yama-llama

Bergen International Film Festival

2008-10-21T15:39:00.008-05:00

Last week I spent most of my free time (and I have a lot of it here) between volunteering for the Bergen International Film Festival and seeing films. I saw 18 in six days.

The worst film I saw was easily Better Things. Truly an awful film. The whole film is full of cliched stories of morose people moping around. The boyfriend of the girl who OD'd. The ex-boyfriend of the girl who's seeing someone else. The fat granddaughter who is too depressed to go outside. The elderly couple separated by some unspoken of incident. Everyone in the film speaks softly and excruciatingly slowly, as if to underscore to the viewer that this Important, Serious. There isn't a light moment in the film and, about halfway through the film, I found I'd lost all sympathy for all of the characters and their endless drone. I think others in the audience agreed; at least five people left the theater somewhere around the midpoint. By the end, I was wishing for the suicidal characters to just do themselves in already.

Although Entre les murs got rave reviews, I had a hard time seeing what the fuss over yet another movie about a white middle class teacher and his classroom of minority students was all about. Granted, the film was in French with Norwegian subtitles, so I'm sure I missed some of its subtler points. And there was some great, very natural dialogue and really honest performances by all the actors, none of whom were professional actors. The filmmakers also do a great job of drawing the audience into the tension that every new middle school teacher must feel as he struggles to keep his class from falling into the chaos. They also don't sugarcoat anything in the film. The teacher is not a hero, he's simply getting by. But still, I've seen this that premise at least once before (Half Nelson) and the broader idea of the relationship between minority students and white teachers more than a few time before (Finding Forrester, Freedom Writers, Dangerous Minds...).

The best film I saw was also the last one I saw: The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Just Around the Corner.

When twenty-something Sashko (played by a doe-eyed Carlo Ljubek) awakes in a hospital bed in Germany, he has no memory of the car crash that has killed his parents and left him with amnesia, or of the grandfather hovering over his bed. The grandfather (the almost impossibly charismatic Miki Manojlovic) decides that the only thing that can help Sashko regain his memory is a trip on a tandem bicycle back to their native Bulgaria. That, and some backgammon. As the pair bikes through the stunning countryside of Sashko’s childhood and plays backgammon on breaks, this delightful little film quietly raises questions about what identity without memory means and asserts that how we play the game is as every bit as important as the dice we roll, even when it seems like all is lost.

At the closing gala of the 2008 Bergen International Film Festival (BIFF) on Tuesday, the jury gave Stefan Komandrev’s “The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Just Around the Corner” the festival’s top prize, the Cinema Extraordinaire award.

Ballast--An unsentimental look at a broken Southern family's efforts to rebuild itself.

Chronic Town--A cab driver gets dumped by his girlfriend in a bleak town in Alaska and stumbles through a suicide attempt and copious amounts of drugs and alcohol as he tries to move on.

Citizen Havel--An intimate portrait of Vaclav Havel, the thoughtful and funny man who ruled the Czechoslovakia and then the Czech Republic. Maybe my favorite documentary of the festival.

Downloading Nancy--Not as bad as I expected a film about masochists to be, but still not one of the best films I saw.

Encounters at the End of the World--Herzog's documentary introduces us to a wide variety of characters, who have ended up living in Antarctica. Herzog often seems to be poking fun at his subjects and doesn't seem to respect them enough to present them as much more than cariactures. Still, there are a handful of moments that make the movie worth watching, like the scene in which everyone lies down on the sea ice to listen to the otherworldly chirps of the seals below.

Fuel--The part of the movie that was made before the controversy over biofuels in 2007 flows smoothly. The part after has a tacked-on, aimless feel that has some good material, but could certainly benefit from much tighter editing. Overall, though, the film gives some great info on biodiesel, its potential to help the world fight climate change and wean ourselves from fossil fuels.

Gonzo--The filmmaking wasn't anything extraordinary, with its fairly standard format of interviews of friends and family mixed with clips and photos of Thompson and a "best of the 1970s" soundtrack, but Thompson's compelling personality overshadows the problems with the filmmaking.

Made in America--This documentary traces the birth of gangs in Los Angeles, from its roots in the squashing of organizations like the Black Panthers in the 1960s to the role the Crips and Bloods play in fulfilling gang members need for community and protection because they have been stripped of all defenses.

Planet B-Boy: This film about breakdancing culture and the world's premier breakdancing competition features some incredible physical feats and a couple of interesting characters, but for the most part, it's hard to connect with most of the dancers.

The Price of Sugar: A horrifying look at the Dominican sugar cane plantations that thrive on Haitian slave labor and the daily Herculean battles of a priest trying to improve the living conditions for the workers.

S&M: An interesting and often funny argument for bringing attention to the rampant, but usually unintentional height discrimination faced by short males all over the world. As easy as it is to think we don't discriminate, it's even easier to see ourselves in the people in the film who do.

Son of Rambow: The film falls into the trap of a sugary ending but fortunately the movie's other charms, like the flamboyant French teenager and the funny moments filmed by the two protagonists, are enough to keep Son of Rambow from being totally ruined by its predictable resolution.

Standard Operating Procedure: Errol Morris's documentary shows the torture at Guantanamo Bay through the eyes of the American soldiers, including Lynndie England, who worked there. Morris's style of documentary is the direct opposite of Michael Moore's. Where Moore uses loosely connected facts and contrived scenarios to make vehement arguments, Morris takes a seemingly detached perspective in which he simply observing the characters in SOP. Where Moore is in nearly every frame of his movies, we simply never see Morris and often don't even hear the questions he asks in his interviews, only the responses. As SOP progresses, though, we see that, by letting people speak for themselves, Morris has meticulously built up an unshakeable argument that the horrifying behavior at Gitmo was not just the work of a demented few, but was in fact pervasive and encouraged through the entire military operation at the prison and beyond.

The US vs. John Lennon--I was surprised by how impersonal this film about Lennon felt. Mostly put together from footage of meetings Lennon staged with the press, like his famous "bed-in" with Yoko Ono in Amsterdam, and interviews with friends, supporters, and Ono, we get a clear picture of Lennon's political ideas and battles, but little idea about much going on in his personal life. And for a film about his political battles with the US (or rather the bizarre political war the US quietly waged against Lennon), that's fine.

Yodok Stories-- a film about a musical about concentration camps in North Korea, and odd though it sounds, Yodok Stories was really good. Hopefully, it will be able to shed light on atrocities that are occurring right now in North Korea, but that very few people either know about or acknowledge. The film earned one of the prizes for best documentary.

Green hair

2008-09-07T22:49:00.029-05:00

Last year for Christmas, my mom got me 2007 edition of The Best American Science and Nature Writing. In it is a stunning piece by Susan Casey about our plastic ocean. She writes, "A vast swath of the Pacific, twice the size of Texas, is full of a plastic stew that is entering the food chain. Scientists say these toxins are causing obesity, infertility...and worse." The online version of the piece has some photos of the heartbreaking effects plastics are having on animals--a turtle whose shell has been grossly deformed by the constraints of a plastic band, a dead seabird with a stomach full of plastic. Casey writes that every year, each of us throws away about 185 pounds of plastic and that in 2005 the US alone produced about 120 billion pounds of plastic. Unfortunately, both numbers are increasing and only a small percent of the plastic created gets recycled (partly because a lot of plastic doesn't recycle well or at all and partly because a lot of it just gets tossed and ends up elsewhere, like the ocean).

After I read that article, I vowed to get serious about using less plastic. Besides the obvious ways like bringing my insulated mug with me everywhere (doubles as a water bottle and coffee cup, not to mention a replacement for plastic cups at events, on planes, etc.), switching to reusable shopping bags, skipping those clear plastic bags for produce, and cutting back on bottled soft drinks, I'm also trying out a shampoo bar as a way to reduce the number of shampoo bottles I go through.

Depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes.. From Intolerable Beauty: Portraits of American Mass Consumption by photographic artist Chris Jordan.

Right now I'm using a bar by Burt's Bees that I like, though I will likely switch to a brand that is not owned by Clorox for my next bar. And to a product that fares better on Environmental Working Group's (EWG) Skin Deep: Cosmetic Safety Database. I just discovered Skin Deep and really like it because it also includes whether the product was tested on animals. (Now, if only they'd include some information on the environmental impacts of the product, like the carbon created, and the sustainability of the manufacturing processes, I'd love the site... doesn't seem like too much to ask of an organization called Environmental Working Group.) Anyway, EWG rates the shampoo bar 4 out of 10, or moderately hazardous, because it contains ingredients linked to cancer, reproductive problems, allergies, and other health problems. I did a quick search of other shampoo bars on the market and there are oodles and oodles that EWG rates as posing a low threat to human health, including all-purpose bars that can be used as soap and shampoo. The bar came in a small cardboard box, but I've seen shampoo bar with just a little bit of plastic wrap or a band of cardboard, so I think it's possible to do better on that front, too. I think it's also possible to eschew packaging altogether at places like Lush that just slice the bar off a larger bar (though it's probably not a bad idea to bring a reusable soap container or an old bag to keep the bar from rubbing off on other things on the trip home).

