Serious Implications

At $244 a night, who will stay there?

The Proximity Hotel in Greensboro, NC earned LEED Platinum certification for its sustainable design elements. They’ve built a lot of great features into this building, which cost more than conventional technologies. Reportedly, the hotel expects return on their green investment within three years.

Curious about price, I called this morning to make a reservation for this coming Wednesday night. One person for one night: $244, which is meaningless without comparing it to other hotels in Greensboro. So I called the Holiday Inn Express on I-40 for a room rate for the same night: $99.99. Not much of a decision, there.

Perhaps Proximity Hotel is succeeding in the high-end market, but the high cost raises questions about LEED and the cost of earning one of its certifications, gold, platinum, or whatever. Does the cost of LEED certification price a building out of the middle class market?

The following video shows off the attractive features of the green design.

Researchers at Michigan State University have been running test plots of “perennial wheat,” that is, wheat that, like the grass in our lawns, is planted once and grows year after year. That’s different than the wheat that is currently grown, which is planted in tilled ground and harvested each year.

I had a professor on my dissertation committee at North Dakota State University who said that much of the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over the past 100-years was due to plowing up the organic-rich Mollisols in the North American Plains. The organic matter content in those hard-working soils is down at least fifty-percent from what it was one-hundred years ago. The carbon had to go somewhere.

There are at least two other highly appealing aspects of perennial wheat: fuel conservation and soil conservation. Farmers wouldn’t have to plow for wheat every year, so would save on fuel costs. With vegetative cover in place year-round, there’d be less soil erosion and less sediment in the watercourses.

Perennial wheat is an exciting development, but like any new innovation, its entry into mainstream farming practice may upset those who benefit from the status quo…and they will put up a fight.

Fibrowatt Builds Elegant “Closed Loop” Power System in Benson, MN

They start with a mixture of turkey litter and other biomass, fire a steam boiler that powers a turbine and generator, generate 64 megawatts of power, send waste heat back to the boiler, and sell the ash back to the farmer as fertilizer. It’s not a completely closed loop, but it looks clean and efficient.

Ken Ronnan has the story here.

“…an estimated 70 percent of all U.S. antibiotics and related drugs are given to animals that are not sick. This overuse of antibiotics contributes to the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria, with the result that antibiotics we commonly use are becoming less effective in fighting human illnesses, including some life-threatening infections.” - Union of Concerned Scientists

In the above photo, courtesy of EPA Region 8, the steel storage bins in the background hold corn for the cows. Corn is hard on the bovine digestive system, which is designed for grass. I’ve seen these kinds of “cow cities” in eastern Colorado and Texas. The business model depends on cheap corn, which puts weight on the cows much faster than green, low-carb grass.

The ground beneath the cows is actually a huge pile of manure. If one views the larger image, it’s apparent that many of the cows are sitting or lying down. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are sick, but that still looks like a lot of cows down.

The implications of this kind of factory farming extend well beyond the aesthetic to a serious public health issue. Antibiotic resistence is recognized as a major problem in treating major diseases such as MRSA, tuberculosis, staph, strep, malaria, typhoid fever, and others. Source: Center for Disease Control.

There is an alternative to this kind of beef. Grass-fed beef is available and found with a bit of searching. Information on producers by state is available from AmericanGrassFed.org and LocalHarvest.org

The Corn Belt won’t be happy about this.

Sarah Palin wasn’t the only surprise to come out of the Republican Convention. One of the planks in the GOP platform would whack the federal ethanol mandate, which calls for 36 billion gallons of U.S. produced ethanol to be blended into the nation’s fuel supply by 2012. This mandate was needed to draw renewable fuel investors to build ethanol plants. They wanted some assurance there would be a market for their product.

According to this article, South Dakota Senator John Thune-R was “a bit surprised” and sounded ready to buck his own party’s policy:

That’s a big mistake. If we keep doing what we’re doing, we’re going to keep getting what we’re getting, and right now we’re 70 percent dependent on foreign oil…We’ll do everything we can to make sure the policies stay in place at the congressional level.”

Brian Jennings of Sioux Falls is Vice President of the American Coalition for Ethanol said this:

“Merrill Lynch analysts state that if ethanol producers weren’t expanding their output, oil and gasoline prices would be 15 percent higher, and Iowa State University research shows that the availability of ethanol has saved American motorists between 29 and 40 cents per gallon at the pump…And last year, for the first time since 1977, our nation’s imports of oil went down. Our domestic ethanol policy is working.”

The GOP plans says the “U.S. government should end mandates for ethanol and let the free market work.”

We need to have an adult debate about energy that examines the other sources of energy and the various subsidies and incentives they receive. They get plenty. As reported here by the New York Times:

The United States offers some of the most lucrative incentives in the world to companies that drill for oil in publicly owned coastal waters, but a newly released study suggests that the government is getting very little for its money.

Personally, I think the big oil companies are behind the GOP position. I think they were a little “spooked” by how fast the corn growers and ethanol producers have mobilized. Once their task is defined and they’ve got the tools to work with, these farmers don’t fool around.

Drive small, drive less, walk more, eat less meat.

In 1980 we had a biologist running for president. Barry Commoner, standard-bearer for the Citizens Party, gave a speech at Calvin College in Grand Rapids and I drove across town on a rainy night to hear him. I’d read his book, Science and Society, and knew he was critical of nuclear power and the complicated, centralized governmental-industrial apparatus that supported it.

During the speech, Barry brought up biofuels, or “gasahol.” He briefly described growing corn and distilling a mash to make ethanol to use as motor fuel. The residue, he said, was rich in nitrogen, phosphorus, and minerals that made an excellent fertilizer. At this, there was a collective “ooh” that wafted across the audience. We understood the balance. “Yeah, it’s a nice arrangement,” Barry said in his Brooklyn accent. Yeah. Yeah! He was having a good night, there among the believers. Barry supposedly referred to himself as a “congenital optimist.”

Source: National Corn Growers Association

Today we’ve got ethanol – big time. Nearly a quarter of the Yellow Dent “King Corn” crop goes to fuel production. Where I live in the corn belt, if you come visit our little town and stop in the morning at the cafe, you’d better wear sunglasses because the farmers are grinning ear to ear and possibly using teeth whiteners. About three years ago, corn was selling around $1.50 per bushell, now it’s around $7, or about eight pounds for a dollar.

Today, the ethanol industry falls short of Commoner’s dream, however, with respect to the distiller’s residue. It’s not plowed back into the soil as fertilizer. It, along with nearly the half of the corn yield is sold to confined animal feed operations (CAFO’s), to make meat and dairy products. CAFO’s stink, and the reliability of rural manure management is poor. Spreading manure on fields is weather dependent and runoff is common. The CAFO’s and environmental regulators get sued for polluting the rivers and lack of enforcement of regulations. CAFO’s on the Plains are remaking the topography, building mountains of dung covered with thousands of cows like ants on an ant hill, fed and watered constantly and pumped with antibiotics. The fact is, under prevailing conditions, meat production is a dirty business.

The third highest use of corn is export, much of it to China and Japan, not to feed hungry people, but to feed cows and pigs and support growing demand for meat in those countries. A lot of corn goes to producing High Fructose Corn Sweeteners, which appear to be a factor in growing rates of metabolic disorders such as diabetes, and obesity as mentioned here, and here.

Only a tiny fraction of Yellow Dent corn goes directly into cereal and basic human food. It’s a raw material for a wide array of sometimes dubious products, like sweeteners, and the producers of those products are sore at having to pay higher prices for their raw materials.

One group defending ethanol against those who want to end mandates for biofuels is FoodPriceTruth.org. They argue that the number one driver of higher food prices is higher oil prices. Considering the food on our dinner plates has traveled an average of 1500 miles, they’ve got a point.

