Green Daily

As a former English teacher, I am, essentially, a recovering language junkie. Having spent a decade red-penning papers, correcting grammar and mechanics, and generally defending the ramparts of Western civilization against the incursion of logical fallacies, I still tend to be a little bit obsessive about the misuse of the English language.

For the most part, I have recovered from my teaching-imposed illness, but I still have my prickly side. When I see somebody deliberately misusing the language, I tend to get a little ticked off. I imagine myself, wearing a tunic emblazoned with the image of George Orwell, attending the execution of English abusers.

Don't judge me; we all have our little daydreams.

Recently, Audrae Erickson, President of the Corn Refiners Association, took her place in my personal rogues' gallery of language abusers. In response to a report that some brands of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) have been found to contain measurable levels of mercury, she offered the following press release:

As we noted back in October, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have begun a campaign to rename the aquatic beasts "sea kittens." Campaign coordinator Ashley Byrne has made the organization's position clear, stating that "Most parents would never dream of spending a weekend torturing kittens for fun with their families, but hooking a sea kitten through the mouth and dragging her through the water is the same as hooking a kitten through the mouth and dragging her behind your car."

There is not yet any word on whether PETA (also known as "the gerbil-brained tofu munchers of the liberal fringe") will follow up this assertion by dumping yarn balls and catnip into the ocean.

While PETA's dastardly plot to undermine scientific taxonomy has only been promoted in North Carolina, their plan to take it nationwide are already facing kickback, notably in Alaska, whose economy is dependent on the fishing industry. Mary Powers, a fisheries observer, noted, "It seems like it's discouraging Americans to buy our product, which is unpatriotic." Another critic cited errors on PETA's site, pointing out that fish are not even remotely as intelligent as the activists claim.

On the bright side, PETA's renaming of fish has, once again, made them appear so incredibly flaky that the rest of America's liberal causes seem almost conservative by comparison. On the downside, their campaign against one of the leanest meats may sway some gullible consumers away from a particularly healthy dish. One may hope, however, that fish (which I like to call "the tofu of the sea") will live up to its reputation as brain food, swaying its devotees to continue consuming it!

Okay, this is more of a social justice than an environmental issue, but it's still pretty interesting...

Beginning in 2005, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has used his country's state-owned petroleum company, Citgo, to highlight the class-based policies of the Bush administration. On the one hand, Citgo has generally priced its gas slightly below that of its competitors, and has aggressively touted the fact that much of its profits go toward helping Venezuela's underclass. On another front, Chavez has used Citgo to subsidize heating oil for America's disadvantaged communities. For America's President, who wears his oil bona fides like a badge of honor, Citgo's policies have been a serious black eye.

Over the past few months, with Obama on his way in and gasoline prices on the way down, Chavez has been faced with a difficult problem. After all, while Citgo's heating oil subsidies highlight America's economic inequities and, not coincidentally, help 200,000 households in 23 states, they are also really expensive. Moreover, with revenues decreasing, Chavez's citizens could probably use the cash.

Early this week, Citgo suspended the program; however, by Wednesday, they had reinstated it, allegedly at the behest of President Chavez. While the political impact of Venezuela's foreign aid is certainly painful to many American politicians, there is no question that it provides vital help to some of the country's neediest citizens. With winter scratching at the door, it's nice to know that some political ploys CAN keep you warm at night!

A few years ago, the idea of socially conscious food pretty much began and ended with Newman's Own products. Over the years, however, as ideas like organic, sustainable, and fair trade have entered common usage, grocery stores, restaurants, and numerous food companies have laid claim to the socially conscious label. One of the latest is Me and Goji, a website that lets you design your own breakfast cereal.

Me and Goji comes pretty cloe to the platonic ideal of a perfect cereal website. In a clear, easy-to understand manner, it allows users to combine a wide-range of flakes, nuts, fruits, and flavors to make a personalized cereal. As customers add and subtract from their "bowl," the sidebar keeps track of the price and nutritional info of their concoction. Information about the origins and composition of ingredients is available at the click of a mouse, as are recommendations and advice. Having designed the perfect cereal, customers can name it, save the recipe, and order capsules of it. Delivery is quick and easy, and the saved recipe makes re-ordering a snap.

In addition to using all natural, organic ingredients, Me and Goji donates 5% of its profits to charity. Moreover, through initiatives like their October 2008 "[pink] and Goji" breast cancer awareness cereal they have increased knowledge of various good causes, while giving customers an opportunity to show their social conscience through their food choices. They even offer "green tags" to help users offset the carbon used in shipping!

Perhaps best of all, Me and Goji produces tasty, wholesome cereals. While socially conscious food is hardly a new idea, it's nice to see a company that makes it so incredibly good!

It's rare that ecological conservation and meat consumption go hand-in-hand, but Ken Holyak has found a way to marry these two strange bedfellows. According to some experts, the earth is currently in the middle of a worldwide mass extinction, in which thousands of animal species are dying off in droves. One of the groups that has been hardest hit is amphibians, particularly frogs.

This, in turn, has led to devastation in the frog leg market. Famous as a French foodstuff, the legs are particularly popular in China, where attempts at farm-raised frogs have led to the development of meat that some chefs describe as "muddy-tasting" and "dark."

Ken Holyoak, a Georgia aquaculturist, has come up with a creative, elegant solution. By developing a collection of controlled artificial ponds, swamps, and waterways, he has produced the world's first free-range, cultivated frogs. His frogs are not only a source of healthy, organic meat, but also constitute an impressive attempt at conservation. While amphibians are dying off around the world, Holyoak is raising approximately 150,000 per year for sale to restaurants, markets, and individuals.

While I'm that some would against Mr. Holyoak's methods (or against eating frogs in the first place!), there's a lot to be said for any endeavor that works to keep huge quantities of frogs on the planet!

In the early 1960's, during a vacation in the Caribbean, one of Heineken's brewers noticed two major problems: the beaches were covered with discarded beer bottles and the people didn't have reasonably-priced building materials. Seeking to kill two birds with one stone, Heineken created the "world bottle" (WOBO), also known as "the brick that holds beer." Basically a rectangular-shaped beer bottle, world bottles were designed to fit comfortably end-to-end, making it possible to make walls, doors, and windows without cutting the bottles.

Although Heineken made a small production run of the world bottles, they were never released to the public. Today, only two WOBO structures exist: a shed on the Heineken estate and a wall at the Heineken museum in Amsterdam. However, even though the world bottle never went into production, other people have found a way to turn left over Heineken bottles into livable structures.

Using one million discarded Heineken and Chang beer bottles, Buddhist monks in Sisaket, Thailand constructed the Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew monastery. A beautiful, graceful structure, it shows that there really is no limit to what a recycling program can accomplish!

Recently, as gas prices have dropped precipitously, pundits across the land have begun the tedious process of explaining a phenomenon that is actually pretty clear-cut. Some have claimed that prices have fallen because of the recession, while others have attributed it to a dark and twisted plot on the part of George Bush. Some claim that it is the result of seasonal fluctuations in fuel usage, while others blame commodities speculation.

While all of these theories have their good points, they seem to miss a major trend that has played out over the past forty years: as gas prices rise, consumers change their consumption habits. Whenever these changes start to inspire a national dialogue about reducing fuel consumption, gas prices inevitably drop. While this process could be coincidental, it seems far more likely that oil producers are raising prices to maximize their profit; when discussion begins on alternative fuel sources, they recognize that they've maxed out the market, and drop prices. This, incidentally, is pretty close to T. Boone Pickens' take on the issue.

One solution to this problem would be to institute a major, federally-funded push for an efficient, inexpensive form of public transportation. This could, conceivably, reduce reliance upon automobiles and airplanes, saving fuel and bringing the country a great deal closer to energy independence. Unfortunately, while passenger rail offers an intriguing solution, complaints about Amtrak's cost, inconsistent service, and limited travel area tend to shut down the discussion. The general argument states that Amtrak is less reliable, takes longer, and has fewer routes than airlines, and is far less comfortable than comparable European passenger rail systems. Critics usually finish the argument with a blanket statement about the huge size of the United States and the citizenry's natural distaste for public transportation, implicitly arguing that the country is, fundamentally, unsuited to passenger rail.

These arguments are neither accurate nor completely fair. To begin with, comparing Amtrak to automobiles, commercial airlines or European rail lines suggests that there is equity in their respective funding. In truth, Amtrak's funding is far smaller than that of its competitors. European rail lines, for example, are heavily subsidized by their respective governments, while Amtrak regularly has to fight tooth and nail to cover its yearly operating budget.

On the bright side, Amtrak recently secured funding of $2.6 billion per year through 2013. However, while this may seem like a lot of money, it's worth noting that the government spends $10 billion per year on America' s highway trust fund, while the FAA alone gets $2.7 billion per year (this, by the way, only represents a small part of the yearly public expenditure on air travel). In fact, federal expenditures on transport are roughly $40 per passenger for Amtrak, versus $500 to $700 per automobile on the highway. Passenger by passenger, rail travel costs the federal government a fraction of the price of other forms of transportation.

Another point of contention is the question of private versus public passenger rail. Advocates of private passenger rail point to the golden days of rail travel, when tickets were cheap, accomodations were luxe and the food was legendary. However, this is also an unfair comparison. As noted railway consultant Ted Michon points out, in the golden age of passenger rail, the railroads didn't have any competion. There were no planes or buses, and the highway grid was far from complete. There was only one carrier per area, and the major rail companies colluded to fix prices. While seemingly cheap by today's standards, rail prices represented the limit that the market would bear.

To bring passenger rail into the future, Amtrak will need a significant, long-term commitment from the Federal government. Michon points out that it takes a year and a half to build rolling stock, which means that Amtrak can't easily power up and drop down to adjust for customer demand. In terms of increasing speed, former Amtrak President Alex Kummant notes that, while high-speed trains are a possibility, they would cost somewhere along the lines of $40 billion, a sum that is almost unimaginable to a rail line that has, traditionally, had to fight for an operating budget of $500 to $600 million per year. However, Kummant also points out that much smaller budget increases could massively increase speed and ridership along many of Amtrak's most popular lines.

While the recent drop in gas prices has slowed down the conversation on public transportation, it has grown increasingly clear that an energy-efficient, well-run, and sustainable rail system could provide answers for many of the problems that currently plague American travelers. With any luck, the next few years might bring us closer to making it a reality!

In a list of environmental hazards, most people would place cigarette smoking somewhere around the bottom, several steps below air conditioning and a couple of notches above snail farts. While the effect of burning tobacco can be pretty annoying up close, on a global scale, it can't compare to uncapped chimneys, coal dust, or car exhaust.

On the other hand, between the nicotine-laden butts that they leave behind, the ash that they create, and the massive cost of production, cigarettes certainly make their mark on the planet. What's more, on an individual level, they reduce the air quality in numerous public spaces and have a terrible effect on their users.

Obviously, it would be ideal if every smoker would quit the demon weed, governments would underwrite a massive program to pay tobacco farmers to grow radicchio, and cigarette manufacturers would retool to produce inexpensive, environmentally-sustainable teddy bears that they would then donate to orphans. Unfortunately, however, we don't live in an ideal world, and the differences that we pursue are usually not between sustainable and unsustainable but between unsustainable and slightly less unsustainable.

With that in mind, it's worth noting that United Drinks and Beauty, a Dutch company, is about to launch its English release of "Liquid Smoking," a non-addictive herbal beverage that supposedly delivers the same kick as cigarettes. It will retail for £1.50 per can, or about 1/3 the price of a pack of smokes in New York City.

Liquid Smoking doesn't contain any nicotine; instead, it relies on a secret, proprietary mix of "South African plants" to provide a kick, followed by a feeling of relaxation. I don't know where the plants come from, how they are grown, or what shipping method United Drinks uses to move them from point A to point B. I imagine that the production of Liquid Smoking probably leaves a lot to be desired, at least from a green perspective.

That having been said, if this product offers a legitimate option to smokers attempting to curb their habit, it could be very promising for American nicotine addicts. Speaking personally, I kicked my nicotine addiction through a combination of non-sustainable prescription drugs and non-sustainable absinthe. Ultimately, however, I stopped smoking two packs a day, stopped taking Welbutrin, and have even stopped drinking absinthe (largely because I can't really afford it). If Liquid Smoking helps its users to end a dangerous, polluting, unsustainable practice, perhaps we need to ask ourselves if a little unsustainability might be worth it.

A few months ago, I wrote a couple of pieces about prefab homes. The companies that I explored, dome house and Kithaus, offered relatively cheap, easy-to-build homes. These houses were at least as energy efficient as standard dwellings and, in the case of Dome House, far more so. On the other hand, they were somewhat awkward looking, suggesting that the prefab home had a long way to go before it could claim artistic merit.

According to New York's Museum of Modern Art, however, prefab homes have now, officially made the leap into Art. Cellophane house, a MOMA installation that went up this past summer, was a five-story, 1800 square foot prefab house that demonstrated (in the words of MOMA) that "A building is, at root, nothing more than an assemblage of materials forming an enclosure [...] While we tend to think of buildings as permanent, they are in fact only a resting state for materials, a temporary equilibrium that is destined to be upset by the entropic forces that drive the physical universe."

MOMA's justification seems a little esoteric, but the concept of an artistic kithouse is pretty cool. What's even better is that Living Homes' version of the Cellophane House, which costs a little over $200,000, has a LEED silver rating. How nice of Cellophane House's creator, Kieran Timberlake, to demonstrate that art and green living can go hand-in-hand!

I'm a sushi hound. I've loved the stuff since I was a kid, when admitting a taste for raw fish was about as socially acceptable as setting fire to things or eating paste. I love the smooth textures, the delicate flavors, and the sinus-clearing kick of fresh wasabi. I even love the sometimes-incomprehensible menus and the occasional touch of snide disdain that I get from hardened sushi waiters as they suggest some bizarre food that they think I'll be too timid to try. I especially love the look of surprise when I order mackerel ovaries, octopus eyeball, or whatever delicacy/dare they feel obliged to put in front of me.

On the other hand, my love of sushi comes at a considerable price. Given its rising popularity over the last twenty years, sushi has led to overfishing and the development of truly disgusting methods of farming. Today, many popular fish are now grown in filthy pens or stand at the brink of extinction.

Luckily, there is hope on the horizon. The Blue Ocean Institute, a conservation group, has published "Ocean Friendly Sushi," a guide that lists a wide variety of sushi types, ranking them based upon their populations, sustainability, harvesting methods, and relative safety. While hardcopies are available, Blue Ocean also offers a pdf version on their website. Alternately, the Monterey Bay Aquarium has regionally-based guides to sustainable sushi, which are also available for download. Sustainable sushi, here I come!

A couple of weeks ago, Christina Clark noted that Harper Collins had made plans to release The Green Bible in October. Now that the good book is on shelves, it's interesting to see how HC has worked to produce a text that really highlights sustainability, both in its package and its message. In addition to using recycled content paper, soy-based ink, and a cotton/linen cover, the publisher has ensured that the sources for its materials hew to the highest standards available. All of the book's virgin wood pulp is sourced from "well-managed forests," and the cover is produced by factories that purify both their wastewater and air before releasing them into the environment. The goal, clearly, is to produce a text that relieves purchasers of any sense of enviro-guilt, even as it sets a standard for clean publishing.

In terms of content, The Green Bible is equally audience-oriented. Rather than use the dense St. James version of the Bible, or another inaccessible translation, Harper Collins has chosen to go with the New Revised Standard Version, an easy-to-read version, with simple language that conveys effectively to a broad audience. While many editions use red ink to indicate Jesus' words, The Green Bible uses green ink to draw attention to verses that address the environment. This should be particularly useful to anyone who is trying to come up with the perfect Biblical anecdote to illustrate an environmentalist point.

Over the past few months, the Vatican has made a concerted effort to increase worldwide environmental awareness; it's moves have included the decision to go carbon neutral, the acknowledgment of environmental sins, and the Pope's claim that the earth has been plundered. This green tendency has highlighted a larger move toward what religious eco-activist J. Michael Sleeth calls "creation care," a theology that puts environmental activism on the forefront of man's relationship with God. It remains to be seen if the positioning of waste as a basically immoral act will have a lasting effect on humanity. In the meantime, The Green Bible makes a pretty good argument that Judeo-Christian spirituality and environmental awareness aren't mutually exclusive!

When I was a kid, I was active in the Boy Scouts; this meant that, at least once a month, I would hike out to the wilderness with twenty friends, sleep out in tents, build campfires, and generally fall asleep to the sounds of small animals being eviscerated by owls. In other words, I had a lot of fun.

Apart from developing a wary relationship to soap and a deep appreciation of my own pyromaniac tendencies, camping also helped me develop a considerable awareness of my own consumption and my relationship with the wilderness. Through years of packing in and packing out, cleaning trails and planting trees, I grew to realize just how much I consumed, both literally and figuratively. There's nothing like carrying all of one's food for an entire week in a backpack to drive home the idea of conspicuous consumption. For that matter, digging (and subsequently filling in) one's own latrine gives a very visceral idea of how human beings impact the environment.

Although I still like to hike with some regularity, it's been over two decades since I went on a real camping trip. However, I am still keenly aware of the lessons that camping taught me, and find that I am constantly reminded of my influence upon the world around me. With this in mind, I particularly enjoyed talking to Dave Nissen, one of the owners of Wanderlust tours, an Oregon-based environmental tourism company. Nissen and his wife Aleta founded the company in 1993 with the stated intention of offering sustainable, nature-based excursions in the central Oregon region.

Environmentalism is a hard thing, sometimes involving tough compromises between the ideal of completely sustainable behavior and the reality of day-to-day existence. I used to find this particularly tough when I went to my local whole foods store, where the hemp-clad employees regularly made pointed remarks about my leather shoes and dogged determination to remain an omnivore. Moreover, even the decision to shop in sustainable stores sometimes took a hit, particularly when I discovered that my local Wal-Mart had many of the same products as my health food joint, but charged about 20% less.

I try my best to do my part for the planet and, even if my attempt at apartment-based composting was a complete and utter disaster, I make an effort to buy products that are sustainable, biodegradable, and environmentally responsible. With this in mind, I was particularly pleased to discover Good Earth coffee. Although their coffee is completely organic, Good Earth costs roughly the same as most non-organic coffees and has a flavor that is as good, if not better, than most premium blends.

Talking to Cheryl Burn, Good Earth's Director of Quality and Product Development, I learned a great deal about how the company ensures consistently delicious coffee while remaining organic. The key, Cheryl told me, lay in blending coffee beans. Whereas many companies go with only one type of coffee, Good Earth mixes beans from around the world to ensure that its blends are consistent, regardless of limitations in supplies. Trying their rich, dark-roasted "Mystic" blend and their milder "Sienna" medium roast, I could taste how effective the company's blending techniques were; to put it bluntly, Good Earth's coffees were as delicious as any I've ever drunk.

Good Earth's commitment to the environment extends beyond their beans. Their packaging uses a biodegradable, cornstarch-based resin in place of polypropylene. While their coffee bags aren't completely renewable, the company is working toward total sustainability. Moreover, they recently unveiled their "Brew at Home" Pledge. Basically, for every person who promises to brew his or her coffee at home, Good Earth will donate $1 to The Trust for Public Land. Their ultimate goal is to sign up 20,000 home brewers, which should make an impressive dent in the 100 million pounds of uncompostable paper coffee cups that are dumped in landfills every year.

As I mentioned in the beginning, environmental awareness can be a hard standard to uphold. However, when a company uses organic growing processes, supports sustainable agriculture, works toward biodegradable packaging, and produces a first-rate product, some of these decisions become very easy!

With the ever-increasing popularity of greenwashing, it's getting almost impossible to find out if a product is genuinely safe for the environment. What makes it worse is the fact that so many "environmentally sound" products are either hideously expensive or don't really do their job all that well. I can't count the number of times I've found myself wasting way too many paper towels because the 100% recycled ones don't really absorb that much water, putting on twice as much deodorant because the "environmentally safe" brand doesn't really cover my body stench, or asking myself if the added cost of a "green" cleaner is worth the marginally smaller environmental impact. When I factor in the number of companies that use crude packaging and environmental buzzwords to sell me the same old toxic waste, the whole problem just gets ridiculous and I start fantasizing about throwing in the (bleached, non-recyclable) towel.

Thankfully, GoodGuide, a new consumer rating website, is making it possible to sort through the green hype to find out which products are actually worth the extra money and which are using environmental fears to sell snake oil. Although it is still in its beta stage, the site already has information on over 60,000 products and is in the process of massively expanding its offerings. Better yet, GoodGuide is developing a system that will allow users to access the site from their cell phones. When it is complete, customers will be able to download information about green products while they're shopping. Shopping for sustainable products just got a whole lot easier!

Over the past few months, as flooding, inflation, and exports have driven up the price of corn, it's become increasingly obvious that corn ethanol isn't necessarily the most effective medium for processing ethanol. In addition to its high price, it also is often carbon negative, depending upon the distance that it has to be transported and the fuel used to produce it.

The emphasis upon corn is somewhat bizarre, particularly given the fact that almost any organic matter can be used to produce ethanol. Some, like kudzu, are as effective as corn. Others, like sweet potatoes and cassavas are two to three times more effective. Still others, like biofuels, can be created from trash and have the side benefit of clearing out landfills and dumps.

Massive lobbying efforts aside, it's pretty clear that we need to seriously rethink our ethanol production program if we want it to have a real impact on the energy crisis. Corn alone just isn't going to cut it!