June 22, 2010

Confessions of an incandescent light bulb lover

Photo credit: Joshua Bright for the NY Times

Ok. It’s just a light fixture, right? The modern design of the six globe metal light fixture is attractive and I know Mr. Green did a lot of research before settling on this model to light his apartment. And I like the lamp; I really do. I just loathe the glow of the energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs he’s installed in the fixture.   

When we’re not sitting in the dark to save energy and enjoy the sharpest picture from Mr. Green’s HD TV, we’re swathed in the offensive “glow” of these energy efficient bulbs. The twisty white bulbs cast a blue-green light that reminds me of waiting anxiously for my name to be called in the dentist’s office. Not to mention how I look sickly and yellow under the lamp’s light. I know that incandescent bulbs are energy-suckers, but there’s something so comforting about their soft warm glow.

Last week, in a desperate attempt to appeal to my design sensibility, Mr. Green e-mailed me an article from the NY Times that claims energy-guzzling bulbs modelled after Thomas Edison’s first light bulb just aren’t hip anymore. I think Mr. Green’s afraid that one night while he’s sleeping peacefully, I’ll sneak low efficiency bulbs into his fixture! According to the story, restaurant designers in NY believe the retro cool of the filament light bulb has played out.  

Maybe they’re right? It seems to me that every restaurant to make Toronto Life’s “Best New Restaurant List” is lit using vintage looking, exposed light bulbs. Consider the last restaurant you went to, did you notice antique-looking light bulbs hanging from the ceiling? Perhaps the industrial look really is beginning to feel a little common?

According to restaurant designers, conventional incandescent bulbs are so popular because they emulate candlelight and make both you and your food look good. I’m all in favour of that! Except, something smarty Natural Resources Defense Council scientist Noah Horowitz pointed out gave me pause:

“You can’t on the one hand brag how green you are by serving organic beer and locally grown produce while you are lighting your business with the least efficient light bulbs available in the world.”

Oh … I’m afraid dear Noah might have a point.

Consider this: energy efficient lighting uses 75 per cent less electricity than conventional incandescent lights, which reduces the overall demand for electricity. This means you save on your energy bill and you reduce the demand for electricity and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions generated by fossil-fuel power plants that supply the power.  

And with Canada introducing an efficiency standard in 2012 that will end the sale of inefficient bulbs, I think I’d better get over my love of incandescent lights and leave behind the raw industrial look for home and restaurant decor. Who’s with me?!

As the NY Times article points out … there’s nothing more retro than the soft glow of candles. Imagine the energy savings!

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June 14, 2010

Are you a green commuter?

Photo Credit: treehugger.com

I follow a very strict rule when it comes to taking cabs in the city: only on special occasions. Times like when I’m running late for an appointment or I’m off to a friend’s birthday party in high heels. It would also be a special occasion when I’m carrying dry cleaning, groceries, and a gym bag after a long day at work and it’s pouring rain. I think I find this rule so easy to follow because I get to decide if the occasion is “special” or not, except when I’m with Mr. Green …

Certainly we compromise all the time when it comes to getting around the city and I love exploring Toronto with him on foot, but I get the feeling that despite agreeing to cab to dinner if I’m dressed up and in heels, he’d much rather we walk or even take the subway.

Mr. Green walks everywhere. It seems no distance is too great or the weather too nasty for him to get around the city in his New Balances. Just the other weekend we walked to Leslieville from downtown. No biggy. And if we hadn’t scored a fabulous Kinetics 1970s era stool on the cheap, we would have walked home (we took the TTC instead).

Mr. Green walks for a few reasons:

  1. Because he loves seeing Toronto on foot; you can discover so much about a city or town by walking its streets. Just this weekend, Mr. Green showed me the Cloud Garden. It’s a great garden complete with a waterfall that’s tucked between office towers just east of Yonge, south of Adelaide. Despite working around the corner, I had no idea this garden oasis existed!
  2. The exercise.
  3. It’s a lot greener than driving!

With being greener in mind, Mr. Green’s workplace signed up to participate in this year’s “Clean Air Commute,” an initiative of Pollution Probe happening this week. The Clean Air Commute hopes to encourage more people to walk, cycle, take public transit, carpool, telecommute or drive a hybrid car to work. The environmental damage a lone driver can cause commuting daily is significant. But that same lone commuter can make a serious difference when it comes to air quality, without making huge sacrifices. And that’s what I’ve learned since dating Mr. Green. I might grumble about walking places when I’d prefer to cab, but I know we’re doing good things for the planet.

Check out the Clean Air Commute and consider committing to making our air cleaner by making small changes to your daily commute to work or everyday life.

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June 7, 2010

Cursed are those who ask for plastic

Not exactly ground breaking ideas, but good suggestions for reuse all the same!

The war on the ubiquitous plastic bag began some time ago, but it was just over a year ago that Toronto joined the fight on the frontlines. Armed with a check-out charge of 5 cents per plastic bag, the city hopes the controversial bylaw will reduce the volume of flimsy one-time use shopping bags in the city’s landfills. But has it?

I can say anecdotally that I have noticed that there are fewer shoppers carrying their groceries home in plastic. And it seems that people from all walks of life are now schlepping reusable bags emblazoned with grocery store logos with them to the store.

And I can say very honestly that I feel like a real jerk if ever I have to request plastic at the check-out. I want to tell the people behind me in line that I will reuse the bag as a garbage can liner in my kitchen. I want to assure the cashier that I am trying my best to reduce my plastic bag consumption and that no, I don’t want the bag I just bought to end up in some sweet duck’s innards. I want to scream I care about the environment, but dammit the other day a pear smushed in my reusable bag and now it’s in the laundry, and I forgot to take it out of the dryer before I went to the store!

Perhaps it’s just me, but it seems as though in just a year, plastic bags in Toronto have gone from convenient to cursed. But I wonder if this is just a phase, a small blip on the behavioural change radar that won’t last?

I certainly hope not.

Because when Ontario set up a voluntary program with industry to reduce the consumption of bags by 50 per cent in 2007,  data available at the time revealed that Ontarians use 7 million plastic bags a day. That works out to roughly 4 plastic bags per person each week! The issue is that these polyethylene (a solid form of oil) bags will not biodegrade, they consume energy and natural resources to manufacture and they threaten marine life if ever they were to end up in our lakes or rivers.

I hope over this past year we’ve sent fewer plastic bags to our landfills, but even if the numbers don’t blow us out of the water just yet, I think one of the biggest successes of the plastic bag charge in Toronto is that it’s increased our awareness of how important individual actions can be when it comes to preserving our planet.

The good news: we’re not the only ones with incentive policies or bans. The desire to reduce or eliminate our reliance on plastic bags is global!

And on the days we forget our reusable bags, we can find new life for them by getting a little creative. I thought the plastic bag pictured above from a small shoppe in Burlington offered some good suggestions …

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May 18, 2010

Love local food

Mr. Green about to enjoy his Libretto pizza

The other day, Mr. Green came home aghast at the distance the asparagus had traveled to land on the local grocery store shelf: “It was from Peru!” he exclaimed. Knowing the vitamin-packed and anti-oxidant-rich veggie is in season here in Ontario, I was shocked too.

Long before I met Mr. Green, I did what I could to support local farmers and bought fresh-from-the-farm produce and meats when possible. Now, knowing how damaging shipping strawberries from California is to the environment, I try even harder to buy local, in-season foods. I’ll be the first to admit, however; that sometimes I just want a strawberry in January and I will indulge.

So, when Mr. Green and I head out for dinner together (we’re still a take-out free couple), we try to eat at one of the many Toronto restaurants that serves local, in-season food. It is hard to find locally sourced ethnic food though …

Enter the best pizza place in town: Pizzeria Libretto.

Libretto is awesome for so many reasons. Nowhere else in the city will you find pizza this tasty or legit. They are the only restaurant in Toronto serving certified Vera Pizza Napoletana, using guidelines by the Verace Pizza Napoletana Association and enforced by the Italian Government and European Union. That means they are respecting the pizza-making culture and tradition established in 18th century Naples. Now that’s serious and it means you’ll enjoy some seriously yummy pizza at the restaurant.

Mr. Green and I think Libretto is also awesome because they are doing many things to ensure they’re as “green” as possible, like sourcing ingredients locally. Taken from their website, here’s what else they’re up to:

  1. We use locally grown ingredients, whenever possible, while still maintaining the integrity of the Neapolitan Pizza experience. All of our specials are based around local fresh ingredients in season.
  2. We do not serve bottled water, in order to reduce the carbon foot print and other environmental ramifications of this trend. We instead serve purified Toronto water and carbonated filtered water.
  3. We serve only fair trade organic espresso.
  4. Our used kitchen grease is converted into biodiesel fuel.
  5. We use green electricity, a mixture of emission-free wind power and low-impact water power provided by Bullfrog Power.

I’ve come to realize that as consumers we have a lot of influence. Each time we go to the check-out counter or to our local restaurant we’re effectively voting through the choices we’re making. Deciding where and how we spend our money is one of the most powerful things we can do to effect social change.

We can also talk to the owners of our favourite restaurants and encourage them to buy local, in-season ingredients. You can suggest they check out 100km Food Inc. It’s run by a Toronto duo who have partnered with some 40 area chefs to bring locally grown food direct from the farm to the restaurant table.

I know there are those who criticize the local food movement because of how it affects our trading partners to the south, but no matter how complex global trade is I have to wonder: when food is in season here in Ontario, does it make any sense to ship the same food 5,000 miles to reach our tables?

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April 22, 2010

Earth Day is Awesome.

AWESOME. (Photo credit: whytraveltofrance.com)

Not long ago I stumbled upon a great blog: 1,000 Awesome Things. It’s a blog that chronicles those every day things that are truly awesome. Things like snow days, dancing when you’re home alone, and broccoflower. I’d like to propose something that I find awesome: Earth Day.

Earth Day started as a way to inspire awareness for the issues affecting the planet and strengthen our connection to the Earth. On September 29, 1969 there was a front-page story in the New York Times that, in conjunction with the efforts of a handful of forward-thinking U.S. senators and college students, helped start the environmental movement:

“Rising concern about the “environmental crisis” is sweeping the nation’s campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam…a national day of observance of environmental problems, analogous to the mass demonstrations on Vietnam, is being planned for next spring, when a nationwide environmental ‘teach-in’…coordinated from the office of Senator Gaylord Nelson is planned….”[*]

The following spring, the first Earth Day was observed by nearly 20-million people across the U.S. Since then, Earth Day has steadily grown and it was expected that today, at least 1.5-billion people participated in global events designed to inspire us to take greener action. 1.5-billion people! Awesome? I’d say so.

This blog is about observations from my lower carbon emission relationship with Mr. Green and, without question, the most remarkable thing I’ve observed is the number of people out there who truly care about the planet – not just on Earth Day, but every day.

These are ordinary folks and not the stereotypical granola crunching extremist hippies I used to equate with greener living. These are people you bump into on the subway who have packed their lunch in reusable containers or the girls in yoga class who are practicing on mats made from recycled material by companies who will plant a tree in recognition of your purchase or chefs committed to sourcing their menus locally or even companies committed to printing their materials on 100 per cent post consumer paper.

The level of awareness out there about the challenges facing our planet and our future on it is astonishingly high – truly awesome, but, as a global community, we can do more to make sure our Earth remains a safe, flourishing place.

So today, if you haven’t yet considered how you might be able to show you care for the Earth, consider making a change. Start small. Walk to the store. Wash your clothes on the cold cycle. Dine by candlelight. Buy local food and make dinner using seasonal ingredients. We’re learning that small individual actions do make a difference.

What have you done lately for the planet?

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April 16, 2010

Top job Starbucks

Yesterday, Starbucks offered a free brewed coffee to anyone with a reusable coffee mug. And every day they offer a 10 cent discount to those who choose not to carry their java in paper cups. Their thinking? “One person can save trees, but together we can save forests.” Bravo.

Starbucks, as a corporation, isn’t alone in their desire to promote products or start movements for the good of the planet. But their effort to encourage individuals to make small changes to their every day routine is something very important and it’s something Mr. Green believes can have a profound impact on the health of our planet.

One individual cutting back on their coffee cup waste will help reduce the number of trees cut-down, but imagine how many trees would be spared if we all tried to drink from reusable mugs? Or chose to walk or bike more often to work? Or recycled or composted as much as we could? Or turned the lights out in rooms we’re not sitting in (a favourite of Mr. Green’s even if we are sitting in the room). These small, individual acts when you add them all up mean big things in terms of the long-term health of the planet.

Know of any other corporations out there that deserve a gold star for their green efforts?

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April 11, 2010

Forgive us, we flew to Cuba

As a little girl I was fascinated with airplanes. There was a time when my parents would bundle me into the car and take me to the airport Saturday afternoons to see the “a-ppies.” Since then, not much has changed except the obvious outgrowing of my childhood word for “airplane” and until very recently, little could overshadow the excitement I felt after booking a flight to a far off place. I think it’s safe to say that when it came to understanding the environmental impact of flying, I was blissfully ignorant.

Now I’m dating Mr. Green and, of course, everything is illuminated in a greener light. I’ve come to realize that air travel isn’t so hot for the planet, but there’s hope in the form of carbon offsets for those of us who both care about the planet and want to visit its every corner.

Like many things related to living greener, truly understanding what carbon offsets are required a little homework on my part.

At first, the concept of buying offsets was a little beyond me. Like a little kid challenging their parents about the existence of Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, I had an awful lot of questions. How do offsets work? Who sells them? Can planting trees really erase the sins of things like air travel?

With a little help from my pal David Suzuki, I’ve come to learn that buying offsets is like a get out of jail free card. Put simply: you commit some sort of environmental offence, in our case flying to Cuba for a recent vacation, and then by purchasing offsets your environmental infraction magically disappears!

Here’s a little carbon offset 101:

A carbon offset is a credit you buy from an organization or project that contributes to emission reduction, which means their efforts result in less carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

An example from David S – Wind energy companies sell carbon offsets. The wind energy company does this because selling offsets helps pay for their projects, which are producing greener energy. The people who buy offsets can then claim that their purchase resulted in new non-polluting energy, which mitigates or forgives their own greenhouse gas emissions like those generated by air travel.

There are several types of greener activity that can generate carbon offsets by displacing fossil fuels like renewable energy production – wind farms, solar installations, geothermal and biomass energy.

Other types of offsets for sale include those resulting from energy efficiency projects that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Reforestation and agriculture are familiar examples of this type of offset, but they can also include methane gas capture from landfills or livestock, which is 25 times more potent the carbon dioxide.

Mr. Green was telling me though that the problem with offsets is that they can create a false sense of redemption. It’s kind of like sitting in the penalty box for high-sticking. Instead of just not raising your stick in the first place (or: frequently travelling by air) sitting in the penalty box (or: buying carbon offsets) makes your egregious behaviour okay. You kind of miss the point that you’re not supposed to high stick in the first place!

Obviously, best case scenario, we all try and reduce how much we fly, but it’s not always possible. And that’s where offsets come in.

Stay tuned for a “how to” on buying carbon offsets once Mr. Green and I purchase ours in order to “offset” our beach holiday.

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April 4, 2010

How green is this?

Considering buying the new iPad or e-reader? A great story in the NY Times today tries to answer the question: what is the most environmentally friendly way to read? The article is a good example of a “life-cycle assessment,” which evaluates the ecological impact of a product or activity, at every stage of its existence or experience. For example, this comparison considers the impact of a good old fashioned book from the first tree cut down for paper to the day that book decomposes in a dump.

Mr. Green always reminds me of this sort of thinking when we’re determining how green a product or activity may be. Take the time when we were planning our vacations for the year. I thought it might be fun to do a weekend up north – stay at a nice lodge, cross country ski, enjoy nice meals together etc. And since a girlfriend had had such a great time dog sledding, I thought that might be a perfect green activity for us! Mr. Green didn’t disagree on the green merits of “mushing” per say, but he reminded me that careening through the forest on a dog sled, potentially, still carried a decent sized carbon footprint. For one, we would have to travel quite a distance, by car, to get to the dog sledding site in the first place. Secondly, taking care of the sweet snow dogs is no small feat when it comes to energy consumption. According to one study, feeding a medium-sized dog for a year has twice the environmental impact of driving a luxury SUV for 10,000 kilometres! (Note: beacuse I’m such a dog lover, I choose to turn a blind eye to these sorts of studies).

The lesson here is to consider the full life of a product or activity before deciding whether or not it’s eco-friendly. However, in many cases though the entire life cycle may not be the greenest, it is often far better than the alternative. For that reason, in case you’re wondering, dog sledding will always be a greener way to see the wintery sights than snowmobiling. (You’ll have to read the Times story to find out if reading a paperback will become the equivalent evil to carrying a plastic bag).

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March 16, 2010

You know, you can recycle that

Do you know what belongs in the green or blue bin?

Leah McLaren at the Globe may be suffering from over packaging rage, but I’m suffering from a different kind of rage and it’s snuck up on me: trash that can be recycled but was thrown out rage.

Now, it’s no secret that I used to be guilty of this. Remember, it wasn’t all that long ago that I was afraid my failure to sort my trash was going to result in Mr. Green tossing me to the curb (along with my properly sorted garbage and recycling, thanks to him). But lately, spying empty pizza boxes in the garbage of my office kitchen or watching someone toss their coffee cup in the trash is making me mental.

Much to my own surprise, I’ve gone from the girl who recycled most things, but let things slip if throwing them in the garbage was easier (read: meant I didn’t have to carry a pop can around town until I found a recycling bin) to the girl who rescues cardboard boxes and plastic water bottles from the office trash (and carries recyclables in her purse for miles if need be)!

Important note: I’ve not become a recycling zealot. I won’t sort your trash, judge you, or publish your name if I find you in offence. Promise. The folks across the pond might though …

Eight years ago microchips were placed in some 2.6-million British household trash bins and every now and then, debate surfaces over their use (most were never activated because, politically, they are so unpopular). According to a NY Times story, proponents say it’s a bid to push recycling. Opponents say it well, stinks.

The exact purpose of the James Bond-like chip varies across the country. Some chips weigh the garbage in the bins and others are meant to monitor whether the bin has been emptied or track its whereabouts.

A pro-privacy group is warning that this is the first step toward charging Britons what they toss and there is debate as to whether the government has the right to weigh or track trash. So far, none of the chips are used to charge residents in the so-called “pay-as-you-throw” plan, though many believe that’s just around the corner.

One dear Londoner, Terry, believes that the government is meddling. “They should mind their own business,” he says. “I believe they have gone too far. It’s not like we are throwing away anything that is illegal.”

A councillor in Bristol , said the microchips are a useful tool to reward people who reduce household waste and not part of an elaborate scheme to charge people for producing high volumes of trash.

Hmmm sound a little familiar?

A couple of years ago in our fair city, there was a huge stink over the price homeowners had to pay for their garbage bins depending on their size. The hope was that the hefty price tag, almost $200 dollars each year for the largest bin, would encourage people to reduce, reuse, recycle, and compost. Especially since those who own the smaller trash bins receive an annual rebate for their green efforts. The city hopes that by the end of 2010 this program will have helped the city divert 70 per cent of garbage from the dump.

Wonder how we’re doing?

Perhaps the jolly ol’ English could learn a thing or two from our efforts? I think that’s what’s so maddening about seeing items that ought to be destined for the blue box instead sit in the trash – we’re leaders in waste diversion, how is that some people still don’t get it?

Take it from someone who would never have received a gold star for her recycling efforts before, it’s not that hard. Really.

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February 26, 2010

Merci.

Photo credit: Robin Locker

When I started this little project I never imagined it being much more than a creative outlet for me and maybe something a handful of my friends would follow. Now, three months later, I’m truly humbled by the devoted following of more than a handful of friends and even a few strangers! It’s been really fun telling stories about becoming “greener” and I have no doubt that Mr. Green is pleased to have a platform from which to shout his environmental philosophy to the masses.

What’s been really humbling is hearing how people are changing their behaviour as a result of reading my little blog. On more than a couple of occasions, people have mentioned how they think twice before enjoying their coffee in a paper cup  or consider reducing the number of nights they order take-out. Perhaps what’s been most fun is hearing stories of how people are creatively “reducing” or “reusing” more often. The most recent example is of my dear girlfriend who sought out vintage jewellery to give as thank you gifts to her bridal party. When she handed me the gift, she couldn’t have been more proud of her green efforts – “Look! I reused!”she exclaimed.

So, to all my dear readers out there in the “blogosphere” who so devoutly follow the greener antics of Mr. Green and me, thank you. I hope you continue to enjoy Greener at First Sight and l will do my very best to keep you interested and entertained!

And now for those wondering what to cook up this weekend for dinner … why not try my Valentine’s Day lasagne? My boss introduced me to this culinary gem and it quickly became a favourite of Mr. Green and mine.

Sauce:

2-3 tbsp of olive oil
1 lg can of ‘crushed’ or ‘stewed’ tomatoes
1 sm can of tomato paste
1 very large or two medium cloves of fresh garlic finely minced or crushed
1.5 tsp each dried oregano, basil, rosemary, savoury
1 tsp dried chilli flakes (more or less to taste)
1-2 bay leaves
Salt and pepper to taste

*Optional: If the sauce is bitter use 1 tsp of maple syrup (or honey) or a pinch of sugar.

*I’ve also used prepared sauces with success.

In a medium pot, on medium heat, add oil and garlic. Sautee until just golden and fragrant. Then add tomatoes and tomato paste, stir  – you may want to keep covered because this will bubble and splatter all over if the heat is too high.

Add spices and salt and pepper to taste.

Cover and let simmer on low for 20 minutes. Definitely taste and “doctor” as required.

Filling:

1 package of tofu sheets. These come from a tofu/Asian specialty store in the St Lawrence Market; I wish I could remember the name of it! I do know that Ming is the owner and he’s just awesome. The store is located on the ground level across from the Greek restaurant and right around the corner from the Italian food shop that serves those gigantic eggplant parmesan sandwiches. Likely these tofu sheets can also be found in Chinatown.

1 decently sized zucchini thinly sliced or grated. I prefer grated.

1 package frozen, chopped spinach (thawed) or a large bunch of fresh spinach, lightly steamed, cooled and chopped

*Note: Make sure you squeeze out excess water from chopped spinach.

A generous amount of cremini mushrooms, sliced and sautéed – add some Italian spices while sautéing for better flavour.

Cheese for the top. As much or as little of your favourite type as you desire. Consider mixing ricotta with the spinach for a cheesy/spinanchy layer.

In a lasagne pan, smear sauce first then put one layer of tofu sheet, generously smear on sauce, then add a layer of whatever vegetable you choose.

Add a layer of tofu sheet, smear lots of sauce, then add another layer of vegetable, then a layer of tofu sheet, sauce, then the final layer of vegetable, then a final layer of tofu sheet, sauce, then cheese.

Cover with aluminum foil, taking care to avoid having foil touch the top of the lasagne. Cook in 375° oven for 1 hour, then uncover and let brown. Let cool 15 minutes before serving.

Yum!

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