I thought about posting something, and then this happened.

And now I pretty much just don’t know what to say.  I mean, a lot of thoughts have crossed my mind since the “Great BP Oil Faucet” turned on at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico (I’ll admit that one of them was “I drink your milkshake“), but generally speaking, about all I can come up with is the following:

Good luck to everyone that’s trying to clean this up, especially to the folks trying to help clean up the animals, and to everyone whose livelihoods are being obliterated by this disaster.  I cannot even imagine.

Oh and good luck to BP … maybe you should start making more solar panels now?  Last time I checked solar panels didn’t destroy entire ecosystems?  Just saying.

On the other hand, when you decide you need to go “real” shopping, you might never really consider Goodwill to be your first choice.  Right?

Well, let me introduce you to the concept of second-hand shopping “for real”, which is to say, going to the second-hand clothing store to buy items that you might wear every day, or at least NOT to a pimp & hooker party.  I realize this isn’t a new concept; vintage stores have been around for a while now and happy hipsters are no stranger to the ironic high school t-shirts from the 70′s.  But shopping at vintage stores has always been an unsatisfying experience for me – unless it’s a really REALLY special piece, I don’t hold the belief that clothing, like houses, appreciate in price over time.  So, NO, I don’t want to pay $80 for that dress that probably cost $15 in 1982.  Nice try though.

All of that changed when I discovered Buffalo Exchange.  Merely coming to the realization that places like Buffalo Exchange exist was a revelation for me.

Image courtesy of Time.com; visit the article here

A quick search around the internet tells me that I might be late to the second-hand clothing party, but then again if it took me so long to figure it out, then I know that there are others who haven’t yet.   Anyway, as per my usual disclaimer, this blogger is not paid to endorse or hawk any particular product or store, but if I find a product or a place that I think fits into a  “greener lifestyle” mantra, then I’m happy to talk about it.   Here’s a few reasons why I enjoy shopping at Buffalo Exchange so much:

1. Their clothes are not so “vintage”. Most of the clothing that seems to show up at the Exchange is from within the past 10 years or so… Sure, there’s some vintage items in there, but it’s actually contemporary stuff.  It’s a bit like having the chance to raid your roommate’s closet except that you are raiding ALL roommate’s closets all at once.
2. The prices are well within reason. Shopping at this second-hand clothing store – which sells both used AND new stuff – will not break your bank.  Most of the clothing I’ve bought has been between $12 – $20, and every once in a while, if you’re lucky, you’ll come across a pair of jeans or a designer piece that was once sold for upward of $200.  It might still cost you $50 at the Exchange, but it beats paying the original marked-up price.  (Back to my housing analogy, I think clothes are much more like cars, in that there is always an initial sticker price that is jacked up for name-brand appeal, and then as soon as you put it on it is worth about half as much.  But I will save my lecture about buying used cars for another post…)
3. Having less choice is sometimes really awesome. So this may not make too much sense, but let me explain.  Sometimes when I walk into a store, and they have an entire section devoted to cute dresses, each in about four or five different colors, I become really overwhelmed.  I am a very careful decision maker and if I like even two or three of those dresses, I could spend an entire evening trying to decide which two I want, and in which colors.  Buffalo Exchange takes that stress away from me.  There’s something almost liberating about going straight to your size section and knowing that what’s there is there, and that unless it’s a new piece sold only at the store, you’re not worrying about which colors to get, because that’s your only choice.  AND, per #2 above, you’re probably going to spend less on it, as well.
4. You can sell your own used clothes there too. It’s very satisfying to know that an outfit you might not be interested in wearing anymore might be very appealing to someone else.  My advice is to purge your closet before going, sell your clothes back to them for store credit, and then reward yourself for recycling by shopping!  They rarely buy all of your clothing but if it’s a unique and well-maintained piece, you’ll probably get something for it.  They also take shoes and bags!

In conclusion, next time you need a new outfit, or next time you start to take that bag of old clothes to Goodwill, try Buffalo Exchange, or another local second-hand store*.  Your wallet will appreciate it, as will the planet, since you’ll be diverting those materials from the waste stream.

*Note:  it’s been my experience that consignment stores are much more complicated than the second-hand stores that I am speaking about… If I remember correctly there are usually membership fees involved, but you should investigate for yourself if a consignment store might be as good – or a better – option.

• Buffalo Exchange   (www.buffaloexchange.com)
• Recently featured in Women’s Day and Lucky magazines
• 14 states nation-wide  (Including two here in Portland!)

Briefly, I wanted to pass on a link that a friend of mine stumbled upon:  it’s a study conducted by Maastricht University, the Netherlands, and the University of California, Berkeley which determined that

“…Buildings with a high Energy Star rating are attracting rental premiums of three percent per square foot compared with non-green buildings of the same size, location and function…”

I mean, how do you like them apples?!  The study, entitled “Doing Well by Doing Good?“, provides the first credible evidence of the economic value of energy efficient buildings in the commercial sector by showing that the “greener” buildings were able to charge a premium on rents over more “standard” buildings, aka energy hogs.

Check out the study!  And if you have time, peruse the RICS Research page, there are some other great studies* about buildings on there, including one that poses the question, “Can building codes deliver energy efficiency?”

*Maybe I’m the only one that thinks these are cool.  Oh well.

“But why?”, you say.  (Or maybe you don’t, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, ha.)  Well consider this:  although you can’t see it, using a good amount of insulation and installing it properly is one of the greatest differences between having an energy efficient house and having a drafty, cold, money-pit of a house.  Observe:

From the GDC's Green Your Home tool

Now, knowing that you need a lot of insulation is one thing; know what KIND of insulation to get is entirely another.  In my diagram above, the pink part of the wall section is pink because I assumed that a lot of people associate that color with Owens Corning’s Pink Panther, aka “The Historical American Emissary of Insulation.”  And it’s true that Owens Corning has a lot of insulation products that are useful for homes, including a new product called Foamular, which is a rigid and moisture-resistant exterior insulation.  I’ve seen how this stuff is made – at the Owens Corning LEED Gold Manufacturing Plant just outside of Portland, no less – and it’s a heck of a lot easier to use than the old pink fiberglass stuff.  No offense to the Pink Panther, of course.

BUT, there are other, perhaps more sustainable options for insulation, ones that use less manufacturing energy or recycled materials, for instance.  Lloyd Alter over at Treehugger recently posted his thoughts on the debate between spray polyurethane foam insulation and recycled denim insulation.  There are advantages and disadvantages to both, and since Lloyd covered them already, I won’t repeat him.  But, depending on what the application is, you might find the fact that the spray foam is easy to install and covers up any gaps appealing; or, you may want to avoid VOCs and use the recycled denim, which helps eliminate material from the waste stream.

Obviously, I am not paid to endorse any product here at the GDC, nor do I personally have a preference as to what people use – perhaps one day when I buy a house, I will decide!  In the meantime, I DO encourage people who have homes and the money to renovate to check out the insulation in their homes and maybe consider upgrading … in almost every climate zone in the country, it will help you save energy, which will help you save money.  Hooray for saving money! 

This young man’s story is so inspiring, and it is proof positive of what you can do when you roll up your sleeves and put your mind to something.  It is also an amazing example of how precious energy is; it’s hard to fathom how people in some parts of the world can still have debates about whether or not wind energy is worth having in their community, while in Africa, they have to fight for scraps in order to even gather the resources to provide energy for themselves.  I think it’s a bit shameful, really.

William’s book, The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind, came out on September 29.  Don’t forget to watch the interview though… his story about discovering Google for the first time is kind of adorable.

First the definition:  Dictionary.com says that weatherization is the process of making (a house or other building) “secure against cold or stormy weather, as by adding insulation, siding, and storm windows.” All right!  That’s a good starting point.  But perhaps we should expand this definition to include all types of small gestures in and around homes or other buildings that makes them “weather tight” and more energy efficient.  To me, weatherization could include something as simple as putting plastic wrap over drafty windows during the winter, or something as intensive as tearing out old insulation and putting new insulation in your walls.

So how do people achieve these results?  Where do they start?  Well, as usual the Department of Energy seems to be one step ahead.  Behold the U.S. DoE Weatherization Assistance Program, which “enables low-income families to permanently reduce their energy bills by making their homes more energy efficient.”  And, just in case you’re wondering why ALL families don’t get this kind of assistance, check out the DoE’s reasoning:

“By reducing the energy bills of low-income families instead of offering aid, weatherization reduces dependency and liberates these funds for spending on more pressing family issues. On average, weatherization reduces heating bills by 32% and overall energy bills by about $350 per year at current prices. This spending, in turn, spurs low-income communities toward job growth and economic development.”

I think growth and economic development is a concept that we can all get behind.  So let’s hear it for weatherization!

One that I can think of that might not be so bad is hopping on your bike and riding to a movie theater to see a film.  You aren’t wasting any fuel or creating carbon emissions!  (Although if it’s a Michael Bay film, let’s be honest, the environmental damage is probably already done.)  In any case, treat yourself to some popcorn for burning those calories on your bike ride there.  Maybe you’ll even see Food, Inc. and you’ll learn about corn, and the problem of ethanol (I haven’t seen the movie yet, do they talk about that?)… oh well, you get my point.

In conclusion, maybe the next time you think, “I need a nap”, you should just go ahead and nap, and you can feel good about it, because think about how you are NOT contributing more greenhouse gases to global warming!  Score. 

• Many employers provide health insurance options to their employees.  Great, but what about the millions of us who are unemployed or whose workplaces do not offer this option?  Nobody is required to provide health insurance to those of us who have been laid off or who can’t find post-graduation jobs in this ridiculous recession.  And sure, if we are independently wealthy we can buy Cobra or some other type of interim health insurance… for what, $600 a month?  Just “in case” we need to see a doctor?  This is more than one month’s rent in many places.  And it’s completely mental.
• Most other developed countries, including all of Europe and our friends to the north in Canada, have what is called a “single payer” health care system.  Which is to say the government runs it, doctors are government employees, it’s free to every citizen of that country, and it’s paid for with their tax dollars.  So, if they have a health situation, they go to the doctor, they are treated, and they don’t have to pay a dime.  And yes, in some countries this means that for non-life threatening surgeries, there is a long waiting period.  But it still doesn’t cost them anything!
• More is spent on health care in the United States on a per capita basis than in any other nation in the world.  The prices paid for health care services are much higher in the U.S. but it is the leader in medical innovation, with three times higher per-capita spending than Europe and producing more new pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and affiliated biotechnology than any other country.  The U.S. also has higher survival rates than most other countries for certain conditions, such as some less common cancers, but has a higher infant mortality rate than all other developed countries.  The U.S. is also 46th for highest total life expectancy (courtesy of Wikipedia) and has the highest obesity rate in the world, with 64% of adults being overweight or obese.

Needless to say there are a lot of things to consider when trying to figure out a better health care system!  But, since we always like to think about “green things” here, what is the environmental impact of having poor health care? Or maybe a better question is, how do we improve our situation by having a better health care system?  Remarkably there doesn’t seem to be a lot written about this in the public sphere but I did find an article entitled Green Medicine: Environmental Impact of Health Care in a Canadian medical journal by a Kathy S. Worton, MD, and the article is not so scary with medical jargon that it can’t be read by normal people.  Incidentally, one of the biggest impacts that I think a preventative health care system based on wellness could have on our country, as opposed to a reactionary system based on sickness (which is what we currently have), is a reduced overall obesity rates.  Which, theoretically, would cause less strain on farming and food production.  But, as I have not done a full-scale study on this, I can only speculate!

Whatever your opinion on the health care debate, I think there is no doubt that the system we have here in the U.S. needs to be fixed.  Exactly HOW we fix it remains to be seen but here at the GDC we can only hope that it means less environmental impact in the long term!

And this is why Portland is leading the country on sustainable design issues!  Awesome.

“More than 98% of supposedly natural and environmentally friendly products on US supermarket shelves are making potentially false or misleading claims, Congress has been told. And 22% of products making green claims bear an environmental badge that has no inherent meaning, said Scot Case, of the environmental consulting firm TerraChoice.”

This, my friends, means that there’s a LOT of greenwashing going on.  Greenwashing is, of course, the situation that occurs when a company makes claims that their product is environmentally friendly when, in fact, it is not.  But to hear that up to 98% of the products on our shelves are doing this is quite frustrating.  The article even cites a refrigerator that claimed an Energy Star rating that, in reality, it didn’t earn.

If consumers can’t trust the labels on the products that we are buying, how do we know that we are buying earth-friendly products?  We don’t, without doing a lot of research, that we likely don’t have time for.

Companies need to stop greenwashing and start putting their money where their trees are planted!