Virescent

I’m back, and I’ve got a few changes coming here for you soon.  Photo Albums!  And such!  But today, it’s Earth Day, and there’s some love to be sharing.

My plans for Earth Day were mostly to trick people into drinking some organic wine and watching The Day After Tomorrow (still the best climate change movie ever produced, ever, sorry, Gore.)  Well, some aspects of that would have involved more necessary trickery than others.  I’m having a hard time finding anyone who finds that movie to be as much of a work of genius as I do.  But given school and work, film and wine will need to happen later on.  I’ll definitly pet my sprouts, though.  That should be plenty earthy.

For a small celebration, though, I want to share a few links to blogs I’ve been reading and enjoying.

A More Perfect Market had a recent post on the problems of landholders cashing in on their forests- the ‘greenies’ and government are making it harder for them, and who’s it helping?

Bean Sprouts has a recipe for Goat Cheese and Roasted Vegetable pasta.  It’s part of her eating-vegetarian challenge.  Since goat cheese is delicious, how challenging can this be?

At Climate Progress, the talk is usually wonky and political, but for Earth Day they’ve posted a discussion of why we shouldn’t focus on saving the planet, but instead on saving ourselves (massive weather changes being way more damaging to people than the huge spinning ball of molten rock we’re allegedly concerned with).

Crunchy Chicken is doing a lot of good work, all the time, but the one that catches my eye is her series on highly attractive men on the environmental movement. This time, it’s Guillermo from LocalHarvest, a website dedicated to local farming. Good pic(k).

Eco Samurai is brewing beer at home for all the environmental, and delicious, reasons.

Eco Warrior collected some interesting ideas for making planters from things that aren’t planters.

Garden Punks has a great series of instructions and photos from their most recent garden design. Rather inspiring, but I’ll have to be content with rearranging my planters in attractive groupings for now.

No Impact Man gave a wise commentary on the recent and possibly counterproductive debates between some climate policy types (including Nordhaus and Shellenberger, who wrote “BreakThrough”) on Climate Progress.

People and Nature has collected a list of things to do outside, especially with kids. Makes me want to find a child to make go outside. In the legal-est way possible.

There’s plenty of Earth Love in these parts- well over 24 hours worth.  Fortunately, when you’re a sustainability blogger, every day is Earth Day (cheesy grin).

Al Gore is publicizing the environment again. This time, it comes with professional ad-people and $300 million dollars, instead of a small documentary about the little Power Point that could, but hey, green’s come a long way since 2006. Gore wants to push that momentum into a popular movement that will convince politicians to actually maybe please pretty please do something sensible? Like, we’ll be more energy efficient if you dudes stop ignoring the problem. How about that? The group’s name (and motto, too, I guess) is “We Can Solve It“, and some of the first few spots are airing now on a tv near you.

In an NPR story on the new campaign, Al Gore’s own carbon footprint was brought up again. If you recall, it was reported last year, right after his Oscar win, that his personal energy use at a TN mansion was some ridiculously high number- though even Fox News reported on his solar panel installations and carbon offsetting plans. Not bad, considering their regular columnist on environmental matters thinks global warming is a vicious myth. And yes, the column is named “Junk Science,” and no, I’m pretty sure they didn’t mean it to be funny that way.

The NPR story highlighted an important part of what Gore’s message is going to have to be, though- to tackle the environmental problems we’re creating, we’re going to have to think and live differently. And the man who’s fronting and financing a campaign to tell us to do this, and write our congresspeople while we’re at it, needs to set a squeaky-clean tech example.

John Tierney over at the NYT wrote a piece last week on how to remind people to be green- nudge them into making good “abstract” and “long-term” choices by tying their carbon footprints, or resource use, or what have you- into a real-time display, like a mood ring or changing LED jewelry. He argues it would instill a sense of connection to our choices- plus, it will facilitate some public green-upmanship backed by facts, not hype. It’s an interesting read. I’d like Al Gore to start the ecomood ring trend- him and everyone else who argues for the environment. I’m in, of course- mood rings are sweet, almost as sweet as living up to your own standards.
Speaking of sweet, and environmentally sound, and things that light up, here’s the Gentleman Friend’s flower from this weekend, made from old cds, circuit boards, and flashy lights:

Nicely done, sir!

Relations between Russia and Britain have been strained for over a year now, what with all the radioactive poisonings and art shows and cultural office tussles, but now the Russian government is upping the ante. The ministry for Natural Resources, Rosprirodnadzor (in the long tradition of awesome Russian names) announced an environmental inquiry into the practices of British Petroleum’s operation at Samotlor oil field late last week. Production at that field alone accounts for about 1/4th of BPs oil production.

Soviet oil production was never know for its responsible environmental practices, and a conglomerate was formed in 2003 with BP to improve the widespread leaks and groundwater contamination already at the Siberian site. But Russia has been trying to consolidate oil production under their nationally-controlled Gazprom, and things aren’t looking good for BPs investment. In 2006, the same environmental inquiries were made into another foreign-run oil field in Russia:

In 2006, the same Russian environmental agency threatened Royal Dutch Shell with multibillion-dollar fines in a months-long campaign that led to Shell’s selling a controlling stake of its Sakhalin Island oil and gas development to Gazprom.

After Gazprom bought the stake, the agency dropped its environmental complaints and work continued.

The same inspector in the Shell situation, Oleg L. Mitvol, the agency’s deputy director, was appointed to lead the investigation at TNK-BP’s Samotlor field, according to the statement.

So.  Hurrah for the concept of environmental enforcement, I guess.  But Russia is just using “concern for the environment” as a shield in their quest to do whatever they feel like.  I admire them for their skill in doing whatever they, like, actually- it makes keeping up with international events that much more scary, entertaining, and bizarre.  But it’s discouraging to open an article on the environmental failings of Big Oil and sympathize with Big Oil after you read the details.  Sure, their site might be a mess, but I bet it’s not much worse than any other oil field in the former USSR.  Russia makes a mockery of environmental protections.  I guess it’s what’s left to do, after they’ve made such a mockery of open democracy and the rule of law.

Today was officially the beginning of Spring, in the astronomical sense- the day and night are exactly equal today, so the Earth is going to start getting more sunlight than darkness and cause things to grow, finally. Except, if you’ve been outside the past couple of weeks, things are already growing- the trees were all just plotting something for a couple of weeks, and then bloop! Buds everywhere!

Spring is a fantastic time of year. Well, except for the part of it where it looks lovely out, then you walk to work and it’s actually still cold and windy and starts to rain without warning; stupid spring, just admit you’re sneaky winter, hiding under a pretty face. And then it’s time for the cherry blossoms on the mall (officially, March 29th-April 13th) and the metros are all crowded for two weeks. Except for those parts, spring is awesome.

For all its tantalizing niceness, it’s not such a great thing that we’re getting the season earlier and earlier every year. Discovery News reports on how the accelerating spring is damaging to migratory species, and disruptive to the seasonal life cycles of others. And for humans, a shorter winter may mean lower heating bills this month, but it will increase allergic reactions to pollen sooner, too. Data from all the way back to the 1400s shows a significant jump in the earliness of spring starting in the 1980s- on average, the green is coming 8 hours faster each year.

On the upside, that should give us a hint to go see the cherry blossoms in the next few days- so we don’t miss the peak blooms, and we do miss the rush.

Ah, the green is coming back! It sure is too bad that our improperly disposed-of plastic bags got there first. Bah.

One of the most popular arguments against government “intervention” in alternative energies and the green economy is that government regulations are always inefficient, they slow the natural progress of the economy, markets work best when they’re totally unfettered, etc. Stuff like that. The jatropha-in-Myanmar post a couple of days ago might even lend that argument some support.

But the capitalism-loving, -touching, and -squeezing heads of huge companies like BP, GE, and Dow Chemical disagree- they’re urging the government to come up with a coherent energy policy that favors energy efficiency, clean fuels, and even carbon taxes. They contend that the piecemeal regulations the Bush administration half-heartedly doles out are costing America jobs, and US companies the chance to compete internationally. Apparently, since European countries tend to take alternative energies like nuclear and wind seriously, their governments have created favorable investment climates around those technologies- and the clean tech money is settling abroad.

GE’s Chief Executive Jeff Immelt makes a case for government subsidies, carbon trading, and investments in clean technology from a purely business standpoint- and to the free-market crowd, he has a response. From the WSJ’s “Environmental Capitol” blog:

And government largess helps drive progress—like in GE’s aircraft engine division half a century ago. That admission riled free-market types in the audience (and on stage) who took him to task for subsidy-hunting and accused him of—gasp—betraying his capitalist credentials.

“Don’t worship false idols,” he countered. “The government has its hand in every industry. If we have to have them, I’d prefer they were productive rather than destructive.”

Defending the “free” market is quixotic in the most literary sense, as the pure market is the pure Dulcinea: entirely a product of fevered imaginations. I’ve ranted about it here before, but observe that very successful capitalists realize this, and gamely play the market (and government) by the existing rules. There’s money to be made in clean technology (even capitalists who think global warming is a fraud know this and invest accordingly), and there would be even more of it if the US government stopped noodling around.

Last month, BusinessWeek reported on how the Bush Administration’s failure to lead on clean energy policies has left it to the states to invent their own. The magazine pointed out that a sustained federal push was essential for bringing the US up to speed in a clean tech economy already dominated by foreign companies- but not to hope for that push from Mr. Bush.

Maybe next year your dreams will come true, practical capitalists.

As of March 5th, this blog was six months old. As of September, I’ve started packing my own lunches, biking to work (when I wasn’t riding the bus), made a shopping bag and “audited” my plastic use, tried out some resolutions to make my holiday season sustainable, culled my belongings, and attempted composting a few times- all in an effort to live better, whatever that means. Biking and culling were the biggest successes. I haven’t started a good composting culture yet, and I have still have an odd relationship with plastics.

The biggest change I’ve made, though, wasn’t due to a monthly goal at all. By moving to Old Town (necessitating the culling and negating the biking to work), I’ve decreased my footprints of all kinds (except the kind that I actually walk with). It’s allowed me to sleep more, get more exercise, and use stairs at home instead of the elevator. After the flurry of move-driving, my car sat unused for almost a week: barring some specific errands and classes, it’ll stay right where it is. Since it’s been sitting, the price of gas has gone up 15 cents a gallon. The closest grocery stores- Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Giant, MOM’s, and the farmer’s market- are all well stocked with organic and/or locally grown foods. Now I have to pay utilities separately, and I can have more direct control over how much energy I use- since I’ll know how much it is. And I have three house mates who are wonderful, and wonderfully tractable, and whom I’m secretly (not very secretly) hoping to inflame.

Inflame with sustainability, that is. Anyway. A while back, I took myself to task for not having defined what sustainability means. I’ve worked on that a bit, and I’ve come up with something round about but better than nothing.

One definition of sustainable living isn’t going to pertain to everyone- and it shouldn’t. Everyone’s got a different pet “green” issue- no plastic vs no cars vs global warming doesn’t exist because it’s cold out vs no nukes, etc. I’m not a zealous environmentalist. I don’t think this problem can be solved with one fix (no oil!). In order to live sustainably, I must first and foremost be an open environmentalist, willing to consider differing points of view, and informed enough to determine which makes sense. Next, I must live practically and thoughtfully, with a view to finances and the human, environmental, and moral costs of my actions. Under this all, though, I must be able to live- work and play and learn and all that stuff. So much of sustainability is seen as limiting- we can’t do this because of those whiny polar bears, we can’t eat that because of the toxic wastes. I think the emphasis should be on how much can we do, individually and as humanity, while still living within sensible boundaries- how much can I do with how little?

The unanswered question there is, how little is little enough? I’ll leave that hanging for now. I suspect it has something to do with “little enough so that everybody can use the same amount”, but given the different ways to measure that (carbon footprint? resource use?), and that merely by living in the US I’m using way more than my fair share, it’s intractable. The answer to climate change and sustainable living is not “move to a developing nation and start subsistence farming”.

I think large environmental issues will only be solved through meaningful government and industry action, and only after we make some big technological innovations. I’m not holding my breath for government or industry help, though, and I’ll do my small part to vote with magic machines and my money (for all it’s still worth) in the meanwhile.

That’s what I’ve got. Muddled, but let me know what you think. I appreciate discourse, after all- that’s first!

Odds and Ends: I never did hang up that biodegradable plastic bag from Harris Teeter outdoors (I forget where I promised this, but I did, and someone asked a while ago, and I still haven’t done it). When I find one, I’ll hold onto it until I get some duct tape, and fulfill my promise. Also, remember that debate I was having with the conservative blogger? It’s been so long since she called environmentalists Nazis and cited the Heartland Institute as a more authoritative body than the IPCC on the question of climate change that you’ve probably forgotten- I had, hurrah for archives. I pointed out certain factual and logical inaccuracies, she responded with silence, so I’ll take the Godwin’s Law victory and let it lie.

Thanks for your time, and your comments, and I’m excited for the next parts.  Keep coming back, but, oh ho, you’ll have to, since I cleverly told you all about the last six months without revealing March’s goal!  Mua hahaha.  Ha.  I’ll let you know once I think of it, or by Wednesday.

Handmade update: Knit scarf, three inches done, one completed stripe.

There’s been a lot of ecotalk on the scourge of plastics, and that’s generally fine by me. I made my own shopping bag, I have ranted about excess plastic packaging, I’m hip. Yo.

But last week, while sick and moving, I spent an afternoon being very grateful for my drugs and my bubble wrap (I’m betting the drugs had a bit to do with all that deep contemplation). My pills were packaged in plastic, and bubble wrap is, of course, plastic, and these are wonderful things. Actually, lots of wonderful things are plastic. Plastics are durable and can be made so much stronger and lighter than most natural materials, and they’re fantastically easy to manufacture into almost anything. Plastics have made incredible engineering advances possible. Plus they’re cheap enough so that goods ordinary people could only dream of a few decades ago are readily available to the masses. These time-saving devices  allow people to raise their standards of living at no cost to resources like wood and ore. Without them, modern medicine wouldn’t exist (and they’d even have to package all those natural supplements in something else). Plastics are awesome.

So why do we hate them? They’re made of chemicals. They’re overused. Their lovely inexpensive qualities take care of that. Stuff we most noticeably don’t need is made of plastic- again, it’s the cheapest way to hand out toys with every faux-food meal, or flimsy bags with every purchase. And once they’re made, they’re here forever. Recycling them is difficult and tends to degrade their properties, and on their own they won’t break down for centuries. And when they’re not stuck in landfill properly, adorable things choke on them, or they blow around tackily. But most of that is because we use plastics poorly, not because plastics are bad.

Maybe part of it is that plastics are decidedly “unnatural”. There’s no “handmade” plastic anything- they reek of machines and mass production and technocracy. Homesteaders can swap butter recipes, but not plastic recipes. The Economist’s green.view column a few weeks ago was on how us hippie folk think that all things unnatural are bad. I thought the column was singularly poorly thought out for such a respectable publication (tone was derisive and bitter, examples chosen were blatantly skewed), but is that it? Is our visceral reaction to plastic the result of our yearnings for an ideal of naturalness?

I think it has more to do with the abuse of plastics by man, and not the plastics themselves. I’m an engineer, after all, and I like science and technology, and I appreciate that we can make it work for us, or we can abuse it. It’s just a lot easier to crusade against the definite “plastics” than against everybody’s thousand bad plastic habits- that makes ecopeople seem so judgemental and self-righteous, after all.

I’ve struggled with my plastic use in the past.  All those piles of guilt stuffed in rustling baggies. I’m still going to avoid foam plates and grocery bags (unless I need trash liners) and use aluminum foil instead of sandwich baggies- but I’ll rejoice in my plastic tupperware (or reused cream cheese tubs to prevent food and other waste!) and useful medicine containers and new, affordable latex mattress. Plastics can be part of a sustainable lifestyle, as long as we use them wisely and well.

It should probably tell me something that my most popular post so far has been about Valentine’s day and looooove, but I’m going to ponder that later and talk about biofuels now. A new study by the University of Minnesota and the Nature Conservancy adds up the total life cycle impact of crop biofuels- like corn and whatever else is grown specifically on converted or agricultural land to make fuel, not food- is actually worse than fossil fuels in terms of carbon production. Yup, apparently ethanol is bad (please remove corn subsidies already, Washington?).

So if biofuels- or at least the ones we’re growing now- are such a bad idea, how come we didn’t notice before? Partly it was due to a failure to predict the effect of converting huge areas of land from food production to fuel production- drives up food prices worldwide, and invokes deforestation and land clearing to create new agricultural land to grow more of the displaced food crops or the new fuel crops- which tend to be heavily subsidized, thus very profitable.

The NYT article on the studies doesn’t heavily emphasize the different types of biofuels used as energy resources, so it’s easy to come away with the impression that all biofuels are bad.  Not so! The Nature Conservency interviews an author on the paper, Joe Fargione:

Although there is no silver bullet to solve climate change, there are many silver BBs. Biofuels can be a silver BB if produced without requiring additional land to be converted from native habitats to agriculture. For example, biofuels can be made from waste from agriculture and forests, and from native grasses and woody biomass grown on marginal lands unsuitable for crop production.

We not only have to consider how we produce biomass, but how we convert it to energy. Producing liquid transportation fuels may not be the most efficient way to use the energy contained in biomass.

I’ve added my emphasis. Europe is trying to fix the newly-discovered ill effects of their plans to increase biofuel use by maintaining that it must not come from former rainforests, and no word on how the US will change it’s recently passed ethanol provisions in the 2007 Energy Bill. Energy policy should go back to the drawing board, to maximize research funding for waste biofuels, and seriously, no more corn ethanol subsidies, not even if you call it a tax cut! Pretty please?

This is the first time in years that I’ve been excited in a good way about politics, so let’s ride this wave.  Now, even though we’ve all got pet issues (guess what mine is!), hopefully we’re all making voting decisions based on an array of candidate stances.  The candidates’ plans and views on energy and/or the environment are highly indicative of how they’ll handle issues like national security and the economy, so they deserve a second look, no matter your pet issue.

First off, quick overviews are available at the League of Conservation Voters and at Grist (LCV advocates certain specific environmental stances, and Grist is just full of lots of hippies, so their rubrics differ some).  Grist also has a more detailed review of each candidate still in the race, and an article specifically on the differences between Clinton and Obama’s plans.  I imagine they’d have compared Republican plans directly, but none of the Republicans have specific plans- they have some interesting talking points, but no numbers or enumerated ways to reach their goals.  This is not a swipe at Republicans, it’s just the truth.

Beyond the quick reviews by hippies, though, check out the candidates at their own websites- it’s more revealing to see the way they talk about their plans/visions (I’ll use visions for Republicans- again, no plans).  As a quick rundown, Environment/Energy (labelled as such) make the top 3 or 4 issues on the lists for Obama and Clinton.  McCain lists an Environment issue toward the bottom of his issue list, Romney lists “Ending Energy Dependence” toward the middle (after “Latin American Allies” and way before “Education”), and Huckabee lists “Energy Independence” toward the middle (after “Faith and Politics”, “Marriage”, and before “National Security”).

The plan that makes me personally the happiest is, well, Clinton and Obama’s- specifically, the part where they both want to invest $150 billion dollars over 10 years in clean technology, which would build robust American infrastructure, create jobs, reduce energy dependence, inspire investment by private businesses…you know, my dreamworld.  If you feel like that’s too much, remember, we spend $500 billion a year buying oil.  Also, Bush just found $150 billion he wants to mail to us over the next couple months, so.  $150 billion over 10 years to generate real economic growth?  Ahhhhh, back in my happy place.

Romney and Huckabee both say a lot about how renewables are a good idea, and say they have plans to make it happen, but don’t get as far as saying what the plans are.  McCain features a video and a short blurb on conservation and Teddy Roosevelt, even though he’s sponsored energy bills and gets the best ratings from Grist and LCV in the Republican field.  I am aware that Ron Paul is also still a candidate, and I’m not purposefully leaving him out- but his plan is, he has no plan.  That’s hardcore libertarians for you.

But Huckabee’s issue brief also ranks on my personal happiness factor.  He sounds so excited about his plan!  A section:

The first thing I will do as President is send Congress my comprehensive plan for energy independence. I’ll use the bully pulpit to inform you about the plan and ask for your support. I’ll use the bully conference table to meet with members of Congress until I have the votes. The plan will get underway during my first term, and we will achieve energy independence by the end of my second term…

We think of globalization as primarily an economic issue and the war on terror as primarily a military issue. Yet the same key unlocks the door to success in both, and that key is energy independence.

None of us would write a check to Osama bin Laden, slip it in a Hallmark card and send it off to him. But that’s what we’re doing every time we pull into a gas station. We’re paying for both sides in the war on terror - our side with our tax dollars, the terrorists’ side with our gas dollars.

Our dependence on foreign oil has forced us to support repressive regimes, to conduct our foreign policy with one hand tied behind our back. It’s time, it’s past time, to untie that hand and reach out to moderate Muslims with both hands. Oil has not just shaped our foreign policy, it has deformed it. When I make foreign policy, I want to treat Saudi Arabia the same way I treat Sweden, and that requires us to be energy independent. These folks have had us over a barrel - literally - for way too long.

Energy independence will ease the effects of globalization because the future energy demands of countries like India and China, as their middle class grows, are going to be tremendous. Even if Middle East supplies remain stable - a huge if - that increased demand will drive prices up dramatically, which will hurt our economy by making everything more expensive here. But if we are energy independent, we will be able not just to take care of our own needs and protect our economy, we will also create jobs and grow our economy by developing technologies that we can sell to the rest of the world to meet their needs.

Huck’s thought it through, and he’s dead on- it’s the best summation on any website of how the energy problem ties in with all of our other issues, and Republicans and Democrats can appreciate it (can’t you?).  But goodness, I wish he’d tell me what his plan was, and that it turned out to be a good plan, and that he didn’t espouse other positions such that I would never, ever, vote for him.  But hey, as long as he’s got the gist of it, more power (though not necessarily more delegates) to him.

Here, friends: a few quick ecolaughs before the weekend.

First, a timely article on the groundhog’s rebuttal of global warming.

And from the Warehouse, the true dangers of windfarming: