I think it’s easy to get discouraged when the powers that be, whether they’re local, state or national, fail to do something in line with your views. Take the Copenhagen summit, for example. We had high hopes that a binding climate deal would be reached, but that didn’t happen. You can write letters and stage protests and do all sorts of things to make your voice heard, but in the end, not everything is going to go your way. Sad but true.

But there’s hope. When it comes to the environment, sometimes the biggest changes happen on the smallest scales. It’s important to keep yourself informed about national and international issues, but just as important are the local issues — and what you personally can do to make your community a little greener. Read more…

It’s the end of the semester. Certain things go by the wayside in the frenzy of grading papers, writing recommendations, and handing out tissues to failing students whose most creative work all semester is a sob story worthy of a Lifetime Movie. I haven’t had time to shave my legs in almost a week. On the bright side, I no longer need to wear long johns to walk to work. I’ve also found that the stubble keeps my socks from falling, thus preventing those nasty blisters you get when the heel of your sock bunches at the back of your shoe and rubs, rubs, rubs all day. I would say that not shaving this week has been a win, but my cat, Not a Dingo, has found another use for my gorilla like leg locks — scratching posts. Sometimes the Dingo household can take the whole recycle/repurpose mantra too darn far! But I digress. What I want to talk about is food.
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About midway through Yann Martell’s Man Booker Prize winning novel “The Life of Pi”, the protagonist finds himself washed up on an island populated solely by meerkats. After a time on the island he begins to suspect that all is not as it seems – the meerkats take to the trees every night and one day Pi takes a bite of a fruit growing from one of the island’s trees and finds human teeth inside. It begins to dawn on him that the island is carnivorous, each night digesting anything that has the misfortune to remain on the ground.

For some reason, Pi’s carnivorous island was the first thing that popped into my head when I heard a news story on the NewsHours with Jim Lehrer podcast recently about what was described as our rapidly growing eight continent. There are no meerkats and it is not strictly carnivorous and it’s not really an island, but the Great Pacific Garbage Dump is as disturbing and potentially dangerous as Martell’s fantasy island.

My initial reaction to the NewsHour report is that it was a typical case of what tends to be a melodramatic and lacking in understanding response of the mainstream news media to a juicy science story. Surely there isn’t a continent of garbage out in the Pacific Ocean. The good news is that the media has overreacted, “continent” is not the right word. The Great Pacific Garbage Dump is not visible from the air (because most of it lies slightly below the surface of the water) nor does it have a particular nautical position (due to the shifting wind directions and currents). The bad news is that there are two massive accumulations of plastic waste swirling around in the doldrums of the northern Pacific Ocean. Charles Moore, the founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation and the man who had the misfortune of discovering the dump, estimates that the plastic garbage in the Pacific covers approximately five million square miles (about 1.5 times the land mass of the United States) and contains over 3.5 million tons of largely consumer waste.

By most accounts the trash finds its way to its home in the North Pacific through a long and circuitous route. Trash is dumped into rivers, in both North and South America and Asia, that empty into the Pacific. Ocean currents carry the trash, picking up more debris as it travels, around the Pacific before depositing it in the doldrums of the North Pacific Gyre. 80% of the trash in the ocean originates on land and a majority of that is from consumer products. Thus, it is a hard truth that we – you and I – are the problem. Here is how it works: say that you inadvertantly drop some innocuous bit of plastic – a clear plastic wrapper from a box of candy. The next time it rains, that wrapper gets washed into a storm drain which will flow into your nearest watershed and ultimately into the ocean. That little wrapper floats its way around the Pacific currents until it comes to rest in the Gyre where it will join the rest of the trash. This plastic waste will be around longer than you and I, longer than our children, longer than our grandchildren, longer than our great-grandchildren. Nobody really knows how long it takes for plastic to biodegrade because it basically doesn’t. Conservative estimates are around 450 – 500 years. We are creating a problem that will outlive us by centuries.

It isn’t just an aesthetic problem. In short, it’s devastating to marine ecosystems. Forty percent of albatross chicks are killed each year by consuming plastic accidentally fed to them by their parents. More than a million birds and marine animals die each year from consuming or becoming caught in plastic and other debris. But there is a less obvious and more frightening consequence to our trashing of the oceans. Moore’s group does a lot of research into the ecological effects of plastic debris on marine ecosystems. Recently they have been looking at plastic particulate levels in and around the Garbage Patch. The small bits of plastic that are a byproduct of the slow degradation of the plastic debris have been found to accumulate a lot of nasty chemicals – polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, chlorinated and legacy pesticides and hormonally active additives. This latter class are particularly nasty beasties, some of which have been implicated in an increased risk of breast cancer. Moore and his colleagues found that the ratio of plastic particles to plankton in the Gyre was between 1.4:1 and 6.9:1. In other words, there is more plastic particulate matter in this part of the ocean than there is plankton. You don’t have to be a biologist or have an in depth knowledge of food chains to recognize what this means: small fish eat plankton (or plastic particles), big fish eat small fish, humans eat big fish. We are eating our own toxic garbage.

I don’t wish to sound melodramatic or preachy but this is a problem that is getting worse on a daily basis and one that we cannot repair. We can, however, do something to slow the accumulation of rubbish in the oceans. 80% of the trash out there comes from us directly, so it is up to us to do something to make it better.

Here are ten things we can do about it:

1. Don’t use so much plastic. Make a concerted effort to reduce the amount of plastic that you purchase. It’s not easy. I’ve been making a concerted effort since I heard this story and it’s absolutely stunning how much excess plastic you get when you purchase anything. Note how much plastic crap you come home with on your next trip to the supermarket. Preferentially purchase items packaged in glass or paper. Virtually any material is better than plastic.
2. I’m a beach bum. Roughly 10% of the trash out in the Pacific comes from trash left on beaches. So, don’t leave trash on beaches and maybe pick some of it up when you’re out there.
3. Recycle. Plastic recycling is very low efficiency – only about 3.5% of plastic is recycled in any way. This is due in part to contamination of plastics with non-plastics, food waste and non-recyclable plastics. Clean up your plastic before recycling and make sure that you only include recyclable plastics. If your community does not recycle plastic then demand that they do.
4. Along the same lines, buy recycled products or products containing recycled materials.
5. This is kind of a no-brainer. But do not litter. Most of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is thought to be a result of litter working its way into the river system.
6. Consider volunteering or donating to the Algalita Marine Research Foundation or other environmental organizations.
7. Think about the watershed when cleaning up around your hose. Sweep your sidewalks rather than hosing them. Wash your car on the grass so that the water sinks into the ground rather than storm drains.
8. When you go shopping do not take a plastic bag. Use a cloth or other reusable bag.
9. Buy in bulk. Most of the plastic that you bring home with you from the shop is packaging, the higher the product to packaging ratio, the less trash generated.
10. For god’s sake, don’t use so much plastic.

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Image credits:

Plastic trash

When Libuse Binder’s new book, Ten Ways to Change the World in your Twenties arrived, I was excited to crack it open and see what it had to offer. As a self-professed realistic idealist, a book with both big ideas and small details appeals to me.

The organization of the book is unlike any I have seen before – ten chapters (the “ten ways” in which we can “change the world”) are filled with a myriad of actions and ideas to implement that relate to each of the chapters. Each action has a rating scale based on time, money, and lifestyle impact required to complete the action. For example, moving to an organic farm for an internship is cheap, but a gigantic lifestyle impact. This is incredibly helpful in your twenties – a decade of life that arguably sees more change and transition than any other. A graduating college student is able to make much greater lifestyle changes than those twenty-somethings who are married and/or parents. And a career-oriented twenty-something who wants to contribute to a better world, but doesn’t have much time can use the rating scales to find a perfect fit. Read more…

Like many of you, I am dreading looking forward to the upcoming holidays. Who doesn’t like the chance to get together with people we’d never associate with if we weren’t related by blood? Actually, Mr. Dingo and I play our holidays pretty low key. We simply stay home and avoid the madness. Thanksgiving? We’re thankful 365 days of the year. We don’t need no stinkin’ holiday! Christmas? We want peace and love every day of the year. We don’t need no stinkin’ holiday! New Year’s Eve? We get drunk, dress like idiots, and are too loud every day of the year. We don’t need no stinkin’ holiday!  And best of all?  Sanctimony and self-righteousness has no carbon footprint and keep you warm during the long, cold winter months. So, turn off that heater and turn up the judgmental snark. That rosy glow you feel? That’s environmentalism at work, folks: you’ve just saved 35 acres of rain forest by staying home, turning down the heat, and basking in the warm, cackling glow of your inner judge and jury.

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Oh, it’s that time again, huh? I don’t even know how it could possibly be November already. It feels like August was two minutes ago.

Since the holidays are fast approaching, we thought we’d help by putting together some guides to help you green up your seasonal giving. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be giving you gift ideas for everyone from your favorite canine pal to your son’s 1st grade teacher. If you have green holiday gift ideas you’d like to share, e-mail me at allie at the greenists dot com.

Today’s post is all about simple gifts you can make yourself. Read more…

Today is Blog Action Day, and this year’s topic is Climate Change.

Since you hear our thoughts on environmental issues all the time, I thought I’d take the opportunity to direct you to some blog friends of The Greenists who are taking on climate change for Blog Action Day:

The Good Human encourages everyone to make some noise about climate change.

Fake Plastic Fish talks about the International Day of Climate Action.

INHABITAT has the top 5 Climate Change stories of 2009.

Daily Blog Tips discusses ways bloggers can combat climate change.

Return to Rural tells us why she likes living simply with less.

Condo Blues helps explain home efficiency savings that can lower your carbon footprint.

And here are some posts from The Greenists to help you brush up on your climate change facts:

Global Climate Change Treaty Could Protect Tropical Forests

Should We Start Over on Climate Change?

Is ‘Shading’ the Earth a Possible Climate Change Solution?

Eco-Legislation Matters

Should the EPA Start Regulating Greenhouse Gases?

A/V Fridays – “Solving” Climate Change?

It was a (stereotypical) dark and stormy night. As I lay in my tent in the Cedar Pass Campground of Badlands National Park, the sound of thunder in the distance and the surge of the wind rushing through the screen windows assaulted my senses. I wondered if our six foot plus tall tent would stay up as the storm grew nearer. It didn’t. But thanks to some ingenuity and some extra rope and stakes, I was able to get the tent back up, and get it to stay up. My four year old kids were wary. My wife, mildly annoyed. And I was wet and unsettled.  And it’s at times like this I sometimes ask myself “why do I do this again”?

The ‘this’ is my lifetime goal to visit all of the unique sites administered by the National Park Service. Not just the National Parks (I’ve been to 44 of 48 of those). I’m talking about the whole package. The National Monuments, the National Historic Sites, the National Battlefields, the National Memorials, the National Wild and Scenic rivers – and the other 22 designations for these areas administered by the US Department of the Interior – 391 sites in all. They include places that you have heard of. Yellowstone. Yosemite. Everglades.  And they include places that you may have heard of. Acadia. Rainier. Shenandoah. And they include places that you’ve probably never heard of. Minuteman Missile, Pipestone, Bandelier. Read more…

My friend Jamie is one of the most ambitious people I know. Combine that unending drive and energy with her passion for environmentalism and organics, and it seems there’s very little the woman won’t do in the name of saving the planet or guarding her health.

Jamie’s efforts are admirable but often experimental, which means they sometimes meet with confused looks and mixed results. Those of us who remember when she wanted to replace the full-sized fridge in her condo with a tiny dorm-sized one weren’t particularly surprised when she broke her toilet by placing a jug in the tank to save water (Note: That tip is a valid one, I think, but only if your toilet isn’t already the low-flow variety) or when she decided to make her own yogurt at home. But we were perhaps understandably skeptical when she started talking about mixing up her own natural, organic shampoo and cleaning products. I mean, yes, yes, we should all be a bit more conscious about the mystery chemicals we use, but can’t we just buy natural products? Is it really worth the time, effort (and, in some cases, the expense) to make them ourselves? Jamie was determined to find out, and since I’ve got a green cleaning beat to follow, I was more than happy to help her. Read more…

I have often boiled down my love of the American west to one sentence: I need a big backyard. Of course, in my case this has nothing to do with any sort of desire for a lavish hot tub-waterfall-swimming pool combo or my own personal putting green. The backyard I refer to are the millions of acres of public lands that make up the western US. Nothing less will do. Read more…