Step It Up

Next Saturday, April 14, will witness a grassroots effort called Step It Up 2007. The brainchild of environmental writer Bill McKibben, Step It Up envisions thousands of Americans taking to the streets or precious natural areas, to encourage our lawmakers to pass legislation aimed at combating Global Warming. I've written in this blog (though not often enough) that this country needs true leadership to step up and combat this ominous threat to human well-being. Next Saturday will be an opportunity to demonstrate that, by sitting on their hands, our lawmakers are not representing our wishes. So get out and lend your voice to the effort.

Activities will take place in all 50 states, including 32 planned for Maine. I plan to be at the Polar Bear Action in Brunswick. I hope to see you there, or hear about your participation in other events.

Breaking News - Humans Responsible for Global Warming!

A UN panel has announced that it agrees (with > 90% certainty) with what Al Gore has been telling us for 30 years - humans are responsible for Global Warming. This report also discusses some of the catastrophic results over the next 100 years from Global Warming, should we fail to stop or reverse the process.

The Kyoto Protocol has proven ineffectual thus far. The Protocol is toothless without US involvement anyway, however the Bush Administration pulled out in 2001 because capping emissions would hurt corporate profits. (This is becoming a recurring theme in the Joe's Family of Blogs.) Bush also offered the following lame reason - developing nations should also be included in the Protocol.

Well, ain't that some damn fine leadership?

But that's six-year old news. Today's announcement from the UN should end the debate over how much influence humans have had over the rising temperatures of the planet. The planet is warming and, unless we want to see Wall Street executives arriving to work via gondola, action must be taken.

"Faced with this emergency, now is not the time for half measures.
It is the time for a revolution, in the true sense of the term," French President
Jacques Chirac said. "We are in truth on the historical doorstep of the
irreversible."

The time has come for true leadership on the issue. Plans for unachievable ethanol use is not an answer. Market based emissions caps are not an answer. The US and the rest of the world's industrial nations need to establish comprehensive measures that regulate everything from automobile to manufacturing to power plant emissions. We all also need to find ways to mitigate the carbon that we do continue to emit, sequestering the pollutants via reforestation efforts for example.

The power companies and auto manufacturers and the rest of corporate America are just going to need to live with the changes that must be made, regardless of what happens to share prices. (Much of the value of corporate shares is currently residing in our polluted air, land and waters. The cost of this cleanup must be borne by the corporations, and ultimately by you, as your investments decline in value and costs are passed on to the consumer - but that's a topic for another day!)

We as individuals must also radically change some of the daily choices that we make. We can choose to buy our electricity from sustainable sources, or buy carbon offsets for the electricity that we use. We can buy more energy efficient appliances and automobiles and lightbulbs. We can reduce, reuse, recycle. We can carpool or bike to work or telecommute. We can drink tap water rather than water or soda transported by trucks. Likewise, we can grow some of our own food and buy much of the rest from local sources, eliminating the need to truck lettuce across the country (and supporting your local economy). And many more things that we can do that are too numerous to mention on my lunch hour.

The time has come for leadership, and for us all to do our part to stop Global Warming.

It's Beginning to Look Not Like Christmas

Here it is, December 21, 2006. Brunswick, Maine. The first day of winter. Per usual during the cold months, the wind is whipping down Maine Street. And there's a guy walking toward me who is wearing a short sleeve shirt. I'm a more practical sort - I have a long sleeve shirt and a fleece vest on. My notoriously cold hands are comfortable sans gloves.

The air temperature is 50 degrees. What is going on here? Whether it's El Nino or Global Warming, it just ain't right. I'm happily not burning fuel to heat my home, but - it just ain't right. Bring me snow. Make me wear a hat. Jack Frost, please come nipping at my nose. This warm December is crazy!

Water Is Life

It's been a while since I've posted here, so you're probably not reading this right now. However here is a link to a blog that I came across, dedicated to all things water. The human population of this planet will soon have outgrown the freshwater resources avaialable to sustain it. When that happens, as the header to the blog states, it will be the "oil of the 21st century."

There are a lot of alarm bells in this blog, but it also contains good information about the need for us to live more sustainably within our water supplies.

The US is currently engaged in a war to enable us to control more of the world's oil supply. In the future, wars will potentially rage over the water supply. The time for strong leadership to come forward in this country to fight our oil dependence, and to fight climate change, has long since passed without any action (apologies to Al Gore and Jimmy Carter, of course). This is because those who fund the political campaigns are well entrenched in an oil economy. Perhaps when somebody faces facts over peak oil and climate change, they will also face facts over water supply, and try to protect our resources.

I have my doubts, however. Already the water supply in third world countries has started to become privatized (i.e., has become the "property" of major corporations like Bechtel). When governments try to control somebody else's "property," conservatives get their undies in a bunch. Privatization is also an issue in this country. I live in a state where a major water bottler, Poland Spring, continues to expand its pumping operations. It does this without paying a significant tax to the people of the state, although the citizens of the state are required to protect the water supply from pollution. It's not an issue at the moment, because there is ample water in Maine's aquifers. It will be a problem in the future, however, as Poland Spring pumps out more water and ships it out of state.

The government needs to take control of the water supplies before we reach a crisis stage. This control should include regulation of bottled water pumping. It should also include the promotion and perhaps regulation of irrigation systems, requiring that sound farming practices be followed in order to preserve the water that is supplied by mother nature. It's the right thing to do, and it should be done before we have to start killing people over the issue.

BioHeat's time has come

It's going to be an exciting year for the Joe family. We've decided to make the switch this year to B20 BioFuel (80% petroleum, 20% vegetables) for the 2006-07 heating season. As my partner and I have grown more committed to our efforts to minimize our impact on the planet, we have decided that money can no longer be a barrier to following our values in this area. Hence, in February we bought a Honda Civic hybrid that gets nearly 50 miles to the gallon and has very low emissions. We continue to purchase as much locally-grown and/or organic food as we can find. We have reduced our use of plastics. And now we are going the BioFuel route. And the best news about BioHeat is that the prices are now competitive with petroleum.

We received notice, through the Maine BioDiesel newsletter, that local supplier Independence Fuel in the neighboring town of Durham, is among several BioDiesel companies in the state now offering fixed-price plans for BioDiesel. This is a huge step in bringing Bio Fuel to the mainstream. The product is cleaner, safer and more environmentally friendly than pure petroleum, and 20% of the product is produced in this country! In prior years pricing wasn't competitive, and the companies couldn't offer the security of the fixed price contracts that are so important with the constant rise in oil prices. This year is different, however. The contracts are available, and the pricing actually beats that offered by my former supplier. I was willing to pay more for all of the benefits that BioFuel provides, so I'm certainly willing to pay less. In fact, I signed up for a budget (10 payment) plan that is 10 cents cheaper than the price-cap pre-buy price of my incumbent supplier! I save money and I don't have to write a check for $1,500 this summer? Where do I sign?

According to Independence Fuel's web site, they still have fixed-price plans available. Click here to find other BioFuel dealers in the state. If you don't live in Maine (and why don't you?), check the map to find a supplier near you.

Freedom Lawn (or, How Hannah Holmes Changed my Life)

I have what most American suburbanites would describe as “a crappy lawn.” The US ideal, as promoted by the people at Scotts, Chemlawn, and even the environmentally friendly Nature’s Lawn, is a lush sea of green grass. Neither flower or non-conforming foliage must tarnish the landscape.

My lawn, on the other hand, is comprised of clover, dandelions, paintbrushes, buttercups, strawberry vines, baby ferns, some purple flowers that I kind of like (and some white ones, too), a bunch of things that I should know the names to by now, and at least three varieties of grass, including the crab variety. It’s a mess.

Is this any way to run a lawn?

I even went so far as to contract an assessment (“high weed content”) and quote from Nature’s Lawn a couple of years ago. Despite their promises to not use chemicals and pesticides, I decided that I had better things to spend a few hundred dollars per year on. At least my lawn is already green. Besides, I don’t live in a subdivision, I live on a country road where you can’t see anybody else’s lawn while standing on mine. I figured I could wait before trying to strengthen the grass (and choke out the weeds) on my own.

Then I met Hannah Holmes, who talked me out of even that.

That’s not entirely true. I didn’t actually meet Ms. Holmes, though I live only about 20 miles away from her South Portland home. I did, however, receive a copy of her 2005 book Suburban Safari, in which she spends a year documenting the actions of the flora and fauna in her own back yard. And right there on page 103 Holmes introduced me to the concept of the Freedom Lawn:

The freedom applies both to the plants and the people, the latter of whom
needn’t water, fertilize, pesticize, or other otherwise interfere. Nurseries now
sell Freedom Lawn seed mixes, for lawn owners who life in parts of the world
that have been shortchanged in weeds. But even before I came across the official
term, I thought of my yard as a Darwin Lawn. Whatever could survive the mower
and the drought was welcome to stay.

That’s what I have! A Freedom Lawn. And it’s a good thing, too. Holmes later writes about the problems with having a lawn that is comprised of one species of grass:

Monocultures are sickly, that’s a scientific fact. While it’s true that some
plants fight each other, it’s also true that a high diversity of plants protects
everybody. Together, the plants pool their talents. Each plant probably repels a
few harmful insects. Each probably attracts a beneficial insect or two. The
wastes of one species feed the roots of the next. The bold produce shade for the
shy. They also dilute themselves, making it tougher for diseases to roll from
clover to clover, or ryegrass to ryegrass. This has been proven in experiments:
A plot of grassland hosting many species produces a lot more total greenery than
a plot with fewer species. Even the most carefully tended plot of a single
species can’t compete.

Rather than spend a lot of time an money and resources forcing your lawn to be something that it doesn’t want to be, and isn’t all that desirable (from an ecological standpoint), Holmes and the Freedom Lawn community suggest just letting the thing run free. And indeed, since I stopped applying water and fertilizer a few years ago, my lawn has become more lush and green and (dare I say) healthier than ever before.

Looks OK when you mow it!

Suburban Safari is full of such practical advice. While promoted as a chronicle of the activity in Holmes’ back yard over the course of a year, it is much more than that. Holmes takes on such important topics as global warming, disease, invasive plants and animals, and, importantly, water diversion. The last topic isn’t one that we hear about much in New England, which receives ample precipitation most years, but it is an issue in the desert southwest where rivers and groundwater are depleted to feed agriculture, humans and, increasingly as the population grows, human lawns. It takes a lot of water to grow grass. Growing grass where there isn’t a lot of rainfall requires one to divert water from other, more practical uses. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that human population centers require a lot of pavement, which doesn’t absorb rainfall but instead sends it down into the sewers. Less absorbed rainfall means more water needs to be diverted. It’s a downward spiral.
The book does live up to it’s original billing as well, and it’s an interesting story. Like any good story, there is romance, violence, and the struggle to survive. It’s man vs. nature as well as nature vs. nature. We follow crows, chipmunks, squirrels, ants, slugs and spiders. We also follow oak trees, apple trees, pear trees and grape vines. We see how plants, animals and humans fight amongst themselves for space. Most enlightening was Holmes’ description of the defense mechanisms employed by the trees. We all know that plants are living things, but Holmes portrays them as, if not thinking beings, species that are able to adapt to threats and changing conditions, and even react with unseen, unknown defense mechanisms. It’s a fascinating read.

There is much to be learned from Suburban Safari. Some of it is in the “cool to learn something new” department, like the aforementioned discussion of the trees. But much of it is practical advice for what we as humans can do to preserve the natural world around us. It is an eye-opening look at how our attitudes toward rain water, energy usage, chemicals and invasive species affect our communities and our lives. Highly recommended.

Initial Farmer's Market Washed Out

Barren Farmer's Market

The annual forebearer of summer, the Farmer's Market, made it's 2006 seasonal debut on the Brunswick Mall today. However, the event was basically washed out due to heavy rains. The much-needed precipitation was welcomed by all but those farmers hoping to get the season off to a robust start. Unfortunately, as can be seen in the photo above, there are few farmers and even fewer customers. The market is supposed to be open until 2:00, but the folks were packing up their trucks by 12:30, when the above photo was taken. If there are no customers during the noon hour, there are no customers. Hopefully, the weather Friday will moderate and we will see a vibrant crowd on the mall buying flowers and seedlings for their own gardens.

I am a firm believer in supporting local businesses, and support of local farms can go a long way toward boosting the local economy. There is also a benefit to the economy, as locally-grown food obviously requires less fuel to transport to the consumer than that grown on mega-farms across the country. And fresh fruits and vegetables simply taste better than any others.

I was working in a different town last summer, one that didn't have a farmer's market, and I missed having the opportunity to walk around and see everybody's wares, from the flowers and seedlings of the spring to the fall and autumn harvest. I was very much looking forward to getting started today, but that didn't happen. The market runs until November, so there is no reason for me to despair. I got to take a walk in the spring rain, and the gray skies make the flowers, particularly the forsythia, burst with color.

Brilliant Forsythia.