Green living 2015

GREEN

5 ECO-FRIENDLY LIFESTYLE COMMUNITIES

SP R I N G / S U M M E R 2015

LIVING

+ 100

CHEERS TO SUSTAINABILITY!

Raising the bar on cocktails

GROWING GREENER Big business investing more

BAGGING PLASTIC

IN PERFECT HARMONY Jack Johnson

SMARTER CHOICES FOR A CLEANER EARTH

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GREEN

JERALD COUNCIL; STYLING: ERIN AULOV

SPRING/SUMMER 2015

FEATURES

LIVING

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18 GIVING BACK

28 CHANGING SCENERY

PLASTIC PASSION

Singer/songwriter Jack Johnson practices what he preaches

Climate change dramatically altering tourist destinations

It’s possible to live a plastic-free life — really!

22 VILLAGE GREEN

36 CAN-DO CANNING

Communities find ways to meet the needs of residents and the environment

Novice cooks and tiny apartment-dwellers can preserve fresh foods

42 DRINKING TO OUR FUTURE Eco-friendly wine, beer — even the hard stuff

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UP FRONT

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jerald Council jcouncil@usatoday.com

8 Get inspired by a LEED Emerald home 10 Stay stylish with ecoconscious clothes

16 Many farmers markets going high-tech

EDITORS Chris Garsson Elizabeth Neus Lori Santos Amanda Shifflett

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DESIGNERS Erin Aulov Gina Toole Saunders Lisa M. Zilka

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ENVIRONMENT 56 A primer on tapwater filters

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Stacy Chandler, Hollie Deese, Maisy Fernandez, Chrystle Fiedler, Dan Friedell, Kristine Hansen, Lambeth Hochwald, Ann C. Logue, Dave Majumdar, Diana Lambdin Meyer, Erik Schechter, Sarah Sekula, Matt Villano, Debi Pittman Wilkey

60 The pests ravaging our forests LIFESTYLE 64 Make your home healthy and inviting EDUCATION 72 College classrooms growing Earth experts BUSINESS 78 European-inspired green roofs take root 81 Walmart stocking its shelves with organic foods

INTERNS Alexa Rogers Hannah Van Sickle

CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATOR/PHOTOGRAPHER Sara D. Davis, Masako Kubo

TECH 86 Alternative-fuel autos prove to be a tough sell

HEALTH 94 Safe supplements can promote health

91 The solar energy market showing bright future

BACK PAGE 96 Greenhouse gas emissions by the numbers

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GREEN LIVING | SPRING/SUMMER 2015

ON THE COVER: Jack Johnson is living the green life. 18. PHOTO

BY Kim Johnson

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved herein, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or reproduced in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the written consent of USA TODAY. The editors and publisher are not responsible for any unsolicited materials.

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FROM TOP: MODCLOTH; SURESH MUTHUKRISHNAN; VITALI DYATCHENKO; KIM JOHNSON

14 Who escaped the Endangered Species List?

CUSTOM CONTENT MANAGER Christine Neff cneff@usatoday.com

UP FRONT USA TODAY GREEN LIVING

IN THE NOW, IN THE KNOW

HOME 8 | FASHION 10

NATURE 14 | FOOD 16

FACE THE FOLIAGE IMAGE: JUSTINA BLAKENEY; HEADSHOT: DABITO

LIVING BEAUTIFULLY

#FacetheFoliage Since Blakeney began this hashtag, people from all over the world have joined her in creating beautiful portraits from leaves and flowers. Share your own creations or just follow along on Instagram and Pinterest!

Justina Blakeney, designer, artist, lifestyle blogger and author of the upcoming book The New Bohemians (in book stores April 14), shares Earth-friendly style ideas with her followers on social media.

Her Pinterest account boasts boards such as “Upcycled,” “Thrifting with Justina” and “Planties” — featuring beautiful ideas for styling with plants, indoors and out. Check out her blog at thejungalow.com.

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U P F R ONT | HO ME

ENERGY STAR

Spectacular green home provides inspiration for environmentally minded owners

BY DEBI PITTMAN WILKEY

T

he National Association of Home Builders’ $2.8 million 2015 New American Home, seen at left, is an over-the-top, state-ofthe-art, energy-efficient, real-world idea factory for homeowners who aspire to make their down-to-earth abodes more environmentally friendly. Many of the features in the designer home can be adapted easily to yours.

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Insulating spray foam material on the exterior walls, on the underside of the roof and in the framing prevents air leakage.

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An indoor ultraviolet light air treatment system improves air quality.

Try the Honeywell system. $384.95, supplyhouse.com

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GREEN LIVING | SPRING/SUMMER 2015

Touchless toilets include watersaving technology.

Solar panels can generate power right on the property. (For more on solar energy, see page 91.)

“Intelligent” outdoor irrigation systems, tailored to your local climate, can time lawn and landscape watering.

BLUE HERON; THINKSTOCK (1,3,4,6,9); COURTESY OF THE COMPANIES (2,5,7,8)

Cool and durable, LED bulbs use at least 75 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs, according to energystar.gov.

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While the 2015 New American Home was built to Emerald LEED standards — the highest green home rating possible — existing homes can be retrofitted to achieve a LEED certification as well.

Learn more about the process at usgbc.org/lee.

For more about the New American Home, visit newamericanhome2015.com

Turn off lights, lower the thermostat and your shades remotely from your smartphone. Try the Iris Smart Kit. $299, Lowe’s

An electric carcharging station encourages a green lifestyle beyond the home.

Landscaping tailored to your local climate saves water — and work.

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U P F RONT | FA SHION

ECO STYLE Look great with less guilt through sustainable fashion

BY MAISY FERNANDEZ Mata Traders Disc-y Business necklace is handmade with wood-grain discs by a feministminded fair trade company. $27.99, modcloth.com Matt & Nat bags are made with vegan materials and lined with 100 percent recycled water bottles. The Robby comes in four colors, including poppy, shown. $85, mattandnat.com ▼ This Malia Grace Mau triangle cuff was handmade from recycled brass. $98, Anthropologie Atelier Delphine poncho top is made from cotton and cupro. $155, atelierdelphine.com

COURTESY OF THE COMPANIES

▼ Olsenhaus’ Modern-Black & Nude is made with vegan materials. $200, olsenhaus. com

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GREEN LIVING | SPRING/SUMMER 2015

HELP CREATE A #BrightFuture.

THERE’S NEVER BEEN A BETTER TIME. Learn more at projectSunlight.us

™

U P F R ONT | FASHION

â–˛ American Apparel washed silk mid-length shift dress is made in the U.S. and comes in three colors. $98, americanapparel.net

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Toad & Co. Shirred Thing sun dress is made of organic cotton and Modal. $79, toadandco.com

White corn resin bracelet watch by Sprout Watches has a cute pinkand-blue dial. $65, sproutwatches.com

COURTESY OF THE COMPANIES

Novella Royale border print bell bottoms are handmade in the U.S. from recycled materials and come in several prints. $148, freepeople. com

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U P F R ONT | NATURE

These animals escaped the Endangered Species List BY ELIZABETH NEUS

M

ore than 750 U.S.-based animals — from the Kauai cave wolf spider to the blue whale — have been put on the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Endangered Species List since it was created in 1967. Not all creatures make it off (at least 10 have gone extinct), but there are some spectacular success stories.

The latest: the Oregon chub, the first fish to come off the list, just this February. Here are the statistics and states where they can be found.

GRAY WOLF

▲ BALD EAGLE

Listed: 1967 Delisted: 2007 Lower 48 states

This spectacular national symbol was one of the first species to make the endangered list.

The population bounced back after the pesticide DDT was banned in the U.S., but it’s still illegal to hunt, wound, kill or capture one of these majestic birds.

Listed: 1978 | Delisted: 2011 Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Washington

The fierce gray wolf, considered a keystone predator that’s important to balanced ecosystems, nearly went extinct in the 1970s. Its big comeback came about as a result of migration from Canada and a reintroduction to public lands in central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park. While the wolves are largely OK in the five states listed above, they are once more considered endangered or threatened in at least eight others because of renewed hunting and trapping.

MAGAZINE MOUNTAIN SHAGREEN SNAIL ▼ Listed: 1989 | Delisted: 2013 | Arkansas

This tiny snail can be found only on property owned by the U.S. Forest Service on Magazine Mountain in Logan County, Ark. Plans for expanded military operations in the region, as well as a state park, threatened the snail’s habitat. But the Forest Service declared portions of the mountain a Special Interest Area to protect the tiny, dusky creature.

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▲ LAKE ERIE WATERSNAKE

Listed: 1999 Delisted: 2011 | Ohio

Found on the vacationfriendly Lake Erie islands, these non-venomous snakes were often killed by humans. An aggressive media campaign — including an episode on Mike Rowe’s Dirty Jobs show — convinced people that the snakes were harmless. This, along with efforts to cut down on destruction of habitat, brought the snakes back.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: THINKSTOCK; GUY DENNY; ARKANSAS GAME & FISH COMMISSION; THINKSTOCK. MAP: THINKSTOCK

STATUS CHECK

BROWN PELICAN

Listed: 1970 | Delisted: 2009 Arizona, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Texas, Virgin Islands, Washington

FROM TOP TO BOTTOM: THINKSTOCK; NATIONAL PARK SERVICE; NOAA; U.S. FISH & WILDLIFE SERVICE. MAPS: THINKSTOCK

Brown pelicans once faced a slew of challenges, including pesticide poisoning from the controversial and now-banned DDT and overfishing, which cut into their food supply. As pesticides vanished from the ecosystem, the bird population began to recover. But food continues to be a problem for the bird, especially along the Pacific Coast where supplies have grown short again.

ISLAND NIGHT LIZARD

▼ VIRGINIA

▼

Listed: 1985 Delisted: 2013 Virginia, West Virginia

Eyelid-free with vertical pupils, the island night lizard is found only on three federally owned islands, including one used for military training, off the coast of Southern California.

Habitat loss and the introduction of nonnative species (such as feral cats) led to its addition to the list; it bounced back after those threats were placed under control. Nearly 22 million of the 5-inch to 8-inch-long critters live on the islands now.

NORTHERN FLYING SQUIRREL

Tree die-offs and pesticide use in native forests once threatened the slate-colored Virginia northern flying squirrel. But better forest management has helped the population recover.

Researchers have also discovered new communities of the footlong, flat-tailed creatures, adding to the total count.

Listed: 1977 | Delisted: 2014 | California

BY THE NUMBERS

485

species currently on the U.S. endangered species list

STELLER SEA LION

▼

Listed: 1990 Delisted: 2013 Alaska, California, Oregon, Washington

199

species currently on the U.S. threatened species list

80

species being considered for protection on the list

17

species being considered for delisting

624

non-U.S. species are considered endangered

Source: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Hunting and fishing, along with habitat loss, run-ins with boats and contaminated waters, nearly did in this marine mammal. Harvesting limits, better-protected habitat and other improvements led to recovery in most areas where the 80,000 to 90,000 sea lions live.

Those who count western Alaska as their habitat — about half of the population — are still endangered.

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U P F RONT | FOOD

Order the food you want — produce, meat, snacks and more — from goodeggs.com.

FROM BROWSER TO TABLE Online farmers markets send fresh produce with a click of the mouse

BY MARCO DELLA CAVA

1 million

pounds of groceries have been delivered since 2013

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R

ob Spiro has long been a fan of healthful food. He worked on a farm after college, then started a search engine that was bought by Google. So it’s perhaps no surprise that his latest venture fuses great eating with solid tech.

Good Eggs, which was seeded in San Francisco in 2013, sprouted in 2014 with its vision of bringing farmfresh produce, typically only available at farmers markets, direct to consumers.

Farmers set their own prices and deliver to Good Eggs warehouses each morning. Employees use custom inventory apps to route the food to customerorder bins; same-day home delivery is free.

“If we can help grow and sustain local food systems around the world, then we will have done something important ... that happens to also be a good business,” Spiro says.

Spiro’s company is part of a growing niche within the farmers market community.

“Food hubs” let producers connect directly with their customers. Of the 8,000 or so farmers markets known to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, about 300 fit into the online-only category, says James Barham, an agricultural economist with the USDA’s Rural Development agency.

The online markets bring “scale and sophistication” to the process, he says, often providing a limited selection of non-perishable products as well as fresh produce (as Good Eggs does), so that customers can make one

GOOD EGGS

Farmers collect the produce and deliver it to the local Good Eggs warehouse, where your order is assembled.

A Good Eggs employee delivers your order to the location of your choice.

1,000

farmers work with Good Eggs, up from 300 in 2013

“trip” to the grocery for all their needs. “That allows (the food hubs) to grow their business,” he says.

While the food-hub segment is growing, the USDA doesn’t see much competition between those and traditional farmers markets, many of which use an online presence to promote themselves. The difference is in the customer.

“The hardcore, passionate folks, the locavores, they care tremendously about buying local food.

They’ll spend time going to a local farmers market — they want that experience,” Barham says. “Then there’s a whole other set of folks — they enjoy local food, but they want a little more convenience.

It’s a much larger set of customers.”

Those are the people

“By having a presence on our site, these producers ... can develop a direct relationship with the consumers.

We are just facilitating the process.”

— Rob Spiro, founder & CEO, Good Eggs

targeted by companies such as Good Eggs, Virginia-based Relay Foods and Green Bean Delivery, which serves eight cities in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee.

In the course of the year, Good Eggs — a nominee for USA TODAY’s 2014 Entrepreneur of the Year award, with markets in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans and Brooklyn, N.Y. — has tripled the number of small farmers it works with, from 300 to nearly 1,000. Some of them are capable of making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year through the association, Spiro says.

“These are people who before had very limited sale-chain opportunities, usually limited to a local farmers market or through wholesale or subscriptionbased food channels,”

he says. “By having a presence on our site, these producers, be they bakers or growers, can develop a direct relationship with the consumers. We are just facilitating the process.”

The goodeggs.com shopping experience is filled with arty photos of mouthwatering fare — photos largely taken at Good Eggs’ office — that represent foods just a mouse-click away from being brought to customers’ doorsteps.

For Spiro, the success of his business is linked to having his heart in the right place, something he thinks he shares with many Americans. “There’s no doubt in my mind that the issue of our planet’s health and our own health are now very important to people all over,” he says.

