Was the oil spill the best thing to happen to the Oil Industry this year?

     I hate BP. Thats what a lot of people say. It feels nice.

     In Environmental Law and Policy today, in a discussion about who should be held accountable for oil spills it was sweetly and succintly expressed that, of course, it should be the oil companies who pay for the massive, irreversible damage on the oceans when epic disasters like the recent one in the Gulf of Mexico. It was the old "if you gave your cousin a dollar and he drove around with it in the back of the truck and it blew out, is it his fault?"

     This argument has been going on for forty years, at least. That's when peak oil was predicted. When people realized that constantly cutting down trees and burning coal might not be the best idea, and it was time to think of something else. 1970.

     Everyone seems to be at a loss about what has actually happened since then. We'll do it in the future, I guess people said. We just can't afford to fund research for cleaner energy, maybe? A measure of the success of Presidents seems to be what gas prices are like while they are in office.

     What's not to hate about BP? I mean- could they have seemed to care less about the oil spill? That jerk of a CEO; the continued lies; the continued attempts to shed blame; spraying dispersants all over the people who had just lost their livelihood to BP. Everyone knows lots of reasons to despise the despicable people who made this happen.

     The beat goes on. Not one person (well, maybe one) in class today suggested that maybe it is the market demand that drives the oil industry rather than some scuzzy CEO. For those not econ-savvy, "market demand" just means that the insanely high demand for oil is simply because we readily and willingly pay for it. We keep lining up at the pumps. Oil companies turn in record profits year after year; not because they are ethical, or responsible, or even market well (seen a gasoline commercial in a while?). Oil is in such high demand and so profitable, that it is worth the extremely high financial risk of drilling for it 2 miles underwater. Even worse, we deploy troops to protect oil interests abroad.

     The oil spill may just have been the best thing to happen to the industry overall all year. They have effectively subsidized the blame -not to the person who drives their Hummer; the average American drives 33.4 miles per day- but easily to the person everyone loves to hate; someone else.

     I'm not flaming any individuals here. We are all just trying to do our best here. Again, we haven't been provided with alternative forms of fuel. But we have to consider why oil is so profitable. We definitely better be talking about what to do to fix it.

     We can however, vote with our dollars and our ballots. I find it absolutely incredible that energy indepence isn't the single greatest initiative of our country, given the obvious importance of it. I don't care what letter is next to a candidates name; he had better be talking about clean energy. What if we spent $1,143,420,630,548 on clean energy since 1991? What would we be driving. That's what we've spent on the war in Iraq, by the way (costofwar.com).

     How can we vote with our dollars? Surprisingly, start with food. Your average meal travelled 1000 miles (total, including all ingredients). Then, support public transportation. Carpool, you might just make new friends. Try not to move 100 miles away from where you work. Next time you are stuck in traffic, count the consecutive number of cars in a lane with only one person inside. Last time I did it, the average was about 30 (I was shocked). Not everyone is able to ride a bike everywhere; but if you can, it's a great health decision! People who use public transport weigh an average of 5 pounds less.

     BP might be a bunch of jerks, but we have to remember who pushes the pedal.
    
   

Alignment and my big green calculator; the keys to happiness?

     Tonight University of Cincinnati sustainability had a workshop about vegetarian and vegan eating. With Carrie's (another Sustainability Advocate) help as the other moderator, we started the conversation about why to become vegetarian or vegan with the group. This is a question that vegetarians and vegans have to deal with regularly. Two weeks ago, at a film showing for "The Cove" someone asked "if we're just going to destroy all of the fish anyways, why should we care?" Well, what is the reason that you do anything at all?

     I had prepared a lengthy response to the question about why I'm a vegetarian. I tried to imagine an answer that could really encompass the many many reasons. My friend Page recently blogged about it. Quite frankly, it is of course a personal choice. I think that Kayla (thanks!) said it best in reference to one of the holiest men ever to live:

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”  Gandhi (link to more gandi)

     Basically, if you align your morality with your actions, you will find yourself quite happy. I have to say this is true for me, for example, when I have taken a great deal to find locally grown produce, prepare it in a carefully selective fashion, and come to enjoy something that is not only delicious and healthy but also (personally) morally sound and sustainable. To each their own.

     This has obvious implications to many areas in each of our lives. To me, it is the reason that I recycle every last object, compost everything that I can, and attempt to reuse every last scrap of the rest. It is the reason that, in fact, why I write these blogs.

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     According to footprintnetwork.org, the "ecological footprint" calculator used for wikipedia's Ecological footprint article, it would take 3.4 earths to sustain our current global population if everyone lived exactly like me. I require 15.3 global acres of productive land to produce 14.2 tons of carbon monoxide per year. That sounds like a lot, but compared to the average American at 8.00 (United Arab Emirates tops the list at 10.68), I make less than half the impact. What makes up most of that figure? Natural gas and electricity. It becomes evident in the discussion of global average (1.4) that highly industrialized, gas and coal burning countries like the US are the main source for the global climate shift. Tough pill to swallow. 

    Even harder to consider is what it would be like without gas or electric. I had initially planned to go for a week with no gas or electricity for a week in January, but for several reasons I have to wait. First, my landlord has made me aware that if I was to turn off my heat this week that I could potentially rupture plumbing by allowing the water in the pipes to freeze. This week the weather reports suggest average temperatures below freezing. But, I will be turning off for good the first week with average temps above freezing. Then once spring comes I will be turning it off for good. Maybe that's crazy, but just maybe, it might bring me a lot of happines...

     (Have some more more enviromental quotes if you would like)

"No Impact Week"

     Reading Music: Ben Harper "My Own Two Hands"  
     Colin Beavey was asked in No Impact Man if there was one thing that people should do differently - be it to stop drinking bottled water, change their lightbulbs, stop drinking coffee, etc. - what would that one thing be? His response was maybe a little surprising to some of those who asked this question. He said that everyone should volunteer or participate in a sustainability event in their own community. It is removing ourselves from our communities that allows us to shed accountability for one another, and begin to act irresponsibly towards our collective environment.

     There were several things that I took away from Colin's documentary. Naturally, I found that it was important to watch his documentary as part of the beginning of my year-long initiative. I expected to find a nice model of how exactly to accomplish an almost impossible goal of a zero carbon footprint. I expected, perhaps, to see a very outlandish person doing very extreme things. What I found instead was a very normal guy, along with his wife and kids, on this adventure that even they didn't understand. I found a family, following dad's conscious, in a "working relationship" which was figuring it all out as they went, and dealing with the difficulties as they came in a positive, objective, and constructive way.

     I have been asked a few times if my project here is a new years resolution. I have a few problems with that. First of all, new years resolutions have a temporary connotation. I'm not resolving to reduce my footprint this year. I'm resolving to reduce my footprint permanently. This year, I'm going to measure it- yes- that means that I might do some things this year that I can't do forever. Just as Colin had to turn his electricity back on to survive the winter- so will I. The main thing is that I'm using this challenge to transform my life in a very real and positive way, and I don't expect to stop trying to improve wherever I can after that year ends. As a scientist and environmentalist, I am choosing to live in alignment with my values that I need to respect nature. With my own two hands...

     YES! Magazine and No Impact Man this week have teamed together for "no impact week" this week. If you want to know more here's a link to a video about it. I'd love to hear if any of my readers decide to try it. Also, if you are looking for more opportunities to volunteer or participate in sustainable initiatives here in Cincinnati, I know of a few, just e-mail me.

     Next week, I'll have some actual numbers to put up as well as information about how the carbon calculator I will be using works. I'll look forward to then, and thanks for reading!

A Tale of 3 S's: Where Do I Fit?

     Sustainability as a concept is a little more complex than just taking out the recycling. When I ask a lot of people what sustainability is, I get a lot of different answers- all of which usually fall under the category of ecological sustainability.

     So, what is the concept? I was first introduced to the greater concept of sustainability by one of Cincinnati's more brilliant minds (and literally the nicest guy you'll ever meet)- the the University of Cincinnati Sustainability director Shawn Tubb. What he referred to as the "triple bottom line of sustainability" is a comprehensive approach that requires three aspects: ecological, economic, and cultural sustainability.

     I've spent a lot of time considering exactly what this means, and as a concept in my mind it grows every day. Recently, the office of sustainability at UC (UC OoS) showed a film called Taking Root that beautifully demonstrated the interconnectedness of the three aspects of sustainability. In the film, a Kenyan woman (and Nobel Peace Prize recipient) named Wangari Maathai told her story, as well as the modern history of Kenya.
    
     When British rule came, there were many tribes which made up a very diverse culture. Functionally, they each served different sociological roles and were part of a very complex mechanism. The British officers noted that although there were several different tribes, and far too many warriors for the British militia to overcome, it would be quite easy to collapse the indigenous society by finding ways to cause tribal wars. Their plan succeeded. The culture was collapsed and eventually, the once diverse society which once was one of subsistence agriculture was transformed into a monocultural one which cut down trees for farming. These very trees had once been on object of reverence in the eyes of the indigenous... that may seem silly, but did this view sustain their livelihood?

     The economic value of the ecological services provided by these trees quickly became obvious. There began to be mudslides and erosion on a massive scale. The loss of the trees collapsed food chains. Soon, there were no waterways. Desertification swept Kenya. Once the water was gone, there was no way to water their crops. A great depression gripped the nation, and war quickly followed. Enter Wangari Maathai; planter of trees. The film shows how she managed to incentivize planting trees, and how this simple act has begun the subsequent restoration of Kenya's ecology, economy, and culture. The degree to which she has succeeded is absolutely incredible, and the story of Kenya is thus a parable of sustainability.

     Great for Kenya, but what about the United States? Since taking on the three tenents of sustainability and retrofitting them to my lifestyle, I've seen a lot of room for improvement around here. I think that shopping at a local farmers market, for example, beatifully exemplifies a way to accomplish all three at once: economically sustainable because I support local business, keeping my dollar in my neighborhood; ecologically sustainable because my food was not transported across the nation in a diesel truck, from a farm that used genetically modified seeds, and probably pesticides; culturally sustainable because I personally bought my food from the guy who grew it, and participated in a local community of friendly farmers seeking a positive environment for everyone involved.

     Diversity in all three aspects, seems to be the key. As biological diversity is the key to a healthy ecosystem; competition is a key to a healthy economy; cultural diversity and awareness is the key to harmonious societies. Wal-mart, on the other hand, is the destructive mechanism by which our keys are being taken away. Undercutting competion, local businesses, and shipping items half way around the world, which were manufactured in clearly questionable conditions is not the future of sucess in this nation. In fact, Keynesian Economics, the hyper-capitalist macroeconomic model by which Wal-mart has thrived, have widely been questioned by many people, including environmentalists, for quite some time. The fault with this model, essentially, is that it requires infinite growth to continually succeed. The world, however, does not have infinite resources. Living sustainable, then, requires us to rethink where we buy, who we buy from, and where the stuff we bought came from ("The Story of Stuff"). Graduated thought in this aspect will lead you to local farmers markets, and retailers (my favorite - park + vine), to name a few.

     So where do I fit into this picture? Clearly, reducing your carbon footprint is exactly the same as being ecologically sustainable. However, since the three S's are so closely related, it's impossible for my mission to not essentially include a greater mission of simply being sustainable as well. This is evident if you look at Ecological Footprint calculators, which always include whether or not you buy local or organic. In other words, by acting in an ecologically sensible way and buying local organic food, you are by nature being culturally and economically sustainable. Try it, you'll feel great about it- I promise. Cheers to a sustainable year ahead!

    

One small step for man, a smaller step for mankind? 2011 Mission statement

     Sometimes you find yourself up against something you might not ever understand. It is in that moment that you just might discover the truth about who you really are.

     I recently watched a video on youtube about how some very radical "a-la-droit" convervatives believe that environmentalists- collectively demonized as "the green dragon"- are staging a coup of social and political power using "false science" and "lies". I seriously doubt that there are many people that actually believe that the best available science in the world is some sort of hippie conspiracy, but for me, it raised some bigger questions...

     The quote I have opened this blog with... "No single raindrop believes it is responsible for the flood" brings up something much scarier to me than a green dragon... a social ineptitude that some have called the "mob of the masses". Crowd Psychology is something long considered by eco-psychologists. How does one overcome apathy of the masses?

     It is interesting to observe the complicated devices that people use to contribute to their apathy. A lot of people still don't believe that global climate change is even real- much less caused by man- because 'one of their friends one time was telling them how they saw on TV this one time how global climate shifts have recurrently been observed in geological records, and that the Earth is in some sort of "phase"'. This resolves a big problem- having to do something about it.

     The big monster I face is this "kink" in human nature- a proclivity for inaction; apathy... In the face of this monster, the best that I can do is to provide a model for someone who has chosen not to succumb. Don't get me wrong - I'm no Colin Beaven, ("No Impact Man")- I'm just a regular guy, living in a small apartment near the University of Cincinnati, where I work and take classes. I am, in fact, going to use this blog to post direct measurements of my carbon footprint, starting on 1 Jan 2011, and continue until 1 Jan 2012. This number will be very important to me, and hopefully make an interesting statement to anyone who follows. I will essentially provide a "guide" for my followers who are interested in becoming more green. The real mission of this blog, then, is to show my friends and anyone who is interested some great ways to reduce your carbon footprint.

     So, yeah- I walk, ride a bike, use public transportation, shop at local farmers markets, buy local and organic, recycle, reduce, reuse, compost, and don't eat meat... I'm still no superhero. I contribute still more ambient CO2 than the average world citizen... mostly from burning coal to provide electricity to my heater, refrigerator, and gadgets. Where do I go from here? Well, hopefully you find that an interesting question, and I look forward to the many things to come this year. Just maybe this blog site can be a useful tool in the hand of the "green dragon" and together, we can defeat the much larger monsters of apathy and climate change...