the greener side

Less than green at Black Rock

Contrary to expectations, I actually made it to Burning Man this year. You can check out some of the damage here. Despite so many good intentions and the hard work of many burners, Green Man was no Las Vegas, but it wasn't so green. Then again, what is? For me, the least green aspect was losing my shirt--not literally, but figuratively, in advance of the event, by shopping at Target and about four other big-box stores for a tent, cooler, LED lights for the bike, and so many other overpackaged, phthalate-ridden camping products.  (I felt less crazy after a new artist friend admitted that she, too, nearly cries in such emporia. Oh, the humanity.)  I didn't realize that the last time I used my own tent was for post-high school graduation bacchanalia on the beach. Because I decided to go at the last minute, I didn't have the luxury of collecting these things slowly and sustainably from friends, craigslist, or resale shops.

My petroleum-based "powdered" wig had to be new too. Or maybe the least green aspect was supplying gasoline to the theme camp's generators. Oh wait, that five gallons was nothing compared to the gasoline filling up the rental car. While I hate air conditioning in real life, some of my happiest Black Rock moments were of resting inside of other people's freon-cooled RVs and trucks for several hours during withering mid-day desert heat.

But I congratulate myself, as any self-righteous San Franciscan should, for spending $25 on a bucket of biodegradable, organic lavender handi-wipes, a hot item under the hotter sun. I brought a bottle of rosewater to spritz on dried-out compatriots too. The bottle claimed that people had prayed over it, and that it possessed special magnetic properties, but my failure to cover up the label made me feel as if I were advertising, a big burner no-no that may have demagnetized all that energy.

And despite the rush to shop at the last minute, the Alemany flea market the week before the burn was the best source of sustainable gifts. I bought a hat box worth of hand-embroidered, mid-century handkerchiefs, which my grandmother still requests at holidays, and passed them around to people. The least commercial, big tent aspect of the Burning Man experience was stopping at local shops and "Indian" taco stands on the way in and out of Black Rock, and sharing small talk with some Paiute people. Pyramid Lake is the bluest thing I've ever seen, especially after nearly a week of so much burning of the brain and fossil fuels.

P.S. See what I wrote for work on this subject here.

A view from the road in Rwanda

Will is gonna die of embarrassment, but check out this video of his trip to a pygmy village with New York Times reporter Nick Kristof. We talk about green building in North America in terms of wheatboard cabinets and $40,000 solar panels, but look where this woman and her family live.

When Jessamay and I went to Brazil with Will a few years ago, all the ladies called him "Brad Peet" since Brad and Jennifer Aniston happened to be visiting Rio. Will was down with camping out in hostel bunkbeds, but being cultural imperialists,credit card owners (who are stil paying off the trip today, ahem), Jessamay and I carted the three of us to a suite in Ipanema and spent a day in salons. Poor Will found a way to do his own thing.

Will's an incredible photographer and teacher who's been documenting the wild

West Side of Chicago for years. He refuses to sell out--er, sell his work. Instead, he gives the pictures back to the people who are in them. If you're jealous that he won the NYT trip, just remember karma: some cretin recently stole his computer, camera equipment and digital photographs from his and Naomi's apartment.

A fun ride, though not so critical for Katrina

Last Friday, my feet were among some 2,500 pairs pumping the pedals in the Katrina anniversary edition of Critical Mass observed in about 30 cities.  The monthly Critical Mass bike ride has been complicating rush hour urban traffic while dumbfounding, enraging, and even delighting trapped drivers around the country for 14 years. 

Last week's special course was designed to trace the floodline around San Francisco, to show where global warming might lead saltwater to swallow parts of the city within decades. Gulp; that's quite a bit of turf (map it yourself). But cyclists weren't donning much to mark Gulf Coast culture, aside from a few Mardi Gras beads, rainless raincoats, and handwritten "Save New Orleans" pages stuck to their spokes. One bearded guy wore only salmon-colored, generic Speedos (to swim?), but I missed the feather-bedecked dude who handed out organic carrots from his basket last month. There was way more Patagonia gear than nudity and glitter. (Stay up for Midnight Ridazz if you're jonesing for fishnets or boogaloo bunny suits.)

We started late, since I had to run home first and buy a helmet to replace the one that disappeared this month, and then we followed the floodline backwards hunting for the cyclists.  Just when we gave up, arriving an hour past the launch near the waterfront, ta da! Suddenly, the flood of hyperempowered humans-on-wheels surfaced down Market Street. Wheee! Gradeschool fun. A highlight, after the initial climax when everyone circled around a guy climbing a light pole, was blocking the Stockton tunnel to ride through it once, then back the other side.

But it was overkill when some riders hijacked the tunnel a third time. Irrational exuberance can rule the flow in these situations, and at that point the police escorts revved their motorcycle engines uncomfortably close to my rear tire. Yeah, we get it, the car culture stinks and bikes rule, etc. We cut out and got some fish tacos. Once again, here's some Mona Caron art (left); you can still buy this Mucha-inspired poster that commemorated the decade birthday of Critical Mass in 2002.

Sustainability, classified

Some accuse Craigslist of wiping out the income for struggling independent newspapers. But Craigslist's free classified ads have more fans than haters. Where else can you find a sweet apartment and furnish it for free in an afternoon? Apartment listings and recycled furniture are merely the point of entry for the no-frills, freaks-friendly community site. Craigslist has become a global phenomenon--hooked people up with homes, husbands, and heartbreaks; and inspired a movie that will show you so I don't have to describe what may be your own lifestyle, especially if you're a green-minded city-dweller.

Maybe you tap into Craigslist to find raw foodists to cart off your dusty food dehydrator, or to locate a stuck-in-the-90s taker for those shameful Girbauds, without lumping your junk into landfills. You might rely on the site to trade up, like founder Craig himself did, from some old Saturn to an eco-friendlier Prius. Of course it's where I met and then parted with a biodiesel 1981 Mercedes 300D (RIP).

Like eBay or the newer Freecycle, Craigslist can help you live a less wasteful lifestyle outside of the mall matrix. Not only that, but as an empire of 21 employees, Craigslist itself is a sustainable enterprise.  Craig expresses no desire to cash in on the multimillions he could earn in days by popping up a few text ads and he seems driven by altriusm, according to this News.com interview.

tags: craigslist

Whatever floats your...raft

While I was hunting for eco-friendly beach toys (which are nearly impossible to find, so draft your business plan now), Miguel ran across the Recyclers Raft. It cracks me up! You don't need to purse your lips or buy a pump to blow it up. Instead, insert a bunch of 2-liter bottles to keep the $50 raft afloat. Calling it more durable than regular rafts, maker Ron See advertises his product as puppy-proof. He was inspired by a contest in a Pennsylvania resort town that dared people to make and race flotation devices from old bottles. See decided to craft, patent, and sell his own raft that demanded recycling--a practice that he lives by. As he describes via email:

My whole family and I have been living off-grid since 1997. We use solar panels and a battery bank for most of our power supply, propane cook stove and hot water and a diesel generator for back up. I also have 2 windmills for battery charging that we are working towards installing. I run a small metal recycling and hauling business in Hartstown, PA. I have personally cleaned up over 2000 tons of scrap steel, and other metals from farm dumps old fence rows and businesses in the past 13 years.

To play devil's advocate, many LOHAS consumers might be too busy downing dixie cups of organic wheatgrass juice to build up a vast enough collection of 2-liter pop bottles to fill this raft’s 66 by 38 inch frame (though you could collect from neighbors). Nor is the  polyester duck canvas some trendy, sustainably-harvested, biodegradable material. But if the recylers' raft is as durable as See and his three kids attest, that would make it greener than those rafts that you buy on Memorial Day, then trash by the time it's flat on Labor Day. Credit for creativity is due.

How green my home city grows

Oily-haired hipsters and transplanted Schaumburgers alike used to look down on the tractor tire in my side yard on Chicago's near west side. Ha, they didn't know how much they were missing, as the women of Wolcott were living it up, happily drinking in that old-school view. I insisted that the tire stay put. It took an angelic volunteer, by the time I'd moved away, to lighten up our sow thistle and dandelion-laden corner with more delicate, Smith and Hawken-appropriate native plant landscaping.

But even living thousands of miles away, I pine for the long-gone tire. Now it would even be in high demand as a garden prop for local green thinkers. Turns out the city's premier eco-minded landscaper, Christy Webber, devotes her own work to a shabby chic style she calls "West Side Revived," replete with "found objects such as plastic piping, bottles, street signs and license plates." I can't decide if this talk, along with all the breathlessness about Daley's green urban renewal, either makes me suspicious or homesick. The Garden in a City show, named for Chicago's Latin tagline, happened this weekend and I missed it even though I'm in town. Eh. So dig through these pictures to see how the third coast is beating its bicoastal brethren at gritty city greenery.

Update: Where to share a car?

Since I first posted this chart in the fall, Americans have been freaking about oil supplies peaking, telecommuting to avoid the pinch at the pump, and flocking to car-sharing services in city centers. Plus, our transmission gave out, forcing me to walk about an hour a day, minimum, and burn perhaps the greenest fuel of all: calories--no joke when you live on this hill. Car-less, I've been shopping a small bag at a time, shoving organic chocolate in my backpack and pedaling away.

For bulk groceries, it still seems that taking a taxi from the store is cheaper than sharing a car, plus it drops you off at your door for good so you don't have to march home from the lot. Now that a Zipcar office opened a block from work, however, I'm tempted to try it. Should I cave into the ever-expanding Zipcar empire, support the rival Flexcar, or support the local nonprofit City CarShare? See if the chart speaks for itself. What's your favorite? Continue to the next page to view or download the chart (you'll need Java enabled--or try here-but maybe I'll add an image later)

On the Maker Faire

The Maker Faire was a like a 4H show where the majority of people held masters degrees and the only pork was at the BBQ stand. No better time than Earth Day for the first Do-It-Yourself fest put on by O'Reilly's Make Magazine. At least a third of the exhibits dealt outright with green technology--converting a VW to veggie oil, building a backyard wind-powered generator, knitting with bamboo fiber, and the like. But really, the whole shebang was about sustainability--feeding that particular, mad strain of the American psyche that prefers tinkering, hacking, and modding over consuming things as they come.

The crowd was equal parts San Francisco and Silicon Valley--cultural creatives and super-empowered dorks, childlike adults and adult-like kids. People were pretty much passionate about everything open source, yet laid-back. And of course there were dweebs. The single, long line to get in early Saturday afternoon showed a larger than anticipated turnout. Two men behind me agreed.

A: I’m surprised these guys get their girlfriends to come, the ones that have girlfriends.
B: We went to the Home & Garden Show, the one where you can bring your wives.
A: One thing I won’t be going to is a cat show.
B: Just because cats don’t give a shit.
A: A dog show’s bad enough.

The fairly-balanced gender ratio didn't surprise me. How many other mixers bring together women who write software to print 4D steel paperweights with guys who stitch 'n bitch?

The pair behind me continued to blather about the idiocy of having only one ticket booth there (though at another recent, worse-organized outdoor event a "stupid" woman at the counter couldn’t multitask between two queues). A. mentioned a female friend who hunts for meteorites in the Arctic ice ("You drive and then you actually see them because it’s just ice and you see rock, what else is it?"). Then he brought up Stirling engines, reminisced about crouching below railroad trestles as a kid to feel trains thrash by inches overhead (not as stupid as seeing how close to the train you can be, he defended himself). That reminded B. of riding trains between Nepalese and Indian border towns as a child and how "the poor people" waited alongside the tracks to collect a basket’s worth of coal by the day’s end. Both fussed about how fussy women are at meals.

 Near the front of the line, an imperious little boy, 8ish, ordered the green column from which he swung, "Get off my kingdom." What kind of maker (or taker) he’ll grow up to become is anyone’s guess, but I bet I enjoy more free time than he does already.

Not a moment too soon, we entered the gates of the San Mateo County Expo Center. First action spotted: middle-aged geeks gliding along the lawn in a game of Segway Polo (I guess this one’s Mr. Apple Steve Wozniak).

Most of the exhibitors' projects have been shown off in Make's pages--ordinary geniuses including unemployed college students, house husbands, and single-moms with several jobs:

  Hand-crank computer historians, steampunk robot engineers, birders, felters, screen- and Gocco-printers, free radio renegades, stencil artists, 1820s time travelers, IKEA shopping cart chairmakers (left), rotary cell phone talkers, makers of mini-blimps whose personalities mimic whales, spud gun power shooters, biodiesel and hybrid and electric engine modders, knitters, a backyard monorail rider, door-unlocking subcutaneous RFID chip self-implanters, surfriders, designers of precision-perfect hardwood puzzles, multicolor LED lamp inventors, fair use freaks, thimble musicians, hydroponics planters, clothes swappers, stop-motion animators. And of course, a faire couldn't earn its "e" without some Medieval element (right).

The point was to make, not just take it in. And people were just jumping in, whatever they could get their hands on. You could bring old gadgets for recycling, or tote old clothes for the Bizarre Bazaar  and Swap-o-Rama-Rama. Hack your remote control’s infrared to turn on the lights in the room rather than the TV. Play with a robot giraffe or turn your body shape into a constellation of stars on the wall. Spin the LED- or circuit-board-encrusted wheels of your bike. We first stopped at a table where you could craft a solar-powered insect to crawl.

The few commercial areas featured small businesses, some quirky like MyPacifiers, which are labeled with your baby’s name so you won’t stick the sucker in the wrong pucker. Santa Rosa’s electric car and bike company, ZAP, is starting to market portable electric gadget chargers that power iPods, laptops, and camcorders on the go. Each is named after a noted river, like the Mississippi (is the threat of flooding the selling point?). Next month the company will sell a thin-film solar-powered backpack to rival the Juice Bag.

Only afterwards did I hear people refer to the fair in any jaded and blasé way. If you read too much about tech, you probably didn’t spot anything mind-shattering or new there, but that didn’t even matter.

How could I resist feeling a personal sense of awe: that it’s been years since I’ve haven't felt any elbowed annoyance, any sense of collective cultural disappointment, any horror at resigning to mediocrity, claustrophobia, or pandering, in such a big crowd of people? This hive hums well.

Find more pictures here and here and here. technorati tags: maker faire earth day recycling DIY

Does microwaved water kill plants?

Do microwaves poison food? One Marshall Dudley posted the results of what was supposedly a granddaughter's science project, in which the kid watered two plants (geraniums? the leaves on the clippings look different from the plantings). One sprout sipped microwaved water while the other got stove-boiled water--after it chilled, I assume. It's not a double-blind study, peer-reviewed in Nature. Yet one glance at the results are enough to make any microwave-wary folks gulp. Dudley followed up:

We have seen a number of comments on this, such as what was the water in the microwave boiled in. The thinking is that maybe some leaching took place if it was in plastic.  It was boiled in a plastic cup, so this could be a possibility.

Yeah, everyone says that plastic is safe, and microwaves don't cause cancer (although popcorn bags definitely leach teflon into your munchies). But does nuking food and water make it less healthy for living things, if not deadly? Was this a case of radiation sickness or plastic poisoning, was this test too sloppy to tell, or is it a hoax?

technorati tags: radiation environment health microwave

Greener credit: priceless

Plastic is poison in so many ways. Take credit cards; it's not that they'd suddenly be eco-friendly if they were made of kenaf. Instead, credit cards seduce us to live unsustainably. One day you're signing up on campus to get a free teddy bear (ugh--mine wears a bomber jacket and goggles), the next thing you know you're swimming with dolphins in Cancun on a trip that you'll be paying off as a grandparent--if you can afford to have a family in the first place.

Your fault for spending as if MTV cared to film your life. Yet creditors sneer, gladly handing you a fatter line of borrowed money than you can possibly snort. They like you cracked out on consumer debt better than when you soberly pay them back. That's just their business, sort of like the paparazzi and Whitney Houston.

On top of that, your personally unsustainable lifestyle has global ramifications. The road to easy credit is littered with landfills. When you instantly gratify a whim by charging the latest, most incredibly shrinking iPod or whatever, you feed the myth that newness is better than something borrowed or mended. The annoying cycle of mass consumption that we all bitch about but participate in keeps spinning like some fractal screensaver in a stoner's dorm room.

You spend more because you can, you save less because you can't imagine the future, and soon there's less cash in your kitty. You may no longer use credit cards just to keep up with the Joneses; falling incomes and rising debt mean that you're charging basics like gas, health care, and groceries. Creditors often gouge the neediest consumers with outlandish interest rates, trapping them in this cycle.

The more debt you hold onto, the more that Visa, Mastercard, and friends profit. The stronger creditors are, the more power they have to push people around. After decades of handshaking in D.C., creditors uncorked the Veuve last October when a bankruptcy law started making it harder for you to get a clean slate if your finances fall apart (that law might be backfiring on them). And credit card companies generally support politicians with an atrocious disregard for ecological and social woes.

What's my point? What can you do to escape consumer madness, beyond joining the Compact, observing Buy Nothing Day, or following tips from blogs such Frugal for Life? To start, ignore the zero-percent bait and just say no if you're about to get a new credit card--even one that donates to a needy cause. If you're already hooked, take out a more sustainable loan and pay it off. I don't mean a credit card, line of credit, mortgage, or family handout. Instead, consider Prosper or Zopa--peer-to-peer credit services that take banks out of the picture. You already use the web to trade music and movies, so it naturally follows that someone would turn the net into a P2P lending system.

The concept is sort of like Modest Needs, which lets you donate to or receive life-saving cash from willing strangers. Prosper and Zopa are even more like Kiva--which lets you lend to microbusinesses in the developing world--except that they serve the "first world." Zopa is U.K.-only but plans to come to the U.S. too.
Lots of Prosper borrowers are looking for help in paying off high interest rate credit cards. Others want to finance big expenses such as yanking 21 bad teeth, weight loss surgery, or a small business upgrade. These aren't shameless beggars like Save Karyn; Prosper borrowers join for free but must pay back lenders with interest. Feeling generous? You can loan to people in $50 increments; the more small loans you make, the more likely you are to get the money back.

Prosper encourages borrowers to join one of its groups, which can add street cred to a credit score. You can start your own group or join one of the nearly 600 clusters already created by veterans, doctors, college alumni, green-minded people, etc. Prosper and Zopa provide a democratic, off-the-grid alternative to the consumer credit matrix, and have the potential to change the way people borrow and dole out dollars. I'm curious to see how these services will develop, and if imitators will crop up. Maybe social networking sites will build a microlending feature into their community networks.

technorati tags: money credit sustainability environment finance green