Better Air, Indoors and Out

Clean air, whether it’s what you breathe inside or out, keeps us healthy, active and happy. Your community can maintain and expand its tree canopy, increase energy efficiency measures and program services, and convert its fleet to ZEVs (zero-emission vehicles). You can also do similar things inside your home and in your backyard. Here, we’ll discuss measures that require you to utilize your green thumb. If you’re not especially gifted in this area, don’t fret! I’ll outline some expert tips.

Inside Your Home

NASA released a Clean Air Study in 1989 that determined which indoor plants best removed toxins, reducing “sick building syndrome”. The list of these plants were originally researched to determine how best to keep the air in space stations clean, but it is usefully in homes as well. NASA recommends keeping one plant for every 100 square feet of living or office space.

**Important for pet owners: make sure to note the last column in this chart!**

Plant, removes:	benzene[2]	formaldehyde[2][5]	trichloroethylene[2]	xyleneandtoluene[6]	ammonia[6]	Toxic to dogs, cats [8]
Chinese evergreen(Aglaonema modestum)	Yes[5][18]	Yes[5][18]	No	No	No	toxic [19]
Variegated snake plant, mother-in-law's tongue (Sansevieria trifasciata'Laurentii')	Yes[5]	Yes[2]	Yes[5]	Yes	No	toxic [22]
Aloe vera (Aloe vera)	Yes[32]	Yes[1]	No	No	No	toxic [33]
Janet Craig (Dracaena deremensis "Janet Craig")	Yes[1]	Yes[1]	Yes[1]	No	No	toxic [34]
Warneckei (Dracaena deremensis "Warneckei")	Yes[1]	Yes[1]	Yes[1]	No	No	toxic [34]
English ivy (Hedera helix)	Yes	Yes[5]	Yes	Yes	No	toxic [12]
Devil's ivy, Money plant (Epipremnum aureum)	Yes	Yes[2]	No	Yes	No	toxic [15]
Peace lily (Spathiphyllum'Mauna Loa')	Yes	Yes[5]	Yes	Yes	Yes	toxic [16]
Red-edged dracaena(Dracaena marginata)	Yes	Yes[2]	Yes	Yes	No	toxic [24]
Cornstalk dracaena (Dracaena fragrans 'Massangeana')	Yes	Yes[2]	Yes	No	No	toxic [24]
Barberton daisy (Gerbera jamesonii)	Yes	Yes[5]	Yes	No	No	non-toxic [27]
Florist's chrysanthemum(Chrysanthemum morifolium)	Yes	Yes[2][5]	Yes	Yes	Yes	toxic [28]
Dwarf date palm (Phoenix roebelenii)	No	Yes[5]	No	Yes	No	non-toxic [9]
Areca palm (Dypsis lutescens)	No	Yes[5]	No	Yes	No	non-toxic [10]
Boston fern (Nephrolepis exaltata 'Bostoniensis')	No	Yes[5]	No	Yes	No	non-toxic [11]
Kimberly queen fern(Nephrolepis obliterata)	No	Yes[5]	No	Yes	No	non-toxic[citation needed]
Lilyturf (Liriope spicata)	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	non-toxic [13]
Spider plant (Chlorophytum comosum)	No	Yes[2]	No	Yes	No	non-toxic [14]
Flamingo lily (Anthurium andraeanum)	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	toxic [17]
Bamboo palm (Chamaedorea seifrizii)	No	Yes[2][5]	No	Yes	No	non-toxic [20]
Broadleaf lady palm (Rhapis excelsa)	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	non-toxic [21]
Heartleaf philodendron(Philodendron cordatum)	No	Yes[2]	No	No	No	toxic [23]
Selloum philodendron (Philodendron bipinnatifidum)	No	Yes[2]	No	No	No	toxic[citation needed]
Elephant ear philodendron(Philodendron domesticum)	No	Yes[2]	No	No	No	toxic[citation needed]
Weeping fig (Ficus benjamina)[25]	No	Yes[5]	No	Yes	No	toxic [26]
Rubber plant (Ficus elastica)	No	Yes[5]	No	No	No	toxic [29]
Dendrobium orchids(Dendrobium spp.)	No	No	No	Yes	No	non-toxic[citation needed]
Dumb canes (Dieffenbachiaspp.)	No	No	No	Yes	No	toxic [30]
King of hearts (Homalomena wallisii)	No	No	No	Yes	No	toxic
Moth orchids (Phalaenopsisspp.)	No	No	No	Yes	No	non-toxic [31]
Banana (Musa Oriana)	No	Yes[1]	No	No	No	non-toxic [35]

Chart from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Clean_Air_Study 

Tips for keeping your houseplants alive:

• Sunlight, sunlight, sunlight. A south-facing window is best for houseplants because the plants will get the brightest and longest stream of natural light. If you don’t have a south-facing window, put your plants wherever they will get as much natural light as possible in your home or office.
• Water, but not too much. I water my plants every 3 days. This allows the water to seep all the way through the soil and soak it, but not keep it constantly drenched. If you water too much, your plant can become susceptible to root rot and you’ll likely lose your plant quickly. Make sure your plants are in pots with drainage holes at the bottom (like this or this); these types of pots will help get rid of excess liquid.
• Only fertilize if necessary. Your houseplants should not need fertilization unless they’ve been in the same pot for a long time. You can add a fertilizer spike if your plant is a little wilted, but if you’re really worried about it, take your plant to a local nursery. They will be your expert in this field!
• Recognize when there’s a problem.

See how plants can transform a space? Photo Source: HouseBeautiful

• If you water too much, if your plant tilts a lot and/or if there’s a rotten smell coming from your plant, it could have root rot. Dry out the soil and, if necessary, cut off rotting parts of the roots before replanting.
• If your plant is leaning towards the sun a little, keep rotating it. Your plant wants as much natural light as it can get! So as long as the lean isn’t extreme, a rotation every few weeks is good.
• A plant with yellow leaves is another sign of overwatering.
• A plant losing its leaves usually means its not getting enough sunlight.
• Use filtered water on your plants as often as possible. Minerals can build up in the soil and cause a white dust to form on your plant. This won’t cause you to lose your plant, but filtered water will minimize this. If you do see buildup or dust on your plant, gently wipe it off with a damp rag; this will allow the leaves to breathe more easily and thrive.

In Your Yard

I’ve written about the importance of maintaining tree canopies before, but this drought seems to complicate the issue. Not to worry! There are plenty of drought resistant plants and trees out there and there are plenty of wonderful guides to help you do this!

Go to this great event! Photo Source: USGBC-CC

In addition, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) Central California (CC) chapter is hosting a Resilient Landscaping: TransformationStrategies and Tools workshop on October 27^th in Sanger. It is open to anyone who wants to “save water in style” and, since the workshop will be hosted by the Belmont Nursery, you can pick up some plants for your home, office or yard while you’re there! Plus if you're a USGBC member, you'll save $25! Register HERE.

I encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity and spread the word to your community and community leaders! As more residents, business leaders and public agencies invest some time in resilient landscaping, the community will see more water and cost savings. Furthermore, since the plants will get just the amount of water they need and not more (since there’s no more to be had!) the landscape will thrive and help the community look and feel more alive and healthy!

Now that you are equipped with all of this information and the chance to attend a great informational event, how many of you will add plants to your home and transform your yard? What are you favorite indoor and drought-resistant outdoor plants?

Megadroughts: Our Future

Usually Seattle has cloudy skies and constant drizzle between mid October and late June and, to be honest, I was not looking forward to leaving Southern California for this weather. This winter, however, has been so mild. We’ve had as few as none and no more than four rainy days a week, which in comparison to just last year is nothing. The sun is shining now and it reached nearly 70 degrees just a couple of days ago. We're supposed to be smack dab in the middle of our very long rainy season! Clearly, the climate is changing. Not only are we Seattleites not getting a whole lot of rain or snowfall, but Californians have also received so little that there is approximately one year of water left. ONE year. That’s it.

A NASA water scientist calculated that all reservoir water, groundwater and backup supply water for the state of California will only last through the next year. Last winter, there

Photo Source: dpw.lacounty.gov

was a drastic decrease in rain and snowfall and this year, there has been even less.

Unfortunately, there hasn’t been enough urgency surrounding this issue. There have been a few local water restriction efforts set up throughout the state, but the golf courses in Palm Springs continue to be lush and green and not enough Los Angeles residents are participating in the Cash for Grass Rebate Program to alter their lawns. There hasn’t been a huge drive to create or enforce a statewide water conservation campaign.

To top it off, NASA predicts “megadroughts” to take over the Southwest and Great Plains starting sometime during the second half of this century. Each megadrought can last between 10 years and a few decades. So if you notice that our current water crisis is making it harder for Californians to live, farm, raise cattle, etc., just wait. This year, areas all over the state have had increased problems with water theft, farmers in the San Joaquin Valley are fallowing an increased number of plots and reservoirs are at record lows. I hate being a Debbie Downer, but this is our future. 

Photo Source: wakefieldbiochar.com

Most Californians, instead of creating a strategy to deal with this situation, just stare at the sky, hoping for a few drops of rain. Hoping won’t cut it at this point. The public needs to be involved in and prepared to substantially reduce water consumption and dependency, even more so than they have. Laws need to be implemented that will combat these issues with groundwater sustainability plans, enforced water use limitations and efficient technology innovations. Think we can do it? I do. But we need to act. The longer we wait, the less likely change and improvements will not only happen but be effective.


Update: Governor Brown and California lawmakers develop strategies for drought mitigation. And as of April 1st, water restrictions have been imposed, calling for 25% reduction on California's supply agencies. That's what I call progress!

Wellness Wednesday: Houston, we have a problem

NASA Flight path over Valley, Photo from NASA

The problem being air quality in the Central Valley. It’s no surprise that the Valley has some of the worst air pollution in the state of California. One, this is a valley and pollutants happily settle in between mountain ranges. Two, this is the agricultural hub of the country (think dirty industry). Three, population continues to rise which means so does automobile use and other polluting factors. One, two, three equals bad air for you and me. 

Ewww - Jan. 22nd over Fresno, Photo from NASA

If you have seen a large plane circling the Valley, have no fear, NASA is here! NASA’s DISCOVER-AQ (short for ‘Deriving Information on Surface conditions from Column and Vertically Resolved Observations Relevant to Air Quality’) mission is a $30 million effort to measure air pollution. Flights began in January and will continue through February in order to get a sampling of agricultural and vehicle traffic areas from Bakersfield to Fresno. Findings will help our local Air District get a better idea of what is floating in our air, how to better predict pollution, and lay out the next steps for improvement efforts.  

As the SJVCEO likes to say, you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Let’s hope this serves as a piece to the puzzle and moves California that much closer to fixing our air quality.

Throwback! Fig and Olive, plus two siblings say 'please clean up the air for all future generations!', Photo from Fig and Olive's mom

Net-zero construction gains ground in U.S.

Apollo 11 touched down on the Sea of Tranquility with the world watching.

The date was July 20, 1969.

"Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed," the spacecraft announced. Some hours later Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong took man's first steps on the Moon followed closely by fellow spaceman Buzz Aldrin.

Their footprints at Tranquility Base likely remain, a small sign of a massive accomplishment.

NASA's back in the historic footprint game again but in an entirely different way. The space agency, now somewhat redirected and fiscally leaner with the closure of the Space Shuttle program, has been constructing a facility that takes inspiration for its name from Tranquility Base and seeks to be a landmark in another sense, leaving as little footprint as possible.

Here on Earth

Sustainability Base, at Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., has been dubbed NASA's latest mission on Earth. The facility has received LEED platinum certification, the highest level of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating by the U.S. Green Building Council. Its design incorporates natural lighting, shading and fresh air. The interior boasts non-toxic materials and is, according to NASA, "a living prototype for buildings of the future."

The net-zero movement -- designing and building structures to make as little impact on the environment as possible -- is gaining steam, albeit slowly.

Commercial and residential buildings consume about 40 percent of all energy in the United States and about 70 percent of all electricity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. And electricity consumption in the commercial building sector is expected to increase another 50 percent by 2025.

The net-zero or zero-energy building concept means commercial or residential buildings meet all their energy requirements from low-cost, locally available, nonpolluting, renewable sources, according to "Zero Energy Buildings: A Critical Look at the Definition," a 2006 study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. "At the strictest level, a ZEB generates enough renewable energy on site to equal or exceed its annual energy use," the study says.

Lunar design influence

Sustainability Base, which is shaped like two side-by-side crescents, gets its power from solar panels, wind energy and fuel cells. It's also chock full of other technologies that make it "capable of anticipating and reacting to changes in sunlight, temperature, wind and occupancy," officials say.

“What makes our building different than the other NASA LEED buildings is that preliminary data are already showing a net-energy positive profile. The building site contributes more energy to the grid than it receives from the grid," says Steven Zornetzer, associate center director for research at Ames, in a description of the base on Ames' website.

Because it also incorporates repurposed NASA aerospace technologies to optimize building performance, Sustainability Base's features cooler statistics than other net-zero buildings. For instance, it uses computational fluid dynamics to simulate environmental flows in and outside the building. This can mean air flows such as wind outside and air flow inside. The building's electronic systems calculate this information and incorporate the data into the heating and cooling systems, saving money in conventional heating and cooling.

Movement expands

Many efforts are under way to reduce production of greenhouse gases from the building sector. Retrofits of existing buildings, such as the iconic Empire State Building, have gained recognition, mostly because the energy-saving upgrades pay for themselves relatively quickly.

Measures are under way in a number of areas. They include sustainability policies from some of the largest publicly traded U.S. companies, efforts by states to increase efficiency through building codes (California's new rules took effect in 2011), programs by the U.S. Department of Energy to fund energy efficiency retrofits in municipal government buildings across the country and the whole house and passive house movements to increase efficiency in residential and commercial buildings.

The U.S. Department of Energy is seeking to develop the technology and a knowledge base for cost-effective zero-energy commercial buildings by 2025. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory already has created a classification system for net-zero energy buildings to aid in the standardization process. NREL's Research Support Facility on its Golden, Colo. campus also was certified LEED platinum and uses 50 percent less energy than if built simply to code. It's massive, too: 360,000 square feet.

Passive house

There's also the passive house movement gaining followers in this country. The practice is reaching quite a fervor in Europe. A house at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History designed with no furnace has been completed and is already catching attention. The residence, which uses passive house design and technology, cuts its greenhouse gas footprint and utility costs to the quick. SmartHome Cleveland received a national attention. One story said: "Because the house is so well insulated, it can hold heat from sunshine, body heat, lights and appliances."

The idea behind passive houses is that they use 90 percent less energy than a conventionally outfitted home of the same size. This also could apply to commercial buildings, but most information I've seen seems to keep this trend firmly entrenched in residential construction, at least in this country.

Passive House Institute U.S. defines the concept this way: It's a "very well-insulated, virtually air-tight building that is primarily heated by passive solar gain and by internal gains from people, electrical equipment, etc. Energy losses are minimized. Any remaining heat demand is provided by an extremely small source."

The push is to carbon neutrality.

The Passive House Institute says in the past decade about 15,000 buildings, mostly in Europe, have been designed and built or remodeled to passive house specifications. It's a small number but could gain significant influence as others see the lifetime benefits and reduced operating expenses -- not to mention the ecological rewards.

NASA, NIKE Team Up For Energy Innovation

NASA is joining with a corporate partner, NIKE, and others to "LAUNCH" energy innovation.

