Eco-Chick · The modern girl's guide to living green & fabulous.

Global War by Dawn Maxey

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by Ann Benoit · 02/08/08

I was introduced to Dawn Maxey’s spoken word poetry at the recent AIGA Compost Modern event.

Here’s some excerpts from her very spirited poem, “Global War” about eco-hype:

But then/ just the other day,
I began to notice people at Whole Foods with entire shopping carts full of ‘organic’ and ‘go green’ items. These people are the same ones that say things like “did I bump into you? I’m sorry. I just didn’t expect this ENVIRONMENTALLY SAFE dishwashing soap to be so heavy.”
I want to pour environmentally safe salt in their eyes.

In fact, I imagine a day when things get so bad you’ll live in a glass house so that everyone can see you wake up in the morning, get out of your organic soy bean bed and pack your “this is not a plastic bag”, bag. You’ll open a box of Tony the tiger’s non hydrogenated hypoallergenic free trade grain flakes, and drive your not-tested-on-animals bicycle to work. Then you’ll help Nike ‘save’ the rainforest by branding large red swooshes on all the lemurs or maybe organize a photo shoot for Abercrombie’s new cotton free cotton underwear.

Green is chic now, but when the stock market of trends crashes
no one will want to be caught dead with biodegradable polos, environmentally safe dirt, or toilet paper made from corn husks.
the earth will be just as trashed as Lindsay Lohan in a Bacardi factory
and people will care
even less

So how do you fix the problem?
Make being green
sustainable
show people that it’s not hip or trendy or fun to be green
it’s an obligation

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How Green is Your Vote?

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by Kimberly Jordan Allen · 02/07/08

One of our readers pointed out a lack of political discourse on environmental issues. Earthlab has compiled a breakdown of what the candidates wish to accomplish with regard to the environment. Alex, thanks for bringing this up and for the link from earthlab!

2008 Presidential Candidates – Environment

Top Democrat Positions

Hillary Clinton
Clinton’s plans to tackle global warming revolve around her Strategic Energy Fund. She states that, “As a nation, it is time we take the giant leap in energy innovation we desperately need and that is exactly what the Strategic Energy Fund will do.” The fund sketches out a plan to inject $50 billion into research and development of renewable energy, clean coal technology, energy efficiency, ethanol and other “homegrown” biofuels. The fund draws revenue by eliminating oil companies’ tax breaks, making sure they pay their fair share for drilling operations on public lands, and encouraging them to either invest in renewable energy or pay into the fund directly. “By pursuing these opportunities, we can grow the economy and shrink our dependence on foreign oil. We can slow global warming and speed the creation of good new jobs. We can protect our security and protect our environment.”

Barack Obama
Obama’s proposal to reduce global warming involves the implementation of an economy-wide, market-based cap-and-trade system. “No business will be allowed to emit any greenhouse gases for free,” Obama states. “Businesses don’t own the sky, the public does, and if we want them to stop polluting it, we have to put a price on all pollution.” This ambitious cap-and-trade system will auction off 100 percent of emissions permits, making polluters pay for the CO2 they emit. The system also mandates the reduction of emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Obama plans on investing $150 billion in “climate friendly” energy supplies, such as ethanol, over the next ten years, while simultaneously maintaining and protecting the existing manufacturing base. “My general view is that we should experiment with all sorts of potential energy sources,” says Obama. “Don’t prejudge what works and what doesn’t, but insist that we have very strict standards in terms of where we want to end up, and enforce those standards vigorously.”

Top Republican Positions

Mitt Romney
When asked what he plans on doing about the global climate crisis, Romney’s answer is concise; “We’re going to get ourselves off foreign oil. And to do that it’s going to take nuclear power, clean coal, more efficient vehicles, and then we’re going to dramatically reduce our greenhouse gasses.” Romney emphasizes a push toward clean coal, alternative energy, and a greatly expanded nuclear power plan. “Instead of sweeping mandates, we must use America’s power of innovation to develop alternative sources of energy and new technology that use energy more efficiently.” Romney articulates that this technology includes the use of ethanol, but not exclusively. He plans to continue development of multiple energy sources within the U.S., including biodiesel, liquefied coal, offshore drilling, and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,

John McCain
McCain believes that America’s economic and environmental interests are not “mutually exclusive, but rather inextricably linked.” His approach to global warming involves limiting carbon emissions by bringing nuclear energy to the forefront of the market, which will reduce America’s dependence on foreign supplies of energy. These concepts are outlined in his Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act, along with his plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions substantially enough to forestall catastrophic global warming. Implementing these reductions involves setting mandatory greenhouse gas pollution reductions in all major sectors of the U.S. economy, using free-market incentives to lower costs, and providing support for technology innovations. “Americans solve problems. We don’t run from them,” states McCain on the environmental page of his Web site. “Most, if not all of the ways that we can address this issue are through profit motive, free-enterprise-system-driven green technologies.”

