Get Energized

New Get Energized incentives, posted on:

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

UPDATE!! Now through August 23rd:

Get a Farmers Market token for learning more about your diet's carbon footprint on GetEnergized.org!

The first 100 people to either take the pledge online, or if you've already pledged simply read Get Energized's newest pledge items on our food resources page, can pick up a Farmers Market token on Saturday August 23 as a thank you gift from CEC!

Just swing by the CEC's booth at Saturday's Farmers Market to claim your token.

Eating local in Santa Barbara

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Are you ready for a real shocker? Americans put almost the same amount of fossil fuels into our kitchens as into our cars. In fact, it takes about 400 gallons of oil per person a year to grow, raise and transport our food.

How can that be? A small portion is used to fuel the farming equipment, and about a quarter goes toward petroleum-based synthetic fertilizers. However, the lion’s share of that annual energy figure is used to transport the food from the farm to your plate. In fact, when the average North American sits down to eat; each ingredient has typically traveled at least 1,500 miles. The distance food travels is known as “food miles” and is one dimension used in assessing the environmental impact of food.

Energy calories consumed by producing, packaging and shipping our food far outweighs the energy calories we receive from it. In fact, North Americans use an average of ten calories of fossil fuel to produce one calorie of food energy. Producing animal protein takes eight times as much fossil fuel as producing the plant protein equivalent. What’s more, raising animals for food generates more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, trains, ships, and planes in the world combined; in fact, 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from livestock.

If a meatless diet isn’t for you, you can make a big difference just by eating a little less meat. According to Environmental Defense, if every American had one meat-free meal per week, it would be the same as taking more than five million cars off our roads.

So what can you do? Shop at the farmers market and eat locally grown food as much as possible. Try and eat lower on the food chain by consuming less meat and dairy. Challenge yourself to eat one completely local meal a week and eat meat one less meal a week. Read more in our food resources page and we’ll give you a token worth $1 at the Farmers Market. Just come to the Santa Barbara Downtown Farmers Market on Saturday, August 23 and the first 100 visitors to CEC's booth can claim their token! You'll also have the opportunity to ride the Human Powered Generator (HPG)--an educational tool that allows people to 'feel' how much energy it takes to transport food.

References
Barbara Kingsolver, with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver, Animal Vegetable Miracle pg. 5
How Oily is Your Food?, Dave Steele
Livestock's Long Shadow, a United Nations Report
100MileDiet.org

How one local lives happily on the 100 mile diet

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

written by Eric Lohela

Where does my food come from? As a child, I remember asking my parents that question over the dinner table. The answer was always the supermarket. Years later, after reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, I was inspired to ask myself the same question. In fact, who grew my food and where, were questions I had never asked. Trader Joe’s and the Farmer’s Market were staples in my diet, but I was intrigued by the concept of being truly “local.” A book titled the 100 Mile Diet was released, giving my idea a name. One day I just stopped going to the grocery store for food.

That was 16 months ago. Today I still buy 90%+ of my food grown within 100 miles of my house, and I am happier than ever.

With all the talk about calculating one’s personal carbon footprint, mine has indeed gone down. My food travels less than 100 miles, versus hundreds or thousands to the supermarket.

That is not the only reason I’ve continued to eat locally. Going “local” has meant weaving myself deeper into our beautiful community.   Things like when our winter rains appear have added significance.   I buy Organic or “no-spray” because I now know the farmers by name that would have to use and be exposed to those nasty chemicals. Protecting the rural and agricultural lands of the Gaviota Coast and Valley matters in a personal way now, because those lands help fill my tummy in addition to providing amazing views and wild habitat.

Questions I often get: Do you still eat out? Have you given up chocolate? Where do you buy olive oil and salt? Yes, I still eat out. I often select one of the many restaurants that serve choices with local ingredients. After five months I went back to fair trade chocolate – I love chocolate. Some little things still come from the store.

The biggest challenges I have come across in feeding myself are the seasonality of produce, and finding staple foods. I don’t sweat the details any more because my choices fit my lifestyle, not a “diet” -- it’s supposed to be a fun! Potatoes and beans have become common foods, while cereal for breakfast went good-bye.   Cheeses have stayed, but soymilk is out.

