Free Webinar: Introduction to LEED for Homes - Oct 13, 12-1pm

Covers single-family homes, multi-family apartments and condos, and mixed-use residential buildings

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has developed the LEED for Homes rating system, which covers major home renovations and new construction of single-family homes, multi-family apartments and condos, and mixed-use residential buildings.

Common myths dispelled

In this class, the LEED for Homes rating system will be introduced, and then applied to case studies relevant to the local market. Common myths regarding level of documentation, cost, and credit requirements will be dispelled.

Registration:

Register at no cost via the USGBC Illinois Chapter.  Registered participants will receive the web link and call-in information to enter this webinar on October 12.  This webinar is free of charge.

Local Architect, Tom Bassett-Dilley, Presents talk on Retrofit of 1920's House

 

Neighbors connecting with neighbors

Green Connections Bike TourOver 100 people learned about sustainability projects at 15 homes, schools, community gardens and green businesses in Sept. 2011.

Submitted by Earl Lemberger

While rain fell during the morning and threatened in the afternoon, over 100 determined bikers, walkers, and pedestrians of all sorts, navigated around Oak Park and River Forest, visiting 15 different sites where examples of sustainable living practices were on display, in the inaugural Green Connections Bike Tour.  The tour was part of an international event in over 180 countries called Moving Planet Day.

Labor of love for passionate, informed site hosts

Many people shared their impressions about the sites they visited at the after-tour gathering.  Several participants commented on how passionate and well informed the hosts were.  One of the few complaints was that 20-25 minutes was not enough time to learn all there was to tell as each site.  The sites ranged from highly energy efficient homes, to urban vegetable gardens, to the raising of chickens in an urban environment, to examples of how our local schools are educating kids about sustainable practices such as composting, zero waste, organic gardening, and creating community.  All sites were graciously made available by their owners, proprietors, faculty leaders or sponsoring group for the benefit of the community.  Click here to see a  description and photo of each site.

Visitors were asked to choose up to four sites that could be visited at specific times during the afternoon, so for the hosts this meant greeting and sharing information about their site to four different groups of up to 10 to 20 residents in some instances, essentially back to back, throughout the afternoon – truly for them a labor of love.

Post tour gathering includes sharing, food and reflection on how this event connects to the bigger picture

Following the last site visit a celebrative post-tour gathering was held at Field Park, in Oak Park, and was attended by over 50 people who had participated in the afternoon.   The program included a welcome and opening remarks by Melanie Weiss, one of the tour organizers, and comments by Village of Oak Park Board member Bob Tucker and PlanIt Green organizer Gary Cuneen.  Both Bob and Gary talked about the importance of events such as this in educating the public at large to the notions of sustainability, energy conservation, and their impact on climate change and global warming, as well as how these events can contribute to creating and maintaining sustainable communities not only here but, when copied, in other cities, towns, and villages.

Judith Hamje, another of the tour organizers led a reflection on the tour experience and invited the group  to share ideas, practices, or skills they could take from the sites they visited and incorporate in their own lives and homes. In addition, all participants were asked to complete a survey questionnaire, graciously created for the event by students at Concordia University in River Forest, which, when compiled will measure the event’s effectiveness and hopefully give insight into how to improve future events of this type.

Food for the closing gathering was generously contributed by Whole Foods, River Forest, and Trader Joe’s and Chipotle, Oak Park. In addition, Green Community Connections would like to thank the following organizations who   contributed by agreeing to be tour sponsors or local business partners for the event:

•  Active Transportation Alliance
• Seven Generations Ahead
• Interfaith Green Network
• Village of Oak Park
• Greenline Wheels
• Buzz Café
• Career Enterprises
• Euclid Avenue UMC
• Flybird
• Golden Hatpin
• Green Home Experts
• Majamas
• OPRF Community Foundation
• State Farm
• Trader Joe’s
• Unity Temple
• Webtrax Studio
• Whole Foods

Green Community Connections greatly appreciates their support.

Moving Planet -- Acting Locally and Globally

Submitted by Doug Burke

The Green Community Tour in Oak Park and River Forest was one of over 2000 actions in 180 countries around the world on September 24.  Moving Planet Day, initiated by 350.org, mobilized people in nearly every country from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe to demonstrate the ability and the need to move beyond fossil fuel.  You can learn more about Moving Planet at http://www.moving-planet.org/.

The day of action embodies the challenging truth about fighting climate change:  to win, we need local action everywhere, and to win, we need at the same time to have a global movement.

Photo is one of the 2000 events held as part of Moving Planet Day -- this one in Kathmandu, Nepal:  Monks from the Namo-Buddhist Monastery outside Kathmandu and members of Small Earth Nepal pose with a Moving Planet banner on Sept 24, 2011.

Something to Think About: How Taking One Less Paper Napkin Can Change the World!

Submitted by Melanie Weiss

The cost of our daily actions

Every time we turn into a gas station and fill up our car’s gas tank, we have an opportunity to think about oil and the direct connection to the price we pay beyond our wallet, whether it is supporting oppressive political regimes in the Mideast or watching helplessly as millions of gallons of oil cause an ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

But oil is also present in so many of the little everyday decisions we make. It actually can be quite easy to reduce our dependence on oil and gas with simple changes that do not curtail our quality of life. Once we understand the cost of some of our daily actions, it becomes apparent that each of us making small changes can cooperatively reduce America’s consumption of oil.

Each product has a life cycle

One paper napkin. That is all it takes for us to realize how easy it is to cut our nation’s oil consumption. Consider the next time you eat out at a casual restaurant and grab a handful of paper napkins for your meal. Maybe you use two or three, tossing the rest in the garbage along with the trash.

Each product has a life cycle and these napkins started as a tree. First the tree was cut down, transported to a factory to be turned into pulp, fashioned and possibly bleached, and turned into a stack of napkins. For the next stop, these bales of napkins are transported to a warehouse and then shipped to a final destination.  After the napkins are discarded, a garbage truck arrives to take the waste miles and miles to be buried in a dump. When each of us takes fewer paper napkins, and makes a pledge to take what we need and waste not, think of all the energy, garbage space, and trees we have saved.

Everyday choices make a difference

The same can be said for many of our everyday choices, for instance bringing our own bags to the store saves more energy by reducing the need to manufacture and transport raw materials.  Not idling our cars saves gas and reduces the amount of C02 we spew into the air. Canceling junk mail saves not only trees but the energy it would have taken to get from point A to point B.

It takes 90 percent more energy to fashion an aluminum can out of virgin ore.  Recycle that aluminum can and in six weeks, it will be given new life and can be back on the store shelves.

Powering down our computers at night and when we are away from home or work saves not only energy, but reduces the amount of toxic mercury that coal-fired power plants spew into our atmosphere.

Making Our Mother Earth Proud

Environmental education may not be sexy, and many of us were not lucky enough to learn these lessons in school. More teachers are making environmental literacy an integral part of the curriculum, so students are growing up with their eyes wide open to the effects their actions have on our planet. And in that understanding there is hope for greater change. Many of the luxuries we have here in America come to us so effortlessly, it is easy to take them for granted.  But when we think about our consumption, and adjust our actions to be less wasteful, we are making an impact that would make our Mother Earth proud.

Melanie Weiss writes about environmental education from her home in Oak Park, IL

Related link:

20 minute video about the life cycle and the cost of our "stuff":    The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard

Hundred Year Old House on the Green Connections Bike Tour

Submitted by Ginger Vanderveer

Green Connections Tour host shares impressions from the visitors to her home

Fifty or more engaged citizens visited the one hundred year old house at 824 Woodbine in Oak Park.  The first ten delighted in tasting fresh asparagus that was harvested as they watched.  Another group spied an infant American goldfinch munching on seeds from the prairie garden in the parkway.  Several gasped in surprise when the forty-foot oak in the parkway was described as twelve years old.  This Swamp White Oak was nourished for twelve years by the vegetation collected at the storm drain nearby.  The children that dropped by were most interested in the ‘Halloween Bugs’ clinging to the butterfly weed.

Everyone agreed they would come back next fall to help harvest the sweet potatoes that will be growing in the green roof at 824 Woodbine in Oak Park.  Maybe we can have a fire pit and roast them with some marshmallows.

Visitors questioned the rain barrel configuration and noticed that the barrel was raised to improve water pressure.  The modified green roof on this house uses deep flower boxes bolted to the outside wall.  As one visitor noted – the green roof is removable.  This manner of attachment protects the roof from bearing excessive weight.  The flower boxes were added to the porch roof to cool the black asphalt shingles that surface the roof.  The upstairs room whose windows overlook this roof has been cooled by as much as seven degrees since adding the green roof.  In discussing the green roof there were inquiries about the benefits around the color choice of asphalt shingles.  The consensus is as follows:  a dark colored roof keeps the house warmer (the house is less expensive to heat in winter); a light colored roof keeps the house cooler and reflects light (the house is less expensive to cool in summer and the reflection of light).

A variety of old and new techniques employed

The variety of old and new techniques employed to create a sustainable existence opened up possibilities for those home owners who visited.  They saw a twenty-year old low-tech low-flow toilet (a five gallon tank modified by adding a water displacement item).  Windows became highly efficient by adding plastic sheeting between old storm windows and the inner glass double hung windows.  Some windows have been replaced by new energy efficient windows.  The walls were insulated in two different ways at different times:  when plaster walls were cracked and replaced insulation was added; foam insulation was also pumped into the outside of the building by removing siding from key locations and then reinstalling it.

Everyone agreed they would come back next fall to help harvest the sweet potatoes that will be growing in the green roof at 824 Woodbine in Oak Park.  Maybe we can have a fire pit and roast them with some marshmallows.

More background about the 100 Year Old Home and it's journey toward sustainability . . .

One hundred years later this home embraces nature's systems to enhance the sustainability of Oak Park and the planet Earth.  Simple engineering and simple living combine to gently diminish the impact of one human family on native creatures and flora.

Ways we recognize and harmonize with the natural world

•  Swamp White Oak w/ wild strawberry ground cover (provided by visiting birds).
• Parkway prairie garden fed by the remaining roots of the third largest Elm in Oak Park.  Front Window boxes to cool and shade house from afternoon sun.
• Window shades on outside of front windows to reflect afternoon sun – will be replaced in winter by the storm windows.
• Vines and vegetation growing along side of house to cool house and planet.  Shade tree in back.
• All outdoor plants become indoor plants in winter (even flower boxes and hanging planters).
• Screened porch reminder to appreciate the outside versus the inside space.
• Rain barrels used to capture water for watering plants. Storage system with bottles  for ease of watering.  Closed off downspout into OP sewage system.
• Compost bin in back.  Extra Space for leaf litter and logs place on top to prevent blowing.
• Grow raspberries, asparagus, lavender, sage, and seasonal veggies (such as: arugula, peppers, dill, cilantro, parsley, rosemary, eggplant, okra)
• Wildlife is plentiful:  Three monarch caterpillars/butterflies, 100 American goldfinch + 200 sparrows + 100 robins + 50 cardinals + 2 woodpeckers + 1 bluejay, 1 hummingbird, 100 butterflies (monarchs, yellow + black swallowtails, Endangered Karner Blue), bunnies, 1 chipmunk, 100 squirrels, 2 mice, 1 hawk, 1 red wren.

Lower and higher-tech measures combine to promote energy efficiency

• Zone heating cooling in multiple ways:  Added doors to block kitchen/family room.  Keep vents in basement closed.
• Window blinds in bedroom and back family room adjusted to warm or cool the rooms.
• When plaster walls were replaced added insulation (R20?) – 10 years ago.  Sprayed insulation from outside into frame two years ago.
• Added new windows to upstairs bedrooms (2 bedrooms).  Added new windows to dining room.  Use thick plastic sheeting on storm windows.  Add storm windows back to basement every winter w/ new efficient windows.
• Replaced washing machine with high efficiency machine.  Use laundry lines for drying clothes.  CFL bulbs in every light.  No VOC paint used on walls.
• Grill all food in weather warmer than 85 degrees or eat cold foods (salads).  A/C only comes on when temp is 90 degrees plus.  In winter use oven as frequently as possible.
• Measuring the difference – Front bedroom stays five degrees cooler with new blinds and green roof.  Lower part of house is cooler as well.

Green Connections Bike Tour - Thanks to Hosts & Participants!

Inaugural Green Connections Bike Tour

In the face of unseasonably cool weather and the threat of rain, the inaugural Green Community Connections Bike Tour took place on Saturday, September 24th.  Several great examples of high efficiency homes, homes where the owners are gardening, raising chickens and using native grasses that support natural flood control and five schools where children are learning ecological principles through gardening and composting, all opened their locations to visitors from the community.

Please give us your feedback on the tour!

There were 124 registered participants and over 50 at the post-tour celebration.  Thanks to all who participated -- including our generous hosts, the great participants, our sponsors and local business partners, and the amazing team that put this event together!!  Please let us know about your experience of the tour -- what you liked and what you would do differently if we should do it again.  Send us your pictures to add to our gallery of photos from the tour.

Green Connections Bike Tour 2011 - Saturday, September 24th

Discovering Sustainable Oak Park & River Forest

On Saturday, September 24, 2011, Green Community Connections will sponsor a self-designed, informational tour of selected green initiatives in Oak Park and River Forest.  The tour will start at 1pm and culminate at 4:00 pm with a post-tour informal gathering.

PlanItGreen Sustainability Plan

The Villages of Oak Park and River Forest have long been recognized for their commitment to ecologically-friendly living, and are currently implementing a joint sustainability plan, known as PlanItGreen.

Examples of low carbon living

The GCC bike tour will offer 15 residential and community sites from which participants can choose – including high-efficiency homes, community and school gardens, composting, homes with geothermal heating and cooling systems, urban chicken farming, and more. “We’ve got so much knowledge and so many great examples of green, low-carbon living right here in our community. We can learn a lot from our neighbors about everything from sustainable landscaping to alternative energy,” says Melanie Weiss, who is a member of the Green Connections Bike Tour planning committee.

Benefit from your neighbors' experience

Each site will feature a tour and/or demonstration to introduce visitors to the initiative(s) at that site and describe how it fosters sustainability in the community.  There will also be opportunities for questions and answers so participants can benefit from the experience of their neighbors. “We’re hoping sustainability-minded individuals will join the ride with their neighbors, friends, families, or co-workers. We want people to participate and feel that they’re a part of something big – that they’ll see this as one great opportunity to get moving on the green initiatives they’ve been considering,” says Ana Garcia-Doyle, also a member of the bike tour planning committee.

Thank you to our sponsors and partners!

Other tour sponsors for the event include the Active Transportation Alliance, Greenline Wheels, the Interfaith Green Network, and Seven Generations Ahead, as well as a host of local business partners.  We encourage you to support our great sponsors and local business partners who are helping make this opportunity possible!

Click here to learn more and to register!

Activists Fight Huge Tar Sands Pipeline Proposal

by Doug Burke, Oak Park

Game over” for the climate?

Over two thousand activists pledged to get arrested in civil disobedience at the White House in an effort to get President Obama to reject plans to build a huge network of pipelines that would bring oil from the Alberta tar sands in Canada to world markets. It is up to the President alone to approve or disapprove of the proposal.  The decision must come in December. The arrests began on August 20th and continued through September 3rd , after a two-day pause for Hurricane Irene.

The Alberta tar sands is the largest and dirtiest industrial development in the history of mankind. If the pipeline proposal is approved, it will grow hugely.  Prominent NASA climate scientist James Hansen, a vocal proponent of climate change action has long warned about the greenhouse gas effects of tar-sands development, was one of those arrested while protesting outside the White House.  Hansen commented that if the government approves the project, it's "game over" for curbing climate change.

The New York Times editorialized that the tar sands expansion should be rejected

The tar sands development means destroying huge areas of boreal forest, polluting vast quantities of water, and burning lots of natural gas in order to get a kind of dirty bitumen out of the ground.  Then the stuff has to be transported to refineries, where it creates more pollution than ordinary oil.  And then comes actually using the stuff, emitting still more greenhouse gases. The proposal is catastrophic. Recently, the New York Times editorialized that it should be rejected. This is perhaps the biggest sign yet of establishment opposition to the pipeline.

On August 26, the State Department issued its final report that said the pipeline would have “minimal” effect on the environment.   Michael Brune of the Sierra Club responded: “The U.S. State Department’s final report on the Keystone XL today is an insult to anyone who expects government to work for the interests of the American people.”

You can learn more about the tar sands and the opposition movement at Tar Sands Action.  You can view a video on the Tar Sands Action by Josh Fox, (director of the movie Gasland),  which gives a good idea of what the tar sands project looks like.

http://www.tarsandsaction.org/nasas-dr-james-hansen-someone-worthy-dreams/

Green Connections Tour -- discovering sustainable Oak Park & River Forest!

On Saturday, September 24, 1:00-4:00pm, Green Community Connections, along with other organizations will sponsor a self-guided tour of selected green sites in Oak Park and River Forest. The event is scheduled in conjunction with 350.org’s Moving Planet day,and is designed with cyclists and pedestrians in mind.   Public, commercial and residential destinations will showcase green buildings, sustainable landscaping, community gardening, urban chicken farming, biodiverse open space, and other features of sustainable, low-carbon community life. Each site will feature a tour or demonstration to introduce visitors to the story behind the initiative and how it contributes to sustainability in our community. This is a great opportunity to showcase the great things that real people and organizations are doing already and exchange ideas for what we might want to try in the future.

Information on how to register for the event and get your map, site descriptions, and all the details will be coming soon.

If you have suggestions for sites to be included in the tour (including your own home, business, school, etc.), please contact us and let us know.