It was a little weird getting used to a shampoo bar at first, mainly because it leaves my hair feeling a little bit waxy when I rinse (for that reason, I still use regular shampoo every other washing). I have thick, curly hair and find the bar leaves my hair a bit more manageable and maybe a little less dry (the jury's still out). Other than that, shampoo in a bar is basically the same as shampoo in a bottle--it lathers the same and my hair feels the same when it's dry. At a little less than $5, it's also cheaper by a couple of bucks than Burt's bottled shampoos and I would imagine other shampoo bars are also cheaper than the bottled equivalent. I've had the bar for about a month and still have most of the bar left, so I think it will last as long, if not longer, than a bottle of shampoo. Additional perks: it's lighter to pack, can be carried on a plane (and won't explode all over everything as my shampoo always seems to do), takes less energy to ship without all that water, and takes up less room in the shower.

Because I'm a firm believer that buying more stuff isn't the answer to most environmental problems (though buying different stuff can help), I'm also going to cut back on how much I wash my hair in general. Last year I tried the Curly Girl method, which calls for skipping shampoo and just washing with conditioner to keep from overdrying curly hair. They also suggest skipping the blow dryer for the same reason (not a problem for me... I've never had the patience to dry my hair), but still a good idea for saving some time and electricity. When I tried skipping shampoo, my curls looked better, but my scalp felt itchy, so I ended up shampooing after about four days. They say it takes about two weeks for hair to really adjust, though, so I may try it again. People lived for most of human history without shampoo and most people in the world today wash their hair far less than once a day with no problems (and probably healthier hair), so I think the main hurdle will be getting over the feeling that I need to wash my hair every day with shampoo. And if I can't, I'll still have my shampoo bar to fall back on.

Next thing to try: conditioner bars.

Compass cows and mole rat magnets

2008-09-03T13:36:00.009-05:00

I happened to come across two articles yesterday saying that a number of animals seem to have some sort of built-in compass. The Economist article "Magnetism and behavior: animal attraction" talks about how scientists used Google Earth to look at photos of grazing animals around the world. They found that to minimize wind chill and maximize the sun's heat, cows in cold weather stand pointing directly north-south. Termites also build their mounds north-south to maximize heat from the sun, according to a piece in The Atlantic. Mole rats (so cute!) apparently use magnetism to find their way around their elaborate burrows, even though they're blind. Scientists think that the little bits of magnetite in the corneas of mole rats may be responsible for their remarkable sense of direction.

Animals are pretty amazing.

The last person I'd want to run the country

2008-09-02T03:59:00.004-05:00

Disgusting.

All you ever wanted to know about tomato farming, and then some

2008-04-14T13:26:00.013-05:00

Last Friday I visited a tomato farm an hour or so outside LA. The farm, which is run by an alum from my
business school, is actually more of a seed business with produce as a byproduct.

It was interesting to learn about the seed business--it's much more complex than I'd imagined. The company hires a lab to cross-pollinate different varieties of tomatoes. The lab then sends thousands of varieties of seeds to the farm. The farm grows some of the seeds in order to evaluate the quality of the tomatoes and also gets other local growers to test the seeds. After they've tested the tomatoes and gotten feedback from growers, they select a few varieties of tomatoes, usually by how perfectly round and unblemished they are (so they'll either sell at the grocery store or fit neatly in the machines of tomato sauce makers) and by how firm they are (so they can withstand being stacked in boxes). No consideration is given to the taste, texture, or nutritional content of the tomatoes.

After they select a few varieties, they send the "recipe" for creating the tomato seeds to China for workers there to mass produce. Basically, they tell them which tomato plants to cross-pollinate and then have them extract the seeds of the offspring. I asked what happens to the tomatoes that the seeds come from; the farmer had no idea but suspected they just get tossed. After the workers extract the seeds, they send them back to the farm in California. The farm then distributes them for over $700 a bag. They don't patent the seeds because the seeds are hybrids and are sterile and of lower quality after several generations. So, while that's a great natural protection to the business's "intellectual property" (which I don't think organisms should ever be), it makes tomato growers totally dependent on the seed producers.

On another note, the farm also grows heirloom tomatoes, which varieties of tomatoes that have been grown for at least 40 or 50 generations. They are big, beautiful, and completely irregular in shape and color. Some looked like gnarled yellow pumpkins, others were deep red with dark green streaks and still others were almost purple. We got to taste five or six varieties of the heirloom tomatoes (and take home, lucky us!), along with conventional grocery store tomatoes. The heirlooms had incredible flavor, colors, and texture, while the grocery stores tomatoes tasted a little bit like mushy styrofoam. Anyway, the farm sell its heirloom tomatoes at farmers markets within a 60-mile radius. The farmer talked a little bit about how many of the other stands at farmers markets just buy produce wholesale and then resell it. For tomatoes, he said one way to tell is to pick it up and feel the tomato. If it feels smooth like grocery store tomatoes do, it may have been waxed, which is a sign that's it was purchased from a wholesaler. If it feels a tiny bit rough, almost like it has a little bit of dust on it, then it's less likely to be from a wholesaler. You can also talk to the grower about his practices and get to know growers at farmers markets. If you're interested, they should be willing to let you visit the farm to see how the food is grown.

We also got to walk through the hothouses they grow hydroponic tomatoes, which I imagined growing out of some sort of aquarium. In reality, they way they are grown isn't all that different from tomatoes grown in soil. Instead of soil, the farmers use shredded coconut husks to grow the tomatoes in. They use the shredded coconut material because it is sterile and has no inherent nutrients. In each greenhouse there are bags of the shredded coconut husks, arranged in long, neat rows along with lengths of hose. The bags have small slits for the tomato plants to grow out of and a tiny hose inserted into each slit feeds the tomato plant a mixture of water and nutrients every half hour. Seems like a lot of work to replicate the qualities of soil when it's available for free just under the bags of coconut, but I guess if the goal is to maximize the yield, then maybe it makes sense. Growing tomatoes hydroponically also allows for more efficient water use, as the water that seeps out of the bags of coconut material is captured and recycled.

WaPo reports US is behind the times with animal testing

2008-04-14T12:52:00.003-05:00

From an article on how outdated the US's use of animal testing has become, "The reason we use animal tests is because we have a comfort level with the process . . . not because it is the correct process, not because it gives us any real new information we need to make decisions," said Melvin E. Andersen, director of the division of computational systems biology at the Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences near Raleigh, N.C. "Animal tests are no longer the gold standard," he said. "It is a marvelously new world."

Reason number 8,746 to go veggie

2008-02-19T01:53:00.002-05:00

Disgusting.

Robots for rats

2008-02-15T01:06:00.002-05:00

The NIH and EPA are teaming up to use more robots in toxicity tests and fewer lab animals.

This new, trans-agency collaboration is expected to generate data more relevant to humans; expand the number of chemicals that are tested; and reduce the time, money and number of animals involved in testing, officials of both agencies said.

Better, faster research, less cruelty, and for less money. Everyone wins.

The way nature never intended

2008-02-13T22:25:00.004-05:00

Leave it to humans to take magnificent animal like a wolf and turn it into a marshmallow topiary of a dog, like the poodles on the left, shown last night at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. And those are the best of the breed!

Hideousness isn't the only calamity that comes with inbreeding dogs generation after generation. It's no secret that "purebred" dogs generally suffer from a host of health problems.

Purebred dogs at even the best of breeders live pretty depressing lives. I dogsat a number of times for a coworker, who was also a breeder of terriers. My coworker really loved her dogs and had a reputation for being one of the best breeders. She and her husband had between 12 and 16 dogs at any given time, depending on whether there were puppies in the house. Only one dog was allowed out of her cage all the time. The rest got fed twice a day and walked a few times a day. They spent the remaining 23.5 hours of every day in small wire cages stacked on top of each other in the sun room.

When I dogsat, I tried to take the dogs on long walks and have a couple of dogs out in the fenced yard at a time. Because the dogs were not neutered and didn't all get along, I could only have a couple of them out of their cages at a time, which meant that even if I had several dogs out of their cages for most of the day and switched them every hour or so, the dogs still spent all but a couple of hours a day trapped in their cages. The dogs would thrash and cry every single time I had to put them back into their cages. Heartbreaking. And those are likely the best of circumstances for breeders' dogs. (I won't even get started on their far worse cousins, puppy mills).

On top of that, the more purebred dogs there are, the less likely it is that animals in shelters will be adopted and the more likely it is that shelter animals will either be put down or live out their lives in shelters. According to PETA, about shelters house about six to eight million unwanted cats and dogs and about half of those animals are put to sleep each year.

What can we do to reduce dog and cat populations so that no animals need to live in shelters or be euthanized?

First, pledge to stop buying pets from pet stores and breeders. Should be the easiest decision you've ever made, but if you're having doubts, just take another look at those fugpoodles above and then check out the adorable dogs on petfinder.com).

Second, spay or neuter your pets. Lots of low-cost options are available for those on a tight budget. Just think of all the money you'll save on diapers for your female dog when she no longer goes into heat.

Third, lobby for or support legislation calling for mandatory sterilization of pet populations, like the bill the City of Los Angeles just passed.

Fourth, spread the word.

Yeah, NYT!

2008-01-29T21:34:00.001-05:00

One of the best articles I've seen recently on the argument for going veggie ran in yesterday's New York Times.

