SanJoseGreenHome.com

Oh my goodness, it’s 50 cents off of eye lash extensions at Longs this week!  Great deal on our dead sea sodium dense soup at Safeway!  You’ve just been pre-approved for a new tractor!  Rush… offer expiring soon! 

Offers like these are haunting our night dreams.  No wonder an ever increasing amount of people find that sifting through countless pages and clipping coupons is not their cup of tea.  If you’re looking for a solution to this one pound of week of useless paper madness in your mailbox then read on.  I have a solution for you.  

As you know, one of the chracter traits of a green home is waste reduction and junk mail can be the lowest hanging fruit.  Fortunately, you can liberate yourself from it in 5 minutes by following a few simple steps.  I’ve done it and it works.  And if you are a true grocery queen (or king), I’ll show you how you can simply find the same coupons online.

But first, here are a few junk mail facts to clip out from Do Not Mail Campaign of Forest Ethics:

• It takes more than 100 million trees to produce the total volume of junk mail that arrives in American mailboxes each year—that’s the equivalent of clearcutting the entire Rocky Mountain National Park every 4 months.
• The manufacture of junk mail releases more greenhouse gas emissions per year than the emissions released by 9,370,000 million average passenger cars. 
• Annually 28 billion gallons of water are used up to process the paper.
• Scarce landfill space disfigures rural areas and pollutes ground water.
• Approximately 340,000 garbage trucks, and all of the fossil fuels required to power them, are needed to haul away mailings that don’t quite make it to the recycling bins.
• 50% of all junk mail is thrown in the trash, unopened and unread.
• The list goes on and it’s not pretty.  Whether these numbers are very accurate is a question but one thing is certain – junk mail pollutes and unnecessary wastes our resources.  

No one is against savings these days but does it have to come at such a high cost to  the environment?  Here is what to do if you are ready to put an end to this needless junk: 

1. Our biggest offender in San Jose and entire South Bay Area is the (more…)

Sometimes weapons are our only hope for peace.

As the talks in Copenhagen are picking up momentum and the “Climate-Gate” scandal is unfolding, more and more people get perplexed and raise good questions.  Is this thing real?  Why would the scientists try to hide something or mislead us?  

In situations like these our human nature and its subtle expressions become very obvious.  It’s fascinating to observe two sets of beliefs and convictions.  One group says Yeh!, the other group says Nae!, and then there is a silent majority who are waiting to be nudged in the right direction.  

Why the mainstream media is over-inflating the climate scandal instead of focusing on real scientific numbers is probably beyond all of us but a one thing is certain: we’ll see some very positive and some very negative outcomes of this “Climate-Gate” fiasco. 

Some immediate effects are obvious – scientists will have to be more transparent, disclose sources of data and be able to back up their finding with sound and undisputable reasons.  Climate change and data that supports it ought to be visible and open to our scrutiny, it’s that simple.  There is no doubt that when all dust settles, we will still have an overwhelming amount of research showing the planet is indeed warming and we are unequivocally contributing to it more than ever. 

At the same time, doubts in the process and questionable ethics of the science community only fueled the skeptics and fed more excuses to folks who never cared about the issue in the first place.  The creepy part is that people like Sarah Palin will latch on to this piece of news like a bulldog and will keep mauling it on the media, further spreading doubt and apathy among those who don’t lack it already.  You know what separates Sarah Palin from a Pit-bull?  Nope not lipstick (more…)

You must have heard by now the term – Carbon Footprint.  Many folks, including myself, for years had no clue what it truly meant and what to eat it with.  It could be that the word “carbon” confuses most people so personally I like the term – environmental footprint.   It’s more obvious and easier to relate to isn’t it?  Plus, most folks relate carbon to green house gas only but we sure have a much wider effect on the environment than merely passing gas into the atmosphere.  

Carbon Footprint Defined

Basically, our life on the planet generates its own set of environmental footprints by virtue of our use of natural resources.  Almost everything we touch, eat and throw away has an effect on the environment.  This is the footprint we leave behind after we interact with nature.  This has been going on ever since humans inhabited the planet and this caused no problem because nature could cope with our existence.  The footprints left behind were quickly replaced by green grass and a new animal was born to replace the one freshly barbecued over a bonfire.

As time went on, population grew (watch this video) and tools were introduced into society, ostensibly to make life easier on humans, and humanity’s carbon footprint increased proportionately.  Eventually we started multiplying and consuming natural and non-renewable resources at a speed that is now putting a humongous strain on the planet.  Our environmental footprint became bigger than the ground it can stand on.  Thus, we now experience troubling events like (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!

All the TV shows, all the magazines and all the advice from our environmentally conscious friends about green living can really make our heads spin.  Is your floor off-gassing VOCs, do your cleaning supplies have endocrine disruptors, what’s the carbon footprint of your German Sheppard… Oh my goodness, some of this can sound like a brand new language!

One of the reasons this blog was started is to help you simplify things and take the burden of interpreting all the “green” jargon out there today.  I’ll take the joys of staying on top of all this and you, my green partner, enjoy and implement some of these concepts when you can… deal?

You’ve heard the term “Green Home” by now; probably many times if you’ve visited this blog or browsed the internet on the subject before.  Have you ever asked yourself what that really means?  Chances are you have. 

Essentially, living green implies being aware of the environment around us.  Not just locally, but also globally.  We do our best to consider results of our actions when it comes to our bodies, health and nature around us.  Green homes are no different.  An environmentally friendly home is a home that—compared with a standard home—uses less energy, water, and natural resources; creates less waste; and is healthier for its inhabitants. These homes can either be built green from the start, or they can undergo some eco-conscious alterations or remodels later down the road. 

5 KEY COMPONENTS

Nearly all eco friendly homes will consider the following key principals essential to green building and (more…)

If you are an eco conscious parent there is no doubt your kid will be one too. The only challenge we may face as parents is finding an effective way to teach our children about the environment. There is a growing concern that the environmental information our children find on television or in schools is biased either by activists who scare children with “gloom and doom” stories or by companies who are trying to downplay the effects of pollution in our environment.

To the average parent, finding accurate, balanced environmental information for children can sometimes be quite a challenge. But why rely on schools or TV when we should do it ourselves in the first place?  There are plenty of simple ways that we can help our kids understand the significance of caring for the planet. The key is to inspire them without sounding preachy or overly militant.  Here are some things we can do to engage our kids and inspire them to become caring earthlings (more…)

One would be miserable without a mask in Kathmandu

If you ever think that San Jose is polluted or is not “green” enough then keep reading… Last February I had a fortune to visit one of the most polluted cities in the world – Kathmandu. Air in Kathmandu is so polluted, you can taste it in your mouth and your skin smells like it for weeks after you leave the place. I am not even being sarcastic, it really was very fortunate circumstances that led me there and it was truly a trip of a lifetime.

Kathmandu is a capital city of Nepal. This magnificent country, situated just north of India, is beautiful, rich in culture and hosts one of the biggest treasures of our planet – the Himalayan Mountains and of course – the Everest, the rooftop of the world.

However, this story focuses on the darker side of that part of the world – overpopulation, pollution and overwhelming neglect of its environment. See, Kathmandu with all of its beauty is situated in the valley, just like the Silicon Valley but the major difference is (more…)