Mark your calendars! The theme for for TToG’s next bimonthly meeting on March 27th is Spring Cleaning and Organizing.

We will learn about the difference between toxic and non-toxic cleaners and the effects on your health and home. Plus we will have a professional organizer from Under The Clutter come in and speak about cleaning, de-cluttering and organizing your home. We will also have someone from Got Junk? to help figure out what to with all the stuff you cleaned, organized and de-cluttered!

Let’s get together to learn, meet one another, play some games & win some prizes. TToG will pay for your refillable type beverages only. You may order & buy food if you are hungry. If you are a vegan or a vegetarian Mo’s has a great salad selection. The management is interested in learning more about making a transition to green, so let’s help them out. Remember your first meeting is free.

Transition To Green is a non-profit organization and all dues collected help cover expenses of the meetings.

We look forward to seeing you there!

For more information, see website linked above, or www.meetup.com/Transition-To-Green-Community-Clubs/calendar/ 12659088/

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The “Transition To Green” Community Club’s mission is to educate and help people to become more aware of all the green alternatives that exist in the marketplace today. To effect real change, we need to effect the supply and demand in favor of eco-friendly products. Our dollar votes going towards those choices will create a demand for manufacturers to switch out their practices and come on board faster. Individual transitions to green can happen over a period of weeks, while businesses and corporations tend to lag behind for years. So the sooner we make the changes in our lives, the sooner the rest of our economy will follow.

Source: Ecopalooza

Food Fight – The LA Premiere

A Safe Product

A ban on light bulbs, as with other electrical products in current use, is strange in consumer law:
They are bans on safe products, we are not talking about banning lead paint or fireworks here.
In fact, light bulbs have been safely used for over 100 years without significant problems, unlike other lights.
The irony is that a normal ban would rather be on the main suggested replacement, compact fluorescent “energy saving” lights (CFLs), with several health and environmental concerns.

Cars give out emissions. Electrical products do not.
Banning a type of car stops emissions. Banning a type of light does not.
Cars are taxed on related carbon efficiency.
Lights -and electrical products- can be taxed on related carbon efficiency (although still wrong in principle, since energy and emission problems can and should be dealt with directly).

Old Technology – New Technology

There’s a lot of talk about old and new technology with lighting.
“Hey isn’t it great to get rid of old technology” we are told.
“Light bulbs are over 100 years old, time to get rid of them.”

The obvious counter is “if it ain’t broke – don’t fix it”.

First of all old technology means known technology means proven, reliable and, as just said, safe technology, for a product we spend half our lives using, sometimes within a few feet.

Secondly, it’s one thing to have a product fade a way from lack of consumer demand in face of a significant improvement as viewed by the people, as opposed to a ban put in place by politicians because of an improvement as they see it.

Let’s compare the light bulb with its cousin – the radio valve (tube).
Now, radio valve use faded away because everyone could see the advantages of transistors.
Did that mean banning radio valves?
No Sir, they are still around, a limited demand for a limited use, but nonetheless available for those who want them.
Yet, since they use much more energy than transistors, they could conceivably have been banned to save energy too.

Does this ring a bell?
Now, everyone is talking about how great LED lights will be. And why not – perhaps people will actually want to buy them!
You don’t have to be Einstein – or Edison – to know what that could mean. If people mostly buy LED lights, and fewer ordinary light bulbs, then energy use (supposedly) drops dramatically, and no ban is needed.
A natural market process, which nevertheless allows those who like light bulbs to continue to use them.

Notice how the opposite is of course true too:
If ordinary light bulbs remain more popular than LED or any other lighting – why ban what people obviously want to use?
Let’s expand on that….

A Popular Product

A safe product that is not popular does not need to be banned, because so few are using it anyway.

This gives us the beautiful (and typical) logic, that the more popular a product is, the more energy use it will cause, and the more politicians can wave their arms in their air and say how great they are for (supposedly) letting people save so much money, by banning a product that people obviously want to buy and use!

