Urban Hippie by Jen Lahey is published every second Tuesday at OttawaMagazine.com. Follow Jen on Twitter ‏@Jen_Lahey.

Last week’s balmy weather brought a song to mind: a 1933 Irving Berlin classic, with those breezy lyrics, “we’re having a heat wave / a tropical heat wave.” And surely, there will be more heat waves to come as we trundle toward the heart of summer in Ottawa.

Luckily, there are things you can do to cool down your living quarters without spending a lot of coin, and without wasting a lot of resources in the mix. Herewith, five easy ways to stay fresh, keep the inside temp from driving you batty, and actually enjoy the heat waves of summertime.

Start with the basics: cool air in, hot air out. In the mornings, get in the habit of closing windows, and keep them covered with drapes, blinds or shutters, especially on the western and southern sides of your house. When (and if) it cools off in the evening, open those puppies up and let the fresh air in to cool things off.

I.D. hot spots: Electronics and appliances both generate a ton of heat, so shut off as many of these as possible during the day when you’re not home. (Little things like this add up when it comes to energy conservation, and when it comes to keeping your home from getting too hot.) TIP: Keep electronics plugged in to a power strip so it’s easy to shut them off with the flick of a switch when you’re set to leave for the day.

Invest in ceiling fans: And make sure these energy-savers are set to push air downwards (many fans have two settings). While you’re at it, your oscillating fans can be put to better use, too, MacGuyver style: set a bowl of ice in front of your fan and let the power of the blades blow the now-icy air blissfully throughout the room.

Attack humidity: If there’s one thing Ottawans like to talk about, it’s weather, and when we do, we talk about the humidity. Humidity makes any heat wave feel, well, muckier. Invest in a dehumidifier and see how much less sticky the air feels.

Cook Smart: Plot your cooking strategically in the warm weather. Turning on a stove to cook a meal can leave your home toasty for hours afterward. Instead, cook pasta or potatoes early in the cool of the morning to be used in cold salads at dinner time, and think about making better use of crockpots, outdoor grills and your microwave if you’re cooking later in the day when the temperature heats up.

Local tulips. Photography by Becca Wallace.

Urban Hippie by Jen Lahey is published every second Tuesday at OttawaMagazine.com. Follow Jen on Twitter ‏@Jen_Lahey.

Spring, we think we can safely say, has sprung. And for a lot of Ottawans, that means getting our hands dirty prepping our lawns and gardens for the sunny season to come. Indeed, it’s prime time to get the gardens up and running again — but now that Ontario has banned the use of pesticides, what’s an Urban Hippie to do to keep his greenery healthy and productive?

For the answers, the UH turned a man who knows of such things: Peter Rofner is the president and owner of The Richmond Nursery, Ottawa’s one-stop for everything-under-the-sun gardening, and he knows a thing or two (or a thousand) about the ways of the garden. He says there are three things you should be thinking about to keep your garden happy and healthy, sans chemical help.

Prevention, prevention, prevention. Getting ahead of the game is key to preventing your green space from becoming overrun with pests — once you’ve got them, there’s far less you can do. Take fungus, for example: Rofner advises preventing it altogether by ensuring that you’ve got good airflow amongst your plants by spacing them out. (If you do run into a problem with said fungi, he notes that there are biofungicides, comprised of bacteria, on the market that will take care of the problem, and are better than conventional remedies because they don’t become resistant.)

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The Urban Hippie finds three fine ways to celebrate Earth Day in the capital

Urban Hippie by Jen Lahey is published every second Tuesday at OttawaMagazine.com. Follow Jen on Twitter ‏@Jen_Lahey.

We like to think of April as the festive time of year for Urban Hippies. Why? Not just because the sun is finally starting to put in some real face time, and the advent of farmer’s markets is tantalizingly close, but also because April 22 marks the annual worldwide Earth Day, the celebration of all things eco. To help you fete in style, we tracked down three of Ottawa’s best ways to mark the green holiday season.

The Ottawa Living Green Expo. This event promises to be a blow-out of epic proportions, with more than 125 green exhibitors peddling their wares and services. There will also be presentations from green experts, eco-fashion shows, a learning lounge, kids’ activities, and more. Admission is by donation (funds collected will be donated to Ecology Ottawa and the local chapter of Canadian Organic Growers). April 27 and 28. Ottawa Convention Centre, 55 Colonel By Dr..

Earth Month at terra20. Ottawa’s repository for all things green decided to forgo celebrating a single day, and go all-out with a month-long celebration of the earth. Each week in April, the eco-department store will be celebrating a theme and offering solutions around that theme, including cloth and alternative diapering, litterless lunch solutions, waste diversion, and the store’s own ‘ecobar,’ which offers enviro-friendly cleaning products. Catch in-store demos by some of the store’s vendors, plus tons of info. A nice way to get in-the-know about lifestyle solutions, and hey, if you happen to find some environmentally friendly treats for yourself while you’re there, well, it IS the festive season. Ongoing. 2685 Iris St.

Drumming Ceremony. Feel like really getting in touch with your inner Urban Hippie? Celebrate Mother Earth out loud with a drumming ceremony and potluck feast. Organizers are inviting participants to bring something tasty to share, along with your own chair and non-disposable dish, cutlery and water bottle. Drumming starts at 1 p.m. with the chow to follow. April 22. Victoria Island @ the Chaudiere Bridge. earth.mothers@yahoo.ca for more info.

Urban Hippie by Jen Lahey is published every second Tuesday at OttawaMagazine.com. Follow Jen on Twitter ‏@Jen_Lahey.

This week, the City of Ottawa is finally doing something that environmentalists have been pushing it to do for awhile: it’s taking the first step toward addressing its out of date policy on climate change. The city’s Air Quality and Climate Change Management Plan (AQCCMP), which expired at the end of 2012, will finally get the attention of politicians at a Greenhouse Gas Roundtable on March 23.

The AQCCMP was developed in 2004 and set out targets for reducing the city’s greenhouse gas emissions.  So far, the city has made some progress, but hasn’t met its greenhouse gas reduction targets in any of the set out areas, not by a long shot.

A report by Ecology Ottawa, an environmental non-profit in Ottawa, points out that “[i]n 2012, [City] Council received the 2004 and 2008 Greenhouse Gas Inventories, which showed progress at the ‘corporate’ level (against a 30% target, a 12.5% greenhouse gas reduction was achieved, principally by capture and utilization of landfill gas) but not much progress at all at the ‘community’ level (community emissions representing 95% of all local emissions increased 0.9%).”

So what does a group like Ecology Ottawa hope to see happen at this weekend’s Roundtable? According to Trevor Haché, the group’s policy coordinator, two things would make the event a huge win.

First, he wants to see the city actually commit to developing Ottawa’s “next generation climate change action plan, which necessarily includes a focus on community [greenhouse gas] reduction targets consistent with national best practices.”

A second sign of success? Haché says the city needs to put its money where its mouth is and actually commit to a plan, and a timeline for executing that plan, with a goal of completing it within the year 2013.

According to Ecology Ottawa, the city would do well to focus its attention on the following areas to get the biggest bang for its environmental buck: transportation, the building sector, alternative energy and community energy planning /conservation programs, and sustainable land use planning and community greening.

Haché says his group is impressed with the city for even organizing the Roundtable, and that “the leadership being displayed by the Mayor’s office is particularly encouraging.”

Ottawans who want to take part in the Roundtable in person are apparently out of luck: the city has been sending out “we have reached maximum capacity” auto-replies to those members of the public who attempted to RSVP to the event.

Tech savvy Urban Hippies should have no fear, however: Ecology Ottawa will be livetweeting the event using the hashtag #otghg.

Urban Hippie by Jen Lahey is published every second Tuesday atOttawaMagazine.com. Follow Jen on Twitter ‏@Jen_Lahey.

Eating organically grown produce and products is all the rage these days, and the UH got wondering: what exactly does ‘organic’ mean in Canada? When you bite into that delicious apple, or seek out a piece of local, organic chicken, what kind of work has gone into growing it in order for it to have earned the almighty label of ‘organic’?

According to the website of Centre for Systems Integration (CSI), one of Ottawa’s organic certifying bodies, “organic agriculture is an ecological production management system that promotes and enhances biodiversity, biological cycles, and soil biological activity. It is based on minimal use of off-farm inputs and on management practices that restore, maintain, and enhance ecological harmony.”

In order to be certified as ‘organic’, a grower or food producer has to follow a set of guidelines outlined in a Canadian regulation that came into effect on June 24, 2009.  According to CSI’s site, getting certified against the regulations involves “annual on-site inspections of farm fields and processing facilities, detailed record keeping, and periodic testing of soil and water to ensure that growers and handlers are meeting the standards.”

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Urban Hippie by Jen Lahey is published every second Tuesday atOttawaMagazine.com. Follow Jen on Twitter ‏@Jen_Lahey.

Ottawa artist Choleena DiTullio has been making with the art since she was a teenager. After her guidance councilor noticed she needed an art class to graduate, she took the plunge. Until then, she has been on the fast track to becoming a scientist, focusing on the hard sciences and math. Unbeknownst to her, after that fateful class, her art teacher met with her guidance councilor and the two went into cahoots to convince her to go into art as a career. She went on to complete a fine arts degree at Mount Allison University, and doesn’t seem to have taken a rest since. Some twenty-odd years later, her career is flourishing, and her artistic journey has taken on a decidedly eco-bent.

Oh, and she has three shows on this month (details at the bottom of this article).

Below, check out what went down when The Urban Hippie convinced her to submit to a quick and dirty Q and A.

Adirondack Fish integrates every piece of an old Adirondack lawn chair. Even the fish’s teeth are nails. DiTullio says it's thrilling to find ways to recycle large objects into paintings but it allows me to show my respect for the environment in my art.

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