Why have clean air, clean water, protecting endangered species, conserving of open space for wildlife and people, and a variety of other national environmental laws become the whipping boy of American politics?  Current legislative proposals to reverse decades of environmental protection include:

• Amending the Clean Water Act (CWA) to allow a loophole for the timber industry, exempting it from several pollution discharge permit requirements.

• New rules to protect streams from surface mining would be prohibited.

• Wetlands protection would be curtailed, reversing the pledge made by Presidents from both parties that there shall be “no net loss of wetlands”. Because of conflicting court decisions the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been working to clarify which wetlands should be protected under the CWA. Any such actions would be disallowed.

• The EPA would be prevented from overseeing mountaintop mining removal.

• The Forest Service would be limited in managing its extensive road system unless it considers allowing off-road vehicle use.

• The EPA would be unable to use its funds for new water quality standards for Florida’s lakes and flowing waters, essentially allowing nutrient pollution from fertilizers and sewage.

• Sizable budget cuts that will seriously limit enforcement of anti-pollution laws.

Prior to 1980 several highly effective environmental laws and regulations were enacted with strong public support and bipartisan cooperation. Among them were the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

So why are many politicians proposing these destructive changes? They are claiming that environmental protection is “job killing”. In reply Elizabeth A. Stanton accurately wrote how “environmental regulations create jobs and save lives”. Another study relating climate policy to jobs have shown that actions to limit greenhouse gases would actually create more jobs than would be lost. A report on jobs in the solar industry is telling, where more workers are employed than in the steel industry. The Solar Foundation reports that from August 2010 to August of 2011, the solar industry grew by 6.8 percent, the overall U.S. economy’s growth was 0.7%. David Roberts and Frank Ackerman offer more substantiation.

See the full recent Brookings report on the ‘clean economy’, partially summarized here: “As the nation continues to search for new sources of high-quality growth, the present findings depict a sizable and diverse array of industry segments that is—in key private-sector areas—expanding rapidly at a time of sluggish national growth. With smart policy support, broader, more rapid growth seems possible”.

Michael Brune concluded “Today the clean economy employs 2.7 million American workers across a diverse group of industries, which is greater than the number of people employed by the entire fossil-fuel industry”. This is invariably true for a host of laws protecting our environment. They are less job-killing than they are job creating and they keep our environment and ourselves healthier while doing so!

What are CAFO’s?

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines a CAFO as a “a production process that concentrates large numbers of animals in relatively small and confined places, and that substitutes structures and equipment for land and labor.”

CAFO’s, or Concentrated (or Confined) Animal Feeding Operations claim they have the clear benefit of maximizing the yield of its beef, chickens, eggs, pork, etc. Compared to the family farm or even a large scale ranch, these producers say the output of a typical CAFO will dwarf what a conventional producer will send to market. Many argue that CAFO’s are the only way food production can be brought to the scale necessary to feed the world’s growing population. But according to the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production “we are raising approximately the same number of swine as we did in 1950, we are doing so on significantly fewer, far larger farms, with dramatically fewer farm workers.” See Philpott as well.

If this were a wellness newsletter or one concerned about animal cruelty much could be written on the effects of CAFO’s on human health and animal abuse. Here are some of the environmental consequences of raising animals on factory farms:

• The animals’ waste is stored in open lagoons and is so concentrated it can foul the surrounding air, water, and land

• Excess nitrogen and phosphorus in these lagoons contribute to low levels of dissolved oxygen, often resulting in fish kills and toxic algae blooms. In addition the wastes can include sediments, pathogens, heavy metals, hormones, ammonia, and pesticides

• Spills from the lagoons discharge these pollutants into the environment

• CAFO’s can degrade healthy water resources and drinking water can become contaminated as many of these facilities are on flood plains or close to communities that utilize well water

• The USDA has reported that the manure produced by CAFO’s exceeds human waste by a factor of 3

• Air quality degrades from these CAFO’s; toxic gases, odorous substances, and pathogens can contribute to respiratory problems in workers and nearby residents

• Ultimately the waste must be removed, and application of untreated animal waste on cropland adds to surface water contamination

• CAFO’s employ disproportionately high levels of fossil fuels, using as much as 35 times the equivalent energy as the food energy produced

Investigative reporters have exposed some of the worst of these practices, prompting the industry to urge legislation in Florida, Minnesota, Iowa and other states prohibiting photographing or videotaping these farms. None have become law as yet.

