Doesn't common sense suggest that we cannot grow forever?

After helping to persuade the House of Representatives to pass a bill to protect our national parks from mining pollution we're asking the Senate to do the same. But the mining industry is mounting a powerful lobbying effort. You can help protect the Grand Canyon and other national parks from toxic mining waste by signing our petition.

[ Home - Environment America ]

Must remember to read this in depth later...

Volkswagen will unveil a diesel-electric hybrid version of their Golf hatchback (known as the Rabbit in North-America) at the Geneva Motor Show. The information that has filtered out so far is promising: Fuel economy of 83.1 mpg imperial, 69.9 mpg US. Only 89 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer (for comparison, the Toyota Prius hybrid emits 104 g/km).

[  Volkswagen to Introduce 70 mpg Diesel-Electric Hybrid Golf : TreeHugger ]

Honda has announced plans for a diesel hybrid too. The race is on!

homestarrunner.com's Strong Bad and the Environment:

[ Lappy 486 ]

A month after the new Rockville City Council took office, a new majority voted 3-2 on Monday to adopt a weekly refuse collection schedule and scrap the twice-weekly pickups maintained by their predecessors.

«snip»

Marcuccio, who participated in the pilot program, echoed other residents’ objections to weekly service. The trash in her weekly receptacle "stinks to high heaven" in the summertime, she said during the council meeting.

"Just to go to once a week is not lowering the price," she added. "I hope people understand that. It’s simply lowering the rate the price will rise."

The change in frequency is projected by staff to save the city more than $600,000 in fiscal year 2009 and more than $850,000 the following budget cycle. Those savings reflect personnel and equipment efficiencies, but do not mean the $32.70 monthly rate is going to decline.

[ Rockville trash vote overturned ]

Since this appeared to be one of the largest factors in the recent election, the message seems to be heard loud and clear. What I find disappointing is Marcuccio's lack of understanding of the complete issue. It's not all about the money. Reduced numbers of trash collections should encourage all of us to think twice about what we throw away, how we throw it away, and how we can improve our waste management. Personally I have been happy as a lark with the Rockville paper recycling. At first I assumed it was like many places and all I could recycle was newspapers, but I read the recycling page more carefully and what constitutes "Mixed Paper":

• Cardboard/cardboard boxes (Corrugated cardboard)
• Magazines, catalogs, telephone book, computer paper, paperback books, unwanted mail
• Newspapers (including inserts)
• Paper (computer and office and other clean and dry paper)

This now includes enough paper materials that I have about 2 bags every 3 weeks of stuff that would usually just get land-filled. Sure I would prefer to keep my fees down, but more importantly I would like to keep Rockville's land fills empty. Oh, and remember Rockville, recycling is mandatory not optional.

But such a great idea. It would take a ton of people to get on board with this, and lots of planning over many years, but the potential is well worth it, if not just to stop us from lugging transformers around for each of our devices.

1. Develop a universal standard around 12 volt dc for all electronics.
2. Develop a standard wall plug or distribution system for 12 volt DC.
3. Provide a secondary wiring system in all new houses at 12V DC.
4. Revise our current wiring codes to reduce the number of 110V outlets and circuits required.

[ Big Steps In Building: Change Our Wiring to 12 Volt DC (TreeHugger) ]

Here's a great place to start:

With moderating your consumption. You can dramatically reduce the size of your footstep on the planet just by making smarter choices in the things you buy and the amount your household uses. It's not something you have to do all at once: just commit to steady, incremental change. Small steps become big journeys over time.

[ Lighter Footstep - The Dirty Dozen: 12 Products You Should Avoid ]

Over the past couple of years Yaty and I have shifted much of our purchasing in the direction highlighted in this article, and none of it has been difficult.

Plastic-wise this article should have pointed out that you need to see what plastic is recycled in your area, for example #5 isn't shown to leech BPA's and isn't Styrofoam (#6 PS) but in our area #5 isn't recycled so we avoid it. Odd that #1 isn't on their list when it seems to be the most easily recycled and hasn't shown any BPA leeching, as far as my research has indicated...

