# 6 Insulate your home

Insulation is easily a non-exciting, non- sexy topic.

http://sites.psu.edu/mfsblog/2015/02/12/insulation/

No one has parties to talk about insulation, and generally it is something we take for granted. And don't think we need to think about it. Right?

I mean we are talking about fluffy stuff in the attic, right?


Yeah. That.

Except, with climate change, where increased extreme weather temperatures (both hot and cold), increased energy costs (not everything will be solar and even if it is WHY WASTE IT?) and increased likelihood of loosing power (ice storm anyone?) will mean our homes will be more exposed than ever to "bad weather".

So having some extra insulation helps. Having more helps more. It's sort of hard to have too much.

Would I suggest you get insulation and add it to the insulation you have? Yes.

Would I suggest you have insulation in areas you don't think you need it? Absolutely.

Let's talk about your floor. If you live in the south east US. Likely, your house does not have much insulation under the floor. Why would you. In a single story 1980's suburban home, a foundation poured over a dirt "crawl space" and the house built over that was fine. Sure the attic has blown in insulation (that white fluffy stuff made from fiberglass usually), and there may be some insulation between the walls. But the floor? Why insulate that?

Because once you take of the wall to wall carpet that has been there 25 years and then the foam padding, and all you have is ply wood floors - you remember what cold floors feel like in January. Trust me on this one. And even if you put down fancy new flooring, it's still not as snug as if you had some nice thick insulation under there. Cold air seeps up in the winter, adding the the chill in the house.

https://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=home_sealing.hm_improvement_sealing

Several years ago, I decided to insulate the floors (which were down to the sub flooring, thanks to nasty carpet and a poorly trained Newfoundland) Using a tax credit, I bought the insulation at the local home improvement store - in batting that was the right width to fit between the floor joists (That the rafters under the floor that the floor boards sit on) and the bendy metal rods to hold them in place - ask the guys at the store, they will help you find the right stuff.

Check out The Energy Star web page on insulation for more details and to see if you actually need to do this. (You do)

And I spent a few days crawling around in the dirt under the crawl space, doing fantastic dirty yoga. The difference inside the house was amazing!! The floors were not freezing. And the sounds in the house were muffled as well.

Insulation is measured in R-values. The higher the R-value to higher the insulation. There is a great description of calculations for R-values and heat loss on the Mathematics for Sustainability student blog Thankfully, there are people who want to do this, so I don't have to. BUT a good rule of thumb is more insulation is better.

http://energy.gov/energysaver/insulation

I live between 3 and 4. But I want to insulate my home to at least a 5 or 6, and higher if possible. Climate change, folks - it's all about changes in how our climate behaves and too much insulation is rarely a bad thing. 

Since the attic is already insulated, I haven't tackled that. But I will soon. Insulation technology has increased drastically in the past 10 years, so I am really looking forward to adding in some new insulation when we have our roof replaced.

http://greenaircare.com/attic-insulation/

But the reality we are facing with climate change, means we need to improve insulation.

In the event of extreme heat or extreme cold, it will require less energy to cool or heat your home. In the event of warm or cool weather that needs air-conditioning or heating, it will require less energy and cost you less. It's definitely something worth investing in now so that you can save in the future.

http://www.homeenergyauditco.com/insulation.html

There are all sorts of insulation now. Foam insulation, blown in insulation, batting insulation, all of it worth looking at. You can do it yourself, or you can hire a professional. But whatever you decide it is worth doing. It's an investment you need to make.

http://www.smarterhomes.org.nz/publications/your-guide-to-a-smarter-insulation/

If you rent, ask your land lord to insulate your home/apartment/etc. If nothing else, throw rugs, bookshelves on outer walls, and fabric wall hangings can actually make a difference. We will spend more time on that soon. But not matter what, you need to do it.
You'll be glad you did it.

Especially when the weather turns ridiculous.

#5 Start a container garden - learn to grow things

http://www.container-gardening-for-you.com

Plants love to grow. Plants grow, we eat them, the world is a good place. Sometimes animals eat the plants and then we eat the animals, or their eggs or milk, but over all, we need plants.


It's astounding how many people do not know how to grow things. A long long time ago when I was in kindergarten we always grew seeds - in jars or paper cups so we could watch it grow.

https://fullofbeansproject.wikispaces.com/Ms.+Barratt%27s+Kindergarten+Class

Evidently that has fallen by the way side. After all, how do you assess that on a standardized test? But we are missing out. Growing things is really pretty easy. Growing things in a container garden means you can do it ALMOST anywhere. (If you have a very dark home, with no windows or minimal light, mushrooms may be your best bet.) But assuming you have a window with at least a little bit of sunlight, or maybe even a balcony (south facing preferred if you live north of the equator) or a fire escape or even a sunny window, you are set! 

If you aren't sure about how much light you get, spend some time at home, and watch how the light moves throughout the day. In the summer it will be further north (if you are north of the equator) and in the winter it is more in the south. Get a sense of where the sunniest spot is. If you are using a patio or deck, figure out which corner gets the best light. 

Why start a container garden? To get you used to growing things. To learn how growing something you can eat can be a valuable skill, and to appreciate the food that you can pick up at your local market. You can start with some herbs - basic, thyme, chives, and oregano are really easy to start with. They like a lot of light. 

If you want to take it up a notch and have some space, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and other greens work well. Peppers are good too. They don't need too much space, and can use a vertical growing space. 

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/40462096629452447/

Plants can grow in pretty much any container - you'll want to make sure the roots have enough space to spread out, and the soil can stay moist, but it's surprising how much can grow in a small area. Vertical growing can be great - This is a super video on a vertical container garden using plastic bottles!

You can start with small containers and expand as you go. A few words of wisdom:

- Think about weight - it you have a deck that won't reliably hold a 100 gallon barrel of water - do not plant 100 gallon barrel of garden- think water weight - not the kind you get after eating a whole pizza, the weight of the water after your garden has been thoroughly soaked.

- Think about what you'd like - if you HATE green peppers, don't grow green peppers. Grow what you will actually like.

- Think about where you live and the season. If you have a home in Minnesota, don't plan on having a lush patio garden full of vegetables in November. They will likely be frozen.

Okay, this is pretty much common sense, but you get the picture.

Have fun. Be creative. Do some on line research.  These are a few sites to get you started:

• Vegetable Gardening Online has some neat ideas and fairly simple approaches
• Alpha Mom - Urban/suburban hippies has some neat experiences to share
• Preparedness Mama - has some great ideas too, as well as a bunch of interesting articles on getting prepared. I'm not 100% sure what she is prepared for, but I'll put it this way, I'd be happy to have her for a neighbor in a zombie apocalypse. I think. I'll read more and get back to you on that one. 

You can use all sorts of containers - they need to be able hold some soil, have a drainage hole at the bottom and avoid toxic stuff (pressure treated lumber should have a plastic barrier to prevent leaching into the soils) But get creative. We will come back to more ideas with this, right now the idea is to get you growing!!

If you have a compost pile started, remember soon, that vegetable waste and worm poop will become AWESOME SOIL! for your container garden.

The internet abounds with great resources on this, and we'll come back to this subject soon.

In the meantime, HAPPY GARDENING!!!

http://deco.howwewokeup.com/easy-to-diy-container-vegetable-gardening-ideas/

#4 Start a compost pile

So, when you are in the kitchen, preparing something to eat, and you have left over vegetable peels, fruit rinds, melon innards, egg shells, or onion skins, what do you do with them?

Most of us will admit tossing them in the trash is sort of appealing.

That's right. You're in a hurry. You want to clean up (or seem like you did) and you need to get rid of it. So you toss it in the trash. With everything else. With the newspaper, with the plastic bag the cucumbers were in, with the casserole Aunt Louis left a month ago and you never got around to eating.... Sounds lovely. Job done.

We all do it.
Or we all want to do it.

If you are older than about 30 that's generally what you do. Unless (a.) you grew up with hippy freak parents, (b.) you grew up on a farm, or (c.) you actually have gotten hip to composting.

I'll confess here.

I don't fit into any of these, but I try to compost.

I mean to compost.

I really WANT to compost.

I have a garden ready for compost.

