Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Th!nk Vehicles Coming to the US

Another of Dean Kamen's projects is the Norweigan Th!nk vehicle.


Kamen's company, DEKA, has spent over 4 million dollars developing the Stirling Engine and has recently teamed up with Th!nk Cars to assure that it gets into production in a meaningful way.

Read about the plans for a 2009 launch of Think Cars in California., here.

"Yield to Ducks"


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Monday, December 22, 2008

Kamen Invention Promises Clean Water


Dean Kamen has invented a lot of things but his latest inventions may just make clean water and electricity the norm, even in the most remote regions of the earth (or in space for that matter).

Dubbed Slingshot, the water purification system can generate 1000 litres of water a day from "anything wet". That's right, even the nastiest source of water comes out sparkling clean when treated with Slingshot.

According to Kamen, "The water purifier makes 1,000 liters of clean water a day, and we don't care what goes into it. And the power generator makes a kilowatt off of anything that burns - including cow and goat dung."

CNN Piece on Kamen's Invention



Fawn Among the Ferns




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Sunday, December 14, 2008

Creating Revolving Loan Funds for Renewable Energy

Whether it occurs within the context of the Stimulus package or some future legislation, one of the most effective uses of taxpayer funds could be to help local communities (or groups of communities) establish revolving loan funds to help finance renewable energy upgrades for home owners.

Based on a pilot project in Berkley California, here's how the fund might work.

A homeowner applies to the fund for a loan to finance adding a renewable energy system to his/her home.

If granted, the cost of the upgrade is paid for through the fund, with repayment tied to property taxes.

On average, in the pilot project, this loan added about $100/month to the property tax but in the first year saved between $35.00 - $50.00 per month in electricity costs, and it is estimated that in only a few years the savings will completely offset the additional property tax burden.

As the funds are repaid, they are then loaned out to additional families.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

New Study Shows 38% of Adults Use Alternative Medicine

Thirty-eight percent of adults and 12% of children use complementary and alternative medicine, new data from a nationwide government survey show.

The survey marks the first time information on the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) by children has been collected at the national level.

Read Web MD Piece

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Solar Schools Initiative

An initiative to put collectors on Schools would pay huge dividends within the context of a national economic stimulus package.

This blog entry is the first in a series of suggestions for green initiatives that would meet the five criteria outlined in the piece entitled “Hastening the Green Revolution with the Stimulus Package, published on my blog: Unified Visions. UnifiedVisions.blogspot.com”

During the campaign, Senator Obama stressed the need for improving the quality of education in America. Educational reform is a critically needed national imperative within the tapestry of reforms necessary to create a vibrant 21st Century economy. It is also a subject that calls for a broad analysis across the spectrum of issues, from class size to teacher training and standards as well as the general educational infrastructure. One thing is certain – it will not come easily or cheaply.

This is not a piece about educational reform – but it does hold the seeds for freeing the financial capabilities of communities to pay for reforms. It is a suggestion for an initiative that will help to stabilize long-term energy costs for schools. In keeping with the five criteria outlined in the original article, it also contains synergies that will quickly create job opportunities, minimize the need for future power plant production, increase the availability of renewable energy to the national grid and make America more secure in the process.

The stimulus package could include a Solar Schools initiative to place solar panels on schools all across the country in partnership with local renewable energy businesses, local governments and perhaps even local utility companies.

One of the great challenges to moving toward a future where solar energy plays a significant role in our national energy portfolio is the placement of panels. Already the battles over using raw land for solar collection are taking place around the country. At the same time, a group of innovative utilities and entrepreneurs are beginning to explore the idea of using the rooftops of large buildings already built. Likewise, the roofs of schools all over America represent an untapped resource for the generation of solar energy.

With a little bit of critical thinking, the Obama team could come up with an innovative plan for using school rooftops for solar collection while reducing the overall long-term electric bills of schools, enhancing the alternative energy portfolio of local utility companies and generating savings to property taxpayers that would open up opportunities for property tax relief, enhanced educational opportunity in the local schools or some combination of both.

Local businesses could be tapped to do the installation, thus generating jobs locally and helping these businesses struggling to hold on in tough economic times.

How do we make this happen fast? We tap into the vast well of community organizations working on sustainability issues throughout the country. By challenging them to work with local communities and schools as well as utility companies and private businesses, within 30 days we could have more good solid well thought out proposals than we could possibly fund. These groups have been operating on a shoestring already and no one knows better how to leverage community and financial resources to get the job done. By creating a additional incentive for proposals that included partial or full payback of the initial investment it would be possible to actually create opportunities for reimbursing taxpayers for the cost – or creating a local revolving fund to stimulate additional projects as repayment happens.

Even if time and the urgency of the moment required that we simply spend the funds with no recapture provisions, the gains made across the country would be well worth the investment.


The Red Pants


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Monday, December 8, 2008

Quote of the Day

If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good.

Thomas John Watson

"Trees in the Mist"



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Hastening the Green Revolution with the Stimulus

Obama can assure his future and get the country back on track at the same time by thinking green.


President Elect Obama faces a daunting challenge in reviving our economy. The full measure of his success will be not the support he has up front but both the success and his support level as we emerge at the other end of the recession.

If we go on a national spending spree simply to stimulate short-term employment, the end result will be an American public with a fiscal hangover and a staggering debt, looking for someone to blame and likely to hold the Obama administration responsible for creation of debt built on spending instead of investment.

I am personally confident that the President-Elect understands this, but it is worth repeating over and over again lest the profligate spenders see this crisis as the opportunity to spend on projects with no long-term gain for the country.

Lets face it, getting a stimulus package passed will not be the hard part. Obama is likely to get a lot of latitude from the American people, as well as the Democrats and moderate Republicans in Congress. As difficult as this may be – it really is the easy part.

However, with some smart ideas and careful positioning Obama can dig deep into the more conservative factions of the Republican Congressional delegation as well. He can do this by focusing on investments that have long term implications and seed revolutionary change at the same time. He can do it by developing proposals that political self interest will compel even conservatives to support. By appealing to their patriotism; their market oriented and investment-minded inclinations; and, their electoral self interest, President Obama can turn the economy around, usher in a new green era based on renewable energy sources and inoculate himself against the charges of being a mindless spender in the process.

Over the next few weeks we will propose a number of ideas that can help make this happen.

Any discussion of a stimulus package to bring the nation out of this deep recession will have to take a myriad of factors (and actors) into account. Most important among them:

1. The Need for Speed:

In order for a stimulus to be effective if must proceed with “all due haste”. We can’t afford to waste a moment. History has shown us that Roosevelt’s caution in acting on the economic crisis that we now know as the great depression may have prolongued that recession by years. In fairness the presidential handover in that time was later in the year and thus nearly 3 more months of transition added to that delay, but historians and economists are generally agreed that this delay exacerbated the Depression’s depth and length. Obama has clearly demonstrated that he understands this and as much as he would deny it, Obama is acting as defacto President in may respects already, particularly when it comes to using the “Bully Pulpit” of the office to calm the nation and to focus our energy and understanding.

The need for speed will mean that general public works projects will need to focus on those that are “shovel ready”. In other words, those projects that have all the necessary environmental, legislative, federal and state approvals. In his remarks before the Governor’s recently, the President Elect showed that he understood this. More important, in later remarks he demonstrated that he would take a no-nonsense “use it or loose it” approach to assure that Governor’s looking to nab federal funds won’t overstate their readiness without consequence.

2. Investment Not Spending:

Both simple mindless spending and carefully crafted investments will generate jobs in the short run, but spending that does not have a long term benefit that qualifies it as investment in the future will run out of steam fairly quickly – perhaps before the nation emerges from the recession. The Bush approach of sending checks to taxpayer just won’t do the trick. Our nation’s resources need to be consolidated and invested.

3. Moving the Nation Toward Energy Independence

Given the very short attention span of politicians and the American people in general, historians will look back at the dramatic rise in the cost of energy in late 2007 and early 2008 as a Godsend that focused the nations attention on our greatest long term threat to peace, security and economic stability. Furthermore, recent declines in these costs have eased the pain as winter approaches another fortunately timed, but we must not allow ourselves to become complacent. Where ever possible the components of the stimulus must take into account the need to quickly move the nation toward energy independence.

Additionally, investment that focuses on creation of energy independence will bolster both small and large businesses that offer green technology and renewable energy options at a time when the lack of private investment threatens their short term viability.

4. Creating Synergies with other National Imperatives

Other national imperatives like improving the quality of education and providing healthcare to all Americans need not be cast aside in this process if we can create components of the stimulus that will create short term jobs and long term gains at the same time. Strategic investments in these areas can play an important role in addressing those issues and ending the recession as you will see from our first suggestion below.

5. Building Long Term Political Consensus:

The atmosphere of bitter partisanship that has driven the national dialog over the past decade or more must be replaced by a political realignment. To hope for a truly post partisan era is probably polyannish to the extreme but a new governing coalition where constructive engagement trumps partisanship in electoral politics might be possible. At the very least a government that governs from the “radical center” might be able to isolate the extremes on both the left and the right and truly bring about change.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

A Rascal of Boys

The tradition of using collective nouns that are specific to certain kinds of animals is at least 300 years old. More formally known as "terms of venery" these collective nouns were actually taught to the children of nobles and the ruling class as a means of distinguishing themselves from the commoners.

Sometimes the term used will apply to a group only in a certain context. A group of geese on the ground are referred to as a "gaggle" while, in flight, it is a "skein". Ironically, a group of Baboons is referred to as a "congress".

Some examples:

A mimsy of birds
A rascal of boys
A kaleidoscope of butterflies
A stumble of drunks

The coining of such terms is also a popular "parlor" or car game. So we're announcing a contest
today to come up with one or more terms for the following across three different websites. The prize for each is a signed Mindscape image from our Mindscape photo blog, valued at $295.

Please suggest a term for each or any of the following:

  1. A gathering of [name of any public figure]____________ supporters.
  2. A friendly gathering of "talking heads" on "Hardball with Chris Matthews"
  3. A screaming, blathering group of disagreeing "talking heads" on "Hardball with Chris Matthews"
  4. A group of expatriot Obama supporters
  5. A gathering of Sarah Palin supporters
  6. A group of Florida voters
  7. A group of Minnesota voters
  8. A group of Bill O'Reilly viewers forced to watch Keith Olbermann
  9. A group of Keith Olbermann viewers forced to watch Bill O'Reilly
  10. Add your own group!
Submissions may be by email or as a comment added to this or any related post. Winners will be announced February 14, 2008.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Natural Gas and Propane: The Difference

Propane is a natural gas but Natural Gas is not propane. Propane is a more highly refined form of natural gas with approximately 2 - 2.5 times the BTU power of natural gas. Propane combustion is much cleaner than gasoline combustion, though not as clean as natural gas combustion.

The difference between propane, or liquid petroleum gas (LPG), and natural gas comes down to their portability, compression, efficiency, and cost. However, there is generally no difference when it comes to performance in appliances for heating, cooking, or drying. The mixture of natural gas is comprised of propane, along with other gases like methane, butane, ethane, and pentane.

One difference in the physical properties of propane and natural gas is how easily they liquefy and transport. Propane turns into a liquid at —46° F (-43° C), so it's easy to compress and carry in a portable tank. You can buy compressed propane at many gas stations as well as agricultural feed stores like Agway. It's decompressed by a valve at the source of use, such as a barbeque grill.

Natural gas does not compress easily. Which explains why it is most commonly distributed via a gasline.

Propane is heavier than air which is heavier than natural gas. Both natural gas and propane will dissipate into the air if they are released in an open enough environment and both can pose an explosive risk if they concentrate enough and are ignited. However, because propane is heavier, it tends to fall to the ground, collect, and pose a greater explosive risk. On the other hand, because natural gas is lighter than air, it tends to rise and dissipate into the air, posing less of an explosive risk.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Wash Day is Fun Day

by Alexander Lee, Reprinted with permission.
Note: This is a snippet of a longer piece. Found here.

For Ma and other pioneer women, each day had
its own proper chores. Ma used to say,

"Wash on Monday,

Iron on Tuesday,

Mend on Wednesday,

Churn on Thursday,

Clean on Friday,

Bake on Saturday,

Rest on Sunday."

-Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Big Woods


Since 1945, General Electric and other large appliance manufacturers have spun a myth that all new appliances will liberate you from the drudgery of housework and make your life easier.[1] Today, Americans work harder and take less vacation than any of the nations to which we normally compare ourselves.[2] Groups like the Center for a New American Dream and my organization, Project Laundry List, have been questioning this for over a decade and offering an alternative perspective.

 

An ad from GE (part of which is pictured here) tantalized women of the post-World War II era, "Wash day is fun day. In go the dirty clothes...and out they come, cottons ready for ironing; synthetics ready to wear!" One can imagine Rosie the Riveter stretching her feet out in a 1948 Levittown home and imagining that the long, grueling war of housework was finally over. Alas, this is not the case.

 

A recent study by the Pew Research Center found that we view all sorts of gadgets as necessities which we recently regarded as luxury items—the microwave, the dishwasher, and home air-conditioner, for example. They found, "more than eight-in-ten (83%) now think of a clothes dryer as a necessity, up from six-in-ten (62%) who said the same a decade ago..."[3] These statistics are staggering and tell an interesting story.


[1] Town-builder Levitt previews the new 9 ½-foot wonder kitchen by General Electric, GE ad, http://server1.fandm.edu/levittown/images/lg_jpegs/GE-ad.jpg (last visited October 30, 2007).

[2] Don Mekrund, Americans Work Harder and Go Without Vacations, http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0728-02.htm (last visited October 30, 2007).

[3]Pew Research Center, Luxury or Necessity? Things We Can’t Live Without: The List Has Grown in the Past Decade, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/323/luxury-or-necessity (last visited October 30, 2007).

Monday, November 10, 2008

Sharon Dugan, Basketmaker

NH Trees - Shaker Traditions
Green Gifts

Sharon Dugan is a nationally recognized black ash basketmaker who has been creating baskets for over twenty years.

Initially learning Appalachian type baskets from her mother, Sharon worked in reed and natural found materials. After discovering ash splint and Shaker design in the early 80’s she experimented with that material and in 1987 left the world of advertising and graphic arts to study with local ash basketmakers including the well known Martha Wetherbee.

In 1997, feeling confident enough with the quality of her work, she applied to and was juried into the highly respected League of New Hampshire Craftsmen where she is currently a member of the standards committee and a basket juror.

Sharon’s baskets have been exhibited in many competitions and exhibits across the country winning numerous awards including the Handweavers Guild of America Award for her piece “Fool The Eye” in the Northern Colorado Weavers Guild’s Fiber Celebration 2005 and Best Traditional Design for the piece “Pueblo Tapestry” in the Living with Crafts exhibit at the League of New Hampshire’s annual craft fair in 2006.