Can a conscientious consumer avoid CAFO products? Determining the source of the meat in a hamburger, especially from a fast food restaurant is not easy. For meals at home, many local supermarkets are now advertising “grass fed beef or pasture raised cows”. If not, ask the store manager to carry these products. Doing so and trying to avoid the production from CAFO’s will make life better and healthier for the environment, the animals and you.

Nowadays most households recognize the importance of recycling and try to minimize their trash.  We conscientiously place newspapers, most plastics (numbered 1 through 5), corrugated containers, aluminum cans, etc. in recycling bins, confident these items are again made into usable products.  (Plastic #6, such as expanded polystyrene, and polyethylene or film can be separately recycled). Sustainable Business reports that in the United States waste ending up in landfills has declined from 94% of total waste generated in the 1960’s to just over 54% in 2009. Yet we recycle at a rate of about half of what is recycled in Germany.

Consider, if 100% of a single Sunday run of the New York Times were recycled we could save over 75,000 trees a year and in total we throw away a billion trees worth of paper a year (Recycling-Revolution). Shouldn’t we do better?

Raising awareness and urging more people to recycle is part of it. Just as important is that some items that go into the bin never get recycled!  The reason is economics. Take one commonly recycled material, old newspapers. In the past 15 years the market price for waste newsprint has fluctuated from as much as $200 a ton to as little as $5 a ton.  Today it’s at $160 per ton but if it falls below $40 it’s uneconomical for a recycler to even buy it and the eventual destination for your newspapers is still a landfill.

Another limitation on is that a recycler can’t work with contaminated articles.  If people are careless with what they throw in the bin and food or other stains foul the item(s) they’ll still be sent to a landfill.   To be returned to the manufacturing stream the raw material must be near perfect.

Some things are just not recyclable, like ceramics and aseptic products such as the material used in manufacturing juice boxes.

Sorting is another little known aspect of recycling.  In Highland Park, where I live, the permitted recyclable materials are placed in a single bin.  Compared to Switzerland, “there are bottle banks at every supermarket, with separate slots for clear, green and brown glass (all of which must be separately recycled – edit). Every town has a free paper collection once a month, and that does not mean just old newspapers; most people separately recycle everything made of cardboard or paper, from cereal packets to old telephone bills.” (The BBC)   In most places in the U.S. it’s the recycler that sorts each kind of material to sell it profitably, a much more costly process.

In a recent poll by Perception Research Service only 38% of consumers believe they should be responsible for recycling packaging materials.  In contrast to the attitude by a majority of western Europeans it appears American shoppers expect the manufacturer to produce eco-friendly packaging and they shouldn’t have to pay for it!

Bottom line; we have a long way to go for really efficient recycling to take hold, including sorting as it occurs in many countries.  It obviously must be a community wide effort to be effective.  Meanwhile we can all diligently separate as much as possible, make sure everything is clean, and be mindful – first reduce, then reuse and finally recycle.

I was in line at the supermarket and the cashier told the elderly woman ahead of me that plastic bags weren’t good for the environment. The woman apologized to her and explained, “We didn’t have the green thing back in my day.”

That’s right, they didn’t have the green thing in her day. Back then, they returned their milk bottles, Coke bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, using the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled – but they didn’t have the green thing back in her day.

In her day, they walked up stairs, because they didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. They walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine very time they had to go two blocks – but she’s right. They didn’t have the green thing in her day.  Back then, they washed the baby’s diapers because they didn’t have the throw-away kind. They dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts – wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing – but that old lady is right, they didn’t have the green thing back in her day.

Back then, they had one TV, or radio, in the house – not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a pizza dish, not a screen the size of the state of Nebraska. In the kitchen, they blended and stirred by hand because they didn’t have electric machines to do everything for you. When they packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, they used wadded up newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, they didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. They used a push mower that ran on human power. They exercised by working so they didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operated on electricity – but she’s right, they didn’t have the green thing back then.

They drank from a fountain when they were thirsty, instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time they had a drink of water. They refilled pens with ink, instead of buying a new pen, and they replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull – but they didn’t have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar and kids rode their bikes to school or rode the school bus, instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. They had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And they didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from

satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint – but they didn’t have the green thing back then!

(Disclosure – I almost always write these newsletters myself but this crossed my desk and in sending it out I would certainly give appropriate attribution but I have no idea who originated it)

This Newsletter may be excerpted, reproduced or circulated without limitation.

We are all consumers.  From staples like groceries, transportation, clothing, housing, etc, to the discretionary expenditures such as vacations, entertainment, charitable contributions and the like, we make daily decisions on what and from whom we purchase goods and services.  Obviously our cumulative decisions have a huge impact on the sellers of these products and we can have a profound effect on production, distribution, packaging, point of sale merchandising, etc., be they eco-friendly or not.

Ten years ago when I wrote an Alert on this subject, merchants who claimed to be ‘green’ or have minimal detrimental environmental impact were relatively few.  Today there are so many companies making these claims that late last year the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proposed an update to guidelines they first issued in 1992 (with revisions in 1996 and 1998) requiring marketers to avoid making misleading environmental claims.  The obvious goal is to give consumers a much greater level of protection and reliability in their purchasing.

To quote from the FTC website, “Vague or general claims may sound warm and fuzzy, but generally offer little information of value. Claims that a product or service is “environmentally friendly,” “environmentally safe,” “environmentally preferable,” or “eco-safe” or labels that contain environmental seals — say, a picture of the globe with the words “Earth Smart” around it — are unhelpful for two reasons: First, all products, packaging and services have some environmental impact, although some may have less than others. Second, these phrases alone do not provide the specific information you need to compare products, packaging, or services on their environmental merits. Look for claims that give some substance to the claim — the additional information that explains why the product is environmentally friendly or has earned a special “seal.”  For further details see the Federal Trade Commission’s announcement of the revised Green Guidelines http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/10/greenguide.shtm

As of this writing these proposed guidelines have not been finalized but are expected to be shortly.  When they are, when a marketer claims his product is made from or provides “renewable energy”, “renewable materials”, and/or “carbon offsets” an end user can check the FTC’s Green Guides for verification.   Commenting on the current revision, John Leibowitz, chairman of the commission said “This is really about trying to cut through the confusion that consumers have when they are buying a product and that businesses have when they are selling a product.

Let’s hope this new clarity results in wise buying, packaging, distribution, warehousing and consuming, and ‘Greenwashing’, as described in a previous newsletter  is largely history.

The ingredient mostly used in conventional dry cleaning, tetrachlorethylene, also referred to as perchlorethylene or perc has long been suspected of being a carcinogen, and both the American Cancer Society and The International Agency for Research on Cancer confirms that.  Fortunately there has been an increase in public consciousness resulting in more and more dry cleaners employing other chemicals in their operations.

The Environmental Protection Agency has been considering whether to ban it on a national basis, and legislation has been introduced in the Illinois House that would phase it out locally. In the interim, here are some steps you can take to avoid it.

• Alternatives to perc
  Search out stores that use substitutes such as 1) high-pressure cleaning using liquid carbon dioxide; 2) silicone-based cleaners (Green-earth is one), or high-tech, computer-controlled wet washing.

• Consider personal dry cleaning
  Home dry cleaning kits such as those manufactured under the Dryel brand by Procter and Gamble and by Clorox as Stain-fighter are not chemical-free, nor give results identical to professional cleaning. But they don’t contain perc, and might be an alternative in areas with no convenient eco-friendly cleaners or if you’re treating manageable spots.
• Use a small hand-held spot remover for minor stains
  Over the counter spot removers like Tide to Go or Oxiclean are 2 such brands.   
• Opt for the washer
  Modern washers with gentle cycles are often suitable for items such as cashmere and silk.
• Freshen slightly wrinkled garments
  Sometimes a little is enough; place delicates in the dryer with a damp colorfast towel, run briefly.
• Re-evaluate your wardrobe
  The best way to reduce dry cleaning pollution is to stop buying clothes which require it. With the wide variety of low-care fabrics available these days, thoughtful shopping can pay-off in reduced cleaning costs and a lighter environmental footprint. Check clothing labels and ask online merchants to disclose cleaning care requirements before buying.  (Thanks to Mother Nature Network for some of the ideas shown here.)

Here are a few eco-friendly ideas involving plastics we’ve recently adopted:

• Bring your own restaurant take out container.
  Bringing your own reusable container for leftovers saves having a lot of plastics and paper goods from going into landfills or having to be needlessly recycled.
• Look at the triangle
  At the bottom of most plastic containers is a small, raised triangle, numbered from #1 to #7.   Our local recycling authority, SWALCO Home – Lake County, IL (Solid Waste Agency of Lake County) allows the recycling of plastics #1 through #5. FP International in Thornton, IL and the recycling station behind Abt Electronics in Glenview are two Illinois locations that will accept plastic #6, expanded polystyrene, or Styrofoam.  Here are additional recycling plastic #6 locations, nationwide.  The most difficult plastics to recycle are those numbered #7. Purchasing items so packaged should be avoided where possible.

20 years ago, on this magazine’s cover was a compelling rendering of the face of a man in the shape of South America (prophetically just under the Gulf of Mexico) crying his eyes out, with the caption below it reading “What On Earth Are We Doing”.   Today, the artist wouldn’t limit his imagination to one continent but indeed our entire planet.

The horrific disaster in the Gulf of Mexico brings us all to heartbreak and tears.   But the only difference, catastrophic though it is, between the tragedy of the Gulf spill and the ecological devastation going on worldwide from fossil fuel extraction is one of scale, and spills or disasters of one size or another are occurring almost daily.  Here are just a few of the recent calamities.

OIL

• On May 25, 2010, a collision of an oil tanker has caused at least 18,000 barrels of oil to spill into the Straits of Singapore, one of the world’s busiest sea lanes
• The next day another spill of up to several thousand barrels of crude oil occurred 100 miles southeast of Fairbanks
• Earlier in May, there was a  break in the trans-Alaska pipeline resulting in thousands of barrels of spilled crude
• On May 12, 2010, there was another major spill from Exxon-Mobile in the Niger delta, a place once pristine, but now an oil soaked environmental nightmare

In the North Pacific Ocean there is a large circular current known as a gyre, a perfectly normal system of rotating ocean currents.  This one however is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, for it’s a spinning vortex of trash from plastic marine litter. Its exact size is unknown but could be as large as the continental U.S.  Remember, ALL plastics are petroleum based.

COAL

• On April 5^th an explosion in a Massey Energy mine in West Virginia killed 29 miners
• A dynamite explosion on May 22nd, in Chenzhou city in central China killed 17 miners and in late March a flood in another mine in China killing 37
• Northern Turkey experienced a methane gas explosion on May 17 that killed 30 miners
• On May 8, 2 mine explosions in Siberia resulted in the deaths of 66

In December 2008, in Kingston, Tennessee a massive pond holding coal ash burst, releasing a billion gallons of muddy, gray coal ash loaded with arsenic, lead and other contaminants into the surrounding communites.

George W. Bush famously said “we are addicted to oil”. He could have added coal as well, for at present both of these fuels are essential to our modern civilization and comfortable lifestyles.  Is it an unshakable addiction?   Do we have to read headlines of yet another, even larger oil spill, mine explosion or tanker collision with the attendant loss of life and environmental destruction?  Must we indefinitely witness images of oil-soaked birds, fish and turtles, and sacrifice our bountiful ecosystems and our clean air so we can continue to heat our homes and drive our cars and buy plastic packaged groceries based on these inherently destructive fossil fuels?

The petroleum and mining industries continuingly assure us they can extract these fuels safely and cleanly.

THEY CAN NOT.  There is no such thing as “Clean Coal” or foolproof drilling rigs, or tanker captains who won’t get drunk and run a ship aground in another Prince William Sound.

The energy industry is wealthy and powerful and lobbies hard against renewables, carbon taxes and environmentally beneficial regulations.  For a tiny fraction of their net income, these companies make sizable campaign contributions and even legislators of high integrity are hard pressed not to vote in the interest of big oil and big coal.  They also fund pseudo scientific “think tanks” that raise doubt in peoples’ minds that these are real problems.  Meanwhile the International Energy Agency reports they receive $550 billion in government subsidies worldwide.

Politics, by its very nature provokes controversy, but today things political seem more controversial than ever.  2 wars, high unemployment, a health care bill unpopular with many, bank and corporate bailouts, and a huge and burgeoning deficit, to name a few, have all combined to increase the intensity of political polarization.  However, in this writer’s view the administration’s actions in one area deserve praise from both liberals and conservatives and that is the environment.  Remember, the root of the words ‘conservation’ and ‘conservative’ are the same.

Shortly after President Obama took office, he appointed a remarkable team of experienced and talented environmental professionals all sharing a common ethic: public lands are for the public, wildlife needs wild places, the Clean Air and Water Acts and other consumer protection laws must be rigorously enforced, and paraphrasing the words of President Teddy Roosevelt, private interests must be subordinated to the public good.  Science, not politics, has been their criterion for rule-making.    .

Here are just a few of the actions taken thus far:

• The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing stricter rules for pollutants causing smog (costs to industry may increase but will likely be more than offset by public health cost savings)
• The Interior Department is requiring more rigorous reviews of leases for petroleum on public lands, saying the agency had formerly been a “candy store” for oil and gas companies, and specifically cancelled 77 oil and gas leases in Red Rock Canyon wilderness in Utah
• The proposed largest mountaintop removal coal mining operation in Appalachia was refused a permit, and an environmental review of 79 similar projects was requested before they can be approved
• Created a task force to develop a national strategy to protect and restore ocean, coastal and Great Lakes ecosystems
• After years of opposition initiated a complete reversal on a global treaty to cut mercury pollution, and are working a complete an agreement

An environmental issue not without controversy, however, regards climate change.  Notwithstanding an overwhelming consensus of the world’s top scientists that 1) the world is warming, 2) it is happening primarily because of human activities and 3) the consequences could be disastrous (as well as the lack of any peer-reviewed studies to the contrary) there are still skeptics.  Here are a few actions the President has taken:

• Signed an executive order for federal agencies to set a greenhouse gas emissions reduction target 17% below 2005 levels by 2020, as well as to seek energy efficiency and take other measures to reduce carbon emissions
• Initiated strategic partnerships with China, India and Latin American countries to expand international cooperation on clean energy goals
• Worked with Congress to provide $50 billion for renewable energy investments and improvement in the energy efficiency of homes, cars and workplaces and made available $3.4 billion to modernize the energy grid by improving transmission and reducing the amount of power wasted

The record, although good is not perfect.  There are reasons to question recent decisions to promote nuclear, biofuels, and ‘clean’ coal, but for the most part whatever reasons you have for admiring or opposing President Obama, his environmental leadership should be supported.