25 May

Hope From Africa through Agroforestry

Posted by Donny Prater in adaptation, Agriculture, Carbon Sequestration. Tagged: , , , .

I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading lately about some of the possible solutions to global warming through carbon sequestration…. Boy, that’s a mouthful to say!  Anyway, one of the topics I’ve found most interesting is the current efforts in agroforestry in Africa that are actually catching on.

Agroforestry is simply growing indigenous trees in the same fields your crops are planted in.  This may sound like a strange idea for fields here in the States, but in the nations of Africa, Asia, and South America, it is a possible answer to the last few hundred years of decreased food production, soil downgrading, and even starvation.

A wonderful story comes out of the African nation of Burkina Faso where farmers were taught the benefits of agroforestry.  But it had to start with education and here’s why:  Since colonialism, the governments of most African nations that rule the poor farmers actually OWN every tree that grows in the country.  If a farmer was found harvesting a tree, he would be jailed, fined, even killed for stealing from the state.  So, being proactive, farmers would pull up the seedlings of any indigenous trees that happened to sprout in their field.  Fast forward after 100 years of pulling up all the trees, and growing crops year in year out, and nations around the equator are left with are large expanses of dusty fields with little or no trees to speak of, and sub par soils.  The mature trees that happen to exist are more than likely an import of some kind that is not indigenous to the area and underperform because of it.

So here’s what they did:  First of all, some countries finally changed laws so that trees were more “free” to citizens.  Then, the citizens had to be informed of these changes.   Next, farmers learned to let the saplings of indigenous trees grow until they could take a good hold on the dirt they sprouted from.  Farmers could now begin tending their crops around these trees (If you need a visual, picture sugar cane, corn, or any other green vegetation with a tree shooting up into the air every 5 meters or so).  After many years of this method of Agroforestry, the results are astonishing:  Higher yields across the board for vegetables, fruits, and even hardwoods.  But why?

The trees growing in the fields are indigenous to the area, so they are meant to thrive where God intended them to be in the first place.  And when they thrive, they grow and will help regulate temperatures on hot days by buffering a portion of  the sun’s hot rays.  This is especially important in equatorial countries now and in the future as the Earth continues to warm.    Trees also encourage native species of animals to return to the area.  Native birds can now roost in trees in the field and spend days eating pests.  The bees can build hives in trees and increase pollination, and even small mammals return to reestablish the circle of life in areas where it had previously been broken.

Agroforestry in Burkina Faso is one success story that the whole world should sit up and take notice of.  It has been so successful, that satellite imagery shows the  greening up of the Sahel region of Burkina Faso, versus its neighboring countries Mali and Niger where the State regime still holds to the old laws that all trees belong to the state and agroforestry is a crime.  But the main point is, it works to not only help feed people, but it also works to provide trees that are desperately needed to fix the ever-increasing atmospheric levels of CO2.  This is the big picture item!  Through this simple method of growing trees in a vegetable garden,  man can ease the overall grip of climate change.  It’s a nice example of how man can learn from past mistakes, and make a better tomorrow for our kids.

19 May

Watching Coal Burn and Lights Flicker

Posted by Donny Prater in Emissions. Tagged: , , , .

On Monday, a few members of the management team where I work, along with your’s truly, were invited to the Big Sandy Power Plant to tour the facility and get better handle on how we get our electricity.  This was not the first time I’ve ever been in a Power Plant, but it was the first time since the effects of climate change have begun affecting the world around me, so I was seeing it with new eyes.

The EPA’s recent ruling on CO2 being a Hazardous Air Pollutant and other rulings about Mercury, Lead and NOx, has all producers of power scrambling to figure out how much they are going to have to spend to keep their plants running.  The Big Sandy Plant is a good one to start with because it emits more than 2 millions tons of CO2, approximately 280 tons of Mercury per year, and made the list as the 61st Dirtiest Power Plants in America.   SO it’s really in the company’s best interest to try their darndest to put a good face on their company.  So, I went to the facility not knowing what to expect, but having an idea it would be a PR exercise.

The Big Sandy Plant is a part of the Kentucky Power Company that is a division of American Electric Power and is located on the banks of the Big Sandy River near Louisa, Kentucky.  Big Sandy is a coal-fired power plant that consumes primarily Eastern Kentucky Coal in two Units that provide around 1097mw to 175,000 customers, and yes, I am one of those customers.

When I walked into the conference room, I immediately recognized that of the 50 or so visitors I was surrounded by, 90% where coal operators,a couple were news persons, and one was an ex-governor that used to sell coal.  The four of us and a few guys from the local refinery, were the only ones that actually buy power to make something.  I was kind of surprised.

After a safety orientation, we were taken on a tour of the plant.  The entire facility was clean and very tidy and looked very state of the art.   We saw the control room, cooling system, coal supply system, and of course, the turbine.  It was neat to watch in real-time, how every time you turn on a switch, coal burns and makes steam that spins a turbine and sends power down the line… and Mercury, CO2, NOx and host of other crap into the air.

Anyway, after the tour, they fed us well and we listened to a nice talk by the President of Kentucky Power.  He was a very good speaker, and he waxed eloquently about how wonderful coal is, just before he stepped onto his soapbox, and began whining about how the EPA’s new ruling is going to force them to upgrade their plants, and they might even have to shut down the one we had just toured.  All that he asked was that the EPA give them more time… more time…. tick toc… do we have more time?

First off, I feel for the folks that could possibly lose their jobs if this plant shut down.  Secondly, I would feel the pain of higher electric prices if the plant were to shut down.  But then again, how long do we have to put up with Power Companies not limiting their emissions?  How long do we have until global warming pushes climate change past the irreversible threshold?  Obviously, they think we should wait a while more so they can have more time, while the world around us warms up and we sit there like the proverbial frog in the pan of water that doesn’t realize he’s about to boil.

Luckily for the Power Companies, the EPA put a hold on the newly passed Boiler Standard that should have taken effect tomorrow (5/20/2011) that would force them to have all plants upgraded by 2015.  Upgrades would require all plants to implement the Maximum Achievable Control Technologies for Mercury, Lead and Dioxins they emit from their facility processes.  So, it’s a minor victory for the power company, now they have until September to get a plan together.  But in a previous post, I spoke of how sea mammals are all swimming hazardous waste  sites, thanks to mercury emissions from power plants.  How long do they have?

On the whole, I appreciated the opportunity to get a close look at the local plant where my power comes from.  It’s obvious that nothing is going to change with regard to emissions until they are forced too by the Federal Government. The power companies already know how much CO2, Mercury and Lead they are emitting (I saw a screen with these numbers in real-time in the control room).  But why change if no one is making you do it?  Why raise your prices and infuriate your customers if you are making money and don’t have to build new equipment to clean the air you are polluting?  Sadly, most people don’t really care about what they can’t see (ie Mercury, Lead and CO2), that is, unless you are getting into their wallets and taking money from it.  Then they will sit up and listen.  But until then, all of us frogs will just keep swimming in the pan of warm water, while the power companies keep inching the thermostat up a little bit at a time with every piece of coal they burn.

17 May

Plastics are Forever Mr. Bond…

Posted by Donny Prater in Culture Change. Tagged: , .

It seems like everywhere you go, there are very cool, high-tech bottles for sale.  Some are metal, while others are rubber with cool spouts, screw top lids, or even little straws that pop up.  Bottles come in everything from bright colors to camouflage, and the big rage is to make sure they are free of BPA (Bisphenol- it screws up your endocrine system).   When they first came out, they cost around $20, but now you can pick them up on close out for about $5, since the market has been flooded with them. Obviously, the nice thing about these bottles is the fact that they won’t screw up your endocrine system.  But the awesome thing is,they keep your drink cold longer than a regular bottle.

Everyone knows that these things have something to do with saving the environment, but most have never done the research to find out how they help.  If you’ve wondered this, today’s your lucky day because I’m going to tell you:  By using one of these bottles to replace single use bottles of liquids, you are making an excellent sustainability choice, and you are reducing your carbon footprint and recycling all in one, and here’s why:

Americans consume liquids in plastic bottles at a rate of 2,500,000 per hour, every hour of every day.  Think about it this way, a pile of plastic bottles that could fill up and overflow out of an olympic sized swimming pool is generated into the country’s waste stream every hour on the hour.  The sad thing is that while most of these bottles could be recycled, the majority are not, and end up getting buried in some landfill where they never degrade.  In fact, every piece of plastic that has ever been created, is still around in some shape or form, somewhere on the Earth.

But there is hope on the horizon.  Just today, the Pepsi Company announced that it has developed a bottle that’s made out of 100% plant based materials.  It looks like plastic, feels like plastic, acts like plastic, heck, it is plastic, just plastic that’s made out of bio-based materials and not fossil fuels.  This not only reduces the overall carbon footprint, but it also introduces the first 100% recyclable and biodegradable bottle ever produced for mass market.  The closest anyone else has come to this was Coke’s 30% biodegradable bottle introduced last year.

The new bottle probably won’t see widespread usage until 2012.  So think about it the next time you purchase, or are about to purchase a plastic bottle.  When you consume the contents and are finished with the bottle, it’s life has just begun.  It will now either be recycled (hopefully), or will end up living out the next few thousand years in some landfill.

After all of this, don’t you think it’s time that you invested in a reusable drink bottle?  If it’s an issue of worrying about the cleanliness of your water, you can do what I did, and buy a Brita Water Pitcher, or other brand that filters your water before you put it in your bottle.  Even though I’m just drinking water provided by the local water plant, I know that I filtered it.  A fun exercise to do the next time you see a bottle of water, see what municipal source it was bottled from.  But before you buy it, open it, and drink it remember that what you are holding will last long after you are gone from this Earth and we leave it to our kids.  Plastics, not diamonds, are forever… at least for our lifetime, our kids, grandkids, and even their grandkids lifetimes.

Go buy a reusable bottle, it’s worth it, or at least drink Pepsi…

12 May

It’s Cool to Plant your Roof

Posted by Donny Prater in adaptation, Climate Change, Urban Green. Tagged: , , , , .

In the past few years, there’s been a rash of plants growing out of roofs in cities nationwide!!!  But these plants were not put there by accident, but were placed there by very smart people, with not only their own building in mind, but also the rest of the world.  What I’m talking about are living, breathing ‘EcoRoofs’, and they have been gaining in popularity in cities because they are a win-win item that will help control street temperatures, lower the building’s energy used for heating and cooling, and absorb 50% of the storm water that would otherwise travel down the gutter and into the storm sewer.

If you’ve ever been in a big city on a HOT summer day, you’ve experienced the ‘heat island’ phenomenon.  City infrastructure is for the most part comprised of dark-colored buildings, roofs, sidewalks and streets that absorb as much as 70-80% of the sun’s heat.  This heat is transmitted into the buildings, warming them, and at the street level, air is warmed as much as 5 degrees Farenheit.  The city absorbs this heat slowly, and it also transmits it slowly, so even if the ambient night-time temperatures are cooler, the city doesn’t cool because it is fueled by this stored energy. If you were to look at a heat image map, you would see red circles of high heat centered on where the city is located, while the countryside is a cooler shade of green.  This is why you always hear of many deaths associated with heat waves that strike every year in the major US cities.

Going forward, as we experience climate change and temperature increases over the next fifty years, heat waves will intensify.  What now amounts to 5 days per year at +90 degree days, will become 30 days of those hot and even hotter temperatures.  Ecoroofs can help reduce temperatures in city heat islands because the plants and soil do not store the heat.

So how does one go about planting their roof?  First off, you can’t just haul a load of soil to the roof, spread it and sow seeds.  You first have to consult the city engineer and have it verified that your roof can support and additional lbs per square foot.  This shouldn’t be a problem in most areas because most roofs are made to handle excess snowfall amounts.

Next, you have to decide whether you want an extensive or an intensive roof.  An extensive roof is the simplest, lightest form, and is made up of a few species of plants (drought resistant ones like sedums, mosses, and other succulents), that simply cover the roof in about 4″ of material.  They are also the lightest and weigh in around 17lbs per square foot, fully saturated with water.  An intensive roof can be made up of multiple species of plants, trees, and even vegetables.  These roof covers are essentially a landscaped garden, which also makes them weigh up to 85lbs per square foot fully saturated.  But whatever you decide, all living roofs are comprised of drainage, filter, soil, and plant layers.

After a living roof is planted, the only real maintenance is watering it weekly for the first month if rainfall is scarce.  Other than that, inspections in the spring and fall are all that’s needed to make sure the roof is thriving, and to replace any dead or missing plants.   There are several contractors in the game that can install them, or you can learn and do it yourself.  Here are a few of my favorite sites:  Green Roofs and  Eco-Roofs.

By recreating the green footprint of the building, that was lost to construction, the owners will be not only insulating it, but also reintroducing flora and fauna to the concrete jungle.  They reduce heat islands, soak up 50% of the storm water sheds, and make the building 20% more efficient.  But on an even larger scale, 1000 square feet of living roof offsets 10 tons of CO2, making it one of the greenest solutions available.  It really is cool to plant your roof!

10 May

Zoo Go Green, You Go Green

Posted by Donny Prater in Green Home, Renewable Energy. Tagged: , , , , .

I love the zoo and my favorite of all time is the Cincinnati Zoo.  I’ve visited it several times, but I’ve also been to the ones in DC,New York,Columbusand even Lousiville.  As a self- styled zoo aficionado, I can say hands down, that it is the best of them all.  But now, the Cincy Zoo has distinguished itself  head-and-shoulders above the rest with regard to being the greenest zoo.

The folks at the Cincy Zoo decided to bite the bullet and invest in renewable energy by spending  $12 million on a system of solar panels.  The work was recently completed and generates around 20% of their total power demand, and will pay itself off in a little over 9 years in energy savings.  BUT, the greatest advantage to solar power is that it reduces the overall carbon footprint of any facility.

I’ve been doing some research on what it would take for the average person to utilize solar panels on their own roof.  What I’ve found is that there are three different types of home solar energy systems:

Grid Inter-Tied - Your panels are hooked into the grid and generate power that your home uses.  When your panels are generating more than you are using, your electric meter spins in reverse and you in essence, sell power back to the Electric Company. This is the most inexpensive system and they start around $10,000.  The only drawback is that if there is a power failure due to a downed line, storm, etc., you lose power just like everyone else.  This is due to a safety that must be installed so that you are not powering up a line that a line worker could potentially touch.

Grid Inter-Tied with Battery Backup -  Same system as above, but you have a bunch of batteries that store power to be used in the even of a power failure.  The drawback is, batteries are expensive, heavy, and last about 10 years.  But, if you are always having black-outs, this might be for you.  Pricing starts about $25,000.

Off Grid System –  This type pits you against the world!  The electric company is totally out of the picture and you are relying solely on what your panels generate.  Drawbacks are that they are expensive because it takes a lot of panels to power a home.  And, you have to utilize a gas powered generator for times when there is limited light.

I read all of these and I get excited.  I mean, who wouldn’t want to sell power back to the power company?  So, how many panels I would need is the next question.

The average American home (mine included) uses an average 1,000 KWh per month (33 KWh/day or 33,000 W/day).  Lowes sells 2′x5′ solar panel that generates 130W per hour of sunlight.  Since they will only get an average of 6 hours full sun per day, that’s 780W per day.  If I need 33,000 W/day, I’d need 42 of these panels.  42 panels translates to $40,000 and 420 square feet!!!  First of all, I don’t have that kind of cash, and second of all I don’t have that much roof.

However, one option that I am looking into is the purchase of an entirely electric car within the next few years.  I’ve calculated that my daily commute is about 40 miles and that would consume 9,200 watts.  For about $11,000, I could install a twelve panel system that would make an electric car totally carbon free!

So, when a Zoo in middle-America takes on a solar project like Cincinnati has, and hits a home run with it, they deserve a big high-five from us and our future generations.   Not only are they reducing the overall use of fossil fuels and CO2 emissions, but they are inspiring others to invest in solar energy.  Thank you Cincy for taking a chance, and succeeding!


9 May

Woodsy Taught Me…

Posted by Donny Prater in Culture Change. Tagged: , , , .

If you grew up in the 70′s or 80′s, I’m sure that you are well aware of who Woodsy the Owl is and what he represents.  I remember watching television and seeing cartoons of him flying over the forest and reminding people to “Give a Hoot, Don’t Pollute”.  Maybe that’s what planted the seed in me to make matters of the environment my life’s interest, career, and most of all passion.

After doing a little research on Woodsy, I found out that he was unveiled as the official mascot of the very first Earth Day in 1970, he is Smokey the Bear’s best friend, but most of all, he is a mentor for children that teaches them to practice conservation.   I remember singing along with the songs, and I especially remember this commercial:

I almost titled this post, “Everything I ever needed to know about conservation, I learned from an owl”, because Woodsy’s message is as relevant today as it was when I was little.  So, give a hoot and don’t pollute!

6 May

“GREEN” Also Refers to Money in Your Pocket

Posted by Donny Prater in Green Home, Saving Money. Tagged: , , .

By now, everyone has heard of ways to “Save the Environment” by doing little things around their house.  “Going Green“ has become one of the catch phrases used by the environmental movement to bring awareness to sustaining everything from natural resources, to our everyday way of life.  But I want to talk about how going green is also synonymous with saving the green things in your wallet and bank account.

An earlier post I wrote was about the simple task of changing the old technology incandescent light bulbs in your house to the more efficient compact fluorescent lamp variety.  By doing this, you not only cut down on the amount of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, but you will also save a lot of money as well.  For example, each and every CFL bulb that you replace, will save you around $15 per year!  I have 30 in my house, so I save around $450 in real money, just for a $50 investment in new bulbs.   That’s some REAL GREEN!

Light bulbs are only one small way to accomplish this and there are tons of other cheap things you can do to save money and be a little more environmental conscious.  Here is a quick list of some easy fixes that will save you greens and make you more green:

Clean or replace filters on your furnace and air conditioner
Cleaning a dirty air filter can save you around $20 per year and (350 pounds of carbon dioxide).

Install a programmable thermostat
Programmable thermostats will automatically lower the heat or air conditioning at night and raise them again in the morning. They can save you $100 a year on your energy bill.

Choose energy-efficient appliances when making new purchases
Look for the Energy Star label on new appliances to choose the most efficient models. If you are shopping, the new Energy Star labels show in black and white how much money you will save versus older, less efficient models.

Wrap your water heater in an insulation blanket
Depending on gas and electric costs, you can save as much as $100 per year by doing this one simple thing.  This also can save up to 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year as well.

Use less hot water
It takes a lot of energy to heat water. You can use less hot water by installing a low flow shower head for about $30 (350 pounds of carbon dioxide saved per year).  A low flow head will pay for itself in about 3 months in the savings on your water bill.

Use a clothesline instead of a dryer whenever possible
Dryers use a lot of electricity.  You can save as much as $100 per year and  700 pounds of carbon dioxide when you air dry your clothes for 6 months out of the year.  It just depends on whether or not you don’t mind if your neighbors see your bloomers. :-)

Unplug electronics from the wall when you’re not using them
Almost every electronic device that plugs into a wall outlet should be named Cullen because they are all vampires.  Even when turned off, things like the hairdryer, cell phone chargers and televisions suck energy. In fact, the electricity used to keep display clocks lit and memory chips working accounts for 5 percent of total domestic energy consumption and spews 18 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year!  Unplug things that you don’t use and save money you didn’t even know you were losing.

Only run your dishwasher when there’s a full load 
You can save around $100 per year and 100 pounds of carbon dioxide.

As I hope you can see, these simple little items that won’t affect your lifestyle much at all can save you about $1000 per year of cold hard GREEN cash!  But it’s not just the money you are saving, you are also denying a good bit of CO2 from being emitted, making it DOUBLEY-GREEN and good for the planet.  Technology has finally reached a point where “Going Green” has as much to do with saving money as it does preserving the Earth for our children.

5 May

Bottlenose Dolphins: Swimming Toxic Waste Dumps

Posted by Donny Prater in Ocean. Tagged: , , , .

One of my family’s favorite places in the world is Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.  We normally try to get there every other year or so to spend a week playing on the beach.  If you’ve never been, Hilton Head is one big nature preserve full of wildlife including alligators, strange looking birds, sand dollars, and my personal favorite, bottlenose dolphins.

Dolphins are very common in the waters around the island. One only needs to keep an eye out for a little while, and soon enough, you’ll see a dolphin, or an entire pod of them as they jump into the air.  And if you are out far enough from shore, don’t be surprised to see dolphins up close, as they are known to interact with humans.

An interesting thing about dolphins is that they are mammals just like us.  They have hair, and breathe air just like us.  Many studies have also been performed on their communication skills, and some have gone so far as to attempt to define the “Dolphin Language”.

Sadly though, these playful creatures may look fine on the outside, but all dolphins carry with them contaminants that they have picked up just from eating, playing, and doing their thing in the ocean that sustains them.  The contaminants I’m talking about are heavy metals such as Mercury, Lead, and also toxic PCB’s.

Mercury is an element that occurs naturally in soil and water.  It is estimated that 40% of all elemental Mercury that is found is naturally occurring, and has been there since the beginning.  The other 60% has made its way into the ecosystem by way of coal-fired power plants, and other industries that burn fossil fuels that contain mercury.  This mercury is emitted into the air and is later returned to earth via rainfall, which runs into rivers, and ultimately reaches the ocean.  In the ocean, mercury is converted into methyl mercury via bacteria.  Methyl mercury is very toxic, and is absorbed by fish from the water that passes through their gills, and also via food.  Once Mercury enters an organism, it is stored in the tissues.  This collection of metals and other contaminants is called bio-accumulation.

Dolphins are voracious eaters and eat in upwards of 20 lbs of fish per day.  Though each fish may only have small quantities of mercury in them, it all adds up over the lifetime of the dolphin.  But it’s not just mercury; PCB’s, cadmium, and lead are also commonly found in marine tissues throughout the world and are equally dangerous to the health and welfare of living organisms.

I found a recent study performed on dolphins that lived along the east coast of the USA (Durden, W.N., M.K. Stolen, D.H. Adams, H. Stolen. 2007. Mercury and selenium concentrations in stranded bottlenose dolphins from the Indian River Lagoon system, FL. Bulletin of Marine Science 81(1): 37-54.).  Muscle tissue samples showed that the average dolphin has a mean concentration 5.68ppm mercury.  Considering the World Health Organization sets the limit at 0.5ppm, it’s obvious to see that dolphins are in trouble.

So, the next time you see a dolphin, enjoy their beauty and grace as they frolic and play in their salt water playground.  But if you see a dead dolphin washed up on the beach, you’ll have to call the Hazmat team to clean up the contaminated carcass.   It’s heartbreaking that these wonderful creatures have been turned into swimming toxic waste dumps at our hands.

4 May

Grown in poop…

Posted by Donny Prater in Culture Change, Health. Tagged: , .

This morning, I found myself at Wal-Mart picking up a few items for the family.  The list included laundry detergent, vitamins, and fresh fruit.  While cruising through the produce section, I noticed that there was a choice between organic and regular bananas, both for the same price of $.52 per pound.  I grabbed two bags of organics and headed to the checkout aisle.

The lady ringing up my purchases slid the bag of organic bananas across her scanner and said, “These bananas come in a bag.  That’s funny.”

I replied, “Yeah, I guess that’s the easiest way to distinguish them as being organic”.

She then proceeded to tell me, “I don’t buy anything organic, cause they grow them in poop.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or to go into an expose explaining how organic doesn’t have anything to do with being cultivated in feces.  So I simply paid for my items and bid her good day.

In the past few years, I’ve notice more and more items branded as Organic springing up seemingly from obscurity and taking a larger market share in our local stores.  Also, entire stores (Fresh Market, Trader Joes, etc.) devoted to organic and natural products have also begun to appear.  So why all the fuss over organics?  Are they better for us?  Are they beneficial to the environment to purchase them?  Are they grown in poop?  Hopefully, I can shed some light on all of these.

Organic farming is not a new concept at all and has been practiced since man cultivated his first crops eons ago.  Today, organically grown simply means that the product is raised naturally, the way nature intended it.  This can refer to both plants and animals that have not been subjected to synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, hormones, antibiotics, sewage sludge, irradiation, or any genetically modified organisms that are produced by man.   Obviously, organic farms are on a much smaller scale than the mega-farms and factory farms that use all of the aforementioned items to produce the highest possible yield in the shortest time period.

Although all farms are held to standards established by the USDA, organic farming is held to an even higher level that was promulgated in the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) of 1990 and regulations in Title 7, Part 205 of the Code of Federal Regulations.  For what it’s worth, you can be assured that by purchasing a food item that is branded as organic by the USDA, that it truly is.

Are they  really better for us?  Obviously, organically grown foods are better for us because there is almost no chance of ingesting pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, etc. when we eat them.  Organic farms are not permitted to use them in any part of their processes.  When we eat foods produced by a non-organic farm, we run the risk of exposure to any of a the list above that can do who-knows-what to our insides.

Where can I find them?  Most local grocery stores are continually expanding their selection of organic products, but they have a long way to go.  In my area, there aren’t any of the specialty organic shops like Fresh Market, Whole Foods, or a Trader Joes, so I have to rely on whatever is at Kroger or Wal-Mart.  But, with summer fast approaching, the farmers markets are also a good choice.

What about the poop?  I don’t know why, but if you ask the normal person what comes to mind when you say the word “Organic” they will probably say something that has to do with manure.  The funny thing is that if you research some of the fertilization methods of the non-organic mega-farms, you’ll find that these high yield mega-farms often apply sewage sludge directly onto their fields.  Sewage sludge is a product of municipal waste water treatment plants, and it’s what’s left over after most of the water is removed and treated.   Organic farms utilize manure to fertilize their crops.  However, it must be first composted or it must be applied at least 90 days before harvest, which allows ample time for microbial breakdown of pathogens.  I hate to be the one to tell you, but non-organic farms are not only growing your food in poop, but also in a little bit of everything that gets flushed down your toilet, and every toilet in your city.

What about the Environment?  Organic farms are obviously better for the environment.  They do not add anything into the environment that wasn’t already there.  While other farms utilize chemical fertilizers, genetically manipulated crops, and pesticides, organic farms do not and therefore are not introducing them into the world around them.

So, why don’t you start buying organic products?  I know they usually cost 10-30% more than the alternatives, but is it worth it to make sure you are not putting any unnecessary poisons or genetic experiments into your kid’s growing bodies?  Is it worth a bit more to know you aren’t eating things that were grown in the town’s sewage left-overs?  And, is it worth it to the future of our world to cut down on what is released into the environment that we are borrowing from our children?  I think so.

3 May

Adapting our Culture to High Gas Prices

Posted by Donny Prater in adaptation, Culture Change. Tagged: , , , .

I was born in the Commonwealth of Kentucky in the United States of America. I grew up in a rural area playing baseball, swimming in the pool, and fishing with my Dad. I got a High School Diploma, drove a hot rod Mustang, went off to College, got a degree, joined the Army, drove tanks, got married, had kids, and enjoy my life.

Like most Americans, I grew up with a dream. That dream was to become successful so that I could live the kind of life I wanted to live, and provide for my children and wife so that they could enjoy the same delicacies that the American Dream can afford.

Looking back on my life, I’ve really enjoyed the way I’ve lived. And since I am a red-blooded American, I don’t like changing anything for anyone.  But now it’s different…

The American spirit is that of a seat-of-the-pants, gitter-done cowboy that doesn’t like to be told what to do. I know I hate to be forced to do things any way other than my own, and I’m sure you do as well. But today, the world has changed and we can either adapt, or turn a blind eye to it and be harshly forced to change sometime in the future.

It’s my hope that my writings here can help you realize that it’s a lot easier to gradually ease into the coming changes on our own, rather than being forced to conform to them eventually. Whether you believe in climate change via global warming, or chose to negate it, you can’t deny that all of us are having things forced upon us that require immediate adaptation whether we like it or not. For example, gas recently hit $4+ per gallon. Our adaptation to that is that we pay it. Yes, we pay it, because good grief, we have to get to work, take the kids here and there, and we you must be able to get around for other social reasons. We may gripe about the prices, but like I said, we pay it because the average person has never been faced with the problem of not having a car/truck/suv to get them around.

Is there a solution for high gas prices? Sure there is!  You don’t drive, period.  Or, you can adapt to the price influx by being a bit more clever than you’ve had to be in the past.  Adaptation can begin with something as simple as making only one run to the grocery store per week.  Or you may consider making sure your car is tuned up, checking air pressures in your tires, ride sharing, carpooling, and even telecommuting to your job from home as other potential means of combating your dependency on gasoline.

I’ve scanned through many websites about this topic that recommend you ride a bike or walk to work. I wish I could do that, but there is no way I can. In fact, I don’t know many that can because most folks in my area work at distances greater than 5 miles from their homes, and the roads aren’t very cyclist-friendly.  But one thing I hope to do is purchase a more efficient vehicle in the next few years. I currently drive a Jeep that gets 18 mpg but plan on trading it off in the future for a hybrid or if I’m really lucky, an electric car like the Volt, Leaf, or the Ford Focus. Any of these cars would work in my situation, but may not work at all for you because all of us live under different circumstances.

Hopefully, we can all come to realize that it is vital to be more forward thinking about how we can adapt to everything from high gas prices, to changing our ways to reduce our own carbon footprint. We will have to pay the high gas prices, but there’s no reason we becoming more efficient. Not only will it allow you to keep more of the money you’ve worked so hard to earn, but it will also cut down on CO2 and other unseen gases that are changing our world.

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