It occurred to me recently to check what the dryer sheets were made of, now I know and it's something else to no longer consume. I think I prefer the Mrs Meyer's liquid fabric softener anyway, much "yummier" flavors...

Plastic Utensils, oddly enough, are tough to avoid. There don't seem to be any other options when it comes to disposable utensils except for chop sticks, and non-Asian restaurants don't tend to have chop sticks. I've tried to figure out how to get take out without utensils, napkins, sauces I won't use, etc. but they tend to be in a groove where each bag gets the same thing, and they'll just throw it in there without thinking.

Cleaning-wise I just switched to vinegar (props to Liam and Holli) with a touch of oil so it's not so vinegar-stinky, and in some cases that even works better than the chemical cleaners.

Maybe it all seems a bit extreme, but it all comes down to sustainability (unless you don't care about your grandchildren or grand-nieces and grand-nephews...)

If you are uncertain of the types of plastic in your toddler's drinkware, check the bottom of the cup, which may state it as a number. 1, 2, 4, and 5 are OK, but 3 and 6 are not, and 7 usually is not, either. If the number is not specified, you can call the company or simply replace unaccounted-for plastics with known safe alternatives.

[ Z Recommends: Sippy Cup Showdown: Safer, BPA-Free Drinkware For Toddlers ]

Toddler's drinkware? How about everyone's everything? Babies and toddlers are known to lick things, and who can keep track of kids 24/7? I need to commit 3, 6, and 7 to memory and make sure I avoid these newly found to be poisonous (and hormonal) plastics. I see aluminium is an alternative, but I thought that could cause alzheimers...

“If you could fast-forward 10,000 years and do an archaeological dig…you’d find a little line of plastic,” he told The Seattle Times last April. “What happened to those people? Well, they ate their own plastic and disrupted their genetic structure and weren’t able to reproduce. They didn’t last very long because they killed themselves."

[ Best Life Magazine: Travel & Leisure: Our oceans are turning into plastic...are we? ]

Great tip, Death Bringer!

Treehugger often says that cities are the most sustainable way to live. The converse is that suburban sprawl is probably the worst.

[ Ten Things Wrong With Sprawl (TreeHugger) ]

Who knew my mad ravings were good arguments?

BASF unveiled this impressive "Near-Zero Energy Home" recently. The home has three systems (solar, air conditioning, building envelope) integrated together to make it 80% more efficient than a typical home.

[ BASF Goes Platinum With "Near-Zero Energy Home" (TreeHugger) ]

Green housing that is super cute!

And we're not talking about the size of the universe, the other great debate:

Over the last 20 years a great debate has raged over the issue of which diaper system has the least impact on the environment. Cloth or disposable. While it seems obvious that 18-20 billion disposables made with plastic sitting in landfill creates by far the most impact, in fact, the results of the studies comparing diapers you wash and reuse, and ones you throw away, vary depending on the study and who funded it. Into the fray comes a third player. gDiapers. The flushable option. Minimal washing and no garbage.

[ gDiapers - The Great Debate ]

Yaty and I were planning on doing the proper green thing and using cloth, low and behold there is another option, and according to the website's propaganda, it's better than cloth! Of course that's if you choose your cloth option poorly. I've ordered the starter kit and 160 more inserts, so we should have enough experience by the time we get to medium sized diapers to see if we'll switch to cloth at that point, or continue with flushables.

Grossberg brings up a good question:

So now that the old Pentium II box is my third-string computer, what should I do with it?

[ What To Do With Old Computers? : Joe Grossberg ]

In the DC area you can have Turtle Wings do the dirty work for you, and rest assured that you aren't polluting the environment.

Over 40 million electronic pieces become obsolete every year. These pieces are filled with materials that are hazardous to the environment such as lead, cadmium, lead oxide, barium and mercury.

We Pick Up and Recycle Electronics

• Pickup and removal of all unwanted electronic equipment
• Security cleansing and identity theft protection
• Certified data destruction
• Certification of recycling and good citizenship
• Excess inventory programs

• computers
• monitors
• printers / copiers
• mainframes / hubs

• cell phones / telecom
• fax machines / plotters
• stereos / microwaves
• battery back-up units, etc.

The site says that there is a nominal charge, but what price can we put on the Earth?

386 to go.

Great Falls Park, a site that is part of the George Washington Memorial Parkway, is an 800 acre park located along the Potomac River 14 miles upriver from Washington D.C. The park is known for two things, its scenic beauty at the head of Potomac River fall line and the historic Patowmack Canal.

[ Great Falls Park (National Park Service) ]

I found an interesting article that was posted last year on USA Today, the author attempted a real world comparison of VW's diesel technology vs. Toyota's hybrid technology:

Prius is comfortable, a festival of technology and unquestionably cleaner-burning than the VW can be today with only high-sulfur diesel fuel available. But the real-world mileage of pleasant-driving Jetta was better than that of Prius, and diesel fuel typically was 16% to 20% cheaper than unleaded gas.

Jetta lived up to its one-tank billing. Prius did not.

And on top of that the only drawback that he seemed to find vis à vie the VW was environmental impact:

While the fuel price advantage on this trip goes to the diesel, the environmental advantage goes to the hybrid. The Jetta spews out six times more sulfur particulates than Prius, which can run almost emission-free when using low-sulfur gasoline available in California but almost nowhere else. Federal regulations require phasing in of low-sulfur gas and diesel the next few years, which will improve the emission performance of both gas and diesel vehicles.

[ USATODAY.com ]

Since it's been over a year from the article being written, gas prices have gone through the roof, federal guidelines about the amount of sulfur in diesel have begun to go into affect, and bio-diesel is much more prevalent than ever.

Yaty and I went to the Aquarium on our last trip to California, and I picked up a few Seafood Watch wallet cards:

A program of Monterey Bay Aquarium designed to raise consumer awareness about the importance of buying seafood from sustainable sources. We recommend which seafood to buy or avoid, helping consumers to become advocates for environmentally friendly seafood. We're also partners of the Seafood Choices Alliance where, along with other seafood awareness campaigns, we provide seafood purveyors with recommendations on seafood choices.

[ Monterey Bay Aquarium: About the Seafood Watch Program ]

The display they made in conjunction with this was quite informative. For example I figured the best salmon was farm-raised because it wouldn't impact the wild salmon. In fact it's quite the opposite. Farm-raised salmon actually damages the wild populations.

The more you know... and of course, Knowing is half the battle...

Earth Day just isn't what it used to be. Has someone come up with a 2nd Earth so that we can continue to trash this one? I think not.

The 35th anniversary of Earth Day is a sobering occasion. On previous anniversaries we have hailed this "new awakening" as millions around the world suddenly rose up and pledged their support for a new campaign to save the natural environment.

[ EARTH DAY ANNIVERSARY 2005 — A WAKE UP CALL ]

Perhaps if we all cared just a bit more, and we checked up on our representatives, and voted out the dead beats, we'd all have a better world to live in.

I've just checked, and in Virginia this coming Friday is Arbor day. I think I'll make an effort to plant a tree. Though I can't plant one in my apartment...

If only Yaty was here, and I wasn't so sick, I'm sure I'd try and catch part of this:

Once again this year we at the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital have embarked on the exciting journey of presenting a diverse and engaging array of films from around the globe to challenge and broaden our audiences’ perception and understanding of the complex world that surrounds us.

[ DC Environmental Film Festival ]

Think I'll just go hug a tree instead.

Apparently VW was pooh-poohing hybrids until a few more details came to light, and now they've come up with a Golf concept car:

The diesel-HEV could potentially deliver up to 10 to 15 percent better fuel economy than a comparable gasoline-electric powertrain, stated Matthias Rabe, director of research for the VW Group. And what about performance? Zero to 100 km/h (0-62.5 mph) needs a mere 11.0 seconds while a top speed of approximately 196 km/h (122 mph) is attainable. The Golf ECO.Power is equipped with a stop-start function, similar to all current production hybrids, and achieves a thrifty 3.8 liter per 100 km fuel economy average.

[ Canadian automotive network ]

Sounds like the exact car that I want...