Pay Now Vs. Pay Later
The House of Representatives passed a bill yesterday that would generate $18 billion dollars by eliminating certain tax breaks for the five largest oil companies. That $18 billion would then be used to give incentives for wind and solar energy and energy efficiency initiatives.
George W. threatened to veto the bill.
His reason: it will force gas companies to hike gas prices, it will financially discourage further oil exploration and in general, be unfair to an industry. In other words, let’s not single out any one industry and start beating up on them.
Here’s the problem with Bush’s reasoning on this bill, as well as the overall problem with a lot of his policies: He’s short-sighted. He seems to only be able to see 90 days into the future, which is coincidentally the range that most corporations operate in as well.
What he’s not seeing is the long-term benefits to “paying now” with possibly higher prices at the pump, in order to avoid “paying later” with higher costs of oil due to unquenchable demand on resources and depleting worldwide supply.
He doesn’t see how we will all pay later when, after spewing the carbon from the emissions on all that oil, climate change will become virtually irreversible and deadly to most species on the planet, including humans. He doesn’t see how we’ll all pay later when we’ll have to go to war with yet another oil-producing country in order to keep the “crack” flowing into our veins.
If oil prices are kept steady, and most consumers still feel that they can handle the higher prices at the pump and elsewhere, like at grocery stores (due to higher transport and fertilizer costs), which means they won’t do a damn thing to change their lifestyle or vehicle choice.
If you look beyond the next quarter, or even the next year or decade, you can see how an investment in alternative energy initiatives now can actually be a long-term benefit that will reduce our dependency on foreign oil and reduce carbon emissions in the future. So what if we have to pay an extra dollar at the pump for the next year, if in the next 20 years, we’ll enjoy huge savings because our cars will run on less gas, our homes and businesses will be energized by cheaper, renewable energy, and food costs will be kept down as a result?
It’s a question of pay now for a short time, or pay later for a very, very long time.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Are Some Corporate Definitions of “Green” Just Another Marketing Ploy?
As buying “green” products becomes more and more trendy, corporations are beginning to see it as one more opportunity to improve the market share of their products. In some cases, this kind of change in the manufacture and use of a product may be a good improvement, but unless the consumer is completely informed about where the product is made, where the raw materials come from and all the steps that are involved in the manufacture of a product, “green” is just another label slapped on in order to sell more stuff.
Take hard drives as an example. Many hard drive manufactures are coming up with what they call “green” drives. They are marketing them in this way in order to satisfy a demand put on by the portion of consumers that specifically compare their purchases this way. How much of the hard drive is actually green, if you look at what it takes to manufacture one?
These are the steps involved in the production of an average hard drive. Although the process listed here may be typical, it is not universal. I’m generalizing in order to make a point.
1. Design and engineering of the hard drive is done in a building that still runs on conventional energy sources, constructed from conventional materials.
2. The corporate paradigm is still “growth and progress” and profits at the expense of raw materials costs and quality. Employee satisfaction and sustainability are not nearly as important as reporting profitable quarters, keeping the stock prices high, and increasing market share.
3. The drive is manufactured overseas in Asia to save money in labor and operating costs. The raw materials (NONE of which are recycled or reclaimed) for the drives are shipped in from all over the world, depending on where the cost of the materials is lowest. Thus, it takes a lot of energy to ship in raw materials.
4. Part of the production of the drive itself requires some of the metal parts to be baked at 190° C for 5 hours to ensure that all particulates and contaminates are eliminated, thereby sterilizing the part. This improves reliability, but it takes a lot of energy to get that result. Also, the energy to bake those parts comes mostly from Asian coal-fired power plants.
5. The finished product is shipped out of Asia and into the U.S. Again, the carbon cost of shipping the hard drive is higher than if the drives were made in the U.S. or closer to where the majority of the consumers will actually use the drives.
Now, here’s where the “green” definition comes in for that drive.
It is designed in a way that the disc spins slightly slower than average. Therefore, it uses less electricity to run than a non-green hard drive. If a green hard drive saves you 5 watts of electricity, and it runs continuously for five years, it would save roughly 200 kilowatt hours of electricity over its lifetime, or the equivalent of running a television/dvd player system for 55 days. This is the worse case scenario, if you never turned off your computer in the five years you owned it.
You can see for yourself that the “green” aspect of this product represents maybe what? 1% of the total carbon footprint of this product, best case scenario. It doesn’t take into account the embodied energy it took to put that drive together—namely, the amount of energy it took to mine the metals and petroleum products, ship them, manufacture them and then produce a design from which they would be then constructed.
It’s important that we place a higher standard for the term “green” and we hold companies accountable to showing how they reduced shipping distances, reused raw materials, increased sustainability in their manufacturing facilities, and changed their overall paradigm to include sustainability into the equation.
Whenever we see a “greener” version of a product we have to realize that no one is addressing the embodied energy it took to produce that product. It’s important to consider the whole picture. Maybe one day there will be labeling requirements for green products in the same vein that we have labeling for nutrition and ingredient content.
Not only that, but the carbon “cost” of products could be included in the price, thus turning the cost of goods upside down – the more embodied energy it takes to make something (especially if it’s made in China), the more expensive it would be. Local, sustainably produced products would actually (gasp!) be the cheapest products on the market.
That would be a step in the right direction.
Take hard drives as an example. Many hard drive manufactures are coming up with what they call “green” drives. They are marketing them in this way in order to satisfy a demand put on by the portion of consumers that specifically compare their purchases this way. How much of the hard drive is actually green, if you look at what it takes to manufacture one?
These are the steps involved in the production of an average hard drive. Although the process listed here may be typical, it is not universal. I’m generalizing in order to make a point.
1. Design and engineering of the hard drive is done in a building that still runs on conventional energy sources, constructed from conventional materials.
2. The corporate paradigm is still “growth and progress” and profits at the expense of raw materials costs and quality. Employee satisfaction and sustainability are not nearly as important as reporting profitable quarters, keeping the stock prices high, and increasing market share.
3. The drive is manufactured overseas in Asia to save money in labor and operating costs. The raw materials (NONE of which are recycled or reclaimed) for the drives are shipped in from all over the world, depending on where the cost of the materials is lowest. Thus, it takes a lot of energy to ship in raw materials.
4. Part of the production of the drive itself requires some of the metal parts to be baked at 190° C for 5 hours to ensure that all particulates and contaminates are eliminated, thereby sterilizing the part. This improves reliability, but it takes a lot of energy to get that result. Also, the energy to bake those parts comes mostly from Asian coal-fired power plants.
5. The finished product is shipped out of Asia and into the U.S. Again, the carbon cost of shipping the hard drive is higher than if the drives were made in the U.S. or closer to where the majority of the consumers will actually use the drives.
Now, here’s where the “green” definition comes in for that drive.
It is designed in a way that the disc spins slightly slower than average. Therefore, it uses less electricity to run than a non-green hard drive. If a green hard drive saves you 5 watts of electricity, and it runs continuously for five years, it would save roughly 200 kilowatt hours of electricity over its lifetime, or the equivalent of running a television/dvd player system for 55 days. This is the worse case scenario, if you never turned off your computer in the five years you owned it.
You can see for yourself that the “green” aspect of this product represents maybe what? 1% of the total carbon footprint of this product, best case scenario. It doesn’t take into account the embodied energy it took to put that drive together—namely, the amount of energy it took to mine the metals and petroleum products, ship them, manufacture them and then produce a design from which they would be then constructed.
It’s important that we place a higher standard for the term “green” and we hold companies accountable to showing how they reduced shipping distances, reused raw materials, increased sustainability in their manufacturing facilities, and changed their overall paradigm to include sustainability into the equation.
Whenever we see a “greener” version of a product we have to realize that no one is addressing the embodied energy it took to produce that product. It’s important to consider the whole picture. Maybe one day there will be labeling requirements for green products in the same vein that we have labeling for nutrition and ingredient content.
Not only that, but the carbon “cost” of products could be included in the price, thus turning the cost of goods upside down – the more embodied energy it takes to make something (especially if it’s made in China), the more expensive it would be. Local, sustainably produced products would actually (gasp!) be the cheapest products on the market.
That would be a step in the right direction.
Monday, February 11, 2008
I’d Like to Save the Planet…But I’m Too (insert favorite excuse here)
Why is it that most people seem to lack the motivation or the willingness to make lasting positive changes to their lifestyles when it comes to their health, career, relationships or the environment?
We see and hear the urgency of needing to deal with climate change on the news all the time. We know we need to start doing something about it. Just…not today. We’re too busy. Something else came up. We’re too tired. We’ve got too much to think about already.
Are we really too busy in our lives to make the necessary and positive changes in our lives to deal with reducing our environmental impact? Is recycling, or turning down the heat, or unplugging idle appliances really that much of a big time-sucking activity? Is this really the reason why, despite knowing what they should do, most people fail to make those wanted behavior changes because of something intrinsically psychological?
I recently heard a study that says that as children, we are told in a million different ways how we can’t get what we want. This feeling that “eh…we’re never ever going to get what we REALLY want anyway, so why even try?” spills over into adulthood, and it is the reason why so many people tend toward complacency in their lives. They lack the motivation and gumption to make lasting behavior changes, even when they know it’s something important, necessary, or even life-saving. For example, changing our world view and habits in order to reduce our carbon footprint and stop the world from spiraling into mass extinction.
We feel like we’re probably not going to get what we want anyway (a more sustainable world), so why even try? Instead we go along with our habitual patterns because trying to change anything in our lives is soooo…hard.
But that can’t be the answer. We can’t simply excuse our lack of action by whining about how “it’s too hard!” and going about business as usual as the world goes up in flames. There has to be a secret to how we can motivate ourselves. Afterall, many people have found that secret and are able to make huge changes in their personal life. Don’t you wonder how they do it?
All of us actually motivate ourselves in two different ways.
Either we run toward something we want, or we run away from some kind of pain or discomfort we want to avoid.
If we can determine which one of these we tend to do more often, it can be the key to self-motivation and behavior change. If you tell yourself all the time that you hate your job, and need to quit, but you don’t know what else you want to do, then you may be a run-away type of person. If you keep daydreaming of the kind of business you’ll own or the kind of job you want to land someday, you’re probably more of the toward-something kind of person.
Now let’s come back around to the topic of developing pro-environmental routines or behaviors. You see the many ways you could probably change your behavior in order to lessen your carbon footprint. You just have a hard time sticking to anything and motivating yourself for real change. Let’s use something simple as an example – like recycling.
You know you should recycle. However, every time you have that can or bottle in your hand you just plain forget to put it into a separate container and you just throw it in the trash instead. Maybe you know you have to order special bins from your waste management company, but you keep “forgetting” to call them to order the bins. Maybe you think that you don’t throw out that many plastics and cans so it’d be a waste of time and effort to separate your trash. Whatever the reason, you just haven’t gotten on board with recycling like you know you should.
Let’s further assume that you’re a person who is usually motivated by running away from pain or discomfort. In this situation, you have a hard time motivating yourself because there is no pain that is immediate enough to motivate you. Sure, it’s the pain of future global disaster, but it’s hard for you to make that connection when that can is in your hand and your favorite TV show is about to start. What you need is a more immediate threat of pain or discomfort, so your motivating factor changes.
Here’s how a run-away-from motivated person might restructure their goal of recycling:
1. Tell a friend you intend to call the trash company to order the recycling bins today. Tell them to ask you at the end of the day if you did it, and if you haven’t done it, you’ll pay for their lunch tomorrow. This motivates you to do it because you’ll want to avoid the pain of having to dish out cash if you forget to make the call.
2. Tell your kids or spouse to count the number of cans or bottles you’ve thrown into the regular trash, and that you’ll put a quarter in a piggy bank for every one you’ve absent-mindedly or lazily thrown away. The piggy bank can then be used to buy something that the kids want – so everyone is motivated to “police” you.
3. Develop a path of least resistance. If you want to make it easier to remember to recycle your plastics and cans, you have to find a way to the path of least resistance. Don’t put the recycling bins in the garage because that means you’ll have to make a special effort in order to stick to your goal. Put them where your trash can is now, and put the trash can in the garage instead. Once you begin to develop a routine, introduce the trash can back in the kitchen alongside the recycle bin, if possible, and so forth.
While most of us know that we need to make big and lasting changes that go beyond merely recycling in order to save our environment and ensure a healthier planet for our children, I used this as an example in order to simplify this concept. If you want to use your car less and ride your bicycle more, park your car down the street instead of in your garage for a week and park your bicycle in its place in the garage. It will get you out of automatic thinking and start the path to healthier, more mindful behaviors.
We see and hear the urgency of needing to deal with climate change on the news all the time. We know we need to start doing something about it. Just…not today. We’re too busy. Something else came up. We’re too tired. We’ve got too much to think about already.
Are we really too busy in our lives to make the necessary and positive changes in our lives to deal with reducing our environmental impact? Is recycling, or turning down the heat, or unplugging idle appliances really that much of a big time-sucking activity? Is this really the reason why, despite knowing what they should do, most people fail to make those wanted behavior changes because of something intrinsically psychological?
I recently heard a study that says that as children, we are told in a million different ways how we can’t get what we want. This feeling that “eh…we’re never ever going to get what we REALLY want anyway, so why even try?” spills over into adulthood, and it is the reason why so many people tend toward complacency in their lives. They lack the motivation and gumption to make lasting behavior changes, even when they know it’s something important, necessary, or even life-saving. For example, changing our world view and habits in order to reduce our carbon footprint and stop the world from spiraling into mass extinction.
We feel like we’re probably not going to get what we want anyway (a more sustainable world), so why even try? Instead we go along with our habitual patterns because trying to change anything in our lives is soooo…hard.
But that can’t be the answer. We can’t simply excuse our lack of action by whining about how “it’s too hard!” and going about business as usual as the world goes up in flames. There has to be a secret to how we can motivate ourselves. Afterall, many people have found that secret and are able to make huge changes in their personal life. Don’t you wonder how they do it?
All of us actually motivate ourselves in two different ways.
Either we run toward something we want, or we run away from some kind of pain or discomfort we want to avoid.
If we can determine which one of these we tend to do more often, it can be the key to self-motivation and behavior change. If you tell yourself all the time that you hate your job, and need to quit, but you don’t know what else you want to do, then you may be a run-away type of person. If you keep daydreaming of the kind of business you’ll own or the kind of job you want to land someday, you’re probably more of the toward-something kind of person.
Now let’s come back around to the topic of developing pro-environmental routines or behaviors. You see the many ways you could probably change your behavior in order to lessen your carbon footprint. You just have a hard time sticking to anything and motivating yourself for real change. Let’s use something simple as an example – like recycling.
You know you should recycle. However, every time you have that can or bottle in your hand you just plain forget to put it into a separate container and you just throw it in the trash instead. Maybe you know you have to order special bins from your waste management company, but you keep “forgetting” to call them to order the bins. Maybe you think that you don’t throw out that many plastics and cans so it’d be a waste of time and effort to separate your trash. Whatever the reason, you just haven’t gotten on board with recycling like you know you should.
Let’s further assume that you’re a person who is usually motivated by running away from pain or discomfort. In this situation, you have a hard time motivating yourself because there is no pain that is immediate enough to motivate you. Sure, it’s the pain of future global disaster, but it’s hard for you to make that connection when that can is in your hand and your favorite TV show is about to start. What you need is a more immediate threat of pain or discomfort, so your motivating factor changes.
Here’s how a run-away-from motivated person might restructure their goal of recycling:
1. Tell a friend you intend to call the trash company to order the recycling bins today. Tell them to ask you at the end of the day if you did it, and if you haven’t done it, you’ll pay for their lunch tomorrow. This motivates you to do it because you’ll want to avoid the pain of having to dish out cash if you forget to make the call.
2. Tell your kids or spouse to count the number of cans or bottles you’ve thrown into the regular trash, and that you’ll put a quarter in a piggy bank for every one you’ve absent-mindedly or lazily thrown away. The piggy bank can then be used to buy something that the kids want – so everyone is motivated to “police” you.
3. Develop a path of least resistance. If you want to make it easier to remember to recycle your plastics and cans, you have to find a way to the path of least resistance. Don’t put the recycling bins in the garage because that means you’ll have to make a special effort in order to stick to your goal. Put them where your trash can is now, and put the trash can in the garage instead. Once you begin to develop a routine, introduce the trash can back in the kitchen alongside the recycle bin, if possible, and so forth.
While most of us know that we need to make big and lasting changes that go beyond merely recycling in order to save our environment and ensure a healthier planet for our children, I used this as an example in order to simplify this concept. If you want to use your car less and ride your bicycle more, park your car down the street instead of in your garage for a week and park your bicycle in its place in the garage. It will get you out of automatic thinking and start the path to healthier, more mindful behaviors.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Would You Move to Where Your Favorite Food Is?
Let’s pretend that to transport fruits and vegetables long distances, like from South America to the Midwest, or from California to Ohio, became so cost prohibitive due to rising oil prices that it was unreasonable to buy these foods where you live. To avoid paying outrageous prices for food (think $20 for a carton of strawberries in January), you would have to limit your purchases to what was grown or harvested within, say, 250 miles of where you live.
Where would you move to in order to be closer to the foods you love?
Denver, Colorado—where I live—wouldn’t be all that bad. There would be corn, wheat, most vegetables in the summer and early fall. I could wait until late July or August and enjoy peaches, plums, nectarines from Palisades, Colorado, and later maybe grapes. Berries would be abundant in June, August and September since we can grow mountain strawberries, raspberries and blackberries here. No blueberries, though.
There would be cattle, goats, chickens and pigs, and dairy products. There would be some trout and other lake fish, and if we were to rely on hunting only we could eat prairie dogs and deer or elk.
I would have to give up tea, coffee, chocolate, tropical fruits, ocean fish, cherries, oranges, coconut, olive oil, chamomile, some spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, vanilla, cane sugar and pineapples.