Consistently chosen to be included in Early American Life’s Annual Directory of 200 Traditional Craftsmen, Sharon is currently making Shaker and traditional baskets as well as more contemporary pieces with black ash on her own molds with her own birch handles and rims.

She strives, as did the Shakers, for consistent quality and integrity of design and construction.

Sharon Dugan, Basketmaker • 54 Oak Hill Road • Sanbornton, New Hampshire • 03269 •
603 528-5120 • sdugan@metrocast.netThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it www.sharondugan.com

Hanging Out with Project Laundry List

Changing the World Through Clotheslines – One Household at a Time

Alex Lee is on a mission. A mission to restore the clothesline and to save the planet. Project Laundry List uses words, images, and advocacy to educate people about how simple lifestyle modifications, including air-drying one’s clothes, reduce our dependence on environmentally and culturally costly energy sources.


www.laundrylist.org

Project Laundry List Blog

The Eastern Larch




Most children learn that conifers are often called "evergreens" because they don't loose all their needles in the fall. However there is one beautiful exception to this rule. . . the Larch also known as the Tamarack. Every fall the Larch paints the landscapes it inhabits with a beautiful yellow as it loses its needles.  More


Useful Links & Resources:

Picnik is an online photo editor. Picnik makes your photos fabulous with easy to use yet powerful editing tools. Tweak to your heart’s content, then get creative.
www.picnik.com

Shutterfly is an affordable, high quality and reliable resource for printing your images and all those extra cool things that you have thought about. Photo books, calendars, cards, etc.



Sunday, November 9, 2008

Botanical Lampshades

Nature’s Beauty Illuminating Your Home Let the flowers pick you with a Botanical Lampshade; handmade in Sandwich, NH for over 50 years. These one of a kind, hand-crafted shades with pressed flowers come alive with color when illuminated, brightening your home with nature's beauty for years of enjoyment. Jennifer Allen is the fourth “generation” owner of this extraordinary shop featuring technique and design standards that have been passed from one craftsman to another. Custom work is a specialty, and over 200 different sizes are available. Call 284-7468 for an appointment at the Sandwich studio, or visit the League of NH Craftsmen store in North Conway to see an excellent selection of lampshades and bases. Prices range from $28.00 for a nightlight, to about $100.00 for the largest sizes. Lampshades can also be ordered from their website.

More

Browsing the Web

ProduceGuru.com
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ProduceGuru is your portal to everything you need to know about fruits and vegetables. Here, you’ll find answers to all kinds of questions – from why you should eat more produce to how to prepare endive.

A handy fruit or vegetable pull-down tab at the top allows for quick navigation, or type the name in the search tool and voila!

Once you enter the world of your chosen produce item, you’ll find oodles of background and variety information, nutrition specifics, serving sizes, preparation ideas and care and handling tips.

Looking for a specific nutrient? Just use the search tool to locate the nutrient and the veggies or fruits associated with it.

ProduceGuru also carries a broad look at the ever-changing realm of news related to produce. There’s also answers to the great questions of life like “How do I get me son to stop feeding his peas to the dog under the table?” . . . well probably not phrased in that way but you get the picture.

Get started on your tasty trip by pointing your browser to www.ProduceGuru.com.

 

The World Wind Energy Institute

The World Wind Energy Institute (WWEI) is a unique educational network dedicated to renewable energy training and technology transfer. The network is comprised of seven existing specialized training and research centres on five continents. The WWEI offers a ten-month global education program in wind and integrated renewable energy technology for postgraduate students from around the world.

www.wwei.info


FINDSOLAR.COM

Since its launch Findsolar.com online directory has linked thousands of home and small business owners around the country to qualified solar energy system installers serving their area. The web site also provides assistance in estimating costs and output of solar systems for hot water, electricity, and pool or spa heating.

Findsolar.com is a joint partnership between the American Solar Energy Society, Solar Electric Power Association, Energy Matters LLC, and the U.S. Department of Energy. The site serves as a convenient, user-friendly means for homeowners and businesses to learn about incentives and the economics of solar energy and to find qualified professionals who can install and service systems. For no charge, listed installers receive instant email notification of sales leads that are targeted to match their company's capabilities and geographic area. www.findsolar.com

 

 

Global Perspective in Miniature.

The late Donella Meadows, widely acknowledged to have been the lead writer of the landmark “Limits to Growth” in 1990 proposed an exercise to put the world into perspective in the palm of your hand. In 1990 she published the “State of the Village Report” under the title "Who lives in the Global Village?" Her report was based on a village of 1000. She asked her readers and students and those to whom she spoke to imagine what the world would look like if it were a village of 1000 people. A few years later, according to Wikkipedia, “David Copeland, a surveyor and environmental activist, revised the report to reflect a village of 100, and distributed 50,000 copies of a Value Earth poster at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.”

Today this conceptual framework is employed as an ongoing educational tool by the Miniature Earth Project. 

According to the Miniature Earth web site, which employs the 100 people model: 74 people would come from Asia and Africa, while just 8 would come from North America. 30 people would live without electricity, 16 would have inadequate access to potable water, and 13 would be hungry or suffer from malnutrition. More than half of the population would live on less than US $2 per day.

www.miniature-earth.com

A Video depiction of this concept is also found on Youtube 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C-u6kdHuXE

 You can read many of Donella Meadow’s columns reprinted at: www.pcdf.org/meadows/

 

 

“The Road to Vegetaria”
The “Vegetarians in Paradise” web magazine is a very useful website for those thinking about making the switch to a meatless lifestyle. Their Vegetarian Basics 101 has been approved by the USDA as a resource for inclusion in its
USDA Food and Nutrition Information Center Vegetarian Resource List. Also included in that resource list is their feature story The Road to Vegetaria.

www.vegparadise.com/basics.html

Incentives for Going  Green

DSIRE is a comprehensive source of information on state, local, utility, and federal incentives that promote renewable energy and energy efficiency.

www.dsireusa.org/

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Adagio Tea


The Boston Globe says: "Loose tea can be, well, cumbersome -- all that fussing with steeping and disposing of the leaves. Tea bags, an American invention of the early part of the last century, are much easier. Lucky for us, Adagio Teas is putting out varieties such as Dragonwell green tea, Ti Kuan Yin and Jasmine Pearls oolong teas, and Silver Needle white tea, along with Golden Yunan and English breakfast black teas. The tea comes in mesh pouches of loose leaves, enclosed in sealed foil packets. The mesh is triangular-shaped, making it easy to pull out of the cup without an unattractive paper tab."

Brando - Protect & Charge



Brando is a solar powered charge leather case for iPhone/iPhone 3G - not only do you get to fire up up your iPhone wherever you are but it also offers the protection you need for your investment. Retails for about $48.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

"Thinking Outside the Bottle"


Plastic Bottle Bans Pick Up Steam


Latest Science and Social Rumblings Spell Very Bad News For Bottling Companies

On the heels of a recent NRDC (National Resources Defense Council) report stating that less than 13% of plastic water bottles are being recycled and that the quality of tap water in the US and Canada is at least as safe as what comes out of a “far-from-carbon-neutral” plastic bottle, efforts to curtail or outright eliminate bottled water and sodas are gathering steam.

In Boston, Mayor Thomas Menino has pledged to "Think Outside the Bottle," and will curtail and eliminate the use of bottled water whenever possible in city procurement. Joining with him are a growing number of cities and towns across the continent and a rapidly expanding number of private restaurants.

“This is one of the fastest moving environmental causes that we have seen in a long time,” said Wayne King, publisher of the blog
Greener Minds. “It promises to sweep across the globe and those bottlers who are caught sucking their thumbs instead of acting are going to be in deep trouble.”

"Deer Secrets"
Choose Size & Signature


King said that in the US and Canada alone this represents a multi-billion dollar industry. “Either these companies are going to innovate and get on board the greenstream or others are going to come up with alternatives that suck their profits dry. It represents an amazing opportunity for eco-entrepreneurs and a huge challenge for both the bottlers and the folks who make the product inside the bottles – who ought to be just as worried about this.”

King predicts the next wave of bans will be on college campuses where students will drive the changes. “A whole lot of colleges and universities have very lucrative “pouring rights” contracts with major soft drink manufacturers and bottlers. This will represent a substantial income stream for many big educational institutions and therefore a huge challenge for these institutions. But if the bottlers think that the big bucks are likely to buy them the support of the administrations, they should remember what happened on campuses when the anti-apartheid divestment movement took root.”

Recent News on this Topic

Restaurants Move Toward Bottled Water Ban

Turning off the tap for bottled water
Plastic bottles are made of fossil fuels and chemicals, refined and manufactured by big oil companies, the institute goes on to say.

NY county mulls bottled water ban
One supporter, Neal Lewis, of the Long Island Neighborhood Networks, noted that the manufacture of plastic bottles consumes more than 17 million barrels of oil annually.

Despite the Hype, Bottled Water is Neither Cleaner nor Greener than Tap Water
by Brian Howard

Taking Your Office Green - 10 Tips

Its all about the triple bottom line. Embracing the bottom line in terms of economics, environmental, and social values.

Your Green offices will embrace all of these values and your boss will love you for it because in addition to making the company look good, it will save money too.

Work with a certified waste management company and ask them to provide you with advice for minimizing waste, and where possible gleaning some returns for your efforts. Many companies, notably Waste Management, Inc., have created special e-cycling programs for computers and electronic waste as well as

Buy post-consumer recycled content paper. Many of the big dogs in office supply are now offering recycled paper as an option including Staples, Office Depot, Quill, Target, as well as some of the specialty companies like Dolphin Blue, Monadnock Paper, The Green Office and others.

Use recyclable products in your bathrooms and kitchen areas.

Get an energy audit. In many cases the utility company that provides your electricity also provides programs for auditing your energy use. At the very least you can be sure that they can refer you to a professional in your area.

Institute programs to encourage carpooling among employees.

Institute programs to provide flex-time and telecommuting. Putting your company’s primary databases and working documents on the web using an intranet will allow your workers to work from any locale with broadband access. Several companies now provide low cost web-based intranet, conferencing and meeting software solutions: Webex, GoToMeeting, TalkPoint, Phase2 and others have some very affordable options.

Surge protectors do more than just preventing surges. If you have appliances plugged into surge protectors shutting off the surge protector or unplugging it entirely will prevent leakage that can really add up. At the very least, make it company policy to shut down computers, turn off lights and appliances after hours.

Look for EnergyStar rated appliances and office equipment.

Limit paper products in the company kitchen.

Purchase renewable energy credits for your office, and offset your air travel, gas mileage and more.

Carbon Offsetting


Carbon Offsets 

Carbon offsetting is the act of reducing ("offsetting") greenhouse gas emissions in one place to compensate for their production in another. In other words an individual pays for emission/carbon reductions elsewhere to compensate for some personal action taken. For example, when you travel by airplane somewhere the emissions generated by your action can be calculated. You can offset those emissions by purchasing carbon credits elsewhere.

It is important to note here that we are addressing carbon offsets, NOT emission offsets, which are governed by a strict legal framework. Emissions trading (see below) is an act that is legally defined and strictly regulated by various government entities. carbon offsetting is a voluntary act.

Purchasing offsets is also a good way to support the development of renewable sources of energy that have high front end costs but carry the promise of long term cumulative benefits to the environment. For example, development of a wind farm may have an initial cost that makes it uncompetitive in the current marketplace but with support from individuals purchasing offsets the cost can be voluntarily subsidized through conscientious consumerism.

Carbon Offset Resources - Be a part of the solution, offset your emmissions!

The Climate Trust - A nonprofit organization: The Climate Trust is a 501(c)(3) non-profit working towards a more stable climate. Their mission is to provide climate change solutions by purchasing high quality greenhouse gas (GHG) offsets from projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and advancing sound offset policy. 

CarbonFund.org: Carbonfund.org is leading the fight against global climate change, making it easy and affordable for any individual, business or organization to eliminate their climate impact and hastening the transformation to a clean energy future.

TerraPass: TerraPass is a company with a mission to put practical tools for fighting climate change in the hands of ordinary citizens. Recognizing their success, last year Ford Motor Company chose TerraPass in a first-of-its-kind partnership to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Now Expedia has picked TerraPass for another pioneering program dedicated to positive environmental action. 



Cool Products TripAlyizer


We haven't a clue where the name for this little piece of software came from but for iPhone and iPod Touch users it's a very cool add on. 

TripAlyizer assists you in saving gas at the pump by analyzing your driving habits and giving you an efficiency score. TripAlyizer takes advantage of the unique features of the iPhone GPS to determine speed, direction, distance traveled, cost per trip, time spent and an efficency percentage of each trip. TripAlyizer takes into account your driving speed, your rate of acceleration, your total idle time, total time spent within your cars "sweet spot" and number of stops to messure your efficiency. This application also provides a means to store your car information, like mileage, VIN number, scheduled maintenance, tire pressure (yes it does matter!), Insurance information e.t.c.



Ibadan Dryer Mindscape


Clothesline Photographed in Ibadan, Nigeria
The image above was captured in a courtyard in Ibadan, Nigeria. It was digitally manipulated to emphasize the most important elements of the image and de-emphasize those less important. I call these images "Mindscapes" as opposed to landscapes or cityscapes. 

Monday, September 1, 2008

Wash Day is Fun Day

by Alexander Lee, Reprinted with permission

For Ma and other pioneer women, each day had
its own proper chores. Ma used to say,

 

"Wash on Monday,

Iron on Tuesday,

Mend on Wednesday,

Churn on Thursday,

Clean on Friday,

Bake on Saturday,

Rest on Sunday."

 

-Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Big Woods

 

 Since 1945, General Electric and other large appliance manufacturers have spun a myth that all new appliances will liberate you from the drudgery of housework and make your life easier.[1] Today, Americans work harder and take less vacation than any of the nations to which we normally compare ourselves.[2] Groups like the Center for a New American Dream and my organization, Project Laundry List, have been questioning this for over a decade and offering an alternative perspective.

 

An ad from GE (part of which is pictured here) tantalized women of the post-World War II era, "Wash day is fun day. In go the dirty clothes...and out they come, cottons ready for ironing; synthetics ready to wear!" One can imagine Rosie the Riveter stretching her feet out in a 1948 Levittown home and imagining that the long, grueling war of housework was finally over. Alas, this is not the case.

 

A recent study by the Pew Research Center found that we view all sorts of gadgets as necessities which we recently regarded as luxury items—the microwave, the dishwasher, and home air-conditioner, for example. They found, "more than eight-in-ten (83%) now think of a clothes dryer as a necessity, up from six-in-ten (62%) who said the same a decade ago..."[3] These statistics are staggering and tell an interesting story.

 

For twelve years, I have dedicated my life to becoming what one Portland, Oregon, newspaper writer termed "the laundry mensch." I have fashioned myself into the world's most tireless, dedicated clothesline promoter. These are my reflections on some of the things that I have learned.

 

Clotheslines are for Lovers

 

At country fairs, energy conferences, and green product expositions, people have passed the Project Laundry List booth or approached me and peppered me, rhetorically and rapid-fire, with an edge of indignation, "How many kids do you have? Are you married? Who does the laundry in your household?" The implication is that I am misogynist who wants to strap women back into an olden era of churning butter and rubbing their knuckles raw on a washboard. That could not be further from the truth. I want our lives to be richer and healthier. I do not want to go back. I want to go forward.

 

I am, in fact, an eligible bachelor who uses the clothesline about ninety-five percent of the time.[4] I do not have a gaggle of small children to adorn in fresh looking outfits, but I do my own laundry almost weekly at the local Laundromat for the excellent price of $1.25 per load. (I only wish that the coin-op machine allowed the business owner to charge less to his customers who wash with cold water. Such a technology is on the market from Speed Queen's Net MasterTM.[5])

 

There is understandable consternation that housework, particularly "doing the laundry," remains the provenance of women in most households. Talking with the likes of Barbara Ehrenrich, Elizabeth Edwards, and Kate Michelman, I have tried to jumpstart a national conversation about the culture of overwork. A culture of families dependent on two incomes, where one sex does most of the housework and a great deal of the breadwinning, cannot long endure.

 

There is little evidence that the culture at large is taking this conversation very seriously, though. When I recently Googled "gender housework laundry," the first result was an article from CBS, entitled "Men: Want More Sex? Do The Laundry!"[6] No comment.

 

I met one woman's icy battery of interrogatories at a New Hampshire conference with a question of my own, "Do you want to make a series of accusations or do you want to have a rational conversation about clotheslines?" Disarmed by my rebuke, we thereafter had a productive conversation. We concluded that the clothesline is not a solution for everybody (a conclusion which I pretended not to have reached long ago), but that if you want to save energy and money you ought to be permitted. You see, millions of Americans are not even allowed to use a clothesline, but I am coming to that topic in a bit.

 

The clothesline really is not for everybody

 

Never mind that the Asians and the Europeans are laughing at us for our inability to conserve energy in meaningful and simple ways. German and Korean television stations have both been in my Concord, NH, living room recording six-minute segments that poke fun at our cultural attachment to the dryer. Articles in Austrian papers, on a Spanish website, and in a New Zealand hardware catalogue have all ridiculed our prohibition on drying. Still, the clothesline is not for everyone.

 

Everything in moderation, quipped Socrates and George Bernard Shaw. Walk in balance, admonish certain indigenous traditions of North America. And so, I refuse to be an absolutist on the question of the necessity of the dryer. As Descartes might say, if he were alive today, "Eighty-three percent of Americans think the dryer is a necessity, therefore it is."

 

Allergists instruct their patients, correctly, to hang inside (where air quality is generally worse, but pollen and allergens are in shorter supply) or to use a dryer, which leads to an electric plant causing asthma not necessarily in their backyard.[7] Lack of time, insect manifestations and bumble-bee nests are a potential hazard that come up frequently in the litany of excuses for not drying outside. The clothesline is not for every busy bee.

 

On the other hand, one woman reports that her eczema disappeared upon discontinuing the use of her dryer and erecting a clothesline.

 

While shit happens, for every blueberry-laced turd that stains a sheet, a dozen laundresses have taken joy in the sight of a robin or a hummingbird that they would never have spotted in the swirl of their Whirlpool's Plexiglas window.

 

Some medical doctors have instructed elderly patients with heart trouble to avoid lifting their arms above their head and a study "of women in their sixties determined that they recover more slowly than men form heart surgery because they resume their household duties too soon after coming home form the hospital."[8]

 

When I explained that there are racks on the market that would work for somebody unable to lift his arms, one disabled man recently reminded me "all you have to do is push a button to run the dryer." True enough. The clothesline is not for everybody.

 

On the other hand, my mother, herself the daughter of an old-fashioned general practitioner, claims that after her mastectomy in 1988, hanging clothes on the line was the best therapy she could find. Old wives tale? Be careful what you call my mother. She calls herself Mrs. Tiggywinkle after the Beatrix Potter laundress who hung out the clothes of Cock Robin and Peter Rabbit.

 

A failure of imagination, but also a failure of architectural design, means that many people and places cannot find the space to hang a drying apparatus. We are lucky that communities like Vancouver, British Columbia, and London, Ontario, are considering making space for drying a required design consideration for all new housing.[9] A new student housing project in Denmark incorporated drying space, paving the way for students all over the world to call, as two Middlebury College students have in their aptly named and popular Facebook group, for a "Laundry Revamp."[10]

 

Unfortunately, cities like Poughkeepsie, New York, are heading in the wrong direction.[11] Eager to sell her city as a gentrifying gem of the Hudson River Valley, the Democratic mayor, in September 2007, broke a tie of her city council, and declared, in overbroad terms, that thou shalt hang thy clothes in the backyard only. After the local paper published a story, Fox News had a field day.

 

It is true that she lost her primary less than a week later. I will not speculate about why, but I will hazard a guess that many of the low-income families there, who could stand to save $100/year or more on their electric bill, may not have a backyard at all.

 

The mayor has won the public opinion war, though. The clothesline is officially deemed ugly and now their city will be beautiful. Right?

 

Clothesline as Art: "She is said to hang a beautiful line"

 

An Italian-American woman from Newton, MA, who has many paintings and photographs of clotheslines, wrote to the mayor of Poughkeepsie.

 

Dear Mayor Cozean,

 

I know that I have no right to write this letter but it is on a matter that is important to me, and so overlooked by so many. It’s a simple matter.

 

I travel through your area, along the Hudson for visits with friends. I grew up in a working neighborhood of Boston with industry and shipyards. Though life has taken me into a very different neighborhood, with one of the highest real estate values in the country, I have retained my right to (yes, you guessed it!) a clothesline. I have a clothesline, a glorious, colorful, swinging, fresh smelling clothesline sparkling against the sky. I am also a painter who finds clothesline to be amongst my most favorite and well received subjects. I have been told by my Chinese artist friends that clotheslines are now being prohibited by mayors in China. Somehow I expect that where communism has always dictated every detail of approved lifestyle. But in Poughkeepsie? In 2007? In the USA? A simple clothesline? Please tell me it’s not so.

 

I love clotheslines and all that they stand for: beautiful and proud, art installations with clothes, the flags of our life. So join me as I hang my clothes. Save energy, take time to whiff the blue breezes, feel the sparkling yellow sunshine, beautify Poughkeepsie and hang a clothesline. In Venice, when one woman wants to compliment another it is said: "She hangs a beautiful line".

 

Thank you for hearing me out,

 

Marian Dioguardi

 

This artist and gifted correspondent finds herself in good company. A year ago, I found myself in the company of the Poet Laureate of Ireland as he read celebratory laundry poems at a photography show where the subject of each piece was a clothesline. The late wife, Jane Kenyon, of the 2006-2007 Poet Laureate of the United States, Donald Hall, had no less than three clothesline and clothespin poems.[12]

 

The wit of John Prine, who sings in We Are The Lonely, "She hangs her clothes out on the line/They're hanging there right next to mine/And if the wind should blow just right/She could be in my arms tonight" is matched only by the humor of The Bobs in Why Don't We Both Share a Load?: "I've got too many colors/ And I wouldn't want your underwear to turn all pink/But it seems I've left all my change at home/If I asked you for some quarters/What would you think?"

 

Norman Rockwell included a clothesline in his "Homecoming GI" painting for The Saturday Evening Post in May, 1945. Unquestionably, it was a nod to the quiet domestic life and the mother that the returning soldier had missed. It was also a commonplace device sixty years ago.

 

Anybody who has been to Philadelphia was annoyed or ecstatic at the site of Claes Oldenburg's giant bronze sculpture of a clothespin—so mundane, so luminous, yet casting such a long shadow.

 

Mary Azarian and Sabra Field—famous Vermont artists—both have fine woodcuts of clotheslines. Annalisa Parent has filled galleries all over Vermont with her photographs of withered hands pinning clothespins upon the line, French alleyways bedecked with bright clothes, and the humble clothesline of a Romanian peasant, to describe but a few.[13]

 

Colorful, organic, and sentimental, the clothesline is the perfect subject for painters and photographers. So, too, a washerwoman seems to have been either an object of longing or a subject of admiration for both Pietro Longhi in Die Wäscherinnen (c. 1740) and Pierre-Auguste Renoir in his Wäscherinnen (c. 1912). Something there is that loves the mundane, cherishes the simplicity of this repetitive task and the people who do it.

 

Give Us This Day, Our Daily Laundry

 

Poet Kathleen Norris, most famous perhaps for her prose memoir Dakota, published a little book, called The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy, and "Women's Work”. In it she reflects on her relationship to laundry and housework. She writes,

 

Laundry is universal—we all must do it, or figure out a way to get it done...Laundry, liturgy, and women's work all serve to ground us in the world, and they need not grind us down. Our daily tasks, whether we perceive them as drudgery or essential, life-supporting work, do not define who we are as women or as human beings. But they have considerable spiritual import.

 

It is a marvelous published lecture that I whole-heartedly suggest for anybody who finds daily existence harried by the requirements of modern culture. She reflects upon dishwashing and laundry as daily practices that deepen her faith.

 

Maria Rodale, of Rodale Press, teamed up with Betty Faust a few years back to produce Betty's Book of Laundry, now out of print. Kelly Crespin in her review for Eclectic Homeschool Online writes,

 

Who ever thought that someone could write a book that talked about laundry secrets? I thought, "How difficult is it to do the laundry? You put in the soap, you turn on the water, put in the clothes and let it happen"! So I was intrigued when I received this book because I really couldn't imagine how much information someone could come up with relating [to] laundry. Well, I started reading this book and couldn't put it down. Betty believes in ecologically friendly products and includes a list of earth-friendly cleaners and where you can find them."[14]

 

Laundry—quotidian as it may be—gets people excited. Competing with Faust's book is Fine Lines: A Celebration of Clothesline Culture, published in Nova Scotia, Canada, by Cindy Etter-Turnbull. Her somewhat hyperbolic introduction starts, "Clotheslines are the most practical tools ever created."[15] Her chapters include folksy retellings of laundry mishaps and classic tips about how to hang. Make sure you attach shirts by the tails, as more than one reader of Sierra magazine berated me after a recent posed photograph showed me standing in front of shirts clipped to the line by their shoulders.[16]

 

Perhaps nobody gets more excited about laundry than Andrea van Steenhouse and Irene Rawlings, though. Their coffee table hardback, The Clothesline Book, which can compete with the best of the genre, is gorgeously illustrated and full of the same sort of useful how-to information.

 

WARNING: Dryers are Dangerous

 

I sound a little bit crazy when I explain to people that dryers are dangerous. They are not inherently dangerous, but we are inherently lazy. "Failure to clean" (the leading cause of dryer-related fires) and other dryer maladies lead to 15,600 structure fires each year and nearly $99 million of property value damage.[17] The real danger that these machines pose, though, is not house fires, but wildfires, hurricanes, and sea-level rise. And our profligate use of electricity contributes to climate change.

 

The Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA) collects data on appliance use. The electric dryer accounts for 5.8% of residential electricity use, which is to say nothing of the 16% of American households with gas dryers or the millions of Americans who traipse to the laundromat or down the stairs to a landlord's "commercial" facility.

 

The EIA keeps no verifiable statistics on the megawatts (equivalent to millions of tons of carbon dioxide) consumed by the drying facilities at Laundromats, hospitals, prisons, restaurants, fish piers, and other commercial endeavors.

 

Project Laundry List erected a 400-foot clothesline outside of Hydro-Quebec's headquarters in Montreal to drive home the point that our demand for electric power drives the destruction of the Cree homeland and leads to new power source construction.

 

It is not only eliminating the particulates and greenhouse gases spewed into the atmosphere by King Coal and his brothers Prince Natural Gas and Count Nuclear, which make the clothesline more appealing. Your clothes last longer and smell better when line-dried, saving you money on your wardrobe and your electricity bill.

 

Sun-Dried Clothes Smell Better and Last Longer

 

If people did not adore the smell, why else would Yankee Candle have an array of scented products meant to conjure up the fragrance of the breeze in your sheets? Hundreds of thousands of elderly women, sentenced to retirement communities (which, incidentally, are also supposed to make the lives of our industrious middle-aged population more liberated and luxurious), long for the smell of those sheets. I receive postcards from grandmothers pining for the smell of the outdoors and the twitter of birds.

 

There is no better bleaching agent than sunlight. Rays from the sun can kill bacteria just as well as your leading brand with none of the chlorine—a toxic chemical. Want your whites white? Hang 'em out.

 

I ask you to think about where, exactly, you think lint comes from?  As you ponder this and contemplate your navel, do not reach the wrong conclusion. It comes from your clothes breaking apart in the heat of the dryer, of course. Those infernal machines!

 

Dryers are Expensive

 

It is expensive to buy a dryer. Staber which probably has the best American-manufactured product on the market. Even before you buy their 3 or 4 Wire Electric Dryer Power Cord or an LP conversion kit, you will be shelling out somewhere between $799 (electric model) and $874 (gas model).[18] That is a lot of money.

 

One-hundred feet of clothesline and a couple of sturdy hooks will cost less than five dollars. As with dryers, there are higher-end products that sell for much more. Some people balk at $210 for the Stewi "First Lady" which is a Swiss-made product that will last a lifetime and does not need to be replaced after an average of thirteen years, like the electric dryer.[19] It is available from Stenic Products in the North American markets. If this seems like too much, for half the price, you can probably buy something that will last half as long.

 

Hills, which is the household brand name of rotary clotheslines in Australia, will be bringing their products to market in the United States early in 2008. Their website brags, "In 1946 when Lance Hill developed the Hills hoist it was more than a means of drying clothes - it was a very clever piece of practical thinking." Their clever ad campaign includes an image of a wonderful hillside chock full of their Fixed Head Hoists. This kind of creativity and energy for promoting a clothes drying product in America has been reserved to the Maytag Man, since he first appeared on the scene in 1967.[20] Now, the Maytag plants have moved to Mexico largely and he has become a symbol of the fix-it-man, needed to shepherd us through the travails of planned obsolescence.[21]

 

Barack Obama, with frequency, repeats this story, "A while back, I went to a Maytag plant in Galesburg, Illinois that was moving to Mexico. And I met workers who were having to compete with their own children for jobs that pay seven bucks an hour. A few months ago, I traveled to Newton, where Maytag was shutting its doors after 114 years."[22]

 

A Kentucky paper reports, "The last washers and dryers rolled off Maytag assembly lines in Newton, Iowa, yesterday and the 550 workers who built them left the 2 million-square-foot factory for the last time, ending a century of appliance manufacturing there under the iconic brand name."[23] Indeed, the end of an era, but the most maddening part is that these jobs are not going away...instead, they are going away. The world is still building more dryers for an up-and-coming Chinese middle class, but they are now being built south of the border or across the Pacific.

 

An outside clothesline necessitates awareness of weather and requires time out-of-doors. It forces you to slow down for the methodical task of clipping pins, unless, of course, you have the Cord-o-Clip, which promises to overcome the barrier of laziness by attaching the clothespins automatically as you push your clothes past the pulley.

 

The Right to Dry

 

Theodore Roosevelt said, "The man who wrongly holds that every human right is secondary to his profit must now give way to the advocate of human welfare, who rightly maintains that every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it."

 

Project Laundry List believes that the best solution to the problem of community bylaws, covenants, and other rules restricting or banning the use of outdoor clotheslines and/or outdoor clothes drying is through periodic and transparent review of the rules by members of the community. Nevertheless, we also believe that saving energy is an overwhelming public policy concern and that the state government needs to step in to prevent local governments and community associations from overbroadly restricting or banning the use of clotheslines.

 

We agree with the Community Association Institute's Frank Rathbun, "A rule that made sense 20 years ago may not make sense today. A rule that most residents wanted 15 years ago they may no longer want today. So we urge boards to conduct a periodic and transparent review of their rules. By transparent I mean this should involve the board and the residents in the community.”[24]

 

Not just about clotheslines

 

Right to dry legislation is not just about clotheslines, it is about America, and specifically New Hampshire, taking new calls for behavior and lifestyle change seriously. One conservationist posited that we need to stop screwing in light bulbs or setting up clotheslines and just spend the day on the phone, calling on Congress and our state legislatures to do something. A group of conservation psychologists responded to this false dichotomy,

 

"Small behaviors are important not only for the direct environmental impact they have, but because they often lead to more and more pro-environmental behaviors over time... Numerous psychological studies have shown that people are more likely to agree to take a big action if they've previously agreed to smaller, similar actions. Thus, changing a light bulb may lead to higher impact behaviors like giving up plastic water bottles, insulating one's house, living closer to work, reducing meat consumption, and actively supporting legislation that will likely require personal sacrifice... People reject scary messages like the danger of global warming if they don't think there is anything feasible they can do to fix it."[25]

 

Right to dry legislation is not just about clotheslines. Anti-clothesline covenants are an example of a larger problem. Here are excerpts, taken directly from HOA covenants, which illustrate the kinds of anti-environmental prohibitions being enforced across the country:

 

  • Westerley subdivision in Sterling, Va.: "Solar panels and solar collectors are prohibited."

 

  • Camelot in Cottleville, Mo.: "Exterior solar collection systems, wind generator systems or other similar appliances are prohibited."

 

  • Peach Creek in Lisle, Ill.: "Compost piles may not be created on any properties ... A window fan is never allowed to be placed in the front windows of a home."

 

  • Quail Cove in Tucson, Ariz.: "Outdoor clotheslines are not permitted." (in a region where the great outdoors is like the inside of a clothes dryer!)

 

  • Crest Mountain in Asheville, N.C.: "The following are precluded: Outside clotheslines or clothes drying ... window air conditioning units ... vegetable gardens ..."

 

  • Tavistock Farms in Leesburg, Va.: "Vegetable gardens must not exceed 64 square feet." (With no more than 8 feet by 8 feet for growing vegetables, should they really be calling this place "farms"?)

 

  • Sun Valley in Waldorf, Md.: "No awnings in the front of the house will be allowed."[26]

 

Failure of the Right to Dry bill would have broad ramifications upon the government's ability to regulate a range of critical behavior and lifestyle modifications.

 

Project Laundry List has begun working in conjunction with the Community Association Institute and several national environmental organizations and leaders to develop a "laundry list" of rule changes and initiatives that community association boards can implement to be more conserving of energy and the environment. This critical work could help American communities change direction.

 

Are There Any Good Clothesline Restrictions?

 

Picture a typical 12-unit block house or condominium where half of the units face the street and half face the woods. In an effort to avoid "unsightly" clotheslines on the street-side, the developer or landlord inserts a restrictive clause that treats all owners and tenants in the same way, despite the possibility that the families on the backside of the unit could erect a clothesline with no or fewer aesthetic objections. This is done to be fair and equitable. In fact, it fails to recognize the individuality of each piece of property and has untoward consequences for the environment.

 

At Beaver Meadow, a Concord community featured in a Time magazine story about the struggle of Mary Lou Sayer to hang out her clothes, the local board voted 6-0 to keep the restriction on clotheslines in place. Why? Because they did not have the imagination to deal with a design flaw which, they felt, would mean any clothesline would have to be erected in the front of a dwelling unit. In truth, the three or four elderly individuals who might opt to use a clothesline may have been willing to travel with their basket to a location that was not directly abutting their personal dwelling unit and which was more "appropriately" sited.

 

The now famous story of Awbrey Butte in Bend, OR, where Susan Taylor's neighbors objected to her clothesline is another example of an overbroad restriction.

 

An Overwhelming Public Policy Concern: The Clothesline

 

Project Laundry List believes that saving energy and consumer dollars is "an overwhelming public policy concern." Undesired, excessive, or unnecessary consumption of energy is injurious to the public welfare.

 

The IPCC and the Secretary General of the United Nations have stated that changes in lifestyle and behavior patterns can contribute to climate change mitigation across all sectors. Management practices can also have a positive role.[27]

 

"Public policy is a legal principle which declares that no one can lawfully do that which has a tendency to be injurious to the public welfare. Chickerneo v. Society Natl. Bank (1979), 58 Ohio St.2d 315, 320. The principle of public policy must be applied with caution and is limited to those circumstances patently within the reasons upon which the doctrine rests.  Id."[28]

 

The most famous case of the government using its power to fix contracts was during the civil rights era. People used to claim that when a black family moved in next door property values declined. It was, unfortunately, true and created "white flight," but the justices of the Supreme Court, the Congress, and the legislatures of more enlightened states recognized that this was wrong. They fixed the problem by making discrimination in the housing, rental, and labor markets illegal, through such laws as the Fair Housing Act. Like civil rights a half century ago, environmental protection and energy conservation are the critical issues of our time.

 

In California, where they do have newspapers and radio stations, some time in the 1990's the state passed a law that invalidated covenants, codes, and restrictions to the extent that they prohibited the installation of satellite dishes that were, at the time, 15" in diameter or less. The dubious argument that an informed electorate required access to an array of television stations was sufficient grounds to undo preexisting contracts and agreements that prohibited dishes.

 

Originally satellite dishes were quite large and most community associations prohibited their installation within common interest developments. As the technology reduced the size of the dishes, the telecommunications lobby was able to get a law passed in California that completely invalidated the satellite dish prohibitions so long as the dish was 15" or less in diameter. If you look at the current California Civil Code section 1376 you can see the language invalidating CC&R's to the extent that they prohibit antennas or satellite dishes with a diagonal measurement of 36" or less.

 

The Need for Government Involvement in My Backyard

 

Some people claim that the government ought to not to be getting involved in regulating whether or not communities may restrict or ban the use of the clothesline. The truth is the government is already involved in such places as the historic districts of Columbus, OH, and the whole city of Poughkeepsie, NY, where rafts of people are restricted in their use of a clothesline. We cannot allow such municipal restrictions to come to New Hampshire. It is contrary to the "Live Free and Dry" ethic of the frugal Yankee.

 

Community associations are quasi-governments where "boards of directors are usually elected by residents, but their architectural review committees often are not. They have sweeping powers to enforce so-called restrictive covenants, which can control almost any aspect of the property, from the size of the house or garage down to details like changes in paint color or placement of basketball hoops. When a house is sold, the covenant goes with it."[29]

 

We do not expect that many people will make a decision about where they want to live based upon a covenant restricting clotheslines. It is our well-considered conjecture that most people are unwilling to rock the boat or are sufficiently uninformed about their legal right to negotiate changes to covenants, bylaws, and other contractual agreements.

 

The Property-Value Myth

 

"The Community Associations Institute cites polls showing that 78 percent of homeowners belonging to HOAs believe the rules they live under 'protect and enhance' property values."[30]

 

To our knowledge, there are no empirical data correlating clothesline use and property values. It is a fear-driven, self-perpetuating myth of realtors and the like that property values are affected negatively by clotheslines. It is up to us to declare clotheslines as pennants of the eco-chic and to say that a community that is not sterile and in which people appear to be living is actually a more desirable place to live.

 

Project Laundry List believes that there are three major objections to the clothesline. All three are related to aesthetics, but also involve other social pressures. First is a socio-economic aesthetic objection (e.g. "Clotheslines are for poor, rural folks." "Clotheslines make a place look a 19th Century immigrant tenement."). Second is a privacy or moral aesthetic objection, sometimes referred to as prudery (e.g. "I don't want to see her bloomers or bra." "I don't want people to see my underwear."). Third is a market-driven objection ("My real estate value will decline if neighbors hang out their clothes!" "Property values can sink by as much as 15% if neighbors are hanging out their clothes."). Please note that this last statement is not backed up by fact.

 

If we take these aesthetic objections one at time, there are a number of points to be made. First of all, wealthy individuals do use a clothesline and there is a broad array of clothesline artwork, some of which reinforces this first stereotype, but most of which is beautiful. People flock to Venice and all of Europe, snapping photographs of clotheslines in alley ways and byways. Clothesline usage is nearly ubiquitous across Asia. We cannot preach temperance from a bar stool.

 

Clothesline Energy Savings

 

The federal government only segregates the residential electricity used by electric clothes dryers, which is 5.8%. There are no segregated data on the potential energy savings from the 16% of American households who use more efficient gas dryers. There are no data on commercial laundry operations, such as Laundromats, or multifamily housing laundry operations, such as laundry drying appliances shared by condominium owners. There are also no data on the energy used by commercial establishments, such as restaurants, jails, prisons, hospitals, fish piers, and hotels. Finally, there is no accounting for the energy involved in the manufacture, retail, maintenance, and disposal (dryers last an average of 12 years) of white goods used in the drying of clothes, to say nothing of the expenditures on materials extraction or marketing of the products.

 

Conclusion

 

Everybody has to have a dream. Mine is that we will redesign our communities to accommodate clotheslines. Weathermen will announce, "Today is a good day to dry" during their morning reports. Textile manufacturers will instruct customers, through labels, to wash in cold water and line dry their clothes. People will see the intrinsic beauty of a clothesline, properly hung. Communities will challenge each other to see who can get the most clotheslines and racks to replace dryers, making National Hanging Out Day (April 19) into a celebration of sane living. Rich and poor alike will stop buying into the mythology of appliance liberation, wasting their dollars on machines that wear out and wear out their clothes. The litany of excuses that Americans give for not using the clothesline, will give way to a new ethic that recognizes a pressing need for lifestyle and behavior change. We will lead by example, as we ask the rest of the world to live in harmony. Clothespins will become a symbol of peace and ecological concern. Next year, failure to clean the lint trap will not leave families homeless and mourning. The sun will rise and as I look out my window and down the street, children will be dancing in the sheets, as their parents—mothers and fathers, alike—pin their hopes on a better and brighter future. 

 



[1] Town-builder Levitt previews the new 9 ½-foot wonder kitchen by General Electric, GE ad, http://server1.fandm.edu/levittown/images/lg_jpegs/GE-ad.jpg (last visited October 30, 2007).

[2] Don Mekrund, Americans Work Harder and Go Without Vacations, http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0728-02.htm (last visited October 30, 2007).

[3]Pew Research Center, Luxury or Necessity? Things We Can’t Live Without: The List Has Grown in the Past Decade, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/323/luxury-or-necessity (last visited October 30, 2007).

[4] Match.com, http://www.match.com (last visited about five minutes ago).

[7] Project Laundry List is an IMBY group in as far as we encourage the use of a clothesline in the backyard, but we also encourage its use wherever practical.

[8] Kathleen Norris, The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy, and "Women's Work, p. 4 (Paulist Press, 1998).

[9] EcoDensity, Suggested Tools and Actions- DRAFT (May, 2007), http://www.vancouver-ecodensity.ca/webupload/File/Sample%20Tools%20and%20Actions_FINAL.pdf (last visited October 30, 2007).

[10] Facebook, Students for Laundry Revamp, http://middlebury.facebook.com/group.php?gid=14523390373 (last visited October 30, 2007).

[12] "Wash", "Wash Day", and "The Clothes Pin" all by Jane Kenyon in Otherwise (Graywolf Press, 1997).

[13] http://parentstudios.com/Laundry/index.html (last visited November 14, 2007).

[14] See Betty's Book of Laundry, http://www.eclectichomeschool.org/reviews/individualprint.asp?revid=456 (last visited Nov. 1, 2007)

[15] Cindy Etter-Turnbull, Fine Lines (Pottersfield Press, Lawrencetown Beach, Nova Scotia, CANADA, 2006).

[16] "One Small Step: The Answer, My Friend" in Sierra (Sept./Oct. 2007). See http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200709/one_small_step.asp.

[17] National Fire Prevention Association, Dryer & Washing Machine Safety Fact Sheet, http://www.nfpa.org  FEMA's US Fire Administration, Clothes Dryer Fires in Residential Buildings  (last visited October 30, 2007).

[18] Ibid.

[19] See Stenic Products, Inc., http://www.stenicproducts.com and Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, Average Useful Life of Major Home Appliances National Family Opinion, Inc. (NFO), 1996 Survey http://www.aham.org/ht/a/GetDocumentAction/i/5271 (last visited October 30, 2007).

[20] Wikipedia, "Maytag, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maytag (last visited October 30, 2007).

[21] "Unfortunately, the value of dependability in selling Maytag appliances was minimized by the generally good level of dependability delivered by all of the major brands." http://www.characterweb.com/maytag.html (last viewed on November 14, 2007).

[22] Remarks of Senator Barack Obama as prepared for delivery, UAW Conference, Dubuque, Iowa (Tuesday, November 13, 2007).

[25] The Power of Voluntary Actions, Grist (Sept. 11, 2007). http://gristmill.grist.org/print/2007/9/11/13338/9554?show_comments=no

[26] The Property Cops: Homeowner Associations Ban Eco-Friendly Practices, by Stan Cox, AlterNet. Posted April 26, 2007.

[27] The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change (IPCC).

[28] http://www.rbfh.de/gopher.fcgi?server=CPEL.cpl.org&port=7077&type=file&plain=1&query=
0%5B_1998%5D_72040.

[29] The Property Cops: Homeowner Associations Ban Eco-Friendly Practices, by Stan Cox, AlterNet. Posted April 26, 2007.

[30] The Property Cops: Homeowner Associations Ban Eco-Friendly Practices, by Stan Cox, AlterNet. Posted April 26, 2007.