The big day is almost here - please come down and show your support and bring a friend or two as well. We’re hoping for a good turnout!

The event will take place at the York Middle School on Organug Road from 8:30am to 12:30, May 2, 2009.

If you are able to volunteer to help out in any way, please contact Eric Hopkins via email at eric[at]yorkgoesgreen.org.

A special thanks to Graystone Builders and York Hospital for help in sponsoring the event.

April 29th, 2009 by wayne | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

“Suddenly, from behind the rim of the moon, in long, slow-motion moments of immense majesty, there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate sky-blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white, rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery. It takes more than a moment to fully realize this is Earth . . . home.”

- Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14

April 22nd, 2009 by wayne | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

By purchasing locally grown food, you’ll help save energy—and fossil fuels—because you’ll reduce the cost of transporting your food from one end of the country, or globe, to the other. Studies have shown that in the U.S., the average grocery store’s produce travels nearly 1,500 miles between the farm where it was grown and your refrigerator. To go even further, organic food is grown without chemical fertilizers and pesticides, so you’ll save the energy required to make these compounds. In addition, you’ll help keep farmers and communities healthy, and help ensure the ability of our land to continue to provide food.

In York, our wonderful farmer’s market will be starting up again in June 2009. Details:

SATURDAYS:
June 6th through October 10th from 9:00AM to 1:00PM

TUESDAYS:
June 30th through September 1st from 2:00PM to 5:30PM

Location: In the lot behind the York Chamber Visitor’s Center
Route One & I-95, Exit #7

Some more local farmers and farmer’s markets can be found at LocalHarvest.org.

Another option is a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), which allows customers to buy shares in a whole season’s crops at a local farm. An example is Andy’s Greens, a local provider of organic vegetables.

Finally, you can join the millions of American gardeners and grow some of your own vegetables and fruits. For that healthy and satisfying endeavor, you’ll of course want to consider purchasing a compost bin and/or a rain barrel through the York Energy Efficiency Committee.

April 21st, 2009 by wayne | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The next monthly meeting of the York Energy Efficiency Committee is scheduled for 7:00 pm on Tuesday, April 14 at the York Public Library. All are welcome. Eric will distribute the agenda prior to the meeting.

In the meantime, you can read the minutes of the March meeting.

And whether or not you plan to attend a meeting, please consider signing up for our newsletter.

April 9th, 2009 by wayne | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

In this article, the author describes ways for businesses to save money as well as the environment, even in difficult economic times. For example, one suggestion involved “greening” your transportation:

The kind of transportation you use and the number of miles your employees or goods travel per year will have a tremendous impact on your bottom line and on your carbon footprint. The EPA SmartWay transport program provides businesses (both carriers and shippers) with lots of good tools for reducing costs and emissions. Their advice includes using software, maps and Internet sites to plan out driving routes in advance; anti-idling strategies; and avoiding expediting/air freight whenever possible.  UPS also shares their tips for improving gas mileage (by redesigning routes and driving rules, UPS eliminated 28.5 million miles from delivery routes, saved 3 million gallons of fuel and cut CO2 emissions by about 34 million tons.)

The other nine methods can be found at the Ecopreneurist.

April 9th, 2009 by wayne | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Designed by Joanne Muckenhoupt

April 6th, 2009 by Eric | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (1)

Pretty cool!

Designed by the very capable,Karen O’Brien-Hay at TIMESFOUR Graphic Design.  Her contact info is below

April 6th, 2009 by Eric | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning author Thomas Friedman makes an compelling connection between our failure to rein in global warming and our failure to prevent the recent financial crash. An excerpt:

[It’s] now obvious that the reason we’re experiencing a simultaneous meltdown in the financial system and the climate system is because we have been mispricing risk in both arenas — producing a huge excess of both toxic assets and toxic air that now threatens the stability of the whole planet.

Just as A.I.G. sold insurance derivatives at prices that did not reflect the real costs and the real risks of massive defaults (for which we the taxpayers ended up paying the difference), oil companies, coal companies and electric utilities today are selling energy products at prices that do not reflect the real costs to the environment and real risks of disruptive climate change (so future taxpayers will end up paying the difference).

Whenever products are mispriced and do not reflect the real costs and risks associated with their usage, people go to excess. And that is exactly what happened in the financial marketplace and in the energy/environmental marketplace during the credit bubble.

…“Destructive creation” has wounded both the Market and Mother Nature. Smart regulation and carbon taxation can heal both.

Read the rest of the article.

April 5th, 2009 by wayne | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

YEEC member Heather Henriksen is again selling home compost bins for Earth Day.

This year’s sale will be done as a fundraiser for White Pine Programs.  I am excited to have teamed up with Amy Beal and White Pine Programs, a nature-based learning program in Cape Neddick. $5.00 from the cost of each bin will go towards scholarships for children who would like to attend White Pine camps and other programs.

Studies have shown that home composting can divert an average of 700 lbs. of organic waste per year while improving your garden soil.

Please download the 2009 Compost bin poster - White Pine programs (PDF file) with all info, including order form.

Compost bins are $43.00 each.  Last date to order is May 2nd!  Please try to send in your orders early if you are interested.

Pick up location will be at the First Parish Church at 180 York Street.

April 2nd, 2009 by wayne | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (1)

From the York Independent:

Voters will decide in May whether “Small Wind” could be the way of the future in York

By Jennifer L. Saunders

March 27, 2009

YORK - Local residents may soon have the option of constructing wind turbines to provide energy to their homes.

When the Board of Selectmen met on March 23 to decide which zoning ordinances would move forward to the May town election, a revised version of the Planning Board’s proposed “Small Wind” ordinance was one that received strong support from the town’s governing board.

Rest of the article is here

March 30th, 2009 by Eric | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The York Energy Efficiency Committee is again offering rain barrels for sale at a real savings. This year’s price is $75 for interested area residents — a 40% discount from the usual retail price $125. This great price is available because we order in quantity from SkyJuice New England and have a central pick-up point. It’s an opportunity to protect the environment and to support a local York business. Rain barrels save water, helping to decrease storm water runoff and to recharge our groundwater. And your garden will thrive!

Rain barrels collect rainwater from your roof either where it streams off your roof or from your downspout. ¼ inch of rain on a 1,000 square foot roof will fill two 60-gallon rain barrels! Connect a drip irrigation, soaker or garden hose or water with a watering can. Your garden and house plants will love this naturally soft water. Think of the savings: less summer usage of town water and conservation of your well water.

You become part of the local watershed by releasing rainwater from the rain barrels into your gardens to slowly soak into the soil. This decreases storm water runoff and helps recharge our local groundwater.

The Committee will take orders and organize a bulk delivery on May 2nd to the York Middle School parking lot on Organug Road in York. The York Energy Efficiency Committee is organizing a York Energy and Climate Day Fair from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the school – speakers, workshops, product and service information, etc. Should be a wonderful event so mark it down on your calendar and tell everyone you know!

Dorothy Healy is the coordinator of the sale for the York Energy Efficiency Committee. Download the order form here: 2009 rain barrel order form. (Her contact information is on the form.)

Next steps: Order your rain barrel(s) by April 24, pick it up on May 2nd and enjoy the Fair to learn more about what you can do to meet the challenges facing us in energy conservation and climate change.

What better way to spend a Saturday morning in the spring? Buy a rain barrel and be part of the solution!

Rain barrels

March 26th, 2009 by wayne | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment