Flaws Build Character
Imagine that you were an alien visitor to an American grocery store and you step into the produce section. I think you would honestly believe that tomatoes only grow 16-18 cm. Or that corn is always about 8-9 inches. And that carrots are always straight and in a bunch.
You would actually have a lot of data to prove your point. Each grocery store you went into would look exactly the same, with the fruits and vegetables always meeting those expectations.
However, you would be wrong.
In fact, the truth is that a lot of fresh, edible produce is thrown away because it does not meet standards set by the FTC and the Grocery Manufactures Association.
On average, U.S. farmers are forced to dispose of approximately 1/5 of their entire harvest because it does not fulfill visually uniform and blemish-free criteria set forth by the FTC, modern advertising imagery and consumer desire. Other resources cite that figure being as high as 50%. That means that every twisty-goateed-carrot, two-headed eggplant, and eyeball-ridden potato that they encounter is either left on the fields to rot before finally being tilled underground or immediately carted off to the dumpster. Remarkably, the UK has followed suit for decades with the EU-imposed regulation of 26 varieties of fruit and vegetables that must be banned for sale if they are under-sized and/or misshapen – resulting in an annual crop loss for British farmers of 20%.
But during this time of an economic recession, as well as concerns about global warming, is this really a good practice to keep in place. There are estimates that with minor changes to the United States system of throwing out flawed produce, we could save tens of BILLIONS of dollars. And, this
Right now, I am thinking about the ridiculousness of the Monsanto campaign…”Helping Farmers Produce More”. Their claim is that with a looming 9 Billion people… they will need to assist farmers to produce more.
It seems that if they are throwing away 20-50% of edible, nutritious food, the need for technological advances seems unwarranted. But, maybe I am missing something.
I was happy to read that the UK recently changed their food policy to allow for “flawed” produce to hit the store shelves. However, there are stipulations as the product must be labeled “Product Intended for Processing”. This is fruit that does not meet visual standards, but is perfectly nutritive and can be used for things like preserving into jams and jellies or used in fruit salad.
Does the ridiculousness of this strike anyone else? Do you think our ancestors, in the African desert, would have passed by fruit because it crooked? The fact that we have these standards should be a sign of how out of control the food system has become. This mask of perfection that is created is distancing ourselves from the value of real food. It is a sign of the elitism that we have created in this country surrounding food. We are saying, loud and clear, that it is better for you to be starving on the street than eat an imperfect apple. (I wonder what the apple looked like in the Garden of Eden.)
I think that this policy needs to change. Food is a gift we have been given, whether you believe through evolution or divinity. The more we get detached from the variations in food, the more we ensure the growth of huge corporate entities that create our food. But more importantly, I feel it places the last nail in the human coffin.
by Shelley Boyle
Fox Will Have a Field Day with This One
Do you remember when news leaked that Obama said:
So when Brian Williams is asking me about what’s a personal thing that you’ve done [that's green], and I say, you know, ‘Well, I planted a bunch of trees.’ And he says, ‘I’m talking about personal.’ What I’m thinking in my head is, ‘Well, the truth is, Brian, we can’t solve global warming because I f—ing changed light bulbs in my house. It’s because of something collective’.“
during the campaign trail?
Am I the only one who know finds this kind of humorous:
“I know light bulbs may not seem sexy,” Mr. Obama said, “but this simple action holds enormous promise because 7 percent of all the energy consumed in America is used to light our homes and our businesses.”
By Jennifer Jaykins
Strange Bedfellows
by Matt DeNoto
In an earlier article, I suggested that one way to influence the unsustainable practices of large corporations was to buy stock in those corporations, thereby giving environmentally-minded people not only information in what the company was up to, but also a voice and a vote at stockholder meetings that decide future practices.
If that option seems a bit confrontational to you, but you still want to use your investment dollars in a green way, GreenBiz.com reports that many stock indices are offering special lists that categorize companies by environmental impact. This provides you with an easy source of information about which companies are being environmentally-responsible. The cynic in me requires that I point out, however, that it is of course always best to do your own research as well before committing your hard-earned dollars.
Speaking of research, the Breakthrough Institute is a progressive West Coast-based think tank that says that the recently-passed American Clean Energy & Security Act (formerly known as the Waxman-Markey bill) is not going to have a positive effect on the environment. According to the BI, what is truly needed now is heavy federal investment in new green technologies to increase their effectiveness while dropping their costs, in order to make them truly competitive with current technologies. Of course, with the big news these days being cap-and-trade, the BI’s best hope for promoting its ideas might be going to an unusual source…
Republicans.
Not well-known for their environmental stance, the GOP has been trying to discredit the cap-and-trade plan from the start. But instead of suggesting a reasonable alternative, the party has been quoting, or more accurately, misquoting a MIT report that says the new plan will cost every American over three grand per year. It almost sounds like Republicans care about the little guy, until you remember that the GOP is a bunch of rich old white guys who have spent the last eight years doing everything in their power to promote the interests of business over citizens at just about every turn.
The Republicans need a new angle. They can’t just be ‘against’ everything. So I’d like to take this opportunity to formally introduce the Republicans to the Breakthrough Institute.
Republicans, meet the Breakthrough Institute. BI, these are Republicans.
There. Now, Republicans, I know the BI plan doesn’t jive with your usual system. I know you don’t like government spending, but you also don’t like taxes. And at this point, the government has to do SOMETHING about the environment. Democrats have already jumped on the cap-and-trade bandwagon, so we know you won’t deign to go there.
Just give it a chance. Maybe you’ll see that standing up ‘for’ something, something that could make the world a truly better place, (instead of just trying to scare everybody all the time,) not only makes people like you, but makes you like yourself.
It’s a long shot, I know. Just sleep on it, okay?
Backlash: The Beginning
Last night, I was given a copy of the Wall Street Journal with a big opinion piece about climate change: The Climate Change Climate Change.
In it, the author, discusses the new trend of being a climate change denier. According to this, there are a large number of politicians and scientists who claim that climate change is the “worst scientific scandal in history.” They claim that they are looking at the data more closely because of the impact from the recession and it has left them with no doubt to believe it just does not exist; racking it up to something no greater than a new religion.
Surprisingly, the most outspoken of them all is a politician from Australia, Steve Fielding. Why this is surprising is because of the impact Australia is facing due to changing temperatures; drought, fire, food shortages, and rising temperatures. But this man can sit there and say there is not enough scientific evidence.
What is interesting to me about this type of article is this notion that we, who believe that climate change is real and moving closely upon us, seem to want it to occur. That we are looking forward to it and that we are damned that we haven’t been able to provide concrete evidence that it exists. And, not only that, but when asked, these same “deniers’ are not providing data to the counter, either. Despite that, it is all the fault of those who “believe” that are allowing legislation to go through and decisions to be made based on false information. (Of course, when the Federal Reserve does it causing economic collapse, they turn a blind eye. But, when it comes to the collapse of an entire species, they are screaming from the rooftops.)
What I am trying to say is this: that maybe there is a 50/50 chance that climate change does not exist. I certainly hope so. If climate change does exist and I change my lifestyle accordingly, then we have caught something before it is too late. If it doesn’t exist, then my changes will have little impact and will be a net neutral to the planet. If I don’t change my lifestyle and climate change doesn’t exist, again… net neutral… no impact, no change. But, if I don’t change my lifestyle and climate change DOES exist, then the impact I have made onto the planet is drastic and life threatening.
So.. my question is this… why are some people so adamant to not change, and do small things that might greatly alter the planet, just for the sake of being right?
Review: Food, Inc.
Just wanted to direct you all to a review I wrote over at LAist on Food, Inc. I wrote it a few weeks ago, and have since seen the movie twice. Obviously, this is the type of film that I find incredibly important to see.
Check it out: FOOD, INC.
You can watch the preview here or on LAist.
Fantastic Site: Sustainable Table
I think we have blogged about this before, but I want to draw your attention to it once again.
Sustainable Table was created in 2003 by the nonprofit organization GRACE to help consumers understand the problems with our food supply and offer viable solutions and alternatives. Rather than be overwhelmed by the problems created by our industrial agricultural system, Sustainable Table celebrates the joy of food and eating.
Today’s dominant form of agriculture relies on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, large amounts of water, major transportation systems and factory-style practices for raising livestock. Industrial farming creates over-processed, over-traveled, and under-nourishing food that may contribute to health problems like obesity, diabetes and heart disease. This type of food production causes pollution and creates environmental and public health problems that cost taxpayers both money and quality of life. Sustainable Table was launched to offer consumers a choice and to show that fresh food from small, independent family farmers is still available.
I have been following them for quite a while and had the pleasure to meet Diane Hatz, the founder and Exec. Producer of the Meatrix video series. (check out the video on the sidebar if you don’t know what this is). Just recently, I started following them on Twitter, which introduced me to their blog: The Daily Table. This has fantastic information about recommended summer reads and movies about food, information on school lunch programs, genetically modified foods and much, much more.
You can follow them on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/eatsustainable
We All Knew This Was Coming
While at the airport, a contributor to the site happened upon something very interesting. So, he took a picture with what was available and sent it along.
Now, I don’t know much except that, as advertized, it is “limited time” and a co-promotion with Delta ONLY. But, you have to know more things like this will be on the way.
Waste Not
by Matt DeNoto
STAR TREK has always been praised for its optimistic take on humanity’s future. It suggests that a few centuries from now we will all live in a more or less peaceful world where there is no discrimination and no need for money. Every man and woman works willingly to make the world a better place, whether that means captaining starships or piloting starships or engineering on starships… You get the point. But when I think about these futuristic utopias where people work not because they need money but in order to better society, one question always pops into my mind…
Who cleans the toilets?
If the day were to come where our basic needs are all easily met and there is no need to compete with each other, jobs will become time fillers that we volunteer ourselves for mostly, I suspect, out of some interest that the job would fulfill. Those interested in keeping the peace become law enforcement officers. Those interested in caring for the sick will become doctors and nurses. But what about the dirty jobs that are done not because anyone wants to do them, but because they are necessary and they pay?
This question nagged at me for a long time until I saw something that suggested that our reality was finally catching up with STAR TREK’s fantasy: the Living Machine waste treatment system.
In the Living Machine system, human waste is deposited into a mini-ecosystem filled with various algae and plants that use the waste as food. It creates a small, pleasant wetland and at the other end useful gray water exits that can be used to irrigate landscaping or simply returned to the environment.
Of course there are other systems out there looking to make us rethink the idea of the material we now call ‘waste.’ Most of these revolve around the idea of ‘dry’ toilets which compost our waste into useful fertilizer. It’s a good idea which hasn’t yet quite evolved to fit our urban lifestyles.
Until we can transport our waste into the Sun, there’s always the ‘milk-bottle-in-the-water-tank’ trick, which you can use today to cut down on the amount of water that gets flushed away, another important consideration when we think about toilets. 20Or you can try the more extreme ‘if it’s yellow, let it mellow, if it’s brown, flush it down’ option.
The point is that in the future, waste won’t be seen as waste. It’ll be a useful part of some bigger process. So no one will have to volunteer to be a sewer technician. Instead waste handling will be lumped in with horticulture or farming, and the person who has to deal with it will hopefully still feel personally fulfilled knowing that s/he is making a meaningful contribution to the world.
Anyway, it makes me feel better.
To Your Health
by Matt DeNoto
I turned 30 over the weekend, and my parents flew out from Long Island to visit me. My mom brought me a very special gift: a cold. Over the last couple of days I’ve dealt with severe post-nasal drip, a very runny nose and a lack of appetite. But I don’t have health insurance, so I will not be heading out to see a doctor. Instead, I self-medicate with over the counter cold medicine that makes my brain feel ever so slightly detached from my body in a way that makes me glad I’m not operating any heavy machinery today.
So I thought this might be a good day to talk about health care. After all, the Green Revolution is all about treating the world better, and naturally that includes our own bodies. I got into a bit of a debate about health care with another family member last week. He held that socialized medicine doesn’t work, an opinion he formed on the basis of testimonies from friends who live abroad. My opinion was that any system must work better than ours. From my standpoint (as one of the many uninsured), government-run health care is better than depending on the emergency room for everything.
The debate ended with us agreeing that Congress couldn’t legislate its way out of a cardboard box and we went on with our meal. But a point came to me later that I wish we could have discussed further.
You see, he doesn’t want government-run health care because he thinks government cannot run anything intelligently on a large scale for a long term. I’m inclined to agree. However, I feel more strongly that health care as an industry should not be in private hands, because those hands will inevitably put profit above all else, including the well being of those insurance companies supposedly serve.
The idea has come into my mind several times over the last decade or so that things might run more smoothly if we built flexibility into the system. What I mean by that is it is not set in stone that the government can run certain things and private companies others. There are many places in the country right now where institutions that had been in government hands for a long time are being rented out to private companies, who are running those institutions better. Municipal services, prisons, even schools are being handed over. And for now, the private companies are doing it better because the government systems they replaced had grown too large, too bureaucratic and too expensive.
But eventually, those private companies will fall into their own trap. They will squeeze services too thin for the sake of profit margins. They will ignore the customer because they are a monopoly.
When that time comes, government will most likely need to take back over.
It’s a cycle that, when looked at objectively, seems fairly natural. One system takes on a task until it loses focus, at which time the task is handed over to a different system. If everyone were to take some perspective on it and accept that this situation is okay, that this is just how things are supposed to go, perhaps the idea of the hand-off wouldn’t be so dramatic.
Of course, nothing is that easy. Especially when it involves large organizations, profit, and the lives of private citizens. Washington is currently attempting to do what the Clinton Administration failed to do (and what other administrations in recent history didn’t even try to do): reform the health care industry. How does the country improve service while lowering costs without making the system completely unprofitable? Should there be a non-profit, government-funded intermediary between doctors and insurance companies to take over the authorization of services? After all, one of the big debates right now is that it is often more profitable for insurance companies to deny coverage, so what if we took that decision out of their hands? Insurance companies would obviously balk at the idea of giving that power to the doctors, so perhaps an independent body not driven by money should take over. On the other hand, would another level of bureaucracy really make the industry more efficient?
While you figure it all out, it’s time for another dose of DayQuil.
Bringing It Home
by Matt DeNoto
It’s true. The Green Revolution does mean more work for you. It means you will be expected to put thought and effort into reducing the amount of… well, everything you use. It means remembering to grab those reusable bags before heading off to the grocery store. It means looking for ways to cut out waste. And for some people, that alone is enough to turn them off entirely. Life is busy enough as it is, and one more thing to worry about would just… bring about the end of the world or something.
Fortunately, a lot of smart people are looking for ways to make it as easy as possible for us. After all, we’re living in the Information Age, where all the data to help us make our lives better is right at our fingertips.
For instance, Google has teamed up with a number of utility companies to take advantage of ‘smart meter’ technology to create an easy-to-use PowerMeter widget, which lets residents track exactly how much power they’re using in real time. Having that kind of instant feedback can be a powerful tool to inspire folks to turn off the appliances they’re not using, or perhaps take the extra moment to unplug those ‘vampire devices’ that suck down energy even when they’re off.
Another helpful tool to make greening your life a little easier is Earth 911’s iRecycle app for the iPhone and iPod Touch, which helps you quickly find local disposal locations for all your different kinds of recyclable waste.
And of course, the less water, gas and electricity you use, the less you have to pay for.
But the best way to save electricity is to not use any at all. Villages in Brazil have been reusing old 2-liter soda bottles to get free light all day long. How do they do it? Check out this short video to see the clever method and its fantastic results. They even compare the light quality between the soda bottle method and regular light bulbs. For those looking for something a little more stylish than soda bottles hanging from the ce iling, there are companies like Solatube installing similar systems right here at home.
I’m afraid it’s time to begin reevaluating those things we feel we have a ‘right’ to. Just because you work all day does not mean you can come home and leave lights on all over the house. Just because you have so many kids to take care of doesn’t mean the water can be left running while you brush your teeth. The world doesn’t ask much, just a bit of consideration.
Stumble it!