On Thursday I attended a presentation on eco-municipalities by Sarah James at the (beautiful) Cambridge Public Library. I expected more detailed case studies of specific eco-municipalities in Sweden, so I was a little disappointed that it was more of a sales pitch for the eco-municipalities framework. However, the broad principles of it were applicable for any sort of community organizing (including at colleges), something I’m interested in but not particularly good at.

She calls this a systems approach to creating sustainable communities, and to me it seems like a nice way to create an umbrella for all of the work that people are already doing or might want to do in the future.

Henrietta Davis and Sarah James

First off, the group needs to define exactly what it means by sustainability. All the towns who participate in the eco-municipalities program agree on the following four objectives, from the American Planning Association’s Policy Guide on Planning for Sustainability (which is really useful, by the way!).

Sustainability Objectives

1. Use approaches that reduce dependence on fossil fuels, underground metals, minerals
2. Use approaches that reduce dependence on synthetic chemicals and other unnatural substances
3. Use approaches that reduce encroachment upon nature
4. Use approaches that meet human needs fairly and efficiently

(Sarah points out the #4 is what differentiates the sustainability movement from the environmental movement.)

Then, in order to get as much buy-in as possible from all involved parties, they go through a strict planning process, in which they get official endorsements from their highest officials, educate employees and citizens, and then encourage employee/citizen participation in developing strategies to implement the sustainability objectives.

Strategic Planning Process

1. Awarenesss/education
2. Baseline analysis
3. Creating the vision
4. Developing action plan

I feel woefully ignorant when it comes to any sort of strategic planning, so I’d really like to read James’s books, The Natural Step for Communities and Open Planning for Sustainability. Maybe you’ll see reviews of them in the near future.

Thanks to the Cambridge Energy Alliance, CREATe, and Cambridge city councilor Henrietta Davis for sponsoring this talk!

I know the first two articles are about the same thing, but I think they say it differently enough, and it’s important. As much as a pain as these recent snowstorms have been, they don’t disprove global warming.

• Another Blizzard: What Happened to Global Warming? – Time. Warmer air holds more moisture, which leads to more snowfall.
• Bundle Up, It’s Global Warming – New York Times. More moisture in the air = more snow in Siberia = a change in the jet stream? (Thanks, Lesley!)
• Don’t fear riding a bicycle, fear sitting in that chair – Grist. “The health benefits of bicycling are nine times greater than the safety gains from driving.”
• Making biking in the city safer – Boston Globe. I would love to have European-style bike lanes in Boston.
• Does Recycling Your Toothbrush Really Make a Difference? – Treehugger. In a word, yes.
• Green building – Boston Globe. Apparently there are rival factions in environmental urban planning: new urbanism and landscape urbanism.
• Canton dump may soon be a solar powerhouse – Boston Globe. “The project . . . would be three times larger than any other solar facility up and running in New England.”
• Efficiency could cut world energy use over 70 per cent – New Scientist. Of course, this is drastic efficiency, like PassivHaus designs and super-light cars.
• Agreement to cut power plant discharge, send steam heat to Boston – Boston Globe. “The pipe will be completed at the latest by 2016 — when reconstruction of the Longfellow Bridge is scheduled to be finished.”
• Once Popular, Car Pools Go the Way of Hitchhiking – New York Times. It’s tough. Jason’s coworker Raj lives across the street from us, but they keep different hours, so they don’t carpool.
• Green Communities Act – Energy 2.0. The Green Communities Act provides grants to cities that meet five criteria, including adopting the stretch code and reducing municipal energy use by 20%.
• The Best Investment Under the Sun? – Slate. Solar hot water heaters are cheaper and break even sooner, but photovoltaic panels are a better long-term investment.
• Beyond Salads: Planting a Garden to Feed a Family – Treehugger. Calorie crops like potatoes, corn, beans, and squash go farther than lettuce and tomatoes.

That’s it. As always, if you find anything interesting this week, send it along.

On Tuesday I talked about using incense to find leaks. But an even better way to do that is with a thermal leak detector. I didn’t realize how cool they were until Jason’s coworker Ahsan let us borrow his. This isn’t a thermal imaging camera; those show a picture with different colors for different temperatures and are much more expensive. This is more like a gun that shows the temperature of whatever you point it at.

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I didn’t think we’d have many leaks left, but we did find some interesting things:

1. The plastic-in-a-frame that we put in the single-paned window above our couch really makes a difference. It stayed 10 degrees warmer than the uncovered window at night. It was still 10 degrees colder than the wall beside it, but that seemed to be on par with the double-paned windows. Now we just need to do this for the other two single-paned windows in the house, too.
2. I always knew that honeycomb shades insulated, but it was neat to actually see it. With the shades down, they’re 9 degrees warmer than the uncovered window (at night).
3. The draft guard on the closet door actually makes a difference. It’s on an outside wall, so it’s 10 degrees colder in the closet than in the bedroom.
4. Despite the old weatherstripping and sweep, the back door isn’t weatherized as well as it could be. Especially on the corners, where it’s 6 degrees colder than the door itself.
5. The crack between the floor and the baseboard along the outside wall is letting in a draft in places. We caulked it last winter, but it’s widened since then.

Yes, the thermal leak detector showed that we still have some work left to do, but it also showed that some of our choices were actually making a difference. What’s more, it was really fun to use—and way more accurate than the incense.

We’ve done a lot of caulking and weatherstripping since we moved into the apartment two years ago, and it’s made a big difference in the drafts we feel. But I knew there were some we still didn’t know about. So I pulled out an incense stick to help us find them. This is best to do on windy days. The movement of the smoke really let’s you see where the wind’s coming in. Two places where it showed a big problem: the gap below the cellar door and an old latch on the back door.

I can see the wind.

We’d already put sweeps on both the front and back doors, but we’d never considered that we’d need one inside the house. In addition to the cellar door, we decided to put twin draft guards on two closet doors, too. They’re not as attractive “as seen on TV,” but they stay in place really well.

The old, useless latch on the back door never seemed like much of an issue, but when we put the incense stick in front of it, the smoke blew horizontally. My finger disappeared completely inside the hole—it could go all the way outside, for all we know. Spray foam would probably be a good thing to use here, but it seemed wasteful to start a new can for this one spot. Instead, we cut off some of the leftover foam from the draft guards and stuffed it inside. Ta-da—no more draft.

I felt a silly wandering around the house with incense sticks, like I was trying to bless it or something, but it was actually really fun. And it worked.

I found the point/counterpoint about biomass in the Globe really interesting this week. My niece is going to school for forestry, so I feel like I get an inside look at it through her.

• Biomass: Fuel or Folly? – Boston Globe. I’m not sure what to think about biomass. The “it’s energy from wood byproducts” argument is crap, because most of a tree is already used in one way or another, and the rest should decompose on the forest floor to prevent soil degradation. But a renewable resource is better than petroleum, right? I’m torn.
• Winter Tip: Warming Up the Car Engine is More than Unnecessary – Green Upgrader. There’s really no need to warm up a modern car for more than 30 seconds.
• Low-salt diet has some roads getting greener – Boston Globe. Brining roads before a storm can dramatically reduce the amount of salt used.
• Say Hello to Stricter TV Standards – Energy Savers. By 2013, new Energy Star standards for TVs should cut their energy use in half. I knew we were waiting to replace ours for a good reason.
• Preventing Heat From Sneaking Out of the House – New York Times. The Pragmatist does some basic air sealing of his house.
• Drive-by Energy Audits – Building Green. Patches of melted snow on a roof is a sure sign that the house needs more insulation.
• How Small Could You Go? – The Greenest Dollar. I was happy with 700 square feet, but Jason prefers 1,000. How about you?
• It’s CSA Time Again! – The Greenists. This is the perfect time of year to daydream about the great local veggies you’ll get in the spring.
• Updated seafood watch guides – Boston Globe. The Monterey Bay Aquarium has updated its guide to which fish populations are healthy enough to eat.
• Want Green Beer? Stay Close to Home – The Greenists. Jason’s a big fan of the JP brewery Pretty Things.
• U.K. organic milk better for you than conventional, thanks to cows’ grass-based diet  – Grist. Organic milk from grass-fed cows in particular is higher in healthy fatty acids. Organic milk from corn-fed cows might not be that different from regular milk.
• A Zero Waste essential: Composting – The Zero Waste Home. I always love reading about other people’s composting systems.
• Homemade Cleaners – Sense of Home. More recipes for homemade cleaners.
• Q&A: Erin Rosenbaum of “Clothes for the World” on making a difference near and far – JP Patch. This is an interesting alternative to the larger charitable clothing organizations. (Thanks, Lesley!)
• The Minimalist Makes His Exit – New York Times. No more Mark Bittman in the New York Times? Nooooooo……

That’s all for now. As always, if you find anything interesting this week, send it my way.