I would have a hard time giving up tea, coffee, and chocolate. Cane sugar would be replaced by honey or sugarbeet sweetners. I don’t like tropical fruits that much so that wouldn’t be a big loss.
My answer would be that I would probably be OK staying where I am.
How about you?
Where would you move to in order to be closer to the foods you love?
Denver, Colorado—where I live—wouldn’t be all that bad. There would be corn, wheat, most vegetables in the summer and early fall. I could wait until late July or August and enjoy peaches, plums, nectarines from Palisades, Colorado, and later maybe grapes. Berries would be abundant in June, August and September since we can grow mountain strawberries, raspberries and blackberries here. No blueberries, though.
There would be cattle, goats, chickens and pigs, and dairy products. There would be some trout and other lake fish, and if we were to rely on hunting only we could eat prairie dogs and deer or elk.
I would have to give up tea, coffee, chocolate, tropical fruits, ocean fish, cherries, oranges, coconut, olive oil, chamomile, some spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, vanilla, cane sugar and pineapples.
I would have a hard time giving up tea, coffee, and chocolate. Cane sugar would be replaced by honey or sugarbeet sweetners. I don’t like tropical fruits that much so that wouldn’t be a big loss.
My answer would be that I would probably be OK staying where I am.
How about you?
Saturday, February 9, 2008
8 Ways to Prepare For Peak Oil
In case you haven't heard, the oil is running out.
You know, the oil that's used to make gasoline and is the basis of the global economy? Without it, we can't transport goods, fertilize our crops (fertilizers are petroleum-based), heat our homes, manufacture products or cart us butts around town. It's running out at an alarming rate because we're not finding any new sources of easy-to-extract oil that can possibly keep up with the demand we're placing on the supply. And pretty soon, we're just going to run out of the free-flowing, easy-to-extract stuff. Oil from oil sands and oil shale cost a lot more to extract than we're used to, but more importantly, the price of oil from these resources will be reflected in the inability of these new technologies to keep up with current oil demand, even with the investment of billions of dollars in R&D.
Yesterday we watched a fictionalized depiction on the Science Channel of what it would be like if the world encountered an oil crisis eight years from now, in the year 2016. The program was called “What If: We Run Out of Oil.”
This was a different kind of analysis and presentation of peak oil. Unlike the documentaries “End of Suburbia” and “Crude Awakening,” which feature a line-up of experts, analysts and oil industry professionals talking about why we have surpassed the peak of worldwide oil production and what this means for the next 20-50 years, this program actually depicted how it might impact a fictional family living in Minneapolis suburb in the year 2016.
This program is a cautionary tale to inspire people to begin to plan for what they can do in their own lives today to brace themselves for the inevitable day when the oil supply dwindles worldwide and price and supply are on opposite sides of the spectrum.
We cannot continue the rate of growth and resource-use based on a resource that is finite and not sustainable. No significant oil fields have been discovered in the last 25 years. The last five years has been the poorest in new oil procurement since WWII. What if the demand continues on its upward trend? How long before we hit the wall?
One of the most shocking statistics from the “non-fiction” portion of the program was that Americans, per capita, burn 25 barrels of oil per year, compared to Europeans, who burn about 11 barrels of oil per year. In China, where only 2 barrels of oil are burned per capita right now, demand is spiraling upward as more and more Chinese buy cars, and cities become industrialized. But right now, we are still the real gluttons for oil, burning 25% of the world’s oil supply while consisting of only 5% of the world’s population.
It’s going to hurt BAD when oil prices skyrocket in this country. Simply trying to maintain our normal lifestyles is going to take a tremendous amount of time and effort. For example, if we have to wait an hour in line to fill up our gas tank, or if we have to start walking or bicycling to get groceries, or we’ll have to bus or bike to work. We may have to move closer to where we work or find a different job altogether (preferably one where we can work from home).
Dave and I started to think about what we can still do to prepare for the next 10-15 years so that the crisis doesn’t hit us so hard. A few of these things we’ve already done, but we are far from being well prepared. Here’s how we think we can lessen the impact of the crisis, at least somewhat:
1. Super-insulate the house to save on heat and cooling loss (check).
2. Replace gas-guzzling vehicles with energy efficient vehicles, diesels, or hybrids (check).
3. Think about an alternate source of heating besides central heating or an oil furnace. Get a wood-burning fireplace insert or wood stove with a blower which can heat an entire house with carbon neutral efficiency (check).
4. Equip house with solar panels.
5. Upgrade hybrid to an electric car and run it on the solar-powered electricity in house, which would in effect be a zero emission car, minus the energy it took to manufacture it and the solar panels of course.
6. Shop at the local farmer’s market or local grocer during spring and summer months and then freeze surplus vegetables for winter months (check).
7. Start a backyard garden and use your own compost to fertilize it, and freeze or jar surplus vegetables. (check)
8. Buy property that has a large lot for gardening but a smaller house, and as close to town as possible or close to work.
We began to think about the things we could collectively do as a community to lessen the impact peak oil crisis will have in our own neighborhood. This is a fantasy of how to modify suburbia so that we can lessen the need for long-distance transport, use less oil and gas for everyday living, and bring entertainment and work close to home.
1. Neighborhoods could adopt a community garden area, or residents could set aside portions of their front or back yards for gardening if they wanted to. Food could be shared, exchanged or bartered. Neighbors could offer tips and share garden tools and compost.
2. Neighbors could start clubs and get-togethers to keep entertainment closer to home: book clubs, movie nights, potlucks, card or game nights, walking or running clubs, etc.
3. One pickup truck or large SUV could be leased or purchased by a neighborhood and kept for use so that people who worry about needing a truck occasionally could simply borrow the community truck to do hauling.
4. Develop a neighborhood carpool list not just for getting to work, but also for going grocery shopping on weekends.
5. Allow individuals to keep chickens or goats for procuring eggs, meat and milk.
These are just a few ideas, I welcome anyone’s comments or additions to this list.
