Falling Into “Green”

by Miranda Hitchcock

As much as I hate to see Summer fade away, it’s time to welcome in Fall! When we think of Fall, most of us think of gold and crimson leaves, pumpkins, cooler weather and football. But it’s also a season full of opportunities to go green (and save money!) Here are a few of our favorite ways to live sustainably this Fall.

Open Your Windows- As the weather begins to cool and the smell of fall hits the air, take the opportunity to let your A/C and heat take a break by opening windows. You can bring in more natural light and increase airflow throughout your home and save on utility bills!

***Attend a Local Festival- Fall is a great time for festivities. This Saturday features the Taste of Bethesda festival, and many similar food festivals are taking place throughout the area. Head to an apple festival to taste the many different varieties.

***Hit the Thrift Store- Thrift stores are perfect for fall. Looking for a jersey to support your favorite football team each Sunday? Want some new fashions for fall but don’t want to spend too much? Hoping to find a Halloween costume that’s unique and inexpensive? Thrift stores can be a great, fun way to get all of these things. Your purchases are inexpensive, and they’re less wasteful than buying new! Purchasing used clothing prevents it from heading to the landfill and eliminates the need for more manufacturing. Not to mention the beauty of having something unique!

***Use the Whole Pumpkin- When you purchase pumpkins or gourds, use everything! You can scoop and bake the seeds for a tasty snack and use the insides to make delicious pies after you’ve carved your scary (or happy!) Jack-o-Lantern. Many pumpkins and gourds get wasted each year, allowed to rot and be tossed in the trash. End the cycle by using yours to the fullest!

***Swap Costumes- If you have kids, you know that Halloween costumes are a big deal (and can be a big cost!) Organize a costume swap with neighbors or friends to save some money (and the earth) by switching costumes.  This way kids get excited about a new costume but you don’t have to go through hunting down and buying one from the store.

***Green Your Decorations- You can literally green your decorations by using natural items like leaves, branches and pumpkins to spruce up your house and yard. Try to avoid waste by re-using old decorations or making them from scrap paper and cardboard. You’ll have fun with the whole family, and reduce waste in the process!

***Go Local on Thanksgiving- When preparing your famous, secret-recipe Thanksgiving feast, throw a bone to your environment! Order a turkey from a local farm (they’re often more humanely raised and don’t travel thousands of miles to your door) and you’ll be impressed with the taste! Get veggies from your CSA, and even try that pumpkin pie recipe you’ve been hearing about.

For more Fall tips, check out this blog or this site.

Miranda Hitchcock is the Associate Director for the Maryland Energy & Sustainability Co-op.

Community Energy Meeting

by Miranda Hitchcock

We all have plenty of decisions to make about our energy use at home. Where do we purchase energy from? What appliances do we use? How often do we use them? How much do we heat or cool? But for most of us, the answers to these questions are not always so easy- we don’t always know which choice is best.

On Wednesday, September 29th from 7- 9pm Repower at Home will be visiting the Bethesda Green space to help us learn more about our energy choices at home and how to make the best decisions. They will focus on simple actions with dramatic effects (on energy use and carbon reduction) and discuss strategies to get everyone involved!

The Co-op will be attending to provide insights on how to move forward once you’ve committed to a strategy. Making the decision and setting a goal is the first step, but the Co-op is available to help turn that goal into a reality!

For detailed information and to RSVP to this event, go to http://repowerathome.com/events/95/

Miranda Hitchcock is the Implementation Manager at the Maryland Energy & Sustainability Co-op.

Go Car-Free Today!

Today is Car-Free Day around the world! Not sure how to get involved? Take part in one of the many events in your area by joining others for a scheduled group walk or bike ride. If you can’t do that, take on your own effort! Ride a bike or take the bus to work, and try to avoid using your car. Take the time to think about how often you drive when you might not need to, and let today help you go car-free more often in the future!

What are YOU doing for 10/10/10?

by Miranda Hitchcock

350.org is an organization co-founded by sustainability guru Bill McKibben, and is dedicated to getting our world’s atmospheric carbon dioxide levels down to a “safe” 350 parts per million. They have always emphasized a need for both individual action and sweeping policy changes, and this October they’re trying to send a message to governments around the world: We’re ready, and we can do this.

In recent years, many climate change agreements have fallen disappointingly short of real commitment, and 350.org is organizing an effort to send a message of commitment to the politicians, from the people. On October 10^th, (10/10/10) groups around the world are participating in this “Global Work Party,” by completing projects in their towns and cities.

“In Auckland, New Zealand, they’re having a giant bike fix-up day, to get every bicycle in the city back on the road. In the Maldives, they’re putting up solar panels on the President’s office.  In Kampala, Uganda, they’re going to plant thousands of trees, and in Bolivia they’re installing solar stoves for a massive carbon neutral picnic.”

The Maryland Energy & Sustainability Co-op is taking part in this great cause in Rockville- working with Chesapeake Climate Action Network and Rebuilding Together Montgomery County to give an energy audit and efficiency improvements to a home in Rockville. As the event gets closer, check our blog for more details on the Co-op’s involvement and effort.

But this post is not about us- it’s about YOU! There are still plenty of ways for you to get involved in 10/10/10. You can search for events happening in your area and contribute your time to an existing effort. If you have a great idea for a “work party” you can start your own project and bring people on to help you. Whether you’re an expert in sustainability or just want to help out, you can find a way to participate in this “Let’s Get to Work” day!

We would love to know about your plans for 10/10/10- comment on this post or send us an email! Whether you make a small change or a big one, please do something on the tenth to cut carbon and encourage our global leadership to do their part!

Miranda Hitchcock is the Implementation Manager at the Maryland Energy & Sustainability Co-op.

I Want to Ride My Bicycle…!

by Miranda Hitchcock

I am, admittedly, not a big fan of “exercise.” I don’t like going to the gym, and get bored easily on equipment like elliptical machines. After awful shin splints and stress fractures in high school track I can’t run, and most of my fitness plans begin with the word, “tomorrow.” But recently I had an epiphany: my housemate has a bicycle. My office is close by. Parking is expensive.

And voila! Suddenly I’m a bicycle commuter, riding a bike to work every day that I can. This is good exercise (although the ride is short) but somehow it escapes the negative feeling I usually get with that word. My ride has a purpose and a destination- it takes me to and from my office, and I feel a sense of achievement with each ride that I never got on a stationary bike where you end, literally, where you start. My riding saves me money, since I don’t have to fill a meter with quarters (up to $8/day even without the expensive, likely parking tickets in Bethesda). Riding to work brings a feeling of “goodness” and “greenness,” since I’m not contributing to the belching of pollution and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere from cars.

I get the exhilaration of passing cars as they wait in traffic while I zip by along the sidewalks. As these mornings get a little cooler I get the refreshing wake-up call of the wind to get me ready for work without the coffee and the caffeine. More than anything, I get a few minutes of sanity-improving un-connectedness. A product of my generation, I spend most of my time connected to technology. I’m listening to my iPod, playing on my smartphone, watching TV, surfing the internet… all day, most days. But for the time I spend biking to and from work I have only the physical world around me, and I’m convinced that these few minutes greatly improve my mood and my ability to remain sane throughout a busy workday. All of these factors sum up an important point about sustainability that people often miss- it’s about more than just the environment! Sustainability is about treating our environment well so that it can continue to provide for us in the future. It’s also about treating our bodies and our minds (and our bank accounts!) so that they can provide for us in the future. So while riding a bike to work may not “save the earth,” it has sustainable benefits in many aspects of life.

I don’t know that I will ever take up biking as “exercise,” but I’m certainly glad that I have the ability to bike to work. It’s good for the environment, good for my bank account, good for my health, and good for my mental well-being. That’s a lot of “good!” So until it gets too cold and dreary to ride (and let’s face it, I like “cold and dreary” even less than “exercise”), you’ll see me relatively-slowly but happily bicycling to work. Maybe sometime I’ll catch you doing the same!

Miranda Hitchcock is the Implementation Manager for the Maryland Energy & Sustainability Co-op.

I’ve Got the Power!

by Miranda Hitchcock

Electricity is everywhere. We use it to watch TV and keep our food cold, and to charge our cell phones and laptops. Electricity keeps our traffic lights working and powers our hospitals. Never do all of these uses become more apparent than when the electricity suddenly disappears. For many Maryland residents, this is what happened for days last month when a series of storms blew through the area. Pepco customers, in particular, were unhappy with the reliability of their electric transmission and even held public hearings to voice their concerns.

These reliability problems are not new, and they are certainly not specific to Pepco. Unfortunately, much of our nation’s electric grid is outdated, built upon infrastructure that has begun to falter under our ever-growing population and energy needs. The Obama administration has pledged billions of dollars to modernize the grid, but like all enormous systems, this takes time.

When I first saw the news about the Pepco hearings, I thought, “This is a perfect time to get people thinking about their energy options- like our Supplier, Electric Advisors.” So I posted a tweet, “MD is tired of Pepco’s unreliability. http://dlvr.it/4TPwW (from @BethesdaNews) It’s time to get clean wind energy from Electric Advisors!” 10:56PM, August 30^th. At the time, I did not realize how confusing this might be- until I got a concerned message from a reader. She said, “I’m concerned that this tweet could mislead someone about how purchasing ‘green power’ actually works;” and she was absolutely right! Choosing to invest in clean, mid-Atlantic wind energy with Electric Advisors does NOT mean leaving Pepco’s distribution system.

The point that I was hoping to make (and it’s hard in 140 characters!) is that our electric infrastructure is out of date, and that even if you take freak storms out of the mix, our current infrastructure has been degrading over time significantly. This is also true for the behemoth coal plants that make most of our energy. Switching to Electric Advisors or another clean option sends a message to the industry that people are interested in new, more efficient and clean sources of energy- which will hopefully lead to a more significant switch from coal to renewables and a MUCH needed overhaul of our energy infrastructure. So I didn’t intend to say “move from Pepco to wind” but rather, “aren’t you sick of the way things are now? Change what you CAN now, and push the industry to make moves.”

But our reader was absolutely right that this could be confusing, particularly when most of us aren’t quite sure of how purchasing clean energy really works. Because our organization aims to provide education as well as discounts, I thought this would be a perfect time to talk about Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) and how they work with our system! To get an expert point of view, I emailed Eric Coffman at the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection, who provided a link for an excellent description of the system.

The basic idea: Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) represent a certain amount of energy being produced from clean, renewable sources like wind. Most utility companies are now offering a choice to their consumers about where their energy should come from, using these RECs as a trading method. Someone using Pepco, for example, can choose from a list of clean energy brokers who connect you to the actual suppliers or generators. (The Co-op’s choice is Electric Advisors!) You don’t actually purchase the energy itself from Pepco, but rather from one of these competitive energy suppliers. Pepco still distributes the energy to you, but you pay your chosen company (a broker, who pays the supplier) for electricity. It is important to note that the electricity from many sources (the one you chose, the one your neighbors chose, and the ones Pepco has as a default) gets combined and sent down the wires. So even if you sign up for 100% wind energy, the electricity entering your home is still a mix. You’ve simply purchased a “clean energy equivalent” to your share of consumption. So don’t worry that if the wind stops blowing, you won’t get power! You will still get service from the grid. This also applies if Pepco’s service goes out- your power will go out when everyone else’s does, even if you’ve bought wind. This is a very simplified description that may not fully explain the system, so if you have questions or comments, please shoot us an email or contact the environmental/energy authority in your area.

In Pepco’s words:

“The restructuring of the electric utility industry allows you to select the electricity supplier that best fits your needs. If you don’t choose a supplier, Pepco buys electricity for you and charges you according to rates approved by your state Public Service Commission. This is called “Standard Offer Service” (SOS), and appears under “Supply Charges” in the Electric Charges portion of your bill. Customer bills are broken down to indicate charges for supply , the actual electricity, and delivery, the process of getting that electricity to end users. Pepco continues to deliver the electricity to all customers, no matter who they choose as their supplier. For many years, Pepco was the sole electricity supplier in suburban Maryland and Washington, D.C. We generated electricity and delivered it to you at rates set by regulatory commissions. In 2000, Pepco’s electricity market changed. We no longer generate our own electric power, and competing electricity suppliers are allowed to market their electric supply to Maryland customers.”

We chose Electric Advisors as our Supplier of clean energy for several reasons. First, they have a commitment to this community and a drive to support it. Second, they are truly local. While many clean energy sources will gladly sell you wind, much of it comes from Texas and other areas halfway across the country. Electric Advisors, on the other hand, supplies wind energy from right here in the mid-Atlantic region.

For more information, you can also check out cleanpowermarkets.com or other green energy websites. For more detailed information, go to the EPA Green Power Partnership website and download the Renewable Energy Certificates PDF. As always, please feel free to contact us with any comments or questions!

Miranda Hitchcock is the Implementation Manager at the Maryland Energy & Sustainability Co-op.

Reflections from an intern

by Claire Lafave

After a Friday night out at college this spring, I lay down in my bed to get some much-needed rest, and was suddenly seized with a burst of anxiety: “what am I going to do this summer?!”  After half an hour of trying to calm my nerves, I gave up, turned on the light, and got out my laptop. A sophomore English major, I was at a bit of a loss as to what kind of an organization would find my super useful skills appealing this summer. But I knew I wanted to be in DC with my friends and family, do some kind of writing, and do some kind of good. What about working within the local green movement?

I have always valued sustainability and conservation, but have been consistently frustrated by the lack of effective action I found within eco-aware student organizations. But after reading Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded, my interest in environmentalism was revitalized, and I became curious about how professional green organizations achieve tangible results. Through the wonders of google, I happened upon the list of organizations present at the Fields of Green internship fair at Bethesda Green. Mike’s Co-op caught me. Though his website was in need of renovation (which has been so beautifully achieved this summer by Julia, another Co-op intern), the value behind the organization was obvious. It just made sense to me: you pay money to join, and then you get your money back and more in discounts on sustainable products that will in turn, save you more money. I really liked Mike’s emphasis on localization, community development, and democratic involvement. So at 5am on Saturday morning, I wrote my cover letter. I sent it to Mike, and fell asleep with my nerves calmed.

I woke up at 11, and immediately got a phone call from an unknown number. “Hi Claire, this is Mike Kennedy. I was so impressed you were up at 7 on a Saturday morning that I had to call you right away.” I rolled with it and tried not to sound too sleepy.  Completely coincidentally, Mike had chosen that day to go through his pile of resumes to call back potential interns. Mike and I talked for a long time about his Co-op, about the cooperative movement in general, about vegetarianism and local food, about global sustainable development. It was a great conversation and at the end he hired me to work part-time on marketing, publicity, and grant writing for the Co-op this summer. I was ecstatic.

Working with Mike and the other interns has been educational, fun, and at times hilarious. I created outreach materials, wrote articles for interested organizations’ newsletters, and even wrote a grant. We work out of Bethesda Green, taking over the incubator area with music, laptops, food, cords, and ideas. Mike has always been kind, appreciative, and informative. Constantly cracking ridiculous jokes, Mike makes the workplace a very relaxed environment. He also makes sure to check in with each of us regularly to make sure we are all working on projects in which we’re interested.

I really believe in the Co-op’s mission to make environmental sustainability something easy, affordable, and fulfilling for everyone. Working here has made me think about what makes green products stand out, what makes environmentalism attractive, and what makes communities thrive. I have come to believe that the most effective way to reduce our carbon footprint is through local community action that adheres to a holistic attitude toward sustainability, reaching issues ranging from the environment to the economy.  But how to develop and move forward while sustaining our natural and human resources is a multi-faceted issue with multi-faceted solutions. I believe in the benefits of the cooperative model, but I also hope to learn about other models. After a strange and lucky series of events bringing me here, this internship has convinced me that I want to continue studying and helping to implement sustainable community initiatives throughout my life.

Claire Lafave is a marketing intern with the Maryland Energy & Sustainability Co-op