"In early 2011, ClimatePrep.org had a chance to sit down with Jared Diamond to talk about climate change, the challenges presented to conservation and development practitioners, and the opportunities he sees in confronting them.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jared Diamond is a world-renowned expert on ancient societies. His now famous book, Collapse, is a study of the choices societies have made throughout history in the face of change -- climate change, as well as others -- and the consequences of such choices.
To learn more about ways people around the world are preparing for and responding to climate change visit www.ClimatePrep.org"
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
some more results regarding our efficiency measures
Today the outside temps reached 90º, the maximum inside temps reached 80º, no AC required.
When we got up this morning it was 76º inside, after our policy of aggressive morning ventilation was undertaken we got that down to 75º. For most of the day the house stabilized at 77º. At the hottest part of the day the house got up to 79º but we exacerbated the situation with a half hour of cooking, the oven really cranks out a lot of heat, which took it up to 80º.
So I'm still stoked, we got through a 90º day without using the AC! YeeHaw!
When we got up this morning it was 76º inside, after our policy of aggressive morning ventilation was undertaken we got that down to 75º. For most of the day the house stabilized at 77º. At the hottest part of the day the house got up to 79º but we exacerbated the situation with a half hour of cooking, the oven really cranks out a lot of heat, which took it up to 80º.
So I'm still stoked, we got through a 90º day without using the AC! YeeHaw!
Monday, 20 June 2011
Household efficiency skyrockets while bank account plummets!
Just in time for the first days of summer, we have FINALLY addressed two very important efficiency issues on the house at The Sustainable Living Project. In the last 2 weeks we have had our walls insulated, a process of drilling holes through the indoor plaster and blowing it in, as well as a new reflective metal roof installed over a layer of 1" foam insulation.
The walls; our brick walls get full sun for most of the day and that heat was going straight into the interior plaster, which is about 1" thick, and thence into the house. We shopped around for contractors, looking specifically for someone to use cellulose insulation as that is not only more sustainable but also less toxic. Not a single one would use it! They all use fiberglass. As the walls are sealed I believe we are avoiding exposure to the fibers, which have recently been listed by the EPA as a carcinogen, but we had to compromise on the sustainability aspect.
Being on a tight budget we have long ago reconciled ourselves to compromise when it is necessary. One of the rationales in this case is that the material is going to help us reduce our use of fossil fuels by improving the thermal efficiency of the house. Over time we hope this savings will offset the damage done in the manufacture of the less sustainable material.
The roof, as with most homes here and all over the south, was covered in dark asphalt shingles applied directly over the wood sheathing. These shingles act like a massive thermal collector and the heat is passed directly indoors. In the summer heat this is lunacy! We have been planning to address this serious design flaw for some time but again, it took a while to find a contractor we were comfortable with that we could afford. He had never put a residential metal roof over insulation but was willing to look into it. After some consultation he determined that it would not void any warranties. But alas, again we compromised, going with his recommendation of foam insulation rather than a natural fiber board. This has several advantages, it is lighter, will not absorb moisture, and could be installed over the existing asphalt shingles. We really did not want to disturb the existing roof as the ensuing mess in the yard, where we grow our food, would have been quite toxic. So essentially these toxic petrochemical roofing shingles are now encapsulated under the new roof. And yes the same compromise principle applies, these materials will last a long time and will reduce fossil fuel use for their lifetime.
And oh what a difference this has made. Normally the upstairs renovation is 15º to 20º hotter than the downstairs. Now at most it has been 5º warmer. When we got up this morning, the outdoor temp was about 68º while indoors it was 74º. We embarked upon our usual practice of aggressive ventilation during the cool hours of the morning. The temp held firm at 74º. I believe this was due to the outdoor temp staying relatively cool for most of the morning as it was raining. Eventually the temp indoors dropped to 73º and later, as the outdoor temps got up to near 88º with full sun, our indoor temp rose to 75º. When I cooked a zuchini casserole in the oven at the hottest time of day the indoor temp climbed to 77º downstairs and up. I'm stoked! Essentially we've changed the way the house responds to temperature changes, slowing down it's response. This is good, as the indoor temps will likely be at their highest in the evening when the outdoors is cooling off we will be able to draw that cool air into the house to drop the temps which will continue to drop through the night as the walls will not be collecting heat from the exterior bricks. I'm betting we will not need the AC at all now. Additionally, in the winter the extra insulation should drastically reduce the amount of wood we need to burn to stay warm.
