Unique opportunity in Minnesota

A chance to stop the dirtiest oil

Minnesotans should work to halt a pipeline that would expand the market for tar sands extraction.

By NELLIS KENNEDY and WINONA LADUKE

Say it was a moment in history, and you could do something to stop the ecologically most destructive project on the face of the earth. Would you raise your voice or just wave it on?

Minnesota has that opportunity, and many Ojibwe tribal members are raising their voices to do the right thing.

That project -- the Canadian Tar Sands -- is devastating land, water and people in the north who rely on the land for their food. Land and water are poisoned. Rare cancers are becoming commonplace in small Dene, Cree and Metis communities, and the earth is being scraped down hundreds of feet to create oil for an American market. It is the most inefficient energy equation imaginable, and the most destructive.

An area the size of Lake Superior is slated for strip mining for tar sands. Canada and the province of Alberta and Canada have leased more than 65,000 square kilometers of land for tar sands development. Environmental regulations in Alberta are lax. Tar sands production is licensed to use more water than Alberta's two major cities -- Calgary and Edmonton -- combined. That water is turned into poison, laced with chemical sludge. Daily, tar sands producers burn 600 million cubic feet of natural gas to produce tar sands oil, enough natural gas to heat 3 million homes. The carbon emissions for the project surpass those of 97 nations in the world combined.

This month, hundreds said "no." Leech Lake Tribal citizens bravely gathered in protest to speak to the tribal council about a decision that will affect their lands. Unfortunately, the tribal council signed an agreement to allow a pipeline to cross tribal lands and transport oil to Superior, Wis., but elders in the community continue to fight its construction.

The pipeline, if completed, will carry the world's dirtiest oil from Alberta. Oil companies use up to five barrels of water to produce one barrel of oil, but the process also creates two barrels of toxic waste. Not to mention that the project is producing greenhouse gases while also destroying the boreal forest, part of the world's most important storehouse of climate regulating carbon and oxygen.

The tar sands project is deforesting the countryside and releasing an average of 11 million liters of contaminated water into the environment every day. A pipeline across northern Minnesota will not only allow for the expansion of the tar sands project into American markets, it will threaten our own forests and groundwater by exposing them to potential spills and deforestation.

Tar sands oil is so evil that all 43 First Nations Chiefs in Alberta have sought to place a moratorium on the project. Opponents aptly call the project "Mordor," a tribute to Tolkien's land of death.

Now they want to move Mordor south.

Transporting oil is not safe for Minnesota or the Leech Lake people.

Last week's signing was not without protest, but the council felt the economic burdens of tribal debt were too great to decline such an offer. Hundreds of Leech Lake citizens continued to protest the contract by seeking a referendum but were unable to successfully bring the vote back to the people. Today, these same citizens are looking for alternative measures that might be taken to help stop the construction of a pipeline.

Minnesotans have a unique opportunity to stop the transport to market of the most destructive oil project in the world. A project that would not pass a federal environmental impact statement in Minnesota should not be allowed to sell to our markets -- or we have simply exported our environmental destruction. Minnesota's leaders, tribal leaders, private landowners and the Obama administration must stop the project and its pipelines to market. We have a chance to raise our voices and say no.

Nellis Kennedy, a member of the Navajo Nation, is a national campaign associate with Honor the Earth. Winona LaDuke is Honor the Earth's executive director, a White Earth enrollee, an author and twice a vice presidential candidate with Ralph Nader on the Green Party ticket.

Source

Reverend Billy's Ten Commandments on Buy Nothing Day

THOU SHALT

1) Forgive people, yourself and everybody else. We all shop too much.

2) Know your Devil. Shoppers are only dancing in the land of ten thousand ads. Consumerism is the system. Corporations are the agents of the system.

3) Respect the micro-gesture. Magicalize the foreground. Fore-go the plastic bag and grab that bare banana– Amen!

4) Practice asking for Sweat-free, Fairly-traded products. That's the rude that's cool.

5) Buy less and give more. Giving is forceful, the beginning of fantastic new economies.

6) Buy local and think global. Love Your Neighbor (buy at independent shops) and Love The Earth (walk to, bike to, mass transit to – the things you need.)

7) Citizens can buy or not buy, produce or not produce. We can change to a sustainable personal economy. Then corporations and governments will change.

8) Envision the history of a product on a shelf. Workers and the earth made that thing. Resisting Consumerism is an act of imagination.

9) Complexify. Don't be so easy to figure out. Consumers tend to regularize. Shopping at big boxes and chains makes us all the same. Viva la difference!

10) Respect the heroes of the resistance. A small band of neighborhood-defenders who staved off a super mall with years of protests? Beautiful.


It's our turn now.
CHANGE-A-LUJAH

Farheen Hakeem's Political Courage

Voters in south Minneapolis district have the right to know where their candidates stand on the issues. Only Farheen Hakeem has the audacity to stand up for what she believes in and how she will fight for her constituents. This is taken from her Political Courage Test at VoteSmart.org:

Abortion Issues

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding abortion.
	a) Abortions should always be illegal.
X	b) Abortions should always be legal.
	c) Abortions should be legal only within the first trimester of pregnancy.
	d) Abortions should be legal when the pregnancy resulted from incest or rape.
	e) Abortions should be legal when the life of the woman is endangered.
	f) Abortions should be subject to a mandatory waiting period.
	g) Require clinics to give parental notification before performing abortions on minors.
	h) Other or expanded principles

Budget and Tax Issues

State Budget: Indicate what state funding levels (#1-6) you support for the following general categories. Select one level per category, you can use a number more than once.
Slightly Increase	a) Education (Higher)
Greatly Increase	b) Education (K-12)
Maintain Status	c) Emergency preparedness
Greatly Increase	d) Environment
Maintain Status	e) Health care
Slightly Decrease	f) Law enforcement
Maintain Status	g) Transportation and highway infrastructure
Greatly Increase	h) Welfare
Greatly Increase	i) Other or expanded categories
For Health care, I would like to join with other legislators to bring Single Payer Universal Health care to Minnesota.
State Taxes: Indicate what state tax levels (#1-6) you support for the following general categories. Select one level per category, you can use a number more than once.
Greatly Increase	a) Alcohol taxes
Slightly Increase	b) Cigarette taxes
Greatly Increase	c) Corporate taxes
Slightly Increase	d) Gasoline taxes
Maintain Status	e) Income taxes (incomes below $75,000)
Slightly Increase	f) Income taxes (incomes above $75,000)
Greatly Decrease	g) Property taxes
Maintain Status	h) Sales taxes
Slightly Increase	i) Vehicle taxes
	j) Other or expanded categories
Undecided	1) Should state sales taxes be extended to Internet sales?
Yes	2) Should accounts such as a "rainy day" fund be used to balance the state budget?
No	3) Should fee increases be used to balance the state budget?
	4) Other or expanded principles