Contributing: Elizabeth Neus

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KIM JOHNSON

GREEN as it gets

The world loves singer Jack Johnson for more than his catchy tunes

By Sarah SekulA

JaCk J0HNsON

IS EASYGOING, BUT HE GETS SUPER STOKED ABOUT PLENTY OF THINGS: ORANGES FROM HIS OWN BACKYARD. HIS NEIGHBOR’S BREADFRUIT HUMMUS. THE WATER CATCHMENT SYSTEM HE BUILT WITH HIS KIDS. AND NURDLES.

ALL IN THE DETAILS Johnson is fascinated by the science behind the environmental movement, and he puts what he learns to practice.

His green-mindedness funnels all the way down to the compact fluorescent light bulbs he uses at his touring venues. That’s right: While some bands demand bowls of M&M’s with the blue ones picked out or bottles of vitamin water to bathe their dogs in, Johnson asks for something more worthwhile.

His EnviroRider (aka tour agreement) asks venues to buy carbon offsets for the show and compost organic waste.

His goal: to leave the towns he visits in better shape than when he showed up.

“We could stop touring altogether to have the smallest impact,” says Johnson, whose everyday voice is, by

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the way, not much different from his singing voice. “But the greater impact could be to find ways to make the industry more responsible.”

That he has done. His tours are, hands down, the greenest of the green. The 39-year-old (soon to be 40) songwriter says it all stems from being on tour with fellow green-hearted musicians Pearl Jam and Willie Nelson early in his music career.

Johnson’s concerts serve as partthink tank, part-fundaising machine.

Fans get connected with local ecominded programs in the Village Green.

And his social action network, All At Once, keeps those like-minded people in touch, encouraging global change.

To top it all off, from 2008 to 2013, 100 percent of his touring revenue went to nonprofit groups around the world.

“What’s inspiring to me about Jack is that he lets his appreciation of the environment guide everything he does,” says Jessica Scheeter, the wife of Jack’s keyboardist, Zach Gill, and the executive director of the Johnson Ohana Charitable Foundation. “With Jack, tour ‘greening’ is not just an afterthought. It’s the foundation of the entire process.”

From the drivers who fill up the tour buses with biodiesel fuel to the vendors selling 100 percent post-consumer products, they all believe wholeheartedly in the mission. That includes sourcing most of the food eaten on tour from a local radius. “We will have somebody go shop at the farmers market to make sure we support local farms in the area,” Johnson says.

The green practices continue at

KIZZY O'NEAL

Nurdles? Suddenly, I feel a bit lost during our recent phone conversation.

Before I can ask, he explains. It’s the raw material that makes up nearly every plastic product on Earth. In Australia, the discovery of nurdles led to a lawsuit against a major plastic plant. And tons of those same pesky pellets wash up on the shores of Oahu, where Johnson lives with his college sweetheart and wife, Kim, and their three children.

“Especially along the windward side of the island, where basically the island acts as a filter in the middle of the Pacific,” Johnson says, sounding more marine biologist than chart-topping, soft-rock recording artist.

In fact, if you sort through the trash that washes up, as Johnson often does, “you find all these little clues,” he says. Meaning, the beach cleanups he leads — just like so many things in his life — are more than meets the eye.

GREEN as it gets

Hawaii resident Jack Johnson examines nurdles that have washed up on the shores of Oahu, left.

The pellets are the raw material in virtually all plastic products.

Not to mention, the ripple effect is just plain cool. First-graders are asking their parents if they can grow green beans at home. Others are gung-ho about making pesto. And many lecture their parents when they accidentally toss plastics in the trash. In a song from the album Johnson recorded for the 2006 Curious George movie, The 3 R’s, the main verse repeats: “We gotta learn to reduce, reuse, recycle.”

“If children grow their own food, they will eat it,” says Natalie McKinney, director of program development for Kōkua.

Johnson’s wife agrees. “You have these kids who might have hated cherry tomatoes, but if they grow them they will just be eating them like candy.”

In turn, the hope is that the students will become lifelong stewards of the planet.

“Ninety percent of our food is shipped in to Hawaii,” Jack Johnson says. “A lot of the farmlands are getting rezoned. Once they are rezoned and something’s built on it we lose that farm land forever.”

It’s clear that if there’s one thing that matches Johnson’s oversized talent (his albums have sold more than 20 million copies worldwide), it’s his generous heart.

“I’m the most unlikely rock star,” Johnson admits. “I had no idea this was all going to happen. I had the best job in the world; I was making surf videos.

I wasn’t really looking for a job change.”

That’s just part of his appeal. He never asked for the limelight. But now that he has it, he uses it to shine a light on things much bigger than himself. ●

“It feels gOOd tO knOw peOple appreciate what we are dOing.”

Johnson’s Brushfire Records studio in Los Angeles, which is powered by rooftop solar panels, insulated with cotton from scraps of blue jeans and decorated with rugs made from recycled plastic bottles.

KIM JOHNSON

The ripple effect After being on the road for months at a time, there’s nothing Johnson loves more than 1) tending to his organic garden full of peppers, spinach and herbs 2) surfing (Pipeline is practically in his backyard) and 3) passing along new ideas.

“When I take my music outside of Hawaii, I’m sharing a piece of Hawaii with the world,” says Johnson, who is known for hits like Banana Pancakes

— Jack JOHNsON

and Better Together. “At the same time I’m learning as I’m out there. You can’t help but want to bring it home to share these ideas.”

Sharing, in fact, is Johnson’s modus operandi. Jack and his wife Kim have donated more than $25 million to charity since 2001. Their Kōkua Hawaii Foundation, which they launched in 2003, helps kids in Hawaii connect to their food through school gardens, recycling programs and farm field trips.

“It’s sad to say, but some kids don’t know that certain foods grow on trees and certain foods grow underground,” says Kim Johnson, who has gotten kudos from the Environmental Protection Agency for her work.

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More communities are adopting sustainable practices, including, clockwise from top, Montpelier, Vt.; East Price Hill in Cincinnati; and Serenbe, Chattahoochee Hills, Ga.

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Communities around the country find ways to care for the Earth

CLOCKWISE: EMILY MCMANAMY/THE (BURLINGTON, VT.) FREE PRESS; AMANDA ROSSMAN/THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER; PEACHTREE PHOTOGRAPHY

BY ANN C. LOGUE

MAIN green ST.

S

ustainable living has gone mainstream. Whether they live in a LEED-certified vacation development in the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon or a quaint New England town with a goal of reducing carbon emissions, Americans are finding ways to better exist in harmony with the environment and their local communities.

A STATE CAPITAL GOES FOR NET-ZERO Montpelier, Vt. Montpelier is a small town with a long history. Founded in 1781, Vermont’s capital has 8,000 inhabitants in 10 square miles. The tight-knit community has set an audacious goal: to be the first state capital in the nation using zero fossil fuels by 2030.

“That makes us unique,” says Mayor John Hollar.

The project began about a year ago, and “the response from the community has been really positive,” he says.

A key step is the establishment of the Montpelier District Heat Plant, a wood-fired boiler system that heats the downtown district and capitol complex. The system runs on locally sourced wood chips, which produce less threatening air emissions than oil. The city also works with the local power company, Green Mountain Power, to encourage the use of cold-climate heat pumps and other technologies to reduce heating costs in homes.

The remaining challenge is transportation. “That will require a huge shift in culture and technology,” Hollar says.

Montpelier has a bus system that runs six days a week within city

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ST. MAIN green

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The Serenbe development in Chattahoochee Hills, Ga., is 30 miles outside Atlanta.

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The Devine Legacy housing in Phoenix is upscale and affordable.

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The Montpelier District Heat Plant uses biomass to heat the capitol and downtown district.

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Eco-friendly Mosier Creek Homes sit along the south bank of the Columbia River.

Prices start at $189,000.

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The only way to save this rural (land) was to figure out how to develop it.”

— DEVELOPER STEVE NYGREN

1: SERENBE; 2: DEVINE LEGACY; 3: GARY HALL PHOTOGRAPHY; 4: RICHARD HALLMAN

limits, surprising given the town’s small size and narrow streets. It will also add bike lanes where the roads are wide enough, and an intercity bus depot under development will make it easier to get to other cities.

LUXURY HOUSING WITH AN ORGANIC FARM Serenbe, Chattahoochee Hills, Ga. Steve Nygren, an Atlanta restaurateur and developer, had a weekend house in the Chattahoochee Hills southwest of Atlanta. His family loved being removed from Atlanta’s sprawl to enjoy a quieter life close to nature. But he realized that, given Atlanta’s growth, his retreat could eventually be overrun.

It was a paradox. “The only way to save this rural (land) was to figure out how to develop it,” Nygren says.

In 2000, he and Ray Anderson, the founder of carpet maker Interface, organized a charrette — a planning session with all parties that would be affected — to develop plans. A key component was housing that would appeal to high-end buyers, and land restrictions that would preserve most of the 65,000-acre area for farming and recreational use.

The result was Serenbe, a community with houses, condos, stores, restaurants and a 25-acre organic farm. Additional phases will add more business and commercial space.

The project has created local jobs, something scarce in many rural communities, and gives residents a reason to work from home.

Nygren is thrilled to see his vision play out.

“If we can do it in Atlanta, Georgia, people can do it anywhere,” he says.

LOW-INCOME, HIGH-EFFICIENCY HOUSING Devine Legacy, Phoenix When Native American Connections heard of plans for Phoenix to extend its light-rail system, the group, which provides behavioral health care and affordable housing, pounced.

The organization acquired land adjacent to the rail extension to build an upscale housing development for low-income families. The result was Devine Legacy on Central, a 65-unit LEED platinum-certified affordable housing community — the first such development in the U.S. to be recognized as such.

The transit access makes it easy for residents to get to jobs in the city, a huge benefit. The availability of public transportation also contributes to the project being LEED certified, which reduced financing costs.

The building uses solar power that offsets the cost of electricity. Window sensors shut off the heat and air conditioning when windows are open. Low-water flow Energy Star appliances and native desert landscaping round out the green amenities.

The energy-efficient measures save tenants money — about $50 each month. It might seem like a small amount, but not for the people who live there. “That savings can really stabilize a family,” says Diana Yazzie Devine, CEO of Native American Connections.

HOUSING AS GREEN AS ITS SURROUNDINGS Mosier Creek Homes, Mosier, Ore. The south bank of the Columbia River in Oregon is lush, and Mosier Creek Homes wants to keep it that way.

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ST. MAIN green

“

Even if you don’t love the crazy hippies, you love that all these great things are happening on your street.”

— CHRIS CLEMENTS, IMAGO EARTH CENTER DIRECTOR

RESTORING AN OLD NEIGHBORHOOD WITH GREEN PRINCIPLES Price Hill, Cincinnati Price Hill is a conservative, working-class neighborhood in Cincinnati. It’s close to downtown with a wealth of affordable housing options — not especially glamorous but a place residents are happy to call home.

Especially because of the hippies.

In 1978, local residents Jim and Eileen Schenk founded the Imago Earth Center in

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the neighborhood to help connect to the natural world. The 16-acre nature preserve has open space and hiking trails. Over the years, the grassroot group has evolved into a comprehensive organization that hosts concerts, classes and day camps.

In addition, the Schenks founded the Enright Ridge Urban Ecovillage, a neighborhood group that encourages community activism, green construction and gardening.

Residents love that they don’t have to move out to the country to enjoy the natural world, says Chris Clements, Imago’s executive director. Some like-minded families actually move in to Price Hill to be part of the thriving ecovillage.

“Even if you don’t love the crazy hippies, you love that all these great things are happening on your street,” Clements says.

Goats can be found along Enright Avenue in East Price Hill in Cincinnati.

AMANDA ROSSMAN/THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER

In 2007, the developer built a 34-unit, eightbuilding townhome/condominium project that qualified for LEED Silver status. Owner Peter Erickson brought the project to the rural vacation area after doing environmentally responsible work in nearby cities.

The homes he and his team built along the river have an attractive, contemporary style and pack a punch when it comes to green standards. They draw 69 percent less energy from the grid than standard homes, a reduction met through energy savings and energy-generating solar panels. In fact, 50 percent of each unit’s power needs are met through solar panels on the roof.

Erickson finds that customers are interested in environmentally friendly amenities but need to be educated about how these measures affect price. Higher upfront costs lead to money saved later, he says. “The energy consumption differential is a bottomline pocketbook issue” that can save about $1,000 a year on the cost of living in a threebedroom, three-bath townhouse, he says.

WHERE GREEN LIVING IS, WELL, A WAY OF LIFE. Sustainability isn’t a buzzword or a fad at Loyola University Chicago. It’s at the core of who we are, from the courses we teach to the buildings we construct—like the Institute of Environmental Sustainability.

And it’s a big reason why the Sierra Club recently named us the 4th greenest university in America.

ACADEMIC DEGREE OPTIONS Four-year programs

Five-year programs

Five majors, including Environmental Science, Environmental Policy, and Conservation and Restoration Ecology

Earn a bachelor’s degree and an MBA from Loyola’s nationally ranked Quinlan School of Business

RESEARCH

FACILITIES

• Faculty with international reputations for their environmental work

• Several LEED-certified buildings across campus, with plans to add more

• Laboratories devoted to clean energy and eco-friendly research

• A university-wide commitment to sustainable living

Making the world a better (and greener) place—that’s what a Jesuit education is all about. Visit LUC.edu/Green.

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BY MATT VILLANO

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ll Andrew Glasgow wanted to do was share the wonder of Mount Shasta and Shasta Lake with his wife and two young sons.

He had visited the mountain before, many times as a child growing up in Portland, Ore., and later in 2012. He remembered the awe-inspiring grandeur of the snow-covered triangle reflected in the turquoise waters of the lake below. He always thought of the mountain as the gateway from Oregon to California. They simply had to see it.

So, for Thanksgiving last year, the marketing executive from

Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park in Montana

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DISAPPEARING GLACIERS lacier National Park in Montana is perhaps the most egregious example of how climate change is transforming tourist spots.

Here, the park’s iconic glaciers have been melting consistently for the last decade. Park rangers estimate that by 2030, the glaciers will be gone altogether.

For Daniel Fagre, research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center in West Glacier, Mont., the situation presents two problems: the disappearance of the glaciers themselves, and the subsequent impact of less water in the alpine ecosystem.

“Many species, such as bull trout, are dependent on cold water,”

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MILLETT, MARION T. 1958. MENDENHALL GLACIER: FROM THE GLACIER PHOTO COLLECTION. BOULDER, COLO.: NATIONAL SNOW AND ICE DATA CENTER/WORLD DATA CENTER FOR GLACIOLOGY. THINKSTOCK

When the Mendenhall Glacier visitor center near Juneau, Alaska, was built in 1962, the glacier was just feet away; now it’s a mile from the building.

Oakland booked his family a trip. But when they arrived, the scene was totally wrong. There was virtually no snow on the mountain itself.

And the lake — if you wanted to call it that — was nothing more than a glorified puddle.

“It was startling, to say the least,” says Glasgow, looking back on his disappointment.

Warming temperatures and drought conditions in California likely were two of the factors contributing to what the Glasgows saw that day. From Alaska to Massachusetts, the phenomenon of climate change — the phrase is a catch-all to describe subtle-but-significant changes to Earth’s atmosphere — is wreaking havoc on some of the most popular tourist destinations in the United States.

Perhaps the most concerning news: There has been no evidence in recent years to make scientists believe the trend will slow or stop any time soon.

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Fagre says. “Glaciers provide water in August, but also do a lot of thermoregulation year-round by keeping water at a good temperature for these species. Without the glaciers, the species could be threatened.

We’re just now trying to figure out what it might mean.”

In Alaska, where cruise ship passengers flock by the hundreds of thousands every year for a glimpse of nature at its best, most glaciers still exist, but they’re receding more rapidly than ever before.

The Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau is a prime example. When the on-site visitor center was built in 1962, it was mere feet from the face of the glacier. Today, more than 50 years later, the glacier sits a mile from the center, on the other side of a lake.

Eran Hood, professor of environmental science at the University of Alaska Southeast, says these changes are only the beginning. At Portage Glacier, outside of Anchorage, folks who come to the visitor center can’t even see the ice anymore — it has retreated around a blind corner. And in Glacier Bay, named for its glaciers, many of the tidewater glaciers no longer touch the ocean. “(The glaciers are) a huge selling point for cruise ships, and there just aren’t that many places to see (them) any longer,” Hood says.

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GLACIER NATIONAL PARK RANGERS ESTIMATE THAT BY 2030, THE GLACIERS WILL BE GONE

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STORM SURGE nother manifestation of climate change is an increase in extreme weather around the globe. In other parts of the world, this might mean tornadoes and monsoons. In the United States, it has meant a rise in the number of bad storms.

Depending on their severity, these weather events can be inconvenient, at best, and dangerous at worst.

Consider Northern California’s wine country, where record-breaking

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Winter Storm Juno knocked out power and phone service across Nantucket Island in January.

A state of emergency was declared.

The island experiences frequent flooding now.

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rains caused flooding in December 2014 and again in February of this year. Then there’s Michigan, where in August 2014, torrential rains caused flash flooding in downtown Detroit.

And take New England. In January and February of this year, Boston alone approached a record 100 inches of snow. The precipitation broke records and shut down the city at times.

On Nantucket Island in Massachusetts, terrible flooding for the last three winters has submerged most of the picturesque downtown.

Some residents in low-lying homes had to evacuate to higher ground.

Justina Viveiros, an attendant at The Nantucket Club, a health and fitness center attached to The Nantucket Hotel & Resort downtown, says the 2015 flood was particularly bad, with boats and garbage floating by on streets.

“It’s pretty disturbing if you only visit in summer and you’re used to Nantucket being picturesque,” Viveiros says. “We deal with floods every year on the island, but it seems they just keep getting worse.”

The island of Hawaii is seeing more intense and more frequent storms as well. In August 2014, the island was hit by its first tropical storm in 22 years. The Big Island experienced flooding and downed trees from the event.

A 2015 paper published in the International Journal of Climatology recommended that Hawaii officials reconsider current flood-control standards and other guidelines tied to rain. Co-author of the paper Pao-Shin Chu, professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, encouraged a whole new way of thinking about the situation. “The planet is changing,” Chu told The Associated Press. “You should not assume the weather will remain steady as before.”

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TIPS TO GREEN YOUR TRAVEL There’s no question that climate change and global warming are changing many of the places we love to visit. Here are some steps to minimize your contribution to the trend.

Don’t fly. Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, says the travel ritual most harmful to the environment is airplane travel.

Her advice? Minimize flights as best as possible. “Airplane travel is a big CO2 producer,” she says.

“The best thing people can do in terms of reducing the impact of travel is to stay closer to home.

Hail wetlands. Especially as sea levels rise, wetlands are important resources to absorb extra water. Louis Blumberg, director of the California Climate Change Program at The Nature Conservancy, says understanding this resource is critical. “We need to be mindful of our lifestyles and respect this land,” he says.

— Matt Villano

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In New Orleans, visitors can view flooded swamps by kayak.

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limate change affects other tourist destinations in different ways. Drought-like conditions in the West have facilitated fires and triggered insect infestations that have destroyed forests and ruined crops. Rising temperatures in Lake Tahoe are suspected to be one of the factors that have caused a drop in the number of bottom-feeding creatures in the lake — the very same creatures that eat algae and therefore give the lake its world-renowned clarity.

Perhaps the most dangerous reality is rising sea levels brought about by the melting of polar ice caps. Current predictions from the National Climate Assessment, a report on climate change from the U.S. Global Change Research Program that comes out every four years, suggest ocean levels could rise by 2 feet in the next 30 to 40 years, meaning shorelines would move inland approximately 1,000 feet to 4,000 feet.

Put differently, by 2050, parts of low-lying coastal regions, such as Miami, New Orleans and Mobile, Ala., could be underwater, and some scientists fear these predictions may actually be optimistic, at best.

Some in the travel industry see the dire predictions and changing scenery as a way to educate travelers about the changes underway.

Louisiana Lost Land Environmental Tours, a kayak operator in New Orleans, offers four-hour guided trips behind flood walls and levies to give visitors an up-close-and-personal glimpse of flooded cypress tupelo swamps and the dangers from rising water levels.

“We’re losing the equivalent of one football field worth of land every 40 minutes here,” says co-owner Marie Gould.

“Sometimes the best way to understand the impact of all of this is to get out and see it for yourself.”

BETHPURCELLMOSAICS.COM; MAP AND PLANE: THINKSTOCK

Bask in privacy. Bret Love, co-founder of Green Travel Media, says leaving the “Do Not Disturb” sign on your hotel door saves valuable resources. “If the housekeeping staff isn’t coming in every day, they don’t waste water, don’t waste detergent and electricity washing linens and towels every day,” he notes.

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FRESHNESS IN A JAR Even urban cooks and novice canners can find pleasure in preserves

BY DIANA LAMBDIN MEYER

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On the 20th floor of a high-rise in downtown Philadelphia, Marisa McClellan and her husband make a comfortable home in less than 1,000 square feet. They go for long walks in the city, wander through bookstores and host potluck dinners with friends. They are the quintessential urban dwellers.

But in a tiny kitchen, less than 80 square feet, 35-yearold McClellan engages in a generations-old process more traditionally associated with suburbanites or rural dwellers and their grandmothers. With her blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, she cans. Jams and jellies, fruits and vegetables, herbs, salsas, chutneys and compotes — McClellan does it all, putting enough food in jars to feed friends and family.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEVE LEGATO

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FRESHNESS IN A JAR

ITALIAN PLUM JAM WITH STAR ANISE

Makes two half-pint/250 ml jars INGREDIENTS 1 pound Italian plums, pitted and chopped 3/4 cup granulated sugar 3 star anise Combine the plums, sugar and star

anise in a small bowl. Let sit for at least an hour, to give the anise flavor a chance to infuse into the fruit.

Prepare a boiling water bath and two half-pint jars. Place two lids in a small saucepan of water and bring to a gentle simmer.

To cook, scrape the fruit into a large

skillet and place over mediumhigh heat. Stirring regularly, bring the fruit to a boil and cook until it bubbles and looks quite thick, 10 to 12 minutes. It’s done when you pull a spatula through the jam and the jam doesn’t immediately rush to fill in the space you’ve cleared.

Remove the jam from the heat and funnel into the prepared jars, leaving 1/2 inch of headspace.

Wipe the rims, apply the lids and rings and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

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“Growing up in Oregon, we eating healthy, local foods is a always had a couple of fruit concept that weathers financial trees in the backyard, and my turbulence and trends. mom always made jams and “There were a number of food jellies,” says McClellan. “My security issues that set the stage mom always stored dry goods in for this return to home canMason jars, and I really have a ning,” says Elizabeth L. Andress, thing for nice jars.” extension food safety specialist McClellan’s love affair with at the National Center for Home jars and the things Food Preservation that go in them at the University of has turned into a Georgia. full-time career.

One such scenario She is the author came in July 2007 of two cookbooks, when the Food and including Preserving Drug Administration by the Pint, released recalled 91 types in 2014. Her blog, of chili sauce and Food In Jars (foodother products Marisa McClellan, author injars.com), draws manufactured at of Preserving by the Pint, more than 400,000 the Castleberry Food suggests that beginning canners start with unique viewers Company facilsomething easy, such each month in the ity in Augusta, Ga., as blueberries, tomatoes growing season. after eight confirmed or green beans.

McClellan’s followcases of botulism. ers on social media Americans have also are often the ones who attend been warned about hepatitis A the workshops she teaches in frozen fruit, E. coli in fresh around the country. She has spinach and more. gone from writer to scientist to And although the Environeducator to superstar among mental Protection Agency those who are passionate about and similar agencies have not their food. labeled compounds found in “Canning and food preservatin cans as dangerous to public tion has seen a resurgence health, there is growing concern in popularity in recent years among some health advocates primarily because of the recesof a link between cancer and sion. But really, a perfect storm exposure to chemicals found of interests and health concerns inside the can liners. have brought a lot of attention “At the same time,” says to the benefits,” she says.

Andress, “many of those who Among those factors are the access our resources are looking economic benefit of growing for a family-based activity based and canning your own food, on traditions they remember along with the DIY spirit that with parents or grandparents.” also flourished as a result of That’s what draws 43-yeartough economic times. But old Jenn Morrison of Spring-

FERMENTED RADISH SLICES Makes one 1-quart/1 L jar

INGREDIENTS 1 1/2 T finely milled sea salt 2 bunches fresh radishes (about 1 1/2 pounds, including the greens) Wash a wide-mouth 1-quart jar and a quarter-pint jar. In a small

saucepan, bring 2 cups of water to a boil. Once it boils vigorously, add the salt and remove the pot from the heat.

Stir until the salt dissolves. Let the brine cool to room temperature.

Wash the radishes and trim away the roots and leaves. Thinly slice the radishes into disks 1/4-inch to 1/2-inch thick. Pack the radishes into the clean 1-quart jar and cover with the cooled brine, leaving about an inch of headspace.

Fit the quarter-pint jar upright into the mouth of the 1-quart jar. Pour the remaining brine into the quarter-pint jar to weigh it down. Press the quarter-pint jar down until the brine reaches the rim of the larger jar, so that the radishes are completely submerged.

Set the radish jar on a small plate or saucer to catch any drips of brine. Cover the jar with a small tea towel or a few layers of cheesecloth, and secure it with a rubber band. Let it sit on your counter for five to seven days, until the brine goes slightly cloudy and the radishes taste quite tart. The edges of the radishes will bleed their color into the brine and the interior of the slices; don’t be surprised by the change in color.

When they’ve reached the level of tang that you like, remove the quarter-pint jar, skim any scum from the top of the brine, place a lid on the 1-quart jar and refrigerate. The fermented radishes will keep for several weeks in the refrigerator.

NOTE

Make sure that both jars are scrupulously clean. Because fermentation is the process of allowing beneficial bacteria to transform sugars into acid, you want to ensure that you’ve given the good bacteria unencumbered space in which to work.

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field, Mo., to her garden and, later, to the kitchen for the canning process. She grows enough green beans to put up about 45 quarts, enough to feed her family for a year. She also grows and cans tomatoes, claiming that for spaghetti sauce, her own tomatoes taste better.

“In the winter, it’s so nice to look at the colorful jars in my pantry and remember

“Nothing about canning requires a huge investment. If you have food that is about to go bad, a quick batch on the stove can save that food you’ve already paid for.”

—Marisa McLellan

ORANGE TOMATO AND SMOKED PAPRIKA JAM the warmth of summer,” says Morrison, who proudly uses the 1950s-era canner of her parents and grandparents.

“There’s something comforting about knowing who has touched the food that my family eats and knowing that it is safe and clean.”

Safety issues, particularly the potential for botulism, a rare but dangerous disease that can cause paralysis and death, may cause beginning canners to hesitate. But Andress reinforces that canning is a science, not an art.

“It’s not a creative process

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Makes three half-pint/250ml jars

INGREDIENTS 1 dry quart (about 2 pounds) orange grape tomatoes, chopped 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar 1/4 cup bottled lemon juice 2 T cider vinegar 1 1/2 tsp finely milled sea salt 1 1/2 tsp red chile flakes 1 tsp grated fresh ginger 1 tsp smoked paprika 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper Combine the tomatoes, sugar, lemon

juice, vinegar, salt, chile flakes, ginger, paprika and cayenne in a large, nonreactive pot. Bring to a boil and then lower the temperature to a simmer.

Stirring regularly, gently boil the jam until it reduces to a sticky, jammy mess.

Boiled at a fairly rapid pace, it should take about 45 minutes of cooking.

When the jam is nearly done, prepare a boiling water bath and three halfpint/250 ml jars. Place three lids in a small saucepan of water and bring to a gentle simmer.

When the jam has cooked down sufficiently, remove from the heat and fill the jars, leaving 1/2 inch of headspace. Wipe the rims, apply the lids and rings and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.

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like cooking, where you can add a dab of this or eliminate a pinch of that,” she says.

“You must follow the recipe and recognize the tested science behind it.”

Pickled foods and relishes can be high risk for beginners who don’t follow the recipe precisely. A common mistake is substituting table salt for pickling or other salts. The different chemical make up could cause discoloration. Also, vinegar must be pure, and the recipe must be Before you eat specific to each the food you’ve vegetable. canned, you’ll That said, you know something don’t have to went wrong if: u The lids bulge. be Bill Nye the u Food oozes Science Guy to under the lid. safely preserve u You see food. Andress bubbles in the jar. encourages uIt smells beginners to disgusting when start with highly you open it. acidic foods, which are at the least risk for botulism. Fruits, jams and jellies are low risk. Blueberries, naturally high in pectin, are perhaps the safest, no-fail fruit.

Tomatoes — easy to grow and easy to can — are a good choice. Green beans? Almost a no-brainer.

And you don’t have to have a huge kitchen or budget to get started. “Nothing about canning requires a huge investment,” says McClellan. “If you have food that is about to go bad, a quick batch on the stove can save that food you’ve already paid for.”

And when it’s over, you’ll have an authentic food product that will taste better, if for no other reason than you made it yourself.

FAQs

Where’s the best place to find produce to can? Fresh produce can come from any source — your local grocery, CSA (community-supported agriculture) deliveries, farmers markets or even small container gardens.

How much food do you need on hand? Preserving by the Pint focuses on small batches of food, some with as little as a quart or pound of produce.

What’s the easiest food to can? Blueberries, tomatoes, green beans.

What’s the hardest? Meats and seafood.

How do you store it?

Canning in small batches is designed for those with limited storage space, so

just put your jars anywhere out of direct sunlight and at or below room temperature.

Don’t store in an area that might freeze. Canned food should be good for about a year.

How do you know your food is good? Before putting canned goods away in storage, push down firmly on the lids with your fingers. If there is no give, that means the lids are vacuum sealed and food will be safe to eat later.

Some of us may remember our grandmothers giving the lids a good thump and listening for a ping.

Although that is not necessarily a fail-safe method, it is one additional tip that your canning process worked.

— Diana Lambdin Meyer

Recipes and photos reprinted with permission from Preserving by the Pint © 2014 by Marisa McClellan, Running Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group

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All across the country, vintners and brewers are embracing ecoconscious practices to help consumers drink more responsibly

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JORDAN VINEYARD & WINERY; BOTTOM RIGHT: GEORGE ROSE

Jordan Vineyard & Winery’s (above) commitment to green goes beyond the grapes. Visitors to this Sonoma County vineyard can explore the scenic grounds, which include wildlife habitats. They can also enjoy meals made from the on-site organic gardens and beef from the land’s cattle.

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Sonoma wineries seek sustainable certification

BY KRISTINE HANSEN

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onoma County in California has long held its own as an eco-friendly wine region.

Visitors can sip a portfolio of zinfandels at Ridge Vineyards’ tasting room constructed from straw bales and mud, or recharge an electric car at Inman Family Wines. Chefs walk the talk when it comes to farm-to-table mantras, with such examples as Duskie Estes and her business partner (and husband) John Stewart The plan is to carve out retailing farm-raised bacon as an offshoot of their a century-old legacy Sebastopol restaurant, Zazu Kitchen + Farm. There’s even to preserve the land an ice-cream parlor in downtown Healdsburg flaunting forever, and become locavore cones (Noble Folk).

Quietly humming in the background of this green the nation’s first 100 movement are the grapes. In 2014, the Sonoma County percent sustainable Winegrowers introduced a mandate that all commercial wine-growing county. growers be 100 percent sustainable by 2019. That meant a rigorous self-assessment and third-party certification program focused on 138 farming and business practices, such as land use, canopy management, energy efficiency, water quality assessments, carbon emissions and more. The plan is to carve out a century-old legacy to preserve the land forever and become the nation’s first 100

GEORGE ROSE

Each year in California, another 30,000 acres of land are converted to non-agricultural uses. Sonoma County’s commitment to sustainable winegrowing aims to ensure that the vineyards will remain for generations to come.

converted to non-agricultural uses. Sonoma County’s 550 wineries produce 100 million bottles annually from 60,000 acres. While this represents just 8 percent of the state’s wine consumption, the county is flush with boutique labels and tourism.

In a world where many green products aren’t accessible, wines are very tangible. “You can feel good as a consumer because you’re supporting sustainable agriculture,” says Kruse.

For most Sonoma County wineries, it’s a simple matter of completing a workbook and applying for third-party certification.

The bar has already been reached, even if not officially awarded. Thirty-three percent have certifications and 43 percent are undergoing a sustainability assessment. “This is more of a collective agreement. We wanted to make sure they were indeed walking the talk,” says Kruse.

JORDAN VINEYARD & WINERY; ILLUSTRATION: THINKSTOCK

Out among the vines

percent sustainable wine-growing county. A year later, the local wine industry has already reached one-third of its targeted goal.

“We have a long history of agricultural farming here — second-, third- and even seventh-generation farmers,” says Karissa Kruse, president of Sonoma County Winegrowers. Before the 1960s, crops were mostly apples and prunes. “They’re very attached and tied to the land, and they now grow grapes which are economically viable.”

The Golden State lives with a startling statistic: Each year, 30,000 acres of land are

Brent Young — ranch manager at Jordan Vineyard & Winery in Sonoma’s Alexander Valley — rode his tractor clear across the ranch per usual.

“Hang on,” he says. “I’ve got to move from one vineyard block to the next.”

Although just 10 percent of the 1,200-acre ranch is grapes, there’s a whopping amount of land, plus a lake stocked with fish. A visitor experience includes meals crafted from on-site organic gardens, olives turned into bottled olive oil and a beef program tied to the land’s cattle. Last year the winery was certified sustainable by Fish Friendly Ranching — the first in Sonoma County — and is now pursuing an approved certification per the mandate.

“We have these great natural habitats and great vegetative strips. It allows us to really be a pioneering part of the sustainability efforts,” says Young.

Natural grasses and cover crops are planted for each vintage, and in 2012 the winery installed solar arrays, akin to planting 500 trees in terms of carbon dioxide offset.

HOW GREEN WAS MY VINEYARD? Sonoma County winegrowers are evaluated on 138 farming and business practices, such as land use, energy efficiency and water quality.

2014 Endless Rose Crush, Inman Family Wines

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Visitors to Inman Family Wines can plug in an electric car at this charging station.

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Drinking to the

Future

Orange is the new sustainable beer |

BY DAN FRIEDELL

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edlands, Calif., a city about 60 miles east of Los Angeles at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains, features stately homes with wide, wrap-around porches, boulevards lined with palm trees and lots of orange groves. And for Hangar 24, Redlands’ growing craft brewery that sold 37,000 barrels last year (31 gallons equals one barrel), the oranges are its reason for being.

Opened in 2008, the majority of the brewery’s sales come from Orange Wheat, a refreshing, slightly cloudy beer with real (not artificial) orange flavor from the local crop of Valencias and navels. It’s a perfect drink for a summer day when temperatures in the area hover around 100 degrees.

“All our raw materials are as close to home as possible,” says founder Ben Cook, who keeps the finished product near home, too, selling only to customers in California, Arizona and Nevada, which helps save on distribution costs and energy expense. The brewery uses 1,000 pounds of oranges — peel, seeds and all — in every batch.

SARA SANGER; SIERRA NEVADA BREWERY

For Kathleen Inman, owner of Inman Family Wines in Sonoma’s Russian River Valley, her gardening hobby while living in England helped her transition to organically farming 10.5 acres of vines.

“I had a little wormery ... that I used to fertilize my garden,” recalls Inman.

Guests can plug in an electric car and sleep in an adorable bungalow on the property where chickens roam and meals come from the gardens.

It’s a movement that rarely results in manicured fields. “We are no longer running tractors over and over the rows,” says Megan Baccitich, director of winemaking at Paul Hobbs Winery and CrossBarn Winery in Sebastopol, Calif. “We want a lot of different insects and flowers within the row. The more biodiversity you have, you’re making more complex wines.”

Wine writer Meg Houston Maker says careful farming in Sonoma’s cooler regions allows grapes to “enjoy long, slow ripening, which preserves natural acidity and helps develop complexity.” In the region’s warmer zones, the wines “tend to have more concentration and more pronounced fruit flavors,” she says.

Regardless of the differences in the wine they create, Sonoma farmers share a common goal: to preserve a way of life.

“We want to be here forever. Agriculture is us,” says George Martinelli, a fifthgeneration grape grower with his family’s Martinelli Winery.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: DEAN R. GURR; THE ALCHEMIST; DAN FRIEDELL (2); FAR RIGHT: THINKSTOCK

Top: The Sierra Nevada Brewery in Chico, Calif., has a fuel cell system at its plant. At another brewery, The Alchemist in Waterbury, Vt., slurry is poured into 5-gallon jugs to be later composted. Bottom: A selection of beers is featured at Hangar 24 craft brewery in Redlands, Calif., and a handful of the brewery’s spent grain is saved for later donation to local farmers for use as cattle feed.

“The flavor of an orange ripened (on the tree) is night and day compared to one that’s not,” says brewer Kevin Wright. “(Beyond the oranges,) we’re fortunate to have two farmers within a mile of us who will grow anything we want.” That comes in handy for the brewery’s Local Fields series that includes Gourdgeous, a pumpkin beer; Essence, which uses local grapefruits; Polycot, an apricot beer and a Double IPA whose hoppy bitterness is cut with local honey.

The dedication to locally sourced ingredients is Hangar 24’s main claim to environmentally friendly brewing, and it’s a model other breweries are following as the industry grows. But

it’s not the only way to make “green” beer.

According to the Brewers Association, the number of brewpubs and craft breweries doubled to 3,200 in just the six years ending in 2014, and

Attention to green brewing doesn’t result in a measurable sales boost, but it seems to be a part of the ethos of even some large brewers. with that growth, even more attention is being paid to sustainable brewing.

It’s standard to donate spent grain to local farmers for use as cattle feed, but other enlightened brewers

stretch themselves by treating wastewater before it enters public sewers (The Alchemist in Waterbury, Vt.), capturing heat from boiling water and extracting carbon dioxide from the fermentation process (Victory Brewing Company in Downingtown, Pa.) and collecting rainwater and powering their facilities with solar arrays (Sierra Nevada in Chico, Calif.).

“We’re environmentalists, and we want to see the potential extracted from everything,” says John Kimmich of The Alchemist, whose Heady Topper IPA is among the best-reviewed beers according to BeerAdvocate.com. “If you’re a new brewery, (sustainability) better be on the radar.” In-house

LOCAL ORANGES ARE THE KEY Hangar 24 locally sources as many of its raw ingredients as possible. Each batch of the brewery’s Orange Wheat beer is made with 1,000 pounds of treeripened Valencia and navel oranges from area farms.

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Spirits

Elevating Our

The effort extends to the hard stuff

B

eer and whiskey start off the same way, explains Scott Harris at his Catoctin Creek Distillery Company in an old Buick dealership on Main Street in Purcellville, Va., about 50 miles west of Washington. Both products start out as a mixture of grain and hot water (not too different from steel cut oatmeal), and then diverge. To make beer, you add yeast once the hot liquid (wort) is strained from the grain mixture; to make whiskey, you add yeast to the grain mixture. So it would follow that many of the principles of sustainable brewing — solar panels, recycling hot water, sending used barrels to a local brewer and sourcing bottles from nearby Pennsylvania — apply. But there’s an added benefit to making whiskey: Almost the entire yeast, Catoctin Creek water and grain mixture gets sent to Distillery local farmers, because distillers are Company only interested in the alcohol; they benefits local don’t need the water. farmers by “That goes out to the farms as donating yeast, a hydrated feed, and it’s hydrating water and grain mixture for the cows,” says Harris. “They lap feeding cows. it up. You should see the troughs when they’re done. They look steam-cleaned.”

Harris gets an added bonus: Every once in a while, he’s the recipient of a side of beef from one of the farmers who used Harris’ spent grain to make the cows happy.

— Dan Friedell

THE ALCHEMIST; CATOCTIN CREEK DISTILLERY COMPANY

water treatment is one of The has grown over 35 years from Alchemist’s major projects, a start-up to seventh-largest and that’s because Waterbury, brewing company in the U.S., is a town of just 5,000, isn’t set up still chasing perfect sustainabilto process brewing byproducts, ity. It does make use of 10,000 like the yeast that’s left over solar panels at its original from fermentation. brewery in California and has While treating waste is an the capacity to capture up to obligation in Vermont, Kimmich 475,000 gallons of rainwater likes to think a responsible per year for use in its new Mills brewery would do it regardless River, N.C., brewery. of a sewer’s ability to handle it.

“We try to make great beer “Some people don’t have to, and and have our beer sell itself,” wouldn’t (treat their water),” says founder Ken Grossman, says Kimmich. “But for us, since whose company will no longer we have to, we might as well go have the energy expense of all-in.” shipping coast-to-coast Kimmich uncomnow that the North promisingly relies on Carolina brewery is English malt from open. “We try to be Thomas Fawcett good stewards of our and Sons for his resources because we top-selling beers, and think it’s the right thing it’s an expense, both to do as a manufacturer financial and enviof a product that uses ronmental. He makes energy and water. It’s up for it in other not really a marketing ways: He cans instead thing for us.” of bottling his beer The large brewers (which offers better with a craft history like light protection along Sierra Nevada and New The Alchemist with a fast recycling Belgium are proving brewery in turnaround of 45 that it’s possible to Vermont manages days), and he includes make great beer while its environmental impact through a rather forceful also being responsible, in-house water recycling message on and smaller breweries treatment and each can. “I’ve gotten are happy to follow. by packaging its some flack for that,” “We’ll look at things product in cans.

Kimmich says. “But all these different sometimes you have to prod ways — economically, the green people into doing what’s right. initiatives, the satisfaction of Hopefully they chuckle, and say, our personnel, making the ‘That’s not going to be me, I’m best possible beer that we going to recycle this thing.’” can — but in the end it always Attention to green brewing comes down to a decision that’s doesn’t result in a measurable made on ‘what’s the right thing sales boost or get used in to do?’” says Adam Bartles, marketing campaigns very Victory’s brewing director. often, but it seems to be a part “That makes it very easy to of the ethos of even some large have a lot of pride in what we brewers. Sierra Nevada, which do.”

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BAGGING

PLASTIC A SANDWICH MADE from individually wrapped slices of cheese.

A hot cup of coffee made from a convenient K-Cup. A quick and easy microwaved meal. A to-the-door delivery from Amazon. These are just a few of the everyday things people who attempt to live a plastic- and package-free existence choose to go without.

Difficult for sure, but some people feel strongly enough about the environmental effect of plastic to sacrifice the convenience.

CREDIT TK

BY HOLLIE DEESE

51

“I went on his website (colinbeavan.com) and stumbled across information about the impact of plastic in the ocean, and at that time it was a completely new topic for me,” Terry says. “I knew that plastic wasn’t biodegradable, and it wasn’t the best material, but that was all I knew.” Further research into the environmental and health impacts of plastic led Terry to an article that broke her heart. She read about albatross mothers who gathered food for their babies, only to unknowingly return with small bits of plastic and microbeads —

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GREEN LIVING | SPRING/SUMMER 2015

PLASTIC PHOTOS: JERALD COUNCIL; STYLING: ERIN AULOV; BOOK: COURTESY OF PUBLISHER

ACCOUNTANT BETH TERRY of Oakland had always been interested in environmental issues but didn’t think there was anything she could do to make a big difference. Then, the Californian became intrigued by a story she heard on NPR about a New Yorker — Colin Beavan, who calls himself the “no-impact man” — trying to minimize his environmental impact.

tiny exfoliants found in some bath and beauty products. The plastic killed their chicks.

“I had heard lots of other sad environmental stories before that, but that one just really got to me,” Terry says. “I looked at those pictures of those birds and realized that was me — that was the stuff I was using. I could actually make a difference by changing my purchasing and changing the things I was using so unconsciously.”

Terry decided to collect all the plastic waste she generated each week to see the amount she contributed. She then committed to blogging about reducing that amount. After a month, she decided to make the change permanent, and now it is a way of life. Her book, Plastic Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too, is being re-released April 2015 with a forward by musician and plasticfree advocate Jack Johnson (see his story on page 18).

Terry now shops in bulk with her own bags, makes her own shampoo and cleaning products with baking soda and vinegar and contacts sellers on eBay or Etsy to make sure they will ship their products without plastic.

“When I leave the house, I always have in my bag with me some reusuable cloth produce bags of different sizes,” she says. “I have a little utensil kit just in case I go somewhere that wants me to use plastic. And I prefer to carry a mug just because it is more versatile than a water bottle. And a lot of times I will have a reusable stainless steel container just in case.”

BAGGING PLASTIC

SARA D. DAVIS

NOT EASY BEING GREEN: Danielle Richardet, Wilmington, N.C.

A busy mom, Danielle Richardet does her best to be plastic-free, but some concessions have to be made for her family. “It is just a really difficult thing to do with three kids,” she says.

REASONS TO REDUCE The path to plastic-free is a bit different for everyone, but most people embracing this lifestyle have the same goal — to make a difference. For Terry, it was that story about the albatross chicks that became her tipping point. For Danielle Richardet, 36, of Wilmington, N.C., it was a desire to reduce personal waste.

“I was always an avid recycler, a bring-myown-bags kind of person,” she says.

With the amount of recycling she was already doing at home, she and her husband,

Aaron, got rid of their trash service in 2008.

She wanted to reduce the amount she recycled as well, and looked to the biggest culprit in her bin — plastic. Specifically, food packaging.

“That’s where I found that we as a family were creating the most plastic waste, and by changing a few simple things we could make a big impact in the amount of plastic we use, which is now very minimal,” she says.

Richardet now shops in bulk or at her local food co-op. She fills her own containers, usually reused glass or Mason jars or large

53

The path to plastic-free is a bit different for everyone, but most people embracing this lifestyle have the same goal — to make a difference.

plastic ice-cream tubs rescued from the garbage. She buys cheese in full wheels, then shreds it and freezes it. And she always makes her own cookies, fruit leather and granola bars.

The busy mother of three does the best she can, but there are some concessions she makes for her family.

“I am not totally plastic-free,” she admits. “It is just a really difficult thing to do with three kids. On my own I could probably finagle it. But there are just some things I can’t live without.”

For example, her kids really love grapes, which come in a plastic bag. Richardet bends the rules to buy the healthy treat, but she only buys it in season and from U.S. growers. And while she has made her own potato chips, she finds the process timeconsuming, so she bends on that point, too.

“We just kind of come up with the rules together,” she says.

“That is what works for us. If we go on vacation and they want a snow cone, that is their choice. If they want to get a straw and a Styrofoam cup, they know the (environmental) consequences.

They have to learn on their own and decide what is best for them.

If I keep saying, ‘You can’t, you can’t, you can’t,’ then they will come to resent striving to live a different kind of lifestyle than what is average.”

FOR HEALTH’S SAKE For Jay Sinha of Quebec and his wife, Chantal Plamondon, health concerns were the impetus of going plastic-free. With the impending birth of their son in 2003, the couple was in search of glass baby bottles. They finally found a company that made them — Ohio-based Evenflo — but the company required a wholesale

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GREEN LIVING | SPRING/SUMMER 2015

BAGGING PLASTIC

purchase of 1,000 bottles.

“That got us thinking, because we knew other people were starting to look for those things,” he says.

In 2006, they launched their online business (lifewithout plastic.com), where people can find tools for this lifestyle.

They sell stainless steel containers for leftovers, glass straws for smoothies or milkshakes, lifestyle items for pet care, office items and more.

“We wanted to be a source for information about plastics and plastic alternatives, and be a one-stop shop where people could find things that were hard to find in a nontoxic format,” Sinha says.

In 2007, he says, their sales saw a spike. Business boomed again in 2009, when Canada banned the chemical BPA, which is commonly found in plastic storage containers.

“Interest is constantly growing, and people who are looking are often families, people with children, and then it blossoms from there to the rest of the family,” Sinha says.

MAKING THE CHANGE If you want to take the plastic-free plunge, it’s easy to start small.

These products can help you take that first step.

– Hollie Deese

All-natural vegan lip balm comes in compostable, plastic-free tubes (fresh mint or lemon coconut). $6, fablenaturals. com

Pura Kiki’s plasticfree infant feeding system includes 5-ounce stainless steel bottle and nipple made of medical-grade silicone. $13.99, purastainless.com

COURTESY OF THE COMPANIES

EASIER THAN EVER While living plastic-free is more manageable today, it still requires time and dedication.

“It took a long time to get away from plastic-wrapped cheese because I really love cheese,” Terry says. “That was a hard one. And I did not relish the idea of cooking, and I had lived on frozen microwaveable meals in plastic trays.

Now I shop at the farmers market and get whole foods and vegetables. And the butcher shop in our neighborhood knows us — we are the stainless steel bucket people.”

But if the thought of giving up your favorite lip balm or instant cup of coffee is just too much to bear, start small, say the experts.

“Don’t get overwhelmed, and don’t feel guilty,” Terry says. “Don’t beat yourself up or feel bad about your choices, because those are the norm. You are not a bad person. Even if you can’t get rid of all the plastic all at once, re-think some of the single-serving things you buy.”

For instance, instead of yogurt in single-serving containers, get a bigger container and portion it out. Always carry reusable shopping bags. Swap bottled water for filtered.

Meet and get to know your local butcher and baker. Just do what works.

“There is no such thing as perfect,” Richardet says. “If there was, I think the world would be pretty darn boring. My ‘better’ is different from your ‘better,’ but I think we are all just trying to get to a place that is better.”

Sustainable bamboo toothbrush set by Izola is made with nylon bristles. $16, izola.com

Stainless steel PlanetBox Launch Complete Kit holds a three-course meal and includes a dipper cup for sauces. $69.95, planetbox.com

Sip anything from a smoothie to bubble tea through Glass Dharma’s Decorative Dots borosilicate glass straw sets. $44-$52 for a set of four, glassdharma.com

Ecobags organic net drawstring bags let you forgo the store’s plastic bags. $4.69 each, ecobags.com

55

Tap Safely Faucet water you drink is probably safe, but that doesn’t mean it’s pure

BY STACY CHANDLER

I

n America, our tap water is safe, by and large. But things go from clear to murky when you try to pin down just what that means.

Depending on where you live, the public water supply may be susceptible to pesticide runoff from farms. Arsenic — whether naturally occurring or part of agricultural or

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GREEN LIVING | SPRING/SUMMER 2015

industrial activity — has been detected in many states. And pharmaceuticals of almost every variety have been found in tap water nationwide.

Scientists are still trying to figure out exactly what levels of such substances are truly safe, and what the long-term effects of exposure — no matter how slight — may be.

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what we consume and how it affects our well-being.

And with news about toxic spills and contamination all around us, we can’t take for granted that the water flowing from the faucet is safe.

“One of the things that I think makes people uncomfortable is, to a large extent, you have to trust science and scientists and government agencies that they’re going to do a good job to protect us,” says Salzman, who drinks tap water but understands why others choose to filter. “If you have concern about how well the government does its job, then you might

Filter Features

be concerned about your drinking water.”

In fact, 82 percent of people are concerned about contaminants in drinking water, according to a survey conducted last year

by NSF International, an organization whose seal is found on water filters and other products that pass its tests for safety standards.

Pesticides and herbicides, prescription drugs and detergents were among the top concerns.

But remember that the real heavy lifting for keeping our water safe happens long before the first drop comes out of our faucet. The federal Safe

Drinking Water Act and state and local laws keep water utilities busy testing the water, monitoring the source and improving distribution, with safety foremost in mind. Tainted water makes for grabby headlines, but it’s not the norm in our country, and it likely never will be.

“As we learn more about significant threats to our health through water — waterborne diseases, waterborne contaminants — we have introduced technologies to address those,” says Salzman. “The trend has been very clear: The water we drink has gotten safer over time.”

ACTIVATED CARBON

REVERSE OSMOSIS

Brita Grand water filter pitcher, $32.99-$36.99, brita.com

Kenmore reverse osmosis water system, $169.99, kenmore.com

If taste is your main concern, this type of filter, which can be in a pitcher, an attachment for your faucet or in your refrigerator’s water dispenser, has you covered. The activated carbon attracts particles of chlorine and other chemicals, including some pharmaceuticals. After a while, the carbon filter will need to be changed — each product carries a timetable on its packaging.

Reverse osmosis (RO) filters are usually installed beneath your kitchen sink. In addition to screening out chemicals that affect the taste of your water, RO also blocks minerals associated with “hard” water. But keep in mind that potentially helpful minerals, such as calcium and fluoride, are also screened out, and some filters can lower your water’s pH to below state and federal standards.

Keep in mind, no filter gets out every kind of impurity, but you can tailor your setup to manage your concerns.

Here’s a sampling of different kinds of filters and what they can do.

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GREEN LIVING | SPRING/SUMMER 2015

PHOTO ILLUSTRATIONS: ERIN AULOV, THINKSTOCK; PRODUCTS: COURTESY OF THE COMPANIES

In the meantime, people are turning to in-home water filters; more than $833 million was spent on water filtration products last year, according to the global market research firm Mintel.

“Drinking water is one of the few things that enters into our bodies. If you look back in history, there’s always been a special relationship between cultures and drinking water,” says Duke University professor James Salzman, author of the 2012 book Drinking Water: A History.

In today’s healthconscious times, we pay even more attention to

FILTER FACTS Still if you’re considering investing in a water filter, you’ve got some homework to do.

“We advise people to get to know their water, which means understanding where your water comes from, how it’s treated, how it’s delivered to your home,” says Greg Kail, spokesman for the American Water Works Association, a nonprofit that advocates safe water and sustainability.

If you’re connected to a public water system, the Environmental Protection Agency requires providers to issue an annual Consumer Confidence Report,

“If you have concern about how well the government does its job, then you might be concerned about your drinking water.”

— James Salzman, Duke University professor

which is usually mailed or posted online. These reports identify what lake, river or aquifer your water comes from and any contaminants detected, alongside EPA standards for how much of each contaminant the agency deems acceptable.

If you find the information confusing, pick up the phone and give your water provider a call. “In my experience, utilities are happy to discuss those things, and they’re grateful that their customers are interested,” Kail says.

Steer clear of door-todoor or mailed offers to

test your water. They’re usually just thinly veiled sales pitches, and the results may or may not be accurate. You can test your own water — the only option for most well users — with help from a state-certified lab (EPA maintains a list at http://1.usa. gov/1CnO14o, or through its Safe Drinking Water hotline at 800-426-4791) or a home test kit.

After you gain an understanding of what’s in your water, you can determine the best way to filter out the parts that make you uncomfortable.

UV AND SOLAR PURIFICATION SYSTEMS

WATER DISTILLATION SYSTEMS

WATER SOFTENERS

SteriPEN Traveler, $49.95, steripen.com

Megahome countertop water distiller, $219, amazon.com

Aquasana 1 million-gallon Rhino whole house filter, $2,712.28, aquasana.com

In this system, evaporation and condensation from prolonged boiling separate contaminants from water.

The resulting water can be used for drinking, medical uses and other needs. While distillation gets out a wide range of substances, the water it creates can taste flat, and the process consumes a lot of energy.

“Hard” water, which contains minerals such as calcium and magnesium, can create extra household chores and stress out appliances, but it’s not a health hazard. A water softener, included in above system, uses a process called ion exchange, swapping the calcium and magnesium ions with friendlier sodium and potassium ones.

“Soft” water leaves less residue on tubs, sinks, appliances and clothes.

Ultraviolet purification systems, above, neutralize bacteria and viruses in water drawn from wells, lakes or streams.

Solar water disinfection, or SODIS, is a related, small-scale method often used in developing countries. In one application, clear plastic bottles filled with water are placed in direct sunlight for six hours, enough time for UV rays from the sun to kill the microorganisms that make people sick.

59

E N V I R ONMENT

The infestation can be slowed, but so far, there’s no definitive way to stop it. One reason? Climate change.

“Climate change is a big part of the conversation when it comes to invasive pests such as the mountain pine beetle and the emerald ash borer,” says Michael Daley, associate professor of environmental science at Lasell College in Newton, Mass.

Save the Trees

As pests ravage our woods, it’s not only nature lovers worrying about the future of our forests

BY LAMBETH HOCHWALD

I

f it seems that our forests are vanishing, that’s not an exaggeration. A whole host of insects have laid claim to our vast woodlands — mountain pine beetles munch through trees in the West, while emerald ash borers devastate them in the East.

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GREEN LIVING | SPRING/SUMMER 2015

In the western states, trees are under attack by mountain pine beetles, a pest native to North America. At normal levels, their tree-eating activities open up space in forests to make room for welcome new growth, says Jamie Cundiff, forest programs director at the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies in Aspen, Colo.

But in the late 1990s, drought conditions began to weaken the trees’ natural defense system. The trees use sap to repel beetles, but as the trees become too dried out to create much sap, they are unable to fight off the insects.

“It’s been a perfect storm with warming winters, stressed trees and tree bands full of this host species of pine beetles,” Cundiff says. “After all, without cold temperatures to kill off the pine beetle populations, they’ve had the ideal environment to proliferate.”

So far, as many as 3.4 million acres of Colorado forests have felt the impact, but mountain pine beetles and a few cousin varieties are chewing their way through 13 western states, including Alaska.

While the rate of expansion has slowed in Colorado because there are fewer trees for the beetles to nest in, the U.S. Forest Service says that more acreage is being infested every day.

The dead trees remain standing, tall spikes of brown poking through neighboring green pines. Wildlife has to look elsewhere for food.

“Any wildlife that uses the seeds of a tree or eats the leaves — whether it’s squirrels, insects or even mammals like bear and deer — will be affected by tree infestations,” says Andrea Dierich, forest pest outreach coordinator at the

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E N V I R ONMENT

Emerald ash borer larvae, left, latch onto trees in Ulster, N.Y. Insecticide treatments are sprayed on ash trees where possible, far left, but there is no way to guarantee they will work.

The adult beetles nibble on ash foliage but cause little damage.

The larvae (the immature stage) feed on the inner bark of ash trees, disrupting the trees’ ability to transport water and nutrients.

62

Morton Arboretum in Chicago, a leading research center for trees. “The local wildlife populations have had to re-adapt and find new food sources.”

Humans are also at risk.

Hazardous trees must be removed from campgrounds and public areas before they fall, and the Forest Service and National Park Service (NPS) try to ensure this happens. The agencies also use some pesticides, but the chemicals only work when sprayed directly on the trees, according to the NPS. “There is no effective means of controlling a large beetle outbreak in such a vast area,” the NPS says of Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park, where isolated

GREEN LIVING | SPRING/SUMMER 2015

backcountry makes up 95 percent of the park’s 415 square miles.

The dead trees put communties at risk for fire and other weather-related damage. In 2010, the Fourmile Canyon fire near Boulder, Colo., destroyed 6,000 acres of forest weakened by drought and beetles; 169 homes burned, as well. The loss of vegetation set up the city for another disaster a few years later. In 2013, 15 inches of rain in three days triggered catastrophic floods that killed eight people and destroyed 1,500 homes.

“The interplay between our forests, climate change and human health and safety cannot be emphasized enough,” Cundiff says.

THE FIGHT IN THE EAST On the East Coast, the threat comes from a non-native pest: emerald ash borers. The pest was initially detected in Michigan in 2002, and experts believe that these insects, native to Asia, were first found in shipping crates.

“This insect came over in wood packing materials — in the pellets themselves,” Dierich says. “A lot of the pests we have issues with arrive here this way, sent inadvertently by a company that sends product in crates that aren’t treated correctly.”

Once here, the adult ash borer begins its attack by eating ash tree leaves. Then the females lay eggs on the bark.

When the eggs hatch, the larvae bore into the bark and feed

FROM LEFT: DAVID CAPPAERT (2); KENNETH R. LAW; USDA FOREST SERVICE

EMERALD ASH BORER

CLOCKWISE FROM TOPT: RONALD F. BILLINGS; WILLIAM M. CIESLA; LOUISVILLE SLUGGER

Mountain pine beetles kill trees in the Rocky Mountains, left. The pests attack the sapproducing bark of a lodgepole pine in western Canada, below.

on the nutrient-containing tissue of the tree. This spells trouble for nearly 282 species of insects that rely on North American ash trees. Many, including butterflies, moths and flies, are becoming at risk of extinction, according to researchers at the Ohio State University.

For these trees, the prognosis is dire: According to a Forest Service study conducted in 2013, in time nearly all of the green, white and black ash trees (the most plentiful species in the U.S.) will be killed off. In fact, tens of millions of trees have already died from ash borer invasions, seen in 24 states, as well as Ontario and Quebec.

“The loss of shade trees is one of the sad impacts of the emerald ash borer,” Daley says.

“Beautiful ash trees on residential properties or along public streets must be removed as well, as the dying trees present hazards. ... The loss of a tree that has stood for hundreds of years can be upsetting.”

Experts are fighting the infestation with a variety of measures, some not entirely under their control. 2014’s notorious “polar vortex” knocked back the population, and the extremely cold weather slowed their expansion into northeastern states such as Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

BATTER UP? The infestation of emerald ash borers in East Coast forests has affected the commercial industries for

furniture, tool handles — even baseball bats.

The famous Louisville Sluggers have been made

“A climate with warmer winter temperatures will allow these pests to move further north into new ecosystems,” Daley warns.

Experts are trying to apply insecticide treatments on valuable shade trees, but that must start before the arrival of the pest to be effective. “Sadly, there’s no guarantee the treatment will work, particularly in heavily infested areas,” Daley says.

Another option is biological control, in which another species is introduced to disrupt the proliferation of the invasive pest.

Wasps that only prey on emerald ash borer have been brought to Massachusetts to fight the pest. “Early research suggests this technique is effective, but it also involves introducing a species native to Asia into the state, which could potentially have unintended consequences,” Daley says.

A final option is to prohibit the transportation of ash wood material. About 23 states have such quarantines in place. “The transport of firewood is a major concern, as the borer can easily be hidden in the wood,” Daley says.

As trade increases and the climate changes, some of our most precious trees are fighting for their lives. “If you have a tree that’s potentially in jeopardy, contact a certified arborist,” Dierich says. “If we get to a tree early enough, we can apply a treatment to protect it while it’s being infested. You’ll be saving one more tree — and every tree counts.”

of white ash for more than 100 years. But the bats that helped sluggers like Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson achieve greatness may be challenged by pests.

“Emerald ash borer is a concern for Louisville

MOUNTAIN PINE BEETLE An outbreak of mountain pine beetles, native to the forests of the western United States, kills trees and puts communities at greater risk for fires and other weatherrelated damage.

Slugger, as infestations are close to their managed forests in Pennsylvania and New York,” says Michael Daley of Lasell College in Newton, Mass. The company is confident its timber is safe for now.

63

L I F E S TYLE

Attainable Changes You can make your home healthy and inviting, one step at a time

BY ELIZABETH NEUS

Christa O’Leary, above, designed a peaceful library in this Hartford, Conn., show house with eco-friendly materials and a feminine, French style.

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GREEN LIVING | SPRING/SUMMER 2015

CHRISTINE NIELSEN PHOTOGRAPHY; ROGER CASTONGUAY

C

lutter fills your house. Your email inbox overflows.

Your family snacks on fast food, and you spend all your free time on the couch. And don’t even start to think about the state of the world in general — from terrorism to riots to health epidemics — it’s just too depressing to consider.

You want to make a change, but it’s just so much.

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L I F E S TYLE

Author Christa O’Leary has some advice: “The last thing you want to do,” she writes in her book Home in Harmony: Designing an Inspired Life, “is (to) give yourself an “My kids unattainable task.” Take weren’t always psyched that we baby steps toward any were the home that didn’t have new project that looks Doritos in the overwhelmcupboard.” ing at first — cleaning out — Christa O’Leary the garage, changing your diet, walking instead of driving — and, in time, you’ll be able to achieve it, she says.

It took some time for the Massachusetts-based O’Leary to learn her own lesson.

The changes were prompted by the birth of her first child.

O’Leary was a marriage and family therapist and found

that she couldn’t leave the emotions of her job at work — “I loved what I did, but it was very heavy” — and so she left that career to focus on her family. Creating a comfortable, pleasant home for them led her to a love for interior design. Then an unexpected challenge added the final piece of the puzzle: When her oldest son was 9 months old, he developed a serious allergy to a protein in milk.

“If I brought anything (containing the protein) into our home, he could go into anaphylactic shock,” she says. “If I didn’t know what something was on the label, I had to research it. That began to open my eyes as to what was in the products we were bringing home.”

O’Leary’s family — she, her husband and their four children, ages 17, 15, 13 and 12 — now lives an organic

life, but it took some time to get there, and there was some early resistance. “My kids weren’t always psyched that we were the home that didn’t have Doritos in the cupboard,” she says. “It has to be an evolution that happens gradually.”

O’Leary now considers herself a “design-inspired living” specialist, and outlines a path to a calmer life that anyone can follow. It even comes with an easy acronym: H: Assess your life and the HABITS that define it.

O: Determine your OBJECTIVE; what is it that you’re hoping to create?

M: Break down your actions toward that objective into MANAGEABLE steps.

E: Use your inner ENERGY to stick to your new behaviors until they become habit.

O’Leary recommends taking time to assess habits before

NATURAL HELP

uDracaena: Can grow from 2 feet to 10 feet tall, but can be pruned.

Best in bright, indirect light; water when soil is dry to the touch.

uGolden pothos: A climbing vine with variegated leaves. Low light is acceptable; let soil dry between waterings.

uNephthytis: A slow-growing vine with 5-inch leaves. Low light is acceptable. Provide drainage; water when the top of the soil is dry.

uSpider plants: About 2 feet to 3 feet wide; excellent hanging plants.

Best in bright indirect light; soil should dry out between waterings.

uWeeping figs (Ficus benjamina): Tall tree-like plants (3 feet to 6 feet tall) often seen in offices.

Best in indirect or filtered sunlight; keep moist.

Sources: NASA, Home in Harmony, Clemson Cooperative Extension

66

GREEN LIVING | SPRING/SUMMER 2015

THINKSTOCK

House plants provide a quick fix if you’re concerned about the air quality in your home. Studies have shown they can add extra oxygen to the air and absorb less-pure substances such as formaldehyde and VOCs. For best results, use one or two plants for every 100 square feet. Varieties to try include:

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L I F E S TYLE

O’Leary chose light, soothing blue tones for this room to calm the mind and body. Brown triggers a grounding effect on emotions. personal health and into your home.

O’Leary helps her clients see their homes anew, identifying the areas and items that make them unhappy or uncomfortable and finding ways to make a change. Get rid of that chair you inherited from that not-so-nice aunt; paint that too-bright wall that makes you jittery; pick up the clutter that triggers your urge to flee.

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GREEN LIVING | SPRING/SUMMER 2015

“Our individual homes are our nests,” she says.

“They are our sanctuaries.

They can re-charge us.

They’re our re-docking stations. I think people have no awareness about the impact that their environment has on them, which is amazing to me. We’re impacted by every environment we encounter, and that’s how we’re wired as humans.”

In her own home, she also focuses on “toxins” in food and water, cleaning products, furniture and just about anything she brings into the house. The vigilance is a holdover from when her son’s food allergy first appeared. “My belief is that toxins are anything that is detrimental to the body,” she says. “And we might not see their effects right away.”

Her book includes a list of substances that people might want to think twice about bringing into their homes. Some substances, such as benzene (a starter chemical for many plastics; also found in vehicle exhaust), formaldehyde (commonly used in pressed-wood products), VOCs (often found in paint, cleaning products and varnish) and talc, are commonly recognized as problem substances.

Others such as aluminum, chlorine and parabens (substances all feared to be linked to illness, but without a proven link) are more controversial.

O’Leary recognizes that some of these items, such as the chlorine added to public water for disinfection or the white plastic PVC pipes in your home, are nearly unavoidable. “Perfect achievement isn’t possible anywhere, even in my own home,” she says.

So you create a balance, she says. If you live near a major road, for example, minimize the pollution in your home by adding house plants, which can absorb toxins from the air. Leave your dry cleaning outside for a day so the fumes dissipate. Filter your water to cut down on chlorine intake.

“If the larger community isn’t your ideal, at least the thing that you can control is your own home, your own environment,” she says. “Make that space fabulous.”

FIND YOUR PATH In her book Home in Harmony: Designing an Inspired Life, author Christa O’Leary offers questions to ask yourself as you create an inspired home: uWhat do you picture when you think of a healthy, nurturing environment?

uWhen you imagine walking into your ideal living space, what do you see? What do you hear? How do you feel? uWhat kind of mood do you want to feel when you’re in that space? A quiet retreat, or a space that encourages conversation and fun? Or something else?

Once you’ve answered these questions: uCollect images of rooms and homes that appeal to you.

uTake note of your response to friends’ homes, public buildings, restaurants, and write down the ideas that gave you good feelings. uCreate a vision board that displays images that speak to you, words that convey what you’re trying to achieve, anything that inspires.

Then commit to your plan: uActually schedule activities such as exercise, decluttering, recipe research.

uWrite down ideas, phrases and reminders of things that give you joy as a reminder of your goal.

“Celebrate your successes, no matter how small,” she writes.

ROGER CASTONGUAY

changing them. For instance, ask what triggers your behavior, what do you do on autopilot, what items do you buy without thinking? Once you’re aware of your habits, figure out the ones you want to change, and carve out the time to make that change.

To do this, set a concrete goal, O’Leary says, and then break that goal down into pieces. For example, do you want to have your family eating healthier food by the time summer starts? Take that as your endpoint, and then figure out what you need to do in April and May, and then each week and then each day, to make that happen. One step at a time.

“If you do too many things at once, you become overwhelmed, and that leads to inaction,” she says. “Move through (the steps) and create your healthy habits.”

The process can extend beyond your

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E D U C ATION

Furman University student assistant Ryan Richardson teaches orientation skills to students Livi Tant and Claire Campbell during a trip to Yosemite National Park and the Sierra Nevada mountains.

College classrooms turn out experts in the Earth

BY STACY CHANDLER

N

ot so long ago, the green movement on U.S. college campuses involved putting out recycling bins and maybe reducing the amount of Styrofoam used in the dining hall. Nowadays, steps like that are just the tip of the iceberg.

“Green thinking” has moved into classrooms, where students earn degrees specifically focused on sustainability studies or add an Earth-friendly spin to more traditional majors.

There’s also been a shift from a handful of sustainability-focused programs in architecture or business, says Meghan

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GREEN LIVING | SPRING/SUMMER 2015

Fay Zahniser, director of programs at the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). “It’s now really spread throughout the curriculum,” she says. “Whether you’re studying to be a history teacher, a biologist, any sort of profession, there’s going to be a need for people to at least have an understanding of sustainability.”

Colleges and universities have added green studies because of a real commitment to environmentalism, but also because it makes business sense, Zahniser says. “Institutions are recognizing ... that these are not only programs that we

▲ SUSTAINABILITY STUDIES These programs take a holistic view of sustainability, focusing on social systems, economics, politics and more. The degrees often require courses in several departments. Furman University’s program is an example, and Arizona State University led the way with a firstof-its-kind School of Sustainability in 2006.

COURTESY OF FURMAN UNIVERSITY

Eco Grades

SEE HOW UA IS GOING GREEN The University of Alabama cares about sustainability. UA’s Go Green initiative connects students, faculty, staff and our surrounding community to promote sustainable living through recycling, reducing, reusing and education.

It begins with recycling bins across campus and in the dining halls, where local food purchasing policies, fryer oil recycling, green matter compost and trayless dining help our students be as green as possible. But it doesn’t stop there. Coordinated efforts across departments ensure that as little as possible is wasted, from leaves, fallen trees and cardboard to scrap metal, motor oil, car batteries, ink cartridges, electronics and office furniture.

Last year alone, UA’s Go Green practices kept more than 1,382 tons of waste out of landfills and saved 16,031 trees, 358,338 gallons of oil, 3,771,978 kilowatts of energy and 6,600,962 gallons of water.

Visit gogreen.ua.edu to learn more.

E D U C ATIO N

need to create to best equip our future leaders with the information and solutions that they need to best solve the world’s problems, but also this is going to help differentiate one institution from another.”

Furman University, a private liberal arts college in Greenville, S.C., launched its

Students crunch data on transportation, consumption habits and water use and think about solutions.

“They’re interested in being agents of change," Dripps says. "And they want a mechanism where they can be.”

Colleges have been steadily adding green

FIND YOUR MAJOR The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) keeps a database of sustainability-focused academic programs.

Check it out at aashe.org/resources/academic-programs sustainability science major in 2011 as an outgrowth of its Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES).

“We had put a lot of effort in really understanding the processes behind environmental issues,” says Weston Dripps, associate professor and EES department chair.

Sustainability had long been part of Furman’s outlook, and in 2008 the university launched the Shi Center for Sustainability, which aims to infuse the credo throughout the curriculum. Sustainability science students explore connections between the environment, economics and social systems.

Learning takes place in and out of the classroom.

Students work closely with local firms doing environmental work. The campus, Dripps says, is “a living learning laboratory.”

74

majors. Here’s a look at a few programs:

SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE People are becoming more aware of where food comes from and how its harvest can impact the environment. Sustainable agriculture programs, such as one at the University of California, Davis, train students to farm in more eco-friendly, efficient ways.

ENVIRONMENTAL TECH Students learn how to measure environmental indicators and monitor ecosystems. They might focus on engineering, hazardous waste response or data analysis. North Carolina State University and the University of Maryland are among schools doing this.

ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION This path trains students to spread the word about

GREEN LIVING | SPRING/SUMMER 2015

Models walk the runway at Parsons MFA runway show during MADE Fashion Week Spring 2015 at Milk Studios in New York City.

sustainability, whether to children in schools or adults in government and the corporate world. Some programs, such as the University of Minnesota Duluth, add an outdoors component. A few, such as the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, work with graduate students earning their teacher certification.

URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES Urban planning is crucial.

Programs at Bard College in New York, BirminghamSouthern College in Alabama and the University of California, Berkeley, look at ways humans can live in harmony with the Earth.

▲ ECOFASHION Fashion design majors at schools like Parsons The New School for Design and the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and California College of the Arts in San Francisco learn how to make beautiful clothing from materials and via practices that are easy on the planet. Whether it’s a specific degree program or simply a curriculum-wide emphasis, sustainability is something tomorrow’s designers will style.

MIREYA ACIERTO/GETTY IMAGES

The searchable list includes more than 1,400 programs at 475 colleges + universities

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Up on the Rooftop European-inspired green roofs grow in the U.S.

A

l Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant & Butik in Sister Bay, Wis., is known for its amazing hot chocolate — and for the goats on its roof. It was founded in 1949; in 1973, Johnson decided to expand and ordered a traditional sod-roofed building from Norway. “The walls were constructed, numbered, disassembled and shipped to us,” says son Lars Johnson, who now owns the restaurant with his siblings, Annika and Rolf.

Green roofs have a long tradition in Europe, and the

78

Johnsons enjoy the benefits in North America. “First and foremost, it keeps our building a little warmer in the winter months and a little cooler in the summer months,” Lars Johnson says. It also holds rainwater to limit runoff into Lake Michigan. And, the addition of grazing goats (initially put up there as a prank) turned the roof into a selfmaintaining advertisement for the business.

The U.S. Green Building Council introduced LEED certification parameters for commercial buildings

GREEN LIVING | SPRING/SUMMER 2015

in 2000, and that’s when the green roof revival began. Green roofs on office buildings, apartment complexes and shopping centers provide insulation and storm water management. And, as at Al Johnson’s, newer green roofs are being designed for the enjoyment of tenants and the broader community.

“We’ve got a much better sense of the costs and the benefits of green roof technology,” says Steven W. Peck, president of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities in Toronto. “As the industry has matured, the costs of putting

in a lightweight roof have fallen.”

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) currently maintains more than 2 million square feet of green roofs on government buildings. The biggest advantage is that storm water runoff is reduced by up to 65 percent, according to the GSA, and energy costs are reduced. Less quantifiable benefits include increasing biodiversity, absorbing noise, reducing urban heat levels and air pollution and providing space for recreation and growing crops. Green roofs

MATT NORMANN; TOP RIGHT, BOTTOM LEFT: AL JOHNSON FAMILY

BY ANN C. LOGUE

ON THE WALL

Look closely. This cute goat isn’t grazing in pasture but on the roof of a Swedish restaurant, also pictured at left, in Sister Bay, Wis.

“As the industry has matured, the costs of putting in a lightweight roof have fallen.”

MATT NORMANN

— Steven W. Peck, president of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities last an average of 50 years, too.

While in the past a typical green roof was a plain mat of grasses designed strictly for the environmental benefits, that has changed. Architects and designers now consider public uses when coming up with designs, and they create

projects that allow public access. Now, green roofs are used as parks, cafés and bocce courts. Whole Foods Market even grows produce on the roof of its Lynnfield, Mass., store.

Patients, families and staff at Martha’s Vineyard Hospital in Massachusetts enjoy visiting the garden — with a view of the ocean — on the roof. And the benefits go far beyond the environmental.

“It’s a perfect fit for this technology,” says the designer, Jared Markham, GreenGrid program manager for Weston Solutions in

Glastonbury, Conn.

Markham also did the green roof on the Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot in New York City, which is not accessible to area residents, but can be seen from surronding apartments. It was designed to be beautiful.

“The benefits for the building owner and the homeowner are really significant,” says Nancy Somerville of the American Society of Landscape Architects. After all, who wouldn’t want to live or work in a building with built-in park space?

The sky isn’t the limit for green building additions. The next frontier is vertical: the green wall. There’s less research on the effectiveness of walls compared to roofs, but they provide all the benefits of their horizontal counterparts.

“I’m looking for surface, whether that’s vertical or on the flat,” says Paul Kephart, president of Rana Creek Design in Monterey, Calif.

While vertical surfaces have challenges getting adequate light and water, these difficulties are offset by a great aesthetic advantage — they can be planted as artwork.

Kephart’s firm installed a popular green wall on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

It’s seven stories high, uses no potable water, inspires passers-by and attracts hummingbirds.

He also designed a wall that incorporates images of sound waves for Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre in Englewood, Colo.

Dave MacKenzie, the founder of LiveRoof and LiveWall in Spring Lake, Mich., took the medium a step further. His public art installations show the beauty of plants, as well as the flexibility of the green wall technology.

An installation he completed in 2014, Breathe was a finalist in the Grand Rapids, Mich., ArtPrize competition.

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Walmart’s push to add organic products confirms the fad is here to stay BY LORI SANTOS

WALMART

Walmart teamed up with the Wild Oats brand of organic products, which adhere to guidelines for USDA certification, follow global food safety standards and ban 125 unwanted ingredients.

A

year ago, grocery giant Walmart plunged headlong into America’s growing love affair with organic food, launching an ambitious effort to make that food more affordable for more consumers.

The company teamed up with the Wild Oats brand of organic products with a promise to keep prices 25 percent lower than other organic brands. “The customers are responding well, and we’re really pleased with the progress that we’ve made,”

says Dorn Wenninger, Walmart’s U.S. vice president of produce.

Seventy organic food items — ranging from black beans to cinnamon applesauce to quinoa — are now available in 2,200 Walmart stores. About 3,800 of the chain’s 4,000-plus stores have at least 30 items. Also in 2014, Walmart launched private-label organic produce, and sales are showing promise.

Since fall, the company has added 50 produce items in 2,300 stores.

“That’s what’s exciting about

81

B U S I NESS

Longtime grower, shipper and farmer Dorn Wenninger travels to farms around the world for Walmart.

Purple Power

Walmart,” Wenninger such as Target and In an effort to make sure says. “We can make Costco to get into Walmart shoppers know they are really reaching for it more affordable the act has had a big organic produce, such and more available to impact. Officials at the products are now clearly areas of the country OTA, which conducts a branded with purple labels. that wouldn’t have had comprehensive annual the luxury.” survey, report an increase To direct customers to these in demand for organic foods. new offerings, Walmart pinpoints Competition has led to an increased products with purple badging. It’s all availability of products and lower in the purple: purple labeling, purple prices. signs, purple shelves. “We wanted “The organic food market is to be very deliberate and make sure absolutely hot right now and our customers could identify very experiencing growth across all clearly what products are organic,” products,” says Laura Batcha, the Wenninger says. association’s CEO. “The only thing Organic food is now big business holding it back from further growth in the United States, with $35.1 is supply constraints.” billion in sales in 2013, according to Supply issues arise because it the Organic Trade Association (OTA). takes about three years to transition And despite some dire warnings farmland from traditional producabout how big-box retailers might tion to organic, and the process of upend the organic food world, compliance is rigorous. But Batcha industry officials say the decision by says the market is responding, and Walmart and other big distributors Walmart’s efforts have “absolutely”

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GREEN LIVING | SPRING/SUMMER 2015

Walmart’s U.S. vice president of produce, Dorn Wenninger, says the mega-company is signing up “dozens and dozens” of farmers and making multi-year commitments so they know they will be able to sell their products.

“We completely understand that it takes time to transition ground from conventional to organic farming, and we have laid three- to five-year plans to ramp up availability,” Wenninger says.

The organic product business is growing faster for Walmart than conventional produce, he adds. “This is good business for Walmart, for our farmers, and definitely meets the growing consumer demand for organic.”

ERIN AULOV; HEADSHOT: WALMART

WALKING THE EXTRA MILE FOR PRODUCE

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B U S I NESS

Organic food is now big business in the United States, with $35.1 billion in sales in 2013. countries around the world,” he says. He relishes the fact that he now serves as a produce expert for a giant retailer and is able to push the envelope on organic products.

“I have one of the coolest jobs in the world,” he says. “On the overall trend of organics, here at Walmart we are seeing a move toward transparency in food consumption, and our organic effort fits right into the sweet spot.”

The Wild Oats brand of organic foods has been around since 1987.

THE FACTS ABOUT ORGANIC FOOD

Walmart internal research found that

91%

of its shoppers would consider buying products from an affordable organic brand at the retailer.

Other recent surveys show that

40%

of organic shoppers are new to the market in the last year.

The acreage of organic farmland in the United States is unable to supply the current demand for organic food. That means much of the organic food found in supermarkets is being grown outside U.S. borders.

Food accounts for

92%

of overall organic sales nationwide. The other 8 percent includes organic clothing, personal care products and pet food.

Sources: Organic Trade Organization, Walmart Internal Research

84

GREEN LIVING | SPRING/SUMMER 2015

At Walmart’s

4,000+

stores nationwide, organic spinach and organic carrots are two of the largestselling items.

2/3

Nearly of Americans say they “sometimes” purchase organic food and beverages, which are produced without synthetic pesticides, chemical fertilizer, genetically modified organisms and most hormones.

WALMART; MAP AND GRAPHIC: THINKSTOCK

been a plus.

Her group expects up to 15 percent more in sales in 2014.

“Walmart’s entry into the market and where the market is may have finally put to bed the notion that organic is niche.

It is not a fad,” she says.

Wenninger says he has spent 23 years in the business, as a grower, a shipper and a farmer.

“I’ve walked farms in over 60

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GREEN LIVING | SPRING/SUMMER 2015

THE ELECTRICS SLIDE Alternative-fuel autos turn out to be a tough sell

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: THINKSTOCK

O

ne of the biggest challenges automakers may face as they try to sell hybrids and electric vehicles in 2015 is — wait for it — themselves.

Vehicles with standard gasoline engines today get increasingly better gas mileage; the average fuel economy of cars and trucks has increased from 20.9 miles per gallon in 2007 to 25.5 mpg in 2014.

“The biggest threat to the electric vehicle is the gasoline engine,” says Karl Brauer, an auto analyst for Kelley Blue Book.

And the falling gas prices seen at the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015 won’t help. Gas prices were at a national average of $2.37 per gallon at the end of February, according to AAA’s Fuel Gauge Report. Experts say gas prices will eventually increase but are expected to remain low for much of the year.

Facing these challenges, sales of all hybrid and electric cars fell 8.8 percent to 452,152 in 2014, according to hybridcars.com. Sales of the Toyota Prius fell 11.5 percent to 207,372, while sales of the Chevrolet Volt fell 18.6 percent to 18,805. Automakers were forced to increase incentives by more than $3,000 for hybrid cars and by more than $4,000 for electric cars, Kelley Blue Book says.

“Automakers are spending $10,000 per car to get these vehicles sold,” says Eric Ibarra, an auto analyst for Kelley Blue Book. “It will only get more difficult with gas prices as low as they are.”

But some automakers remain undaunted. At the North American International Auto Show in January,

8.8%

The drop in hybrid and electric car sales in 2014, according to hybridcars. com.

87

TECH

ELECTRIC CARS TAKE FLIGHT ON AIR FORCE BASES

Revved Up

Among the alternative-fuel vehicles slated for the future are, clockwise from top left, the Chevrolet Bolt, Gogoro electric scooter and Honda FCV Concept.

Chevrolet revealed its next-generation extended-range Volt as well as an allelectric concept car called the Bolt that has a 200-mile range on a single charge.

Honda showed off its next-generation hydrogen fuel-cell car, called the FCV Concept.

That car is scheduled for U.S. introduction in 2016. And Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced plans to make “a few million” of the company’s all-electric cars by 2025.

Apple might even jump in. The company known for sleek, easy-to-use devices with few buttons and no instruction manuals is reportedly working on building its version of a car, code-named Titan, on the Apple campus, according to many online reports.

Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray, believes the iCar is way down the road. “We believe it is unlikely that the company launches anything in the next five years,” he says.

Outside the U.S., scooters are an enormously popular transportation in big cities — but also heavy polluters. Gogoro is partnering with Panasonic to launch a battery-swapping network for its new electric Smartscooters. Stations will allow users to roll up, grab a new battery and deposit the old one, which then gets charged for the next person.

— Brent Snavely, James R. Healey, Nathan Bomey, Jefferson Graham and Tyler Wells Lynch

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51

The miles per gallon the 2015 Toyota Prius gets on city roads.

mong the small but growing number of companies making the switch to all-alternative fuel vehicles is one you might not expect — the U.S. Air Force.

Last November, Los Angeles Air Force Base became home to the Department of Defense’s first all-electric/hybrid fleet. That means all non-combat vehicles run on electricity or electricity and gas. Tactical and armored vehicles still run on conventional fuels.

The urban base, headquarters for the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center, has 42 hybrid and fully electrical vehicles — cars, trucks, a 12-passenger van. When not in use, 36 of the vehicles can transfer an additional 700 kilowatts of power to the base’s power grid. The Air Force has installed vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging stations for this purpose.

“This vehicle-to-grid pilot is a great example of how airmen are driving the Air Force forward and finding new and innovative ways to make every dollar count,” Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said when it was announced.

The state of California and Southern California Edison partner with the DOD. “It could provide useful service to the grid while helping to clean up greenhouse gas emissions from transportation sources,” says Lisa Cagnolatti, a vice president at Southern California Edison, which serves 14 million customers.

The Air Force hopes to eventually use the technology at other bases.

Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, just outside Washington, is to be the next installation to receive the V2G system; Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst near Trenton, N.J., is expected to follow. In the not-too-distant future, the Air Force also hopes to start using used batteries as a form of energy storage.

— Dave Majumdar

FROM TOP LEFT: BILL PUGLIANO/GETTY IMAGES; GOGORO; U.S. AIR FORCE; JONATHAN KNIGHT/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

A

Los Angeles Air Force Base

Concerned About The Environmental Future of the Country?

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T E CH

Slow Burn

Still marginal, the solar energy market is making strides

BY ERIK SCHECHTER

W

hile solar energy represents only 3 percent of the power-generating capacity in the United States, the technology has seen what one Department of Energy (DOE) official calls “phenomenal growth” over the last few years.

Minh Le, director of the DOE’s Solar Energy Technologies Office, uses a number of figures to support his claim:

u In 2008, about 300 megawatts worth of solar panels were deployed across the country. In 2014, the number increased to 6.2 gigawatts.

u U.S. solar industry jobs are on the upswing and now total 174,000.

THINKSTOCK

u $150 billion has been invested in solar deployment across the globe.

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SOLARCITY, WHICH OPERATES IN 15 STATES AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, OFTEN RUNS UP AGAINST RULES LIMITING ITS EXPANSION.

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Four years ago, the DOE began a mission to reduce solar energy costs to make the technology more accessible to consumers. Prices have indeed fallen. Where the price of a photovoltaic (PV) module was a little less than $2 a watt in 2010, it’s now 70 cents per watt, Le notes.

The price still has to come down to be competitive with conventional fuels; the lucky number, according to the DOE, is six cents. Still, says Le, “we’ve made 70 percent progress towards our 2020 goals in just four years.”

The “holy grail of renewables” is cost parity with conventional energy, which comes mostly from coal, says Ben Santarris, strategic affairs director for Oregon-based Solarworld Americas, one of the

nation’s largest PV cell and module manufacturers.

Parity is happening in a few states such as California and Hawaii where utility rates are high and solar incentives are in place.

What most people don’t know is that they can lease solar panels from utility companies and private providers. This makes it easier and less expensive to take the plunge into alternative energy, says Will Craven, public affairs director for California-based installer SolarCity.

But getting consumers to understand and buy into solar will require changing mindsets: “Electricity is not something that Americans are used to thinking critically about,” Craven says.

And it’s not something policies and politics always address. For instance,

SolarCity, which operates in 15 states and the District of Columbia, often runs up against laws limiting its expansion. North Carolina, for example, prohibits consumers from leasing PV cells from anyone but a utility company.

Pushback also comes from the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), which represents investor-owned electric companies. The group has been leading the charge against net metering, a way to bill for solar power.

With net metering, solar users pay for the electricity they draw from the grid only after the power they generated has been taken off the bill. EEI opposes this, saying it forces electric companies to buy customers’ excess power, even when the company might

THINKSTOCK

TECH

THE SCIENCE BEHIND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES Most solar panels today are made of silicon crystals. They have a single light-absorbing layer, or junction.

As light comes into the panel, electrons are activated, creating electricity. A silicon cell can reach only a maximum efficiency of 34 percent, so researchers have been exploring better technologies: Multijunction cells These PV cells have multiple light-absorbing layers stacked on top of each other, which allows them to be more efficient than silicon cells.

Joseph Luther, a senior scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., says its theoretically possible to get 67 percent efficiency with a multijunction cell. “You can be more efficient in how you convert each color of the light,” he says. However, the intricate devices are pricey and limited at this time to the space industry and utilities.

LESTER KOK; THINKSTOCK

Quantum dots In an attempt to generate solar power at lower cost, manufacturers have turned to thin-film cells. The most popular one on the market is find the energy cheaper elsewhere.

EEI also claims that solar users would not pay into the “fixed costs of the poles, wires, meters, advanced technologies and other infrastructure” provided by a utility as traditional customers do.

For now, residential solar customers have to rely on the grid because there is no nighttime storage system for solar power.

Special batteries and other technologies are being developed, but they cannot completely do the job yet.

In the future, homes and businesses might run solely on solar. But that will likely be decades away.

Luckily, the technology that was first developed in 1954 is used to long waits — only now is it starting to take hold.

cadmium telluride (another is copper indium gallium selenide); however, there’s a supply issue with tellurium, and cadmium is toxic.

Still, there are other thin-film technologies in development, including quantum dots. Each dot, made of semi-conducting nanocrystals, is 4 to 5 nanometers (a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter) in size and forms an ink-like solution that can be printed like a poster on a conductive substrate. “That is far cheaper and easier to produce than conventional solar cells that rely on vacuum technology,” Luther says.

While their current efficiency rate is lower than silicon, the physics of quantum dots allows them “to

convert one photon of light into more than one electron,” Luther notes. So, in theory, quantum dots could reach a higher maximum efficiency than silicon cells. However, there’s still more lab work to be done.

Perovskites The newest thin-film technology is perovskite, a salt-like crystalline material, commonly methylammonium lead iodide, but there are variations that include tin and bromine.

Michael McGehee, a materials scientist at Stanford University, has been mixing perovskites with multijunction cells.

“We are taking the silicon we use today and upgrading it by adding perovskites, and by doing that, we raise the efficiency,” McGehee explains. These “hybrid tandem cells” are 100 times cheaper than regular multijunction cells.

The Department of Energy’s Minh Le sees promise in the thin-film technology but recognizes that it’s still 10 to 15 years to commercial use.

“It’s a long cycle between the laboratory and commercial market,” he says.

— Erik Schechter

SCIENTISTS AT NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY IN SINGAPORE MADE A SOLAR CELL FROM PEROVSKITE, ABOUT FIVE TIMES CHEAPER THAN CURRENT THIN-FILM SOLAR CELLS.

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eople who believe in the value of supplements and follow the news may be developing a few doubts: uIn late 2013, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) pulled an herbal supplement said to burn fat off the market after it was linked to cases of liver failure. uIn February, the New York state attorney general accused GNC, Target, Walgreens and Walmart of selling fraudulent and even dangerous herbal supplements, and ordered them removed from shelves.

So do these recent scares mean all herbal supplements are bad? Or can supplements still do some good?

The fact is that good supplements do exist, and many doctors routinely recommend them to their patients. “Doctors are more open than ever to using supplements,” says Dr. Evangeline Lausier, assistant clinical professor of medicine and clinical physician of integrative medicine at Duke Integrative Medicine

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in Durham, N.C. “Patients can use also supplements at home to practice self-care and target symptoms of minor illnesses like colds and flu.”

The key is to educate yourself so you spend your money wisely and only on products that can help improve your health and quality of life. Use this handy primer to find out how.

WHO REGULATES SUPPLEMENTS? The FDA doesn’t regulate supplements as carefully as they do medications, but there are some protections in place for consumers. One of the most important things that the FDA mandates is that certain information be on the label and used in any advertising.

“Manufacturers have to be specific about what ingredients are in the supplement, how much and who the manufacturer is,” says Lausier. “It’s a way to look at the quality of the manufacturing process.”

But most people agree these regulations don’t go far enough.

“Doctors are more open than ever to using supplements.”

— Dr. Evangeline Lausier, assistant clinical professor of medicine and clinical physician of integrative medicine at Duke Integrative Medicine

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“With dietary supplements there (are) no governmental regulations, so you have to look for companies that certify their own products using independent agencies,” says Dr. Randy Horwitz, medical director at the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine.

Two big agencies certify supplements in this country: U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP), which does paid surveys of supplemental products on the market, and NSF International.

“If you go to Costco or Sam’s Club and see a product like CoQ10 (an antioxidant) and see the USP or NSF emblem, you know it’s certified,” says Horwitz.

THINKSTOCK

WHEN SHOULD I TAKE THEM? Learning how to find safe supplements is important, but just as important is taking them safely.

“Certain supplements can interact with a pre-existing condition or other medicines, or cause an allergic reaction or are unsafe in certain situations,” says Horwitz. “This is where your prescriber really comes into play.”

He recommends discussing supplements with your primary care doctor the next time you visit. “He or she should do their due diligence and contact the company for any product they want to recommend in terms of manufacturing and quality control,” says Horwitz.

Take special care with supplements if: uYou are prone to allergies. For example, if you’re allergic to pollen or have an allergy to daisies, a supplement from the same family, such as chamomile or feverfew, can cause a reaction. Research this at drugs.com or rxlist. com. uYou are pregnant or nursing. Err on the

safe side; treat herbal supplements like any medicine. Stop medications if you can, or ask if you can be given a safe alternative. uYou have surgery scheduled. Stop all unnecessary supplements two weeks before the procedure if you can. Certain supplements interfere with anesthesia drugs, and others can interfere with blood clotting. uYou have an autoimmune disease. Certain supplements can suppress the immune system and worsen your condition. Talk to your doctor about safe supplements for you. uYou are already taking a conventional medicine with the same properties.

If, for example, you are on an anti-coagulant, stay away from supplements that have the same blood-thinning effect.

WHERE CAN I LEARN MORE? The more you know about supplements, the better the choices you can make for yourself and your health.

Visit the website for the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Dietary Supplements (ods.od.nih.gov) for free fact sheets, need-to-know tips and news.

The Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database (naturaldatabase.therapeuticresearch. com) gives evidence-based ratings on brandname natural products. This database is private and not affiliated with the government.

A single-user subscription for online access is $9.97 per month or $49 a year.

Consumer Lab (consumerlab.com) is another private company trusted by consumers. The company tests herbals and supplements. If a manufacturer passes their assay, the Consumer Lab logo will appear on the bottle as a mark of quality. Info is available through a paid subscription for $36 a year.

PAGNG DR. INTERNET

As more people turn to websites to find out about medical conditions and treatments, it’s important to evaluate the validity of the info you find.

Follow these clues to see if the information you gather online is true or false.

uWhen you visit a website, it should be easy for you to learn who is responsible for the content. If not, move on. Check the About pages for more information. uIf the content is not original, say it comes from other sources such as The New York Times or an outside expert , that should be clearly stated.

Medical facts and statistics should be fully documented. uWebsites with health content should give clear information about the medical credentials of their contributors or reviewers. uCheck to see if the content is regularly updated. It should be; medical information changes constantly. uIf a website asks for personal information, it should clearly state how the information will be used.

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0.024°F 0.75°F CANADA

1 2

Cause of an Effect

0.272°F

UNITED STATES

0.92°F

14

BY ELIZABETH NEUS

12

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0.38°F 0.016°F COLOMBIA

16

Top 20 contributors to global temperature change, in Fahrenheit.

7

4 8 Average temperature change contribution:

0.007°F 0.2°F per country

15

0.010°F 0.61°F NETHERLANDS

6

5

16

13

0.013°F 0.35°F POLAND

0.72°F 0.059°F GERMANY

3

4

0.106°F 0.74°F RUSSIA

9

2

0.029°F 0.46°F FRANCE

THE BIGGER THE DOT, THE GREATER THE CONTRIBUTION.

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0.016°F 0.42°F ARGENTINA

0.058°F 0.96°F UNITED KINGDOM

8 Top 20 contributors to global temperature change per 1 billion people, in Fahrenheit.

1

6

10

0.088°F 0.47°F BRAZIL

per billion people

20

18

0.012°F 0.44°F VENEZUELA

0.018°F 0.17°F MEXICO

esearchers from Concordia University in Montreal have come up with a way to fairly divvy up the responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions.

Their study, published in Environmental Research Letters in January 2014, calculates the countryby-country amount of climate change caused through 2005.

These 20 countries account for 82 percent of observed warming, the study says.

The calculation can’t be made solely by measuring a country’s emissions (shown in red), the researchers say.

When population is part of the equation (shown in blue), the burden of cutting back falls on larger, developed countries.

12

19

0.113°F 0.09°F CHINA

11

0.024°F 0.19°F JAPAN

5 17

18

0.012°F 0.09°F NIGERIA Source: Environmental Research Letters Infographics: Erin Aulov

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17

0.027°F 0.12°F INDONESIA

0.085°F 0.07°F INDIA

14 13 0.016°F 0.24°F THAILAND

19

7

0.011°F 0.55°F AUSTRALIA

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