OnePlanet with Dave Eichorn

Why I Live in the Suburbs

2010-10-04T11:11:00.000-07:00

This blog is something of a reply to Roberta Brandes Gratz, who spoke eloquently at the recent Syracuse Center of Excellence Symposium about the need for [post-industrial, rust-belt, downsized, creatively shrunk] cities such as Syracuse to "re-densify" as a step toward sustainable growth. Excerpts from Gratz's speech can be found at syracuse.com.

I live in the suburbs of Syracuse—in Baldwinsville, NY—and do so for several reasons that in my opinion must be addressed if a city like Syracuse's is to attract middle-class professionals of my generation (that would be "X") with families.

Schools—Quality of city versus urban schools is one of the most common reasons why families move to the suburbs. This issue raises deep, sometimes ugly feelings and history, and I don't pretend to be able to address them in this blog. Suffice it to say, as an Englishman, I have always found America's way of funding schools—funding directly from a local town/village tax base rather than a more equitable, centralized (county/state) system—to be structurally unfair. A re-densification movement would surely have to work to change the vicious (and for the wealthy suburbs, virtuous) circles the current system causes.
Gardens/Allotments—Gardeners in my very densified home town of Brighton, England make do very well with municipal garden allotments, usually on the edge of town. My need to have a large vegetable garden was a "deal-breaker" when it came to looking for a new home. A Sustainable Syracuse would need to offer what an English city-dweller considers a "basic amenity."
Walkable Neighborhoods & Parks—Baldwinsville's quiet street and large front lawns make up for my village's lack of real sidewalks and mini parks. But a city must have sidewalks, verges, crosswalks, bike lanes, and parks large and small if families are going to live in apartments or townhouses.
Safety—The British have always had a good model for community policing: the "Bobby on the Beat." The simple act of a policeman walking (or biking) on a regular beat around a neighborhood, much like a postal worker getting to know everybody, goes along way toward having ordinary citizens take control of their own safety. But much like cops all over America (and increasingly in Britain), Syracuse cops rely on intimidating, hermetically sealed police cruisers to get around. There are a few bike cops, especially in Armory Square, but we need more Syracuse Bobbies!
Shops—Basic stores such as a grocery and hardware/general stores are essential. Central Syracuse does quite poorly in this regard, although a downtown citizen does not have to go far (Erie Blvd) to find what he or she needs. The C.L. Evers grocery in the Amos Building wasn't all that clever, as it turns out—its foot traffic was too light and its hours not aggressive enough. In Britain, mega-grocer Tesco has a variety of store models ("Extra," "Express," and "Metro" stores), from out-of-town superstores to corner shops and even gas station stores: would all-powerful Wegmans ever do the same?

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

Ten (Green) Things for Syracuse

2010-09-10T06:33:00.000-07:00

I brought my soap box into work this morning, so without further ado, here's my list of Ten (Green) Things I'd like to see for Syracuse. Forgive me if you've heard me grumble about some of these before, but I do go on, don't I ...

Walkable neighborhoods—My colleague Carissa Matthews walks to work, and this morning enjoyed chatting with school kids waiting for their bus and other neighbors she might not have bumped into in a car, one of whom was helped after she tripped on a broken sidewalk. Yes, walkable neighborhoods means fixing sidewalks, painting lines, making pedestrian crossings work, planting grass—not weed—verges.
Abandoned Office Building Law—Once an office building has been unoccupied for five years, a review must be held to determine whether it's allowed another five years on the market, or whether it qualifies as historic or significant, or whether it should be deconstructed. There are way too many abandoned office buildings in our downsized city, giving us a "rotting teeth" look.
Mini-Parks in abandoned lots—The mini-park on Warren Street is an excellent example of what can be done with an abandoned lot, whether short term or long. More mini-parks, less parking lots.
Environmentally friendly parking lots—But if Murbro or another parking company buys a lot, their contract must stipulate environmentally and aesthetically friendly features, such as rainwater capture and green infrastructure landscaping.
Plastic bag ban—I wrote about this in my last blog, and, amazingly, California voted down the ban. So, Syracuse, we could be a national leader if we ban the biggest symbol of our throw-away, oil-dependent culture/economy!
Municipal Composting & Recycling Centers—I've been longing for composting centers ever since I started traveling to Montreal, where large composting bins are all over the Outremont district, and close to garden allotments. In my home town of Brighton, England, glass/plastic/paper recycling centers (on street corners) have been commonplace since the late 1980s.
Pedestrian Zones—Another common feature in English and other European cities. Armory Square in particular could go completely pedestrian or allow buses and taxis only (as the main shopping street in Brighton—Western Road—does). This, of course, encourages a public transportation/walking/biking culture.
Return of Erie Blvd median to a naturalized state—I understand local green infrastructure experts are thinking of ways to return some areas of Syracuse to its naturalized (swampy) state, as a way to solve our storm/sewer issue. Erie Blvd east of the city is massively, stupidly wide (because it was a canal, then a railroad—much too wide for a road!) The median of this thoroughfare could be turned into a beautiful and useful pilot/demonstration project.
Parking rates that pay by the size of car—Economic incentives work. Until Australia-bound prison ships were paid by the inmate walking off the ship rather than onto it, death rates on those ships were as high as 50%. The economic incentive to treat prisoners well reduced it to 1%. So, stop people using F-350s and Suburbans as commuter cars and introduce "pay by the weight" (or by the class: sub-compact, compact, etc) parking in our city.
Tear down I-81—It will be a huge project and one that will cause plenty of inconvenience, but it will create jobs (the Obama Administration is thinking along these public works lines) and we already have the alternative north-south route in place (I-481). Let's git r done!

Got any (green) wish list items for Syracuse? If so, please e-mail them to me!

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

Whither Resilience?

2010-08-31T10:55:00.000-07:00

Two recent news stories—one from China and one from Chile—has made me think about the nature of resilience. The word has become a common term in sustainability circles, where it has roughly the same meaning as it does in psychology: the positive ability of people (or communities or human-made or natural systems) to withstand stress and catastrophe.

An example of a resilient human community might be New Orleans, which is showing resilience in the face of two disasters in five years: Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. It's still to be determined whether a related natural system—the Mississippi River Delta wetlands—having suffered for years from the slow catastrophe of human colonization, will have the resilience to bounce back from these recent disasters. However, the discovery of new species of oil-eating bacteria in the Gulf of Mexico may mean those waters have evolved resilience, thanks to the existence of large natural oil seeps.

So, resilience usually has positive connotations, and that's the kind of resilience I hope the 33 gold/copper ore miners in Chile exhibit. As of this writing, these men have been trapped in their collapsed mine for more than three weeks. Yet despite their almost hopeless plight—they'll have to survive for as many as three months before a bore large enough to rescue them can be drilled—they were incredibly upbeat (singing patriotic songs, no less) when a lowered camera enabled them to contact the outside world.

In fact, notes sent up by the miners—short and poetic, and in one case, asking for a sweetheart's hand in marriage—have captivated Chile and earned praise around the world for their expression of fortitude, hope, and brotherhood. To put it in colloquial terms, these miners are hard as nails.

On the other hand, we have the Chinese drivers who had to live through an ordeal that, although pale in comparison with the Chilean mine disaster, would bring most of us to our knees. The "Great Crawl of China" was a traffic jam that lasted for 11 days and was 60 miles long at its peak. There are photographs of the, um, "inmates" entertaining themselves playing cards, washing themselves down on the road, getting fed and watered by opportunistic vendors, and sleeping under trucks.

That's the problem with human resilience. As a species we have a remarkable ability to suffer slings and arrows. But when stress and catastrophe far exceed what other species or habitats can resist, that spells environmental trouble. After all, humans can survive low oxygen (Tibetans), extreme cold (Inuit), and extreme heat (Tuareg), environments that kill most species—we are extremophiles. The Chinese drivers were just applying that evolved resilience to a disastrous, disgusting, and dismal human-made environment.

This is worrying. It's often said that the majority of our population will only get the message on, say, the threat of global warning when disaster strikes home. But what if—like the clueless frog dropped in a pan of water being heated to a boil—we simply and slowly become resilient to the catastrophic world we are creating?

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

Electric Event

2010-08-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles (PHVs) were delivered to SyracuseCoE this morning. These are demonstration concept cars that drive about 13 miles on a full electric charge before switching over to the Prius' regular hybrid system. Out of 600 PHVs delivered worldwide, Syracuse has six, with Syracuse University, SyracuseCoE, and CuseCar taking possession of two cars each. Toyota is partnering with universities and other organizations in order to get real-world driving data with the hope of improving the PHVs for the mass market.

Syracuse is a great place to test the cars, of course. We have, um, "robust four-season weather," so if the Toyota engineers were wondering how the cars will charge up when the temperature is 20 below or how the system will fare with a temperature swing of 60 degrees in a day, they've come to the right place. Thanks to some excellent lobbying by Barry Carr of Clean Communities of CNY, Toyota also know that this city has been used as a test bed for all sorts of products over the years and that our city's green reputation is growing stronger each day.

It's easy to be cynical about technologies such as Plug-In Hybrids. To some, it might be seen as "too little too late," and the 13-mile driving charge simply too small to be effective. But think for a minute about your typical driving day. For me, during the week, it's a 16 mile door-to-door commute, and if staying at home on a weekend, it's chores in the village, a mile from my house. That is, the 13-mile charge will do very well for a typical week's driving.

In fact, the average commute distance for Americans is 16 miles. And that fact might be the key to what Toyota want to achieve with these concept PHVs. It'll be awfully difficult weaning Americans off the internal combustion engine, and one drawback to electric cars in the minds of many drivers (I heard this comment more than once at today's press conference) is the fear that losing charge in a car will leave the driver stranded.

To make a bridge for the consumer between gasoline engines and fully electric cars, the Toyota PHVs parked at SyracuseCoE not only have a charge that more or less matches the country's average commute distance, they have an easy-to-use system that allows the car to be plugged into a regular 125 volt outlet (for a slow charge) as well as a 240 volt outlet (like the outlet that runs your clothes dryer, for a quick charge).

Where electric cars should get to, as I wrote in an earlier post, is an exchangeable, generic battery system and a national network of battery changing stations, ideally using locally produced energy to charge banks of batteries. We may get there some day, but for now, Toyota should be given points for developing a car that helps pave the way.

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

Fit to Print?

2010-08-03T11:44:00.000-07:00

Is the survival of the "serious news business" a sustainability issue? By serious news business, I mean the kind of in-depth, worldwide reporting outfit once taken for granted but that is now—in the US especially—an endangered species. In print especially: the New York Times and Washington Post are moribund, both having slashed their staffs and bureaus. Once-indispensible Newsweek was recently unload for one Yankee dollar.

On TV, the situation is in some ways more dire. A short while ago, my brother was visiting from England and wanted to watch "the news." It was 8:30 pm, and there was no news to be had. On every "news channel"—MSNBC, CNN, Fox, and even CNN Headline News—there was a talking head, the TV equivalent of the bloviating news blogger, with entertainment gossip or sports scores scrolling across the bottom of the screen.

TV news as it is consumed in England doesn't really exist in the US anymore. There is no 24 hour reportage of world events on American TV, no equivalent of BBC24 or, dare I say, Al Jazeera. America's 24-hour news outfits tend to focus on just a few "sexy" domestic political events, which sooner or later are turned into a horse-race-for-the-presidency story. The traditional 6:30 pm newscasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC are so obviously skewed to an aging audience that if I can't stand to watch them, why would a 21-year-old!

I suggested my brother go online—to the huffingtonpost, for instance—but there again, the narratives drive toward comment, not in-depth reporting, and gossip, not hard news. There are bright spots: NPR is a growing concern and does a decent job of worldwide news gathering and investigation with its limited resources and somewhat limiting medium. And let's not forget how American filmmakers have revived both the arts of documentary making and muckraking, led by the indomitable Michael Moore!

Many social, political, and cultural movements suffer from the parallel downward spirals of shrinking news bureaus, increasingly soft-edged reporters, marginalization of investigative reporters (did I mention Michael Moore), proliferation of partisan commentators, and infotainment. But consider how deleterious this death spiral is to the national conversations that surround the Four Pillars of Sustainability, serious conversations that can only take place with serious amounts of research and reporting ...

• Ecological Sustainability—Climate Change is real, is happening, and needs solutions, although the climate change story that gained the most traction recently was the one about UEA climate scientists' supposedly damning internal e-mails.

• Social Sustainability—The media has always played a crucial role as watchdog to monitor the progress of human rights, labor rights, and corporate governance, but how well is it doing when it comes to the national conversation about US immigration reform?

• Economic Sustainability—The sub-prime mortgage disaster was also a disaster for the media. They got to the story after the fact, and, thanks to news units' financial wings, actually contributed to the mess.

• Cultural Sustainability—The genius of the First Amendment of the US Constitution was that it deliberately recognized the growing power of the media and found a place for it within a democratic republic. Thus the media became a vital part of American culture, both political and social—but what happens now that the media is devolving back into partisan soapboxes, entertainment rags, and sports pages?

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

How Bizarre Would You Be?

2010-07-20T11:21:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite TV shows is Bizarre Foods with chef and writer Andrew Zimmern. He's smart and funny and truly adventurous when it comes to trying out local cuisine. Street food, bush tucker, state fair deep fried anything ... he'll try it all, and I believe he's only thrown up on camera once!

Zimmern's show of course is an exercise in sustainable eating and localism, and the title of his show somewhat ironic. After all, the foods that seem bizarre to Americans are simply "food" to other cultures. Of course, there are some truly strange victuals out there. I stopped watching once after Zimmern was offered a glass of sake with a beating frog's heart in it—but in this case he was at a Japanese restaurant famous for concocting weird edibles as tests of resilience and strength, a holdover from Samurai culture.

Mostly Zimmern spends his time eating head cheese, blood sausage, chitterlings, knuckle, tongue, sweetbread, etc—reminding us of a time when it was quite common to eat every last part of an animal in one sausage form or soup other. The show is also a reminder of just how narrow the modern factory farmed and processed American diet has become, to the point at which lamb or liver or hocks are as bizarre as most folks will ever get.

Growing up in England, with parents and grandparents who went through WWII (and in one case WWI), my diet still contained elements of more sustainable times, as well as times of hardship. We sometimes ate inexpensive and nutritious foods such as liver, tongue, haslet, blood puddings, pilchards, and suet—the last two are considered in this country things to feed cats or birds! If we had a beef roast on Sunday, then for evening tea we would eat drippings on toast—the beef fat cooled and congealed to a spread.

I often think of sustainable living in terms of "what era do we need to go back to?" In the case of diet—to use our food resources more frugally and to add more variety and localism—we'd need to travel back to at least 1940, the age before Kraft cheese, margarine, and Jello!

But I wonder if folks have the stomach for this? Well, how about a test?! At Wegmans in Fairmount, NY, you can go to the international foods aisle and purchase a classic British "throwback" food from the turn of the last century: Marmite. It's a sticky, brown, salty spread made from the yeast sludge left over from beer brewing. Deelish! Buy a jar and spread it on toast—if you pass the Marmite test, you'll have the stomach for other "bizarre foods!"

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

Renewable Energy Alchemy

2010-07-15T08:16:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you about the wonderful opportunity I had recently, where I spent the day with the SUNY Oswego Energy Institute. This past Tuesday, students in the summer Energy Institute took part in an engaging, day-long training at the Renewable Energy Training Center at SUNY Morrisville.

Fifteen students attended the training which began with an overview of the facility and the various training programs offered. The attendees spent the morning exploring fundamentals of wood gasification and then created their own wood gasification “stove”. Here’s an example on YouTube that is similar.

The afternoon was spent gaining exposure to the RETC’s small anaerobic digester, producing methane currently from a couple of apples that have been digesting for several months. We then took a short field trip to a more macro-example in the form of the large scale anaerobic digester linked to a 270 head dairy operation producing energy from the digestion of the dairy waste stream.

It was a very instructive day for the Energy Institute students, and led to considerable discussion on the ride home for the practicalities, and possibilities of other renewable energy projects.

Thanks much to Ben Ballard for the opportunity to see all that the RETC has to offer!

-Thad Mantaro, SUNY Oswego

All Hail BP!

2010-07-07T10:06:00.000-07:00

It occurs to me that mega-corpoations such as BP act like arrogant, bullying, empire-building nation states of yore because, well, they have grown so large—in terms of wealth and assets—that they are now analogues of nation states. One example of their wealth: Exxon's annual profit in 2006 was $39.5 billion, the equivalent of Ghana's GDP. It's "much reduced" $19.3 billion profit in 2009 is at the level Macedonia's GDP.

I'd go further to say we may be entering a phase in which certain corporations—most obviously banks and oil companies—will dominate even supposedly powerful real nations, dictating domestic and foreign policy beyond the specific areas of finances and energy.

There's nothing new in the corporate control of nations: Britain (arrogantly, bullishly) outsourced its empire building to the British East India Company. In modern times, oil companies have become quite used to the de facto control of territory, as the inhabitants of the Niger Delta have discovered. What's new in the case of BP is that the arrogance and bullying has clearly infiltrated the so-called First World: America, in other words, is experiencing what the Niger Delta, the Persian Gulf, and countless so-called Developing Nations have experienced: oil spills, environmental degradation, human displacement, compliant (or just plain scared) governments. The acceptable risks of the oil business.

Where will this end? A dystopian outcome might be war—the point when oil resources become so low and sought-after that real nations and oil companies begin to fight each other for them‚the oil companies employing mercenary armies they have gotten to know in recent wars, I imagine. The commerce-driven Opium Wars between Britain (dba the British East India Company) and China might be a template for this sort of conflict.

Too fanciful, I think. More likely is what already seems to be happening to BP. Older nation states often pulled themselves apart and went bankrupt when their arrogance and bullying—and empire building—created unsustainable financial situations—taxes that led to riots, ill-conceived alliances that led to more conflict (World War I), and so on.

BP may already be at this stage. One shocking part of the whole Gulf of Mexico oil spill for me is not just that BP had a poorly conceived clean-up and containment plan for the spill, it's that by not having one, they put the company at risk. In other words, BP is on the verge of bankruptcy. These mega-corporations--like Britain's King John—might just stupid themselves into irrelevance!

Citizens Academy Roadshow

2010-07-06T06:55:00.000-07:00

In September, the SUNY Oswego Office of Business and Community Relations will partner with Beaver Lake Nature Center to offer a citizens academy on sustainability at Beaver Lake Nature Center.

A citizens academy is an interactive educational program that helps citizens learn what they can do to sustain a healthy, eco-friendly community. Weekly topics will include ecological principles, water and energy efficiency, sustainable food and buying and sustainable communities.

Meetings will run 11 a.m. to noon, Wednesdays from September 29th through November 10at Beaver Lake Nature Center. There is an all inclusive $10 fee for the discussion style class and materials, and the program is underwritten by SUNY Oswego.

We are very excited to offer the Citizens Academy in partnership with Beaver Lake Nature Center and we’re also very excited to have two a program graduates, Linda Costello and Mary Fran Yafchak, lead the program. Linda and Mary Fran completed the course together in the first Citizen's Academy in 2009. They found that experience to be motivating as well as informative and are eager to expand the discussion. Linda, in particular, has over twenty years environmental experience. This experience includes being a trained Habitat Steward, and teaching zoo camp at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo.

Those who complete the program will receive a certificate of participation and information on how to become engaged with local sustainability activities. Participants must preregister by calling Beaver Lake at 315.638.2519.

The Skinny on Sustainability

2010-06-23T10:04:00.000-07:00

This blog was inspired--if I can use that word in this case--by an observation I made yesterday as I was driving to work: the first five people I saw in downtown Syracuse (walking, it has to be said) were obese. A coincidence, surely, although one that has greater odds of occurring now that obesity has become an epidemic in the US. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 32 states have an obesity prevalence of more than 25% of the population. Obesity is defined by the CDC as a Body Mass Index of 30 or greater.

Obesity is a real and present health crisis. But is it, I wondered, a sustainability issue? Actually, the CDC seems to think so, judging by the introduction to its website section devoted to the issue: "American society has become 'obesogenic,' characterized by environments that promote increased food intake, nonhealthful foods, and physical inactivity. Policy and environmental change initiatives that make healthy choices in nutrition and physical activity available, affordable, and easy will likely prove most effective in combating obesity."

The key sustainability phrases of this statement in order:

Increased food intake—Eating too much is by no means the only cause of obesity, although the culture of super-sizing certainly contributes to the epidemic. Super-sizing meets sustainability head-on when it's not just food portions, but vehicles (SUVs), houses (McMansions), and other necessities that have grown out of proportion to our true needs. Behavior, policy, and culture must change if we are to "reduce" and well as "reuse and recycle."
Nonhealthful foods—"Food cues" are everywhere in our culture, and what's advertised is usually some delicious combination of sugar, fat, and salt. Processed food, in other words. The sustainable trends of localism and slow food directly confront the processed food industry, as does the re-emergence of vegetable gardening, or should I say "domestic terraforming!"
Physical inactivity—We drive too much, we are too sedentary at work, we live in neighborhoods without sidewalks or bike lanes: at the heart of smart growth and LEED-Neighborhood Development initiatives is the premise that a walkable/bikeable neighborhood is also a healthy neighborhood.
Policy and environmental change initiatives—The keys to wholesale sustainability, although the fate of one example policy initiative in New York State shows how difficult they can be to implement. Remember the Expanded Bottle Bill? This win (health)/win (litter)/win (money for state coffers) bill took seven years of acrimonious effort to implement—so good luck with the soda tax, Gov. Paterson!

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

Earth Is in the Balance—Someone Tell Jeep!

2010-06-10T11:32:00.000-07:00

With the Gulf of Mexico disaster as an oily backdrop, Chrysler have re-launched themselves by offering the public an exciting new model.

No, it's not an electric car or a super-fuel-efficient compact—it's the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee, the granddaddy of SUVs. Well done Chrysler for meeting our energy and transportation crisis in a head-on collision with a vehicle that gets 20 mpg on the highway!

Still, Chrysler could design all the electric cars in the world and it would mean nothing without robust government policy intervention. After all, the rise and rise of the gasoline powered internal combustion engine was made possibly by the government standardization of gasoline, as well as other policies that made possible our vast network of cookie-cutter gas stations.

Just think of the situation if, after a Sunday drive in your brand new 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee, you had to search for a Chrysler-only gas station (or a Ford-only diesel station or Subaru-only ethanol station). But until we have a standard for batteries and a network of battery stations (that frankly could become a new line of business for existing gas stations), electric cars will remain a novelty. (This is not to mention the need to have a power and grid network that could handle millions of batteries needing a re-charge.)

The point is that the driver of an electric car, when his or her standard Lithium Ion or whatever battery is dying, should be able to swing into a "gas" station and switch out a battery as easily as filling up a gas tank, knowing that the battery is made to a standard that will work in any car.

The extent of the government regulation needed--in the service of competition, mind (nobody argues about the stifling hand of government when it comes to gasoline standards and regulations)--might seem overwhelming. However, there are signs that sweeping sustainable regulations are taking hold in Europe: check out this link to read about Copenhagen's new green roof policy.

--Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

Local food is good food

2010-06-08T08:07:00.000-07:00

I’m currently reading a book titled The Town that Food Saved. The jacket liner describes the it as: “Lively, funny and candid, The Town that Food Saved tells the fascinating story of an unassuming community and its extraordinary determination to build a vibrant local food system unlike anything in America.”

In the early pages the author explores the transition of Hardwick, Vermont from a manufacturing economy to a new food economy based upon several different boutique enterprises: artisanal cheese, tofu production, yogurt, a seed company, composting, and apiaries. What caught my attention, on page 70 was his exposition on how much of the products from the above companies leave the local economy for sale in the more upscale economies of Boston, New York City and San Francisco. The author, Ben Hewitt, poses a question that had lurked in the background of his consciousness, which is: If local boutique food producers are actually concerned with local production, shouldn’t they be creating a product that local buyers can and will (can afford to) buy?

On a local scale in and around Oswego County I’m wondering the same thing. As we imagine the transition that may occur with the decline of peak petroleum to a more local food economy, I’m wondering are there similar ventures? The answer is “yes.”

Over the last several months I’ve researched local producers as a means of informing discussion in the SUNY Oswego Citizens Academy. I’ve visited two local farms—Grindstone Farm, and Happy Hooves Organic Farm. Both of these farms sell their own product to consumers locally, which increasingly local consumers choose and are able to afford. I’m hoping that over time we will see more businesses, not only producing products locally, but that are of course serving local consumers.

Let me introduce you to the two I mention above:
Grindstone Farm, with“…over 25 years of rich experience in growing a wide range of high quality, certified organic fruits, vegetables, and other organic items, … has become a well-known leader in Central New York. Providing a full line of produce, sometimes more than 120 varieties, you'll find everything from A (asparagus and arugula) to Z (zucchini and zinnia).”

Happy Hooves Organic Farm focuses on meat production including beef, pork, venison and chickens. Their website states: “We… have pastured pork, free range turkeys, free range chicken eggs, farm-raised venison, and home grown horseradish and rhubarb for tasty condiment sauces for those delicious meats and sides. Everything we do here is organic and as much space and free range is allowed our animals as permitted for their own safety. This gives you the maximum health benefits from your food that you can find.”

Next time you are considering buying organic, consider buying local if possible. More information about these two producers can be found on their websites at: http://www.grindstonefarm.com/ and http://www.betterbeef4u.com/ .

-Thad Mantaro, SUNY Oswego

More T's, less A/C!

2010-05-26T10:25:00.000-07:00

Lowering this country's energy bill and making buildings—especially office buildings—more sustainable will require a host of technological innovations, from smart meters to energy efficient lighting to onsite renewable energy production. But it will also require changes in human behavior, work rules, and company policies.

Take dress codes, for instance. Modern energy efficient buildings call for the installation of energy efficient air conditioners that can talk to other building systems, such as occupancy sensors and air quality sensors that allow for windows to be opened. But how many companies occupying these buildings are scrapping stuffy business attire and allowing workers to dress comfortably and appropriately for the climate or season—while maintaining a professional level of, um, couture.

It's 90 degrees in Syracuse today (yay!) and, because the staff is in a fairly relaxed mode, some of us have come to work dressed for the weather, both outside (where the heat island effect in downtown Syracuse makes it pretty steamy) and inside (so we don't have to crank up the a/c).

Sure, T-shirts and flip-flops may be too casual for most business, but on the other hand, do men really have to dress in a suit and tie (or women in hosiery) on very hot days?

My colleague Ana Fernandez comes from Puerto Rico. I asked about dress codes in offices there, and she mentioned that her father had a formal job at a water department but that he "refused to wear a suit" in such a tropical climate. Instead he wore guayabera, an elegant, customary shirt that is a sensible choice for hot weather. Ana noted that in Puerto Rican offices where suits are mandatory for men and women, air conditioning works overtime to keep people comfortable.

There's even been research on this subject. World-class indoor environmental quality scientist Shin-Ichi Tanabe —who spoke at Healthy Buildings 2009 in Syracuse—is an expert on dress codes and climate settings in office buildings, especially in Japan where business culture encourages people to dress formally. His recommendation? Relax dress codes and save on energy!

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

For the want of a nail...

2010-05-26T06:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend a meeting sponsored by SUNY Oswego’s RSVP program on Bee Keeping. The presentation was conducted by two former staff members of SUNY Oswego, who in their retirement have turned to Bee Keeping as both a hobby and an educational endeavor. Although I thought I knew a bit about bees, the program was exceptionally informative and consistent with the permaculture thread I said that I would pursue in the next few installments of this blog.

Consider for example, the following: could anyone build a bee, let alone program thousands to act in harmony as a hive? These small creatures, like other social insects, live incredibly complex lives, with both genetically determined and socially prescribed roles. Through some mystery (pheromones?) they communicate complex information with each other, leading to the sustained, collaborative production of honey, their brood, and the perpetuation of their colony.

Without bees and other pollinators, many plants would be unable to reproduce. The “miracle” of agribusiness and large scale crop production would cease. No amount of GMOs, or mechanization can replace this small, but fundamental role:

Honeybees are predominantly responsible for the pollination (and thus reproduction) of nearly 100 commonly consumed crops — roughly one-third of the U.S.’ agricultural production. Honeybees pollinate all the heart-healthy and cancer-preventing foods that the USDA, physicians and our health-conscious friends have finally convinced us to eat and love.

‘The USDA recognizes that the honeybee is the backbone of America’s agricultural system,’ explains Gloria Degrandi-Hoffman, a leading bee researcher for the USDA.

Honeybees pollinate crops like almonds, berries, apples, cantaloupe and cucumbers. Oh yeah, and honeybees make honey!” (from http://blog.gaiam.com/blog/help-keep-the-bees-a-buzz/)

While pollination occurs for many farms only during the bloom of plants, at organic farms apiaries are often set up long term to be part of the gestalt of the enterprise—i.e. permaculture. However, in recent years nearly one third of hives have been hit by a mysterious disruption called Colony Collapse Disorder. For some reason, the worker bees leave the colony abandoning their queen, brood and food, never to return. The bees simply disappear without apparent cause, although a variety of stressors are indicated.

Last night, I had the chance finally to watch a film I’ve been waiting-dreading to see—Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”. In this post-apocalyptic landscape, a father struggles to save his son as they trek through a nightmarish gauntlet of cannibalism, ecological destruction and the total collapse of civil society. There’s no food, nothing grows. A fine silt of ash covers everything, and at each turn one successive horror after another threatens to overtake them.

The book the film was based on has been declared by some reviewers as "the most important environmental book ever." I’m hopeful that post-decline of Peak Oil, our civil institutions and progressive ideas like permaculture will help bridge the terror this film conjures. I remain optimistic that we will seek and find solutions that will allow us to live harmoniously, like bees, each with an interconnected sustainable role.

Earth Is in the Balance—Someone Tell Lexmark!

2010-05-17T08:31:00.000-07:00

You'd think that after contributing to the downfall of the American car industry, planned obsolescence as a design, engineering, and business strategy would be dead, but Lexmark—manufacturers of printers and desktop copiers—seem to be happily placing bets on this incredibly unsustainable idea.

Once upon a time, American car manufacturers thought it was an excellence notion to introduce a new model every year, so that customers would feel compelled to keep up with the Joneses and crave ever larger tail fins.

Planned obsolescence as a marketing strategy eventually was backed up with planned obsolescence as an engineering strategy. Who needs a car to last more than a few years when its body design will be outdated come August? American cars became notoriously unreliable (sabotage by disgruntled employees didn't help). When the likes of Subaru came along, selling reliable models year-in-year out with one basic body design, evolution took over. I had a friend in grad school who put 400,000 miles on his Subaru wagon.

To marketing and engineering obsolescence, add software obsolescence. Take my Lexmark desktop printer. Please. I hooked it up to my new Macintosh the other day and realized I needed to download the driver. The Mac didn't have one for my model. There didn't seem to be one at Lexmark.com. A phone call to the help desk revealed that my printer—functioning normally as it has done for about four years—is too out-dated to warrant a new driver for Mac OS 10.6.

Planned obsolescence and sustainability are obviously anathema. Luckily, my Lexmark was saved from becoming e-waste because we'd given my old computer to my son, and the driver still lives on that computer. But planned obsolescence will only become obsolete if consumers punish companies such as Lexmark for using this strategy. I'll be looking to another company for my next printer, and will definitely ask about their reliability, software updates, and recycling policies.

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

Paradise Lost

2010-05-07T13:18:00.000-07:00

The more exposure I gain to it, the more I’ve started to think that Permaculture has an image problem. It seems the brand suffers from an unclear message among possible adherents, leaving all but the early adopters (to borrow from Malcolm Gladwell) convinced that only those willing to allow their yards to become overgrown compost heaps, or purchase hemp clothing can join the priesthood. When I think permaculture—and I apologize for my shallowness—I think Old Testament, five foot long beards, the Twits (visuals only), and “Brother’s Keeper” the documentary (again visual context only). See this video for a comparison view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl8HGJpjbN0&feature=channel. The message is ok-good, but the messenger needs a shave.

I know…I’m crass, and subject to first impressions, and probably am hypnotized by agribusiness. (Anyone got a Dorito?) I’m also immature enough to think that it’s remarkable someone hasn’t already done the “Spinal Tap” version of permaculture—or “Permaculture--the reality show”. See this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u75q3KaZGy4&feature=related. Can’t you just see Christopher Guest doing this guy?

But the truth is there is much sense in what he’s going on about, and if you’ll allow me to draw it, the link between peak oil and adaptations that human populations will need to make is a remarkable elephant in the living room that almost no one is addressing. I don’t know about you, but I’m scared to death that one day I will wake up and “the revolution will not [have] be(en) televised”—no countdown to zero oil, no alternative fuel vehicle fleet, no Gaia. With a slate of apocalyptic movies recently—“The Road,” “The Valley of Eli,” even “Zombieland”—a construction or near celebration of the dystopian has occurred, and this reflects an arguably collective unconscious concern with uncontrollable change.

Permaculture offers a pleasant, if somewhat gushing, alternative with a utopian vision of humans in balance with nature. But wherever I turn, I see and hear new age, sing-song, Kumbaya-loving versions of it. After taking a few books out of the library (including the definitive—“Permaculture: a designer’s manual”, reading online, and watching various media, I’m still not sure what it means. One guy says permaculture is about “relationship,” another “earth care, people care, fair share”…I’m not sure how I’d explain it to either my seventy year old father, or my twelve year old niece. I’ve heard it referred to as ecological gardening, and one of the most interesting, mind-blowing examples of its practical application can be found at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sohI6vnWZmk

But what I’m hoping to discover as I begin to read more, and try to educate myself more, is can permaculture be a sustainable solution to agribusiness? Can it stave off starvation for 7 billion people when the oil is all gone? Is it landscape architecture, design ecology, an “informal institution of social ideals”…?

And does it “…go better with Coke”?

Thad Mantaro--SUNY Oswego

(Part one in a series of three).

On Yer Bike!

2010-05-07T10:09:00.000-07:00

A six-month survey of Syracuse streets has been launched by AARP and F.O.C.U.S. Greater Syracuse. It's aim is to tally the amount of "complete streets" in our city. A "complete street" has safe access for cars, pedestrians (sidewalks), and bicyclists (bike lanes).

Cyclists should be especially happy if the survey results in more/better bicycle lanes. Not many people cycle around this city, but there may be a chicken-and-egg situation behind this—at present, cycling around Syracuse and its near suburbs can be a dangerous and unpleasant experience.

I used to cycle to work occasionally when I live in Solvay and worked in Armory Square. On a nice Friday, when I could dress down and didn't have to worry about messing up work clothes, I'd bike down Milton Ave, then Erie Blvd, then Fayette and into work. The trip took about 40 minutes and was mostly flat expect for a few spots in Solvay—not a bad way to go to work, all things considered. (Although no radio on the bike, so no All Things Considered on the way home!)

BUT ... no bike lanes, so cars either did not share the road fairly, or worse, they simply did not know how to act around a bike. Sometimes a driver thought he or she shouldn't overtake me and instead would drive at my pace behind me till I stopped and "let them pass!" Plus, the roads and sidewalks were often in poor shape, making for a bone-shaking ride, and you were always in danger of a puncture—especially on Fayette in the Near Westside—because of the amazing amount of glass in the gutter!

Yes, more bike lanes might encourage folks to cycle around this town, which, at least off the SU hill, is flat enough that cycling could be an option. (Plus we have some great bike stores in town, including the newly opened Mello Velo!)

But at the same time, there'll need to be a shift in attitude by drivers, many of whom are never taught how to act around cyclists or have very little experience driving near them. In England, driving tests are very strict and lessons are a must, and I remember having to negotiate around cyclists constantly with my instructor patiently teaching me how to do it. Besides, I was a cyclist back then, so felt more inclined to share the road. On the other hand, in Amsterdam, where many folks cycle, it's the cars that have to watch out for the crazy cyclists!

So, bicycle lanes are a start, but driver awareness and education about sharing the road with bikes (and pedestrians) is a must—and, oh, regular street cleaning to mop up glass and nails and other gutter junk would be great too!

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

Trash Pickers Unite!

2010-04-22T07:53:00.000-07:00

Happy Earth Day! This morning, staff at Syracuse Center of Excellence celebrated by cleaning up the trash around our perimeter, the Almond/Water/Washington/Forman streets block in downtown Syracuse.

Our neighborhood is, in terms of infrastructure, urban planning, and landscaping, pretty ugly. The sidewalks have been cracked by years of ice and snow removal, dandelions appear to have won their battle with grass on what verges are still green, and trash—a modern human response to an ugly environment—was everywhere.

We—Carissa Matthews, Aimee Clinkhammer, Stacy Bunce, and Elysa Smigielski, and myself—picked up around 15 pounds of trash from the curbs, our perimeter fence, our parking lot, and the "grass" verges. The items we picked up offer both an instant archeological record of our society and evidence that there are a few industries and companies who are responsible for the lion's share of the unrecyclable materials that become trash. Pressure should be put on them to change their ways, just as pressure was put on the tobacco industry when society decided it had had enough of smoking.

Cigarette butts were everywhere, actually, in various slow stages of decomposition, most abundant at intersections where smokers casually toss them out of cars. That the smoking industry has yet to offer a compostable filter is amazing. They've only had 85 years; the filter was invented (using sustainable materials, in fact) in 1925.
Fast food wrappers, and especially plastic straws and plastic cup lids, were common. The fast food industry must be persuaded—by a combination of legislation and demand—to offer these items in recyclable form: compostable plastic lids and paper straws, for instance.
Small (quarter size) pieces of styrofoam—mostly packaging material, on its way to breaking down and down and down until it enters the soil and water as undissolvable pieces too small to see. Styrofoam as a material of "throwaway items" such as cups and packaging ought to be banned.
Candy wrappers—the candy industry needs to assess the ecological costs of using plastic wrappers when alternatives exist. Again, a combination of top down (legislation) and bottom up (consumer demand) tactics should be used on Mars, Nestle, and the industry's other behemoths, who both create trash and contribute to the public health crisis of obesity.

We sent two bags to the recycling bins—paper/cardboard and bottles/metal—and sent the rest to the landfill. Here's hoping there's less work for us to do on Earth Day 2011.

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

Not all who wander are lost

2010-04-19T07:36:00.000-07:00

As I become increasingly known in some circles as the “sustainability guy” I’ve had a number of people forward to me interesting articles. Recently, someone sent to me several lovely pieces on pollinators, and another on seeking quantifiable means to measure a manufacturer’s overall sustainability “index”. These are really germane concerns, and from the lowly honeybee to the global chemical manufacturer, span the complexity of the solutions we must generate.

I’ve been sticking with my effort to ride my bike to work, and barring rain, or other commitments (today I drove because at lunch I need to lug an ailing appliance to the repair shop=sustainability), have been very faithful to this practice. I feel better, and enjoy the breeze on my face in the mornings, and most of all it adds a peaceful time to my day. I arrive at work invigorated and less stressed.

Recently, however, (my ego smarting) my wife told me that my practice made me look like I’d“just had my third DWI, had lost my license and looked like an inebriate, derelict.” I mistakenly posted this to facebook (hoping for some spousal reckoning and validation), and remarkably (OK, not remarkably—I know the kinds of friends I have) many of my friends jumped on the bandwagon adding insult to injury with varied and scathing raspberries. Only one of such friends, commented encouragingly, and he remarked that in Albany how nearly 30% of his coworkers ride to work.

Joking aside, it made me reflect how important regional variations are in the success of sustainability practices. In other places there appears to be a more broad appreciation of the environment, with a more clearly galvanized core population of advocates. I have a hard time imagining how discourse around biking lanes would be received in the Oswego community (regional weather challenges aside), and how many takers there would really be. (But perhaps, “if we build it, they would come”…who knows?!).

Now, I don’t want to make more of my friends’ playful derision than is justified, but I think this minor example does speak to the nature of public education efforts around sustainability. If my wife (who really does “get it”) finds my riding a bike to work reminds her more of miscreants and violators of drunk driving laws than to create an mental image of a healthy and sustainabile lifestyle, than imagine how many challenges lie ahead as we try to transition to a more sustainable community. Can't wait to tell her about my plans for a composting toilet....

Catch the Litter Bug

2010-04-12T08:41:00.000-07:00

Two recent letters to the Syracuse Post-Standard inspired me to write about littering, especially since my colleagues and I are planning to do something about the trash around the Syracuse Center of Excellence's perimeter fence on April 22, aka Earth Day.

The letters express dismay and disgust at the amount of litter around Syracuse. Of course, one culprit is spring—that is, as soon as the snow banks melt you get to see what's hidden beneath the carpet, so speak. Earth Day clean-ups are a chance for all of us to spring clean our neighborhoods and communities.

One letter attempts to empathize with the litterers, but "Who they are, or why they litter, I don't completely understand." I originally was going to ask the question in the blog, "Is picking up litter a sustainable practice?" A pretty basic hypothesis, I admit, but I wanted to ask essentially the same question as Mary Armstrong of Cazenovia: "Why do people litter?" So, for my benefit and Mary's, some possible answers ...

Litterers are unaware of the lifecycle of materials and how toxic some are—which is why we all need to educate ourselves about what materials go into products and how/if they breakdown if not properly disposed of. Plastic bags are a great example of a common throwaway item that has a very troubling lifecycle beyond its immediate use.
Litterers are unable to find proper places for trash or enough bins—Lack of trash cans is a perennial problem for many towns, especially a cash-strapped one such as Syracuse. And municipal recycling bins are even harder to find. However, tossing trash out of a car window is a pretty lazy option when one of those plastic bags could be used in a car to collect cigarette packets and burger wrappers.
Disrespect for environment or community—I think Syracuse's historically poor urban planning has lead to a certain amount of disrespect for the environment that leads to excessive littering. Beautification, green space, and smart growth, should have the effect of reducing littering as a form of civil disobedience!
Overwhelmed by trash (packaging)—Packaging is excessive these days and being overwhelmed by lots of fiddly bits of plastic—think of all the stuff that encases and protects something as common as an ibuprofen bottle—doesn't help matters. Reduced packaging means less litter. Packaging that can be be easily recycled or that naturally breaks down means less litter.
Other people will clean it up—At great expense to our community, which is the subject of the other Post-Standard litter letter, by Alicia Murray of East Syracuse. A public education campaign might help explain to folks that sales/property taxes are affected by littering when the somebody picking up the trash is a city worker.

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

Cooking (without) gasoline

2010-04-02T13:05:00.000-07:00

I made a spring resolution this week, and as I live in close proximity to work have decided that I will try to ride to work whenever it’s feasible. This week, I’ve pedaled my way to campus every day except for one day when I had to attend an activity in Fulton at the start of the work day. This process has meant I’m now rifling through biking websites searching for new tires, a bottom bracket wrench, fenders for the rainy days, flash flag, rear view mirror, and a bike rack. Additionally, I have plans a la “instructables.com” to build my own panniers and a bike rack box so that I can start cycling to the grocery store and on other local trips.

The upshot was that today, as I was working on a plan to conduct a sustainability experiment at work, you would find me cycling to work with a five gallon contractors bucket, a automotive sun shade, thermometer, non-stick pans, eggs and milk in a coffee thermos, and a box of Jiffy brand corn muffin mix straddled against my handlebars. Today, I decided, was Solar Cooker day, and utilizing a model found on the internet (http://solarcooking.org/plans/windshield-cooker.htm) I attempted to cook corn muffin mix at work, with only a few handy home items and some reliance on the sun.

I decided I would make something simple like corn muffin mix in a pan rather than try individual muffins. I mixed the corn muffin mix in our staff lunch room, put it in a pan, and placed it in the cooker. For the next 2.5 hours, I watched as the temp climbed at one point to a max of around 200 degrees at 2:30 pm, and then held steady around 175 the rest of the time. As you can see I would consider it a moderate success; the muffin mix started to bake, and next time with a slightly more reflective shade, I think the muffins will completely cook.

The purpose, for me, and for others for this experiment was to underscore how with simple technology those that live in less developed conditions could use the sun cooker to cook their food. This frees them from searching for fuel, and being exposed to the harmful smoke from the fires. In Haiti, and other places suffering from natural disasters people can cook, and have safe drinking water with little need for fuel to burn. Overall, we can have less reliance on cooking fuels like gas and electricity.

-Thad Mantaro, SUNY Oswego

Some Good (Green) Ideas!

2010-03-30T11:52:00.000-07:00

My colleague Carissa Matthews and I manned (and womanned) the Syracuse Center of Excellence Booth at the Syracuse Chamber Show last week. We were in the Green Business section, along with NY's Creative Core, The Clean Tech Center, and many others.

We had the SyracuseCoE "Green Ideas Tree" up and encouraged anyone who stopped by to "leaf" a green idea for Syracuse, in exchange for a squishy Creative Core apple. Young and old alike left us some pretty good ideas, and the tree—appropriately enough seeing as it's spring—got well covered in "leaves."

Here's a few of the ideas posted on the tree ...

Establish a "sustainability cooperative" for local businesses, to explore sustainable innovations such as green supply chains, community purchasing, etc
Walk to your neighborhood store, don't drive
Grow vegetables on city roofs
Have bicycle rentals in downtown Syracuse
Less buildings falling apart, more parks
Biodegradable plastic bags for supermarkets
Plant more trees around Onondaga Lake
Put recycling bins on every street corner
Reclaim rain water

Given Central Upstate New York's history of environmental and engineering innovation, it's not surprising to find folks rising to the challenge of the new industrial revolution. Don't forget, if you know of a "hidden" green business, entrepreneur/inventor, or school/college group, enter them (and/or yourself) in the Green of the Crop competition (deadline: April 9, 2010).

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

They blinded me with science!

2010-03-19T06:56:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity yesterday to talk with some very exciting environmentalists—a group of middle school students who were taking part in the 8th Annual Environmental Challenge at SUNY ESF. According to the organizers, something like 600 students from the Syracuse City School District participated and over 140 community members volunteered to help judge the exhibits. I was proud to serve among the latter, reviewing the various exhibits containing myriad hypotheses and scientific experiments, some fun (like the student who wanted to know if house plants could survive in a world without people), many focused on solutions.

It was extraordinary to me, to see so many students cranked about science. I thought in a world of facebook and Miley Cyrus, that somehow science would be déclassé. I was wrong. Dead wrong. Maybe it’s just middle school hormones, but they were on fire for their projects. Some of the exhibits had a clear environmental focus; others less so. One young man was trying to see if he could render a magnetic field apparent with simple home objects, another tried and managed to magnetize a nail. Two young women created an experiment to see if they could determine which antacid had the greatest palliative power (note to self: the generic brand does not work better—you apparently get what you pay for), and another pair created a unique experiment to see which home objects could best help purify water (a t-shirt works pretty good, better than a coffee filter, on a certain range of indicators). Finally another pair of young men tested to see which sled (foam or plastic) met the need for speed. Turns out…foam’s the ticket.

With so much buzz, and so many engaged students, it was to me a stellar example of what we are hoping education, and co-curricular offerings can provide as we seek to develop scientists and problem solvers equipped to meet and address 21st century challenges. The most remarkable thing to me was the capacity for young people to understand and implement experiments utilizing the scientific method. Kudos to all the Science Teachers mentoring these students! The joy and commitment the students evinced was moving, and as I considered the future for my young daughter, I thought positively of working on similar science projects with her as she grows to explore her world.

Sustaining Happiness

2010-03-18T06:37:00.000-07:00

The recent national, as-objective-as-they-could-probably-get survey of happiness wasn't good reading for New Yorkers. Downright depressing, actually. The list of happiest states, originally published in Science in December 2009, has New York dead last. Louisiana, Hawaii, and Florida apparently have the happiest folks, despite, in order, hurricane devastation, expensive gas, and crazy politics/spring break/girls gone wild/bad traffic/alligators/etc.

First off, a quick defense of Central Upstate New York (yes, maybe our downstate friends were skewing the survey!) from the perspective of a British native who moved to Syracuse from West Lafayette, IN, where, apart from Purdue University, they ain't nothing but corn, soy, humid summers, and cold winters.

My wife and I certainly were happy to move to an area where outdoor recreation is second to none—fishing, kayaking, hiking, skiing, sledding—and some of the world's greatest cities are a car ride away. Yes, on this bright spring day (after a pretty hard winter, no question), I'd say I was pretty happy. Maybe not Louisiana happy (?!) but surely up there with Wyoming (#13), North Dakota (#25), or Kansas (#32).

Second, the objectivity of a survey such as this has to be questioned. Even the word "happiness" is pretty difficult to define. For instance, "pursuit of happiness" in the Constitution actually means something like "pursuit of things that make a life comfortable and prosperous" not necessarily "pursuit of an inane grin and beer hats."

Looked at with the Constitutional happiness in mind, the list of What Makes Us Happy makes a lot of sense. It was also interesting to view the list with sustainability in mind. Some of the criteria, as my gloss below attempts to make clear, address key points and/or goals of sustainability, healthy communities, smart growth, and environmentalism ...

Commuting time less than 20 minutes (that is, smartly grown cities and no urban sprawl)
Low rate of violent crime
Good air quality (inside and out, I hope!)
Low student/teacher ratios
Low tax rates (this criterion begins a bit of a rough patch in the list for Syracuse!!)
Less than 35 inches of rain annually
Temperate climate
59% days of sunshine
Access to coastal or inland water (that is, clean and abundant water sources)
State and national parks (green, natural spaces—and I would hope this extends to green spaces within cities)
Environmental regulations (need I say more!)

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

People--planet--profit

2010-03-15T10:25:00.000-07:00

This past week, I had the opportunity to attend the 8th Annual Green Building Conference at the OnCenter. The presentations were outstanding, and among the luminaries present were Sarah Susanka, author of the Not So Big House, and Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO, and Founding Chairman of the US Green Building Council.

I’d like to spend a few moments sharing with you what developed as the “takeaway” for me. These thoughts gel around three presentations: that of Diane Brandli of dbdesign, Sarah Susanka’s Plenary Kick-off, and Rick Fedrizzi’s Keynote. I’ll call this the products, place and projects confluence if you will.

The concept of green and sustainable building is complex. As we evaluate products, our homes, and larger building projects like schools it is easy to become lost in the details, and in the certification process. It is also difficult to weigh all the contingencies in a complete evaluation of whether a product or process balances environmental, economic, and equity considerations. As homeowners, architects, designers, and engineers, it can be challenging to know if we are making good choices.

Susanka’s presentation set the tone for how to assess quality in homebuilding. With an emphasis on “less is more,” and on quality over quantity, and supplemented by photographs of completed design/build projects she articulated a vision of home (and other building projects) where a sense of sanctuary prevails. Through modifications of design, small spaces are configured in ways that promote comfort and security, and we are able to live more richly in less space.

Through a careful articulation of criteria, Brandli effectively evaluated the relative merits of products for sustainability. She explored profit, people, and planet considerations--"do no harm” and relative positive impacts, but also did a fine job of detailing how to navigate the certification process for products, and the difference between certifications labeling, levels and consensus standards. Bottom line: a product might not only not cause us harm--through intentional manufacturing we might even see a net positive benefit.

Finally, Fedrizzi’s riveting speech encouraged us to consider, among other topics, existing buildings as an untapped spring of future green jobs. For those unfamiliar with it, Fedrizzi outlined how retrofitting needs in current buildings are actually untapped suppliers of future jobs, providing not only economic development opportunities, but calculable savings opportunities as well. He described a “Pay from Savings” approach to renovations, that I think over a 20 year span was projected to provide 7.9 million U.S. jobs with over 554 billion dollars in savings of which 396 billion is wages.

All in all, some very succinct, clear presentations on what green can mean for these different categories, and for our lives.

-Thad Mantaro, SUNY Oswego

Diggin' the City

2010-03-10T08:43:00.000-08:00

It's good to see that new Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner's 50-Point Plan includes provisions for developing a city "green code," promoting urban agriculture, developing green infrastructure, improving walkability, and other "smart growth" ideas.

That our new mayor is including these ideas in her transition platform is a positive step and will do much to consolidate Syracuse's reputation as a green and clean hub that could become a template for smart growth for post-industrial cities.

Those who wish to hear more about the 50-Point Plan should head to City Hall Commons at 7:30 am Friday, March 12, where F.O.C.U.S. Greater Syracuse will host Miner and ask her to elaborate on the plan.

Things have come a long way quickly in Syracuse since my first early morning F.O.C.U.S. meeting, hosted by the indomitable Chuckie Holstein. I recall that urban planning was the topic of that meeting, some three years ago, and I brought up the issue of a lack of green space in downtown Syracuse.

Some in the audience took umbrage when I pointed out how few green spaces there are in the city. But I come from a country where there are parks large and small every few blocks. In my hometown of Brighton & Hove, there are three significant parks within five minutes of my house, and this in a town notorious for its lack of space, hemmed in as it is by a national park on one side and the sea on the other. Compared to Brighton, downtown Syracuse (I'm not counting Thornden Park: it is too far from downtown to be a walkable option) is a true urban jungle.

But former Mayor Matt Driscoll did something about this that Mayor Miner should continue. A couple of years ago, on the corner of Warren and Washington streets (I think I have the intersection correct) an old building was torn down and, this is significant, not turned into a parking lot—a small park with benches and public art was created on the lot.

Many Syracuse buildings are on the verge of falling down, long unoccupied. One brick building next to I-81 just north of the city has fallen down recently, closing down the highway. It looks as though the Syracuse winter finally did that building in.

By deconstructing long-unoccupied and decrepit buildings in the city and coverting them to parks, community gardens, recycling/composting stations, bioswales, and the like, Mayer Miner could check off much on her sustainability wishlist, and improve the quality of life (and economic development prospects) of Syracuse to boot.

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

Sustainability Fair Planned

2010-03-02T09:58:00.000-08:00

This April 21st, SUNY Oswego will host a unique Sustainability Fair for the greater Oswego community. The Sustainability Fair will be a one-day exposition on green living for students, homeowners, and community members and will focus on environmentally friendly building products, energy systems, and green ideas. Over 20 vendors will display, discuss and in a few instances provide demonstrations of green products and services.

This is the first sustainability fair at SUNY Oswego, and in the greater Oswego Community. Local and regional vendors will offer products focused on green lifestyle, green home renovations and improvements, and services for community residents. Displays are slated to include energy efficient home products, alternative energy production, and green indoor products.

It will feature the most relevant service providers available to talk about wind, solar and related alternative technologies. The goal this year is to get sustainability and green products and ideas on people’s radar screens, and to create an event that will be a focal point for sustainability discussions among students, homeowners—and all community members.

The Sustainability Fair is sponsored by an ad hoc group of SUNY Oswego staff, faculty and students, and committed Oswego area residents. The event is free and open to the public. Parking will be available. The event is sponsored by SUNY Oswego and underwritten with support from the American Chemical Society. For more information, contacted Thad Mantaro at thaddeus.mantaro@oswego.edu.

-Thad Mantaro, SUNY Oswego

Come One, Come All!

2010-02-27T11:32:00.000-08:00

Don't forget to RSVP to join my colleagues, SyracuseCoE Partners, and many other special guests at the Dedication of the Syracuse Center of Excellence Headquarters on March 5, which is followed by a Community Open House on March 6: http://syracusecoe.org/hqbldg/dedication.aspx.

In fact, the week of March 1 is being dubbed "Dedication Week" by SyracuseCoE, because on March 2 Alex Steffen will deliver a lecture at Syracuse University's Hendricks Chapel, the first in a series of sustainability events this coming week. Steffen is the founder of Worldchanging, a popular website on sustainability. More information is at http://suevents.syr.edu.

Then in the morning of Friday, March 5, SyracuseCoE will host a presentation by Lisa Heinzerling, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Associate Administrator for the Office of Policy, Economics, and Innovation, in Maxwell Auditorium on Syracuse University Campus at 10 a.m. Heinzerling will discuss how smart growth and green building can both serve as an important component of our nation's efforts to combat climate change. More information can be found at http://suevents.syr.edu.

Later in the day, at 2pm, Heinzerling will join other guests—including US Rep. Dan Maffei (NY-25), SU Chancellor and President Nancy Cantor, and Carrier Corp. CEO Geraud Darnis—to dedicate the Syracuse Center of Excellence headquarters at 727 East Washington Street, Syracuse. The ceremony will also include a performance of a song written specially for SyracuseCoE by Grammy Award winner Joanne Shenandoah. Tours of the building will follow.

And to end the week of sustainability events ... On Saturday, March 6 from 1 to 4 p.m. SyracuseCoE will again throw its doors open, this time for a Community Open House. This program will include music by Syracuse band Sophistafunk, the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address delivered by Chief Jake Edwards of the Onondaga Nation, and words from environmental activist Oren Lyons, SyracuseCoE Executive Director Ed Bogucz, and Environmental Finance Center at SU Director Sara Pesek.

Phew ... quite a week: we hope you can join us!

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

With Bits

2010-02-10T06:41:00.000-08:00

Those of you who have small children will appreciate the "bits or no bits" dilemma. For my seven-year-old, a yoghurt is either a delicious snack (smooth, no bits) or anathema ("fruit on the bottom" or, God forbid, strawberry or kiwi fruit seeds.)

Those of you who are communications managers, will appreciate the "bits or no bits" dilemma when it comes to sustainable paper. It used to be that recycled paper invariably came with bits in it—bits of re-used fiber, that is—although now, with options such as Rolland Enviro and Mohawk Options, even 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper looks like, um, the "real thing!"

The dilemma is about perception and changing values and behavior. To go back to seven-year-olds and yoghurt, the "no bits" lines of heavily fruited yoghurt (in England the cartons proudly carry "No Bits" labels) help parents get "icky" fruit inside our kids, with the hope that one day they too will have that quotidian joy of finding "fruit on the bottom."

But what worries me about a desire for "no bits" green consumer products--smooth white paper, vinyl substitutes for furniture, high performance electric cars—is that a false consciousness is created: "we can wean ourselves off oil and halt climate change with no real sacrifice." That's not really true. Tom Friedman puts it another way in Hot, Flat, and Crowded when he scoffs at any magazine article or ad that touts "10 Easy Ways to Go Green."

This is not to say that going green is all that hard these days. After all, I know it's easy to create a slick communications product using 100% PCW paper that looks as good as if I used virgin paper. It's just that if my paper had bits in it, wouldn't that be a constant reminder that we are in a new age, where every scrap of paper must be saved and used again? It would be a kind of London Blitz mentality than asks for sacrifice from everyone and creates a rallying point at the same time.

One of the expensive car ads during the recent Superbowl was for a Dodge Charger. Americans, it appears, still crave over-sized performance in their vehicles. Yet green cars will be on the whole smaller with less horsepower and reduced engine size. A lot of time and money is being spent on more powerful green cars, but I think that trying to build electric and hybrid cars that compete with muscle cars simply adds to the false consciousness that super-sized power is desirable, achievable, and appropriate.

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

Passion and compost: a viral mixture

2010-01-29T09:26:00.000-08:00

Passion is contagious, and it seems everywhere on campus and in the community there’s excitement over sustainability activities. Several very interesting programs are in the works and the dynamism of the folks involved is wonderful to experience.

Let me introduce you to two SUNY Oswego students—Grace M. and James C. Grace and Jim serve on a student led organization called Students for Global Change. They’re helping to organize the Campus Composting Initiative (CCI) -- a working subcommittee of this umbrella organization. The CCI is working with campus administration, staff and faculty to develop a pilot program to begin composting on campus. Previously, SUNY Oswego students have completed theses on best practices in college composting; through an integrated campus workgroup, students are now taking leadership to identify pilot strategies to decrease compostable contributions to area landfills, and to recapture that material for either on-site composting, or sale to a third party for processing. There’s even discussion of a bio-digester—probably beyond the scope of our campus’ capabilities right now--but exciting stuff, just the same.

The second iteration of the College sponsored Citizens Academy on Sustainability is in high gear, meeting weekly on Wednesdays at the Oswego YMCA Armory building. Led by June M., a City of Oswego Tree Steward and community activist, and mentored by me through my role as Assistant Director of the Office of Business and Community Relations, the Citizens Academy has developed into a focal point for community sustainability activity.

At the most recent meeting on food and sustainability, there was ardent discussion of a local vision for a community garden project that would include development of the growing space itself, educational outreach to area elementary schools, a pilot school lunch program utilizing the harvest, a community based agricultural initiative to return produce to needy members of the community, even a proposed Salsa manufacturing enterprise that would integrate teens as the primary entrepreneurs (based on a similar program a group member had seen in Buffalo). A site exists already on college property at Fallbrook, but there has been additional discussion of sites in the City at each of the four corners so all residents could have easy access to a suitable plot to grow their own produce.

June M., mentioned above, has been so energized by the passion of these group members that she’s hoping to implement a third Citizens Academy with support from the college in neighboring Fair Haven in late spring. Our office has pledged support for this program.

Finally, on March 11, the Office of Business and Community Relations will host the next public issues forum on sustainability focused on Environmental Stewardship. Ten local and regional environmental organizations will speak with attendees about current activities and sustainability concerns. Participants will take part in a roundtable program where they’ll have the opportunity to speak with representatives from all ten organzitions. For more info on organizations presenting, and how to register, see the Office of Business and Community Relations website at http://www.oswego.edu/about/centers/cbcd/events.html.

-Thad Mantaro, SUNY Oswego

Movin' On Up!

2010-01-27T07:35:00.000-08:00

The Syracuse Center of Excellence is moving offices this week, from our shared building on Syracuse University's South Campus to our shiny new Headquarters Building at 727 East Washington Street in downtown Syracuse.

For those of you who know Syracuse, it's the new building at the intersection of the I-81 and I-690 flyovers, which has been variously described as the spaceship from Battlestar Galactica, a boat (possibly one that is sailing down an imaginary Erie Canal), and a parking lot (especially before the façade went on).

What will take place there? Well, its function as the new offices for the Syracuse Center of Excellence and our friends at the Environmental Finance Center is only a small part of future activities. Mostly the building will function as a "living laboratory" so that scientists and technologists can do research and testing into products that will make built environments (that is, houses, offices, schools, even whole neighborhoods and cities) more energy-efficient and healthier.

Buildings must become more energy-efficient. Older buildings consume vast amounts of energy, even if folks are good about turning off CFL bulbs and computers--heat escapes because of poor insulation, poor windows, and so forth. Inefficient heating and a/c compounds the problem. Researchers and technologists at the SyracuseCoE HQ are investigating many ways to solve these problems, with the goal of making buildings consume a lot less energy (and use alternative energy, such as geothermal) or even give back to the grid if they can generate energy with solar panels, small wind turbines, etc.

Buildings must become healthier, especially schools. There is a clear link established by researchers between productivity (in schools, read test scores) and the quality of indoor environments. Temperature, humidity, chemicals in furniture and carpets, and dust can all affect our health. In extreme cases--such as with black mold or formaldehyde--poor indoor air quality can makes us very sick. Researchers and technologists at the SyracuseCoE HQ will investigate indoor air quality, its relationship to productivity and health, and they will test devices that will make buildings healthier. Some of these devices will be tested on real human subjects at the HQ, even the staff of SyracuseCoE!

There so much more going on at the HQ--more than I can write about here. I encourage you to come to our Community Open House on March 6, 2010 to learn all about the building and what will take place there. For more information, visit http://syracusecoe.org/hqbldg/dedication.aspx.

--Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

The Meme Train

2010-01-18T14:03:00.000-08:00

The word "meme" was coined by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene. Just as "selfish genes" can be said organize the world in order to survive and reproduce, so do—in this metaphor—bytes of cultural information: fashions, urban myths, pop songs, advertising taglines, etc. The miniskirt is a meme; "crocs in the sewer" is meme; Do-Wa-Diddy is a meme; "Where's the Beef?" is a meme.

The prevailing idea that train travel is so slow and boring that it simply cannot compete with other modes of long-distance transportation is a meme.

I encountered this selfish nugget of opinion trying to reproduce itself (or, to follow the metaphor's logic, I suppose it was acting in self-defense) last week when I was preparing to travel by train from Syracuse to Manhattan to give a poetry reading. The reaction of several people, when I told them I was taking the train—by far the most sustainable transportation option I had—was essentially, "Why bother? It's slow and boring. Fly."

Actually, I found that the train journey competed very nicely with air travel, driving, or riding a bus. The following is my attempt at some "meme therapy" to try to counteract an insidious and prevailing myth, one that has stymied the evolution of passenger trains in this country for years ...

Time—5 hours almost exactly from Syracuse (long term parking $5 flat fee) to downtown NYC. By plane it's: drive to the airport early and pre-flight rigmarole (1 1/2 hours); in flight (1 hour); after flight at JKF (1/2 hour); and subway to downtown (1 hour)--so, by air to my same destination is 4 hours.
Door-to-Door—That's 5 hours to get you from Syracuse, NY to 32nd and 7th, the absolute heart of downtown Manhattan. Not even British Rail has a station in what would be Piccadilly Circus in London.
Space—Leg room is better than a car, plane, and bus. You can walk around anytime you wish.
View—Follow the Mohawk River and then the powerful Hudson. See, as I did, 3 bald eagles. The New York Central is one of the most beautiful train rides in the world.
Price—Just about $100 return, which competes with Jet Blue but not the Greyhound (or Caz Limo's service, which is popular around here). You pay the same for a couple of tanks of gas in the car, but what about parking?
Service—Well, I was impressed with the quality and price of the food vendors in Penn Station. The bagel place at the bottom of the stairs at the 7th Ave entrance is fantastic. An everything bagel with a schmeer of lox spread? Oi!

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

In the greenlane...

2010-01-14T08:14:00.000-08:00

This past week, I had the opportunity to hear about a product provided by the company, Ecology and Environment, Inc., called “Greenride: Mobility Management Solutions.” John Moore, the college’s Director of Engineering, and I participated in a webcast about the program and specifically, about the Greenride Connect component that provides a web-based carpool matching program.

As the college considers its participation in STARS--and the implicit transportation management components that form part of the tracking--exploring methods to manage the information and activity is critical. The company, Ecology and Environment, provides solutions through its Greenride program that include fleet and business trip management, vanpool management, and personalized weather and traffic reports, however, in this presentation we heard only about the specific management program that oversees carpool or ride-sharing management.

Through this program, commuters can find carpool options and other smart commute options tailored specifically for them, based upon information they provide to a web system. The way it works is that a potential student, staff or faculty member that commutes to Oswego from say, Baldwinsville, would register their individual information. They would input the days they want to commute to SUNY Oswego, the times of departure and return, and their flexibility with departure and return times (15 minute, 30 minutes, one hour, etc). The program would then match them with other commuters hoping to travel roughly the same route, with roughly the same departure and return plans.

Commuters are matched with those with similar transportation needs/plans, and through a secure email system are able to communicate with each other to arrange carpooling. The college, institution, or group of local institutions can partner to pay for the costs associated with the program, and are allowed a certain number of subscriptions per service fee. The college or collective can choose to incentivize the program leading to greater participation, or can allow commuters to opt in as they see fit. There is a tracking interface that provides reports allowing the institution(s) to report out on miles saved, carbon dioxide equivalents saved, money saved, total number of commutes saved, etc.

The program also provides an administrative hub that allows for employee tracking, cluster mapping to encourage usage, incentive management interface, and a variety of charting and reporting outputs all that will facilitate institution reporting and management objectives.

According to the company, the outcomes include “reduced vehicle miles traveled, congestion, GHG emissions, energy consumption, fuel costs, reduced need for costly parking, lower churn and higher employee productivity, greater personal satisfaction of contribution to helping the environment, saving money, improving personal fitness.”

We plan to continue to explore this and other transportation management solutions as we advance the institution’s participation in STARS, and attempt to impact CO2 emissions.
-Thad Mantaro, SUNY Oswego

The Long View

2010-01-06T09:31:00.000-08:00

I have read two books recently that, although on quite different subjects, share underlying themes about sustainability and "the long view" (looking both deep into the past and into the future). One of the books is the Clock of the Long Now by Stewart Brand and the other is The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson.

The Clock of the Long Now is about a project to build the world's slowest computer--a super-slow astronomical clock--to embody the idea that sustainability begins with taking a long view of our past and our future and adjusting current activities in accordance. The slow clock, and an associated "library of civilization," aim to be massive tourist attractions on the scale of Mt. Rushmore, a way to help shift our cultural perspective away from habitual short-term thinking and historical amnesia.

The "Long Now" is a phrase coined by British musician Brian Eno. It refers to the idea that in some cultures the word "now" refers not to the immediate moment, as it does in our culture, but to a day, a year, or even 10 generations backward and forward. In Central Upstate New York, the Haudenosaunee nations might say their long now is seven generations backward and forward—the commandment to think of the effects of present actions on the seventh generation hence is written into their democratic constitution, and "seventh generation thinking" is a fundamental element of their culture.

If we (somewhat arbitrarily) define a generation as 25 years, then seven generations back puts us at about 1835, when the Empire State was expanding and the Erie Canal was coming into its own. The financial instruments (stocks, bonds, etc) created to pay for C19th empires--and the necessary gunboats, soldiers, engineers, bureaucrats, and infrastructure--are the subject of The Ascent of Money. Niall Ferguson wishes today's financial "Masters of the Universe" had a long now going back to the mid-C18th or mid-C19th, or at least to the mid-1980s!

Ferguson explains that historical amnesia is rife in the financial world, not just for the financiers and regulators who repeat mistake after mistake (thus allowing the Savings and Loans crisis to return as today's Credit Crunch) but for ordinary citizens who struggle with financial literacy and who always prefer making a quick buck over the slow return of compound interest, stock portfolios, and boring 30-year mortgages.

Of course, the sustainability movement has a mountain to climb if it wants to lengthen the now of our culture from "asap" to "anything from 1835 to 2185." But thinking about this problem did make me think of several living cultural institutions (i.e. not museums) in which long now thinking does feature ...

Sports, especially baseball—the history of this game is very much sanctified and tradition is appealed to, especially when players and teams transgress. (In 1835, baseball was evolving as its own distinct sport and the first true baseball games were being played.)
Colleges—again, these are often "living museums" of history and tradition that always need to think for the long term. (To be pedantically accurate, Tulane University was one college founded in 1835.)
Music—esp. Classical music, but any old form that is kept alive as a living institution: blues, jazz, folk, chant. (Felix Mendelssohn is just one Romantic composer at the height of his powers in 1835, whose music is still played regularly by symphony orchestras.)

But how can we leverage the habits and processes of this long now thinking and transfer them into areas such as building practices, finances, land use, energy independence, and resource exploitation?

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

Reach for the STARS

2009-12-30T09:12:00.000-08:00

As I recorded earlier, SUNY Oswego sponsored its first Citizens Academy for the greater Oswego community this past fall. Starting this January 6th the second Citizens Academy will begin, and it’s very exciting to host a next installment of this important community based sustainability program.

In an earlier blog about the Citizens Academy, I wrote, slightly derisively, about technology, and our consumerist tendencies. In that post, I deliberated on the potential for a “sustainability app” and although no deus-ex-machina solution has appeared to be downloaded yet, another tool has emerged in the context of college sustainability solutions that I’d like to share with you.

This solution, or tool, takes the form of the STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System) 1.0 that is advanced by AASHE or the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. It is a voluntary, self-reporting framework for gauging sustainability progress by colleges.

STARS is the gold standard for tracking sustainability in higher education, and AASHE is the national body assessing sustainability initiatives across campuses. For those of you familiar with LEED certification, STARS is a comparable tool used to objectively assess a college’s commitment to sustainability. (More information on AASHE and STARS is available here: http://www.aashe.org/ and here: http://www.aashe.org/stars/index.php).

SUNY Oswego has had a strong and ongoing commitment to sustainability. President Stanley is a signatory of the Presidents Climate Commitment; we have a Sustainability Strategic Plan and a Climate Action Plan; our campus has a variety of initiatives that address sustainability on an ongoing basis.

However, the beauty of STARS for an institution like Oswego, that is working to establish priorities and reporting structures, is that it takes the guesswork out of things. The tool provides a framework to gauge both how an individual institution is doing toward completion of objective sustainability criteria, and how an institution compares on a ratings basis to other institutions who are attempting to make their campuses and cultures more sustainable.

It’s like a Zagat guide for sustainability efforts! Brilliant!

SUNY Oswego had previously used the nascent STARS 0.5 version, and conducted in the summer of 2008 an informal, introductory assessment of how Oswego would fare on the STARS. I’m hoping to post that report soon on the college’s sustainability page here: http://www.oswego.edu/about/leadership/sustainability/index.html

Oswego has just signed on to participate in STARS 1.0, and this process requires the college to complete this more formal, yet still voluntary self-report by January 2011. Continue to look for postings on the college’s progress related to its participation in STARS here in the upcoming months.

-Thad Mantaro, SUNY Oswego

Little Boxes on the Hillside

2009-12-24T11:38:00.000-08:00

My commute to and from Baldwinsville takes me past one of the most egregious sub-divisions I have ever seen, remarkable for the bland uniformity of its housing, the ugliness of its setting, and, as always with these "communities," its stark lack of trees. Malvina Reynolds wrote "Little Boxes on the Hillside" in 1962—her black pastoral on the subject of suburban sprawl—yet I guarantee the sub-division she describes looked more appealing than the one I drive past.

In fact, so do some British "council housing estates"—a form of "projects" found in most towns in the country of my birth. A good friend of mine lived for a couple of years in a council estate outside of Brighton, England, when he and his family were starting out. These hurriedly, sometimes shoddily, built communities have bad reputations—the houses are never well-built, cars are stolen—yet even they are platted with small parks, schools, and little shops all within walking distance. Sidewalks are a given and trees are planted. Some estates even have easy access to "allotments" (community gardens).

American-style sub-divisions (I say American-style because this un-walkable, non-communal sub-division model is found in England now) weren't always as poorly planned as they are now. In fact, I live in a sub-division: Indian Springs, just outside the village of Baldwinsville. Built in the 1970s, there are three or four distinct models of houses in Indian Spring, as well as backyards are full of old trees and interconnected streets—no cul-de-sacs here. But some bad development habits had begun to creep in by the time Indian Springs was platted: there are no sidewalks, no parks, no shops. Thankfully, the streets are wide enough for joggers and dog-walkers, but to access a park or shops, you need a car.

The US Green Building Council wants to halt the deterioration of neighborhood planning with its LEED-Neighborhood Development designation, recently awarded to Syracuse's Near Westside Initiative. It's an excellent achievement for the NWSI, putting it well on its way to becoming a shining example of sustainable urban re-development. But at the same time, the criteria for LEED-ND in the general category of "Neighborhood Pattern and Design" show just how far from sensible neighborhood development we've come.

Honestly, some of these criteria really should be in the "duh" category for a neighborhood: walkable streets, street networks, tree-lined streets, access to recreation, local food production, neighborhood schools ...

An old-fashioned (i.e. 19th century) village-within-a-city, the Near Westside has all of the above, and more (mixed-use buildings, access to civic centers). My neighborhood—Indian Springs—has some, but not many. The nameless subdivision I commute past, none whatsoever. Nineteenth century planning, mid-20th century, 21st century ... it's a slippery slope. What will it take for the green movement to convince mayors, trustees, developers, builders, and house-buyers to return to values of community and self-reliance and make our communities "liveable" once more?

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

Energizing Education

2009-12-18T05:16:00.000-08:00

Sustainability requires solutions. Let me tell you about one of SUNY Oswego's signature programs: the Summer Energy Institute.

This program, “Energizing Education for a Better Future,” is designed for Secondary Teachers of Math, Science, and Technology.

Teachers who participate will develop new curricular units on energy and sustainability. Among the topics covered in the institute will be the nature of energy, energy conservation, alternative energy sources such as the sun and wind, nuclear and radiation safety, future energy resources and energy’s connection to politics and social cultures.

Participants will visit a variety of energy facilities in the area. Each participant will build an energy curriculum portfolio that includes handouts, lesson plans and learning activities that can be used in the classroom. The curriculum delivered in this institute was designed using the principles the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Reform Movement that is being promoted by Congress, NSF (National Science Foundation) and NASA.

The current institute is co-directed by Dr. Alok Kumar, chair of the physics department and Thomas Kubicki of the technology department.

“Because the baby boomers are retiring, there is a shortage of workers for the energy industry,” said Kumar. Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicate that by 2012 there will be nearly 10,000 more energy industry jobs than workers available to fill them.

“We are going to train teachers to teach about energy issues effectively,” Kumar reports. Not only will the institute help to infuse the workforce with new talent, but it will also help the teachers and everyone they teach to become better consumers and citizens in a global economy driven by energy.

“The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population but accounts for 25 percent of the world’s energy consumption,” according to Kumar. “This imbalance forces us to be dependent on other nations, creates a scarcity for energy resources in the global market and weakens the ecosystem.”

Some of the adverse impacts are easily avoidable, he said, through energy conservation, new energy resources and smart energy practices. “This is a global issue that requires local action,” he said.

For more information, visit the Energy Institute’s Web site at: http://www.oswego.edu/academics/continuing/summerwintersessions/energy_institute.html or call the Office of Business and Community Relations at 315.312.3492.

-Thad Mantaro
SUNY Oswego

Syracuse named "Emerald City"

2009-12-10T10:33:00.000-08:00

A Building Boon
by Ilona Kauremszky
from mpiweb.org

GREEN IS THE NEW BLACK, Al Gore tells us. Sheryl Crow supports environmental causes, and hundreds of other celebrities are leaving their green thumbprint on the growing eco trend.

So what does a former industrial town in upstate New York do? Syracuse, quickly earning the accolade as “Emerald City” for environmental breakthroughs, staged a Healthy Buildings Conference for academic researchers and other professionals from architecture, building products and services, engineering, indoor environmental quality, public health, urban planning and environmentalist types.

And the timing couldn’t be better, report city insiders. Like so many manufacturing towns in turbulent times, old businesses have dried up—but Syracuse is using this reality to help bolster a new economy, one of sustainable development. Currently a building boom is under way in and around central New York State, where Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is big in housing and business developments.

It’s all about the new economy, says David Holder, president of the Syracuse CVB, describing breakthroughs that include a medical biotech research center and the headquarters of the Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems.

“There are all kinds of incredible partnerships blossoming,” he said. “So much of what we have with the Syracuse Center of Excellence and so much of the development of the area is building on that sustainability base, employing different industries that are all about the generation of natural energy and the generation of building developments that can be used elsewhere in building these types of buildings.”

The center will showcase the city’s eco-advances and provide a blueprint for cities across the globe. The site is on reclaimed industrial brownfields, a type of real property, the expansion, redevelopment or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence of hazardous substances, pollutants or contaminants. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, cleaning up, reinvesting in and redeveloping these properties shift development pressures away from undeveloped land, improving and protecting the environment. Federal officials say “brownfields redevelopment returns non-productive real estate assets to productive use, promoting the economic development of many of the nation’s most economically distressed areas and regions.”

The Syracuse Center of Excellence certainly intrigued Healthy Buildings. HB2009—own by the International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate (ISIAQ)—is considered to be the “Olympics for indoor air quality” and is held every three years worldwide. The theme was quite simply that: healthy buildings. Approximately 800 delegates from nearly 40 countries attended HB2009 Sept. 13-17 in Syracuse, N.Y. The five-day conference was held at the city’s acclaimed Oncenter Complex and had six-to-eight daily track sessions in addition to an expo, a conference first.

“We wanted to engage the business community to look at the green technologies that are on the market and to showcase with about 100 exhibitors and also through a series of programs that included keynote speakers, workshops, product and service demonstrations and opportunities for individuals from academia and business to work with the U.S. Department of Commerce and representatives from the Empire State Development Corp. to see what opportunities and resources are there to help build new partnerships with business-to-business and with the academic resources in this country,” said Tammy Rosanio, project manager and assistant to the executive director for the Syracuse Center of Excellence, describing the convention’s three-day Oppex forum where delegates learned about leading research and technology developments and networked with national and global leaders in the fields of indoor air quality and healthy built environments.

About a year leading up to the last Healthy Buildings Conference in Lisbon, the movers and shakers of the Syracuse Center of Excellence researched their case then took the RFP to the ISIAQ and made formal presentations outlining the reasons why Syracuse should be chosen over other undisclosed cities.

“The expectations were high. We didn’t walk in blind. We had actually contacted various members to see what was involved, what was the level of commitment, so that we were both benefitting our members,” said Dr. Suresh Santanam, a member of ISIAQ and deputy executive director of Syracuse Center of Excellence, who took the lead role in securing the bid. “I first presented to the board, then presented it to the general membership and during the process explained how Syracuse was an hour away from major hubs, how this conference could bring a diverse cross section of individuals from the indoor air quality field and how Syracuse and Central New York were experiencing a transformation in healthy buildings.”

Since the start of the Healthy Buildings Conference in 1988 in Stockholm, the U.S. has played host to the conference only twice.

Rosanio knew they had challenges.

“So we ensured appropriate levels of services were available in a mid-sized city for a conference of this size,” she said. “Our community really supported this conference. We even had retired workers from places such as Carrier who wished to volunteer.”

Santanam says that Syracuse’s location in Central New York was another great asset because conference delegates and their spouses were in close proximity to a variety of incentive travel options from wine tours around the Finger Lakes to a visit to Niagara Falls.

According to Rachel Alcaro, CMP, convention sales manager for the Syracuse CVB, the city hadn’t witnessed a conference on such an international scale before.

“One of the challenges is language,” she said. “We had 40 countries participate. To offset the language barrier, volunteer interpreters—mostly students from Syracuse University—were on hand to provide translation services. Along with language barriers, these people are coming from faraway countries, and quite frankly, our local banks are not equipped to handle money exchange to this degree with this variety. We informed the foreign participants prior to their arrival that they should exchange their money to U.S. currency while at home.”

Another challenge for the academic-heavy conference was how to get 800 delegates into a concentrated area.

“Our exhibitors at the Oppex were there mostly to discuss their products and developments, limiting the size of their displays,” said Shandrist Hillsman, HB2009’s meeting planner and president of Ascension Event Management. “The conference scheduling—with its multiple tracks and expo addition—was designed to help alleviate potential bottlenecks around heavily trafficked areas. We had so much going on that people were spread out throughout the conference.”

Still with the tracks comprised of plenary, technical and social programs that each had additional forums and sessions, space was a challenge.

“With the exception of the War Memorial, we used all the space at the Oncenter Complex, which included the Convention Center and the Civic Center Theaters,” Rosanio said.

Another curveball focused on the Syracuse Center of Excellence headquarters, a venue that was still under construction at the time of the conference. For Dr. Santanam, this building was a dream come true and was one of the selling points to secure the conference.

“We talked about having a new headquarters and said this would be available for the attendees to see what we can offer,” he said.

But construction took longer than anticipated, and organizers were not prepared to change their course. Donning hard hats and using safety precautions, tours were scheduled during the conference and open to limited group size.

“About 25 people went with a tour coordinator and tour manager,” Rosanio said. “We also had representatives on site from the various companies involved in the design and construction of the building showcasing their products and ready to respond to inquiries directly on the floor.”

While principally geared to the academic world, HB2009 was not ready to dismiss the corporate significance.

“We looked at companies that we already had an existing relationship, some big some small, a nice representation of companies that are known locally and internationally,” Rosanio said. “These companies [sponsors] are specialists in their field and have an interest in this.”

Local sponsors such as Carrier, IBM and Siemens jumped on the chance to contribute to the conference despite the economic downturn.

“We hadn’t really noticed the economy affecting our sponsors, and in fact, our participant registrations were close to what we had projected initially when we started this project,” Rosanio said.

While the bones of a factory town are apparent, the transitioning “green” city still has hurdles to overcome when alternative transportation is considered, such as delegate transfers. Initially, the idea was to allow attendees the option to walk or bike to the conference.

“We quickly scrapped that, because in Syracuse we were afraid drivers wouldn’t see them,” Shandrist said.
In an attempt to reduce the carbon footprint, scheduled timed transfers to and from the convention center were made.

“We wanted to be as sustainable as possible,” she said, adding that USB flash drives with complete conference documents were distributed as well as using green practices for other conference materials: T-shirts from organic cotton, custom-made neck wallets from 100 percent recycled materials and pre-owned or GREENGUARD certified furniture pieces.

Sandra Baker, vice president of sales and marketing for the Oncenter Complex, added that water was provided upon request for the closing dinner, and no water bottles were available at the conference.

A leader in implementing green practices in the meeting and event industry, the three-venue complex has also introduced a revolutionary form of composting using local upstate worm farms.

“We get these great big bins, and all the scraps from this conference were thrown into these worm bins, taken to the farm and when these scraps biodegrade, the compost returns to us and is actually used in our gardens,” Baker said.

Now that’s a healthy building. One+

ILONA KAUREMSZKY is a weekly travel columnist and the former editor of Corporate Meetings & Events.

What’s New in Syracuse
• When completed in 2010, the 60-room Hotel Skyler will be the first LEED-certified hotel in Central New York and will offer preferred parking for partial zero emission cars along with room-key controlled lighting and thermal comfort among other energy efficiencies.
• Syracuse has several revitalization projects under way which include a US$2.4 million renovation project on the 100 block of West Fayette Street and the multiuse, residential, LEED-certified Jefferson Clinton Commons building in Armory Square.
• Holiday Inn Syracuse/Liverpool, in the town of Salina, underwent a few nips and tucks with the recent completion of a $20 million expansion project that includes an extra 10,000 square feet of meeting space, along with the erection of a 123-unit Staybridge Suites Hotel.

Transportation Tips
• Located north of the city, Syracuse Hancock International Airport is approximately 15 minutes by car from downtown and serves upstate New York with seven major airlines offering approximately 250 daily arrivals and departures.
• Forget about making early morning drives to Rochester or New York City for flights. The City of Syracuse and the Metropolitan Development Association—with help from central New York companies and a U.S. Department of Transportation grant—have created FlySyracuse.com, a new fly program to promote lower airfares departing from Syracuse’s local airport.

Fun Facts
• In 2007, the Go Green Earth Summit named Syracuse the Go Green Large City of the Year.
• Before Dinosaur BBQ sauce, Syracuse’s big claim to fame was salt, and “the city that salt built” was considered one of the biggest salt suppliers in the U.S.
• Don’t be surprised if you walk down a yellow brick road in Chittenango, 13 miles east of the Syracuse airport. Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum was born here.

Back to the Future

2009-12-09T11:48:00.000-08:00

Sometimes solutions to engineering problems that have been consigned to history make a comeback ...

Last week, Syracuse University, IBM, and NYSERDA opened the Green Data Center on Syracuse University's campus. Thanks to remarkable power generation and HVAC innovations, it will be one of the greenest—possible THE greenest—data center in the world, using 50% of the energy of current data centers.

Considering how persnickety data centers are about heat, cold, and power (they're vast digital orchids, if you will) that's a significant accomplishment. To use another biological metaphor, data centers are cropping up like mushrooms throughout the world—if we don't get a handle on their energy requirements, all the LEED office buildings in the world won't make up for the fact that computers within them must turn to gas-guzzlers to store and retrieve information.

The solution to the GDC's power and HVAC needs was to create DC power on site using natural gas and then to use the excess heat from the DC micro-turbines to run heaters and chillers (also utilizing water-cooling for the servers because that is so much more efficient than cooling with air).

That's a back-to-the-future solution. The SyracuseCoE HQ building is on the site of the old LC Smith typewriter factory in Syracuse, NY. Once upon a time the solution to power needs for that factory was a Corliss stationary steam engine (now housed at a museum in Camillus, NY) that produced DC power. No doubt the steam engine's heat helped out in winter, too!

Many of my blogs so far have been about sustainability solutions that are or should be returning to old values or methods we thought ourselves too modern to continue. I suppose that makes me a bit of a curmudgeon, possibly even a Luddite.

However, innovators should always consider kits of parts that have been discarded. After all, nature does when looking for innovations—I'm thinking of the evolutionary science idea that juvenile traits in some animals are not discarded but retained into adulthood—that is, if they prove a good fit for the environment (what scientists call "neoteny").

So, to complete my biological metaphors for the day, the GDC's leading-edge power/HVAC solution is a kind of engineering neoteny: the GDC engineers (helped by SyracuseCoE-affiliated Prof. Ez Khalifa of SU) went back to the beginnings of heat/power solutions (steam engines, direct current, power-as-heat-source) to find their green solution.

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

A “home” by any other name…

2009-12-03T11:06:00.000-08:00

In Shishmaref, Alaska, they have a tradition where perhaps several newborn children will be named for someone who has recently died; each child then assumes some of the characteristics of the person who died. If the deceased was a good hunter, then the child will be raised to embrace this legacy. This cultural tradition imparts a sense of connection to the past, and continuity to the future.

I came across this cultural meme, illustrative of the lives of the Eskimo people who live in this part of Alaska where they cling to a meager subsistence along the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, in an article on CNN online.

The article (http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/12/03/shishmaref.alaska.climate.change/index.html) is notable for several reasons: first it attempts to recount these cultural traditions and conditions that threaten a small community of 600 people; and second, for the tenor and character of the online response the article generated. The latter surprised me in its callousness to our shared condition, regardless of one’s belief of the etiology of global warming.

A brief synopsis: the article provides a compelling account of the impact climate change is having upon an older adult couple in this Inupiat Eskimo village: the changes in their lives and community, the death of their youngest son as the result of an accident attributed to changes in environmental conditions, and a remarkable depiction of the cultural destruction that parallels the environmental change.

Houses in this village exist on the thinnest of rocky crusts, on a shore that is separated from the mainland by a mostly frozen inlet. Warming trends have resulted in the erosion of the permafrost causing houses to fall into the sea, and many villagers to relocate to the opposite side of this island. The community is considering uprooting the village to an entirely new site, currently undetermined.

The article explores the difficulties this poses for these villagers and the incipient cultural loss (they have their own traditions, rituals, dances, dialect), and connects it to a larger, phenomenon—a wave of global climate refugees. From the article… “A 2009 Government Accountability Office report found that 31 Alaskan villages face ‘imminent threats’ because of coastal erosion, flooding and climate change. At least 12 are at some stage in the relocation process.” How much of this is directly attributable to human caused climate change and global warming is unclear…and to many of the article’s respondents, unimportant.

Surprisingly, response after response online eschewed human causality or even the possibility of it, instead focusing on the recent controversy: Climate-gate. Apparently, a few scientists have been reported as colluding to prevent the sharing of some information that might contradict evidence for global warming (unfortunate). Critics have cited this as evidence not only of the refutability of climate change data, but also as further evidence of global climate change as a conspiracy to promote global governance, and threaten national sovereignty (huh?).

It’s striking that many people seem ready to believe in some pan-global collusion more readily than to consider that environmental change may be occurring, and to support the need for sustained, dispassionate and non-partisan debate on the causes and implications. This imperative seemed lost on the article’s respondents.

And the Inupiat lesson on cultural continuity in the first paragraph seems lost on these as well, as was the human condition that binds us all, whether we call Shishmaref, Alaska, or Syracuse, NY…home.
-Thad Mantaro, SUNY Oswego

Nice One, Darwin

2009-11-24T09:42:00.000-08:00

I think I have this right ... in scientific parlance, most "theories" are really hypotheses awaiting thorough testing and re-testing, tweaking and revision, until enough verifiable and repeatable experiments have been performed that everyone is damn certain the hypothesis describes an actual fact.

In that case, the hypothesis can truly be called a "theory." And if that's the case, then Darwin's Theory of Evolution is no longer a hypothesis--from the macroscopic level (the fossil record of large animals) to microscopic (the near-real-time evolution of bacteria) to computational models (of human DNA, for instance) to the breeding of domestic dogs, there's enough proof to keep both scientists and lay-people happy. Move on.

That's not true though, is it. Such is the miseducation and politically inspired distortions surrounding "Darwinism" that it's perfectly reasonable for a President who openly questioned the theory to be voted into office twice and for a state school board to allow schoolchildren exposure to quasi-religious challenges to a theory that is as solidly built as the Theory of Gravity or the Theory of Electromagnetism.

Oh, and not forgetting that a former Vice Presidential candidate has gone so far as to confess her sincere belief that the Earth is as old as the Bible says it is (recall that advances in geology were crucial in order for Darwin to develop his hypothesis). "What will happen to the US Geological Survey if Palin wins?" my brother asked me, watching polls of last year's election from his home in London.

So what hope does the hypothesis that "increased human industrial activity will have a deleterious effect on the Earth's climate" have. Today the Associated Press reports that carbon dioxide levels are at 385 parts per million, nearly at a "worst case scenario" of 390 ppm. Scientists have never found evidence of that much CO2 in the atmosphere in one million years. They are not quite sure what's going to happen next, but the majority don't think it's going to be all that.

Scientific illiteracy has grown like a cancer around the Theory of Evolution. It allows and encourages the questioning of pretty incontrovertible scientific data, of the sober and careful assessments of that data by legions of trained scientists, and ultimately of the scientific process itself (although the scientific process/data collection/peer-reviewed assessment apparently is fine when its comes to fighting real cancer).

I fear that scientists such as John Barnes and Stephen Schneider--quoted in the AP story and quite willing to speak openly about "coin-flip odds for serious outcomes for our planet"--will end up being like Max Mayfield and the other meteorologists who correctly predicted Hurricane Katrina's devastation—I'm sure "I told you so" only goes so far with that lot.

--Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

Yeah, they’ve got an app for that…

2009-11-19T05:44:00.000-08:00

Well, the first SUNY Oswego Citizens Academy ended on October 24th. Long story short, the program has expanded into the community and there are plans for a Winter/Spring Citizens Academy in partnership with a local non-profit. Also, a student group on campus is planned as well. Generally, I would say it was a success. What follows isn’t really CliffsNotes version of the program, but rather an exegesis of sorts.

In the opening chapter of the Choices for Sustainable Living workbook, used by the SUNY Oswego Citizens Academy group, the question was posed: “If you think of the possibility of a sustainable future, are you generally optimistic or pessimistic?” As the group members described their thoughts on this issue there was, of course, a mix of both positive and negative emotions. Privately I mused…”that’s one of those questions that perhaps there’s no right answer to: you’re optimistic—and risk appearing naïve—or pessimistic, and an Eeyore.”

Further, it occurred to me, considering the arc of the program, and given the constituent elements included—discussions of sustainability, ecological choices, buying (Stuff), food, transportation, community, business and the economy—that it doesn’t really matter what we think or feel about the possibility of a sustainable future. The question, while well intentioned, and probably helpful to initiate discussion—is moot. Change is inevitable, or “resistance is futile” to quote the Borg.

We will all incrementally, be subject to decreases in non-renewable energy resources, and resultant (at first-lifestyle) changes in the way we live. Point. Fact. Given.

So how then to live…

In the final session, group members tackled this, and shared some of the personal changes made as a result of participating in the group. As said before, some folks had embraced the local—buying organic from a CSA. Others made changes in their transportation habits. Others still, are recycling more. My wife and I count ourselves among this latter contingent, making sweeping changes in reducing our contributions to the landfill, now barely one weekly garbage can of refuse (including mostly it seems those disposable diapers, oh well), and everything else recycled in two great blue bins—cardboard and paper products to bin right, and plastics and other recyclables to bin left, just because that’s the way we roll.

But I’m still not satisfied because although these changes are a start, I’m still not sure what’s most critical to do…

There is the proverbial commentary on the difference between the map and the terrain; in this case, we can’t even be sure about the terrain. How much individual and communal and global modifications will be enough, soon enough?

Wouldn’t it be easy if there was just a Sustainability TomTom? “Turn right to reduce your carbon footprint. “ Etc.

No, really, it’s true--apparently, it’s possible now to download a TomTom app to your iPhone, and motor to your destination accompanied by the berating of Mr. T: “No fool, I said turn left!”, or the less directive, but equally menacing/moronic -- Dennis Hopper, Gary Busey, or even Homer Simpson. You didn’t realize your life was missing this essential, post-modern accoutrement, did you?

(Let me pause to ask: how did we ever find our way out of Africa, and across the Bering Land Bridge?) Fatherhood has compelled me into cell phone ownership, but I refuse to acquire a GPS system, no matter how putatively convenient. It’s a slippery slope, buy a GPS and before you know it, you’ll be buying a Kindle!

Until, TomTom, or iPhone, or some other entrepreneur comes up with the Sustainability app, we must proceed on our own. No metaphorical lighthouse, no Lonely Planet, no Zagat Guide. We are charged to figure it out as we go. Thankfully, lots of really smart people are on it.

In closing, consider the following feedback from an anonymous exit survey of the Citizens Academy program. Here’s what our grassroots group had to say:

“I liked meeting like-minded people from the community who I would not have known about otherwise. I enjoyed getting practical suggestions from seeing what others are doing.”
“I didn't know many people who were concerned about our country’s overuse of everything.”
“I liked learning that a lot of things I am already doing are positive and helpful to the problem. I hope to do more.”
“Not just the knowledge from the book, but the sharing of ideas from others and the challenge it brought for me as an individual to change things. I feel like I can do something, not just read about it.”
“The Easter Island reading was so provocative-And I became very fond of all my fellow class members. It was encouraging to see the growing commitment and sense of hope that people revealed as the class progressed.”

-Thad Mantaro, SUNY Oswego

Al Gore Can Never Win

2009-11-11T09:32:00.000-08:00

Which is not to say Al Gore isn't right on issues relating to climate change and sustainability. I mean that he'll never win the trust or respect of the media—and society—enough to be the "game changer" he is sometimes portrayed as, at least by his few friends in the fourth estate.

Gore can write books and give lectures on climate change till he's blue in the face, but look at what happened when it was "discovered" that Gore is investing in and making money from green and clean tech firms he's familiar with. Shock, horror! It's an absurd criticism. Warren Buffet writes books and gives advice about investing, and invests in those very firms he's writing about. Of course he does. Telling the hoi-polloi to invest in firms that you wouldn't touch with a barge pole is tantamount to a crime for a professional investment advisor.

The problem here lies not just in the "meme" (the cultural icon) that Al Gore has become, with all its attending baggage—the notion that he's a congenital liar, a blowhard, a Cassandra, self-aggrandizing: labels used against him in a nasty political campaign he's unable to escape—the problem is in the very idea that every battle needs a "game changer."

This phrase has been cropping up in newspapers and blogs a lot lately, particularly in respect to sustainability and environmentalism. While societal movements need "leaders," a "game changer" is more like a celebrity or spokesperson--less Martin Luther King and more Charlton Heston. A leader like King obviously drew media attention and scrutiny, but he was not a figurehead: he organized and marched and administered, and he collaborated with myriad other groups and individuals. Heston was mostly a publicity stunt for the NRA—albeit very good one.

The trouble with Al Gore being the unofficial leader of the sustainability movement is that he's treated as a celebrity and has become caricatured out of proportion. As good as he is at persuasion, he'll never, ever unite the nation toward sustainable goals the way it must be. So when Gore is found to be investing in green and clean tech, the media snarks—and cannot seem to make the story "Who are these green tech firms and how can you get in on the ground floor by investing in them?" even though the capitalist solution to the climate change crisis is exactly the sort of rallying point the country needs.

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

STUFF

2009-11-06T10:08:00.000-08:00

George Carlin did this classic shtick about stuff:

“…that’s the whole meaning for life, trying to find a place for your stuff. That’s all your house is…your house is just a place for your stuff. If you didn’t have so much goddam stuff you wouldn’t need a house…

That’s all your house is… it’s a pile of stuff with a cover on it….that’s all your house is, is a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff.

Now sometimes you gotta move, get a bigger place…why?... too much stuff!

You gotta move all your stuff….and maybe…put some of your stuff in storage. Imagine that, there’s a whole industry based on keepin’ an eye on your stuff.”

This bit used to have me in stitches.

Now that I’m a homeowner, husband and father, I’m convinced Stuff conspires to overthrow the benevolent regime my wife and I have attempted to create in our little slice of paradise. Stuff reproduces on its own in the dark recesses of our basement. Gadgets I can’t remember what the heck they do appear and muster in the night. Family dog-related flotsam and jetsam litter the cubbies and forgotten nooks; books gather mournfully in straining shelves; paper accumulates like Kudzu in file cabinets spilling forth like a Stephen King horror fest.

A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.

Would that there was a zebra mussel, a Golem to vanquish the Stuff.

And this, despite the fact that my wife and I are rabid, insufferable, militant, anti-Stuff-ites. Honestly. We take this anti-Stuff obsession to a new level, at least on the “getting rid of Stuff side of the supply-demand-cleanse equation.” If there was a bulimia for Stuff, we’d have it. We purge on a quarterly basis, but still have too much Stuff. When people come over, they say…”Wow (tension in their voices) your place is nice, minimalist, but nice.”

And yet, Stuff still plots the revolution.

Maybe it’s because we have an infant. I never knew my life was lacking before we had the “Diaper Genie.” Bibs in all colors of the rainbow (“Daddy loves me” “Mommy’s angel” ) manifest pride, succumb universally to toxic spit-up, retire to the basement, and decamp in stages before shipping out on the down-low to the Salvation Army.

Much of this Stuff we didn’t buy—gifts from generous relatives and friends, to whom we generally bear a great and genuine debt. Maybe it’s being a new parent, but I’m amazed that even at four months, our daughter has outgrown so much of what we were given, so quickly. Looking at next year’s tax return documentation, I’m astonished to see we’ve made donations of probably 250+ items already, of all this Stuff…baby Stuff, the year’s accumulated ephemera, Stuff we thought we’d need to live. STUFF.

Carlin’s wisecracking resonates because it reflects in part our collective, cultural obsessive-compulsivity and hoarding; also, in part--recognition of our own consumerist inertia. Carlin implies we buy the house to put our Stuff in. I think that’s putting the cart before the horse; home ownership seems to condemn us to a life consumed by Stuff because we buy in to the conspiracy of consumption.

Stuff to decorate, Stuff to demarcate (our social standing--leather couches required, never mind they’re cold as ice), Stuff to make our lives simpler and more “efficient” (we need those three TVs, gotta have a TV in the kitchen too!...otherwise we’d strain our neck stretching to watch Giada prattling on in the living room while we’re working on dinner in the kitchen).

But we never think about the Stuff. Where it comes from, what the cost is, how much Stuff we really need. In the culminating session of the Citizens Academy, one group member suggested we end by watching a devastating video called “The Story of Stuff.” You can find the video free for download here: http://www.storyofstuff.com/

In this video, the lifecycle of stuff--from third world destruction and toxic nightmare, to hidden costs, to packaging excesses, to landfill folly—is charted…pulling no punches. It’s good, really good, and you’ll find it hard to buy another juice box. Unfortunately, it limits much of the power of its suggestions to a near-footnote at the end. But it’s a critical condemnation, not just of stuff, but of our entire way of life.

It is the counter-revolution.

Ironically, soon after I posted an endorsement on Facebook, applauding the video, a friend emailed me to note that even they have a link on their website where you can purchase “The Story of Stuff,” Stuff.

In this round, I concede, it appears Stuff abides.

-Thad Mantaro, SUNY Oswego

Wrap This Blog!

2009-10-30T09:37:00.000-07:00

As I write this--my subject was always going to be packaging, honest--a very large plastic bag is floating around in the wind outside my window on Syracuse University's South Campus. It looks like one of those utterly superfluous bags that wraps a DVD player inside its cardboard box, surrounded by polystyrene peanuts, bubble wrap, or, if the planet is lucky, low-grade paper padding.

If the planet is unlucky, as it often is these days, then no-one will think to pick up this "piece of trash"--or no-one will be able to because a gust of wind just turned it into a balloon--and it will float for miles, possibly to end up in one of the massive ocean trash gyres, to be broken down by the sun and waves into its microscopic, poisonous, and practically indestructible constituent elements.

There were once hints of protest about modern culture's insistence--even reliance--on single-use, unrecyclable, redundant packaging for almost every object we buy. At my mother's local supermarket in Brighton, England, sustainability-minded shoppers objected to apples individually wrapped in cling-film and polystyrene, as if nature's wrappers (you can always peel the apple if you can't wash it) aren't good enough. But what I take to the curb after being a pretty thorough paper/plastic/metal recycler and enthusiastic composter is mostly packaging waste.

An answer might come if sustainability thinking and collaborative problem-solving entered disciplines other than engineering, architecture, environmental studies ... Calling all industrial designers! If society can't do without packaging, at least every package should be firstly re-usable and secondly recyclable.

What if, for instance, bright sparks at Rubbermaid and JVC could work together on a sturdy shipping package for a DVD player that then had second life as a tub container (you know, for all those spare video connectors everyone has) and then a third life as a recycling container for when the broken DVD goes back to JVC for dismantling? In other words, an upscaling of coffee-tin-as-odd-nail-container.

And that's a wrap.

--Martin Walls

Syracuse Center of Excellence

Don't spit into the wind

2009-10-22T08:19:00.000-07:00

As a little boy, I grew up listening to AM radio, flopping around in the back compartment of my parents' station wagon--no seat belt, no air bags, just a single low-fi speaker--singing along to the hits of the 70s. Jim Croce was one of my favorites, and my parents laugh to this day, as they tell stories about me crooning away, knowing the words to all the songs.

Croce’s anthem to revenge and vindication—“You don’t mess around with Jim”—told the story of a bully that got his comeuppance. The refrain goes (sing along if you know it):

“Now they say you don’t tug on Superman’s cape
You don’t spit into the wind,
You don’t pull the mask off an ‘ole Lone Ranger,
And (in the last refrain) you don’t mess around with Slim”

These were the rules; law to a child. They were simple, concrete, understandable (“Hey, Superman’s busy with global concerns—lay off his cape”; “Bully Jim, did Slim wrong”—note to self, be good, stay away from pool halls). To this day, I never spit, and definitely not into the wind.

As an adult, the rules seem less simple, and decidedly more relativistic, especially when we talk about sustainability. If I own an SUV, but drive it many fewer miles than you drive your hybrid, can I lay claim to “green”? Who’s more sustainable: the family with two children that mows with an old manual reel mower, or the D.I.N.K.s who are less stringent about recycling their junk mail (assuming having kids imposes some significant costs to the environment)? Cloth diapers (incurred water resource utilization) v. disposables (landfill utilization)? [For more on this latter conundrum see this interesting link on the idealism and reality diaper debate: http://www.slate.com/id/2187278/.]

Perhaps, these comparisons don’t really matter, but the workbook the Citizens Academy group relies on encourages us to begin to apply metrics to our respective choices: a personal, ecological scorecard. Yet, the complexity of all the categories of self-assessment seems more complicated than a multi-million dollar LEED certification process. Where to start?

One outgrowth of said searching, the distillation or “Golden Rule” for the group grew to be the concept that …"we all live downstream.” Choices we make impact everyone in this scenario, including ourselves…a giant, Mobius band, where operationally our downstream returns as our upstream. A karmic, bio-ecological boomerang.

Or, as “Jim” came to see, what goes around, comes around.
-Thad Mantaro, SUNY Oswego

Green Is Brown

2009-10-22T07:46:00.000-07:00

I owe the title of this post to Mike Rowe, host of the Discovery Channel show "Dirty Jobs." In his travels around the country looking for "the honest men and women who make civilized life possible for the rest of us," Rowe often meets sustainability entrepreneurs working hard at both large and small scale operations. Rowe's point with "green is brown" is that often the jobs he attempts with these entrepreneurs is a million miles from green and clean high tech or earth crunchy environmentalism. Many of the jobs in the "new green economy" are dirty, smelly, and hard--more like the trench work that was the foundation of the industrial revolution. Green is brown.

The show that premiered on Oct. 20, 2009 had a perfect example. Rowe re-visited a remarkable San Francisco recycling operation that has provided him material on two other occasions, when he showed how this firm is at the cutting edge of composting and of complete household recycling. In the Oct. 20 episode he helped the firm deconstruct porcelain toilets from a disused factory. The bowls and urinals were sent to a crusher that eventually broke them into three-inch chunks. Recycled porcelain can be used to make new porcelain items or added to macadam for roads.

But beyond the "green is brown" stinkiness of the job and Rowe's inevitable toilet jokes was an almost-hidden moment that shows how the new economy is working. The massive, complex, wholly impressive, and absolutely necessary three-inch crushing machine can eat porcelain, stone, and metal. Rowe casually mentioned that one of the engineers he was working with designed and built it--and there you have it: green is brown is problem solving is innovative engineering is the new industrial revolution.

—Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

Whatever Happened To ...

2009-10-07T12:32:00.001-07:00

It's surprising how much sustainability has been lost in a couple of generations. Fewer people garden than they did in our parents' and grandparents' days. Clothes and shoes are thrown away rather than mended at tailors and cobblers. When I was growing up in Brighton, England, "rag and bone men" still collected metal scraps for smelting and old clothes for the paper industry. Sustainability—eating local food, making do and mending, recycling everything—wasn't a lifestyle choice, it was life.

One of the strangest "steps backward" I noticed on my last trip home has to do with milk delivery. In my neighborhood there used to be a local milk distribution center—The Dairy, as it used to be a real dairy—from whence every day at about 4 am little three-wheel electric milk trucks would trundle to delivery milk in foil-top bottles and collect washed-out old bottles for re-filling.

Local food, local distribution, re-usable bottles, electric vehicles—sounds like a dream for today's sustainable community movement. Except that my neighborhood, town, country turned away from this model. My mum now gets milk in plastic containers from a supermarket.

No doubt the economic model for this kind of distribution couldn't compete. But that's an economic model that can't or won't take into account the lifecycle cost of milk that is distributed in polluting trucks and drunk from unreusable plastic bottles, or the lifestyle cost of losing a center of community life—not to mention the butt of many British jokes—that is the milkman in his blue and white uniform and his sputtering electric truck.

--Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

Be careful which seeds you water…

2009-10-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

Over the last two sessions of the Saturday morning Citizens Academy we’ve had ardent discussions about the U.S. consumer culture and food purchasing. Readings described our current economic model, based upon consumer spending, and we lauded local alternatives—Grindstone Farms Organic delivery, Ithaca dollars, the expanding barter network—as well as issuing a lament that derided the confusing and probably confabulated explosion of “digestive disorders” among female yogurt consumers (aggressively marketed probiotics--didn’t yogurt always have probiotics?) that then leapfrogged to the scourge of ED among the mature male population (Who would have “thunk” our national eating epidemic might connect the dots from atherosclerosis to circulatory disorders to ED?!).

The rising tide of contamination in the water supply roiled the collective group stomach, and there seemed to be no sop to the corrupt confluence of hormones, pesticides and herbicides polluting the planet.

Always seeking (and seeing) convergence, I was struck by the recent Ken Burns documentary on the National Park System, and how good and judicious planning (sustainability?) has played a role over time in the formation of this majestic resource. Obviously, some remarkable maneuverings in our collective national history conspired to “water these seeds…”and for the most part, in this example--sustainably—we appear to have “got it right.” In that same film, Frederick Law Olmstead (father of American Landscape Architecture, designer of Central Park) advocated that “in a place as special as Yosemite, ‘the rights of posterity’ were more important than the desires of the present. He called for strict regulations to protect the landscape from anything that would harm it and stressed the importance of making Yosemite accessible to everyone….”

It all begs the important question: “What are the rights of posterity?”

Thinking of this, lately, it strikes me that an element of green-washing has colluded to co-opt our Native American intellectual heritage. Everywhere, we hear the “seventh generation” maxim, and at keynote after keynote some (typically) “majority population” emcee rolls out this tired salvo to perform like a precocious savant for the expectant crowd till the original force is nearly diluted beyond meaning.

Admittedly, it’s a great barometer. But if as some statistics estimate the top ten in demand jobs today didn’t even exist ten years ago, how do we begin to talk about seven generations from now? The Citizens Academy group, while noting the imperative, recoiled from the magnitude of pondering so many years out. The operative question then became collectively, and fundamentally, locally: “What will we each do in this next week…and what will we do today?”

Some members decided to purchase more organic produce, others to eat more mindfully. Others still, to do a better job deciding what they really need vis-à-vis what they really want. Some thought a more frequent trek to the Best Kept Secret for a clothing purchase might stem their collusion with “consumerism.” Others decided—no more bottled water, while a remaining few decided just to learn more about what really constitutes “organic.” All decided to water new seeds…while consciously thinking of the rights of future generations.
-Thad Mantaro, SUNY Oswego

Give me spots on my apples...

2009-09-25T07:27:00.000-07:00

Direct citizen action has always been at the heart of broad social movements, but discussions about “sustainability” and “green” are still vague concepts for some community members--something separate from their lives and perceived immediate needs. Others are remarkably engaged, both in terms of individual choices and through local activism—buying locally, modifying the transportation they use, and deciding to embrace ecological diversity rather than “paving paradise”….

“They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot SPOT
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don't know what you’ve got
‘Til it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

…Hey farmer, farmer
Put away that DDT now
Give me spots on my apples
But LEAVE me the birds and the bees
Please!
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you’ve got
‘Til its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot.”

When Joni Mitchell wrote this song, Big Yellow Taxi, nearly 40 years ago environmental interest was decidedly strong. But such awareness has waxed and waned. Unfortunately, a popular preference against spots has sometimes surged against the concern expressed in what might be seen as her plaintive call (above) for sustainability in the web of our relationships both personal and global, and the felt loss when what we have is truly, finally gone.

Led by that concern—to promote discussion of what constitutes a sustainable community--this semester, in conjunction with Rice Creek Field Station, the Office of Business and Community Relations at SUNY Oswego has sponsored a Citizens Academy on Sustainability. It’s an experiment in fostering community activism that reflects both our college President Deborah Stanley’s signing of the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment and a call from the community itself for the college to promote awareness of sustainability.

The program uses a unique discussion group format with a workbook designed by the Northwest Earth Institute (http://www.nwei.org/discussion_courses/course-offerings/choices-for-sustainable-living). About 15 community members meet weekly on Saturday mornings at the Downtown SUNY Oswego location and talk about sustainability topics like ecological principles, consumer choices, buying locally, transportation, sustainable communities, business and the economy, and visioning the future.

Over the course of the next several weeks, through the program’s culmination in late October, I will write here about the discussions in the group, and the thoughts community members have about sustainable living in a small city, in a rural county, in Central Upstate NY.

--Thad Mantaro, SUNY Oswego

Think Globally, Act Locally

2009-09-23T09:05:00.000-07:00

“Think globally, act locally” is a phrase that has been used in the environmental movement for many years now. It has its origin in the town planning of Scotsman Patrick Geddes at the turn of last century. It’s an old enough phrase to be considered a cliché, assigned to the same Earth-crunchy hamper as the peace sign, smiley face, and “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out.”

A shame, because when it comes to the action required to make our communities sustainable, lower our dependence on fossil fuels, and reverse the effect of climate emissions, the bottom-up “think globally, act locally” ethos could do as much good as top-down protocols and initiatives from governments, such as cap-and-trade and carbon emissions limits.

I’m sure much will come out of the UN climate summit planned for Copenhagen this December. But the debate at these mega-conferences can seem awfully esoteric and irrelevant to our lives. There are still plenty of communities in the US that have no recycling programs, meaningful public transportation, or community gardens, let alone sustainable town planning (where’s Patrick Geddes?!), green infrastructure, or green jobs.

Targeted government intervention in sustainability would be better than vast treaties. That is, legislation along the lines of smoking bans or the American with Disabilities Act: the whole nation is quite used to smoke-free and accessible buildings now. Just one local act that could make a huge difference is the slow phasing out of gas engines for lawnmowers, weedwhackers, and the like. It would be a way for folks could get used to battery engines and for Toro, John Deere, and Bombardier to be thrust to cutting edge of green technology!

--Martin Walls, Syracuse Center of Excellence

2009-07-28T12:51:00.000-07:00