However, this discussion does not include my gardening woes.  LOL

Thanks to MichaelTurton.com for picture

Here in the US, we eat out an average of 3X per week.  I honestly think it’s far more often than that, but I’d guess people lie to not look so gluttonous/lazy/frivolous.  At any rate, I’ll be pulling some more of my numbers from a post I wrote for the Carbon Fast

The US has just under 1 million public restaurants.  I’ve witnessed about a third of these in Dallas, TX alone!  LOL – not really, but I have never seen so many eateries with so many cars in their parking lots, regardless of the time of day or day of the week.  Take into account, the average restaurant uses 38 kWh of electricity and 111 cubic feet of natural gas per square foot of space per year, there’s a lot of energy being used for us to not make our own meals.

In fact, food production alone is responsible for 1/3 of all greenhouse gases – world wide.  Since the US uses something like 1/2 of the world’s food, you can extrapolate its food is responsible for 1/6 of the entire world’s greenhouse gases.  It’s actually more since we use so much more energy to produce our food than any other country in the world.  We need at least 10 calories of energy – mostly from fossil fuels – to produce 1 calorie of food, whereas the majority of countries use 1 calorie of energy to produce 5-20 calories of food. 

How do we change this?  It’s rather simple.  Make your own meals.  On a far simpler level, take your lunch to work. 

Thanks to Families.com for picture of brown bag lunch!

Microwaves have made brown bagging your lunch more varied than the staple cold cuts or PB&J.  You can now take left-overs to reheat and enjoy in the break room, out on a bench, or (God forbid) at your desk. 

Somewhere in my research surfing, I saw that an average lunch out costs $7 US.  My jaw just DROPS in disbelief that people are willing to toss that kind of money away for food that is awful in every way possible, other than convenient.  Even then, trying to get to an eatery and back to the office within the specified time you have for lunch is hardly convenient.

Bringing lunch from home – anywhere from pennies to $4, depending on what you like and what you’ve eaten previously to bring as leftovers. 

The collective amount you save in energy, greenhouse gases and water waste depends on how heavily you rely on prepared foods bought in the store, or how much you prepare foods from their “whole” state.  However, regardless of what you use to make your in-home meals, the energy expended and chemicals used will be far less than even the greenest of restaurants.  One research project I did for myself puts it at a 90% energy savings.  So even if you save half, think of the difference!

Something as simple as a pre-bottled drink versus bringing a thermos makes a huge difference.  Bottled water consumes 3 ounces of petrolium products in the manufacture, collection and distribution of it.  Basically, the same can be said of any bottled drink, and generally more, since it takes more petrolium products to make a soda or orange juice, than bottling water. 

A cheeseburger from a fast food eaterie uses 32 ounces of oil to produce and hand to you. 

Make it a game.  See how fast you can “save” a barrel of oil.  If this appeals to you, I’ll try to find the numbers for you on general foods. 

Good luck.  Save money!  Save the World!  It’s there for you and you alone!

OK.  Onward!

I’m no fan of scented products.  I have allergies that send my sinuses into hyperdrive whenever I get around someone who does use scented products.  But, beyond my sinuses re-enacting Niagara Falls, there are very good reasons to go scentless – your health, your family’s health and the environment.

Laundry Detergents are scented beyond belief! Buy unscented powders for the best value and environmental impact

Literally everything you buy has a scent – usually one that has been added to disguise the chemical odor of the product.  These scents aren’t from your grandmother’s sachet pouches.  They are purely chemical, or so far removed from its natural origin that it won’t be recognized – such as corn producing a raspberry scent?  Scary! 

Rather than try to discuss each possible item, I’ll go with broader subjects.

What you put on your skin

Photo from Warmglow.com. Products like these are all absorbed by your skin. Why do that?

Your skin is the largest organ of your body.  It absorbs a great many things – nicotine and nitro patches are prime examples of helping the body.  But mostly, what it absorbs is vastly negative in nature. 

Most chemicals that are created to act as scents to our noses also act as hormone disruptors within our bodies.  When you shower/bathe, these chemicals are in the water, the air (aerisolized water and cleaning agents) and on your skin.  When you rinse off, many don’t leave your skin, but many do, and end up in your waterways.  Recent studies on municipal drinking water within the US show vast numbers of chemicals not being filtered out in the standard sewage treatment – with caffeine and estrogen being top contenders.  Think about it.  Do you really want to drink what’s in your hair conditioner?

What you put on your clothes

You can make your own laundry soap for pennies and control the scents. Thx SacredShowers.com

Everything advertised for clothes revolves around the scent.  Did you know that the “new clothes smell” is a mix of chemicals, including formaldehyde?  The way dryer sheets make the scent stay on your clothes is adhering it with wax.  They call it a ’surfactant’, but that’s just a fancy word for “waxy substance”.  And again, these scents are chemicals that also act as hormone disruptors.  Since natural scents can’t hold up under high heat, they turn to petrolium based chemicals. 

And again, you place them next to your skin for at least 12 hours a day, and wash them into your water every time you do laundry. 

A side note – No one speaks of the chemical changes that undergo these scented products during the intense heat of a dryer.  But every time the wind blows from the south, I can tell what time of day the neighbor 2 doors down is doing laundry.  I’m inhaling those chemicals.  As are you.

What you put in your air

Scented candles are the devil! LOL - not really, but they aren't heaven scent either. Thx WickItGood.com

As if making our bodies and our clothes smell of a dozen different scents isn’t enough, we have to make the air we breathe smelly too.  We spray, squirt, fan-diffuse and burn scented products to mask something.  What?  Air?  On a personal note – I have a cat with IBS.  For such a small thing, she has a whole lot of stink built up.  But, people don’t know it when they walk in the house.  And we don’t use anything other than 2 squirts of Febreze over the litter box.  We open the doors and the windows.  It’s a concept!

Scented candles, both petrolium and soy (don’t get me started on soy!) are being shown to disrupt boys’ puberty, enhancing their minute amounts of estrogen and diminishing their testosterone.  All from “merely” breathing the scented air.  What is it doing to the rest of us!?

You breathe scents you put out there on purpose.  You breathe the scents you put on your body.  You breathe in the scents your clothes.  And finally, you breathe in the scents of the perfumes and aftershaves and colognes and hairsprays and make up, etc. 

Conclusion

Estrodiol molecule. It (or something very similar) is in your water, your clothes, your air.

 Think of this as a diet.  Don’t toss every scented product in your home.  Reduce the use of them.  Get rid of them slowly – as you run out of a scented product, either quit using it entirely, or use an unscented form.  Since many unscented products are less expensive, you save money.  And once you find you have no use for them, you spend even less, saving even more. 

This is a very simple thing to do.  And probably one of the most profound in terms of the environment.  Just consider it.  Try it for one round of a product.

So many green products, so little progress. At least, that’s how it seems most days. As we report in GreenBiz.com — and have for the past decade — the progress is undeniable: Companies are embracing green practices as never before, and doing so at a deeper, more holistic level. It’s no longer just about “greening up.” It’s about doing better.

Better. It’s a word I’ve been thinking about lately. And as I look at the landscape of sustainability, the green economy, and green marketing, I’m struck by how much of what’s greener isn’t necessarily better, at least not in the ways that matter to most people. And until “green” is synonymous with “better,” it’s destined to remain marginalized, incapable of fomenting change at the scale and speed necessary to address climate change and other pressing problems.

What does it mean to be “better”? Obviously, it means different things to different people, and the definition can shift depending on the topic, the day, and the circumstance. Here, in alphabetical order, is a decidedly incomplete list of attributes that could reasonably be deemed as “better”:

cheaper to buy
cheaper to own
enhanced features
healthier
higher performance
improves my image
innovative
less wasteful
more convenient
more durable
more stylish
repairable
reusable
upgradeable
uses less energy

. . . or just plain “cool.”

I’m sure there are dozens more adjectives and attributes that could be added to this list. And most all of these focus on an individual’s needs, and possibly that of his or her family or neighbors, but not much on one’s community or beyond. Each of those is likely to have its own definition of “better.”

Using whatever definitions you choose, I defy you to scan the green marketplace — the products, services, companies, communities, jobs, government policies, and other things that claim some environmental attribute — and see how they measure up to your list.

Think about green cleaners, clothing, computers, cosmetics — whatever. How many definitions of “better” can you find? Are their price, performance, and other attributes truly an improvement over the status quo? Or is what’s “better” simply the way they make you feel? If so, is that enough to justify their purchase?

How about green energy? Green vehicles? Green furnishings? Green appliances? Green light bulbs? While each of these has positive attributes, not many are demonstrably “better” from the standpoint of providing benefits or value propositions that most shoppers care about and can afford, in addition to their environmental benefits.

Some green things are better. Green buildings can be cheaper to operate, cheaper to build, more pleasant and healthful environments, and may contribute to happier, healthier, and more productive employees, students, or residents. Greener health care, too: Medical professionals that hew to principles that reduce toxic materials in their practices and are generally more efficient can produce better results for their patients. I’m sure there are other examples of products and services where green equals better. But these tend to be the exceptions, not the rule.

Read the rest of Joel’s article HERE on Two Steps Forward

Joel is co-founder & executive editor of Greener World Media, Inc., which produces GreenBiz.com & its sister sites:  GreenerBuildings.com, ClimateBiz.com, GreenerDesign.com, and GreenerComputing.com.  He’s principal author of the annual State of Green Business report & the Greener by Design conference.  Joel serves as a senior strategist at GreenOrder & co-founder and principal of Clean Edge Inc. From 1991-2005 he was editor & publisher of The Green Business Letter.   Joel is author or co-author of more than a dozen books, including his latest, Strategies for the Green Economy.

I have a smaller garden.  Some people call it huge, others think it’s cute.  It just depends on which side of the gardening fence you stand.

Anyway, I’ve got about $12 worth of seeds “invested” in the garden.  Yes, I planted it, weed it, trim, pick, chop, freeze, cook, etc. So there’s more of an investment than just throwing $12 at the soil.  But not much.  It does all the work.

Tomatoes, the wild card of gardening investment

Gardening can look a lot like working with the stock market.  You make an investment in it.  You watch it to make sure nothing drastic is happening.  If there is, you do what you can to minimize damage, or maximize potential.  And you hope.  There’s always a lot of hope involved in both. 

My “stock” in string beans is doing great!  I’ve already seen a 200% return on the investment, and I’ve only picked twice.  I didn’t even plant all of the seed I bought, and it cost me less than $4.  I have at least 10 more pickings in what is coming due now, and have 2 other plantings to harvest from. 

My peas were a break-even investment, but that’s fine.  I now know they aren’t going to give me more than I invest.  Like the market, it’s a learning experience. 

 The beets – they’re going to be a great return!  I’ve already harvested  8 pints – which, after the first 2, are pure profit – and have a full bushel to go.  That’s about 30 more pints.

3 Separate plantings of 4'x20" each, and still have seed left

I don’t know about the Brussels sprouts yet, but am certain it’ll be a sizeable profit. 

 Tomatoes – this is always iffy.  If they don’t ripen in time, you get precious little.  But since it only takes 1 quart – 4 tomatoes – to make the entire packet of 100 seeds pay for itself, it’s an ok risk to take.  I’m hoping for a bushel, which is about 15-20 quarts. 

Onions – wow – another cheap one!  I’ll guess I’ll get a bushel out of a .99 bunch of starters.  That’s a full 16X the initial investment.

Dill – is free!   You leave one plant to seed next year’s growth and there’s no buying the seed.  Since we use a lot of dill, and it’s not a cheap herb to buy in any form, it’s a wonderful return on a nothing investment – sort of like stock splitting.  1 stalk pays for the original seed purchase, which was 3 years ago.  I’ve got around 50 stalks this year alone. 

3 Brussels sprouts plants and still have about 80 seeds left. I should get about 40 sprouts from each.

 To top it off, this investment is tax free!  How much better can it get?

The trick to it all is taking this money and stuffing it in a jar or a mattress or a savings account for later.  You’ve earned it.  Use it to the best of your ability.  When the stock market dreams of an 8% return per year, and you’re getting 1000% in 60-90 days, you just can’t beat it!  Even in a bad gardening year, you’ll do no worse than to break even, which in today’s market, is something everyone wishes would happen since the losses have equaled the last 7 years worth of gains. 

I’m using some of my return and reinvesting it into my garden market by getting another small freezer.  I also plan on using some in getting more fruiting plants – maybe currants, maybe more grapes, maybe more plums.  I don’t know.  But I know I’ll be reinvesting it to keep making my returns that much larger.  

Last year's veggies packed in the freezer. I'll need more room this year.

Gardens are the best investment you will ever make. Period.

This report is a meta study and guideline for communities to help fight obesity in the US.  It’s long.  It’s dry.  But it’s also very informative.  I’ve only scanned through it, as I do with any article or study, but it has some key elements that are important to the environmental movement. 

“Healthier food and beverage choices need to be both available and affordable for persons to consume them.”

This may sound very odd, but here in the US, nutritious foods are the most expensive, rather than the luxury items such as potato chips, soda, cookies, and prepared foods. 

Nutritious foods are often non-existent in many urban settings, creating what are called “food deserts”.  Please consider the thought of riding public transportation for an hour, one-way, to have access to the nutritious, fresh foods so many of us take for granted.  It’s not feasible.  Period. 

This is being addressed in their third point – “3. Communities Should Improve Geographic Availability of Supermarkets in Underserved Areas”  and fourth point – 4. Communities Should Provide Incentives to Food Retailers to Locate in and/or Offer Healthier Food and Beverage Choices in Underserved Areas
Fortunately, they are also working toward the “locavore” movement:  5. Communities Should Improve Availability of Mechanisms for Purchasing Foods from Farms
“Currently the United States is not producing enough fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and dairy products for all U.S. citizens to eat the quantities of these foods recommended by the USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans.”

This can be dealt with easily by supporting local farmer and producers.  And if people are truly creative, take the farmers to the areas isolated from fresh produce.  It’s a concept!

So, what I ask of you, the reader, is this:

If you read an article in your paper about trying to open a market, or a store in a food desert, write a letter to the editor supporting the idea.  And use some of the points in this study or blog post to add information to the discussion. 

Support your elected officials when they attempt to bring improvement to the under served.  Even better, write to your elected officials suggesting they initiate some of the strategies listed in the study. 

Writing may seem like something too petty to make a difference, but it’s often the most powerful tool we have to wield in the effort to educate and affect change.  It doesn’t take an activist.  It actually takes the “normal” person to bring change about.  The activist must make an extreme action to affect a moderate reaction.  And that moderate reaction is YOURS.

Why do we have less in our waterways and such a dramatic increase in flash flooding – something that was virtually exclusive to the South West?  It’s very simple – Impervious ground cover.  As part of “civilized” urban/suburban life, we expect everything to paved in order to drive, ride our bikes or walk on.  Homes with ever expanding rooflines and bloating garages also contribute.  Strip malls with expansive lots, factories with parking for twice their employees.  All of these things add up.  The rain can’t soak in, and so runs off into storm drains or roads, and then directly into rivers.

You may wonder how much impervious ground cover is there?  Well, studies done in suburban southern locations show that 50% of private property and 80% of industrial/retail property are covered.

If our property held true to that, a half acre would be covered.  In more urban areas, the cover is a higher percentage.  In more rural areas, it’s less.   And if you consider towns like Plano, TX – where I once lived – it was 95% developed.  The final bit was a farmer holding out and refusing to develop his land.  Good for him!  But if 95% is developed, and at least half of that is covered, that’s at least 88 square kilometers covered so no rain, sun or air can get to it.  That’s just a single town in a single state of the entire US.

Regardless of what the percentages are in urban, suburban or rural areas, it’s still a dramatic number and it needs addressing.  Even average rainfall has no chance at truly saturating the ground as it once did or should.  It would be like you trying to wipe your table off with a sponge that has only had a few drops of water sprinkled on it.  Looking at it in this manner means the ground is in a constant state of dehydration.

The rest of this water rushes off the roof, the driveway, the parking lot, the road and down storm drains directly to the river.  Or, it sits on the roads, in search of a path downhill, causing flash flooding and washing roads out or ruining the cars of the chosen few who are foolish enough to try to drive through it.  The water doesn’t get filtered by the soil.  It doesn’t restore used ground water.  It doesn’t slowly feed into the rivers and streams.  It’s gone forever.

So what can you do?  Collect it!

Apartment dwellers have little recourse. I understand this.  But if you look at how the water is ushered off the roof or parking area, you might see a way to reroute it into green areas that are never utilized by the tenants.  Ask your landlord to move the downspout a little.  Tell him it means he won’t have to irrigate it nearly as much.

If you own, there are several ways to minimize run off and maximize collection.

Rain barrels - I actually don’t like the things.  Most are 50 or fewer gallons, which isn’t 5 minutes worth from a summer thunderstorm.  However, it’s a start and you can use it to water locations that have a habit of drying out rapidly.  If you place it up on blocks, you’ll have greater water pressure, or ease of using the spout at the bottom.

Positional downspouts. I like these.  There are different kinds to fit different budgets and locations.  Using them means you can position them to water different areas as needed.  I have 2 that are positioned to water dry areas and 1 positioned to move water away from a very damp area.  Others, while positional, are left pretty much in the same spot since they’re doing a great job as they are.

Hinged Style Downspout. Thanks RainBarrel.net

Irrigation Ditch. Part of our driveway is paved, while much of it is gravel.  During a heavy or long-lasting rain, there is a significant amount of water flowing from the driveway.  I have created a little ditch to take that water to a spot in the side yard that has never been anything but bone dry.  It most likely exceeds 1000 gallons during these rains.  And now that area supports growth!  I’m thrilled!

In my side yard, flowing along the wood-chip path

Terrace Your Lawn. By creating terraces – much like the rice paddies in China, you slow the draining of the water, allowing it to soak in, and allowing it to hold more water until it does soak in.  I’m in the process of doing this to 2 sections of our property.  It can be a subtle or dramatic terrace, but the point is for it to slow the water’s progress off the property.

The rain is free!  You don’t pay for it every quarter as if you flushed your toilets 2000 times.  And the rain water has much less pollution in it.   Your worms don’t need paxil. They just need water.

Image care of Polyp

Is that the subtext of news today that the UK is quietly investing £100 million into GM research for Africa? It certainly sounds like it – genetically modified crops still can’t be grown in the EU, but are being aggressively promoted in Asia and Africa. As the government has admitted, if it can get them accepted in the developing world, people may come to accept them here as well. No doubt it’s a political matter, but the double standard is striking. If something isn’t considered safe for human consumption in Europe, why on earth would we suggest it’s safe for Africans?

The question comes up again because of the government’s new white paper on eliminating poverty, which includes some quite large new funding initiatives for agricultural research. It’s in the aid budget, but of course Africa doesn’t have any biotech companies – the £60 million for researching drought-resistant maize will go to biotech, not hungry Africans.

The paper itself avoids the words ‘genetically modified’, naturally, and talks instead of agricultural ‘innovations’. As we’ve written about many times before, Africa doesn’t need innovations – we haven’t tried the basic solutions yet. It’s not necessarily GM that I object to here, but the inappropriate technology, using a crane to crush a fly.

For example, one suggested ‘best bet’ for spending taxpayers money on GM research is ‘raising the vitamin content of staple crops.’ This sounds a lot like the long running PR exercise that is Golden Rice – rice that contains vitamin A, and meets a well documented deficiency in Africa’s malnourished children. It sounds wonderful, until you stop and think that half a carrot or a handful of beans would give you all the vitamin A you need. Why spend an estimated £80 million on developing a newfangled high-tech rice, when you could just encourage people to grow beans?

GM food is like finding someone trying to read in the dark and giving them night-vision goggles instead of a candle. Those promoting it are asking the wrong questions, and presupposing that the answer is better technology.

Instead, here are five ways to reduce hunger and increase food security that are cheaper, faster, and fairer than GM food:

◊  Ban speculation on world food crops.
◊  End EU and US agricultural subsidies.
◊  Drop biofuels targets.
◊  Reverse IMF policies of growing cash crops for export first.
◊  Train small scale farmers to use basic irrigation and crop rotation techniques.

***

Originally posted by Jeremy here.

Jeremy is a freelance writer based in Luton who specializes in news and features on consumerism, development, poverty, the environment, climate change, conservation. He runs Make Wealth History with his brother Paul.

Denim Insulation

Making do – that is all about reusing.  You don’t buy new clothes each time you change, correct?  Or new soap/shampoo each time you bathe?  So, why not look to the rest of your life on reusing until something is truly broken, not just a bit behind the fashion curve?

I grew up knowing my Depression Era grandparents.  They still lived off their land, although they didn’t have a cow and a pig anymore – so they had relaxed a little.  But they used everything they possibly could until it couldn’t be used anymore, even in repurposing.  We have my great-great grandmother’s diaries from 1894 on up to about 1920.  She puts the Depression Era folks to shame, for the way she reuses everything!
—
—

So, with that in mind, I’ve compiled a list that I’ve posted on my personal blog “The Spiraling Homestead”, of at least 10 uses for – you fill in the blank.  It’s quite amazing how much you can reuse and repurpose to use in your life.  I’m not saying you need to look like a horder that’s been blockaded into their home.  I’m just suggesting you look at the ideas in those lists as a way to make your life more efficient and less costly.  Even with all of my squeezing every penny until it bleeds, I learned a great deal from these lists.

Paul's Chandelier

2 liter Bottles
Bubble Wrap
Campaign Waste
Cardboard Tubes
Cereal Boxes
Dryer Lint
Egg Cartons
Eggshells
Garden Hose
Milk Jugs
Newspaper
More Newspaper
Old Clothes
Old Jeans
Pantyhose
Paper Grocery Bags
Pill Bottles
Plastic Grocery Bags
Sawdust
Styrofoam
Tennis Balls
Wood Ashes

Pretty amazing, isn’t it?  The things people come up with to make otherwise useless things into pretty valuable tools in their lives.

Since those lists create a significant amount of reading, I’ll not be adding anything to the post.  They’ll keep anyone busy for more than a minute.  Please, look at them.  See what you can use easily in your life.  It makes a difference to you and the rest of the world.  The effect, while forced through the economic downturn, is being realized in the US by a full 15% decrease in the volume of trash going to landfills.  Why not make it 20%?

Denim Pictures  (I put the link in as a comment, but it got caught in the spam filter. It’s a Kodak photo album.  Hopefully you can view without becoming a member)

Bobby Kennedy Jr. recently made his way to Ft. Collins, Colorado to give a talk about the green energy future. While I did not attend, I got a report of him saying that you need to “eat your veggies before your dessert.” He was referring to installing solar electric panels as being your dessert, and creating an energy efficient building as your vegetable. This logic did not quite sit right with me. I know his commitment to a new natural capital economy is pure but his take on the energy efficiency vs. renewable energy debate is a little cloudy.

Here is my way of thinking (and in the spirit of Mr. Kennedy, let me use analogies). Energy is the glue of civilization. Without it we will quickly fall apart. The environment is the bank account of civilization. You cannot over draw without severe penalties, and the interest on debt is compounded. So to resolve the toxic effects of the glue we need to create new formulations that do not withdrawal nearly so much from the environment. We are simply attempting to replace one glue formula with another. Mined carbon with solar and other renewables. This is environmentally important, but certainly not a dessert, we are just replacing one electron with another as the end user.

Energy efficiency is the other hand to renewable energy if you want applause for a natural economy (to throw another analogy into the conversation of course). Without efficiency we are never going to achieve a balance in our closed loop environment. While energy efficiency may be Kennedy’s vegetable, to me it is the dessert. When it comes to building for instance, nothing is sweeter than a well designed and built shelter that is comfortable, naturally lit and ventilated, and affordable to run. While your solar panels are sitting on the roof making some electrons, you efficiency efforts are rewarding you with comfort and financial stability. The solar panels are more like an appliance, or in this conversation, the vegetable.

So with all respect to Mr. Kennedy and the tremendous work and leadership he is displaying with his involvement in the new “green” economy, I would ask him to reconsider his view of energy efficiency.

***

Read the original post here.

Andrew is founder of the Buckhorn Green Guild, owner of Baosol Sustainable Building Consulting, and publishes The Sustainable Line newsletter.