sustainability – art, design and social practice

Sources:

Kill A Watt
CO2 emissions facts for electricity
Energy Information Administration – CO2 report for electricity
Some crazy website about saving electricity
Environmental Protection Agency – Measuring greenhouse gases for waste
EPA – Tools for Waste Assessment
Carbonify carbon calculator
Random water facts
Carbon Footprint calculator
Water and Global Warming
One Waste Water Treatment Plant’s Evaluation of Carbon Footprint
Shiva Casein (milk) Paints
Old Fashioned Milk Paint Company
Milk Paint Recipe

Helpful things:
Nearly any conversion you could ever need
Distances between cities
Waverly Farmers Market – fruits & veggies in season at the market

and Dave’s Garden!
http://davesgarden.com/guides/

CarbonFootprint (download)

This is my 1995 Nissan Maxima:

As a student from Mica, I generally have to go to school every day of the week. Because I live in Charles Village, this becomes an issue. I have to get to school somehow and it takes too long to walk back and forth from campus to my house everyday before and after class. Luckily, I do have a car, and everyday since I’ve lived in Charles Village I have driven myself to school. This is convenient, but not all entirely practical for my way of life, being a person concerned with having as little a carbon footprint as possible. If I were really going to be a cosientious person I wouldn’t drive to school. I would walk or ride a bike or do something to lessen my Carbon Footprint. Though it sounds trivial, over time the amount of gas I use and the amount of emissions I use to get to school everyday probably amount up to be fairly high. My contribution to America’s carbon emissions are probably not the highest compared to other commuters, but I probably manage to rack up emissions somehow. Transportation accounts for 67% of U.S. oil use—mainly in the form of gasoline. I have heard that avoiding 10 miles of driving every week can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year. Sharing a ride with someone else even two days a week can reduce your carbon dioxide emissions by 1,590 pounds per year.

When I do drive I try to keep some things in mind. I try to never drive more than 60 miles per hour, because at that point gas mileage drops rapidly. Hard breaking, rapid acceleration and speeding can lower your highway mileage 33% and city mileage 5%.

My goal is to have a change of lifestyle. I use my car to drive myself to school and back everyday. It’s just a quick jaunt on the highway, but instead of always feeling guilty for using my car so much, I will cut it off. I’m not saying that I won’t use my car when I need to, but for normal day-to-day trips to school, I will find other ways of getting there. Only unless there is no reason why I can’t manage to get to the place I need to go, I will not use my car.

By walking to 27^th and St. Paul, I can easily get to the John’s Hopkins’s shuttle. It’s a student bus, free to all students who use it. Some times of the day tend to be more frequented than others, but it tends to be just as constant as the public bus. It lets me off by Pen Station. From there I can walk up the hill to school in about 10 minutes tops, making my whole travel time about 30 minutes, including walking and waiting for the bus. And it’s free!

When I need to, I can also get on the Public Bus at the same location on St. Paul leading to downtown. The public bus is also reliable. By getting on either the 3 or the 11 buses, I can get from to Charles Village to Pen Station in less than 15 minutes. The only down side to the Public bus is that it costs $1.60, but compared to how much gas costs, it’s not that much of a loss.

On the way back up to Charles Village, I can take any of those buses from Pen Station back up on Charles Street.

By using rides and the bus, I am drastically lessening my overall carbon footprint. With just a little bit of extra time used to plan out the transit of my day, I can be at school in 30 or even 15 minutes. By lessening my footprint by hundreds of pounds a year, I will feel like I am doing my part towards a better Baltimore.

Here are some online resources for carpooling:

http://www.erideshare.com/

http://www.carpoolconnect.com/

http://www.carpoolworld.com/

http://www.carpoolmatchnw.org/

http://www.dividetheride.com/

http://www.icarpool.com/en/MainPage.aspx

http://www.carpoolcrew.com/

http://www.mtamaryland.com/

-Becca

I wanted to make something that would my carbon footprint for the better, something that I could actually execute and see through to fruition. Next to the building that I live in is a vacant lot which has become a green field over however many years it has been since a building actually stood there. I thought it would be a great location for a community garden. But looking into it I discovered an enormous amount of red tape. So I thought smaller. I have no land of my own, the closest thing to it is the small suburban backyard behind my parents house. I decided to start there.

With the economy on an ever downward slope it was easy to convince them that this was not simply another crackpot art scheme but instead something they could be a part of, something that would benefit them. My mom was especially excited. She was looking for a new hobby and was interested in eating organic. She likes those design shows on TV and always tells me about how people are fixing up or fo-finishing their houses. Those shows make me cringe. But, I realized that if I wanted them to be truly invested in this, I would have to use good design to win them over.

The initial research was information overload. For some reason I thought I knew something about making things grow. Meaning to say that I’ve grown house plants and potted plants, but nothing I’ve ever expected to one day turn into a tasty sandwich or stir-fry. I was in the same situation as the free love generation when they decided to start farms and then wound up starving because apparently farming knowledge is not innate to the human race. However, thanks to living in the information age (and having a library card) I began slowly figure things out.

I am not arbitrarily calling this a Victory Garden. The term Victory garden comes to us citca World War II when vegetable and herb gardens planted in private residences to reduce the pressure on the food supply brought on by the war.  In 1944 Victory Gardens were planted by over 20 million Americans and made up at least 40 percent of vegetable produce being consumed nationally.

The Victory Garden of today oddly enough, would not be pro war effort but rather anti globalization. In the global economy of today our actions as consumers effect more than ourselves. For instance, major food shortages in Mexico have been attributed to everything from global warming, to high demand for ethanol (the corn based bilofuel) in countries such as the United States.

The bottom line: Home grown food requires no packaging, no transportation, and no taxes.

Since its not quite planting season yet, my project has been dedicated to research. I decided that I would build one or two raised beds (about a foot deep). PDF

I also made a planting chart so when the time came to plant I would have everything ready. PDF

I got an old 55 Gallon drum turn into a compost tumbler. PDF

In an effort to keep things local I’ve also decided to include some native plants, mostly Maryland wildflowers. These take less effort to grow, then say a tomato which is more native to South and Central America than to Maryland. In addition, the native plants will be good for the surrounding fauna. PDF

I’ll post again after planting begins.

Michelle

I live in the Gateway building, so I don’t receive an energy bill every month. In order to get an estimate of the electricity and natural gas costs of my apartment, I e-mailed numerous MICA staff. I got a very helpful reply from Edna Blackwell, Executive Assistant of Operations. She forwarded my question to Timothy Millner, the Associate VP of Facilities, and then forwarded his response to me:

[Based on the] monthly bills, the charge per apartment would be roughly $50.00 – $70.00 per month. If you use the washer/dryer or any other amenities outside of the apartment, add more…figure $10 – $20 per month for gas to heat hot water for each apartment. 

It is impossible for anyone living in the Gateway to calculate how much energy they are using as an individual, or how much they save by changing their lifestyle. In order to see any dent in the Gateway’s energy costs, many people would have to cut back on their energy use simultaneously. In this spirit, I decided to make draft pillows for my apartment and for all eight of the Gateway apartments on the third and fourth floor that are not behind a glass hallway, because these get the worst drafts.

There is a half-inch gap between the doors and the floor in all Gateway apartments. The drafts are terrible during the winter and the air conditioning escapes when it’s hot. (I just learned that the Gateway doors will be fitted with draft-protection over the summer, but we don’t have anything for now.) I hand-stitched the draft pillows from an old sofa cover and stuffed them with old t-shirts and bedding from Village Thrift. The pillows have tabs that can then be taped to the door, so the pillows move with the door. I handed them out over the last three weeks, and have gotten really positive responses. People feel a definite temperature difference in their living room, and because of it have not had to run the heat so often or at such high temperatures.

When I was calculating my carbon footprint, I also noted that my diet increased my carbon footprint dramatically. I do not eat pork or beef, I rarely eat fish and I only eat poultry at most 2-3 times per month. But prior to this project most of my food was packaged and not much of it was local. For the past three weeks, I’ve walked or taken the Johns Hopkins Shuttle to the Waverly Farmer’s Market and bought most of my groceries there. I buy a few things, like pasta, rice and seasonings at OK Natural and at Eddie’s. Now, the only packaged foods I eat are eggs, cheese and jams, and I can reuse the jam jars.

What surprised me most about making the switch to a local diet was that there wasn’t really any difference cost-wise between shopping locally and shopping at the chain stores I frequented before (Rite-Aid, Wal-Mart, Save-a-Lot and Wholefoods). Right now, I spend about $6 per day on food, or about $2 per meal. This is a dramatic savings over being on a meal plan, where dinners are $9.

On a less statistical note, I feel like my quality of life has improved because of these changes to my diet. The farmers’ market has a real community atmosphere; I enjoy interacting with the people who grow and make my food. Taking the time out of my week to cook good meals from local food is also a really great break from hectic MICA life.  

-Zoe Keller