22nd May 2007

USAToday “Global Carbon Levels Spiraling”

An article in today’s USAToday, on the front page, talks about global warming.  Carbon dioxide emissions are over three times the rate of that in the 1990s.  [Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences].  As we’ve discussed, carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas contributor to global warming.  Carbon intensity has increased since 2000 in China, and possibly stalled elsewhere if I understand this correctly?  Each time I hear about global warming, those that debate the contribution and change we can effect, discuss the impact that China has on global warming. 

Regardless, when looking at the table produced by US Department of Energy, North America still produces the second highest amounts of carbon dioxide emissions in millions of metric tons (6,886.88) versus Asia, Australia at 9,604.81 as of 2004.

20th May 2007

Walking to the Store & Buying Organic

Yesterday, I wrote about sustainable lifestyle.  It’s sad that it’s a challenge to walk to the grocery store to buy some organic milk.  How many of you would walk four city blocks to get your groceries on a Sunday night?

If I was in a town that this was the norm, I wouldn’t say it was a challenge.  I walked everywhere in St. Petersburg & Moscow, Stockholm, Boston, London, Washington, D.C., Olde Towne Alexandria, but the northwest side of Columbus?  Hardly.

It was the first time I walked to the grocery store to buy some milk on this side of town.  Walking to the store is good on three counts.  You buy only what you need, because you don’t want to carry it home.  You get exercise.  And, you don’t contribute much in the way of a carbon footprint.

To further the sustainable lifestyle, I planted my first-ever organic vegetable container garden.  I’ve got three different types of lettuce, bush-crop cucumbers, two kinds of eggplant, four or more kinds of tomatoes, including yummy Roma tomatoes, basil, and marigolds, which are supposed to ward off aphids.

Yesterday I could not find organic container soil for vegetables.  I did find it today  at Plantland on Sawmill Road.  Miracle Gro makes it, it’s called Organic Choice.   It was also a whopping $10.99 a bag, and it was just 16 quarts of fluffy air-pumped organic soil.  It says it’s all natural Organic.  Does organic soil need to be Certified Organic?

Challenge Yourself -  Walk to get your groceries at least once or twice a week.  Walk to something nearby, that typically you’d drive to, even though it’s close.

Plant an organic container garden - grow your own produce locally - even if it’s on your deck.

I’ll post pictures in the coming days.  I have to work now.

Helpful Resources - Organic Gardening

Companion Planting with Herbs and Plants

19th May 2007

Sustainable Living in Worthington, Ohio

May 17, 2007
Presentation in the Worthington Muni Building, High Street
by OSU & Sustainable Living

It was a busy week in Worthington regarding global warming and sustainable lifestyle.   There were topical events Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night in downtown Worthington.   It makes me want to move to Worthington.  Right now, I work in Worthington.  My business is located on W. Wilson.  We’ve been there for over 5 years.  I’ve often wanted to move to downtown Worthington, although the housing cost is a bit daunting.  Houses beginning at $400k, and still needing work….  However, that’s the dream, to move there and be able to walk everywhere.  My kids could walk to school, as I did, when I was young.  No, I don’t have kids yet, but as I said, this is the “dream”.  There is only one thing lacking in downtown Worthington, for walking purposes, a grocery store.  I definitely think Sunflower or an organic market should come to the old Jubilee store building.  That would seal the deal for me, that and $400k for a house.

These are the type of things that Sustainable Living and the OSU group is looking at, led by Dr. Maria Manta Conroy.  Lots of indicators are being reviewed by many groups, including:

Transportation & Mobility for Sustainable Lifestyle
Can car be secondary or not necessarily the only mode of transportation to get around?  I come from Washington, D.C., where ride sharing with strangers was the norm, bus and subway transportation were to be expected.  In fact, at one time, to go to school and work, without a car, I could boast 19 buses or modes of transportation a day.  I lived in Alexandria.  I went to school in Annandale.  I worked out in Fairfax.  I worked at a bank in Alexandria, however, the latter is huge - spread out.  So, 19 buses a day, until I was running to catch a bus, and fell, slipping right under an oncoming car.  I was fine, and got right back up, and began to run to catch that bus.  After all, it was the last bus of the day to get back to Alexandria.  You can guess what happened next - yep, didn’t catch that last bus.  I had to take the “dreaded cab”.  So, I’m not a fan of riding buses or taking cabs.  But walking in a safe and enjoyable environment?  I’m interested.

