What you can do …

via phill Parsons
A practically orientated set of community actions by people who take the climate issue seriously

By Audrey Schulman on March 21, 2009
Even through the rain, people continued to arrive. They crowded into the garage carrying saws and hammers, with tool belts strapped on.

They were here to fight climate change.

Everyone quickly introduced themselves and shook hands. With the pouring rain outside, the puddles outside growing, the crowd seemed expectant and excited. As in old-fashioned “barn-raisings” where neighbors pooled tools and skills to perform tasks bigger than any one of them could manage, the group of volunteers would weatherize this four-apartment building, helping out the residents while helping the planet. This was an idea whose time had come.

Just a few weeks before, in my climate-change neighborhood group here in Cambridge Massachusetts, we’d felt helpless. We’d spent years writing endless numbers of Letters-to–the-Editor and going to demonstration after demonstration, city council meetings and EPA hearings. Still –as this was back in August– we had no US president who would listen and our state government wasn’t changing fast enough. We felt desperate for something practical to do.

We looked for some sort of community action we could start, something hands-on, something where neighbors helped each other. People in the group suggested installing photovoltaic arrays or solar thermal. The homeowners could buy the materials and we would install them. Unfortunately this type of initiative would only work for the few homeowners with thousands in disposable cash and a south-facing roof. We wanted something that could reach a much bigger population.

So I suggested we weatherize homes instead. In my own 100-year-old home, I’d reduced my fossil fuel use by over 50% over eight years through insulation and air-sealing.

Through weatherization (as well as working on energy efficiency), we could work on any home from a mansion to a seventh-floor walk-up. Everyone has some loose storm window, leaky door or uninsulated attic hatch. Everyone has a few light bulbs than can be replaced with CFLs or a water heater that’s turned up way too hot. Not only are these sorts of fixes much cheaper than installing some form of renewable power generation, they can save more energy. In the US, a 1-killowatt photovoltaic array costing nearly $1000 produces roughly $100 of electricity all year long (assuming it’s south-facing and never shaded). Replacing eight 100-watt bulbs (that are typically left on for 5 hours a day) with 23-watt CFLs would save the same amount of electricity.

And $500 worth of insulation added to an attic or the basement could dwarf both in terms of energy savings.

After all, greener than any wind or solar power plant is the power plant that doesn’t need to get built.

Thus my climate change group decided to organize weekend weatherization parties. In our “barn-raisings,” we would weatherize whole homes, ticking off all those tasks that no one ever got to. Pipe insulation, door weatherization, caulking around window trim, insulating the basement foundation and the attic hatch, sealing the holes in the attic with spray foam. These were the tasks that every blower door test and energy expert would point out as near the top of the list. These tasks were cheap, had fast return on investment and took just a little know-how. Blocking up all the tiny holes in a home that let in cold air helps the home’s insulation work better, in the same way that pulling a windbreaker over a warm sweater can make all the difference on a cold or windy day.

Through these weatherization parties, we would decrease a home’s energy use. We would also teach all the volunteers who came to the party a few critical skills. Hopefully our volunteers would use their new knowledge on their homes and/or teach it to others. The parties would also introduce neighbors to each other, allowing networking to happen, spreading ideas and increasing community.

Humans are most scared and apathetic when they don’t know how to fight a danger. I hoped that the hands-on work of the parties might knock a few people out of their frozen terror of climate change. I hoped that some people coming to the parties might learn they didn’t have to wait for the federal government to start a cap-and-trade program or green jobs revolution. None of us had to be helpless. We could pick up a caulk gun right now and start the attack.

In the garage at that first “barn-raising,” the rain still hammering overhead, I announced the names of the skilled experts who would lead each team and which tasks they would be working on. From the moment we announced this idea, people with decades of experience in energy efficiency had been volunteering to help, clearly having been waiting for a grassroots action like this. We even had the President of Cambridge Energy Alliance teaching how to install pipe insulation.

The volunteers sprang to action, choosing which team they wanted to be on and grabbing tools. We poured into the house to start the work. As I walked from team to team, watching people with hammers and caulk guns, I realized part of what was motivating this was the twin specters of the economic downfall and peak oil. They were spanking us in the pocketbook hard enough for everyone to realize we have to do something. We all understood it was time to pick up a tool and start to fix the situation.

My weatherization team named itself HEET (Home Energy Efficiency Team). Since that first weatherization party, we have continued to organize others for nearly half a year. We’ve earned a Climate Superstar prize from MCAN, a grant, and a large mailing list. Cities such as Watertown, Boston, Somerville and others are starting their own teams. We won a grant from the Massachusetts Service Alliance to work a public school and a low-income community house. Working with us, we have city councilors and school committee members, MIT sustainability experts and energy efficiency professionals.

Since HEET started, I am not angry all the time. I don’t want to shoot every SUV I see. I don’t start arguments about climate change with every person I see. I don’t feel terror in my throat for my children and their future every time I listen to the weather report.

As that first barn-raising wound down, a band of volunteers began to play. The pizza arrived. The home-owner was delighted. People talked and laughed. Children ran around. And for the first time in years, I felt hope for all of us.

http://www.newearthrising.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1039