Penny-Wise Challenge

This year, I've really become interested in local eating and in the 100-mile diet in particular. Most of our food travels 1,500 miles before it reaches our plates. Eating more locally can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transporting that food, it helps support local farmers, and promote seasonal eating.

To get a better idea of whether local eating is more expensive, less expensive, or just about the same (financially, of course) as eating commercially produced food, the Eat Local Challenge is organizing the Penny-Wise Eat Local Challenge. People participating in this particular challenge will try to stay within budget goals from this Monday, April 23rd through Sunday, April 29th.

Personally, I'll be trying to stay with in the two person, two wage earners budget of $144 a week. If I wasn't living with someone, my goal would be a mere $68 for the week. My definition of local is 100-mile radius of my home. Since salt, coffee, and tea aren't produced locally, I'll make exemptions for those things. Stay tuned to see how it goes!

Green Taxes

Thankfully, I've already filed my 2006 tax return, but I'm even happier to report that I noticed some environmental incentives as I was punching my numbers into TurboTax.

First, there was the energy efficient improvements tax break, then the break for owning a hybrid, alternative energy, or electric vehicle. Even though there aren't that many alternative energy fueling stations yet in the United States (compared to regular gasoline stations), the industry is certainly growing.

Farmers are planting more corn this year than they have since 1944, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. As the Board of Trade went wild after the agency published its prospective plantings report last Friday, an article in the Chicago Tribune explained why farmers are crazy for corn:

The move to plant corn is in large part due to a rush to produce corn-based ethanol, which is blended with gasoline. There are now 114 ethanol refineries nationwide and another 80 under construction.

So, even though I don't own a car and couldn't claim that I did on my taxes, alternative fuel cars are on the rise, which could help reduce our reliance on fossil fuels at least a little bit.

As the Worm Turns

Worms are getting their day in the sun. They are finding homes in portable compost containers in apartments and even offices. There, they compost organic waste and create rich soil for planting. Even California's Integrated Waste Management Board ranked composting worms as the number two way to recycle in the office.

Not only are earth worms gaining popularity with people, but also with businesses. Some companies like TerraCycle are selling the soil that worms digest. According to an article on CNN.com yesterday, the company is cashing in on the surge in organic products--despite the lack of strict definitions of the word.

"Sales of organic products, especially food, have surged of late. But the National Gardening Association estimates just 5 percent of the $8.5 billion U.S. fertilizer and insecticide industry is all-natural, with uncertainty about what 'organic' means muddying the picture, according to experts," the article states.

Yet companies are making the move to create genuinely natural products: "That may be changing, with market researchers Freedonia Group estimating 10 percent annual growth for the organic fertilizer market, twice the projected growth for all lawn and garden goods."

It's appropriate that now companies are starting to design products because of public demand for green goods, otherwise they couldn't make a profit, but it's not like worms are some sort of new technology. At least the benefit that worms provide is finally coming to light and people can stop thinking of them simply as slimy, wiggling garden dwellers.

Bummin' Beluga

About two weeks ago, the UN lifted its year-long ban on beluga sturgeon caviar. Even though countries that export the delicacy said that they would reduce the amount of caviar they caught by 29 percent, many environmentalists are still angry that eggs can be harvested from a species that could be close to extinction.

According to an article in Reuters, certain environmental protection groups think that the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is not fulfilling its responsibility by lifting the ban: "'This is irresponsible behavior by international trade officials,' said Ellen Pikitch, executive director of the Pew Institute for Ocean Science and co-founder of Caviar Emptor, a group campaigning to protect Caspian Sea sturgeon."

So what is the alternative? Some groups like SeaWeb are suggesting that people boycott the beluga eggs, which accounts for 90 percent of the world's caviar. If the population declines even more dramatically, CITES could reinstate the ban, but if a 45 percent decrease in the population from 2004 to 2005 is not enough to maintain a ban on the caviar for longer than a year, the species might not survive so swimmingly.

Toxic Technology

Every time we buy a new cell phone, computer, or trade in that television for a shiny, new flat screen, we often struggle to figure out what to do with the old one. Many of these electronics contain toxic chemicals, and the fact that the parts come from all different parts of the world makes regulation difficult.

This relatively recent problem of e-waste is not ignored by the press. Outlets like Wired, the New York Times, and National Geographic have written about it for a few years now, but it still remains a growing problem.

So how do we make our technology greener and help stop the toxic electronic waste from piling up? In 2005 the European Union decided to enforce stricter standards and as a result, many new cell phones are built without chemicals like mercury and lead, according to a recent article in the Inter Press Service News Agency.

In the EU, all mobile phone companies are obligated to set up take-back and recycle programs for batteries and phones under the bloc's Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive that entered into force in 2005.

Some states here in the United States are ensuring that electronics already in existence don't end up in landfills where the chemicals can seep into groundwater. So far, four states--New Hampshire, California, Massachusetts, and Maine--all approved legislation that restricts dumping of certain electronics. That leaves only...46 more states to go!

Some things that you can do include recycling your old cell phone through your service provider, waiting to take that old computer monitor out of your closet until the city sponsors an electronics recycling day like they have here in New York, or buying a recycled product. Will that be enough? Probably not, but it's a start.

Wal-Mart in Lights

Wal-Mart's greening image turned to emerald a couple of weeks ago when chief executive H. Lee Scott, Jr. announced the ambitious goal of selling 100 million fluorescent light bulbs each year by 2008.

A fluorescent light bulb is an easy way for people to conserve energy, as explained by an article in the New York Times:

It uses 75 percent less electricity, lasts 10 times longer, produces 450 pounds fewer greenhouse gases from power plants and saves consumers $30 over the life of each bulb.

Now, with Wal-Mart's help, this technology could help to reduce the nation's collective energy use.

So why, aside from feeling some social responsibility, is Wal-Mart setting its sights so high and trying to sell so many of these light bulbs? Well, that's up for debate, but as James Kunstler points out in "Making Other Arrangements," an article in the January/February issue of Orion magazine, with less oil will come necessary lifestyle changes that could threaten the Wal-Mart way of life.

We're not going to run Wal-Mart, Walt Disney World, or the Interstate Highway System on solar or wind energy, hydrogen, ethanol, tar sands, oil shale, or anything else you can name. We will desperately use many of these things in many ways, but we are likely to be disappointed in what they can actually do

The more energy we conserve, the less oil we use, and the longer places like Wal-Mart will be able to survive. Regardless of the company's motivation, using less energy is an environmentally friendly endeavor. So put on your sweater and curl up by the fluorescent light.

Caviar from the Caspian

Days after the New Year, the United Nations announced that it would lift the ban on caviar harvested from the Caspian Sea. The ban was in place during 2006 because the main exporting countries failed to provide information on fish stocks (check my previous post for more information). New 2007 quotas on the delicacy from sturgeon in the Caspian Sea, where 90 percent of all caviar originates, are 15 percent lower than they were in 2005.

In the early '90s, caviar production fell by over 90 percent, environmentalists estimate, because of over-fishing. In 2001, the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) began monitoring the fish stocks.

Despite the monitoring, sturgeon numbers are still declining. The Secretary-General of CITES, Willem Wijnstekers, admitted so much in a press release:

Ensuring that sturgeon stocks recover to safe levels will take decades of careful fisheries management and an unrelenting struggle against poaching and illegal trade. The income earned from the sale of sturgeon products in 2007 should provide both an incentive and the means to pursue the long-term recovery of this commercially and ecologically valuable natural resource.

The group put off the decision to lift the ban on the more expensive beluga caviar until next month so it can have more time to collect information. If they decide to remove that ban as well, there will be at least one definitive consequence--fewer baby belugas in the deep blue sea.

Eau d'Antoinette

The Chateau of Versailles recently released a limited edition of the scent worn by Marie Antoinette.

A modern perfumer recreated the scent from detailed notes recorded by one of the perfumers that created scents for Marie Antoinette. Although Mademoiselle Antoinette was a "trend setter" according to one of the perfumers in a story on National Public Radio because she bathed every day, much of her court did not, so perfume was a good way to relive the nose of the distasteful odors. But the way that perfumers created Marie's aroma back in the 1700s is a little different than the way perfumes are made today.

Some components of modern perfume are synthetic. Back then they were not, so a scent like rose smells a little waxier, explains Francis Kurkdjian, the perfumer who reincarnated the fragrance. Also, the flowers used in perfume before Marie was beheaded during the French Revolution were boiled altogether, whereas now they are boiled individually before being added to the mix.

