The Red, White, and Green

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Las Vegas is the antithesis of a sustainable city. Air conditioning, lights on 24/7, tourists flying in from all over the world, fountains that spray like fireworks — all in the middle of a vast desert that was meant to be home to jack rabbits and lizards (well, and the indigenous people who lived there, but that’s another post).

I’m not writing today to bag on Vegas — I certainly have paid a visit or two to Sin City, and even though it’s pretty much against everything I stand for, I managed to enjoy myself. I am human, after all.

Most of us aren’t gobbling up five-course dinners at four-star restaurants these days, but I found it entertaining nonetheless to see an adorably illustrated chart in this month’s Wired magazine (see below) about how Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare in the Wynn manages to serve fresh Mediterranean fish in the middle of the Mojave Desert. With so many chefs now embracing local — even restaurant-grown — ingredients, and the world facing the end of seafood by 2048, it’s an even more striking paradox to see chef Paul Bartolotta essentially giving the planet the bird.

Of course, Bartolotta isn’t the only offender. Creating a menu from truly local food in Las Vegas would be close to impossible (tumbleweeds and rattlesnake, anyone?). But it is some interesting food for thought. Check it out:

Wired: Seafood Express: Getting Mediterranean Fish to Las Vegas — Fast

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: There’s not much you can do in the way of sustainable eating once you’re already in Sin City, but the rest of the time, you can ensure that your sushi dinner isn’t destroying our oceans. Check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch guide — there’s even a free iPhone app available.

Related posts:
Go see: The End of the Line
Sustainable seafood on the go

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According to the WSJ, the Senate climate draft includes "provisions to fund training of workers in the nuclear industry and development of technology that could reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from coal-fired power plants." Photo via Flickr: Theslowlane

Looks like my call last week for the Senate to get moving on its version of the climate bill is about to be answered — although it’s more probable that Al Gore’s swift kick in the Senatorial slacks at the Clinton Global Initiative last week had just a wee bit more impact. (We’ll get there one day, loyal RWG readers!)

From The Wall Street Journal:

Top Senate Democrats Wednesday plan to unveil a draft climate bill that would call for somewhat-faster reductions in U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions than would be required under a House bill. But the proposal is expected to defer tough decisions on many other major issues, underscoring the challenges lawmakers face in seeking a consensus on the issue.

According to a copy of the draft legislation seen by The Wall Street Journal and people close to the matter, the proposal will call for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions 20% from 2005 levels by 2020. The House bill, passed by the chamber in June, calls for cutting emissions 17% over the same period.

Click here for the full read.

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: There would be no Senate climate bill without Sen. Barbara Boxer, a relentless environmental advocate and head of the the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Unfortunately, she’s a top right-wing target for next year’s election. Her expected challengers are far from green: California Assemblyman Chuck Devore actually voted against AB 32, CA’s landmark global warming legislation; as economic adviser to presidential candidate John McCain, ex-CEO Carly Fiorina said “drill, drill, drill.” Click here to donate to Boxer’s campaign.

Related posts:
Senate needs to pass climate bill
Global warming will threaten national security

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These wouldn’t really work in my 1920s bathroom, but I think the science behind CB2’s biodegradable bath accessories is pretty fascinating. Made of EcoGen, the trademarked name for bio-plastic PHBV, the products will break down in six to nine months in soil or compost, leaving nothing behind but carbon dioxide, water, and biomass. No fear of a melted toothbrush holder on your sink, though; according to the CB2 website, they “will last indefinitely under normal conditions.” Obviously they haven’t seen my bathroom (kidding)!

But what is PHBV, exactly? A polymer derivative of one of the five molecules Forbes magazine said back in 2003 would “change the world,” there’s not a lot of information out there other than on the EcoGen website, probably because the material is so new. There’s not even a Wikipedia entry for it yet! (All you chemistry whizzes, get cracking.)