For more information on peak oil, check out http://www.peak-oil-crisis.com/
You know, the oil that's used to make gasoline and is the basis of the global economy? Without it, we can't transport goods, fertilize our crops (fertilizers are petroleum-based), heat our homes, manufacture products or cart us butts around town. It's running out at an alarming rate because we're not finding any new sources of easy-to-extract oil that can possibly keep up with the demand we're placing on the supply. And pretty soon, we're just going to run out of the free-flowing, easy-to-extract stuff. Oil from oil sands and oil shale cost a lot more to extract than we're used to, but more importantly, the price of oil from these resources will be reflected in the inability of these new technologies to keep up with current oil demand, even with the investment of billions of dollars in R&D.
Yesterday we watched a fictionalized depiction on the Science Channel of what it would be like if the world encountered an oil crisis eight years from now, in the year 2016. The program was called “What If: We Run Out of Oil.”
This was a different kind of analysis and presentation of peak oil. Unlike the documentaries “End of Suburbia” and “Crude Awakening,” which feature a line-up of experts, analysts and oil industry professionals talking about why we have surpassed the peak of worldwide oil production and what this means for the next 20-50 years, this program actually depicted how it might impact a fictional family living in Minneapolis suburb in the year 2016.
This program is a cautionary tale to inspire people to begin to plan for what they can do in their own lives today to brace themselves for the inevitable day when the oil supply dwindles worldwide and price and supply are on opposite sides of the spectrum.
We cannot continue the rate of growth and resource-use based on a resource that is finite and not sustainable. No significant oil fields have been discovered in the last 25 years. The last five years has been the poorest in new oil procurement since WWII. What if the demand continues on its upward trend? How long before we hit the wall?
One of the most shocking statistics from the “non-fiction” portion of the program was that Americans, per capita, burn 25 barrels of oil per year, compared to Europeans, who burn about 11 barrels of oil per year. In China, where only 2 barrels of oil are burned per capita right now, demand is spiraling upward as more and more Chinese buy cars, and cities become industrialized. But right now, we are still the real gluttons for oil, burning 25% of the world’s oil supply while consisting of only 5% of the world’s population.
It’s going to hurt BAD when oil prices skyrocket in this country. Simply trying to maintain our normal lifestyles is going to take a tremendous amount of time and effort. For example, if we have to wait an hour in line to fill up our gas tank, or if we have to start walking or bicycling to get groceries, or we’ll have to bus or bike to work. We may have to move closer to where we work or find a different job altogether (preferably one where we can work from home).
Dave and I started to think about what we can still do to prepare for the next 10-15 years so that the crisis doesn’t hit us so hard. A few of these things we’ve already done, but we are far from being well prepared. Here’s how we think we can lessen the impact of the crisis, at least somewhat:
1. Super-insulate the house to save on heat and cooling loss (check).
2. Replace gas-guzzling vehicles with energy efficient vehicles, diesels, or hybrids (check).
3. Think about an alternate source of heating besides central heating or an oil furnace. Get a wood-burning fireplace insert or wood stove with a blower which can heat an entire house with carbon neutral efficiency (check).
4. Equip house with solar panels.
5. Upgrade hybrid to an electric car and run it on the solar-powered electricity in house, which would in effect be a zero emission car, minus the energy it took to manufacture it and the solar panels of course.
6. Shop at the local farmer’s market or local grocer during spring and summer months and then freeze surplus vegetables for winter months (check).
7. Start a backyard garden and use your own compost to fertilize it, and freeze or jar surplus vegetables. (check)
8. Buy property that has a large lot for gardening but a smaller house, and as close to town as possible or close to work.
We began to think about the things we could collectively do as a community to lessen the impact peak oil crisis will have in our own neighborhood. This is a fantasy of how to modify suburbia so that we can lessen the need for long-distance transport, use less oil and gas for everyday living, and bring entertainment and work close to home.
1. Neighborhoods could adopt a community garden area, or residents could set aside portions of their front or back yards for gardening if they wanted to. Food could be shared, exchanged or bartered. Neighbors could offer tips and share garden tools and compost.
2. Neighbors could start clubs and get-togethers to keep entertainment closer to home: book clubs, movie nights, potlucks, card or game nights, walking or running clubs, etc.
3. One pickup truck or large SUV could be leased or purchased by a neighborhood and kept for use so that people who worry about needing a truck occasionally could simply borrow the community truck to do hauling.
4. Develop a neighborhood carpool list not just for getting to work, but also for going grocery shopping on weekends.
5. Allow individuals to keep chickens or goats for procuring eggs, meat and milk.
These are just a few ideas, I welcome anyone’s comments or additions to this list.
For more information on peak oil, check out http://www.peak-oil-crisis.com/
Friday, February 8, 2008
Coca-Cola Buys 40% Share of Honest Tea: Buy In or Sell Out?
Coca-Cola, the world’s largest beverage company, is now the largest shareholder in the small and organic beverage company Honest Tea. Is this a “buy in” to help the Honest Brand or is Honest selling out to the large corporations?
My knee-jerk reaction to this news was a feeling of disappointment with my favorite bottled beverage company. Et tu, Brutus? How could you?! But as I read the owner’s blog posted on the Honest Tea website dated Feb 5th, (http://www.honesttea.com/blog/index.php/category/from-seth-and-barry/) I realized that this is a much more complicated issue than just wanting to make more money or "sell out."
Honest Tea wants to spread their brand and distribution, and with Coke’s help, they can infiltrate the market in ways it cannot do alone. They have no plans to change their mission, which is to be a company that strives for authenticity with a product that says what it is and is what it says, uses organic ingredients, and strives to cut down on the “empty calories” Americans consume with other conventional teas and sodas (since Honest contains only a fraction of the sugar other conventional beverages have).
This is why Honest decided it was a good idea to have Coke be the largest shareholder, because, in the words of the owner/founder “When we buy 2.5 million pounds of organic ingredients, as we did in 2007, we help create demand for a more sustainable system of agriculture, one that doesn’t rely on chemical pesticides and fertilizers. But when we buy ten times that amount, we help create a market that multiplies far beyond our own purchases.”
Other small, eco-friendly companies have already pounced on the corporate carrot: Clorox bought Burt’s Bees, Colgate bought Toms of Maine and General Mills bought Cascadian Farms. Is this a bad move or the start of a paradigm change in the way goods are manufactured and produced on the mainstream level? On one hand, I think that organic farming can be given a boost because large corporations have the distribution and market share to bring organic more to the mainstream.
On the other hand, if these companies start ruining a good thing by buying from foreign markets or having their products or packing manufactured overseas, it’s not a good thing. The carbon cost of shipping resources and products back and forth just seems to eliminate the benefits of having an organic “eco” product.
It can’t be a bad thing if the overall percentage of industrial conventional agriculture is being replaced by organic agriculture, industrial or not. These companies aren’t simply taking over a company and changing the ingredients or dissolving the competition by taking the product off the market. They are continuing the product “as is” and increasing the marketshare and distribution into more mainstream grocers, like Safeway, Wal-Mart and Target.
My knee-jerk reaction to this news was a feeling of disappointment with my favorite bottled beverage company. Et tu, Brutus? How could you?! But as I read the owner’s blog posted on the Honest Tea website dated Feb 5th, (http://www.honesttea.com/blog/index.php/category/from-seth-and-barry/) I realized that this is a much more complicated issue than just wanting to make more money or "sell out."
Honest Tea wants to spread their brand and distribution, and with Coke’s help, they can infiltrate the market in ways it cannot do alone. They have no plans to change their mission, which is to be a company that strives for authenticity with a product that says what it is and is what it says, uses organic ingredients, and strives to cut down on the “empty calories” Americans consume with other conventional teas and sodas (since Honest contains only a fraction of the sugar other conventional beverages have).
This is why Honest decided it was a good idea to have Coke be the largest shareholder, because, in the words of the owner/founder “When we buy 2.5 million pounds of organic ingredients, as we did in 2007, we help create demand for a more sustainable system of agriculture, one that doesn’t rely on chemical pesticides and fertilizers. But when we buy ten times that amount, we help create a market that multiplies far beyond our own purchases.”
Other small, eco-friendly companies have already pounced on the corporate carrot: Clorox bought Burt’s Bees, Colgate bought Toms of Maine and General Mills bought Cascadian Farms. Is this a bad move or the start of a paradigm change in the way goods are manufactured and produced on the mainstream level? On one hand, I think that organic farming can be given a boost because large corporations have the distribution and market share to bring organic more to the mainstream.
On the other hand, if these companies start ruining a good thing by buying from foreign markets or having their products or packing manufactured overseas, it’s not a good thing. The carbon cost of shipping resources and products back and forth just seems to eliminate the benefits of having an organic “eco” product.
It can’t be a bad thing if the overall percentage of industrial conventional agriculture is being replaced by organic agriculture, industrial or not. These companies aren’t simply taking over a company and changing the ingredients or dissolving the competition by taking the product off the market. They are continuing the product “as is” and increasing the marketshare and distribution into more mainstream grocers, like Safeway, Wal-Mart and Target.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Corporate Paradigms: Whole Foods Vs. Wal-Mart
On a drive through Boulder this morning I passed by one of the half dozen Whole Food Market grocery stores located in the Boulder/Superior area. I love Whole Foods. I think a shopping trip to Whole Foods is entertainment for the senses as well as a fun buffet of free snacks (ha!).
While Whole Foods seems to value such things as organic farming, humane animal husbandry, local products, recycling and sustainability, it’s also a publicly-owned company. It has a responsibility to its shareholder to uphold financial health and make a profit. But how does the typical American corporate growth paradigm of infinite financial growth change—if at all—with a company such as Whole Foods? Surely, I thought, it has to have a mission and vision statement that is—at least on the surface—more interested in employee contentment and sustainability than a company such as Wal-Mart. Right?
Well, let’s just see.
Here’s what I pulled from Whole Food’s website (wholefoods.com) in regards to their mission and vision:
Whole Foods On Growth and Profit:
"We earn profits every day through voluntary exchange with our customers. We know that profits are essential to create capital for growth, job security and overall financial success. Profits are the “savings” every business needs in order to change and evolve to meet the future. They are the “seed corn” for next year’s crop. We are the stewards of our shareholder’s investments and we are committed to increasing long-term shareholder value. As a publicly traded company, Whole Foods Market intends to grow. We will grow at such a pace that our quality of work environment, Team Member productivity and excellence, customer satisfaction, and financial health continue to prosper. "
Whole Foods’ Mission
"Our motto — Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet — emphasizes that our vision reaches far beyond just being a food retailer. Our success in fulfilling our vision is measured by customer satisfaction, Team Member excellence and happiness, return on capital investment, improvement in the state of the environment, and local and larger community support."
Here’s what I pulled from Walmart’s website (www.walmart.com) about their view on sustainability:
Wal-Mart on Sustainability
"At Wal-Mart, we know that being an efficient and profitable business and being a good steward of the environment are goals that can work together. Our environmental goals at Wal-Mart are simple and straightforward: To be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy; to create zero waste; and to sell products that sustain our resources and
the environment."
In fact, I found many, many articles and fact sheets touting Wal-Mart’s record of diversity in employment, charitable giving, how they’re converting 14 So Cal stores to solar technology, how Sam’s Club is “going green”, how it’s working on all sorts of personal sustainability and corporate sustainability projects, including zero-waste initiatives, sustainable textiles and materials, etc.
On the surface, if you were a person who was born yesterday and didn’t know the different between Wal-Mart and Whole Foods, you would think that Wal-Mart was the leader in all kinds of sustainable and progressive practices. Whole Foods would just seem like a second-rate sustainability wanna-be.
So why do so many of us environmentalists hate Wal-Mart? Sounds like we should be embracing them with open arms…and wallets.
Is it possible that we have had the wrong idea all this time? Hmmm…I’m skeptical. Afterall, in their “story” they also are very proud of the fact that they have built 1,400 stores nationwide and that customer value, or MORE FOR LESS MONEY (not quality, or sustainability) is a “basic value” of the corporation.
I’m not surprised that Wal-Mart website displays so many articles and fact sheets about what a good steward of the environment. They have to back-peddle considerably after all the negative press they’ve received in the media in the last five years. They have been criticized for not paying their employees enough, for being stingy with benefits, for buying cheap overseas products made by companies that compete with American products, and for funding industrialized agriculture.
I’m sorry, but I am not convinced that Wal-Mart has changed it’s paradigm from financial growth for the sake of profits, to growth in employee satisfaction and environmental stewardship.
Here’s what the website states as their 2008 Fiscal Growth Plan:
“WM announced its commitment to continued growth. Global square footage is expected to increase approximately 7.5 percent in fiscal 2008…(it) plans to open more than 600 new locations in the United States and around the world…”
Nothing in there about their goals for better employee compensation and satisfaction, nothing about better sustainability, nothing about putting profits back into taking more stores off the power grid instead of building new ones, nothing about supporting local agriculture or the local economy (other than supplying a bunch of $7.50 an hour jobs to thousands of people).
While I don’t think Whole Foods is perfect either, because they are a public company and they still suffer from having to work with the current growth and profit paradigm, I would much rather spend my $100 a week at a store where at least I can taste food that was grown 10 miles away, where the employees seem happy to be there, and where I don’t have to worry about checking labels for “Made in China” or chemical additives.
While Whole Foods seems to value such things as organic farming, humane animal husbandry, local products, recycling and sustainability, it’s also a publicly-owned company. It has a responsibility to its shareholder to uphold financial health and make a profit. But how does the typical American corporate growth paradigm of infinite financial growth change—if at all—with a company such as Whole Foods? Surely, I thought, it has to have a mission and vision statement that is—at least on the surface—more interested in employee contentment and sustainability than a company such as Wal-Mart. Right?
Well, let’s just see.
Here’s what I pulled from Whole Food’s website (wholefoods.com) in regards to their mission and vision:
Whole Foods On Growth and Profit:
"We earn profits every day through voluntary exchange with our customers. We know that profits are essential to create capital for growth, job security and overall financial success. Profits are the “savings” every business needs in order to change and evolve to meet the future. They are the “seed corn” for next year’s crop. We are the stewards of our shareholder’s investments and we are committed to increasing long-term shareholder value. As a publicly traded company, Whole Foods Market intends to grow. We will grow at such a pace that our quality of work environment, Team Member productivity and excellence, customer satisfaction, and financial health continue to prosper. "
Whole Foods’ Mission
"Our motto — Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet — emphasizes that our vision reaches far beyond just being a food retailer. Our success in fulfilling our vision is measured by customer satisfaction, Team Member excellence and happiness, return on capital investment, improvement in the state of the environment, and local and larger community support."
Here’s what I pulled from Walmart’s website (www.walmart.com) about their view on sustainability:
Wal-Mart on Sustainability
"At Wal-Mart, we know that being an efficient and profitable business and being a good steward of the environment are goals that can work together. Our environmental goals at Wal-Mart are simple and straightforward: To be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy; to create zero waste; and to sell products that sustain our resources and
the environment."
In fact, I found many, many articles and fact sheets touting Wal-Mart’s record of diversity in employment, charitable giving, how they’re converting 14 So Cal stores to solar technology, how Sam’s Club is “going green”, how it’s working on all sorts of personal sustainability and corporate sustainability projects, including zero-waste initiatives, sustainable textiles and materials, etc.
On the surface, if you were a person who was born yesterday and didn’t know the different between Wal-Mart and Whole Foods, you would think that Wal-Mart was the leader in all kinds of sustainable and progressive practices. Whole Foods would just seem like a second-rate sustainability wanna-be.
So why do so many of us environmentalists hate Wal-Mart? Sounds like we should be embracing them with open arms…and wallets.
Is it possible that we have had the wrong idea all this time? Hmmm…I’m skeptical. Afterall, in their “story” they also are very proud of the fact that they have built 1,400 stores nationwide and that customer value, or MORE FOR LESS MONEY (not quality, or sustainability) is a “basic value” of the corporation.
I’m not surprised that Wal-Mart website displays so many articles and fact sheets about what a good steward of the environment. They have to back-peddle considerably after all the negative press they’ve received in the media in the last five years. They have been criticized for not paying their employees enough, for being stingy with benefits, for buying cheap overseas products made by companies that compete with American products, and for funding industrialized agriculture.
I’m sorry, but I am not convinced that Wal-Mart has changed it’s paradigm from financial growth for the sake of profits, to growth in employee satisfaction and environmental stewardship.
Here’s what the website states as their 2008 Fiscal Growth Plan:
“WM announced its commitment to continued growth. Global square footage is expected to increase approximately 7.5 percent in fiscal 2008…(it) plans to open more than 600 new locations in the United States and around the world…”
Nothing in there about their goals for better employee compensation and satisfaction, nothing about better sustainability, nothing about putting profits back into taking more stores off the power grid instead of building new ones, nothing about supporting local agriculture or the local economy (other than supplying a bunch of $7.50 an hour jobs to thousands of people).
While I don’t think Whole Foods is perfect either, because they are a public company and they still suffer from having to work with the current growth and profit paradigm, I would much rather spend my $100 a week at a store where at least I can taste food that was grown 10 miles away, where the employees seem happy to be there, and where I don’t have to worry about checking labels for “Made in China” or chemical additives.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Welcome Fellow Activists!
My name is Margaret Emerson, and I'm pursuing a masters degree in Ecopsychology from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.
I started this blog because I can no longer sit on my hands and watch as we plummet even further into global crisis as a nation and as a species. The information and concepts that I'm studying and learning about deep ecology, peak oil, the new cosmology and the psychology of our relationship with the natural environment is something I can no longer simply keep contained to my small circle of friends, families and fellow classmates.
We are on the cusp of one of the most important moments in human history. I know this is a term the media likes to use for just about everything, from a new movie opening in the theatres to the cliché speeches that presidential candidates use in every single speech in every single election year that I've been paying attention to, since the Ronald Reagan era. We have become numb to such terms as "most important" "most critical" "the single most relevant idea" ...blah blah blah. They are certainly overused and overexaggerated.
But this is not an exaggeration. We are on the knife's edge of a turning point in human history. If we change our paradigm and learn how to live sustainably on this Earth, we will have succeeded in entering a new and prosperous "Eco-zoic" era. If we do not move to action to change our current paradigm, we will become as extinct as the dinosaurs and we will pull down most of the world's species along with us.
What is a paradigm? And what is it that we have to change about what we think and believe about our lives and the way the world works?
A paradigm is simply-put, a worldview. It is what we understand about how the world works, and how we structure our lives according to that worldview. Ever since man had begun to domesticate animals and grow crops and mine for minerals, we developed the worldview that the EArth and it's "resources" are here to serve man, and that man is here to use the Earth for our own proliferation and benefit. That is a paradigm that is still alive today. There have been other paradigms that developed from other changes in worldview, depending on what had been discovered.
We used to believe the sun revolved around the Earth until we learned otherwise. We used to believe the world was flat. We used to think that matter was the basis of physics, until we discovered quantum mechanics. The list goes on...
Our current paradigm in the United States and indeed in most developed countries is that value is placed on progress, on growth and on doing better and having more "stuff" than the generation that came before us. It is the corporate paradigm and it is the political paradigm. This is most obvious when we hear about "retail spending" and how it's slumping, and we sense that it's a bad thing. It's obvious when we sit in meetings at work and we hear about how we need to make more and more profit, use more resources, drive the endless machine toward bigger, better, faster.
The world cannot sustain endless growth. It is a fact that we are not only running out of resources like oil, but we are destroying vast areas of habitat in order to proliferate our current paradigm. How many thousands of acres of rain forest are we cutting down each day to make farmland? How many species are being wiped out (and putting ecological systems completely out of whack) for the sake of PROGRESS?
It is not progress. It is a false progress. We are not happier as we continue to acquire more, as we continue to do more, as we continue to work harder for larger profits. It is not progress that we are so disconnected from nature that some children in this country have never seen where their food comes from, or been in a forest, or experienced the cleansing silence of wilderness.
This is not progress.
It is insanity.
Our paradigm needs to shift so that we consider the values of sustainability and respect for ALL life, not just human life. Like it or not, we are tied into our environment in such a way that isolating ourselves from it cannot sustain our lives, neither physical, emotional nor spiritual.
It is no coincidence that our increasing isolation from nature correlates almost identically with our increasing discontent, violence, psychological problems like anxiety or depression, and our feelings of emptiness.
I will be posting here and around the internet in the weeks and months ahead to share the shocking, eye-opening things I've learned about the reality of our current global situation and more specifically, how we can ACT to jump off that knife's edge on the side that has the better, brighter future for all beings.
I started this blog because I can no longer sit on my hands and watch as we plummet even further into global crisis as a nation and as a species. The information and concepts that I'm studying and learning about deep ecology, peak oil, the new cosmology and the psychology of our relationship with the natural environment is something I can no longer simply keep contained to my small circle of friends, families and fellow classmates.
We are on the cusp of one of the most important moments in human history. I know this is a term the media likes to use for just about everything, from a new movie opening in the theatres to the cliché speeches that presidential candidates use in every single speech in every single election year that I've been paying attention to, since the Ronald Reagan era. We have become numb to such terms as "most important" "most critical" "the single most relevant idea" ...blah blah blah. They are certainly overused and overexaggerated.
But this is not an exaggeration. We are on the knife's edge of a turning point in human history. If we change our paradigm and learn how to live sustainably on this Earth, we will have succeeded in entering a new and prosperous "Eco-zoic" era. If we do not move to action to change our current paradigm, we will become as extinct as the dinosaurs and we will pull down most of the world's species along with us.
What is a paradigm? And what is it that we have to change about what we think and believe about our lives and the way the world works?
A paradigm is simply-put, a worldview. It is what we understand about how the world works, and how we structure our lives according to that worldview. Ever since man had begun to domesticate animals and grow crops and mine for minerals, we developed the worldview that the EArth and it's "resources" are here to serve man, and that man is here to use the Earth for our own proliferation and benefit. That is a paradigm that is still alive today. There have been other paradigms that developed from other changes in worldview, depending on what had been discovered.
We used to believe the sun revolved around the Earth until we learned otherwise. We used to believe the world was flat. We used to think that matter was the basis of physics, until we discovered quantum mechanics. The list goes on...
Our current paradigm in the United States and indeed in most developed countries is that value is placed on progress, on growth and on doing better and having more "stuff" than the generation that came before us. It is the corporate paradigm and it is the political paradigm. This is most obvious when we hear about "retail spending" and how it's slumping, and we sense that it's a bad thing. It's obvious when we sit in meetings at work and we hear about how we need to make more and more profit, use more resources, drive the endless machine toward bigger, better, faster.
The world cannot sustain endless growth. It is a fact that we are not only running out of resources like oil, but we are destroying vast areas of habitat in order to proliferate our current paradigm. How many thousands of acres of rain forest are we cutting down each day to make farmland? How many species are being wiped out (and putting ecological systems completely out of whack) for the sake of PROGRESS?
It is not progress. It is a false progress. We are not happier as we continue to acquire more, as we continue to do more, as we continue to work harder for larger profits. It is not progress that we are so disconnected from nature that some children in this country have never seen where their food comes from, or been in a forest, or experienced the cleansing silence of wilderness.
This is not progress.
It is insanity.
Our paradigm needs to shift so that we consider the values of sustainability and respect for ALL life, not just human life. Like it or not, we are tied into our environment in such a way that isolating ourselves from it cannot sustain our lives, neither physical, emotional nor spiritual.
It is no coincidence that our increasing isolation from nature correlates almost identically with our increasing discontent, violence, psychological problems like anxiety or depression, and our feelings of emptiness.
I will be posting here and around the internet in the weeks and months ahead to share the shocking, eye-opening things I've learned about the reality of our current global situation and more specifically, how we can ACT to jump off that knife's edge on the side that has the better, brighter future for all beings.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
