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To hell with sustainability

No Impact Man - Fri, 11/05/2010 - 12:48

Here's a talk I gave a few months ago, in which I argue for a new definition of progress. I argue that we should not just be aiming to "sustain" our current way of life. Instead, we should be looking for a way of life that is both better for the planet and better for us. In other words, happier planet and happier people.

Put another way, should we really be looking for ways to make junk food containers compostable (i.e. the now defunct Sun Chips bag)? Or, given that many children in our food deserts don't have access to fresh fruit (i.e. food that is good for them), shouldn't we instead be putting our energy into getting the already-compostable apple into kids' hands?

Should our goal really be as limited as to make junk food "sustainable?" Or do we want a regenerative way of life that is--yes, better for the planet--but better for us too? If you look up "sustain" in the dictionary, you'll find it means "to bear the weight of." Do we want to figure out how to "bear the weight" of corporatized life the way it stands? Do we want mere "sustainability?"

Or do we want something better?

Categories: Some enviro-bloggers say...

The Magnitude of Prop 23's Defeat

SightLine northwest - Fri, 11/05/2010 - 07:52

Proposition 23 -- a cynical ploy by oil companies to gut California's climate laws -- got annihilated at the polls, losing by more than 22 points. But what's really interesting is that voting "no" on Prop 23 was the single most popular thing on California's ballot this year.

It was defeated with more votes than were awarded to any other ballot initiative. And it was defeated with more votes than were awarded to any statewide candidate for office -- and that includes some who were running unopposed!

For example:

No on Proposition 23 - 4,483,650 votes

Jerry Brown for governor - 4,078,542 votes

Barbara Boxer for senator - 3,918,402 votes

And you can find the rest of the vote totals here.

(These fun facts come to me via Susan Frank who got them from Ann Notthoff at NRDC.)

Thoughts on Referendum 52

SightLine northwest - Thu, 11/04/2010 - 13:53

I have spent a lot of time writing about the basic idea of fixing schools to make them more energy efficient. Not only does it save energy, it also creates jobs, improves the health of children and teachers, and reduces climate-warming emissions.

I first wrote about Washington state Representative Hans Dunshee’s bill back in 2009, labeling the idea Green Increment Financing (paying for big capital expenditures for energy upgrades using bond financing). But on Tuesday, voters soundly rejected Referendum 52, which would have turned Dunshee’s bill into law.

I’ll admit, it’s disheartening, but there were larger forces at play in the region and beyond. The defeat doesn’t change the fact that R-52 is still a really great idea. The principle of performance contracting is just as tried and true today as they were last week.

So what happened? And what does it tell us about what’s next?

Debt perception. Debt has become a four-letter word in our region (and the country). $500 million of new debt for energy upgrades seems like a lot to stomach, but in reality, it’s only a fraction of the debt we create for other projects (about 1.5 percent of the state’s total debt).Overall debt in Washington is going down. But the fact is that nobody out there has ever seen that much money in one place, so it seems like a lot. Debt is really an investment in stuff we need to get done, like borrowing to fix a leaky roof on a house: it makes sense today and adds value to the house in the future.

When I worked on school bond measures years ago I learned the lesson that people will support debt for things they understand, like schools. However, in the current political environment we’re going to have to encourage and highlight projects that demonstrate how borrowing for upgrades is a smart move. Clean Energy Works in Portland, the Community Energy Challenge in Bellingham, and Community Power Works in Seattle all set good examples.

School Finance Reform. I wrote a long piece earlier this year about how education financing works in our region. There are lots of people working on how to make education financing better for students and for improving educational outcomes, and energy efficiency advocates need to make common cause with them. Full funding of education is a constitutional obligation in Washington State, and the cash-strapped legislature has been falling short. Fixing this problem is made worse by the terrible economy and the rejection of Initiative 1098.

But those of us who plan to continue to work on this idea will need to do more outreach to understand education finance and add our voices to those already calling for serious reform. Making the cause of the education community our own cause will build trust and encourage them to support the idea of Referendum 52 more enthusiastically.

Energy Savings to Pay the Loan. Let’s face it; energy prices are rock-bottom in our region. The payoff for investing in energy efficiency upgrades takes patience. Until energy prices go up—making upgrades more lucrative regardless of how they are financed—borrowing money is the best way to pay for the work. While the overall payoff of an upgrade is long, all that matters for schools is that the improvements cover debt service for the life of the bond or the loan.

We need to find a way to make energy financing easier to implement on a large scale for schools, commercial buildings, and the residential sector. Amending the Washington State constitution  would help with this, allowing the state to get more engaged in financing, and demonstrating to the public at large that debt isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

So we need to get back to the fight. Oregon’s returning Governor John Kitzaber has made Cool Schools a priority. If Washington didn’t get this done in 2010, Oregon could lead in 2011 and Washington can follow in the future. The need for upgrades won’t go away and neither will the benefits. Persisting on this critical effort is going to continue to be important.

The defeat of Referendum 52 taught us a lot and the rest of the region can benefit. In the long-term I am convinced that as energy costs go up, the core ideas of Referendum 52—energy efficiency upgrades that pay for themselves—will only grow stronger.

 

Photo credit: mconnors from morguefile.com

pocketa pocketa queep

Little blog in the big woods - Thu, 11/04/2010 - 10:37

That's a well known literary allusion, in case you didn't know.
Ah, well, it was well known in that world now fading fast behind us; the one where children learned to read early, and learned to love exploring books.
It's from James Thurber's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", a celebrated very short story about the large fantasy life of a nebbish. I became acquainted with it by reading my big brother's English textbook a few years ahead of time.
"A huge, complicated machine, connected to the operating table, with many tubes and wires, began at this moment to go pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. "The new anesthetizer is giving away!" shouted an intern. "There is no one in the East who knows how to fix it!" "Quiet, man!" said Mitty, in a low, cool voice. He sprang to the machine, which was now going pocketa-pocketa-queep-pocketa-queep . He began fingering delicately a row of glistening dials. "Give me a fountain pen!" he snapped."
Thurber found the "pocketa" sound highly useful, and applied it in quite a few situations.
"It's forty kilometers through hell, sir," said the sergeant. Mitty finished one last brandy. "After all," he said softly, "what isn't?" The pounding of the cannon increased; there was the rat-tat-tatting of machine guns, and from somewhere came the menacing pocketa-pocketa-pocketa of the new flame-throwers. Walter Mitty walked to the door of the dugout humming "Aupres de Ma Blonde." He turned and waved to the sergeant. "Cheerio!" he said. . . . "
----------------------------------------------------------------------- It struck me yesterday, observing our elections here in the US, that noise seems to be the most certain aspect of our politics and discussions these days, and the most certain outcome.
And that our entire civilization has shifted, from going "pocketa-pocketa-pocketa", to going "pocketa-pocketa-queep".
My prediction, alas, is that pocketa-pocketa-queep is going to be the chief sound, and the sum total of our achievements, for some years ahead.
And, if you have a fountain pen, I don't think anyone has any idea what to do with it.

Categories: Some enviro-bloggers say...

What Does This Week Mean for Northwest Climate Policy?

SightLine northwest - Thu, 11/04/2010 - 06:14

It's conventional wisdom that the new more heavily GOP configuration in Congress spells bad news for climate policy. There's some truth in that, but I think there's a more positive story to tell too. Here's how I see the events of this week shaping up for Northwest climate policy.

The most significant news by far was from California, where the oil industry-backed Proposition 23, which would have suspended the state's climate laws, went down in a ball of flames. In fact, Golden State voters were more decisive about rejecting Prop 23 than they were about any of the eight other initiatives on the ballot. Add to that the easy re-election of Senator Boxer, a serious climate champion, and you have excellent news from Cali. Plus, California voters awarded a handy gubernatorial victory to Jerry Brown who has pledged to advance climate policy.

The upshot is that California's climate laws have now been vetted -- and overwhelmingly approved -- by the people. That paves the way for reinvigorated state and regional climate programs, including the Western Climate Initiative. So it's no surprise that exactly one day after the election, New Mexico leaders announced that they would move forward with comprehensive policy, including a cap-and-trade program. All of which means that New Mexico, a major energy-producing state, and California are both poised to join at least the Canadian provinces of the WCI (BC, Manitoba, Quebec, and Ontario) in meaningful regional climate action. We'll see whether WCI members Oregon and Washington can pick up the gauntlet.

Speaking of BC, however, there's a new question mark north of the border. Yesterday, Premier Gordon Campbell announced he would step down. That's somewhat worrisome news because Campbell has been a staunch supporter of participation in the Western Climate Initiative, and he implemented the province's best-in-the-world carbon tax. (It's fair to say, however, Campbell's other environmental policies have been more checkered.) It's unclear who will replace Campbell as premier and head of the right-of-center Liberal party (yes, you read that correctly). But since Campbell was a bit more climate friendly than the province's Liberal party as a whole, there's some reason for concern.

There are also changes that will bear on Oregon and Washington's participation in regional climate policy. In the good news column, Oregon voters elected (or re-elected in some sense) John Kitzhaber as governor. Kitzhaber is expected to maintain Oregon's leadership position on clean energy and climate. Oregon's legislature is expected to be evenly split between the parties, or nearly so, in both houses. It's unclear what the new balance of power will mean for climate policy, though it's worth noting that the democratic majorities of the last few years did not come close to authorizing Oregon's participation in a serious carbon reduction program.

It's much the same story in Washington, where Republicans put dents into the huge margins that Democrats formerly held in both houses of the legislature. As in Oregon, Washington's Democrat-dominated legislature had not been favorably inclined to full participation in WCI, so it's not clear if the more even distribution of power will make any difference. One race to watch, however, is Snohomish County's 44th district where Representative Hans Dunshee currently maintains a razor-thin lead over his opponent. Dunshee is arguably the single most effective climate champion in the Washington legislature.

Speaking of Dunshee, let's talk about Referendum 52, a measure that he stumped for and Sightline supported. Voters said no to R-52. Some are calling the voter rejection a setback for climate policy (since the bill would have helped reduce energy use and carbon emissions), but I think that's the wrong analysis. The R-52 campaign scarcely mentioned energy or climate, as these were said to poll poorly, but focused almost entirely on school buildings, children's health, and construction jobs. Additionally, the measure struggled against opposition on the grounds that it would have also exceeded the state's debt limit and also extended a tax on bottled water, both tough sells in a strongly anti-tax year. In the end, I'd argue that R-52 stumbled because it was simply too opaque.

At the federal level, where most of the punditry has been concentrated, the Northwest's climate politics are likely to remain static. Idaho Democrat Walt Minnick, an opponent of the Waxman-Markey climate bill, was defeated soundly by a Republican opponent who is also not likely to champion carbon-reducing legislation. The Northwest's only other Democratic congressman to oppose the bill, Oregon's Peter DeFazio, was re-elected easily. By contrast, Washington's Dave Reichert, one of only eight Republicans nationally to cross the aisle to support Waxman-Markey, cruised to re-election partly on the strength of the environmental endorsements he earned for his climate leadership.

So far, the only apparent loss for Northwest climate leadership is in Washington's 3rd congressional district, where retiring Democrat Brian Baird will be replaced by Republican Jaime Herrera. The other potential loss is also in Washington, where 2nd district Democrat Rick Larsen is now clinging to a 400 vote lead over his opponent, John Koster. Neither Herrera nor Koster can be expected to be as supportive of climate policy as Baird and Larsen. In brighter news, however, Washington's Jay Inslee -- one of the nation's leading lights on climate policy -- romped to re-election.

The Northwest's senate delegation looks like it will remain even more static with (probably) every incumbent returned to office. Idaho Republican Mike Crapo crushed his opponent. Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden sailed to victory. And Washington Democrat Patty Murray looks likely to eke out a win. On climate policy, Crapo, Wyden, and Murray all fall out along party lines. The only outstanding question is in Alaska, where Republican Lisa Murkowski, a bitter opponent of carbon regulation, may win a suprising upset victory as a write-in candidate.

So what's the final score? I know I'm bucking the received view here, but for Northwest climate policy I'd say that on balance things look much like they did before the election. The prospects for strong federal action are diminished (though they were already dim), but on the heels of Prop 23's defeat in California the prospects for the Western Climate Initiative look brighter than ever. As before, full participation by Oregon and Washington will hinge on making the case to the state's more conservative legislators. And BC's leadership remains obscured for the moment.

All that said, there's an elephant in the room that I've been trying hard to ignore in this analysis: minority rule. California, Oregon, and Washington all now have various versions of an undemocratic "supermajority" requirement that is the darling of the worst polluters. It's a complicated subject -- and one I'm prone to ranting about -- so I'm going to take it up in a subsequent post.

Northwest Election Results

SightLine northwest - Wed, 11/03/2010 - 06:13

11/5/2010 Updates (also integrated into the text, with links, below): Democrat Patty Murray has won her race for reelection as US Senator from Washington. Democrats appear to have locked up slim majorities in both the Washington State House and Senate.

11/4/2010 Updates (also integrated into the text, with links, below): Former Governor John Kitzhaber will return as Oregon's governor, as late returns from heavily Democratic counties break strongly his way. The Oregon State house will be evenly divided between the parties, and the state senate's party control remains uncertain. Democrat Patty Murray appears more likely to be the victor in Washington's close US Senate race. Democrat Rick Larsen is now pulling ahead in the race for US Representative from northwest Washington. The Washington State House and Senate appear more likely to remain under Democratic majorities, though narrower ones. 

A national right-ward wave swept onto Cascadian shores in general elections on November 2. Implications, observations, and commentary I'll save for later. For now, I just want to summarize the preliminary results that Sightline staff have been monitoring.

As expected, the US House of Representatives has swung from a Democratic to a Republican majority, and the US Senate’s Democratic majority has slimmed down dramatically. (Huge implications for national lawmaking!)

The same trend was evident across the Pacific Northwest in Congressional and legislative races, although not as much in gubernatorial races. Vote-by-mail elections in Oregon and Washington make ballot counting slow, which has left many races undecided. On ballot measures, voters said "no" to most everything, except when "yes" meant lower taxes.

Governors

Democrats took the California governorship from Republicans, as long-ago-governor Jerry Brown – as strong a sustainability advocate as has ever been elected governor anywhere – returned to Sacramento. Former Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, another sustainability champion, reclaimed his old elected post, eight years after leaving the office. Republicans retained the governorships of Idaho and Alaska.

US Senate

The region’s US Senators appear likely to be unchanged. Incumbent Democrats won Senate races in California (Senator Barbara Boxer), Oregon (Senator Ron Wyden), and Washington (Senator Patty Murray) as did the incumbent Republican in Idaho (Senator Mike Crapo). In Alaska, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski appears headed for an unusual victory, through a write-in campaign.

US House of Representatives

Cascadia’s House delegation went from a 13-7 Democratic majority to what looks likely to be an 11-9 division favoring D's. (We define Cascadia's House delegation as including all representatives from Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, plus the at-large members from Alaska and Montana, and California districts 1 and 6, which are on the Redwood Coast.) Before the election, only one seat on the heavily populated west side of the Cascades was held by a Republican (Dave Reichert, in Washington), and only one seat on the sparsely populated east side held by a Democrat (Walt Minnick, in Idaho). The election changed two seats, with a third still undecided but leaning Democratic: the Clark County, Washington district formerly held by Brian Baird, who did not seek reelection, went to the Republican candidate Jaime Herrera. Walt Minnick’s Idaho seat went to Republican Raul Labrador. Incumbent Democrat Rick Larsen of northwest Washington is leading challenger John Koster.

State Legislatures

State legislatures in every Northwest state but California shifted rightward.

Alaska: The state Senate appears destined to remain split evenly between the parties, but Republicans picked up three House seats, expanding their majority there to 25 to 15.

California: Democrats remain in control of both houses and, bucking the national trend, appear to have gained two seats in the state assembly and held steady in the state Senate. (They also may have swept all statewide elective offices -- a first for either party since the early 1930s.)

Idaho: The Idaho Statesman reports, “Overall, the Republicans netted five more House seats and things remained static in the Senate. The GOP holds a 57-13 edge in the House and a 28-7 lead in the Senate.”

Washington: large Democratic majorities in both houses diminished, but Democrats appear to have retained majorities in both houses.

Oregon: Democratic majorities in both houses of the legislature dwindled. When all the votes are counted, the Oregonian reports, the state house appears likely to be perfectly divided between the parties. The Senate will probably have a small Democratic majority. The Oregonian says, "Republicans have snatched six state House seats and at least one Senate seat from Democrats' hands. The most likely result of the 2010 legislative elections: An even 30-30 split in the House and 16-14 division of the Senate."

Montana: Republicans are likely to take over the state House (previously tied) and expand their control of the state Senate, according to the Helena Independent.

Local Races

Bob Stacey and Tom Hughes are locked in a very close race for Metro President in the greater Portland area. Issues like expansion of growth boundaries and construction of the Columbia River Crossing freeway bridge could hinge on the outcome.

Ballot Measures

The Northwest is a national center of direct democracy, and the region had several consequential ballot measures to decide. Not unusually, across the region, majorities of voters took the “no” side on most ballot measures.

Arguably the most important from the view of sustainability was California Proposition 23, which would have suspended the state's pioneering climate law. Voters in the Golden State rejected this backward-looking measure sponsored by Texas oil companies, defeating it by more than 60 percent. Disappointingly, Washington voters rejected a measure that we at Sightline championed: Referendum 52, which would have funded energy upgrades in schools (and also extended a bottled water tax and raised the state debt limit to support the energy upgrades).

They voted “no” to privatizing liquor sales in Washington, “no” to legalizing marijuana in California and Oregon, and “no” to privatizing worker’s compensation insurance in Washington.

Exceptions to the “Just Vote No” rule were those measures that promised to reduce taxes or forestall tax and fee increases. Washington voters repealed small, temporary taxes on soda pop, candy, and gum, after the national soda lobby spent $17 million in the state. Anti-tax sentiment was so great that even liberal King County, Washington's sales tax increase proposition was going down hard.

In one victory for democratic procedure, California's Proposition 25 passed handily (55 to 45), returning the state legislature to a simple majority requirement to approve the state budget, rather than the gridlock-inducing two-thirds requirement that state lawmakers have struggled with in recent years.

Unfortunately, at the same time, California voters also approved Proposition 26 (53 to 47), which expands the state’s two-thirds requirement (aka minority-rule) from its tax increases, where it already applies, to increases in other kinds of fees and charges, including fees “that address adverse impacts on society or the environment.” Sticking to their long-standing tradition, two-out-of-three of Washington voters still don’t want an income tax, even when it’s limited to the richest 1 percent of households (despite all Sightline's arguments over recent months).

By the same margin (and much to my chagrin), Washington voters endorsed the undemocratic principle of minority rule for closing tax loopholes and raising revenue.

We will update this as new results come in and, as I said, commentary and interpretation will follow. For now, I just wanted to summarize the results from across the Pacific Northwest.

Photo purchased from iStock.

Three Things I've Learned From My Office Building

SightLine northwest - Tue, 11/02/2010 - 09:52

Here's one of my all-time favorite internet toys: a web-based dashboard that shows how much power, water, and heat my office building uses.  It updates itself continually, in real time, for each floor of the building -- so I can see (or at least, I think I can) the power draw when the office fridge goes on, or when I turn out the office lights.  

I started playing with the dashboard in mid-September -- and I think that it's taught me more about myself than about the building's energy use.

• I'm competitive.  The electricity dashboard lets me compare consumption floor-by-floor in the building.  And for some reason, I've paid a lot of attention how well my floor does vs. the other floors in the building.  I especially pay attention to my arch-nemeses on the 7th floor, who continually use less electricity per employee than my floor (the 5th).  If it weren't for them, we'd be in first place!  GRRR!  After a week of losses, I got peeved enough at our daily, ignominious second-place finish that I went upstairs to Floor 7 to figure out what was going on.  It turns out that one office has a bunch of remote workers -- for the purposes of the office count they're listed as "employees" but are rarely in the office.  Cheaters!  You know who the real winners are.  Floor 5 rules!!!  Boo-yah.
  

• I'm easily distracted.  When the dashboard was a bright shiny new toy, I played with it a lot.  I visited it several times a day -- and, more constructively, I paid attention to it, doing much more than I usually do to curb my office's electricity consumption.  (I didn't want lose to our real arch-rivals, the non-cheating 13th floor.  Floor 5 rules!!!)  But within a couple of weeks the novelty started wearing off.  My visits slacked off to maybe once every few days, then once a week.  The utility dashboard hasn't completely fallen off my radar screen, but I'm now much less cognizant of it than I used to be -- and as a result, much less attentive about my energy use.
  

• I like to be in control. At first, I felt like the dashboard gave me an opportunity to exercise control over the office's energy consumption.  I'd turn off the office lights, and think that I saw the whole floor's performance improve on the dashboard.  But pretty quickly I realized that almost anything I did was a drop in the bucket:  I'd turn off my computer to save power when I stepped out of the office, only to come back to find that the 13th floor had opened up big a lead on us.  You see, most of the big power drains on our floor -- phone systems, servers, fridges, you name it -- are outside my personal can't control.  And apparently, when I found that I couldn't control the squiggles and graphs on the energy dashboard, I lost some of my fervor for conservation.
  

I have no idea if other people are like me:  I could be the only irrationally competitive, distraction-prone control freak out there.  But if I'm not, there may be some broader lessons here:  if you want to give people energy information that they're actually going to act on...

• First, tap into people's competitive instincts, by showing how their performance stacks up with their neighbors;
  

• Second, make sure that that the information is presented on something that people see regularly (say, a utility bill), not something that they have to make a special effort to find; and

• Third, make sure that the person who's receiving the information has fairly direct control over what's being measured.

Hey, wait, that sounds a lot like the OPOWER electric power billing service that Seattle is currently testing. OPOWER's billing system puts information about neighbors' energy consumption right on utility bills themselves -- and rewards energy-thrifty homes with a smiley face on the bill.  We'll have to wait and see how things pan out in Seattle.  But if we're like other cities, the reward of a smiley face -- and the taste of sweet, sweet victory over one's neighbors -- is enough to motivate some significant shifts in household energy consumption.

Apply to attend the No Impact Project's free eco-leadership training!

No Impact Man - Mon, 11/01/2010 - 18:08

Looking for a fun, engaging way to get your family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors involved in the environmental movement? Do you want to motivate folks in your area to take action and work together to find solutions to our environmental crises?
 
We invite you to join us in the mountains of upstate New York for our Eco-Leader Training. 

During this all-expenses paid weekend, you’ll build the leadership and community building skills you need to get your community excited and on-board.  You’ll take part in a dynamic series of workshops with inspirational community leaders and activists from grassroots environmental organizations, all the while taking in the beautiful surroundings, enjoying delicious (organic!) meals, and interacting with fellow participants who are eager to go forth and change the world.
 
The Eco-Leader Training will teach you how to use the No Impact Week, an immersive, educational weeklong experiment in low impact living, as a tool for building an environmentally conscious, action-oriented community. To learn more about No Impact Week, click here. When you return home, you will be ready to go out and empower your community to make a difference.
  
As mentioned, the weekend is all-expenses paid. In return for your participation, we ask that you commit to running at least three No Impact Weeks in your community in the upcoming year. In order to really learn how to run a No Impact Week, we also ask that you complete a virtual No Impact Week with us prior to the Eco-Leader Training.
 
To apply, click here and enter your name and email to receive a link to the application.

APPLICATION IS DUE NOVEMBER 15th. We will review them on a rolling basis, and get back to you by November 23rd.

Help us spread the word! Reach out to family, friends, co-workers, and classmates who might be interested. Post the application link on your Facebook, write a tweet, and include it in your volunteer group's newsletter.
 
Travel scholarships are available to and from NYC. Email Lindsay@noimpactproject.org stating your need. 

Categories: Some enviro-bloggers say...

Rich Guy Calls BS on Other Rich Guys

SightLine northwest - Mon, 11/01/2010 - 11:46

Yes, everyone is sick to death of election-related blogs, news, and ads. So instead, enjoy this interview between my pal John Cook at TechFlash and Nick Hanauer, Seattle rich dude and venture capitalist in favor of Initiative 1098, as an interesting discussion about why the wealthy are wise to pay their fair share in taxes.

My favorite part of the interview is Hanauer arguing in favor of more support for public schools, in which he attacks his wealthy peers who argue that schools are wasting our tax dollars. He says:

"Every rich person in Seattle sends their kids to (private) schools that cost about $20,000 per child. They have absolutely, completely made up their minds that $20,000 is about the amount you should spend to give your child a world-class education. If you are thinking about creating increasing returns and you are determined to do it, asserting that the $9,800 we are currently spending (per child in public education) is ludicrous. It is wasteful? What do you want to cut it to? You can win if you invest. If $20,000 is the right number for my kids, why shouldn't we spend $25,000 on the poor kids? I mean if you really care, you really want to create increasing returns you are going to err on the other side."

The interview is funny, includes a little foul language, and still tackles heady topics including the myth of a libertarian utopia and economics and chaos theory. Happy reading. And don't forget to vote.

 

School bus photo used under the Creative Commons license from Flickr user freedryk. 

Beyond Boardman

SightLine northwest - Mon, 11/01/2010 - 11:03

Oregon has been having a robust debate over the appropriate date for closing the state's lone coal power plant. The Boardman plant could theoretically operate until 2040, but its owners have proposed an earlier closure to avoid investing in expensive pollution controls.

There's been a lot of discussion about whether the plant should close in 2015 or 2020 (and how much its owners must spend in the meantime.) But that disagreement has become so central to the discussion that it's overshadowed what may be a much more important question: What happens after the coal plant closes?

Will Portland General Electric adopt another outdated fossil fuel strategy, building natural gas plants that will continue to release greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come? Or will the utility think creatively to pursue low-carbon options that reduce demand in the first place and then fill it with clean wind, solar or geothermal energy? If your chief concern is addressing Oregon's largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions, the replacement strategy matters. While burning natural gas is less polluting than coal, that process can release roughly half the carbon emissions. And if a utility invests millions of dollars to build a new gas plant, they'll want to run it for a long time.

Here's some rough math to illustrate the point that long-term thinking should matter most.

• On average, Boardman releases roughly 4 million tons of CO2 each year. If the coal plant keeps running from 2015 to 2040, it would release 100 million tons of CO2 during that time period.
  
• If you close the coal plant in 2015 and replace its power with a new natural gas plant that releases about half the pollution, you'd emit 50 million tons of CO2 over that same period. Sounds better!
  
• But say you keep the coal plant running until 2020, at which point you replace the coal power with completely clean energy sources. In that scenario you’d emit just 20 million tons of CO2 over the period from 2015 to 2040. 

I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't try to move our region off of the dirtiest, most polluting power source as soon as possible. But I am suggesting that it's equally -- if not more -- important to focus on what happens next. Saving 30 million tons of CO2 -- the potential difference between replacing Boardman with a gas plant or clean renewables -- would be like taking every car in the state of Oregon off the road. And leaving them parked for two years.

I bring this up now because a compromise agreement reached last week between Portland General Electric and a consortium of ratepayer and environmental advocates finally begins to address the replacement question. (Here's coverage of the deal in The Oregonian and the Portland Tribune.) 

The groups, which include the Oregon Environmental Council, the Citizens' Utility Board, Renewable Northwest Project, and the NW Energy Coalition, have agreed to support a closure date no later than 2020 in exchange for some guarantees from PGE, including:

• Looking for low-carbon and renewable replacement options
• Taking the 2040 closure date off the table
  
• Meeting Clean Air Act standards until the plant closes
  

Not everyone will agree on the wisdom of endorsing a 2020 date, and some will continue to push for the coal plant to close sooner. But this agreement appears to give the parties a stronger voice in deciding how we replace Boardman's electricity. And I'm glad to see people focusing on that piece of the puzzle, since those decisions will be with us for much longer.

Update: The parties to the agreement outline the thinking that informed their decisions in today's Oregonian.

Wind turbine image courtesy of flickr user CERTs via a Creative Commons license.

Note on methodology: Annual C02 emissions for Boardman come from the EPA Clean Air Markets Data and Maps. Based on operating data submitted to the Northwest Power Planning and Conservation Council, Boardman's emissions rate in 2007 was 2200 lbs of CO2 per megawatt hour. The emissions rate for a combined cycle natural gas plant is 1100 lbs of CO2 per megawatt hour, based on states' emissions performance standards.

If Boardman continued burning coal at the same rate from 2015 to 2040, it would release about 100 million pounds of CO2. (4 million pounds for 25 years.) Shutting the coal plant down in 2015 and switching to a new natural gas plant would release 50 million pounds of CO2 (2 million pounds for 25 years.) Shutting the coal plant down in 2020 and switching to carbon-free sources of energy would release only 20 million pounds of CO2 (4 million pounds in each of the years between 2015 and 2020 but none after that.)

The car comparison assumes that the 3.2 million passenger cars registered in the state of Oregon drive 10,000 miles per year and get 20 miles per gallon and that there are 19.6 pounds of CO2 in each gallon of gas.

Junk Food, Junky Politics

SightLine northwest - Mon, 11/01/2010 - 10:40

The database of the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission has all sorts of exciting tidbits about this year's election.  Like the following table, listing the total donations for Initiative 1107, which would repeal the state's modest taxes on soda, candy, gum, and bottled water.

That's the whole shebang.  Most big initiative campaigns get contributions from dozens or even hundreds of small contributors.  But the PDC lists a total of 11 Washington donors, both individuals and corporations, who have given a total of $385 to the I-1107 campaign. 

And then there's the American Beverage Association, headquartered in Washington DC, which has reported $16.5 million in donations.  So far.

By my count, for every dollar given by an actual Washington business or resident to the campaign, the American Beverage Association has given $42,860.  So if the state loses that source of revenue, and junk food and unhealthful empty calories get even cheaper than they already are, then we'll know whom to thank, won't we?

The Anyway Project, AKA Whole Life Redesign

Sharon Astyk - Mon, 11/01/2010 - 10:30

It hasn’t escaped my notice that today is November 1, and I’m supposed to be starting the Whole-Life Redesign Project. In fact, I am starting it – I’m taking the opportunity created by my kids being out of the house to move all the food storage around and clean under things and get rid of things (hmmm…should there still be baby cereal in the back of my food storage, given that the baby turned 5 on Friday…ummm….) and otherwise make a giant mess in my house in the general hope of making it better afterwards.

What I haven’t done is sit down and write out the parameters of how this project is supposed to work as a group effort – and that’s not for lack of trying. Despite a number of drafts on this subject, I find myself uncharacteristically at a loss for words – or at least a good way of framing this.

The part that seemed hard is the way of making this seem as fully relevant to a single mother in a Budapest apartment as to me in a rural New York farmhouse, to an elderly couple and a single college senior as to a big family like mine. I know from the response i got that people felt that there was something there that connected to them – even given our differences, but what parameters to set on things for everyone, I couldn’t find.

It was different in my two other year-long projects. The first one, the “Buy Nothing Project” was very clear – for a year we tried to buy nothing but fuel and food (and spend less on both of those). And for the most part, we were successful – there were some failures, but we cut our expenses and the folks that did this with us mostly found that the parameters were clear. Don’t buy stuff. Ok, got it.

The second project, The Riot for Austerity, was harder, and required more figuring things out. The goal was to cut our use of energy by 90% over the American average. This did require figuring out what counted and what didn’t (how, for example, we counted technically carbon-neutral wood heat, how, for example, we calculated local food…) but eventually those details were worked out, and again, it was pretty simple. Don’t use much energy. Again we weren’t perfect, but we made deep and long term changes in our lives from the project.

The Independence Days Project has been ongoing and focuses on integrating basic food and subsistenct activities into daily life – that too has been a success and a pleasure, and that one seemed perhaps closest to what I was getting at – but there were so many pieces. Not for nothing was I using the uneuphonious “whole life redesign” name to describe this project of sorting out my life – and inviting other people to share in the project. So how to narrow it – and to narrow it in ways that were open to people with different needs and realities – but the same desire to have a working whole.

Framing this seems harder to me, maybe because it overlaps with so many things. There are a lot of people out there with a program or an idea that covers a portion of this. They’ll help you get out of debt and cut your expenses. They’ll help you declutter. They’ll help you organize your time. And all of those things are part of this – but they aren’t the whole.

When I sat down to think about what this project actually *is* as a whole I found myself struggling to articulate what this was about, and why it felt so important to me, and I found myself back at my favorite thing that I’ve ever written, the riff I wrote on Pat Meadows’ wonder idea, “The Theory of Anyway”.

My friend Pat Meadows, a very, very smart woman, has a wonderful idea she calls “The Theory of Anyway.” What it entails is this – she argues that 95% of what is needed to resolve the coming crises in energy depletion, or climate change, or most other global crises are the same sort of efforts. When in doubt about how to change, we should change our lives to reflect what we should be doing “Anyway.” Living more simply, more frugally, using less, leaving reserves for others, reconnecting with our food and our community, these are things we should be doing because they are the right thing to do on many levels. That they also have the potential to save our lives is merely a side benefit (a big one, though).

This is, I think, a deeply powerful way of thinking because it is a deeply moral way of thinking – we would like to think of ourselves as moral people, but we tend to think of moral questions as the obvious ones “should I steal or pay?” “Should I hit or talk?” But the real and most essential moral questions of our lives are the questions we rarely ask of the things we do every day, “Should I eat this?” “Where should I live and how?” “What should I wear?” “How should I keep warm/cool?” We think of these questions as foregone conclusions – I should keep warm X way because that’s the kind of furnace I have, or I should eat this because that’s what’s in the grocery store. Pat’s Theory of Anyway turns this around, and points out that what we do, the way we live, must pass ethical muster first – we must always ask the question “Is this contributing to the repair of the world, or its destruction.”

Here I found something of the central organizing principle for my project. Because what I want is to have a life that works – one that works whether the money is coming in or not, one that operates whether the lights are on or off, one that works and gives us what we need and doesn’t use what we don’t need. That’s what has been missing – in the rush to get things done, the rush to go forward, I’d stopped asking quite so often what was right, and was making do with what is.

And because figuring out what you should be doing “anyway” means going against the natural grain of our lives – it means stopping and taking apart the things that are givens and reconsidering them, that takes time. And finding ways to make those things economically viable, finding the time to do them and building the skills to integrate the right things into your life in such a way that they become natural and a part of you, well, that’s a project. Because it isn’t something our society makes easy or cheap, or accessible.

That said, I have perfect faith that most of them are achievable. After all, when I started the Riot for Austerity with Miranda Edel, what everyone told us was that we had to wait – that cutting your energy consumption as dramatically as that would require government programs and subsidies and a whole host of things that we had to wait for. But those things were not forthcoming – they are still not forthcoming, and we found – and hundreds and hundreds of other people in cities and country and suburb, in 20 nations, and all over the world found, that it was in fact possible to do most of this now, with what you had, cheaply in the life you lived. That we didn’t have to wait. But it took a lot of time and thought and talk and support and figuring.

So I feel I can trust that all these things – that a life lived as rightly as possible is achievable. Moreover, I feel that I can trust that it is better achievable in a group – with all of you filling in ideas and arguments.

I was very fortunate that my editor, Ingrid and my publisher, New Society also felt that they wanted to participate in this – one of the big questions was whether this is an entirely separate project from my Adapting-In-Place book or something else, a part of it – the project of integrating my life today with the life I anticipate tomorrow, and making them work together in greater synthesis. Ingrid and New Society, despite the fact that the book has already been delayed once, trusted me and this project, and that including it would make a better book. So this will be a story I tell in the next book – thanks to them and their generous willingness to wait and see and risk something.

So I’m renaming this “The Anyway Project” – because I think that’s what it is. The goal of the project is simple – and huge – to ask how we can live the life we ought to be living anyway now, where we are, with what we have.

I’ve divided up the project into seven categories (somehow I always end up with sevens of things ), and offered suggestions for how other people might do this. In my next post on this subject, I’ll list off my goals and my time frame on each project, and my plan is to do monthly posts, on the first of the month to talk about what progress I’ve made. I hope you’ll do the same! If there’s enough desire, we could certainly set up a discussion group, but I do want a lot of the conversation to take place here and at my other blog, because I think that the conversations here are so good.

Here are the categories and how I’m thinking about them:

- Domestic Economy

This is the territory of home life. Here’s where we start thinking about what we want our home life to actually be like. For me, the critical requirements are less cluttered, less disorganized, a home that functions better in relationship to what I actually do and intend to do at home. I’d like to set up the house in order to be able to bring people here for some of my teaching projects, and also to use some of the space for farm projects.

- Household Economy

This is the territory of making ends meet and meeting financial goals. My goals here are to up the portion of our personal economy that comes from barter and personal exchanges, to drop our expenses by 20% and transfer the money to savings and to infrastructure like insulation that will cut expenses in the longer term. I want to have a plan for dealing with money and benefits cuts that we expect on Eric’s end.

- Resource Consumption

This is the territory of what we use. Our lives are enhanced when we use less, and so are the lives of others and our environment – it is as simple as that. We’ve seen some creep in our energy usage, and we need to get it back down. Right now our family of six is using less than 1/5 the US average (and most of those are based on household numbers with the average US household being 2.6), but I want to get back closer to 1/10th which, while not a fair share, is a lot closer. We need to get back in the habit of accurate bookeeping on our energy usage as well.

- Farm and Subsistence

This category may be more relevant to us than some people, but everyone does some subsistence work. For us, we want the farm to be the center of our lives, and to integrate ourselves more into the farm – that is, we want as much as possible my work and our lives and the farm to be one thing. For a long time we’ve used Eric’s work to subsidize the farm, but now it needs to be self-supporting, and that’s part of that equation, while we also expose what we’re doing in low input agriculture to other people. We’d also like to up the degree to which our subsistence activities teach and help others.
Most of all, I want to do a full evaluation of all our projects, both so that others can begin to understand them, and also to make sure that we are doing everything we do as well as possible.

- Family and Community

This is a big one for us – the reason we considered moving earlier this year was the desire for a closer knit community – we had that but have seen some changes over the years. But the reality is that we’ve been allowing those changes to frustrate us, but haven’t necessarily worked as hard as we could to compensate. So our goal is to spend more time working on our community building, and bringing our far-flung communities and our local ones into a state of connection. It is sometimes hard to be so far from our family, from close friends, but if we can build better on what’s near us, we can reach out through a chain of links, rather than across a wide distance.

- Outside Work

If my children were hungry, I would and could do any work necessary – there is no doubt about that. But while my family lives on comparatively little money (we qualify for food stamps in our state, although we don’t use them), we also have enjoyed the fact that we have the luxury of choosing our work. In many ways, we’ve had an enormous luxury – my writing and teaching and farming didn’t have to pay much, because Eric was subsidizing them. Now my work may have to support us, but I still want, to the extent that’s possible, to make what I do the right thing to do. I am enormously fortunate, in that I can earn money doing what I care about, and that I have had the luxury of giving things – my writing, my farm products, etc… away for free. Indeed, often the return of giving things away has been greater than those I use for money – but I don’t live entirely outside the cash economy, unfortunately. So I need to balance my work – find the ways to make some money doing what I care about, while reducing expenses, so that I have the luxury of keeping giving things away.

- Time and Happiness

In the end, these balance sheets have to be even for me to begin to go forward. The good thing about this is that I know how easy it is to even up this part of the equation. My husband and children and the farm and gardens, friends and family give me a deep, inner core of happiness. Whether we stay or go, whatever changes we make, whatever we do without or give up, if I have some simple things – a little dirt (and I don’t have to own it) and the loves of my lives in place, I am not afraid of the future, and I am happy. The thing that buys me the most happiness is time – but it doesn’t have to be free time. Indeed, the thing that gives me the most comfort in the world is knowing that Eric and I can spend an entire day working in arm’s reach of one another, with the boys helping and playing around our work, and know that at the end of the day, all of us, exhausted, will have found the time well spent. Finding time and finding happiness, are not, for us, a matter of more vacation time or things we want to try – they are simply the by products of trying to bring the pieces of our lives together.

I suspect most these categories will have something people want to address and perhaps change, even if your list doesn’t look exactly like mine. I’ll post in the next day or two a list of specific goals in each category, and how I plan to go through and track these. I hope you’ll offer suggestions and ideas as well!

Cheers,

Sharon

Categories: Some enviro-bloggers say...

Independence Days Update: Into Late Autumn

Sharon Astyk - Sun, 10/31/2010 - 07:59

This week seems to have been the transition point from early to late autumn.  Early autumn is a time of harvests and golden afternoons, with crisp and chilly nights.  Late autumn here is cold, one finds the spots where the windows have yet to be sealed by the cold wind blowing inside (I hate to seal up the windows before winter sets in in earnest – fresh air on the occasional warm day is just too important!) and there’s a transition from October’s brilliance into November’s brown.

I like November, actually.  I always have – it gets quiet and peaceful, and while it is cold there’s still a lot of nice days left of what F. Scott Fitzgerald called “football weather.”  Planting is done save bulbs and the garlic I forgot about and the thinsg I’m winter sowing.

It is time to fill the porch-root cellar up and take the ice packs out of the fridge and put everything on the porch.  We look forward to this all year – the enclosed porch becomes our walk-in fridge and it is so much more accessible than the regular kind – no losing things in the back, no more playing with ice.  Yay!

We need to get our wood and hay in – the hay was supposed to come yesterday but it didn’t.  Our neighbor who brings it over is a busy guy too, so we just assume things will work out.  No pressure.

Hemp and Basil went home to their new place yesterday, and it was  a real pleasure to meet their new owner and know that they are going to be happy where they are. 

The hens are barely laying, but despite that my wonderful step-mother made us a whole set of beautiful new nest boxes, in the hope of getting them to lay somewhere other than the goat’s manger.  The chicken area looks completely refreshed and beautiful!

I’m moving the firewood into the mudroom and getting ready for the season of fires – we’ve already had a couple but it is beginning – we’re expecting days in the 40s and nights in the 20s. I have to settle the indoor plants in their permanent sunny spots – there are always too many things I’d like to winter over. 

Otherwise, we’re concentrating on getting the new project up and running.  How about you?

Planted: Tulips, some late garlic

Harvested: Last hot peppers, turnips, beets, kale, chard, broccoli, arugula, mustard greens, quinces, apples, dug marshmallow, burdock and elecampane roots, milk, a very few eggs

Preserved: Made apple quince sauce, dried hot peppers, dried and tinctured herb roots, made a bunch of goat cheese

Waste Not: collected fallen pears at a local orchard for the chickens, arranged to give a good home to the extra halloween pumpkins after the holiday (goats love them!)

Want Not: Sorting through what we’ve got in the house.  Amazing what I find!

Eat the Food: Roasted squash with chipotle-maple glaze, beets with tahini and yogurt,

Build Community Food Solutions: A couple of articles, working on my local food resources evaluation.

How about you?

Sharon

Categories: Some enviro-bloggers say...

Sunrise, sunset...

Little blog in the big woods - Sun, 10/31/2010 - 06:39

Happy Halloween, All Saints Day, Samhain, whichever.
Autumn has long been a favorite time of year, for me; when I was a youngster I would say the favorite; but these days I'm less exclusive. Why would I want, when listening to the first frogs chorusing in just-spring, to wish for something different?
Here in the cold-temperate part of the world, Autumn can be seen as a fading time; the "end" of summer, the "descent" into the dark, cold, death of winter.
Oh, piffle; is my response. The naked limbs of the trees have their own distinctive beauty, invisible most of the year; and the diamond-sharp stars of deep winter nights are worth the frozen nose that goes with them.
Still. While it's lovely to watch the bright leaves fall, it's such an ephemeral thing; I have to admit to a little pang of sadness when they are all gone. I do watch the whole show carefully, each year, even in the hurry of harvest.
When I was a freshman in college, I had a great deal more time than I do now. Probably being away from home made me a bit more sentimental and nostalgic than usual, but I really regretted losing the oranges, reds, yellows.
So I made an effort to find a way to keep them; just a bit longer.
I found a way. I've kept it rather a secret ever since; but the time has come to share it.
I knew that "pressing" leaves; gathering them and putting them in between layers of paper; simply doesn't work for the colors. You can wind up with a nicely preserved leaf, that will show you the shape and all, but the color will be dramatically, or totally, faded if you follow normal procedures. And the pressing process can take a month or so, before the leaf is thoroughly dried and stable. The only method I knew of to save the colors was very messy; involving infusing the leaves with glycerin. Gooey, and not cheap either.
Somehow, I hit on the idea of - ironing - the leaves. I was already enough of a biologist that the idea immediately had some appeal; the rapid heating of the water in the leaf to the boiling point should "denature" the enzymes responsible for digesting the pigments; maybe this could work...
It does work. Extremely well, in fact. The one additional "secret" to this process is that freshly ironed leaves still need to be pressed in paper, or they will curl up. But having been thoroughly ironed, much of the cell structure has now been just a little ruptured, by steam; and the leaf will dry to stability in just a week or so. If you try to iron them hot enough, and long enough, to just dry them directly, there's a very good chance you will cause the colors to fade a great deal; too much, and you can easily scorch a dry leaf.
Use a "hot" iron; lay it on the leaf and let the heat penetrate; move the iron a bit to flatten any irregularities; turn the leaf and iron the other side (seems silly, but seems to matter); then turn and iron again; that's all. A heavily padded ironing board may not work well; I often iron on an old National Geographic, covered with a couple paper towels to absorb moisture.
This is now a rite of passage, for me; as Autumn progresses, I'll make an expedition or two with a loved one to just walk, and discover, and gather some of the brightest and most beautiful leaves. Then we'll iron them together, quickly taking the hot and still damp leaves and carefully getting them, exactly flat, into the old atlas or dictionary. Some of the colors change a little when ironed; dark reds may become even darker; light yellows may get paler still. Or not; this unknown part of the rite adds a little more whimsey to it.
Then, a week or two later, perhaps on a rainy late fall day, the next part of the rite. We meticulously wash a couple windows; the east, and the south, in our case. And using double sided tape, together we put up the leaves, perhaps making swoops and swirls, to look like a swoosh of falling leaves. Yes, they're a little fragile. You have to be careful with them. That's a good thing. If you're not sure your leaves are dry enough, try a few. If they start to curl away from the glass in an hour or two, they need to stay in your book press for a few more days.
Often after the late fall rains, the woods will be bare- and gray. It can seem just a bit dismal, if you let it. But as I drink my morning coffee, whatever morning light there is comes through these saved bits of the brightest days. And when the sun hits them- it's nature's own version of stained glass.
We'll usually leave ours up until New Years, at least; then the snow gradually asserts its own authority, and eventually makes the bits of Fall seem out of date. We take them down; burn them in the woodstove, re-wash the windows, and move on; knowing we'll do it again next year.
It slows the speeding days, just a little.
-----------------------------
Give it a try, if you can; even here where "all the leaves" are down, you can still find fresh bright leaves in odd places. You do need freshly fallen, or picked off the tree; leaves that have been off the tree for just a day are already faded, and brittle. Often young tree seedlings in the woods keep their leaves long after the grownup trees have shed theirs. Scrounge around; with a loved one (or two), if you can.
So far as I know, I "invented" this process. I see looking on the web that some people iron leaves- but as far as I can tell, they do it only between pieces of wax paper, counting on the wax to "fix" the leaf. I'd never heard of that before; and I can assure you, you don't need the wax. Just ironed and book pressed, the colors will stay completely fresh for 4-6 months; they will, of course, gradually fade after that.
Let me know how it works for you.
:-)

Categories: Some enviro-bloggers say...

Watch and Learn

SightLine northwest - Thu, 10/28/2010 - 11:35

I was looking around the Internets this morning trying to find a really simple rundown of how banking works. (You can’t avoid banking if you’re thinking or writing about energy efficiency financing.) Of all the various videos and resources out there I found the ones created by the Khan Academy most helpful. It’s the public service creation of Salman Khan, a retired hedge fund analyst. He is an awesome teacher, a newfound hero of mine, and so sharp it seems like he can explain just about anything—including math. Here’s a recent report on the Academy that ran on the PBS News Hour: 

Keep in mind, I am a philosophy major who avoided math (much to my regret) whenever I could. Kahn’s simple videos are really captivating, and are a quick download for anyone who is trying to understand some basic principles about complicated things. Take the concept of the fractional reserve banking system, a topic that is confounded by conspiracy theorists:



Now, the Academy is not a replacement of getting a degree in finance or math, but for those of us trying to understand the economics of the big systems and issues that affect sustainability, the Kahn Academy can be just what we need. If you’re working on a problem and you’re stumped, I recommend stopping by the Academy as a start. Plus, it’s really satisfying to watch a guy doing what he loves, and doing it so well. 

Is there any point in having a green wedding if nobody notices?

Green as a Thistle - Thu, 10/28/2010 - 10:07

Yep. Me again. Creeping into the blogosphere like I tend to do these days — about once every few months, with a totally random subject of conversation, which every blogger will tell you does NOT lead to a very consistent readership. Oh well.

But I thought y’all might like to know that Miss Thistle is now officially Mrs. Thistle (let’s go with Ms., actually — never did like Mrs.). On lucky Friday, Aug. 13th, 2010, I tied the knot at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. If you want to know more about the boy — or shall I say, my husband — you can read my book (a recipient of the Green Book Festival award for Best Biography/Memoir, by the way).

Now, those of you who know me realize that I’d never have a wedding unless it was a completely green wedding; and that it was! It’s impossible not to leave some footprint, however, and of course weddings are all about compromise, so it’s not as if it was off-the-grid vegan or anything. But still: We splurged on a menu that had Ontario trout, a vegetarian curry and grass-fed, locally raised steak (compromise); we had hundreds of beeswax candles; wild flowers that were grown locally where possible, with vintage mason jars as vases; programs printed on recycled paper; invites on old postcards; a vegan wedding cake with antique cake topper; reusable tote bags that folded up into little rosebuds as gifts for the ladies; even my engagement ring was Jacob’s great-grandmother’s ring, so no need for a flashy new diamond.

Here are some photos, courtesy of the amazing Catherine Farquharson (no relation, if you can believe that):

Getting my dress on, with some help from mum.

View from inside the venue!

Vegan carrot cake with antique wedding topper!

My sister and me at the head table.

View of the reception, up in the trees!

Jacob put on a wig, grabbed some back-up singers (two of our friends) and serenaded me with a Zombies tune and the Monkees' "I'm a Believer"

Sneaking away for some photo-taking.

A quick stroll in the park.

My engagement ring.

But here’s the thing: I made all these eco-conscious decisions, and yet I’m not sure anyone really noticed. Nobody was looking to see what type of wax the candles were made from; nobody was scrutinizing the jars that the centerpiece flowers were in; and most likely only a few people noticed that the steak on the menu was from the very reputable Rowe farms. Obviously, I feel good about all these decisions and know that they made a difference in terms of our wedding footprint — but to all you green brides out there: How important do you think it is to make an eco-friendly statement on your big day? Does it matter if nobody notices?

Categories: Some enviro-bloggers say...

Truckloads of Money

SightLine northwest - Thu, 10/28/2010 - 09:37

Regardless of your opinion about the Columbia River Crossing project -- the proposed $2.6-to-$3.6 billion bridge and interchange project on the stretch of I-5 connecting Portland, OR with Vancouver, WA -- the following video is a great example of what is often called "social math."

Most folks have a lot of trouble making sense of really big numbers.  We know that a billion is bigger than a million, but we don't really grok how much money a billion dollars really is.  So take a look starting at about minute 1:20, where the video puts $3.6 billion in a context that's concrete and easy to visualize:  nearly 46 tractor-trailers full of $1 bills.

That's a lot of singles.  The rest of the video is worth a look too, of course.

Moving past the awesome visuals, there's an important point in play here:  namely, that the costs of transportation megaprojects have become so enormous that it's really hard for us to make any sense of them.  You can argue the benefits of the CRC all day long, but the bottom line is that the costs are really, really huge.  Yet in a way, they're so big that people just can't pay attention to them -- we get lost in the zeros, and just hope that someone else is keeping track of them.  But failing to appreciate the costs creates massive blind spots in our thinking -- blind spots that make it easy for us to ignore alternatives that might not satisfy everybody's dreams, but still meet at least some of our aspirations -- though at a much lower cost.

That's why social math can be so helpful: without illustrations like this, it's easy to forget that a few billion dollars is a heck of a lot of money to spend on a few miles of road.

Render unto Timex...

Little blog in the big woods - Thu, 10/28/2010 - 06:52

We've been having fun here with our "land hurricane"; and the lowest barometric pressure ever recorded, either in the USA, or at least the Midwest, depending on your source. We didn't get the absolute worst of it, but it has been work to get through it; tarps ripped off, ripped up, a tree or two down on a road or two, smoke in the house from more atmospheric turbulence than our chimney can handle.
Coulda been worse. Actually, I've seen worse winds here, just not so heavy so long. We've been averaging 30 mph, with bursts up to 55 for three days; but any good summer thunderstorm can have short duration winds up over 70, and I've seen 90 mph. But only for 10 minutes or so.
In the middle of it all, we got to drive to our doctor town for me to have an "upper endoscopy"; the doctors going fishing for anything down my upper gastro-esophageal system that's out of whack and could explain some of my whining. (Can't remember any of it, which means they did a good job; and the bottom line was "nothing obvious" but they did take a couple biopsy chunks to look at closer.) The car blew around on the road a bit, but again; coulda been worse.
When I came out of the anesthesia (this is how we do it in Minnesota),


I was not, surprisingly, gasping for air. Besides being droll and musical, our Midvestern anesthesiologists are very competent. So I woke up surprised.
It was all over and I didn't even remember falling asleep. (thanks for the video to my big brother, who has more time to cruise youtube...)
The next thing on the agenda was a little woozy shopping (with Spice along as unmedicated driver) for the necessities of life.
For me, the necessities include a working watch. I know; half of youse guys out there cheerfully do without one (and even brag about that, from time to time), but as I noted today over on Sharon's post about the relativity of time, I now need to know where I am in the day; how much is left to work with, etc. And no, you can't tell time from the sun in Minnesota in late fall/early winter; more than half the days are sunless.
And my sturdy, reliable, Timex Ironman Triathalon® (can't tell you how manly it makes me feel to wear one!) watch had recently done what they all have done; the watchband broke; long before the watch itself was near the end of its life.
And, guess what? Just as always before (like 5 times, by now) - since I'd bought my Timex IT; the styling had changed, just a teensy, so that- nope, they don't actually have a replacement band available for that particular model... and the watch-girl (used to be the goose-girl, 300 years ago) doesn't really even know how to get this thing disattached...
The (mildly, given the state of the world) aggravating thing is that the watch itself is nicely designed, and has a long, reliable life. And the band always dies long before the watch.
Accident? Ha. We know better. It is, of course, a ploy to sell more watches, keep the profits rolling. I can hear the conversation in the Timex marketing meetings: "Ok, look, the damn engineering department has screwed us again; these bloody things run without a problem for 4-5 years! How the hell can we justify our bonuses if we're only selling one per customer in 5 years?? Here's how we can fix this disaster...)
It's a broad huge problem with our world, of course; the waste of resources, where there is no actual need for it, just greed for it.
But. I've come to be resigned to this kind of little irritation; it's an intractable problem, and not quite as urgent as some others (like all-time record breaking weather); and not a fight I really have the time to get into, anyway. Hélas.
.
So. I'm calling it The Timex Tax. Sure as death and. Inescapable. You pays your money, and you takes your chances.
But at least, now, no matter where I am on the farm, chopping water or hauling wood, I'll be sure to know how much longer I have to struggle onward, today. My Timex Tax is paid for another 2-3 years.

Categories: Some enviro-bloggers say...

Hawks, Peacocks, or...Climate Dodos?

SightLine northwest - Wed, 10/27/2010 - 13:59

I like the new trend that assigns bird characteristics to elected officials to identify their stance on energy and climate policy--and with new birds flocking to DC and state capitols after Tuesday's election, it's high time we figure out what species they are. Thanks to David Roberts at Grist there are Climate Hawks (a term gaining some significant traction). Thanks to Center for American Progress, there are also Climate Peacocks. I propose we add Climate Dodos to the list.

Needless to say, hawks are aggressive and fearless; they are alert and intelligent. And Climate Hawks are just that, hawkish. They see the security risks of delaying climate and energy policy (including environmental, economic, and health risks) and therefore will push for action no matter what. Peacocks, of course, are birds known for fanning out their impressive tail feathers to look big and tough, but it's all a phony act.Hiding behind the peacock's showy display is a terribly scared bird. (I guess it's fitting that they are related to the chicken. And by all appearances they are birds with exceedingly small brain size to body ratios.) Climate Peacocks, of course, are all talk. They puff up their feathers with bluff and bluster, saying they want to fight climate change and build a clean energy economy, but they consistently fail to vote for climate and energy policy, therefore becoming big roadblocks to progress.

In the military context, a Dove is the opposite of a Hawk. But that doesn't seem fitting for describing climate deniers and the rest of the gang that clings desperately to the dirty old fuels of the past--because doves, after all, are all about peace and love, etc. As far as symbols go, the dove is far too positive. Some have suggested Climate Zombies which is a fittingly frightful moniker for those office seekers who go so far as to say that the science behind human-caused global warming is a conspiracy or hoax, but it strays from the ornithological theme which is unfortunate.

But what about Climate Dodos? It's quite perfect, really, because the dodo is--or rather was--actually related to the dove but it's far sillier-looking. The dodo, of course, has been extinct since the mid-to-late 17th century.

According to the Wikipedia entry (where I got all my info on dodos, btw), the phrase "to go the way of the dodo" means to become "extinct or obsolete, to fall out of common usage or practice, or to become a thing of the past." Fittingly, it is commonly used as the archetype of an extinct species because its extinction occurred during recorded human history and was directly attributable to human activity. Now that seems just about right--on so many levels!

Photos courtesy nessmoon and drotmalac at MorgueFile.

Trick or Treat?

SightLine northwest - Wed, 10/27/2010 - 11:46

Halloween costumes are supposed to be scary, right? But this is a bit too frightful for my taste:

• Face paints can contain lead, which can impair brain development at extremely low doses, as well as nickel, cobalt and chromium, which can cause skin sensitization and contact dermatitis. 
• Lipstick can also contain hidden lead. 
• Nail polish often contains dibutyl phthalate and toluene, chemicals linked to hormone disruption and cancer.
• Cosmetics in powder form can easily be inhaled. Depending on the particle size, the powder can lodge in children's nasal passages and even lungs.
• Products containing fragrances may contain allergens or hormone-disrupting chemicals.
• Many hairsprays contain toxic chemicals and fragrance. Kids can easily breathe in sprays.

All that's from a Halloween safety tip sheet from the Environmental Working Group. And it's only the face paint and makeup department!

According to EWG testing, other costume items can be scary too. Popular commercial Halloween masks and fake teeth are often made from a variety of potentially harmful synthetic materials that aren't always very well labeled. Plastics, for example, are often softened with endocrine-disrupting phthalates--but rarely do manufacturers list the ingredients, let alone their dangers.

I hate to reinforce my reputation as a killjoy, putting the damper on all the fun in the name of child safety. Halloween is actually one of my favorite holidays. (I love the costumes and the chocolate and, back in my day, the nighttime marauding--what a great combination). I think I can tolerate kids gorging themselves on sugary candy one night a year. I'm not a zealot about that. But I do think parents should insist on safe products for our kids--on principle if nothing else.

Even if a little dose of phthalates over the course of one Halloween evening won't kill them, we should demand that toys and other products made expressly for kids meet certain basic safety standards. End of discussion. Why? Mostly because it's commonsense, we love our kids and want above all else to protect them from harm. And it's also because this generation of kids already absorbs more chemicals and toxics than anyone has before them. They are guinea pigs in a big, twisted experiment and it's not fair.

In a Public News Service story about EWG's findings, pediatrician Marny Turnvil says more than 80,000 chemicals are approved for use in consumer goods, and with little safety testing, children are at greater risk today than in past generations. "They are starting their lives with a bigger body burden of chemicals to begin with because we have exponentially increased the number of chemicals in our society every ten years since 1940."

EWG recommends making your own costumes at home, which I think is a really grand idea on so many levels (my colleague here at Sightline was busy last week collecting materials to transform his daughters into a faucet and a stoplight.) 

Here are additional tips from EWG for "greening" your Halloween.

 

Image courtesy cohdra at MorgueFile.com.