May, 2010

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28
May 10

The Ocean Around Us

The Deepwater Gulf oil site continues to gush forth, becoming one of the ocean¹s largest environmental disasters in history, another signifier of man against nature.  Yesterday was Rachel Carson¹s birthday. She was a great lover of the sea, and a powerfully eloquent defender of nature. The sea washer subject long before her book ³Silent Spring² was to open our eyes to the dangers wrought by human needs in the name of progress.  Read on only if you are in the mood for a taste of her quiet passion, as she describes an early morning walk to the shoreline.

³We had come down through spruce woods to the sea ­ woods that were dim with drifting mists and the first light of day. As we passed beyond the last line of trees onto the rocks of the shore a curtain of fog dropped silently but instantly behind us, shutting out all sights and sounds of land. Suddenly our world was only the dripping rocks and the gray sea that swirled against them and occasionally exploded in a muted roar. These, and the gray mists ­nothing more. For all one could tell the time might have been Paleozoic, when the world was in very fact only rocks and sea.

We stood quietly, speaking few words. There was nothing, really, for human words to say in the presence of something so vast, mysterious, and immensely powerful. Perhaps only in music of deep inspiration and grandeur could the message of that morning be translated by the human spirit, as in the opening bars of Beethoven¹s Ninth Symphony ­ music that echoes across vast distances and down long corridors of time, bringing the sense of what was and of what
is to come ­ music of swelling power that swirls and explodes even as the sea surged against the rocks below us.

But that morning all that was worth saying was being said by the sea. It is only in wild and solitary places that it speaks so clearly.²
From “Our Ever-Changing Shore”, July, 1958, Holiday (an American travel
magazine)
http://www.rachelcarson.org/

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Barbara Hirsch, recording engineer, eco-person

“Unless someone like you cares a whole lot,
nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

– The Lorax, Children’s book by Dr. Seuss

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21
May 10

Spring Food, Real Food

Picture and feel the difference between walking down the center aisle of a supermarket, and walking through a Farmers’ Market, where you can actually feel connected to the source of real, live food, grown not far from you. Somehow you find that your mood is lifted.

Farmers’ Markets, seed sales, gardens, small farms and CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture), and the concept of “buying local” – all are booming this year. In 2009 there were 5,274 Farmers Markets registered, tripling the number in 1994 when the USDA first counted them. These are community building markets, the food offered is beautiful, tasty, healthful and is the satisfying result of soil being worked, seeds being planted, old-fashioned honest labors, no huge mark-ups, no incomprehensible dealings, neither Hollywood nor Wall Street is needed to buy or sell these bounties of the Earth. Their pure goodness sells itself, a balm for these times.

The number of small farms is increasing faster than mid or large sized farms too. From the USDA’s website: “Nearly 300,000 new farms have begun operation since the last census in 2002. Compared to all farms nationwide, these new farms tend to have more diversified production, fewer acres, lower sales and younger operators who also work off-farm…. In the past five years, U.S. farm operators have become more demographically diverse. The 2007 Census counted nearly 30 percent more women as principal farm operators. The count of Hispanic operators grew by 10 percent, and the counts of American Indian, Asian and Black farm operators increased as well.”

And organic? – fully certified in 2008, 14,540 farms. The states with the most organic farms are, perhaps not surprisingly, the West Coast, Wisconsin and the New England states.

In Australia, organic farming is predicted to LEAD job growth in the coming years. There’s a head turner.

http://www.localharvest.org/
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentid=2009/02/0036.xml&contentidonly=true
http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2007/Online_Highlights/Organics/index.asp
http://www.smartcompany.com.au/hiring/20100113-top-10-jobs-of-2010-and-beyond.html

^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~
Barbara Hirsch, recording engineer, eco-person

“Unless someone like you cares a whole lot,
nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

– The Lorax, Children’s book by Dr. Seuss

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14
May 10

Cancer and Our Environment

GOOD NEWS, when a Federal government panel encourages Americans to eat organic foods and free range meats, reduce their exposures to toxic chemicals via their choice of household products, water and food containers, decrease their carbon use through transportation choices and electricity use, and more.

The report, written by the President’s Cancer Panel, is around 200 pages and titled “Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk — What We Can Do Now”. Just completed, it is being seen as radical by some bodies who might prefer not shaking things up and just sticking with the well known causes of cancer – such as smoking and obesity. However, there are lifestyle choices, like smoking, and there are factors beyond our control, such as dangerous products, polluted water, soil and air.

The report points to the 80,000 chemicals on the market, few of which have been tested or regulated. It states that 21% of Americans will die of cancer. It delves into sources and exposures of all kinds and even encourages citizen activism on these issues.

Here are two of the report’s conclusions:

“Exposure to pesticides can be decreased by choosing, to the extent possible, food grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers and washing conventionally grown produce to remove residues. Similarly, exposure to antibiotics, growth hormones, and toxic run-off from livestock feed lots can be minimized by eating free-range meat raised without these medications if it is available. Avoiding or minimizing consumption of processed, charred, and well-done meats will reduce exposure to carcinogenic heterocyclic amines and polyaromatic hydrocarbons.”

“Each person can become an active voice in his or her community. To a greater extent than many realize, individuals have the power to affect public policy by letting policymakers know that they strongly support environmental cancer research and measures that will reduce or remove from the environment toxics that are known or suspected carcinogens or endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Individuals also can influence industry by selecting non-toxic products and, where these do not exist, communicating with manufacturers and trade organizations about their desire for safer products.”

THANK YOU, Panel!

http://deainfo.nci.nih.gov/ADVISORY/pcp/annualReports/index.htm

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Barbara Hirsch, recording engineer, eco-person

“Unless someone like you cares a whole lot,
nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

– The Lorax, Children’s book by Dr. Seuss

You can sign up to receive these weekly ecofacts here:

http://sustainability.ucsb.edu/

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7
May 10

Oily Waters

Even when animals, birds and fish die, the gulf water and land ecosystems are seriously damaged, people in the region lose work, the country will have less American caught seafood, and so much more, most Americans won’t directly feel the effects of this oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

Oil is a tangible, primary basis of our economy and our contemporary lives. It is in, or transports, nearly everything we use and eat on a daily basis, and it powers our vehicles. Cars and trucks are the least important concern of this disaster, but one of the deepest roots of it, so with that in mind, here is some perspective on quantities of oil that has gushed into the Gulf.

Estimates have the rig spewing about 210,000 gallons of oil per day (42 gallons in one barrel, 5,000 barrels per day.), 18 days later nearly 2 million. The entire Santa Barbara oil spill that spawned our environmental movement resulted in between 3 and 4 million gals of oil in the ocean, according to other sources such as my fave, the New York Times.The size of the Gulf Oil slick (over 2,000 square miles) is equivalent to the greater coastal region from Santa Barbara to San Diego.

The average car or light truck in this country is driven about 12,000 miles per year, at an average of 20 miles per gallon. It takes about 2 gallons of oil to make one gallon of gasoline. A few calculations later, and we can see that up till now, enough oil has spilled to fuel 3,150 cars/trucks for an entire year, or….probably a small country.

^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~
Barbara Hirsch, recording engineer, eco-person

“Unless someone like you cares a whole lot,
nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

– The Lorax, Children’s book by Dr. Seuss