a note

YOUR MORNING COFFEE: Good morning. Author Adria Vasil has some tips for you when you stop for your morning coffee:
1) bring a mug;
2) grab your cream or milk from the big container, not the little individual creamers;
3) lose the stir stick, ask for a spoon; and most importantly,
4) don't use the drive-in window. a recent study found that in Edmonton alone, drivers spend a whopping 5,000 hours idling in drive-thrus while waiting for their double-doubles and Boston Cremes, choking out about 23.5 tonnes of greenhouse gases. Per day.

Just a note from TreeHugger.com.

Green Market

A great article and video in the New York Times today about Alice Waters and her Green Market shopping / cooking at the Union Square Market (where i shop!)

Don't miss it, she's charming!

I've been a bit absent, but I have much to share soon and very soon!

11th Hour and Shoe Recycling

I saw THE 11th HOUR two nights ago with my friend. Even though we were both eco-heads and knew most of what the film explored, I left feeling well educated, inspired, and hopeful.

Yes. Hopeful.

The film really captures the essential excitment we should feel about getting the opportunity to reinvent MOST of our products, machines, and modes of living. This isn't a burden, as Paul Hawken states in the film, it's an amazing time to be alive. For a country built on ingenuity... this is THE time to shine.

Yeah! Check it out. It's really a great film.

I'm also in the market for new shoes. But I'm poor and can't afford the fancy all recycled kind.

BUT... i can recycle my old shoes instead of throwing them away! The big Nike store on 5th Ave would normally be a source of great disdane for any environmentalist and humanitarian (this company is NOT known for its do-goodery). But they have one of the FEW shoe recycling programs in the city!

Check out this link to find out where YOU can recycle your shoes!

11th Hour

Haven't seen it yet, but so damn excited. Leonardo DiCaprio's THE ELEVENTH HOUR is getting great reviews as a meaningful, powerful, and hopeful documentary about global warming and the human-caused eco-crunch. Check it out, kids!!!!

Amazing Changes

Its amazing how many choices about food and energy that i make now i didn't just a year ago. I've always been eco conscious, but the more i learn about making a difference and being healthy, the more you simply can't go back to your old ways.

I'm realizing this as i settle in to this new city - New York. Its the biggest, bad-assinest, hippest city in the country (sorry LA) and at first it seemed a eco-nightmare. Though i don't drive, the streets are packed and stalling with cars. Though my apartment is tiny, there are millions of hotel rooms with eco-dissastrous lighting. Though i went to Whole Foods and stood in a hundred-person line for my locally raised milk... most don't.

So i was happy to run across a few great websites to make my NYC transition easier:

• Manhatten User Guide's Being Green in NYC site - super helpful with some ideas about composting indoors (not sure i'm ready to subject my roomie to that unique torture ;)
• 3rLiving - a brooklyn based store for all things eco! can't wait to go!
• 

- an awesome site (and email list) for all things eco on a large and small scale. Based in NYC, it has other cities as well.

• NYC also has a great recycling program that takes so much more than Atlanta does. Yippee!!

Moving on...

I last talked about Vancouver, city of green things and local foods. NOW... it's all about NYC. Not just for a visit, but because I moved there to days ago to start grad school. Phew.

So now I'll be posting about big city greening and local-organic food-seeking. NYC is one of the most important cities on the planet... but how is eco-convenience?

On first glance in terms of food choices... not so good. Though my carbon footprint is way lower (because of my tiny apartment and no car) the food situation is tough. I was in three food stores and found barely any organic fruit/veggies and most of it wasn't labled so I couldn't tell where it came from. Even in my quaint little "Amish Market" store where everything looks healthy, I couldn't tell the Peruvian plums from the upstate New York tomatoes. Wierd right?

I'll be off to Whole Foods in a few days to see if they won't bankrupt me in my eco-pursuits.

On the other hand, NYC is known for its weekly farmers markets mottling the cityscape. In fact, on my way to by a water bottle to avoid buying bottled water (see the NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/fashion/12water.html?_r=1&ref=fashion&oref=slogin )... i ran across TWO farmers markets on the street!

I bought an organic bread loaf and some yummy local peaches. A perfect satiator for a stressful weekend of moving.

More soon from city bird

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle... for real

While I was vacationing in Vanouver (the greenest city around... besides San Fran maybe...)

I stole my Dad's copy of Barbara Kingsolver's new book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (available on amazon.com here.)

This book, to put in simply, has changed my way of thinking, eating, and living. Seriously. Everything she writes about will make you WANT to (not be guilted into) eat well and live better. I say "eat well" not in a dieting sense, but in a locally-grown, organic, sustainable, community-based kind of way.

Again... reading this in Vancouver (while visiting the loally grown farmers market for fresh pickled cherries and oven baked organic bread) was profound. It made me want to yell from the rooftops that food can be GOOD... and not just fast, cheap, and artificially colored.

The premise of understanding her point is this... tranporting and making foods unorganically takes a lot of energy and gas. The reason we have tomatoes in winter (when they grow in the summer) means that we are asking too much of the earth and paying the price in ecological tolls.

INSTEAD... why don't Americans pay attention to when food actually grows and eat it then, and buy it from local sources. Instead of having watermelons all year, why don't you just wait til summer when they're fresh, ripe, and amazingly delicious? Why have a crappy mid-winter tomato when waiting for summer would get you the sweetest, best tomato you've ever eaten? Why can't we LOOK at our food - if you eat a hamburger you should know where that cow came from, and if a cramped feedlot standing in their own poop makes you sick to your stomach... don't put that hamburger in your stomach!

Really kids... buy this book, read it, and change your life in easy ways. but better than easy... change you life is meaningful, fun, happy ways. Eating should be a great expereince, not a chore. Buy good food, eat well, and live a life that says yes to the way we're SUPPOSED to be, not the way the commericals tell you you should.

Check out the site for the book here. AnimalVegetableMiracle.com

Here is the starred review from Publisher's Weekly:

Reviewed by Nina Planck
Michael Pollan is the crack investigator and graceful narrator of the ecology of local food and the toxic logic of industrial agriculture. Now he has a peer. Novelist Kingsolver recounts a year spent eating home-grown food and, if not that, local. Accomplished gardeners, the Kingsolver clan grow a large garden in southern Appalachia and spend summers "putting food by," as the classic kitchen title goes. They make pickles, chutney and mozzarella; they jar tomatoes, braid garlic and stuff turkey sausage. Nine-year-old Lily runs a heritage poultry business, selling eggs and meat. What they don't raise (lamb, beef, apples) comes from local farms. Come winter, they feast on root crops and canned goods, menus slouching toward asparagus. Along the way, the Kingsolver family, having given up industrial meat years before, abandons its vegetarian ways and discovers the pleasures of conscientious carnivory.This field—local food and sustainable agriculture—is crowded with books in increasingly predictable flavors: the earnest manual, diary of an epicure, the environmental battle cry, the accidental gardener. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is all of these, and much smarter. Kingsolver takes the genre to a new literary level; a well-paced narrative and the apparent ease of the beautiful prose makes the pages fly. Her tale is both classy and disarming, substantive and entertaining, earnest and funny. Kingsolver is a moralist ("the conspicuous consumption of limited resources has yet to be accepted widely as a spiritual error, or even bad manners"), but more often wry than pious. Another hazard of the genre is snobbery. You won't find it here. Seldom do paeans to heirloom tomatoes (which I
grew up selling at farmers' markets) include equal respect for outstanding modern hybrids like Early Girl.Kingsolver has the ear of a journalist and the accuracy of a naturalist. She makes short, neat work of complex topics: what's risky about the vegan diet, why animals belong on ecologically sound farms, why bitterness in lettuce is good. Kingsolver's clue to help greenhorns remember what's in season is the best I've seen. You trace the harvest by botanical development, from buds to fruits to roots. Kingsolver is not the first to note our national "eating disorder" and the injuries industrial agriculture wreaks, yet this practical vision of how we might eat instead is as fresh as just-picked sweet corn. The narrative is peppered with useful sidebars on industrial agriculture and ecology (by husband Steven Hopp) and recipes (by daughter Camille), as if to show that local food—in the growing, buying, cooking, eating and the telling—demands teamwork. (May)Nina Planck is the author of Real Food: What to Eat and Why (Bloomsbury USA, 2006). Copyright © Reed Business
Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Catch up and shout out to Vancouver!

So it's been a while... because I've been vacationing in lovely, and decidely GREEN Vancouver, BC!

I have much to report, but the basic gist is this:

If you want a fun, gorgeous, healthy, stylish, romantic or fam-freindly, earth-friendly vacation... GO TO VANCOUVER!

Not only is this city one of the most beautiful I've every seen (and I've been to a few), it is full of life, diversity, fantastic locally grown dining and shopping, outdoor activities... its a walkable/bikable city to a ten, and every damn business is green or greening itself.

Our hotel (The Pacific Palisades) had organic snacks and energy-saving bulbs...
There is a daily public market on Granville Island where you can get locally grown and organic foods and products year round...
Almost every coffee joint serves organic and fair-trade coffees...
Our tour-bus was bio-fueled...

and much much much more.

The world can learn from this city... and it will! Vancouver and Whistler will host the 2010 Winter Olymics!

More on my trip, but that's a start! God bless Canada!

Veggie Time!

As my friend Lennie said: "A vegan in a Hummer is more green than a meat-eater on a bike."

Read on!

Eating beef ' is less green than driving'

(link here)

Last Updated: 2:59am BST 19/07/2007

Producing 2.2lb of beef generates as much greenhouse gas as driving a car non-stop for three hours, it was claimed yesterday.

Japanese scientists used a range of data to calculate the environmental impact of a single purchase of beef.

Taking into account all the processes involved, they said, four average sized steaks generated greenhouse gases with a warming potential equivalent to 80.25lb of carbon dioxide.

This also consumed 169 megajoules of energy.

That means that 2.2lb of beef is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions which have the same effect as the carbon dioxide released by an ordinary car travelling at 50 miles per hour for 155 miles, a journey lasting three hours. The amount of energy consumed would light a 100-watt bulb for 20 days.

Most of the greenhouse gas emissions are in the form of methane released from the animals' digestive systems, New Scientist magazine reported.

But more than two thirds of the energy used goes towards producing and transporting cattle feed, said the study, which was led by Akifumi Ogino from the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Tsukuba, Japan.

Su Taylor, the press officer for the Vegetarian Society, told New Scientist: "Everybody is trying to come up with different ways to reduce carbon footprints, but one of the easiest things you can do is to stop eating meat."

Harry Potter loves the earth

From TreeHugger.com :

"Those who are planning to buy the new tome of the Harry Potter saga on July 16th should consider ordering the 100% recycled-paper Canadian version. The American version, printed by Scholastic, it said to contain "some recycled paper", but the company won't say how much and it certainly is not 100%. The Canadian version can be found online by people south of the border and should cost about $2 more in shipping. Read on for an excerpt from a New York Times article about the campaign to get the publishing industry to start using more recycled paper."

It's so important for paper-using industries like the publishing industry to get on the damn bandwagon and go green. ALL green. Americans recycle so much (even though we don't recycle nearly all that we could), that the key to completeling the cycle is to BUY recycled. in order to buy recycled, we must MANUFACTURE using recycled materials.

Thanks, JK!

Happy Harry day on Friday!

Recycle your Computer stuff!

STAPLES has initiated a new cheap electronics recycling program at all their stores! Say what you will about corporations changing their eco-tone , now that green is cool... anything is helpful at this point. So recycle those old computers!

"All brands are accepted, regardless of whether or not the equipment was purchased at Staples. A recycling fee of $10 per piece of large equipment is charged to cover handling, transport, product disassembly and recycling. Smaller computer peripherals such as keyboards, mice, and speakers are accepted at no charge."

Check it out here.

Let's talk Farm Bill 2007.

By googling this topic you'll find tons of advocacy groups using this bill (of which i'd never heard until last week) to address eco-issues, organic foods, and biofuels.

Here are some great blogs on the Bill as well as Take Action petitions:

Environmental Defense - add your name to the petition for better farming practices!

OxFam Advocacy - more info and a petition

An article about this debate...

The Two Americas of Food
By Anna Lappé
Reflections on the 2007 Farm Bill

Well, we have two Americas of food, too. For the rich and well-located – often, though not always, synonymous – we have the booming local foods movement, with more than 4,000 farmers markets now dotting the country. For the rest, we’ve got the wilted lettuce of bodegas and the high-calorie time-bombs of fast food.

This “other” America of food has led to a health epidemic of diet-related illnesses, costing us one in ten health care dollars, and to widespread hunger, too. Today, 36 million Americans often don’t know where their next meal is coming from – that’s a figure nearly the size of the entire population of Canada.

So, how do we close this food gap? One answer is immediately before us, embodied in two little words: the Farm Bill, and Congress is debating it right now.

Policies set in the Farm Bill largely determine what food we produce, who has access to it, and whose health we prioritize as a nation. Renegotiated every five years, the Farm Bill shapes much about food system, determining how $90 billion in taxpayers’ money is spent every year.

With Farm Bill renegotiations in full swing, we have a small window – shutting fast – to bring the fairness we expect from our economy into the food chain. Hundreds of organizations – from big environmental players to community food groups – have been working on strategies to do just that. Here are some of their bright ideas:

Support All Farmers: While the nation’s largest farms get billions in Farm Bill subsidies, most farmers are left out completely. Currently, only four in ten farmers and ranchers get even a penny in subsidies. Virtually no fruit and vegetable farmers receive support. African-American, Hispanic and Native American farmers have also been historically sidelined, with devastating results. Since the 1920s, 97 percent of black farmers have lost their farms. The proposed New Farmer Development Program would provide grants, low-interest loans, and training to help these disadvantaged farmers start and expand farm businesses.

Support Organic Research and Farming: Despite the skyrocketing demand for organic foods, just 3 percent of fruit and 2 percent of vegetables raised in the United States are grown organically and less than one percent of the federal agricultural research budget goes toward studying organic practices. Among other policies, advocates are pushing for mandatory allocations of a fair share of research dollars to organic research projects.

Support Rural America: Every year, we lose more than one million acres of prime farmland as small- and medium-size farmers go out of business. The Healthy Food Enterprise Development Program would provide $25 million in new funding to repair and reinvigorate America’s agricultural infrastructure. With this funding, small-scale farmers would have greater capacity not only to grow food, but also to store it, process it, and transport it, too, so they don’t become one of thousands of farmers who lose their businesses every year.

Support the Hungry: For the millions of food insecure Americans – most of whom are women, children, and the elderly – the Farm Bill’s Food Stamps are a vital tool for fighting hunger. Yet, at current levels, Food Stamps only provide about $3 per person per day. Try getting three solid meals a day on that budget! Additional funding has been proposed not only to strengthen the Food Stamp Program, but also to make it easier for food stamp recipients to buy fresh food at farmers markets.

Support Community Food Projects: Since legislation was introduced in the 1996 Farm Bill, more than 250 organizations have received funding to develop community-based solutions to their local food and farm problems. With only $5 million a year, these Community Food Projects have helped hundreds of communities make enormous strides in closing the food gap. Organizations like the Community Food Security Coalition are now asking for an increase to $60 million a year to extend this program’s proven positive impact.

Support Healthy School Meals: As local school-food heros across the country are showing us, school food doesn’t need to be crummy. Several proposals now before Congress would provide hundreds of millions of dollars to buy fresh fruits and vegetables for our public schools, in many cases sourced directly from area farmers.

$ for Gas

Editorial, NYT.com July 6th

Global Warming and Your Wallet

At long last, Congress is showing a willingness to confront global warming. The Senate’s recent approval of higher fuel economy standards is a constructive step and key lawmakers are promising comprehensive legislation this year that will, for the first time, limit the emission of greenhouse gases.

But for all the talk about warming, leading politicians have yet to educate their constituents (and their colleagues) about an unpleasant and inescapable truth: any serious effort to fight warming will require everyone to pay more for energy. According to most scientists, the long-term costs of doing nothing — flooding, famine, drought — would be even higher than the costs of acting now. But unless Americans understand and accept the trade-off — higher prices today to avoid calamity later — the requisite public support for real change is unlikely to Energy is currently underpriced in part because its cost does not reflect the damage inflicted by fossil fuels. Underpricing leads to overconsumption. Worse, it leads to underinvestment in alternatives. As long as today’s energy is relatively cheap, there is little incentive for private firms to develop new fuels and technologies.

When the market, on its own, fails to arrive at the proper price for goods and services, it’s the job of government to correct the failure. There are two ways to do so: higher taxes and new regulation.

Over a decade ago, the Clinton administration floated the sound idea of a tax on the carbon content of various fuels, like coal and oil. A tax on carbon, the main greenhouse gas, would cause energy prices to rise, thereby curbing consumption and providing a powerful incentive to invest in alternatives. The revenue from the tax could be used, in part, to subsidize the higher energy costs for low-income Americans. But the idea went nowhere, and new taxes remain a political nonstarter, at least for now.

The approach preferred by influential senators — including Joseph Lieberman, John Warner and Jeff Bingaman — as well as many businesses and environmental groups, is to develop a cap-and-trade system. The government would impose a cap on the overall amount of carbon that could be emitted and at the same time allow regulated firms, like utilities and oil refiners, to buy and sell the right to those limited emissions. Firms that could easily reduce their emissions could sell their allowances to firms that could not.

The big plus is that the nation would set an enforceable ceiling on carbon emissions, which would be lowered over time. Such a system has worked well to lower emissions of sulfur dioxide and other power plant pollutants and its proponents believe it can do the same for greenhouse gases.

Because a trading system would not impose new taxes, some in Congress might try to portray it as a free ride. But it would work the same way higher taxes would work — by raising the cost of fossil fuels. The higher prices would encourage efficiency and spur investment in a range of clean-energy technologies, without which major reductions would be almost impossible to achieve.

As the year rolls on, Congress will entertain several cap-and-trade bills: some more aggressive and costly, others offering various escape mechanisms should prices get too high. But one fundamental point must be kept in mind. We are now using the atmosphere as a free dumping ground for carbon emissions. Unless we — industry and consumers — are made to pay a significant price for doing so, we will never get anywhere.

organic market!

I got the chance to swing by the Decatur Organic Farmers Market last Wednesday and it was wonderful! Ironically across the street from a McDonalds, the covenient market had about ten vendors with all kinds fo organic stuff - eggs, milk (on request) tons of tomates, squash and potatos, floweres, herbs, and bread. Ohhh... the bread. I got an organic garlic loaf from Magnolia Bread Company that was heaven with nice olive oil and salt. The tomatos were so wonderful i ate them like apples the next two days.

Gotta say, it's so worth it to be able to look the farmer that grew the food in the eye. The food tasted so much better and made me want to eat the good-for-you foods instead of the sugar-loaded stuff. Locally grown is the way to go.

I also heard an NPR story interviewing some authors on food. One of them said basically DON'T TRUST ANYTHING ON FOOD PACKAGING, ESPECIALLY HEALTH CLAIMS. Of course this is true.. they're trying to sell you stuff, why would they tell the truth if they can make it look better to get your money.

Trust the food you eat, by trusting the source. Go Local!

Eco-Bond!

I'm calling it Bonding.. as in James Bonding... It's the surrepticious greening of my office by stealth.

Sneaking and pulling paper out of my colleague's trash to recycle.

Turning the lights off in rooms where no one is.

Turning off fans and computer monitors.

HA! They'll never know, but they're are now helping the earth!

All right, here we go...

To me its just startling how selfish and ignorant and prideful the Republicans are... that they would say basically "screw the future, my auto-maker funders said no, so I say no to nation-wide betterment." They simply do not see past six months from now. They don't have any sense of progress or advancement. It's really disastrous... like Roman Empire disastrous.

But at LEAST we got SOMETHING passed. A minor hallelujah is in order.

Senate Passes Energy Bill Favoring Renewables, Better Auto Fuel Economy

June 22, 2007 — By H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press (article here)

WASHINGTON -- Democrats celebrated a step toward reducing U.S. dependence on oil as the Senate approved a bill calling for more ethanol and the first boost in gas mileage in decades.
Now the House plans to follow suit, perhaps as early as next week.

The Senate late Thursday voted 65-27 to pass the first energy bill since Democrats took control of Congress in January. But it was far from a complete victory.

Resistance to the new auto fuel economy standards threatened passage until the final hours. Democratic leaders held off a vote until shortly before midnight as senators were called back to the Capitol to assure the votes needed to overcome a threatened filibuster by opponents of the tougher fuel regulations.

The bill finally passed even as Republican senators grumbled that it did virtually nothing to increase production of traditional domestic fuels such as oil and natural gas.
Democrats saw it differently.

"This bill starts America on a path toward reducing our reliance on oil," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., proclaimed.

The legislation would require ethanol production for motor fuels to grow to at least 36 billion gallons a year by 2022, a sevenfold increase over the amount of ethanol processed last year.
And it calls for boosting auto fuel economy to a fleet average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, a 40 percent increase over current requirements for cars, SUVs, vans and pickup trucks.

Fruit Fuel!

Fruit could make 'powerful fuel'
By Matt McGrath BBC Environment reporter

Could this be the fuel of the future?The sugar found in fruit such as apples and oranges can be converted into a new type of low carbon fuel for cars, US scientists have said.
The fuel, made from fructose, contains far more energy than ethanol, the scientists write in the journal Nature.

Separately, a British report on biofuels says all types of waste products, including plastic bags, can be used to make biodiesel fuel.

Critics of biofuels made from plant crops say they drive up food prices.
In both the European Union and the United States politicians have heartily embraced biofuels as a way of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and dependency on imported oil.

This is just awesome...

Be a role model... am i right? Sometime you have to spell it out...

I AM NOT A PLASTIC BAG

"The bag will be available from all US Anya Hindmarch stores, Ron Herman and Fred Segal Flair for just $15 and from Holt Renfrew in Canada for $18 (Canadian Dollars). Due to overwhelming demand purchases per customer will be limited.
From July 18th I’m Not A Plastic Bag will be available to buy from selected East Coast Whole Foods Market stores." more here

Read the Daily Mail article here...

Go art!

The Handwriting on the Road: An Artist Draws the Flood Line (link)

NTY.com

The chalk demarcates a point 10 feet above sea level, a boundary now used by federal and state agencies and insurance companies to show where waters could rise after a major storm. Relying partly on research conducted by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University, Ms. Mosher is trying to draw attention to projections that the chance of flooding up to or beyond her line could increase significantly as a result of global warming.

In a worst-case scenario, according to the research, the line could mark the zone for flooding that would occur every eight years, on average, by the year 2050, meaning that dozens of neighborhoods would soon come to resemble Venice, or maybe ancient Alexandria.

Over the next several months, Ms. Mosher, 38, will extend her line through the coastal neighborhoods of southernmost Brooklyn and then move on to Manhattan to draw a line that begins at East 14th Street and loops around the bottom of the island, back up to West 14th Street.

----

Mr. Morris, whose organization was founded to use “art as uniquely compelling evidence” of rapid climate change, said that Ms. Mosher came to him with the idea for the line, a project that echoes another one started by Bruce Caron, an activist on the West Coast.

“One of the things I really like about this is that it’s getting to a lot of communities that don’t really interact all that much with art,” Mr. Morris said, adding that he had put many miles on his legs recently, following Ms. Mosher through those communities with a camera.

“The way the line starts to disintegrate and fade after she’s done it is pretty poetic, visually,” he said."

(more here)

Eco house!

Thanks Suehyla, for finding this!



Wow! I totally want this house!

First zero-emission home unveiled
from BBC.com

The UK has unveiled its first zero emission home that will set the environmental standard for all new homes in the future.

The two-bedroom house is insulated to lose 60% less heat than a normal home.
It also features solar panels, a biomass boiler and water efficiency devices such as rainwater harvesting.

The design, unveiled at the Offsite 2007 exhibition in Watford, meets rules to be applied in 2016 that aim to make UK homes more energy-efficient.

The Kingspan Off-Site's Lighthouse design is the first to achieve level six of the Code for Sustainable Homes - which means the house is carbon neutral.

About a quarter of UK carbon emissions come from homes. more here

Ohh... No you didn't...

Oh.... thou hath made me angry Atlanta paper....

Here's is a snippet of the front page article of a Atlanta-based weekly paper, The Sunday Paper,

Dirty money (link)

The carbon offset market may mean big bucks, but can it heal the environment?

By Josh Clark

"America has since become smitten with the concept of purchasing a way to
counteract the environmental effect of its own pollution. At its most basic,
purchasing offsets in the form of credits is little more than a clever way for
consumers to donate to nonprofit environmental groups. But it still has an
effect. "

That's opretty much the gist. It's a well written article with good info. Actually it sheds the Carbon Offsetting in clear and good light.

BUT the headline on the front page reads:



" SCAM OF THE YEAR: How the environmental movement is making big bucks "

ARE YOU KIDDING ME????? Scam????? The eco movement is a scam??? This is so right-wing eco-bashing that I can't even begin to descibe it. I am furious mainly because the article is NOT eco-bashing, but the sensationalized front page is and will turn people off of this concept and they won't even read the article.

So here is my response to the Editor of the paper. Maybe you might send him your thoughts too: Editor in Chief, Conal Byrne - conalbyrne@sundaypaper.com

" I regularly read your paper but have never seen a place to submit letters.

I hope you can see this as dialogue and not an insult. Thank you for your work and your time in reading this.

This week's front page story is a ridiuclous, showy, and flagrantly irresponsible display of journalism. The article itself "Dirty Money" is well written and informative, but the front page headliner "Scam or the Year" is absurd and unrepresentative of the piece's tone or information.

The work of carbon-offsetting companies will absolutely benefit this nation's desire to go green and the effectivenss of doing such by creating a green market and thus creating a green economic vocabulary. It is progress. It is effective. It is a step forward.

It is nowhere near a "scam." To paint it as such is a huge disservice to your community for an over-hyped cover story. There is no need to present this urgent issue (and its inventive leaders) in such a demeaning light and cast the truely progressive thinkers in a shadow of corruption.

The scam is the oil companies, the corrupt politicos, and misrepresenting media, and that's a scam of the century.

Lauren Gunderson"

travel tips... wheeee!!!!

So after two weeks travelling I've realized that its hard to stay %100 green abroad. Not that other countries aren't good (in fact BETTER) at providing green and organic options... its just hard to tell what they are if you're new and always moving.

So... i've rung up a string of tips and that( small as they may be) were helpful for me while travelling:

Recycling - EVERYWHERE we went in Europe had avid recycling programs. Like we have trash cans on the street, they have recycling stations. This is so smart it makes Americans look like idiots... which is not hard to do.

Using Less - Airports are made for disposable experiences. So the only way to work around it is to use and ask for less. Don't use four paper towels in teh bathroom, give back the extra paper napkins at the starbucks, if you won't use a straw or a plastic knife, replace it. And refuse a plastic bag for every damn magazine ;) .

