los angeles dethroned by lowly pittsburgh in air quality battle.

ranked first in the short-term particle pollution category on the american lung association's annual state of the air report, pittsburgh dethroned reigning champion los angeles. the american lung association qualifies short-term particle pollution as a "deadly cocktail of ash, soot, diesel exhaust, chemicals, metals and aerosols... the body's natural defenses, coughing and sneezing, fail to keep these microscopic particles from burrowing deep within the lungs."

pittsburgh kept a close second against the champion los angeles in the most year-round particle pollution game.

these rankings may look bad for los angeles but the truth is they've made strides in improving their air quality, both year-round air pollution and smog.

still, there is much much much to be done nationwide. but there's clearly hope by the example of los angeles. they showed us that if you're really determined to change you can!

see how your city and state ranked.


even if your city isn't listed as a contender in poor air quality, please understand that smog is very very dangerous. it can creep into your system and stick around for periods of time and lead to heart attacks, asthma, difficulty in breathing, strokes, lung cancer and even early death. imagine, lung cancer without ever picking up a cigarette.

so you see, air quality and smog impact more than just our ozone layer.

read the horror story about donora, pennsylvania and their smog attack on halloween night in 1948. maybe it'll help you consider more ways you can improve the air around you. remember, doing your part helps more than you know. (the picture above is from that dreadful night.) from the lessons learned at donora the 1955 clean air act passed.

getting to know greenpeace.

while contemplating what to write about today i got to thinking about greenpeace. their interns are always knocking me down on the street with their clipboards and goodwill messages--gotta love their fortitude. lucky for me i can honestly tell them i have a friend working for greenpeace and i'm a regular site-reader. they smile at that and let me go.

here's a brief history about greenpeace:

it all began in 1971 with a cozy group of committed citizens aboard a small fishing vessel sailing toward amchitka island in alaska. their mission was to protect united states nuclear testing off the coast of alaska by actually placing themselves in harm's way. it was daring and risky--staring death in the eye for a natural cause. although they were intercepted by the united states coastguard, the mission was successful by bringing to the headlines the dangers of nuclear testing--worldwide.

since that effort, greenpeace has promised to educate and protect the world in the harms facing our planet all through ordinary yet committed people. they've grown considerably since their early days--30 offices internationally--and managed to maintain that same vivacity in their activists and donors.

greenpeace also doesn't solicit the government or corporations for funds. nor do they endorse politicians. their money comes from supporters and donors. to put a price tag on your support click here.

their campaigns.

global warming and energy
project hot seat
exxon secrets
science
solutions
energy [r]evolution
skeptics
climate lawsuit
global warming and energy reports
u.n. climate conference

oceans
whale defenders
bering witness
seafood
threats to ocean life
oceans reports
marine reserves
wildlife facts

forests
u.s. forests
forests worldwide
solutions to deforestation
kleenex=kleercut
music wood
forest reports
forest wildlife fact sheets

nuclear
no new nukes
disarmament
safety and security
nuclear reports
chernobyl anniversary

toxics
chemical threats
going hi-tech is highly toxic
go pvc-free
bhopal disaster
toxics reports
clash of the consoles

genetic engineering
ge industry
bans and labeling
go organic
ge reports

i'm way into the forest and ocean campaigns.

get involved!

do your part.

earth day 2008: show your love.

happy birthday mother earth.

we love you.

each year, earth day represents a reminder to the modern environmental movement that began april 22, 1970. the decided national day was to focus one whole day out of the year on the environmental problems facing our mother earth.

even 38 years ago, the environmental crisis was sweeping across the nation's campuses. they could see it then. we see it now. but how much progress has been made?

what will you do (or don't do) today, on earth day 2008, to observe this national day?

take action.

al gore believes in a happy ending still even though little has changed since his thought-provoking an inconvenient truth won a pulitzer. he also believes the environmental crisis has become even more urgent. do you believe he's doing his part in the environmental state of emergency? or do you believe the claims made against him for being an energy hog? (the writings contained herein this blog have been both pro and con toward al gore. lately, we're more pro. amazing what education can do to enlighten the mind. be sure to educate yourself.)

michelle kaufmann gives you some ideas how to take all that consumer waste and make it pretty in her do-it-yourself earth day activity kit.

the above graphic was orchestrated for a designboom and da--design association japan international design competition to demonstrate the theme "love your earth."

share more. how do you love your earth?

kimberly-clark: branded.

if you're with me (and greenpeace and so many others) in the fight against kimberly-clark, be aware of their other brands listed below. start a new habit of flipping over the product in question to see if kimberly-clark is listed as the parent company.

kleenex
huggies
kotex
depend
scott
viva
cottonelle
andrex
pull-ups
goodnites
little swimmers
poise
neat sheet

other sites promoting awareness toward the destruction kimberly-clark leaves in its wake:

greenpeace: cut and run. (new findings on the kimberly-clark "legacy." download and read the report.)
kleercut: wiping away ancient forests.
treehugger: kleenex kleercut--trees for tissues?
grist: greenpeace hacks kleenex pr.
wikipedia: kleercut.
nrdc: flushing forests down the toilet.

and remember, it takes 90 years to grow a box of kleenex. 90 years!

continue the education.

feed your piggybank when you recycle.

the recyclebank co-founder and ceo, ron gonen, has found a way to motivate americans to recycle more and better.

he has set up a process for every household on a garbage route to be allotted a recycling bin with a computer chip installed. the computer chip reads when the bin is dumped. depending upon the weight in the bin the household builds up points in their recyclebank. the points can be used at merchants such as cvs or starbucks.

in the bank's hometown of philadelphia, pennsylvania, one neighbourhood's recycling efforts soared from 7% to 90%! totally exciting!

the beauty behind a system like this is not only is it encouraging households to be more aware of their recycling process in a way everyone understands--free money, but it cuts down on the amount of junk going in landfills. that then lessens the number of trucks driving to landfills. thus the air is clearer of those nasty carbon emissions. the best payout might just be the satisfaction that household is feeling knowing they're doing their part to help better the world. that rush of pride will motivate them to continue.

would you be more careful and aware of your recycling habits if you knew your next latte' could be free?

on recyclebank's homepage it lists the number of trees and gallons of oil saved. kinda cool to see those numbers. even cooler if i knew i was contributing to the savings.

unfortunately, recyclebank hasn't made it to my san francisco neighbourhood yet. they're currently serving pennsylvania, massachusetts, new york, new jersey, delaware and vermont. but i filled out the form requesting info and you can too to see when they'll be in your corner of the country!

treehugger also recognized recyclebank for their reward program.

note: the bank points alternatively can be donated to charity.

do your part.

summer vacation hotspot: garbage island.

ok so garbage island may not bequite the summer vacation hotspot of 2008 for clubmed but it's certainly something for the eyes to behold.

what i'm talking of is a mass of questionable size--reports claim it ranges from twice the size of texas to larger than the continental united states and still growing--floating along in the pacific ocean. according to thomas morton, "garbage island" is in such a remote spot it takes a week to get there. (i don't know how much vacation time you've got but that kind of travel will put me in the red.)

who's thomas morton, you ask? my question exactly. he's important enough or is at least participating in an adventure interesting enough for cnn to notice him. of what i could find out he's an associate editor for vice magazine. seems before he came to know of garbage island he wrote about all kinds of stuff for the magazine. (i'm still investigating how he got caught up in that interest.)

read thomas morton's article oh, this is great that explains a little about it and if you're wanting more, watch what's now a 12-part series on the garbage community. eric lanford interviewed him about the mass on cnn.


news on garbage island isn't anything we didn't already know about. greenpeace, an obvious example, has spoken out about it on several occasions, including this one called the trash vortex in an effort to educate people. treehugger, a personal favourite, wrote the great pacific garbage patch: out of sight, out of mind, in february of this year. other not-so-environmentally-geared sites like npr and wikipedia have collected information to share with their followers also. london's independent put this story out in february of this year about the trash pile the world's rubbish dump: a garbage tip that stretches from hawaii to japan. this is also not the first time i've written about the trash issue. see my stories called caring for our oceans and happy whale.

while there's definitely been a surge in this topic, fact is, this is not a new discovery. it seems the first account came from a sailor named charles moore. moore founded algalita marine research foundation. but the discoveries scientists are finding is what's alarming. it's disgusting to think about the feeding cycle that occurs in the ocean with all the animals feeding off the bits of plastic circling in the trash vortex thinking it's plankton and then we eat the animal and then the trash ends up in our bodies. short story: we're eating our own refuse. that's gross. but this is scary: the impact of all the garbage can have lasting damage to our health including the reproductive systems of women resulting in miscarriages time and again, breast cancer, low sperm count, prostate cancer, and other ailments.

this is not something to be taken lightly. this garbage pile isn't just destroying the natural habit of flipper and shamu--it's affecting each one of us.

what can you do? unfortunately, the situation is so impossible that it will take a major recall of how our society thinks and operates. to quote a favourite tommy lee jones line from men in black: a person is smart; people are dumb panicky dangerous animals. that may not totally play to point but here's how i apply it: as one person we can make an effort to change the amount of plastic we use in our daily life--we're individually responsible for ourselves and our footprint. as a whole society...well, when was the last time you can think of society today agreed on one thing? aside from the fact we live in a democracy, most people don't take too well when they're told what to do or how to act. most folks like to act in a way that flatter them into thinking they're the ones that came up with the idea.

now you see my point?

but don't get me wrong. there is much you can do--separate your trash appropriately; when you see litter, pick it up and throw it out (i've started keeping antibacterial gel in my car which comes in handy for times like this.); cut up those plastic rings that hold your 6-pack of beer or soda together (a personal favourite).

by doing your part you'll be recognized as an example and others will follow. it just might take them a little longer.

note: pictured above is a laysan albatross filled to the brim with bottle caps and other plastic objects. likely the bird mistook the plastic pieces for food. the other is of a sea turtle and his unfortunate run-in with a plastic ring.

going green? or going snob?

like nigel farndale, the author of the article, turn your nose up at eco-snobs, someone slap my wrist for my attitude toward those that aren't as or even striving to be as eco-friendly as me. i'm guilty of my ears perking up to someone in the market line refusing a paper bag while the woman in front of me gladly takes the offered bag. (at my local safeway here in san francisco plastic bags are no longer offered as a means to transport your groceries. it's paper or your own bag.) it's happened so many times. and what about those that walk by the recycling bin in the office and dump their empty water bottles in the trash can? shame on them? or shame on me?

farndale's article hit home with me and now i feel bad. take a read yourself. if you're going green, good for you, but be careful to avoid rubbing it in the face of those surrounding you. like some folks said in the comments of a treehugger.com article, going green should be treated like a religion. if you try to convert someone into changing their ways and thinking differently about the environment, you won't be successful by shoving it down their throat. my mother always taught me to lead by example and actions speak louder than words. in this day and age, those words of wisdom still ring true.

emily bazalon, a writer for slate.com, wrote another view of appearing or teaching a version of eco-snobbery: she fears what her family's purchase of their prius might mean to her children. her article is both witty and realistic.

don't puff yourself up thinking you're all that just because you reuse and recycle or drive a prius. join me in relieving the world of a few eco-snobs, myself included.

greening your rented living space.

don't think that because you don't own your dwelling you can't green it up. sure, much sustainable talk is geared toward the general owner but there are lots of things you can do to make it a more efficient space:

1. apply weather-stripping. feel a draft? don't lose that hot air. this will also lower your utility bills.

2. change out your lightbulbs. we all know the importance of this seemingly-tiny task is.

3. sprout an herbal garden on your windowsill. my sister, an author to this blog also, is all about bringing the outside in. she's obsessed with her lemon tree. she's doing her part. plus, all the green inside her house creates more oxygen and a better place for her, her husband, and their cat to live and enjoy their time.

no step is too small and each counts toward doing your part so get going!

to read more, check out treehugger's article on the same topic.

do your part: lights out san francisco.

if you live in the san francisco area, join me and the rest of the city in a citywide act toward environmental awareness and energy conservation.

lights out san francisco estimates that turning your nonessential household light off for one hour on a regular saturday night from 8.00-9.00p--peak times for lights to be left on--we can save about 15 percent of the average amount of energy that would have been spent.

that's just for one hour. imagine what could happen if we were more aware of lighting needs and turned them off when they weren't being used.

in that one hour change your lightbulb(s) to compact fluorescent lightbulbs (cfl).

blog action day.

today is blog action day.

bloggers everywhere are making their voices heard (or the sound of clicking keyboard strokes) on the hot topic of our day--the environment.

we're blogging as a critical mass to raise the awareness and urgency of the situation. if we all participate, we can make a difference.

so what are you doing to lessen your carbon footprint? what are you doing to save your planet? what are you doing to do your part in the fight of our lives--saving our mother earth? what's your action plan?

take a stand. be an activist.

start refusing plastic bags at the grocery store.

limit your use of paper and plastic products.

turn the lights off when nobody's home.

recycle.

compost.

leave your car parked--take public transportation.

all it takes is one person. that person is you.



note: this blog is dedicated 100% to the overwhelming issue of global warming. browse through the other entries for tips on how you can lessen your carbon footprint with simple and easy measures.

don't be an eco-litterbug.

while shoveling my organic walnut oatmeal in my mouth, i filtered through some of my eco-emails that come every morning and came across this one from grist that i like very much. i'm guilty of the occasional eco-littering. read the article and then imagine the effect of spitting your gum out into the bushes has.

Into the Wild: On tossing food waste

question

Dear Umbra,

I am a college student. I eat a lot on the go. Not fast food or boxed meals, but when I leave my dorm I usually grab an apple, banana, or other fruit/veggie to eat as I walk to my destination. I don't compost, instead I just throw the banana peel or apple core into the bushes. I like the thought that maybe one day my apple core will become an apple, or that my banana peel will help nourish that piece of ground/animals in the area over ending up in a landfill. To me this eco-littering is an opportunity for new life. I know that it takes a long time to biodegrade as a piece of fruit tossed in the bushes, but I think that, on a smaller scale (not all of society throwing their food scraps into our green places), it's not a bad thing. But I've heard that this eco-littering isn't terribly good. I don't really know and I kinda like my fantasy world where it is. Is my eco-littering OK? Should I start to properly compost my food?

Brendan
Moscow, Idaho

answer

Dearest Brendan,

Many angles to consider here -- or, there's more than one way to peel this apple. Is that the expression? Am I conflating skinning a cat with peel me a grape?

We'll sort through the peelings, but let's start with the end and say: It would be better to properly compost your food.

Partly this has to do with citizenship. What you are doing is just plain old littering, and from a civic standpoint, it's improper. Mind you, I think most people throw food into the bushes one way or another. My mother threw apple cores out the car window into roadside woodlands, I throw plum pits under the apple trees in my back yard. But one is not meant to do it in either frequented public places or in remote locales; other people who encounter your litter may find it repulsive. It may spoil their pleasant bush-side jaunt, they may feel the need to clean up after you, they may be gardeners maintaining the bushes who find your rotten leavings. We vote, and recycle, and drive less, because we believe that one person has an impact. By this logic, one person's litter makes a difference. Not a good difference. There should be all types of activism in the environmental movement, but I don't think fruit rinds send a clear enough message to count as activism.

At an ecological level, discarded fruit leavings are not the cat's meow either. Almost none of the produce you discard will sprout new life. An apple seed or a plum pit might, because these grow in your area, but due to the unpredictable nature of sexual reproduction in domesticated tree fruit, the resultant tree would likely be a weird, unrecognizable, and less tasty fruit. If you live in a human-dominated landscape, it will be torn up. Any animals that eat the fruit will be scavengers who have other food sources, because no animal could build a life on waiting for banana peels. In a worst-case scenario, an innocent animal would eat your garbage and suffer indigestion or death. (I'm kind of making the death part up, but it doesn't seem utterly out of the question.)

Those are some of the reasons why we should stop throwing our produce bits about. True, one alternative is to throw them in the garbage, where they will be interred for centuries. But the other alternative, composting them, fulfills almost all the aspects of your fantasy world. If you were to compost your pits and peels, they would transform themselves into nourishing plant nutrients. Composted material isn't just more aesthetically pleasing than rotting banana peels, it has a chemical and structural difference that is beneficial to plants. If you then threw this material under the bushes -- oh, happy bushie day.

Luckily for you, basic information about all sorts of composting is just a click away, on this very website. May your fantasy life simply improve as you change your leftover hummus into humus.

Painfully,
Umbra

be a water saving hero!

you can be a water saving hero too!

if you're a california resident, this is definitely worth a look-see.

taking shorter showers conserves water.
sweeping instead of using a hose conserves water.
watering the lawn in the morning conserves water.
full loads of laundry conserves water.
fixing running toilets conserves water.
turning the water off while brushing [your teeth] conserves water.

penguins: suited up for disaster.

it's just really sad. so many creatures are affected negatively by global warming. while the effects are difficult still to see on the mainland they're evidencing themselves clearly in places like antarctica and the arctic.

penguins are running out of space to mate. such a wonderful creature.

don't be silly and think because they're so far away and in an environment very foreign to most of us that our efforts can't help them.

everything we/you can do from changing our lightbulbs to boycotting the plastic bag will have far-reaching effects.

maybe seeing the danger this adorable creature is in will encourage you to try just a little bit harder to minimize your carbon footprint. i hope it will. it wells my eyes with tears.

address the mess

You've probably seen this already, perhaps even taken the quiz or watched The Convenientest Truth. But just in case you aren't hip to Comedy Central or haven't read TreeHugger yet this week, here's Address the Mess -- showing you how to clean up your act....

breathe in, breathe out, breathe clean(er) with plants

With so much discussion about green and about carbon footprints, I thought I'd take this opportunity to promote a few of my favourite things (cue song from Sound of Music here). Plants. Or more specifically, houseplants. I grew up in a house with houseplants, and to me and my siblings, a house isn't a home without a few well-placed, well-kept plants. Have you heard the saying "the air inside your home may be more polluted than the air outside?" Think of all that carbon dioxide and water vapor you exhale in your house every day -- into rooms with poor ventilation and into air with poor circulation. Offset those greenhouse gases and help clean the air with a few lovely leafy plants. Let them drink in and enjoy some of the bi-products of your existence. (And of course, you can always plant a few bushes, flowering shrubs, or garden plants outside your house to add to the effort.)

If you want to do even more with your plants, feed them. And I don't mean with chemicals! You know those grape tomatoes that go squishy in your veggie drawer? or the strawberries that turned a grainy shade of brown before you ate them? or the rest of that mouldering head of lettuce that didn't quite get made into salad? Don't dump it! If you're not already composting, pour your old fruits and veggies into a blender, add enough water to sodden the mix, and blend it to a watery pulp -- then use that to feed and water your plants -- it's full of vitamin nutrition and it's a way to cut garbage! (Of course, you may find that a few baby tomato plants spring up where you don't expect them....)

So head down to your local garden center and pick up a few plants that catch your eye. They'll look great strategically placed around your home, and they'll be a friendly welcome to anyone who breathes.

(At my count while sitting here typing, I have 9 plants hanging out in my apartment -- and I'm looking forward to finding another addition in the near future.)

recycle your computers san francisco!

so we all know it's important to recycle. way important. but there are just certain items that either seem un-recyclable or pose the question and wonder of where to recycle them? living in san francisco i've become blind to noticing all the computers and monitors and other electronics that litter the street. when I first moved here i found it to be so strange. like, why don't they just dump it in the trash? why leave it on the street? is it that difficult?

welcome to green citizen. green citizen is a self-proclaimed one stop shop for properly recycling your old computers and electronics--serving san francisco and silicon valley. no more leaving them littered on your neighbourhood sidewalk.

they provide everything from destroying your hard disks in a way that will protect your confidentiality to recycling batteries to providing you with collector boxes for those little electronic items. see their full list of items.

most items are free to recycle while a select few cost a couple bucks. that tiny cost is worth it. better than batteries oozing goop in landfills around our world.

be sure to read the scrolling list of comments on the right hand side from green citizen clients.

al gore: another look.

this may surprise many of you but last night i finally watched al gore's an inconvenient truth.

if you haven't watched it, please do. rent it. borrow it from a friend or the library. buy it.

in spite of al gore being an energy hog and trying to justify it by saying he has lots of carbon credits, the man is doing a great thing with this movie he's made. he's a great speaker/presenter, and will have you crying and laughing the entire way through the startling and jaw dropping content.

i've gotta hand it to him. he's taken it upon himself to fight this troubling reality by sharing it with as many people as will hear him. now we have a responsibility to act on it. make a change today.

"and to my children i leave..."

powerful message from flex your power.

watch their ads nearly begging everyone to be more energy efficient.

we must take better care of this earth.

little thoughts.

three things to think on and remember.

one.
energy to create.
pollution to dispose.

two.
the more i use the more that has to be created.

three.
from edmund burke: nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

act.
change how you characteristically think about your day and in the end you will change the world.

happy whale.

help keep this whale happy. eliminate using plastic bags--take a tote with you to the supermarket and mass retailers. recycle your trash and compost your food leftovers.

while it may seem like doing those things on the mainlands might not make a difference, it does. by recycling our trash and ridding our hands of plastic bags, we're minimizing the chance of those materials ending up floating for miles in the ocean or with the trash vortex.

don't let these actions seem insignificant. if we all participate, change will happen.

learn more about protecting our oceans.