By Pam Sinotte
What would Boston look like if Hurricane Sandy had hit Boston at high tide? This and many similar questions were explored as representatives of the City of Boston presented a draft of the 2014 Climate Action Plan (CAP) Update to members of non-profit organizations and neighborhood environmental groups last month. The new CAP will be completed and released by the end of 2014.
The Climate Action Plan contains a wealth of information; here are some highlights:
Some good news:
- Through community and individual action, emissions per resident and overall emissions in the city are declining.
- We are half-way to our goal of a 25% reduction in greenhouse gases (GHGs) by 2020.
- Boston was recently ranked the most energy efficient city in the U.S. based on our policies and programs, and the fifth best city for biking.
Some bad news:
- By 2047, the coldest years will be warmer than today’s warmest.
- Over 50% of our decrease in GHGs in the past five years came from something Boston doesn’t control – a switch from dirtier coal to cleaner natural gas power plants.
As Nancy Girard, Environment Commissioner for the City of Boston, said, “We’ve gotten all the low-hanging fruit – now we have to push harder. Climate action comes down to individual choices and neighborhood actions.”
Click here to see slides of what the 2014 CAP update will achieve, and how your choices can make a positive difference in reducing greenhouse gases. It’s worth taking a look just to see the dramatic slide of how a storm like Hurricane Sandy would impact Boston today and at mid-century.
One of the city’s goals is to engage 10,000 Bostonians in the 2014 CAP planning process and implementation. The City needs to hear from you! Here’s how you can participate:
- Join the conversation and share your ideas - go to Engage.GreenovateBoston.org.
- Attend or host a Greenovate Boston Meet-up
- Check out the Summit in April - we’ll post further information on this website as it becomes available
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Making passive solar space heaters
By Eric Smalley
On November 16th, we were fortunate to have renowned woodturner and GreeningRozzie board member Beth Ireland lead a workshop on making passive solar space heaters. Twenty of us gathered at the Roslindale Community Center and learned to use hand tools.
We made 12” x 24”wooden boxes and we painted aluminum cans black.
We painted the interiors of the boxes black, put the painted cans in the boxes and covered the boxes with Plexiglas.
Placed in a South-facing window or other sunny spot, the heater emits a stream of warm air. The black paint absorbs sunlight, which warms the cans and the interior of the box. This warms the air inside the heater, which rises and exits through a hole at the top of the box. A hole at the bottom of the box lets air flow in, which allows a steady circulation through the heater.
Here’s a how-to video for making similar passive solar space heaters.
Here’s blog post by GreeningRozzie intern Hannah Pullen-Blasnik about passive solar heating.
On November 16th, we were fortunate to have renowned woodturner and GreeningRozzie board member Beth Ireland lead a workshop on making passive solar space heaters. Twenty of us gathered at the Roslindale Community Center and learned to use hand tools.
We painted the interiors of the boxes black, put the painted cans in the boxes and covered the boxes with Plexiglas.
Placed in a South-facing window or other sunny spot, the heater emits a stream of warm air. The black paint absorbs sunlight, which warms the cans and the interior of the box. This warms the air inside the heater, which rises and exits through a hole at the top of the box. A hole at the bottom of the box lets air flow in, which allows a steady circulation through the heater.
Here’s a how-to video for making similar passive solar space heaters.
Here’s blog post by GreeningRozzie intern Hannah Pullen-Blasnik about passive solar heating.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
On the scientific merit of sand in the gears
One of today’s finest journalists, Naomi Klein, flips the usual relationship between climate science and activism in the New Statesman article How science is telling us all to revolt. For a long time, climate science has informed activism. Now activism is becoming a measurable factor that scientists are accounting for in looking at climate change. Here’s to being a grain of sand among many in the gears of the fossil fuel machine.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Ever built a mobile community workspace?
In the last few years we’ve come up with great projects that require a space to meet, store materials, hold workshops and be accessible to the different communities that make up Roslindale.
We think the key to realizing these projects is a mobile community workspace. We know that this kind of mobile workspace can be successful because one of our board members, Beth Ireland, is part of the collaborative art team Turning Around America, a mobile education project that brings art education to underserved communities. The Turning Around America team created the Mobile Work Shop, a van with a full woodworking shop and living space, and Sanctuary, a sustainable trailer that’s also a 2D art studio. www.turningaroundamerica.com.
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| Picture something like this! |
The mobile space will allow us to store materials for tool and seed swaps, tree and garden workshops, and projects at the farmers market.
We’re mobilizing for this project now. Please join us! Let us know if you have any interest in building, fundraising for, documenting, and using a Rozzie Mobile Community Space.
Want some inspiration? Check out the Turning Around America Sanctuary mobile workshop and sustainable trailer.
Please join us.
- Amy, Beth, Eric, Kim, Pam, and the rest of us at GreeningRozzie
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Hold the next mayor accountable
The Mayor's race is in the home stretch! Now’s the time to sign the Neighborhoods for Climate Accountability climate action pledge to hold the next mayor accountable for taking action on climate change.
Let’s make sure the next mayor of Boston uses the Menino administration’s environmental record as a springboard, and that the good ideas and lofty rhetoric of the campaign turn into measurable progress on tackling climate change.
Let’s make sure the next mayor of Boston uses the Menino administration’s environmental record as a springboard, and that the good ideas and lofty rhetoric of the campaign turn into measurable progress on tackling climate change.
Monday, September 9, 2013
Boston mayoral candidates talk climate
The environmental views of the Boston mayoral candidates are coming into focus. Read their responses to the Neighborhoods for Climate Accountability questionnaire about climate change. Neighborhoods for Climate Accountability is a coalition of neighborhood green groups.
Also, read candidates' responses to the Boston Globe's environmental questionnaire, and candidates' statements from Boston Greenfest's August 16 Mayoral EcoForum.
We also posted about the Boston green mayor forum held on July 9.
And don't miss the Boston City Council District 5 Candidate Forum, on Thursday, September 12 from 5:45 to 8:30 at Saint Nectarios Church, 39 Belgrade Ave.
Also, read candidates' responses to the Boston Globe's environmental questionnaire, and candidates' statements from Boston Greenfest's August 16 Mayoral EcoForum.
We also posted about the Boston green mayor forum held on July 9.
And don't miss the Boston City Council District 5 Candidate Forum, on Thursday, September 12 from 5:45 to 8:30 at Saint Nectarios Church, 39 Belgrade Ave.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Colombian village’s story inspires dreams of sustainable communities
By Hannah Pullen-Blasnik
In July, the sustainability book group discussed the book Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World by Alan Weisman. This true story chronicles the vision Paolo Lugari sets out to make a reality: a sustainable, energy-efficient community in the llanos of Colombia, one of the most inhospitable environments in existence. He reasoned that if a village could survive agriculturally, economically, and artistically in the war-ravaged Colombian llanos, a village could survive anywhere in the world.
Although the odds seemed stacked against them, slowly a village sprouted from the infertile soil; a village run on wind turbines converting the mild breezes into energy, efficient water pumps that tapped water sources that had previously seemed inaccessible, solar-powered kettles that sterilized the water so it was suitable for drinking, and much more.
The most amazing feat they accomplished was to turn the fallow savanna into a beautiful rainforest. Starting with a single pine tree that managed to grow, the village planted two million pine trees that encouraged the regrowth of a previously extinct rainforest, thereby re-establishing an entire lost ecosystem.
At the book group meeting, our discussion started with the awe of a small village regrowing an entire rainforest. In order to meet their goal of two million trees, the villagers worked 24/7 planting trees, each taking a shift after finishing their normal workday performing other tasks for the community. The pine trees, in addition to giving root to the rainforest, provided a source of economic stability for the village as they collected the pine resin to sell. Once the pines became old, they cut them down to use as biofuel so as to use every aspect of the pines. The pines were eventually replaced by the natural growth, serving as a starting point that allowed a natural rainforest to reemerge.
We then approached the big question: can it be replicated? Does Gaviotas serve as a plan for the future, for other seemingly inhospitable environments, or is it simply a one-time miracle? In creating Gaviotas, Paolo Lugari certainly seemed to think it could be replicated. He specifically placed Gaviotas in the relatively inhospitable llanos to prove that villages can be created anywhere. He was concerned with the world facing overpopulation and viewed these environments as new habitats for people to live in. He devised the village as a model society for the third world, by the third world. But not every Gaviotas will have a Paolo Lugari to guide them. Was Lugari himself essential to the village’s survival?
In Maine, paper companies have tried to regrow the forests by planting trees for all the trees being cut down. However, it does not take on the same life that the forest once had, as the variety in plant life that creates the forest is missing. These forests are not regrowing in the way Gaviotas regrew a forest in the llanos. In fact, although Gaviotas was created over twenty-five years ago, nowhere else have people been able to replicate the amazing success Gaviotas had on a comparable scale.
Perhaps the most important ingredient to Gaviotas’ success was found in the social structure they established. In the village, there was no hierarchy. In the community everyone was equal, and everyone was expected to do work to help the entire community survive. They met with many obstacles in their struggle for success, and all villagers were involved in thinking up solutions to the problems again and again until they met with success. There are many inventions that can be taken away from their experience, but maybe the most important takeaway is the journey they went through and the community they built, rather than the incredible destination they eventually arrived at.
In July, the sustainability book group discussed the book Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World by Alan Weisman. This true story chronicles the vision Paolo Lugari sets out to make a reality: a sustainable, energy-efficient community in the llanos of Colombia, one of the most inhospitable environments in existence. He reasoned that if a village could survive agriculturally, economically, and artistically in the war-ravaged Colombian llanos, a village could survive anywhere in the world.
Although the odds seemed stacked against them, slowly a village sprouted from the infertile soil; a village run on wind turbines converting the mild breezes into energy, efficient water pumps that tapped water sources that had previously seemed inaccessible, solar-powered kettles that sterilized the water so it was suitable for drinking, and much more.
The most amazing feat they accomplished was to turn the fallow savanna into a beautiful rainforest. Starting with a single pine tree that managed to grow, the village planted two million pine trees that encouraged the regrowth of a previously extinct rainforest, thereby re-establishing an entire lost ecosystem.
At the book group meeting, our discussion started with the awe of a small village regrowing an entire rainforest. In order to meet their goal of two million trees, the villagers worked 24/7 planting trees, each taking a shift after finishing their normal workday performing other tasks for the community. The pine trees, in addition to giving root to the rainforest, provided a source of economic stability for the village as they collected the pine resin to sell. Once the pines became old, they cut them down to use as biofuel so as to use every aspect of the pines. The pines were eventually replaced by the natural growth, serving as a starting point that allowed a natural rainforest to reemerge.
We then approached the big question: can it be replicated? Does Gaviotas serve as a plan for the future, for other seemingly inhospitable environments, or is it simply a one-time miracle? In creating Gaviotas, Paolo Lugari certainly seemed to think it could be replicated. He specifically placed Gaviotas in the relatively inhospitable llanos to prove that villages can be created anywhere. He was concerned with the world facing overpopulation and viewed these environments as new habitats for people to live in. He devised the village as a model society for the third world, by the third world. But not every Gaviotas will have a Paolo Lugari to guide them. Was Lugari himself essential to the village’s survival?
In Maine, paper companies have tried to regrow the forests by planting trees for all the trees being cut down. However, it does not take on the same life that the forest once had, as the variety in plant life that creates the forest is missing. These forests are not regrowing in the way Gaviotas regrew a forest in the llanos. In fact, although Gaviotas was created over twenty-five years ago, nowhere else have people been able to replicate the amazing success Gaviotas had on a comparable scale.
Perhaps the most important ingredient to Gaviotas’ success was found in the social structure they established. In the village, there was no hierarchy. In the community everyone was equal, and everyone was expected to do work to help the entire community survive. They met with many obstacles in their struggle for success, and all villagers were involved in thinking up solutions to the problems again and again until they met with success. There are many inventions that can be taken away from their experience, but maybe the most important takeaway is the journey they went through and the community they built, rather than the incredible destination they eventually arrived at.
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