GW's environmental legacy

The Economist's Green.view wrote an interesting post about George W. Bush's environmental legacy and what he could do in his remaining time in office to "shake off his oilman’s legacy of environmental indifference, and acquire, rather surprisingly, a green halo." From the article:

Last year, Mr Bush established the world’s largest marine protected area—Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, in north-western Hawaii. The monument became the largest single conservation area in American history, home to some 7,000 species, including the monk seal, spinner dolphins and the green sea turtle. It was a big step, but now the question is whether he can pull off the same trick on an even grander scale, by fully protecting two vast areas of the Pacific Ocean from fishing and mineral exploitation.

Read the entire post here.

greensumption

A loyal blog reader linked me up to this Unsuitablog post, reminding me of a recent conversation regarding the growing consumption of eco-friendly or green goods. Is it better to purchase a piece of furniture that was made sustainable bamboo than one from Ethan Allen? I guess so, but buying a used set from a yard sale or local consignment shop is much better. Or even better, not buying it at all. Keith Farnish said it best in his post The New Shopping Order:

...there is a colossal battle to be won, against virtually every commercial interest on Earth, that relies almost entirely on people choosing to buy new and replace existing items that they have at a rate that is increasing at currently 5 times the speed of global population growth. In short, we need to have a completely new attitude to shopping, where reality and conscience takes precedence over the open mouthed acceptance by the public of new goods, and where the people of Earth are prepared to stop for a moment and think about the effect that every single new item that they purchase is having on this planet. There needs to be a New Shopping Order. Being part of it is simple: next time you want to buy some new trainers, a new lawnmower, computer, digital decoder, anything at all, ask yourself the following questions, in this order:

1) Do I need to buy this thing at all?
2) Can I repair or refurbish this thing, or have somebody do it for me?
3) Can I buy or obtain this thing, or something similar, pre-owned?
4) Can I buy this thing in a more ethical way?

This video, that I've gotten from the Unsuitablog post but don't know the actual origin of, is a great illustration of the issue:




(thnx Lisa)

Buy Local Baltimore

If you haven't heard about the educational/marketing campaign Buy Local Baltimore than I guess you aren't on facebook. Lucky for you, I am here to bridge the gap.

The campaign is a project by the Chesapeake Sustainable Business Alliance aimed to educate the public on the importance of supporting the local economy as consumers and businesses(hopefully) move toward environmentally sustainable and socially responsible business practices. Learn all about the project on their website.

Buy Local Baltimore's top ten reasons to buy local:

1.) Keep money in the neighborhood

2.) Embrace what makes Baltimore different

3.) Get better service

4.) Buy what you want, not what someone wants you to buy

5.) Create more good jobs

6.) Help out the environment

7.) Support community groups

8.) Invest in the community
9.) Put your tax money to good use

10.) Show the country that we believe in Baltimore

Pretty great, huh?

Happy cows

The California Milk Advisory Board has been running their Happy Cow ad campaign for a while and I have to admit, the latest installment has captivated me. The Happy Cow Auditions are, well, in a word: awesome. The more auditions I see, the more difficult it is to decide who to vote for.



View other auditions, including my absolute favorite that I can't seem to embed properly, and learn all about the happy cows on the Real California Milk website. The bloopers are great too.

blue revolution

Mark Bittman for the NY Times, writes about the future of fishing:

The [industrial fish farming industry] spends an estimated $1 billion a year on veterinary products; degrades the land (shrimp farming destroys mangroves, for example, a key protector from typhoons); pollutes local waters (according to a recent report by the Worldwatch Institute, a salmon farm with 200,000 fish releases nutrients and fecal matter roughly equivalent to as many as 60,000 people); and imperils wild populations that come in contact with farmed salmon.

There's good news though. Plenty of scientists are agree that a turnaround is possible. If fisheries are managed well, even declining species can quickly recover. Read all about it here. And check out this awesome (although not really related) picture of my friend Nick with a Strawberry Grouper (catch and release of course):

No proof of vitamin supplements benefits

The findings of a recent, long-term, large-scale study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, show that regular supplements of vitamins C, D and E do not reduce the occurrence of heart attacks, stroke, or breast cancer. Once again, Michael Pollan was right (think myths of nutritionism).

Read a summary of the findings in this LA Times article recently printed in The Sun.

bad news bark beetles

Out west, in Montana, Colorado and Wyoming, a swelling infestation of bark beetles are taking a toll on millions of acres of trees. The suppression of fires, a decade of drought, and the fact that hard winters have softened, are said to be main causes for the flourish and expanded range of these beetles. Land owners are cutting down up to 75% of the pines in hopes to leave less competition for water and foster survival.

The Latin name for the beetles, Dendroctunus, means tree killer. Read more about the battle between bug and bark, and the domino effect this devastation has on the ecosystem here, in a recent NY Times article.

More on frustration-free packaging

The NY Times reports that additional retailers and manufacturers, including Sony, Microsoft and Best Buy, following in Amazon's footsteps and are creating alternatives to the plastic “clamshell” packages that no human hand can destruct. From the article:

Impregnable packaging has incited such frustration among consumers that an industry term has been coined for it — “wrap rage.” It has sent about 6,000 Americans each year to emergency rooms with injuries caused by trying to pry, stab and cut open their purchases, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

I thought this was an eco-initiative and than a consumer safety and satisfaction thing but either way, less plastic, right?

I've heard it's pretty terrible but...

Holy smog. I hadn't realized pollution in Asia was this bad. The NY Times reports:

BEIJING — A noxious cocktail of soot, smog and toxic chemicals is blotting out the sun, fouling the lungs of millions of people and altering weather patterns in large parts of Asia, according to a report released Thursday by the United Nations. The byproduct of automobiles, slash-and-burn agriculture, cooking on dung or wood fires and coal-fired power plants, these plumes rise over southern Africa, the Amazon basin and North America. But they are most pronounced in Asia, where so-called atmospheric brown clouds are dramatically reducing sunlight in many Chinese cities and leading to decreased crop yields in swaths of rural India, say a team of more than a dozen scientists who have been studying the problem since 2002.

Heating your home this winter

'Tis the season for soaking in the last few color splashes of fall and welcoming the familiar smokey fragrance of a wood burning fireplace with a deep breath. Ahh the crisp scent of an approaching winter... and how wonderful to know that your neighbors are heating their homes the old fashioned way. I mean, that's the most eco-friendly way, right?

Actually, no. It's better to heat your home with gas than with trees. Slate's Green Lantern answers the question, and makes me feel much better about flipping the switch on the pho-fireplace that came with our home, in his most recent post. Here are some highlights:

There's some debate about how to figure the carbon footprint of burning wood: After all, a tree releases carbon when it decomposes anyway, so it's conceivable that putting wood in the stove is more or less carbon-neutral. On the other hand, if we cut down trees faster than they are replaced, there's a net reduction in carbon sinks that sequester carbon dioxide. And when a tree decomposes, some of that carbon is absorbed by the soil; when you burn wood, virtually all of it will end up in the atmosphere. Still, as long as your firewood is farmed sustainably, heating by wood is less likely to contribute to heating the earth. Researchers estimate that, in total, wood may produce between three times and 10 times fewer greenhouse gas emissions per unit of heat than other energy sources... So, is wood worth it? Taking everything into account, the Lantern doesn't recommend switching over to wood for environmental reasons. If you want to cut down on your greenhouse gas emissions, there are better ways of doing it—from changing your transportation habits to your diet—that won't involve pumping those other pollutants into the air. Instead of changing your source of fuel, you may want to think about how you might get by with less heat to begin with; to start, you can turn down the thermostat by a few degrees or improve your insulation.

*Beautiful image is from rjsparrow's Ireland 2007 album on flickr