Green Life Project is a weekly series of posts highlighting one change for readers to make in their life in order to gradually green their lives.

This week’s Green Life Project action item is to pick up one piece of litter each day.  

Oh, and after this week, continue the good habit.  

Simple?  Yes!  Easy?  Maybe not for all of us.

Picking up a piece of litter (or many pieces) was something taught to me by my parents, and even more so, that littering itself was, “bad.”  My dad used to take a bucket to pick up litter along the road of our very rural property, which always included beer bottles, food wrappers, and cigarettes.

But over the last few years, I have rarely picked up litter, my squeamishness about “dirty” garbage getting the better of me.  I also feel watchful eyes on me, as if it’s something to be embarrassed about.  I’ve gotten over both of these and have begun to pick up the errant bottle or plastic bag here and there and either recycle, or, at the very least, throw it into the garbage.  Some days I miss, and some days I pick up several pieces to make up the difference.

I realize that while this is a simple act, for many possible reasons, it may not be that, “easy” for all of us to perform.  For the vast majority of us, I consider them excuses to be overcome, and let me from here explain why picking up a piece of garbage everyday can make for a much cleaner planet.  I realize we will all miss days — I know I have — but try to do one per day and I know that you’ll often double up on other days.

I read this opinion piece on The Huffington Post this week and found it especially intriguing.  Sure, $3 million is a lot to you and I, but they say it is enough to endow a research center and, by association, the preservation of a green space?  Wow!

From that piece:

So, how do we ensure that these treasures survive to inspire our descendants and teach them about the many-layered complexities of life? A permanent research presence goes a long way towards protecting a parcel of nature in perpetuity, while simultaneously building a better understanding of that parcel. Terborgh and Sinclair both estimate that it would cost a minimum of $3 million to endow their respective field stations, forever. In Peru, the revenue flowing from such an endowment would pay the salaries of two permanent scientific directors and cover the scant operating costs of the rustic station. In Tanzania, the goal is to underwrite the training and permanent presence of additional Tanzanian scientists, spreading the sense of stewardship of the country’s living assets.

Okay, so where does such money come from?  Well, I worked for the advancement office for my college while in school, and we handled endowments as alums and others donated different sums of money for professorships.  Schools and other non-profits alike have a development or advancement office, charged with bringing in both small and large donations for the institutions.  Typically, $1 million or more would endow a chair for a professorship, which meant that a professor who earned the title would be given extra resources, assistants, equipment, etcetera, to carry out teaching and research in a specific field, using the interest from the endowment each year for expenses.

Imagine all of the fresh food you can buy at your local farmers' market!

Green Life Project is a weekly series of posts highlighting one change for readers to make in their life in order to gradually green their lives.

Your farmer’s market may not yet be chock full of produce, as it is early in the growing season for most markets.  For example, two weekends ago, we found purple asparagus, but not much else.  However, I picked up some potted herbs, scoped out and even sampled some different items.  Farmers’ markets have the added benefit of delicious food that you can eat on the spot and opportunities abound for seeing friends or meeting new people.

According to several news outlets, including the Chicago Sun Times, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, and USA Today, in a turn for the good, the City of Chicago has voted to ban the use of bisphenol-A (BPA) in baby bottles and sippy cups, to take effect on January 31, 2010.  

This is great news for those of us with strong concerns about BPA, which hardens plastics often used in baby bottles, water bottles, and even in the lining of many of our canned goods.  Canada banned it last year and the U.S. should follow suit and ban this as a step toward reducing the amount of plastics products humans absorb through food consumption.  Grave concerns abound regarding BPA and at the very least, the EPA should test it out for safety.

Let’s hope New York City and California follow suit, hopefully with stronger bans on products that come into contact with food and water.

Here is a fact sheet from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) regarding BPA.  

The Fact Sheet is not as harsh on BPA as, say, the wikipedia entry, which says in part, “Bisphenol A has low acute toxicity, with an oral LD50 of 3250 mg/kg in rats,[9] but it is an endocrine disruptor.[10][11] Low doses of bisphenol A can mimic the body’s own hormones, possibly causing negative health effects.[12] There is thus concern that long term low dose exposure to bisphenol A may induce chronic toxicity in humans.[13][14][15]“

That’s right, “endocrine disruptor”.  But it gets better:

We’ve discussed climate change deniers on here before.  But two Mondays ago, the column from the New York Time’s Paul Krugman (Princeton Professor and Nobel Prize winner in economics) takes on a different breed: those who say it’ll, “cost too much,” to do anything about climate change.  These folks deny the cost-effectiveness of action (usually while ignoring or downplaying the costs of inaction).

Before telling you more about the column, let me just say that I have a great deal of respect and admiration for this columnist.  Krugman is no ideologue — though his blog is titled, “Conscience of a Liberal,” he is no hardline Democrat — meaning, he has no problem coming out and saying when a Democrat has been or is wrong.  He has been a tough critic of President Obama, both during the election and after.  But that didn’t stop Obama from having him over for dinner within the last week, along with another Nobel prize winning-critic, economist, Joseph Stiglitz.  Obama’s a unique case of someone welcoming the outside perspective.

I was first introduced to Krugman’s work over four years ago by one of my professors in a public policy course I took as an undergraduate.  I have since followed his twice-weekly column in the New York Times.  I once fortunately received word that he was giving a talk about the economics of healthcare and was able to attend, during which he said that that was what he expected to chiefly write about while at the New York Times.  And while he covers it remarkably well, he thankfully does not stick to it.

This week’s Green Life Project action item is to begin your own garden!

Why should you start gardening?  How is it green?

1. Gardening cuts your consumption of foods shipped from far away!  The average that I keep hearing from locavore websites say that food travels is 1,500 miles from farm to plate.  That’s a lot of miles being driven by truck (if not boat or plane) for your consumption.  You can reduce how much is shipped for your benefit!
2. Gardening your own fruits, vegetables, and herbs cuts down on packaging!  You can bring it into your home in a basket, bowl, or colander, wash it, and use it!  You skip the boxes, the pallet the boxes get shipped on (which is usually shrink-wrapped in plastic), the small plastic wrapped, styrofoam, and  clamshell plastic containers, not to mention any chance of it ending up in a disposable bag on the off chance you forgot your reusable one!  Cut out all of that packaging for any of the items that you are able to grow for yourself!

Check out this awesome oil industry ad spoof!

Update: Exxon Mobil responds and AVAAZ speaks out

Our tax policies should be brought into line with our priorities regarding the environment.

How many of us receive our paycheck stub and complain about the large amount of money taken out or at least lament the amount of money the government takes out?  Sure, we’re working and working hard, but the more we work, which is usually deemed a positive contribution to society, the more we pay in taxes.  Positive activity leads to a negative reaction?  What gives?

Yes, we pay taxes on our income and can expect for that to continue.  But how many negative aspects of our society could be discouraged with taxes?  That is to say that we could implement a negative reaction to negative activities.  And what’s stopping us, if not the lobbyists who have the ears of those in Washington?  

The premise comes down to this: if something taxes the environment and public health, we should be taxing that activity.  

Stated more simply: you should have to pay dearly to pollute the earth upon which we are all dependant.  

And we should start with the biggest corporations!

What’s Stopping Us?

This rose is red. But it can also be green!

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a rose bush.  And yesterday, I planted it.  Friday was Arbor Day, and I wanted to plant something that is tree-like at the very least.

I rent my apartment and planting a tree is not an option.

But the rose bush?  My landlord wouldn’t mind if I asked him and won’t notice it anyway (I didn’t ask).  You might want to ask, depending upon your landlord if you rent and before you dig, check that you won’t hit any cables with your shovel by calling the right people (your power company may be the best place to start).

But there’s more to my reasoning for planting a rose bush.

Why?  And how is this, “green”?  Why would I recommend it to you?  Let’s take a look!

The Associated Press reports that pharmaceutical manufacturers dump different chemicals into our water resources, untreated, for myriad reasons, sometimes expired product and at times simply from cleaning their manufacturing equipment.

From the story:

U.S. manufacturers, including major drugmakers, have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways that often provide drinking water — contamination the federal government has consistently overlooked, according to an Associated Press investigation.

Hundreds of active pharmaceutical ingredients are used in a variety of manufacturing, including drugmaking: For example, lithium is used to make ceramics and treat bipolar disorder; nitroglycerin is a heart drug and also used in explosives; copper shows up in everything from pipes to contraceptives.

Federal and industry officials say they don’t know the extent to which pharmaceuticals are released by U.S. manufacturers because no one tracks them — as drugs. But a close analysis of 20 years of federal records found that, in fact, the government unintentionally keeps data on a few, allowing a glimpse of the pharmaceuticals coming from factories.

The story states that the 271 million pounds they can account for is a massive undercount from what is actually released.  Last September, we picked up a separate but similar Associated Press story that discussed largescale dumping by hospitals of hundreds of millions of pounds of drugs.  But now, it turns out that the manufacturers themselves are also to blame.