Second-Hand Scents

Forgive me if this is a bit erratic. I'm very dizzy today, and so thoughts don't flow as well when that happens.

Scents - we all like them. Some of us a lot more than others. You know the kind - if a little dab is good, the whole bottle is better. But do you know what makes that scent? And do you know how many things in your home have scents added?

Here's a list of just some products with scents added:
Tissues, Toilet Paper, Shampoo, Conditioner, Soap, Lotion, Hairspray, Mousse, Gel, Deodorant, Makeup, Aftershave, Cologne, Perfume, Toothpaste, Mouthwash, Floss, Body Powder, diapers, incontinence pads, feminine pads, Window Cleaner, Floor Cleaner, Dish Soap, Dish Washing Detergent, Fabric Detergent, Fabric Softener, Dryer Sheets, Furniture Polish, Silver Polish, Dust Cloths, Cat Litter, Garbage Bags, New Furniture, Air Fresheners, Candles, Bleach, Blue, Ammonia, Car Cleaning Products, Lamp Oil, Pot Pourri, Carpet Cleaner, Snack Foods, Microwave Popcorn, Soft Drinks, Powdered Drinks, Jello, Candy, Chewable Vitamins, Ink.

The Chemicals In Scentology
The fragrance industry uses over 3000 (3 thousand) chemicals to create the scents in the products we buy. Most are petrochemical - also known as volatile organic compounds (banned from paints in NYS). This is actually being studied as part of indoor air pollution. Yes, the fragrances in your clothes and on your body contribute to the poor air in your home and office.

75% of all products with chemical fragrance added have phthalates http://kermitsteam.blogspot.com/2007/12/air-fresheners.html. This about this. You smear these things on your hair, your scalp, your face, and your body. They cling to you from within the fibers of your clothes, transferring to your hands, your face, and your furniture, children and pets. You inhale them as they release from your skin, your clothes and the air fresheners you can't live without. Considering your skin is the largest organ of your body, you have inundated it with these chemicals. Your lungs absorb more chemicals faster than any other organ in your body. Inhale deeply!

All fragrances are untested - the government doesn't see a need to - unregulated - you can't regulate what you don't test - and unlabled - if they aren't tested or regulated, they must be safe, so why lable them as being in the product to begin with?

Many personal care products have one of dozens of artificial musks. Most of these have been linked to hormone disruption. This is bad since these particular chemicals bioaccumulate, meaning they are stored in the fat. This also means if a woman is using perfumes with one of these mictures, it will be transferred to her baby during breast feeding. Hormone disruption is attributed to the feminization of boys and early development of girls Essential oils found in many products, has been linked to hormone disruption in prepubescent boys.

Scent-Free
More and more people are suffering from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Environmental Illness, and Sick Building Syndrome. Take away these chemicals and these people's health improves immediately. Fewer asthma attacks are reported, fewer sick days, sinus infections, allergic responses and more productivity is attributed. For more information, please refer to www.MCS-Global.org

Countries are starting to take the initiative by requiring scent-free locales within buildings - much as smoke-free areas have occurred in this country. Much of the research that has been done regarding the deliterious effects of chemical fragrances has been done in Canada, which is also leading the way in scent-free zones for sensitive people. I'd love to make all elementary schools scent-free, but that's just my soap box issue of the day.

How?
Many products are now unscented. You must pay careful attention since they'll say fragrance free, but not be unscented. Unfortunately, there is a difference and product manufacturers know this.
Use unscented laundry detergent. Rather than fabric softener or dryer sheets, use a 1/4 C of baking soda in the wash. It leaves clothes softer than anything you can buy specifically for that purpose.
Get rid of the candles and air fresheners in your home. If you need, sprinkle baking soda on your carpet weekly and vacuum it up after 20 minutes. It works wonders.
Use unscented soaps. Don't layer scents onto your skin with soap, then lotion, then whatever is in your clothing. Use scant amounts of lotion. You don't need nearly what you think you do.

Once you take some simple measures as above, you'll be far more aware of other scents around you. You may wish to cut more out of your life. Or, you may fall in love with your perfume again. Who knows?

Regardless, why use them? Why subject your body and the bodies of your children to unknown chemicals? And, to work with a popular scare tactic, if China put chemicals that are dangerous to pet and person in knowingly tested products, what are they putting in to products that are completely unregulated? Are you truly willing to risk that?

50 Largest US Cities Green Ranking

We hope you enjoy reading through our work as much as we enjoyed creating it! Get started now with a closer look at our methodology, or a review of what makes a sustainable city. Or if you'd like, simply cut to the chase and check out the Rankings. We'll be continually updating these pages with stories from the field, so check back often. Thanks for visiting, and happy reading!

1. Portland, OR
If you live in Portland, you might want to think twice before complaining about the 40-plus inches of rain dumped on your head every year. It might be the only thing keeping the entire country from moving to your city by the Prius-load. Portland retained its title as SustainLane's number one city to beat this year–not surprising given that it got a 30-year jump on the rest of the country.

2. San Francisco, CA
If you can afford to live in this top-ranked SustainLane city, the first thing you may notice after moving here (once you're done gaping at the suspended marvel spanning the Bay) is how well this city recycles. After all, how many cities' solid waste and recycling centers have artists in residence?more »

3. Seattle, WA
If Seattle’s 2006 SustainLane ranking had you considering a move to the coast, it’s time to call the movers. The Pacific northwestern metropolis is once again sitting pretty near the top of the SustainLane heap at number three. And by "pretty" we're referring to its location between Puget Sound and Lake Washington and to its easy access to just about any kind of outdoorsy activity your sustainable heart desires.

Worst:

50. Mesa, AZ
Mesa, Arizona just might be the biggest city you’ve never heard of. Founded by Mormon pioneers in 1878, and with more people in it than Cleveland, Miami or Minneapolis, the desert city has one of the best natural disaster risk factors in the country; that is, nature’s wrath is least likely to get you in Mesa. But what might take you down is the city’s polluted air-it ranks 46th out of 50 in our survey.more »

49. Oklahoma City, OK
When Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett noticed that his city was showing up on national obesity rankings, he made his New Year's resolution for 2008: he put the entire city on a diet, with the goal of losing a collective million pounds. (You can check out the mayor's own before/after pic at www.thiscityisgoingonadiet.com.). So the city may tip SustainLane's 2008 scales at 49th place once again, but we're excited to see what a motivated mayor can accomplish when he puts his mind to it. Oklahoma City residents enjoy affordable homes on large lots and zero rush-hour traffic, despite the city’s sprawl. But Mayor Cornett says gas prices have encouraged Oklahomans to trim the fat, and for many...more »

48. Tulsa, OK
What’s in a name? Sometimes a history lesson—and particularly when your sports team are called the Drillers and the Oilers. Mayor Kathy Taylor is working hard to shed the city’s sludgy brown image, and her constituents are singing her praises. Tulsa may not be doing anything avant-garde, but it is building a solid sustainability base by adopting plans to increase curbside recycling, plant twenty thousand trees by 2010, and develop a comprehensive plan for energy conservation.more »

Number 1 in:

Air Quality - Honolulu HI

Tap Water Quality - Kansas City, MO

Energy and Climate Change - San Francisco, CA

Solid Waste Diversion - San Francisco, CA

Metro Transit Ridership - NY, NY

Green Economy - Portland, OR

Local Food - Minneapolis, MN

Green Building - Portland, OR

Planning and Land Use - NY, NY

Windows, The Weak Link

In the history of man, it's been only a little more than a millenia that we've had the luxury of seeing out of our shelter without the frigid blast of winter or furnace wave of summer filling the abode.

