green @ flyingaway

Soiled, reusable shopping bags pose health risk: Study

2009-06-05T18:41:00.003-05:00

A study out of Canada found that reusable shopping bags might be bad for our health.

The Environment and Plastics Industry Council stated Wednesday that a study it funded shows reusable bags “pose a public health risk” due to high counts of yeast, moulds and bacterias in dirty reusable bags.
According to Dr. Richard Summerbell, who spoke on behalf of EPIC, potential hazards include “food poisoning … bacterial boils, allergic reactions, triggering of asthma attacks, and ear infections.”
But B.C. provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall said reusable bags do not pose a serious public health risk if consumers treat bags as they would cutting boards or food preparation surfaces, and wash them regularly and dry them well.

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't think to wash these bags very often. But then again, I also wouldn't put a package of raw meat right in them because, after working as a cashier in high school, I know how leaky those packages can be.

After this initial reaction, I took a second look at who funded this study: The Environment and Plastics Industry Council. Just poking around their website for a minute, I found a link to http://www.myplasticbags.ca/, which actually promotes the use of plastic bags. Hrm... biased study?

Anyway, reusable bags are really popular right now and for a good reason--they're an easy way for anyone to lessen their impact on the environment. I have a bunch of them, but I end up not using them because I need the store bags to scoop cat litter in to. Anyone have any suggestions (aside from buying plastic bags to scoop into) for me so that I can use my reusable bags and also keep my cats happy?

My garden, week 3.

2009-06-05T18:37:00.000-05:00

Originally posted 6/2/09.

I meant to post these pictures Sunday when I took them. There's already a big difference between today and Sunday I think. They seem to be growing like crazy! Sunday night my dad and I put up a trellis for the cukes.

Look at how bushy and big the cucumbers in the back are getting!

Front view of Earthbox number 1.

Look, little buds on the peppers! I think this is the cubanelle.

And here's the tomatoes in Earthbox number 2. I kind of expected them to be growing a bit faster.

And here's the tomato in the pot. Which is doing a lot better than I thought it would be! I need to take a picture of its nice, thick stem next week.
And earlier this week I was worrying that the peppers were dying... they looked wilted. Weird.

My garden, week 2.

2009-06-05T18:35:00.000-05:00

Originally posted 5/25/09.

I think my garden is doing well! My cucumbers died (like I thought they would) so I replanted with new, healthier-looking ones.

Here's the peppers and the cucumbers. Well, you can kind of see the cucumbers. One of the pepper plants already has little buds on it too! I got a trellis that I have to rig up for the cucumbers.

Here's the roma tomato and the cherry tomato. The roma has some light brown patches on the leaves, but it's still looking healthy. I think I'm going to have to tie them to their stakes soon... or do I wait until they start to fall over?

And here's the last roma. Looking good!

My garden, week 1.

2009-06-05T18:33:00.000-05:00

Originally posted 5/16/09.

I planted my "garden" today. I have two Earthboxes and one planter.

In the first Earthbox I have two groupings of cucumbers, which may or may not make it (they're very floppy), and a hot banana pepper, a red bell pepper, and a cubanelle.

In the second Earthbox I have a roma tomato and a cherry tomato.

And in the planter I have another roma tomato.

I wish I had done more research on the Earthboxes because after I planted I read their forums which provided a lot of good tips that I would have liked to know. Oh well, we'll see how everything turns out! Stay tuned.

Here we go again?

2009-06-05T18:28:00.002-05:00

I've been thinking about this blog lately and want to start it up again. I've long since graduated from college and now work in marketing... joy. But I still find myself interested in what's going on with the "green" trend and how the world at large is treating its fellow inhabitants. So maybe I'll be better at updating this time around.

I even started my first garden! I posted to my personal blog about it, so I think I'll do some catch up here.

Lost whales might have returned to sea unseen

2007-06-01T13:20:00.000-05:00

Since that last news I could find on the whales was two days ago when scientists and onlookers lost track of the whales, it looks like the two finally made it back to sea. After all the coverage of these lost whales it almost seems disappointing that there was no fanfare event of them crossing into the ocean.

Coyotes thriving in big cities, suburbs

2007-05-29T11:35:00.000-05:00

Coyotes are such wildly adaptive creatures that it's not surprising that they're doing well in suburban and urban areas. This article gives examples of how suburban sprawl is actually causing an increase in the coyote population. Don't start freaking out about coyotes though, even if there have been some attacks in the news lately, such as in New Jersey.

Still, experts urge perspective: In Cook County, which includes Chicago, there are some 3,000 dog bites on average each year, with a few hundred serious enough to require hospital care, Gerht says. Yet he is unaware of any reported coyote attacks.

They're wild animals and they have a right to living space just as we do.

Rescuers open fire, with water, on lost whales

2007-05-25T20:12:00.000-05:00

Does anyone else think that this situation with the whales in the Sacramento River is getting a little ridiculous? I find it hard to believe that there's nothing better that can be done than what's been tried already. Now they've found that using a fire hose seems to help drive them, but they're not going to try it again until Tuesday.

The rescuers decided to try the fire hose after the lost whales resisted attempts to move them down river through banging pipes, a flotilla of boats and the recordings of fellow humpbacks and killer orcas.
The two whales apparently took a wrong turn when they entered San Francisco Bay and traveled 90 miles inland up the Sacramento River. They turned around at the Port of Sacramento and were making progress Monday when they reached the Rio Vista Bridge and began swimming in circles.

I understand that they're wild animals so it's tough to figure out how much to interfere, but it's so sad to read about the whales' injuries and skin problems due to the fresh water.

Polar Bears at Risk as Warming Thaws Icy Home

2007-05-23T19:33:00.000-05:00

After seeing the sad, tired (animated) polar bear in An Inconvenient Truth swim to a chunk of ice and have it fall apart under its feet (so sad!), I've been noticing that people are becoming more concerned about the polar bears. Even to the point where people are pushing to get them listed as endangered. And this all makes sense if scientists are right (and I think they are) about the melting ice caps.

Many scientific studies project that warming, widely blamed on emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, could melt the polar ice cap in summer, with estimates of the break-up ranging from decades to sometime beyond 2100.
Bears' favourite hunting ground is the edge of the ice where they use white fur as camouflage to catch seals.
"If there's no ice, there's no way they can catch the seal," said Sarah James of the Gwich'in Council International who lives in Alaska. "Gwich'in" means "people of the caribou", which is the main source of food for about 7,000 indigenous people in Alaska and Canada.

It just gets to me how people are so resistant to changing their lifestyle and don't care that the things we do have major effects on beings that have no control over what we do. We're so self-centered.

Sorry!

2007-05-23T19:21:00.000-05:00

I've been bad about posting lately because of finals, graduating, and moving back home. But I'm back. I'm sure I've been missed. ;)

Little money to clean up polluting school buses

2007-05-06T19:45:00.000-05:00

Ah, I remember the days of taking the bus to school when the driver pulled up in a "stinky" old bus because our regular bus was getting a tune-up.

An estimated 390,000 diesel school buses are on the road in the U.S., according to the EPA. Most newer buses were manufactured to meet stricter emissions guidelines and do not need filters. But about one-third of the nation’s diesel school-bus fleet, or more than 100,000 buses, were manufactured before 1990 and are big polluters, according to EPA.

If there's a more effective rally cry than "save the children," I've never heard it. If more news outlets start picking this up, I'm sure states will start seeing some money to put filters into the older buses. Check out the map in the article to see how your state fares on school bus emissions.

Carbon-Neutral Is Hip, but Is It Green?

2007-05-01T22:02:00.000-05:00

I'll be honest, I haven't been to up-to-date on what buying carbon credits meant and I'm not entirely sure what my stance on it is yet. I feel like Denis Hayes's comparison of this to the Catholic Church selling indulgences is a bit strong, but the article does have good points about how buying and selling carbon credits could actually be detrimental to the attempt to stop global warming.

Michael R. Solomon, the author of “Consumer Behavior: Buying, Having and Being” and a professor at St. Joseph's University, said he was not surprised by the allure of the carbon-offsetting market.
“Consumers are always going to gravitate toward a more parsimonious solution that requires less behavioral change,” he said. “We know that new products or ideas are more likely to be adopted if they don’t require us to alter our routines very much.”
But he said there was danger ahead, “if we become trained to substitute dollars for deeds — kind of an ‘I gave at the office’ prescription for the environment.”

Schwarzenegger Warns of California Suit Against EPA

2007-04-27T19:23:00.000-05:00

Last year I wrote an article for my school newspaper when I found out about California's attempt to sue automakers for not creating vehicles with stricter emissions standards. While I thought that it was good that someone was doing something, I didn't think this was a good way to go about it. After all, automakers are supplying our need, and obviously enough demand isn't there to make a change. It just seemed akin to suing McDonald's because kids are fat.

What I thought would make more sense is pressuring for stricter standards for automakers to follow, and finally, California is trying to do this. Schwarzenegger threatened the EPA that the state would sue them if they don't act soon on the state's attempt to regulate greenhouse emissions themselves:

Schwarzenegger's move stems from California's request in 2005 to get a federal Clean Air Act waiver that would allow it to regulate auto emissions more aggressively.
The Republican governor said the state Thursday will send a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson telling the agency of its plans to file legal action if the EPA does not act on the exemption request within six months.

I think it's a good step that individual states want to make stricter regulations, but this can only be effective if the majority of states follow suit. I don't know what the chances are of this happening without federal laws being put in place.

Mankind's rarest view: Earth from afar

2007-04-22T21:50:00.000-05:00

It's appropriate that for Earth Day we be reminded how fragile a planet we live on. It may seem huge and invincible, but that's only because we're so small and small-minded. So we should listen to the people who have seen our planet from a different point a view and have been changed by it:

“It’s hard to appreciate the Earth when you’re down right upon it because it’s so huge.

“It gives you in an instant, just at a position 240,000 miles away from it, (an idea of) how insignificant we are, how fragile we are, and how fortunate we are to have a body that will allow us to enjoy the sky and the trees and the water ... It’s something that many people take for granted when they’re born and they grow up within the environment. But they don’t realize what they have. And I didn’t till I left it.”
—Jim Lovell, Apollo 8 and 13.

Al Gore Gets Approval To Install Solar Panels at His Tennessee Home

2007-04-19T20:54:00.000-05:00

I know a lot of people think that Gore is only making changes now that he got "caught." I never saw the original article about the energy use at his home, but I did see some responses and I don't think I buy what was said in the original article. Anyone out there have a link to it?

Anyway, Gore finally got it approved to install solar panels in his home, and he'll be doing other renovations along with this:

He is also upgrading the furnace, windows, and light switches, as well as installing new floor radiant heat and solar vents, to improve the home's energy standards, said Kalee Kreider, a Gore spokeswoman.

What bothers me the most about that article calling Gore a hypocrite is that is just gives people a reason to disregard the real issue, and then they can feel satisfied not doing anything about pollution in their daily lives. People are just looking for distractions so that they don't have to make a change.

Skyfarming: Turning Skyscrapers Into Crop Farms

2007-04-15T22:38:00.000-05:00

An interesting article from New York Magazine describes a Columbia University professor's plan that could make it possible to have farming in skyscrapers in New York City, or any city for that matter. These so-called vertical farms have many benefits, including producing food for local people, providing sustainable energy, and purifying wastewater, and potentially reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

There is another reason to develop indoor farming: exploding population growth. By 2050, demographers estimate there will be an additional 3 billion people (a global total of 9.2 billion). If current farming practices are maintained, extra landmass as large as Brazil would have to be cultivated to feed them. Yet nearly all the land that can produce food is already being farmed—even without accounting for the possibility of losing more to rising sea levels and climate change (which could turn arable land into dust bowls).

Depending on the crops being grown, a single vertical farm could allow thousands of farmland acres to be permanently reforested. For the moment, these calculations remain highly speculative, but a real-life example offers a clue: After a strawberry farm in Florida was wiped out by Hurricane Andrew, the owners built a hydroponic farm. By growing strawberries indoors and stacking layers on top of each other, they now produce on one acre of land what used to require 30 acres.

The article goes on to provide an interesting and informative diagram about how one of these vertical farms would function. Definitely a neat read.

Study Shows New York City Puts Out Nearly One Percent of Greenhouse Gases in U.S.

2007-04-15T22:28:00.000-05:00

Halfway through the article I still wasn't sure if this amount of greenhouse gas output was supposed to be a lot or a little, if the article was praising New York City or condemning it, in it's statement of these facts. But then I finally got to this part:

With 2.7 percent of the country's population -- 8.2 million of 300 million -- the average New York City resident contributes less than a third of the emissions generated by a typical American. This is largely due to the popularity of the city's mass transit system, which cuts down on car emissions, officials said.

Ah, so it's a good thing, I told myself... at least in relation to the rest of our carbon overproducing country. Now that the NYC government has this data, they can figure out how to continue going about lowering the city's amout of greenhouse gas emmissions by 30% by 2030.

Wild Parrots Make a Home in Brooklyn

2007-04-10T22:45:00.000-05:00

I'm going to help Steve Baldwin get the word out that there's wild parrots living in Brooklyn. These birds are not new inhabitants of Brooklyn College's soccer field, but many people don't know that they're there. These Quaker parrots come from a more temperate climate and thus, can survive the cold Northeastern winters. They build huge nests and share them with other birds, has anyone ever heard of that before?

"They're so astonishing. You see them and they're loud and they're green and you assume that they're tropical," said Eleanor Miele, associate professor of science education at the college, who has her students observe the birds for class projects. But "they are adaptable for winter."
And, says parrot fan Steve Baldwin, who has dedicated the past couple of years to chronicling the birds, there is no shortage of food because they will eat pretty much anything, like grass, the buds on trees, seeds, fruit.

Some states have banned the ownership of these birds out of fear that their large nests will cause problems or that they will damage agriculture, but Baldwin says they're not really that much of a threat. Perhaps I'll head over to Brooklyn one weekend soon and take some pictures.

Scientists Detail Climate Changes, Poles to Tropics

2007-04-10T22:32:00.000-05:00

I kind of dropped the ball on the next report from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which came out on Friday. This article details the effects of global warming that we're heading towards in the near future and the changes that are already taking place. The scientific evidence in this report could serve as a powerful reminder to governments, especially the U.S., that better environmental policies need to be put in place -- this is something every country in the world needs to cooperate on.

And it seems that representatives from the U.S. are beginning to agree:

The conclusions came after four days of revisions by scientists and then an often rancorous all-night debate with government officials. In a sign of shifting geopolitics on global warming, scientists who worked on the report criticized China for weakening some language in the summary, while they credited the United States, which had for years stressed uncertainty in the science, with playing a mostly constructive role.

Yet, as always, I express concern over governments playing any role in the editing of these kind of reports, and the article does address the problems that come of this.

Under pressure from nations including Russia, China and Saudi Arabia, the authors said, sections on coral damage and tropical storms were softened in the summary. They also got the authors to drop parts of an illustration showing how different emissions policies might limit damage. Officials from those countries argued that data in the report did not support the level of certainty expressed in the final draft.
But some authors were not assuaged. The final document was “much less quantified and much vaguer and much less striking than it could have been,” said Stéphane Hallegatte, a participant from France’s International Center for Research on the Environment and Development.

I know, it is only the summary is what has been edited by this group, but how many people will have access to, and will actually read, the 1,572 page report?

Auto Industry Urges Economy-Wide Approach to Global Warming

2007-04-03T22:13:00.000-05:00

Here's something that I didn't know was going on:

The Supreme Court ordered the federal government on Monday to take a fresh look at regulating carbon dioxide emissions from cars, a rebuke to Bush administration policy on global warming. In a 5-4 decision, the court said the Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars.

The auto industry reacted as expected. They want to be involved in the decision-making so that they can pressure for more lenient laws.

Dave McCurdy, the [Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers] president and chief executive, said automakers would work with lawmakers and federal agencies to help develop a national approach.

I'll believe the cooperation when I see it.

Changed Climate, Changed Species

2007-04-01T15:17:00.000-05:00

MSNBC has put together a document that shows real life examples of the changes that have occurred and will continue to do so because of global warming. This comes along with the second report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which will come out officially on April 6.

It's an interesting read with a cute map showing the areas and species that it focuses on, such as polar bears in the Arctic. One species that I was surprised to find on the map is ticks in Sweden:

Swedish studies have shown that ticks have multiplied countrywide in recent decades, spreading north from traditional breeding grounds in the Stockholm archipelago. The pinhead-sized arachnids have even turned up near the Arctic Circle.

