The Future is Green

Is The Earth Full?

Thomas Friedman's Op-ed piece, "The Earth is Full,"  in todays New York Times was both deeply sobering and, at the same time, oddly hopeful.

Friedman writes, "You really do have to wonder whether a few years from now we’ll look back at the first decade of the 21st century — when food prices spiked, energy prices soared, world population surged, tornados plowed through cities, floods and droughts set records, populations were displaced and governments were threatened by the confluence of it all — and ask ourselves: What were we thinking? How did we not panic when the evidence was so obvious that we’d crossed some growth/climate/natural resource/population redlines all at once?"

 The only answer, according to the Austrialian environmentalist, Paul Gilding, author of the new book “The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World,” can be denial.

Gilding expects dramatic changes in the way we live on Planet Earth. We are irrevocably headed for a Great Disruption, he says, due to the simple fact that, “If you cut down more trees than you grow, you run out of trees. If you put additional nitrogen into a water system, you change the type and quantity of life that water can support. If you thicken the Earth’s CO2 blanket, the Earth gets warmer," all of which, he says will change the way the planet's whole ecosystem behaves, with social, economic, and life support impacts." It's not speculation, Gilding asserts, "this is high school science.”

The more hopeful part of his message, however, is that as these impacts hit, “our response will be proportionally dramatic, mobilizing as we do in war. We will change at a scale and speed we can barely imagine today, completely transforming our economy, including our energy and transport industries, in just a few short decades.”

The consumer-driven growth model that has led us to where we are today, Gilding believes, is irrevocably broken. But his conclusion is that we will be forece to move to a more happiness-driven growth model, based on people working less and owning less.

“How many people,” Gilding asks, “lie on their death bed and say, ‘I wish I had worked harder or built more shareholder value,’ and how many say, ‘I wish I had gone to more ballgames, read more books to my kids, taken more walks?’ To do that, you need a growth model based on giving people more time to enjoy life, but with less stuff.”

Are we really ready for that? Gilding thinks we're closer than you might think. "We either allow collapse to overtake us," he says, "or develop a new sustainable economic model. We will choose the latter. We may be slow, but we’re not stupid.”

Barry Katz to be Featured Author at Green Lifestyle Fair on April 2 in Westbrook, CT

Barry Katz will be the featured author at this year’s Green Lifestyle Fair, hosted by The Shoreline League of Democratic Women (SLDW) on Saturday, April 2, 2011. The event, which is free and open to the public, runs from 9am to 3:30pm, at the Water’s Edge Resort and Spa, in Westbrook, CT.

Barry will be speaking about his book, Practical Green Remodeling, at 11:00 AM, and will be on hand to sign books and answer questions throughout the day.

The Green Lifestyle Fair will host a wide variety of Exhibitors featuring energy alternatives, green products and services. Industry experts and environmental advocates will be on hand to discuss energy alternatives, financial incentives, conservation initiatives, and the most pressing challenges affecting our environment today. For more information on the event, visit the SLDW web site at www.SLDW.org or call 860-399-1147.

Also during the event, there will also be a Green Book Fair, Energy-Saving Lighting Fair, and Eco-friendly Raffle. The Green Book Fair will carry the latest titles in eco-friendly lifestyles for adults and children, from seasonal cooking to practical green remodeling.

The Lighting Fair will offer ENERGY STAR lighting products at deeply discounted prices for Green Lifestyle Fair attendees.

Book Review of Practical Green Remodeling from The Oregonian

There was a nice review of my book on The Oregonian's web site yesterday. I thought I would post a copy of it here.

More green remodeling tips coming soon!

Book review: 'Practical Green Remodeling' makes you think

Published: Thursday, November 18, 2010, 7:00 AM

Bridget A. Otto, The Oregonian

Right off the bat, author Barry Katz says his book, "Practical Green Remodeling: Down-to-Earth Solutions for Everyday Homes," is not a how-to book. It's more a book about ideas and reasons for making sound and wise changes to your home.

More importantly, Katz approaches the subject of green and sustainable building by explaining that nothing is clear-cut. For instance, for the question about whether a house can be green without using green materials, the answer is both yes and no. He explains that there are shades of green and no house or building that is absolutely green.

"Ironically, the greenest thing is no building at all," he writes.

In each chapter, Katz offers a summary of his thoughts under the heading Green View. In the chapter on material selection he lists questions you should ask about each material that goes into remodeling your home. The questions are intended to help you to winnow out what shouldn't be used and make an informed decision, which can be truly helpful when you think about the sea of materials available.

In the chapter "Green Inside and Out," the summary reads in part:

"Advocates of healthy eating will tell you that the foods that are best for you are the ones containing the fewest ingredients. The same advice can be applied to furniture and fabrics for the home. ... Most synthetic fabrics contain dozens of ingredients, many of which are not even identified on the label. Wool has one ingredient."

See what I mean? He gets you thinking.

Katz also addresses the value-added component of making sustainable renovations. Throughout the book, his tone is more that of an informed friend than a preachy advocate. The softbound book is loaded with photographs, charts and diagrams to help explain each topic.

My new book, PRACTICAL GREEN REMODELING, (Taunton Press) is now in bookstores

I am pleased to announce that my new book, Practical Green Remodeling: Down-to-Earth Solutions for Everyday Homes, published by Taunton Press, is in bookstores nationwide as of today. You can also find it here on Amazon.com.

In the coming weeks I will be posting excerpts from the book, as well as tips for making any home healthier, more energy efficient, and easier on the environment - in short, greener.

Here is a brief excerpt from the introduction:

All across the country Americans are waking up to the realization that our planet is in trouble. Temperatures are rising, glaciers are melting, and changing weather patterns are starting to affect food production. Communities across the country and around the world are facing serious water shortages. Wildlife habitat and natural resources are being depleted at an alarming rate.

The scope of the problem seems so vast that we often wonder how anything we do as individuals can possibly make a difference. Yet single-family homes in the United States produce 21% of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the most prevalent greenhouse gas responsible for global warming. Our homes, at least, are something we, as individuals, do have the power to change.

Reducing energy consumption. Green remodeling offers an excellent opportunity to stop being part of the problem and to become part of the solution. Excessive energy consumption, and the negative environmental impacts associated with producing all that energy, can be dramatically reduced and you can save money on your utility bills into the bargain). Choices as simple and inexpensive as plugging air leaks or switching to more efficient light bulbs can have an enormous impact. And that’s just the beginning.

Reducing a home’s energy consumption by 25% to 40% or even more is not uncommon in green remodeling projects, and well within reach for most people. And today, the holy grail of net zero energy use is no longer a just dream but, for an increasing number of homeowners, a reality.

But there is more to green remodeling than just improving energy efficiency. Greener homes not only consume less fossil fuel, but they also make more efficient use of natural resources like water and lumber. They reduce waste, make innovative use of materials with recycled content, and extend the useful life of valuable resources that once would have ended up in a landfill.

Healthy homes. Going green also means making homes healthier. Americans spend, on average, 90% of their time indoors. For young children and senior citizens, the percentage is higher. But the air indoors is commonly two to five times as polluted as outdoor air--and much more than that in some homes. It is no coincidence that rates of asthma and allergies have skyrocketed in recent years.

Indoor pollutants are blamed for a vast array of symptoms including headaches, fatigue, dizziness, sore throats, eye irritation, nasal congestion, and rashes, among others. Exposure to toxins such as formaldehyde and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are contained in many kinds of building materials, furnishings, and finishes are among the prime culprits. In many homes, excessive moisture fosters the growth of mold and mildew, posing serious health risks. And even the cleaning products used every day in millions of homes can have negative impacts on health.

Finite resources. Unavoidably, the very act of building and remodeling homes uses up a lot of stuff: everything from lumber to steel to a wide range of building products derived from petroleum, such as paints, plastics, and floor and wall coverings. And lots of other things. But is there an infinite supply of these things? Obviously, there is not.

If the earth contains a finite amount of natural resources, which clearly it must, and each year we keep using up those resources faster than we did the year before, which we certainly are doing, that is not something that can be sustained indefinitely. So we are simply going to have to find ways to use less of things that cannot easily be replaced and to reuse as much that can’t as we can.

The scope of the problem seems so vast that we often wonder how anything we do as individuals can possibly make a difference. Yet single-family homes in the United States produce 21% of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the most prevalent greenhouse gas responsible for global warming. Our homes, at least, are something we, as individuals, do have the power to change.

 

Ecological Intelligence - an important new book by Daniel Goleman - just in time for Earth Day

 Earth day is coming up, and with along with it a spate of events, blogs, web sites, films, and publications all dealing with the environment in one way or another. It's hard to know which to pay attention to. Among many worthy contenders for our attention, I recommend a new book, "Ecological Intelligence," by Daniel Goleman, author of the bestseller "Emotional Intelligence."

In his new book, Goleman argues that, much as we might wish to buy products and services that are more environmental responsible, in most cases it is all but impossible to find the information we need to make those decisions. And partial information may actually do more harm than good, leading us to believe that our small efforts at recycling and green awareness are enough, while we fail to appreciate the wider-ranging life-cycle implications of all that we buy and do.

Greenwashing is rampant; many products tout one eco-friendly attribute - made from organic cotton, say - without mentioning that the item was made using child labor in a factory with dangerous and unfair working conditions.

In other cases, even with no attempt at greenwashing, the information we need is just not available. Consumer products contain thousands of chemical compounds, only a tiny fraction of which have been tested for safety. Many products have been reformulated to remove compounds that have been found harmful, yet they contain dozens, or even hundreds, of other chemicals that no one knows the long-term effects of.

Goleman's solution for this mess is a system of "radical transparency." As more product information becomes readily available and widely disseminated, consumers vote with their wallets and business takes heed. He offers trans-fats as a textbook example of what happens when consumers have access to information.

When scientists first discovered that trans-fats, even in small doses, had serious adverse effects, Congress began investigating. A long debate about how or whether to regulate trans-fats ensued. But while Congress deliberated - a long process - more and more information about trans-fats came out in the news and was quickly spread by blogs, web sites, and social media. Sales of food containing trans-fats plummeted.

As a result, manufacturers reformulated hundreds of products; today it is nearly impossible to find  food items containing trans-fats on the grocery store shelf. This happened without any government regulation.

Likewise, when car makers were required to display a rating system for the rollover potential of SUVs, the public voted with its buying power. When the rating system first appeared, thirty models were rated with one or two stars - indicating a 30% or greater chance of rollovers. Just one SUV achieved four stars, meaning less than a 20% chance. Resulting consumer pressure convinced automakers to speed up efforts to make SUVs safer. Within four years, twenty-four models received four stars, and only one SUV rated two stars. (Of course there are lots of other problems with SUVs, but that's a subject for another post.)

The profit motive, Goleman argues, is what will ultimately move the world in a more environmentally responsible direction. "Eco-transparency," he writes, "transforms the core assumptions . . . transforming the business model to create a market reality where doing good becomes synonymous with doing well."

You can listen to an audio clip of Daniel Goleman explaining the market implications of "radical transparency" by clicking the image at the top of this post. If you want to order the book from Amazon, please click here.

Save a tree and get a Kindle for free (sort of)

I've been wanting a Kindle electronic reader for some time but didn't want to spend the money. But when the new, slimmer, sexier-looking Kindle 2 was announced recently I started looking into the economics again and noticed something pretty interesting. The thing could pay for itself.

How? I’ll tell you.

Home delivery of the New York Times costs me $45.93 per month. Instead, I could get the Times delivered electronically to my Kindle for $13.99 per month -- a savings of $31.94. So my annual savings would be $383.32. A new Kindle 2 costs $359.00. Hmmmm.

Not only that, but the paper doesn't always arrive as early in the morning as I would like, and I often have to go outside in the cold, rain or snow to get it. And then there are all those messy piles of newsprint laying around waiting to be recycled.

On top of all that, I would personally be saving one tree per year. Now, that may not sound like a lot, but it adds up. And even though most newsprint comes from trees that are farmed, there are still serious downsides to the practice, like increased erosion and water quality issues. Also, making paper produces significant amounts pollution. Then there is the energy used trucking the trees to the paper mill, shipping the paper to the printer, running the printing presses, shipping the finished newspapers to distributors, newsstands, my driveway, etc.  The Kindle is starting to look like a pretty good deal to me.

You can click here if you want to know more, or order one from Amazon.com.