Laboratory tests found high levels of BPA on 40 percent of thermal paper receipts sampled from major U.S. businesses and services, including McDonald’s, Chevron, CVS, KFC, Whole Foods, WalMart, Safeway and the U.S. Postal Service, among others. BPA in paper receipts also contaminates paper recycling and is showing up in napkins, toilet paper and other common papers with recycled content. (Thinkstock)

Many of us already know the risks associated with regular use of products containing the plastic hardener and synthetic estrogen Bisphenol A (BPA)—and have switched over to BPA-free water and baby bottles and food storage containers. But the recent revelation that many of the receipts handed around every day in the U.S. contain the chemical has been a real shocker to those already worried about BPA exposure.

Many thermal papers used in the U.S.—receipts, event tickets, labels—contain so-called “free” BPA (that is, not bound into resin or plastic), which helps “develop” the inks to make the printed information visible. “While there is little concern for dermal absorption of BPA, free BPA can readily be transferred to skin and residues on hands can be ingested,” reports the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Laboratory tests commissioned by the non-profit Environmental Working Group (EWG) and carried out by the University of Missouri Division of Biological Sciences Laboratory in 2010 found high levels of BPA on 40 percent of receipts sampled from major U.S. businesses and services, including McDonald’s, Chevron, CVS, KFC, Whole Foods, WalMart, Safeway and the U.S. Postal Service, among others.

“The total amounts of BPA on receipts tested were 250 to 1,000 times greater than other, more widely discussed sources of BPA exposure, including canned foods, baby bottles and infant formula,” reported EWG. Wipe tests conducted by the lab easily removed BPA “indicating that the chemical could rub off on the hands of a person handling the receipt.”

While BPA contamination of food is still a bigger problem, says EWG, a large number of Americans—especially the seven million who run cash registers—are nonetheless exposed to additional amounts of BPA through handling receipts. An EWG analysis of U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data found that retail workers carry an average of 30 percent more BPA in their bodies than other adults.

Another more exhaustive study of BPA in thermal paper receipts and 14 other types of papers found the chemical in a whopping 94 percent of samples from the U.S., Japan, Korea and Vietnam. The State University of New York researchers behind the study, which was published in September 2011 in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology, estimate that receipts and other thermal paper products contribute around 33.5 tons of BPA to the environment in the U.S. and Canada each year. Even more disturbing was their finding that BPA in thermal paper receipts also contaminates paper recycling and is showing up in napkins, toilet paper and other common papers with recycled content.
On a more encouraging note, Wisconsin’s Appleton Papers, the world’s largest thermal paper maker, removed BPA from its products in 2006. And the EPA has since launched a program to evaluate the safety and availability of alternatives to BPA in thermal paper. Public health advocates and environmentalists, of course, would like to see BPA phased out entirely.

CONTACTS: EPA, www.epa.gov/oppt/existingchemicals/pubs/actionplans/bpa_action_plan.pdf; EWG, www.ewg.org; “Widespread Occurrence of Bisphenol A in Paper and Paper Products: Implications for Human Exposure,” Environmental Science & Technology, www.pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es202507f.

Obama's State of the Union address was, in the words of one prominent green leader, "a strong defense of the importance of clean energy to America’s long-term economic prosperity." (White House photo)

The economy dominated President Obama’s recent State of the Union address, but his discussion about energy and the environment took up almost seven minutes—or nine percent—of the hour-plus address. And while much of what Mr. Obama said was comforting to environmentalists, his statements about expanding natural gas production—albeit “without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk”—and opening up more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources did not sit well.

Even so, natural gas is cleaner burning than oil or coal, and reducing our reliance on foreign oil is a good thing overall. “Right now American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years,” Mr. Obama said, adding that “…last year we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past 16 years.”

Michelle Wilson Berger of the National Audubon Society points out that when George W. Bush told us in his 2006 State of the Union that the U.S. was addicted to foreign oil, some 60 percent was coming from foreign sources. “Now it’s just less than half,” Berger says, adding: “The trend is going to continue in that positive direction and within a couple decades, it’s going to be even less, say something like 36 percent.”

Nonetheless, environmental advocates were hoping for less bullish talk from Obama on expanding fossil fuel development of any kind, given the dire climate predictions we are facing. But Obama isn’t giving up his commitment to renewables, despite the recent bankruptcy of solar panel maker Solyndra after it had received upwards of $500 million in loan guarantees. “Some technologies don’t pan out; some companies fail,” stated Obama in the speech. “But I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy.”

Obama also called on Congress to pass a new standard aimed at boosting wind, solar, geothermal and other renewables, and to extend related tax credits to help diversify and green the country’s energy mix, adding that he wants to end tax subsidies for oil companies. In underscoring that Americans don’t have to choose between the economy and the environment, he cited the case of the revival of the American auto industry thanks in part to automakers’ willingness to innovate to meet aggressive fuel economy standards.

Fred Krupp of the Environmental Defense Fund considers Obama’s State of the Union “a strong defense of the importance of clean energy to America’s long-term economic prosperity.”

Speeches aside, 2011 wasn’t a bad year for Obama on the environment. He proposed raising the average fuel efficiency standard for new cars to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025—this alone, says Natural Resources Defense Council’s Frances Beinecke, “will save drivers more than $80 billion a year at the pump and cut our annual oil use by more than the amount we imported from Saudi Arabia and Iraq in 2010.” Obama’s recent rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline project—which would have transported dirty Alberta tar sands oil across U.S. soil—was another triumph, as were establishing the first national standards to limit mercury and other air toxins from power plants, proposing a visionary national oceans policy, protecting the Grand Canyon from uranium mining, and supporting clean energy investments at record levels.

CONTACTS: White House State of the Union 2012, www.whitehouse.gov/state-of-the-union-2012.

Set-top boxes in the U.S. consume 27 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year, equivalent to the annual output of six coal-fired power plants. Part of the reason is that they typically operate at nearly full power even during the two-thirds of the time when they are not in use. (Thinkstock)

We hear a lot about how much energy modern day flat screen TV sets consume, but the innocuous set-top boxes that drive them, along with their built-in digital video recorders, may be even more to blame. A recent analysis conducted by the consulting firm Ecos on behalf of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) found that “the average new cable high-definition digital video recorder (HD-DVR) consumes more than half the energy of an average new refrigerator and more than an average new flat-panel television.” Overall, set-top boxes in the U.S. consume some 27 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. This is equal to the annual output of six average (500 megawatt) coal-fired power plants and accounts for the emission of 16 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.

Part of the reason these boxes are such energy hogs is that they typically operate at nearly full power even during the two-thirds of the time when they are not actively in use driving TV screens or recording to built-in DVRs. “As a nation, we spend $2 billion each year to power these boxes when they are not being actively used,” reports NRDC.

To make matters worse, American consumers have little if any choice about which set-top boxes they get from their cable or satellite service providers. Since the providers usually own the boxes yet don’t have to pay consumers’ electric bills, they have little incentive to utilize or develop more efficient models. In Europe, Sky Broadcasting is beginning to distribute more efficient equipment to subscribers there. NRDC is urging the largest pay-TV service providers in the U.S. (Comcast, Time Warner, DirecTV, Dish Network, Verizon and AT&T) to heed the efficiency call with their own set-top box and DVR offerings.

Redesigning set-top boxes to power down when not in use is perhaps the biggest opportunity for energy savings. “Innovation to reduce power consumption when not in active use—such as has occurred with mobile phones, which also work on a subscriber basis and require secure connections—is sorely needed in set-top boxes,” counsels NRDC. Also, re-jiggering content delivery systems so that only one main set-top box sends signals to all the televisions in the house (or to lower power “thin client” boxes) could also cut down household electric bills and carbon footprints. The group adds that “better designed pay-TV set-top boxes could reduce the energy use of the installed base of boxes by 30 percent to 50 percent by 2020.”

Last year the U.S. government released new energy efficiency standards for set-top boxes within its EnergyStar appliance efficiency rating program. While this new specification is a step in the right direction, consumers have little knowledge about such options. NRDC urges pay-TV subscribers to request that their providers make available set-top boxes and DVRs that meet the newer EnergyStar 4.0 standards. The more of us that request such improvements, the likelier they are to happen. And the cable or satellite provider that can save customers money while reducing overall environmental impact may just win over an increasingly large sector of the American people that actually cares about being green.

CONTACTS: NRDC’s “Better Viewing, Lower Energy Bills, and Less Pollution,” www.nrdc.org/energy/files/settopboxes.pdf; EnergyStar, www.energystar.gov.

It’s a known fact that our oceans are becoming more acidic as a result of the increasingly large load of human-generated carbon dioxide (CO2) entering our atmosphere. About 25 percent of all the CO2 we send skyward out of our tailpipes and smokestacks ends up in the world’s oceans, where it triggers chemical reactions in the water column that lead to increased acidification. Researchers estimate that the acidity of our seas has increased 29 percent since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. If we do not slow down the pace of greenhouse gas emissions, our oceans could be two to three times as acidic in 2100 as they already are today, which could prove disastrous to marine ecosystems and the world’s food chain.

“When carbon dioxide is absorbed by seawater, chemical reactions occur that reduce seawater pH, carbonate ion concentration and saturation states of biologically important calcium carbonate minerals,” reports the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). These calcium carbonate minerals, typically abundant in areas where most marine life congregates, are the building blocks for the skeletons and shells of many marine organisms, from oysters to coral. “However, continued ocean acidification is causing many parts of the ocean to become undersaturated with these minerals, which is likely to affect the ability of some organisms to produce and maintain their shells,” adds NOAA. The process will not only wreak havoc on the shellfish we eat, but also on smaller marine organisms that are key components on the lower end of the marine food chain.

Ocean acidification is likely to affect the ability of some shellfish to produce and maintain their shells. This process will not only wreak havoc on the shellfish we eat, but also on smaller marine organisms that are key components of the lower end of the marine food chain. (Thinkstock)

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a leading green group, coral reefs around the world may face an even greater risk than shellfish because they require very high levels of carbonate to build their skeletons. “Acidity slows reef-building, which could lower the resiliency of corals and lead to their erosion and eventual extinction,” they write. This would be an unmitigated environmental disaster, given that an estimated one million marine species depend on healthy coral reefs for survival.

“Such losses would reverberate throughout the marine environment and have profound social impacts, as well—especially on the fishing and tourism industries,” NRDC reports. “The loss of coral reefs would also reduce the protection that they offer coastal communities against storms surges and hurricanes—which might become more severe with warmer air and sea surface temperatures due to global warming.”

Researchers are working on strategies to protect aquaculture farms from further losses due to acidic water, but any large-scale effort to address ocean acidification will require the slowing down or phasing out of fossil fuels. Powering our cars, heating our homes and running our machines and appliances all require burning fossil fuels which generate greenhouse gas emissions and in turn cause acidification. Cutting back on our consumption of oil, gas and coal and switching to renewable energy sources—solar, wind, biomass and others—will be a necessary part of the strategy to counteract ocean acidification.

We can all help by driving less and walking/biking more; upgrading our vehicles, light bulbs and appliances to more energy efficient versions; patronizing companies that work to reduce their carbon footprints; and pushing our state and federal governments to enact binding reductions in CO2 pollution.

CONTACTS: NOAA, www.noaa.gov; NRDC, www.nrdc.org.

Some 60 percent of our household indoor water usage happens in the bathroom. Toilets are the biggest water hogs, with older models using as much as eight gallons per flush. A shower, even with a low-flow shower head, can use up to 40 gallons of water, and a bath can use up to 50-60 gallons. (Thinkstock)

Some 60 percent of our household indoor water usage happens in the bathroom. As such, updating old leaky fixtures and changing a few basic habits could go a long way to not only saving fresh water, an increasingly precious resource, but also money.

Undoubtedly, the toilet is the biggest water hog in the bathroom. Those made before 1993 use up to eight gallons of water per flush, five times what modern toilets use. “It’s a good idea to replace pre-1993 toilets if you can,” says Patty Kim of National Geographic’s Green Guide. (FYI, usually a toilet’s manufacture date is stamped under the lid if you want to check how old it is.) If it is older and you can’t or don’t want to upgrade it, Kim recommends rescuing a two liter soda bottle from the recycling bin and filling it partially with some water and sand or pebbles and then putting it into your toilet’s tank, where it will take up space and force your toilet to use less water every flush. Or get a Toilet Tank Bank for less than two bucks; it hangs in your toilet tank and displaces almost a gallon of water to save water on every flush.

Plumbing leaks account for some 14 percent of the total water usage in an average U.S. home. Toilets are often a major culprit. Kim recommends testing your toilet by putting 5-10 drops of food coloring into the tank, then put the lid back on but don’t flush. Check back in 15 minutes or so to see if any of the colored water leaked down into the bowl. If so, you have a water-wasting leak, and it might finally be time to replace that aging toilet after all. The EarthEasy website reports that replacing an older18 liter per flush toilet with an ultra-low volume (ULV) 6 liter flush model “represents a 70 percent saving in water flushed and will cut indoor water use by about 30 percent.”

The shower can also be problematic as a water-waster, especially if the shower head in question was made before new regulations went into effect in 1992 mandating lower flow. Kim says you can check to see if your shower head is older or not by turning the shower on full blast and catching its output for two minutes in a bucket. If the bucket is overflowing, then your shower head is an older, more wasteful model. Newer low flow shower heads won’t come anywhere near to filling the bucket after two minutes. A new shower head costs around $10 and is a great investment because you can save water and money with every ensuing shower. Regardless of whether or not you have a newer shower head, you can save more water by turning off the shower to soap up, then turning it back on to rinse. Eartheasy reminds us that even with a new shower head, even a moderately short shower can still use between 20 and 40 gallons of water. But that’s nothing compared to a bathtub, which can hold as much as 50-60 gallons of water.

Additional pearls of wisdom in regard to reducing bathroom water waste include turning off the faucet while brushing teeth. Better yet, fill up a glass with just enough water to rinse after brushing. Likewise for shaving, stop up the sink with a little warm water in it and wiggle your razor around in the basin between strokes. And if you suspect your faucet may be spraying harder than it needs to, unscrew the aerator tip where the water comes out and take it into a hardware store for a more stingy replacement.

CONTACTS: The Green Guide, http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/green-guide/; EarthEasy, www.eartheasy.com.

In theory, burning any kind of plant material for energy is a carbon-neutral endeavor, but chopping down forests for ethanol is unwise because they cannot be regrown quickly. And tree plantations don't provide the clean water, storm buffers, wildlife habitat and other ecosystem services that natural forests do. Pictured: A wood biomass plant. (Thinkstock)

Typically unmarketable trees, brush and logging debris becomes the feedstock for biomass processing plants or for coal-fired power plants equipped to “co-fire” with plant material. But environmentalists warn that some timber companies and their utility and state customers are taking things too far by levelling entire forests—including some within publicly owned national forest land—to generate more feedstock for otherwise underutilized biomass energy production facilities.

Among the negative environmental impacts, chopping down forests to burn for ethanol production—even if replanted as tree plantations—is like biting the hand that feeds you. “Natural forests, with their complex ecosystems, cannot be regrown like a crop of beans or lettuce,” reports the non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a leading environmental group. “And tree plantations will never provide the clean water, storm buffers, wildlife habitat, and other ecosystem services that natural forests do.”

Another negative for biomass is that burning it, like coal or anything else, produces air pollution including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and a variety of toxic substances. According to NRDC, these pollutants increase the incidence of asthma, heart disease, lung cancer and other respiratory ailments, and premature death.

But perhaps most troubling about plans to cut down forests for biomass feedstock is taking carbon neutrality out of the equation, given the fact that tree loss in and of itself is already responsible for some 20 percent of the world’s total carbon pollution. “When biomass is harvested from forests, carbon stored in the soil is released into the atmosphere,” reports NRDC. “This is in addition to the carbon that is emitted when the wood is burned for energy. And there’s no guarantee the lost trees will ever be replaced.”

NRDC concedes that there is still a place for biomass in the alternative energy universe, but cautions that “only biomass that is carefully chosen, grown responsibly, and efficiently converted into energy can reduce carbon and other emissions compared to fossil fuels.” The group would like to see Congress put in place tighter regulations on biomass harvesting and processing. “Biomass can be harvested and utilized in ways that reduce pollution and protect forest habitats, but only with sustainability safeguards and proper accounting for carbon emissions—including carbon released due to deforestation,” concludes NRDC.

CONTACTS: NRDC, www.nrdc.org.

Asthma rates have doubled since the 1980s, in spite of air quality in U.S. cities having increased over the same time period. This has led some experts to conclude that other factors -- including Vitamin D deficiency, obesity, overuse of acetaminophen (i.e. Tylenol) and spray mist from glass cleaners and air fresheners -- are now playing a role. (Thinkstock)

Asthma is on the rise across the U.S., doubling since the 1980s. According to the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), most people who develop asthma likely have a genetic predisposition but also probably experienced “critical environmental exposures during the first years of life.” Asthma rates are highest in urban areas where auto and industrial emissions make for difficult breathing. But air quality in U.S. cities has improved in the last few decades, leaving researchers puzzled as to what’s behind the trend.

One theory is that better hygiene in developed countries means that Westerners have less exposure to bacteria, viruses and parasites, altering our immune response with the result being increased risk for allergic diseases like asthma. Indeed, Western asthma rates are 50 times higher than in rural Africa. While this “hygiene hypothesis” may be part of the story, researchers believe that there are also other factors.

Some studies have shown a correlation between asthma and obesity, though a direct link is hard to prove. Other research has shown that psychological stress can trigger asthma attacks in those already predisposed. Dr. Harold Nelson, professor of medicine at the National Jewish Health in Denver, explained in a 2009 New York Times blog post that increased acetaminophen (i.e. Tylenol) use in young children, exposure to household cleaning sprays, and lack of Vitamin D also likely contribute to rising asthma rates. But how?

Pediatricians recommend against giving young children aspirin today, given the increased risk of Reye’s syndrome, so many parents now use acetaminophen to relieve pain and reduce fever. But acetaminophen lowers levels of the antioxidant glutathione, resulting in an increased asthma risk. A 2008 study found that use of acetaminophen in the first year of life was associated with a 46 percent increase in the prevalence of asthma symptoms among a study group of 200,000 six- and seven-year-olds.

In regard to household cleaners, frequent inhaling of the spray mist from glass cleaners and air fresheners among other products irritates the lungs and increases the risk of developing asthma. A 2007 study found that European adults who used spray cleaners four days a week faced double the risk of developing asthma symptoms, while weekly use of cleaners increased the risk by 50 percent.

The link between Vitamin D deficiency and asthma comes from several studies on the topic over the last decade showing that low levels of Vitamin D in pregnant mothers result in more asthma in offspring. Those who spend lots of time indoors are particularly vulnerable to Vitamin D deficiency, as exposure to sunlight increases the body’s ability to produce the important nutrient.

Dr. Nelson says that people can take steps to lower their exposure to these “new” asthma risk factors. For one, forego spray cleaners and air fresheners for liquids and pump sprays that don’t produce a fine mist. Pregnant women might consider Vitamin D supplements. And parents should discuss pain relievers with their doctor and consider alternating different types so kids don’t get overexposed to any particular one.

CONTACTS: EDF, www.edf.org/health/air/asthma; “New Risks Linked to Asthma Rise” (New York Times, 2/12/09), well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/new-risk-factors-linked-to-asthma-rise.

Recycling and re-use have many environmental benefits, including reducing the amount of waste we bury in already overcrowded landfills and burn in polluting incinerators, like the one pictured here. (Thinkstock)

Recycling, which turns materials that would otherwise be incinerated or become landfill-clogging waste into valuable resources, has become second nature for many Americans. As many as four out of five U.S. households already take the time to separate recyclables from trash. Those hold-outs not yet willing to bother should consider the benefits to their household and society at large.

First and foremost for consumers is saving money. Many municipalities across the U.S. today don’t charge customers for curb-side pickup of recyclables but continue to charge for garbage pick-up, so recycling is a way to reduce a household’s overall waste expense. Otherwise, consumers who collect large amounts of recyclables may be able to find a local company willing to buy them in bulk. Some municipalities operate drop-off centers where consumers can trade in aluminum cans and other scrap metal (copper, steel, etc.) for cash. Yet another way to recycle and make some cash is to sell your old stuff in a yard sale. Likewise, shopping at yard sales and second-hand stores will also prevent the manufacture of new items altogether.

And there are many benefits to recycling beyond each household’s own bottom line. Recycling saves resources. By recycling paper we save oxygen-providing, carbon-sequestering trees from the axe. By recycling plastic, we save petroleum, contributing (however slightly) to national security. By recycling metals, we take a bite out of energy-intensive mining. And recycling anything saves large amounts of energy and water that would otherwise be expended in making new goods from virgin materials. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) adds that recycling “protects and expands U.S. manufacturing jobs and increases U.S. competitiveness.”
Yet another benefit of recycling is reducing the amount of waste we send to overcrowded landfills and polluting incinerators. At the other end of the consumer loop, buying products made out of recycled rather than virgin materials is another way to save money, as they are often less costly and just as good quality.

Beyond recycling, reducing our consumption of goods that are heavily packaged (often with materials not recyclable themselves) is another important part of any effort to spare bulging landfills and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And the re-use of materials that would otherwise end up in landfills is yet another way to conserve resources. It’s not difficult to think of many ways that used boxes, packaging, paper and plastic bags can be re-purposed to extend their usefulness and spare the garbage (or recycling) man. Also, composting food scraps—either at home or as part of a community effort—helps reduce the amount of waste sent to landfills and incinerators.

With world population still growing and developing countries now fully embracing an American-style consumer culture, recycling and other waste reduction techniques take on an increasingly important role in efforts to protect the environment. Indeed, there’s no time like the present to step up reducing, re-using, recycling and composting. To find out where to recycle just about anything near you, visit the Earth911 website, where you can search by entering your zip code along with the item you’re looking to unload.

CONTACTS: EPA, www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/rrr/recycle.htm; Earth911, www.Earth911.com.

Green walls, or "vertical gardens," are walls partly composed of or filled in with live plant matter. They filter air and water, soak up carbon dioxide and help lessen the “heat island” effect of urban areas while reducing air conditioning costs in their host buildings. Pictured: a vertical garden at the Anataeum Hotel in London. (Media credit/Niall Napier via Flickr)

Green walls (also known as biowalls, vertical gardens or vertical vegetated complex walls) are wall structures partly composed of or filled in with growing plant matter. More than just easy on the eyes, green walls work like green roofs by filtering air and water, soaking up carbon dioxide and helping lessen the “heat island” effect of urban areas while reducing air conditioning costs in their host buildings.

The self-proclaimed creator of the vertical garden concept, French botanist Patrick Blanc, pioneered the use of hydroponic cultivation techniques—plants grow in an irrigated mineral nutrient solution without the need for a soil substrate—to create large green wall installations in both residential settings and within larger public structures and even office buildings from Singapore to San Francisco and points in between.

Blanc’s installations start by placing a metal frame on a load-bearing wall or structure. The frame supports a 10-millimeter-thick PVC plate, upon which are stapled two 3-millimeter-thick layers of polyamide felt. “These layers mimic cliff-growing mosses and support the roots of many plants,” he says, adding that a network of pipes and valves provides a nutrient solution of dissolved minerals needed for plant growth. “The felt is soaked by capillary action with this nutrient solution, which flows down the wall by gravity.”

“The roots of the plants take up the nutrients they need, and excess water is collected at the bottom of the wall by a gutter before being re-injected into the network of pipes: The system works in a closed circuit.” Plants are chosen for their ability to grow in this type of environment and depending on available light.

“Each vertical garden is a unique wall composition of various types of plants that has to take into account the specific surroundings of the place in which it is created,” says landscape architect Michael Hellgren, who founded the firm Vertical Garden Design in 2004. “It is not only the colorful interplay between the plants on a ‘green wall’ that is fascinating, but also the appearance of the wall itself, which changes daily.”

Hellgren, who has designed and implemented large green walls in his home country of Sweden as well as in Spain, Portugal and Italy, among other locales, sources plants for his projects from various climate zones around the world. His favorites are so-called “lithophytes”: plants that can grow on rocks, branches and tree trunks without necessarily being rooted in soil. “Among other things these climbing plants have the enormous advantage of their roots acting as excellent natural drainage on the wall,” he adds.

While large “vertical gardens” are surely impressive, critics question the sustainability of such endeavors, given the energy inputs needed to run the pumps and other equipment used to maintain proper nutrient and air flows, and the emissions caused by the manufacture and transport of specialized materials. Also, larger green walls need more water than rain alone can provide, and thus don’t necessarily save water. But as the field matures, practitioners are finding wider arrays of plants to choose from that are better at taking care of themselves—and scaling back on inputs and supporting machinery with the hope that one day many of the walls will be self-sustaining gardens that cleanse our dirty air and compromised storm water.

CONTACTS: Patrick Blanc, www.verticalgardenpatrickblanc.com; Vertical Garden Design, www.verticalgardendesign.com.

Advocates of thorium to power nuclear plants say that the element is safer than uranium, and that its waste cannot -- like the plutonium waste of uranium fission -- be re-formulated for nuclear weapons. Thorium plants, they say, also wouldn't need containment domes like those pictured here because the reactors can't "melt down" and release radiation. (iStock)

Thorium, a naturally occurring radioactive element found in abundance in the Earth’s crust all around the world, might well be a better fuel source than uranium for nuclear power generation for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, just one ton of the silvery metal can produce as much energy as 200 tons of uranium or 3.5 millions tons of coal, according to Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia of the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Another advantage is that it comes out of the ground as a 100 percent pure, usable isotope. Unlike uranium, which contains only 0.7 percent fissionable material, thorium doesn’t require enrichment to be used in nuclear reactors. Also, the spent-fuel waste from thorium fission cannot be re-formulated for nuclear weapons like plutonium, the waste product of uranium-based fission.

Also, proponents say that thorium doesn’t require the high temperatures and mitigation equipment of uranium-based reactors. “The plants would be much smaller and less expensive,” Kirk Sorensen, a former NASA rocket engineer and now chief nuclear technologist at Teledyne Brown Engineering, told the UK’s Telegraph last year. “You wouldn’t need those huge containment domes because there’s no pressurized water in the reactor.” With no high temperatures, thorium reactors can’t “melt down” and release radiation.

“Once you start looking more closely, it blows your mind away,” adds Sorensen. “You can run civilization on thorium for hundreds of thousands of years, and it’s essentially free.” The advocacy-oriented Thorium Energy Alliance reports that there is “enough thorium in the U.S. alone to power the country at its current energy level for over 1,000 years.”

Nuclear researchers in the U.S. first contemplated using thorium as a nuclear energy feedstock back in the 1940s, but its lack of feasibility in making nuclear weapons put it on the back burner, where it has sat for the last six decades despite various attempts to revive the technology for practical use. In Russia, China and India, thorium reactors represent the next generation of nuclear power. India possesses about a quarter of the world’s thorium reserves. The country is working to develop a network of large thorium-based reactors, and plans to meet 30 percent of its electricity needs with thorium by 2050.

Many nuclear advocates and environmentalists alike don’t see thorium as the savior its supporters make it out to be. For one, uranium is still relatively easy to come by and inexpensive, and the nuclear industry is set up to run on it. Changing over to thorium would be expensive, and who knows what unforeseen problems may arise with full-scale deployment. Perhaps most important, some analysts worry that putting more eggs into humanity’s nuclear basket will surely further delay the transition to a truly green economy that runs on clean renewable energy from the sun, wind and other so-called alternative sources.

CONTACTS: CERN, www.cern.ch; Thorium Energy Alliance, www.thoriumenergyalliance.com; Teledyne Brown Engineering, www.tbe.com.

Although there is no definitive proof, many studies seem to indicate that consumption of onions, garlic and other members of the allium family (leeks, shallots and chives) reduces the risk of certain cancers. (Thinkstock)

Natural healers have extolled the cancer-preventing virtues of garlic and onions for years, but only recently do we have enough scientific research to draw some conclusions. Several animal studies showing promising results using garlic and other members of the allium family (onions, leek, shallot, and chive) to prevent tumors have led to hundreds of studies involving human garlic eaters. While it is near impossible to pinpoint a direct link between garlic consumption and cancer prevention, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) reports that “several population studies show an association between increased intake of garlic and reduced risk of certain cancers, including cancers of the stomach, colon, esophagus, pancreas, and breast.”

To wit, a multi-year study of 25,000 people from Switzerland and Italy found that those who ate the most garlic and onions were up to 88 percent less likely to develop various types of cancer (including cancers of the esophagus, mouth, throat, colon, breast, ovary, prostate and kidney) than those who said they ate little or none. “High onion intake, for example, was associated with a 56 percent lower risk of colon cancer and a 25 percent lower risk of breast cancer compared to no onion intake,” reports Karen Collins of the non-profit American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR).

According to Collins, another study found a 32 percent lower colon cancer risk among Iowan women who ate at least one garlic clove a week compared to others who ate one once a month or less, while an analysis of several studies worldwide “linked a 31 percent lower risk of colon cancer with consumption of about four to five cloves of garlic weekly.” And the results of several studies conducted in China show that that those who eat five cloves of garlic a week are half as likely to develop stomach cancers than non-garlic-eaters. Meanwhile, AICR reports that isolated components of garlic have shown the ability to slow or stop the growth of tumors in prostate, bladder, colon, and stomach tissue.

Just how do allium plants prevent cancer? “Like many vegetables, onions and garlic contain antioxidants that can block highly reactive free radicals from damaging cell DNA and starting the cancer process,” reports Collins. “Laboratory studies have shown that onion and garlic compounds can increase enzymes that deactivate carcinogens in the body, enhancing our ability to eliminate carcinogens before they do any damage.”

Some researchers, however, say that study limitations—that is, the accuracy of reported amounts and frequency of garlic consumed and the inability to compare data from studies that used different garlic products and amounts—make a definitive declaration on the topic unlikely anytime soon. And without such definitive conclusive proof of a causal link, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will not allow food purveyors to state the health benefits of the garlic in their products on their labels.

NCI would like to see better-designed human dietary studies using predetermined amounts of garlic to discern potentially effective intakes as well as more studies directly comparing various garlic preparations. “Given this protective potential, the challenge now is to identify amounts that will provide optimal effects,” says Collins. In the meantime, don’t skimp on the garlic and onions.

CONTACTS: National Cancer Institute, www.cancer.gov; American Institute for Cancer Research, www.aicr.org.

Lester R. Brown's "Plan B" is an integrated program with four interdependent goals: drastically cutting carbon dioxide emissions, stabilizing population, eradicating poverty, and restoring the Earth’s natural systems. Pictured: Mr. Brown and the first Plan B book, published in 2003. There have been three subsequent editions.

What started as a book has grown into a movement known as “Plan B” which presents a roadmap for achieving worldwide goals of stabilizing both population and climate. According to Lester Brown, author of the 2003 book, Plan B (and three subsequent updates) and founder of the non-profit environmental think tank, Earth Policy Institute, the plan is based on replacing the fossil-fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy with a new economic model powered by abundant sources of renewable energy.

Brown argues for transportation systems that are diverse and aim to maximize mobility, widely employing light rail, buses and bicycles. “A Plan B economy comprehensively reuses and recycles materials,” he says. “Consumer products from cars to computers are designed to be disassembled into their component parts and completely recycled.”
Brown even proposes a budget for eradicating poverty, educating the world’s youth and delivering better health care for everyone. “It also presents ways to restore our natural world by planting trees, conserving topsoil, stabilizing water tables, and protecting biological diversity,” says Brown. “With each new wind farm, rooftop solar water heater, paper recycling facility, bicycle path, marine park, rural school, public health facility, and reforestation program, we move closer to a Plan B economy.”

Plan B is an integrated program with four interdependent goals: cutting net carbon dioxide emissions 80 percent by 2020, stabilizing population at eight billion or lower, eradicating poverty, and restoring the Earth’s natural systems. Where Plan B really hits home is in the numbers: Brown puts realistic dollar values on the various aspects of his plan, and compares these costs with current military spending. Needless to say, restoring the environment and economy looks like a bargain when viewed against what the developed nations of the world spend on being ready for battle.

The beauty of Plan B is that it is feasible with current technologies and could well be achieved by 2020 with a concerted international effort. Brown reportedly wrote the latest incarnation of Plan B as a warning call for leaders of the world to begin “mobilizing to save civilization” given that time is more than ever of the essence. Luminaries from Bill Clinton to E.O. Wilson to Ted Turner have spoken highly of Plan B, and at least one university (Cal State at Chico) has made the latest version of the book (Plan B 4.0) required reading for all incoming freshmen.

Those looking for more up-to-date information on the evolution of the Plan B model and progress toward its goals should tune into the website of the Earth Policy Institute, the think tank started by Brown in 2001 and currently used as a central node in the growing network of thousands of entities and individuals around the globe supportive of making Plan B into reality. Prior to founding Earth Policy Institute, Brown was well known in environmental and policy circles for his work with the Worldwatch Institute, a pioneering environmental think tank he launched back in 1974.

CONTACT: Earth Policy Institute, www.earth-policy.org.

Major progress has been made in reducing the overpopulation of cats and dogs that had resulted in some 12 to 20 million being euthanized each year in the 1970s. Today, despite there being more than twice the number of companion animals in U.S. homes, the number euthanized yearly is down to three to four million. There is still clearly more work to be done. (Comstock)

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the leading non-profit devoted to animal welfare, reports that in the 1970s American shelters euthanized between 12 and 20 million cats and dogs every year at a time when there were 67 million pets in U.S. homes. According to statistics gleaned from the Asilomar Accords, which tracks animal shelter care and euthanasia numbers, U.S. shelters today euthanize three to four million animals, while there are more than 135 million cats and dogs in American homes.

“This enormous decline in euthanasia numbers—from around 25 percent of American dogs and cats euthanized every year to about three percent—represents substantial progress,” reports HSUS. “We will make still greater progress by working together to strike at the roots of animal overpopulation.”

These numbers are only estimates as there is no centralized reporting protocol for shelters. However, the Asilomar Accords method is gaining momentum as a standard for more accurately tracking animal shelter care and euthanasia numbers; it posts annual statistics for some 150 different U.S. shelters on its website.

And what exactly are the roots of the problem? Foremost is irresponsible breeding—pet owners failing to get their animals spayed or neutered, leading to unwanted offspring. Some 35 percent of U.S. pet owners do not spay or neuter their pets, despite increasing public awareness about the pet overpopulation issue.

Another factor is low adoption rates: Only 20 percent of the 17 million Americans that get a new pet each year opt for a shelter pet; the vast majority buys from pet stores, breeders, or through other private arrangements. And six to eight million pets are given up to shelters or rescue groups every year for one reason or another, leaving these organizations with many more animals than they can place in homes.

Beyond these factors, HSUS also cites our society’s “disposal pet” ethos, whereby owners are quick to relinquish their pets for any number of reasons. The majority of shelter pets are not overflowing litters of puppies and kittens, but companion animals turned in by their owners. “To solve this problem, we would need to effect a cultural change in which every individual fully considers all of the responsibilities and consequences of pet ownership before adopting, and then makes a lifetime commitment to their pet.”

The National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy is a coalition of eleven of America’s foremost animal welfare organizations concerned with the issue of unwanted pets in the United States. The Council and its partner groups, including HSUS, work to promote responsible pet ownership and reduce pet overpopulation through public education, legislation and support for sterilization programs.

As to what individuals can do, HSUS recommends spaying or neutering their dogs and cats, adopting from shelters or rescue groups, and considering all the ramifications of pet ownership before deciding to take on a cat or dog in the first place.

CONTACTS: HSUS, www.hsus.org; Asilomar Accords, www.asilomaraccords.org; National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy, www.petpopulation.org.

Nonpoint source pollution comes from many diffuse sources, but in the aggregate creates a formidable challenge for municipal, state and federal environmental and water control authorities -- and is likely the largest threat to our water quality. Pictured: Runoff of fertilizer-laced soil from a farm. (USDA)

Unlike pollution that comes from specific industrial factories, sewage treatment plants and other easily discernible ‘points’, nonpoint source pollution comes from many diffuse sources, but in the aggregate creates a formidable challenge for municipal, state and federal environmental and water control authorities.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), nonpoint source pollution is “caused by rainfall or snowmelt moving over and through the ground [where it...] picks up and carries away natural and human-made pollutants, finally depositing them into lakes, rivers, wetlands, coastal waters and ground waters.” Some of the most common pollutants in nonpoint source pollution include excess fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides from agricultural lands and residential areas and oil, grease and toxic chemicals from urban runoff and energy production. Sediment from construction, mining and agricultural sites as well as salts, acids, bacteria and atmospheric deposition from myriad sources also play a role.

While its effects vary region to region, nonpoint source pollution is likely the largest threat to our water quality. The U.S. has made “tremendous advances in the past 25 years to clean up the aquatic environment by controlling pollution from industries and sewage treatment plants,” says the EPA. “Unfortunately, we did not do enough to control pollution from diffuse, or nonpoint, sources.” The EPA also calls nonpoint source pollution the U.S.’s “largest source of water quality problems” and the main reason 40 percent of our rivers, lakes, and estuaries “are not clean enough to meet basic uses such as fishing or swimming.”

Because it comes from so many sources, regulating nonpoint source pollution is almost impossible, so it really comes down to individuals taking steps to minimize the pollution generated by their actions. The EPA reports that we can all do our part by: keeping litter, pet waste, leaves and debris out of street gutters and storm drains, which usually drain right into nearby water bodies; applying lawn and garden chemicals sparingly; disposing of used oil, antifreeze, paints and other household chemicals properly, that is, at your nearest hazardous household waste drop-off, not in storm drains; cleaning up spilled brake fluid, oil, grease and antifreeze, not hosing them into the street where they will eventually reach local waterways; and controlling soil erosion on your property by planting ground cover and stabilizing erosion-prone areas.

Beyond what we can do individually, local, regional and state governments can also help reduce nonpoint source pollution by enacting and enforcing building codes and other rules that can reduce outflows. The voluntary reduction in phosphates in dishwashing detergents in the U.S. last year, for example, was a big step in reducing the nutrient load into our streams and lakes. Some municipalities have gone so far as to mandate erosion and sediment control ordinances requiring the construction of natural buffers in building and landscaping projects to filter out pollutants before they reach local watersheds. If your community doesn’t have similar rules in place, encourage your local officials to enact them.

CONTACT: EPA’s Nonpoint Source Pollution Page, www.epa.gov/owow_keep/NPS.

Medical waste washing up on New Jersey beaches was a big problem in the late 1980s, closing beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the New Jersey shore. Although that problem was addressed for the most part, bacterial contamination from sewage treatment outflows, contaminated storm water and other sources caused more than 24,000 beach closures or advisories across the U.S. last year. Pictured: a washed-up syringe. (iStock)

Medical waste washing up on New Jersey beaches was a big problem in the late 1980s, closing beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the New Jersey shore. Officials scrambled for months to figure out where the waste was coming from, and eventually zeroed in on New York City’s Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island. Sub-optimal systems there were not successfully containing medical waste and other garbage on site, and New Jersey beaches—and vacationers and business owners—were paying the price. Although no one was injured or exposed to disease by the washed up waste, the public was especially alarmed given the HIV/AIDS crisis gripping the nation at that time. New York City was required to pay $1 million for past pollution damages and had to shoulder the cost of clean-up at Jersey Shore beaches as well.

The resulting loss of tourism cost business owners throughout the affected region as much as 40 percent of their revenue, with total losses estimated at well over $1 billion. Some New Jersey business owners remain upset that New York wasn’t forced to pay them reparations for lost revenue as well.

In the wake of the scare, Congress enacted the Medical Waste Tracking Act in 1988, requiring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to create a program to better track medical waste from cradle-to-grave so that it didn’t end up fouling beaches or any other environments. While the program was not renewed when it expired in 1991, it served as a model for how states and municipalities could better track potentially dangerous medical waste while also helping medical facilities institute systems and processes for making sure they knew where their waste was going and that it would be disposed of responsibly.

Meanwhile, New York and New Jersey have coordinated on setting up and maintaining their own systems to stem the so-called “syringe tides.” The cornerstone is a multi-agency program designed to intercept debris within New Jersey Harbor before it can get to tourist-crowded Jersey Shore beaches. Thanks to the plan—which relies on surveillance by environmental groups as well as routine and special clean-up sweeps by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the implementation of a communications network to facilitate the reporting of incidents and quick responses—beach closures declined from more than 70 miles in 1988 to less than four miles in 1989, with closures remaining at similarly low levels ever since.

Of course, medical waste is hardly the only problem facing America’s beaches and coastal waters. According to the non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), bacterial contamination from sewage treatment outflows, contaminated storm water and other sources caused more than 24,000 beach closures or advisories across the country in 2010 alone. NRDC reports on water quality at U.S. beaches every year in its series of “Testing the Waters” reports. Pressure from the group has helped spur the EPA to agree to overhaul Clean Water Act regulations pertaining to urban and suburban storm water runoff and update decades-old beach water quality standards by 2012. These improvements should help to keep beaches from the Jersey Shore to the Great Lakes to California, and points in between, clear of debris and safe for swimmers and sunbathers of every stripe.

CONTACTS: NRDC Testing the Waters, www.nrdc.org/water/oceans/ttw; Medical Waste Tracking Act of 1988, www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/industrial/medical/tracking.htm.

A new bill, passed by the House of Representatives and awaiting vote in the Senate, aims to strip the EPA of its authority over individual states' water quality. Pictured: The Cuyahoga River on fire in 1952. When it happened again in 1969 it helped kick start the modern environmental movement including the establishment of the Clean Water Act and the founding of the EPA. (Media credit/Wikipedia)

The Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011 (H.R. 2018), passed the House of Representatives this past July with strong support from Republicans and will likely be voted on by the Senate in the Fall. It aims to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (also known as the Clean Water Act (CWA) in order to give authority over water quality standards back to the states.

The bill’s backers—including most House Republicans and lobbyists for the mountaintop coal mining industry and factory animal farms—claim it will bring jobs to Appalachia and other distressed regions of the country where they say economic growth has been crippled by stringent environmental regulations. The bill would prevent the EPA from overruling decisions made by state regulatory agencies.

“By second-guessing and inserting itself into the states’…standards and permitting decisions, EPA has upset the long-standing balance between federal and state partners in regulating the nation’s waters, and undermined the system of cooperative federalism established under the CWA in which the primary responsibilities for water pollution control are allocated to the states,” says GOP.gov, the website of the Republican majority in Congress. “EPA’s actions have created an atmosphere of regulatory uncertainty for the regulated community, and have had a chilling effect on the nation’s economy and job creation.”

But those opposed to the bill, including the White House and many Congressional Democrats, say that its provisions would undermine stringent federal water quality protections some four decades in the making.

“H.R. 2018 could limit efforts to safeguard communities by removing the Federal Government’s
authority to take action when State water quality standards are not protective of public health,” said the White House after the bill passed in the House by a count of 239-184. Such changes, they added, could adversely impact public health and the environment through increased pollution and degradation of water bodies that provide drinking water, recreation and tourism opportunities, and habitat for fish and wildlife.
For their part, environmental groups couldn’t agree more. “Make no mistake: This bill would take the environmental cop off the beat and put at risk drinking water for millions of people, the habitat for scores of wildlife, and the jobs and economic growth that depends on a safer, cleaner environment,” said Larry Schweiger of the non-profit National Wildlife Federation, adding that, if enacted, the bill would take us “back to a time when rivers caught fire because of rampant pollution.”

Environmentalists are optimistic that backers won’t have enough Senate votes to pass the bill. Meanwhile, President Obama has pledged to veto any such legislation that does make its way across his desk. But political winds shift quickly inside the Beltway, and only time will tell if the bill will gain enough support to withstand a veto. The quality of the nation’s water supply hangs in the balance.

CONTACTS: H.R. 2018, www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-2018; U.S. EPA, www.epa.gov; GOP.gov, www.gop.gov; National Wildlife Federation, www.nwf.org.

Boxed wines have many environmental advantages over bottled, but some of the plastic bags inside the boxes contain BPA, a synthetic chemical that has been linked to a range of human health problems. Bota Box, pictured here, and many other box wines come in BPA-free packaging. The simple way to know is to read the labels when you’re wine shopping. (Peter Knocke via Flickr)

Does boxed wine use BPA-free plastic?

The short answer is: “It depends.” A fairly recent innovation in wine packaging, the so-called Bag-in-Box (BIB) dispenser makes use of a plastic bag with a nozzle surrounded by a corrugated cardboard box. The whole package sits easily on a shelf and usually features a built-in spout for easy pouring and resealing. The main benefit is that each box can hold about four bottles-worth of wine, and the BIB technology prevents oxidation, keeping the wine fresh for up to six weeks after the seal has been broken initially.

Besides costing less to manufacture than glass bottles, the Bag-in-Box apparatus, invented by Scholle packaging a half century ago, weighs significantly less, stacks more efficiently (meaning more wine can go with each container load) and will not shatter if dropped. As such, they are easier to transport, which keeps costs down and reduces the carbon footprint of the entire distribution process. While U.S. wine buyers traditionally have viewed wine in a box as cheap and unsavory, several American and European wineries are working to turn that view around by putting out award-winning vintages by the box. Eco-conscious yet no less discriminating wine consumers are helping to drive the growing demand for boxed wines in the U.S., which currently command about 10 percent of U.S. supermarket wine sales.

But boxed wine may have an environmental dark side: Some of the plastic bags inside the boxes contain Bisphenol-A (BPA), a synthetic chemical that has been in use for four decades to strengthen plastic food containers and other items but recently has been linked to a range of human health problems. “A growing amount of scientific research has linked BPA exposure to altered development of the brain and behavioral changes, a predisposition to prostate and breast cancer, reproductive harm, diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease,” reports the non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

The bags are made out of #7 plastic, a catchall category typically containing mixed types of plastic (“polycarbonate”), combined for various practical reasons. As more and more research comes to light, many environmentalists and public health advocates are warning consumers to avoid storing any food or drinks in containers made out of #7 plastic, as there is likelihood that BPA could be part of the mix.

Most wineries offering boxed wines make it clear if their plastic bags do not contain BPA. For one, Scholle Packaging, inventors of the BIB system and one of the largest wine box manufacturers, uses only BPA-free #7 plastic in their bags. Perini, Campo Largo, Bota Box and many other box wines come in BPA-free packaging. The simple way to know is to read the labels when you’re wine shopping.

Also, don’t think that by avoiding boxed wine you are necessarily avoiding BPA. Researchers have found that the plastic stoppers so many of us use to cap an unfinished bottle, not to mention the lining of concrete vats used to store wine at many wineries, contain and can leach BPA into your glass. That’s not to say that all wine contains BPA; quite the contrary, in fact, as most bottled wine still never comes into contact with plastic and as such does not carry any BPA-stigma. Regardless, the more you know, the safer you can be—so that the worst thing you get from your wine is a hangover.

CONTACTS: Scholle, www.scholle.com; NRDC, www.nrdc.org; Bota Box, www.botabox.com.

Perhaps the most infamous U.S. dead zone is an 8,500 square mile swath of the Gulf of Mexico, not far from where the nutrient-laden Mississippi River, which drains farms up and down the Midwest, lets out.

So-called dead zones are areas of large bodies of water—typically in the ocean but also occasionally in lakes and even rivers—that do not have enough oxygen to support marine life. The cause of such “hypoxic” (lacking oxygen) conditions is usually eutrophication, an increase in chemical nutrients in the water, leading to excessive blooms of algae that deplete underwater oxygen levels. Nitrogen and phosphorous from agricultural runoff are the primary culprits, but sewage, vehicular and industrial emissions and even natural factors also play a role in the development of dead zones.

Dead zones occur around the world, but primarily near areas where heavy agricultural and industrial activity spill nutrients into the water and compromise its quality accordingly. Some dead zones do occur naturally, but the prevalence of them since the 1970s—when dead zones were detected in Chesapeake Bay off Maryland as well as in Scandinavia’s Kattegat Strait, the mouth of the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and the northern Adriatic—hints at mankind’s impact. A 2008 study found more than 400 dead zones worldwide, including in South America, China, Japan, southeast Australia and elsewhere.

Perhaps the most infamous U.S. dead zone is an 8,500 square mile swath (about the size of New Jersey) of the Gulf of Mexico, not far from where the nutrient-laden Mississippi River, which drains farms up and down the Midwest, lets out. Besides decimating the region’s once teeming shrimp industry, low oxygen levels in the water there have led to reproductive problems for fish, leading to lack of spawning and low egg counts. Other notable U.S. dead zones today occur off the coasts of Oregon and Virginia.

Fortunately, dead zones are reversible if their causes are reduced or eliminated. For example, a huge dead zone in the Black Sea largely disappeared in the 1990s following the fall of the Soviet Union, after which there was a huge spike in the cost of chemical fertilizers throughout the region. And while this situation was largely unintentional, the lessons learned have not been lost on scientists, policymakers and the United Nations, which has been pushing to reduce industrial emissions in other areas around the globe where dead zones are a problem. To wit, efforts by countries along the Rhine River to reduce sewage and industrial emissions have reduced nitrogen levels in the North Sea’s dead zone by upwards of 35 percent.

In the U.S., dead zones have also been reduced in the Hudson River and San Francisco Bay following clean-up efforts. Hypoxic conditions continue to plague the Gulf of Mexico, however, with matters made worse by pollution unleashed by Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill, as well as by a federal push to increase Midwest corn production, which effectively loads even more algae-inducing nutrients into the already overloaded system. The Mississippi Basin/Gulf of Mexico Water Nutrient Task Force, a coalition of federal, state and tribal agencies, has been busy monitoring the dead zone and recommending ways to reduce it since its formation in 1997. But with industrial and agricultural activity throughout Gulf and Midwestern states only increasing—and Mother Nature not making the job any easier—the task force has an uphill battle on its hands to say the least.

CONTACT: Mississippi Basin/Gulf of Mexico Water Nutrient Task Force, www.epa.gov/owow_keep/msbasin.

William Rees of the University of British Columbia reports that human society is in a “global overshoot,” consuming 30 percent more material than is sustainable from the world’s resources. Pictured: A "Buy Nothing Day" activist leaflets in San Francisco. (Media credit/Steve Rhodes)

There is no doubt true that our overly consumerist culture is contributing to our addiction to oil and other natural resources and the pollution of the planet and its atmosphere.

Unfortunately the tendency to acquire and even horde valuable goods may be coded into our DNA. Researchers contend that humans are subconsciously driven by an impulse for survival, domination and expansion which finds expression in the idea that economic growth will solve all individual and worldly ills. Advertising plays on those impulses, turning material items into objects of great desire imparting intelligence, status and success.

William Rees of the University of British Columbia reports that human society is in a “global overshoot,” consuming 30 percent more material than is sustainable from the world’s resources. He adds that 85 countries are exceeding their domestic “bio-capacities” and compensate for their lack of local material by depleting the stocks of other countries.

Of course, every one of us can do our part by limiting our purchases to only what we need and to make responsible choices when we do buy something. But those who might need a little inspiration to get started should look to the Adbusters Media Foundation, a self-described “global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age.”

Among the foundation’s most successful campaigns is Buy Nothing Day, an international day of protest typically “celebrated” the Friday after Thanksgiving in North America (so-called Black Friday, one of the year’s busiest shopping days) and the following Saturday in some 60 other countries. The idea is that for one day a year we commit to not purchase anything, and to help spread the anti-consumerist message to anyone who will listen, with the hope of inspiring people to consume less and generate less waste the other 364 days of the year. The first Buy Nothing Day took place in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1992 with a few dozen participants, but today hundreds of thousands of people all over the world take part.

In recent years some anti-consumerists have added Buy Nothing Christmas to their agendas as well. Some ideas for how to leverage Buy Nothing Christmas sentiment without looking too much like Scrooge include giving friends and family “gift exemption” cards and asking shoppers in line at a big box store, “What would Jesus buy?”

Beyond Buy Nothing Day and Buy Nothing Christmas, the Adbusters Media Foundation stokes the fire of anti-consumerism throughout the year via its bi-monthly publication, Adbusters, an ad-free magazine with an international circulation topping 120,000. Do yourself a favor and subscribe…and cancel all those catalogs stuffing up your mailbox in the meantime.

CONTACTS: Adbusters, www.adbusters.org; Buy Nothing Day, www.adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd.

The Green Café Network (GCN), a project of Earth Island Institute, seeks to green the coffeehouse industry and harness cafe culture for community environmental awareness. Pictured: San Francisco's Border Lands Cafe, a GCN member. (Media credit/Steve Rhodes)

The Green Café Network (GCN), a project of the non-profit Earth Island Institute, seeks to reduce Americans’ environmental impacts by greening the coffeehouse industry and harnessing cafe culture for community environmental awareness. By educating and working with cafe owners and staff, GCN helps network members reduce waste, save energy, conserve water and increase community stewardship. GCN’s 30-plus cafes scattered across Northern California (as well as one in New York City and another in Keshena, Wisconsin) are committed to reducing their carbon footprints, promoting environmental responsibility and generally operating in as sustainable a manner as possible.

The approach of the GCN is to build on the influence of key institutions—neighborhood cafes and Americans’ infatuation with coffee—to try to raise environmental awareness and spur individual action. The idea is that when people see their local café as a positive example of green business practices and community building, there is a ripple effect, and the community is strengthened accordingly.

For cafes interested in getting involved, GCN provides personalized consulting services to help owners reduce their ecological footprints, enhance and streamline their operations, and set a visible good example of environmental responsibility for the community at large. Services can address specific areas in need of attention, such as energy and water conservation, waste reduction, toxics minimization and eco-friendly purchasing, and also overall efforts to green the business from top to bottom. GCN can also consult on green building issues in the design, construction and remodel phases of a cafe’s lifecycle. With a project tagline of “Love Our Planet a Latte,” how could one not love what GCN is doing?

Cafes and coffee shops can take steps to align environmental considerations with business operations even without membership in GCN. The Barista Exchange website, for one, offers a treasure trove of information and tips on greening up cafes and coffee shops through energy and waste reduction, eco-friendly procurement and the sourcing of organic fair trade coffee. U.S. coffee shops serve up about 25 million cups every day, so coffee shops can make a huge difference by being green.

For its part, the nation’s leading coffee retailer, Starbucks, has been a pioneer in greening the coffee industry, and the company considers environmental stewardship a priority. With dedicated programs for increasing recycling, conserving energy and water, sourcing greener beans, using sustainable building techniques and materials in new stores, and offsetting carbon emissions, Starbucks has worked hard to set a green example.
Of course, cafe owners and staff aren’t the only ones responsible for greening your coffee habit. You can play a role too. One obvious place to start is to bring in your own reusable mug to fill up on your favorite blend to cut down on paper cup waste. And requesting fair trade coffee will help ensure living wages for coffee workers out in the fields and send a message to café owners that you value doing the right thing.

CONTACTS: Green Cafe Network, www.earthisland.org/index.php/projects/grn; Barista Exchange, www.baristaexchange.com; Starbucks Environmental Stewardship, www.starbucks.com/responsibility/environment.

Debt-for-nature swaps are agreements whereby a portion of a developing nation’s foreign debt is forgiven in exchange for local investments in environmental conservation measures. Pictured: a Yellow Spotted River Turtle in Bolivia's Beni Biosphere Reserve, the location of the very first debt-for-nature swap, brokered by the non-profit Conservation International in 1987 (Open Cage)

The debt-for-nature swap concept, whereby a portion of a developing nation’s foreign debt is forgiven in exchange for local investments in environmental conservation measures, dates back to the mid-1980s when Thomas Lovejoy of the non-profit World Wildlife Fund (WWF) first proposed it as a way to deal with the problems of developing nations’ indebtedness and the negative consequences for their natural resources and diverse environments.

The theory goes that if a country with, say, valuable tropical rainforests, is up to its ears in debt, it will sell off or otherwise deplete those natural resources, instead of protecting or conserving them, in order to raise the money needed to pay off its debts. Debt-for-nature swaps can therefore be useful financial mechanisms for helping countries reduce debt without destroying their most valuable natural resources.

Since the first swap was brokered with Bolivia (to protect its Beni Biosphere Reserve and adjacent areas) by the non-profit Conservation International in 1987, many national governments and conservation groups have engaged in similar types of debt-for-nature swap negotiations, especially in tropical countries which contain diverse and threatened species of flora and fauna. Costa Rica has exchanged tens of millions of dollars in debt to protect some of its most pristine and biologically productive rainforests.

In 1998 the U.S. government passed the Tropical Forest Conservation Act to codify debt-for-nature swaps, including formally welcoming non-profit groups like Conservation International, the Nature Conservancy, WWF and others to help arrange the deals and oversee implementation of local initiatives. A 2010 Congressional Research Service report found that since 1987, debt-for-nature swaps have channeled upwards of $1 billion toward tropical forest conservation initiatives instead of back into creditor nations’ coffers.

But far fewer deals are occurring today for a number of reasons. For one, says the Congressional Research Service, other agreements for debt restructuring and cancellation have reduced developing nations’ debt by significantly more than debt-for-nature swaps can. Another is that the concept has fallen somewhat out of favor. Some experts argue that the financial benefits are overstated, that funds are misdirected to less needy countries, that external debt is not a primary driver of deforestation and other environmental ills, and that funding does not necessarily equate to effective implementation of conservation strategies.

Criticism aside, some deals are still getting done. In 2008, France forgave $20 million in debt owed by Madagascar to help the biodiversity-rich nation triple the size of its protected areas to better protect its native flora and fauna. In 2010, the U.S. forgave $21 million in Brazilian debt to fund several ecosystem protection initiatives in Brazil’s still vanishing tropical rainforests. The U.S. has also forgiven debt from the Philippines, Guatemala and Peru in recent years in exchange for on-the-ground conservation efforts. Germany and the Netherlands have each forgiven some of their foreign debt to tropical nations for forest protection as well. So while debt-for-nature swaps are not as popular as they once were, they are still a key tool in the toolbox of environmentalists looking to promote conservation in tropical countries.

CONTACTS: WWF, www.wwf.org; Conservation International, www.conservation.org
The Nature Conservancy, www.nature.org.

According to the Colorado-based EcoCycle, the use of disposable packaging -­ especially plastic ­- has increased by more than 10,000 percent over the past 50 years. Pictured: plastics headed for sorting and recycling. (Media credit/Dan LaMee via Flickr)

The reason plastics aren’t typically melted together and then separated later is a matter of both physics and economics. When any of the seven common types of plastic resins are melted together, they tend to separate and then set in layers. The resulting blended plastic is structurally weak and difficult to manipulate. While the layered plastic could in theory be melted again and separated into its constituent resins, the energy inputs required to do so would make such a process cost prohibitive.

As a result, recycling facilities sort their plastics first and then melt them down only with other items made of the same type of resin. While this process is labor-intensive, the recycling numbers on the bottom of many plastic items make for quicker sorting. Many recycling operations are not only reducing sizable amounts of waste from going into landfills but are also profitable if managed correctly.

Manufacturers of plastic items choose specific resins for different applications. Recycling like items together means the reclaimed polymer can be used to create new items just like their virgin plastic forebears. The seven common types of plastic are: #1 Polyethylene terephthalate (PET or PETE); #2 High-density polyethylene (HDPE); #3 Polyvinyl chloride (PVC); #4 Low-density polyethylene (LDPE); #5 Polypropylene (PP); #6 Polystyrene (PS); and #7 Other/Mixed (O). One complicating factor is trying to recycle unmarked plastics and those embossed with a #7 (representing mixed resins, also known as polycarbonate). According to Earth911, a leading online source for finding recyclers for specific types of items across the United States, in some cases #7 plastics can be “down-cycled” into non-renewable resin; in other cases recycling operations just send their unmarked and #7 plastics into local landfills.

But even though recycling operations have developed relatively efficient systems for generating reclaimed resins, many environmentalists recommend that consumers still avoid plastics as much as possible. “Simply recycling these products does not negate the environmental damage done when the resource is extracted or when the product is manufactured,” reports EcoCycle, a Colorado-based non-profit recycler with an international reputation as an innovator in resource conservation. The group adds that over the past half century, the use of disposable packaging—especially plastic—has increased by more than 10,000 percent.

Along these lines, products (or packaging) made out of reusable metal, glass or even wood are preferable to equivalent items made from plastic. For starters, an item of metal, glass or wood can be re-used by someone else or recycled much more efficiently than plastic when it does reach the end of its useful life to you. Wood products and other items crafted out of plant material—even so-called “polylactic acid (PLA) plastic” made from plant-based agricultural wastes—can be composted along with your yard waste and food scraps, either in your backyard or, if your town or city offers it, through your municipal collection system. Happy reducing, reusing and recycling!

CONTACTS: Earth911, www.earth911.com; EcoCycle, www.ecocycle.org.

The non-profit organization, Beyond Nuclear, calls nuclear power "counterproductive to efforts to address climate change effectively and in time" and says that funding diverted to nuclear deprives real climate change solutions, like solar, wind and geothermal energy, of essential resources. Pictured: The Three Mile Island nuclear generating station, circa 1979 near the time it suffered a partial meltdown. (Department of Energy photo)

In the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan, countries around the world that were growing more bullish on nuclear power are now reconsidering their future energy investments. Germany has shut down seven of its oldest nuclear reactors and is conducting safety studies on the remaining facilities; those that don’t make the grade could be closed permanently. Meanwhile, in earthquake-prone Chile some 2,000 demonstrators marched through the capital to protest their government’s enthusiasm for nuclear power. And China, the world’s fastest growing nuclear energy developer, has suspended the approval process on 50 nuclear power plants already on the drawing board, and begun inspections on 13 existing plants.

But despite calls to shutter the U.S. nuclear program, President Obama remains committed to the industry despite his stated opposition to it pre-election. In December 2007, Obama told reporters at a campaign stop in Iowa: “Until we can make certain that nuclear power plants are safe…I don’t think that’s the best option,” adding that he was much more keen on solar, wind, biodiesel and other alternative fuels.

According to investigative journalist Karl Grossman, Obama changed his tune on nuclear as soon as he took office, “talking about ‘safe, clean nuclear power’ and push[ing] for multi-billion dollar taxpayer subsidies for the construction of new nuclear plants.” Right away, Grossman says, Obama brought in nuclear advocate Steven Chu as energy secretary, and two White House aides that had been “deeply involved with…the utility operating more nuclear power plants than any other in the U.S., Exelon.”

Undeterred by the Japanese nuclear disaster, Obama pledged just two weeks following the initial explosions at the Fukushima Dai-ichi facility that nuclear power should be revived in the U.S., as it provides “electricity without adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.” He added that he requested a comprehensive safety review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to ensure the safety of existing facilities. “We’ll incorporate those conclusions and lessons from Japan in designing and building the next generation of [nuclear] plants,” Obama added.

But just because nuclear energy isn’t a fossil fuel doesn’t make it green, given the ongoing risk of radioactivity. Also, reports the non-profit Beyond Nuclear, “Nuclear power is counterproductive to efforts to address climate change effectively and in time…funding diverted to new nuclear power plants deprives real climate change solutions, like solar, wind and geothermal energy, of essential resources.”

Indeed, if policymakers were able to divert the hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to the U.S. nuclear industry every year to solar, wind and geothermal developers, there is no telling how quickly we could innovate our way to sustainable non-polluting energy independence and put the specter of nuclear power that much further in our rearview mirror. But it looks like as long as Obama remains in office, nuclear will remain a big part of our near term energy future, damn the torpedoes.

CONTACTS: Karl Grossman, karlgrossman.blogspot.com; Nuclear Regulatory Commission, www.nrc.gov; Beyond Nuclear, www.beyondnuclear.org.

Earth Hour 2011 saw the participation of millions of individuals in 135 countries who turned their lights off for one hour to make a statement about the need to conserve energy to fight climate change. Organizers expect the 2012 event (March 31 at 8:30 p.m., wherever you live) to be even bigger. (Media credit/Reway2007 via Flickr)

Dear EarthTalk: With all the talk of the need for safe, renewable energy sources, isn’t the elephant in the room really that we should use far less energy than we do? Wouldn’t more rules about conservation (like not leaving commercial building lights on all night) make the challenges easier? — Jennifer B., New York, NY

In short, yes: Scaling back our energy consumption significantly, whether voluntarily or as a result of laws and regulations, would go a long way toward achieving our pollution reduction and air and water quality goals. But Americans—and to a lesser extent those in many other developed nations—have never been very good at using less of anything, let alone the energy that makes everything in our whiz-bang modern world possible. That said, conservation is going to play an increasingly important role in all of our lives as we struggle to reduce our collective carbon footprints in a quickly warming world.

President Obama has repeatedly highlighted the need for greater conservation efforts when it comes to shoring up our existing and future energy reserves and reducing our dependence on foreign sources of oil. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 set aside upwards of $3 billion to bolster efforts across the country to weatherize existing buildings in order to conserve energy.

Grants to local communities for such projects, along with calls for voluntary reductions in energy consumption, are part of the plan. The White House is also betting on technology by subsidizing various initiatives aimed at reducing energy use and making our existing power network more efficient overall. Research has shown that investments in energy efficiency that promote conservation are cheaper and provide quicker returns than building new, cleaner power plants. A recent study released by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory predicts annual spending on energy efficiency and conservation to quadruple to as much as $12 billion a year by 2020.

As for what you can do to promote conservation, lead by example—and you’ll see your energy bills go down, too. Turn lights, computers and TVs off when you are done using them. If you’re remodeling or building a new home, occupancy sensors that turn lights on and off as people enter or leave rooms is a good investment, as is making use of natural light in more overt ways to obviate the need for artificial lighting in daylight hours. Also, purchasing appliances rated for good energy efficiency under the federal government’s Energy Star program will save energy. Likewise, driving a hybrid or electric vehicle, or foregoing a car altogether in favor of public transit, biking or walking, is a great way to conserve energy.

One way that awareness about the importance of energy conservation is being promoted around the world is through “Earth Hour,” which began in 2007 when two million individuals and 2,000 businesses in Sydney, Australia turned their lights off for one hour to make a statement about the need to fight climate change. Within a year, the concept had spread to more than 50 million participants in 35 countries. In 2011 Earth Hour drew participants in 135 countries; organizers expect the 2012 event (March 31 at 8:30 p.m., wherever you live) to be even bigger. Similar but unique “Lights Out” movements in San Francisco and other American cities will align with Earth Hour as well.

CONTACTS: Energy Star, www.energystar.gov; Earth Hour, www.earthhour.org; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, www.lbl.gov; Lights Out San Francisco, www.lightsoutsf.org.

Timber thefts appear to be on the rise and losses in Mississippi alone were estimated to be $3 million over the last five years. Pictured: the aftermath of a timber theft (in this case, maple) in Washington State. (Courtesy of the Washington State Department of Natural Resources)

People are stealing timber for the same reasons they steal anything: to profit from someone else’s hard work. What makes timber thefts that much harder to stop is the fact that, most of the time, they occur in remote forested areas and loggers typically don’t have to document their sales as meticulously as other kinds of natural resource extraction. With the economy still in the doldrums, it’s not surprising that timber thefts appear to be on the rise, at least based on anecdotal evidence from around the country.

“Timber theft can range from a landowner cutting down a neighbor’s tree to loggers stealing hundreds or thousands of trees from private or public lands,” reports Lori Compas in the September/October 2010 issue of E Magazine. “Investigators say it’s difficult to calculate the exact number of trees lost to theft, but losses are estimated at $3 million over the last five years in Mississippi alone.” She cites one example there whereby a logger was arrested on three counts of timber theft after clearing some $375,000 worth of trees from land set aside to benefit local schools.

In some cases, thieves are targeting specific types of rare or expensive wood, such as the distinctively patterned birds-eye maple used in some high-end musical instruments. Since there’s no way to tell if the wood inside a maple tree will show the birds-eye pattern without cutting into it, thieves aren’t scared to damage or potentially kill a tree to find out. “We can see where they’ve notched trees [on state-owned forest land] to see if they have that desirable pattern,” says Larry Raedel, chief law enforcement officer for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. “When they find one that does, they cut down the entire tree and pack out a five- or six-foot section. They might make $300-$400 for a slab of birdseye.”

Of course, on the other end of the spectrum, more complex schemes involve unreported or falsified mill receipts. “For instance, a logger might have a legitimate contract to cut timber on a parcel of land, with the understanding that he will cut certain trees, take them to a sawmill, receive payment and pay the landowner a portion of the receipts,” reports Compas. “The trick is that he might take the logs to several different mills and only report the sales from one mill, pocketing the proceeds from the others.” In response to these more sophisticated tactics law enforcement is starting to step up efforts to catch timber thieves red-handed by the use of tracking paint, surveillance and hidden cameras. Oftentimes other loggers will even tip off local authorities about a rogue member of their industry perpetrating such crimes.

According to Tree Farmer magazine, legislatures and courts in various states are also starting to assign stiffer penalties for timber thefts. “Not only will actual or compensatory damages be awarded, but also, in the proper situations, swift and severe penalty awards and punitive damages will be handed down by the courts,” Tree Farmer reports. Unlike in the past, timber thieves today often must answer to civil trespassing charges along with larceny of natural resources—and may be expected to pay back not only the value of the stolen timber but also the cost of reforesting the site(s) in question. Timber thieves who haul their take out of state might also face federal charges for transporting stolen timber across state lines.

CONTACTS: E Magazine, www.emagazine.com/archive/5294; Washington State Department of Natural Resources, www.dnr.wa.gov; Tree Farmer, www.treefarmsystem.org/cms/pages/25_14.html.

Climate change is causing substantial amounts of offshore sea ice to retreat at a record pace; it is a situation that does not bode well for the future of polar bears. (Getty Images)

It’s sad but true that life is getting harder for polar bears due to global warming. Polar bears live within the Arctic Circle and feed primarily on ringed seals. The bears’ feeding strategy involves swimming from the mainland to and between offshore ice floes, poaching seals as they come up to breathe at holes in the ice.

But climate change is heating up the atmosphere and substantial amounts of offshore sea ice are melting. The result is that bears must swim further and further out to sea in search of ice floes; some expend all of their energy in doing so and end up drowning. Scientists first noticed this deadly phenomenon in 2004 when they noticed four drowned polar bears in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska’s North Slope.

More recently, researchers from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) fitted several Alaskan polar bears with tracking collars to find out the extent of their travels and document how much trouble they are having hunting in a warmer Arctic. One of the bears, a mother with a yearling cub on her back, made what researchers are calling an “epic journey in search of food” during September-October 2008. “This bear swam continuously for 232 hours and 687 km and through waters that were 2-6 degrees C,” reports USGS research zoologist George M. Durner. “We are in awe that an animal that spends most of its time on the surface of sea ice could swim constantly for so long in water so cold.” During the rest of the two-month tracking period, the bear intermittently swam and walked on ice floes for another 1,200 miles.

But while the mama bear survived the ordeal, she lost 22 percent of her body fat during a crucial time of year for fattening up before a long winter’s hibernation. And her cub was not so fortunate. “It was simply more energetically costly for the yearling than the adult to make this long distance swim,” said Durner, whose findings were published in the January 2011 edition of Polar Biology. The case of this one polar bear and the failure of her offspring to survive in the new environmental conditions of the Arctic doesn’t bode well for the future of the species, especially as Arctic sea ice continues to retreat at a record pace.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which maintains the international “Red List” of threatened species, considers the polar bear “vulnerable” due to climate change-induced retreating sea ice. For its part, the U.S. government listed polar bears as “threatened” in 2008 under the Endangered Species Act. The IUCN website also points out that, while the polar bear has come to symbolize the impact of global warming on wildlife, many other species are similarly affected, including the ringed seal and well-known species like the beluga whale, arctic fox, koala and emperor penguin.

Some argue that, since it is illegal to engage in activities that could harm or kill threatened or endangered species, Americans should be forced to cut their greenhouse gas emissions to preserve polar bear habitat. While such a notion hasn’t forced many of us to voluntarily drive fewer miles or turn down our heat, it might be just what it will take the world’s largest land carnivore from going the way of the dodo.

CONTACT: IUCN, www.iucn.org/about/work/programmes/species/our_work/climate_change_and_species.

Air quality across the United States has improved dramatically since 1970 when Congress passed the Clean Air Act. Nonetheless, some 175 million Americans -­ 58 percent of the population ­- still live in places where pollution levels can cause breathing difficulties or worse (Thinkstock)

Air quality across the United States has improved dramatically since 1970 when Congress passed the Clean Air Act in response to growing pollution problems and fouled air from coast to coast. According to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), levels of all major air pollution contaminants (ozone, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter and lead) are down significantly since 1970; carbon monoxide levels alone dropped by more than 70 percent.

And that’s good news for everyone. A 2009 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that efforts to reduce fine particle pollution from automobiles, diesel engines, steel mills and coal-fired power plants have added between four and eight months to the average American’s life expectancy in recent years. Overall, Americans are living some two and three-quarter years longer than during the 1980s. Changes in smoking habits and improved socioeconomic conditions are the biggest reasons why, but cleaner air is also a big factor. “It’s stunning that the air pollution effect seems to be as robust as it is,” Arden Pope, the Brigham Young University epidemiologist who led the study, told reporters.

Pope and his team analyzed life expectancy, economic, demographic and pollution data from 51 metropolitan areas, and found that when fine-particle air pollution dropped by 10 micrograms per cubic meter, life expectancy rose by 31 weeks—such as in Akron, Ohio and Philadelphia. Where fine particle counts dropped even more—by 13 to 14 micrograms, such as in New York City, Buffalo and Pittsburgh—people lived some 43 weeks longer on average.

But according to the American Lung Association (ALA), even though air quality around the country is improving overall, some 175 million Americans—58 percent of the population—still live in places where pollution levels can cause breathing difficulties or worse. The group’s “State of the Air: 2010” report looks at levels of ozone and particle pollution found in monitoring sites across the United States in 2006, 2007, and 2008, and compares them to previous periods.

The biggest improvement was found in year-round (annual) particulate levels, which the ALA attributes to recent efforts to clean up major industrial air pollution sources. “However, the continuing problem demonstrates that more remains to be done, especially in cleaning up coal-fired power plants and existing diesel engines.” the group reports. ALA also found, by overlaying census data with pollution maps, that Americans with the lowest incomes face higher risks of harm from air pollution, underscoring what environmental justice advocates have been saying for years.

As for how to protect ourselves from still problematic air pollution, ALA recommends checking air quality forecasts and avoiding exercising or working outdoors when unhealthy air is present. The federal government’s AirNow website provides daily air quality updates for more than 300 cities across the U.S., as well as links to more detailed state and local air quality web sites. And if air quality problems in your area continue to be bothersome, consider picking up and moving. Fargo, North Dakota or Lincoln, Nebraska, anyone? According to ALA’s “State of the Air: 2010” report, these two cities rank among the cleanest in all of the air pollution categories studied.

CONTACTS: ALA’s State of the Air: 2010, www.stateoftheair.org; AirNow, www.airnow.gov.

A 2009 World Health Organization and UNICEF study found that 24,000 children in developing countries die each day (one every three-and-a-half seconds) from preventable causes like diarrhea resulting from polluted water. Pictured. An Ethiopian girl drinks water from a newly-installed hand pump. (Water.org)

In July 2010 the United Nations (UN) agreed to a new resolution declaring the human right to “safe and clean drinking water and sanitation.” One hundred twenty-two nations voted in favor of the resolution; 41 (primarily developed) countries abstained; and there were zero “no” votes. The agreement comes on the heels of a protracted effort on the part of Bolivia and 30 other (mostly developing) nations determined to improve access to clean water and proper sanitation systems for the poorer human residents of the planet.

Bolivia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Pablo Solon, cheered passage of the resolution that he had campaigned hard for, and stressed the need to recognize access to safe drinking water and sanitation as a human right as global supplies of fresh water get fewer and farther between. “Approximately one out of every eight people does not have drinking water,” Solon told reporters. “In just one day, more than 200 million hours of the time used by women is spent collecting and transporting water for their homes.” According to the declaration, approximately 884 million people lack access to safe drinking water.

“The lack of sanitation is even worse, because it affects 2.6 billion people [or] 40 percent of the global population,” Solon said, citing a 2009 World Health Organization and UNICEF study which found some 24,000 children in developing countries were dying each day from preventable causes like diarrhea resulting from polluted water. “This means that a child dies every three-and-a-half seconds,” added Solon.

The resolution itself carries no regulatory weight, but backers view it as important to raising awareness of the problem and engendering support for solutions. “We are calling for actions…in communities around the world to ensure that the rights to water and sanitation are implemented,” said Anil Naidoo of the Council of Canadians, a group that has been crucial in the international struggle for the right to clean water. “Governments, aid agencies and the UN must take their responsibilities seriously,” he added.

Some developed countries—including the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several European nations—tried to block passage of the resolution in hopes of minimizing their future obligations. As one official from the United Kingdom put it, these countries “don’t want to pay for the toilets in Africa.” Also, six African countries (Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Tanzania and Zambia) and two in the Caribbean (Guyana and Trinidad/Tobago)—all former European colonies—joined efforts to try to kill the declaration. But when it was time to vote, these nations abstained so as not to go on record as opposing it.

“This matters because we are a planet running out of water,” said Maude Barlow, an expert affiliated with the Council of Canadians as well as the Blue Planet Project and Food and Water Watch. Indeed, a still-growing human population, global warming and other factors combine to make fresh water supplies scarcer around the world. A recent World Bank study predicted that demand for fresh water will exceed supply by some 40 percent within just two decades. While the UN resolution may not move any mountains, it is a step in the right direction for the world’s increasing number of have-nots.

CONTACTS: United Nations, www.un.org; Council of Canadians, www.canadians.org; Blue Planet Project, www.blueplanetproject.net; Food and Water Watch, www.foodandwaterwatch.org.

Several environmental wake-up calls during the 1960s set the stage for the creation of the EPA in 1970 by the Nixon administration. Pictured: EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson (with Actor Anthony Mackie) at the Riverside Valley Community Garden in Harlem, New York City, on April 22 (Earth Day), 2010. (greenforall.org)

By most accounts the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which turned 40 in December 2009, has been very effective. The first dedicated national environmental agency of its kind, the EPA has been instrumental in setting policy priorities and writing and enforcing a wide range of laws that have literally changed the face of the Earth for the better. The EPA’s existence and effectiveness has also inspired scores of other countries to create their own environmental agencies along the same lines.

Several environmental wake-up calls during the 1960s—from revelations about the hazards of pesticides to smog causing respiratory problems to rivers catching on fire as they flowed through industrial areas—set the stage for the creation of EPA in 1970 by the Nixon administration. The agency was charged with overseeing implementation and enforcement of a new raft of laws designed to protect Americans’ air, water and land from the ill effects of pollution, development and urbanization. The Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act are early examples of sweeping legislation that only a dedicated environmental agency could properly oversee. Today the EPA has also taken up the mantle of helping Americans find and implement remedies for pressing global problems from ozone depletion to climate change.

The Aspen Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to fostering leadership and dialogue on wide range of topics, recently unveiled a list of “10 ways the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has strengthened America over the past 40 years.”

The home runs on the list—which was compiled by a group of more than 20 environmental leaders, including several former EPA officials—include: banning the widespread use of the pesticide DDT, which was decimating bald eagles and other birds and threatening public health; achieving significant reductions in sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions that were polluting water sources via acid rain; changing public perceptions of waste, leading to innovations that make use of waste for energy creation and making new products; getting lead out of gasoline; classifying secondhand smoke as a known cause of cancer, leading to smoking bans in indoor public places; establishing stringent emission standards for pollutants emitted by cars and trucks; regulating toxic chemicals and encouraging the development of more benign chemicals; establishing a national commitment to restore and maintain the safety of fresh water, via the Clean Water Act; promoting equitable environmental protection for minority and low-income citizens; and increasing public information and communities’ “right to know” what chemicals and/or pollutants they may be exposed to in their daily lives.

As to the EPA’s priorities now under administrator Lisa Jackson, climate change is high atop the agency’s agenda, as are further improving air quality, assuring the safety of chemicals used in everyday products, protecting increasingly compromised waterways and coastal areas, building stronger state and tribal partnerships, and expanding protection for underrepresented communities. Any number of potential hurdles—from an unfriendly Congress to lack of White House resolve to public apathy, let alone future natural and man-made disasters that divert attention and resources—could hamper the agency’s progress.

Further reading: epa.gov; Aspen Institute.

The 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), enacted in 1976, is widely considered a failure. When enacted it enabled some 62,000 chemicals (many linked to hormonal, reproductive and immune problems, cancer and a plethora of environmental problems ) to escape testing. Another 22,000 untested chemicals -- found in everything from cleaning and personal care products to furniture, building materials, electronics, food and drink containers, even kids’ toys -- have come onto the market since. (Thinkstock)

Dear EarthTalk: What is happening to update and reform the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, which I understand is considerably outdated and actually permits the use of thousands of chemicals that have never been adequately tested for safety? — Henry Huse, Norwalk, CT

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a leading environmental research and advocacy organization, upwards of 80,000 chemicals commonly used in the United States have never been fully assessed for toxic impacts on human health and the environment. “Under the current law, it is almost impossible for the EPA [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] to take regulatory action against dangerous chemicals, even those that are known to cause cancer or other serious health effects,” reports the group.

1976’s Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) was intended to protect people and the environment from exposure to dangerous chemicals. But the standards at that time dictated that only those chemicals deemed an “unreasonable risk” were subject to testing and regulation. When the law went into effect, some 62,000 chemicals escaped testing and most have remained on the market ever since. In the interim, however, we have learned that many of them have been linked to hormonal, reproductive and immune problems, cancer, and a plethora of environmental problems.

And since 1976, an additional 22,000 chemicals have been introduced without any testing for public or environmental safety. Some of the potentially worst offenders can be found in cleaning and personal care products, furniture, building materials, electronics, food and drink containers, and even kids’ toys.

“The law is widely considered to be a failure and, most recently, the Environmental Protection Agency’s own Inspector General found it inadequate to ensure that new chemicals are safe,” reports NRDC, which is not the only group concerned about beefing up TSCA. The Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families Coalition includes more than 200 nonprofits—including Physicians for Social Responsibility, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (USPIRG), the Environmental Defense Fund and the Lung Cancer Alliance, among many others—representing a collective membership of more than 11 million individual parents, health professionals, advocates for people with learning and developmental disabilities, reproductive health advocates, environmentalists and businesspersons from across the country.

By banding together, coalition leaders hope to convince Congress to fix the problem by finally updating TSCA and creating the “foundation for a sound and comprehensive chemicals policy that protects public health and the environment, while restoring the luster of safety to U.S. goods in the world market.”

Specifically, the coalition is lobbying Congress to revamp TSCA so that the most dangerous chemicals are phased out or banned outright and that others are tested and regulated accordingly, all the while ensuring the public’s right-to-know about the safety and use of chemicals in everyday products. Also, the coalition is calling for federal funding to expand research into greener alternative chemicals to replace those with known health hazards.

CONTACTS: NRDC, www.nrdc.org, EPA Summary of TSCA, www.epa.gov/lawsregs/laws/tsca.html; Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families Coalition, www.saferchemicals.org.

China passed the U.S. as the world’s leading greenhouse gas emitter back in 2006 and today produces some 17 percent of the world’s total carbon dioxide output. Pictured: A factory in China at the Yangtse River (Wikipedia)

Dear EarthTalk: I understand that China is about to overtake the U.S. as the world’s largest global warming polluter. What is China doing to address this issue as well as its other environmental impacts as such a populous nation? – Sophie N., Andover, MA Actually, China passed the U.S. as the world’s leading greenhouse gas emitter back in 2006 and today produces some 17 percent of the world’s total carbon dioxide output. According to the China Daily news service, air and water pollution, combined with widespread use of food additives and pesticides, make cancer the top killer in China. Meanwhile, World Bank data show that, based on the European Union’s air quality standards, only one percent of the country’s 560 million urban inhabitants breathe air deemed safe. But many Chinese insist that all this environmental trouble is part of the cost of developing into a world superpower, and government leaders there are hesitant to impose restrictions on economic development. Nevertheless, the Chinese are starting to take action. In December 2009 at the Copenhagen global climate talks, China announced plans to slow greenhouse gas emission increases relative to economic growth by 40-50 percent between 2005 and 2020, and use renewable fuels for 15 percent of its energy. China also committed to increasing forest cover by 40 million hectares by 2020 (forests absorb carbon dioxide).

But even with such measures, analysts say China’s carbon dioxide output will still increase a staggering 90 percent in the next decade, assuming eight percent economic growth. While international negotiators were pleased to finally secure a commitment from the Chinese, it was a far cry from the fast and binding emissions cuts many scientists say are necessary to stave off potentially cataclysmic climate change.

Regarding other pollution, China is a signatory to the Stockholm Convention, which governs the control and phase-out of major persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including many pesticides, PCBs and other chemicals. China has committed to eliminating the production, import and use of pollutants covered under the treaty, and will establish an inventory of POP contaminated sites and remediation plans by 2015.

Other green strides China has made include 2008’s nationwide ban on plastic shopping bags. Before the ban, China was using 37 million barrels of crude oil annually to make the bags that would no doubt come back to haunt people, wildlife, land and water bodies as litter. China has also signed on to an international effort sponsored by the United Nations and the Global Environment Facility to phase out incandescent lightbulbs over the next decade in favor of more efficient varieties. China makes 70 percent of the world’s supply of lightbulbs, so the switch could have a big impact on energy usage for lighting around the world.

China is also no slouch when it comes to manufacturing green technologies and now produces more solar panels and wind turbines than any other country. And the Chinese government recently committed $216 billion in subsidies to further develop the nation’s green technology sector. A recent report by the non-profit Pew Environment Group found that in 2009 China spent two times as much as the U.S. to fund so-called “green markets,” and close to 50 percent of world expenditures overall.

CONTACTS: Copenhagen Accord, www.unfccc.int/home/items/5262.php; Stockholm Convention, www.pops.int; Global Environment Facility, www.thegef.org/gef; Pew Environment Group, www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_category.aspx?ID=110.

Dear EarthTalk: Are the world’s amphibians still in decline and what’s being done to help them? – Chris W., Stamford, CT

Unfortunately yes, amphibians are still in serious trouble around the world. A recently updated worldwide population assessment by the non-profit International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) found that 32 percent of the 6,000-plus amphibian species left on the planet have declined to dangerously low levels—and qualify for vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered status on the group’s “Red List” of at-risk wildlife.

Perhaps even more disturbing is that upwards of 160 amphibian species—some of which have been around for hundreds of millions of years—have gone extinct just in the last 25 years. Since amphibian species are particularly sensitive to environmental change, they are often the first animals to decline in areas just beginning to experience environmental degradation, and as such are considered to be important indicators of the health of the wider ecosystems surrounding them.

Scientists are hard-pressed to pick one major cause for such dramatic declines, but at least one key culprit is a fungal pathogen called “frog chytid” (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis). According to the non-profit Amphibian Ark, frog chytid causes changes to amphibians’ sensitive outer skin layer, making vital life processes—such as the absorption of water, oxygen and electrolytes—difficult or impossible. Prior to 1999 researchers hadn’t yet identified this variant of the chytid fungus, let alone the role it was playing in decimating amphibian populations. It is particularly dangerous because none of the world’s amphibians seem to be immune—even those species that survive an infestation still carry and transmit the parasite.

Frog chytid isn’t the only factor in amphibians’ recent troubles. According to the AmphibiaWeb website, habitat destruction, alteration and fragmentation (with the forest goes the frogs), as well as predatory introduced species, increased exposure to UV-B radiation (likely caused by erosion of the Earth’s protective ozone layer), various forms of air and water pollution, and poaching all combine to stack the odds against amphibians. Human-induced climate change is likely playing a role in the decline as well, with rising global temperatures creating optimal conditions for the growth and spread of the frog chytid pathogen while also displacing amphibians from formerly hospitable habitat zones.

IUCN and its partners Conservation International and NatureServe have released an Amphibian Action Conservation Plan, which outlines ways that international institutions, national governments, corporations and even everyday people can take part in helping to save our frogs and their relatives. According to the plan, reducing pollution and lowering our carbon footprint is an important first step. Likewise, preserving more amphibian habitat—especially in Latin America, which has the largest number of threatened amphibian species, and the Caribbean, where upwards of 80 percent of amphibians are at risk—will be key to the survival of our frogs, toads, salamanders and caecilians. Captive breeding programs in various zoos and labs around the world, reintroductions of species into formerly abandoned habitats, and the removal of harmful non-native species also need to play a role in preserving these many species that, once gone, will never reappear.

CONTACTS: Amphibian Ark, www.amphibianark.org; AmphibiaWeb, www.amphibiaweb.org; International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), www.iucn.org; Conservation International, www.conservation.org; NatureServe, www.natureserve.org.

Dear EarthTalk: I see more and more organic wines on store shelves these days, but what options are out there today for organic beer? — Ken Strong, Wichita, Kan.

Some 80 million Americans drink beer, yet organic beer represents still only a sliver of the $7 billion U.S. craft beer market. But this sliver is quickly turning into a slice: Between 2003 and 2009, according to the Organic Trade Association, U.S. organic beer sales more than quadrupled from $9 million to $41 million.

According to Seven Bridges Cooperative, which has been selling organic brewing ingredients for a decade already, organic beers tend to feature exceptional clarity and a clean, flavorful taste. “On a more technical side, organic malts on average have a lower protein content which produces a clear mash and less haze problems in the finished beer,” reports Seven Bridges. “Organic malts and hops have no chemical residues to interfere with fermentation to give the organic brewer a clean, unadulterated beer.”

Seven Bridges mail you all the ingredients you need to brew your own organic beer at home, but most of us would rather just enjoy the finished product. Depending on where you live, you might have dozens of organic beer brands available in bottles and even on tap at your favorite watering hole.

One of the most visible is Fortuna, California-based Eel River Brewing Company, founded in 1996. Eel River has the distinction of being America’s first certified organic brewery. Their IPA, Pale Ale, Porter, Amber Ale, Blonde Ale, Old Ale and Imperial Stout are all crafted from organic hops from New Zealand and organic grains from the Pacific Northwest and Canada.

Butte Creek Brewery, established in 1998 in Chico, California, brews organic Pilsner, Porter, Pale Ale and India Pale Ale. Their award-winning beers are distributed internationally. Olympia, Washington-based Fish Tale Organic Ales has been brewing ales, porters and stouts to rave reviews since 1993, and introduced its first certified organic beer in 2000. And Otter Creek Brewery in Middlebury, Vermont produces a line of organic ales called Wolaver’s, which includes an Oatmeal Stout and a Pumpkin Ale.

The UK’s Samuel Smith Brewery turns out a full line of acclaimed organic ale, lager and fruit beers. Other popular choices include Pinkus Organic Munster Alt, Peak Organic, New Belgium’s Mothership Wit Wheat Beer, and Lakefront Organic ESB, among others. And Whole Foods Markets now produces its own private label organic beer called Lamar Street, which is known for its rich flavor and low cost.

Not surprisingly, even the big boys are beginning to jump in. Anheuser-Busch is pushing its Stone Mill, Wild Hops and Green Valley organic beers. And Miller’s Henry Weinhard’s Organic Amber, on store shelves since 2007, is brewed with local ingredients by the Full Sail Brewery in Hood River, Oregon.

One way to sample dozens of organic beers at once is to attend the North American Organic Brewers Festival (NAOBF), held every June in Portland, Oregon. Whether you clue into organic beers at this event or just at your local pub you can’t go wrong by spreading your eco-consciousness to your beer drinking.

CONTACTS: Organic Trade Association, www.ota.com; Seven Bridges Cooperative, www.breworganic.com; Eel River Brewing, www.eelriverbrewing.com; Butte Creek Brewing,www.buttecreek.com; Fish Brewing, www.fishbrewing.com; NAOBF, www.naobf.org.

Environmentalists want to put a monetary value on the negative impacts of industrial activities, such as polluting, and to force offending companies and utilities to compensate society for the harm they do (Thinkstock Image)

Dear EarthTalk: In my business courses in college, we were taught that ecological degradation was an “externality”—something outside the purview of economic analyses. Now that the environment is of such concern, are economists beginning to rethink this? -- Josh Dawson, Flagstaff, Ariz.

By definition, economic externalities are the indirect negative (or positive) side effects, considered un-quantifiable in dollar terms, of other economic acts. For example, a negative externality of a power plant that is otherwise producing a useful good (electricity) is the air pollution it generates. In traditional economics, the harmful effect of the pollution (smog, acid rain, global warming) on human health and the environment is not factored in as a cost in the overall economic equation. And as the economists go, so go the governments that rely on them. The result is that most nations do not consider environmental and other externalities in their calculations of gross domestic product (GDP) and other key economic indicators (which by extension are supposed to be indicators of public health and well-being).

For decades environmentalists have argued that economics should take into account the costs borne by such externalities in order to discern the true overall value to society of any given action or activity. The company or utility that operates the polluting factory, for instance, should be required to compensate the larger society by paying for the pollution it produces so as to offset the harm it does.

So-called “cap-and-trade” schemes are one real-world way of monetizing a negative externality: Big polluters must buy the right to generate limited amounts of carbon dioxide (and they can trade such rights with other companies that have found ways to lower their carbon footprints, thus creating an incentive for polluters to clean up their acts). While cap-and-trade was invented in the U.S. to clean up acid rain pollution, it is a model used in Europe but not yet in America, which has yet to pass legislation mandating it. Until Congress acts to regulate the output of carbon dioxide in the U.S.—via cap-and-trade means or others—such emissions will remain “external” to the economics of carrying on business.

Recent news that has many greens excited is that the World Bank, the leading financier of development projects around poorer parts of the globe, is starting to think outside the traditional economic box. This past October, World Bank president Robert Zoellick told participants at a conference for the Convention on Biological Diversity (an international treaty signed by 193 countries—not including the U.S.—that went into effect in 1993 to sustain biodiversity) that “the natural wealth of nations should be a capital asset valued in combination with its financial capital, manufactured capital and human capital.” Zoellick’s comments are the first sign from the World Bank of its recognition of the need to consider externalities in any overall economic assessment. “[We] need to reflect the vital carbon storage services that forests provide and the coastal protection values that come from coral reefs and mangroves,” he added.

Critics are still waiting to see if the World Bank will walk its talk. “It’s a fine rhetorical start,” says the New York Times’ Andrew Revkin in his blog. “But the  announcement by the bank of a $10 million ‘Save Our Species’ fund, with the United Nations Global Environmental Facility and International Union for Conservation of Nature, seems quite piddling in a world where money flows in the trillions,” he adds. Indeed, we may still be a ways off from including our environmental impacts into our measures of social wealth and health, but at least the World Bank has gone on record as to the need to do so, and you can be sure that environmental advocates will be working to hold its feet to the fire.

CONTACTS: World Bank, www.worldbank.org; Convention on Biological Diversity, www.cbd.int.

Dear EarthTalk: Where can I find information on which electronics and their manufacturers are greener than others, with regard to components, manufacturing processes and end use efficiency? – John Franken, New York, NY

Nokia got top honors from the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics for the second year in a row: All of the company’s new phone models and accessories for 2010 are free of brominated compounds, chlorinated flame retardants and antimony trioxide, three of the most toxic chemicals used commonly in most mobile phones and other consumer electronics today. Pictured: The Nokia N97. (Media credit/William Hook via Flickr)

Now that many consumers are beginning to care about their own environmental footprints, manufacturers are responding with loads of greener offerings. One good place to find them is the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics, which ranks the 18 top manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones, televisions and game consoles according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change. Greenpeace hopes that by publishing and regularly updating the guide they can both educate consumers about their choices and influence manufacturers to eliminate hazardous substances, take back and recycle their products responsibly, and reduce the climate impacts of their operations and products.

According to Greenpeace, the top five electronics manufacturers from a green perspective are Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Philips, HP and Samsung. These companies get high marks with Greenpeace for eliminating or scaling way back on the use of hazardous chemicals linked to cancer and other health and environmental problems, which in turn makes recycling their products less problematic.

Nokia gets top honors from Greenpeace for the second year in a row: All of the company’s new phone models and accessories for 2010 are free of brominated compounds, chlorinated flame retardants and antimony trioxide, three of the most toxic chemicals used commonly in most mobile phones and other consumer electronics today. Toshiba, Microsoft and Nintendo are the last place finishers on Greenpeace’s list for various reasons, including backtracking on or failing to make commitments to phase out chemicals used in the production of vinyl plastic (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs).

Aother good place to find info on green electronics and related products is the new website of TopTen USA, a non-profit that identifies and publicizes the most energy-efficient products on the market. The goal of the group—which is part of a global alliance of like-minded non-profits—is to make it easier for consumers to find the most energy- and money-saving models, which in turn encourages manufacturing innovations that will shift the whole market in a greener direction. Besides listing the greenest individual models of desktop computers, laptops, monitors and televisions TopTen USA also lists the greenest refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers, clothes washers and even vehicles.

The non-profit Green Electronics Council, initially set up to help government, institutional and corporate purchasers evaluate, compare and select electronic products based on various environmental attributes, has now opened up its EPEAT green certification database to consumers. Some 1,300 computers, thin clients, workstations and monitors from dozens of manufacturers now bear the EPEAT certification label ensuring compliance with green manufacturing and recycling standards. All federal purchasers are required to choose between EPEAT-certified models when possible, and the database has steadily gained traction across a wide range of industries. Now consumers can freely browse the listings to see how various items from the likes of Apple, LG, Panasonic, Lenovo and Sony, among others, stack up.

CONTACTS: TopTen USA, www.toptenusa.org; EPEAT, www.epeat.net; Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics, www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/toxics/electronics/how-the-companies-line-up.

Dear EarthTalk: I’ve heard that New York City schools are trying out “Trayless Tuesdays” in their cafeterias in order to reduce waste. Why are trays such a big issue? And how can cutting them out on one day a week really make a difference? – Mark, Brooklyn, NY

Unlike the old days when many school cafeterias offered reusable trays that could go into big industrial dishwashers after lunchtime, the trend since the early 1990s in New York City and elsewhere across the country has been to provide students with disposable polystyrene (tradename: Styrofoam) trays that are used once—typically for less than 30 minutes—and then thrown out. From there, most of the trays end up clogging already overburdened landfills or posing a litter problem. Polystyrene, impossible to compost and difficult to recycle, is one of the predominant features of litter-filled beaches, not to mention trash-based ocean gyres hundreds of miles from shore.

According to the grassroots group SOSnyc.org, some 850,000 Styrofoam trays are trashed in New York City public schools every day. “At 80 trays per foot, the daily stack is two miles high, 8.5 times the height of the Empire State Building,” the group reports.

Polystyrene can be recycled by specialty recyclers, but most municipal recycling programs do not accept it. The fact that homeowners and businesses can’t put it out on the curb with the rest of their recyclables for pick-up—they have to pay a private recycler to take it off their hands—means that more likely than not it ends up in the garbage can or dumpster and subsequently a landfill. Also, polystyrene that is soiled with food is even more difficult and expensive to recycle due to issues of bacterial contamination—most polystyrene recyclers won’t accept Styrofoam that has had contact with food.

According to leading environmental groups, the polystyrene in food trays and other products is dangerous to both people and ecosystems “The basic building block chemicals of polystyrene…have been linked to cancer and other very serious health problems [and are] very hazardous to manufacture,” says Michael Schade of the non-profit Center for Health, Environment and Justice. He adds that he considers polystyrene “one of the most toxic plastics for our health and environment.” Despite these problems, the American Chemistry Council spends millions of dollars per year lobbying to keep products made with Styrofoam on the market, according to SOSnyc.org.

SOSnyc.org is campaigning for the removal of disposable trays from the New York City school system altogether, not just one day a week, but its campaign is a start. The group’s advocacy has not fallen on deaf ears. Since March 2010, all 1,500 New York City public schools have been serving lunch in recyclable paper containers every Tuesday, cutting the waste from polystyrene trays by 20 percent across the five boroughs. SOSnyc.org is spearheading an effort to find permanent alternatives for polystyrene trays five days a week. Those schools with dishwashers could switch to reusable trays. Recyclable or compostable cardboard trays could work for schools without dishwashers, but manufacturers have not yet come up with anything as lightweight and sturdy as polystyrene for such applications. But with such a big potential market for non-polystyrene trays opening up, greener alternatives are sure to emerge soon.

CONTACTS: SOSnyc.org, www.sosnyc.org; Center for Health, Environment and Justice, www.chej.org; American Chemistry Council, www.americanchemistry.com.

Dear EarthTalk: Is it true that environmental factors could be playing a role in the increasing number of prostate cancer cases in the U.S. and elsewhere? – Joshua Gordon, New York, NY

Prostate cancer is a growing problem for men in the U.S. as well as in other developed nations around the world. Some 40,000 American men lose their battle with prostate cancer every year—the only cancer more deadly for U.S. men is skin cancer. Age is the primary “risk factor” for developing prostate cancer. One out of every six American men over the age of 40 will develop prostate cancer, while four out of five over 80 years old will get it. Of course, genes also play a big role. The American Cancer Society reports that a man’s prostate cancer risk doubles if his father or brother has suffered from the disease. Researchers believe a genetic predisposition accounts for as many as 10 percent of all cases of the disease in the U.S.

Beyond age and genetics, though, environmental factors do likely play a role. WebMD reports, for instance, that prostate cancer occurs about 60 percent more often in African American men than in white American men, and when diagnosed is more likely to be advanced. But interestingly enough, prostate cancer rates for African men living in their native countries are much lower. When native Africans immigrate to the U.S., however, prostate cancer rates increase sharply.

According to WebMD, the reason for these differences are not fully understood, but an environmental connection—possibly related to high-fat diets, less exposure to the sun, exposure to heavy metals, infectious agents, or smoking—might be to blame. Some new research suggests that a switch to a diet high in fat could be a significant contributing factor in these cases. “The disease is much more common in countries where meat and dairy products are dietary staples,” adds WebMD.

The take-away for men concerned about prostate health is to eat healthier. Several studies suggest that a diet high in lycopene (an antioxidant found in high levels in tomatoes, pink grapefruit, watermelon and some other fruits and veggies) could lower an individual’s risk of developing prostate cancer significantly.

Researchers have also found links between other environmental factors and prostate cancer. Dr. Matthew Schmitz, a prostate cancer specialist at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital and the prostate cancer “guide” at About.com, reports that exposure to high levels of cadmium (a naturally occurring element used in industrial processes and present in cigarette smoke) as well as dioxins (chemicals widely used in herbicides and other applications) have been linked to increased prostate cancer risk. Other researchers have noticed that men who take calcium supplements and multi-vitamins regularly may be at higher risk. Schmitz says that more research is needed to learn how risky such exposures really are.

For those who do get prostate cancer, some promising new treatments will be undergoing clinical trials soon. Dr. Marianne Sadar of the BC Cancer Agency in Vancouver, Canada, has used an experimental drug adapted from sea sponges to shrink cancer tumors in mice. It will be a year before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration permits trials of the new drug on humans, but prostate patients and their doctors are holding out hope that this and other new treatments can obviate the need for many surgeries.

CONTACTS: American Cancer Society, www.cancer.org; WebMD, www.webmd.com; About.com, www.about.com; U.S. Food and Drug Administration, www.fda.gov.

Dear EarthTalk: Given the environmental and economic benefits, why doesn’t the U.S. have a federal law mandating recycling nationwide? – N. Koslowsky, Pompano Beach, FL

Just a few decades ago, Americans recycled less than 10 percent of their solid waste. Today, Americans recycle some 32 percent of the 350 million tons of refuse they generate annually (Media credit/Tom Magliery via Flickr)

The U.S. government has historically relied on state and local governments to handle waste management in all of its forms, including recycling. Although there have been a few attempts to push legislation through Congress to mandate minimum national recycling rates, none have made it out of committee hearings. Federal lawmakers are loathe to take waste management regulatory powers away from individual states which have vastly different needs from one another. For instance, less populous western states with lots of extra land for siting landfills might not be as inclined to push for higher recycling rates as those crowded eastern states with less room to store their trash.

According to Chaz Miller, Director of State Programs at the National Solid Wastes Management Association, America’s very first federal solid waste law, 1965’s Solid Waste Disposal Act—itself an amendment to the original Clean Air Act—didn’t even mention recycling. “Eleven years later, Congress passed the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), which remains the cornerstone of federal solid waste and recycling legislation,” reports Miller. RCRA abolished open dumps and required the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to create guidelines for solid waste disposal and regulations for hazardous waste management, but had little to say about recycling except to call for an increase in federal purchases of products made with recycled content. The EPA also published manuals and workshops on implementing curbside recycling programs, although funding for such programs dried up by 1981.

Nevertheless, the seed had taken root. Pioneering programs in Massachusetts and elsewhere led to the development of curbside recycling programs in more than 600 municipalities throughout the U.S.—mostly in the Northeast and on the West Coast—by the mid-1980s. In addition, 10 states introduced “bottle bill” laws to encourage recycling of beer and soft drink containers. Two states, Rhode Island and New Jersey, both being small, densely populated and short on landfill space, implemented comprehensive approaches to recycling. They began requiring local jurisdictions to pick-up residents’ and businesses’ paper, metal and glass, and helped towns and cities set-up systems for pick-up, sorting and materials recovery. Most of the 8,600-plus municipal recycling programs in existence today are modeled on these early efforts.

Just a few decades ago, Americans recycled less than 10 percent of their solid waste. Multi-material and curbside collection programs were non-existent, paper was only collected sporadically when a local scout troop or similar group organized a paper drive, and family-owned scrap dealers would occasionally buy paper and metal scrap based on limited market demand for additional raw materials.

Today, the EPA estimates that Americans recycle some 32 percent of the 350 million tons of refuse they generate annually. While it still has no federal platform for doing so, the EPA, through its Resource Conservation Challenge program, is pushing for Americans to up that rate. Forty-two states now have their own recycling or waste diversion goals, and 18 are trying to divert upwards of half their waste via recycling or composting.
CONTACTS: National Solid Wastes Management Association, www.environmentalistseveryday.org; EPA Resource Conservation Challenge, www.epa.gov/osw/rcc.

Dear EarthTalk: I work at a fast food place and I am appalled by the amount of unpurchased food we throw away. The boss says we can’t give it away for legal reasons. Where can I turn for help on this, so the food could instead go to people in need? — Ryan Jones, Richland, WA

Many U.S. food businesses will not donate excess food to those in need due to liability concerns. However, it is an unfounded fear because laws in all 50 states protect food donors from civil and criminal liability for good faith donations. (Brand X Pictures)

Many restaurants, fast food or otherwise, are hesitant to donate unused food due to concerns about liability if people get sick after eating it—especially because once any such food is out of the restaurant’s hands, who knows how long it might be before it is served again. But whether these restaurants know it or not, they cannot be held liable for food donated to organizations, and sometimes all it might take to change company policy would be a little advocacy from concerned employees.

A 1995 survey found that over 80 percent of food businesses in the U.S. did not donate excess food due to liability concerns. In response, Congress passed the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act, which releases restaurants and other food organizations from liability associated with the donation of food waste to nonprofits assisting individuals in need. The Act protects donors in all 50 states from civil and criminal liability for good faith donations of “apparently wholesome food”—defined as meeting “all quality and labeling standards imposed by Federal, State and local laws and regulations even though the food may not be readily marketable due to appearance, age, freshness, grade, size, surplus or other condition.”

While homeless shelters, elder care organizations and boys and girls clubs are frequent beneficiaries of food donations, the most common recipients are food banks and food rescue programs. Food banks, according to California’s CalRecycle website, “collect food from a variety of sources, save the food in a warehouse, then distribute it to hungry families and individuals through local human service agencies.” They usually collect less perishable items like canned goods, which can be stored and used any time. In contrast, food rescue programs typically trade in perishable and prepared foods, distributing it to agencies that feed hungry people, usually later that same day. Mama’s Health, a leading health education website, maintains an extensive free database of food banks and food rescue programs state-by-state.

Unused or even partially eaten food waste can also be utilized even if it’s not edible by human standards. The U.S. Department of Agriculture approves of food businesses giving or selling food waste to local farmers for use in composting or as animal feed. If such food contains or has come into contact with meat, it should be boiled for 30 minutes to reduce the risk of bacterial infections in the animals that eat it. Many states have complementary laws on the books regulating the donation of food waste at the local level.

Many cities and town are now expanding curbside pickup programs to include kitchen scraps and yard waste and then diverting the food waste into profitable compost. Still, some 6.7 percent of the solid waste going into landfills consists of food discards, reports the North Carolina Division of Pollution Prevention and Environmental Assistance. Diverting food waste to feed hungry people or for animal feed or compost is a winning scenario for all concerned parties as it not only provides relief to overburdened landfills but also helps meet social welfare, agricultural and environmental needs. Also, those restaurants, grocery stores and other businesses that donate food will likely reap the additional reward of saving money on their actual waste removal bill as their trash bins and dumpsters won’t be filling up quite so fast.

CONTACTS: CalRecycle, www.calrecycle.ca.gov; Mama’s Health, www.mamashealth.com; North Carolina Division of Pollution Prevention and Environmental Assistance, www.p2pays.org.

Dear EarthTalk: I am looking for a small, modular home to put on a piece of vacation property. What’s available that could meet my needs and be easier on the environment than building a traditional house from scratch? – Rob Sherman, Minneapolis, MN

Self-contained modular homes that can be partially or even fully fabricated in advance are now all the rage among green architects and those committed to more sustainable living. Pictured: the exterior and interior of a modular home from the Latvian firm Esclice

First utilized by relief and aid missions around the world to house workers or refugees, self-contained modular homes that can be partially or even fully fabricated in advance are now all the rage among green architects and those committed to more sustainable living—and they’re beginning to pop all across North America and beyond, mostly for use as guest houses and vacation cabins. The benefits of such homes versus their larger traditional counterparts are many. In theory, prefabrication generates less waste, uses less energy, and provides more opportunities for the incorporation of greener construction methods and technologies. Most such buildings are also less demanding on the home site of choice.

One of the leaders in this fast-growing sector of residential construction is Toronto’s Sustain Design Studio, which has been building on its miniHome concept for almost a decade. The firm’s miniHomes range from single- to double-wide sizes and can fit into trailer parks or small urban lots accordingly, but are also optimized for off-grid self-sufficiency in wide open or wilderness areas. The buildings, which are mostly prefabricated at Sustain’s Toronto build facility, combine energy efficient systems with beautiful finishes that make owners feel like they are indulging yet remaining true to their green ideals.

Sustain’s California miniHome, for example, comes complete with all millwork, cabinets, plumbing fixtures and appliances, as well as high efficiency lighting circuits, plug-and-play connections to renewable power sources, sustainably sourced woods, and a built-in HVAC/water system that generates 20 times fewer greenhouse gas emissions than a conventional home—all for under $150,000.

Another player is the Latvian firm Esclice, whose buildings can be installed on-site by two workers in two hours once foundation posts, water and wastewater hook-ups and electricity are in place. Other design studios building similar homes include Quikhouse, Zerocabin, Method Homes and Stem Design Works.

Of course, potential buyers should keep in mind that a home’s construction is just a fraction of its life-cycle carbon footprint—small pre-fab houses are built by people who also drive to work, watch TV and sometimes take long showers—plus, producing and shipping steel, concrete and other building materials are the major drivers behind any building’s carbon and energy footprint, wherever it’s manufactured.

Bearing that in mind, Seattle-based HyBrid Architecture has come up with an interesting slice on the sustainable small home idea: “cargotecture,” which describes the buildings it creates out of empty ISO shipping containers (those large boxes used for long-distance international shipping that one sees stacked atop giant cargo ships). Since many of these containers make just one-way trips from China, HyBrid has a lot of raw material to choose from. A single 8’ x 20’ container yields 160 square feet of living space, and the structures can be placed side-by-side or stacked up to eight high for more interior square footage. And while no one wants to live in a shipping container, HyBrid cuts doors and windows out of them and finishes them outside so that they look like modern yet nevertheless somewhat traditional buildings.

CONTACTS: Sustain, www.sustain.ca; Esclice, www.esclice.eu/houses/en; Quikhouse, www.quik-build.com; Stem Design Works, www.stemcreativespace.com; Zerocabin, www.zerocabin.com; Method Homes, www.methodhomes.net; HyBrid Architecture, www.hybridseattle.com/cargotecture.html.

Dear EarthTalk: I know that some people abstain from meat on Fridays for religious reasons, but what’s the story behind “Meatless Mondays?” — Sasha Burger, Ronkonkoma, NY

Meatless Monday—the modern version of it, at least—was born in 2003 with the goal of reducing meat consumption by 15 percent in the U.S. and beyond. The rationale? Livestock production accounts for one-fifth of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and is also a major factor in global forest and habitat loss, freshwater depletion, pollution and human health problems. The average American eats some eight ounces of meat every day—45 percent more than the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s recommended amount.

An outgrowth of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for a Livable Future, the Meatless Monday project offers vegetarian recipes, interviews with experts, various resources for schools, organizations and municipalities that wish to promote the initiative—and regular updates on Facebook and Twitter. “Going meatless once a week can reduce your risk of chronic preventable conditions like cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity,” the group reports. “It can also help limit your carbon footprint and save resources like fresh water and fossil fuel.”

The Meatless Monday concept actually dates back to World War I, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) urged citizens to reduce their meat, wheat and sugar intakes, since such foods took more energy to produce than others. Americans willing to cut back—even just one day a week—would be supporting the troops and helping to feed starving Europeans. To encourage participation, the FDA coined the terms “Meatless Monday” and “Wheatless Wednesday” and published vegetarian cookbooks and informational pamphlets. The campaign was resurrected briefly during World War II, but then died down.

But as Meatless Monday President Peggy Neu reports in a recent issue of E – The Environmental Magazine, today the initiative has transcended its war effort origins: “The focus for the first couple of years was health,” Neu says, but the movement has begun to grow in part because of increasing awareness of the environmental impact of meat consumption.

Some of the municipalities and institutions that have signed on include the City of San Francisco, the Baltimore Public School System, and Harvard and Columbia universities (along with some two dozen other colleges). Similar campaigns have sprung up in two dozen other countries, while the city of Ghent in Belgium, Oxford University in the UK, and Israel’s Tel Aviv University have also pledged to participate.

In May of 2010, a Washington Post article reported that the meat industry is feeling the heat. “Over the past year, lobbying groups including the American Meat Institute, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the National Pork Board and the Farm Bureau have launched a quiet campaign to try to reverse the momentum,” reported the piece. The Animal Agriculture Alliance and the American Meat Institute have railed that Baltimore schoolchildren are being denied protein—and have urged citizens not to allow Meatless Monday to spread. But Neu says the movement is here to stay. “I want this movement to be sustainable prevention,” she says, “not just a health or environmental fad.”
CONTACTS: Meatless Monday, www.meatlessmonday.com; Center for a Livable Future, www.jhsph.edu/clf; E – The Environmental Magazine, www.emagazine.com/view/?5295.

Dear EarthTalk: I’ve heard of global warming, of course, but what on Earth is “global dimming?” – Max S., Seattle, WA

Global dimming is a less well-known but real phenomenon resulting from atmospheric pollution. The burning of fossil fuels by industry and internal combustion engines, in addition to releasing the carbon dioxide that collects and traps the sun’s heat within our atmosphere, causes the emission of so-called particulate pollution—composed primarily of sulphur dioxide, soot and ash. When these particulates enter the atmosphere they absorb solar energy and reflect sunlight otherwise bound for the Earth’s surface back into space. Particulate pollution also changes the properties of clouds—so-called “brown clouds” are more reflective and produce less rainfall than their more pristine counterparts. The reduction in heat reaching the Earth’s surface as a result of both of these processes is what researchers have dubbed global dimming.

“At first, it sounds like an ironic savior to climate change problems,” reports Anup Shah of the website GlobalIssues.org. “However, it is believed that global dimming caused the droughts in Ethiopia in the 1970s and 80s where millions died, because the northern hemisphere oceans were not warm enough to allow rain formation.” He adds that global dimming is also hiding the true power of global warming: “By cleaning up global dimming-causing pollutants without tackling greenhouse gas emissions, rapid warming has been observed, and various human health and ecological disasters have resulted, as witnessed during the European heat wave in 2003, which saw thousands of people die.”

Just how big an issue is global dimming? Columbia University climatologist Beate Liepert notes a reduction by some four percent of the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface between 1961 and 1990, a time when particulate emissions began to skyrocket around the world. But a 2007 study by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) found an overall reversal of global dimming since 1990, probably due to stricter pollution standards adopted by the U.S. and Europe around that time.

Whether or not to try to reduce global dimming in a fast-warming world is a conundrum. Most climate scientists believe global dimming is serving to counteract some of the warming effects brought on by increased carbon emissions. “The conventional thinking is that brown clouds have masked as much as 50 percent of global warming by greenhouse gases through so-called global dimming,” reports Veerabhadran Ramanathan, an atmospheric chemist at California’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He adds, however, that brown clouds have been known to amplify warming as a result of various environmental factors, especially in regions of southern and eastern Asia.

Some scientists have gone so far as to propose deliberate manipulation of the dimming effect to reduce the impact of global warming, in other words increasing particulate emissions. But Gavin Schmidt, an atmospheric scientist and one of the voices behind the RealClimate blog, argues that such a scheme would hardly provide a long term fix to our environmental excesses and ills and amount to a Faustian bargain, bringing with it “ever increasing monetary and health costs.”

CONTACTS: Global Issues Blog, www.globalissues.org; Scripps Institution of Oceanography, www.sio.ucsd.edu; RealClimate Blog, www.realclimate.org.

Dear EarthTalk: What, if anything, fills the empty space underground created by the extraction of billions of gallons of oil? Could oil drilling be one of the causes of increasing amounts of land settling and sinkholes in oil rich areas? Can it cause earthquakes? -- Linda Anderson, Sedona, AZ

The U.S. Geological Survey cites several cases throughout the 20th century which they say demonstrate how accelerated withdrawal of oil and gas from some reservoirs can lower land elevation, cause minor earthquakes and activate faults around oil fields (Media credit/Richard Masoner via Flickr)

The crude oil (and natural gas) we drill for the world over is, for the most part, stored in tiny pores within rock up to only about three miles deep in the Earth’s hugely dense crust. At such depths, the oil there is under fairly high pressure. When it is removed, other liquids—usually water—move in to take its place, equalizing the pressure in the process. Sometimes oil extractors pump water into one side of an oil field to push oil toward wells on the other side, and the water replaces the oil accordingly.

In cases where other liquids don’t move in, such as in the North Sea off The Netherlands, the porous rock layer that harbored the oil originally can collapse after extraction, causing slight amounts of land settling (known as “land subsidence”) in the rock layer surfaces above, but typically no more than a few tenths of an inch per year.

Here in the U.S., land subsidence induced by the large volume extraction of underground resources including oil and gas “is more common than most people realize,” according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), a government agency which collects, monitors, analyzes and provides scientific understanding about natural resource conditions, issues and problems. Flat coastal plains and wetlands near sea level are most at risk from this potential side effect.

Excessive ground water pumping, not oil or gas extraction, is the single largest source of land subsidence, says the USGS, but the agency cites several cases throughout the 20th century which they say demonstrate how “accelerated withdrawal of oil, gas and associated water from shallow unconsolidated reservoirs could lower the land elevation, cause minor earthquakes, and activate faults [around oil fields].”

Subsidence around large, mature oil and gas fields that coincide with faults could add enough stress to trigger small, locally based earthquakes as far as two kilometers away from the offending wells. Most geologists agree, though, that it is unlikely that oil and gas extraction could contribute to or cause major earthquakes, which are generated at depths far deeper than would be practical to drill for oil or gas. The USGS does suggest, however, that the continued withdrawal of oil and gas and the associated decline in underground fluid pressure could even contribute to coastal sea level rises by lowering coastal land elevations.

As for sinkholes, modern oil wells tend to be much deeper than the depth where sinkholes typically can affect people. Nonetheless, in 1980 residents of the West Texas town of Wink awoke one morning to find a 370-foot wide, 110-foot deep sinkhole a couple of miles north of downtown. Geologists suspect the sinkhole formed as a result of historic (and by today’s standards outdated) oil production practices in the area whereby extractors pumped saltwater out from underneath the surface and left a void that the above layer of earth eventually collapsed into. A second, even bigger sinkhole opened up nearby in 2002.

CONTACT: U.S. Geological Survey, www.usgs.gov.

Dear EarthTalk: I’m considering going for a teeth whitening, but is this safe to do?  – Clara Reid, Kent, Washington

In the U.S., teeth whitening products are not regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as they are not classified as drugs. As such, long term safety data doesn’t exist for them. But health experts warn that consumers should beware of the risks of using stronger varieties containing hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide tends to be more effective (it essentially bleaches the tooth enamel), but it is a harsh chemical that can be poisonous if swallowed.

Europa, the official website of the European Union (EU), cites studies showing that bleaching teeth with hydrogen peroxide-based products can “harm the surface of the teeth, making the enamel more porous and leading to dents, scratches and loss of minerals.” Europa further warns that it’s important for people to keep their tooth enamel in good condition as it is “the protective, hard layer covering the softer dentine inside the tooth” and “does not regenerate.” The EU recommends people avoid tooth whitening products with hydrogen peroxide levels higher than a 1.5 percent concentration; most over-the-counter varieties come in at about a 0.5 percent concentration level. If the label on the product you are considering doesn’t indicate the concentration, it might be better to go with one that has a more complete ingredients listing.

Dentists can access teeth whitening solutions with higher concentrations of hydrogen peroxide than are available over-the-counter; as such a professional job in your dentist’s office will be more effective and last longer than the solutions you can take home from the drug store. And while higher concentrations of hydrogen peroxide might not be what you’re looking for, dentists can apply it in more targeted ways. If you do it yourself at home there is a greater chance you will expose your gums and other parts of your mouth to hydrogen peroxide or swallow more of it than you should.

As for maintaining that bright white look, whether you did it yourself or had it done professionally, your local drugstore or supermarket no doubt carries a wide selection of toothpastes that claim to whiten teeth. The ones which work the best contain—you guessed it!—hydrogen peroxide, which can be irritating if used day after day.

Fortunately for the health-minded home teeth whitener there are many less harsh varieties of these toothpastes now on the market. The website Skin Deep, a free online safety guide to cosmetics and personal care products published by the non-profit Environmental Working Group, lists Tom’s of Maine Natural Antiplaque Tartar Control Plus Whitening Toothpaste—which makes use of all-natural hydrated silica, not hydrogen peroxide, for whitening and stain removal—as one of the safest kinds of whitening toothpastes out there today. Burt’s Bees Natural Fluoride-Free Whitening Toothpaste and CloSYS Toothpaste for Teeth Whitening also get high marks from Skin Deep for their natural, non-toxic ingredients. While such products may not be “advanced” formulations from a leading packaged goods conglomerate, your teeth and body may thank you later.

CONTACTS: U.S. Food and Drug Administration, www.fda.gov; Europa, www.europa.eu; Greenfootsteps, www.greenfootsteps.com; Skin Deep, www.cosmeticsdatabase.com; Tom’s of Maine, www.tomsofmaine.com; Burt’s Bees, www.burtsbees.com; CloSYS, www.rowpar.com.

Matthew Mazzotta, armed with a $4,000 grant from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, created the ingenious Park Spark converter system that uses dog poop to power a gas lantern that illuminates a corner of the Pacific Street Dog Park in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Pictured: A local resident admires Mazzotta's handiwork . (Media credit/Luke Ryan via Flickr)

Dear EarthTalk: Is there a way to utilize the energy in my dogs’ poop? I have three dogs and lots of poop and would like to dispose of it in a “greener” manner. — Mary C., Wallace, ID

No doubt creating a way to do so is possible, as large systems called anaerobic digesters (or biogas digesters) are often used in landfills to wring energy out of trash, as well as on some big farms and ranches where large amounts of cow manure provide plenty of feedstock. In such systems microbes generate methane gas—which can be captured and used for power—once they are set free on manure or trash. The economics of putting biogas digesters in landfills or big cattle operations can make the up-front expense tolerable—money can be made or saved by selling or utilizing the resulting power—but doing so in one’s back yard might be a different story.

Not to say it can’t be done: This past September artist Matthew Mazzotta, armed with a $4,000 grant from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)—where he earned a master’s degree in visual studies last year—created the ingenious Park Spark poop converter system that uses dog poop to power a gas lantern that illuminates a corner of the Pacific Street Dog Park in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The system uses two steel, 500-gallon oil tanks, connected by diagonal black piping and attached to an old gaslight-style street lantern. “After the dogs do their business, signs on the tanks instruct owners to use biodegradable bags supplied on site to pick up the poop and deposit it into the left tank,” reports Jay Lindsay on the Huffington Post. “People then turn a wheel to stir its insides, which contain waste and water. Microbes in the waste give off methane, an odorless gas that is fed through the tanks to the lamp and burned off.” Although the park is small, neighborhood dog owners have provided enough waste for a steady supply of fuel.

The 33-year old Mazzotta got the idea after travelling in India and seeing people there using poop in small “methane digesters” to cook food. When he visited Pacific Street Park with a friend in 2009 and saw the park’s trash can filled with bags of dog poop, the Park Spark idea was born. He hopes the installation, which was dismantled after its one-month run, has helped point out to people that there are potential energy sources all around us, and that we must consider every option at our disposal, so to speak, as we wean ourselves off oil in the face of impending climate change.

Besides reducing waste going to landfills, another environmental benefit of utilizing dog poop for energy is reducing one’s carbon footprint. Burning methane derived from dog poop or other biodegradable waste material in an anaerobic digester is carbon neutral, meaning it doesn’t contribute any new greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that could exacerbate global warming.

While it might not be worth $4,000 or a degree from MIT for you to create your own version of the Park Spark in your backyard, it’s good to know that such technology exists, and will no doubt someday be available and affordable for the rest of us as long as we continue to show find ways to reduce, reuse and recycle everything we possibly can.

CONTACTS: The Park Spark Project, www.parksparkproject.com; The Huffington Post, www.huffingtonpost.com.

Dear EarthTalk: Are there efforts to increase bike lanes and paths around the nation? I’d like to be able to bike more instead of drive, but I’m concerned about safety. — John Shields, Minneapolis, MN

Around the U.S. new bike lanes and paths are all the rage, helping cash-strapped cities simultaneously green operations and trim budgets—adding bike lanes is far less costly (to taxpayers and the environment) than building new roads. Also, the nonprofit League of American Bicyclists reports that real estate values increase with proximity to bike paths. “People enjoy living close to bike paths and are willing to pay more for an otherwise comparable house to be closer to one,” the group reports, citing examples from Indiana, California and elsewhere showing that homes near bike trails command a premium upwards of 10 percent.

In New York City, bicycling is the fastest growing mode of transportation. A 2006 citywide mandate has led to the laying down of some 200 miles of new bike paths recently. Also, the area around Madison Square in midtown is now bike-friendly; seven blocks of Broadway now feature green-painted bike lanes between the curb and the parking lane to provide cyclists with a buffer against rushing motorized traffic.

In September, central Tennessee (Nashville and environs) adopted an ambitious plan to add upwards of 1,000 miles of bike paths (also 750 miles of sidewalks) across seven counties, a scheme that won the “best project” award from the Institute of Transportation Engineers. Nashville itself will increase alternative transportation spending from 0.5 percent to 15 percent of its transportation budget, and hopes to reduce traffic congestion and obesity—Tennessee has the nation’s second highest rate of obesity—in the process.

Portland, Oregon, long a leading U.S. city on environmental policy, has allocated over $20 million over the last few years for bicycle infrastructure improvements, and plans to spend another $24 million upgrading the city’s network of bike paths and trails. One of the city’s latest innovations has been to convert two parking spaces on city streets to bike corrals capable of holding two dozen bicycles. In addition the Bike Portland blog reports that the city now supports some 125 bike related businesses, mostly small and locally owned, covering everything from custom bike building to accessories and repair.

In Davis, California, named America’s top cycling city by the League of American Bicyclists, bikes outnumber cars and bike paths occupy 95 percent of arterial and collector roads there. Some 14 percent of all commuters in Davis commute to work by bike, which is 35 times the national average. Other cities in the League’s Top 10 include Palo Alto and San Francisco in California; Corvallis, Portland and Eugene in Oregon; Boulder, Colorado; Madison, Wisconsin; Tucson, Arizona; and Seattle, Washington.

Some cities—New York, Los Angeles, Seattle—make available maps of bicycle routes. The inclusion of bike routes on Google Maps has also been a boon to cyclists across the country looking for the safest and most direct routes. Users can click on a bicycle icon after hitting “Get Directions.” Local bicycle clubs are a good place to turn to find the best bike-friendly routes though your region; The A1 Trails website provides a comprehensive list of bike clubs and other resources around the U.S. and Canada. With so many tools and new infrastructure, it might be high time to leave the car parked and hop on your bicycle.

CONTACTS: League of America Bicyclists, www.bikeleague.org; Institute of Transportation Engineers, www.ite.org; Bike Portland, www.bikeportland.org; A1 Trails, www.a1trails.com.

(Media credit/Kate Ter Haar via Flickr)

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Bisphenol A (also known as BPA) is a chemical that has been in use for upwards of four decades in the manufacture of many hard plastic food containers, including baby bottles and reusable cups and the lining of metal food and beverage cans (including canned liquid infant formula). The agency further reports that “trace amounts of BPA can be found in some foods packaged in these containers.”

The non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) reports that “growing amount of scientific research has linked BPA exposure to altered development of the brain and behavioral changes, a predisposition to prostate and breast cancer, reproductive harm, diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.” The group adds that more than 93 percent of Americans have some BPA in their bodies, primarily from exposure through food contamination and other preventable contact.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration was initially dismissive of worries about BPA, but increased public pressure and new research on the potential effects of BPA on the brain and the prostate gland in fetuses, infants and young children have forced the agency to revisit its last survey on the topic from 2008. “While we learn more, the Food and Drug Administration is supporting current efforts by industry to stop the manufacture of infant bottles and feeding cups made with BPA…,” reports HHS.

In the meantime, consumers can be vigilant. The plastic items most likely to contain are made of either polyvinyl chloride (PVC, or plastic #3) or from mixed plastic sources, otherwise known in the recycling industry as “other” or plastic #7. PVC plastics—also notorious for leaching toxic phthalates that have been linked to human reproductive and developmental problems—are found in a wide range of products, from shampoo and salad dressing containers to shower curtains and kids’ toys. Those once-ubiquitous polycarbonate unbreakable baby and water bottles reputed to leach BPA are also a #7 plastic, though #7 is a catch-all for otherwise unidentified or mixed plastics; as such, not all #7 plastic will contain BPA.

As for other disposable and non-disposable household items, if you can locate a recycling number and you find a #1 (polyethylene, PET or PETE), #2 (high density polyethylene), #4 (low density polyethylene) or #5 (polypropylene) or #6 (polystyrene), the item should be free of BPA. (Note: #6 polystyrene, often used for disposable cups, plates and cutlery, doesn’t contain BPA but can leach the toxic carcinogen styrene into the foods and beverages it touches, and should also be avoided.)

If there’s no recycling number on the item, you can find out if an item contains BPA yourself with a BPA Test Kit from Home-Health-Chemistry.com. A kit with two swabs, all needed testing solutions and instructions is $4.99; a 10-swab set costs $14.99. Otherwise, you can replace the questionable item with one that you know is BPA-free (many companies now use this as a selling point) and vow to make more informed purchasing choices in the future.

CONTACTS: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services BPA Page, www.hhs.gov/safety/bpa/; NRDC, www.nrdc.org; Home-Health-Chemistry.com, www.home-health-chemistry.com.

Dear EarthTalk: A friend of mine working on the Gulf Coast oil cleanup says that at least 50 percent of the loose oil is laying on the sea floor. What’s the long-term prognosis of this? – Chris H., Darien, CT

It’s true that oil from BPs Deepwater Horizon fiasco is still sticking to and covering parts of the sea floor for some 80 miles or more around the site of the now-capped well. In early September, researchers from the University of Georgia found oil some two inches thick on the sea floor as far as 80 miles away from the source of the leak, with a layer of dead shrimp and other small animals under it.

“I expected to find oil on the sea floor,” Samantha Joye, lead researcher for the University of Georgia’s team of scientists studying the effects of the Deepwater Horizon spill, told reporters. “I didn’t expect to find layers two inches thick. It’s kind of like having a blizzard where the snow comes in and covers everything,” Joye said.

But as recently as three months ago the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported finding no evidence of oil accumulating on the sea floor in the Gulf. NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco told reporters then that the oil from the massive spill that never made it to the surface was dispersed naturally or chemically. She added that only about a quarter of the 200 million gallons of spilled oil remained in the Gulf, the rest having “disappeared” or been contained or cleaned up.

But some researchers say NOAA misled the public by saying that much of the oil simply disappeared. Ian MacDonald, an oceanographer at Florida State University, says that initial reports from NOAA about how much oil remains in the Gulf were too optimistic. The oil “did not disappear,” he says. “It sank.”

One of the reasons why so much oil may have sunk was because it was broken up into tiny droplets by chemical dispersants, making the oil so small that it wasn’t buoyant enough to rise as would otherwise be expected. Also, as oil still in the water column ages it becomes more tar-like in a process called weathering, and as such becomes more likely to sink. And to make matters worse, oil on the sea floor takes longer to degrade than it would on the surface because of the colder temperatures down deep.

The new findings are particularly troubling because of the potential ripple effects the remaining oil could have on the wider ecosystem and industries that rely on a healthy marine environment. Marine biologists and environmentalists worry that the oil is doing significant harm to populations of tube worms, tiny crustaceans and mollusks, single-cell organisms and other underwater life forms that shape the building blocks of the marine food chain.

“Deep-sea animals, in general, tend to produce fewer offspring than shallower water animals, so if they are going to have a population impact, it may be more sensitive in deep water,” reports Louisiana State University oceanographer Robert Carney. “There is also some evidence that deep-sea animals live longer than shallower water species, so the impact may stay around longer.”

CONTACTS: University of Georgia Department of Marine Sciences Gulf Oil Blog, gulfblog.uga.edu; NOAA, www.noaa.gov; Louisiana State University, www.lsu.edu.

There are many online websites and blogs that offer green investing strategies and tips as well as news and views on developments in various green business sectors.

Dear EarthTalk: What are some good resources out there for learning about investments that help the environment? — Rob Johnson, Sherman Oaks, CA

The best green investing resources are available online, many for free. One good place to start is the Green Money Journal, which features a wide range of informative and free articles to help the individual investor make sense of the panoply of choices available when it comes to investing with the Earth in mind. Publisher Cliff Feigenbaum, also co-author of the book, Investing With Your Values (New Society, 2000), has been running the publication, first in print and now online, since 1992, and makes sure that each quarterly issue is chock full of tips and strategies for making a statement while making a buck.

Another great resource is SustainableBusiness.com’s online Progressive Investor newsletter. Publisher Rona Fried keeps each issue fresh with advice from leading green portfolio managers and other experts, and reports on trends in renewable energy and energy efficiency, green building, recycling, organic foods, healthy lifestyles, and more. Individual issues cost $21 or subscribers can get five issues for $112.

There are now also many green investing blogs. Tune in regularly to the Green Investing Times, which offers green investing strategies and tips as well as news and views on developments in the so-called "CleanTech" sectors. The Green Chip Stocks website also tracks news about clean and green companies. BusinessWeek‘s Business Exchange blog features a live stream of up-to-the-minute posts pertaining to green business. For another perspective entirely, check out sites like Treehugger.com and Sustainablog, each which has unique takes on the latest and greatest in green technology and trends.

Some of the general finance and investing websites have also put together pretty good sections on green investing. Investopedia‘s special feature on green investing offers dozens of articles, question-and-answer features and commentaries covering the gamut of options when it comes to investing with one’s values. The Motley Fool also runs information regularly pertaining to green investing.

If you don’t want to spend your days tracking the markets, you could leave it to the experts like the portfolio managers at Portland, Oregon-based Portfolio 21 Investments. The firm puts investor dollars to work supporting companies "developing cleaner and more efficient energy solutions, products designed to be reused and rebuilt, and processes that eliminate the need for toxic inputs while producing little or no waste." The firm’s global equity mutual fund is open to individual investors willing to put in at least $5,000, while the minimum on retirement accounts is only $1,000.

There are other green mutual funds out there, too, of course, that screen the stocks they pick according to environmental and social responsibility standards. Domini, Calvert, Sustainable Asset Management, Pax World and MMA Praxis all have offerings targeting specific industries and general green performance.

CONTACTS: Green Money Journal, www.greenmoneyjournal.com; Investopedia, www.investopedia.com/features/green-investing.aspx; Motley Fool, www.motleyfool.com; Progressive Investor, www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/progressiveinvestor.main; Green Investing Times, www.greeninvestingtimes.com; Treehugger, www.treehugger.com; Sustainablog, www.sustainablog.org; BusinessWeek’s Business Exchange Green Investing, http://bx.businessweek.com/green-investing/blogs .

Converting an existing home to solar power can cost upwards of $25,000 and is probably not be a good investment for most people, strictly economically speaking. But if you're building a new home, incorporating a solar system from the get-go is simply a matter of choosing solar over something else and therefore may pencil out much better. (Media credit/Student Design and Experiential Learning Center via Flickr)

Dear EarthTalk: Is it now feasible to provide all of a home’s energy needs—including air conditioning—with solar power alone? If so, why hasn’t solar caught on more, particularly in U.S. "Sun Belt" states from southern California east to Florida? – Tim Douglas, Burlington, VT

It has been possible for years if not decades to provide all of a home’s energy needs with solar power. The technology is here and is only getting more efficient and less obtrusive every day. The only real stumbling block is cost: Solar systems capable of meeting all of an average U.S. home’s energy needs start at around $25,000. Given how inexpensive the grid-based power we now get all across the country remains—and, bear in mind that many utilities are working more and more renewable energy sources, like wind power, into their mix—going solar alone just doesn’t pencil out economically for most people.

Of course, many of us are starting to think beyond our individual bottom lines when it comes to energy usage as global warming nips at our heels. The federal and many state governments feel likewise and have set up generous rebates and incentives to encourage homeowners (and businesses) to embrace alternative renewable energy sources (including solar but also, wind, geothermal, biomass and even tidal power, among other choices). The federal government offers up a 30 percent personal tax credit (with no ceiling) on the cost of photovoltaic or other solar installations. To find a list of what’s available from states, check out the free listings at the website of the Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy (DSIRE).

In the nation’s top solar market, California, residents can cash in on some serious state-funded rebates as well. Thanks to the California Solar Initiative (CSI), a $3.2 billion solar rebate program funded by electric ratepayers, Golden State homeowners can get as much as a third or more off the cost to install a residential solar system. CSI’s website, Go Solar California, provides links to several online calculators that take into account home size and location as well as state and federal incentives to help you do the figuring.

In Arizona, homeowners can get 25 percent back (capped at $1,000 per residence) from the state on the cost of installing photovoltaic panels or other solar harvesters. Some Arizona utilities offer incentives, too. In Texas, homeowners who install solar panels can get a tax credit (capped at $2,000) for 30 percent of the cost of a system. Utilities in the Lone Star State also offer incentives for those who generate their own solar power, and some will buy the power back from customers via a program called "net-metering."

Meanwhile, the state of Florida offers a huge $4/watt rebate (capped at a whopping $20,000 for homeowners and $100,000 for businesses) for purchasers of solar photovoltaic systems there. But the website SolarPowerRocks.com reports that funding is running out and the program could end any day. Like Texas, Florida offers solar customers the ability to sell excess power back to the grid.

Even with such rebates, and the fact that solar energy is essentially free once the equipment to harness it is installed, the costs of converting an existing home to solar power is tough to swallow for most people, given that the cost to instead connect to the existing grid is zero. But if you’re building a new home, incorporating a solar system from the get-go is simply a matter of choosing solar over something else.

CONTACTS: DSIRE, www.dsireusa.org; Go Solar California, www.gosolarcalifornia.ca.gov; SolarPowerRocks.com, www.solarpowerrocks.com.