Sustainable North

From Alaska Dispatch, Wednesday, March 3, 2010:

Skepticism about climate change is going mainstream, and that is worrying. One-third of Americans now say global warming doesn’t exist — triple the percentage of three years ago.

This defiance of science isn’t just harmful for the environment. It’s also distracting us from growing threats to US national security. Actual — not theoretical — effects of climate change are turning the Arctic into a potential military flash point.Expected melting of summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean means greatly expanded access to increasingly scarce fossil fuels. It also means tensions over Arctic real estate. What the Middle East was to the second half of the 20th century, the Arctic could be to the first half of the 21st. Because America has been so slow to wake up to climate change, it’s lagging behind in protecting its Arctic interests.

Click here to read more.

From Mother Earth News:

For a long time, politicians discounted environmentalists. Nowadays, the green vernacular is more widely spoken, but we still are not making much progress toward true sustainability. While we trade our incandescent light bulbs for compact fluorescents, we simultaneously allow our population in the United States to grow at a rate that builds a new Chicago every year. In unprecedented numbers we choose organic food, while destroying the rain forests to increase the supply of cheap soybeans and beef. About a billion people suffer from hunger, while a similar number are overweight because they eat too much. One step forward, two steps back.

Click here to read more.

Friday, March 5, 2010, 4-5PM

Morris Thompson Cultural Center

Dr. Sven Haakanson Jr. discusses the knowledge and abilities of Alaska’s Indigenous people to design and construct complex equipment, housing and tools without the use of modern technology.

The efforts of those preserving this knowledge for future generations will also be discussed.

Click here for more information.

From Alaska Dispatch, Friday, February 26, 2010:

It’s a smelly, messy job, but some of teacher Scott McKim’s students have decided they’re up to the task. Welcome to the world of composting 101.

The group of sixth, seventh and eighth graders are on a mission to reduce the amount of uneaten food and packaging waste accumulated at Begich Middle School. Developed by McKim’s after-school leadership class, the environmentally-minded group has launched a project that could, if all goes well, turn compostable trash into cash. But money isn’t the goal.

Click here to read the full story.

From The Daily Green:

Enjoying an eco-lifestyle means living greener in all areas of your life. You may be taking environmentally friendly steps at home, but are you also doing it at work?

People spend almost 90% of their lives indoors, and for those people who work inside that equates to about 40 or more hours at your desk, office or cubicle. Whether you’re a student interning at a major corporation, a marketing associate making phone calls all day or an office assistant handling paperwork, you’re going to spend a majority of your time in one place all day.

So don’t you want your work space to be eco-friendly and energy efficient? It can be if you make these simple changes in your life.

Click here to read more.

ASK A BUILDER

By CCHRC Staff

Q: What is offgassing and is it something I need to worry about?

Offgassing, also called outgassing, is a term used to describe any chemical compounds or irritants that are emitted from something. Any building products such as plywood, paints or carpets, construction glues and varnishes can emit chemicals for extended periods after they have been installed. Offgassing is common in solvent-based or petroleum-based products. Good ventilation is an important factor in combating offgassing.

Current building codes require mechanical ventilation in new construction to ensure that a house gets enough fresh air. If you want to build an eco-friendly home, or you have chemical sensitivities, look into building a home with little to no offgassing components. In the big picture, the construction industry is changing the way it manufactures products in order to limit or eliminate the use of materials that offgas.

Q: What’s an acceptable temperature to keep my garage at throughout the winter?

If the house is attached to the garage, you will want to keep it a little warmer, about 50 degrees.

In many cases, if you have a boiler and pipes in the garage, they may warm the garage more than you want just from the heat they give off, especially if your boiler is an older unit. Since it is not living space, if you have a garage that is 70 or 80 degrees, you may be using a lot of energy to heat that space. Also, that is a lot of heat that could be leaking out through the walls, which adds up to wasted energy. Don’t heat your garage anymore than you have to because it is a wasted expense.

A cooler garage is a good place to keep a refrigerator or freezer.

Keep the temperature at 60 to 40 degrees, or whatever your comfort zone is. On that note, if you are seeing a lot of condensation in the garage, which can happen by parking a wet vehicle inside, you might want to keep the temperature a little warmer or ventilate more.

Q: If I am interested in putting up a wind turbine.

Is this something I can do myself?

Installing a wind turbine is not that hard, but you definitely want to do it right or it will become very hard and very expensive. Even if installing the tower goes well, you are talking about lethal voltages of electricity, just as in any home. You don’t have to be a trained professional to do it right, but it’s prudent to work with people who are trained to install such specialized equipment.

Alaska HomeWise articles promote home awareness for the Cold Climate Housing Research Center (CCHRC). If you have a question, e-mail us at akhomewise@cchrc.org. You can also call the CCHRC at (907) 457-3454.

From The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Thursday, February 25, 2010:

Lawmakers are weighing a huge expansion of construction work to improve the energy-efficiency of public buildings across the state.

The Legislature two years ago set aside an unprecedented $360 million for household-level energy efficiency projects.

A comparable figure could go toward contractors to cut energy consumption at public buildings — schools, state and city offices and other facilities — under a plan moving through Juneau.

Click here to read the full story.

From Alaska Dispatch, Tuesday, February 23, 2010:

On Tuesday, the village of Unalakleet, seated on Alaska’s northwest coast, celebrated the town’s newest energy force — turbine number six. The awakening of the high-tech wind catcher completes the installation of the town’s new wind farm, which has already saved the village tens of thousands of dollars since the first turbines powered up a few months ago.

Since November, Unalakleet has cut utility costs by nearly $55,000 and generated enough electricity to power 86 homes for an entire year, according the wind farm’s new Web site. The site also claims the wind energy has significantly reduced carbon dioxide emissions that would otherwise have been pumped into the atmosphere through more traditional, diesel-only power generation — the equivalent of more than 580,000 miles of driving in the family car. According to our calculations, that’s about 111 one-way trips between Anchorage and Key West, Florida.

Click here to read the full story.

From The Tundra Drums, Wednesday, February 17, 2010:

What might be the only commercial farm in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta will expand this summer, despite early worries that the new potato field near the airport would increase the threat of bird strikes.

To prepare the field for farming, Bethel resident Tim Meyers scraped away two acres of frozen tundra near the airport on state-owned land last summer, tilling the earth underneath.

His handiwork lies prominently near the airport, visible from the main road into town as undulating rows beneath snow.

With a combination of fish-based fertilizer (the local jail donated mounds of salmon guts last summer), and a handmade potato planter and harvester, Meyers hopes to churn out 20,000 pounds of organic spuds this summer.

Click here to read the full story.

From The Associated Press, Saturday, February 20, 2010:

A proposed new rule in Fairbanks would fine people at least $300 for using wood- and-coal-fired stoves that belch out dense smoke, part of an attempt to curb air pollution in the area.

The Fairbanks News-Miner reports that Fairbanks North Star Borough Mayor Luke Hopkins is sponsoring the measure, which is a response to federal pressure to bring down pollution levels.

Click here to read the full story.