A Grotesque GREEN Experiment

I was going to write about the work I did last weekend until I read this article in The New York Times that, quite honestly, pissed me off. Tom Zeller Jr. is a “Green Inc.” columnist for The New York Times and seems to have stumbled upon an experiment done at the University of Toronto on Green consumers. Two assistant professors were performing tests on Green consumers and conventional consumers to show a pattern in human psychology and behavior. In one experiment 59 student volunteers were asked to rate each kind of consumer with noble attributes; of course the green consumers rated high. In another experiment 156 volunteers were sat in front of a computer with two visuals in front of them, one with a green store and one with a conventional store. They were then asked to buy products from either store and were also allowed to share money. The people that bought from the green store did just that. The people that bought from the conventional store shared money. One last test had volunteers answer a simple question, which box has more dots. It was very obvious which box had more dots in it, but that was not the point. The point was that green shoppers answered more incorrect than the others, meaning that they were more careless and satisfied by doing one simple job. Researchers used these experiments to conclude that wealthier people are only concerned with the here and now. Wealthier people and westerners think that shopping green means that they have done enough to make the world a better place. Just enough. The conclusion was that richer people who do these minor acts believe they have benefited the world when in fact they might as well have done nothing at all. I beg to differ.

Although Tom Zeller and Toronto researchers present very strong and important facts, I find their experiment and conclusions to be completely biased and pointless. How can you make an assumption of green consumers being rich and careless? I find this to be very generalized and one-sided. It has been known since the first few Green products were in stores that they would be more expensive. And what does it take for more expensive products to be purchased? People with more money. I am stating the obvious. This is not news.

Yet the generalizations are not completely false, so I will not fully bash this article. Most westerners do purchase green products, buy local foods, recycle, buy a Prius and then throw in the keys and call themselves God. But not everyone is some environmental activist who can devote their life to these issues. So can we blame them for not going out when they have a minute of spare time and pick up trash, dig holes, plant trees and protest? No! People are choosing to go green in their daily routines and purchase products on their way home from work differently than they used to. That says a lot. Getting a majority of people to change little, daily acts, as opposed to having few people perform big jobs, will make a bigger difference.

Of course there are places all around the world that are being destroyed at this very moment because of environmental problems and global warming. And of course we can do a lot more to help these places and the people living there. We can do a lot more to help people all around the world with all kinds of different problems. There are people, some rich westerners and some not, who have gone to these other places in the world and devoted their lives to helping other people’s environments. For the rest of the population on the west, people have gone on devoting their lives to other jobs while making green changes in their lifestyle. It has come slowly and will never be enough to heal the damage we have done, but there is a green revolution occurring and we have come a long way. Everyone is aware that they are living in a green movement and that this movement will never end because we are constantly destroying the environment. Change IS happening and that is huge. I consider myself an environmentalist and as much as I would love every single person to be as passionate and concerned as I am, that is not realistic. But I am proud of how far we have come and how much activity is occurring in people’s lives to live in a greener way. “When Green Consumers Decide, ‘I’ve Done Enough’” understates and misrepresents the positive ways in which populations are going green and helping the environment. This issue should not be tied to money. There are plenty of other ways to help the environment without having an abundance of cash.

Go help, Go volunteer, Go GREEN!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/business/energy-environment/22green.html?pagewanted=1

Where Have all the Salmon Gone?

I woke up this morning ready to strap on my shoes and head out to Bayer Farm, but unfortunately the weather today did not permit me to do so. With pouring rain and gray skies, not much would get accomplished on the farm except for getting completely covered in mud and tempering with cold symptoms that are flying around in the air. If it was sprinkling it would have been a different story, I would have had a fun work day to have told you about, but the non-stop down pour is keeping me cooped up in my room with the news instead.

I thought I would read a bit more local this morning and glance through the San Francisco Chronicle in search of my environmental updates. What I came upon was not shocking. The title read, “Fishermen Likely to See Limited Salmon Season.” Why was this not shocking to me? Well to make a generalized statement, what is global warming and climate change not limiting? What is our pollution and thinning of the ozone layer making better? What is corporate agriculture not being destructive of? My point exactly.

The limited salmon fishing season this year is going to be taking an economic toll on the people who rely on it as their main trade, the fishing villages who count down the days until the rivers are full again. Return of the Chinook salmon into the Sacramento River has been so horrible in the last couple years that commercial fishing was banned off of Oregon and California’s coast line. Big king salmon pass through the San Francisco Bay and head out to the Pacific but there has been a lack in numbers due to water diversions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to farmers. State and federal pumps that release water into delta’s leading to corporate farms are destroying the salmon into shreds. This corporate power of subsidized water is not only destroying the salmon, but is destroying commercial fishermen and small business owners. In order for salmon to recover, pumping must be reduced. Agriculture corporations are fighting to block any restrictions that are made to limit pumping.

I found this article interesting and crucial to bring to attention because it portrays a perfect example of why it is so important to support and live in a local manner. It is these big corporations that pollute so much and are taking away hundreds of jobs. The first way to fix these problems is to make sure they are known. Most people have no idea of what these corporate giants are really doing. When people learn about the problem it is a natural force that will lead people to change the way they consume. Anything that is THAT BIG and THAT POWERFUL cannot have a good impact on our planet. We must stay tight in our communities and re-think the way we live. How much do you enjoy a nice grilled salmon? Or looking off the Golden Gate Bridge into a nice clean bay? Consider those common things that are so valuable to us and imagine not having them anymore.

Go Help, Go Volunteer, Go GREEN!

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/12/MNU61CECO9.DTL

A Break For Some Environmental News

A couple days after working hard with the Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation, I was reading the New York Times and my delightful mood was a bit shattered. The heading read, “Rulings Restrict Clean Water Act, Foiling E.P.A.” I couldn’t help but wonder who is pissed off at the Environmental Protection Agency now?

The Clean Water Act is intended to put a stop to water pollution by regulating every major polluter. But apparently not all bodies of water are covered by the Clean Water Act. Pollution rates are rising yet again because thousands of the country’s largest water polluters are claiming that the law no longer applies to them. The Environmental Protection Agency has to start pulling out of certain areas and even states because companies are realizing that cops are not operating on their grounds and so they go back to what is cheapest; polluting natural bodies of water. The New York state commissioner, James M Tierney describes this as a huge problem because unprotected watersheds lead directly into New York’s drinking water.

As if this is not bad enough, the funniest part is that the Clean Water Act has one word in its written law that companies have completely warped in order to satisfy their own needs, and that word is “navigable”. “Navigable waters” has been used for decades to include many large wetlands and streams that connect to major rivers. So now companies are using creeks that occasionally dry up and streams that do not lead to larger water systems saying that those are not “navigable waters”. Interesting. It seems like a body of water to me. The new court decisions do not define which waterways are regulated which makes the E.P.A’s job a lot more difficult. A good statistic from the E.P.A. that helps support them; about 117 million Americans get their drinking water from sources fed by waters that are vulnerable to exclusion from the Clean Water Act.

The Clean Water Restoration Act is trying to take out the word “navigable” from the language of the law so that the act applies to ALL bodies of water. The federal government would not have to limit how far they go to regulate waters. The problem used to be pollution in large bodies of water and now it is pollution into smaller streams that lead to larger bodies of water. That is where the case is being lost.

The reason I bring this article to light is because the work I have been doing with Cotati Creek Critters and the Santa Rosa De Laguna Foundation work around small streams and creeks. The streams and creeks are home to a handful of native plant and animal species as well as being a great element to Sonoma County and its residents. These waters feed into the Russian River, a great body of water for Northern California. Could you imagine if large companies were dumping their pollutants into the unprotected streams and creeks flowing into the Russian River that people drink out of and swim in? I could not! Clean water and open space are so important for this country and it is crucial to not let the protection laws for these parts of nature dissipate.

Go help, Go Volunteer, Go GREEN

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/us/01water.html?ref=todayspaper">