Well, it's time to wrap things up. What have I learned throughout this personal project? What do I still have left to learn? In a lot of ways, I think I've just scratched the surface of this particular topic, and there's a lot more out there to address.
This project went a different direction than I expected it to when I started out. I originally was planning on making some major changes to my diet. Instead, what I ended up with was a project more about learning what the impact was of the things I was already eating than it was about making radical changes to my eating habits. I ended up making some small changes to my diet, substituting more organic products for mass-produced food, and buying more local food than I ever had. In the process, I tried to analyze what impact both my old and new eating patterns were having on myself, my community, and the planet.
I've learned...
* That our food system is horrible for the planet, and not very good for people, either. It uses way too much land to grow food for both us and the animals we eat, is loaded with artificial crap, and emits a whole bunch of greenhouse gases into the air through both its production and in transporting our food to our plates.
* That industrial meat is probably the biggest culprit in our food system's destruction of the planet, and that we eat way too much of it. Even staying away from red meat can only have limited impacts if you replace it with other types of meat, like chicken or fish.
* That there are some little things that I can do to improve the situation, like by buying meat and produce that is locally farmed and learning to make more things from scratch rather than buying packaged food.
* That you always have to read the fine print, whether you're looking at labels on products or buying food from the farmer's market. What you think you end up getting is not always what you think. So read labels, talk to your local farmers about the practices they use to raise/grow their food, and make up your own mind about the products you're buying. Only buy those things that address the issues you care about or satisfy the goal you hope to achieve.
* That perhaps the biggest impact local food can have is on the local economy, which in turn effects the environmental impact your food choices have. Buying local food means local farmers have more money to expand their operations and hire more help, which in turn helps them expand their operations and sell more local food, and so on and so forth. In the process, more of your food comes from environmentally-friendly farmers (hopefully...see above about talking to farmers about their practices) and travels a shorter distance to get to your plate, which reduces your food's ecological footprint.
Still, there are many more things that I can and should be doing to improve upon my food choices and reduce my food's environmental impacts. To wit:
* Eat less meat. Despite the fact that I've mostly cut beef (the biggest contributor to our food system's huge ecological footprint) out, I've mostly replaced it with chicken. Though a chicken has less impact than a cow, the fact that we as Americans eat so damn many chickens eliminates a big portion of the gains one could achieve by switching from beef to chicken. So the bottom line is that less meat of any kind is good. I'm not saying I'm going to go fully vegetarian, because I just don't think I'm ready for that. But I need to be more of a vegetarian than I currently am. One way to do that might be to...
* Join a CSA. Community-supported agriculture delivers fresh fruit and vegetables from local farmers to your doorstep (okay, most of the time you have to go pick it up yourself instead of having it delivered) each week. There are several of them around Bloomington, and CSA's are popping up all over the country. And if I did join a CSA, it might force me to...
* Get even more creative about making more of my own food. There's still so much I feel like I can be doing differently that I have not yet done. Joining a CSA might cause me to make more vegetarian dishes. Again, it's not like I'd give up meat entirely, but making a vegetarian dish and shunning meat for a night certainly wouldn't kill me. Besides, meat is expensive, no matter where you buy it.
* Keep learning about the issues. There's plenty out there to read about our food system and how to make it more sustainable. I read parts of Food, Inc., which revealed how industrialized food has become in the name. But there's a lot more writing that discusses people's journeys through the food system and their attempts to change it. I'm hoping to delve into some of those writings in the near future.
So I guess that's it. The project has been good, but it's only been the tip of iceberg as far as learning about food and changing my diet. I'm looking forward to making some more of those changes in the coming months.
Have a great rest of the semester and enjoy your holidays.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Friday, December 9, 2011
Personal Project: A Look at My Food-Spending Patterns
Several weeks ago, I decided to do a two-week experiment to see how I was spending my money on food. I wanted to do this as a metric of what kind of impact I'm having on myself, the environment, and the local economy. This little experiment was done from Nov. 4 through Nov. 18. Throughout this two week period, I recorded all the money I spent on food and where I spent it. I also kept the receipts from grocery stores so I could see how much money I was spending on organic products as opposed to conventional products, as well as local versus chain stores and restaurants.
Here's a quick breakdown of my spending pattern in this two-week period (they're in percentages only because I don't really feel like advertising exactly how much I actually spend on food):
Where I spent my money:
Percent at chain grocery stores -- 40.39%
Percent at Bloomingfoods -- 30.11%
Percent at farmer's market -- 20.24%
Percent at local restaurants -- 5.46%
Percent at chain restaurants -- 3.80%
OVERALL percent local -- 55.81%
OVERALL percent chain -- 44.19%
Percent of total spending on organic food: 38.95%
Percent of grocery store spending on organic food: 55.25%
So that's a brief glimpse into how I spent my food money during the experimental period. An important thing to note is what these percentages looked like before I started this project. Basically, all of my grocery shopping was at Kroger, with zero percent at the farmer's market or local stores. I probably ate at local restaurants more than chain places, though. That's something I've been trying to do for a few years. I used to travel for work a lot, and when I could, I would find a local place to eat because I liked having something different than what I'm used to at home. So from this standpoint, I feel like I've made some progress, since I've made a concerted attempt to shop locally.
In looking at my spending on organic food, I would guess the percentages above are higher than they were before I started this project, but I'm not certain. I know I would buy organic apples and oranges, but that was about it. Since starting this, whenever I buy produce, I try to make it organic unless I can't find that particular item in organic form. One caveat to the organic spending percentages is the money I spent at the farmer's market (explored more below). I'm not sure how much of that was organic and how much wasn't. I can say a lot of it was spent on organic, free-range meat that I blogged about previously, though.
So what have been the impacts of the things that I've done? There are three areas in which I feel like I've had some impact: my personal health, the health of the environment, and the health of the local economy. Now obviously it's hard to quantify exactly what impacts I've had on any of these areas, so I'm going to have to address the topic generally.
Personal health: I blogged previously about the effects of organic food on health. To recap, while there is some evidence that organics are better for you than conventional food, it's mixed and very difficult to determine with precision. One aspect that I didn't address, however, was the health impact of the local food that I've been purchasing. According to an e-mail conversation I had with the woman who runs Bloomington's farmer's market, everyone who sells there must be from Indiana. Now, Indiana's a big place, and I think the definition of "local" that the farmer's market is using (to them, all of Indiana is local) is a bit more extensive from the way many people define "local" (which is within 100 miles). That being said, since we live roughly in the middle of the state, anything purchased at the farmer's market is still pretty local. I mention this because local food tends to have health benefits: Since it travels much fewer miles to get to your plate, it has generally not lost much of its nutritional value, which makes local food a bit healthier for you than non-local food. So from that standpoint, I would say that I've improved my personal health at least a little bit.
Environmental health: This is kind of complicated. The reason it's complicated is because I had a few misconceptions about the food I was buying. My assumption was that everything I bought at the farmer's market and Bloomingfoods was organic. Turns out that may not necessarily be the case. Officially, the farmer's market does not require food sold there to be certified organic. In fact, according to the woman who runs the market, only a few of the vendors have their produce organically certified. That being said, I spoke with one of the farmers there, and he gave me a glimpse into his methods. He does not use pesticides or fertilizers; instead, he uses coverage crops and composted manure from his livestock as fertilizer, and has to get rid of pests himself. His cows are allowed to graze in the pasture, and as an added bonus, fertilize the soil in the process. He also fallows part of his land each year to increase its fertility. So while his practices do not include fertilizer, irradiation, or pesticides, he can't technically call his food "organic" because it isn't certified. In addition, I have two neighbors who work at Bloomingfoods. I spoke with them about Bloomingfoods food, and their indication was that not all the food there is either local or organic. The big advantage to Bloomingfoods is that it is locally-owned (it is a cooperative), so the money spent there mostly stays local.
The lesson is to pay attention to labels and talk to the farmers you are buying from at the farmer's market. You can find out more information about their growing methods, etc., and make your own determination about whether their product meets your desires. I bring this up because it makes it more difficult to determine what the environmental impact of my food purchases has been. It would be much easier if I could just say, "Oh, it's all organic," and have that be good enough. But technically, it wasn't. That being said, the fact that bought a good amount of local and/or certified organic food says I did something right, even if it might not have been as much as I originally hoped.
Local economic health: This is where my efforts may have made the most impact. We hear a lot about how buying local helps the economy. I found a couple of infographics here and here that detail how local spending helps the local economy. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) notes that modest investments in farmer's markets around the country could result in thousands of new jobs. This is because local farmers tend to buy locally and hire more local people. They can do this by skipping the middle man and selling their product directly to their customers at farmer's markets instead of through wholesalers. Since Bloomingfoods is a locally-owned coop, many of the same benefits also accrue when you shop there. So because I've been spending more of my money there and at the farmer's market, I like to think I'm making at least a bit of difference in my local economy.
The end result: It seems like I may have had a bigger effect on the local economy than I have on my health or on the environment. That's tough to say for sure, though. I like to think I'm doing something right on all fronts, but I think I might have to make bigger changes over a longer timeframe before really drawing any conclusions.
Here's a quick breakdown of my spending pattern in this two-week period (they're in percentages only because I don't really feel like advertising exactly how much I actually spend on food):
Where I spent my money:
Percent at chain grocery stores -- 40.39%
Percent at Bloomingfoods -- 30.11%
Percent at farmer's market -- 20.24%
Percent at local restaurants -- 5.46%
Percent at chain restaurants -- 3.80%
OVERALL percent local -- 55.81%
OVERALL percent chain -- 44.19%
Percent of total spending on organic food: 38.95%
Percent of grocery store spending on organic food: 55.25%
So that's a brief glimpse into how I spent my food money during the experimental period. An important thing to note is what these percentages looked like before I started this project. Basically, all of my grocery shopping was at Kroger, with zero percent at the farmer's market or local stores. I probably ate at local restaurants more than chain places, though. That's something I've been trying to do for a few years. I used to travel for work a lot, and when I could, I would find a local place to eat because I liked having something different than what I'm used to at home. So from this standpoint, I feel like I've made some progress, since I've made a concerted attempt to shop locally.
In looking at my spending on organic food, I would guess the percentages above are higher than they were before I started this project, but I'm not certain. I know I would buy organic apples and oranges, but that was about it. Since starting this, whenever I buy produce, I try to make it organic unless I can't find that particular item in organic form. One caveat to the organic spending percentages is the money I spent at the farmer's market (explored more below). I'm not sure how much of that was organic and how much wasn't. I can say a lot of it was spent on organic, free-range meat that I blogged about previously, though.
So what have been the impacts of the things that I've done? There are three areas in which I feel like I've had some impact: my personal health, the health of the environment, and the health of the local economy. Now obviously it's hard to quantify exactly what impacts I've had on any of these areas, so I'm going to have to address the topic generally.
Personal health: I blogged previously about the effects of organic food on health. To recap, while there is some evidence that organics are better for you than conventional food, it's mixed and very difficult to determine with precision. One aspect that I didn't address, however, was the health impact of the local food that I've been purchasing. According to an e-mail conversation I had with the woman who runs Bloomington's farmer's market, everyone who sells there must be from Indiana. Now, Indiana's a big place, and I think the definition of "local" that the farmer's market is using (to them, all of Indiana is local) is a bit more extensive from the way many people define "local" (which is within 100 miles). That being said, since we live roughly in the middle of the state, anything purchased at the farmer's market is still pretty local. I mention this because local food tends to have health benefits: Since it travels much fewer miles to get to your plate, it has generally not lost much of its nutritional value, which makes local food a bit healthier for you than non-local food. So from that standpoint, I would say that I've improved my personal health at least a little bit.
Environmental health: This is kind of complicated. The reason it's complicated is because I had a few misconceptions about the food I was buying. My assumption was that everything I bought at the farmer's market and Bloomingfoods was organic. Turns out that may not necessarily be the case. Officially, the farmer's market does not require food sold there to be certified organic. In fact, according to the woman who runs the market, only a few of the vendors have their produce organically certified. That being said, I spoke with one of the farmers there, and he gave me a glimpse into his methods. He does not use pesticides or fertilizers; instead, he uses coverage crops and composted manure from his livestock as fertilizer, and has to get rid of pests himself. His cows are allowed to graze in the pasture, and as an added bonus, fertilize the soil in the process. He also fallows part of his land each year to increase its fertility. So while his practices do not include fertilizer, irradiation, or pesticides, he can't technically call his food "organic" because it isn't certified. In addition, I have two neighbors who work at Bloomingfoods. I spoke with them about Bloomingfoods food, and their indication was that not all the food there is either local or organic. The big advantage to Bloomingfoods is that it is locally-owned (it is a cooperative), so the money spent there mostly stays local.
The lesson is to pay attention to labels and talk to the farmers you are buying from at the farmer's market. You can find out more information about their growing methods, etc., and make your own determination about whether their product meets your desires. I bring this up because it makes it more difficult to determine what the environmental impact of my food purchases has been. It would be much easier if I could just say, "Oh, it's all organic," and have that be good enough. But technically, it wasn't. That being said, the fact that bought a good amount of local and/or certified organic food says I did something right, even if it might not have been as much as I originally hoped.
Local economic health: This is where my efforts may have made the most impact. We hear a lot about how buying local helps the economy. I found a couple of infographics here and here that detail how local spending helps the local economy. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) notes that modest investments in farmer's markets around the country could result in thousands of new jobs. This is because local farmers tend to buy locally and hire more local people. They can do this by skipping the middle man and selling their product directly to their customers at farmer's markets instead of through wholesalers. Since Bloomingfoods is a locally-owned coop, many of the same benefits also accrue when you shop there. So because I've been spending more of my money there and at the farmer's market, I like to think I'm making at least a bit of difference in my local economy.
The end result: It seems like I may have had a bigger effect on the local economy than I have on my health or on the environment. That's tough to say for sure, though. I like to think I'm doing something right on all fronts, but I think I might have to make bigger changes over a longer timeframe before really drawing any conclusions.
Personal Project: How Healthy is Organic Food?
As I've been going through this project, I have to ask myself whether eating more organic food has made me any healthier. Realistically, given that this has only been going on since the beginning of the semester, I've probably not improved my health a substantial amount. I'm guessing it takes a lot longer than a few months to make a lasting impact. Nevertheless, let's pretend it's five years in the future and I've been eating all organic food for the whole time. Is this fictional, futuristic me any more healthy than the old me?
Then answer, it seems, is maybe, maybe not. There's a lot of conflicting evidence out there on the health benefits of organic food. It seems pretty clear that organic food is better for the environment, but whether it is better for an actual person's health is open to debate. This fact sheet put together in 2004 by the British government, for instance, notes that organic produce may actually have more of certain micronutrients (such as calcium, iron, and vitamin C). The question is, however, are the differences really that dramatic? WebMD says no. It says that the differences are negligible, and research is still ongoing. This is largely what I found in some literature reviews that specifically looked at the issue of the health benefits of eating organic food.
Okay, so what about pesticides and other bad stuff that is sprayed on our food? We've known at least since Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring that such substances are bad news. The problem is, we don't know for sure how much harm is caused people if they spend a lifetime consuming very small amounts of pesticides and other chemicals. One study I read concluded that, by and large, our produce contains levels of pesticides well below what the government deems is safe. Presumably, this means that eating conventional food would not result in a significantly higher risk of getting cancer, for instance, than one would have from eating organic food. There are some foods that take up pesticides at a higher rate than others. Apples are one of them, which makes me happy I've been buying all organic apples lately (because I eat a lot of them).
Meat may be a bit of a different story. Here the issue is antibiotics and hormones. Meat produced conventionally is filled with hormones and antibiotics. Our use of hormones in meat, however, is beginning to be connected to antibiotic resistance, which is when strains of bacteria that are not affected by antibiotics start crowding out the strains that are affected. The more we feed antibiotics to the animals we eat, the more we risk the bacteria we're trying to kill becoming resistant to our antibiotics. We're seeing more and more outbreaks of things like E. coli lately, and it seems that they can usually be traced back to meat. If you extend this idea out in the long term, conventional meat is definitely less healthy than organic meat that is not given hormones or antibiotics.
As the evidence I've seen shows, the issue is pretty complicated. To some extent, it seems that the choice to eat organic as opposed to conventional food is as much a lifestyle choice of what's considered acceptable risks than anything. So far, there doesn't seem to be a consensus that significant evidence exists in favor of organics on this issue, but there is some evidence that organic food is marginally better for you then conventional. Whether it's worth the additional money to you to buy it...well, that's up to you, I guess.
Then answer, it seems, is maybe, maybe not. There's a lot of conflicting evidence out there on the health benefits of organic food. It seems pretty clear that organic food is better for the environment, but whether it is better for an actual person's health is open to debate. This fact sheet put together in 2004 by the British government, for instance, notes that organic produce may actually have more of certain micronutrients (such as calcium, iron, and vitamin C). The question is, however, are the differences really that dramatic? WebMD says no. It says that the differences are negligible, and research is still ongoing. This is largely what I found in some literature reviews that specifically looked at the issue of the health benefits of eating organic food.
Okay, so what about pesticides and other bad stuff that is sprayed on our food? We've known at least since Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring that such substances are bad news. The problem is, we don't know for sure how much harm is caused people if they spend a lifetime consuming very small amounts of pesticides and other chemicals. One study I read concluded that, by and large, our produce contains levels of pesticides well below what the government deems is safe. Presumably, this means that eating conventional food would not result in a significantly higher risk of getting cancer, for instance, than one would have from eating organic food. There are some foods that take up pesticides at a higher rate than others. Apples are one of them, which makes me happy I've been buying all organic apples lately (because I eat a lot of them).
Meat may be a bit of a different story. Here the issue is antibiotics and hormones. Meat produced conventionally is filled with hormones and antibiotics. Our use of hormones in meat, however, is beginning to be connected to antibiotic resistance, which is when strains of bacteria that are not affected by antibiotics start crowding out the strains that are affected. The more we feed antibiotics to the animals we eat, the more we risk the bacteria we're trying to kill becoming resistant to our antibiotics. We're seeing more and more outbreaks of things like E. coli lately, and it seems that they can usually be traced back to meat. If you extend this idea out in the long term, conventional meat is definitely less healthy than organic meat that is not given hormones or antibiotics.
As the evidence I've seen shows, the issue is pretty complicated. To some extent, it seems that the choice to eat organic as opposed to conventional food is as much a lifestyle choice of what's considered acceptable risks than anything. So far, there doesn't seem to be a consensus that significant evidence exists in favor of organics on this issue, but there is some evidence that organic food is marginally better for you then conventional. Whether it's worth the additional money to you to buy it...well, that's up to you, I guess.
Personal Project: Seasonal Food
Something that I decided to take a look at this week is seasonal food. I haven't really given much thought to seasonality as I've gone through this project. However, recently I started looking into what the benefits of seasonal food are and how to find seasonal food.
One of the biggest benefits of seasonal food is its nutritional value. One thing I did not realize is that our food loses its nutritional value the longer it goes before it gets eaten. Here's how it works:
Take produce for instance. Our produce gets nutrients (vitamins and minerals) from the soil. Once it gets picked from the tree or plant, obviously it is no longer receiving nutrients, so it's at its most nutritious right after picking. This makes sense, but the part I didn't realize is that these nutrients degrade over time. Once they're exposed to light and oxygen, these nutrients start to break down and leach out of the produce. So if you don't eat that piece of produce as soon as it's picked, you're going to get fewer nutrients. The problem is, most of us aren't farmers, so we can't eat our produce as soon as it's picked. Therefore, we're not getting the full effects.
There are several ways that we lose nutrients from our food. One is by picking food before it is really ripe. I learned that much produce is picked before it's fully ripe because it has to travel so far to get to its final destination. If we pick food before it is ripe, it does not acquire the full nutritional value that it could have, so once the nutrients start to degrade, they're doing so from a lower baseline nutrient level. Much produce is processed (read: irradiated) as soon as possible to lock in the maximum amount of nutrients possible, but even this process sometimes causes produce to lose some nutrients. Canning and freezing have pretty much the same effect.
Another problem with nutrients is the distance the piece of produce has to travel to get to its final destination. I've heard it estimated that, on average, our food travels 1,500 miles to get to our plate. Imagine the amount of nutrients that are lost in this process.
The best solution I've been able to find to this problem is to buy seasonal food. The advantage to buying seasonal food is that you know you're getting food at its freshest and most nutritious. (As an added bonus, the fresher and more nutritious food is, the better it tastes!) This has a lot to do with the fact that seasonal food is often also locally grown (because what's in season depends a great deal on geography). So you're getting several benefits at once if you're eating seasonal food: eating healthy, supporting local farmers, and cutting down on the miles that your food travels to get to your plate. That cuts down on the greenhouse gases your contributing to the atmosphere.
Thus far, I haven't made a huge effort to specifically eat seasonal food. Or at least, not intentionally. Given that I've been shopping much more at the farmer's market, I think almost by default I've been able to buy some seasonal food. But there's plenty of things that are grown locally on a seasonal basis that I haven't really tried: things like pumpkin, squash, snap peas, and eggplant are in season during the fall, but I haven't really tried any of them. This is mostly because I don't know how to do much with any of them.
So this might be something to try in the future. Tasty, seasonal, local food would create variety and be an opportunity to try something new while helping the local economy and eating healthy food.
A few links:
Here's a list of Indiana produce and meat and when it's in season.
Here's another one that's even more comprehensive.
You can find seasonal guides for any state here.
Here, here, and here are articles about the benefits of eating local, seasonal food.
And finally, the top ten ways to eat local, seasonal food all year can be found here.
One of the biggest benefits of seasonal food is its nutritional value. One thing I did not realize is that our food loses its nutritional value the longer it goes before it gets eaten. Here's how it works:
Take produce for instance. Our produce gets nutrients (vitamins and minerals) from the soil. Once it gets picked from the tree or plant, obviously it is no longer receiving nutrients, so it's at its most nutritious right after picking. This makes sense, but the part I didn't realize is that these nutrients degrade over time. Once they're exposed to light and oxygen, these nutrients start to break down and leach out of the produce. So if you don't eat that piece of produce as soon as it's picked, you're going to get fewer nutrients. The problem is, most of us aren't farmers, so we can't eat our produce as soon as it's picked. Therefore, we're not getting the full effects.
There are several ways that we lose nutrients from our food. One is by picking food before it is really ripe. I learned that much produce is picked before it's fully ripe because it has to travel so far to get to its final destination. If we pick food before it is ripe, it does not acquire the full nutritional value that it could have, so once the nutrients start to degrade, they're doing so from a lower baseline nutrient level. Much produce is processed (read: irradiated) as soon as possible to lock in the maximum amount of nutrients possible, but even this process sometimes causes produce to lose some nutrients. Canning and freezing have pretty much the same effect.
Another problem with nutrients is the distance the piece of produce has to travel to get to its final destination. I've heard it estimated that, on average, our food travels 1,500 miles to get to our plate. Imagine the amount of nutrients that are lost in this process.
The best solution I've been able to find to this problem is to buy seasonal food. The advantage to buying seasonal food is that you know you're getting food at its freshest and most nutritious. (As an added bonus, the fresher and more nutritious food is, the better it tastes!) This has a lot to do with the fact that seasonal food is often also locally grown (because what's in season depends a great deal on geography). So you're getting several benefits at once if you're eating seasonal food: eating healthy, supporting local farmers, and cutting down on the miles that your food travels to get to your plate. That cuts down on the greenhouse gases your contributing to the atmosphere.
Thus far, I haven't made a huge effort to specifically eat seasonal food. Or at least, not intentionally. Given that I've been shopping much more at the farmer's market, I think almost by default I've been able to buy some seasonal food. But there's plenty of things that are grown locally on a seasonal basis that I haven't really tried: things like pumpkin, squash, snap peas, and eggplant are in season during the fall, but I haven't really tried any of them. This is mostly because I don't know how to do much with any of them.
So this might be something to try in the future. Tasty, seasonal, local food would create variety and be an opportunity to try something new while helping the local economy and eating healthy food.
A few links:
Here's a list of Indiana produce and meat and when it's in season.
Here's another one that's even more comprehensive.
You can find seasonal guides for any state here.
Here, here, and here are articles about the benefits of eating local, seasonal food.
And finally, the top ten ways to eat local, seasonal food all year can be found here.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Sustainability Events: Wasteland
For my last sustainability event, I'd like to talk about a movie I saw earlier this year at the IU Cinema: "Wasteland". I know I wrote a brief blurb about it back in September, but I want to expand upon the film now.
Brief description of the film: It follows artist Vik Muniz, who grew up in Brazil but lives in New York, as he returns to Brazil to the largest garbage dump in the world: Jardim Gramacho, located just outside Rio de Janeiro. There are a group of people who live there, referred to as "pickers," whose job it is to go through all the trash that ends up there from all over Rio and find things that can be recycled. Muniz's goal is to create works of art out of the garbage and the people. He takes photos of the pickers posing with the garbage they deal with every day, then hires them to help him create even bigger works of art. They come back with him to a studio in Rio, where they arrange huge piles of trash to resemble the photographs Vik has taken, and then he takes photos of THAT. It's kind of hard to describe, so just take a look at this:
See all the garbage laid out around the guy in the bathtub? Muniz took a photo of this. That's the final product. This particular picture he sold at auction and gave all the proceeds to the pickers for them to build a library and some other stuff. You can also see the official website here and the official trailer here.
Clearly garbage plays a big role in this documentary. It's pretty appalling to see all of the trash from one of the world's biggest cities all piled up in one place. We have talked about trash a lot in this class. The bottom line with trash is that we don't think about it after throwing it away. No one really cares where it goes, just as long as it isn't stinking up our apartment anymore. Out of sight, out of mind. Well, now you see where it all ends up: one humongous pile of trash that just sits there doing nothing. And a lot of it can be recycled and reused.
More important are the parallels the film draws between the trash and the people who live and work among it. At one point, I think someone refers to the pickers as "human garbage," and in some ways, that's not far from the truth. These are poor folks who don't have any other way to make a living, so they sort through other people's trash looking for recyclable material. But no one cares about them, because no one sees them or has any interest in the trash they work with. Once again, out of sight, out of mind. So there's a distinct parallel drawn between how we treat our trash and how we treat people like the pickers.
One question I think the film asks (or at least that came to my mind) is, what would happen if we started actually thinking about both the pickers and the garbage they attend to? One of our readings a few weeks ago discussed treating people as human beings instead of as means of production to be done away with when no longer useful. I think the same point applies here. What if we both stopped throwing away so much stuff, AND started investing in education, health care, housing infrastructure, and creating decent jobs that paid living wages? Then we could kill two birds with one stone: we would no longer have such massive piles of garbage like in Jardim Gramacho, and we could harness the human power that the people in Jardim Gramacho possessed. Throughout the film, we see these people struggle to support themselves and obtain basic needs like education and housing. What if we actually provided such things for everyone? We might no longer have quite as much garbage, human or otherwise.
When you get right down to it, this is what sustainability is about: creating a world in which people actually want to live, and then giving them the capability to live within it, and do so productively and with respect. I think that's what "Wasteland" was trying to get at: the potential to transform our lives and the lives of many more people in the process.
Brief description of the film: It follows artist Vik Muniz, who grew up in Brazil but lives in New York, as he returns to Brazil to the largest garbage dump in the world: Jardim Gramacho, located just outside Rio de Janeiro. There are a group of people who live there, referred to as "pickers," whose job it is to go through all the trash that ends up there from all over Rio and find things that can be recycled. Muniz's goal is to create works of art out of the garbage and the people. He takes photos of the pickers posing with the garbage they deal with every day, then hires them to help him create even bigger works of art. They come back with him to a studio in Rio, where they arrange huge piles of trash to resemble the photographs Vik has taken, and then he takes photos of THAT. It's kind of hard to describe, so just take a look at this:
See all the garbage laid out around the guy in the bathtub? Muniz took a photo of this. That's the final product. This particular picture he sold at auction and gave all the proceeds to the pickers for them to build a library and some other stuff. You can also see the official website here and the official trailer here.
Clearly garbage plays a big role in this documentary. It's pretty appalling to see all of the trash from one of the world's biggest cities all piled up in one place. We have talked about trash a lot in this class. The bottom line with trash is that we don't think about it after throwing it away. No one really cares where it goes, just as long as it isn't stinking up our apartment anymore. Out of sight, out of mind. Well, now you see where it all ends up: one humongous pile of trash that just sits there doing nothing. And a lot of it can be recycled and reused.
More important are the parallels the film draws between the trash and the people who live and work among it. At one point, I think someone refers to the pickers as "human garbage," and in some ways, that's not far from the truth. These are poor folks who don't have any other way to make a living, so they sort through other people's trash looking for recyclable material. But no one cares about them, because no one sees them or has any interest in the trash they work with. Once again, out of sight, out of mind. So there's a distinct parallel drawn between how we treat our trash and how we treat people like the pickers.
One question I think the film asks (or at least that came to my mind) is, what would happen if we started actually thinking about both the pickers and the garbage they attend to? One of our readings a few weeks ago discussed treating people as human beings instead of as means of production to be done away with when no longer useful. I think the same point applies here. What if we both stopped throwing away so much stuff, AND started investing in education, health care, housing infrastructure, and creating decent jobs that paid living wages? Then we could kill two birds with one stone: we would no longer have such massive piles of garbage like in Jardim Gramacho, and we could harness the human power that the people in Jardim Gramacho possessed. Throughout the film, we see these people struggle to support themselves and obtain basic needs like education and housing. What if we actually provided such things for everyone? We might no longer have quite as much garbage, human or otherwise.
When you get right down to it, this is what sustainability is about: creating a world in which people actually want to live, and then giving them the capability to live within it, and do so productively and with respect. I think that's what "Wasteland" was trying to get at: the potential to transform our lives and the lives of many more people in the process.
Sustainability Events: Lotus Festival
As you are probably aware, Bloomington holds the Lotus World Music & Arts Festival every September. This is an event that brings together musical acts and artists from all over the world for three days in...the middle of Indiana? Huh? Why not New York or L.A. or San Francisco or somewhere like that? I'm not real sure exactly. I couldn't find out. What I found is that it's named after a local musician named Quinton Lotus Dickey, and it's been going on for eighteen years now. It seems like a rollicking good time every year in downtown B'town.
I did not attend last year, my first year in Bloomington. Mostly I was deterred by the price. Being a new grad student and not knowing how much money I had available, it seemed a little extravagant to drop $25 or whatever on a ticket. This year I found my way around that little problem. I heard they let in free one night if you volunteer for a few hours. Boom. Problem solved.
So I ended up volunteering to help set up on Friday morning, the first day of the festival. (Technically, I think it started the night before, but there was only one venue that night, so most stuff wasn't set up.) It was basically a lot of putting tents together, blocking off streets, setting up tables, hooking up some lights, etc., etc. Some heavy lifting and moving things around, generally. It seemed like a pretty well-run show, because most of the people in charge had been doing this for a while and knew the ropes. Those of us who hadn't volunteered before mostly just followed orders, which was perfectly fine with me. And I got a bright orange T-shirt out of the deal.
So after volunteering to set up Friday morning/early afternoon, I got my free ticket for Friday night. I chose that night mostly because I wanted to see the person who you might consider the headliner of the night: Abigail Washburn. She performs a combination of folksy-rootsy-Americana music and Chinese music, which I find to be an interesting combination. I definitely enjoyed seeing her play to close the night, but the highlight for me came earlier in the night.
I had originally planned on seeing an Irish/Celtic act in the second group of performances. But as I was sitting in the church where they were supposed to play and looking at the schedule, I suddenly realized that I had a hankering for some Swedish swing/hip-hop instead. Yeah, you read that right. It sounded like quite an intriguing mesh of styles. So on the spur of the moment, I left the church and headed for the big tent where this band Movits! was playing.
They did not disappoint. In case you missed it, check out this video. You, too, will not be disappointed. I loved the energy they brought, and the mix of hip hop, dance, and swing was definitely an interesting mix. I gather they are starting to blow up all over the world. Even Stephen Colbert had them on his show a while back. I highly recommend checking them out if you can.
So what does this have to do with sustainability? It has to do with social capital, and to some extent with cultural capital. Way back in chapter one of the Roseland book, we talked about social capital as the way that relationships are formed, norms are passed on, and networks of citizens are put to work. In a nutshell, it's a community-building event. I like to think that by volunteering and attending Lotus, I helped bring Bloomington together a bit. As discussed in chapter one of Roseland, social capital can enhance the effectiveness of other types of capital, but it's hard to build and probably even harder to maintain. Fortunately Bloomington is a pretty arts-friendly community, so something like this is effective as a social capital-building event. The relationships that are built through events such as Lotus can lead to other things, such as other community events, business opportunities, and friendships that help knit a community's fabric together, which helps make a community a more livable place. Perhaps most importantly, after working together on something like Lotus, citizens may be more likely to work together on bigger issues, like resolving poverty issues or improving transit systems.
From a cultural standpoint, Lotus is kind of unique in that it presents world music and not just American styles of music. Not only does the international focus introduce more people to one aspect of another culture, but it also reinforces Bloomington's niche as a city with a strong internationally diverse identity. We've all been to Bloomington's ethnic restaurants and had friends who are international students. Lotus is just one more aspect of how Bloomington builds it's diverse cultural identity.
I would argue that big events like Lotus are more important for the social fabric in a small city like Bloomington than they are in a bigger city (Indy, for instance). That's because in a small city you're more likely to interact with people you worked on Lotus with on a regular basis, so there's more opportunities to exploit the relationships built at Lotus in other venues. From that standpoint, I'm glad that I both attended and was able to help stage this year's Lotus event.
I did not attend last year, my first year in Bloomington. Mostly I was deterred by the price. Being a new grad student and not knowing how much money I had available, it seemed a little extravagant to drop $25 or whatever on a ticket. This year I found my way around that little problem. I heard they let in free one night if you volunteer for a few hours. Boom. Problem solved.
So I ended up volunteering to help set up on Friday morning, the first day of the festival. (Technically, I think it started the night before, but there was only one venue that night, so most stuff wasn't set up.) It was basically a lot of putting tents together, blocking off streets, setting up tables, hooking up some lights, etc., etc. Some heavy lifting and moving things around, generally. It seemed like a pretty well-run show, because most of the people in charge had been doing this for a while and knew the ropes. Those of us who hadn't volunteered before mostly just followed orders, which was perfectly fine with me. And I got a bright orange T-shirt out of the deal.
So after volunteering to set up Friday morning/early afternoon, I got my free ticket for Friday night. I chose that night mostly because I wanted to see the person who you might consider the headliner of the night: Abigail Washburn. She performs a combination of folksy-rootsy-Americana music and Chinese music, which I find to be an interesting combination. I definitely enjoyed seeing her play to close the night, but the highlight for me came earlier in the night.
I had originally planned on seeing an Irish/Celtic act in the second group of performances. But as I was sitting in the church where they were supposed to play and looking at the schedule, I suddenly realized that I had a hankering for some Swedish swing/hip-hop instead. Yeah, you read that right. It sounded like quite an intriguing mesh of styles. So on the spur of the moment, I left the church and headed for the big tent where this band Movits! was playing.
They did not disappoint. In case you missed it, check out this video. You, too, will not be disappointed. I loved the energy they brought, and the mix of hip hop, dance, and swing was definitely an interesting mix. I gather they are starting to blow up all over the world. Even Stephen Colbert had them on his show a while back. I highly recommend checking them out if you can.
So what does this have to do with sustainability? It has to do with social capital, and to some extent with cultural capital. Way back in chapter one of the Roseland book, we talked about social capital as the way that relationships are formed, norms are passed on, and networks of citizens are put to work. In a nutshell, it's a community-building event. I like to think that by volunteering and attending Lotus, I helped bring Bloomington together a bit. As discussed in chapter one of Roseland, social capital can enhance the effectiveness of other types of capital, but it's hard to build and probably even harder to maintain. Fortunately Bloomington is a pretty arts-friendly community, so something like this is effective as a social capital-building event. The relationships that are built through events such as Lotus can lead to other things, such as other community events, business opportunities, and friendships that help knit a community's fabric together, which helps make a community a more livable place. Perhaps most importantly, after working together on something like Lotus, citizens may be more likely to work together on bigger issues, like resolving poverty issues or improving transit systems.
From a cultural standpoint, Lotus is kind of unique in that it presents world music and not just American styles of music. Not only does the international focus introduce more people to one aspect of another culture, but it also reinforces Bloomington's niche as a city with a strong internationally diverse identity. We've all been to Bloomington's ethnic restaurants and had friends who are international students. Lotus is just one more aspect of how Bloomington builds it's diverse cultural identity.
I would argue that big events like Lotus are more important for the social fabric in a small city like Bloomington than they are in a bigger city (Indy, for instance). That's because in a small city you're more likely to interact with people you worked on Lotus with on a regular basis, so there's more opportunities to exploit the relationships built at Lotus in other venues. From that standpoint, I'm glad that I both attended and was able to help stage this year's Lotus event.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Personal Project Update: The Evils of Soda...and Maybe Something Slightly Less Evil?
So let's talk about soda, something I drink a decent amount of. Not a huge amount...but enough. Say, three to four sodas a week. Okay, when I actually say it that sounds like kind of a lot. But I've known people who drink a lot more, so I guess that makes me feel a little better. My soda of choice is Dr. Pepper. It's the 23 flavors. I mean, really, how can it get any better??? (Twenty-four flavors would just be overkill.)