So far so good, but tomorrow, the solstice, the temps are supposed to reach into the low nineties. That'll be the real test.
The walls; our brick walls get full sun for most of the day and that heat was going straight into the interior plaster, which is about 1" thick, and thence into the house. We shopped around for contractors, looking specifically for someone to use cellulose insulation as that is not only more sustainable but also less toxic. Not a single one would use it! They all use fiberglass. As the walls are sealed I believe we are avoiding exposure to the fibers, which have recently been listed by the EPA as a carcinogen, but we had to compromise on the sustainability aspect.
Being on a tight budget we have long ago reconciled ourselves to compromise when it is necessary. One of the rationales in this case is that the material is going to help us reduce our use of fossil fuels by improving the thermal efficiency of the house. Over time we hope this savings will offset the damage done in the manufacture of the less sustainable material.
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| On the North side, insulation first, metal on top, good riddance to the asphalt! |
And oh what a difference this has made. Normally the upstairs renovation is 15º to 20º hotter than the downstairs. Now at most it has been 5º warmer. When we got up this morning, the outdoor temp was about 68º while indoors it was 74º. We embarked upon our usual practice of aggressive ventilation during the cool hours of the morning. The temp held firm at 74º. I believe this was due to the outdoor temp staying relatively cool for most of the morning as it was raining. Eventually the temp indoors dropped to 73º and later, as the outdoor temps got up to near 88º with full sun, our indoor temp rose to 75º. When I cooked a zuchini casserole in the oven at the hottest time of day the indoor temp climbed to 77º downstairs and up. I'm stoked! Essentially we've changed the way the house responds to temperature changes, slowing down it's response. This is good, as the indoor temps will likely be at their highest in the evening when the outdoors is cooling off we will be able to draw that cool air into the house to drop the temps which will continue to drop through the night as the walls will not be collecting heat from the exterior bricks. I'm betting we will not need the AC at all now. Additionally, in the winter the extra insulation should drastically reduce the amount of wood we need to burn to stay warm.
So far so good, but tomorrow, the solstice, the temps are supposed to reach into the low nineties. That'll be the real test.
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| the south side |
Friday, 10 June 2011
Sustainable Living video - Sust Enable: The Metamentary
Here's an interesting project exploring what sustainability means. Also check out
http://www.indiegogo.com/sust-enable-the-metamentary
http://www.indiegogo.com/sust-enable-the-metamentary
Monday, 6 June 2011
Check out our day lilies!
I really like magnolia flowers and have featured one ours for quite some time at the top of this blog. And while the blooms this year are just as lovely we have added some new perennial flowers. My new favorite flower is the clump of day lilies out in our perennial bed. I have placed it in the top slot until I discover one I like better.
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| here's another shot showing it's edible neighbors; french sorrel on the right and New Zealand spinach behind that. |
Sunday, 5 June 2011
Wednesday, 1 June 2011
Crow Garlic
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| The full plant |
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| size 13 foot for scale |
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| the seed head |
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| the bulbs ready for chopping |
Tuesday, 24 May 2011
Time to make soup!
When you've got a lot of anything to harvest, the easiest thing to do is to make soup.
We have turnips busting out, and tons of collard greens, onions to thin, lots of nettles, parsley, canned pumpkin and green beans from last year, and last but not least a very spicy pepper from a friends garden. Throw in some local spicy sausage meat, locally grown rice some garlic, some New Zealand spinach from the perennial bed and viola, soup! But it is almost too spicy for Jacq.
We have turnips busting out, and tons of collard greens, onions to thin, lots of nettles, parsley, canned pumpkin and green beans from last year, and last but not least a very spicy pepper from a friends garden. Throw in some local spicy sausage meat, locally grown rice some garlic, some New Zealand spinach from the perennial bed and viola, soup! But it is almost too spicy for Jacq.
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| Nice turnips! |
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| That's New Zealand Spinach in the foreground, the plant that took over the world. |
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| We take a tea break Annie gets a play break...from napping. |
Friday, 20 May 2011
work interrupted.....for a baby bird
We were jamming today, getting the sweet potatoe bed ready for planting, going to do some mowing, etc, etc, ... when all of a sudden I saw it, a little yellow mouth turned upward to the sky,
right where I was about to drop some landscaping stone, yikes! ALL STOP! we've got a baby bird alert. Let's see if we can find the nest he dropped out of, leaned a ladder against the tree and went up about 10 feet, no luck, get a longer ladder, go up 15 feet, no luck. Removed the ladder and peered up one last time before trying to find someone who takes in baby birds, and there it is, just above head height and hanging half out of the tree. So I get the step ladder and have a look,
there is another little one, hunkered down trying not to fall out.
So I level out the nest and wire it in for safety, Jacq hands me up the little one, after a quick snack on a worm, and back in he goes. Eventually we saw a bird going into the nest, but too quickly to ID.We'll keep an eye out to try to make sure they haven't been abandoned and to ID them as well.
Now were were we....... Ah yes, load the mower in the car and off we go.......
We had a similar experience last May after we moved in with a baby cardinal,
http://sustliving.blogspot.com/2010/05/hours-of-drama-without-tv.html
right where I was about to drop some landscaping stone, yikes! ALL STOP! we've got a baby bird alert. Let's see if we can find the nest he dropped out of, leaned a ladder against the tree and went up about 10 feet, no luck, get a longer ladder, go up 15 feet, no luck. Removed the ladder and peered up one last time before trying to find someone who takes in baby birds, and there it is, just above head height and hanging half out of the tree. So I get the step ladder and have a look,
there is another little one, hunkered down trying not to fall out.
So I level out the nest and wire it in for safety, Jacq hands me up the little one, after a quick snack on a worm, and back in he goes. Eventually we saw a bird going into the nest, but too quickly to ID.We'll keep an eye out to try to make sure they haven't been abandoned and to ID them as well.
Now were were we....... Ah yes, load the mower in the car and off we go.......
We had a similar experience last May after we moved in with a baby cardinal,
http://sustliving.blogspot.com/2010/05/hours-of-drama-without-tv.html
Wednesday, 18 May 2011
The most sustainable meal I've ever cooked?
We've had a cool spell here in the foothills of the Appalachians in North Carolina. It has brought very welcome rain, and relief from the early and impending heat of summer. With temps down in the upper 40's at night and damp seeping in through our barely opened windows, we've decided to fire up the wood stove again. It hasn't done much for our productivity. Now neither of us seem to be able to leave the room with the wood stove in! It's so cozy to sit by a fire and watch the rain outside.
But we have to eat. We've used up the last of the 25lb bag of organic brown rice so I have opened some of the multicolored local (50 miles) rice. I'll pull some onions from the east garden, dig up some wild crow garlic from the borders, clip some collard and turnip greens from the west garden, add some parsley from the herb bed, throw in some ground beef from local (30 miles) grass fed cows, and cook the whole mess on the wood stove in the pressure cooker.
To be fair, I have added 4 chopped organic carrots shipped from California, a heavy dose of imported curry powder (fortified with our own turmeric root) and a dollop of Italian extra virgin olive oil. But these ingredients amount to less than 10% of the overall meal. The wood is all rescued from the neighborhood waste stream so I'm wondering if this might be the most sustainable meal I've ever cooked.
I've experimented with low impact cooking before, check out these posts about my Free From Power Days in England.
http://sustliving.blogspot.com/2008/10/stove-by-robb.html
http://sustliving.blogspot.com/2008/10/2nd-free-from-power-day-report-by-robb.html
While the cooking itself was probably more fuel efficient with the rocket stove, I was using scrounged fuel then as well but far less of it by weight, this time I'm cooking mostly food we've grown or was grown locally. In addition, the warmth of the wood stove is welcome in these cool temps. So while this is not another Free From Power Day I think it is a good step forward towards making our mealtimes more sustainable.
But we have to eat. We've used up the last of the 25lb bag of organic brown rice so I have opened some of the multicolored local (50 miles) rice. I'll pull some onions from the east garden, dig up some wild crow garlic from the borders, clip some collard and turnip greens from the west garden, add some parsley from the herb bed, throw in some ground beef from local (30 miles) grass fed cows, and cook the whole mess on the wood stove in the pressure cooker.
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| pressure cooker sizzling away |
To be fair, I have added 4 chopped organic carrots shipped from California, a heavy dose of imported curry powder (fortified with our own turmeric root) and a dollop of Italian extra virgin olive oil. But these ingredients amount to less than 10% of the overall meal. The wood is all rescued from the neighborhood waste stream so I'm wondering if this might be the most sustainable meal I've ever cooked.
