The economy continues to battle through troubled times. Unemployment is near an all time high, wages are down, uninsured numbers are on the rise, housing prices continue to fall, and trillions of dollars in wealth has evaporated. On top of this, we in California are facing one of the worst droughts we’ve seen in years. The only bright stop is the recent rise in the stock market.
During these times, I’ve heard people are trading in being green for some extra green. When it comes to putting food on the table or keeping a roof over your head vs. buying products that have are green (and more expensive), it’s tough to argue which one wins.
However, keep in mind that being green often means living a smarter and more frugal lifestyle. For example, turn off lights and appliances when you’re not using them. Take shorter showers. Use cloth towels instead of paper towels. Combine trips when you need to go out and run errands. Bring a reusable shopping bag to the market - it doesn’t cost you a thing, and you may even get a little green back from the store. In fact, doing many of the things we’ve been discussing in ThingsThatMakeYouGoGreen will help you save green.
If you have ideas and tips on green things that save green, let us know. I can be reached at greenhl [at] ttmygg [dot] com. I would personally love to hear your ideas!
I was pondering how population affects our environment, when I came upon this article in the Yale Environment 360 called, “Too Many People,
Too Much Consumption” by scientists Paul and Anne Ehrlich at Stanford. In it, they argue that we need to reduce our population if we are to solve our enviromental problems. I could not agree more. Once someone is born, they are free to pursue life happiness, a car, a house and the American dream right? It seems obvious that best way to avoid the problem is to have fewer people.
But I read the article, eagerly looking for the part where they talk about how we reduce the population, but found very little. Their suggestion is to do so (I kid you not):
Through a global dialogue in which people discuss the human predicament and decide whether they would like to see a maximum number of people living at a minimum standard of living, or perhaps a much lower population size that gives individuals a broad choice of lifestyles.
Huh? Really? That seems kind of a like a recipe to do nothing.
I think a much more straightforward option is to make sure that women around the world have access to education. Quoting the National Center for Health Statistics study, there was, “a direct relationship between years of education and birth rates, with the highest birth rates among women with the lowest educational attainment.” This means that those of us who feel strongly about the planet should support the efforts of those who are working to educate women around the world. It’s a huge way we can make a difference.
If you’re like me, you probably take less public transit than you could - I blame it on transit maps, which are always so freaking hard to figure out! But these days, with gas prices the way they are, and the whole planet melting and all, it’s a good time to find a workaround.
Fortunately Google offers great transit instructions in 50 cities worldwide, including the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, Austria, France, Italy, Poland, Russia, Swizerland and the UK? Just go to Google Transit, and enter your start point and destination!
This link shows the results I get from Google Transit for a trip from my alma mater, the University of California at Berkeley to the Google campus.
You can also get the same transit help on your mobile phone via Google Maps for Mobile (GMM), which is actually a great app that I use all the time. Go to the GMM page to download the app to your phone (works on some phones) or just to learn more. There’s even a video about how it works!
Regardless of your political inclinations, you have to admit that Mayor McHottie (aka Gavin Newsom) of San Francisco is doing a pretty decent job in promoting “greenness.” In fact, a recent independent study noted that San Francisco has cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent from 1990 levels and is on track to meet its goal of a 20 percent reduction in four years.
That’s pretty impressive if a 20% reduction can really be had in a mere four years.
Below are just some of the ways our city has taken steps to be more green (not all of these are necessarily related to greenhouse gas emissions):
- SF has the largest City-owned solar installation in the country - a 75 kilowatt solar array atop Moscone Center (convention facility)
- 100% of SF’s taxi fleets are to be converted to hybrid or alternative fuel vehicles by 2011
- SF has a new green building ordinance which imposes strict new green building requirements on newly constructed residential and commercial buildings, and renovations to existing buildings - by 2012, it is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by 60,000 tons
- Local restaurants are now banned from using Polystyrene foam (Styrofoam™) disposable food service ware
- In March 2007, SF became the first U.S. city to ban plastic shopping bags
- SF currently has a 70 percent recycling rate. The city’s goal is 75 percent by 2010 and zero waste by 2020
But enough about us - tell me how your city stacks up and what is being done to curb global warming in your neck of the woods.
I won’t write about the vices of smoking (we all know what they are) or the fact that the amount of money people spend smoking could end poverty (I’m exaggerating). I wrote a couple months ago how bad smoking is for the environment. Smoking isn’t just bad when people light up, but rather, it’s environmentally detrimental throughout the entire production supply chain.
In what was an extremely controversial move, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a law last week banning the sale of tobacco products in most pharmacies within city limits. San Francisco, the first city in the U.S. to pass such a ban, hopes this will spur other cities to action. Marin County has already taken notice and is thinking about a similar ban.
San Francisco spokespeople mentioned the law was to promote the idea of health in a pharmacy. They mentioned pharmacies should be places where people go to get healthy. Rite Aid and Walgreens spokespeople expressed concern about limiting customer choice in their stores, and noted people buying cigarettes in their stores could use also pharmacists as a resource to stop smoking. They also mentioned the law lacked basic fairness.
As much as I dislike smoking and as bad as smoking is for the environment, I’m a little torn. I would love for everyone to stop smoking, but I’m not sure bans like this are productive or fair, especially when they seem to single out certain types of retailers. What stops San Francisco from banning potato chips and other products?
