Our first eco-video is ready!

Hi friends,

At long last, our first video from our cross-country eco-video series is ready and uploaded to Youtube for your enjoyment:



This first video is an interview with Jeff Cresswell at Klean Kanteen, a company in Chico, CA that makes stainless steel water bottles. Jeff talked to Carrick about the benefits of using stainless steel water bottles over the disposable plastic ones. This is a really interesting topic with lots of angles, but we are focusing on the question of sustainability.

We have a handful of Klean Kanteen bottles at home and use them constantly, so I can attest first-hand that they are very durable and convenient. We also have several SIGG bottles, which are aluminum and haven’t held up quite as well. We got a recall notice lately from SIGG, saying that their bottles have an inside lining that contains BPA (Bisphenol A), a controversial ingredient in some plastic that is thought to be potentially hazardous, so we sent the old ones back and we are getting new ones without the BPA lining (gee, I feel so much safer). Klean Kanteen, on the other hand, is made from stainless steel and has no lining – it’s an inert material that doesn’t need a lining. I’m seeing metal water bottles pop up all over the place in catalogs and stores now, so you may want to look closely before you buy to see what kind of metal the bottle is made from. If you see a big metal water bottle for $1.99, be aware of what you’re buying.

I recently read Daniel Goleman’s book, ‘Ecological Intelligence’ which talks about life cycle analysis of different products, and what products are really “green” and what is “green-washing”. He talks about stainless steel water bottles and isn’t so enthusiastic – he claims that because of the energy needed to produce a stainless steel water bottle and transport it to the store, it would need to be used 70 times before having a lower eco-impact as disposable plastic water bottles. There are lots of variables that go into that analysis so I take it with a grain of salt. We’ve used our Klean Kanteens hundreds of times and they keep right on going. One of the major benefits of the stainless steel water bottles is that they are 100% TRULY recyclable, meaning they can be melted down and reused again and again to make new stainless steel water bottles, not downcycled like plastic bottles. If the bottles were made from recycled steel and made in the U.S., that statistic of using the bottle 70 times would be very different.

One thing I really wanted to make sure we covered in this video is drinking water from the tap and public drinking fountains. I’ve seen many times people advocate tap water instead of buying plastic water bottles, but nobody seems to acknowledge that in so many parts of the country the water tastes awful! I know – we drove it! One of the first things I did when we got home to Sutton was drink several glasses of water – I take for granted that our wonderful home well-water just comes in endless supply for us to drink. Fortunately, different kinds of water filters for the whole house, sink, or a water filter pitcher are easy ways to make tap water taste much better in places where it’s not good.

Another issue is convenience – buying a bottle of cold water on a hot day is a relief! The bottled water companies don’t hesitate to point that out, and they’re right. If bone-chilling cold water is what you want then it’s a lot less convenient to bring your own bottle. It’s also interesting to consider that most of what convenience stores sell for drinks, like soda, juice, iced tea, etc is really bottled or canned water, with flavoring and sugar added.

As a side note, many companies that sell disposable plastic water bottles officially recommend NOT reusing their bottles. That’s not just because they would rather keep selling you new bottles; disposable plastic bottles are not designed to be reused. They were never meant to be refilled and used again. There’s a lot of media online about plastic from bottles leaching into the water. Personally, I find that water in plastic bottles usually tastes like….plastic water. I don’t need studies to tell me it’s leaching, I can taste it.

In the interview at Klean Kanteen, Jeff also talked about how the company got started – it was interesting but I ended up leaving it out of the video. It began as a response to reusable plastic water bottles, such as Nalgene bottles, that were a big trend 5-10 years ago but became a big controversy with…our old friend, Bisphenol A again. You may remember hearing about BPA found in plastic baby bottles and that caused a big stir in the media. Klean Kanteen was started to offer stainless steel as an alternative and was marketed more to the sports enthusiasts at stores like REI. As disposable plastic water bottles became more of an environmental concern, Klean Kanteen has been getting more recognition from the green movement.

So, I hope you enjoy our first video from the trip. Now that I have the basics of using the video editing program, Final Cut, things should move much more quickly and we should be putting the videos out regularly. The Klean Kanteen video is also on the OurRenewableNation.org website, embedded from www.GoGreenTube.com instead of YouTube so that all you teachers can access it in schools (schools generally block websites like YouTube).

Thanks again for all your support in making this eco-video series happen! Please send this email to friends and family who you think would enjoy our video, and encourage them to sign up for our email list so they can get the videos as soon as they go online, just like you!

Be well,
Colin
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Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Our Latest Video News in October

Hi friends,

It’s been some time since my last message so I wanted to give an update on where we’re at with our eco-video series.

We got a great computer as a result of the grant from EFI that I mentioned before – it’s a Mac tower that is ridiculously fast and has plenty of hard drive space, which you need if you’re going to be doing a lot of video work! I’ve been spending hours transferring all the video footage onto the computer to begin editing – it’s a long process.

In the meantime, we’ve been continuing to film more interviews over the last month!

Several weeks ago we visited Silvermine Farm, a family-owned farm in our hometown of Sutton. Carrick interviewed farmer Martha Cole about the sustainability of local farms vs. large agribusiness, and what CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) are all about. Our family joined the CSA that Silvermine is part of in Sutton and we got a tasty supply of fresh veggies throughout the summer - we know where it came from and who grew it. Carrick also talked to Martha about the debate over buying local food that may not be organic vs. organic food that is grown and shipped thousands of miles.

We recently spent the long weekend in Washington DC to visit the Solar Decathlon 2009, a competition of 20 universities from around the world to design and build the best solar house. They set up each house on the National Mall and open them up for 2 weeks for the public to come tour. Carrick and I visited in 2007 (it happens every 2 years) and filmed a video compilation that turned out to be the only video overview of the competition on the internet. We toured again this year and shot plenty of video footage to include in our eco-video series. It’s such an inspiring sight to be there, seeing these homes that get all their electricity, heat, hot water, etc. from the sun. You can learn all about the Solar Decathlon at their website, www.SolarDecathlon.org.

While in Washington DC, Carrick also interviewed Bracken Hendricks about the government’s role in supporting renewable energy and sustainability. Mr. Hendricks works at the Center for American Progress and co-wrote the book ‘Apollo’s Fire’ with Congressman Jay Inslee, which proposes to move forward with clean, renewable energy with the same speed and urgency that we Americans were challenged with putting a man on the moon in 10 years.

This last weekend Carrick and I drove out to Great Barrington in western Massachusetts to interview Bill McKibben, who is one of the leading authors on climate change and organizes international actions to support climate change legislation. We’ve found along our travels that people support clean, renewable energy for a variety of reasons, whether environmental, national security, the strength of the economy, religion, etc. I thought it was important to have someone to speak to each of these reasons, and for climate change it would be hard to find anyone more qualified to speak to the issue! What I found after our cross-country journey was that we had filmed many great examples of the solutions that are happening all over the U.S., but we needed more context, the ‘why’ we should care about these issues, not just the ‘how’.

So that’s the latest – we’re still filming and transferring all the video footage. Breaking my ankle really threw a wrench in the works but now that I’m walking without crutches or cast and can drive again we’re moving forward. I’m excited to get editing now that we have so much footage ready on the computer – you’ll be the first to know when we have videos ready to show!

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Broken Ankle, New Computer

Hi friends,

It's been some time since I last sent anything out, and you'll remember that I had broken my ankle several days after we came home from our cross-country trip. Broken ankles sure take a long time to heal! I'm in a removable cast now and I should be able to put weight on my foot in a few weeks. Needless to say, the broken ankle has put a serious wrench in the plans to continue filming for the project in New England, at least until I'm all healed.

At least I could get a good start on editing all the video footage from the trip, right? Ah, technical difficulties. I wasn't able to transfer the footage on my Macbook, but we were lucky enough to get a grant from Energy Federation Incorporated here in Massachusetts (www.efi.org) and we were able to use it to buy a Mac tower that has enough power and storage to transfer the video and do all the editing I need. I just got the grant check last week and bought the Mac tower online, so it's on the way! I applied for the grant before we left for the trip, so it was great timing. EFI is a company in central Massachusetts that sells energy conservation products and teaches the public ways to use energy more efficiently.

The other piece of news to share is that we got a sponsorship donation from Sustainable South Shore, a chapter of Massachusetts Climate Action Network. They have been a big supporter of our project by having us at the Hull Sustainable Living Expo back in April (which was fantastic!) and promoting our cross-country journey on their website, www.sustainablesouthshore.org. Many thanks to Sustainable South Shore for their support for our work!

That's all for now, I just wanted to check in and let you know where things are at for us. We should have something ready for you soon!

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

We're Home! How Many Miles Was That?

Hi friends,

We’re home! Actually, we’ve been home for days now but we needed some time to get unpacked and get settled, so I’ve been a bit behind in the updates.

The official grand total number of miles for the trip: 12, 624 in two months!

So now what? There is a lot to get working on now that we’re back in Massachusetts; I have to transfer many hours of video onto the Mac for editing and get working on that, plus we have more video to shoot here in New England that we weren’t able to get to before we left in May. Here is a list of the upcoming New England topics yet to film:

Red Sox – Fenway Park sustainability measures
Cape Wind project – Cape Cod, MA
Hull, MA - municipal wind turbines
Poulson Hybrid, CT
Verdant Power, tidal power, East River, NYC
Stephen Lacey, Inside Renewable Energy Podcast, NH
Francis Moore Lappe, author, MA
Deep-Energy Retrofits, VT
Green City Spotlights: Boston, MA
Fosters Farm, methane digestors, VT
Timberland, NH
Recycline, MA
Owl Power, veg oil for power, MA
Geothermal heat, residential example, MA
Maine Solar House, net-zero solar heat and electricity
Connecticut small-scale hydropower

Just a few more topics…we also are planning a visit to Washington DC in the beginning of October to see and film the Solar Decathlon 2009, and visit the Green Festival put on by Green America. I’m also working on getting interviews while we’re there with William McDonough (author of the book ‘Cradle-to-Cradle’) and Bracken Hendricks (author and fellow at the Apollo Alliance, a non-partisan advocacy group for renewable energy in Washington DC).

I managed to break my ankle soon after we got home so that affects things, but I’m using whatever downtime I have to get cracking on the videos. I’m able to continue working until I have surgery a week from Monday, then I’m supposed to stay parked with my foot up and let it mend.

On the advice of friends of mine who work on video production professionally, I began using Final Cut Express for the Mac to edit videos, which is a program that is a big leap from what I’ve always used, which is the free editing software that comes with PC (Windows Movie Maker) and Mac (IMovie). I’m putting myself through a crash-course in how to use the new program, plus there are many features that I can use to make our videos even better than what we’ve done before. I’m also upgrading the computer memory to handle the strain and am picking up an external hard drive (video footage takes an incredible amount of hard drive space!)

I have plenty of thoughts to share about all we’ve seen and done over the last two months, and to speak of the things I feel the most hopeful about, but I’ll make that a separate post so I don’t go on forever here. I’m overdue in getting this message out, so I’ll leave it at that.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Our Visit to Farm Sanctuary

Hi friends,

In the final stop of our cross-country journey, we stopped for a few days in upstate New York to stay at Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen.

We are looking at several angles of sustainability when it comes to what we eat, since food accounts for a large piece of our environmental footprint. Vegetarian vs. meat? Organic vs. conventional? Local vs. global? There are many issues to look at here and when it comes to food it can be controversial. At the very least I'm hoping our videos spark some conversations on sustainable eating.

Farm Sanctuary is a home to downed and sick farm animals that come from the industrial factory farm system that brings us most of the meat we buy at the supermarket. We visited with the cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, rabbits and others that are living out the rest of their lives at Farm Sanctuary, being cared for by the folks who work there. Carrick interviewed Matt Rice, the campaign coordinator at Farm Sanctuary, about the factory farming system and how that model is unsustainable to the environment.

I saw a statistic last year that eating vegan (no meat or dairy) has more of a positive environmental impact than buying a Prius. Of course, there are a lot of factors there to consider, but in general the idea makes sense. The majority of food grown in this country is grown for farm animals, not people – in turn, farm animals consume a massive amount of food and water. While human sewage is treated and regulated in the U.S., farm animal waste has much less regulation for disposal, and it produces a great deal of methane, which is 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO2. Factory farms are unsustainable because they aren’t responsible for the waste they create and they rely on cheap fossil fuels in fertilizing and harvesting the crops to feed the billions of animals.

When it comes to factory farms there is a lot of shocking material out there, with images that are hard to look at. Our videos are focusing on sustainability, so we’ll be looking at the environmental impacts of factory farms and not the animal cruelty and confinement issues with the graphic images.

People have a lot of choices when it comes to the food we buy and consume, and food can be a very touchy subject. I understand that leaving out meat and dairy can be a radical shift in how people eat. Many of the places we’ve visited on this cross-country journey have been good examples of how living sustainably will mean new ways of doing and thinking. It’s worth looking at different ways in which how we eat affects our environmental footprint, and to consider the benefits of eating lower on the food chain.

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Our Big Day in Detroit

Hi friends,

What an exciting day we had in Detroit – a real treat!

I was hoping to make a video about GM’s efforts in developing alternative fuel vehicles, specifically the Chevy Volt, which is their next-generation electric hybrid. GM is a massive company and I never had any luck reaching anyone there about coming in for some interview time. When we interviewed Chelsea Sexton in Los Angeles I mentioned that we wanted to make a video about the Volt but never got anywhere with contacts, and she offered to put in a call to her contacts at GM for us! I was just hoping for a chance to see a Volt (slated for release in November 2010) and any interview we could get would be a bonus.

I heard back last night from Chelsea’s GM contacts and we got quite a welcome! First we went downtown to GM’s Renaissance Center (GM Headquarters) and interviewed Beth Lowery, Vice President of Environment & Energy. She told Carrick about GM’s efforts on a number of green fronts, including ethanol (that’s what those ‘Flex-Fuel’ badges are on the back of some GM cars and trucks you may see), hybrids, hydrogen fuel-cells, and electric vehicles. Cars of the future may be a mix of these technologies so they are developing a variety of technologies.

We then drove to GM’s battery development lab for a personal tour, which is a rare thing and we were very fortunate to get this time! There we saw the battery packs for the Volt being tested in all kinds of simulated temperatures and humidity. They are being continuously charged and discharged to make certain that the lithium ion battery packs will last for 150,000 miles of driving conditions, at least. They showed us the battery pack that they used in the EV1, GM’s electric car from the 90’s and feature of the documentary ‘Who Killed the Electric Car?’ and put that battery pack next to the Volt pack, which is 1/3 the size and weight with more storage capacity. We also saw the first EV1 GM produced, which was on display (there are only a handful left in existence, see the documentary to find out why). All in all, the folks at GM really gave us a lot of time for video and interviewing and answered all of our questions.

Here’s a quick description of the Chevy Volt if you don’t already know: the Volt is a 4-door electric hybrid, but fundamentally different than a Prius. The Volt plugs into any electric outlet to charge and the first 40 miles of driving is electric-only; after that a small gas (or ethanol) powered onboard generator makes electricity to keep the car going. There is no gasoline engine, and the small generator runs at a continuous speed to produce electricity, so it’s much more efficient than a traditional engine. Since the batteries are expensive, GM’s strategy is to build in enough electric-only range to get people to work and back every day, plugging in at home or work, and for most people they could commute each day without using any fuel. For any driving over the 40-mile electric-only range, the generator is there so people can drive as much as they need to. There is a lot of controversy surrounding their previous EV1 program but during our tour they insisted that they used much of the technology from that program in the Volt, and many of the Volt team is from the EV1 program. They look at the Volt as the next generation of technology from the EV1. The Volt is projected to be priced somewhere under $40,000 and they are committed to the program no matter what state the company may be in financially.

In our tour at GM they also told us about the upcoming sequel to ‘Who Killed the Electric Car?’ which is going to be called ‘Revenge of the Electric Car’. The sequel is going to focus primarily on GM and Tesla’s electric car developments. Tesla has shown how exciting an electric car can be with the Roadster (let me say from first-hand experience, it’s very exciting!) but they are a startup company and building cars in large numbers will be a challenge. GM is focusing on technology like the Volt that will give a limited electric-only range (40 miles) but they have the ability to produce cars in huge numbers, and a dealership network to sell them in. They are different visions of what an electric car should be, and it will be exciting to see which one the public embraces.

We traveled over to visit Enviro-Energies, which makes vertical-axis wind turbines. The big wind turbines we’re used to seeing are horizontal-axis machines but Enviro-Energies makes wind turbines that mount to rooftops and capture wind energy in a different ‘twist’. Instead of the usual propeller-type these look more like soft-serve ice cream cones turning on the rooftop on a vertical axis, able to capture wind from any direction. They don’t have the same issues with height that traditional wind turbines have for residential use – for many towns the laws make it difficult for the majority of homeowners to put up a wind turbine on a pole 60 feet in the air, unless people have many acres of land. Also, vertical axis wind turbines (called VAWTs) need less wind to produce electricity, they’re very quiet, of course no problem with birds or bats, and they would stick out less than a pole-mounted wind turbine. We saw several sizes of their turbines including a 6-foot wide model going on Ed Begley Jr.’s house, and a 20-foot wide model that will be installed on Jay Leno’s huge garage of collected cars. They have designed and are planning to install some much larger-scale turbines on the tops of skyscrapers, which would be impossible with traditional propeller-type wind turbines (or very difficult anyway). It was a great opportunity for us to see a kind of renewable energy technology that hasn’t really become widely known yet but has a lot of potential.

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Oh Canada! Our Visit to Toronto

Hi friends,

We just spent the weekend in Toronto, Ontario for a brief trip over the U.S. border with a few videos planned there.

Toronto is a great example of a green city, by the standards of those we saw on the Top 10 lists we’ve been using for our Green City Spotlights. They have great public transportation, many parks throughout the city, and a great recycling program. Right outside the city hall building was a huge wind turbine, clearly visible when entering the city. There were throngs of people walking everywhere we went throughout Toronto, surely a healthy sign of an active city.

We were planning to do an interview at Zenn Motors in Toronto, which produces neighborhood electric cars. Unfortunately our contact there had to change plans and go to Chicago, so that didn’t work out. That’s OK, because with our videos at Tesla Motors and GM we got two different perspectives on electric cars from the two companies that will most likely be playing key roles in the future of the auto industry.

We did travel north of Toronto to Wildflower Farm for an interview with Miriam Goldberger, who runs the farm. They produce Ecolawn, which is a grass seed blend that provides a much more sustainable alternative to the traditional grass we’re all used to. Ecolawn looks like normal grass but doesn’t need to be watered, uses no fertilizers or pesticides, and it grows slowly to need less mowing. The secret is the long roots that grow down into the soil almost a foot, which aerates the soil, pulls water and nutrients from further down, and the roots grow close together to crowd out grubs and shallow-root weeds like crabgrass. It grows well in either shade or sun in a variety of climates, and is non-invasive so it won’t spread into anyone else’s yard. Check them out at www.Wildflowerfarm.com.

Wildflower Farm also produces seeds for hundreds of wildflower varieties, and they have many demonstration beds to show that wildflower gardens can be a very easy, low-maintenance and beautiful alternative to big lawns. Miriam talked about the history of lawns and why we in the U.S. came to be so obsessed with surrounding our homes with “green carpets”, and the bizarre turn in the last 60 years of using however many gallons of water and chemicals necessary to “conquer” the lawn. It was an eye-opener, believe me. Many of us have lawns so Carrick interviewed Miriam about rethinking lawns and open space to be more sustainable, beyond switching to a reel mower!

We also visited Niagara Falls since we were driving through – we didn’t do any filming there but it’s worth mentioning nonetheless. The Canadian side of the falls is shaped like a big horseshoe and we went aboard the ‘Maid of the Mist’, a boat that brought us to the bottom of the falls. Standing on the deck of this boat (getting soaked) and seeing the giant falls up close, was an amazing sight. The height and power of the water sure made me feel very small! I could feel the shaking of the engines working hard just to keep the boat in place.

That’s all for now – onto upstate New York!

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org