Sundance Film Festival

2008-01-29T19:49:00.000-05:00

On Sunday I flew back to LA from the Sundance Film Festival in Park City. Didn't see much for celebrities (no, the bald guy Charlotte marries in Sex and the City, Danny Baldwin, and the random guy from Neil Young's band do not count), but I saw some fantastic films, sat in on some really great panels, took in a set by Brett Dennen at the Music Cafe, and basked in the beauty of Park City's snowy, snowy mountains. Most of the celebrities come earlier in the week, so things were quiet, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that people seemed to be more focused on making great film and on making social change through film than on the glitz and glamour Hollywood has lent the event in recent years.

First, the films.

Flow: For Love of Water
The pathos was a bit over the top (they compared the future consequences of the water shortage in some parts of the world to the meteors that caused mass extinctions), which is too bad because I think it undermined the credibility of what was otherwise really good content on the consequences of privatizing water.

Red
Malicious teens shoot dog. Owner goes on insane rampage seeking vengeance, which (spoiler alert) ends with a bloodbath (at least for a Sundance Film). Don't get me wrong, I love dogs and empathize with the owner's anger, but no one in their right mind would go as far as he did. Overall the film was trite, predictable, and low on insight and character development. Too bad the best thing about the film, the cute dog, is only on screen for the first few minutes.

Sugar
The movie is by the creators of Half Nelson and is about how we crank ballplayers from Latin America through the baseball machine like so many cogs on a conveyer belt and toss them out when we're done with them. Unfortunately, I think that's exactly what will happen to the Dominican actors in the film. Still, the lush visuals and subtle acting make for a good movie.

Half-Life
What unwinds as a weird and unsettling look at the life of a dysfunctional California family is made beautiful and lovely by the animated (literally) imaginations of the main characters and touching depictions of each character's vulnerability.

I Always Wanted to be a Gangster
A French comedy, oddly enough, and the only lighthearted movie I saw. Absolutely gorgeous imagery. Funny, original, and sweet-but-not-too-sweet. Probably my favorite movie of the festival.

Now, for the panels.

That Must Be Told: Todays Human Rights Documentary Movement
The panelists started by showing clips of their films (more info below) and then moved to a discussion of whether it is enough to simply make a documentary film and raise awareness or whether one must also offer concrete ways for viewers to take action. That segued to a discussion on the trend of working with nonprofits that use documentary film in their campaigns, and the benefits that can come with collaboration, like exposure, funding, and offering audiences a way to take action. Amnesty International has a campaign related to Mumia Abu-Jamal, a Black former Panther and journalist, and his 25 years on death row, and so they were willing to collaborate with panelist Livia Giuggioli on her film about his life, In Prison My Whole Life. The film screened at Sundance, but unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to see it.

Also on the panel:

*Gillian Caldwell, 1Sky Alliance

*Oren Yakobovich, B'Tselem, collaboration on Shooting Back, a very cool project in which B'Tselem gives cameras to Palestinians living in Israel to film their daily lives. Democracy Now! uses the film on their website.

Paul van Zyl, International Center for Transitional Justice

James Orbinski, the Nobel prize winning doctor for Doctors Without Borders and the Narrator of Triage: Dr. James Orbinski's Humanitarian Dilemma

The Double Bottom Line: Too Good to be True?

A panel of directors and producers debated whether one of the goals of documentary filmmaking should be to make a profit. Panelist John Schreiber of Participant Productions argued that though every once in awhile a documentary will make a profit, films with critical messages need to be made whether or not they'll generate a profit. He does evaluate whether a film will be able to generate enough revenue to cover its costs, though.

Panelist and moderator Jess Search of the Channel Four Foundation (and formerly of Witness, a You-Tube like site for user-created content related to human rights), echoed Schreiber's sentiments and argued that there's a sweet spot between being socially important/relevant and entertaining that leads to a wildly successful film bu is really difficult for most documentaries to hit and creates unrealistic bars by which to measure the majority of documentaries. Occasionally a film like An Inconvenient Truth will hit that sweet spot, but if documentary filmmakers make only movies that are on hot topics and are always entertaining, lots of important stories will go untold.

Panelist Bristol Baughn, an executive with Reason Pictures and GOOD, disagreed. She talked about how she thinks it is possible for filmmakers to make a profit by telling relevant stories, using compelling narrative and marketing effectively.

The panelists then discussed ways to measure the social value documentary film creates, like number of viewers, number of click-throughs to take action, and measures of actual action taken, and agreed that social value is difficult to measure, but is becoming more measurable with online metrics.

The panelists also talked about how they are changing their distribution strategies in response to new media outlets like YouTube. Schreiber talked about takepart.com, a site that lets people watch documentary films on all different kinds of issues and gives them tools for taking action right on the site. A video on Canada's seal hunting, for example, is posted next to links for contacting Canada's prime minister, information on boycotting seafood, and supporting HSI's ProtectSeals campaign.

Panelist Annie Sundberg, the director of The Devil Came on Horseback, (which looks like a very compelling film on the Darfur crisis, by the way) spoke about how distributing films through non-traditional venues, like screenings at schools and collaboration with nonprofit would could use the film in their campaign, can be as effective as more traditional distribution. She also spoke about using viral marketing tactics like contacting relevant interest groups on sites like MeetUp.com to host screenings for a fee.

All in all, a fantastic few days.

Green schmoozing

2007-11-17T03:32:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow I'm going to the Opportunity Green Conference on campus. Some noteables in the green business world will be there--a cofounder of Ethos water, the founder of Treehugger, some cool firms that do consulting and marketing in the green space.

More details tomorrow.

Guilty conscience, Mr. Roth?

2007-09-14T20:14:00.001-05:00

Alex Roth, a guest writer for Grist, slams PETA spokesman Matt Prescott for saying, "You just cannot be a meat-eating environmentalist," and ends up getting slammed by the Grist community instead.

Now, I'm definitely not a huge fan of Prescott's statement that omnivores can't be environmentalists. Though I think it would take a whole lot of effort to rationalize the cognitive dissonance of being a meat-eating environmentalist away, I also think it's counterproductive to promote exclusionist environmentalism. But that's PETA's modus operandi. They say or do something shocking in order to get an idea across. We react strongly. They do it again. After awhile, the idea becomes mainstream (see also: PETA's campaign against fur). And, as Holly notes on the comments section of the Grist site, "PETA is not an environmental group. It is an animal-rights group."

That said, Roth's arguments are ridiculous and then some. He writes, "Of course, most of us carnivorous environmentalists do sometimes eat factory-farmed meat, just as vegans sometimes eat products made from industrial soybeans." Uh, Mr. Roth? It takes a much smaller toll on the environment to grow a pound of industrial soybeans than it does to raise a pound of meat.

According to "Choosing Nature, Three Times a Day: The True Cost of Food" on the Sierra Club website (emphasis mine):
WILD PLACES LOST: Fifty per cent of the Earth is devoted to cattle production. (In
the U.S., 45% of land is devoted to cattle.
WILD PLACES LOST: 70% of the land in the Western U.S. is devoted to cattle.
WILD PLACES LOST: 95% of the oats, 80% of the wheat and
80% of the corn in the U.S. is fed to cows.
WILD PLACES LOST: About 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to
create cropland to produce our meat-centered diet.
GRAIN: It takes 10 to 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of cow flesh.
WILD PLACES LOST: It takes 10 to 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef.
DESERTIFICATION: The major cause is cattle grazing.
WATER: It takes up to about (some estimates are higher) 2,500 gallons of water to
produce one pound of grain fed beef. With the same water, farmers could produce 16
pounds of broccoli, 25 pounds of potatoes, enough soybeans for three pounds of tofu or
enough wheat for nearly five pounds of whole wheat bread.
TOPSOIL LOST: One pound of grain fed beef causes the loss of 35 pounds of topsoil.
ENERGY: It takes one gallon of gasoline to produce one pound of beef.
POLLUTION: In the United States, two billion tons of untreated sewage is discharged into the environment from cows.

Roth also writes, "PETA also shoves aside the report's conclusion that many of the environmental harms caused by livestock production can be mitigated through better agricultural practices". Yeah, but as anyone who's taken Biology 101 knows, even with better ag practices, raising livestock still takes way more energy than growing plants. From the College of Agriculture Sciences at Penn State, "In a food chain, an animal passes on only about 10 percent of the energy it receives." That's why, as noted above, it takes about 10 pounds of grain to get one pound of beef.

Then he states, "To me, being an environmentalist simply means supporting policies and practices that promote a healthy environment". Everyone from the UN to the University of Chicago is publishing evidence that switching to a plant-based diet can lessen one's impact on the environment by as much or more than switching to a hybrid vehicle. So, by his own definition of what it means to be an environmentalist, Roth should, if not adopt a plant-based diet, at least support those who do, and at the very least, keep his yap shut when others promote veggie diets for environmental reasons.

He continues, "These days, climate change is known to be exacerbated by most human activities, from stir-frying tofu to watching videos of endangered baby harp seals." True enough. But some activities exacerbate climate change more than others. From the UN report:

The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. . . The livestock sector is a major player [in climate change], responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent. This is a higher share than transport.

Some behaviors are also easier to change than others. Reducing my carbon footprint by driving less and biking more has proved more challenging than adopting a plant-based diet, by at least a degree of magnitude. So, if eating meat creates a huge amount of greenhouse gases and it's fairly easy to avoid eating meat, why eat meat?

(On an unrelated note: I suspect Roth would be against clubbing a baby harp seal, but he doesn't seem to have a problem with shooting a bolt through a cow's head, as is standard practice in the beef industry.)

Roth continues, "No, what is most astonishing about a person like Prescott is that someone evidently so well-intentioned can simultaneously be so counterproductive and so irritating". Funny, I was just thinking same thing about you, Mr. Roth.

Fear and loathing in Lake Davis

2007-09-12T07:37:00.000-05:00

On Monday the state of California started dumping $16 million and 17,000 gallons of poison into Lake Davis, all in the name of environmentalism. According to a New York Times article, 500 state fish and game personnel will be pouring CFT Legumine, which contains the poison rotenone, into Lake Davis in an effort to eradicate northern pike, an exotic invasive fish.

The northern pike is certainly an easy animal to fear. The aggressive invader with the folk name "water wolf" can grow more than three feet long and eats whatever it can get its razor sharp teeth around, like frogs, bugs, other fish, and even the occasional duckling. According to the NYT article, "State officials are particularly concerned that the pike might escape to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where it could feast on other fish, including valuable salmon and threatened species like the delta smelt. Signs on the lake recommend cutting the head off any pike caught and tossing the fish back in the water."

The pike first appeared in Lake Davis in the mid-1990s and were very likely introduced by people. In 1997 officials poisoned the lake with rotenone to the point that the state approved a $9.2 million settlement with local residents for damages. But the pike reappeared in 1999. Nobody's sure how many pike currently live in Lake Davis, but the California State Department of Game and Fish estimates the population could number in the tens or hundreds of thousands.

Ok, so the pike breeds and hunts aggressively and isn't the cutest fish in the lake. But, is it worth pouring into Lake Davis a pesticide the World Health Organization classifies as "highly toxic for aquatic life" and, in its pure form, as "moderately toxic" to humans?

The State of California has successfully eradicated northern pike from the nearby Frenchman Reservoir by using rotenone. According to an info sheet on the Department of Fish and Game site:

[Rotenone] will be applied at a rate of about one part per million. The rotenone itself will initially be present at a rate of about 50 parts per billion. The trace compounds will be present at a few parts per billion at the greatest, and many will not be detectable in the water when the rotenone is applied.

Rotenone also decomposes quickly and there are no detectable traces of rotenone left in Lake Davis from the 1997 treatment. The lake, which does not currently supply the nearby town of Portola with water, will be closed for up to 45 days after treatments this month. The lake will again serve as the water supply for Portola at some point in the future.

Researchers at Emory University found that when they gave rats low doses of rotenone, the rats developed symptoms similar to symptoms found in people with Parkinson's disease. The findings "are consistent with the idea that chronic exposure to low levels of environmental toxin may cause cumulative damage to the brain’s dopamine system, eventually leading to the clinical symptoms of the disease."

While rotenone is being used in very low concentrations and decomposes quickly enough that it's not at risk of causing chronic exposure on its own, it is one more environmental toxin that we're exposed to. So, the risks the rotenone in Lake Davis could pose to human health are not clear.

And what about the plants and animals in and around Lake Davis, for which rotenone is "extremely toxic"? The website for the Department of Fish and Game says they will "herd" the trout downstream and restock them after the treatment, but they make no mention of the other species that inhabit the lake and happen not to be as important to the economy as trout.

But, wait. CFT Legumine, which the Department of Fish and Game will be using to apply the rotenone, actually only contains five percent rotenone. According to the manufacturer site, CFT Legumine also contains five percent "other associated resins" and 90 percent "inert ingredients". On savelakedavis.org Jeanne Tansey writes:

In the case of CFT Legumine™, the inert ingredients help disperse the pesticide more easily and evenly into the water.

16,000 gallons of CFT Legumine™ is the projected amount of poison according to the Lake Davis Northern Pike Eradication Project 2007 plan. That means that 90% or 14,400 gallons of inert ingredients will be put into the lake. We do not know exactly what those ingredients are. But the front panel of the pesticide container, immediately below the Ingredient Statement, reads “Contains aromatic hydrocarbons.”

The Department of Fish and Game doesn’t even know what the 90% inert ingredients are. They do not know what the 14,400 gallons of liquid chemicals, that they will be putting into the lake and surrounding streams, are. They analyzed a sample of CFT Legumine™ to get an idea of what they might be. We do know what chemicals the health agencies will be testing Lake Davis water and sediment for after the lake is poisoned. Page 7 of the Lake Davis Northern Pike Eradication Project 2007 plan is the “Water Quality Monitoring Plan.” It contains a list of 18 chemicals they will be monitoring in surfacewater and sediment. A logical conclusion would be that these chemicals were found in their analyzed sample.

Among these chemicals are benzenes, xylenes, naphthalene, and toluene. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services includes naphthalene, toluene, and xylenes on its “Table 1, Hazardous Inerts.” Table 1 is the list of the most dangerous chemicals identified by the Dept. of Health and Human Services. . . Benzene exposure also causes serious health effects.

So, the Department of Fish and Game doesn't even know what's in 14,000 gallons of the stuff they're dumping into the lake? Northern pike might be bad for the ecosystem (or maybe more accurately, the fishing economy) in Lake Davis. CFT Legumine might be even worse.

A call to all you writers

2007-09-09T14:08:00.000-05:00

Grist has a short article on "fast fashion", the cheap, nearly disposable clothing that's becoming more and more popular. The article briefly touches on the environmental, social, and global impacts of producing so many clothes so quickly, but I'm sure there's tons more to be said. If anyone out there can do for "fast fashion" what Eric Schlosser did for fast food in "Fast Food Nation", I bet it would be an interesting, eye-opening read.

Light pollution

2007-09-09T13:19:00.000-05:00

I spent last week backpacking in the wilderness of Yosemite and one of my favorite things was falling asleep under the stars each night because here in LA, planes are about the only lights visible in the night sky. So I was saddened, but not surprised, to read in The New Yorker that truly dark skies are slowly disappearing from the American landscape due to air and light pollution. In fact, even the darkest skies in this country aren't as dark as skies all over the world were in Galileo's time. From the article:

In Galileo’s time people assume that the Milky Way must be some kind of continuous substance. It truly resembled a streak of spilled liquid—our word “galaxy” comes from the Greek for milk—and it was so bright that it cast shadows on the ground (as did Jupiter an Venus).

Having grown up in South Dakota, I've definitely seen a milky-looking Milky Way, but I've never seen it bright enough that it could have cast shadows. How cool would that be? And check out the photo of the Milky Way on The New Yorker site to see how beautiful the Milky Way looks, if only we could see it.

Map of Factory Farms

2007-07-31T15:37:00.000-05:00

Factoryfarmmap.org (created by the Food and Water Watch) lets you check out how factory farms for different animals are distributed across the country and across individual states.

And, an editorial from the NY Times on why it's an important map.

Ugly beautiful

2007-07-31T12:46:00.000-05:00

Beautiful photos of garbage from Chris Jordan's exhibit called Running the Numbers. Click the photo to see a detail shot.

Want a green lawn? Get rid of it!

2007-07-29T10:51:00.000-05:00

I'm at my parents' house in South Dakota this month and though the area has received a lot of rain this spring and summer, I'm still amazed by how much time people spending watering their lawns in this fairly dry region. Apparently it's an issue across the country. From a PDF called Water Efficient Landscaping on the EPA website:

Of the 26 billion gallons of water consumed daily in the United States, approximately 7.8 billion gallons, or 30 percent, is devoted to outdoor uses. In fact it is estimated that the typical suburban lawn consumes 10,000 gallons of water above and beyond rainwater each year.

This site offers some good tips for efficient indoor and outdoor water use, including:

Water the lawn only when needed
Step on the grass; if it springs back up when you move your foot, it does not need water.

Don't water in the heat of the day Watering in the morning or early evening when it's cooler and calmer will reduce the amount lost to evaporation.

Mow as infrequently as possible Mowing puts the grass under additional stress that requires more water.

But lawns are more than just water hogs. Beyondpesticides.org (a site I admit I know nothing about), reports that American dump 90 million pounds of herbicides alone on their lawns and gardens each year. According to the site, many of those pesticides are known carcinogens; have been linked to birth defects and asthma, developmental delays, and other health effects in children; have been tied to cancer in pets; are toxic to wildlife; and contaminate groundwater, among other things.

So checked out an article called "Organic Lawn Care for the Cheap and Lazy" (my kinda article!). A few of their great tips:

Mow the grass higher
The shade of tall, dense grass turf will prevent essential light from reaching most weeds and, will aid in the destruction of new baby weed seedlings (such as the notorius dandelion). Tall grass is healthier and can use the extra sugar to make rhizomes (more grass plants) thus thickens the turf.

Leave the clippings on the lawn
They add organic matter and nutrients back into the soil and to prevent moisture from evaporating.

Water less
Same tip as above, but from the standpoint of lawn health, watering less will force your grass roots to go deep into the soil. Deeper than most weed roots.

