I grew up in the mountains, and spent a lot of time alone in the forest. As a result, I suspect, I have always been keenly aware of trees, and always had an awe-struck respect for them. I find few things more emotionally effecting than, on my frequent train trips to Vancouver, the fields of incredible numbers of felled trees at the various logging operations along the train line. I can only hope that the logging in question is FSC certified, but even if so, it would be of little consolation. And regardless, there is something so shocking and disrespectful to me in the act of cutting down a tree that even the seemingly responsible stewardship of some organizations appears inconsequential.

To kill a being which might well have been alive for many hundreds of years, or as in many cases of the logging industry’s past: trees of many thousands of years in age . . . to kill these beings is to me indicative of the near-zero reverence many humans give to nature, akin to the massacre of countless bison on this continent in the early-to-mid 1800s.

(above: 19 men on a tree stump, and two men standing with a mountain of bison skulls.)

Somehow though, cutting down trees seems more perverse than killing animals or even humans (as the early settlers of Australia would hunt Aboriginals for sport (I’ll spare you those images)). Perhaps this perversion i interpret is because of how fundamental trees are to the life sustaining powers of the earth. It is nearly literally as if we chose in our early industrial history to slowly cut out our lungs, using the material to house and heat ourselves. Surely trees were unmatched as a cheap, readily available resource for powering trains, and building furniture, as well as houses, and indeed: whole cities even into the early 20th century. Cheap, and perhaps only considered a unchecked resource, because of an economy which systematically devalues nature. I wonder sometimes if our growth and advances were truly worth the losses.

Incidentally, concern for the loss of trees / nature to industry is no new idea, as the following quote illustrates:

One thing is sure, the Earth is now more cultivated and developed than ever before. There is more farming with pure force, swamps are drying up, and cities are springing up on an unprecedented scale.  We’ve become a burden to our planet. Resources are becoming scarce, and soon nature will no longer be able to satisfy our needs.

—Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullianus, Roman Theologian. 200 B.C.E

Concurrent with Tertullianus’ writing, 2 centuries before the birth of Christ, fig trees in the the land now called Israel were planted. Some of these trees still exist, and under some, we can still sit. From some of these trees, we can still gather fruit. These trees are treasures, a part of our cultural and environmental heritage, and reminders of the scales on which the Earth reckons time. This is all the more amazing considering that merely 10% of the forests and trees now present on our planet are of this ‘old growth,’ as we call it. Which is a shame, especially because they are now understood to capture carbon from our atmosphere at a much greater rate than any newer forests. (It is believed that the old growth forests in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. of A and in Russia account for up to 20% of the total global carbon sequestration.)

Obviously the early loggers in our country didn’t realize the extent of the damage they were causing to the planet, they lacked the ecological framework by which to understand their actions. But it’s hard to forgive them their ignorance. And I readily admit an element of hypocrisy in my derision of the early zealousness of the industry, as an artist and musician, woods are one of the most delightful, beautiful materials to use. It is only with a bitter sweetness that i enjoy my many guitars and piano. At times the experience borders on shame, in fact.

Still, it certainly seems at present that better choices can be made for a good many of our uses for wood, as an industrial material. And while it at least can be said that using trees for art is a semi-noble pursuit, rather than burning it as fuel and for heat, it is a shallow excuse at best.

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Boxed Water is Better, a new company describing itself as “Part sustainable water company, part art project, part philanthropic project, and completely curious” has begun distributing their water in the Michigan area. The philanthropic part of the business is in their plan to donate 20% of their profits to charities, split evenly between reforestation projects and water relief projects. Generally their goal is to replace water bottles, by using a material (paper) that is not derived from oil (as plastic bottles are), and which can be recycled everywhere; They claim the additional benefits of being able to ship the boxes flat (using much less truck space, thus saving fuel in shipping for at least half of their life, until filled).

It’s a nice idea, but I’m not sure how successful it will be, as it doesn’t exactly take the place of a water bottle, not to the user. For that average water bottle buyer the goal is to get clean ‘trustworthy’ water, which is to say not tap water. They tend to want a single serving, not something as large as these Boxed Waters. A much smaller market of people who [inadvisably*] reuse plastic water bottles, this is a market for whom again boxed water will prove unpractical, as a paper container will break down much more quickly.

In either case, the bottles will eventually be pitched, often not into a recycling bin. One of the beauties here is that even if not recycled, the planet’s systems would be much better off for having paper disintegrating in it’s oceans than it is presently, with plastic doing so.

So, definitely a case of taking the good with the bad, i’ll be interested to see how it pans out for them.

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*      Most plastic water bottles are made from a material commonly referred to as PET (polyethylene terephthalate), which contains at least 3 different carcinogenic compounds, and a couple hormone disrupting compounds. Drinking from these bottles is safe in a one-time use scenario. If used for more than a couple days these compounds begin leaching into your water, especially if the bottle has been exposed to much heat (in washing, perhaps).

so_many_a_second, a project of Studio:Ludens, based on the art of Chris Jordan, aims to help us visualize some oft-quoted statistics.

Above is a screen-capture of the site showing the 27 mobile phones sold every second. A nice idea as visualizing the magnitude of humanity’s efforts continues to become ever more difficult.

The X prize foundation is a group dedicated to fostering innovation in various fields of study. They work from the principle of “Revolution through competition,” which is to say: they offer a $10,000,000 award to “the first team to achieve a specific goal, set by the X PRIZE Foundation, which has the potential to benefit humanity.” There are currently 4 prizes, with at least 4 other areas for as yet planned prizes; the former are: Space, Automotive, Genomics, and Lunar—the latter are Energy and Environment, Exploration, Education and Global Development, and Life Sciences.

A little over two years ago Popular Science ran a story related to the announcement of the Automotive X prize. The plan, in a nutshell is as follows: develope a production ready car-like vehicle which gets at least 100 miles per gallon of fuel, or equivilant. (The full prize guidelines can be seen here.) The finalists will conduct a race of sorts to demonstrate their respective automobiles in the ultimate competition for the prize, and to hopefully make a much more dramatic and powerful statement than any other such demonstrations from recent memory.

The two most promising teams out of the gate were the Tesla Motors group, working on their luxury all-electric car which runs on the power released by what are essentially 7,000 laptop computer batteries, and the Aptera group.

Aptera took a somewhat novel approach to the goal. Rather than looking to new fuels or drastically different sorts of engines, they looked to improve the car surrounding that engine and regular gasoline. By focusing those efforts on decreased weight from new composite materials, and increased aerodynamics (as well as other less dramatic improvements to the engine and drive mechanisms), they created a car which when first reported claimed a 300 mile per gallon efficiency, running on regular gasoline.

Almost a year ago, when Aptera began taking pre-orders, the rating had been reduced to 230 miles per gallon. Now that their official website is up and doling out healthy amounts of information and promotion, and they near the competition for the 10 million dollars, the milage rating has been pulled back to an only slightly less amazing 100 MPG.

This will be one of the first times that such a radical automobile design has been made a reality, and i for one, am very excited.

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The Good

I’ve been reading more and more instances of product “eco-certification” in my news sources of late, and i reckon it’s time to mention another aspect of the William McDonough “eco-empire” that i find compelling.

The closed loop production cycle, in theory and practice, that permeates this blog is largely derived from the book Cradle to Cradle, written by the architect and chemist duo of William McDonough and Michael Braungart. Despite rumors about mcdonough’s practice, and what some have called a sales-brochure tone in the writing of the book, i consider it a watershed in my life. Regardless of any suspicions (i think quite unfounded) regarding the authors and motives behind the book, the facts and theories held within it hold the potential to completely remake the world for the better.

So. One thing i haven’t mentioned about these two so far is their company’s action as 3rd party investigation / certification firm. McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) has the following to say:

Cradle to Cradle Certification provides a company with a means to tangibly, credibly measure achievement in environmentally-intelligent design and helps customers purchase and specify products that are pursuing a broader definition of quality.

This means using environmentally safe and healthy materials; design for material reutilization, such as recycling or composting; the use of renewable energy and energy efficiency; efficient use of water, and maximum water quality associated with production; and instituting strategies for social responsibility.

If a candidate product achieves the necessary criteria, it is certified as a Silver, Gold or Platinum product or as a Technical/Biological Nutrient (available for homogeneous materials or less complex products), and can be branded as Cradle to Cradle.

The certification process in business has it’s good and bad points, depending on how you look at it. On the negative side, certification can often cost quite a tidy sum of money, and take a lot of time. This can be particularly damaging as it can  ultimately hamper a project’s success, or keep a product (should it’s producer not be able to afford the certification) from succeeding in it’s intended market place. In general, it becomes a form of advertisement and label based categorization, when it should be simply a meaningful mark of true quality. Add to this the fact that certifications can sometimes be misleading.

On the plus side, certification can actually be that meaningful mark of true quality, and more importantly, it offers the possibility of transparency, and accountability in a world where it is so often lacking. That is, if the certifying agency is to be trusted. It’s my belief that MBDC is quite trustworthy, and as such I’d love to see more Cradle to Cradle certified options in the marketplace.

For a complete listing of currently available products which are certified (no frills, text-only), click here.

the bad

Waves of the electromagnetic spectrum are all around us. some of them we know as visible light of a rainbow of colours, others we know as the dangerous x-rays, and still others as the communication waves of the spectrum that carry our favourite flavour of ClearChannel radio station, television, and mobile telephony. The debate between “nut-jobs” and “evil corporate schills” (read: “concerned health / social justice minded citizens,” and “the scientific and medical establishment”) concerning the effects of our exposure to these waves has been long and largely unresolved. This is especially true of the cell-phone portion of the debate where-in no survey of a statistically meaningful group of people (which is to say, a large enough random sample) has been conducted. That is, until now.

Popular Science magazine has recently reported on the preliminary findings by a group of researchers in Israel who are participating in the study of data collected by the organization Interphone. It does not look good.

people who use cellphones regularly are 50 percent more likely than non-users to develop brain tumors. And a joint Interphone analysis from the U.K., Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland reported a 40 percent increase in tumor risk in people who use cellphones for more than a decade; the study found no discernable risk for people who have used cellphones for fewer than 10 years.

This is particularly scary as the definition used by Interphone for “regular use” is “one call, once a week.” That’s about my current usage, and I’m considered by my friends nearly phone-phobic.

As we wait for the study to be completed (and for our understanding of not only how these waves can cause cancer, but how we can combat the unstoppable proliferation of cells in our body in better ways), I for one, plan to use my phone even less

Annie Leonard, “an expert in international sustainability and environmental health issues, with more than 20 years of experience investigating factories and dumps around the world” has created a fun documentary condensing many of the issues I’ve been typing about recently. According to her website:

Annie’s efforts over the past two decades to raise awareness about international sustainability and environmental health issues has included work with Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance, Health Care without Harm, Essential Information and Greenpeace International. She currently serves on the boards of GAIA, the International Forum for Globalization and the Environmental Health Fund. Previously she has served on the boards of the Grassroots Recycling Network, the Environmental Health Fund, Global Greengrants India and Greenpeace India.

In any case, this is pretty nice, and definitely cute / to the point:

Click here to see the 20 minute short documentary “The Story of Stuff.”

USB (universal serial bus) is a computing communication standard, used for connecting electronic devices and allowing them to, well, do a lot of nifty things. Printers, mice, television receivers, and all manner of other doo-dads now connect to your computer via USB, and a few available USB ports on a computer have become—since the technology’s introduction in 1996—standard issue.

A particularly powerful capability of the USB hub you probably have something plugged into right now is it’s capability to supply [a small amount of] power to that external device. This allows recharging of cell phones and iPods, but also allows for a lot of stupid toys.

Three new ideas for how to use the USB port in a different way are the USBCell, and the PlantSense EasyBloom, and the Solio solar powered battery charger.

The USBCell takes the ubiquitous, nickel-metal hydride rechargeable battery out of the charging station, and into any recent computer. The only size currently available are AA ($18 for two), but other are expected to follow.

Of course, many gadgets (iPods and digital cameras especially) now use proprietary lithium-ion batteries, which rely on USB charging, or AC adapters.

Another option for these tools is to take the USB hub out of the computer altogether. Solio creates miniature solar generators that can be used to power your toys and tools in every corner of the globe (or your backyard). Thanks to an integral battery, you can let it collect the sun during the day, and charge your phone at night.

The EasyBloom takes readings of soil and environmental parameters (sunlight, humidity, temperature), and uploads the information via USB to your computer and their website, advising on what plants would be well suited to the present conditions, and advising action to improve the soil, if it is sub-optimum.

I’m not entirely sure how i feel about the EasyBloom (removing the gardener from a true understanding or relationship with the soil, as well as removing her/him from the need of a mentor, which i think is a another valuable relationship to cultivate), and yet, out of my interest in growing my own food, I’m tempted to get one for $60.*

On the other hand, i would probably prefer to not get anything new at all.

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* note, this is not a paid advertisement, i have not received anything for these product placements. Although, i would probably accept an EasyBloom or solar charger for free, if one were offered. Wouldn’t you?

If you’re at all interested in the things i write / report on this blog, i would strongly suggest taking a good look at the links in the bibliography to the upper right of this post. If you’ve plans to buy any of the books, it might well be worth thinking about from whom it is you buy. Finding a local independent store to keep money in your local economy is important, and now relatively easy with the help of IndieBound:

IndieBound is about supporting independent bookstores and other businesses, and celebrating what makes them unique. It’s about reaching out, it’s about raising awareness, and it’s about taking pride in your community. It’s about what makes our hometowns more interesting.

If the convenience of browsing wide catalogues of books online with the option of easy ordering is appealing, certainly the used section of Amazon is pretty advantageous: recycling books as well as helping get some extra dough in somebody’s pocket (often that of an independent book store, working through Amazon’s used section, with Amazon cutting “a little off the top”).

Another important option though, is Better World Books. In their own words:

We’re breaking new ground in online bookselling. We believe that education and access to books are basic human rights. That’s why books sold on BetterWorld.com help fund high-impact literacy projects in the United States and around the world.

All books are available with free shipping to any location within the United States (or $3.97 worldwide). And in case you’re concerned about your eco-footprint, every order is shipped carbon neutral with offsets from Carbonfund.org.

Here’s the best part: In addition to selling new titles, Better World Books supports book drives and collects used books and textbooks through a network of over 1800 college campuses and partnerships with nearly 1200 libraries nationwide. So far, the company has converted more than 13 million donated books into $4.6 million in funding for literacy and education. In the process, we’ve also diverted more than 7,000 tons of books from landfills.

While the benefits of carbon offsets are debatable, it’s an exciting business model (and one i’ll be covering in more detail soon). You can read about the organizations with whom they’re working, and their adventures in helping around the world at the Better World Books Blog.