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Green Living Journal • Summer 2014
Green Living Journall 100 Gilead Brook Road, Randolph VT 05060 Publisher/Editor: Stephen Morris 802.234.9101, (fax) 901.234.9101 editor@GreenLivingJournal.com Advertising Manager: Amelia Shea 603.924.0056 amelia@GreenLivingJournal.com
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From the Editor You Can’t Ban the Future by Clinging to the Past By Stephen Morris I’ve read several articles recently about the Tesla Motor Company. I’ve taken the liberty of synthesizing them here:
Car Dealers Fear Tesla
The anti-electric car movement claimed a victory recently when New Jersey banned Tesla stores. The ban is not based on fears that Tesla’s $70,000 Model S will steal the market for new cars, but that the simplicity of the car’s design will make it maintenance free, causing the lucrative repair and maintenance departments to disappear. Tesla kills the dealer service department cash cow through downloads. As part of its sales pitch, the company says to think of its Model S sedan as “an app on four wheels.” That may sound like
geek-speak marketing copy, but in this case it’s true. Software keeps Teslas on the road. The internet-connected cars self-diagnose problems, and then download software fixes or updates, much like your computer’s operating. When fixes happen over the air, there’s no need for tools and equipment. You change the oil when there’s no oil to be changed. There is no internal combustion engine; it’s basically a big battery, a cell phone on wheels. No spark plugs, no air filters, no fuel pumps, no timing belts. Good-bye “regularly scheduled maintenance.” That’s what frightens the dealers. Tesla is not entirely maintenance-free. The company recommends inspection once a year (or 12,500 miles”. It offers a service plan start at $600 per year, less if you buy multiple years at once. This includes replacement of brake pads and windshield wipers, the so-called “wear parts.” By monitoring your car remotely, the company will tell you when there are problems. Industry traditionalists there will inevitably be pitfalls in any arrangement where the company that makes your car is the only one to fix it. Tesla counters that it offers flat-rate plans, not fee-for-service where the more you fix, the more you make. In another new concept with a Tesla your warranty is still valid regardless of whether you get your car serviced at all. Tesla is making grand promises. An, perhaps the company won’t be able to deliver, but just making the promises has been enough to strike fear in the hearts of dealers. But at least one advocacy group, Consumer Reports’ is showing confidence in the company by naming the Model S the country’s best overall car . Company founder and CEO Elon Musk argues that consumer’s desire for a better way of buying and owning cars will eventually prevail. “Our philosophy with respect to service is not to make a profit on service,” Musk said. “I think it’s terrible to make a profit on service.” Tesla’s stock price has risen nearly 650 percent over the past year. For now, Tesla makes only luxury cars, but if it starts making cars normal people can afford, the
The survivors will be the ones who learn how to live and even to thrive with the better mousetrap.
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You Can’t Ban the Future - Continued page 6
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Green Living Journal • Summer 2014
Contents
HOMEMADE BUTTER
FROM THE EDITOR Editorial: Can’t Ban the Future..................................4 Short Takes .......................................................................9 Letters ............................................................................... 7
CHURNED FRESH DAILY
EDUCATION Justin Morrill ................................................................. 19 Ferment Happens ...................................................... 40 Firewood Primer ......................................................... 41
Kate’s Homemade Butter is made fresh daily by the Patry family in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. Our butter is made from fresh cream that is gathered from farms that do not treat their cows with “artificial growth hormones.” The cream is then carefully churned in small batches into butter the same way we have made it for over 25 years. Kate’s is 100% natural. We do not use artificial ingredients, dyes or preservatives, so all you taste is the creamy natural flavor of real butter. We promise to keep it that way! Whether you’re enjoying a morning muffin, baking a family favorite, or serving garden-fresh vegetables, you’ll savor the delicious taste of Kate’s Homemade OLD Butter in every bite. ORCHARD Thank you for choosing Kate’s Homemade Butter. BEACH Enjoy!
ENERGY AND BUILDING Ductless Heat Pump ................................................. 11 Electricity Supply ....................................................... 14 SolarFest ........................................................................ 17 Sun Harvestors ............................................................ 33 MONEY B Corp ............................................................................. 44 ON THE NIGHTSTAND Echo Point Books ........................................................ 28 Cooked ........................................................................... 30
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From the Editor You Can’t Ban the Future car dealers of America better start finding a way to deal with a better mousetrap. What does this have to do with “practical information for friends of the environment.” Nothing and everything. If you scratch out Tesla and substitute “Amazon,” and then cross-out “the car dealers of New Jersey” and write in “independent book stores,” you might see might point. When Amazon appeared on the scene in the early 1990s, there were cries of “FOUL” from the book sellers of America. They were already dealing with the onslaught of the big box stores of Borders and Barnes & Nobles. Wasn’t that competition enough? Many tried to make the competition personal, and it became an issue of personal honor to support your local book seller, but thousands succumbed to the pressures of competition. Setting emotions aside, however, it has been the superiority of the Amazon business model that has prevailed. It’s a model that eliminates waste and promotes efficiency. It’s that simple.
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Continued from page 4
I’m no expert on cars, electric or otherwise, but I do recognize when someone, Elon Musk in this case, is thinking about things differently. The hue and roar is coming from the people who have the entrenched position in the existing market. The car dealers have a lot to lose, specifically a golden goose that’s covered with oil and grease. The ones who survive will not be the ones who protest the loudest or fight the hardest to suppress the new idea. The survivors will be the ones who learn how to live and even to thrive with the better mousetrap. PS– for an example of the “better mousetrap” read the story on Echo Point books in this issue. Founded by Green Living Journal founder, Marshall Glickman, It’s a great example of a book business survivor who has figured out NOT how to fight with the Amazon dragon, but rather to harness its enormous power. Stephen Morris is the National Editor of Green Living Journal. Print on demand with...
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Green Living Journal • Summer 2014
Letters to the Editor Letter From the Editor
Good Day Stephen Morris:
Last issue we printed a letter from Bill Christian of North Bennington, VT taking exception with my editorial in a previous issue about the current direction of the renewable energy business. This, in turn, generated two more responses which I intended to publish in this issue, but I LOST THEM. I have no excuse other than obvious professional incompetence. If the authors read this, please contact me, and I will grovel appropriately. AND I promise to include the letters in our next issue. Sheepishly yours, Stephen Morris, editor
A Letter That I Didn’t Lose:
Dear Editor:
I enjoyed the above article recently. I would like to ask about a small brochure (or is it a full length book?) pictured on page 22 of the above issue of your publication - by Katy Butler - Knockin on Heaven’s Door. It has been cited by others as a useful resource I should acquire. Can you tell me how or where to search? Thanks so much. Continued success in such a great publication! In Community, Bro Chad, S. Amherst
Lastly, please let the staff of Green Living know that I think their spring Community-Spirit coHousing Initiative edition was one of the best ever. I was the publisher of Many Hands for many “...affordability into Hi Mr. Morris, Just caught your publication years (retired in July), and I’ve been a perpetuity...” for the first time @ Whole fan of GLJ for a long, long time. Foods, Hadley, MA. With no slight to Tom’s operation at High Mowing, I find the prices better at Fedco in ME. Not quite as close to home as you might prefer, but they offer Organic as well as regular seeds, are a co-op, and will even collate large orders. Don’t stop with their on-line Dear Soapman, Saw your ad. OK, how can I make MY presence, the catalogue is more home a nontoxic household? I don't have concrete. I’ve dealt with C.R. a lot of money. - Anne in New Hampshire Lawn for more years than I care to think about, and found him Hi Anne, You don't have to be a millionaire to enjoy world class organic cleaning and bathing products. The whole idea is to to be very fair, and his company replace yucky stuff with yummy stuff. It's important to remember that being green is a lifelong process. Practice Practice! the most economical I’ve found. Vermont Soap makes a variety of cleaning products so safe and natural they are certified to Incidentally, for insight into the organic food standards. You can purchase Liquid Sunshine and other natural Castile Liquid Soaps in gallons and in 5 gallon self dispensing cubes for extra savings. We even include dilution commercial seed business, try instructions on-line so you can make your own spray cleaners at home. “Gardening When It Counts” Replace detergent hand cleaners with organic foaming hand soap, use extra mild handmade bar soaps on face and body and try out the new deodorant, oral care, moisturizing and anti-aging by Steve Solomon. Somewhat of products we have developed over the past four years. Vermont Soap products are very high an eye opener, also filled with quality and a very good value. Most products are certified to USDA organic food standards by VOF. loads of practical advise form Check us out at www.vtsoap.com a commercial grower-turned Thanks! Soapman subsistence farmer. Yours, Visit www.VTSOAP.com and SAVE an DH, Hadley, MA additional 10% for seeing our ad in Green Living Journal Code: GLJ345 (Offer Good until 9/30/14)
Visit us online at GreenLivingJournal.com • Green Living • Summer 2014 • 7
A Pause for Poetry Tomorrow we are bones and ash, the roots of weeds poking through our skulls. Today, simple clothes, empty mind, full stomach, alive, aware, right here, right now. Drunk on music, who needs wine? Come on, Sweetheart, let’s go dancing while we’ve still got feet.
That was so nice, let’s take another pause: FOR THE COMMON GOOD We’d like to build a pipeline Running through your neighborhood A natural gas pipeline And it’s for the common good. This pipeline’s sorely needed Buried deep beneath the loam Earthquake warnings won’t be heeded And some folks may lose their home. We’ll use eminent domain ‘Cause in case you didn’t know It’s for the common good Like Quabbin towns lost long ago.
By David Budbill from While We Still Have Feet, Copper Canyon Press, 2005
There may be some pollution ‘Neath the ground or in the air Water contamination But that’s neither here nor there. We may need to clear-cut trees Scatter wildlife through the wood And destroy endangered species But it’s for the common good. By Kathy Chencharik (Kathy is a Green Living reader from South Royalston, MA)
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Green Living Journal • Summer 2014
Short takes
Regional is the New Local (Excerpted from “Ferment: The Real Pickles Blog) A trip to a pickle festival in New York City a couple of years ago got me thinking about the issue in a new way. Addie Rose and I traveled to the Lower East Side to set up the Real Pickles booth at the Peck Slip Pickle Fest, a special one-day event at a public food market called New Amsterdam Market. During a short break between pickle sales, I got a chance to walk the market, and was struck by how different it was than the farmers markets back home in western Massachusetts. In rural western Massachusetts, farmers and other food producers typically travel ten or twenty miles to get to a farmers market. Here at New Amsterdam Market, I noticed that the vendors – vegetable farmers, cheesemakers, maple syrup producers – were coming from a much greater distance. Some had driven 100 miles or more from various points in the Hudson Valley. Others had traveled even further, coming down from the Finger Lakes or Northern Vermont. There were a few vendors with products made in Brooklyn, but few if any were using agricultural ingredients produced local to the city. None of this came to me as a real surprise. A place like New York City – with its urban development stretching for many miles – obviously can’t support many real farms anywhere close to its borders. But, it got me thinking about all the talk about being a “locavore” and switching to a “100-mile diet”. For those of us living in rural places like Vermont or the Berkshires or Maine, it’s remarkably easy to become convinced that solving our food system’s problems can be wholly accomplished by the act of buying as local as possible – and organic – in an effort to create a multitude of insulated, local food systems. And, yet the point of changing the food system is not to create an elitist alternative for a limited subset of the population. The point is to bring about a transformation that gives everyone the opportunity to participate in and benefit from a healthy, just, and sustainable food system. If everyone is to be part of the new food system, then I think we need to keep this fact in mind: the majority of the U.S. population lives in con-
centrated urban areas whose local agricultural resources are entirely inadequate to support the food needs of their populations. For those in and around cities, then, the task of sourcing food from much closer to home means re-building the food system on a regional level. Instead of local food systems with a 100-mile radius (as many choose to define “local”), this means focusing on regional food systems with, perhaps, a 250- or 500-mile radius. Those of us in rural areas – rich in agricultural resources – thus have an inescapable responsibility. As we do the necessary work of helping to overhaul the food system, we must consider what part we can play in feeding the populations of places like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. While it is surely tempting (and so much simpler) to focus inwardly and exclusively on how to feed merely ourselves, that is not, in the end, the way to build a better food system. It is essential to be actively promoting and supporting our local farm economies – and, at the same, we need to be thinking more broadly. By Dan Rosenberg (For full post visit RealPickles.com)
Visit us online at GreenLivingJournal.com • Green Living • Summer 2014 • 9
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Green Living Journal • Summer 2014
ENERGY & BUILDING Energy Advisor: Ductless Heat Pumps Gaining Momentum Baseboard heaters and their cousins — ceiling cable heaters and in-wall heaters — are expensive and wasteful ways to warm a home. If you have these kinds of heaters, you’re reminded of this with each month’s electricity bill. But it may be out of reach for you to install a traditional heat pump or furnace, along with all the duct work needed to circulate the heated air. Fortunately, that’s not the only option. Consider instead a ductless heat pump. As the name implies, this kind of system doesn’t require ducts. Ductless heat pumps were developed in Japan in the 1970s, and are frequently seen throughout Asia and Europe. They have become more common around here since the Northwest Ductless Heat Pump Project got under way in 2008. Run by the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA), the project has worked with local utilities to offer incentives that have led to the installation of 16,000 units in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. The project has saved 49 million kilowatt hours, enough to power 4,400 homes a year. And there’s even more energy ready to be saved. “This technology has the potential to save 200 average megawatts each year,” said Alexis Allan of NEEA in Portland. That’s enough to power 150,000 homes. Allan points to Clark Public Ductless Heat Pump - Continued page 12
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Visit us online at GreenLivingJournal.com • Green Living • Summer 2014 • 11
eNerGY & BUILDING Ductless Heat Pump Continued from page 11
Utilities as a forerunner in the program. Since the utility began its ductless heat pump rebate program four years ago, 2,100 Clark County homeowners have installed the energy-efficient technology. “Clark County is really leading the charge,”
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Allan said. “It’s phenomenal to see the market transform when it comes to ductless technology.” Even though ductless heat pumps are becoming more popular, chances are you may still be fuzzy on the details. Here’s the lowdown. What are ductless heat pumps? They are highly efficient zonal systems that offer both heating and cooling. They consist of an outdoor compressor unit about the size of a suitcase connected to an indoor air-handling unit, also known as a “head.” A three-inch hole is all that’s needed for the insulated refrigerant lines to pass through the wall of a house and join the indoor and outdoor units. Indoor heads are about 6 to 8 inches deep and are mounted on a wall or the ceiling. They are equipped with quiet fans that blow the warm or cool air into the home. A wireless remote controls the system.
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Ductless Heat Pump - Continued page 13
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But can a ductless heat pump heat the whole house? One indoor unit is enough to heat a house with an open floor plan that’s 1,100 square feet or smaller. Multiple units are required for larger homes. And you’ll want to keep your baseboard heaters -- just in case we get severe weather and you need a backup heat source, or your home has hard-to-reach spots. How do ductless heat pumps work? The systems use the same compressor technology as a regular heat pump by pulling ambient heat from the outside atmosphere in winter. In summer, the pumps pull heat from inside air to cool it. How much energy and money does a ductQuality Products and Services less heat pump save? for your Hearth and Home Ductless systems typically save homeowners 25 to 50 percent on heating bills, according to 802-254-4208 or 800-362-2424 the Northwest Ductless Heat Pump Project. 532 Putney Road, Ste. 101, Brattleboro, VT 05301 Replacing outdated or inefficient heating syswww.friendsofthesun.com tems with a ductless heat pump can save an estimated $280 a year. But how much does a ductless heat pump cost? The average cost of an installed ductless heat pump system with one indoor heating/cooling zone rangCYCLE LICENSE es from $3,000 to $5,000, INSURANCE REQUIRED (MA) according to the Northwest For Mopeds & 50 cc Scooters • 70-200 MPG! Ductless Heat Pump Project. Great Values & Selection of Mopeds & Scooters Clark Public Utilities offers A2B & EZ Pedalar Electric Bicycles a $1,500 rebate to homeown(no license required) ers who install ductless systems, as well as financing on approved credit. Where can I find more information? Check out http://goingductless.com online or www. Also: Snowmobiles • Motorcycles clarkpublicutilities.com. 5’-18’ Wood Canoes For Use or Display Distinctive Canoe Furniture For Home or Office Energy Adviser is written Carbon Fiber and Kevlar Canoes by Clark Public Utilities. Send questions to energyadviser@ clarkpud.com or to Energy Foxborough, MA Adviser, c/o Clark Public www.claudescycles.com Utilities, P.O. Box 8900, Van508-543-0490 couver, WA 98668.
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Visit us online at GreenLivingJournal.com • Green Living • Summer 2014 • 13
ENERGY & BUILDING
New England is Getting A Short
By Lisa Bell Remember a few years back when California didn’t produce enough electricity to meet its own demands? If we don’t do something now it will be New England’s turn to hold that honor. The ISO that purchases power for the future in New England was formed in 2006. This is the first time since it was formed that ISO New England has fallen short of getting the power that they needed through normal channels. In the past New England has had a surplus but with the retirement of several power plants by 2017 that surplus is going to a deficit fast. This winter has been very cold and that cold has placed a huge Dam on Ashuelot, Windfarm Lisa Bell Photo workplaces | new homes | renovations | additions | design energy retrofits | institutions | schools | construction management
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Green Living Journal • Summer 2014
We keep adding to the demands of the electric system with new devices that we “just have to have.” Are we adding to the power that we need to fuel our new energy hungry lifestyles? We have electronics
eNerGY & BUILDING
In Its Electricity Supply that take phantom power by having displays that are constantly taking electricity. We are all responsible.
Consequences
When California had its electricity crisis back in 2000 and 2001, there were rolling blackouts which caused problems for businesses that counted on a reliable power source and consumers as well. We are going to have to wake up and very soon. Continuing to do nothing with proposed energy projects will have its consequences such as brownouts and high bills. Years ago when the Seabrook power plant in New Hampshire was being built people fussed and protested and really drove up costs for the plant. I guess given the current situation it is a good thing that we did have that power plant or we would be in a worse situation. It is clear that our electric system is more strained with all our gadgets. Now we just have to add more power.
Some possible solutions are:
• Cutting back or conserving • Make the switch to the lowest energy using appliances, lights etc. • Adding power sources Solar, wind, hydro, Algae and other plant based fuels, are just a few to consider Cutting back and conserving energy makes the most sense but is very often hard to do. Many appliances and other electronics have to stay plugged in or they lose their memory. It would be helpful if manufacturers would create a way to eliminate or substantially reduce the phantom power draws.
Solutions with Minimal environmental impact
Once we cut back as much as we can we still have to replace current power sources that are going to be closed due to age or other factors. Then we have to consider that our electric usage has increased over the years and that trend is likely to continue. Electricity Supply - Continued page 16
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ENERGY & BUILDING
Electricity
Continued from page 15
We have a lot of options to add power sources. While other energies have increased substantially in price, solar energy has been coming down. Businesses and consumers can put solar panels on many of our roofs and on our properties. Whether you lease, buy or make the solar panels, the contribution to the power grid will make a difference. Many of the dams that we have in the area do not produce power. Converting existing dams would make better use of an existing resource with no further environmental impact. Using smaller solar lights and battery chargers will also help lessen the load on the main power system. When a business puts up or converts a current sign to solar power, they advertise with no electric bill. The installation costs are lower and the signs can be put in places that are very visible but where grid electricity wasn’t easily available. Homeowners benefit when they use solar battery
chargers to charge things like phones and cameras because the chargers save money and they double as necessary equipment in emergencies when there is a prolonged power outage. The money saved by using them is a benefit that will grow with the price of electricity. Outdoor solar lighting has improved and expanded in recent years from the small solar lights to lighting the streets and to small quality solar powered flashlights.
Projects with More Impact:
Hydro power Currently we have a project proposed called the Northern Pass Project. This project will have some tall towers with wires over a 187 miles from Canada to the middle of NH. The power lines would bring hydro or water power to New England. People are fighting it largely due to their views changing. The towers would go over some mountain ranges. While no one seems to think they would be pretty neither were the current wires that we have. Using more windmills is also a possibility but the larger wind farms seem to get the same treatment as the Northern Pass Project.
Conclusion
One of the main industries in New England is tourism. Tourists stay in hotels and eat in restaurants. Brown outs and electrical outages have a negative effect on tourism.1 Can you imagine going on vacation and not knowing if you are going to be able to get a meal or have air conditioning? Even if you go camping you will still need to buy gas and those pumps run on electricity. What about our citizens that have medical equipment at home? Remember our cold New England winter? Heaters run on electricity. One of the factors for businesses being able to come to New England is affordable power. If a business feels that costs are too high they may not come or worse, the businesses that are here may be forced to leave.
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In the very near future companies are going to be using drones to make deliveries and most likely other services. We are going to have more electronics using more electricity. While it is safe to say that we will have appliances and devices that will be highly energy efficient, if our children come as far in the next 50 years as my generation we will use more electricity powered devices and appliances, and like our generation use more energy.
Green Living Journal • Summer 2014
eNerGY & BUILDING
SolarFest Turns Twenty This July
Born in Middletown Springs in 1995, the brainchild of a group of friends equally engaged in the arts and interested in off-grid living, SolarFest has come of age in the nearby hills of Tinmouth. This year, SolarFest celebrates its role as a proud parent of the robust renewable energy industry of Vermont. As the name says, SolarFest has always been about celebrating the technology and the kind of lifestyle it can give us. At first, in 1995, the mission was simply to show that solar works, even in the Northeast. Twenty years later that idea is a given, and the solar aficionada is no longer an off-grid back- SolarFest crowd dancing. to-the-lander; she is grid-tied and net-metered, happy to be earning electric credit as her panels generate power for others. Now, everywhere you go you see solar farms by the roadsides, solar arrays and solar hot water on rooftops. The thousands of people who have attended workshops and demonstrations at SolarFest over two decades have returned to their homes and done something to move towards sustainable living, creating demand for solar and other technologies. Many have built green homes or added solar; some have become solar providers. Many more credit SolarFest with making a significant change in how, and what, they consume. Vermont made news in February as the state with the most solar industry jobs per capita, and is ranked 21st of the fifty states in solar electric capacity, which is stirking given its size. As SolarFest Board of Trustees president Steve Goldsmith notes, “Right up the road from SolarFest, Rutland is striving to be the Solar Capitol of New England. Solar power is the fastest growing source of electricity in the world. Energy and sustainability issues are on the minds of consumers, government agencies and communities. Most towns now have active energy committees, many which were started at SolarFest.” National figures Bill McKibben, SolarFest - Continued page 18
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Greenfield, MA
ENERGY & BUILDING SolarFest
gage with activists, artists, and sustainable living exhibitors. They can make or take in music, camp and Ben Cohen, and Peter Welch have gone on record credrelax in beauty. iting SolarFest for helping to create the awareness and And dance! Famous for its professional quality, Soto connect nascent solar businesses with the curious larFest’s Main Stage is the flagship of the festival, filling customers who built this thriving industry. the weekend with world class music and state-of-theIt’s not that SolarFest preart lighting and sound dicted the future: it just made provided by Dark Star sense to its organizers and atLighting and Productendees that developing solar tion, an innovative enand other renewable energy, ergy-conscious company creating awareness and inthat began alongside Sociting conservation and delarFest. For twenty years mand for efficiency are the the miracle of lights only ways we are going to and sound powered by avert climate change disaster; one hundred per cent it’s the only way we stand a renewable energy has chance of thriving in a postimpressed and inspired oil world. The fact that more audiences. people see the inevitability of Appearing on that climate change and our role stage this year as keyin it does not mean the work note speakers will be SolarFest Sun Gods. is done, and SolarFest rests Alec Guettel, co-founder on no laurels. of Sungevity, and fermentation guru Sandor Katz, as SolarFest 2014 has its standard array of almost one well as a full slate of music including Break of Realhundred workshops offering tools for what it will take ity, SolarFest House Band, Soule Monde, Start Making to forge a future in these times: Sustainable Agriculture, Sense–Talking Heads Tribute, the Dirty Dozen Brass Green Building, Renewable Energy, Thriving ComBand, the annual Songwriter Showcase, with many munities, Youth and Family topics, and for the second more acts to be confirmed. year, 350.org’s Climate Change track. Rutland’s WonAsk ten attendees why they come to SolarFest and derfeet Museum provides a host of children’s activities, you’ll get ten different answers. But a hallmark of Soand the SolarFest Mini-Maker Faire® brings regional larFest is the community it creates, mixing technology DIY enthusiasts together. Attendees can join a racking and talents, whether one volunteers or buys a ticket. competition, tour a tiny house, attend children’s book Newcomers will note the blend of ages, the children author Frank Asch’s newest Theater-in-the-Woods and young adults moving freely and without fear play, go on guided weed walks, meander through the among the older folks. Many of the original organizmidway of food and crafts vendors, network and eners of SolarFest are still deeply involved, and their children, who have always helped, now hold positions of responsibility. SolarFest 2014 recognizes the volunteers M. A. Corcoran Scholarship who have contributed days of their lives each year for and Cancer Research Fund twenty years, working together for no other reason Helping Veterans and their families than that our future has to be in community, that this festival reminds us of who we can be and invigorates us for the work ahead. People from all over the Northeast have consistently made SolarFest a part of their summer plans, both as attendees and as volunteers. Come for inspiration, Adam Corcoran 802.280.5378 education and great fun to SolarFest July 18-20. Ticket, CEO/Founder adamcorcoran@gmail.com volunteer and much more information is found on the www.michaelcorcoranscholarshipfund.com website: solarfest.org Continued from page 17
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Green Living Journal • Summer 2014
EDUCATION History Lives at Justin Morrill Homestead The pink Victorian home with its ornate gingerbread trim looks out of place nestled in amidst the wooded hills. The nearby Town House in Strafford, spare and simple, is more evocative of the unforgiving landscape where Justin Smith Morrill, the town’s best-known native son, was born (1810) and buried (1893). The grounds are open for exploration year-round, but it is the period from Memorial Day through Columbus Day, when the homestead springs to life, giving meaning to the term “living history.” The gardens burst into bloom, costumed tour guides show off the house, and a roster of educational programs and special events make the homestead a Mecca for master gardeners, history lovers, and architecture buffs. At the moment, the staff is scurrying the ready the lady for the coming debut. Furniture is being buffed and polished by the tour guides. The master gardener and her flock of interns are readying the Victorian gardens. Executive director, Michael Caduto, is checking and rechecking the details of an ambitious education program that spans subjects as widely varying for a walk for wild edibles (which he leads himself) to workshops in water color painting for kids. Behind the bustle, it is easy to forget that the stars of the show are Morrill himself and the homestead he maintained which demonstrated the life principles that he held dear. It’s not a magnificent mansion and yet it became Vermont’s first property to be listed on the National Historic Landmark registry. What’s a visitor to expect? After paying the modest admission fee (check MorrillHomestead.org for special events, including free days for Vermonters) the first person a visitor
Photos provided by Justin Morrill Homestead.
is likely to encounter is a young woman in period costume, Emily Howe Ferro from nearby Tunbridge. She intersperses humor with her historical narrative. “I created a Victorian hat using only a glue gun, some old ribbon, and a Cool Whip container. Move over Scarlett O’Hara. People who don’t know me must think I’m some sort of wacko, I comfort myself with the knowledge that the people who DO know me think the same.” While Emily provides color and life to the homestead, she intersperses humor with historical fact to portray a modest, yet thoroughly remarkable, man. Justin Morrill grew up in Strafford, Vermont
and attended Thetford Academy and Randolph Academy. His academic life ended prematurely at the age of 15, however, because his family did not have the financial means to send him to college. This left a lasting impression but did not dampen Justin’s intellectual curiosity or ambition. He taught himself about business, while dabbling in architecture, horticulture, and politics. He became a successful merchant, eventually owning and operating four stores. He also served in local town Justin Morrill - Continued page 20
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EDUCATION Justin Morrill
Continued from page 19
offices as Auditor and Justice of the Peace where he honed an interest in local politics. Morrill invested shrewdly and well in banks, railroads, and real estate. By his mid-thirties he was financially secure enough to retire from business and to more fully pursue a career in politics while maintaining his farmstead. Eventually, he became a mainstay in the Whig Committee, a precursor to the modern Republican Party. Morrill ran for Congress in 1854, beginning a political career of 44 years, first as Representative and later Senator. Remembering his own lack of educational opportunity, he became chief sponsor of the Land-Grant Acts of 1862 signed into law by Abraham Lincoln. This legislation allocated funds from the sale of federal lands to support new colleges and universities. These affordable institutions made it possible for working class, immigrant, and minority citizens to pursue higher education in agriculture, business, engineering, mechanics, and home economics. Others could now enjoy the benefits he had been denied. “This bill proposes to establish at least one college in every State upon a sure and perpetual foundation, accessible to all ...” - as quoted by William Belmont Parker, The Life and Public Services of Justin Smith Morrill, 1862. The second Land-Grant College Act in 1890 created colleges in Southern, formerly Confederate, states that provided similar opportunities to Afro-Americans, in many cases former slaves. The cumulative impact of Morrill’s legislation is immense. There are now 105 Land Grant Colleges, a group that includes state universities, polytechnic colleges, and agricultural and mechanical colleges. More than 25 million people currently living on the planet have graduated from Land-Grant educational institutions, and an estimated 400 million have attended since their inception, making these two acts the most significant pieces of
20 •
legislation in the history of American higher education. At the time of Morrill’s death his 43 years and 299 days of continuous Congressional service was the longest in U.S. history (since surpassed). Michael Caduto is the current Executive Director of the non-profit organization that maintains the Morrill Homestead and manages the transformation of grounds and building into living history. “My first challenge on coming on board was to strengthen the program offerings and communications effort.” A peek at the website reveals
Green Living Journal • Summer 2014
Justin Morrill - Continued page 21
EDUCATION Justin Morrill Continued from page 20
a non-stop and widely-varying roster of events, ranging from workshops on how to make bent wood garden trellises to a reception and preview opening of the Statues of Liberty Exhibit, commemorating the signing by Abraham Lincoln, on July 2, 1864, of Congressman Justin Morrill’s Act (H.J. Res. 66), creating a National Statuary Hall. Caduto’s next challenge has been to strengthen and solidify the organization’s revenue stream so that the education mission and visitor experiences are enhanced. A very popular event is the annual “Minis for Morrill” silent auction of miniature (four inch by four inch) paintings contributed by local artists on July 4th. Not unlike many Vermont towns, Strafford has a wealth of talented artists hidden on its dirt roads. Lively events like the workshops and auction are bolstered by the work of a group that Caduto describes as “a supportive and hardworking board of directors” who assist in maintaining close and essential relationships with the Strafford community and the state of Vermont. John Dumville is the Historic Sites Operations Chief for the State of Vermont. He is also a graduate of the University of Vermont, a school that was started as a private college, but became quasi-public adding a School of Agriculture following the passage of Morrill’s Land-Grant Act of 1862. He makes no secret of his love for the homestead. “At this beautifully preserved and evocative site, visitors really feel the mid- to late 1800s and get to understand this remarkable person, what interested him, his vision and goals, and the legacy of his good works and deeds.” Adds Caduto “The homestead is living proof of Morrill’s deep and lasting curiosity about all things horticultural. It was Justin Morrill, for instance, who hired and worked closely with noted landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to design the grounds surrounding the nation’s Capitol in Washington, DC, the most familiar piece of landscape design in the nation.” The pink, Gothic Revival farm house is not a grand mansion, nor are the inviting gardens as magnificent as the Mall in our nation’s capital, but the legacy of the boy from Strafford who couldn’t go to college stands second to none. The house at the Homestead is open Memorial Day (last weekend in May) through Columbus Day (second
weekend in October), Wednesday through Sunday (and holiday Mondays) from 11:00 am. to 5:00 pm. Tours are conducted on the hour. Admission is $5.00. Justin Morrill Homestead, 214 Justin Morrill Highway, Strafford, VT 05070. 802.765.4288.
Visit us online at GreenLivingJournal.com • Green Living • Summer 2014 • 21
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eDUCatIoN
Food Co-ops: Growing Food Security and Community Ownership Since 1844 By Erbin Crowell On December 21, 1844, the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers opened a humble grocery store in the north of England. The offerings on the shelves were modest: little more than butter, flour, oatmeal and candles. The vision of the Pioneers, however, was ambitious. “What was the motivation of the Rochdale Pioneers, who codified the values and principles on which the co-operative movement has based since 1844?” asked Dame Pauline Green, President of the International Co-operative Alliance. “We know it today as security.” At a time when the Industrial Revolution was heavily impacting the lives of working people, access to nutritious food was limited and adulterated products were common. Basic products such as flour, coffee and sugar were expensive and often contaminated, mixed with limestone, sawdust or other ingredients to increase their weight and cost. For working people, options were limited and many had no choice but to shop at the local company store. Their immediate priority was food that was pure, nutritious and affordable. Their solution was the “co-op,” a locally owned, democratically organized enterprise that had as its core purpose the meeting of member needs and goals rather than maximizing profit. By pooling their resources, people of limited means created a new approach to business that quickly spread around the world, operating in almost every aspect of the economy. From food co-ops to farmer co-ops, credit unions to worker coops, energy co-ops to housing co-ops,
the co-operative movement has been recognized by organizations such as the International Labour Organization for its contribution to livelihoods and economic security. More recently the United Nations declared 2012 the International Year of Co-ops, promoting co-operative enterprise as a tool for poverty alleviation, economic sustainability and food security. Today, the aftermath of the global recession has continued to have a dramatic impact on the ability of people to provide themselves and their families with healthy food. In the U.S., 23.5 million Americans (including 6.5 million children) live in areas with Food Co-ops - Continued page 24
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eDUCatIoN Food Co-ops Continued from page 23 limited access to affordable and nutritious food, particularly in low-income neighborhoods and communities. In New England, the relative cost of high-nutrition less processed foods is among the highest in the country, when compared to low-nutrition, highly processed foods. Additionally, childhood obesity rates are higher in many parts of the region than the national average. Food co-ops in New England have been innovators in the food system. Some date back to the Great Depression,
while others were founded in the 1970s and 80s, emerging as community-based responses to limited access to healthy, organic and natural foods. Food co-ops were pioneers in natural food retailing, local sourcing and more affordable, less wasteful methods such as buying foods in bulk. In recent years, a new wave of food co-ops has emerged, reflecting growing interest in local economies and democratic ownership. Rooted in their communities, food coops are an effective tool for building healthy food access, Food Co-ops - Continued page 26
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ON THE NIGHTSTAND Three from Echo Point Books Here are few of Echo Point’s recent new/old titles that, once again, have a life in print: How to Prune Fruit Trees by R. Sanford Martin. This is the go-to book for pruners of all levels, and has been for more than half a century. The author has pruned his own words to make his advice as clear and simple as possible, helping you maximize fruit production on over 40 varieties, from almonds to pomegranates. This enhanced edition includes additional information from H.H. Thomas’s Pruning Made Easy which explores pruning of roots, side-shoots, and sublaterals. Helpful illustrations are sprinkled throughout. The Vermont Nature Guide written and illustrated by Sheri Amsel is a field guide to birds, mammals, trees, insects, wildflowers, amphibians, and where to find them. Covering so much territory, you night expect this to be a 500 page tome. Instead it is the essence of simplicity, barely 100 pages, with clear, colorful, illustrations that let you identify everything you discover on your nature walk. More than 260 key species included. Great book for youngsters. Gardening Without Work by Ruth Stout. Subtitled “For the Aging, the Busy, and the Indolent.” Don’t believe the “indolent” part. There’s no such thing as an
indolent gardener. What this book does offer, however, is a way of doing more with less work, and every gardener will tell you that this is a good idea. Ruth Stout is a feisty, old broad. (I don’t think she would be offended by that description. She goes out of her way to portray herself as such.) She’s very much of a garden contrarian whose basic thrust is to mulch heavily, constantly, and deep. This will eliminate the need for weeding, composting, watering, and tilling. That’s the book in a nutshell, but Ms. Stout is a funny, entertaining writer who has no problem filling the pages with anecdotes, observations, and entertaining case studies. I’ve adopted the mulching mantra for this season in my own garden. Even though the original of this book was published over 50 years ago, it rings true today.
About Echo Point books:
“One door closes; another door opens.” This not from the Bible, but it sounds as if it should be. For booksellers, one door started closing in 1994 when Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com. Amazon did not play by “the rules,” a Byzantine set of trading terms that include the clause that the largest, most powerful booksellers (i.e. Barnes & Noble) can return books to publishers at any time and in any condition for full credit. Returned books are called “hurts” in the trade. They are problematic for many reasons-they take up space, they are difficult to track, and there is no welldefined market for re-selling them. Enter Marshall Glickman. The name may sound familiar to readers of Green Living Journal. Marshall founded this publication in 1990, operating it out of his beautiful, but isolated, home in rural southern Vermont. There was already an interesting back story to Marshall’s business career to this point. Here he is quoted in a column he wrote for the New York Times in April, 1987.
®
Echo Point - Continued page 29 28 •
Green Living Journal • Summer 2014
ON THE NIGHTSTAND
Echo Point
Continued from page 28
“At the age of 12, I was a hustling newspaper boy and baby sitter, squirreling away dollar bills in a small red plastic safe that I hid behind my socks. While my brother was out playing basketball, I was devising plans to build my fortune. I cut lawns, delivered pizza, worked in a warehouse and as a security guard. I even had a scheme in college to capitalize on student birth control and sell condoms by mail order.” He graduated Phi Bet Kappa from Northwestern University and found himself headed, without enthusiasm, towards a career in law. He felt himself more drawn to matters of adventure, spirituality, and contemplation, so he made a strategic decision: “I postponed my adventures until I could afford them. I wouldn’t have a career, I said, I would simply make money - fast. Enough money to make me feel I was a success but not so much that I would get sidetracked. My goal was a nest egg of $100,000, but I promised myself I’d work for only three years, even if I fell short of that. Wall Street seemed the most direct route.” He took a job with the brokerage house Shearson Lehman in the proverbial “bucket shop” needing to make 200300 cold calls a day in order to actually talk to 50-60 potential clients. It was not fun. “All images of a better life had faded by the time I shuffled home from the office at 9:30 P.M., wolfed my dinner and collapsed on the couch with the same halfread book. My eyes burned from staring at the green glow of my Quotron machine.” But, when all seemed lost one of life’s odd twists occurred. The stock market turned red hot, and those seeds from the 300 cold calls a day began to bear fruit. Suddenly, everyone wanted Marshall to take their call. Everyone was making money on Wall St., and Marshall’s work building a foundation of clients paid big dividends. He earned up to a quarter of a million dollars per year and built up a nest egg of more than $100,000. But he never lost sight of his original strategy.
“I enjoyed the gambling, enjoyed calculating my commissions at the end of each day. I was riding the momentary high, the thrill of the hunt. At the same time, all this unnerved me. I kept reminding myself that Shearson was a means to an end, and I was still committed to that end.” So, he quit, moved to Vermont, bought the house in the woods. He became very good at living frugally, which was often synonymous with living “green.” Three years after leaving the brokerage, he founded Green Living Journal. Marshall dabbled in the book business, both as an author and a publisher, but it was not until he became knowledgeable about the problematic issue of “hurt” books that he recognized an opportunity. The burgeoning popularity of Amazon suddenly provided a marketplace for anyone willing to do business electronically. He began to take on publishers hurt books in bulk and to market them individually as used books on Amazon. Thus, he relieved the publisher of a headache, while satisfying bargain-hungry consumers. After developing this part of the business, initially under the name Green Living Books, now as Echo Point Books, Marshall saw another opportunity to publish new editions of books that other publishers had decided to discontinue. Here’s how he describes the latest venture on his website echopointbooks.com: Echo Point Books & Media is a big bookseller and small publisher. Our bookselling division works with a wide range of publishers, offering an unbeatable solution to the hurts books dilemma. In the publishing house, we search high and low for the best titles of the past and republish them for future readers. Our library includes over 50 titles in a variety of genres.Echo Point Books has been growing at more than 50% per year. It now employs fifteen. In an industry facing consolidation on both the retail and the publishing levels, Marshall has found opportunity by looking creatively at the business segments that no one else wants and giving them new life. Moreover, he has embraced the strengths of Amazon, and turned them to his advantage. While the traditional book business treats Amazon like the 500# elephant in the room, Marshall has figured out a way to harness its power.
Visit us online at GreenLivingJournal.com • Green Living • Summer 2014 • 29
ON THE NIGHTSTAND
Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation By Michael Pollan Reviewed by Michael Potts and Brenda Hinton This is one of the most delicious books we’ve consumed in a long time – and it surprised us from start to finish with wise insights, historical revelations, humor, and most of the recipes needed to reproduce the author’s experiences. Pollan is best known for his Omnivore’s Dilemma, in which he writes at length about the ethics of food – he is satisfyingly appalled by what we call the “Standard American Diet” and the industrialization of food, just as we are. In Cooked, he approaches the subject of eating from an interesting angle, by researching the whys and wherefores of food preparation, and the effects of spending time in the kitchen. He structures the book around the four classical elements – Fire, Water, Air and Earth. The book follows Pollan’s travels to seek out and work with some of the world’s most expert practitioners of each of these elements, with the intention of bringing their techniques home with him. His stories show us how the personalities of these masters suit their chosen methods. For one of us (Brenda) the first section, Fire, was a walk down memory lane. A bit of a stretch for her, as a dedicated vegan, to stay with his discussion of whole hog pit bar-b-ques, cracklins – all stuff that’s now vaguely nauseating. Even so, she fondly remembers those growing up days, the entire family around the pit for hours, kids playing, adults talking, pies coming out of the kitchen ... and then bar-b-que from the grill. Pollan catches perfectly the way pit masters and their art bring communities together around an open flame. Pollan tackles the complex issues surrounding “industrialized food” and the sustainability of ‘farm to table’ lifestyles – an area of concern that connects all “foodies.” A few of the better pit masters understand that ethical treatment for the animals they cook – pasturing and grass-feeding – results in better tasting food than agribiz hogs raised in than commercial CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations). Like us, Pollan believes that quality edibles are conscientiously cared for from seed to table, or (begging pardon from our vegetarian readers) from womb to fork. In the second section, Water, Pollan studies braising – the practice of cooking food low and slow in a savory 30 •
sauce – while documenting how our modern overbusy work schedules translates to less time in the kitchen: the average American spends 27 minutes a day preparing food. Noting the popularity of cooking shows, he writes “There are now millions of people who spend more time watching food being cooked on television than they spend actually cooking it themselves.” We found it absurd to read that marketers (Already we know there’s going to be a problem!) have redefined ‘cooking’: we are ‘cooking’ if we ‘do’ one thing (besides rip open the package) to prepare a meal. For example; popping a pizza in the microwave is NOT cooking, but lathering bread with mustard and layering on pre-sliced meats and cheese IS. Maybe that’s absurd, but it fits the way many of us live. Pollan suggests that devoting so much time to work, commuting, multi-tasking – what we straight-facedly refer to as “the rat race” – has robbed us not only of the most nutritious foods but also of the quality time spent with family members in the kitchen and around the dining table. Did you know you can buy frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to thaw in that microwave? Check those center aisles of your megamart, because these and other tempting “food-like substances” may be on sale this week! Pollan discusses the trend towards ‘not cooking’ and notes that the rise of what he calls ‘secondary eating’ – time spent grazing while we do something primary, like multi-tasking – correlates with obesity. Citing 2003 studies showing that when we don’t have to prepare foods at home, we eat more, he concludes that even without the likelihood that this prepared food is full of “comfort ingredients” like fats and sugars (not to mention preservatives and fillers) this could explain the 500 daily calories mushrooming of the average American’s diet since the 1960s. Another study shows a negative correlation between the time a nation spends on food preparation at home and its national rate of obesity. For you, dear Reader, and most of our friends, the good news is that our contrarian trend toward more involvement with food preparation using fresh, locally sourced ingredients puts us on par with the world’s healthiest people.
Green Living Journal • Summer 2014
A Natural History - Continued page 31
ON THE NIGHTSTAND A Natural History
Continued from page 30
The book’s theme and conclusion is simply and compellingly stated when Pollan asks food marketing expert Harry Balzer, the book’s authoritative source for much of the pessimism about the way Americans eat, “What is the best diet?” Balzer unhesitatingly replies, “Cook it yourself. Eat whatever you want as long as you cook it yourself.” Noting the idea that cooking is what separates humans from the beasts (an idea traceable back to James Boswell in 1773) Pollan offers a powerful explanation: “Other primates our size carry around substantially larger digestive tracts and spend many more of their waking hours chewing – as much as six hours a day.” The efficiency we gained with our more energy-dense diet “allowed our brains to grow bigger (brains being notorious energy guzzlers) and our guts to shrink.” In Air, the third section of Cooked, Pollan discusses Bread. He explains some things about the modern milling of flour that we always suspected but didn’t really know: that modern milling, which strives for a long shelf-life, achieves this by milling out all the nutrition that naturally occurs in the grains. When modern milling was first perfected at the beginning of the 20th Century, and people who got much of their nutrition from bread products started getting beriberi and other nutritional deficiency diseases, the government decreed that millers “fortify” their flour by putting some of the nutrients, in a less volatile form, back in. In most of the food conscious parts of the US, the renaissance of artisan millers and bakers is well known, but whole swaths of the country are still “food deserts” where “Wonder Bread” is the staple. In one of the book’s best bits, Pollan visits with the “bread engineers” at the big Wonder Bread bakery in Sacramento. His guide explains at some length how many of the ingredients meant to “build strong bodies eight ways” (or however many they claim nowadays) are NOT intended to make consumers thrive; they’re included so that many different kinds of bread can be produced efficiently on the same industrial line and stored indefinitely on megamart shelves. Pollan underscores the importance for all of us to “leave no food unexamined” in our effort to find healthy eating options. If we buy packaged breads, we
need to practice defensive shopping by reading (and understanding) the ingredients, and staying away from packaged breads that have ingredients that are not grain. Traditional bread consists of flour made from grain, water, salt, and yeast. Period. We knew that the fourth section, Earth, would be right in our wheelhouse! Before food was industrialized, fermented foods were an important part of everyone’s daily diet. We were happy to find one of our food heroes, Sandor Katz, as Pollan’s guide to fermentation. The author of the very popular book Wild Fermentation, Sandor is a guru for the people of “Fermentation Nation,” the cultural revival of fermented foods that is following along behind the renaissance of artisinal bread. Microbial evangelist Sandor helps Pollan explore the 20th century’s obsession with germlessness and the resulting war on bacteria that brought us irradiation, pasteurization, sterilization of foods, and the indiscriminate use of antibiotics in human health and agribusiness. Some of us believe that our food has become so sterile that we have to consciously re-populate our internal flora with microbes via fermented foods and probiotics to preserve our health. Pollan tells us that anthropologists find some form of fermentation in every culture on our planet, often at the heart of their cuisine. For Germans, it’s sauerkraut; for Koreans, kimchi; for the Japanese natto and miso ... and on and on. In each culture these essentially “rotted” foods are an acquired A Natural History - Continued page 32
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Visit us online at GreenLivingJournal.com • Green Living • Summer 2014 • 31
ON THE NIGHTSTAND A Natural History
Continued from page 31
taste – remember your first-ever taste of beer? We Americans, with our morbid fear of bugs and our lack of a truly national cuisine, have legislated and removed fermented foods from our diets. Even our pickles aren’t fermented; they’re cured in vinegar that isn’t fermented but chemically acidified. Since we haven’t acquired the taste for fermented foods as children, we tend to find them unappetizing ... thus eliminating from our diets an important source for renewing the internal microbiota that keep us alive. While numerous common foods are fermented during their production, most of them are then pasteurized to preserve us from “the bugs” – coffee, chocolate, cheese, soy sauce, salami, prosciutto, vanilla, bread, wine, ketchup, sauerkraut, vinegar, olives, yogurt, and kefir, to name only a few. Pollan proposes that processed foods undermine our health by wrecking the ecology of our gut. Gut health is an important topic, generally misunderstood, with the art of fermentation at its core. Like cooking, fermentation makes nutrients accessible that would otherwise be hard (or impossible) for our bodies to use. These natural processes change what nature gives us into something highly beneficial to our overall health. Pollan provides a comprehensive, and highly entertaining, overview of the wonderful world of your internal microbiome. The Earth section is devoted to the arts of cheese, wine, and beer making. Living food aficionados will find this part especially rewarding. Pollan’s enthusiastic descriptions of his father – teen-aged son projects tell a compelling story. Cooked probably won’t be as popular as Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma because to really enjoy this book you need to be someone who likes to prepare food. (For Omnivore, you just needed to like to eat.)
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Like Pollan, one of the reviewers (Michael) is an omnivorous foodie who found Cooked a tasty treat throughout. Some tenderer spirits may cringe when Pollan helps hoist a whole pig onto the barbecue down North Carolina way, but trust us: the book gets easier to swallow after that. Making the decision not to cook represents either a retreat to a simpler life of grazing (in effect) on the savannah, or a commitment to a life that allocates much more time to food than fits into the Standard American (27 minutes of food prep a day) Diet. And there just aren’t very many shortcuts – no raw food twinkies or organic free-range Hungry Man frozen dinners to be had. For us, loving our time in the kitchen as we do, but also having lives, Pollan proposes a recovery plan that appeals: devote Sunday afternoon to preparation of two or three great entrees that will reappear at dinner during the week. Reinstitute the family dinner, breaking bread together and talking around the dinner table. Haunt farmers markets, make friends with local producers, and be always on the lookout for honest, fresh, untreated, chemical-free, nutritious new food. Meanwhile, stay away from the middle aisles at the megamart where all the food-like substances lurk to temp us! At the very end of the book, working with Korean kimchi master Hyeon Hee, Pollan discovers a profound idea, hand taste. By contrast, “tongue taste is the straightforward chemical phenomenon that takes place whenever molecules make contact with taste buds ... McDonald’s has tongue taste,” she explains. We hope you will taste, here in the last paragraph of the book, something of the flavor that we found so exciting and nutritious: Hand taste, however, involves something greater than mere flavor. It is the infinitely more complex experience of food that bears the unmistakable signature of the individual who made it – the care and thought and idiosyncrasy that that person has put into the work of preparing it. Hand taste cannot be faked, Hyeon Hee insisted, and hand taste is the reason we got to all this trouble, massaging the individual leaves of each cabbage and then folding them and packing them in the urn just so. What hand taste is, I understood all at once, is the taste of love. Brenda Hinton is a credentialed Living Food Chef and kitchen tool designer whose work can be found on her website, RawsomeCreations.com. Michael Potts is a writer, futurist, foodie, and the data wrangler for Green Living Journal. They both live in Northern California.
Green Living Journal • Summer 2014
eNerGY
Sun Harvestors
From Passive Solar to the Passive House Standard By Indigo Ruth-Davis The sun has been a powerful and unpredictable ally of mankind for as long as we have been around. It is a sometimes brutal, life giving force that for millennia has marked our waking hours and grown our food. Not until the past few centuries however has the science of harvesting the sun’s energy been fully developed. While there are many ways to make use of this energy, only one is free for everyone: solar radiation through our windows. Unlike all other forms of energy, solar radiation cannot be made into a commodity. Making use of the sun’s heat in architecture was recognized even by Socrates who said, “ We should build the south side loftier to get the winter sun, and the north side lower, to keep out the cold winter winds”. The potential of passive solar heat gain, although used much earlier in agriculture, was not widely evident in building until Modernist architects in the early 20th century made use of new technology to cover entire buildings with glass curtain walls. These buildings are hot when the sun is shining, but quickly lose their heat because of the low R-value of glass. These inadvertent “sun harvesters” needed to find ways to incorporate shading devices into their facades to limit the effects of solar radiation. Architecture schools developed solar measuring tools to determine solar radiation effects such as Aladar and Victor Olgay’s Shade-Dial, and different types of Heliodons going as far back as the 1930’s. This problem that the Modernists faced expanded the field of building science and its relationship to the sun. These principles of building science were popularized in residential construction in the 1970’s with the Passive Solar home movement. Passive Solar struck a chord with the back to the land movement of this time. Young people looked around their urban and suburban neighborhoods fueled by perpetually expanding consumerism and could not reconcile that wasteful lifestyle with their idealism. Hundreds of thousands moved to the country looking for a more fundamental connection to nature and a less fragmented community. An architecture rooted in self sufficiency that worked with the natural world was a must. For many, Passive Solar fit the bill. Leaders in this field like William Shurcliff, James Kachadorian, Harold Orr, and others pushed residential building to new heights in North America. The success of Passive Solar houses was ultimately limited by the technology available at the time. Low-E coatings, gas fills and triple pane windows were still in development, as was heat recovery ventilation for homes. The first blower doors used for testing the air-tightness of a building weren’t
A Heliodon is a device used to observe and calculate the effects of the sun on a building model
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Green Living Journal • Summer 2014
eNerGY Sun Harvestors Continued from page 32
commercially available until the early eighties, so builders couldn’t easily confirm how airtight their buildings were. During the 1980s and 1990s progress shifted to European countries where investment in energy efficient technology for buildings was growing steadily. While plummeting fuel prices and poorly designed Passive Solar homes led to its decline over these years, a new design approach has absorbed many of the Passive Solar principles and coupled them with technological advances in building components. This is the Passivhaus building standard (or Passive House as it’s known in this country). In the 1980s German physicist Bo Adamson was hired by the Chinese government to make houses more comfortable in parts Sun Harvestors - Continued page 36
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ENERGY Sun Harvestors of China where heating fuel was unavailable. These houses were entirely passive by necessity and became the inspiration for his collaboration with another German scientist Wolfgang Feist to create the Passive House building standard. While Passive House
Continued from page 35
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son that is fundamental to all ecobuildings is referred to as the energy balance. This balancing act is accomplished in Passive House buildings using a computer program developed at the Passivhaus Institute in Germany. Building component specifications are combined with climate data to predict the heating demand of the building. This is called performance based design because design decisions are based on the predicted performance. For a Passive House to meet the certification criteria, it will typically use a tenth of the energy to heat as a conventionally built home. To give a sense of how far building technology has come over the past 30 years, here’s an example. The windows that I am using on my current Passive House project in Middlesex Vermont, have an R-value around 10. A Thermopane top of the line window from the 1970s would have had an R-value 2.5. Making this single change in the window specifications would more than triple the heat loss of the building. Windows, the smooth transparent vertical surfaces are the furnaces of Passive Houses. Learning to use this simple yet unpredictable energy source, Passive House designers stand on the shoulders of those who came before from the Modernist architects who carefully studied the effects of solar radiation on their glass curtain wall buildings, to the Passive Solar trailblazers who envisioned a new low-impact way of building. Solar radiation is free for everyone, so whether it’s simply taking the advice of Socrates and orienting the building to the south, or building to the Passive House standard, in cold climates passive harvesting of energy from the sun is a must in the 21st century. Sun Harvestors - Continued page 37
eNerGY Sun Harvestors Continued from page 36
Indigo Ruth-Davis is a Passive House Institute US Certified Passive House Consultant and builder. He is a partner at Montpelier Construction, one of central Vermont’s leading building performance companies. Indigo believes that what we build and how we build it, is an important social issue as well as a key component of good environmental stewardship. As a Passive House Consultant he works to balance the esthetic design components of the architect or homeowner and practical considerations of the builder with the goal of achieving the extremely low energy demand target of a Passive House. Learn about our first Passive House here:
www.montpelierconstruction.com/passive-house-construction.php Find a builder or consultant in your area here: www.passivehouse.us www.phausvt.org References: Olgay, Aladar and Victor, Solar Control and Shading Device, Princeton University Press, 1957
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1. To commit (money or capital) in order to gain a financial return. 2. To spend or devote for future advantage or benefit. 3. To devote morally or psychologically, as to a purpose; commit.
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Green Living Journal • Summer 2014
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• Green Living • Summer 2014 and • 39the
EDUCATION
Ferment Happens
By Stephen Morris Drinking beer is not simple any more. If you want to become a Cicerone® (a certified expert, the beer equivalent to a wine sommelier), you will need to have the right credentials and pass an exam. It’s a process that takes several years and costs many six packs. Even if you just want to enjoy a good brew, you need a quick course in frothy education. Three terms you will need to know to speak fluent beer. “abv” stands for “Alcohol by Volume” and is a measure of beer strength. Below 5% means you can probably handle more than one. Above 7% and hold on to your barstool. “OG” stands for “original gravity,” referring to the soluble sugars that are in the “wort” which the word for beer prior to fermentation. After the yeast works its magic, these sugars are partially converted to alcohol. Those that are not give the beer body and flavor. Finally, “IBU” is the acronym for “International Bittering Units,” the flavoring contributed by the Hops. Be forewarned, today’s craft brewers lo-o-ove hops, so be prepared for more bitterness than with a scorned lover. Drinking beer used to be simple. You sat around in a dirty t-shirt, put your feet up on the hassock or whatever, and turned on the boob tube to watch the game. You did not have to think much about your beer, because the only choices were container type (can versus bottle) and package size. The beer all looked the same (yellow) and tasted alike (bland and fizzy). Even with the advent of “lite” beers, the choice was between nuances of yellow, bland, and fizzy. You didn’t have to worry about supporting your local brewers, because there were none. Vermont now boasts at least 29 craft brewers, with another half dozen under development. That’s the number participating in the Passport program of the Vermont Brewers Association (vermontbrewers.com). Almost all of these enterprises make multiple beer types, including seasonal specialties, and many have facilities that welcome visitors. Before setting off for a beer drinking odyssey, however, check with the individual brewers. At least one company (The Alchemist) had to discontinue retail operations, because their popularity with visitors was interfering with their ability to make enough beer to satisfy the market. There are a number of beer sampling events that facilitate tasting a variety of exotic concoctions. The beers are often served by brewery representatives, so the samples are fresh and served at proper temperature by people who can answer your questions. Two major events are the Brattleboro Brewers Festival on June 21, and the Harpoon Championships of New England Barbecue on Jule 26 & 27. But there are plenty of other events put on by 40 •
individual breweries and ski areas. Stratton, Mount Snow, and Ascutney all stage beer sampling events. You can find a summary of events at the website vtbeer.org which posts the latest news from area brewers. And Vermont brewers have been very actively in the news of late. The Alchemist of Heady Topper fame (named the nation’s best beer) has announced plans for a second Brewery. Tiny Lawson’s Liquids in Waitsfield raised over $10,000 for charity in their annual sampling event. A movement is underway to form a cooperative brewery in brewery-rich and cooperative-crazy Burlington. Learn about it by checking BTVBEERCOOP on their Facebook page. If you are too lazy to get off your butt and actually go to a brewery or a festival, you can always sit on your butt and use your mobile device to check out the sites where other beer drinkers rate and describe their beers. The aforementioned Heady Topper, for example, has been rated by more than 6000 beer drinkers and reviewed by more than 1000 on the BeerAdvocate.com website. You are welcome to record your own thoughts, but it might be difficult to find something new to say. Whether you like your beer in cans, bottles, on draught, in 64 ounce growlers, or 32 ounce growlettes, it promises to be an exciting summer for adventurous beer drinkers. Here a few local brews not to miss. Don’t worry, this is just the tip of the iceberg: Sicilian Pale Ale (Northshire Brewer, Manchester). This is a hops forward pale ale made with ancient Emmar grains and Sicilian blood oranges giving it a refreshing citrus hops character. Buck’s Honey Wheat (Madison Brewing Company). A wheat beer brewed with real Vermont honey. Batch #38 Hopstand Whetstone Station) An India Pale Ale brewed with a unique twist, a 16 hour “hopstand”, where 6 pounds of Cascade and Citra hops were added and allowed to steep with the wort for 16 hours after boiling. Then, dry hopped with an additional pound of each for a fresh aroma to compliment the lingering bitterness. Summer Beer (Harpoon). This beer, which is light and refreshing, appears to resemble a lager rather than an ale. The Kölsch style is a testimony to the broad spectrum of characteristics an ale can produce, as well as the brewer’s art. The body is soft and delicate with a dry, crisp finish Stephen Morris is the author of The Great Beer Trek, a book that describes the journey that he made in 1978 to visit every operating brewery. At that time there were only 42 in America. Now there are 2500 and counting.
Green Living Journal • Summer 2014
EDUCATION
A Firewood Primer
Success or failure with wood heating depends a lot on the fuel By Cal Wallis All wood, regardless of species, has about the same energy content per pound. The different species vary mainly in density. Traditionally, the favored trees in central North America were oak and maple because they are very dense and produce long-lasting coals. But these are valuable trees and in many areas are not plentiful enough to burn. No problem, just use softer woods like birch or poplar (aspen) or any other tree that is readily available. Keep in mind that people living in the coldest areas of North America have no hardwoods to burn and they get along just fine – their main firewood species are spruce and aspen. Ultimately, it is more important to have wood that is cut and split to the right size and properly dried than it is to get the hardest wood available. It’s been said that a long straight row of firewood standing in the yard in springtime is like money in the bank. It is indeed. As it dries in the summer sunshine, you’re collecting interest. Firewood with a moisture content higher than twenty percent will burn, but it will be hard to light and keep burning and will make a lot of smoke. Plus, much of its energy content will be wasted right up the chimney. Firewood should be between 15 and 20 percent moisture to burn properly, and to get that dry it must be split and stacked in the open for at least a full summer. Lots of people have been mislead by old timers who say that white ash (for example) can be burned green. Sure it will burn, but very badly because it has a natural moisture content of over 30 percent. While that is lower than most species, it is still much too wet for efficient burning. Some advice from old timers is helpful, but not in this case. What is the best tree species for firewood? While there is always room for debate, we like to suggest that the best species in your area is the one that is most plentiful, easy to split and doesn’t cover your hands and clothes with sticky sap. There are lots of resources here to help you to buy, process and store firewood successfully.
Wood Sheds, Wood Boxes and Managing the Mess
Minimize the work, maximize the enjoyment Come fall, after the wood has stood in the sun
A house made of stacked firewood.
and wind all summer, it needs to be brought in under cover to a convenient location for winter use. And you’ll want to arrange the supply to minimize effort Firewood Primer - Continued page 41
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EDUCATION Firewood Primer Continued from page 41 and mess. After all, once the work of preparing your fuel supply is done, wood heating should be a pleasure. Storing your fuel wood supply inside a building is a really good idea, but only after the sun and wind have dried your wood to below 20 per cent moisture. Firewood will not dry well when densely packed inside a building, so dry it first outside. After letting it stand out in the open for the summer, storing your winter’s wood inside will keep it dry and make it more convenient to bring a day or two’s supply into your house. A woodshed is an uninsulated building, usually attached to the house. Some are designed to have air movement through the building, usually under the eaves, but this is not terribly important if the wood is properly air dried before being put into the shed.
Woodshed design considerations:
•the shed should hold at least a year’s supply of wood for your home. •there is room to store different categories of wood, if you are so fortunate as to have a variety, such as •the main pile of hardwood (assuming you are in an area that has hardwood), •an easily accessible kindling spot, •a section of softer woods like birch and poplar which are great for those short, hot fires in the spring and fall, •perhaps a special pile for some “uglies”, those impossible to split pieces that are suitable mostly for a long burn on the coldest winter night, and •maybe a special pile for the cook stove or central furnace (assuming the main pile is for a stove or fireplace) •enough room to allow a bit of wood splitting inside; it’s pretty common to need to make some fine
kindling or split a few firewood pieces during the heating season. Having the shed on the same level as your wood burner can save a lot of effort in transferring the wood-something that increases in importance as we age. Some people have a door from their wood shed strategically placed so that they can pass wood directly into the wood box inside. This saves a lot of steps and heat loss because this small door is not opened nearly as much as the “human” door to bring in a couple of days’ supply of wood. Some people who can’t have their woodshed on the same level as their stove use a wood elevator to move their fuel upstairs. The elevator basket forms the wood box when raised into position near the stove. This is a good alternative to carrying wood upstairs, although it can be expensive.
What if I don’t have a wood shed?
If you don’t have a wood shed to keep wood dry and close to the house, you could stack it on your porch, or under the eaves. You’ll need to cover this tightly packed pile completely – sides and top-with a tarp or plastic. It’s a good idea to stack the wood on pallets or rails to keep it off the ground or porch floor so that it won’t freeze in place or attract surface water into the bottom rows.
Bringing Wood into the House
It is generally better to store no more than a week or two’s supply of wood inside the house. The frequent cycling of the indoor supply lets you check for and control bugs better than if you attempt to store most of the winter’s supply inside. While some people worry about bug infestation, my experience is that bugs are not a problem at all if the wood is properly processed and seasoned before being brought indoors. While storing too much inside is not recommended, storing too little can be a problem as well. It’s a good idea to have at least a day’s supply inside the warm house to avoid shocking a fire with icy cold wood. Warmed up wood will ignite more quickly, and the fire doesn’t have to expend valuable energy to bring the logs closer to combustion temperature.
Interior Wood Boxes
You’ll need a wood box close to the heater, although not closer than the appliance’s minimum installation clearances. Wood boxes can be built in, freestanding, Firewood Primer - Continued page 43
42 •
Green Living Journal • Summer 2014
EDUCATION Firewood Primer Continued from page 42 or on wheels for easy moving. A good wood box will hold at least one full day’s fuel. The handy wood box gives easy access to a variety of wood piece sizes to fit into the stove in different patterns to achieve different goals, like a compact load for a long burn while away at work or a loose load of small pieces to quickly warm the home after returning from skiing.
Managing the Mess
One of the biggest criticisms of wood space heaters and fireplaces-as opposed to basement furnaces-is the mess, bugs and dirt that heating with wood brings to our clean, modern homes. The utilities make much of this point in advertising their simulated fireplaces. For most of us though, the potential for mess is easily managed. Mind you, those who cover their furniture with clear plastic shrouds and don’t let the kids in the living room might be more comfortable with the artificial ambiance of a manufactured fire. Wood mess can be eliminated with just a little planning. Properly dried wood has been moved from the drying area to the wood shed or other spot close to the house. By the time the firewood is ready to be brought into the house much of the bark and wood chips are left behind. The loss of bark is just fine because bark has a low heat value and tends to hold dirt and chips. As well, most bugs hang out under bark, so most of these too are gone with the bark. This sloughed off bark should be land filled or used as mulch in gardens. There are a variety of carriers designed to make hauling wood from the shed to the wood box easier and neater. Wood carriers are usually tough canvas bags with handles and cost about $20. They are a good investment because they let you carry a load of wood without scuffing your wrist and forearm and getting chips on your clothes. Another necessity for neat and tidy woodburning is a practical set of tools. The best tool sets consist of a
rake, a broom and a shovel. The rake is for managing the coal bed and the broom and shovel are for sweeping the hearth clean. A quick pass with the broom, catching the sweepings in the shovel and flipping them back into the fire is a routine that takes place several times a day in a neat wood heated house. It’s no big deal, but without the right tools, it can’t be done well and the result is a messy hearth. This article courtesy of woodheat.org. The Wood Heat Organization was formed to support the public in the responsible use of wood energy in the home. We fulfill our mandate by providing reliable information, by conducting research into wood heating-related issues and by representing the public interest in discussions of policies that affect woodburning. The details of the mandate are found in our mission statement.
Scope of activities
Although The Wood Heat Organization is federally incorporated in Canada, and its government relations efforts are necessarily concentrated there, its mandate and activities are not confined to one country. Our objective is to provide useful information to anyone who uses wood for home heating, wherever in the world they live. In practical terms, however, we admit that this web site is largely North American-centric. In time, we hope to have more content contributors from other parts of the world.
How you can support our work
As a nonprofit corporation with a highly targeted mandate, we can do great things in support of responsible woodburning and is limited only by the ideas and funding it receives. Here is how you can help to support our work: •Send an article, news item or something else of interest to visitors to this site. •Make a donation of money to help us build and sustain this web site and our other programs.
Visit us online at GreenLivingJournal.com • Green Living • Summer 2014 • 43
MONEY
B Corp Helps Good Companies By Stephen Morris In 2001 when the multi-national conglomerate Unilever acquired Ben & Jerry’s, a lot of peoplecustomers, employees, and shareholders felt it was the end of an era. Hadn’t we taken delight in the company’s goofball marketing antics? Didn’t we take pride in their rags to riches success? Hadn’t we brought our out-of-state visitors up for a factory tour? Some of us had even put our money where our ice cream licking mouths were and bought stock when Ben & Jerry’s became a public company. This, ironically, became the undoing of the company as an independent, mission-driven business entity. Public corporations are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission in order protect shareholders from dishonest owners. One of the safeguards is that in the sale of stock, a company is required by law to accept the highest dollar offer for its shares. Unilever was the highest bidder. Social mission, apparently, was
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not part of the equation. A new business structure became possible on July 1, 2011 when the Vermont Legislature authorized the existence of a new business category called the Benefit Corporation (B Corp for short). Among the early converts to B Corp status is Vermont Creamery, founded in 1984 by Allison Hooper of Brookfield and Bob Reese. The company is one of the country’s premier producers of goat cheese and cultured butter, has been in the news recently as it prepares to open the Ayers Brook demonstration goat dairy (the former Hodgdon Farm on Route 12) to the public this spring. Vermont Creamery joins 17 others in the state that have met the rigorous standards established by the non-profit organization B Lab that measure a company’s impact on its employees, suppliers, community, and the environment. “For 30 years, our mission has been to produce the highest quality cheese and butter available,” said Vermont Creamery co-founder Allison Hooper. “But right from the start, it has been equally important that our company be socially responsible and an upstanding member of the Vermont community. Becoming a Certified B Corporation validates our commitment to our employees and farmers, our local community, and Vermont’s working landscape.” The benefit corporation is the most comprehensive yet flexible legal entity devised to address the needs of entrepreneurs and investors and, ultimately, the general public. Benefit corporations offer clear market differentiation, broad legal protection to directors and officers, expanded shareholder rights, and greater access to capital than traditional corporate structures. Major characteristics of the Benefit corporation are: 1) a corporate purpose to create a material positive impact on society and the environment; 2) an expansion of the duties of directors to require consideration of non-financial; and 3) an obligation to report on its overall social and environmental performance using a comprehensive, credible, independent and transparent third-party standard. The enacting state’s benefit corporation statutes are placed within existing state corporation codes so that the enacting state’s existing corporation code applies to benefit corporations in every respect except those explicit provisions unique in the benefit corporation form.
Green Living Journal • Summer 2014
MONEY
Be Good Citizens Certification is provided by B Lab, a nonprofit organization that serves a global movement to redefine success in business so that all companies compete not only to be the best in the world, but the best for the world. In other words, the hostile takeover that Ben & Jerry’s experienced could not be repeated at Vermont Creamery, because its directors could consider factors beyond who is simply the highest bidder. Meanwhile, at Ben & Jerry’s, the fear of the social mission falling victim to the heartless money guys has not come to pass. Earlier this year Ben & Jerry’s became the first wholly-owned subsidiary to become a certified B Corp. Even “money guys” know that working to promote social change is good business. This article first appeared in The Herald of Randolph.
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“Folks at The Public
Press say ‘authors are our business partners.’ That isn't just lip service!
A Mim’s-Eye View by Miriam Herwig The Wrath of Irene by The Herald
ItAtwas refreshing to find there is a time when traditional atpublishing least one publisher who a lot more about is governed by cares ‘the bottom line," whether a book and your best bethas is to write a cookbook something interesting or yourself orrename worthwhile to say, Stephen King, the than about whether Public Press provides the topic or author has an alternative! sure-fi re “box ce” St. Peter on a offi pogo appeal. A publisher stick! The Public with values! Public Press is the Go best!” Press!” – Alec Hastings
Under a Fig Tree by Sandra M. Levesque High on Business by Alan Newman
— A.J. (”Jeet”) Chopra
Moving to the Otter St. Onge and the Bootleggers Earth’s Beat by Alec Hastings by A.J. Chopra
The Public Press We specialize in
“
Author's Editions
No Crying in the Kitchen by Michel LeBorgne The Great Beer Trek by Stephen Morris
Change body copy below Author's Editions to "For many, an Author's Edition is the fastest and most reasonable route to publication. The author maintains creative A Mim while control and copyright ownership by Miria’s-Eye View m erw ig benefitting from the experience of Hbook The Wr ath of Ir publishing professionals. ene by The He
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