Globally Green Living

If you have never grown your own herbs it can be sort of a hit or miss experience. I have successfully grown basil, oregano, thyme, dill, coriander and chives. I love gardening but still am not highly skilled at it.

I am mad over rosemary but apparently, it’s best to grow the plants from cuttings first or buy a starter plant from a nursery. That explains why nothing happened when I attempted growing them from seeds outside.

The best way to grow rosemary yourself is to grab a cutting from an established plant and then put it in a seed starting mix, which I am sure many of you already knew but I’m the type that often learns the hard way. They can be grown from seeds but have a low germination rate. In other words, they’re not so easy to grow.

If you want to give herb gardening a go and get the whole package at once Herbkits.com sells some great indoor herb garden kits. They even section them off into different themes. There’s a culinary kit, medicinal kit, tea kit, salsa kit and salad kit. My favorite is the stack and grow culinary herb kit. It makes such a lovely display, smells good and yet is more useful than flowers.

Benefits of growing your own herbs:

• Save money. The prices of some of those packaged “fresh” herbs are crazy.

• Organically grown. You can be sure there are no pesticides or chemicals added if you have grown them yourself.

• Freshness. You know they’re fresh because you just picked them. Many chefs have their own herb gardens for that very reason.

• Nutrition. Fresh organic food is just better for you.

• Improve the environments air quality. Plants really do clean the air by removing carbon through photosynthesis, which makes them wonderful for indoors as well. One little herb garden might not seem like it would make a big difference but every little bit helps.

Live Earth’s attempts at reducing carbon emissions seem to have been successful. There’s some controversy whether they should have used so much energy or caused so much pollution to begin with.

• Pictured here is the Black Eyed Peas performing at the Live Earth concert held at Wembley Stadium on July 7, 2007 in London. It was the first time they had been together in a long time.

• Live Earth’s Kevin Wall said, “Some say we could have done more with less, that our method was antithetical to our message. Frankly, you can only reach so many people standing around a campfire singing ‘Kumba Ya”. Our goal was to educate and inspire billions of people worldwide to take action, and while that effort generated carbon emissions on one day, those impacted by this event have been motivated to reduce their energy use every day.”

After a ten week audit, Live Earth issued a report on their energy and reduction effort. I think combining the entertainment industry with climate change is going to be challenging regardless. They’re used to their private jets when they need to get somewhere in a hurry and several would probably be hard pressed to go without other luxuries. The report however said that many did actually use alternative-fuel buses and fuel-efficient cars.

Live Earth’s maiden event had some success in reducing energy and diverting waste because although 97 metric tons of waste was collected, 81% was successfully diverted from landfills through recycling and composting. Live Earth has “Green Guidelines,” posted on its website , offering advice for future events.

They’re currently in the process of filming 60 short environmental films to educate future generations about climate change so some good things are coming out of the worldwide concert.

I think it’s great that there has been a global movement addressing our climate crisis but it’s unfortunate that everyone had to burn so much fossil fuel in the process of it all.

For more information about the Live Earth Carbon Assessment and Footprint Report see LiveEarth.org

I thought the video from Patagonia was hilarious . Agent Timmy O’Neill (a famous rock climber and comedian) urges people to recycle their underwear to no avail until he meets the “The Undie Master” who gives him a magic tea made from ancient underwear, which gives him renewed strength and enables him to convince others to recycle. This helps decrease waste which contributes to reducing the effects of global warming.

Patagonia is onto something though and if we all recycled our garments there would be that much less in the landfill. Patagonia’s long-term goal is to take environmental responsibility for everything they make.

They launched their Common Threads Recycling Program in September 2005 but have recently expanded to include fleece garments and cotton tees. Recycling garments has resulted in an energy savings of 76% and a CO2 emissions reduction of 71%.

Besides only using organically grown cotton, Patagonia also uses soda bottles in their fleece garments.

Patagonia’s current campaign is to protect Arctic National Wildlife. Five dollars from each sale of their arctic wildlife shirt goes to Alaska Wilderness League.

“The Arctic Refuge coastal plain is the ecological heart and wildlife oasis of the entire refuge. It is, in the words of the naturalist Peter Matthiessen, ‘the earth’s last sanctuary of the great Ice Age fauna that includes . . . bears, gray wolves and wolverines, musk ox, moose, and, in the summer, the Porcupine River herd of caribou, 120,000 strong.’ Drilling the Arctic Refuge would not solve America’s energy crisis. To the contrary, drilling there would only continue, not reduce, our dependence on fossil fuels.”

–Tom Udall, U.S. Congressman, New Mexico, “A Family Legacy,”
Patagonia Fall 2007 Catalog

Tracy Lyons, environmental activist and National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) advocate is in the middle of her Mercury Rising Tour. The musician is drawing attention to global warming, pollution and encouraging alternative energy solutions such as solar and wind power.

The video called “Save Me” has been viewed on YouTube over 250,000 times. It has become an emotional environmental anthem which has been featured on NRDC’s youth website ItsYourNature.org and Treehugger as well as many others.

If you download the song “Save Me”on iTunes all proceeds go to National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). It’s an environmental action organization that Tracy is both an advocate and a member of. NRDC is an excellent source for the latest environmental issues and they keep you up to speed on the newest developments. Their site is very informative and educational and I have learned a lot. Their mission is to save the earth.

Lyon’s eco-stage will be powered off the grid with biodiesel and features a state of the art hydrogen fuel cell. She’s also supplying information on the latest energy technologies and providing education about environmental initiatives.

Other singers have participated in concerts such as Live Earth but Tracy seems genuinely committed. She has a history of playing at environmentally themed concerts and I think the fact that her stage is eco-friendly shows she really does care. To offset their band’s carbon footprint for any harm they may do to the environment, they’re purchasing carbon credits.

Billboard magazine said, “singer/tunesmith Tracy Lyons proves that she has a knack for wrapping strong words in a velvet glove.” I agree and think it’s great that Tracy is out there publicly pulling for the earth.

The population is not going to stop growing any time soon and according to the UN by 2050, 80% of us will be living in cities. Unless we come up with some better strategies, there’s not going to be enough land to grow food on.

Vertical Farming

One of the solutions I think is pretty cool is vertical farming. Shown here is the “Living Tower” by Pierre Sartoux.

I know hothouses have been around for a long time but this is on a larger scale because it involves growing food in multi-level buildings. These skyscraper farms can obviously be created in the middle of a city.

Some of the many benefits to Vertical Farming:

• Year round cultivation.
• Worry free weather related issues.
• Organically grown.
• Increased food supply.
• Help restore damaged ecosystems.
• Potential to reduce conflict over water and land.

Vertical farming seems like a great idea to me although how would this affect traditional farmers?

For many, Halloween means lots of spending but if we all purchase more earth friendly products or make our own we can help reduce our impact on the earth.

Pumpkins
If you’re still going to get a jack-o-lantern stay away from pesticide laden ones and opt instead for an organically grown pumpkin. If you don’t know where to look check out Local Harvest. (Thanks to The Nature Conservancy for the tip)They have mapped out farmers markets and farms growing organic produce closest to you. For candles inside the jack-o-lanterns, opt for soy wax or beeswax rather than the more common but less friendly paraffin.

Costumes and Treats

Stay away from plastic masks and use makeup. All Free Crafts offer these fun and easy recipes for Halloween makeup including corn syrup blood, face paint and clown makeup.

There’s no hard fast rule that you must give out candy as treats. Some other ideas for children:

• Stickers
• Craft Kits
• Beads
• Soy Crayons (Amy Stodghill from Green Options has a whole post on environmentally friendly crayons)
• Fruit Leather
• Dried nut and fruit mixes

If you want to celebrate Halloween but don’t want to do the trick or treat thing, consider having an earth friendly Halloween party. Many of your neighbors would probably love the idea!

The spotted owl has done it again. Apparently, the species did not recover as fast as desired and now that the logging industry would like to expand their activities in Oregon, after a few years of an involuntary break, the owl is still at risk. Bummer…

I wonder why the trees are so necessary to the logging industry. The article says that the 100-year-old firs so desired by the spotted owls and the lumber companies alike will be used to produce construction materials. I mean, let’s face it, the construction industry is already in a bit of a bind because the market is flooded with new construction. I also don’t see people lined up to buy new houses either, so why the heck can’t we just leave the trees alone for now?

I know that it’s competition and that profits need to drop to almost zero before you can prevent companies from entering the market and expanding production but there are certain things that the market does not take very good care of–they’re called externalities and non-market goods, such as the environment, are one of them. Just take a drive around L.A., while enjoying a lovely morning of smog along with your latte, and you know what a depressive hell the market can produce. Even Hollywood cannot bring glamor to such a dirty cement jungle.

It seems to me that cutting these trees is not going to provide much good. Sure, in the short run, we will create employment, taxes, and wages but in the long run, among other things, we will depreciate the price of housing, contribute to carbon dioxide emissions, create erosion problems, and maybe bring the owl to extinction. So, why can’t we just leave the trees alone???

When you think of environmentalists, you often think of tree-huggers or of people with money and education and who can afford to think of the rights that the environment should have according to their views. Thus the environmental movement is, in essence, an elitist movement. After all, all the energy-efficient appliances and vehicles are usually priced above the non-efficient ones. And although in the long run, it may make more monetary sense to have energy efficient stuff, most low-income people make decisions based on what is best for them in the short run (no wonder then all this big fuss about the impending collapse of the mortgage industry, balloon mortgages, the real estate bubble, etc. but I digress…).

I was rather surprised then when I read in the New York Times Tom Friedman’s column about an African-American man, who wants to convert African-Americans to the green movement. The man, Van Jones, says:

“You can’t take a building you want to weatherize, put it on a ship to China and then have them do it and send it back,” said Mr. Jones. “So we are going to have to put people to work in this country — weatherizing millions of buildings, putting up solar panels, constructing wind farms. Those green-collar jobs can provide a pathway out of poverty for someone who has not gone to college.”

Jones views the environment as an opportunity for blue-collar workers to not just obtain employment but also to find a niche where they can specialize in and eventually move up the employment ladder. The premise of the success of this argument is that people will indeed see the opportunity and act on it. It all seems to make perfect sense.

But more often than not, the environment is viewed as a way of losing jobs (so much for Schumpeter’s “creative destruction” that Alan Greenspan so much loves). And I can’t wait for some people to start saying that houses that are retrofitted to be energy-efficient are more expensive and minorities cannot afford them and that is just another way of benefiting white people because they will be the ones saving on energy costs and so on and so forth…

And thus, I imagine that to prevent the white people from saving money on their electrical bills, we will prevent the minorities to climb the environmental and economic ladders, even if ever so slowly. Funny how humans are…

I just returned from Europe where American junk food is luxury food and where fast food places do recycle. Yes, it is true, McDonald’s does help the environment abroad. The particular McDonald’s I went to had different receptacles for trash and plastic. There was also a receptacle for used batteries like AAA and AA that are not recyclable. This latter one is what I miss the most in the U.S. I have a problem tossing used batteries in the trash. OK, I admit it, I have a big problem because I have not tossed one in years and I have been known to take them in my luggage when I go to Europe so that I can put them in a proper recycling bin. Lately, I just avoid buying or using gadgets that do not use rechargeable batteries. Yeah for me…

Foreign Mcdonald’s also cater to local taste buds and offer food that is traditional in the place where they operate. Oh, and guess what? You can have beer with your Big Mac or an espresso drink. Actually, beer is one of the drink options for your meal (not on the Happy Mean though! And yes, it’s OK to have a beer when your kid is present, as long as you don’t get too tipsy to drive…). Because McD’s offers local foods, you can find bowls of vegetable soup and more desserts are fruit based. If American McDonald’s were a little bit more like foreign McDonald’s, maybe it would not be such a bad thing to have your kids eat their lunch there every once in a while instead of trying to pack a healthy lunch for them.

However, foreign McDonald’s are more expensive than American ones. Forget about the 99 cent burger and expect to pay a decent price for your burger. And why not? After all, in many countries a larger proportion of people’s income is spent on food purchases and people expect to be fed meals that do not taste like artificially flavored cardboard. I bet if more people were aware of the actual taste (and price) that food is supposed to have, maybe a smaller proportion of food would satisfy them and that would mean that less stress would be put on the environment. Oh, and of course, the law of demand also applies–all other things held constant, and increase in price will cause quantity demanded to go down. Thus, one can save the environment and fight obesity at the same time. What a concept…

Who would have thought that the wild salmon could benefit from a sex scandal? I never would have thought but, eh, if that’s what it takes, then be it. Ex-Senator Larry Craig, one of the most adamant opponents to the protection of wild salmon in northeast rivers can no longer exert his Republican influence and maybe now the Democrats and environmentalists can have their way.

When I heard of the above mentioned scandal, I thought the whole affair sounded quite fishy (sorry I could not resist the double pun). All the apologies the Senator offered reeked and I felt quite sorry for his wife. When things of this nature break out, the wife always gets called to the rescue and so there she was, after being publicly humiliated, standing by his side as he weaved his speech around some really inventive excuses.

Then I thought, so this is the kind of people that is running the country! Actually, not just a country but a very powerful country. Good grief, how did we get this far…

But there is always a silver lining at the end of the rainbow and maybe the silver lining of this story is the policy to protect the salmon. After all, how often do we hear that we need to eat more fish and salmon is pure brain food with all its healthy fats and whatnot. Very often, I hear you. (OK, sometimes, we also hear the bad news about mercury in fish.) Wild is better than farm-raised but either way there is not enough good salmon to go around everyone. Some sort of protection would be welcomed. As would be better education of individuals so that they started eating less (smaller portions) and left more to go around. In the U.S. it seems that when you go out to eat, half of your food ends up in the dumpster. Maybe we should just adopt the French system: eat very small portions of oh, so decadent food and just be really pleased with your first few bites. That seems more civilized than stuffing oneself silly and putting on extra pounds.

Then again, there was once upon a time when civilization meant that you stuffed yourself silly then headed to the vomitorium to throw up and then restarted your meal all over again. Ah, the Roman Empire…

It’s Fall, well, almost… There has been some rain this year so maybe the fall colors will be pretty this year.

But it’s also time to garden again and prepare your slice of nature for the winter. I have already received the bulb catalogs but I won’t be getting anything this year–I guess that will be better for my carbon emissions but not so good for my curb appeal for next spring. I am debating whether to apply fertilizer to the lawn. I guess it’s advisable but I am one of those people who actually thinks about nutrient runoff and all the things that go down the sewer in your attempt to achieve the perfect lawn.

If I actually had a house where I knew I would be staying more than three or four years, I would start a composting system for the garden. (Of course, as it is I don’t have any trees so that I can compost their leaves but maybe I could get some leaves from the city.) I would also make it less lawn and more other plants.

This year I have been craving chrysanthemums. I think it’s because I walk by some small flowerbeds at work where the gardeners have planted really dark red mums. I saw their almost velvety flowers and I wanted some of that fall nostalgia on my own garden. So far I have been able to resist going to the store and buying some, but we’ll see if I can make it all the way through fall.

Maybe someday I’ll get to actually garden seriously and consistently and finally put to good use all my issues of Horticulture magazine–so far, not that many, only one year’s subscription.