November 2024
Sustainable Warwick Minutes
November 20, 2024
Meeting chair: Michael Helme
The meeting began with an introduction of members, particularly because a few new members joined us.
Discussion
The main discussion centered around a Warwick neighbor sharing his experience with electrifying their whole home. After living a fairly low-carbon lifestyle in Brooklyn, they found themselves in their new home being dependent on fossil fuels. The main steps his family took were:
Installing a geothermal heat pump, which heats and cools their house while also providing hot water, all without burning fossil fuels
Adopting electric vehicles when their older gas-powered vehicle was ready to retire
Installing a heat pump clothes dryer
What about getting solar panels? Photovoltaic systems are supposed to work for 25 years or so, and in the next two or three years, we may all have access to perovskite panels, which will potentially create electricity from sunlight much more efficiently. So our neighbor’s plan is to wait to make that investment until those better panels are available. In the meantime, their family is signed up for community solar.
These are the kinds of conversations with neighbors Sustainable Warwick plans to support in 2025 and the years ahead. If you have heat pumps in your home, please complete this survey to let us know what you like and dislike about your experience with them. We’re planning a community seminar on heat pumps early in 2025.
Committee Updates
SW Pollinator Pathway - Our committee continues to meet and work on projects. Earlier in November we harvested seeds from common milkweed pods, and put them in seed packets that were made available at the Farmers Market for a suggested donation of $2. Roughly 25 packets were distributed. Please let us know if you would like a packet of common milkweed seeds.
We are planning a Winter Seed Sowing Workshop that will be held on Saturday, January 25th, 1-3 PM, at the Main Lodge of Mountain Lake Park. Details are still to be finalized, but we’ll sow some seeds for the pickleball court garden in the Park along with enough extra for participants to take plants home.
On Tuesday, December 10th, we’ll have our final work session of the year in Mountain Lake Park. We’ll gather near the pickleball courts, probably around 8 AM (please contact us for time adjustments due to weather concerns). pollinators@sustainablewarwick.org
Transformation Trails - This project is now operating separately under the Community2gether umbrella, but the Town of Warwick has pledged to move forward with developing the Transformation Trails section of Wickham Woodlands and a new steering committee is being formed.
Compost Committee - Sunday, November 24th, was the last day of food scrap collections of a very successful and fun year for this committee. The 2024 Farmers Market season donations brought 16,000 lbs of food scraps to the compost pile! Thanks to the incredible Warwick community for your enthusiasm and support.
On Monday, November 18th, volunteers gathered at Dan Doyle’s Oasis at Warwick farm to sift the compost from last year’s collection. A total of 50 cubic feet of finished compost was bagged and delivered to the Warwick Community Garden to replenish their soil for planting next spring. Still lots more ready for sifting and bagging and the newer pile will continue to decompose for next year! More photos of the busy volunteers and the delivery to the community garden can be seen on the SW Facebook page.
The committee has decided not to collect compost this winter at Price Chopper, but will continue to work on the challenge of making composting opportunities more easily available for community members. Toward that end they have recently visited the Philipstown community food scraps program to glean information and see first hand how a successful community program is operated. Stay tuned for more on that as it develops! garden@sustainablewarwick.org
Sustainable World Book Club: In November we read Not The End of the World, by Hannah Ritchie, who has found some very positive ways to look at data concerning sustainability of our planet. The library system has many copies of this book, and you will probably find it uplifting or stimulating or both.
Our next book will be the novel After World. Debbie Urbanski, the author, will join our next meeting, which will be held via Zoom on Tuesday, December 10th, at 3 PM. BookClub@sustainablewarwick.org
Seminar Planning - Similar to the heat pump survey and seminar mentioned above, a new committee is planning to hold seminars on the various ways community members can share their experiences related to adopting sustainable alternatives, such as through home energy efficiency, EVs, and solar panels. If you are interested in joining this committee, whether to support one or more of these topics, please let us know. cleanenergy@sustainablewarwick.org
Closing Discussion
We concluded the meeting by discussing the advantages and challenges for New York’s upcoming Cap & Invest program, which few of us seem to be aware of. Also, how will local residents respond to the new congestion pricing in New York City?