Can you tell a building is "green" or "sustainable" just by looking at it?

Usually not!

Green is a method of building that uses subtle techniques such as sourcing local materials, using non-toxic materials, including space for water conserving landscaping, and using solar heat, natural light, and natural ventilation effectively.

Those strategies don't look very different.  Buildings have used bits and pieces of these smart building design and construction techniques for many centuries.  Today's "green" building not only uses these techniques on the outside of the building skins, but internally.  Energy efficient equipment reduces energy use.  Low water flow plumbing reduces water consumption.  Low energy lighting reduces energy  use.  Non toxic and recycled materials are selected for paints and carpets.  Modular  construction such as carpet tiles  vs. wall to wall carpets reduce the need to fill landfills with old materials when they wear only in traffic patterns.

Most green buildings can't  be identified from the street!  So you might like to search online for green buildings in your community and identify some of them.  They make great outings for visiting family and friends!   Taking a tour will give you wonderful insights into local materials, technology innovations, and just smart living!

Conscientious Innovation conducted a survey of 5,000 North Americans and found that people are concerned about the environment...but not at the expense of the very human side of sustainable survival!

North Americans' top issues about sustainability include global change and  the environment; which rank over 50%, but the top issue is feeling connected to friends, family and community: at 90%

Followed closely by:

Sense of personal well being 90%
Balanced life 89%
Being paid a living wage 88%

Other high ranking issues include Fair trade; Personal relationships and Buying local to support locally based business.

Tips to stay connected... (Watch the videos)
    Throw a block party with local food, of course.
    Have a group yard sale.
    Make a little extra food and share it with a neighbor who might be harried...like a new parent!
These are all also great for the environment!

Compared to a patch of lawn, a rain garden allows about 30% more water to soak into the ground!

Rain gardens are NOT solutions for wet areas -- they must have good drainage. Water must soak into the soil within 24 hours to prevent water buildup that becomes a mosquito breeding ground.

• The garden should be at least 10 feet away from buildings.

• The garden should receive full or partial sunlight.

• Avoid areas over septic tanks.

• The garden must include an overflow structure that will allow heavy rains to divert to a natural drainage pattern, not a neighbor's lawn.
• Size the garden to serve the area draining into it, the type of soil on the site, and the depth of the garden.
• Before you dig, remember to call to locate underground utility lines: (1-800-272-1000)
• Choose plants that can tolerate both wet and dry conditions and suited to your garden's sun/shade exposure.

RESOURCES

You'll find a variety of reference materials about rain gardens at this Water Resources Program website ... including: Landscaper Training Program for Rain Gardens - Fact Sheet 29, Cornell University Cooperative Extension, 2007

California trees and shrubs recommended for your rain gardens. A list of California trees and shrubs to brighten and enliven your rain garden.

Low Impact Development with rain gardens. Download a PDF.

Rain Gardens and Bioretention Basins To
Improve Water Quality and Save 30% More Rainwater

Compared to a patch of lawn, a rain garden allows about 30% more water to soak into the ground!

California's water supply is more fragile and seasonal than in most of the country because we are in "the West". Seasonal rains in our desert areas can be severe, and water retention for the rest of the year is dependent on snowpack, water tables and manmade lakes.

When rains come, we need to capture that fresh water for use by the flora and fauna in our communities. Capturing it also prevents runoff from roofs, streets, parking lots and lawns from washing pollutants into streams, rivers, lakes and eventually the ocean. Runoff pollutants can include fertilizers, pesticides, car waste such as oil and fluids, pet waste and its bacteria, eroded soil, road salt, grass clippings and litter. Rain gardens will not remove ALL these pollutants, but they do remove some of them as the water seeps into the ground, which serves as a natural filter.

A beautiful, useful way to capture rainwater runoff is with a "raingarden" that is well designed, well placed and serves as a cache basin that filters and helps the water find its way to the roots of plants...and our watertable.

Read more tips for Rain Garden Landscaping Design

What do you plan to do -- or not do -- for Earth Day?

Remember how your own mother just wanted you to be healthy and happy?  You didn't need to make a fuss over her, just be good kids! 

Okay, a fuss was okay...and appreciated -- but making a fuss wasn't enough if she caught you being naughty at the same time! 

That's kind of how I look at Earth Day.  Mother Nature just wants us to be healthy and happy.  And stay out of trouble.  So what can we do to be healthier and happier...and just get along?  And what can we NOT do that will make us healthier, happier and kinder to our mother?  Kinder so she doesn't have to clean up after us?

Here are just a few ideas of things to do that would make your Mama proud:

Eat your organic veggies.
Clean your room with nontoxic cleansers.
Use water sparingly.
Tell someone something kind and loving about your Mom!

And here are a few things NOT to do that will make your Mama equally proud:

Don't drive if you don't have to -- and drive a little slower! :-)
Don't throw all that great paper into the trash -- recycle it!
Don't use toxics.  Remember, everything goes into our water supply...and you wouldn't want to drink that junk, would you?
Don't leave the screen door open!  Or the refrigerator door!

Isn't it amazing that so  many of your mother's lessons apply on the global scale?  Hmmmm, maybe there's something to this living within our means, caring for others like we care for ourselves...and being responsible for our own mess!

Thank you, Mama!
Carolyn

Do you serve social justice as the secret sauce on your five helpings of fresh fruits and veggies? 

The majority of the world's population is now urban dwellers -- and they are becoming increasingly disconnected from their food sources and their cost in human and ecological terms.   The Los Angeles Times brings the ongoing -- and growing problem -- of social justice and fresh, pristine food to our attention:

RICK NAHMIAS was at cooking school in an affluent ZIP Code of the Napa Valley, a mouth-watering abundance of fruit and vegetables arrayed for his instruction every day, when it occurred to him to wonder at the hidden source of this bounty. "It astounded me," he says, "that nobody there talked about where all this food was coming from."