I've experimented with low impact cooking before, check out these posts about my Free From Power Days in England.
http://sustliving.blogspot.com/2008/10/stove-by-robb.html
http://sustliving.blogspot.com/2008/10/2nd-free-from-power-day-report-by-robb.html
While the cooking itself was probably more fuel efficient with the rocket stove, I was using scrounged fuel then as well but far less of it by weight, this time I'm cooking mostly food we've grown or was grown locally. In addition, the warmth of the wood stove is welcome in these cool temps. So while this is not another Free From Power Day I think it is a good step forward towards making our mealtimes more sustainable.
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
350 challenge garden work party at UUCCV
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| watering in the nicotiana, beans and corn |
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| laying out the composter |
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| covering the vertical garden pallets, which are the front of the composter. |
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| very level headed our Bob |
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| installing the stem wall to level the site, checked by Bob in the previous slide |
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| Jacq planting the vertical garden |
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| tidying up |
Thursday, 5 May 2011
It's been a year!
Yesterday we celebrated the one year anniversary of our arrival in America and the start of The Sustainable Living Project. After a much needed night of rain, It was a beautiful, cool day with lots of sunshine; a lovely breeze stirred the new green growth of spring.
We spent the day planting three more trees, six more blueberries, a saw palmetto, twenty-four tomatoes, did some weeding, visited with a few local growers, and finally cooked a celebratory fish dinner garnished with some our own collards and wild garlic with an appetizer of our own fresh strawberries. Dessert was the last of the latest pumpkin pie made with last season's pumpkin and stevia.
When I look around the site I see so much to do, but more than that I see so much we have accomplished. Extensive mulching and growing beds have replaced 60% of the lawn we found when we arrived. The sickly holly hedge has tripled in size and been bolstered with fruit trees, leaf mould piles, perennial veggies and flowers, and is doing an admirable job of buffering the road beyond. After two failures, I have finally got one very successful bamboo and another holding its own next to the new pond. One massive terrace spans the width of the east side of the property while two more are rising on the south. Two of our grape vines are rapidly climbing the new arbor I'm building just fast enough to keep up with them, while a third is thriving on one of last season's cucumber trellises. Our kitchen herb bed is exploding, our nectarine trees are lush and healthy, standing five feet or more. The strawberry beds are profligate; the wood piles are sufficient to take us through next winter; my store of bagged leaves should meet our needs for mulch till fall; we've got a wide variety of double glazed windows and doors set aside for the conservatory, greenhouse porch, passive solar hot water heater and patio cover yet to come. Indoors we have removed a wall and installed the wood burner, cut insulating reflective inserts for the windows, but unfortunately are still living on subfloor as we have not found the 'right' tile, much less had time to install any. I'm now dismantling the temporary greenhouse which kept us supplied with greens all winter and helped to bring on spring plantings.
I've included a few before and after shots below.
We spent the day planting three more trees, six more blueberries, a saw palmetto, twenty-four tomatoes, did some weeding, visited with a few local growers, and finally cooked a celebratory fish dinner garnished with some our own collards and wild garlic with an appetizer of our own fresh strawberries. Dessert was the last of the latest pumpkin pie made with last season's pumpkin and stevia.
When I look around the site I see so much to do, but more than that I see so much we have accomplished. Extensive mulching and growing beds have replaced 60% of the lawn we found when we arrived. The sickly holly hedge has tripled in size and been bolstered with fruit trees, leaf mould piles, perennial veggies and flowers, and is doing an admirable job of buffering the road beyond. After two failures, I have finally got one very successful bamboo and another holding its own next to the new pond. One massive terrace spans the width of the east side of the property while two more are rising on the south. Two of our grape vines are rapidly climbing the new arbor I'm building just fast enough to keep up with them, while a third is thriving on one of last season's cucumber trellises. Our kitchen herb bed is exploding, our nectarine trees are lush and healthy, standing five feet or more. The strawberry beds are profligate; the wood piles are sufficient to take us through next winter; my store of bagged leaves should meet our needs for mulch till fall; we've got a wide variety of double glazed windows and doors set aside for the conservatory, greenhouse porch, passive solar hot water heater and patio cover yet to come. Indoors we have removed a wall and installed the wood burner, cut insulating reflective inserts for the windows, but unfortunately are still living on subfloor as we have not found the 'right' tile, much less had time to install any. I'm now dismantling the temporary greenhouse which kept us supplied with greens all winter and helped to bring on spring plantings.
I've included a few before and after shots below.
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| EAST side before |
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| EAST side now |
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| WEST side before |
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| WEST side now |
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| SOUTH side before |
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| SOUTH side now |
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