Puddle Jumping in DC

Green Your Cycle in 2012 with Reusable Feminine Hygiene Products

For this month's Green Moms Carnival, "Resolutions to Fight Climate Change" hosted by Strocel.com, I'm getting personal, really personal. 

But let's start with the big picture:

• E-Magazine reports that, in 1998, 6.5 billion tampons were thrown in the garbage or flushed into our already overburdened sewer systems and 13 billion disposable menstrual pads were thrown away. 
• The Center for Marine Conservation reported that more than 170,000 plastic tampon applicators polluting our oceans were collected during beach cleanups in 1998 and 1999. 
• Most disposable menstrual products are virgin paper products and deforestation in the tropics accounts for nearly 20 percent of human-generated, climate-changing carbon emissions.

Add the global warming and trash concerns to worries about dioxin, a cancer-causing bi-product of bleaching paper and cotton, and many women are choosing reusable menstrual cups instead of disposable tampons (brands and resources outlined below the jump).

While feminine hygiene products may not be the biggest environmental threat or the most effective way to personally address global climate change, if you've already tackled things like your home energy efficiency, shifted to renewable energy, and reduced the carbon footprint of your personal transportation, then you might shift your attention to some of the other ways you can make a difference. Shifting away from disposable feminine hygiene products is an easy lifestyle change to that still makes a difference.

Feminine Care Products Are A Big Industry
We've all seen the ridiculous commercials of women wearing clingy white outfits and dancing on the beach because of the freedom delivered by whatever disposable product they've chosen. In fact, several brands of hygiene product go right to the root word for freedom in naming their products: Libra and Libresse are brands of tampons.

There's money in menstrual products, a lot of it. One market analysis predicts that the industry will gross $14.5 billion dollars a year by 2015. (That's a lot of freedom!) But that same analysis warns that "Reduced acceptance of throwaway convenience and increased emphasis on resource optimization, environmental benefits . . ." are among the challenges facing the industry.

Among the other challenges for the industry, an aging market share as baby boomer no longer need them. Kotex, a brand I definitely grew up thinking was for old people, is trying to capture the teens and tween audience by mocking the marketing  previously used by Kotex and other brands.

Their "Get Real" campaign offers tampons and pads in bright colors and encourages girls to "take a stand against bland" by ordering custom designs on their pads. No, seriously.

Are Reusable Menstrual Products Going Too Far?

The decision between cloth and disposable diapers, something a baby will wear for about 3 years, gets a lot of press and is an expected eco-decision facing a new parent. Yet the decision between reusable and disposable menstrual products, something a woman will use nearly three months a year for most of their lives, is not even one many women consciously made.

I'm not really that nostalgic for the technology of my grandmother's era, it wasn't that long ago that reusable products were the norm. Today though, shifting from disposable tampons and maxis to a menstrual cup or reusable pads requires you to reject the notion that manufacturers are trying to sell you that your entire life can be neat, tidy, convenient, and, if you want, sweet smelling.

But if you're found this Green Moms Carnival blog because you are a mom, you've already been disabused of that notion and know that life is messy. By the time you've lived through the exploding diapers phase of infancy and survived potty training and the recurring stomach viruses of the preschool years, your entire perception of what's messy and gross may have shifted.

If You Give a Mom a Muffin

The poem below was emailed to me this week.  If you are a parent who's read the "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie" book series by Laura Numeroff, this may strike a cord.

If You Give A Mom A Muffin

 by Kathy Fictorie

If you give a mom a muffin,

She’ll want a cup of coffee to go with it.

She’ll pour herself some.

Her three-year-old will spill the coffee.

She’ll wipe it up.

Wiping the floor, she’ll find dirty socks.

She’ll remember she has to do laundry.

When she puts the laundry in the washer,

She’ll trip over boots and bump into the freezer.

Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan for supper.

She will get out a pound of hamburger.

She’ll look for her cookbook (“101 Things To Do With a Pound of Hamburger”).**

The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail.

She will see the phone bill, which is due tomorrow.

She will look for her checkbook.

The check book is in her purse that is being dumped out by her two-year-old.

She’ll smell something funny.

She’ll change the two year old’s diaper.

While she is changing the diaper, the phone will ring.

Her five-year-old will answer and hang up.

She’ll remember she wants to phone a friend for coffee.

Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going to have a cup.

And chances are…

If she has a cup of coffee,

Her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.

 ___

**Naturally, we'd be using a veg-friendly alternative around here.

I was unable to find the poem's original source or a website belonging to Kathy Fictorie, the credited author.

I did find creative moms out there turning the poem into a cute DIY gift. Pamela Donnis designed a 4x6" card (left) for the poem and attached it to a package of muffin mix with a bow.  She has shared the image file on her blog. I found alternative versions using homemade muffin mixes as well.

Maya's current favorite from the series is "If You Give a Pig a Pancake."  We don't own that one and she recently requested it at bed time. I found a version on YouTube being read by another fan. Enjoy.

Is a web video of a child reading a book aloud with copyrighted images an example of online piracy? Probably, but if either piece of proposed federal legislation known as the "Stop Online Piracy Act" and "Protect Intelectual Property Act" passes, a single complaint to my web hosting company could result in Puddle Jumping in DC being shut down over it, no due process, no notice.  Find out more. Contact your members of Congress.

 

Photo credit: Muffin by flickr user Nicola since 1972, used by Creative Commons license.

Where Is Your Old Cell Phone? U.S. E-Waste Across the Globe

Originally published on Care2.

Were you one of the millions of Americans to get an upgrade to one of your electronic devices this holiday season?

You know you are not alone, of course. According to the Electronics Take Back Coalition, consumers in the United States will replace approximately 400 million consumer gadgets this year.

Tiny Fraction of Obsolete Electronics Are Recycled
Do you have any idea what happens to all the old cell phones, laptops, vcr players and other obsolete electronics we discard every year? Approximately 14 percent of those devices will be “recycled,” but e-waste recycling in the United States usually means exporting electronics to developing countries and what actually happens to the materials and the workers at recycling facilities is poorly regulated and sometimes completely unknown.

Some electronics will be broken down to recover valuable metals from its components and some will get a second life in the importing country’s consumer market. David Biello of Scientific American discovered this when he covered the climate talks in South Africa this fall. The cell phone he rented during his visit was clearly used, still bearing a photo of a woman of European descent and the contact information of the previous user’s friends.

Earlier this year, a team of MIT researchers set out to find out what happens to all our old electronics by turning them into little investigative reporters that send data and images back to the team from all over the world. They outfitted the devices with GPS units and programed them to send coordinates and video images back every 15 minutes. The video below provides a snapshot of the data collected so far.

  

Poorly Regulated E-Waste Recycling Is Really Toxin Exporting
While only the working electronics sent back video images, the team also tracked broken and useless e-waste destined for resource recovery. According to Backtalk:

“One reason why obsolete electronics are transported over large distances is the sparse geographical distribution of dedicated recycling facilities. For example, only thirteen facilities in the world are certified to smelt and recycle the cathode ray tubes of old television sets – and all are in Asia. For these components, environmentally sound recycling is critical, since the glass of these TVs and monitors can contain up to 20% lead by weight.”

E-waste recycling internationally is a crude and dangerous industry. Workers often break apart electronics with hammers or even by heating components to melt out valuable material, releasing toxins with little regard to their own health or the environment. And it’s not just the recycling workers whose health is harmed.

“A study published last year in Environmental Health Perspectives found that children in Guiyu [a town in China were e-waste is recycled] had lead levels 50 percent higher than those in surrounding villages and 50 percent higher than safety limits set by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Lead is known to cause brain damage.” (Scientific American)

Take Action: Stop global toxic dumping! Make it illegal to send toxic e-waste to developing nations.

What You Can Do to Stop Toxic E-Waste Exporting

1) Definitely recycle your old electronics, but choose a responsible recycler. Approximately 85 percent of e-waste ends up in U.S. landfills where toxins leach into the local environment and valuable minerals are lost. e-Stewards certified recyclers are committed to responsible recycling that doesn’t export toxins to developing countries.

See the Electronics Take Back Coalition’s guide to e-recycling for more suggestions. (And yes, delete your data first.)

2) Support electronics take-back programs and laws to require manufactures to implement them. The consumer electronics industry is extremely profitable, in part by hoisting the cost of disposal of their products onto the general public. In response to popular demand, companies like Apple and HP will take back your old electronics, sometimes for discounts on new purchases.

3) Support federal and state legislation to prevent e-waste exporting. Several states have passed laws to regulate the disposal of e-waste and bills have been introduced in both chambers of the U.S. Congress. Find out about state legislation and support the bi-partisan Responsible Electronics Recycling Act of 2011 (H.R.2284 and S.1270).

