Local flowers for my wedding bouquet
In addition to writing Sustainablogity and trying to launch a successful freelance journalism business, I’m also spending a lot of time recently planning my wedding to my fiance, Aaron. I just read an article about brides who choose local sources for flowers for their weddings. I think this is a green trend that I could jump on board with. I wonder how many farms in Central Texas sell flowers for weddings?
Photo by John Faherty Photography on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnfahertyphotography/)
Proposed law would strengthen toxic chemical regulations
An attorney for the National Research Defense Council has written a blog post listing the reforms proposed under a new law that was presented in Congress yesterday. Daniel Rosenberg says the new Toxic Chemicals Safety Act would update old laws that he thinks have failed to keep the public safe. Among many other reforms, the new law would force the EPA to use modern methods to test chemicals, make sure chemical safety standards keep vulnerable populations (children) in mind, and force companies to disclose the ingredients in all chemicals.
New residents pointing out environmental problems
I can personally relate to today’s story by Asher Price in the Austin American-Statesman about new residents to East Austin who are working to fix longstanding environmental problems in their areas. East Austin has traditionally been the home to many lower income black and Hispanic Austinites, but that racial and socioeconomic mixture is changing. The city is growing, people are looking for affordable housing, and there is a renewed interest in living in the center of Austin instead of in suburbs.
“You have an influx of new residents coming in who are more environmentally aware and probably know of particular city programs and incentives they can use,” said Oscar Garza, an environmental compliance specialist with the city’s Watershed Protection Department and coordinator of the city’s East Austin Environmental Initiative, an outreach program that began in the 1990s. “They put more focus on environmental awareness, and that infuses that into the neighborhood.”
I guess I count as one of the “new residents.” Aaron and I decided to move to East Austin because we could afford a nice house here, and we wanted to live within walking and biking distance of the city center with all its bars, restaurants and cultural attractions.
Photo by "doortoriver" on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/doortoriver/)
I enjoy walking my dogs around my new neighborhood, and I’ve personally been shocked by some of the environmental problems–Mostly trash all over the roads. The thing that concerns me the most is there is broken glass littering most of the streets and sidewalks around East Austin. I’m afraid the glass will cut my dogs’ paws when I’m walking them. Aaron says he frequently gets flat tires from running over broken glass. I can imagine children running or riding bikes outside, accidentally falling down and doing a face plant on broken glass.
It’s not good.
Spill is stopped, but damage is done
Photo by "wink" on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/intherough/)
The World Resources Institute has an interesting article pointing to several studies about ecosystem services in the Gulf of Mexico that may be devalued because of the BP oil spill.
A recently-released study by Earth Economics (PDF) estimates that the Mississippi Delta’s ecological communities currently generate up to $13,000 per acre in ecosystem services each year. Over the next hundred years, this estimate, for just the Mississippi Delta region, translates into a present value of $330 billion to $1.3 trillion, the wide range owing to uncertainties about the value of ecosystem services over that time period. Exposure to residual oil over the course of decades will diminish the value of ecosystem services generated by marshes, wetlands, and coastal waters in the spill’s path.
Ants know sustainable agriculture — Now it’s our turn
Civil Eats interviewed Mark Moffett, author of Adventures Among Ants, who talks about how leafcutter ants in South America cultivate underground food crops of fungi in a sustainable way. Maybe people should study them and adopt some of their practices.
I suspect their investment in environmental safety is ten times what humans put out. Of course we humans are just figuring out how critical public health issues are. So this is a word to the wise from nature: given similar problems and conditions, the ants have evolved a much more serious ability to deal with environmental issues at their small scale than we have at ours.
Free online veggie garden planner
Mother Earth News has an awesome resource for people like Aaron and I who have grand schemes in mind for our vegetable garden. The magazine’s website has an online vegetable garden planner that will allow us to visualize our layout. The software tool is free for 30 days. Using the site, you can see what time to plant different vegetable varieties, plan a site layout for your garden, plan how to rotate your crops, and more.
Photo by di the huntress on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/22863752@N06/)
Grants for smart grid technology
Photo by david.nokonvscanon on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/nikonvscanon/)
The New York Times Green blog reports today that General Electric has partnered with venture firms to offer $200 million in funding to people who come up with smart ideas for clean energy and a smart grid.
From now until Sept. 30, budding smart-grid entrepreneurs will be able to submit their proposals in one of three areas that the investors see as central to ramping up use of renewables:
• Maximizing penetration of clean energy into the grid.
• Improving the efficiency of the grid.
• Helping electricity customers use energy more wisely.
For politicians, ties to BP may be pitfall
The Austin American Statesman today reports that politicians are “slinging tar balls” at campaign opponents with ties to BP.
Politicians across the nation are learning that any association with the company can be slung like tar balls against them.
“Clearly any ties to BP are a potential liability,” said Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University. “Any work done for them, any donations received, anything an opponent can seize upon.”
Scary thought: 27,000 old, abandoned oil wells
An Associated Press investigation reveals a scary ticking time bomb in the Gulf of Mexico that industry and government leaders seem to be unaware about.
More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades. No one not industry, not government is checking to see if they are leaking, an Associated Press investigation shows.
The oldest of these wells were abandoned in the late 1940s, raising the prospect that many deteriorating sealing jobs are already failing.
The AP investigation uncovered particular concern with 3,500 of the neglected wells — those characterized in federal government records as “temporarily abandoned.”
E.U. lifting restrictions on genetically modified foods
The New York Times reports today that the European Union will allow individual countries to decide whether to allow genetically modified foods.
On Tuesday the European Commission will formally propose giving back to national and local governments the freedom to decide whether to grow crops that many Europeans still call Frankenfoods.
The new policy is aimed at overcoming a stalemate that has severely curtailed the market for biotech seeds in Europe for years. Only two crops, produced by Monsanto and B.A.S.F., are sold for cultivation here.
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