The Giant’s Shoulders #1

July 16th, 2008 • blog, carnival
Tags: carnival, the giant's shoulders

The inaugural edition of the new blog carnival based on history of science The Giant’s Shoulders is now up at A Block Around The Clock, another excellet scienceblogs.com member.

Carnival of the Green #136

July 15th, 2008 • blog, carnival
Tags: carnival, cotg

The newest Carnival of the Green is up at AIDG!

Pope preaches environmental stewardship

July 15th, 2008 • environmentalism
Tags: catholicism, environmentalism

This is something I can finally agree on, without issue, with Catholics: the Pope preaches to Australian Catholics about climate change (WSJ, sub. not required!). I’m fairly certain this will be the only time I agree with Catholics, or even the Pope, on an issue that’s actually important.

Thankfully this isn’t one of those brain-dead “God did/said it” speeches and makes humans solely responsible for their actions, Pope Benedict XVI uses Biblical messages to promote stewardship and engender care for the environment. I can’t find any specifics on exactly what he said just yet (I haven’t found an online transcript) but I’m sure he used things such as tithing in part of planning for his speech itself. See, tithing isn’t just about giving money to the church/clergy but also about community. The men who wrote the Bible understood that the message of sharing and donation were important which is why they stated all men who are able, should leave a portion of their crops for harvest by those who are needy or cannot afford to buy food stuffs (see Deut. 26:10-13). This was especially important in regards to Levites and Levite Priests but applies just as aptly to the poor, widowed, homeless, and outcasts.

Of course, this doesn’t mean much today as I doubt Catholics want to tithe to Jewish priests but the point is still the same: help people. The Pope was preaching his message heaviest to those who will make the most difference long term, young Catholics. Other leaders and companies need to take a lesson from this as for many products and issues are pitched at the wrong age groups. The most impressionable age group will be from roughly 12-30 since they will grow up learning that taking care of the environment is important and that will reflect later on in their life choices. It’s important to get this message out to as many as possible but like many things, it’s important to get this ingrained into the minds of kids as they will undoubtedly carry the most weight and purchasing power during the periods of when this is most important. Pushing EVs and hybrids to adults is important and a smart move as they have the buying power to get companies to recognize trends but making sure kids understand this same thing is more important as they’ll be far more likely to want to purchase an EV once they can drive or can purchase their first car (EVs are just an easy example but it’s applicable everywhere).

Movement in masses is exactly why (most) politicians try and up-play the younger generation, those freshly able to vote in their first Presidential race or Congressional elections. Companies should make the same moves, although more intelligently since they can have limitless coffers of money to spend on surveys and focus groups of 16-24 year olds. If politicians can wrap their heads around things like Twitter and Myspace, what’s stopping Toyota or Nissan or GM from listening to their customers and creating truly earth-friendly products, especially when money is involved? Or making best use of the mediums available to them for information dissemination and gathering? With mountains of free and readily available data, they’d be foolhardy to not heed it, even in the least amount possible.

Recent movements in Southern Baptist circles, the Religious Right, and Catholics are stirring to get their constituents involved more as the Bible clearly has messages about caring for the earth and fellow man. I may not agree with the overall message and its delivery but I do agree that getting more people on board the “green”, sustainable, “hippie”, environmental, or whatever-you-want-to-call-it movement is going to make a lot of important sit up and take notice. Companies understand what their customers want through marketing and surveys but they’ll understand what’s important to us a lot more if we start allocating spending dollars to more sustainable products and methods. They’ll switch over to get our money a lot quicker than if they had simply listened to market test groups and survey results.

I’m not sure where the Popeplane is touching down again but now that the G8 summit has concluded, one can be certain that he’ll be making more environmentally-focused speeches in the short-term and reaching out to the young Catholics at hand to try and make a difference, or try and convince their parents or politicians or companies to make a difference. Whatever he says to those ends is what matters and raising awareness is the biggest hurdle that we all have to deal with.

Farms and free food

July 11th, 2008 • chatter
Tags: farming, food bank

This weekend, we’re planning our first trip to D&D Farms for some fresh veggies that we’ll hopefully be picking ourselves. If not, I won’t have a heart attack. I’m mainly interested in bulking up my meager supply of dried peppers. Right now, I’ve only got about a dozen red chilis, jalapenos, and cherry peppers that I’ve dried for food additives. I hope to add at least a pound or more to that come Saturday. Maybe we’ll come home with some more juicy heirloom tomatoes and some fruit if they have any. I can’t wait to bring home inexpensive fresh produce, makes me wish I had room to do a little urban farming!

And this brings me to another point: food prices, right now, suck. I understand that prices of fresh foods such as fruits and vegetables will swing frequently due to market prices but at least we can still get the same amount of food for relatively the same cost versus what packaged food producers are now doing with the Grocery Shrink Ray (TM); consumers get to pay the same price for reduced portions. A big problem is that big box stores such as Publix, Winn-Dixie, and Wal-Mart don’t support the local farmers that exist in just about every state of the Union (OK, I know that Wal-Mart just recently became the single largest purchaser of locally grown foods). Being a locavore or slow food supporter definitely has its upside in that you can typically pay less for more food. But not everyone has this available to them — to their knowledge — and now food banks such as Farm Share are taking huge hits due to increased reliance on them by consumers. Farm Share supports residents in every county in Florida but cannot keep up with current rising demands for fresh foods and declining donations.

Why is this happening now?

The easiest answer is because of gas prices going up, increasing the cost of food shipment, food farming and production. But this is simply the easiest answer to an upward trend that’s been going on for a few years now. As more major farms are switching from food stream farming to farming for biofuels, supply of foods has decreased and the market price has had to adjust accordingly. And this goes beyond fruits and vegetables, it too extends to the various meat industries as they have many of the same costs and production to do. The long answer goes beyond this as it’s a more complex issue than I’m going to devote to here. With more people having to change jobs, or get second jobs, just to have money to get gas to get to work and pay the bills, family food budgets are getting cut. This means that more low-income families are having to rely on free food stuffs from places such as Farm Share but with supplies going to 67 counties, your resources wear thin quickly (especially when it’s costing you more to get food to other counties). Farm Share is having to reach out to more local growers and communities for help because they say people don’t want canned foods but instead want fresh foods. I understand that fresh foods are more preferable to something from a can but if you’re getting food assistance, can you really afford to be picky when your kids may not be able to eat? If I can get enough cans of green beans to feed my family for a few weeks but can only get enough fresh beans to feed them for a few meals, do you think I’m going to turn down packaged foods over fresh? Don’t bet your life on it.

What can be done to help out the food banks?

People can do a lot without much effort. If you’re a farmer, donate part of your crops. Let’s face it, you won’t sell or consume 100% of it anyway, let the extras help others. If you’re just a concerned citizen, donate whatever you can, monetarily or not. Get your local grocer to support local growers in order to help curb costs. Or go to your local farm and get your food at or below cost while supporting your local growers (farms are everywhere in this country, we even have them here in Boca, just a few miles away). If you can help get local foods into your local stores, you can help control the overhead on foods and this will help everyone that shops there. Start programs to re-introduce people to growing their own foods (which is part of the problem in the first place). Farming small vegetables like peppers and lettuces or fruits like tomatoes and key limes can be accomplished in nearly any urban setting if one devotes space to it. Urban farming initiatives are spreading pretty rapidly on the West Coast with it finally catching steam in the North and Northeast. Petitions can be made to cities to develop unused lands as small urban farms in order to help feed the community and bring them closer together. This can be especially effective in low-income areas with small open grassy areas that are often overlooked or forgotten about and thus, will also help feed just those who are straining already strained food banks. This would be a win-win since people can get the fresh foods they desire and if enough is left over, donate food stuffs to those who’ve helped them in the past and keep the circle going.

While I had no idea Farm Share was actually having a problem, I’m going to do what I can to help them. With the huge bevy of farmers here in South Florida, I hope that Farm Share’s dire state will convince them to look past making money and start looking at their neighbors who can no longer afford to feed their families. Or maybe some of those very same farmers will donate portions of their land to help families in need cultivate and harvest food to eat, that’d be an even better outcome.

A win in the war against cotton

July 11th, 2008 • funny
Tags: fail, satinism

All you other textiles beware, Satinism is on the loose. The comments are pretty funny as well.

Consummate consumer apathy

July 9th, 2008 • 1 comment chatter, environmentalism
Tags: environmentalism, rant, recycling

Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this post, let me present you with a list. It’s a list of stuff I’ve dug out of our Waste Management waste dumpster in the last 10 days or so:

1 1/8″x15 1/8″x48″ pressed pine wood panel (according to Lowe’s, this retails for about $17)
5 or 6 aprons, at least 3 chef’s/frontal aprons and a few waiter’s aprons (just one chef’s apron is roughly $16 at Bed, Bath, & Beyond)
1 bread pallet from a restaurant (#3 or #4 HDPE, wholly recyclable)
1 24″ women’s 15 speed mountain bike with cantilever brakes (a little rusty in spots but works fine)
1 empty and depressurized (presumably) propane tank (shouldn’t have been there in the first place)
1 3′x4′ wood frame (about $20 worth of pine)
1 pair of men’s slacks, 32×32, looks to be barely worn (probably $30)
a whole mess of clothing (mixed womens and young mens clothing but I didn’t pull this out, it was covered with all sorts of trash at the moment)
1 black bookcase made of particle board (easily $50, obscenely more at IKEA)
20-30 birthday cards for “Shane” or “Shaun” from a recent party

Without counting the price of the bike when new, people threw away at least $200 worth of stuff that anyone can use, right now at this very moment or could easily be recycled (which I did do my best to sort, something I pretty much do daily for these lazy folks). We kept the aprons and I’ve saved all the wood. With this wood alone, I’ve probably saved myself close to $50 in costs for some shelves I keep talking about building. Why would anyone throw away perfectly good usable wood is beyond me. Granted, I do need another jigsaw blade to cut the large frame’s wood but it’s about 80% usable and the wood panel is wholly usable. I got free shelves. And now we have a whole bevy of aprons, which I’ve been searching for — cheaply — for about a month now. Now I’ve got at least 3 for free. At $16 each, I saved $48 minus taxes. The bike’s going to someone on Freecycle this week — today if I’m not mistaken.

What the hell, people?!

I’ve been dumpster diving for years now but it was always for discarded electronics and such but now, I look for just about anything. This is something that’s pissed me off for years about America: rampant disposable consumerism. I don’t understand why everyone must simply throw away everything at some point. Did their parents never take them to thrift stores or Goodwill in order to rummage through used stuff? Or teach them that just about anything can get repurposed for something else? Or that when they (the parents) were growing up they had to reuse everything and use as much as possible of everything they consumed, simply because they had no other choice? Why is now any different from then, we don’t really have much more resources at our disposal to just throw away and no real reason to throw away most consumables. I’m fairly certain most of these people drive used cars, something someone else discarded intelligently for whatever reason. Why must this be different for anything else we consume? I believe this weekend we are drafting signs for clothes collection in our complex, I know it’ll get mixed reception. Some people will be thrilled at the fact that they don’t have to do any “dirty” work to get rid of their clothes and that they’re be helping others or some crap. Others just won’t care no matter what the sign says. Whatever the reception, we know it’s better than just throwing them away entirely.

And of course, this goes on everyday all around the world and everyone wonders why pollution is such an issue. For all the hemming and hawing 1st world/developed countries make about recycling and reducing emissions and so forth, we all do a pretty pathetic job at actually doing it. This isn’t indicative of every country mind you, many in Europe have a firm grip on these issues and execute them in much better ways than say, England or America are doing or have done in the recent past. There are even lesser developed countries whose populations are far exceeding our capacities to reuse and recycle, just look at the electronics recycling boom in China or all the cool gadgets/toys villagers make in Africa. Comparatively, the West is far more developed and we’re lagging behind those two countries — I stress comparatively for a reason.

We personally started recycling and reusing much more simply because I was tired of throwing away my money all the time. Now, I don’t have much more money to spare in comparison to before but I surely do have a lot more stuff to no longer feel guilty about if it goes in the trash (or recycling bin). This has also landed us two free, brand new bikes, a nice little spice box, a shelf for my hookah and shelves for all of my shisha/accessories and a buttload of other stuff.

With gas, food, and other consumables prices rising, what will it take for “developed” nations to stop throwing money away (figuratively) and start giving a damn? Will it take us literally throwing away money, just as a demonstration? Unfortunately, I think it will.

New Carnival of the Green is up!

July 8th, 2008 • blog, carnival
Tags: cotg, gren

And #135 is being hosted by some fellow Floridians at Green Time. Here’s to some juicy green goodness!

Expose on Scientology’s 8 million dollar pay-off

July 6th, 2008 • cult
Tags: cult

I just came across this expose from the Village Voice/New Times LA (why doesn’t New Times Broward write stuff half this good?).

It’s rather long winded but well worth the read for some insight into how Scientology loves to waste money to not pay people who sue them. Some of this stuff is new hat, some of it’s old hat, still interesting nonetheless. The expose has sat around on the author’s hard drive for the last 6 years waiting to get published and it’s finally come to light. I won’t go into details because this is well worth the read, even if you think you know everything there is to know about the insane CoS.

PS – This also marks post 300! Woo! The first one was all the way back on April 22, 2007.

Happy 4th of July!

July 4th, 2008 • chatter

Today is the celebrated day of our country’s independence from Britain so many years ago. It’s also my step-father’s 74th birthday! And unfortunately, it’s just another Friday for us so we have to work .

Happy 4th everyone and be safe.

Ethanol is coming to the Turnpike

July 4th, 2008 • 4 comments environmentalism
Tags: crist, environmentalism, ethanol, florida

Well, at least at the Port St. Lucie service plaza according to TCPalm.com (don’t bother reading the comments, they’re pretty much focused on bashing Crist). While this is a welcome addition to the CITGO pumps already in place that readily provide gas for travelers approximately every 45 miles, is this “too little, too late”? Quite possibly. They’re adding E85 pumps to this service plaza in order to help people squeeze more value from every tank although, it’s at a cost anda disadvantage. This pump will more than likely carry the highest priced E85 gasoline in the state — all of the plazas already have gas prices some 7%-10% higher than the rest of the state. It’s going to be a distinct disadvantage because the number of cars able to easily run on E85 are much smaller than people realize. Ford’s dual fuel cars and Chevy/GM’s Flexfuel cars probably number 1 in every 200 or less, it’s not a very high ratio. Even when I was commuting heavily for work, I probably saw only a few Flexfuel vehicles a week (and of course, they were all trucks and SUVs, not vehicles that can benefit from it the most).

So why use E85 if it’s not going to be selling like hot cakes?

Because I believe that Governor Crist is trying to do everything he can to help his state out. After approving the state-funded buy-out of US Sugar, Crist’s green-o-meter shot up quite a good bit. He’s looking to hit another sweet spot with us environmentalists with his latest move, thinking we’ll kowtow over getting a readily available E85 distributor on the Turnpike. However, why not simply go the route that Shell’s going and put E10/E15 in all the gas as a standard? I suspect this has more to do with CITGO than Crist, though. Nearly all gasoline-powered cars manufactured in the last 10 years can run on up to 15% ethanol without any modifications whatsoever. About 90% of all Fords manufactured in the last 8 years state this very clearly in their manual and I’m fairly certain my 15 year old Saturn will have no issues with it as well. I do whole heartedly admit that adding this option is a step in the right direction but it’s leading with the wrong foot entirely. Besides the fact that the ethanol will probably be more expensive than the stations in both Tallahassee and Miami, many people may simply ruin their engines thinking they can run it in their cars without any modifications whatsoever. Using E85 not only means you’re using more fuel due to lower detonation pressures, you also get lower miles per gallon because of this.

Is this state approved greenwash?

