Good Guide Scanner Makes Healthy Shopping Point and Click

Want a new tool that makes conscious shopping a lot easier?  GoodGuide has launched a new application that allows shopping iPhone users to scan a product's bar code to learn whether it's a sustainable choice -- both environmentally and personally.

As Grist reports:

Click on “scan,” point the iPhone at, say, a bottle of organic chocolate sauce, and the app uses the iPhone’s camera to read the barcode and deliver instant feedback on the product’s “health performance,” “environmental performance” as well its its maker’s “social performance.

“Barcode scanning is critical for us,” (Dara) O’Rourke, associate professor at Cal’s Department of Environmental Science, Management and Policy, told me in an email. “This moves us closer to our goal of providing full environmental, social, and health information to consumers right at the moment they make purchasing decisions.”

GoodGuide to date has rated 63,000 products—from food and household chemicals to personal care items to toys—according to various criteria, including how transparent a company is about disclosing information. GoodGuide’s scientists, based in San Francisco, employ a extensive methodology to devise the ratings, which is detailed here.

This is certainly exciting, though how much it catches on with lazy light green and non-green consumers remains to be seen.  The good news is that it's OUTSIDE eco-friendly meccas like Berkeley where GoodGuide's technology has the most potential to help people become more conscious shoppers -- benefiting both their own health and the health of our environment.

My own whirls around GoodGuide find that there's still plenty of room for improvement in key areas where conscious choices make a big difference.

For example, under the beef category, the high carbon footprint of livestock feed is mentioned as a problem even for grass-fed beef.  However, the site's little educational notes say nothing of the devastating impacts of livestock grazing on the health of ecosystems and biodiversity.  Livestock grazing is, after all, the number one cause of species endangerment in the Western U.S., and overgrazing is a major cause of noxious weed invasions.  That's something that a system like this should really help educate shoppers in.

Additionally, when I wanted to find out about non-toxic furniture that doesn't contain nasty flame retardants, I couldn't find any information on this category just yet.

Regardless of these types of shortcomings, I love what GoodGuide is trying to do here, and look forward to following its growth. 

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Wind Turbines Beginning to Energize Alaska

The transition to renewable energy is catching on in -- of all places -- Alaska, the land of oil dividend checks.

Reports the Anchorage Daily News:

One of the wind-power turbines -- like a streamlined pinwheel or a futuristic windmill -- stands above a local chiropractor's office. The other is a green addition to an elementary school playground.

The turbines are part of a move toward renewable energy in Alaska. Wind turbines dot rural Alaska. Solar arrays power a building in Nome. Tourists soak at Chena Hot Springs Resort, a getaway powered by geothermal energy. And increasingly, homeowners are using energy derived from the sun and wind to heat their homes, keep the refrigerator running and charge their iPhones.

Some involved in this movement are driven by a desire to reduce their impact on the environment. For others, the decision is financial. Using alternative energy means less reliance on diesel fuel to power generators.

What I really like is a quote towards the end of this article, where a quote from one owner of a green, renewable-powered home flies in the face of those who say living green requires making painful sacrifices to quality of life:

A modern two-story colonial home with a garage and full basement on the tour is heated by sun-warmed water. Homeowners Dave and Karen Jones said they wanted a low-maintenance home with low energy costs that they can enjoy in their retirement.

"We're not making any concessions," said Dave Jones. "We're not tree huggers. We're normal people. We're just looking for a more efficient way to do it."

It's certainly a good sign -- given the Senate's dithering on clean energy legislation -- that even Alaskans are taking the initiative to reduce their use of oil.  The American pubic seems to be well ahead of its politicians on these issues.

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Bordeaux Banks on Biodiversity

Bordeaux's famed Saint Emillion wine growers have discovered the benefits of ecosystem services and biodiversity:

Viticulture has made the area wealthy but monoculture provides an ideal habitat for pests like spider mites and leafhoppers to colonise and infest a field, destroying the grape quality and yield.
For decades, chemicals provided the answer, but led to a cycle of dependency.

"When you treat with insecticides only three per cent of the bugs are a menace to the vineyards, the other 97 per cent are useful," said Patrice Hateau, director of Chateau Fombrauge.

In the case of spider mites, the insecticides also kill their natural enemy, the predatory mite Typhlodromus. "Just one Typhlodromus per vine leaf means you don't have to treat for red or yellow spider mites."

How can the ecosystem services provided by such predators of pests, as well as by pollinators, be integrated into Bordeaux's famed vineyards?

Chateau Figeac is a condensed picture of everything we need to do in Saint Emilion," said Philippe Bardet, the winegrower-activist behind the project, which now has the support of 26 public organisations.

Over the past 20 years, he has planted hedges and allowed grass cover, using this "functional landscape" to produce healthy grapes with fewer chemical interventions. Natural predators attack grape worms, and grass grown between the vines reduces diseases like mildew and rot by 30 per cent.

One campaign he led reduced obligatory vine treatments of the pernicious Golden Flavescence disease by 63 per cent, and won the support of 1,400 vintners.

Saint Emillion has always been among my favorite Bordeaux wines -- mostly because when I first started drinking them, I was a big Merlot guy (Saint Emillion is famed for using more more Merlot than other areas of Bordeaux, which tend to use more a majority of Cabernet in their blends).

I'm going to have to keep track of this project and do my best to purchase wines from participating vineyards!

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The World's Looming Water Gap

Marc Gunther of GreenBiz writes about the World's Looming Water Gap.  Says Gunther of the good news, the bad news, and the challenge surrounding humanities fresh water supplies:

The bad: Global demand for water already exceeds supply -- about 1.1 billion people don't have access to clean water -- and the so-called water gap is increasing at an accelerating rate.

The good: Cost-effective, sustainable solutions are available to close the gap, particularly if governments and business focus on reducing demand rather than trying to generate additional supply.

The challenge: Getting beyond the nostrum that water is a "human right" so that water, which is obviously a scarce resource, can be priced in a way that drives conservation.

Between the disappearance of glaciers that supply billions with drinking and agricultural water and the rising human population, we're in a world of trouble when it comes to fresh water.  The good news, of course, is that we have both the technology and the capability to improve agricultural, forestry, grazing and other land use practices in a way that will help protect and conserve water supplies.

Do our sluggish governments have the political will to drive -- and mandate -- a smooth transition to more water efficient and conserving practices in time to avoid a major global water crisis?

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Four Studies That Ponder the Road From Here

Joel Makower over at GreenBiz summarizes four year-end studies plotting the path forward.  They include, writes Makower:

• Managing the Unavoidable - aimed at better understanding the impact of climate change on companies and their investors in four sectors: electric utilities, oil and gas, real estate, and water utilities. The focus was on climate change adaptation, not mitigation -- that is, how companies in these sectors will shift their products, processes, and policies to succeed in a world grown warmer, but not necessarily what they'll do to help prevent warming in the first place.  

The takeaway:

Climate change adaptation strategy is becoming a boardroom issue. It may no longer be enough to measure and manage one's carbon footprint. Companies that don't have a strategy to adapt to climate change may find themselves reeling from "surprises" they might have otherwise anticipated.

• Major Tipping Points in the Earth's Climate System and Consequences for the Insurance Sector by the insurance giant Allianz and the nonprofit environmental group WWF.   It ponders the small changes that, at some point, could cause big changes in weather, sea levels, and other things. It chronicles several potential consequences -- sea-level rise along North American coasts, Indian Summer monsoons in Asia, Amazon die-back and drought, desertification of the southwestern U.S. -- and the "insurance aspects" for each.

The take-away:

The impacts of climate change on companies may not come through horrific, sudden hurricanes, fires, or other calamities, but through seemingly small changes that rapidly turn into big ones. Once again, the need to anticipate and plan for various climate scenarios is rising in importance in some industries.

•  "Charting Our Water Future" (PDF), by the Water Resources Group set out to "shine a light on water resource economics." 

 The Takeaway:

Much as with energy, there's a strong understanding that "business as usual" is no longer an option in the water sector. Water will be an important investment theme for companies and governments in the coming decades, providing opportunities for those that can provide cost-effective solutions. And there is significant "low-hanging fruit," in which existing technology and water-management strategies can close the gap between what's available and what's needed.

• Betting on Science" (PDF), a report from Accenture that looks at technologies in transport fuels that have the potential to "disrupt" the current views of supply, demand and greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade.

The takeaway, says Makower of this fourth study:

Research and development of oil alternatives is robust, with dozens of companies working to bring a wide range of alternatives to market. The question is no longer if or how these technologies will be commercialized, but when and how fast.

With the mainstream news media mainly bombarding us with heated "debates" over climate change and green economy issues (with some impressive exceptions, of course), it's refreshing to read analyses like this.  Like Makower -- and many of us -- I find the current transitional stage of society to be absolutely fascinating.

I continue to watch and participate with some mix of curiosity, hope, excitement, anticipation, dread, and inspiration.

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Green Jobs Improving Lives in the Inner City

Check out this interview with environmental justice and green jobs activist, Majora Carter.  Some great quotes in here, in her exchange with Living on Earth's Steve Curwood:

CURWOOD: Yeah, you've got to think in a place like the south part of the Bronx, where joblessness, and violence, and a lot of other pressing social problems are still clambering for attention; it's got to be kind of tough to get your voice heard about the environment?

CARTER: Well, it's not so tough when we pitch it the way that we do, which is about how do you create wealth and health for people? We actually learned the lesson a long time ago that in our community we don't really talk about the environment – we talk about things like public health; we talk about things like job creation. And starting one of the country's first green jobs training and placement system, right here in the South Bronx, we were able to do that because we listen to people talk about what was important to them. And, in particular, economic empowerment via i.e. jobs was a huge thing. What we wanted to do was help them see how they're both economic, as well as their personal self interest was tied up to make the environment a better place for them and their families.

CURWOOD: ...how do you get the message across that you don't have to be well-to-do to be an environmentalist?

CARTER: You know, look, I gotta tell you that many of the folks that came through our Green Jobs training program, many of them had been arrested, many times over in some cases, for selling weed on the street. These guys - and gals - are not making huge amounts of money, so when many of these folks were able to get jobs 25,000 dollars a year, with bennies, they were thrilled.

You know, whether they were putting green roofs on or doing wetland restoration or urban forestry management or cleaning up contaminated lands - these people should be viewed as the heroes that they are.

This is one of those stories that if you'd have told me, back in 1995, I'd be listening to today, I'd have laughed in your face.  We're in the midst of changing times, folks...

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Biofuel-Creating GMO Bugs

Living on Earth gets today's prize for the story that most leaves me feeling like I'm in the middle of an amazing societal transformation.

It's about efforts that are succeeding in creating highly engineered organisms that convert sunlight and CO2 to ethanol and diesel fuel.  This could be used, for example, to convert CO2 from a coal burning power plant into clean renewable fuels.

One engineered organism can make ethanol. Another makes diesel fuel. Sims envisions these panels in a sunny somewhere soaking up CO2 from a power plant, and sending a constant stream of fuel-laden water to a separation facility. He says an acre of the solar converters could produce many times what biofuel crops do.

SIMS: So there's no intermediary like cellulose or like algae that has to be grown, has to be processed as part of their process to create fuels or chemicals. We also don't require fresh water, we don't require agricultural land. We are converting CO2, and what is viewed by most people as bad into something good: renewable, clean fuel.

YOUNG: So let me see if I've got this straight. CO2, sun, your genetically tweaked organism – poof -- out the other end comes fuel?

SIMS: Yep, this is revolutionary technology, there's no doubt about it. Call it what you will, transformational, game changing, etc. But it's an entirely new way, using the power of the sun in a unique way, we aren't converting sunlight to electrons, we're converting sunlight to liquid fuels in a cost-effective manner that has essentially and unlimited supply.

As a conservation biologist, I hear about creating new organisms like this, and frankly, I worry: what happens if these fuel-producing organisms escape into the natural environment and contaminate streams, rivers, or the ocean?  Is this a risk?

I love the concept of converting waste CO2 into new clean fuels.  But I've got some serious questions about this type of technology that I need answered before I can get really excited. 

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Conservation: Indigenous Peoples' Enemy Number 1?

Mother Jones has a fascinating article about the history of America's national park's model, and questions whether it should be applied to the rest of the world -- especially wild places where indigenous peoples still live on the land.

Writing about the opportunity for conservationists to get this balance right in freshly established national parks in Africa's magical Gabon, the author notes:

But there was another, more historically significant opportunity facing Gabon that day, one that Fay merely hinted at in his presentation and Sanderson didn't mention at all. It was the opportunity their own industry, transnational conservation, had in Gabon: to do right by the thousands of tribal people living inside those emerald patches, by allowing them to remain in their homelands and participate directly in the stewardship and management of the new parks. They would then not be passive "stakeholders" relocated to the margins of the park, the typical fate of indigenous peoples who find themselves in conservation "hot spots," but equal players in the complex and challenging process of defending biological diversity.

The goal of such a policy would be the concurrent preservation of nature and culture; Gabon just might come to signify a happy ending of a tense, century-long conflict between global environmentalism and native people, millions of whom have been displaced from traditional homelands in the interest of conservation.

It's a century-long story of violence and abuse that began in Yosemite Valley in the mid 19th century, when the Ahwahneechee band of Miwoks were chased about, caught on, then forcefully expelled from a landscape they had cultivated for about 200 generations. Militias like the vicious Mariposa Battalion were sent into Yosemite to burn acorn caches and rout native people from remote reaches of the Valley. After the militias came the nature romantics who mythologized the vacated valley as the wilderness it never was, then lobbied state and federal governments to create a national park. They got their wish in 1890, and the remaining Indians were removed from the area, with a few allowed to remain temporarily, as menial laborers in a segregated village of 20-by-20-foot shacks.

During my undergraduate work at Cornell, I became engrossed in not only my Natural Resources major, but also American Indian Studies.  I really enjoyed learning about ways of seeing and valuing the world that were very different than the Western worldview I'd been brought up with.  In many cases, I felt that my values were more in line with those of indigenous peoples than those of our materialistic society! 

One day during a holiday gathering at the Akwe:kon house, Journal of Native Americas editor, Jose Barreiro, showed a bunch of us a fascinating pair of maps of Central America.  The first showed Central America's remaining areas of intact rainforest.  The second showed Central America's remaining areas of indigenous-managed land. The two maps matched almost exactly.

What does that say about how we can best protect our remaining wild places and their biodiversity?

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Plans for Cutting Emissions Could Also Benefit Health

Lest we forget the benefits that climate change and clean energy solutions will have for our health:

Slashing carbon dioxide emissions could save millions of lives, mostly by reducing preventable deaths from heart and lung diseases, according to studies released Wednesday and published in a special issue of The Lancet British medical journal.

“Relying on fossil fuels leads to unhealthy lifestyles, increasing our chances for getting sick and in some cases takes years from our lives,” U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a telecast briefing from her home state of Kansas. “As greenhouse gas emissions go down, so do deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. This is not a small effect.”

Sebelius, British health officials, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and the head of the World Health Organization all took part in briefings based in Washington and London.

“Here are ways you can attack major health problems at the same time as dealing with climate change,” said lead author Dr. Paul Wilkinson, an environmental epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

So now we have not only top scientists, but also top medical doctors and experts telling us how much society will benefit from climate change and clean energy solutions.  What type of person could possibly be against such public health remedies..?

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Is the Media Blowing Its Coverage of Climate Change Public Opinion Polls?

That sure would seem to be the case, according to Grist's David Roberts:

Polls about climate science get treated like the results of some contest between two ideological interest groups. It becomes a horserace story—“Democrats/environmentalists are losing”—rather than a story about danger to public health. It’s about environmentalists’ failure to persuade rather than the anti-scientific obscurantism that’s completely overtaken the Republican party, with financial support from large corporate interests.

If I can’t convince a guy standing in a downpour that it’s raining, seems to me the dumbass in the rain is the story, not my poor messaging.

I couldn't agree more.  So what's the real story here?  Roberts proposes the following:

A ramped-up effort by conservatives and industry groups to cast doubt on climate science has largely failed to convince the public that the science is in error. The fact that the earth’s atmosphere has warmed over the last 100 years is accepted by 72 percent of the public, down from from 80 percent last year. The decline came principally from the ranks of self-identified Republicans. The partisan split has widened on the issue, but a solid majority of the public accepts the findings of climate science and supports legislative efforts to address climate change.

To our ears this sounds “biased,”  because it accepts—without counter claims from the “other side”—the following three propositions:

1. climate change is a fact, a process already underway, not some sort of speculation or proposition of faith;
2. a coalition of fossil fuel industries and conservative foundations have conspired for decades to deny this fact, aided and abetted by the American political media; and
3. now that climate/energy legislation is a real possibility, that coalition is sharply ramping up its efforts.

All three of these propositions are demonstrably true;  it’s impossible to understand climate and energy politics over the last two decades without understanding them. Yet they never seem to sink into the firmament. They don’t shape coverage; they’re not part of the background architecture of climate stories.

I couldn't agree more.  To me, as both a scientist and a concerned citizen, the real story in this poll is the increasing politicization, among America's Republican party, of what is undoubtedly the most important challenge facing the world today.

That the recommendations of the worlds top National Academies of Sciences has become a political football in America, rather than a call to action to make our world more secure, brings Republicans squarely into the Earth-is-Flat, anti-Galileo camp.

As a registered Independent, I'm the loser.  Instead of having sound ideas from two parties to choose from, I largely only have one choice, since the other party's ideas on the issues I care about most are off-the-charts bonkers right now.  It's a shame.

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