The Princeton Project

Shifting to a New Website

2011-02-03T10:41:00.001-05:00

New posts are now located at www.princetonprimer.org, and www.squeezeclimate.blogspot.com, a website dedicated to energy conservation.

Bag It -- A Documentary on Plastic

2011-01-22T09:48:00.001-05:00

The community room at Princeton Public Library was packed again, last night, for a showing of Bag It, a comprehensive and entertaining expose on the cumulative consequences of our use of plastics. That legacy can be found in the widening gyres of plastic debris in the oceans and in chemicals like bisphenol A and phthalates in our bodies.

The film's devastating critique is made palatable by a sense of humor. Lest the plastic-filled guts of dead marine birds and whales prove too wrenching, other scenes offer a frolicking abominable snowman made of white plastic bags, and tragicomic encounters with plastic overload in the aisles of the local supermarket.

What does Princeton have to do with all this? Consider the destiny of a plastic bottle tossed onto Harrison Street. It disappears down a storm drain, gets washed through a pipe into Harry's Brook, flows to Carnegie Lake, where it may float about until storm waters push it over the dam and down the Millstone and Raritan Rivers to the ocean. The Atlantic, like the Pacific, has two gyres of accumulating plastic--one in the north and one in the south. Over a period of years, the plastic bottle and billions of other bits of plastic eventually find their way out to the gyre, slowly breaking down into smaller and smaller bits that fish, sea turtles and whales can mistake for food. The plastic bits also absorb toxic chemicals in the water, which would be a good thing if the fish weren't eating the plastic, absorbing the toxics, and passing the toxics up a food chain that can include humans.

Documentaries are meant to change your mind, or at least convey reality so vividly that one can no longer ignore what one already knew. The mind is admirably and exasperatingly well armored against change--understandable given the pain and grieving involved in letting go of a belief one has invested years or decades adhering to and defending. But there can be pleasure in the change, too, of new insight and a release from the confinement of false notions.

I tend to cultivate skepticism, wishing not to jump to conclusions but rather to allow conviction to slowly accumulate. One skepticism this movie forced me to abandon is the notion that stream cleanups are merely a feel-good activity that serve our aesthetics but do little for the watershed. Paper litter may break down, and wildlife may find cover in a stray rusty pipe, but the plastics are likely as not to be swept downstream and out into the ocean, where they provide one more hazard for marine life already on the edge.

Of all the wonderfully presented scenes, interviews, and graphics in the movie, my favorite was the man who is storing all his family's trash in his basement for a year. He's apparently able to avoid a huge mess by composting food waste, reusing containers, and avoiding products with throwaway packaging.

The positive message of the movie is that taking steps to withdraw from the culture of consumption can lead to a richer life that focuses more on human interactions and resourcefulness. Sharon Roe, who spoke afterwards about her company that makes reuseable bags, spoke of the environmental journey of discovery and understanding that we all are on. In many ways, it seems to be a journey both forwards into new, less harmful technologies and backwards to forgotten pleasures and values, to extract ourselves from the terribly warped and destructive world cheap fossil fuel energy has led us into.

The Legacy of Driving Around Town

2011-01-17T10:42:00.000-05:00

Whenever I'm trying to convince myself to walk or ride a bike instead of driving across town, it helps to think of all the little legacies a car leaves behind, from the transient to the enduring. To drive is to make Princeton a little noisier, its air and streams a little dirtier, and the world's climate ever so slightly more unstable.

Snow shows in winter what is harder to see in summer--the dirt cars and trucks leave behind. When a mid-winter or spring rain finally washes it off, the feeling will be of relief, of restored cleanliness. But the fish just downstream of this street drain will face the opposite reality, as their world is flooded with the streets' polluted offerings.

Here, two shadows. One my own, the other an oil slick shadow left by a mystery vehicle.

Streets, connected as their drains are directly to the local creek, are essentially dry creekbeds that we happen to drive our cars on and dump our yardwaste in.

Sometimes, all this knowledge of collective consequence is enough to get me out of my car.

Prominent Climate Scientist to Speak this Friday

2010-11-17T12:41:00.000-05:00

For more information on this great opportunity to hear this pioneering climate scientist speak, click here.

James E. Hansen, climatologist and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, will present “Human-Made Climate Change: A Moral, Political and Legal Issue” on Friday, November 19, at 5:00 p.m. in Wolfensohn Hall on the Institute campus

Electronics Recycling Day October 9

2010-10-06T09:42:00.000-04:00

This Saturday, from 8-2, Mercer County is holding its fall Household Chemical and Electronics Waste Disposal Day. For more info, click here. If anyone in Princeton borough has electronics they want to get rid of and want to save a trip, let me know (email address under profile link on right). I'm heading out there with my pickup truck. Township residents can recycle their electronics by contacting the township to arrange a dropoff.

Remarks by Steven Chu While in Princeton

2010-09-30T09:18:00.000-04:00

The www.princeton.edu website reported on U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu's visit to PPPL (Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory). Here are a couple quotes from his talk:

"Science has shown that we are altering the destiny of the Earth. The full impact of what we have done already will not be known for 100-plus years."

Chu closed his remarks at the lab with a Native American saying about how human beings should care for the planet: "Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children."

As an aside, Mr. Chu visited Mountain Lakes House, where I work, as part of a fundraising event for Representative Rush Holt.

Bikes and Style

2010-09-30T08:34:00.000-04:00

Nice writeup in the NY Times about women making bicycle riding stylish. This may seem like a bit of gloss, but for bikes to become widely adopted as a primary mode of transportation, they have to go beyond being merely utilitarian and green and become part of people's identity. Cars are advertised for their style and associated in commercials with character traits having nothing to do with the car itself. The more that bicycles can compete with cars on that level, the better.

E/Z on the A/C

2010-08-18T06:44:00.001-04:00

The first thing to know about central air conditioning is that turning the thermostat way down doesn't make the house cool down faster. The thermostat is not like a throttle or an accelerator pedal in a car, but instead simply turns the A/C on or off. It matters to know this, because the tendency otherwise may be to turn the thermostat way down in an effort to cool the house quickly, then forget to adjust it later on. The A/C ends up running and running, attempting to cool the house to a temperature lower than you actually want or need. The best thing to do is set the thermostat at the temperature you want. The house will cool just as quickly.

A central A/C unit typically draws a whopping 3500 watts of energy while on. I've come to associate the hum of the A/C with the blowing up of mountaintops in West Virginia, which may be the source of coal used to generate those watts. Most people are oblivious to such dramas hidden behind the facade of everyday domestic life.

The second thing to know is that ceiling or floor fans, which only use 20 or 30 watts of electricity while running, can help you cut back on A/C use. What we've found, as we progressively try to trim the use of A/C in the house, is that it's possible to gain enough comfort on hot days by using a mix of ceiling fans and A/C, with the A/C on just enough to lower the humidity in the house. Of course, when the A/C is running, all the windows have to be closed. Otherwise the heat and humidity from outside just pours right back in.

Our central A/C system, while not the worst, is not exactly state of the art. It pushes coolish air through a labyrinthine system of ducts, and sometimes labors to bring the house temperature down below a certain point. With the thermostat set at 81 on a 95 degree day, it cuts the humidity nicely, then turns off. The fans do the rest. Set it at 78 and it may lumber on for long periods without achieving much gain in comfort. Some may think 81 sounds a tad high, but fans are said to make it feel 4 degrees cooler, and over time our bodies have grown accustomed to a broader range of temperatures. A little bit of adaptation now could save a lot of adaptation later on.

A couple degrees adjustment of the thermostat, then, can make a big difference in how much the A/C runs. If it's running constantly, try nudging the thermostat upwards to give the A/C, and the planet, some relief. Wear shorts and t-shirt, or something similarly light, and let the fans do the rest. Stimulate the local economy by spending the energy savings at the ice cream store.

Eating Habits Event at Library Thursday, 2pm

2010-08-08T21:37:00.003-04:00

This from the Princeton Public Library calendar:

What is healthy eating and why do it?

Princeton Farmers' Market Manager Judith Robinson will delve into these important questions and describe a process of easy, healthy eating habits, rather than just a list of recipes. This one-hour Healthy Eating workshop will teach you how to practice healthy habits on a daily basis.

This program is one of a series of programs being held at the library during the Farmers’ Market on the plaza. Join us for cooking demonstrations, films, speakers and more at 2 p.m. every Thursday during the Market.

The Farmer and the Horse

2010-08-03T12:11:00.004-04:00

This Friday, August 6, there will be an outdoor viewing--quite possibly the official premier--of the locally filmed movie "The Farmer and the Horse", about farmers in Mercer County who decide to farm with horses rather than tractors. It's been getting good reviews from people who have had a chance to view it ahead of time. For more information, go to the Howell History Farm website.

For a previous post on Howell History Farm, click here.

FoodWaste Project Needs Participants

2010-07-28T13:54:00.002-04:00

If you live in Princeton township and are currently throwing your food scraps in the trash, there's a new curbside foodwaste program that you can sign up for. According to the township website, 30% of the wastestream is organic, so it would be a major step forward to send all that weight to a compost site where it can be turned into fertilizer. Optimal, of course, is to compost it yourself in the backyard. But for those who prefer to export waste, this pilot program will take foodscraps (including meat scraps) and other compostable organic waste. Hopefully, the program can include those less than lovely little blobs of yardwaste that people put out on the curb all summer.

More info on the township website.

Food and Mood Workshop, Th., Aug. 5

2010-07-27T11:50:00.003-04:00

Another great event at the public library, centered around food, which is at the center of sustainability.

How You Feel is Data: An Experiential Workshop with Food

Community Room
Thursday, Aug. 5, 2 p.m.

Is food at the root of your:

day time fatigue?
low moods?
anxiety?
poor concentration?
problems with health?

Join Suppers founder and community gardener Dorothy Mullen and make a few quick and easy recipes to test the role of food in how you feel. This workshop - How You Feel is Data - will use primarily produce available at the farmers' market and organic turkey and eggs. The one-hour event will include food preparation, instructions on how to do food experiments that uncover your relationship with food, handouts and recipes.

This program is one of a series of programs being held at the library during the Farmers’ Market on the plaza. Join us for cooking demonstrations, films, speakers and more at 2 p.m. every Thursday during the Market.

Eat Real Food at Suppers.
Experience the Logical Miracle.
www.TheSuppersPrograms.org
www.DorothyMullen.org

Staying Cool With Raw Beet Salad

2010-07-24T17:03:00.004-04:00

We're back in the kitchen here, for another segment of Climate Change Cookery.

For most of my adult life, I have been a passive lover of beets. Passive in the sense of eating them only when they present themselves in a prepared form--at a salad bar or in a pickle jar. I took their red color to signify the presence of important nutrients not necessarily present in other foods.

It never occurred to me to cook them myself until recently, and immediately a serious obstacle presented itself. They take a long time to cook, and in the middle of summer, in the middle of the unfolding climate change debacle, it's hard to contemplate boiling anything on the stove for long periods, or firing up the oven. Hot house, hot planet.

All of this was solved by friend Dorothy, who served a delicious raw beet salad at one of her dinners. Recipes can be found easily on the internet, but an improvised approach involves peeling and grating the beets, adding some olive oil and an acid like vinegar, lemon or orange juice, and throwing in some chopped parsley, ground nuts, and something oniony like chives. Some recipes call for goat cheese. Another friend added corn and grated carrots to expand the nutritional aspect.

Calculating Total Energy Use in Princeton

2010-07-24T12:41:00.003-04:00

In 2007, PSE&G provided data on energy use in Princeton township and borough. This information can be found starting on p. 66 of the 2009 Sustainable Princeton Community Plan. (The link is slow, so be patient.)

Though data on changes in the stock market are available at any moment in the day, it is extraordinarily difficult to get information on energy use--the cumulative impact of which will profoundly affect our collective future on the planet. It's conceivable that all sellers of fossil fuels, whether they be gas stations or utility companies, could be required to submit all information on a monthly basis, using software that would automatically categorize it according to municipality and make it available online. In this way, we could better track progress towards energy use reduction targets adopted by state and local governments.

There are various goals for reducing energy use and the consequent emissions of greenhouse gases that exacerbate climate change. Absent, however, is the infrastructure needed to track progress towards those goals. The current situation is akin to going on a diet without access to a scale, and is essentially designed to fail.

Until we can get energy use data flowing much more easily and frequently, we won't have any idea if we're meeting those goals. For the time being, Princeton's energy use data from 2007 still awaits more recent figures to compare it to.

Food Waste Pilot Project in Princeton

2010-07-21T11:28:00.003-04:00

I have periodically brought up the idea of curbside recycling of foodwaste at Princeton Environmental Commission meetings and on this website, so was glad to hear recently that the township will be starting a pilot project to collect food waste curbside in a Princeton neighborhood. This approach is used in San Francisco, Seattle and elsewhere on the west coast.

Below is information about a presentation tomorrow at the Princeton Public Library:

"Thursday, Jul. 22, 2 p.m., Janet Pellichero, Township recycling coordinator, will speak about the new food waste composting pilot program that Princeton Township is launching in 1,000 homes this September."

Remote Control Energy Thermostat

2010-07-13T09:07:00.002-04:00

Here's an interesting innovation that could help bring homes into the modern age. If you think about it, houses have remained stubbornly primitive in their capacity to tell us about themselves. Unlike a car--a far less expensive item--a house can't tell you how much energy it's using, has no remote control features, no sensors to tell you if something's amiss, etc., etc. I recently heard an ad for some sort of remote control feature by Schlage. An internet search yielded a link to a $150 thermostat, and some reviews at amazon.com.

From reading the reviews at amazon.com, if becomes apparent that the device can be just as easily used to increase one's use of energy (e.g. turn the A/C on before you arrive home) as to reduce it. But just as people are asked to turn off their cell phones at the beginning of a concert, the concept of a room full of people being able to turn down their homes' energy use via cell phone remote control is appealing.

Fix-It Club Items Find New Homes

2010-06-26T12:25:00.001-04:00

(This post first appeared on a blog about efforts to rescue the Veblen House--a historic house in Princeton that has been boarded up for 11 years.)

The Fix-It Club concept involves rescuing stuff headed for the landfill that deserves a second life. Participants bring stuff that can be easily repaired to a workshop, and share tools, knowledge and conversation while fixing the stuff up.

On June 17, we had our first Fix-It Club meeting in my garage. Here is the "diagnostic center"--a solid oak table I rescued from the curb that's in need of a bit of glue. In the meantime, it's a handy surface for setting tools, and testing abandoned A/C units, lamps and what have you. A Kill-a-Watt meter allowed us to measure energy use of the various items.

A couple hours of light work, expedited in particular by my neighbor Mark, who has insight into electronics, expanded our inventory of functional items to two microwaves, a mini-frig, two computer monitors and two lamps. A couple fans also turned out to work just fine, but still need cleaning.

There is, of course, the question of how to find these items new homes. But the front side of the project--the rescuing and repairing--turns out to be straightforward and rewarding.

Note: Filling the void in action to find new homes for this fine inventory, my daughter took the initiative and sold them at a yardsale she organized.

Computer Recycling

2010-06-25T14:41:00.002-04:00

A recent scene at the corner of Valley Road and Witherspoon Street, where Princeton Township runs its electronics dropoff and recycling program. A typical computer monitor weighs around 45 pounds, a significant portion of which is lead and other metals that are best kept out of the waste stream. Under state law, it's now illegal to put computer monitors out for garbage pickup. Click here for more info on this free service for township residents.

Borough residents have to wait for periodic electronics recycling days offered by the county or, in rare instances, by the borough. Click here for info for borough residents.

Back at the township, a look into the future, as one of the local robots appears to have turned itself in for recycling.

The Wood That Could

2010-06-16T07:39:00.004-04:00

You might want to check with the township first, but Smoyer Park looks to be where they are stockpiling firewood that is free for the taking. Take the entrance off of Herrontown Rd., near the deadend of Snowden, and some sort of splitting implement.

By making the wood available, the township saves the cost of taking the wood to the Lawrenceville compost center. Using it as firewood also sidesteps the very energy-intensive process of grinding wood up and composting it in windrows that require frequent mechanical turning.

It's ironic that wood, which is a natural and traditional source of energy, has become a consumer of fossil fuel. Wood can be burned cleanly if it is well-cured, dry, and burned in a good wood stove.

My understanding is that this could be the last year that the federal government provides incentives for replacing old wood stoves with new, more efficient models. More info at http://www.epa.gov/burnwise/.

Curbside Yardwaste and Foodwaste Pickup

2010-06-15T16:51:00.003-04:00

Since foodwaste makes up ten or fifteen percent of residential trash, it might be worth considering having it collected separately curbside. In the Seattle, WA area, cities are collecting and composting food waste and yardwaste together. For anyone who tires of seeing all the clumps of yardwaste that get dumped along Princeton's streets during the summer, waiting for some giant claw to come and pluck them up, the idea of a rollout bin residents could use for food waste and yardwaste starts to sound plausible.

Note (June 30): The Riverside neighborhood in Princeton Township has been chosen as the site for a pilot program in curbside pickup of foodwaste. Though the approach doesn't deal with summer yardwaste, it's a start. This from an article in the Trenton Times:

"Premier Food Waste Recycling...., a sister company of Central Jersey Waste and Recycling, the recycling company for Mercer County, wants to give residential food scrap recycling a shot with a trial run in Princeton Township. The pilot program for a few hundred residents would begin in September or October."

Savings From Composting Food Waste

2010-06-14T14:03:00.005-04:00

A few local businesses are starting to discover how much money can be saved by recycling more of their waste stream. Priscilla Hayes of Rutgers University tells us that the Hyatt Regency of Princeton saved over $10,000 recycling food waste in 2009, its first full year of recycling. I've heard that, at McCaffery's Supermarket, they saved some $40,000 by diverting their food waste from the landfill.

Green Home and Garden Tour, June 19, 11-3pm

2010-06-11T11:19:00.005-04:00

The Princeton Environmental Commission is hosting its third Green Home and Garden Tour. PEC member Kirsten Thoft led in organizing the event. More info should be available soon on township and borough websites, and a www.sustainableprinceton.org. Among sustainable landscapes, the gardens at Riverside Elementary, the native plant nursery at D&R Greenway, and a raingarden and wetland that I helped start and sustain will be on the tour. It's all free, and bikeable.

Saturday
June 19, 11-3

1. Commercial Green Efficiencies
- McCaffrey’s Supermarket
- 300 North Harrison Street
Behind the scences tours on the half hour from
11:00 - 2:30
See how the store has evolved various practices
to be win-win for the environment and business.
Food waste composting at a commercial scale
Changes in shipping and ordering
Store-wide recycling program

2. Energy Smart New Construction
- 95 Random Road
Newly Constructed Single Family Residence
Energy Star Rating - Anticipated 50% less energy
usage than comparable size conventional
Geothermal (Ground Source Heat pump) installation
CFL lighting fixtures
Low flow plumbing fixtures
Resource-concious materials

3. Princeton High School Ecolab Wetland
- Walnut Street next to Performing Arts
Guide available from 1:00 - 3:00
Conversion of a required retention basin into a
planned wetland
Sump pump water and storm water captured
Example of stormwater management practices
Weed management
Used by school for the study of horticulture and
environmental science

4. Rain Garden for Runoff control
- North Harrison Street at Senior Housing
If driving, park at Spruce Street, walk through
Quarry Park towards Senior Housing
Rain collection in depressed area
Propagated with water loving plants
Keeps overflow water out of storm system

5. Educational Gardens
- Riverside Elementary School
- 58 Riverside Drive
Lawn to food initiative
Teaching gardens - using plants to reinforce
classroom concepts in history, science, math
Natural pest control methods
Examples of various raised bed types including
straw-bale gardening

6. Renovation of a 1905 Queen Anne
- 55 & 57 Wiggins Street
Multi-Family1905 building
Top-Rated by National Green Building Standard
Multiple Insulation systems - cellulose, spray
foam, fiberglass batts, rigid
Air sealing of surfaces / penetrations
High-efficiency AC
Water Sense plumbing fixtures
Resource-concious materials

7. Energy Upgrades to a Victorian House
- 23 Madison Street
Solatube skylight installation
Old window weatherproofing using gaskets,
weather stipping, etc.
Denim insulation

8. Solar Photovoltaic & Tankless Water
heating
- 18 Aiken Avenue
Tours on the half hour from 11:00 - 1:00
Single Family Residence with 7 kW system and
two inverters
Rinnai tankless Hot water heater
Significant upgrades to insulation and air barrier

9. Contemporary Housing for 500
- Princeton University Butler College
- Elm Drive on the Princeton Campus
If driving, please park in the West Garage, accessible
from Elm Drive off Faculty Raod at the
bottom of campus
Building tours on the hour from 11:00 - 2:00
Green Roof
Storm water collection cistern
Natural daylighting
Building envelope 30% more efficient than code

10. Native Plants
- D&R Greenway “Hoop House” Nursery
- 1 Preservation Place, off Rosedale Road
Visitors will learn about local, sustainable, beautiful
plants which attract appropriate pollinators
and thrive in local conditions. Guests on their
own are free to tour the gardens and preserved
grounds of D&R Greenway in Greenway Meadows,
where sustainable natives

Recycling, or not, at the Princeton Shopping Center

2010-05-11T08:58:00.004-04:00

The Princeton Shopping Center had a miniature fair recently, complete with pony rides and a petting zoo for animal-starved town kids. Quite a treat. While my daughter explored all the courtyard had to offer, I spent my idle time exploring the recycling situation.

A previous post remarked on the lack of receptacles in the courtyard for recyclables. The problem becomes all the more apparent when vendors are outside during events, selling bottled drinks.

The Domestic Shift To Summer

2010-05-11T07:19:00.008-04:00

It's late spring, the weather is warming, and it is time for timeless rituals of the season to unfold at this Princeton household.

Screens, taken off last fall to allow more sunlight in through the windows, follow traditional (two year old) migration routes up from the basement. The last of the cured firewood is burned on still cool mornings. And the cold water that at least one of us uses to handwash dishes--on the premise that water that isn't hot enough to kill germs only makes them stronger--feels more pleasant. The hot water heater gets turned down a notch, so that it's just hot enough to deliver a comfortable shower without any dilution from the cold water tap. Showering styles remain stubbornly diverse, from lengthy dousings, passionately defended by the resident teenager, to the navy approach of turning the water off during scrub downs.

The house cruises through late spring without the aid of furnace or A/C, sustained through cool nights by a reservoir of heat absorbed during the day. Its ballast of cool air in the basement keeps it steady through brief hot spells. Trimming shades and windows is all we need to do to keep this ship on a steady course of comfort. We'll reach the tropics of summer before long, but for now it's possible to make comfortable headway across the seas of time without the help of machines.

Elegant Settings for CFLs, Scene 1

2010-05-03T09:33:00.003-04:00

CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs) have received harsh criticism in the New York Times and elsewhere. While many people's opinions have remained unchanged since the early days when CFLs cast a cold blue light, the CFLs themselves have advanced and now provide an attractive glow comparable to the wasteful incandescent bulbs, at an affordable price. If they have a tiny bit of mercury in them, well, it's nothing compared to all the mercury scattered across the landscape by power plants straining to quench the appetite of incandescents.

In an effort to improve the unfairly maligned CFL's public image, I offer this first in a series of flattering images of CFLs "posing" with famous buildings.

First commenter to identify the building gets a free CFL.

Consumer Nation

2010-04-16T08:58:00.003-04:00

Here's an interesting statistic gleaned from the NY Times. Steven Cohen, executive director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, says the per capita U.S. production of waste has increased from 2.68 pounds up to 4.5 pounds in the past 50 years.

Electronics and Household Chemicals Collection

2010-04-15T17:10:00.002-04:00

Getting rid of an old TV, computer or other household items? Check out what's recyclable at Mercer County's June 26 Household Chemicals and Electronics Waste Collection Day.

http://www.mcia-nj.com/uploads/schedules/2010%20HHW%20Dates.pdf

Since it doesn't make sense for everyone to drive over there to drop one or two items off, I'll be driving my pickup, and have been known to take other's items along. My contact info can be found via the profile link on the left of this page.

Single Stream Recycling Brings Challenges

2010-03-22T11:11:00.007-04:00

This is not how recycling is supposed to work. On the right is the recycling dumpster. Though the good news is that Community Park elementary is diverting a lot of recyclables from the trash, the plastic bags are not recyclable, and the boxes are not flattened, which has caused the recycling dumpster to overflow.

All the public schools recently switched over to single stream recycling. The advantage is that, instead of three different containers out back, for paper, cardboard and bottles/cans, there is now only one. Improved separation technology at the recycling plant has made this possible.

It sounds like a good idea, but the situation behind the schools shows some problems in implementation. In the past, there was a bin this size devoted exclusively to cardboard, and it often got filled up in a week's time. Now, with everything recycled together, there's not enough room in the bin.

The high school has a similar predicament. In part because the cardboard boxes aren't being flattened as well as in the past, the one dumpster devoted to all recyclables is filling up before the Waste Management truck comes each week to empty it.

Chances are that there are enough recyclables mixed in with the trash that, if the high school improved its separation, it could fill two recycling dumpsters each week, as the many recyclables in this bag in the trash dumpster show. Unfortunately, most trash is hidden in black plastic bags, so it's very difficult to find out how many recyclables are being landfilled.

I had suggested the high school switch to clear plastic bags, in order to better track compliance with recycling mandates, but though approved by the superintendent, the change was never implemented.

A little bit of vigilance and periodic review of procedures with the custodians would go a long way in reducing the contamination and increasing recycling percentages. Student environmental groups, community volunteers and some teachers continue trying to make recycling a higher priority at the schools.

CO2 on Mars and Venus

2010-03-20T18:39:00.003-04:00

It's easy to be fooled by CO2. Odorless, invisible, a benign part of every breath--what harm could possibly come of pouring more of it into the atmosphere?

According to my notes from a talk at Princeton University by Michael Oppenheimer, the extreme heat of Venus, and the extreme cold of Mars, are not so much a matter of their distance from the sun but of how much CO2 is in their atmospheres. Venus has a very high concentration of atmospheric CO2, while the concentration on Mars is very low. A quick check on the internet yielded the following: Venus has temperatures approaching 900 F, while the surface of Mars rarely gets above freezing.

In other words, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has everything to do with whether a planet is hostile or welcoming to life.

Why Worry? The Earth's Temperature Has Changed Before

2010-03-18T06:27:00.004-04:00

Historic changes in temperature were very slow, occurring over thousands or hundreds of thousands of years. Human-caused temperature changes are happening over the course of a few decades. The impact of a car crawling along at one mile per hour is much different than when the same car is going 100 mph. The speed of change has much to do with determining whether nature will have time to adapt. Though there's no one patrolling the universe, ready to give out speeding tickets, it's clear that humans are driving climate change at a reckless pace.

