Urban Ecoist

As I was watching the CNN yesterday, I couldn’t help but notice that President Barack Obama drinks bottled water. Here is video coverage of the President’s town hall in Green Bay, Wisconsin June 11, 2009.

The swig in question takes place later in the meeting during the Q & A portion, but you can clearly see the bottle at about 5:22 into the clip.

So, there I was, jiving on the President’s thoughts about health care reform (which should have happened in the 1990’s, if not sooner — thanks, GOP!), and I was a little taken aback when I saw Mr. Obama take a swig from a clear plastic water bottle without a label. And that struck me as funny, too. His press appearances are like TV shows in that they will not show a brand name — unless the company making the brand pays for it.

...from twilightearth.com

And I wasn’t taken aback like I was shocked or offended because I am so granola and self-righteous about it…but more taken aback because I am surprised that no one has gotten to him yet about bottled water. I understand that the man travels a lot, and maybe it is easier on his system if he drinks only one kind of water, but then again, water is water and bottled water comes from all kinds of sources, so I kinda doubt that he insists on drinking only one “brand” of water. And hi, he’s a smoker, so it’s not like it’s a taste thing.

I guess it’s more of a situation where a subtle difference may make a larger impact due to the person making the difference. If Barack Obama showed up in Green Bay with his own water bottle (BPA Free, of course), that would make a subtle statement. A statement not only to the people attending that Town Hall meetin’, but also to anyone watching the coverage. He doesn’t have to pose with a fancy-schmancy stainless steel reusable water bottle or take a long dramatic drink from it, either, though that would be funny if done in the right way.

But of course, much like Michelle Obama’s White House garden, I’m sure that some bottled water industry group would start throwing a fit about how tap water is endangering the safety of nation’s water supply…

Need a water bottle yourself? Check out Gardenaut’s extensive review, and I like that site, so I’m linking to it.

Barack Obama, water, bottled water, tap water, reusable water bottle, BPA free, Michelle Obama, garden, Green Bay, Wisconsin, town hall, tv coverage, president

Lately, a lot of environmentally minded folks are touting the train as the best way to travel. As airplanes and automobiles spew out nasty carbon emissions, the train seems like our next best hope to combat climate change, right?

I’ve decided to test out this premise that you and I could save the world by taking the train instead of flying. And truthfully, the numbers are not adding up to create a significant benefit for taking the train. According to Carbonfund.org, the carbon dioxide produced by an individual over 100,000 air miles is approximately 42,000 pounds of CO2, Geez, that seems like a lot, about 0.42 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per mile traveled.

Now, let’s look at the same 100,000 miles by train. Again, getting our numbers from Carbonfund, 100,000 miles by train will produce a touch more than 44,000 lbs CO2. Wait. That’s more than the damn plane. We’ll put that down for 0.44 lbs CO2/mile.

But wait, that figure for plane travel does not take into account radiative forcing, which is the increased effect of carbon in the higher altitudes. Most people estimate radiative forcing as increasing the efficacy (or warming effect) of carbon emissions by 2.7 — the numbers vary a bit lower and higher depending on who you talk to, but since I’m using Carbonfund’s numbers, I’m also going to use their radiative forcing number of 2.7.

Once you factor in the increase in global warming power that carbon gets when it’s high enough, the 100,000 miles on an airplane now produces 113,400 pounds of carbon dioxide, or 1.13 lbs CO2 per mile traveled. Ouch.

So let’s look at a specific trip, say across the US, from Seattle to Miami round-trip. Going by train is actually going to be a longer trip in terms of mileage (and yes, of course, time) coming in at 7381 miles. That would produce 1.41 tons of CO2 (2820 lbs). Dividing the carbon over the distance gives us 0.38 lbs of CO2 per mile. That same trip on an airplane (5474 miles) produces just shy of 1 ton if you don’t factor in that pesky radiative forcing. But the reality of carbon in the upper atmosphere means that the trip from SeaTac to Miami is really producing what amounts to 2.66 tons of carbon dioxide, which gives us a whopping 0.97 lbs of CO2 per mile.

However, the so-called environmentally-friendly train comes with a cost, both monetarily and time-wise. Let’s say we do take that trip from Seattle to Miami — it would take 3 and a half days, going through Chicago, then Washington DC on the way to Miami. It would cost $672 round-trip according to Amtrak, and that is only for a coach reserved seat. Add in a sleeping car and the new total is over $2,000 and that is only for a “roomette” and only on the longer spans of the trip. $2000 — are you kidding me? Not to mention that money you will spend on food and beverages during the seven days you will spend on the train.

I think I will continue to fly and use the savings to offset my travels. And trust me, I’m as granola as you can get, but come on, spending seven days and over $2000 on a train trip when I could instead fly there in about 13 hours non-stop for under $300 is simply not feasible.

By the way, if you took an automobile with an fuel efficiency rating of 25 mpg that approximately 6,000 mile trip would create about 2 tons of carbon or about 0.67 lbs CO2 per mile. A hybrid with a mpg of 46 would produce just over one ton of CO2, or around 0.38 lbs CO2 per mile.

Huh, maybe instead of the train, we should drive a hybrid. Unfortunately, it would take you seven days (70 mph, 12 hours a day) just to get to Miami. But for shorter distances, I’m thinking that is the highly efficient car may be the way to go. That and you can listen to the radio really loudly and not bother your neighbor.

trains, planes, travel, carbon dioxide, carbon emissions, miles traveled, Amtrak, Carbonfund, hybrid, MPG, carbon emissions, CO2

I know, I know, everybody is talking about eating local and seasonal so as to lower your carbon footprint — in that your food doesn’t travel thousands of miles by carbon dioxide spewing trucks because it comes from within 100 miles or so, among many, many other reasons.

But are you drinking local?

Check this out. National Geographic has a one-pager on the carbon emissions from the transport of wine around the world. Another blogger (who says we are all a bunch of hacks?) Dr. Vino Tyler Coleman and Pablo Paster, a sustainability engineer, put together some numbers and Nat Geo put together a rather telling graphic.

The gist of it is that if you are really serious about how many natural resources it takes to put food and drink in your belly, you should not be choosing you wine based on what’s trendy or highly-rated, but instead choose wine (and spirits) from a more local source or if you do have a thing for foreign wine, choose wine from the country that can ship it to you via ocean trade routes.

For instance, according to the map, Napa Valley wines are big emitters due to the lengthy road journeys from California to the East Coast markets. But those same California Cabernets are shipped via boat to Asia and Australia, and thus the cargo ship shipping lowers those per bottle emissions. So, you must figure out where your wine is from, and then figure out a better way to get a buzz.

I happen to live in Oregon, so I am one of those lucky imbibers that lives close to three pretty top-notch wine regions. But I happen to love French and Spanish wine. I could either give up my love affairs with Gigondas and Piorat, or I could move to the East Coast of the US (given that I would remain in the US). This graphic and the idea behind it gives me extra motivation to drink more Pinot Noir. But what about that poor oenophile in Iowa City?

Now, I grew up in Michigan, so I can relate to land-locked winos. And for those of you that don’t live near a coastal port or within a few hundred miles of such ports, there is local wine everywhere. I learned to love Gewurztraminers and Reislings living in Michigan, as those are the grapes that grow well there. I have tried sparkling wines from New York’s Finger Lakes region that were equally tasty. The Chardonelle I tried in Misssouri — not so good, but they did have other varietals. I have even had some Petite Syrah from Mexico.

Use this topic as a challenge to not only find local wine, but local beer and spirits. You may just like what you taste. If not, have a few more drinks, and you will.

wine, transportation, carbon footprint, wine industry, carbon emissions, cargo ships, trucks, New York State wine, Michigan wine, Missouri wine, Oregon wine, French wine, Spanish wine, eat local, local foods, seasonal foods, beer, spirits

Part and parcel of being an urban ecoist is worrying about those lands outside of our urban habitat, as we understand and appreciate the importance of the wilderness and its inhabitants. That said, let’s get right into this.

Oil Shale: A Destructive Way to Put Off the Inevitable

It is not like oil shale has not been around forever, literally. Cavemen figured out how to burn oil shale rocks. It wasn’t until the dawn of the Industrial Revolution that mankind rediscovered this resource and started mining it in great quantities. That was all well and good, but oil shale was more expensive to process than petroleum, which also has more potential energy, and petrol became our fuel of choice.

Oil shale does not contain oil, per se. It contains kerogen, which contains hydrocarbons. But it’s a bit of a process to get those hydrocarbons, which means it costs more to get those hydrocarbons. And we all know what it means when a form of energy costs more than good ol’ gas or coal — it is not going to fly with the American public.

But wait, oil prices have been rising, which makes oil shale extraction more attractive to the American public in terms of cost. However, there are costs involved in oil shale that many of us might not see as part of the bottom line.

Oil shale has to be mined, and mining is almost always a very destructive process in terms of the environment in which the minable resource is found. Look at mountaintop removal-style mining in Appalachian coal deposits, and you will see what I mean.

In an odd move by the Obama Admin, in the person and department of Ken Salazar and the Interior, our federal government is going to offer our public lands to oil shale development projects. Incidentally, there are already six 160 acre parcels of public lands that have already bee “leased” out to companies for “research, development, and demonstration” purposes.

Oil shale is a great way to finish destroying the West. This is what the Powder River Basin looks like after coal.

It’s not so much that oil shale wouldn’t provide cost-effective energy, but really? Are we still looking for ways to fill up our conventional combustion engines, or are we looking past fossil fuels to a cleaner and more responsible future? I say, screw the development leases, save what’s left of the Western United States, and spend that money and time on algae, or switchgrass, or jatropha, or something that doesn’t rely on the same tired technology that is not only destroying our planet, but if you need a more selfish and individualized reason, but air pollution affects your health.

It’s like the ship is sinking, but we keep thinking that if we go to the lower decks, we’ll be safe. Dig deeper? Please.

You have less than a month to bitch to Salazar about this futile exercise in energy development. Click here if you want to go the National Wildlife Federation website and have them send a letter to the DOI for you, or you can mail your own letter to the following:

Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, N.W.
Washington DC 20240

or save a tree and email the DOI at feedback@ios.doi.gov

oil shale, United States, energy, oil, fossil fuels, environment, mining, resources, wilderness, Department of the Interior, Ken Salazar, Obama

That’s right. I’m calling you out, Energy and Commerce Democrats. This Cash for Clunkers program may seem like a sunshine-y way to get Americans into fuel-efficient vehicles, but once again, reading the fine print, I notice that the program may be leaving a wide open door for Americans to buy more SUVs that still don’t get anywhere near even the old CAFE standard of 27.5 MPG.

Cash for Clunkers, if it passes Congress, will give up to one million American automobile buyers a voucher to use towards the purchase of a new, more fuel efficient vehicle. The vouchers come in two amounts — $3500 or $4500. So let’s multiply the average of those two amounts ($3000) by the number of vouchers, 1 million. The total “cost” for this program will be $4,000,000,000. That billion with a B. And that is not even factoring in administrative costs and what not.

1990 Dodge Monaco...classy.

The real problem lies in who is getting these magical vouchers. It’s not passenger car people. The vouchers will only go to people who can trade in a passenger vehicle that gets less than 18 MPG, which would be a 1990 Dodge Monaco or a 1985 Cadillac El Dorado convertible. Seriously, there are so few relatively modern “passenger vehicles” — that is not a light-duty truck, SUV, or large light-duty truck — that get less than 18 MPG that I’m guessing that very few Cash for Clunkers vouchers will be going to passenger car buyers.

So who will be getting these vouchers? Considering the vast majority of non-hybrid trucks and SUVs are lucky if they get a combined MPG of 18, then I am going to go out on a limb and say that only those who have a gas-guzzling truck or SUV will be able to qualify for the cash for clunker voucher. And the real winners are…American SUV makers.

In order to get the voucher for trading in a light-duty truck, you must be turning in a truck that gets under the 18 MPG threshold (check) and you need only to find a new truck or SUV that gets 2 mpg better than your trade-in. 2 mpg? Really? So we are going to reward those who turn in an SUV that gets, let’s say 18 MPG, for a new SUV that gets 21 MPG.

And when it comes to the large light-duty truck category, the trade-in truck only has to get one MPG better than the lower 15 MPG threshold to qualify for the $3500 voucher. If you upgrade to a large light-duty that gets 2 MPG better than your last truck, then you get the full $4500 voucher for that new 17 MPG truck.

Ok, so who couldn’t use $3500 or $4500 to buy a new car. I’m sure many a car buyer would be super stoked to get a voucher to buy a car that gets better gas mileage, but nope, sorry, the voucher is not for you, unless you are still driving a 1993 Lincoln Continental. But if you are driving a 2006 GMC Yukon, well, then you get a voucher for a new SUV that only gets 18 MPG.

Yay! The world is safe at last.

Let’s call a spade a spade, shall we? I’m all for people making better decisions when it comes to buying cars, but come on, who stands to benefit from these vouchers? The same people who got a tax credit for buying those gas-luvin’ SUV’s five years ago.

When this bill goes before Congress, contact your representative and your senators to bitch about this, unless of course, you are in the market for a new SUV.

cash for clunkers, MPG, fuel efficiency, mileage, Congress, democrats, energy, commerce, cars, SUVs, trucks

Maybe all remember the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing (or maybe not, Michael Phelps…), and if you do remember than perhaps you also recall that the city of Beijing went to some lengths to curb its air pollution during the course of the Games.

Well, the data is being analyzed by some researchers that want to see what kind of tangible reductions in particulate pollution came with that olympic effort to cut back on industrial and automobile emissions.