The Versailles perfume experiment was not only an experiment in chemistry, but also in history. So, while we are eating cake we might also be able to smell the complex scents of pre-revolution France.

Smart Kids Eat Their Veggies

Even though most kids tell stories about hiding their Brussel sprouts in their napkins, the smartest ones often end up vegetarians.

According to a new study published in the British Medical Journal, kids with high IQs reported that they are vegetarians in adulthood.

In the study, researchers took the IQs of more than 8,000 kids who were 10 years old. Twenty years later, the researchers polled the study group to see how many reported that they were vegetarians. They found that 4.5 percent were vegetarians, and over 30 percent were vegetarians who ate fish or or chicken.

I must admit that I am in the category of vegetarians who eat fish, which many people don't consider to be a "true" form of veggie. While I agree (to a certain extent), the study showed that there was no difference in IQ between kids who turned out to be vegetarians and those who are now pesce vegetarians, as we are called, or chicken eating vegetarians. I also must admit that I know plenty of people who eat meat and are quite intelligent as well.

Drilling Decision

Last weekend, as Friday night turned to Saturday morning, the Senate voted to allow offshore drilling on over eight million acres in the eastern part of the Gulf of Mexico.

The royalties will go to the states surrounding the gulf--Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas--so that they can invest in "coastal restoration and hurricane recovery," according to an article in the Mobile Press-Register.

In that area, experts estimate that there is enough gas to heat six million homes for 15 years, but that could be at the expense of the surrounding habitat. Opening up that area so that we can continue to feed our hunger for energy might result in oil spills and disrupted coastal ecosystems. Let's just hope that one of the worst consequences of a gulf coast spotted with rigs is an uglier horizon.

Vicky's Catalogues

Two days after Victoria's Secret's annual fashion show aired on television, the company announced that it would stop using paper made from trees in threatened caribou habitat for its catalogues.

Every year, the company mails out 350 million catalogues, published by Limited Brands. For years environmental groups, like Forest Ethics tried to convince Limited Brands to change its paper sources.

Now the company, which is also the parent company of Bath & Body Works, Henri Bendel, and Express, says that at least 10 percent of the paper it uses for catalogues will come from companies using sustainable practices that are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, or from recycled products.

Not only did Limited Brands help Victoria's Secret reveal its lingerie this week, it helped exposed the company as a budding, environmentally conscious company.

Manure Mania

Cow manure may not be an obvious energy alternative, but it is fueling farms in Vermont. Central Vermont Public Service started a program called Cow Power, which uses methane from cow dung to generate electricity.

Methane, a green house gas that traps 20 times more heat than carbon dioxide, can significantly contribute to global warming. Trapping it and using it for fuel can help to reduce energy costs and potentially slow climate change.

Some dairy farms install a machine that scrapes floor of the barn, collecting waste from the cows. The manure is then put into a 100 degree holding tank, called an anaerobic digester, where bacteria that is naturally found in the cows’ stomachs continue to digest it like an enlarged stomach.

Over the course of three weeks, methane is collected from the manure in the sealed tank and sent to a natural gas engine where it is used to create electricity. Unless it leaks, there is no reek. And the heat from the engine helps to keep the digestion tank hot.

Some of the remaining waste is in liquid form while the rest is solid. Farmers can spread liquid over the farm fields as fertilizer. The now odorless solid can replace sawdust that is spread on the floor of the bar and used as bedding for the cows.

One cow can produce up to 30 gallons of waste a day, which can light two 100-watt light bulbs 24 hours a day, according to the website. Maybe best of all, the fuel is renewable.

Cow power not only supplies farms with energy, it can also provide energy to other institutions. Green Mountain College announced in October that it would purchase 50 percent of its energy from cow power.

Although cow manure may not be an energy alternative for everybody, it certainly is an option that doesn’t stink.

Cooling Forest Fires

Scientists now think that forest fires could actually decrease global warming.

Forests absorb carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, creating what scientists call carbon sinks. Global warming causes droughts and longer summers, so there are more forest fires, which destroy these sinks and release carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. But a new study published in the journal Science shows that when there are fewer northern boreal forests, more light is reflected back into space, decreasing the absorption of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

After a northern forest burns to the ground, scientists think that evergreen forests will be replaced by deciduous forests when the earth is warmer. These deciduous saplings have lighter green leaves than mature trees, so they reflect more light. They also shed their leaves in the fall and winter, so snow that falls to the ground will also reflect more light.

How's that for an unexpected negative feedback loop? After all this talk about how global warming is going to fuel itself, this study show that we still don't exactly know all the systems in play.

Plastic Ocean

The ocean can absorb heat from the sun and carbon dioxide from the air, but it can't absorb our plastic trash. A report released yesterday by Greenpeace states that plastic people threw away and was subsequently dumped into the ocean is now part of the marine environment and (surprise, surprise) is harming animals.

"Marine debris has become a pervasive pollution problem affecting all of the world’s oceans. It is known to be the cause of injuries and deaths of numerous marine animals and birds, either because they become entangled in it or they mistake it for prey and eat it," the report reads.

So what we throw away does not actually go "away" after all! It does to the extent that most people just don't see it floating in the ocean, even though a select few have observed it first hand. Carl Safina, an ecologist and award-winning writer, points out some of the dangers of garbage that he saw in the oceans in his book Voyage of the Turtle, released earlier this year.

I'm not advocating a toothbrush reuse program or anything, but I don't think it hurts to know that discarded plastics are swimming among the fish.

Fish Food

If you like your sushi, you may be able to savor each bite for just a few more decades. The fish that we currently eat could be fished out by 2050, a new study published in the journal Science concludes. With each species that we fish nearly to extinction, the ecosystem deteriorates, the scientists found.

"Unless we fundamentally change the way we manage all the oceans species together, as working ecosystems, then this century is the last century of wild seafood," said co-author Steve Palumbi of Stanford University in an article published by the National Science Foundation.

The four-year study is the most comprehensive yet, the article states, including historical, observational, and experimental data. It also supports what scientists observed on a smaller scale.

The less biodiversity, the less resistant the ecosystem is to other stresses. If we protect our ocean ecosystems, however, we could extend the estimated drop-dead date. Even though we seem to be sending ocean environments into a downward spiral, the more species we protect, the healthier the ecosystem will be.

Carded

Whole Foods has started selling wind cards. What are wind cards you ask? They are similar to gift cards, but instead of being redeemable for a product, they help the wind energy industry to market their product. Shoppers can buy cards in $5 or $15 amounts, representative of the cost of energy for an individual or a household per month, reported Planet Ark. The grocery store bought wind power in January to offset the company's dirty energy costs. Renewable Choice Energy, which is selling the cards with Whole Foods, provides the market with its wind power credits.

On the Renewable Choice Energy website, the company advertises a free gift card to Whole Foods if you sign up to pay for a monthly card. It is not clear, however, exactly whether the cost is meant to offset individual or household carbon emissions by purchasing clean energy, or if the money is just for industry marketing.

The idea of some sort of carbon card is not new. This summer, David Miliband, the environmental secretary of the UK, proposed a personalized carbon card system. Each UK citizen would get a certain number of carbon "points," which would be deducted depending on what that person did. Drive a Hummer and your points are spent in an instant. Thankfully, you can buy more. The system hasn't been implemented yet, so we will have to see if it works.

Regardless of the form they take, the cards are a nice reminder of what it costs to fuel the way we live, whether you buy into it or not.

People, People Everywhere

The 300 millionth person to enter the United States wasn't met with any bells as whistles. In fact, even though the Census Bureau counted him or her on Tuesday, no one really knows who he or she is, or even if he or she was born in a hospital or just crossed the border.

Aside from some discussion about how the United States' population is now only behind China and India, other reports of this milestone seem to gloss over many of the issues surrounding this event like resource use, pollution, health care, and economic benefits of an expanding crowd.

Many articles on the topic are from local newspapers claiming to be the home of the 300 millionth American. Some others like Live Science do better by briefly touching on the economic benefit of a robust population. That article even mentions the fact that some goverments are fearful of decreasing numbers. But still, the view through an environmental lens is somewhat lacking.

With so much talk about countries like Germany and France that struggle to sustain their populations, the U.S., which welcomes a fresh face every 11 seconds, might benefit from another look at what 300 million really means.