Global Warming and Our Perception of Temperature Change

2010-03-18T05:47:00.008-04:00

It's not surprising that people would be confused about all the to do over a degree or two change in the earth's average temperature. A couple degrees this way or that doesn't change our perception of any given day. If it's 72 degrees, 75 won't feel much different.

But if your internal temperature rises from 99 to 102, your capacity to function is transformed. Another three or four degrees of rise in body temperature can be fatal.

Climate scientists, like doctors, are trying to understand extraordinarily complex systems. We don't expect our doctor to tell us exactly when the consequences of unhealthy behavior will become manifest, and climate scientists should not be expected to have all the answers before their warnings are taken seriously.

A Strategy for Efficiently Lighting Your Home

2010-03-15T13:43:00.008-04:00

Recessed lighting can be a wasteful way of lighting rooms in your house. If they are on dimmer switches, and/or use halogen lights, they can be expensive to retrofit with compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs). A friend recommends the following approach to reducing dependence on recessed lighting, while still having a pleasing light.

"My solution at home is to keep the halogens dimmed and use large CFLs in torchiere style lamps for the primary lighting in those rooms. Perhaps something like this:"

http://www.scienceclarified.com/Ga-He/Greenhouse-Effect.html

The link provides detailed info on torchiere lighting. Read down a ways to learn about torchiere lamps that use compact fluorescent bulbs rather than the potentially dangerous and less efficient halogens.

How Does CO2 in the Air Heat the Earth?

2010-03-10T10:47:00.003-05:00

A car becomes burning hot inside if left in the sun on a summer day with the windows closed. This happens because glass has an attribute that can be wonderful or vexing, depending on the situation. It allows the sun's energy in, but blocks the resulting heat energy from escaping. The heat energy being reradiated by the upholstery has a longer wavelength that cannot escape through the window. As more solar energy enters, with no way to escape, the car gets hotter and hotter. This is known as the greenhouse effect.

CO2 in the atmosphere behaves like glass in a car. The CO2 lets the sun's energy through, but traps much of the resulting heat. The more CO2 in the atmosphere, the more heat trapped on earth. Some CO2 is beneficial; too much threatens the climatic balance.

For more on the greenhouse effect, here's a link:
http://www.scienceclarified.com/Ga-He/Greenhouse-Effect.html

Climate Change Up To Now

2010-03-10T10:41:00.003-05:00

Pervasive climate change is already underway. Over the past century, the sea rose 7 inches, and average temperatures rose by 1 degree. Seven inches may not sound like much, but along beaches, a one foot vertical rise in water level can mean 100 feet of land lost to the sea.

--Notes from a public lecture delivered by Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University

CO2 is a part of life. How could it possibly be dangerous?

2010-03-09T13:50:00.006-05:00

There are many examples of how something that is beneficial in moderate amounts becomes dangerous in excess. Water is essential to life, but that doesn't mean we want it flooding the basement. Fire can cook food and heat the house. It can also burn the house down. Rain can sustain a garden. Too much rain will wash it away. Medicine can save a life or take a life, according to how much is consumed.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is no different. The amount of it in the atmosphere determines whether its presence is beneficial or endangers life on earth.

Climate Change--Questions and Answers

2010-03-09T12:05:00.005-05:00

Developing an understanding of climate change requires many little steps. Knowledge is cumulative, and eventually reaches a level of critical mass. There are many legitimate questions to ask along the way. A series of upcoming posts seek to provide insight into a phenomenon that has confused many but is already transforming life on spaceship earth.

Tennis Balls in the Laundry

2010-03-04T09:56:00.002-05:00

One way to cut back on energy use is to air dry the laundry. This works for most clothing, and may actually reduce wear and tear, since the lint in the dryer is evidence of loss of fibers when clothes are machine-dried.

But the scratchiness of air-dried towels has not gone over well in our household. One trick is to air-dry towels, then put them in a dryer with a tennis ball or two, using the unheated fluff cycle to soften them up. Worth a try.

One can actually buy specially designed balls to use in the dryer with wet clothes. They reportedly speed the drying. For some reason, these specially designed balls are blue, which doesn't affect the clothes but can leave a blue sheen on the drum of the dryer. Thus, I'm limiting experiments to faded old tennis balls.

Olympic Commercials Promote Global Melting

2010-03-01T17:21:00.008-05:00

I loved the Olympics, and the chance to introduce my daughter to some sports she might not know existed otherwise. But it was sometimes hard to sit through the deluge of ads, many of which urged us to feel good about driving cars, and about pulling fossil fuel out of the ground. Meanwhile, downhill ski races were conducted in rain and slush, and even indoor ice for speed skating was made soft and slow by Vancouver's record warm temperatures this winter. To partially compensate, snow was helicoptered in and treated with chemicals to slow its melting. The ski jump was refrigerated. Feeding a vicious cycle, the less winter conditions nature can supply, the more fossil fuel needed to create it.

Though the warm weather was not necessarily caused by climate change, the warming trends caused by the fossil carbon that we are all injecting into the atmosphere made it more likely.

One theater in the battle to save the planet from wrenching climate change is being fought on the airwaves. Auto and energy companies are defending their legitimacy by running ads that bond their products not only to the grand tradition of the Olympics, but also to America's iconic values of family, freedom and patriotism.

NBC may not have mentioned climate change in part because of "clean coal" sponsorship (americaspower.org). One of their ads featured a man who says his brother is in Iraq. Providing coal to the U.S. economy is his way of helping his brother in the war effort. "Coal," he tells us, " is definitely America's fuel."

One of the many ads for cars began with the narrator declaring "The Constitution of the American Driver, Article 1", and went on to list the galvanizing principals, such as "Revel in the left lane" and "Cruising shall be our birthright." I think one of the founding fathers said something like "Give me Middle East oil, or give me death." Unfortunately, it's the future generations that are imperiled by all the oil being converted into CO2.

If the Olympics was any indication, the movement to save the planet is losing the air war. In fact, the powers for good don't even have an air force. There was no message offered to counter the many sponsors of the Olympics who are in the business of making the earth more hostile to snow and ice.

One could hope that, four years from now, such ads celebrating the consumption of fossil fuels will be required to take the form of those bizarre drug ads on the evening news--the ones whose narratives include long lists of harmful side-effects while the protagonists do their best to look cheery.

Snow, Climate Change and National Debt

2010-02-27T05:49:00.008-05:00

What matters a snowflake? Minute and delicate, blown this way and that, it's surely not worth a second thought. And yet, given enough of them, they can shut a city down.

Last week, the late night news reveled in the danger of snow. A tree landed on a parked bus. A falling limb nearly hit a pedestrian. The camera lingered on a roof line, supposedly imperiled by the weight of six inches of snow. Don't go out, whatever you do.

The news anchors act like they're watching out for us, but they don't seem too concerned about the other gathering storms, the depositions of CO2 and debt that will never melt away.

Numbers, like snowflakes, accumulate, each one of little import, but together transform the world we thought we knew.

State Rebates on Energy Saving Appliances

2010-02-25T11:24:00.002-05:00

A friend sent me this link to rebates being offered in New Jersey:

http://www.energysavers.gov/financial/rebates/pdfs/rebate_summary_NJ.pdf

Revealing Patterns in Roof Snow

2010-02-18T13:36:00.004-05:00

After a light snow has fallen, or a heavy snow has had some time to melt, it can be enlightening to take a look at the patterns made by snow melt on your roof. The snow melts faster where heat is escaping fastest from the rooms below. This house looks to be missing insulation in the ceiling above the stairs going up to the second floor.

This house probably has a couple spots where insulation doesn't quite extend to the front in the attic. It takes some attention to get the insulation to cover the whole ceiling without blocking airflow from the roof's edge.

Comparing two roofs of similar pitch, it's easy to see which one has more insulation, is kept at a cooler temperature, or both.

Recessed lighting often provides warm room air with an escape route to the attic. There are three basic designs of recessed lighting fixtures. The best kind for keeping warm air in the room has two important features: it lacks any vent holes and is designed so that insulation can be pushed right up against it in the attic. They just cost a few bucks each and are available at the larger hardware stores. I bought some, procrastinated for several months, then found them easy to install, making sure the relevant fuse was turned off to avoid any danger of shock. It's easy to find instructions on the internet that describe the installation process.

Windows and Heat in the Winter

2010-02-10T08:18:00.008-05:00

Dogs know where to find comfort. Most homes, like this one, bathed by solar radiation in the winter, spurn most of that free heat. You'd think that home designers would have widely exploited the way the sun conveniently bends down low in the winter, sending light and heat streaming deep into a room through any welcoming window. But instead, passive solar homes are a rare exception. Blame the usual suspect: cheap energy.

We try to make our house as welcoming to the sun as its standard design allows, making sure the shades are up during the day and the screens stored in the basement. Most years, I get around to cleaning the windows in the fall. The combination of metal screens and dirt on the windows can reduce how much sunlight gets in, which this window illustrates all too well.

On a sunny afternoon, the greenhouse effect is noticeable, warming the house and giving the furnace a rest.

Glass windows work in much the same way as CO2 in the atmosphere. They let the energy from the sun in to the house, but prevent the reflected energy from escaping. (The reflected energy is of a different wavelength.) If we could make more use of the greenhouse effect in our homes, we'd leave less of a legacy of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Superbowl Ads and Climate Change

2010-02-07T22:16:00.012-05:00

I start taking an interest in the football season right around the time it ends. This year, I watched the Super Bowl mostly to see what the ads might be saying about the national frame of mind. A couple years back, before gas prices shot up, there were ads showing pickup trucks big enough to pull semi trailers.

This year, I was surprised at how many commercials commented, intentionally or not, on climate change or, for that matter, any serious threat our country faces.

First came three commercials for Budweiser. In one, a team of astronomers realizes an asteroid will destroy the earth. “There’s only one thing to do,” one says, and pulls out some Bud Light. Everyone parties. Turns out the asteroid has shrunk to the size of a pebble by the time it reaches the earth. “We’re saved!” Party continues. Substitute climate change for the asteroid, climate scientists for astronomers, and this ad becomes a climate denier’s dream: Even if climate change is real, there’s nothing to be done, and chances are it’s all a hoax, so party on.

In another beer ad, a man rushes into a small town diner and shouts out that the bridge into town is out. No one seems to care, until he says there’s a bud light delivery truck on the other side. Everyone leaps from their chairs, dashes out the door, runs down the road and joins together to form a human bridge so the truck can cross the stream and deliver the beer. For anyone who has come to realize what's at stake if we continue to discharge greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the teamwork and community spirit displayed in the commercial are exactly what is needed to save the earth from radical climatic change. But they are also everything a country sabataged by complacency, division and denial has proven incapable of.

In a third beer commercial, the survivors of a planecrash lie marooned on the beach of a remote island. One of them, a young woman, finds the plane’s radio equipment and excitedly tells the others there’s now a chance they can get off the island. No one looks very interested. Then a man calls out to everyone, saying he's found the plane’s beverage cart, full of beer. “Here we go,” says the captain, as everyone heads for the beer, ignoring the woman who is actually trying to save them. Can anyone imagine this or any of the other beer ads being shown in the months following 9/11? It’s understandable that escapism would go over well with a football audience, but the ad portrays all too accurately our country’s reaction to those who offer practical ways of getting out of the environmental and fiscal holes we continue to dig.

Soon after came a fourth commercial, for a souped up Dodge Charger. A young man--an Everyman, really-- is shown facing the screen while the narrator lists the humiliations all of us men must endure at work and at home, in order to please the boss and the wife. Because we put up with all of this, the narrator says, we buy a Dodge Charger--Man's Last Stand. If we can command nothing else in life, the ad seems to say, at least we can take command of the open road. One characterization of our generation would be that the way we borrow money and burn cheap, irreplaceable fuel is incredibly indulgent, leaving a legacy of debt and destabilized climate for future generations to deal with. But the ad illustrates a more dominant perception--that most people feel unfulfilled and worked to the bone, and deserve the indulgence of a big machine, regardless of the cumulative consequence.

And then came what promised to be the ultimate ridicule of environmental earnestness--an Audi commercial featuring the Green Police. A driver is stopped for having a non-compostable coffee cup; a homeowner is taken into custody for using incandescent bulbs; another homeowner is caught putting compostable food scraps in his trash can. Then, at a highway checkpoint, where cars are being checked for environmental infractions, a man is allowed through because he's driving an Audi clean diesel luxury car that gets 42 mpg. Turns out that you can escape your guilt by buying a car that actually gets decent mileage.

In comments on a post about the Green Police ad at http://www.climateprogress.org/, most people were horrified by the portrayal of environmentalism channeled through extreme government measures. But whether it be a grass roots movement to help a beer delivery truck make it into town, or a radical portrayal of government-imposed environmentalism, Super Bowl ads are at least conveying an element tragically missing from today's mindset: a sense of urgency.

Curbside Leaf Pickup and Sustainability Goals

2010-02-04T11:42:00.003-05:00

Picking up on the theme from the last post that preventing extreme climate change is a game of numbers, requiring reduction of fossil fuel consumption by all entities within the community, here are some numbers provided by the Princeton township public works department. They show the gallons of fuel consumed during the annual curbside leaf collection from Oct. through Dec. The numbers likely do not reflect additional fuel consumption at the compost center.