Campaign Finance and Government Reform Issues

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding campaign finance and government reform.
Yes	a) Do you support limiting the number of terms for Minnesota governors?
Yes	b) Do you support limiting the number of terms for Minnesota state senators and representatives?
c) Do you support limiting the following types of contributions to state legislative candidates?
Yes	1) Individual
Yes	2) PAC
Yes	3) Corporate
Yes	4) Political Parties
Yes	d) Do you support requiring full and timely disclosure of campaign finance information?
Yes	e) Do you support imposing spending limits on state-level political campaigns?
No	f) Should Minnesota participate in the federal REAL ID program?
Yes	g) Should Minnesota allow homeowners whose mortgage is in foreclosure a one-year deferment on their primary residence?
h) Other or expanded principles
No Answer

Crime Issues

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding crime.
	a) Increase state funds for construction of state prisons and hiring of additional prison staff.
	b) Establish the death penalty in Minnesota.
X	c) Support programs to provide prison inmates with vocational and job-related skills and job-placement assistance when released.
X	d) Implement penalties other than incarceration for certain non-violent offenders.
X	e) Decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana.
	f) Minors accused of a violent crime should be prosecuted as adults.
	g) Support state and local law enforcement officials enforcing federal immigration laws.
X	h) Support hate crime legislation.
	i) Other or expanded principles

Education Issues

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding education.
X	a) Support state funding of universal pre-K programs.
	b) Support federal education standards and testing requirements for K-12 students (No Child Left Behind).
X	c) Support state education standards and testing requirements for K-12 students.
	d) Support requiring public schools to administer high school exit exams.
	e) Allow parents to use vouchers to send their children to any public school.
	f) Allow parents to use vouchers to send their children to any private or religious school.
X	g) Provide state funding to increase teacher salaries.
	h) Support using a merit pay system for teachers.
X	i) Provide state funding for tax incentives and financial aid to help make college more affordable.
	j) Support allowing illegal immigrant high school graduates of Minnesota to pay in-state tuition at public universities.
	k) Other or expanded principles
I support J, but I would term it to be "Support allowing undocumented high school graduates of Minnesota to pay in-state tuition at public universities.

Employment Issues

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding employment.
X	a) Increase funding for state job-training programs that re-train displaced workers and teach skills needed in today's job market.
	b) Reduce state government regulations on the private sector.
	c) Provide low interest loans and tax credits for starting, expanding, or relocating businesses.
	d) Provide tax credits for businesses that provide child care for children in low-income working families.
X	e) Increase state funds to provide child care for children in low-income working families.
X	f) Increase the state minimum wage.
X	g) Support laws that prevent employers from dismissing employees at will.
	h) Support financial punishments for those who knowingly employ illegal immigrants.
	i) Support increased work requirements for able-bodied welfare recipients.
	j) Increase funding for employment and job training programs for welfare recipients.
	k) Other or expanded principles

Environment and Energy Issues

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding the environment and energy.
X	a) Promote increased use of alternative fuel technology.
	b) Support increased production of traditional domestic energy sources (e.g. coal, natural gas, oil, etc).
	c) Support providing financial incentives to farms that produce biofuel crops.
X	d) Use state funds to clean up former industrial and commercial sites that are contaminated, unused, or abandoned.
	e) Support funding for improvements to Minnesota's power generating and transmission facilities.
X	f) Support funding for open space preservation.
X	g) Limit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
X	h) Enact environmental regulations even if they are stricter than federal law.
	i) Other or expanded principles
I would support increased production of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. I would also support funding for improvements to Minnesota's power generating and transmission facilities if it was to reduce our carbon footprint on the planet.

Gun Issues

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding guns.
Yes	a) Should background checks be required on gun sales between private citizens at gun shows?
No	b) Should citizens be allowed to carry concealed guns?
Yes	c) Should a license be required for gun possession?
Undecided	d) Do you support current levels of enforcement of existing state restrictions on the purchase and possession of guns?
Undecided	e) Do you support current state restrictions on the purchase and possession of guns?
	f) Other or expanded principles

Health Issues

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding health.
	a) Ensure that citizens have access to basic health care through managed care, insurance reforms, or state-funded care where necessary.
	b) Guaranteed medical care to all citizens is not a responsibility of state government.
	c) Limit the amount of damages that can be awarded in medical malpractice lawsuits.
	d) Allow patients to sue their HMOs.
	e) Require hospitals and labs to release reports on infections that are a risk to public health, while not compromising patient confidentiality.
	f) Legalize physician assisted suicide in Minnesota.
	g) Support allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana to their patients for medicinal purposes.
	h) Other or expanded principles
I support single payer universal health care.

Social Issues

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding social issues.
Yes	a) Should Minnesota recognize civil unions between same-sex couples?
Yes	b) Should same-sex couples be allowed to marry?
Yes	c) Should Minnesota provide state-level spousal rights to same-sex couples?
No	d) Do you support a moment of silence in public schools?
Undecided	e) Do you support voluntary prayer in public schools?
Yes	f) Do you support sexual education programs that include information on abstinence, contraceptives, and HIV/STD prevention methods?
No	g) Do you support abstinence-only sexual education programs?
Yes	h) Should the state government consider race and gender in state government contracting and hiring decisions?
Yes	i) Do you support affirmative action in public college admissions?
Yes	j) Should Minnesota continue affirmative action programs?
Yes	k) Do you support state funding of stem cell research?
Yes	l) Do you support state funding of embryonic stem cell research?
No	m) Do you support allowing pharmacists who conscientiously object to emergency contraception to refuse to dispense it?
n) Other or expanded principles
I am confused to what "e) Do you support voluntary prayer in public schools?" Students should have the right to pray in schools if they choose, but the school administrators should not require students to attend prayer. For example, is a student wished to do Friday Prayers, which happen at lunch time, the school should not stop the student, and meet their needs. Yet, a teacher can not require all of the students in the class to pray along with the student.
Legislative Priorities
Please explain in a total of 100 words or less, your top two or three priorities if elected. If they require additional funding for implementation, please explain how you would obtain this funding.
The big challenge that I see in the Legislature is to balance the 2 billion dollar deficit without cutting programs and services to the poor. As your State Representative, I would advocate that housing, jobs, youth programming, and programs to end poverty are an investment, not an expense. I will fight to secure general funds to sustain programs for education and social services, and work beyond party lines to create solutions to balance the budget, find funding for community programs, and bring landmark legislation to law. [ These taken from VoteSmart.org Farheen's primary opponent has this listed on their site: Mr. Hayden repeatedly refused to provide any responses to citizens on the issues through the 2008 Political Courage Test when asked to do so by national leaders of the political parties, prominent members of the media, Project Vote Smart President Richard Kimball, and Project Vote Smart staff. I consider Mr. Hayden's inaction to be yet another sign of local DFL corruption, ineptitude, and not truly standing for anything but getting elected. - KC ]

Offshore Drilling and American Political Party Stances

Since 1981, drilling in the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific off U.S. shorelines has been banned under a federal moratorium. Last week, in response to high gas prices and continued dependence on an oil-based economy, the Democrat-controlled House voted 236-189 to open these offshore areas to exploration and drilling. If passed into law, the House bill would allow oil drilling 50 miles from shore with a state's permission and 100 miles from shore without a state's permission. The bill would also remove restrictions on oil shale drilling in the western United States (which the National Wildlife Federation called a "double disaster" for our climate), eliminate some tax credits currently held by oil companies, and require that 15% of U.S. energy production be by renewable sources by 2020.
The Republican view: The McCain/Palin rallying cry has been "Drill, Baby, Drill!" House Republican leaders spent the summer holding weekly press conferences calling for resumed drilling. Sarah Palin, the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate, strongly supports oil exploration in her home state's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. John McCain - who asks crowds at his campaign rallies for their support for drilling for oil wherever they happen to be standing - states that he will "cooperate with the...Department of Defense in the decisions to develop these resources," illustrating his belief that U.S. energy policy and the invasion and occupation of oil-rich nations are clearly linked.	The Democratic view: The key word has been "compromise". House Speaker Nancy Pelosi traded support for a 27-year old moratorium on offshore drilling for slightly higher taxes on oil companies, who will likely immediately continue making record profits by passing increased costs onto customers. Instead of focusing on the need for new, truly clean energy sources, Barack Obama trumpets his willingness to work across the aisle on increasing vehicle fuel efficiency (instead of replacing polluting engines with replacement technologies) and further development of so-called "clean" coal. Obama's support for new coal development (and the mountaintop removal and strip mining we use to obtain it) is a step back to a 19th-century, not 21st-century, energy strategy.	The Green view: We oppose the toxic and environmentally-destructive national oil-based energy strategy. We agree with the experts who insist that new sources of domestic oil could not be discovered, processed, and refined within a decade. We urge immediate investment in strategies that can have both a short-term and sustainable impact on our national energy strategy, such as solar, wind, and other non-polluting alternative energy sources. As Green Party Presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney says, "Leave the Oil in the soil." We support leaving it in the soil, ocean floor, shale, and wherever else the oil parties imagine they might find it. Help the Green Party win investments in sustainable alternative energy sources by investing in the McKinney/Clemente campaign and the Green Party of the United States. Democrats have called for increasing investments in renewable energy sources by a paltry 15% over the next decade - we can make real changes if you pledge to increase your support of the Green Party and its candidates by 15% right now!

We have forgotten water and life cycles are interwoven

There is no easier and compelling way to capture the seriousness of environmental degradation around Kenya's five main water towers than through 80-year-old Mama Rebecca Mong’ina.

She is among residents of Mogoroka village in Kisii who watch with hearts gnawed, pawed and clawed by pain and nostalgia as the springs they drew water from since time immemorial dry up. It served them, just like their ancestors so well they needed no storage. You just went, collected the water, and walked back home.

The villagers grew up knowing water was sacred but free. Today they are crestfallen, the only spring in Mogoroka village which served about 1,000 people, has dried up. Vendors are doing booming business, selling water fetched from other places and sources at Sh10 per 20-litre jerrican.

In village standards, where poverty is grinding, that is an astronomical figure. Yet life without water is unthinkable. They simply have to spread the little money they raise from peasant farming to cater for their vast needs.

It is the life of want, aggravated by memories the water came free, so near, ever reliable.

Sadly, it is not just in Mogoroka village that water sources are drying up. As our national survey found out this past few weeks, we are tottering towards a catastrophe — our sources are shrinking and the five water towers are thinning out.

The shocker is that it is because of what we all along thought were fantasy stories spun by environmentalists and scholars. It is all about the human activity and environmental degradation around the five water towers. It is the same sad tale from Mt Elgon to Mt Kenya, Cherangany Hills to Mau Forest. Not even the Aberdares Forest is safe. A quick scan at the endangered water sources is a lesson we no longer just sit back and blame the dry heavens, long droughts, unfair distribution network and global warming.

That was the chilling message from the Congregation of East African Ministers of Water and Development Partners Water and Sanitation meeting yesterday in Nairobi. The red flag was up long ago, even before illegal encroachment on Mau Forest, East Africa’s prime forest cover, which is the source of 12 main rivers in the region.

The meeting discussing Lake Victoria Basin’s input to the attainment of Millennium Development Goal was just repeating what is now a common tale in our living rooms, but whose effect we all too often underestimate. Its capacity to wreck domestic incomes, destroy our social fabric and make life hellish and cruel often appears lost on us.

It is through the sobering stories in our inside pages that we walk you through the looming crisis as told by those who have seen our forest cover shrink. It is as told by those who have began feeling the effect. It exposes our poor management of limited resources. We must save the five water towers as a matter of national interest, and it must be today. Why?

They spread over one million hectares and constitute the upper catchments of all main rivers of Kenya except the Tsavo River.

The shortages currently being experienced in Nairobi may just be a harbinger of what lies ahead. As the old African proverb warns, "Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet." Yet that is exactly what we are doing.

Mt Kenya rivers disappear

By Patrick Mathangani

Ever since she settled in Mutiriri village in Laikipia East in 1984, Esther Njeri, 49, has depended on Ontulili River.

However, around 1992, the river that flows from Mt Kenya became unpredictable. Water levels would go down drastically, sometimes slowing down to a trickle.

Other times, it would flow downstream with gusto as if with a newfound will to keep going.

"At the time I was clearing bushes to build a house, it had enough water for everyone," Njeri said on the banks of the river, where she had taken family linen to wash.

Big horticultural farmers are accused of diverting river water for irrigation.

Residents say rivers started drying up in 1990s when big companies, mostly owned by white farmers, set up camp in the area.

Some rivers in Mt Kenya have been reduced to streams. PHOTO: BONIFACE MWANGI

Most of the farms are located upstream and block water. By the time the rivers reach downstream, there is barely enough left for everyone. "If they want water, they should draw a little and leave the rest for us," said Njeri.

Scores of nearby rivers — such as Timau, Nanyuki and Naromoru —have seen water levels go down to dangerous levels. Authorities have been forced to close down water projects to save those downstream.

A few kilometres from Ontulili River is a scorched valley, which once used to be Muramati River. During its heyday, the river was a vibrant source of livelihood for residents. "Now, even monkeys have nothing to drink," said Samuel Muriuki.

Muramati is one of the 20 rivers that have dried up in the past decade. Many more could be on the way to oblivion.

Scorched earth

The mountain, which is Africa’s second highest after Mt Kilimanjaro, is the source of scores of rivers that nourish large swathes of Kenya and districts hundreds of kilometres away.

Wanton destruction of the environment through encroachment, cutting down of trees and unregulated use of water from rivers now threaten to wipe out this water fountain.

Experts who spoke to The Standard on Sunday warn unless some drastic action is taken, there would be nothing but scorched earth in coming decades.

The arid districts of Laikipia and Isiolo depend on the rivers which empty into Ewaso Nyiro, while residents in districts nearby — Nyeri, larger Meru, Kirinyaga and Embu — draw their water from Mt Kenya rivers.

The Tana, where Kenya’s biggest hydro-electricity projects are located, owes its existence to the mountain.

Human encroachment and bad policies over the years have led to the destruction of the mountain’s ecosystem and made water sources to dry up. The most wanton destruction was human settlement sanctioned by the former Kanu regime in the 1990s. One of the most visible effects happened in Ontulili Forest on the Meru side, where thousands of people were settled on about 2,000 hectares.

The new residents settled at the extremely cold environment some 2,200m above see level, cleared large swathes of forest for settlement and grazing. Although the Narc Government eventually settled them in an alternative area in 2004, only large treeless plains remain of what used to be a sanctuary for various tree species and animals.

The area, which borders the moorland, was unfit for human habitation. However, political interests of a former Cabinet minister took centre stage.

"Some of the river sources in this area have dried up. All you can see are rocks," said Mr Frederick Njau of the Green Belt Movement.

The organisation, founded by Nobel Laureate Prof Wangari Maathai, is planting trees in Karuri, Kiriti and Kieni-ini.

Njau said the project aims at rehabilitating the catchment as well as restoring the natural richness of vegetation by planting indigenous trees.

Most of the area formerly settled on is now empty plain used for grazing.

Uncontrolled cutting of trees has been linked to global warming. This is a phenomenon where average global temperatures are rising, mainly due to the release of "green houses gases." The gases, which include carbon dioxide (trees help in absorbing the gas) trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere, resulting in rising temperatures.

As a result, residents and rivers from around Mt Kenya are suffering for the sins of the Government, and actions of people around the world. Due to global warming, glaciers on the mountain are melting.

This is devastating as glaciers act as reservoirs, which melt during the hot seasons to ensure rivers flow throughout the year. Experts have warned that the snow may disappear.

" The mountain used to be covered in snow, and you could not see any rocks," said Mr Godfrey Wanjohi, chairman of Nanyuki River Water Users Association. He has lived in the area for decades.

The association has secured funding for a Sh126 million dam at Secret Valley in Kahurura Forest, which would be used to hold water for use during dry seasons. However, he said an investor with powerful Government connections, who wanted to use the site to build a hotel, was resisting the move.

There are signs that recent measures to conserve rivers, including the Water Act, are not being followed. Just a few metres from where Njeri stood expressing her worries about the disappearing Ontulili River, The Standard on Sunday saw a furrow drawing water to the nearby Kenya Horticultural Exporters farm.

Using gravity, the furrow, which is several hundred metres long, runs over a "bridge" across the river before emptying its load into a pipe. At one point, it diverts water to another nearby farm.

According to the Water Act, it is illegal to use furrows to draw water since it results in wastage through seepage and evaporation.

A man who said he is the human resources manager for the firm, but declined to give his name, referred us to Water Resources Management Authority in Nanyuki.

Nanyuki sub-regional manager for Ewaso Nyiro North Catchment Area, Mr William Hamisi, confirmed it is illegal to use furrows. He said the authority has discussed the issue with the firm. "We’ve destroyed some furrows and issued temporary permits for others," said Hamisi.

However, he said individual users with small mobile pumps were difficult to regulate. For instance, Naromoru River had more than 1,000 such users, he said.

He said major rivers, including Nanyuki and Timau, have recorded a decline in water levels of up to five metres since 1990s.

"Communities downstream can barely get enough. This has caused conflicts," he said.

Hamisi added that the authority has been forced to ration water in some circumstances. About 70 per cent of the population in the affected areas — including Laikipia East and North, parts of Nyeri North and some parts of Meru — face water shortages.

Hamisi said the river now remains dry for five months instead of three.

The authority has drawn five-year plans to reverse the trend.

Protesters oppose warehouse on LA urban farm site

By CHRISTINA HOAG

Protesters want the city to halt a massive warehouse project on the former site of an urban farm that was bulldozed two years ago amid protests from Darryl Hannah, Joan Baez and other celebrities who wanted to preserve the garden for dozens of inner-city families.

More than 50 people, mostly from the South Los Angeles neighborhood where the site is located, held a rally Wednesday outside City Hall before attending a public hearing on the matter.

"It doesn't benefit us at all," resident Carmen Espinoza told members of the city planning commission's advisory agency. "There's already a lot of traffic and a lot of noise at night. There are two schools and a park. A lot of children would be affected."

The project, proposed by landowner Ralph Horowitz, calls for a 643,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution complex at the former community farm.

Protesters at the hearing told city officials the warehouse project should be halted because it would increase traffic, air pollution and noise in the neighborhood.

According to planning documents, the site is zoned for light manufacturing use. The warehouse will provide 1,200 jobs, and Horowitz has agreed to donate a 2.6-acre parcel of the property to the city, which has said it will build a community soccer field there.

The commission's advisory agency delayed a decision on the warehouse after being inundated with letters, petitions and reports opposing the project. Chairwoman Maya Zaitzevsky said members need more time to consider the public's comments.

The hearing was the latest chapter in the long-running saga of the tract known as the South Central Farm. Beginning in 1982, the 14-acre site was used by about 350 families to grow food and flowers. The city, however, sold the land to Horowitz, who evicted the growers and bulldozed the site in 2006.

Residents, farmers and celebrities fought hard to prevent the demolition, staging demonstrations such as a tree-sitting protest that included Hannah. Other celebrities involved in the effort included Willie Nelson, Danny Glover, Baez and tree-sitter Julia "Butterfly" Hill.

The saga is related in "The Garden," a new documentary by filmmaker Scott Hamilton Kennedy that was shown last month at the L.A. Film Festival.

[Note: For more information on the South Central Farm go here. They were also featured in the documentary Escape from Suburbia ]

Counterpoint: Dangers of Focusing Solely on Climate Change

No one with any scientific sense now disagrees about the severity of the climate crisis. But some people — and some magazines — believe that climate change trumps every other problem. If we take this argument to its extreme, we should ignore any environmental concern that gets in the way of reducing emissions. And that's just plain wrong.

Make no mistake: Tackling climate change is vital. But to see everything through the lens of short-term CO₂ reductions, letting our obsession with carbon blind us to the bigger picture, is to court catastrophe.

Climate change is not a discrete issue; it's a symptom of larger problems. Fundamentally, our society as currently designed has no future. We're chewing up the planet so fast, in so many different ways, that we could solve the climate problem tomorrow and still find that environmental collapse is imminent. Myopic responses will only hasten its arrival.

Take the proposal that we cut down old trees in favor of new ones. First, I don't buy the carbon accounting presented to advance this procrustean plan: Older trees can absorb CO₂ for centuries after reaching maturity, while replanted forests can emit more CO₂ than they sequester until the new trees are as much as 20 years old.

But even if wired's math were correct, this would still be a crap fix for climate change. Chopping down forests causes massive soil erosion and leads to desertification, making repeated tree plantings a dodgy prospect. As monocultures, tree farms are far more vulnerable to pest infestations. And batches of trees planted at the same time are more susceptible to wildfires, causing the carbon they're supposed to be sequestering to go up in smoke.

Old-growth forests, coupled with a broad program of woodlands restoration and sustainable forestry, can provide not only climate relief and ecologically responsible wood and biomass harvests but a slew of other essential ecological services, from salmon habitats to flood prevention. It's a heck of a lot more costly — in both money and emissions — to build massive dams and fish farms than to simply protect the forests we already have.

Another example of how carbon blindness leads to counterproductive policies: embracing nuclear power as a clean energy source. This argument assumes that other clean alternatives will not improve in efficiency or affordability during the 10 years it would take to implement a nuclear program. That's short-term thinking. If we invested the money that we would spend on new nuclear facilities more wisely (and eliminated subsidies on fossil fuels), alternatives like wind, solar, hydroelectric, and wave power could deliver a clean-energy future more cheaply and probably sooner, without any of the security or health risks of nuclear plants. Nuclear power may have a role to play, but it would be far better to create a flexible energy system that draws on many clean sources, instead of on a single panacea. Again, a cut-carbon-at-all-costs approach blinds us to more-sustainable, and ultimately more-promising, solutions.

To have any hope of staving off collapse, we need to move forward with measures that address many interrelated problems at once. We're not going to persuade people in the developing world to go without, but neither can we afford a planet on which everyone lives like an American. Billions more people living in suburbs and driving SUVs to shopping malls is a recipe for planetary suicide. We can't even afford to continue that way of life ourselves.

We don't need a War on Carbon. We need a new prosperity that can be shared by all while still respecting a multitude of real ecological limits — not just atmospheric gas concentrations, but topsoil depth, water supplies, toxic chemical concentrations, and the health of ecosystems, including the diversity of life they depend upon.

We can build a future in which technology, design, smart incentives, and wise policies make it possible to deliver a high quality of life at lower ecological cost. But that brighter, greener future is attainable only if we embrace the problems we face in all their complexity. To do otherwise is tantamount to clear-cutting the very future we're trying to secure.

Alex Steffen (editor AT worldchanging.com) is the editor of the green futurism site Worldchanging.com and of the book Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century.

Source

Weapons can't be green

_{By Zafrir Rinat}

More and more green parties are emerging around the world. Green party representatives from 88 countries, including three from Israel, gathered this month in Sao Paulo, Brazil, for the Second Global Greens Congress. The conference was dedicated to Ingrid Betancourt, the former leader of Colombia's Oxygen Green Party, who was kidnapped by a guerrilla group in 2002 and is still being held hostage.

The conference's discussions centered on mega cities, such as Sao Paulo, Mexico City and New York, and environmental problems, foremost among them global warming. "The main problems occupying most party representatives are too much traffic and air pollution, producing electricity from renewable sources, and waste management," says Hadas Shachnai of the Green Party, who represented Israel along with Mosi Raz of Meretz and environmental activist Eran Binyamini. "For example, representatives from New York complained that while the city has efficient public transportation, it is flooded with garbage."

The congress was the first of its kind with a substantial presence of green parties from Africa and even from Mediterranean countries. However, the strongest green parties come from Europe, Australia and North America, where environmental awareness is more established. In these countries, green party representatives sit in parliament and hold senior positions in the big cities.

So far, the greens' greatest success has been registered in Germany, where the Green Party was a member of the government. The Germans are very involved in the activities of green parties the world over, through the Heinrich Boell Foundation, which promotes the activities of green organizations. The foundation also has offices in Israel.

The greens' situation is completely different in countries like China, the main stage for environmental problems today, because of its accelerated pace of development. The Chinese authorities have banned several parties. Shachnai relates that the green party representative in China openly voiced concern over his own fate and his name was barred from publication.

The situation is a lot better in places such as Paris, where the greens play a key role in city hall. They have recently promoted several environmental initiatives, including setting up the infrastructure for renting and riding bicycles. Green Party member Denis Baupin is the deputy mayor of Paris. In a meeting with Shachnai, he presented several ambitious objectives his party wants to promote: significantly reducing the use of private transportation over the next two decades and, as a result, increasing the use of public transportation. Another objective is to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases within the city by two-thirds.

One of the main objectives of conferences such as the one held in Sao Paulo is to create a common agenda for political movements from different countries. This agenda was formulated in what the greens defined as "the 21-points plan for the 21st century." This is not merely an environmental action plan, but also the herald of decisions calling for supporting democratic regimes and promoting activities to enhance health care, education and nutrition in developing countries. There is even a call to limit the global arms trade, which increased by 50 percent over the last four years.

"We aren't ashamed to state that green politics support peace," the program stated. "Our strategy, which entails conceding the use of gas and oil and opposition to nuclear energy, is intended to provide security for the energy supply and to prevent conflicts."

The first section of the greens' action plan states that they will work to replace the Western economic model, based on the use of different types of gasoline that cause pollution, inefficient energy use and a culture of consuming products and then disposing of them as waste.

The alternative model will consist of an economy whose prices will reflect both social and environmental costs. As such, income tax will be reduced and, simultaneously, a tax will be levied on acts that cause pollution. Subsidies that encourage pollution will be replaced by investment in renewable energies and in activities based on reducing emissions of carbon, the main greenhouse gas.

The action plan calls for reducing greenhouse gases by up to 40 percent by 2020. The greens are also calling for a halt in cutting down natural forests and for imposing strict supervision over wood products, to ensure that there is no trading in wood from forests where cutting has been prohibited. The greens assert that nature preservation in developing countries should be ensured by means of financial aid from the wealthy countries, which are largely responsible for the ongoing destruction of the world's natural resources.

Local butterflies face extinction

Over 100 species of day-flying butterflies are found in Israel. Now hikers can get acquainted with them, thanks to a pocket guide to butterflies. The guide, published by Teva Yisraeli publishers, is a continuation of the series that has already produced guides to flora and mammals.

The new guide, edited by Noam Kirschenbaum, features illustrations by Richard Lewington and Tuvia Kurtz and contains scientific descriptions by Dr. Oz Ben Yehuda. Many of the species appearing in it can be found in Israel, including in urban areas and their outskirts.

Day-flying butterflies live for just a few weeks and feed on nectar. Butterfly larva feed on plant leaves. Many butterfly species today face extinction due to the damage to their natural habitats and collectors' activities. The plans to expand such cities as Hadera and Safed threaten some of the last remaining habitats of particularly rare species. Among the species facing danger are the tree nymph, the largest day-flying butterfly in Israel, and one of the most stunning. Butterfly lovers recently waged a campaign that succeeded in delaying construction plans that would have damaged the butterflies and they are trying to add some species to the list of protected wild fauna in Israel.

Source

The trouble with road salt

By LAWRENCE BAKER

The salt-strewn streets that have become a common winter sight in Minnesota now cause salt pollution severe enough that the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) has started to classify some Twin Cities streams as legally "impaired" from chloride contamination.

The use of road salt (mostly sodium chloride) in the United States, uncommon a generation ago, has increased eightfold since 1960. A University of Minnesota study showed that the Twin Cities metropolitan region now uses an astounding 260 pounds of road salt per person every winter.

During snow melt, peak chloride concentrations in some urban streams can approach half that of ocean water, far higher than many freshwater organisms can tolerate even for a short period. Chloride levels high enough to impair aquatic plants and animals may persist through the summer. This happens because some dissolved road salt infiltrates into groundwater, which then seeps slowly into streams, contaminating them long after the snow has melted.

Since 2002, the MPCA has designated four major Twin Cities streams -- Shingle Creek, Battle Creek, Bevins Creek and Nine Mile Creek -- as impaired because of chloride toxicity to aquatic life. For these large streams to have chloride toxicity means that numerous small streams and lakes also have toxic chloride concentrations, though they have not yet been legally designated as impaired.

The "impaired" designation means that local governments will need to find ways to reduce the contamination.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation and many local governments have sought to minimize salt use. Salt application rates are now based on real-time temperature measurement. With this information, salt can be applied just before a snow or ice event ("anti-icing"), rather than during or after the event, reducing salt application rates while improving driving conditions. New trucks have computerized controllers that deliver just enough salt to melt ice and no more. New snowplows are also equipped to apply brine ("prewetting") rather than dry salt, reducing wasted salt by 20 to 30 percent.

Use of road salt in Minnesota has been stable since 2000, after decades of increasing use, but real reductions will probably be needed to reduce chloride impairment of streams. A next step would be to install sensors directly in the most vulnerable streams. These sensors would provide additional feedback that could be used to fine-tune salting operations. For example, feedback from stream sensors might show that the normal salt-reduction strategy is not sufficient at a particular location and that alternative (but expensive) deicers are needed.

The effort to reduce road-salt use is driven largely by the legal requirement to protect aquatic life. However, as is often the case with environmental regulation, reduced road-salt pollution would have other benefits. A well-tuned adaptive management strategy could actually improve winter-driving conditions using less road salt (a shift from a brawn strategy to a brains strategy). Using less road salt would reduce corrosion of vehicles and bridge decks. According to a study by the Federal Highway Administration, bridge-deck corrosion costs $8.3 billion per year in direct costs (and 10 times more in indirect costs), much of it caused by salt. The same study reported that $23.4 billion is spent annually to avoid or repair corrosion to vehicles. The effort to reduce road-salt use would probably yield economic benefits that far exceed costs.

Lawrence Baker is a senior fellow at the University of Minnesota's Water Resources Center.

© 2008 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.

Green Party caucus prefers Cynthia McKinney for president

A straw poll Tuesday night showed support for McKinney with a majority of the votes.

Marija Majerle

Ward 2 Councilman Cam Gordon speaks at the Green Party caucus Tuesday night in the Van Cleve Recreation Center.

By Andrew Cummins

hile Tuesday night meant Republican John McCain secured his party's presidential nomination and the two Democrats duked it out for delegates in Ohio and Texas, locally it meant an opportunity for the Green Party of Minnesota to throw its hat into the presidential race.

About 20 people turned out for the party's Minnesota caucus on Tuesday night at Van Cleve Recreation Center. Straw poll results at that caucus show Cynthia McKinney won the contest handily, claiming 13 of 17 voters.

Perennial presidential hopeful Ralph Nader received one vote according to the poll, but he has said he doesn't want the party's nomination.

There will be a party convention June 7 and 8.

Although Minnesota state law states that nonmajor political parties aren't required to hold a caucus, Green Party spokeswoman Rhoda Gilman said the party conducts itself as a key player.

"We have been a major party before, and our membership deserves (a caucus)," she said.

The party also held its caucus after Super Tuesday in protest of the larger parties trying to extend the presidential campaign, according to the Green Party's Web site.

Responding to criticism that Green Party loyalists are tossing their votes away, Gilman said the party offers a platform that differs from those of the Democratic and Republican parties.

"We give a choice," she said. "Voters don't have a choice with the two big parties."

Minnesota has been favorable to the party in the past, as it became the first minor party in the state's history to get more than one candidate on a statewide ballot in 2006.

Ward 2 Councilman Cam Gordon, a Green Party member, participated in Tuesday's caucus by making an appearance and facilitating parts of it.

Gordon, whose ward includes the University's Minneapolis campus, said his party should be considered legitimate.

"Anything can happen on Election Day," he said.

Party officials came into the night with plans to set new resolutions and goals to be worked on in the upcoming election.

Three resolutions will be passed on to be evaluated by the party at the state level.

First, the caucus attendees suggested the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. In addition, the two would be referred to the United Nations, alongside former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, for war crimes.

Second, they proposed there be more voter districts for Minneapolis School Board elections to ensure more voting representatives.

Third, they moved to repeal dove-hunting season.

The party, which achieved prominent status in Minnesota during the 2000 presidential election, grounds itself in grassroots democracy and tackles more issues than people think, Gillman said.

"We're not just an environmental party," she said.

But the party's environmental policy drew at least one person to the event.

First-time caucus-goer Daniel Sadowsky, first-year graduate student in chemistry, was among at least five students in attendance. He said the environment is important to him, and "it's something the two parties aren't addressing responsibly."

He said he is interested in Green priorities. "Whenever I see a Green candidate I usually look at them," he said.

source: http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2008/03/05/72165966

Another Inconvenient Truth

By Fast Company staff

You can't swing a dead hippie in a big-box store these days without hitting some sort of green boast on a label. Partially recycled. Energy efficient. Eco-friendly. Natural!

Off the top of your head, how many of these claims do you suppose are bogus or misleading in some way? A quarter? One-half? Try 99.9%.

That's the startling conclusion of research from TerraChoice Environmental Marketing. Of the 1,018 green-advertised products it reviewed last fall, all but one committed one of the "six sins of greenwashing." Yikes.

That sounds like a call for tighter standards and more legal enforcement--perhaps some hefty fines, even a boycott or two. Force companies to be honest, right?

Sure. But there are deeper, less comfortable issues in the background of the greenwashing debate. While there's certainly a role for better oversight of green marketing, there are built-in limits to green honesty in a wealthy materialist culture.

More than half of the eco-labels on today's products, according to TerraChoice's research, hype some narrow eco-friendly quality (say, recycled content) while omitting mention of more significant environmental drawbacks, such as manufacturing intensity or travel costs. This is called the "sin of the hidden trade-off." Now, you might say it's not fair to call that greenwashing. After all, how many products today were not manufactured in overseas factories with lower labor and environmental standards? How many were not shipped long distances? Or wrapped in excess packaging?

We're more familiar with these trade-off traps elsewhere. Take health. What constitutes a healthy lifestyle is no great mystery: Exercise regularly and eat right. As food journalist Michael Pollan so pithily put it, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

That philosophy doesn't move a lot of processed food. A bag of potato chips may, in fact, be lower in sodium or higher in fiber than the competition. But let's face it: No bag of chips will ever be healthy. A person committed to living a healthy lifestyle generally won't eat salty, deep-fried food. In that sense, chips can't make health claims without committing the sin of the hidden trade-off. The same is true for the vast bulk of the food products in the supermarket. (I'm looking at you, Go-Gurt.)

The challenge of green living is similarly simple: Achieve the same quality of life using less stuff and less energy. A truly green consumer won't buy 8,000 square feet of bamboo flooring because the label said it had been hand-rubbed by Nepalese children for a fair wage; she'll dump the McMansion and try to live in a walkable area close to work. A green business will not deploy teams of researchers to figure out which 20%-post-recycled-content copy paper to use; it will offer free bus or subway vouchers, start a carpooling program, and let workers telecommute one day a week. Being efficient on the big stuff packs much more environmental punch than the benefits that come from choosing between competing light-green product A and the kelly-green product B.

The uncomfortable fact for many green marketers--and targets of that marketing--is that genuinely going green would mean giving up most of the products and services that clutter our consumer culture. It would mean simplifying, valuing time and people over stuff. How can most products avoid the sin of the hidden trade-off? With a simple label: "You don't really need this."

Greenwashing isn't merely a result of poor labeling standards and consumer protection. It's part and parcel of an economy built on trade in material and energy waste. Until we are collectively ready to really go green, greenwashing will be with us. Naturally.

Green Business David Roberts also covers green for Grist [0], an online environmental magazine.

Air Cleaning Plants

Put down that air freshener and grow a plant instead!

Although any kind of plant is beneficial, some plants do a better job of cleaning the air than others, and a few are easier to grow ( and tougher to kill). Fortunately, many of the best plants for cleaning the air also are traditional household favorites, such as:

1)Bamboo palm

2)Rubber plant

3)Spider plant

4)English ivy

5)Janet Craig dracaena

6)Dwarf date

7)Boston fern

8)Peace lily

9)Corn plant

10)Schefflera

Cat Fleas' Journey Into The Vacuum Is A 'One-way Trip'

Homeowners dogged by household fleas need look no farther than the broom closet to solve their problem. Scientists have determined that vacuuming kills fleas in all stages of their lives, with an average of 96 percent success in adult fleas and 100 percent destruction of younger fleas. In fact, the results were so surprisingly definitive that the lead scientist repeated the experiments several times to be sure the findings were correct.

full article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071217111010.htm

The ugly side of beauty products

Whether your beauty products might be bad for you is up for debate -- and that creates a major headache for consumers.

By Sara Glassman, Special to the Star Tribune

Last update: December 10, 2007 - 10:21 AM

When you count everything from deodorant to toothpaste to hand soap to lotion, even the lowest-maintenance types among us probably use at least five beauty or personal-care products.

How many do you use a day? That's the question that Stacy Malkan, author of "Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry" posed to about 300 people attending a panel discussion at the University of Minnesota recently.

She asked that question because the safety of some ingredients commonly used in these products has become suspect by a number of watchdog groups.

It was widely reported recently that more than half of the lipsticks tested by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics contained lead. Another ingredient setting off alarms is phthalates (pronounced THAY-lates), a common component of fragrances, as reported by the Enviromental Working Group.

Research indicates that phtalates can interfere with hormones and cause birth defects. In a study of 289 people by the Center of Disease Control, all had higher-than-expected levels of phthalates, especially women of childbearing age.

Industry scientist counters claims

But Malkan's reasoning is being questioned by the cosmetic industry. John Bailey, chief scientist for the Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association, a Washington D.C.-based trade group, said that certain levels of lead occur naturally in nature and that the levels found in lipsticks were relatively low. In general, he says cosmetics are safe.

"Speaking as a scientist, these issues aren't new, they've been known for a while," he said. "Low levels of lead show up in products because it's very much in the environment naturally, not because it's intentionally added. If you look hard enough at foods, water, air, soil air, there's going to always be a small residue of lead. For that reason, federal government authorities as well as some of states have set limits for lead exposure. Lead found in lipstick is well below these limits."

Finding what's safe is confusing, hard work

Panel attendee Asia Schulz of Eden Prairie, who has been reading "Not Just a Pretty Face," has found the quest for healthy beauty products to be confusing and labor-intensive. She said that she has started throwing out beauty products based on ingredients listed on labels, but not without trepidation: Schulz is also a makeup artist for Bobbi Brown (owned by Estee Lauder) and Lancôme (owned by L'Oreal), which she now isn't convinced are safe.

At home, Schulz recently noticed that her husband's Edge Shave Gel contains triethanolamine (TEA). According to Malkan's book, the ingredient "forms carcinogenic nitrosamine compounds if mixed with other ingredients that act as nitrosating agents. It is also a skin sensitizer and possibly toxic to the lungs and brain."

Bailey disputes that. "It's a safe ingredient, normally used to sort of adjust the PH of a product and make it softer and milder," he said.

Label-reading has shown Schulz that you can't rely on brand names alone to determine the ingredients: She found ingredients that Malkan calls harmful on a tube of Kiss My Face lotion, which is marketed as being natural. "But then I pulled out a black nail polish I bought for 99 cents. The bottle said '100 percent phthalate free,'" she said.

Bailey questions how useful a careful examination of products is for consumers. "If you look beyond claims that express particular hazards and how they link those assertions to finished products, I don't think you can draw the conclusions that are being represented," he said.

Horst's new line: Good enough to eat?

On the panel with Malkan was, among others, Horst Rechelbacher, founder of Aveda Corp., which was sold to Estee Lauder in 1997. An audience member pointed out that Aveda's Shampure rated a four (medium hazard) and the Shampure conditioner a five (also medium hazard).

Aveda's not-so-direct response, via e-mail from Gracia Walker, director of global communications: "Consumer safety has always been a top priority at Aveda. We are committed to selling only safe products and work diligently to ensure that our formulations and packaging meet our exceedingly high standards and comply with applicable regulations in every country in which our products are sold."

Rechelbacher has created a new company called Intelligent Nutrients (IN), a joint venture with Regis Corporation. The concept of the new line is that everything you put on your body should be something that you can eat and your body can digest. "It's not just food-based, but organic food-based," Rechelbacher said.

It's an idea that "is going to be normal," he added. "Putting substances on the body and not getting nutritional benefit is just outdated."

To this end, he has united food chemists and aesthetics chemists. "It has to look good and it has to function."

A variety of Intelligent Nutrients' "Neutraceutical Foods" and "Neutraceutical Supplements" are currently available online, at various salons and at the IN corporate headquarters in Minneapolis. A full line of products will launch next spring or summer.

It's an idea that seems to be catching on in the beauty industry. Origins has recently launched a new line of products that are certified organic, including face lotion (95 percent certified organic) and lip balm (97 percent certified organic).

So what can you use?

In the meantime, Malkan recommends keeping things basic, starting with the products you use everyday, like shampoos and deodorants.

"The advice that I follow is that simpler is better," she said. "Fewer synthetic ingredients, fewer ingredients overall and in some cases fewer products." Rechelbacher even suggested washing hair with an egg (it turns out that suds don't actually function beyond adding to the aesthetics of the bathing experience).

Among the products that raise Malkan's brows are bubble bath (especially "children sitting in warm waters with chemicals"), air freshener and any kind of fragrance, to which so many people have allergies or sensitivities.

Also, there is no such thing as safe hair color, said Rechelbacher, although bleaches are safer than dark hues.

Malkan no longer colors her hair. She suggests using the Safe Cosmetics Database (see chart for details, or www.safecosmetics.org) for guidance.

She hasn't been spooked from all beautifiers, though. "There are many products on the market now that are a lot safer," she said. "It's up to consumers at this point to do our own research. In the meantime, while we work to change the laws, we research safer products and buy them for each other for Christmas."

Sara Glassman is a Minneapolis-based fashion writer. See her blog at www.startribune.com/stylepoints.

source: http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/style/11966016.html

No excuse for recycling apathy

The lack of effort by students and staff is disheartening and maddening, especially since it is relatively easy.

By Chelsey Perkins

he physical act of tossing a bottle or can into a recycling bin is no more strenuous than that of throwing it into a trash can. Of course, you might need to walk a few extra feet, or make room for the recyclable in your bag until you find the proper place to dispose of it. But these are not difficult tasks, nor are they emotionally stressful or a financial burden.

So I cannot understand for the life of me why so many people not only do not make the negligible amount of extra effort needed to recycle items like cans and bottles that are the easiest to recycle rather than trash them, but act affronted by the mere concept.

Of course, I know there are many people who do make the effort, and I also know that outside of cities with comprehensive recycling programs, it might be difficult and maybe even impossible to recycle certain items. In my own hometown, for example, there is no recycling pick-up at all, and the closest recycling drop-off no longer accepts plastic.

But here on campus, for the most part, a majority of the effort has already been made for us. If you have yet to notice, bins all over the place, compartmentalized nicely and neatly, make it possible to rid yourself of last week's Sudoku, your empty Diet Coke bottle and the rest of that $2 burrito you couldn't bring yourself to finish all in one go. In most classrooms I've been in, three separate bins stand directly next to one another, labeled clearly.

Yet I regularly see people throw recyclables into the trash even though literally a foot away they could recycle them.

A friend told me this weekend that her parents poke fun at her when she asks them to recycle; another friend of mine waited until she found a recycling bin for her newspaper and her brother asked, "So, what, are you like an environmentalist now?"

As our world faces an environmental crisis like we have never seen before, the tasks before us seem daunting and nearly unattainable and it is easy to feel helpless. It's not as though the average person can simply waltz into Exxon Mobil and shut them down or halt clear-cutting in the Brazilian Rain Forest.

Why, then, is one of the tasks possible for an individual to complete on their own, a task that undeniably is crucial to environmental health, so often brazenly disregarded?

Even if you subscribe to the notion that humans are not the cause of global warming or could care less what happens to the planet after you're gone, why not just put that bottle in the freaking recycling bin when it is right there in front of you?

The thing is, although it might seem like a long shot, we can as individuals make a difference for our environment by the products we buy and the sustainable habits we commit to. Collectively, we have unlimited power to make change on the environmental front.

If you feel like that one bottle will not make a difference, multiply that by the 50,000 or more people that are on this campus every day for nine months, and you can see what kind of impact can be made. Whether it's a positive or negative one is up to you and which of the three slots you choose.

Chelsey Perkins welcomes your comments at cperkins AT mndaily.com

source: http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2007/12/04/72164839


[ Minnesota has tens of thousands employed in the recycling industry. One of my battle buddies at basic training in the Minnesota National Guard works at one of the factories.

Each can of aluminum you recycle saves a bit more than half a cup of oil. Recycling is interconnected to the economy, natural resources, Global Warming, Peak Oil, and municipal taxes.

Even if you pay $3 a month to do this in suburbs such as Brooklyn Park, you are still making a profound difference. ]