I have a compost receptacle that sits just outside my kitchen door in the garage (because Husband did not want it in the kitchen counter).

I am really good at filling it and taking out and putting it into the compost pile... until I am not.

And then I suck at it. I truly suck.

Yep. Coffee grinds go down the drain (do you know how much earthworms absolutely ADORE coffee grounds? I've seen earthworm sonnets to coffee grounds. Ok. I lied. But I still think that would be pretty cool, and honestly, I think earthworms writing sonnets would be sort of awesome, especially when they are hopped up on coffee grounds.)

And yep, sometimes perfectly wonderfully nutritious compost ends up in the trash. BUT that is such a waste!

Why?

1. the vegetable matter that ends up in the trash makes your trash really stink (funky old broccoli has a stench that could wilt the boys locker rooms in a high school without air-conditioning in Texas) Neighbors will talk about how bad your trash smells.

2. the stinky vegetable wastes then end up in land fills, after it gets hauled there. So fuel is burned getting it there, and then it creates all sorts of stinky greenhouse cases (methane) once it's there.

3. Those same stinky vegetables waste/fruit rinds/banana peels and coffee grinds are chock full of nutrients your garden craves. Yes. Seriously. Plants are sort of cannibalistic that way if you think about it. They love to eat the corpses of those who lived before them. And earthworms love coffee grinds. And when you mix the stinky waste with dirt the smell goes away. Yes. Really.

So get with it and start a compost pile!

It's not that hard, it's not that tedious, it will not smell bad if you do it right.

Composting isn't hard. It's just a matter of keeping up with it.

So, now that you are ready to start a compost pile there are some things you need to think about:
Where will you do it? What kind of compost pile will you have? How much effort will you put into tending it?

These are not too hard to figure out. If you life in an apartment, you will not be too likely to put a compost heap in your window. If you live in the suburbs, a compost inside some sort of container may work well. If you have more space, a compost heap may be all you need. But you can manage to compost in all those.

http://home.howstuffworks.com/vermicomposting.htm

For the apartment - vermi-composting may be your best bet. This uses earthworms in a box to compost for you. This is a very enthusiastic article on how to do this, and most of what you need to know to have a happy compost system set up. If you don't live in an apartment, this is also a great way to go, if space is limited and you don't get icked out by worms. (Don't! Worms love coffee and write sonnets about coffee grounds, they are hermaphroditic, and they have magic poop. Seriously, what is not to love?)

A general, middle american suburban compost can be made easily out of 4 balls of straw or hay (not pine straw) and a wooden pallet. Go ahead and get an extra bale of hay or straw to get started. Put it out at the edge of the yard, away from too much traffic, or and not next to water sources. The four bales can be put end to end to create a donut shape with a hole in it. Keep the bales bound by the twine. The shipping pallet rests of top to keep dogs and other pesky critters out of it, but let's rain in. Take the extra bale, undo the twine, and set it nearby. You'll want to pull off a couple of "flakes" and loosen them, and put them at the bottom of the donut hole. Then start putting kitchen compost in and cover it up with a handful of straw from your spare bale overtime you do it. Soon, you'll notice that the food waste is starting to break down and the straw of hay is too. Excellent! Now start mixing in the waste as you go, usually with a small shovel, and again topping it off with more straw. The idea here is that the compost will break down, the outer bales keep moisture and temperature comfortable, and it is usually good for 6 -12 months depending on where you live. Once the outer bales break down you'll have a strong compost pile going build another one right next to it, the same way.  You can let the first one rest for a while and turn it every few weeks. The dirt in that will be great to add to gardens and around trees for mulch and fertilizer. You can even add some worms if you like. There are a lot of variations on this method, but the nice thing is this is low maintenance and can have some lovely results. This article is about how to do it on a slightly larger scale.

You can also do it on smaller scale too in a plastic storage bin. http://organicgardening.about.com/od/compost/ht/storagecompost.htm But I'd want to add worms. Worms are awesome, write sonnets and love coffee. What's not to like. Did I mention they have magic nutrient rich poo? Yah-huh!! They sure do!

If you live on a lot of land, and don't have a compost already, you can build a bigger version of the straw bale depending on how much waste you generate. Bears, dogs, wild coyotes, foxes, armadillos, opossums and raccoons will enjoy the pile, so you might want it a ways from your house. and if you mix the waste in fast, it can reduce unwanted visitors.

A few things about compost piles to remember:

Plant waste good. Animal waste bad.
If it grows or has been green, it's okay. If it walked, moved, swam, or flew, no. And no, you don't want to put cat litter, dog, cat or human poo into compost. Just no. Cow, horse, rabbit, goat and deer poo is okay. Not pig. Essentially, animal poo is okay if they eat plants only. But otherwise, it introduces what you don't want into your compost.

Oh and egg shells are fine. The worms say they goes well with coffee grinds. Helps add calcium to magic worm poop. It's a total win win there.

We will talk about composting toilets another time, but for now, let's stick to waste from plants and worm poo. That makes the best compost for you!!

And by the way, once you have your compost composted - it makes for some EXCELLENT gardening dirt!! Seriously, some of the best stuff around.

More on that soon.

Now, I need to go empty my compost, and start peeling some vegetables.

HAPPY COMPOSTING!!

A dose of reality from the physical scientists...

Physical scientists are not prepared to deal with this, because there is more to this than spiritual and cultural transformation. There is social, and economic, and institutional changes that will address these threats. And social scientists do know how to do that.

The Europeans get it:

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Europe adapts as climate change becomes reality

26 May 2016

by Ben Deighton

   

Adaptation involves getting infrastructure ready for the changes wrought by climate change. Image credit: Pixabay/ pc dazero

Europe is taking a leading role in efforts to help agriculture, utilities and urban planners adapt to climate change as the floods, droughts and heatwaves that have been predicted for decades start to become a reality.

The last two years were the warmest ever recorded, with 2016 on track to break that record again after April became the seventh consecutive month to be the hottest on record, according to NASA data.

Many of Europe’s river and sea defences are ill-prepared for the surges and heavy rain that will come, while reservoirs aren’t big enough to cope with protracted periods of hot, dry weather.

‘Water disappears from streams and rivers,’ explained Teun Spek, a water policy adviser in the Netherland’s largest province, Gelderland. ‘(There is) a total lack of stream flow.’

‘We are going to be confronted with a world in which the climate is already changing.’

Jos Delbeke, Director General for Climate Action at the European Commission

The science of adapting to climate change is an emerging force in environmental research, and Spek was speaking on 12 May at Adaptation Futures, a conference which has become the focal point of the discipline. 

This year's event was the largest ever adaptation conference, with 1 700 visitors, and was hosted by the Dutch government and the European Commission.

Spek told attendees during a side meeting that drier conditions were often leading to standing water, disease and pests for Dutch farmers.

It’s a story repeated across Europe as the temperature changes that were predicted with increasing certainty during the 1990s as computer modelling improved are now becoming a reality.

Spek was speaking in his capacity as a potential user of BINGO, an EU-funded research project which is trying to tailor climate forecasts so that they are as useful as possible for water utilities.

Dr Rafaela Matos, from the Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil in Lisbon, Portugal, who coordinates BINGO, said: ‘Our focus is on the next 10 years, decadal predictions.'

Supercomputers and satellite systems such as Europe’s Sentinel earth observation network are helping generate ever-more accurate climate predictions. However, as the rains and droughts intensify, the urgent need for projects such as BINGO is to turn the raw data into forecasts that can be used by city planners, utility firms and farmers.

‘We want to increase predictability,’ said Dr Bart van den Hurk, from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.

He coordinates the EU-funded project IMPREX which started at the end of last year. IMPREX is combining different forms of data with high-power climate models to predict how global warming will lead to extreme weather in Europe.

Things to come

The kinds of floods and droughts that have made their mark across Europe, from Bulgaria to Romania, Germany, Poland and the UK, are a sign of things to come.

‘We cannot predict climate on a local scale 10 years ahead or even further, but we can put a lot more effort on extracting the information on what could be happening in that far-away abstract future by looking at the extremes that happen today,’ Dr van den Hurk said.