Unsurprisingly, the EU is at the forefront of this logic.
The word from EU officials is
“The campaigns have failed, Europeans still choose to buy these lights, legislation is the next logical step”
Instead of saying
“The campaigns have failed, Europeans still choose to buy these lights, how can we respect this strong will of the people?
Is it really necessary to ban these bulbs?”

Light bulbs are overwhelmingly popular in the EU, as elsewhere.
They are the lights that people want to buy (9 times out of 10 in the EU, according to the European Commission’s own research 2007-8, 19 out of 20 in the USA from lighting industry data in the same period).

Speaking of the USA:
Just 18% of adults think it’s the government’s job to tell Americans what kind of light bulb they use, according to a July 2009 Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. 72% say it’s none of the government’s business, and 10% are not sure.

An “Unpopular” Product

Now, the European Commission has also relied on data from an organization called VITO.
The music was then rather different.
As the Cambridge Network science organization point out:
A study by VITO consultants showed the following breakdown of lamp use in European homes in 2007:
•  54% incandescent (down from 85% in 1995 and still decreasing)
•  18% low-voltage halogen (and increasing)
•  5% mains-voltage halogen (and growing)
•  8% linear fluorescent
•  15% CFL

What spiel did the Brusselcrats then think up?
Of course the story was then “how Europeans are taking to these lamps”, and that the “reports that they don’t like them” are “unfounded”!

The problem is, that this kind of data of course means that the supposed great savings aren’t there, and, as outlined in Old Technology – New Technology above, that a ban is again unwarranted, this time because a conversion is taking place anyway.

As the good Cambridge scientists put it:
“If we assume that all remaining filament bulbs are replaced by CFL at some point in the future (unlikely, as use of halogen bulbs is likely to increase), that these bulbs are used to the same extent as those they replace and that the energy reduction per bulb is 80%, the total reduction in EU energy use would be 0.54 x 0.8 x 0.76% = 0.33%. This figure is almost certainly an overestimate, particularly as the inefficiency of conventional bulbs generates heat which supplements other forms of heating in winter. Which begs the question: is it really worth it?”

No, scientists, it isn’t – whether the bulbs are popular or not – but try explaining that to anyone who commutes to Brussels.
Besides, if people like halogens, then that door must – and will – be shut too, as laid out in the December 2008 EU banning documentation linked above. Remember: Soviet Union, not European Union.

A Cheap Product

The assumption is that people only buy light bulbs because they are cheap.
Certainly they are cheap -no crime- but you don’t keep buying something only because it is cheap, and attractive features of light bulbs will soon be given.

Nor do you avoid buying a CFL or anything else just because it is expensive:
Otherwise no expensive alternative products anywhere would ever be bought.
In normal advertising manufacturers themselves highlight advantageous features of their products.
Think of long-lasting batteries and Energizer bunnies, think of washing up liquids that wash piles of dishes.
“Expensive to buy but last long”:
CFL/LED manufacturers wrongly rely on public campaigns and bans to make sales.
So, when politicians say “a ban is the only way” for the public to buy an expensive product that “people will find very attractive when they do buy it”, advertising by manufacturers could highlight that, and people would buy one and then buy more if they are so good, as with the other products.

That said, many households already have at least 1 CFL (the UK is typical, 1/2 of households there and in most countries have at least 1 CFL and the average UK and European household has around 2 CFLs and 20 light bulbs, Commission research).
So maybe they feel that is enough:
There is no reason just to use CFLs -or light bulbs- in a house, all lights have their own advantages and different uses (see below).
Of course, the other explanation is that maybe people simply don’t like CFLs, having tried them…
Certainly CFLs can improve, but it hardly justifies banning bulbs now, and hardly justifies it later either:
if people actually like improved CFLs or LEDs and buy them in greater numbers, there is again no need to ban ordinary light bulbs, as explained above.

