Green Options

Where can you buy healthy fresh food in your neighborhood? Where are the grocery stores and farmer’s markets, how is the quality of food that is there, and which food options do you actually have access to? Are there nearby food banks or community gardens? Can you grow your own food? What local food choices are available to you in your community?

I took this photo in the meat section of my neighborhood grocery store earlier this week.

My favorite Bayview corner sandwich shop, Upper Crust Deli on Third Street in San Francisco, has just started carrying fresh seasonal produce. They are now selling a variety of melons, potatoes, apples, bananas and many other healthy fruit and vegetable options.

Would you like a stroke with your cheeseburger? Scientists have found that your chances of having a stroke may actually be related to how many Burger Kings and KFCs are operating in your town. Researchers at the University of Michigan have found that the risk of stroke increases with the number of fast-food restaurants in a neighborhood. In the study, Texas residents with the highest number of fast-food restaurants had a 13 percent higher relative risk of suffering strokes than [...]

Experts say only a fraction of the Sahara, probably the size of a small country, would need to be covered to produce enough energy to supply the whole of Europe. Written by David Adam at the Guardian.

In the Sahara, life hangs in the balance. As nomadic lifestyles vanish, urbanization threatens one of the desert’s last elephant populations. Conservationists must work fast to quell human-elephant conflict in the most arid habitat on Earth.

“I started to see two Americas: the mythic America and the real America. There was a harsh reality to America as well as the dream. I wanted to describe this era of prosperity and Savings and Loans scandals as a spiritual drought. I started thinking about the desert.” - Bono, from the rock band, U2

There’s “a place, high on a desert plain, where the streets have no name,” a place marked by bizarre rock outcroppings and the almost magical forests of the crooked and spiky Joshua trees — a metaphor U2 adeptly used for America’s prosperity and greed of the 80s, as relevant then, as it is today. In December of 1986, the four members of U2 and photographer Anton Corbijn captured the rocky and mountainous terrain and a lonely Joshua tree, summoning us with their The Joshua Tree to call upon our inner spirit to come together for peace, harmony, and love.

Here we are today, more than twenty years later, where such a commitment for change is never more needed. Perhaps a little time in the desert might clear my mind, settle my soul, I thought. Perhaps I can muster the strength we need to move toward a more sustainable and just tomorrow. Located 140 miles east of Los Angeles and just north of Palm Springs and west of Death Valley, the 792,726-acre Joshua Tree National Park provides an escape from urban pressures, a place to experience solitude and wilderness, to reconnect with our hopes and dreams.

The photogenic Joshua trees are neither tree nor cactus; they’re a giant version of a species of yucca, belonging to the lily family, many living for hundreds of years.  Unfortunately, if the U.S. Geological Survey scientists are correct in their modeling, the Joshua trees may not be around in fifty to a hundred years from now thanks to climate change altering the fragile desert ecosystem, average temperatures, and precipitation patterns. The trees they need cool winters and freezing temperatures in order to produce flowers, release their seeds, and reproduce.

To experience the park, my family and I meandered but a few of the 191 miles of hiking trails for our own spiritual walkabout roughly the same time as President-elect Barack Obama was sworn into office. The desert foray was a dramatic ecotourism adventure — a safe one, so long as you bring lots of water with you.  There are also four visitor centers positioned to help guide your enjoyment of the park, depending on where you enter it. Many argue that the best time to visit is during the spring bloom of wildflowers and other plants.

My bet is that U2 never anticipated the global impacts of climate change, now calling into question the long term survival of the namesake Joshua Trees in the Joshua Tree National Park. That Joshua tree made famous by U2 is gone. Others will likely follow.  Besides climate change, invasive exotic species, increasing incidence of wildfires, and nitrogen deposition originating from emissions hundreds of miles away in Los Angeles are also impacting the trees, according to Alice Miller who is involved with on-going research in the park.  “There is no single cause of their decline,” says Miller.  “Everything is interconnected.”

In order to expand training operations at Fort Irwin, CA, the Army began relocating 770 desert tortoises in March 2008. Coyotes immediately began killing the relocated tortoises. In response to a lawsuit filed by The Center for Biological Diversity to stop the translocation, the Army suspended the operation.  Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity explained:

We predicted that the translocation of tortoises from Fort

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It is not a hard proposition to imagine that the continent of Africa has a large potential for being a generator of solar power. Just the ads from eager humanitarian organizations would shed a measure of light on the apparent vast stretches of nothing being drenched in sunlight.

Similarly, I do not think it is a hard proposition to imagine that Africa’s actual solar generation is miniscule, compared to the rest of the planet.

But rather than trying to focus blame within Africa, I think the blame must, as it does with much of the anthropogenic global warming, be laid at the feet of western nations for not doing more for Africa. Because while Africa may see the Sun create an average of 5 to 7 kilowatts per hour for every square meter across its surface, the money is simply not there for governments to spend on solar technology.

American missiles are not the only threat to Iran’s physical stability. A geological study has found that the nation’s groundwater is running so low from decades of over-use that many parts of the country have sunk dramatically, causing damage in both agricultural and urban areas.

Fifty percent of the country’s water is sourced from the wells and only ten percent of the population is able to survive on rainwater alone. The groundwater level has decreased by 1.5 feet annually for the past 15 years, and with little rain and increased water use for Iran’s growing population, the aquifers have had no chance to refill. As a result, some areas have been sinking up to 20 inches a year.

Speaking at a news conference last Friday, Spain’s Environment Minister Elena Espinosa announced plans to establish a Climate Change Research Institute in the Northeastern city of Zaragoza. She also unveiled an exciting initiative to plant 45 million trees across the country between 2009 and 2012, roughly one for every member of the population.

Amongst European nations, Spain stands to suffer more than most from the effects of climate change and global warming, with nearly a third of the nation’s roughly 200,000 square miles threatened with a “significant risk” of desertification. In direct response to the threat, the government will invest around 90 million Euros as part of the reforestation drive.

This desert flower / No sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this

–Sting

“The desert is in full bloom! You just have to go see it!” I’ve been hearing too much of this for a few weeks now, from my chronically infected wanderlust stricken neighbors, who are simply unable to spend even a single weekend here in our quaint, green suburban Ra’anana. “Sure”, I thought, “You mean you think that I

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