by Seleyn De Yarus

THE UNITED NATIONS AND LEADING RESEARCHERS CONCLUDE THAT ORGANIC FARMING IS A VIABLE OPTION FOR GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, AND SUSTAINABILITY.

There are an estimated 6.9 billion humans on planet Earth. Of those, there are an estimated 3 billion people living on less than $2 a day. Access to healthy food, housing, and drinkable water challenges nearly half of our species. However, evidence is mounting that organic agriculture can feed and provide income and sustainability to a growing number of the world’s poor while also ensuring healthier ecosystems and more nutritious food.

A shining example of how organic agriculture provides sustenance on many levels is the Tigray Project in Ethiopia.
Local and national experts have cooperated with farmers in the Tigray region and tapped the rich knowledge of the farmers to understand and utilize local ecosystem elements rather than depend on fertilizers. Tigray has achieved higher yields, higher groundwater levels, better soil fertility, increased household income, and stronger livelihood opportunities for farmers than previous efforts with conventional agriculture. The Ethiopian government has now adopted this approach to mitigate soil damage and alleviate poverty in 165 local districts in the grain producing parts of Ethiopia.

A report showing further evidence that organic farming can feed the world was presented in October 2008 by the United Nations Environmental Program. In a statement to The Independent, the head of the UN’s Environment Program, Achim Steiner, said the report “indicates that the potential contribution of organic farming to feeding the world may be far higher than many had supposed.”

The report analyzed 114 projects in 24 African countries and found that yields had more than doubled where organic or near-organic practices had been used as compared to conventional crops. Additionally, the study found that organic practices provided environmental benefits such as improved soil fertility, better retention of water, and resistance to drought. The research also highlighted the role that organic farming could play in improving in areas such as local education, agro-ecological knowledge, leadership training, adult literacy, computer knowledge and experimental farming programs. The report can be found at www.unep.org.

Out With The Green Revolution, In With The Organic Revolution

The Green Revolution, so named in the 1960s and 1970s, offered a package of hybrid seeds, farm technology, better irrigation techniques, and chemical fertilizers and pesticides. It was successful at meeting its primary objective of increasing crop yields and augmenting aggregate food supplies. Yet, despite its success, the Green Revolution as a development approach has not necessarily translated into benefits for the lower strata of the rural poor in terms of greater food security or greater economic opportunity and well-being.

Research shows that the latest scientific approaches in organic agriculture offer developing countries affordable, immediately usable, and universally accessible ways to improve yields. Rodale Institute is a 60-year-old research and education nonprofit with the longest ongoing comparative agricultural field trials in the world.

“Yield data just by itself makes the case for a focused and persistent move to organic farming systems,” explains Dr. Tim LaSalle, CEO of the Rodale Institute. “When we consider that organic systems are building the health of the soil, sequestering CO2, cleaning up the waterways, and returning more economic yield to the farmer, the argument for an Organic Green Revolution becomes overwhelming. These methods also build the soil, increase drought and flood resistance as well as adaptability to climate change,” LaSalle says.

Remember the high yield goal of the Green Revolution? The quest for maximum yield in conventional agriculture has often resulted in declining nutritional quality, says Dr. Donald Davis of the University of Texas, Austin. He and his team analyzed 50 years of USDA nutrition data. According to a study published in 2004 in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 13 major nutrients in fruits and vegetables tracked by USDA from 1950 to 1999, six showed significant declines—protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin, and vitamin C.

Dr. Davis noted that over many years of using yield potential as the dominant criterion in developing improved varieties, while average yields have risen, plant root systems have not been able to keep pace in drawing more needed micronutrients from the soil. When breeders selectively breed for one resource, using a selected trait like yield, fewer resources remain for other plant functions, the study explains.

Organic fruits and vegetables on other hand, are on average 25% higher in 11 key nutrients than their conventional, chemically produced counterparts, according to research published in March 2008 by The Organic Center. Organic fruits and vegetables also are 30% higher in antioxidants when compared to their conventional counterparts. The higher levels of antioxidants in organic food may also contribute to better taste, according to a 2006 Organic Center report.

Both international and national research is substantiating that food security, human health, economic development and ecological sustainability are better served through organic agricultural methods than previously recognized. The increased recognition of the downsides of chemically intensive agriculture combined with the growing body of evidence for the benefits of organic agriculture provides new momentum for more sustainable agricultural practices to be adopted globally. This is good news for the burgeoning populations of the developing world and their local environments.

Seleyn DeYarus is the development director of The Organic Center and has been an advocate of organic farming and ecological sustainability for 25 years. For more information, visit www.organic-center.org.

At a time when the U.S. economy is facing its biggest crisis in decades, clean technology offers the promise to be the next big engine of business and economic growth.

What is clean tech? At Clean Edge, a firm that covers the clean technology market, our definition refers to any product, service, or process that delivers value using limited or zero nonrenewable resources, and/or creates significantly less waste than conventional offerings. Clean technology comprises a diverse range of products and services—from solar power systems to hybrid electric vehicles—that:

• Harness renewable materials and energy sources or reduce the use of natural resources by using them more efficiently and productively
• Cut or eliminate pollution and toxic wastes
• Deliver equal or superior performance compared with conventional offerings

Clean tech covers four main sectors: energy, transportation, water, and materials. It includes relatively well-known technologies such as solar photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated solar power (CSP), wind energy, biofuels, advanced lithiumion batteries, and large-scale reverse-osmosis water desalination. It also includes emerging technologies such as wave and tidal power, silicon-based fuel cells, distributed hydrogen generation, plug-in hybrid and all-electric vehicles, and nanotechnology-based materials.

So how did clean tech go from the stuff of back-to-the-earth utopian dreams to its current revolution among the inner circles of corporate boardrooms, Wall Street trading floors, and government offices around the globe?

We’ve identified six major forces—what we call the six Cs—that are pushing clean tech into the mainstream and driving the rapid growth, expansion, and economic necessity of clean tech across the globe: climate, costs, capital, competition, China, and consumers.

Costs. Perhaps the most powerful force driving today’s clean-tech growth is simple economics. As a medium to longterm trend, clean-energy costs are falling as the costs of fossil fuel energy, despite the drop in the price of oil in the second half of 2008, are going up. The future of clean tech is going to be, in many ways, about scaling up manufacturing and driving down costs. Recent advances in core technology and manufacturing processes have significantly improved performance, reliability, scalability, and cost of clean energy sources, primarily solar and
wind.

By contrast, in conventional fossil-fuel power such as coal and natural gas (which together provide approximately 60% of the world’s electricity), the generating technologies are mature, stable, and already widely deployed—so their technology costs are relatively steady and predictable. What determines the price of conventional power is the cost of fuel—and the price of fossil fuels, while certainly experiencing directional gyrations as we’ve seen in the past year, has nearly always moved in the same general direction over the long term: up.

With solar, wind, small-scale hydroelectric, geothermal, and even the nascent technology of ocean tide and wave generated electricity, the price-determining formula is just the opposite. There is no cost of “fuel”—the sun, the breeze, the heat of the earth, the tides and waves arrive free of charge daily.

Climate. Alarm is growing about the climate-change consequences caused by our continued dependence on carbon-intensive, greenhouse gas (GHG)–emitting energy and transportation sources, and manufacturing processes. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned in 2007 that global GHG emissions must be in decline by 2015 to avert disastrous “runaway” climate change. And with insurance giants such as Swiss Re and Munich Re thinking twice about climate impact on the issuance of their policies (try getting an insurance policy for an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico), the climate issue is coming front and center for companies, governments, and individuals.

This is driving clean-tech investment and deployment and becoming an increasingly important factor in assessing
investment risk factors. Global companies from DuPont to Wal-Mart are investing heavily to promote energy efficiency and clean tech in their operations to reduce their GHG contributions. “As an investor, do you believe that we’re going to take climate change seriously in terms of legislation?” asks Mark Trexler, president of Trexler Climate + Energy Services, a firm in Portland, Oregon, that advises companies and utilities on carbon-reduction strategies. “To completely ignore it, in terms of investment decisions, would be a terrible thing.”

Consumers. Rising energy prices, polluted ecosystems, and growing awareness of climate change and the geopolitical costs associated with fossil fuels are driving a shift in consumer attitudes and consumer demand for clean-tech products and services. That’s forcing companies that sell to consumers – from appliance makers to auto manufacturers to Wal-Mart – to produce and sell cleaner, more efficient products and to market them aggressively.

Who is driving this demand and growth, which is also evidenced by the steady expansion of the LOHAS demographic sector? Both early adopters, who installed the first solar PV system in their neighborhood or purchased an early-model Toyota Prius, and mainstream customers, who are installing high-efficiency water heaters, buying higher-mileage cars, insulating their homes with recycled denim, and demanding efficient EnergyStar appliances and windows.

These 21st century consumer preferences don’t seem to be slowed by the dramatic drop in gasoline prices that began in the fall of 2008. A Consumer Federation of America survey in February 2009 found that 76 percent of U.S. adults were still concerned about high gas prices and an equal number worried about American dependence on oil from the Middle East.

Capital. An unprecedented influx of capital is changing the clean-tech landscape, with billions of dollars, euros, yen, and yuan pouring in from a myriad of public and private sector sources. Since the 1970s, investments in clean technology have moved from primarily government research and development (R&D) projects to major multinationals, well-heeled venture capitalists, and savvy individual investors.

General Electric, the world’s largest diversified manufacturer, plans to invest up to $1.5 billion a year in clean-tech R&D by 2010 as part of its “Ecomagination” business strategy. Spain-based energy giants Iberdrola and Acciona are both poised to spend billions of dollars building out their clean-energy portfolios, primarily wind power, over the coming years. Toyota reportedly spends some $8 billion annually in R&D, much of it for hybrid and fuel-cell development. Sanyo, the fourth largest solar cell manufacturer in the world behind Sharp, Q-Cells, and Kyocera, has said it will invest $350 million over 5 years to expand its solar operations as well.