Atmospheric scientist Jan Cermak of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich and a a mysteriously unnamed colleague looked at the aerosols in the atmosphere above the city of Beijing from the years 2002 through 2008. They used satellite data, which could measure the aerosol levels, but not the true location in terms of high-atmosphere or lower ground levels. Wind patterns, weather reports, rainfall, humidity — these factors were all taken into account to determine what the aerosol levels would have been during the Olympics and what they actually were from July to September 2008.

And guess what? It really didn’t matter what Beijing did. The city achieved some reductions in aerosol levels, but really nothing to get excited about. And why, you ask? Because so much air-bourne pollution came in to Beijing’s skies from other regional sources.

It turns out that the Chinese only achieved a modest reduction in aerosols. The researchers report in a paper in press in Geophysical Research Letters that pollution-control efforts reduced the overall amount of aerosols in the atmosphere by about 10% to 15%. That small change highlights the importance of factors such as wind direction in determining local pollution, says Cermak. In spite of the reduction in local emissions, winds from the south and southeast sullied Beijing’s air by bringing in pollution from distant industrial areas, he says. — Science Magazine News

You see, that’s the funny thing about air-bourne pollution. It doesn’t stay still like land-based pollution. Oh, wait, land-based pollution doesn’t stay put, either. It leaches into the water supply. Huh, maybe we should just try harder not to pollute in the first place.

Naw, that will never work.

Still, the numbers show that Beijing did achieve a 10 to 15 percent reduction in aerosols above the city. Am I the only one who thinks that is a good start? Too bad the Chinese only did it for three months. Who knows what reductions could be achieved with a long-term cut in emissions?

air pollution, Olympics, China, Beijing, emissions, aerosols, atmosphere

Despite my issues with coal, some climate modelers have discovered that even if no new coal plants were built from here on out, it would not make much difference in terms of carbon dioxide emissions.

Great, we really are screwed…

Carnegie Mellon’s Jay Apt and Adam Newcomer took a whole bunch of climate data and broke everything down into four scenarios. The first scenario was inertia, that is keep the coal burning to meet increased needs, but with the help of the traditional energy sources we have all come to love. We’ll call this one the control scenario.

The three experimental scenarios all ban new coal plants. Scenarios Two and Three presume that energy needs will continue to increase at historical levels, as seen below in the graph from the Energy Information Administration.

And this graph is only data for the United States…

Anyhoo, Scenario Two is modeled on the premise that wind energy will replace coal in terms of new energy needs with natural gas as a complement. Scenario Three works on the premise that new needs will be met with only natural gas. Scenario Four takes the path of no increase in energy needs (as in the US finally starts using energy efficiently like Jimmy Carter told us to).

The final scenario quenches increased energy needs with wind and natural gas as well, but it assumes that U.S. residents won’t require any more energy than they do today–if, say, people become much more efficient in their energy usage; the only increase in demand would come from a growing population. The team applied the model to three main regions in the United States: the Midwest, Texas, and parts of the East Coast. –Science

Needless to say if you read today’s title, the cut backs in new coal power will not make a significant enough dent in carbon emissions to perhaps maybe possibly mitigate the worst effects of anthropogenic global warming.

In the best cases of the scenarios, carbon emissions may be cut by almost half along the East Coast of the US. However, the low end of the possible range of emission declines in that same case is only 18%. So sure, emissions could be cut by 18 to 48% along the East Coast, but many climate scientists feel that reductions must be cut by 80% in order to stave off significant climate change.

You can click on the link here to read the full set of numbers from the models.

And the ineffectual reductions are not the bad part. If coal goes out of style, and natural gas takes over as America’s energy choice, prices for natural gas could increase from 175 to 500%. Awesome.

energy, coal, power, electricity, United States, power plants, efficiency, climate change, global warming, energy usage

Seems the companies that are supposedly making the world safer for your child are not really all that concerned about the next generation after all.

Climate Counts recently released its findings as it pertains to responsible climate-centered action on the part of the toy making and children’s equipment industry, and let’s just say if it really were a Lego World, it wouldn’t be headed for a healthy future.

The big winner (and in that I mean the best of the very sad bunch) is Hasbro with a whopping 40. Woo-hoo. That puts them one point better than Kraft, a company that exploits the stupidity of the American Public with every single-serving snack pak of Corn Nuts. That 40 places Hasbro well above Sara Lee (13) and ConAgra (21). By contrast, the highest-scoring company rated by Climate Counts (I’ll detail the criteria below) is…ta dah…Nike.

Nike? Really? Isn’t Nike exploiting cheap labor in Southeast Asia to make $100+ basketball shoes? I thought I wasn’t supposed to support Nike.

That is exactly the issue I have with Climate Counts. Sure, it rates a company on 4 categories encompassing 22 criteria, and that marks the end of their purpose. But in the case of highly-rated Nike and Coca Cola, there are other issues to look at before deciding to buy a company’s products (as Climate Counts suggests). But that is yet another topic for another day, urban ecoists.

