Send your question to Umbra!

Q. Dear Umbra,

What is the greenest way to dispose of pet waste? Scoop and flush, or bag and throw in the trash?

Jenifer M.
Vienna

A. Dearest Jenifer,

Flush or toss?The greenest way to dispose of pet waste is to dispose of your pet, I suppose. No pet, no waste! But barring that revolutionary scheme, a few other options present themselves.

You have not said what kind of pet you have, but judging by your reference to scooping, I am going to assume it is a cat. The time-tested advice for felines is to bag and throw away the soiled litter, including poo. If you are on a municipal sewer line, you may be able to flush the feces, but you should check with your town; if you have a septic tank, it's not advised. By the way, when you choose kitty litter, don't buy a brand that contains clay -- you might want to consult our product tester for the best non-clay options.

If you are scooping the waste of a dog or other animal, the same truth applies: bagging is best. It's gross to think about all that pet waste rotting in landfills, but it's a teeny bit less gross than imagining it seeping into our waterways or contaminating our gardens with its pathogens. (Some people compost pet waste, but it must be done very, very carefully -- here are some tips.)

Of course, we hear occasionally about efforts to turn pet poop into power -- I fur-vently hope "they" keep working on this idea, and I'm also very glad that is not my line of work.

Ferretly,
Umbra

Q. Dear Umbra,

I hear a lot about clean coal technology. Is it true that we can use coal in a "clean" way? I don't believe it. Can you please explain this?

Anand
Manhattan

A. Dearest Anand,

You know the expression "go with your gut"? Methinks you should. You don't believe coal can be used in a clean way, and you are right.

It is accurate, however, to say that coal can be used in a cleaner way than it traditionally has. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu and others point out that, since coal is abundant, relatively cheap, and unlikely to disappear from our energy mix any time soon, we should find cleaner ways of feeding our addiction. These include turning coal into a gas before burning it, and capturing and storing carbon dioxide emissions. Here's a fun and colorful clean-coal overview from the BBC.

Will these "cleaner" methods prevent coal from harming our health and polluting our air and water? Will they stop coal companies from blowing the tops off of mountains? Will they keep miners from being trapped and killed underground? Not likely. There's a reason my fellow Grist writer David Roberts calls coal the "enemy of the human race." It is an outmoded, dangerous source of power. We should all lobby our utilities and our representatives to give us better, safer, healthier options.

I wrote a bit more about the clean-coal conundrum last year; you can find my answer here. I also recommend you swing on over to the Department of Energy to get a sense of their plans, and visit iLoveMountains.org for a real, human understanding of where coal actually comes from.

Sequesterly,
Umbra

Q. Hi Umbra,

I am a college student and I'm really involved in and passionate about making my university more sustainable. One of the issues that I am trying to address is our current disposal of mattresses. Every year, my university "disposes" of 1,200 mattresses by incinerating them for energy (people think this is awesome and sustainable -- I wish I was kidding). So, I have been spending endless nights researching a safer alternative for this herd of mattresses. I can't recycle them because it's too damn expensive (about $20,000/yr). I can't donate them because they are ripped and flat -- who wants a holey pancake mattress? I can't Freecycle them because bedbugs are a huge issue in my area and I don't think I can find 1,200 people who want college student mattresses (think about what you did on your mattress back in the day...). So I am asking, I am BEGGING, you for help!

Mattress Maiden
Boston, Mass.

A. Dearest MM,

What I did on my mattress back in the day ... let's see, I slept on it. I read a lot of Aldo Leopold. I sorted my collection of fallen leaves by size and hue. What do you do on your mattress?

Never mind. The real question is, why is it so hard to dispose of mattresses in this country? I'm afraid, dear MM, you have outlined exactly the problem: Mattresses can rarely be donated, especially as bedbug concerns (real or imagined) increase. They take up too much space in landfills, so much in fact that some municipalities will no longer accept them. And though recycling programs are cropping up, they are few, far between, and can be fiscally frustrating.

Still, I think recycling is the best bet. Interestingly, Massachusetts is home to one of the nation's few mattress recyclers, and another outfit is venturing into New England soon. It's amazing what happens to your mattress: the wood is chipped for energy, the steel springs recycled, the cotton and foam used for insulation or other textile needs. I'm not sure which of the many fine Beantown schools you attend, but I see that Tufts and MIT both recycle mattresses. Those schools are dealing with a much smaller quantity than you mention, but you might contact them to find out how they've sprung over any obstacles. (You might also see if your school is retiring too many mattresses too soon.)

Another possible resource: Some schools rely on the help of the Institutional Recycling Network -- you might contact them as well, if you haven't already.

Above all else, it seems to me that the burning of these mattresses is a misguided plan. For one thing, mattresses are treated with chemicals to make them resistant to fire -- so once they are coaxed to go up in smoke, they likely release all sorts of nasty fumes. That's way more squirm-inducing than thinking about the damages that might have resulted from certain collegiate activities.

Stain removerly,
Umbra

Related Links:

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Q. Dear Umbra,

Municipal and individual composting operations are gaining steam nationwide. Some obvious benefits include space-saving in landfills, and cheaper and (hopefully) "greener" fertilizer. While I am an avid supporter of composting, I am curious if municipalities with composting facilities could see decreased decomposition rates in their landfills. Do yard and plant scraps even play an integral role in landfill decomposition? Thank you.

Todd
Vancouver

A. Dearest Todd,

Give thanks -- then compost!Since this is Thanksgiving week here in the U.S., a time when we are at our most gluttonous, composting is a timely issue. In fact, I'm putting together a video with tips for getting started -- keep an eye out for it.

In the meantime, your question is an interesting one. Are yard and food scraps the key to quicker decomposition in landfills? The answer is no. In fact, such organic waste is the bane of a landfill operator's existence; it takes up a quarter of the space and is a major source of methane, a greenhouse gas that's twenty times more potent than carbon dioxide. Paper is also a problem: it's another major source of methane, and accounts for about a third of our municipal solid waste.

This is why composting and recycling are so important. Here in the U.S., we are better about "recovering" paper and yard waste than food waste: In 2007, according to the EPA, we recycled 54 percent of our paper and composted 62 percent of yard waste. When it comes to food waste, however, we compost only about 2-3 percent. In fact, we flat-out throw away more than 25 percent of the food we buy. Pigs.

Composting, as you say, frees up space and creates a nice rich fertilizer. Because it reduces methane, it's also a tool in the climate fight. In short, it's a win all around, and we'd be turkeys not to participate.

Caruncly,
Umbra

Q. Dear Umbra,

We typically try to minimize the impact of our buying decisions. We carefully considered buying some Thai mats, handcrafted by a family the shopkeeper knows. Then she told us that all textiles and furniture, whether organic or not, are all fumigated with methyl bromide before entering the States. It seems no one is talking about this issue -- is it a problem? Are my mats messed up? What about all the cool hemp clothing, is it all contaminated?

(m)Ethyl M.
San Francisco, Calif.

A. Dearest (m)Ethyl,

This here is one of those good news, bad news situations. The good news is, methyl bromide has been banned under the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement that seeks to stop the destruction of the ozone layer. The bad news is, the U.S. keeps getting exemptions that allow it to continue spraying the stuff, though it uses far less than in the past.

Methyl bromide, used primarily as a soil fumigant and on food imports, is toxic and will, as the EPA delicately puts it, "affect not only the target pests it is used against, but non-target organisms as well." That's us! The greatest danger, the agency says, is at the fumigation site itself. After that, the stuff wafts up and gets busy eating ozone.

I cannot say for sure whether your Thai mats and hemp pants have been sprayed with methyl bromide or one of the "safer" alternatives, because imports are subject to a labyrinth of federal regulations that depends upon where they come from, what they're made of, and whether the inspector got a good night's sleep. Sometimes a visual inspection is enough, and finished products are often treated less suspiciously than raw materials. I can tell you that the good people at the Pesticide Action Network are doing consistent, thorough, obsessive work on this topic, and you should definitely check them out.

Phytosanitarily,
Umbra

Q. Dear Umbra,

I am planning to reuse my boyfriend's old melamine chest of drawers for our baby's nursery. But since it's a bit low, I would like to build an additional module on top of it to make a changing table of the correct height. My in-laws are currently remodeling their kitchen and have dozens of cabinets I could reuse to build the changing table top. Now I know melamine and particleboard are evil, but is older melamine OK? If their kitchen cabinets are 20 years old, can we assume they have already off-gassed most or all of the formaldehyde they had to off-gas? It makes no sense to throw it all out in the garbage!

