By Shawn Dell Joyce

The “safe” level of carbon emissions in the atmosphere is 350 parts per million (ppm), according to NASA scientist James Hansen. We are currently at 385ppm. “Safe” meaning avoiding the most disastrous effects of climate change like sea level rise that swallows  the world’s coastlines, and a radical redistribution of ground water making farmlands into deserts. Basically, we are making our home inhospitable to humans and most other species on our planet.

 This Saturday, October 24, will be the most widespread day of environmental action in the planet’s history. “The International Day of Climate Action will cover almost 162 countries, with over 1700 big rallies in big cities, and incredible creative actions across the globe: mountain climbers on our highest peaks with banners, underwater demonstrations in island nations threatened by sea level rise, churches and mosques and synagogues and ashrams engaged in symbolic action, star athletes organizing mass bike rides—and hundreds upon hundreds of community events to raise awareness of the need for urgent action,” according to organizers.
 For a carbon-fat country like ours to get back to the 350 safe zone means transforming ourselves. “It means building solar arrays instead of coal plants, it means planting trees instead of clear-cutting rainforests, it means increasing efficiency and decreasing our waste,” says the 350 organizers.
 Part of the impetus for the International Day of Climate Action is the global treaty currently being hashed out in time for signing at the United Nations Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen this December. Copenhagen may well be the pivotal moment that determines whether or not we get the planet out of the climate crisis, and many activist believe the current treaty to be too weak to reduce current emissions to the 350 safety zone.
 Take part in one of these local events and add your voice to the world chorus.
Shawn Dell Joyce is a sustainable activist and artist, and founder of the Wallkill River School in Montgomery, NY. www.WallkillRiverSchool.com

SIDEBAR:

• Students at Heritage Junior High School in New Windsor are “wearing the green” and educating each other and teachers through posters and information posted throughout the school.
• Sustainable Warwick has peppered Warwick stores signs reading “What’s 350? Ask inside.” Handouts inside the stores explain briefly what 350 means. On Saturday Sustainable Warwick members will parade around town in costumes explaining the importance of reducing atmospheric CO2.
• The Hudson Highlands Nature Museum, Outdoor Discovery Center presents “Rise to the Challenge of the Climate Crisis and take a STEP for Climate Change.” Featuring original music by Lydia Adams Davis, a talk about “Climate Change and the Hudson Highlands with live animals,” a pledge and “350” photo you can take part in.
• Hikers are hiking up Mt. Eve in beautiful Warwick, to erect a 350 banner at the top of the mountain.
• The Orange County Peace & Justice Coalition is holding an old fashioned “demonstration” in support of the 350 mission, to promote the urgency that the December Copenhagen treaty meet the 350 parts per million goal and to educate the public to unite around solutions to the climate crisis. From 1-3pm in Middletown on North Galleria Drive off Rte 211, close to the railroad station entrance to Galleria, on the grassy strip between the traffic.
• The Cornwall Environmental Club, community members, school faculty and politicians will walk through Cornwall wearing green sweatshirts with “350” painted on the back collecting garbage in Orange Bags. The group will go to the Cornwall Central High School and lay out Orange garbage bags in the number “350.”
• Hudson House participants will pick up 350 pieces of garbage off Broadway in Newburgh, NY
   
• Newburgh Free Library hosts a “teach-in” from 1:30 pm to 4:30 pm with:
  – Awakening the Dreamer: an introduction to bringing forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence on our planet. Presented by Courtni Hale of the Pachamama Alliance
  – “Eat Local” presentation by Shawn Dell Joyce, Wallkill River School from 4-4:30. Cure our “national eating disorder” and find out how we can change our food system to be more local and sustainable. “The single most important thing you can do to curb climate change in Orange County is to become a locavore” says Joyce.
   – Solar Car and Newburgh Free Academy solar team 
  – Honey bees and their importance to our local agriculture by Animal Hughes
• There will be a rally and petition drive in Monroe, NY with the goal to obtain at least 350 signatures for a petition demanding the United States government adopt the 350 goal from 11 till noon.
• The Wallkill River School, in the heart of historic Montgomery, will display 350 artist-made prayer flags depicting reasons to curb climate change. To submit your own prayer flag, paint it on 11×14 fabric and drop it off between 9am-6pm Tues.-Sun.
• At the Tuxedo Ridge Ski Center, we will meet at the bottom of the bunny hill at 1:00 pm and will form the numbers 350 with people. This photo op will be uploaded to 350.org.
• Hathorn Farm is sponsoring a lecture by Andrew Faust to address how various aspects of Permaculture can actively and effectively mitigate our Carbon Footprint with simple, low-tech, bottom-up solutions that EVERYONE can apply in their daily lives. From 1-2pm at Tuscan Cafe 5 1/2 South St., Warwick, NY
• Orange Environment, Inc. is sponsoring “A Conversation On Climate Change and How It Affects the Hudson Valley” by Dr. Sacha Spector, Conservation Science Director for Scenic Hudson.  He will address the issue of global warming in the Hudson Valley and discuss the region’s most biologically important sites for  natural resource management and future restoration based on ecologically-based best practices. $3 donation requested at Tuscan Café, 5 ½ South Street, Warwick, NY
• The Town of Cornwall Conservation Advisory Council will be planting trees to help reduce atmospheric CO2 to less than 350.
   
• The Newburgh Free Academy Is doing a count-down on school TV every morning and will do interviews of students and teachers to get their thoughts on “350.”  Cards that say “Target – 350,” with signatures of students, faculty and parents will be posted on the school wall in the shape of 350. 
• The Ramapo Catskill Group, Sierra Club is collecting 350 names on the Stop Climate Change petitions to be sent to our Federal Representative and President Obama asking for an international treaty that will bring atmospheric CO2 levels to below 350 parts per million.
  Shawn@zestoforange.com

By Shawn Dell Joyce

Buildings are responsible for approximately half of U.S. energy consumption and carbon emissions annually and are growing faster than any other sector, according to the U.S. Green Building Council. Forty-three percent of U.S. carbon emissions and 76 percent of U.S. electricity consumption happen in buildings, through heating, cooling, lighting, hot water and appliances.

Twenty-four of the largest and most influential architecture, engineering and development firms based in the U.S., which are responsible for a combined $100 billion in building construction annually, have joined forces with Architecture 2030, a leading nonprofit research organization. The building sector leaders are calling on Congress to pass the building energy reduction targets in Section 241 of the American Clean Energy Leadership Act of 2009 and incorporate timelines to reach carbon-neutral buildings by 2030.

“We — the building sector community — are on the front lines on this one. We have a big job ahead of us, and we need Congress to begin putting into place the code regulations and support necessary to help us get the job done,” said Ralph Hawkins, who is chairman and CEO of HKS Architects.

The building sector leaders have set targets of a 50 percent energy reduction in all new and renovated buildings today, incrementally increasing to carbon-neutral in 2030. These 24 firms are part of a powerful and burgeoning movement within the business community to push hard for changes that address energy consumption and climate change while opening new markets. On Sept. 22, 2009, 500 corporate executives from firms in about 50 countries issued the “Copenhagen Communiqué,” which calls for climate negotiators to finalize a new international climate treaty by the end of the year.

According to Edward Mazria, who is the executive director of Architecture 2030, “In order for the U.S. to take an effective leadership role on energy and climate change, we must address our building sector, and Senate building energy code legislation, coupled with the 2030 Challenge timelines, will make that possible.”

The climate crisis needs heroes, and Architecture 2030 believes that hero has taken the form of states, local governments and professional organizations.
“They have taken the lead on addressing this crisis,” Mazria said. Already, more than half of our states (27) are developing climate action plans, and 839 U.S. cities have signed the Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement. Also, three regional greenhouse gas initiatives have been established, and the 2030 Challenge has been adopted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, National Association of Counties, American Institute of Architects, U.S. Green Building Council and others. And the federal government has adopted the 2030 Challenge targets for all new and renovated federal buildings.

Here are a few ways to meet the 2030 Challenge in your town:

—Local governments can amend their codes, as long as they meet or exceed state standards. Ask your town board or council to incorporate the code equivalents, which can be found online at http://www.architecture2030.org, or the Architecture 2030 Energy Ordinance, which was approved unanimously by the council of Santa Barbara, Calif., the first city to officially incorporate the 2030 Challenge into its building energy code. The text is available at http://www.energy.ca.gov.

—If you’re building a new home or building, make it 50 percent more efficient than current building codes require. Check http://www.EnergyStar.gov to find out how and who can help you in your area.

—Invest in more efficient appliances and building equipment. Look for the Energy Star rating, and buy the most efficient appliances on the market. Replace all incandescent lighting with compact fluorescent or light-emitting diode task lights. Having a commercial energy audit will pay for itself in energy savings.

—Offset your building’s energy use by purchasing an equal amount of wind energy to be fed into the electric grid. This is more cost-efficient than having your own wind turbine, in most cases.

Shawn@zestoforange.com

By Shawn Dell Joyce

Yard sales are great for bargains, but they also are great for the fact that we are keeping usable things out of our landfills. Each of us produces 1.2 tons of garbage per year, but that figure doesn’t include the usable goods — such as old furniture, clothes and books — that also wind up in the waste stream.

Tighter belts mean people are more reluctant to throw usable goods away and more likely to fix something broken or exchange it with a friend. More and more people are engaging in the time-honored tradition of “freecycling.” This means giving usable goods to someone else for free instead of wasting it.

Groups of parents often exchange children’s clothes in “clothing swap parties,” at which you bring old clothes and arrange them by size. Ideally, you leave with new-to-you clothes and give away all the outgrown ones.

Many churches and community groups also have hosted clothing swap parties and often donate the leftover clothes to migrant workers and clothing collection boxes.

Artist groups often host swap meets at which pricey art supplies are traded, as well as equipment and even art. I even have been to a cookie swap, at which all the participants baked several dozen holiday cookies and then swapped them for more variety.

The economic downturn has been a boon for used-clothing stores and secondhand boutiques. A trip to any local Goodwill or Salvation Army store will reveal well-heeled shoppers rubbing elbows with the usual suspects.

Bigger items, such as used appliances, are not so easy to find or sell. If you can’t find it in the classified section, consider online posting services, such as Freecycle and Craigslist.
Freecycle is an e-mail list organized by city that has networks around the world. The only rule is that the item must be free, so there is no cost to list or receive a usable item. Freecycle is a great place to post that old chair, and everyone who is a member of the local network will receive your e-mail address and photo of that old chair.

Craigslist is a small empire boasting everything from help wanted to romance classifieds. You probably will find what you are looking for on Craigslist, but it will not be free unless you find it in the “free” category.

Some communities have stores that sell usable merchandise redirected from the waste stream. Habitat for Humanity has a series of “ReStores” around the country, at which you can donate or purchase leftover and deconstructed building materials. Some municipalities offer programs through solid-waste programs, such as the Hudson Valley Materials Exchange in New Paltz, N.Y.

This nonprofit organization has redirected more than 20 tons of usable materials from the waste stream over the 10-plus years of its existence. This program relies on public donations, so the inventory changes weekly.

By freecycling usable goods, we are increasing the life spans of merchandise, reducing waste and generating economic impact by freeing up money that could be better spent elsewhere. We also create more positive interactions between friends and neighbors.
Shawn@zestoforange.com

By Shawn Dell Joyce

In our culture, it often seems that our children are much more progressive than many of us stodgy old-schoolers. Most kids can text, download MP3 files, and tell you what their carbon footprint is without missing a beat. The rest of us probably have a hard time doing even one of those things.

Michele Daly, a senior at Washingtonville High School, in Washingtonville, N.Y., has been trying to get a recycling program going in her school for years. She and her friends are incensed that recyclables are tossed into the trash cans in the cafeteria. Daly and her friends are working with a Syracuse University Project Advance public affairs class to set up a recycling program in her high school.

The school’s principal and staff have been supportive of the children’s efforts, however no funding has been made available for recycling bins. Daly and her friends have been turning in recyclable bottles and cans and saving the money to pay for bins. So far, they have collected almost $50. Daly plans to ask charitable organizations to help.

Teegan Kennedy is a fourth-grade teacher at Goshen Intermediate School, in Goshen, N.Y. She has worked with her class to establish a yearlong recycling program in the school. Using her own money, she purchased recycling bins, which her students decorated and placed outside the doors of their classroom and the teachers room. The students wrote a compelling letter to the teachers urging them to use the new recycling containers. Every Friday, her class collects and weighs the paper and plastic and then posts the numbers on the doors to encourage more recycling.

So far, the kids have recycled 2,203 plastic items, including water bottles and yogurt containers, and 244 pounds of paper. While that may seem like a lot, it is only one classroom’s worth of waste. “We’re trying to let other people see that if all nine of our fourth-grade classes recycled roughly the same amount during the year, we would have recycled approximately 19,827 items. If all the third- and fifth-grade classes also participated in recycling, our numbers would be around 36,054.
Paper weight would be over 2 tons,” Kennedy says.

Now multiply Kennedy’s figures by the number of elementary schools across the country and the need to set up school recycling programs really adds up. Kennedy’s class has been graphing their recycling progress and is working on a school newspaper to encourage other classes to adopt their recycling and composting program.

“I would love to share with others what they have done. I think we’re at a critical point with our environment where people are finally starting to listen, and if a room full of 10-year-olds can do it, so can anybody else!”

Want to start a school recycling program?

—Decide what can be recycled, e.g., paper, plastic, printer cartridges, batteries, clothing, etc.

—Set up a committee or club responsible for the program.

—Determine who will get the recyclables to the transfer station. It could be a custodian, parent, volunteer or trash company.

—Determine where recyclables can be stored until transport.

—Count how many classrooms, lounges and cafeteria recycling containers will be needed, and raise money for containers.

—Have committee or club members make presentations to each classroom about the importance of recycling.

—Weigh and measure recyclables, and post this information for the whole school to see to encourage more recycling.

—Hold contests and competitions among grade levels or classrooms to see who can recycle the most.

—Try to fund the whole program by collecting bottle return money and selling arts and crafts from reused bottles and paper.

—Let the young people lead the way, and try to keep up!

Go to http://www.KidsRecycle.org. It is a great resource for teaching materials on starting a school recycling program.

Shawn@zestoforange.com

By Shawn Dell Joyce

If everyone in America spent just ten percent of their disposable incomes on locally-produced goods and services, it would generate millions of dollars in local economic impact in spite of the recession. Lowcountry Local First, a South Carolina business association, tried the ten percent shift as a local stimulus plan. The organization asked all citizens, local businesses, government agencies, and nonprofits to spend ten percent of their annual budget at local, independent businesses.

Lowcountry Local First estimates that if everyone in the region does the ten percent shift, it could generate $140 million dollars in new economic activity, which includes 50 million in new wages, and generates more than 1000 new jobs. Imagine what that kind of money could do in your community.

Making the shift requires planning your spending so that one out of ten stores you visit is a “small-mart,” a term coined by author Michael Shuman in his book; “Small-Mart Revolution.” Shuman suggests:

– Walk or bicycle instead of drive, grow your own food, avoid impulse purchasing, and you reduce the strain on the environment. Can you fix that t.v. at the local repair shop instead of buying a new one? Always ask if you are paying the true cost of this item, or is it heavily subsidized by tax dollars? Skip things like tobacco for example because the real cost is hidden, in terms of health care, quality of life, and subsidies paid to big corporations with tax dollars.

– Buy from a locally-owned stores, preferably selling locally-made goods, using locally-found inputs. For example, buy pies from a farm stand where they grow the apples that go in the pies, rather than a chain store pie that you’re not sure where the apples came from. For buying local to really impact the community, the dollars need to flow through other local businesses in the form of suppliers, banks, advertising, employees, etc.

– Buy closer to home if you have to shop non-local, then it’s better to buy regional, or state. If you can’t buy fruit from a local farm, buy fruit grown in your state instead. It is far better for you than fruit grown overseas and shipped here.
– If you really want Alpaca wool and can’t find it locally, ask your knitting friends to form a buyer’s club and purchase in bulk from a small producer in Canada or Peru. That Alpaca farmer gets four times more money they normally would, yet you pay usually half the retail price you normally would.

– The global equivalent to buying local is buying fairly traded. A Fair Trade seal means the workers who produced this item were paid a living wage in humane conditions. Some items to look for are coffee, cocoa, and clothing.

Shawn can be reached at   Shawn@zestoforange.com.

By Shawn Dell Joyce

Americans are the world’s leading consumer of bottled water, downing about 4 billion gallons per year in little plastic bottles. This is roughly equal to one 8-ounce bottle per person per day.

There is much more to the ubiquitous water bottle than meets the lips. It actually takes three to five times more water to make and fill one plastic water bottle than the bottle contains. If you add to that the average energy cost of making the plastic, filling the bottle, transporting it to market and then processing the empty bottle, you begin to see the hidden environmental costs.

“It would be like filling up a quarter of every (water) bottle with oil,” says Peter Gleick, a water policy expert and director at the Oakland, Calif.-based Pacific Institute. Water bottles, like other plastic containers, are made from natural gas and petroleum, which are both nonrenewable resources.

More than 1.5 million tons of plastic are used to produce polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, which is the plastic used in water bottles. The manufacturing processes that produce PET cause serious emissions, affecting both the environment and human health. The Pacific Institute calculates that the process of making the plastic bottles consumed in the U.S. uses approximately 17 million barrels of oil per year, which could fuel 100,000 cars.

Once the plastic bottle is manufactured and filled with water, it has to be transported by diesel truck, ship or airplane. The source of this sometimes-exotic water is often as far away as Fiji or Finland. The Pacific Institute estimates that nearly a quarter of all bottled water sold around the world crosses national borders to reach consumers. For example, in 2004, Nord Water bottled and shipped 1.4 million bottles of Finnish tap water 2,700 miles, from its bottling plant in Helsinki to Saudi Arabia.

Twenty-five percent of bottled water sold domestically is simply reprocessed municipal or tap water, according to a 1999 study by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Both Aquafina, from PepsiCo Inc., and Dasani, from the Coca-Cola Co., are reprocessed from municipal water systems.

The Food and Drug Administration regulates bottled water and reports that about 75 percent of bottled water sold in the U.S.
comes from natural underground sources, which include “rivers, lakes, springs and artesian wells,” while the other 25 percent comes from municipal sources. These “municipal sources” are often the same tap water that flows through your kitchen pipes.

There are actually more regulations governing the quality of our tap water than governing the quality of bottled water in the United States. The Environmental Protection Agency sets water quality standards that are more stringent than the FDA’s standards for bottled water.

Even if the water itself is pure, a plastic container can leach chemicals, such as phthalates and bisphenol A, into the bottled water. A recent study linked breast cancer to these chemicals from plastic water bottles that heated up in the sun or hot cars. Storing the bottles in cool and dark places, such as purses and backpacks, helps reduce the leaching of these chemicals.

Reusing plastic bottles also is discouraged, because bacteria can breed inside them, as they are difficult to clean between uses. On the other hand, glass doesn’t leach chemicals, and sturdy plastic bottles can be washed repeatedly, so consumers don’t have to worry about breeding bacteria. The production of glass uses about the same amount of energy needed to produce plastic bottles, but glass can be used over and over again.

The sustainable solution is to carry your own glass or hard plastic bottle and refill it from your kitchen tap. This is also the cheapest solution, because drinking the recommended eight glasses a day from the tap costs about 49 cents per year, compared with $1,400 from bottled water.

Shawn@zestoforange.com