———————– ** Fresh Green Beans ** ———————– Grown in Kansas. Eaten Worldwide.

Climate change really is inconvenient. Despite all of the scientific study being poured into this issue, the impacts remain difficult to predict. And although its effects may not be noticeable for decades, the window of time we have left to address it could be very small. Meanwhile, our US leaders are elected for 2- or 4-year terms. Oftentimes, this leads to a focus on short term solutions that keep constituents satisfied. Sounds like a major conflict.

When asked about this balance between short and long term policy consideration, Congressman Dennis Moore notes that “in the short term, we need to utilize the tools we already have available - implementing energy efficiency measures, encouraging responsible behaviors and investing in the research and development of technologies that will ultimately aid in us achieving our long-term goals .”

However, it is sometimes difficult for me to believe that our government is going to make a difference on this issue. I may even agree with Wall Street Journal editorialist Joe Rago who seems to think Congress is stretching out the discussion on carbon emission controls in order to maintain credibility with environmentalists while putting off a decision that could have serious economic impacts.

To some degree, I don’t blame them. We have no idea if potentially costly programs put in place today will really make a difference 50 years from now. But that shouldn’t stop us from giving it a try and hoping that our collective efforts will help us turn the corner on climate change. All we have to lose - and gain - is a more sustainable future for ourselves and for our planet.

- Jeff

Michael Dorsey says we are screwed. He says It is too late to worry about fixing climate change and time to start focusing on adapting to its impacts. At least that is what I gathered from his virtual visit to Media & the Environment this month.

So is Congress just spinning it’s wheels discussing carbon taxes and cap-and-trade programs? When questioned about dealing with climate change, Congressman Dennis Moore (D-KS) thinks it is high time we get something done.

“The longer we wait to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the more expensive it will become. With big policy changes, there are bound to be growing pains, however, we simply cannot afford to continue business as usual.”

Congressman Moore feels the legislature has turned the corner on responding to this issue.

“The House leadership has not only made it one of our top legislative priorities, but support for many of these energy efficiency efforts seems to be bipartisan. Of course, a few of my colleagues and others involved in our national dialogue on this issue still refuse to acknowledge the problem is real, as well as a few of my colleagues who are trying to protect the interests of their districts (like big coal districts, etc.), but generally, the support is widespread. As we move forward, therefore, we will have to work together to draft legislation that we can all support - legislation that will make real progress on this issue while understanding that we can’t fix the problem overnight.”

If Dorsey is right, overnight may be all the time we have.

- Jeff

Americans don’t trust Congress. This is not news. But a Gallup poll in July 2007 put Congress at the bottom of a list ranking public confidence in 16 American institutions. According to the poll, American’s put more trust in big business than they do in our legislature. And we definitely don’t have much love for big business.

That distrust may be part of what is driving younger voters to turn out in record numbers this year. Congressman Dennis Moore (D-KS) is certain the youth vote will be heard in the 2008 elections. “Young people have traditionally been very successful in achieving social change - from the women’s suffrage movement, to Vietnam, to the civil rights movement,” he says. “This year, young people have a unique opportunity to participate in social change in the November elections.”

With the environment ranking among the top 5 issues important to young voters, let’s hope we can add sustainability to that list of social movements. Only time will tell if the current groundswell will continue through to November.  But if it does, we could start seeing our elected officials taking the environment more seriously.

- Jeff

I have never attended a city council meeting. I have never participated in a protest (although I’ve signed a few online petitions in my time). And until recently, I have never written my state senator or representative. You could say I am apolitical. I guess I’ve always chosen education over activism to address the issues that are most important to me.

But as the battle to build coal fired plants in Holcomb, KS, raged on this spring, I felt it my civic duty to write my legislators. I knew their minds were already made up to vote for a veto override (even though they both sat through our local “Focus the Nation” event just three months ago listening to arguments against the legislation), but I fired away my messages anyway.

I was pleased to get a detailed response from my state representative, Tom Sloan. But it left more questions than answers. Here’s just a snippet of his reasoning for supporting new coal, and the queries left in its trail:

“Simply saying no to coal-fired electric generation does not result in the construction of renewable generation units.”

Maybe not, but doesn’t saying yes squelch the need for any other source of energy in our state for the time being, and put an end to opportunities for renewable development?

“The coal-fired plants would serve as anchors and financial supporters of the high voltage electric transmission lines necessary to move wind energy west to the California market and south and east to urban centers.”

When did Kansas get in the business of exporting power to the rest of the nation anyway? I thought we were an agricultural state.

“Emission standards for carbon releases from power plants, other commercial enterprises (e.g., ethanol plants), motor vehicles, etc. should be established. Currently no standards exist at the federal or state levels because scientists and policy-makers have not yet reached consensus on what levels are relevant and attainable. “

Now your talking. So shouldn’t we give current debates at the national level work themselves out before we jump headfirst into increasing carbon emissions that will soon be regulated?

“Wind energy will and should be part of the energy mix serving Kansas and the nation/world. The proposed Holcomb plants will be the lowest emitting plants in the nation and will be the first plants to have carbon capture and mitigation investments as part of their business plan”.

This one totally lost me. If wind should and will be part of the mix, why do we need to add more coal? In a state where 75% of the energy produced is from coal, and most of the remainder comes from nuclear power, I’d say we have a long way to go to make wind even part of the mix. Cleaner or not, coal definitely needs to make room for it’s renewable cousins.

I could go on, but I think you get the point. I don’t doubt Representative Sloan’s sincere interest appreciate his effort to education himself on the issue, but for me the logic just doesn’t add up. It looks more like new coal would limit our opportunities, not broaden our horizons, and make shooting for the stars even more difficult than it already is.

“Ad Astra” statue atop of the Kansas capitol. Source: flickr.com

-Jeff

Giant piles of rotting garbage. Rows and rows of it strewn along in perfect piles. No, this isn’t a landfill but a city-owned lot in East Lawrence. In fact, this garbage is never meant to end up in the landfill. It’s composed mainly of lawn clippings, leaves, and the paper bags that we Lawrenciens set out on our curb every Monday after a gritty weekend of yard work. A few months later - after shredding, turning, and screening - it’s a rich, dark compost ready for us to pick up and take back to our homes to spread on gardens, flower beds, or even spread back over our lawns. Now that’s Mother Nature in action, right?

Not quite. As great as it is to keep the natural “dust to dust” cycle going, we’ve altered that cycle considerably, stirring in more fossil fuels than necessary to get the same result. This includes fossil fuels used to collect the yard waste (an extra route driven by trucks each week) and trips by residents to pick up their old waste in its new form.

Although setting out your yard waste for the weekly collection is a great idea, there are simpler ways to do Mother Nature a favor. You can start by mulching your grass and leaves right back on the yard they came from. Mulching, or grasscycling, is like adding free fertilizer to your lawn and helps you avoid the hassle of bagging.

While you are at it, you can cut out additional polluting emissions by using an electric or manual reel mower. Believe it or not, gas mowers like the one in your garage are responsible for as much as 5% of all ozone forming emissions and 17 millions gallons of spilt gasoline each year. Electric mowers, while still powered by a fossil fuel-fired energy plant, produce less carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons. A reel mower gets rid of all of that because it’s powered by you. Those funny looking mowers you only see in cartoons may just be making a comeback.

The Reel Deal: Cut down on carbon emissions while cutting your grass with a reel mower. (Source: Wendy Gay, flickr.com)

I’m not suggesting that we should put an end to the city composting program. This is a great service that creates a carefully monitored product that couldn’t as easily be done in your own back yard. And, since the city started collecting yard waste separately from trash in 1993, we’ve diverted 33 to 35% of our waste from the landfill, amounting to nearly 18,000 tons in 2007.

But the first of those tried and true 3R’s of waste is “reduce”, and mulching or mowing with a reel mower reduces more than just waste. It reduces the need for fertilizer, cuts emissions, and saves the city money by reducing collection and processing time. So when it’s time to fire up the mower, consider keeping your “garbage” in your backyard and enjoy the benefits of a greener, cleaner lawn.

While scrolling through past posts on the popular blog “Stuff White People Like“, I couldn’t help but notice that many of the things white people seem to like have been discussed on this blog: farmer’s markets, veganism, transportation, bottled water, and even evil corporations, just to name a few. Based on this, environmental injustice shouldn’t really exist, right?

In all seriousness, though, I recall listening to Dr. Dorceta Taylor speak on “Diversity and the Environment” last fall during the Greening of the Campus VII conference at Ball State University. In discussing her impressive program at the University of Michigan and minorities in environmental leadership, she dispelled the myth that “minorities aren’t interested in the environment”. Dr. Taylor argued that it wasn’t a matter of not caring but of using a different terminology for the issues that minority communities face. Sadly, the concept of “justice” isn’t always the first thing that comes to mind when people talk about “environmentalism”. In any case, Dr. Taylor’s argument is yet another reminder that environmentalism is about more than just being “green”

- Jeff

When I wrote my first piece for this site, I had little experience with blogs and had certainly never written a blog post. I had a definite aversion to journalists due to way too many misquotes and misrepresentations in the local papers. And although I have worked in the environmental field for over 7 years, I wasn’t sure just how to reach people that weren’t already part of the choir.

Three months later I am starting to get the hang of things. I’m no pro, but I think I’m starting to find my voice in the blogosphere and discovering the tremendous impact this sort of dialog can have. In the process of reading, watching, listening to, and discussing environmental media, I have learned to appreciate journalists for the difficult task they have to present a balanced and unbiased picture of what’s going on in the world and the huge responsibility that comes with that. Most importantly, I have learned that there is no magic message that is going to help put an end to our environmental woes.

I suppose I knew that all along, and it always bothered me. But the conversation we have engaged in over the past several weeks amongst ourselves and with others from around the globe has put that once disappointing realization into a positive light.

Something Adam Werbach mentioned during our discussion with him on April 24 really resonated with me. He pointed out that in an effort to solve our planetary problems, environmentalists have ignored the challenges that people face in their own lives by focusing on a “new exotic challenge of saving the world”. (My apologies if I misquoted you, Adam.) In other words, it isn’t just about this one overarching problem, but all the individual pieces of that problem. We all have a role to play in creating a more sustainable future, and that means something different to everyone. The goal is to find what that something is.

As the authors of this blog went around the room trying to define “sustainability” this week, it was evident that environmentalism isn’t about polar bears, rain forests, CFLs, wind turbines, organic food, chemical-free products, or all the green “stuff” that is starting to show up on magazine pages and The Oprah Winfrey Show (sorry, Simran).

It’s people. It is people forming relationships with each other, with the environment, with local farmers, and with the processes that bring all that “stuff” into their homes. It is people understanding and re-establishing the forgotten relationships, which probably got us into this mess in the first place. It is people - whether part of the choir or not -communicating with each other to help create the best planet we possibly can. Whether we call it Green, Blue, environmentalism, or sustainability, it is still about people.

It has been an honor writing with and learning from all the people involved in this conversation, and I look forward to continuing the dialog. Afterall, we still have to go about the dirty work of saving the world.

- Jeff Severin

This morning I hopped in the shower, washed my hair using a bar shampoo that was packaged in only a small amount of paper (not a giant plastic bottle) and used a paraben-free body wash with natural oils & extracts. But I might as well have been slathering myself with green paint. After all, I am greenwashing every day. Despite using these eco-friendly personal care products, I turned the water up extra hot and just stood there for awhile to help relax the kink in my neck that I seemed to develop overnight.

The greenwashing in my life doesn’t stop there. I’m in the midst of remodeling our home office into a nursery as we anxiously await our first born. I’m proud to admit that I used a low-VOC finish on the hardwood floor and no-VOC paint on the walls. We are searching Craigslist and used furniture stores for a crib and other furniture to give new life to someone else’s discards. We are registering for BPA-free bottles, organic onesies and the safest baby shampoo we can find.

Meanwhile, our lives will soon be full of new plastic toys, disposable diapers, and all the other short-lived items and environmental impacts that come with having a baby. In moving our office to the room next door, we replaced our massive old reclaimed desk with a sleek new mass-produced particle board desk that came packed in a 40-gallon trash can’s worth of Styrofoam. And from the smell of things, that desk is probably off-gassing enough VOCs to make up for all the toxic fumes I carefully avoided in the nursery. These are the things I try to keep quiet as I greenwash about our future eco-baby.

To me, thats what greenwashing is about: all of the stories that aren’t being told. To a degree, I’m doing the same thing corporations accused of greenwashing are doing. I brag about my environmental victories but keep quiet about the things that aren’t so green. No one is attacking me for my lifestyle, so why do we have a different standard for businesses made up of individuals just like me?

Perhaps we need to measure the “greenness” of a corporation or business by how much progress it is making and not just by a snapshot of on any given day. That snapshot may show that the company is doing more harm than good, even if the good portion has been increasing over time. There is a big difference between a company that simply absolves itself of environmental sins with offsets alone and one that has made incremental improvements - no matter how small - to reduce emissions in the first place.

I feel I’m making progress in greening my life, and I think the business community is doing the same, even if it isn’t changing as quickly as we would like. True there are companies who are just coating themselves with a thin green wash. But before we accuse a company of such a crime, we need to take a look at their track record, then give them time to prove themselves with continued improvement.

- Jeff Severin

Until recently, I thought grain alcohol was just something you mixed with Kool-Aid and served at house parties – the inexpensive “social lubricant” we know as “Jungle Juice”. But it turns out this magic elixir has a far greater purpose. Also known as ethanol, grain alcohol has long been mixed with fuels as an additive to reduce emissions and has taken the national spotlight over the past few years as a possible solution to our oil addiction.

The opening of Zarco Earth Friendly Fuels at 9th & Iowa in Lawrence, KS, is one manifestation of this increased interest in ethanol. I had driven by this new station several times on my way to work, but had never stopped until this weekend. As soon as I pulled up to the pump, the station attendant walked out to explain which of their 13 fuels I could put in my car. One one side of the pump was a button for E-10, a blend of 10% corn-based ethanol and 90% gasoline. The other side had options for E-20, E-30 and E-85. Since I don’t have a flex-fuel vehicle I was only able to fill up with the 10% blend. It was more expensive than the others - the same price as regular gasoline at the traditional station next door - but the attendant who had welcomed me reminded me that E-10 is sold as “mid grade” fuel at some stations, so I was still saving money.

As I waited for my tank to fill, images flashed across the screen on the pump. “Ethanol reduced emissions by up to 50%”. “Produced from a local renewable product” (complete with an image of the American flag). On the other side of the island were pumps dispensing off-road and highway grade soy-based biodiesel, blended at B2 (2% biodiesel, 98% petro diesel), B5, B10, B20, and B99. And, there were recycling bins on the lot. This was certainly not your typical gas station.

In fact, this station is practically one-of-a-kind. In addition to selling fuels that aren’t available at most pumps, the station has a state-of-the art fueling system that blends the fuels on site, allowing for greater variability in what is offered without increasing transportation and storage. Zarco hopes to make additional improvements in the future to lessen their footprint. Solar, wind, and/or geothermal systems to power the station, a green roof, and additional tools to educate the public about alternative energy are among the possibilities. Eventually, this station could serve as a model for “green gas stations” in our region.

As discussed elsewhere on this blog, biofuels are not without their share of problems. The recent biofuels craze has raised concerns about environmental impacts and a realization that there may not be enough farmland to feed ourselves and our fuel consumption. There are also technical issues with the distribution of biofuels (ethanol readily takes on water so can’t be easily transported in existing pipelines) that must be overcome to avoid putting more carbon into the atmosphere through transport.

However, like with electrical power sources, transitioning to a carbon-free future may require a blend of solutions and a few crutches along the way. While corn-based ethanol probably isn’t the cure to our fossil-fuel addiction, other sources for biofuels are under development using less intensive crops and algae. Innovative fuel stations like Zarco Earth Friendly Fuels will help pave the way for these - and perhaps yet to be discovered solutions - by encouraging more efficient distribution systems, minimizing the footprint of fueling stations, and keeping the public educated about their options. In the meantime, the grain alcohol we once enjoyed at house parties may just help us slide by until a better alternative comes along.

-Jeff

Since we have been discussing the use of imagery in environmental media, I thought I would let everyone know about an upcoming student workshop that the Center for Sustainability is co-sponsoring with the Spencer Museum of Art. Author and Artist Linda Weintrab, who is currently working on a series of eco-art textbooks, will lead a 2-hour workshop for KU students entitled “Strategies for a Sustainable Society”. From the description, it sounds like this goes right along with last week’s topic:

The workshop explores relationships that are personal and emotional, and contrasts them with relationships that are detached and objective. It examines the critical environmental implications of both forms of relationship. It examines the critical environmental implications of both forms of relationship.

This all goes down on Wednesday, March 26 from 2 to 4 PM. Details are available on the Center for Sustainability website, along with registration. It’s a FREE workshop but is limited to 30 students, so you do have to register online. Linda will also be giving a lecture at noon that day at The Commons - the beautiful new space in Spooner Hall.

Oh, and if you haven’t been to The Commons yet, I would certainly recommend visiting. There is a timely exhibit there now by Marguerite Perret that blends images of nature and consumer culture, including this very captivating installation.

Enjoy!

- Jeff