Now or Never

theGreenScreen.tv Episode 012: A Dozen Solutions

2011-06-08T05:17:00.001-07:00

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In A Dozen Solutions theGreenScreen.tv visits The ribbon-cutting for the Hoop House at South Berwick's Central Elementary and how this project in growing, cooking and eating local food combines with the landscape efforts of Terrence Parker to create a an outdoor classroom. Visited for the ribbon-cutting by US Congresswoman, Chellie Pingree, the projects combine to connect kids to the land and food that it creates that is all around them. In Meredith, New Hampshire, a successful effort to revive and old mill building into a hotel the Inn at Mill Falls has become an engine to revitalize a community. And Tom Jackson brings a selection form his upcoming film, At Any Cost, about the underside of select coal and petroleum businesses.

theGreenScreen.tv 011 The Mission

2011-05-24T09:54:00.001-07:00

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Host Bill Rogers speaks with Zach Smith of The Last Environment, an organization that works with local communities to educate a diverse global audience in compelling and often last-chance locations with a focus on earth system science, social justice solutions and sustainability. Dyanna Smith (no relation to Zach) is president of Red Eft Organization whose mission is to assist other organizations in issues around sustainability. She speak of their first Whaleback Film Festival in Portsmouth, NH and presents a clip from the Audience Award winning film, Beyond Denial."

theGreenScreen.tv Episode 010 Portsmouth, NH, USA

2011-05-16T08:26:00.001-07:00

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theGreenScreen.tv host Bill Rogers speaks with:

Bert Cohen of Sustainable Portsmouth about creating system change in what Bert calls the eco municipality of Portsmouth.

Kim McGlynchee teaches science at Portsmouth High School and advises students at their eco-club.

Jerry Monkman brings his film, "The Anderson Farm" which leads off the Whaleback Film

theGreenScreen.tv Episode 009 The Green Alliance

2011-05-11T06:12:00.001-07:00

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Host Bill Rogers speaks with Sarah Brown about the rapidly growing Green Alliance of NH, southern Maine and northern Massachusetts. Sarah tells how the organization joins businesses with interested consumers and supporters of green and how each are connected by the organization.

We see the connection as we go along for a Green Alliance Cruise on the Isle of Shoals Steamship's Thomas Leighton as it cruises the harbor.

Bill also catches up with Dennis Randall of Earthtec Sustainable Lifestyle Clothing about how recycled bottles can be put to use in creating fabric for some of the clothing they create. Dennis speak of the wider vision of the company in creating a better connection to the place we live, with clothing to meet the challenges of the natural environment.

theGreenScreen.tv Episode 008 Food & Motion

2011-05-01T15:38:00.001-07:00

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theGreenScreen.tv host Bill Rogers speaks with

Phil Hughes of the Black Bean Cafe in Rollinsford, NH talks about wanting to create a place where "everybody knows your name."

Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Organic tells of the connection between what we eat and how we live and shows this connection with the first Stonyfield 5K Road Race. Add to this a dancing cow and snow and rain in late April and you have the recipe for some inspiration to run!

Kathy Gunst, chef and cookbook author and John Forrti of Strawberry Banke take Michelle Obama's initiative "Let's Move" to heart as they spur 400 students at Central School in South Berwick, Maine to plant seeds for the food they can eat.

And Doug Willey of the Dover New Hampshire ReStore, a division of Habitat for Humanity tells how recycled building material can help out homeowenrs with economical used ; supplies as landfills are saved from being a larger repository and funds from ReStore sales are used to build homes for more people.

theGreenScreen.tv Episode 007: Service

2011-04-25T12:34:00.001-07:00

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theGreenScreen.tv host Bill Rogers speaks with Mary Doyle, Publicity Director with the York County, Maine Shelter Programs. She explains how they have found that saving energy as they create energy through renewables has saved taxpayers plenty of funds even as residents have been helped through better facilities that they care about.

Jennifer Lewis-McShera speaks of how Clay Hill Farm in Cape Neddick,Maine has brought the eco-benefits of their restaurant and banquet facility to celebrate the many shades of green the place inspires. In their Green Wedding Giveaway they have brought hundreds of thousands to celebrate how commitment to a wedding partner can be a model to live green.

Peter Frumhoff, senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, continues his series Ask the Scientist with a look on what CAN be done to combat the worst aspects of climate change.

theGreenScreen.tv Episode 006: Local and Hyper Local

2011-04-18T06:07:00.001-07:00

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theGreenScreen.tv host Bill Rogers speaks with members of our local community.

Rian Bedard runs eco movement consulting & hauling whose power and rationale comes from the compost all around us. Rian brings a clip from one day in the life of a compost hauler and shows us where it all goes.

Ann Bliss is a board member of SeaREI, the Seacoast Area Renewable Energy Inititiative, which brings the concept of barn raisers to solar with their "energy raisers" in which members assist one another to put more solar on more homes and businesses.

Dan Freund brings his shortstream.tv which looks to the very local Portsmouth community as inspiration for media as immediate as it is short.

theGreenScreen.tv Episode 005: the .org show 2

2011-04-16T02:07:00.001-07:00

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In Episode 005 of theGrenScreen.tv we visit the University of New Hampshire and student "Casey on Campus" who presents how others can follow her lead and take facts and figures to their school's administration to get real and positive action on campus climate change. Host Bill Rogers speaks with Bill Burtis of the connection between organizations and the political landscape of New Hampshire as it relates to energy and climate. We look at the Clean Air - Cool Planet sponsored conference on energy policy with visits from 2007 presidential candidates Mike Huckabee, Bill Richardson, John McCain and Dennis Kucinich. Then Senator Barack Obama presents his energy plan in Portsmouth while a 2007 candidate for President. Dari Sassan of the NH Office of Energy and Planning and Tom Rooney of TRC Energy Services Group present on the recent Local Energy Solutions Conference. And our Bald Guy on Climate Change visits his mom to learn of a pioneer in thermal solar energy. Peter Frumhoff of the Union of Concerned Scientists continues in his series "Ask the Scientist" to address how human actions can be a primary driver of climate change.

theGreenScreen.tv Episode 005: the .org show 2

2011-04-11T07:03:00.001-07:00

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In Episode 005 of theGrenScreen.tv host Bill Rogers speaks with Bill Burtis of the connection between organizations and the political landscape of New Hampshire as it relates to energy and climate.

We look at the Clean Air - Cool Planet sponsored conference on energy policy with visits from 2007 presidential candidates Mike Huckabee, Bill Richardson, John McCain and Dennis Kucinich,

Barack Obama present his energy plan in Portsmouth while a 2007 candidate for President.

At the University of New Hampshire Casey on Campus ; presents on how students can take facts and figures to their school's administration to get real and positive action on campus climate change.

Dari Sassan of the NH Office of Energy and Planning and Tom Rooney of TRC Energy Services Group present on the recent Local Energy Solutions Conference.

And our Bald Guy on Climate Change visits his mom to learn of a pioneer in thermal solar energy.

Peter Frumhoff of the Union of Concerned Scientists continues in his series "Ask the Scientist" to address how human actions can be a primary driver of climate change.

theGreenScreen.tv Episode 004: the .org show

2011-04-05T11:29:00.001-07:00

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In Episode 004 of theGrenScreen.tv host Bill Rogers speaks with Beth Tener of New Directions Collaborative who brings clips from

-Mt. Wachusett Community College and their move from energy laggard to leaders.

-Beth also presents how Health Care Without Harm helped Boston Hospitals take a wider view of health by integrating sustainability to a community both inside and around the hospital structures.

We also speak with media relations executive Bill Burtis, media who tells how Clean Air - Cool Planet and their affiliate NE Carbon Challenge ; find the solutions embedded in communities.

In a Now or Never Podcast we learn of the formation of the NE Carbon Challenge as Julia Dundorf and Denise Balha combine forces to teach their friends and neighbors how they can "Save 10,000 pounds."

Finally we see a clip from the recent My Energy Plan video contest featuring Ted Johnson and the work he has done around his house to make the most of the energy all around him.

theGreenScreen.tv Episode 003 HD: Build Me Green

2011-03-28T13:44:00.001-07:00

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In episode 003: Build Me Green theGreenScreen.tv host Bill Rogers looks at green innovative projects from historical to the latest in contemporary building. First it's the historical renovation of James Petersen's engineering offices. Assisted by Michael Bruss and Bruss construction the sequence asks if historical renovation and energy efficiency can be combined. In the last sequence Shane Carter of Ridgeview Construction uses structured insulated panels to make a new home efficient enough to be near energy zero, where the home's energy system can generate more energy than the house consumes.

theGreenScreen.tv 002 from NESEA

2011-03-20T08:25:00.001-07:00

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theGreenScreen.tv comes to you from the Building Energy 11 Conference and Trade Show at the Seaport Trade Center in Boston. Brought to you by NESEA (Northeastern Sustainable Energy Association). Host Bill Rogers speaks with a wide range of attendees of the events including:

Joerg Gaebler of Wagner & Comapny
Jack Bingham of SEA Solar Store
Peter Crawley of EBI Consulting
Mike Lassel of Lassel Architects
Phil Kaplan of Kaplan Thompson Architects
Scott Szycher of the Green Alliance
Dr. Ricky Stern of "E' Inc.
Laurie Leyshon of MAGJC
Ed Whitaker of Thermal Storage Solutions
and others

Green Lunch is iE! TV

2010-02-20T13:33:00.001-08:00

We're gettign our live stream Ã¢ÂÂ iE! TV live together. We're getting up to speed for the upcoming NESEA (Northeast Sustainable Energy Association) which will be at the Boston Tradeport Center in early March.

NoworNever 008: Mountain Hearing

2009-05-08T09:59:00.001-07:00

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NOW OR NEVER is a series of stories for television and web broadcast about people taking action and becoming part of the solution to climate change. In this episode we'll take you to the top of Cannon Mountain in Franconia New Hampshire where a sub-committee of the US Congress met to discuss the impact of climate change. In this short clip you'll see an exchange that surprised us.

Snow and Climate

2008-02-18T22:34:00.000-08:00

February 13, 2008

Another snow day here on the seacoast, the fourth already this winter. Unfortunately the snow has turned to freezing rain so it’s not a great day for sledding or snowmen, and the driving is too sloppy to sneak in a ski day. I’d rather have my kids in school today since at this rate, they won’t finish the school year until late in June. But if you love winter, this has been a winter to love.

Does a good snowy winter like winters of old mean that climate change isn’t happening? To answer that, you have to look beyond the immediate weather and look at long-term trends – that’s the difference between the weather and the climate. Also, you have to look beyond your own back yard.

I asked Cam Wake, a good friend of Now or Never and a research associate professor at University of New Hampshire’s Institute for Earth, Oceans and Space, how he answers this question. He just finished a study on changes in winter climate across the Northeast US using the most comprehensive analysis done to date. The data show that winters have been warming over the past four decades at an average of .77 degrees F per decade, and that snow-covered days have been decreasing at a rate of 2.6 days per decade. That adds up to about 3 degrees and 10 fewer snow days over in my 40+ year lifespan. I’ll let you know what Cam has to say when I hear from him.

So I’m really treasuring this winter, and so are my kids. We love to ski, to be outside when it’s cold, to skate on nearby ponds, to listen to the silence of snow falling in the woods, even to lose power at home (if it doesn’t last too long!) when the cold icy winds knock trees down on nearby power lines. It brings us back to the basics of being New Englanders.

MP

The Wire

2008-02-18T22:31:00.000-08:00

January 31, 2008

Our local freebie newspaper, The Wire, came out today with a nice spread about Now or Never. Click here to see “Lights, Camera, Climate Change Action”. It’s a pretty good article about our project though it stresses the web-based components of the project more than the longer format programs for broadcast. Now or Never is doing both – we’re developing dozens of stories as part of the larger documentary series and along the way, we’re putting out short vignettes, our “podcast”, so people can get excited about the stories we’re telling and share their own with us.

Check it out at
http://www.wirenh.com/Film/Film__general/lights%2C_camera%2C_climate_change_action_200802072743.html

MP

The Ice

2008-02-18T22:27:00.000-08:00

January 28, 2008

What an awesome day! Bill and I spent the day with David and CC White, our New Hampshire homesteading friends, and a small crowd of hard-working people on Squam Lake for the annual Rockywold- Deep Haven ice cutting event. For over one hundred years, this family camp on the shores of the lake has been cutting thousands of blocks of ice from the cove and packing it away in ice houses to use for refrigeration during their busy summer season. It’s probably the longest-running ice harvest in the Northeast, and Norman Lyford has been running it for the last 63 years. He’s a taciturn guy – I asked him what changes he’s seen over the years. He paused for awhile and said, “Not much really, except we used to use hosses”. That would be “horses” to the rest of us.

The ice was pretty good this year – 14 inches thick, about half was black ice and half snow ice. This is just the right thickness, since they can’t cut it if it’s more than 16 inches thick since that’s the diameter of the saw they have, rigged up on something that looks sort of like a snowblower. It’s a carefully executed process of plowing the frozen cove, cutting a channel that will connect the ice fields to a loading ramp, then scoring the field with the ice cutter so it will produce about 280 blocks of ice 20”x20”x14” each, at a time. It’s like watching a giant checkerboard get laid out on the lake. It’s really a precision process so that no body or equipment falls in the icy water. After everything’s scored, Norm and the front guys work row by row to break the last inch of ice free with their pokers, then it gets herded along down the channel toward the loading ramp. It was fun to prod the bobbing blocks of ice, sort of like herding sheep and lining them up. Then, 5 at a time, the loaders used a motorized winch to pull them up into the beds of waiting pick up trucks, which take them to the ice houses to get stacked and packed with sawdust. There they’ll sit till summer. Rockywold used to use them for all their refrigeration but now it’s more of a nostalgic touch – a block of ice is brought to each cabin once a week to keep drinks colds.

But David and CC hauled about 150 blocks to their ice house in Sandwich which they’ll use for an entire year’s worth of refrigeration. The ice, along with their new solar-powered, high efficiency freezers, provides all the cooling they need.

Very cool.

MP