Following the COP21 climate talks in Paris at the end of last year, policymakers around the world are putting their heads together to work out ways to meet the pledge of keeping global warming to within 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. However, according to the UK’s Met Office, global temperatures already broke 1 degree Celsius above the pre-industrial average in 2015, the hottest year on record.

After decades of industrialisation across the world, there is some global warming already built into the climate system, and the science of adaptation means getting infrastructure ready for the changes that will entail.

‘We are going to be confronted with a world in which the climate is already changing,’ said Jos Delbeke, Director General for Climate Action at the European Commission. ‘So adaptation … will require the rethinking of what we are doing not only in Europe but also in the rest of the world.’

This year, the Adaptation Futures conference was held in Rotterdam, the site of Europe’s biggest port.

The Port of Rotterdam could be 10 times more vulnerable to floods by 2100, according to researchers. Image credit: Flickr/ bertknot

Unlike much of the Netherlands, the Port of Rotterdam was built on relatively high ground outside the areas protected by dykes, in order to allow large tankers to dock there.

It means that as the sea levels rise, there is an elevated flood risk, yet many of the businesses that have established themselves there – which includes oil and chemical firms – were not fully aware of this before they were told about it by an EU-funded project called ENHANCE, which looked at risk management for natural hazards in Europe.

Dr Robin Nicolai from HKV Consultants, a company that researches the risks posed by water, believes that the Port of Rotterdam is vulnerable to a one-in-10 000-year flood at the moment, however that risk could increase to a one-in-1 000-year flood by 2100 under the most extreme climate change scenario due to rising sea levels.

‘That’s a factor of ten in flood probability,’ he said.

As part of ENHANCE, Dr Nicolai and his team worked out that a flood like this could cause up to EUR 2 billion of damage.

They have expanded discussions that were already taking place among the regional authorities so that they could include local businesses and representatives from the national government in the talks.

The idea is that these discussions should help companies work with the national government to develop a plan to prepare for floods, and he believes that discussions like this will become increasingly critical as Europe braces for the impact of climate change.

‘All people that have some kind of responsibility of are influenced by these policies, they should be involved in the process of defining an adaptation strategy,’ he said.

Source: Horizon the EU Research and Innovation Magazine

 http://horizon-magazine.eu/article/europe-adapts-climate-change-becomes-reality_en.html

(30 May 2016)

Coastal Flooding Will Hit World’s Biggest Polluters Hardest

• Ryan GrenobleEditor at The Huffington Post

Three of the world’s heaviest polluters will likely face the greatest human and financial costs caused by coastal flooding, one of the effects of climate change.

According to a report released Monday by Christian Aid, an anti-poverty organization, people living in the U.S., China and India — three of the world’s very worst offenders in terms of greenhouse gas emission — face the greatest risks posed by coastal flooding.

By 2060, more than a billion people worldwide will likely confront coastal flooding due to sea level rise, storm surges and extreme weather, with the majority of those people living in major cities throughout Asia.

Calcutta, India, tops the list, where around 1.3 million people are currently exposed to coastal flooding. By 2070, that number is expected to balloon to 14 million, according to the report. Mumbai ranks second, where an estimated 11.4 million people could face disruption due to flooding by 2070. Dhaka, Bangladesh, is third with a projected 11.1 million vulnerable people.

CHRISTIAN AID

The world’s top 20 cities ranked in terms of population exposed to coastal flooding in 2010 and 2070. The rising numbers reflect socioeconomic factors driving populations to the coasts, as well as increased coastal flooding risks due to climate change.

The poorest residents in these areas are likely to be hit hardest, as they would be ill-suited to respond to extreme climate events and would have the most difficult time rebuilding their lives afterward.

“Cruelly, it will be the poor that will suffer the most. Although the financial cost to cities in rich countries will be crippling, wealthier people will at least have options to relocate and receive insurance protection,” Dr Alison Doig, one of the authors of the report, said in a release accompanying the study. “Evidence shows that from New Orleans to Dhaka, it is the poorest who are most vulnerable because they have the worst infrastructure and no social or financial safety nets to help them recover.”

That includes people like Adan Morales Saracay, a 59-year-old fisherman in El Salvador whose family nearly died last year amid a series of wave surges created by a storm at sea.

We were in panic for the love of our families, we didn’t want to lose anyone. So we decided to abandon everything, but it was very scary.Adan Saracay, a Salvadoran fisherman who lost his house in a wave surge.

“It was a Saturday around 2pm. We saw that the waves started getting much larger. Within minutes they came into our houses. By the time the night came, we had to evacuate our entire families. The waves were about 13-14 meters [42 - 46 feet] high,” Saracay recalled to the authors of the report. “We were in panic for the love of our families, we didn’t want to lose anyone. So we decided to abandon everything, but it was very scary.”

“Never in my life have I seen any waves like this before,” he went on. “For the past ten years, the weather has been less predictable. We don’t have anywhere to go.”

After the disaster, Saracay’s house was buried in sand and debris, and the fish he relies on for his livelihood were harder to catch, having fled to deeper water amid the surge.

In addition to the human toll, the report predicts that flooding will exact a large financial cost on coastal cities as well.

In financial terms, Miami is the city that stands to lose the most as oceans rise — not just in the U.S. but in the world. The Florida city is projected to have some $3.5 trillion in assets exposed to coastal flooding by 2070. According to the report, the second most at-risk city in 2070 will be Guangzhou, China, with $3.4 trillion liable; the New York City/Newark, New Jersey area comes in third on the list with a projected $2.1 trillion.

CHRISTIAN AID

The top 20 cities ranked in terms of assets at risk to coastal flooding, both in 2010 and 2070.

To combat these massive human and financial costs, Doig and her co-authors argue strongly in favor of taking action now to lessen pain in the future.

“There is a chance this horrifying vision of the future can be avoided,” Doig, a HuffPost contributor, noted in the release. “It is striking that the cities facing the most severe impacts are in countries with high contributions of carbon emissions. The first thing we can do is speed up the global transition away from dirty fossil fuels to the clean, renewably [sic] energy of the future.”

“We can also do more to prepare for such occurrences,” she added. “Spending money now on reducing the risk of disasters will save money and lives later. Such investment is a no brainer.”

STRINGER . / REUTERS

Flooding at Alton Road and 10th Street is seen in Miami Beach, Florida on November 5, 2013.

Last March, in an address following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon noted that the cost savings of preparing for catastrophes ahead of time — and perhaps even preventing them — are significant.

“We cannot prevent natural disasters,” he said. “But at least we can prepare ourselves how to minimize disaster risk. We can reduce disaster risk.”

According to Ban, every dollar spent planning for and reducing risk ahead of time reduces the cost spent cleaning up after a disaster by around $7. 

“Resilient recovery means protecting societies against the worst damage from future disasters,” he said. “The money spent is not a cost — it is a valuable investment. Humanitarian needs are rising around the world. Climate change is increasing the risks. Disaster risk reduction is a frontline against climate change.”

From 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/biggest-polluters-climate-change-flooding_us_573a007ee4b08f96c183b311

Threat vs. Risk vs. Vulnerability

Within the climate change adaptation community a significant focus to deal with the impacts has come from the Disaster Risk Reduction community. These communities, largely within donor driver organizations are critical to the response in the event of extreme disasters. They play a critical role in humanitarian efforts. Impacts from climate change will certainly need the support of these organizations.

On the other hand, the approach of disaster risk reduction focuses on mitigation of disasters as extreme events from threats. Threats, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis, by definition can not be controlled. This will be important for the extreme effects of climate change when they do occur.

In contracts, climate change adaptation examines increasing vulnerabilities and makes pre-emptive adjustments to treat the negative impacts of those, while improving overall conditions.

Disaster Risk Reduction is reactive.

Climate change adaptation is pro-active.

With all due respect to the disaster risk reduction community and their important work, the approach advocated here is proactive and responsive to the vulnerabilities of human and natural systems resulting from climate change.

Being reactive is being a victim. 

Being proactive is contributing to the solution.

thanks to Pinkerton Consulting & Investigations, Inc. d.b.a. Pinkerton Corporate Risk Management for this clarification at http://www.pinkerton.com/blog/risk-vulnerability-threat-differences