"Waste to Food" revised

I would imagine that anyone who is in the environmental field, and especially those who are great fans of Bill McDonough, is familiar with the concept theory of "waste equals food." The idea is logical, practical and highly beneficial, not to mention "effective." Creating to reuse, throwing "away" our way to a more healthy planet and societal lifestyle.

However, this past week I was presented with a new, more direct way of perpetuating waste equaling food. Whilst sitting in class discussing law and the US Supreme Court for 3 hours of non-stop fun, I was became suddenly distracted and entranced by a strange phenomena taking place in the middle of the room. A fellow summer course student of mine evidently found himself quite hungry and unable to endure the 3 hour class without supplemental nutrition to his 12oz coffee and it seemed that his best and only option was to consume the very cup which had held his morning java.

I mean "why not?!" it's paper (mostly) and paper comes from trees which as we know are organic, living, natural species and thus edible.

The mid-class meal took place in 3 courses; the first was the cardboard-esque cup cozy designed to keep your hand from burning but, unbeknownst to me, also as a small antipasti, then for a change of texture he moved on to nibbling away at the plastic, less natural and highly toxic SOLO top. But after a few minutes of chewing and consuming, this did not satiate his hunger nor his zealous desire to recycle man made products back into the Earth's biological cycle. With 15 minutes left in the class period holding out for a quickly assembled PB&J back at home was out of the question, for the rim of the waxy white bleached paper coffee cup was surely too irresistible.

Needless to say I am without recollection of what material was covered by the brilliantly enthused law professor, but I was, without doubt, inspired by the devotion of my environmentally-driven brother-in-cause.

Eco-IN-justice

Walking around town on Friday I noticed a disturbing trend in Eco-
information. The first bit of false info was a Mosanto ad posted in
the metro train professing that producing more is the answer to "9
million people to feed" and "a changing climate." The ad further
claims "experts" say food production must be doubled by 2050 and with
Monsanto GM seeds this will not only happen but be a "win-win for
people, and the earth itself." I for one am curious to know which
"experts" they are consulting. To add a little extra hope and twinkle
in our eyes Monsanto is looking out for us, "improving farmers'
lives...and that's what Monsanto is all about." (check it out on www.monsanto.com/responsibility/sustainable-ag/advertisements.asp
)

My second encounter was a doozy and luckily was able to snap a shot of
it with my new iPhone (lovingly named Gustave).
I have two questions for you americaspower.org who are these "American
opinion leaders" of whom you speak and in what way is harming the
planet, degrading our environment and stealing the right to a good
life from future generations "affordable?"

Clean coal? Who do you think you're kidding?

Easier Said Than Done

I talked to my brother law over the weekend, a financial analyst for Freddie Mac. He is very skeptical about environmental action, and usually puts environmentalists off as free-riding hippies who don't want to grow up. It was definitely hard to discuss matters with him. Specifically, we were discussing damming in China. To me, damming is bad because it ruins local ecosystems and displaces thousands of people. To make matters worse, most of the people that are displaced are the local inhabitants of the river who are indentured into building the dam. The purpose of the dam is for hydroelectric power, but in the day and age of new and improved photovoltaic technology, I think that the Chinese should be able to transfer over to solar energy instead of relying on hydroelectric power. To Matt, however, the short-term economic benefits are also important, and I agree. He is a very, very good speaker and has always been good at arguing, something that I have not been able to do so well. So when he asked me why giving energy to thousands of people in China was a bad thing, I couldn't reply so quickly. I discussed biodiversity loss in the ecosystem, but to him, human needs come first, and that really hit me hard, because it was hard for me to battle. As humans we have become extremely anthropocentric, and I can't even say for myself that I am not, because if it came down to an animal's rights over mine, I would choose mine. For me, and I think for many environmentally proactive people, being able to discuss the topic in an anthropocentric manner is crucial to educating people and convincing them that environmental issues are dire and need to be handled now. If I had talked with my brother in law about displaced peoples, rather than the biodiversity loss, I would have probably fared better in my argument. Both issues that stem from damming are important, but the human issue is probably what would have gotten his attention. This conversation taught me a lot about myself as an activist, because I know that in order to truly effect change in people, I need to be able to explain issues well enough to them, and that is a problem that I have. I have always been a more conceptually minded person, someone who gets the big picture, but I really need to focus on detail to be able to argue better.

Finding someone who did not fully agree with my views on environment and climate change was not a difficult task. My roommate Jill who I consider to be an average American is my best source for debate. She is middle class, well educated and not a business or SIS major! She always questions what I say which in turn encourages me to question what I have learned. In particular I feel strongly about the negative impacts of coal extraction and burning. Although she understands the environmental degradation to an extent she still falls back on the common notion that "but we need coal." This response use to make me flip shit as I couldn't fathom the idea that people actually believed that! But this approach only feeds aversion to environmental efforts, not to mention this is a common response to steering away from coal useage.
I now listen to Jill and use her as my gauge bouncing my usually more extreme views off of "average Americans." Money is, no matter what anyone says, is what drives the world and this is the approach environmentalism has to proceed with.

It's the Little Things That Count (?)

After having a few brief discussions with people outside of class, I've noticed that people are most keen on making sure to do the little things that we are pounded over the head with on a regular basis. Taking shorter showers, turning lights off, putting a sweater on instead of turning up the thermostat, recycling, etc. Many are familiar with these little things they can do on a daily basis, but as an author - who's name escapes me at the moment - told us earlier in the semester, these little things are just a small chip out of a mountainous problem.

When you point this out to people they just kind of shrug; they're out of ideas. They, like me, aren't sure what else they can do as an individual. Everyone, when made aware of the fact that this problem isn't going to be fixed by separating glass and plastic from the rest of our garbage, realizes that change needs to be implemented on a large scale.

At this point in the discussion is when I brought up the Op-Ed by Bjorn Lomberg that some of us wrote our papers about a few weeks ago. His basic argument was that we need to focus more money and more capital on research instead of just sitting around having conversations where world leaders constantly disagree over priorities. Many of the people I spoke to seemed to think Lomberg was on to something, but I still question whether or not funding R&D on a larger scale is just throwing money at a problem, unless we can see large results in a short amount of time. We've been having conversation for a long time, but action has been at a minimum.

The best way to approach people about these topics of discussion is definitely in a positive and constructive manner, but we still need to be able to point out the faults and shortcomings of our ways in order to avoid saying that something is a good idea and running with it, when it's only going to be a temporary fix. People need not be discouraged by the complexity of the problem, only aware of the obstacles involved.

Trading Money for your Soul

At first I thought it would be rather easy to find someone in the Kogod School of Business who had a different viewpoint as I in regards to the severity of the environmental situation. However, it seems as if many agree that the potential of global warming, a continuous population increase, and loss of animal species will lead to many negative effects on our environment. Although they view these situations as serious ones, they still see the money signs in the future and believe that producing more, more, more is what will make our economy continue to grow (along with their wallets).

My friend Julia was nice enough to be as blatantly honest about her thoughts. We talked about the problem of consumption and abundance and why it is important for us to consider design issues in order to fix our problems. I think my most effective argument was discussing what we recently learned through Cradle to Cradle and how we must learn to be more efficient in designing our products, because it is our design flaws that can be changed. However, Julia continued to remind me of the fact that if a product is cheaper to make with toxic chemicals and in a process that would not enable all parts of a product be able to be reused, companies would still likely choose this old-fashioned method.

Julia is finishing her second year at American University, but will be graduating from the Kogod School of Business next spring. I think this is an important note to include, because to Julia - "time is money." Julia has no intent on studying abroad because she doesn't see the point, believing that it will cost her more money and understanding that she can complete her degree in the States. Julia was not turned off by this discussion, but was more than excited to continue it after we had finished our iced teas while sitting on the quad. Julia sees that there may be potential problems with the environment, but since she doesn't see these as threats to her livelihood, doesn't consider them on a daily basis.

I sent her the talk I found on TED: By William McDonough about his idea of Cradle to Cradle design. After watching this video, Julia was more inclined to see my point of view, but continued to turn it to what she knew best - business. Julia showed me that it is best to be proactive in trying to get others to listen to my point of view. If I had simply ended our conversation over coffee, Julia would likely have remained with her mindset. This is not to mean that I changed her point of view, but it did make her consider what I was saying a second time. I do not think you can be successful by being conciliatory. Rather, a more provacative, proactive attitude will get those who are skeptical to think about environmental issues.

Even for myself I have realized that the more extreme a potential situation can get, the more likely I am to change my behavior. By showing statistics and facts to business students, as well as lists of toxic chemicals, constructive change can occur--- it just may take a long time and persuasion from many different angles.

TOXIC CHEMICALS EVERYWHERE!!!

First off, I have to say that I am extremely horrified by the information presented in "Cradle to Cradle." Learning about all the crude products, toxins, toxic imported goods, sick building syndrome, cancer causing toxic dusts, brute force manufacturing, immune system weakening products, etc. etc. I am shocked that this is the first piece of reading to give me detailed descriptions and information regarding the products that I have throughout my home. "One study of households contaminants showed concentrations of seven toxic chemicals that are known to cause cancer in animals and are suspected to cause cancer in humans at levels higher than those that would 'trigger a formal risk assessment for residential soil at a Superfund site(p39).'" This was just a random quote where my thumb landed and there are plenty more like it. This book is horrifying. In this way I don't consider this book to be optimistic. I feel like every product I see has been produced in a dangerous manner that could give me cancer.

I do like the cradle-to-cradle policy versus the cradle-to-grave tradition. However, the task of switching from one to the other seems so important and impossible. Basically, all products, including this chair I am sitting in (like how the book opens), need to be redesigned in order to have a healthier world. While I love the idea of a "nutrivehicle" it is not going to happen for a while. Currently, they can barely make a car that gets 35mpg. I feel like climate change policy and renewable energy will come before before manufacturing is scrutinize and redesigned. I support making lists, but (sadly) these changes seem far off...