Food - We were lucky in Italy to have an amazing cook who made our meals from scratch (and used all local foods!). This is rare, but i'd like to think that region-specific dishes will provde your best hope for eating local goods. And the sense of nationalism these countries have will help... those French would NEVER use German cheese... mon dieu! I also learned that biologique was French for organic.

Food Part two: Airplane Meals - this is the tricky thing, beacuse every time you ask for water you get a whole new bottle or cup which they throw away. Argh... Just ask to keep your cup and reuse it. Also, the vegetarian food option (only available if you reserve it on your ticket) will help cut down on bad, inorganic, meal-filled dishes.

Walking - it did feel great to NOT drive for two weeks. Though our planes and trains ate up enough carbon, at least we weren't in our car chugging along alone. We walked everywhere and .

Anyone else have good eco travel tips?

Clinton, Climate, and Travel

Clinton on Climate Change
Bill Clinton talked to The Times's Andrew C. Revkin after announcing his new plan to fight global climate change at the Large Cities Climate Summit in New York.

Check out the quick video from the New York Times here.

Also, I'll be abroad for the next two weeks, so my posts will be few. However, I'll have some great questions adn ideas for greening your travel when I return... we hope.

Happy Greening!

Go Clinton!... the first one

This is so cool! I knew I voted for Clinton for a reason.I love this guy. (thanks Mark)

Cities to Go Green Under Clinton Plan

May 16, 2007 7:16 AM EDT

NEW YORK - Sixteen cities around the world will begin cutting carbon emissions by renovating city-owned buildings with green technology under a program spearheaded by former President Clinton's foundation.

Bill Clinton was to announce the partnership Wednesday, joined by mayors of several of the cities, as part of an international climate summit he is hosting this week in New York City.

Clinton's foundation described details to The Associated Press ahead of the announcement. Major global banking institutions have committed $1 billion to finance the upgrades of municipal buildings in participating cities, which include New York, Chicago, Houston, Toronto, Mexico City, London, Berlin and Tokyo.

The makeovers will include replacing heating, cooling and lighting systems with energy-efficient networks; making roofs white or reflective to deflect more of the sun's heat; sealing windows and installing new models that let more light in; and setting up sensors to control more efficient use of lights and air conditioning.

(more here)

From Slate.com

The Body Electric: Bright ideas for trimming CO2 emissions.

• If every American household replaced just one incandescent light bulb with a CFL, we'd prevent 800,000 cars' worth of greenhouse-gas emissions.
• Replace your halogen bulbs, too. They can get as hot as 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit, which means you could cook an egg on one. CFLs will save you money, as well as CO2 pounds.
  
• Cable and video-game boxes, DVD players, and other electronics can use as much energy in standby mode as a 75-watt light bulb that's left on. If a device offers an "off" option for standby lights, use it. Otherwise, try plugging electronics into a power strip, which you can turn off when they're not in use.
  
• How many times have you left your cell-phone charger plugged in, even when your phone is not? Wall chargers for things like iPods and cameras suck energy out of the socket, even when not attached to their mates. With the national average at five chargers per person, unplugging adds up.
  
• Rechargeable battery docks for gadgets like drills and handheld vacuum cleaners can draw from the socket five to 20 times more energy than is stored in the battery. Unplug them once tools are juiced.
  
• When replacing an appliance, look for the Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star label, which indicates higher efficiency than what's legally required.
  
• If your refrigerator is near a stove, dishwasher, or heating vent, move it to a cooler spot. Vacuum the coils every few months to eliminate dirt buildup and check to make sure the door gaskets don't have air leaks. Set the temperature between 35 degrees and 38 degrees Fahrenheit for the fridge and at zero for the freezer.
  
• If you use window air-conditioning units, buy the proper size for the room you plan to use it in. (Here's how.)
  
• If you have central air conditioning, be sure to clean the evaporator and condenser coils, as well as the airflow components. When clogged, they reduce efficiency. Check the refrigerant level, too. (Here's how.) You can also use a programmable thermostat to help regulate temperature.
  
• Ceiling fans circulate air both to cool spaces and to keep them warm. Since they don't change the temperature, they should be turned off when you leave a room.

Quick email action

Send an Email: Tell the EPA to Fight Global Warming

"The Environmental Protection Agency is standing in the way of states trying to take their own actions to fight global warming.

At the healm of statewide efforts to fig
ht global warming is California who has submitted a waiver to the EPA to regulate car emissions across the sunshine state. But, the EPA has yet to grant California the waiver and is thus preventing historic state actions to reduce greenhouse gases.

Take action! Tell EPA Administrator Johnson to grant California's waiver and pave the way for statewide global warming actions across the country." from EnvironmentalDefense. com

For the love of TREES

Okay. This is seriously funny... and helpful... and FREE! Its a website called VOTEFORTREES.COM and for every click you click, they plant trees. So simple, so good.



"You vote, we plant.If you're for trees, here's your chance to show it. In honor of National Arbor Day on Friday, April 27th, we're helping the non-profit Trees Water & People plant one tree for every YES vote received between now and Memorial Day (May 28) - up to 5,000 trees."

They also have a great sense of humor:

Clothes-Minded...

From, SLATE.com's Green Challenge. Fascinating!

Closet Case : The CO2 monster hiding in your wardrobe.

• Aside from your refrigerator, your dryer is your household's most energy-sucking appliance. To increase its efficiency and save CO2 emissions, put it in a part of the house that's typically warm. Clean the lint filter after each load and only turn it on when it's full. If your dryer features a moisture-sensor option, use it. Most ensure the machine will automatically shut off when the clothes are dry. Better yet, line-dry your clothes whenever possible so you're using no energy at all.
• If your washing machine has spin options, set it to a high or extended-spin setting. This will wring clothes out as much as possible before you put them in the dryer.
• Buy organic. Though there's no government label for organic clothing like the one for organic food, most manufacturers let you know. (Check out some of TreeHugger's favorite eco-conscious designers here.)
• Look for clothes that use recycled content. The environmental impact of recycling worn-out polyester into new polyester fiber, for instance, is significantly lower than making that same fiber anew. CO2 savings can be as high as 71 percent in the case of Patagonia's recycled Capilene base layers, and the company's Synchilla fleece is made from recycled plastic bottles.
• Donate your used, unwanted clothing and shoes instead of throwing them away. This averts the CO2 emissions that come from incinerating them or sending them to a landfill.
• We don't expect you to go to work in rags, but buying vintage or used clothes is a great way to cut down on the CO2 costs associated with farming and manufacturing. (Click here for TreeHugger vintage finds.)
• Choose quality over quantity. Buying things you'll wear for a long time saves energy and reduces trash.
• Choose clothes made from hemp and bamboo. Think you'll look like a hippie? Think again.
• Cows create loads of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Could you buy fewer shoes made from leather, and give canvas and hemp a chance?

All great ideas!

The Poor Environmentalist's Handbook

I ain't got no money. But I still care about the environment. If I can't buy a Prius of the newest eco-appliances, or buy offset vouches for my plane travel.. what CAN I do?

Go green without spending green!

Here are a few FREE things to help the environment:

• Ride your bike. If you don't have one, then this tip is no longer free (sorry). If you DO have one, ride it to those quick errands down the street incstead of driving.


• Don't Flush Every Time. Do you really need to flush the toilet every time you... ehem... let loose? No. Even flusghin every OTHER time cuts your consumption by half (duh). I hear chevy Chase once say about his family's toilet behavior "If it's brown, flush it down. If it's yello, let it mellow." Profound, Chevy...


• Recycle. So easy, and in mot civilized place, free! American throw away WAY too many things they could recycle. Do it!


• Reuse. This is the essence of free. Reuse plastic containers for planters, change bowls, pen holders. Reuse envelopes. Reuse plastic bags. Reuse old t-shirts for cloths. Reuse boxes. Reuse, reuse, reuse. Then recycle.


• Petition and Protest. Write an email to your political leaders, sign the online petitions, join a protest. all free - especially if you ride your bike!


• Don't use so much of everything. Don't use 3 paper cloths in public bathrooms. Don't use so much toilet paper (thanks Sheryl Crow). Don't use four paper napkins or straws at restaurants. Don't use paper cups at coffee shops. Don't leave lights on. Don't leave appliance and electronics on. We are surrounded by convenience and we really DON'T need it.


• Don't get receipts at ATM and gas stations. Megan suggested this, saying that a year's worth of American's ATM reciepts can wrap around the globe 15 times!

Any other good ideas about how to be a poor but successful environmentalist?

Paper belongs in trees not up noses

So... I like petitions. Online petitions couldn't be easier. But real letters (written on recycled paper of course) work about a hundred times better. Either way, I'm a fan of looking a the numbers of people who took the five seconds to attached themselves to an issue.

Here's one to jump on. Kimberly-Clark, the makers of Kleenex, refuses to use recycled material in their products. Not only that but the proceed to clear cut ancient boreal forests... all so that we can wipe our noses and booties just to throw these bits of the planet right down the drain.

That. Is. Ridiculous.

So. Make a pledge to stop using kleenex or an KC products. Instead try 100% recycled paper products!

So much better for the environment and not that expensive. THese products also don't hve those awful chemicals and scents and crap like that. I get mine at Whole Foods.