…but it is way too easy to tell people you’re green, and that’s the problem. Green sells, so businesses understandably want to sell their green-ness. Advertisers know many of you as consumers want to have less impact on the environment, so they tell you they are green. They spend millions creating that image of a company so in tune to the environment; Mother Nature herself wants what they are selling. As a result we have “clean” coal, happy cows, flowers flowing from smoke stacks, and cars which decompose as fast and harmlessly as my backyard compost heap. Sadly, the truth is rarely as green as the advertising execs want us to believe.

My favorite example is the ad for cotton which reads: “Cotton: responsible, natural, renewable.” Natural and renewable without a doubt, but responsible?…well, if they aren’t breaking laws I guess so, but the ad asks what could be better than a fiber mother nature made?

WHAT? Cotton is sadly susceptible to many insect pests, so even though it accounts for only 2 % of the world’s agricultural acreage, 11% of the world’s pesticides are used to make into the shirts on our backs. 1/3 of a pound of chemicals are used to make a single tee shirt, and ground water in cotton growing regions is badly polluted as a result. In our own back yard, the New River, the Alamo River and the Salton Sea are recipients of incredible amounts of organophosphates from farms in the Imperial Valley and in Mexico. Cotton is heavily grown in the Valley. Want to learn more? Polluted Rivers Study

Anyway the point is simple, we need a place where we can rate the commercials we see based on a company’s real record on environmental stewardship versus its advertising message. Oh wait! There is just such a place. It’s pretty cool, although I think a few company execs have been on the site rating their own ads. Check it out and add your own favorite commercials. It’s called the Greenwashing Index… get it? Sort of like brainwashing. Here’s a link greenwashingindex.com

So what do you think? Am I too cynical or are advertisers coming off as way more green than they are? What should we do about it? Do you buy from a company which appears green over another selling the same product or service?

As an environmentalist, I’ve struggled with being a meat eater. Like most Americans, my mouth waters at the thought of a grilled steak. I can’t get enough sushi and I find it hard to walk away from lamb chops, carnitas, grilled salmon, baked ham, and my daughter’s incredible Mediterranean chicken recipe. If it moos, oinks, bleats or swims, I’ll have some please.

I justify it with the simple understanding that humans are omnivores. We’ve always consumed flesh and are built for it. Even our teeth are designed for a diet which includes meat.  Still there are many issues which trouble me, including the environmental sustainability of cattle ranching, sheep ranching, pig farms and commercial fishing. The way we raise our meat uses far too much water, fossil fuel, and grain which could be better used to feed humans directly. Our livestock are major contributors of green house gasses too. Their hooves tear up native land, and huge amounts of herbicides are used on pasture land to eliminate plants which compete with preferred grazing vegetation.

Our ancestors, at the urging of the US government, killed off the bison herds and plowed up millions of acres of native sod which fed the huge native herds. We replaced the bison with cattle and sheep which needed fences and supplemental feed. In hindsight that was not very smart. With that in mind I found a movement underway in Australia very interesting.
Just as Native Americans and early settlers ate bison meat, earlier generations of Australians survived on kangaroo meat as a primary source of protein. There is a campaign underway to greatly reduce cattle and sheep ranches in Australia and go back to eating kangaroos. There is sound reasoning behind the plan. Cattle and sheep ranching have directly led to the extinction of 20 or more native Australian mammal species. Kangaroos are able to thrive on native plants, they have soft feet which don’t damage the land, their grazing actually improves the land, and because their system uses acetate to digest food they don’t produce methane (a greenhouse gas). If cattle and sheep numbers were reduced to 10% of their current numbers, kangaroos would increase quickly to completely replace the beef and mutton in about 10 years.

One other plus is that kangaroo meat is lower in fat.

Now there are certainly negatives too. Not everyone likes kangaroo meat, and it is a symbol of all things Australian. It could sorta be like us eating Bald Eagles.

I know this may sound goofy to some of you, but it’s the kind of changes which may get more serious consideration as we look to change practices which are not sustainable for the long run.

How about you? What do you think of the scheme and do you have your own ideas which may work here in the US to help us address the long term degradation to the environment modern living has caused?

Thanks for tuning in, logging on and speaking up.

Melting ice caps, stronger hurricanes, more frequent wildfires, aren’t these the things scientists warned about if we failed to address our contribution to climate change?

Here we are in Santa Ana season again and our hills and valleys are drier than ever. Brush fires are growing out of proportion to the wind pushing them along. Our first Santa Ana of the season is winding down without the devastating fires of 2003 and 2007 but the potential for firestorms is greater than ever. We’ve spent tens of millions of dollars for firefighters to respond more quickly and effectively but still we’re failing to address the real causes of the fires; climate change.

Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers have been studying wildfires and have learned there are four times as many wildfires as there were prior to the 1980s and the acreage burned is 6 times as great. The problem is that spring starts earlier and winter starts later.

In San Diego that translates to the rains ending earlier in the traditional rainy season and starting later in the fall and winter. The local vegetation has longer to dry out and remain dry when the winds of autumn arrive. For us it has meant thousands of our neighbors have lost homes and hundreds of people have lost loved ones.

The bigger fire threat is actually elsewhere in normally cool and damp mountain forests.

“I see this as one of the first big indicators of climate change impacts in the continental United States,” said research team member Thomas Swetnam, director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at The University of Arizona in Tucson. “We’re showing warming and earlier springs tying in with large forest fire frequencies. Lots of people think climate change and the ecological responses are 50 to 100 years away. But it’s not 50 to 100 years away–it’s happening now in forest ecosystems through fire.”

Despite the fact that the environment is behaving exactly as climate scientists have predicted it would, the campaign of disinformation by some radio talk shows and the fossil fuel industry continues to create doubt and in-action.

On the campaign trail the talk is of reducing our dependence on oil from “people who don’t like us very much”. That talk must turn to the importance of reducing our use of all oil, not just the foreign stuff. If we continue to drag our feet in developing alternatives, then folks in coastal towns will find their towns increasingly uninhabitable, and people like us will continue to be chased from our homes as wildfires lick at our eaves. Plant and animal species will be killed off and our economy will be wrecked by band aide approaches to fend off the disasters we’ve been warned would come.

So how much more evidence is needed before we stop debating climate change and join the world in addressing the things we need to do to reverse what’s happening?

Do you have a better explanation for the fires, the hurricanes and the melting ice? If so please share it and help me understand the flaws in my thinking.

Thanks for tuning in, logging on and speaking up.

It’s painfully obvious our 401K savings will not be growing anytime soon, and for many of us holding on to every spare penny seems like a darned good idea right now, so saving money wherever we can is essential. One good idea is to reuse things we’ve too often thrown out. For example, now is the time to start a compost heap. If you can no longer afford the gym membership, then turning the compost once a week is a good way to do some of your resistance training for free in the back yard.

At our home, every thing from soggy cereal, to coffee grounds and egg shells; all our kitchen waste goes to the chickens, not the garbage disposal. Of course I understand that most people live in neighborhoods with cc&rs or city ordinances that make chickens a serious offense. Still that same kitchen waste can go into a compost bin or earthworm bin nearly anywhere.

That compost can be used to grow your family’s food or at least some of it. There is a real chance that farmers will have trouble getting loans to plant winter and spring crops. I have not read anyone who suggests food shortages are coming, but why not insulate your family from food expense and shortages by growing more of your own.

At this time of year we are busy planting our cool season garden which includes some of the most nutrient-rich vegetables. The easiest method is to buy young plants at your local nursery and plant them in the sunniest spot in your yard. The most important rule I can offer is that the better the soil, the better the outcome, so please add lots and lots of compost and mix it in well. Remove any weeds which will compete with your veggies for nutrients and keep them cleared out during the growing season. There are now very good all-purpose organic fertilizers. Use them generously to feed the soil which will feed your plants. Do not be generous with chemical fertilizers since they cause harmful runoff.

Here are a few veggies for the cool season: broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, beets, potatoes, artichokes, asparagus, brussel sprouts, carrots, cauliflower, garlic, kale, onions, peas, spinach, chard, turnips and a few I’m sure I’m missing.

This is a good opportunity to share the gardening techniques that work well for you. Let’s work together to teach one another the best way to grow part of the food we need so we can all stretch our family budgets during these difficult times.

What’s your favorite composting secrets? Which veggies grow best here in San Diego? If you have hints please share them.

Thanks for tuning in, logging on and speaking up.

For eight years Federal regulations have been tumbling down. The consensus from all those stern-faced analysts is that we may be in for very hard times ahead as a result. My retirement account is down 18 percent this year. Yours probably is too. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t know very much about the economy, so I won’t offer an opinion of what is happening on Capitol Hill right now. I am however, reasonably well versed on environmental issues, where the same devious practices have been going on for the past eight years at an even more egregious pace.

The Bush administration has worked feverishly to erode the protections given to public lands. At the same time American citizens are losing the money we need to survive in retirement, our wildlife has been losing the habitat and protection it needs to survive in a world increasingly degraded by human activity. The environmental disaster is perpetuated by President Bush who has been quoted as having great admiration for President Teddy Roosevelt, who established the Republican Party as the party committed to conservation. Teddy Roosevelt greatly expanded the National Parks system and started the National Wildlife Refuge System. President Bush is fighting for oil drilling in the heart of the most spectacular National Wildlife Refuge and fighting for additional off-road traffic in National Parks. In our own backyard the administration is working quickly to shrink the amount of land set aside for the critically endangered Peninsular Big Horned Sheep. The Bush administration has been selling off public land quicker than cheap plastic toys sell at a flea market. During this administration you got what you wanted if you had a business card from an oil company but if you happened to be a scientist, chances were good your research would be discounted, purged or misquoted to accomplish handouts to big business. On climate change the administration can only be described as having obstructed the work which must be accomplished. The specific examples of environmental felonies are so numerous they boggle ones mind. They are too plentiful to list here, so I’ve added two links at the end of this post. They will take you to the respected Wilderness Society site and to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Please explore the sites to see how the banking industry is only part of the vast damage done during the Bush years. Our environment has suffered and it must stop.

What do you think? Do oil, recreation, timber, mining and highways trump nature? Do you wish Bush had gone further to privatize nature?

Thanks for tuning in, logging on and speaking up.

http://www.wilderness.org/Library/Documents/BushRecord.cfm

http://www.nrdc.org/BushRecord/

The Zogby polling done this past summer shows that 3 out of 4 Americans support offshore oil drilling, so I guess congressional Democrats had no choice but to cave and allow a 25-year-old moratorium on Atlantic and Pacific coast offshore drilling to expire next week. NOW they finally follow the will of the people?

My question is why do so many Americans support what the facts suggest is a silly continuation of our addiction to oil? Sure the sharp increase in gas prices at the pump is a factor, but so is the hugely expensive campaign of misinformation paid for by big oil, the same big oil with new record profits each quarter. You’ve seen the ads on your TV I’m sure. They are fronted by a pleasant, slightly recognizable actress seducing us with big oil’s oh-so-logical-sounding reasons for allowing them to drill for oil in California’s tourism gold mine: our ocean.

In recent months you’ve surely heard that there is no reason to fear offshore drilling because today’s technology is environmentally friendly. Here’s what Rep. Lois Capps has to say about oil drilling off Santa Barbara and the district she represents in Congress: “In the years since, oil accidents and drilling-based pollution here have been plentiful. Exxon-Mobil recently agreed to pay almost $3 million for releasing dangerous PCBs into the Santa Barbara Channel from Platform Hondo. Greka Oil has been polluting our local creeks with toxic runoff and countless oil spills, looking like it got its environmental policies straight from the movie ‘There Will Be Blood.’ There was also the Torch pipeline explosion in 1997 and the decades-long pollution that required rebuilding the entire town of Avila Beach. And that’s not even including the impacts on our air and water quality we deal with every day.”

Is this what we want for San Diego? Not me! We cannot drill our way to oil security. We use 25% of the world’s oil; we have 3% of the world’s supply. The math works against this being a smart policy. When the latest Bush administration took office we imported 53% of the oil we use. President Bush promised oil independence and for 6 of his 7 1/2 years in office had a Republican congress to help him achieve it, and yet today we import 59% of what we use.

If we hope to have energy independence we need to get started on the next technology. Climate change, global warming whatever you wish to call it is real, and our burning carbon-based fuels is a major contributor. Yes, I know, volcanoes and brush fires contribute as well. We cannot drill our way to energy independence. Every spare penny should be used to develop the next energy source. It has to be clean and treat natural resources as if they are finite. Republicans in Congress called their 2005 energy bill “landmark”. When they needed to reduce its size they cut support which was intended for energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy, but continued billions of dollars in subsidies for big oil companies.

This seems like an appropriate time to quote Tommy Smothers on Sunday’s Emmy broadcast, “the truth is what they get us to believe.”

Here’s what I believe: so long as we allow big oil to dictate our national policies and direction we will stay addicted to oil until every drop is pulled from the ground no matter what it does to our environment, security, and economy.

What do you think? Will drilling off the coast make gas cheaper? Will we import less oil anytime soon? Did Congress do the right thing by letting the drilling moratorium lapse?

Thanks for tuning in, logging on and speaking up.

Worldwide, water war is a term getting wider use. It describes what some people believe are an increasing number of armed conflicts over drinking water and irrigation water. The UN reports that within 50 years 3 billion people could be facing water shortages. These will likely be flash points for water wars. The most effected areas are Africa, the Middle East and the American southwest.

This week I listened to the grand dame of water issues, Maude Barlow as she lectured at the San Diego Natural History Museum. Barlow is the probably the leading authority on the world water crisis. Among the troubling notes highlighted in her talk was a trend to pump clean water into poor neighborhoods and then place a prepaid water meter at the spigot. If you want a drink, you have to pay first. In some cases filthy rivers run next to the clean water pipe. People without the money to drink the clean water instead must dip into the funky free water. Cholera is on the rise. Prepaid water meters are being used in poor areas in South Africa, Brazil, the United States, the Philippines, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Brazil, Nigeria, and Curacao.

Poor people may not be able to afford clean water, but increasingly no amount of money will provide the needed water for nature’s needs. Human desires routinely trump plants and animals need for clean water. To protect our beautiful landscaping many of us are using water needed by nature elsewhere. The courts are stepping in and cutting water to cities like San Diego. The war of words has begun on that front. Water deliveries are being cut to Southern California to leave more water in the Sacramento Delta to help the endangered Delta Smelt to survive. Initially farmers are most affected and the most angry “Endangered species take precedence over everything,” Tracy-area walnut farmer Jim McLeod said. “Your food supply, your water supply is secondary to the Endangered Species Act… It’s not logical.” I say it is completely logical. Why should Californians have all the water we believe we have the right to when another organism dies because of our greed?

Bill Toone a wildlife biologist and executive director of the EcoLife Foundation which is active in providing clean water for children in Uganda and Kenya says “Conservation is the only short term tool that does not cost anything to implement and immediately saves money and resources.” Sadly San Diegans are not conserving enough. Mayor Jerry Sanders asked for a 10% reduction, but local water users have responded by cutting back 5%. Judging from my inbox many of you do not intend to cut back either. There is so much anger and mistrust on this issue. Many people doubt the shortage is real, others of you think it’s another left wing power grab orchestrated by people who want to gain power by creating bogus shortages. That anger adds credence to the notion that water wars will erupt here in the southwest. When water becomes even more precious people may start a shooting war to keep their share. Bill Toone thinks it could happen “Sadly when there is not enough of an essential resource then we resort to fighting over it for our own survival… this is one war that will start local, in hot spots all over the world and escalate from there. The initial losers: most likely those who cannot pay for water and ultimately spread to our economy and our way of life.”

What do you think? How come more people are not cutting back? How will all this play out? How do you picture San Diego’s future in a world with less or much more expensive water? Will you pick up a gun if the faucet runs dry?

Thanks for tuning in, logging on and speaking up.

“Every single calorie we eat is backed by at least a calorie of oil, more like ten. In 1940 the average farm in the United States produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil energy it used. By 1974 (the last year in which anyone looked closely at this issue), that ratio was 1:1.” (Manning 2004)

Richard Manning is one crazy guy. He writes about the economy of food and can quite convincingly trace part of our current energy crisis to the slaughter of the Great Plains bison. The U.S government encouraged the bison slaughter for many reasons. The cruelest perhaps was to deny the Plains Indians a food source. The dumbest reason was to reduce competition from the bison with sod busters and cattle ranchers.

The plains arguably produced more bison than cattle on the native prairie grass, but after the bison were wiped out, our ancestors tilled up and destroyed the prairie grass to plant the grains we feed our cattle. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that grain-fed beef tastes a lot better than grass-fed beef. Still, was it wise to destroy a plentiful protein source, which survived nicely on the existing grass and the existing energy (sun and rain) only to plant grain which requires sun, rain and petro chemicals by the truck load? It sounds wasteful to me.

Chemical agriculture requires a huge amount of fossil fuel to grow our food. Its not just transportation of crops and the use of field equipment which consume the oil, the plants themselves are grown with petro fertilizers. As the price of oil has risen in recent months so has the cost of growing our food. Organic farmers have the chance now to capture a greater market share, as their food will eventually cost about the same to produce as chemically grown produce. The environment benefits of course, because the idea behind organic agriculture is to feed the soil which will then feed the plants. In chemical agriculture the plant is fed chemicals and grows bigger and produces more fruits and vegetables, but the soil is left depleted and chemical runoff fouls waterways and water tables.

I bet this leap of logic will get your dander up but here goes: If we as a country drove nearly 10 billion miles less in May than a year ago because of higher fuel costs and therefore put less CO2 into the atmosphere, and if the increase in chemical fertilizer costs makes organic agriculture more cost effective, then isn’t high priced oil good for America? The math is way beyond my ability, but the cost to the environment of those 10 billion miles and the cost to the environment from chemical farming must mitigate the $4-plus we are paying per gallon of gas.

Have fun with this one kids. Thanks for tuning in, logging on and speaking up.

Stop by Qualcomm Stadium on Sunday, August 3rd between 9 am – 1 pm for free compost!

Practical Application and Benefits of Compost
Compost can be used as an amendment to improve soil texture and increase nutrient and water holding capacity. In San Diego, where soil is of poor quality, mixing compost in with the soil is one of the best things you can do for your yard and garden.

Here’s how:
Amend garden soil by incorporating one to two inches of compost four to six inches deep into the soil. Irrigate area twice thoroughly before planting.
Top dress planters with compost to help reduce water loss and protect root systems. Spread three inches of compost around the base of plants and shrubs, keeping it from touching plant stems or trunks.
Use compost as potting mix for growing containerized plants and seedlings. Mix two parts compost, one part coarse sand, one part vermiculite, and one part peat moss.
 
• Residents must load their own compost
• Residents must supply their own receptacles/bins and shovels
• Maximum 1 cubic yard per resident

Compost generously provided by the City of San Diego:
Visit the Miramar Greenery at the Miramar Landfill for a wide range of high quality landscaping products from fine compost to a variety of quality decorative mulches and wood chips.  Call (858) 694-7000 for more information.”

It floors me that all these San Diego promoters and developers and smart talking civic leaders never did the math; never calculated the water available versus the water needed. How many people, how many lush tropical gardens, how many golf courses, resorts, water parks and business parks could Southern California support on the very finite water available? It appears we are about to find out. The answer is fewer than we have if we keep sucking up the water as we’ve done in the past.

Here are some water facts from Organic Gardening Magazine: