CT Green Scene

Beer Brewed by the Sun

If you enjoy a cold brew with your favorite meal yet want to do your part for the planet, there is a new "green" beer. The Lucky Labrador brewing company installed their solar panels in December of 2007 and began production of the Sun Beer in February of 2008. They are the first brewing company to use the sun in quite this manner. Unlike other companies like Sierra Nevada, who use the sun hitting photovoltaic panels to generate electricity, Lucky Lab's solar hot water system installed by Ra Energy , heats the brewpub's water.

Although Lucky Lab uses the sun for the brewing, they still use natural gas to create the final product. The finishing product is a light summer ale and was released in the summer of 2008.

Fake Trees that Generate Energy?

Trees are experts at converting the sun into energy, and the people at Solar Botanic Energy Systems have come up with a way to create artificial trees in order to harness the power of the sun and wind. With the use of nanotechnology, the twenty different species of trees that Solar Botanic Energy creates will create energy much the same way that regular trees do. Due to the combination of photovoltaic and thermovoltaic in the nanoleaves, they are able to convert light and heat into energy. Almost all of the light from the sun will be absorbed, except for the green light, and the leaves will also absorb the infrared wave, or radiation, even hours after the sun has set.

To fully integrate all the aspects of a tree, Solar Botanic Energy has also infused the twigs and branches with nano piezo-electric elements. These elements detect the stresses on the twigs and branches whenever the leaves flap in the wind or rain. Every time they flap, the nano piezo-electric elements will produce thousands of picowatts of energy. The stronger the wind, the more energy the tree can produce.

Solar Botanic Energy has decided to start plant their first palm tree in the Middle East. This palm tree should produce 5000 kilowatts hours per year. The company has already begun offering these trees to the government. The lifespan of these trees are about 30 years. Not only does it offer cheaper electricity alternatives, it also offers the same benefits as regular trees from shade to windbreaking and cooling. Solar Botanic Energy offers low installation costs and there is also governmental grants available for the planting of the trees.

Learn more at the Solar Botanic Energy System site.

Green Summit II Energy Fair: November 8th

via New Britain Herald

Mark your calendar for the second annual Green Summit Energy Fair in Wethersfield, Connecticut! The summit will take place at the Wethersfield High School, from 11 am to 2 pm.

Town Councilor, Matthew Forrest, set up the Green Summit last year in order to respond to the ever growing energy and gas prices in Wethersfield and to have his residents come up with ideas on living a greener life. The second annual event will include vendor and community booths giving more information concerning renewable energy and showcase experiments created by Wethersfield students. Key note speakers will talk about sustainability issues, fossil-fuel dependence, and energy conservation funding.

Attendees can also take part in workshops that will go over recycling, rain barrels, composting and describing various renewable energy sources. Attendees will also have the opportunity to give feedback back to the town on whether the town is headed in the right direction towards a greener future.

Back to a Greener School!

By Heather Johnson

Most of you teachers are gearing up for the school year and getting the classroom ready and we've come up with 50 different ways to go green in your classroom. Parents, teachers are always looking for great ideas, so read on!

Class Projects

1. Recycle Competition: Many classrooms already have recycling barrels next to the trash can, but you can start a competition with your hall to see which class can save the most newspapers, soda cans, water bottles or any other recyclable item.
2. Compost heap: If your school isn’t willing to start composting, you can create a mini compost pile outside your classroom to get rid of some of your garbage, though it’s probably a smart idea to make sure it’s cleared with the administration and fire codes.
3. Start a garden: Use the compost to fertilize a class garden. You can grow vegetables or flowers, and let the students sample what you grow.
4. Recycle technology: If you’re lucky enough to be getting new computers this fall, invite your kids to join the Goodwill and Dell Reconnect program, which recycles computers and other electronics.
5. Go Green Database: Browse this database for fun eco-friendly projects that encourage awareness.
6. Plan an end-of-the-day room check: During the last few minutes of the day, have your children make sure all the water faucets are completely turned off, blinds are closed, lights are off and windows are closed. You can give different groups a checklist for each part of the room.
7. Adopt a rainforest: This project works with any unit you’re teaching. Your class can adopt the rainforest, whales, a block on your street or any other place you want to make a difference.
8. Use real plants for class pets: If your classroom has a pet turtle, lizard or fish, use real plants instead of synthetic or plastic plants. It’s better for the greater environment, as well as your little friend.
9. Calculate your carbon footprint: You can use this calculator to calculate your classroom’s carbon footprint, or the combined effect all of your students have on the environment. Then, discuss ways to minimize your effect on the environment.
10. Take an eco-friendly field trip: Walk to a nearby park to examine the local ecosystems without using extra gas.
11. Start a class website: Older students will respond to a class website, where they can get homework help, submit discussion questions, and play with interactive study guides, all of which save paper.
12. Raise monarch butterflies: This teacher started a class project to raise monarch butterflies in order to teach her students about natural ecosystems and the developing stages of life.

School Supplies

It’s time to reevaluate your school supply closet and figure out how to introduce safer, more environmentally friendly pens, paints and tissues into the mix.

13. Use water-based paints: The Green Guide recommends using water-based paints for a non-toxic creative project.
14. Green art projects: This list of green art projects are all good for the environment, and some utilize natural ingredients and products like clay and wood.
15. Use green tissues: These Seventh Generation brand tissues are chlorine-free, so they aren’t a threat to the ozone layer and have no dyes or artificial fragrances.
16. Make your own cleaning kit: Free your students of breathing in harmful chemicals and help the environment by whipping up your own batch of non-toxic, environmentally friendly cleaning supplies.
17. Stock your room with green school supplies: If you or your school’s budget can afford it, stock your room with green school supplies, like recycled notebook binders and biodegradable corn starch pens.
18. Write with recycled pencils: This number two pencil is also made of recycled wood.
19. Acid-free glue stick: For all your art projects, use acid-free glue stick, which is less messier than liquid glue and better for the environment.
20. Send efaxes: For permission slips and progress reports, send out electronic faxes that don’t require extra paper or electricity.
21. Recharge batteries: Rechargeable batteries can save the earth from harmful metals and compounds that can’t be broken down when you toss out old batteries.

350: The Magic Number

Ticking Off the Ice Cream Truck Man

I was at the park today with my kids when a diesel ice cream truck pulled in. The man, in his fifties, kept the fifteen year old truck spewing smoke as he passed out frozen treats packed with artificial colors and flavors and enough preservatives to outlive the kids who ate them.

I stood by silently, my  young ones knowing better than to ask, since for the past four years their mommy claims not to have any money, or rambles on about how unhealthy that ice cream is, convincing them to go to the New Morning to pick up some organic, lactose-free, all natural, frozen desserts.

Then it hit me: this must have been what the first proponents of banning second hand smoke must have felt like. Unsure, insecure, timid. I marched up to the truck and asked if he'd be staying long. "Nope."
"Good, I replied, because we can smell your truck all the way across the park."  "If you're so worried about it, why didn't you walk instead of drive here?" he spat back.

Tonight, I'll dream of electric powered ice cream trucks that sell organic, healthy frozen treats on sultry summer days.

Natural Pesticides that Work

EarthTalkTM
From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: What green-friendly lawn and garden pesticides are available today? I’m particularly interested in options that won’t harm my cats.     -- Nancy Blanchard, via e-mail

Pesticides have greatly boosted agricultural yields over the last half century, so it is no wonder, given the commercial availability of many of these synthetic chemicals, that American homeowners apply 100 million pounds of the stuff each year to make their own gardens grow bigger and faster, too.

But the downside of using such chemicals is that they can poison people and pets as well as backyard wildlife: “Common insecticide ingredients such as 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), atrazine and dicamba have been shown to harm mouse embryos at times equivalent to the first week after conception in humans,” says Erica Glasener of The Green Guide. Due to such revelations, home gardeners are fast discovering the benefits of avoiding chemicals in favor of natural, less toxic alternatives.

But before thinking about applying pesticides, gardeners can design (or re-design) their gardens to make the most of native plants that have evolved over eons to thrive in local conditions without synthetic aid or lots of water. Choosing native plants appropriate to your elevation, soil type, drainage and sun exposure will naturally repel many common pests and also reduce the propagation of invasive exotic species.

Similarly, embedding your plants in healthy soil replete with beneficial insects and worms can also help reduce the need for pesticides. Laura Moran of Mainstreet.com suggests that home gardeners compost their vegetable food waste—which is chock full of nutrients that plants love—and mix it into existing soil to give the garden a healthy boost. “Aside from stimulating healthy root development,” she writes, “the addition of rich compost also improves soil texture, aeration and water retention.” It also provides a nice home, she says, for the beneficial bugs that are destroyed along with the bad ones by chemical pesticides.

If pesticides are necessary, there are a handful of organic varieties available. Bacillus thuringiensis (“Bt”) is a naturally occurring bacterium that is lethal to most leaf-eating caterpillars on trees, shrubs, flowers and vegetables. According to gardening writer Jeff Ball, it is harmless to all other insects, animals and humans. It comes in a powder form for use as a dust, or, when diluted with water, as a spray. Organic chemists have formulated varieties of Bt to kill mosquitoes or potato beetles as well.

Momentum Builds for Bike-Friendly Union Station

Via Design New Haven

The New Haven Register reports today that the city has received a $10,000 grant to improve bicycle access at Union Station, and also has submitted a federal funding request for $145,000 for on-street dedicated and shared bike lanes connecting Union Station to Downtown New Haven and neighborhoods to the south and north of the city, which themselves have bike routes planned to connect with other sections of New Haven. The funding requests and grants also contain provisions for improved bike storage (with something like the photo at left, from a small Swedish train station, as the eventual goal in terms of encouraging use). More specifics on a proposed route can be found in the article:

"The bike lane, signage and striping would take place along Orange and Humphrey streets, Whitney Avenue, Temple, George, Church and Crown streets and Union, Howard and Columbus avenues with $15,900 for bike racks and covered parking at the rail station."

Improved bicycle routes and parking at Union Station would not only provide improved efficiency for commuters, but would also potentially have a major impact on the city's economic development, public health and traffic safety, as bicycle lanes also tend to calm traffic, promote walkability, raise real estate values, increase bicycling use, help citizens save millions of dollars per year in commuting costs, and promote local retail districts. They could also have an impact on suburban areas, by making the land near train stations on Metro North, Shoreline East and the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield line more valuable.

Of course, to be truly effective and enable the majority of city residents to feel comfortable commuting via bicycle, designated bike routes must also be combined with traffic calming treatments that reduce vehicle speeds and create safer intersections. As the number of cyclists in Downtown New Haven continues to grow, transit ridership increases, and the potential citywide economic benefits of improved traffic safety are more widely understood, the political will for implementing these types of strategies -- which have been in use for decades in many other cities and countries -- will hopefully increase.

WTNH-8 also ran a video news segment on this story, with great images of overflowing bike racks at the train station and footage of Elm City Cycling's recent "Bike to Work Day/BTW Breakfast." Also see separate WTNH news coverage here. The $10,000 grant application was made possible based on the city's recent application to LAB for designation as a bicycle-friendly community. Click here for a thread summarizing previous DNH coverage of bicycle access on trains and at Union Station.

83 Trees Cut Down to Make Better View for Billboard

Via The Green Vibration

Action is needed to protect trees in our very own state! We need to stop companies like LAMAR not only littering our landscapes but destroying our trees to achieve their goals. Send letters of support to Blumenthal and please visit www.scenic.org to send a letter to Jodi Rell stating your support of her bill to ban new billboard contracts in CT, including digital billboards.

Article Written By
BY ROBYN ADAMS REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN

WATERBURY-- Nancy Voghel grew up on a "little piece of heaven," but she said Friday that the land near her childhood home has been destroyed.

Last year, Lamar Advertising of Hartford got a permit from the state Department of Transportation to trim and remove undesirable growth on state land off Sidney Street to increase the visibility of one of its billboards.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal filed a lawsuit against the billboard company and Long Hill Tree and Lawn Care Services of East Hartford for cutting down 83 trees that included birch, maple, oak and white pine that were between 85 and 200 years old. Long Hill Tree was hired by Lamar to do the work.

Hal Kilshaw, vice president of governmental relations for Lamar, headquartered in Baton Rouge, La., said the attorney general got it wrong.

"We got permission from the landowner and a permit from the state. We hired Long Hill and met with the state's landscape person, who was on site and agreed to everything that was cut," Kilshaw said in a telephone interview.

Many of the trees that were planted on the land in question were planted by Margaret Casey's grandfather.

"In less than one day, less than an hour, Lamar Advertising came in and changed our lifestyle," said Casey, of 56 Sidney St. "The noise -- we cannot open the windows anymore. We cannot hear the television because of the noise. It is unbearable."

The trees provided a buffer to highway traffic and noise, and soaked up water that spilled down the hilly terrain.

"Last year, I had five feet of water in my basement," said Jerod Voghel, 30, who is Karen Voghel's son. He bought the house that his mother grew up in four years ago; she now lives in Wolcott.

With the open swath of land in the background, Blumenthal and Rep. Selim Noujaim, R-75th District, talked to residents about the lawsuit.

Blumenthal said Lamar "clearly and disgracefully broke the law" by cutting 83 trees that provided a buffer to I-84. The state is suing for unspecified monetary damages to replace the trees.

Loop Year: 365 Days on the Trail

What do you do if you're an amateur adventurer and environmentalist who dreams of hiking the Appalachian Trail or saving the rainforest, but you can't quit your day job or abandon personal commitments?

John Sheirer created his own project: From May 17, 2005 to May 16, 2006, he hiked the same trail at the McCann Family Farm in Somers, Connecticut, once a day, every day. He chronicled the year in Loop Year: 365 Days on the Trail, a book composed of 365-word accounts of his hiking project.

Along the way, Sheirer discovered that an obsession with hiking and caring for the same New England trail every day can be surprisingly adventurous--ranging from blistering heat, flooding rain, whiteout snowstorms, early mornings, dark nights, and everything in between. (Plus there's an unexpected love story and a really cute dog.)

On Sunday, June 22, 2008 from 3pm and 4 pm at McCann Family Farm in Somers, CT (Route 190, approximately one mile east of the intersection of routes 190 and 83), the author will read from the book and it will be for sale for the first time.

A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Northern Connecticut Land Trust. For more information, visit www.johnsheirer.com.