InBerkeley

If you’re in Berkeley and concerned that global warming will cause sea levels to rise, you may want to be sure you’re east of San Pablo Ave. Even if sea level rises 14 meters you’ll stay dry according this interactive flood map, which shows how familiar land contours will change as the oceans rise.

Other parts of the Bay Area don’t fare so well. According to the map, even a 1 meter rise will inundate SFO, Foster City and other parts of San Mateo and Santa Clara County shoreline.

Environment, General, Green, Issues

The 636 solar panels atop the new Berkeley Bowl West building at 920 Heinz Street in Berkeley must be doing their job pretty well.  Tomorrow, the market’s owners are receiving a $167,029 solar energy rebate check from PG&E.

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, representatives from PG&E and Sun Light & Power President Gary Gerber will be on hand, too, no doubt to promote solar energy, boast about what a great job they’re doing and to get their photos taken. In preparation for tomorrow’s event, southeastern Berkeley and parts of the downtown area were plunged into darkness early this morning to remind citizens of just how important electricity is to our daily lives. No word on whether Berkeley Bowl West was affected by the blackout or not.

The solar panels atop the acclaimed Berkeley Bowl West facility are expected to produce 149,633 kilowatts of electricity per year, and were installed by Berkeley-based by Sun Light & Power.

You, too, can attend the rebate-receiving ceremony. It will take place at noon on Friday at the Berkeley Bowl West.

Architecture, Business, Environment, Events, Government, Green, Politics, West Berkeley

Chloe, the pennywise reporter on Broke-Ass Stuart’s Goddamn Website, recently posted a wonderful account of how to make a garden in Berkeley for free. In the course of it, she introduced me to something I’d never heard of — the Bay Area Seed Interchange Library, or BASIL.

BASIL is part of Berkeley’s Ecology Center, on San Pablo Avenue. It’s a natural counterpart of another Berkeley social innovation, the city’s Tool Lending Library. Here’s BASIL’s own description:

The Bay Area Seed Interchange Library (BASIL) Project is part of a growing network of concerned farmers and community gardeners dedicated to conserving the remaining genetic diversity of our planet’s seed stock. We have created a library of healthy vegetable, herb, and flower seeds that are being made available free to the public.

Members of BASIL can sign out seeds for free, with the agreement that they try to grow them and will “return” seeds of the next generation at the end of the season. A fabulous idea.

Environment, Green, Green living

Bill McKibben, the prolific author and activist who has started an organization in Berkeley to stop global warming, got a chance to make his case on Stephen Colbert’s show on Aug. 18.

McKibben explained to Colbert that the name of his organization, 350.org. represents the safe upper limit of parts per million of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Unfortunately, the globe already has 390 ppm, and McKibben is advocating strong measures to bring those level down. 350.org, which is located in the new David Brower Center in Berkeley, is organizing a global day of action on October 24.

Environment, General, Green

I just came across a helpful guide to making your garden bee friendly published by scientists at the Center for Natural Resources at UC Berkeley. The work is led by professor Gordon Frankie, who has been studying bees for three decades. In addition to the astounding information that little Berkeley is home to 81 different species of bee, I didn’t know that most bees we see here are non-social:

Unlike honey bees, most native California bees are non-social in habit, meaning they make individual nests. Limited knowledge exists about where these bees nest in urban environments, however, three general nesting habits are known of solitary native bees: The most common is the ground nesting habit, and probably 85% or more of species build their nests in some type of soil.

Students at the university’s journalism school have created a multimedia site based on Frankie’s work with some helpful instructional videos.

Photo by Maggz from Flickr

Green, UC Berkeley

You’ve got to love BioFuel Oasis. First off, this women-run cooperative launched, in 2003, the only bio-diesel station in the East Bay (and possibly the whole Bay for all I know) out of a run-down warehouse in west Berkeley.

Now they have taken over a 1933 (traditional) gas station that had seen better days and, largely with their own sweat equity, transformed it into, well, a veritable oasis.

The place looks great — with planters under canopies and solar panels keeping the whole place powered up.

BioFuel Oasis is run by Novella Carpenter, Jennifer Radtke, Margaret Farrow, Ace Anderson and Melissa Hardy and it’s having its official grand opening celebration on Saturday July 18, noon to 5pm. There will be “grillin’ and chillin” with free food and non-alcoholic drinks, a live band and — wait for it — a fuel filter changing rodeo.

It’s free and all are welcome. Find details here.

Business, Events, Green, Green living, Retail Business, Green, Retail

Novella Carpenter, author of the recently published Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, is offering a class on keeping chickens in Berkeley on July 26.

“Backyard Chickens 101″will  cover coop building, nutrition, city ordinances, chick care, health, and troubleshooting. “Egg-y snacks” will also be offered. The class costs $25, but scholarships are available thanks to a Rainbow Grocery Coop grant.

Carpenter is also one of the founder of Berkeley’s BioFuel Oasis and information about the class can be found on its website or by phoning  510-665-5509.

Future classes include beekeeping taught by Jennifer Radtke and a biodiesel home-brew class.

Also see Frances Dinkelspiel’s InBerkeley post on dumpster diving with Carpenter.

[Photo credit: www.bantamboutique.com]

Events, Green, Green living Environment, Events, Green living, Nature

From Inhabitat (subtitled “Design will save the world”):

Engineering students at UC Berkeley recently showcased a slick solar race car clad in photovoltaic panels that looks for all the world like UFO hovering a few feet over the earth.

Dubbed the GoldRush, the vehicle is completely powered by the sun’s rays and is capable of hitting an impressive top speed of 50 miles per hour without using a single drop of gas.

Read the full story here.

Environment, Green, University Environment, Green design, UC Berkeley

One of InBerkeley’s favorite local bloggers, economist Brad DeLong, recorded a familiar Berkeley sight. As another Berkeley Prius-driving family, we’ve become blasé about seeing Priuses at every turn. When we bought our Prius from Toyota of Berkeley, we were told that they sold more Priuses than any other dealership in the country.

The comments on Brad’s posts, incidentally, reckon there are more Prius-intensive cities in the US. I’m dubious.

Environment, Green

Walking the Market with Bill Fujimoto and Chef Paul Canales from Oliveto Community on Vimeo.

InBerkeley wrote last week about the unexpected departure of Bill and Judy Fujimoto from Monterey Market. You can see what the market may be missing in the video shot last week of Bill Fujimoto touring Berkeley’s Derby Street farmers’ market with Oliveto chef Paul Canales.

Food, Green

No, that isn’t Berkeley. It’s the bicycle nirvana of Amsterdam, where in addition to cycle-friendly streets there is ample, secure parking for bikes. We wrote yesterday about an important step in advancing Berkeley’s bike-friendliness, with the commitment to an improved bike store for the Downtown Berkeley BART station. I spoke today to Robert Raburn, executive director of the East Bay Bicycle Coalition, about the future of cycling in Berkeley.

InBerkeley What are the key issues for bicycling in Berkeley?

Robert Raburn The three biggest issues everywhere are access, safety and security. Berkeley has done a good job, particularly in implementing the bike boulevard plan. But it doesn’t mean everything is hunkydory. There’s a need for regular tweaking to make Berkeley a place that continues to encourage bicyclists.

IB Has the city been helpful?

RR The council and mayor have been responsive. The mayor walks everywhere and he’s proud of it. You don’t find that in a lot of cities. We had a good showing at the council’s December meeting [when plans for the Downtown bike store were approved]. Bicycle advocacy is alive and well in Berkeley.

We want issues like security for bikes to be BART’s responsibility and to be Berkeley’s responsibility. The bike store is funded by BART, Berkeley and Safe Routes to Transit. That’s beautiful. We’ve been able to achieve this cooperation. But it’s taken since 2005 to get here.

IB What’s next?

RR We need continued implementation of parking at all three Berkeley BART stations. They are all high-theft stations. North Berkeley is jammed with bikes, and there’s a lot of theft.

There are also issues with the Ohlone Greenway. The seismic retrofit on BART will disrupt travel on the Greenway. We want to make sure there’s a replacement design. And we’re looking to extend it south.

The major issue, however, is to really make all of our streets bike friendly. You have real black spots like Gilman near the freeway. There’s been some progress on bike lanes, but cyclists need better access to the sports fields on the other side of the freeway.

IB Are there any specific events coming up?

RR The EBBC is providing valet bike parking at the July 4th event at the Berkeley Marina. People will love that.

Photo by Saitor from Flickr

Green

Streetsblog reports that the bike station at the Downtown Berkeley BART station will be expanded. The new bike station, in the now-vacant Shoe Pavilion store on Shattuck, will have room for 200 bikes. It will replace the current station, which is inside the BART station.

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According to Streetsblog:

The new bike station is at least partially the result of successful lobbying from the East Bay bicycle community, including the EBBC and Bicycle Friendly Berkeley, which saved the proposal after it neared the brink of losing funding late last year.

The new station will be paid for by a mixture of a Safe Routes to Transit (SR2T) grant, a program funded by Regional Measure 2, and contributions from BART ($53,000 per year) and the city of Berkeley ($60,000 per year). BART is also paying the utilities, estimated at $24,000 per year.

The SR2T grant, which is managed by TransForm and EBBC, was in serious danger of being forfeited last December, when its three-year term was set to expire if Berkeley didn’t contribute its portion of the funding. Advocates showed up in force to the December 8 meeting of the Berkeley City Council [see photo above], concerned that the Council would not provide the funding, or would support a stripped-down proposal for a less visible station located in an existing auto parking garage. District 3 BART Director Bob Franklin also strongly urged the council to take action at the meeting.

These efforts paid off, as the Council unanimously approved providing $60,000 annually in funding for the expanded station, and TransForm consequently extended the grant’s term.

The new bike station will also include bicycle repair, bicycle rentals, showers and lockers, and community bike education classes.

[gmap]

Photo from EBBC

Downtown, Green

I was speaking this morning to a distinguished scientist who spent last week at the PV America conference in Philadelphia. Photovoltaics is one of the world’s fastest growing industries, and 4,000 buoyant participants crowded the convention center. According to my informant, one of the big buzzes at this event was the Berkeley FIRST financing initiative.

Berkeley FIRST enables property owners to borrow money from the city’s Sustainable Energy Financing District to install solar PV electric systems. The cost is repaid over 20 years through an annual charge on the property owner’s tax bill. Slots for the first 38 homes in the pilot project were sold out within nine minutes of applications going live in November.

Photo by Solares from Flickr

Green

Today marks the grand opening of Local 123 Cafe at 2049 San Pablo in Berkeley (between University and Addison, on the east side of the street). I’m often on that block on foot and have watched the progress of the construction with interest and I went to check it out this morning and take some photos.

The storefront is not very eye-catching from the street, but there’s a wooden sign hanging over the sidewalk.

Local 123 Cafe from the median strip of San Pablo, looking north

From the sidewalk the sign is more prominent.

Local 123 from the sidewalk

The ambiance is spare but inviting and the prices are reasonable.

Front counter and drinks board

Out of sight until you’re almost upon it is a little nook in the back with couches and a door to a small but sunny (at least this morning) patio.

Cozy nook and back patio

I’m by no means an expert, but I very much enjoyed my cappuccino and pain au chocolat. They’ve got a good selection of coffee drinks, teas, pastries (including vegan donuts), and sandwiches.

Events, Food, General, Green, Internet, Retail Local 123, West Berkeley