Spoil your garden rotten

Michelle Heimburger — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:07:48 PST

The benefits of recycling glass and paper are well known, but many cities are just realizing the value of recycling banana peels and coffee grounds.

Many organic materials -- possibly 30-50% of the waste we produce -- pile up in expensive and environmentally-unfriendly landfills when they could be composted and turned into something useful.

Composting has been around for thousands of years, and requires just a few simple things: air, water, carbon ("brown" materials, like leaves or straw), and nitrogen ("green" materials, such as food scraps). A good balance of those elements provides a suitable home for a host of microorganisms and invertebrates that are only too happy to help turn organic waste into nutrient-rich compost.

Composting also has a certain DIY appeal for many gardeners. It's easy to do at home, and not as messy or smelly as you might think. Even urban gardeners can set up simple home composters, and with a little care, the neighbors will never notice that box of decomposing orange rinds on the back porch. Some cities have even launched curbside compost programs so that city dwellers can put their putrescible kitchen scraps to good use.

Why feed a landfill when you could feed a garden instead?

Suggested sites:

HowToCompost.org - instructions and links to get you started.
Introduction to Composting - a step-by-step guide to starting your own compost system.
Food Waste Recovery - case studies of three successful California composting programs.
Cornell Composting - the science behind composting, plus tips for composting in schools and at home.

Directory categories: Composting, Composting Equipment, Worm Composting, Worms for Sale

Originally posted on The Spark, a daily blog where Yahoo! Directory editors highlight new and interesting content on the Web.

Green roofs: an introduction with pretty pictures

Philip Proefrock — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 06:37:00 PDT

It's not just for hobbits anymore. The logic of green roofs is becoming more apparent. We can minimize our bills while maximizing the beauty of the urban landscape. And every day it's becoming a little easier to live in a house that just happens to have plants growing on it.

Vegetated roofs, or green roofs have a layer of living plants on top of the structure and the waterproofing elements. There are really two types of green roofs, intensive and extensive.

Intensive green roofs often have a soil depth of a foot or more, and require substantial structural elements to support the weight of the whole roof. Intensive roofs can sustain a wide range of plant species and typically require a fair amount of regular maintenance. Because of the additional demands they impose, intensive roofs are much less common than extensive roofs.

Extensive roofs are much shallower, typically only 2 to 4 inches deep, and are planted with particularly hardy plants. Over the last 50 years or so, this kind of roof has been developed, especially in Europe,. But now they are becoming increasingly common in the United States.

Why are green roofs such a great idea?

First, they help to reduce roof stormwater runoff. In some cases, this can help reduce the size of stormwater pipes, and the amount of stormwater that needs to be treated by municipal water treatment. In a light rainfall, a building with a vegetated roof can have no stormwater runoff at all. Green roofs also protect the roof membrane from sunlight, which breaks down the roofing material. Having even a couple inches of soil helps to greatly extend the life of the roof, and a longer lifespan means less material ends up in landfills from re-roofing buildings after the membranes have failed.

Green roofs keep the roof cooler, which helps to reduce the heat-island effect, which contributes to cities being hotter than the surrounding countryside. This can be beneficial to the building in reducing its summertime cooling load.

A green roof is also a source of oxygen and provides a habitat for some birds. Birds and insects can find homes much more readily in the living environment of a green roof, where an ordinary roof is nearly barren. And yes, it's even possible to graze goats.

What is a green roof made of?

Starting from the top, an extensive green roof has a layer of plants, which are typically sedums. These are low-growing, shallow rooting, drought tolerant plants. There are many different varieties of sedum, with different different coloration and different flowerings, so that a roof can have a varied appearance, rather than looking like an entire crop of a single variety. The plants are in a growth medium, an engineered mixture of lightweight soils, vermiculite, and other materials that provides a good environment for the sedum.

The shallow depth of the soil aids in keeping weeds from establishing themselves on the roof, since most weeds cannot survive in the arid and shallow soil conditions on a vegetated roof. Local plants that can survive in that environment may establish themselves on the roof, as well. Underneath the soil are several membrane layers, rather than just a single membrane roof. There is also a drainage layer (to allow excess water to move freely, rather than lifting the soil and having it flow off the roof in a mudslide, and a root barrier layer, which keeps the roots from penetrating the roof. The roof membrane sits on the roof deck, insulation, or structure of the building much like a conventional roof.

Can I put a green roof on my house?

Green roofs make sense for residential use as much as for commercial buildings. However, retrofitting a green roof onto an existing house is not a simple matter because of the extra weight a vegetated roof adds. Most roofs are not structurally strong enough to support a vegetated roof without some reinforcement. Green roofs also work best on lower slopes. They can be installed on steeper pitched roofs, but the design and installation is more difficult and requires additional care.

The added cost of a vegetated roof versus a conventional shingle roof, and the relatively small number of contractors familiar with installing them are probably the biggest limiting factors. A house with a suitably pitched roof would still likely need structural evaluation from an architect or engineer before going ahead with a retrofit, and some structural reinforcement is likely to be needed.

Does a green roof have to be mowed?

A sedum covered roof is naturally self limiting in size. Most sedums grow only a few inches tall. As mentioned above, it is also fairly self weeding, due to the inhospitable environment it offers to most weed species. An extensive roof planted with prairie grasses on the Ducks Unlimited National Headquarters in Winnipeg, Manitoba uses a controlled burn of its upper roof every three years to repropogate the prairie plants. The 16 inches of soil protects the building from any damage while the grass fire helps remove weed species and assists prairie species which need periodic fires as part of their life cycle.

What Does the Future Hold?

We were excited a while back to announce Toyota's green roofing tile. These modular, interlockable grass tiles make green roofing an absolute cinch.They're a lot lighter than other methods, and installation is a breeze. At about $34 per tile, they're still expensive, but prices would of course drop if demand were to increase.

And, second, I and many others would like to see Friedenreich Hundertwasser's vision of every horizontal surface being returned to nature:

"The true proportions in this world are the views to the stars and the views down to the surface of the earth. Grass and vegetation in the city should grow on all horizontal spaces - that is to say, wherever rain and snow falls vegetation should grow, on the roads and on the roofs. The horizontal is the domain of nature and wherever vegetation grows on the horizontal level man is off limits; he should not interfere. I mean taking away territories from nature, which human beings have always done."

Green Roof Resources:
-The EPA on Green Roofs-
-Greenroofs.com-
-Green Roofs on Wikipedia-
-Green Roofs for Healthy Cities-

Image Key:
1. Hundertwasser's Waldspirale, Austria...From WikiMedia Commons
2. Green Rooftops from Swishphotos on Flickr from the Faroe Islands
3. Grass Roof in Oswego Illinois, USA, from Greg Robbins on Flickr
4. Solaire Green Roof in Battery Park City, NY from Birdw0rks on Flickr
5. Goats on a Roof in Wisconsin, from Driftless Media on Flickr
6. Grass Roofs in Iceland from Pietroizzo on Flickr
7. Green Roof in Tokyo from Dissonanc3 on Flickr
8. Toyota Roof Tiles from Toyota Roof Garden
9. Hunderwasser's village model, on display at Kunsthaus in Vienna.