I’m happy to see CB2 specify that the products must be placed in soil or compost in order to biodegrade; a lot of the so-called “green” plastics out there, like BioBags and those containers that vegetables are packed in at Trader Joe’s, give the impression that merely tossing these products in the trash will allow them to magically transform into soil, which they will not. Once locked in a landfill and deprived of oxygen, they will not break down any faster than petroleum-based plastic.

I also wonder about what will happen if we as a society, instead of learning how to truly reduce consumption and consumerism and invest in products made to last generations (or reuse the ones we already have), merely substitute disposable “green” products for disposable petroleum-based ones. Or maybe we don’t have to change our habits after all — perhaps science will be our savior.

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: Want to ensure that the biodegradable products you buy will truly break down? Learn how to compost. Here’s an easy guide to get you started.

Related posts:
Green goods
Thinking outside the box

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Photo via Flickr: Rob Crawley

Given the urgency of the crises we’re facing — ice sheets in Antarctica in “runaway melt mode,” a complete collapse of global fish populations by 2048, a floating dump of plastic trash in the Pacific Ocean twice the size of Texas — I often struggle with where best to focus my environmental efforts. Is changing light bulbs and composting really going to cut it?

Individual action is important, yes. If everyone stopped buying water in plastic bottles, that would go a long way toward shrinking the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, for example. And when people make small changes like planting tomatoes in their backyard, or eating vegetarian a few days a week, it often inspires them — and the people around them — to think about bigger issues.

But the other half of the work is enacting legislation. Without the mandate in the House’s Clean Energy and Security Act for electricity suppliers to meet 25 percent of its generated electricity from renewable resources by 2025 (not the 100 percent I wanted to see, but it’s a start), no amount of picketing and pleading would stop utility companies from buying coal if it was profitable.

The Senate needs to hustle up and pass its climate (ahem, global warming) bill. President Obama said in his speech at the UN Climate Change Summit on Tuesday that “we must not allow the perfect to become the enemy of progress.”

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: Take five minutes and write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper about the need for legislative action to combat global warming and spur the creation of green jobs.

Related posts:
Global warming will threaten national security
Los Angeles moves one step closer to plastic bag ban

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Photo via Flickr: Mecookie

As Australia’s worst dust storm in 70 years cloaks Sydney and the east coast of the country in a thick red haze, fueled by the worst drought on record, you have to wonder if this is but a glimpse at our future. Scientists have already been predicting massive drought in the next 100 years as a consequence of global warming; and just today, a new study released by researchers in the US and South Korea reveals a new global warming-related El Niño weather pattern that could intensify droughts in Australia and India.

From Reuters:

While the conventional El Niño is a warm body of water stretching across the tropical Eastern Pacific, this new El Niño is a horseshoe-shaped region of warm ocean in the central Pacific flanked by unusually cooler waters, they wrote in a paper published in the latest issue of Nature.

“This new type of El Niño appeared in the recent decade and from our analysis, it may be due to global warming,” lead researcher Sang-Wook Yeh of the Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute told Reuters by telephone.

For the full story, click here.

Do this now: With many areas of the US already facing some of the worst droughts on record, the most important thing you can do is  conserve water, arguably our most precious resource. Click here to calculate your water footprint.

Related posts:
Global warming will threaten national security
Recycling’s final frontier: urine to water

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Over the past several months, I’ve covered a lot of convincing reasons to adopt Meatless Monday — reducing greenhouse gas emissions, freeing our dependence on foreign oil, helping to stop the spread of global pandemics like H1N1 that are directly linked to factory farming — but there’s an obvious one I’ve skipped over, and that is the lives of the animals themselves.

I’m not going to go all militant vegan on you right now; those of you who read my blogs know that despite my devotion to environmental issues, I still enjoy the occasional organic grass-fed beef burger from time to time. And while there are those who say you cannot be an environmentalist and eat meat, I don’t think we’re going to convince the majority of Americans to suddenly stop eating Big Macs and buffalo wings by showing them footage of what really goes down in a slaughterhouse.

Well, maybe some would change their minds if they actually chose to watch, but the point is that most people faced with guilt-tripping and a big fat lecture will just walk away. That’s why I love Meatless Monday. It’s nonjudgmental, totally doable, and taking that first small step leads to bigger changes (it’s like the gateway drug to a vegetarian diet; even my al pastor-loving husband is now eating veggie burgers for lunch on a regular basis).

Back to the animals. There’s no arguing that those guys are pretty darn cute, which is I’m thrilled to see Animal Planet blogger Wendee Holtcamp embracing Meatless Monday (click here to read her post). Now if only Animal Planet would introduce a show called Friendly Farmstead to join Meerkat Manor and Whale Wars in its regular lineup!

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: Haven’t yet embraced Meatless Mondays? Just start with tonight’s dinner. Some affordable, quick-cook ideas that everyone will love: cheese ravioli with tomato sauce (buy frozen pasta), a veggie frittata, or homemade individual pizzas (buy pre-made dough).

More Meatless Monday posts:
It’s Meatless Monday Night Football!
Meatless Monday: Eat less meat throughout the week
Meatless Monday: Special diets

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Just when you thought the organic/sustainable food movement was finally starting to take hold:

[See video on YouTube]

When I saw this commercial last night, I seriously considered packing my things and moving to a different country. (It didn’t help that I had just watched Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations Sardinia episode, where everything they eat — lardo, pecorino, spaghetti con bottarga, the famous Sardinian flatbread, even the olive oil — is local and made by hand.)

Let’s take a look at the ingredients, courtesy of 7Up.com:

CARBONATED WATER, HIGH
FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP AND
CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF EACH
OF THE FOLLOWING: CITRIC ACID,
NATURAL FLAVORS, POTASSIUM
BENZOATE (PRESERVATIVE),
VITAMIN E ACETATE, RED 40

Twenty-six grams of sugar a pop sounds like a great way to protect your cells from free radical damage and cancer! People have lost their minds.

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: Don’t. Just don’t.

Related posts:
Grow up strong with vitamin D-fortified crap!
High-fructose corn syrup lobby hits the airwaves
Layin’ it on

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Photo via Flickr: Cherrylynx

I usually like to keep things pretty positive here, but the other night I had a dream I just can’t seem to shake. In it, I was told that the earth’s population will be a mere 2 billion by the year 2103, having reached its peak of 9 billion sometime in my lifetime and then drastically reduced by whatever catastrophic consequences are set into motion by global warming. The message imparted in the dream was that I should focus on teaching my future children how to be self-reliant, for they would need all of the survival skills now lost to most of us in a modern society: how to grow food, harvest medicinal herbs, sew, make soap, bake bread from scratch, etc.

Now, there are those of you who may argue that the future survival of the planet hinges not on what to teach our children but rather, whether or not to have children at all, but that wasn’t really the point of the dream. I believe they were mentioned as a way to illustrate the necessity of passing down knowledge and skills that will be essential in the coming years.

The population of the world declining by over 80 percent in little more than half a century is certainly a doomsday scenario, and maybe I’ve had DIY on the brain since attending an Urban Homestead event a couple of weeks ago, but this sentiment of self-sufficiency is one I hear over and over again in the environmental community.

A documentary filmmaker friend of mine, who was an integral member of the environmental movement in the ’60s and ’70s (and is still an unending advocate for social justice and green issues), echoed this in a recent conversation we had. “If I were young, and just starting out as an environmentalist, I would be learning all the skills that were so important in years past — especially how to grow my own food,” he said.

Now I’m not writing about this to scare you. In my waking life, I still believe that we have the chance to reverse a lot of the damage, especially when it comes to technological breakthroughs that will take us away from our dependence on fossil fuels. But there’s no arguing that we’ve already started to see the effects of climate change — just yesterday, two German merchant ships made it through the Northeast Passage after global warming and melting ice opened a route from South Korea along Russia’s Arctic coast to Siberia. And there is always the wild card factor: Let’s not forget that the Black Death wiped out a quarter of Europe’s population in the Middle Ages. Public health officials are already planning for how to deal with the spread of infectious diseases due to warmer temperatures.

OK, so maybe it all is a bit scary. But in the days since the dream, I haven’t been dwelling on the fear. Instead, I feel committed to taking reasonable steps to prepare for an uncertain future. Let’s hope that everything turns out OK and I just wind up with some new bread-making skills to show off to dinner guests.

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: Learning how to grow food isn’t only a beneficial skill to have for what possibly lies ahead; it’s also a great way to lessen your impact on the environment now. For an in-depth experience, consider an internship at a local farm. Check out the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service for opportunities.

Related posts:
Small steps to sustainability
The planet will survive, but will we?

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I’ve been writing so much about Fuel that you’d think I was working on the film’s marketing team. The truth is, I’m just a huge fan. I’ve seen a lot of enviro-documentaries this year — Food, Inc., The Cove, Earth Days — and all are brilliant and world-changing in their own right. But none has the power to immediately impact what I believe is the most urgent environmental issue of our time, and that’s our dependence on fossil fuels.

Global warming. Peak oil. The war(s) in Iraq. We can shop at farmers markets and change light bulbs from here to tomorrow, but we don’t have the luxury of time to educate an entire global generation in the ways of sustainable living. We need a true technological breakthrough — an energy revolution — and this film has answers.

Fuel opens this Friday, and we’re giving away free sets of (2) theater tickets to the first two NYC/San Francisco/Berkeley readers to leave a comment here. And for those not quick enough to the draw the first time around, we’ve got some some other fun Fuel giveaways for the first two people to comment after seeing the film.

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: See Fuel this weekend (purchase tickets here), and spread the word to your friends and family. Not playing near you? Click here to help bring the film to a theater in your area.

Related post:
WATCH: FUEL filmmakers unveil the Algaeus

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Photo via Flickr: DrRJE

I’ve waited since spring baseball to write this post, but the time is finally right. The air is getting crisper (even here in SoCal), the days are getting shorter, and our beloved rough and tumble pastime is finally back on the airwaves tonight. So cook up a big pot of (veggie) chili and a pile of cornbread for tonight’s double-header, invite over a pack of friends, and kick off the season with a new American tradition that will leave even the beefiest, most linebacker-esque of your pals cheering: It’s Meatless Monday Night Football!

The great thing about this gathering is that if you put out all the fixin’s, like tortilla chips, guacamole, sour cream, and cheddar cheese, people won’t even miss the meat. And while I’ll leave it up to you to find your favorite chili recipe (although I think this one from Rachel Ray does the trick for meat-eaters and veg-heads alike, thanks to the addition of beer to the batch), the one thing that is non-negotiable is my family’s cornbread. The store-bought/mix variety — essentially a sweet, gluey corn muffin sham of a concoction — doesn’t even come close to the real stuff. If the recipe was a secret, PL, then I’m sorry. But it’s for the greater good!

Real Cornbread
1 1/2 cups of Bob’s Red Mill stone ground cornmeal (medium or coarse grind)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a bowl, sift together dry ingredients. Add eggs, milk, and vegetable oil. Whisk together until ingredients are just mixed (do not overbeat). Bake in a greased 8-inch square pan for 20-25 minutes. For corn sticks: Brush a cast-iron corn stick pan with oil or melted butter and heat in a preheated 450-degree oven until fat smokes. Fill the molds two-thirds full, and bake for 10 to 15 minutes. Serve with plenty of butter.

And don’t forget the most important part of Meatless Monday Night Football: Plenty of meat-free beer!

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: There’s no need for a full lecture on why tonight’s gathering is meatless (watching football and lots of yapping are not a good combination), but if someone asks about the veggie chili, tell them to check out the Meatless Monday website.

Related posts:
Meatless Monday: Eat less meat throughout the week
Meatless Monday: Special diets
Can’t afford a Prius? Try Meatless Monday

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