Township leaf pickup fuel consumption

2006: 3350 (gallons)
2007: 3827
2008: 3890
2009: 3915

The trend, as can be seen, is upward. But the declared goal of both the township and borough is to reduce consumption of fossil fuels.

The goal described in the Sustainable Princeton Community Plan, which I believe both the borough and township signed onto, is to "support New
Jersey’s goal of reducing local greenhouse gas emissions as stated in the Global
Warming Response Act of 2007. The Act outlines progressive benchmarks that include
reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, approximately a 20%
decrease, and further reducing emissions to 80% below 2006 levels by 2050."

Obviously, residents expect robust services to match our robust level of taxation. One approach is to look at each service that has a high carbon footprint, and see to what extent low-carbon services can be offered in their stead. In the case of helping residents deal with leaves in the fall, the municipalities could shift services to helping residents learn aesthetic ways to utilize leaves in the yard rather than put them out for pickup.

Are Americans Averse to Sacrifice?

2010-01-13T12:32:00.006-05:00

Most people would agree that calling for sacrifice, in order to fight climate change, is a non starter. Ronald Reagan became president in part because he called on Americans to dream and live large, rather than sacrifice. America said goodbye to the 55 mph speed limit and Jimmy Carter's sweaters.

But gaze out upon a freeway packed with streaming traffic, and it becomes clear that Americans are willing to make huge sacrifices. The nation's future, the world's future--these are being knowingly sacrificed every day, every hour that we continue with our current lifestyles.

The CO2 spewing from exhaust pipes, chimneys and coal-fired power plants is not the sort that can be remedied by planting a few trees. Stolen away from its safe storage deep in the earth, translated into CO2 by our machines, this massive discharge of carbon will remain in the system for 1000s of years, increasing climate change, acidifying the oceans, and otherwise destabilizing the ecosystems we depend upon.

The current thinking, that we live in an age of abundance and are not willing to make sacrifices, is very deceptive. Seen another way, given how nearly all the energy and goods we have available to us have to do with the burning of fossil fuel, we in fact live in an age of ethical scarcity, in which we knowingly sacrifice the most sacred possession of all, the nation's and world's future.

Stadium Lighting and Sustainability Goals

2010-01-12T07:16:00.003-05:00

Below is a letter I wrote that appeared in the Jan. 29 Princeton Packet.

In extensive reports on the debate over installing lighting for high school sports events in West-Windsor-Plainsboro, one element appears to be missing. That is the consideration of how the installation would impact the towns’ progress towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Sustainability Plan in West Windsor’s Master Plan, for instance, sets a target of reducing township emissions to seven percent below 1990 levels by 2012. If the schools are being expected to do their part, how would the lights impact progress toward that goal?

To determine how the proposed lighting installation would impact sustainability, various factors would need to be taken into account, including any change in vehicle miles traveled if games currently being played at the county fields are shifted to the high school, how many more games would be played at night than in the past, and whether the most efficient and focused lighting technologies would be used.

Not being a resident of West Windsor or Plainsboro, I want to emphasize that including calculations of sustainability in decision-making is a universal challenge, not particular to any town. Climate change, like sports, is a game of numbers. Most of the numbers generated thus far, by New Jersey and its many communities, have been in the form of good intentions: 20 percent reduction in emissions by 2020, or 80 percent reduction by 2050. But who is keeping score? How many of us can say if our homes, our workplaces and our shared institutions are on track to meet these goals? Sustaining spaceship earth is the biggest game around, and every decision involving energy use will influence the outcome. It’s time to generate some stats and play by play.

A Sea Change--This Sunday, 3:30

2010-01-08T11:25:00.003-05:00

Below is a review I wrote of the movie "A Sea Change", to be shown this Sunday at the Princeton Public Library.
Here's a partial description of the movie, from the library's website: "Imagine a world without fish. It’s a frightening premise, and it’s happening right now. A Sea Change follows the journey of retired history teacher Sven Huseby on his quest to discover what is happening to the world’s oceans. After reading Elizabeth Kolbert’s “The Darkening Sea,” Sven becomes obsessed with the rising acidity of the oceans and what this “sea change” bodes for humans."

(A review I wrote back in October:) A Sea Change is both heart-warming and chilling. The people in the film, the main protagonists and those interviewed, are all in a good mood. The scenes with the retired teacher and his grandson are touching. There is no finger pointing, no stern lecturing, no directive that we must give up all our pleasures. This movie is very life-affirming, yet it states more clearly than in any other pronouncements I've heard the emergency we face. Beauty, joy and looming tragedy coexist throughout the film. It makes the solution sound easy: $450 billion to power the whole country with solar panels. Just 1 or 2 percent of our wealth need be diverted to wean us of fossil fuels. The fanfare at the end is the groundbreaking for a LEED certified, zero carbon footprint building. I wish it were so easy.
One contrast with the original article (New Yorker, The Darkening Sea) is that the main protagonist's reactions to what he hears end up telling us what to feel, whereas much of the article's power came from simply describing the reality, and letting readers come up with their own response. I prefer the latter, but maybe the movie makers felt the audience had to be cued.

Additional thoughts:
Climate change is the defining struggle of our times, that will determine if we leave behind a world of any worth to coming generations. I've been watching some of the Ken Burns documentaries on the history of the national parks this week, and see those great battles to save some legacy of natural beauty and biological richness as parallel to our times. How are we different from the 19th century culture that brought the bison and so many other species to the brink of extinction? The havoc we wreak now is cleaner, gentler, more insidious. Bullets from gun barrels have been replaced by CO2 drifting skyward from tailpipes and chimneys. Instead of egret feathers in women's hats--all the rage at one time--we parade down the street in overwrought vehicles, unaware or forgetful of consequence. Clean air regulations have managed only to sanitize our irreversible meddlings in the planet's future.

No Impact Man, tonight, 7pm

2010-01-08T11:04:00.004-05:00

Below is a review I wrote about the movie that shows tonight as part of the Princeton Public Library's Environmental Film Festival.

Synopsis (taken from the No Impact Man website)

"Author Colin Beavan, in research for his next book, began the No Impact Project in November 2006. A newly self-proclaimed environmentalist who could no long avoid pointing the finger at himself, Colin leaves behind his liberal complacency for a vow to make as little environmental impact as possible for one year. No more automated transportation, no more electricity, no more non-local food, no more material consumption..."

(my review:) This movie works at many levels. Very well filmed, with interesting characters and a meaningful plot. The movie and book, which have been released at the same time, have gotten a lot of buzz, positive and negative. It broke into the mainstream media through an article in the NY Times. Colin Beavan is not a longtime environmentalist who is finally getting recognized for his work. Instead, he is a writer who cooked up a book idea that his agent thought would sell. The characters, though, don't come off in the movie as self-promotional or disingenuous. That they are exploring environmental issues for the first time actually makes the film more accessible and attractive to the audience that most needs to see it. Whether the product and its worthy environmental message are primarily a means to achieve personal success, or vice versa, is part of the tension.

More impressions:

I'm starting to think that there's something about being in one's 40s with young children. New Urban Cowboy, No Impact Man, the Obamas. Something about that combination of mature and new life can change the world.

Colin Beavan changes only the life of his family, by progressively stripping their 9th floor NY apartment existence of negative environmental impact. As the New Yorker review of the book points out, he could have done more for the planet by lobbying with his neighbors to get the management to heat their apartment building more efficiently, so that occupants don't have to open windows to cool down in the middle of the winter. And the No Impact title is misleading. They continue to use a gas stove and city water/sewer throughout, and are aided by the heat from adjoining apartments. But they go about as far as any city dweller could go to disengage from the consumer culture that surrounds them.

The wife, Michele, turns out to be the most interesting character, the one who represents consumerist culture and indifference to the environment, and who is ultimately changed by the experience. By depriving themselves of modern conveniences--elevators, cars, lightbulbs, TV (as well as the refrigerator, washing machine and toilet paper) they discover or rediscover aspects of themselves and the world that enrich their lives. In many ways, it's an update of Thoreau, whose Walden Pond was also a stunt of sorts, given that he could walk into town anytime to be with friends.

For a washing machine, they end up stomping on their clothes in a bathtub of soapy water, like stomping on grapes. For a refrigerator, they end up borrowing ice from the neighbor to put in their cooler. For enough electricity to operate his laptop, he installs a donated solar panel on the roof. For entertainment, there's charades and cards. For a vacation, they visit the farm where their food comes from.

Towards the end, No Impact Man becomes No Impact Family, and finally, in the movie's credits, noimpactcommunity.org. Beavan is shown talking to groups, saying that the one best thing you can do to change the world is to volunteer for an environmental nonprofit.

But the whole consumer society that he tries to extricate himself from is driven by one thing: cheap energy. We are burning up the earth's inheritance, warping ourselves and the planet's climate in the process, and marginalizing anyone who dares point this out. Smoking as a similar addiction was successfully curtailed by making its ramifications widely known, making it less convenient by limiting where it could be done, and by taxing tobacco heavily.

No Impact Man serves as a prism for reality, and each one of us will come to a different conclusion about its meaning. For me, it's true that we all need to radically reduce our direct and indirect energy use, but the only way that will happen on a meaningful scale is through government action that taxes fossil carbon, makes it less and less convenient to combust, and, as was done with smoking, puts a stop to the glorification of fossil fuel consumption in car commercials.

More info at http://www.princeton.lib.nj.us/peff/schedule.htm and http://www.oscilloscope.net/shop/view_film.php?ID=16&r=gallery.

Single Stream Recycling Comes To Princeton

2010-01-04T10:14:00.006-05:00

It's a new morning in Princeton, as recyclables wait expectantly at the curb for their first commingling experience. Mercer County, which runs curbside recycling for the township and borough, has just switched to single stream recycling. This means that all recyclables will be tossed in the same truck. Improvements in sorting technology at recycling plants make it possible to reduce the number of trucks coming by your house from two down to one.

According to a Dec. 31 article in the Princeton Packet, this streamlining of recycling pickups is expected to save $53,000 for the borough and $176,000 for the township over the next three years. The article says the savings come from "fewer trucks, reduced manpower, fewer personal and other things like required maintenance on the vehicles." Most important for the future of the planet will be a reduction in fossil fuel use.

Scarcity in Abundance

2010-01-02T07:39:00.010-05:00

The other night, in the kitchen, I found myself pouring the hot water from boiled sweet potatoes into a bowl in the sink. Catching it in a bowl allows the heat and steam from the water to remain in the living space rather than be lost down the drain. It struck me, though, how out of place this behavior seems in a time of cheap energy. Why bother oneself with small efficiencies like turning off unnecessary lights or recycling the heat in cooking water in the winter?

I was not happy with the first answer that came to mind, which was that my interest in conserving energy is an archaic inheritance from farm-raised ancestors, who survived the Great Depression by valuing scarce resources--cleaning their plates and finding a use for everything. I have not known what to do with that inheritance through all these years of abundance--cheap energy, cheap food, cheap stuff.

A second answer came quickly--that our age of abundance is deceptive, and that in fact we live in an age of great scarcity. The scarcity quickly becomes apparent when one starts searching for the sort of energy, food or merchandise that is not ethically compromised. Where's the gas station that sells fuel that doesn't contribute to climate change? How much of our electricity is delivered without blowing the tops off of mountains or casting mercury across our lands and waters? Most of the food being sold carries a big carbon footprint of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, transportation and processing. What sort of human and environmental exploitation is behind many of the cheap commodities that flood our megastores?

One consequence of living in an information age is that it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore the negative ramifications--even though they may be distant in place or time--of all our consumption. The marketplace simultaneously provides abundant commodities and, for anyone who cares to take note, abundant reasons not to consume them.

That is the contradiction embedded in most every act during the day, and why small efficiencies of steam rising from the kitchen sink start to make sense in an age of ethical scarcity.

NY Times Article on Drinking Water Violations

2009-12-11T13:41:00.006-05:00

I've heard that some Princeton residents were scared by a recent NY Times article entitled Millions in U.S. Drink Dirty Water, Records Show. I tend to be skeptical of NY Times exposes. Here's one paragraph buried in the article that is perhaps the most important one for anyone trying to figure out if their own town's drinking water is problematic:

"The majority of drinking water violations since 2004 have occurred at water systems serving fewer than 20,000 residents, where resources and managerial expertise are often in short supply."

Though the Times article shines useful light on the lack of enforcement of water quality laws over the past decade, most people reading it will be made to worry about their own water supply, and be more likely to buy bottled water even if their municipality delivers healthy water.

I am reminded of how biased the NY Times has been in its coverage of CFLs. Back in February, it emphasized interviews with a few people who had had bad experiences with CFLs, and hid any balancing positive testimony close to the end of the article. Most annoying, these sensationalist articles then are used by anti-environmentalist columnists as fodder for their attacks on efforts towards sustainability. (http://scienceblogs.com/scientificactivist/2009/04/george_will_is_at_it_again.php)

The article also fails to mention any problematic aspects of bottled water.

It's good to keep an eye on what sort of water we're drinking, but the NY Times article is needlessly scaring a lot of people away from their municipal water supply.

A Visit to Howell History Farm

2009-11-24T06:00:00.009-05:00

My expectations were pretty low when I tagged along on my 4th grade daughter's class trip to Mercer County's Howell History Farm. How interesting could it be to harvest corn? It turned out, however, to be a profoundly affecting experience.

Consider some of the anxieties we accumulate over time while living in town: the constant consumption of fossil fuels harmful to the planet's future, kids who stay indoors in front of computer screens and have little chance to interact with animals or witness the miracle of their birth and growth.

All of that quickly changed on the farm. After eating popcorn and delicious cornbread cooked with a wood stove, the kids soon found themselves being put to work. To my surprise, they jumped at the chance to do work with their hands.

The kids started by stripping corn kernels off the cobs.

Then it was time to grind the corn into meal with an elegant iron contraption.

Then they walked to a cornfield across the valley, to gather corn stalks into a shock so the corn could cure and dry.

On a crisp, clear day, a cornfield is a magical place of rustling leaves, promise and mystery.

As the kids twisted the ripe, dry ears of corn off the stalks and tossed them into bushel baskets, I became fascinated by the flying buttresses of roots that help hold the 12 foot stalks upright.

Some of the ears were a radiant shade of red. We were told this is dent corn, because of the dents in the kernels.

As we waited for the bus, having experienced corn harvest from field to kitchen, the kids discovered how fun it could be to drink water from a do-it-yourself drinking fountain. On a 1900 farm, the connections and feedback loops are simple and direct. Start pumping and water will start to flow. In town, water emerges from the faucet after a long and complicated journey from a place none of us have ever seen. On the farm, the water rises up from the ground beneath our feet.

Another opportunity a farm provides is the chance to focus our eyes on distant hills. Trees are lovely things, but I'd gladly trade some of the shade for a vista or two.

Most every goal of sustainability, every change of behavior being encouraged in town--in order to prevent our life on earth from being a flash in the pan--was a normal part of life on a 1900 farm. Living in town all this time, I had forgotten how much the country has to teach, and how much of a more satisfying future can be found in the past.

Mulching with Bagged Leaves

2009-11-24T05:58:00.006-05:00

Leaves are Princeton's signature harvest in the fall. Though the cultural norm is to try to get rid of them, they are actually very useful in the yard. Here's a way to use the bagged leaves a neighbor put out, so that fossil fuels don't have to be burned to carry them out of town for composting.

Lay the bag over some weeds you want to discourage, such as english ivy. Tear the bag open lengthwise. Spread the leaves over top of the bag.

Allow the leaves and bag to slowly decompose, discouraging the weeds and feeding the soil.

My Climate Changing Weekend

2009-11-18T04:43:00.005-05:00

Sometimes I wish there could be something called Non-Drivers' Education. In the class, people would learn how to resist the impulse to jump in the car and drive places they don't really need to go. People would rediscover the pleasures of walking, the beauty of bikes, the utility of trains. At the end of the course, everyone would receive a Non-Driver's License, good for discounts at local stores.

We don't drive much. Except for periodic trips to Route 1, we shop in town. Princeton is so small that one has almost arrived at a destination before even getting in the car. Living on Harrison Street, we instead get to watch other people driving, as they pass by in long streams at a gentle rate.

This past weekend, though, our cars got a workout, and it wasn't because we really had to go anywhere. There was the matter of some Ikea bookshelves that my teenage daughter was set on getting. She and her mom had made plans to drive the pickup truck down to Philadelphia to get them. And then there was an invite to go to Manhattan for dinner, and a plan to drive to Lambertville with some friends.

I suggested I could combine the bookshelf pickup with a trip to the airport three weeks from now. We could take the train in to New York for the dinner. We could take a walk at Mountain Lakes Preserve instead of driving to Lambertville.

But how do you get a teenager to wait a few weeks for a much-anticipated acquisition? How do you get ready in time to take the train to NY? How do you gain a sense of "getting away", of going to a special place, of a memorable outing with friends, without having to jump in a car? I was up against engrained relationships with stuff, with time, and with place--all profoundly influenced by the automobile. The car was telling us to "get it now", "wait until the last minute", and "somewhere else is better".

All told, there was a drive to the Newark Ikea (a little closer than the Philadelphia store), a drive to Manhattan, and a drive to Lambertville. My daughter is happy with her bookshelves. The dinner in Manhattan was wonderful. But the drive was living hell. Imagine two daughters in the backseat, fighting incessantly, as you drive through the concrete, industrial wastelands of Newark with countless other cars, all hell bent on stuffing the atmosphere with CO2.

What a relief it was, after multiple trips down wide swaths of concrete, through a landscape of refineries and strip malls, to return to the two-laned, shaded world of Princeton. Maybe we don't need Non-Drivers' Education. One drive to Manhattan is education enough. If somewhere else really is better, I hope there's a train headed that way.

Street Leaves

2009-11-02T09:22:00.005-05:00

A typical scene in Princeton this time of year--a car swerving to avoid a pile of leaves. Nice clean lawn, leaf-clogged street. Most of the dumping is done by landscape crews who are oblivious or opening indifferent towards township ordinances.

These leaves were dumped in the street ten days before it was legal to do so. The township, responding to a state mandate, passed an ordinance that strictly limits when leaves can be placed in the street, and how much of the street they can block. But township staff are so busy scrambling to pick up the illegally dumped leaves that they have no time to enforce the ordinance.

Below is a partial description of the ordinance, quoted from the township website.

http://www.princetontwp.org/brush_log.html

"Residents should have their loose (un-bagged) leaves placed on the paved roadway not more than 7 days prior to the date of collection and must be out for collection before 7:00 a.m. on the Monday morning of the scheduled week. After your section has been collected you are prohibited from putting any yard material on the Township Right of Way until your next scheduled collection. (The Township Right of Way is the paved area and the area ten (10) feet behind the edge of pavement or curb line.)"

Sustainability Program Oct. 24 in Princeton

2009-10-22T09:40:00.002-04:00

Get help calculating your carbon footprint this Saturday, Oct. 24, in the Community Room at the Princeton Public Library, where the library & Sustainable Princeton are observing 350 day (www.350.org) “An International Day of Climate Action” with a program by Sustainable Princeton at noon followed by the film Burning the Future: Coal in America (showed last year at the Princeton Environmental Film Festival) at 2 p.m. Everyone welcome.

More information at www.sustainableprinceton.org.

A Small Victory for Walking

2009-10-18T20:16:00.007-04:00

It was a typical situation on a Sunday evening. My 14 year old daughter, having spent the day with her friends, called and asked for a ride home. Something in me resisted driving the car seven blocks to pick her up, but I didn't want her to walk home alone in the dark. Last time we were in this situation, I rode her bike over and jogged home with her. She rejected my offer to do that again, with that classic teenage tone of disbelief that a parent could be so unreasonable. Clearly, the easiest thing would have been to jump in the car and give her that sacred ride home.

Instead, I decided to walk over to get her, with my younger daughter and our dog, Leo, as company. To my surprise, the walk home was uncontested, even magical. A cloudy, cool evening, the still air rich with the smell of fallen leaves. My daughters walked together, hand in hand, talking of the day. None of this would have been ours, cloistered in a car.

ClimateRide Visits Princeton

2009-09-27T06:52:00.004-04:00

What is a tent village doing in the YMCA field? My daughter wanted to know. We stopped to inquire, and learned that Climate Ride was coming through town. Bicyclists, including a family with an eight year old, rode yesterday from New York City to Princeton, on their way to Washington, D.C. via Philadelphia.

The purpose of the ride is to draw attention to the need to confront the increasing impact of climate change on spaceship earth. They have a website, climateride.org, that includes live feeds of the five day journey.

Long before there were cars, Princeton served just as it is now for the bikers, as a rest stop halfway between NY and Philadelphia.

Latest NY Times Bias Against Compact Fluorescents

2009-09-25T11:42:00.004-04:00

The latest biased NY Times article is an interesting study in how the news media fails its readers, and punishes manufacturers conscientious enough to market well-designed products. Instead of telling readers which compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) work well, it continues to dwell on how some manufacturers marketed inferior products. Thus, it fails to help readers distinguish between CFLs that perform well and those that don't, preferring to perpetuate a blanket condemnation of the product.

Below are some excerpts from the Sept. 25 article. There was no accompanying text saying that high quality, inexpensive compact fluorescent bulbs are easy to find.

Build a Better Bulb for a $10 Million Prize

"One of the first attempts at greater efficiency was the now-maligned compact fluorescent bulb,
The department considers the introduction of compact fluorescents, today’s alternative to standard bulbs, to have been a debacle."

"At first, the department set no standards for compact fluorescent bulbs and inferior products flooded the market. Consumers rebelled against the bulbs’ shortcomings: the light output from compact fluorescent bulbs was cold and unpleasant, their life was much shorter than claimed, many were large and undimmable, they would not work in cold environments and they contained polluting mercury."

Planting Seeds of Lower Energy Use

2009-09-21T10:38:00.002-04:00

Here's a simple way to plant the seeds of lower energy use in your neighborhood. It also serves as a good excuse to knock on a door and actually meet the people who live around you. I admit, I've done this only once, but the results were so encouraging I'm going to give it a try with other neighbors.

The rental next door had for years an incandescent light bulb in the light fixture next to the front door. One of the first actions to cut dependence on fossil fuels is to replace the outdoor light with a compact fluorescent (CFL), since it is often left on for a long time. Finally, unable to bear this conspicuous waste any longer, I knocked on the door, CFL in hand, introduced myself as the next door neighbor, and asked if I could replace his incandescent bulb with something that would save him some electricity. (If I had handed him the bulb, chances are he would never have gotten around to installing it.)

He agreed, and I did. A year or two later, when he was moving out, he told me that he had liked the CFL so much that he bought more and installed them inside as well. He also installed them in some spots at his workplace--Small World Coffee. Unbeknownst to me, the planted seed had grown and spread. As mentioned in the previous post, you can buy a CFL at the Princeton Shopping Center for only $1. That, along with ten minutes installation time, was all I needed to do to start a ripple of energy reduction in the community.

Cheap CFL Light Bulbs at Princeton Shopping Center

2009-09-21T10:31:00.003-04:00

I used to head out to Home Depot or Lowes to get cheap compact fluorescent light bulbs, but yesterday I found them being sold at the Rite Aid pharmacy for $1 apiece. There are 60 watt, 75 watt and 100 watt equivalents, all for the same price and all made by GE. They use a quarter of the energy of a regular incandescent.

Computer Dropoff Sept. 17-19 in Princeton Borough

2009-09-15T07:12:00.003-04:00

Princeton township has long provided computer recycling for township residents. Now the borough is getting into the act, with a dropoff program this weekend. They will also be accepting medical equipment. Info below:

Where: Princeton Hook & Ladder, 27 N. Harrison Street, Princeton Borough

When: September 17, 2009 through September 20, 2009

Time: Between 9 AM and 4 PM

What to bring: Any old used computer equipment, including PC’s, CRT monitors, flat screen monitors, laptops, printers, scanners, fax machines, keyboards, cables, mouse, etc.

Also wheelchairs, lifts, scooters, canes
and crutches, shower chairs.

For more info:

http://www.princetonboro.org/polDoc.cfm?Doc_Id=568

Being a habitual rescuer of curbside computer monitors (all that lead headed for the landfill!), this borough dropoff spares me a trip to the periodic county recycling days across Route 1. Just wish the borough would take old TVs as well.

BioBus Ready To Roll

2009-09-13T17:18:00.005-04:00

Which way's up? This biobus is ready to roll in more ways than one. For locomotion, it can flip from regular diesel fuel to cooking oil without skipping a beat.

It can also cook a beet, inside, where there's a kitchen and convenient composting bin. If they run out of cooking oil, they could just dip some out of the gas tank.

The sleeping loft is for cross-country voyages. When fuel is running low, the biobus simply pulls up to a fast food joint, asks for some old cooking oil, and heads on its way. The oil is filtered twice before it reaches the engine. It's also important to keep the oil warm so it doesn't stick in the line or the filters.

The biobus took part in a Back to Shul (school) Green Festival at the Princeton Jewish Center. Various environmental organizations in the area participated.

The Power of Windows

2009-09-01T04:16:00.003-04:00

Power windows, power wash, power steering. No, this post isn't about adding a power assist to everything in life, in the pursuit of convenience and ease. Nor is it a plug for PC's. It's more about disconnecting oneself from a grid addiction, powering down, and rediscovering in turn the power in things that don't need to be plugged in.

Windows, for instance, the timely opening and closing of which can determine whether a house gathers the day's heat and holds it through an autumn night, or needs the furnace to kick in when the cold night air sneaks through windows left open.

Flaws in the Energy Star Program

2009-08-18T14:01:00.003-04:00

A friend sent me this link, which is a critique of the U.S. "Energy Star" program. It details how the program, when compared to labeling programs in other countries, fails to serve consumers seeking the best performing, most efficient appliances.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/home_improvement/4327728.html

The Popular Mechanics article has a link to a Consumer Reports article that also finds flaws in the Energy Star program. Three flaws are listed: lax standards, out-of-date testing procedures, and the testing is done not by an independent entity but by the companies themselves.

I don't know how Consumer Reports is doing these days, particularly given how much consumer information is available for free on the internet, but I've always thought that CR should involve itself in letting consumers know more about the efficiency of products. Last time I went to Best Buy, for instance, there was absolutely no information provided on the relative energy consumption of different TV screens, microwaves, computers, or anything else. Consumers wishing to be energy conscious are really left guessing.

Habits, Muscle Memory, and Energy Consumption

2009-08-18T07:21:00.006-04:00

Learning to play a musical instrument involves training muscles to do things automatically that are too fast for the mind to keep track of. If the muscles learn to do many things automatically, the mind can focus on larger aspects of the music, like expression. Not everyone learns to play an instrument, but we use the same process to negotiate all we do during the day. Some of the movements we do automatically help reduce our carbon footprint, others don't.

For instance, when you go to wash your hands, which hand reaches out to turn on the faucet? Reaching with the left, to turn on the hot water, consumes more energy than the opposite. For the first minute or so, water from either faucet will be cold. Even if you turn on the hot water faucet, chances are you'll have finished washing your hands before any hot water actually comes out. But a silent chain of reactions will have been set off in the house: Hot water will leave the hot water heater and head up the pipes towards your faucet. The water heater then fills itself back up with cold water, which must be heated. Meanwhile, the hot water that got pulled up through the pipes but never made it to the faucet dissipates its heat in the walls of the house, which only makes the A/C work a little harder to keep the house cool in the summer.

Simply using a couple quick doses from the cold water faucet avoids this chain of energy-consuming events, and doesn't change the brief handwashing experience in the least. To "play" a low carbon hand-washing sonata on the faucets, then, means learning to automatically reach for the cold water, get hands wet, turn the water off, soap up, then turn the cold water back on to rinse. It sounds involved, but learn the habit and the muscles will take over while you daydream about other things. Over a lifetime, that's a lot of energy saved.

Imagine if all kids in the elementary schools learned this method, to carry with them for the rest of their lives. It should be part of every crew member's training for a life spent on spaceship earth.

Construction Sites Fail To Recycle

2009-08-18T07:20:00.002-04:00

A typical sight in Princeton is a construction dumpster full of recyclable items headed not to the recycling plant but instead for the landfill. This one's at Westminster Choir College, but it could be most anywhere that construction projects are running behind schedule and no one takes the time to sort out recyclables.

It would be nice to think that all the cardboard, paper and scrap metal is sorted out at the transfer station, but I doubt that's the case. This is one more aspect of recycling in Princeton where there's obvious need for improvement.

Businesses like the Whole Earth Center have demonstrated how most construction waste can be recycled, but the rest of town has yet to take notice.

New Way To Recycle Old Refrigerators

2009-08-02T14:04:00.002-04:00

You can now get paid $30 for your old (still working) refrigerator, and have it taken away for free. The NJ Board of Public Utilities just started the program, which works something like the federal cash-for-clunkers program and is designed to get inefficient older refrigerators out of people's houses and safely recycled.

(Update: There are two stipulations. The frig must still be working, and the inside volume must be between 10 and 30 cubic feet. Wait time, when I called, was running about a week, and someone has to be around when they pick it up. After it's hauled away, the motor and compressor will be taken out, the freon safely removed, and all metals and plastics will be recycled. The program is almost nationwide at this point.)

More information at:
http://www.njcleanenergy.com/residential/programs/refrigerator-freezer-recycling-program. "Call 877-270-3520 to schedule a free pick up of your old refrigerator or freezer."

Tips for More Energy Efficient Cooking

2009-06-21T13:23:00.001-04:00

We hear more and more about how much energy is required to produce meat, particularly beef. Shifting to more poultry and vegetables is one effective way to reduce one's carbon footprint. But there are also various ways to reduce energy use in the kitchen:

Dr. Seuss might appreciate this green approach to hard boiling eggs.

Put raw eggs in just enough water to cover them. Cover the pot.
Heat to a boil.
Turn off the heat. Leave cover on pot.
Allow to sit, with no additional heat, for fifteen minutes.

How to boil "green" water (This is particularly handy in the summer, when the last thing you want to do is heat up the kitchen unnecessarily):

Heat only as much water as you need. If it's for tea, then use the teacup to measure the water as you put it in the teapot. Add a little extra in case some boils away as steam.
If heating water in a pot, for instance for soup, keep a lid on the pot while heating the water. This reduces heating time by preventing heat from escaping as steam while the water is being heated.
Set a loud timer in case you wander too far from the kitchen while the water is heating.

Use the microwave instead of the stove for cooking:

Sweet potatoes in the skin--easier, and no doubt much less loss of nutrients, than peeling, chopping and boiling in water.
Sweet corn (one minute (or is it two?) per cob). I learned about this when I ran into my real-estate agent in the vegetable section at McCaffery's. Websites describe elaborate preparation of the corn prior to putting it in the microwave, but I find it comes out great when simply put in with husks left on. The silk comes off very easily after cooking.
For a quick cup of "green" tea, put a teabag in a cup of unheated water and heat to something approximating boiling in the microwave. Staples, which are becoming rarer on teabags, don't seem to create a problem.

Imagination and Water Use

2009-06-07T08:21:00.000-04:00

One thing that will help you green your domestic habits is imagination. For instance, many people are in the habit of letting a lot of water flow from faucet to drain unused--while shaving, washing hands, dishwashing, or before taking a shower. This sort of habit might become less common if people held in their minds an image of all the rigamarole involved in 1) getting clean water into that faucet, and 2) dealing with the water after it heads down the drain.

Follow the water. Most of Princeton's drinking water is drawn from the Raritan River, just downstream of Somerville, NJ. It's run through a water purification plant, then pumped 20 miles over to Princeton. Water is pretty heavy (8 lbs/gallon), so one has to assume that it takes a lot of energy to push it hither and yon. If it slips unused from your faucet down into the drain, it quickly loses any pristine qualities as it mixes with all the rest of Princeton's sewage headed for the wastewater treatment plant on River Road on the east side of town. There, large amounts of fossil fuel energy are used to clean the sewage sufficiently so that it can be discharged into the Millstone River. Diluted in the river, it heads northward to the Raritan River, where a portion of the river water is pulled out, purified and sent once again towards our faucets.

After all that travel, cleansing and purification, how incongruous it is that our drinking water emerges from the faucet, flashes for only a split second in the light, then is immediately transformed into a civic burden as it heads once again to the sewage treatment plant, unused.

If we had to carry our water 20 miles to our homes in buckets, we'd make use of every drop. But the way the system is set up, our water flows in an endless stream from our faucets, with nothing but our imaginations to help us understand the elaborate investment of work and fossil fuel energy that goes into getting it to our homes and dealing with whatever heads down the drain.

NY Times Article on LED Lighting

2009-05-31T07:48:00.000-04:00

A May 29 article was optimistic about LED lighting becoming cheaper and more widely applicable, sooner rather than later. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/30/science/earth/30degrees.html) More durable, energy-efficient and longer lasting than compact fluorescents (CFLs), without the concerns associated with the mercury found in CFLs, LED sounds like the perfect light of the future, but still has problems of high cost and inadequate light quality. So, again, for the meantime, we are stuck with newspaper articles describing promising technology that is still too problematic to come into widespread use.

Anyone who takes an interest in journalistic bias will find rich material in a comparison of the NY Times coverage of LED and compact fluorescent lighting. The LED article was upbeat except for a small reality check at the end of the article. Coverage of CFLs has routinely been negative, with only one or two positive twists hidden deep in the articles.

Recycling Comes To Borough Parks

2009-05-18T10:30:00.001-04:00

With new recycling receptacles arriving in township parks, I sent an email to the borough to ask if they could also begin recycling again in borough parks. A week later, maybe by coincidence, these buckets showed up, hooked to existing trash cans.

This doesn't mean that recycling is actually happening. We can hope that park users will pay attention and put recyclables in the right container, and that the staff that collect the recyclables will keep the recyclables separate from the trash. There are plenty of points in the necessary chain of events where recycling can go amiss. But at least a functional receptacle is in place.

Communiversity and Sustainability

2009-05-03T07:22:00.000-04:00

Heading to Communiversity past a line of strange contraptions that seem to be holding their occupants prisoner. On my bike, fortunately, riding past each vehicle, I feel a wave of heat emanating from idling engines, reminding me of one of Amory Lovins' statistics: only 0.3% of the energy these contraptions consume actually is used to move the occupants. The rest is spent moving tons of steel and producing heat. You could say, then, that while we think of cars as transportation, their primary function--99.7%--is to hasten global warming. Somewhere far overhead, traveling through the universe to monitor progress, the unrepentant members of Planet Killers Annonymous must be watching our folly with glee.

At the festival itself, a booth offered a good demonstration of how plastic bottles can be converted into blankets, which apparently were headed to people displaced by natural disasters. They said it takes 70 plastic water bottles to make a blanket.

Meanwhile, continuing the tradition of dysfunctional recycling at Princeton festivals, there was a complete lack of accommodation for recycling at Communiversity. Lots of drink containers being sold by vendors, but only trash containers to receive them after their ten minutes of service to society. Princeton has a recycling ordinance, it has two recycling coordinators, it has good intentions--all to no avail.

Doesn't anyone find this strange?

I did, but then of course there were some positive aspects: good music, a strawberry smoothie, friends. Maybe the sustainability movement in town will bring some changes next year.

NY Times Continues War On Compact Fluorescents

2009-04-24T19:26:00.000-04:00

The NY Times has repeatedly emphasized the negative aspects of compact fluorescent light bulbs, most recently in an April 23 article entitled "Holdouts for Humble Bulb Defy a Government Phase-Out." This one was about Britain's ban on incandescent light bulbs, and like other articles on the subject, it was laden with quotes from people telling ghastly tales about their experiences with CFLs.

Only at the end of the article did the Times manage to squeeze in something positive: "Many people say that the ban prompted them to do the right thing for the environment and that the inconvenience is minor. “I probably wouldn’t have made the switch otherwise — only certain types of people would have done it voluntarily — so it’s a good thing,” said Scott Evans, a surveyor here."

Again, it has to be said that the NY Times would better serve its readership if it researched which bulb manufacturers provide the best product, and how people can best use them in their homes, rather than dredging up scary and often misinformed quotes.

If there's a good place to direct anger, it might be at those who over the years have starved government funding for research on technologies to replace dinosaurs like incandescent lights and the internal combustion engine.

Recycling at Schools Undermined by Misperceptions

2009-04-17T09:03:00.000-04:00

Last I heard, Princeton's middle and high schools were still struggling to increase their recycling rates. One possible factor obstructing progress was on display in a conversation I had yesterday with a middle school staffer. Asked if the school recycles, he said "Yes. We have recycling receptacles in all the classrooms." This is a bit like saying that one is an environmentalist because one has a bike in the garage.

Having functional receptacles in classrooms and offices is only the first step, and in fact says very little about whether recycling is actually happening. The only way to really know is for school staff to 1) check the recycling bins out back every week, the day before Waste Management comes to empty them, and 2) check the trash dumpster periodically to see how many recyclables are being thrown away.

Incentives for Consumers to Reduce Power Consumption

2009-03-30T10:42:00.001-04:00

In a column entitled "Mother Nature's Dow", NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman describes five initiatives to help shift away from fossil fuels. According to Friedman, "The fourth is decoupling — the program begun in California that turns the utility business on its head. Under decoupling, power utilities make money by helping homeowners save energy rather than by encouraging them to consume it."

By chance, a relevant clipping I had torn from a December, '08, San Francisco Chronicle article emerged from the paper chaos on my desk. It describes how such a program works for the consumer: "PG&E offers rebates if customers can cut the amount of natural gas they use in January and February, compared with the same months a year earlier. For every percent cut in gas usage, customers receive an equal percent credit on their bill. Those who save 10 percent or more get a 20 percent credit."

Earth Hour This Saturday, 8:30pm

2009-03-27T12:21:00.000-04:00

A friend sent me this email:

On Saturday, March 28, 2009, at 8:30 pm, I am taking part in Earth Hour-a global event in which millions of people will turn out their lights to make a statement of concern about our planet and climate change. I want to invite you to join, too! Sponsored by World Wildlife Fund, Earth Hour got started just two years ago and is now the largest event of its kind in the world. Last year, more than 50 million participated and the lights went out at the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Sydney Opera House and the Coliseum in Rome, just to name a few. Even Google's homepage went black for the day! In Israel, President Shimon Peres personally turned off lights in Tel Aviv.

This year, Earth Hour will be even bigger-already 2900 cities in 83 countries have agreed to take part including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New York City, San Francisco and Washington DC, with more signing up every day. Around the world cities like Moscow, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Shanghai and Mexico City will turn out their lights.

But Earth Hour isn't just for big cities-anyone can participate. To get a better sense of the event, check out this video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjWD8pbK5t8.

Participating in Earth Hour is easy, fun and free. I hope you will join me for this amazing event. To sign up, visit http://www.earthhourUS.org where you'll learn more including ways you can spread the word about Earth Hour, plus creative things to do when the lights go out in case you need inspiration!

We want the US to turn out more lights than any other country in the world during this historic event so please pass this note along to anyone you think might want to take part. Let's all turn out and take action on March 28 at 8:30 pm.

Green Roofs, Green Walls

2009-03-26T15:39:00.000-04:00

Green roofs are becoming more and more common. To see a spectacular green wall, take a look at http://princetonnaturenotes.blogspot.com/2009/03/walls-go-green-in-madrid.html.

Sustainability in Spain

2009-03-20T02:32:00.000-04:00

One of the quandaries for parents, now that it´s clear that the use of fossil fuels is deleterious to the planet, is how to give kids the same mind-opening benefits of travel that we had at that age. Some of my most vivid and joyful childhood memories are of exploring meadows and mountain streams in Austria when I was ten, and hiking in the Andes. Are they really going to be able to manufacture enough jet fuel from farming algae, as one airline magazine article described?

So, traveling in Spain with family, feeling an ambivalence that didn´t enter in ten years ago, the least I can do is take note of sustainable practices. Bicycles in Sevilla, for instance, where they´ve added quite a few bike lanes and made bikes available for borrow. The bikes fit into docks lined up along the sidewalk, and can be borrowed and returned with the help of a plastic card that´s fed into a machine. These have proved very popular. In the historic district, in the vicinity of the cathedral, they´ve made some streets pedestrian and bike only, and reintroduced a trolley. It can feel strange at first, encountering a wide city street, no cars, no racket. Some people miss the energy and the bustle of traffic, but that´s part of the challenge in a world where the romance of motion is so dependent on fossil fuels.

Compact fluorescent light bulbs are more common, as are duel flush toilets. Recycling in the city is achieved through the clustering of large bins of different shapes here and there on sidewalks. Apartment dwellers take recyclables down to the street and toss paper, bottles, cans and trash in their respective bins. The bins for bottles look like green metal igloos that have attracted the interest of sophisticated street artists.

A friend in Caseres even separates out her food waste, which here is called organics, and takes it down to a bin on the street. What happens to it next she doesn´t know, but it sounds like some sort of process is in place.

Though Spain has the lowest birthrate in Europe, it´s also on a building spree, with more building going on here than in England and France combined. Apartment buildings are rising pell mell on the outskirts of Caceres and other cities. Who´s buying them, one might ask. People buy them as investments, apparently, and young adults may be shifting away from the tradition of living with parents well into adulthood. A system of freeways (I remember seeing them being constructed on a previous visit ten years ago) now makes intercity driving in Spain as convenient and boring as in the U.S.

The trains here are a beautiful thing to behold. The Ave train (wing in spanish) we took traveled at 230 kilometers per hour. It´s as quiet and smooth as a plane, and faster when one takes into account all the airport rigamarole that´s avoided. One nice touch: the escalators at the train station turn off automatically when not in use.

PUBLIC MEETING ABOUT SUSTAINABLE PRINCETON PLAN

2009-03-04T14:41:00.000-05:00

An important meeting for the environmental future of Princeton is coming up on Wednesday, March 11. The public will get a chance to learn more about and comment on the Sustainable Princeton Plan. This is the document that will guide Princeton's community-wide shift towards greater sustainability. Everyone--residents, schools, businesses, local governments--has both a stake and a hand in this effort. Please come to this event, to learn and give input.

At the March 11th workshop (7 p.m., Suzanne Patterson Center behind Princeton Borough Municipal Building, One Monument Drive), the draft document will be summarized, general comments will be made, and then the participants will break into small working groups to discuss how to carry out specific actions of the plan. Light Refreshments will be available.
For further information, please contact the Princeton Planning Director Lee Solow: 609/924-5366 or lsolow@princeton-township.nj.us

Additional information:

Sustainable Princeton Steering Committee, composed of municipal officials, representatives of Princeton groups and institutions, and local residents invites the public to participate in a Tuesday, March 11th, 7 p.m., workshop at the Suzanne Paterson Center , 1 Monument Drive, Princeton to review and comment upon the Sustainable Princeton Community Plan (SPCP). The draft plan outlines the goals and objectives of the Sustainable Princeton Initiative. The workshop will provide the input needed to finalize the SPCP and to launch the community on a course of achieving – and sustaining - a green and greener Princeton. Copies of the draft are available at the municipal buildings, the public library and online at http://www.princetontwp.org/Sustainable-Princeton-Draft2-5.pdf

The SPCPoutlines goals, identifies the sectors of the communities that would be implementing these goals, and presents action plans for fulfilling the goals, as well as strategies for measuring/tracking progress. The six goals are: green the built environment; improve transit/transportation; build local green economy; protect health and natural resources; curb greenhouse gases; foster community. The sectors - schools, businesses, residents, government - would be tasked with implementing specific action plans.

Sustainable Princeton had its roots within the Princeton Environmental Commission, which asked the municipalities to form a Sustainable Princeton Steering Committee two years ago and to hire New Jersey Sustainable State Institute (NJSSI) to help the municipalities embark upon a cohesive and effective plan to make the Princetons a model of sustainability in New Jersey. With a grant from the Municipal Land Use Center of New Jersey, the municipalities were able to sustain the Sustainable Princeton Initiative and to develop the Sustainable Princeton Community Plan on which the public is being asked to comment.

The draft plan was presented to Borough Council and Township Committee at a joint meeting on Feb. 2nd, and to the Princeton Regional School Board on Feb. 24th.

Google's Home Energy Monitoring Software in the Works

2009-03-04T10:18:00.000-05:00

Along with a whole house energy monitor that is reasonably priced, safe and easy to install (see previous post), another item on my wish list for sustainability has been software that could monitor energy use in the house and track what appliances are on at any moment, then compile the data over the course of time and tell the homeowner how much energy each appliance uses over the course of a year.

I was delighted when a friend sent me an article describing Google's efforts to develop this sort of software.

"Google PowerMeter will receive information from smart meters and energy management devices and this information will be provided to anyone who signs up access to their home electricity consumption on the iGoogle homepage." (http://www.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/02/13/google.powermeter/index.html)

The only downside to this sort of monitoring is that it probably requires that a computer be on in the house all the time, and computers use a substantial amount of energy (150 watts for a desktop PC, maybe 60 watts for a laptop).

Breakthrough in Home Energy Monitors!

2009-03-03T18:03:00.001-05:00

If you've been wanting to reduce your home energy use, to save money and the planet, you've no doubt wondered how much electricity various appliances use. Without that knowledge, it's hard to know how to most strategically cut back. Incredibly, a $500,000 home gives its owner less feedback about its energy use than a $500 used car.

When I first explored this issue, I bought a Kill a Watt meter that can measure the energy use of most anything that plugs into the wall. But it couldn't measure the real energy hogs, like central air conditioners, electric dryers, recessed lighting or dishwashers. So I bought a $150 T.E.D. meter that provides a real time measurement of your home energy use. With that device, I learned that my A/C unit uses 3500 watts of electricity when on, and the electric dryer uses nearly 4000. But energy meters like the T.E.D. are potentially dangerous to install, because there sensor has to be connected to the fuse box.

So, I wondered, would it be possible to design a device that could be placed on the electric meter outside, where it could measure how fast the dial turns and transmit the data to a handheld device inside the house? Lo and behold, such a device has finally been made available by Black and Decker! It's safe and legal for any homeowner to install, and costs less than the other whole-house energy monitors (about $100). After an hour spent installing it, you'll be able to walk around the house with the handheld monitor, turn various appliances and lights on and off, and see how much energy each one uses. With this knowledge, it's much easier to make decisions about how to cut back on consumption.

(Update, 8/2/09): Having purchased one of these and finally installed it, I'm disappointed to find that it's only sensitive to the closest 100 watts, whereas a T.E.D. can measure in 10 watt increments. There's also a delay between when you turn on or off an appliance and when the new monitor records the change. Nor have I been able to actually get it to work, after about an hour of installing time. Hmmmmmm.

For informative reviews, go to:
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Decker-EM100B-Energy-Monitor/dp/B001ELJKLE

Skating on Carnegie Lake

2009-01-27T11:27:00.000-05:00

We had not one but two opportunities to skate on Carnegie Lake this winter, in a reminder of what low carbon recreation is all about. No machines needed to keep the ice cool or an enclosure warm.

For a "review" of the lake's two days of glorious skating, see www.princetonnaturenotes.blogspot.com.

Adopt a Sidewalk

2009-01-23T09:04:00.000-05:00

A sidewalk constricted by overhanging branches or overgrown shrubs can tell you a lot about people. Watch us parents walking our kids to school, and you quickly discover that nearly everyone is very passive, and will put up endlessly with the daily inconvenience of ducking and sidestepping. Our capacity to suffer is our greatest strength and our greatest weakness.

There is an engrained reluctance to intervene and transform a shared sidewalk for the better. Or perhaps it is a heightened sensitivity towards growing things, or an uncertainty about how to interact with the plant world. In any case, I share none of these inhibitions and, when I finally remember to bring along some clippers, step up to do what needs to be done.

If Princeton is to become sustainable, the government may be able to help to some degree, but a lot of it will come from our somehow rediscovering we can all have an impact, through myriad small individual actions, to transform the shared world and shape the future.

Now that climate change has revealed how each individual's actions impact the globe, even our habits of consumption inside our homes have a public impact, determining cumulatively how much CO2 from fossil fuels gets pumped into the air each day, changing by degree the climate for every living thing on the planet.

Princeton Public Library Getting Greener

2008-12-22T13:29:00.000-05:00

Of many small steps is a functional recycling program composed. The Princeton Public Library cafe, whose look-alike trash and recycling containers were preventing adequate separation (see www.recyclingcontainers.blogspot.com for reviews of various styles), has retrofitted its recycling container with a new top. The contrast in color, the smaller opening, and the pairing of the trash and recycling containers all should help prevent the recycling container from being contaminated with trash.

The library has also improved other aspects of its recycling program.

Some Princeton residents have raised concerns about the library's energy consumption. According to the building manager, he has replaced most lights with fluorescents, and reduced the brightness of the bulbs lighting the stacks from 75 watt to 50 watt. Only fluorescent lights are left on after the building closes, to allow the custodians to clean up.

Some additional steps that might be taken would be to have the custodians only light the story they are cleaning, rather than having all three floors lit during that time. And it should be possible to program the public computers to go into standby mode when not in use. The lights embedded in the sidewalk, which shine up on the columns, make for a nice effect, but are not exactly a model for energy efficiency and reducing light pollution in the night sky.

Ideally, such a flagship public building would announce its green features to all who walk in, as a demonstration.

Community Park Elementary Recycling Improves

2008-12-22T09:58:00.000-05:00

Success! A recent check of the bins behind Community Park Elementary show the school has brought its recycling rate up to that of other schools like Little Brook and Riverside. Two full 96 gallon rollout bins of paper each week seems to be the typical production of an elementary school with a functional recycling program.

The recycling regimens instituted last year through a big push by volunteers and staff look to be holding up and even improving. Each school room has three bins--one each for trash, bottles/cans and paper. Each day, students take the recyclables to larger containers in a central location, such as the cafeteria. Custodial staff then empty these larger containers into the rollouts out back.

From what I've heard, functional recycling programs in NJ's schools are more the exception than the rule, which makes Princeton's achievement all the more impressive.

One thing that would make the recycling programs even better would be if the schools tracked how much they recycled each week. Might be a good math challenge for students to come up with totals for the year, with calculations of the environmental benefit.

Reading a Snowy Roof For Heat Loss

2008-12-11T09:18:00.000-05:00

While engaged in a snowball fight with my daughter recently, I glanced up at the roof of our house. What were those strange patterns in the snow? The vertical white lines are the rafters, whose thick wood reduces the roof's exposure to the warmer air inside the attic. Chances are the dark spots, where all the snow has melted, coincide with where light fixtures stick through the ceiling, allowing hot air to escape into the attic from living areas.

Using patterns of snow melt to figure out where you have leaks in your top floor ceiling is in the same category as a post on this website one year ago (12/17/07) about how to use indoor spider webs as energy detectives.

The way to stop all that hot air from escaping through the ceiling is to build boxes around the light fixtures, up in the attic. I've heard from an insulation contractor that the boxes can be made of cut pieces of drywall or styrofoam, and should be no closer than several inches from the light fixture, since the lights can produce a lot of heat.

Another approach is to replace the fixtures with the kind that don't leak and can have insulation pushed right up against them. These are quite inexpensive, but they require fiddling with wires during installation. More info can be found elsewhere on the web about this.

Recycling Containers and Body Language

2008-12-04T22:48:00.000-05:00

Anyone who cares about recycling can't help but notice how challenging it is to recycling anything in public places in town. The string of posts at www.recyclecontainers.blogspot.com serve as critiques of a wide variety of recycling containers used in places frequented by the public. That many of them, including those that cost as much as $1000 each, fail to serve their intended purpose points to the need for this "course" in container design.

Containers matter because they are the first in a row of dominoes, helping determine whether a recycling system functions or collapses in a heap. If the trash is mixed with recyclables, custodians throw it all away, and use the contamination as an excuse to eventually not bother recycling at all. This "recycling in name only" in turn breeds cynicism, further eroding participation by the public. The dysfunctional containers remain long afterwards, in libraries, stadiums, on city streets--like gravestones to good intentions.

A functional recycling container 1) provides abundant visual cues to the user, and 2) is paired with a trash container. These two rules are very simple, but through indifference or some stubborn belief that people carefully read signs and behave rationally, they are frequently ignored.

Though recycling in concept has broad, perhaps almost universal support, most people are surprisingly oblivious about what they do with an item they wish to get rid of when out about town. Refuse or recyclable, it goes in the first trash-like container they encounter, regardless of labeling. As described in one of the posts, our big brains don't want to be preoccupied with small things. Unfortunately, countless small actions add up to large consequence, as we've seen over and over--in nonpoint source pollution, global warming, and the voting that serves as the foundation of democracy.

Most recycling container designs fail for lack of the right visual cues. People don't stop to take note of the nice recycling logo, but respond instead, in their state of distraction, to subliminal messages--the body language of the container.

Solar Retrofit For A Garage

2008-11-22T14:53:00.000-05:00

It seems such a shame to have all that wonderful solar energy glancing off the sides of the house all winter. If all homes had passive solar designs, we'd be well on our way to solving our share of the global warming crisis.

But they're not, so what to do? I cleaned the windows on the south and west sides, and took off the screens, to be as welcoming to the sun as our windows allow. A small gesture, but it's surprising how much heat comes in on a sunny day.

One spot that offered greater possibilities was the garage, which, incredible as it may sound, used to be used for storing cars. Because it's located under living space, a cold garage will make for a cooler floor in the rooms above. It didn't help that the garage door allowed outside air in freely around its edges.

What followed was a long period of cogitation intermingled with what I like to call strategic procrastination. The vague plan gained more momentum and clarity when a friend gave me some old aluminum storm windows. Then, as the sun conveniently began dipping low in the sky to flood the garage with light, some 2X3s got purchased and eventually cut to size, screwed together, and finally fitted with my friend's storm windows. Below is the end result. It cost next to nothing, and can easily be removed during the summer.

Note the leaf pile, meant to deter incoming cars.

Harvest Gone Wrong--2008

2008-11-21T14:32:00.000-05:00

Each weekday morning, kids and parents stream down Abernathy Street to get to Little Brook Elementary School. This time of year, leaves on the street make the morning and afternoon rush hours a little more dangerous, as leaves piled on the street constrict traffic flow and turn slippery in the rain.

The township, responding to a state mandate, requires that leaves not be put on the street until one week before the monthly pickup, and that the piles extend no more than three feet out from the curb. This pile, a common sight, was set out two weeks before scheduled pickup, and extends ten feet out.

As often is the case, this was the work of a landscape crew from out of town that seems oblivious to local regulations.

The second photo, dramatizing the hazardous aspect of leaves dumped in the street, gives evidence of a car skidding through a stop sign on rotting leaves, in a busy intersection crowded with kids twice a day.

The third photo shows a small victory for sanity. A homeowner who used to have the leaves in her woodlot blown into the street every fall has had a change of heart. She now piles some in three wire bins, and spreads the rest in a well-defined area under the trees, enriching her soil and leaving the street clean.

Grocery Bags and Good Intentions

2008-11-18T09:03:00.000-05:00

I have consolidated all our cloth grocery bag holdings, which have maintained their size and number despite the shrinking stock market. Seven, all told, with rumors of others floating around--acquired by various family members with good intentions to stem the flow of disposable plastic bags through our hands and into the landfill. Next step is to redistribute the bags to strategic locations--the back seat of the car, the hallway closet--where they stand half a chance of being remembered for the next trip to the grocery store.

They work great, I must say, accommodating the groceries nicely, and it feels good to be holding something of quality on the walk back to the car, rather than a flimsy plastic bag that begins its useful life with one foot in the landfill.

Funny, though. I've used them only once, otherwise managing to think of them only when I arrive at the checkout counter, when it's too late.

It's an appealing idea for the world's greatest consumer nation: save the world by buying more stuff. But the world will only be saved when we change our behavior, and despite our reputation as a highly adaptable species, that seems the hardest task of all.

One alternative approach: Stick a few disposable plastic bags in your pocket before going to the grocery store, not to recycle but to reuse, with their final use being as a liner for the trash can under the kitchen sink.

2nd Annual Green Home and Garden Tour Saturday

2008-11-10T14:58:00.000-05:00

Anne Neumann of the Princeton Environmental Commission sends this information:

The Princeton Environmental Commission's second annual Green Home and Garden Tour is this coming Saturday, November 15, from eleven o'clock till four.

Simultaneously, Hopewell Township's Environmental Commission will hold its first "Greener Living" tour. This year's tour-goers can see twice as many examples of living sustainably. Last year's Princeton tour won a 2008 New Jersey Environmental Achievement Award. The two free, self-guided tours will feature area homes, gardens, commercial buildings, and a school. Together, they demonstrate the major kinds of environmental sustainability recommended by the U.S. Green Building Council through its LEED standards (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).

The tours are designed not only to show area residents practical ways to live sustainably. They are also intended to forward our area's economic sustainability by showcasing the local architects, builders, suppliers, and landscapers who can help tour-goers realize their environmental goals.

Maps allowing you to take these tours can be downloaded soon at www.princetontwp.org and at www.hopewelltwp.org.

Low-Flow Toilets and the Blessings of Smart Regulation

2008-09-23T09:30:00.000-04:00

Toilets don't normally come up in conversation. The last time they were in the news was back in 1997, when the federal government passed a law requiring that all new toilets use a maximum of 1.6 gallons of water per flush. The new requirement generated loud complaints on editorial pages about government overreaching, and the slew of poorly functioning toilets that ensued gave comedians some good punch lines. In fact, a little research at the time showed that government was being falsely maligned, and that a few unsung manufacturers responded to the regulatory challenge by designing effective toilets.

In searching for a replacement for the old, inefficient 4 gallon toilets in my house (3 gallons if one puts bricks or weighted bottles in the tank), it turns out that manufacturers have figured out how to use even less water than the government standard. Toto has come out with a 1.28 gallon toilet, and I've been told by a local retailer that all manufacturers will be using less than 1.6 gallons in the future. There are also duel-flush toilets, which have a 0.8 gallon flush for liquid waste, though these are more expensive. We bought a 1.28 gallon Drake with a so-called E-Max gravity flush, which works far better than any of the old 4 gallon types.

Not all regulation is so constructive, but in the case of the lowly toilet, manufacturers responded to strict limits on water consumption by making a better product, and even going beyond what the government required.

Document Shredding & Compost Bin Event

2008-09-14T17:40:00.000-04:00

This Saturday, September 20, 10-2, Princeton township residents can get documents shredded for free, and pick up a backyard composting bin for $20.

More info at http://www.princetontwp.org/shred_event.html.

School Recycling Pickups Temporarily Stopped

2008-08-14T08:38:00.000-04:00

As mentioned in a previous post, recycling at Princeton district schools was stopped in the summer of 2007. Last fall, students and staff worked hard to get recycling going again. This summer, I stopped by the bins at the high school loading dock to see how things were going. The good news was that the bins were packed with recyclables. The bad news was that, three weeks later, the same recyclables were sitting in the same bins, which meant that pickups had been stopped. The cardboard dumpster was overflowing, and recyclables were getting thrown in the trash for lack of any other option.

An email to staff brought a response. Pickups have resumed, but the recurring lesson is that any recycling program can fall apart at any time, and ongoing monitoring is needed, in-house rather than depending on interested community volunteers, to avoid lapses of this sort.

The other lesson of this incident is that government monitoring of school recycling, which may occur every year or two if at all, is very unlikely to be accurate, given that recycling is so dependent on the passion and persistence of students and staff who may come and go.

Article On Energy Meters in Today's Packet

2008-07-15T15:52:00.000-04:00

The Princeton Packet published an article today about the Kill a Watt energy meters that are now available for checkout at the public library. The meters were donated by the Princeton Environmental Commission. Before making them available to patrons, library staff used one to find ways to save thousands of dollars in annual energy costs. The article can be accessed online at http://www.packetonline.com/articles/2008/07/15/the_princeton_packet/news/doc487bdee245e73637553299.txt

For those seeking more info on energy use of various home appliances, scroll down to the 10/21/07 post on this website, or click on "energy" on the right of this page, to see a mix of posts focused on energy conservation.

Minimizing A/C Use

2008-07-11T12:02:00.000-04:00

In the summer heat, there are many ways a house conspires to make itself even hotter. Here are some ways to cut back on the house's heat production and reduce the need for the A/C. Most of these are minor, but their effect can add up, and they include savings of their own. I claim no expertise, only some experience and a willingness to experiment.

Lower the temperature of your water heater (see 1/13/08 post) to a temperature that, when you turn on the hot water for a shower, there isn't any need to dilute it with water from the cold tap. This simplifies showering as well as reduces the work your water heater needs to do.
Turn off the heating element in your refrigerator that heats the door (supposedly to reduce condensation on the door). If your frig has one, the button should be inside near the back, where the light bulb is.
Use as low-wattage a light bulb in the frig as you can, or take out the light bulb altogether. Our older frig had an incandescent bulb inside that gets searing hot during prolonged open door meditations on what to eat. This is a perfect spot for a LED light, which would not emit much heat, but they aren't available as far as I can tell.
Minimize the use of incandescent and halogen light bulbs, which get very hot. Many of these can be replaced with fluorescents (see 1/2/08 post) without sacrificing the quality of light.
When boiling water for tea, boil only as much water as you need, so that less heating is needed and unused hot water doesn't sit on the stove, heating the room. Or heat the water in a microwave with the bag inside. (Hope microwaving isn't insulting to tea afficionados.)
We usually associate attic insulation with keeping heat in during the winter, but attics can turn into cauldrons in the summer, and abundant insulation helps keep that heat from seeping into living spaces.
What does your yard's topography have to do with energy bills? Basement dehumidifiers use 600 watts when running, and often run the majority of the time in the summer. If the ground is sloping towards your house, rain is more likely to seep in next to your foundation and add humidity to the basement, causing the dehumidifier to run longer. Within four to six feet of the foundation, the ground should slope away. My house inspector told me it's okay to pile dirt against bricks, but not against wood siding.
Whole house fans: Very helpful, but ours is overpowered, which means it overwhelms the vents in the attic. The resultant high pressure actually pushes attic air down into 2nd story rooms. Not good, so having attic ventilation and fan power balanced is important. One thing that has worked well is to have a window fan that runs overnight, progressively cooling the house. Closing up in the morning as the day starts to heat up keeps the cool air inside.
I can't explain why, but we wash our dishes by hand. Maybe a bit of hand labor is relaxing; maybe the older dishwasher's noise and slowness is bothersome; maybe it's stubborn habit. It's been reported that handwashing can be more wasteful than using a newer model dishwasher, but so much depends on style. My wife uses the Niagra Falls method, in which hot water streams out of the faucet constantly until she's done. I use cold water in bursts, soaking the dishes first to soften the dirt and minimize the work. No outbreaks of the plague have been reported due to my cold water method. Even if a little more water is used in handwashing, bypassing a dishwasher saves a lot of energy and heat production.
Air dry clothes.

Recycling in Princeton District Schools--An Update

2008-06-09T12:05:00.000-04:00

The schoolyear-long effort to get recycling going again in district schools can finally claim some success. Some schools, like Riverside and LittleBrook Elementary, quickly embraced recycling last fall and made it a part of everyday activity, as students learned to take recyclables to a centrally located bin that is then rolled out to the loading dock by the custodians. Recycle bins, paired with trash cans, are even showing up at special events like school picnics. In other schools, the throwaway culture has been harder to change, but persistent prompting has had an effect.

It can now be said that all schools are recycling. There are still incidents of contamination (e.g. eight big, thick plastic trash bags in a bin at the high school meant for bottles and cans), but both quantity and quality have continued to grow at the high school and Community Park Elementary--two schools that were having difficulty getting recycling going. The middle school had a dip in participation, but then rebounded.

A truck driver who picks up recyclables echoed my observations, and also suggested there are ways that the district schools could save a lot of money on waste disposal if they chose to, with consistent recycling being one of those means. One estimate I heard from the NJ Dept. of Environmental Protection is that a school district the size of Princeton's could save $10,000/year through comprehensive recycling.

We can celebrate the progress, while recognizing that there is still nothing built into the school system's modus operandi to insure that recycling will not backslide. No one in-house is checking the bins to monitor participation and quality. It is all too easy to imagine recycling falling apart without anyone in the administration or in building management knowing. The schools could easily return to the situation nine months ago, when some administrators thought schools were recycling when in fact they were not.

Still, the movement is very much in the right direction. Teachers and students and some custodians have shown strong interest and made the effort. If the school district as a whole sees it as in its fiscal and educational interest to make recycling a higher priority, the gains of the past year can be built upon.

Biking in the Mist

2008-05-16T10:02:00.000-04:00

One of my moments of environmental awakening came as I found myself driving my car four blocks to a town meeting on sustainability. The irony of the situation struck two blocks into the drive. Why was I using a car to transport myself four blocks to a meeting whose main purpose is to figure out how we can become less dependent on fossil fuels? As it happened, I was running late, and there was a light mist that could turn into rain--two factors that make me instinctively grab the car keys. I immediately parked the car and walked the rest of the way. To my surprise, the precipitation did not penetrate my clothes.

Since then, I have gradually expanded my tolerance for biking in mist, or drizzle, or even sometimes rain. This morning, for instance, a misty moisty morning, I taxied my daughter to school on the trailer bike, and found the mist to be even enjoyable. Another time, when the mist turned to rain while heading home, we experienced an unexpected euphoria. There can be a certain laboriousness to riding a bike, but it can also bring a sense of awakening, of being more alive.

Global Warming and the Silent Scream

2008-05-04T13:47:00.000-04:00

I'm always amazed at those who study climate change. How congenial and patient they are as they tell us of the catastrophic direction we are taking the earth. They are messengers who, like most messengers through history, are being roundly ignored by most of humanity. They must go home at night, after yet another long day of throwing compelling data at the global wall of indifference, and scream into the dark.

The Scream is a famous painting by Edvard Munch. I think of it now, and learn from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream) that its inspiration came one evening when the sky suddenly turned blood red, and he "sensed an infinite scream passing through nature." "The person in the foreground may be the artist himself, not screaming but protecting himself or itself from the scream of Nature."

That is the scream that some of us hear right now, as humanity goes about its business of slurping and shoveling fossil carbon out of the ground and spewing it from tailpipes and chimneys. How fitting that, as industrialization gained speed in the late 1800s, the source of Munch's scream was the sky, whose disturbing color may have been caused by the eruption of Krakatoa a half a world away.

Munch wrote that he was walking with two friends at the time, and that they "walked on", apparently unaffected by the scene whose visual power left Munch physically stricken. And so today we are left to ask, why do so few see and react to the emergency we face? Why do so few of us hear the scream?