A Green Bug (Blog)

Unplugging the Planet

2008-02-29T10:59:00.000-08:00

Created to take a stand against the greatest threat our planet has ever faced, Earth Hour uses the simple action of turning off the lights for one hour to deliver a powerful message about the need for action on global warming.

This simple act has captured the hearts and minds of people all over the world. As a result, at 8pm March 29, 2008 millions of people in some of the world’s major capital cities, including Copenhagen, Toronto, Chicago, Melbourne, Brisbane and Tel Aviv will unite and switch off for Earth Hour.

For more information visit www.earthhour.org

Please feel free to grab the image above to promote this event.

The poster in Portuguese...

Tap Water Project

2008-01-21T08:35:00.000-08:00

Tap Project Mission Statement

It's our single most bountiful resource. Yet, water is a daily privilege millions take for granted. The little known truth is that lack of clean and accessible drinking water is the second largest worldwide killer of children under five.

To address this situation, a nationwide effort is launching during World Water Week called the Tap Project, a campaign that celebrates the clean and accessible tap water available as an every day privilege to millions, while helping UNICEF provide safe drinking water to children around the world.

The Tap Project.

Beginning Sunday, March 16 through Saturday, March 22, restaurants will invite their customers to donate a minimum of $1 for the tap water they would normally get for free. For every dollar raised, a child will have clean drinking water for 40 days.

As the world's leading children's organization, UNICEF understands the critical role water plays in a child's survival.

Currently, UNICEF provides access to safe water and sanitation facilities while promoting safe hygiene practices in more than 90 countries. By 2015, UNICEF's goal is to reduce the number of people without safe water and basic sanitation by 50 percent.

Learn more about this project right here .

Nonsense and Insensibility

2007-12-31T14:06:00.000-08:00

Twas the day after Christmas', when all through the street,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
Just the sad tree sat there
Awaiting the shredding truck to come
And destroy its branches
Filled with promises of a long life one day...

(Pictures taken on my street on December 26)

Shop dropping: The opposite of shop lifting with an art twist

2007-12-29T08:52:00.000-08:00

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Consume until you die!

2007-12-24T08:47:00.001-08:00

from www.letra.org

Too Yellow to be Green

2007-12-19T11:12:00.002-08:00

I couldn't agree more with Barbara Flanagan on the importance of getting educated about the products we consume before thinking we are "green".
Click on picture below to read article.
The story was featured on ID Magazine.

5 Reasons Not to Drink Bottled Water

2007-07-06T07:54:00.000-07:00

(This is a re-post from Light Footstep - got here via No Impact Man Blog)

Written by Chris Baskind

Bottled water is healthy water -- right?

That's what the marketers would have us believe. Just look at the labels or the bottled water ads: deep, pristine pools of spring water; majestic alpine peaks; healthy, active people gulping down icy bottled water between biking in the park and a trip to the yoga studio.

In reality, bottled water is just water. That fact isn't stopping people from buying a lot of it. Estimates variously place worldwide bottled water sales at between $50 and $100 billion each year, with the market expanding at the startling annual rate of 7 percent.

Bottled water is big business. But in terms of sustainability, bottled water is a dry well. It's costly, wasteful, and distracts from the brass ring of public health: the construction and maintenance of safe municipal water systems.

Want some solid reasons to kick the bottled water habit? We've rounded up five to get you started.

Bottled water isn't a good value

Take, for instance, Pepsi's Aquafina or Coca-Cola's Dasani bottled water. Both are sold in 20 ounce sizes and can be purchased from vending machines alongside soft drinks -- and at the same price. Assuming you can find a $1 machine, that works out to 5 cents an ounce. These two brands are essentially filtered tap water, bottled close to their distribution point. Most municipal water costs less than one cent per gallon.

Now consider another widely-sold liquid: gasoline. It has to be pumped out of the ground in the form of crude oil, shipped to a refinery (often halfway across the world), and shipped again to your local filling station.

In the U.S., the average price per gallon is hovering around $3. There are 128 ounces in a gallon, which puts the current price of gasoline at fraction over 2 cents an ounce.

And that's why there's no shortage of companies which want to get into the business. In terms of price versus production cost, bottled water puts Big Oil to shame.

No healthier than tap water
faucet

In theory, bottled water in the United States falls under the regulatory authority of the Food and Drug Administration. In practice, about 70 percent of bottled water never crosses state lines for sale, making it exempt from FDA oversight.

On the other hand, water systems in the developed world are well-regulated. In the U.S., for instance, municipal water falls under the purview of the Environmental Protection Agency, and is regularly inspected for bacteria and toxic chemicals. Want to know how your community scores? Check out the Environmental Working Group's National Tap Water Database.

While public safety groups correctly point out that many municipal water systems are aging and there remain hundreds of chemical contaminants for which no standards have been established, there's very little empirical evidence which suggests bottled water is any cleaner or better for you than its tap equivalent.

Bottled water means garbage

Bottled water produces up to 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year. According to Food and Water Watch [ http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/bottled ], that plastic requires up to 47 million gallons of oil per year to produce. And while the plastic used to bottle beverages is of high quality and in demand by recyclers, over 80 percent of plastic bottles are simply thrown away.

That assumes empty bottles actually make it to a garbage can. Plastic waste is now at such a volume that vast eddies of current-bound plastic trash now spin endlessly in the world's major oceans. This represents a great risk to marine life, killing birds and fish which mistake our garbage for food.

Thanks to its slow decay rate, the vast majority of all plastics ever produced still exist ... somewhere.

Bottled water means less attention to public systems

Many people drink bottled water because they don't like the taste of their local tap water, or because they question its safety.

This is like running around with a slow leak in your tire, topping it off every few days rather than taking it to be patched. Only the very affluent can afford to switch their water consumption to bottled sources. Once distanced from public systems, these consumers have little incentive to support bond issues and other methods of upgrading municipal water treatment.

There's plenty of need. In California, for example, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated the requirement of $17.5 billion in improvements to the state's drinking water infrastructure as recently as 2005. In the same year, the state lost 222 million gallons of drinkable water to leaky pipes.

The corporatization of water

In the documentary film Thirst, authors Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman demonstrated the rapid worldwide privatization of municipal water supplies, and the effect these purchases are having on local economies.

Water is being called the "Blue Gold" of the 21st century. Thanks to increasing urbanization and population, shifting climates, and industrial pollution, fresh water is becoming humanity's most precious resource.

Multinational corporations are stepping in to purchase groundwater and distribution rights wherever they can, and the bottled water industry is an important component in their drive to commoditize what many feel is a basic human right: the access to safe and affordable water.

What can you do?

There's a simple alternative to bottled water: buy a stainless steel thermos, and use it. Don't like the way your local tap water tastes? Inexpensive carbon filters will turn most tap water sparking fresh at a fraction of bottled water's cost.

Consider taking Food and Water Watch's No Bottled Water Pledge. Conserve water wherever possible, and stay on top of local water issues.

Want to know more? Start with the Sierra Club's fact sheet on bottled water.

Bottoms up!

Image credit: Wikimedia

Respect Your Mother

2007-04-16T09:08:00.001-07:00

Restaurants start shutting off tap to bottled water

2007-04-13T08:58:00.000-07:00

By Shirley Dang, MEDIANEWS STAFF

Article Last Updated: 04/04/2007 11:06:06 AM PDT

IN creating Incanto restaurant and wine bar, owner Mark Pastore painstakingly rendered his vision of fine Italian dining.

Florentine sheet music, inked onto parchment from the 16th century, hangs from the archways. Super-Tuscan vintages that cost $275 a bottle line the wooden racks of his climate-controlled cellar. Diners can feast on porchetta di testa, or pork head, with shaved radish and pecorino.

What Pastore does not offer: a single drop of San Pellegrino, Santa Lucia or any other bottled water, regardless of provenance.

When it opened in 2002, the San Francisco restaurant became the first in the country to consciously ban packaged water for conservation reasons.

Pastore said the decision sprang from his belief in gustatory authenticity that happens to go hand-in-hand with environmental stewardship.

"I just think it's the right thing to do," said Pastore. "I thought it was kind of foolish to put water in bottles and ship it around the world."

This spring, Chez Panisse in Berkeley will join the small cluster of Bay Area restaurants like Incanto, NoPa in San Francisco and Poggio in Sausalito that have completely traded in bottles for tap.

Shipping glass bottles of European spring water across the Atlantic to American restaurants pollutes the air and oceans, environmentalists say.

And domestic water in plastic bottles, the kind most purchased by the average American, may pose an even greater environmental threat: landfill ...

ElectroSensitivity

2007-04-10T08:11:00.000-07:00

Sometimes in the past called Electrical Oversensitivity and today sometimes Electrical Hypersensitivity (EHS), it is a fairly new phenomenon, the first cases and discussions came to public knowledge in the early seventies in the 'west'. The old USSR and satellite states were much quicker off the mark and saw weapons potential in so-called 'radiowave sickness'. They even bombarded the Moscow American Embassy with invisible rays during the cold war, some of the statistics of ilnesses therein are now publicly available. It became recognised as a source of concern in Sweden where FEB, their Association for the Electrosensitive, started in 1987.
EMFs

At its simplest, electrical sensitivity or electrical hypersensitivity is a chronic illness triggered by exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs). They in turn are fields/waves of energy emitted by all electrical sources including power lines, electric home and office appliances (VDUs, computers, TVs,) motors, wall wiring, electrical substations, transformers and radio/radar/microwave transmitters such as mobile phones and masts. A minority of the population are believed to be affected by electromagnetic radiation (EMR) between 3% and 7% in one survey, 13.5% in another and yet other estimates range up to 35% of the population showing some indications of electro-stress.None of this should be surprising as we are perhaps the most exqusitely sensitive electronic equipment on the planet, while we are alive that is, with death our own personal brain and nervous system electrical circuitry ceases functioning. It is now how we define death, 'brain function has ceased', that is there is no more electrical activity detectable. Outside electrical currents easily interfere with our interior ones, they interrupt our own signalling processes just like interference on your TV or radio receiver.

Its that simple, logical and undeniable. But big companies hire clever scientists and even doctors, especially psychiatrists to confuse the media and all of us in order to safeguard their vast profits, they stack commitees, withold grants from universities and pay relatively small sums out of vast profits to protect themselves at our expense. This is the nature of politics and power in this twenty-first century, no different from the Medici of old Florence or the robber-barons of the railroads of the early USA. Massive fortunes wrestle to defeat opponents while little people get hurt and crushed. Only a fair society, democratic government and truthful science and medicine will protect us, like our freedom to organise this charity for our own defence. Read more

[Source:ElectroSensitivity-UK]

March 22nd is 'World Water Day"

2007-03-22T13:10:00.000-07:00

'Coping with Water Scarcity' is the theme for World Water Day 2007, which is celebrated each year on 22 March. This year's theme highlights the increasing significance of water scarcity worldwide and the need for increased integration and cooperation to ensure sustainable, efficient and equitable management of scarce water resources, both at international and local levels.

Equity and rights, cultural and ethical issues are essential to be addressed when dealing with limited water resources. Imbalances between availability and demand, the degradation of groundwater and surface water quality, intersectoral competition, interregional and international disputes, all center around the question of how to cope with scarce water resources.

The theme was decided among all members of UN Water at the World Water Week in Stockholm in August 2006. FAO acts as coordinator, on behalf of all the UN Agencies and Programmes members of UN-Water for the celebration of World Water Day 2007. It is assisted by the Secretariat for UN-Water, which is based at UN DESA in New York, and which is serving as point of contact within the UN system for freshwater-related issues.

Please visit the UN Water web site, and the UN Water for Life Decade web site for the latest information on UN freshwater programmes.

Visit the World Water Day website to learn more.

Donate Your Unwanted Shoes

2007-03-22T12:32:00.000-07:00

You know those shoes that sit in your closet just occupying space? Yes, those shoes that you NEVER wear. They can make a difference in the lives of people in places such as,Mexico, Venezuela,Ecuador,Guatemala,Honduras, The Dominican Republic,Haiti,Brazil,Uganda,Sudan,Romania,and The United States.
Watch the clip below and learn how.

Packing 100 Pairs of Shoes
By Paul Wilson, as told to Christopher Elliott
Published: March 20, 2007
Delivering shoes to people in the developing world proves to be an adventurous, and sometimes dangerous, job. Read more

For more information, please visit www.soles4souls.org

The Year Without Toilet Paper

2007-03-22T10:05:00.000-07:00

[The New York Times - By PENELOPE GREEN Published: March 22, 2007]

DINNER was the usual affair on Thursday night in Apartment 9F in an elegant prewar on Lower Fifth Avenue. There was shredded cabbage with fruit-scrap vinegar; mashed parsnips and yellow carrots with local butter and fresh thyme; a terrific frittata; then homemade yogurt with honey and thyme tea, eaten under the greenish flickering light cast by two beeswax candles and a fluorescent bulb.

A sour odor hovered oh-so-slightly in the air, the faint tang, not wholly unpleasant, that is the mark of the home composter. Isabella Beavan, age 2, staggered around the neo-Modern furniture -- the Eames chairs, the brown velvet couch, the Lucite lamps and the steel cafe table upon which dinner was set -- her silhouette greatly amplified by her organic cotton diapers in their enormous boiled-wool, snap-front cover.

A visitor avoided the bathroom because she knew she would find no toilet paper there. Read more...

