The US will still need energy tomorrow!

By Gilbert Woolley

 

On October 1, a report by a task force of the "Council on Foreign Relations" added its voice to those who advocate that domestic resources of oil and Natural Gas should be exploited to the maximum now, in order to reduce dependence on imports. At first glance this seems reasonable, but it is really short sighted.

As the Report recognizes, dependence on imported oil is not going to go away.  Domestic production peaked in the seventies and has been in decline since then.  However hard we pump, our resources are finite and when they are used up we will be totally dependent on imports. It is surely prudent to leave some reserves in the ground for emergencies.

The Report states that the US, with 4.6% of the world's population uses 25% of world's oil.  A comparison with other industrial countries with similar lifestyles is revealing. To allow easy comparison of energy usage in different economies it is helpful to convert the various forms of energy into a common basis.  Since oil is still the predominant source of energy, "equivalent gallons of oil" provides a convenient basis for comparison.

Tons/capita/year oil equivalent
Average for the world	1.69
OECD *	4.63
US	8.1
UK	3.86
*OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) includes the US and other major industrial nations.

It is a widely held opinion that world oil production has "peaked", or is about to peak, while world oil demand is rapidly increasing. If this is so, the US will be competing with the rapidly growing economies in Asia for a decreasing supply of oil.  This will result in a price increase that may well make $80.00 a barrel look like a bargain.  It makes more sense, therefore, to begin to bring demand into line with supply by reducing demand, and the table above shows that the US has the greatest potential to do so without any real hardship.  Sooner or later the US will have to learn to live with less oil and gas.  This learning will not be easy and will take many years, so the sooner we begin, the less of a shock it will be to the economy.  The Report realistically states that, as a first step, increasing the tax on gasoline would result in less driving, encourage purchase of more fuel efficient vehicles, stimulate the development of alternate fuels and make these fuels more competitive with oil.

Importing less oil will reduce the large US foreign trade deficit and also the pressure on the supply and price of oil.  It will also be a significant a contribution by the US towards reducing carbon emissions and limiting Global Warming. Attacking the energy problem requires strong leadership from the federal government. Citizens must convince our legislators to supply this leadership.

Gilbert Woolley is a retired engineer and longtime member of the Sierra Club.

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The environmental benefits of vegetarianism

By Gabe Bronk and Arthur Su/ Special To The Tab

 

 

Vegetarianism is not only a response to the inhumane practices of factory farms; it is also a way to conserve natural resources, improve the environment and benefit human health.

The meat industry is very wasteful of natural resources. An inherent problem with eating meat is that an animal must be fed roughly ten pounds of plants to produce one pound of meat. Therefore, much more food is consumed to support the animals than would be needed if more people were vegetarians. Seventy percent of the grain grown in the US is used to feed livestock. Because of the growth of so much animal feed, half the water consumed in the U.S. is used by the meat industry, and our groundwater is being withdrawn 25% faster than it is being replenished. In the High Plains states from South Dakota to New Mexico, it is projected that the aquifer will be depleted in 60 years. Erosion and nutrient depletion caused by animal feed production and overgrazing by livestock are destroying vast areas of arable land.

 

We are currently in an oil crisis, and the meat industry is exacerbating it. Eight times as much fossil fuel energy is used in the production of animal protein as is used in plant protein production due to the fuel required to manufacture fertilizers and pesticides for animal feed, to operate farming machinery, for transportation and for irrigation. Four hundred gallons of fossil fuels are used to produce food for the average meat-eating American each year.

A meat eater requires two to four times more farmland than a vegetarian. To make room for enough farmland, the meat industry constantly destroys vital ecosystems, thus taking away the habitats of myriad species and reducing biodiversity. The vast Amazon rainforest is rapidly being destroyed to make way for ranching and growing animal feed and will be gone by the end of this century if the current rate of destruction continues. Do you want to let this happen?

The damage to the environment does not stop at animal feed production. The plants are fed to the livestock, which, after digesting the food, produce 1.37 billion tons of manure in the U.S. annually. The manure often spills out of open-air storage pits and into waterways, accelerating the growth of algae. When the algae die, their decomposition depletes the water of oxygen. This causes the deaths of millions of fish. Manure also releases ammonia into the air, which can contaminate rain, killing forests. Fumes from factory farms cause people in the area to experience respiratory problems and other ailments. Nitrates leak from manure into community drinking water, causing serious human health problems.

The meat industry contributes significantly to global warming. Methane, a greenhouse gas, is released by bacteria in the rumens of cattle and in the manure of many farm animals. Furthermore, forests and grasslands that would absorb high amounts of carbon dioxide are cleared to make way for farmland. To make matters worse, the enormous fires used to burn down these forests release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The fishing industry also contributes to environmental degradation. Many species are being fished faster than they can reproduce. 15 of the 17 major ocean fisheries are exhausted or overexploited, so many marine food webs are depleted, and ocean ecosystems are seriously damaged. Myriads of other animals are accidentally caught and killed in the nets, such as nearly 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises killed each year. Pulling bottom trawls across the seafloor devastates habitats including coral reefs.

You can help save the environment and keep yourself healthy at the same time; according to the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada, vegan and vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of life as long as the vegetarian gets all necessary nutrition, which is easy to do. Visit www.veganhealth.org for nutrition information.

A well-planned vegetarian or vegan diet offers many health benefits. Vegetarians have lower blood cholesterol levels, lower rates hypertension and lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease due to the lower levels of saturated fat found in animal products and the higher levels of antioxidants found in fruits and vegetables. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes and whole grains, all staples of a vegetarian diet, provide better nutrition and help prevent many diseases.

Spurred by this knowledge as well as by the meat industry's brutality towards animals, we became vegetarian/vegan and have examined and promoted vegetarianism as a project for our biology class at Newton North High School.

Consider the possibilities. There are many delicious and varied foods that do not contain animal products. We're not just talking lettuce and bananas; think grilled veggie burger or bean burrito. If becoming vegetarian seems like a difficult task, try reducing your consumption of meat gradually; cut out meat one day a week at first. Soon you will have a healthier diet and be saving natural resources and the environment. If you do become vegetarian, email us at vegetarianism@comcast.net to let us know that this article had the desired effect.

More information at http://www.sierraclub.com/factoryfarms www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan and Pamela Rice, 101 Reasons Why I'm a Vegetarian. Lantern Books, 2005.

Gabe Bronk and Arthur Su will be seniors at Newton North High School this fall. Members of the award-winning school science team, they are passionate about environmental protection.

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/tabarchive.asp.

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Biodiversity and Health: Locally and Beyond

By Yi Li

 

Dr. Edward O. Wilson, distinguished biologist and researcher at Harvard University, wrote nearly two decades ago that “biological diversity must be treated more seriously as a global resource.”  Wilson realized that the depletion of organismal variation was leading to a host of environmental and economic problems  Many scientists today share Wilson’s concerns about biodiversity; and this concern has only grown in the past few decades.  Biodiversity, defined as variation in life at all levels of biological organization, is quickly diminishing, and this erosion is being catalyzed by human pollution, consumption, and exploitation of our resources. 

In this area, one prominent example of the effects of loss in biodiversity can easily be observed.  Every fall in New England, incidences of Lyme disease increase as more people head outdoors to enjoy the weather and fall foliage.  Lyme disease is spread by small insects called ticks, and the disease is more prevalent in the northeastern United States because disease-bearing ticks and animals that serve as reservoirs for these ticks have become more prevalent as well.  This increase in the tick population and their hosts can be attributed to a recent decrease in their natural predators.   In the northeast, ticks are often carried by white-footed mice, and the predators of these mice – wolves and wildcats – have decreased in number over the years.  Additionally, the number of other small animals that may serve as targets for tick bites have decreased as well.  The synthesis of all of these factors leads to a rise in the number of cases of Lyme disease in the human population, serving as just one example of how the maintenance of biodiversity in our environment is so crucial to everyday health. 

Losses in biodiversity cause much environmental instability.  My arguments for the importance of biodiversity in health for human populations come mainly from two fields: a scientific argument based on the importance of environmental stability, and an economic argument based on the cost-effectiveness of preventative biodiversity measures. 

In scientific terms, throughout evolutionary history, when organisms become extinct or move away from their environments of origin, parasitic agents take over the niche that these organisms had inhabited.  These parasites often find new hosts, and when they jump from one host organism to another, new diseases begin to emerge.  Parasitologists postulate that this is the mechanism of emergence for new human diseases like West Nile Virus and the Avian Flu.  Currently, researchers still have a poor understanding of the exact roles that various identified parasites play in different diseases.  Research is still ongoing and is being aided by advances in fields such as molecular taxonomy.

The importance of biodiversity can best be illustrated through case-studies of diseases that have spread among human populations due to disruptions in biodiversity.  Deforestation in the Amazon and in remote regions of Africa has exposed people to diseases that originally inhabited wildlife; this is the proposed origin of diseases such as AIDS and Ebola.  Research by Dr. Peter Daszak, of the Consortium for Conservation Medicine, has also identified a connection between Chinese horseshoe bats and the outbreak of SARS in Asia.  Most poignantly, we may look back in history and see that the introduction of smallpox, typhus and measles by Spanish conquistadors to South American natives in the 15th century resulted in the deaths of nearly 50 million.  These examples illustrate how the introduction of disease-causing agents into environments where they were previously nonexistent can have profound consequences.

From an economic perspective, vast amounts of money and economic resources can be saved by taking a preventative approach to the loss in biodiversity, instead of a reactive one.  When SARS broke out in Asia, the economic losses from trade and travel totaled around $50 billion – a figure that hugely impacted the developing economies of the countries affected.  On top of that, 800 people died from the disease.  The costs of Lyme disease treatments in the United States total to nearly $500 million each year.  One can only imagine the magnitude of these figures for diseases such as AIDS where cost of care is staggering and new transmissions remain undiminished. 

A vastly better use of these economic resources is to take a preventative approach to these problems.  Scientists advocate for tougher regulations on trade, agriculture and travel as methods of reducing the spread of disease-causing agents and preventing the jump of diseases from wildlife to humans.  By protecting the environment, we prevent the catastrophic consequences of emerging disease and spend well below the current costs of reactive measures.  All of these benefits come in addition to the inherent benefits of preserving our natural resources and preventing organisms from extinction.  Many yet-unstudied and undiscovered organisms may hold the secrets to medical cures.  At one point, scientists believed that the Australian gastric brooding frog held the secrets to anti-ulcer treatments because these frogs incubate their young in their stomach only after shutting off digestive acids. Tragically, the frogs became extinct before scientists could study them – their secrets and mysteries died along with them.

As citizens of the metropolitan Boston area, with so many educational resources, we have many opportunities to learn more about the issues surrounding biodiversity.  The Harvard Center for Health and the Global Environment (chge.med.harvard.edu) and Wildlife Trust (www.wildlifetrust.org) are great online resources for more information on research, recommendations, and upcoming events.  We must also remain aware of legislation that will affect biodiversity locally and beyond.  Our actions begin with becoming aware of what organizations and companies to support, what initiatives to advocate for, and what political agendas to push for.  This approach to biodiversity maintenance requires a long-term vision, but the action must begin now.  We must take a stance on this issue before further diseases emerge as a consequence of our actions and before many more resources are depleted in the process.

Yi Li is a first-year student at Harvard Medical School. She served for two years as Editor-in-Chief of Duke University's undergraduate Journal of Science and Technology.

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Energy Efficiency Makes Cents

By Jill Hahn

 

Here in Newton, we take pride in being a "green" city, mainly due to our concerns about global warming and the long-term health of our citizens. But improving the energy efficiency of buildings is also a great way to save money. Corporations are beginning to realize this. Bank of America's new headquarters in New York City, which will be the most environmentally friendly skyscraper ever built when it opens in 2008, has been designed with resource-saving measures from basement to the 54th floor roof. Even so, the building's eco-friendly features add up to less than one percent of the project's total price, and since water and energy usage is decreased by 40%, tenants will reap savings for years to come. (from Wright L. The world's coolest skyscraper. OnEarth 2005; Winter: 12-13.)

State governments, including our own, have begun to come to the same realization. In February 2006, Massachusetts passed "An Act Relative to Contracts for Energy Management," making it easier for municipalities to contract for work that will improve their buildings while saving them money at the same time. The new procurement rules encourage municipalities to invest in energy conservation measures by entering into performance contracts with an Energy Services Company (ESCO). Using conventional procurement, a city has to hire service providers (auditors, engineers, architects, general and subcontractors) and separately procure equipment. An ESCO is a one-stop shopping alternative. It first performs an energy audit of the public buildings. It then recommends energy conservation measures - such as automatic light switches, new boilers, new windows or roofs, improved plumbing - and estimates how much energy the city would save if such measures were put in place. It finally acts as the general contractor for the city, purchasing and installing the energy conserving measures selected by the city. And here's the hook: the ESCO guarantees a certain amount of energy use reduction. If it fails to meet its guarantee, the ESCO pays the city for the extra energy usage.

Financing is usually done through a tax-exempt lease provided by a bank, rather than through the bonding municipalities usually use to pay for such work. Passing a bond is  a political act, with the long approval process that implies, and it adds to a city's debt burden.

Tax-exempt leases do not. Monthly lease payments are made by the city to the bank, with energy cost savings providing the cash needed to pay the leases. Because of the way the performance contract is structured, the only way savings would not equal or exceed the monthly payments would be if utility costs skyrocketed or if energy usage increased unpredictably and dramatically.

In 2005, Belmont became the first town in Massachusetts to contract with an ESCO for a project that involved both school and government buildings. The contract cost the city $1.7 million, and guaranteed the town at least $200,000 in cost savings over each of the next 10 years. ESCOs are able to make such guarantees because they couple measures that bring quick savings, such as energy-efficient lighting, with projects that slowly pay for themselves, such as replacing boilers. The guaranteed savings enabled Belmont to fund improvements to six schools and five government buildings out of its operating budget rather than as capital expenses. "I felt that I probably couldn't have sold this solely on the basis that it was environmentally friendly," Selectman Paul Solomon said. "But I did think that I could sell it on the basis that it would save money."

And that's the beauty of this approach. Energy costs in Newton's aging public buildings are currently rising at a rate of 40% per year. One only needs to compare the energy cost per square foot of newly renovated Newton South High School ($1.61) to that of, say, Zervas Elementary School ($4.34) to get a hint of the sort of savings the city could realize if it entered into its own performance contract with an ESCO. And a wonderful side effect of all this fiscal responsibility would be the savings we realized in greenhouse gas emissions and pollution, savings that will benefit all of us long after the tax-exempt lease is paid for and forgotten.

 Jill Hahn,  jkkhahn@comcast.net, a Newton Highlands resident, is a biologist, a writer, and a mom. All three roles contribute to her interest in environmental issues. She is co-chairing a local effort to educate the city of Newton on the benefits of performance contracting as a means of improving our public buildings.

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Mushrooms and Fairy Rings

By Bruce Wenning

 

Every fall I get questions from people who are worried about the appearance of mushrooms (toadstools) growing in their lawns and gardens. Some people feel that they are unsightly and sure that their presence indicates that something is wrong. Others welcome these fungi and are delighted when they learn that mushrooms serve an ecological purpose by helping in the decomposition of soil organic matter. Only one caller has mentioned that the mushrooms growing in her garden and lawn added interest as "colorful little plants."

Mushrooms are fungi. Green plants (trees, shrubs, lawns and garden plants) contain chlorophyll in their leaves, and, by the action of photosynthesis, produce sugars and other compounds from carbon dioxide and water. Mushrooms, on the other hand lack chlorophyll and cannot undergo photosynthesis. They must derive their nutrients from dead plant and animal matter.

How do they do this? Mushrooms colonize organic debris in the soil by hyphae (fine branching tubes). As their hyphae grow and "seek out" organic debris such as buried wood chips, dead roots, pieces of wood, lawn thatch, etc., they gain more mass by branching outward and fusing together forming a larger structure called a mycelium. Mycelium is the body of the fungus and hyphae are its individual components.

As the mycelium moves or grows through the soil by way of multiple growing points, it increases in size as a diffuse, loosely combined fungal mass-producing various enzymes and other chemicals to digest or feed on organic compounds in the soil. Mushrooms and other decomposing fungi are important garden organisms involved with organic matter break down and nutrient recycling. They are welcomed additions to the organically-tended lawn and garden.

Mushrooms are the above ground portion of the underground growing mycelium. Mushrooms are the actual fruiting body or reproductive structure of the fungus. They are the "tip of the iceberg" of the entire fungus. In general, a mushroom is composed of a cap, gills, ring, stalk, cup and root-like extensions (rhizomorphs). Under the cap, spores are produced in the gills for release into the air. Boletes mushrooms release spores from pores instead of gills.

Spores, when released, can be carried by wind, rain, irrigation water from sprinklers, animals, insects and gardening tools that come into contact with the mushroom. For a spore to germinate into hyphae, the right combination of moisture, temperature, and available organic compounds must be present for growth and eventual development to occur. The process from spore to hyphae to a mycelium that produces a mushroom could take weeks to years depending upon the fungal species and environmental conditions.

Fairy rings are groups of mushrooms growing in lawns and pastures that form circular or semi-circular patterns. These mushroom rings occur during spring and fall in all types of grasses when temperatures range between 45 and 65 degrees F. Many species of mushrooms can form fairy rings, however these three species are the most common; Marasmius oreades (small, tan color), Agaricus campestris (edible, sold in grocery stores), and Chlorophyllum molybdites (large, white poisonous).

 

Fairy rings can vary from a few inches to more than 50 feet in length. The mycelium producing the fairy ring mushrooms can be as deep as eight inches or more, impeding water from reaching turfgrass roots. This is the reason why fairy ring fungi are considered a disease in lawns. Grass is killed inside the ring of mushrooms and grass. The outer ring of mushrooms and grass is alive with the grass exhibiting deep green color and a faster growth rate. This is due to the mushrooms' decomposing soil organic matter and releasing nutrients to the grass as a natural fertilizer. It is not unusual for a fairy ring to resemble a bulls eye appearance similar to dog urine spots on a lawn. However, dog urine spots lack mushrooms.

Fairy rings spread outward from a few inches to several feet per year. According to Mass Audubon naturalist, Dan McCullough, if the fairy ring mycelium hits a rock, fence post, bird feeder post or some other impeding object, the ring will become interrupted, possibly loosing its circular or semi-circular pattern. Digging out the mushroom-mycelium mass and replacing with good topsoil will help eliminate this problem.

McCullough owns fourteen mushroom field guides and still has problems identifying certain species. He strongly urges the beginner to use caution when looking for edible mushrooms. Identifying mushrooms is not like identifying birds, where one bird guide may cover all the birds in an area. You must use several guides when trying to identify mushrooms and it is strongly advisable to take a class to sharpen your skills.

Bruce Wenning is the horticulturist-grounds manager of the Mass Audubon Society, Habitat sanctuary, Belmont and serves on the Board of Directors of the Ecological Landscaping Association. www.ecolandscaping.org

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Nutrients help turn the Charles green

By Anna Eleria and Rebecca Scibek/Special to the TAB

 

 

While this summer was filled with warm, sunny days that encouraged recreation on the Charles River and in its parklands, it also saw an explosive growth of a potentially harmful algae in the Lower Charles. First identified in early August, the fluorescent green algal bloom extended from the Harvard/Massachusetts Avenue Bridge east to the Museum of Science, with dense, floating mats of algae most visible in lagoons, canals and along the river’s edge in Boston and Cambridge. 

Algal blooms have been a problem in the Charles River for years, but this year’s bloom was remarkable for two reasons. First, it was the first time that the algae bloom was identified - a sample collected in early August was identified as microcystis, a type of blue-green algae that secretes toxins and grows naturally in fresh and estuarine waters. Second, the amount of algae was extremely large. The abundance of algae was due to heavy late spring and early summer rainstorms that brought an enormous influx of nutrients to the river, followed by a period of extremely warm water temperatures, creating perfect conditions for algae growth.

In early August, the density of sampled algae was ten times greater than the moderate health risk threshold designated by the World Health Organization (WHO). Samples taken the second week in September by Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) showed that algae levels had decreased significantly, close to the WHO low health risk threshold. CRWA sent water samples (with algae concentrations slightly above the low health risk probability threshold) to a laboratory at the State University of New York in Syracuse to determine if and how much of the toxin was released by the algae. The results showed that a small, but significant, amount of toxin was present in the water at that time. Exposure to the toxin at that level could lead to short-term health problems such as skin irritations, diarrhea, and nausea. 

To notify the public of the potential hazard, CRWA informed all boathouses involved in the Flagging Program, a daily water quality public notification system, of the algal bloom, and instructed those within the affected area to fly red “do not boat”

flags. DCR posted signs along the river warning people to avoid direct contact with the water. CRWA and state environmental and health agencies are continuing to work together to better monitor and understand the algae issue.

Algae is a natural and critical part of the Charles River ecosystem that provides food for fish and other small aquatic animals. However, too much algae drives the ecosystems out of balance, as it blocks sunlight from underwater plants, creates large day-night swings in oxygen levels in the water, produces scum and odor and may secrete large amounts of toxins. Upon die-off, algae consumes large amounts of oxygen, which can damage or kill fish and plant species that are dependent on dissolved oxygen in the water.

The primary cause of algal blooms in freshwater is excessive phosphorus, a nutrient found in wastewater treatment plant discharges and in stormwater runoff. The single greatest source of nutrients in the Charles River is run-off from high-density residential land, which comprises nearly fifty percent of Newton’s land. Lawn fertilizers, soaps and detergents are the main human sources of phosphorus. Other “natural”

sources of phosphorus from residential areas are decaying leaves, grass clippings, and pet waste, all of which increase the level of algae-inducing nutrients when they flow into the river through storm drains or small streams.

The property management practices of homeowners and municipalities have a dramatic impact of the amount of nutrients flowing into the Charles. Property owners should minimize fertilizer use, use only low phosphorus fertilizers, pick up and dispose of dog waste, and dispose of yard waste properly (not in the street or into storm drains). Cities and towns should minimize the use of fertilizers on public playing fields, parks and landscaped areas, provide yard waste pickup, enforce “pooper-scooper” laws, clean catch basins regularly, and build “green infrastructure”

wherever possible. 

Other factors, such as low river flow volume, warm water temperature and the presence of dams, magnify the impacts of phosphorus and increase algae growth.  CRWA continues to develop science-based solutions to tackle these problems, and to advocate for policies and programs that will help reduce algae levels and ensure cleaner, safer waters for fish, wildlife and the public. 

Anna Eleria is a CRWA Project Manager/Engineer, and Rebecca Scibek is CRWA Volunteer Coordinator.

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Embedded Energy in Buildings

By Gilbert Woolley

 

For the past 30 years we have been harangued and implored to reduce use of energy and raw materials: drive less, turn down the thermostat, insulate; recycle paper, cans and bottles; use renewable materials and fuels. These are all necessary and beneficial. But there is one major use of energy that has received little attention: the energy "embedded" in construction materials. This is the energy used to turn wet clay into hard baked bricks, limestone into lime and cement, to melt and process steel, copper and aluminum used in a building. The raw materials for roofing shingles, vinyl siding, cable insulation and plastic piping is derived from oil or natural gas. Even the insulation added to reduce energy losses has an energy content.

To this must be added the energy used to mine the clay, lime and sand, to harvest trees and to transport these materials from mine, quarry and forest to the factories where they are processed, and finally to the construction site.  For a typical house in Massachusetts, this embedded energy may exceed the energy used to heat, cool and light it over a fifteen year period. So, how can some of this energy be saved?

There are significant differences in the energy embedded in various materials. In general, lighter construction embeds less energy than more solid masonry construction.  However, masonry has a much longer potential life and has other advantages, like rot and insect resistance.  In poor countries materials salvaged from demolition of buildings are often recycled, but in the US the cost of labor to separate the wood, cables and pipes from the concrete, plaster and bricks is usually greater than the value of the materials salvaged and the demolition debris is hauled away to a landfill, adding transportation energy and compounding another dilemma of modern life: shortage of landfill space.

The optimal way to save embedded energy (and in the long run to save money) is to make buildings last longer.  Often, demolition is not necessary.  Rooms can be added to houses; factories and warehouses are turned into office space; pricey condos and apartments; unused churches are transformed into restaurants and schools into apartments.  Such re-use by the private sector is usually motivated by cost savings. Local examples show how apparently unpromising buildings can be "recycled". The computer design and prototype manufacturing workshops of Digital Equipment Corporation were located in a 150-year-old mill in Maynard. This mill was fitted out with the latest methods of communication, including fiber optics cables throughout the million square foot, 21 building complex.  The old windows were double glazed, air-conditioning added and roofs well insulated.  Just over the border from Newton in Watertown, "HighTech" Boston Scientific has refurbished an old water mill on the Charles River.  These old buildings are often better built and have finer esthetics than recent construction.

If you are planning remodeling or an addition to your home, ask your architect to incorporate the existing building into the new design. A building is just a shell and the conveniences of modern life can be added to it. In Europe and Asia, buildings are still in active use that are 500, 1000 and more, years old. Even in the US buildings more than 200 years old can be found at many older universities, such as Harvard, and in historic sites like Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market. There are many examples of imaginative use of old buildings, impressive structures that escaped being been torn down in the name of "urban renewal".

Gilbert Woolley is a retired engineer and longtime member of the Sierra Club.

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/environmentpage.html

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Putting a wedge in global warming

By Jill Hahn

The argument over global warming has shifted, from whether it’s real to what we ought to do about it.
On the one hand are those who’ll give you advice about what you, the individual consumer, can do to help. Buy energy-efficient appliances. Trade in your SUV for a hybrid. Change your lightbulbs to compact fluorescents.

On the other hand are those who point out that global warming is a problem of - well, of global dimensions, and your noble yet pitiful attempt to help is like hoping the ocean will care if you remove a drop of water. What you really need to do is learn how to adapt. Get flood insurance. Make sure your air-conditioning works.

So should you change your behavior, or is it pointless? In order to answer that, we need to get a handle on the magnitude of the problem, and the magnitude of your potential response.

