Solutions in Suburbia

Anne R. Beer, Environmental Planner and Professor Emeritus of University of Sheffield, explains in her discussion paper prepared for the European Network on Urban Density and Green Structure (1998) that:

A city's suburban area (here defined as low to middle density housing with gardens) contains a considerable proportion of land, which is not built over or sealed in any way (mainly within private gardens). This land area can, through the straightforward design and application of locally appropriate regenerative design solutions at the level of the individual property, be used to:

· enhance biodiversity

· process, through composting, biodegradable waste

· hold and collect water from roofs and sealed surfaces to be used for gardens and car-washes

· reduce heat loss by increased use of climbing plants which create a "pocket of still air" next to house walls

When communities work together more elaborate regenerative design solutions can be developed at a neighborhood level, which can also be developed to maximize the potential of the open surface areas within suburban development. For example, to:

· locate tree-belts to reduce the speed of the wind as it hits the house and, therefore, reduce energy consumption

· manage local surface water flows to reduce the local effects of "flash flooding" from the sealed surfaces and roofs

· create biodiversity "corridors" through housing areas linking a city's more naturalistic open spaces

As opposed to city dwellers, (who are less likely to own their own buildings and who share smaller plots of land with other tenets) suburban homeowners have a unique opportunity to rethink their private property. Solutions to finding clean energy sources, eating locally sourced food, pollution, being resource efficient and handling waste may actually be found in one’s own back and/or front yard. Even the mass amounts of traffic and exhaust pollution caused from millions of people driving to work every day could be cut down within a restaged suburbia.

In Eva Struble’s essay, Global Suburbia Meditations on the World of the ‘Burb (2008) written for an Abington Art Center exhibition she ads that:

As computer/telecom technologies make working from home increasingly feasible, transportation costs soar, and environmental concerns such as air pollution and global warming gain currency, more people than ever will not only live in the suburbs, but will opt to work (and play) locally as well.

Home offices, edible gardens, composts, chickens, grey water systems, solar panels, green roofs and weatherizing are all reasonable modifications that can make the suburban home and lifestyle model significantly more self sufficient and sustainable. These straightforward, common-sense approaches to some simple tasks will improve the way we use water, deal with waste and reduce energy consumption, while at the same time enhance biodiversity (Beer 1998).

SPAM... bad for the environment?

Far from just being an annoying and time sucking part of online life, all the spam floating around sucks up computing resources in sending it from one server to another; then stored and viewed (albeit briefly) on our own computers.

A study by McAfee on the environmental impact of spam found:

• Globally 62 trillion spam emails were sent in 2008

• Annual spam-related energy use totaled 33 billion kilowatt-hours (KWh), equivalent to the electricity used in 2.4 million US homes in the United States, or the equivalent of 3.1 million cars using two billion gallons of gasoline

• Spam filtering saves 135 terrawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity per year; which is like taking 13 million cars off the road

• The average greenhouse gas emission associated with a single spam message is 0.3 grams of carbon dioxide.

• 80% the energy consumption associated with spam comes from end users deleting the stuff and wasted time spent in opening it.

So not only are spammers incredibly annoying, they are environmental villains to boot! I’m sure that knowledge will set them all on the straight and narrow path of double opt-in email marketing only ;).

Read the full Carbon Footprint Of Email Spam report (PDF)

Spam driving you insane? Save time and help green your inbox - try a free trial anti-spam service.

Green LA girls recent post about the Fuel Film!!!

Fuel: An Entertaining primer on a clean energy future

Posted by Siel in art/lit/music, environment, film (Thursday February 12, 2009 at 11:14 pm)


Watch Fuel, and you’ll likely have one of these two reactions during the first hour: “OMG biodiesel ROCKS so why don’t we run everything on biodiesel already!!!” or “Don’t the filmmakers realize that biodiesel poses huge environmental problems of its own?”

The last half hour of Fuel reconciles these two sides somewhat, cluing in the biodiesel newbies on the fuel’s dark sides, while assuaging the biodiesel critics that their concerns are indeed valid concerns — before proposing a more complicated future of green fuel.

Fuel traces the story of one Josh Tickell, a grease-lovin’ dude who spent an idyllic childhood in Australia, moved to oil industry-polluted Louisiana where many people had health problems (his mother suffered 9 miscarriages), discovered biodiesel in Germany, then basically became a techie hippie of sorts — traveling around in a biodiesel ride to educate the public on the power of grease.

Watch Fuel, and you’ll get a quick lesson on all the problems posed by America’s addiction to oil: Huge oil spills as a result of Katrina, general environmental pollution, health problems, etc. You’ll also get a quick primer on how the government’s encouraged this addiction, with big subsidies for big cars, even bigger subsidies for oil companies — and a willingness to wage huge wars to get oil.

And during the bigger part of the film, Fuel pushes biodiesel as the obvious, easy, and quick solution to all these oil-related problems. Josh pretty much deifies Rudolf Diesel, pointing out that his engine was originally designed to run on peanut oil, taking the power away from big oil and giving it back to small farmers. (below: at the Fuel premier at Conserv Fuel last night)

Of course, biodiesel’s not without its own problems — which Fuel finally gets to in the last half hour of the film. When it does though, Fuel clearly outlines the many concerns: genetically-modified crops, monoculture farms, razed rainforests, etc. Read Tom Philpott’s post from yesterday, “Don’t suffer biofuels gladly,” for a quick look at why many environmental groups oppose government subsidies as they’re currently awarded for biofuels.

In fact, Fuel ends up reporting that biodiesel’s really only a small part of our green fuel / energy future. And despite the fact that most of the film seems to push readily-available biodiesel as the immediate eco-fuel solution we can use now, Fuel in the end showcases the most environmentally viable biofuels as algae-based biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol — fuels that aren’t even commercially available or viable yet.

That last half hour, in fact, packs in a whole lot, expanding the biodiesel-is-the-solution mantra and complicating it, to include wind, solar, public transportation, energy efficiency, and other alt fuel sources (some still just experimental). For a film that seems to start out pushing an instantaneous solution to our oil problem, the conclusion of Fuel’s much less simple and immediate. There is, in fact, no instant solution — though there are a rainbow of partial solutions that could, if cobbled together, give us a clean energy future.

While I do think that the biodiesel-rah-rah part of Fuel could’ve been whittled down, I loved how the film quickly explained in easily understandable terms both the promises and challenges posed by the many alternative energy options that are currently under debate. Plus, fans of Sheryl Crow, Julia Roberts, Naomi Klein, Barbara Boxer, Woody Harrelson, Neil Young, Willie Nelson, Larry David, Larry Hagman, or Bart Reed will love seeing their celebrity in action.

Watch Fuel free by biking 3 blocks tomorrow — or just make sure you catch the film this weekend to ensure its future success. Fuel opens in L.A. tomorrow in two theaters: AMC Broadway on 3rd Street in Santa Monica and Sunset 5 Laemmle in West Hollywood.

The Fuel Film!!!! GO SEE IT!

This movie is so well put together it is a MUST SEE!!! Go see it this week in LA - find a theater at http://www.thefuelfilm.com!



CHANGE YOUR FUEL, CHANGE THE WORLD!