Go Green Awards Nominations Deadline: April 5th

Posted on March 4, 2010 by LGlick

It is time again for the city of Cambridge’s Go Green Awards, which recognizes businesses and organizations that take exceptional environmental actions in at least one of five areas—energy use, transportation, waste reduction, stormwater, and climate protection. Self nominations are accepted.

Last year’s 2009 award recipient’s included:

Transportation: The Charles Hotel and Irving House

Waste Reduction: Grendel’s Den and Volpe Center

Climate Protection: Genzyme and Citigate Cunningham

Energy: HRI and Cambridge Health Alliance

Stormwater Management: Forest City and Old Cambridge Baptist Church

Community Organization: HEET

The deadline for the 2010 GoGreen Awards nominations is April 5. Use the GoGreen nomination form and submit to: John Bolduc, jbolduc@cambridgema.gov, fax 617-349-4633. The nomination form can be found at: http://www.cambridgema.gov/gogreen. If you have any questions, contact John Bolduc, jbolduc@cambridgema.gov or 617-349-4628.

Save the date: The 2010 GoGreen Awards ceremony will be held Tuesday, May 25 at 5:30 pm at the City Hall Annex, 344 Broadway.

Ocean overview

Posted on March 3, 2010 by JPierce

http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldworldworld/3314227532/ Not only is the infamous Pacific Garbage Patch (or gyre as it is properly known) possibly much larger than previously estimated, an Atlantic counterpart has been discovered.

In more local news, your orders of fried clams this summer might get a little expensive. Researchers have warned that New England may experience major red tide events this year.

Lastly, a potentially positive piece: California is considering “un-grand-fathering” power plants permits to dump waste heat into coastal waters.

Seasons of Change

Posted on February 26, 2010 by JPierce

A reader submitted this link regarding a traveling exhibit dubbed “Seasons of Change” about global warming’s impact on New England. You can find it at the Ecotarium in Worcester through May, where you might also enjoy an Inspiring Breath of Spring! and other exhibits. Eventually, it will be accessible via public transportation at the Museum of Science, but not anytime this year.

Continue reading →

Volunteers go door to door in East Cambridge

Posted on February 22, 2010 by LGlick

CFL exchange volunteers On Sunday, February 21, eighteen volunteers participated in a community canvass campaign to spread awareness about simple home improvements to save money, energy, and the planet. The event organized by the Home Energy Efficiency Team and the Cambridge Energy Alliance sought to help cut carbon emissions in East Cambridge through a CFL light bulb exchange.

Exchanging incandescent light bulbs for compact fluorescents is one of the easiest and effective ways to reduce energy use at home. A compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL) will save about $30 over its lifetime and pay for itself in about 6 months. It uses 75 percent less energy and lasts about 10 times longer than an incandescent bulb. If every Massachusetts household would exchange just one incandescent light bulb to an energy saving CFL, it would save enough energy to light all the homes in Boston for 100 days, reduce greenhouse gas equivalent to removing more than 17,000 cars from the road, and save more than $20 million annually in reduced energy costs.

Volunteers exchanged 129 incandescents bulbs for CFLs, saving over 76,000 lbs of CO₂ emissions. Volunteers worked together in teams, offered free energy-efficient CFL light bulbs, initiated dialogue about simple home energy-saving tips, and invited folks to participate in an upcoming Community Weatherization Barnraising on February 28^th. The Home Energy Efficiency Team will be weatherizing two houses in East Cambridge. Special guest Andrew Ference—Boston Bruins defenseman and avid climate change activist—will be attending this exciting event and making a donation to the New England Grassroots Environment Fund, one of HEET’s funders.

These type of events go a long way to spreading important information about climate change and energy efficiency solutions to people in our communities who may not otherwise receive it. To learn more information about community barnraisings visit HEET’s website.

CEA debuts Climate Change Art Project

Posted on February 16, 2010 by LGlick

The Cambridge Energy Alliance is debuting a poster art exhibit to inform the public about climate change and its impacts, the carbon emissions of Cambridge, and how local citizens can make a difference. Over 80% of Cambridge’s Climate emissions come from residential and commercial buildings, so eliminating wasted energy in our homes and workplaces is a priority.

To view the full CEA art poster exhibit visit:

http://cambridgeenergyalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/posters.pdf

The Cambridge Energy Alliance art exhibit displays many ways people can conserve energy and get connected to efficiency programs and resources. The Exhibit will be on display from Wednesday, February 16^th, 2010 through March 20^th, 2010 at the Clear Conscience Café (C3) located inside Harvest Coop‘s Central Square location.

Following the 4-week showing at C3, the CEA art exhibit will be rotated to other locations throughout the city. You can preview the posters by clicking the thumbnail above.

Site Notes

Posted on February 5, 2010 by JPierce

Dear E2.0 Readers,

Your humble editors would like to expand the number and variety of voices on Warm Home Cool Planet by extending an offer to our readership seeking additional local contributors. Although we can only offer a modicum of glory, it can be interesting and rewarding to share news and views with others. If you’re interested but not sure what to write about, please do not let this dissuade you, we maintain a fresh spool of topic prompts. Do you already publish an environmentally themed blog? We would be happy to syndicate or ‘cross-post’ select articles. For more information about contributing please contact us.

P.S. In addition to the new streaming calendar in the header above, we also recently added a voting system to the site. If you could, please take a moment to vote on posts after reading them. This feedback can help encourage authors, and also inform us of the sort of topics you are interested in reading about.

Cambridge to host 3rd Climate Congress

Posted on February 4, 2010 by LGlick

A third Climate Congress will be held on Saturday, March 6, 2010, from 9am to noon, in City Hall. The Climate Congress is open to the public. The main aim will be for delegates to unite on specific recommendations for City action. The Congress will use the opportunity to decide on whether to accept a final report on proposals and to bring the new citizen action teams together.