NASA's scientists are proven problem solvers, and energy innovation is a huge opportunity for this nation to create jobs, reduce its carbon footprint, lower costs and gain efficiencies. Some analysts, in fact, are calling clean energy the new Industrial Revolution.

Here's more on the LAUNCH program from cleantech.org. Imagine the possibilities!

Photo by S. Braswell

When the going gets tough, the tough get green

Watching the politicians in D.C. chase their tails, point fingers and rant sure gets me down. A headline in today's Fresno Bee summed it up well: "Market burns, DC fiddles."

And then I saw this:
http://media.gm.com/content/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2011/Jul/0728_gmventures
and this:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2011/07/global-warming-green-energy-california-poll.html

National lawmakers can't seem to agree on anything, so Corporate America and individual states are taking up the mantle on clean energy and sustainability. GM's announcement that it is investing in solar development is the latest example. The automaker has discovered that going green makes sense economically and socially. Below is a quote from a GM honcho.

"Our GM facilities currently house 30 megawatts of solar power, and we are committing today to double that capacity to 60 megawatts over the next few years, which is equivalent to powering 10,000 homes annually,” said Mike Robinson, GM vice president of Energy, Environment & Safety Policy. “Not only does renewable energy make good business sense, it helps us continue to reduce the impact our facilities have on the environment.”

GM isn't the only company to recognize that. Did you know that my favorite indulgence, Kit Kat, is now green - in a sustainability kind of way? Here's more. Want another heavy-hitting example: How about Walmart, the world's largest retailer. It is one of the leaders. Check out this story in Forbes.

Some states have caught on too. California, where I live, passed a tough 33% renewables law, and Gov. Brown is reportedly close to naming a clean energy czar. Residents appear to support the effort, according to recent surveys.

Add the military and ongoing research to that, and the infrastructure for real change is being built. A leading auditing and analysis firm compared what is happening to the Industrial Revolution. My colleague uses a Jules Verne analogy here.

With the space shuttle program done, maybe a NASA-style entity could work on energy. Those 7,000 or so engineers, scientists and others out of a job could get back to work.

Photo from Eolic Power

A Little Space-Age Technology Could Boost Clean Energy Fortunes

It is hard to stay hopeful amidst budget deficits and cost cutting, but one recent announcement brightened my spirits. NASA plans to expand facilities at NASA Ames Research Park in Silicon Valley to accelerate advancements in clean energy and other technology.

The goal is to share ideas and, in this era of austerity, provide an infrastructure for innovation in the emerging renewable-energy industry. Fascinating work is under way - from solar roads and sun-powered backpacks for the military to solar balls that create drinking water - but NASA's increased attention could spark even more.

Gov. Brown has an ambitious green jobs platform, and legislators have signed on with strong endorsement of a 33% renewables standard. The legislation, assuming Brown signs it, puts the standard in concrete and provides a foundation for investment. Much can be accomplished when research capability is combined with incentive.

Perhaps parity with other forms of energy could be achieved more quickly. Some experts predict that solar power in sunnier parts of the nation could be less than 10 cents per kilowatt hour by 2012 (the average retail price of electricity for businesses and consumers in the United States is 10 to 11 cents per kilowatt hour.)

More renewable energy is laudable, but it really makes sense when development is twinned with energy conservation and efficiency. Less consumption leads to lower power bills and more money in the pockets of consumers and coffers of local governments. If they reduce power bills, municipalities such as Fresno could possibly save jobs or avoid pay cuts.

All this could help expand a new emerging economy in the San Joaquin Valley, which is ideally suited for clean energy. We have robust population growth, high power bills, low incomes, lots of sun and vacant flat land, access to the transmission grid, a strategic mid-state location close to three major power-sucking metropolitan centers, and college campuses that are research leaders in solar, biofuel, agriculture and water.

Californians have embraced renewable energy. Big business and the military are on board. Maybe NASA will give a space-age boost to everything.

Photo: blogs.fourwheeler.com