Last week, Emagazine.com featured an interesting commentary about the environmental destruction taking place in the Middle East, as a result of the Iraq War. Apparently, the man who wrote the commentary (Steven Hanks) lived and worked in Iraq and is writing from first-hand experience with the issues. While I haven't heard anything else about this issue, I found the article intriguing, albeit, depressing. Here are some of Hanks' main points: 

• "Civilians create excess amounts of garbage that is included in the military’s massive open burns. Choking the sky with black smoke, these burns can be seen from miles away. The stench of burning trash permeates the air and infects the soil, containing high levels of carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, lead, arsenic, mercury and barium. These compounds cause reactions ranging from mild irritation to deadly disease among the local population and wildlife."

• "At central military bases and sub-compounds, raw sewage is trucked off-site and pumped directly into roadside canals. Rarely is waste transported more than a mile from a base or compound before being recklessly discarded. At some sites, the waste is taken directly to a hole in the exterior wall of the compound and simply sprayed into the desert." 

• "[hundreds of thousands of] plastic water bottles must go somewhere. They are certainly not trucked out of the country and recycled. Without a sufficient system to recycle these items, they often end up buried, burned, or strewn across the countryside."

• "Hundreds of miles of open junk fields scar the Iraqi landscape. Thousands of vehicles, ordnance items, construction materials, air conditioning units, armor, tires, and parts litter these fields. Never is this vast destructive creation reused, recycled or rebuilt. It is all left to decay in the sand, poisoning the very land upon which it sits." 

This made me realize, once again, that even after foreign troops have left, the devastation —economic, social, and environmental —will affect the Iraqi region, and the Iraqi people, for centuries to come.

The NC General Assembly wrapped up its 2007-2008 biennium today.  

It sometimes take a while to get a perspective on a legislative session, but at this point, it looks like the legislature did decently by water this year.

One of bills receiving final approval today is H2499, Drought/ Water Management Recommendations, which will help strengthen North Carolina’s drought response – a good thing, since drought conditions this week are already worse than they were a year ago, and we’re not into August yet.

Another bill approved this week is S1967, Improve Coastal Stormwater Management, a compromise bill that strengthens coastal stormwater rules over currently law.  

Three bad ideas – hardened structures on our beaches, indefinite reconstruction of hog lagoons, and promotion of offshore oil drilling – all died in committee at the end of session.

All good reasons to celebrate the end of session!

During my lunch break today, I headed over to my local precinct to do my civic duty (you know, vote). The street as I walked up was deserted, the fire station void of any life except for the fabulous poll workers (thank you!)

Out of curiosity, I asked the gentleman in charge of the ballots how many folks had voted already. (Now keep in mind the polls had been open for over 6 hours by the time I showed up.) He said, "Ma'am, you're our afternoon rush. You're the eleventh person to vote here today."

Hearing about this low turn-out, I started thinking about the voting process. Do people not know about these smaller elections (I had almost forgotten myself)? Or do they not care? What makes people vote or not vote? What are the best ways to get voters out to the polls at lower-profile elections? Would more people vote if the voting system was set-up differently?

And please, if you haven't voted, you don't get to complain about decision-makers. The next time a non-voter starts griping about a certain person in charge, I'm going to hand them this fine sticker:

Some of you may be familiar with the Sundance Channel—a cable network featuring independent films and documentaries. On Tuesdays at 9pm EST the Sundance Channel features a weekly documentary series called "Big Ideas for a Small Planet." From their website:

"BIG IDEAS FOR A SMALL PLANET is a documentary series presenting the forward-thinking designers, products and processes that are on the leading edge of a new green world. Each episode revolves around a different green theme as it spotlights a specific innovator or innovation that has the potential to transform our everyday lives."

You can visit their website to view the episode guide, watch clips of shows, or get a link to download the episodes on iTunes (if you don't have cable).

In addition, now through June 24 you can vote on your favorite new green idea through their "What's the Big Idea? Contest". Again from the website, the object of this contest is to

"...provide an opportunity for consumers to share, in an original video or photo/essay format, their innovative "Big Idea" to help people live a greener life."

You have to register to vote, but you can do so here: http://www.sundancechannel.com/members/Login. I particularly like the "Ornj is Grn" nominee—these folks make bags out of used construction fencing!"

Our friends at Netcorps have posted an excellent article regarding maintaining environmentally responsible technology systems at your home and workplace. The article hits on many different aspects of this issue, including conserving energy, reusing and recycling, making smart purchases, and finding out about the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT)--which helps consumers and companies compare the environmental attributes of different products.

The article also includes some helpful tips for the average at-home user:

• Shut down your computer on weekends, overnight, and for extended periods of time to save a lot of energy;

• Donate old computers that can still be used;

• Keep printers, scanners, copiers and other peripherals turned off unless you're using them; and
  

• Consider using an web and/or email host that uses renewable energy.

The Nature Conservancy has recently launched a cool, new interactive community for the conservation community! Below is a short press release – I encourage folks to go check it out and let us know what they think! For more details and frequently asked questions, check out their Help section.

Press Release

"At www.ConserveOnline.org, The Nature Conservancy has launched a complete overhaul of the free online tools supporting knowledge-flow and coordination between environment and conservation efforts around the world.

The new ConserveOnline provides a global system for conservationists to effectively identify and build on lessons-learned from similar approaches, helping them innovate and scale smartly to keep pace with the escalating rate of ecological challenges such as greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss worldwide.

The Nature Conservancy built the new ConserveOnline with Oracle's investment partnership, and more than a year's work with original developers of Plone, an open source content management system that dates back to 2001. The global community of open source web developers is encouraged to contribute and enhance this new platform.

The new ConserveOnline allows conservationists anywhere easily manage their local knowledge flow, via free and fast coordination and document management tools; identify other individuals and organizations who are doing similar work; grow the existing global library of conservation tools, techniques, and experiences; discuss how and where to channel resources for the greatest conservation impact; and share successes and failures to ensure that proven strategies – not failed approaches – are repeated and strengthened."

Over the past few years, American consumers have seen an explosion of "green" products and environmentally friendly products hit the shelves of their grocery stores and even the lots of many car dealerships. As the threat of global warming becomes more and more real, many people feel like they need to take action and do something about it. In order to help people achieve this, companies are releasing environmentally friendly products. However, many of these products are not much "greener" than their standard counterparts; so one is left with the question of whether or not the product will actually play a role in helping the environment, or if companies are using "green" simply as a label so they can jack up prices on products that are no different than the standard products.

One example of this is the new 2008 Chevy Tahoe Hybrid. The Hybrid Tahoe claims 50% better gas mileage than the non-hybrid version but the Hybrid still only gets about 20 miles per gallon; less than half of what a Toyota Prius gets. Chevrolet’s own website gives EPA estimates for gas mileage on their vehicles and it gets no where near 50% better gas mileage. The standard Tahoe with a V8 engine and 4 wheel drive gets 14 and 19 mpg city and highway, respectively, while the Hybrid Tahoe also with a V8 engine, 4 wheel drive, and an added electric component to the engine, gets 20 and 20 mpg city and highway, respectively. Chevy has released a Hybrid vehicle that, on the highway, will get 1 mpg better gas mileage than the standard Tahoe. Wow! As Chevy would say "that’s one hardworking hybrid."

Another perfect example is Nestle Water’s new "Eco-Shape" water bottles. The bottles are made with 30% less plastic than other plastic bottles of the same capacity and the bottles are made entirely of 100% recyclable materials. That’s great but how many of these bottles are actually going to be recycled? Most people are going to finish a bottle and throw it in a trash can so it can make its way to a landfill and become no different than any other plastic bottle that gets thrown away. Interestingly, when 18-wheelers transport products they have to meet a certain weight and since the new bottles are lighter, Nestle can ship more at one time bringing in tons of extra money to the company. Is Nestle actually trying to make a significant contribution to helping the environment or is their new "Eco-Shape" water bottle just a way for them to make a lot more money with a little less plastic?

Creek Stone Farms Premium Beef, a Kansas based company, won a case in a lower court granting them the right to test all of their slaughtered cows for mad cow disease. Now the Bush Administration has appealed the case to a federal court in the hopes of reversing the ruling and taking away the company’s right to test all of their cows.

Currently, the USDA only requires 1% of all slaughtered cows to be tested but it places no limit on what percentage can be tested. To meet demands from foreign countries, Creek Stone Farms wanted to test 100% of their cows. Larger beef manufacturing companies opposed this, fearing it would prompt consumers to demand that all of their cows be tested as well, which in turn would raise the production cost of their beef by a few cents a pound; a small price to pay for safer beef.

The USDA says that testing all cows would not necessarily lead to safer beef but would instead lead to a large consumer scare. The government also [apparently] believes that the consumer is not entitled to that sort of information.

Why the Bush Administration would try to limit voluntary testing that goes beyond the USDA’s requirements and ensures that only the safe, healthy beef is sold is open to interpretation.

Below is the second installment of a monthly blog series on Food and the Environment, courtesy of our friend Billie with Toxic Free North Carolina (see the first installment here). Stay tuned in future months for more on this series. If you have suggestions for future blog series topics or for blog ideas about Food and the Environment, please contact blog [at] ncconservationnetwork.org.

Headlines about the global crisis of increasing food prices are pretty staggering. Here in the US, food prices up as much as 20 or 25% for some staples have added insult to the injuries of record-breaking prices at the gas pump and the housing slump. Local food banks are reporting unprecedented jumps in their populations served over the past couple months. Meanwhile, in poorer nations overseas, where people spend a much larger portion of their incomes on food, and prices for some staple crops like rice have doubled or even tripled in price over the past several months, there have been riots and other evidence that the situation is becoming increasingly critical.

In the midst of this devastating silent tsunami, I ask you to consider some of the causes, many of which are environmental:

1. Climate change. Droughts, floods, and other unusual weather patterns across the globe have disrupted farming over the past few years and hurt local food supplies in many parts of the world. This has made people more dependent on imported food and driven up the price.
2. Gas prices. Food that is trucked, shipped and flown around the country or the globe is costing more to transport these days, with gas hitting new record prices all the time. This is hurting import-dependent developing countries most.
3. Increased meat consumption. It takes about seven or eight hundred calories of grain to make one hundred calories of meat. Consider the impacts on global grain prices of increasing meat consumption in populous countries like China and India, while American appetites for cheap and plentiful meat remains high as ever.
4. Fuel made from food. There has been a great push in the US and several other countries to put more ethanol in people's gas tanks to reduce tailpipe emissions. 20% of the American corn crop was used for biofuel in 2006, a number that has come up from the single digits in just a few years. This has driven up prices for corn, and prompted farmers to divert land from other food crops to corn (driving up prices on those crops), or from "conservation" (un-farmed land near water ways and other sensitive areas). Increasing corn production in turn is contributing to water pollution problems (think of the growing "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, and the fact that an herbicide commonly used on corn has been shown to cause hermaphrodism in frogs).

So, what can we do? A few ideas —

• Eat local. May and June are some of the lushest, most productive months on farms and NC. Take advantage by hitting your local farmers market or local foods grocer—you'll find prices on locally produced foods relatively stable, and you'll be helping to ease the pressure on the global commodity market and stabilize food prices for people who don't have other options. Better yet: grow your own. Can't beat free! Also, please keep an eye out for opportunities to get local foods in more places in your community: Local food purchasing policies for cafeterias in your favorite school, childcare center, or workplace? Farm-to-school, office, or church programs? We're here to help!

• Eat less meat. Consider a quality-over-quantity approach to eating meat and other animal products like eggs and dairy. Try eating less of them, and when you do eat them, focus on local and sustainable options, which are often more nutritious and tastier! It'll be better for you, better for our environment, and better for our global food economy.

• Share. There are lots of organizations working to fight hunger, both domestically and overseas, which you might consider supporting this year. One tip - the national "Stamp Out Hunger" food drive is coming up this Saturday, May 10th. The National Association of Letter Carriers has teamed up with food banks across the country to pick up your food donations from your mailbox this coming Saturday. Please consider making a gift - in our area, your gifts will be handled by the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina, which distributes food to many smaller providers across our region.

In the long term, more of us need to recognize that our economic decisions, as individuals and as nations, are having a serious impact on the global environment and on the welfare of our neighbors on this planet. Our global food economy is seriously broken, and we need to fix it. We as a society, and the governments who are working for us, must heed the lesson of this crisis by making long-term investments in *real* energy efficiency, and agricultural practices that are truly sustainable in the environmental, social and economic senses of the word.

So, my dear readers, please keep on eating local, voting your heart, and speaking your mind!

Remember that the deadline to register or change your party affiliation is this Friday, April 11. If you need to register for the first time or simply update your voter registration because you've moved, now is the time! Some good links for you:

• Download and print out the voter registration form for North Carolina: http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/content.aspx?id=48
  
• You must mail the voter registration form to your county board of elections: http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/content.aspx?id=13 by Friday April 11th.
• If you’re not sure on the status of your registration, check here: http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/VoterLookup.aspx?Feature=voterreg

Just when I thought I'd heard it all, from Treehugger.com a DIY (do-it-yourself) kit to turn urine into fertilizer:

What role do our bodies play in larger ecosystems? That's the question asked by drinkpeedrinkpeedrinkpee, a project and installation that opens at Eyebeam in New York City today. The installation features a large scale physical diagram that shows the role our bodies play in the water cycle, and DIY kits for using your pee as plant fertilizer will be available.

Only for the true DIY'er.

If you're of the legal drinking age and concerned about making your St. Patrick's Day as truly green as possible, search no more. Forget the green high-tops and four-leaf-clover headbands and check out this article on making eco-responsible choices when it comes to drinking beers this holiday.

Some things to consider: Should you go glass or aluminum? Do local beers really leave less of an eco-footprint? How is the power generated for the production of the beer?

Below is the first installment of a monthly blog series on Food and the Environment, courtesy of our friend Billie with Toxic Free North Carolina. Stay tuned in future months for more on this series. If you have suggestions for future blog series topics or for blog ideas about Food and the Environment, please contact blog [at] ncconservationnetwork.org.

There's an exciting (and delicious) trend afoot: college campuses in North Carolina are turning to locally-produced, organic foods for their dining services and on-campus restaurants! To get up to speed on what Triangle campuses are doing, check out this great article in the IndyWeek about the "FLO Food" movement at UNC, and similar efforts at Duke and NCSU.

Across the state, students and staff at colleges and universities are working on getting their own dining halls to go local and organic, and it's not just the crunchy colleges you might think of first, either! This is really exciting to me for a lot of reasons, but to sum up the highlights -

If a college campus can do it, just about anyone can. At the top of the list of reasons why people don't eat local and organic food, you'll probably find things like "it costs too much," or "it's hard to find," or, for large-scale kitchens, "there's not a large and consistent enough supply for what my restaurant/school/etc needs." But, goshdarnit, if a university dining service that makes thousands of meals a day can do it, than so can just about anyone! I think our NC university dining services are dispelling some important myths about buying local and organic food:

• It doesn't necessarily cost more, and when it does, it's often worth it. I like the example of the hamburger made of local grass-fed beef that costs $1 more, but students buy more of them anyway because they taste better and it's the right thing to do. If you're truly strapped for cash, that $1 really might not be worth it, but I think a lot more people could, and would, make that choice if they had the option.
• You don't have to buy everything local and organic for it to count - start somewhere! According to this article, dining services at Duke are serving between 16% and 35% local foods, depending on the place. That's fantastic, so long as they're not misleading anyone to think that it's more than what it is. As consumers, we have to be like the Duke dining hall - we have to buy as much local and organic stuff as we feasibly can, and trust that with time, it'll get easier. Any business we can consistently send to local and organic farms helps our local economy, environment, and our own health. With a little time, the supply side of the equation will catch up to us, and we'll be able to find more affordable local and organic foods.....but we've got to start buying what we can now!
• It's not just fancy stuff, and it's not just veggies. Nope, "organic food" does not just mean shitake mushrooms, sprouts and broccoli rabe (say what?), and it doesn't just mean something you eat at a fancy restaurant for special occasions. It also comes in normal everyday varieties....your green beans and your mashed potatoes, your carrot sticks and apple juice. And, it's not just your fruits and veggies that come locally produced and organic - it's also meats (pork, beef and poultry), eggs, milk and cheese, honey and more. Heck, it's even your Christmas tree! All these products are available organic and North Carolina-grown, so please don't forget to look for them!

