AliveAndKickN

Good Stuff in the Times Today

Obviously the Myanmar typhoon aside, the NY Times had some good stuff today.  First was an article about how 70% of the waste in San Francisco is recycled.  Once again, they understand what I've been saying all along - recylcing is money.  Watch all of that raw material, especially paper, head overseas and laugh all the way to the bank.  NY is about 30%, but I guess we don't need the money in this area.  Also, the Climate Counts scorecard just came out.  I can feel better about eating my Skippy all natural PBJ, and washing it down with a Starbucks venti mocha and Stonyfield yogurt, as long as I use my reusable mug of course.  See how your favorite establishment stacks up.  Since I typically charge my IPOD in the car, I don't feel so bad about the Apple score, although it is somewhat surprising.

   

Sweet!!

Somehow I managed to find organic sugar buried on the bottom shelf of the baking aisle at the supermarket.  At eye level was Splenda, Equal, and the various other processed sweeteners, just as compact flurescent bulbs are buried on the top shelves with incandescents at eye level.  I decided that the organic sugar was worth the additional cost and 30 calories per coffee cup.  I will say that the taste is definitely better, especially the aftertaste, which tends to last quite a long time.  I have actually noticed that I'm taller and have re-grown hair on my forehead, so that's a plus as well.  On the toilet paper note, my wife and oldest have indicated their displeasure with the texture, so I'm going to have to find an alternative to the Marcal 100% recycled.  I'll let you know what I come up with. 

After the overblown CNN coverage of the primaries in North Carolina and Indiana (I don't know whether I should be more pissed at Rush Limbaugh's stunt or the media that he is poking), I decided to get out for a breath of fresh air.  On a night before paper recycling pickup, I found only about 50% of the houses had their paper out for the next day.  Granted that some people put out their recycling with the late night dog walk, and maybe some were on vacation, and maybe some don't get junk mail or bills, so they don't have recycling.  But considering our little town makes about $5000/month on paper, and with budgetary constraints coming up the turnpike (and parkway), maybe even more could put out their recycling and double that monthly amount (sound like a better campaign slogan than IFRTALOT?)  In the past seven days, I was in two healthcare facilities that don't recycle, which means they don't receive that revenue either.  In addition, they actually pay sanitation companies by the pound to fill landfills with their shredded paper and cardboard. 

In the past week, I was in eight warehouses and a healthcare facility totaling over a million square feet, all filled with metal halides and older fluorescents (I packed my homemade oatmeal cookies and refilled my coffee and water containers, so no waste, and ate at the local deli).  Each of these places had proposals presented years ago, and had financials put in front of them that would have paid for themselves years ago as well.  What people don't realize is that the demand is not decreasing.  Pressure put on oil, gas, and coal (sorry - clean coal) are pushing prices up, not only at the pump, but in the electrical outlets as well. 

I'm currently racking my brain trying to figure out where I would spend my gas tax windfall first.  Maybe I'll buy a petro-dinner for the family at Taco Bell and hope the experimental corn shells don't affect me worse than the refried beans.         

Top 10 Reasons to Buy Organic

So, I'm trying a new cereal from Hain this morning, Blueberry and Cream Granola, and I'm packing the kids with Health Valley snacks for school, and my emails from overnight arrived.  I'm not sure what set this off today, but my in box has been flooded with a video about Monsanto, and the evil of genetically-modified foods.  It was actually a nice change from the Reverand Wright nonsense.  Anyway, it happens to be pretty interesting "food for thought" so to speak.  But since fuel prices continue to rise, and therefore food prices which are dependent upon fuel to get to your table continue to rise, I give you the same recommendation I gave you several months ago.  Buy less, but spend more.  In other words, buy organic, local, and if possible directly from the farm, and if you're pissed at the farmers for food prices, don't be.  With only .5% of the farming done organically, our entire food system is predicated on fuel.  When fuel prices are low, food prices are low.  When they're not, you see the result.  Not being the economist in the room, I believe the one way to reduce the price is to reduce the demand for fuel-driven food.  Know when your farmer's markets are on display now that the weather is warmer, and stop on your way to/from work/little league/nails, etc.   

If you've never been there, a cool section of Orange County is known for their black soil, and their great tasting onions.  Lately, the onion market "stinks" due to cheaper imports, and will in all likelihood continue due to recent trade agreements with Peru and others.  So buy some onions from Orange County, make some onion rings, and watch the Monsanto movie.  Bon Apetit.

This week, I put a pear tree, a nectarine tree, two blueberry bushes and a black raspberry bush in the ground.  #3 child helped dig and water, thereby making himself an walking mudpie, and my steroid-infused muscles were too much for the rake which snapped in two, so it was somewhat eventful.  Middle child adopted an orca and a macaw from the World Wildlife Fund.  It was all his idea, with no prompting from anyone else.  #1 child texted and complained about not having the right flavors of Ben and Jerry's.  2 out of 3 isn't bad.  I guess there are worse things. 

You are what you sell

Every day, while I'm out and about trying to help my clients become more energy efficient, I look at things that are easy to grasp - lighting as an example, which consumes as much as 70% of the total electric bill.  In hospitality and healthcare, I look at commercial laundry, and the potential to reduce hot water and chemicals.  One thing that has always bothered me was the ever present vending machine.  Here I am, walking through a Kosher nursing home where they don't allow outside food to come in, but they have no issue selling Snapple in a refrigerated vending machine.  I found a PDF created by Southern California Edison back in 2003, talking about how an average company spends $250/year on electricity to run each of these inefficient vending machines.  If you trend that forward to today's rates, which are essentially double what they were five years ago, this is more than $500/year in electricity.  At the time of the PDF, supposedly there were 4 million in service nationally.  Factoring in what is typically served in the vending machines, I have to ask any property manager if it's even worth keeping them, especially if it's a property with a cafeteria or access to a nearby convenience store (schools, healthcare, hospitality, malls).  Note - If you remember my previous post about TerraCycle using worm poop as fertilizer as opposed to chemicals, they are at it again.  TerraCycle is now recycling yogurt cups, juice paks, cookie wrappers and more.  Raise money and do something good for the environment. 

Coke says no one wants to pay for the more efficient models.  I know who's paying the electric bills, and I have a pretty good idea of the result of the consumption.  So can anyone guess what my solution would be?

   

What if...Cows really got "mad?"

2007 Net earnings at ADM was $2.2 billion.  Net earnings at Cargill was $4billion.  Net income at ConAgra was $1.5billion.  How much of this is from taxpayer subsidized money?  The Farm Bill is still up for review, but doesn't appear to be changing much from the last one.  Supposedly our transition to shoulder to shoulder animal farming, and long distance distribution is a bigger contributor to environmental issues than anything else (grain and fuel for processing and transportation, clear cutting and drought, runoff into drinking water).  There is a mass run on food prices globally as fuel prices increase.  Anybody see a problem here?

What if we took all of the processed grain eating animals and processed them for food production?  No I am not for animal cruelty, but these animals are currently in this capacity as of our time in history.  Then, we can actually migrate the animals back towards eating grass instead of corn and steroids.  Supposedly Europe is going to start imposing taxes on fuel used for international food distribution (currently there is none, which has made it cheaper to grow elsewhere and ship).  Maine has imposed a tax on soda.  Drops in the petroleum bucket if we don't do something more radical.  Feed the world, and change things for a better environment in the future?  I know too simple.

The seeds I've sown indoors for the past several weeks went into the ground yesterday.  Some more will go in this week.  With any luck, I'll have broccoli, cauliflower, snap peas, beets, cucumbers, squash, and pumpkins.  Throw in some sunflowers, berries and marigolds for color and to attract birds.  With all of this ruffage, I wish I could plant toilet paper.          

30 Cups every second

I saw a commercial this morning for Dunkin Donuts, touting that they pour 30 cups of coffee every second.  Being that I'm not the brightest mind in the room at any given time, I checked my trusty SpongeBob calculator.  That amounts to 2,592,000 cups of coffee/day.  How much of that goes into styrofoam?  How much of that styrofoam gets recycled? 

I make a pot of coffee every morning for me and my wife, and whoever potentially drops by.  We fill up our reusable portable coffee containers, and go on our way.  Whatever is left at the end is made into ice coffee for a later date, and the coffee grounds go into the composter.  It probably costs us a quarter per cup, as opposed to over a dollar, and there's no waste.  So simple, yet seemingly so far away. 

I have no colon. What's your excuse?

With my current status as "running for town council," I have entrusted my campaign to my boys.  So far, they've come up with the above mentioned slogan, as well as the bumper sticker IFRTALOT.  I'm not sure how long I'll keep them as campaign management, and thankfully I am unopposed.  Anyway, in honor of Earth Day, I stopped at Kings Supermarket last night where Marcal Sunrise 100% recycled content toilet paper was on sale (as well as organic milk), and I had coupons from the Record, so it was more affordable.  So far, I would compare the texture to halfway between the bathroom at Giants Stadium and the Ritz Carlton.  With the amount of time I spend in the bathroom, if I can tolerate a little exfoliation, anyone can.  Let's see what the wife says. 

Is earth day sustainable?

With so many companies, individuals, and organizations participating in Earth Day this year, how are we still in the toilet?  At this point, if you are not doing something, you must be in the "dark."  But to digress, I actually worked today (shameless plug - I was helping a hotel make their laundry more efficient and eco-friendly, and with a printer helping them with their inefficient lighting), and now I'm watching Idol/CNN's coverage of the primary.  I compare it to how I am with the kids.  I spend time with them throughout the week, so when the time comes for holidays and/or school events, I let other parents participate.  So in other words, I didn't just go out and eat organically, change a light bulb, use eco-friendly cleaners, clean a stream, plant a garden, and recycle everything possible today.  I try to celebrate Earth Day whenever possible.  Will others?

A busy day indeed

Yesterday, while I was reasearching printing companies for Robin's next stationery endeavor, eco-friendly wrapping paper (shameless plug), we came across what appears to be a good fit with our goals, a printer in the Carolinas who not only prints with as little environmental impact as possible, but also blogs about what he sees as unfortunate behavior in his neck of the woods as well.  Barefoot Press is the organization, and one of their issues is about how Coke and Pepsi appear to be exempt from rationing, even as the entire southeast is at drought levels.  As always, I am not anti-business, but when a product has no societal value and they use up precious natural resources (drinking water, grain, fossil fuel), they get no sympathy from me (happy meal toys, as another example).  Anyway, assuming we can create our product line in an affordable eco-friendly fashion, and tie it in with a good humanitarian efforts such as 1% for the Planet or Earthshare, it could have some viability.  National Wildlife Foundation could not accommodate us as we were too small currently.  I don't see it as a bad thing however.  With more companies looking at sustainability as a good business practice, causes like NWF will continue to become more popular as a tie-in.  I wish them only the best of luck. 

On a different note, the video commercial that Robin and I created for the Obama campaign apparently made the cut, and we've started to spread the word.  I hope it does ok.  There are some talented competitors out there, but I think we did pretty good for novices.  Hopefully the MoveOn world will agree.  Either way, if my message has the desired effect of having the country think in terms of a "New Deal" presidency starting in 2009, I will have succeeded.  A lot needs to be done.

A friend sent me some information about "Chilean Sea Bass" and how it is a fish called the Patagonian Toothfish, which was the trivial part.  The part about being on the EDF's not recommended list was more important.  Thanks Nate for the info, and keep it coming.  I'll get to everything eventually.         

Everybody got plans for Earth Day this weekend?  It should be time to plant outside soon.   

Food, Water, and More Politics

My previous post made it into the Record today, although in its edited state, much of my sarcasm was lost in the shuffle, including the fact that I do shop at A&P.  Anyway, the news this week, aside from the flack that ABC "News" received for their lack of moral fortitude in the Presidential "debate" centered around the shortage of food, or more correctly, the inability to afford food globally.  When I think about people making a few dollars a week and then scouring the garbage dumps looking for scraps, I think about the world around us locally.  We have row after row of useless "food" products lining our supermarkets, turning precious resources into petroleum-based nonsense.  Organic food costs are increasing as well, as it costs more to deliver, causing many organic farmers to reconsider their choice.  We have thousands of patients in nursing homes being kept alive with cans of nutraceuticals against their will (I distribute this stuff by the way), costing Medicare hundreds of thousands of dollars each per year.  We average 390 pounds of trash per mile of shoreline, more than any of the country in the world by far.  Freedom lovers around me scoff when I have discussions like this, citing that the US is great because we have such freedoms.  The question is, what is the cost of this freedom?  These same individuals don't like big government, and the costs that come with it.  So when our freedoms create excess issues like we have now, are we missing the boat?  When a reservoir dries up and bags of dog poop and various other discarded items are found at the bottom, are those business people going to clean it up with corporate money or is it "big government's responsibility?" 

In Maine, the Governor just signed a bill implementing a tax on soda, and an increased tax on alcohol.  In NJ, we are looking at a huge deficit, and closings of various departments, including Agriculture and state parks.  If Maine can take on big food to pay for other programs, can NJ?  Can other states and what would be the outcome?