Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day!  In celebration of making today, and every day, a celebration of our biosphere, here are a few links to making live in Los Angeles more earth-friendly:

Sustainable Living
Green LA 
Be Waterwise


Biking
Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition
Bike LA

Urban Greening
TreePeople
Million Trees LA
LA Guerilla Gardening
Los Angeles Community Garden Council

Advocacy
Friends of the LA River
Friends of Ballona Wetland

Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase

This Sunday was the 2nd Annual Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase.  The tour is hosted by the Green Committee of the Mar Vista Community Council, and features over 80 different homes.  As the website describes:

This free, self guided garden tour is all about water conservation. These homeowners have all made choices to eliminate or reduce turf lawns and have created gardens that thrive in our Southern California climate while using minimal water. Many are investing the water they use to grow fruits and vegetables for their families to enjoy.

Fortunately, I live just down the road from part of the tour, so was able to hop on my bike, and enjoy the afternoon seeing about 10 houses that ranged from highly designed, horticultural gardens to self-described rock gardens.  Each garden provided a different look at water conservation, but all featured permeable surfaces, and low-water use plants.  Some of the yards had been converted to edible gardens, growing artichokes, lettuces, snap peas, chards, strawberries, and tomatoes among others.  I was also able to stop by the Venice High School Learning Garden, one of the more extensive school gardening programs in Los Angeles.  It was a great facility that features a range of demonstration gardens and plots tended by students at the high school.

Although I really enjoyed the aesthetics of some of the professionally or highly-designed gardens, there was something sort of wonderful about the home grown "rock people" and like-minded, willing amateurs who took a lot of pride in pulling out their lawn and putting in a few plants.  While the yards were certainly not showpieces, the owners took as much if not more pride in it as people might talk about their lawns.  But it wasn't simply about aesthetics, they felt a real sense of empowerment and pride about doing their part - displaying a sort of DIY ethos for sustainability.

Overall, it was a great event that not only provided inspiration for people to rethink their yards, but also a forum for community members to interact with each other.  Look forward to attending next year.

  Raised bed made out of straw waddles (erosion control devices)

  Traditional raised bed

 The Desert Garden at the Venice Learning Garden

Casa Dominguez - Affordable Housings Goes Green

(image from LA Times. All Rights Reserved)

The LA Times had a great profile of Casa Dominguez, an affordable housing development in Compton that is poised to become the first LEED Platinum affordable housing project.  Hopefully the project will serve as an example for how to bring sustainability and green design to people often left behind by the marketplace, and underscore the power design has to change people's outlook.  As the article points out:

Geneva Mason, 23, who is transitioning out of foster care and is 7 months pregnant, began talking about her new lifestyle in the building by making a confession:

"I'm not going to lie. I was once a litterbug," she said. "But ever since I moved into the green environment, I'm more about picking up litter. Once you go through the gates … it's like a little town of its own — lovely, fresh. I'm excited about raising my child here."

Forage

 (image from Forage LA.  All rights reserved)

Interesting restaurant initiative out in Silverlake - urban foraging to create a meal. Forage LA is taking things beyond fresh ingredients from a local farmer's market to add in some urban agriculture.  Not only do they offer a number of different goodies everyday for consumption, Forage also puts out a call for backyard produce / urban agriculture to create changing menu items.  Recent Forage calls include: Oranges, Avocados, Herbs, Lemons and Limes.  You might even get your name on the menu, like Sonya's Silver Lake Lemonade. Images of the Lemonade being made are here.

Life without the Lawn?

Increasing water scarcity, rising concern for native habitats, and the need to reduce energy use and greenhouse gases are threatening the very existence of lawn in Southern California. And, while many would see this as good riddance, it also poses the question: what is life without the lawn?  This is the first of I am sure many posts considering the ramifications of our life with the lawn in Southern California, and what it might look like potentially without it.  First off - issues with lawn:. ASLA's The Dirt shared this report this week from the New York Times:

The New York Times’ Dot Earth blog reports on a new study on urban green space from Geophysical Research Letters, a publication of the American Geophysical Union, which contends many urban green spaces emit more greenhouse gases (GHGs) than they absorb. This is due to the high amounts of emissions from lawn irrigation, fertilizer, mowing, and leaf blowing. The study argues: “Turfgrass lawns remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and store it as organic carbon in soil, making them important ‘carbon sinks.’ However, greenhouse gas emissions from fertilizer production, mowing, leaf blowing and other lawn management practices are four times greater than the amount of carbon stored by ornamental grass in parks.”

Claudia Czimczik, a researcher at University of California, Irvine, and a co-author of the study, told Dot Earth: “Lawns weren’t initially invented to store greenhouse gases — they have a lot of other purposes such as recreation. But there is a lot of recent political discussions about lawns as carbon sinks, and if that is the case we need to consider the whole package.”
According to Dot Earth, the researchers looked at four parks in Irvine, including open lawns and athletic fields. Open lawns which use fertilizers emit “heat-trapping nitrous oxide,” which “offsets 10 to 30 percent of the carbon dioxide captured and stored.” Additionally, the fuel used in mowing and leaf-blowing ”releases four times more carbon dioxide than the lawns soak up. Athletic fields fare even worse because they require more maintenance.”
Czimczik said Californian parks may be a special case because park officials maintain their parks year round. More research needs to be conducted on the emissions of green spaces in other regions. She added that push mowers should also be considered.


Dot Earth points to the EPA’s GreenScapes program, which can encourages homeowners to think about land, water, air, and energy use in their lawn maintenance. Unfortunately, the article leaves out the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES), a comprehensive new rating system, which addresses all of these issues (see earlier post).

cicLAvia

Interested in alternative transportation?  Big fan of bicycles, especially when they take over streets?  Then check out the great folks at cicLAvia.  Who are they and what is ciclovia?

Ciclovía started in Bogotá, Colombia over thirty years ago as a response to the congestion and pollution of city streets. Now it is happening all over Latin America and the United States, giving people a break from the stress of car traffic. The health benefits are immense, bringing families out to enjoy their streets in a new way, getting them to walk and bike together.

In Los Angeles we need this event more than ever, as anyone who tries to move through this city knows. Not only is it difficult to walk, bike, and drive here, but more and more children suffer from obesity and other health effects caused by growing up in a park poor city. CicLAvia creates a park by removing motorized traffic from city streets, and encourages people to come out and carve a new landscape for themselves.
. . .
CicLAvía will work to address five core pressing issues present throughout all of Los Angeles: Public Space, Public Health, Community and Economic Development, and Pedestrian and Bicycle Advocacy.  As a recurring free event, set for the same day/time every week or month, CicLAvía will allow for the temporary closure of interconnected routes throughout the region, creating a web of public space on which residents of Los Angeles will be able to walk, bike, socialize, celebrate, and learn about new cultures and neighborhoods.  Similar events have successfully occurred in other US cities, such as Portland, New York, and San Francisco. Bogotá’s Ciclovía has also inspired copycat programs in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Quito, Ecuador, and Melbourne.

So, it's sort of like parking day for roads, only on a massive scale.  In other words - awesome. And, as noted, extremely valuable in a city like LA without many parks or even substantial enough right-of-ways in most places to provide comfortable, safe sidewalks.  More info and coverage on cicLAvia can be found at the links below. 

LA Times - Brand X
LA Streetblog

Green Events Calender

Want to attend green events in LA, but aren't sure what's going on?  Check out Go To Green LA for a great calendar of events.  Coming up this week: free composting workshops, ecohome tours, volunteer expos, and green networking happy hours. (image from gotogreenla.com - all rights reserved)

How to Capture Rainwater

(image from http://www.treepeople.org/take-simple-steps)

With all of this rain, why not think about capturing some of it on your property? For those new to the concept, check out TreePeople's great guide on how, and why, to capture rainwater.  Solutions discussed vary from more minor interventions to larger scale, more holistic water management approaches.  Or check out the L.A. Rainwater Harvesting Program for further tips, and how to apply for City funding in support of rainwater harvesting at your home or business.  Every little bit helps, especially when added together collectively.  So take a look - there is a solution to fit your property and resources.

Solar Lease

(image from LA Times)

Despite all the rain this week, the sun will shine once again, and often, in LA.  So, for the solar curious without a large wallet, what cost-effective options exist for residential homeowners?  One new option is to lease solar panels from solar installer SolarCity Corp.  Recently awarded $60 million in new financing from PG&E accordingly to the LA Times, SolarCity offers an extensive lease program designed to make solar installation affordable and cost-beneficial for homeowners.  In essence, homeowners lease the equipment from SolarCity to buy the cheap electricity produced by the solar panels, but avoid any upfront installation costs because SolarCity owns and operates all of the equipment still.  Lease terms generally run for 15 years, with options for transfering, paying out, or taking the panels with you if you move before the term is over.

Still unsure whether leasing makes sense? Dwell Magazine had a great overview of the issues involved in buying or leasing solar panels, including an overview of SolarCity's program.  Ultimately, the article finds that if you want to own your own solar panels, buy them right away.  However, depending on the type of house you own, leasing can be a great option to support renewable energy production, and lower your electric bills by 15% on average.  The article provides this cost scenario supplied by SolarCity spokesman Jonathan Bass:

A typical three-bedroom home with a current electricity bill of $200 per month might lease a 4kW solar system. The new solar system will generate enough electricity to offset what the homeowner is currently paying to the utility company from $200 down to $60 per month. The SolarLease payment would be $0 down and $110 per month, amounting to a savings of $360 in the first year.

The other nice part about leasing? "The lease includes permit, installation, maintenance, a web monitoring system, and guaranteed production," says Bass.  As such, the agreement relies on a service versus an end product model.  Rather than selling consumers a solar panel that they have to maintain and eventually disgard, SolarCity provides the service of solar-powered electricity to consumers, while incurring the material costs.  Ideally, this model not only increases the ability of consumers to use solar-power, but will also motivate more cradle-to-cradle thinking in panel design to reduce the material cost for SolarCity and increase their profits. (See the great book "Natural Capitalism" for a great discussion of the potential benefits of this model)

SolarCity's Solar Calculator provides a great place to get an estimate on how much money you might be able to save with their lease program.  Of course every home will vary in how cost-effective this program will be, and factors such as roof slope and age will affect the overall lease cost, so be sure to do your homework. 

Real-Time Rain Data

(image from the LA Times)

Curious how much rain you really got by your house?  Check out the awesome LA Department of Public Works Water Resources Precipitation Page.  The site provides a city-wide map with default totals from the last 24 hours, and options for viewing precipitation totals ranging from 1 hour to 96 hours.  There are also links to rain totals from the last 30 days or for an entire season, including comparisons to our seasonal averages to know how well we are doing this year.

The good news: near my house we got over 3 inches in the past 96 hours.  The better news: reports say that overall LA is back above average for the this time of year.  Be sure to conserve - let's not waste the great week!

LA makes list of 50 Top Low-Car Cities

Human Transit had an interesting group of observations today about how we move towards a low-car city based on a listing of the Top 50 Low-Car Cities in the US (defined by populations of over 100,000) pulled from Wikipedia and the Carfree Census Database.  Not surprisingly, the New York Metro area dominated the top three spots, and was followed primarily by east coast cities in the top 10.  California did make the list though, with San Francisco taking the 14th spot, and East LA sitting at #32 and LA at #49 overall. 

1. New York City, New York 55.7%
2. Newark, New Jersey 44.17%
3. Jersey City, New Jersey 40.67%
4. Washington, D.C. 36.93%
5. Hartford, Connecticut 36.14%
6. Baltimore, Maryland 35.89%
7. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 35.74%
8. Boston, Massachusetts 34.91%
9. Buffalo, New York 31.42%
10. New Haven, Connecticut 29.74%
. . .
14. San Francisco, California 28.56%
32. East Los Angeles, California 21.24%
36. Oakland, California 19.62%
45. Berkeley, California 17.01%
49. Los Angeles, California 16.53%

And, as Human Transit notes, the list deals with "incorporated cities, which are things of very unequal size and shape bearing little relation to the organic form of urban regions.  For example, Los Angeles at #49 would score much higher if the vast low-density San Fernando Valley were not part of the incorporated city, and high-density innermost suburbs like East Los Angeles (#39) were included instead."  In other words, on the bright side of things, car happy LA is actually more of a low-car city than expected.

The article posits three key factors behind low-car ownership: age, poverty, and dominant universities.  As such, older cities score well because they were built well before the car was commonplace, producing a functional urban infrastructure for residents without a car.  Poverty obviously mitigates the economic ability of residents to own cars, and a dominant university population increases density without a need or ability to own cars.

Interestingly, green guru city of the West, Portland did not even make the top 50th low-car cities, prompting another fascinating question from the article:

How long will it take for a city that lacks age, poverty, or dominant universities to achieve the kind of low car ownership that these 50 demonstrate?  How soon, for example, will a city be able to create a combination of density, design, and mixture of uses that yields the same performance as an old city that naturally has those features?

Portland is probably the most promising such city in the US, and it's not on the list.  Only 14% of households there don't have a car, so it's probably well down in the second 50.  Like many cities, Portland has been doing everything it can to build a dense mixed-use urban environment.  It's the sort of city that convinces the Safeway supermarket chain to rebuild their store with townhouses and residential towers on top.  But while people are moving into the inner city, they don't seem to be selling their cars when they do, nor do they seem to be going to work by transit. 

While Portland is successfully moving towards a dense urban condition, is appears people may not be willing to give up their cars yet.   So, is there much hope for traffic clogged LA?  No doubt we need to reduce the number of automobiles, and even more importantly, automobile trips in Los Angeles to improve environmental quality and alleviate traffic.  Hopefully downtown's resurgence and improved urban design and transit initiatives throughout the city will keep moving us toward this lofty goal.  While much remains to be done, at least our place on the list provides some hope that a less car-centered LA may be in our a future.

Go Green Expo - Jan. 22nd - 24th

The Go Green Expo is coming to the Los Angeles Convention Center Jan. 22nd - Jan. 24th.    Friday is dedicated to a business-to-business expo, with both Saturday and Sunday open to the public.  The expo will feature environmentally friendly products and services, speakers, and a career fair related to the green industry.