Sacred Earth Eco-tips

These Eco-Tips are ideas for you to try out in order to reduce your use of energy and your carbon footprint. Food, transportation, energy, recycling, packaging and other relevant issues will be discussed in these tips contributed by members of Sacred Earth Matters and University Congregational Church members.

On Saturday, April 19, more than forty curious souls from UCUCC and the University Unitarian Church rode the bus to central Kittitas County to experience the Wild Horse Wind Farm. Janet Ebaugh, Roger Garrett, Melissa Ewbank, and Michael and Patricia Clark arranged this fascinating trip for us.

The wind farm is owned and operated by Puget Sound Energy (PSE). Located on windy ridges near the Columbia River Gorge, 127 huge wind turbines generate power for 60,000 homes. Our own Roger Garrett, who works for PSE, gave us an in-depth slide show about the technology of wind-powered electricity generation, the construction of the wind farm, and other facts about wind energy use in the United States.
View this slide show as a PDF file.

Our visit afforded us several hours to see the wind turbines up close (even inside one of the towers), the interactive exhibits in the beautiful new visitor's center, and a foray onto the grasslands with a botanist to look at the spring wildflowers that were just beginning to bloom. You can visit the wind farm by going over Snoqualmie pass on I-90, taking exit 106, and then heading east from Ellensburg. There is no need to arrange your visit beforehand. For specific directions, see the PSE Website.

“Crush, don’t flush.” This is the new guideline for prescription medicine disposal. During the past month, due to increasing levels of prescription medicines found in our drinking water, and that of marine animals (the oceans), the government has changed guidelines for personal disposal of old medicines. Rather than flushing old pills down the toilet, we should now crush them, and dispose of them in the solid waste.

Also, Group Health Cooperative pharmacies offer free disposal of unwanted medications. Simply deposit in one of the specially secured boxes found in Group Health pharmacy lobbies, and Group Health will incinerate the contents.

Taking a simple step toward responsible disposal of medications will help save our marine wildlife, and keep our food supply more safe too!
- contributed by Diane Graham

Does receiving 40 pounds of catalogues per each adult and child at your home each year seem like too much? Currently in the USA, we receive nearly 20 billion catalogues annually, 98% of which land directly from the mailbox in the recycling bin or garbage, according to Daniel Katz, Environmental Program Director of the Overbrook Foundation. Katz says that such catalogues cost around 53 million trees annually, causing disastrous landfill and water waste.

Thanks to internet shopping ease, we are able to view many catalogues on-line. Now it is also easy to opt out of unwanted catalogues by going to CatalogChoice.org., which is a free service. CatalogChoice.org allows us to precycle selectively (thus keeping those we may actually wish to receive).

According to the Catalog Choice Web Site: "It can take up to ten weeks to process your request, after which time you should no longer receive your declined catalogs. If you do continue to receive them, you can return here to report the infraction, and we'll follow up with the merchant."
- contributed by Diane Graham

My "homework" this week was to see about completing my home's evolution away from incandescent bulbs. I say "evolution," not elimination, because I still plan to wait till the old bulbs burn out before I replace them.

We currently use compact fluorescent bulbs in the kitchen, bathrooms, basement, table lamps, and on the porch. Last year, we took a step further and installed LED bulbs in the hallway. LEDs are a great low-energy choice, but these particular bulbs cast a weak bluish light: not too bright, not too pretty. It's a happier story outside, though, where we use LEDs for the path lighting. We had previously used 25-Watt or 40-Watt incandescent appliance bulbs on the path, but they burned out with annoying speed. These LEDs will last thousands of hours, longer than even fluorescent bulbs would, so they're perfect for the tough, outside job.

Back to the house. The only remaining incandescent bulbs were in four fixtures with dimmer switches. One stubborn problem of CF's was that they didn't work in dimmer-controlled fixtures. But when we asked the lighting specialist at Lowe's, he showed us two kinds of bulbs with "dimmable" on the label, and he also pointed out the higher price. We bought some anyway and tried them out at home. Verdict: they work fine in the fixtures, but for most of our purposes, they're a little too dim. They one place the might work is in our dining room because the fixture there takes four bulbs. The combined brightness of four might be enough.

The larger one is a GE Dimmable flood light. It uses 15 Watts of power and puts out 720 lumens (when not dimmed), equivalent to an incandescent bulb in the 50-65 Watt range. This CF bulb should last 6000 hours. It might work fine elsewhere in the house, but the room we bought it for needs more light than that. (So I think our solution will be to replace the dimmer switch with a regular switch, and buy a brighter, non-dimmable CF bulb.)

Here's a handy chart that translates Watts consumed into lumens.

The smaller dimmable bulbs are Sylvania "decor" bulbs, which consume only 5 Watts but emit only 200 lumens. Again, these were too dim, but they might work for us in a multiple-bulb fixture.

Lowe's didn't have many choices, but I found more online. To see what's available, go to the site, click to indicate your bulb criteria, and then click See list of bulbs at the bottom. It will show you what's available and even link you to sources. (Wish I'd seen this site first!) Good luck on your search!

Try carpooling to work or to church. Reducing the miles you drive in your car by 20 miles a week can reduce your yearly carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 1000 pounds, according to the Center for a New American Dream, Turn the Tide Handbook. Our car culture and dependence on oil also perpetuates sprawl, habitat loss, and economic injustice.

A few years ago I joined a vanpool that reduced my round trip (in my car) from 38 miles to 4. When there are 6 to 12 people in the van, the combined emissions are really low and the mileage is high. There are also added benefits to carpooling! I have gotten to know new people, helping to nourish my sense of community. Driving less has also been a great way to reduce stress. Adjusting my schedule so that I can carpool has been really worth it. Meister Eckhart writes:

Apprehend God in all things,
or God is in all things.
Every single creature is full of God
and is a book about God.
Every creature is a word of God.
If I spent enough time with the the tiniest creature –
even a caterpillar –
I would never have to prepare a sermon.
So full of God
is every creature.”
(from Meditations with Meister Eckhart,
edited by Matthew Fox, Bear & Company Inc, 1983)

Reducing car trips is a way for me to appreciate other creatures, the ones I can talk to and the one's I can't.
- contributed by Carol Nelson

As we care for God’s creation it is important to consider the food we eat, where it comes from and what type of resources are used to get it to our table.

We can make a difference by visiting a farmers market and buying and eating locally grown organic food that is usually fresher and requires less petroleum to transport to market. Organic soils capture and store CO₂ at much higher levels than soils from conventional farms.

Another way to make a difference is to buy locally-grown produce in season and preserve it by canning, drying or freezing for use during the winter months when that same produce is usually imported from the southern U.S. or the southern hemisphere. A final way that to make a difference is to eat less beef. Eating one less 1/4-pound burger a week saves the equivalent of 330 pounds of carbon dioxide per year.

The UCC’s Resolution on Global Climate Change reminds us of the Bible’s call, in Genesis 2:15, for us to be caretakers of God’s creation. One way to work towards cleaner air and water for humans and all of God’s creation, as well as working to reduce carbon emissions, is by using less electricity.

It’s true that 87 percent of Seattle’s electricity comes from hydroelectric power and another 3 percent comes from wind. But the less we use, the more excess power Seattle City Light can sell to neighboring utility companies. This in turn reduces the need for those utilities to build more coal-fired plants as their customer bases grow.

You can do many things to use less power at home. For example, if you have an attic, make sure it is properly insulated. Find and seal air leaks, such as around chimneys, windows, or cut-throughs for pipes. Clean or replace the filters used in your furnace or heat pump regularly, every 2-3 months.

Lowering the temperature of your house in winter (you might need a sweater) saves 170 pounds of carbon per degree lowered. It’s easier if you install a timer to turn your thermostat down at night or when you’re away. It’s sensible and easy to insulate hot water pipes that run through unheated areas.

On a more ambitious level, you can add insulation to your exterior walls or add thermal mass behind south-facing windows to store heat on winter days. Even more ambitious is to gather your own electricity, through solar panels or wind turbines.

Besides helping the earth, you can get federal tax credits for making your home more efficient in certain ways, such as installing solar panels or solar water heating equipment, adding insulation, and upgrading exterior windows or doors.



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