Jack Downs discusses grassroots issues surrounding climate change, sustainability and the green movement. But you won't find any eco-grandstanding here. Downs understands, it's not easy being green.
Is your car running?
Well, you're reading this, so probably not. But maybe you have one of those remote car starters. Or maybe you are so cold-averse that you walk outside, start your car, walk back inside, wait a few minutes, and then go out again.
If your car is running right now, please go turn it off. I'll wait.
OK?
Here's the problem. Cars tend to idle around where people live, work and go to school. That means the lung-damaging pollution is concentrated around us, our workers, our kids when we idle cars, trucks and buses.
I'm not talking about some decades-from-now climate change that the anti-science mob wants us to ignore. I'm talking about pollution linked to asthma, cancer and other serious health problems that shorten lives now.
But when you idle your car, it's only for a few minutes, right?
Really?
You say it's only a few minutes but you know that's not true. After you start the car you finish your coffee, check your email, listen to your phone messages, update your Facebook status ... you get the idea. That "few minutes" quickly becomes 5 or 10 minutes at least. Admit it.
The same thing happens when you are waiting at the grocery store on a "I'll just pick up a couple of things and be out in a second, honey" errand. Or when you pick up your kid at school after a "Don't worry, I'll be out at 3:30 this time" promise.
But are there any good reasons to leave your car running?
Very few. Here's the arguments. For more discussion see this very good "Green Lantern" piece at Slate:
>> Driving a car -- gently during the first few minutes -- is a much faster way to warm the engine than idling on a cold day.
>> Today's non-carburetor engines start very efficiently. The payback in start vs. idle is about 10 seconds. In other words, 10 seconds of idling uses about the same amount of gas as starting.
>> The cost of the wear-and-tear of frequent restarts is easily overcome by the gas savings of not idling.
>> Even modern diesel engines are better off turned off than idling.
>> The only exception is if you have medical condition that makes it dangerous for you to be exposed to the cold.
So, you pull up to the the school to pick up your kid from the dance, play practice or scrimmage. It's cold out. You know you may be there 5, 10 or 15 minutes. What do you do?
Turn off the engine. Listen to the radio or make a phone call. Are your legs starting to get a bit cold? Well, why don't you get out and take a walk around the parking lot. Maybe you'll chat with the other parents. Maybe you'll say hi to one of your child's teachers. At least you'll get a bit of exercise and, if everyone else stops idling, too, some fresh air.
No, this isn't a food blog. I'm not planning to give recipes, unless it's a recipe for humility and responsibility.
The book "Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living" by Robert and Brenda Vale created a mini furor in the green movement late in 2009 with the argument that a medium-sized dog has the same "eco-pawprint" as a gas-guzzling SUV.
How can this be?
The key is meat.
Modern meat production is a huge contributor to greenhouse gasses. Dog food -- especially the super-premium food you use if you really love your dog -- is made with lots and lots of meat.
Maybe, before we go further, you want some numbers, some evidence and some rebuttal: here's a good overview from AFP,"Polluting pets: the devastating impact of man's best friend"; A Discover Blog that gives more perspective and an interesting graphic, "Time to Eat the dog"; and, if you really want to get into the numbers, an academic paper by Gideon Eshel and Pamela, "Diet, Energy and Global Warming."
So, maybe the fact that some of the meat used in pet food is waste decreases Fido's climate impact. Maybe the fact you live with other species -- dogs, cats, goldfish -- and teach your children about respect for other species, will be a net positive in some vast gobal equation.
That's not the point.
The point is that all our actions, all our possessions, even the furry, four-legged ones, can have environmental impacts. And one of the most important decisions we make, with the biggest potential contribution to global warming, is what we eat.
If feeding my bigger-than-medium-sized pound puppy, a chocolate lab/German shepherd, produces as much greenhouse gas as a Ford Explorer, then feeding me and my family must be like stoking up a coal-fired power plant.
No, I am not about to go into a vegan rant. I couldn't bear the hypocrisy. I eat meat. But I know that I should eat less meat; my family should eat less meat. And I know that decisions like this -- all of us eating less meat, for our own health and the health of the planet -- are the kind of decisions that have to happen on a vast scale if we are going to turn this climate-change juggernaut around.
And maybe if I eat less meat I can justify not eating the dog.
The start of a new year and new decade is the time for resolutions and other life-changing thoughts.
Whatever you call the decade we have just left behind -- the 2000s, 'Noughties.' 'Oughts' or 'Zeroes' -- it was life changing. Wow, was it ever.
We suffered through 9/11, the start of two wars, horrendous school shootings, a catastrophic tsunami and the most monumental economic collapse since the Great Depression.
On the other hand, we saw the first black man elected president, and we experienced the revival of the environmental movement around issues of climate change and sustainability.
When history looks back at the start of the 21st century, I think it is this "Green Revolution" that will be counted as the most influential development of the decade -- assuming it succeeds and saves us from a global-warming death spiral.
But the problem with all these big stories and big ideas is that their scope and scale seem beyond us, beyond normal day-to-day life. What can we do?
As it turns out, each of us can do a lot. And speaking of resolutions, that's a good place to start.
Resolve to make just a few, simple changes in your life: a few green goals.
For example, did you know that giving up paper towels and using washable cleaning rags could save you hundreds of dollars a year while reducing your carbon footprint? That's just one of the 15 Resolutions for the Environment That Actually Make a Difference suggested at The Daily Green.
Or did you know that eating more vegetables and less meat will help your health and the health of the planet. That's one of the Green Resolutions for 2010 at GMATV.
There's nothing groundbreaking about these green goals. The two most common New Year's resolutions are: lose weight/get fitter and save money/get out of debt. Well, most of these green resolutions will help your health, you bank account's health and your planet's health.
Want a few more lists of green resolutions? Take a look at:
Resolutions: To Clean Up, Go Green
Make some green New Year's resolutions for 2010
What would Grandma do? Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Here's another for your list. Why not attend a Plattsburgh Green Committee meeting? You'll get plenty of support with your resolutions and meet local people who are grappling with the same issues that concern you. The committee next meets 6 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 5, at the Plattsburgh Public Library.
Here's wishing you a green new year.
In the days before climate change, reduce/reuse/recycle wasn't just the heart of the green movement, it was the green movement. Heck, Earth Day was built on the three R's.
Lest you think reducing waste, reusing items that would have been thrown out and recycling what can't be reused is passe, remember that the three R's provide us with a direct and significant way to save energy, and energy savings helps fight global warming. Recycling, of course, decreases the energy input needed for manufacturing by providing an already processed raw material. Best yet, reusing makes it unnecessary to manufacture at all. Even reducing waste, by buying products that have less packaging, means that less energy was used to create packaging.
Of course, you know how to recycle newsprint, No. 1 and 2 plastic, glass and tin cans. (But what about cellphones, exercise equipment or hearing aids? Look it up in the North Country Green Pages.
The Green Pages, a project of the League of Women Voters, Learn and Serve America and Casella Waste Systems, sticks to the motto published on the cover: "Don't take it to the landfill. Give it to people who can use it.". The booklet lists reuse and recycling for everything from appliances to wine corks.
You can pick up a copy of the North Country Green Pages throughout Clinton and northern Essex counties. Look for it at libraries, government offices, schools, service agencies and at many other locations. Or better yet, use this link to view the PDF and save some paper.
For more about recycling in the North Country see my past blogs: Recycling Part 1: Are we taking the third 'R' for granted?; Recycling Part 2: How we can do better.
When journalists describe news, one of the terms they use is "uniqueness" -- in other words, is it different, unusual, unlikely, surprising.
When a driver successfully navigates a trip, that's not news. When the car smashes into a utility pole, that's news. When a kid runs the mile, that's not news. When a kid runs the mile in record time, that's news.
