Sunday, January 30, 2011

Waste Not Want Not

Before I sat down to watch "Dirty Business" Clean Coal and the Battle For Our Energy Future" at the David Brower Center in Berkeley, the audience was treated to a nice spread of food. Not all of the food was eaten, and despite that the fact that it was vegetarian, and might be composted, it would undoubtedly end up costing us all some energy, including the energy to grow food, process it, package it, transport it, and then process it again or dump it. Not an insignificant number of steps along the life cycle of food production.

I start out with this observation because at the end of the film I had a chance to speak with Rebecca Tarbotton, Executive Director of the Rainforest Action Network. She advocates creating a grassroots effort to place a moratorium on domestic coal production and limit current coal shipments to other countries. I thoroughly believe in this strategy, since, as Rebecca blatantly concludes during a Q&A session, and I paraphrase here, the real question is "What has the government done for me lately?"

As people filed out of the theater, someone asked her a question regarding scaling up of the Chinese economy, and its increased demand for energy supplied in the form of cheap, accessible coal. She replied, and again I paraphrase, that there is a slippery slope when we connect standard of living with energy use. I get this. As the Chinese shift from being producers to consumers, they'll undoubtedly increase their standard of living. While we'd like to tell the Chinese not to buy Hummers we can't really complain unless we look at our own backyards or driveways. For that matter, it's not just about purchasing a Hummer, but also that 4th pair of Patagonia pants, the fifth case of Clif Bars, or that additional iPad. We need to take a page out of the 3Rs: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, and advocate for an increased standard of living while reducing consumption.

How do we force the issue of less consumption? If we internalize the true cost of goods, they become expensive. Would it promote source reduction? What if a carbon price was tied to the degree of recycled content in a product? Would this cause manufacturers to increase the recycled content in their products? What if a price on carbon is applied to goods that are manufactured in distant economies, would the relative cost of labor becomes more attractive domestically?

There are of course several wrinkles (i.e. China doesn't promote organized labor, pricing for energy and resources are dictated by world markets) in this thread of what ifs . Does this lock people out who shop at Wal-Mart, who can't afford higher priced products? (Aside from the fact that Wal-Mart would never internalize the true cost of goods in its prices) These what ifs are dependent upon a carbon based regulatory system that requires agreement amongst stakeholders and enforcement. A big whopping problem.

We are then brought back to the issue of less consumption and less spending not imposed by costs but other incentives. I'm going to list my incentives. You undoubtedly have your own.

(a)Unclogging my closet. I myself have don't have a need for a lot of my clothes that other people would be happy to have. I'd also take me less time to get dressed.

(b) Making my daughter less confused. She has a bunch of gadgets that she never uses. Quite frankly when she's searching for that toy that she does like she has to negotiate around dusty stuff that is just in the way. Less stuff, less whining, better for her and better for me :)

(c) Feeling blah. Did I really need to buy that bag of croissants that I'll eat and feel guilty about?

(d) A stinky fridge. I've got a bunch of moldy items that are pretty nondescript hairy blobs that inhabit my fridge. I don't think I need to expand upon this.

This last incentive gets us back to that issue of the food leftovers at the screening of "Dirty Business" Clean Coal and the Battle For Our Energy Future". While we can't always predict what and how much stuff we need, if we just remembered what happens when we choose unwisely we'd go a long way. Like that stinky fridge, shirt I can't find, blah blah feeling, and having a anxious, whiny pre-schooler we'd get the picture. Believe it or not, we'd probably also end up using less coal.


Monday, July 5, 2010

From the onset of the 2008 economic recession, the U.S. economy has lost workers like weight jettisoned from a sinking ship. Unfortunately, the ship also has a hole in the hull that is difficult to plug. Given that an estimated 45% of the 6.8 million unemployed Americans are long-term unemployed, it seems likely that from boardrooms to break rooms, a new paradigm of business as usual has been created: more work hours, fewer workers, no problem.

While President Obama has bolstered the funding of renewable energy production, in the form of DOE loans to solar energy start-ups (e.g. Solyndra), the trickle down effect to huge swaths of the economy hasn’t fully been realized. Here’s the rub. During the course of administering the U.S. Census, a ripe opportunity for conducting a national energy census was lost. Scheduling census-based energy audits, conceivably performed by trained AmeriCorps, utility, or private-sector teams, could have resulted in a backlog of shovel ready work. This strategy is low-tech, cost-effective and would result in near-term carbon reduction.
McKinsey's greenhouse gas cost abatement curve details the negative cost associated with energy retrofits in comparison to the installation of new renewable energy projects. For millions of unemployed Americans, residential energy retrofits could translate to significant cost savings that would make a dent in household expenses and debt. It could also accelerate the expansion of construction, interior design, and green supply chain markets. In the end, it could slowly close the aperture of an economic ship that continues to draw water and threatens to submerge.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Water.  We can't live without it.  Included within "We"  are the global ecosystems that depend upon replenishable, untainted sources of freshwater.  We also can't live without the sea.  If rainforests are the lungs of the Earth, then seawater, that covers~ 70% of the Earth's, is its heart, for within it are jetstreams, upwellings, and currents that pumps the water that feeds the world. They are at risk because we've continued to dump the remnants of our terrestrial lifestyle into the briny depths.  In this case, included within "we" are people, governments, and corporations.  

Unfortunately, because you can't see the bottom of an ocean trench or even a shallow shelf,  the ocean has become like a huge Superfund site.  At Superfund sites, you can't readily identify the culprits of toxic waste disposal.  However, like some dead bodies that have been whacked, the evidence sometimes floats to the top.  The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GP-squared), "essentially a floating expanse of waste and debris in the Pacific Ocean now covering an area twice the size of the continental U.S. Believed to hold almost 100m tons of flotsam, this vast "plastic soup" stretches 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan"  is no doubt a cosmic eyesore for NASA astronauts, and a threat to pelagic inhabitants.  The evidence is also visible in dead fish, birds, and marine mammals. 

To add insult to injury there are probably tons of plastic bottles that once contained water in the GP-squared.  The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), estimates that 90% of the ocean debris is composed of plastic.   As reported in the NY Times in 2008,  "''..Some three billion cases of bottled water sold last year (2007) — an increase of 14 percent over 2006, according to Beverage Digest. John Sicher, the editor of that trade publication, says that while that’s slightly lower than prior years’ growth rate (16 percent), this is partly because the bottled-water market has grown so huge. As for Fiji (Water), its sales volume was up 30 percent in 2007, and the company says the brand is experiencing double-digit growth this year."  While the rates of plastic recycling have increased, it's obvious that some people didn't get the sustainability memo, didn't read the memo, or just threw the memo away, most probably in the trash. 

So what's a thirsty planet to do?  Maybe, install purification systems at the source.  Do we really need glacial or water from Fantasy Island? What about forward-thinking water policy that increases the availability of potable water and alleviates the need for bottled water ? I'm sure the people of Fiji, where Fiji Water is bottled, and would not appreciate seeing a floatilla of plastic landing on their beaches.  Maybe, when Conde Nast-inspired tourists are threatened by debris-filled reefs then things will change. Hopefully, by then, Fiji will still be above water. 


Monday, October 19, 2009

The pulsating beats of a live concert performance by the Brazilian Girls and MGMT in the midst of San Francisco Bay can drive passion to exceeding heights.  Unfortunately, at the Treasure Island Festival, the passions of a few overly zealous concert goers caused a thriving tree branch to become a dead log.  A small group of stunned audience members became angered and ran to the tree's defense when a gaggle of hipsters jumped up and down on a low lying limb.  For the majority of eyewitnesses, the indignant act was greeted by apathy.   

Despite the aftermath of tree climbing, the Treasure Island Festival has partnered with Carbon Harmony to offer carbon offsets to concert goers for an additional $1 fee, utilized vans and buses powered by biodiesel, and planned to donate or compost all unused food among a list of sustainable practices.  How effective was the recycling program? During a cursory glance at the festival space, tens of beer tinged compostible plastic cups lay on trodden grass surrounding recycling receptacles.  At one point, announcements were made on the PA to urge the use of recycling containers.  

The Story of Stuff wasn't apparently read here, since there were a lot of booths here that sold ubercool tchotchkes, which may or may not be destined for closets, shelves or later a landfill. Art materials were recycled and logoed metal water bottles were sold to discourage plastic bottle use. 

Hopefully, 12,000+ people attending the two-day live music event aren't just footing the carbon bill for the bands and the VIPs.  Just this summer, Bono confessed his carbon emission transgressions, since " U2's CO2 emissions are the equivalent of the waste created by 6,500 average British or Irish people in an entire year, or equal to leaving a standard 100 watt lightbulb on for 159, 000 years" Maybe the acts that performed at the Treasure Island festival got it together with the use of biodiesel generators. 

Earlier that day, I had a brief conversation at a booth with a representative of the Sustainable Living Roadshow, that "is a coalition of educators and entertainers who tour the country in a fleet of renewable fuel vehicles to empower communities and individuals to utilize sustainable living strategies for a healthier planet".  Bred from the idea that community organizers and disciples are the best oracles for facilitating localized, sensible resource use practices, the SLR has plans to partner with LiveEarth, an organization that promotes sustainable choices and lifestyles through multi-media events. 

With greater thought placed on diminishing the footprint of large-scale music festivals there is hope that more can be done. For example, maybe next year, there might be plan to plant trees instead of standing idly by while one was destroyed. 



Friday, October 16, 2009

You've probably heard about the relationship between exposure to air toxics, the onset of asthma, and the consequential use of emergency health care services. What you might not have considered is the impact that increased use of emergency health care services has on the environment, including medical waste proliferation and climate change.

According to the DOE, "Hospitals use 836 trillion BTUs of energy annually and have more than 2.5 times the energy intensity and carbon dioxide emissions of commercial office buildings, producing more than 30 pounds of CO2 emissions per square foot."  Unfortunately, more people are visiting emergency rooms instead of the doctor's office. The CDC reported that "Overall, there were about 119 million visits in the emergency rooms in 2006 up from 90 million in 1996, meaning a 32 percent increase.  A reason for this increase is the fact that the population in aging and most of the elderly use emergency rooms as their first stop for health care, instead if making an appointment at a doctor’s office."  It also appears that the uninsured aren't really to blame for this trend.  “The uninsured have long been more frequent users of (emergency rooms). That's not new. What's new is the rise ... in frequency in visits, and that's occurring in the insured,” said Dr. Stephen Pitts, author of the report and a CDC fellow who teaches emergency medicine at EmoryUniversity’s School of Medicine. 

The take home lesson is that health care reform isn't all about unfairly rewarding the workless and citizenless. Its about realigning how we educate the sick before they become sick.  If we don't co-opt prevention as a mantra for change then we'll not only have sick people but a very, very sick planet. 

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Health care is a right.