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Catastrophic Climate Change: Cutting Your GHG Emissions in September.


The objective of the monthly tips pages is to provide ideas, experience and inspiration on how individuals can make changes to reduce their own climate change impaact, and also collaborate to foster positive change. This has been built up over a few years, so some items are dated, but many are just intended to be of value year after year and particularly for those who discover this site after 2010.

Back to school, and traditional vacation season is over.
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September 30

Food Preservation and Storage (16). Natural strategies that require cool temperatures, but not freezing temperatures (low level natural cooling) Cold cellar for storing of certain crops after harvesting.

September 29

Food Preservation and Storage (15). Drying and dehydration of foods (jerky, spices, etc.)

September 28

Food Preservation and Storage (14). Smoking. (bad for you, good for your food)

September 27

Food Preservation and Storage (13). Salt curing.

September 26

Food Preservation and Storage (12). Pickling (canning, preserves) of food. (Fermenting - beer, wine, mead, grog, others?)

September 25

Food Preservation and Storage (11). "Green" bags / containers (absorb ethylene from fruits / vegetables).

September 24

Food Preservation and Storage (10). Acquire food as required to reduce preservation requirements.

September 23

Food Preservation and Storage (9). Cold cellar for storing of certain crops after harvesting.

September 22

Food Preservation and Storage (8). Food preservation methods that do not require cooling * Have a garden so you can pick fresh produce in season.

September 21

Food Preservation and Storage (7). Moving items from freezer to refrigerator to defrost.

September 20

Food Preservation and Storage (6). Size equipment to application.

September 19

Food Preservation and Storage (5). Recognize that these appliances do produce heat, and try to make use of that in some way if possible. If it displaces some other form of heat production in your home, that may help reduce your GHG production.

September 18

Food Preservation and Storage (4). Open the door as infrequently and for as short a time as possible. While many exaggerate the amount of energy this wastes, it is still true that it uses some additional energy, unnecessarily. So, save some electricity, save some money, and save on your GHG emissions by keeping the door closed as much as possible.

September 17

Food Preservation and Storage (3). Put a sheet of insulating material under the refrigerator or freezer to slow the convection of heat from the floor into the appliance. You may think your floor is cold, but it is warmer than the interior of your freezer or refrigerator. Reducing the convection of heat into the body of the appliance means less energy used to keep the contents cold. Less electricity used means less GHG emissions.

September 16

Food Preservation and Storage (2). Replace the incandescent light inside the appliance with an efficient light, such as a very small compact fluorescent or an LED light. These have been hard to find in the right size until recently, but getting easier now. The incandescent light not only uses 4 times the electricity when it is on, but is producing heat inside the cold space, which has to be removed by the refrigeration system later, using more electricity. Less electricity used means less GHG emissions.

September 15

Food Preservation and Storage (1). Now that our youngsters are back in school, and we have had a hint or two that summer is over, we should be thinking about how we are going to deal with autumn's bounty from the garden. Not the lovely things we have enjoyed from the garden through the summer, but the bulk of foods we have grown to last through the winter and spring. It seems that many of us have forgotten there are means of storing and preserving food other than a refrigerator and freezer.

I have nothing against these modern appliances, which are marvels of efficiency compared to their ancestors of just 15 to 20 years ago. Our refrigerator uses less than 500 watt-hours a day of electricity - about 7 cents worth! (About half of its EnergyStar energy consumption rating.) That's a lot less than the value of food we might lose without the refrigerator to keep it fresh and safe longer.

However, there are a few things you can do to reduce the power consumption of your refrigerator and freezer still further.

1) Place the unit in a cool part of the house. For example, try not to place it near a window that will get full sun, or directly beside the stove. Reducing the infra-red heating on the appliance will reduce the amount of energy it consumes to keep the contents cold. Less electricity used means less GHG emissions.

Winter Gardening. Elliott Coleman 4 season Harvest

September 1st

I owe you one. Spent the day picking up parts for the electric tractors. Had to buy gasoline to complete the trip. On the plus side, it's the first time I have bought gasoline since December 11 last year, and the parts mean our zero-emissions electric tractors will be available to do more work.

September 2nd

I owe you another one. Spent the day today chipping ice and doing an upgrade on one of the electric tractors.

September 3rd

Contributions will be lighter this month, as I'm writing a couple of papers to present at CIRSIP at the end of May.

September 4th

September 5th

September 6th

September 7th

September 8th

September 9th

September 4th

September 5th

September 6th

September 7th

September 8th

September 9th

September 10th

September 11th

September 12th

September 13th

September 14th

Today, I planted my garden - sort of. For those of you living in tropical climes, that may not seem very impressive. However, here there is about a metre of snow on the ground, 2 metres on the snowbanks. That would give a new meaning to iceberg lettuce. However, yesterday I received a new Aerogarden. So, I have planted 3 heirloom cherry tomato plants and 3 of 6 herbs which came with the unit.

Set-up was easy. No soil required, and importantly for me - no window access required either. Grow lighting is supplied by an array of LEDs, the growing system is essentially hydroponic (with a minor hybrid tweak for the plant cones. Anyway, all seems to work as advertised. And now we wait for germination.

September 15th

September 16th

September 17th

September 18th

I got a little busy, and have not had a look at the Aerogarden since I set it up. Lo, and behold - 2 of the 3 tomato plant pods have sprouted. Water topped up. Now, I'm off to ignore it again for a few days.

September 19th

Yesterday, the Canadian federal government delivered their budget for the 2019-2020 fiscal year. At 464 pages, it's a bit of a slog. However, there are a few items that might be worth considering. There are about 11 pages related to climate change initiatives, but they're a bit on the fluffy side, do there's not a lot of meat in this area. Still, they have hit a few high profile items, some of which mark dramatic turns in past federal policy and action (more accurately, lack thereof). I'll cover those in a bit more detail in the next few days as some items require some additional fleshing out. It's always a concern when a major financial document uses the phrase: "Program details to follow." But the math says they're looking to boost sales of "zero-emission vehicles" (battery-electric or hydrogen fuel cell - plug-in hybrids and hydrogen combustion are not mentioned) by about 20,000 units a year for three years, starting sometime after September 1 2019. Let's be charitable and colour that as not overly ambitious.

If you want to get a head start, open [dead link: www.budget.gc.ca/2019/docs/plan/budget-2019-en.pdf] and head for page 81 (internal numbering - pg 83 of the PDF document).

September 20th

September 21th

September 22th

September 23th

All the plants in the Aerogarden have now sprouted and are doing well. Had to cut back the foliage on the tomato plants a little bit.

September 24th

September 25th

Took the chance today to rake up some leaves. Discoverered some are still embedded in ice. Spring may be a few more days before showing up to melt the remaining ice. But given the amount of snow we had this year, gradual warming is desirable.

September 26th

I'm taking a few days off here because a lot of people are dealing with flooding, one of the early consequences of climate change.

September 27th

If you are not dealing with flooding issues personally, or pitching in to help, take the next few days to contemplate how you would deal with flooding where you live.

September 28th

If you are truly in a situation immune to flooding, contemplate one of the other climate emergency issues you could be facing, and how you would deal with that.

September 29th

September 30th

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