Robert Kennedy rattles cages

On the evening of March 6 I went by myself to hear Bobby Kennedy Jr speak at Queens University of Charlotte. I was hoping I might somehow be able to hand him a copy of our Going Green manuscript, so he might write a short endorsement for the jacket of the book. Our book does address the environmental impact of factory farming, which is one of Kennedy's pet peeves.

I thought I knew but I was wrong

I didn't know specifically what Kennedy planned to talk about at Queens, except that it would involve the environment. I didn't really want to go out alone; I was tired. I told my friend Beth that I didn't think he would say a lot I didn't already know. But it turned out I was wrong.

Corporations focus only on profits for shareholders
It's true that the general gist of his talk wasn't new to me. If you've seen the documentary "The Corporation" and the video "The Story of Stuff," then you know that corporate America is entirely focused on making profits for shareholders, and that any other considerations are a distant second, regardless of whatever greenwashing comes from their marketing departments. "The Story of Stuff" makes the point that our corporate production model is "linear" and cannot function long in a world with finite resources. It's linear in that we extract raw materials, use them up and dispose of them and their by-products recklessly, rather than recycling them.

Kennedy's talk incorporated these familiar points. But, for me, he put flesh on these ideas and somehow inspired me as few speakers ever have. As an environmental lawyer, and head of Pace Law School's Environmental Clinic, he has spent his adult life suing corporations that pollute, fighting them in court - he has seen their ugliest tactics. He understands the whole frightening picture inside and out.

Here's some of what he said.

First of all he underscored the message in "The Corporation." He said that "corporations' only obligations are to their shareholders."

Revolving door of plunder
This obligation drives a "revolving door of plunder." Our government allows corporations to keep all the profits of their plunder, but they are not held responsible for the long-term costs of their exploitive production methods. The public is left with the clean-up costs.

"Good environmental policy is identical to good economic policy," Kennedy said. A sustainable economic policy would force corporations to internalize the long-term costs of their damage to the environment and communities and labor.

But corporations are allowed to exploit and degrade nature because they use campaigns and lobbyists to get their hooks into the federal government.

Kennedy talked about the Bush administration's 400 rollbacks of environmental progress that had been made over the last few decades. The rollbacks, he said, are listed on the NRDC website.

Crony capitalism
In his talk, he cited case after case of industry honchos whose "other career" is safeguarding the very resources their industry exploits and destroys. For example, Philip Cooney was the head of the Council on Environmental Quality for the Bush administration until a couple of years ago. But before that, he was the chief lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute. Another example: the head of the U.S. Forest Service was previously a timber industry executive. Kennedy called this "crony capitalism." The Bush government allows the fox to guard the henhouse, again and again.

Subversion of American democracy
Kennedy's theme was "the subversion of American democracy" by corporations with excessive power.

Why do we as Americans passively permit this to happen? Kennedy said that five corporations control all radio, all TV, and 80% of American newspapers. "Americans," he said, "are the best entertained and the least informed population in the world." He quoted Thomas Jefferson, who said you can't have a democracy for very long with a public that is uninformed.

A couple of things surprised me about Kennedy's talk. He loves our country, and he said partisanship is not constructive. He said he is not an environmentalist, rather he is a free-marketeer who pursues the cheaters - the corporations who damage our natural resources and leave the mess for others to deal with.

Nature is America's unifying theme
He said nature is the unifying theme of American culture, and he backed this up convincingly. He tied in his spirituality, too, saying that wilderness is the undiluted work of the creator. He talked with warmth about fishing and camping with his sons. Wilderness is the way God communicates with us most forcefully, he said, "with clarity and texture".

His speech was beyond moving. If I was a person who cries easily, I would have been weeping. Instead I just had to marvel at the case he made for our wild lands and our clean water and our health. They are everything - not only our cultural heritage and our spiritual connection, but our social foundation.

We fight for the fish and birds
"We fight for the fish and the birds because it's the infrastructure of our community," said Kennedy.

Nature and our natural resources are our history, and everything we need for the future.

I'll be listening to Bobby's radio show from now on.. I want to hear more details. He's co-host of "Ring of Fire," on Air of America radio. I've ordered his book, which I can't wait to get my hands on:

Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and his Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy

I didn't get to talk to Kennedy, and I suppose he won't write a jacket blurb for this book, as he kindly did for my last one. But I am a wiser person for having heard him. What a mistake it would have been to stay at home.

Key words: Bobby Kennedy Jr, RFK, Robert Kennedy Jr, Bush administration, Philip Cooney, The Corporation, The Story of Stuff, Ring of Fire, Air of America, corporate plunder, crony capitalism

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