Orange Plastic

Shrouded in black curtains, the wonders of Wired Magazine's Nextfest displayed themselves to a (dare I say?) somewhat geeky crowd that was eager to see the latest science and technological innovations this weekend. Needless to say, I was among them.

Deep in the recesses of the giant room was the "green" section. There, standing at a small table were two young guys who were telling people that natural things like citrus fruits can make plastic.

How does this possible? Well, according to these two Cornell Ph.D. graduates, it's pretty simple. Stacked on top of each other were three clear, plastic boxes. One had a white balloon inside, representing limonene (which is found in citrus fruits) and two had red balloons, representing carbon. This molecule creates a strong plastic that is comparable to the plastics used to create things like a cup.

Apparently one company is interested in buying this technology that can decompose in a compost heap. Is it truly possible that organic things can make biodegrading plastic? One would like to think that if they can get a booth at Nextfest, anything can happen.

Nanotechnology for Water

Using a technology that is virtually invisible to the naked eye, scientists may be able to make your water, and everyone else's, cleaner. Nanotechnology designed to find contaminants in water and possibly even filter it in a way that conventional technology cannot could be the wave of the future, scientists and nanotechnology advocates told me when I was reporting a story for Scienceline, my Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program's webzine (the shortest distance between you and science).

At this point, even a hard look into a crystal ball won't be able to tell us whether or not all will be well after materials are nano-sized. The government is still supporting research, but oversight committees also caution that a close eye should be trained on the possibility of unintended health effects, The Scientist also reported yesterday.

If you believe in technological innovation, however, the future looks bright. Such little things might help us go a long way.

A Legend's Discussion

I know it may seem like I am obsessing a bit about E.O. Wilson, but after hearing him talk last week, I thought that other people might like to read about his presentation:

As E.O. Wilson, the Harvard entomologist, put his reading classes on to read from his book at the request of his interviewer, a hush came over the audience. Reading flawlessly, Wilson managed to captivate over 200 people after reading just two pages, enchanting the crowd with his words.

At the beginning of his new book, Creation, Wilson, the Pulitzer Prize winning author, writes to a fictional Baptist minister in Alabama, requesting that the Baptist church and its congregation get involved in protecting the earth. “If a tiny fraction could be recruited, it could tip the balance,” he said to Ira Flatow, his interviewer from National Public Radio’s Science Friday broadcast.

Wilson’s intention in writing the book was not to give his two cents about the marriage of science and religion, he explained to the crowd at the New York Public Library last Thursday. “I didn’t want to get into it,” he said. “I have too many relatives in Alabama,” he joked.

The reason that he decided to address the Baptist community, he said, was “pure and simple I wanted to save creation.” There is a natural overlap between the two groups, he explained, even though their ideologies are sometimes at odds.

Wilson doesn’t think that Intelligent Design should be taught in science class or that the scientific and religious communities must reach some sort of compromise. “There is no room for compromise,” he said. “Why would we have to compromise in the metaphysical to take action?”

The two groups come to the discussion from different perspectives, he said, and both can speak of a creation using different words. Baptists have the Bible and scientists have research. Humans see just one tiny section of the spectrum of light and can hear only certain frequencies, Wilson said. Research shows that elephants communicate at lower frequencies than humans can hear, while bats use a higher frequency than humans can hear. We can’t even feel electricity physically like some marine animals unless we stick our fingers in a socket, Wilson said. “Science is the best of what the Old Testament poets could have asked for.”

Wilson is asking the Baptist community to show concern about what is happening to the planet. He illustrated his point by quoting Billy Graham: “Just because humans have dominion over the earth doesn’t mean we have to destroy it.”

Wilson makes his eloquent request because his has seen the damage first hand. “I’m tired of going down to the tropics where I started my research and seeing one more acre of rainforest gone,” he said, leaning back in his chair. The earth’s history shows that one species in a million naturally went extinct every year. Now, because of humans, the extinction rate has gone up an order of magnitude to 1,000 and could reach 10,000 if it’s unabated, Wilson estimated.

“How awkward I feel that I and other scientists should have to plead for life. I feel like a defense attorney,” he told the audience.

Despite the seriousness of the topic, Wilson kept the mood light, telling the audience that he didn’t want to sound like a Pollyanna, but that he did think that we could turn things around. One woman in the audience expressed the effect of Wilson’s message: “Now I feel like I can get up in the morning.”