Before the industrial age, Earth’s atmosphere contained about 280 parts per million (ppm) of CO2. Today the concentration of CO2 stands at about 375 ppm. There is some agreement that, in order to prevent most of the damaging climate change predicted by global models, we need to limit future atmospheric CO2 concentrations to no more than 500 ppm.
Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala, economists at Princeton University, asked what we would need to do in order to keep atmospheric CO2 from climbing past 500 ppm in the next 50 years. They found that carbon emissions would need to be held near the present level of 7 billion tons (or gigatons) of carbon per year (7 GtC/year) for the next 50 years. There’s a problem, though: emissions are currently on course to more than double in that time, pushing atmospheric CO2 concentrations past 700 ppm.

So Pacala and Socolow made a graph. The top line rises as emissions will if we continue “business as usual.” The bottom line is horizontal, holding steady at 7 billion tons of carbon per year. Pacala and Socolow then divided the difference between the top line and the bottom line into seven equal ‘wedges.’ Each wedge represents an emission-reducing activity that starts at zero today and increases until it accounts for a cumulative total of 25 GtC of reduced emissions over 50 years. In other words, if we can find seven different ways of lowering emissions by 25GtC over the next fifty years, we’ll keep ourselves below the ceiling of 500 ppm of atmospheric CO2.

Gigatons – that’s a lot of carbon. Trading in one SUV won’t do the trick. But what if we insisted that every new car sold in the United States be twice as fuel-efficient as the current fleet? That wouldn’t be hard to achieve, considering that right now the average American passenger car gets 22.4 mpg, while vans, pickups, and SUVs average a measly 16.2 mpg. Pull out your scratch paper.

We buy lots of new cars and light trucks in the US, 6.6 million in 2003 alone. If we doubled the fuel efficiency of these new vehicles, we would save over 5 billion gallons of gasoline per year. Each gallon of gasoline accounts for about 3 kg of carbon, so our new vehicles would save 17 million tons of C in a year. Over 50 years, the savings from that one year’s worth of new, more fuel-efficient automobiles would accrue to 846,387,000 tons, or 0.8 GtC.
Assuming that the same number of new vehicles is built each year for 50 years, these more efficient vehicles would save 21 GtC, almost an entire wedge. Buying that hybrid may represent only a tiny drop, but mandating higher fuel efficiency for all new vehicles would go a long way towards stopping draining the ocean.

What about potential energy savings in your home? Dr. William Moomaw, Director of the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at Tufts University, recently built a new home that uses one-third the energy of a conventional house. That’s a high bar to achieve, but “my contractor,” says Dr. Moomaw, “… has built houses that … use 2/3 of the energy of a standard house at no extra cost.”

We know how many new houses are built in the U.S. in a given year, and how much energy they use annually, because the U.S. Census and the Department of Energy keep track of it. We can therefore calculate annual carbon emissions due to new homes (not counting AC): 3,363,228 metric tons.

Let’s be conservative and imagine that these houses were built to be 25% more energy-efficient. That would save us 840,807 metric tons of carbon each year. Over 50 years, adding a million energy-efficient new houses each year, we get a total savings of 1GtC, or a twenty-fifth of a wedge. So, although buying an energy-efficient refrigerator is a responsible thing you can do right now, it’s changing how we build all new buildings that will really make a difference to the planet. And the sooner we begin, the more of an impact we’ll have, since accrued over fifty years, it’s the early changes that make the most difference.

And what about lightbulbs? In 2001, lighting accounted for 101 billion kilowatt hours of U.S. household electricity use, which translates about 105 metric tons C. Compact fluorescents would save 66% of that, or about 5 GtC over 50 years. That’s a fifth of a wedge, if we simply replaced every lightbulb in every home in America with compact fluorescents. How many people does it take to change a lightbulb? Everybody, if we want to change the world.

Jill Hahn, a Newton Highlands resident, is a biologist, a writer, and a mom. All three roles contribute to her interest in environmental issues. She can be reached at jkkhahn@comcast.net.

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/environmentpage.html

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Bicycle and Pedestrian Task Force Working for Health and Safety

by John Bliss, Chair of BPTF

 

Most of us are becoming more aware of the threat from global warming and how much our reliance on the automobile contributes to it.  At the same time, we have been learning that obesity is on the rise, in part because children and adults are walking less and driving more. Newton has a Bicycle and Pedestrian Task Force (BPTF) working to address these problems, by making walking and bicycling safer and more convenient for everyone in the city.

Recently, a national bicycling magazine gave Boston a low grade for bicycle accommodations, while commending Cambridge for its leadership in this area.  Although Newton is not known as being particularly bicycle-friendly, the city has been addressing pedestrian concerns, by publicizing the right of way of pedestrians in unprotected crosswalks and installing “count-down” pedestrian signal lights.

Newton’s population of 80,000 clusters around 13 distinctive village centers, each having a range of stores and services.  Improved conditions for bicycling and walking could enable many more residents to satisfy their shopping, commuting and recreational needs without having to use their cars.  Trips to school on foot or by bicycle would be more enjoyable and healthier for children and reduce the congestion and safety hazards now associated with the common practice of being driven to school.

BPTF has been cooperating with other Boston-area organizations to improve bicycle and pedestrian facilities in the entire metropolitan region, while working with our own city officials to mark heavily-traveled roadways with striped shoulders for cyclists, and encouraging private companies to make it easier for customers and staff to access their locations by bicycle and on foot. 

The Task Force has updated the city’s Greenman-Pedersen, Inc. Bicycle Accommodations Report (2000) and has submitted it to the Department of Public Works to help guide future road projects.  This plan helps the City set priorities for bicycle accommodations required by state law for any road project paid for by state and federal funds.  The accommodations include the four-foot wide striped shoulders on Centre Street between Mill Street and Newton Corner as well as “Share the Road” signs and painted “hybrid lane” symbols designed for congested areas that have been proposed for Walnut Street near the Newton Highlands village center. 

BPTF has worked with Boston College and Newton-Wellesley Hospital to improve bicycle and pedestrian access for students and employees, and has helped the city’s Planning Department set priorities for locating new bicycle racks (to be provided at no cost by the state) in conjunction with road projects.

Newton is one of many communities in the “inner core” area of the Boston region, and BPTF works with the MassBike Metro Boston chapter on issues of common interest.  Most recently, this group helped to prepare a report to the state Dept. of Conservation and Recreation on the deteriorated conditions of the Charles River paths that are used by hundreds of people every day.

In the coming year, BPTF will continue to monitor active road project planning, work with City officials on providing bicycle and pedestrian accommodations to the new Newton North High School, promote the adoption of safe routes to school programs, and work with city officials to improve pedestrian facilities in under-served areas and improve access to all sidewalks in the winter.

The Task Force has public meetings at 7:30 p.m. on the fourth Tuesday of each month in the cafeteria of Newton City Hall. The October meeting is on the 24th. Come and share your concerns and ideas about bicycling and walking in Newton or contact me to be added to the email list.  More information: johnsbliss@verizon.net or (617) 244-6495.

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It’s Wednesday, do you know where your vegetables are?

By Lois Levin

 

Each year 76,000,000 Americans suffer food poisoning; 300,000 require hospitalization and 5,000 people die. These numbers imply much human suffering. The US food supply is highly vulnerable to contamination, even here in Metropolitan Boston.Michael Pollen, in a recent op-ed piece in the NY Times, cuts to the quick: “Today 80 percent of America’s beef is slaughtered by four companies, 75 percent of the precut salads are processed by two and 30 percent of the milk by just one company.” He adds: “Keeping local food economies healthy — and at the moment they are thriving — is a matter not of sentiment but of critical importance to the national security and the public health, as well as to reducing our dependence on foreign sources of energy.”

Consider public health. Most of us felt a twinge of fear when we learned about the recent contamination of packaged spinach, and rightly so. Although we may never know the exact source of that deadly outbreak, the underlying problem is no mystery. E coli bacteria thrive in the guts and manure of feedlot cattle. Manure often finds its way onto agricultural fields and agricultural workers’ hands. This problem has escalated because of the increasing centralization and scale of US agriculture. Because the growing, packaging and distribution of agricultural produce has become highly centralized and mechanized over the years, what used to be a local problem of food-borne illness that could be contained and traced is now poised- at any moment- to generate a national disaster.

There are technological fixes for this, such as increasing radiation treatment of our food supply to eliminate bacterial agents.  There are also political fixes, such as government enforcement of strict separation of animal feedlots and produce fields. These solutions, however, exact a big price. Not so much in dollars; the large corporations involved in agribusiness are marvels of efficiency and can absorb the financial cost. The greatest price is borne by the public, because enacting these measures reinforcesthe trend of limiting consumer access to fresh, ripe and varied produce.Consider national security. In 2004 The US Health and Human Services chief, Tommy Thompson, publicly expressed amazement that “terrorists have not attacked our food supply, because it is so easy to do.”Consider energy and pollution. In Massachusetts, most of the domestic produce we eat travels on average 1500 miles (and often 3000 miles) from field to market. It is transported by vehicles that run on fossil fuels.  Consider biodiversity. Look at all those uniform bags and bunches of produce in the supermarkets. We have already lost so much of the variety that promotes disease resistance. Monocultures are not natural ecosystems; they require lots of pesticides and fertilizers.Consider local farmers.  Not only does the large-scale, highly centralized production of our food supply seriously compromise human health and biodiversity, while increasing our vulnerability to terrorism, it is also putting more and more small farmers out of business. They cannot afford- and they do not need- the costly equipment and procedures mandated by governments to ensure the safety of food grown by large, centralized producers.We consumers right here in Metropolitan Boston have choices about what we eat. Exercising those choices thoughtfully takes time and care. We can make the effort to support local farmers, to learn how and where our food is grown and about the benefits of organic food (www.nofa.org). If we don’t do this, and wejust “keep on truckin'", we'll be playing Russian roulette ‘til the cows come in.

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Zoning and Energy

By Gil Woolley / Special To The Tab

 

The single most important obstacle in the US to reducing dependence on imported oil and our disproportionate generation of CO2 is the settlement pattern that has grown up over the years.  Apart from few older cities, most Americans are almost totally dependent on their personal automobiles for essential journeys to work, to stores, to church, to public offices and to entertainment.

In 1900 most jobs were in Boston and residents of suburbs like Newton and Wellesley commuted by rail or subway. Thousands still do.  But today, residents have jobs all over the region.  Living in Newton, for years I commuted to Marlboro, Northboro, Littleton and Shrewsbury, none of which were conveniently accessible by public transportation.  And when my company relocated our workplaces, it was assumed that we all had automobiles.  There was some effort to set up car pools, but I never found one that met my needs. 

The US will soon be competing for oil supplies with the rapidly growing demand from mushrooming Asian economies.   The price of oil will continue to rise and so will the US foreign trade deficit.  There are many good reasons to guide development towards less energy intensive patterns.  Massachusetts has officially adopted a “Smart Growth” policy, but most land use decisions in the Commonwealth are made at the town level, and many towns and cities have zoning regulations that do not encourage “Smart Growth”.

The most glaring example is large single lot zoning, two or even four acres in some outer suburbs.  This pattern of sprawl requires virtually every adult family member to have use of a car to get to work, to school, to stores and everyplace else.  It also adds to the demand on utilities, school buses and snow plowing.  Newton’s villages with public transportation are very appealing to single people and childless couples.  Those villages would benefit culturally, socially and economically from having more clustered housing units to accommodate them. 

“Single Use Zoning,” another obstacle to more energy efficient residential patterns, has the effect of discouraging residential building in central business districts.  In contrast, “Mixed Use Zoning” allows multi-story residential building above retail and offices.

When housing is within easy walking distance of subway or light rail service, it allows many people to become less car-dependent.  With a larger base of customers within walking distance, local grocery, hardware and clothing stores are more likely to thrive, further reducing automobile dependence.

Living closer together in suburbs has many compensations.  When shopping, going to the library, to a local restaurant or to church you have many opportunities to encounter people.  Children and teenagers tend to be better behaved when they know that neighbors and family friends may be around.  And wouldn’t it be easier for them to be less auto dependent!  In short, anonymous suburbs can become communities. 

Then there is health.  When many activities involve walking, rather than driving, this provides more continuous moderate exercise without the need to schedule time at the gym.  Walking burns calories, and people who walk are less prone to the obesity and its many related health problems.  And don’t forget the personal economic benefits.  Not needing a second car saves finance charges, taxes and insurance as well as gasoline. 

I grew up in a medium density suburb of Nottingham, England where almost all the homes were single family with a garden and few people owned cars.  Industries, schools and colleges, major stores and entertainment were all accessible by public transportation.  It was many times more energy efficient as similar suburbs in the US and frankly, just as nice a place to live.  Affordable gasoline will soon be a thing of the past, so let’s start preparing for a future where we are much less dependent on it. 

Gil Woolley is a retired engineer, and an active member of the Sierra Club. 

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/environmentpage

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Ecological gardening

By Michelle Portman/ Special To The Tab

 

 

You can turn a yard into a wildlife-friendly, water-saving, low maintenance, naturally beautiful place without pesticides and chemical fertilizers.  It might require a change of perspective.

Turf grass has become a staple of American life.  The consensus seems to be that green grass lawns are a safe place for children to play, a haven away from stressful daily lives and a way to connect with nature and neighbors.  But these turfs are far from a natural occurring phenomenon and usually aren’t “safe” at all (see wording of sign above).

Americans’ love of lawn stems, in part, from early English gardens, which incorporated grass as an art form.  British landscape painters of the early 18^th century entrenched this vision by painting vast expanses of grass lawns as the ideal living situation.  European settlers brought these preferences to North America.  Advertisements and television shows highlight lush green turf lawns and envious neighbors (e.g. “the grass is always greener . . .”), making many believe that this is the only option for an attractive yard.

In reality, expansive turf and tidy exotic planted beds are far from ideal.  The application of pesticides—herbicides, insecticides, fungicides and rodenticides—and synthetic fertilizers needed to maintain lawns and many plant species present serious environmental and health risks.  An alternative called “ecological landscaping” that minimizes the use of pesticides and fertilizers and maximizes the use of natural landscape elements suited to local climate and geography offers a wiser, practical alternative. 

Ecological landscaping involves preserving native vegetation, landscaping with new native plants, shrubs and trees and if desired, adding non—invasive ornamentals that complement and do not out-compete native vegetation. A complementary approach—organic landscaping—uses no synthetic pesticides, fertilizers or soil amendments; its land care practices take into account the local ecosystem, benefiting the whole web of life.  (Another definition of “organic” may confuse people:  in chemistry, any molecule with a carbon atom is called “organic.”)

Ecological and organic landscaping benefit not only the yard owner and user but the whole environment because what we put into our yards eventually ends up in the air, water and soil.  The US Geological Survey’s National Water Quality Assessment for the decade of 1991-2001 found detectable concentrations of pesticides in water more than 90 percent of the time across all streams sampled that had significant agricultural or urban land use in the watersheds.  More than 80 percent of urban streams had concentrations in water of at least one pesticide that exceeded a water-quality benchmark for aquatic life set by the Environmental Protections Agency. 

The advantages of ecological and organic landscaping are significant.  Better wildlife habitat is created, thus helping to protect biodiversity.  Native varieties usually require much less water and they can provide erosion protection, especially near bodies of water or on steep slopes.  There is less noise and air pollution from lawn mowers, weed whackers and leaf blowers when these machines are used infrequently.  Cost savings is a great benefit too, achieved through fewer inputs to the yard.  Less obvious benefits are lower health risks from pesticides, fertilizers, and gasoline fumes. 

The key principles of Ecological Landscaping are:

a)    maintain as much as possible of the pre-existing landscape, including soil, rocks and contours;

b)    integrate components with surrounding natural vegetation to rejoin native habitat;

c)    identify and remove non-native invasive plants;

d)    use native varieties of plants and ground covers that are appropriate for the soil type, moisture content, and climate conditions;

e)    use water-efficient/drought-tolerant plantings;

f)      provide plant species of varying height—grasses, flowers, shrubs, and trees—to provide food, hiding places, nesting and over-wintering sites;

g)    minimize the use of pesticides to control weeds, insects and rodents;

h)    use compost and other natural products for fertilizer and mulch.

More information:  Ecological landscaping Association website:  www.ela-ecolandscapingassn.org; MA Executive Office of Environmental Affairs booklet:  More than Just a Yard:  Ecological Landscaping Tools for Massachusetts Homeowners.  www.Mass.gov/envir/mwrc/pdf/More_Than_Just_Yard.pdf, and www.organiclandcare.net (list of accredited organic landscape professionals from the Organic Land Care Committee of CT and MA.

Michelle Portman is an environmental planner/analyst and the author/illustrator of “Compost, by Gosh! An Adventure with Vermicomposting”. 

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/environmentpage

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Crabgrass: friend or foe?

By Bruce Wenning/ Special To The Tab

 

Undoubtedly you have noticed that crabgrass has invaded your lawn and is growing very well. You may be plotting against it, investigating herbicides. Perhaps you have been working on this problem for years. Crabgrass - and a weed-free lawn - may even have become an obsession. Crabgrass seeds can lie in the soil for years. This is why crabgrass suddenly appears after you turn over an unused garden bed or you renovate your lawn in spring or summer. The seeds are there, just waiting for the right amount of sunshine, heat and moisture to germinate and make you miserable.

Crabgrasses are coarse-bladed grasses with prostrate blades that spread at right angles to attached stems, reminiscent of the angular structure of a snowflake. They are lighter in color- and do not blend in with- finer bladed perennial turfgrass species and cultivars of Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis), fine fescues (Festuca spp.) and rye (Lolium perenne). Two species of crabgrass, which can be found in the same lawn at the same time, are common in our area: large crabgrass (Digitaria sanguinalis) and smooth crabgrass (D. ischaemum).

Crabgrass is an annual; it spreads by seeds. At the first killing frost, crabgrass dies, turning brown against the green of more desirable species. However, it leaves behind in the soil seeds that will germinate the following late spring and summer, potentially filling in every available unoccupied space. Crabgrass seeds germinate every time you irrigate your lawn and after every rain. Compared with usual lawn species, crabgrass requires less water and fewer nutrients, and it spreads more efficiently in stressed areas, i.e. turf worn from foot traffic, compacted soils, dry soils, diseased and low nutrient lawns, and even areas under attack by white grubs! And because of its prostrate growth habit, crabgrass escapes the cutting action of the mower.

Fortunately, there is another way to look at this problem. Crabgrass can play a role in providing that inexpensive, green, maintenance - free lawn you have been striving for. It has the same utility as a fine home lawn. You can play on it, walk on it, complain about its appearance, not water or fertilize it and it will continue to grow with minimal care. Even if you cannot face the idea of a brown lawn after the first frost, you can still reduce the crabgrass population in your lawn without using herbicides.

Start by getting a soil test. Visit www.UMassGreenInfo.org for directions and costs. A soil test will determine the proper amount of lime to apply to correct soil pH (acidity) problems and allow you to select the right amount of organic fertilizer.

Be sure to water your lawn only one inch/week during the growing season (if there has not been sufficient rainfall); this encourages the growth of deeper roots. Lawns with deep roots have more resilience to environmental and biological stresses. Raise the mower blade height to at least two and a half inches; three is better. This will allow the grass to caste more shade on the soil below, thereby discouraging crabgrass (and other weeds) from germinating.

Throughout the growing season, remove crabgrass (and other weeds) by hand, which creates open spots where lawn grasses can spread. Then reseed your lawn between August 15-September 20, when nights are cool but the days, while still warm, are growing shorter, which inhibits weed germination and establishment. If you reseed your damaged lawn in spring or summer, the grass seed usually loses out to the quick germinating lawn weeds.

Bruce Wenning is the Environment Page Garden columnist. He is a horticulturist at the Mass. Audubon Society Habitat Wildlife Sanctuary, Belmont, and serves on the Board of the Ecological Landscaping Association.

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/environmentpage

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Yes, we'll have no bananas?

By Nick Kelley / Special To The Tab

 

Are we going to live in a world without bananas? Australia is facing that question right now.

In March 2006, Cyclone Larry destroyed 80 percent of Australia's banana plants, and it will take several years for the plants to be able to produce bananas again. Unfortunately, damaged plants are also more susceptible to disease. The price of bananas has skyrocketed, and a previously inexpensive fruit has become a luxury. Bananas that sold for $2/pound earlier this year now cost more than $7/pound. Thieves are breaking into banana plantations and running off with bushels of them. When a friend from Sydney came to visit me recently, he was desperate for a banana.

Currently Australia is considering importing bananas while their own plantations recover. Farmers fear that the entire Australian banana crop could be wiped out by the Panama disease (found in SE Asia), to which native plants have not yet been exposed. Farmers also fear that Australians will switch their eating preferences away from bananas and will not switch back when the local crop recovers. Although Australian bananas' are expected to re-grow, there is concern that increased cyclone activity could further damage the industry and make it unprofitable.

Technically, Australia allows importation of bananas. But because the government enforces a lengthy quarantine, this effectively prevents their importation. While some are pushing to shorten the quarantine period, to allow the importation of Philippine bananas, the banana growers of Australia are resisting. Australia will remain in a banana shortage for some time and Australian's are braced for the potential of life without bananas.

Bananas have long been a dietary staple in many countries, including the US. It is the most popular fruit in the world and the fourth largest agricultural crop, behind rice, wheat and maize. Besides great taste, bananas have outstanding nutritional value. An excellent natural source of potassium, bananas are also an ideal fruit for athletes, combining three natural sugars, providing both instant and sustained energy.

Wild Bananas, which are much smaller than the bananas we usually see in grocery stores, originated in SE Asia and have been domesticated for thousands of years (perhaps as far back as 8,000 BCE). The Portuguese established banana plantations in the Caribbean and imported the fruit back to Europe.

Cultivated bananas are sterile, which means they have no viable seeds, so old plants must be spliced to create new ones. That means taking one plant and creating a clone of it by placing a shoot in the ground and allowing it to grow. This creates a monoculture of genetically-identical bananas. Today banana production occurs in most tropical countries and the banana is perhaps the world's largest monoculture crop. The lack of genetic variability makes them vulnerable to being wiped out abruptly; an entire crop is at risk of crashing when a pathogen is introduced.

The Cavendish, found all over the world, is the species everyone has come to know and love. If Cavendish bananas are wiped out by a pathogen, it will not be the first time an entire species of banana has been obliterated. The Gros Michel accounted for virtually all sales of bananas until the 1920s and 1930s, when a major outbreak of Panama disease decimated the world banana crop. Growers were able to meet demand by drastically increasing the amount of land under cultivation, so even with enormous losses to disease, banana export continued. When growers went bankrupt, they shifted to a banana species with natural resistance to Panama disease. However, those Cavendish bananas remained genetically unchanged, while the Panama fungus mutated, thus ending the Cavendish's immunity to the disease.

How can the future of bananas be secured? Growers are willing to switch to another species, but they want the taste and appearance of the new strain to be similar to the Cavendish, so that it will be readily accepted on the world market. A rare banana seed has been found in Honduras and growers are attempting to breed a strain of bananas resistant to disease. This species has not done well in the marketplace because it has an apple-like after taste. Industry is taking a different approach. Large chemical companies are seeking ways to make banana plants more resistant to the Panama disease by genetically altering the banana plants directly, using gene- splicing. It remains to be seen which approach, conventional breeding or genetic engineering, will be more successful at resolving the banana crisis.

Given the recent near demise of the banana in Australia, we should be asking if other crops are vulnerable to a similar fate. Droughts, floods and other natural disasters will continue to devastate the land. This summer, heat waves destroyed crops and livestock on a wide scale here in the US. The banana scare could be a preview of things to come..

Nick Kelley, a senior at Colorado College Majoring in Environmental Science, was the Green Decade Coalition intern this summer.

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/environmentpage

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Why are we still using coal?

By Patricia Goldman/ Special To The Tab

Book Review
"Big Coal" By Jeff Goodell

When I was a child growing up in Pennsylvania in the 1940s, my father had to shovel dirty black lumps of coal into a fire in our basement furnace to heat our home. By 1950 we had switched to natural gas heat, but electricity was powering our many post-war appliances, from dishwasher to freezer to TV. I have always assumed that coal hasn't been used for ordinary energy since then.

In fact, dirty coal is powering a significant percentage of electric plants across this country, even in Massachusetts, far from Appalachian, Midwestern, and Wyoming coal mines. This electricity comes into our homes to power 21st century computers, stereos, DVD players and microwaves.

Why are we still using coal, which we know to be polluting, instead of cleaner, renewable sources of energy? That is the question answered in Jeff Goodell's fascinating new book, "Big Coal: the dirty secret behind America's energy future" ((c) 2006, Houghton Mifflin).

Goodell, a veteran journalist, spent three years researching and writing "Big Coal." It is a colorful narrative, with extensive footnotes, that takes you along on his trips down into an Appalachian coal mine, blasting the top off a Wyoming strip mine, riding on one of the mile long trains incessantly hauling coal across the country, visiting power plant managers, engineers, scientists, company executives, lobbyists and government officials.
Big Coal is a huge industry, wielding extraordinary influence in Washington and state capitols, with legions of lobbyists and millions of dollars in campaign contributions. As we worry about our dependence on overseas oil, it turns out that the biggest fossil fuel reserves in the world (25 percent of the world's recoverable reserves) are buried within the U.S. As of 2005, more than 120 new coal powered energy plants were planned or under construction in the U.S. The coal industry wins huge government subsidies, succeeds in choking environmental regulations, while its PR spinmasters promote the message that coal is safe and cheap.

Since the passage of the 1970 Clean Air Act, emissions per unit of energy from American coal plants have dropped, but the total "volume of pollution released by coal plants remains staggering." Coal plants are responsible for nearly 40 percent of U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide (the main greenhouse gas), plus sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, particulates, and some sixty varieties of what the EPA terms 'hazardous air pollutants', including toxins such as lead, chromium, arsenic and mercury" - and solid waste equal to three times as much as all municipal garbage in the country, laced with heavy metals. The coal-powered electricity industry was born in 1882, when Thomas Edison invented a dynamo in lower Manhattan that heated coal in four big boilers and used the steam to activate generators that produced enough current to light up 1200 lamps in the neighborhood. Black smoke and soot poured into the air and nearby residents immediately began to complain.
Edison realized that to capitalize financially on producing electric power, he had to locate the dirty dynamos out of sight and out of mind. Instead of simply selling the dynamos, he wanted to build the power plants, lay the wires, and make money by selling the electric current. Edison put Samuel Insull in charge of moving Edison Electric's operation to Schenectady, New York. Later, it became General Electric.

Insull moved on to take over Chicago Edison. He understood that "power plants are expensive to build but comparatively cheap to run." He convinced fellow power industry executives not to waste money building duplicate power plants. He argued that power companies would do better as monopolies regulated by the state. With Chicago's corrupt political machine at the time, there was little interference from regulators.Insull's strategy for growth (still pursued today) was to keep prices low, encourage consumption, and "promote electricity as clean and sanitary: no more soot from the coal stove!" He and Edison created a nation of "electricity junkies."

As the power companies grew into multi-state empires, reformers called for public ownership. Instead, Congress passed the 1935 Public Utility Holding Company Act, which broke up the huge companies and forbade competition among them. The Act established "cost-plus pricing", which guaranteed utilities a fixed return on their investments. The more electricity is used, the more the utilities earn. The utilities were required to pass 100 percent of any efficiency gains on to customers, so there was no incentive for them to spend money to develop more efficient and cleaner energy. The coal companies, the railroads hauling the coal and the power plants liked the income they were producing the old way.

Goodell points out that the cheap "cost" to customers does not include "the social, environmental and public health costs of burning dirty coal... the devastated mountains of West Virginia, the heart attacks and asthma caused by air pollution, the pumping of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere" or the dead coal miners. These costs are "all offloaded onto the public." According to the ten-year ExterneE study, if the market accurately reflected these true costs, "old coal burners would be shut down because the price of the power they generated would be too high for the market to bear."

Recent events have favored Big Coal. Concerned that, if elected, Al Gore would work to regulate pollutants, Big Coal threw its money behind George W. Bush, who won and immediately began staffing regulatory agencies with former coal industry executives and lobbyists. The lobbyists have cynically worked to portray global warming as theory rather than fact. Big Coal has failed to pursue technologies to make coal energy cleaner and more efficient, such as coal liquefaction and sequestering CO2 underground.

Says Goodell, "The key debate today is not whether pollution from coal plants kills people. It indisputably does..." The question is, "Are we willing to put the earth's climate at risk to save ten bucks on our utility bills?"... Goodell also asks, "What can I do to lighten the load?...I simply believe that it's within our grasp to figure out less destructive ways to create and consume the energy we need."

Patricia Goldman was Executive Director of the Asthma & Allergy Foundation of America/New England Chapter, until she retired in 2004. She was also a contributing editor for the Newton Times.

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/environmentpage

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Keeping the fish in the Charles

By Anna Eleria and Rebecca Scibek/ Special To The Tab

 

Not long ago, fishing in the Charles River reaped little reward due to potential health risks and few fish. Today it has become safer, more popular, and more enjoyable with many fishermen casting their lines off the docks, bridges and banks of the Charles. Restored fishing in the Charles can be attributed to efforts by organizations such as ours to improve water quality and fish passage at dams in the lower river reaches.

CRWA, MA Division of Marine Fisheries and the US Fish and Wildlife Service are currently involved in a multi-year collaborative effort to restore the American shad population in the Charles and to create a local sport fishery. The Charles River American shad restoration program, which will span the next three to six years, involves stocking juvenile shad fry in the Lakes District area of the Charles in Newton and Waltham each year from late June to mid-July.

The first step of the American Shad restoration program is to obtain brood stock - adult shad - from the Merrimack River, where the shad population has rebounded in recent years. The brood stock will be transported and spawned at FWS hatchery where the larvae of the adults will be raised for seven to ten days, and then marked prior to their release so their return to the Charles River can be tracked. CRWA's work will involve sampling juvenile fish to estimate fish survival and establish recruitment indices, and assessing the river's chemistry to determine if river habitat conditions are suitable for the young fish.

This year, the project's first, more than 1.8 million shad fry were released in Waltham during the weeks of July 9 and July 16, following successful spawning at the hatcheries. The fry will spend several months in the Charles growing, feeding, and slowly swimming downstream before reaching the mouth of the river, entering Boston Harbor, and moving out into the Atlantic Ocean where they will spend most of their adult lives. CRWA is monitoring water quality twice a week, through September, downstream from the release site in the Waltham, Newton and Watertown areas, to help determine habitat conditions. Following water quality monitoring starting in late September and continuing through the fall, DMF and CRWA will sample the juvenile shad. This process will be repeated for the next few years, with shad fry being released each summer. Beginning in 2009, three to four years after their release, the shad will begin to return to the river to spawn, and they will be identified and tracked by the project coordinators.

One of the largest members of the herring family, American Shad can reach up to 30 inches in length with an average weight of 7-8 pounds. The shad is one of five species of anadromous fish found in the river - fish that are born in freshwater, spend the majority of their lives in the ocean, and return to their native freshwater to spawn in the late spring.

Dating back to the early 1600s, the Charles River supported an abundant population of American shad. Despite historical abundance, the shad population in the Charles was nearly wiped out because of the construction of dams and culverts and the degradation of the river's water quality and flow. Today, only small numbers of adult shad are observed in the river each year despite the fact that the Charles River should support a viable shad population of 30,000 adults based on an estimate by DMF, which takes into consideration historical records of fish in the Basin and the community appropriate for a natural river in southern New England.

Successful repopulation of American shad may involve addressing obstacles to their viability in the Charles including predation by birds, unsuitable flow, poor downriver passage, availability of forage species, such as zooplankton, and habitat alterations. If the shad restoration program succeeds, beginning in 2009 adult shad will come back to the Charles and start a new generation of life.

Anna Eleria is the CRWA Project Manager, and Rebecca Scibek is the CRWA Office & Publications Manager.

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/environmentpage

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Energy Use Here and In Germany

By Gilbert Woolley / Special To The Tab

 

On a recent visit to Germany and Austria I tried to compare typical comments on and response to environmental issues in these countries. Each day I skimmed through a German language newspaper to look for environmental news. One notable difference was that I saw no mention of "solutions" for dependence on imported fuels and no complaints about gasoline prices, which are roughly twice as high as in the US. The explanation for cost tolerance is that gasoline has never been cheap in Germany (and other industrial countries of Western Europe).

Until the discovery of North Sea Oil in the 1960s, these countries were almost totally dependent on far away places (including the US) across thousands of miles of ocean, In the twenties and thirties it was recognized that in case of war, these oceans would be patrolled by enemy ships, including submarines. High taxes were imposed, not only to raise revenue, but also to decrease usage, and dependence on imports. As a result, the public never came to regard cheap gasoline as a "right" and most people drove less, and in smaller cars or on motorcycles, than in the US. Raising taxes is the sure way to reduce dependence on foreign oil but is politically difficult in the US.

Germany has well over 11,000 wind turbines, generating more electricity by wind than any other country and, as we traveled between Berlin and Munich, we saw many wind turbines. This area is not ideal for wind and some turbines were not turning, presumably because of insufficient velocity. Germany's only significant domestic source of fossil fuel is coal and the country is trying to meet its commitment to the Kyoto Protocol to reduce CO2. Wind generation increased by 44 percent last year.

Hotels in Berlin and Munich, which used key cards as room keys, also used them to conserve electricity. To turn on the lights and air conditioner in the room, the card must be placed in a reader by the door. When leaving the room, retrieving the key turns off the lights and air conditioner. The tank on the toilet had two levers, a small flush and a full flush. Using the small flush saves not only water but also the electricity used to drive the water and wastewater pumps.

Dependence on the automobile is also reduced by efficient and frequent public transit - subways, streetcars and buses. The most noticeable difference between Berlin, Munich and Vienna and American cities, however, was that bicycle paths were provided on all major, and some secondary streets. Imagine cycling down the "Unter den Linden", Berlin's Fifth Avenue. These cycle paths are clearly marked by the contrasting color of paving and are part of the sidewalks. This means that cyclists are not threatened by powered vehicles as is the case when cycle paths are simply painted lines dedicating a couple of feet of the carriageway to bicycles. And these paths are used by young and old, even by middle-aged ladies out shopping. Most businesses, including department stores, have bicycle racks near the entrances. In busy city streets it has been demonstrated over and over again that the bicycle is the fastest method of travel but most people are afraid to cycle in traffic. The German cyclists confidently asserted their right to use these paths and often didn't warn pedestrians who had strayed on to them. This was a hazard to some of our (American) party who often ignored the cycle path markings.

None of these things is going to "solve" the energy problem or eliminate Global Warming. Neither is drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge nor in the coastal zone. The excessive use of energy did not happen suddenly, but built up over most of the twentieth century, and reducing energy use will also take time and require hundreds of millions of people to take simple actions to reduce energy use, like driving less and driving smaller cars, turning the thermostat up in summer and down in winter and adding insulation to their homes. It is not politically popular to say so, but the German, and European, example suggests that the "market" - that is higher prices - may be the most effective tool to reduce demand. One thing that will not reduce gasoline consumption is that additional lanes are being added to the Autobahn we were driving along. Experience in the US is that increasing the capacity of highways results in diversion of travelers from public transportation to private automobiles.

The German word for the Environment is "die Umwelt," literally the world around us. This seems to me to be less abstract and more "user friendly".

Gilbert Woolley is a retired engineer and longtime member of the Sierra Club.

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Green revolution in big biz

By Nick Kelley / Special To The Tab

 

Multi-billion dollar companies can have a huge impact, both positively and negatively, on the environment. Even minor changes in business models and practices can dramatically effect how a company interacts with the larger world.

There is a common misconception that it is too expensive in a highly competitive world market for large corporations to focus on reducing their impact on the environment.

Concern about the environment is not usually viewed by businesses as in the best interests of shareholders, because it is assumed not to be profitable. However, it is possible to make huge profits while having an environmental conscience. In fact, it is more profitable over the long term and therefore in the shareholders best interests, to act "environmentally friendly". Our economic system often rewards innovation in this way.

DuPont de Nemours is one company that has changed from being one of the worst polluters to being a leader in progressive environmental thinking. DuPont started up over 200 years ago and has been one of the largest chemical developers ever since. It has created many products which most people use in their everyday lives. Some of its most famous creations are nylon, Teflon, Kevlar and Chlorofluorocarbons. CFC's, which were revolutionary when they were developed in the 1930's, were used in air conditioners and refrigerators, but they turned out to be extremely destructive to the ozone layer, with long-lasting and persistent effects on the entire planet.

DuPont is taking a radical approach compared to its competitors. One of its business goals is to create sustainable growth, that is, economic growth that attempts to balance both the future and present needs of a company. DuPont is reviving its tarnished image by reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 65 percent of their 1990 levels by the year 2010. The company has already exceeded that goal by reducing emissions by 68 percent. Also, DuPont intends to hold its energy use flat at the 1990 baseline level.

DuPont has displayed progressive thinking in part to amend for past misdeeds. It reached many of its environmental goals rapidly because, having polluted so horrendously for so many years, it was forced to pay enormous legal fees and heavy fines for environmental cleanup efforts. The company realized that it would be much cheaper over time to spend money to reduce pollution than to pay for the resulting lawsuits, inevitable penalties and cleanup projects. Chad Holiday, Chairman and CEO of DuPont, estimates that "In working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we achieved more than $2 billion in avoided costs due to energy conservation activities". Obviously it makes business sense to be environmentally responsible.

DuPont is not alone in its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. General Electric, the second biggest company in the world, has also pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. BP, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, IBM and many other major corporations have pledged to reduce greenhouse emissions. However, compared to DuPont, other companies' efforts, while vital, are less impressive.

With a net income of $1.89 billion in 2005, DuPont has proven that large profits and environmental responsibility are not mutually exclusive, and that 'top down' change is possible in our capitalistic economy.

Improving the environmental practices of one large, multi-billion dollar corporation has direct benefits worldwide. And when DuPont adopts sustainable growth principles that encourages other companies to follow its example.

All large corporations will need to change their business policies and practices in order to solve many of serious environmental problems facing our country and the world, but they are not going to do this without outside pressure. The efforts of individuals and grassroots campaigns to reform corporations should never be underestimated. If it were not for the work of watchdog groups, DuPont would never have cleaned up its act, because no one would be demanding that they do it. Citizens, through their governments and non-profit organizations, have to take the initiative to make sure this happens.

The example set by DuPont may be hard for smaller companies to follow. DuPont is well-established and has the luxury of thinking long term, because it knows that it will be around to reap the benefits from making the many changes involved in transitioning to being a sustainable company. Their dramatic turnaround in a short time span makes them a tough act to follow.

Currently no enforcement or regulatory body requires businesses to meet most environmental goals. Until we have such regulation, companies could just espouse lofty goals with little intention of meeting them. We not only need carrots, we also need sticks.

Nick Kelley, a senior at Colorado College Majoring in Environmental Science, is the Green Decade Coalition intern this summer, while he is also working for MWRA. He lives in Brookline.

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Have Your Lobster and Eat It, Too

By Trevor Corson / Special To The Tab

 

Lobster love is going mainstream: Executives at Whole Foods Market, the largest purveyor of natural and organic foods in the nation, have reevaluated the entire process of lobster acquisition, transport and sale. The company has announced that it will stop selling live lobsters because it cannot ensure that the animals are being treated with compassion.

For tens of thousands of years we knew, firsthand, where our food came from. During the past century, 99.9 percent of that experience has vanished. Lobster is one of the few foods that most Americans can still purchase alive and kicking. Apart from hunting and fishing, it is the last link between our kitchens and the great outdoors.

I belong to a new demographic called ethical eaters. We want our food to have been happy in death. At the same time, we want it so fresh and unprocessed that it still tastes, and nourishes us, like it is full of life. That's why I love buying live lobster. I am happy knowing that the lobster has lived at least six or seven years in the ocean. Most other meat at the store comes from a domesticated animal, and fish increasingly come from farms. Lobster is one of the last true free-range meats.

Some people feel that the entire process of capturing, storing, transporting and cooking lobsters cannot possibly be accomplished in a humane fashion - period.

The fact is that trapping lobsters is as humane as fishing gets. The animals crawl into a wire cage, eat a free lunch and sit around for a while. We know from video studies that many of the lobsters then climb right back out of the trap. We also know from scientific surveys that most lobstermen along the rocky coast from Gloucester to Downeast Maine release a lot of their lobsters back into the ocean - young ones, old ones and ones with eggs - and that those animals continue to thrive and repopulate coastal waters, despite their elevator rides to the surface and their swims back to the bottom. Lobster transport is similarly civilized. Because consumers have traditionally demanded that lobsters be kept alive, distributors already have a strong incentive to treat the animals with care. Nova Scotia-based Clearwater Seafoods, one of the top lobster distributors in North America, has constructed elaborate seawater condominiums at its three plants, tended by the company's own biologists, so that lobsters can rest in cool, stress-free solitude and regain energy before their trek to the consumer.

And storage? It is true that adult lobsters dislike spending much time together in close quarters - unless, of course, a male and female have completed their courtship dances and decide to move in together to mate. But lobsters communicate by smell instead of sound, and studies at the Marine Biological Laboratory on Cape Cod suggest that in crowded conditions, the lobsters' noses get desensitized to stimulation and they calm down and stop bothering one another. The tanks are also kept cold; the lobsters adapt by slowing their metabolism, reducing activity and lowering their food intake, just as they do in the wild, which further reduces stress.

That leaves cooking. It's the thornier problem, and what most upsets people. Unlike fish, [lobsters] can survive out of water long enough to make it to the kitchen still kicking.

In England, scientists have invented a new machine designed to kill lobsters with minimum pain prior to cooking. It is called the CrustaStun, and went into service in the United Kingdom last year. It comes in two sizes. The big one looks something like those zappers they put your suitcase in at the airport. Lobsters ride a conveyor belt into a 110-volt jolt that electrocutes them. The small version looks like a stainless-steel lobster coffin, and executes one animal at a time. Both get a humane stamp of approval.

Shucks Maine Lobster, run by Maine entrepreneur John Hathaway, is one of several companies employing a different sort of device: an 80,000-pound, 16-foot-tall machine that uses technology adapted from U.S. Army research. Hathaway loads a wide vertical cylinder with 200 pounds of live lobster at a time. A steel oval framework slides into place over the cylinder. He presses a button, massive pumps whir, and water inside the cylinder is compressed to a pressure more than five times that of the deepest ocean trenches. Without any heat, the lobsters die and their meat separates from the shell. The lobsters are then hand shucked, vacuum sealed, and the packages re-pressurized to kill pathogens. The result: fresh, raw lobster meat with a refrigerated shelf life of up to 30 days and no additives or preservatives - similar to chicken. Chefs love the product, and supermarkets are currently considering it for retail sale. Whether this system will get a humane stamp of approval remains to be seen.

I welcome the end of boiling lobsters alive. But I also fear the impending loss of live lobster, and with it the end of a beloved New England tradition. I do not want to hand over my last chance to make moral choices about my dinner to automated executioners. So for now, I will continue to do what I have always done. I will put the live lobster on ice for 15 minutes to slow its metabolism and neural activity. Then I will give thanks to the lobster and thrust the point of my knife between its legs and cut down through the head, splitting the front half of its body. The animal will die instantly, and I can boil it without causing further pain. This method, while not for the squeamish, does get a humane stamp of approval.

Adapted from Boiling Point, Boston Magazine, July 13, 2006, with permission

Trevor Corson is the author of "The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fishermen and Scientists Are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean" (HarperCollins, June 2004). He has posted instructions on the humane way to kill lobsters at secretlifeoflobsters.com.

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