Now that my children are getting old enough to cycle faster than I can walk, it’s high time I replaced the mountain bike that was stolen (along with every other bike in the apartment building by someone impersonating a construction worker) about a decade ago. So I’m eternally grateful to my twitterfriend @angelzilla for alerting me to the posting on Kijiji that made me the proud owner of this step-through (or loop-frame? are they the same thing?) town bike:

Isn’t it lovely? A slightly eccentric English lady bike. I’ve named it (her) Mary Poppins, since as @angelzilla pointed out, she’s the Mary Poppins of bikes. The fellow who sold her to me (thanks Chris!) told me she was from the 1960s, has her original finishes and a coaster brake, and was built by Phillips, who were bought out by Raleigh later on. (more…)

Today is Blog Action Day ‘09, and this year’s topic is climate change. What better topic for an ecoBlogsphere Watch post? Most of these links come from the last 3 months or so.

Let’s be clear. This isn’t about politics; it’s about facts. Ice doesn’t care how you vote or what you believe, it will melt regardless, as long as it’s above 0 degrees Celsius. Fact: at the current rate of melting versus snowfall, Glacier National Park (USA) will have no glaciers left by 2020. The glaciers of North America’s interior mountains are melting at an astonishing rate (I highly recommend taking the walk to the edge of the Athabasca Glacier to get a sense of how fast it’s happening). This should be a huge concern to citizens of cities like ours that rely on rivers whose source is those glaciers. How will our communities change when glaciers no longer feed those rivers?  Fact: the Arctic pack ice is also disappearing, with the last three summers marking the three lowest extents of Arctic sea ice since 1979, and totally ice-free summer conditions now expected within 20-30 years. And a must-read report on prehistoric carbon dioxide levels using ocean floor sediment samples in this week’s issue of Science may explain why that is happening way faster than previously predicted, and indicates that our current political targets for emissions reduction are probably not stringent enough.

The consequences of climate change will be felt everywhere, in ways we don’t yet appreciate as a society: people are aware that the extinctions of large numbers of vulnerable species is one cost of inaction (save the polar bears!), but tend to think less about human problems like floods, droughts, famines, wars, and refugee migration. Google have used their Maps app to create stunning visuals of how different our planet could look with conservative estimates of temperature changes worldwide and flooding in coastal regions – go watch if you haven’t seen it yet.  The military are already using these when-not-if scenarios as part of their strategic planning, and so are the agribusinesses who’ve led the rush to buy fertile land in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.

What can we do? I mean, apart from becoming survivalists living on off-the-grid communes on high ground – good luck to you if that floats your boat, but personally, I like city living.

Well, we can mitigate these consequences by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and slowing down the rate of global climate change. (We’ve made a change that big before: think of the 1980s ban on chlorofluorocarbons to save the ozone layer. And most experts agree that we have the tools and technologies we need – see TED.com and worldchanging.org – we just need the political will to apply them.) This means asking the Canadian and Albertan governments to kindly stop cowtowing to the interests of multinational businesses (many of whom are already quietly investing in biofuels and renewables), to sign treaties and adhere to them, to create provincial building codes and municipal guidelines that value density and energy efficiency, to work to integrate renewable energy generation as a major component of the grid, and to create programmes to retrain workers and retool industries. Well-drillers can become geothermal experts, and machinists and electricians can learn how to build and install solar and wind microgenerators.

On an individual level, this means becoming engaged citizens, asking tough questions of our representatives (especially here in Oil Country), and making appropriate choices for our families. It means looking hard at our homes and habits, then making honest efforts to do what we can to reduce our environmental impact. Locally, lots of organizations are working to help us do these things – signing up for E-SAGE’s newsletter is a great way to keep abreast of all those groups’ events and projects.

After figuring out what our homes’ and businesses’ carbon footprint is and doing what we can to make it smaller, the best (although still flawed) way to mitigate the effects of our remaining emissions is still to buy carbon offsets – thankfully the David Suzuki Foundation has recently created an independent report on offsets that helps us navigate that minefield and figure out which offsets do the most good.

Am I a total nag? Good. In graduate school, we scientists are taught to use language carefully, to always provide context and not jump to unwarranted conclusions. You don’t ever want to appear alarmist or unprofessional. It’s very difficult training to break. So when I read the statements being made by climatologists, ecologists, and wildlife biologists about climate change and its consequences, I’m startled by their urgency and directness.

We’ve already unwittingly changed the world. Now it’s time to change our course.

Lately, I’ve been really intrigued by Slow Design, which is a cousin of the Slow Food, traditional skills, and voluntary simplicity movements, and the Zen Buddhist concept of wabi-sabi. The published Slow Design Principles (Strauss and Fuad-Luke, see www.slowlab.net) are couched in academic language, and the case studies cited mostly involve the design of objects or artistic installations. However, the principles and practices of Slow Design are tools that are useful to sustainable designers, decorators, and artisans of all disciplines. To summarize (and loosely quote) that document’s main points:

Slow Design:

• facilitates ’slowness’ and provides a balance to the industrial-consumerist model of design.

• seeks to shift the user’s awareness and attitudes about materials, processes, time, and natural environment.

• reveals experiences and materials that are often missed or forgotten.

• strives for truthful, exposed use of materials and process (so the hand of the maker is visible).

• facilitates creative interaction between the user and the object or its location.

• makes users think about where the object came from, inducing contemplation & ‘reflective consumption’.

• allows the object to change, grow, or alter over time to reflect its history and usage, and continue to be used; and reflects its history prior to its current usage.

• comes from open-source, collaborative, transparent, and evolving processes.

• focuses on localness and community, through collaborations and co-design with the local community and local artisans, mapping and using local knowledge, reflecting local values & visual vernacular, and using affordable local materials, to give the finished design an authentic sense of place.

• celebrates diversity and pluralism by engaging a large range of stakeholders in the planning process. (For example, the charette process used in LEED building projects.)

• recognizes the urgent need for stewardship of the natural environment and resources, as well as honoring local knowledge and traditions, and encouraging engagement with place.

To try to illustrate what these ideas mean in everyday life, I brainstormed this list:

Slow Design is: Slow Design isn’t:

authentic                                                                    mannered, artificial, phoney

heirloom-quality                                                      semi-disposable

refurbished Victorian homes                                NeoVictorian subdivisions

modern (while respecting the past)                     like living in a museum exhibit

gardens                                                                          outdoor living rooms

rain barrels & watering cans                                     automatic irrigation systems

clotheslines                                                                  tumble dryers

timeless                                                                           trend-driven

cedar shakes                                                                 vinyl siding

handmade                                                                     machine-made

reupholstering & refinishing                                   buying new

Etsy                                                                                  Ikea

personalized and creative                                         impersonal and off-the-shelf

local                                                                                  imported

reduce, reuse, recycle                                                   buy, buy, buy

limited-edition or one-off                                            mass-produced

renewable                                                                      fossil fueled

So, what do the principles of slow design mean to you? What would you add to my list? How are you incorporating slow design into your home or decorating projects?

Reams have been written about green building from scratch, and renovations that are essentially from scratch (like gut-jobs and pop-tops). Checklists and wish-lists of eco-friendly building features and renovation practices abound, including the USGBC’s ReGreen guidelines and my own Sustainable Staging article, but what does a sustainable renovation actually look like?

This isn’t a trivial question. Reimagining existing suburban neighborhoods (as in the current ReBurbia contest from Dwell and Inhabitat, deadline for entry is Friday July 31st) is a crucial step toward building more sustainable cities. Furthermore, decreasing the environmental footprint of our existing housing stock is critical if we’re going to tackle the  anthropogenic climate change crisis. (Our buildings are currently estimated to be responsible for 35% of North American greenhouse gas emissions, with about 20% of emissions coming from home energy use.)

There’s also another factor at work. Many, perhaps most, of us North Americans purchased our current homes with a single phase of our lives in mind, intending to move from house to house as our lives changed, with return-on-investment meaning a simple extrapolation from point-of-purchase to point-of-resale. The current economic heebie-jeebies mean we have a new frame of reference. We’re thinking harder about operating costs now, and return-on-investment has come to include the payback period for installation of energy- and water-saving devices. Many of us will be living in our homes for considerably longer periods than expected. It’s no longer desirable or acceptable to treat our dwellings as disposable commodities – if it ever was.

So, in this series of posts, I’ll round up some of the most inspirational eco-reno case studies available online, ones that fit a handful of criteria. A crucial renovation goal will have to be active conservation of resources – which means doing that energy audit and implementing the auditor’s suggestions for improving your home’s insulation, but also means going deeper with energy & water efficiency measures, and when possible planning to add microgeneration to the mix. Renovating sustainably also requires minimizing our use of materials by reusing and recycling whatever materials we safely can from our existing site, and by not increasing the home’s square footage but instead using smart design principles (like those covered by Sarah Susanka’s Not-So-Big books and website) to meet our needs. We also need to renovate our homes with an eye for suitability for lifetime use, which means both durability* and timelessness, and easy & (relatively) inexpensive customization & alteration of colour and texture. I think it’s especially important to show strategies that work in cold climates, and that can be implemented a little at a time.

* Here’s a thought-provoking discussion of the pros and cons of durability in building materials.

My favorite case study that I’ve seen online (via JetsonGreen) to date is a Boulder, Colorado 1960s-era split-level, with a similar floorplan to the suburban 1970s model I grew up in, and all the changes they made are doable on a limited budget, in several stages, over time. Here’s a fairly complete list of what they did, gleaned from following all the links and studying the photos:

• not popping the top allowed renovation on a much lower budget
• the altered roofline appears to include rainwater/greywater collection as future option
• improved envelope with new windows and icynene insulation
• improved HVAC, plumbing, wiring, and lighting
• new metal siding and exterior stucco
  
• removed some interior walls to open the floorplan – but did not gut the home and start over
• (urea-formaldehyde free?) cabinetry from Ikea
• Forbo’s Marmoleum in kitchen and bathroom
• refinished oak floors with FLOR carpet tiles used as area rugs
• natural wool carpeting in bedrooms? (not sure about this, no pics)
• low-VOC paints and coatings
• recycled glass mosaic tile
• dual-flush, low-flow toilet
• Energy Star appliances
• In the photos and video tour linked from the article, the front-yard relandscaping hasn’t been completed. I’d expect that they’re doing permaculture, and probably facing the concrete planters with reclaimed brick to match the rest of the home.

JetsonGreen also profiled a more ambitious (LEED Platinum!) green gut-renovation of an 1959 home in Portland, Oregon, including geothermal and solar PV, and moving an internal staircase. As part of the renovation, they replaced the windows, reinsulated, added an air exchanger, and used FSC-certified wood and Energy Star appliances. (I’m pretty sure those are Bedrock’s Blazestone recycled-glass tile used as the kitchen backsplash. Yum.) LEED-for-Homes-certified renos are almost always going to be gut jobs, since they need to have their outer envelope exposed from either the outside or inside to meet LEED’s stringent documentation requirements, and it’s often easiest to do both. But, as Preston writes, this house offers some great lessons:

Just look at the before and after photos of this green home and you’ll see a couple critical renovation strategies: (1) get rid of water-sucking grass without making your landscaping look crazy, and (2) keep the same size and scale of your home rather than building it into a monstrosity.

Green Building Advisor also profiles similar LEED-certified green renovations from time to time, like this gut renovation of a 19th-century home in Ann Arbor, Michigan. For this renovation, the team reinsulated, replaced windows with argon-filled low-e models and exterior siding with fiber-cement siding, and installed a ground-source heat pump and a tankless hot water heater. A small addition was built using ICF blocks, and the lot was relandscaped using permeable paving and rain and vegetable gardens.  I found the reuse of wood (salvaged from walls removed during the reno) to build the new floating staircase really inspiring.

