SanJoseGreenHome.com

Which part of the world does your bite come from?

It seems not just that many years ago, imported food was considered a status symbol, no matter what condition it was in when it finally arrived at the table.  This was just as true in Eastern Europe, where I grew up.  My mother used to be a “produce director” at one of the biggest grocery stores in town.  Once in the blue moon she would bring home what everyone called “deficit” goods.  Those included exotic nuts from India, baby fruit purées, and of course the mighty banana!  Gosh you should have seen the looks in our eyes.  My sister and I were more excited to see a banana than most people buying a brand new hybrid today. 

Those days are long gone and now Europeans as well as Americans live in economies where food is so plentiful that we are faced with hundreds of choices of fruit and veggies from every corner of the globe.  Things change but today we’re facing a very different dilemma.  There is a growing awareness that the food that ends up on our dinner plates has a much higher price tag than what we actually pay for it with our hard earn dollars.  What does this mean? 

In many cases, Western society routinely purchases food that was grown more than 1000 miles away and transported to the local grocery store.  While food prices in the store are relatively inexpensive, the environmental cost of transporting our food is often very high.  You see, all these trucks, trains, and boats, all of which consume fossil fuels, are the primary methods for transporting large quantities of food around the world.  Inevitably, transportation of these goods leave a trail of pollution and produce (more…)

Love and relationships are our biggest assets

Before you bought your home or rented an apartment, did you consider how green is your community?  Chances are you haven’t.  Most people don’t.  Not only majority of folks have no clue as to what a “sustainable” community really is but for years, there has not been much need for it.  Today, however, we’re much more aware of our carbon paw prints, wasteful lifestyles and the ever growing need to just simply connect with people around us.  Fact is, sustainability of the community is becoming a huge factor when choosing a place to plant our roots for the future. 

So what is a sustainable community?  After looking at many definitions, perhaps the UK Sustainable Communities Plan defines it best: “Sustainable communities are places where people want to live and work, now and in the future. They meet the diverse needs of existing and future residents, are sensitive to their environment, and contribute to a high quality of life. They are safe and inclusive, well planned, and offer equality of opportunity and good services for all.”  Ahhh… the English, they do get some things right, don’t they?  

So ideally, a true gage of sustainability is where the environment prospers along with the people who are living in it.  In order words, the housing developments must be incorporated in the natural environment already present on the ground and not the other way around which was much too common years ago.  

Such an idealistic concept as community living in harmony with the environment and local ecosystems may sound far fetched but its not.  In fact, one such example in Bay Area is (more…)

Green homes stand out from the pack

Whether one takes global warming seriously or not, one truth stands tall for any home buyer – energy efficiency, resource conservation and healthy indoor air is becoming a must.  But with the economy still unraveling and the cloud of uncertainty hanging over our heads, a question looms… Can green homes gain traction in the real estate market?

As you may be aware, our real estate market in the entire Santa Clara County has been quite unpredictable.  It went from four months of inventory into less than one month of inventory in one year and no one really knows what the future holds.  Even some of the biggest market experts have been embarrassed and increasingly keep their Nostradamus like market predictions to themselves. 

At the same time, for the past few years, we may have noticed a quiet revolution taking place in our hearts…  Not only we are craving to live happier, healthier and more empowered lives, we are seeking friends and environments that will support that earning.  Also, with raising energy costs and ever growing health problems, many of us are looking for answers right where we sleep – our homes. 

So what has kept more people from seeking out these eco and health friendly homes?  Mainly, (more…)

If going solar would cost you nothing would you consider it?  A few weeks ago I attended a small Green Business Show in San Jose, where our local vendors had a chance to present their services to the community.  These shows are always a great fun because green vendors pack a good punch of specialized knowledge. 

That day, one of my inquisition victims was Jeremy, a solar design consultant with Solar Technologies.  So I started as usual… “How are you”, “How’s business?”, and then “Why in the world don’t we have more solar panels in our neighborhoods?” 

After quite a few minutes of warm exchange of insights we realized we haven’t come up with anything that much revealing except for one awesome fact – affording solar energy is not as hard as most home owners think.  In fact, it makes total financial sense.  We parted by sharing one last sentiment  – most home owners simply have not taken a chance to look at this opportunity. 

So why most of us have not embraced the sun as a source of energy? 

1.  The main reason home owners have not adopted solar technology more widely is because of initial cost.  These days it’s in the range of about $25,000 -$28,000 for an average 1,600 square foot home.  Big price tag indeed. 

2.  A secondary rationale is esthetics – some folks feel that having big solar panels on their roof hurts the curb appeal of the property.  

3.  A third reason most folks have not gone solar could be one or a combination of these simple reasons: they are not sensitive to environmental issues of today’s world or they are simply waiting for a kick in the (more…)

You’ve seen it on TV, you’ve heard it on the radio, you’ve read it in the papers – PG&E wants you to conserve energy and save the planet.  They’ll even send you rather substantial rebates in the mail if you are willing to upgrade some systems in your home or purchase new appliances.  

Now all of this is enormously helpful and commendable but I couldn’t rid myself of that nagging question…  How does all this make financial sense for our friends at PG&E?    Never before had I seen in our capitalistic society a company encouraging its customer to consume less of its product.  Can you imagine McDonalds saying – “Eat less hamburgers!  There are no happy meals here… they will all make you fat!”  

So what’s going on with PG&E?  Is this truly enlightened business that wants to save the environment or does it all in some convoluted way actually make business sense?  I set out to find the answers at the last West Coast Green Show in San Francisco where I interviewed lovely Katie Romans, an Environmental Communications representative from PG&E.  (The video is about 3 minutes.) 

So now you know.  The answer is “Decoupling”  – a novel approach towards utility pricing that separates a utility’s ability to make money from the amount of electricity that it sells.  So while PG&S forest conservation and methane capture efforts appear genuine, it was nothing but a California Decoupling law, enacted in 1982, that effectively disincentivized PG&E to sell more energy for profit.  

No need to worry about them though; they have other ways to make the bank.  In fact, last year the utility filed for, and received shareholder earnings based upon energy savings they delivered to customers, and the program costs were already recovered in their rates.  Besides that, the utility company also benefits from increased customer satisfaction, a boost in its “environmental” image and gets a lot of community and political support.  

You have got to love the business model.  The company is required to sell less of its product and help its customers save money.  And in return, it makes more and appears as an environmental hero.  Not bad at all, is it?  Go PG&E, or to be more accurate – go California!

West Coast Green 2009 was as informative and inspiring as ever.  Hundreds of vendors and thousands of people have gathered once again in San Francisco to check out world’s latest cutting-edge green building technologies. 

I anxiously waited for this event and when the day finally arrived, I jumped out of bed full of enthusiasm, grabbed my mini HD camera and “went to town”.  In this video I interviewed a few vendors that offered some clever and innovative solutions on how to go “eco friendly” at home.  They were asked to give their “green” pitch in 20 seconds and describe the product or a service.  I had some fun at the end so make sure to watch the entire video…  Enjoy.

Keep your eyes out for two more videos where I interviewed a lovely lady from PG&E asking her why PG&E cares about sustainability.  Considering the usual behavior of big corporations all these incentives to “save energy” and spend less money on gas and electricity just didn’t make sense.  Normally businesses want us to spend more don’t they?  Well I got some answers and some of them will surprise you.

Stay tuned and make sure to subscribe to our updates.  This way you’ll stay on top of the local events and latest developments very effortlessly.  In addition, you’ll get an informative manual on how you can Go Green and $ave Green at the Same Time.  You may love the fact that living a more eco friendly life actually makes financial sense!

We love our electronics, don’t we?  There seems to be hundreds of new and improved gadgets hitting the market every day.  Today however, the headaches of recycling computers and the rest of the e-waste abound.  It also happens to be one of the most controversial issues.  You see, it appears our spending and recycling habits affect much more than our local landfill.

For years now we have been stuffing our homes, cars, offices, pockets wit the most exiting technologies that makes our lives easier and more fun.  Like our own bodies thought these items tend to age and eventually brake down.  So what do we do with them? 

It’s easy to recycle paper, plastic and aluminum cans but how do we recycle a computer and all of its components?  Or that grandma’s TV from the world war two era?  There are no bins in our drive way to toss that tv, vcr, fax machine and all those crazy gadgets we bought a year ago on a Christmas binge.  So where does all this “e-waste” go?  Unfortunately, most of it heads straight into the nearest dumpster. 

According to Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), electronic discards is one of the fastest growing sector of our nation’s waste stream:

- There are 500 million obsolete computers in the U.S. alone.
- 130 million cell phones are disposed of annually.
- 20 – 24 million TV’s and computers are stored annually in homes and offices.
- Only 10% of unwanted and obsolete computers are recycled.

Now, as eco mindful earthlings we make an effort to recycle them somehow, don’t we?  Some of us will even find a local e-waste recycler and happily rub our palms after we drop of our age old computer at the (more…)

San Jose officials are deciding this week whether to ban the ever useful plastic bag from stores in San Jose.  If they did, we would officially stop contributing to the 19 billion single use plastic bags Californians carry out of the stores each year.  Average time of use for a plastic bag? – 20 minutes.  Time to decompose under perfect conditions?  Anywhere from 500-1000 years.  Most likely, every single piece of plastic created that wasn’t burned or recycled is still here on this planet. That’s a lot of plastic.

According to the article in San Jose Mercury News, ”Environmentalists and waste managers say those bags strangle sea birds, clog storm drains and paralyze recycling machines. In San Jose — particularly after a storm causes the Guadalupe River to rise and retreat — the bags can be spotted draping tree branches like unsightly jewelry.”

San Jose is considering several options, including a fee on the thin, non-biodegradable bags, a ban or a public education campaign.  Wow, options?  Options are good but why not implement all three or add a fourth one?  Ban the non-biodegradable plastic bags, introduce biodegradable bags, charge a few pennies for a biodegradable or paper bag AND launch a public campaign.  I am originally from Eastern Europe and ever since I remember, Europeans paid a few cents for a plastic bag or brought their own.  No one ever even dreamed of getting a FREE plastic bag.

Here’s an interesting part though.  According to the Merc, this last May, a Santa Clara County commission called on all cities here to establish a ban on plastic bags and a fee on paper at most retailers by April, 2010.  But you know what happened?  County supervisors rejected such a move, citing concerns from shoppers, business owners and representatives of the plastics industry.  Really?  Concerns from shoppers?  Business Owners?   (more…)

Did you know that millions and millions of dollars are spent each week on advertising campaigns to give us the perception that bottled water comes from some pristine mountain spring or magical underground aquifer, assuring purity and quality?  So I decided to put a couple of our local delivery services to the test and… it seems like the two services available in San Jose area like Alhambra and Arrowhead Water are not all what they are cracked up to be.

This time I was only concerned with the PH levels of the water and not the impurities or the taste.  There is a growing awareness that our bodies are way too acidic because of our life style, pollutants in the environment and our diets.  Human body’s normal PH levels are about 7.4 and we have a “perfect” PH balance when we’re born.  But after we’re able to visit the potty room on our own and independently reach into the cookie cupboard we start exploring foods that are much less friendly than our moms would put in our mouths when we were babies.  We then start eating what “tastes good” instead of what really is “good” for us.  Then come the pizzas, fried foods, coca colas, burgers, steaks, beer, and of course… fried calamari.  Combine all this with an acid pumping stress day at work and we are now bathing our cells in acid bath.  The body’s natural defence system kicks in and it does everything it possibly can to compensate for the acid by introducing alkalinity back into the blood stream and try to pump the acid out with liquids – water.  But where does the body store the alkaline substances to compensate for this acid influx of acid?  Well, most proponents of this theory say that it comes from our cell tissue and our bones.  Our body borrows it from our flesh and bones.  And what happens when it can no longer do that? (more…)