Fertilize organically, if necessary
If your lawn needs fertilizer, sprinkle a little Ringer lawn fertilizer in the spring and fall. Why this brand? Well, there is nothing scary in the ingredients list; the stuff looks like rabbit food; and it works great.

Have the pH of your lawn tested
Dandelions love a pH of about 7.5. Grass loves a pH of about 6.5. So if your pH is 7.5 or higher, your grass will probably never beat out the dandelion. Lower the pH to 6.5 and your grass has the advantage!

All those are great ideas, but there's yet another problem--lawn mowers can produce about as much air pollution in one hour as a car would in four. And that's not counting the noise pollution. We can reduce the emissions by mowing after noon (something about the chemical reactions with the emissions and sunlight), switching to an electric or man-powered mower, mowing less often, and raising the blade on the mower.

But it seems there's got to be something easier. Then I started thinking about a piece Michael Pollan wrote in 1989 for the NY Times about the American lawn and its relationship to culture and nature. He writes that America's 50,000 square miles of "unbounded democratic river of manicured lawn" homogenize the landscape the way fast food chains do and gives a brief history of lawns in America. He describes how the neighbors ostracized his family one summer when his father decided mow their suburban lawn and therefore not to conform to suburban norms. Pollan then writes about his own boredom with the monotony of mowing and of the lawn itself, how he sees the lawn as a sign of man's dominance over nature, and eventually he concludes that when it comes to lawns, less is more, and for native plants, more is more. Aha!

So I was pleased to see an article by Cathie Draine in a local paper encouraging people to seed their lawns with native grasses that need fewer pesticides and fertilizers because they are adapted to the local pests and soils and that also store and filter water more efficiently. Just as importantly, she gives step-by-step instructions for how to reduce the size of one's lawn.

Take that, Michael Pollan

2007-07-26T11:08:00.000-05:00

Michael Pollan spends the first handful of chapters in The Omnivore's Dilemma describing the havoc the industrial food industry (the meat business in particular) wreaks on the environment and the incredibly cruel treatment the animals in the food industry receive. Despite all of that, he argues that ultimately, animals benefit when we eat them because it ensures their survival as a species.

Anytime Stephen Colbert agrees with you, you know your argument is completely ridiculous.

Speak for yourself

2007-07-25T03:56:00.000-05:00

Whoever's responsible for the "South Dakotans don't support animal activists" billboard near Sioux Falls, shuddup.

I didn't see anything on the billboard about who paid for that billboard (or the even more disgusting one near Kadoka that says something like "Support wildlife management. Wear fur"), but if anyone has any info on the sponsor, send it my way.

Animal Welfare and the Food Industry in the New York Times

2007-07-25T02:34:00.000-05:00

Ok, first things first. How 'bout those photos on the first page of the article? Nothing cuter than happy pigs.

Kim Severson's article for the NYT on the evolution of animal welfare in the food industry touches on everything from the changes in activists' tactics over the last few decades to the recent foie gras ban in Chicago. Because it's only a three page article on a pretty broad topic, Severson skims over a few details, like the fact that while the demand has increased for humanely raised animal products, animals raised in "free range" or "cage free" environments often live in conditions as appalling as their caged counterparts. The timeline on the left is kinda cool, but also glosses over some important facts.

But she does bring up some interesting and maybe counterintuitive tactics for activists, like investing in the companies they seek to change and then enacting that change from the inside as shareholders. And though she quotes several corporate bigwigs who say activists have had no influence on their corporate policies on animal welfare, they also say that they've created or improved their company's animal welfare policies due to pressure from consumers. And pressure from consumers is often sparked by campaigns by activists.

So, whether you're an activist, a consumer, or somwhere in between--speak up. They're listening.

Happy Fourth!

2007-07-04T08:11:00.000-05:00

Zinn on nationalism:

http://www.progressive.org/media_mpzinn070106

I heart Joel Achenbach

2007-06-27T18:08:00.000-05:00

His piece in today's Washington Post on Dick Cheney is called "Dick Cheney: No Fish Left Behind, Or Alive."

Freegans and free fruit

2007-06-26T09:33:00.000-05:00

I'm a little slow on getting this posted, but the NYT has an interesting article on freegans (dumpster-diving vegans). Not sure it's practical for a lot of things, but it's interesting to read about nonetheless.

The article also lists a good site for getting (or getting rid of) stuff:
freecycle.org

In my area there's free astronaut ice cream, a Piggly Wiggly stress reliever, a metal liquid nitrogen tank hose, and an unused time capsule wedding journal book, whatever that is.

And, because it's summer, here's a link for maps of places where you can legally pick fruit that overhangs public property. Ok, so there aren't too many maps yet, but it's still a fun idea.

fallenfruit.org/maps.html

Alien invaders!

2007-06-08T00:12:00.000-05:00

Just posted this reponse to the lengthy discussion on Grist over an article questioning whether invasive species really are as evil as we think they are. Short answer: probably. Long answer:

As someone who spent one hot summer waging a futile battle against exotic invasives plants (Japanese honeysuckle and tree of heaven, mainly) in a national park, and a semester studying the effects of goats on the flora and fauna in the Galapagos, it would be fair to say I think exotic invasive species are a serious threat.

I also think it's fair to say that the best policy is to "keep them all out", as burger suggests, provided burger means preventing any new exotic species from entering an ecosytem. And I agree with NJD that the "wait-and-see" approach is irresponsible; if newly introduced population is still small enough that eradication is feasible, better to be safe than sorry.

I don't think it's fair, however, to dismiss Erik's arguments as they apply to established exotic invasive species. It's easy to say, yes, let's get rid of kudzu. Not so straightforward if we bring herbicides into the picture. Or when we have to kill golden eagles to protect the foxes on California's Channel islands. (The eages are protected under the Eagle Protection Act but are not native to the islands).

We have a limited number of resources with which to manage exotic species and it's not cheap or easy. So it makes sense to evaluate the costs and, yes, the benefits, of an established invasive species to an ecosystem, as well as the costs and benefits of trying to eradicate it. That way we can make the most out of the limited resources we have.

At the national park, my two coworkers and I barely made a dent in cutting back the exotic invasive plant species, and I'm sure most of plants grew back the following year anyway. Perhaps if we had focused on just getting rid one of the most noxious species, we could've successfully eradicated it from the park. Perhaps if we'd also focused more restoring disturbed areas and preventing further disturbances, rather focusing solely on the symptoms--invasive population explosions, we'd have been more successful.

That said, I think Erik is right on to question whether a "pristine" ecosystem ought to be our ideal. The vast majority of forests in this country are not virgin forests and are constantly changing due to forces of nature and man. Deeming one moment in history as an ecosystem's "pristine" state to aim to replicate seems rather arbitrary and silly. Perhaps "healthy" is a better adjective to work towards.

As a side note, what about native invasive species? Whitetail deer, juniper, red maple...

Betcha can't guess where this depressing passage is from

2007-06-07T21:18:00.000-05:00

In his book The End of Work, Jeremy Rifkin notes that until the 20th century the word consumption evoked negative images; to be labeled a "consumer" was an insult. (In fact, one of the deadliest diseases in history, tuberculosis, was often referred to as "consumption.") Twentieth century merchants realized, however, that in order to prosper, they had to convince people of the need for things not previously needed. For example, General Motors made annual changes in its cars so that people would be discontented with the cars they already owned. Thus began consumerism.

Today consumption describes the U.S. lifestyle in a nutshell. We consume twice as much today per person as we did at the end of World War II. The amount of U.S. retail space per person is vastly greater than that of any other country. It appears we live to shop.
That's from my accounting textbook, of all places. Depressing stuff, huh?

Zinn on Vonnegut

2007-06-05T21:03:00.000-05:00

In this month's copy of The Progressive, Howard Zinn pays tribute to Kurt Vonnegut. Zinn recounts a memory from of Vonnegut that seems especially pertinent as tens of thousands of Iraqis die in the name of our "War on Terror":

"When the newspapers were full of alarms about Iran possibly developing a nuclear bomb, Kurt sent me a copy of a very short letter he wrote to The New York Times: 'I only know of one nation that has dropped nuclear bombs on innocent people.'

The Times did not print the letter."

Golf gone country

2007-06-02T10:40:00.000-05:00

I've never actually golfed. Something about paying lots of money to try and hit a tiny ball into a tiny, faraway hole never seemed like anything more than a recipe for frustration to a klutz like me. But boerengolf, or farmer's golf, which is played on existing farmland in European countries like Holland, sounds like my kind of game. From "You can golf 'til the cows come home" on Marketplace:

Boerengolf is certainly simple. Two teams compete. [Using a wooden shoe on a stick], each hits a ball towards Hole 1. The team that's behind keeps hitting 'til they're ahead, so the teams stay together. The object: sink the ball using the fewest strokes. Repeat 10 times, with a break in the middle for beer. The end.

What's not to like about that? Plus, it beats supporting the environmental enemies that are regular golf courses.

The 18,000 golf courses in the U.S. cover more than 1.7 million acres. Las Vegas alone has 60 golf courses. According the Worldwatch Institute, the world's 35,000 golf courses used 2.4 billion gallons of water per day, the same amount it would take to provide 4.7 billion people with daily UN minimum. Each course uses an estimated half ton of pesticides each year, and undoubtedly plenty of fertilizer, too. Both pollute the water. Course landscapers use noisy lawn mowers and leaf blowers, which can each create the same amount of air pollution in one hour as a small car does in four.

On the boerengolf courses, course maintenance is a different story. Rain waters the grass. The landscapers (also known as cows) eat the grass. Then they turn it into fertilizer (manure) for the grass. That's it.

Of course, you could argue that cow pastures are not exactly the most environmentally friendly places, and you'd be right. (The EPA estimates that ruminant livestock produces 28% of the methane from human-related activities globally and EarthSave states that methane is responsible for nearly as much global warming as all the other greenhouse gases put together. Runoff from fields with animal waste can also contaminate water and overgrazing degrades the soil). But cow pastures probably aren't going away anytime soon. Nor do I think they should as long as people continue to consume dairy and beef and to use leather--cow pastures are a infinitely better for the cows, the environment, and beef eaters than are industrial feedlots (read The Omnivore's Dilemma if you don't know what I mean). I'm just happy that people can enjoy golf without degrading the land additionally.

Ok, and I also just think golfing with a wooden shoe on a stick and a bunch of cows sounds like a lot of fun.

Putting animal testing to rest... sort of

2007-06-01T20:48:00.001-05:00

According to a piece on Marketplace (American Public Media), the number of animals used in experimentation has declined by 50 percent over the last 25 years, due at least in part to software that allows researchers to input data about the chemicals they're testing and get an output of just how toxic it is.

Ok, so a 50% decrease is good news, right? Not to be all the-glass-is-half-empty (or should I say still half full... confusing metaphor, sorry), but that means that there are still tons of animals enduring cruel experiments that can only be called torture. Just how many animals, you ask?

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which is part of the USDA, reported that researchers tested on over a million animals in 2004, which was the most recent report I was able to find on their site. The number does not include birds, mice, or rats bred for testing because those animals are not covered under the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) and researchers are not only not required to report the numbers of birds, mice, and rats they test on. (They're also not required to comply with the few protections offered to the animals that are covered under the AWA). The ASPCA estimates that researched experimented on 14 million rats and mice in 2002 in the US alone, and the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) puts the worldwide estimate at 100 million animals a year.

The problems with animal testing are twofold. First, it's obviously cruel. (If you don't know what I'm talking about see: The Earthlings, PETA, BUAV, Johns Hopkins University, CaringConsumer.com, etc., etc. Second, the results of experiments on rats, mice, and other animals don't always correlate to people. The results don't always even correlate among more similar animals:

When rat and mouse carcinogens are compared, the tests in rats agree with the tests in mice only
two thirds of the time.
-- Dr. Martin Stephens, Vice President for Animal Research Issues at The Humane Society and Dr. Andrew Rowan, Senior Vice President for Research, Education and International Issues, "An Overview of Animal Testing"

Fortunately, in many cases alternative experiments can be done with computer models and human tissues grown in the lab. These experiments are not only cruelty-free, but often much more accurate. But yet research on animals continues.

So what can we do? Lots. To encourage companies to stop animal testing, check out CaringConsumer.com's list of the companies that still do test on animals. We can stop using their products and write them a letter to let them know why. And choose to support companies that don't test on animals when we need to purchase something. We can also write letters to our representatives, medical schools, and local papers, invest only in cruelty-free companies, and spread the word to friends and family members.

See? Even the economists are doing it.

2007-05-28T12:44:00.000-05:00

Encouraging responsible economic growth, that is. In the May 28 edition of Business Week, Clayton M. Christensen (professor at Harvard B-School) and Scott D. Anthony (president of Innosight, a consulting firm) urge managers to shift away from paradigms that maximize profits for shareholders in the short term, to ones that focus on responsibly growing the companies in the long term.

Christensen and Anthony advise managers to tell people who hold their company's shares:
"You are investors and speculators, not shareholders, and you temporarily find yourselves holding the securities of our company. You are responsible for maximizing the returns on your investments. Our responsibility is to maximize the long-term value of this company. We will therefore act in the interest of those whose interests coincide with our long-term prospects, namely employees, customers, the communities in which our employees live, and the minority of investors who plan to hold our securities for several years."

They continue:
Well-intentioned, smart managers are systematically destroying companies by failing to take actions they know are right in the long term. . . managers should find ways to reward investors and stakeholders who want innovation, not plunder.

Kudos to them.

Development in the Black Hills

2007-05-26T09:06:00.000-05:00

I grew up in the Black Hills of western South Dakota, which I think is one of the loveliest places on Earth. Every time I go back for a visit, some piece of forest or field has been sliced up to make way for a new strip mall or housing development. Even worse is Wal-Mart, which paved over a significant chunk of undeveloped land in the 1990s to open their first store in my hometown, only to have abandoned it a few years ago to smother an even bigger area on the other side of town with a Super Wal-Mart and a sea of parking lot. Their original building remains an empty eyesore for which they, of course, bear no responsibility.

The unchecked development in the Black Hills is a difficult problem to tackle for two reasons. First, with only about 250,000 people spread over an area of about 4,500 square miles, open space seems relatively abundant in the Black Hills, and not like the precious commodity that it is. Second, the local (and national) political and legal structure is such that economic development is king, but one that doesn't answer to the costs it imposes on its communities, citizens, and the environment.

First, the seeming abundance of open space. I currently live in the DC area where space is anything but abundant. I've see how the sprawl of big box stores and cookie cutter condos has eaten up pretty much every open space for miles and miles in any direction. Even though sprawl in the DC area has caused thick smog, massive traffic back-ups on the Beltway, and long commutes for many residents, development still continues mostly unmanaged. People here seem to be just starting to realize that more compact, controlled development might make more sense environmentally, and even economically. Although the Black Hills are a long way from being as heavily developed as DC, I'm worried that, like in DC, lawmakers and developers won't recognize the value of controlled development until everything has already been paved over.

Second, the dominance of economic development. The local Planning & Zoning Board puts economic development above all else, including the environment, aesthetics, and even future economic development. Spearfish is a pretty town, with lots of trees and sandstone buildings on Main Street, but you wouldn't know it until you were well into the downtown. Coming into Spearfish on I-90 from the east, you'd pass dozens industrial-looking, aluminum-sided buildings, housing everything from a chainsaw store to a credit card company to a beauty salon. In fact, pretty much the whole stretch of I-90 between Spearfish and Rapid City has become littered with ugly, cheap-looking businesses that obscure the true beauty of the area. A large part of the economy of Spearfish comes from tourism and tourists come to the area for its untouched natural beauty. If we junk up the area, who's going to want to visit?

I'm not proposing we halt development. I'm saying we need to plan development with a more long-term vision in mind, keep it more compact and within city limits (except for farms), encourage businesses to move into empty existing buildings, and establish building codes that take aesthetics and the environment into account. We also need to consider the costs of development to the community and its environment. In that way, we can keep the area growing and beautiful.

Still relevant almost 60 years later

2007-05-23T09:10:00.000-05:00

I'm reading A Sand County Almanac this week. It's my dad's copy, which has a short poem penciled in the front to my dad from an old girlfriend of his. But what I really wanted to share is this paragraph written by Aldo Leopold in 1948 in the introduction.

Our bigger-and-better society is now like a hypochondriac, so obsessed with its own economic health as to have lost the capacity to remain healthy. The whole world is so greedy for more bathtubs that it has lost the stability necessary to build them, or even to turn off the tap. Nothing could be more salutary at this stage than a little healthy contempt for a plethora of material blessings.

And from the Center for a New American Dream, a page of ideas on living better, with less stuff.

http://www.newdream.org/live/

A step towards socialism: Land redistribution in Venezuela

2007-05-17T21:04:00.000-05:00

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is taking privately owned idle farmland and creating farming cooperatives, as part of his plans to reduce the amount of food Venezuela imports and to construct a "socialist fatherland."

So far, opinions of the redistribution are predictably mixed, or at least you'd think so by reading New York Times. The landowners and the wealthy naturally hate it, but Chavez remains popular on the whole. The landowners make up a small minority of the total population (around 3% own 77% of the land, according to Greg Palast for commondreams.org), a fraction that is greatly overrepresented in the New York Times article, which offers four quotations by former landowners, and only two short quotations by co-op members.

The NYT article also reports that the plan for Venezuela to grow more of its own food may not be working and cites recent sugar shortages, even though a few paragraphs earlier in the article, it states that the co-ops are replanting sugar cane fields with crops that are more suitable for the area, like corn and manioc. The Times does not comment on whether production of those crops has increased or not.

Surprisingly, the Washington Post paints a clearer, if somewhat reluctant, picture of just how popular Chavez is in Venezuela, citing his "overwhelming re-election" in December and the modest economic headway he's made on reducing poverty and creating jobs.

I'll be interested in seeing not only how this story unfolds, but also in how the media chooses to cover it.

More Talk, Less Action!

2007-05-16T10:01:00.000-05:00

On Monday, President Bush gave a speech in the Rose Garden about reducing gasoline use in this country. Funny how "it's important the president hear from all sides on this in a reasoned and deliberative fashion," according to Bob Greco of the American Petroleum Institute, in this interview from Marketplace on American Public Media. Considering all sides, thinking things through, and moving cautiously have never seemed to be priorities for President Bush before.

Lots of gems on the speech in this piece by CNN Student News. A few years ago, you'd rarely hear this kind of criticism of the president on CNN. But now that he's an unpopular president, they're all over it. My how CNN has changed its tack.

(CNN Student News) -- May 15, 2007

Transcript

First Up: Fuel-Saving Drive

ELIAS: First up today, President Bush is looking for ways to help the environment. He wants new rules for fuel efficiency and vehicle emissions in place by the time he leaves office in January 2009. So he's ordering several agencies to start working on the plans to make it happen. CNN's Ed Henry was at the White House for the president's announcement Monday, and he talked to Wolf Blitzer about it afterward.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ED HENRY, CNN REPORTER: Clearly there's a legal reason: the Supreme Court ruling last month that the federal government has to regulate these greenhouse gases. But clearly also a political reason: the White House nervous about the fact that the national average for gasoline has now climbed above $3 per gallon. Also in some areas it's climbing up close to $4 a gallon. That's worrisome. But it sounded like more talk from the president today in the Rose Garden, really no new action.

The president signing an executive order that merely directs the relevant cabinet secretaries to take the "first steps" towards reducing gasoline consumption, but actually not doing anything to reduce that consumption. The president kept using the word "action" in the Rose Garden, as if that would make it seem like there was some new action. But his own press secretary Tony Snow admitted that in the short term, this will do nothing to help consumers.

U.S. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The American people expect common sense and they expect action. The policies I've laid out have got a lot of common sense to them. It makes sense to do what I proposed, and we're taking action by taking the first steps toward rules that will make our economy stronger, our environment cleaner and our nation more secure for generations to come.

TONY SNOW, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: No, it's not going to have an immediate effect. On the other hand, if you take a look at what the president has been proposing for a long time, this president had proposed an energy policy upon taking office and it took years to get Congress to act on it.

HENRY: Now, the White House clearly trying to shift the blame to Congress there. But up until January of course it was a Republican Congress, Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: So what's the chance, what's the likelihood that Congress will pass legislation that the president will sign into law that will have a significant impact?

HENRY: Well, very little chance right now. The president saying today that he's directing his cabinet secretaries to use as a starting point his 20-in-10 plan. That's the plan to cut federal consumption by 20 percent in the next 10 years. When you know, he unveiled it in January in his State of the Union, the last four months there has been very little action. Something to pay attention to: The president in the Rose Garden today said he wants his cabinet secretaries to deal with this by the end of 2008 in terms of the legal maneuvering and what not. What's significant about that? By 2008, the end there, we'll have a new president-elect. So it really looks like he's kicking this to the next administration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Apple and Greenpeace

2007-05-15T09:15:00.000-05:00

In response to being ranked dead last on a Greenpeace list of the environmental friendliness of 14 electronics companies, Steve Jobs posted a letter on the Apple site about the company's green plans and current policies.

It's better than nothing, but it would still be nice if they made it easier for people to get products repaired, especially iPods. Right now, once an iPod stops working or the battery dies, you either have to figure out how to fix it or change the battery yourself, or get a new one because Apple won't service them.

And in the Greenpeace response to Jobs' letter, they note that while Apple is phasing many toxic chemicals out of their products and offering recycling to customers in the US, the recycling program may not extend to people in other countries and the company still has plenty of room for improvement.

Bike to Work Week

2007-05-15T08:52:00.000-05:00

This week is bike to work week around the country and this Friday (May 18) is Bike to Work Day. I've started riding my bike to work a few times a week. It's about 5 miles each way and it only takes me about 10 minutes longer than it would to drive and find parking. The ride is nice and I've seen a few fawns and even a bright yellow tortoise, but what I like most is how much more energy I have and how much more focused I feel on those days. Today I didn't ride and I feel like I'm still not totally awake.

More info

Info on the DC area Bike to Work Day

Re: Planktos to dump iron around the Galapagos

2007-05-12T15:00:00.000-05:00

wdk posted the comment below in response to my post about Planktos dumping iron near the Galapagos and I thought it was worth posting for a couple of reasons.

First, I suspected that it was a generic form letter the company posts to blogs critical of their policy. A quick Google search confirmed my suspicions. You can find the same comment, pretty much word for word, after articles questioning Planktos's plans on RealClimate and on Grist.

Second, I'd like to respond to comments. Mine (in white) are below the comments from wdk (in grey).

Finally, the following sites provide more in-depth and scientific analyses of the plan to dump iron in the oceans than I can.

ETC Group

Blog about chemical and ecological effects of iron fertilization

Real Climate

As a Planktos member, would like to assure J that our initial pilot project will be conducted over 300 miles west of the Galapagos islands and will in no way affect that area. The Galapagos waters have their own coastal shelf iron sources and thus harbor one of the healthiest ecosystems in the Pacific. It is the open ocean or pelagic waters out to the west and north that are increasingly anemic and lifeless and in need of a little help.

While 300 miles from the coast of the Galapagos may seem like it's far enough to be a safe distance, the ocean is a highly interconnected system. Oil from the Exxon Valdez spill traveled over 600 miles. Admittedly, oil, which floats on the surface of water and is more susceptible to being blown by wind, is not perfectly analagous to iron. But the oil spill was about 11 million gallons of oil (roughly 37,400 tons, converted here), where Planktos is planning to dump several hundred thousand tons (see below).

Even if the iron doesn't make it to the Galapagos ecosystem, the ecosystem where the dumping occurs is still valuable and not some giant lab to test out what is as of yet an unproven theory. Eighteen years after the Exxon Valdez, the damage still hasn't been completely repaired. I'm afraid to speculate how long it would take the ocean to recover from dumping several hundred thousand tons of iron into it. As someone who has done research in the Galapagos and witnessed firsthand the rare biodiversity and untouched beauty of the area, I'm even more afraid that damage to it would be irreversible.

The big story missed by both reporters and commentators alike on this subject thus far is that plankton restoration is not just about carbon credit economics or the threat of global warming. It's about an already ongoing catastrophic die-off in the sea. The establishment science community studies cited below are only a sample of recent research indicating that the ocean phytoplankton which produce most of the planet's oxygen, sequester an equal measure of its CO2 and feed every higher form of ocean life are disappearing at a shocking rate. According to NASA we have lost 6~12% of these vital plants globally just since 1980 and according to Behrenfeld's 12/06 Nature report there are now 50% die-offs in huge areas of the equatorial Pacific.

(The knock-on effects of this decline are immediate and tragic. The phytoplankton-dependent krill populations in the Southern Ocean which are the staple food of all the great baleen whales are now down by 80% and the shortfall is now also starving local fish species, penguins and seals.)

Restoring open ocean plankton populations to known 1980 levels of health would not only annually sequester at minimum 3~4 billion tons of atmospheric CO2 (or half our global warming surplus today), it would regenerate tens of billions of tons of missing nourishment for fisheries, seabirds and marine mammals.

And this restoration can be quickly and affordably accomplished, just by replenishing missing iron micronutrients to the sea. The iron was traditionally delivered to the open ocean in wind-borne dust from arid lands which has now been depleted by 30% or more by modern agricultural practices and the increased levels of atmospheric CO2 (which allow grasses to live longer, spread further, and anchor more iron-rich topsoil dust).

I recognize that trying to repair the ecosystem is a worthy goal. However, pretty much any time we've tried to throw chemicals at an ecosystem or a biological system we've damaged or want to control, the results have been disastrous. See also: DDT and other pesticides, BGH, antibiotics, fertilizers...

Each molecule of iron returned can fix over 100,000 molecules of CO2 and generate a proportionate amount of nutritive biomass. While nearly 80% of that is recycled in the marine food web, 20% or more disappears into the deep ocean for centuries or millennia.

In other words, at maximum efficiency it would only take several hundred thousand tons (or about two supertankers full) of iron dust to restore the lost plankton to 1980 levels and solve half our global warming surplus, too. More likely until the technology is perfected, it will take a small fleet of research ships working with several times more dust to accomplish this task, but still we are talking a very feasible challenge that would at most be reseeding less than 2% of surface ocean waters.

If we undertake this for the benefit of sea life and the climate and stop at the known 1980 baseline, where is the harm? Iron restoration simply replenishes a vital micronutrient that human activity has dangerously diminished.

We have caused these crises and to attempt to resolve them in most natural and benign way available is not geoengineering, it's generally known as restitution, healing or just merciful common sense.

It's gratifying that the carbon credit market has arisen to underwrite the needed restoration activity, because no one was lifting a finger or spending a cent to address these die-offs before. If you oppose restoration now simply because it may finally be both possible and profitable, you might as well also oppose the practice of medicine, environmental law and public health.

I don't oppose the plan because it's profitable (I am actually starting business school in the fall and hope to work with companies to make it profitable for them to act responsibly on social, environmental, and animal rights issues). I oppose the Planktos plan because it's untested and totally irresponsible, and, if it damages the oceans, the ecosystem and the people of Ecuador will have to pay for the mistakes of Planktos, who will get off scot-free.

Also, none of the articles listed below even suggests that the solution to the problem is just dumping hundreds of thousands of tons iron in the ocean; they simply state the deficiency.

