December's Sustainable Living Tip: Gift Ideas

Still looking for the perfect gift? Sustain your relationships, your community, and your planet with these ideas for the holidays or any occasion.

1. Help make the world a better place by making a gift of a charitable donation. Changing The Present is one organization that makes it easy to find the perfect charity and personalize your gift with a greeting card. You can even create a wishlist or a gift registry to help your friends and family give you the perfect gift in return.
2. Share your love of our country by giving a National Park annual pass. This $80 pass is the ticket to more than 2,000 federal recreation sites: national parks, wildlife refuges, forests, and grasslands. Maine State park passes are also available online.
3. Support your local businesses with a gift certificate to your local downtown merchants. For example, the city of Bath, Maine, offers the "Gift of Bath Certificates" accepted at over 70 local restaurants, shops & entertainment venues. If your downtown doesn't offer a similar option, put them in touch with Main Street Bath to learn how to make it happen in your community.
4. Help bring an end to world hunger with a gift from Heifer international. A child or family will receive training and an animal to help them become self-reliant, and your loved one will receive a personalized card in honor of your gift.
5. Adopt a sea creature through Oceana.org. Your donation will support marine conservation, and you can choose to send a plush animal toy or cookie cutter that represents your favorite creature.
6. Support your local farmers with a farmers market gift certificate. For a list of winter farmers markets in Maine, see this article from last year's MOFGA newsletter or search LocalHarvest.org for farms and markets in your area.
7. Give a free lunch (or dinner). Buy the ingredients for a healthy, organic meal, and give them along with directions to your loved one. For some ideas of good meals to give, check out the Make-Ahead Meals blog.
8. For close friends or family, offer to give a cooking class. This might be the year to share the secret recipe from your Aunt Marge. Or maybe it's time to try some new recipes on your own and share what works best. For some ideas, visit the world's largest collection of vegetarian recipes.
9. Ever commiserated about the time it takes to clean house? That's a perfect excuse to give a green house cleaning without casting aspersions. Who wouldn't appreciate a "One Time Deep Clean" from a company like Green Clean Maine?
10. Give a guided walking tour to a place you love. Whether you call it a date or a micro-vacation, your gift will be memorable and unique.
11. Spend some time to consider an important person in your life and write a poem just for them. To help get you started, read these tidbits of advice on writing poetry from poet Charles Simic.
12. Share the Earth's bounty by sharing seeds. When you include stories from your own experience gardening, or even a small sample of preserves, you make your gift extra meaningful.
13. Give an empty mailbox with the gift of less junk mail from 41pounds.org.

Environmental Organizations

Here are more gift ideas for you. How about a gift membership to one of the following environmental organizations?

• The Appalachian Mountain Club works to promote the protection, enjoyment, and understanding of the mountains, forests, waters, and trails of the Appalachian region.
• The Bicycle Coalition of Maine works to make Maine a better place to bicycle. By joining, you can help improve bicycle safety, create more bicycle-friendly communities, and advocate for better laws affecting bicyclists.
• The Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust works to conserve the remarkable diversity of the natural heritage of Brunswick, Topsham and Bowdoin. The Land Trust has conserved hundreds of acres of critical open space through easements, gifts, and purchase.
• The Cathance River Education Alliance works to use the natural resources of the Cathance River Preserve to promote ecological awareness and nature-based learning among students, educators, and the public.
• Chewonki works to help people grow by providing educational experiences that foster an understanding, appreciation, and stewardship of the natural world and that emphasize the power of focused, collective effort.
• The Environmental Health Strategy Center works to promote human health and safer chemicals in a sustainable economy.
• The Friends of Casco Bay work to improve and protect the environmental health of Casco Bay. By joining, you help monitor water quality, organizate coastal cleanups, and collaborate with partners to protect the Bay from pollution.
• The Friends of Merrymeeting Bay work to preserve, protect, and improve the unique ecosystems of Merrymeeting Bay through advocacy, education, conservation and research.
• The Island Institute works to support the island and coastal communities of the Gulf of Maine: recognizing that everything in the region – human and environmental – is connected.
• The Maine Appalachian Trail Club works to manage, maintain and protect of the Appalachian Trail in Maine. It is responsible for all Trail structure design, construction, and maintenance; for monitoring activities in the AT corridor; and for basic public information and education regarding the Trail in Maine.
• Maine Audubon works to conserve Maine’s wildlife and wildlife habitat by engaging people of all ages in education, conservation and action. Maine Audubon connects people with nature.
• The Maine Coast Heritage Trust works to conserve and steward Maine’s coastal lands and islands for their renowned scenic beauty, outdoor recreational opportunities, ecological diversity and working landscapes.
• Maine Conservation Voters works to ensure that the protection of our water, air, forests, wildlife, landscapes and natural heritage is a political priority in Maine.
• The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association works to help farmers and gardeners: grow organic food, fiber and other crops; protect the environment; recycle natural resources; increase local food production; support rural communities; and illuminate for consumers the connection between healthful food and environmentally sound farming practices.
• Maine Rivers works to protect, restore and enhance the ecological health of Maine's river systems.
• The Maine Solar Energy Association works to promote public awareness and use of solar energy and other renewable and nonpolluting energy sources, energy conservation, and green building practices.
• The Natural Resources Council of Maine works to improve the quality of Maine's rivers; to reduce toxic chemicals threatening the health of Maine families and wildlife; to decrease air and global warming pollution, and to conserve Maine lands.
• The Nature Conservancy works to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. The Nature Conservancy protects more than 119 million acres of land and 5,000 miles of rivers worldwide -- and operates more than 100 marine conservation projects globally.
• Physicians for Social Responsibility work to build a healthy environment and promote sensible security policies.
• The Maine Chapter of the Sierra Club works to protect Maine’s wilderness heritage, fight global warming & promote smart growth, safeguard Maine’s clean water and coastline, promote clean air and energy efficiency, hold public officials accountable, and support pro-environment candidates for public office.
• Wolfe's Neck Farm works to continue and improve Wolfe's Neck Farm's long tradition of sustainable agriculture, recreation and education while preserving its open space.
• The Center for Biological Diversity works to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. They do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
• The Conservation Law Foundation works to protect all parts of New England’s environment, using the law, science, and the market to develop innovative, pragmatic solutions.
• Greenpeace International works to change attitudes and behaviour, to protect and conserve the environment and to promote peace.
• LightHawk works to provide donated flights to conservation groups as a tool to accelerate conservation efforts.
• The Natural Resources Defense Council works to use law, science and the support of 1.3 million members and online activists to protect the planet's wildlife and wild places and to ensure a safe and healthy environment for all living things.
• The Ocean Conservancy works to create concrete solutions that lead to lasting change -- so we can all experience a healthy ocean for generations to come.
• The Toxics Action Center works to clean up hazardous waste sites, reduce industrial pollution, curb pesticide use, ensure healthy land use, replace dangerous chemicals with safer alternatives, and oppose dangerous waste, energy, and industrial facilities.
• The Union of Concerned Scientists works to combine independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices.
• The Wilderness Society works to protect our nation’s public lands, the 635 million acres collectively owned by the American people and managed by our government.
• The Worldwatch Institute works to deliver the insights and ideas that empower decision makers to create an environmentally sustainable society that meets human needs.

Environmental Happenings

Environmental Happenings

Saturdays, 11/12 to 4/30 - Brunswick Winter Farmers Market, Fort Andross Building, Brunswick. Locally grown and produced vegetables, meat, cheese, eggs, fish, plants, bread, yogurt, kefir, soap, maple syrup and treats, wool, baked goods, artisan crafts, prepared foods, wood products, locally roasted coffee, musicians and more. For more information, visit http://www.brunswickwintermarket.com/.

Saturdays, 12/10 to 4/21 - Portland Winter Farmers Market, 9 am - 1 pm, Maine Irish Heritage Center, State Street between Gray & Danforth, two blocks from Mercy Hospital, Portland. Root and greenhouse vegetables, storage crops, dairy products, eggs, tempeh, grains and breads, flour, meats, honey, jams and preserves, and much more. For more information, visit http://www.portlandmainewintermarket.com/.

Mon 12/19 - Rally for Clean Air in Maine, 11:30 am - 12:30 pm, Monument Square, Portland. Join the Natural Resources Council of Maine for a holiday-themed rally and fun street theatre performance to tell Maine's federal Senators, “Don’t put coal in our stockings! Support the EPA’s new mercury air toxics rule and give Mainers the gift of clean, healthy air this holiday season.” Take your picture with Santa Claus and the Grinch under the Christmas tree in Monument Square.

Fri 12/23 - Belfast Winter Farmers Market, 9 am - 1 pm, Aubuchon Hardware, Rt 1, Belfast. Quality products from people you know. For more information, visit http://www.belfastfarmersmarket.org/.

Sat 12/31 - NRCM's Polar Bear Dip and Dash, 10:30 am, Back Cove parking lot (across from Hannaford’s parking lot), Portland. Join the Natural Resources Council of Maine for a 5k walk/run and their 4th annual polar plunge into the Atlantic Ocean (at East End Beach on Cutter Street) to support their work to curb global warming. Register at http://supporters.nrcm.org/register. The cost is $30. NRCM encourage you to collect pledges to support their work to reduce global warming pollution.

Tue 1/3 - Permaculture (Not-to-be-Missed) Movie Night: Gasland, 6:30 pm, University of New England Blewett Hall room 006, 716 Stevens Avenue, Portland. Join the Portland Permaculture group for a potluck supper (bring a dish to share and your own potluck kit!), movie, and discussion. For more information, visit the Portland Permaculture meetup page.

Thursdays 1/5 to 6/7 - Guided Trekking at Beaver Park, 7 - 8 am, Beaver Park, Cotton Road, Lisbon. Join the park ranger along Beaver Park trails for a brisk guided morning walk.

Sat 1/7 - Writing Workshop on the Penobscot River, 1 pm, Eddington Salmon Club, Route # 9, Brewer. Exercise your mind and your body with a writing workshop paired with a nature walk. Explore what river restoration will mean to fish, wildlife, and human communities through writing exercises and field observations. Cheryl Daigle is the community liason and outreach coordinator for the Penobscot River Restoration Trust, and her writing appears in Orion magazine and elsewhere. Holly Twining, a Maine Audubon naturalist, will lead the walk. Advance registration necessary. For more information, email htwining@maineaudubon.org call 989-2591.

Tue 1/10 - Renewable Energy on the Farm at the Ag Trades Show, 9 am - 5 pm, Augusta Civic Center. Sponsored by the Farm Energy Parters Network, this day of presentations provides a unique opportunity to learn from the experts about renewable energy options for the farm: solar heating, small wind for electricity, biomass for heating, geothermal heating, and solar photovoltaic. For more information contact Claudia Lowd, Maine Rural Partners Energy Innovation Coordinator at claudia@mainerural.org or 581-4523.

Wed 1/11 - Book signing of "What's Gotten Into Us," noon, Portland Public Library. Author McKay Jenkins will be giving a talk on toxic chemicals, health and the environment, and signing copies of his book "What's Gotten Into Us: Staying Healthy in a Toxic World." For more information, visit http://mckayjenkins.com.

Wed 1/11 - Making Financial Sense of Small and Medium Community Wind Projects, 8:30 am - 2 pm, Hilton Garden Inn, Freeport. Join Windependence, Maine's Community Wind Resource, for a practical, hands-on workshop focused on the financial incentives and policies that can assist the development of community wind projects up to 660 kw nameplate capacity. For more information, email sue@mainewindependence.org or call 751-0749.

Wed 1/11 - Notes on a Lost Flute, 6 pm, Cram Alumni House, Bowdoin College, Brunswick. Join Friends of Merrymeeting Bay for their annual meeting and potluck, and a presentation by ecologist, linguist, eco-historian, and activist Kerry Hardy, author of "Notes on a Lost Flute: A Field Guide to the Wabanaki." The public is welcome.

Thu 1/12 - Keeping Foundations Warm and Dry, 7:30 - 11:30 am, Ramada Inn, 352 North Street, Saco. Learn how to avoid mistakes in site drainage and foundation construction. Designed to educate residential building professionals on construction practices that minimize the risk of indoor air quality problems in new homes, this presentation includes complete coverage of the energy provisions contained in both the building and energy codes. Registration fee $10; register by contacting Donna Mottola at Deering Lumber, 283-3621 or dmottola@deeringlumber.com.

Thu 1/19 - By Land and By Sea: Leveraging Co-ops for Business Success, 9 am - 5:30 pm, Common Ground Education Center in Unity. A one-day conference for all Maine farmers and fishermen on the co-operative model of doing business. Snow Date: Friday, January 20, 2012 same time, same place. Cost: $25. Space is limited; register online.

Thu 1/26 - The Building Shell, 7:30 am - 3 pm, Ramada Inn, 352 North Street, Saco. Learn how to provide healthy indoor air quality while achieving all of the goals of a new home's building shell: protect occupants from rain, wind and snow; control the flow of energy, air and moisture between indoors and outdoors; provide light and a mechanism to enter and exit; exhaust pollutants out of the building; and create a comfortable indoor environment. Designed to educate residential building professionals on construction practices that minimize the risk of indoor air quality problems in new homes, this presentation includes complete coverage of the energy provisions contained in both the building and energy codes. Registration fee $10; register by contacting Donna Mottola at Deering Lumber, 283-3621 or dmottola@deeringlumber.com.

