Every year, the US consumes about 100 Quadrillion (that’s twelve zeros, or a million billions) BTUs of energy. Wondering where all that energy comes from? Check out this handy infographic from our friends at GOOD, who took a look at why everything is bigger in Texas (including the energy consumption) and why New York might have the very lowest consumption per capita (Metrocard, anyone?)
For those taking climate change seriously, it’s an excellent primer on how we use our carbon-based energy economy—and where we need to focus on making change.
The latest video from Annie Leonard (of “The Story of Stuff” fame) reminds us of the importance of considering the end-of-life implications of our purchases. It’s also a succinct primer on externalizing costs: the business paradigm in which the environmental, societal and heathcare costs of companies’ decisions aren’t their responsibility. That needs to change.
[Recipients of Nau's 2009 Grant For Change, Sara Joy Steele and Benjamin Drummond create multimedia stories about people, nature and climate change. They sent us this update on their progress on their next series of stories. -Ed.]
“What’s it like to try to breath on a high pollution day? Do ten jumping jacks, hold your nose, and breath through this.” Aileen Gagney from the American Lung Association handed me a thin bar straw.
For our human health story, we’ve been exploring how climate-related air pollution impacts people who have asthma. As temperatures rise, researchers project an increase in the number of days where ground-level ozone concentrations exceed regulatory standards. The ozone is created when sunlight reacts with emissions from vehicles and other sources, and it makes people who have asthma suffer more attacks. Those most likely to be hit hardest by health consequences like this include low-income families and seniors, another opportunity to consider climate equity.
As summer turns to fall, we’re just about done with the fieldwork for our first four stories. Also, after ten years of collaborating, Benj and I got married in August, and we recently moved east of the Cascades to Washington’s Methow Valley. From here, we’ll be building finished pieces and heading back out into the field to collect material for our fall and winter stories.
Our friend Josh Dorfman—aka The Lazy Environmentalist—voiced off on the Huffington Post recently on the distinction between the scientific and political in the debate over how (and even whether) to address global warming. His take? It’s not about convincing people the numbers are real, but about engaging their self-interest:
When it comes right down to it, I’ve learned that you don’t have to convince global warming skeptics that global warming is real in order to generate their support for the solutions that solve it. The question we must ask ourselves is, “Is this about winning the debate and being ‘right’ or is this about getting people enthusiastically on board with the solutions?”
Do you think less science and more talk is the right approach? Read the entire piece here, and share your thoughts in the comments.
According to this piece in Monday’s New York Times, yes you can.
Apparently, Dr. Michael J. Haas, a research biochemist at the United States Department of Agriculture, in collaboration with a Philadelphia biofuels company turned an 800-pound sculpture of Benjamin Franklin and the Liberty Bell (constructed for the Pennsylvania Farm Show, in Harrisburg) into 75 gallons of biodiesel fuel and a lower-grade bunker fuel.
Unfortunately (or not?), it doesn’t look like the process is economically feasible. “The cost of edible butter is too high,” Dr. Haas said, conceeding “The number of rancid butter sculptures in the U.S. is probably not significant.”
Today in the Thought Kitchen, we’re featuring an interview with writer, environmental scientist and sustainable food activist Temra Costa. She is the author of Farmer Jane: Women Changing the Way We Eat, a new book tracking the growth of the sustainable food movement and the role that women are playing in transforming the way we eat and farm. The book profiles thirty-two women in the sustainable food industry, from urban farmers to farm-to-school advocates.
The Thought Kitchen: I suppose it’s appropriate here in The Thought Kitchen that we’re talking about food and the issues around sustainable agriculture. What made you want to write this book?
"Farmer Jane" Author Temra Costa. Photo by Bart Nagel.
Temra Costa: Farmer Jane really provides an alternative lens through which to looking at sustainable food and agriculture. I feel that a lot of issues have been well articulated by other authors, but the whole feminine perspective has yet to be really well explored. Sixty percent of employees at grass roots Ag organizations are women, and moms in homes are the ones cooking meals and controlling upwards of 85 percent of household spending. In 2007 when the USDA came out with their last Ag census it showed that women farmers were the fastest growing demographic by 30 percent since 2002. So women are really making things happen and while they don’t always put themselves in front of cameras, they’re definitely behind the scenes making it happen every day.
Editor’s note: This is the fourth post in a series of updates from our 2009 Grant for Change grantees, Benjamin Drummond and Sara Joy Steele. While we compile the votes for the 2010 G4C, we checked in with the Seattle-based documentary team who are working to build eight new stories for their long-term project, Facing Climate Change.
It seems like we are spending a lot of time in windy places for our new Facing Climate Change stories. We recently visited 25,000 acres of abandoned farmland above the Snake River to learn about how and why it went from sagebrush to potatoes to wind farms in one generation. The agricultural development is called Bell Rapids and one farm owner told me he’s seen the wind blow sugar beets up out of the ground.
In 35 years the State of Idaho went from selling this land for around $1/acre, basically begging farmers to make the desert bloom, to buying the water rights back for almost $1,000/acre. What’s left is a sort of post-apocalyptic landscape of sheet metal barns with telephone numbers still scrawled on the doors, houses with boots under beds and paystubs in kitchens, four million pounds of dry steel pipe that used to carry Snake River water, and some enormous new wind turbines.
Benj and I worked long days, photographing at sunrise and sunset and interviewing farmers in between. We spent nights in the back of our truck up on the plateau, just us, the wheatgrass and wind. Except for the first night, when we woke up to find a pair of tiny headlights making their way across the empty space. As the vehicle got closer, the driver flipped on a spotlight and we knew someone had called the police. After a few minutes of questioning, a second officer arrived on the crime scene. Once we convinced them that we were taking pictures, not old farm equipment, they turned into the friendliest cops we’ve ever met.
We spent a lot of time chasing light down straight dusty roads laid out in a one-mile grid. (Bell Rapids Road becomes the 400 road. If you follow that to the 5600 road over to the 300 and up to the 5700, the light will inevitably be better back down the 400 to the 5500.) 25,000 acres is a lot of ground to cover — for us and for the Snake River water that once made these fields green.
I have been an activist my whole life. Working at Nau is a dream come true because I truly feel like I am making a difference every day. The oil spill has really taken a toll on me and a lot of people around me. I have never felt so helpless. No amount of money or aid will even come close to fixing this. It has been incredibly difficult to stand by as this disaster unfolds.
Last weekend I decided to stop feeling helpless and take part in a ‘Hands Across the Sand’ event on the Oregon coast. There were more than 800 grassroots ‘Hands Across the Sand’ events that took place in communities across the country and around the world. I decided to go to my most favorite beach…..Short Sands. I joined hands with activists, surfers, children, and grandmothers and formed a symbolic line across the beach. The message was simple and powerful. No to offshore drilling, yes to clean energy. As we stood there hand in hand I couldn’t help but look into the waves and contemplate what it would be like for an oil spill to happen on this beach. How heartbreaking it would be.
Fossil fuels pollute enough when used the way they are intended to be — burned cars, planes, power plants, etc. The Gulf oil blow-out disaster is getting plenty of attention as it works up to ravaging the Gulf coastal and marine eco-systems. Here’s a look at a forgotten disaster. In 1960 Centralia, Pennsylvania was bustling center of the US coal mining industry. Today is a wasteland — a de facto ghost town. Check out this video to see what a HALF CENTURY-LONG COAL MINE FIRE does to a city. How would you like to be the mayor trying to put together a carbon emission reduction plan?
Currently, the energy that we all depend on comes almost entirely from taking ancient carbon bonds (in the form of coal, oil, and natural gas), mixing them with oxygen, and lighting them on fire. The products of this chemical reaction are energy (heat) and green house gases emissions. By now, we all know this is not sustainable.
The folks at the Rocky Mountain Institute — a self-described “Think-and-Do Tank” whose mission is to “drive the efficient and restorative use of resources” – believe we can find a way to avoid literally burning up our collective future. They lay out a vision for how our market economy can drive transformative change from dirty carbon to renewables and energy efficiency: They call it ”Reinventing Fire.”
I know, I know, “Vision…blah, blah…Policy…blah, blah, blah…” — it gets boring fast. But it’s critically important stuff, so give this video a chance – it communicates complex issues in simple terms, has cool images to illustrate key concepts, uses great video clips of old-school carbon, and even includes some quick hits of info-graphic porn for the process nerds among us.
The Thought Kitchen is our effort at collective inquiry and its power to affect change. Have you ever noticed how the party is always in the kitchen? There are more walls to lean on and people are energized by the proximity to food and drink. Well, welcome to our kitchen, where we hope to tap into everything we love about that feeling—community, vivacious exchange, food for thought.
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