CALL TO ACTION

This Saturday marks the 14th annual National Lands Day, an event organized to educate the public on critical environmental and natural resource issues. By welcoming volunteers to participate in the clean-up of our natural lands, it also promotes the idea that when we, as a community, pull together, we can preserve the beauty of the area we live in. In fact, we need to pull together as a community.

I learned about this event just recently and decided that this year I would not only participate, but document it for an upcoming broadcast of OC News. I am hoping that this story will shed a little more light on the event, raise awareness regarding the need to care for our land, and hopefully encourage people to participate in the years ahead.

Just like the house we live in, the world, on a much larger scale, is our home. Every home needs up-keep and repair from time to time. Just as a family divides the chores and everyone contributes, so should we as a community, and most importantly, as a nation.

If you want to learn where you can volunteer to celebrate this Saturdays National Public Lands Day, go to http://www.publiclandsday.org/

Global Warming: Fact or False?

As I was taking the long drive home today from my internship in Hollywood, I sat in the horrific L.A traffic starring at break lights and the brown layer of smog that surrounded me and clouded my vision of the downtown high-rises. Every time I take this drive, my concern for our air quality grows, and my guilt for driving such a distance increases. Tired of listening to music, I actually decided to tune into some talk radio and catch up on my news. I couldn’t have done it at a more perfect time.

I was listening to an interview with a man named Steve Milloy who, with his website JunkScience.com, challenges the very concept of global warming. In fact, he is so confident that we, humans, have no control over climate change and are not at all causing catastrophic global warming, that he is offering $125,000 to anyone who can prove him otherwise.

Over the last year, I have tried to read-up on and stay informed about the constant changing conditions of our environment and the good and bad human behaviors that can affect it. This website and its article titled “The Real Inconvenient Truth” has put so much of what I have learned, and thought I understood, into question. I still believe that we, humans, can protect our environment through various behaviors and possibly take climate control into our hands. However, though I believe it to be possible, now, I don’t know that it is.

What do you think?

Read The Real 'Inconvenient Truth' at http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/
To learn more about the Ultimate Global Warming Challenge, go to http://www.junkscience.com/

Seattle Gets Applause

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I took a recent trip to Seattle. I wanted to recognize the city's efforts on raising awareness and fighting the affects of global warming, as well as honor them for encouraging their entire community to be a part of the solution.

It was amazing to see what a city can look like when everyone within it does their part. Cities attract a wide variety of people all different from the next. However, in Seattle, it's evident that if there is only one thing that they all share in common, it's a love for their environment and a will to keep it clean. (If only all cities were like that)

Thanks USPS!

I read in an article earlier this month that the United Stated Postal Service, the second largest employer in the nation, has implemented a new eco-friendly design for their Express and Priority packaging. If you are as passionate about improving the conditions of our environment as I am, you must be happy to hear that. If you aren’t, the following paragraphs may bore you.

The USPS has teamed up with MBDC (McDonough Braungart Chemistry Design), and adopted their “cradle-to-cradle” policy which saves 15,000 metric tons of carbon emissions annually. “Cradle to grave” would result in products eventually ending up in a landfill, while “cradle to cradle” ensures products are 100% renewable. MBDC analyzed 14,000 of the ingredients used in USPS packaging to guarantee it met all 39 criteria for human and environmental health, including toxicity, renewable energy, water stewardship and recyclability.

It is refreshing to hear that one of the leading companies in our nation is making a commitment to doing their part by implementing changes that will create such a positive impact. They are not only spreading a positive message, but they are now also creating a demand for eco-friendly products from their suppliers. Hopefully the ripple affect won’t stop there. It would be nice to see other companies (including Wal-Mart, the nations largest employer) start to follow their lead.

Calling All Seafood Lovers!

I took a trip to Seattle this last weekend, and amongst the many things I did, my family and I made sure to take advantage of the rare sunny weather and take a short boat tour. Gliding amongst the blue water, under the warm sun watching sail boats with a view of the city in the background, I was completely taken away by the beauty of the ocean. As I usually am when in its presence, I was mesmerized by the gorgeous color, reflection of sunlight off the ripples of the ocean, and enjoying the cool breeze that reflected from it. I was completely oblivious to the scary truth that lay beneath it.

A recent article in Wired Magazine stated that 96 percent of edible seafood is currently endangered. Science magazine predicted last November that the world’s supply of seafood could nearly be gone by 2048. It sounds hard to believe that such vast oceans covering about 70 percent of the earth could ever run low on food supply. However, it is our avid appetite for seafood that has sparked an increase in fish farming and over-fishing, driving these fish to near extinction.

Though fish are traditionally meant to be wild-caught, and are much healthier that way, technology to harvest fish offshore created problems including over-fishing and the releasing of bycatch (unwanted creatures) back into the ocean. Fish farming currently provides at least half of the worlds seafood supply. According to an article in Seattle’s Conscious Choice magazine, Inland farms require large amounts of wild-caught fish to feed the farm grown. In that same article, it is stated that it takes three pounds of wild-caught feeder fish to feed one pound of farm raised salmon. How ironic is that? We are taking larger amounts of feeder fish straight from our oceans to feed a smaller amount of fish raised on a farm! The aquaculture process also contaminates water ways with antibiotics used to treat the farm-raised fish.

For those of us who prefer a healthier wild-caught fish to feed our seafood craving, fish farming has definitely made it more difficult to find, and the USDA is not helping. While standards for organic seafood are in draft with the USDA, at least 18 seafood companies are claiming “organic” or “wild-caught” on their packaging- but that’s a whole other blog.

Preserving our fish supply is as easy as purchasing or ordering certain fish only while they are in season and resisting them when they are not. Choosing to pay the higher price for wild-caught fish rather than settling for the less expensive farm-grown will help create a difference in demand. The ocean is undoubtedly breathtaking from the outside, but if we really stop to take a look at what is happening beneath that gorgeous blue surface, it may not look so pretty anymore. We can still change that.

So You Think It's Organic

While concern of global warming and the health of our environment is a growing cause, people are also taking their own health into consideration and are coughing up the cash for organic food products. Because of this, more food manufacturers are wanting to market their products as organic, but are finding they cannot use the sufficient ingredients needed while staying within the standards of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Though I would say, “tough,” if your ingredients aren’t organic, you should not sport the label, the USDA may be bending. A recent USDA proposal is currently in the works to allow for 38 non-organic ingredients to be used in products that display the organic label.

According to USDA regulations, a product can be labeled organic as long as it contains just five percent or less of approved non-organic ingredients. As of May 2007, only five ingredients were listed as approved non-organic ingredients that could be used: cornstarch, water-extracted gum, kelp, unbleached lecithin and pectin. In June of this year, the USDA proposed 38 more, including 19 food colorings, two starches, sausage casings, hops (the number two ingredient in beer), fish oil and a variety of spices.

As a consumer wanting to stay as health conscious as possible, I am already disappointed to learn that products I believe to be organic are not completely organic. On top of that, the USDA is considering adding ingredients such as sausage casings to my organic food!

Ronnie Cummins, executive director of Organic Consumers Association, said it best in Conscious Choice magazine, a Seattle publication, when he said that limiting the list of approved non-organic ingredients is a positive thing that will prevent companies from using the over 600 non-organic ingredients requested by food manufacturers. I also agree with his comment that fish oil, hops, and sausage casings should not be included in food that is labeled organic, because that is simply not what we are getting.

Is It Worth Five Cents?

As summer continues to scorch us with soaring temperatures, many of us are reaching for the nearest cold beverage to keep us cool. However, would we be so quick to purchase if the prices on our favorite soft drinks or bottled water brands reflected a tax that other states do not require?

With a growing concern for the environment and a sense of urgency to slow the affects of global warming, an article in last Thursdays Wall Street Journal states beverage makers are in the process of developing plans to reduce bottled waste and encourage recycling. However, their strategies do not include the idea of enforcing a nationwide deposit tax to the sale price of these beverages, which had been proposed earlier by lawmakers.

This idea originally sparked when the switch from glass bottled soft drinks to plastic bottles and aluminum cans began creating more litter. While eleven states, including California, currently have deposit laws on soft drinks, only four states are preparing to extend the law to the sale of bottled water. My question to you is as follows: Would you be willing to pay an extra five cents for bottled water if you knew it would increase recycling, and inevitably, improve the condition of our planet?

According to that same article, The Container Recycling Institute says beverage-container recycling rates average at about 70% in deposit law states, but only at a mere 34% across the nation.

In an attempt to avoid the possibility of a new federal bill, beverage makers are making significant progress by producing bottles that use less plastic. But is that enough? Coca-Cola has developed plans and invested over $41 million in building new recycling plants. However, running these plants may end up consuming enough energy to offset their effort at recycling all together.

Five cents here and there is a small price to pay for a better future, and it is sad to see that currently eleven states agree with that. Do you?