What's this all about anyway?

In case anyone happens to wander over here from muzzle of bees (where I snuck in a guest blog post), I thought I’d whip up a quick note as an introduction to this blog.

When I was a kid, I remember learning about all sorts of environmental issues in school. I did a project on solar power, and another one on why we shouldn’t litter. I think it’s safe to say that we all grew up being taught about the environment and why polluting it was bad. But fast forward 20 years (give or take), and how many of us are actually still thinking about those issues? I, for one, was not, and I know a good number of my friends weren’t either. Sure, I wouldn’t toss trash from my car, wouldn’t litter on camping trips, or leave anything behind when packing up from a day on the beach; I wouldn’t intentionally harm the environment but certainly wasn’t doing anything proactive for it either.

And then I thought about it one day and wondered, would it really be that painful to start actually caring? So I decided to give it a stab, and decided to write about what I was doing along the way, and you know what? It isn’t that hard at all.

So if you’re just arriving here, here are a few quick and painless ways I’ve found to get started:

1. Reuse your grocery bags. I found some cloth bags I’m a fan of but even reusing the plastic bags you have laying around your house is a start.
2. Switch out some of your lightbulbs to Compact Florescent Bulbs and save some energy.
3. Try staying away from traditional cleaning products and instead use non-toxic baking soda and vinegar to get the job done.
4. Try eating local at least once a week, and help cut down on the fuel used to transport food.
5. Go see an Inconvenient Truth (it will scare you into doing at least one of the above)

My hope is that anyone who reads this blog might just be up for giving one (or more) of these a try. If you're just arriving and need more justification, I hope you'll explore some past posts, which try to give a few good arguments in favor of saving this planet of ours. And I promise--I'm not asking anyone to turn into a treehugger or a vegan (not that there's anything wrong with that). I've just come to realize that a little bit of thought here, a tiny bit of effort there is something many of us can afford. And take it from someone who just started caring--once you start picking up on these habits they don't seem out of the ordinary at all.

Slow Food Sunday

I can safely say that there have been times when I have literally cringed at the thought of having to order from a fast food restaurant. Now, it's not that I haven't dined at each of these fine chain establishments over the course of my lifetime, and it's not that I find myself "above" them at all, I just truly dislike the experience (not to mention the taste). There is something about the plastic sterile atmosphere, the grease seeping through the paper bag as you steal fries out of it on the drive home, and formulaic way the food is prepared that just doesn't appeal to me. This extends to the "made to order" fast food chains as well, not just the chains with cute cartoony mascots and heat lamps on 18 hours of the day. I actively avoid Subway, won't set foot inside of FatBurger, and can count on one hand the times I've sat at an In N' Out drive thru.

This of course, can be a point of contention in our apartment. I live with someone who 1. has purchased every item on the Wendy's $1 menu at once and attempted to eat it all in one sitting, 2. has performed the McDonalds' menu song live on stage and continues to know it by heart, and 3. i'm pretty sure still carries Subway club stamps around in his wallet (the program ended years ago). So from time to time this means that we end up in situations like last week, where one of us ran out to Chipotle for a take-out burrito while the other ran to the store to get ingredients to make homemade vegetable soup.

Luckily, despite these few instances where our taste buds butt heads, I think I've slowly been able to triumph over the fast food giants by proving that "anything they can do I can do better." This of course might seem like a ridiculous challenge to some, but I see it as a win-win situation: you don't have to eat carelessly slapped together hamburgers whose origins are so questionable you don't even ask; and you get to eat deliciously tasty stuff. I've made buffalo wings from scratch for the superbowl, deep fried homemade falafel just to see if I could do it, slow cooked a pork butt for highly-touted pulled pork sandwiches, grilled a whole chicken over a beer can (because why not?), made imitation Gus Burgers with veggie patties (a Charlottesville institution, which consists of a cheeseburger topped with a fried egg, featured in the annual Gus Burger eating contest) and whipped up countless dips, munchies and hors d'ouvres. I'd like to claim I am winning without contention.

So, liking to think that I am fearless in the kitchen and having a partner who is willing to try anything I concoct (to a point--Zucchini and Heirloom Tomatoes apparently are crossing the line), I decided to initiate the "Slow Food Sunday." What, you may ask, is a Slow Food Sunday? It's simple-you spend a Sunday afternoon preparing a meal entirely from scratch, using minimally-processed ingredients and local and seasonal food when possible, spend your time cooking consciously, aware of where your food was grown and how it is being prepared, and sit down with some friends (and maybe a good bottle of wine) for a quality meal. The term "Slow Food" comes from the slow food movement, which was started in Italy by Carlo Petrini in 1980's in protest to a McDonalds opening up. The principles of the slow food movement are those that I wholeheartedly embrace, and which without even realizing it, I have been supporting all along with my aversion to fast food.


The Slow Food concept "opposes the standardization of taste [ahem, fast food chains], defends the need for consumer information [knowing where your food comes from], protects cultural identities tied to food and gastronomic traditions [e.g. the importance of the family meal], safeguards foods and cultivation and processing techniques inherited from tradition [which does not include deep-frying large batches of potatoes] and defend domestic and wild animal and vegetable species [those delicious heirloom tomatoes, for example]." In essence the slow food movement encourages us to take the time to think about our food, where it came from, what it's value is, how it was traditionally used throughout history, and to savor its delectable taste.

So how is the Slow Food movement related to the environment? Quite simply actually, because if you reduce food to the most basic level, our vegetables, fruits, and grains are all grown from the earth, and the meats we eat all come from animals who feed off these grains. That we need to grow or raise (or I guess hunt) what we want to eat is a fact, yet often a conveniently forgotten one. Food, over the past century, has become slowly detached from the environment in which its grown, to the extent that we routinely come home from the grocery store with bags of chips, loaves of bread, or boxes of cereal containing grains that, despite the fact that we are going to easily devour these foods, we have no idea where they were grown or perhaps more importantly, how. While some of us might prefer the simplicity of picking up a convenient snack and not caring about its origins, the truth of the matter is, without adequate growing conditions, there would be no food for us to eat. It benefits us all to realize that if the planet's environment starts to degrade, the quality (and safety) of our food will begin to degrade as well.

The Slow Food Movement, according to its mission, "links pleasure and food with awareness and responsibility." It seeks to connect eating and tasting with the food itself-its history, it's cultures and traditions, the environment that it was grown in, the path that it took to arrive on your plate. When you think of food in terms of all of these elements, not all foods are equal. Some foods are grown more humanely than others, some are grown with a lighter footprint on the environment or with less pesticides, and some are bred for superior taste, texture, or color. What the slow food movement strives to point out is that those foods that are grown by local farmers on smaller farms not only have a reduced impact on the environment, they taste better too.

Just as with any other product you buy, as a consumer you have choices. When it comes to food, we shouldn't ignore the toll on the environment that the production of food takes. Food grown in a local garden takes only the nutrients of the soil, a water supply, and the sun's rays to be grown, ripen, and be eaten. Food that travels farther than garden to mouth needs an increasing amount of resources the farther it has to travel. Add in processing, packaging, and international transport and those resources start to add up. Some great statistics in support of eating local food can be found here. The slow food website reminds us that:

"Possibly, many are unaware of the concept of incorporated energy or, in other words, the baggage of 'hidden' energy that each and every product brings with it, derived from the use of fossil fuels required for its production, transportation, preservation, packaging and waste disposal."

By choosing foods that are local, organically grown, and minimally processed,
proponents of the slow food movement are naturally part of the environmental movement
as well.

So with this in mind, I propose to you the concept of the Slow Food Sunday. Spend just one day a week actually thinking about your food, where it came from, and how amazingly delicious it tastes when you prepare it yourself. This past Sunday was my first Slow Food Sunday, and I'd like to say it went off without a hitch. It did take a day of advance planning, as my local farmer's market comes through on Saturday mornings and I had to be sure to buy all I needed (although I admit there were a few purchases at a local grocery for some last minute ingredients).



After some consideration and some perusing at the market, here's what I came up with for a menu:

Homemade Rustic White Bread with Roasted Garlic
Heirloom Tomato and Grilled Corn salsa
Slow Cooked Tuscan-Style Pinto Beans with Sage
Sauteed Baby Zucchini
Baked Carrots and Baby Onions
Lemon Roasted Free-Range Chicken

A little hint of decadence, a little more time required than usual, but all in all an exercise in consciousness I wholeheartedly recommend, that in the end is an absolute delight to the senses.

Want to get started?
Sustainable Table has great resources to find out what foods are available locally in your area. So does the eat well guide, and FoodRoutes.org has a pretty comprehensive listing of local farms, farmer's markets, and farm stands throughout the US. So what are you waiting for? Next Sunday is only 3 days away!

Rockstars of the [last] week

Last week, thanks to SubPop Records, I decided to declare a whole group of bands as the Rockstars of the Week (I just didn't get around to writing about it until now). My favorites among this group include Band of Horses, Iron & Wine, Jesus and Mary Chain, Mark Lanegan, the Postal Service, The Shins, Stars, and Wolf Parade, but the full list of SupPop eco-heroes can be found here.

"Green" SubPop artists (clockwise from top left): The Shins, Iron & Wine, Band of Horses, Mark Lanegan, Wolf Parade, Postal Service

The reason for this recognition? As of last Monday, SubPop announced that it was “going green.” Specifically, the company has decided to offset 100% its energy use through the Green Tags program offered by the Bonneville Environmental Foundation. Through this program, consumers purchase green credits to offset their non-renewable energy usage, and the green credits in turn support renewable energy sources elsewhere in the country. The idea behind the program, and similar programs, is that you can support renewable energy even if it specifically is not available in your location.

I do have to note here, that ever since I heard about the idea of carbon offsetting, I’ve been admittedly skeptical as to the extent it actually helps the environment. I mean, it doesn’t actually reduce anyone’s energy usage, it just allows them to feel good about their energy consumption by spending money on environmentally friendly efforts. I’d compare it to a crotchety Mr. Burns-type character hurriedly dashing off a check to some bothersome visitor just to be able to say “there, see, I’m supporting your cause, now leave me alone to my opulent and lavish ways.” Buying your way out of a situation has never seemed like a legitimate option to me, if by spending money you find an excuse not to have to change your low-down ways.

However, not wanting to pass judgment without completely understanding the situation, I decided to do a bit of research and actually discover what the benefits of this complicated financial and ecological transaction actually are. The company that SubPop has chosen to buy “Green Tags” from is Bonneville Environmental Foundation, so I went to their website first to investigate, as well as to the website of Green-e, which is a certification bureau that monitors programs that sell green certificates.

The idea behind green certificates is not exactly straightforward and not the easiest to explain. For a legitimate explanation, I suggest going here. For a layman’s definition, keep reading, and I’ll do my best. I’ve actually found two explanations; the first is pretty straightforward and the second leans slightly towards favoring the program, I think. The straightforward explanation is that a green tag represents the difference in cost between producing renewable energy and the market value for energy. Because the government partially subsidizes traditional energy sources, and does not subsidize renewable energy, the cost of producing renewable energy exceeds that of non-renewable. The green tag represents the difference, and when traded, makes up the lack of funds to allow renewable energy to be created and sold at the market price (as my handy graph above illustrates). Thus the idea is the more green tags bought, the more renewable energy subsidized, and the more that can be created.

The slightly, well, polished explanation I found came from within the renewable energy industry, and claimed that renewable energy can be divided into two parts, the physical wattage and the benefits associated with it. The wattage is the part that actually creates energy, while the benefits include reduced carbon emissions and non-dependence on renewable resources. It’s as if you separated the physical value of a Christmas preset and the emotional value of receiving the present. According to the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, “Green Tags represent the environmental benefits that occur when clean, new renewable energy is substituted for power that is produced by burning fossil fuel.” By viewing it this way, and separating renewable energy into two valuable parts, you can treat them as distinct (albeit related) entities, allowing the energy part to create energy in one part of the country while selling the benefits part to someone elsewhere.

The difference in these two explanations is not that much, except that one is strictly economic while the other tries to make you feel better about paying money for something you can’t physically see. What both boil down to is that green tags are bought and sold to support renewable energy. This is a highly regulated practice, where one green tag is issued for every 1000kWh of electricity produced (that’s kilowatt hour, the standard energy measurement, which you can look up if you want an explanation). Green-e is one such regulatory agency that monitors the number of green tags per electricity, to ensure that the ratio is strictly at 1:1,000, or that there is not more than one green tag sold for every 1,000kWh.

The idea behind the Green-e program is that there are many locations where homes and businesses don’t have the option of renewable energy, because their local energy company doesn’t offer it. In these locations (or any location) consumers who would otherwise opt for renewable energy sources can choose to buy “Tradable Renewable Certificates” (TRC’s) as a way of “offsetting” their nonrenewable energy use. Offsetting essentially means that you purchase enough green certificates to balance out the amount of fossil fuels you personally use. This extends to as many applications as there are ways to use energy, from your monthly electricity bill to your daily commute to your annual family vacation where everyone climbs aboard a gas guzzling jet (which, I just learned, use about 5 gallons of fuel for every mile!). In SubPop’s case, they have chosen to offset all of the energy involved in the company’s operations.

The clutch detail that both shocked me and probably converted me into a supporter of green tags is discovering the statistic that (according to Green-e) only 2% of the electricity generated in the US comes from renewable resources. TWO Percent!!! Here we are lamenting the price of gas, worrying about the depletion of the earth’s resources, and we have only progressed far enough since inventing photovoltaic cells to allow 2% of our energy to come from solar, wind and other renewable sources? That statistic alone makes me want to support green certificate programs, as they provide hope that with more financial support the prevalence of renewable energy will spread.

So should you by green tags? That depends on how much you can afford to. In terms of ease and convenience, it couldn’t get any easier. In the words of Sub Pop president Jonethan Poneman:

“I was, quite frankly, shocked by how easy it is to support renewable energy. Green Tags are a simple way for anyone to choose wind energy, which, in turn, lowers dependence on burning fossils fuels for energy.”

However, I still adamantly maintain that being able to say you support a cause isn’t exactly the same as making lifestyle changes to support it. So I think if you’re going to buy energy certificates you also have to make a considerable effort to reduce your energy consumption as well. I actually think that a great way to make this work would be to model the structure of some of the international environmental treaties, which add another dimension to the practice of purchasing green credits. In many of these programs, including those set forth by the Kyoto protocols, developed nations are all allotted a specific allowance of emissions credit, which allow them to pollute only a specified amount. If the nation goes over this amount, they have to purchase “credits” from underdeveloped countries who are not polluting nearly as much, or who are practicing exemplary sustainable practices. The idea is to reduce overall emissions world wide. Applied on an individual scale, each household or business would get allotted a specific amount of watts each month to consume, based on the number of people in their household, their geographic location, and other factors. Households that went over this amount would be required to purchase green credits to offset their usage. With this system, the development of renewable energy resources would not only be supported, the overall reduction of our dependence on non-renewable energy sources would be reduced.

Unfortunately, as we live in a country that has not entirely approved of using this model on a larger scale (the US is one of the few countries not to have ratified the Kyoto protocol), I can’t see this ever being adopted. However, this doesn’t mean that you and I can’t adopt this personally. Want to give it a shot? Pick a number on your electricity bill, and try to reduce or meet it each month. If you reduce it, good for you. If you go over, buy the equivalent in energy credits that month to offset your use. Hey, it might not be something the entire country would adopt, but it’s a start.