Green Options

If soaring household freezer sales are any indication, then the answer is yes.

While this might sound strange, remember that next to plasma televisions and air conditioning, refrigerators and freezers are the biggest energy-cows in American homes. Even Energy Star certified deep freezers swallow around 500 kWh each year—so the adding one to an average home results in about an 18% increase in electricity use.

According to the NPD Group, freezer sales over the last six months have increased more than seven percent since the same time last year; however, all other kitchen appliances have instead shown a decrease in sales. People aren’t buying new freezers to replace the old. They’re buying second freezers to keep in the garage, probably to stock up on the 64-packs of Hot Pockets from Sam’s Club.

Finally, something both parties can agree on. We need to integrate green living into every aspect of our lives: a single stinky compost heap isn’t enough (it may also be a mood-killer). They may say that “politics makes for strange bedfellows,” but this three-part miniseries will teach you how to get over your differences and save the environment one orgasm at a time.

PART ONE: FOREPLAY

Set the mood right. Instead of going on a long drive down a backcountry road, opt for a walk on the beach or in a secluded garden. You will (hopefully) admit negligible amounts of carbon gas. Don’t live near a scenic getaway? Find interesting things to walk to in your neighborhood: your partner will get to know more about you when he or she see s how you interact with your environment. Although cliché, a tandem bike is also a good option because it’s environmentally safe and promotes close physical proximity.

The Phoenix Suns NBA basketball team has announced that they will be installing 1,125 solar panels on their parking garage to help power their arena. The clean energy project will cost about $1.5 million and will reportedly not increase ticket prices for fans. The 194 kilowatt solar power system will provide an equivalent amount of energy to what would be used in about 26 home games per season. The system should be operational next year.

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
—Albert Einstein

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! We are happy in proportion to the things we can do without.
—Henry David Thoreau

We must live simply, so that others may simply live.
—Gandhi

Ah, the simple life. No worries, no responsibilities, it’s the stuff of dreams. But in today’s world, living is far from simple. Simplifying your life often seems like one more impossible task on your long to-do list. Even though common sense tells us that the most environmentally conscious life is a simple one, it’s much easier said than done.

It’s hard to watch television or browse the internet these days without hearing regular stories about how celebrities are “going green.” In the past week alone, I have read or skimmed through stories about how musician Sheryl Crow is launching an Eco Fashion Line, actress Pamela Anderson is building a green hotel, and comedian and actor Will Ferrell will be the first celebrity to drive BMW’s new hydrogen car. According to the story, Will Ferrell has also built a solar-powered environmentally friendly home. Should we care?

Dear Justin,

You make some very effective arguments! You are right to use my own posts in illustrating your thoughts.  Granted, those posts, written toward the end of the Sust Enable project, demonstrate that my original concept of Sust Enable did not pan out because its original assumptions were flawed.  Indeed, for other people to have success with living sustainably, they must be gentle, have fun, and go slow… three things that I failed to consider for myself when undertaking the “radical” experiment.

I think the strongest point you make with your last post is the importance of living in a way that honors your own health and wellbeing, not just the Earth’s.   This is something that I’ve learned to consider the hard way, through the tribulations of the Sust Enable project (during which I ran up against my own physical limits of hunger, sleeplessness, and stress).  I completely agree with that: respect for yourself, as a living being with needs, comes first in making a healthy approach toward respecting the Earth and other living systems.

However, I recognize that our level of comfort is learned–it is borrowed from the culture that surrounds us.  It is by no means an “absolute” measure of comfort or happiness.  Even our very venues for acquiring what you and I need to survive are hugely affected by the culture we were born into.  People in Third World and sometimes Second World countries live sustainably every day–and in my experience when visiting Mexico, are considerably happier than the average American.  Is this because they have struck a good balance between respecting the natural world and their own personal patterns, in ways that over-worked, over-stressed and over-consumptive Americans can only dream of?  It’s a theory.

For as often as we do eat, it seems as if most of us don’t think too much about what we’re putting into our bodies. With food production so far removed from our every day lives, it’s easy to ignore where our food comes from and what it’s impact may be. But what we put on our plates has a larger footprint than what we drive. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,

“Livestock production is one of the major causes of the world’s most pressing environmental problems, including global warming, land degradation, air and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity. Using a methodology that considers the entire commodity chain, it estimates that livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than that of transport.”

The things we choose to eat can obviously have an enormous impact on the planet and everything on it, including ourselves. Naturally then, our diet choices can say a lot about our ethics and beliefs. They can even be a political statement and a form of activism. I think that every choice we make has the potential to change the world, and certainly what I choose to eat has an impact.

A world record was broken on July 4^th at the inaugural ROTHBURY music festival in Michigan. And no, the record had nothing to do with the world’s stinkiest hippie, or the world’s longest guitar solo. The record-setting happened early on in the four-day festival when a canned food sculpture, designed by Architect John Brittingham and his graduate students at Montana State University, set the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest canned food sculpture.

Well, this may not be a hidden issue, but I think it is a highly under represented issue. Transportation is the leading contiributor to greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the country, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and is also the fastest growing contributor, at a time when we are supposed to be making a U-turn in our GHG emissions.

When we talk about addressing global climate change, the talk is often about greening our homes, changing our source of energy, and cleaning up industry.

In my previous post, I briefly discussed the critical issue of food in addressing this problem.

In this post, I am bringing to attention the great relevance of transportation and our transportation patterns and habits in addressing this critical concern for our planet and our future generations.

Automobile travel is a major cause of greenhouse gas emissions according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Department of Energy reported that the transportation sector accounts for approximately 33% of GHG emissions in the United States. Approximately 61% of these emissions are from automobiles and light duty trucks. The Department of Energy’s findings put the transportation sector as the largest contributor to GHGs in the country. Unfortunately, it is also the fastest growing contributor according to the DOE’s findings.

It is one of the least discussed issues when we discuss solutions to the environmental crisis. It is not whether or not the food is organic or sprayed with synthetic chemicals, or whether or not it is grown locally. The underdiscussed issue is the importance of a vegetarian diet for addressing critical environmental issues.

As Albert Einstein said, “Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”

The big issue today is global climate change. It is likely to dwarf any environmental issues we faced in the past. As reported by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization:

[T]he livestock sector is a major stressor on many ecosystems and on the planet as a whole. Globally it is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases…. It currently amounts to about 18 percent of the global warming effect — an even larger contribution than the transportation sector worldwide.

This is a critical issue. This is more critical than our power plants, our industries, the energy efficiency of our homes and appliances, or even transportation.

Earlier this week, several media outlets chose to dip their hands into the sensationalist journalism cookie jar a second time, and for all of the wrong reasons. About a month ago, an exciting story broke about how photographs of an uncontacted tribe living near the Brazil-Peru border had been taken for the first time. Now some media outlets, following the lead of the British newspaper The Observer, are calling the story a hoax.