Which recreational drug is the greenest?

"Let's say I were the type of person who would go to a party where an assortment of recreational drugs were being used. Would it matter, so far as the environment goes, which one I took?"

Don't look at me! I didn't ask the question (this decade). One of Slate's Green Lantern readers did. And the answer, not surprisingly, is marijuana. The lantern determined each recreational drug's earthly impact based on where the raw materials come from, the ways in which they're harvested or synthesized, and the yield per square meter of land use. About half of the United States marijuana supply is grown domestically and while there are of course environmental downsides, like the fact that "at least half of the world's yearly crop of 50,000 metric tons is cultivated in subtropical Mexico, including protected areas in the mountains of the Sierra Madre Occidental," marijuana is far greener than ecstasy, crystal meth and cocaine. The US DEA estimates that 2.4 million hectares of South American rainforests have been cleared by coca growers in the Andes over the last 20 years. And speaking of rain forest destruction, ecstasy is made from sassafras oil - which is derived mostly from endangered rainforest trees in Southeat Asia and Brazil. From the article:

In 2008, the U.K.-based Flora and Fauna International helped law enforcement confiscate 33 tons of [sassafras] oil distilled by criminal gangs from more than 8,000 chopped-down trees at the Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary in Cambodia. (That's enough to make 245 million Ecstasy tablets.) Meanwhile, crystal meth in the U.S. market comes from the chemicals... which are either extracted from an Asian grass or brewed in a frothy vat of molasses. China and India account for half the world's supply, according to the U.S. State Department's 2010 Narcotics Control Strategy Report, and most of the stuff that lands on our shores was likely shipped from halfway around the globe. Big-time meth chefs in the United States and Mexico purchase the raw material from domestic pill makers or middlemen, while smaller players may purchase cold medicines from pharmacy shelves. The facilities that actually cook up the street drug are also running a dirty business: In California's Central Valley, law enforcement estimates between 4 million and 7 million pounds of lab waste were poured into canals and on properties between 2000 and 2004. The people who have to clean it up wear Haz-Mat suits.

JustSaying does not support any illegal drug use be them green, white, liquid, pill or however else they reach people these days. If you are interested in reading more about this topic find the full text on Slate. Having said that, I'm heading over to carbonfund.org to clear the footprint my extracurricular college activites.

New Studies

Making sustainable choices just got even more complicated. Slate's Green Lantern dedicated a column to three new studies: One suggesting meat and dairy consumption plays a smaller role in greenhouse emissions than... gulp... transportation; Another points out that our country's carbon footprint only seems smaller because we outsource our greenhouse emissions; And the last brings some good news about how impactual certain personal green choices can be. Read more here.

So continue to keep your vehicles well-maintained, choose local foods when possible, switch to florescent bulbs, and use electricity sparingly but perhaps JustSaying shouldn't hassle folks about their occasional steaks until she is driving a hybrid, huh? 

To recycle bin or to trash can...

It is quite the question, huh? Like certain doggie's heritage? Anywho, those resultst tomorrow. Back to recycling. In some cities/counties there are actually fines for throwing away items that belong in the bin. In others industrial-sized bins accept unsorted plastics, papers, glass and aluminum, and carry another kind of cost: damaged equipment or a ruined batch of otherwise usable material. Lucky for us, Slate's Green Lantern has some tips:

"...Things to avoid throwing in the blue bin unless you know for a fact that they belong there: noncontainer glass (like mirrors), Pyrex, plastic bags and films, aluminum pots and pans, and crockery...

...The next time you find yourself hovering indecisively over a set of trash bins, here are some rules of thumb. Plastics marked No. 1 or No. 2 are virtually guaranteed to be accepted, so go ahead and toss them in with your recycling. Newspaper, corrugated cardboard, magazines, and office paper are almost always good to go as well. If your mystery object doesn't fall into one of those categories, trash it. If your community participates in single-stream recycling—where everything from bottles to cans to cardboard boxes get placed in one curbside bin—it might be tempting to err on the side of tossing your mystery item into that bin as well. It's all going to get sorted out in the end, right? But there's an argument to be made that single-stream recycling actually requires more diligence from consumers—contamination rates often rise dramatically in these programs, so anything you can do to keep unwanted items out of the mix will make the system more efficient."

Vitamyths indeed

I highly recommend taking a few minutes to read Emily Anthes' latest article for Slate: The Vita Myth: Do supplements really do any good? Anthes pulls together all the revealing studies from last year - finding only a few matters in which vitamin use is truly wise, points out the strong psychological hold the industry has over us, the power of placebo, and debunks the antioxidant promises. Her bottom line: We should treat vitamins like prescription medicine rather than health candy.

McFood in Tokyo

Daniel Gross, for Slate, is reporting from Japan this week and next and I love the fact-filled op-ed he wrote about the presence of American food in Tokyo. Find it here.

If you are wondering what or whom defines "American food," it appears to be: Wolfgang Puck, McDonald's, Outback Steakhouse, the Hard Rock Café and T.G.I Fridays.

One of my favorite lines: I've traveled about 20 hours and 7,000-odd miles to wind up in a strip mall. Also love the acronym: SPC, Stabucks Per Capita.

Greenest Cookware?

Slate's Green Lantern posted an educational response to an engaged couples' question regarding eco-friendly cookware. Find it here. On top of discussing the virtues of copper and longevity of a solid, cast iron pan, the Lantern mentions something that I know very little about: Fluoropolymers. Better known for their presence in a little something called "nonstick coating." From the article:

...Most nonstick cookware is lined with polytetrafluoroethylene—one of a class of slippery substances, known as fluoropolymers, used to make products waterproof, grease-proof, and stain-resistant. (DuPont's Teflon is the most famous brand.)

...Fluoropolymer manufacturing has traditionally required the use of perfluorooctanoic acid, a chemical known to linger in the environment and to be toxic to animals. (It's also been found, in low levels, in the blood of more than 98 percent of the American population of humans.) How the acid, known as PFOA, actually gets into our blood and to what extent it affects our health aren't fully understood, but in 2005 the EPA's independent Science Advisory Board recommended that it be labeled a likely human carcinogen. The EPA is continuing to research the issue, however, and hasn't reached any definitive conclusions. (Some people avoid nonstick-coated pans for fear of harmful gases that could be released at high temperatures. However, the scientific consensus is that they're safe when used carefully—i.e., when the burner heat is kept relatively low and pans are never heated while empty.)

Although the Lantern seems less concerned about this carcinogen and more focused on reminding the reader of some eco-basics like 'less is more' and that the environmental cost of mining and processing raw/virgin materials is far higher than that of post-consumer recycled material, I can't help but wonder... is PFOA the next BPA?

The Great HFCS Debate

Slate's Green Lantern has been examining the impacts of sugar and HFCS and most recently responded to a question regarding the environmental effects of each in May Cause Earth Decay. The bottom line is that while a large percentage of farm acreage in our country is devoted to corn, and "According to anti-corn crusader Michael Pollan, modern corn hybrids require more pesticides and more fertilizers than any other food crop [which] this not only requires major inputs of fossil fuels but also causes significant groundwater pollution," - only 5%-7% of America's total grain corn production ends up as corn sweetener. The largest percentage (around 50%) ends up as animal feed. No surprise there.

So as always, moderation is the key for any sweetener and according to the Lantern's research: sugar cane seems to be the most efficient producer although there is a heavy water usage component there.

Is it just me, or do most of my posts here on justsaying end in a suggestion to cut back on soda and red meat consumption? Hmmm... "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants"

fun read

Catherine Price wrote a cute article for Slate about how to handle the abundance of produce dropped off by her local CSA each week. Instead of letting the parsley, cabbage, kale, squash and bok choy slowly wilt away in the fridge, she challenges Mark Bittman to a game of "vegetable free association." Aside from wrongfully lumping bok choy and kale into the "problematic vegetable" category, Price does a fine job capturing that guilty pang of produce-gone-uneaten and Bittman offers his classic expertise. As for the bok choy image above: it's completely unrelated but pretty darn cool if you ask me.

to meat or not to meat...

I'm really digging Mark Oppenheimer's article for Slate, Daddy Eats Dead Cows, not just because the author encourages me and other readers to raise vegetarian children, but because he carefully explains and articulates the thoughts and intentions behind such a decision.

Since I'm not real fond of the article's title, I'm posting a bit more text from the article than usual. Check it out (Cyd is the author's wife):

...Keeping the girls from meat, and from ridicule, while they're young—that's turned out to be easy. But vegetarianism will prompt other parenting questions, and I haven't solved all of them yet. For example, what will we do when the girls have social events that don't include parents? Someday soon, they will be going out for pizza with their friends, and Cyd and I won't be there to order the veggie toppings. Will they be permitted to order meat? Obviously, they'll do what they want, but if what they want is to eat meat, will they have to hide it from us?

Cyd has a stock answer to this question: "When they're old enough," she says, "to explain that they know the animal has been murdered and that they want to eat the murdered animal anyway, then they'll be permitted to do so." She's kidding about the language (I think), but she's dead serious about the principle. Only when they're old enough to understand the ethical question will they be permitted to answer it for themselves.

Cyd's rule seems right to me. Eating meat isn't like cheating or stealing, which parents should always forbid. Nor is it like eating junk food or watching trashy TV, treats that children should learn to enjoy in moderation as the guilty pleasures they are. Rather, eating meat is a serious ethical choice but also a personal one. It can't be treated cavalierly (like junk food), but it can't be universalized (like the rule against cheating). Environmentally disastrous factory farming is, I think it's safe to say, always wrong, or at least always undesirable. But what about eating free-ranging, kindly treated, "happy" meat? What about eating meat that would otherwise be thrown away, as some "freegans" do? These questions admit enough ethical debate that a teenager, even a 'tween, may decide for herself...

How do you feel about GMOs? Frankenfoods?

In case you have never heard of such a thing, GMO stands for Genetically Modified Organisms and I get the sense that we are all eating them. Often. "Frakenfoods" is just another term for them. From James E. McWilliams recent Slate post:

"A genetically modified crop results from the laboratory insertion of a gene from one organism into the DNA sequence of another in order to confer an advantageous trait such as insect resistance, drought tolerance, or herbicide resistance. Today almost 90 percent of soy crops and 80 percent of corn crops in the United States sprout from genetically engineered seeds. Forty-five million acres of land worldwide contain genetically engineered crops. From the perspective of commercial agriculture, the technology has been seamlessly assimilated into traditional farming routines."

I don't know enough about this topic to decide where I stand on all of this but encourage you to learn alongside me and spend a few minutes with McWilliams' article.

gardening coaches

Great article and links in Slate about the emergence of "gardening coaches," folks that can help you jump start your garden and understand what grows in your region, how to plant and manage your garden, enhance an existing garden, and get you excited about getting your hands dirty. If you want to grow your own veggies and are willing to invest your time in the garden but not on the research end, $30-$80 for an hour sounds pretty reasonable.

If you don't want to pay for a coach, Slate also put up a great Guide to Planting a Beginners Garden worth bookmarking.

The article also profiles the San Fransisco, local urban farming company: My Farm, who will install your garden, weed and irrigate weekly, monitor for pests and even harvest the vegetables all for $500-$1,800 for installation and $50-$250 weekly for maintenance.

the paper towel problem

So you just washed your hands in a public bathroom and now face a choice. Do you use electricity and dry your hands with the blow-dryer or do you crank out a paper towel that you will hardly dampen and quickly discard? I wipe my hands on my pants, jacket, whatever... but depending on your attire and location (work) that may not be an option so...

The NY Times Green Inc talked to researchers at Harvard and the University of Oregon and as you would expect, it is a complex issue. The "lifecycle" energy use of the blower is much lower than the paper towels when you figure in the energy intensive mills creation and shipping of the paper towels. Not to mention there is hardly enough fiber in paper towels for them to be recycled. There is talk about composting paper towels but of course you have to factor in other contaminants that could end up in the trash in a public bathroom.

Check out Slate's Green Lantern's detailed take on the debate in this post from earlier in the year.

lobster prices even lower

As discussed in an August post, Daniel Gross wrote an interesting piece for Slate about the seemingly bargain price (economic and environmental) of lobster, particularly in Maine, siting the following reasons:

- Lobstermen don't pay for fertilizer or feed. Just gas for their boats.
- Short supply chain. Lobsters aren't distributed on a global scale; they move from traps to dockside tanks to either the home cooks or restaurants.
- Melted butter side dish is inexpensive.
- "Distributors seeking to maintain their margins are cramming down the fishermen and with limited local outlets, lobstermen can't hold out for higher prices."

This week, the NY Times' Melissa Clark weighs in about seizing the sale and enjoying a luxurious lobster dish at a bargain price. I certainly didn't enjoy the bit about "humane" lobster killing because, well, death by freezing, stabbing or boiling all sound pretty horrific but its a quick and clever read citing a few books I am fond of. Find it here.

worthwhile read

Holy Cow! What my 3,000-pound steer has taught me about faith.
By Jon Katz

I read it in Slate last week and really enjoyed it. Find it here.

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

Garbage vs Garbage Disposal

As always, Slate's Green Lantern offers an insightful and educational answer to the question: What's better for the environment - putting leftover food in the garbage disposal or throwing it in the garbage i.e. a landfill?

The answer isn't as simple as you may think. First off, my two cents is: try making more reasonable portions. Have you ever made dinner or had a party and said, "Gee, we should have had more food... I am starving! we are fresh out of everything!" I haven't. I'll tell you what I do hear all the time (and admit it, so do you), "Please take some of this home... we have so much food here... do you think [insert name of person who did not attend but lives with you] would like some leftover [cake, pasta salad, etc]."

Anywho, the Green Lantern addresses water filtration, contamination, and effects on aquatic life concluding that fatty and greasy foods are the most problematic if put through the in-sink-erator. However, that doesn't mean everything else we put in there is harmless. From the article:

Still, dumping waste into the water system has environmental costs. There is evidence that the effluent that is pumped back into local water streams does affect their chemical composition and aquatic life. In extreme cases, the result can be something called eutrophication, which occurs when a higher concentration of nutrients results in algae blooms...You'll also be using a lot more water if you decide to go with the disposal—and you'll be indirectly responsible for the extraction of the metal needed to make the appliance.

As far as using the garbage can:

On the other hand, it takes a considerable amount of energy to truck all that garbage from your curb to a landfill... The decomposition of your trash in the landfill will likely result in more damaging greenhouse gas emissions, since the breakdown of your food waste may produce methane so quickly that it can't be captured. By contrast, some wastewater-treatment systems are actually looking for more food solids, since that will make the process of converting waste into energy more efficient. And wastewater-treatment plants also provide a way to reuse leftover food as fertilizer—although critics have expressed concerns that the use of biosolids on land land may not always be safe.

In the end, the GL reminds that studies can be biased based on who is funding them, composting is always the best bet and if that isn't an option, the garbage disposal is the better than the garbage can as long as your community is not low on water and, as mentioned before, the food isn't too fatty/greasy.

Read the GL's entire response here.

Low price of lobsta'

Daniel Gross, for Slate, write about the stable and now seemingly low cost of lobsters in our inflated food market. It makes sense when you think about it - or rather, read about it.

"At root, the global forces that are driving up the price of food don't significantly affect the vacation lobster business in Maine. Commercial and consumer demand doesn't vary much for off-the-boat lobster. Sure, many lobsters are sold to processing plants. But unlike other seafood products—think of canned tuna, or clam sauce, or frozen fish fillets—lobster is not produced or marketed on a mass global scale, which also means there are no speculators trying to make a killing on lobster futures. The fact that people are eating more and better in China and India isn't much boosting the demand for lobsters from Maine. Even in the United States, lobster remains to a large degree a regional product. While you can find lobster on the menu at better restaurants in the Midwest, or, heaven help you, at Red Lobster, you're unlikely to find live lobster tanks in Meijer stores in Michigan or Wal-Marts in the Ozarks. In addition, lobster is a luxury, discretionary food product that requires special equipment and extra fortitude to cook at home. (I watched in sympathy as one of our hosts, a Maine resident for two decades, winced in horror as she plunged the living creatures into a boiling cauldron.)"

I too have "winced in horror" as someone "plunged the living creatures into a boiling cauldron." But back to business. Gross sites the following reasons for inexpensive lobsters in Maine:

- Lobstermen don't pay for fertilizer or feed. Just gas for their boats.

- Short supply chain. Lobsters aren't distributed on a global scale; they move from traps to dockside tanks to either the home cooks or restaurants.

- Melted butter side dish is inexpensive.

- "Distributors seeking to maintain their margins are cramming down the fishermen and with limited local outlets, lobstermen can't hold out for higher prices."

Find the article here and enjoy the awesome picture of my mom in a lobster hat from our summer trip to Maine: