It snowed 3 feet in Washington D.C. a few weeks ago and for some Americans that’s an excuse to give up on the hard work it will take to make our society sustainable. (Never mind that climate scientists have long predicted that more powerful storms would be one more symptom of what’s ailing planet Earth.)
Is it me, or is this easy-way-out attitude completely un-American? Did our forbears found a great nation on greed, gluttony, denial? Manifest destiny at any cost? Well ok, maybe they did, but they also worked hard and never gave up. They invested in the long term as they built the infrastructure of their communities. They adapted to harsh conditions, endured and overcame hardship again and again. If we humans manage not to kill ourselves off, what do we Americans want our legacy to be? Do we want to be remembered as the indulgent fools who took advantage until there was no advantage left to take, or as the scrappy revolutionaries who survived because they reinvented themselves to meet their new reality?
Whether or not you believe climate change is being caused by humans, sustainability is good. There’s no controversy about reliance on foreign oil. There’s no ambiguity in mountaintop removal. There’s no up-side to an oil slick.
While we continue to do nothing, the problem we face gets harder to solve. While we make our excuses and our political calculations we get closer to the day when our fate is sealed. My understanding is that we won’t know that day has come and gone until it’s too late.
We can all buck up and begin the hard work of changing ourselves and our way of life TODAY, or we can keep hiding our heads in the snow…or the flood waters or whatever’s in store for us next as climate change advances inexorably.
Showing posts with label global warming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label global warming. Show all posts
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Saturday, May 31, 2008
On tilting at Windmills:
Every once in a while, sitting in traffic or looking out the window of a tall building, I have a moment where I involuntarily step back and look at the world and see it literally swarming with cars. It’s at these moments that I become pessimistic and I say to myself and whoever will listen, “we’re doomed.” And though I think we probably are, I believe we owe it to the Earth that has sustained us to at least try to change.
I know how hard it is. I try—I recycle my toothbrushes (Preserve brand) and use paper produce bags (or none) for just a couple of examples--but because of my situation I find I have to drive my car. It takes several buses to get to my son’s daycare and I have nowhere to store a bike.
But we need to try harder. We need to start making wholesale changes. We need to use tax breaks and subsidies and market forces to push people and corporations to change.
Cars are a major problem-- for me and for everyone. We’ve got the technology to make cars more efficient, but more efficient hybrid cars remain more expensive and hard to get. The government should be putting its research dollars and brains into this rather than into landing on Mars. Large scale production of biofuels is wreaking havoc on our food system. Maybe they’re not the answer (or maybe we need to change the focus of the food system—corn sweetners and soy are ruining our health anyway). I think we need to look not just at how to continue driving as we always have, but at ways to restructure our communities to make long distance travel an occasional indulgence, rather than a daily necessity.
Eating locally would also cut down on emissions generated by the transport of food. This would probably mean curtailing sprawl (maybe even taking back already developed land) to make room for farms. Finally, a justifiable use of eminent domain.
The silver lining in the ridiculously high gas prices we’ve been experiencing (we’re finally beginning to catch up to the rest of the world—it’s been $6+ in Turkey for years) is that people are starting to reduce their use. They’re buying smaller cars and taking the bus more. The gas tax holiday that’s been proposed will only help undo the positive work high prices have done and won’t help consumers much anyway. Let’s make sure policies make sense and don’t just pander to desperate consumers who often can’t see beyond their next paycheck. Government is supposed to help us take the long view not let us avoid facing reality.
The considerable power of the sun, water and wind remain largely untapped. Massachusetts has been tied up in the controversy over putting a windmill farm off Cape Cod for years. I don’t really understand the controversy. There are several large turbines in the marshes outside Atlantic City, where I grew up, and the birds don’t seem to mind at all. People like them too. Don Quixote was right: they are a bit like giants—though these are beneficent ones. Once again, I think the government needs to take a stand against wealthy interests on the Cape who don’t want their view “spoiled.”
Maybe we are tilting at windmills but, paradoxically, policies that let us build a few more windmills might give us a fighting chance.
I know how hard it is. I try—I recycle my toothbrushes (Preserve brand) and use paper produce bags (or none) for just a couple of examples--but because of my situation I find I have to drive my car. It takes several buses to get to my son’s daycare and I have nowhere to store a bike.
But we need to try harder. We need to start making wholesale changes. We need to use tax breaks and subsidies and market forces to push people and corporations to change.
Cars are a major problem-- for me and for everyone. We’ve got the technology to make cars more efficient, but more efficient hybrid cars remain more expensive and hard to get. The government should be putting its research dollars and brains into this rather than into landing on Mars. Large scale production of biofuels is wreaking havoc on our food system. Maybe they’re not the answer (or maybe we need to change the focus of the food system—corn sweetners and soy are ruining our health anyway). I think we need to look not just at how to continue driving as we always have, but at ways to restructure our communities to make long distance travel an occasional indulgence, rather than a daily necessity.
Eating locally would also cut down on emissions generated by the transport of food. This would probably mean curtailing sprawl (maybe even taking back already developed land) to make room for farms. Finally, a justifiable use of eminent domain.
The silver lining in the ridiculously high gas prices we’ve been experiencing (we’re finally beginning to catch up to the rest of the world—it’s been $6+ in Turkey for years) is that people are starting to reduce their use. They’re buying smaller cars and taking the bus more. The gas tax holiday that’s been proposed will only help undo the positive work high prices have done and won’t help consumers much anyway. Let’s make sure policies make sense and don’t just pander to desperate consumers who often can’t see beyond their next paycheck. Government is supposed to help us take the long view not let us avoid facing reality.
The considerable power of the sun, water and wind remain largely untapped. Massachusetts has been tied up in the controversy over putting a windmill farm off Cape Cod for years. I don’t really understand the controversy. There are several large turbines in the marshes outside Atlantic City, where I grew up, and the birds don’t seem to mind at all. People like them too. Don Quixote was right: they are a bit like giants—though these are beneficent ones. Once again, I think the government needs to take a stand against wealthy interests on the Cape who don’t want their view “spoiled.”
Maybe we are tilting at windmills but, paradoxically, policies that let us build a few more windmills might give us a fighting chance.
Friday, May 23, 2008
On trees: not for human consumption
I was driving down American Legion Highway in Boston a few months ago when I was suddenly assaulted by the sun where it hadn’t shone before. I knew immediately something was different and it wasn’t long before I realized that some of the venerable old trees that made that highway a parkway were gone. The road had been under construction for some time (one of those blue pet projects signs boasted “renovations” were being done and credited the Mayor and other officials), but I had not known taking trees was in the plan. I considered calling the city to complain but decided that in this era of greening they couldn’t be planning to take them all. It just wouldn’t make sense.
Day after day more of the 30 or 40 year-old trees disappeared. It was too late to call the city. There was no going back.
That’s the thing about trees. What’s taken half a century to grow can be cut down in half an hour.
They came through after the last frost and popped in a bunch of spindly new saplings (planted them too close together, I’m pretty sure). I’m glad that tree-lined is still a goal, but little tiny trees are in all ways inferior to mature trees. They provide no shade, less in the way of cooling effects due to water content, less carbon abatement, less beauty. And with global overheating, it’s harder to get a young tree to survive its youth. I almost lost the Heritage River birch I planted in our yard last year; it was quite a bit more established than the new highway trees and I had just one to worry about. The city is notorious for planting truckloads of trees and then neglecting them in their hour of drought. Then they come through with another truck and pull out the casualties.
In our consumer culture, new is always ideal. If we aren’t buying new cars, new furniture, new clothes, our economy will suffer (and we might fall out of fashion—God forbid). Economists and our own elected officials are unabashed about encouraging us to buy more junk we’ll soon throw away (See the Story of Stuff in last December’s post). They’ve even arranged this year for us to get checks meant expressly to be wasted on purchases that will stimulate the economy before ending up in a landfill.
But when it comes to trees, old—or at least middle aged-- is the epitome of fashion.
If we’re not too busy renovating, redesigning and renewing, accumulating stuff to replace too soon, we might leave a few trees, and we might realize that the very best has grown up around us all on its own. We need only enjoy the shade.
Day after day more of the 30 or 40 year-old trees disappeared. It was too late to call the city. There was no going back.
That’s the thing about trees. What’s taken half a century to grow can be cut down in half an hour.
They came through after the last frost and popped in a bunch of spindly new saplings (planted them too close together, I’m pretty sure). I’m glad that tree-lined is still a goal, but little tiny trees are in all ways inferior to mature trees. They provide no shade, less in the way of cooling effects due to water content, less carbon abatement, less beauty. And with global overheating, it’s harder to get a young tree to survive its youth. I almost lost the Heritage River birch I planted in our yard last year; it was quite a bit more established than the new highway trees and I had just one to worry about. The city is notorious for planting truckloads of trees and then neglecting them in their hour of drought. Then they come through with another truck and pull out the casualties.
In our consumer culture, new is always ideal. If we aren’t buying new cars, new furniture, new clothes, our economy will suffer (and we might fall out of fashion—God forbid). Economists and our own elected officials are unabashed about encouraging us to buy more junk we’ll soon throw away (See the Story of Stuff in last December’s post). They’ve even arranged this year for us to get checks meant expressly to be wasted on purchases that will stimulate the economy before ending up in a landfill.
But when it comes to trees, old—or at least middle aged-- is the epitome of fashion.
If we’re not too busy renovating, redesigning and renewing, accumulating stuff to replace too soon, we might leave a few trees, and we might realize that the very best has grown up around us all on its own. We need only enjoy the shade.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
On Blog Action Day: possible solutions to global climate change
Today is Blog Action Day! Thousands of bloggers around the world will blog today about the environment. Here’s my contribution:
The elevation of Al Gore to demigod status has got me thinking about the enormity of the global climate change problem. It’s so difficult, in large part, because by developing as we have with far flung suburbs dependent on urban jobs (and with the proliferation of office parks, the reverse) and hermetically sealed tall buildings, we’ve locked ourselves into driving long distances and using H, V or AC year-round. Many egregious carbon-generating luxuries have become needs. It’s too hard to unravel energy use from the lives and economy we’ve worked so hard to build and maintain, so we just don’t. Some Americans seem to be blithely unaware that there’s even a need to do things differently, but even those of us who think about it and work at it every day, find it nearly impossible to make significant change. (For an amazing example of someone who has, visit http://noimpactman.typepad.com/)
Even countries that have made a commitment to reduce emissions are coming up short. I was listening to national public radio the other day and heard a report about Japan’s failure to meet its emissions reduction goals set out in the Kyoto protocols. It is widely understood that even if the US were to reduce its emissions, increases in emissions by developing countries like China and India would more than cancel them out.
We are going to have to make dramatic changes quickly in the way we live and work if we want to keep Earth inhabitable for humans.
A Brave New World Wide Web
A friend of mine, I’ll call him P, floated an idea for a possible solution that I think has merit: technology. P’s not talking about new energy technologies, though I’m sure he’d agree we should continue to work on those. He’s suggested that internet technology and computers (which are being built to use less and less energy) could soon allow everyone to telecommute so that we wouldn’t have to drive in order to work. In fact, what he said was that we could live our entire lives on the net. He may have said it tongue in cheek but I think it’s an interesting idea.
During the last Congressional election, I participated in the Move On “Call for Change” campaign, which used nationwide conference calls and video teleconferences to bring all the volunteers together. Having experienced the power and the great sense of community during that campaign, and right here in the blogosphere (and the lack of community in my neighborhood), I wonder if eliminating the need for proximity and cultivating our ability to form affinity groups globally, wouldn’t be a very good thing.
Back to Our Agrarian Roots
That said, I’m a bit of a traditionalist and even though it’s been a long time since I’ve lived in one, I love the feel of a small town. The process of a town meeting is, at least in some ways, more satisfying than any web forum or national conference call. Despite technology, proximity still creates affinity (or at least interdependence).
I’m also a believer in Traditional Nutrition (see Weston A. Price Foundation link at right) and thinking about how to get better quality food (usually direct from farms) has led me to realize that our ancestors had a lot of things right.
A sort of purposeful regression as a society to a small town, agrarian model would cut down on our need to travel long distances regularly and eliminate the great quantity of emissions created in support of our current food distribution system (almost all of our food is trucked to market in tractor trailers and more and more is flown in from other countries). Returning to our agrarian roots would put people back in touch with the land and, very probably, would lead to the planting of more carbon neutralizing vegetation. As a bonus we’d likely have richer lives in close-knit communities. We could more effectively and more naturally provide social supports for young families, elders… for everyone really. We'd also eat better.
Perhaps the most feasible and livable solution would be some combination of these two. Picture yourself churning butter from fresh raw milk in the morning, attending a teleconference with other hedge fund managers on farms in the UK and Hong Kong in the afternoon, and, climate change having stabilized, blogging about humanity’s next great challenge (by the light of a solar-powered lamp) deep into the night.
The elevation of Al Gore to demigod status has got me thinking about the enormity of the global climate change problem. It’s so difficult, in large part, because by developing as we have with far flung suburbs dependent on urban jobs (and with the proliferation of office parks, the reverse) and hermetically sealed tall buildings, we’ve locked ourselves into driving long distances and using H, V or AC year-round. Many egregious carbon-generating luxuries have become needs. It’s too hard to unravel energy use from the lives and economy we’ve worked so hard to build and maintain, so we just don’t. Some Americans seem to be blithely unaware that there’s even a need to do things differently, but even those of us who think about it and work at it every day, find it nearly impossible to make significant change. (For an amazing example of someone who has, visit http://noimpactman.typepad.com/)
Even countries that have made a commitment to reduce emissions are coming up short. I was listening to national public radio the other day and heard a report about Japan’s failure to meet its emissions reduction goals set out in the Kyoto protocols. It is widely understood that even if the US were to reduce its emissions, increases in emissions by developing countries like China and India would more than cancel them out.
We are going to have to make dramatic changes quickly in the way we live and work if we want to keep Earth inhabitable for humans.
A Brave New World Wide Web
A friend of mine, I’ll call him P, floated an idea for a possible solution that I think has merit: technology. P’s not talking about new energy technologies, though I’m sure he’d agree we should continue to work on those. He’s suggested that internet technology and computers (which are being built to use less and less energy) could soon allow everyone to telecommute so that we wouldn’t have to drive in order to work. In fact, what he said was that we could live our entire lives on the net. He may have said it tongue in cheek but I think it’s an interesting idea.
During the last Congressional election, I participated in the Move On “Call for Change” campaign, which used nationwide conference calls and video teleconferences to bring all the volunteers together. Having experienced the power and the great sense of community during that campaign, and right here in the blogosphere (and the lack of community in my neighborhood), I wonder if eliminating the need for proximity and cultivating our ability to form affinity groups globally, wouldn’t be a very good thing.
Back to Our Agrarian Roots
That said, I’m a bit of a traditionalist and even though it’s been a long time since I’ve lived in one, I love the feel of a small town. The process of a town meeting is, at least in some ways, more satisfying than any web forum or national conference call. Despite technology, proximity still creates affinity (or at least interdependence).
I’m also a believer in Traditional Nutrition (see Weston A. Price Foundation link at right) and thinking about how to get better quality food (usually direct from farms) has led me to realize that our ancestors had a lot of things right.
A sort of purposeful regression as a society to a small town, agrarian model would cut down on our need to travel long distances regularly and eliminate the great quantity of emissions created in support of our current food distribution system (almost all of our food is trucked to market in tractor trailers and more and more is flown in from other countries). Returning to our agrarian roots would put people back in touch with the land and, very probably, would lead to the planting of more carbon neutralizing vegetation. As a bonus we’d likely have richer lives in close-knit communities. We could more effectively and more naturally provide social supports for young families, elders… for everyone really. We'd also eat better.
Perhaps the most feasible and livable solution would be some combination of these two. Picture yourself churning butter from fresh raw milk in the morning, attending a teleconference with other hedge fund managers on farms in the UK and Hong Kong in the afternoon, and, climate change having stabilized, blogging about humanity’s next great challenge (by the light of a solar-powered lamp) deep into the night.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
On little things that mean a lot:
Little things you can do about global warming…
Walk when you can
Ride your bike when you can
Hypermile when you drive (see 6/23/2007 post)
Combine errands to cut down on car trips
Park once at shopping centers and walk between stores
Carpool
Get a stainless steel water bottle (www.gaiam.com, www.klean canteen.com) and a filter; filter your own water and carry it in your bottle (stainless doesn’t wear out as fast as plastic and, as a bonus, won’t leach dioxin into your water—47 million gallons of oil are used and 1 billion pounds of CO2 emissions are produced each year to supply America with plastic water bottles!*)
Use tempered glass food storage containers (glass doesn’t wear out as fast as plastic and, as a bonus, won’t leach dioxin into your food)
Buy some cloth grocery bags or reuse plastic bags rather than using new plastic or paper bags every time
Buy post-consumer recycled products
Cloth diaper or use g diapers or eco-disposables with less plastic
Reuse plastic produce and grocery bags for wrapping diapers or as pooper scoopers rather than buying new bags on a roll
Wash zipper bags and reuse (dry them on large serving spoons stuck in the utensil rack of a dish drainer—this will also save you a fair amount of money)
Use non-petroleum based products for cleaning (Seventh Generation, Ecos, Ecover, BioKleen etc. or just baking soda and vinegar)
Save air conditioning for the hottest days or find other ways to keep cool; if you must use it, set your thermostat slightly higher
In winter, set your thermostat slightly lower and wear a sweater
Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs (these use up to 75% less energy than with standard incandescent bulbs*)
Shut off lights when you’re aren’t in a room
Shut off computers when not using them
Unplug appliances and chargers when not in use
Get Energy Star appliances
Run dishwasher and washing machine only when full
Install a low flow shower head (saves water and energy that would have been used to heat that water)
Buy local produce, fish and meat – eat only what’s in season here (lots more fuel is used to bring foods from far away)
Read the newspaper and catalog shop on line (ask companies you do business with to stop sending catalogs)
Get on the national Do Not Mail list: https://www.directmail.com/directory/mail_preference/
Use the library
Plant a tree
*www. gaiam.com
Walk when you can
Ride your bike when you can
Hypermile when you drive (see 6/23/2007 post)
Combine errands to cut down on car trips
Park once at shopping centers and walk between stores
Carpool
Get a stainless steel water bottle (www.gaiam.com, www.klean canteen.com) and a filter; filter your own water and carry it in your bottle (stainless doesn’t wear out as fast as plastic and, as a bonus, won’t leach dioxin into your water—47 million gallons of oil are used and 1 billion pounds of CO2 emissions are produced each year to supply America with plastic water bottles!*)
Use tempered glass food storage containers (glass doesn’t wear out as fast as plastic and, as a bonus, won’t leach dioxin into your food)
Buy some cloth grocery bags or reuse plastic bags rather than using new plastic or paper bags every time
Buy post-consumer recycled products
Cloth diaper or use g diapers or eco-disposables with less plastic
Reuse plastic produce and grocery bags for wrapping diapers or as pooper scoopers rather than buying new bags on a roll
Wash zipper bags and reuse (dry them on large serving spoons stuck in the utensil rack of a dish drainer—this will also save you a fair amount of money)
Use non-petroleum based products for cleaning (Seventh Generation, Ecos, Ecover, BioKleen etc. or just baking soda and vinegar)
Save air conditioning for the hottest days or find other ways to keep cool; if you must use it, set your thermostat slightly higher
In winter, set your thermostat slightly lower and wear a sweater
Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs (these use up to 75% less energy than with standard incandescent bulbs*)
Shut off lights when you’re aren’t in a room
Shut off computers when not using them
Unplug appliances and chargers when not in use
Get Energy Star appliances
Run dishwasher and washing machine only when full
Install a low flow shower head (saves water and energy that would have been used to heat that water)
Buy local produce, fish and meat – eat only what’s in season here (lots more fuel is used to bring foods from far away)
Read the newspaper and catalog shop on line (ask companies you do business with to stop sending catalogs)
Get on the national Do Not Mail list: https://www.directmail.com/directory/mail_preference/
Use the library
Plant a tree
*www. gaiam.com
Saturday, June 23, 2007
On hypermiling in moderation:
A few months ago, I came across an article in Mother Jones about people who use all sorts of techniques to increase the mileage (and thereby decrease the emissions) of their cars. They’re known as "hypermilers," and the best of them get 50 miles to the gallon in a conventional vehicle and 100 mpg in a hybrid! We were frustrated with the less- than-stellar mileage our new car was getting, so we began employing some of their techniques. We can’t endorse all of them, however, since some are downright dangerous or even impossible in some vehicles.
Moderate Hypermiling Techniques
• Accelerate slowly
• Maintain your speed once you reach it by pressing very lightly on the gas
• Avoid extraneous breaking
• Anticipate lights (Red light ahead? Shift into neutral early enough to roll to a stop.)
• Don’t accelerate to move up when you know you won’t be able to go far; idle up or wait for traffic to start moving before accelerating
• Shift into neutral and Coast downhill (Preserve momentum where possible by avoiding breaking.)
• Don’t run your air conditioning (Sometimes I run it just to cool the car off after it’s been sitting in the sun, or periodically but not continuously.)
• Keep your windows rolled up (Of course, it’s not moderate to do both in summer.)
• Don’t keep a roof rack on when not in use
• In highway driving, do not exceed 60 mph
• Park at the highest point in a parking lot, facing out so you can roll (in neutral) to start; turn your car on only when you run out of momentum
• Avoid traffic (You can turn your car off in stand-still traffic.)
Extreme and Dangerous Hypermiling Techniques
• Overinflating your tires (This compromises your ability to break)
• Driving in the draft of a tractor trailer truck (The driver can’t see you; you may not have time to stop.)
• Turning off engine while coasting (Some cars can’t be controlled under these circumstances.)
We don’t get 50 miles to the gallon, but our mileage has improved significantly. In his Mazda Protégé, my husband got 30 more miles than usual from a tank of gas just by coasting! Our Honda CR-V currently gets 22.5 rather than 18.5 in solid city driving. I’m finding too, that the longer I do it, the better my results. I think you begin to notice the opportunities to coast more, develop a feel for slow, steady acceleration and gain confidence over time. I am much more likely to coast while tracing regular routes than while going somewhere new. There is one .5+ mile stretch near my house that I can travel without touching the accelerator as long as I start with a little momentum. It is also easier to anticipate lights when you know their patterns.
It’s kind of fun too! Hypermiling makes driving an automatic almost as much fun as driving stick.
I hope readers will try some of these techniques. Almost everybody is coming around to the conclusion that we need to burn less fossil fuel (Even George Bush!—sort of). Hybrid cars are expensive. Riding a bike isn’t feasible for everyone. Moderate Hypermiling is something anyone can do to burn and emit less and love the planet more.
Sources:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/01/king_of_the_
hypermilers.html
http://www.boston.com/cars/news/articles/2007/06/03/
hypermilers_squeeze_every_drop_out_of_a_gas_tank/
Moderate Hypermiling Techniques
• Accelerate slowly
• Maintain your speed once you reach it by pressing very lightly on the gas
• Avoid extraneous breaking
• Anticipate lights (Red light ahead? Shift into neutral early enough to roll to a stop.)
• Don’t accelerate to move up when you know you won’t be able to go far; idle up or wait for traffic to start moving before accelerating
• Shift into neutral and Coast downhill (Preserve momentum where possible by avoiding breaking.)
• Don’t run your air conditioning (Sometimes I run it just to cool the car off after it’s been sitting in the sun, or periodically but not continuously.)
• Keep your windows rolled up (Of course, it’s not moderate to do both in summer.)
• Don’t keep a roof rack on when not in use
• In highway driving, do not exceed 60 mph
• Park at the highest point in a parking lot, facing out so you can roll (in neutral) to start; turn your car on only when you run out of momentum
• Avoid traffic (You can turn your car off in stand-still traffic.)
Extreme and Dangerous Hypermiling Techniques
• Overinflating your tires (This compromises your ability to break)
• Driving in the draft of a tractor trailer truck (The driver can’t see you; you may not have time to stop.)
• Turning off engine while coasting (Some cars can’t be controlled under these circumstances.)
We don’t get 50 miles to the gallon, but our mileage has improved significantly. In his Mazda Protégé, my husband got 30 more miles than usual from a tank of gas just by coasting! Our Honda CR-V currently gets 22.5 rather than 18.5 in solid city driving. I’m finding too, that the longer I do it, the better my results. I think you begin to notice the opportunities to coast more, develop a feel for slow, steady acceleration and gain confidence over time. I am much more likely to coast while tracing regular routes than while going somewhere new. There is one .5+ mile stretch near my house that I can travel without touching the accelerator as long as I start with a little momentum. It is also easier to anticipate lights when you know their patterns.
It’s kind of fun too! Hypermiling makes driving an automatic almost as much fun as driving stick.
I hope readers will try some of these techniques. Almost everybody is coming around to the conclusion that we need to burn less fossil fuel (Even George Bush!—sort of). Hybrid cars are expensive. Riding a bike isn’t feasible for everyone. Moderate Hypermiling is something anyone can do to burn and emit less and love the planet more.
Sources:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/01/king_of_the_
hypermilers.html
http://www.boston.com/cars/news/articles/2007/06/03/
hypermilers_squeeze_every_drop_out_of_a_gas_tank/
Monday, April 9, 2007
On throwing it all away:
At a time when we are facing what is perhaps the worst crisis in human history--man-made global climate change-- why are we adding more throw away items to the pantheon of consumer products? Do we need disposable everything? Is a little convenience worth the demise of our planet—our only home?
I’m talking about throw-away mop heads, toilet brushes, bibs, food storage containers, dusting cloths, as well as products that increase the amount of cleaning product you use to do a job like cleaning your toilet or shower by automating it. I’ve never tried one of these things but I’ll hazard a wild guess: you probably have to scrub at least occasionally anyway. (Personally I find that good old (cheap old) baking soda and vinegar, along with a little elbow grease, clean just about everything very well and anything else can be dealt with by Citra-Solv or Ecover All Purpose Lemon Cleaner.)
The marketing strategy of cleaning products companies is fairly transparent. Disposable mop heads and toilet brushes mean you need to buy more products from them! Gizmos that continuously and automatically spray or drip chemicals into your toilet or shower are wasting your money as well as our environment.
Disposable diapers and their attendant disposal contraptions may be the worst offenders of all. People think I’m a little crazy because I cloth diaper my son, but it’s really not that difficult. Ask any mother of a baby or small child, she’ll tell you she does laundry (and has close encounters with poop) almost every day anyway. And our diaper bucket barely smells. We don’t individually wrap every paper and plastic-heavy diaper in its own plastic bag or shrink wrap bubble or take the trash out every day because the kaka is where it belongs: in the toilet! (By the way, technically it is illegal to put human waste in the trash. If you don’t believe me, check the small print on a bag of disposable diapers!) The clincher? Cloth diapering will save you approximately $3,000 by the time you potty train each kid! (source: www.babyworks.com)
It’s not just paper or aluminum that counts. Everything that you buy, use, even recycle, puts additional demand on all kinds of resources: trees, water, fossil fuels (which in turn pollute our atmosphere) through not just its manufacture, but its packaging, transport and disposal.
If more people put a little extra thought into their purchases and a little extra elbow grease into their household chores, we might all get to live here on Earth just a little longer.
If you love convenience mops like many of my friends, check out new products with removable, machine washable mopheads by Casabella (available at Linens ‘n Things, Whole Foods and The Container Store), and other brands at www.gaiam.com and www.realgoods.com
If I haven't quite convinced you that you want to cloth diaper but you want to do a little better than plastic-heavy diapers and a Diaper Genie there are some good eco disposables out there: Tushies Gel-free are my favorite for traveling, Seventh Generation and Whole Foods are non-chlorine bleached, and new g diapers are semi-reusable. With any diaper, you can knock most of the kaka into the toilet easily saving you from using another layer of plastic to save yourself from the smell.
I’m talking about throw-away mop heads, toilet brushes, bibs, food storage containers, dusting cloths, as well as products that increase the amount of cleaning product you use to do a job like cleaning your toilet or shower by automating it. I’ve never tried one of these things but I’ll hazard a wild guess: you probably have to scrub at least occasionally anyway. (Personally I find that good old (cheap old) baking soda and vinegar, along with a little elbow grease, clean just about everything very well and anything else can be dealt with by Citra-Solv or Ecover All Purpose Lemon Cleaner.)
The marketing strategy of cleaning products companies is fairly transparent. Disposable mop heads and toilet brushes mean you need to buy more products from them! Gizmos that continuously and automatically spray or drip chemicals into your toilet or shower are wasting your money as well as our environment.
Disposable diapers and their attendant disposal contraptions may be the worst offenders of all. People think I’m a little crazy because I cloth diaper my son, but it’s really not that difficult. Ask any mother of a baby or small child, she’ll tell you she does laundry (and has close encounters with poop) almost every day anyway. And our diaper bucket barely smells. We don’t individually wrap every paper and plastic-heavy diaper in its own plastic bag or shrink wrap bubble or take the trash out every day because the kaka is where it belongs: in the toilet! (By the way, technically it is illegal to put human waste in the trash. If you don’t believe me, check the small print on a bag of disposable diapers!) The clincher? Cloth diapering will save you approximately $3,000 by the time you potty train each kid! (source: www.babyworks.com)
It’s not just paper or aluminum that counts. Everything that you buy, use, even recycle, puts additional demand on all kinds of resources: trees, water, fossil fuels (which in turn pollute our atmosphere) through not just its manufacture, but its packaging, transport and disposal.
If more people put a little extra thought into their purchases and a little extra elbow grease into their household chores, we might all get to live here on Earth just a little longer.
If you love convenience mops like many of my friends, check out new products with removable, machine washable mopheads by Casabella (available at Linens ‘n Things, Whole Foods and The Container Store), and other brands at www.gaiam.com and www.realgoods.com
If I haven't quite convinced you that you want to cloth diaper but you want to do a little better than plastic-heavy diapers and a Diaper Genie there are some good eco disposables out there: Tushies Gel-free are my favorite for traveling, Seventh Generation and Whole Foods are non-chlorine bleached, and new g diapers are semi-reusable. With any diaper, you can knock most of the kaka into the toilet easily saving you from using another layer of plastic to save yourself from the smell.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
On jellyfish and other delicacies:
I went to the New England Aquarium the other day. I thought I was just taking my son to see the fish and the penguins but I got another reminder of our impending doom instead.
Right now there is a special exhibit on jellies, so we checked it out. I’ve never liked running into them at the beach, but they are kinda pretty. Problem is, they are taking over the oceans! Apparently jellies are much better at adapting to global overheating* than fish. Before global temperatures started to rise, fish hatched each year before jellies began reproducing. Now the water warms earlier and the jellies are feeding while the fish are laying eggs and hatching. Jellies eat fish eggs and young as well as the plankton the fish need to survive. Meanwhile people are overfishing, making it that much harder for fish to compete. There was a video in the exhibit showing shrimpers bringing in a net full of jellies with just a sprinkling of shrimp!
My sister and brother- in-law were with us at the aquarium. They are both planetary scientists and they say that global change is already occurring: temperatures are increasing and weather is becoming more erratic. The good news is: we can slow the changes by finding alternatives to fossil fuel use and we need to do so right away. The bad news is: no matter what we do at this point, things will not go back to how they were. At some level, we’ll need to do like the jellies and adapt to climate change. Better learn to love peanut butter and jellyfish sandwiches!
*I was at a Move On Political Action movie night in Roslindale, Massachusetts a few months ago to view "An Inconvenient Truth" and the group was discussing climate change. A man whose name I don’t remember said he thought “global warming” was too benign a name for a global crisis of this magnitude. He threw out “global overheating” as an alternative. I agree so I’ve started saying global overheating in hopes it will catch on. In the movie there’s a cartoon about a frog in a pot of water. Apparently, if you put a frog in boiling water, he’ll jump right back out. If, however, you put him in cold water and slowly heat it, he’ll die without ever knowing what hit him. We’re the frog. We need to be shocked into action. We need the language we use to describe this crisis to remind us constantly just how dire it is.
Right now there is a special exhibit on jellies, so we checked it out. I’ve never liked running into them at the beach, but they are kinda pretty. Problem is, they are taking over the oceans! Apparently jellies are much better at adapting to global overheating* than fish. Before global temperatures started to rise, fish hatched each year before jellies began reproducing. Now the water warms earlier and the jellies are feeding while the fish are laying eggs and hatching. Jellies eat fish eggs and young as well as the plankton the fish need to survive. Meanwhile people are overfishing, making it that much harder for fish to compete. There was a video in the exhibit showing shrimpers bringing in a net full of jellies with just a sprinkling of shrimp!
My sister and brother- in-law were with us at the aquarium. They are both planetary scientists and they say that global change is already occurring: temperatures are increasing and weather is becoming more erratic. The good news is: we can slow the changes by finding alternatives to fossil fuel use and we need to do so right away. The bad news is: no matter what we do at this point, things will not go back to how they were. At some level, we’ll need to do like the jellies and adapt to climate change. Better learn to love peanut butter and jellyfish sandwiches!
*I was at a Move On Political Action movie night in Roslindale, Massachusetts a few months ago to view "An Inconvenient Truth" and the group was discussing climate change. A man whose name I don’t remember said he thought “global warming” was too benign a name for a global crisis of this magnitude. He threw out “global overheating” as an alternative. I agree so I’ve started saying global overheating in hopes it will catch on. In the movie there’s a cartoon about a frog in a pot of water. Apparently, if you put a frog in boiling water, he’ll jump right back out. If, however, you put him in cold water and slowly heat it, he’ll die without ever knowing what hit him. We’re the frog. We need to be shocked into action. We need the language we use to describe this crisis to remind us constantly just how dire it is.
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