91 year old Robert Lane began his environmental activism in 2006. Along with the residents of New Haven, Conn, Robert formed a “Green Council” to explore how they would make the Whitney Center, their retirement home, a more eco-friendly human habitat. Management at the center made it clear that money had to be conserved along with the environment. So the Green Council looks for ways to save both and have been pressing the management to take action. “They’ve been wonderful on recycling,” says Lane.
American activist over the age of 50 have followed suite with an increasing concern for the environment, with the question “what sort of Earth will we leave for the future generations and what will make our own surrounding healthy to live in?” Most of them have been recycling and conserving fossil fuels while living in their own home and are now forming green committees with like-minded neighbors, after moving to retirement homes.
Robert Lane says. “We have to reduce driving. We have to start thinking in terms of carbon, not money.”
Lane states that everyone starts with the light bulbs. Switching from incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescent is a great achievement. J. Nelson Kling, president of the nonprofit Mennonite Home says, “We have a community of senior residents requesting us to reduce our energy use and our carbon footprint,” He estimates that a single building might have about a thousand sconces illuminating the hallways. He adds that the home saved thousands of dollars in electricity costs after they replaced bulbs.
There are bigger conservation projects of greater impact but have correspondingly bigger price tags. These include; double-pane windows, high-efficiency appliances, low-flow showers, sinks & toilets, native-plant landscaping, rainwater irrigation, and getting off the power grid.
Senior residents of Valle Verde were worried that ways to reduce energy dependency would cost them a lot of money. They got some easy successes early on with things that were inexpensive, and they got some momentum. The following year, the community started installing photovoltaic panels to collect solar power. It also began replacing older boilers with more efficient gas boilers, and utility bills reduced immediately. The community is saving an estimate $100,000.
Nonprofit organizations can afford the latest and greenest technologies through special grants and tax credit when developing new housing for low-income Americans aged 50 and older. One such organization, Berkeley, Calif.-based Satellite Housing, opened the solar-powered Helios Corner, a project that includes 80 rent-subsidized, independent-living apartments for older residents. A hydronic heat system has maintained winter heating bills at $10 to $15 a month per unit, which is significantly lower than the average $60 per unit. The organization is also adding dual-pane windows, solar panels and efficient appliances to the 1970s structures it manages.