But it really isn’t necessary to gut-renovate a home in order to do a deep energy retrofit. I was fortunate to see a local renovation of a 1949 stucco bungalow typical of many of Edmonton’s inner-ring postwar suburbs on the 2009 Eco-Solar Home Tour, and the owners have also documented their renovations year-by-year online. To summarize what they did:

• installed geothermal heat pump, and relandscaped
• replaced aging water heater with efficient solar (not tankless) model
• installed heat recovery ventilator
• improved envelope with argon-filled vinyl windows, new doors, blown-in cellulose insulation, new roof, draftstopping membrane
• LED lighting in backyard that runs off a solar panel on the detached garage

Also via Green Building Advisor, this is a 1970s ranch home in Boulder, Colorado that has undergone a deep energy retrofit and the addition of solar PV and hot water on the roof to create a net-zero-energy home. Impressive.

Finally, I’d like to call attention to the Humphrey House blog from Chicago, Illinois. The La Fleurs have been gradually renovating their 1912 Craftsman bungalow to an eco-envy inducing state, without sacrificing its historic character (swoon) or overspending, have done most of the work themselves,and have blogged every step of the way. Their home now features tubular skylights, salvaged interior doors and appliances, water-efficient fixtures, low-VOC paints and stains, Zodiaq recycled-content kitchen counters, soy-foam insulation, a tankless water heater, and an air recirculation system (a complete list of their green features as of last Sept is in this post). Their current project is relandscaping their backyard to include a veggie garden, reclaimed-concrete pavers, compost area, and more rain barrels. Oh, and do you notice what’s not in the list? Expensive big-ticket items like solar PV or hot water, or geothermal heating.

Now that’s inspirational.

What eco-renovations are you planning for your home?

A collage of photos I took at my favorite sidestage sessions of EFMF'08.

The Edmonton Folk Music Festival is already one of the greenest events on Edmonton’s packed summer festival calendar. Here are some ideas for things to put in your backpack to make it even greener, inspired in part by UK site ecotopia’s green festival kit designed for multiday campout events like Glastonbury. (If you’re heading to a multiday campout festival, may I suggest this more exhaustive checklist?). I suggest visiting a combination of Carbon Environmental Boutique, Earth’s General Store, and our local MEC outlet to get all of these items while supporting our local economy and avoiding the extra carbon footprint of shipping from across the Pond.

- windup LED flashlight – if I was headed to a campout I’d consider making this a flashlight/radio.
- a solar charger for your cell phone and camera: ecotopia have the Freeloader Solar Charger in their kit.
- a large stainless-steel refillable mug, thermos, or water bottle
- cutlery set or chopstick set
- refillable toothbrush (Preserve or another)
- natural/biodegradable wipes (Tushies), tissues, menstrual pads (NatraCare), lip balm, toothpaste (Kingfisher), sunscreen, bug repellent – and shampoo and deodorant if you’re camping, too

plus the usual:
- tickets, ID, cash, cards
- cell phone, camera
- MP3 player. book, magazine for down time
- umbrella, shoes that can get wet and muddy, emergency rain gear
- sun hat, sunglasses
- tarp (or collapsible tent if you’re at the top of the hill), tentpegs, location marker
- chair
- programme
- notepad, pen, highlighter
- comb
- first aid kit (esp with kids), advil, pepto bismol
- food and drink in a small cooler

You know it’s going to be hot, for at least part of the day, so I’m planning to try this to restyle a tshirt while I’m on early morning tarp lineup duty, since all I’ll need to pack is my scissors (and a needle and thread just in case).

Detail of one of the upcycled bulletin boards I've made. Read on to learn how.

Lately, I’ve been inspired by cork. Why, you may ask?

Well, I found a huge, huge stash of wine corks at the fabulous ReUse Centre run by the City of Edmonton. Nearly half of them were those horrible plastic-and-foam abominations – which is a terrible shame, since making wine corks is both a traditional employer and a sustainable industry, without which the unique cork oak woodland ecosystem would be irreparably damaged. Contrary to rumour, cork is not going extinct: making wine corks or cork flooring actually prevents the extinction of cork oaks. So, I wanted to repurpose the old wine corks in a way that would be functional, while celebrating their traditional purpose and history.

I’ve also been trying to think of a good way to upcycle the dated, disposable ‘art’ that’s readily available at any charity shop or thrift store (The ones pictured below all came from Goodwill).

Consequently I’ve been working on a line of upcycled cork items for the home, which will be available for sale locally and through my Etsy shop (in the Quirks N Corks section). Here are instructions for how to make a couple of different styles of upcycled corkboards. (more…)

101-LED-wreath, via instructables.com (http://www.instructables.com/id/101_Led_Wreath/)

We’ve all been sick in my home over the holidays, so I haven’t posted much lately. Just in time for New Years, here are my thoughts on ways to make your holiday celebrations a bit easier on the earth. Hopefully this will give you some ideas for next year!

1. Decorate your home with LED lights; if you haven’t already replaced your old incandescent outdoor strings, look for LEDs, which use a lot less energy, and put them on a timer. This year we used one of Noma’s new solar-powered sets for the first time; they’re a bit dim, especially compared with our neighbors’ giant incandescent bulbs, but so pretty, and so practical for lighting areas that aren’t near an outlet. I think we’ll move them into the backyard and use them as year-round fairy lights. Post-Christmas is a great time to find them at discounted prices.
2. Oh, Christmas trees… The long-running real-vs-artificial debate is still going, but you’ll notice there is now consensus on the topic. Current green wisdom holds that real trees – especially organically-grown living ones that can be replanted – are the most environmentally friendly choice (especially if that PVC number with the LED lights built in is manufactured in China, where environmental regulations are, shall we say, permissive). That said, if you already have an artificial tree you should continue to use it, unless there are safety concerns (such as lead content, offgassing,  or electrical peculiarities) – otherwise you’re wasting the material and energy investment that went into making and transporting it. Another caveat is that none of the discussions I’ve seen online take the concerns of families with environmental allergies (to molds and tree pollens, for example) into account. My extended family is rife with dust, pollen, and mold allergies, so I have fond memories of decorating our 1970s-era artificial tree made of hideous brown and green plastic well into the 1990s. The key to the greenness of any artificial tree or tree-alternative is to find something that works with your lifestyle, and that you’ll be happy to reuse for a decade or more. An older wire-based faux tree from the thrift store is easily refurbished with careful fluffing and the addition of some garland and floral picks to fill in the gaps (again, beware of lead content and electrical irregularities – a vintage aluminum tree is the best choice, if you can find one). There are lots of great alterna-trees, too: you can decorate a houseplant, or a chunk of driftwood, or a vase full of bare branches, or skip the ‘tree’ and decorate with wreaths and garlands instead. There’s great coverage of cool artificial trees on digsdigs and inhabitat, including this genius tree made of water bottles (by Paprika Design, from a Montreal shop window!) and a gorgeous CNC-cut plywood tree from Australia. (more…)

An inventive Denver Water billboard says it all. <via treehugger>

I’ve decided that once in awhile, I’ll post a roundup of links to some interesting – and often overlooked – articles from ecoblogosphere. To inaugurate the feature, here are some key articles that I’ve bookmarked, shared on Facebook, tweeted about, or dugg in the past few weeks:

Buying Local

November is “Shop Local First” Month here in Edmonton. Keep Edmonton Original have a great directory of locally-owned businesses on their website. Let’s not stop at the end of November!

Speaking of buying local, the release of Halifax chef Craig Flinn’s cookbook Fresh and Local and the opening of Edmonton’s Wildflower Grill sparked this newspaper article explaining what Canadian Cuisine is. (Full disclosure: I went to high school with Craig, and I try to eat at Chives whenever I get home to Nova Scotia.)

Plastic Safety

Is polypropylene (#5 plastic) not so food-safe after all? Well, it’s definitely going to be a pain for researchers in the biological and medical sciences, like my former colleagues. I can say from long experience that polypro labware is ubiquitous, and replacing it with glass is usually next to impossible for technical or budgetary reasons. Further research on human health effects of the compounds that leach from polypropylene is needed before we can reach conclusions, but, this story just might be the next bisphenol-A scandal.

Meanwhile, the scandal that began in China over the contamination of formula and other dairy products with melamine by unscrupulous manufacturers got me wondering about the safety of those indestructable melamine plates. Luckily, Janelle from Healthy Child Healthy World had the same thought. Be sure to also read the very informative comments by Jennifer from The Smart Mama, to help put it all into perspective.

The Green Economy and Green Building

President-Elect (!!!) Obama says we need to change more than lightbulbs <via ecogeek>. Some experts say his policies will be nothing but good news for green building. Meanwhile the green building community is wondering how a protracted recession will affect progress and affect Obama’s plans, Mr. Gore is writing profound editorials, and Van Jones and Thomas Friedman are promoting their books about how a green economy could get the US (and the world) out of this mess. Even Gwynne Dyer has joined the climate change book club. (I just gave the Dyer book to hubby for his birthday, looking forward to reviewing it for you!)

Locally, at least, green building is moving forward. Local realtors specializing in sustainable homes are excited by announcements about several ecovillages, like the one to be created by CarbonBusters, in planning stages around Edmonton. The Riverdale NetZero duplex project is completed and open to the public every Saturday for inspirational self-guided tours. There are no shortage of local projects who are boasting of low-VOC finishes, rapidly renewable materials, and energy-efficient appliances in their marketing materials.

However, Environmental Defence still think we have a long way to go: according to “A Green Building Report Card” on pages 40-41 of Green Living Online’s Fall 08 edition, released in early September, the Alberta Building Code gets an F. None of the provinces get better than a C, but still, only Nunavut got a lower percentage score than Alberta. The report card the article refers to has not actually been released to date; I can’t wait to read it once it is.

Green Living

Online tool Walk Score now allows Canadians to gauge how pedestrian-friendly their neighborhood is (although it’s reliant on Google Map’s listings of local amenities, and its algorithm doesn’t take into account things like narrow streets and the existance of sidewalks in some newer neighborhoods).

Even though Alberta is protected from the worst of the bad economic news, that pesky recession probably has you, like me, thinking about a little green belt-tightening.

Here’s an inspiring checklist of 100 ways you can save the environment. If your personality, like mine, has you second-guessing how best to do some of the little things on the list, you’ll be as pleased as I was that the New Scientist’s writers have taken the time to put those nagging questions to rest.

On a personal note…

This huge fire (across the street from my home, on the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend!) reminded me just what Thanksgiving is really about… and what’s really important. Now I’m planning to ask myself, as I declutter and simplify: would I save it if the house was burning?

Pumpkin patch. Photo: Kent K. Barnes kentkb

Holidays are always great times to consider the implications of the choices we make, and to create moments where we can pass on lessons about our values to our children. With this in mind, I’ve been looking for ways to make Hallowe’en a little greener in our home.

Costumes are one of the major semi-disposables of the season, but my fondest costume memories have always been thrift store finds or repurposed everyday wear, so I’ve tried to continue that with my kids. (more…)

Staging has revolutionized the real estate industry by maximizing homes’ appeal and potential, drawing attention to selling features, and helping buyers to imagine the home as their own, so that homes are shown at their absolute best. Similarly, a green revolution is now sweeping new home builders as public awareness of global environmental problems, indoor air quality issues, and the need for energy and water conservation has become the new norm. The importance of this movement is underscored by recent estimates that our buildings are currently responsible for 35% of North American carbon dioxide emissions, and improving them will be the quickest and cheapest way to reduce North America’s impact on climate change. Sustainable staging brings the green revolution to the real estate resale market.

This is excerpted from my article, Sustainability and Staging (PDF), which introduces the principles of sustainable design, outlines the benefits of applying them in a real estate staging context, and provides a detailed checklist for decorators, redesigners, and stagers to use in greening their staging practices.

I am thrilled that this article will be incorporated into redesign and staging training provided by CRDA instructor Val Sharp. It is my wish that it be freely shared among interior decorators, redesigners, and stagers, so that sustainable best-practices will be quickly adopted within our industry.

(But please, don’t plagiarize it for your website. It’s bad karma. You may quote it if you ask my permission and provide a link back to this post. Thanks.)

Update (4 April 2009): If you have previously downloaded the PDF, you may have found it difficult to read and print due to the background graphic. The link above now leads to an updated, simpler version for your convenience.

Update (20 September 2009): I’m delighted that this article is to be reprinted in HomeStagersTODAY, the online publication of the British Academy of Home Stagers! [29 Oct 2009: find it in the Green Staging section!]