Oh, yeah, the four categories…

* MEASURED their climate “footprint”
* REDUCED their impact on global warming
* SUPPORTED (or suggest intent to block) progressive climate legislation
* Publicly DISCLOSED their climate actions clearly and comprehensively

So, you see, labor practices or safety is not taken into consideration when it comes to Climate Counts, but the point is to simply draw attention to how large corporations are dealing (or not) with climate change.

And returning to today’s topic, it seems that children’s products manufacturers are definitely not leading the Corporate Social Responsibility arena. In fact, the only industry that doesn’t beat Hasbro’s 40 is the airline industry (top airline Northwest rated a 39). And the hotel industry tied with Marriott’s 40. But there is no reason for the Toy/Kid Stuff industry to pat itself on its lead-painted back. No other industry had 62% (8 out of 13) of its major companies score a big fat Zero.

toy makers, childrens equipment, industry, Hasbro, Lego, Kraft, ConAgra, Sara Lee, Climate Counts, climate change, social responsibility, CSR, Nike, Coca Cola, children, environment

I had originally planned on starting this thread in Early April, but a family thing had me effectively offline all month. So I’ll try to pick up the pieces of my failed planned to keep you all abreast of the developments in my garden and *ahem* plow ahead.

A little background on not only my garden, but also why I have decided to focus on the small garden plots in my yard. I begin with the latter. I do not in any way profess to be an expert gardener, in fact far from it. I am however an eager student and an effective researcher. I am also proving to be a cautionary example of what not to do.

For example, this is what I did to a Spanish lavender bush in my yard.

Yeah, don’t do this at home.

Gardening has become rather fashionable as of late, and in so much that maybe you are starting out in your own garden or starting to think about starting, maybe you can glean some value from reading about my own trials and tribulations in the ol’ victory garden.

Now the former…Perhaps overly ambitious, I began gardening with a bang. I was renting a farm house at the time, and hey, it’s a farm. That first garden became a beast, and ultimately led to a lot of mistakes on my part and on the part of bad luck. My next garden was an easy-to-manage raised bed of 24 square feet. If you take one piece of advice from all of this self-indulgence, start small.

Last year was my first season in Portland, Oregon. I live in a funky yard with a lot of different sun-shade patterns that I clearly did not know before planting. Not only that, but ravenous insects were also a major issue (especially cutworms). I definitely learned a lot from that first year. Also, I should mention that I rent my home (as do many urbanites) , so I am limited in what kind of garden improvements I can make.

That said, I did spend a good part of last season composting for this season. Success in that, and I bought a lot of compost last season and dug it in everywhere I could to try and break up all that effing clay that we have here in Oregon. I was a little underfunded last year, so I couldn’t go crazy with soil testing and the fancier soil amendments. I figured that compost was good as an all-around soil amendment, so I settled on composting as a cheap, effective action I could take for future use.

Also, last year I put in peas — lots of peas. I love peas, and they are seriously the easiest veggie to grow. Not only that, but pea plants fix nitrogen into the soil and if you dig the spent plants into the ground after your harvest, they break down into “green manure.” So, really, if you cannot do anything else this year, put in some peas.

My efforts last year included putting in some herbs. Fresh herbs are so super awesome to have around if you like to cook, or if you just want to impress people (if you are that gardener). I put in sage, chives, flat-leaf parsley, rosemary, and thyme.

Oh, yeah, and I put in twelve strawberry plants. A June-bearing variety (Mount Hood) and an ever-bearing. I read that you shouldn’t let your berry plants produce fruit the first year, which is so hard to do, but I trimmed off all flower heads to prevent fruiting. I am expecting some huge rewards for my herculean test of patience.

And somewhere I read that garlic should go into the ground in the fall, so I put in some garlic bulbs from my kitchen that were starting to grow little crowns. I try to only buy organic garlic, so I hope they were okay to stick in the ground. What’s the worse that can happen, right?

The baby on the right is Carlitos. You can read more about him and other children affected by pesticides here.

victory garden, garden, kitchen garden, urban garden, gardening, home gardening, peas, herbs, soil amendment, composting, strawberry, garlic

Maybe a year or two ago, I ran across a show on maybe Science Channel or National Geographic about this company in New Jersey that made organic fertilizer and packaged it in “reclaimed” milk jugs. I thought to myself, “Now that’s using your noggin’!”

Well, methinks that the show was on National Geographic, because starting tonight National Geographic Channel premieres Garbage Moguls, a show about that same company. And on Earth Day, now that is foresight!

I happened to receive some info on Garbage Moguls, thanks to the good people at NatGeo. Truthfully, I would prefer an ongoing series, to witness and share the dizzying highs and terrifying lows of the company called TerraCycle , run by a Princeton drop-out (why is that everyone that thinks outside the box and goes to a top private school drops out?) and his merry band of eco- and cash-minded cohorts, but then again, how exciting can garbage or a Princeton drop-out really be?

Despite my misgivings about the show due NatGeo’s tendency toward repetition after commercial breaks (like we cannot remember two minutes ago, give your viewers some credit NG!) and to the press release for Garbage Moguls, which says things like it’s a “real-life Generation ‘Y’ dramedy in the vein of ‘The Office.’”, I’m hoping Garbage Moguls will be interesting and informative enough to inspire viewers to also think outside the box in terms of what you are throwing away around the house. As I mentioned before, I’ve seen TerraCycle featured on a television program before tonight (9pm EST/6pm PST with additional airings Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and next Wednesday — check out NatGeo for times) and as I still remember it, it must have been pretty good.

Also, and I’m just putting this out there, but I’m a little confused as to why Terracycle has to preserve the overt branding involved in the original materials. Maybe by removing the brand name labels from the plastics used by TerraCycle would dimish the quality and integrity of the materials, but I have to say that having a kite made from Oreo packaging with the word OREO splashed all over is not all that appealing to a girl like me that doesn’t like advertising all over her stuff. Maybe it’s because these particular kites are destined for Wal-Mart (yet another no-no in my eyes).

In addition to info about Garbage Moguls, I noticed that the website has some DIY projects using trash. Click on the “MORE” option on the site and you can learn how to make things yourself with something that you’d be throwing away. These beads made from cookie wrappers look good in a digital image, but I have to wonder how they look up close. Only one way to find out…

National Geographic, Garbage Moguls, NatGeo, television, Earth Day, TerraCycle, New Jersey, garbage, trash, landfill, reclaimed, recycled, DIY, projects

The other day I wrote about the kitchen garden that First Lady Michelle Obama is putting in on the White House grounds, the first garden since the World War II victory garden tended by Eleanor Roosevelt. Mrs. Obama decided to garden after being gently encouraged by a group called Kitchen Gardeners International, and just when you’d think that the First Lady is going to get some respect for doing something like planting some lettuce and peas for White House dinners, another group has taken offense.

The Catch-22 Garden

Seems the organic garden of Mrs. Obama is ruffling some feathers among those that farm the “conventional” way. Ok, is it odd that the way of farming that has been around for thousands of years and lead to the dawn of civilization is not called “conventional”? No, conventional farming is the newfangled less-than-a-century-in-use chemical farming that everyone thought was the answer to all of our species troubles.

Anyway, the Mid America CropLife Association has sent Mrs. Obama a letter asking her to rethink her plans to go organic in her kitchen garden. The main gist of the argument is that chemical “conventional” agricultural practices are good enough for everyone else, so the Obamas don’t need to go starting something.

Here’s a brilliant passage from the letter, which I got from La Vida Locavore.

Starting in the early 1900’s, technology advances have allowed farmers to continually produce more food on less land while using less human labor. Over time, Americans were able to leave the time-consuming demands of farming to pursue new interests and develop new abilities. Today, an average farmer produces enough food to feed 144 Americans who are living longer lives than many of their ancestors. Technology in agriculture has allowed for the development of much of what we know and use in our lives today. If Americans were still required to farm to support their family’s basic food and fiber needs, would the U.S. have been leaders in the advancement of science, communication, education, medicine, transportation and the arts?

We live in a very different world than that of our grandparents. Americans are juggling jobs with the needs of children and aging parents. The time needed to tend a garden is not there for the majority of our citizens, certainly not a garden of sufficient productivity to supply much of a family’s year-round food needs.

Much of the food considered not wholesome or tasty is the result of how it is stored or prepared rather than how it is grown. Fresh foods grown conventionally are wholesome and flavorful yet more economical. Local and conventional farming is not mutually exclusive. However, a Midwest mother whose child loves strawberries, a good source of Vitamin C, appreciates the ability to offer California strawberries in March a few months before the official Mid-west season.

So, chemicals pesticides and fertilizers are responsible for mankind’s advances in other “fields”…ok, sure, I’ll buy that a constant food supply does allow for surpluses, which would in turn lead to wealth that would be able to fund research and the arts. But a lot of studies are showing that there is very little real advantage to conventional farming methods, and that often the health of the soil is degraded over many seasons as the farmers are throwing chemical nutrients into the soil hoping that the plants will absorb them before they leach through the soils into the groundwater supply. If the nutrients are not staying the soil, then the soil turns to dust.

And I love the part at the end about a Midwestern mother be able to give her strawberry-loving child berries in March rather than waiting for the June strawberry season. Come on, that is a poor argument, especially as we start looking at the total carbon footprint of the agricultural industry and see that transporting produce in off-seasons can really add up in terms of carbon emissions. Not only that, but that California strawberry was picked while it was underripe, and underdeveloped nutritionally-speaking, so that it would be perfectly ripe by the time it made its cross-country trip to that Illinois grocery store.

That Midwestern mother would be better off teaching her kid about seasonality and how local produce is more often than not the produce at the peak of its nutritional load. Better yet, she could plant a strawberry patch with her child and then freeze extra berries for March, or make the berries into jam to have all year like my mom did.

Michelle Obama, organic gardening, White House, kitchen garden, agriculture, crops, farming, conventional farming, chemicals, fertilizers, pesticides, seasonality, local foods, Kitchen Gardeners International, carbon emissions

Within days of Michelle Obama breaking ground on the White House’s South Lawn, California’s First Lady Maria Shriver announced that she too will be putting in an “edible garden” in Sacramento’s Capitol Park.

Will the updated “victory garden” become the new black…or rather green?

Quite the outfit for gardening...

According to the White House blog, First Lady Michelle Obama and a group of students from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington, DC got out the shovels and starting digging up the South Lawn. They are putting in a vegetable garden complete with herbs, both perennial and annual. You can click here to see a PDF of the somewhat ambitious garden plans. I love the idea to include edible flowers (nasturiums) and beneficial flowers (marigolds, zinnia) to attract or repel insects. So much better than nasty pesticides.

The official story is that it will be the kids working the “kitchen” garden, and I applaud the fact that the crops planned are the easy

...back when sheep pastured at the White House.

The White House Kitchen Garden, as the blog refers to it, is the first such garden at the White House since World War II and Eleanor Roosevelt. The Clintons had a rooftop garden, but this is the first to go in the actual grounds of the White House in some 60 years.

It wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t mention that the WHKG was “suggested” to the Obamas by more than 100,000 petitioners.

More than 100,000 people have lobbied the president online to plant a garden on the White House lawn, according to Kitchen Gardeners International, a coalition of gardeners whose mission is to inspire and teach people to grow their own food. The group’s Eat the View campaign to plant “high-impact gardens in high-profile places” urged the first family to start an edible garden within the first 100 days of the Obama administration. –LA Times

Matt Dunn for The New York Times

Not to be outdone in green cred, the California First Lady is planning a vegetable garden to be a demonstration garden for the city of Sacramento. Shriver is working with Alice Waters, who is a big advocate for kitchen gardens and local foods and teaching kids to grow things, and her organization, Edible Schoolyard. The plan is to have the garden as a classroom for kids to learn about food and its production.

The White House kitchen garden will provide organic produce for the White House kitchen, appropriately enough. How cool is that? Dignitaries come into town and eat peas from the White House’s personal garden. Take that, Europe. We’re down with veggies here in the US and we even know how to grow them instead of driving our Hummer to the mega-huge-chain grocery store selling GM crops.

The WHKG will also donate to a local food bank, Miriam’s Kitchen. The California Capitol Edible Garden (CCEG) will “probably” be donating to a food bank.

Michelle Obama, kitchen garden, garden, White House, South Lawn, local food, victory garden, recession garden, first lady, California, Maria Shriver, organic, Alice Waters, Edible Schoolyard

Ah, nuclear power. It could be the greatest thing ever, except for all that radioactivity.

March 28, 2009 is the thirtieth anniversary of the meltdown at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station a bit south and downriver of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It was a partial meltdown of the second reactor that released so many curies of radioactive materials. It’s how many curies that are still a point of contention. Officially, the numbers are low and no one was hurt; but one study has shown higher incidences of cancers in the area . The higher numbers could be unrelated, maybe even higher because newer tests find it earlier, so that’s inconclusive for many people. But would it be so hard to maybe do some more studies?

A New York Times article from 1981 reported that the State of Pennsylvania concluded that the accident had no effect on infant deaths around the time of the accident, despite admitting that numbers of deaths went up in the six months following the meltdown, jumping to 1.9% from a normal 1.3%. That may not seem like a big number, but that equates to six out of one thousand babies. Nobody likes dead babies, especially when it could have been prevented.

I am not saying that perhaps the scope of the danger involved was dismissed or covered up, but I’m also not saying it wasn’t. If you look up a chart on the rise of the nuclear power industry around the world, you see a definite plateau in the number of nuke plants starting just a few years after the accident at Three Mile Island, right around the time Chernobyl happened.

And as if the accidents were not bad enough, the idea of nuclear power as “clean” power is a bit of a myth, which undercuts the whole package of nuclear power generation. You see, nuclear power creates more than just water vapor (which is actually a “greenhouse gas”). It creates all kinds of long-lasting toxic waste that you don’t want in your backyard.

But it’s ok if it’s someone else’s yard…

I’m not trying to be coy. Just saying that nuclear fission-based power is not the answer we need to power the future responsibly.

nuclear power, Three Mile Island, TMI, nuclear plant, radioactivity, waste, Chernobyl, fission, accident, meltdown, reactor

You may not know about all the chemicals floating around in your house or even your office, and chances are you are not aware of how dangerous some of the Volatile Organic Compounds that are given off by synthethic materials that are found in your home. It’s a process called off-gassing. For example, particle board (that cheap stuff that all cheap furniture is made of) off-gasses formeldahyde. But here’s the deal. Even natural products off-gas, so it’s not like you can ever fully remove VOCs from your home. Anything plastic gives off VOCs, but then wood also gives off gases.

Much like a garden can be a “sink” and a “scrubber” for water and pollutants, your indoor houseplants can help you remove volatile organic compounds (loosely defined by the Environmental Protection Agency as any compound that photoreacts or easily vaporizes and enters the atmosphere. The problem with VOCs in your house is that because you keep your house closed up (especially in colder weather) those VOCs can reach some pretty high levels, even 5 times more than if you were outside.

And your houseplants are effective at removing VOCs from your house. Of course, some plants are better than others. Here’s a top 15 to get you started.

1. Philodendron scandens `oxycardium’, heartleaf philodendron
2. Philodendron domesticum, elephant ear philodendron
3. Dracaena fragrans `Massangeana’, cornstalk dracaena
4. Hedera helix, English ivy
5. Chlorophytum comosum, spider plant
6. Dracaena deremensis `Janet Craig’, Janet Craig dracaena
7. Dracaena deremensis `Warneckii’, Warneck dracaena
8. Ficus benjamina, weeping fig
9. Epipiremnum aureum, golden pothos
10. Spathiphyllum `Mauna Loa’, peace lily
11. Philodendron selloum, selloum philodendron
12. Aglaonema modestum, Chinese evergreen
13. Chamaedorea sefritzii, bamboo or reed palm
14. Sansevieria trifasciata, snake plant
15. Dracaena marginata , red-edged dracaena

That list comes from Clean Air Gardening.

And get this…the study of using plants to clean the air all started with NASA in the 1960’s. The materials used in the enclosed environments in space are synthetic and the VOCs off-gassed were making people sick. An environmental scientist named Wolverton started studying how plants could clean up toxic waste, and he found that simple houseplants can be really effective little cleaners of indoor air pollution. Today, Wolverton’s company is working on using natural materials derived from plants as filters for enclosed environments.

plants, indoor air quality, indoor air pollution, VOC, volatile organic compounds, plastics, synthetic materials, indoor environment, health

Image by those clever people at Greenpeace.

Like Professor Beddington [Britain’s chief scientist] and Bob Watson, the chief scientist at the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, Dr Fedoroff believes genetic engineering must be expanded if the world is going to be able to feed itself.

Genetic modification, she said, can have strong environmental benefits, such as significant reductions in pesticide use, while improving crop yields. Of crucial important will be the ability of scientists to identify genes which enable plants to survive in hot and dry zones so that they can be used to help the most productive crop strains survive and thrive as global warming intensifies.

She said it was important that both GM technologies and conventional crop development were encouraged now because the process of bringing new strains from the laboratory to the field took years. — TimesOnline

Ah, CM crops. Thay sound like such a great idea, don’t they? Just go in and tinker with a plant until it doesn’t need water to grow or frightens away certain insects. But we have a multitude of examples of science being used to catastrophic ends, and I am of the opinion that genetically-modifying crops is most probably a bad idea.

However, that said, we may not have a choice in the matter, and due to desperation, we may just have to play god and hope that things work out.

The “top US Scientist” as the title of the Times article suggests, is in France for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development conference this week. Dr. Fedoroff is there to talk about food shortages and the action needed to prevent them.

Fedoroff is “convinced that food shortages will be the biggest challenge facing the world as temperatures and population levels rise. Food security in the coming years, she said, is ‘a huge problem’ that has been met with little more than complacency. ‘We are asleep at the switch,’ she said.”

It’s funny that she’d advocate for GMO’s over population control. If there will be a shortage of food in 2030 that will affect 1 billion people, and the population at that time would be around 9 billion, why not instead try to promote family-planning and reduce the future population by one billion people? Problem solved.

And yes, I’m being glib.

US, State Department, Nina Fedoroff, famine, food shortage, climate change, population