Anyway, we hear lots of stories about how soda is bad for you. So I decided to go out and look for why and how soda might be bad for me. The first thing I did was take a look at the ingredient list on a bottle of Dr. Pepper. First on the list: water. Everyone likes water. Good. Second on the list: high fructose corn syrup. Ah, crap. I've hard of this stuff. Supposedly it's bad for you. So I went looking to find out what it is and why it's bad for me.
Check out this link from The Learning Channel that discusses high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). In a nutshell, the problem with HFCS and many other artificial sweeteners is that they're the epitome of empty calories. What's more, sweeteners actually make us hungrier. I guess something that has basically no nutritional value AND makes me want to consume even more calories is probably not the best thing to be consuming. That's probably why so many studies tend to link soda to obesity. As the TLC article states, we're getting more of our calories from sweeteners like HFCS, and we tend to not count calories from drinks as part of our total daily calorie intake. So the more soda we drink, the more calories we consume, and the more food we want to consume. A vicious cycle to be sure. The problem is, these sweeteners are in practically everything we eat these days, which just makes things worse.
There is also an environmental aspect to HFCS. As the name implies, HFCS is made of corn. We grow an awful lot of corn in the U.S.: 72.7 million acres of it, according to the EPA. I mentioned in my previous post about the movie "Food Inc." that corn farmers receive huge subsidies for their product, which means they are going to grow as much of it as possible. Generally, that means more land used up for corn production, and more pesticides and other crap sprayed on it to make it grow. All of this contributes to global warming, erosion and loss of soil productivity. So in other words, it's basically bad all around.
So what is a soda drinker to do? Well, there are alternatives out there that don't use these artificial sweeteners. This week, I decided to give one of them a try.
Blue Sky Organic Cola is something I found at Bloomingfoods and decided to give a try. It contains no HFCS or other artificial sweeteners. Instead, it is made with organic cane sugar. The taste is pretty good; they don't seem to have a Dr. Pepper equivalent, but they do have a regular cola flavor, and it's not bad. The problem is, it's still soda, and it's still sugar. Still not the best of things to be drinking, I guess: there's 40 grams of sugar included in a can. I don't know for sure, but that sounds like a lot.
So I guess the moral is that moderation is best when it comes to soda, even if it's an organic soda with no artificial sweeteners. Can I handle moderation? That's another story.
Anyway, we hear lots of stories about how soda is bad for you. So I decided to go out and look for why and how soda might be bad for me. The first thing I did was take a look at the ingredient list on a bottle of Dr. Pepper. First on the list: water. Everyone likes water. Good. Second on the list: high fructose corn syrup. Ah, crap. I've hard of this stuff. Supposedly it's bad for you. So I went looking to find out what it is and why it's bad for me.
Check out this link from The Learning Channel that discusses high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). In a nutshell, the problem with HFCS and many other artificial sweeteners is that they're the epitome of empty calories. What's more, sweeteners actually make us hungrier. I guess something that has basically no nutritional value AND makes me want to consume even more calories is probably not the best thing to be consuming. That's probably why so many studies tend to link soda to obesity. As the TLC article states, we're getting more of our calories from sweeteners like HFCS, and we tend to not count calories from drinks as part of our total daily calorie intake. So the more soda we drink, the more calories we consume, and the more food we want to consume. A vicious cycle to be sure. The problem is, these sweeteners are in practically everything we eat these days, which just makes things worse.
There is also an environmental aspect to HFCS. As the name implies, HFCS is made of corn. We grow an awful lot of corn in the U.S.: 72.7 million acres of it, according to the EPA. I mentioned in my previous post about the movie "Food Inc." that corn farmers receive huge subsidies for their product, which means they are going to grow as much of it as possible. Generally, that means more land used up for corn production, and more pesticides and other crap sprayed on it to make it grow. All of this contributes to global warming, erosion and loss of soil productivity. So in other words, it's basically bad all around.
So what is a soda drinker to do? Well, there are alternatives out there that don't use these artificial sweeteners. This week, I decided to give one of them a try.
Blue Sky Organic Cola is something I found at Bloomingfoods and decided to give a try. It contains no HFCS or other artificial sweeteners. Instead, it is made with organic cane sugar. The taste is pretty good; they don't seem to have a Dr. Pepper equivalent, but they do have a regular cola flavor, and it's not bad. The problem is, it's still soda, and it's still sugar. Still not the best of things to be drinking, I guess: there's 40 grams of sugar included in a can. I don't know for sure, but that sounds like a lot.
So I guess the moral is that moderation is best when it comes to soda, even if it's an organic soda with no artificial sweeteners. Can I handle moderation? That's another story.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Sustainability Events: The Day After Thanksgiving (Whatever You Wanna Call It)
Ah, the day after Thanksgiving. A day when everyone is too fat to do much of anything...except go shopping at the big mega-mall. Or at your local boutiques. Or don't go shopping at all. That's what this post is about.
The day after Thanksgiving has become known as "Black Friday" for major retailers. It's probably the one day that stores look forward to the most, because they know that the first unofficial shopping day of the Christmas season will sit the tone for the rest of the season and put many retailers "in the black" for the year. As such, they tend to pull out all the stops to make it as profitable a day as possible. You've seen the pictures and news stories about how stores open at some ungodly hour to let in the people who have been lining up since an even earlier ungodly hour to get in and take advantage of ginormous deals. Just in case you haven't, here's a news story and a picture for you:
Inevitably, you hear a story about the craziness that occurs in the mad rush for savings. This year was no different. There was a story about a woman who used pepper spray on her fellow shoppers to make sure she got the product she was looking for. (But that's okay, because pepper spray is basically just a food product anyway.) It seems like the whole scene gets nuttier every year.
At the other end of the spectrum is "Buy Nothing Day". This grew out of a reaction against the excess seen on Black Friday. The point, as the name implies, is to buy nothing on a day when everyone else seems to be in a shopping frenzy. It's a day to step back and evaluate our consumerist culture and how it's destroying our society. This year it took on particular urgency, given the Occupy movement spreading throughout the country. The point was made that at the same time that protesters were getting kicked out of public spaces, people were allowed to camp out all night in front of stores just to be the first in line at 4 a.m. when the stores opened with their huge sales. The Buy Nothing movement seems to be getting more popular these days. I know a lot of people who participated just because they didn't want to get caught up in the frenzy.
[INTERJECTION: It's interesting to note that my roommate and I just had an exchange about a series of commercials advertising Christmas deals on cars that we saw while watching the Predators-Canucks game. Apparently neither of us has either given or received an automobile for Christmas because we neither love anyone enough or have someone who loves us enough to give cars as holiday gifts. How unfortunate for us when everyone else seems to be giving their loved ones new Lexus' for Christmas.]
But what if you want to do a little bit of shopping but don't want to deal with the huge crowds? What if you want to find something small and meaningful for the people in your life that you care about? Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you...Plaid Day. This is a movement I had not heard of until this year. It's a recognition of the fact that there are people who are going to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving, but the idea is to drive as much of that traffic as possible to local businesses instead of huge mall stores. Local businesses participate, although many of them do so through advertising and not by offering deep discounts. As such, my guess is that they gain business from people who already are interested in shopping locally and might want to make an extra statement on the day after Thanksgiving. I don't know if there are numbers quantifying the amount of people shopping at Plaid Friday stores instead of mall stores, or comparisons of how much money they spent, but these would be interesting to see.
Anyway, for one of my sustainability events, I decided to take advantage of Plaid Friday to go out and do some shopping. Now, I'll be honest. I mainly went out looking to buy for one person: me. I'm old-fashioned and still like to buy my music on CD rather than downloading it. However, I hadn't bought any new music for quite a while, so one of the places I ended up was Landlocked Music, where they had this display in the front window:
Between Landlocked and a later stop at TD's, I ended up with discs by Neko Case, the Decemberists, and local band Murder by Death (who will be at the Bishop Friday if you read this in time). Good haul, if you ask me. Other than buying music, I mostly did some window shopping and browsing, looking for ideas for my mom and my sister. But I got a chance to observe stores and other people shopping. There didn't appear to be huge crowds out there, but I could tell that there were a number of people who don't normally go shopping on a Friday afternoon out and getting a jump on their holiday sprees at local stores. On top of that, all of the local restaurants on the square and on Kirkwood seemed to be full, which is also good to see. All in all, it seemed like a good day for local proprietors, who took advantage of Bloomington's strong buy-local community to support their neighborhood businesses instead of the big-box stores.
Here's to more days of local shopping ahead....
The day after Thanksgiving has become known as "Black Friday" for major retailers. It's probably the one day that stores look forward to the most, because they know that the first unofficial shopping day of the Christmas season will sit the tone for the rest of the season and put many retailers "in the black" for the year. As such, they tend to pull out all the stops to make it as profitable a day as possible. You've seen the pictures and news stories about how stores open at some ungodly hour to let in the people who have been lining up since an even earlier ungodly hour to get in and take advantage of ginormous deals. Just in case you haven't, here's a news story and a picture for you:
Inevitably, you hear a story about the craziness that occurs in the mad rush for savings. This year was no different. There was a story about a woman who used pepper spray on her fellow shoppers to make sure she got the product she was looking for. (But that's okay, because pepper spray is basically just a food product anyway.) It seems like the whole scene gets nuttier every year.
At the other end of the spectrum is "Buy Nothing Day". This grew out of a reaction against the excess seen on Black Friday. The point, as the name implies, is to buy nothing on a day when everyone else seems to be in a shopping frenzy. It's a day to step back and evaluate our consumerist culture and how it's destroying our society. This year it took on particular urgency, given the Occupy movement spreading throughout the country. The point was made that at the same time that protesters were getting kicked out of public spaces, people were allowed to camp out all night in front of stores just to be the first in line at 4 a.m. when the stores opened with their huge sales. The Buy Nothing movement seems to be getting more popular these days. I know a lot of people who participated just because they didn't want to get caught up in the frenzy.
[INTERJECTION: It's interesting to note that my roommate and I just had an exchange about a series of commercials advertising Christmas deals on cars that we saw while watching the Predators-Canucks game. Apparently neither of us has either given or received an automobile for Christmas because we neither love anyone enough or have someone who loves us enough to give cars as holiday gifts. How unfortunate for us when everyone else seems to be giving their loved ones new Lexus' for Christmas.]
But what if you want to do a little bit of shopping but don't want to deal with the huge crowds? What if you want to find something small and meaningful for the people in your life that you care about? Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you...Plaid Day. This is a movement I had not heard of until this year. It's a recognition of the fact that there are people who are going to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving, but the idea is to drive as much of that traffic as possible to local businesses instead of huge mall stores. Local businesses participate, although many of them do so through advertising and not by offering deep discounts. As such, my guess is that they gain business from people who already are interested in shopping locally and might want to make an extra statement on the day after Thanksgiving. I don't know if there are numbers quantifying the amount of people shopping at Plaid Friday stores instead of mall stores, or comparisons of how much money they spent, but these would be interesting to see.
Anyway, for one of my sustainability events, I decided to take advantage of Plaid Friday to go out and do some shopping. Now, I'll be honest. I mainly went out looking to buy for one person: me. I'm old-fashioned and still like to buy my music on CD rather than downloading it. However, I hadn't bought any new music for quite a while, so one of the places I ended up was Landlocked Music, where they had this display in the front window:
Between Landlocked and a later stop at TD's, I ended up with discs by Neko Case, the Decemberists, and local band Murder by Death (who will be at the Bishop Friday if you read this in time). Good haul, if you ask me. Other than buying music, I mostly did some window shopping and browsing, looking for ideas for my mom and my sister. But I got a chance to observe stores and other people shopping. There didn't appear to be huge crowds out there, but I could tell that there were a number of people who don't normally go shopping on a Friday afternoon out and getting a jump on their holiday sprees at local stores. On top of that, all of the local restaurants on the square and on Kirkwood seemed to be full, which is also good to see. All in all, it seemed like a good day for local proprietors, who took advantage of Bloomington's strong buy-local community to support their neighborhood businesses instead of the big-box stores.
Here's to more days of local shopping ahead....
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Food, Inc.
So over the weekend a friend lent me a copy of "Food, Inc." to watch as part of my individual project. Heckuva time to be watching it right? Thanksgiving weekend? Fortunately I was smart enough to wait until AFTER Thanksgiving to watch it. I've also been reading the companion book, and have some thoughts on both.
In case you've never heard of "Food, Inc.," you can check out the website here. It is a documentary that hits on a number of different topics regarding our food system: its effect on the environment, cruelty towards animals, treatment of workers, health issues, and a great many more. It "stars" a number of people from different walks of life and different roles in our food system (including some who requested anonymity). I don't recall a single person from "Big Food" (outside of some Wal-Mart executives who were visiting an organic food producer) being interviewed, but the film noted several times that it reached out to some of the big food producers for an interview and were denied.
Like I said, the movie (and book) are pretty broad, but the one message that struck me the most is probably the biggest point the makers were trying to get across: Food is a business. It's products are just that. They're not nourishment. They're not made to be healthy or flavorful or unique. Your bag of Doritos or piece of chicken is made to be and taste the same whether you're eating it in Bloomington, Indiana; Bloomington, Illinois; or East Nowhere, New Mexico. (COMPLETELY UNRELATED SIDENOTE: I was driving through eastern New Mexico late one night a few years ago when I came to the realization that whoever coined the term "middle of nowhere" was probably driving through eastern New Mexico at the time.) Tasty and nutritious isn't the point. Cheap is. The companies have a bottom line that must be met, and just like Ford or Nike or Apple or any other big company, they're going to produce their product as cheaply as possible.
This focus on the bottom line manifests itself in many ways. To wit:
* The entire industry is basically mechanized. By its very nature, this means that everything is basically made the same and tastes the same. Heterogeneity is not allowed. It would screw up the machines and the entire process of food-making, which would probably lead to the complete downfall of society (said with tongue only halfway in cheek). The film shows how this situation is the result of McDonald's decision fifty years ago to basically turn their business into an assembly line because it was cheaper that way. So because of that we get cheap food that doesn't taste all that good and is not really healthy for you, made by people who aren't paid much money.
* Companies are so invested in the food system we've got that if something starts to go wrong, they look for new high-tech ways to fix it instead of taking a hard look at the system in general to see if maybe the system is what's broken. Case in point: Did you know that much of your meat is doused in ammonia to ensure E. coli and other bacteria are not present? Not real appetizing, is it? This is necessary because cows, pigs, etc., are allowed to root around in their own filth their whole lives. Instead of perhaps NOT letting animals sleep in their own poop, we get meat that's been blasted with ammonia. Go figure.
* Corn is used as feed in replacement of grass and other forage because it fattens animals up quickly and it's cheap (more on that below). This despite the fact that letting cows eat grass for a few days would obviate the need for antibiotics as the grass would just clean out the bad bacteria in their stomachs. Corn has been related to E. coli outbreaks in meat, but it's still used because it's --SURVEY SAYS! -- cheap.
* The "bad" calories that we take in -- in snack foods and other processed products -- are cheaper than "good" calories because of the subsidies given to farmers to produce these crops. Corn is the primary subsidy recipient, but soybeans and wheat are also high up there. The more we grow, the more subsidies farmers receive. That's a pretty powerful reason to stick with the current system.
* The people making our food are not compensated for it. Companies use a lot of illegal immigrants as laborers. They must know the workers are illegal, because, according to the film, they essentially throw local law enforcement a bone by allowing the police to take away a few laborers a week, and in return, the plants don't get raided, which would result in mass deportations and probably a lot of fines. Additionally, people raising animals (cows and chickens, for instance) in factory farms are under immense pressure to meet increasingly stringent standards, and go heavily into to debt in order to do it. In return, they are paid approximately $18,000/year, with which they must service debt in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nice.
That's just the way that companies keep our food cheap. In the process, they treat the animals they raise terribly. Now, I've never been a PETA-loving animal rights activist. But I gotta admit, seeing how animals are artificially fattened to sickening proportions is kind of revolting. Chickens in particular are made so fat so quickly that they can't even walk or spread their wings. That seems pretty cruel, even for animals that are brought into this world specifically to be killed and eaten. Each day, chicken farmers have to go through their huge chicken coops and pick up the carcasses of birds that never made it to our dinner plates. Fun.
Health is another victim in the quest for cheap food. I've already mentioned the ammonia issue. Consider the fact that animals are also fed huge amounts of antibiotics to keep them from getting sick. This contributes to our growing resistance to these antibiotics, which could potentially have pretty severe ramifications for us. Processed foods are also loaded with unhealthy sweeteners that offer little more than empty calories and diabetes. Good to know.
There are people trying to do something about this. The film prominently features an organic farmer who doesn't use pesticides on his crops and lets his animals eat grass (which they then fertilize to keep the soil productive). The book features the CEO of Stonyfield, an organic yogurt producer, discussing the ways in which better food practices could actually be profitable. At this point, it doesn't seem like enough people have embraced this idea, but the growth in organic food sales seems to suggest there's progress.
Check out an interview Michael Pollan did with Bill Maher. Also, you can check out the website here, which has plenty of other good links to explore.
In case you've never heard of "Food, Inc.," you can check out the website here. It is a documentary that hits on a number of different topics regarding our food system: its effect on the environment, cruelty towards animals, treatment of workers, health issues, and a great many more. It "stars" a number of people from different walks of life and different roles in our food system (including some who requested anonymity). I don't recall a single person from "Big Food" (outside of some Wal-Mart executives who were visiting an organic food producer) being interviewed, but the film noted several times that it reached out to some of the big food producers for an interview and were denied.
Like I said, the movie (and book) are pretty broad, but the one message that struck me the most is probably the biggest point the makers were trying to get across: Food is a business. It's products are just that. They're not nourishment. They're not made to be healthy or flavorful or unique. Your bag of Doritos or piece of chicken is made to be and taste the same whether you're eating it in Bloomington, Indiana; Bloomington, Illinois; or East Nowhere, New Mexico. (COMPLETELY UNRELATED SIDENOTE: I was driving through eastern New Mexico late one night a few years ago when I came to the realization that whoever coined the term "middle of nowhere" was probably driving through eastern New Mexico at the time.) Tasty and nutritious isn't the point. Cheap is. The companies have a bottom line that must be met, and just like Ford or Nike or Apple or any other big company, they're going to produce their product as cheaply as possible.
This focus on the bottom line manifests itself in many ways. To wit:
* The entire industry is basically mechanized. By its very nature, this means that everything is basically made the same and tastes the same. Heterogeneity is not allowed. It would screw up the machines and the entire process of food-making, which would probably lead to the complete downfall of society (said with tongue only halfway in cheek). The film shows how this situation is the result of McDonald's decision fifty years ago to basically turn their business into an assembly line because it was cheaper that way. So because of that we get cheap food that doesn't taste all that good and is not really healthy for you, made by people who aren't paid much money.
* Companies are so invested in the food system we've got that if something starts to go wrong, they look for new high-tech ways to fix it instead of taking a hard look at the system in general to see if maybe the system is what's broken. Case in point: Did you know that much of your meat is doused in ammonia to ensure E. coli and other bacteria are not present? Not real appetizing, is it? This is necessary because cows, pigs, etc., are allowed to root around in their own filth their whole lives. Instead of perhaps NOT letting animals sleep in their own poop, we get meat that's been blasted with ammonia. Go figure.
* Corn is used as feed in replacement of grass and other forage because it fattens animals up quickly and it's cheap (more on that below). This despite the fact that letting cows eat grass for a few days would obviate the need for antibiotics as the grass would just clean out the bad bacteria in their stomachs. Corn has been related to E. coli outbreaks in meat, but it's still used because it's --SURVEY SAYS! -- cheap.
* The "bad" calories that we take in -- in snack foods and other processed products -- are cheaper than "good" calories because of the subsidies given to farmers to produce these crops. Corn is the primary subsidy recipient, but soybeans and wheat are also high up there. The more we grow, the more subsidies farmers receive. That's a pretty powerful reason to stick with the current system.
* The people making our food are not compensated for it. Companies use a lot of illegal immigrants as laborers. They must know the workers are illegal, because, according to the film, they essentially throw local law enforcement a bone by allowing the police to take away a few laborers a week, and in return, the plants don't get raided, which would result in mass deportations and probably a lot of fines. Additionally, people raising animals (cows and chickens, for instance) in factory farms are under immense pressure to meet increasingly stringent standards, and go heavily into to debt in order to do it. In return, they are paid approximately $18,000/year, with which they must service debt in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nice.
That's just the way that companies keep our food cheap. In the process, they treat the animals they raise terribly. Now, I've never been a PETA-loving animal rights activist. But I gotta admit, seeing how animals are artificially fattened to sickening proportions is kind of revolting. Chickens in particular are made so fat so quickly that they can't even walk or spread their wings. That seems pretty cruel, even for animals that are brought into this world specifically to be killed and eaten. Each day, chicken farmers have to go through their huge chicken coops and pick up the carcasses of birds that never made it to our dinner plates. Fun.
Health is another victim in the quest for cheap food. I've already mentioned the ammonia issue. Consider the fact that animals are also fed huge amounts of antibiotics to keep them from getting sick. This contributes to our growing resistance to these antibiotics, which could potentially have pretty severe ramifications for us. Processed foods are also loaded with unhealthy sweeteners that offer little more than empty calories and diabetes. Good to know.
There are people trying to do something about this. The film prominently features an organic farmer who doesn't use pesticides on his crops and lets his animals eat grass (which they then fertilize to keep the soil productive). The book features the CEO of Stonyfield, an organic yogurt producer, discussing the ways in which better food practices could actually be profitable. At this point, it doesn't seem like enough people have embraced this idea, but the growth in organic food sales seems to suggest there's progress.
Check out an interview Michael Pollan did with Bill Maher. Also, you can check out the website here, which has plenty of other good links to explore.
Monday, November 28, 2011
U.S. Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement
So I don't know if I've really rambled about this much, but one of the things I care about is climate change. For a variety of reasons, our federal government is not particularly responsive to the climate change issue. So it's been left up to cities to do what they can to fix this problem.
This is a problem I've been thinking about lately. I'm considering going into some kind of local planning or development work once life at SPEA is over. Cities seem like they have a lot of potential to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation and energy use. So, even though I would still prefer to try and establish a national response to climate change, I see the writing on the wall, and it says the federal government ain't gonna do much for this problem any time soon, so maybe the best way for me to make a difference would be to work at the city level where a difference really seems like it could be made.
The Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement is a group of mayors that signed an agreement to meet or beat the United States' commitment agreed to in the Kyoto Protocol (which we never ratified) to reduce our GHG emissions by 7% by 2012. Since its start in 2005, over one thousand mayors in charge of cities big and small have signed onto the agreement. (See the map below to view the cities signing on to the Agreement.) Here you can find some "best practices" from exemplary cities, ranging from a comprehensive mass transit program in Denver, to a program linking high school students with "green" professionals in Chapel Hill, N.C., to a walkable community initiative in Carmel, IN.
This week's reading emphasizes the role of local governments in creating sustainable communities. This seems pretty axiomatic: "local government" and "community" are practically synonymous. But there are plenty of communities out there that are not following environmentally friendly practices. The Mayor's Agreement is a great example of how local governments can be leaders on climate change.
Still, I think more will need to be done to truly tackle climate change. Ideally this will include a national initiative. Is it possible that the cities that have signed the Mayor's Climate Agreement could give the federal government that extra oomph needed to push it to take action? Is it possible some of these cities could coordinate their efforts, thereby creating networks of people working together and going beyond their localities? It could happen. States and localities are often seen as "policy workshops" where initiatives have their kinks worked out before being deployed nationally. Indeed, at that state level, governments are beginning to band together to address climate change, through such mechanisms as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Inititative's carbon trading scheme. In the absence of a national program, it's good to see local and state officials taking the lead to address one of the most pressing problems of our time.
This is a problem I've been thinking about lately. I'm considering going into some kind of local planning or development work once life at SPEA is over. Cities seem like they have a lot of potential to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation and energy use. So, even though I would still prefer to try and establish a national response to climate change, I see the writing on the wall, and it says the federal government ain't gonna do much for this problem any time soon, so maybe the best way for me to make a difference would be to work at the city level where a difference really seems like it could be made.
The Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement is a group of mayors that signed an agreement to meet or beat the United States' commitment agreed to in the Kyoto Protocol (which we never ratified) to reduce our GHG emissions by 7% by 2012. Since its start in 2005, over one thousand mayors in charge of cities big and small have signed onto the agreement. (See the map below to view the cities signing on to the Agreement.) Here you can find some "best practices" from exemplary cities, ranging from a comprehensive mass transit program in Denver, to a program linking high school students with "green" professionals in Chapel Hill, N.C., to a walkable community initiative in Carmel, IN.
This week's reading emphasizes the role of local governments in creating sustainable communities. This seems pretty axiomatic: "local government" and "community" are practically synonymous. But there are plenty of communities out there that are not following environmentally friendly practices. The Mayor's Agreement is a great example of how local governments can be leaders on climate change.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Personal Project Update
So the reason I originally decided upon this project was to learn to make more things myself. While it's since changed to more of an exploration of my current eating habits and their environmental and economic ramifications (not to mention their effect on my health), I've still been working at making a few more things myself. Here are a few examples:
Green beans for lunch: Okay, so it's nothing spectacular. But, for me, it is different. See, during the week at least, my lunches are pretty bland: I make a sandwich with ham, turkey, salami, or roast beef, and add some yogurt and/or fruit to go with it. This is largely because I am always looking for something quick and easy to take to SPEA with me (so that I don't have to always buy my lunch at the SPEA Cafe). I've found a bowl of green beans to be surprisingly easy and good. I was a little concerned that I'd still be hungry, but when I add a piece of fruit, I'm usually good for a while. On top of that, the beans are from the farmer's market, so not only am I avoiding unhealthy lunch meat, but I'm also helping the local economy as well.
Spaghetti with organic sauce and mixed greens: Once again, nothing special or new to me (I eat pasta all the time), but the ingredients are slightly different. I've never used organic spaghetti sauce before, but I actually found the stuff I bought at Kroger (sorry) to be pretty good. On top of that, the salad contains greens from the farmer's market, which tastes better than the salad mix you buy at the store.
Homemade jambalaya: I actually make this dish fairly often, but this time, instead of a chicken breast from a big frozen bag purchased at the grocery store, I used a big chicken breast bought from Schacht Farm, a local Bloomington farm that sells at the farmer's market. The chicken there is free-range and fed only locally-grown grains as a supplement. The result was very positive, even if the rest of the ingredients were all store-bought (because that's what I had on hand at the time).
Homemade pizza: Here's the one I really liked. I make pizza a lot, but I generally buy a Boboli crust for, like, $4.50 to do so. This time I tried making my own crust and varying the toppings a bit. The crust is made from whole grain oat flour and yeast bought at Bloomingfoods, while the onion and green pepper are both organic (one bought from the farmer's market, the other from Bloomingfoods). The pepperoni, sauce, and cheese are all from Kroger, as they were all leftover from when I had made pizza previously. There were actually supposed to be some organic mushrooms on there, too, but by the time I got around to making the pizza, they'd been sitting out for several days and were too dried out to use. The result was a mixed bag. I've never made my own crust before, and it needs some work. I did enjoy mixing up the toppings with some fresh, organic products.
I guess these were the types of things I was hoping to accomplish with this project. It's not necessarily a drastic diet overhaul, but by making some things myself that I used to buy packaged from the grocery store, and by using more environmentally-friend ingredients, I'm hoping I'm making a bit of a difference.
Happy belated Thanksgiving.
Green beans for lunch: Okay, so it's nothing spectacular. But, for me, it is different. See, during the week at least, my lunches are pretty bland: I make a sandwich with ham, turkey, salami, or roast beef, and add some yogurt and/or fruit to go with it. This is largely because I am always looking for something quick and easy to take to SPEA with me (so that I don't have to always buy my lunch at the SPEA Cafe). I've found a bowl of green beans to be surprisingly easy and good. I was a little concerned that I'd still be hungry, but when I add a piece of fruit, I'm usually good for a while. On top of that, the beans are from the farmer's market, so not only am I avoiding unhealthy lunch meat, but I'm also helping the local economy as well.
Spaghetti with organic sauce and mixed greens: Once again, nothing special or new to me (I eat pasta all the time), but the ingredients are slightly different. I've never used organic spaghetti sauce before, but I actually found the stuff I bought at Kroger (sorry) to be pretty good. On top of that, the salad contains greens from the farmer's market, which tastes better than the salad mix you buy at the store.
Homemade jambalaya: I actually make this dish fairly often, but this time, instead of a chicken breast from a big frozen bag purchased at the grocery store, I used a big chicken breast bought from Schacht Farm, a local Bloomington farm that sells at the farmer's market. The chicken there is free-range and fed only locally-grown grains as a supplement. The result was very positive, even if the rest of the ingredients were all store-bought (because that's what I had on hand at the time).
Homemade pizza: Here's the one I really liked. I make pizza a lot, but I generally buy a Boboli crust for, like, $4.50 to do so. This time I tried making my own crust and varying the toppings a bit. The crust is made from whole grain oat flour and yeast bought at Bloomingfoods, while the onion and green pepper are both organic (one bought from the farmer's market, the other from Bloomingfoods). The pepperoni, sauce, and cheese are all from Kroger, as they were all leftover from when I had made pizza previously. There were actually supposed to be some organic mushrooms on there, too, but by the time I got around to making the pizza, they'd been sitting out for several days and were too dried out to use. The result was a mixed bag. I've never made my own crust before, and it needs some work. I did enjoy mixing up the toppings with some fresh, organic products.
I guess these were the types of things I was hoping to accomplish with this project. It's not necessarily a drastic diet overhaul, but by making some things myself that I used to buy packaged from the grocery store, and by using more environmentally-friend ingredients, I'm hoping I'm making a bit of a difference.
Happy belated Thanksgiving.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Personal Project Update
One of the reasons I chose the personal project that I did was to try and cut down on my food impact on the environment. The food system we have in place now is tough on the environment in general, and particular on greenhouse gas emissions. So one of the goals I set out for myself was to try and reduce my GHG emissions that come from the food I eat. Not having a good way to accurately measure my GHGs, it's hard to put a quantifiable number to this goal, but I'm doing what I can.
There are three things I wanted to try and do to accomplish this goal: significantly reduce my red meat consumption (substituting more fish and chicken as sources of protein), buy more organic food, and buying more local food. Today I'll take a bit of a look at all three of these things.
Let's start with the red meat part. There are a few good reasons to reduce (or completely give up) eating dead cows. One is for health reasons. Red meat has lots of fat and cholesterol. For people who already have a good deal of these things, adding more would be a problem. I generally don't have such issues, but that doesn't mean I don't wanna try and stay lean and mean. Having said that, I probably still used to eat meat once to twice a week before starting this little project. Since then, I can only come up with one instance, and that's when I cooked up a pot of chili using grass-fed beef that I picked up at the farmer's market (which, coincidentally hits on all three of my main GHG-reducing activities). Otherwise, I think I've been dead-cow free for pretty much the whole semester. I don't even think I've had a burger at a restaurant, which is unusual. No, instead I've been using more chicken to make things that I used to make with beef, and have even tried my hand at fish tacos with mixed results.
Buying more local and organic food has been a mixed bag. I've definitely been shopping much more at Bloomingfoods and the farmer's market than I did before, and the vast majority of my produce these days is organic. To try and quantify this, I'm keeping close track of my food purchases over the next few weeks and will report on what percentage of my food is either organic or bought from local sources (or both). More to come on that soon.
But back to the "meat" of the issue. What kind of impact has my (almost) no red meat diet had? One of the studies that I read discussed both food miles and meat consumption and how they impact greenhouse gas emissions in our food supply (see citation below). It does this via a life-cycle analysis of the food production process from beginning to end. It finds that food production is responsible for approximately 5/6 of a typical household's food-related GHG emissions. On the other hand, transportation as a whole makes up only 11% of emissions, with delivery from producer to retail comprising only 4% of the grand total. This actually suggests that buying local is not very effective as a way of cutting down greenhouse gases. When looking at red meat in particular, though, the study finds that it (along with dairy) is generally 150% more GHG-intensive than chicken or fish. Shifting a small amount of food consumption from meat to chicken, fish or a vegetarian diet can actually have as big an impact on GHGs than switching to an all-local diet.
So this seems to suggest that by not eating red meat, I'm helping to reduce food-related climate impacts. Buying local? Perhaps not as much. However, there are other benefits to buying local, which I will probably address at a later date. One big drawback, though, is that I have not given up dairy, and I'm kind of big on dairy. I drink milk practically every day, and most days I have a cup of yogurt with lunch. So that makes me wonder if I'm really having that much impact. Maybe if I can find something good to substitute for dairy, my impact would be greater.
I guess that is it for now.
CITATION: Weber, Christopher L. and H. Scott Matthews. "Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States." Environmental Science & Technology 42 (2008), 3508-3513.
There are three things I wanted to try and do to accomplish this goal: significantly reduce my red meat consumption (substituting more fish and chicken as sources of protein), buy more organic food, and buying more local food. Today I'll take a bit of a look at all three of these things.
Let's start with the red meat part. There are a few good reasons to reduce (or completely give up) eating dead cows. One is for health reasons. Red meat has lots of fat and cholesterol. For people who already have a good deal of these things, adding more would be a problem. I generally don't have such issues, but that doesn't mean I don't wanna try and stay lean and mean. Having said that, I probably still used to eat meat once to twice a week before starting this little project. Since then, I can only come up with one instance, and that's when I cooked up a pot of chili using grass-fed beef that I picked up at the farmer's market (which, coincidentally hits on all three of my main GHG-reducing activities). Otherwise, I think I've been dead-cow free for pretty much the whole semester. I don't even think I've had a burger at a restaurant, which is unusual. No, instead I've been using more chicken to make things that I used to make with beef, and have even tried my hand at fish tacos with mixed results.
Buying more local and organic food has been a mixed bag. I've definitely been shopping much more at Bloomingfoods and the farmer's market than I did before, and the vast majority of my produce these days is organic. To try and quantify this, I'm keeping close track of my food purchases over the next few weeks and will report on what percentage of my food is either organic or bought from local sources (or both). More to come on that soon.
But back to the "meat" of the issue. What kind of impact has my (almost) no red meat diet had? One of the studies that I read discussed both food miles and meat consumption and how they impact greenhouse gas emissions in our food supply (see citation below). It does this via a life-cycle analysis of the food production process from beginning to end. It finds that food production is responsible for approximately 5/6 of a typical household's food-related GHG emissions. On the other hand, transportation as a whole makes up only 11% of emissions, with delivery from producer to retail comprising only 4% of the grand total. This actually suggests that buying local is not very effective as a way of cutting down greenhouse gases. When looking at red meat in particular, though, the study finds that it (along with dairy) is generally 150% more GHG-intensive than chicken or fish. Shifting a small amount of food consumption from meat to chicken, fish or a vegetarian diet can actually have as big an impact on GHGs than switching to an all-local diet.
So this seems to suggest that by not eating red meat, I'm helping to reduce food-related climate impacts. Buying local? Perhaps not as much. However, there are other benefits to buying local, which I will probably address at a later date. One big drawback, though, is that I have not given up dairy, and I'm kind of big on dairy. I drink milk practically every day, and most days I have a cup of yogurt with lunch. So that makes me wonder if I'm really having that much impact. Maybe if I can find something good to substitute for dairy, my impact would be greater.
I guess that is it for now.
CITATION: Weber, Christopher L. and H. Scott Matthews. "Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States." Environmental Science & Technology 42 (2008), 3508-3513.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Environmental Justice
This week I was struck by the article on environmental justice in the Wheeler book. As the article by Robert Bullard points out, this is one aspect of the environmental movement that is often overlooked. Environmentalism tends to be seen as a homogeneous movement dominated by well-off white people, and to a large extent, that seems to be true. But the environmental justice movement deals with the instances in which disadvantaged, disenfranchised people find their communities and local environment harmed because they are and/or minorities, and they don't have the power to stop it.
One of the things that struck me about the article was its mention of an incident in North Carolina that is recognized as the beginning of the environmental justice movement. Having lived in NC for a little over six years before moving to Bloomington, I had heard about the incident, but didn't know much about it, so tonight I went looking for information. Duke University (boo Blue Devils) has a good site here that takes a look at the beginnings of the environmental justice movement, as well as some other controversies in the Triangle area. In a nutshell, the residents of a poor, largely African American county in northeast North Carolina, Warren County, became the site in 1972 of a huge PCB dump. Eventually these toxic substances leaked into the county's water supplies. It took over thirty years, but the state finally began destroying these substances in 2003. Who knows what kind of damage was wrought in the meantime.
Similar events hit a little closer to home for me. In the years before I moved, Orange County (home of Chapel Hill, where I lived...trust me, it's nothing like the O.C. you saw on TV) was trying to figure out what to do with its trash. The local landfill was filling up fast and was scheduled to close soon. The county had decided to construct a waste transfer station that would serve as a way station for garbage before it was hauled elsewhere for final disposal. The question was, where should the transfer station be located? There was some talk of building it at the location of the current landfill, which is where the environmental justice aspect comes into play.
The location of the current landfill is on the north side of town. It's not far from where I used to live; in fact, I used to go running and biking up in this area often. Chapel Hill has a reputation for being a bit of a well-to-do town, and to some extent this is accurate. But it also has some areas that aren't so rich, and the area surrounding the landfill is one of those. The residents of the Rogers-Eubanks neighborhood are predominantly African American and not well-off. To the best of my knowledge, electricity and running water are still at a premium in the neighborhood; despite promises from city and county officials, basic services have yet to reach everyone. It's surprising to find neighborhoods in a large-ish city (located in a big metro area) that still don't have such basic services, but there it is.
This site, also hosted by Duke (boo Blue Devils) has the details of the landfill's construction. The landfill was built in 1972, with the promise that it would be closed within ten years, and that the area would be turned into a community center. Instead, ten years later the landfill was expanded and is still in use today (though it's very close to capacity). In the meantime, the basic services the residents were promised have not been provided.
From what I hear, the waste transfer station issue has been put on hold; the county is shipping its garbage to Durham while the county commissioners sort out this mess. One good piece of news is that it appears the landfill site is off the table as a location for the transfer station, which is a victory for the area's residents. But this is a good illustration of one thing Bullard mentions: it's much harder to get rid of a facility after it's been built than to prevent it from being built in the first place. I think that's the battle residents of Rogers-Eubanks have been fighting for years.
If you're interested, you can find an article about the waste transfer station from the Triangle's weekly independent paper here. The article mentions the fact that benzene has been found in the groundwater near the landfill.
Finally, this week NPR is running a series of stories on the EPA and air pollution. This evening, there was a report on NPR about a town in northern Oklahoma where rural residents (including a number of Native Americans working low-paying jobs) spent thirteen years fighting a local chemical plant that was polluting the town. This is another example of an environmental injustice perpetrated against the disenfranchised. It's striking to me that the company would run a comparatively "clean" factory in Taiwan, but was not shy about spreading its toxic pollution among the farmers and small-town residents in Oklahoma. The article can be found here.
Happy reading.
P.S. Go Tar Heels.
One of the things that struck me about the article was its mention of an incident in North Carolina that is recognized as the beginning of the environmental justice movement. Having lived in NC for a little over six years before moving to Bloomington, I had heard about the incident, but didn't know much about it, so tonight I went looking for information. Duke University (boo Blue Devils) has a good site here that takes a look at the beginnings of the environmental justice movement, as well as some other controversies in the Triangle area. In a nutshell, the residents of a poor, largely African American county in northeast North Carolina, Warren County, became the site in 1972 of a huge PCB dump. Eventually these toxic substances leaked into the county's water supplies. It took over thirty years, but the state finally began destroying these substances in 2003. Who knows what kind of damage was wrought in the meantime.
Similar events hit a little closer to home for me. In the years before I moved, Orange County (home of Chapel Hill, where I lived...trust me, it's nothing like the O.C. you saw on TV) was trying to figure out what to do with its trash. The local landfill was filling up fast and was scheduled to close soon. The county had decided to construct a waste transfer station that would serve as a way station for garbage before it was hauled elsewhere for final disposal. The question was, where should the transfer station be located? There was some talk of building it at the location of the current landfill, which is where the environmental justice aspect comes into play.
The location of the current landfill is on the north side of town. It's not far from where I used to live; in fact, I used to go running and biking up in this area often. Chapel Hill has a reputation for being a bit of a well-to-do town, and to some extent this is accurate. But it also has some areas that aren't so rich, and the area surrounding the landfill is one of those. The residents of the Rogers-Eubanks neighborhood are predominantly African American and not well-off. To the best of my knowledge, electricity and running water are still at a premium in the neighborhood; despite promises from city and county officials, basic services have yet to reach everyone. It's surprising to find neighborhoods in a large-ish city (located in a big metro area) that still don't have such basic services, but there it is.
This site, also hosted by Duke (boo Blue Devils) has the details of the landfill's construction. The landfill was built in 1972, with the promise that it would be closed within ten years, and that the area would be turned into a community center. Instead, ten years later the landfill was expanded and is still in use today (though it's very close to capacity). In the meantime, the basic services the residents were promised have not been provided.
From what I hear, the waste transfer station issue has been put on hold; the county is shipping its garbage to Durham while the county commissioners sort out this mess. One good piece of news is that it appears the landfill site is off the table as a location for the transfer station, which is a victory for the area's residents. But this is a good illustration of one thing Bullard mentions: it's much harder to get rid of a facility after it's been built than to prevent it from being built in the first place. I think that's the battle residents of Rogers-Eubanks have been fighting for years.
If you're interested, you can find an article about the waste transfer station from the Triangle's weekly independent paper here. The article mentions the fact that benzene has been found in the groundwater near the landfill.
Finally, this week NPR is running a series of stories on the EPA and air pollution. This evening, there was a report on NPR about a town in northern Oklahoma where rural residents (including a number of Native Americans working low-paying jobs) spent thirteen years fighting a local chemical plant that was polluting the town. This is another example of an environmental injustice perpetrated against the disenfranchised. It's striking to me that the company would run a comparatively "clean" factory in Taiwan, but was not shy about spreading its toxic pollution among the farmers and small-town residents in Oklahoma. The article can be found here.
Happy reading.
P.S. Go Tar Heels.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Personal Project Progress #2
Tonight I would like to talk about orange juice.
First off, I want it made clear that I don't drink coffee. Ever. Well, almost never; this summer, while I was in England, I had maybe half a dozen cups in the span of six weeks or so, which was unfathomable before I got there. But I haven't had a single cup since. Gone cold turkey. No side effects.
No, instead of coffee, I drink OJ every morning. My coffee mugs don't hold coffee; they hold orange juice. So perhaps it's no surprise that one of the things I've done for my personal project about food is to start buying organic OJ. Why organic juice? The absence of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, basically. I don't think we've talked much about farming and land use in V515, but in V643 (Natural Resource Management), we've been reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which is all about how the pesticides we used in the 1950s wreaked such ecological havoc throughout the country. That's bad, so I figure anything that can be done to reduce their use would probably be helpful.
I don't know exactly what I was expecting when I started buying organic OJ. But one thing I've found: it actually tastes better than the stuff I used to buy at Kroger. It's thicker and richer, more of a full taste. I'll bet that if I go back to supermarket juice now, I'd probably find it a bit watered down. So far, so good on this front.
Other things I've done:
--Buying mostly local and/or organic produce. I would say almost all of the produce I've bought in the last few weeks has been either organic and/or purchased at either the farmer's market or Bloomingfoods. Not that I haven't purchased anything from the grocery store, but it's definitely been less than I had been before. In this way, I'm hoping that I'm eating more environmentally-friendly produce and supporting local businesses at the same time.
--Green beans for lunch: In my effort to break my addiction to deli lunch meat, a few days ago, I made some green beans (purchased at the farmer's market) for lunch, accompanied by a cup of organic yogurt. This seemed like a good way to break the monotony of lunch sandwiches. It went okay, I guess.
--Eating less red meat: I can on one hand the number of times I've had ground beef this semester. The one meal I've made with ground beef has been a big pot of chili I made several weeks ago. However, even that meat was locally, grass-fed beef. Not only was it healthier (as advertised), but it also was cheaper than the lean meat at Kroger. Didn't notice much difference in taste. That's not to say that I haven't eaten other meat; I have a couple of recipes that call for kielbasa, and my "I'm way too tired to cook tonight" meal is generally still grilling up a bratwurst and slapping some mustard on it. So I guess I still have some changes to make.
Future steps include:
--More research: Honestly, this is the part I'm falling way behind on. I need to delve into the details on why local and/or organic produce can be better for your health and the environment than mass-produced food. This includes digging into some journal articles and other studies that document the advantages (and disadvantages) to changing what I eat. Unfortunately, what I've read so far is not all pretty. Take this, for instance: a short blog post from the Nature Conservancy about the environmental impacts of organic food. One of the things it states is that organic produce may require more land to grow on a large scale, which, since I'm interested in land use issues, may not necessarily be the best thing. I'm also interested in looking at some of the climate change effects of local produce; some of the things I've seen thus far seem to hint that there's actually more greenhouse gas emissions involved in local food than non-local food due to the efficiency of the delivery methods. But I need to study that more. I also obtained a copy of the book Food, Inc. from the library and need to go through some of that in the next few weeks.
--Discussions with local enthusiasts: I have some plans to talk to local farmers and business owners (such as the chef at Farm) to talk about the costs and benefits of both local and organic food.
--Food experimentation: One of the things I'd like to do is make some more of my own food instead of buying packaged stuff. To that end, I'm thinking about trying my hand at homemade pizza dough and sauce, spaghetti sauce (because I eat a lot of pasta), and possibly salad dressing.
--Beer & soda: I'm thinking of looking more into locally-brewed beer and organic soda. This latter might be most important because, while I hate coffee, I am a bit of a Dr. Pepper addict. I'm wondering if organic colas might be better for me.
That is all.
First off, I want it made clear that I don't drink coffee. Ever. Well, almost never; this summer, while I was in England, I had maybe half a dozen cups in the span of six weeks or so, which was unfathomable before I got there. But I haven't had a single cup since. Gone cold turkey. No side effects.
No, instead of coffee, I drink OJ every morning. My coffee mugs don't hold coffee; they hold orange juice. So perhaps it's no surprise that one of the things I've done for my personal project about food is to start buying organic OJ. Why organic juice? The absence of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, basically. I don't think we've talked much about farming and land use in V515, but in V643 (Natural Resource Management), we've been reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which is all about how the pesticides we used in the 1950s wreaked such ecological havoc throughout the country. That's bad, so I figure anything that can be done to reduce their use would probably be helpful.
I don't know exactly what I was expecting when I started buying organic OJ. But one thing I've found: it actually tastes better than the stuff I used to buy at Kroger. It's thicker and richer, more of a full taste. I'll bet that if I go back to supermarket juice now, I'd probably find it a bit watered down. So far, so good on this front.
Other things I've done:
--Buying mostly local and/or organic produce. I would say almost all of the produce I've bought in the last few weeks has been either organic and/or purchased at either the farmer's market or Bloomingfoods. Not that I haven't purchased anything from the grocery store, but it's definitely been less than I had been before. In this way, I'm hoping that I'm eating more environmentally-friendly produce and supporting local businesses at the same time.
--Green beans for lunch: In my effort to break my addiction to deli lunch meat, a few days ago, I made some green beans (purchased at the farmer's market) for lunch, accompanied by a cup of organic yogurt. This seemed like a good way to break the monotony of lunch sandwiches. It went okay, I guess.
--Eating less red meat: I can on one hand the number of times I've had ground beef this semester. The one meal I've made with ground beef has been a big pot of chili I made several weeks ago. However, even that meat was locally, grass-fed beef. Not only was it healthier (as advertised), but it also was cheaper than the lean meat at Kroger. Didn't notice much difference in taste. That's not to say that I haven't eaten other meat; I have a couple of recipes that call for kielbasa, and my "I'm way too tired to cook tonight" meal is generally still grilling up a bratwurst and slapping some mustard on it. So I guess I still have some changes to make.
Future steps include:
--More research: Honestly, this is the part I'm falling way behind on. I need to delve into the details on why local and/or organic produce can be better for your health and the environment than mass-produced food. This includes digging into some journal articles and other studies that document the advantages (and disadvantages) to changing what I eat. Unfortunately, what I've read so far is not all pretty. Take this, for instance: a short blog post from the Nature Conservancy about the environmental impacts of organic food. One of the things it states is that organic produce may require more land to grow on a large scale, which, since I'm interested in land use issues, may not necessarily be the best thing. I'm also interested in looking at some of the climate change effects of local produce; some of the things I've seen thus far seem to hint that there's actually more greenhouse gas emissions involved in local food than non-local food due to the efficiency of the delivery methods. But I need to study that more. I also obtained a copy of the book Food, Inc. from the library and need to go through some of that in the next few weeks.
--Discussions with local enthusiasts: I have some plans to talk to local farmers and business owners (such as the chef at Farm) to talk about the costs and benefits of both local and organic food.
--Food experimentation: One of the things I'd like to do is make some more of my own food instead of buying packaged stuff. To that end, I'm thinking about trying my hand at homemade pizza dough and sauce, spaghetti sauce (because I eat a lot of pasta), and possibly salad dressing.
--Beer & soda: I'm thinking of looking more into locally-brewed beer and organic soda. This latter might be most important because, while I hate coffee, I am a bit of a Dr. Pepper addict. I'm wondering if organic colas might be better for me.
That is all.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
It's interesting that we are talking about transportation this week. I say that because I've had to struggle with this issue a lot lately. Here is my (sad) story:
Three weeks ago, I got in a car accident. I was driving my '06 Corolla east on 3rd St., out past the mall, on my way to Brown Co. State Park for some hiking one Saturday morning, when a girl came from a side street on my right (the south side of the street), and tried to make a left turn to go west on 3rd. St. Well, when she did that, she either looked and didn't see me or didn't bother looking at all, because she pulled right in front of me. I barely had enough time to register what was about to happen before I hit her. Fortunately, we were both able to walk away from the accident. I don't know about her, but I ended up going to the emergency room right afterward, where they X-ray'd my back and neck and found nothing amiss, so they sent me home with some pain pills and told me to expect some soreness over the next few days. A couple days later, though, I was back in the ER with the worst headache I've ever had, and that's when they told me I probably had a concussion. Since then, I've been dealing with some back issues; it doesn't hurt too bad, but it's enough that I'm going through some physical therapy to try and get rid of it.
My car, on the other hand, did not fare so well:
The damage doesn't actually look that bad, but apparently it was bad enough for the insurance companies to total it. So now I am sans vehicular transportation, and this is where the dilemma occurs.
Among the many issues I'm trying to sort through is whether I even need a car at all. In the fourteen months I lived in Bloomington before the crash, I put probably no more than 3,500 miles on my car. That makes me wonder if I could survive without a car at all. While I would love to say "yes," I think the answer is no. As our reading this week attest, a great many of us in the States are addicted to our cars, and I think I might be one of them. Even though Bloomington is a pretty bike-friendly city (as the awards it has garnered will attest), there are times that I definitely want to drive instead of bike places. That's only going to get worse as winter sets in, because I'm a winter wuss.
My second decision is whether to buy new or used. Once again, while I know that the planet would probably thank me if I bought a used car, I'm really leaning towards new. I have a hard time justifying buying a used car with sixty or seventy thousand miles on it when I can take the insurance money and add a small interest-free loan from...*sigh*...my mother to finance a new car.
Not sustainable of me, I know. But to bring this story back to our readings, I think my story illustrates a couple of points about our attitude towards cars. One is that we feel like we can't live without them. With how little I drive these days, it's hard justifying buying any car, but I would much rather have one for the convenience of not having to wait for a bus in the snow or being able to drive when I'm just too lazy to bike or walk somewhere. Besides, I don't know where I'm going to be living after graduation, and while I'm planning on looking for something close to public transportation or some other way to get to work, I can't guarantee that that's going to happen. So better to error on the side of caution and get a car, I think.
Second is my preference for a new car. As Americans, I think we're conditioned to want the new, shiny toy as opposed to the pre-owned, less-shiny toy. This is one of the things that makes ours a not-so-sustainable society. It's analogous to the stigma against public transportation noted in the Wheeler readings this week, where riding the bus is considered a sign that someone just doesn't have the money to own a car: "Oh...you bought a used car?...You poor thing." Our attitudes towards public transportation and new cars seem to be pretty much the same, as they are both status symbols.
All that being said, regardless of what I end up with, I'm planning on making my auto purchase as "nice" to the environment as possible. The cars I've been test-driving have all been compacts that average nearly 40 mpg on the highway. Gas mileage is probably the one thing I won't compromise on with this purchase. So see, I'm not a completely horrible person.
(http://green.autoblog.com/2011/10/19/banning-hybrids-from-hov-lanes-slows-down-everyone/)
A couple of links to recent news articles seem relevant to this week's readings. Here is an NPR story about how more roads generally lead to more traffic. I think both Wheeler and Roseland hinted at this connection. And here you can read about how California's recent banning of hybrids from carpool lanes throughout the state actually slowed down all traffic, instead of speeding up traffic in the carpool lanes, which was the intent. Once again, our readings this week discuss how such decisions can impact the way we plan and use our transportation system. In this case, it seems like the state's decision created some unintended negative side effects.
Ta.
Three weeks ago, I got in a car accident. I was driving my '06 Corolla east on 3rd St., out past the mall, on my way to Brown Co. State Park for some hiking one Saturday morning, when a girl came from a side street on my right (the south side of the street), and tried to make a left turn to go west on 3rd. St. Well, when she did that, she either looked and didn't see me or didn't bother looking at all, because she pulled right in front of me. I barely had enough time to register what was about to happen before I hit her. Fortunately, we were both able to walk away from the accident. I don't know about her, but I ended up going to the emergency room right afterward, where they X-ray'd my back and neck and found nothing amiss, so they sent me home with some pain pills and told me to expect some soreness over the next few days. A couple days later, though, I was back in the ER with the worst headache I've ever had, and that's when they told me I probably had a concussion. Since then, I've been dealing with some back issues; it doesn't hurt too bad, but it's enough that I'm going through some physical therapy to try and get rid of it.
My car, on the other hand, did not fare so well:
The damage doesn't actually look that bad, but apparently it was bad enough for the insurance companies to total it. So now I am sans vehicular transportation, and this is where the dilemma occurs.
Among the many issues I'm trying to sort through is whether I even need a car at all. In the fourteen months I lived in Bloomington before the crash, I put probably no more than 3,500 miles on my car. That makes me wonder if I could survive without a car at all. While I would love to say "yes," I think the answer is no. As our reading this week attest, a great many of us in the States are addicted to our cars, and I think I might be one of them. Even though Bloomington is a pretty bike-friendly city (as the awards it has garnered will attest), there are times that I definitely want to drive instead of bike places. That's only going to get worse as winter sets in, because I'm a winter wuss.
My second decision is whether to buy new or used. Once again, while I know that the planet would probably thank me if I bought a used car, I'm really leaning towards new. I have a hard time justifying buying a used car with sixty or seventy thousand miles on it when I can take the insurance money and add a small interest-free loan from...*sigh*...my mother to finance a new car.
Not sustainable of me, I know. But to bring this story back to our readings, I think my story illustrates a couple of points about our attitude towards cars. One is that we feel like we can't live without them. With how little I drive these days, it's hard justifying buying any car, but I would much rather have one for the convenience of not having to wait for a bus in the snow or being able to drive when I'm just too lazy to bike or walk somewhere. Besides, I don't know where I'm going to be living after graduation, and while I'm planning on looking for something close to public transportation or some other way to get to work, I can't guarantee that that's going to happen. So better to error on the side of caution and get a car, I think.
Second is my preference for a new car. As Americans, I think we're conditioned to want the new, shiny toy as opposed to the pre-owned, less-shiny toy. This is one of the things that makes ours a not-so-sustainable society. It's analogous to the stigma against public transportation noted in the Wheeler readings this week, where riding the bus is considered a sign that someone just doesn't have the money to own a car: "Oh...you bought a used car?...You poor thing." Our attitudes towards public transportation and new cars seem to be pretty much the same, as they are both status symbols.
All that being said, regardless of what I end up with, I'm planning on making my auto purchase as "nice" to the environment as possible. The cars I've been test-driving have all been compacts that average nearly 40 mpg on the highway. Gas mileage is probably the one thing I won't compromise on with this purchase. So see, I'm not a completely horrible person.
A couple of links to recent news articles seem relevant to this week's readings. Here is an NPR story about how more roads generally lead to more traffic. I think both Wheeler and Roseland hinted at this connection. And here you can read about how California's recent banning of hybrids from carpool lanes throughout the state actually slowed down all traffic, instead of speeding up traffic in the carpool lanes, which was the intent. Once again, our readings this week discuss how such decisions can impact the way we plan and use our transportation system. In this case, it seems like the state's decision created some unintended negative side effects.
Ta.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Quick Hits
So I came across a couple of links today that might be interesting.
Here you can read about a Canadian program that lets people invest in bonds where the money is used to buy solar panels. These types of financing are pretty rare here, but it seems like they're increasingly popular elsewhere. The best part? A rate of return that gets you more than $200 more than you would if you invested in a crappy savings account these days.
Here you can read about how Disney Paris is instituting heat co-generation, where they use the heat generated by all their computers and servers to power nearby buildings. We just got done reading about this, and seems like a very creative (and, I gather, efficient) way of generating electricity. If more big businesses do things like this, we may be on to something.
TTFN
Here you can read about a Canadian program that lets people invest in bonds where the money is used to buy solar panels. These types of financing are pretty rare here, but it seems like they're increasingly popular elsewhere. The best part? A rate of return that gets you more than $200 more than you would if you invested in a crappy savings account these days.
Here you can read about how Disney Paris is instituting heat co-generation, where they use the heat generated by all their computers and servers to power nearby buildings. We just got done reading about this, and seems like a very creative (and, I gather, efficient) way of generating electricity. If more big businesses do things like this, we may be on to something.
TTFN
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Unanticipated Effect of Climate Change
I just came across this, and thought everyone might like it. It's about the unanticipated Arctic (as opposed to Antarctic) ozone hole, and how it may have affected Europe's crop output this year. It touches upon the types of things Dr. Brabson talked about today, so check it out.
Monday, October 10, 2011
The Quest for Energy Efficiency
This week's reading on energy efficiency contained some good ideas and touches on other topics we've talked about in class. To wit:
*Making vending machine companies pay for the electricity their vending machines use: This one I like. Apparently in Japan, vending machine companies have to pay for the amount of energy the vending machines use. To me, this is a great idea to overcome the principle-agent problem and force the providers of a service to bear the full costs of providing that service. What other areas of life could this be extended to? What if we instituted a tax on the owners of apartment buildings and other rental properties if they did not install things like energy efficient appliances, CFL bulbs, etc.? I guess the ultimate internalization of an externality would be forcing automakers and oil companies to pay for the marginal environmental damage caused by their products. It does not look like we're going to be taking this step anytime soon, though.
*The lessons we've learned abOut community-based social marketing are woven throughout this selection. A couple of things I picked up on involve messaging, such as getting key early stakeholders involved in publicizing an energy efficiency campaign and using electricity bills to show customers how much energy their neighbors are using. As our community-based social marketing book shows, these types of actions (combined with others) can really help convince people to adopt more sustainable behaviors. It also shows how such actions can backfire, with the example of the Sacramento MUD customer who wrote in telling the utility to leave him alone as long as he pays his bill on time. I guess you can't please everyone.
*The article doesn't go into much detail, but I'm curious about the disincentives to builders to build efficient buildings. Is this just a matter of standards not being high enough? The article mentions that many buildings could obtain 40% energy efficiency by adopting some simple, off-the-shelf solutions, but is the problem just that they are not doing that because they don't have to, or is there something more to it? If it's just a matter of them doing only the bare minimum, then I would return the point made by one of the experts quoted in the article about mandating as much as possible. The way I see it, sometimes we do just need to mandate certain things. There are times that, because of economic incentives or other reasons, society just takes forever to do something that needs to be done, and maybe that's where government needs to step in. If mandating higher standards is what's going to change the situation, then maybe we should go ahead and do it. But at the same time, I wonder if there are other ways that higher standards could be incentivized. For instance, is there any incentive for LEED certification, beyond the certification itself? I'm thinking there isn't, but I might be wrong. Or perhaps there could be more extensive subsidies provided to defray the up-front costs of building a LEED-certified building. It's a thought.
*Making vending machine companies pay for the electricity their vending machines use: This one I like. Apparently in Japan, vending machine companies have to pay for the amount of energy the vending machines use. To me, this is a great idea to overcome the principle-agent problem and force the providers of a service to bear the full costs of providing that service. What other areas of life could this be extended to? What if we instituted a tax on the owners of apartment buildings and other rental properties if they did not install things like energy efficient appliances, CFL bulbs, etc.? I guess the ultimate internalization of an externality would be forcing automakers and oil companies to pay for the marginal environmental damage caused by their products. It does not look like we're going to be taking this step anytime soon, though.
*The lessons we've learned abOut community-based social marketing are woven throughout this selection. A couple of things I picked up on involve messaging, such as getting key early stakeholders involved in publicizing an energy efficiency campaign and using electricity bills to show customers how much energy their neighbors are using. As our community-based social marketing book shows, these types of actions (combined with others) can really help convince people to adopt more sustainable behaviors. It also shows how such actions can backfire, with the example of the Sacramento MUD customer who wrote in telling the utility to leave him alone as long as he pays his bill on time. I guess you can't please everyone.
*The article doesn't go into much detail, but I'm curious about the disincentives to builders to build efficient buildings. Is this just a matter of standards not being high enough? The article mentions that many buildings could obtain 40% energy efficiency by adopting some simple, off-the-shelf solutions, but is the problem just that they are not doing that because they don't have to, or is there something more to it? If it's just a matter of them doing only the bare minimum, then I would return the point made by one of the experts quoted in the article about mandating as much as possible. The way I see it, sometimes we do just need to mandate certain things. There are times that, because of economic incentives or other reasons, society just takes forever to do something that needs to be done, and maybe that's where government needs to step in. If mandating higher standards is what's going to change the situation, then maybe we should go ahead and do it. But at the same time, I wonder if there are other ways that higher standards could be incentivized. For instance, is there any incentive for LEED certification, beyond the certification itself? I'm thinking there isn't, but I might be wrong. Or perhaps there could be more extensive subsidies provided to defray the up-front costs of building a LEED-certified building. It's a thought.
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