But the technology of glass, or other transparent building material has come to a virtual stand still. Yes, there are single, double and even triple pane windows - with or without inert gas or films applied. But with all of these minimal changes made to the making and use of glass, it is still the weak link in keeping a house heated and cooled.

And yet, we have increased its use substantially. 20 years ago, the general rule was for window space to be 10 % of your floor space. So if you had a 1000 sf home, you would require 100 sf of window space. That number has jumped to 15% - 18% and many homes approach a phenominal 30%. The problem is, with every 3% increase in window space, a 2% reduction in heating and cooling efficiency is realized.

How Weak

Beyond that, walls account for 30% of all heat loss from a home, but are easily 3 times the surface area of windows. Windows account for 20% of all heat loss - using 1/3 the space of the walls, they accomplish a heat transfer at least 60% more efficient than the walls. This is an efficiency we can ill afford.

Another way to look at this idea is that walls are now insulated to at least an R-20. Windows, on their own, max out at R-4.5. This is with the most expensive and most efficient windows on the market today. Hardly what the majority of homes have.

There are several things you can do to improve the R-value (there's a thing called the U-value, but I'm not going to confuse this discussion even more) of your windows. Curtains and drapes aren't really helping you. Unless they are an actual window cover that fits tightly within the window's woodwork, they are little more than - oh - window dressing!

I'll try to organize the suggestions in an order that is from least to most extreme, with many of them being equal.

Metal Windows

Metal windows are by far, the most inefficient beast man has made. The metal frame is the most effective "cold bridge", even over cold air itself. It conducts heat and cold (don't fight with me physics folks, I know) so efficiently, that it's a wonder anyone considered metal frames a great idea.

You must make a barrier for these windows both inside the wall and inside the living space. Inside the wall, place rigid foam or expanding spray foam so it is covering the entire metal frame - or the wood that surrounds it, so that it doesn't touch any other aspect of the wall - drywall or wood. This will block it from conducting heat or cold to the surrounding wall space. Outside the wall, but within the living space, make a plexi or rigid plastic "storm window" with a rubber or foam gasket that will cover the entire window space, and the gasket covering the entire outer edge of the metal frame. This will accomplish the much needed air space and block the metal from conducting the cold to the interior of the room

All Other Windows

Air Spaces

The more air spaces you have, the more insulating ability you have. This includes windows, blinds and drapes. You can add a storm windows or shutters (that are more than decoration) to the outside of the home. You can add a plastic film, blinds, shutters, shades, drapes and rigid foam inserts to the inside. They all must make direct contact with the window frame to be of any use, but with that simple rule, you can achieve a great deal with any, or all of these ideas.

Blinds

All types of blinds are very effective at creating an airspace between the living area and the window. But again, they must be a good fit, which often means the must be custom made. Metal blinds aren't effective, due to the conductivity of heat and cold, but they have long since gone out of style, and are most likely not made anymore. So no worries.

Shades

Some shades are good, if made of a tight-weave fabric or of segmented wood. The types made out of sea grass or reeds are too loosely woven to be effective at making that air space.

Drapes

Again, these must be made of a tight weave, or have a liner made of a tight weave and must make a solid connection to the wood frame surround all 4 sides of the window. If not, the air is free to move. With the air cooling between the drape and the window, a strong current is established, making a very effective air conditioner during a season you least want it.

Insulated drapes are another step within using drapes. You can purchase these in stores or catalogs or you can make them yourself. The more layers within each drape - again for the highest number of air spaces - the better they will work for you.

Shutters

Interior and exterior shutters will work virtually the same, except exterior can protect the glass during a storm, and bring partial or full shade to the glassed area, cutting down on the green house effect during the summer. For heating purposes, they must be create a tight bond covering the glass space.

Rigid Foam

These can be made of any thickness rigid foam insulation you find at the home improvement store. It should be cut to size for each window, so that it fits snuggly within the window frame. It would be put in palce and removed just as curtains are drawn or opened on a daily basis.

This suggestion is the most extreme and I would only recommend this for the coldest of homes or buildings that have many rooms unused for much of the week. It's laborious and these fillers take up a significant amount of space and need to be stored during the day or pleasant weather. Again, for the buildings with many unused rooms, these are also appropriate during the summer, to keep heat OUT.

Radiant Barriers

Radiant barriers can be used individually or incorporated into any of the above suggestions. The material can be styled like mylar, can be a bubble-style insulation with the radiant barrier on one or both sides, or can be similar to material, with nylon strands incorporated within it. You can find these materials online or in home improvement stores. Since it works like it says, it will radiate (or reflect) the heat back to wherever it came from. This can be outside during the summer, or inside during the winter. When used in walls, it has a 97% reflectivity rating, making it incredibly effective in maintaining the temperature in a house. Which means, it can be similarly effective with your windows!

Storm Windows

Most of us already have storm windows on our homes, if not the ever-coveted replacement windows. But if not, seriously consider them. They are a cheaper alternative to replacement windows and most likely will do more good since the air space is larger.

Savings

And while it truly depends on which of these suggestions, or even which combination of suggestions you choose to use in your home as to how much heat you save. Count on it being at least 5%, which is often enough to pay for any of these suggestions within 2 years.

Note

Note that I did not suggest replacing your windows. Unless they are metal framed or the rope-sashed windows, it's difficult to advocate replacing them. Adding storm windows, if done properly, is as effective, due to the larger air space between window panes. Many people are unable to afford replacement windows, and so feel they have no options to save money. But they do. And if you have been able to replace your windows, you still have much to do to make those windows as efficient as they should be. They are not stopping the heat from escaping from your house. They're just slowing it down a little bit compared to your old windows.

50-Year Farming Plan

Sent to me by Jerome Rigot

A 50-Year Farm Bill
By WES JACKSON and WENDELL BERRY
Published: January 4, 2009

THE extraordinary rainstorms last June caused catastrophic soil erosion in the grain lands of Iowa, where there were gullies 200 feet wide. But even worse damage is done over the long term under normal rainfall — by tthe little rills and sheets of erosion on incompletely covered or denuded cropland, and by various degradations resulting from industrial procedures and technologies alien to both agriculture and nature.

Soil that is used and abused in this way is as nonrenewable as (and far more valuable than) oil. Unlike oil, it has no technological substitute — annd no powerful friends in the halls of government.

Agriculture has too often involved an insupportable abuse and waste of soil, ever since the first farmers took away the soil-saving cover and roots of perennial plants. Civilizations have destroyed themselves by destroying their farmland. This irremediable loss, never enough noticed, has been made worse by the huge monocultures and continuous soil-exposure of the agriculture we now practice.

To the problem of soil loss, the industrialization of agriculture has added pollution by toxic chemicals, now universally present in our farmlands and streams. Some of this toxicity is associated with the widely acclaimed method of minimum tillage. We should not poison our soils to save them.

Industrial agricultural has made our food supply entirely dependent on fossil fuels and, by substituting technological "solutions" for human work and care, has virtually destroyed the cultures of husbandry (imperfect as they may have been) once indigenous to family farms and farming neighborhoods.

Clearly, our present ways of agriculture are not sustainable, and so our food supply is not sustainable. We must restore ecological health to our agricultural landscapes, as well as economic and cultural stability to our rural communities.

For 50 or 60 years, we have let ourselves believe that as long as we have money we will have food. That is a mistake. If we continue our offenses against the land and the labor by which we are fed, the food supply will decline, and we will have a problem far more complex than the failure of our paper economy. The government will bring forth no food by providing hundreds of billons of dollars to the agribusiness corporations.

Any restorations will require, above all else, a substantial increase in the acreages of perennial plants. The most immediately practicable way of doing this is to go back to crop rotations that include hay, pasture and grazing animals.

But a more radical response is necessary if we are to keep eating and preserve our land at the same time. In fact, research in Canada, Australia, China and the United States over the last 30 years suggests that perennialization of the major grain crops like wheat, rice, sorghum and sunflowers can be developed in the foreseeable future. By increasing the use of mixtures of grain-bearing perennials, we can better protect the soil and substantially reduce greenhouse gases, fossil-fuel use and toxic pollution.

Carbon sequestration would increase, and the husbandry of water and soil nutrients would become much more efficient. And with an increase in the use of perennial plants and grazing animals would come more employment opportunities in agriculture — provided, of course,, that farmers would be paid justly for their work and their goods.

Thoughtful farmers and consumers everywhere are already making many necessary changes in the production and marketing of food. But we also need a national agricultural policy that is based upon ecological principles. We need a 50-year farm bill that addresses forthrightly the problems of soil loss and degradation, toxic pollution, fossil-fuel dependency and the destruction of rural communities.

This is a political issue, certainly, but it far transcends the farm politics we are used to. It is an issue as close to every one of us as our own stomachs.

Wes Jackson is a plant geneticist and president of The Land Institute in Salina, Kan. Wendell Berry is a farmer and writer in Port Royal, Ky.

NYS Regional Food Community Project

The Regional Community Food Project (RCFP) is itself a "mini- food policy council" recognized by the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker, and the New York State Council on Food Policy.

In the fall of 2005 community leaders and individuals concerned with food security, food safety, community health, individual wellness, economic prosperity and agricultural sustainability began gathering to discuss the one element we held in common: food. The common thread securely bound the participants together and lead to the formation of the Regional Community Food Project (RCFP) and monthly meetings thereafter.

The RCFP is a collaborative effort among "food" stakeholders in the Southern Tier. "Members" are a diverse group of organizational representatives and individuals including concerned community residents, farmers, farm organizations, USDA staff, health professionals, dieticians, Cornell Cooperative Extension staff, public school administrators, food service directors, food bank managers and food pantry leaders, and others. Members represent six Southern Tier Counties including Broome, Chemung, Chenango, Delaware, Otsego, Tioga and Tompkins.

Together RCFP works to create and support food secure communities and thriving, profitable farms. We work to ensure that all residents, underserved groups and food service providers have access to quality local foods. We support local farmers and the development of a strong local food system, including food processors, distributors and markets. We work to strengthen the connection between food and health by promoting the use of local food as the cornerstone of community health. And we educate residents on the many benefits of buying locally produced food and provide them information on how and where to purchase it.

The purpose of the Regional Community Food Project is to promote and help implement policies and practices leading to increased use of nutritious, locally produced foods, creating food secure communities, and improving the quality of life in South Central New York State.

The RCFP truly is greater than the sum of its parts; what we accomplish together could not be accomplished individually. The food system, as you all know, is complex and multi-disciplinary, and the problems being addressed by the RCFP are bigger than any one of us could solve ourselves. Together we are taking initial steps towards solutions by building understanding and assisting one another. The RCFP works across the disciplines. We are acutely aware that we can't solve the problems alone and rely on each other for guidance, support and expertise.

The RCFP gathers as a group to both learn and share and in this way becomes increasingly effective in strengthening farmer-consumer connections. Members have individually lead projects which benefit the RCFP community as a whole. Stories of opportunities and challenges are brought to monthly meetings.

One such success story shared is the Chenango County Bounty. Under the direction of Opportunities for Chenango, the program builds local capacity for local foods with such innovations as: a map and stamp card campaign, an "Eat Local This Week" challenge, Bullthistle Bucks, and the newly created "Farmer's Market at Your Door" program.

RCFP members are getting creative helping members of the community access safe and nutritious foods. The Food Bank of the Southern Tier is exploring ways that locally produced foods can have an important role in their hunger relief efforts, while The Rural Health Network is improving access to farmers market and local farm products for homebound elderly and the disabled, and the Johnson City School District fills backpacks with nutritious foods for kids to take home.

The projects are successful because a push-pull effort follows an identified need by one RCFP member. Other members who have experience working with growers, or organizing transportation, or marketing ideas all assist in the effort. Together problems begin to be solved.

The RCFP recognized early on that policy acts as a barrier to the accomplishment of our goals. Utilizing productive upland pastures not suitable for other types of agriculture is a goal of our member the NYS Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative and the RCFP. But getting ruminants out on pasture is only part of a local food system; the other part involves getting those products to market, which requires local slaughtering and processing capacity. RCFP partner NY Farms! is currently working with Cornell University on a Livestock Processing Work Team to address such issues.

RCFP Partner the Center for Agricultural Development & Entrepreneurship, CADE, is working with both farmers and processors to create value added "hubs". The Evans Farmhouse Creamery is one such example, where not only does the creamery processes local dairy products but they also distribute other agricultural products throughout the region. In this way the RCFP works to support and expand regional infrastructure.

Educating the public is critical to increasing local use of local foods. Farms enrich communities in numerous ways and that value must be compensated for. RCFP realizes that local foods may not be the least expensive and recognizes the need to defend such costs to local customers. Helping to increase consumer awareness to the benefits of eating healthy and locally is undertaken individually and collectively.

One consumer outreach effort undertaken and lead by Cornell Cooperative Extensions of Broome and Tioga, with support by Broome and Tioga Farm Bureaus, was the organization of the annual "Farm Days at the Mall". At this event farmers are invited to have tables and displays and talk to shoppers, mall walkers and visitors about their farms and farm products. This year the request for assistance to find local farmers was greater than ever and RCFP members were happy to help.

The "Taste of Tioga" organized by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tioga County provided another type of opportunity for people to connect with farmers through collaboration with local restaurants. Such a venue provided farmers two market potentials.

Each of the counties has coordinated and published local food guides and has worked to distribute them in numerous venues.

Health and wellness on numerous levels is an unstated RCFP goal. Individual health, community health, economic health, and environmental health are all a concern. A state of wellness is achieved when health is in balance within and among these elements.

Holism is the method employed to create wellness. Decisions are not made independently but are instead mutually dependent upon each other. The director of the Resource Conservation and Development Agency of South Central New York leads RCFP members in collective, holistic decision making.

A "Growing Health" conference organized by the Rural Health Network of South Central New York was a groundbreaking effort to bring numerous community constituents to the table in an effort to expand the concept of health and wellness, and to assist attendees in making the direct connection of wellness to the need to support local agriculture. "Growing Health" helped introduce the farm and food sectors to the health and human service sectors, and initiated important community discussions and connections that continue today.

If one were to look at defined regions, united in the effort of protecting food security locally, such as proposed "Food Sheds", ours is a model we would recommend. The RCFP is an effective vehicle moving efficiently towards defined goals.

The successes we can measure are not funded directly by any one organization, but by the contributions of each of the members. There is no budget, there is no program manager, there is no working capital, but there is heart, strong will, determination, and solid convictions-- all of which have carried the RCFP to date. Like other collaborative groups working to develop a regional food system, we continue to look for financial support and depend upon community and partner generosity.

The RCFP is an open working group and organizations and individuals are encouraged to participate. The annual planning meeting will take place January 22. Meetings are the fourth Thursday of the month from 2-4 at the Broome County Cornell Cooperative Extension office on Upper Front Street.

"Bullthistle Bounty" was a project of Opportunities for Chenango - and included a discount card for local products including food, a Hometown Holidays shop local booklet and OFC co-sponsored the Eat Local Challenge with Cornell Coop Ext. Chenango.

The "CHENANGO BOUNTY: Farmers Market at Your Door" is a project of the Chenango County Agriculture Development Council - a delivery service of wonderful local foods. For more information see www.chenangobounty.com

One way to help the environment and create sustainable landscapes is to usenative plants. Here is a conference all about it in nearby Ithaca:
Designing with Native Plants.
Creating Sustainable Landscapes for the Finger Lakes & Upstate New York
Date & Time: Friday February 20, 2009; 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM
at Cornell's Lab of Ornithology
For more information, see the website http://www.tompkinschamber.org/events/show/53

Is Your Home Causing Breast Cancer?

Robin Kay Levine, the founder and CEO of green cleaning products company Eco-Me, started her business in 2005 when her 35-year-old sister, with no family history, was diagnosed with breast cancer. "How does this happen?" Levine wondered at about the same time she was overwhelmed by fumes her sister's housekeeper left behind. "When you start thinking about it, there are so many chemicals we use until the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep," she says. "But no government agency tracks the chemicals being used in these products. Who's looking out for the consumers?"

Instead of offering premade batches of cleaning supplies, Eco-Me sells kits so people can brew their own at home, with ingredients Levine says our great grandmothers used -- vinegar, baking soda, essential oils. How's her sister now? In remission with a new baby.

Levine is on to something. Experts say that even products that meet government standards aren't completely safe, and can contribute to a variety of ailments, including breast cancer, ADHD, and asthma. Read on to find out if your home is harboring any hidden dangers.

Warning Labels

"Watch warning labels," says Robin Kay Levine, the founder of Eco-Me green cleaning products. No one expects consumers to be experts, however, or to know which funny-sounding chemicals are known carcinogens. Levine advises, "Look for products that give away the ingredients. Stay away from anything with a color in it. Labels that say 'keep windows open' and 'use in a ventilated room' are a dead giveaway."

Foam Containers

Foam containers are made of polystyrene, whose chemical ingredients can seep into food and your morning cup of coffee. Styrene has been blamed for skin, eye, and respiratory irritation, depression, fatigue, decreased kidney function, and central nervous system damage. Xenoestrogens like styrene are suspected hormone disruptors, meaning that they mimic estrogen in the body and disrupt normal hormone functioning. They are found in many common home products, including plastics and cosmetics and could lead to breast and prostate cancer. You asked for a doggie bag -- not a health risk.

Dryer Sheets

The slinky little sheets that keep clothes fresh are chock full of chemicals, including ethanol and chloroform. The ingredient benzyl acetate has been linked to pancreatic cancer and benzyl alcohol is known to cause upper respiratory irritation. When it reacts with ozone, the ingredient limonene can form formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, or cancer-causing agent. "We have gotten used to these wonderful lifestyles with 'better living through chemicals,'" says Kathy Loidolt, a consumer health advocate and author of the Shopper's Guide to Health Living. "But our bodies are being overloaded with toxins. We don't need to be scared of everything. We just need to get different habits."

Plastic

Baby bottles (and other refillable hard plastic bottles and plastic flatware) are commonly made from polycarbonate plastics, the most common type on the market. Unfortunately, when washed and heated (say, in the microwave), these plastics give off bisphenol-a, or BPA. BPA is a hormone disruptor that mimics estrogen and has been tied to developmental and neurological problems for unborn children. In animals BPA has contributed to reproductive system abnormalities such as infertility, enlarged prostate, and abnormal chromosomes, as well as obesity and insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes. Look for BPA-free alternatives when shopping for your next baby shower gift!

Figuring out whether plastic containers are safe can be confusing: polyethylene is safe, polycarbonate isn't; polypropylene is safe, bisphenol-a isn't. After repeated reheating, polycarbonate, a chemical seen in several plastic storage products, can leak BPA, the dangerous hormone disruptor found in some baby bottles. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the chemical in most plastic soda bottles, leeks the hormone-disrupting carcinogens called phthalates after repeated use. Deli plastic like polyvinyl chloride (PVC) can also release dioxins.


"Ordinary" Cleaning Products

In addition to containing known harmful ingredients like ammonia, lye, phosphate, and chlorine, the majority of home cleaning products (just about everything under your kitchen sink) contain a vast array of chemicals, including toxic ethylene-based glycol ethers and non-toxic terpenes that become dangerous when they interact with ozone in the air. Experts say the single most important thing to remember about cleaning products is that you need good ventilation when using them.

Second Hand Scents

Dr. Anne Steinemann, a professor of engineering at the University of Washington, has long warned about the effects of "second hand scents" in everything from air fresheners to laundry detergent, spray disinfectants to scented candles. In 2007, she performed a chemical analysis of 30 of the bestselling scented household products and found that they contained known carcinogens and other dangerous chemicals. (The study appeared in 2008 in the Environmental Impact Assessment Review.) The products she studied contained more than two dozen volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, which the EPA says can cause nose and throat irritation, headaches, shortness of breath, nausea, and dizziness. Together, the products Steinemann tested contained more than 100 different chemicals, none of which were listed on the labels. "The labels look benign," Steinemann says. "But some of these chemicals are classified as toxic under federal laws and can be affecting you even without your knowledge." She recommends making your home fragrant with scents straight from the source, such as mint leaves or cinnamon sticks.

Dye

The color dyes that make soap more fun to use and frosting more fun to eat have been linked to increased hyperactivity in children. "What you put on your skin can go straight through to the bloodstream," says Loidolt, the consumer health advocate. It's the same reason she recommends avoiding perfume and chemical-packed lotions. Countless studies have produced countless opinions on exactly how great an ADHD irritant color dyes are, but there is some consensus that FD&C yellow #5 isn't something we'd prefer to eat -- or bathe in.

Hobbies

Superglue and other super-strength adhesives (you know, the kind that take two trucks to pull apart on TV) induce sensitization, according to Dr. Paul Blanc, a professor of medicine and chair of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and author of How Everyday Products Make People Sick: Toxins at Home and in the Workplace. Exposure can start with allergies and lead to asthma. Other hobby materials can be dangerous, too; people who deal with leaded toys, the chemicals involved in stained glass making and amateur metal refining should be careful. "People think there's a magic wall between occupation exposures and home exposures, but in fact it's a spectrum," Blanc says.

New Home Smell

Between the adhesives, stain protectors, flame retardants, and the chemical behind that mysterious and distinctive "new carpet smell," carpeting combines a lot of potentially unhealthy elements. The dyes and solvents used to produce and install it emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs) including styrene, xylene, butlylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), and 4-Phenylcyclohexane (4-PC). Put together, these chemicals have caused respiratory and nervous system damage, as well as allergies, headaches, and nausea. Let the carpet air out for a few days in a well-ventilated area to reduce the VOCs and everyone will breathe easier.

Particle board, fiberboard, plywood, paneling, and some insulation, popular in homes of the 1970s and budget decorators, can emit formaldehyde, which the EPA calls a probable human carcinogen. Some of these materials contain urea-formaldehyde in the glue, which the EPA says is the highest indoor producer of formaldehyde, the chemical that can result in asthma attacks and other upper respiratory irritation, and burning of the eyes, nose, and throat. It has also been tied to cancer in animals. Unfortunately, these emissions can increase in humid summer months and some people are more vulnerable than others. The trailers the U.S. government provided to Hurricane Katrina survivors were giving off dangerous levels of formaldehyde.

Flame Retardents

Flame retardants used on upholstered furniture, mattresses, and electronic equipment have undoubtedly saved many lives, but there is a trade off. These polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, have caused memory and learning problems in rats and mice, as well as slowing their thyroid function and neurological development. It is not known what effect the chemicals may have on humans, though most people have them in their system.

Your Printer

Laser and ink-jet printers sure make our lives easier, but recent studies show that they also release volatile organic chemical emissions and ozone particulates, which have been linked to heart and lung disease after being inhaled. The jury is still out on whether the exposure levels in the average home are safe.

Hormone Disruption Cologne

"A single fragrance typically contains several hundred chemicals," says Dr. Steinemann, who studied the fragranced home products. Fragrances and other beauty and personal care products often contain the man-made chemicals called phthalates, or plasticizers, molecules absorbed through the skin that have caused birth defects in male genitalia in animals and may cause lowered sperm count in boys and premature breast development in girls. These chemicals have been banned from baby toys, but not your perfume. "Most of our exposure to toxic chemicals comes from the products we choose to use, not chemical waste sites," says Steinemann.

Non-Stick Pans

Nonstick and stain-resistant coatings, used on everything from your favorite omelette pan to your suede sofa, include perfluorinated acids (PFAs). Though their toxicity in human is still unclear, in animals, PFAs cause birth defects, thyroid hormone abnormalities, and liver damage.

Inaugural Inspiration

2401 words to start this new chapter in United States History.

"My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land – a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America – they will be met. On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted – for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame.

Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things – some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions – that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking

America. For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans.

Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them – that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works – whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day – because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control – and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.

The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart – not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.

And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort – even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West – know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment – a moment that will define a generation – it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends – hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism – these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility – a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence – the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed – why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet.

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations."

Seal Those Drafts

In the humidifier post, we discussed how a house with dry air is a drafty house. But not all drafts are from dry air. If your house is 20+ years old, chances are it's drafty. And if it's 60+ years old, it's down right breezy. Our house is 140 years old. You can imagine. A book - Renovating Old Houses by George Nash - states that most older houses have enough gaps for cold air to infiltrate equal to leaving your front door open 24 hours a day. When you really only need about a half an air exchange an hour, does it make sense to knowingly allow this much COLD air come waltzing through your home?

Fortunately, there are things you can do to alleviate many of the drafts - and all from the warmth of inside the house

Here in upstate NY, we just experienced the coldest air mass in the last 5 years. My guess is, you felt drafts that you had no clue existed. I know I'm finding them. So - ditch the sweater. You'll be getting warm doing this work

Basically, what you'll be doing is going around the house feeling for drafts. Everything is suspect - outlets, switches, doors, windows, pipes and the foundation are all bound to have a stream or river of cold air falling from them

Materials

I tend to keep things really simple for my sake. Depending on how indepth you decide to get with this project (s), you'll need most of these.
Hammer
Flat head screw driver
Calk - silicone clear
rope calk
Foam outlet and switch seals




Windows

Do you still have the old sashed windows? You know, the ones with the ropes and weights inside the woodword. We still have 6. Fortunately, only 3 are really vulnerable to the brutal NW wind, but that doesn't mean the others aren't leaking. (Here) is a video and written instructions on how to insulate these. It works! I've tried it.

If you have newer windows, they still probably leak some. You can feel around the woodwork, or use a stick of burning incense to find the leaks. Chances are, if there is open space between the woodwork and the wall, you'll see the smoke plummet toward the floor. If the smoke does anything more than waft along you have a leak. This means you have to get the calk out.

I prefer clear silicone calk. It blends in well, is paintable and remains flexible for years. But if you have a type you prefer, please use that instead. When you do begin caulking, PUSH the tube. Pulling it stretches it and doesn't get it worked into the crack. By pushing the tube, you get it worked into the crack and a far better looking bead. I wasn't a believer, but have become one since having to do a lot of calking

Repeat this process with all of your windows, not just the ones facing North or NW. It's just as cold on the South side of your house as it is the North. The air will still leak in, even if it isn't forced by the wind

Switches and Outlets

Now that you've finished the windows, it's time to relight the incense and check all of your outlets and switches. Since there should be at least 1 switch per room and an outlet about every 6', there will be plenty of checking to do. Check interior walls as well as exterior. You'd be surprised at how cool that air can be as well.

Remove all of the plates and take your incense around. Chances are you will be appalled by the amount of air moving through these tiny spaces.

Use your calk (it's non-conductive) around the outside of the boxes. Never put anything inside the box itself. It's dangerous and against codes. Most drywall is not 100% snug around the boxes, so you need to seal that space. If you think there's enough room, place some fiberglass insulation around it first, and then seal the gap.

Next, take a foam seal you bought in a packet of at least a dozen for about $2 and place it around the outlet. Then, replace the wall plate, covering all of your work.

Repeat this procedure for all outlets and switches. It's time consuming, but so worth it! This alone can save you at least 2% on your heating and cooling bills, not to mention the comfort of your home improving massively.

Doors

I hate doors. Our entire house isn't square, and moves with the seasons, so the doors are almost impossible to keep sealed well. But that doesn't stop me from trying!

Check the weather stripping. If it's not pliable, or is cracked, you should replace it. Thankfully, this is inexpensive and easy to do. Replacement kits exist in every home-improvement store. If I can do this in less than an hour, it's easy.

Once you've checked your weather stripping, check the woodwork around your door. Often, it is like the windows, and not sealed properly. Use your calk to seal any leaks surrounding the woodwork.

And if your house IS like mine and the doors aren't set squarely, you may be able to solve some of this issue with shims behind the hinges, or even replacing the hingest themselves. I've done both to 2 different doors with great success. Both doors seal far better and work better. They latch well year 'round.

Foundation

Anytime there is a change in materials, you have the chance at air leakage. And so it goes with your foundation. This is where blocks or cement meet wood. If you are able to get to this portion of your house, you can use the expanding foam in the spaces. You can also use calk, if the leaks are small. The foam is nice for it adds R-value, and expands to fill larger spaces, or spaces you can fully reach with the calk gun.


As long as you are in your basement/cellar, look at your window and door casings here as well. Even if it is unfinished as a living space, you will still be affected by its temperature. You don't want or need cold air under your living space. Cold floors are uncomfortable.

Once you've finished with the windows and doors of your basement, look up. You have pipes and ducts going through the subflooring into your living space. Again, like the outlet boxes, it's rare for these to be sealed well, allowing air to travel along them into your living space. Depending on the size of the spaces, use calk or the spray foam to fill the gaps.

Roof

The one area of your house you WANT air flow is your roof. Keep soffit vents, peak vents and ridge vents open. Your roof needs to breath to keep from rotting. This doesn't mean it shouldn't be insulated, but the airflow is critical to the health of the roof and the house.

Finished!

Now that you've finished this work, you have now saved a full 5% on your heat bill and maybe more, depending on your leaks. Your home is far more comfortable and for little effort or money. That, to me, is the most satisfying! The last 2 days had me calking leaks that equalled nearly 1 square foot. The two rooms I worked in are now 3 degrees warmer. THAT is what this post is about.

Watering Light Bulbs

Water Used For Making Electricity

It takes me forever to read things of interest to me - the vertigo thing gets in the way. So, I just read this article from the August 2008 inssue of Mother Earth News titled The Intertwined Tale of Energy and Water

The authors are from Virginia Tech, and have crunched the numbers for how much water is needed in creating our electricty. They've even broken it down as to how much each energy source uses water with both high and low values. I've taken a median approach to come up with my numbers.

Making A Lightbulb

So then, I went on a search for how much energy it takes to actually produce a light bulb. Then I looked for both incandescent bulbs and CFLs. I haven't looked for LED's and doubt highly I'll find the numbers I'm looking for. It was difficult enough to find them for the first 2 light bulbs.
This gent took his numbers from a Dutch study , and I've taken many of my numbers from him - along with making a few more assumptions - LOL - scary, but in reality, it doesn't add up to much.

Where am I going with the and the title? Here it is: We don't think about the amount of water it takes to produce all of the little things in our lives. Nor do we think about the amount of water it takes to keep them running. Well, these two articles focus on the light bulb. The lowly light bulb.

Water For Energy

It takes 1600 gallons of water to produce 100 kWh of energy. Roughly. It depends on the energy source. However, for NYS, we'll go with 1600 since we have such a mix of energy sources. You can do your own figures.

A Light Bulb's Life Cycle

The Dutch study went through the entire life cycle of regular and CFL's - from production to disposal. The CFL takes far more energy - and thus water - to produce, but in the end, even if you only get half the life-expectancy the manufacturers claim it has, it takes only 1/4 of the energy.

The CFL - uses about 1974 gallons of water over its life (1000 hours).
The incandescent - uses about 960 gallons of water over it's life (125 hours)
At first blush, it looks like a no-brainer. Why are we switching to CFL's? Because you'll go through about 8 regular bulbs in that same socket that you could have the CFL. Even if you only went through 4, you're still using far more energy and WATER to create/use/dispose of that regular bulb, compared to the CFL.

It Adds Up

And why is this so important? Well, take a look at the number of light sockets you have in your house. Someone came up with an average of 30 per house. I think that's under estimated. I just did a mental list of our house - which is smallll - and came up with 42. If you have even that average of 30 (if all the bulbs blew at once, how many would it take for you to replace them all?), and if you only replaced 1/3 of them with CFL compared to standard bulbs, You'll be saving a huge chunk of water.

Granted, not every socket can take a CFL and not every light should have one. Short duration lighting is better left to incandescents - they last longer and actually use less energy when turned on for 4 minutes or less - compared to the CFL. But there are many throughout the house that can very effectively be changed to CFL's. 5 of the fixtures are already flourescent or CFL. 13 have been converted to CFL and the rest are very short duration use.

Those 18 CFLs are using 35,500 gallons of water.

In contrast, going with the 4:1 ratio since I have yet for a CFL to work as long as they say, incandescents that would be in those sockets would use 142,000 gallons of water. I'm guessing no one has ever figured this water use into how much an average household uses per day.

Further Reading On Our Water Problems

Here's an article that showing how we are putting ourselves into states of drought.
Here's one about Lake Superior shrinking. And no one really knows why. This might be part of the answer.

Mercury

And - a tidbit of an aside regarding mercury in CFL's - it doesn't match what is spewed out of power plants using coal (54% percent of our electricity is produced by coal, nationwide). The number? 48 tons of mercury per year from our coal electricity .

Use a Humidifier!

Have you ever been to AZ or NM in July? "Yeah, but it's a DRY heat." Uh huh. They're right, and it's still HOT.

But in the desert, as hot as the days are, the nights are cold. Fires built for warmth hardly feel as if they're burning. Why? Because there is no moisture in the air.

Living in a humid environment has taught us the water in the air holds heat. So why do so many of us refuse humidifiers in the winter? When I lived in TX, humidifiers were non-existent. People thought the moisture would make them sick and their houses feel clammy. I finally convinced my manager to disconnect his dryer vent and put a filter on it for his humidifier. His daughter was healthy for the first winter of her short 3-year life. His conversion to belief in humidifiers brough other co-workers around and life was much improved at work.

My room mate in TX, however, was a harder sell. We finally rerouted the dryer vent into the house - not for our benefit of course, but for the hard wood paneling. Being much more comfortable at a lower thermostat setting was only grudgingly admitted.

Oddly, back up here in upstate NY, it can be a similar battle. I truly don't understand why, for our heating season is so long that anything which can improve it should be seized upon instantly. And so, I once again hop on my soap box, extolling the virtues of a humidifier.

Air Exchanges

No matter how tightly sealed a house is, there is still a full air exchange at least once an hour. The average is 3 and can be as many as 6 (like my house). Since most houses are made of wood, this number of air exchanges increases or decreases with the moisture content of the wood. If the wood dries, it shrinks, creating gaps where air leaks both in and out. These leaks allow more cold - dry - air in and heated air out. You are wasting heat. And drying the air out even more since that cold air is dry air being heated, only becoming dryer (relatively speaking). The dries the wood out more, creating more and larger leaks.

As I write this, there's a snow storm brewing outside, so the relative humidity is high out there, 86% - for the temperature of 19 degrees F. But, calculating the indoor humidity without any humidifier running, it's only 12%. Since you want your indoor humidity 40%-50%, 12 is a bit low. Check yours here and go to the bottom of the page for your zip code.

Why Wood Needs A Humidifier

And so while you are needlessly heating all of those air exchanges, you are also creating a slow motion cycle similar to the freeze-thaw of the roads. We all know far too well what happens when roads go through these for just 1 season - buckling and pot holes. Well, over several seasons of desert dry air in the winter, followed by rain forest humidity in the summer, the wood in your home starts to bend and warp and buckle, causing joists to heave, nails to pop through plaster, plaster cracking, doors not closing, loose joints in chairs, peeling veneers and ruined antiques.

Why Your Body Needs A Humidifier

If all of this is happening to your house, what is happening to your body? You lose up to a gallon of water a day with normal breathing and sweating. Your skin is a permeable cover - meaning it leaks water - which is why your body creates oils to try to seal the leaks and keep the water in.. It's also why your skin is so dry in the winter. Everything dries out faster in dry air - including your skin and the rest of your body.

Just as importantly, your eyes, mouth, nose, throat and lungs have a more difficult time retaining their moisture, cuasing your body to dehydrate that much faster. The air is supposed to be 100% humid by the time it reaches the lungs, which causes your sinuses, nose and throat to all dry out very rapidly, and make you lose that much more moisture through your breathing.

Because your nose, sinuses and throat are all just trying to stay moist for breathing, there isn't enough moisture to flush contaminants like bacteria or allergens out. This allows infections to take hold, for allergies to flare up, and for your sinuses to become a virtual swamp, rather than its normal clear-running stream.

Why Your Heat Bill Needs A Humidifier

It's a simple issue of comfort. Or is it? Humid air feels warm and IS warmer - holding heat longer - like so many microscopic radiant heaters. Why sit in chilling misery with yet another cold or sinus infection; feeling that NW wind blow across you each time it hits the house?

If you think you can't afford a humidifier, let's talk numbers. Since 2004, electric has gone up about 6%, or 1 penny. Natural gas has gone up 40%-50%. Buy humidifying your home to 30% (still on the dry side), you'll increase your electric use by about 3%, but you can reduce your natural gas by 4%-12%. Statistics show that each 10% jump in humidity feels like a full degree in warmth. I kind of think it's more like a 5% increase - with how our house feels going from 30% to 40% RH at 70 degrees. But, going with the 10% number, you can feel more comfortable with your heat turned down 2 or 3 more degrees just by getting the humidity up to 30%.

This type of savings doesn't include you having to contend with loss of work due to illness, decreased home value from the years of the wood heaving or the quality of life that has improved dramatically - which can be the most precious of all, particularly for those with allergies and asthma.

How To Humidify

Do yourself a favor, get and use a humidifier.

Forced air systems can have a whole-house version installed directly in the system. It's initial price is high, but over the life of the system, costs much less and you don't have the daily ritual of filling the humidifier.

Hot water baseboard needs a portable type system, which comes in a variety of styles:

Hot mist

Cold mist

Ultrasonic

Fan Forced

Passive

Active

It can be confusing. We go for the quietest. Which means we have several. (pictures are in the order listed below)

1 on the wood stove that acts as a passive unit. The stove heats the water and it just evaporates.

1 in the dining room is a fan forced with 5 different fan speeds.

1 on the second floor which is a hot mist.

And finally, our electric dryer with a filter attached to the end of the house. This isn't the permanent fixture, but will become permanent in the summer with an attachment designed specifically for this purpose.

None of these pose a significant addition to the work load of the house, the noise factor or humidity. But the combination keeps the house at about 30%-35% RH with virtually no sound - a true blessing!

Boosting Efficiency - Untapped Resource

This may sound too good to be true, but the U.S. has a renewable-energy resource that is perfectly clean, remarkably cheap, surprisingly abundant and immediately available. It has astounding potential to reduce the carbon emissions that threaten our planet, the dependence on foreign oil that threatens our security and the energy costs that threaten our wallets. Unlike coal and petroleum, it doesn't pollute; unlike solar and wind, it doesn't depend on the weather; unlike ethanol, it doesn't accelerate deforestation or inflate food prices; unlike nuclear plants, it doesn't raise uncomfortable questions about meltdowns or terrorist attacks or radioactive-waste storage, and it doesn't take a decade to build. It isn't what-if like hydrogen, clean coal and tidal power; it's already proven to be workable, scalable and cost-effective. And we don't need to import it.

This miracle juice goes by the distinctly boring name of energy efficiency, and it's often ignored in the hubbub over alternative fuels, the nuclear renaissance, T. Boone Pickens and the green-tech economy. Clearly, it needs an agent. But it's a simple concept: wasting less energy. Or more precisely, consuming less energy to get the same amount of heat for your shower, light for your office and power for your factory. It turns out to be much less expensive, destructive and time-intensive to reduce demand through efficiency than to increase supply through new drilling or new power plants. A nationwide push to save "negawatts" instead of building more megawatts could help reverse our unsustainable increases in energy-hogging and carbon-spewing while creating a slew of jobs and saving a load of cash. (See the top 10 green ideas of 2008.)

Now this may sound like Jimmy Carter's 30-year-old plea for us to turn down the heat and put on sweaters or like an eco-lecture nagging us to turn off lights, drive less and otherwise change our behavior to save energy. It would be nice if we did, but that's conservation, not efficiency. We don't have to sacrifice comfort or change routines to get efficient. Doing less with less may be admirable, but efficiency is about doing the same or more with less. And studies by groups as diverse as the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and even the National Petroleum Council have identified efficiency as the way to start addressing our energy and climate crises. In fact, we've already started; the Alliance to Save Energy calculates that without the efficiency gains we've made since the last energy crisis, in 1973, our economy would use nearly 50% more energy today. That's more than we get from oil, twice what we get from coal or natural gas and six times what we get from nuclear plants

But we could save much more. A McKinsey study found that a global effort to boost efficiency with existing technologies could have "spectacular results," eliminating more than 20% of world energy demand by 2020. Efficiency guru Amory Lovins argues that today's best techniques could save the U.S. half our oil and gas and three-fourths of our electricity. That would mean no more imports from the Middle East, lower utility bills for everyone and a big step off our path toward a hotter planet. Honeywell CEO Dave Cote brags that widespread adoption of just his own company's efficiency products could slash U.S. energy use 20%. "There's a huge amount of low-hanging fruit," he says.

There are two basic ways to save energy without deprivation or daily effort. We can use more efficient machinery, like fuel-efficient cars that guzzle less gas, or those pigtailed compact fluorescent lightbulbs that use 75% less power than traditional bulbs, or state-of-the-art refrigerators that are three times as efficient as 1973 models. We can also use machinery more productively. That can be as simple as insulating pipes and ducts, caulking doors and windows and otherwise weatherizing our homes to avoid heating our attics and the outdoors. Or installing motion sensors and programmable thermostats that turn out lights and air conditioners when no one's in the room. President-elect Barack Obama noted on the campaign trail that if we all just properly inflated our tires and maintained our engines, we could save as much oil now as new offshore drilling would produce by 2030. And since buildings devour two-thirds of our power, commercial and industrial operations can weed out even more waste through green construction and automated systems that practically import power as needed. "We've hit rock bottom in our addiction to fossil fuels," says Ian Bowles, Massachusetts energy and environmental affairs secretary. "We need an intervention, and energy efficiency is it."

Change does seem to be coming. Obama was widely mocked for his tire-inflation comments, but he's still a true believer, calling efficiency "the cheapest, cleanest, fastest energy source." He is also surrounding himself with true believers, including primary rivals Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson, as well as his National Security Adviser, James Jones, whose last job was running the Chamber of Commerce's energy institute. Carol Browner, who will be Obama's White House climate czar, promoted aggressive efficiency standards for appliances when she ran the Environmental Protection Agency; Steven Chu, his nominee for energy secretary, hailed them in a recent speech, declaring that "I cannot impress upon you how important energy efficiency is." And Obama has pledged to cut 15% of all energy use by the Federal Government, the world's largest consumer; in December, he specifically promised to make public buildings more efficient and modernize the energy grid. "The stars are really aligned for efficiency," says Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy. "I want to tamp down expectations, but I can't."

Something clearly is changing when companies like IBM, GM, Wal-Mart and Chevron run ads touting their energy-saving commitments, when cities, universities, supermarkets and hospitals race to reduce their carbon footprints. But the national debate has still focused on "drill, baby, drill," a fledgling renewables industry and a much ballyhooed resurrection of nuclear power. So the near magical potential of efficiency raises an obvious question: If the experts consider it such a win-win no-brainer, why don't we already do more of it?

Part of the answer involves marketing; even superefficient motors, boilers, routers and compressors lack a wow factor, and politicians don't get to cut ribbons for efficiency tweaks. But most of the answer involves money. Efficiency's growth has been stunted by perverse financial disincentives that we need to understand and untangle if we want to avoid a future of unaffordable new plants, catastrophic new emissions and dangerous dependence on dictatorial oil merchants. The recent collapse in oil prices has eroded the sense of emergency, but our economy, our security and our planet still need the ambulance. "A lot of simple answers are just sitting around waiting for us to execute," says Tom Reddoch, an efficiency expert at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). "But the execution part isn't so simple."

Wasting Our Energy
We complain about the cost of our energy, but we still throw away most of it. Our power plants, for example, waste enough energy to power Japan. Only 4% of the energy used to run a typical incandescent bulb produces light; the rest is frittered away as heat at the plant, over transmission lines or in the bulb itself, which is why you burn your fingers when you touch it. Our cars, water heaters and industrial motors are still embarrassingly inefficient compared with Japanese and European models.

Our new fridges, dryers and air conditioners are quite efficient, but most of us still use old ones, and even our new consumer electronics — the fastest-growing segment of power demand — slurp alarming quantities of juice. On a tour of EPRI's energy-efficiency lab in Knoxville, Tenn., Reddoch showed me how those inconspicuous set-top boxes on our televisions use half as much energy as refrigerators whether they're on or off. And video-game consoles devour two fridges' worth of electricity when your kids leave them on, which they probably do, because manufacturers ship them with the auto power-down disabled. "We're throwing money down the toilet," Reddoch says.

Experts have identified dozens of attractive targets for eliminating waste, from streetlights to servers. And with the Department of Energy predicting a 30% increase in power demand in America by 2030, the utilities that will supply the extra wattage are keenly aware that the cheapest new plant is the one they don't have to build. Duke Energy has proclaimed efficiency its "fifth fuel," unveiling ambitious plans to help its customers retrofit their homes and buildings and buy more efficient appliances and equipment. "We're really excited to get into this market," says Ted Schultz, Duke's vice president for energy efficiency. "We're ready to roll."

See TIME's special report on the environment.

But Duke isn't rolling yet — because it would shaft its shareholders if it really helped customers save energy. In most states, utilities reap more profits if they sell more power; also, they are guaranteed generous returns on their investments in new generating plants. But not on their investments in efficiency, which is why Duke is mostly limiting its efforts to demonstration projects until state regulators agree to change the rules. "If there's no return on investment, it's not much of an investment," Schultz says.

The best evidence that these disincentives matter is the record of California and the Pacific Northwest, where they don't exist. In that part of the country, utilities have been aggressive promoters of efficiency, and per-capita electricity use has been stable for three decades — while soaring 50% in the rest of the country. Now utilities expect to make another $2 trillion in capital investments over the next two decades to meet rising demand, and most of them have no incentive to invest in efficiency.

There are also disincentives on the demand side. Most efficiency investments pay for themselves within three years, but all require at least some up-front costs. So developers are less likely to install smart heating and cooling systems controlled by cutting-edge optimization software when they're not going to get stuck with a building's energy bills, just as landlords are less motivated to splurge on Energy Star washer-dryers when their tenants enjoy the savings. Even home and business owners who do reap the benefits of efficiency are often reluctant to shell out for top-of-the-line furnaces, thicker windows, reflective roofs or front-loading washers in a brutal economy. "People want cheap," says Honeywell's Cote. Those $3 twisty bulbs are a classic example: they last eight times as long as regular bulbs, and their payback period is a few months, but after several years of impressive growth, their sales dropped 28% last quarter. "I'm afraid cash is king," says Kaj den Daas of Philips Lighting. "If you live paycheck to paycheck, a few cents up front makes a difference."

But it's becoming clear that when incentives are properly aligned, efficiency happens, and innovation does too. Companies like DuPont, Dow, Cisco and Wal-Mart have all saved big bucks by greening buildings, vehicles and operations, and a burgeoning industry of high-tech energy-services companies is helping businesses reduce their energy bills in exchange for a slice of the verifiable savings. At Honeywell, a $36.6 billion company, half its portfolio is now related to efficiency. And even utilities that lack incentives to reduce overall demand are trying to reduce peak demand so that they don't have to turn on costly plants or buy expensive power on the open market. That search for demand response has inspired smart meters and other gadgets that help customers monitor and control their energy consumption, as well as automated systems that use wireless sensors and smarter optimization software to maximize efficiency through a kind of energy-use cruise control. In one case, Duke helped a beer distributor precool his refrigerators overnight, saving him $150,000 a year while reducing Duke's peak loads. Utilities also outsource demand response to firms like Boston-based EnerNOC, which pays supermarkets, hotels and other large consumers to let it dim lights or adjust heat or shut down elevator banks at peak hours. EnerNOC can now reduce 1,800 megawatts' worth of consumption on command — the equivalent of two medium-size power plants. "Saving energy can be lucrative," says CEO Tim Healy. "We just need to get the incentives right."

The Silver Bullet
Unfortunately, money has also created a political disincentive. Thanks to furious lobbying by the Detroit Three, fuel-efficiency standards have stagnated, while Big Oil, King Coal and utilities have wired Washington and state capitals for policies promoting more electricity supply. There hasn't been a big-business counterweight pushing for less demand for fuel and power. So while everyone pays lip service to efficiency, the political world has focused on expanding drilling for oil and gas, relaxing pollution rules for coal and showering subsidies on nuclear and biofuels as well as less controversial renewables like wind and solar. The Washington consensus has been that we need to do all of the above to solve all our problems — and increase efficiency too — because there's no silver bullet. (See the world's most polluted places.)

But as we enter a new age of economic and environmental limits, not all solutions are created equal. Coal and oil are too dirty. Nuclear and solar are too costly. Wind is our fastest-growing source of new energy, but it's still only some 1% of our supply. Efficiency is the only cost-effective energy source that addresses global warming, energy dependence and volatile prices. It may not be a silver bullet, but it's the best bullet we've got; we shouldn't spend billions on evidently inferior bullets until we've really given this one a shot. Here's how:

Set tough standards. History has shown that when the government mandates efficiency, the market figures out how to achieve it. Fuel-efficiency standards were a hit in the 1970s, but the Big Three have fought off upgrades ever since by claiming that federal meddling would ruin their businesses, which they apparently preferred to do themselves. Obama has proposed annual 4% increases, a clearly achievable goal with lighter cars, more hybrids and gradual adoption of plug-ins. Similarly, California's strict building codes have promoted airtight shells, orientation that exploits natural heat and light, and efficient windows and appliances.

Appliance standards have been another success story; manufacturers always squeal when they're proposed but end up designing products that are not only more efficient but cheaper. But new proposals have languished in the Bush Administration, which routinely missed deadlines until it lost a lawsuit to environmentalists and is now finally adopting a few wimpy standards. Google.org energy director Dan Reicher, a member of Obama's transition team, says most furnaces on the market already meet the Bush team's latest proposal — and that its standards for boilers and transformers would be even weaker than proposals publicly endorsed by the industry. "In the Obama Administration, you're going to see a much, much stronger commitment," Reicher says.

Let utilities make money saving energy. Six states have already decoupled electricity profits from sales volume to give utilities incentives to eliminate energy waste, and nine more may follow. Regulated utilities should also be assured a reasonable rate of return on their investments in efficiency improvements for their customers, just as they are for other capital investments. And nine states already require utilities to meet a percentage of future load growth through efficiency; the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy says a tough national standard could eliminate the need for 450 power plants by 2020. At a meeting of the nation's utility commissioners in November, NRDC and the Edison Electric Institute issued a joint call for states to overhaul energy incentives in order to promote "the increasingly urgent mutual goal" of efficiency. "That's a real milestone," says Ralph Cavanagh, a co-director of NRDC's energy programs. "The utilities want in on this."

Of course, cap-and-trade or any other national effort to price carbon would adjust incentives as well, which is one reason utilities are already showing so much interest in efficiency. "For a long time, the industry lost interest in the demand side," says Reddoch, whose institute is funded by utilities. "But now the enthusiasm is sky-high."

Stimulate the market. Mandates provide a big stick, but money is still the best carrot, and Obama has suggested that he wants to spend lots of it to promote efficiency. He has promised that his gargantuan economic-stimulus plan will include smart meters and other elements of a smart grid that could someday keep your air conditioner off until your BlackBerry lets it know you're almost home. He also plans a dramatic expansion of a low-income weatherization program to retrofit 1 million homes a year and is considering incentives for retrofitting inefficient buildings, buying highly efficient appliances and building co-generation plants that help turn waste heat into energy. The idea is that spending money now and saving money later should both help the economy.

The most common knock on efficiency is that it can't possibly reduce our consumption enough to reverse our energy growth or stop global warming, not when the average U.S. household has 26 plug-in devices and China is building the equivalent of two new coal plants every week. Most studies suggest that efficiency can dramatically slow but not erase projected growth in energy demand and emissions. But those studies were conducted before the economy tanked. And most measured U.S. efficiency potential with status-quo assumptions, which is like trying to measure our industrial potential before World War II: it's hard to guess how a major crisis and a committed leader can mobilize the country and rearrange notions of what's possible. "The limits of efficiency have never been tested," says NRDC's David Goldstein. "We've run out of political will long before we've run out of opportunity." Even if we refuse to put on sweaters, a national efficiency crusade combined with a prolonged recession could throttle energy demand enough to delay the need for new power, while the rapid growth of wind power could replace the dirtiest coal plants. "Maybe we could buy enough time until solar matures," Goldstein says.

Still, it's true that efficiency alone probably won't save the world. But real efficiency combined with a real shift toward conservation — carpooling, telecommuting, recycling, running dishwashers full, downsizing McMansions and, yes, adjusting thermostats — well, that might do the trick. We need to squeeze more energy out of every electron. But pardon the eco-lecture: if we really want to save the world, we might have to put on a sweater too.