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Nature Kids, Hot Water Woes, and Pellet Stoves

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by Starre Vartan · 02/01/08

I want my child to connect with nature, but how can a suburban park be designed to both protect visitors from Lyme disease–carrying ticks and restore the natural ecosystem?
—Lena Crandall, Scarsdale, NY

The funny thing about wildlife (even the kind that finds its way into parks and playgrounds in developed areas) is that it’s wild and therefore not completely controllable. In order to eliminate Lyme disease–carrying ticks, you would have to ban all warm-blooded animals and pave over the greenery. Still, you wouldn’t be creating an optimal environment for children. “In a matter of a few decades kids’ interactions with nature have been reduced significantly compared with all of human history,” says Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods. “A new body of evidence suggests getting kids out-
side, which engages all the senses, leads to a longer attention span, increases in cognitive development, and [reduces] stress.”

So unless you want your child to grow up playing in a parking lot, the best way to avoid deer ticks is prevention. “You can’t really prevent ticks from being in outdoor areas, but you can be proactive about your own actions,” says Beth Herr, pro-
gram director at New York’s Westchester County Parks Department. (New York had more cases of Lyme disease in 2006 than any other state.) “Be sure that you tuck your pants into your socks, wear light-colored clothing, and check yourself and your child for ticks right after using outdoor facilities.”
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I’m considering buying a tankless water heater. With all their great energy-saving features, why haven’t these systems caught on?
—Louis Weiss, Berkeley, CA

Whoever invented the storage water heaters most of us have in our homes today must have been thinking of how best to waste energy instead of save it. Think about it: Conventional systems keep water warmed to skin-scrubbing temps 24/7 even though hot water is needed for only an hour or two a day. Tankless (or demand) types do just the opposite: Water is heated instantly when you turn on the shower. Since roughly 13 percent of a home’s energy is used for this purpose, making the switch to a tankless kind could save an average of about $180 a year, and also help reduce your family’s carbon footprint.

If you choose a natural gas–burning model, it will use about 30 percent less energy than an electric one, and you can up the efficiency even more by picking a unit with an intermittent ignition rather than a constantly burning pilot light. (Two companies that sell such models are Bosch and Takagi.)

You will also save water. “You don’t need to run the shower waiting for the hot water, which wastes an average of five gallons every time you do it,” says Claudia Chandler, assis-
tant executive director for the California Energy Commission.

So why haven’t these caught on? Tankless heaters supply two to five gallons of water a minute, which might not be enough when you want to take a shower and run the dishwasher at the same time. A simple solution is to just add another unit. You will never run out of water completely, as with other heaters. While a tankless unit might be more expensive up front, you will save so much on your electricity bill it could pay for itself in as little as two years. You might also enjoy a windfall come April 15. The federal government and many states (see Energy Star and DSIRE) now offer rebates and tax deductions for energy-efficient appliances, including a $300 credit for certain tankless water heaters installed between January 1, 2007, and December 31, 2007.
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I might start heating my home with wood pellets. Is this a sustainable resource?
—Jon Bradford, Lancaster, PA

What could be cozier than the smell of wood smoke drifting over a snowy landscape? Until the early 1900s, 90 percent of Americans heated their homes with wooden logs, which are a renewable resource, since trees can be planted to replace those cut for fuel. When fossil fuels became cheaper and more widely available, many people switched from the messy fires that needed constant stoking to furnaces that burned oil or natural gas (which are both finite, nonrenewable fuels).

Concerns about global warming, rising fuel prices, and ground-level air pollution have led some homeowners to rethink how they heat their homes, and wood is slowly making a comeback. Unfortunately, traditional wood stoves and fireplaces contribute to local air pollution, since they produce particulates (few older stoves have an air smoke filter), and they can be high maintenance to keep going. Stoves that run on pellets instead of logs are cleaner and require less upkeep (picture a bag of half-inch-long pellets instead of logs).

