Earth Day 1970. On the first Earth Day I was 14 years old, in eighth grade at Goodman Middle School in Gig Harbor, Washington. We held a funeral for Gig Harbor Bay, which was considered dead at that time. Raw sewage from waterfront homes, chemicals from business and industry, and a general misunderstanding of the impact of humans living next to the water brought us marching down the street. The coffin at the lead of our procession held jars of bay water, sand and rocks – all toxic. We solemnly (well, as solemnly as 14 year olds can on a bright spring day) trooped down the hill from where our school sat at the head of the bay, toward the fishing docks. Years later, Gig Harbor was removed from life support and resurrected, and the water is now cleaner than in1970. That was a short-term ‘good’ environmental story, now the Puget Sound as a whole is involved in a battle to save its soul, its spirit, its life.
What are the good environmental ‘green’ stories – are they long-term changes or short-term fixes? What earth stories in the past year have made us weep for our planet?
Moonshine Ink has compiled a few of each, and for sure this is only eleven of many stories. There are no silver bullet solutions. Share your story; let’s continue the dialog and discuss how we can achieve an environmentally sustainable community, state, nation and planet.
The Good:
The U.N. gets serious. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of ‘their efforts to build up and disseminate knowledge about man-man climate change.’ After ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, 2007 proved to be a much better year for Al Gore than 2004. And for the planet. Gore said that winning the Peace Prize brought attention, credibility and focus to the issues of global warming.
Last fall, after 22 years, the United Nations passed the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The declaration is an important tool for indigenous people to protect their environments.
Last month, the U.N. Human Rights Council passed a resolution, making climate change a human rights issue, recognizing the world’s poor as the most vulnerable. The council will study the impact of climate change on human rights, describing climate change as a ‘global problem the requires a global solution.’
Green Marketing gets Big. When Clorox begins selling ‘green products’ you know that the times, they are a’changin. Green was the new, well, everything in the past year. From cars, household items, clothes, politics, policies and concert series – consumers wanted sustainable products. The flip side of the marketing barrage was that some products considered efficient proved otherwise, including some types of carbon trading that razed rainforests to plant genetically engineered forests (not all carbon trading is bad) and ethanol, which was embraced by the current administration as earth-friendly but actually takes more oil and energy to produce than what was saved by using this alternative fuel.
Al Gore recently took part of his earnings from Inconvenient Truth and the Nobel Prize to launch a public advocacy program called ‘We.’ The plan is to develop a three-year advocacy project that amasses 10 million activists to take on global warming and climate change. If ‘We’ can gather that many people, it will be twice the number that was involved in the civil rights movement. wecansolveit.org.
California gets an environmentally friendly energy director. Governor Schwarzenegger appointed Karen Douglas to the California Energy Commission in February 2008, bringing not only a registered Democrat to a key position, but also the director of the California Climate Initiative and a prime supporter for both Assembly Bill 32 and Senate Bill 1368 – laws passed in 2006 to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The appointment of Douglas brings an avowed conservationist to the Commission, with an environmental viewpoint that had been considered lacking in the organization.
The Energy Commission was created in 1974 by a law signed by Ronald Reagan. The Commission conducts research, promotes energy efficiency and issues licenses for new power plants. Challenges for the Commission include growing pessimism the state can reduce global warming emissions to 1990 levels (AB 32) due to increased population growth and other trends.
Placer County Gets Fueled Up. We have used biomass, or ‘bioenergy’ – the energy from plants and plant-derived materials – since people started burning wood for food and warmth. Wood is still the largest biomass used today, but other sources include food crops, grassy and woody plants, animal manure, fats, oils and greases. Biomass energy has cropped up in the Tahoe/Truckee area, resulting in cleaner fuel for diesel engines (see next section) and the potential for harnessing forestry debris. Placer County received a grant from the Federal Energy Commission to study the potential for building a small wood biomass facility to generate heat and electricity in the Lake Tahoe area. Brett Storey, Biomass Project Director for Placer County, says it’s time to bring in new technology that meets or exceed water/air quality standards.
‘The wood-to-energy facility could heat and power Placer County government buildings, with excess power sent to the grid – allowing for a local green source of energy,’ Storey says. He added that the technology solves a bunch of problems, including reduction of truck traffic, less burning of piles, decreased fire danger, and locally-generated power. Placer County will know within two and a half years if the project will move forward. If it were a go, the facility would be built in the 2011 timeframe.
‘Biomass utilization is perfect for heat and power,’ says Betony Jones, Director of Program Development for the Sierra Business Council. Other renewable uses include using the small diameter timber from thinning for furniture and home construction. Challenges of using biomass include the high cost of forest thinning, finding a way to offset the cost for building the facilities, being competitive against oil, and the continued efforts to improve air quality.
