Save the frogs!

Image via Wikipedia

Frog Day

For many frogs, it's the worst of times.
Take the Poison dart frog, for example--the most poisonous vertebrae in the world. These tiny frogs contain enough alkaloid poison in their skin to kill around fifteen people, or two adult elephants. Despite this deterrent, these frogs, native to the forests of South America, are being wiped out as their habitat slowly disappears. On the other end of the extreme, there's the Goliath frog of west Africa, the world's largest frog. Humans eating them or taking them as pets, not to mention habitat loss, has dwindled their numbers as well. So is the case for many frog species around the world, which, for various reasons, have seen their populations plummeting in the last few decades.

Intended to raise awareness of these dramatic frog declines, today is Save the Frogs Day. Although only in its second year, events to mark the occasion will be taking place around the world in twenty countries. According to founder Dr. Kerry Kriger, the popularity of Save the Frogs Day shows that people are beginning to understand the importance of preserving our amphibian friends.

This is one of the most significant environmental issues of the 21st century. Save The Frogs Day is all about people stepping up, getting involved, and taking action in their own community, and that's exactly what is happening.

I love frogs and toads (evidenced by my frog tattoo). They are clearly indicator species. Saving them may just save us.

A Zen Slap

Will The BP Oil Spill Be Our Collective Zen Slap Into Eco-Realization?

Is this synchronicity or what? In the span of a several weeks we have not one, not two, not three, but four disasters (disruptions, accidents, call them what you will) that really ought to be a big old cosmic Zen slap on the back jolting us into eco-realization. We even have an vision of the way forward plopped right into the middle of it all. The question that remains: Will the slap be hard enough to make us see what future is right in front of us, if we want it?

We had the coal mine tragedy. Volcano. Earth Day. And now - oil washing up on shore.

When it comes down to it, it's at least partially because we simply don't recognize the inherent right of species other than our own to exist. The value of the Gulf of Mexico is only calculated in monetary terms, in relation to the utility to humans. That perspective simple has got to change. We can no longer act in the world like homo sapiens is the only species that matters, that has inherent rights.

That's the big eco-realization that could happen out of all these events. It's the one that has to happen (and truth be told I'm convinced it will eventually...) if we are to live in an ecologically sustainable way, one which doesn't consume resources equal to multiple planets while living on one. But I don't expect us to collectively wake up right now.

The smaller eco-realization, the one which really could happen because of the events of March/April 2010, the one potential possibility realistically brought about by this cosmic slap, is that we truly turn away from fossil fuel addiction, admit we have a problem and embark on a green twelve step program. Check ourselves into rehab and reassess the path we're on.

Let's hope the slap moves us to one of these options.

A war on Climate Change?

33 US Military Generals, Admirals: "Climate Change is Threatening America's Security"

The Pentagon has already made it well known that it considers climate change a grave national security threat, and recently the US military already pointed out that the world may face severe oil shortages as soon as 2015. But now, in what's being hailed as an "unprecedented" show of support for climate action, 33 retired US military generals and admirals have united to alert the public and our legislators that "climate change is making the world a more dangerous place." They should know -- they've seen its effects firsthand.

As long as they don't invade to capture oil fields.

All the dirt

We're Running Out of Soil

John Jeavons is saving the planet one scoop of applesauce at a time. Jeavons stands at the front of the classroom at Ecology Action, the experimental farm he founded on the side of a mountain above Willits, in Northern California’s Mendocino County. For every tablespoon of food he sucks down his gullet, he scoops up six spoonfuls of dirt, one at a time for dramatic effect, and dumps them into another bowl. It’s a stark message he’s trying to get across to the 35 people who have come from around the country to get a tour of his farm -- simplified, to be sure, but comprehensible: For every unit of food we consume, using the conventional agricultural methods employed in the U.S., six times that amount of topsoil is lost. Since, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the average person eats a ton of food each year, that works out to 12,000 pounds (5,443 kilograms) of topsoil. John Jeavons estimates that using current farming practices we have 40 to 80 years of arable soil left.

If you don’t already know the bad news, I’ll make it quick and dirty: We’re running out of soil. As with other prominent resources that have accumulated over millions of years, we, the people of planet Earth, have been churning through the stuff that feeds us since the first Neolithic farmer broke the ground with his crude plow. The rate varies, the methods vary, but the results are eventually the same. Books like Jared Diamond’s Collapse and David Montgomery’s Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations lay out in painful detail the historic connections between soil depletion and the demise of those societies that undermined the ground beneath their feet....

...He enjoys working with the challenges of sub-optimal soil and limited sunlight, and is up-front about the fact that, by the standards of Grow Biointensive, as he calls his system, the gardens here are only moderately productive.

By the standards of the average visitor, however, the garden is exploding with life. Rye grass and Jerusalem artichoke wave across at beds of quinoa and amaranth. What looks like a casual paradise is actually a closely monitored science project. Every leaf that leaves the premises is weighed and recorded. Interns from around the world buzz through like bees, tending beds and fruit trees. The catch, if indeed it is a catch, is that Jeavons’ methods work best on a small scale, on relatively small plots of land, executed by people who are paying attention and care enough to expend the necessary labor. And while he believes his methods can be scaled up, his philosophy in general is that civilization needs to scale down, localize, put more elbow grease and less fossil fuel into the food chain.

At the heart of Jeavons’ system is a maniacal focus on composting. Now, when he uses the term he is not merely referring to the quaint re-circulation of leftover bits of lunch. Jeavons recommends that a gardener devote a full 60 percent of planting space to growing crops the principal purpose of which is to add biomass to compost piles. Cereal grains, giant overgrown daikon gone to seed and six-foot-tall (two-meter-tall) cardoons are among the many plants born to die and rot un-tasted, cut down and fed through the system, capturing more carbon with each generation.

Compost - build up the soils nutrients - make dirt!

Veggie Cheat Sheet

The Dirty Dozen

We have been trying to buy as many organic fruits and vegetables as we can, but the area we live in sometimes makes it a bit of a challenge. Our local grocery store has just started to carry a few organic items like strawberries and potatoes, so I almost always drive the 15-20 miles outside our town to get groceries elsewhere. Please keep in mind I do try and limit this trip to every other week, run other errands that are in the same area etc. It is not as if I say “oh we need organic strawberries, let me drive 15 miles for them” :)

That being said I wanted a handy way to remember the “dirty dozen” (or foods with the highest pesticide residue which was measured after washing and or peeling) and the “clean fifteen” (or foods with the lowest or no pesticide residue) Because sometimes I can’t find something organically and need to decide if I am still going to buy an onion or not ;) You can find lots of info on the tests etc by googling “dirty dozen organic”.

GMO and you

Genetically Modified Soy Linked to Sterility, Infant Mortality in Hamsters

"This study was just routine," said Russian biologist Alexey V. Surov, in what could end up as the understatement of this century. Surov and his colleagues set out to discover if Monsanto's genetically modified (GM) soy, grown on 91% of US soybean fields, leads to problems in growth or reproduction. What he discovered may uproot a multi-billion dollar industry.

After feeding hamsters for two years over three generations, those on the GM diet, and especially the group on the maximum GM soy diet, showed devastating results. By the third generation, most GM soy-fed hamsters lost the ability to have babies. They also suffered slower growth, and a high mortality rate among the pups.

And if this isn't shocking enough, some in the third generation even had hair growing inside their mouths—a phenomenon rarely seen, but apparently more prevalent among hamsters eating GM soy.

Alexey Surov says, "We have no right to use GMOs until we understand the possible adverse effects, not only to ourselves but to future generations as well. We definitely need fully detailed studies to clarify this. Any type of contamination has to be tested before we consume it, and GMO is just one of them."

I have a beard already so I don't need hair growing in my mouth.
Lesson : read the labels and buy organic!

My Fall Garden - indoors

Stopped by Grand Central's Earth Week event on Saturday. Happy to receive some organic heirloom lettuce seeds from Earthbound Farms. Since my garden lettuce is already growing I have decided to save the seeds for ...

Fresh greens in the winter right within arms reach!

Lessons from Margaret Atwood

The author of The Year of the Flood gives us...
Her three action steps:

• Switch to shade grown coffee
• Write the politicans - voter pressure
• Read McKibben's Eaarth

Kudos Rep. Ellison

U.S. Congressman Renews Attempts to Ban Controversial Herbicide Atrazine

A member of Congress is seeking to ban one of the nation's most widely-used herbicides, which has turned up in drinking water in some states. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) is for the second time proposing legislation that would outlaw any use or trade of atrazine.

Atrazine is most commonly sprayed on cornfields, and can run off into rivers and streams that supply drinking water. As the Huffington Post Investigative Fund reported in a series of articles last fall, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency failed to warn the public that the weed-killer had been found at levels above federal safety limits in drinking water in at least four states. A coalition of Midwestern communities -- along with the nation's largest private water utility -- is suing atrazine's manufacturer, Syngenta, seeking to have it pay to filter the chemical from public water.

Have to look up which elected officials stopped Ellison's first attempt and who will stand in his way this time. One thing is for sure, we will all know that those who derailed the first attempt love their wallets rather than their constituent's lives.

Dark and Stormy

Image via Wikipedia

Opened up a sample bottle of my ginger beer and it is all systems go for a Dark and Stormy weekend in a few days.

By the mid-nineteenth century, the official daily rum ration of the British Royal Navy consisted of 2 ounces a head of a peculiarly heavy blend of dark rums, dominated by the deeply funky stuff made along the Demerara River in Guyana. Some time after 1860, Gosling Bros., of Hamilton, Bermuda, began marketing its "old rum" -- a peculiarly heavy blend of dark rums. Between 1860 and 1920 the Royal Navy added a ginger-beer bottling plant to its massive Ireland Island Dockyards complex; what the navy was doing bottling ginger beer we don't know, unless it was intended as a temperance measure. If it was, it failed: The swabbies, given the choice between Demon rum and temperance beverage, said, "Fanx, gov, we'll take both."

Climate Bill for who?

Three Big Oil Companies Likely to Back Climate Bill

When Sens. John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman release their climate bill on Monday, they expect to have the backing of three of the five major oil companies, Mother Jones has learned. In a conference call with a coalition of progressive business leaders on Thursday evening, Kerry said he believes those companies will "actively participate in supporting this bill." He hopes the other big oil companies will at least hold their fire on the bill, and added that he believes the American Petroleum Institute (API), the oil industry's major trade group, will call off its ad campaign attacking the legislation.

Kerry also said that the Edison Electric Institute—the main trade group representing utilities—will support their measure. "We are bringing to the table a significant group of players who were never there for the Waxman-Markey bill," Kerry said. (While Edison supported Waxman-Markey, it was opposed by several big oil companies and API).

In the teleconference, organized by the We Can Lead coalition, Kerry outlined specific details from the bill that have not previously been publicly available. Here's a rundown:

* The bill would remove the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act, and the states' authority to set tougher emissions standards than the federal government.
* There will be no fee—or "gas tax"—on transportation fuels. Instead, oil companies would also be required to obtain pollution permits but will not trade them on the market like other polluters. How this would work is not yet clear.
* Agriculture would be entirely exempt from the cap on carbon emissions.
* Manufacturers would not be included under a cap on greenhouse gases until 2016.
* The bill would provide government-backed loan guarantees for the construction of 12 new nuclear power plants.
* It will contain at least $10 billion to develop technologies to capture and store emissions from coal-fired power plants.
* There will be new financial incentives for natural gas.
* The bill would place an upper and lower limit on the price of pollution permits, known as a hard price collar. Businesses like this idea because it ensures a stable price on carbon. Environmental advocates don't like the idea because if the ceiling is set too low, industry will have no financial incentive to move to cleaner forms of energy.
* The energy bill passed by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee last year will be adopted in full. This measure has sparked concerns among environmentalists for its handouts to nuclear and fossil fuel interests.

When Big Oil supports it can it really be effective and saving our planet? Those oiled wallets have to remain stuffed you know.

I want...

Front Lawns

The Dandelion King

As I’ve told my neighbors, I feel bad about lowering the value of their property. I mean, it isn’t my goal to have a front yard that, by standard reckoning, is unattractive. The unkept look of my lawn is just a byproduct of a conclusion I reached a few years ago: the war on weeds, though not unwinnable, isn’t winnable at a morally acceptable cost.

I hope you’ll agree with me. As the spring lawn-care season unfolds, I’d like to enlist you in the war on the war on weeds. I want you to aspire to make your yard look like my yard...

I soon learned that the carpets of green in suburbia are the product of assiduously applied chemicals. “Pre-emergent” herbicides are laid down more than once in the spring (mixed in with the fertilizer) to sabotage the germination of crabgrass, dandelions and other undesirables. If this fails, post-emergents may be applied en masse. And as the summer wears on, local pockets of resistance can be wiped out with a spray canister of poison.

As I’ve already suggested, my eco-friendly ethos dovetails suspiciously with my laziness. Waging a war on weeds takes more time and energy (or money, if you outsource it) than just mowing the lawn every once in awhile. (I’m not so radical as to oppose lawn mowing, though I recommend push or electric mowers over gas guzzlers.)

I certainly applaud less lazy people who craft eco-friendly carpets of green in labor-intensive ways — researching and implementing elaborate “organic” weed-suppressant strategies. And I have nothing against people who can hire a battalion of weed pullers. But for me, the practical way to have an eco-friendly lawn is to have a weedy lawn.

The first step is for you to look at your neighborhood anew. Next time you see an unblemished expanse of grass, think about the chemicals that probably got dumped in your vicinity to create it. Are you grateful for that?

And next time you see a yardful of sprouting dandelions, note that they look remarkably like things we call “flowers.” And later, when the flowers turn into fluff balls, look closely at one of those fluff balls and ask yourself whether it’s really so unattractive. Meanwhile, absorb the fact that the lawn you’re looking at is doing nothing to harm pets, toddlers or people in general.

His neighbors would cringe at my yard. From a vegetable garden surrounding by fences, native plant islands and a "lawn" of dandelions, moss, plantain, violets.... Hey, I like it!

Pachamama

Peregrina Kusse Viza, a member of the Bolivian indigenous group CONAMAQ on Democracy Now

Well, my name is Peregrina Kusse Viza. I’m from J’acha Carangas. I’m part of CONAMAQ. Now I am here as a former member of the constituent assembly. Today we are talking about Mother Earth, which we call the Pachamama. We respect a lot our Mother Earth. She is our earth. We are the sons and daughters of that land. The earth has given birth to us, and the water is the blood of the Mother Earth, of our Pachamama.

In ancient times, or when I was very young, there was still a lot of respect for Mother Earth. When we started, or before the sowing season, first of all, we respected the Mother Earth with a waxt’a. That could be an offering of a llama or a lamb, or something had to be offered. Then, when you start irrigating the crops, when you start using the water, then, first of all, once again, we had to bless the earth. So, once again, we offered a llama. And after that, we started working on the lands. And then we started harvesting beans, onions, all types of vegetables.

But today, things have changed. There is no longer the same respect we had before. People, they have forgotten about Mother Earth. They have forgotten about Pachamama and forgotten about respect for the water. And now people—people, they want money. We want to earn money, and we want to have a lot of money. Before, things were very different. That was not so. Before, we had a lot of respect, a lot of respect, so that we would have enough to eat. Now, people, they work in the mines, taking out gold, silver.

And to take out the gold, to wash the gold, we use a lot of chemicals. And those chemicals, they are doing a lot of damage to the earth and also to the water, because those chemicals, they flow into the rivers and into the sea. And in the sea, those chemicals, they damage the fish, and the fish are now having different faces. We have seen fish that were born with the face of persons, of human beings. So there’s no respect anymore. And that is why the earth and the environment, the sky, they’re all damaged by the transnational companies.

Those transnational companies, with the smoke, they are contaminating the earth and the Pachamama. There’s holes in the sky, and that is not OK. There’s a lot of damage. So, therefore, all of us, we have to reach an agreement, an agreement to protect the Pachamama, because, otherwise, we will be—goodbye, we will be gone. So all of us together, we have to reach an agreement so that we can put a halt, so that we can stop those transnational companies. They have to stop with that smoke. That smoke is damaging our environment, so we have to stop them. They should not continue contaminating. At least every year they should stop one week, or they should stop working on Sundays, because now they work without stopping, 365 days a year. The whole time they’re contaminating. So we have to reach an agreement for those companies to stop.

That is what I want to tell the world. Let’s be very much aware of this. Let’s respect our Mother Earth, the air and the water, because there’s also diseases. Few diseases are happening. They’re contagious diseases. And they come from those companies. They’re poisoning us. And then they send us, for example, disposable toys, tires, and everything is disposable. It all becomes waste. And that is contaminating our Mother Earth. So let’s stop that, all of us together. All of us together, let’s reach an agreement, and let’s rise up against this, so that at least the earth can last a bit longer for our children and grandchildren. Otherwise, I think that all of us will die by the year 2070. I don’t know whether the world will explode or what, but something will happen. And we have to stop that, so that we can extend the life of the earth a bit more. This is what I want to tell the whole world. Let’s reach an agreement. Let’s be strong, all of us together, very strong. Hayaya!

This is the speaker, and more like her, that should have been at Copenhagen

From ammonia to food?

Otarian Opens - Vegetarian Fast Food, Carbon Labeled

I was a "hungry vegetarian" Otarian founder Radhika Oswal tells me when I ask why, with no restaurant or food service background at all, she wanted to start a chain of fast food restaurants.

"When I was traveling with my husband I couldn't find anything but french fries and pizza," she goes on to say. "I said to my husband, 'we should start a chain.' Obviously he didn't know I was serious, because he said yes."

And when that yes comes from billionaire Pankaj Oswal, chairman of Burrup Holdings Ltd. in Australia, operator of one of the world's largest ammonia production facilities, you know the financial side of things just got a bit easier.

That all was three years ago, when Radhika began what she now describes as her thesis. "Otarian is my PhD is vegetarianism and sustainability," she jokes.

The product of that research: Two restaurants in New York City (a Bleecker Street location opening April 19th and one near Columbus Circle at 8th Ave and 56th St, opening on the 23rd)...

The menu is lacto-vegetarian with a number of vegan dishes, but Radhika describes the restaurants as going beyond that. This isn't a chain of vegetarian restaurants, but a chain of sustainable restaurants...

I'll be in the city in a few weeks and will have to try this place. Might just try the Tex-Mex "burger." As long as it doesn't smell like ammonia.

O'Bama's Earth Day Message

...Or organize to fight the oil drilling and nuclear power plants he proposes.

Zappa loved veggies

The vegetable will respond to you

Why some garden- Part 1

toothpastefordinner.com

Lessons from Chavez

A Bold Economist's 4-Step Plan to Stop Climate Change

A lot of folks are getting more and more worried about humankind's general inaction when it comes to combating climate change. World-class economist Brad DeLong of UC Berkeley is one of those folks. In a recent speech and paper, he laid out an intriguing plan on how the developed world should go about planning to fight climate change...
Before we dive in, it should be said that this plan is outright politically infeasible. There's no way that right now, any serious number of politicians would stick their necks out to enact a plan like this. ....
* Pour money like water into research into closed-carbon and non-carbon energy technologies in order to maximize the chance that we will get lucky--on energy technologies at least, if not on climate sensitivity.

* Beg the rulers of China and India to properly understand their long-term interests

* Nationalize the energy industry in the United States.

* Restrict future climate negotiations to a group of seven--the U.S., the E.U., Japan, China, India, Indonesia, and Brazil--and enforce their agreement by substantial and painful trade sanctions on countries that do not accept their place in the resulting negotiated system.


Guess which one is the hardest to swallow, politically? If you didn't pick number 3, pick again! DeLong explains why this must be done:

In general I am opposed to state-run nationalized industries: that is definitely the private sector's place, not the government. But the interaction of rent-seeking politics with the flaws of America's political system have made me willing to make an exception in the case of America's oil industry: the increased allocative inefficiency that will flow from government ownership and management is, in my judgement, likely to be much less than the increased political efficiency that will flow from no longer having the energy industry able to purchase enough Representatives and Senators to block needed policy moves that it fears will be adverse to its interests. So nationalize--not to expropriate or to penalize the shareholders, but to get this particular selfish and destructive political voice out of American governance.

And he's an avowed free market proponent!

Can you hear the cries of the Tea Partiers? Can you hear Rush and Sean drooling getting ready to comment?

But it does make sense.

After Peak Oil...

...Are We Heading Toward Social Collapse?

Recently, Glen Sweetnam, director of the International, Economic and Greenhouse Gas division of the Energy Information Administration at the Department of Energy (DOE), announced that worldwide oil availability had reached a "plateau." However, his statement was not made known through a major US mainstream media outlet. Instead, it was covered in France's Le Monde.

In a similar vein, no reporter discussing the deluge dared to raise the point that worsening extreme weather is on the way with climate change consequences in the mix, along with oil's relationship to these outcomes. Moreover, imagine the effect on the Dow or NASDAQ if Sweetnam's estimation and a discussion of connected economic ramifications got splashed all across the USA.

What exactly are the implications? In "Life After Growth," Richard Heinberg, senior fellow in residence at Post Carbon Institute, stated, "In effect, we have to create a desirable 'new normal' that fits the constraints imposed by depleting natural resources. Maintaining the 'old normal' is not an option; if we do not find new goals for ourselves and plan our transition from a growth-based economy to a healthy equilibrium economy, we will by default create a much less desirable 'new normal' whose emergence we are already beginning to see in the forms of persistent high unemployment, a widening gap between rich and poor, and ever more frequent and worsening financial and environmental crises - all of which translate to profound distress for individuals, families, and communities."

In other words, we collectively have to stop our delusions about perpetual economic growth and find another way to live from this point forward. We need to stop pretending that all is well because our myopic view of life shows no oil or other major shortfalls in the very near future. If we do not face up to the truth, the repercussions are clear....

In addition, the pending oil shortfall will cause products, services and food that rely on oil to skyrocket in cost. Moreover, petroleum derivatives serve as the foundation for fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, transportation of goods to markets, the majority of the grocery packaging operations (i.e., the manufacture of containers in addition to the bottling and canning processes, etc.) and, of course, operational farm machinery.

All considered, imagine just farms alone being run without sufficient oil. Would they be capable to supply enough food for close to seven billion people without it? How will they provide for the nine billion to ten billion expected to be on the Earth in approximately 40 years?

Henry Kissinger stated, "Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world." However, he perhaps neglected to consider that our food and practically all industry and finance are deeply tied to energy and that, in turn, is tied to fossil fuels.

Read the entire article. Not a rosy future but it is a must read if you want to be aware and prepared.

Wish I can go...

7,500 due for alternate climate conference in Bolivia

The alternative "people's conference" on climate change called by socialist Bolivian President Evo Morales is expecting 7,500 delegates from more than 100 countries, officials said Monday.

Among those set to attend the gathering in Cochabamba April 20-22 include Presidents Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, according to Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca.

Named the People's World Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights, the gathering is intended to "give a voice to the people" on climate change after the perceived failure of the United Nations-sponsored Copenhagen summit on the same issue, organizers say.

In addition to government leaders, those attending will include delegates from social movements and nongovernmental organizations.

What am I eating?

Image via Wikipedia

Veggie Burgers Made With A Neurotoxin: The List Is Long

Veggie burger rumors are flying! Some readers and other news organizations have alleged that the study I wrote about on Monday was funded by the pro-meat, anti-soy group the Weston A. Price Foundation. But this morning, I spoke with Cornucopia Institute director Mark Kastel, who said that the Weston A. Price Foundation did not contribute any funding to the "Behind the Bean" (pdf) study. More here.

UPDATE: Readers' questions about veggie burgers and hexane answered here.

This is about the time of year when I start keeping packages of veggie burgers in the freezer, just in case of an impromptu barbecue. In the past, I haven't had much fake meat brand loyalty: I've found that once I smother my hunk of textured vegetable protein in barbeque sauce, all soy patties are pretty much created equal. But after reading a recent investigation by the Cornucopia Institute, I'm going to be a lot more picky: The food and agriculture nonprofit found that most non-organic veggie burgers currently on the market are made with the chemical hexane, an EPA-registered air pollutant and neurotoxin.

In order to meet the demands of health-conscious consumers, manufacturers of soy-based fake meat like to make their products have as little fat as possible. The cheapest way to do this is by submerging soybeans in a bath of hexane to separate the oil from the protein. Says Cornucopia Institute senior researcher Charlotte Vallaeys, "If a non-organic product contains a soy protein isolate, soy protein concentrate, or texturized vegetable protein, you can be pretty sure it was made using soy beans that were made with hexane."

If you've heard about hexane before, it was likely in the context of gasoline—the air pollutant is also a byproduct of gas refining. But in 2007, grain processors were responsible for two-thirds of our national hexane emissions. Hexane is hazardous in the factory, too: Workers who have been exposed to it have developed both skin and nervous system disorders. Troubling, then, that the FDA does not monitor or regulate hexane residue in foods. More worrisome still: According to the report, "Nearly every major ingredient in conventional soy-based infant formula is hexane extracted."

The Cornucopia Institute found that a number of popular veggie burgers were made with hexane. The list (pdf, page 37, and below) is longer than you might think:
Amy's Kitchen

Boca Burger, conventional

Franklin Farms

Garden Burger

It’s All Good Lightlife

Morningstar Farms

President’s Choice

Taste Above

Trader Joe's

Yves Veggie Cuisine

Hexane-free products:

Boca Burgers "Made with organic soy"

Helen's Kitchen

Morningstar "Made with organic"

Superburgers by Turtle Island

Tofurky

Wildwood

Also worth noting: Products labeled "organic" aren't allowed to contain any hexane-derived ingredients, but that rule doesn't apply to foods that are labeled "made with organic ingredients." For more on soy sourcing, plus a list of popular "made with organic ingredients"-labeled protein bars that are made with hexane, read the Cornucopia Institute's full study, "Behind the Bean."

My solution? Grow my own food. Now if I can just speed things up a bit in the garden I'll be all set. While I am waiting it will be Boca "Made with Organic" for me.

Food from the lab

Farmers Who Plant Biotech Crops Grow Pesticide-Resistant Weeds

Weeds are developing resistance to the herbicide that genetically engineered crops are designed to tolerate, finds the first major assessment of how biotech crops are affecting all U.S. farmers, released today by the National Research Council.

Since genetically engineered crops were introduced in 1996, at least nine species of weeds in the United States have evolved resistance to glyphosate, a main component in Roundup and other commercial weed killers, according to the report.

The weeds have become resistant to glyphosate largely because of repeated exposure, the assessment found.

Did you ever think what it is doing to you when you eat that crop? If it is changing weeds, what is it doing to your liver, kidney...?

Eaarth

New from Bill McKibben:

Twenty years ago, with The End of Nature, Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about global warming. Those warnings went mostly unheeded; now, he insists, we need to acknowledge that we've waited too long, and that massive change is not only unavoidable but already under way. Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways that no human has ever seen. We've created, in very short order, a new planet, still recognizable but fundamentally different. We may as well call it Eaarth.


That new planet is filled with new binds and traps. A changing world costs large sums to defend—think of the money that went to repair New Orleans, or the trillions it will take to transform our energy systems. But the endless economic growth that could underwrite such largesse depends on the stable planet we've managed to damage and degrade. We can't rely on old habits any longer.


Our hope depends, McKibben argues, on scaling back—on building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community (in the neighborhood, but also on the Internet) that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale. Change—fundamental change—is our best hope on a planet suddenly and violently out of balance.

How much to fly to Brazil?

Brazil to Welcome New Woodstock in October 2010?

Itu, a small town 100 kilometers from Sao Paulo, could be the location of a new edition of Woodstock, that little festival in 1969 that changed everything. Even though the event has not been confirmed, a well known advertising personality from Brazil is giving twitter updates and announcing they'll be able to talk about it in a month. More inside.


Says Yahoo Brazil that the event would be a partnership between the company Groove Concept and advertising guru Eduardo Fischer.


Even if the businessman and his company have released notes stating that all news so far is pure speculation, he has written on his twitter account: "In 29 days we'll be able to talk about a big sustainability even that will need your participation. #WOODSTOCK AND YOU HELPING THE PLANET".


Yahoo Brazil goes on to say that the festival's creator, Michael Lang, has authorized the organization of the event, and that it would take place on October 07-09 in a ranch called Maeda, information that also confirms a2media.


Both say that bands could include Green Day, Linkin Park, Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, Rage Against The Machine, Pearl Jam and Bob Dylan, although Fischer has made clear that nothing is official yet.

Son of Craigslist

A Borrower and a Lender Be

Normally, when you need compost for your garden, you drive to the nearest Home Depot and pick up a couple of bags. It seems straightforward enough, but for some back-to-basics Portlanders, that would be a foolish way to accomplish such an errand. Instead, they log onto an online social network called Bright Neighbor to locate someone in their neighborhood who might have some compost on offer. If everything works out, they will walk their wheelbarrow down the street and return with it piled high with fertilizer. At what cost? It could be free. Or it might cost a few tomatoes from their garden. Or a complimentary kayaking lesson.

Bright Neighbor began in early 2008 as a “virtual commune,” allowing Portland, Oregon, residents to connect with their neighbors to set up ride shares, learn about community events, and barter goods and services—anything from astrological readings to chicken feed to household items. Its mission was never quite so simple, however. According to Tod Sloan, a Bright Neighbor member and a faculty member in the Department of Counseling Psychology at Lewis & Clark College, the site is facilitating the teaching of “real skills that are still intact in much of the world that we’re having to relearn, such as gardening and sharing tools.”

But why would those of us in the developed world need the skills obviated by modern conveniences? In February, a group of British businessmen led by the Virgin Group CEO Sir Richard Branson sounded the alarm for peak oil—the point at which the world’s oil supply will begin dwindling, bringing about economic calamities like soaring energy and food prices. If we take seriously the forecasts that it will occur in 2015, then our reliance on those modern conveniences needs to be rethought.

“We needed an all-in-one system that educated people, that taught them living skills, that is a resurgence of what people used to know how to do—which is everything from growing food to trying to build the idealism of a Beaver Cleaver world,” says Randy White, Bright Neighbor’s founder. “Peak oil will either lead to a complete social breakdown or the mother of all local opportunities.”

The effects of peak oil remain to be seen, and the predicted economic shocks may never come. If they do, however, the Bright Neighbor community will be ready.

Bright Neighbor seems like a great alternative to Craigslist. Love looking at the "free" and "barter" areas of Craigslist. Bright Neighbor takes it one step further.

One Man's Shame

William Elliott Whitmore...

Don't alter my altar
don't desecrate my shrine
My church is the water
and my home is underneath the shady pines

More uses than an iPad

 Travel Stove Creates Electricity While It Cooks 

... BioLite, a portable and fuel efficient cookstove that uses half as much fuel as a camp fire, and heats food and water faster than a petroleum fueled camp stove. But what makes it really stand out is that it is capable of generating electricity. The heat from the fire powers a small fan which improves the cooking efficiency and leaves 1-2 watts to(very slowly) charge an electric device like a cell phone or gps unit.


...this one is ready to hit the market later this year for about $80.

Can an iPad boil water, cook soup, power itself, provide heat? I don't think so. And the BioLite will be around $80. Cannot wait!

This weekend's adventure

Image by Vegan Dog's Life via Flickr

Smoked Tofu Jerky
Time to break out the smoker and try this recipe.
The prep...

Freezing and Defrosting the Tofu


Freeze the tofu at least overnight.
The next morning, take the tofu out of the freezer and place it in the fridge to thaw.
By dinner time (8 hours or so later), the tofu should be thawed. Remove tofu from the packaging and gently press some of the water out.
Marinating the Tofu
Cut the tofu across its short end into slices about ¼” (1/2 cm) in thickness.
Place the tofu slices into a container or clean plastic bag that seals tightly.
Add the dry spices (Tex-Mex, black pepper, spicy pepper flakes) to the tofu first.
Shake the bag/container to distribute the spices.
Shake about 1-11/2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce into the bag/container.
Add soy sauce.
Shake the bag/container gently to distribute the wet ingredients and spices, massaging the tofu through the bag if necessary.
Add additional wet ingredients if they have been completely absorbed by the tofu.
Marinate overnight, for up to 12 hours.

After smoking for 3 hours or more...yum!

Roasted potatoes this fall

My crop is planted in a compost pile and will be earthed up. Next year I think I'll try the bags. Makes harvesting much easier.

Window Farms

Wish I had a window with the right exposure!

Early summer?

Warm temperatures, early blossoms on pear trees, dandelions growing like crazy...around here an early spring/summer is very evident. The impact?

Warmer Temps Mean UK Flowers Emerging Earlier Than At Any Time in Past 250 Years

BBC News reports that new research published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B show that plants in the UK are flowering earlier than at any time in the past 250 years. In particular, the trend is most notable in the past quarter century.
All in all, BBC News also reports that on average spring in the UK now arrives 11 days earlier than in did 30 years ago.

Sure I love the warm weather effect on the seeds I planted in the garden. Love to see those seedlings come up. But will this warm weather last? And if it does, what effect will this have on the insects, birds, mammals?

Time to build my own little biosphere.

Greenbutt

Image via Wikipedia

No not your pants after sitting on grass but...
Cigarette Filters Create Garden of Flowers from Discarded Butts

New patent-pending technology could turn cigarette butts into little flower pots. Or at least a seed dispersal system. Cigarette butts are a huge pollution problem, with people flicking there filthy filters all over the place. So what if those filters grew flowers? A new "all natural" cigarette, sporting filters packed with flower seeds so it can be either composted or literally planted to grow plants, hopes to counter the harmful effect cigarettes have on the environment.


Gizmag points us to Greenbutts. The company states, "Organic cotton and natural de-gummed hemp form the filter body. Wheat flour and pure water bind the filter elements as they are spun together. No chemicals or hidden additives.... Our filter is made of an all-natural hemp and cotton blend that can be combined with a wide variety of grass and flower seeds. Partner our product with additive-free tobacco and you have a true all-natural cigarette."

As the artiocle points out we don't know the impact of tar, nicotine, heat, etc. on the seeds. But this is an interesting new product. But where will those filters thrown on the asphalt roads grow?

Basic skills are good for you

DIY Build and Repair Culture Makes for Healthier Planet, Happier People

While we don't have some new study saying so, a little common sense analysis shows that learning how to build rather than buy, and repair rather than recycle, is key to not just making a lighter footprint on the planet, but also lightening up your heart. Think about it - weigh the pride and confidence you get from repairing the kitchen sink's leaky faucet yourself, versus paying a plumber to come out, fix it, and leave you $100 less rich and mumbling about how that was so darn easy how could it have possibly cost $100? That's the idea behind a great piece on Financial Times called "Practical Stress Relief."

Examples from the article of highly satisfied DIYers include Allison Taylor, who rather than spend $300 to get the phone company to add a jack in her house, she got a few tips from the maintenance guy at her work and went home to install three jacks that night.

It's hard to say this is a "movement" but more of a return to practicality and a slower way of life - something Mark Frauenfelder discusses in his book Made By Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throw Away World. To get away from the stress of fast-paced life - the appointments and kids' lessons, the fast food and quick consumption - it all boils down to just doing it yourself. The weekly process of making yogurt, or whittling a new wooden spoon out of a branch from the tree in your back yard alters your whole outlook on life and reminds you just how capable a person you are.

Save money. A feeling of accomplishment. Building survival skills. All good reasons in my book.

Something is happening

From James Howard Kunstler:

In a place like upstate New York, north of Albany, where April is more generally known as "mud season," and the wait for "ice-out" on the big lakes takes forever, and on frigid nights the windigos steal through the tops of the tall pines -- it would seem foolish to complain about perfectly beautiful weather.
We just had a week in the 70s, with more to come. The grass went from ochre to bright green in about thirty-six hours. The buds are popping like mad. This is usually what the first week of May is like around here, and that fact alone may explain New York state's relentless population drain over the past forty years.
I was out on my bicycle, naturally, taking it all in -- like, why sit inside and sulk because the weather is strange in a pleasant way? -- and I ventured into the outlands east of town, where an impressive number of gigantic new houses had landed like alien mother-ships in the former cow pastures and wood lots. Of course, the aesthetics were an issue apart from the socio-economics of it, but nonetheless interesting....
Personally, I look at these houses scattered around what was only recently a dedicated farm landscape and I am quite sure that the denizens within will be marooned in their great rooms, and that very probably many of them will have no job to go to -- in the conventional sense of what we think a job is, in some corporation or institution -- and that in a surprisingly short span of years these buildings will be ruins or squats....
All these lovely mild days, I was not unconscious of the eeriness of the weather and the possible insidious effects of it on the local ecosystem in everything from the added generations of deer ticks carrying Lyme disease and the death of the honeybees to the fate of this year's apple crop. I confess: it made me very nervous. Something is happening... out there.

Weather-wise, politically, economically...something is happening! are we ready?

Evolution?

I am ahead, I am advanced
I am the first mammal to make plans, yeah
I crawled the earth, but now I'm higher
2010, watch it go to fire
It's evolution, baby
Do the evolution

Shame on Starbucks Shareholders

Starbucks Shareholders Reject Recycling Initiative

The idea that Starbucks seems to be the last to jump onto the recycling bandwagon sort of blows my mind. Especially when their contribution to the problem is so massive. Currently, 3 billion of their paper coffee cups sold each year in the U.S. market alone end up in the landfill. The sheer volume has a huge impact. But according to the Seattle Times, still no action, last week shareholders at the annual meeting voted against proxy 3, the company's recycling initiative.

While 11 percent of Starbucks shareholders were in favor of a proposed recycling initiative, it was far from enough support for the measure's passage. The proposal asked the board of directors to adopt a comprehensive recycling strategy for beverage containers.

Why? Cost of the program will lower their dividends?

One Pot Pledge

Brits Take the One Pot Pledge to 'Give Growing a Go': "

Beginner gardeners show off their bounty. Photo by Tim Sidaway via One Pot Pledge.

The many U.K. residents who reportedly lack the confidence to grow their own food are being encouraged to start small by the nationwide One Pot Pledge campaign, which is asking Brits to sign up to grow just one edible plant this year -- and recruiting 'gardening gurus...Read the full story on TreeHugger

It's a start!

Too late?

Image via Wikipedia

35.5 MPG By 2016

The Obama administration set tougher gas mileage standards for new cars and trucks Thursday, spurring the next generation of fuel-sipping gas-electric hybrids, efficient engines and electric cars.
The heads of the Transportation Department and the Environmental Protection Agency signed final rules setting fuel efficiency standards for model years 2012-2016, with a goal of achieving by 2016 the equivalent of 35.5 miles per gallon combined for cars and trucks, an increase of nearly 10 mpg over current standards set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.


In addition to the fuel economy standards, a minimum for the amount of CO2 a car's tailpipe can emit has been adopted as well: it'll be 250 grams per mile by 2016.
These standards mark a pretty significant jump forward, and send a clear signal that fuel efficiency had better play a major role in automakers' model designs going forward. And instead of resent the standards, the auto industry is glad that such a clear signal is being sent:

With Peak Oil - too late?

Band of Horses for your Ears