In the wake of the current credit and banking crises, many pundits have been predicting that the presidential candidates will have to curb their proposed spending plans drastically when the winner takes office in January. With home foreclosures skyrocketing, pumping money towards renewable energy may seem like a luxury. Yet, an investment in these technologies could create jobs and set us on the path to energy independence. Though the initial investment might be high, the cost of feeding our oil addiction may prove much higher.

Aside from voting and petitioning our state and federal representatives, there’s little we can do as individuals to impact federal spending on eco-friendly options. However, on a micro level, we have a chance to save both money and the earth through the many little (and the few big) choices we make on a daily basis. Just as with the federal government’s expenditures, being “green” may cost a little more up front, but could save us money in the long run.

In a recent piece at Grist, Miles Grant observes notes an obvious parallel between tips to help you save money - and tips to help you save the environment:

Who are you to deny me my two-car garage filled with junk, an elegant dining room I’ll never use, and massive heating/cooling bills?

That’s the basic response from critics when greens question McMansions in particular and our consumer culture in general. I mean, isn’t newer, bigger, better the American way? Didn’t President Bush urge us to go shopping more?

But one financial advisor says trying to look rich by buying so much stuff is keeping some Americans from being rich. And while he never once mentions the environment, his prescriptions for building your savings have a lot in common with tips for cutting your environmental impact.

Being green and being frugal aren’t mutually exclusive, you see. Oftentimes, the two go hand in hand.

This year’s Blog Action theme is poverty; because I’m all about intersecting oppressions (such as classism, environmental destruction and the role of the megatheocorporatocracy in each), I thought I might offer some food-related tips for positively impacting your cash flow and your ecological imprint. Since we’re in the midst of the Vegan Month of Foods - for which I’ve been baking, cooking, drying and otherwise experimenting like mad - I’d like to focus on food, specifically, how one can eat green to save green.

(More below the fold…)

Writer-slash-environmentalist Nick Jans gives us an Alaskan’s view of Sarah Palin and her run for the White House.

It’s a great piece - really, I could excerpt the whole damn thing - but this piece in particular is worth noting:

Palin pushed hard, along with sport hunting and guiding interests, to help defeat a ballot initiative that would have stopped the state’s current aerial wolf control program, which had been criticized by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council for flawed science. Now her administration has pointedly refused to respond to repeated public information requests (I’m one of the petitioners, and a potential litigant), regarding the apparently illegal killing of 14 wolf pups at their dens on the Alaska Peninsula this spring by state personnel, including two high-level Department of Fish and Game administrators. A biologist at the scene admitted to an independent wolf scientist that the 6-week-old pups were held down and shot in the head, one by one. This inhumane practice, known as “denning,” has been illegal for 40 years. But a simple request for information on the details of this operation, including to what extent the governor was involved in the decision, has resulted in a typical Palinesque roadblock and a string of untruths.

Sarah Palin, “my friends,” is a “pro-life,” God-fearing evangelical. And yet (according to her and hers), it’s atheists like moi who lack morals.

Anyway, Jans explains how Palin can claim to be a genuine Alaskan while simultaneously working to destroy the land she calls home, vis-à-vis her policy of pillaging the environment, to hell with the consequences:

In the broadest sense, Palin is a poseur. Alaska is too large and culturally diverse (it’s only a bit smaller than the entire lower 48 east of the Mississippi, and once was divided into four time zones) to be summed up by some abstract, romanticized notion. And even if it could be, it sure wouldn’t be symbolized by Palin. “The typical Alaskan? She couldn’t be farther from it,” says Alaska House Minority Leader Beth Kertulla.

Still, Palin is a genuine Alaskan — of a kind. The kind that flowed north in the wake of the ’70s oil boom, Bible Belt politics and attitudes under arm, and transformed this state from a free-thinking, independent bastion of genuine libertarianism and individuality into a reactionary fundamentalist enclave with dollar signs in its eyes and an all-for-me mentality.

Palin’s Alaska is embodied in Wasilla, a blue-collar, sharp-elbowed town of burgeoning big box stores, suburban subdivisions, evangelical pocket churches and car dealerships morphing across the landscape, outward from Anchorage, the state’s urban epicenter. She has lived in Wasilla practically all her life, and even now resides there, the first Alaska executive to eschew the white-pillared mansion in Juneau, down on the Southeast Panhandle.

Go read the whole thing.

Note to the rest of the Salon staff: this is a perfect example of how to criticize a female politician without resorting to misogyny and sexist slurs. It’s the policies, stupid! (As opposed to, you know, the vag-n-mams.)

(Crossposted to.)

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Tagged: animals animal rights animal welfare 2008 elections sarah palin wolves aerial hutnign hunting aerial gunning denning pups wolf pups environment alaska nick jans

While I love that your latest issue features a cover story on “funny girls” Sarah Silverman, Margaret Cho and Kirsten Schaal, I’m less than amused by your “green party” menu, which reads as follows:

Bread and cheese
Maple-glazed acorn squash
Green beans with onion sprinkles
Golden-crusted Brussels sprouts
Turkey with gravy
Sage, walnut, and dried-fig stuffing
Rosemary-garlic mashed potatoes
Cranberry sauce
Pumpkin pie
Vanilla ice cream with ginger-pear preserves
Artisanal dark chocolate bars
Hot apple cider
Beer, red wine, and sparkling cider

Turkey, cheese and ice cream are not “green” - not even close. Factory farmed cows - you know, the milk machines who produce all those bodily secretions found in your dairy products? - are, according to the U.N., “responsible for 18% of greenhouse gases, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.”

As summarized at treehugger, the U.N. also reports that:

“Ranching, the report adds, is “the major driver of deforestation” worldwide, and overgrazing is turning a fifth of all pastures and ranges into desert.Cows also soak up vast amounts of water: it takes a staggering 990 litres of water to produce one litre of milk.

Wastes from feedlots and fertilisers used to grow their feed overnourish water, causing weeds to choke all other life. And the pesticides, antibiotics and hormones used to treat them get into drinking water and endanger human health.

The pollution washes down to the sea, killing coral reefs and creating “dead zones” devoid of life. One is up to 21,000sqkm, in the Gulf of Mexico, where much of the waste from US beef production is carried down the Mississippi.”

Dairy is not “green.” I repeat: Dairy. Is. Not. Green.

Now let’s talk turkey - which, ahem, isn’t green, either.

(More below the fold…)

Via the Arizona chapter of the Sierra Club, by way of Deb at Invisible Voices, an eloquent illustration of intersecting “isms.” In this case, racism/xenophobia (”ZOMG! ILLEGAL ALIENZ!!!1!!1!”) and speciesism (”ZUH? THERE ARE ANIMALS ON TEH BORDER?”):

(More below the fold…)

A 26-year ban on offshore oil drilling will be dropped as part of a year-end spending bill, said House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey.

Eliminating the ban will allow the measure, which funds government operations through March 6, to get through Congress and be signed into law by President George W. Bush, Obey said.

“At least temporarily, the moratorium is lifted,” Obey told reporters. “This next election will decide what our drilling policy is going to be.”

Ah, right. “Just elect Obama, and then we’ll reinstate the ban. Trust us.”

Because the Dems have been all about wish fulfillment and promises kept. I mean, look at how well y’all have served the base since your 2006 mandate!

Not to mention, Obama’s a big flip flippity flip flopper on the issue:

The bill would end a months-long fight over the drilling moratorium. The push to end the ban picked up in July as the price of oil hit a record $147.27 per barrel and the average pump price of gasoline topped out at $4.11 per gallon. Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain both altered their positions on the matter, saying they would support new offshore drilling.

Heh, yeah, right. I’ll trust Obama. About as much as I’ll trust the guy to defend my civil liberties or maintain that pesky wall separating church and state. Which is to say, not at all.

The announcement was hailed by Republicans. “House Republicans have fought for months to lift these outdated bans on American energy production, and the capitulation by Democrats today is a big victory for working families, seniors, and small businesses struggling with record gasoline prices,” said House Republican Leader John Boehner, of Ohio.

Capitulation? Totally. Victory for working families? Eh, not so much.

And now that the goal post’s been moved, I guess it’s onward to ANWR for the asses and their Republican overlords.

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Tagged: offshore oil drilling oil drilling republicans democrats environment wtf 2008 elections

“The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has estimated that direct emissions from meat production account for about 18% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions. So I want to highlight the fact that among options for mitigating climate change, changing diets is something one should consider.”

- Dr. Rajendra Pachauri,chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in an interview with BBC News.

The BCC explains the 18% figure further:

The FAO figure of 18% includes greenhouse gases released in every part of the meat production cycle - clearing forested land, making and transporting fertiliser, burning fossil fuels in farm vehicles, and the front and rear end emissions of cattle and sheep.

The contributions of the three main greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide - are roughly equivalent, the FAO calculates.

Transport, by contrast, accounts for just 13% of humankind’s greenhouse gas footprint, according to the IPCC.

So unless you start your day with a nice plate of Tofu Scrambles and Smart Bacon, don’t waste your afternoon harassing Hummer owners. You’re not walking the ethical high road either, my friend.

Seriously. Change? Starts on your plate. Emphasis on your.

(H/t, Vegan Bits.)

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Tagged: environment climate change meat food vegan veganism vegetarian vegetarianism livestock farmed animals factory farming

Speaking of commercials that raise my hackles:

Obviously, that’s a not the real ad, but rather a version made by a film student. (Betty Crocker features the real spot on their website, but with no option to embed; you can view it here.) I’ve yet to decide whether said film student is poking fun at the product, or if this is a genuine attempt at marketing useless merchandise to lazy, wasteful Americans.

Because that plastic? Um, it’s not really reusable like the bowl and utensils you’d normally use to mix your pancake ingredients. Even if you recycle it (assuming it’s recyclable; I wouldn’t have any idea, since I’ve never so much as ladyhandled the bottle in the grocery store), the recycling process itself consumes energy.

So take the extra five minutes to mix your own damn pancake batter. And if you happen to use Bisquick, recycle the box please.

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Tagged: environment commercial betty crocker bisquick plastic recycle reuse shake and pour pancakes wasteful consumption video

Every time I spot this commercial from Discover Card on the teevee, I throw up in my mouth a little.

“We are a nation of consumers. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”

OK, Discover Card marketing peoples, I’ll bite. Yes, ’tis true, we are a nation of consumers. But this isn’t something we should boast about, so much as be ashamed of. Rather than brag about our astounding levels of consumption, we should be striving to reduce the amount we consume. The last thing we need is a bank encouraging us to buy more, more, more. (But encouraging us to save money by - gasp! - not spending money wouldn’t much help fatten Discover’s pocketbooks, would it?)

We’re a nation of consumers. And if we continue on our current path, we’ll consume the earth - as in, all of it - in less than 50 years:

Let’s put this in perspective. Earth has about 22 billion acres of ecologically productive land. This is comprised of about 3.3 billion acres of arable and crop land, 8.4 billion acres of pasture land, and 10.1 billion acres of forest land. Not all of the arable land is of high quality, and improving agricultural productivity by use of fertilizers and insecticides, or shifting to monocultural forestry, affects ecosystems in other, often deleterious, ways. Expansion of land use in any of those categories can only be done at the expense of one of the other categories, and development of the land for human structures of all kinds competes for this same area. Not only that, but we have to share this land with the other organisms on Earth who might not be able to tolerate our land use ‘improvement’ measures, or to survive as a group as environmental fragmentation becomes extensive.

If we maintain our current footprint and the human population of 2050 (estimated at 9 billion) reaches consumption levels similar to ours, which is a practical goal for the developing world, humanity would need 13.5 billion acres of land for food production and 14.4 billion acres for wood products on a steady-state basis to be sustainable, and we would have degraded about 3.6 billion acres for human structures. For humans alone, excluding the needs of other organisms, there is not that much land available simply by considering these three computable sorts of personal footprints!

Furthermore, the food footprint calculations cited above used U.S. yields, which are significantly higher than average global yields. If global yields were used in those calculations, our food footprints would be closer to 3 acres. Earth’s carrying capacity for a population with 3-acre food footprints might be no more than about 4 billion people (12 billion acres of arable, crop and pasture land ÷ 3). Each year more of our most productive farmland is buried under human structures, and both good and marginal farmland becomes unusable due to poor farming practices, so even the estimate of a sustainable carrying capacity of 4 billion people eating and living as we do may be high.

So yeah, there’s something seriously fucking wrong with that.

By the by, is “saving by spending” the private sector’s version of “sacrificing by consuming”?

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Tagged: discover card consumption credit card capitalism environment ecological footprint video

Lest y’all think I do nothing but hate on Obama, allow me the chance to give props where props are due:

At a town hall meeting in Berea, Ohio, [Tuesday], Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, pushed back against the GOP attack on his advice to a voter last week that having a tuned up car and fully inflated tires would help save energy.

“Let me make a point about efficiency, because my Republican opponents - they don’t like to talk about efficiency,” Obama said.

“You know the other day I was in a town hall meeting and I laid out my plans for investing $15 billion a year in energy efficient cars and a new electricity grid and somebody said, ‘well, what can I do? what can individuals do?’ Obama recalled.

“So I told them something simple,” Obama said. “I said, ‘You know what? You can inflate your tires to the proper levels…” [...]

“So now the Republicans are going around - this is the kind of thing they do. I don’t understand it! They’re going around, they’re sending like little tire gauges, making fun of this idea as if this is ‘Barack Obama’s energy plan.’

“Now two points, one, they know they’re lying about what my energy plan is, but the other thing is they’re making fun of a step that every expert says would absolutely reduce our oil consumption by 3 to 4 percent. It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant.

“You know, they think it is funny that they are making fun of something that is actually true. They need to do their homework. Because this is serious business. Instead of running ads about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears they should go talk to some energy experts and actually make a difference.”

It’s also funny-yet-sad because McCain claims to support a comprehensive energy policy, i.e., one that includes conservation. You know, like keeping your tires properly inflated so you conserve gas and shit.

Obama touched on this point again today, and also took the opportunity to mock McCain for his undeserved “Maverick” moniker:

(More below the fold…)

Ladies and gentlemen:

There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of life depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to the challenge of a present danger. In such moments, we are called upon to move quickly and boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside old habits and rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of big changes. Those who, for whatever reason, refuse to do their part must either be persuaded to join the effort or asked to step aside. This is such a moment. The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk. And even more - if more should be required - the future of human civilization is at stake.

I don’t remember a time in our country when so many things seemed to be going so wrong simultaneously. Our economy is in terrible shape and getting worse, gasoline prices are increasing dramatically, and so are electricity rates. Jobs are being outsourced. Home mortgages are in trouble. Banks, automobile companies and other institutions we depend upon are under growing pressure. Distinguished senior business leaders are telling us that this is just the beginning unless we find the courage to make some major changes quickly.

The climate crisis, in particular, is getting a lot worse - much more quickly than predicted. Scientists with access to data from Navy submarines traversing underneath the North polar ice cap have warned that there is now a 75 percent chance that within five years the entire ice cap will completely disappear during the summer months. This will further increase the melting pressure on Greenland. According to experts, the Jakobshavn glacier, one of Greenland’s largest, is moving at a faster rate than ever before, losing 20 million tons of ice every day, equivalent to the amount of water used every year by the residents of New York City.

Two major studies from military intelligence experts have warned our leaders about the dangerous national security implications of the climate crisis, including the possibility of hundreds of millions of climate refugees destabilizing nations around the world.

Just two days ago, 27 senior statesmen and retired military leaders warned of the national security threat from an “energy tsunami” that would be triggered by a loss of our access to foreign oil. Meanwhile, the war in Iraq continues, and now the war in Afghanistan appears to be getting worse.

And by the way, our weather sure is getting strange, isn’t it? There seem to be more tornadoes than in living memory, longer droughts, bigger downpours and record floods. Unprecedented fires are burning in California and elsewhere in the American West. Higher temperatures lead to drier vegetation that makes kindling for mega-fires of the kind that have been raging in Canada, Greece, Russia, China, South America, Australia and Africa. Scientists in the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Science at Tel Aviv University tell us that for every one degree increase in temperature, lightning strikes will go up another 10 percent. And it is lightning, after all, that is principally responsible for igniting the conflagration in California today.

Like a lot of people, it seems to me that all these problems are bigger than any of the solutions that have thus far been proposed for them, and that’s been worrying me.

(More below the fold…)