During the second Climate Congress, 75 delegates convened to develop recommendations to the city for addressing climate change, but also organize and develop citizen generated solutions. Highlights from the second congress include:

The Congress discussed priorities among the proposals in the Draft Report. Several common themes emerged and these will be documented in the final report of the Congress.
Delegates formed action teams to work in specific areas: outreach, resilience, solar and other renewables, process for future climate emergency response (drafting), protection of trees and natural resources, building efficiency, and measurement . Several of these groups have already agreed to meet again. (If you are interested in participating in any of these groups contact Joanna Herlihy <joanna_herlihy@yahoo.com>)
Recommendations for climate emergency response by the City were considered and received broad support. However, there were questions about the specifics and report structure, that required more time to consider. Those present unanimously agreed to meet again for a third session to address those questions.

For more information about the climate emergency and the Climate Congress visit: http://www.cambridgema.gov/deptann.cfm?story_id=2457&pv=Yes

Environmental pawprints

Posted on January 28, 2010 by JPierce

Lest our dog-owning readers think that the above comic unfairly singles out their pooches, note that the original research it is commenting upon is not limited to canines. It turns out that a variety of pets have numerous, oft-overlooked consequences for the environment, be it illegal bird and fish trafficking, or the insistence that Fluffy should eat better than her owner. The latter is a rather disturbing and unnatural trend since undomesticated Felis and Canis eat as much of their prey as they can, offal and all. Indeed, one of the major impacts of free ranging cats is songbird predation.

Water pollution is another unfortunate side-effect of pets. Pooper-scooper laws are not just about aesthetics and clean shoes, but public and environmental health. Besides carrying a variety of pathogens, Spot’s spots are essentially fertilizer and can contribute to algal blooms and fish kills if they make it into water ways. It is especially important to clean up after your dog—and there are free baggie dispensers in case you forget to grab some on your way out—if you bring him to Fresh Pond, since this beautiful water body is an important wildlife habitat and a part of our water supply. Cat waste can also contribute to water pollution. Flushable litter has lead to the decline of Californian sea otters, and it can infect other wildlife as well e.g; filter-feeders such as oysters and clams. Other choices of litter are also problematic, although a variety of less harmful options are available.

None of this is to say that you should not have a pet, or dissuade you from pets in the future, but merely to add to the list of things you should consider before doing so besides whether or not you have the necessary time to devote to the pet’s care and convincing your landlord/partner to allow it.

Adopt rather than buy, and if you’re leaning towards exotics be sure to purchase from a reputable dealer.
Always spay or neuter.
Keep Fluffy indoors, and clean up after Spot.
Although Fluffy (arguably) cannot survive on bread alone, neither she nor Spot needs filet mingon or Patagonia toothfish
If you keep fish, be careful with your aquarium plants to avoid contributing to the spread of invasive species such as Caulerpa taxifolia

New Commonwealth Solar Programs available Today!

Posted on January 27, 2010 by LGlick

The Commonwealth Solar Stimulus and Commonwealth Solar Rebate Programs will be available today at 2:00 PM EST on Wednesday, January 27, 2010.

The Commonwealth Solar Program provides rebates through a non-competitive application process for the installation of photovoltaic (PV) projects. The Commonwealth Solar II Rebate Program provides rebates for commercial systems up to 5 kilowatts (kW) and all residential systems (regardless of size). The Commonwealth Solar Stimulus Rebate Program provides rebates for commercial PV systems sized greater than 5 kW up to 200 kW.

The Commonwealth Solar program issued awards for the installation of 23.5 megawatts (MW) of solar power over the last two years, but recently ran short of funding. The new rebate programs for homeowners, business, and communities throughout the Commonwealth will help the commonwealth reach Governor Deval Patrick’s goal of installing 250 MW of solar energy by 2017. Commonwealth solar also provides webinars and information on helpful resources, plus view the map of installations of solar photovoltaic projects across the state.

Report on Second Climate Congress

Posted on January 26, 2010 by LGlick

by congress planning committee member Joanna Herlihy:

The second session of the Climate Emergency congress was even livelier that the first. Delegates found that prioritization of their recommendations had not progressed much beyond the ‘laundry list’ categorization of the ‘Draft Recommendations’ issued a few weeks earlier. Apparently this was partly due to technical and organization problems with incorporating responses to the online survey, most of which came in during the last few days.

The version of the recommendations presented to the second session included a new proposal advanced by the drafting group to encapsulate suggestions to set up provisions for ensuring citizen participation in and adequate city staffing for follow-up on the recommendations.

The next breakout into small groups was self-organized by delegates according to ‘open space’ principles, grouping according to areas of interest, which resulted in several potential task forces that intend to continue working in the areas of environmental justice, education, building energy efficiency, and urban forestry. Discussions on goal-setting and how best to coordinate city-community initiatives would have been useful but did not occur.

The finale, which extended an hour overtime, focused on whether the congress should endorse some broad principles or recommend formation of a City Manager-appointed committee of citizens to promote and coordinate response to the climate emergency. In the general discussion, observations ranged from “the city already has such a committee with almost the same mission” (Climate Protection Action Committee) to “such citizen groups function better independently of the city government”.

The facilitator’s suggestion that the option of a citizen committee be voted on without specifying who would appoint it was rejected. An intriguing new suggestion was advanced during the discussion: add authority over a ‘carbon budget’ to the duties of the city council-appointed City Auditor. The congress finally agreed to reconvene for a third session, probably in March, to vote on some well organized recommendations in printed form to strengthen local climate protection efforts.

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