Sustainablog

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has developed a career-long role that entails finding issues to worry about and writing about them.  That can be a good thing because science is definitely about asking the hard questions.  Sometimes however, these well-intentioned folks can let their biases and presuppositions get in the way.

UCS has just released a report linking increased pesticide use to the adoption of biotech crops.  Their presuppositions are that both of these are bad things - GMOs and chemicals.  Their logic flaw is that even though they note that the biggest increase was in 2007/8 (long after the major adoption of biotech), they think the use of the biotech traits drove the increase in chemical use.  There was indeed a significant increase in chemical use in 2007/8, but what actually drove that was the unprecedented spike in grain commodity prices at that time.

There is an old saying - “the best cure for high food commodity prices is high food commodity prices.”  When grain prices are high, growers respond by planting more acres (=more chemical use) and are move motivated to protect their now more valuable crop in the field (in some cases this may result in an additional disease or insect control application as the economic thresholds to justify these measures are more readily achieved).  Its really simple, rational economics.  Also, remember that the irritating, but not large, food price increases American consumers saw in 2007/8 corresponded to a huge swing in the percent of the family budget spent on food in poor countries.  There were even food riots and export restrictions.  The fact that American farmers ramped up production was a good thing for poor people and the chemicals were part of that.  This year, chemical sales are down substantially, but not GMO plantings.

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A landfill gas-to-energy plant in Conestoga, Pennsylvania.

When it comes to corporations fighting climate change, landfill owners don’t necessarily leap to mind. But in Michigan, the landfill industry is working to repeal a 19-year-old ban on the disposal of grass clippings and tree trimmings in dumps — on the grounds that the yard waste, mixed with typical garbage when buried, makes a perfect brew for what it terms renewable methane production.

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Editor’s note: This review is part of the Green Books campaign. Today 100 bloggers are reviewing 100 great books printed in an environmentally-friendly way. Our goal is to encourage publishers to get greener and readers to take the environment into consideration when purchasing books. This campaign is organized by Eco-Libris, a a green company working to green up the book industry by promoting the adoption of green practices, balancing out books by planting trees, and supporting green books. A full list of participating blogs and links to their reviews is available on the Eco-Libris website.

Thinking about giving gardening a try? While the traditional growing season has ended in most parts of the US for this year, it’s not too early to start planning for next Spring. You may want to check out books on starting a backyard garden, and there are plenty of them out there. You may also want to find some of the books that offer suggestions and recipes for the produce you grow. And, if you need encouragement to grow organically, there are still more books on that subject.

If you want a book that covers all three of those areas, though, your choices get much more limited. Janette Haase’s From Seed to Table: A Practical Guide to Eating and Growing Green* not only provides readers with gardening instructions and tips, recipes and menus, and essays on the environmental issues surrounding agriculture and food production, but does so in a month-by-month structure that gives you the information you need when you need it.

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Buying your first home is both nerve-wracking and exhilarating. Imagine the heightening of both of those emotions if you choose to 1) buy an older house full of character, and 2) jump right into green updates and renovations upon purchase. You’ll then have a good sense of what journalist, professor, and good friend of sustainablog Simran Sethi is going through right now… she recently purchased an 84-year-old home in her adopted home town of Lawrence, KS. Unlike the rest of us, though, Simran’s inviting the world in to watch the process of greening her new house: on Monday, she posted the first entry on a new blog at Oprah.com.

Home renovation isn’t a task for the feint of heart, and Simran readily admits that her own hands-on experience is limited:

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www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/press_room/C68/pb4_ch7_datarelease

In Chapter 7 of the recently released Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Lester Brown lays out the Plan B goals for eradicating poverty and stabilizing population. Behind the scenes are a number of datasets and graphs that delve deeper into the trends discussed in the chapter. Here are some highlights from the Chapter 7 data:
World population has grown steadily over the past half century, increasing from 2.5 billion in 1950 to a projected 6.8 billion in 2009. The United Nations medium fertility level scenario projects that world population will grow to 9.2 billion in 2050. Their high projection takes the world to 10.5 billion in 2050. Under their low projection, which assumes rapid reductions in fertility rates, population peaks at just over 8 billion in 2042, then begins to decline.

Though life expectancies around the world have increased in the past half century, large discrepancies remain among different regions. Overall, world life expectancy increased from an average of 47 years in the mid-twentieth century to 68 years today. While life expectancy in 1950 hovered around 40 years in both Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, it has since increased far more rapidly in Asia, reaching 69 years, compared to 51 years in Sub-Saharan Africa. On a regional basis, the United States and Canada top the world with an average life expectancy of 79 years.

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The International Day of Climate Action last Saturday saw the power of grassroots activism leveraged by new media and social networking. Through an online and viral campaign, Bill Mckibben’s climate action group 350.org inspired an international response of more than 5,200 events in 181 countries. Hailed as the “most widespread day of environmental action in the planet’s history,” the action focused on a single number: 350. That’s the level in parts-per-million (ppm) many scientists now say is the safe level of CO2 in the atmosphere to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.

Focusing on that single number represents both the genius and the possible Achilles heal of the such a grassroots effort.

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http://www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/plan_b_updates/2009/update83

By Lester R. Brown

Emissions Drop 9 Percent in Last Two Years

For years now, many members of Congress have insisted that cutting carbon emissions was difficult, if not impossible. It is not. During the two years since 2007, carbon emissions have dropped 9 percent. While part of this drop is from the recession, part of it is also from efficiency gains and from replacing coal with natural gas, wind, solar, and geothermal energy.

The United States has ended a century of rising carbon emissions and has now entered a new energy era, one of declining emissions. Peak carbon is now history. What had appeared to be hopelessly difficult is happening at amazing speed.

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What were you thinking about on September 16, 2008? Green business ideas probably weren’t at the top of the list… September 15 was the day that Lehman Brothers went belly up, and you were probably more focused on your portfolio and savings. As such, Tim Sanders’ book Saving the World at Work (released on - you guessed it - September 16) got buried under talk of a second Great Depression.

Sanders and publisher Doubleday decided to give the book another go, and relaunched it on September 16th of this year. I’m glad they did: while the title led me to believe I was going to be reading another “how to” book on greening the workplace (which is not a bad thing), Sanders goes well beyond tips on saving paper and electricity. There are ideas for “greening” a company, but Sanders contextualizes these action steps within an examination of the “triple bottom line,” and a broader “Responsibility Revolution”: “…a broad-based movement of people and companies taking a disruptive approach to making a difference - contributing to our quality of life, locally and globally, for current and future generations.”

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Do you remember RecycleBank, the Philadelphia-based company that rewarded customers for recycling? I thought that was a great idea, and I’ve got a similar response to Earth Aid’s new rewards program for energy savings. Rolled out earlier this month in Washington, DC, Earth Aid offers a program to track your energy use and savings, and then to “pay” you for those savings through reward points that can be redeemed at partner companies.

In its press release for the launch of the rewards program, the company claims that its program “…creates a virtuous circle of local businesses providing incentives for households to save energy, and households re-circulating their savings on their utility bills into local businesses - benefiting both the local environment and the local economy.” All of this is on top of money actually saved by consumers cutting their energy use…

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Millions of Americans are declaring financial sustainability, even if they don’t exactly call it that. After all, we can’t borrow our way out of debt.

We’re paying down or paying off credit cards. We’re getting rid of our mortgage or putting an extra payment toward the principal balance (which has huge cost savings advantages). Or we’re practicing other frugality rules. According to data from the Federal Reserve, the amount Americans owe on consumer loans and credit cards plummeted $21.6 billion in July of 2009 – the largest monthly drop in consumer debt since the Federal Reserve started to track it in 1943. The “cash for clunkers” will, no doubt, alter the outcomes for August and September, but the trend continues to be less appetite for debt, not more.

People are working to get the bankers out of our lives, demanding that we become someone other than a “consumer.” So while the Federal government continues to re-affirm their “wise” decisions to bailout bankers and big finance, Americans are choosing to fire their credit card companies and break their “death pledge” (aka mortgage) by paying it off early. Of course, there are also many Americans who are in so far over their heads that unfortunately, personal bankruptcy and home foreclosure are the only remedy.

I am, however, focusing on those who thrive in abundance, simplicity and sustainability when it comes to community, lifestyle and, yes, financial intelligence. As my wife and I write about in ECOpreneuring, you cannot have ecological sustainability without a large degree of social and economic equity. The ECOnomy is not about “free trade” but fair trade; it’s about commerce that restores the planet, not destroys it or exploits people.

You can join these financial freedom-seekers too, by practicing financial sustainability. As most of us intuitively recognize, the best things in life are free (or close to it).

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