A Useful Product

Light bulbs have many attractive features, apart from being cheap.

A warm bright light quality:
This is the biggest loss, in banning “incandescent” lights (=ordinary light bulbs and halogens).
For displays and in some home decorating schemes, designers use the sparkle effect that one can get with the point source incandescent lighting.
Also the beam can be focused, by lamp shades in reading lamps for example.
Small bright incandescent lights are particularly useful, since small CFL or LED lamps technically can’t be made as bright, and the bright types that can be made are particularly expensive.

The “How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb Act” would ban incandescent lightbulbs by 2012 in favor of energy-saving compact fluorescent lightbulbs.

“Incandescent lightbulbs were first developed almost 125 years ago, and since that time they have undergone no major modifications,” California Assemblyman Lloyd Levine said Tuesday.

“Meanwhile, they remain incredibly inefficient, converting only about 5 percent of the energy they receive into light.”

Levine is expected to introduce the legislation this week, his office said.

If passed, it would be another pioneering environmental effort in California, the most populous U.S. state. It became the first state to mandate cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, targeting a 25 percent reduction in emissions by 2020.

Compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) use about 25 percent of the energy of conventional lightbulbs.

Many CFLs have a spiral shape, which was introduced in 1980. By 2005, about 100 million CFLs were sold in the United States, or about 5 percent of the 2-billion-lightbulb market, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

That number could more than double this year. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. alone wants to sell 100 million CFLs at its stores by the end of 2007, the world’s biggest retailer said in November.

While it will not give opinion on the possible California law, the EPA recommends CFLs.

“They save money and energy,” EPA spokeswoman Enesta Jones said. “They are more convenient than other alternatives and come in different sizes and shapes to fit almost any fixture.”

Also, CFLs generate 70 percent less heat than incandescent lights, Jones said.

About a fifth of the average U.S. home’s electricity costs pays for lighting, which means even if CFLs initially cost more than conventional lightbulbs, consumers will save, Jones said.

A 20-watt CFL gives as much light as a 75-watt conventional bulb, and lasts 13 times longer, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit group studying energy issues.

Southern California Edison, an Edison International subsidiary and one of the state’s biggest utilities, runs a program that cuts the cost of a CFL by $1 to $2.50. In the past year, SCE has helped consumers buy 6 million CFLs, it said.

California Energy Commission member Arthur Rosenfeld said an average home in California will save $40 to $50 per year if CFLs replace all incandescent bulbs.

While not commenting specifically on Levine’s likely legislation, Rosenfeld, winner of the Enrico Fermi Presidential Award in 2006, said the switch from incandescent bulbs became feasible about five years ago when CFL performance improved.

“This is clearly an idea whose time has come,” he said.

Levine, a Democrat from Van Nuys in Los Angeles, last year introduced a bill that will become law in July that requires most grocery stores to have plastic bag recycling.

Source: Reuters By Bernie Woodall

American Canyon
Gaia Napa Valley Hotel & Spa
http://gaianapavalleyhotel.com

LEED certified, Gaia Napa Valley Hotel & Spa bills itself as Napa Valley’s “first fully environmentally-sustainable hotel .” Named “Mother Earth” in Greek, the hotel provides waterless urinals, low-flush toilets and low-flow showerheads. The emphasis on nature can also be found on their grounds, which consist of native and climate-adaptive plants, as well as a swan and Koi pond that uses only recycled  water.

San Francisco
The Orchard Garden Hotel
http://theorchardgardenhotel.com

Located just three blocks from San Francisco‘s Union Square and all the major department stores, this LEED certified boutique hotel is the sister property of the Orchard Hotel and stands green and proud. Inviting earth-toned rooms (all of which are deluxe) come with all-natural fabrics, ergonomically correct mattresses, feather pillows and 100 percent combed cotton bedding. Rooms have been constructed with low emission paint and carpet, and the hotel utilizes chemical-free cleaning solutions and organic bath products.                                                                                             

Chicago 
Hotel Allegro
http://allegrochicago.com 

The Allegro is part of Kimpton’s EarthCare program, promoting a sustainable planet. This downtown Chicago hotel features towel re-use, water recycling and non-toxic cleaning agents. All materials are printed with soy-based ink on recycled paper, and energy-efficient light bulbs are used. Indulge in a complimentary cup of organic, fair trade coffee in the lobby before heading out to the Chicago theatre scene or the shopping Mecca on Magnificent Mile.

Nantucket
Hotel Green
http://vanessanoelhotelgreen.com

Celebrated shoe designer and hotelier Vanessa Noel’s Hotel Green is Nantucket Island’s first environmentally conscious organic luxury hotel. It boasts nine individually decorated rooms and one two-bedroom suite incorporating high-end environmentally friendly and sustainable products. Frank-Gehry-designed recycled cardboard chairs and coffee tables sit on Gaiam hemp area rugs, which are complemented by natural bamboo window shades. You’ll also find hemp bathrobes and towels in your room as well as a selection of organic beverages and snacks.

Manhattan 
70 Park Avenue Hotel
www.70parkave.com
Another Kimpton property committed to sustainable practices, this boutique hotel even provides in-room spa services and has a yoga TV channel and complimentary yoga accessories. The hotel uses non-intrusive, high quality, eco-friendly products and services, including in-room recycling bins and non-toxic cleaners. This is a hotel for discerning guests who seek a haven of quiet with the ambience of their very own Park Avenue pied-à-terre.

Washington D.C. 
The Fairmont Washington, D.C.
www.fairmont.com/washington
Did you know that if you park your hybrid car at this hotel in Washington’s fashionable West End, you’ll receive a free dessert? In addition to sweets, this hotel has a green procurement program, including the reduction of pre-packaging, ensuring that supplies, equipment, fixtures and furniture are environmentally sensitive. The hotel also donates soaps, amenities and food from buffet lines to shelters and soup kitchens. Being green never felt so good!

 Source:  www.gayot.com

The Green Lifestyle Film Festival is a celebration of filmmakers who dedicate their talents, income and energy to examining what sustainability really means.

From how we birth our young to how we raise children, the construction and design of homes in which we live, to how we deal with illness, how we move about the earth in our physical bodies, and how all this is reflected in how we feed ourselves, to how we treat others in the animal kingdom all in the name of “the perfect steak” the “fashionable coat or accessories” or for entertainment, and its impact on all spheres of life on Planet Earth.

   The Green Lifestyle Film Festival was created to address a concern by the film festival’s founder (Dorit), that medical costs, lack of proper preventive, medical care, allegiance to a failing disease management system, an increasingly industrialized food system and non-distribution of very critical information have become a hindrance to achieving what is our most basic birthright- radiant, robust, vital health and free flow of information pertaining to the sanctity of life and the nourishment of the  human spirit.  This is all reflected in the fear based, violence-ridden films that are box office draws, and a media based culture that projects and perpetuates these very themes.

So much  “green washing” is also taking place, all in the name of rampant consumerism, that fiction and fantasy need to be replaced by integrity and adherence to a compassionate, all encompassing new economy backed by meaningful actions.

The films selected for the Green Lifestyle Film Festival seek to fill that gap. Wisdom and reverence for the Laws of Nature are being presented as options for ignorance and fear based decisions.

The next Green Lifestyle Film Festival (GLFF), which is an international, non profit event, will be held at UCLA’s James Bridges Theatre in Los Angeles, California, USA   from Friday 19th to Sunday 21st March 2010.

The Federal government is asking the fuel industry to incrementally raise the levels of ethanol in the country’s gas. California has state legislation called the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 calling for car fuels to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The California Air Resources Board counts indirect GHG’s created in the production of ethanol, meaning it will not be part of California’s solution when the plan starts in 2011. The Air Resources Board believes it is doing its duty, as “the Legislature declared that global warming poses a serious threat to the economic well-being, public health, natural resources, and the environment of California.” The ethanol industry isn’t about to say aw, shucks.

Photo Credit: vanhookc

In 2007 the California Air Resources Board adopted nine discrete early action measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, one of which was the “Low Carbon Fuel Standard.” An Executive Order from Governor Schwarzenegger instructs that these measures “reduce the carbon intensity of transportation fuels used in California by at least 10 percent by the year 2020 [based on 1990 levels].” The regulation places the burden of compliance on regulated parties that are “upstream entities,” meaning producers and importers, as opposed to fueling stations.

“Carbon intensity” is determined by 1) the “direct emissions associated with producing, transporting, and using the fuel” and 2) the “other effects, including those caused by changes in land use.  For some crop-based biofuels, staff has identified land use changes as a significant source of additional GHG emissions.  Aye, here’s the rub: the ARB “is proposing that emissions associated with land use changes be included in the carbon intensity values assigned to those fuels in the regulation.”

So, GHG emissions created by the entire process of growing the corn for ethanol count for ethanol’s carbon intensity calculation in the state of California. Which means that ethanol won’t be part of California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard early action measure- it will be part of the problem.

In response, Growth Energy, the American Coalition for Ethanol, the Renewable Fuels Association, the Rocky Mountain Farmers union, Minnesota Corn and Soybean Growers, and Penny Newman Grain, Inc., along a variety of other state and local farm groups and ethanol trade groups, collectively calling themselves the American Coalition for Ethanol, filed a federal lawsuit on December 24 in Fresno, California against the California Air Resources Board. The lawsuit challenges California’s low carbon fuel standard, claiming that it “unfairly discriminates against corn-based ethanol made primarily in the Midwest, in violation of the Commerce and Supremacy clauses of the U.S. Constitution.”

Further, that the fuel standard “is unconstitutional because (i) it conflicts with and is preempted by federal law, including the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007; (ii) it interferes with the regulation of interstate commerce; and (iii) it discriminates against out-of-state corn ethanol producers and importers and improperly regulates their extraterritorial conduct.”

The consortium of groups filing the lawsuit is notable because it brings together the Rocky Mountain Farmers Association and Growth Energy, two groups that have long been at odds over how ethanol is represented in Washington and the national media. The corn growers and the producers of ethanol are uniting to battle California’s Air Resources Board.

Essentially, the Air Resources Board doesn’t think ethanol really reduces greenhouse gas emissions and they don’t want it as part of the California state program. The ethanol industry is circling the wagons. Will the Court say that California’s ARB is full of hot air? Or will the ethanol industry be cut down before it’s even knee high? Get yourself a bowl of popcorn and watch the show.

 By Scott James

Michelle Sirois in the Zipcar she says she frequently rents near the campus of USC. The program that lets participants rent cars for short periods is also popular on the UCLA campus, and the city of L.A. is planning to expand it. (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times / February 3, 2010)

By Esmeralda Bermudez

February 4, 2010

On the traffic-clogged streets surrounding UCLA, Nina Viakhireva, a car-less art student from San Francisco, had learned to navigate the bus routes or rely on friends for rides. Her parents did not buy her a car, afraid Los Angeles traffic would be too dangerous and time-consuming.

Then the 21-year-old found the Zipcar program, a car sharing service that provides affordable transportation and gives her a new sense of freedom.

“I use it for the grocery store, to go to dinner or to the beach,” Viakhireva said. “It’s really made things accessible for me.”

Of course when she graduates in four months, she will no longer have a need for Zipcar.

“I’m buying my own car,” she said.

Los Angeles may never go from car-crazed to car-free, but the Zipcar pilot program recently launched by the city to encourage Angelenos to ditch their autos for “shared cars” is gaining speed, prompting some city leaders to envision expansion.

The idea, like carpooling or ride-sharing, isn’t expected to tear most Angelenos away from their beloved vehicles, but it could help reduce traffic congestion, exhaust and parking frustrations.

More than 100 people have signed up for the service since the city partnered in September with Massachusetts-based Zipcar to place a dozen shared cars around UCLA and USC. An additional 300 people already signed up with Zipcar elsewhere in the country have also used the pilot program’s cars.

The cars proved to be more popular than expected, hitting the 30% growth backers had expected after a year in just the first month.

“I was a little reluctant when I first heard about it,” said City Councilman Bernard C. Parks, whose district includes the usually congested USC area. “But based on what we see from the pilot, it’s clearly been a success.”

Council members could formally consider an expansion in the fall.

Under the program, university students, faculty and members of the public pay fees starting at $8 an hour to drive the mix of hybrids, Mini Coopers and pickup trucks to run errands, explore the city and get to personal and business appointments. They then park the shared cars in reserved parking spots on city streets near the schools for the next driver.

Six new cars are being added to the fleet, two at UCLA and four at USC, where the service is slightly more popular. It had been in effect for a few years exclusively for university students and staff but opened to the public in the fall, when the city shifted cars to on-street parking.

A few kinks must be fixed before the idea is considered a total success. Some drivers have been ticketed or had their shared cars towed for parking outside designated Zipcar spaces; others compete with non-Zipcars who steal their spots. There also isn’t a local Zipcar representative available, so users rely solely on the Web or their phones to reserve cars and trouble-shoot problems.

Since starting in 1999, Zipcar has seen great growth at universities across the country.

And it’s also popular in compact, dense cities including Boston, New York and San Francisco.

In green-conscious states such as Oregon, Zipcars even come equipped with bicycle racks and free parking passes to forest parks.

The company says each Zipcar removes between 15 and 20 personally owned cars from the road. Customers say they drive 40% fewer miles, increase public transportation use nearly 20% and save more than $600 per month on transportation costs.

But Los Angeles’ sprawling nature presents a unique challenge for the company, said spokesman John Williams. Officials plan to keep a close eye on the USC-UCLA pilot program, then look to expand in other busy centers, perhaps near transportation hubs and train stops.

“We don’t want to invest in a strategy that won’t work,” Williams said.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is optimistic, given the early positive results.

“After turning this corner, we are now looking for ways to put car sharing in the fast lane to become a permanent reality here,” he said.

esmeralda.bermudez@latimes.com

Source: The Los Angeles Times

When the time comes to replace your couch, dining room chairs or even a few lamps ever think of  slightly used?  I am speaking of gently used furniture that is still in good condition.  This can be a great way to not only save money but also to help the environment and live a greener lifestyle.  Look no further than The Freecycle Network, found online at www.freecycle.org.  

            Freecycle is a locally based grassroots organization where people come together via the internet and give away gently used items that they no longer need.  The process is simple: place an ad in your local area in the group listing .  The ad is reviewed by the freecycle website people and in no time you can connect with a potential buyer.  When a buyer is interested they directly contact the donator of the item and arrangements are made for an easy and hassle free pick up.

            It’s a grassroots organization and a nonprofit movement of people who are giving both giving and receiving on a local level for the good of their communities and the environment. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer and membership is free.  Freecycle has created a place where people can help each other to get great gently used items and save money while promoting recycling and reusing . 

            Start A Freecycle™ Group – If you are interested in starting a Freecycle™ group in your area, this page will help you find out how we can help you.

epOxyGreen, a cutting edge design company based in Los Angeles, CA, has managed to incorporate great art and the ability to use greener materials in consideration of the planet. They are amazingly creative and their use of salvaged and recycled materials is impressive. According to their website,

“One of the main stereotypes about green is its cost. But we know that there are many options in every category of build at every price level.

We have designed our offering of materials in easily approachable price levels.

Customers can find their desired look at any price point, mixing and matching levels to achieve a perfect cost effective result.

Green is now affordable, innovative, elegant and easy.”