A screenwriter, photographer and then researcher for political columnist Arianna Huffington, Nahmias had gone to Napa with the thought of maybe getting into the restaurant business. But his curiosity sent him in another direction altogether: on a mission to document through photographs the lives of contemporary farmworkers in California.

The result of his six-month immersion in the fields, "The Migrant Project," is on exhibit at the Museum of Tolerance through April 25, one stop on a national tour.

The poverty and drudgery of the estimated 1.1 million California farmworkers (nine in 10 of whom are Latino) are not news, except that Nahmias' photographs provide fresh evidence that their long-lamented hardships and indignities remain much the same as they were when César Chávez began organizing in the Central Valley in the 1960s.

The biggest payoff for him, he says, was witnessing the reactions of farmworkers and their families standing in front of his framed photos, some of them crying, simply because "it was the first time, they told me, they had seen themselves represented with dignity. I didn't know what to do with that. It was a gift, humbling."

Libraries and public schools helped support his work. Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, wrote an introduction for his book. The Museum of Tolerance booked his show.  SOURCE: LA TIMES

When we look at how hard farm work is, and the toll on our brothers and sisters who are toiling for our health and  pleasure, a conscientious adult will be willing to buy LOCAL, buy ORGANIC, and WASTE LESS.

Thinking through where the profits go ... and don't go -- is part of being conscientious.

The shorter the route from field to table, the more of those profits go to the farmers and farm hands who do the work. 

The longer the journey, the more of the profits go into factory farms, chemicals for fertilizers and insecticides, research for shelf life rather than nutrition, transportation, supply chain markups and poverty wages to the farm community.

It's that simple.  And your awareness and choices matter.

SEE PHOTOS at his website:  themigrantproject.com/

Why is it that personal hygiene is such a forbidden topic?  Sexual functions are part of practical living and most families have both girls and boys in them -- so gender topics should be of concern to all adults.  But history has shown that women's reproductive health care ... and hygiene ... have been embarrassing and ignored.  Hopefully times are changing, and we can care for our daughters' needs in a more sustainable way.

Most sanitation programmes are silent about women and adolescent girls’ need to clean and change menstrual towels and menstrual management tends to be ignored in latrine design and construction and excluded from hygiene education packages. Even reproductive health and preventive health programmes in developing countries often do not address this sensitive issue. A recent article in Source Bulletin describes how WaterAid has tackled this issue in Bangladesh.

In Africa, one of the activities of the QUEST programme (1998-2006) involved research in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Uganda on the links between life skills, sexual maturation and school sanitation. One of aspects looked at was how poor menstrual management negatively affected girls school attendance.

The Source article  gives a link to a report published last year, called “Menstrual hygiene: a neglected condition for the achievement of several Millennium Development Goals”.

SanitationUpdates.wordpress.com

“Adequate sanitation to protect health is considered a fundamental human right.”

Unfortunately, for roughly half the developing world, safe and reliable water is not accessible. The result is the daily tragedy of waterborne disease, which claims thousands of lives each day.

“Safe water and sanitation are vital to human health and are critical for the stability of nations around the globe,” said AWWA Executive Director Gary Zimmerman. “In North America, clean water is often taken for granted, but World Water Day creates an opportunity to think about the extraordinary value of our precious water supplies and advanced water treatment and delivery systems.

“World Water Day asks us all to become more aware of how our actions affect our water supplies, and encourages the development of a culture which recognizes the life-giving value of water,” Zimmerman added.” AWWA encourages all its members and water customers to support organizations like Water for People, which work to improve water sanitation and prevent the tragedy of waterborne disease across the globe.

More information on World Water Day 2008 can be found at www.worldwaterday.org

The international observance of World Water Day is an initiative that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro.

More information on Water for People can be found at www.waterforpeople.org 

Water For People helps people in developing countries improve their quality of life by supporting the development of locally sustainable drinking water resources, sanitation facilities and health and hygiene education programs.

Our vision is a world where all people have access to safe drinking water and sanitation; a world where no one suffers or dies from a water- or sanitation-related disease.

A new Web-based portal developed at the University of California, Berkeley, provides consumers with specific, personalized information they need to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases. Virtually everything we do results in the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, mostly in the form of carbon dioxide.

The new portal, found at http://www.CoolCalifornia.org , is the only "carbon footprint calculator" that can be used to evaluate both direct and indirect emissions of greenhouse gases related to individual lifestyle choices.

It provides localized emissions estimates for transportation, housing, food, goods and services, as well as resources that can help users make more climate-friendly choices.

The calculator was designed by researchers at the Berkeley Institute of the Environment, in partnership with the California Air Resources Board, the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, the California Energy Commission, and the independent, nonpartisan organization Next 10.

Researchers expect the tool to play an important role in changing the way Californians think about, monitor and address their personal climate footprints. For more information, contact director of public affairs for the UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources Cyril Manning, (510) 643-1722, cyril@berkeley.edu.

An increase in consumption of water, or energy, or any commodity associated with increases in efficiency is supported by economic theory and studies in specific sectors. Debates remain over how important the effect is in different circumstances. In developed countries, the rebound effect is small to moderate, ranging from roughly 5% to 40%, depending on the type of energy used.

The Rebound Effect isn't theory any longer.  People in California are beginning to notice that developers are allowed to build bigger and more projects as conservationists reduce their water usage. Their sacrifice is not being applied to reinforcing the natural systems of the  environment -- it is being used to fuel more rapid development of wildland incursions and massive, high-end development that is not sustainable -- or efficient.

SOURCE: The Rebound Effect in California Water