What The... Frack

The EPA found over 20 years ago that Horizontal Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking) contaminates water. In 2005 President George W. Bush signed legislation exempting gas drillers that use fracking techniques from the Clean Water regulation. So much has been spoken, recorded and documented about how fracking is destroying water supplies by polluting them not just with methane (natural gas) but also with a cornucopia of toxic materials, that I am not going to focus on that in this blog. Suffice it to say that the EPA which is beholden to politicians who are beholden to the corporations will do to fracking what S&P did with CDO securities leading to the housing bubble. They will ignore it, down play it, defend it, until everyone gets hurt and then they will issue a no-brainer statement.


Watch actor Mark Ruffalo talk about this topic with Keith Olbermann on Current TV. Mark Ruffalo figured out that as a beneficiary of public goodwill through his art, he owed society something. And he figured he owed society a voice to defend the millions of us who are blinded and mislead by the pretty advertising by the Oil and Natural Gas companies and Industry Groups (lobbies).


Here are some take aways from this interview:

• Allowing Fracking as a trade-off to fazing off old Nuclear Power Facilities is trading one lousy form of energy for another.
• Fracturing sets off mini earthquakes which over time threaten the structural integrity of homes near fracking sites.
• USA Today said that today's highest paying jobs in the fastest growing sector of the ecomony is Green Energy Tech. 
• Gas is not the answer. Gas is the bridge to another 40 years of Carbon based fuels.
• A New York based fracking company got busted PUMPING IN 150,000 gallons of diesel fuel into the ground. They could pump in any toxic soup and they are not accountable.
• The water coming out of the fracked landscape cannot be recycled. Its laden with Radium, Uranium and all kinds of toxic substances. Its causing our sewage and water treatment facilities to shut down.
• Josh Fox's movie Gasland did more to bring this issue to light than anyone in the media or environmental activists could. He took a camera and went into Rural America. He discovered that rural communities after being destroyed turned to who else but the fracking companies for support, signing NDAs (Non Disclosure Agreements) in exchange for money and silence because now their homes and properties were worthless.

How much Carbon-Di-Oxide does your internet browsing create

Here's a cool 2 minute video from the Australian Broadcasting corpoaration

How Green Is Your Internet? from Patrick Clair on Vimeo.

The stats:
Every second of internet puts 0.2gms of CO2 into the atmosphere.
That's 12 gms per minute
Thats 720 gms per hour
Thats 8.6 Kgs over 12 hours that most folks like me spend online.

Youtube users get through 2 billion videos at a conservative average of 10 secs per video for a total of 4000 Tonnes of CO2 per day.
Thats 1.4 million Tonnes of CO2 pe year.

Facebook and Apple use coal fired electricity. That makes them the dirtiest consumers
Yahoo and Google use the cleanest energy sources and Google has invested heavily in developing Wind, Solar and Kite power!

Enjoy the video.

Green Shipping

This is a cry for help. I have scoured the internet looking for a solution to the following problem and I havent found a good one yet:

Is there a company out there that ships small packages in an environment friendly way?

Basically I am looking for an alternative to Fedex, UPS, USPS. Put another way, I am looking for a company which uses methods other than "flying your mail" to the the destination and relying on the typical hub and spoke model. These "BIG" carriers are beginning to tout "green" programs. However I see that those programs are nothing other than simple carbon offset fees (asking consumers to pay money to offset their carbon consumption instead of actually changing or adding new business models).

If there is anyone out there that can ship a parcel for me across continents at a low cost and for a low carbon footprint even if it takes them a month to get my parcel to the destination, I would like for them to leave me a note so I can do business with them.

For those curious as to why I am asking for a "ship by ship" shipping option check out this graphic:

Whats the dirtiest shipping method

Free power for a day for your computer

Recycling one soda can saves enough energy to power a computer for one day or power a television for 3 hours.

Recycling six cans saves enough energy to power a CFL light bulb for 4 days

Recycling a can reduces its carbon footprint by about 60%

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?

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

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