Cord of Wood

The times they are a-changin’. It used to be give the chimney a thorough cleaning and order a cord of wood. Nowadays it’s check the website or e-mail alerts before thinking about sitting around a cozy fire.

Winter Spare the Air runs: November 1, 2009 – February 28, 2010

Get Notifications:
* Check the newspaper, radio, and TV
* Check the web for wood burning status.
* Sign up for e-mail or phone alerts.
* If that’s not enough there is a widget.

Report wood smoke concerns (snitch on the neighbors) call 1-877-4NO-BURN (1-877-466-2876).

One way to get that ‘warm cozy’ during “Spare the Air” is to put on a wearable fleece blanket with sleeves (odd looking monk robe), then put in a sold by Amazon Fireplace DVD, or try Comcast.

Comcast On Demand:
TV Entertainment go to Yule Log & More- click on Fireplace – or TV Entertainment scroll down to TV Screensavers.

I can not recommend the 20 minutes of “Island Sunset”. The squawking bird sounds turned thoughts of peaceful, soothing and warm to thoughts of an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle! – - but that’s another Christmas story.

Follow SpareTheAir on twitter.

Fall is a great time to replant a garden, and, if you’re willing to plant a low-water garden, the Santa Clara Valley Water District is willing to help out with rebates for water-wise landscaping improvements. The rebates are available if you replace at least 100 square feet of high-water landscaping with approved new plants, or replace wasteful irrigations systems with high-efficiency irrigation like drip tube. Low-water landscaping is a great opportunity to plant Californa native plants, which look beautiful, save water, and provide food and habitat for our native critters. Although its not as pretty, the landscaping rebate is also available if you landscape (or maybe replace pavement) with “permeable hardscape”, meaning porous solid surfaces that allow water to drain through into the soil.

There’s quite a few restrictions on the rebate program, and you have to contact SCVWD before starting your project, so check out the details on the website for landscape replacement rebates or irrigation equipment rebates.

(Hat tip to Bonnie on NNASJ for this story)

We pay for those “free” bags in numerous subtle—but substantial—ways. Since grocery stores spend billions of dollars for single-use bags in the U.S., a share of those costs undoubtedly find their way to consumers in the form of higher food prices. Waste haulers and recyclers in San José suffer repeated breakdowns when the plastic bags become lodged in their digesters, requiring manual removal that forces them to shut down machinery several times a day. As rate payers, we pay for those additional labor costs on the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. In a myriad of ways, we also pay for the litter resulting from the thoughtless disposal of these bags, the most obviously through the cost to taxpayers to dislodge and clean the bags from clogged outfalls, sewers, and streams. In addition to these costs, we face the challenge of reducing the bags that are filling our landfills as we try to move toward “zero waste” strategies to address our lack of landfill space.

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Plastic bag recycling has several limitations. It’s not easy for consumers to know which kinds of plastic can be recycled, and any food debris or other contaminants will make the plastic undesirable for recyclers. Market realities also make it challenging; as reported in the Christian Science Monitor (March 29, 2007, “Seldom Recycled”), it costs $4,000 to process and recycle one ton of plastic bags, which can then be sold on the commodities market for $32. Where recycling often requires heavy taxpayer subsidies, it’s better to keep the product out of the waste stream rather than spinning our wheels in quixotic recycling efforts.

And not only are the costs of keeping the disposable bags high, the inconvenience of doing away with them is really minimal.

Travelling in Europe last year, I got to see how a bag ban could work in practice. In Hungary, Austria, and the Czech Republic I never saw a grocery store give away a bag, but it was no problem. The key is one thing that doesn’t seem to have caught on here yet: re-usable plastic bags. Much heavier-duty than the current disposable bags, they could still be folded up and kept in your pocket. They cost only about 25 cents each, and lasted through dozens of grocery trips.

There’s still a few hurdles before San Jose truly goes disposable-bag-free, but the city council deserves kudos for setting this in motion.

Are you tired of driving by the creeks around San Jose only to see them clogged with debris of all sorts? Here’s your chance to do something about it!

This year is the 25th Anniversary of California Coastal Cleanup Day, one of the largest events of it’s kind of the year. Just because we aren’t actually on the coast doesn’t mean we can’t chip in and clean up our waterways (which eventually lead to the ocean) now does it?

Last year, just in Santa Clara County alone, 1,331 volunteers removed 95,656 pounds (47.8 tons) of debris and 16,327 pounds (8.2 tons) of recyclables from 26 locations throughout the county.

So get on over to CleanaCreek.org and find out the details on one of the 35 locations targeted for clean-up. Bring your own gloves, sturdy shoes, sunscreen, a hat and some water (in a recycled bottle please!) and pitch in. You’ll also need to download and sign a waiver to participate, and it’s a good idea to visit the volunteer page for instructions.

Plastic bags -- should they be banned?

This week, the City Council’s Community and Economic Development Committee met to discuss a ban on plastic and paper bags. According to a Mercury News article on the issue, the only large city that has implemented a ban like this is San Francisco, as most cities which have implemented bans have banned only the plastic bags. The effort in San Jose is being spearheaded by Vice Mayor Judy Chirco and Councilmembers Sam Liccardo, Kansen Chu, and Nora Campos.

According to a presentation given at the committee meeting, fifteen other Santa Clara County cities are considering banning bags because of encouragement from the County Board of Supervisors and environmental agencies.

The City of San José’s proposed ban also includes paper bags because of the environmental impact involved in manufacturing them. “Green” paper bags, with at least 50% recycled content, would be excluded from the ban.  Restaurants would also not be required to discontinue usage of plastic bags.

Not surprisingly, the plastic industry lobby has already been urging the Council not to be hasty in making their decision. Nevertheless, the matter is heading for vote and discussion by the Council as soon as November, thanks to a unanimous recommendation by the committee.

MetBlogs – Santa Clara County:  Santa Clara County has been given a failing grade for air quality by the American Lung Association.  The State of the Air 2009 report gave failing grades to 39 counties in California, including Alameda, Contra Costa, and Santa Clara.  

This is not a news item that we should easily dismiss.  The estimated number of people that particle pollution kills each year has tripled in our state.  According to Jenny Bard, the Bay Area regional air quality director for the American Lung Association, we have historically had the worst air quality in the Bay Area.  From 2005 to 2007, Santa Clara County surpassed unhealthy ozone limits an average 5.2 days a year.  We also surpassed unhealthy short-term pollution particle levels a yearly average of 11 days, which gave us the 24th highest level in the nation.

The report finds that six out of ten Americans live in areas where air pollution levels endanger lives.  “This should be a wakeup call.  We know that air pollution is a major threat to human health,” said Stephen J. Nolan, American Lung Association National Board Chair.  “When 60 percent of Americans are left breathing air dirty enough to send people to the emergency room, to shape how kids’ lungs develop, and to kill, air pollution remains a serious problem.”

According to the ALA, ozone is the most widespread form of air pollution. When inhaled, ozone irritates the lungs, resulting in something like a bad sunburn. Ozone can cause wheezing, coughing and asthma attacks and can even shorten lives.

It is estimated that over 3,700 deaths annually can be attributed to a 10-parts-per-billion increase in ozone levels.

Particle pollution is a toxic mix of microscopic soot, diesel exhaust, chemicals, metals and aerosols. It is the most dangerous and deadly of the outdoor air pollutants that are widespread in America. Breathing in particle pollution can increase the risk of early death, heart attacks, strokes and emergency room visits for asthma and cardiovascular disease.

Our county’s dense population is partly to blame for our high pollution levels.  According to Bard, Santa Clara County contains 1.8 million residents and is the most populous in the Bay Area.   San Jose’s population alone just hit 1,006,892.  We also have a limited mass transit infrastructure and 1.2 million autos (25 percent of the Bay Area) traveling our roads.  Lisa Fasano, a spokeswoman for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, states that 69 percent of all smog pollutants during Bay Area summers are created by motor vehicles.  In the winter time, 33 percent of all short-term particle pollutants are created by wood smoke primarily burned by residents, according to Bard.

The news is not all bad.  Although we are ranked as the 24^th most polluted county in the nation for short-term particle pollution, last year we were ranked 17^th.  In addition, the yearly average number of days that Santa Clara County has exceeded unhealthy ozone levels has dropped from 10 in the 2001 report to 5 in the 2009 report.

A few Bay Area counties did receive passing grades.  Monterey, San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties all received grades of A or B for both High Ozone Days and Particle Pollution.  San Francisco County received an A in High Ozone but an F in Particle Pollution.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District established the Spare the Air program  to educate people about air pollution and to encourage them to change their behavior to prevent it.   They recommend several simple actions we can take to make clean air choices every day.   These include driving less, taking public transportation, trip-linking, walking, biking, choosing non-gasoline-powered lawn and garden equipment, and avoiding polluting household products.

View More Ways to Fight Air Pollution in Your Community and do your part by committing to some of the actions so we can raise our grade in next year’s report. 

Urge the EPA to set tougher standards by sending this online letter.

Visit www.lungusa.org to search local air quality grades by zip code and to send messages to Congress and the Obama Administration to urge action to protect the air we breathe.

Photo: Len Gilbert

Bike to Work Day isn’t until May 14, but you can start early and make it last all month by joining Team Bike Challenge. Form a team with up to 4 friends, and sign up on the website. Then each day in May when you use your bike to get to work or run errands, go back to the website to log your ride and score points.

The idea is to create new bike commuters, so your team must have at least one “novice” rider, and novices, “weekend warriors” (recreational riders), and “big wheels” (executives and civic leaders) score extra points for each ride. At the end of the month, the teams with the most points win some small prizes; but the real prize is getting some cars off the road, and getting some new riders onto their bikes.

Captain Planet at SJSU (TwitPic credit: @tnisatard)

Confession: I’ve actually been too tied up with homework today to participate in SJSU’s Earth Day celebration, but I did want to procrastinate for a bit and point out a few notable things about today’s occasion on campus:

1. According to SJSUAlumni.com, the founder of Earth Day is an SJSU alumnus. Gaylord Nelson graduated in 1939 and began Earth Day in 1970 while serving as a U.S. senator. There’s a book on his life here, which has a quote from Al Gore saying that Nelson is “widely regarded as one of the leading environmentalists in American history.” That’s saying something.
2. Did you know you can recycle a dead cow? For those of you who live in Santa Clara County, the Recycle Stuff Web site will tell you exactly what you can and can’t recycle. (The Center for the Development of Recycling, which maintains the site, is an SJSU-based project.)
3. To see what the SJSU campus itself is doing nowadays for the Earth, and not just for Earth Day, check out the Environmental Resource Center at SJSU and the Environmental Club (outdated Web site but from what I understand an active club). Also check out the Environmental Studies department.
4. I also dug up this document published in 2008 that outlines the campus strategy to be more environmentally sustainable. Highlights: Looking into installing solar panels for select buildings, increasing use of recycled water in the MLK Library, using recyclable and compostable packaging in food and dining areas, and using locally grown produce. (Document from here.) How much of it is feasible? How much is already implemented in the year since this document is released? What’s been tabled? I’ll have to do some more digging and calling. But instead, since I really do have to get back to my schoolwork …
5. Captain Planet was on campus. That is all.

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San Jose Library’s Earth Day Presentation: Clear-Cutting in the Sierra Nevada Forest is Saturday April 18 from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM.

ForestEthics representative, Joshua Buswell-Charkow, will talk about how the use of destructive and outdated logging practices in the Sierra Nevada forests threatens our state’s natural resources. California’s forests help to provide 60% of the state’s drinking water. They are home to half of the state’s plants and animals. Learn what you can do to ensure the use of environmentally sound logging practices that preserve the legacy of our forests for future generations.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library
150 E. San Fernando Street, Room 255/257
408-808-2397

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Earth Day celebration at the Marine Science Institute this Saturday April 18 from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

This free family friendly event will feature programs with tide pool animals, sharks, fish, plankton, along with fish and shark feedings. There will also be an exploration of Hawaiian ocean culture, an environmental information fair, and more.

Marine Science Institute
500 Discovery Parkway
Redwood City, 94063
650-364-2760

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Full Circle Farm’s Second Annual Earth Day Festival
Sunday, April 19 from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM.

An Earth Day celebration of all things fun, vibrant, and fiercely local here in Silicon Valley; this free festival features local food, local musicians, fun and games for all ages, a raffle, and lots of great information from local organizations on how to enjoy the pleasures of a life lived simply and locally.

Full Circle Farm
1055 Dunford Way
Sunnyvale, 94087

Vote Earth

EarthHour.org has been encouraging the world to send a message in this way since 2007. It started in Sydney when 2.2 million homes and businesses chose to spend an hour in darkness. In 2008 the message went worldwide, and 50 million people participated. Look outside your window during this time tonight and you will see lights out at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the Colosseum in Rome, the Opera House in Sydney and the Coca Cola billboard in Times Square.

This year the organization is asking us to Vote Earth. They consider it the world’s first global election, a choice between Earth and global warming. What will you choose?

All you need to participate is a flip of a switch. Lights out for one hour and you are done. Don’t be surprised to see lights out at your neighbor’s house too – and if you don’t, perhaps you should walk over there right now and ask them send in their vote: Switch off for Earth.

The website has a great deal of information and many other suggestions on how to participate including taking photos for the Earth Hour flickr group, uploading a video to YouTube, writing a live Blog Post and even updating Twitter.

San Jose MetBlogs is participating; we hope you do too!