August 26, 2006
Website hosting
I'm blogging in haste from Narita Airport in Tokyo, en route to China, and here's a link I've been meaning to pass along: SustainableWebsites, Green Web Hosting. We're planning to look into this at the office, and I've heard good reports. More from China, as I meet with environmentalists there.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 12:40 PM | Comments (0)
August 15, 2006
Appliances aren't just energy accessories
In some cases, a new household appliance can save a good deal of energy. This is true for refrigerators and freezers, and for washing machines (especially if you choose front-loading). But it's not true of televisions, as this article, "Plasma screen TVs sap energy supplies," explains:
"Britain's seemingly insatiable appetite for the latest plasma screen televisions could be posing a serious threat to the planet, a technology expert has warned.
"If just half of British homes were to buy one of the flat-screen sets, two more nuclear power stations would be needed to meet the extra energy demand - with all the environmental problems that would bring."
The same probably holds true for computer monitors, by the way. Anyone know about this? We'll be looking into it.
While we focus on the energy used in transportation, energy use at home is far from negligible (the article says that up to 1/4 of carbon emissions come from household appliances, but I suspect that includes home heating as well as freestanding appliances). When it comes to televisions the old-fashioned option is clearly best.
My son, Tom, a toddler when I first started writing about environmental issues, has become my best source of news like this. I remember him shocking people by waving a Lego gun around when I went to the Ecology Centre in London to give a talk the night Home Ecology was published. He's turned out just fine, anyhow.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 11:08 AM | Comments (1)
August 10, 2006
Organic food for one and all (but what does "organic" mean now?)
Food has always been a central environmental concern, but there are some new issues arising. One is the growing conflict between fuel and food--or, one might say, between SUV drivers and the world's poor--and another is the mass marketing--or, perhaps, the industrialization, of organic food.
It's a little hard to tell whether Michael Pollan thinks the latter is a good thing or a bad one, in "Mass Natural" in the New York Times:
"This is good news indeed, for the American consumer and the American land. Or perhaps I should say for some of the American land and a great deal more of the land in places like Mexico and China, for Wal-Mart is bound to hasten the globalization of organic food. (Ten percent of organic food is imported today.) Like every other commodity that global corporations lay their hands on, organic food will henceforth come from wherever in the world it can be produced most cheaply. It is about to go the way of sneakers and MP3 players, becoming yet another rootless commodity circulating in the global economy."
Pollan has got John Mackey, the founder of Wholefoods Markets, on the defensive, as you can see from Mackey's blog. Investors adore Wholefoods, a company that markets virtue with staggering success, and that is, no question, a fascinating and attractive business. What I'm waiting to see is a campaign aimed, like the Church of England's recently launched effort, at getting their customers to stop driving to the store. Or should Wholefoods ban SUVs from their parking lots?
And think of this: "The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol will feed one person for a year. The grain it takes to fill the tank every two weeks over a year will feed 26 people." Read more.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 3:43 PM | Comments (1)
August 4, 2006
Oil and water shouldn't mix
I've noticed a trend here that strikes me as a good sign. I've seen two or three people drinking water out of glass bottles they've obviously refilled. This solves the perennial water bottle challenge of taste (how many discussions have you heard about the latest, greatest new sports bottle?), and is so much better for the environment (and health) than buying bottled water.
Here's a great photo created by David Coale of Acterra, who worked out how much oil is takes to ship a bottle of water from its source to California. You'll see the oil floating on the top.
Can you ever buy Evian again?
Posted by Karen Christensen at 9:16 AM | Comments (0)
July 31, 2006
Turning down the A/C
I was in Washington DC recently and will be there again soon. It's a wonderful city. There's much talk about the subjects I care about, excellent ethnic food, and people are remarkably friendly: everywhere I went I got into conversation with someone, even in the reception area at the Brookings Institute. But it is a city of air-conditioning. In the Berkshires, where I live, only stores and restaurants and new mansions have A/C.
Why, I wonder, do people want to live in buildings colder in the summer than in the winter? I have learned to carry a sweater or shawl in the summer because buildings are so cold. Cold. Not just pleasantly cool, the way an old farmhouse, shaded by huge oaks, is cool, or the way our house, with an attic fan going at night, and the windows and shades closed during the heat of the day, is cool. These buildings are downright cold, the way our house is cold in the winter, so chilly that my sister-in-law shivers until we turn the heat to 70. But in the summer, the same people think that temperature is okay, and even desirable.
What does this mean? What does it tell us about ourselves? Do we fear nature and need to control it? Have we been persuaded by advertising and social pressure that this makes sense, in spite of its being completely against our evolutionary history. It's expensive and wasteful.
But people are deeply resistant to the idea of turning the A/C up or the heat down. I need to figure out the motivation behind this wacky behavior, because I know I'll never convince people to try something else until I do.
In my books I've written about this in terms of "comfort zones." I'll post some sections, and would love to have feedback.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 5:55 AM | Comments (0)
July 8, 2006
Hang your clothes out (or in) to dry
The energy crisis has become such a prominent subject in our house that I've had to ask that it not be brought up at meals--though this evening Tom did start talking about it over dessert (a cream cheese tart, by the way, topped with white currants from our garden and black raspberries from Taft Farms). Tom often makes me think afresh. "If you think about it, oil is a kind of soil. So we're pumping another country's soil into our cars." He said that China was well aware of the importance of oil, moving to buy rights in Africa and to maintain control in Central Asia. I think about these things in simpler terms, about how we can shift our way of life away from fossil fuels. One important way is to cut our dependence on domestic electricity, and this time of year it's easy to dry clothes outside. One website with lots about this is Laundry List, and here's a photo showing how we dry clothes indoors, right above the washer-dryer. You don't have to have lines outside; inside works well, too, and I love being able to hang small things as I take them out of the dryer.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:49 PM | Comments (0)
April 1, 2006
First jobs of spring
Two important things accomplished today:
Two garden beds prepped and planted--thanks to Tom and Rachel, who have taken to lecturing me on global warming and the wastefulness of grainfed meat--with Asian salad and stir-fry greensand a mix of early radishes,* arugula, and some chicory seed we brought from Italy two years ago. I highly recommend all these things for ease, and taste. If you're new to gardening, there are few simpler things that to sprinkle seeds like these across a bed, rake in lightly, and leave to grow. We could have radishes in three weeks (or inches of snow). We timed things well: a good rain soon after we planted, which saved water and time, too.
The second important chore was getting my bike out and ready for the road. I used to be much more handy with bikes than I am now, and realize that even basic maintenance can seem overwhelming. This is a handy checklist from a bicycle shop, but if you're a novice cyclist I think it's too much. Yet if you are really going to cycle instead of drive, it's essential to keep your bike in excellent working order. You shouldn't feel hesitation because the tyres are low and the chain rubs, and for safety it's important to check brakes and lights regularly.
And it really is possible to keep a bicycle in good shape yourself; no need to be hauling it to a shop for minor adjustments. Here are my favorite bicycle books, in their newest editions: Anybody's Bike Book by Tom Cuthbertson and Richard's 21st Century Bicycle Book by Richard Ballentine. There are no doubt other excellent books, but make sure you get one that's suitable for your kind of use. If you are using a bicycle for transportation and some exercise, you don't need the kind of professional tome needed by a serious cyclist. I'll work on putting together a simple bike guide to be posted on this website, too.
* These mixes from Nichols Garden Nursery. I notice that the greens should be pickable at only 21 days, and they give 24-30 days for the radishes. Learning to read seed packages is an important gardening skills, to be discussed over the next few weeks.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)
January 5, 2006
Cooling the planet
I've neglected this site--though I'm blogging away at Berkshire Publishing--but that's going to change soon. We're in the process of setting up a larger, interactive site related to my next environmental book, which is going to focus on cooling the planet. I'll be looking for contributing writers and regional experts in different parts of the world, so if you come across this and are interested in participating, please drop me a note.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 1:25 PM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2005
Will we join them? Or will they join us?
While I'm feeling guilty about air travel, I guess the oil companies are feeling twinges of guilt, too. At least that's what you would think, at the airport or reading the major financial papers. Chevron, Shell, and BP (British Petroleum) are all engaged in 'peak oil' PR, and it's simply amazing to see. Greenwashing, according to critics at Postcarbon.org, but it seems to me that if oil companies are splashing statistics across the walls of airports the situation is grave enough that lots of people can be persuaded that we need to shift gears, and live differently.
Chevron's campaign is called "Will you join us?" Myself, I doubt that the transformational leadership we need will come from Big Oil. But it hasn't come, effectively, from Greens, and I welcome these campaigns both because they do raise awareness, and because they may actually mean that there are people in power with the sense, and courage, to recognize the problems we face.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 8:44 AM | Comments (0)
October 9, 2005
Traveling light
I do a lot of traveling, more than ever before, and I'm increasingly conscious of the impact of our excessive mobility is. I'm not sure just what to do about it, but there are certainly a few days we can do immediately.
First, we should wake up to the impact of trips by car and especially aeroplane, and we should not make them carelessly, or just because it's what everyone else does (fly to Florida in March). How many times have you heard people say, "I needed a vacation from my vacation"? I was impressed recently to hear someone say that his family takes their August holiday at home, because they finally realized that they live in a beautiful place that other people come to visit. (My husband and I are in the same situation, living in what is a popular holiday destination, and the trouble for us is that it is hard to stop working when we're at home.)
Right now I'm in rural Iowa, visiting my son at the college he's just transferred to. We flew two hours to Chicago and drove another five hours. This is not negligible, environmentally, and it's astonishing that colleges in the US now expect parents to visit often, and for kids to go home for a week in the middle of the semester, as well as for Thanksgiving. Tom is planning to get permission to stay during break week and wanted to know what to say if there was a problem about it. I suggested he tell the truth, that his parents can't afford to fly him home every six weeks. But there's another truth that ought to have some effect on colleges, which always claim to be concerned about the environment. It's just not sustainable to have people flying to and fro across the country like this, without any real necessity. Doing community service in the surrounding region would be a lot better for the environment, and for the future these students are going to live and, we hope, raise families in.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:57 AM | Comments (0)
October 6, 2005
Autumn advice on using mirrors to brighten rooms
I was in London last week and found a spare hour to visit the Sir John Soane Museum in Holborn. I loved it just as much as I had as a student, and wondered if I had been unconsciously influenced by the memory of its rich red walls when I chose the paint for our offices--and in fact the color we now call "Berkshire red" for my company's logo and stationery.
I wish I could decorate my home with pieces of Roman ruins, as Soane did. But I did get a few practical ideas! It's getting darker, of course, as we enter October, and while I've always advised people to use plenty of mirrors in their rooms to provide extra light and a sense of space, the Soane Museum exhibits the extent to which mirrors can be used more dramatically than anything I've seen. There are large round mirrors above bookcases, and small round mirrors in corners. Mirrors are used as panels in narrow alcoves. The guidebook said that one small room had some 50 mirrors, in fact, and the breakfast room has what is called a "starfish" ceiling, inset with mirrors.
By using plenty of mirrors, you don't need floods of electric light and can create a rich, warm atmosphere and a greater sense of space. And mirrors needn't be expensive: you can often pick them up at tag sales and junk shops for almost nothing. I simply repaint the frames to match my woodwork. Try mixing framed mirrors with pictures on the wall.
But I also want to try the Soane's approach, and will be looking for places I can put long panels of mirror, edged with plain wooden molding and then painted. These could be especially useful in the bay windows where my plants are going to live this winter.
Here's a little related text from the Armchair Environmentalist:
Scandinavian style--conscious of the seasons and oriented towards nature--is a useful perspective for a green decorator:
• Rooms that promote togetherness
• Energizing colors
• Simply styled, affordable, sustainably-produced woods and other natural materials
• Lots of glass and rooms and furnishings designed to allow light to flow
• Hand-made, regional tiles and furniture to reduce transport costs and promotes local economies
• Furnishings that serve multiple uses
We'll be talking soon about the value of glass in decorating--and energy saving.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:17 AM | Comments (0)
July 4, 2005
Independence day: how about energy independence?
I've always thought a lot of the US magazine (and now online information service) Consumer Reports, but only just heard about their Greener Choice website--available free (Consumer Reports itself is a subscription service--it's the equivalent of the UK Which?).
Greener choices are vital, given the challenges we face if what James Howard Kunstler calls "the long emergency" comes to pass. Put down the papers and read this article: "The End of Oil" from April's Rolling Stone (thanks, Margaux, for giving this to me!).
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:29 AM | Comments (0)
Independence day: how about energy independence?
I've always thought a lot of the US magazine (and now online information service) Consumer Reports, but only just heard about their Greener Choice website--available free (Consumer Reports itself is a subscription service--it's the equivalent of the UK Which?).
Greener choices are vital, given the challenges we face if what James Howard Kunstler calls "the long emergency" comes to pass. Put down the papers and read this article: "The End of Oil" from April's Rolling Stone (thanks, Margaux, for giving this to me!).
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:29 AM | Comments (0)
December 28, 2004
New Year's cleaning
While we still talk about "spring cleaning," I notice that autumn's a time when a lot of people get rid of junk, and I feel the urge to clean about now. It's ridiculously cold so I can't throw windows open, but there's a lull between Christmas and New Year that makes me feel domestic. And I like the idea of starting 2005 with clean moulding and shelves rearranged.
And with clean ovens, too, after the Thanksgiving and Christmas baking. Like you, I've read those Green tips about cleaning an oven with a paste of baking soda and water. Forget it! The crud in an oven is baked on. I actually have two ovens to clean. One I did with the dregs of a can of oven-cleaner, and lots of scrubbing. For the second, I actually used the self-cleaning system (after 10 years in the house I got it to work!).
Neither method is at all green. The first uses strong chemicals in an aerosol can; the second uses a heck of a lot of electricity.
I've learned two things: (1) it's really nice to have a clean oven (as you can tell, this doesn't happen to me very often--maybe every five years), and (2) prevention is the name of the game, in cleaning as well as personal health. I don't want to go through this--the smells, the guilt!--again soon, so I'm going to put a baking tray on the lower shelf to catch drips, and use larger baking pans so food doesn't spatter. Easy stuff, isn't it?
Posted by Karen Christensen at 4:39 PM | Comments (0)
December 20, 2004
Cost to benefit ratio
On a busy Monday morning it's tempting to throw the clothes into the dryer. Hanging them on racks in the spare room (it's below zero degrees F. outside) just takes too long. But I compromise, because I know it's silly and wasteful to dry heavy clothes with fossil fuel derived electricty when they'll dry just fine without it. I hang 'smalls' on the little rack over the dryer (see photo), put big heavy things in a basket to go to the spare room rack, and toss the rest of the smaller, lighter items into the dryer for a very short cycle. Not perfect, I know, but okay for today.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:50 AM | Comments (0)
December 4, 2004
Snuggle Up
Winter's here, and it's cold in the Berkshires. We have a big Victorian house and the only reason our oil bills are fairly low is that we keep it so damned cold.
When we first got an adjustable thermostat (something I definitely recommend) I set the temperature to 60°F day and night, which is what I recommended in my first book. Then I set it to drop to 55° at night.
Somehow the settings got messed up this year so we're at 55° all the time. Though the kids complained a little, no one has realized that the setting is different from last year. I've decided to keep my mouth shut (and put on another sweater!). Our supply of soft woolly blankets is crucial. I bought eight inexpensive yoga blankets from Fishcrane and we use them all the time, while watching TV, reading, and even sitting at the computer. This is definitely scrooge mothering, but we're all healthy, we're saving money, and we're being Green, too. And we have plenty of reason to snuggle up!
Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:15 AM | Comments (0)