The fuel for these stoves is also sustainable, as most pellets are made of compacted sawdust, waste paper, and bark, all by-products of the paper, agriculture, or lumber industries. Sawdust wood pellets produce the least amount of ash. Some stoves can also burn other biofuels, including soybeans, corn kernels, nutshells, barley, and cherry pits, that might otherwise end up in landfills. But make sure your stove can handle alternative fuels before trying them.

You might also have an energy auditor or certified provider come check out your house to see what size stove you need based on the area you want to heat and how well it is insu-
lated. Most pellet stoves do need to be plugged in to run their fans and controls; you can expect to use about $9 worth of electricity per month. Setup for a pellet stove is faster than for a wood stove, and about half the price. Although a pellet stove costs considerably more than a wood stove ($1,700 to $3,000 compared with $400 to $700), the pellet stove could pay for itself in as little as four years.

From my column “Green Guru” at Audubon Magazine.

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Living Modestly Is Not Uncomfortable

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by Katie Kish · 01/27/08

I hate that living modestly is starting to be equated with disregarding the comforts that we’ve been given… instead of a noble and earth saving way of life.

I have a group of friends who all live together. In a maximum 6 person house (4 “real” bedrooms) there are 13 people. They have no television, only a couple of them have a computer, when I go over there are rarely lights on and they in no way went out of their way to buy new furniture or anything for the house. On top of these smaller things they also bike around – no one owns a car – cook together with vegan, organic, dumpster dived food and they run the house on grey water.

Just a quick summary for those who don’t know – dumpster diving is when you take food out of a dumpster to eat it. A lot of people get a little grossed out by this thought however having worked in a grocery store I assure you there is more than plenty of completely fresh and fine food being thrown out. Before knowing people who dumpstered I often thought “why would those dumpsters be locked???” but now I know that for whatever reason some grocery stores don’t want people stealing their garbage.

Grey water is essentially just reusing water. Most houses that are being built in Guelph are already implementing grey water systems directly into the house by connecting washing machine water to toilets. Said friends put the plug in during a shower and use shower water to flush toilets. And to be honest – the toilets don’t get flushed that often anyway.

For me, this would be an almost impossible way of living. I hate being cold, they never have the heater one. I live on my computer, they don’t have internet. I drink a liter of milk a day, they never drink milk. I will never will with a roommate ever again in my entire life unless I’m getting married, they live with 12 other people. It takes a lot of dedication and passion for the environmental movement to live this kind of lifestyle.

When I told my brother and a friend of mine about this they had the same reaction “that’s disgusting”. … I said that you would just have to get used it, but then they corrected me. Neither meant that it was physically disgusting, but that it was disgusting to see people choosing to live like “the poor”. They felt as though this was a mockery to people who couldn’t afford food, who couldn’t afford to live with just one family in a house and who couldn’t afford to keep their hydro on. Instead you have a household of by no means rich, but by no mean poor… group of kids who are choosing to not work and live like that. They choose to eat “garbage”, to be cold and to stay in the dark.

I brushed it off at the time, but it is now one thing that has been running through my head day in and day out. The only reason grocery stores throw out “almost” expired food is because if they lower the price people won’t buy the higher priced food – so they just keep it until it doesn’t make sense to sell it at the same price point and then toss out the perfectly good food.

Granted, dumpstering started out as a way to beat economic struggling but soon became a haven for “freeganism” (those who want to escape the consumerist life and culture) so it is backpacking off something poor people WERE doing. But with grey water… 50 – 80% of all residential water waste is from grey water.

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Smartest Car; Still Worse Than The Dumbest Bike

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by Katie Kish · 12/30/07

The process of buying and making new cars isn’t the solution to this enormous fossil fuel problem we’re having. Hackneyed as it might seem, we need to develop long term sustainable community transportation, AND to rethink the way that we structure our lives around cars.

Buying a smart car is kind of like putting a band aid on a giant gash- technically, at a minuscule level, it’s helping- but if your concern stops at your purchase, you’re still going bleed to death… and worse, you may begin to confuse consumerism with activism. Often, trying to change the world by buying things isn’t really creating the change that companies convince us it is.

However, having said all that…

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