Bicycle Miles, commuting trips, carpooling, COTA, quality sidewalks are all indicators for monitoring, change and potential improvement.

Economic Development & Social Equity has lots of indicators too, including:

Housing affordability, child care facilities, number of employees working in Worthington versus those who live and work in Worthington, business starts versus failures

There were some questions at this point about the few number of indicators shown in the presentation.  Dr. Conroy suggested we look up Sustainable Seattle.  They began with eight indicators, we began with 19.  Sustainable Seattle grew to over 200 indicators, and then was whittled down to 100 indicators.  View Sustainable Seattle Regional Indicators.

Some other questions and comments were about biofuels, are these really a net improvement to the environment.  Some discussion about AEP.  Are they changing the mix of renewable and non-renewable?

Joe Konen, from OSU, gave the most technical portion of the evening’s presentations.  In fact, I was challenged here.  I felt behind the eight ball, as some of the jargon and worksheets were asking opinions based on what was more important, water quality, housing cost, or renewable energy?  I felt like it was one of those psych tests in order to understand who we really are, as opposed to what we want others to think of us.

I feel a bit inadequate to comment on that process, as it was indeed over my head.  I’m anxious to learn what I can do differently, and how we can inspire and motivate others to change.

It’s a Saturday evening, and sustainable lifestyle is now constantly on my mind.  I went to Anderson’s to get some vegetable plants, so I can attempt to do organic container gardening.  I bought lettuce, eggplant, peppers (green, red, sweet bell, hot peppers), basil (Italian and sweet), and perhaps a cucumber?

But finding organic container garden soil is an effort.  Anderson’s General Store did not have it.  I thought about driving to Straders, Plantland, and other places.  Each time I drive now, I think about carbon impact.  So, I decided to go into the dreaded “WALMART”, which has moved next to our condominium complex, despite contest against it.  I hoped no one would notice me - I’d hear about it for years.  Many know I think WalMart is evil and fought it, got on the Civic Association Board to fight it, and won only minor improvements to the existing plan.  The Garden Center was something I was in favor of, so I thought I’d check it out.  Eeek.   Would you believe they actually had more Scott’s Organic stuff than Anderson’s?  However, still no organic container gardening soil specifically for vegetables.  I decided to poak around the rest of the evil giant’s grocery store, and noted not one organic dairy or produce item. I thought, is it possible to actually have organic milk at WalMart?  That would be a big fat NO….

 WalMart and demographics - I am so not a fan.  The way too thin, very tall blonde woman who tans too much, and has the leathery skin type, with skinny jeans that were still hanging off of her, and a pink button down shirt, in front of me at the express checkout - married with a stack of diamond rings.  Her purchase of the evening - a bottle of Jose Cuervo and Trojans ….. interesting combination.  

 Okay, so tomorrow, will I walk to Kroger to get organic milk?  To be continued….

16th May 2007

Global Warming Presentation in Worthington

Five Frequent Reasons for Global Warming Inaction - How to defeat the excuses against not acting now on Global Warming.

Presentation in Worthington by Dr. Robinson, who is educated on Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth process. 

1) Who Me? - climate is always changing
  Looking at human industrial activity - population explosion - should hit 9.1 billion by 2050.  It took from beginning to 1927 to reach 2 billion persons.  It took less than 50 years for population to double.  It’ll take even less than 25 years for the next doubling to take place.  Also science and technology will amplify our resources.  Ancient ways of doing things are no longer the way of doing things - think when you use a snowblower instead of snow shovel.  The troposphere is 6  miles thick, where planes fly.   Real acceleration in global warming after 1970.  It is a natural phenomenon.  A slide of Lonnie Thompson, ice cores.  Quelccaya Ice Cap, Peru, 1977 slide shown.  Never exceeded 250 Carbon Dioxide parts per million, in 650,000 years of study complete.  Today, we’re at 280 C02 parts per million.  For the first time, we can prove that humans are in fact contributing to the increase in CO2.  We know that greenhouse gases warms the Earth.

2) I’ll be dead before it matters
There is a 1.3 degree temperature increase.  Bare minimum is 2 degrees.  The worst case scenario is 11 degrees.  January was 1.5 degrees warmer than 20th century global average.  He also talked about the Vermont sugar maples - which i’ve blogged about before.  Article in NYT in 3/2/07.  Sky Islands of southern Arizona unraveling - a local resident said that she used to have four seasons - now they only have two.  She’s lived there for 25 years.  NASA GISS projects that by 2085, summer time average daily highs will be 10 degrees warmer.  They’re also projecting average daytime highs over 100 degrees in the South.  Boulder Glacial Park and other glacial parks worldwide - within 30 years - will be gone.  Alot of the world depends on the glacial ice packs to provide steady flow of water.  In South America, entire cities depend on the glaciers for their water source.  MIT Study in 2005, July, said the intensity of storms in the Atlantic have increased substantially.  Number of major flood events increased, as do droughts.  The number of frost days have decreased substantially in Switzerland. 

3) We can fix it later
North Pole - earth uses this to cool itself.  The Sea-Ice Extent - is diminishing dramatically - as ice melts, the darker water absorbs more of the heat, and accelerates the heating of the Earth at an increasing rate.  In the North, within the Permafrost, there is enough C02 in the tundra - if it melts - there will be a large amount of methane released into the air.  This has already begun in Alaska and Russia.  In the South, the Larsen Ice Shelf broke up in 2002.  It had been there for approximately 12,000 years.  In three months, it broke up.   As water based ice breaks up, land based ice has the potential to melt and fall into the water, thus increasing water levels.  The West Antarctic ice sheet is a grave concern.  If it broke off, sea levels would go up 20 feet.  Greenland - pools of melt water are forming - just like the Larsen Ice shelf in 2002.   Glacial earthquakes are doubling in Greenland.  Don’t count on being able to fix it - these are irreversible events taking place.

4) It won’t touch me in Ohio, i’m not on the coast - think the Florida picture animation on Inconvenient Truth.  There could be a major soil moisture reduction in Ohio from June to August.  In 2003 there is a heat wave in Europe.  35,000 dead.  Most died in France in Italy, 15,000 and 20,000 respectively.   We were all impacted by Katrina.  Darfur - the root of the problem is a longterm drought - Lake Chad - disrupting age old social patterns. 

5) It’ll cost too much - what about the Chinese - if they don’t do anything? 
Estimated that if we spent $14 billion spent to prevent Katrina.  Estimated total damage cost of $200 billion because of the effects of Katrina.  The Stern Review, a British report, on the economics of climate change - spend 1% of GNP now on mitigation - we will able to avoid serious economic impact later ($300B) - likely to experience 5-20% decrease.   The only time that happened was in WWII.  Alternatively, the Chairman and CEO of GE believes that green is green and can be profitable.  Just last year Toyota became top producer 39.1 percent - as opposed to 38.1 percent decline for Ford. In the last 20 years, Germany has led in 50% world’s production - generated their own energy and developed solar technology industry as export.  Efficiency works in California - appliance and building standard modifications - established rules whereby their utilities make money by encouraging and realizing efficiencies.   Alternatively, there is no incentive at AEP to reduce energy consumption - hmmmmmm, perhaps an opportunity with my colleagues at AEP.  There is wind capacity of 330 GW in the Atlantic.  Current regional total energy consumption is 185 GW.  Installation of 166,720 turbines.   It has been determined that 66,000 MW of land-based potential wind energy.   There has to be multiple methods of impacting - to stabilize - electricity and use efficiency; other end-use efficiency - passenger vehicle, transport efficiency, renewables.  The most expensive thing we can do is nothing.

Upcoming Events:
Solar 2007 - Cleveland, OH - July 7, 12, 2007 - www.solar2007.org

Questions:

What are other countries doing?  E.U. and California are legislative entity models to review. 

What about nuclear energy?  Renewable, decentralized sources would be the opposite of nuclear.   If you currently sell surplus energy back to an energy provider like AEP, you only get 40% of retail price.  Gore has proposed a smart energy grid, and an open marketplace for many to sell back to whomever wants to buy it at market price.

Questions about population - should we not have as many children - i’ve seen studies on this - i need to look this up.  I’ve seen studies on the Muslim vs Christian societies and that the latter have very few children in a decreasing rate and the former are having larger numbers of children.

One comment about the lack of people under 35 in the room.  Our children will be more affected by this than we will be.  Most of the people in the room - largely women, some men, and mostly older.

6th May 2007

Eagle Chick Hatches

Eagle Chick Hatches - The Nature Conservancy

I have a million things to do today, or at least a few things I should be doing right now, including grading OSU MKTG 754 mid-terms.  I’m out on my deck, having just washed it clean, and facing a large stack of mid-terms to finish grading today.  As always, I’m looking for something else to do in order to further procrastinate from grading.  Alas, order organic flowers from Organicbouquet.com.  This leads me to The Nature Conservancy’s website, which enables me to watch an eagle and her chick live, through their webcam.  As if I have nothing else better to do…..

This is great news for the Santa Cruz Island ecosystem.  This is the second year in a row that eagles have hatched on their own.  Last year, the eagles successfully laid and naturally hatched the first egg in over 50 years.  DDT was released by chemical companies into the ocean, through the sewer system, until it was banned in the 1970s.  To learn more about this historical environmental project, visit the Nature Conservancy’s website.

Sustainable Living - Eco-Friendly Lifestyle

Sustainable Living in Worthington, Ohio - Eco-Friendly Lifestyle

I work in Worthington, Ohio, just a few minutes north of Columbus.  I live a few miles from Worthington, within biking distance of my office.  The only challenge with biking to work in Worthington, from my house, is a lack of bike-friendly routes.  There is a bike path halfway, but it kinda defeats the purpose of biking to support sustainable living, if I’m driving halfway, just so I can bike the other half.  There is a need for more bike-friendly routes in Columbus. 

I shop at Whole Foods, although I’m not sure that sustainable living groups would agree that Whole Foods is a local farmer’s market by any means.  I’m not really into the Sunflower Market, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t be.  Part of what attracts me to Whole Foods is the “experience”, the merchandising, the people, and the essence of it all.  Sunflower Markets is a bare minimum approach to the organic, local farmers, sustainable living lifestyle.  I have one down the street from me.  In fact, on a pretty day, I could easily walk there.  Now, granted, I would garner strange looks from passersby as I carry my bags of groceries.  That’s the problem with sustainable living.  Even when you want to do something good for the environment, like shop local and walk back home, people look at you in a strange way.  I wonder why she’s walking?  Does she not have a car?  Lost her license?  We joke about how Columbus, Ohioans don’t like to walk anywhere - in fact there are some serious competitions over the “closest” car parking space possible to any location on even the nicest day.  I pride myself in taking a spot further out, just to enjoy some walking.

That’s what I like about Worthington.  It would not strike me as strange at all to see someone walking from a local farmer’s market back to their home.  It’s that kind of community.  Although they did take away the local grocery store - slightly defeating the concept of sustainable lifestyle as it lacks a local grocery store.  In the summer, however, there is a great Farmer’s Market in downtown Worthington.  You can make a day out of downtown Worthington, by having breakfast at La Chatelaine, a favorite French bistro restaurant, and shopping at the local farmers’ kiosks.  There are art shows twice a year, or perhaps more.  There are local musicians who play at the corner of High and 161 on Sunday evenings.   Click here for a Worthington Ohio Summer Concert Series PDF - loads in Acrobat.  Worthington is a very dog-friendly community.  Scotty MacBeans allows dogs inside their coffee shop.  Graeter’s and dogs get along great.  And Old Bag of Nails will not only allow dogs outside on the patio, they’ll even bring you a bucket of water for Cody (my dog).

I recently joined Sustainable Living in Worthington through Google Groups.  Here are some links they’ve put together on their document that I thought would be of interest. 

www.simplyliving.com

www.columbusrewired.org - American Institute of Design

www.greenenergyohio.org - Green Energy Ohio

www.cobac.org - Central Ohio Bicycle Advocacy Coalition

Upcoming Sustainable Living Meetings in Worthington: