Do it for the Planet.

Coming up on October 15.... sign up and do your part, too!

Coal Is Too Dirty... :)

I didn't realize that some college campuses have their own coal-fired power plants. Time for a change....

Wanna print some green money?

Okay, you and I can't crank out the billions the way the big boys do in Washington.

But if you're a fan of Seventh Generation cleaning products, you'll be pleased to know they now have $1-off coupons on their website.

In these times, every little bit helps....

Print magazines are so last century...

At this stage, who really wants dead-tree magazines shipped to your doorstep?

It seems there is finally an alternative - and the first dose is free, thanks to The Read Green Initiative.

There's a wide range, from Parenting to Playboy, plus PC, Popular Science, even Reader's Digest. Nice!

Over the past few years, I've cut out just about all of my magazine subscriptions (Lyra and I still get Mother Earth News and the sister publication, Herb Companion).

I'm trying to decide with zine to take as my freebie... probably going to go with Outside. I'm guessing Lyra will go with Saveur.

Paul Stamets: Six Ways Mushrooms Can Save the World

Wow.

Mushroom expert (what an inadequate word!) Paul Stamets preaching the gospel of Mycelium.

Four easy ways to cut your CO2

Want to cut your carbon footprint at home? Four ways you can make a difference:

Disposable Coffee Cups
It might not seem like a big deal, but paper coffee cups add up – fast. One national chain estimated that in just one year, their customers who chose to bring their own mugs together prevented 30 tons of paper from going into landfills. That’s a lot of trees, and a lot of CO2.

Disposable chopsticks
Next time you’re in an Asian restaurant, think about the more than 100 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks used every year, the millions of trees cut down to make them, and the CO2 released when they are burned or land-filled. You can join the movement to bring your own chopsticks.

Wrap it up
More than 4 million tons of wrapping paper goes into US landfills every year. Use old newspapers, color comics, magazines or pieces of cloth instead.

Nix the bottle
Americans use - and dump - 30 million plastic water bottles every day. All of those bottles were manufactured (using power and 63 million gallons of petroleum per year), packed into cardboard boxes (millions of trees cut down), then trucked around the country (more oil). Use an inline filter on your tap, and a reusable bottle when you're on the road.

Tilting Windmills

(Cross-posted from 3rings)

Wind power has been part of the energy landscape for thousands of years. But in the nuclear era, it was viewed as quaint - “Tilting at windmills” became a metaphor for fighting hopeless battles against the forces of change. Mind you, Helix Wind of San Diego does come off a bit quixotic in their corporate philosophy: “Freedom is at the heart of our values – energy independence and autonomy – a freedom fueled by a resource that never runs out. The wind.”

But this ain’t Cervantes’ windmill. Not only is their Savonius more efficient, simpler to set up and less expensive to buy than your average model - it’s also flipping gorgeous. When I saw this sleek, nautilus spiral at the Wired NextFest, it took my breath away.

The key to the design: vertical orientation, which eliminates a lot of traditional windmill issues. When folks apply for zoning variances to install wind power, they’re nearly always battled by neighbors who say (quite rightly) that windmills are ugly, noisy, obtrusive, and dangerous to birds and other wildlife.

All of those problems are eliminated in the Savonius. Instead of horizontal propeller-like blades with tips that spin at very high speed (noisy!), and must therefore be set very high above the ground (dangerous!), the Savonius spins vertically, with no more noise than wind blowing through the trees, on a pole (no tower) that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. Oh, bird-lovers should note that at the low speeds the Savonius spins, you never have to worry about it taking on that translucent look that encourages birds to try to fly through it…

The Savonius currently comes in two configurations: 1 kw for residential applications, which stands 9’ feet tall by 4’ feet in diameter (2.74m x 1.21m). The commercial turbine, the Helix 2 kw measures 12’ feet in height by 4’ feet in diameter, (3.6m x 1.21m).

And there are rebates - if you live in California, the state will cover up to 77 percent of the cost; other states are coming on board, as well. Helix Wind even has a calculator function on the website to help you work out the financials.

But we shouldn’t worry about such Philistine considerations… what, after all, is the true price of beauty?

Paperless Gypsum Board?

(Crossposted at 3rings)

Who wants to breathe mold?

There’s been a growing awareness of indoor air quality, with the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) estimating that 10 percent of Americans are directly allergic to mold.That’s about 30 million people who can potentially be sickened just by walking into a building. Mold is an even bigger concern for at-risk populations, like children (it’s estimated that mold exposure doubles a child’s chance of developing asthma), the elderly, or those already sick.

It turns out mold’s major foothold comes in wallboard, and in particular the organic paper cladding, which in damp environments can provide the perfect home for mold to thrive in. This is why the Oakland children’s hospital went with DensArmor Plus paperless drywall from Georgia Pacific.

Instead of paper, the panels feature a glass-mat surface on both the front and back, plus additional moisture-resistance features. DensArmor Plus® scored a 10, the highest level of performance for mold resistance, under ASTM D 3273 testing.

The panels are recommended for all interior uses, but are especially useful in environments that might be exposed to moisture, including bathrooms, kitchens, and basements, in both residential and commercial settings. And moisture can be a problem anywhere: Georgia Pacific points out that “In today’s tightly sealed structures, inner wall cavities present ideal growth opportunities for mold, simply because of the moisture concentration, the lack of air circulation and the temperature differential from one side of the wall to the other. Thus, mold’s greatest potential for growth is out of sight.”

There are a couple of additional benefits. Because of its low emission of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), DensArmor Plus® is the first, and so far the only, gypsum drywall to be GREENGUARD Indoor Air Quality Certified®. It also received GREENGUARD Children & Schools Certification, for a product that can help reduce exposure of schoolchildren to indoor air pollutants, which means use of DensArmor Plus® gives LEED certification points two separate ways in school construction.

Another benefit: it’s so moisture-resistant that Georgia Pacific offers a 90-day in-place warranty against exposure damage, meaning wallboard can start going up even before the building is completely closed in. Imagine how much help that can be on a tight construction schedule!

Biofuels: "Worse than we thought"

The word has been trickling out that the latest attempt by big energy to jump on the green bandwagon is, in fact, an environmental disaster.

Via Kevin Drum, biofuels guru Mike O'Hare says recent studies have shown that, once you take all the factors into account, corn-based ethanol and similar fuels actually dump much more CO2 into the environment.

There is now more than good reason to expect that no biofuel from seeds, possibly none (even cellulosic) grown on land that could grow food, will reduce global warming if substituted for petroleum products...

(There's more...)

The first piece of the puzzle is the recognition that if a piece of forest is cut down, or natural grassland plowed up, to grow biofuel, decay and/or burning of what was there before releases an enormous puff of carbon into the atmosphere that needs to be counted along with the carbon releases of the biofuel crop. Even spreading the initial release over decades of biofuel growing, it is large enough to push almost any biofuel's global warming intensity way above that of gasoline, especially because it all occurs right at the beginning of the future rather than a few years or decades down the line...

Small amounts of diesel and ethanol will probably be available from trash and agricultural waste like the tree branches and bark scraps the logging industry leaves around to decay, or cornstalks, or McDonald's used frying oil, and these are environmentally OK because they don't induce land use conversion....And many smart folks in this business expect that algae growing in tanks in the desert (for example) can eventually be taught to make a lot of diesel cheap, with no land use implications. But for now, and for a while, biofuels generally are going over a very rough patch of road, a patch that may go on for years before new technologies smooths it out again.

People Power

More cool toys...

First, it was the flashlight you charged up by shaking it a few times. Never again to frantically search for batteries by candlelight when the power goes out...

Now, scientists at Vancouver's Simon Fraser University are developing a knee-brace that charges up electronics as you walk.

Max Donelan's team's work has spawned a startup called Bionic Power, which has received seed investment but no rounds of venture capital. Donelan told Wired.com that their initial markets were "people whose lives depend on portable power." These off-grid power users include backwoods hikers and the military, which is always looking for ways to reduce energy usage. Donelan called soldier battery use "astonishing," noting that soldiers can pack 30 pounds of batteries for a 24-hour mission. All those batteries add up to an equally astonishing $57,000 per soldier per year in battery costs.

They've got a video up explaining the core technology... worth checking out.

(Image courtesy Simon Fraser University)

Jared Diamond on Sustainability

Jared Daimond, author of "Guns, Germs and Steel" and the recent "Collapse", has a great article on consumption vs sustainability.

