Cambridge Climate Emergency Congress

As world leaders gathered in Copenhagen,  Our Fair City held its own climate summit inviting townspeople to gather together and brainstorm ideas on how to reduce local greenhouse gas emissions.

On December 12, 100 Cantabrigians from a high school student to a climate expert spent the day at City Hall developing proposals that included eliminating all street parking by 2020 and incorporating landscaped or reflective roofs into building codes.

The ideas seemed rather ambitious, but if the city plans to start meeting its greenhouse gas reduction goals it will likely need to get creative.  In 2002 city officials launched a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2010. Earlier this year, however, they announced that despite their best efforts emissions have not only not decreased, but, have continued to grow.  


City officials will review recommendations from the recent summit and will announce how they plan to proceed on January 23. 


Image: Cambridge City Hall courtesy of Wikimedia

Sleeping With Swine Flu

"If this turns out to be swine flu, would you still sleep with me or would you sleep on the couch?" My wife had come home from work looking like death warmed over, with barely enough energy to finish her dinner. She'd heard rumors of students and teachers coming down with H1N1 at the school where she works, but nothing had been confirmed. I dismissed her question at the time, saying we'd take it as it comes, and though it wasn't yet 8 o'clock, I started coaxing her toward bed...  

A story I wrote in today's Boston Globe Magazine charts my thought process later in the evening as I weigh whether or not I should join Rachel in bed and why, if one of us is to be banished to the couch, she assumes it would be me.

Rachel and I are regular readers of the "Coupling" stories written by local writers on the back page of each week's Sunday magazine.  I didn't figure I'd ever have anything to contribute, but when I got to thinking about the swine flu question she'd posed to me, it seemed like such an obvious fit I just had to submit it.

Vacuum Tube Solar Hot Water Comes to Cambridge

One of the first home improvements Rachel and I made when we purchased our condo here in Cambridge this spring was a solar hot water installation on our rooftop.

The system we had put in uses vacuum tubes, a newer, more efficient type of solar collector than the black box flat panels of old. As a writer covering energy and the environment in Cambridge and China, I'd spent the past three years tracing this new and exotic technology back to the factories and cities in China where they are surprisingly commonplace.

I first read about the tubes three years ago in a story in the Boston Globe. A family in Newbury, MA was using a massive installation to provide hot water and heat for their giant barn of a house.  A photo that went with the story showed their installation covered in frost on a cold winter day. Somehow, despite the cold, the tubes were still kicking out 120 to 160 degree water.

DOE Bets $150 Million On Clean Tech

If you had $150 million to spend on boundary-busting energy research, where would you put the cash? The US Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) has committed that amount with one lofty aim: to transform the planet's energy future: But which technologies are its best bets?
To find the answers, check out a story I wrote this week in New Scientist.
This was an interesting story to write in that the Department of Energy had just dolled out millions of dollars for projects so risky that most were expected to fail, yet even if a few succeeded, they could have a transformative effect on the planet's energy future.
What made the story more interesting is the vast majority of recipients, from industry giants to little known start up companies, had such a strong financial interest in keeping their projects under wraps that few would divulge what they were working on, even after they received secured funding.

Gore at Harvard

Former US Vice President Al Gore wasn't quite ready to give up telling inconvenient truths as he discussed his latest book Our Choice: A plan to solve the global climate crisis at Harvard this weekend.

Gore took the stage to a standing ovation before a capacity crowd at the First Parrish Church Meetinghouse in Harvard Square on 7 November to discuss his compilation of "all of the most effective solutions that are available now and that together will solve this crisis".

Love That Dirty Water

"Raw sewage flowed from outmoded wastewater treatment plants. Toxic discharges from industrial facilities colored the river pink and orange. Fish kills, submerged cars and appliances, leaching riverbank landfills, and noxious odors were routine occurrences." -Charles River History, Charles River Watershed Association

The river Charles has come a long way since the above description

from the 1960s. The EPA now gives it a B+ in its annual Charles River Report Card, up from a D just 14 years ago.

Rachel and I spent the afternoon with friends Ben and Heather paddling a section of the river in Newton, MA, about 10 miles west of Cambridge.

The river still has room for improvement--and additional cleanup efforts are underway--but I'd give our afternoon an A+.

Dash for Green Cash

If you invested in green funds the past couple years, you likely lost your shirt--even more so than others--in the current recession according to an article in today's Boston Globe. But the smart money today, the article goes on to say, is in another type of green investing; eco-improvements on your home that will reduce your cost of living.

Nowhere does this seem to be more true than in Massachusetts. I've been looking into installing solar photovoltaic panels on our condo and with the combination of state and federal tax credits and rebates, they are practically giving the stuff away.

21st Century Barnraising

For Centuries New Englanders have gathered to help their neighbors raise barns. This past Sunday my wife, Rachel, and I joined a group of our fellow Cantabrigian's in raising the energy efficiency of a neighbor's home.

For over a year the nonprofit Home Energy Efficiency Team (HEET) has organized monthly weatherization parties for buildings here in Cambridge, MA. The hosting home provides the food, local weatherization companies donate insulation, caulk, foam, and other weatherizing essentials, and volunteers provide free labor in exchange for learning how to better insulate their own home.

Each barnraising starts and ends with a "blower door" test to determine how airtight or leaky the building is. I'd heard about blower doors before but I'd never seen one in action. It's essentially an airtight collapsible door with a large fan in the middle of it (see photo). To run a test you jam the blower door into the building's front entrance, shut all other doors and windows, and then fire up the fan which tries to pump additional air into the building. Air flow monitors connected to the fan tell you how much air is being pumped in, which in turn tells you how leaky the building is.