‘There is so much potential in the Tahoe/Truckee area for biomass, solar and wind energy,’ Jones says. She strongly believes that part of rural economic development is to encourage a green economy. ‘We have the resources here for renewable energy…There needs to be more incentives from the state and the public utilities,’ she says.
The Truckee Donner Public Utility District and Truckee Donner Recreation & Park Department built an experimental small-scale biomass facility in 2006. The facility in the Truckee River Regional Park burned wood chips from tree trimmings and yard waste. Decommissioned in March 2007, the project was found to be very labor-intensive, but also instructive about how to advance this technology in Truckee’s future.
Biodiesel goes local. Celebrities like Willie Nelson and Julia Roberts are encouraging biodiesel, a fuel derived from soybean, palm or oil-seed, and waste animal and vegetable fats, and algae. Driving a big ol’ truck with a diesel engine? How about a tractor, or a diesel car? Truckee Biofuels offers biodiesel and biodiesel blends for individual, retail or delivery in the Lake Tahoe basin and Nevada County. According to Ronnie Colby, owner of Truckee Biofuels, ‘Truckee Biofuels sold 20,000 gallons of fuel in 2007. This works out to …eliminating some 250,000 lbs of (carbon dioxide) and some 260,000 lbs of (carbon monoxide).’
There has been a consistent increase in demand, especially in the west end of Nevada County. ‘We’re the new guy on the block so there is a huge educational component to this business,’ Colby says. The greatest skepticism is the use of the biodiesel in the cold. Colby says that the B-20 biodiesel blend works in the harshest climate. When asked if the any of the ski resorts were using biodiesel, Colby said that none were using it, but had expressed interest. Truckee Biofuels gets their biodiesel from a close and sustainable vendor that only uses oil waste from restaurants in the Tahoe/Truckee area, Reno and Sacramento.
Truckee Gets Cool. Beth Ingalls is another renewable energy source in the area. Founder of the Truckee Climate Action Network, she is part of a network of people working to develop a sustainable green economy in the Truckee area. Recently the organization got a Truckee Tahoe Community Foundation Nature Fund grant of $11,000 that is designated to create a pocketsize guide for citizens, businesses and public agencies. The handbook is just part of the ‘Keep Truckee Cool’ campaign, which also researches how we can reduce Truckee’s carbon footprint. The campaign encourages alternative energy, including the goal of 1,000 solar rooftops in Truckee by 2010. ‘We need to plant the seed – perhaps that number is unrealistic, but we need to start somewhere,’ Ingalls says.
Ingalls, a Truckee former mayor and the creator of the well-known ‘Keep Truckee Green’ campaign, believes that knee-jerk solutions are not the answer. ‘A lot of the things we can do are free…beginning with changing our own habits like offset what you can’t reduce and stand up for local and renewable offsets.’ Ingalls believes at this time there are not enough options – people need to get behind other energy sources, including wind and solar. She also believes public agencies could lead the way by incorporating alternative power solutions into municipal buildings instead of continuing to spend money for dirty technology such as oil and coal. ‘Global warming is a multi-pronged beast; there are no short-term solutions,’ she says. truckeecan.com.
The Bad
Plastic Island is no paradise. When I think of an island, it’s typically tropical – palm trees comes to mind or perhaps the islands dotting the Puget Sound permeate my brain – high banks, eagles chirping, madrone trees, and poison oak. Plastic Island is poison all right, floating in the Pacific Ocean – masses and masses of trash twice the size of Texas. And there are two gigantic masses, one between Hawaii and San Francisco called the Eastern Garbage Patch, the other swirling closer to Japan called the Western Garbage Patch. These toxic stews are 80 percent plastics and each weighs some 3.5 million tons. Dangerous chemicals such as Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from industrial waste cling to the plastic, resulting in ongoing death and damage to marine life and birds. Ocean current patterns may keep the globs hidden from most people, but a majority of the garbage is generated onshore. A 2006 report by Greenpeace called, ‘Plastic Debris in the World’s Oceans,’ found that 80 percent of the debris originated on land. The report says that cleaning up isn’t an option. It’s just too large. There are a number of organizations, including Greenpeace that are involved with clean-up operations. It’s just too large to remove completely. The long-term solution is to stop producing as much plastic products at home and change our consumption habits. (See sidebar for more ways to reduce these toxic islands.)
Antarctica Ice Shelf. A chunk of Antarctic ice suddenly collapsed at the end of March, putting an even greater portion of the glacial ice at risk – an event that came twice as fast as anticipated, according to scientists. Satellite images show the disintegration of 160-square miles of ice in western Antarctica that started in February. It was the edge of the Wilkins ice shelf that is approximately 1,500 years old. Scientists say that they are not concerned about a rise in sea level from the latest event, but they say it is a marker of worsening global warming. There is hope that the rest of the ice shelf will survive until next year because now is the end of the Antarctic summer, with colder weather setting in.
State Board doesn’t ‘kill’ the electric car – but doesn’t quite save it either. The California Air Resources Board voted unanimously to slash by 70 percent the number of zero emission vehicles (ZEV) that will be on the road within six years. State regulators had recommended cutting the number by 90 percent.
The proposal put before the board on April 2 would have cut from 75,000 to as few as 27,500 the number of ZEV automakers would build between 2012 and 2017. Electric vehicle (EV) advocates and environmentalists said that would eliminate any incentive to build EVs, jeopardize public health and make it impossible for California to meet the goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent of the 1990 levels by 2050.
In the end, the board agreed that 7,500 are a reasonable number of pollution-free vehicles to expect between 2012 and 2014. The question of how many we’ll see beyond that won’t be answered until the board figures out how it’s going to overhaul the ZEV mandate.
Lake Tahoe warming up. Recently at a research symposium, Director Geoff Schladow, of the U.C. Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC), described one possible scenario that could occur for Lake Tahoe. It wasn’t pretty. One of the computer models indicated that a warming trend already underway could shut down the deep churning of oxygen and nutrients that supports life in the lake – in just 11 years.
Currently, Lake Tahoe water mixes every four years – typically the deepest mixing occurs in late February. This winter Lake Tahoe experienced mixing throughout its entire 1,644-foot depth. The deep mixing moves nutrients from the lake bottom to the water surface, and distributes surface oxygen throughout the lake, which supports aquatic life.
Heather Segale, Education and Outreach Coordinator for TERC, says, ‘Hopefully this scenario will not occur. It’s just one computer model. We are seeing the effects of climate change and we don’t know what the impact will be. What we’re trying to do is give people the scientific information to make the best land management decision with all the alternatives in mind.’ The Center released ‘Tahoe, State of the Lake Report,’ which included significant data pointing to climate warming. The average lake temperature increased more than one degree F in the past 35 years. That is huge for that amount of water. Surface water temperature in July rose by 5 degrees in the past 7 years. The nightly minimum temperature has an overall increase of more than 4 degrees.
‘The hot (temperatures) are not getting hotter…it is the cold that is getting warmer,’ Segale says. That has a big impact on the snow pack, leading to more rain and less snow. She says that a continued focus on nutrient and sediment reduction in the Tahoe basin is the best management plan for the lake. People can greatly help by simple actions, including washing your car at a carwash where the water gets recycled, limiting fertilizer use and not using fertilizer prior to heavy rains. Plant native plants and vegetation, and pick up your pet waste. TERC will issue their latest Annual Lake Tahoe Clarity Release sometime before June 2008. ‘The biggest issue is that global warming is such a complicated problem, one paper or a two- hour movie only scratches the surface,’ Segale says.
Mining Toxins and Increased mining. With gold prices hovering around $1,000 an ounce, and other precious metals in an upward swing, the number of new claims have soared in California. In the first quarter 2005, there were 132 mining claims, according to the Bureau of Land Management. By the first quarter of 2008, the number of commercial claims had rocketed to 2,274, mostly for gold mining projects. Environmentalists fear this Twenty-First Century gold rush, for good reason. Environmental experts say that mining is the biggest source of toxic pollution in the U.S., yet under legislation that passed in 1872 there isn’t much that federal authorities can do to stop mining from going ahead. The law, signed by President Ulysses S. Grant, was passed before environmental protection was even a consideration. The 135-year-old mining law promotes the development and settlement of publicly-owned lands. The law has been historically interpreted to trump over all other uses on public land. Under the law, any U.S. citizen can freely enter public domain land and enter a claim, with the exception of National Parks. Reform of that legislation is gaining support in Washington. The Sierra Nevadas were the location of the most famous U.S. gold rush in 1849. Perhaps gold mining should be left in the past.
There are two major courses of action that we all must take in order to reverse what is happening. We must reduce greenhouse gas emissions to prevent climate change. And we must adapt to the changes that we can’t prevent, and adapt in ways that protect our communities, the natural environment and the biodiversity of the planet. These are ‘we’re all in this together, and we’re in for the long haul’ type of actions. Not a quick fix, not ‘we all lived happily ever after since I changed my light bulbs.’ Western culture wants quick resolutions and a tidy finish. I can see it now, a new reality TV show, ‘Let’s makeover the planet in the next six weeks.’ It’s going to take more than that. It’s going to take diligence, attention, respect, and action. Get involved. Stay involved.
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What you can do to stop increasing the size of Garbage Island
•Every time you see litter, pick it up and dispose of it properly
• Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Be conscious of all that you buy, and avoid products with excessive packaging.
• Take part in local stream, river and beach cleanups – or organize one yourself.
• If you live near the ocean, or a river that drains into it, your storm drains probably go directly into the ocean. Be conscious of this and any other sources of marine litter. Demand that they are eliminated.
• Be conscious of your ecological footprint. Encourage change through your decisions and do not accept the current paradigm of use and waste.
Source: Oceans/Greenpeace.org