Most of all, this article makes me happy because it's about democratizing good food. By that, I mean that everyone deserves the choice to eat healthy, locally-grown organic food, not just people who live near natural foods stores, and not just wealthy people. When large institutions that serve a broad cross-section of the community commit to providing these options, that's a huge step in improving our food democracy! Where else do we need to see more local and organic food options?

K-12 schools!

Childcare centers!

Office & hospital cafeterias!

Your regular grocery store!

Where would you like to see more local or organic foods? Need help making a plan to get them? Let us know!

As an environmentalist and a person who's socially responsible (at least, I like to think so), I'm constantly on the look out for articles, news releases, studies, etc. that will educate me on making the right choices as a consumer and a citizen. Generally, this is a good thing.

But sometimes, I feel so bombarded with all of the information (i.e. bad news) out there that I start to feel like it's hard to feel 100% good about any choices. And, as I've come to see, sometimes even the "good" ideas can lead to bad consequences.

For instance, recently I stumbled upon a video regarding orangutans. In truth, I think I clicked on the video just because I think monkeys are cute. But anyway, the video explains how the procurement of some biodiesel has wiped out two-thirds of the population of orangutans in Indonesia due to deforestation.

Ok, so now I'm confused about the "greenness" of biodiesel...

Through the orangutan video, I also found out that palm oil (used in lots of the products that we consume and taken from Indonesia's peatlands) is contributing to global warming.

Ok, what? Now I'll feel guilty if I buy Pringles again (which, undoubtedly, I will).

These two issues got me thinking about choices on a larger scale. I realize that environmentalists must make choices based on a personal assessment of those issues which they deem the most important. But my questions are,

1. How do you determine which issues, large or small, are going to affect the choices that you make?
   
2. How do socially responsible individuals keep from getting burnt out with this constant stream of new information regarding our choices being sent in our direction?
3. What is the best way to speak out about these issues without inadvertently promoting a "the sky is falling" attitude?

Today’s New York Times has an interesting article on the challenge of greening America’s suburbs.  

The core question the article asks – through the proxy of “many environmentalists” – is whether car-dependent suburbs can be green, even if residents want to reduce carbon emissions and live sustainably.  The article doesn’t imply an answer – it seems content with posing the question, and doesn’t provide much basis for evaluating how green is green enough.  

But it’s worth thinking through what changes it would take to make suburban living sustainable.  My list includes:

• rainwater capture to restore natural patterns of runoff;
• distributed generation of electricity from renewable sources;
• greater energy and water use efficiency within the home;
• addition of neighborhood bike and pedestrian routes, where possible;
• encouragement of mixed land use, where possible;
• reduction in application of pesticides and fertilizers to lawns and landscaping.

That’s probably an incomplete list, but it’s a start.  It’s not clear to me what kind of density is necessary to support various commercial land uses – a grocery store, for example.   That gets to the basic flaw of the car-centric suburb: it’s just energy inefficient, any way you cut it.

What would you put on your ‘greening the suburbs’ list?

Yesterday’s Vancouver Sun has an article about a group of scientists who are petitioning the International Union of Geological Science to declare that, thanks to human activities, we’ve recently entered a new geological era.  The scientists want to call the new era the “Anthropocene”, reflecting human (anthro-) impacts.    

According to the article, the scientists will make their case in the February cover story of GSA Today.  Marks of the new conditions include higher concentrations of atmospheric carbon and traces of radioactivity from atomic weapons testing.  

I’m wondering if a layer of plastic bits across the sea-floor counts as a sign.

On the brighter side: looking for information on plastic in the oceans led me to this wonderful site at the Institute for Figuring.  When you visit, don’t miss Inga Hamilton’s stunning jellyfish, part of the Chicago exhibition.

[For your sake, we didn't post this in Comic Sans.]

There’s a great article in Monday’s New York Times on product design.  Author and designer Allison Arieff laments to the current tendency of some designers of tech gadgets and appliances to add function at the expense of both utility and environmental impact.  It’s a thoughtful, meandering discussion, and it’s prompted some terrific reader comments, as well.

Several of the comments urge producer responsibility – in particular, mandates that manufacturers take back their products at the end of those products’ useful lives.  It’s hard to beat producer responsibility (for waste disposal) as a tool to help manufacturers make socially efficiency choices in designing new products.  An ultimate effect of producer responsibility policies is to inspire manufacturers to shift towards William McDonough’s concept of cradle-to-cradle design, where the natural and inorganic components follow two parallel, seamless cycles of materials moving from product to product to product, without having to be thrown away and buried in a landfill forever.  As the European Union has found, it’s also a great way to reduce packaging waste.

There’s no single take away message from the article and comments, but if you’ve got 15 minutes to read and mull them over, it will be well worth the time.   Finally, opponents of Comic Sans will appreciate comment #51.  

Well, after a rather lengthy holiday break, I'm back in full-effect to wreak havoc on 2008. Over my break, I couldn't help but notice a lot of the things we've been discussing over the blog recently: the harsh reality of the drought, the rather excessive packaging our toy manufacturers create (I swear I spent at least an hour getting things out of that hard plastic for my niece), the need for a commuter rail in this state....the list goes on. And of course, I did notice some good things as well: the use of more artificial trees that can be used again and again and don't harbor dangerous pesticides that affect the tree farm workers, LOTS of carpooling, and even some really fabulous solar-powered walkway lights.

But what I want to know is...what did you all notice (the good, and the bad). Also, any New Year's resolutions you'd like to share?

So because I don't feel I spend quite enough time in front of my computer on the internet, I've been sucked into yet another website featuring green tips. This site, however, is different in the sense that it offers bi-weekly web videos....so it's more like watching TV than wasting time online. Which I guess is worse. But whatever.

Anyhoo, check out www.realworldgreen.com next time you need a distraction at work. Did I say "distraction at work?" I meant the next time you need something to do on your own, personal time.

Back in August, Mindy posted on her unhappy discovery that her water bottle might be exposing her to levels of bisphenol A.  She included links to an LA Times article and a release by the Natural Resources Defense Council.  

The weekend brought two more newspaper articles on bisphenol A.  The first is an in-depth report by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

"In the first analysis of its kind by a newspaper, the Journal Sentinel reviewed 258 scientific studies of the chemical bisphenol A, a compound detected in the urine of 93% of Americans recently tested. An overwhelming majority of these studies show that the chemical is harmful - causing breast cancer, testicular cancer, diabetes, hyperactivity, obesity, low sperm counts, miscarriage and a host of other reproductive failures in laboratory animals….Studies paid for by the chemical industry are much less likely to find damaging effects or disease."

An article in the Arizona Daily Star shows the issue through the more conventional ‘A says, B says’ lens, and notes that lens has trapped several other chemicals as well:

"Dozens of studies — almost all of them in animals, not humans — have linked these chemicals to smaller-than-normal heads and shrunken penises in infants, obesity, diabetes, asthma, decreasing male-to-female birth ratios, undescended testicles, hyperthyroidism and decreased sperm counts….In each case, companies that manufacture these products counter that they are safe and that studies showing ill effects are too limited, scientifically unsound or improperly designed."  

To its credit, the Star article doesn’t ultimately throw up its hands and call the question unsolvable – though some of the ‘ordinary people’ quoted in it do.  In the meantime, the evidence keeps piling up against bisphenol A, and it seems to us past time for the regulators to act.