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GREEN
General Philosophy: For as long as I can remember, my oldest sister Michele, has been (and still is) a political and environmental activist. Thanks to my parents' willingness to engage, discuss, and argue with my both of my sisters and I, (and to impart some of their own ideas and values on the 3 of us) I grew up loving nature, conserving energy and water, vegetable gardening, recycling, and generally being a good steward of the earth, with a deep love and respect and connection to her and all of her plants and animals. When the opportunity came to help create an environmental building TV series with a friend, it seemed too good to be true. To co-create, develop, produce and direct this series was an incredible opportunity to grow and learn as a filmmaker and entrepreneur, for which I am ever grateful. Here is one of the first 6 half-hour episodes of the Building Green TV series as released on PBS stations around the country October 4, 2006, which I produced and directed: please allow time for the movies to load after you select each link. More are available for viewing upon request.
What does being green mean? Being green begins with awareness and caring about conservation, ecology, economy, equity, health, energy efficiency, recycling, and the stewardship of our home and all living things, on both macro and micro levels. It’s about asking tough, persistent questions, reading labels, researching and learning about what things are made of, how things are made, where things come from geographically, who made them, how those people were treated, and how much energy is used to produce and then transport them. It's a lot to think about, and requires making conscious, investigative choices about everything you do. Buy Green In the capitalist world economy, the onus of responsible consumption sits squarely on the shoulders of each individual consumer. Purchasing power dictates what is produced for consumption in the supply and demand economies, and every dollar spent validates the product, regardless of the business or manufacturing practices. If the only choice is to buy from undesirable sources, then choose to do without that item, rather than support those who are acting against you with their business practices. Every choice has ripple effects. Build Green The construction and energy use of buildings represent the single largest energy consuming sector, using more than half of all energy. We can easily use and integrate existing technology to create and retrofit buildings to make them ALL self sustaining, energy collecting, energy producing, and energy storing structures, drastically reducing our carbon footprint. "Conventional" building methods must immediately be abandoned for healthier, more congruous, energy efficient, and functional structures that are site specific, taking full advantage of any given location and orientation for solar, wind, ventilation, available construction materials, and every single aspect of the building. Bad design and poisenous materials simply have no place in building. Simple, thoughtful design and construction paying utmost attention to the green bottom line can and will change how 65% of our energy is used, improving the general quality of life by living in nurturing structures that help us to be healthier, happier, and more in tune with our place in the universe. Eliminating the mistaken ideals of "bigger is better," and "having more is more" will have huge impact. This is important work, and how well we do it will go a long way to mitigating the effects of imminent climate change. Live Green Conserve everything: energy, fuel, water, food, nature, and natural habitats. Use only what you need from local sources and tread lightly. Recycle everything and buy things that are biodegradable, if not designed and built "Cradle to Cradle." The goal is to create nothing for the landfill every week, recycling and composting everything else. Eat Green Eat organic foods grown and harvested in season within 100 miles of where you live as a goal. This supports local organic farmers and provides fresher more nutritious food. The food on most people's dinner table in the US is laden with petroleum based pesticides, travels thousands of miles, using huge amounts of energy to deliver and store food that has lost most of its nutritional value by the time it reaches its final destination. This is another shift that will RADICALLY improve general health and reduce oil based energy usage in this country. It's important to know where your food supply comes from, how it is raised, when it was harvested, and that the workers who harvested it are treated fairly and equitably. No Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO's)! Because of an FDA and EPA that is controlled by the corporations it is supposed to police, food retailers are not required to label GMO's in this country as they are in the EU! Plastic bottles are toxic when stressed (left in the sun, frozen, put in microwave, physically dented) leeching carcinogens into their contents. Use stainless steel or glass water bottles instead. Buying drinking water is more expensive than gasoline, and it isn't required to be any safer than your tap water. Shrimp sucks! There is no sustainable way to harvest shrimp, the bottom is basically dredged, destroying the ecosystem in exchange for the shrimp. You don't want to be party to that do you? Drive Green Here's a photo of the "veggiemobile," that runs on biodiesel, new or waste vegetable oils, even diesel in a pinch. (haven't used a drop of diesel in it)
1985 Mercedes 300TD Turbodiesel, 150,000 miles on it - just broken in for this car! Two white labrador retrievers usually lounge comfortably in the back of this smooth cruiser, with auto hydraulic rear suspension. Very lucky to have stations in town that have B100 biodiesel, as well as a restaurant that provides their waste oil. Infrequent commutes to LA and back are covered too, with pumps in Ventura and several in the LA's West Side, among others. There's always Costco or Smart & Final for bulk virgin oil. Love using clean burning fuels, driving a handsome 21 year old car, even if it costs more. Make sure your fuel system has no rubber seals, and replace them if necessary. Bingo! You're now ready to run biodiesel. Running biodiesel in an engine that's been running regular diesel will clean all of the crud, so, replacing the fuel filters immediately after the first tank will be necessary. (at least once) Both of these steps were handled before I bought my car, allowing me to run virgin oils as well. The next thing is to choose a system to be able to run waste vegetable oil in your vehicle. There are a couple of great sites with all kinds of info about conversions/setups. This car has a plantdrive Mercedes single tank Vormax kit with the electric heaters that sit on the injectors. There are kits at both sites. Good luck! You'll love it! More details on biodiesel to follow... Support Green Design This fractal is a visualization tool, borrowed and recreated from “Cradle to Cradle, Remaking the Way We Make Things,” by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. This book creates a big picture perspective, offering solutions, and challenging industries and designers to take cues from nature’s enduring, sustainable systems. The goal is to create value in all three sectors. Existing products can be thought about in terms of the fractal to help gage consumer choices, and frame a richer way of thinking about what we buy and use. This model can be applied to virtually anything: food, clothing, shelter, transportation, business practices...
What about using nature as the design guide to everything? Time tested, miraculous, self sustaining, zero impact systems Nature's Perfect Designs Here are several excerpts from "Biomimicry, Innovation Inspired by Nature," by Janine Benyus: "Nature runs on sunlight. Nature uses only the energy it needs. Nature fits form to function. Nature recycles everything. Nature rewards cooperation. Nature banks on diversity. Nature demands local expertise. Nature curbs excesses from within. Nature taps the power of limits." ..."When I bought the property, everyone told me that the pond was a legendary nursery for waterfowl-cinnamon teal, blue-winged teal, meransers, coots, and Canada geese. Two years ago, the once sparkling water was eclipsed by a solid sheet of duckweed, a tiny floating plant that forms colonies and manages to shade out everything below it. It seems that duckweed in profusion is too much of a good thing, and birds that would normally relish it wouldn't even land on it. For two years, pair after pair wheeled over the pond at nesting time but opted to go elsewhere. I tried to remedy things by screening off the duckweed with a series of handmade contraptions, but like the Sorcerer's apprentice, I managed to only create more duckweed. The county extension agents recommended that I treat with chemicals, but I had seen too many turtles periscope up, leaves like sequins on their sleepy lids, to even consider it. When I asked the agents for a more natural way to rejuvenate the pond, they were stumped. Finally this summer, after heaping one wheelbarrow too many, I simply stopped. I stopped trying to engineer schemes in my own mind and I just sat down on the banks. I indulged in a fantasy of how I would like the pond to be-clear, loud with the squabbles of nesting birds, a healthy balance of vegetation and open water. It was then that I became a biomimic instead of just writing about them. I realized that it wasn't a fantasy I was referencing, but an actual place, a pond that I had once biked to up near National Forest. I peeled off my swamp boots and got on my bike. I spent the afternoon on the lush banks of that balanced pond, trying to absorb its secrets. I noticed the way grasses and willows crowded the edges, and, when I dipped my hand in, I found it sharply colder than my pond. My final clue came when a cottonwood leaf cruised lazily into view-and out again. Current! The only times I remember seeing current in my pond were during the spring chinooks when snow melts in a hurry and brings muddy waters from the surrounding fields. A few times each year, these floods would turn the pond a Mississippi brown. By then it was coming clear to me. My pond must have originally been spring-fed, but lately the source of the fresh water, the maker of the current and cold, had been suffocated under layers of topsoil rolling in from the fields. The topsoil was prime for eroding because years of overgrazing had weakened the thick sod. One thing led to another, and the pond silted in, becoming a tepid bowl-perfect for duckweed but not, ironically, for ducks. If I wanted to keep the pond open to breeders and have duckweed only in the cattailed edges again, I would have to find that forgotten spring, free it, and then stop the source of silting. I went home and gave my neighbors one more thing to talk about as I slowly paddled through the green froth, feeling for the coldest spot. I started to dredge there, and sure enough, great shovelfuls of good topsoil came up. What cam next felt like a miracle. Released from its burden, a cleansing swell of cold Montana snow melt geysered to the surface. The once-murky waters rose to fill their banks, and the duckweed I had labored to screen away for two years casually flowed over the dam in sheets. By afternoon, my pond was sparkling, and the wood ducks in the sloughs of the river below me were feasting. Mine was a classic example of echoing nature, and if I were to offer some sort of path for the larger culture to take toward a biomimetic future, it would have to follow this pattern. Like all echoing, mine was a dialogue with the land, but instead of me speaking and a canyon amphitheater responding, it was the other way around. I listened while the land spoke, and then I tried to mimic what I had heard. The preparation for this echoing was a quieting on my part, a silencing of my own cleverness long enough to turn to nature for advice..." Janine Benyus
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