September, 2010

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22
Sep 10

Gaseous Musings – Carbonated Water

The U.S. is the largest consumer of bottled water in the world, but the French drink a lot of it too. You may have heard the recent news about Paris offering carbonated water from new public drinking fountains, in an effort to decrease the amount of bottled water they buy and show people how good the public tap water is. Apparently the French are the 8th largest drinkers of bottled water in the world, and with the 21st biggest population, they clearly like their bottled water, especially the bubbly stuff.  Weren’t Perrier and Evian among the first we imported to the U.S.?

Though mineral water has some mineral content and fizzy water just has CO2, they’re both refreshing, hence the huge sales. And so much of is shipped  across the oceans. You can buy water carbonators to make the stuff for yourself at home (if you have good tasting water) and not have to pay more for and haul bottles of mineral or soda water from the store. You can even exchange the gas cartridges to keep the cost, waste and landfill down. That’s cool.

I began researching these wonderfully satisfying sparkling drinks and then it dawned on me, with a burp and some alarm, that the history of carbonating beverages, invented in the 18th century, and on to a steady, probably exponential increase throughout the 19th and 20th centuries… why, it follows a similar timeline as the concentration of CO2 levels in our atmosphere….!

http://www.bworldonline.com/weekender/content.php?id=18295
http://www.waterwideweb.org/the-secrets-behind-sparkling-water.html
http://www.truetex.com/carbonation.htm
www.SodaStreamUSA.com

^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~
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

Ecofacts blogs presented by Green Products Global:

http://www.greenproductsglobal.com/

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17
Sep 10

Commuting – Public Transit

Commuting makes up about 15% of daily travel in the U.S.  But it would seem that its toll on roads, vehicles, drivers and carbon emissions would be a much greater percentage. Here is a snapshot of current commuting and some trends, both nationally and locally.

As of 2008, 76% of workers drive alone to work, 5% take public transit, 11% carpool, with the remaining 8% telecommuting, riding bikes, walking and riding motorcycles. New York City and San Francisco are the only large cities where more than a quarter of residents use other means besides their sovs (single occupancy vehicles). 27% of commuters work outside their county of residence. Not a surprise to learn that the number of workers whose commute is over 60 minutes has increased over the decade, as has public transit and bike riding, though with much smaller increases in these alternative forms.

In Santa Barbara County, 71% drive alone, over 15% carpool or vanpool, close to 4% bus and 5% walk or bike (and the remaining telecommuting or riding a motorcycle). The number driving alone has decreased, partially due to an increase in Hispanic residents. 10% of Santa Barbara County residents work outside the county, but a much larger percentage of surrounding counties do, with the number of commuters coming into the Santa Barbara area estimated at 30,000, as stated previously (but I just had to again!)

Here’s to somehow improving one’s commute.

http://www.brookings.edu/metro/MetroAmericaChapters/commuting.aspx
http://sbcag.org/PDFs/publications/2007%20Commuter%20Profile%20Report.pdf
http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/nchrp/CIAIIIfacts.pdf

^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~
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

Ecofacts blogs presented by Green Products Global:

http://www.greenproductsglobal.com/

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15
Sep 10

Small Items, Big Subject – Rechargable Batteries

Batteries, part 1

Energy = potential. Thanks to an Italian named Volta, we have batteries – small things that have lots of energy and possibilities in store for us. Besides powering our cell phones, cameras, flashlights, etc, there are currently more laptops being sold than desktop computers. Our cars and trucks have been using them all along but now our future will rely even more heavily on them. Nissan has just broken ground for a lithium ion battery plant in Tennessee, to supply its electric car, the Leaf. (Wow, great name.) Power from the sun and wind is stored in them, for when the sun isn’t shining and the wind not blowing.

From an environmental perspective, they produce clean power, if you don’t take into account their production and their afterlife in the dump. Billions of batteries are produced annually. Each year, Americans buy around 3 billion of the little dry cell ones and 100 million lead acid car batteries. Most of the former are discarded, most of the latter are recycled.

Batteries left to rot in landfills are polluting, though actually the regular old “heavy duty” (zinc oxide) and the popular alkaline ones (manganese dioxide, potassium hydroxide, zinc) are more innocent than others, except for the materials in their billions which could be reused if recycled.

Using rechargeable batteries when possible is the way to go, and NiMh (Nickel Metal hydride) appear to be the best, both environmentally and for actual use, as they last longer. These are not considered hazardous waste. Other rechargeables, such as Ni-cds (Nickel cadmium) and lithiums, used for our electronics, and also the little button batteries ARE hazardous waste and hence should be either recycled or brought to hazardous waste collection sites.

The European Union’s Battery Directive places more responsibility on citizens and manufacturers for recycling. In the U.S.,California’s law prohibits disposal of batteries, though I doubt there have been any arrests.



^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~
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

Ecofacts blogs presented by Green Products Global:

http://www.greenproductsglobal.com/

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15
Sep 10

The Ocean Around Us – Rachel Carson

The Deepwater Gulf oil site continues to gush forth, becoming one of the ocean’s largest environmental disasters in history, another signifier of man against nature. Yesterday was Rachel Carson’s birthday. She was a great lover of the sea, and a powerfully eloquent defender of nature. The sea was her subject long before her book “Silent Spring” 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.

“We 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 Beethoven’s 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.”

From “Our Ever-Changing Shore”, July, 1958, Holiday (an American travel magazine)
http://www.rachelcarson.org/BooksBy.aspx

^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~
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

Ecofacts blogs presented by Green Products Global:

http://www.greenproductsglobal.com/

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10
Sep 10

Smart Growth – City Planning

It’s a tough thing to ponder – too many humans, limited resources. Growth problems abound. Here in Santa Barbara, we have one kind of growth problem, it being a desirable place to live, and hence the cost of living has become prohibitive – too high for many regular, not rich folks to afford. And so, they live elsewhere.

Close to 30,000 people commute into the Santa Barbara area daily,  most from 30 -50 miles away. Wow, what a lot of carbon, and a lot of time in the car that might be spent really living.

A downtown condo project recently approved by our city’s planning commission is an exemplary model for demonstrating another way of developing land, one that promotes a healthier community and has a much lighter footprint.

This will be a mixed use (residential and commercial) complex, containing 37 condos, underground parking, and a large open air space for markets and vendors, the kind who would not otherwise be able to afford downtown space – a “public market”. Very possibly, one could live here and walk, bike or bus to work, walk to buy your bread, produce, and fresh, locally caught fish for dinner, walk to attend concerts, plays or movies, or shuttle down State St. for a stroll at the beach. The best parts of city living, but without the city.  You might not even need a gym membership or car insurance.

Solar power will generate at least a third of the power needed, a green roof and cistern will supply much of the water needed for landscaping and reduce energy usage and costs, as will the solar hot water heating. The condos themselves will be fairly small, averaging 1000 sq feet, but guest rooms and entertaining space will be available to those who live there. The builders will be reusing some of the materials from the building that is being torn down and recycling the rest. New building materials will be energy efficient and environmentally healthy, such as low VOC paints. If this great intent pays off, it will be certified as a LEED Platinum building, for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. This is a coveted rating for a good reason. This is building with life in mind, a kind of growth that works so much better for us and the planet.

http://www.usgbc.org
http://www.sbcag.org/PDFs/publications/2007 Commuter Profile Report.pdf
http://www.independent.com/news/2010/aug/16/new-vision-old-vons-lot/

^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~
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

Ecofacts blogs presented by Green Products Global:

http://www.greenproductsglobal.com/

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3
Sep 10

Humans Need/Want Protein – Sustainable Fish

Global fish production, the term used for both growing farmed and catching wild fish, has steadily increased to three times what it was a half century ago. It is now over 300 billion pounds/year. As the wild fish steadily disappear, the business of aquaculture (fish farming) grows, and both are taxing ocean ecosystems. Numbers vary, but about three quarters of the world’s “fish stocks” (our anthropocentric term, they exist only for us) are considered depleted or fully exploited. Technology and desire for trawling the oceans and netting huge catches grew to far beyond sustainability. And then there is the by-catch. One example: a study in the 90’s on shrimp trawling in the Gulf of Mexico, showed that for every pound of shrimp caught, 10 pounds of other species, such as sea turtles, were caught and discarded.

About a fifth of those tons of fish caught and farmed are used for fishmeal for livestock feed, fertilizer, and to raise more fish. Fish oil is also used for aquaculture and human consumption. Three times the weight of fish in fishmeal is needed to grow a salmon. (Though it is believed that in the wild, the salmon would require as much as ten times its weight.) In the future, grains and even livestock byproducts might be use for farming fish, as the wild species continue to vanish.

People now eat more meat and fish than they used to, a great thing for poorer populations, but it’s looking less good for the rich ones. And we rich ones tend to like those big wild caught fish like tuna and swordfish, which also happen to be laced with mercury and industrial chemicals. So for those of us who eat lots of fish, should we choose wild or farmed fish? The answer might just be: eat less.

http://vitalsigns.worldwatch.org/vs-trend/fish-production-reaches-record
http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2005/100095/index.html
http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/aquacult/overview.php
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1084135/
http://blastmagazine.com/the-magazine/technology/earth/2010/07/earthtalk-eating-fish-green-economy/

^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~ ^ ~
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

Ecofacts blogs presented by Green Products Global:

http://www.greenproductsglobal.com/