The Greatest Generation was also the greenest

When I have thought about the society-wide changes that may be needed to prevent climate change or cope with energy shortages—growing our own food, consuming less, bicycling—I have tended to think of aspects of the‘60s counterculture. From now on I will think of the actual transformation that took place back when my parents were teens, during WWII.

Too many of us, in other words, talk green but lead supersized lifestyles--giving fodder to the conservative cynics who write columns about Al Gore's electricity bills. Our culture appears hopelessly addicted to fossil fuels, shopping sprees, suburban sprawl, and beef-centered diets. Would Americans ever voluntarily give up their SUVs, McMansions, McDonald's, and lawns?

The surprisingly hopeful answer lies in living memory. In the 1940s, Americans simultaneously battled fascism overseas and waste at home. My parents, their neighbors, and millions of others left cars at home to ride bikes to work, tore up their front yards to plant cabbage, recycled toothpaste tubes and cooking grease, volunteered at daycare centers and USOs, shared their houses and dinners with strangers, and conscientiously attempted to reduce unnecessary consumption and waste. The World War II home front was the most important and broadly participatory green experiment in U.S. history.

The above is from Home-Front Ecology: What our grandparents can teach us about saving the world, an article by Mike Davis in Sierra magazine. Davis is most famous for his book City of Quartz (a “fiercely elegant and wide-ranging work of social history [in which] Los Angeles is both utopia and dystopia, a place where the last Joshua trees are being plowed under to make room for model communities in the desert . . .").

So, yes, a transformation can be done--it has been done. That is encouraging. On the other hand, it was done as part of total war. The foes were militaristic fascists bent on world domination. Powerful incentive. And there was an end in sight, which isn't the case with the problems we face today. We should also recall that after the war ended, the troops and the folks at home went on a consumption spree. That never stopped.

Greenhouses coming along

Just a few photos of the progress on the old Lord & Burnham glasshouses we are restoring. They are looking great, thanks to volunteers and all of Paco’s efforts. We are doing a final measurement of glass next week, and continuing with painting and restoration.

Also, here is a photo, from earlier in the summer, of volunteers sheet mulching the blueberry area.

The advantage to sheet mulching is that it enriches the soil, holds moisture and suppresses weeds. Cut weeds and grasses back as low as you can, then lay down cardboard and cover it with whatever organic material you have. Multiple layers of materials is best. In our case, we used bark dust that was ground up onsite from the limbs of hazard trees and winter blow-downs from last year.

--santiago

Clif Bar visits Pringle Creek

Hannah, who works for Clif Bar, has been on the road for three months, touring the west coast in a biodiesel van. Packed inside that van she had what you might expect--Clif Bar products and luggage--but other things too, like a surfboard hanging from the ceiling and a mountain bike.

Hannah has been running on B99 since Southern CA. When stopping in Salem, she found Flower Power Biodiesel Co-op on this NearBio website, where you can type in your route or address and find biodiesel and E85 stations along the way.

We filled up the van with B99, took a walking tour of Pringle Creek (she was impressed) and talked about the various initiatives of Clif Bar to support sustainable farming, reduce the company's carbon footprint, and build relationships with other groups. She met our team and sat down on the porch to eat her lunch, then gave us a few boxes of Clif Bars (they disappeared the first day) and off she went. Thanks Hannah, and good luck with the rest of your trip!

--santiago

Congrats

Back in June we wrote about Pringle Creek’s landscaping folks, DeSantis Landscapes, and their sustainable landscape management services. Now we congratulate DeSantis for becoming the first commercial landscape contractor to be awarded certification as an EcoLogical (EcoBiz) Landscaper by the Pollution Prevention Outreach team in Oregon.

The Pollution Prevention Outreach Team is a cooperative group of local area jurisdictional staff from: City of Gresham, City of Portland, Clackamas and Washington Counties, Metro, and the Oregon DEQ. This includes planners and experts in air pollution, hazardous materials, solid waste, etc. The Landscaper Services Program recognizes “landscape design, installation and maintenance service contractors that reach the highest standards in minimizing environmental impact.”

DeSantis’s day-to-day operations include: the use of three hybrid cars for its sales and management team; use of biodiesel in their trucks, lawnmowers and other equipment; four-cycle backpack blowers that reduce emissions by as much as 80 percent and decreased decibel levels by 45 percent; and the conversion to green power for its office utilities.

“We could not be happier to be inducted as the first member to be certified into the EcoBiz Landscaper program,” said president of DeSantis Landscapes, Dean DeSantis. “Cultivating an organization that cares about the footprint it leaves behind has been, and will continue to be, a huge part of who we are.”

Land Development article

Here we go again--Pringle Creek is spotlighted in another prestigious trade magazine for developers. The article is Pringle Creek Leading the Wave in Land Development magazine, which is put out by the National Association of Home Builders. That is the same enormous and influential organization that gave Pringle Creek the Green Development of the Year award back in March. The article is a must-read; a page-turner; and suitable for framing. Here's an excerpt:

The planning team saved 85 percent of existing trees and used the remaining 15 percent by milling the logs on-site for gazebos, play structures and the bar in the neighborhood restaurant. Planners provided for deconstructing of old metal buildings to move them to new locations for a second life. They sited each lot with prevailing breezes and natural light as key criteria. An existing high-volume well allowed the planning team to include geo-thermal heating and cooling capacity for half the homes and the commercial Village Center.

Sustainability bike tour visits Pringle Creek

About 40 bicyclists rode down from Portland, en route to Eugene, stopping at Pringle Creek Community to learn about the project and camp for the night. They were from the Sustainable Energy in Motion Bike Tour, which guides bicyclists to various sustainability sites on a week long or multi-week tour. Some of this tour's other sites are Lost Valley Educational Center, Maitreya Eco-Village, Organic Valley Farmer’s Cooperative, Try/On Life Community Farm and Aprovecho Research Center.

The bicyclists were from all over the US, from Philadelphia to San Diego, and were very engaged, interested and informed. Below is picture of all their bikes (each bike has an orange flag) and one of their tents in the fir grove alongside the creek.

-- santiago

Bill Lindburg, 1931 - 2007

Salem architect Bill Lindburg passed away recently at the age of 75. The Salem Chapter of the American Institute of Architects honored him by planting three trees at the west end of the Fir Grove Park at Pringle Creek Community. To get a glimpse of Bill’s importance to Pringle Creek, Fairview, Salem and his community, click here to read the comments that his friend Tony Nielsen shared with more than 25 members of the Lindburg family at the dedication of these trees.

Pringle Creek in ULI’s magazine

This article, Oregon Green, in the beautiful Urban Land magazine, is very exciting for us. Urban Land Institute is the world's leading organization of development professionals. These folks get it--they're all about developing great urban environments, smart growth, compact and sustainable development.

Note that the author of the article, Portland native Michael Mehaffy, was, until recently, Director of Education for the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment.
That is Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, who is working hard to lead the UK toward new levels of environmental stewardship.

Oregon Green: A new community in Salem, Oregon, is raising the bar for sustainable development.

Oregon is well known for its innovations in urban development and environmental stewardship, but a new, 32-acre (13-ha) community being built in the capital city of Salem may set a benchmark for the trend in sustainable community development. The Pringle Creek Community has high aspirations: its development team aims to provide a showcase for integrated, market-driven sustainable development. More than that, the community is an early pioneer in the trend to combine green building standards with the environmental and social achievements of new urbanist community design.

You should have been here

An estimated 4,000 people visited Pringle Creek during the 2007 Tour of Homes. It was fun and exciting to see so much interest in our LEED-Platinum cottage home. One observation I heard from a number of the visitors was that the home didn't flaunt its "greenness". Another was how stylish it is, with lots of windows and natural light, beautiful wood floors, and quartz countertops.

I already miss the steady stream of vehicles (many of them hybrids, always nice to see) coming into the Community on our new porous streets. People seemed to have a great time visiting us (a few of them liked it so much they purchased lots). Many went off on our “walking tour” that we set up. You can take it either by following the map on our booklet or just wandering around and finding the various placards that tell you what everything is. Kids were out playing frisbee on the Village Green lawn. Folks were sitting in our little Fir Grove Park enjoying a beverage—and enjoying the rest of our lovely natural environment, orchards, landscaping.

If you missed seeing the home during the Tour of Homes, for the next few weeks you can see it during our Sunday open houses. So come on out—there’s more than just our “greenest” home.

Don Myers

We can do this

The bad news about climate change is worse than I thought but a solution is possible. George Monbiot is a British journalist and professor who knows a lot about climate change. He wrote a book, Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning. He writes a weekly column for the Guardian; they are collected here. This week, Monbiot has written “Stop doing the CBI's bidding, and we could be fossil fuel free in 20 years.” The article says, in short:

The IPCC report suggests oceans rising by 59 centimeters this century; a report by James Hansen and NASA says it could be 25 meters. Whoops.

The governments of the industrial countries, pressured by corporations, don’t want to do all that much about carbon. They’ll agree to a goal of cutting emissions in half in 40 years--but won’t get started.

The problem could be solved with renewables (and without nukes). We should create larger electric power grids, because the wind is usually blowing somewhere--if it isn't, we need to be able to tap hydro or geothermal. We should sometimes store electricity by pumping water up into resevoirs. We should have electric cars that are connected to the grid when parked, and enable the grid to tap into the car batteries to meet fluctuations.

. . . The new paper suggests that the temperature could therefore be twice as sensitive to rising greenhouse gases than the IPCC assumes. "Civilisation developed," Hansen writes, "during a period of unusual climate stability, the Holocene, now almost 12,000 years in duration. That period is about to end."

I looked up from the paper, almost expecting to see crowds stampeding through the streets. I saw people chatting outside a riverside pub. The other passengers on the train snoozed over their newspapers or played on their mobile phones. Unaware of the causes of our good fortune, blissfully detached from their likely termination, we drift into catastrophe.