Environmental footprints of rich nations outweigh the debt of developing nations

Caption: Color-coded footprints indicate the dollar cost, in trillions, of environmental damage inflicted by high-, middle-, and low-income groups of nations on each of the other two groups.


So, what about all those loans we've made to impoverished nations over the years? Poor countries have borrowed a whopping $1.8 trillion from rich nations like the United States, Japan, and European Nations. When are those pikers gonna pay up?

As it turns out....they may not need to. In fact, by recent reckonings, we should be paying them. Our debt to developing nations, from the environmental damage we've done, now outweighs the total that poor countries have borrowed.

During the last 4 decades of the 20th century, rich nations caused up to $2.5 trillion in environmental impacts on poor countries. Surprisingly, middle income nations such as China and Brazil did about the same amount of damage to the lowest income countries, such as Bangladesh, India, and Nigeria, as the richest nations did.

Researchers at the Pacific Ecoinformatics and Computational Lab in Berkeley, Calif., identified several categories of environmental damages, including climate change, deforestation, and overfishing. Rich nations are disproportionately responsible for these damages even inside the borders of the poorer countries. For example, timber corporations in the U.S., Japan, and Europe are the primary drivers of deforestation all over the tropics, in places such as southeast Asia and South America. We also lead the world in greenhouse-gas emissions (China and the U.S. are #1 and #2). The resulting climate change is causing droughts and floods that are devastating to developing nations with agrarian economies, which applies to most of the poorest nations.

Although patterns of consumption and waste in rich nations are responsible for environmental crises worldwide, the poorer nations will bear the brunt of resource depletion and alterations in rainfall. Lacking the financial resources of the industrialized world, and the options provided by wealth, they will feel the impact of diminishing resources more keenly than the perpetrators. Says Boris Worm, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, "The injustice inherent in the current environmental crisis may well exacerbate the divide between rich and poor." An understatement, perhaps.

Source: Susan Milius. "Big Foot: Eco-footprints of rich dwarf poor nations' debt." Science News. January 26, 2008. Vol. 173.

For more on this topic, see:
1. our upcoming book (Going Green) about the environmental impacts of Americans' consumption patterns, and how choosy consumers can make a difference.

2. our previous post on our visit to a remote African village, where we learned that the villagers hold Americans responsible (rightly so) for the diminishing rainfall that is changing their lifestyle.

3. The Story of Stuff on youtube

Key words: eco-footprint, environmental footprint, environmental damage, developing nations, rich nations, climate change, global warming, overfishing, deforestation

Spring is springing... in the dark

Daylight Savings Time. Man, what a bummer! Folks who are excited about the extra hour in the evening clearly don’t get up before 8 AM, or they’d be singing a different tune.

DST’s timing is bitter. My morning rides have been unbelievably exquisite lately. Last Thursday – pre-DST - was one of the best rides I’ve had yet. Heading out of town, for the first time this spring I heard a familiar and magical sound: of hundreds of thumbs tweaking the tines of hundreds of plastic combs. Chorus frogs! The perennial sound of spring, of hope peeping out of warm and marshy puddles.


That afternoon my ride home took a long time. Every time I worked up a good speed, I’d spy yet another field of daffodils and have to stop and pick them. Our kitchen table is covered with jam jars of flowers now. It’s beautiful, but hard to eat breakfast.

Today, though, was another story. When my alarm went off at 6:30, it was pitch black outside. Black as night – because it WAS night! Time to start keeping track of the sunrise again. Tomorrow, 7:35. Sigh.

Greensboro has wisely chosen my morale slump as the perfect time to announce the Triad Commute Challenge. I’m not sure if this is a cause or an effect of our inclusion in Popular Science’s list of >50 Greenest Cities, but it’s definitely a good idea. The dare is modest – participants are challenged to try an alternative commute just once by the end of May. Biking, walking, carpooling, riding the bus, even telecommuting – there are lots of options. It’s not much, but it’s nice at least to see the city recognizing that reducing car traffic is a good idea. And, sadly, that idea probably is a stretch for a lot of people. But hey, biking was once an impossibility for me, and look at me now!



by Sadie Kneidel

Gender Stereotypes Hurt Hilary More than Racial Stereotypes Hurt Obama, Scientists Say

I've had enough of George Bush and his systematic un-doing of the environmental legislation enacted by the Clinton administration. I'm terrified at the prospect of another president who places corporate interests far above citizens' interests and way way way ahead of environmental interests.

I want a democrat yes, but this election has much more at stake then that. Our country will take a giant step forward, culturally and politically, if we can elect anyone who isn't a white male.

We've had 43 white males in a row as president. Right now, the ideal candidate would be a non-white female. But since that's not one of the choices, democratic voters will be choosing between a black male and a white woman to run against McCain.

I like Obama. What's not to like? He is reminiscent of the idealism and romance of the Kennedys, as everybody says. I have loved the Kennedys since I was a kid, and I still do greatly admire RFK Jr's prolific record of environmental accomplishments. When he wrote an endorsement for the jacket of our last book, I was so proud.

But....how can I not root for a candidate who is the first representative of my own gender to ever be a serious contender for the office of president? I pretended for awhile to weigh the merits of Obama and Hillary intellectually, and then one day, in one moment, it became crystal clear. I could never vote against Hillary. To do so, for me, would be a vote against women, against my own gender. Against this extraordinary chance that may not come for another 100 years.

If Hillary were not a woman, she would have bagged this nomination long ago.

In a country still beset by gender and race stereotypes, which one is more of a liability?

"Gender stereotypes trump race stereotypes in every social science test," says Alice Eagly, a psychology professor at Northwestern University.

Bias researchers such as Eagly have found that racial bias is strikingly changeable, and can be mitigated and even erased by everything from clothing and speech cadence to setting and skin tone.

Professor Eagly says that attitudes about women are harder to change.

Clinton's campaign has discovered for themselves that gender stereotypes are less changeable. Women can be seen as either ambitious and capable, or they can be seen as likable, but it's very unlikely for them to be seen as both. "The deal is that women generally fall into two alternatives: they are seen as either nice but stupid, or smart but mean", said Susan Fiske, a psychology professor at Princeton who specializes in stereotyping.

Although racial attitutes appear to be softening, there's little evidence that gender biases are.

Amy Cuddy, a psychologist at Northwestern, suggests the durability of gender stereotypes stems from the fact that most people have more exposure to people of the opposite gender than to people of other races. They feel more entitled to their attitudes about gender. "Contact doesn't undermine these stereotypes and it might even strengthen them," says Cuddy. "Many people don't believe seeing women as kind or soft is a stereotype. They're not going to question it because they believe it's a good thing."

Is it a good thing? Kindness and softness are good things in both men and women. But it's not a good thing to hold a candidate to impossible standards. I hear women I know talking about how mean or cold Hillary is, how much they "hate" her. Is she meaner or colder than George Bush or John McCain or Barack Obama or any other male candidate? Hardly. We want her to be momma and the general at the same time. It's the hardest task any candidate has ever faced. But some woman, some time, will have to break through and create a new precedent for female presidential candidates in the future. Most female heads of state around the world have had a family member who preceded them in office. We know that. That much precedent has already been created. Now is the time we can pop that glass ceiling. We're almost there! If not now, how much longer will it be until another opportunity arises?

I believe Hillary's presidency would profoundly change the status of women in this country. I for one am on-fire ready for that. How bout you?

Source:
Drake Bennett. Feb 19 2008. Gender vs. Race: Historic race may show biases of the American mind at work. The Boston Globe.

Key words:: Hillary, racial stereotypes, gender stereotypes, Barack Obama

Kenya's tourism hurt by election violence

From the New York Times:

Tourism is one of Kenya’s biggest industries, but the violence that exploded after a flawed election in December has eviscerated the business, with bookings down 80 to 90 percent in most areas. Even after a peace deal was signed Thursday, government and tourism officials worried that it could take months — if not years — to recover.

Kenya’s rival politicians have agreed to share power, and on Friday many people here praised them for finally calming the country down. But the long-term economic consequences are just beginning to sink in. “We will work very hard to see what we can salvage,” said Rose Musonye Kwena, an official at the Kenya Tourist Board, who estimated that even if there was no more major violence this year business would still be down 50 percent. To read more, click here.To see a video from the NY Times, click on the video link below.

	Kenya's Tourism Industry in Shambles Violence Takes its Toll Click to watch the video
PERMALINK: For more New York Times video, go to nytimes.com/video

Key words :: Kenya, tourism, violence

Source: Jeffrey Gettleman. March 1, 2008. As Kenya bleeds, tourism also suffers. New York Times.

Green Entrpreneur Needs Your Vote; Win Start-Up Money from www.ideablob.com

I just got an interesting e-mail on the subject of fair trade and organic coffee.

Coffee, as you have read on this blog, is one tropical food product that can be grown sustainably, without cutting down rain forest trees. Most organic arabica beans are shade-grown. So I am inclined to support this woman's idea. Readers, she needs our votes in a competition for start-up money on www.ideablob.com.

Here's what she wrote me:

"I am in the process of starting my own completely fair trade, completely organic coffeehouse. Currently, my business idea is featured on a website called www.ideablob.com--a site where people post their business ideas in order to network and gain advice. In addition, they offer a $10,000 to put towards the business for whoever has the most votes at the end of the month. I am currently a finalist and desperately need votes. I don't know if you would consider posting something on your blog to help out a budding entrepreneur who is passionate about fair trade, but if you might consider, the information you would need to post would look something like this:

Here's how to vote:

1. Go to www.ideablob.com

2. Click on the vote icon next to "Fair Trade Organic Coffeehouse Sponsoring Social Justice Causes"

3. Tell your friends to vote too.

Thanks for your time and know that I would greatly appreciate any help you might be able to give me. Janice"

Readers, I went to www.ideablob.com, and here is the description I found there for Janice's idea:

"I want to create a completely fair trade, completely organic coffeehouse that sponsors social justice causes while taking care with the environment. In addition to serving fair trade coffee, we will also only use fair trade sugar, tea, and cocoa as we educate our consumers on how their buying habits affect the working poor in developing countries. Every month, this coffeehouse would sponsor a social justice cause--promoting awareness to customers about worldwide issues of injustice. This coffeehouse will also have free wifi, live music, local art--all with a community emphasis."

Interesting idea to have such a website as ideablob. I like it.

Readers see this important post too, about the Coffee and Conservation blog I just discovered. Julie has done an amazingly thorough job of investigating the good and the ugly among coffee producers.

Sally

Keywords:: certified coffee, organic coffee, fair trade coffee, fair trade, coffee, rainforest, entrepreneur, ideablob, sustainable

Gray Wolves Booted from Engangered Species List

photo of wolf pups, courtesy of www.thelon.com

We knew the chop was coming. The federal government announced yesterday (Feb 20) that gray wolves will be cut from the endangered species list. The Department of the Interior, under intense pressure from hunters and ranchers, once again revealed that conservation is among their lowest priorities. And so three states are setting up shop for legalized hunting and trapping of wolves this coming autumn- Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

Interior Assistant Secretary Lyle Laverty justified removing protection of wolves by pointing out that 1,500 wolves now live in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. But biologists say the minimum number to maintain a healthy population in that area is 2500 to 3000. (See my post of Dec 15 on the subject.) Biologists say that hunting and trapping wolves is likely to cut their existing numbers significantly, by several hundred.

The Natural Resources Defense Council and Earthjustice are working on lawsuits to halt the delisting.

But as far as the feds are concerned, a wolf population of 450 survivors in these three states of the Northern Rockies will be high enough, and will be sufficient to keep them off the endangered list.

For more info on the controversy between biologists & conservationists versus the ranchers, hunters & trappers, see my post of Dec 17 .

Inaccurate Stereotypes Hurt - Even in Play
I went to a play tonight at the school where I work - it was stunning production of Beauty and Beast and the students did a remarkably professional job. Their singing and acting, the stage sets, everything blew me away. It was a fantastic production.

But I couldn't help but notice the role of the wolves in the play. In two different scenes, wolves in the forest surrounded and threatened the lives of characters in the play. Ack! It's just fiction, but fiction perpetuates stereotypes. Wolves were completely exterminated in the U.S. in the 20th century because of unrealistic fears. Wolves never attack humans unprovoked, never. And they very seldom attack ranchers' livestock. Wolves that have adequate prey and habitat have no need of lifestock, and prefer their natural prey. Even when they do attack livestock, ranchers are compensated by Fish & Wildlife. We try to screen our traditional stories these days for damaging racial stereotypes, and some of us try to screen traditional stories for damaging gender stereotypes - sort of. Will we ever care enough about wildlife to think about the stereotypes we perpetuate with traditional stories, and how much suffering these stereotypes have perpetuated? Suffering, and ultimately, I fear, a lost species.

I'm not blaming Beauty and the Beast in particular, but change means learning new ways of understanding old stereotypes and perceptions, like wolves as varmints that should be shot. If we don't, our kids, our grandkids.....they won't have any wolves in the Northern Rockies.

Keywords:: wolves, stereotypes, endangered species, delisting

Source: "Gray wolves going off list." Associated Press. Charlotte Observer. Feb 22, 2008.

Commuting challenge

What a magnificent ride this morning. Thanks to North Carolina’s loose interpretation of “winter,” I needed only a tank top, lightweight shirt, and leggings to keep me plenty warm today. The air was fresh and wet, and soft puffy clouds shielded my eyes from the full exuberance of the sunrise. When I stopped to take off my sweater, I saw cardinals hopping and chirping in the tree next to me, and a red-headed woodpecker insistently drilling a telephone pole. I had to laugh. I could’ve ridden for hours.

It isn’t always this perfect, though. Last week I hit a real morale slump. I was tired, and it was cold. On Tuesday, riding my bike seemed like about as much fun as cleaning out a porta-john. But somehow I made myself do it. Wednesday, I was prevented by a 70% chance of rain. Thursday, a freak snowstorm kept me off the road. (Like I said, Carolina winters…)

Yesterday I finally hooked up a bike odometer I got for Christmas, and gathered some encouraging statistics. This morning I spent just under 28 minutes in motion, at an average speed of 11.7 mph. I maxed out at 17.7 mph on Benbow Street, and covered 5.5 miles overall. And, may I encourage you, I did all this on a 12-year-old mountain bike with 24" diameter tires - which is to say, if your bike is anything other than prehistoric, you will probably go even faster.

Incidentally, in the process I burned 149 calories and 15.9 grams of fat, rather than 1/3 gallon of gasoline. I saved myself a dollar and twenty minutes at the gym. And all that will double this afternoon.

In my slump last week, I set myself a goal: to commute by bike 100 times this spring. So far, I’ve done 27. If I make this goal, I’ll cover the distance from here to New York City. (So far, I’d be in Warfield, VA.) I’ll save at least 30 gallons of gas, and $100 in fuel costs. (At this point I’ve saved almost one tank.) And best of all, I’ll spend two entire days of time outside, time that I would otherwise spend stuck behind the wheel.

I’m excited.

by Sadie Kneidel

Conservation & Coffee - a great blog

I discovered a great new green blog this week.

"Coffee & Conservation" at www.coffeehabitat.com is the blog of an ornithologist, Julie, who has thoroughly investigated the agricultural methods of coffee companies. Her investigation has answered a lot of questions about which companies are using sustainable methods, and which ones aren't. If you want to buy bird-friendly coffee, or labor-friendly coffee, or 100% arabica, check out Julie's blog. She kindly wrote to me to tell me that Millstone Coffee is not as green as they profess to be. This was in reference to a post I wrote here on Veggie Revolution on Bird-friendly Chocolate and Coffee on December 6, 2007.

For the real deal about Millstone Coffee, see Julie's post:
http://www.coffeehabitat.com/2007/03/millstones_orga.html

Julie also says that Rainforest Alliance's environmental criteria for certifying coffee are not as stringent as Smithsonian's. She goes into this in several posts; here's one:
http://www.coffeehabitat.com/2007/07/quick-look-at-d.html

Even if the Millstone line were sustainable, P&G, and the other large conglomerates, played -- and continue to play -- a large role in the coffee crisis, which Julie outlines here:
http://www.coffeehabitat.com/2006/02/the_coffee_cris.html

Here's P&G's corporate responsibility profile:
http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/rs/profile.cfm?id=279

So. If you enjoy drinking coffee, like I do, let's pay more attention to how it's being grown. Coffee is one crop that can be grown in rain forests without cutting down trees. It's important that consumers who care make the effort to support sustainable tropical agriculture. If we don't support it, who will?

Key words:: certified coffee, organic coffee, fair trade coffee, fair trade, coffee, rainforest, entrepreneur, sustainable, conglomerate

New World Map Highlights Oceans; Land Masses Are Blank

New world map courtesy of National Center for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis

Most world maps are drawn to show details of the world's land masses but they leave the oceans blank.

Now a group of scientists have created a map that's just the opposite. The continents are a blank gray, while the oceans are intricately detailed.

The map was created by a team from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, Calif. The purpose of the map is to call attention to changes resulting from coastal pollution, overfishing, and other human activities. Pristine areas, shown in blue, are found in oceans near the poles. Stressed marine regions are yellow and orange. Intensely troubled ocean waters are red. The team leader, Ben Halpern, says the red zones are near large cities and overcrowded coastlines.

"These are the most impacted ocean areas on the planet," Halpern says. "It's where the combination of human activities, from shipping to fishing to land-based pollution, are coming together to make things really bad."

The map shows that the most disturbed ocean areas include parts of the Atlantic near the East Coast of the United States, as well as the Persian Gulf, Europe's North Sea, and the South and East China Seas. Halpern says small zones of pristine ocean water within damaged areas need to be preserved as a first step toward saving more badly damaged ocean waters.

For a link to the audio of an NPR report about the map, the written NPR report, and an animated flyover map of global ocean damage, click here.

To see the full article from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis about making the map, and a larger graphic of the map, click here.

Source:
John Nielsen. "Scientists map ocean damage." Feb 14, 2008. All Things Considered. NPR. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19059595

Keywords:: ocean damage, ocean map, marine biology, overfishing, ocean pollution

China's growing appetite for meat will strain world water supplies

China's rapid industrialization and increasing population, along with a growing preference for meat on the dinner table, are creating water shortages that will have world repercussions. In coming decades, China will have to rely on food imports to meet demand.

China is home to 21% of the world's population. Its economy has grown at the fastest rate in recent world history, about 8% per year over the last two decades, says Junguo Liu, an environmental scientist in Switzerland.

During this period of unprecedented growth, the consumption of grains in China has remained steady, even dropping a little. But the consumption of meat in China has more than quadrupled since 1980. The production of meat requires much more water per serving than any other kind of food. Even though meat and other animal products made up only 16% of the typical Chinese diet in 2003, those foods accounted for more than one-half of the country's food-related water consumption, report Liu and colleague Hubert Savenije of Delft University in an upcoming Hydrology and Earth System Sciences.

How does the Chinese diet compare to the American diet?

Food-related water consumption per capita in the United States is about 3,074 cubic meters per year, almost four times the Chinese figure. The water needed to produce the typical U.S. citizen's consumption of meat alone far exceeds that required to produce the average Chinese citizen's entire diet.

Why is that? According to Danielle Nierenberg of Worldwatch Institute, Americans eat 248 lbs of meat per person per year, far more per capita than any other country in the world.

The world of the future will not be able to support a growing population eating more and more meat. Already more than 1/3 of the world's population live in regions where water is considered scarce.

Keywords :: China, water shortage, meat industry, American meat consumption, population growth

Sources:
Sid Perkins. "A thirst for meat." Science News. January 19, 2008.
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20080119/fob4.asp

Danielle Nierenberg. "Happier meals: rethinking the global meat industry." Worldwatch Institute. 2005. http://www.worldwatch.org/node/819

This American Bike Commute, Part III

“Forecast: 30% chance of rain. Cloudy developing into rain showers by afternoon.”

I regarded the forecast with a sigh. After great deliberation, I decided to ride the bus to work this morning. In addition to the possibility of getting soaked, I won’t lie – I’m kinda sore from all this biking. Good sore, the way you feel after a satisfying workout. But sore enough that sitting still seemed like a nice idea.

And it was nice, to sit placidly and read a book as we jostled down the sleepy morning streets. It was nice to see some of my English students on the bus, to say “Salaam aleikum” and sit down next to a scarved Muslim woman named Maha.

But at the same time, it was hard to concentrate on my book. I’d brought my bike along, because sometimes my class ends too late to catch the afternoon bus. It was secured to the bike rack on the front of the bus – supposedly - but I kept peering out the windshield at the barely-visible handlebars like an anxious mother. My brain played a running video of the bike jiggling loose, falling, getting crushed by the mighty bus. It would be as bad as running over my dog, I felt. That bike and I have been together for more than a decade.

And once I got to school, it just didn’t feel right. When I wheeled my bike over to the bike rack, the usual crew looked confused. “You’re dressed awful light this morning,” said one.

“Yeah… I rode the bus this morning,” I said abashedly. Why did I feel so sheepish? Riding the bus is still a great solution. Heck, it wasn’t like I’d driven a car or something.

I continued into my building. Still, nothing felt right. I wasn’t hot and sweaty. My cheeks weren’t glowing with energy. I didn’t need to go triumphantly change my clothes in the handicap stall in the bathroom. Out of habit, I filled up my water bottle at the water fountain and chugged half of it – but it wasn’t as satisfying as usual. So I just stood boredly in the hallway and waited for them to unlock my classroom. I’d gotten used to feeling alive, surging with energy and adrenaline, at this hour of the morning. This just didn’t cut it.

So far the sky is streaked with blue and gray, some patches almost sunny. I’m holding my breath and hoping I get to ride home.

by Sadie Kneidel

This American Bike Commute - Part II

“There she is!” I heard one of the students standing by the bicycle rack say as I rolled up to work this morning.

“Where were you yesterday?” he asked as I clambered breathlessly off my bike, stripping off my soggy vest and earmuffs as quickly as possible.

I grinned. “What, you missed me?” I said. “I didn’t come to school yesterday. I had to go out of town.”

“Oh.” He and the other two students nodded. “We thought you didn’t come ‘cause it was icy.”

“Icy!” I shake my head back. “Ice doesn’t scare me none.”

I’m getting to be a regular at the bike rack, it appears. In the middle of my second week of biking to work, I’m starting to develop a routine. The prospect of biking still never seems promising when I’m standing on my porch, but en route I always end up glad I’m doing it. It’s a good time to think. In fact, there’s nothing to do but think. Think, pedal, and breathe.

I’ve been thinking a lot about sweat. Sweat is really one of the major problems of my bike commute. Even when it’s so cold that my hanky freezes in my vest pocket, I work up such a sweat that it feels like a July afternoon. Yet, if I strip down to my bottom layer of garments, the winter wind cuts through me like a child’s scream. My skin freezes while my core burns.

I’m just not sure what the solution is. So far, I’ve been wearing a “sweat layer” – a tank top and long johns that more or less soak up the sweat, and can be removed when I get to work. It’s funny how it’s not appropriate to be sweaty at work. It’s funny how I have to remove all traces of bicycling in order to appear professional – as if actually using my body for something useful were shameful, something to hide. Maybe it is.

The other thing I’ve been thinking about is guilt. This morning as I biked down Lee Street, I passed a Latino man standing by a pay phone. He was bundled in a bulky flannel shirt, a wool hat pulled over his ears. He had the most blank, bereft look on his face that I’d ever seen. His eyes were far away, as if remembering warmer times when he was not standing by a lonely pay phone in a cold, cold country far from home. It was a look that made me want to pull over and say, “Here! Have this… apple! And these… women’s dress shoes! And this spare bike tire! Sorry, but it’s all I’ve got!”

Of course, I didn’t pull over; I didn’t say that, or anything else. I just kept biking. But it made me think. I notice that when I’m driving my car, as I pass other people on bicycles, or waiting for the bus, or trudging dutifully down the frosty winter sidewalks, I feel a stab of guilt. I feel guilty that I’m tucked up in my cozy personal vehicle while they – mostly people with less money and privilege than I have – tough it out in a system in which they don’t have a leg up. I feel guilty for taking advantage of having the upper hand and saying “Tough nuts!” to folks who aren’t as privileged.

I notice that on my bike, all that guilt goes away. It’s true that I, unlike most of the people that I pass, choose to be out in the cold; I have the choice of the easy way, at any time I want it. But still, having that choice and turning it down does make me feel better. I know that my presence doesn’t make those weary and woebegone souls any less cold or tired. Really, it doesn’t make them feel one bit different. But it does make me feel different, for choosing not to partake in the privilege I’ve been offered.

Maybe that absolution has something to do with the sweat. Driving makes me feel guilty because it’s taking the easy way out, even though it involves a whole host of drawbacks that feel wrong to me: using gasoline (and therefore justifying the U.S.’s long arm in the Middle East), generating air pollution, spending hard-earned money unnecessarily, putting myself in the midst of dangerous and stressful traffic jams, getting flabby instead of getting exercise, and so on. The guilty echo I hear as I drive past pedestrians, bikers, and bus riders – “You hypocrite!!” is not really what they’re thinking about me at all. It’s what I’m thinking about myself.

Maybe that’s why I don’t mind the sweat. The sweat is hot, it’s cold, it’s damp and kind of gross. But it’s honest. The sweatier I am, the better I feel about what I’m doing. I’m not participating reluctantly in a system I don’t believe in. I’m saying, “This is how I think it should be. This is how I know it could be.”

by Sadie Kneidel

Bike beats bus; car eliminated

Catherine eyed me skeptically over the breakfast table. “Are you really going to bike?” she asked with surprise.

“I think so,” I said. “I mean, my brain believes I am. My body might have other ideas. Like the bus.”

Just then the bus rumbled past the front door. We smiled at each other. “Well,” I said. “What I meant to say is, yes. I’m biking. I’m gonna race that bus.”

It was Tuesday morning, 7:10 AM. My car had broken down the morning before on the way to work, leaving me to coast to the mechanic on a busted clutch. I’d had to roust my housemate Catherine from her warm bed, and beg her for a ride to work. I’d been half an hour late, and stressed and frazzled to boot.

But this morning, although my car was still in the shop, I was prepared. In the grayish dawn light of my bedroom, I donned long johns, jeans, two shirts, a wool sweater, a down vest, a windbreaker. I pulled on a ski mask to protect my neck from chilly drafts, gloves to shield my fingers, and of course, perched atop it all, my shiny yellow helmet.

“Well,” said Catherine. “At least if you fall off your bike, you probably won’t even get hurt. You’ll just bounce.”

I wrinkled my nose at her, not that she could see it under my arsenal. “I won’t fall,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”

Waving goodbye, I shuffled out the door and clambered atop my bicycle. With one kick, I rolled down the sidewalk, swung to the right, and hit the pavement. I was off.

I was prepared for an arduous journey. My work commute takes 25 minutes by car, from my urban neighborhood just south of downtown, to Guilford Tech’s satellite campus on the outermost reaches of the northeast part of town. Every morning, as I dodge the rush-hour traffic crowding the city’s vehicular arteries, I think, “Today’s the day I’m going to die.” But I haven’t. At least not yet.

This morning was different. I headed due east, straight toward the pink streaks heralding the sun’s imminent arrival. Cars whizzed past, but I didn’t notice them much. I was more occupied with the tight feeling of my thigh muscles and the slight grinding feeling of something in my hip. Oh jeez, what am I thinking? I berated myself. This is insane. I could see the bus stopped four or five blocks ahead of me. Maybe I can catch up with it, I thought hopefully.

Eight minutes later I was passing downtown. I was also soaked in sweat. I stopped to strip off my windbreaker, welcoming the chilly wind through my wool sweater. Lord, it felt good. I swerved to avoid a patch of ice on the road. I didn’t want to test Catherine’s bouncing theory.

I’d expected heavy traffic on this four-lane road, but I barely even noticed the cars that passed me. Instead, I watched as the blistering orange sun inched over the horizon. I checked the gas prices at each gas station I passed. $2.97. $3.01. $3.06. My legs no longer felt tight. I felt like an engine, a smooth efficient machine. I wondered how much I’d get for selling a Toyota with a broken clutch.

I passed a service station where a lady in a long wool coat paced as a mechanic peered under the hood of her stalled car. She stared through me as if I were invisible. I passed a house where two men stood, hands in armpits while a Chevy idled in the yard, warming up. I held my breath and ducked through the cloud of exhaust.

I was flying. I felt like a bird. I had no idea how long I’d been riding. Five minutes, fifteen, fifty. My four-lane city road merged with a county road; the buildings gave way to stubbly fields. I passed the farm bureau, the coop extension, the county agricultural office. A lazy train track wove beside the road. I looked up: gray-brown tree branches silhouetted against the brilliant sunrise sky.

One last hill, and I turned on Aunt Mary Lane. I cut north, crossed a six-lane road, and breathlessly coasted onto campus. I craned my neck to see the school clock. Was I late? How late?

The clock read 7:48. My body surged with elation. I grinned wordlessly under my ski mask. It had taken me 33 minutes to cross town by bike, just eight minutes longer than by car.

I couldn’t believe it. For the past six months, I’d been complaining about how impossibly far away my job was. I’d acquired my car reluctantly, and winced with each accumulating mile on the odometer. The tanks of gas, the car insurance, the stress - it was a necessary evil, I’d believed. Riding the bus to any job would take unbearably long, and there was no way I had the stamina to bike to destinations outside of my neighborhood. Only an athlete could bike that far.

What had I been thinking? I wasn’t even tired. In fact, I felt remarkably alive. I almost skipped from the bike rack to the bathroom, where I peeled off my sweaty long johns and slipped into a fresh blouse and slacks. I scooped my hair into a ponytail and regarded my reflection quizzically. My cheeks were so pink I looked clownish. My eyes were twinkling. I felt upbeat and energetic – a mood I can’t usually attain at 8 AM no matter how much coffee I drink.

I strolled to my classroom carrying my bicycle helmet like a badge of honor. When my car had broken down, it sure hadn’t seemed like a blessing. But I guess that faulty clutch was the miracle I was waiting for to show me that sometimes the solution I need is right in the place where I refuse to see it. Here I’d been, racing home from work in my car so I’d have time to get to the gym for exercise. I’d never even considered biking to work because I hadn’t thought I was strong enough. I didn’t think I could afford to spend the time or energy. But this morning, I knew I couldn’t afford not to. As the bus pulled up to the campus bus stop, right next to my parked bike, I smiled to myself. I’d won this race on my own two wheels.

by Sadie Kneidel

A reason to hope

Yesterday I found hope in the intestines of an opossum.

My friend Sam and I spied the casualty lying on the gutter on Friendly Avenue. Its whiskers were gray, its expression bleak. There was no obvious sign of injury, other than a small trickle of blood by its mouth. The body was soft and cool.

Sam squealed to a stop, propped his bike on the curb. “Y’all go ahead!” he called, and pulled out a plastic bag. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

An hour later the two of us crouched in the back yard, sporting one purple latex glove apiece. We opened the plastic bag and carefully lifted out the possum. His paws looked like little monkey feet, clenched in fists. His eyes were closed. We tied a piece of twine around each of the possum’s ankles, and hung it upside down on the chain link fence. Its soft white belly faced us. I thought of medieval torture scenes. Although, of course, our victim was already dead.

I shuddered as Sam confidently sank his knife into the possum’s chest and began slicing a horizontal line to its belly. The tugging of the knife at the stretchy skin made my own stomach writhe in horror. “I’m grossed out by this,” I said weakly. “I’m not even going to pretend like I’m not grossed out." I paused. "But I still want to watch.”

But within minutes, my repulsion began to fade. As Sam peeled skin away from the possum’s belly, I gazed at the sheaths of muscles impassively. It looked like an anatomy lesson. “So this is how you save the pelt, huh?” I said tentatively. Before long, I gave the skin a cautious tug myself. It’s hard work, peeling possum skin. It doesn’t want to come off.

Peeling back the right side, we discovered the cause of death. Judging by the congealed blood and spilling intestines, the animal had been struck by a car on that side and bled to death internally. Unfortunately those spilling guts were our enemy; if they ruptured, they would taint the whole body – including the fur and meat that we wanted to save.

We took turns trying to hold the guts in place and tugging at skin, but it was impossible. They wouldn’t stay. “We’ll have to take them out,” Sam said, and pushed deeper with his knife.

As we cut through the stomach muscles, a rainbow intestines and organs spilled out into my waiting hands. “My god,” I gasped. “It’s beautiful.”

I was holding a mountain of possum guts and all I could think was how beautiful they were. One loop of the intestines was warm pink; another was grayish blue, like the sky on a cloudy day. A third was mossy green, the color of a stormy ocean. Across all the colors spread brilliant veins of mauve, like cracks in a potter’s glaze. The muted colors reminded me of the rocks you pull out of a stream or the ocean – resplendent in their wetness, drying to a faded shadow of their dusky beauty.

We stared at the intestines in silence for a long moment. “Fucking humans,” said Sam in a small voice.

I gazed at the small gray stomach in my hand, full of one last possummy meal, and nodded mutely. The gray soft body we had spotted on the side of the road had been tragic, to me. One small animal doing its best to survive in a cement-covered world full of enemies and indifferent accomplices. That soft face, frozen in its last fearful sprint, had broken my heart. But here, upside down and cut open, the possum was no longer sad to me. “It’s better this way, at least,” I said softly. “At least we’re learning from it.”

My mind was boggled by the unexpected masterpiece before me. We live in a world so resplendent that even a handful of dead guts are as intricate as a work of art. I in my heedless rush would never have known it, had I not been stopped by this one small bloody-mouthed possum.

The natural world is both my hope and my despair. I despair at the damage we humans are inflicting, at our oblivious indifference to the destruction we are causing. But on a chilly January afternoon, crouched by a sad dead bloody possum, I took hope. I can’t save the world. I can’t change the way thoughtless humans neglect the magnificent nexus of wild plants and animals that we live amongst. But one moment of beauty is enough to make me stop and notice the magic that is around me. And those small moments: a hawk swooping overhead, a shiny black beetle lumbering across the sidewalk, a maple tree in a blaze of autumn colors – remind me what it is that I love so passionately in the first place, and why it is so worth protecting.

by Sadie Kneidel

Monkeys can estimate numbers as well as Duke University students (yes I'm a UNC grad)

A female rhesus monkey estimating numbers. Photo courtesy of Duke University.

Yup, monkeys have been shown to estimate as well as Duke college students, in tests performed at Duke University's Primate Center. The tests measured what is sometimes called "fuzzy math." Neither students nor monkeys were given enough time to apply verbal skills, or count, so the tests measured a more primitive aptitude for quick visual estimates.

To find out how monkeys' fuzzy math stacks up against humans', primate researcher Jessica Cantlon tested two female rhesus monkeys named Boxer and Feinstein (after the senators). The monkeys watched a video screen.

"They would see one set of dots and then there would be a little delay," Cantlon said. "They would see a second set of dots, and then they'd be given two choices. And their task was to press the choice that represented the sum of those two sets of dots."

When Boxer and Feinstein were right, they got Kool-Aid. They were right about 75 percent of the time.

Cantlon then gave Duke students the same exact task, rewarding them with cash instead of Kool-Aid. They were right about 90 percent of the time — not a lot better than the monkeys.

If the students had been given more time, they would have done much better, Cantlon said. They would have added the dots to arrive at exact amounts.

"When you take away language from a human during a math task like this," Cantlon said, "they end up looking just like a monkey. You see these remnants of these more primitive mathematical abilities that are still kicking around in humans."

Cantlon said monkeys are probably good at making quick estimates because they may need to assess quantities in a hurry — like whether they're outnumbered by an enemy. Or if the number of fruits in a tree warrants a return trip.

Cantlon said young children probably do something very similar before they learn formal arithmetic. The results of the study appear in the journal Public Library of Science Biology.

In the journal article, the authors conclude that monkeys perform approximate mental addition in a manner that is remarkably similar to the performance of the college students. These findings support the argument that humans and nonhuman primates share a cognitive system for nonverbal arithmetic, which likely reflects an evolutionary link in their cognitive abilities.

Sources:
Jessica F. Cantlon and Elizabeth M. Brannon. Basic math in monkeys and college students. Public Library of Science Biology.

Jon Hamilton. Dec 18, 2007. Monkeys rival college students' ability to estimate. National Public Radio. Click here to listen to the NPR podcast of article.

Keywords:: monkeys estimate, animal intelligence, primates, Tarheels, Duke vs. UNC, Duke admission scandal

Ecofriendly New Year's Resolutions

Click here to see the source of this article:
Eight Earth-friendly New Years Resolutions from Environmental Defense

December 28, 2007

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In 2008 I pledge to ...

1. Replace my conventional light bulbs with energy-efficient ones. One of the simplest things you can do to save energy and pollution is to swap out your old incandescent bulbs for compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). Today’s high-tech bulbs dim, come in decorative shapes — and radiate a warm, rosy glow. If you’re not ready for a full-house makeover, resolve to start by changing just one light. See our bulb guide for details.

2. Calculate my carbon footprint and see what I can do to reduce it. Do you live in a large apartment building or a small house? Do you drive a hybrid car or a pickup truck? How many times a year do you fly? Taking stock of your habits is the place to start in cutting "carbs".

3. Make small changes at home. An easy place to start is unplugging your chargers and computers when you’re not using them. Another simple change that pays off: Turn down your thermostat in winter (55 degrees when away or at night) and up in summer (to 85 when away). Wash clothes in warm or cold water, not hot. See more adjustments that add up to energy savings.

4. Drive like the Earth depends on it. The way you drive can affect gas mileage and cut global warming pollution from your car's tailpipe. For one, traveling with a light load will increase fuel economy. And driving without rapidly accelerating and braking also improves gas mileage. Get more tips.

5. Buy carbon offsets to help offset my emissions further. If you've already slimmed down your carbon consumption as much as possible, there is more you can do. Buying carbon offsets neutralizes what you can't cut, like flying for business or heating your house.

6. Choose seafood that's good for me and the ocean. Did you know that wild salmon from Alaska comes from a well-managed fishery and is a much better choice than conventional farmed salmon? (And, fortunately, canned salmon is mainly wild pink or sockeye from Alaska.) Do you know which fish you should eat only in limited amounts to avoid mercury or PCBs? It’s all in our seafood guide.

7. Write my members of Congress demanding a strong global warming law. Time is running out to solve the global warming crisis. Waiting just two years to pass national climate legislation would mean we’d have to cut emissions twice as quickly.

8. Pass this list to my friends and family. If everyone you knew made small everyday changes, think what a big difference it would make! Together we can make 2008 a banner year for the environment.

Wedded bliss is ecofriendly, research says

Divorce can take a heavy emotional toll, not only on families, but also on the environment. So says a new study by ecologist Jianguo Liu of Michigan State University. When couples separate and form a second household, their consumption of water, land, energy, and other resources jumps considerably. In the year 2000, about 15% of U.S. households were headed by divorced persons.

Liu found that the splitting of families contributes to urban sprawl by increasing the number of households - an increase of 6 million in the year 2000. In the same year, the separation of spouses increased the number of rooms to be heated and cooled by almost 36 million, found Liu.

Efficiency decreases after a divorce, found Liu and his colleague Eunice Yu, because households are composed of fewer people. Using a 2005 survey, the researchers found that per-person costs for electricity and water are 46% and 56% higher for divorced people than for those living in a married household.

Overall, Liu and Yu estimated that divorce increased water use in the U.S. by 627 billion gallons, at a cost of $3.7 billion. Divorce boosted electricity consumption in 2005 by 73.5 billion kilowatt-hours, about 2% of the nation's electricity, at a cost of nearly $7 billion.

It's greener, and more cost-effective, to stay together!

Source: Sid Perkins. "Divorce is not ecofriendly." Science News. December 8, 2007.

Keywords:: divorce, ecofriendly, urban sprawl, energy efficient

Quick Fact: Carbon Sequestering Deficit Looms Large

Why are greenhouse gases accumulating? On average, the growth of North American vegetation stores only 36% of the yearly emissions of CO2 from human activities, leaving a huge deficit that stays in the atmosphere and contributes to greenhouse gases. Specifically, that's 650 million metric tons of carbon sequestered (mostly in vegetation east of the Rockies) versus 1.8 billion tons emitted (from automobiles, power plants, plus the manufacturing of cement). (Reported in Science News 12/1/07, p. 341 in a summary of a publication by Andrew R. Jacobson in the Nov. 27 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.)

Buy Carbon Offsets to Neutralize Your Air Travel

You may be concerned about the environmental impact of your holiday air travel. It's something to think about. A transcontinental plane,such as a 747, uses tens of thousands of pounds of fuel one takeoff. A single jet can produce as much nitrogen oxides in taking off, idling, and landing as a car driven 26,500 miles.

But what to do? Sometimes flying is unavoidable. You might consider buying carbon offsets to neutralize your travel emissions. Several companies offer carbon offsets for travel. These purchases shouldn’t be seen as environmental pardons, but they do have some benefit.

Here's how it works:
An individual calculates the amount of carbon he or she is personally responsible for (companies provide calculators), and then purchases an offset for that amount. The funds the offset company receives are used to finance projects that avoid, reduce, or absorb greenhouse gases through renewable energy, energy efficiency, or forest projects to bio-sequester carbon.The whole process, including the calculations, has the additional benefit of educating consumers about the impact of their travel.

The Tufts Climate Initiative has published a well-researched paper online that evaluates and compares the effectiveness and cost of 13 different companies that offer carbon offsets for airline travel. Of the 13, they recommend these four companies without reservation:
Atmosfair
Climate friendly
Myclimate
NativeEnergy

Tufts Climate Initiative has also published a user-friendly pamphlet on the subject, available online.

For information about other ways to offset the greenhouse gases you generate, see “A Consumers Guide to Retail Carbon Offset Providers.”

Key words:: carbon offsets, airplane travel, holiday travel, green travel

Sources:
Anja Kollmuss et al. “Voluntary Offsets for Air-Travel Carbon Emissions: Evaluations and Recommendations of Voluntary Offset Companies.” Tufts Climate Initiative. December 2006
http://www.aceee.org/consumerguide/TCI_06Report.pdf

”Flying Green: How to Protect the Climate and Travel Responsibly”. Tufts Climate Initiative. http://www.tufts.edu/tie/tci/carbonoffsets/TCI-offset-handout.htm

A Consumers Guide to Retail Carbon Offset Providers. December 2006. Clean Air – Cool Planet. www.cleanair-coolplanet.org/ConsumersGuidetoCarbonOffsets.pdf

"About the ecological footprint." Redefining Progress: The nature of economics.
http://www.rprogress.org/ecological_footprint/about_ecological_footprint.htm

On Friday, Wyoming Condemns Wolves to Slaughter

Since I wrote the blog post last night about Yellowstone 's wolves, I have more news. Bad news. This morning I discovered a December 14, 2007 post about Wyoming's Gray Wolf Management Plan, issued by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. The plan reassigns gray wolves in Wyoming from endangered species to "trophy animals" in some parts of the state (so hunters can shoot them for recreation) and "predators" in the rest of the state so that ranchers can shoot them. According to this plan by Wyoming's Game and Fish Dept, only 15 breeding pairs of gray wolves in the state is deemed an adequate number to maintain the population - about 100 wolves. (There are currently about 1500 in the state; biologists say the minimum number to maintain a healthy population in the state is 2500 to 3000.)

I blanched when I read the post about Wyoming's new wolf management plan, and ran outside to tell Ken. I somehow missed in my first reading of the article that the USFW service this week approved this plan! When I came back in and read it again, I couldn't believe it!

But still, somehow this does not mean that the wolves have been delisted from the list of federally protected endangered species. It only means that USFW approves of the state of Wyoming reclassifying them within the state. This approval by the USFW service is interpreted as a precursor to the USFW's federal delisting of the wolves, though. I believe the feds are still held up by the various lawsuits against delisting, from environmental groups such as the NRDC.

“It clearly shows that politics not science is running this process,” said the the executive director of the Jackson Hole [Wyoming] Conservation Alliance. “It’s too bad that the only recourse that conservation has may very well be a lawsuit.” [scroll down a couple of inches after you click on this link, to see the comments]

I'll be sending a check to the NRDC today.

Wolves in Danger from the US Government - Once Again

It’s been only 12 years since gray wolves, after years of near-extinction, were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park. The initial group of 66 wolves were transplanted into the park from Canada beginning in 1995. Now, more than 1,545 wolves roam Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Biologists say that a minimum of 2,000 to 3,000 wolves are needed within the area in order to keep them from disappearing again.

The wolves have had tremendous popular support from the beginning. Their reintroduction has been by far the most publicized and celebrated of any wildlife reintroduction in the U.S. The wolves complete the Yellowstone ecosystem, which, without them, had too many hooved animals. The overabundance of some of the wolves' natural prey was altering the natural plant communities along stream banks, due to excessive trampling. With the wolves back on the scene, the Yellowstone natural community is much closer to what it was before most of the surrounding states were profoundly altered by development and livestock ranching.

The success of the growing wolf population has made a lot of money for the park, in sales of wolf paraphernalia, such as wolf T-shirts, sweatshirts, coffee cups, and books from park gift shops. The wolves have also drawn thousands of tourists and wildlife supporters to the area, people who pay to sleep and eat in the park's expensive lodges. My family has been to Yellowstone twice to seek wolf-sightings. We've camped at the Slough Creek primitive campsite, close to the northeastern corner of the park where the wolf dens have often been fairly close to a park road. Every morning in this part of the park, passionate wolf-addicts gather before dawn along the roadsides where certain packs of wolves are most likely to cross in their daily foraging rounds. The hopeful wolf-watchers set up spotting scopes on tripods, and bring out the high powered binoculars and telephoto lenses. Then everyone scans the horizon. Every few minutes a murmur goes up and down the string of watchers "Is that a wolf?" Nope, a coyote. "What's that?" Nah, a fox. "Wait...what's that? Is it? IS IT?"

On our first trip to Yellowstone, we never saw the wolves, due to inexperience about where and how to look. We were so disappointed, even though we enjoyed being there for the hiking and the wilderness and the camping. We saw lots of coyotes, even packs of coyotes, as well as black bears and grizzlies, elk, and pronghorn, and so on....but no wolves.

But on our second trip, we got up at 5:30 every morning and waited for sometimes hours, in the spots where they'd been seen recently. We were rewarded by seeing members of the Slough Creek pack almost every day. We felt lucky to see them eating an elk they'd brought down, although we didn't see them make the kill.

Ranchers and hunters have been opposed to the wolf reintroduction from the beginning. Hunters say the wolves compete with them for native game, particularly elk. Ranchers say the wolves kill their calves. Wolves do occasionally kill calves and sheep. This year they've killed 330 domestic animals. But the U.S. Fish & Wildlife service compensates ranchers for loss of livestock.

The ranchers and hunters apparently are concerned only with their own livelihoods and recreation, respectively. They don't appear to care about wolves, which were here long before we were. Wolves in the U.S. were decimated by an unprecedented extermination campaign in the early 1900s, funded by the U.S. government, which distributed posters encouraging people to shoot wolves on sight, and even offered a bounty for dead wolves. It worked. There were virtually no wolves left in the lower 48, although before Europeans settled North America, wolves were common throughout every region of the continental United States.

If US Fish&Wildlife's plan to take wolves off the endangered species list goes through, hunters and trappers would be allowed to obtain permits to kill wolves. As long as at least 450 wolves survived, the animal would remain fair game. If their numbers dropped below 300, they'd be put back on the endangered species list.

Environmental organizations are planning lawsuits to halt the delisting. US Fish & Wildlife has a backup plan that would keep wolves on the endangered species list, but loosen restrictions on when the wolves can be killed, and would allow hunters to kill wolves for going after their natural prey - elk. This provision is to accommodate hunters who hunt elk for recreation.

If you want to help protect wolves, consider supporting Natural Resources Defense Council's campaign to protect them from delisting.



Source: Matthew Brown. Associated Press. "Ranchers howling about rise in population of gray wolves". Charlotte Observer, Nov 24, 2007.

Key words :: wolves, Yellowstone, endangered species, USFW, hunters, elk, ranchers, livestock

Bird-protecting chocolate and coffee

Chocolate or specialty coffee can be an easy holiday gift to shop for. If you want to do a good deed for the planet at the same time, look for double or triple certified coffee or chocolate. When you buy these certified goodies, you're supporting sustainable livelihoods in tropical rainforests - livelihoods that don't involve clear-cutting of forests. Below are links to help you shop for these certified items online.

Coffee and Chocolate Labels to Look For:

* "Certified Organic"

* "Fair Trade Certified" ensures that companies pay farmers fair prices. More than 100 U.S. coffee companies have licensing agreements with TransFair, including Starbucks, Peet's and Green Mountain. Yet fair trade coffee still represents less than one percent of Starbucks' total coffee sales. The largest chocolate manufacturers, including Mars and Nestle, have yet to go fair trade.

* Certified "Shade Grown" includes the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center's "Bird Friendly" label as well as Audubon and Rainforest Alliance's shade-grown labels.

* Triple certified—"Organic," "Shade Grown" and "Fair Trade"—products are the ideal but currently hard to find.

Here are a few sources of certified coffee and chocolate:
COFFEE
Equal Exchange's Organic Breakfast Blend ($8/12 oz.; www.equalexchange.com; 781-830-0303)
Caffe Ibis's Organic Espresso Roast Blend ($9.49/12 oz.; www.caffeibis.com; 888-740-4777)
Grounds for Change Sumatra Roast ($8.95/12 oz.; www.groundsforchange.com; 800-796-6820)
Cafe Canopy's triple certified French Roast ($10.50/12 oz.; www.cafecanopy.com; 888-299-1147)
CHOCOLATE
La Siembra Group's Cocoa Camino (www.lasiembra.com/home.htm; 613-235-6122) hot chocolate, chocolate bars. Buy at globalexchange.org, www.serrv.org and www.chocosphere.com.
Green & Black's and Maya Gold Chocolate $3.50-$4 for a 100-gram bar (www.greenandblacks.com)
Equal Exchange (see above) hot-cocoa mix ($6 for a 12-oz. can)
See Coffee and Chocolate product reports at www.thegreenguide.com.
Source for the info above:

David Wortman. "Coffee and Chocolate: Choose Organic, Fair Trade, Shade." The Green Guide. National Geographic.

Why does shade-grown chocolate matter to birds?

Lots of those birds that visit your yard during summer migrate annually to and from Latin America where their habitat is being increasingly converted to sun-grown chocolate plantations.

Chocolate begins with the cacao plant, which is native to the rain forests of Central and South America. For more than a thousand years, cacao plants were cultivated throughout the forest under a lush canopy of shade.

While much cacao is still grown in the traditional way, many growers have cleared the forests to cultivate the trees in open plantations, leading to a host of environmental problems:

* Deforestation of traditional cacao farms adds to the loss of tropical forests that is already occurring at an alarming rate in Central and South America and Africa.


* Loss of forest habitat in this region is directly linked to a shrinking migratory songbird population worldwide.


* When trees are cleared, natural predators that keep insects in check are no longer present, so farmers turn to powerful pesticides that harm people and wildlife.


* Cacao plants rely entirely on tiny flies called midges for their pollination. Without these specialized insects, the world's supply of chocolate would be in jeopardy. And as rainforests are cleared, pollinators like the midge are in jeopardy.

The nice thing about eating certified chocolate is that the good feeling from supporting a sustainable and wildlife-friendly industry offsets the guilt from eating the chocolate! It works for me.

Source: Chocolate for the Birds. National Wildlife Federation. Where to Buy Organic Chocolate.

Keywords :: bird-friendly, certified coffee, certified chocolate, fair trade certified, environmental gift

How Chocolate Can Save the Planet

cacao pods, the source of chocolate, growing in Brazil's endangered rainforests

Click here to listen to How Chocolate Can Save the Planet, a report on NPR by Joanne Silberner. Or read it below.

How Chocolate Can Save the Planet

Many people agree that chocolate is good for the soul, and researchers are finding that chocolate can be good for the body, too. But the environment? How could chocolate help with global climate change?

The answer is found in a little piece of paradise, a patch of rainforest in eastern Brazil. Everywhere you look, something is growing. Orchids nestle in the crooks of trees. There are hundreds of shades of green, and the forest is loud with birds and insects.

Some areas have been thinned out and planted with cacao trees — the source of chocolate. The pods contain the magical beans that Aztecs counted like gold. The cultivated cacao trees grow just a bit higher than a man can reach, and rainforest trees tower over them like something out of Dr. Seuss — some round like lollipops, some flat like a plate.

And here's the climate connection. Rainforest trees and plants store massive amounts of carbon — keeping it from getting into the air as carbon dioxide.

Can Chocolate Help Save the Rainforest?

There's a lot less rainforest than there once was. There used to be 330 million acres of rainforest in eastern Brazil, called the Mata Atlantica. Settlers arrived hundreds of years ago and began destroying the forest for the wood, and to create fields for pasture and crops. Only 7 percent of the Mata Atlantica remains, and destruction is still going on. Every time a tree is burned, its stored carbon is released. As more carbon is released into the air, the planet gets warmer.

That worries Dario Ahnert, a plant expert at the State University of Santa Cruz in Eastern Brazil. He says farmers need an incentive to save the remaining forest, and he hopes chocolate will be that incentive.

Chocolate used to be a huge industry here, but in the past two decades, plant disease and low prices in the world market for cocoa beans devastated the industry. Farmers turned to other ways of making a living, including logging trees or burning the forest for farmland or pasture. When the nutrients in the soil were used up, the land was abandoned.

Ahnert wants to persuade farmers to return to chocolate farming and preserve the forest. His friend, Joao Tavares, shows it can be done.

Cabruca Farming

Joao Tavares is a fourth-generation cocoa producer. Tavares, along with his brother and father, has 2,200 acres of rainforest planted with cacao trees. They grow cocoa using a method called cabruca — cutting down just a few of the tall rainforest trees, and planting the mid-height cacao trees underneath.

Inside Tavares' cabruca forest, the ground is covered in a thick layer of composting leaves. It's moist, shady and cool here in the cabruca. Football-shaped pods — striped in yellow and green and orange and brown — jut out from the trunks and branches of the cacao trees.

Tavares has worked hard to maintain, and also to restore, his little piece of the rainforest. He says that in the past 10 years, he has planted many wild trees.

"We understand that we have to preserve the cabruca," Tavares says, "even if you have less production."

He gets fewer cacao trees to the acre by planting inside the forest. But he avoids the drawbacks other farmers struggle with when they grow cacao trees on more open land.

"You have more production, but you have lots of problems," Tavares explains. "You have more disease, more insects, so we decide to preserve."

There's also an expanding market for environmentally friendly chocolate. Tavares has been able to get a premium for some of his crop.

Carbon Credits for Farmers?

Still, his friend, professor Ahnert, admits that cabruca is a tough sell: Farmers want more so-called modern approaches and quicker money. That's why Ahnert hopes that cabruca can become part of the carbon credit market. Farmers would then get money for preserving forest trees, as well as for their chocolate.

"You could increase the income, so I hope some day people that maintain this area are able to get carbon credits," Ahnert says.

The World Agroforestry Center and the chocolate manufacturer Mars Inc. are currently studying how carbon storage can be measured on cabruca-like farms, and whether a carbon credit system would help farmers — and the environment.

Reviving the Land through Chocolate

And there's an even more ambitious idea out there. Howard Shapiro, chief agronomist at Mars, hopes that chocolate could even bring back a little of the forest paradise that's been lost.

He's doing tests with local scientists at Brazil's national chocolate research institute.

"This is an area that's been planted on degraded land," Shapiro says, giving a tour of the three-acre research plot.

After the forest disappeared, the soil became hard and compact, like yellow cement. Only weeds grew in it. Shapiro and his colleagues asked local farmers what sort of plants they would like, both in the long run and while they wait for the soil to become rich enough to support cacao trees.

"What we decided to do was, we would begin with annual crops," Shapiro explains. "Corn, beans — things that have a cash crop value — melons, squashes, and begin to establish bananas for shade, then start to plant cacao."

They also planted rubber trees, and heliconium flowers. The first plants went in seven years ago. Now it's easy to grab a handful of soil. It's dark brown, moist and crumbly, like devil's food cake — with worms. But the worms are good for the soil.

"See all the little flowers on this tree?" Shapiro asks, pointing to a cacao tree. "All those little pink buds. … It's healthy. These trees are healthy."

Shapiro wants to work out the details, but he's ready to say the project is a success. "We learned that you could take totally abandoned land, and you could restore it to profitability after about three years," he says.

So, will preserving, and even replanting, some of this forest in eastern Brazil fix the Earth's climate problem? No. But in this little corner of the world, it may help. And at least we'll have more chocolate.

Produced by Anna Vigran

Keywords :: chocolate, rainforests, shade-grown, sustainable crops, cacao trees, cacao farming, cacao pods