I’m going to have to side with “yes” on this one. Besides the above points (potentially higher cost, can’t reliably run in unmodified engines, loss of MPG, etc.), most people have absolutely no idea what E85 really is. All they know is it’s “gas made from corn” and that it’s supposed to be better for the environment. My father, who pays little attention to news other than local news and politics, even knows that ethanol sucks and is doing damage to the food industry and food stream. I can’t even get him to recycle on a regular basis but he knows that using corn for fuel is boneheaded. And he’s 66. Well past the target market of most green/sustainable advertising and marketing. Sure, he’s an outlier because he knows that I care about what’s going on but that doesn’t mean other people shouldn’t be made aware. I know this is posited in so many other places and much better than I can say: using food stuffs for fuel kills our appetites. I know that corn is over $7 a bushel now thanks to ethanol and that’s great for farmers who primarily grow corn. But it’s bad for the fact that other farmers are jumping on the bandwagon and converting their well-bedded plots to corn fields. Why is this an issue? Just ask any corn farmer and they’ll tell you growing corn simply destroys soil after a meager number of harvests, this is why they routinely rotate corn for something else and wait a few harvests before planting corn again (some even wait a full season or two just to let the soil regain nutrients). This means that with more farmers converting to corn, it has a two fold effect: 1. it’s taking corn from the food stream, driving up the price of food (many farm animals eat corn and if it costs more to feed them, it costs more to make your hamburgers or hams or buffalo wings or whatever), 2. it reduces arable land for other crops and corn (leading to infertile soil and lots of soil erosion, I only know this part because friends of mine in NC had to rotate corn in their harvests). If you take your 2000 acre farm that’s used to grow many different food stuffs and convert a large portion of that to corn just to see a short return on investment, you’ll be missing out after harvest time comes and your soil is incapable of growing your other crops.

But back to the greenwash. Little other alternative sources are as available right now as corn-based ethanol is in the US but that’s going to change since much of the Midwest was flooded this year, killing hundreds of thousands of acres of arable land. This now means that 9 ethanol production plants are now getting canned altogether or building is delayed since there’s suddenly a whole lot less corn to go around to waste on fuel production. And based on data from previous studies (this was also covered in National Geographic Magazine, October 2007 edition), corn — by the ton — is shown to be extremely inefficient in fuel production compared to other biofuels like soy and algae (not that soy is much better, nor are grasses). People are making biofuels out of almost anything these days and much of it is more efficient than corn. But hey, it’s not gasoline — totally — so it must be good for the environment, right? That’s what Crist is banking on most people thinking, I can guarantee you.

Where to go from here

Combine fuel production inefficiency with the fact that E85 can make your engine explode or simply eat through your fuel lines, placing these pumps on the Turnpike is a terrible idea. Besides the infrastructure cost required (pumps can cost upwards of $200,000 and will require an entirely different fuel delivery truck thus doubling the gas wasted to deliver gas to the station), I doubt that there will be usage warnings posted about what E85 works in and what it doesn’t work in. Consumer education will go leaps and bounds higher than these pumps would and could easily be more effective in teaching people to simply develop better driving techniques. What is going to be more costly for a consumer who already has a car in this situation and they decide they want to use E85? Sure, they’ll save a few dollars at the pump but if their engine decides to detonate from ethanol’s higher explosion pressures or eats their fuel lines, they’ll then get to spend untold amounts of money on repairs and a rental car. Or they can simply trade in their current car for a new flexible fuel vehicle that will cost more monetarily and more than likely, environmentally as well. You can go and buy a new Chevy Impala with FlexFuel (since it’s the only car option they offer, everything else is a truck, van, or SUV/cross-over) and happily spend what little money you have left on a biofuel that’ll make you feel better.

Would I like to shell out a few thousand dollars to replace the engine in our Focus? Yeah, I would but not because I blew it up using the wrong fuel. I’d rather spend that money overhauling the engine, boring out the throttle body, using lighter engine parts, adding a more efficient air supply system, and a whole host of options to make it run more efficiently. I can think of much better ways to spend that money.

I don’t know how much research was conducted on the viability and consumer usability of ethanol biofuel, but I can almost guarantee you that Crist was telling his team to do anything to help his constituency save money at the pump. Unfortunately, this was a bad move on their part. Opting to institute E10 on all pumps would’ve been much cheaper because you don’t have to replace anything at all and all it requires from CITGO is another delivery to completely replace the current one and then some signage to proudly display the use of ethanol for all engine types. Hell, they can take it one step further and add in biodiesels to help out our trucking industry since their rigs can readily run biodiesel with little or no modifications at all and would benefit from it much more than a regular consumer ever would. If we can drive down the cost of logistics and over-land transport, we’d be solving a lot more economic problems than a few new gasoline pumps will.

I congratulate you, Charlie Crist (especially now that you’re engaged!), but you need to make sure that your aides and staff members are doing research that makes sense for all of us, not a minority of the auto-owning population. There’s so much more that you could be persuading companies and consumers to do than gobble up even more gas in their corn cars.