The Red, White, and Green

My baby daughter turns 1 today. It’s a birthday that feels every bit as momentous as it should, and I’ve thought a lot in the past couple weeks about how we would spend it together.

I’ve decided to heed my own advice, skip the toy store, and nurture her love of nature. If we want our littlest Americans to care about the future of our country, to care about the future of our planet, then the best present we can give them is to take them outside.

I’ll be taking her for a nice long hike somewhere lush and green. She waves at rocks and trees as enthusiastically as she does people, which is something I hope she’ll continue for a long time to come.

–Jennifer Grayson

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Don't count on FEMA to be there waiting with water; start stockpiling your own supply now. Photo via Flickr: USACEpublicaffairs

Earthquakes in Virginia, hurricanes in New York City, blizzards in Dallas. Whether you believe these events are being brought on by global warming or the wrath of god, one thing is certain: An unlikely natural disaster is most likely headed its way toward you.

So what can you do to prepare? For one, not count on the federal government to come rescue you. Ron Paul was blasted in the media last week for saying that no federal response would be necessary for Hurricane Irene. It may have been an insensitive comment, considering millions of people were about to be put in harm’s way, but I do agree with part of the point he was trying to make, which is: We have to take responsibility as individuals for our own safety.

Every American should have an emergency kit, yet as many as 90 percent of us don’t even have a 3-day supply of food and water at hand. Why? Blame it on laziness, blame it on wishful thinking, but there’s really no excuse.

The federal budget is stretched to the max and natural disasters are on the rise. We can’t expect FEMA to be there waiting with bottles of water when the next hurricane strikes.

–Jennifer Grayson

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Photo via OHVEC.org

Whenever a politician sets him or herself apart from the party pack, attention is sure to follow. Case in point: Jon Huntsman’s much-talked-about tweet last week, where he strayed from the GOP’s global warming talking points to side with the scientists.

But I have another theory about the buzz surrounding that tweet: I think there are a lot of Republicans out there who identify more with Huntsman than with Perry. Forty-four percent of Americans say they will likely vote for a Republican candidate in the 2012 election, yet seventy-seven percent of Americans support the work the EPA is doing. So clearly there’s some overlap.

Agree with me? Check out Republicans for Environmental Protection. The grassroots organization so far has only 350 followers on Twitter, but I predict we’ll see that number climb in the months to come.

–Jennifer Grayson

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Photo via jon2012.com

Texas Gov. Rick Perry called climate change “a scientific theory that has not been proven,” in New Hampshire on Wednesday. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has said she doesn’t think global warming is possible because “CO2 is a natural byproduct of nature.” Thankfully, there’s a beacon in the smog among the GOP presidential wannabes: Former Utah governor and Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, who yesterday tweeted

To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.

The tweet was a clear jab at Perry, who had been questioned earlier that day on both topics (evolution “has some gaps” in it, Perry said).

I like your style, Mr. Huntsman, but tell me: If you do trust the scientists, why is there not a single tag for “Environment” on the Daily HBlog section of your campaign website?

–Jennifer Grayson

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Notice whose photo this is. What is it being used for? Photo via Flickr: TexasGOPVote.com

It’s been obvious for some time now that the Republicans have been trying to undercut the EPA at every turn — the slew of anti-environmental riders attached to the 2012 spending bill being the latest example — but an article out this week puts the writing on the wall: The Republicans have made it their mission to halt what it views as EPA’s ‘activist’ agenda.

From Reuters:

Emboldened by their success wresting concessions from the Obama administration in debt-limit talks, House Republicans now plan an assault of similar vigor on the Environmental Protection Agency.

Republicans, backed by wealthy conservative lobbyists, are determined to stop the EPA and what they see as an activist agenda that is costing jobs and hurting corporate profits.

“Right now for House Republicans one of their important rally cries is that EPA regulations are excessive and even abusive,” said Robert Stavins, director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.

Here’s my question: Isn’t calling the EPA “activist” kind of like calling the Department of Homeland Security activist? I don’t know about you, but I like my taxpayer dollar–funded federal agencies to do the job they’ve been tasked with, which in the case of the EPA — otherwise known as the Environmental Protection Agency — is to do just that: Protect. The. Environment.

It’s not the Protect-The-Environment-But-Only-When-It’s-Convenient-For-Big-Business Agency, after all. That would be too cumbersome an acronym.

Hell, why don’t we just shut down Border Patrol while we’re at it? Terrorist, shmerorist — the BP oil spill was arguably a weapon of mass destruction (though perhaps an unintentional one), and we’re doing just fine now, thank you very much. (By “we” I mean BP — $18 billion-plus in cash and counting!).

Did you know the EPA was created during the Nixon administration?

–Jennifer Grayson

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Image via COLOURlovers

Vintage-maps-as-wall-art seems to be a pretty hot trend these days. Design blogs Re-Nest and Design*Sponge have both run recent related posts, and there always seems to be a smattering of especially beautiful ones up on Pinterest.

I’ve always been a map fan; one of my favorite pastimes is to go through our Rand McNally Road Atlas and plot out backcountry road routes to not-yet-visited National Parks (really!).

Here’s an elementary school political map I recently scored at the Melrose Trading Post here in LA. The find was bittersweet, since it came via Detroit Public Schools, which is on the path to close half of its schools under a new “austerity” plan.

The map is now hanging in my daughter’s room, where hopefully it will inspire her to care enough about this country to one day find a way to help fix it.

–Jennifer Grayson

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Photo via Flickr: Jurvetson

Normally, I’m an optimist where politics are concerned. I wouldn’t have started this blog if I didn’t think there was a way to bridge the divide between left and right. But lately, I’m not sure how, exactly, that’s supposed to happen. The House GOP just hijacked the spending bill as an assault against the EPA; even Olympia Snowe recently came out saying she’s never seen a more partisan Congress.

But there may be an answer. It has to do with putting people with real knowledge, real logic and actual integrity into office: scientists.

From The New York Times:

Now, several groups…want to encourage scientists and engineers to speak out in public debates and even run for public office. When it comes to global warming and a host of other technical issues, “there is a disconnect between what science says and how people perceive what science says,” said Barbara A. Schaal, a biologist and vice president of the National Academy of Sciences. “We need to interact with the public for our good and the public good.”

I couldn’t agree more. If one of our country’s greatest scientists — Thomas Edison — had been in Congress for the Tea Party’s recent energy-efficient light bulb hate campaign, he probably would have smacked Michele Bachmann on the side of the head. And then unveiled his own version of a new ultra-efficient light bulb.

–Jennifer Grayson

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Photo via Flickr: WayTru

Generally speaking, it’s easy to tell real food from fake food. As Michael Pollan says, real food is something your great-great grandmother would recognize. Fake food is everything else — i.e., what most Americans are eating these days — and it has a lot to do with why an astounding one-third of US adults are now obese.

(Quick quiz: What’s an apple? Real food. A bag of Cheetos? That’s right! Fake.)

Now that determination is about to get a lot more difficult, because genetic engineering giant Monsanto is plotting planning to introduce its GM sweet corn to the supermarket produce aisle.

From Fast Company:

Monsanto, which already controls 60% of the U.S. corn market, is including traits in the new sweet corn that make it resistant to both Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide and to insects (through the inclusion of Bt toxin, a trait that disrupts insect digestive systems and eventually kills them). As we have mentioned before, at least 21 weed species have become resistant to Roundup. And Bt toxin may have negative health effects — a recent study found the toxin in the maternal and fetal blood of pregnant women, though the implications of that aren’t known quite yet.

This is insane. If the US had any kind of labeling requirements for genetically modified food — like the rest of the civilized world — consumers would take one look at the GE symbol next to a pile of fresh corn and turn away in disgust. The stuff wouldn’t sell.

Instead, we may all unwittingly be eating ears of Bt toxin–infused kernels at our next backyard barbecue. Gulp.

–Jennifer Grayson

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Photo via Flickr: How can I recycle this

Much to-do has been made over the plastic bag tax. While Washington, DC, was able to successfully impose a 5-cent grocery bag fee, other cities’ efforts (like Philadelphia’s) have been stymied by protests over the law’s potential impact on economically disadvantaged consumers. (Though I suspect that most of these “protests” are, in fact, lobbying efforts by the American Chemistry Council.)

I also wouldn’t put it past Michele Bachmann et al to start arguing that Americans have as much God-given right to the plastic bag as they do the incandescent lightbulb.

That being said, you have to wonder if that age-old adage about flies and honey might be applicable here: Just over a week ago, Whole Foods began reimbursing — as in paying, not charging — its customers 10 cents for every reusable bag brought, up from the 5 cents the store had offered for as long as I can remember.

When I asked my regular cashier if he thought the new policy was making a difference, he surprised me with a whopper: Nearly 75 percent of his customers were now remembering to bring their reusable bags, up from a mere 30 percent just weeks before.

This is anecdotal, of course. Hopefully more hard statistics in the weeks to come…

–Jennifer Grayson

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Photo via Flickr: KOMUnews

The GOP-led House has gone on an environmental rampage this year, and the debt-ceiling negotiations have proved no different: At last count, more than 75 anti-green riders have been attached to the 2012 spending bill for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department — including one that would eliminate all carbon pollution reporting requirements under the Clean Air Act, one that would halt EPA’s work to update clean air standards for smog and soot, and another that would cut funding to enforce mercury standards for power plants.

I say anti-green, but what I really should say here is anti-minority: According to the NAACP, an astounding 71 percent of African-Americans live in counties that are in current violation of air pollution standards. As a result, these communities are most at risk for the dangerous health effects of toxic air — including heart disease, asthma and low birth weight.

Isn’t breathing clean air a civil right?

–Jennifer Grayson

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