Can't we all just conserve?

My top ten list of things we, as a nation, try to ignore but can't:

10. Brittany Spears

9. Our mothers

8. Spam

7. Politicians

6. Radios playing too loudly in cars

5. Complaining teenagers

4. Bad news

3. Climate change

2. Water shortages

1. Gas prices

OK, maybe we can't ignore many of those, especially items 1-4, but we sure do have our heads in the sand about them. In the last two days, I've read very enlightening articles by two Jacksonville citizens on the impact of ignoring critical issues, both of which relate to the biggies on the list.

First, from Professor Al Tilley at the University of North Florida. Professor Tilley has arguably done more to educate North Florida on the challenges of climate change than anyone else in this area. One of the many actions he takes is to coordinate information and articles for dissemination to his e-mail list. Today I received the following commentary from him:

"The Bush-McCain proposal to open new areas for oil exploration and to process oil shale is not at base wrong because it won't drop the price of gas much or soon (though it won't), or because it panders to public ignorance (though it does), or because it is a giveaway to oil companies who are already exploiting little of the resources now available (though it is). It is fundamentally wrong because it attacks the wrong problem. Our concern now is to move towards zero greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible, and it trumps all other concerns. I have not seen that obvious point made, even in the following prominent discussions. We should not speak as if the problem were to end dependence on foreign oil. Our own is as bad. "

That last line was an eye-opener. He's absolutely right. Should we take aggressive measures to fuel our consumptive way of life? Or should we (and I know this is utterly outre') just use less?

I know. It's sadly laughable, isn't it?

He added the following weblink with an article from the LA Times. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-campaign18-2008jun18,0,7455120.story

The next eye-opener I received is from Rob Overly, architect, and world-changer. :-) He made the following point:

"Abu Dhabi and Dubai, two regions in the United Arab Emirates that are “floating in oil”, are also in the news. Both are building cities that are striving for a zero carbon footprint: Masdar City in Abu Dhabi and EcoStar in Dubai. Having a “zero carbon footprint” implies that among other things fossil fuels such as oil will not be used to provide energy, including transportation.

Interesting contrast: a region that sits on one of the world’s largest oil reserves is investing in a future without oil while a country that relies mainly on foreign oil to run its petroleum-based economy is turning to drilling off the coast of Florida to gain two and a half more years of oil consumption at current rates."

You can read more of his thoughts in Tuesday's Times Union who immediately picked up this Op Ed piece and will be leading with it. Thank goodness.

So, what's your breaking point? How high will gas prices need to be before you will consider public transportation? How much will a gallon of milk run before you consider growing a vegetable in your own backyard? What will your electricity bill be before you hang some clothes out to dry?

When you set your own "That's it, I need to cut back" goal, remember that there's already someone out there that hit their threshold a while back and has jumped on the conservation track. (They've been crossing their fingers for you).

But, remember there's also someone else willing to wait it out a little longer. And they will readily vote to eke a little more oil out of a precious natural resource to get it.

Don't be that person.

As they say over at Despair.com, None of us is as dumb as all of us. When we all collectively get together and pursue a bad idea, there's no end to what we can't do. If we all hang on to hope that we can sustain a wasteful lifestyle, we will find ourselves coming up with irrational idea after irrational idea to maintain it. Conversely, if we gather our forces, and our intellect, to embrace conservation and true sustainability, we can make it happen.

So, conserve. Cut back. Sacrifice a bit. Let's not ignore the problem, but embrace the obvious solution.

Happy Green Year!

Florida's Department of Environmental Protection offers a good bit of advice:

DEP is encouraging Floridians to make a “green” resolution for the New Year. "Even small things like changing one incandescent light bulb to an ENERGY STAR® qualified bulb can have a big impact,” said DEP Secretary Sole. “For example, if all the households in Florida changed just one light bulb to a compact fluorescent bulb, the combined effort would save enough energy to light all the households in Tallahassee for more than two and a half years.” For more information on Green Tips for the New Year visit http://www.dep.state.fl.us/secretary/news/2007/12/1226_02.htm.

Here area few ideas from The Green Book by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas Kostigen (which is a great book for those that want to know how to make a difference and WHY it makes the difference) to get you started this year:

1. Take a shorter shower. Every two minutes you save on your shower can conserve more than ten gallons of water. And that can add up: If everyone in the country saved just one gallon from their daily shower, over the course of a year it would equal twice the amount of freshwaster withdrawn from the Great Lakes every day. The Great Lakes are the world's largest source of freshwater.

2. Set your thermostat a degree higher for air-conditioning and a degree lower for heating, and you could save $100 per year on your utility bill. Keep adjusting and you'll save even more. If every home in America turned the dial, we could save more than $10 billion per year on energy costs, enough to provide a year's worth of gasoline, electricity, and natural gas to every person in Iowa.

3. Recycle. If everyone in America simply separated the paper, plastic, glass, and aluminum products from the trash and tossed them into a recycling bin, we could decrease the amount of waste sent to landfills by 75 percent. Currently, it takes an area the size of Pennsylvania to dump all our waste each year.

4. Use fewer paper napkins - everywhere. There's no need to grab a huge stack of napkins from the concession stand when you know you'll use only one or two. Each American consumes an average of 2200 standard two-ply napkins per year, or the equivalent of just over six of these napkins per day. If everyone in the United States used an average of one fewer nakpin per day, more than a billion pounds of napkins could be saved from landfills each year. A stack of napkins this size could fill the entire Empire State Building.

5. Buy rechargable batteries, and you'll save money over the long term. A single rechargable battery can replace up to one thousand single-use alkaline batteries over its lifetime. Americans throw out approximately 179,000 tons of batteries per year.

6. Drink tap water when dining out. You can save as much as $7 for a bottle of water, and it may be safer to drink. Tap water is more strictly regulated than bottled water. If everyone drank tap instead of bottled water in the United States, it would save about $8 billion - about as much as the US spends each year in drought response. It also would help prevent plastic waste: Sixty million water bottles are tossed each day in the United States.

7. Pack a waste-free lunch. Eliminate plastic bags, plastic utensils, disposable containers, paper napkins, and those brown paper bags. Instead use a reusable lunchbox, reusable drink containers, cloth napkins, and silverware. You could save $250 a year and as much weight in waste as the average nine-year-old!

8. Walk to school. Only 31 percent of children who live less than one mile from school walk there. Half of all students go to school by car. If just 6 percent of those students who go by car walked, it would save 1.5 million dropoffs and pickups - and sixty thousand gallons of gasoline - a day!

9. Use both sides of your plain paper, and recycle. Paper is the biggest form of waste that comes from schools. Every ton, or 220,000 sheets, of paper that is recycled saves approximately seventeen trees. The average school tosses thirty-eight tons of paper per year, or more than 8 million sheets.

10. Double-side your copies. Whether printing or copying, use both sides of a piece of paper. If just one in four office workers made all of their copies double-sided, the annual savings would equal 130 billion sheets of paper - a stack thicker than the diameter of the earth!

11. Carpool. If the average commuter carpooled every day, he or she would save five hundred galls of gasoline, and 550 pounds of poisonous exhaust emissions every year. Commuters sharing a ride to work would be the equivalent of taking 67.5 million cars off the road - four times the number of new cars sold in the United States per year.

12. Use a ceramic mug for your coffee. Americans use more than fourteen billion paper cups every year, enough to circle the world fifty-five times. The Styrofoam kind will stay on the plaet for nine generations, enough time for your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandkids to be born.

13. Don't take ATM reciepts. ATM receipts are one of the top sources of litter on the planet. If everyone in the United States left their receipt in the machine, it would save a roll of paper more than two billion feet long, or enough to circle the equator fifteen times.

14. Request automatic deposits for your paycheck. Not only will you get your money faster, but you'll reduce the time and fuel you spend to go to the bank. More than seven billion checks are written annually that could be replaced by automated deposits. If everyone who was eligible for an automated deposit opted for it, it would save about $65 billion in fuel costs and lost time expenses - and enough paper checks for everyone in the world.

15. Get paperless bank statements. Some banks will pay you a dollar or donate the money or your behalf when you cancel the monthly paper statements you get in the mail. If every household took advantage of online bank statements, the money saved could send more than seventeen thousand recent high school graduates to a public university for a year.

There are 15 actions you can take today to make 2008 a greener year. On this first day of the year, I've already seen at least 10 people walking, riding, or jogging in the neighborhood. They've made a new year's resolution to be healthier. Let's see how many of us can incorporate one green practice into our new year's resolutions and make the planet a little healthier, too.

Happy New (Green) Year!

File under: Gross Abuse of Wealth

As if the average Joe didn't have enough reason to resent the massively wealthy...

From the Wall Street Journal Online:

The American Southeast has been suffering from one of its worst droughts in
years. But you wouldn't know it from looking at the emerald-green estates of
Palm Beach.

There, despite water restrictions and low reservoirs, lush lawns and
verdant hedges line the Florida island's biggest mansions, awaiting the start of
the annual winter "season" after Thanksgiving.

To keep their thirsty estates running over the summer and fall, Palm
Beachers have been more than willing to pay water surcharges and even fines. And
many have found a loophole in the local water rules, allowing them to spritz
more often if they pay up to plant new lawns and shrubs.

Consider Nelson Peltz. The investor and food magnate's oceanfront
estate, called Montsorrel, is among the island's biggest water consumers. His
13.8-acre spread, which combines two properties, used not quite 21 million
gallons of water over the past 12 months -- or about 57,000 gallons a day on
average -- at a cost of more than $50,000, according to records obtained from
the local water utility. That compares with 54,000 gallons a year for an average
single-family residence in Palm Beach, says Ken Rearden, assistant city
administrator of West Palm Beach. (West Palm Beach supplies Palm Beach's
water.)

'An Outrage'

To be sure, Mr. Peltz is cutting back: During the previous 12-month
period, he used 24 million gallons. Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Peltz said water
usage at his Florida is estate is "under review with the intent of identifying
ways to significantly lower consumption."
Then there's Dwight Schar,
executive chairman of home builder NVR. His six-acre estate, with more than a
dozen bathrooms, guzzled 15.4 million gallons of water over the past 12 months.
A spokesman for Mr. Schar declined to comment.
WATER
GUZZLERS

Some Palm Beach estates use huge amounts of water despite
the city's restrictions. Chart shows gallons consumed in the 12 months ended
Oct. 1, 2007.

OWNER
SIZE OF PROPERTY
GALLONS USED
Nelson Peltz Investor
13.8 acres
20,863,216
Dwight Schar Executive chairman, home-builder
NVR
6 acres
12,155,000 3,253,052*
William L. Koch President, mining
concern Oxbow
7 acres
4,519,416 695,640**
James H. Clark Netscape
co-founder
5 acres
3,452,020
Sydell Miller Co-founder, Matrix
hair-care products
4 acres
1,032,240
*second property; **adjoining
property he owns

Palm Beach's water world highlights the drain on natural resources
caused by today's wealthy and their ever-bigger estates. Efforts by everyday
families to take shorter showers and let their lawns go brown are a drop in the
bucket compared with the water use of mansion owners -- even when they're
"conserving."

"It's an outrage that so much water is being used for single
residences," says Eric Draper, deputy director of Audubon of Florida, an
environmental group. "Our water supplies are at historically low levels and yet
you see these big homes with perfectly green lawns." Mr. Draper added that it's
"very difficult to tell Joe Homeowner to cut back on his water use if he knows
that in Palm Beach they're not cutting back at all."

While not as severe as Atlanta's drought, Florida's dry spell -- the
state has labeled it a "rainfall deficit" -- has forced locals to curb lawn
watering and caused Palm Beach to impose "Phase III" restrictions. Palm Beach's
main backup supply for water, Lake Okeechobee, is about five feet below desired
levels for this time of year, and weather experts predict more dry conditions in
the coming months.

The water rules, which border on the arcane, state that residents with
odd-numbered addresses can water their lawns and wash vehicles from 4 a.m. to 8
a.m. on Saturdays only. Residents with even-numbered addresses can do so during
those same hours on Sundays. The city recommends that lawns be watered for only
12 to 15 minutes during each four-hour watering period. Separately,
hand-watering with one hose and "an automatic shut-off nozzle" is allowed from 5
p.m. to 7 p.m. on people's regular watering day.

So how are wealthy Palm Beachers using so much
water?

The restrictions don't cap total water use, only the times of use --
and today's mansions have high-tech irrigation systems that can douse an entire
estate at once. Most wealthy residents say they are honoring the restrictions
and that their water usage, while large, is still within the rules. Many also
point out that they have reduced their water use since last year.

$100 Fines

An estate owned by William L. Koch, president of mining and energy
company Oxbow Corp., used about 3.9 million gallons over the past 12 months,
down from more than six million in the prior 12-month period. A spokesman for
Mr. Koch says he has "taken significant steps to reduce water usage" over the
past year and that "we follow all of the water restrictions and abide by the
law."

Still, many Palm Beachers seem happy to pay the 30% surcharge on
their water bill that is imposed when a resident consumes more than 6,000
gallons a month. Others are violating the Phase III restrictions and incurring
fines to keep their grounds green. The Palm Beach Police, whose officers hand
out water citations during their daily rounds, say that over the past three
months alone they've written 370 citations totaling $54,700. Singer Jimmy
Buffett, who owns a mansion in town, was fined $100 for unspecified water
violations, as was buyout king Stephen Schwarzman, according to city records. A
spokesman for Mr. Schwarzman said the Blackstone Group CEO wasn't available to
comment. A representative for Mr. Buffett didn't return a call.
Other Palm
Beach residents have found a loophole. According to the rules, residents who put
in "new landscaping" can water three days a week, instead of the usual one, for
30 days after the planting. Once that period ends, homeowners can plant yet
again -- and resume the thrice-a-week watering. That has led some Palm Beachers
to put in new trees, shrubs and turf -- often at a cost of tens of thousands of
dollars per residence -- just so they can run their irrigation systems more
frequently.

One resident, who asked not to be named, said he returned to Palm Beach
after the summer and found that he had the only brown lawn on the block. "When I
asked everyone how they were watering, they all said 'new plantings,' " he
said. "So that's the loophole. We're all just ripping out the old lawn and
shrubs and putting in new ones."

Write to Robert Frank at robert.frank@wsj.com

Things to Do Today: Use Less Water

Here's some "fast facts" on water use, courtesy of The Green Remodeler website:

• Older toilets use 3.7 to 7 gallons per flush


• Dishwashers use 8-14 gallons per cycle


• Top-loading washers use 45 gallons per load


• A dripping faucet wastes 15-21 gallons per day


• US water users withdraw enough water to fill a line of Olympic-size swimming pools reaching around the world EVERY DAY (300 billion gallons)


• Although our planet is 71% water, humans depend on a mere .65% of the water for surviva - much of which is polluted.


• About a quarter of the nation's largest industrial plants and water treatment facilities are in serious violation of pollution standards at any one time.


• An estimated 7 million Americans are made sick annually by contaminated tap water; in some rare cases this results in death.

So, in closing... Use less water today. And tomorrow. And, well... pretty much all the time.