The population especially of the developing world is growing, and some people remain fixated on this. They note that populations of countries like Kenya are growing rapidly, and they say that's a big problem. Yes, it is a problem for Kenya's more than 30 million people, but it's not a burden on the whole world, because Kenyans consume so little. (Their relative per capita rate is 1.) A real problem for the world is that each of us 300 million Americans consumes as much as 32 Kenyans. With 10 times the population, the United States consumes 320 times more resources than Kenya does.

His conclusion? Because we waste so much, we can actually maintain a fair amount of our current lifestyle while bringing our consumption factor down by at least half.
Worth reading the whole thing...

The Cutting Edge is Green

(Published in Luxury Life & Style)

Living on the cutting edge is the ultimate luxury.
And in building, the cutting edge is green.

Some things, it takes a while before the mainstream catches up. For a while - years, even - they remain the purview of the cranks and the hobbyists, folks who dump every spare minute and every spare dime into their crazy projects – and if you aren't lucky, they’ll tell you all about it until your eyes glazed over.

The automobile was like that, until Henry Ford made the it available for everyone. And these days we just take cars for granted.

It’s the same with green building. From the time just a few years ago when it was a specialized field that only a few people were interested in, it’s now exploding into the popular consciousness… and onto the landscape.

(More...)

“People are starting to demand this of the marketplace,” notes architect Peter Barsuk of Hermosa Beach. A member of the Gensler firm in Santa Monica, Barsuk is a board member of the US Green Building Council’s Los Angeles Chapter, and was also involved in setting up Hermosa’s Energy Patnership.

“Ten to fifteen years ago,” he notes, “there were very few architects and contractors that were practicing green building. Nobody understood what it meant or what it was. And if you asked suppliers what materials went into their products, they wouldn’t even tell you.”

What has changed things? In part, it’s pocketbook – as energy costs have risen, people see the impact every month on their bills for heating and air conditioning. And as asthma rates skyrocket, people are thinking more about indoor air quality.
But it’s more than that.

“It may look like an extravagance, but really, it’s spending wisely,” says Peter DeMaria of DeMaria Design Associates and Logical Home in Manhattan Beach.

“Theres a stigma that for something that’s a luxury, somehow there’s waste. But you look at refined designs, like autos, these are as fine as can be. We’re seeing the same thing now that happened with the automobile, or with MP3 players - the market is starting to drive all these alternative materials.”

And there’s an incredible range of options now – so don’t worry if you’re more in the market for a Lexus than a Bentley. The principals apply whether you’re building your dream home, or simply sprucing up your current place.


One thing that’s easy to do, but terribly important for your health and that of your family, is cut out Volatile Organic Compounds, or VOCs. Toxic compounds like formaldehyde are commonly used in furniture, carpet, paint and other building products; we’ve learned that these substances leak out into the air of your home for years, damaging young lungs, and leading to asthma and other respiratory problems, especially in children.

Designer Sarah Bernard recalls, “I was working with a client who had learned that out-gassing from upholstery foam and furniture glue can cause birth defects. She was pregnant at the time, and we were bringing in a lot of furniture – well, that’s a pretty reasonable concern.”

What to do? She works with natural products – hardwoods, linen and wool aren’t processed with chemicals (although you should check for stain-proofing or flameproof coatings). Get furniture that uses staples instead of glue. “Sometimes it’s not even a matter of giving up something,” says Bernard, “but approaching things in a different way.”

And use low-VOC paints, which are now widely available.

“When you use a regular paint,” notes Bernard. “you fill the house with ‘new paint smell’ – those are the gasses being released. With low-VOC there’s minimal gasses, so minimal smell, which is nice for the home-owner. And at this point, there’s almost no price difference.”

VOCs are an issue in new construction, as well. Plywood is notorious for out-gassing formaldehyde into living space. And while there are companies now making VOC-free plywood, many architects are looking at wood as very “last century”.

Patrick Killen, of Studio9one2 in Hermosa, is one of them. “Why,” he asks, “do we build multi-million dollar homes with a material – wood – that expands and contracts with water, attracts termites and mold, and just doesn’t last?”

There are a variety of alternatives, including metal studs – used in commercial construction for years – and a variety of alternative cladding materials.

“Instead of using plywood,” says DeMaria, “we’re using Dens-Guard gold, by Pacific Materials. It’s gypsum-based. Mold proof! Great R value, easy to handle and easy to cut.... With all its benefits, you’ll see this being used more and more often, and then the price will drop.”

DeMaria is also involved in an exciting alternative form of construction – he’s got a residence going up in Hermosa Beach based around four steel shipping containers.
“It’s just an extension of modular construction, really,” he says.

Even so, they had a hard time getting the design approved – it can be tricky, working on the bleeding edge this way - but he thinks it’s a great demonstration project.
“We found this amazing spray-on insulation, SuperTherm. It was used on the space shuttle, the coating is the thickness of a credit card, but has an amazing R value – R30. And at just $1.50 sq ft, it’s not that much more expensive. But in order to get our title 24 report approved, we had to work directly with the State Energy Commission. We must have spent at least 40 hours on the phone. They had never seen anything like this stuff before.”

Several designers are working with prefabricated living spaces, including DeMaria, who is launching a separate firm to deal with prefab. Another is Jennifer Siegal, whose DesignMobile firm is in the development stages to put one of her Swell houses in Manhattan Beach.

“Swell House gets assembled like Legos at your dream spot,” she notes, “and features Biofiber (a recycled cabinet composite made from sunflower seeds), finishing material made from recycled newspapers, and "ply-boo" (renewable bamboo) flooring.”
And where a typical architect-designed residence can cost $400 to $500 per square foot, her Swell Houses go for $200.

Prefab is good for the big-picture environment: it minimizes wasted materials, and also cuts transportation costs (since both materials and workers go to one central location). And it’s great for the local neighborhood environment – instead of months of banging and dust and trucks coming and going, you get one easy delivery.
Another thing that’s hot right now: Tankless hot water heaters, both for new construction and for home upgrades.

“Instead of heating up hot water and then having it sit there, wasting energy, these units flash-heat the water as you need it,” explains James Meyer of LeanArch, a design and build firm with roots in Manhattan Beach. He’s been using these heaters in the South Bay houses he’s been building (including the home of LL&S publisher Todd Klawin). “You save energy, you never run out of hot water, plus you save a lot of space, which in the South Bay with its tiny lots makes a big impact.”

These may cost $600 to $900, instead of $250 for a conventional tank heater – but what’s it worth to add an extra 90 cubic feet of space to your house?

Another new feature is in-floor heating (well, its been in use since Roman Times, but not the way they do it today). Meyer loves to use in the South Bay because it again combines environmental friendliness with space savings.

“With forced air, you kill a lot of space with ductwork,” he notes. “Instead, we build radiant heating into pipes below the floor. Instead of howling fans blowing dry air throughout the house, along with dust, pollen and mold, you have a nice quiet system that puts heat out from the bottom up.”

DeMaria has it in his own home, and notes, “This pays a dividend in the long run. And your feet are warm! My youngest son is 2.5 years old, and he’s rolling around on the bamboo floor, happy as if he’s in the bathtub.”

You can use similar systems for pool heating. Rick White of California Solar has a couple of South-Bay projects that use solar absorption.

“We now have an in-deck system. At one project in Palos Verdes, we’re putting a heat-exchange system under the concrete of the tennis court. The concrete heats up, and we pull the heat off the surface, put it into a medium that then runs it around to the pool. It heats the pool AND cools the tennis court.”

The cost has come down - you can solar heat a pool for $4500-$5500 dollars. Typically that means the break-even point is just 2 to 3 years.
And of rooftop solar has changed in a big way, too.

“I now have solar panels that are terracotta colored, so they don’t stand out like big black panels,” says White. “We specialize in photovoltaic panels that are integrated into roofing tiles. Match the roof right in, so the look is totally integrated.”

Meyer has a project going up at 217 9th Street with a 3 KW array of photovoltaic panels. They cut back on power purchases, and they’re tied into the grid, so when you’re not using power during the day, you feed power back into the grid when you’re not using. Most architects are now working this sort of package into their new designs.

“We have a ways to go,” notes Killen. “We need to put the kind of effort into solar and wind that we put into marketing the iPod. Solar has been around since the ‘70s, so compared with the MP3, progress has been slow. Right now we have the beginnings of building a foundation, but we’re only scratching the surface.”

Almost as important as heating is cooling. At the container house, DeMaria has installed an industrial-sized 12-foot fan – made by the Big Ass Fan company (its mascot is a donkey).

“Air conditioning will suck up 70 percent of your electricity,” he says. “If you’ve got your building properly designed to take advantage of your prevailing winds, you don’t need AC. And the fan keeps everything inside cooled off. The blades are similar to what you’ll find on a helicopter, cast aluminum and aerodynamically correct. You could blow the dishes right off the table if you want to.”
James Meyer’s 9th Street project uses the entire back of the house, which is a three-story open stairwell, to create a stack effect, drawing air up from the ground floor and cooling the entire house.

Likewise, projections over the windows cut their exposure to direct sunlight, making a huge impact on the need for AC.

“The standard Modern design is a big glass box that didn’t pay any attention to appropriate site orientation,” notes Killian, “and had no overhangs to cut exposure of the sun to all that glass. We’re learning…”

Another way to cut the unwanted energy provided by the sun is going with a roofing material that’s light, rather than dark. It’s estimated that dark roofs can get up to 180 degrees on a sunny day; some of that heat leaks into the house, and the rest is radiated back out, heating up the neighborhood. Going light with roofing could cut summer urban temperatures by several degrees – and saving millions of dollars in AC costs.

If you want to go really green in a big way, the ultimate is a Green Roof. Instead of standard roofing material, you have a full environment built on top of the building, complete with soil, grass, trees and shrubs.

The firm of Marmol Radziner is doing one at a project overlooking the ocean in Palos Verdes, which also features a solar deck around the pool and other green features (Marmol Radziner is also getting into prefab and modular building). And Steve Lazar of Lazar Design/Build is working with Anthony Poon of Poon Design to put a mixed-use office and condo building at 838 Manhattan Beach Blvd with 2500 square feet of green roof.

“You can walk from your unit,” says Lazar, “out onto a roof of real dirt, real trees, grass, shrubs. Your own open space that’s alive, organic. Much nicer than a concrete jungle.”

The soil/gravel system is carefully engineered proper drainage, while holding the right amount of water without too much expansion or contraction. Aside from aesthetics, it provides spectacular insulation, there’s less runoff for the sewer system, and it provides a benefit of better air quality to the inhabitants of the home as well as the neighborhood.

One other way to go: think smaller and smarter.

Part of smarter is taking advantage of the great southern California climate by integrating indoor and outdoor space.

“We had a client in Hermosa with a first-floor view from Malibu to San Pedro. They totally fell in love with it. That’s a million dollar view; you don’t mind spending $50,000 on triple-track doors that open up completely to give them that unobstructed view. On the container house, we have airplane hangar doors that open up on two sides to integrate the interior space with the outside.”

Killen has worked a similar magic at his Widmann Residence in Hermosa, where lots of triple-track sliding glass effectively double the amount of living space, and Meyer has used overhead garage doors and triple-tracks to open his houses up.

“It’s like being in a tree house,” he says, “why would you not want to take advantage of this amazing climate? People would never have done this 20 years ago. I think it’s great we’re breaking all these rules and making it possible for people live in ways that never would have been conceived of before.”

Meyer has pushed the envelope in other ways, like building in charging stations for electric cars. “It’s a lot like music,” he says. “The greatest creativity comes when people aren’t afraid to break the rules.”

And just as with music, the most creative periods happen when the patrons – the folks making the commissions, be they emperors, industrialists, or entertainment lawyers – are willing to take risks, too.

“Everything we’ve tried, we’ve gotten a great response to,” Meyer says.
Killen would like to keep pushing the envelope in other ways – and he recognizes that some of them are a little harder for the patrons to hear.

“Thinking green isn’t just about picking some nice materials out of a catalog,” says Killen. “But we’re doing things now that will have a huge impact down the road.
That’s an uplifting feeling. That’s something that some of our clients are very much in tune with. I’m not the only one saying ‘we can make a difference’.’

Into Africa

(Crossposted at EcoFabulous)
One of the best ways to help indigenous people help themselves and the environment is to go there. For example, when you visit Campi ya Kanzi, at the foot of magnificent Mount Kilimanjaro, you'll get the trip of a lifetime as well as help the Maasai people of Kenya and their local wildlife.

Located on 400 square miles between Tsavo and Chyulu National Parks in the heart of Maasai country, the camp offers gourmet-quality meals, wildlife tracking with Maasai guides, and scenic flights around Kilimanjaro.

Love Kenyan coffee? Imagine having it brought to you fresh-brewed first thing in the morning... or sipping it by the campfire as the sun sets. This is the cradle of the first humans, and as you dine under the stars, you can't help but feel the draw of our deep ancestral roots.

(More...)

And by going there you help create a better life for the next generations of Maasai people. Not only does the camp provide employment, it also supports the Maasai Foundation, which provides a range of health and educational services. For instance, after years of hunting, lions are staging a comeback - good for the ecology, but bad for semi-nomadic herders like the Maasai; foundation supporter Ed Norton has teamed with jeweler Cartier to raise funds to compensate the community for livestock killed by lions, so the tribesmen won't retaliate against the big cats.

The camp combines charcoal-fired cookery with solar power and hot water heaters - a wonderful marriage of traditional life and modern sensibilities. Not as luxurious as Branson's African oasis, but a pretty awesome and honest way to experience Africa. While you are checking on your flights, don't forget to offset your travel!

Going Solar

(Appeared in the Iranian Jewish Chronicle)

"Going Green" isn't just good for the planet – it's good for the pocketbook, too

We've been hearing a lot lately about "saving the earth". But the Jewish concept is much older. We call it "Tikkun Olam," and halachically, it's the idea that G-d didn't finish creation, but put each of us here to do our small part to complete the work.

One form of saving that's come into prominence this year is solar power. It saves energy, it saves money, and it's a growing part of the work to save the planet.

Technology has been moving forward, but the biggest change in the solar environment comes from the political side: at both the state and federal level, governments are encouraging people and businesses to go solar.

(More...)

Putting money where their mouth is

"California has shown some incredible leadership," says Isaac Hamadan, of Solar Energy Exchange. "The California Solar Initiative makes direct grants that cover 23 percent of your costs."

On top of that, the Federal Government provides direct tax credits for 30 percent of the total bill for homes and businesses (although home use is capped at $2000 right now). Plus, you can depreciate it over five years. And of course, it provides electric power, cutting your power bill by 80 percent or more depending your configuration.

"The cost of electricity is going up every year," says Abe Moradian of Beverly Hills, "so I think I'll get my investment back sooner than they think. Living here, my bills are particularly high. I've had months where my bill is $300, and months when I'm heating my pool where it goes as high as $600."

As president of AMC International, a trade consulting company, Moradian knows how to figure a balance sheet. But, he says, making this decision was about more than the bottom line.

"It's clean energy. And it's good for energy independence, and that's good for everybody."

Moradian is a pretty typical solar customer: he's doing an installation on a pre-existing home, with panels built on to the roof, plus he's getting a passive solar heating system built around his pool.

Pool systems run around $5,000, and can pay for themselves in just three years. Full-house systems run from $20,000 to $40,000, and can pay for themselves in 10 years or less. Plus, Hamadan notes, you can finance them with a home equity line of credit, they add value to your home, and they're property-tax-exempt.

Doing good and looking good

For those who don't relish the though of industrial-looking black panels overlooking their front yard – the past couple of years have seen some amazing new products hit the market.

"I now have solar panels that are terracotta colored, so they don't stand out like big black panels," says Rick White, or California Solar. "We specialize in photovoltaic panels that are integrated into roofing tiles. They match the roof, and they're built right in, totally integrated with the other roofing tiles."

Likewise, for those with shingle roofs, there are now solar panels that match those. The solar becomes just one component to a standard roof. Plus they last longer than standard shingles or terracotta – and unlike standard roofing which bakes in the sun on hot days, these panels take the sun's energy and turn them into power – making a significant dent in air conditioning bills, as well.

"The system panels I install are warranteed for 25 years," says Hamadan. "That's confidence. How long will they actually last? We think 30 years or more."

Becoming part of the system

One of the most exciting things happening now is what's called "Grid-tied" systems. With this setup, your solar system is linked in with the power grid. During the hot mid-day hours when you're generating lots of power, the excess flows into the power grid, actually running your meter backwards! You're credited for the power during the day; after the sun goes down, you pull the power you were credited back in from the grid.

You can also get a system with full battery-backups, so you can store the power yourself. Or, you can combine the two.

"The other cool thing," says White, "it'll manage your energy. Some people, especially businesses, are on time- of-usage charges – buying electricity during peak periods will charge you more than at 3 a.m. when demand is low. This system fills up the batteries in the middle of the night when energy is cheap, and then you use it during the day when energy is expensive."

Becoming part of the solution

It's nice when you can combine doing the right thing with doing the smart thing. Most forms of Tikun Olam are like that, when you look at them closely.

"I believe it's the future," says Hamadan. "It's the only way we can really survive – we can't move forward with all this usage of crude oil. Electrical demand keeps rising – we can meet that with solar, instead of building more plants that burn coal and oil and gas, and pollute the air our children have to breath.

"This is much better for the earth, and for us."

The Mobile Hybrid Experience

Sometimes we wonder how much what we do here ripples out into the wider world.

I was down at the Fiesta Hermosa this past weekend - you'd think that in the chi chi beach cities of LA you'd see greening everywhere, but of approximately 200 craft vendors, I only spotted a paltry two doing anything remotely sustainable; food was of the American Standard burgers and beer variety; and they didn't even have recycling bins for folks to chuck their diet soda cans into.

But just when I was feeling disheartened I laid eyes on a very cool visual - a 53-foot trailer emblazoned with the words "Mobile Hybrid Experience". Inside, a bookish blond in a blue Toyota t-shirt explained that this is part of the company's "Highway to the Future" project, and we're welcome to explore the interactive activities and games.

And as incentive, she handed each of us a little packet of organic basil seeds - there's a bar-code on each packet, and bar-code readers at each of the stations, so you receive 50 to 100 'miles' for each activity you do. Learn about the different energy contributions of hydrogen, gasoline, biodiesel, natural gas and electric vehicles, and you get enough points for a pencil. Hit a couple more stations, and learn about hybrids - how the lithium ion battery works, or how the breaking system pumps electricity back into the battery - and you've got enough points to have a tree planted by the Arbor Day Foundation. Play the driving game - okay, it's not really a game, more of a demo, but you're seated, there are foot pedals and a steering wheel, and a big video-game screen - and you have enough for the coolest prize, a self-generating flashlight that Ed Begley Jr. has made famous (shake it... it charges... it lights up!).

The prize system is brilliant, since most people coming through are motivated to get the flashlight and actually read through all the info, took the quizzes, played the games.

"Our average is 22 minutes spent, which is huge for event marketing," notes Mark Ulbrich, the West Coast road producer. "And we're getting 800 to 1,000 people a day to step back and look at how they're relying on finite resources, to look at other solutions."

And with the scanner system, Toyota is getting a huge amount of invaluable data - on what average people are interested in and what kinds of marketing pushes are effective in reaching them. Logically, they are taking the show on the road. Follow the link to find out how you can get your own Mobile Hybrid Experience.

Tikit to Ride

(Crossposted at EcoFabulous)

Honoring Friday seems like a pretty excellent thing to do and since we haven't talked about transportation in a while, I hope this rolls you into a great weekend. Biking to work is great for the planet and a great workout... but what do you do with the bike all day? Many commuters have problems with parking, storage and theft. So wouldn't it be great if you could just pedal to the office, fold up your ride and stash it under your desk? Now you can.

Bike Friday has been specializing in high-end folding bikes for almost twenty years, guaranteeing staying power. This winter they launched the Tikit, an ultra-compact two wheeler (though ultra compact is still lightly subjective).

Check out the video of it folding and unfolding on YouTube. Not only does it collapse into a nice, tight bundle, but the process takes less than three seconds! Even short-attention-spanners will love this.

Now, before you start making reservations for some extreme adventure, keep in mind that you are not going to be dirtbiking the Tikit up a mountain, or cruising to victory in the Tour de France. The wheels are smallish (they have to be), and because of the frame joints, you don't want to be doing any kind of high-impact riding. But that's not the Tikit's calling. The Tikit loves the supermarket, coffeehouses and bus trips. No need to worry about bike racks, roof racks, or having it stolen off the front porch.

The company is still owned and operated by the Sholz family - Alan and Hanz set up their Wright Brothers-like shop in the '90s, initially building folding bikes with the world traveler in mind. But they realized that they could have an impact on fossil fuels by encouraging folks to switch their commute from "hydrocarbons to carbs", as they say. And pretty chic to boot, minus the elephant-sized sack.

Twisted Sitter

(Cross-posted at EcoFabulous)
"This ain't yo momma's wicker," says designer/architect Bannavis Andrew Sribyatta of PIE (Project Import Export), and it’s so true. The forms of his singular seating are truly organic, from the Tonecoon, a peanut-form based on Thai flower buds, to the Sushi double-loveseat that looks like a thumb-impressed mound of sushi rice, to the womb-like Spacehog.

The materials are all natural and sustainable, including rattan, liana, bamboo and water hyacinth (the latter being an invasive and destructive weed that clogs Florida waterways – how great to find a creative use for that!). There’s an art-out-of-chaos element to his material patterns, and in addition to the standard fabric-like weaves, there’s a frantic fractal irregular interweave that is not only cool to look at, admittedly, to my surprise it is very comfy to sit in!

Doie as I Do

Indie design has been pushing boundaries... and the world has been playing catch-up.

Take Sara Kirsner, a California girl (Marin) who was drawn to New York by the Parsons School. She's worked with Marc Jacobs and Ann Taylor, but was inspired to do her own Asian-influenced line, Doie, while traveling in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Cotton lounge-wear was her thing, but she was moved to start using alternative fabrics when she learned about some of the not-so-friendly effects that conventional cotton has on the environment. When she discovered she could get jersey (a light, breathable fabric) made from bamboo fiber, she was totally blown away.

Why bamboo? It's incredibly soft, it's unbelievably strong, it has naturally anti-microbial properties (it's not so much sweat that gets you stinky, but the bacteria that feed on your perspiration - bamboo blocks that) and it's eco-friendly.

Cotton requires massive amount of water, tons of pesticides and a ridiculous amount of petroleum-based fertilizer. In contrast, Bamboo grows fast and sustainably without artificial assistance, doesn't require pesticides, and provides income to otherwise impoverished folks in the developing world without the kind of nasty monoculture impact that crops like coffee can have.

Oh - and it's cold-water washable.

Kirstner's new line, the Harusame Collection, adds some versatile Asian-inspired dresses to the already-successful loungeware, melding simple black with splashes of accent color; it's available at an assortment of online stores as well as bricks & mortars such as Fred Segal and Whole Foods. Makes me want to slip into something more comfortable.

Spring Into Equinox

(Crossposted at EcoFabulous)
It's doubtful that you would consider the Chevy Equinox a luxury vehicle (it is more of a tough little SUV)... but what they're doing with it is pretty ambitious and potentially appealing. Starting next fall, the folks at Chevrolet are doing a test-market of an all-electric vehicle powered by hydrogen fuel cells. This is the same power system as the definitively cool Chevy Sequel concept car. It is capable of 750 pounds of passenger/cargo payload, can travel 200 miles between recharges, and cruise at speeds of 100 mph (note to Mel Gibson: don't try this in Malibu). Unlike hybrids, no gasoline is involved - hydrogen unites with oxygen in the cells to make H2O. Power goes to the wheels, and the tailpipe spews out nice, clean water vapor. Of course, the hydrogen has to be generated at a plant somewhere and there are lots of questions about that, so this anything but a perfect system; but it sure could help improve the air quality in U.S. cities.

And speaking of cities... if you live in metropolitan NYC, DC or Southern California, you're eligible for this fall's test-market. Register on the website, and you could be one of the lucky Top Guns to put these cutting-edge vehicles through their paces on your daily commute. Hopefully this is not just another distraction by major vehicle manufacturers.

Congealed Electricity

(Cross-posted at EcoFabulous)

"Congealed electricity"?

It sounds very technical but it's actually the nickname they gave aluminum back in the '50s, since it's so incredibly energy-intensive to create. You'll actually find most aluminum smelters near hydroelectric dams (like those in Washington State).

The good news is that we have become such good recyclers that the volume of aluminum cans going into landfills is actually dropping! About half of the reclaimed metal goes straight back into cans; as for the rest, it goes into some very cool products, like this "Louis the Umpteenth side table" from Johnston-Ready, available at fab new online eco-shop greenwithglamour.com.

In place of the usual rococo gilding, the aluminum finish makes for a chic modern twist to Hollywood's most glam, without sacrificing the essential ornateness of the period.

You can also clean up with Eleek's sleek line of aluminum sinks, from the mod waterbox to the useful waterfalling with its built-in strainer (all available with artist patinas and powdercoats).