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From a piece I wrote for Care2.
I was interviewed on the radio last Friday about my 365 Days of Trash and an interesting thing happened. I was talking about some of the things that I started doing last year (and still do) in order to waste less and the subject came around to eating out at restaurants. I mentioned the simple ones–try to stay away from fast food, tell them you don’t need the straw, don’t order more than you think you’ll eat, and then I mentioned doggie bags.
My wife and I have two young kids, so more often than not we are left with food on the table. So, assuming we knew we were planning to eat out, one of us will usually bring along a small Tupperware type container and put it in there. As I explained to the gentleman interviewing me, this allows me to save the food that would otherwise get trashed, but negates my need for a Styrofoam take out container.
Now I’ve been bringing my own for a while now, so it pretty much seems like second nature, but the radio host saw it a different way. “Really?” he said, “Isn’t that sort of embarrassing?”
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard that kind of reaction and I’m sure it won’t be the last so I wasn’t taken aback, but it did get me thinking. Why is the idea of standing out, of being so different, so scary?
Now I know that there’s human nature, the desire to not be seen outside of the herd and all. My guess is this comes from not wanting to be eaten first by predators or some such subconscious remnant from our pre-wheel, spear-throwing times (as an aside, it fascinates me then that loud Hawaiian shirts are so popular). But no one at Bo’s Bar and Grill is looking for any human flesh these days so it seems like Tupperware shouldn’t be that scary?
I know I’m rambling a bit here, but bear with me for a second. It seems that my generation has sort of woken up over night and discovered that something is very wrong. We were brought up in this pre-packaged, single-serving, don’t-sweat-the-ramifications-of-what-you-are-doing-because-someone-else-will-take-care-of-it society and suddenly (well it started 20 years or so ago) we are beginning to realize that it doesn’t work so well. We are beginning to wake up and recognize that we need change and we need it fast.
So maybe what we need now is for more people to act differently, to make some noise, to risk being embarrassed. And maybe by doing so, enough people will see what we are doing, follow our model, and then we won’t risk being embarrassed anymore, but will once again be able to disappear into the herd as we pull out our take home containers and pay our checks.
And while we, the “adults” struggle to change our ways and try to do what’s best while still fitting in, maybe we’ll realize that this is a short term problem. Because as we start to make a stand and change our ways, our children will be watching. And if we show them that what we are doing is “normal”–that Tupperware take-home is “normal,” that steel water bottles are “normal,” that turning the lights off and walking to the store are “normal,” maybe that’s just what they will eventually become, normal. And then we’ll have done something.
So what am I getting at? Don’t try to hide your Tupperware, or your water bottles, your reusable bags, or your travel coffee mugs. Walk to work and let your co-workers know you did it and why. Challenge the status quo and throw it out there that what you are doing is not embarrassing, but empowering. And let your children know that being different isn’t something you should be embarrassed about, but something you should be proud of, because you are doing it for them.
Trust me, as the father of two girls who think that scrap paper should be given to the worms in their composter, I can assure you that when abnormal becomes normal, it’s pretty cool.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Leftovers (or making the abnormal, normal)
Amazing Earth Hour Pics
Check out these amazing Earth Hour pics from last Saturday night. You can click on each one and it will toggle between before and after. Pretty cool.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Excellent Recycling Process Animation
Excellent animated video in several parts that explains the whole recycling process of many different materials.
You can also watch the first one on youtube and the rest will play automatically.
The Electronic Wasteleand
Amazing piece on where our e-waste ends up from 60 minutes.
Watch CBS Videos Online
Thursday, March 26, 2009
The Tesla S Revealed
My friend Paul Scott attended the unveiling of the new Tesla S Class Sedan, the all electric 4 door luxury sedan that should be available in 2011. Very cool looking. Check out what he has to say.
I just got back from Space X, Elon Musk's rocket factory in Hawthorne, CA where the unveiling of the much anticipated Tesla Model S was held. In a word - WOW, this is a gorgeous car!
Lots of rumors have been floating around for the past two years about the Model S, so I expected something close to what I saw, but the actual car exceeded my expectations.
First, the styling is sleek without being too flashy (see the Fisker Karma for my definition of too flashy). The drag coefficient is a very respectable .25, less than even the Tesla roadster. This will come in handy if you want to take her up to a top speed of 130 mph. 0-60 is a screaming 5.5 seconds, not bad for a family car. They will also offer a "sport version" with a 0-60 under 5 seconds. Do NOT let your teenager drive this car!
The big news for me was that the Model S will be offered with three different sized battery packs: 160 miles; 230 miles; 300 miles. The base priced model of 160 mile range is going to sell for $57,400, and after the $7,500 federal tax credit nets out at $49,900. No news on the price of the longer range models, but I can guarantee that the 160 mile model will be their biggest seller. There's very little need for the longer range car, so why pay (presumedly) thousands more and carry the extra weight around? BTW, the base model will weigh in around 4,000 lbs.
I asked Tesla's Chief Technical Officer, J.B. Strauble, whether they would be using the same battery tray for all three options and he confirmed they would. The 160 mile version will not use all the room in the tray, the 230 mile version would be full and the 300 mile version would be using a different type of LiIon battery with more energy capacity. While J.B. was unable to divulge the battery company by name, he did say it was a name we'd recognize and was based in Japan.
I asked Elon about the battery warranty, life expectancy and replacement cost. He says the warranty will be 4-5 years for the whole car, they expected the battery pack to last 7-10 years and the replacement cost would be under $500 kWh. I did not get the kWh capacity of the pack, sorry. I'd guess the base model would need at least 30-35 kWh for 160 miles. That's around $3.00 worth of electricity for 160 miles.
The first cars will roll off the factory floor in late 2011, but that's premised on Tesla getting the loan from the feds they are seeking. Elon talked about two options for the loan. One is almost a sure thing for $250 million and the other was for $350 million. Between the two, he felt sure of getting one of them. Since the U.S. is loaning billions to the failed Detroit three, I have no problem with a company making fully electric cars getting $350 million. They need the money to build the factory, hopefully here in SoCal where we could use the jobs.
Paul
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Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Is This The Beginning?
An excellent essay from NYTimes columnists Thomas Friedman. What if the recession is just a small part of what we are actually being told? What if we don't listen?
The Inflection is Near?
Sometimes the satirical newspaper The Onion is so right on, I can’t resist quoting from it. Consider this faux article from June 2005 about America’s addiction to Chinese exports:
FENGHUA, China — Chen Hsien, an employee of Fenghua Ningbo Plastic Works Ltd., a plastics factory that manufactures lightweight household items for Western markets, expressed his disbelief Monday over the “sheer amount of [garbage] Americans will buy. Often, when we’re assigned a new order for, say, ‘salad shooters,’ I will say to myself, ‘There’s no way that anyone will ever buy these.’ ... One month later, we will receive an order for the same product, but three times the quantity. How can anyone have a need for such useless [garbage]? I hear that Americans can buy anything they want, and I believe it, judging from the things I’ve made for them,” Chen said. “And I also hear that, when they no longer want an item, they simply throw it away. So wasteful and contemptible.”
Let’s today step out of the normal boundaries of analysis of our economic crisis and ask a radical question: What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said: “No more.”
We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China, powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills so America would have more and more money to build more and more stores and sell more and more stuff that would employ more and more Chinese ...
We can’t do this anymore.
“We created a way of raising standards of living that we can’t possibly pass on to our children,” said Joe Romm, a physicist and climate expert who writes the indispensable blog climateprogress.org. We have been getting rich by depleting all our natural stocks — water, hydrocarbons, forests, rivers, fish and arable land — and not by generating renewable flows.
“You can get this burst of wealth that we have created from this rapacious behavior,” added Romm. “But it has to collapse, unless adults stand up and say, ‘This is a Ponzi scheme. We have not generated real wealth, and we are destroying a livable climate ...’ Real wealth is something you can pass on in a way that others can enjoy.”
Over a billion people today suffer from water scarcity; deforestation in the tropics destroys an area the size of Greece every year — more than 25 million acres; more than half of the world’s fisheries are over-fished or fished at their limit.
“Just as a few lonely economists warned us we were living beyond our financial means and overdrawing our financial assets, scientists are warning us that we’re living beyond our ecological means and overdrawing our natural assets,” argues Glenn Prickett, senior vice president at Conservation International. But, he cautioned, as environmentalists have pointed out: “Mother Nature doesn’t do bailouts.”
One of those who has been warning me of this for a long time is Paul Gilding, the Australian environmental business expert. He has a name for this moment — when both Mother Nature and Father Greed have hit the wall at once — “The Great Disruption.”
“We are taking a system operating past its capacity and driving it faster and harder,” he wrote me. “No matter how wonderful the system is, the laws of physics and biology still apply.” We must have growth, but we must grow in a different way. For starters, economies need to transition to the concept of net-zero, whereby buildings, cars, factories and homes are designed not only to generate as much energy as they use but to be infinitely recyclable in as many parts as possible. Let’s grow by creating flows rather than plundering more stocks.
Gilding says he’s actually an optimist. So am I. People are already using this economic slowdown to retool and reorient economies. Germany, Britain, China and the U.S. have all used stimulus bills to make huge new investments in clean power. South Korea’s new national paradigm for development is called: “Low carbon, green growth.” Who knew? People are realizing we need more than incremental changes — and we’re seeing the first stirrings of growth in smarter, more efficient, more responsible ways.
In the meantime, says Gilding, take notes: “When we look back, 2008 will be a momentous year in human history. Our children and grandchildren will ask us, ‘What was it like? What were you doing when it started to fall apart? What did you think? What did you do?’ Often in the middle of something momentous, we can’t see its significance. But for me there is no doubt: 2008 will be the marker — the year when ‘The Great Disruption’ began.”
