League of Women Voters Shed Light on Presidential Green Scores

One of the most important groups working to protect and strengthen our democratic process, the League of Women Voters has just put up a website for the Presidential candidates. When you click on each photo, it takes you to a page with various issue tabs. Check out the global warming tab and the adjacent scores. It is quite revealing. http://presidentialprofiles2008.org/

Hillary's score is in the 90's but read her description. Not clear at all. Dennis Kucinich and Bill Richardson top the group. O'Bama also has a high school but we only have a couple of years to look at. The Republicans score miserably, especially John McCain.

Viva the League for helping us see clearly with objective data gathering and reporting!

Susan

Behind recent attempts to discredit the validity of human-caused global climate change is the same reluctance to examine ethical principles that Rachel Carson raised in her seminal work, Silent Spring.

That a renewed opposition to Carson’s challenge to the pesticide industry is occurring precisely when Americans are beginning to question the values that make us an unsustainable society should come as no surprise. Rachel Carson illuminated the interconnectedness of humans with all living communities pointing out that, when human activity might harm other living systems, we should exert prudence so that our actions do not reach back to us one day.

I am thankful to Mark Hamilton Lytle for making that observation in his biography The Gentle Subversive – Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and the Rise of the Environmental Movement.
A focus on ethics requires us to ask questions like, “Where are we investing our nation’s resources and why?”

As a nation we once engaged in just such discussions. When English colonists broke-away from a government experienced as unjust, greedy, and violent in nature a broad and lively discussion about values found berth in the ark of democracy. The period of 1772 to 1788 engaged some of the greatest minds on two continents: Native American statesmen and scholar-citizens of the thirteen colonies, as well as free thinkers from Europe. They came together to establish an ethical basis for the declaration of independence from Great Britain and the formation of a constitution to guide a fledgling nation of free men.

Perhaps the absence of established political parties and their corporate alliances created rhetorical space for a range of ideas to be discussed openly and thoroughly in contrast to what we have today. But more, I believe it was the tradition of liberty that existed on this continent, created over centuries by nations existing before the colonies began to form, that promoted the kind of thinking and decision-making that ultimately found its way into our nation’s founding documents.

Statesmen from America’s first democracies, notably the Iroquois Confederacy and Cherokee Nation, were consulted by colonial leaders to learn what lessons these older democracies gleaned over the centuries. The Great Law of Peace of the Iroquois recognized the rights of all living things according to natural law. Under their constitution, plants, animals and resources necessary for continuance of life such as rivers and land find protection under the Flowering Tree, symbol of the Great Law. From it the White Roots of Peace extend to all peoples.
From the Cherokee Nation flowed the values of respecting differences and including outsiders in their community life. The Cherokee, whose belief that all living things are our relatives and can speak to us through spiritual connection, must have communicated these values through their eloquent language to the colonial writers.

Today, many individual scholars and organizations for the preservation of American Liberty are re-examining these values and principles of governance in light of the pressures of destabilizing national and global problems. The theme of natural rights of living communities flows through Rachel Carson’s body of writing and finds its culmination in Silent Spring.

Carson synthesized the principle of interconnectedness of living systems through stories of individual species lives (Under the Sea Wind), sweeping sagas of Earth’s history that read like a novel (The Sea Around Us), the science of ecology (Edge of the Sea), and the intricate systems of linked organisms called food chains (Silent Spring). In her lifetime as a writer, Rachel Carson was America’s most important science educator. Her books often appeared as a series in major magazines or Reader’s Condensed Books, reaching millions of Americans hungry to learn more about the wonders of the sea.

Yet, Rachel Carson’s articulate voice reached is clarion call in Silent Spring in which she warned us that we cannot live outside of the natural laws that govern all life on earth, and to attempt to do so imperils all life on Earth.

Even though Carson was a scientist, her power lay in her writing. More than translating scientific facts, Carson’s brilliance emanated from her understanding of humankind’s spiritual connection to the Earth. In Sense of Wonder, written for parents, Carson emphasized feelings (emotions) for the Earth and her creatures had to come before facts:

I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide him, it is not half so important to know as to feel. If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil. Once the emotions have been aroused — a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and the unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love — then we wish for knowledge about the subject of our emotional response. Once found, it has lasting meaning. It is more important to pave the way for the child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts he is not ready to assimilate. (Sense of Wonder, 1965)

Midsummer Night's Dream in the Arizona Desert

It’s summertime in Phoenix, Arizona. Temperatures soar to over 100° F, sometimes reaching 115° F, or higher. After June, the heat island effect kicks into gear. Buildings and streets – especially asphalt surfaces – absorb the day's solar energy, then release it slowly through the night. Even though the sun goes down, the built environment is still hot. The hum of air conditioners is a constant auditory feature of summertime.

In many communities throughout Phoenix, residents open aqueduct valves in their yards once a week to water their landscapes from the flood irrigation systems held over from the 1900’s when Phoenix communities were tiny agricultural towns.

People moved here to enjoy the dry, mild climate, and to escape allergy causing vegetation. However, the Eastern trees and plants people brought with them (mulberry and olive, for example) – and their love of grass – made Phoenix the asthma capital of the west.
Throughout the city are houses surrounded by large trees and a grass lawns -- remnants of an outdated way of life in the desert: just add water and cultivate an oasis. It was a way that made sense to residents and developers when water was plentiful, populations were smaller, temperatures were cooler, and summers were only four months long.

Over the last 50 years, however, the average low temperature has increased by 10° F. The city’s growth is exponential now. The population since 1990 increased by 59%! ASU studies are reporting loss of indigenous biodiversity on mountains in Phoenix surrounded by an urban sea of human activity. The old, water intensive, sprawling lifestyle is unsustainable with available water, even though theoretically there is much more desert to develop across the expansive valley floor.

One of the most harmful assaults to native species diversity is the introduction of non-native plants and animals. Successful non-natives have no natural predators, so they out-compete native species for habitat and resources. Fragile riparian green belts (areas where the water table is close to or above the ground) have been reduced by 90% in Arizona over the last century due to human activity.

For thousands of years these riparian habitats supported the greatest species diversity in our state. Beavers and otters abound in rivers and streams, and mega fauna like deer found sustenance there. Today one has to visit a museum or zoo to know what native species Arizona once supported.

Similar urban experiences play out all across the Western United States. A profound shift is happening throughout the region where growth is out of control and the Earth is showing strains of overuse.

What Phoenix, and cities like it, do over the next decade to slow and manage growth, and to clean up and use water more responsibly, will be particularly critical as baby boomer retirees migrate to the sunbelt.

Tucson, Arizona, where I now reside, follows the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, a multi-agency and community-based initiative, to shape its growth. Although Tucson has reached nearly one million people in the metro area, it is still known for preserving open, green space and encouraging residential landscaping with native desert corridors. Native Tucsonans are desperately trying to hold onto this legacy, as new residents arrive who do not understand desert ecosystems or appreciate the way of life necessary to protect water reserves.

Since I moved to Tucson from Phoenix five years ago, I can enjoy a cool summer night at the decent hour of 7 pm when desert soils release the heat of the day. This is the natural desert rhythm that Phoenix has lost by asphalting over much of the valley floor.

On morning walks in central Tucson, I can still enjoy a covey of Gamble's quail running wildly through the native vegetation in alleyways and yards. Many residents pride themselves on landscaping with desert trees like the graceful desert willow with its lavender throated blossoms or uniquely shaped cacti placed like sculptures in the landscape. They tend gardens where heirloom vegetables conserved from the Americas grow with little water. The Tohono O’Odham still “dry farm,” using only annual monsoon rains to grow corn, beans, melons, and greens of all kinds.

Striking the balance between natural communities and human communities makes sense. We are in a new period of understanding the intimate and wholly necessary relationships with nature that maintain us physically and economically, emotionally and spiritually.

Gazing at the twinkling midnight sky above me, I imagine the ancient Hohokam people also lying outside in the heat of summers thousands of years ago.

Soft warm breezes move across the yard as I doze off in my chaise lounge, in my pajamas, on a summer’s night in a desert of the Southwest.

It's that time when the desert shifts into the dry, foresummer. That's right, there are two summer seasons in the Sonoran Desert. Following a very dry, hot May and June, around the fourth of July, towering dark clouds herald the next season: monsoon! Refreshing cloud bursts in the late afternoon bring desert rats running outside to greet the blessed rain. Washes and streets run like rivers and catci drink in the moisture with networks of shallow roots that capture the water.

In Tucson we are learning the ancient art of water-harvesting. Brad Lancaster, our local guru for rain catchment and grey-water irrigation, is teaching legions of people and kids how to harvest rain water for use irrigating trees that produce food and plants that create what he calls a "sponge" of roots that create spaces in the subsoil into which the rainwater seeps down rather than runs off.

Brad's first book, Rainwater Harvesting, will soon be followed by Volume II. Go to his website to learn more about how to harvest rainwater and about Brad Lancaster, a man who is making a huge difference in the quality of life for Tucsonans and the kids who are coming who will need that most precious resource - cool, clean water.

There are no other people who appreciate the blessing of fresh water more than desert rats.

http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/

Susan

First hybrid car-1900 by Porsche.

It is clear that we passed a tipping point for citizen interest and willingness to take action to reduce personal and municipal energy footprints. We've even heard a rumor that the next generation of Toyota Prius will achieve 70 miles per gallon. That will be just in time as I heard today on NPR that the nation's transportation office predicts $4.00/gal by September. http://www.hybridcars.com/news2/nissan-lithium-batteries.html

We are entering the postcarbon era and everything will change. We cannot as yet see ahead to what that will look like but, for sure, it will be exciting. The real issue is to work at the highest levels to gain international cooperation to reduce carbon emissions by half over the next two to three decades.

That means electing officials that can lead environmental and social movements and whose vision is cooperative and conciliatory-obviously, NOT what we have in power now.

So, probably the most important thing to do first is to get active in your city, county, state and then U.S. government to pass incentives and regulations that will result in vehicles with much higher miles/gallons and require businesses to reduce their energy footprints. http://italy.usembassy.gov/pdf/other/RL33831.pdf

In the meantime, think about how you personally can drive your own car less by simple changes in behavior:

• Put all your errands on one big circular route to avoid additional trips;


• Shop with friends or neighbors and enjoy being together more;


• Take the bus or a shuttle one day a week to work and don't let anything interfere with your plan-declare that day your green mansion;


• If you can afford it and its time to buy a new car (remember that replacing a car just brings all the carbon emissions for the production of the new one into the picture) purchase a hybrid;


• Keep your current vehicle in top running shape.

The next most important thing would be to fly less. The next to insulate your home to the max.
http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=heat_cool.pr_hvac

Be well,

Susan

Guest author and sustainability guru, Lindianne Sarno, has contributed a hallmark article worthy of the Composted Blog site.

Five Gallon Buckets

Dear Eco-zoners,

This cool crisp morning I am struck by how my morning chores at the music garden use five-gallon buckets. The grey water from rinsing last night's dishes waits in a corner of the kitchen in a five gallon bucket. It's going on the kales and garlics and bunching onions and flowering arugulas this morning. They perked right up from yesterday's bucket and I'm going to give them one more today for a good spring growth.

Now, last night I was reading the Humanure Handbook, a guide to composting human manure, by Joseph Jenkins, and in addition to being inspired by the business opportunity inherent in hauling neighborhood humanure buckets to a neighborhood composting facility and creating the healthiest, sweetest compost ever, I got up this morning with a distaste for ever again pooping in Tucson's drinking water.

The first step to setting up an inexpensive composting toilet, says Joe Jenkins, is to collect your materials: four identical five gallon buckets (that way they all fit the seat). I'm going for the minimalist version today (a plywood seat on top of a five gallon bucket); later will build and finish the hardwood sculpture art version for use in the family bathroom frequented by my stepson and his friends and my music students. Old Kurt across the street has loaned me an old saber saw so I can cut a five-gallon bucket sized circle in the minimalist composting toilet seat.

When you read the Humane Handbook you will see: for composting to occur without odor the dedicated composting toileter must have ready plenty of straw, leaf mold, rice hulls, or other fine litter to cover the humanure. So I've been raking leaves this morning, preparing for the big moment.

We will draw the curtain of discretion over the rest of today's proceedings here at the music garden. But Joe Jenkins says composting humanure can be done safely, healthily, elegantly, and pleasantly, and I aim to prove him right. Tucson's permaculture pioneers Dan Dorsey, Barbara Rose, Joelee Joyce and many others already have great humanure systems going, so I am not the pioneer here, just dedicated enough to Tucson's future to say publicly, if we don't stop pooping in our drinking water we are going to wind up drinking our pooping water.

Well, time to go get an extension cord, fire up Kurt's saber saw, and burn some coal in the Four Corners area to generate the small amount of electricity necessary to liberate my personal humanure from the sewer system and capture this precious resource for our garden.

A challenge to Tucson's university and high school students: which will be the first class (15-30 students) to create a system of safe, healthy composting toilets and cartage linking your places of residence to a Sustainable Tucson neighborhood humanure composting facility? The first class to do this will receive the coveted Youth Humanure Award in Tucson's upcoming Green Awards, a gala event full of music, inspiring speakers, comedy, and sustainable fashions to be held the evening of Earth Day 2008. Your entire class will be honored with full scholarships to a permaculture drylands design course. The first step is: read the Humanure Handbook. It's available at the public library and is also sold at Silverbell Trading.

Sustainably,
Lindianne

This week I treated myself to the film version of Marjorie Rawlings' The Yearling. It resonated strongly with me because I visited the wetlands and oak forests of Florida only a year before. As with the book itself, the film reminded me that humans want to make improvements - that is part of our nature. Pa and Jody dream of building a well so Ma can have fresh water "right there near my door and I will not have to walk to it anymore! Imagine."

"What pioneers dreamed of, we have today. What we dream of, they had yesterday," I overheard someone reflect last week.

IPCC Report on Climate Change

The release on February 2 of the Working Group I of the International Panel on Climate Change describes the physical basis of climate change as currently understood and predicted by thousands of scientists across the world. Go to www.IPCC.org and click on the Working Group I report from Feb. 2.

Go to page 18 for a quick view of several scenarios that each incorporate different possibilities dependent on the human community's actions over the next decade.

Susan

New England Couple Works to Reduce Use of Mid East Oil. Come Learn!

From LadyHawk:

Ron and I are contributing to reducing use of Mid East oil. We installed energy efficient windows, a pellet stove in the basement (replacing the wood burning stove) and an energy efficient wood burning insert in the fire place (rather than just an open fireplace with a glass screen. Between the fire wood and pellets we've reduced the use of our oil markedly. We have two 300 gallon oil tanks in the basement. Last year we used only one of those tanks ALL YEAR! We fuel up in the summer and don't see the oil man again until the following summer. This is in NEW ENGLAND! Before those windows, the pellet stove and the wood burning insert were installed we would use up about 900 gallons a season of oil even though we used a wood burning stove in the basement all winter.

Caveats:
Keep in mind that pellets are not free. The current cost of pellets is getting up there to compete with the cost of oil, but pellets are a renewable resource that burns fairly cleanly and the fine ash residue is good for the garden. Also, pellets are purchased either from a US or Canadian supplier, keeping the $$ closer to home. There is some transportation cost of gas to get the pellets to the point of use.

Wood is free for the taking (off our neighbors' land), but it does need to be hauled, split and stacked. Some gas is used in the truck (for hauling), the chain saw and the running of our log splitter engine, about 15 gallons a season, I'd estimate. Though for the purist, logs can be split by hand.

Green laundry: a wash load of savings!

If you are looking to save money while creating a healthier environment for your home, you are in luck today.

One group of cleaning products offers not only savings to consumers but a way to remove harmful substances from your family and the environment.

Laundry detergent, stain removers and bleach constitute irritants and harmful substances we continuously encounter. Greener products from Bio-Kleen, Seventh Generation and Ecover perform as well or better than more toxic brands and can cost up to nine cents less per load than familiar name brands like Tide or Gain.

Laundry Product *Cost/Load
Bio-Kleen $0.15
Ecover $0.18
Gain $0.20
Tide $0.24
Baking Soda $0.25
Seventh Generation $0.27
Trader Joe's $0.09 - 0.18

*Based on loads advertised per fluid oz or dry oz.

Even better, you can double your savings by using half the detergent you normally use per wash load. Add a fourth cup of baking soda to boost the cleaning power.

By adding a half cup of white vinegar or a few tablespoons of borax to rinse water you can brighten your wash and keep chlorine bleach out of the environment.

Chlorine is harmful to the immune and reproductive systems and is implicated as a possible carcinogen.

If every household removed just one 64 oz. bottle of bleach from their laundry rooms, 10.9 m pounds of chlorine could be held from entering the environment.[1]

TIP: Add a fourth cup of baking soda to rinse water to make clothes feel soft and look and smell like they’ve been flapping in fresh air and sunshine.

Consult with the Green Heloise of cleaning products, Annie Berthold-Bond, in Better Basics for the Home by Pocket Books for great tips on saving money. I bought her book recently and love it. This woman has researched every conceivable savings and health-related green strategy for items from drain cleaners to facial cleansers.

Check out the Washington Toxics Coalition http://www.watoxics.org/ for reliable information on risks and substitutions for many new products.

Since the EPA estimates that the average home has 150 cleaning products, we could all be sitting atop a hazardous waste site - our homes! That headache or rash could be something off-gassing from you carpet, paint or synthetic product.

Armed with gentler laundry products, gallon of white vinegar and baking soda, you can save hundreds of dollars each year, create a much healthier environment for your family and keep the planet green, too.

[1] Seventh Generation