Strive for green

Part of the campaign I’m working on right now involves producing a couple of videos to introduce our initiatives. As we have been looking for motivation, I found the following video particularly good:

I came across an excellent paragraph today on the website ecogeek.org:

“In Europe, where petrol prices are several times higher than the U.S., small, efficient cars are the norm. But there’s also an accompanying tradition of good mast transit, walkable cities, and a support for cycling. Perhaps a spike in fuel prices is just what we need in the U.S. We’ll be forced to stop developing sprawl, which in turn increases gas consumption, pollutes our air, causes global warming, and perhaps kills us all.”

Well spoken!

A new focus for Strive for green: green marketing.

I was recently hired as a full-time environmental specialist by a company that provides online services for several thousand businesses (at this point, I’m keeping the company name a secret as the project is not officially launched yet). Their clients range from large retail stores to coal companies to hospitals. I have been tasked with directing the creation and launch of environmental initiatives for the company.

In recent years, we have all seen a flood of “green” painted over everything as companies try to ride the wave of corporate environmental responsibility. I for one, think it is great that companies realize the importance of being more environmentally friendly in order to be competitive in today’s marketplace, but many companies are only environmental in outreach and not in action (i.e. they greenwash). Greenwashing can truly help a brand in the short term, but once it is discovered that the environmental benefits are not real, the brand and the company will lose invaluable credibility. So as a dedicated environmentalist and a wise businessman, it only makes sense for me to pursue initiatives that really will make a difference and pursue a worthy cause.

As I work on this project, I will include updates in the category “Green Marketing.” It is my hope that projects like mine will be the beginning of a much larger corporate move towards sustainability.

We try to reduce and re-use as much as possible in our apartment, but as everyone knows, it is pretty much impossible to not generate waste (especially in our culture of mass consume/mass dispose). We buy in bulk, purchase milk in refillable containers, bring our own bags to the supermarket, etc., but by the end of the week we always have a sizable bin-full of recyclables which I sort into the containers outside our building.

As I took out the recyclables today, I was stopped in my tracks by the dentist at the office next to our building. As I lifted the lid to the container for paper, the dentist asked me “what are you doing?” I replied, “Recycling” to which he informed me these were his recycling containers. Incredulous, I suggested there was no harm in dropping my recyclables in the containers as they are owned by the City of Berkeley. Apparently, he has to pay the city, and has had problems with the containers getting overfilled by occupants of my building.

So, I figured my building MUST have its own recycling containers – this is Berkeley, right?

Wrong! I first asked one of the building maintenance guys who I see on a regular basis, and he told me there are no recycling bins for our building and to just throw it all into the trash. Yeah… NO!

I live across the hall from the managers of my building, and they informed me that the landlords (Everest Properties) do not want any recycling bins because they will get in the way of paid parking spaces.

Next I called the City of Berkeley Recycling and Refuse center (510-981-7270) and talked to a very nice lady named Rowella. She informed me that recycling services are provided free to businesses and large apartment buildings in Berkeley (the dentist was either mis-informed or lied, but I think the former). In order to set up recycling, my landlord simply has to call them and they will provide us with bins.

So the obvious solution is to just ignore the dentist and recycle after business hours, but I want to be a good neighbor and not contribute the the over-stuffing of his bins. So now I need to convince the landlord that there is space next to the building for our own recycling bins! I never imagined there would be large apartment buildings in Berkeley of all places that still do not have their own recycling containers!

I found a rather interesting video today that discusses the potential responses and outcomes of global warming. Check it out:

I was quite surprised today when I took a quick news break from work, and found an article on CNN titled “Bush signs bill raising auto fuel efficiency standards.” I read the story certain I would find some sort of provision like “Anyone who has ever lived in Texas or even thought about living in Texas and likes real big trucks aint gotta meet no fuel standards.” I can report that upon first glance at the mass-media news stories, there appear to be no such provisions.

Given Bush’s horrific environmental track record, I’m still somewhat skeptical. Any step towards efficiency is great, and I commend that, but it is hard to believe there is not a major ulterior motive going on. I would love to hear others thoughts!

(I don’t think this guy will be happy about the new standards).

A couple of friends of mine just released a new website that promotes passage of a measure on the 2008 California bond to create a high speed rail network in California. There are a couple examples of decent rail systems in California such as BART and Amtrak’s Capitol Corridor, but otherwise the state is very dependent on inefficient, environmentally inferior, and/or slow means of transport - car and plane. Strive for green throws its full support behind establishing a high speed rail network in California!

Here is the email my friend Barret from Golden State Rail just sent out announcing their website:

“If you’re like me, you’re frustrated with highway traffic and fed up
with our poor Amtrack system. After discussing California’s
transportation problem amongst ourselves, me and friends discovered
that a High Speed Rail system has been proposed for California. The
bond to fund this project will be on the 2008 November ballot.

We’ve put together a website to inform and motivate public support for
this bond. All we ask is that you take two minutes to view our
website and to sign the form showing your support. ALSO, we do not
have a marketing budget. We are counting on our friends to email
their contacts and organizations about this movement.”

Visit GoldenStateRail.org for more information and to join the movement!

Topps Meat Co., aka “The Hamburger People” may have to change their motto to the “We hope you don’t get E. coli O157:H7 from our factory farmed, inhumanely treated, crap infested cows!” According to CNN, Topps began the recall Tuesday with 330,000 pounds and increased it to a whopping total of 21.7 MILLION pounds!

If we guess that the average Topps cow that has been loaded with artificial growth hormones, antibiotics and fed parts of its relatives, produces about 1000 pounds of hamburger, then we’re talking about 22,000 cow’s worth of potentially tainted meat. What a waste! And all because the industrial farming system used to raise cattle is exceptionally disgusting.

Unfortunately the way we produce most of the beef in this country effectively guarantees recalls like this one. Cows evolved to eat grasses on rangeland (or if you are into creationsism/intelligent design, God created cows to eat grass and have open space). The majority of cows raised in this country are kept in tight confinement and fed corn, grain, and even other dead cows! Without massive injections of antibiotics and other medicines, cows forced to live this way would die fast. Next time you watch a zombie movie, imagine the zombies are cows and you’ll have a pretty good picture of what you’ll eat next time you go to Mc. Donald’s or Burger King!

How do you avoid the possibility of eating E. coli-inducing beef?
To start with, avoid the non-grass-fed stuff! Grass-fed beef are far healthier, and studies have shown that the concentration of E coli on grass fed beef is virtually nothing at slaughter time whereas the concentration on corn/grain-fed beef is often enormous. It might look virtually the same at the market, but when you get grass-fed beef you are effectively choosing a production method that is better for the environment, better for the cows and better for YOU!

One topic I will discuss often on this blog is our relationship with fossil fuels and how we can strive to live our lives in such a way that minimizes our reliance on them.

Fossil fuels are the backbone of US agriculture - they create fertilizers, pesticides, power farm equipment, and transport the average produce item on your plate 1,500 miles from where it was grown. Believe it or not, Avocados from Chile are only made possible by relatively cheap fossil fuel enabled supply chains. Given massively increasing demand for fossil fuels worldwide and the fact global oil production is about to start decreasing, oil prices are going to increase A LOT in coming years. And with increased oil prices, the systems that depend on cheap oil most, like transporting agricultural goods long distances, are going to change out of simple necessity and economic pressure.

Ten years from now when faced with the purchasing decision of choosing a $1 locally grown pound of apples or a $30 Avocado from Chile, I think most of us will choose the apples no matter how bad we crave the Avocado. Locally grown food is simply going to make far more economic sense when shipping costs have doubled, tripled, or more. Also, for all of you environmentalists out there with what I call “global warming tunnel-vision,” local agriculture is incredibly less carbon intensive!

Another positive element of urban and local agriculture is that it builds real community! Suburban America is about as un-community based as you can get and I think the massive proliferation of online social networking tools like myspace and facebook ardently demonstrate this fact. People simply feel disconnected, and are trying to find community anywhere they can. I love peace and solitude but I’ll admit I am guilty too as I have spent countless hours on facebook trying to feel “connections” when I could have simply gone to a park and talked to real flesh and blood people! Local and urban agriculture build the basis of real community: interdependent groups of people who have a vested interest in their future.

I often worry what will happen when necessity and economics force us to quickly adapt to local and urban agriculture, but videos like this give me real hope:

(Video found on a French eco-blog)

I just came across a post on greenbuildingsNYC revealing that Hannaford Supermarkets has proposed to build a 49,000 LEED Platinum supermarket in Augusta, ME. This comes as a particular surprise to me since I spent my childhood years 20 miles away in Appleton and never dreamed Hannaford (formerly Shop ‘N Save) had any environmental aspirations. Also, Augusta commonly gets called “disgusta” by other Mainers.

Developments like this are certainly encouraging as it shows businesses are really waking up to the fact that they will save money if they enact good conservation programs.
(This particular Hannaford is definitely failing on the impermeable surface test!)