These days, for many of us, the widely accepted and increasingly well understood underpinnings of climate change aren't news. Our industrial societies are putting carbon and other greenhouse gases into the air at an alarming and increasing rate. This pollution is blanketing our globe and tucking us in for a nice, cozy, disastrous night of rising oceans, mass extinctions, severe weather events and huge population disruptions.
We should all know this. It's not news.
But when hackers steal years of email exchanges from scientists and leak them on the eve of the biggest and most important climate-change conference in history, that's news.
And when these emails can be sliced, diced and in some potentially out-of-context situations interpreted to show the scientists were hiding, skewing or misrepresenting data, that's news.
But just because it's news, that doesn't mean it really matters. Heck, Tiger Woods' domestic arrangements are news, but in the long run, does it really matter? Nope.
It's the same here.
Really, there are three ways to interpret "Climate-gate."
1. These scientists intentionally cooked the data to reach their pre-arranged climate-change conclusions.
2. These scientists showed bad judgment in the language they used during discussions they assumed were private, but it never had a significant impact on the data or analysis.
3. These scientists were having an open and honest discussion, parts of which have been taken out of context and used for political gain.
I vote for No. 2. But even if you believe the worst-case scenario, does it undercut all climate research and nullify what we have learned about global warming? Nope.
As climate scientist Glen MacDonald describes at length in his LATimes piece, the data involved in Climate-gate is just a small fraction of the evidence for human-powered climate change. Do you mistrust all doctors when one is charged with malpractice? Do you mistrust all teachers when one is charged with inappropriate behavior? Likewise, a couple scientists who may be behaving badly, may be skewing data, may be just taken out of context, shouldn't cause you to mistrust all scientists.
There will be investigations and hearings. Perhaps these scientists should be and will be disciplined. Political points will be won and lost. In the end, it doesn't change the peril for our planet.
“In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.” Ivan Illich
Black Friday. It sounds ominous ... and it is.
We live in a consumer society where "buying" is given more weight than "doing" and "making."
But on Black Friday, our already out-of-balance consumer culture spins into ridiculous excess. Thanksgiving used to be about family, food and football. Now the day is just a convenient breather during our new holiday, "Black Friday Week."
So, what to do? How about some anti-consumer consumerism.
Here's a few green gift ideas that will keep you out of the malls.
Miller's Popcorn. This Amish-grown popcorn, packaged in Brushton, isn't widely available. You can get it at Alix's Hardware in Chateaugay and Plattsburgh, Yando's in Malone and a few other outlets.
Miller's is good popcorn. What makes it green is the fact it is real popcorn.
Popcorn is a great snack. For less than $3, using almost no packaging or waste, you can make bushels of popcorn. All you need is a big covered pot, a bit of oil and, if you like, a stick of butter. It only takes a few minutes to make a batch. Here's a good and simple recipe.
Microwave popcorn, on the other hand, is a an environmental disaster: chemically processed, over priced, over packaged and dangerous to manufacturer. If those arguments aren't enough for you, think of the fake butter taste and gagging smell.
So buy a bag of Miller's popcorn, or some other real popcorn and, if you want to create a complete gift, throw in a large saucepan and a copy of the recipe.
Adirondack Council Carbon Reduction Certificate. For $25 you can permanently retire three tons of carbon. But since carbon dioxide is so hard to wrap, you'll instead receive a personalized certificate in the name of the your gift recipient.
Yes, this gift is a bit abstract. But the environmental impact through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is direct. The RGGI is a precursor to the federal carbon cap and trade program, which Congress is struggling to pass. But enough states are now cooperating in regional programs that even without the feds your $25 goes directly to carbon reduction.
Reusable water bottle. I wrote about the environmental benefits of reusable water bottles in my last blog. Drinking tap water is healthy, cheaper, nearly waste-free and far less stressful on the environment than buying water bottles.
I recommend a bottle that opens wide for cleaning and has smaller top for convenient sips. You can find water bottles at local stores and food co-ops, in addition to large chain stores.
Local media environment. When you think of protecting the environment you probably think of the natural environment. But of course, the word "environment" has many meanings. When you say "environment" you may mean your world, your nation, your neighborhood or your home.
But there are other environments we exist in. On Black Friday, we can talk about a "consumer environment": the ways you buy the things you need. Shopping at local stores and buying local products helps preserve that local consumer environment.
We also exist in a media environment -- TV, radio, newspapers, movies. And with the Internet, our media environment has expanded dramatically.
Here are two ways you can protect your local media environment and do some holiday shopping at the same time.
North Country Public Radio. This is my favorite radio station. NCPR provides a great mix news, talk and music. The station broadcasts throughout the North Country and does great reporting on local issues.
How do you tuck NCPR into a Christmas stocking? How about a pledge/membership in someone's name? Depending on the support-level you choose, you can get them a "member card" with discounts at local restaurants.
Press-Republican. Is it self-serving to suggest a Press-Republican subscription as a holiday gift? Yes. But you have to admit, a local newspaper is a critical component in any media environment. No other media organization has the resources to cover local news like a hometown paper. And for only cents a day you get everything from local opinion, calendars, obits and comics to advice, horoscope and sudoku.
Yes, we use power and paper. But newspaper is highly recyclable and, if the paper-use bothers you, follow us on to the Internet.
These are just a couple green Black Friday ideas ... ideas you can carry forward into the holiday-shopping season. Have some more ideas? Let me know.
And when the Black Friday mood grabs you, ask yourself: Do you want to live your life spending, or spend your life living.
Sometimes a victory is also a defeat. Sometimes a good bottle is also a bad bottle.
A victory is a defeat when it comes in a war you shouldn't have to fight. A good bottle is a recycled bottle. When that same bottle should have never been made, filled, transported, cooled, it's a bad bottle.
The victory is New York's Bigger Better Bottle Bill, which this month began charging deposits on water bottles. Environmentalists hailed the law. Have no doubt, extending deposits to water bottles will bring a tremendous increase in recycling, just as the original bottle bill led to a huge and sustained surge in soda-bottle recycling.
And if Legislators ever get the courage to further extend the measure to so-called "sugar-water" drinks, recycling will advance even further. The grocery-lobby has been able to fight this move, claiming it will bring pests to their bottle stockpiles, an obviously spurious argument when you consider that they already deal with sugary soda.
So what's the problem?
We'd be better off if these bottles were never born.
Bottled water has so many environmental/health/public policy problems, you only have to agree with a few to realize we should stop buying bottles and start refilling durable and washable glass and metal containers.
* Bottled water is insanely expensive. Per ounce, bottled water is more than twice the cost of gasoline.
* Speaking of gas, guess where the plastic for water bottles comes from? Oil. Millions of barrels of oil are used to make water bottles.
* And speaking of oil, millions of tons of carbon are released into the atmosphere each year to make bottles for water.
* Bottled water is no cleaner or safer than tap water, but is hundreds of times more expensive.
* Twice as much water is needed in the industrial processes used to make a plastic water bottle than is sold in the bottle.
* The chemicals used in some types of water bottles -- Bisphenol A or BPA -- may be linked to a variety of cancers. However, most bottles manufactured today are BPA-free.
* The popularity of bottled water may mean that, in the future, fewer resources will go to municipal water systems. Water has already become something for the affluent, as high-priced bottled water replaces public drinking fountains.
What about buying bottled water and reusing the bottles? Assuming you have BPA-free plastic -- which is the case in almost all "single-use" water bottles -- cancer isn't the concern. Don't be taken in by the urban legends that a frozen water bottle or one left in a hot car create some kind of cancer soup.
There are really two problems with reusing these "single-use" bottles:
* Will you take the time to clean it? Once you open the bottle and put your mouth on it, the bottle is potentially contaminated with bacteria. Now leave it half-full in your gym bag or night stand for a couple of days and watch out. And if you fill it with a sports drink instead of water the danger is even greater.
* How often will you really reuse it? Theoretically, cleaning and reusing a "single-use" water bottle is almost as good for the environment as buying and using a multi-use water bottle and filling it at the tap. But thin-walled single use bottles tend to crunch and deform after just a few uses, so your good intentions will wear out with the flimsy bottle.
So should you toss all your water bottles and run out to spend $10, $20 or even $30 on a fancy reusable container?
Please, no.
Here's my suggestion. If you've already got water bottles around the house and unused ones in the pantry, use them up. And since you've already bought them, clean and reuse them for a while. Make them last and then recycle them.
But for the holidays or your next birthday, put a wide-mouth reusable water bottle on your wish list. That's what I'm doing. Or treat yourself to one. Or if you already have one, get one for your office and one for your car. They're easy to clean and will last you many years.
For more about bottled water, visit the Sierra Club, Lighter Footstep, Pacific Institute and EPA. Special thanks to the Plattsburgh State Environmental Action Committee for their advocacy on this issue, which prompted me to mention it here.
Does voting make you feel charged up: full of civic pride? It does me.
Why not use that energy and, after voting, stop by the Plattsburgh Green Committee meeting, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 6 p.m. at the Plattsburgh Public Library, 2nd floor conference room.
I was inspired and uplifted, and then my hopes were dashed.
Last month, hundreds of thousands of people across the globe gathered for an International Day of Climate Change. They marched, turned down thermostats, hung banners, recycled and took pictures of themselves doing these and hundreds of other things to support the 350.org cause.
More than 5,200 gatherings across 181 countries marked the event the weekend of Oct. 24. The 350 movement is the brainchild of author and activist Bill McKibben. That's 350 as in 350 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere, the level above which significant climate change becomes more likely.
Honestly, the 350 number is symbolic, and the symbolism may be unreachable for a long, long time. We're at about 387 and climbing right now. Experts involved in climate-change public policy in the United States, United Nations and Europe realize that getting back to 350 isn't the immediate goal. Slowing the increase is the first step. Still, it is heartening to see the energy and interest behind the idea.
Or at least it was heartening, until I read the new poll by the Pew Research Center.
Just as the evidence for global warming has grown to become irrefutable, just as the poles are seeing measurable and dangerous climate-related changes, the American public is less interested and less convinced.
Why? You can blame the national obsession with the health-care debate, the cooler-than-usual summer weather, the recession, the rise of the "Tea Party" movement. Whatever the reason, the decline is alarming. The poll found that: "57% of Americans think there is solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades. In April 2008, 71% said there was solid evidence of rising global temperatures."
There is a bit of good news within the poll. Although the trend is still down, more than half of our population believes we should join in international efforts to control greenhouse gas emission. Let's hope that provides enough political will to keep the US in a leadership role, or at least a constructive role, as the world gathers in Copenhagen for the UN Climate Change Conference next month.
I have to admit, I was fooled.
A news release arrived in my inbox from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Monday trumpeting an about face in the important business group's position toward climate-change legislation.
"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is throwing its weight behind strong climate legislation, a spokesman for Chamber President Tom J. Donahue announced today at the National Press Club."
Wow, I said to myself. It's about time. The Chamber has taken a reactionary position on environmental issues; I was glad to see them finally come around.
It was a hoax.
As it turns out, a "Chamber spokesperson" did make the announcement at the National Press Club in Washington. He was an imposter, a member of the Yes Men. In their own words, the hoax was designed to "draw attention to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's 'troglodytic' fight against climate change legislation."
You see, the real chamber seems to believe it is their business to oppose anything that might have any negative impact on any of their members -- or at least on those influential members who happen to be oil and coal companies. What made the hoax easy to believe is the fact that the business group has taken a pounding lately from within and without on their stand. Many business see profit in climate-change policies, many see the Chamber's position as bad public relations. Some high profile companies -- Apple, Levi Strauss -- have left the chamber as a result.
For more about the hoax, its impact on the media and the real Chamber of Commerce's reaction, check out this Washington Post story: Pranksters stage Chamber of Commerce climate change event.
Here's hoping that someday this won't be a hoax.
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