CT Green Scene

Green Companies Launch National Solar Energy Initiative in Tri-State Area

 The Great, Green Race has begun! The goal: install one million solar roofs on American homes within three years. Through strategic alliances in the construction, solar energy and banking industries, making it financially feasible for most families and businesses to afford solar powered electricity, and enabling them to realize immediate energy savings of up to 25 percent and more.

Jane Greenstein, Founder & CEO of The Great Green Race in Roslyn Heights, New York and Bill Thomas, COO of Green Home Solutions, LLC in Norwalk, Connecticut agree, “We’re going to jump-start America’s Green transformation by eliminating the single greatest barriers in the adoption of this sustainable energy alternative – the payback period and up front costs.  Using her 30 years of experience in mortgage finance with The Seldin Organization, Inc., a Long Island firm, Jane has designed a Green Banking Program that will dramatically increase the public’s ability to act now.  "Through our affiliations with local banks, homeowners will become part of the solution to substantially reduce carbon emissions," says Jane. She continues, "Affordable financing of this green investment is the key. By offering a variety of creative low-interest payment options like special “Green” home equity loans and long-term graduated payment loans where interest may be tax deductible, installation costs are spread out over a long term. In that way, homeowners realize net savings immediately; and over 25 years, average homeowners can expect to save up to $40,000 on their electric bills."  Federal and state energy efficiency rebates could further reduce the cost of installing solar power. Important to note: according to the Appraisal Institute, the market value of a solar powered home would immediately increase by 20 times the annual electric savings, which equal $36,000 for the average American homeowner with a $150 monthly utility bill.

The Seas Are A'Rising--Advcacy Group to Assist Flooded Residents

Spurred to action by 3 unprecedented floods within 7 months, flooded Darien residents met several times at the Darien Library to voice concerns and develop strategies.  Vanessa Wood and Laura Giobi, instrumental in organizing residents, announce that they have joined an established Darien environmental group, Save Darien's Wetlands, shifting the group to focus on flooding.

Save Darien's Wetlands, Inc. was formed in 2001 by the late Lee Fingar of Darien as a neighborhood advocacy group to address water concerns.   Mr. Fingar's death in July 2007 left the fate of the group uncertain. Flood residents met several times this year for public meetings demanding action and worked find flooding answers through their blog http://darienflooding.wordpress.com "We hope to expand the work that Lee began," stated Mrs. Wood.  "Our vision is to go forward as an advocacy group for the water concerns that are plaguing several neighborhoods in Darien. Town government has come under heavy scrutiny this year. Examination is healthy. Under the watchful eye of its citizens we expect Darien will meet the challenge of dealing with water issues to create a new standard as a modern town."

The restructured group announced their goals:
Increase public awareness of options to decrease water danger and damage.
Advocate flood control solutions that will protect homes, businesses, and the environment.
Inform residents and businesses on government activity that affects Darien's Wetlands.

For more information, visit our website www.SaveDariensWetlands.org.

Jack Nicholson Says We Need To Move To Big Solar. Now.

It’s not often that Jack Nicholson does interviews. As it is, the guy only agrees to make one film per year. His annual entry this year is The Bucket List — a film about two guys (Morgan Freeman plays the other lead) with terminal cancer that decide to do everything they ever wanted to do before they kick it.

Nicholson launches into some pretty clever answers on everything concerning politics, oil, and solar energy. Here are some highlights:

On why he has not been politically active since George McGovern’s 1972 campaign?

“I wanted to do solar energy. I wanted to legalize drugs versus the terrorist problem, which I was aware of in the ’70s. Because where else are they getting illegal money at that level?
Enforce the monopoly laws of the Constitution they’re so proud of, which would have eliminated Enron and the interlocking directorate of conglomeration. Double teacher salaries. Find a way to liase from a personnel point of view between the military and the domestic police. These are all non-starters, what they call in politics. My position as a whippersnapper was ‘hey, any of you people relate to any one of these issues, I’ll know you’re seriously interested in fundamental change. Until you do, I’m not interested in pie-baking contests.’”

On moving the country to solar energy and the influence of big oil:

“How do they talk about these small increments of energy conservation when we burn 60 per cent of the gas at stop signs and traffic lights?” Solar electricity is the only thing that can make an impact on this problem. It’s too big. We don’t have the ability to generate the electricity, to convert, unless we go to big solar. It’s an engineering problem, it’s not a scientific problem. There is no momentum for solar electricity because of the powerful oil industry’s ability to set the scientific and political agenda.

There’s nobody in the field, no teachers, where their livelihood is not dependent in some way on petroleum grants. And I’m not vilifying the petroleum industry right now. … Fact of the matter is, say there is an evil genius. Every day that whatever the petroleum interest is keeps this from being understood, that man is doing his job to the tune of whatever they make every day.”

via Greenburbs

Source: http://www.ecorazzi.com/2007/12/21/jack-nicholson-says-we-need-to-move-to-big-solar-now

Local Community Effort--WE Green Wesport

Westport's energy task force has raised the bar and is working to involve members of the community is a pledge to liver greener. You can take steps toward lessoning your impact on the planet, join in by signing a pledge card, and track the progress on their interactive map.

LEDs--the answer to our energy woes

HOLLAND TUNNEL LEDS THE WAY Source: AP December 13, 2007 -- The Holland Tunnel has gone green. Crews overnight replaced fluorescent lights with light-emitting diode units. The LEDs distribute light more efficiently, require less energy and last 15 years, compared to 1.4 years for fluorescent. More than 1,700 LED fixtures replaced some 4,000 fluorescent ones in the tunnel. Port Authority officials say they'll save $340,000 each year in energy and maintenance costs. The George Washington Bridge's "necklace" of 156 mercury vapor fixtures are to be replaced with LEDs in January.

De-commercializing the Holidays... A Swap

by Elizabeth Howard

Every year, earlier and earlier, the decorations come up at the stores. Ugh.

This year, on Halloween day at Target, I overheard one morose father contemplate giving out candy canes for Trick or Treat: the sales associates were stripping down the Halloween merchandise before the holiday had even started. Why? To make way for the lighted trees and green and gold wrapped Hershey's Kisses.

That's why I LOVE this article "12 Ways to Decommercialize Christmas" by Megan Kamerick, posted on Bankrate.com. She offers a slew of ways to take it all DOWN a notch. Number one on the list is my favorite, a "Yankee Swap" or what my Canadian family calls a "Chinese Gift Exhcange." Called by many other weird names-- White Elephant, Thieving Elves, and my personal favorite, Dirty Santa-- it's a gift exchange for adults: one gift each, a price limit, a certain amount of creativity and theft! How can you go wrong?

Just Beat It

One of the hardest things to deal with at this time of year is the pressures, most significantly, I believe,  the pressure of competition. For example, one woman ahead of me in line at Christmas Tree Shops was spending $300 on wrapping paper, stockings, their stuffers, and dozens of other throw-away pieces of junk. What for? A school Christmas party. At what point does (or has?) the "holiday spirit" become infected with something else entirely?

At the holidays, I feel there seems to be a sense that because we have the means, we need to somehow-- if not each other-- at the very least outdo ourselves. A better and bigger gift, party, tree than last year.

The decision to embrace a greener, more holistic lifestyle definitely means fighting all sorts of demons. And for American consumers at the holidays, the meanest demon of all is that one inside, something like "competitive goodness," which, if you are looking for it, often disguises itself as "giving."

Cityseed Holiday Market Kicks Off Year-Round Bounty

December 6, 2007

by Elizabeth Howard

New Haven's award-winning local farmer's market, CITYSEED, continues its wildly popular Holiday Market,  Saturdays, December 8 and 15, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Wooster Square. It's the perfect spot to buy-- direct from the growers and artisans-- locally-grown and organic ingredients or treats for  holidays dinners and parties. Holiday crafts are also being sold.

Cityseed's Holiday Market is a harbinger of the lovely, monthly YEAR-ROUND market, held in the same spot through the winter. Bundle up, bring your own bags and get there early for the best artisan breads, local cheeses, salad greens, pies and jams, winter squash, apples and pears-- to name a just a few of the good things you'll find there.

For the YEAR-ROUND MARKET, here are the don't-miss dates to mark on your calendar:

                    Third Saturdays of each Month
                    January 19, February 16, March 15, April 19

Cityseed is the heart of BuyCTGrown, a great project that, in tandem with the state Department of Agriculture's "CT Grown - The Local Flavor" project, enhances the collaboration of farm and food organizations, creating a network that is becoming a local food community.

Cityseed Market always accepts EBT/food stamps.

Pouches or Cans?

Dear EarthTalk: Many foods like tuna and pet foods that formerly were sold only in cans are now available in “pouches” as well.  Is this kind of packaging less harmful to the environment or just cheaper to make for the seller?     -- Stefanie Galdolfi, Oakland, CA

 

Food pouches, which are made from a combination of food-grade aluminum foil, plastic and adhesives, do appear to have some front-end environmental advantages over the cans they are increasingly replacing on supermarket shelves. However, they are not as easily recycled.

Food pouches take up far less space and weight (in both warehouses and on supermarket shelves) and are simpler to manufacture than tin-coated steel cans. Minneapolis-based flexible packaging manufacturer Kapak Corporation reports that one truckload of the pouches it makes has the same holding capacity as 25 truckloads of traditional rigid containers (cans), and saves as much as 96 percent in warehouse storage space. The company also says its pouches use 75 percent less energy than cans to manufacture, and that they reduce the amount of source materials needed to make cans by a factor of 25 to one.

According to Anthony Andrady, author of the 2003 book, Plastics and the Environment, the pouches used to store Whiskas cat food require 30 percent less retorting time (retorting is the process of pressurizing the interior of the vessel to ensure it is sterilized) than the 10 ounce steel cans they replaced because the pouch can be heated more evenly and quickly. “That translates directly into reduced energy use for the retorting process and probably into a decrease in the amount of cooling water required as well,” he says.

On the down side, most of these pouches, despite their upfront advantages, are destined for the landfill once they are empty because their multi-material construction makes them difficult to recycle. Some manufacturers, like California-based Flex Products Inc., are working on variations of the pouch that are less complex and inherently more recyclable than what’s on supermarket shelves right now, but such products may be years away from widespread adoption. Nevertheless, technological improvements could make recycling of pouches more feasible in the future.