The trend is significant. In 2008, despite its fourth-quarter downturn, venture capital investments in clean tech (in North America, Europe, China, and India) grew 38% to $8.4 billion, according to research firm The Cleantech Group in San Francisco.

China. Clean tech is being driven by the inexorable demands being placed on the earth not only by mature economies but also China, India, Brazil, Russia, and other rapidly developing nations. Their expanding energy needs are driving major growth in clean-energy, transportation, building, and water-delivery technologies.

China is emblematic of the resource-constraint issues facing our planet; China will not be able to sustain its growth if it doesn’t widely embrace clean technology. The Chinese government is starting to understand this and in 2006 committed to investing more than $200 billion over 15 years to meet nationally mandated targets for clean energy. China is planning to have 60 gigawatts of renewable energy (not including large hydroelectric) by 2010 and 120 GW by 2020.

Competition. This refers to competition among cities, regions, and nations to attract and grow clean tech as a core industry for job creation and economic development. Thrust into the national spotlight in the past year with the focus on “green jobs” as a major component of U.S. economic recovery, clean tech as a development tool is gaining significant traction. Whether promoting the retraining of laid-off steelworkers to build wind turbines or employing inner-city job seekers to weatherize homes in their neighborhoods, more governments are seeking (and seeing) the benefits of clean tech-focused development efforts.

These powerful global forces—the six Cs—have put clean tech onto center stage and awakened a diverse range of stakeholders across the world. From Beijing to Berlin, from San Francisco to Bangalore, the clean tech revolution is well under way. It will determine which regions lead and prosper and which regions are left drowning in their own effluents, choking on their own emissions, and struggling to compete in a world that is leaner, greener, and less reliant on fossil fuels.

We believe the choice for investors, companies, governments, and individuals is simple, especially as we seek a dramatic transition out of our current financial crisis. Be part of one of the greatest business and economic shifts in recorded human history, or become extinct like the dinosaurs whose fossils fueled the last great industrial revolution.

So I was wondering, why is it that commercial air travel is considered so non-green? It seems unjust that my efforts to live green all year are negated by a few flights to Sierra Club headquarters and a trip or two to visit my parents.

Most carbon calculators - but notably not ours at Sierra Club Green Home (www.sierraclubgreenhome.com) - penalize even the dark green citizen who is required to fly commercial for work. Let's say you're a sales manager, you diligently recycle, you watch the thermostats, you have low-water landscaping, you eat organic vegetables, you're doing everything right except your job requires you to fly from Denver to Cincinnati twice a month. According to most evaluations, you are a serious carbon emitter. I don't think this is right, it's not fair to call this person a polluter. In ecological thinking, his or her lifestyle and home are green, and should be respected as such.

Although a pitch to the boss for teleconferencing in lieu of so many business trips is the best antidote, the real modern day quest is to achieve eco-friendly air travel. And what about the concept of full vs. empty flights? Nobody will dispute that the least green way to travel (sorry celebrities, CEOs and pro athletes) is by private jet. The amount of carbon produced vs. the number of people moved is not a favorable equation. Consider a 727 stretch packed with 300 people. It would seem that this calculation would be a lot more efficient in terms of carbon produced vs. passenger miles traveled. Kind of like watching a mom drive thru a Starbucks with her 25 pound kid in the passenger seat of a giant SUV - can it get more non-green? Whereas, you can justify driving a stretch Chevy Suburban if it is packed with six or seven passengers and their baggage, this is highly efficient per passenger mile, even at 15 mpg. A better way to quantify your transport emissions would be number of people miles moved per gallon.

Speaking of automobiles, the gains made in emissions control over the past 40 years are mind-blowing. As in, it would take about 50 2009 Corvettes to match the bad exhaust gases produced by one 1969 Corvette big block in an hour of driving. The introduction of computer-controlled engine management and high tech catalytic converters makes this possible. This also explains why the cloud of smog that used to hang over Los Angeles has dissipated significantly over the past few decades. You now can actually see the skyline!

So why, then, haven't airplanes matched this remarkable improvement demonstrated by the car industry? Or have they? To find out, we called Boeing, the world's largest maker of commercial aircraft. We spoke with Billy Glover, Managing Director of Environmental Strategy for Boeing's Commercial Airplane division. In this role, Mr. Glover is primarily responsible for all environmental aspects of the next generation of commercial jets that Boeing will build.

"Fuel efficiency of commercial jets has improved since the 60s by 70 percent," Glover declared. "This must be balanced with the economic consideration that our customers face: their number one cash expense is fuel. They demand improvements each time they order new aircraft."

The efficient marketplace has greatly improved fuel efficiency and reduced emissions accordingly. Not to mention, the noise, unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and other yucky stuff produced by commercial jets has been significantly reduced since the 90s. Indeed, take a look at the sky next time a big commercial flight passes overhead. Remember the deafening sound if the plane was below 5,000 feet? And how much visible smoke used to trail behind? That deafening noise has been replaced by near-silence, and those jet streams are for the most part no longer visible. What we are no longer seeing or hearing is technological improvement and reduced emissions. "This has been accomplished by a fundamental change in the architecture of the engine design. The high bypass engine moves higher volumes of air at lower speeds, thus noise is reduced and fuel is saved," explains Glover.

This is all great, but what's next for the sustainable airplane? Boeing and others, most  notably Richard Branson's Virgin Air are working on commercial jets that will fly on sustainable biofuels and clean technologies. An industry trade group, Sustainable Aviation Fuels Users Group, is working to establish a sustainable biofuel supply that all aircraft can run on without costly conversions of existing jet engines. One example of biofuel in action was a test in January 2009 -- Continental took a Boeing 737 up for a test flight burning a 50/50 mixture of conventional jet fuel and biofuels. In this particular scenario the biofuel came from algae. The results indicated that this mix could work and it would save the airlines a lot of fuel expense dollars.

Hopefully, advances in jet engine efficiency and emissions control will accelerate, so that at some point our poor sales manager from Denver won't be penalized by the green world for having customers in Cincinnati. A lofty (I can't resist an occasional bad pun) but seemingly achievable goal.

Let's hear from you, as always we encourage and appreciate your comments. Is our sales manager green, or is he/she a carbon villain for flying? You decide. Thanks for reading!

There’s only one thing I hate worse than mopping the floors…

…and that’s dealing with the endless emails that come into my inbox.

I’m not talking about the stupid once-in-a-lifetime-do-it-right-now-or-die kinds of emails, I’m talking about the legitimate things you need to deal with. Things like requests from vendors, employees and contractors. Or “what do you want for your birthday” emails from Mom.


If you know anyone that sends email (and I’m sure you do), you are dealing with this too. So here are a couple of tips I’ve developed that can help you attack and process your email with ease.

Email attack strategy #1 – Turn off Send/Receive. Let’s get real. You don’t really need to check your email the second it comes in. Not even a little bit. Turn off your automatic send/receive and check your email manually several times a day. You will feel more in control, people will stop assuming that the second you receive an email you will respond and you finally get a chance to breathe.

Email attack strategy #2 – Maintain multiple email addresses. Want to instantly clean up your inbox? Get an email address just for specific areas of your life. For example, I have an email just for newsletters, one for internal communications with my team (that nobody else knows), one for use with clients, and one for my friends and family. It’s a total breeze to know which emails to look at first.

Email attack strategy #3 – Auto-sort into folders. Now that you have all those extra email addresses, why have a big fat inbox when you can auto-sort them into folders. This is an especially useful feature of Outlook (Entourage if you have a Mac). Just set up a rule for incoming mail and it will automatically go into the appropriate folder. Now newsletters won’t be mixed up with really important email.

Email attack strategy #4 – Color code it. Some email programs have a color coding feature that makes email fun and easy to work with. You can color code emails from a particular person, through a specific account or with specific words in them.

Email attack strategy #5 – Sort by name or subject before you look at it. This is probably the biggest distraction that people have with email. You look at the first email, and it’s about subject #1. You start to think about that subject and then go on to the next email. It’s about subject #2. And on and on until you have so many thoughts filling your head, you’re exhausted. Sorting by the person’s name or subject before you process your email will keep you thinking about the person or subject until the entire set of messages is gone. This one is a real brain saver!

Email attack strategy #6 – The Preview Procrastination. What is the biggest enemy of email programs? If you’re using Outlook, it’s called the “reading pane”. Yep, it’s a “pain” alright. It allows you to preview your email before you reply. Most of us scan the email, put together a reply in our head and never actually get around to doing the actual reply. Then we carry all that “have to” information in our head and procrastinate about responding to email because we think we’re doing it twice! Turn off preview and reading pane now.

Email attack strategy #7 – Reply, Schedule, File or Delete. Now that the reading pane is off and your email is sorted, you’re ready to go. Get the email in front of you, and do one of the following: reply, schedule a task or appointment, file it or delete it. NEVER move on and say “I’ll get back to this one.” You won’t. If you don’t know what to do with it, put it in an I Don’t Know folder but don’t leave it in your inbox.

Email attack strategy #8 – Early or Late, but NEVER before bed. Email before bed? Uggghhh! Don’t do it. Enough said.

Email attack strategy #9 – Set a timer and get it done! If email procrastination is running your life, set a timer before you start. With your sorting done and process in hand, getting through the email in chunks is better than leaving it for later. Later never comes. Instead, set your timer for 30 minutes. When the timer goes off, you’re done. Do it again later in the day if you have to. You’ll feel a certain sense of relief.

Technology is supposed to be your friend – not your enemy. Don’t let it get you – let it work FOR you!

Do you have any other Attack Strategies I can add to my list?

0 Comments »

There’s only one thing I hate worse than mopping the floors…

…and that’s dealing with the endless emails that come into my inbox.

I’m not talking about the stupid once-in-a-lifetime-do-it-right-now-or-die kinds of emails, I’m talking about the legitimate things you need to deal with. Things like requests from vendors, employees and contractors. Or “what do you want for your birthday” emails from Mom.

If you know anyone that sends email (and I’m sure you do), you are dealing with this too. So here are a couple of tips I’ve developed that can help you attack and process your email with ease.

Email attack strategy #1 – Turn off Send/Receive. Let’s get real. You don’t really need to check your email the second it comes in. Not even a little bit. Turn off your automatic send/receive and check your email manually several times a day. You will feel more in control, people will stop assuming that the second you receive an email you will respond and you finally get a chance to breathe.

Email attack strategy #2 – Maintain multiple email addresses. Want to instantly clean up your inbox? Get an email address just for specific areas of your life. For example, I have an email just for newsletters, one for internal communications with my team (that nobody else knows), one for use with clients, and one for my friends and family. It’s a total breeze to know which emails to look at first.

Email attack strategy #3 – Auto-sort into folders. Now that you have all those extra email addresses, why have a big fat inbox when you can auto-sort them into folders. This is an especially useful feature of Outlook (Entourage if you have a Mac). Just set up a rule for incoming mail and it will automatically go into the appropriate folder. Now newsletters won’t be mixed up with really important email.

Email attack strategy #4 – Color code it. Some email programs have a color coding feature that makes email fun and easy to work with. You can color code emails from a particular person, through a specific account or with specific words in them.

Email attack strategy #5 – Sort by name or subject before you look at it. This is probably the biggest distraction that people have with email. You look at the first email, and it’s about subject #1. You start to think about that subject and then go on to the next email. It’s about subject #2. And on and on until you have so many thoughts filling your head, you’re exhausted. Sorting by the person’s name or subject before you process your email will keep you thinking about the person or subject until the entire set of messages is gone. This one is a real brain saver!

Email attack strategy #6 – The Preview Procrastination. What is the biggest enemy of email programs? If you’re using Outlook, it’s called the “reading pane”. Yep, it’s a “pain” alright. It allows you to preview your email before you reply. Most of us scan the email, put together a reply in our head and never actually get around to doing the actual reply. Then we carry all that “have to” information in our head and procrastinate about responding to email because we think we’re doing it twice! Turn off preview and reading pane now.

Email attack strategy #7 – Reply, Schedule, File or Delete. Now that the reading pane is off and your email is sorted, you’re ready to go. Get the email in front of you, and do one of the following: reply, schedule a task or appointment, file it or delete it. NEVER move on and say “I’ll get back to this one.” You won’t. If you don’t know what to do with it, put it in an I Don’t Know folder but don’t leave it in your inbox.

Email attack strategy #8 – Early or Late, but NEVER before bed. Email before bed? Uggghhh! Don’t do it. Enough said.

Email attack strategy #9 – Set a timer and get it done! If email procrastination is running your life, set a timer before you start. With your sorting done and process in hand, getting through the email in chunks is better than leaving it for later. Later never comes. Instead, set your timer for 30 minutes. When the timer goes off, you’re done. Do it again later in the day if you have to. You’ll feel a certain sense of relief.

Technology is supposed to be your friend – not your enemy. Don’t let it get you – let it work FOR you!


Do you have any Email Attack Strategies that I could add to my list?

Admittedly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder when it comes to wind turbines. For decades, they have decorated – or defaced? – the desert alongside Interstate 10 near Palm Springs. A curiosity, to be sure, but not too many folks complained because nobody lives in their immediate area except a few roadrunners and rattlesnakes.
 

Wind turbine sight pollution was also an issue recently off Cape Cod, where the likes of the Kennedy family – known greenies with serious environmental credentials – fought (unsuccessfully, I might add) against a new wind energy farm.
 

Renewable energy comes in many forms, and let’s face it, most of ‘em ain’t beautiful. No matter how you design them, solar panels are tolerable at best but not a thing of beauty. Same for the wind turbines. As the two most common and growing applications for renewable energy, we are going to see a lot more of them around. Which raises the issue of sight pollution.
 

Believe it or not, a number of “environmentalists” have been complaining about proposals to add exponential numbers of solar panels and wind turbine machines to several areas of the desert throughout the Southwest. It seems the critics are saying these devices will ruin the pristine sight lines and unmolested views of nature as it has looked for hundreds of years. Are they right? Of course. Is that reason enough to stop these critical experiments to mass produce solar and wind energy? Not even!
 

So we have the quandary of every tree hugger when examining man-made structures on a collision course with nature – to deface or not to deface, that is the question. You’d think we’d all be rejoicing since this administration is embracing alternative energy and sincerely trying to build a new green industry, with America as a global leader. You’d think environmentalists would be willing to see a few turbines and solar panels on their desert hikes or drives. But no. We support wind and solar energy so long as it’s not in my backyard, and not in my hiking grounds either. Come on, people, get with the program! If this is the biggest concession we must make to nurture and grow mass solar and wind energy installations, count me in. I am willing to look at some solar panels and wind turbines, even while hiking in remote areas. If you allow yourself, you can even find something sublime about the installations. As I biked through the Netherlands across perfectly manicured fields of wind turbines, I was in awe of the grandeur of the structures and what they represented – clean energy for all.
 

The bigger problem than compromising aesthetics is transmission. As in, how do we get the power created by solar panels and wind turbines to the city from out in the desert when we are locating them? This is a technology issue that will be solved as we pursue improved renewable energy designs. In the meantime, we may have to deal with these structures on rooftops, in empty lots and possibly even in public areas of major cities. I, for one, am willing to accept this with a smile. These are good problems. As good green citizens, let’s support these renewable energy proposals even if they aren’t eye candy. It’s now or never to step up and gain energy independence.
 

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Please comment below, thanks, until next week…

There has been a tremendous shift in the way companies and people do business unfamiliar to many of us. We are in the midst of one of the largest global economic downturns of our time. Six U.S. states have unemployment rates since jobless records began in 1976. The mortgage crisis is still unresolved and the stock market has yet to instill confidence in investors. Clearly all of us in some way have been affected by the downturn. It is times like these that business needs to either evolve or be dissolved. One of the best teachers of survival is nature. Evolution is crucial for any species to adapt and survive the changing environmental circumstances of its surroundings. They either do this or become extinct. This is also true in business as we have seen formidable companies such as GM declare bankruptcy because of its inability to adapt to the changing consumer and global competitors.

So how do we make a shift in a consumer driven economy that is propelled by people buying stuff even if we are trying to promote better stuff? LOHAS products are still just products but with a more mindfulness. They still have a price tag and in many cases it is a premium price tag. Remember how the green craze took hold? People were touting their green built mansions and biodiesel hummers. There was big opportunity for companies to jump on the green bandwagon with green-products, eco-tours and green bling. All of this was just green lipstick on the pig of our larger consumer driven society. Our overspending that has put us in a trillion dollar credit card debt. The average U.S. household debt at the end of 2008 was $8,329.

Now bling is out. Flaunting wealth now is to be out of touch with current circumstances and seen as arrogant. Runway fashion is touting more mute colors and darker tones instead of shimmering silver and gold. There has been a shift in attitudes across the board from companies to individuals on spending. There is more of a focus on quality rather than quantity. Currently, people are focusing more on their spending habits and not overspending but are saving. The personal savings rate is at a 10 year high of over 4.5%. It does not sound like much but it is a huge step for many. The National Gardening Association states that home gardening is anticipated to increase 19%. They claim it is not necessarily because produce is expensive but rather that people like to hunker down and want some old fashioned comfort.

People are beginning to evaluate their relationship with money and their definitions of happiness. The New Economics Foundation conducted a global ranking of the ecological efficiency with which the world's nations deliver long and happy lives for the people who live there. This index is called the Happy Planet Index and concluded that although USA, China and India were all 'greener and happier' twenty years ago than today, Latin America tops the Index with Costa Rica the 'greenest and happiest' country.  Nine of the ten highest-scoring nations are Latin American. Costa Ricans report the highest life satisfaction in the world, have the second-highest average life expectancy of the New World (second only to Canada) and have an ecological footprint that means that the country only narrowly fails to achieve the goal of 'one-planet living': consuming its fair share of the Earth's natural resources. The UK comes 74th, USA 114th out of 143 nations surveyed. Money can’t buy you love.

We are set up on a system that programs us to think we need to buy things to make us happy. Like a drug addict we lose the happiness high and need to go out and buy more to maintain the happiness. How can we break the vicious cycle? And more importantly, how can we do this and come out of the recession?  Simplicity does not mean we go back to crude and regressive tactics of living in caves and huts. We are too smart for that. Simplicity however means that we reduce much of the distracting noise that can surround us and focus on elements that really matter to our hearts. If one reads classic economic texts they tell you the only way to grow is to consume. I think that we need to reconsider what we consume. There are many ways that our society can grow. We need to grow infrastructure, clean technology, education and healthcare. But do we need to grow the volume of our stuff?  We have so much stuff we have created an industry just to store it. According to an interview recently on Marketplace Radio the square footage of the self storage industry in the U.S. would now cover all of San Francisco and Manhattan combined.
We are in a critical time that this shift is possible and people are receptive to listening to new ideas on how to rework old paradigms. Not only can the economy recover it can be reinvented. We can have new policy implemented that can curb consumption and improve welfare. For example, Sweden currently bans advertising directed at children. This is good for overall society. Thoughtful trade agreements that consider job growth and green job opportunities. Decisions that include ecological thinking on the environment will allow an economy to grow intelligently and wisely. The U.S. is affluent enough to consider new ways of distributing that wealth and sharing that knowledge with others. This sharing of knowledge is what fosters relationships, community and overall happiness. The happiness you receive when you are with family and friends is unparalleled can never be bought.  This change needs to come from individual ad community mindfulness of what they can do to foster growth of a new economy and a new society.

Green is the new black, and that is a good thing. Even a handful of years ago, who among us would have predicted the near-mainstream acceptance, at least on some level, of sustainable ideals? “Green” is so pervasive, in fact, that we now need to arm ourselves against potential abuse of the word and its synonyms to tout everything from produce to building materials to the business practices of behemoth corporations, lest we be taken advantage of. All of this, at least, is moving in the right direction, and it seems that while there are still kinks to be worked out, new, green, businesses are sprouting up everywhere, and any company that wants to stay in business is at last embracing some green practices, if for no other reason than to protect its bottom line, and to appeal to a consumer base that is becoming increasingly conscious.

Or is it?

There is another trend, on the opposite end of the spectrum, with a firm hold on the American psyche—competing for every mind and every dollar in the marketplace.

In order to illustrate, I bring your attention to Lunchables. You know—those ready-made kids’ lunches sold in the lunch-meat section of the supermarket. Take Lunchables Mini Burgers for instance (newly redesigned, mind you, to be “wholesome and nutritious”). Neatly packed into a colorful cardboard box is a plastic tray divided into sections, containing: two sickly patties of “meat” (with, let’s face it, enough preservatives to take the things to lunchtime at room temperature), two white mini-buns, two postage-stamp-sized slices of Pasteurized Prepared American Cheese Product, two packages of ketchup, a Nestle Crunch bar and a Capri Sun Fruit Punch, with plastic-wrapped straw. All of this is sealed in still more plastic. The idea is that after your kid spends, say, twenty minutes assembling his “burgers” and eating them, the box, the tray, the plastic wrapper, the Nestlé’s wrapper, the foil Capri Sun packet, the straw, the plastic for the straw and the foil ketchup wrappers all go into the trash.

While Americans are buying into the idea of sustainability in record numbers, there is a simultaneous obsession with the idea of convenience, and with it, disposability. At the supermarket, everywhere you look are individual, plastic-encased portions of just about everything: pudding, yogurt, fruit cups, fruit snacks, cereal, oatmeal, chips, cookies, raisins, nuts, candy and drinks of all kinds. Soup, which used to come in a 4-serving can for 99 cents, now comes in a plastic single-serve container for $3.49, as do various rice and pasta dishes. Then there are the cleaning products. Thanks to the success of products like Swiffer, you can now buy plastic or metal poles with replaceable attachments for the floor, the furniture and the toilet. (Price of a gallon of Clorox: $2.79. Price of a Clorox Toilet Wand with disposable heads: $11.69, plus $6.49 for refills. Little mystery as to why these products have sped to market.) You can buy individual cleansing cloths for everything from your face, to your countertops, to your baby, and you can even buy—I just discovered—small plastic tubes containing a single use of toilet paper.

Then there is the coffee culture, which arms commuters, shoppers and students, even in the midst of economic decline, with a four-dollar cup of chi or cappuccino—along with a carrying sleeve, lid, a stir stick or straw, packets for sugar or sweetener, napkins, and often a bag or cardboard tray to carry it all. You might also pick up several bottles of water during the day and toss those out too (or in a best-case scenario, recycle them). Which might explain why in 2008, bottled water sales reached over $11.7 billion, and why, in 2006, the industry spent $162.08 million on advertising.

Our increasingly mobile lifestyles mean that nearly everything we come into contact with throughout the day is disposable. Food eaten on the go trails reams of paper and plastic products destined for the garbage can. Then there are the electronic devices that fuel the mobile economy, which become obsolete the minute they hit the market: cell phones, iPhones, blackberries, laptops. Airlines, if they provide food at all, no longer serve meals in reusable trays. Now they sell individual packets of assorted snack foods in disposable plastic bags and boxes with plastic utensils. Even reading materials—newspapers and magazines consumed in a sitting—are sold with the goal of temporary diversion, fated for the trashcan.

While the world seems to have embraced certain green ideals, it is still clinging hard to the idea of convenience above all else, and to disposability. Biologist Edward O. Wilson said that if the rest of the world consumed at our levels, with existing levels of technology, we would require the resources of four more planet Earths. In reality, we’d need many more than that if they also disposed the way we do.

So the question is, in the LOHAS marketplace, how do we address the powerful urge towards convenience and temporary or fleeting use in our sustainability efforts? Or alternatively, how do we begin to change the mindset itself that links convenience and mobility with disposal on a wholesale level?

I believe we must answer these questions in order to fully realize the potential in the marketplace for sustainable products, services and practices, and in order to achieve a true—and viable—sustainability.


Abby Caran worked for many years in the advertising industry in New York City, where she saw behind the curtain of some of the world’s most powerful corporations, and where she became increasingly alarmed by the cost of business as usual to the environment. She has since gotten her MFA in the writing program at Columbia University and now writes about marketing trends from an ecological perspective while working on a collection of short stories, a childrens’ book and other projects…including improvements to her karma.

I was cleaning out my computer docs and came across notes I forgot post. I think they are still relevant eventhought the attention by most has turned from energy to economy. Read on if you want clean energy options.

I attended a conference last spring in Colorado. One discussion was led by Ray Lane, Managing Partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He talked about the clean tech market and the areas of opportunity. Now I have been to many clean tech presentations and usually when I come out of them I understand about half of what is being said. It takes me back to my 8th grade German classes when it seemed everyone else knew what was going on but me. (Ich bin un dummkopf.) But Ray’s presentation did not evoke those teenage images of discomfort. Here are some of the points I came away with that I think all should know:

Facts of global warming
80% of our energy is dependent on fossil fuels.
50% of our fossil fuel consumption is wasted through heat, processing or other areas of inefficiencies.
7 gigatons  (7 billion tons) of carbon are annually emitted by the U.S.  The atmosphere holds about 750 gigatons of carbon in the form of carbon dioxide. Humanity currently emits about 22 gigatons of carbon dioxide, about seven gigatons of which is carbon (excluding traditional biomass burning of one gigaton). That 22-gigaton annual output of carbon dioxide comes from burning about seven gigatons of the current mix of hydrocarbon.  
To stop global warming we will need to eliminate 350 gigatons from the atmosphere. Lane stressed the concept of technological "wedges" which, when fully deployed in 2050, will result in one gigaton per year of carbon emissions reductions.

Those are some big numbers. So what are our options?

Solar – Solar energy is energy directly from the sun. This energy drives the climate and weather and supports virtually all life on Earth. Heat and light from the sun, along with solar-based resources such as wind and wave power, hydroelectricity and biomass, account for most of the available flow of renewable energy. The sun emits 100,000 terrawatts (if you don’t know what that is – it is A LOT) constantly. Lane stated that it is estimated that in 2050 the world will use 15 terrawatts per year.

Challenges - storage and capacity issues as well as costs. If we are able to develop better ways to store large amounts of solar produced energy we can then get it closer to the cost of energy provided by coal.

Opportunities - We are a few product generations away from producing solar in an efficient and cheap way that can be affordable for power companies and consumers to utilize solar on a mass scale. A grid 92 x 92 miles could power the U.S. needs. More information on solar options can be found here. http://www.ases.org/

Wind – In 2005, wind machines in the United States generated a total of 17.8 billion kWh per year of electricity, enough to serve more than 1.6 million households. This is enough electricity to power a city the size of Chicago, but it is only a small fraction of the nation's total electricity production, about 0.4 percent. The amount of electricity generated from wind has been growing fast in recent years, tripling since 1998.

Challenges – transmission lines from wind farms to communities is expensive. Reliant on wind blowing and may be intermittent.

Opportunities – This is one of the fastest growing sector of alternative energy. The U.S. leads the world in wind installations. More information on wind energy can be found here.

Bio-fuels – Biofuels are produced from living organisms or from metabolic by-products (organic or food waste products). In order to be considered a biofuel the fuel must contain over 80 percent renewable materials. 

Challenges – competition of crops for fuel vs. food.

Opportunities –  1.4 trillion gallons currently produced. The U.S. consumes 6 trillion.
Cellulostic crops produce fuels competitive to those of last years high fuel prices. For more info on bio Fuels here is a good resource.

Geo Thermal – is energy generated by heat stored beneath the Earth's surface or the collection of absorbed heat in the atmosphere and oceans. It offers a number of advantages over traditional fossil fuel based sources. From an environmental standpoint, the energy harnessed is clean and safe for the surrounding environment.

Challenges – not everyone lives in Iceland and has hot pools outside their doorways. Environmental concerns with drilling and drilling expenses.

Opportunities – It was estimated that geo thermal power can provide 100 gigawatts of thermal power. Once accessed it can provide clean efficient energy and a competitive cost point.  For more info on geo thermal click here

Product Energy Efficiency – The next generation of vehicles need to be more fuel efficient. If car fuel efficiency increased to 60 mpg would reduce emissions by 25%.

Challenges – people are incentive based.

Opportunities – build in technologies to manage efficiencies. Sleep modes, etc. Learn what cars are the most and least fuel efficient here.

Other – The consumption habits of modern consumer lifestyles are causing a huge worldwide waste problem. 15 billion megawatts of energy is lost to waste. Some alternative energy companies are developing new ways to recycle waste by generating electricity from landfill waste and pollution.

Pricing Carbon – Experts believe this will occur between $20-$50 per metric ton. Others disagree.

All of these are very interesting options and demonstrate that there is no silver bullet to the Inconvenient Truth.