It makes sense that with an increasingly warmer climate, that these pests wouldn't die off every winter. Having grown up with pets, I know what a pain ticks (and fleas) can be, and what a relief it is come winter when we don't have to worry about them.

Another point that I found interesting and sad is the part about the coral reefs and their bleaching due to rising temperatures and an increase in carbon dioxide absorption.

Burger King Shifts Policy on Animals

2007-03-29T18:26:00.000-05:00

It's no giant leap, but it is the first step (hopefully of many) in pressuring other fast food chains and factory farm industry into better treatment of animals. Burger King has decided that it will buy a percentage of its eggs and pork from suppliers who raise their animals in a cage free environment. While cage free is not the same thing as free range, which Steven Grover (vice president for food safety) makes sure to point out, this move is still pretty impressive coming from a fast food company that, like all others, is set on keeping costs low.

“When the big boys move, it makes the entire industry move,” said Ms. Grandin, who serves on the animal welfare task forces for several food companies, including McDonald’s and Burger King...
Burger King executives said the move was driven by their desire to stay ahead of consumer trends and to encourage farmers to move into more humane egg and meat production.
“We want to be doing things long before they become a concern for consumers,” Mr. Grover said. “Like a hockey player, we want to be there before the puck gets there.”

The company has expressed the wish to raise the percentage of products coming from cage free suppliers, only the supply isn't there yet. I have a feeling that we'll be hearing news like this coming from other companies in a relatively short time and that farmers will take heed. I can only hope that soon the day of the factory farm will be abolished, but I think that would take a lot more pressure from consumers and I don't know if enough people are willing to take up this cause.

Harry Potter to Make Fewer Trees Disappear in His Final Appearance

2007-03-28T21:46:00.000-05:00

Here's a cute article on the seventh and last Harry Potter book, which Scholastic will publish using greener methods than the last six books in the series. Scholastic received a lot of criticism, especially from Greenpeace, for not using enough recycled paper in the production of the sixth Potter book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Scholastic, Inc., U.S. publisher for the popular novels about the boy wizard who battles the forces of evil while attending Hogwarts Academy, worked with the Rainforest Alliance to develop a plan to print the newest Harry Potter novel on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

Perhaps this is another thing I can add to the list of reasons why I love Harry Potter.

Scientists Propose Interspecies Cloning

2007-03-26T23:12:00.000-05:00

The gut reaction I experienced just reading the headline was "NO, who do they think they are, Dr. Frankenstein?!?" But upon actually reading the article, it seems that the rationale behind the decision to try to pursue this method of using animal eggs along with human DNA is fairly logical, especially when many people balk at the use of human eggs to create stem cells.

All three U.K. teams aim to get around that bottleneck by taking DNA from patients sick with a disease like Alzheimer's and fuse it with cow eggs that have had all their genetic material removed. The hope is that the human DNA will trick the eggs into thinking they're pregnant, beginning development.

After about five days of growth, the cloned embryos would be destroyed and the stem cells extracted. The stem cells would be grown in their labs and the researchers could look for the onset of diseases, study their development and test experimental drugs on the cells.

When this method was first tested by a Michigan-based researcher, his actions were condemned as unethical. Yet, as long as the growth in the egg is terminated and no interspecies being is created (as these scientists promise won't happen), it seems to be a logical step away from using human eggs for experiments. Many things that the average person would find startling have been done in the name of science, and the benefits to human beings seems too great to ignore the potentiality of this method. As long as the animals used, cows in this case, are not harmed in the process of harvesting their eggs, I'm all for this.

Updates: Gore's speech to Congress; defense of editing documents

2007-03-22T13:37:00.000-05:00

Update on Gore's Petition to Congress:

Here's a couple of articles about Gore's speech to Congress yesterday and a few of the reactions. As expected, there were many who met the plea to make progress in protecting the environment with doubt and criticism.

Update on skepticism concerning the role of government officials in environmental reports:

It seems that the ex-White House official who was accused of editing climate reports was trying to defend his actions in front of the House Government Reform Committee. There is also an interesting section about the government pressure felt by scientists not to disclose certain information. I'll be keeping my eye out for any results from this hearing.