Pay the Farmer, Not the Doctor

“You are what you eat.”  We’ve all heard this, and yet most of us never read the ingredients in the foods we eat.  And if we do, we have little awareness of whether the ingredients are harmful or not.  Our bodies are amazingly resilient, and can survive repeated exposure to unhealthy substances.  And yet we wonder why, in spite of the advances in modern medicine, we continue to suffer from chronic conditions.

Organic food is getting more attention these days as people are taking a more thoughtful look at what they’re eating.  For most of my life, I simply trusted that if it’s on the shelves of the grocery store, it must have passed some sort of test of the FDA or the USDA, which have been granted the authority to monitor and regulate the safety our food supply.  While I’m not completely cynical about the good work that these organizations do, I have little confidence that they are acting in the best interest of consumers – particularly as the food industry seems to have a virtual revolving door into their offices. Continue reading

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The New Good Life

In thinking about how to live a more sustainable lifestyle, many of us are drawn to a simpler lifestyle.  It is thought that some of the happiest people are those that live with less, like the story of the Mexican fisherman.  In this story, an American tourist coaches a the Mexican on how he could turn his small-time fishing operation into a huge empire, and after 25 years of industrious work, could retire with his fortune – living exactly what the Mexican described as his current lifestyle!

John Robbins, heir to the Baskin-Robbins family, walked away from the family business fortune to seek out his own definition of the “good life.”  After graduating from college, he and his wife used personal savings to buy several acres of land on a remote corner of an island off the coast of British Columbia.  They built a small one-room cabin, grew their own food and lived what many might consider a desolate life.  And yet, in looking back on the experience, Robbins recalls with fondness how the beauty and pristine quality of nature enabled them to grow personally.  They embraced yoga and meditation, and each other, in the silent wilderness for ten years. Continue reading

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City Seeks to be “Solar Capital of the Universe”

The sun is relentless in the high desert town of Lancaster, California.  This city, with a population of just over 150,000 people, is located about an hour north of Los Angeles in the Antelope Valley region.  It is the home of Edwards Air Force Base, where space shuttles have often landed long after the speed of sound was first broken by Chuck Yeager.

The city’s mayor, Rex Parris, wants to capitalize on the abundance of solar energy, and has launched a campaign to be the first city to produce more electricity from solar energy than the town consumes on a daily basis.  With 39 megawatts already installed and 50 MW under construction, this will “only” require an additional 126 MW of solar capacity to meet that goal. Continue reading

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Experience Energy at St. Louis Science Center

The St. Louis Science Center is widely renowned for its family-friendly exhibits.  The massive marble roll in the main lobby catches everyone’s attention, and the life-size Tyrannosaurus rex intrigues kids both big and small.  The latest addition to the Science Center is the Experience Energy gallery.  This is a great place to explore and learn about the value and importance of energy in our world.

This highly-interactive gallery, made possible by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy in partnership with the Missouri University of Science and Technology, offers attendees the chance to learn all about energy.  One of the first exhibits in the gallery shows how energy is used in a roller coaster, including a video from Six Flags St. Louis showing the energy in motion.  Visitors also have a chance to build their own roller coaster to experience first hand how potential energy is transformed into kinetic energy. Continue reading

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My ReVolt Against Fossil Fuels

I got my first chance to drive a Chevy Volt a couple years ago when I worked a few hours in a booth at the St. Louis Auto Show.  Now, this was far from the experience you might expect; I drove it inside America’s Center and was asked not to exceed 5 mph.  The person who rode with me didn’t exactly hold me at gunpoint, but I felt compelled to honor their request (with I think one very short and modest exception!)

At the time, the Volt was not yet available in our area, so even if I felt like the $40K asking price was not an obstacle, I wouldn’t have been able to go out and get one.  But in the last year or so, I’ve been seeing more of them on the road, and I have to say that I really like the car.  So when Microgrid Solar installed a ChargePoint EV charging station in front of Brauer Hall at Washington University, I attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate yet another charging station in St. Louis. Continue reading

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Where Does the Trash Go?

I am pleased to head up a “Green Team” at our office.  The company I work for, Microgrid Solar, recently moved into a new and much larger office space, so I now have a private office that rivals the home office I’ve been so comfortable in the last few years.  Working everyday with a great team is fun, and I’m honored at the chance to provide some leadership on our sustainability initiatives.

One of our policies is to divert at least 90% of our waste in the office and at job sites, so in the office kitchen, we often have to decide where the trash goes – recycling or landfill?  Given the variety of standards, food packaging is one of the more challenging items to determine whether it goes in the recycling bin or the trash. We are fortunate to have access to a variety of restaurants in Clayton, and we often run out to pick up food and bring it back to eat at the office.  I’m pleased to see more restaurants using recycled and recyclable materials in their packaging, including paper, plastic and foil.  We have single-stream recycling (which means you can throw all recyclables into a single container), but it’s still far from simple when it comes to proper disposal.  Since different waste haulers have different standards, it’s important to check with yours to find out what they’ll accept in the recycling bin. Continue reading

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Great Green Resource

Several months ago I discovered a book called Just Green It on a friend’s coffee table.  Thumbing through it, I could quickly tell that this was a great resource covering all aspects of our busy lives.  The final hook that begged me to borrow the book was likely the inclusion of one of my favorite quotes from Gandhi – “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Authors Ron and Lisa Beres, founders of GreenNet.com, provide a vast set of “dos and don’ts” to help us navigate an increasingly complex set of consumer choices.  The bulk of the book is in a concise format that shows opposing options.  For each of 100+ product categories, they offer one page, called Green It! that highlights “The Good,” “The Green,” and “The Convenient Truth.”  These pages are filled with facts and recommendations on how to live a more sustainable lifestyle by choosing a greener alternative.  The book promotes a variety of real name-brand products as a service to help consumers identify pre-vetted products.  As busy as we all are, this seems like a great resource to minimize the research necessary to find truly green products. Continue reading

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Green Getaway

In October, I scheduled a long overdue quiet retreat.  Years ago I took a similar getaway to do some soul-searching when I was at a crossroads in my career, and found the Vision of Peace Hermitages in Pevely, Missouri, which is about a 30 minute drive south from St. Louis.  On my first trip there in 2003, I spent three days in the quiet surroundings, and so I chose to do another mid-week stint this year.

Of course, it was a prime time of the year for the changing colors of the trees.  Nestled on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River, the hermitages are surrounded by privately owned forests of trees.  Most of the hermitages are built into the hill, with the ceiling, floor and three of four walls touching the surrounding earth.  A single exterior face of each hermitage is exposed to the elements, so they are very energy-efficient, requiring little to heat and cool the space. Continue reading

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Non-Toxic Flea Control

I guess we should consider ourselves blessed that, in the ten years that we’ve had our golden retriever Shannon, we’ve never had a flea problem.  But this summer, we discovered what a frustrating and challenging problem a flea infestation can be.  We’re not sure who to blame (the groomer?  Another dog?  Life?), but we’ve cursed and sworn that once we get past this, we’ll monitor things much more diligently so we never have such an outbreak.

Our veterinarian, who is a fairly “green” kind of guy, suggested that the most common remedy is to deploy a flea bomb.  Given my predisposition for clean, healthy air, I was certainly reluctant to take this advice, and sought out to find a healthier, non-toxic alternative to solve the problem.  As it turns out, there are a number of more eco-friendly options, although not as convenient as setting off a device that spews a dense cloud of insecticide to cover the entire interior of our home.  Of course the manufacturers of these products will claim that they are safe to use, assuming you follow all of their instructions and leave the house for a few hours while the “dust” settles.  In fact, this poison settles on virtually everything in your home, resulting in what I’d consider a hazardous waste site.  In addition, continued use of these pesticides ultimately leads to higher resistance from pests, which creates a need for even more toxic enhancements.  It’s much healthier to use a holistic approach to the problem. Continue reading

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Achieving Net Zero

Most people would love the possibility of having a clean, renewable energy system that produces all of their electricity.  As utility rates continue to climb, our summer electric bills have gotten our attention and seem to scream for an alternative solution.  Many people are discovering that solar electric systems are well suited to accomplish this feat.

Unfortunately, this is a tough challenge in Missouri, because you can’t bank any excess energy produced beyond the monthly billing cycle.  While other more progressive states like Illinois, New Jersey and California have an annual true-up cycle that enables them to over-produce in some months to cover a deficit in other months, a monthly true-up will only let you bank energy on the grid during a single month.  If you are a net-generator at the end of the month (you produce more than you use), the utility will pay you their avoided cost, which is about 2-1/2 cents per kWh.  Compare this to what you pay, which may range from 7 cents in the winter to 11 cents or more in the summer, and you can see that’s no money-maker. Continue reading

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