Tree-less paper

I’ve been moonlighting (great phrase, hope it works!) as the blogger for my friend’s new San Francisco store, Urban Bazaar. The store is founded on my friend’s core value that Fair Trade goods help strengthen communities around the world, and that if sold at affordable prices, can begin to become the new norm. She also features items made by local artists.

The blog is here. Today I featured a short video of how tree-less paper (they use discarded cloth rags instead) is produced, in this case, for use in cruelty-free leather journals. Good stuff!

As we consider our participation in the global economy, noting that there are ways to stick to local and fair values is important. Now that we know the options, we’d be remiss to ignore them.

Funny Hats and Nature

If the booked-up campground I spent time at this weekend (all 112 sites were taken!) is any sort of anecdotal indication, then there are certainly folks out there who appreciate and value nature. If the mountaintop removal I see when I go back home to visit Appalachia and the lack of recycling may also be added as evidence, then this appreciation of nature is inconsistent and sometimes disconnected from the impacts that people have on the nature they enjoy.

I'd believe somone in this hat about nature

Well, perhaps then we should consider how we talk about nature, and who is doing the talking. In a study paid for by the conservation nonprofit I work for, the consulting firms of Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates (FM3) and Public Opinion Strategies drew several recommendations up on just those topics. Should you not wish to read any further, the conclusion can be stated in short: people want nature to be there, and they want people in funny hats to tell them why.

Digging in, the consulting groups first sought to gauge people’s attitudes towards the great outdoors. A staggering 90% of respondents said that nature’s benefits (be that recreation, aesthetic, to health, for clean air and water, etc) were either Extremely or Very Important. And when asked to name the specific benefits of nature that individuals valued, among the highest ranking were those linked to protecting public health. Assuring water quality, air quality, allowing for food and medicine, and protecting against floods and hurricanes also ranked highly.

Providing for camping, hiking, and recreation hit the 67% Extremely or Very Important mark, below many of the health benefits.

It should be noted though that when the question was phrased as asking the most important reason for conserving nature, 45% responded that nature ought to be conserved for the benefits (health, economy, enjoyment) that it can provide; whereas a respectable 42% responded that that best reason to conserve nature was for its own sake (to leave systems undisturbed to evolve, change, and grow).

I find this quite heartening. People see their well-being as tied to nature, and not just for what we can extract. This idea is further enforced when testers asked respondants who they trusted to discuss conservation and nature.

Here, the funny hat rule comes into play: conservation groups ranked behind ranchers, farmers, doctors, scientists, fishers, and hunters. After conservation groups, professors, landowners, businesses, business analysts, and economists came in far down the list.

Thus, the funny hat rule can be further defined, perhaps, as anyone not seen as trying to sway the public for a particular agenda (professors, economists). Those who are “insiders” with the land seem to have the clout amongst the general public.

I work for a conservation organization, and on a donor trip last year sat spellbound around an early-evening camp fire in a rancher’s backyard, as the rancher told those of us visiting his reasons for putting a conservation easement on his land. He grew up on his acreage and knew every tree, every creek and hill. He believed in the power of the land its beauty, and wanted to ensure that in perpetuity. His twenty minute, heartfelt explanation was the highlight of the donors’ two week-long trip, and proved to be far more memorable than the dozens of maps we showed and parade of experts we had appear.

So the lesson: nature, just because. Maybe my hometown in Appalachia already has that appreciation, but perhaps they would benefit from hearing why they should recycle from someone who don’t work behind a desk.

Keep AB32: We can have clean air and jobs

In 2006, California stepped in where federal law was lacking: by putting 2020 clean air goals into law. Known as the Global Warming Solutions Act, or AB32, the law seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in California and impose new requirements on power plants, manufacturers and other businesses.

What oil companies don't want

Sounds like a good idea, right? In a study released by the Air Resources Board in March 2010, economists say that even with the downturn, AB32 would help create two million jobs by 2020, with $3.8 billion saved in reduced consumption of gasoline and diesel fuel.

So, who would oppose such a job-creating, environmental-helping act?

Big Oil, you say?

Sadly, that’s just the case. Texas oil companies Valero and Tesoro have dumped $1.9 million dollars into California to help unravel AB32 through a benign-sounding ballot measure dubbed the “California Jobs Initiative”.  Their proposed measure will appear before voters this fall.

The initiative calls for a suspension of AB32 until California’s unemployment rate – now at 12.6 percent – drops to 5.5 percent and stays there for a year– a magic number that has only happened three times in the past 30 years, according to California Employment Development Department statistics.

Ultimately, the proposed suspension is a way to permanently end AB32.

Other polluters have joined the fight. As of the end of March, 89% of the funding of the initiative came from the oil industry, with nearly three quarters of that just from Texas oil companies. The Tea Party has been drawn in to oppose AB32 as well.

Other sources of funding are dubious. In April, a nonprofit group called the Adam Smith Foundation, based in Jefferson City, Missouri, gave $498,000 to the campaign to repeal California’s greenhouse gas law. The group’s entire revenue for the last two years just barely reached $60,000.

Scandal aside, if we’re thinking about how to support a growing population, the economy has to transition away from extracting things from the ground.

We need to consider which sector will take California further. According to the CA government, “While the rest of the economy struggled with job losses of one percent, the clean tech sector surged ahead in 2007-2008 with growth of five percent. The green economy could soon become the nation’s fastest-growing job segment, accounting for roughly 10 percent of new jobs over the next 20 years – up to 4.2 million new green jobs – 500,000 in California.”

And if one really does care about the California worker, dirty air causes health problems and costs individuals and the state money (not the factories). 95% of Californians live in areas with unhealthy air. Cleaning things up would cost the factories, which I prefer to individuals doling out money for health problems caused by pollutants.

Though Governor Schwartzenegger struck back at the initiative, blasting the “greedy oil companies” for trying to set back the sweeping environmental policy, Schwartzenegger won’t be in office for much longer.

The California governor’s race is full of candidates who are all about killing AB32—mainly Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner. Only Jerry Brown, a Democrat, sees the benefits of keeping it alive.

Clean air and jobs can both exist. Since I don’t foresee a federal climate act passing anytime soon, having a state law to spur growth and protect air quality seems appropriate. Oil companies from Texas shouldn’t be allowed to decide this.

Check here for some myths and facts about AB32, found on the CA government website.

What is ecology? A philosophical debate…

Slavoj Zizek in the documentary “Examined Life”, giving his talk on the philosophy of ecology. If one takes the definition of ecology to its literal end, it means the interactions between organisms and their environment. Some philosophical ecologists believe then that any actions or impacts that humans have are natural and aren’t “good” or “bad”.

But if you’re finding it tricky to decipher if Zizek actually likes nature or not, check out this article.

Zizek: “Either we take the threat of ecological catastrophe seriously and decide today to do things that, if the catastrophe does not occur, will appear ridiculous, or we do nothing and risk losing everything if the catastrophe does take place.”

Then there’s the more strict philosophy of ecology figure Timothy Morton, whose ideas lead him to propose doing away with the idea of “nature”, arguing that the idea of “nature” is really a fetish concept created by the romantics. I’ll have to take a closer look into his ideas, but there is certainly a rising prominence of ecology in philosophy.

From the start though, Zizek seems to be thinking about survival and human’s helplessness in the hands of nature, and Morton seems to see no reason to elevate nature (or preserve it?). I have learned that I value nature for many reasons, but can offer the idea that for us to value the aesthetics of nature is reason enough to want to value and elevate its importance.

Buying Conservation

There’s a lot of conservation work to be done: science to conduct, grasslands to restore, fisheries to reform, habitats to protect, solar farms to site responsibly, oysterbeds to repopulate, beaches to clean. And all of this activity requires money. In the end, though the Earth’s natural systems are resilient, it will be money that protects what functions so well on its own.

Green'd

The daunting task of raising money to address all of these challenges falls on conservation nonprofits, many of which came under scrutiny earlier this week for accepting donations from some of the very corporations causing environmental damage, such as BP.

Nearly two dozen environmental groups received donations from BP in the past several years, for projects ranging from wind farm mitigation to protecting forests in Brazil.

The BP website talks of contributing to the “Environment and society”, but their few million dollars in contributions compared with their $14 billion in profit (2009 numbers) says to me that there is a lot of greenwashing going on. Though BP does not feature the logo of any environmental nonprofit on their website , surely their ability to tell investors and the public that they are contributing to “Environment and society” serves a purpose towards either their profit, ability to enter communities, ability to influence policy– or all three.

Manufacturing these uses water resources

So,  is it worth it? Is the return on investment that BP is getting from donating to conservation groups worth the conservation getting done with their money?

I tend towards a more pragmatic view. If conservation groups opted to reject donations from environment-harming companies, surely the big players like Chevron, BP, and Shell would be out. But what about Nestle, whose bottled spring water brand Arrowhead draws hundreds of millions of gallons out of watersheds, and is roundly criticized for its practices? Or clothing manufacturing companies, whose production relies on extensive water use in developing countries, at times taking it away from fragile ecosystems? Or electronics and software companies, who also use a great deal of water and at times precious minerals mined (and disposed of) at a great human and environmental cost?

There isn’t a clear line. It seems that to achieve total transparancy with donations, groups would have to reject all corporate donations.  Rarely are our consumer products derived without some impact.

And this assumes that conservation groups could fill their funding needs in other ways. Of this I am skeptical, from having worked with foundations for several years. Post-2008 foundation endowments dropped an average of 40 percent. Many grantmakers are turning down new programs, cutting staff, and narrowing their giving areas.

Rather than blast conservation groups for taking corporate donations, I suggest a more nuanced approach. Be critical of what those donations are buying. Is a nonprofit’s logo splashed across websites of sketchy corporations? That is a signal to scrutinize the conservation work more closely. Is the nonprofit science or policy first? Any organization dealing primarily in policy and accepting corporate donations faces a transparancy issue. They should be made, perhaps, to post what corporate donations they receive, and in what amount, and for what project.

Lastly, why is associating with “green” a successful or sought-out strategy for corporations?  It’s due, in part, because consumers respond to that image. And businesses are after profit, not saving panda bears.

This places a burden on us to not automatically “feel good” about a product or corporation because they have a conservation nonprofit partner. Heeding these emotional responses to things in the realm of profit and money is an important habit to get into.

Spinach vs Science

Recently I visited Salinas Valley, a warm, oak-filled landscape flanked on all sides by steep canyons, and fed through the center by the Salinas River.

Multi-generation California farming families make up most of the valley’s land ownership. Most of these families grow spinach, lettuce, or other leafy greens, earning this valley the nickname of “America’s Salad Bowl”. Most growers are true stewards of the land”, meaning that the growers show that land use and environmental values can coexist.

The growers I met on my trip were proud to show me their acreage, and seemed to feel lucky that they had beautiful land to run around on (and prime fishing spots) too.

Yet changes imposed from above are squeezing farmers, forcing them to destroy the land they depend on and love. Large corporate buyers of the Valley’s leafy greens have imposed “food safety” rules that growers must abide by if they’re to sell their crop. And these rules, concocted in a board room disconnected from not just the land and decades of agricultural practice, but from science, could actually make our food less safe.

Before the fall.

Mention the year 2006 to any grower, worker, broker, shipper, buyer, or local government official, and get ready to watch them cringe.

That year’s e.coli outbreak — eventually traced to bagged spinach grown in the Salinas Valley– made over 200 people sick (three people died) across 26 states, and for months the nation endured a seemingly endless food safety crisis. The event proved disastrous for the Valley, whose annual agriculture production reaches into the hundreds of millions.  Once source estimated a loss of roughly $3,500 per acre for farmers.

The Center for Disease Control made a best guess on the source contaminated spinach back to the source– a 50 acre farm that also ran cattle.  Subsequent tests found 26 of the ranch’s cattle tested positive for the same strain of e.coli that caused the outbreak. Feral (non-native) pigs seen in the area around the ranch were also determined to be “environmental risk factors”.

Action and re-action.

Justifiably, corporate purchasers of spinach and leafy greens had to act. But rather than impose regulations tied to science, whoever sat in the board rooms of those corporations who perhaps have never visited farmland decided that all living creatures– cattle, rodents, deer, amphibians, birds, domesticated cats and dogs– had to go. And these new “Super Metrics” dictate that any trace of animal presence– tracks in the soil, perhaps– give the corporations the right to refuse an entire yield.

There is not a single study  supporting the idea that deer or frogs or birds or dogs caused an e.coli outbreak. The elimination of riparian (river) or pond habitats on farms, science shows, may actually increase the risk of food-born pathogens.

Danny Marquis, resource conservationist at the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service noted that: “Studies demonstrate that relatively small grass buffers can filter 99% of pathogens, and over 40 field trials show that vegetated treatment systems and constructed wetlands can treat human pathogens.”

Not worth it

Though the Super Metrics are proprietary, talk to any grower or take drive along the Valley’s crisscrossing dirt roads and the requirements become clear.  Where oak trees once shaded the Salinas, home to a (now declining) population of steelhead, the ground is bare.  Grass cover is gone, causing dust and particulate matter to swirl around the fields when even the slightest breeze blows (some guess dust may spread e.coli). Farmers have had to get rid of their family pets. Some report their pets found shot by paranoid neighbors. Ponds, many of which once contained, among other life,  Federally Endangered red-legged frogs, have suddenly become sterile.

Break the law to pay your bills.

Farmers, forced between choosing to forfeit their crop or violate state and federal air, water, and soil quality laws, chose the former.  And the corporate buyers get off scott free, and often herald their products as “sustainable”.

Several conservation groups are teaming up with academics and local government officials to research the impacts of the Super Metrics.  Others are investigating possible vectors of e.coli as a way to rule out wildlife that is innocent in the food safety battle.

Consumers can speak with their wallets. Demand for bagged greens is driving many of these new metrics. As convenient as bagged greens are, according to  Jo Ann Baumgartner, Director of the Wild Farm Alliance: “The fact is, the bag itself is a micro-incubator. Many cut leaf surfaces increase areas of infection, and washing of thousands of pounds of greens at a time can spread pathogens to scores of consumers.”  In fact, 17 of the 26 e.coli outbreaks between 1993 and 2008 were traced to the bagged leafy greens industry.

Ultimately the increasing demand for food to feed a growing world population will mean that growers need to abide by strict safety guidelines. But knee-jerk regulations that ignore both science and generations of knowledge about the land won’t get us there.