 

Photo credit: Old phones by flickr user CannedTuna, used by Creative Commons license.

Gas in the water, toxins in the baby shampoo, coal ash in Lake Michigan!

Found myself writing about chemicals out of place. Recently on Care2:

My Water’s On Fire Tonight [Video]

Recent reports reveal that hydraulic fracturing, a form of natural gas drilling that involves injecting toxin-laden water deep underground, may have been responsible for earthquakes in England and Oklahoma and the Environmental Protection agency announced that it will investigate the drilling method’s impact on drinking water. . . Read more.

Toxic Chemicals in U.S. Baby Shampoo, Why?

It’s pretty clear that formaldehyde, used to embalm corpses, is not a health elixir. What’s less clear is why Johnson & Johnson thinks it’s a good idea to put this carcinogen in baby shampoo. . . Read more.

Powerplant Mudslide Dumps Coal Ash into Lake Michigan

Just weeks after the U.S. Senate voted to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate the disposal of coal ash, what’s left after coal is burned in a power plant, a mudslide on the banks of Lake Michigan sends tons of the stuff into a drinking water source for 10 million people. . . Read more.

Catfish, Global Warming, and Barbie vs. the Rainforest - Recently on Care2

Virginia Anglers Catch 143-pound Monster Catfish

News outlets are calling the 143-pound blue catfish hooked by sport fishermen in Virginia a monster of our own making. The fish caught by Richard Nicholas “Nick” Anderson and his father and brother in John H. Kerr Reservoir, known locally as Buggs Island Lake, broke the state record just set in March by a 109 pound catfish, and may break the world record for largest fish caught. Biologists for the most part are not cheering the opportunity for more fisherman to catch a “big one” in Virginia waters. (more)

All Eyes to EPA on Global Warming

The U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants under the Clean Air Act last month when it denied a petition by several states to force power plants to reduce pollution. (more)

Showdown in New Jersey Over Climate Pollution Pact

In response to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s announcement that he would pull out of a multi-state agreement, known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, to reduce global warming pollution from power plants, the state legislature has passed three separate bills to prevent RGGI withdrawal. While no one expects Governor Christie to sign the bills that reach his desk, environmentalists such as Jeff Tittel, Director of New Jersey Sierra Club, say the votes indicate that the legislature would support legislation blocking the regulatory changes Christie will need to pull out of the agreement. (more)

U.S. Regulators Help Nuclear Power Plants Meet Safety Standards…

A very cozy relationship exists between the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and thenuclear power industry in the United States according to an Associated Press investigative report that found “proof that aging reactors have been allowed to run less safely to prolong operation.” ( more)

To Win Back Ken, Barbie Pledges to Stop Destroying Rainforests

After last week’s banner-dropping stunt at Mattel headquarters by Greenpeace, deforestation concerns began dominating the discussion over at Barbie’s Facebook page. It got so bad that Mattel temporarily shut down the page to comments. Greenpeace launched its social media campaign and PR stunt on Tuesday morning, calling on Mattel to stop purchasing paper pulp harvested from the last habitat of Indonesia’s orangutans and tigers; by late Wednesday, Mattel’s response was posted front and center on the company website. more

 

Tornados, Fish Farms, and Barbie vs Orangutans - Recently on Care2

Don't Make Connections Between Extreme Weather Events (VIDEO)

. . . because that might might lead you to conclude that global warming is already happening, warns Bill McKibben in a Washington Post oped.

In the wake of the devastating tornado's in Joplin, MO, and a record year for tornados, floods, and wildfires worldwide, author and environmentalist Bill McKibben makes the case that the extreme weather patterns predicted by climate science models look awfully like what we've been experiencing . . . (more)

June 12, 137 comments

NOAA OKs Factory Fish Farming for the Gulf of Mexico

That the U.S. government agency responsible for managing the nations fisheries falls within the agency responsible for international trade is painfully clear with Thursday's announcement that NOAA will finalize regulations for open ocean aquaculture in the Gulf of Mexico. The press material accompanying the announcement leads with the Commerce Department objective of closing the seafood trade gap, not with the importance of managing a stressed natural resource, fisheries, or ensuring the health of an ecological and biological wonder, the world's oceans . . . (more)

Jun 10, 62 comments

Ken Dumps Barbie to Save the Rainforest, Protect Orangutans and Tigers

Would you ditch your girlfriend of 50 years if you discovered she was complicit in the deaths of endangered orangutans and tigers? That's the call Ken made when he discovered the boxes in which Barbie dolls are packaged contain mixed tropical hardwood from Indonesia's rainforests. At least that's back story to a campaign stunt by Greenpeace on Tuesday calling on Mattel to set corporate policy eliminating rainforest sourcing of paper for packaging . . . (more)

Jun 7, 70 comments

 

 

Should We Put a Price on Services Rendered by Nature?

Started a new conversation over at Care2 this week. Check it out.

Valuing Green in Greenbacks: Should We Put a Price on Services Rendered by Nature?

"According to the United Nations Environment Programme report "Mainstreaming the Economics of Nature," failing to value the Earth's natural services, such as bees pollinating the world's food supply or forests filtering clean drinking water, is a problem. Their solution: put a dollar figure on it. . . " (more)

Water water everywhere . . . on Blog Action Day

More the 5000 bloggers are writing about water today for Blog Action Day.   Why? Because unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80 percent of diseases and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war.

A colleague recently pointed me to this stunning graphic about how war over water could kill even more people in the future.  Check it out and then sign the petition.

Cleaning up Industrial Boilers and Preventing Oil Drilling in the Rainforest

For your Make-A-Difference Monday action pleasure: 

Tell EPA to Clean Up Polluting Commercial and Industrial Boilers, Deadline Monday

In the basements of office and apartment buildings, and in pulp and paper plants, chemical refineries, and other factories across the United States, tens of thousands of commercial and industrial boilers burn natural gas, wood, or coal to produce steam for heating or to pressurize machinery. In the process, they emit mercury, lead, cadmium, hydrogen chloride, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, dioxin and furans, nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed a regulation this spring to reduce those pollutants by 50 percent. You have until Monday, August 23 to weigh in.

Read more at Care2 . . .

Ecuador's Yasuni National Park Preserved from Oil Drilling in Historic UN Agreement

In a first-of-its kind agreement, Ecuador has pledged to not to develop the 850 million barrels of crude oil under Yasuni National Park for the next 10 years in return for $3.6 billion from the United Nations. The park is one of the most biodiverse expanses of rainforest in the world, a single hectare of which boasts more species of trees than in all of North America.

Read more, including a petition calling on Chevron to clean up decades old pollution in Ecuador, at Care2 . . .

Yoga and the Political Activist

Among the first things I did when I got up this morning to proofread my paper on The Bhagavad Gita for yoga teacher training  was check Facebook (don't we all now?), which lead me to a book review on Green LA Girl on Yoga for a World Out of Balance. It's nice when this particular tamasic act actually directs me back to my task.

Excerpts:

In the weeks leading up to yoga teacher training, I read Donna Farhi’s Bringing Yoga to Life: The Everyday Practice of Enlightened Living, as assigned. Enormous portions of the book resonated with me and I found myself enthusiastically underlining passages and writing in the margins, until I got to this paragraph:

“When we slow down, we create a conductive environment for kindness and thoughtfulness to flourish. We find that it isn’t necessary to join our local peace demonstration. We can demonstrate for peace by being peaceful.” [p. 54]

My immediate reaction is, “Um, no. That doesn’t work.”

Human Powered Transportation

Photo: Oil continues to gush into the gulf at a rate of
5,000 barrels a day. See more from the Washington Post.

With the nation watching in horror as an offshore oil disaster the U.S. Department of the Interior thought was so unlikely that it didn't even require the drilling company to file a full environmental impact statement threatens to contaminate wildlife sanctuaries, oyster reefs, shrimp beds, and more along the gulf coast, the Green Moms Carnival turns to the topic of transportation.

The United States consumed not quite 3 gallons of oil per person per day in 2007 with about 70% of that fueling transportation.  In that same time period, Japan consumed 1.6 gallons per person per day and Great Britain consumed 1.2.  Our lifestyle choices, including how we plan our communities have a huge effect on our energy consumption.

When Mac and I lived in Massachusetts for college, we were a two car household.  After college, living in Newark, NJ near bus lines, the Path train into the city, and NJ Transit, Mac decided the insurance and maintenance on his car wasn't worth the cost, so we were quickly down to one.  Just after we were married in 1998, my car threw a rod (long story involving the water pump, timing belts, and finally the oil pump) and we were thrust into car-free living in New Brunswick.

We quickly learned to do grocery and laundry mat trips with a bike trailer or push cart, but generally found it hard to do other errands in a very urbanized but very car-centric community.  There were no bike lanes and shopping was centralized in malls off very busy roads not terribly close to housing.  Still, we biked to the transit station every morning and hopped trains and buses to our various destinations.

Moving to Washington, DC the following summer was a revelation: subway trains and buses galore, shopping on public transit lines, and grocery stores within an easy walk from our house!

Eleven years later, we do own a car specifically so Mac can commute twice a week from our home to Towson University north of Baltimore, MD, where he did his graduate assistantship and now teaches as adjunct faculty. 

The trip of 59 miles takes about 3 hours by public transportation (one way), mostly because the public transit options for getting to Towson from Penn Station in downtown Baltimore are limited.

Still, we use human powered transportation an awful lot and our health is so much better for it.  I bike to work, we run errands on foot, and we combine foot and public transportation for most other trips.

One of the things I have found incredibly useful is our double stroller (yep, we've only got one kid).  I use it for play dates so I can take the kids to the park (walking two toddlers 1/2 mile to a park is a truly ridiculous proposition), but I also use it for errands. Maya sits in one seat and I pile stuff in the other.  Yesterday, we used it to buy a wading pool. 

While hybrids and electric vehicles offer a lot of promise in reducing our transportation-sector oil use, reconsidering how we plan our communities in a way that gets us out of our cars is going to need to play a big role as well.  That's going to take some time, unfortunately, and there may be more gulf-like spills in the interim. 

While we wait, use this Google Earth application to superimpose the gulf oil slick over your hometown and don't miss the other Green Mom Carnival posts on the topic of transportation.

When the bubble has holes: kids and toxic chemicals

In the tube, originally uploaded by Studiojmm.

It's hard to protect kids from all the dangers out there in the world.  A few years ago, I remember a radio interview exchange from the mom who wrote the book Free Range Kids about how she was told, in the uproar about her letting her pre-teen take the subway alone, that a parent's most important job was to protect their child.  She thought, 'No, my most important job is to raise a caring, competent person and teaching them to face the world and it's dangers is going to be part of that.'

While we can work with kids to teach common-sense strategies for managing public transportation on their own, how do we deal with the toxic chemicals their little bodies come across every single day? 

The following blog post came out of a playground exchange the day I took the above photo:

Originally posted on Care2 in Environment & Wildlife as

Keeping Toxic Chemicals Out of Our Bodies

"Do your kids have allergies? . . . Oh, you're so lucky. So many kids have allergies these days. . . Their little souls agree to come here but their bodies can't take it. This world is so messed up."

That's pretty much how a recent playground conversation with a neighborhood grandmother went. We struck up a conversation after my toddler daughter began to imitate her granddaughter's cough (good time for a pre-flu season lesson about coughing into your sleeve). We ended up discussing the causes of the marked increase in childhood environmental and food allergies.

Waste not, want not: conserving resources across time in time to save the planet

"Wow, and I thought my life was complicated," lamented Mac as we followed Maya off to see the rabbit hutches at Quiet Valley Living Historical Farm one afternoon this past August. We had just sat through a little presentation by one of the farm staff on conserving resources in a late colonial kitchen. While the word recycle was not part of the lexicon, the colonial era farmer put today's environmentalist to shame; nothing was wasted. Whether making cutlery out of a ram's horn, a footstool from deer antlers, or kitchen lamps from the boiled down fat of a possum or other farm pest, the colonial farmer maximized every last bit of resources at her disposal.

SUV love - a symbol of our
ease and waste? by Studiojmm.

Comparatively, we live a life of ease and convenience. We also create a great deal more waste.

This month's Green Moms Carnival on conserving resources will be full of great ideas for reducing our waste stream and its drain on our pocketbooks. Hopefully, we'll also raise some questions and inspire some activism on systemic ways to reduce waste. We certainly could be wasting a lot less energy.

One of our biggest sources of pollution is energy. The New York Times this week covered the water polluting implications of our energy use — pollution from coal mines and coal plants threatens drinking water in hundreds of Appalachian towns. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, coal is responsible for nearly half of electricity generation in the United States. Because electricity demand is expected to grow, even if more renewable energy comes online in the next few years, so will more coal.

News Round-up for 2009-05-19 aka Things Keeping Me Too Busy to Blog

• House Committee Begins Debate on Historic Energy Bill
  “Now is the time for bold and meaningful action on clean energy and global warming. We look forward to working with Congress to strengthen and pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act," says Federal Global Warming Program Director Emily Figdor.
  (tags: green news energy globalwarming pollution congress environment)
  
• GOP looks to expand renewables mix, stress economy during climate bill fight
  In case you are wondering, "expand renewables mix" means coal and nuclear. "'Bring a sleeping bag,' [Representative] Barton [R-TX] said yesterday after a relatively brief, three-hour session for opening statements."
  (tags: green politics globalwarming congress environment pollution)
• Cleaner Cars to Hit the Fast Lane, Obama and States Lead
  "President Obama is proving himself behind the wheel in the race to a clean energy economy. This historic action will reduce our nation’s dependence on oil, save consumers money at the pump, and cut global warming pollution. This is what leadership looks like,” said Environment America Federal Global Warming Program Director Emily Figdor.
  (tags: environment green cars global warming)
• Obama regulates tailpipe greenhouse gas | MNN - Mother Nature Network
  The Obama Administration announced May 19 tough new standards for carmakers to meet by 2016: 30 mpg for trucks and 39 mpg for cars. Why go after fuel economy when the target is climate emissions? There is virtually no other way to reduce tailpipe greenhouse gas.
  (tags: environment cars globalwarming)

Quote of the Week?

"With my daughter at the airport I was startled by a paparazzo, who I quite understandably mistook for a zombie," said Woody Harrelson on his alleged assault on a photographer
 (via @queenofspain).

God's Climate Plan

One of the many, many, many emails I get over various environmental policy listservs at work caught my attention today.  I opened it with a great deal of prejudice and skepticism and was blown away by it's contents.

The gist of the forwarded blog post from the NewMajority.com (which I'm neither endorsing nor denouncing here) is that burning fossil fuels that drive global warming is a violation of God's plan for the Earth (feel free to comment on how I capitalized both of those nouns).

The intended resting place for a significant amount of that excess carbon is deep underground in the form of oil and coal. . .

. . . Does it not then stand to reason that God, after designing the earth’s processes to sequester excess carbon, would prefer that we respect His creation and find better ways to heat our homes and power our cars than using huge amounts of oil and coal?

-David Jenkins

During the nascence of my environmental awakening (think 1990), I was influenced by a number of thinkers who's names I've lost. One of whom was a Catholic priest who used his pulpit (figuratively) to preach the gospel of environmental stewardship. Somewhere, I have a cassette tape with his allegedly last sermon before a year of Vatican (or Diocese, I can't remember) -imposed silence.  That was the last time the religious argument for environmentalism hit me so powerfully.

I encourage you to read the entire column and then tell me what you think.

Go Ken!

Wind Farm at Barkby Beach
Originally uploaded by Tadeusz Cholewa.

If wind power were fully developed off the East Coast, windmills could generate enough electricity to replace most, if not all, the coal-fired power plants in the United States, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Monday.

The Associated Press quoted Salazar saying on wind power: "It is not technology that is pie-in-the sky; it is here and now."

It's hard to overstate how much of a wind shift in the White House this kind of declaration indicates.

Unfortunately, the oil, gas, and coal industries are not going to give up without a fight. A hundred years of special treatment and subsidies will be hard to trade for carbon permits and, ultimately, obsolescence.

Expecting a rip-roaring fight. Who's in Earth's corner?

If wind were an awkward guy from Germany.

“I think I was always misunderstood. People didn’t seem to like me.”  This entertaining and timely commercial was nominated for a D&AD award in creative communications. via Thingamababy, thanks.

What We Call The News

Monday News, Book & Blog Roundup

On the day the Chicago Tribune announced likely major layoffs, I thought it appropriate to link to a new Jib Jab cartoon lamenting the state of the news media.

What We Call the News |Funny Jokes at JibJab

It's not just television news that's been dumbed down and pulp-a-fied. The Wonkette has been watchdogging the news magazines as well. Seems Newsweek and Time don't think American's are interested in real news stories about Afghanistan or global warming, unlike their readers overseas:

March 2007: World readers get a hard hitting story about the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. American's get "Why we should teach the bible in public school."

October 2006:  World readers get a story about species vanishing all over the world due to climate change.  American's get a pedophile Congressman.

Jen's Monday News, Blog & Book Roundup

Ever been really angry about animal agriculture and antibiotics? No? You haven't read enough about it then. 

The poor critters raised in concentrated animal feeding operations are routinely fed antibiotics to promote growth (yup, read that right) and to ward of disease (yes, in advance of getting ill) caused by living in terrible, crowded, unsanitary conditions.  The microorganisms raised in that stew of antibiotics and filth develop immunity to regular antibiotics (E. coli O157:H7 anyone?). So, when the critters do get sick, they must be treated with the strongest stuff available.

In response to Rick Wiess's article in the Washington Post on Sunday, which contains this choice quote:

"The drug, called cefquinome, belongs to a class of highly potent antibiotics that are among medicine’s last defenses against several serious human infections. No drug from that class has been approved in the United States for use in animals,"

Dairy Queen expresses some justified outrage on Ethicurian.com:

"But today’s news is simply even more breathtaking in the sheer effrontery of [FDA's] disregard for public health and its focus on preserving business as usual at any cost."

---

What I'm reading now:

Reversal of Fortune by Bill Mckibbon in Mother Jones

"For most of human history, the two birds More and Better roosted on the same branch. You could toss one stone and hope to hit them both. . .

But the distinguishing feature of our moment is this: Better has flown a few trees over to make her nest. And that changes everything. Now, with the stone of your life or your society gripped in your hand, you have to choose. It's More or Better."

---

Did you know that ketchup was originally a British condiment made from salted anchovies?  Tomato ketchup wasn't invented until the late 1700's by an American in New Jersey who decided to try love apples instead of fish.

You'd know this if you were reading Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky.

You can get some of the same information and some conflicting information on Wikipedia (but can't you always?).

Finally, Washington DC Residents Get Real News

Breaking News: The Washington Post announced today that they are bringing us starting in April.

Temps and interns (and maybe everyone else) around the city can stop reading the website at work and start concealing the hard copy instead.

The question is: will the politicians get a sense of humor?

 

Confusing Comfort with Happiness

My post on Sister Madonna Buder was triggered by Pamela's comment on Dean Karnazes quest to run 50 marathons in 50 days.  As a regular reader of Runner's World, I was familiar with Dean and the small, but growing, population of ultra-endurance athletes.  Still, one of the quotes Pamela noted was striking:

"Somewhere along the line, we seem to have confused comfort with happiness."

for what it says to me beyond running and pushing physical limits.  Substitute the word "stuff" or "food" for "comfort" (maybe in a little auto rotate .gif image) and you pretty much got it covered. 

I frequently read a search for purpose and clarity in the stories of these ultra-endurance athletes -- a hunger Americans generally try to satisfy with food and stuff, resulting in near crisis proportions of obesity and consumer debt.   

While it's possible to undertake marathoning and have it actually add to the stuff and complications of your life, ultramarathoning takes so much commitment that simplifying and prioritizing life must be essential.  There are also few activities as good at reducing mental clutter than a good long run.  Hopefully, I can find my sense of balance* clarity without going to quite the extreme or using superglue on blisters.

*Ed. note 11/12/07: This post was no way meant to imply that running 50 marathons in 50 days was any kind of indicator of balance. 

A Social Issue Has Attained Mainstream Status When . . .

It's featured on the cover of BirdTalk Magazine.

Seriously.  While the magazine itself is pretty far from mainstream, they don't do social issues. They do birds.

However, the January 2007 issue contains a feature story titled "Global Warming: What It Means to You, Your Bird, and Its Wild Cousin".  Whoa.

Oh, and a nice long story about a soap opera star and his parrots. 

So Let's Do Something About It

Why pick on Starbucks? Because with 10,000 stores world wide, they are a huge dairy purchasing force! Their conversion to milk produced without artificial hormones would move the whole market.

(get your own banner here)

He's touching me.

" OMG, a Democrat is touching me."

Anybody else think that's what's going through the president's mind when he was photographed for this NYTimes story about bi-partisan cooperation? (click on the image to open the full-size nytimes photo)

I tend to be bit slow in reacting to elections.  I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop . . .

This last Congress didn't actually finish everything they have to before they are done.  Next week, they convene something called a lame duck session and return to Washington to pass all those pesky budget bills.  I worry about what they might try to slip in. I'm not alone.

Ethics, Hygiene, and Ice Cream

  Baby Dairy Cow  - Very cute, but ?
  Originally uploaded by Studiojmm.

I was seriously considering going vegan after touring a 1500 head dairy last week.  A subsequent visit to an 40 head organic dairy with an on site artisanal cheese factory made me feel a little better but I'm still questioning the place of dairy in my diet (sorry Mac).

It's tough to be a dairy farmer these days.  Faced with rising input costs and stagnant milk prices, many dairy farmers think their only options are to "get big or get out".

Once you get big, there are a host of problems to deal with.  On Thursday, I saw a possible solution to one of them - the methane digester is a waste management system that reduces neighbor complaints from the smell of massive manure lagoons that housing thousands of cows in a concentrated dairy generates, produces electricity (+$ in), cuts farm costs (-$ out), and may help a farm comply with environmental regulations.  But I'm not really all excited about this yet.

  Baby Dairy Cows 
  Originally uploaded by Studiojmm.

For one, who pays for this? Constructing a methane digester is very expensive - more than $1 million for a digester that can handle the waste from 1500 cows (not even a mega-dairy really; those have 5 to 50 thousand cows).  USDA; and the local power utility subsidized the one I saw.  Additionally, electricity users in VT pay an extra $0.04 per kilowatt hour for the privilege of buying Cow Power

And two, does this technology just enable a milk production system that is suspect from a moral or health perspective?  Confining frequently-medicated, grain-fed ruminants for their entire short lives to produce milk 3x per day? I learned enough about dairy cows last week to know that even the ones I saw, which were probably living as nicely as possible in close proximity of 1499 others, were not low stress cows.

Will methane digesters end up being a taxpayer-funded technology that just helps make mega-dairies profitable?

Alternatively, could we downsize the American dairy? Some producers have figured out that going organic or providing value-added products (cheese, yogurt) is far more profitable than producing a commodity food product. However, prices would be higher and production would be lower. Economic change is painful and that pain is never spread evenly. I have far more questions than answers, but this is what I am thinking about.

The Master of the Universe is Ill

Peanut, a very little parrot in central Michigan, has been feeling poorly. Bug doesn't know how much significance this little Greenrump Parrotlet has - he was among the many factors in the decision to bring Bug home instead of continuing my search for a good parakeet breeder.

The internet forum equivalent of well wishes is something called , at least in parrot circles. That hardly seems adequate in Peanut's case. This bird is too important for little gif images; I want to send actual medicine!

Here's hoping Peanut is up and flying again soon.

I'm still amazed that his person got got the above photograph. Bug goes by too fast to be photographed.

Editors Note, 9/6/06: Peanut didn't make it.  I don't know what this  means for the universe but Pamela, Peanut's person, could use your poofs now.

Because You Needed to Know

Slate covers the proper shipping of legless reptiles.

Some Light Reading

It may not be for everyone, but I'm really enjoying Blogging the Bible on Slate. [Warning: Irreverence ahead.]

"9:9-17. God announces His first covenant with man, that He will never again destroy the earth with a flood. He doesn't rule out other catastrophes. (God, apparently, is the opposite of an insurance company. He offers flood protection, but no other coverage.)" - David Plotz, Abraham vs. God

Sadly, he only seems to get as far as the end of Genesis by June 1. No sign he'll keep going. 

ed. note (Aug. 26): I misunderstood the links which are divided by book.  On to Exodus. . .

Bottled Insanity

So, we drank a lot of bottled water in China. No one drinks the tap water straight – most of the locals boil it and fill their travel bottles with tea, which wasn't practical for us – and bottled water consumption is on the rise in China. According to the Earth Policy Institute, sales increased by 250% between 1999 and 2004.

Here in the U.S., where we have some of the safest municipal water in the world, consumption of bottled water nearly doubled (from 4.7 billion gallons to 7.3 billion gallons per year) between 2000 and 2005. Most of this (40%), of course, is merely filtered tap water poured into bottles that probably don't get recycled (only 35% are) and marked up about 100,000% (16 oz of tap water costs about 1/10^th of 1 cent). Not only that, designer water with even bigger markups is becoming more popular – bottled water for dogs, bottled water that gives you a tan, and bottled water than transmits love (left) are just a few of the stupid waters on the market.

The ourtrage is twofold: 1) none of this water is required to meet the same standards as tap water so there is no guarantee that bottled is better or even as good as tap water and, 2) just half of the $100 billion that consumers spend on bottled water annually could be enough to provide world wide access to clean, drinkable water.

For more, check out Food & Water Watch's bottled water page and/or sign up for the Aquabits newsletter.

Political Statement?

Apparently the local Red Cross chapter is offering blood donors raffle tickets for free gasoline this summer. I don't really know where to begin with this one.

I was alerted to this particular "blood for oil" opportunity in an alert from a local public health organization .