Earth Blog

Have you picked up the reusable bag habit yet? If you have, where do you keep your bags? Is it safe to assume you don’t keep them in a bathroom? Are you a reusable bag owner looking from your bag to your bathroom as you ponder the question and can only answer: “Well, that is just silly-grocery bags in the bathroom.”

Unfortunately, someone once kept a reusable bag in a hotel bathroom and it resulted in a stomach flu outbreak that affected a group of girls ages 13 and 14 and their four chaperones from Oregon during a 2010 soccer tournament trip in Washington state.

Sunday was Earth Day, yesterday was National Arbor Day, and today is Keep America Beautiful’s (KAB) first “National Day of Action” the perfect ending to a week of reflection and awareness.

KAB is best known for their Great American Cleanup events which will be held today as part of a larger movement to encourage people to become active in their communities through volunteer work. You might remember them from such blogs as: “Cigarettes are #1 Piece of Litter Found Nationwide” (their research provided the troubling cigarette butt statistic) and “Schools Compete with a Different Set of the Three R's” -KAB is one of the tournament’s sponsors.

"Walkability” is like a slew of other fake words now commonly bandied about in our daily conversations.  The word is similar to a portmanteau like momager, tofurkey, and mathlete but has more in common with our country’s penchant for adding the word “gate“ to whatever hot scandal is the subject of our 24 hour news network.

Just add ability to whatever word you would like to make something that was once unmeasurable measurable. “Readability” which is certainly more clear than words like concise and legible or “quotability” instead of memorable. But this isn’t a blog about made-up words (blog is a portmanteau) it’s a blog about walkability and public transportability.

A selection of scientists from NASA have been in Washington D.C. since Friday to celebrate the 42nd Annual Earth Day at the National Mall. They have set up three tents with activities and exhibits are free and open to the public (as all events at the Mall are today) at their “NASA Village.”

The Green Theater is one of these tents and will feature presentations by NASA and one topic during Friday’s festivities was satellite imagery. The agency has been beaming back images of Earth, surrounding planets, and stars for such a long time it’s become routine.

NASA’s Global Climate Change website, which won a Webby last year for “Best Science Site”, wanted to shake things up a bit by presenting their pictures in the “State of Flux” gallery differently in honor of Earth Day.

Yesterday, in what can only be considered an odd coincidence, several media outlets reported via the Associated Press that in 2010 a 30-year-old New Zealand woman died because of a soda addiction.  Natasha Harris suffered a heart attack and that heart attack has been attributed to excessive soda consumption.

Meanwhile, stateside, prestigious Cleveland Clinic’s Wellness Institute and equally prestigious Harvard University released an article about their research that linked over-consumption of soda, sugar-sweetened and low-calorie, to an increased risk of stroke.

There are several drawbacks- if not outright awful health problems- to being addicted to smoking cigarettes and some of these might even affect your immediate family. We’ve talked about how cigarettes are bad for your memory and for the air and now there is at least one new study that says we are unaware that cigarettes are “the number one littered item every year on U.S. roadways and beaches.”

Smoking while on the go, in your car or out for a walk, and that cigarette has to go somewhere once you are finished sucking those carcinogens down. Your cigarette butt might go into your car’s ashtray, a trashcan, or a public ashtray. But what if there isn’t a place to toss it? It gets tossed wherever. After all, what are cigarettes made out of? Tobacco and paper: that’s bio-degradable, right? Not really.

According to the latest results from the Harris Poll, consumers are getting off the sustainable bandwagon as “green behaviors” are on the decline. They are doing this even though could be saving money and the poll also found “considerably fewer U.S. adults now express concern for, and awareness of, environmental issues.”

How bad is it? 2012’s poll says that about 1 in 3 adults or about 34% “say they are concerned about the planet we are leaving behind for future generations.” The percentage in 2009 was 43% so there was a ten percentage point decrease. Perhaps the people polled don’t have future generations to worry about or could we be seeing the opinions of the post-emotional millennials? Either way, that is still less than half.  

Significantly less than half of adults surveyed describe themselves as "environmentally-conscious" (27% 2012 vs. 30% 2009) and they also don’t “personally care a great deal about the current state, and future, of the environment” (31% 2012 vs. 36% 2009 and 34% 2010).

Well, that is depressing news to take into this Earth Day weekend.

Libby, a small town in Northwestern Montana, contacted the EPA in 1999 after concerns that asbestos from a local vermiculite mine was causing lung cancer, and respiratory problems in its citizens.

According to the EPA’s summary for the Libby Superfund site, the mine supplied “more than 70 percent of all vermiculite sold in the United States from 1919 to 1990.” The mineral, which resembles mica, is naturally-occurring and when heated it expands. Some of the vermiculite was used as insulation in walls and attics and was sold under the brand name Zonolite.

After collecting extensive samples the EPA found high levels of contamination from a toxic form of natural amphibole asbestos fibers now called Libby Amphibole asbestos (LA).

In 2009 an ambient air quality report found that the LA air concentrations were 10,000 times lower than they were in Libby when the mine and milling plants were operational.

That was the same year the EPA declared a Public Health Emergency in Libby to provide federal aid to residents suffering from asbestos-related diseases.

At the end of March, greenhouse developer BrightFarms announced what could prove to be their most ambitious and biggest project to date: a state-of-the-art hydroponic greenhouse that will span across 100,000 square feet on the roof of a building that used to be property of the United States military.

Located in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York the greenhouse is part of the redevelopment plans for an old Navy warehouse that has been vacant since 2000 according to the New York Times.

As more towns pass ordinances banning plastic bags, shoppers not in the habit of bringing their own reusable bags are scrambling to buy a few when they happen to remember. Some are simply going to take their business elsewhere- to neighboring towns where laws don’t prohibit stores from handing out plastic bags. The restrictions might cause inconvenience, which results in sighing and eye-rolling but communities are catching on to the idea of the bans quickly.

What isn’t a habit yet for people who currently use the canvas bags is laundering them regularly. 

According to a new survey by the Home Food Safety program only fifteen percent or less than one in six  Americans who have the re-usable bag wash them.  So while they are merrily carrying their bags their bags are happily carrying germs and bacteria.

The City of Claremont (nickname: “The City of Trees and PhDs”) has been awarded Silver level status by the California Green Communities (CGC) program for their work toward sustainability. Claremont is only one of four cities that have reached Silver status; the others are Monrovia, Riverside, and Santa Clarita.  Seven other cities including Los Angeles, Santa Monica and Ventura are using the program’s criteria to better their towns and earn recognition.

"Our City takes its commitment to sustainability seriously," said Mayor Sam Pedroza.  "It is a priority for the City Council and it is a consideration in every project and program we provide. Achieving the Silver level status validates the tremendous work this community has done."

March may have come in like a lion breathing fire for a large swath of the United States where warmer than usual temperatures were enjoyed. The weather wouldn't hold for long and last week temperatures dropped in portions of the Midwest and New England. With them came a last gasp of winter: frost advisories and the threat of light snow, and hail.  Coats and boots were dragged out grudgingly, farmers warily eyed their crops worried about potential loss, and thermostats that had been turned off went back on. 

The temperature that you keep your home during cold months matters more than you think to the environment. A great deal of energy is used to heat a home to a desired temperature- which for a lot of people is hotter than need be. If you have proper insulation and efficient windows you can afford to knock the temperature down a bit and still be cozy.

Comfort is a relative term and some like it hot, some like it cold, and some like it in the pot nine days old-because that is what is considered normal.

Are you looking for something to do tomorrow to change up your Saturday night routine? Are you tired of the same activities you always do: dinner-movie-drinks or catching up on your favorite TV shows you missed during the week?  Do you have a date tomorrow and don’t know what to do or where to go? Why don’t you participate in Earth Hour and turn off all the unnecessary lights in your house and sit in the dark contemplating your commitment and the global effort to sustainability.

The California Strawberry Commission (CSC) wants to remind you that peak season has arrived! Though strawberries are sold year round the finest examples of one California’s top crops (7th most valuable fruit crop estimated at $2.1 billion) are sold March through August.

Well over 80 percent of our nation’s strawberries are grown in California by a network of more than 500 family owned and operated farms. Together these farms grow strawberries on a combined total of 36,000 acres. This means that 56 square miles of California’s vast size is used for strawberry cultivation or about twice the size of the city of Oxnard, which is considered the “Strawberry Capital of the World.”

All farmers are concerned with sustainability and safety this obviously includes berry farmers. A look at farms and the people working on them in the self-proclaimed capital gives us an idea of the sustainability practices currently in place.

Starting on Wednesday you can bid on surplus and scrap metals from the "boneyard" at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona where decommissioned United States military aircraft sit in the hot dessert sun waiting to be stripped down to their base materials.

Right now the yard at Tucson's base is the only location where extra government planes  -over 4,200 to be exact- live. Some of the planes are operational or historic but the yard also acts as the military’s own giant pick-a-part for aircraft. Once a plane is no longer useful to the military it will be sold for scrap.

Today’s study that reinforces what we already know to be true or colloquially stated as “Duh” comes to us from San Diego State University. 

Researchers there have found that millennials, or the generation born in the 1980s and the 1990s, are more focused on fame and money than they are on civic-mindedness, political participation, and giving back to communities. By comparing milennials, Generation X, and baby boomers at the same age -college- they saw the disparities between the generation’s areas of focus. Sadly, the parents of the current crop of college kids could not pass down their ideals.

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) is a non-profit organization with a mission “to provide innovative strategies, working models and timely information to support environmentally sound and equitable community development.” They work with communities of varying demographics to spur effective growth and lessen a town’s environmental impact.

One of their areas of focus is the big-box retailer and where there is talk of big-box retailers there is talk of Walmart. 

The ILSR released a report analyzing Walmart’s attempts at sustainability. Needless to say they think the retail giant’s attempts are insincere. Stacy Mitchell, the report’s author and a senior researcher at ILSR, is calling it as she sees it: “greenwashing.”

"Walmart's sustainability campaign has done more to improve the company's image than to help the environment," says Mitchell who is also the author of Big-Box Swindle.

Have you weened yourself off chemically fortified cleansers thanks to our tips? Switched to new greener brands or tried to clean with just one all-purpose cleaner? Are you making your own household cleaners yet ? No worries if you haven’t because companies are racing to meet demands for eco-friendly products. But before companies can rush products to the shelves they have to be developed by scientists in labs. If only mountain fresh soap was really harvested fresh from a mountain.

Familiarity breeds comfort and that applies to the relationship children have with vegetables. A new study has found that both labeling and exposure to vegetables affect what a child will eat and that sneaking vegetables into meals may not matter as much as we think.

Parents with picky eaters have turned to specialty cookbooks to teach them how to sneak around their kitchens.

User reviews of these popular cookbooks are as mixed as the bag of vegetables children supposedly refuse to eat. Some parents have enjoyed success through the method and their little ones are blissfully unaware they are eating macaroni & cheese laced with cauliflower. Other parents have found the recipes lacking and feel they are doing their children a disservice by not fostering a love of vegetables which will cause them to abandon vegetables into adulthood.

This week in bag ban news the idyllic hamlet of Ojai is on course to become the first city in Ventura County to ban single use plastic bags.

The Ventura County Star reported that the Ojai City Council passed the ordinance but it will still require council’s approval later this month to be officially deemed a law.