Some ideas to ponder: Barry Commoner’s Four Laws of Ecology

1. Everything is Connected to Everything Else. There is one ecosphere for all living organisms and what affects one, affects all.

2. Everything Must Go Somewhere. There is no “waste” in nature and there is no “away” to which things can be thrown.

3. Nature Knows Best. Humankind has fashioned technology to improve upon nature, but such change in a natural system is, says Commoner, “likely to be detrimental to that system.”

4. There Is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch. In nature, both sides of the equation must balance, for every gain there is a cost, and all debts are eventually paid.

Last week during the Friday April 4th news roundup of the Diane Rehm Show, Diane invited experts Steve Roberts, Chrystia Freeland and Jill Zuckman to provide their perspectives on current events.

At one point, the conversation turned to the government “bailout” of Bear Stearns and its likely “savior” J.P. Morgan Chase. Chrystia Freeland, who is Managing Editor at the Financial Times New York office said, essentially, that having many international banks involved in the U.S. housing mortgage business is good because it makes more money available to the real estate market, and therefore, more likely customers can find a lender to lend them money to buy a house.

She also contrasted this financial environment with one of a generation ago, where, typically, a prospective home buyer would go to a local bank where banker and customer knew something about each other, personally. The banker would probably have at least seen the house to be financed, would have known something about the neighborhood, would have known something about the customer’s employer and the general economic health of the town. That’s not the way financing works in a global environment, but Ms. Freeland seemed to be saying the global financial system is, on balance, better for everybody.

I’m not so sure, for two reasons. First, with so many banks competing for business, there is pressure on the banks to loan at lower financing costs to beat their competitor. This means less money for the banks as they compete in a “race to the bottom.” This is a losing game for the banks, however, and one they’d like to avoid

A more profitable scheme for the banks is to make riskier loans at higher interests rates and fees. In this situation, the bank that’s left standing when all the other banks have decided the deal is too risky is the one to sign the contract and collect high interest and service charges to compensate them for assuming greater risk. Over time, and especially during times of economic stress, this business model becomes a house of cards, as we see now with all of the “write downs” by mortgage lenders.

Secondly, another adverse effect of all this global money in the housing market is to inflate the price of real estate. If a conservative local bank balks on a deal because they suspect a property is not worth the asking price, some obscure mortgage broker with an office in Dubai and gobs of cash on hand might be willing to write a mortgage for an inflated price. For years, as long as the real estate sector boomed, there was nothing wrong with such an arrangement.

But financial chickens have finally come home to roost. What with stagnant wages and higher costs for food, energy, transportation, and health care, high housing prices are unsustainable. Millions of Americans can no longer stretch their paychecks to cover their expenses. How did we get here? The influence of global venture capital, largely available due to enormous profits from oil sales, the real estate boom, and manufacturing that uses cheap third-world labor has to be part of the “equation.”

Globalization has been around since the days of Marco Polo and it will continue to play some role in our economy. But, has its role grown too large?

The alternative to globalization is a diversified local economy, which makes up a portion of a locally-based system of living known as called bioregionalism. Bioregionalism emphasizes energy conservation, local foods and manufacturing, and taking an active role in our local communities. In the eyes of global capitalism, gardening in our backyards is a subversive activity, as it takes time away from laboring, driving, buying or selling to support global commerce.

There is more about bioregionalism here.

If you do your own grocery shopping and read the ingredient labels of packaged foods, you’ll find one sweetener that shows up over and over again: high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Intended as a substitute for more expensive cane and beet sugar, evidence shows the HFCS is metabolized and stored more like fat, not sugar, in the human body. As a result, HFCS lowers blood insulin levels and likely contributes to higher rates of obesity and Type 2 diabetes. That’s according to this story from The Economist.

HFCS was first developed in Japan and got a big boost after the 1982 sugar tariff made foreign sucrose sugar more expensive. At the same time, big federal subsidies for corn made HFCS very cheap to produce in the United States. Sucrose consumption fell sharply as Americans loaded up on HFCS, usually without any idea what they were eating. According to The Economist:

Since then (1982), the annual consumption of HFCS in America has gone from nothing to more than 40 pounds (18.2 kg) per person. Today it accounts for nearly half of all the sugar and sweeteners used in the country. Nutritionists recommend no more than 10 to 12 teaspoonfuls of added sugar of all sorts a day. Instead, the average American’s daily dose is more like 35 teaspoonfuls—most of it coming from soft drinks. A single 12-ounce can of pop contains the equivalent of 13 teaspoonfuls of sugar in the form of HFCS.

Meanwhile, the number of Americans with metabolic syndrome (MetS) has more than doubled. The syndrome—a condition characterised by obesity, insulin resistance and lots of ugly triglyceride fats in the blood—is linked to type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. In Europe, where HFCS can’t compete with cheap cane or beet sugar, only 15% of the adult population has MetS. In America, a staggering 33% suffers from the condition.

The new Farm Bill currently debated differs from previous bills in that there have been serious challanges to traditional grain subsidies. More money is going to encourage small growers who grow meat and dairy products, fruits and vegetables that humans actually eat. The old “king corn” subsidies are still there but they’re coming under more scrutiny. Add to this, growing competition between cattle and cars for corn and its motor fuel derivative: ethanol, and agricultural policy appears ready to shift away from corn subsidies – a form of corporate welfare.

The Farm Bill has a long way to go to end the corn subsidies that appear to have contributed to health problems among Americans, but global demand for renewable energy and a new policy toward Cuba may mean less HFCS in our diets. Again, from The Economist:

But ponder this. Misguided government policy caused the food industry to switch to high fructose corn syrup in the first place. Another misguided government policy—America’s plan to produce 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels annually, mostly in the form of bioethanol made from corn—could make the food industry switch back to healthier sugars just as fast.

Switching back to healthier sugars would probably do us good. Now, if we could just walk or ride a bicycle to work. Imagine, a lean and sexy, peaceful America with no need to occupy the oil-rich Middle East. We’d be the envy of the world.
Drrrrrrrrrream on.

Graph credit: The Economist.

According to Who rocker Roger Daltrey, “the last thing the planet needs is a rock concert.”

He’s right isn’t he?

The Live Earth Concert seemed a bit hackneyed and overdone. It just doesn’t seem necessary given twenty years of debate about global warming.

Scribbles gets it right:

Global warming is not just a buzz word anymore, it is a gravy train. Everyone from scientists, to politicians, to rock stars, are jumping on the train and earning themselves loads of money…

Personally, I will continue to turn lights off when not needed, not leave my appliances on standby, recycle as much as I can, use supermarket bags for life rather than disposable plastic bags, and turn the tap off whilst I clean my teeth, but this morning it all feels a bit futile. Just how much difference can one person make when even the global warming brigade don’t see anything wrong with mass orgies of energy consumption?

We’re all aware of global warming, the question is what to do about it given our own tendencies to waste and corporations with vested interests in our continuing to waste.

Sheila at One Shade Greener has a good article about the “100 calorie” packaging scheme designed for folks who think one serving comes in one bag. For folks too busy and too focused on the increasingly competitive global economy to use a measuring cup and do simple arithmetic, the new micropackaging puts lots of little bags in a big bag and takes all the guess work out of counting calories. It also creates a shit load of waste.

But, hey, one less thing to think about. Soon we won’t need to think at all. Just work and consume.

We’ve listened to the wise. We’ve heard the songs of the stars. Perhaps now, they can show us how to live. It would be nice if they would stand up to the crassist kinds of capitalism, as well.

One of my old departed relatives used to say “charity covers a mutitude of sins.” Maybe, maybe not. Rich people like Al Gore and John Edwards can afford carbon offsets (of quesionable effecacy) to compensate for their heavy carbon footprints, but most people can’t. Most of us are going to have to live differently. We’ll have to break old habits because it will be too expensive not to.

We need public transportation, updated infrastructure, far more wind and solar installations. We need to design places for people to live and work without commuting so far. We need employers to allow more people to work more at home. We need to grow some of our own food.

We need to keep the best of what globalization has to offer but realise the value of diversified local economies, an aspect of Biorgionalism

Sheila Samuelson has a good article “a Mighty Wind” at One Shade Greener about the Skystream 3.7, a small-scale wind power generator designed for the residential and small-business market. If massed-produced like Ford’s Model T, this kind of energy production could radically change the way electricity is produced and sold in this country, and around the world, moving from highly capitalized and centralized large-scale power plants to something as common as a backyard bird feeder.

To get enough wind to power the turbine, it is recommended for lot sizes of 1/2 acre or more and the manufacturers claim to be able to supply between 40 and 100 percent of home electricity needs. The units could integrate with the regional power grid.

At $5,400, the unit is a bit pricey for some of us but if folks will spend $500 on an iPhone, there should be plenty of customers.

The Skystream 3.7 may or may not live up to its advertising, but its concept of the individual citizen power generator is a big shift away from the “bigger is better” mentality that supports global corporate conglomerates and mega-utilities.

Photo by Nicksail

No need to feel guilty about growing your own food. On the contrary, you may help peasant farmers keep their sustaining piece of land.

Read more…

Photo credit: Nicksail

In the late Eighties, while a graduate student at the University of New Hampshire, I recall a conversation about what it takes to be an “environmentalist.” One older graduate student, returning to study after raising her family, said that her husband, a retired commercial pilot, claimed that all it took to be an environmentalist was to grow some of your own food and use a clothesline in your back yard. Read more…

Got garbage? How about old tires? Plastics? Turkey feathers?

It’s going to take a lot of guts to develop sustainable and renewable fuels. At least that’s the view of a Missouri compay called Changing World Technologies (CWT). I’d need to know some more about this company to flat out endorse them, but they appear to be well on their way to making an important contribution to solving two big problems facing the world: not enough energy and too much waste.

The CWT method is called the Thermal Conversion Process (TCP), which basically breaks down virtually any organic material or petroleum-derived waste product, such as tires and plastic, and produces “renewable diesel” along with minerals that can be used as fertilizer. In some cases, metals are also recovered.

The CWT feedstocks used to make diesel fuel are amazingly diverse. Some of it’s offal (entrails) for example:

Food Processing/ Agricultural
Poultry (Offal, Feathers, Bones, Litter, Manure, Protein Meal); Beef (Offal, MDM, Paunch, Bone Meal); Pork (Offal, Manure, Grease); Fish; Hay and other Natural Grasses; Corn Sludge; Spent Hens; Egg Waste; Mushroom Substrate; Onion Skins; Soybean Oil Soapstock

Municipal
Municipal Sewage Sludge (MSS), Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), Dissolved Air Floatation (DAF) Sludge

Industrial
Shredder Residue, Tires, Mixed Plastics

I’m not sure what they mean by “MDM” and “paunch.” I assume “spent hens” are too old to lay eggs.

This is particularly encouraging news as we hear more about the limitations of ethanol produced by corn, especially the inefficiencies associated with growing corn including fuel and fertilizer inputs. The CWT approach has tremendous symmetry in that it both provides energy and eliminates waste that would otherwise be buried in landfills.

This is something to keep an eye on. CWT received some support under the current federal Energy Bill, but they may deserve even more support. They are trying to partner with other industries that produce suitable feedstock as waste. The strategy then is to produce small-scale decentralized energy systems to produce heat, electricity, and vehicle fuels. With current regulations likely favoring a more centralized energy production and distribution, the CWT model may face serious obstacles involving permitting, licenses, and access to markets. If their process works as well as it seems, hopefully, they’ll get a fair shot at the market.

“I’ll grow my own for the time being until they say it’s OK” – Charlene Christianson, 78, Milwaukee.

One of the key aspects of bioregionalism is having consumers be aware of their own sources of food and water. When we produce and package food in industrial mega-farms thousands of miles from home and truck food all over North America, we have no clue about how it’s grown, stored, and handled. When we grow our own or buy from a CSA (community supported agriculture) grower, we can know first-hand what the operation is like, even know our suppliers personally.

From Michelle Nichols, writing for Reuters, “According to California Department of Food and Agriculture spokesman Steve Lyle, California produces 68 percent of U.S. spinach, and has a 2005 crop worth $106.5 million. A separate report by the California county commissioners for 2005 estimates the gross value of the state’s crop to be worth $258 million after packing and processing.”

California growers and national grocery chains have plowed under or disposed of millions of dollars worth of product. What kind of economic sense is this?

By depending on the Salinas Valley mega-farms to feed the U.S. we ensure that a problem like the E. coli contamination is a national or even international problem. If our food were to come from within 100-miles of where we live (currently a difficult but mostly doable goal for most of us), a contamination outbreak such as we’ve seen recently would be confined to a local area, instead of reaching across the country – a little problem instead a a big one.

The larger lesson of the spinach contamination is to understand that centralized food and energy systems leave us vulnerable to single incidents. Planners and engineers talk about system redundancy as the way to insure against such vulnerabilty and bioregionalism is part of that philosophy.

Bioregionalism and eating locally is not just for idealists. It is an aspect of homeland security.

Listening to economic news, it seems clear that a key to economic security is economic diversification. I live in a region that was once rich hardwood forest, but the wood from our local lumber yard is cut and milled in Canada. Most of the land today is used only 4 months out of the year to grow grain to feed cows and hogs – and in the near future, to make ethanol from corn. One of the world’s largest bodies of fresh water (Lake Erie) is only about 25 miles away “as the crow flies,” but the fish we buy from the store nearly all come from the ocean, a thousand miles away. Some actually come from New Zealand! I wish someone could explain to me why we need to ship fish here from New Zealand.

The River Raisin that flows through town supplies our drinking water but doesn’t support edible fish. There’s an old building downtown next to the railroad that sells antiques and scented candles and Thomas Kincade reproductions. It used to be a hotel and tavern and music hall. It used to get a lot of business from sport fishermen who arrived by train and fished the Raisin. Those days are long gone. Killed by big agri-biz, chemicals, soil erosion, and sediment- for starters.

The mainstream economic advice of diversification is ultimately a call for local diversification. This is, perhaps surprisingly, in line with what sustainable living or “bioregionalism” advocates are working on.

The Great River Earth Institute (GREI) in Minneapolis defines bioregionalism as “you are aware of the ecology, economy and culture of the place where you live, and are committed to making choices that enhance them.” Concrete examples of bioregional living, as the GREI explains, follow>

“Living bioregionally

Living a bioregionally-conscious life means making choices daily that focus on local ecology, economy and culture. It may mean any or all of the following:

Buying food grown locally (and organically).

Avoiding large chain retailers in favor of locally owned stores.

Seeking out products made close to home by companies that are socially and environmentally responsible.

Banking with locally owned banks, especially ones that invest in the community.

Knowing the birds, animals, trees, plants and weather patterns of your place, as well as land features and soil types.

Understanding the human cultures that have occupied your place in the past and respecting their ways of life.

Getting to know your neighbors and “looking out for each other.”

Seeking out entertainment that originates in your area; supporting local artists, musicians, theater companies, storytellers.

Watching less TV and spending more time with loved ones or neighbors playing games, making music and having your own fun.

Knowing where your garbage goes and reducing your waste to a minimum.

Knowing where your drinking water comes from and using water conservatively.

Knowing how and where your electricity is generated and utilizing sustainable energy sources, such as solar power, whenever possible.

Voting in local elections and being involved in political decision-making.

Being directly involved in your children’s education, whether they are in school or are homeschooled.”

Doesn’t this sound like stuff our grandparents used to do?