hyphenated - Filed under 'sustainability'

February 7, 2010 8:13 PM

green police

In case you missed it, VW/Audi aired a really great ad during the Super Bowl as part of its 'Green Police' marketing campaign.

Despite some of the, um, issues with its name (which I only discovered when trying to find a link to the ad and finding this), the campaign is genius. By relying on humour, VW managed to do what a lot of sustainability-related messaging doesn't: present viable ways to reduce one's environmental impacts without being preachy and patronizing or dull and depressing.

Unfortunately, many PSAs and other communications with environmental messages tend to be preachy (thou shalt not drive an SUV because it is the right thing to do and not doing so is presumably wrong/evil/immoral...) or depressing (thou shalt not drive an SUV because polar bears are drowning/sea levels are rising/pine beetles are devastating forests...). Although the goal of these types of ads is to change behaviour, my sense is that they make people feel bad for doing something that they've already done and give the impression that it's too late to remedy the situation that has resulted or that remedying the situation is beyond their control. It's too late. The damage has been done. So why change? Furthermore, even if this form of communication succeeded in motivating people to change, alternative choices or clear solutions to facilitate the change are often missing from the message.

In contrast, the VW ad conveys that the status quo is bad (i.e., change is good) while suggesting that change is obviously easy. None of the charges laid by the green police in the ad were for behaviours that are difficult to modify. All the charges could have been simply avoided: don't use plastic bags (implied: use paper or reusable bags), don't use incandescent bulbs (implied: use compact fluorescent), don't use disposable coffee cups (implied: use a reusable mug), etc. And, given the comical nature of the ad, all of these solutions were presented in a way that made the audience feel happy, not shamed or depressed.

Clearly, the primary goal of the VW campaign is to sell more cars (public transit and bicycles were noticeably absent in the ad). Nonetheless, I think that that the core environmental message was a good one that might inspire more people to embrace more sustainable choices as compared to traditional eco-campaigns. I hope to see more environmental communication in this vein... Change is good.

Filed under // sustainability

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January 15, 2010 1:39 PM

the common bond between worms in SF and cassettes

No soil or earth of any kind is allowed into the United States without a permit issued in advance by USDA Plant Protection and Quarantine Permit Unit

(U.S. Customs and Border Protection)

USDA permits were not my top priority leading up to our move to San Francisco. As a result, I had to leave my plants and the vermicomposter behind in Vancouver. Most of the plants were left in the care of my cousin and the worms were adopted by Miss Maggie. I miss them all (the plants, the worms, my cousin, and Maggie).

In San Francisco, I have yet to acquire new plants (with the exception of this, which I might need to dedicate a blog post to in the future) or a vermicomposter. While I intend to add some flora to spruce up (hehe) our apartment this spring, I won't be procuring any non-arthropod invertebrate fauna.

Given my success with the vermicomposter in Vancouver, I wouldn't hesitate to set up a new bin if I were looking for a sustainable way to dispose of my food waste. But I'm not. To my delight, organics are collected curb-side, along with recycling and trash, in San Francisco. The worms have been rendered obsolete [1].

Our building has a green cart in the basement and I've set up a small organics bin in our apartment, alongside the recycling and the trash, lined with compostable bags and labeled ".compost". Cute, right? Okay, maybe it's just geeky, but I couldn't resist.

[1] Nope, the title of the post has nothing to do with tapeworms (thankfully), in case that's what you might have been initially thinking.

Filed under // San Francisco sustainability

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December 5, 2009 4:04 PM

power on

Flip the switch and, voila!, there is light. It's something I do everyday, without really thinking about it. I take electricity for granted and I know that I shouldn't, mainly because I found myself at the heart of the so-called Triangle of Darkness during the ice storm that ravaged Quebec in 1998. For twenty-eight days (minus the few hours between when John purchased a generator and when he deemed it defective because, in addition to generating power, it was generating an unsettling blue flame) lightbulbs were useless and I was forced to appreciate what life was like before Franklin's potentially idiotic kite experiment.

Given that producing light is as simple as flipping the switch, it's easy to ignore where the power comes from and even easier to leave lights on unnecessarily. In addition to turning superfluous lights off, my efforts to reduce my carbon footprint have included purchasing compact fluorescent bulbs in order to reduce power consumption for the purpose of illumination. The equation is simple: less power consumed = less power generated = less carbon emissions.

In the two places I've lived before now, the nature of the source of the electricity was implicit in the names printed on my utility bills: Hydro Québec and BC Hydro. I was always left wondering what impacts my effort to reduce my electricity consumption had if the bulk of the environmental impacts associated with producing the power were incurred in the past, when the dam was built and the landscape was flooded and the power lines were erected. The ongoing generation of hydroelectricity is considered relatively clean so the equation isn't so simple. Where hydroelectricity is concerned, reducing consumption limits demand in an effort to reduce the need to construct additional dams or power plants in the future, rather than reducing emissions now.

Our utility now does not have 'hydro' in its name and I was curious as to our current source of power. So I did some research and found some data for our zip code, which I've graphed:

So, in California, the link between turning off the lights and minimizing my footprint is more obvious, along with the fact that my footprint is probably larger here given the mix of energy sources. About 75% of the pie is non-renewable and fossil fuels make up more than half of the non-renewable energy sources, while the remaining piece is nuclear. Long story short, the pie is neither sustainable nor appetizing. Here's hoping that the recipe is tweaked sooner than later.

Filed under // science & technology sustainability

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November 8, 2009 12:09 PM

plenty of fish

When we left Vancouver, our friends Mark and Stephanie gave us some money as a gift with specific instructions for spending it. Mark described a place in San Francisco that he had read about consisting of an aquarium, a biodome, and a planetarium under one roof and insisted that we visit it. Kevin and I forgot the name of the attraction, but intended on looking it up once we got settled here.

Yesterday morning over coffee, we were discussing weekend plans with our roommate and the latest houseguest (houseguests are a regular occurrence here). We had none and Paul was going to the California Academy of Sciences (the CalAcademy) with a friend. I asked what that was and Paul described it as an aquarium, a biodome, and a planetarium under one (green) roof. Assuming that this must be the place Mark referred us to, we went along.

The CalAcademy was great, especially the aquarium. The re-created tropical seascape reminded me of the course I took at McGill that involved two weeks in Barbados studying the coral reef ecosystem (Kevin claims that I only enrol in programs where I get credits to travel to warm destinations - I also went to Baja Mexico for a grad school course). Many of the fish were familiar, but many of the names had evaporated from my memory. Proof of the "if you don't use it, you lose it" principle.

The dark rooms of the aquarium were packed full of families (consequence of going on a weekend), including small children captivated by colourful fish schooling amongst the coral in the huge tanks. Unlike me, they had names for many of the fishees, such as Nemo and Dora.

Standing before the glass, mesmerized by the fish swimming to and fro in their limited habitat, I couldn't help but contemplate the potential for coral reefs to become artifacts in my lifetime, seen only in aquariums and natural history museums. The prospect of not being able to snorkel in natural living reef ecosystems with parrotfish, eels, butterflyfish, angelfish, urchins, groupers... the list goes on, is disturbing and depressing but highly likely, due in part to climate change:

It is clear that anthropogenic climate change is already negatively impacting the world’s corals and coral reefs. The threat will almost surely grow over the next several decades as the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide increases and ocean warming and acidification accelerate. Predicting future impacts of climate change on corals and coral reefs is complicated given all the uncertainty about the political response, future technologies, changes in human behavior, the earth climate system and the actual effects on reef inhabitants. But even conservative forecasts suggest that we could loose coral reef ecosystems by the end of the 21st century.

Bruno, John (Lead Author); Mark McGinley (Topic Editor). 2008. "Coral reefs and climate change." In: Encyclopedia of Earth. Eds. Cutler J. Cleveland (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment). [First published in the Encyclopedia of Earth December 19, 2007; Last revised August 26, 2008; Retrieved November 8, 2009]

We didn't make it into the biodome because of the long line, but I'm thinking we'll get a membership to the CalAcademy and go back.

Click here to download:

plenty_of_fish.zip (2321 KB)

Filed under // San Francisco science & technology sustainability

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November 5, 2009 11:05 AM

ornate and ornamental

I have mixed feelings about the book I picked up in July (I think) and only finished yesterday. Yes, it took me the better part of four months to read Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez. I'm not a slow reader, but this was a slow book.

The story is not very complicated, but it is told in a meandering and elaborate fashion. The ornate qualities of the book made it difficult for me to be drawn in. Whenever the plot thickened, the author would digress into a prolonged and detailed description of previous, seemingly unrelated, events that introduced new, seemingly superfluous, characters. At these junctures, I felt the urge to skim until the main plot resumed. I wouldn't describe the book as a page turner, unless you were turning the pages to skip to where the plot resumes.

But I didn't skim or skip any parts of the book due to the aesthetic quality of the prose, which was really the most enjoyable part of the book. The ornamental and rich nature of the writing made the novel deliciously poetic. I didn't want to miss out on any particularly satisfying passages embedded in the author's digressions from the main plot so I was reluctant to bypass any parts of the book.

In particular, I loved García Márquez's examination of the concepts of memory and nostalgia throughout the novel. Here are some of the passages that stood out:

❝

Everything seemed smaller to him than when he left, poorer and sadder, and there were so many hungry rats in the rubbish heaps of the street that the carriage horses stumbled in fright. On the long trip from the port to his house [...] he found nothing that seemed worthy of his nostalgia. Defeated, he turned his head away so that his mother would not see, and he began to cry in silence.

❞

❝

However, when she thought he was completely erased from her memory, he reappeared where she least expected him, a phantom of her nostalgia. [...] While more recent events blurred in just a few days, the memories of her legendary journey [...] were as sharp as if they had happened yesterday, and they had the perverse clarity of nostalgia.

❞

❝

[...] he realized that the Magdelena, father of waters, one of the great rivers of the world, was only an illusion of memory [...] [F]ifty years of uncontrolled deforestation had destroyed the river [...] the hunters fir skins from tanneries in New Orleans had exterminated the alligators that, with yawning mouths, had played dead for hours on end in the gullies along the shore as the lay in wait for butterflies, the parrots with their shrieking and the monkeys with their lunatic screams has died out as the foliage was destroyed, the manatees with their great breasts that has nursed their young and wept on the banks in a forlorn woman's voice were an extinct species, annihilated by the armored bullets of hunters for sport.

❞

Seeing as the novel was translated from Spanish, I wonder how true the translation is to the original words of García Márquez. Regardless of the authenticity of the words, there were certain phrases or passages, such as those above, that I found myself stopping to re-read. Probably another reason why it took me so long to finish the book.

Filed under // books & art sustainability

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July 22, 2009 11:03 PM

chemistry + physics = beauty

I presume that the environmental impacts of fireworks is probably high. The impacts of the noise and the smoke and the chemicals on the surrounding environment is the one thing about fireworks that I don't appreciate.

I do enjoy the bright colours and the grandeur and the magic of fireworks though. Kevin can attest that I get pretty excited about fireworks. I am drawn to the combination of an explosive substance with chemicals to create huge, awe-inspiring, fleeting art installations. Being rooted in scientific principles (and reminiscent of a high school chemistry experiment), fireworks are an art form that appeals to me. Chemistry + physics = beauty.

Every summer, Vancouver hosts a fireworks competition between four countries. The venue is English Bay and the best seats are on the beach five minutes from our place. As a result, our neighborhood is flooded with fireworks spectators each of the four nights. The main streets are closed to traffic and vehicles are replaced by crowds flowing towards the bay, not unlike water flowing in rivers towards the ocean.

The restaurants are packed, the line ups at the grocery store are huge, and every patch of sand and grass with a view of the barge (from which the pyrotechnics are launched) become completely covered by blankets and chairs (to the extent that the city has to erect giant blue fences around gardens in the vicinity of the beach to prevent people from trampling the flowers). To stifle any spontaneous post-fireworks festivities (or stabbings, as have been know to occur), the police presence in the West End during the event is huge. Cops on horses, cops in helicopters, cops on foot. It's surreal.

Every spring, the fireworks competition is cancelled for the lack of sponsors and I am simultaneously relieved (our neighborhood won't be invaded) and disappointed (there won't be any fireworks). Every year, a new sponsor steps up and I re-live the emotions. It's a love-hate relationship, really.

Tonight was the first of the four nights of the aptly-named Celebration of Light. I found a patch of grass with a good view despite only going out a half hour in advance of the show (living in the area provides good insider knowledge of less obvious vantage points). I waited in eager anticipation with thousands of other spectators for the show to start. An I marveled at the spectacularly exhilarating combination of light and sound. The theme of tonight's show was The Wizard of Oz (which made me think of one of Tommy's recent posts).

And now I'm home, listening to the sound of noisy crowds making their way home as the police helicopter (complete with spotlight) circles overhead. The drown will persist for another few hours, long after the joy I've derived has faded somewhere over the rainbow.

Click here to download:

chemistry_physics_beauty.zip (4164 KB)

Filed under // books & art science & technology sustainability Vancouver

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July 12, 2009 12:30 PM

you don't know what you've got till it's gone

I've added something new to my morning routine - shower, eat breakfast, check email, brush teeth, pollinate, get dressed, do hair, do makeup. If you guessed that pollinate was the recent addition, you're right.

When growing fruit, tomatoes in my case, indoors the absence of bees and other pollinators is an issue. Without spreading the pollen from one flower to another, tomatoes will not grow. The pollination process is not very complicated - I basically poke my finger in all the flowers that are open, starting and ending with the same flower. Seems to do the trick, as tomatoes are developing on my plants.

Having to take time to pollinate, water, and fertilize my indoor garden simply because it is indoors and isolated from the natural environment really exemplifies the extent of the natural processes that we traditionally depend on in the production of food. For the most part, humanity has supplemented or replaced many ecosystem services, such as fertilization and irrigation, by relying on technological innovation and finite resources (such as fossil water and fossil fuels) in order to increase yield. But pollination is one ecosystem service we haven't yet replaced and that we rely on tremendously. To think that our current food supply depends intrinsically on the activity of insects, largely bees, and other pollinators is humbling.

Humans are at the top of the food chain, but we rely extensively on the links in the chain that extend right to the bottom. Pollination is a prime example.

In contemplating the importance of bees, a verse from a well-known Joni Mitchell song entered my thoughts:

Hey farmer farmer

Put away that DDT now

Give me spots on my apples

But leave me the birds and the bees

Please!

Dont it always seem to go

That you dont know what youve got

Till it's gone

They paved paradise

And put up a parking lot

Combined with the recent discovery that bees are on the decline for reasons yet to be fully understood, reading the lyrics to the song left me feeling ... nostalgic. Nostalgic in the sense of "a bittersweet longing for things, persons, or situations of the past." Partly because this is a song from my childhood and reminds me of hot summer afternoons on the porch with family and partly because I find myself mourning the loss of the bees in nature (the latter being a feeling in direct conflict with my phobia of bees and other insects with stingers) resulting from what is referred to as colony collapse disorder.

If human activity is causing the decline of the bees, I hope that we, as a society, have the common sense to rectify the situation. Loosing the bees seems like a case of not really knowing what we've got till it's gone. Pollinating ten tomatoes plants manually is one thing - pollinating all crops without help from bees is quite another.

Filed under // family & friends food science & technology sustainability

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July 8, 2009 5:16 PM

green roof

Green roofs are awesome, mainly because they deliver a plentitude of environmental benefits, including:

Sustainable stormwater management
Microclimate regulation
Biodiversity enhancement
Building performance improvements

That said, transforming a traditional roof to a green roof is not trivial and, as pointed out on one site, "You should speak to a structural engineer or architect to assess an existing roof before making plans to convert it into a green roof." Indeed, leaks can result from the ad hoc installation of a green roof.

I guess that's why I was greeted by drips from the ceiling this morning. Our roof is very green and it is very ad hoc. Specifically, it is green because of the moss:

via Google maps

Our building desperately needs a new roof and, at this point, I could care less if it is green or conventional. As long as it keeps the rain out, I'll be happy.

Filed under // science & technology sustainability

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June 28, 2009 1:25 PM

greenwashing

A headline in The Economist this week grabbed my attention - "Washing without water". The article proceeded to outline a new technology for washing clothes using minimal water and nylon beads, indicating that the carbon footprint of the new system is "40% smaller than the most efficient existing systems for washing and drying laundry". Sounds great.

But, the article didn't satisfy my curiosity about this new technology and its efficiency. Doesn't the production of synthetic fibers, including nylon, require fossil fuels? Aren't the processes by which such fibers are produced very energy intensive? Did the calculation of the carbon footprint include these considerations? Since the article didn't contain this information, I looked elsewhere. Hello Google.

The most pertinent of my findings is summarized by the following table:

Fiber	Energy use (MJ) per kg of fiber
Flax	10
Cotton (conventional)	55
Wool	63
Viscose	100
Polyester	125
Acrylic	175
Nylon	250

via O Ecotextiles

Since 250 MJ of energy is not very tangible to me, I did some conversions. According to Wikipedia, gasoline contains about 32.0MJ/l. So to make a kilogram of nylon requires the amount of energy contained in about 8 liters of gasoline, which is enough to drive 100km in a new Toyota Camry.

In conducting my research, I also discovered that the price of nylon has risen substantially, 25% in the US, in line with rising energy prices and that demand for nylon has decreased in recent years (more information can be found here). Although unproven, I'm left with the impression that the new washing technology is an attempt to find a new market for nylon in reaction to current market trends.

But, although interesting in itself, my questions remained since the quantity of nylon used in the new washing machines was not quantified in the article. So, I explored the company's website. There, despite not finding the information I sought, I discovered two things:

The 40% reduction in carbon footprint may have included the manufacturing of the nylon, but it's not really clear. The company states that the "calculation also includes the environment cost of the Xeros nylon beads which will be recycled, never just thrown away." Sounds like the study may have relied on a true life cycle analysis (LCA) of the product, but I can't find a link to said study so can't verify what is meant by "environment costs".
The company is assuming that the nylon will be recycled. This assumption is only valid if the infrastructure and education needed to ensure that consumers actually recycle the beads is launched along with the product. Somehow, I'm skeptical. Many things are recyclable. Many of these things are not recycled.

Long story short, the new technology may not be as sustainable as the company claims. I get the sense that greenwashing may be at play here (pun not intended, but I must admit that I like it), but I don't have access to the information I need to substantiate my gut feeling.

Which brings me full circle - shouldn't the The Economist provide the reader with this information? As far as I can tell, all the information provided in the article can be gleaned from the company's website. Needless to say, I'm not impressed with journalism that regurgitates information without any critical investigation. Isn't journalism about asking questions and finding answers? Isn't that the value-added? I can read a website for free. I pay for news for the additional information. So, if the additional information isn't there, what am I paying for when I buy The Economist?

Perhaps, as James Fallows argued in 1991, The Economist is relying on its sacred cow status to retain readers.The criticism launched in 1999 by Andrew Sullivan, namely that "there's a funny thing about the Economist. The closer you look, the weaker it gets. Beneath the blizzard of one-liners ... and snazzy graphs, it contains less original reporting than many other news magazines", rings true. I haven't noticed it in the past, but perhaps I never took the time to look closely enough.

Filed under // science & technology sustainability

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June 26, 2009 8:21 AM

fish fix

Kevin is on his way home. As a result:

I'm very happy
I'll be eating a lot of sushi over the next few days (which also makes me happy)

Before moving to Vancouver, I liked sushi but my definition of sushi was largely restricted to maki (rolls). Since moving to Vancouver, I've become a fan of real sushi. Sure, I still go to the cheap sushi joints that abound in this city to satisfy my maki cravings, but I also have a few favorite Japanese restaurants (one of which is conveniently located just a few blocks from here) where I get my fish fix. Sashimi, nigiri sushi... I'm salivating just thinking about it.

But, with a background in environmental resource management and a goal to live sustainably, reading a menu at a sushi restaurant becomes a challenge to select fish that is likely to be wild caught, not endangered, not overfished, not fished in some terrible way that destroys the ecosystem...

When a NY Times forum titled "Room for Debate" recently asked participants to weigh in on their thoughts regarding eating seafood, there was not much debate. All contributors essentially had the same message: many of our fisheries are unsustainable, many species of fish are en route to extirpation due to over fishing, but a savvy consumer can still enjoy fish.

Although I have grown accustomed to navigating menus to avoid farmed salmon and bluefin tuna and focus on squid and smaller fish species (which led to the discovery that I love mackerel nigiri), a conversation with friends of mine made me realize that I'm probably in the minority. As they described the delicious Chilean sea bass that they bought at the market, I couldn't help myself but to cringe. My grimace did not go unnoticed and I found myself in the position of having to explain that they probably shouldn't buy Chilean sea bass in the future due to sustainability issues, as described here. Then my friends stated that they also bought organic farmed salmon periodically - was that okay? Oh dear. No, probably not okay, but I was sure to tell them that before all of the issues regarding farmed salmon were brought to my attention when I move out west, I also purchased organic farmed salmon from that same fish monger (and I'm still not sure what he means by 'organic', but that's a topic for another post altogether).

I now have a card in my wallet that lists commonly consumed fish and indicates how they fare from a sustainability perspective. I looked at it when I first got it, but find it awkward to open it in restaurants and inspect the menu so obviously. Especially in Japanese restaurants where the fish on the menu constitutes a part of their centuries-old culture.

That a culture is in danger of being lost due to the over-exploitation of natural resources in 2009 is such a shame. We know better but, due to greed and all the challenges associated with managing a resource that is largely open access and a classic example of the tragedy of the commons for many offshore fisheries, the situation is not surprising. Relying on savvy consumers is a start but, as highlighted by the conversation with my friends, it is not enough.

I give kuddos to my favorite Japanese restaurant in Vancouver (which is probably my favorite restaurant, period) for starting to indicate where the fish is from on the menu. When fish mongers and restaurant owners start providing information to consumers to help them make more sustainable choices, it's a sign that we're moving in the right direction.

Filed under // sustainability Vancouver

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