OCEAN PLANT LIFE SLOWS DOWN AND ABSORBS LESS CARBON
NASA News, September 16, 2003
"This research shows ocean primary productivity is declining, and it may be a result of climate changes such as increased temperatures and decreased iron deposition into parts of the oceans. This has major implications for the global carbon cycle," Gregg said. Iron from trans-continental dust clouds is an important nutrient for phytoplankton, and when lacking can keep populations from growing... the amount of iron deposited from desert dust clouds into the global oceans decreased by 25 percent over two decades. These dust clouds blow across the oceans. Reductions in NPP in the South Pacific were associated with a 35 percent decline in atmospheric iron deposition.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/2003/2003091615946.html

[IRON STRESSED] PLANKTON FOUND TO ABSORB LESS CARBON DIOXIDE, BBC, 08/30/06
The amount of carbon absorbed by plant plankton in large segments of the Pacific Ocean is much less than previously estimated, researchers say. US scientists said the tiny ocean plants were absorbing up to two billion tonnes less CO2 because their growth was being limited by a lack of iron.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5298004.stm

The evidence in the BBC article even points against dumping more iron in to absorb carbon:

The studies showed that it did boost phytoplankton growth, but it did not deliver the results that models had predicted.

Professor Behrenfeld said introducing iron was complex: "When you first do it, there is an explosion of growth.

"Then you add a bit more iron, and the phytoplankton respond a bit more," he said. "But at the same time you are promoting plankton growth, the grazers that feed on them come to life because they suddenly have a more abundant food supply."

ANEMIC PHYTOPLANKTON ABSORB LESS CARBON THAN THOUGHT
By JR Minkel, Science News
Phytoplankton in the Pacific Ocean are starved for iron, and as a result these microscopic plants soak up less of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide than was previously thought, researchers have found.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=0000424F-D77A-14F5-977A83414B7F0000

PLANKTON KILLED BY OCEAN WARMING
SYDNEY: Plankton - the vital first link in the food chain of the seas - will be hugely affected by global warming, a new U.S. study suggests. Plankton forms the main food of many ocean species, and fisheries could be badly hit by the loss of these micro-organisms as a result of warmer waters, according to the paper, published this week in the British journal Nature... Other factors that influence phytoplankton growth include [iron] dust blown from the land, and variations in solar radiation.
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/908

EFFECT OF NATURAL IRON FERTILIZATION ON CARBON SEQUESTRATION IN THE SOUTHERN OCEAN
Nature, Vol 446|26 April 2007| doi:10.1038/nature05700
The efficiency of fertilization, defined as the ratio of the carbon export to the amount of
iron supplied, was at least ten times higher than previous estimates from short-term blooms induced by iron-addition experiments. This result sheds new light on the effect of long-term fertilization by iron and macronutrients on carbon sequestration, suggesting
that changes in iron supply from below—as invoked in some palaeoclimatic and future climate change scenarios11—may have a more significant effect on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations than previously thought.

OCEAN GOBBLES CARBON AT DIFFERENT RATES
NewScientist.com news service
26 April 2007
Dead plankton does not sink at the same rate everywhere in the Pacific Ocean, say researchers. The new findings will boost our understanding of the supply chain to the world's biggest carbon sink - the bottom of the ocean. [Shows 20~50% of dying plankton take their carbon below 1000 meters into the millennial sequestration zone.]
http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn11725

Alice Waters and Chez Panisse on NPR

2007-05-11T08:55:00.000-05:00

A couple weeks ago Renee Montaigne did a segment on NPR's Morning Edition about Alice Waters' restaurant, Chez Panisse in Berkeley, which is all about local organic food. It's worth a listen.

Emerson quotation

2007-05-08T09:48:00.000-05:00

Last night I was reading The Omnivore's Dilemma and Michael Pollan quotes this line by Emerson:

You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is
concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.

Letter to John Mayer

2007-05-06T16:38:00.000-05:00

I just emailed this to John Mayer (john@johnmayer.com) in response to the Waiting on the World to Change blog entry on his website.

Dear John,

I couldn't believe your blog entry on Light Green. Not only is it just plain wrong that we only have to get the lines on the charts to stop escalating (remember back in the 1980s when those lines were considerably lower and yet global warming was still a real threat?), it's completely irresponsible to spread that wrong information as though it's fact. And no, the lines don't literally have to drop by next Tuesday, but figuratively, yeah, they do. The window of time we have left before the damage done is truly irreversible is closing fast.

Also, I looked up the energy it takes to make a plastic bag, and it's about 600 kilojoules per bag. The average household uses 10 bags per week, or a little under 1000 per year, or 600,000 kJ of energy. Know what else uses about 600,000 kJ of energy? Just 4.5 gallons of gas (listed in calories here, converted to kJ here). So, by switching to reusable shopping bags, you're saving about the same amount of energy it would take to drive for a couple of hours in your Porsche, or in other words, not much. Or, put another way, one round-trip private chartered flight from LA to DC takes around 4500 gallons of jet fuel, or about 1000 times as much energy as you're saving by not using plastic grocery bags in a year.

So, while I think it's great you want to take a laidback approach to environmentalism, and using reusable grocery bags is a great start, I think encouraging people to be complacent on environmental issues could do more harm than good. I encourage you not to make real changes in your lifestyle, which is up to you, but to stop spreading misinformation and complacency.

Best,
j

Plantkos to dump iron around the Galapagos

2007-05-05T15:34:00.000-05:00

A company called Planktos is planning to dump loads of iron into the sea near the Galapagos in order to absorb carbon dioxide (see article for details). Great. Haven't we learned that nature isn't a simple equation in which you can just substitute a couple of variables and end up with the same equation?

And we're going to test an experiement which is likely to be environmentally disastrous in one of the most pristine areas in the world? Even better.

Of course, as the Grist article notes, Planktos won't bear any responsibility if the experiment harms the environment.

Click here to give Planktos a piece of your mind.

Paul Watson on Whales

2007-05-05T15:25:00.000-05:00

This is a really interesting and inspiring speech by Paul Watson, an animal rights activist who protects whales by sinking ships. He's been called an ecoterrorist (a term that is questionable at best, anyway), but he asserts that his actions are legal under international law, and in fact has never been convicted of a crime. He and his organization have also never injured a single person while protecting animals.

Makes me want to get up and throw myself between a whale and a harpoon.

Yama LLama

2007-05-05T12:59:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I asked one of my friends if she was interested in coming to a film screening that was part of the events for Global Days for Darfur. She friend emailed back, "Sounds interesting! Unfortunately I have kickball every Monday," without any apparent sense of irony, as though I'd asked her to join a knitting club rather than go to a fundraiser to help stop genocide. A few weeks before that, I asked one of my coworkers if he'd be interested in taking a shift at the soup kitchen where our office volunteers once a month. He said something to the effect of, "No thanks, I donate blood," as if there's only so much he's willing to contribute to the community. And then I saw this nauseating post by John Mayer on the Grist site.

In a recent speech Paul Watson mentioned a line by Leonard Cohen, "You are locked into your suffering and your pleasures are the seal." Except that I think maybe that by pursuing our pleasures, we're locking other people into suffering. Of course it's more fun to play kickball than to watch documentaries about the genocide of people halfway around the world. Is she any worse off for her choice? Probably not, provided she can justify her decision and quiet her conscience. But she's certainly not going out of her way to help the people of Sudan. Is John Mayer doing anything to prevent global warming by switching to reusable grocery bags while continuining to drive an SUV and flying a private charter? Nope. He's just figured out a way to stroke his ego enough that he can not only continue to pollute and to feel good about it, but also to encourage others to do the same.

I am afraid of falling into that trap of complacency, and so I've decided to actively work to change my lifestyle so that the decisions I make help, or at least harm as little as possible, other people, animals, and the environment. I've also gone back to being vegetarian after a couple years of being a bit lax, and I'm moving towards a vegan diet. I'm trying to research companies before I buy from them, buy used when possible, and just to consume less overall. Of course, I'm not perfect. I check celebrity blogs first when I get to work, not news sites. I still have a Diet Coke a few afternoons each week, even though I know Coca-Cola is involved in questionable practices. I sometimes drive when I could probably walk. But I am trying to change.

Nor am I against having fun. It's great my friend enjoys kickball and it's nice that John Mayer wants to make environmentalism lighthearted. But I think there's got to be a better balance between fun and making responsible choices.

So I'm also working to become more involved in the issues I think are important by learning more about them, taking part in local events, contributing when I can to non-profits, and volunteering at the local soup kitchen, animal shelter, and the Center for the New American Dream. And I've decided to be more vocal about social, environmental, and animal rights issues I think are important. I'm speaking up at work, in class, and with friends where before I was worried about seeming too radical. This blog is part of that effort to share what I believe in.

When I figuring out what to call this blog, I knew I wanted a name that would sum up, in a word or two, the philosophy that ties together my views on seemingly unrelated topics. And the definition of yama on the Yoga Journal website does just that. And I just like the word llama. Plus, they're pretty darn cute.

Yama

The first limb, yama, deals with one's ethical standards and sense of integrity, focusing on our behavior and how we conduct ourselves in life. Yamas are universal practices that relate best to what we know as the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." The five yamas are:

Ahimsa: nonviolence

Satya: truthfulness

Asteya: nonstealing

Brahmacharya: continence [also defined as self-restraint]

Aparigraha: noncovetousness