Want to share your conservation stories and get tips?

My plan is that you'll be able to do that by reading and commenting on this blog.

But there's also another way. The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has started a conservation initiative with a dedicated website: www.iConservePA.org

The site started out with mini-profiles 12 "iCons" -- people who recycle,  use compact fluorescent light bulbs or create habitats for wildlife.  Montrell conserves water with his rain barrel. Dave rides his bike to work. Norm plants trees, and in doing so, "I clean the air." 

“You can’t pick up a newspaper today or have a conversation with your neighbor that doesn’t touch on issues like the Earth’s climate warming, how energy bills are taking a toll on household budgets, or that kids don’t play outside anymore,” Governor Rendell said. “Even small actions, when taken collectively, can make a difference." 

I found it interesting that he would include the thought about children not playing outside.  A Bryn Mawr researcher, Patricia Zaradic, has studied this phenomenon, and I wrote about it recently. You can read it here.  She and a colleague have coined the term "videophilia" as part of the reason kids aren't getting outside, and here's their web site. Conservationists are worried the younger generation won't be interested in preserving the natural world if they don't appreciate it.

The iConserve site, which went live earlier this month, also offers fascinating tidbits under a "did you know?" section. Such as: Pennsylvania has more than 3,00 species of native trees, shrubs, flowers and other plants.  

And a lot of tips.  Among them, it urges people to make their own household cleaning products from things like baking soda and lemon juice.  I knew green cleaners were a movement, but I didn't realize mainstream entities like the state government were advocates.  When you get that kind of muscle behind something, it's bound to have an effect.  Companies that produce today's typical cleaning products will surely take note.

Some of them already are paying attention.  Clorox has introduced a new "Green Works" line of products, and the Sierra Club has endorsed it -- the first time the environmental organization has endorsed a product in its 116-year history. (It will also get a share of the proceeds from sales.) Felicity Barringer wrote about it yesterday in the New York Times. See it here.

Speaking of the outdoors, the importance of appreciating it and government websites, you can't beat the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection's falcon site.  A cam and a video are aimed at a nest on the ledge of the DEP's Rachel Carson office building in Harrisburg, and in past years people from around the world have watched as the female lays her eggs, sites on the nest and cares for the young after they hatch.  It's all beginning now -- the first egg was laid just last Saturday -- and you can see it here.

  

Last November, I wrote about the Philadelphia debut of an all-electric motorcycle, the Vectrix. The Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce showcased it at a “green” confab. The story is here.

Now, the company has announced its first Pennsylvania dealer, Montgomery Cycle Center in Hatfield. The center is  offering “test rides” today through Saturday.

The Vectrix sure perked up a few visitors to the Chamber event last November. They were intrigued by the specs.  It’s supposed to reach a speed of 62 miles an hour and has a range of maybe 55 miles, depending on how fast you drive.

All of this with no emissions from the bike itself, although of course there would be emissions associated with whatever energy source provides the juice for the charges.

And it has some great slogans, like "Electric power. Shocking performance."

This is just one of a new fleet of eco-vehicles, including the new smart car and the Segway personal transporter. I can’t wait to see what manufacturers come out with next!

Meanwhile, at last November's event I put on a helmet and took a spin around the block — around the perimeter of 30th Street Station — perched behind Vectrix employee Matthew Hair. The bike ran so quietly that we could talk in normal voices.

And at the end, unlike my first and only other motorcycle ride more than 30 years ago, I didn’t burn my leg because there was no hot exhaust pipe.

Are you participating in Earth Hour this Saturday? (www.earthhour.org)

 

If so, post a comment here with the information and let everyone know about it.

 

Among the places I know about so far, the staff at Fairmount’s historic jewel, the Eastern State Penitentiary, is turning off the dramatic uplights along the massive stone walls.

 

Also, the Cira Centre is turning off those colored LED lights that dot the outside surface of the building.

 Members of the Pennsylvania Outdoor Lighting Council  have been mulling how to participate. Their concerns include light pollution, which I wrote about earlier this year. See the story here.  

In Monday’s GreenSpace column, I wrote about Earth Hour, a global event this Saturday to bring awareness to climate change. Here are more details:

 

The plan is to get everyone possible to turn off all non-essential lighting from 8 to 9 p.m. And then, once they turn the lights back on, to take steps to lessen the energy they consume.

 

It started as a one-city event last year in Sydney, Australia. And it succeeded beyond what any of the organizers dared dreamed. More than 2.2 million residents and 2,100 businesses switched off the lights. Calculations show the act led to a 10.2 percent energy reduction across the city for that one hour.

 So now the event, sponsored by the World Wildlife Foundation, is going global.   “What began as one city taking a stand against global warming caught the attention of the world,” says the website, www.earthhour.org. It’s a cool site with lots of information. As of this morning, 12,738 businesses had signed up. Click and that and you’ll see a list. Nearly 200,000 people had signed up.  

It starts at 8 p.m. local time in Christchurch, New Zealand – the wee hours here – and follows darkness westward, cascading through the world’s time zones, ending in San Francisco.

 

Funds were limited, so although they want everyone possible to participate, they had to limit the number of  “official” cities.  In the U.S., it’s one for each time zone.  I hear Philadelphia was up for consideration, but Atlanta beat us to it. Other cities are Chicago, Phoenix and San Francisco.

 

The organization plans to post “before” and “during” photos on its website. So when you get up Saturday morning, you’ll probably be able to see what’s already happened in New Zealand and a few other cities.

 

WWF spokeswoman Leslie Aun acknowledges that the energy savings of the single event “isn’t going to have much of an effect on climate change. Let’s be honest.” But the idea is to raise awareness and make changes after that.

 

Perhaps the biggest change in Sydney came from large office buildings that generally leave the lights on all night. “Almost every single building in America has a specific lighting system. Engineers have to figure out how to turn the lights off,” Aun said.

 

“What we found in Syndney is when a lot of people turned lights off, they said hey, why don’t we leave them off?”

 

I’ve been getting calls and emails all day from people who want to share their experiences with CFLs.

This comes on top of a mind-blowing response from the first GreenSpace column, two weeks ago, after which I got about two dozen phone calls and more than 80 e-mails. And they weren’t even all from friends, relatives or people pitching story ideas — although I appreciate those as well, by the way!

CFLs have apparently proven to be a seductive and baffling device for many people.

Mr. Wood of Philadelphia called to say the bulbs don’t like heat. He paired a CFL with an incandescent in a few ceiling fixtures, and they burned out. He contacted the company, and they told him the heat from the incandescent was a problem.

Many people say the light from CFLs is not as bright. In other words, they’ll buy a CFL with packaging that says it is the “equivalent” of a 60-watt bulb, but when they screw it in, it doesn’t seem as bright to them as a 60-watter.

I’ve read in several places that CFLs might not SEEM as bright because the light is more diffuse.  Compared to the light of an incandescent, which is created by heating a tiny filament to make it glow, CFLs consist of a tube (the swirl) with a phosphor coating, and the whole thing glows.

But I would very much like for an expert to weigh in on this. Sylvania? Westinghouse? Phillips? Why is this the case? And if it is, what can be done? Is it okay to put a brighter CFL in the socket? For instance, if the fixture says the upper limit is 60 watts, can you put in a CFL that’s only 25 watts, but is the equivalent of a 75-watt incandescent?

Please post a comment and let us all know.

By the way, Energy Star, an efficieny program with in the U.S. Department of Environmental Protection, recommends: “For recessed fixtures, it is better to use a reflector CFL than a spiral CFL since the design of the reflector evenly distributes the light down to your task area.”

As for the CFL taking a few moments to reach full brightness, no matter its wattage, I suppose we’re all just going to have to adapt until something better comes along.

I mentioned this to a colleague who said he won’t use  CFLs for that very reason. “But think of all the people in the world without electricity!” I said. “Don’t we seem a little spoiled if we begrudge the bulb a few moments to brighten?”

He grimaced and pointed out that it’s always possible to find someone in a worse situation.

Either way, the delay doesn’t bother me unless I’m in a hurry to get down the basement steps, which are lit by a CFL.
In which case, I hold the handrail. Or I just wait a few beats.

In today’s newspaper, I wrote about compact fluorescent light bulbs — CFLs.

For many, they’re the benchmark of a greener lifestyle.

Others think they’re ugly and they worry about the mercury inside.

As usual, I interviewed far more people and had far more information than I could include in the story.

I thought people might want a few more details about the mercury.

Energy Star, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency program, says that the 5 mg contained in the average bulb would cover the tip of a ballpoint pen. By comparison, the agency says, older thermometers contain about 500 mg of mercury.

“These bulbs pose absolutely no risk to consumers when handled properly,” says Department of Energy spokeswoman Chris Kielich. “In case there is a breakage, the risk to the consumer is still negligible.”

Jeff Harris, vice president for programs at the Alliance to Save Energy, a national group that promotes energy efficiency as “the quickest, cheapest and cleanest way to extend the world’s energy supplies,” calls the mercury “a manageable issue.”

“I don’t think it’s a cause to panic,” he says. He adds that many people don’t give the long tubes in regular fluorescent fixtures — people sometimes have them in their basements, workshops or garages — much thought at all. And Harris says those have more mercury than CFLs.

The point is to handle them with care, and if you do break one clean it up properly. (The EPA’s clean-up guidelines are here.)

When it comes to environmental concerns, lighting experts at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Insitute in Troy, N.Y., studied the issue last year and concluded that incandescents are responsible for more mercury entering the environment than CFLs. It’s because they use more energy, and many facilities that generate electricity release mercury.

“We’ll have less mercury in our environment overall if CFLs replaced incandescents,” says Russ Leslie, associate director of the Lighting Research Center at the institute. “Even assuming if all the mercury in the CFL ends up in the atmosphere, which it won’t if it’s properly handled.”

If you’re having trouble picking out the right color, I’m including a photo from Sylvania Osram that might help. The lighting company has been making screw-in CFLs since the 1980s.

Spokeswoman Stephanie J. Anderson says that if you’re trying to replicate your old incandescent bulbs, go for something in the 2700K to 3000K range. If you want something that looks more like the blueish light of mid-day, go to the higher range.

“It’s really a matter of personal taste,” she says. “Are you trying to mimic sunlight, or the old incandescent we’ve become familiar with?”

I thought — too late, alas — it might be both fun and helpful to get a group of friends together and all donate to a kitty so we could buy the whole range of bulbs. Then we could have a lighting party and turn them all on to see which ones each of us liked. That would have saved me some money, because I sure spent plenty experimenting to find which ones worked for me.

Here are a few more ideas on disposal:

Ikea stores have begun accepting CFLs.

Sylvania offers a 15-bulb recycling kit that costs about $15, and you can order it online from the company.

It’s a kind of envelope specially designed so the bulbs can safely break inside — and they probably will. You put the bulbs inside, tape it shut and hand it back to the mail carrier, Anderson says.

The company recycles and reuses “every part of that lamp - glass, metal base and mercury itself,” she says.

I pointed out that few people are going to have 15 bulbs to recycle at once, but perhaps community groups would be interested.

Better still, places that sell the bulbs could get the envelopes, collect the old ones and take care of the whole deal.

“We agree it’s not a perfect solution,” Anderson says. “We would ultimately like to see curbside.”

And maybe that will happen. After all, the bulbs are supposed to last for years, so most of us have a bit of time before having to worry about it.
   
Meanwhile, here are some CFL links:

The government’s Energy Star website has all kinds of information about the benefits of CFLs, what kind of fixtures and locations they work best in, a savings calculator and information about mercury and proper disposal.

PECO has an energy calculator, too.
    
This EPA site can help you find recycling options:

Want to know more about Earth Hour? I’ll write about that later.

Hello readers, and welcome to my new blog.

I hope we can all use it to develop a regional marketplace of ideas and techniques for eco-living.

Please check back often and post comments.

Today, I'm out in the yard pruning blueberries.

In the basement, I've planted the first lettuce and chard under the grow lights. It's all part of my effort to eat really, REALLY local.

In tomorrow's column, I'll be writing about compact fluorescent light bulbs.

I'm keeping this short because it's a test post to make sure everything works. But meanwhile, thanks for joining in!