October's Sustainable Living Tip: Weatherization and Beyond

[I forgot to post this article from our October newsletter to this blog. Better late than never! -Fred]

Weatherization has gotten swept up into the maelstrom of partisan politics. A recent article in Newsweek magazine called the federal weatherization program "Obama's Big Green Mess" and prompted comedians like Jon Stewart to ridicule the effort as "Weather Blunderground." Earlier this year the Maine legislature ordered a probe into how a federal weatherization grant was spent (the probe discovered no malfeasance).

Whether you agree with the criticism of how $5 billion in federal money has been invested, at least the press is paying attention to the issue of how we're weatherizing our homes. As Oscar Wilde said, "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."

So let's talk about weatherization. In this month's tip I want to share some ideas about how we should go about weatherizing our homes, and what needs to happen once everyone is living in a weatherized home.

1. Weatherizing our homes and buildings is a great idea (especially in Maine) because it saves money, conserves resources, and protects public health, if done right. The wasted money and horror stories reported by the media are due to poor training and incompetent workers.
2. The first step is to examine your structure. It would be a good idea for  a competent weatherization technician to conduct a simple walk-through inspection of every home every year to check for obvious moisture, ventilation, and heating equipment problems. Carbon monoxide from malfunctioning oil and gas burning appliances can kill you whether or not your home is weatherized.
3. Before embarking on a major renovation, a competent professional should conduct a thorough energy audit, including a blower-door test and an infra-red scan. This examination will reveal how air and energy flow through the building. Work should be performed according to the recommendations in the audit. Once work has been completed, an energy auditor should check the quality of the work done. No weatherization job is complete without a check out audit.
4. Weatherized buildings stay comfortably cool in the summer and warm in the winter by controlling the flow of air and energy. It is essential to prevent unwanted moisture from entering the building, to vent the moisture that is introduced into the building (such as in the kitchen and bathrooms), and to eliminate or vent sources of indoor air pollution. Before you start sealing up cracks and adding insulation, make sure you understand how moisture and air enter and leave your structure.
5. Once you have an energy audit in hand, you can do a lot of the work yourself. If you want to develop your skills before trying your hand at caulking or installing insulation, contact your local community college. Many now offer weatherization training that you can complete in just a few days or evenings.
6. At a minimum, your weatherization goal should be to ensure that your home can survive an extended loss of power during winter without the risk of frozen pipes or property damage. Once your home has been properly weatherized, you should be able to turn down (or even shut off) your heating system and go on vacation for a week in February without worrying about frozen pipes.
7. If you own an older home, you'll likely discover that you must compromise energy performance in order to retain your existing structure. For example, there is only so much room in existing walls or ceiling to add insulation. In this case, it's even more important to have a complete energy audit so you can make an informed decision whether to attempt a weatherization project or build a new structure.
8. Improving the physical structure of your home is just one step in bringing your energy efficiency up to a sustainable level. The next step is getting control over how much, how long and how intensely you heat and cool.
9. Along with weatherizing our homes, each of us should create heating and cooling zones inside them. Think about how you use your living space, and make a long-term plan for your heating and cooling needs. Are you wasting money to heat rooms you rarely use? Do you like to keep different rooms different temperatures at different times of the day? Even if you currently have an inflexible central heating system without any zones, it's still worthwhile to develop a zone plan for the day when you upgrade your heating system. The better you can identify the areas you need to heat or cool, the more efficient you can be with your energy.
10. Once you have your zones, controlling them is the next step. With a manual thermostat, you can turn down the heat when you don't need it, then turn it back up when you do. If you find yourself forgetting to do this (or you just like gadgets), you can invest in a programmable thermostat to do it for you. A new company has even announced a "smart thermostat" that learns how you use your home and doesn't have to be programmed. Check out the Nest Learning Thermostat.
11. So you've done everything you can to improve your energy efficiency for heating and cooling your home. What next? Now you are in good shape to go to a sustainable energy source.
12. The easiest sustainable energy system for most homeowners is one that converts the sunlight hitting your roof into electricity. In particular, the most trouble-free, long-lasting configuration is a photovoltaic solar array that is connected to the grid. This mean that panels are installed on your roof, an inverter is installed in your home, and when the sun shines, if you start generating more electricity than you can use, the extra goes onto the grid for your neighbors to use. Except for the fact that your electric bill goes way down, you'd never know you were using solar electricity. All of your existing appliances (including space heaters) work just fine with solar electricity, and unlike an "off-grid" solar system, you don't need any batteries to store the electricity your solar panels are generating. They just cleanly and quietly create power for the electricity grid, with you being first in line to use it. Best of all, in Maine, you can "net meter" all the electricity you send to the grid, which means if you send a kilowatt hour to the grid when it's sunny, you get to use a kilowatt hour of grid power when it's not. At the end of the year, you net what you sent and what you took, and pay the difference. Since you'll be producing most of your electricity in the summer, but need it in the winter, "net metering" is a great feature of solar electricity that makes the finances work out in your favor.
13. If you decide to install a solar electric system, take a careful look at how you are heating your home. If you have really done a good job weatherizing, you may discover that electric space heating is a viable option. If electric heat isn't a complete solution, it may still be appropriate as part of a zoning plan for rooms that are seldom used or that need an additional heating source (such as rooms on the north side of your house). When planning the size of a solar electric array, be sure to include a scenario in which some or all of your water heating and space heating needs are met by your solar electricity, just to compare how much you'd pay for clean energy you generate yourself versus other forms of energy.
14. Although electric space heaters are just about 100% efficient (i.e., they convert all of the electrical energy they consume into useful heat, unlike combustion heaters which always waste some fuel without converting it to useful heat and must vent hot combustion gases as outdoor air pollution), you can do even better. Heat pumps move heat from one place to another; each unit of electricity used to pump this heat can deliver more than one unit of heat. In other words, instead of sending your electricity into a resistor inside a space heater, you can send that electricity to a pump to move heat around. The typical way to move heat around is to put a fluid in a tube, depressurize it in an area where you want to absorb heat, then circulate and pressurize it where you want to release heat. A ground-source heat pump, or geothermal system, takes heat from the ground and moves it into your home. An air source heat pump takes heat from outdoor air and brings it inside (just like a freezer in reverse -- your freezer takes energy out of the cold air inside it and moves that heat into your kitchen). Although heat pumps are more complicated and expensive than electric space heaters, you may discover that your heating load is high enough that the extra expense is worth it.
15. What else can we do with the solar energy being freely delivered to every address in the country? A second way to harness your share is a solar hot water collector. These systems are almost as easy as a solar electric system. Solar collectors outside get hot in the sun. A liquid (usually anti-freeze) is pumped in a loop to bring that heat inside, where it warms a hot water tank. The hot water can then be used for domestic purposes (sinks, showers, washing machines, etc.) as well as space heating. A big advantage of solar hot water collectors is that they are between three and four times more efficient than solar PV panels at capturing the energy in sunlight. A big disadvantage is that it is hard to share that energy with your neighbors. Also, there is no net metering program for hot water: use it or lose it. Unfortunately, you get the most hot water during the summer, and no one has figured out a clever way to "bank it" for use in the winter when you really need it.
16. Even though solar hot water systems don't have the flexibility and net metering that is possible with solar electricity, many people are using them to heat their homes. It just takes a lot more planning and work to make use of solar hot water as an energy source compared to solar electricity. You should start with a comprehensive energy audit including time-of-day energy use calculations to get the most return on investment.
17. A third way to harness solar energy for space heating is a solar space heater. Like a solar hot water heater, this is an efficient way to collect solar energy. But unlike a solar hot water collector, a solar space heater uses air (a simple fan) to move the heat from the collector to inside. As with solar hot water systems, extra heat from solar space heaters can't be shared with neighbors or net metered. Nonetheless, solar space heaters work just fine in Maine's climate and per unit of energy are the most afforable way to collect solar energy.
18. Other forms of renewable energy besides sunlight get progessively more difficult to maintain. Wind power, for example, is usually not a good solution for individual home owners for two reasons. First, few sites have consistent wind of sufficient force to generate much electricity. Second, wind turbines break down. Whereas solar electric panels have no moving parts, wind turbines by definition move. Those moving parts break, and diagnosing and fixing problems becomes a significant challenge for owners of small-scale wind turbines. In general, properties along the coast and along ridge lines might be suitable for wind installations, but you should do careful research before erecting a tower and turbine. If you do have a good location, you can grid connect and net meter your wind-generated electricity just like solar electricity.