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The Path to a More Sustainable Life

Nov 11

7

Looking forward to thirty three!

Posted by Mac on November 7, 2011
Posted in A Sustainable Life • Solar • Solmac Solar  | Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Last week was a good one for Solar Oregon!

 

Some of my friends jokingly call Solar Oregon “the little non-profit environmental engine that could”.  And boy, could we. This past week we hosted our first fundraising dinner, celebrated our 32nd year as an organization, held our annual meeting, showed off our electric cars, and then added three new people to our board of directors. Whew … no wonder we’re tired.

Solar Oregon Staff - Emily (L), Adam, Imogen, Claire, Joe

I may be biased, but I think the Solar Oregon staff, under the leadership of ED Claire Carlson, is doing a remarkable job.  They’re a relatively new team and are just starting to gel, but they’re getting the job done and our members are expecting big things from them this year. They are the foundation for all that is possible.

A Cena Ristorante

Solar Oregon Community Dinner

Kudos to staffer Adam Sage, Director of Development, for dreaming up this fundraising dinner and getting the board to go along with it. He then went forward and made it the successful event it was! Indeed a memorable night of fabulous food and great company – as advertised.  [Thanks to Roberto and Cap’n T. for tagging along with me.]

A Cena Ristorante owner Chris Custer and Chef Gabe Gabreski served a five-course dinner of traditional Sicilian pastas, secondi, and sweets, paired with local wine. [OMG the breadsticks!!] So, thanks also to Chris and his staff for a tremendous evening.  If you’re looking for the best Italian food in the Portland metro area, then head over to Sellwood and visit a cena ristorante y enotec http://www.acenapdx.com/.  [Hey, this is my very first restaurant recommendation!]

Dinner event at A Cena

Thanks to everyone who joined us in support for Solar Oregon. We were humbled by your generosity.

Has it been thirty two years already?

I’ve already blabbed about the 32nd annual celebration and meeting in a previous post http://solarflareblog.com/?p=3092 … so I’ll move on to the shoutouts.

Thank You Solar Oregon’s Professional Members for participating and supporting the work we do for solar in our beautiful state. Many of you were there at our dinner and at the  Saturday event too and we appreciate that.

Thanks also to the Oregon Electric Vehicle Association and our friends and members for bringing their electric vehicles to share with others.

Kacia Brockman explains things

I was impressed by the standing-room-only presentation provided by Kacia Brockman. Her topic was Solar: The ABC’s of Residential Solar Financing and she talked about the differences between leasing a solar system and owning it. This choice is hotly debated within the residential solar market and I’ll write about this later. In the meantime, Kacia said she’d post her presentation on the Solar Oregon website, so look for it there soon.

We had several past board members stop by our meeting to say hello and show support – thanks guys, it was great to meet you!  Claire presented the highlights of this past year, and we celebrated our successes, and acknowledged our solar ambassadors and dedicated volunteers.  In all, the event was well worth taking most of my Saturday afternoon.

One door closes …

Kathy Bash (R) chats with Imogen Taylor at NW Solar Expo

Kathy Bash announced she is leaving the board of directors. Kathy was the President of Solar Oregon when I first became involved with the organization. Her dedication, passion and leadership compelled me to join the board and I will miss her terribly. She tells us she’ll still be involved with the Goal Net Zero

Kathy conducted many workshops for Solar Oregon

Interest Group to teach others about net zero energy design and construction … and that’s a blessing.

Kathy is a LEED accredited professional with a Master of Architecture Degree and a Certificate for Teaching Technology in Architecture from the University of Oregon.

You may recognize her from the movie “Deep Green” written and directed by Oregon’s Matt Briggs. Kathy was interviewed for this documentary and I’d like to honor her by sharing a part of it with my readers. I embedded a clip from the movie to give you some idea how important Kathy is to the sustainability community in our region.

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFhwYjcVvlY

“All I know is, I’m alive now and I can do something today, and I can’t in good conscience wait for somebody else to do it. I think the time is now; for me the time is absolutely now. It’s the only time anybody has”. ~ Kathy Bash from “Deep Green” (2010)

Pictures from the annual meeting - World Trade Center, Portland, Oregon

Fall is the time for colorful LEAFs

 

Cindy Hickman shows off her LEAF to Doug and Jason

 Claire Carlson welcomed the attendees

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

 

 SA Anders of the Citizen’s Utility Board (CUB) also presented at our meeting.

Chad Biasi of EV4Oregon was there too!

http://solaroregon.org/events/solar-oregon-annual-meeting-1/view

We hope to see you next year at our 33rd annual celebration!    Go Solar!  Go Oregon!

Solar Oregon is a chapter of the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) http://www.ases.org/

Jun 10

27

Deep Green

Posted by Mac on June 27, 2010
Posted in Rants, Raves & Musings  | Tagged With: , , , , , , | No Comments yet, please leave one

Deep Green (the movie) "We can fix this"

Several people recommended I watch a film that was premiering at the Bagdad Theater this past week.  It is titled Deep Green: A Feature Documentary and it was created by a local filmmaker, Matt Briggs, who wrote, produced, directed and starred in this feature-length movie. I took their advice and saw it Friday night and now I’m the one doing the recommending.  Everyone should see Deep Green – pure and simple. 

It is a message movie about our planet and sustainability.  Sure, that’s on my radar, but another reason I’m taken with it is because portions were filmed in Oregon, and I know several of the people featured in this documentary.  Matt Briggs, an exotic mushroom picker from Oregon, created this film after years of witnessing the slow decline of Oregon’s forests.  Briggs decided he had to take personal responsibility to find solutions to the global warming problem, both at home and abroad, and this led to him to making this documentary devoted exclusively to showing us how to de-carbonize energy and restore the natural world.

A common refrain of climate change deniers is that countries like China and India, places growing and polluting the environment at rapid rates, aren’t doing anything to reduce their own carbon emissions, so why should we?  (I know, this sounds like an elementary school excuse to me too…)  So Briggs takes us on a compelling journey to nine countries, including China, and highlights China’s surging interest in sustainability and the fact that their government is spending seven times more than ours to combat global warming.  Indeed, one of the best things about this movie is that Briggs shows us the diverse methods other countries are doing to conserve, create clean energy, and improve environmental sustainability.  He contrasted what Asia and Europe are doing with things we’re doing here in Oregon and other places in America.  He featured global clean energy companies such as SolarWorld and his message is clear – we all play a part in fixing the mess we’ve made since the industrial revolution.

One of my favorite parts of this feature included two marvelous short subject animations by the award-winning Bent Image Lab entitled “Trees” and “The Krill is Gone”.   In an entertaining and non-preachy way, these shorts warn about the devastating effects of clear-cutting rainforests and burning carbon for energy on the fragile ecosystems within our oceans.  The engaging animation sequences used throughout the feature itself, meant to connect with a diverse audience, were quite effective and world-class CG in my opinion.

Oh, and I thought it only fitting that our own Kathy Bash (President of Solar Oregon) had the last word in the movie!

#####

Next viewing opportunity in Portland is Thursday, July 1 @ 7:00pm at the Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium inside the Portland Art Center – 1219 SW Park Avenue. 

http://deepgreenmovie.com/

I’m not sure where this movie will be distributed next, but I assume this link to the DEEP GREEN website will have details on when this film will be available at a theater near you.  I wouldn’t be surprised if cable TV, such as Planet Green channel, picks this film up and promotes it. And of course there’s always DVD!