Raphaëlle
Montréal

A. Dearest Raphaëlle,

Congratulations on your impending arrival and your commitment to reuse. I can tell already that you are going to raise a wise child.

You're right that melamine, which combines with formaldehyde to make the plastic resin we know, is -- well, tricky, if not outright evil. For a long time it was hailed as the key to a sort of miracle plastic, even an eco-friendly-ish choice, and then it got into our pet food and our baby formula and some of our Halloween candy and it started to seem dangerous and creepy. And then we realized that, like any plastic, melamine could leach chemicals when heated -- in the microwave, for instance. More creepy.

Having said all that, however, I think your particular reuse is a fine idea. We know that you and your boyfriend and your baby are not going to heat or eat the chest of drawers. You are relieving your in-laws, and your landfill, of at least some of the waste from their kitchen-remodeling project. And you are being crafty! Any offgassing should have happened long ago -- it is generally most intense in the first year, and dwindles from there. I say go forth and modul-ify -- and let me know how it goes.

Awwwwly,
Umbra

Related Links:

BPA Babies and Cash Registers

Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things

Ask Umbra’s video advice on composting

For some people, climate change is a tough cause to rally ‘round—even those who understand that it’s happening and that it’s human-caused get distracted by things like eating, working, having sex, watching TV, or watching people on TV have sex.

While social scientists ponder the best ways to get the message out and motivate the masses—and since we’re gearing up to cover December’s climate talks in Copenhagen—we’ve devised a Grist list of good reasons to care about this global crisis. Got reasons of your own? Let us know in the comments section below.

25. Because supermodels are stripping for the cause. If these lovely ladies are getting hot and bothered, shouldn’t you? At least watch the video. Call it your good deed for the day.

24. Because you don’t want your insurance premiums to go up. The sea level rise, severe weather, flash floods, and windstorms attributable to climate change have all got the insurance industry on edge. Some firms in the U.S. have already raised premiums in coastal areas, and rates in the U.K. are on the rise as well.

Dirt moguls just aren’t the same.Photo: Shay Haas23. Because you like to ski. Listen up, snow bunny: you’ll soon be consigned to schussing in an indoor dome if climate chaos has its way. Shorter winters and decreased snowfall are forcing big ski areas to ramp up their snowmaking efforts (a questionable scheme in the face of global water shortages) and leading smaller ski areas to close.

22. Because you’re a raging hypochondriac. Warmer temperatures mean happy, thriving insects, which might mean increased risk of West Nile, encephalitis, malaria, dengue fever, and yellow fever. Do you really need more to worry about? Isn’t that weird spot on your inner thigh enough?

Nothing to see here, folks.Photo: andedam via flickr21. Because it’s a good excuse to learn weird things about animal sex. OK, you don’t care about the plight of the polar bears. But admit it, you’re curious about polar bear penises, aren’t you? And why they’re larger in snowier areas? That’s nothing compared to the lengths sea turtles go to for reproduction, and the flip-flopping gender of the hot bearded dragon lizard. Go on, check it out —you know you want to.

20. Because you hate oil. If your soul still wilts at the thought of all those people in slickers cleaning slick-covered birds in the wake of the Exxon Valdez spill, if you’d rather ride a bike than participate in the auto economy, then climate change is your issue, man. Fossil fuels got us here, and ending our reliance on them can get us out. But you don’t need us to tell you that.

19. Because you love oil. So maybe you didn’t mind the oily birds and you love driving your car? You should be worried too: according to a report from the U.S. government, the severe storms that are becoming more frequent due to climate change threaten our infrastructure and transportation networks, including the ports and freight lines used to transport oil. The oil-rich Gulf Coast is, as was made painfully clear in 2005, a particularly vulnerable area. Stop climate change in its tracks! Save the oil distribution network!

18. Because you eat rice. It’s a pleasant side dish to you, and for 750 million people, it’s a life-giving staple: rice. But this crucial crop stands to wither in the face of climate change, thanks to rising temperatures, increased flooding, and rats. Yeah, rats—they scurry in after major storms, eat all the rice, and nibble on people too. Care yet?

He speaks truth.Photo: Martin Crook17. Because Stephen Colbert does. Need we say more?

16. Because the Christian Coalition does. Need we pray more?

15. Because it will create jobs. Talk about your silver lining: In the midst of the deepest recession this country has seen in decades, attempts to forestall this global climate scourge could create new jobs in clean-energy industries, weatherization, and other areas. The feds are already steering money toward job training for green professions, and clean-energy legislation now before Congress could create jobs and boost the GDP of every U.S. state.

14.  Because you live near water. Sea levels could rise as much as a meter or more by 2100. That’s enough to put places like Miami, downtown Philadelphia, and parts of Manhattan underwater. How many people live in such vulnerable coastal areas? Oh, just 53 percent of the U.S. population.

13. Because Kardashians interest you more than Katrinas. Who can forget the powerful images beamed around the world when Hurricane Katrina hit: the faces of the forgotten, houses crumpled like paper cups, water washing over everything. And who can forget how they beamed in during your favorite show! So inconsiderate. If this sort of prime-time interruption irritates you, you may want to get involved in the climate fight. Because we’re going to see a lot more storms, and that means a lot more unhappy people beamed in your living room.

12. Because you like breathing. Got lungs? Got a healthy apprecation for fresh air? Well, take a deep breath: warming-induced increases in ground-level ozone and particulate matter are expected to increase respiratory disorders including asthma, and a recent study says more children will be hospitalized over the next decade due to such respiratory problems.

11. Because colorful coral jewelry completes most of your outfits. Prepare to adopt a new accessory, or wear a lot of white necklaces: climate change has led to massive coral bleaching and die-offs. The real problem is the disturbance of the delicate relationship between coral reefs and the teensy organisms that build them and give them color. It’s the foundation of a healthy ocean, which is the foundation of a healthy planet.

10. Because you won’t be able to hold up your end of a conversation with Obama, Lucy Lawless, Glenn Beck, Evander Holyfield, or the Pope if you don’t. You can probably fake it with Miley Cyrus, though.

Fading to black.Photo: burnblue9. Because colorful fall leaves are so pretty. But warmer autumns—and pests that enjoy warmer autumns—are messing with the trees. Duller leaves means less for you to look at, and translates into an economic hit for places like New England that rely on tourism generated by the annual phenomenon.

8. Because you don’t want to serve embarrassing champagne. Rising temperatures are altering the world’s finest champagnes, making the alcohol content “embarrassingly high,” says one British wine critic. How fun! Uh, we meant to say how terrible.

7. Because you like lights to come on when you flip a switch. Remember that blackout in 2003? The one that left 50 million people in the dark? That happened on a hot, hot day when lots of people wanted electricity. Guess what we’re in for more of? Hot, hot days. Guess how much our power grid has improved since then? Not much. For a little bit of Jazzercise for the brain, check out this academic paper on climate’s potential impacts on our power grids and national security—including, oh, crippling our society.

6.  Because: “insect feeding frenzy.” Shudder.

5. Because you support the recycled-soda-bottle fleece industry. What will become of those cozy fleece jackets made from recycled soda bottles? Such an incredible innovation, such a wonderful way forward—but if our northern climes turn temperate and our southern climes turn tropical, no one will wear fleece. And those soda bottles are going right back in the trash.

4. Because you think it’s depressing when old people die alone in hot apartments. Heat waves are the deadliest natural disaster in the U.S.—and the probability of severe heat waves is increasing along with temperatures. If emissions are not reduced, heat waves are projected to double in Los Angeles and quadruple in Chicago. With an aging boomer population, that’s a recipe for one hot mess.

3. Because you think it’s depressing when little kids die. It’s happening. Now. According to Save the Children, 9 million kids die before their fifth birthday each year from diseases that are occurring more frequently because of climate change, which is also affecting access to food and water. What are you, completely heartless?

2. Because everyone at Grist cares. We’re a bunch of (fairly) normal people, with pets and kids and money woes and Twitter obsessions—but we all think this is big. Like, bigger than Elvis. A survey shows that our reasons range from the practical (I live near the coast) to the dire (it’s going to kill my unborn grandbabies). But on one thing we agree: we need to do whatever we can to reverse this course.

1.  Because if we stop climate change, we can stop earnest lists like this. Seriously. We’d rather be doing other stuff too. Like maybe watching that supermodel video again?

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By the time the pediatrician Nina Pierpont settled in upstate New York, she had already built a rather diverse and full career. As the Connecticut native tells it, she studied birds in the Amazon jungle on her way to earning a Ph.D. in behavioral ecology, then enrolled in medical school, completing a degree and practicing among Navajo Indians and Yup’ik Eskimos. Then she and her husband moved to Malone, N.Y., a small town just 11 miles from the Quebec border, where she opened a pediatric practice.

Over the last several years she has reinvented herself again. Upon hearing about a proposal for a nearby wind farm, Pierpont began looking into effects of wind turbines related to her expertise—medicine. She tracked down others who lived near wind projects—two families in England, five in Canada, one in the U.K., one in Italy, another in the U.S. All 38 people had previously complained about health effects they blamed on wind farms. Several had since moved away. When Pierpont interviewed them by phone, they reported symptoms that included headaches, nausea, insomnia, visual blurring, vertigo, and panic attacks.

Pierpont came to believe that the cause was infrasound, a type of low-frequency sound inaudible to humans except at very loud levels (think the opposite of a high-pitched dog whistle). Residents weren’t merely hearing the thrum of turbines, she concluded, they were feeling it as an imperceptible vibration in their bodies. This was disrupting the inner-ear vestibular system—the body’s chief tool for balance and spatial orientation.

“These feed back neurologically onto a person’s sense of position and motion in space, which is in turn connected in multiple ways to brain functions as disparate as spatial memory and anxiety,” Pierpont, 54, writes in a forthcoming book.

Pierpont with her new book (and navigation added by her website).Courtesy windturbinesyndrome.comFor this collection of symptoms Pierpont coined the term “wind turbine syndrome.” Then she set to work publicizing it. Her website, windturbinesyndrome.com, documents her writing and collects testimonies from others who say they are afflicted by the condition. Her book of the same name is set for publication this month, available only through the website. A series of news articles have repeated her claims, in the Portland Oregonian, USA Today, and as a Sunday feature in the UK Independent.

Through it all, Pierpont does not claim to have definitive proof the syndrome exists. Rather, she says her findings make further research necessary before wind farms can be safely built within two kilometers of homes and schools. Yet out of all the obstacles wind energy faces—the up-front costs, the competition from subsidized fossil fuels, the aesthetic objections--Pierpont’s claim has become one of the least likely and most annoying problems for the industry.

It is unlikely because it is easily debunked and annoying because it keeps spreading anyway. Pierpont’s work has provided ammunition to those opposing wind farms across the country, from New York to Minnesota to Washington state. Wind advocates could not name a project that had failed because of her claims, but they say opponents of projects have latched onto her claims, bringing stacks of her work to local planning officials, who must do the time-consuming work of sorting through the claims.

“The reason it’s a hassle is that opponents--who frankly don’t like looking at wind turbines--grasp on to a lot of things to oppose projects. This happens to be one of them,” said Tim McMahan, a Portland land-use lawyer who focuses on wind-energy developments in the Northwest.

Pierpont did not respond to multiple interview requests and states on her website that she rarely grants media interviews. Her comments to the Independent suggest she’s willing to play the role of persecuted truth-teller: “The wind industry will try to discredit me and disparage me, but I can cope with that. This is not unlike the tobacco industry dismissing health issues from smoking.”

So here’s what’s wrong with wind-turbine syndrome. First, there’s Pierpont’s method. Her study consisted of 38 people from ten families—by most standards too small to yield conclusive results. All of them self-identified as people who were already experiencing health effects; there was no control group.

Further, acousticians who study the issue say Pierpont fundamentally misunderstands the nature of low-frequency sound. Geoff Leventhall, an English acoustician who retired from the University of London and chairs the European Institute of Noise Control Engineering, agrees that turbines create infrasound that cannot be heard. So do driving with an open window, swinging on a swing set, and even jogging--the slight rise and fall of the head create the effect. Leventhall describes infrasound as a common phenomenon that isn’t dangerous except at extremely high levels, such as those produced by spacecraft. Infrasound from wind turbines does not approach that level, said Leventhall, who recently flew to Wisconsin to testify at a hearing for the proposed Glacier Hills Wind Park.

His critique of “wind turbine syndrome” becomes more technical from there. Essentially, he picks apart Pierpont's claim that bodies absorb infrasound without actually hearing it. At the frequency of infrasound (generally less than 20 Hz), the human body makes plenty of its own noise—the heart pumps, the ribcage expands and contracts. These noises mask whatever turbines might add, Leventhall said. (A very small number of people experience extreme responses to all sorts of sounds, both low and high-frequency, though Leventhall and other experts say this is an unrelated issue.)

“Pierpont has clearly misunderstood much of the acoustic material which she refers to,” he writes in an appraisal of her work he submitted to the Wisconsin project.

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) says it doesn't know how many people live within two kilometers of a turbines--the setback Pierpont recommends. With the growth of wind energy worldwide, the number surely reaches the thousands. Yet it has not led to significant health complaints outside Pierpont's research.

Courtesy windturbinesyndrome.comFinally, there’s the peer review issue. Pierpont’s work has not been accepted by any peer reviewed scientific journals, the standard first step in publishing original research. (See a brief post on why peer review matters in science and medicine.) She describes her book as peer-reviewed, a claim the Independent repeats. But the four-person editorial board consists of Pierpont, her husband (the ecumenically named Calvin Luther Martin), and two others--a professor emeritus of literature and an ecologist and psychologist. “This is obviously a self-published book,” notes Grist contributor Gar Lipow.

Given all this, why has the claim stuck around? As books such as Denialism and Climate Cover-Up attest, it’s far easier to raise and spread rumors than to refute them for good. The inaudible nature of infrasound makes it especially difficult to understand.

“[By] describing a condition that you can’t hear, you can’t feel, and you don’t know it exists, but you tell people it can hurt them, you create this sense of a problem that can’t even be detected,” the land-use lawyer McMahan said of wind-turbine syndrome. “You can get people really worried about it because they have no ability to judge for themselves.”

For any development project, running the gauntlet of local-government approval is rarely simple. There is suspicion of projects that are funded by outside investors—the not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) effect. And wind farms bring their own challenges, with towers clearing 250 feet, highly visible locations offshore or on ridge tops, and their connection to the politically charged issue of climate change.

And then there are legitimate questions about wind-turbine noise—turbines do create sound after all, from both the gearbox (though this has grown much quieter in newer turbines) and from moving blades. It's no more harmful than the noise from new highways or airports, but residents of quiet areas don't react favorably to those things either. Some residents living near turbines find the sound annoying, and this annoyance becomes a health effect when it causes stress.

But annoyance is maddeningly difficult to study--it must be self-reported (it can’t be measured by a machine) and is inherently subjective—one person’s noise is another’s music. A Swedish study in 1967 [PDF] confirmed something we know by experience: your feelings about the source of noise shape whether you find the noise annoying. I react differently to the stereo in my own house than to the music blaring from my neighbor’s party, even if it’s the same song. Those who invest in wind turbines and stand to profit from them are likely to find their sound less disturbing than a neighbor would.

It’s a different issue than the “hidden” sound that concerns Pierpont and her followers. As three University of Massachusetts engineers stress in “Wind Turbine Acoustic Noise” [PDF], the audible swish-swish of turbine blades is not infrasound.

There are good reasons to make this message clear.

“Wind energy generates electricity without air pollution, water pollution, or the carbon emissions that come from traditional sources of energy,” said Jen Banks, a siting specialist at AWEA. “For the sake of human and environmental health, it’s essential that any decisions about wind-energy use are based on sound scientific knowledge.”

The sound issue remains a growing pain for the industry, something it will need to resolve—and communicate effectively—for it to thrive.

Related Links:

Science historian Weart on global warming

Michael Mann updates the world on the latest climate science

Contest — Rename “Climategate” after the crime, not the victim

Q. Dear Umbra,

I've taken to washing my hair less and less often to keep it from drying out. Since I've switched to the "no-'poo" method (baking soda followed by a vinegar rinse) it stays cleaner longer. However, I still take a shower (brief and lukewarm) most days. To keep my curly hair from becoming totally frizzy in the humidity of the shower, I typically cover it with a shower cap. My current cap is wearing out and I'm going to need a new one soon -- but your simple rule of "no vinyl and that's final!" keeps resounding in my head. Every shower cap I've seen is made of vinyl, except for those cheap plastic ones in hotel rooms. What's a girl to do?

Curly Girl
Pittsburgh, Penn.

A. Dearest Curly Girl,

Or a nice felt hat always does the trick.Have you ever noticed that the hair is always greener on the other side of the fence? I know straight-haired gals who would kill to have your tress-related troubles, and I imagine there are days when you wouldn't mind a mane that's a bit more manageable.

I commend you on your shift away from conventional beauty products, which are so often toxic, and on your commitment to a vinyl-free lifestyle. How cockle-warming to see my message sinking in!

I've done a bit of scouring on your behalf, and I think I've found a couple of possible solutions, though they may be difficult to track down. You're certainly right that vinyl is the most common, but I also came across caps made from other, marginally better materials, including nylon and polypropylene. But here is my big discovery: cotton and silk! It seems counterintuitive, but according to reliable sources, these are lovely materials for shower caps. You can buy cute patterned varieties from various places online, with a little looking. Of course, cotton and silk have their own eco-impacts -- so, dearest readers, one of you should create an organic-cotton shower-cap business, stat.

I suppose your other option might be to ... wear a plastic grocery bag over your hair, securing it with clips or a headband? An ingenious reuse for a pesky object.

Tangly,
Umbra

Q. Dear Umbra,

I started a green team at my office and one of our initiatives is reducing energy consumption. The team had recommended turning off the computers at night and when not in use. Seems logical, right? Well, the IT department denied our efforts and recommends keeping computers on 24/7. I'm horrified! The rationale is that turning on and off your computer changes the internal temperature of the equipment and adds to the wear and tear. I need some data to back up our green claim that it is better and safe to shut down the computers. Can you please help?

Nervously awaiting,
Jennifer

A. Dearest Jennifer,

Little-known fact: I actually keep my computer turned off 24 hours a day. I just peek at my inbox over my editor's shoulder, scribble my answers on recycled paper, and make her type them in. Saves boatloads of energy.

Congratulations on the formation of your green team, and condolences on the fact that you have already been strongarmed. I suspect it will not be the last time, as earnest eco-efforts are not always welcomed by those whose habits and patterns they affect.

There are two answers to your question, as far as I see it: a factual one and a philosophical one. The factual answer is, reputable sources including the U.S. Department of Energy say it is A-OK to turn your computer off at night, and that the various "wear and tear" arguments are no longer accurate. (Here is a fact sheet from the Oregon DEQ that, while a bit dated, cites many useful resources you might peruse.) The philosophical answer is, don't ever, ever, ever alienate your IT department. Even for the sake of saving the planet.

I think there may be some middle ground here: more and more computers have a "hibernate" function, which is similar to a sleep function but even, well, sleepier. Talk to your IT people to find out if there's a way to send all the computers happily into hibernation at the end of the day. Yes, they will still use a bit of energy, but far less than if they were left in full on mode, humming along. Other key things to do: turn off your monitor whenever you won't be using it for 15 to 20 minutes. And remember that a screen saver is not an energy-saver; in fact, most screen savers are energy hogs.

Now go buy the IT guys some cookies, and keep up the good work.

RAMly,
Umbra

Q. Dear Umbra,

I am so utterly sick of getting junk mail, is there anything we can do to stop it? In the age of the internet spam, is it really so impossible to just outlaw it? I can swallow deleting junkmail, but I can't swallow how much of it has to be tossed.

Carey S.
Missoula, Mont.

A. Dearest Carey,

In a sense, old-fashioned junk mail is less offensive than spam. After all, when was the last time an envelope arrived at your house promising to enlarge your manhood or sell you cheap Rolex watches?

On the other hand, the sheer mass of junk mail is offensive indeed: each of us in the U.S. receives about 560 pieces a year, according to Co-op America, and all that "direct mail" (that's the nice name for it) adds up to the equivalent of more than 100 million trees. While the bad economy has led to a steep decline in junk mail sent this year, "they" predict a comeback; real mail is still considered more effective for advertising than e-mail, which is too easy to delete.

The good news is, there are steps you can take to slow the stream of junk mail to your home. First of all, avoid entering contests, filling out warranties, and giving your address on forms -- if you must do so, write "do not rent or sell my information" alongside. Go to the Direct Marketing Assocation site to register your preferences, or use a service such as 41pounds.org (which charges $41 for five years of mail stoppage, but promises a more thorough excavation than DMA). To reduce the catalogues that come (and 'tis the season, 'tisn't it?), visit Catalog Choice or contact merchandisers directly. To be removed from the list for credit card offers, call 888-5-OPTOUT. And if you're a business, see this list of tips for junk-mail reduction from our friends here in King County, Washington.

As for outlawing junk mail entirely, it seems unlikely to happen. And various efforts to create a federal "Do Not Mail" list along the lines of the "Do Not Call" list haven't led to much (except for a suspicious industry-led imitation). If you're feeling feisty, and you believe in online petitions, you can sign this petition urging Congress to take action. Otherwise, take the steps above -- and recycle, recycle, recycle.

Papercutly,
Umbra

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Here's the damage from a coal ash spill in Tennessee.A civil lawsuit filed last week in state court in Delaware charges Arlington, Va.-based AES Corp. -- one of the world's largest power companies -- with illegally dumping 160 million pounds of toxic coal ash waste onto beaches in the Caribbean nation of the Dominican Republic, leading to serious health problems for nearby residents.

Filed by a team of attorneys from law firms in New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, the suit alleges that between 2003 and 2004, AES Corp. and its subsidiaries dumped 100 million pounds of coal ash on the beach near the small village of Arroyo Barril and another 60 million pounds in the Port of Manzanillo near Montecristi -- and that serious health problems resulted:

Since the dumping, babies have been born with severe birth defects including missing limbs, missing organs, cranial malformations, and gastrointestinal deformities. Some of these children have died as a result of their injuries. A failed Siamese twin with two heads died shortly after birth. Many women have suffered miscarriages at various stages of their pregnancies. Today, in addition to the severe birth defects, men, women, and children of this proud and struggling community continue to suffer with respiratory illnesses and skin rashes.

The attorneys say half of the 42 nearby residents tested had unsafe blood levels of arsenic, a major contaminant of concern in coal ash. There is evidence that inhaled or ingested arsenic can injure the fetus.

A byproduct of burning coal to generate electricity, coal ash contains dangerous levels of known poisons that also include beryllium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, nickel, and vanadium. Workers who handle coal ash at power plants typically wear respirators and other protective equipment.

The coal ash dumped in the Dominican Republic came from AES's coal-fired power plant in Guayama, Puerto Rico. According to the complaint, authorities there allowed AES to build the plant in 2002 only under the condition that most of the ash generated at the plant was deposited somewhere other than Puerto Rico. The company allegedly chose dumping the waste onto beaches in the Dominican Republic -- where some 30 percent of citizens live in poverty -- as the cheapest alternative.

The lawsuit also claims that AES and its partners misrepresented to the Dominican government the toxicity of the coal ash and how it would be handled. In 2004, that government found the AES dumping to be in violation of Dominican law as well as the international Basel Convention on hazardous wastes and pursued criminal and civil actions against AES and other responsible parties.

The Miami Herald reports that it was a contractor from Delray Beach, Fla. -- Roger C. Fina -- who hauled the coal ash to the Dominican Republic and dumped it on the beaches:

"He brings this rock ash into the country without any kind of controls or anything. A good portion of it fell to the sea,'' said Andrés Chalas, the Dominican Republic's top environmental prosecutor. "They got permissions to bring it in and said it was to do renovations of the port, but we investigated and there was no such project, not at Public Works or the Port Authority.''

Fina claims that the ash was supposed to be turned into asphalt and was never meant to sit on the beach for two years. The paper reports that after he and AES were sued by the Dominican government, the company paid $6 million to clean up the site, though contamination still remains. Fina says the case has ruined his life and left him out of work.

The lawsuit filed last week on behalf of the injured Dominicans seeks damages from AES and its companies for the human toll caused by the illegal dumping. It also seeks to compel AES to provide a comprehensive medical monitoring program for the plaintiffs during their lifetimes.

A version of this story originally appeared at Facing South.

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Joining Tom Philpott on the anti-BPA bandwagon, the New York Times columnist Nick Kristof had an op-ed Sunday detailing the mounting evidence against the hormone disrupting chemical. One comment in particular summed up the debate nicely:

"When you have 92 percent of the American population exposed to a chemical, this is not one where you want to be wrong,” said Dr. Ted Schettler of the Science and Environmental Health Network. “Are we going to quibble over individual rodent studies, or are we going to act?”

One of the problems we face when it comes to regulating toxic substances is that the EPA and the FDA aren't generally able to apply a strong "precautionary principle" the way regulators do in Europe. In essence, a strong precautionary principle would allow our government to act even when, as stated in a European Commission document, "scientific evidence is insufficient, inconclusive, or uncertain." In those cases, advocates for a particular substance would need to demonstrate unequivocally the substance's safety. Instead, we require almost total scientific consensus regarding a substance's danger before the EPA or the FDA will act.

As a result, a great part of the scientific debate over BPA becomes "quibbles over individual rat studies" -- and over the rats themselves. The best explanation of the Great Rat Debate comes from a must-read February 2009 Fast Company article about the shadowy network of so-called "product defense firms" that are used by industry to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt over any research that questions the safety of commercial products:

The largest and most influential industry studies [of BPA] have been conducted by Rochelle Tyl of the Research Triangle Institute, a private lab in North Carolina. Tyl's first BPA study, published in 2002 at a cost that Tyl puts at around $2 million (also funded by the Society of the Plastics Industry), examined three generations of rats and found no adverse effects at low doses. Yet here, too, there are questions of protocol. The study used a rat strain called the CD Sprague-Dawley, which has been shown to be insensitive to synthetic estrogens like BPA. (A Japanese study found that the CD Sprague-Dawley rat can withstand a dose of synthetic estrogen more than 100 times greater than what a female human can tolerate.) As of early 2007, of the 29 studies that have shown no harm due to BPA, 13 have used the CD Sprague-Dawley rat. Nonetheless, when the FDA declared BPA "safe" this fall, it relied almost exclusively on Tyl's work -- a shortcoming that the agency's science board publicly criticized in October.

With the government's National Institute of Environmental Health having announced a new set of BPA studies, there was concern that those same estrogen insensitive rats would be used, thus guaranteeing a "false negative" result in industry's favor.

I recently spoke with John Bucher, associate director of the government's National Toxicology Program, the group overseeing the research. He confirmed to me that while the new government-funded BPA studies would not use the CD Sprague-Dawley rats, they would use the NCTR Sprague-Dawley rat, derived from the CD strain back in the 1970s. While they may have similar names, they are supposedly very different rats. The CD Sprague-Dawley rat is bred and sold exclusively by the lab services company Charles River. The NCTR Sprague Dawley rat has rather been bred by the National Center for Toxicological Research for almost 40 years. Said Bucher, "we’ve used this rat for estrogenic compounds in many different studies and we are confident that it is estrogen sensitive."

The theory goes that the CD strain is estrogen insensitive because these rats have been bred for size, since the faster the rats grow the quicker they can be sold. Meanwhile, these oversize rats are fed a soy-based feed. Soy is high in phytoestrogens (recall the ongoing debate over soy in infant formula). Such breeding practices are in the opinion of some a recipe for growing estrogen insensitive rats. The NCTR strain has not been selected in the same way (i.e. the rats display a much greater range of sizes) nor is it fed so much soy and is thus more sensitive to estrogen.

But according to Dr. Frederick vom Saal, a leader in the study of endocrine disruptors in humans, the difference between the two rat strains is minimal. He questions why the FDA has endorsed another rat study instead of one using mice, given that the rat in question appears to be "5000 times less sensitive than mice" to synthetic estrogens. Vom Saal, along with other leading scientists, recently sent a strongly worded letter -- available here for the first time -- to the FDA protesting this very decision [PDF] and calling on the FDA to halt the new rat trials.

But as Dr. Urvashi Rangan -- director of technology policy at Consumers Union, whose recently released study of BPA in food started this latest round of media attention -- observed to me, the whole issue of estrogen sensitivity in rats is beside the point.  The existing studies contain all the evidence of BPA's danger that we need. As she put it, "you already have solid grounds to take precaution today and get it out of food substances."

And thus are we brought back to our lack of a precautionary principle and the fact that the FDA still refuses to endorse a ban based on the existing science. And whatever uncertainties may still exist, there is one branch of government that can, if it so chooses, let the precautionary principle guide its decisions. I'm talking about Congress, of course. A majority vote is all that's needed to ban any substance on the planet. Rather than wait for the new studies, which will take years to complete, Congress should simply act now and ban BPA on principle. The precautionary principle, that is.

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More NYC farmers markets accept food stamps and sales soar

Seventh GenerationAt first blush, one’s enthusiasm for the Million Baby Crawl would seem to depend largely upon three things: 1) enthusiasm for babies, real and animated; 2) a penchant for baby-related puns (we’re going to rattle Congress!); and 3) interest in frittering away time on the interwebs.

But that does a disservice to the intention behind this effort, which is to rally support for reform of the nation’s chemical policies. You don’t have to have babies—or even wuv them!—to want the feds to better regulate the toxics that find their way into our homes and bodies.

The facts are out there, and they are not cuddly-wuddly:

Scary stuff, and you can read much more about it, as well as the push for reform, on the Environmental Working Group site.

Erin Brockovich lends her star power to the launch of the Million Baby Crawl.So the Crawl has commenced. A creative spin on the traditional online petition, it finds legendary green-products manufacturer Seventh Generation partnering with consumer-rights advocate Erin Brockovich, eco-pediatrician Alan Greene, and a coalition called Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. Visitors can “create a crawler” (again, you don’t have to have a baby, or ever have had a baby, or ever have thought about having a baby, to participate) or “find a crawler” by zip code or name. The goal, say organizers, is to deliver (ha! deliver!) the signatures to Congress in January—so far they’re at 12,160 and counting.

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Send your question to Umbra!

Q. Dear Umbra,

I am worried that your hotness may be contributing to global warming. I'm not sure what can be done to fix this.

O Zone

A. Dearest O,

You are making me blush. But I am using your letter as a springboard to report some exciting news: In an effort to make my operations more energy-efficient, I am combining my previous twice-weekly column into one weekly, multi-question column. Experts say the shift will result in 26 fewer milligrams of carbon emitted each week. I'll also be popping up in other places on Grist during the week now, and asking you dearest readers for more input. So keep the questions, suggestions, and blush-inducing compliments coming -- we'll lick this climate thing yet.

Efficiently,
Umbra

Q. Dear Umbra,

What is the most effective thing each of us can do over the next six weeks to help stop global warming?

Ned T.
Columbia, Md.

A. Dearest Ned,

I assume your six-week timeframe is pinned on the Copenhagen climate conference, to which we are all looking with bright eyes and big hopes. My advice for the interim is two-pronged: first, pledge to make one change in your own life that will reduce your energy use. Because I'm getting in the holiday spirit, I'll even say changing one light bulb counts, though I'd like to see you take some bigger steps as well. Second, but only because I couldn't blurt both ideas at once: Contact your representatives and senators. Tell them you support the passage of strong climate legislation, and tell them Obama would be insane not to go to Copenhagen. Tell them if they don't do something about climate change immediately, you are going to distribute photographs of them in compromising positions. We all know you don't possess any such photographs, but that sort of threat will always send a shiver down a politician's spine. When it comes to the climate crisis, we are no longer above such maneuvers.

Shiveringly,
Umbra

Q. Dear Umbra,

Do you have any recommendations on how to make the annual corporate 'gift basket' sustainable, yet memorable?

Erin K.
Portland, Ore.

A. Dearest Erin,

Want not, waste not.Good for you for thinking about how to make this consumption-y tradition more sustainable. The obvious choice, of course, would be to forgo the gift basket entirely. Can you get away with that at your company? Why not send your supporters and customers a gift certificate for a nice meal, instead, or donate to a worthy non-profit organization in their name. It seems to me that, in an age when 83 percent of people report receiving gifts they don't want, the corporate gift basket has run its course. However, if you absolutely must dole out tangible items, see if you can draw any inspiration from our list of creative green gift basket ideas. If all else fails and a more traditional basket is required, make sure you are thoughtful about choosing local, sustainable products. You live in a land of good cheese, beer, and wine, so it shouldn't be hard.

Scroogily,
Umbra

Q. Dear Umbra,

Can I recycle my receipts? I'm worried that the type of paper they're printed on will contaminate the regular paper I'm recycling.

BadRabbit
Richmond, Va.

A. Dearest Bad,

What a good question as we approach Holiday Shopping Madness. I can say with nearly 100 percent confidence that you cannot recycle your receipts -- at least, those printed on thermal paper, which is the sort of shiny, sheeny paper that faxes used to arrive on. (Remember faxes?) However, as with all such "can I recycle this or that" questions, I'll advise you to doublecheck with your municipality. Two more things on the receipt front, one creepy, one promising. The creepy one is that some receipts are coated with BPA, the estrogen-mimicking chemical found in baby bottles and can linings. At present, the best advice for avoiding this form of BPA exposure seems to be to decline receipts when you can, and wash your hands after handling them when you can't. Now for the more promising news: I've been hearing about a business model in which you, the customer, can associate your debit card with an e-mail account and request digital receipts, so instead of ending up with a pocket full of non-recyclable thermal paper, you end up with an inbox full instead. Many people seem to be trying this notion, but I have not located one good, central resource that's figured out how to get it up and running -- readers, any insights?

Totally,
Umbra

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Q. Hi Umbra,

Do you have any suggestions for an environmentally friendly Halloween treat, and something that parents won't worry about?

Thanks,
Kim W.
Ann Arbor, Mich.

A. Dearest Kim,

Or there's the ever-popular "hot mama Earth" costume.Grist TVWe've said lots about Halloween over the years, but there's always more to say. Which is why I dug your letter out of the e-mail archives to suit my needs. Will my ghoulish charm convince you to overlook that haunting maneuver? This year, I've found a new list of non-food items for trick-or-treaters, and I'm ready for the 2009 Climate Change Costume Closet.

I have made alterna-candy suggestions before, and now I've discovered the Green Halloween non-food treat list, which includes basic but brilliant ideas such as acorns, Band-Aids, polished rocks, and whistles (and also strange things such as recycled glass tiles). We also have a handy how-to guide to greening the rest of the holiday, and of course costume suggestions by moi.

This year's costume suggestions focus less on witty and sexy (yep, that CFL costume got us all some action) in order to reflect the seriousness of the climate situation and, perhaps more important, remind people that there is a climate situation. In all fairness, I do feel that the Health Care Debate offers richer costume possibilities than the Climate Debate. But Tea Party activists and a rabid Fox are good costumes that can lead to conversations about either hot political topic.

Here are my as usual brilliant ideas (some supplied by friends and family), sure to offer all of us a brief chance for informative conversation with a baffled co-Halloweener. You know, like a more-likely-to-occur elevator pitch.

High Albedo: A shiny, shiny costume, which could integrate silver lame, a silver umbrella, silver boots, a space blanket, or all white items along the same lines. When they ask what you are, you say something along the lines of, "I'm albedo, you know, highly reflective like the melting ice caps." You may want to research and rehearse your response to make it less awful than that.

Kerry-Boxer: Just you and a friend dressed up like John Kerry and Barbara Boxer -- or you dressed up like John Kerry wearing boxing gloves -- armed with talking points about why your Senate Climate bill is important. This costume will work best if -- well, if you can look like the two of them, first of all, but also if you are able to inhabit your role and take on a politician's earnest enthusiasm. Then, you'll be able to trap your questioner with a barrage of helpful information about the vital importance of an effective climate bill. Say their name repeatedly and touch them on the upper arm several times in a comradely way.

Waxman-Markey: Kerry-Boxer for the advanced costumer. Does anyone know what these two guys look like?

Homeless Polar Bear: Sad, but true.

Fundraising Maldivian: Dressed in summery clothing, with a sign and a jar, asking for donations toward resettlement since your home is about to be underwater. If Halloween weather does not prohibit being damp, be damp.

Wind Turbine: Body is pole, turbine is atop head. ‘Nuf said.

The Atmosphere: Probably best as a group costume in which each member chooses an atmospheric component, with most going as carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor, etc. Do not be scientifically correct in proportioning the number of carbon equivalent costumes. When individual members of the atmosphere are questioned, say something like, "I'm methane, part of the atmosphere [point to other group members]. I'm small but influential, and I can really mess those guys up." If the questioner looks askance or seems doubtful, start muttering about extreme weather events coming to the party soon.

Cap and Trade: I can't quite figure this one out, other than a vague and unsatisfying idea involving swapping piles of hats. The person who does pull it off in a clever way deserves some kind of award. Keep us posted.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Affectionately,
Umbra

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With the rumors swirling that Michelle Obama is a big fan of former FDA Commissioner David Kessler's new book The End of Overeating, it seems reasonable to check in on the science behind an "addiction model" for salty, sweet, and fatty processed food (an assertion at the core of the book). As it happens, a group of researchers from the independent, not-for-profit Scripps Research Institute has just released a new peer-reviewed study on the subject. The conclusion: the brain responds to junk food the same way it does to heroin:

Junk food elicits addictive behavior in rats similar to the behaviors of rats addicted to heroin, a new study finds. Pleasure centers in the brains of rats addicted to high-fat, high-calorie diets became less responsive as the binging wore on, making the rats consume more and more food. The results, presented October 20 at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting, may help explain the changes in the brain that lead people to overeat.

“This is the most complete evidence to date that suggests obesity and drug addiction have common neurobiological underpinnings,” says study coauthor Paul Johnson of the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Fla.

Johnson offered one group of rats a broad range of processed food, from bacon and cheesecake to Ho Hos while another received a "high-nutrient, low-calorie chow." There was an immediate difference:

Rats that ate the junk food soon developed compulsive eating habits and became obese. “They’re taking in twice the amount of calories as the control rats,” says Johnson’s coauthor Paul Kenny, also of Scripps.

The researchers also tested the responsiveness of the animals' pleasure centers:

After just five days on the junk food diet, rats showed “profound reductions” in the sensitivity of their brains’ pleasure centers, suggesting that the animals quickly became habituated to the food. As a result, the rats ate more food to get the same amount of pleasure. Just as heroin addicts require more and more of the drug to feel good, rats needed more and more of the junk food. “They lose control,” Kenny says. “This is the hallmark of addiction.”

And here's where things get ugly. The rats wanted their junk food fix so badly, they were willing to tolerate electric shocks if that's what it meant to keep eating the stuff.

To see how strong the drive to eat junk food was, the researchers exposed the rats to a foot shock when they ate the high-fat food. Rats that had not been constantly exposed to the junk food quickly stopped eating. But the foot shock didn’t faze rats accustomed to the junk food — they continued to eat, even though they knew the shock was coming.

“What we have are these core features of addiction, and these animals are hitting each one of these features,” Kenny says.

Because a study like this isn't complete without a sinister postscript, I give you this:

Scientists are interested in determining the long-term effect of altering the reward system. “We might not see it when we look at the animal,” says obesity expert Ralph DiLeone of Yale University School of Medicine. “They might be a normal weight, but how they respond to food in the future may be permanently altered.”

Eating junk food for a while could leave your brain's response to food "permanently altered"? How. Nice.

Kinda puts industry calls for preserving consumer "choice" regarding the foods we eat into perspective, doesn't it? When it's an addiction, choice is the last thing we have.  Besides giving ammunition to those wanting to restrict access to these foods for children (well, for anyone really), this study certainly ensures that I will never look at a Ho Ho the same way again.

H/T Jambutter via Twitter

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Send your question to Umbra!

Q. Dear Umbra,

For those times when fresh vegetables are not available, are canned or frozen veggies the way to go from a sustainable and nutritional standpoint? Assume that we recycle in our household. Cheers!

Mark L.
Sanford, Fla.

A. Dearest Mark,

I thought you Floridians would just live on fresh oranges and lemons all winter. Scurvy must have its opposite, I suppose, and one never hears of orange casserole or orange stew.

On the sustainability front, there is no clear and dominant difference between canned and frozen veggies -- or, to say that another way, studies differ. The major ding on frozen food is the energy you use to keep it frozen; for canned, it's the energy used to make the cans.

Based on what I read, I would recommend that if you cannot purchase fresh vegetables for some reason, you purchase high-quality processed vegetables with no additives, that you eat frozen vegetables within two weeks, and that you religiously recycle your steel cans. Of course, you should first be buying whatever fresh produce is available in wintry Florida.

Grade A frozen foods are harvested when ripe and quickly taken to the freezing plant, where they are (even more quickly) flash frozen at extremely low temperatures. The modern industrial freezing process retains almost all the original nutritional value of the food (according to nutrition guru Marion Nestle's helpful book What to Eat). Good to go on the nutrition angle. But it's important to have an efficient freezer. One study using 1970s data found that the longer frozen foods sit in the freezer, i.e., are using energy in storage, the more they fall behind canned goods in the efficiency smackdown.

The canned goods are a bit less nutritious, but a study that looked closely at this issue found the differences between frozen and canned carrots to be insignificant. Carrots in syrup, or whatever they might put carrots in, would of course fall in to the category of dessert or a processed food, and cannot be favorably compared to fresh. As you know, the ecological issue with canned carrots is the steel can itself, which has high embodied energy costs. If a study assumes the recycling of the steel can, then canned vegetables can compete favorably with frozen vegetables on the sustainability index. (One health consideration is that BPA is often used in the linings of such cans.)

All this to say, the two forms of commercial preservation are ecologically comparable, so we can all put this issue out of our minds and focus on eating our recommended daily allowance of fruits and vegetables. As we discussed last week vis bike helmets, it is ecologically important to remain in good health and away from hospitals. Fruits and vegetables help us achieve this goal. They also help us eat low on the food chain, an even more vital objective in the sustainable kitchen.

Five a Day-ly,
Umbra

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Martha Stewart blisters meat industry in Thanksgiving show

Norton hit Congress to testify about the value of green building in 2008.globalwarming.house.govA major investment in making affordable housing greener—a $4 billion investment, to be precise—was announced Wednesday. The injection comes courtesy of Enterprise Community Partners, a 25-year-old non-profit dedicated to community development and affordable housing. With heavyweight partners including NRDC, HUD, and the Home Depot Foundation, Enterprise—which was founded by the grandparents of actor Edward Norton, who sits on its board—has set its sights on overhauling the entire affordable housing stock in this country.

Well, in that pebble-in-a-pond sort of way. The actual $4 billion will be split, with $2.5 billion going toward the construction or retrofit of 75,000 units across the country, and $1.5 billion going toward research and systems reform work. Through its work with state and local governments, Enterprise Green Communities hopes to have an eco-influence on hundreds of thousands more units, and leverage lots of dough. If that’s not enough, its leaders are calling for the country’s entire affordable housing stock—around 30 million households—to be green by 2020.

It’s the kind of energetic, solution-y plan that makes you have real hope for a millisecond. Even if the 30 million households vision doesn’t pan out, there’s real progress to be made. As speaker after speaker pointed out in a conference call this morning (in which Norton was supposed to participate, but he wasn’t there, not that it’s the only reason certain people called in, ha ha, but where was he?), this isn’t greening merely for the sake of environmental progress—it has tangible effects on the health and quality of life of residents, as well as holding the potential for green job creation, energy savings, and significant carbon reduction.

In fact, Enterprise has just rolled out the results from its work over the last few years. In conjunction with its splashy announcement today, it released a report called Incremental Cost, Measurable Savings: Enterprise Green Communities Criteria. Not the hottest title, but it gets at the point that green builders and fans of retrofitting try to make day in and day out: choosing greener options doesn’t cost that much more, and it saves a hell of a lot over the long run.

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Send your question to Umbra!

Q. Dear Umbra,

As a frequent cyclist, I've inevitably been in my share of collisions and accidents. Most bike experts recommend replacing your helmet after any crash, even if the damage isn't visible. Obviously the two most important qualities of a bike helmet are lightweight-ness and strength. That is best achieved by petroleum-based, non-biodegradable substances. Can you recommend how to avoid hurting the environment with these disposable Styrofoam helmets (other than being a more careful cyclist)?

Julia A.
Washington, D.C.

A. Dearest Julia,

Small eco-price to pay for an intact head.Please continue to wear your helmet and replace it after each crash. Cut the straps of your old helmet and write "crashed" on it with a permanent marker, then throw it in the garbage. Biking safely is an ecologically correct practice, even if it occasionally results in a small amount of waste. Two, three, four helmets a year is a small ecological price to pay when we consider the benefits of cycling (though for your body's sake I hope you don't go through this many).

Let us remember that biking is emissions-free transportation. Whether you are commuting by bike or simply taking a brief trip to the store every week, you are ecologically ahead of almost every form of transport save walking. If your bike is simply an exercise device, you are keeping yourself fit and providing inspiration for other would-be cyclists.

Secondly, a lightweight helmet made out of plastic is a fairly innocuous object on the environmental scale. As we have learned over the years, plastic is evil due to the raw materials (petroleum) from which it is made and the eons that will pass ere it degrades. On the bright side, helmets are light, and hence do not require overly much fuel on their trip to the bike store or the landfill -- which would be a concern were they made of gold. Some companies are tinkering with eco-friendly helmets, but I think you should not lose your head over this issue. You could always save your used helmets for some kind of trash sculpture.

Julia, a hospital visit has the potential for much more ecological impact than does your discarded helmet. Your fitness level keeps you (hopefully) from general ill health, and hence reduces the need for greenhouse-gas emitting trips to the doctor. More important, of course, the helmet protects you from serious head injury and/or death, both of which are far more environmentally costly than a piddling nine-ounce helmet. Let's say you were not wearing a helmet and bonked your head in a crash. First the ambulance or a friend's car has to transport you to (and from) the hospital, emitting Earth-damaging gases en route. Then perhaps you have to get a CAT scan or MRI, neither of which would be solar powered. What if you have a bleeding abrasion that requires multiple washings and several sets of bloody sheets and piles of gauze? Maybe they bring you a hospital meal which certainly includes terrible not-shade-grown coffee and some kind of mystery meat from a confined animal feeding operation. In a worst-case scenario, you could scrape off your nose and require years of plastic surgery -- certainly not ecologically OK, and sadly a real-life example.

Wear a bike helmet without worrying too much about the environmental consequences. Umbra, also known as Safety Pup, has spoken.

Cautionarily,
Umbra

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Ask Umbra’s video advice on composting

Having read and listened to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack's attempts at ground beef-related damage control in the wake of the recent food safety revelations, I'm left to wonder if the USDA simply needs to get out of the food safety business entirely.

Vilsack himself -- in a Minnesota NPR radio interview where he defended the USDA's dual role as a marketing service and a food safety regulator, its recent shift towards more aggressive testing, and its ability to inspect foreign meat importers -- all but admitted that the USDA has fundamentally failed in its mission. How so? The interviewer asked him one final question:

Q: Can you assure ... our listeners that ground beef is safe?

A: I can assure you that we are doing everything we possibly can to make sure that that product is safe through our testing, through our inspectors ... I will say also that there is still work to be done to continue to improve what we do and until we get the number of food-borne illnesses down to zero and the number of hospitalizations down to zero and the number of death down to zero, we’ll still have work to do.

Please note that he did not say "Yes, I can."

And if you look at the proposals Vilsack highlighted in yesterday's late evening statement, they're mostly focused on increased vigilance, testing, and tracking systems to find the hundreds of thousands of pounds of infected beef the industrial food system produces. Given the ability of the meat industry to use its influence, access, and power within the USDA to scale back any attempts to affect core issues like livestock farming methods, slaughterhouse line speed, and processors' procurement practices, it's hard to deny that its role as an industry cheerleader has left it hopelessly compromised.

Which is just how the meat industry likes it. It was only a few months ago that Big Meat used its allies on the House Ag Committee to beat back an attempt to include greater FDA oversight of meat, eggs, and poultry in the food safety legislation pending before Congress. The argument at the time was that the FDA didn't have the "expertise" to assess food safety practices regarding livestock -- but it was clearly all about the industry maintaining its firm grip on its regulator of choice, the USDA. With any luck, this argument will ring a bit hollow when the Senate takes up food safety legislation (assuming it ever does -- there is no Senate food safety bill at the moment).

But it's not just the meat industry that is using the USDA to shield itself from more rigorous FDA oversight. The current food safety disaster in ground beef is on the verge of being replayed over our vegetables. Elanor Starmer at the Ethicurean has a must-read three-part report (1, 2, 3) on hearings in California on a proposal by largescale industrial growers for a so-called "National Leafy Green Marketing Agreement." Ostensibly, the proposal is designed to cut down on the potential for E. coli contamination of leafy greens. But, in addition to documenting the proposals many flaws (including the fact that the NLGMA appears to ignore the true source of E. coli contamination of vegetables, i.e. industrial livestock farming practices), critics are asking what does a USDA Marketing Agreement -- something normally used to guarantee product qualities like taste, texture, color, or shape -- have anything to do with food safety?

The answer is simple and all too familiar.  As one industry rep explicitly admitted, it's all about avoiding FDA regulation over leafy greens -- and to short circuit the bills before Congress that would mandate it. The FDA won't, it seems, "put industry at the table" quite the way the USDA will.

And Starmer provides plenty of evidence of USDA cheerleading over this issue; the USDA representative leading the government's questioning was one of the strongest backers of the NLGMA at the hearing. So much for impartiality.

The fact is, Tom Vilsack is unable to face down Big Meat -- even if he wanted do, he's surrounded by an institution built to protect it. In effect, Big Ag was left in charge of food safety -- and it's been an unmitigated disaster. Who in Washington has the will or the power to change that?

Anyone? Anyone?

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Must we be dosed daily with antobiotics? According to the meat industry, the debate over legislation pending in the House that would ban the use of sub-therapeutic doses of antibiotics comes down to a simple "fact": hog-farming on any scale without sub-therapeutic use of antibiotics is impossible. The National Pork Producers Council says so. The American Veterinary Medical Association says so. Heck, even GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa says so.

For the record, these folks also say that livestock producers don't really use 70% of all antibiotics distributed in the US as the Union of Concerned Scientists estimates. And you know what, we have no idea if they're right. What many people don't realize is that antibiotic use by American livestock producers is one of the best kept secrets on the planet. The UCS had to deduce that number based on US sales of antibiotics combined with data from a country that does publish figures on antibiotics use in livestock: Canada. That's right. No one in the US, not the government, not industry -- no one -- has any responsibility to tell Americans how much antibiotics is actually in their meat. We're just to supposed to Take Industry's Word For It that everything's peachy.

Which is why the Danes insistence on being a part of this debate is so important. Denmark is the largest hog producer in Europe and, realizing the threat to public health posed by routinely feeding healthy livestock antibiotics, they stopped doing it. Over a decade ago. To listen to the AVMA and Chuck Grassley describe Denmark's experience, you'd think that Denmark's hog industry went the way of New York Harbor's oyster beds -- a happy, productive industry destroyed by mismanagement. Except, insist the Danes, that just isn't so. And they keep saying it. First they testified at hearings in the House. They said things like this:

[T]he discontinuation of non-therapeutic antibiotic use has not negatively impacted long-term swine productivity in Denmark. The facts outlined show that long-term swine production in Denmark has not been negatively impacted by the ban on non-therapeutic antibiotic use.

And so as not to be misconstrued, they said every thing was fine twice. But pages of testimony along these lines were apparently not enough to stop people from lying about the Danish record. The Danes, being a hot-headed people, couldn't stand it any longer. Recently, they met with a Congressional delegation to show them a blistering PowerPoint presentation that set the record straight. And then, as reported by Phil Brasher in the Des Moines Register, they wrote a letter [PDF]. This time, to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

We know that various rumours and sometimes “creative” interpretations of what has taken place in Denmark have been circulated to members of the US Congress, and we are grateful for having been given this opportunity to correct some of these stories.

Take that, Chuck Grassley! Attached to the letter was a 20 page report documenting the success of Denmark's ban on sub-therapeutic dosing of livestock. The Danes, understanding full well their audience, used a simple bulleted list to declare the following (I bolded some things for even more clarity):

•The Danish swine production has increased from 18.4 millions in 1992 to 27.1 millions in 2008; a 47% increase.
• Productivity increased continuously before and after NTA (Non-Therapeutic Antibiotics) stop
• Weaner [young pig] mortality increased before and a few years after NTA stop – the rate seemed unaffected, except the first year after the ban. Mortality has improved considerably in recent years (management)
• Weaner average daily gain decreased until and increased after NTA stop (continuously during a decade).
• Finisher [mature pig] mortality increased before and after NTA stop, similar rate. (mortality decreased first year)
• Finisher average daily gain increased before and after NTA stop
• Total antimicrobial consumption has fluctuated over time, but has in summary decreased from 100.4 to 48.9 mg/Kg pork produced; a 51% reduction.
• Major reductions in resistance among animal pathogens, indicator bacteria and zoonotic bacteria

That last bit is the crucial point -- end excessive antibiotics use and end increases in resistance among pathogens. Period. This is not theory -- this is what actually happened.

So, really. The Danish experiment worked. Congress needs to pass House Rep. Louise Slaughter's bill -- aka PAMTA, ban sub-therapeutic antibiotic use and our hog production will be just fine. In the end, though, this is about human health and the strong indication from Denmark is that a ban will indeed significantly reduce the odds of a superbug arising out of a hog farm. That's the goal. Are we clear on this? No more lies, please. We wouldn't want to make the Danes any angrier, would we?

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Send your question to Umbra!

Q. Dear Umbra,

My daughter's Girl Scout troop wants to start an anti-idling campaign at her school. We need help justifying why a car should be turned off for more than 30 seconds. Although they have found that it saves gas and wear and tear on the engine and other parts, very few people believe that 30 seconds is long enough. Most believe that their starter, in particular, will need to be replaced, thereby reducing the gas savings. Can you point us to definitive information about idling and when and why to turn off your engine? Thanks.

Kew100
Brentwood, Tenn.

A. Dearest Kew,

Stop idling (and stop worrying about your starter).madame.furie via flickrIsn't a car made to last through tens of thousands of stops and starts? You don't find these same pro-idling people assiduously avoiding frequent car trips in order to lengthen the overall life of their car. I'm missing some piece of the logic train wherein the engine knows that the driver maybe could have chosen to leave it running, and it takes revenge by breaking down sooner.

In my own personal car experience, the failure of starters is more closely linked to car manufacturer than to age or anti-idling. But personal experience is not definitive information, so instead I am going to point you to bossy federal agencies and a helpful nationwide anti-idling campaign.

First, let us reflect on why we are anti-idling. Idling a passenger car is almost always unnecessary, it wastes gas, and it produces myriad air pollutants (as detailed in one of my previous columns). Schoolchildren's mouths are closer to both engine and tailpipe (by virtue of their height, not because they are licking engines), so these polluting emissions enter their sensitive young bodies with ease. Larger diesel engines, such as would be found in a school bus or delivery truck, have the same issues, only diesel fuel is dirtier than gasoline. Most idling emissions research has been done on these diesel engines, and there are idling regulations now in many states (some include all engines, not just diesel). Tennessee does not appear to have anti-idling regulations.

One helpful resource for you might be Earth Day Network's No Idling Campaign. It's based on a Georgia No Idling campaign, is aimed at schoolchildren, and includes toolkits, data collection charts, and lesson plans. In terms of the "definitive information": Here is a serious refutation of the starter damage myth from the California Energy Commission; some data and resources on school bus idling from the EPA (including curriculum materials); and a short EPA sheet that references the 30-second rule. Another way to look at it is that no reputable source recommends idling.

If you commence your campaign and still have trouble with families worried about the imminent failure of their car, it might be effective to find a reputable local mechanic or car dealer who will vouch for the durability of the starter. The federal government is simply not persuasive enough in some situations -- too far away, too easily linked to a disliked leader. A community expert might be just the person you need. Best of luck.

Alternatorly,
Umbra

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Common wisdom tells us there’s no free lunch. But you can have a guilt-free lunch, thanks to Umbra Fisk’s recipe for midday munchers everywhere. You won’t have to swallow your pride -- you can eat well, save money, and help this juicy planet we call home.

“Ask Umbra” is the first video series produced by GristTV. Look for new video tips for greening your life from Umbra nearly every week.

Watch it on the go! Subscribe to GristTV video podcasts via iTunes.

Feed your mind with these links from the Grist archives:
Ask Umbra on food storage options
Let’s (re)do school lunch
Cargill, the National School Lunch program, and antibiotic-resistant salmonella
Maverick chef Ann Cooper aims to spark a nationwide school-lunch revolution
… and even more on school lunch

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What? Take away my Aqua Net?!nyki_m via flickrOK, really just one high and one low. It’s been a busy day.

The high, fittingly, is related to hair. When I first saw an email subject line that began “Directional Runway Hair” float into my inbox earlier today, I honest-to-god thought it had something to do with airports. Even when I realized it was fashion-related, my brain was still confused, and I found myself picturing a runway model with “directional” hair shaped like an airplane. But the news here has to do with inhalation, not aviation: A company called John Masters Organics is—deservedly, it would seem—boasting about its ability to create high-fashion ‘dos without “a toxic cocktail of chemical styling products.” (Masters and crew put their gunk to the test at New York Fashion Week’s green shows—find out more about the green scene courtesy of our friends at Inhabitat.)

One need look no further than EWG’s Skin Deep database to realize that everyday cosmetics are full of nasties. Just imagining the cloud of chemicals backstage at a fashion show makes me woozy. So ... here’s to progress, and to companies like Masters that are seeking less-toxic approaches to glamour. Now someone give those models a grass-fed burger, and we’ll be good.

The low for the day is down by the toes: This week, the EPA sued the owner of clothing company North Face for failing to register an antimicrobial agent used in more than 70 styles of shoes (which appear to have been discontinued). Which, bummer about the failing to register part. But more to the point: Really? Do we need antimicrobial shoes? As one staffer put it in our news meeting this morning, “It’s called a shower. Look into it.”

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