Dispoable Utensils - Some Alternatives

2007-03-10T07:55:00.001-08:00

Some Facts on Disposables

970 thousand tons of paper cups and plates were discarded in 2003 (EPA). If, we approximate 15 grams weight for each cup or plate, we get 64 billion paper cups and plates being thrown away every year in USA.
730 thousand tons of styrofoam and plastic plates and cups (710 thousand tons were styrofoam) were disposed in 2003 (EPA). Using 10 grams weight for each cup or plate, we get 73 billion mostly styrofoam cups and plates being thrown away every year in USA.
According to EPA statistics, a total of 3,810 thousand tons of plastic containers & bottles were thrown away in 2003. Using a generous number of 20 grams for each container, we get a number of 190 billion plastic containers & bottles being landfilled or incinerated every year.
The above numbers do not include trash bags, grocery bags and other plastic materials like trays, utensils, clam shells, caps and other plastic packaging. A total of 8000 thousand tons of these items were discarded in 2003.
Why biocompostables?
Plastic and styrofoam disposables made from petroleum based chemicals & additives. Petroleum is not only becoming an increasingly scarce resource, but it causes pollution and toxicity every step of its use - extraction, transportation (e.g. oil spills), refining and eventual production of the end use product. In addition the end use products made of styrofoam and plastic do not degrade and persist in the environment for hundred of years, causing further pollution and toxicity.

Paper disposables on the other hand are made from "virgin" wood fiber, which comes from our steadily depleting forests. Forests provide invaluable ecosystem services in maintaining biodiversity, streams, regulating climate and rainfall etc. and it is quite amazing that even today forests are cut down to be made into disposable paper products with a lifetime use of few minutes or seconds.

Biodegradable and compostable food service and packaging disposables provide a sustainable alternative to the styrofoam, plastic and paper products as they are made from readily renewable sources like sugarcane fiber, corn and potato, take less energy to manufacture, are not made from toxic or pollution causing sources and can be composted to reduce the amount of waste generated. They can also help reduce waste collection bills in counties and cities, which have a food waste/green waste pickup.

Sugarcane fiber(bagasse) and Bioplastics - plastics made from corn, potato or other annually renewable sources are the two main sources of biodegradable food service and packaging disposables. Fiber waste remaining after extraction of the juice from the sugarcane is molded at high pressure & temperature into plates, bowls, cups, take out containers, trays etc., while starch from corn, potato, tapioca, soybeans etc. is used to make products which are traditionally made from plastic and styrofoam such as disposable eating utensils, bags, cold cups, drinking straws, etc.

We like to point out that, though using biocompostables is a step towards better environmental sustainability, it is not a solution to our throw-away culture. The use of biocompostables disposables does not in any way discourage use or change the mind-set of using disposable products. Furthermore, even biocompostables (specially bioplastics) may take a long time to biodegrade in landfills.

We strongly advocate using non-disposable products as much as possible and hope that counties and cities will pass regulations to tax use of disposable products and as well as their disposal to limit their use and disposal.

---You can shop for sugar cane and corn utensils at http://www.worldcentric.org/store/index.htm

[Source: worldcentric.org ]

Counteracting Smoking Effects with Physical Activities

2007-03-08T11:03:00.000-08:00

New studies revealed that smokers who exercise are less likely to develop a serious lung ailment common to this group, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The article appears in the March issue of The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

For the study, Dr. Judith Garcia Aymerich of the Municipal Institute of Medical Research in Barcelona,
Spain, and her colleagues followed the health of 6,800 people, smokers and nonsmokers, over 11 years. Of these, 928 developed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease , which killed more than 10,000 Americans in 2003, the researchers said.

The study found that among the smokers, the disease occurred about 20 percent less in those who reported moderate or high level of exercise.

The study concludes that "regular physical activity could counteract the smoking effects through an anti-inflammatory and antioxidant mechanism."

[Source: The New York Times - Science Times]

Dance Power

2007-03-03T07:59:00.000-08:00

We all know that we, human beings, can create energy. It's better not to take this fact for granted because the future of our planet may reside there.

A group of Dutch people proved that this idea can be turned into reality by creating an itinerant nightclub. The project includes rain water powered bathrooms, 'chameleon walls' that change colors due to body heat reactions, and wind powered fans to air out the environment. At the bar, of course, you can buy organic beer.

But that is not all! The club electicity is generated by the dance floor. While club goers shake their bodies to the sound of a DJ, a floor system captures the energy generated by the movement on the dance floor, sending it to a generator that transforms movement into electricity used to power club equipment.

Considering that a night club, when open 3 times a week, uses 150 times more energy than a household, this can be a significant amount of energy.

The concept is based on a simple physics equation:mechanical energy generates electric energy, or in other words energy creates energy.

With every step we take we leave energy behind. We can't reuse it all the time, but there is simple things to do to leave lighter footprints on the planet. For example, use the stairs instead of the elevator, bike instead of drive,
use a manual juicer, and let go of the electric blender. It saves you $ and the planet will thank you!

[Source: Vida Simples Magazine]

Smile, you look 10 lb thinner!

2007-02-25T15:16:00.000-08:00

HP has a relatively new camera with a built in slimming feature. The camera is supposed to take off 10 pounds withouth forcing you to gnaw on celery.

How does it work? With a few clicks on the camera, it makes what is often complicated on a personal computer with special software.

The cameras range in price from $149 to $350.

Are these fat-busting cameras merely democratizing the tricks that fashion photographers have used for years, or are they one more sign of self-delusion in our image obsessed society?

Merry Christmas

2006-12-24T15:03:00.000-08:00

NorthThe world's richest people (20%) consumes 80% of the planet resources.

South

Post translated from Apocalipse Motorizado
Photos (unknown author)suggested by Inácio Guerberoff

Kids With High IQs Grow Up to Be Vegetarians

2006-12-16T07:23:00.000-08:00

By Steven Reinberg

HealthDay Reporter

As a child's IQ rises, his taste for meat in adulthood declines, a new study suggests.

British researchers have found that children's IQ predicts their likelihood of becoming vegetarians as young adults -- lowering their risk for cardiovascular disease in the process. The finding could explain the link between smarts and better health, the investigators say.

"Brighter people tend to have healthier dietary habits," concluded lead author Catharine Gale, a senior research fellow at the MRC Epidemiology Resource Centre of the University of Southampton and Southampton General Hospital.

Recent studies suggest that vegetarianism may be associated with lower cholesterol, reduced risk of obesity and heart disease. This might explain why children with high IQs tend to have a lower risk of heart disease in later life.

The report is published in the Dec. 15 online edition of the British Medical Journal.

"We know from other studies that brighter children tend to behave in a healthier fashion as adults -- they're less likely to smoke, less likely to be overweight, less likely to have high blood pressure and more likely to take strenuous exercise," Gale said. "This study provides further evidence that people with a higher IQ tend to have a healthier lifestyle."

In the study, Gale's team collected data on nearly 8,200 men and women aged 30, whose IQ had been tested when they were 10 years of age.

"Children who scored higher on IQ tests at age 10 were more likely than those who got lower scores to report that they were vegetarian at the age of 30," Gale said.

The researchers found that 4.5 percent of participants were vegetarians. Of these, 2.5 percent were vegan, and 33.6 percent said they were vegetarian but also ate fish or chicken.

There was no difference in IQ score between strict vegetarians and those who said they were vegetarian but who said they ate fish or chicken, the researchers add.

Vegetarians were more likely to be female, of higher social class and better educated, but IQ was still a significant predictor of being vegetarian after adjustment for these factors, Gale said.

"Vegetarian diets are associated with lower cardiovascular disease risk in a number of studies, so these findings suggest that a such a diet may help to explain why children or adolescents with a higher IQ have a lower risk of coronary heart disease as adults," Gale said.

One expert said the findings aren't the whole answer, however.

"This study left many unanswered questions such as: Did the vegetarian children grow up in a household with a vegetarian parent? Were meatless meals regularly served in the household? Were the children eating a primarily vegetarian diet at the age of 10?" said Lona Sandon, an assistant professor of clinical nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

"In addition, we don't know the beliefs or attitudes of the parents of the children, nor do we know if there was a particular event that led these children to becoming vegetarian in their teens or adulthood," Sandon said.

As the study showed, more women than men chose a vegetarian diet, Sandon noted. "Other research shows that women in general will focus more on their health than men. So, if they believe that a vegetarian diet will have health benefits, they are more likely to follow it," she said.

Given these factors, "we cannot draw any solid conclusions from this research," Sandon added.

Another expert agreed that a vegetarian diet is healthy.

"The evidence linking vegetarianism to good health outcomes is very strong," said Dr. David L. Katz, the director of the Prevention Research Center and an associate professor of public health at the Yale University School of Medicine.

"Studies, for example, of vegetarian Seventh-Day Adventists in California suggest that they have lower rates of almost all major chronic diseases, and greater longevity, than their omnivorous counterparts," Katz said. "Evidence is also strong and consistent that greater intelligence, higher education, and loftier social status -- which tend to cluster with one another -- also correlate with good health."

[re-post from Yahoo Health]

Eggs & Flu Vaccines

2006-11-04T06:42:00.000-08:00

Living and learning...
Did you know that all flu vaccines are made using eggs?
Well, they are. Even the nasal spray mist vaccine (FluMist), introduced in 2003, uses them in the production process. Other inoculations, such as the polio vaccine, are produced using cell cultures, but these methods have been adapted for influenza.

Flu vaccines are cultured by making a tiny hole through the egg shell of a chicken egg. The influenza virus is injected, infecting the chick embryo and the surrounding fluid. Several days later, the egg is opened. Its contents are extracted and treated to kill the virus. To make sure the virus is dead, a portion of the liquid is implanted in another egg, which is tested for any sign of virus replication.
On average, one or two eggs are required per immunization, and the production process uses nearly 100 million eggs per year. Needles to say, intensive egg laying operations have raised serious animal welfare issues.

The method has scientific drawbacks, too. First because the production process is slow, scientists must decide months in advance which virus are likely to circulate the following winter. If they are wrong, the vaccine will be less effective. Second, because the vaccine may contain traces of egg protein, people with egg allergies can react to the vaccine as they would to eating eggs.

[source: Neal Barnard, MD, interview to Vegetarian Times]

It is easy being green

2006-11-04T06:38:00.000-08:00

By HEIDI S. MITCHELL

Just a few years ago, 'eco-resort' referred mainly to crunchy retreats in places like Costa Rica where even the cat's leftovers were composted. But with 'sustainability' now a buzzword in nearly every industry, green is becoming the new normal in luxury hotels. According to the International Ecotourism Society, the eco-tourism category grew three times faster than the industry as a whole in 2004. Marketers attribute the growth to a group they call 'metrospirituals' -- hybrid-driving, yoga-practicing baby- and echo-boomers for whom social responsibility and seeking out new adventures are a way of life.

While progressively more luxurious eco-resorts have been opening in early-adopting regions, the boom is currently spreading to more surprising destinations -- like megapolluting Brazil. "Anyone with any feeling for the world is going green," says the cult interior designer Anouska Hempel, who is at work on Warapuru, a lavish eco-resort set to open next year on Brazil's north coast; made entirely of locally sourced materials, it will have customized spa treatments using native plants (www.warapuru.com).

China -- home to the world's 10 most polluted cities -- gets its first fully sustainable five-star eco-resort next month with Crosswaters Ecolodge (011-86-0752-7693-666; www.crosswaters.com.cn; doubles from $280); guests in this Guangdong retreat will visit a Keija tribal village and sleep in bamboo aeries. In the Western Ghats of India, the New York architect Steven Harris has broken ground on the 3,000-acre Shilim Eco-Resort, where many rooms will have private bathing gardens with infinity pools. And in developing Mozambique, Guludo Beach Lodge recently opened in Quirimbas National Park: nine tented oceanfront suites by the London architects Cullum & Nightingale (www.bespokeexperience.com doubles from $235).

Closer to home, the Orchard Garden Hotel opens next month in San Francisco (888-717-2881; www.theorchardgardenhotel.com; doubles from $149), the first urban hotel in America to earn the United States Green Building Council’s LEED certification. In the Caribbean region, Ritz-Carlton is trailblazing with the uber-luxe West Caicos Reserve in the Turks and Caicos, where roads won't have tar, and vegetation won't be disrupted beyond three feet of the buildings.

No doubt surging energy costs and media attention to climate change are powering this Al Gore effect. For developers, the bottom line helps, too. "Once eco-friendly systems are paid down," says Christina Koch, the editor of Eco-structure magazine, "these buildings are not paying for electricity. It's cost-effective."

The take-away for travelers: guilt-free luxury. "If eco-lodges were the vegans of the industry, this new breed is vegetarian," says Hitesh Mehta from EDSA, the architects behind Crosswaters. Meat-free, but with a Michelin-star chef.

The Energy Diet

2006-10-07T07:03:00.000-07:00

By ANDREW POSTMAN

I'VE tried to be responsible.

I've thought pro-green thoughts and occasionally even done pro-green things. I've run the dishwasher and washer-dryer only with full loads. I've recycled, as ordered, though like every New Yorker I've ever met, I suspect the system does more good for our feelings than for the environment. I've shaved while showering, although I can't remember anymore whether that’s a good or a bad thing.

I've been too busy to do much more, though, and too confused and overwhelmed by all the eco hype out there, and too inflexible to seriously change my lifestyle. No way am I hanging clothes out to dry on a clothesline. I won't drive more slowly - as President Bush, like past presidents, has urged Americans to do to save gas - and neither will you, and neither will anyone. And I recently bought a flat-screen high-def 37--nch TV, an energy-Hoover you'll have to pry from my cold, dead hands; if you haven't seen an N.F.L. game on something like that, my friend, you might as well watch curling.

But the morning after I saw Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," I was spurred to action. I bought 50 compact fluorescent light bulbs - 50 - intent on replacing every incandescent one in my home. The new bulbs were supposed to be 67 percent more efficient and last up to 15 times longer. Unfortunately, the ones I bought also cast a considerably colder light, so I aborted my plan after just two bulbs when I realized the quality of light they emitted reminded me of a bus station bathroom.

In the weeks since, I dispatched the six cartons of unused C.F.L.'s to the basement, and my guilt grew alarmingly. As the father of three very young children, I had to do something - but something I would actually follow through with, something that would take minimal effort. Then, two weeks ago, while eating a doughnut and watching the scintillatingly clear images of Mets and Yankees scampering across my TV screen, I saw what I needed to do.

Flipping channels, I came across the news that Bill Clinton's Global Initiative had just ended with Richard Branson, the British mogul, pledging $3 billion to fight climate change over the next decade. On another channel, Mayor Bloomberg stood at a podium in California and announced, to my pride and delight, his sweeping eco-initiative for New York: the city’s carbon emissions would be measured, an Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability would be created. Meanwhile, the man standing next to him, Governor Schwarzenegger, was set to sign legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for his state - the world's 12th largest contributor of such gases - at a level the federal government had continually rejected. Everyone was chipping in, even Arnold, the first civilian ever to drive a Hummer. I took another bite of doughnut.

And that’s when it came to me. I should go on a diet.

A half-ton diet.

I knew, having taken the "Calculate Your Impact" survey on climatecrisis.net, the companion Web site for the Gore movie, that our household produced some 19,100 pounds of CO2 last year, 4,100 pounds more than the national average. (The concept of a "pound" of gas is a nebulous one - depending on the pressure and temperature, it can fill a thimble or a stadium - so maybe it’s best portrayed this way: one pound of CO2 is what's released per each mile driven, or each mile flown per person; it's what's produced to heat five gallons of water.)

For easier math, I rounded my number to 20,000 pounds, or 10 tons. As a family, as a household, couldn't we drop a half-ton, a mere 5 percent of our weight? That's 10 pounds for a 200-pounder to lose, 6 for a 120-pounder.

Absolutely. It was a goal, one I could stick to. Ambitious as it sounded, it was, amazingly, not excessive. I could keep living generally the way I wanted. I gave myself eight hours, no more, to lose the weight. In a world where texting passes for conversation and hooking up for a relationship, perhaps I'd just defined the new activism. Very little pain, not insignificant gain.

Mindy Pennybacker, the editor of The Green Guide and thegreenguide.com, was also enthusiastic about my plan. "Americans have too much weight in many ways, so it's a metaphor that makes sense," she said when I called her. "If it motivates you because it's familiar and part of your everyday life, that’s terrific."

"It's all about attitude," said Laurie David, the founder of the Stop Global Warming Web site (stopglobalwarming.org) and a board member of the National Resources Defense Council. "Change one or two things, you end up changing four or five things. You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. Before you know it, you start influencing people around you."

Like most dieters, I cut deals with myself. If you're trying to lose real weight, you vow, say, to give up beer and ice cream but retain your pizza rights. Since I was trying to emit less CO2, I vowed to lower the thermostat at night by one degree - not two, as often recommended by tree-huggers - a tweak I expected none of us would notice. (That saved 79 pounds; each degree equals approximately 315 pounds of CO2; turning it down only at night, for the six colder months, or ¼ times 315). In return? No more guilt over TV size.

Friends I called for suggestions understood my deal-making. Judy said she never used electrical kitchen appliances - "Opening a can is something I'm able to do" - but was still not ready to swap Vaseline for non-petroleum eye-makeup remover. Victoria said she saw a young mother with her baby in some sort of recycled paper diaper that did not look at all absorbent. "My baby is wearing Pampers, probably one of the most wasteful things I do,” she said. Then again, as much as she loves S.U.V.'s - the way they feel and handle - she and her husband realized that if they bought one they would be ostracized by half their circle. They bought a station wagon that gets three times the mileage.

I vowed to quit my profligate morning habit of turning on the shower and leaving the bathroom, not returning until several minutes after the water was hot. On the flip side, once I stepped into the shower I was not going to turn the experience into a 60-second spasm of sudsing and rinsing. Two minutes shower going unnecessarily times 2.5 gallons per minute times 365 morning showers times three ounces of CO2 produced per gallon of hot water equals 342 pounds. (My calculations, here and elsewhere, were made with the help of experts at the National Resources Defense Council and The Green Guide, several credible Web sites and a few smart relatives who grew up to be physicists and engineers.)

When washing white loads, I’d switch from the warm/warm cycle to warm/cold, comfortable that neither I nor my wife would notice the difference. (We didn't.) Sixty-two pounds saved.

Four hundred and eighty-three total pounds, 30 seconds of effort to reprogram the thermostat, two no-brainer decisions. Maybe my diet was riddled with compromises, but it was working.

I found further validation for my lack of rigor. "When people equate efficiency with discomfort and sacrifice - like when Jimmy Carter put on a sweater and encouraged Americans to lower the thermostat - they shy away from it," said Bill Prindle, the deputy director of the nonprofit American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. "A month later they're back to their old ways. We need to ask people to act from their values” - meaning fundamentals like "physical security, clothing, food and shelter, including thermal comfort."

I felt certain I could unearth more savings in what Danny Seo, an eco-expert with a TV show, a Sirius radio show and a series of books all titled "Simply Green," described to me as "bad habits we don’t even realize are bad habits." For example, was it really energy-wiser, as I'd often heard, to leave a light or computer on for the few minutes you're out of the room, rather turning it off and then on again?

"Total myth," Mr. Prindle said. "Actually, I think that's a projection. Because it takes me more work to shut it off, people think, then it must generally require more energy. It’s like the better-to-leave-the-car-idling theory."

There were other bad habits that were just as easy to break. A friend suggested this quickie: Call retailers to get them to stop sending the print catalogs to which our house had become addicted. I chose 10 - L. L. Bean, Crate & Barrel, J. Crew, Eddie Bauer, Garnet Hill, Design Within Reach, Lands’ End, Restoration Hardware, Hammacher Schlemmer and the Company Store. (Originally I'd included Williams-Sonoma, but my wife vetoed that idea.) It took me 22 minutes total to cancel them - eight phone calls and two e-mails. Ninety (the average number of pages) times 12 (number of issues per year we seem to get) times 10 (retailers) equals 10,800 pages. Since my research shows that one tree produces about 25,000 pages of the coated, lower-end virgin paper used in most catalogs, I’d just saved 43 percent of one tree. One tree produces 260 pounds of oxygen, 43 percent of that is 112 pounds, which converts to 154 pounds of CO2 saved.

Everyone but me seemed to know about "vampires" - those energy suckers plugged into the wall when not in use (toasters, coffeemakers, hair dryers, cellphone chargers), consuming energy in standby mode. The easiest solution? Pull out individual plugs or, particularly for areas near computers and home entertainment equipment with lots of components, plug everything into a power strip (with surge protector) and, when done for the night or weekend, flip off the illuminated switch. Doing that would save me about 115 pounds annually on the computer, about 200 pounds on the TV, DVD and VCR. (Cable and satellite boxes draw huge amounts of energy, but turning them off may result in considerable reboot delays. I'm not going to turn mine off every night, but I might when I go on vacation.)

My boys and I drove to Lowe's for surge protectors as well as a thermal insulating blanket for our 75-gallon hot-water heater; wrapping it, every expert I spoke with told me, significantly reduces the massive heat loss, especially in winter. (Newer water heaters tend to have higher levels of insulation built in.) The largest blanket they carried, though, was for a 60-gallon tank, and a check of their Web site (and, later, of Home Depot’s site) showed no blanket for a tank our size. Forget it, then; this was the lazy man’s diet: minimum effort.

What would you be willing -- or not willing -- to give up in order to lessen your household's impact on the environment?

On our way to the cashier, we passed an aisle with motion sensors, and I remembered my brother had them in his bathrooms, where they shut off the lights soon after people left. They seemed an easy enough item to buy and install. I called my brother, Marc. "Be honest,”"I said. "Will there be re-wiring?" My brother, an astrophysicist, said no, there wouldn't be; then something to the effect that, unless I was too stupid to remove a light switch plate and put another one on, I was fully capable.

"Wait," I said. "Why does anyone need a motion sensor in their bathroom? Don’t people turn the light on when they go in and turn it off when they leave?"

"Ah,”"he said. "You don’t have teenagers yet."

Scratch the motion sensors, at least for six more years.

I was now up to 952 pounds, more than 90 percent of the way to my goal. Okay; I was ready to turn back to the C.F.L.’s. I decided I could tolerate the cool white ones in two places only: our outside vestibule (60 watts replaced with 13 watts, with the same number of lumens, or brightness), and one overhead fixture in my office (75 watts replaced with 19), where its effect was neutralized by incandescent track lighting. They were lights that were on much more often than most. Together, they would save me, annually, about 300 pounds in 20 minutes, including shopping time.

Three hundred pounds. No typo. Two bulbs.

I wasn't done, though - soon but not yet. I learned from Laurie David of Stop Global Warming that it makes almost no sense to rinse dishes in very hot water when they're going into a dishwasher to be rinsed in even hotter water. I would hereby skip that step, plus I'd also hand-wash dirty dishes created after 10 o'clock (no real chore since I find it relaxing). Should buy us two loads weekly, down to four instead of six - or 200 pounds saved for the year.

And I would have to give up my screensaver habit, much as I loved images of my children floating across my line of sight while I thought up sentences. In screensaver mode, my computer still draws a lot of power, according to David Goldstein, the energy program director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. He advised that by changing my settings so that the computer and display both go to sleep when inactive for 10 minutes (as opposed to my original setting of three hours), I would save about 250 pounds annually. It took me 30 seconds to click on the Apple icon, then"System Preferences," then "Energy Saver."

Seventeen hundred pounds dropped in 68 minutes — a little more than one of the eight hours I'd allowed for. All that would be required of me in the future was 10 seconds nightly to shut off two power strip switches and five to 10 minutes, every now and then, of pleasant dishwashing.

I ought to be done with it now - even if my numbers were a bit off, I'd blown past my goal, a dangerous thing to do early in a diet. But maybe Ms. David is right: make one change, soon you're ready to make three. Maybe one day soon I'll be ready to change a whole floor's worth of light bulbs; I learned after buying my 50 bulbs that it’s possible to find C.F.L.’s that cast a warm glow, and the Green Guide’s helpful light bulb product report suggests that C.F.L.’s have been improving. Danny Seo says that Ikea carries lighting fixtures that handsomely mask the shortcomings of C.F.L.'s, with tinted glass or a strip of wood veneer. Maybe we'll replace a roll or six of virgin toilet paper with post-consumer waste napkins - maybe. This is all I'm willing to do right now. Don’t look for me to carpool at elevators.

Then again, I can't help but wonder how much I might accomplish if I actually put in more effort than a garden slug. I'm intrigued by what a friend, an architect, told me: That if just one teensy change were made to New York City - if all black roofs were painted white or silver, a simple, surprisingly inexpensive fix — the financial and energy savings would be jaw-dropping, not to mention that it would severely reduce the possibility of blackouts and brownouts. Relatively meager effort, monster bang for the buck.

So, like, I don't know, maybe some weekend soon we all just get brushes and roof paint, fan out across the city, and just do it and get it over with? And afterward everyone comes by my place to watch the World Series on my big old flat-screen?

The Statutes of Man (A Permanent Act of Law)

2006-09-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

...because life with poetry has a sweeter taste!

Article I.

It is decreed

that life now has value,

that truth now has value,

and that offering our hands

we will all work

for true life.

Article II.

It is decreed

that all the days of the week,

including the grayest of Tuesdays,

have the right to become

Sunday mornings.

Article III.

It is decreed that,

from this very instant,

there will be sunflowers in all the windows,

that the sunflowers have the right

to open within the shadow;

and that the windows must remain open

all day for the green

where hope grows.

Article IV:

It is decreed that man

never more will need

to doubt man.

That man will trust in man

as the palm tree trusts in the wind,

as the wind trusts in the air,

as the air trusts in the blue field

of the sky.

Man will trust in man

as a child trusts in another child.

Article V.

It is decreed that men will be free from the yoke of lies.

Nevermore will it be necessary to use

the shield of silence

or the armor of words.

Man shall sit at the table

with a clear gaze,

for the truth will be served

before dessert.

Article VI.

It is established,

for ten centuries,

the practice dreamed by the prophet Isaías,

and the wolf and the sheep will graze together

and the food of both will taste of dawn.

Article VII.

By irrevocable decree,

the everlasting kingdom

of justice and clarity

is hereby established.

And joy will be a generous flag

forever raised

In the soul of the people.

Article VIII.

It is decreed

that the greatest pain

has always been and always will be

not being able to give love

to whom you love,

knowing that it's water

Who gives the plant

the miracle of the flower.

Article IX.

It is hereby permitted

that the daily bread

have in man the sign of his sweat.

But above all

that it always have

The warm taste

of tenderness.

Article X.

It is hereby permitted

to any person,

At any hour of life,

The use of the white dress.

Article XI.

It is decreed,

by definition,

that man

is an animal who loves,

and that for that reason is beautiful,

much more beautiful

than the morning star.

Article XII.

It is decreed that nothing

will be obligatory or banned.

Everything will be permitted,

even playing with rhinoceroses

and walking in the afternoons

with an immense begonia in the lapel.

Only one thing is prohibited:

to love without love.

Article XIII.

It is decreed that money

nevermore will be able to buy the sun

of future mornings.

Expelled from the great coffer of fear,

money will be transformed

into a fraternal sword

in order to defend the right to sing

and the feast of the day that dawned.

Final Article

It is hereby forbidden

to use the word Freedom,

which will be excised from the dictionaries

and the treacherous swamp of mouths.

From this moment on

freedom will be something alive and transparent,

like fire or a river,

or like a seed of wheat

and its dwelling will forever be

the heart of man.

Thiago de Mello

Complete the cycle - buy recycled products!

2006-09-26T10:32:00.000-07:00

Most eco-savvy folks know that the recycling industry faces a problem - while recycling efforts are increasing, the market for these materials is not developing at the same rate. Enter Recycline and the Preserve brand - a fresh line of home goods made from recycled polypropylene (that's #5) plastic. So now, those containers you keep throwing in the recycling bin are seeing new life. What's more - Preserve products are designed to be recycled yet again - they turn their used toothbrush and razor handles into plastic lumber (like you see in picnic tables and park benches). They even provide a postage-paid mailer to send back used Preserve products.

Recycline also has a partnership with Stonyfield Farms. Stonyfield offers their customers the chance to send their clean, used yogurt cups back to be recycled, if facilities don't exist in the customer's region. Stonyfield has their cups ground into pellets and it is the plastic pellets that Recycline uses to melt and mold into the handles of their Preserve Toothbrushes, Tongue Cleaners and Preserve Razors.

You may send CLEAN Stonyfield Farm yogurt containers directly to Stonyfield Farm at:

Stonyfield Farm
Attn: Yogurt Recycling Program
10 Burton Drive
Londonderry, NH 03053

You can check Preserve brand products at www.recycline.com.

Techno Yoga with Flora Green

2006-09-25T12:26:00.000-07:00

No Drugs Down the Drain

2006-09-14T13:17:00.000-07:00

Sewage treatment officials in the San Francisco Bay Area reported in May 2006 that over the counter and prescription medications flushed into their treatment systems are ending up in the bay. That's because sewage plants are designed to handle organic and biodegradable waste, not medicines. "Unfortunately, the advice of the past was 'Dump it down the toilet'. Now we are trying to turn that around, " says Phyl Bobel, a spokesman for the Bay Area pollution PreventionGroup. The group held community-wide Safe Medicine Disposal Day in May. Meanwhile, Los Angeles has started its own " No DrugsDown the Drain" program, accepting meds at harzardous-waste drop-off points. We hope other cities will follow.

Want to learn more about this program? Visit the 'No Drugs Down the Drain' website.

[Source: Vegeterian Times]

Greenland ice pack is melting

2006-08-29T15:51:00.000-07:00

AP-T (AP-T), World

Mon 21 Aug 2006 04:04 PM EDT

A new study shows that the huge greenland ice pack - is melting three times faster than previously thought - a development that could dramatically raise sea levels around the world.

Meet Your Meat

2006-08-19T08:11:00.000-07:00

My newspaper didn't come this morning, so I was checking out some blogs that I subscribe to. I found an interesting posting in Super Vegan about taking an inventory of your diet impact in the planet, see it for yourself clicking on the link above.
What I found most interesting in the posting was the video "Meet Your Meat" put out by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). I went to the GoVeg.com site to watch it. While I don't agree with the 'evangelization' approach to vegetarianism, I found the video touching and educational. It reconnects the meat on the table with its 'life' before slaughter house.
I was going to post the video here, however I decided to be more conservative, and post the link for those interested in seeing these 'x-rated' images of animals being treated with no respect. I even had to go through an extra step in the YouTube site accepting a special term that stated that I was requesting to view content that had been signaled as inappropriate by other users. I believe that if I wanted to see graphic images of the current war I wouldn't have to go through so much trouble.

Weird times !

Patterns in the Universe

2006-08-15T08:59:00.000-07:00

Click on image to zoom in.

[Source: science, the new york times]

Coffee as a Health Drink? Studies Find Some Benefits

2006-08-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

Coffee is not usually thought of as health food, but a number of recent studies suggest that it can be a highly beneficial drink. Researchers have found strong evidence that coffee reduces the risk of several serious ailments, including diabetes, heart disease and cirrhosis of the liver.

Among them is a systematic review of studies published last year in The Journal of the American Medical Association, which concluded that habitual coffee consumption was consistently associated with a lower risk of Type 2 diabetes. Exactly why is not known, but the authors offered several explanations.

Coffee contains antioxidants that help control the cell damage that can contribute to the development of the disease. It is also a source of chlorogenic acid, which has been shown in animal experiments to reduce glucose concentrations.

Caffeine, perhaps coffee’s most famous component, seems to have little to do with it; studies that looked at decaffeinated coffee alone found the same degree of risk reduction.

Larger quantities of coffee seem to be especially helpful in diabetes prevention. In a report that combined statistical data from many studies, researchers found that people who drank four to six cups of coffee a day had a 28 percent reduced risk compared with people who drank two or fewer. Those who drank more than six had a 35 percent risk reduction.

Some studies show that cardiovascular risk also decreases with coffee consumption. Using data on more than 27,000 women ages 55 to 69 in the Iowa Women’s Health Study who were followed for 15 years, Norwegian researchers found that women who drank one to three cups a day reduced their risk of cardiovascular disease by 24 percent compared with those drinking no coffee at all.

But as the quantity increased, the benefit decreased. At more than six cups a day, the risk was not significantly reduced. Still, after controlling for age, smoking and alcohol consumption, women who drank one to five cups a day — caffeinated or decaffeinated — reduced their risk of death from all causes during the study by 15 to 19 percent compared with those who drank none.

The findings, which appeared in May in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, suggest that antioxidants in coffee may dampen inflammation, reducing the risk of disorders related to it, like cardiovascular disease. Several compounds in coffee may contribute to its antioxidant capacity, including phenols, volatile aroma compounds and oxazoles that are efficiently absorbed.

In another analysis, published in July in the same journal, researchers found that a typical serving of coffee contains more antioxidants than typical servings of grape juice, blueberries, raspberries and oranges.

“We were surprised to learn that coffee quantitatively is the major contributor of antioxidants in the diet both in Norway and in the U.S.A.,” said Rune Blomhoff, the senior author of both studies and a professor of nutrition at the University of Oslo.

These same anti-inflammatory properties may explain why coffee appears to decrease the risk of alcohol-related cirrhosis and liver cancer. This effect was first observed in 1992. Recent studies,published in June in The Archives of Internal Medicine, confirmed the finding.

Still, some experts believe that coffee drinking, and particularly caffeine consumption, can have negative health consequences. A study published in January in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology, for example, suggests that the amount of caffeine in two cups of coffee significantly decreases blood flow to the heart, particularly during exercise at high altitude.

Rob van Dam, a Harvard scientist and the lead author of The Journal of the American Medical Association review, acknowledged that caffeine could increase blood pressure and slightly increase levels of the amino acid homocysteine, possibly raising the risk for heart disease.

“I wouldn’t advise people to increase their consumption of coffee in order to lower their risk of disease,” Dr. van Dam said, “but the evidence is that for most people without specific conditions, coffee is not detrimental to health. If people enjoy drinking it, it’s comforting to know that they don’t have to be afraid of negative health effects.”

[source: The New York Times]

Independent Science Panel to EPA: Teflon Chemical is 'Likely' Human Carcinogen

2006-08-14T08:32:00.000-07:00

Findings Create Pressure on Bush EPA to Stop Pollution of Americans' Blood With Hyper-persistent Chemical, Level Maximum Fine

WASHINGTON, June 28 - A panel comprised mostly of independent scientists advising the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found today that DuPont's Teflon chemical, PFOA, is a "likely human carcinogen." The findings are part of a recommendation to EPA that clashes with a go-slow approach Bush EPA officials have so far taken in the face of evidence suggesting the chemical giant knew its chemical would pollute Americans' bloodstreams, was toxic and practically never broke down once released into the environment.

EPA is in the critical final stages of the largest-ever investigation of its kind to determine how the chemical gets into consumers' blood - and whether or not it is safe. The company could face the maximum fine from EPA of $314 million for illegally suppressing birth defect and safety studies. Agency officials, however, have hinted that they are considering a much lower fine of $13 million.

DuPont is also the subject of a federal criminal probe into its suppression of the studies.

"Scientists independent of chemical industry money looked at the toxicity of this chemical, and the verdict is clear: This Teflon chemical should be considered a likely human carcinogen. If EPA officials needed a reason to level the maximum fine against this $24.6 billion company, they have it now," said EWG Senior Vice President Richard Wiles. "DuPont might be politically connected with an army of lobbyists, but it should still be held accountable."

On July 6, the scientific panel will discuss its recommendations that the Agency strengthen its health precautions over the Teflon chemical.

EWG staff Toxicologist Dr. Tim Kropp and Wiles are available to brief reporters on the panel's findings.

To set up an interview, please call Lauren Sucher at 202/667-6982.

Excerpts from the panel's report follow:

"In considering the collective evidence the majority of panel members concluded that the experimental weight of evidence with respect to the carcinogenicity of PFOA was stronger than proposed in the draft document, and suggested that PFOA is a 'likely' carcinogen in humans." (p. 2)

"In the evaluation of carcinogenicity, the Panel supports the inclusion of multiple cancer endpoints" (p. 3)

"Immunotoxicity has been reported, and derivations of MOEs for such effects are encouraged. Given the prevalence of PPAR receptors, including PPAR-alpha in brain, effects on nervous system structure and function warrant attention." (pp. 3-4)

###

The Environmental Working Group uses the power of information to protect human health and the environment. Their four years' worth of research on Teflon chemicals is available at http://www.ewg.org/issues/siteindex/issues.php?issueid=5014.

The EPA advisory panel's report is available at: http://www.epa.gov/sab/panels/pfoa_rev_panel.htm.

[source: Environmental Working Group]

Demand Global Warming Leadership Now!

2006-08-03T08:58:00.000-07:00

Sign the Global Warming Leadership Petition. Send a message to political leaders, and those running for re-election in November, that Americans want energy leadership from their government. We have the technological know-how to turn the tide on global warming and the energy crisis. We as citizens must demand that elected officials act now to develop policies to stop global warming before our environment is irreparably harmed.

Sensible solutions to global warming and our energy problems exist - we can own our energy future and reinvigorate our economy. Sign the petition and demand that politicians and candidates for office make global warming and clean energy a priority in the 2006 elections. Just fill out the form by clicking here.

Of Whales and Mandalas

2006-08-01T08:55:00.000-07:00

Subtle Math Turns Songs of Whales Into Kaleidoscopic Images

By GRETCHEN CUDA

[Published: August 1, 2006 in the New York times]

What do whale songs and wavelets have in common? Quite a bit, and the wavelets have nothing to do with water.

In a Northern California studio, Mark Fischer, an engineer by training, uses wavelets -- a technique for processing digital signals -- to transform the haunting calls of ocean mammals into movies that visually represent the songs and still images that look like electronic mandalas. (His art can be found at aguasonic.com.)

Mr. Fischer learned about acoustics by developing software for Navy sonar and the telecommunications industry. Years later, a serendipitous brush with whale researchers in Baja California led him to take a closer look at whales and the diversity of their intricate underwater communication. "I don't think anyone has ever spent even a little time around a whale and not been amazed by it," Mr. Fischer said in an interview.

Mr. Fischer creates visual art from sound using wavelets. Once relatively obscure, wavelets are being used in applications as diverse as JPEG image compression, high definition television and earthquake research, said Gilbert Strang, a math professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an expert on wavelets.

They are popular now in part because they can capture intricate detail without losing the bigger picture, and when presented in circular form (using a cylindrical coordinate system), repeated patterns are even more evident. By stringing successive images together, Mr. Fischer transforms still images into animated audio files that bring the sound to life.

Among whales, certain sounds and patterns are unique to different species, and even individuals in a group -- something like an auditory fingerprint, Mr. Fischer said. "To anyone who doesn’t listen to it on a regular basis it sounds like a bunch of clicks,” he said. “But if you're a whale -- or someone who studies whales -- it becomes clear that they have their own dialects"

Wavelets are capable of picking up those distinctions, Mr. Fischer said, nuances that may be missed by the human ear or less detailed visualization methods. "You can pick out any one of those movies and I'll tell you what it is without hearing a thing," he said. "The differences are that dramatic." He envisions a day when researchers may be able to use images generated using wavelets to identify and track individual whales.

Peter Tyack agrees that the technique has potential not only as art, but as a scientific research tool. A senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Dr. Tyack studies the way humpback whales communicate, trying to show that the repetitions in whale songs follow grammatical rules similar to those of human language.

"Looking at those figures, it looked like you could see a lot of repeated units," Dr. Tyack said of the images. "It looks like he's visualizing some of the points that we made in the paper about humpback song."

Despite having analyzed recordings from at least 16 species of whales, Mr. Fischer said he had just scratched the surface. "It's still a wide-open world out there," he said. "You think you’re in the 21st century and we have the means to get anything, but when it concerns the deep ocean there is still quite a bit of mystery."

In the meantime, Mr. Fischer hopes that by merging science and art, he will inspire a greater appreciation of whales among both marine biologists and the public, as he gives many people a glimpse of a world they would otherwise never experience.

"It's a very rare opportunity to be in the water listening to a whale," he said. A picture, on the other hand, is something you can hang on your wall and look at every day.

"When you see what whales are doing with sound, or begin to see what they are capable of, it is clear that humans are not the only artists on the planet," he said.

Weeds -- Don't kill, Eat them

2006-07-29T09:19:00.000-07:00

Wonderful World of Weeds

by Lynn Smythe

Okay, so I finally got my husband to try edible flowers in some of the salads I serve him made with ingredients picked from our organic garden. He was really thrilled when I told him I was writing an article on edible weeds. I have banished him from the kitchen so he can't see what I'm adding to the meals I prepare. After he gulps down dinner then I can tell him what he just ate (I just ate purslane, isn't that the stuff growing all over our paver stones in the front yard that you won't let me spray with Round-up!?!) