Free Marketing is Nice!

We would just like to thank Channel 8 here in San Diego for capturing a great image of our reusable grocery bag!

Earth Day...everyday?

Yesterday was Earth Day, and we celebrated by hosting our own booth at Earth Day, San Diego, CA. It was a beautiful day, perfect weather sunny skies with a cool breeze, and it got me to thinking. What a great day this is, all these people here for the same reason, because they care about this place we call "Planet Earth." What a great thing, but...why does this only happen once a year? Shouldn't we care about the planet everyday and strive to make a difference? Every year on one Sunday in April people come from everywhere to celebrate the Earth, and they may buy a few things or learn about the newest products that are "good for the Planet." Then they go home and wait until the next Sunday in April when they can do it all over again.
It just makes me wonder why it is the one thing that sustains all life is only thought of once a year...same reason I wonder why we only give "THANKS" once a year at Thanksgiving, shouldn't we be thankful for everything we have everyday?

Some of you may have purchased reusable bags, some may already own them, just because you bought them doesn't mean that everytime you go to the grocery store the bagger will fill your reusable bags with your groceries...you have to remember to bring them. This is the hardest part about reusable bags, it is a habitat that you must create, if for some reason you forget them, don't stress, just try to remember them for next time. Put them in your car, put them by the front door, put a post-it on your forehead if you have to, but the more and more you remember to bring them the more it becomes a habit. One day you'll head to the store without them and you will feel like you are missing something, and realize that this which was so hard to begin with is now a part of your grocery store ritual, like sneaking down the candy aisle just to see what is calling your name. :) This is what makes a difference, this is what makes everyday "Earth Day," knowing that the little things you do, can and do make an impact to this place we call "Planet Earth."

Happy Earth Day!

Just a quick post to say Happy Earth Day. If you are in the San Diego area, you should stop by the two events we're at and say hi!

Saturday, April 21st, 1-5pm
4S Ranch Earth Day Event
16772 Dove Canyon Rd., San Diego, CA


Sunday, April 22nd, 10am-5pm
Earth Fair 2007
Balboa Park

Green Drinks in Encinitas!!!! Migrate Home, April 25th

We are totally thrilled to see that Green Drinks will be held in our home town of Encinitas this month!!!! Come join us at Migrate Home on April 25th, 6-9pm!

Spring is in the air! I'd like to wish everyone a Happy Eastre. No, that's not a mis-spelling, but a shout out to the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, from whose name the word "Easter" is derived from. (gotta love that wikipedia)

GreenDrinks celebrates spring by migrating to North County. Lindy at Migrate Home has been gracious enough to invite Greendrinks into her new eco-boutique in the Lumberyard in Encinitas on Highway 101. It's a great new place and has an outdoor area for us all to enjoy what I hope will be another textbook evening. Last month was great, overwhelming the folks at the La Jolla Brew House, and I'd like to thank everyone for making it. We're pretty much a flash mob, showing up en masse and taking over.

I look forward to seeing everyone. This is not a bar, so anyone who wishes to bring a bottle of wine, some beer (great organic wines and beers out there) or their favorite libation will not be turned away. We'll be supplying some refreshments, but we'll have an empty ice chest as well. (any web-type folks out there who would like to help, I'd like to set up a GreenDrinks carpooling bulletin board. Let me know if you have any ideas. - JS)

Keep living (and drinking) green, and see you on the 25th. (Note the move to Wednesday)

John


Migrate Home, 937 S. Coast Highway 101, suite C103, Encinitas, CA 92024

Earth Week at UC, San Diego April 16-20

Stop by UCSD this week for an event packed Earth Week, April 16-20.

Pump Up Your Tires - Save Gas

Via Green Car Congress:

The Pep Boys – Manny, Moe & Jack, the US’ leading automotive aftermarket retail and service chain, will offer free tire air pressure checks during National Tire Safety Week, April 22-28.

The US Department of Energy reports that properly inflated tires can improve gas mileage up to 3.3%. Underinflated tires are also responsible for automobile crashes that result in 660 fatalities and 33,000 injuries each year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

LiveGreen gives a shout out to Green Option

I recently had a chance to chat with Green Options founder David Anderson. Green Options is a new site this year aiming to weed through the internet and present quality green content. I have been really impressed with the quality (and quantity) of their posts and look forward to seeing where they go from here.


LG: What is Green Options? What is its mission?


GO: There is so much information out there waiting for consumers, that could readily be applied to their lives. This is the blessing of the new internet boom, as well as its curse. Today, all information is at our fingertips, but we often don't know where to find what's relevant to us because of its sheer volume. Google was the first to address this issue as a fundamental social challenge. This issue is all the more difficult in the world of sustainability because of the complex confluence of economic, political, and moral motivations behind even the minutiae of the green world.

I wanted to start a company that would use some of the best technology and formats afforded by the web 2.0 explosion to help filter and organize information to make relevant information accessible to a spectrum of consumers, from green novices to sustainability experts. Hopefully, GreenOptions.com does just that.

For newbies, it presents ways to learn what "greening your life" means before starting the process, and emphasizes that looking for new solutions does not mean giving up a quality of life that most Americans value over more abstract environmental issues. That is a much needed message today. Consumers don't like to be condescended. Instead of telling them bluntly that the things they like are bad, we want to let average consumers understand the real costs and benefits of their decisions, and we believe in the power of the internet to enable that understanding.

LG: I read a little on your bio about how you started Green Options, can you expand on that a little?

GO: It's really an odd story, and one that won't be appropriate or make much sense until we've launched all of the tools we're currently developing. Basically, though, I had just finished writing my honors thesis for Political Science at UCSD on renewable energy policy, graduated, and took a job at a marketing firm that served to increase the amount of market information available in a very particular niche: architecture and engineering firms that live off of government projects. They did great work, but their narrow mission mingled with all I had just spent months writing about from a very interdisciplinary perspective: the deficiencies in the nascent market for green products and services.

Why, I thought, are there so few resources that really address the sociological and psychological barriers to individual acceptance that, in some form, green is the future? (This was back in 2005; the situation is quantitatively better today, if not qualitatively.) At this point in time, with so few people really striving to live sustainably relative to the entire population, for individual consumers it's more about starting the process than making drastic lifestyle changes (on a policy level, drastic change is needed, but I'm not a lobbyist, so I have no control there). Of course, a real shock to our precarious food or energy systems would be necessary to alter this situation in the near term. So, here we are. We're not too late for the Prom yet, but if we don't start getting ready, we're probably going to regret it...



This is just a short post on Green Options. We look forward to continuing our discussions with David and the rest of the Green Options crew in the future.

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We didn't take a graduate course in green living. We are just trying to use our own knowledge from greening our home in Encinitas to help others around the world. If you have an interesting idea or thought that you want to share, write an article and we might publish it on our blog. Credit and fame are yours to keep! Email us!


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A Tour of the New Belgium Brewery - Act One

While bumming around Fort Collins, Colorado, LiveGreen had the chance to meet with New Belgium Brewery's Sustainability Specialist Nicolas Theisen for a tour. New Belgium is not your average brewery. Along with making beer, the creators of Fat Tire are pushing the envelope of sustainable business development while incubating a culture of eccentric genius. Come with us as we take you through the first part of our journey through Nirvana.

First stop is an explanation of the Process Water Treatment Facility where waste water from the brewery is pumped into anaerobic (without oxygen) and aerobic (whith oxygen) ponds to reduce the amount of organic waste and water sent on to the Fort Collins municipal plant. Initially built in 2001, the facility was expanded last year to double its capacity. The ponds harness the power of a diverse set of microbes to reduce organic waste. A balloon placed over the anaerobic pond captures methane released from bacteria degrading the organic waste which is then used to power a combined heat and power engine. Last year, New Belgium ran the engine for six months to produce 400,000 kW of electricity. At full load, there is a potential output of 100,000 kWh per month which could meet 15% of the brewery’s needs for electricity.

Step along to Brew House One. Not used anymore for daily brewing, there are plans to use this original brew house for specialty brews or to handle overflow from Brew House Two. Brew House Two is a bit loud and hot because this is where the magic happens. Everyday, three truck loads of grain are used for brewing. The amount of energy needed to heat the large volumes of water used at New Belgium is drastically lower than normal breweries. On the ground floor of Brew House Two can be found heat exchangers that use counter flow technology to save energy in the form of hot water. By passing the hot wort (unfermented beer) next to cold water coming in to be heated, the hot wort warms the cold water, thereby reducing the amount of energy needed to boil the water as well as cooling the wort, which reduces the energy needed to cool the wort. Water is one of the most energy taxing molecules to heat or cool, so using water as a type of energy battery is very efficient. This is just one way in which New Belgium uses heat exchangers. Another heat exchanger uses glycol to capture heat which is then used to heat the loading docks to eliminate the need for deicing.

Come up the stairs to a pavilion on top of the three huge brew tanks. It’s even hotter up here…we’re standing on top of huge tanks heated to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. This area is used for tours and entertaining. The brewery opens the pavilion up 10 times a year for local non-profit organizations to hold events and provides catering and a New Belgium bike to raffle. All free of charge. This is all part of the New Belgium philanthropic and sustainable attributes. Employee-owned, New Belgium contributes $1 for each barrel sold to a philanthropic cause within its distribution zone. This resulted in $400,000 last year alone. With a doubling in capacity expected this year, New Belgium could donate almost one million dollars next year! Check out the website to apply.

At 400,000 barrels per year, New Belgium is the third largest craft brewery (15,000 to 2 million barrels per year) in America today, surpassed only by Sierra Nevada and Sam Adams. A new packaging facility coming online right now is excepted to double this number. Truly amazing when you hear that back in 1992, New Belgium started in the basement of founders’ Jeff Lebesch and Kim Jordan's house.

So, how is this magical elixir made? Nic took us through the process as we looked into the first tank.

This is our mill, we have all of our grain silos out back. We get three truckloads of grain a day. As it comes in we mill it and put it in here with hot water. At this point, the hot water is breaking down the starches into fermentable sugars. It’s just like a hot cereal with barley, sometimes oats or wheat…we don’t use rice or corn. This is what really effects the product that comes out. The heat of the water and how long you keep it in the tank changes the amount of sugars available. It’s not only the ingredients that effect beer, it’s also the process.

Come on over to the second tank where Nic points out a mosaic surrounding the tank.


These mosaics are done by a local artist. New Belgium likes to support local artists…all of our labels are done by local artists. This mosaic is “A Day in the Life of a New Belgium Employee”. They get up, go on a bike ride…check it out. This tank is the Lauter Tun, lauter is german for straining. This is where we’re going to separate all that grain from the liquid. This grain is by far our largest waste product. We get three truck loads in a day and three truck loads out. This by-product is sent to a local feed lot and is a great example of a closed loop system.

Over to the last tank which is the prized energy saving design, the Merlin Brewing Vessel.


The brewing process is by far the highest energy use of the brewery. Nothing compares to heating all of this water, so the more energy you can capture, such as in the energy transfer plates, the better. This is an example of using less energy. You’re bringing the wort up to very high temperatures for multiple reasons. One is to sanitize the beer, so when you add the yeast there is no contamination. Two, you boil off impurities which in this case are in the form of aromas. This doesn’t effect the taste really, but can save your beer from smelling foul. And then three, this is where we’ll add herbs and spices as well as the hops. High temperatures are needed to get the flavors out.

The standard way of heating is a jacketed tank that heats the liquid from the outside. What we use is a cone and a quarter inch of liquid is poured down the cone which flash boils it. This instantly boils the wort, what would normally take hours takes minutes to heat. So we save 65-75% of the natural gas needed to heat it. And then, rather than piping that steam out, which is energy, we have a copper coil running through there to condense and capture the water which is then used to clean the tanks as well as capturing the heat.

Having fun? This place is awesome. Here we stop for a taste of New Belgium’s seasonal beer, Springboard Ale. While at the bar, a tour invades and the host starts a funky music video…watch it here!




Talking with Nic, he tells me of plans to start generating even more power onsite using wind and solar. The brewery is situated on the northern end of town and has a great wind potential from Wyoming.

That ends this part of the tour...check back soon for our next segment!

OK, the Climate is Changing...so what do I do now?

It's Friday! Most everyone is excited to be free of their shackles and have two free days to themselves. Would you like some light reading that will make you feel happy about the world, the future, the environment. Grab a blanket, start a fire, and curl up to the latest IPCC report

I jest of course. The newest report published today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a dismal look at the welfare of our planet, TODAY! No more Doom and Gloom about tomorrow, this delight is served up fresh. Here are just a few "High Confidence" observations about what global climate change is doing NOW!

increasing ground instability in permafrost regions, and rock avalanches in mountain regions.

earlier timing of spring events, such as leaf-unfolding, bird migration and egg-laying

shifts in ranges and changes in algal, plankton and fish abundance in high-latitude oceans

The uptake of anthropogenic carbon since 1750 has led to the ocean becoming more acidic with an average decrease in pH of 0.1 units (side note...and change in 1 unit of pH means 10 times more acidic or basic)

Of the more than 29,000 observational data series7, from 75 studies, that show significant change in many physical and biological systems, more than 89% are consistent with the direction of change expected as a response to warming.

That was just from section B, Current knowledge about observed impacts of climate change on the natural and human environment. Section C is even more disturbing.

If you are still of the mindset that Climate Change is ....well, that there is no Climate Change...fine. You may stop reading. I would like to talk to the group of people who agree with scientific data.

What do we do now?
If you are like my wife and I, you cannot do the following;

You cannot harness the power of a country,
You cannot leverage your company's global strategies towards sustainability,
You cannot sequester millions of tons of carbon dioxide,
...so forth and so on

If you can, that's great! Email me...I'd love to get to know you...but you may stop reading as well.

Now, who does that leave us with? Most of the world! My wife and I started our company, LiveGreen, to answer a question that had been nagging us for years. What can I do? For a while we were crippled by the thought that any action we took would be too little to cause any change in this huge world we live in. But don't despair...

Our answer is to take that first step...no matter how small. I think Jill Finlayson from GreenDimes said it best.

We’re not about people radically changing their lives, changing their lifestyle. We’re really trying to do little things that are not difficult and we’re hoping by doing that, you get a lot more people involved…there’s also sort of this trickle down effect. Once you’ve done one thing, you feel pretty good about that and it tends to be easier to do the next. The important part is that you don’t have to be the one who composts or does neighborhood programs…you just need to do one good thing that’s not going to kill you.

For instance, instead of buying your conventionally grown apples from an overseas country, placing them in a plastic produce bag...and then again in a plastic bag you instead buy organically grown, local apples from your state, sack them in a reusable produce back and taking them home in your reusable shopping bag (sorry for the gratuitous product placement ;) ...)

What do this mean for you? Hopefully you go home to a delicious apple, chock full of more vitamins and minerals than your other apples. You can benefit from good karma as well! Maybe the grocer thanks you for bringing your own bags and gives you a few extra cents off your bill. Other than that...not much.

What if there are a million of you who decide to do the exact same thing? Now we're talking! Small actions multiplied over a large population can have an even greater effect than one large action. Let's see how...

Local, organic produce helps reduce the amount of petrochemicals (oil), herbicides, and pesticides used to get that apple into your stomach. It also creates sustainable agricultural practices in your backyard that can support your economy.

Reusable shopping bags used by 1,000,000 people that day helped reduce the amount plastic material needed to take groceries home from 100,000,000,000 plastic bags used in the US to 99,999,000,000. OK, no big change that day. But those shopping bags can be reused day after day to keep that number down!

So, take your first step! Email us with any questions or stories, we'd love to hear from you.

Happy Earth Month!

Varian Designs exhibit this Saturday 4/7/07

Make your way over to SDSU this Saturday to see an amazing exhibit of art, sustainability, and beauty. Varian Designs owner Forest Dickey introduces The Timber Collection.

Featuring our five signature pieces made from recycled 19th century hand-hewn wooden structural beams, machine-sawed materials and laser-cut steel. The Timber Collection's contemporary rustic pieces are handmade, one-of-a-kind works that are the result of imagination, originality and exquisite execution.

Made from reclaimed wood from barns and fallen trees, each piece has a history that is told upon close examination. Varian Designs is devoted to making intelligent, referential, and environmentally conscious furniture that enriches the lives of those involved in its creation and use.

Join LiveGreen this Saturday, April 7th, 6-9PM, at the Everett-Gee Jackson Gallery!

Green Drinks: Simple, Unstructured...a talk with founder Edwin Datschefski

LiveGreen recently had a chance to sit down for a pint and a chat with Green Drinks founder Edwin Datschefski. Actually, it was virtual...Edwin being in the UK, LiveGreen from San Diego. ;)

Communication is key...we are very grateful to Edwin for allowing us an interview with one of the visionaries behind the fastest-growing environmentally aware communities in the world. In more than 200 cities around the world, Green Drinks is an unstructured, informal and random networking idea that brings people together every month to talk about all things green. I think the logo for Green Drinks Chattanooga encompasses the philosophy behind Green Drinks best.

The beginnings of Green Drinks is unlike any I’ve ever heard of. In 1989, Edwin found himself in a northern London pub called The Slug and Lettuce. While sharing a pint with several of his green design colleagues, Edwin noticed an enviro-minded acquaintance at a table nearby. As it turned out Edwin said, the friend was sitting with a few of his eco-conscious mates, so we pulled some tables together…and so a movement was born.

The original founders of Green Drinks are Edwin Datschefski, Yorick Benjamin and Paul Scott. A few years after starting Green Drinks, Edwin focused on setting up the greendrinks.org website in order to spread this great idea to other cities. Such a simple idea has brought like-minded people together in places like New York, London, and Amsterdam…all the way to places like Buenos Aires, Malta and San Juan.

What does Edwin see for Green Drinks in the next five years? More cities! Apart from that, we've toyed a lot with the format, but the basic theme of unstructured, informal random networking seems very stable and I don't see it evolving much though we give it every opportunity to do so.

Visit the greendrinks.org websites to find a local meeting near you. All you have to do is show up, grab a drink, and start talking. Cheers!