"What I love about Earth Day today is that it has become an enormous exchange of information and ideas about how to preserve, protect and enhance the quality of life in Santa Barbara and by extension, the world. It's fun, educational and an aesthetic experience all rolled into one. How many events do you go to where 38,000 people gather to learn from one another? Earth Day gives me a sense of joy and hope each and every year."

- Paul Relis, former CEC Executive Director

The oil spill

To understand how Santa Barbara became the home of the one of the most highly attended, most consistently held community-based Earth Day festivals on the West Coast, one needs to go back to first Earth Day celebration in 1970.

Or rather, a year before that -- because the story of this annual celebration actually started with a tragedy. On January 28, 1969, an oil platform six miles off of Santa Barbara's coast ruptured, sending 80,000 to 100,000 barrels of crude oil into the Santa Barbara Channel over the next 10 days. The oil spread from Goleta to Ventura, killing thousands of sea birds, as well as dolphins, elephant seals, and sea lions.

"It's hard to imagine today, but at the time it was the largest oil spill in the U.S.," said Marc McGinnes, retired UCSB Environmental Studies Program professor. (Today the Santa Barbara spill ranks third behind the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf in 2010 and the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989.) "What we now know as the environmental movement was just emerging. It was events like this and fires burning on the Cuyahoga River that got people's attention."

Environmental activism

Over the next few years, the Nixon Administration would respond by putting into place the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and national legislation. Locally, on the first anniversary of the oil spill, activists hosted a national conference at Santa Barbara City College, with speakers that included notable environmentalists Paul Ehrlich and David Brower, political leaders Sen. Alan Cranston, Rep. Pete McCloskey and former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, as well as Denis Hayes, coordinator of the first Earth Day observances planned for later that year.

The ripples of that conference – in which the community began to channel its outrage, concern, and hopes for a better future – can still be felt today. One of these was the formation of the Community Environmental Council (CEC), whose first order of business was to open an ecology center on the corner of State and Anapamu, close down the street out front, and host one of the first Earth Day celebrations in the country on April 22, 1970.

The Earth Day Festival was born

"The festival itself was modest, with maybe 5,000 people. But when taken collectively, it turned out to be the world's largest event – cities everywhere participated that day," said former CEC Executive Director Paul Relis, who co-directed the organization in its early years with former Santa Barbara mayor Hal Conklin.

The annual event continued on and off thru the 1970s, waned in the 1980s, and then was revitalized in 1990 when Denis Hayes called for a recommitment to a national day of recognition for the environment. Karen Feeney led an effort to re-spark the gathering with a 20th anniversary bash at Santa Barbara City College, and Earth Day has been held consistently and with increasing attendance by the CEC since then.

Today's Earth Day Festival

Today the Earth Day Festival is a two-day event at Alameda Park, with more than 250 local and national exhibitors, a Green Car Show, live music, and speakers that have recently included director James Cameron, actress Daryl Hannah, and Tesla Motorcars CEO Elon Musk. With more that 38,000 people attending in 2011, it logs as the most well-attended annual Earth Day Festival on the West Coast.

For more informtaion on CEC's Earth Day Festival visit: www.SBEarthDay.org

Isabelle Greene could not have escaped her destiny even if she’d wanted to: it was built right into her family name. Growing up in the wilder, more open-space version of Pasadena and the granddaughter of the notable Arts and Crafts architect Henry Greene, she was exposed early on to both the built environment and the natural world. Today, at the age of 78, she is an energetic champion of “sustainable landscape architecture,” and continues to manage her private practice of 30 years.

But in 2004, Green took on her biggest challenge – renovating a 1948 mail order cottage in the neighborhood behind the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. After decades of creating beautiful spaces for other people, her goal was to design a home for herself.

When she purchased the 1,100 square foot house, it was a warren of small, dark rooms with limited windows and closets. The roof had no eaves – exposing the wood to weather -- and the house had sunk six inches in one corner. But she was taken with the neighborhood, was ready to “be out of cement and traffic and noise,” and had long dreamed of the challenge of renovating a house and imprinting it with her own style.

Greene had traveled extensively to places like Holland, Norway, and Japan, where small living spaces made a deep impression on her with their highly functional, elegant, streamlined simplicity.

“I’ve always been so uncomfortable with huge houses – the number of people it takes to maintain them, the distance you have to walk from the kitchen to bedroom. The more human something is and the more aligned with nature, the better I feel.”

Renovating the cottage took two years – “one to think it through and do the plans, and one to do the work,” she said. In the end she virtually de-constructed the entire house, keeping only one original joist. She incorporated salvaged items wherever she could: acacia wood from a storm-fallen tree for the floor, a piece of the old Santa Barbara pier for the mantle, salvaged red oak for the door. She also added environmental technologies: solar panels, an on-demand water heater, and a solar chimney that draws hot air out of the house.

But while going small had been her intent, it was also her challenge. During the two years between buying the property and completing the renovation, she remarried, so the space had to work even more than she’d originally planned.

“In a small house, you use every inch. I measured and re-measured, because virtually everything in the house had to be custom designed. I had to calculate every detail – like how far the warmth of the fireplace would reach to the couch, and how that would impact the sitting area.”

She removed almost all the interior walls in the front half of the house, using discreet lighting and other techniques to create a number of unique living spaces out of one generously sized room. The kitchen, dining area and sitting areas all flow into each other, with all but one appliance completely invisible. A small functional office is tucked into a wide hallway, and a music/reading nook transforms into a cozy guest room with the pull of a curtain.

In the back of the house are a surprisingly spacious bathroom and a laundry room that offers the only place where Greene and her husband John Mealy can keep separate, personal belongings; all other parts of the house are communal. In the bedroom, wide windows and a sliding door make it easy to access the expansive back garden.

And given that her first love was the outdoors, it’s no surprise that the garden is the focal point of the house; in some ways it is the largest and most impressive room, with the interior space designed to draw the eye to it. She converted the badly-sloped deep lot into a gently terraced space filled with two dozen berry bushes and fruit trees, as well as an oversized vegetable garden. Ironically, although she’s a lifelong plant lover and started her career as a botanist, Greene had never seriously grown edibles before. “Now we’ve become backyard farmers. Our yard provides 90 percent of our produce.”

Merging two households into a small home after a lifetime of acquiring things was challenging at first. The family furnishings that they had both accumulated went to John’s children and grandchildren, with only beloved objects making the cut.

“It’s so easy to get burdened and cluttered,” she said. “But here, anytime we bring something into the house, we have to take something out. On the rare instance when I end up at a mall, I really don’t have that feeling of desire or consumer lust for material things. There is a daily discipline to living in a small space.”

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Article modified from original submission to Seasons Magazine. Check out the floorplans and read it on Seasons’ blog…

Tucked away on a peaceful cul-de-sac that backs up to Elings Park, Dan Emmett's home wouldn't be thought of as an environmental statement at first glance. The solar paneled roof – barely visible except from the upper lawn in the back yard – might even go unnoticed. But Dan and others like him are starting a quiet revolution, built around the idea that solar electricity can power their homes, hot tubs, and even cars.

Dan and his partner Henri Bristol had a 3.5 kW solar panel system installed on their house last year, in part because they were expecting delivery of one of the first all-electric vehicles to be sold by a major car manufacturer, the Nissan Leaf. "I signed up for the Leaf the day they opened the waiting list – even before the cars had been manufactured," he says.

As CEO of a solar energy startup company, Dan wanted to get as close as possible to driving without fossil fuels. "I didn't want to just get a hybrid; I wanted to be completely off petroleum. I wanted my only trips to the gas station to be to be for a pit stop," he says.

"I like the security of knowing that if something were to happen – an earthquake, disruption to the supply of gasoline, or other crisis – I can still get around," he says. "I love how quiet the car is, and also how clean – no tailpipe, no emissions. My bedroom is above the garage, so I like the peace of mind of not having fumes or combustibles just a few feet under my pillow."

He also points out the financial benefits. By day, if his solar panels are generating more electricity than he's using, that electricity is fed into the Southern California Edison grid, where he avoids paying the highest peak period rates of 55 cents per kWh. At midnight, when he charges the car under special "time of use" rates for electric vehicle owners, he pays 10 cents per kWh.

For the most part – like most electric vehicle owners – Dan charges his car battery at home. When he was on the waiting list for his Nissan Leaf, the company sent out a licensed electrician, who recommended that he install a 220-volt charging unit in his garage. "The car does come with a charging kit for a 110-volt outlet, but they call that a 'trickle charge.' It is very slow – you wouldn't even get a full charge overnight." He opted for the 220-volt charging unit, the cost of which was partially offset by a federal tax credit.

With the solar panels on his roof and the new charging station in his garage, Dan was almost ready to leave Santa Barbara in his sunshine-powered car. He just had one problem – something electric vehicle drivers call 'range anxiety' or the fear of running out of juice. He recalls, "I didn't just have range anxiety, I had range panic. I made it to L.A. on the original charge, but it was really dicey – I was in heavy traffic, and I had two miles left on the battery when I got to my destination. When they said that the car had 100 to 120 mile range, I knew that was variable, but my trip was 87 miles door-to-door and I thought I would have more leeway." Since then, he's gotten more accustomed to driving electric and is a pro at finding public charging stations on longer trips.

"It's amazing where technology is – everything is intuitive and transparent. To anyone who is thinking about doing something similar, I would say do it. You will see your gasoline bills and electricity bills go away. It's a lifestyle choice that I think is only going to get easier as the technology improves."

Article modified from original submission to Seasons Magazine.

Dr. Timothy Rodgers and his wife Pamela live in a 1948 home near Hendry's Beach. Over the years, they've been on a mission to retrofit their home to make more energy efficient. They've replaced single paned windows with double paned, added insulation to the attic, and replaced halogen lights with LEDs. Making a home more efficient is highly recommended before adding solar panels because "you don't want to have to pay for a system that's any larger than you need," Timothy says.

After talking with 6-8 solar contractors and getting several bids, he contracted with REC Solar to install an 8.4 kW solar system on a hillside on his property in 2009. "We went with an 18-year lease – they do all the maintenance, manage any equipment that might break, and will replace the inverter when it dies, which is expected to be after 10 years."

Recently, Timothy was ready to make another statement reflecting his environmental ethic. "I love cars, and I like the idea of electric cars. When the price of gas hit $4.50/gallon, I thought 'that's it!' First, I went to test drive the Tesla Roadster, then I went to the Community Environmental Council's Earth Day Festival, which includes a large Green Car Show. There were three Tesla owners showing their personal vehicles. I was still on the fence, but hearing them rave about their experiences really helped." He ordered an electric blue Tesla Roadster that week.

The only concern that Timothy had was with the range of the car; in electric vehicles circles, this is known as "range anxiety." Although he still owns a gas-fueled sedan, he wanted to see how the Tesla would handle on a longer trip to San Francisco. Because public charging stations are just starting to come online, his ideal midpoint stopping place – King City – didn't have a station. Instead he stopped for a couple of hours in Atascadero and briefly in Salinas, both times refueling at a Rabobank, which offered free public charging, fueled by solar panels on the roofs "so I was still driving on sunshine, even away from home."

Despite what might seem like complex technology, Roger repeatedly said that the process to install solar and purchase an electric vehicle was seamless, with user-friendly systems that allows him to engage with the technology. "There is a transmitter on my solar inverter that sends out data on the amount of electricity that I generate and use, which I can pull up on my computer," said Timothy. "It's kind of nerdy, but I like to see how I'm doing."

Combining solar panels and electric vehicles makes ditching fossil fuels closer than ever. Transportation and home energy costs make up the vast majority of the average person's energy use. By eliminating reliance on dirty energy in these areas, Fossil Free by '33 is well within reach.

Article modified from original submission to Seasons Magazine.

Almost every product and service we rely on today is manufactured with or transported by some amount of fossil fuels. Of course, the most important thing we can do to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels is to use less. However, when you do make a purchase, we encourage you to shop for energy-smart products that use less energy to produce.

Here at CEC, we're all about energy-smart products that help us move towards a fossil-free lifestyle and a fossil-free future for Santa Barbara. This is the first in a series of blog posts from CEC staff and supporters about their favorite eco-smart products and we hope you'll find an idea to inspire you.

Today, we're hearing from Sigrid Wright, CEC's Assistant Director.

 

Favorite eco-product: Lifefactory Water Bottle – reusable water bottle made with glass
Price: $21.99 for 22oz, $19.99 for 16oz
Owned it for: 3 months

There are very few "things" in the world that I would say I love, but this Lifefactory bottle is one of them. In the process of trying to solve one problem that had been bugging me for a while, this product helped me resolve a whole other issue.

My original problem was that I wanted to get away from plastic water bottles as much as possible. There's just so much wrong with them (e.g. that we use 17 million barrels of oil a year in the U.S. just to transport water bottles from one place to the next).

However, I don't like the taste of drinking out of stainless steel containers, or even reusable BP-free plastic bottles -- so I would fill various glass bottles that had originally contained tea or Pelligrino. These worked all right, but they were hard to clean and the caps weren't very durable so half the time I wasn't motivated to carry them around. As a result I often ended up not having water when I needed it.

When a friend brought one of these Lifefactory bottles to a meeting, I immediately bought one. It has a wide mouth so it's easy to clean and add ice, and a durable screw cap with a handle. It also has a silicone protective sleeve, so I'm not afraid it will break tumbling around in my bag. (Although I did drop one full force on pavement and had to replace it.)

But the reason I love it (and why I want to put three little hearts after this post) is that I drink much more water than I did before. It's always with me, and I now drink about three full 22 oz. bottles a day. The Lifefactory bottle has now become one of my favorite presents to give friends.

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You can get a Lifefactory water bottle of your own or a different type of reusable water bottle at CEC's Amazon Store in the Reusable Water Bottle section. If you find something you like, a percentage of your purchase comes back to CEC.

Stay tuned to hear from our next CEC staffer, Michelle Kitson, about her favorite reusable bag.