Like millions of Americans, we’re celebrating July 4th, Independence Day.
However, we’re celebrating this national holiday by focusing on the many aspects of our life that, in various ways, have led us to quite a different vision for a sustainable tomorrow – complete with local, renewable energy and lots of delicious meals harvested within ten miles of where we live – if not from our own kitchen garden. Sometimes we even celebrate July 4th with a rainbow.
Here’s how our Independence Day is different — and yours can be too:
• Be energy independent by generating all our power with renewable energy systems.
For a vast portion of the United States, there is enough solar and wind energy to completely meet our needs right where we live. True, adopting renewable energy will require an investment either personally or for your business if you work from home. But with present Federal tax credits and many state incentives, the time couldn’t be better. We completely power our Inn Serendipity Bed & Breakfast and Farm with solar electric and wind turbine systems. In fact, we overproduce renewable energy to the tune of about 4,000 kWhs (kilowatt hours) a year. We share the surplus with our neighbors.
If you’ve followed the debate over climate change even a little, you likely know the main causes of global warming: concentrations of greenhouse gases build up in the Earth’s atmosphere, and create a “greenhouse,” or warming effect. You’re likely also aware that evidence of past warming periods has fueled the argument that natural causes are largely responsible for current global warming, and thus, our choices of ways to reduce global warming are limited. If Nature’s calling the shots, is there any reason to change human activities that increase levels of carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases?
While arguments persist, there’s little doubt that human-produced greenhouse gas emissions play a major role in the current warming trend. Nature has a role, but it pales in the face of increasing emissions from human activity.
What are some of the natural causes of global warming?
Think back to science classes from school. You undoubtedly learned at some point that carbon dioxide is a naturally-occurring compound, that it provides food for plant life, and that animals breathe it out. You may have also learned that decaying organic material releases CO2. There’s no need to question these facts. Greenhouse gases can be emitted into the atmosphere from a variety of natural sources.
Today’s post is by Kristen Honey, EDF Lorry Lokey Fellow.
Are sardines making a sustainable and sumptuous comeback? The Washington Post attempted to address this very question yesterday in a provocative article about the self-proclaimed “Sardinistas.” According to this group of nutritionists, environmentalists and foodie revolutionaries, the answer is a resounding “yes!” Sardine advocates and cutting-edge green chefs like Dean Gold and David Myers are bringing this smelly canned food out of the cob-webbed cabinet corner and back into the kitchen in innovative new ways. Or they are trying to, at least.
Just recently, I had the privilege of attending a private luncheon with the Sardinistas at filmmaker Mark Shelley’s Sea Studios Foundation on Monterey’s Cannery Row. The purpose of this luncheon was to highlight their recent efforts to promote sardines as a delicious and sustainable seafood choice. What struck me was their point that while Americans love eating tuna and other steak-like fish, we need to eat fish farther down the food chain (like sardines) to help alleviate pressure at the top.
After talking shop, we had the chance to eat delectable canned, frozen and fresh sardine dishes by renowned chef Alton Brown of The Food Network! If you don’t take my word for how tasty these creatures can be, try out for yourself these sardine-centric recipes for Sarde Arrosto (Griddle Roasted Sardines), Stuffed Sardines and Vuido (widowed potatoes).
Talk about a recipe for potential disaster. Combine a down economy, changing agriculture practices, rising unemployment and the end result looks grim. But here’s the secret ingredient revitalizing and greening our countryside: young people under 35.
Profiled in the new book, Renewing the Countryside: Youth, this new generation is making their mark on rural areas, from starting new farms to putting out their own entrepreneurial shingle in small towns. Renewing the Countryside: Youth showcases fifty case study stories, one from each state in the United States, cooking up a super-size serving of inspiration for what can be done in similar communities throughout rural America.
Renewing the Country (RTC), a Minnesota-based non-profit organization, specializes in championing such stories, telling the story of the small-scale but big impact individuals and organizations that are creatively crafting livelihoods that positively impact their rural communities. While other RTC books focus on stories within specific states such as Wisconsin, this latest book project, published in partnership with the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE), uniquely celebrates rural youth.
In addition to the case study stories themselves, the engaging writing and photography also came from a team young artists across the nation. But beyond the inspiring read, this book serves as a starter blueprint for others looking to either return to or plant new roots in rural America, no matter one’s age. Looking at these case study stories collectively, five themes emerge that identify why this particular group of young people are succeeding in the countryside: Read the rest of this entry »
In just seven years the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival has emerged as the premier music festival in the United States, if not the world. With the biggest names in music from genres across the musical spectrum taking to thirteen stages and providing festival-goers with four days of good music, danceable beats and pleasing melodies, this year’s Bonnaroo, from June 11-14 in Manchester, Tennessee will be no different from the last seven.
But in addition to the mountains of music and non-musical activities, the festival, which last year was named one of eighteen music festivals worldwide to receive the Greener Festival award, added several new green dimensions to its already impressive greening efforts.
Like the much newer Rothbury Festival up in Michigan, festival organizers at Bonnaroo have been hard at work finding new ways to green the festival scene and engage fans in discussions, seminars and educational programs about important sustainability topics and the pressing environmental issues of today. In addition to incorporating an environmental mission statement into every vendor contract, festival organizers have built upon past successful sustainability efforts and mixed in some new ones to give festival attendees a greener music festival experience.
Below are a few of the pre-festival green highlights, but stay tuned to Green Options for green updates, photos, interviews and reports from the ground at this year’s Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. Read the rest of this entry »
Still have bottled water as a regular item on the grocery list? Or just pick up the occasional bottle when you’re out? It’s so convenient…
As you probably know, that convenience comes at an environmental and social price: documentaries such as FLOW and Thirst, organizations such as the Sierra Club and Environmental Defense Fund, and even a few of us lowly bloggers, have reported on the costs created by water’s transformation from a freely-available resource to a multi-billion dollar commodity. That bottle of water you buy now contributes to the world’s third-largest industry.
It’s hard to watch television, read the paper, or go online without coming across facts about global warming prevention. You may already feel like you’ve got the basics down. Some of the more interesting global warming facts may have escaped your attention, though, as they don’t get quite as much coverage. The more time you spend digging into global warming causes and effects, the more you’ll realize that climate change goes beyond some of the most catastrophic (and newsworthy) problems associated with it. Global warming will transform your life at basic levels that we’re just beginning to understand.
Global warming causes you may not have known about
You’re likely aware that many of your daily activities — driving your car, cooling and heating your home, operating electronic devices — produce greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide. You may not, however, be aware of some other major global warming causes that you encounter regularly. For instance,
The meat on your plate:Deforestation, especially of tropical rainforests, is one of the major causes of global warming, and residents of countries such as Brazil and Costa Rica often destroy these forests to create grazing space for cattle. Choosing to eat less meat, and purchasing the meat you do eat from local sources, should be a part of your plan to lighten your own carbon footprint.
The food and yard wastes you throw away: When you send food wastes, grass clippings, and other organic materials to the landfill, they’re much more likely to end up producing methane because they’ll decompose in an anaerobic (or oxygen-free) environment. Composting those wastes, whether by sending them to a large-scale operation, or adding them to your own compost pile or bin, will allow for oxygen-rich decomposition… which prevents methane emissions, and “closes the loop” by creating material you can use for garden and plant fertilizer.
For most of our existence, we humans have seen ourselves as superior to animals, as “above” the “lower” creatures. Rene Descartes, for example, in the 17th century argued that animals were mere “machines” incapable even of true feeling, let alone “higher” thinking. Cultures throughout antiquity sacrificed animals by the thousands to their gods, so that their value was in the ends they served rather than in their independent lives.
On the other side, there are some traditions of vegetarianism in our history. Examples include the Pythagoreans in Greece, Hindu yogis, Jains and Buddhists, among others. And other societies (such as the Native Americans) ate and used animals but with a reverence and gratefulness for the lives that they were taking. Overall, though, the predominant notion in the human noggin is one of superiority.
But then Darwin knocked us down a notch…at least some of us. Evolution and the descent of humanity from primates still left wiggle room for us to see ourselves as “thinking, rational animals,” and therefore still better than the lesser beasts. Around that same time, though, something started to shift in the cultural mindset. A cultivated, conscious concern for the welfare of animals began in the late 19th century in England and then spread. (For example, the SPCA has its origins from this era, not to mention the idea of a “vegetarian society.” Ethics entered into the discussion of how humans relate to, and treat, animals. There was a recognition that, however higher or lower we might be, we had some responsibility for animals.
Reduce Your Transportation Carbon Emissions by 70%
That’s the conclusion shown by data recently added to the Chicago-based Center for Neighborhood Technology’s Housing and Transportation Affordability Index. CNT took a look at 55 metropolitan areas around the United States, and found that, in terms of transportation choices, urban living definitely belongs on the list of solutions to stop global warming: “When measured on a per household basis, it found that the transportation-related emissions of people living in cities and compact neighborhoods can be nearly 70% less than those living in suburbs.”
Since July 2003, sustainablog has been providing information on environmental and economic sustainability, green and sustainable business, and environmental politics. The blog regularly features environmental leaders, experts in alternative energy and green technology, and real people trying to lighten their environmental footprints.
