Sustainability

Eugen shares the story of the Muir Commons community housing coop in Davis CA. The 26 unit complex got solar installed on their common house to offset their energy usage. Additionally they applied for and got a grant from PG&E to get 26 charging stations installed. Since the chargers have been installed many new EV's have been showing up in the complex.

Diane and John Swann share their solar system that is installed on her carport. Installed in 2001 it's been 19 years since they paid an electric bill. Since the solar has installed they have gotten rid of natural gas by getting a mini-split heat pump, induction cooktop, and solar water heating. Their primary mode of transportation is their ebikes that they also charge with solar!

Lindsey Terry gives a tour of her electric bicycles from Rad Bikes, a "Rad Wagon" and a "Rad Runner,"  as part of Davis Driving on Sunshine 2020. Kick your car to the curb!

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Lynne shares gives a tour of her Village Home in Davis CA. Some of the features of her home include:

passive solar with shaded south side - grape trellis for lower windows and overhang for clerestory windows, no west windows and minimal east windows to minimize summer heat gain;

unique passive Solar:  sun-catcher with both roofs sloping upward from north to south and creating clerestory windows to let in winter sun to heat the water culverts filled with 1977 water. (There are 2 suncatchers in Davis, one in Sac, and 1 in Homer Alaska),

Ben describes 2018 Chrysler Hybrid minivan.

Cool Davis member Chris Granger is joined by Shottenkirk Honda in Davis CA to give a test drive of the new plug in hybrid Honda Clarity

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“We’ve had 50 years of unusually stable weather… What do we need to do now, to garden in times that are less predictable?” Plant breeder Carol Deppe, author of The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times, suggests growing a wider variety of crops adapted to conditions where you are; crops needing minimum inputs; and varying gardening patterns with the year. “Short season crops are a premium,” she asserts. She discusses seed saving, and storing enough seeds so everyone in your neighborhood can be gardening if need be.

“This place is famous. People loving coming by here because at any time of year you can get something to eat.” Architect Mark Lakeman, co-founder of the City Repair project, gives a tour of the corner sidewalk outside his Portland office building, where a food forest is bursting with life. A diagram shows where over 80 plants are located in six or seven vertical layers. Tall fruit trees, flowers, a grape arbor, herbs, berries, small vegetables, and ground cover are abundant.

Every year for the past two decades, the neighbors near Sherrett Street in southwest Portland repaint their colorful street intersection. Resident Mighk Simpson gives us a tour on painting day. On the sidewalk corners are spacious cob benches (with roofs), a children’s playhouse woven from tree branches and found materials, a beehive-shaped dispensary for the monthly neighborhood newsletter The Bee, a 24/7 Tea Station, and the first-ever “Little Free Library”, an innovation which has now gone viral around the world.

303 Vertical Gardening for Small Spaces