Not surprisingly, recipe books are sometime difficult to use, but I have found “relief” from the most reasonable of places: my farmers. Tessa and Robert give me recipes for their beans, Joan for her squash, Alison for her Shitakes. Suddenly, my food has new variety and flavors. My dollars support the farming community who in turn supports me on my tasty quest. My “orange juice lady,” Rosa, notices when I miss market due to sickness and asks about my health.   You just simply don’t get that at Ralph’s.

Most days have not been as easy as going to the supermarket, but the benefits of making the conscious decision to buy locally more than make up for it. My meals are no longer just food, but a celebration of my community.   Going local has made me healthier, happier, and a better Santa Barbaran.

My biodiesel Bug

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

My biodiesel Bug--some bumps in the road to saving the planet.

By Judith Lewis

Los Angeles Times
August 15, 2008

It seemed, at the time, like such a good thing for the planet. In the winter of 2005, I turned in my red, gas-hungry Jeep Wrangler for a near-new, diesel-burning Volkswagen Beetle. Inspired by a number of pioneering friends, I would fill my little green slug Bug with a nontoxic, sweet- smelling fuel made from vegetable matter called biodiesel.

Unlike cars that run on straight, unprocessed vegetable oil, my BioBug required no mechanical conversion. Diesel fuel can be made out of any kind of grease: petroleum, lard, soybean oil, even, as one New Zealand powerboat racer proved two years ago, liposuctioned fat from human hindquarters. With a weatherproof shed and two 55-gallon drums, I turned my driveway into a home fueling station. And there, in full view of my greener-than-thou neighbors, I smugly filled my tank.

I never expected to save much money. Unless you brew it yourself with methane and lye, biodiesel is expensive. (This spring, it topped $5 a gallon.) I considered the cost worth the payoff. Biodiesel smells not like French fries but clean and nutty; if you spill a little on your skin, no worries -- unlike gas, it won't poison you. Diesel engines emit more smog-forming nitrogen oxides than do their gasoline equivalents, but on balance, biodiesel burns cleaner than petroleum diesel or gasoline. Plus, the biodiesel crops take carbon dioxide from the air as they grow and release the same amount back into the atmosphere when they burn. Biofuels are thus said to be "carbon-neutral" fuels.

Which doesn't mean, I soon learned, that they are perfect.

Just before this summer of $70 fill-ups began, a story broke that had a lot of biofuel enthusiasts quaking in their Earth Shoes. Biofuels, we were informed, were robbing the world of its food. Crop prices were soaring; hungry people were rioting in the streets of Haiti; fertilizer runoff streaming down the Mississippi had doubled the size of the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico -- all because farmers were racing to cash in on the bonanza by planting biofuel feedstock.

At first, I blamed corn. Corn-based ethanol, which benefits from congressional mandates and a generous production tax credit, takes almost as much energy to produce as it yields. An article in the journal Science last winter claimed that all the carbon dioxide emitted during its production makes corn-based ethanol more polluting than gasoline. Biodiesel made from soy or palm oil may hasten climate change too: Amazonian rain forests have been leveled to grow those crops to satisfy biofuel-crazy Europe.

I nearly took a razor to my "BioPowered" bumper sticker.

Perplexed, I called up Kent Bullard, one of the founders of the Los Angeles Biodiesel Co-op, which dispenses biodiesel from stationary trailers parked in Torrance and Silver Lake. Bullard assured me that no rain forest suffers for the co-op's 126 members -- all of its fuel comes from used cooking oil. "We get a certificate of analysis for every batch of fuel delivered, like a birth certificate for our fuel. We know how it's made and how far it's coming from."

That's great, but there's only so much used cooking oil to go around -- what about the rest of us? Since my former supplier stopped home deliveries, I fill up at Conserv Fuel in Brentwood. On the phone, owner Kris Moller offered little in the way of guilt relief. "Our supplier won't tell us exactly what the blends are," he said. "Probably most of it is virgin soy."

Moller admitted that soy-based biodiesel has "some minuscule effect" on the world food supply. "But what are we going to do? Just say we're completely dependent on petroleum and leave it at that? We're on the first generation of biofuels. When the first IBM mainframe came out and used up an entire room, did we throw it out? No. We evolved it. We're learning how this fuel works."

And, he said, learning how to make it greener. Bullard and Moller contribute ideas to the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance, a collective effort to define a standard for small-carbon-footprint fuel. Both anticipate progress on feedstock -- finding new lipid-rich plants that require little water and space to produce enormous vats of grease.

Solutions loom. Stanford University biology professor Chris Somerville suggests producing ethanol from Miscanthus, a perennial grass that yields twice the biomass per acre of any other grass. Mark Edwards, a professor at Arizona State University, thinks an even better source might be algae. It's Edwards who makes me feel smug again.

There was a time when algae proponents like Edwards were considered a little crazy. Even though "algae needs no fresh water, doesn't displace any cropland and eats nitrogen and carbon dioxide," Edwards told me, industry gave it no respect as a fuel source. Now that we're hurtling toward a food-and-fuel catastrophe, however, pond scum is looking pretty good. Chevron has teamed up with a San Francisco-based company, Solazyme, to research algae-based biodiesel; Royal Dutch Shell is hard at work on an algae test facility in Hawaii.

And I helped get us here. As a conscientious car owner in search of better fuel, I helped "people understand the value proposition for renewable transportation fuel," Edwards said. "You're educating a whole wave of consumers. Once algae becomes available, they'll be eager to use it, because they'll understand that it's possible to fuel their cars with something other than petroleum."

I'll look forward to the day when Moller can sell me fuel from green slime grown in his backyard brine pond. In the meantime, I'll drive my soy-powered Bug a little less smugly, knowing that another cure for our ills is simply to spend less time behind the wheel. No fuel in the world can break the monotonous isolation of the sedan-encased commuter. As the collective owners of the BioFuel Oasis in Berkeley like to say: "Driving still sucks."

Judith Lewis is a freelance writer specializing in energy and the environment.

Ogilvy Hill Insurance goes green

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

14 Staff take the pledge and start saving energy and money

After a visit from CEC's Sean Farnan, Ogilvy Hill Insurance was primed to Get Energized. 14 staff members pledged to reduce their carbon emissions, for a grand total of 137,834 lbs. of CO2 prevented from entering our atmosphere and a savings of over $20,300.

Following their personal pledges, Ogilvy Hill got together to see what they could do collectively as a office to lower their energy consumption even further. Below are seven new action steps they came up with--a pledge most offices could make don't you think?

As sent to us from Ogilvy Hill Insurance:

1) The General Manager has committed to riding her bike once a week.

2) We have embrace the “Curb Your Commute” initiative and have a number of people carpooling, telecommuting or using public transportation. (Get Energized note: check out "Curb Your Commute" on the Traffic Solutions website at: http://www.trafficsolutions.info/curb.htm )

3) We have cut down on our trash, we recycle almost everything now. Our cleaning service pointed out almost everything in our trash cans could be recycled. We now have them come twice a week instead of daily, which saves us $$ on the bottom line.

4) We look at recycled items as our first choice now when we purchase anything, especially office supplies.

5) We are participating in Edison’s Summer turn off program where we turn off our central air for a certain number of times per season. (Get Energized note: If your office might be interested in this program, check out more details at: http://www.sce.com/RebatesandSavings/SmallBusiness/SummerDiscountPlan/)

6) We also had all our lighting replaced with energy efficient bulbs

7) We have instituted a “shut it off” program to encourage employees to actually turn off computers, printers, copiers, etc. at the end of the day instead of leaving them in “sleep” mode

10 tips to save energy at work

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Practically any business office can improve its energy efficiency easily and cost-effectively. With 37 percent of our region’s energy being used to heat, light, and power our buildings, we must dramatically reduce the building sector’s energy use.

Here are some strategies to jump-start energy savings in your business office:

10 Energy Conservation Tips

1. Install more efficient lighting.

Replace Incandescent light bulbs with Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFLs)
Download CEC's fact sheet, Get Started with CFLs

Replace T-12 fluorescent tubes with T-8 flourescent tubes in your office ceiling lights. T-8s use electronic ballasts instead of magnetic ballasts, increasing energy efficiency at least 17%.
More info on T-8s

2. Install lighting motion sensors in common rooms (bathroom, copy rooms)

Motion sensors are available at the local Santa Barbara Home Improvement Center, Home Depot and Osh.

3. Use day lighting from windows or skylights, instead of electrical lighting.

Contact a local contractor or consider Solatube Daylighting.
www.solatube.com
www.tubulargeorge.com

4. Choose Energy Star Certified office equipment. www.energystar.gov

Replace old inefficient computers, copy machines, and freezers/refrigerators with energy star models.

5. Set your computer monitor to go into power-save mode instead of screensaver mode. A monitor in screen save mode uses almost as much energy as when you are using it. Power-save will make your screen go dark if you have not touched it for a while, but your computer is still ready to use with just a click of the mouse.

On a Windows computer:

Go to the Control Panel, select Performance and Maintenance > Power Options

Set the Turn Off Monitor to how long you would like your monitor to idle before going into power-save mode.

On a Mac computer:

Click on the Apple icon at the top of your screen and select System Preferences,

Click the Energy Saver icon.

Using the slider, select how long you would like your monitor to remain idle before going into power-save mode.

6.    Purchase Smart Power Strips. These sense when your computer shuts off and automatically cut power to your peripheral devices (speakers, printer, etc.) to eliminate their phantom load. The Smart Power Strip also knows when to automatically turn on your devices. Find out more HERE

7.    Keep thermostats between 68˚F (warming) and 74˚F (cooling). For every degree you lower your heat in the 60-degree to 70-degree range, you'll save up to 5 percent on heating costs.
Read tips from the California Energy Commission HERE

8.    Launch a campaign to encourage using alternate modes of transportation at least two days a week. Get your office to participate in the Traffic Solutions Commuter Challenge.
Vist Traffic Solutions' webpage HERE
Download CEC's Transportation Brochure HERE

9.    Install low flow toilets and waterless urinals. Older model toilets use between 3.5 to 7 gallons of water. Newer energy efficient models flush at 1.3 gallons or less. By saving water you are automatically saving all the energy it takes to process and move the water to and from your office.
More business water efficiency information from the County of Santa Barbara HERE

10. Take CEC's Get Energized pledge. Find out more ways to save energy at home, work, or school, and join more than 1,400 other Santa Barbara residents who have already pledged at:
www.GetEnergized.org

Bonus links that may be useful:

Southern California Edison Business Energy Efficiency Programs

For small businesses
For large businesses

South Coast Energy Efficiency Partnership
www.SCEEP.org

Commute Challenge registration opens

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

First 300 registrants on July 1 win Santa Barbara Axxess cards!

The Commute Challenge is a friendly competition that runs for all of August and September, with five member teams making round-trips using sustainable transportation instead of driving alone.

To form a team you simply need 5 people (including yourself - 5 is the maximum). Two of the members MUST be "Converts" (a Convert is someone that drives alone most of the time, but for the Commute Challenge starts to use an eligible mode of alternative transportation). Next, designate a team captain, who registers your team. Once your team is registered, each member registers and you each begin to track the days you ride using the web-based Commute Calendar.

The top 101 teams win fun prizes from movie tickets to $100 cash! There are also weekly and monthly raffles for prizes like iPod Shuffles and iPhones.

Click on the Commute Challenge logo to register on Tuesday July 1

The One-Car Couple

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

by Amanda Combs and Matt Eastwood

Like most people, my spouse and I want to have as little negative impact on our environment as possible. We have energy efficient appliances, are careful about water consumption, conserve electricity whenever possible, recycle…all the easy things everyone can do.

About two years ago, however, we were faced with a change that could actually be inconvenient. Here we were, living in sunny, warm, small Santa Barbara; the perfect place to be outside…walking or biking…to work. For six years we each relied on separate cars that mostly served to take us back and forth to our respective jobs. When we relocated to the downtown area to be closer to work, shopping and restaurants, there was no way to justify driving such short distances, maintaining and paying for two vehicles.

We knew that we’d drive less, pollute less and be in better shape with one car. Looking back after two years, it seems so easy; we can’t even see why we ever had two! While it worked out splendidly for us, there are things to consider before making this change.

Finally, the financial benefit is huge. We owned one vehicle outright but were paying on the other. Factor in maintenance, gas, tags, and insurance and we calculated a savings of $8,000 per year! That amount is now probably low given the high cost of gasoline. This savings offsets the extra money we spend living downtown.

If you’ve thought about all of these things and think you’re a one car household, do a trial run with one car for about two weeks and see how it goes. You’ll probably find that making a change is good!

Ask yourself:

1.    Proximity to work. Can you honestly say you will walk, ride or take the bus consistently?

2.    Proximity to shops. Are the places you frequent within walking distance or on your way to or from a regular driving destination?

3.    Weekend activities. Do you need two vehicles on the weekend due to dissimilar agendas?

4.    Travel. Can you manage without a car if the person you share it with takes it on a trip?

5.    Alternatives. If you are without a car when you need one, how will you manage? Share a ride? Take the bus? Rent a car?

6.    Work responsibility. Does your work provide a car? Do you drive a lot for work?

7.    Flexibility. Will there be too much conflict when more than one person needs the car?

Energy efficient appliances, posted on:

Tue, 20 May 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Save big money on your energy bills by making sure your big appliances are energy efficient...

Home appliances have two price tags: what you pay to take it home and what you pay for the energy and water it uses. Energy efficient Energy Star qualified appliances incorporate advanced technologies that use 10–50% less energy and water than standard models. The money you save on your utility bills can more than make up for the cost of a more expensive, but more efficient, Energy Star model.

According to the Energy Star website, the average home spends nearly $1,900 on energy costs every year. By switching to an energy efficient refrigerator alone, Southern California Edison estimates a savings up to $292 a year -- every year -- on energy costs.

Have an extra refrigerator in the garage full of ice cream, meat, and soda? Why? If you’re buying in bulk to save money, you’re wasting that money by running an additional inefficient refrigerator or freezer. Unplug or dispose of this energy hog and you could prevent over 750 lbs of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere each year. That’s equivalent to planting 58 trees!

Did you miss the South Coast Energy Efficiency Partnership’s Refrigerator Pick-up Day on May 17? Don’t worry. The offer to have your inefficient refrigerator collected and recycled is ongoing, including the cash incentive!

To participate in this SCE program, residents and businesses must schedule an appointment by going online to www.sce.com/pickup or by calling 1-800-234-9722. SCE will visit the home or business to haul away the old refrigerator or freezer.

Other available appliances that have earned the Energy Star include clothes washers, dehumidifiers, dishwashers, and room air-conditioners. Check out the Energy Star website to learn more: www.energystar.gov.

You can also cut down on energy costs (and find out what appliances are worth keeping plugged in) by connecting your appliances to the Kill A Watt™. CEC is currently offering a Kill A Watt™ loan to the first five interested people on a monthly basis.

The Kill A Watt™ features a LCD display that will count consumption by the Killowatt-hour, same as your local utility. You can calculate your electrical expenses by the day, week, or month. Also check the quality of your power by monitoring Voltage, Line Frequency, and Power Factor.

To take advantage of CEC’s offer, be one of the first five people to email sfeldman@cecmail.org

Sue Sadler-Pare's energy-saving success

Mon, 19 May 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In Sue's own words:

"I have a big success story that happened recently! We used to have what we thought was a rather high electric bill each month, but since we were so careful to turn off lights (and we use mostly compact flourescent lightbulbs), turn down the heater, etc. we assumed it was due to our small hot tub in our backyard.

However, as we learned about newer, better appliances that save energy we decided to replace our older fridge & oven. Little did we know that by doing so we had found our "Energy Thief!" After installing GE Energy Star appliances, we started to see our monthly electric bill drop. But it wasn't till I did my taxes and calculated how much we were saving by just exchanging those 2 things, especially the refrigerator.

Turns out our electric bill dropped over 33% for the year! We do our best to save eletricity as I mentioned before, but this by far has made the biggest difference! Now we tell everyone the benefits of these new energy saving appliances!"

Learn more about Energy Star appliances at www.EnergyStar.gov

More energy-saving tips can be found at Learn More