opinion: why trash matters

opinion: carbon calculator, week 7…. a little delayed

Week 7 in the continuing series of what is missing from Carbon Calculators.  

There is a list of the things that those calculators don’t ask, thereby eliminating them from their algorithm. These are the things that are sometimes the meat of the matter, so to speak. By altering these things, you could affect your true footprint in ways unimaginable and truly make our planet sustainable.

SHOPPING…..

the activity the United States economy is entirely built on.  

The biggest problem with magazines and films and television is that they encourage you to buy.  Literally.  When we see ads that reflect a type of life we would like to emulate, an area of our brain is fired up and our craving centers are ignited.  The only satiation is to feed that craving.

There are so many issues with unnecessary consumption.  First off, your money could be better spent in other areas.  In this country, we have created the belief that buying something is more important than having the money for what we want to buy.  As we have seen in the last few months, that has been disastrous for this country, and may be something we cannot recover from.  

Secondly, there is all the emissions created from making whatever it is you are buying.  Just the games that are made in China account for 25.7 metric tons of CO2.  That is just the games.  Think of the clothes, and the electronics, and the appliances, and the shoes, and the beddings, and the cookware, and the list can go on and on, supplying 300 million people with a handful of useless things.  

Third, there is the impact of transportation.  Who knows how much CO2 is emitted because the goods had to travel from where they were made to a distribution center in the United States.  From there they had to travel to the individual stores.  Or, if you are shopping online, to your home and however many other homes, depending on the popularity of the product.  How close do you live to the mall?  Do you want the item so badly that you will travel as far as you need to to get it? After you are done using it, there is the trip to Goodwill, if you are a charitable person.  And, if not, the trip from your dumpster to the landfill.  Where the item that was in your life for the greater part of 12 months, sits on our planet for a very, VERY long time.  In some cases, much longer than your life.

This may be the greatest damage done by your shopping habit.  Most of what we have in our homes are made with products that do not go away.  Plastic never decomposes.  You think you are doing so well because you have moved away from that plastic water bottle.  But, look around.  Look at the paneling in your car.  What about the container your moisterizer comes in.  Or the shampoo, dish soap, laundry soap, the new cd or dvd, the soles of your shoes, and I could keep going.  If it is not made of plastic, maybe its metal, which could be melted down and used again.  But not if it were a battery.  Not if you are one of the millions of people that takes their pots and pans to the dump.  What happens to your car when you are done with it? We have created such ease and effortless in our lives that we never take the next steps to figure out what happens after we are done the item.

Unless the item you buy is 100% biodegradable, that item has a life span much longer than your grandchildren.  I know this because much of what’s in my house belonged to my grandparents, and it will be around much longer after I am gone, as well.  We look at these items as things we need, when in reality we are calming down some electrical activity in our brains brought on by a campaign created by a man on Madison Avenue.

Why is it we get so upset when others try to control our lives in mundane ways, but give them carte blanche when it comes to how we spend money that we worked really hard for?

admission

I will admit to you all that I am not feeling very inspired to write lately.  

I sit in front of my computer everyday looking for things to report on; news on climate change, food issues and the like.  And, each and everyday, I feel more and more resigned to the fact that nothing is going to change.  

I go to other blogs and everyone is reporting bad news this and bad news that.  No one is reporting anything original and no one is reporting anything positive.  It really makes one wonder what we are doing to this place and is there anyway of getting out of it.

I think if you are constantly being told you are doing something bad, why would you try to do something good.  After a long day of work, it is hard to get a healthy meal on the table.  After spending all day taking care of your kids, it is no wonder you want to sit in front of the television instead of learning about what you could be doing differently. When the economy is in the tanker, why would you and how could you spend a few extra cents to get CFL’s instead of normal light bulbs?

Believe me, I get it.

I am equally bombarded with the negative.  For example, I had hoped to report on Obama’s stimulus package and the positivity towards the environment.  But, instead, every environmentalist is reporting what was cut.  Would you be inspired to sit down at your computer and deliver bad news to everyone?  I don’t think so.

My new intention for this site is to report what good is happening.  I do think it is important for people to get the news, so I will, possibly, do a daily news post.  Other than that, it will be about what is working.  Now.  You will have to bear with me in this transition.  Right now, there is not a lot of good news to report, so there may not be a lot posted on the site.  

Everyday, I will try.  And, I believe slowly but surely, everyday there will be more out there for me to write about.

opinion: carbon calculator, week 6

 

Week 6 in the continuing series of what is missing from Carbon Calculators.  

There is a list of the things that those calculators don’t ask, thereby eliminating them from their algorithm. These are the things that are sometimes the meat of the matter, so to speak. By altering these things, you could affect your true footprint in ways unimaginable and truly make our planet sustainable.

 

THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY

Most people are looking at this category and wondering how in the world does my watching Iron Chef America, or Desperate Housewives, or CSI affect climate change, aside from the energy use of your individual TV’s.  

This is a very wasteful industry.  And, while many industries are wasteful, this is one that you can directly impact its change.  While many people in the industry claim to be doing what they can to reduce their footprint, the fact is that it is not enough.    Of the 1500 current films and television shows in production, I know of three that are trying very hard to reduce the waste created by filming.  Many others use plastic bottles upon plastic bottle, with very little recycling.  The energy used with the lighting, air conditioning, travels to locations, generators, trailers, fuel trucks, and the list goes on, is unquantifiable.  If you want a quick example, please go to an article I wrote a while ago about the specific waste I witnessed first hand. 

And that is just for the television shows and movie productions.  Multiply that by the amount of commercials that get produced, news shows, sports programming, and much more.

Another area of the film industry that will hurt the environment is the purchasing of new televisions.  There is an increase in purchases with the new digital regulations. While many feel this switch is a good thing to keep up with the technology, the downside is the waste created.  Not only are thousands of perfectly good televisions being dumped in landfills, they are often getting replaced with plasma screens.  These televisions are made with nitrogen triflouride, which is a greenhouse gas with 17,000 times the heating power of carbon.  So with each television you buy, and many homes have multiple, you are contributing to climate change.

This is an area, in which all of us working together, has the most impact.  By turning off the television, you can change the amount of shows that go into production; the less tv shows, the less waste.  You can demand that the industry go eco-friendly by not watching those shows with a large footprint.  And finally, you can demand that the entertainment industry release data on the true carbon footprint of each production and studio.  Many claim to becoming carbon neutral… that is just a fancy way of doing the same old thing, creating the same old waste, but buying offsets so you don’t feel bad.

The truth is that the film industry is really suffering right now.  Shows are getting bad ratings, SAG may be striking soon, advertisers are not getting a strong return on investment.  Believe it or not, this may be a really good thing for the environment.

opinion: carbon calculator, week 5

 

Week 5 in the continuing series of what is missing from Carbon Calculators.  

There is a list of the things that those calculators don’t ask, thereby eliminating them from their algorithm. These are the things that are sometimes the meat of the matter, so to speak. By altering these things, you could affect your true footprint in ways unimaginable and truly make our planet sustainable.

DRYING YOUR CLOTHES

So.. you now wash your clothes in cold water.  And, despite loving the mountain fresh scent, you got rid of your Tide and replaced it with Seventh Generation.  But then you still throw everything in the dryer, effectively canceling out what you did by all the other improvements.

According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), the average household dryer consumes 1,079 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, which amounts to 2,224 pounds of carbon dioxide. If every US household let one load of laundry air-dry, 250,000 tons of CO2 could be saved.  This is equivalent to shutting down 15 nuclear power plants or cutting back coal use by 30 million tons each year. 

Can you imagine what could be done if you let every load air dry?  

But I’m not done with all the benefits.  Many people have humidifiers in there home, using even more energy, as it churns away putting moisture into the air.  However, if you replace that humidifier with a standing dryer rack ($20 at most home marts) filled with wet clothes, you will have the exact same affect.  For free.

There is also the reduction in environmental contaminants.  There have been many studies lately on the harmful affects of phthalates.  These are commonly found in artificial scents, like those found in laundry detergent and dryer sheets.  These chemicals are known hormone mimickers, having harmful effects on children.  They are most often release when heated.  Every time you or your neighbor runs their dryer and the exhaust goes out into the community, the chemicals are released into the air we breathe.  In other words, you would be wise to cover your mouth and nose when you smell the spring rain as you walk your dog through the neighborhood.  By not using a dryer, you have eliminated this entire situation.

Cost.  Drying clothes is 7% of the household electricity usage.  It is estimated that your household can save $135 per year on utility costs.  It is the equivalent of energy and cost savings by draft proofing your home.

But there is a secret cost that is saved, as well.  A standard t-shirt lasts about 25-30 dryer cycles before most people decide it is faded and damaged enough to throw it away.  The damage is caused by the heat and the exposure to the chemicals.  As the clothes are dried they shrink, ever so slightly.  As you put the clothes on they stretch and either the elastic goes out, or the material thins and tears.  Also, because of the heat, your favorite kelly green shirt is now closer to key lime green and doesn’t match the jeans you bought to go with it.  When you throw away the one shirt and buy another, you are spending the $30-60, months, or years, sooner than you needed to.

daily cartoon

This is a great cartoon that represents this ridiculousness behind the bottled water industry.

opinion: children are being hurt

I have written about this before, but it doesn’t seem to fully absorb into people’s minds.  So, I am going to use this forum to say, once again, that it is my belief that if you are not effectively and purposefully, environmentally responsible then you are contributing to the abuse of your child and the other children on this planet.

I have felt this for a long time.  I have made a point in my life to fully understand science, specifically the science and health behind global warming.  With each article I read about children’s exposure to chemicals, or increase in unnecessary diseases like diabetes and asthma, or the growing concern over food shortages or the decline of water, I make the logical conclusion that who will be most affected by these issues is our children.

I have spent much of my time on this site being polite; trying to educate and hoping that the public starts to understand the severity of climate destabilization. But that hasn’t seemed to be effective.  I used to worry about saying things controversial. I was apologetic to my friends with children when I hinted at my theories.  However, as I think about it more and more, I can’t help but think that this one is accurate.  

So, I decided to look up the legal definition:

 - Any recent act, or failure to act, on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation; or

 - An act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.

So, I ask you, do you not see how not doing everything imaginable to change how we are currently living is a form of child abuse?

The act or failure to act which results in death or serious physical harm.  

This site has spent a lot of time writing about phthalates, bisphenol-a, food shortages, water shortages, and air quality.  In many cases, especially the cases of toxic poisoning, study after study has shown the negative impact to children through premature cancers, genital deformities, male extinction, and the list goes on.  

If the result of such acts is physical harm to a child then I conclude that by using the products that contain chemicals that are known to hurt infants, you are abusing your child.

If a parent would go to jail for purposefully starving their child, then I argue by not providing your child with the best food in the present, and ensuring high quality of food in the future, you are abusing your child.

If you, as a parent, were to find out that a neighbor had done something inappropriate to your child, you would go after that neighbor with all of your force.  But, when your neighbor drives an SUV, polluting the air and creating a place where your child can’t live, you let it go by without a second glance.  You and your neighbor are negatively impacting the future of your child and that is neglect and abuse.

I can probably come up with an argument to prove in many cases that you are inflicting abuse on your child, or neighbors child, by your lifestyle.  It is quite pathetic that there is some level of acceptable abuse that we put onto the children of this world.  We have made a silent assent that convenience is more important than your child’s health.  We have made a silent assent that corporations can manipulate us into buying harmful products and that we will not hold them accountable.  We have made a silent assent that we will not demand that we, as a community, are accountable and responsible to future generations.

You are going to argue that child abuse is violent and sexual, by nature.  And, I would come back to you and ask you to read the legal definition.  Read it over and over and over again until it sinks in.  Anything you do (or fail to prevent) that causes physical harm or damage is abuse.  Being passive and ill-informed is not an valid defense.

By exposing your child to something that is toxic, causing physical harm is abuse.  By not investigating everything you bring into your home to ensure that it does not harm your child is neglect.

My hope is that I make you angry.  I don’t care if it is being angry at me, or angry at some corporation, or angry at our government or angry at yourself.  Be angry.  Anger is the place in which people tend to start doing something. I want you to get so angry that you start learning more and researching, in a way to defend your actions, because you will find that the science backs me up.   I want you to get so angry that you learn everything you can about global warming, find out that this is real, that we are in a dire position, and learn that every action you take is not inconsequential. 

I want you to get so angry that you prove me wrong, because in all honesty, I want to stop caring about your child, since you seem to not care about them.

opinion: carbon calculator, week 4

 

Week 4 in the continuing series of what is missing from Carbon Calculators.  

There is a list of the things that those calculators don’t ask, thereby eliminating them from their algorithm. These are the things that are sometimes the meat of the matter, so to speak. By altering these things, you could affect your true footprint in ways unimaginable and truly make our planet sustainable.

GARDENING

What a pretty yard you have!  

Gardening… this can be a trap disguised behind an ecologically friendly mask.  How many times a week do you water? At what time of day do you water?  Are the plants drought resistant and require less water?  Are you using fertilizers and pesticides?  What do you do with your clippings after pruning and mowing?  Are you growing things you can eat or just things that look pretty, but have no value?  Have you utilized your roof space?  Do you have a gardener and does he (or she) use a gasoline powered blower for your leaves?

These are questions many people do not ask.  It is true that all plants are carbon sinks and so something is better than nothing.  However, who cares how much carbon the plants trap if in return you are using more water than you should?  It can sometimes be a drag, believe me, but unfortunately the state of the planet requires that everything we do be considered and evaluated.

Take the time to consider what types of plants you want to put in your yard?  Do you have the ability to have a vegetable garden?  Consider a low flow water system and ensure you are watering in allowable times, per DWP.  Look at your gardener… is he using a gas powered blower?  You aren’t his only client and he isn’t the only gardener out there.  Imagine the millions of blowers out there contaminating the air.

How about this… since you gave up the gym and freed some time by not reading magazines… get outside and deal with your garden yourself.  It connects you back to the Earth, which is what we are all fighting for in the first place, you burn calories, you don’t have exhaust contaminating your airspace, and you can start providing some of your own food instead of going to the mega-mart every day, and the list of benefits goes on and on.

opinion: carbon calculator, week 3

So, you had your cup of coffee and then you went to the gym.  Good morning so far? Did you read a magazine when you were on that elliptical?

It could be argued that magazines are the largest environmental waste in society, directly and indirectly.

You may not have been reading one of the 24 Million magazines printed per issue of “AARP” but you could have been reading one of the 3 million “People”. (To be absolutely clear, those numbers reflect the number of copies distributed per issue.)  And that’s just in this country!

Currently, 70-80% of a magazines footprint is the paper, usually virgin trees, except for the once a year ‘green’ issue.  Another 13-25% is the printing of the magazine, using dirty inks and toxins during the process.  The remainder of the footprint is more than likely utilities. 

But like all things, you can’t just look at the output from the specific industry, you have to look at the  footprint of the resources used for the photo shoots and film prints, the travel of the reporters for interviews, the travel of the entire team to get the glamour shot on the coast of Croatia, and then of course the impact of advertising (to be discussed later).

All in all, it is an industry that does more harm than good.  Just take a walk to your local magazine stand and ask how much of what is on the shelves gets thrown away at the end of the month.  Sadly, it is close to 50%.  There is hope that the magazines returned to the publishing houses, but one can’t be sure. 

When you purchase or subscribe to a magazine you contribute to the harm to out planet.  And, while, you will continue to argue that you are ONE person, what can YOUR subscription do to contribute or help stop the problem.  I say to you, what if you were one of one billion that decided to turn the industry around?

opinion: where do you fall?

I received an email over the weekend that I felt needed to be shared.  

The email contained eight photos of different families across the world and the varying amounts of food and cost that they purchase each week.  The differences are striking.  The things I noticed: the processed crap that is ingested by Western societies versus ‘traditional’ culture, the comparable weight of the families and the food they eat, the health and vitality of those who eat whole foods versus processed foods.

Seriously, take a look at these people.  Look at each picture in detail.  

There are so many things that can be said about this.  Some of the pictures are heartbreaking, and not just the obvious ones.  I think the amount of sodas consumed by the Mexican family is just as heartbreaking as the lack of food that family in Chad have access to.  Did you notice how much fast food, and how little whole foods (one plate of fruit), the American family had? Look at the amount of food can feed 13 people in Bhutan versus the amount of food that feeds four in Germany.  And finally, look at the amount of waste created by the Western families.  

We write a lot about the affect of food on our environment, economy, and our bodies.  I think these photos are a clear indication of what problems exist surrounding our food culture.  Many of these families are not eating food, they are eating chemical calories.  And, when you look at the packaging and the marketing that goes into having a family select on brand over the other, you realize this isn’t going to end.  The corporations that make processed food do not have your best interest in mind.  There main concern is profit.  

We are in a food crisis.  However, I doubt many people really understand that because they have access to food in astronomical ways.  Many of these families.. many of you who read this… have never seen pictures of how people survive outside of the United States or ‘western’ homes.  We are extremely fortunate to have the abundance that we do.  I think when the peak of this food crisis hits many people are not going to know how to survive, and that is scary.

I would be interested in knowing what your interpretation of these photos are.  Please feel free to comment about them with your opinions.

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