The Vegetarians are Right

Water
To grow a pound of wheat requires around 130 gallons of virtual water. For meat, depending on the type - multiply that by five to ten times. In brief
Water to support a vegetarian diet - 686 gallons
Water to support a USA meat-based diet - 1320 gallons
And thats PER DAY. Learn about your Water Footprint

Crop
Meat Production requires crop production for livestock. 70% of the crop grown in the US is for Livestock. This means:
- More water used
- More energy used
- More land use
- A bigger industry for GM (genetically modified) produce, which means more power (money) to Monsanto and other big evil food corporations, which spend more of our money to spread misinformation, and lobby lawmakers to make laws that go against the health of humans, animals and the planet.
- More GM produce means more animals and humans being afflicted by new-age ailments, requiring greater investments in disease control and treatment. We know that the anti-biotics fed to livestock cause internal bleeding and pus formation (and thats what you eat)

Land
A meat eater requires 200% to 400% times more farmland than a vegetarian. To make room for enough farmland, the meat industry constantly destroys vital ecosystems, thus taking away the habitats of myriad species and reducing biodiversity. The vast Amazon rainforest is rapidly being destroyed to make way for
ranching and growing animal feed and will be gone by the end of this century if the current rate of destruction continues. Do you want to let this happen? Source: Green Decade

Energy
800% more oil is used in the production of animal protein as is used in plant protein production due to the fuel required to manufacture fertilizers and pesticides for animal feed, to operate farming machinery, for transportation and for irrigation.
 
Greenhouse Gas Production Factory
- The bacteria in the rumen as well as the manure from livestock releases Methane, a 1000% more severe greenhouse gas than Carbon-Di-Oxide.
- Forests and Grasslands that would absorb high amounts of carbon dioxide are cleared to make way for farmland. To make matters worse, the enormous fires used to burn down these forests release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere

Destruction of Ecosystems
- The manure spills out of open air storage pits and makes it way to water systems. There the algae feast on it and deplete the water of oxygen, causing harm to the aquatic life and disturbing fragile ecosystems
- Manure also releases ammonia into the air, which mixes with rain and kills forests and other vegetation
- Reduced forest cover also drives large wild animals to extinction, further destroying ecosystems and reducing biodiversity.

Human Water Supply and Food Chain
Nitrates leak from manure into community drinking water, causing serious human health problems.
Animals act as concentrators of pesticides, fertilizers, weedicides. Meat produces more human disease than agricultural produce does.

Quality of Life
- Vegetarianism is the fastest way to reduce Poverty per World Bank. Thats not hard to see because reduced demand for meat would allow for greater production of vegetarian food thereby tempering hunger.
- Poverty is the fuel that keeps the fire of Terrorism Alive. Elimination of Poverty would go a long way in reducing the motivation for conflicts and denying terrorists the following they enjoy in poor countries be it in West Asia, Africa or South America.
- You can grow your own food in a small patch of land. Try raising livestock on your P-Patch!
- Vegetarians are happier than meat-eaters according to Discovery.

Credits and Further Reading
Production and Consumption of Meat: Implications for the Global Environment and Human Health
Environmental Benefits of Vegetarianism
An Ecological Argument for Vegetarianism
Five Good Reasons for Being Vegetarian (Ethical, Economic, Ecologic, Health, Spiritual)
Can people have meat and a planet too?

$10,000 Sandwich and Blue Gold

Can you imagine paying $10,000 for a sandwich. That is 2,000 times more than a sandwich should cost!!

And yet that is what most Americans pay, when they buy Half a Billion Gallons of Bottled Water EVERY WEEK.


Ok, so you roll your eyes and ignore it... ie, YOUR addiction to plastic water bottles. You throw up your hands saying its not in your control. You think bottled water is safe!?

Read this, think again and thank me! And if you kick the habbit, I will thank you. And YOU WILL THANK YOURSELF  that you didnt turn into the MONSTER you see in the picture on the left.

- Plastic Water Bottles are a health hazard: Plastic bottles travel hundreds of miles in the heat to get to your store. And those sunny miles work their wonders on the plastic, leeching away harmful chemicals into the water you consume.

- Its Expensive, dammit!! If all you drink is bottled water, you are paying about $1,500 more per year for water! Kick this habbit and you could save enough money to watch movies on netflix for 13 years!!!

- The Bottled Water Companies are pulling wool over your eyes. Why? Because in most cases they fill those bottles with ordinary water any way (not mineral water which you want to believe it is) with some processing at times.

- Bottled water is NOT safer than municipal water. Want to know how your community water supply scores? Check out the Environmental Working Group's National Tap Water Database.

- Tapping Natural Water sources damages ecosystems: If mineral water is indeed used in your favorite brand, its not good either. Its "damaging ecosystems by sucking water from underground aquifers that are the source of water for nearby streams, wells, and farms. Lakes and wet lands are also damaged" (http://www.sierraclub.org/)

- WATER IS A HUMAN RIGHT that is under attack. But like all other human rights, capitalism is making a mockery of it. Corporatization means communities that live near water bodies do not benefit from it. This leads to social unrest. Coke set up a bottled water facility in India, which contaminated the water supply and depleted resources for the local people. The PBS documentary film Thirst, shows how rapid worldwide privatization of municipal water suppliesis affecting local economies.

- Bottled water means less attention to public systems. Public Systems need their leaks fixed and with a small investment they can be made more reliable than the water in your bottle. The more we run away from public water supply, the richer the bottled water suppliers become and the more we get addicted to their crap (because multinationals are stepping in to buy groundwater and other water sources). And its not just overseas. Maybe its gone too far in New Jersey  already.

- The process of making the plastics releases toxins such as nickel, ethylbenzene, ethylene oxide and benzene

- Plastic comes from oil (as if we arent already addicted to oil for our energy needs). The entire energy costs of processing the final product before it gets to you is equalent to filling One-Fouth of that same bottle with oil.

- Nearly 90 percent of water bottles are NOT recycled and wind up in landfills where it takes thousands of years for the plastic to decompose.

WHAT CAN YOU DO:
- Use this helpful guide to talk to your friends, children, parents, coworkers, neighbors.

- Learn how to promote tap water within your office, campus or public place with our guide: How Your Organization Can Promote Tap Water

- Take Back the Tap Pledge. If you don't like the taste of municipal water, use a carbon filter to fix it.

- Dine at restaurants that have pledged not to serve bottled water.

- Hosting an event? Make it bottled water free with the help of this guide: Free Your Event from Bottled Water.

- Watch and Host a movie screening of the Thirst. Or some of the other films on the subject - FLOW, Blue Gold, The Water Front or Tapped, powerful documentaries sure to get the message across. And make sure to make it a bottle-free event.

- Do you know when was the last time your office water cooler was cleaned?

- Do NOT reuse plastic water bottles. The more they are reused, the more chemicals they leech. Learn about the Plastic Numbering System before reusing any plastic.

- Just get a stainless steel bottle and fill it up. Spend your savings elsewhere


LEARN MORE

- Sierra Club's Fact Sheet on Bottled Water
- Sierra Club's Campagn against Bottled Water
- Watch: The Truth about Bottled Water

Urban Farming - Its fun!

One of my best friends who works as an IT Security Technologist at one of the world's largest software companies has a P-Patch where he has been growing veggies. Here's his story and then my comments.

"I had fond memories of the Kitchen Garden in my grandparent's house in India. So when my friend told me about growing veggies in a P-Patch smack dab in the middle of my neighbourhood in the Seattle Metro Area, I jumped right in to recreate those memories. I rent a patch of land (400 sq ft) for about $60 per year from the Bellevue Park's Department. It has been a most wonderful experience so far:). This is my second year and I am still in the learning phase and have more misses than hits... I have learnt that in the Pacific NW weather, some things grow better than other and some dont at all :)

The biggest problem out here is the short growing season and lots of happy weeds... it seems there really isnt a perfect solution for weeds other than pulling them out regularly. You can minimise the weeds by covering the soil in the winter with an opaque plastic sheet. You cut small holes and plant in the plants in those holes...


Food prepared by the produce from P-patch tastes much better than what you get from the grocery store ... and thats the reward :) Plus you get to meet lot of people in the patch and get free exercise."
 
 
I have been impressed with my friends who are doing this. They are among a growing tribe of everyday folks who are showing the rest of us the way to wean ourselves off corporate produce that is laced with fertilizers, pesticides and other chemicals and often Genetically Modified (GM) to allow for greater output per square foot of land.
 
Some of the other things that you may want to try:
 
Hire-a-Box-Farm
 
"Young Urban Farmers" is a small scale Toronto Business that builds a box farm and delivers it to your backyard. They take care of planting and managing a box full of veggies of your choice that sits in your backyard - everything from carrots and tomatoes, to strawberries and lettuce. And now they are providing franchises as well.

This is especially useful for those who have challenges (time, physical or other) in building and taking care of their own organic garden.
 
Community Farming/Gardening
 
My friend Ambar, in India suggested on another blog post that Apartment Complexes would be a perfect place to build urban farms and build communities. Well, Seattle is already showing the way in this regard through its P-Patch Community Gardening Program .
 
Besides yielding food for the community, in 2009 alone, gardeners contributed over 18,500 hours (equivalent to 9 full time workers) and donated over 12.4 tons of food to Seattle food banks and feeding programs.

Window Farming
 
Dont live in a community that has room for growing a pea patch? Fret Not. Window Farms are vertical, modular, low-energy, high-yield edible window gardens built using low-impact or recycled local materials. Water consumption is low too. Plus they reuse plastic water bottles that otherwise may(not) get recycled. And we all know Reuse is better than Recycling (which takes energy)

Aquaponics

It is the symbiotic cultivation of plants and aquatic animals in a recirculating environment.

Aquatic animal effluent (for example fish waste) accumulates in water as a by-product of keeping them in a closed system or tank (for example a recirculating aquaculture system). The effluent-rich water becomes high in plant nutrients but this is correspondingly toxic to the aquatic animal.

Plants are grown in a way (for example a hydroponic system) that enables them to utilize the nutrient-rich water. The plants take up the nutrients, reducing or eliminating the water's toxicity for the aquatic animal.

The water, now clean, is returned to the aquatic animal environment and the cycle continues. Aquaponic systems do not discharge or exchange water. The systems rely on the relationship between the aquatic animals and the plants to maintain the environment. Water is only added to replace water loss from absorption by the plants, evaporation into the air, or the removal of biomass from the system.

Aquaponic systems vary in size from small indoor units to large commercial units. They can use fresh or salt water depending on the type of aquatic animal and vegetation.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Read about a small business in Milwaukee, WI that has successfully transformed an abandoned industrial shed into a thriving aquaponic urban farm.

A self contained aquaponic system that uses solar power

Vertical Farming

Vertical farming is an upcoming agricultural method that involves large-scale farming in urban high-rises or "farmscrapers". Using recycled resources and greenhouse methods such as hydroponics, these buildings would produce fruit, vegetables, edible mushrooms and algae year-round.


Proponents argue that, by allowing traditional outdoor farms to revert to a natural state and reducing the energy costs needed to transport foods to consumers, vertical farms could significantly alleviate climate change produced by excess atmospheric carbon.

Humanity's Death March

A 2 minute video that powerfully explains bio-diversity, and how we are ignoring it at our own peril. Will it be sudden death, or slow painful torture?


Biodiversity - Vancouver Film School from Vancouver Film School on Vimeo.

Also check out this news article from The Independent newspaper in Britain which reports on a study that predicts that 1 in 10 species will be lost from planet Earth by the end of the 21st Century.

BREAKING NEWS: HORROR STORY: You get no paycheck for working from 8/22/10 to 12/31/10

How does that make you feel? You work for 12 months this year but get paid for only 7.7 months.

That is how the Earth is feeling since August 21st. That's this year's Earth Overshoot Day (aka Ecological Debt Day). Its the day by which we (all of humanity) has consumed so far this year all the resources that earth is able to provide us for a full year. We have consumed in 7.7 months what the Earth takes 12 months to produce.

Put another way, we (humans) are in need of resources that would require 1.4 Earths Worth of Production. Unfortunately we have only 1 Earth! What's worse is that the US requires 3.4 Earths to meet its needs!

Learn more at http://www.triplepundit.com/2010/08/warningplanetary-eco-checkbook-bounced-over-weekend/

Remember what Mahatma Gandhi said 70 years ago: "There is enough in this world to meet everyone's needs but not enough to meet everyone's greed"

POLICY POST: Reduce your Trash or pay higher for waste collection (and other good things in a city near you)

Change is coming to a city near you!

I wrote about how Seattle is becoming a Carbon-Neutral City (at http://tinyurl.com/2fbu9fk )

Now Sanford, Maine is going to charge you by the weight/volume for the trash you generate. http://tinyurl.com/25br8d4

But wait there's more that other cities are doing. Check out this comprehensive list of Clean-Green initiatives in major US cities.:

http://ecolocalizer.com/2010/08/17/2010-smarter-cities-for-energy/

The point is simple - If you are not going to change your consumer behavior, its going to get harder when regulation comes knocking on the door. But luckily there is tons of help. http://www.zerowasteamerica.org/ will give you lots of ideas on how to reduce your waste.

If you are planning to build your own home, I would seriously recommend building your own waste-digester that will provide you biogas methane to power your own home. See this video which tells you have to do it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2SMQGUuY3g

DIY: Freecycling: Give your "Stuff" new life.

One of our readers left an invaluable comment about free-cycling. See the comment at:

http://livegreenseegreen.blogspot.com/2010/08/things-you-didnt-know-you-could-recycle.html#comments

Free-cycling is simple.
- Decide what you dont need, OR what you need.

- Find a neighborhood group that is into free-cycling (You can find them at http://www.freecycle.org/. There are groups in about 5000 cities and neighbourhoods worldwide)

- Attend a free-cycling event. Give what you have and/or take what you want for free!

DIY: Save Your Battery: Unplug Your Laptop

That's my tip of the day. Once fully charged, an additional supply of electricity does more harm that good. So be sure to "pull the plug" once you are done charging. And that goes for batteries in cell phone, electric shavers and other electronic gadgets.

For the science - you can read this article from a researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab:

http://thisweekinbatteries.blogspot.com/2010/02/pull-plug-your-battery-will-thank-you.html

Seattle - America's First Zero Waste/Carbon-Neutral City

This gave me quite a kick! Its the first city in America thats on its way to being carbon neutral. The city is applying all the common sense principles possible to make this happen. Now this is how true conservatism works.

Here's a sampling of what they are doing (some of these you could directly implement at your homes and offices too)


- Food waste is collected weekly and gets used for compost. Bye Bye Methane (emanating from garbage dumps and landfills causing more global warming)

- Incentives for product stewardship (a.k.a. "extended producer responsibility"). This means producers are responsible for recycling and disposing off of what they produce. They get a financial incentive for this.

- Reduce garbage by banning non-recyclables (eg plastic bags and styrofoam cups and other dinning hall culprits).

- Expanding reuse and recycling to include back programs for products like pharmaceuticals, paint, and electronic products.

- Expanding recycling to take care of construction and demolition waste

Complete article from Yes! Magazine at http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/richard-conlin/waste-not-seattles-road-to-zero-trash?utm_source=wkly20100820&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=titleConlin

DIY: Things you didnt know you could recycle, or how to!

Did you know of http://www.earth911.com/ ? Its the one place you can go to figure out how to recycle things you wish you could recycle instead of dumping in the trash... atleast I hope you feel that way everytime you reach for the dumpster:-)


Here are a few things you may not know you could (or how to) recycle/reuse.
- Wine Corks
- Foam Packing Peanuts
- Bras
- Carpets and Rugs
- Prescription Medicines
- CDs/DVDs/Books
- Shoes
- Holiday Lights

The article below shows you how to recycle them.

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/8-things-you-didnt-know-you-could-recycle.html

BIG PICTURE: "Greenest Campuses" Surveys - New financial realities encourage saving money by adopting environmentally friendly innovations

If you or someone you know is going (back) to School, it would be worth considering the schools sustainability practices. Why? Because in the long run, the greenest campuses will be the most profitable and the others will incur greater costs. For example its important to know if your campuse will be able to survive the next unexpected flood, or the next earthquake or the next hurricane, or the next drought or the next epidemic. Those are all likely scenarios as the earth's climate changes. If a campus is already geared up to say get electricity from onsite solar generators or draws from a grid that uses renewable energy, there is less risk of an extended outage when oil based energy sources go down!

There are several noteworthy surveys of the greenest campuses out there. I will be adding and updating the list below as I find new stuff. So consider subscribing/following this blog/blog post to stay up to date when the content changes.

- http://greenreportcard.org/media - Covers 332 colleges in US and Canada and offers universal access to 1,100 survey responses! The Survey includes 48 indicators in the following 9 categories: Administration, Climate Change & Energy, Food & Recycling, Green Building, Transportation, Student Involvement, Endowment Transparency, Shareholder Engagement and Investment Priorities.

LEARN: Lets Learn from the Birds and Bees!

Having a hard time figuring out how to ease sustainability into your home, workplace, and friend circle? Check out this great article to make a mind shift and learn a great strategy-

http://blogs.forbes.com/csr/2010/08/18/the-birds-and-bees-of-sustainability/?boxes=Homepagechannels

DIY: Buyers Guide to Green Products. Get the most green back for your green(back)

This post is going to be edited from time to time, so bookmark it and check back once in a while.

What I want to do here is provide links to sites that help you decide where to spend your dollars so you get the most green back for your green(back). These sites will help you develop your own standards for sustainable living.

- http://www.goodguide.com/ for safe healthy and green products for the home, health, personal care, food and more

- http://www.eatwellguide.org/ for organic restaurants, stores, farms and more

- http://sfapproved.org/ for products that meet San Francisco's Health and Environmental Requirements

- http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/

Humanitarian Appeal: Leh Flash Floods

SEEDS Donation page

Ten days since the Flash Flood in Leh, the death toll still continues to climb, and stands at 183. 400 people are still believed to be missing. The flash floods in the mountainous cold desert, washed away houses, schools, farms, bridges and with these, many lives as well. Villages within a 35 kilometres radius of Leh town and its neighboring settlements (Choglamsar, Phyang) has bore the brunt of the flash floods.

DIY: Extend your gas dollars through hypermiling and other techniques

Its true. I speak from personal experience. Using the techniques mentioned below, I increased the fuel efficiency of my Honda Civic from 24mpg to 30mpg. That translated to an annual saving of about $300!!

Here's how you can do it.

- Hypermiling is when you turn off the engine and let the car run on its own momentum. Consider doing this when you are nearing a traffic signal and you know its going to be a while before the light turns green. You may also want to do this when you are going down a gentle incline. Remember though that without engine power, you will have a harder time steering the wheel, so be careful with this. Dont do this on a stiff incline by any means. Thats just plain asking for trouble. For more tips on what NOT to do because that would be risky, please see http://hypermilingblog.com/is-hypermiling-legal

- Never idle more than 5 seconds. Its a myth of the past that if restarting the engine requires more fuel that simply idling it. That used to be the case in the days of the carburettor. Not so any more with the electronically controlled fuel injection.

- Close your gas cap all the way till you here a click. Every years about 150 million gallons of gas are lost in the US alone thanks to fuel evaporation.

- Every car has an optimum speed range. Usually it is between 55 and 66 mph. Driving in this range gets you the most fuel efficiency. Do not overspeed on the freeway.

- Check the tire pressure and make sure it matches the manufacturer's recommendation

- Get rid of "stuff" sitting in your trunk. The heavier the "Stuff", the lighter your wallet will be

- Air filters must be changed atleast every other time you go for an oil change

- Check your spark plugs and be aware that you may need to replace them a few times a year

- Avoid short trips in city traffic. Combine errands to reduce the number of trips to the grocery store or the mall.

LEARN: 6 Reasons to Go Organic

1. Protect your health - You really don't want to ingest hormones, pesticides and other chemicals, do you? Worse, you dont want your children to be eating those toxic cancer causing chemicals. One study showed that 23.4 per cent of farms with caged hens tested positive for salmonella compared to 4.4 per cent in organic flocks and 6.5 per cent in free-range flocks. See the study at http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_9990.cfm

2. Protect soil - In industrial farming, soil structure is not given much thought, leading to depletion of nutrients and erosion. If the soil is not handled in a sustainable way, it eventually stops giving back and you can't use it any more.

3. Protect water - Fertilizers and pesticides used in industrial farming inevitably make their way into ground water and other water bodies.

4. Reduce Energy - Organic farming uses much less of petroleum than industrial farming since it relies on manual cultivation methods.

5. Protect Farmers and Farm Workers - Farmers that do not own farms not only suffer from ailments brought on by inhalation/ingestion of chemicals found in fertilizers and pesticides, they are also at the financial mercy of corporations. With reduced land ownership, economic disparities between the haves and have-nots increases.

6. Organic Tastes Better - Try it, and know the difference!

DIY: Wash Your Clothes with Soap Nuts!

http://greenarbytheday.wordpress.com/2009/04/02/wash-your-clothes-with-soap-nuts/

Soap nuts are the dried fruit of the Chinese Soapberry tree. They contain saponin, a natural cleaner. For over 2,500 years, soap nuts have been used for laundering silks and wools, by jewelers for shining gold and silver ornaments, as a hair wash, and as a skin soap. They are 100% biodegradable and hypoallergenic.

DIY: 6 Natural Alternatives to Toxic Fabric Softeners

Use Baking Soda in your Laundry for softening clothes instead of using Fabric Softner Sheets:

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/6-natural-alternatives-to-toxic-fabric-softeners.html

Wondering why you need to make the switch? After all how bad could it be?

Here's a sampling:
- Various types of cancer (especially pancreatic)
- Respiratory problems
- Nerve Damage

For a complete list of the chemicals and what they do to you check out this compilation from EPA's Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS).

On a related note, consider doing away with the dryer altogether and make a switch to drying clothes outdoor. Use the Sun, and the Earth will Thank You! Its a growing movement thats taking on the rules and regulations of communities and condo boards!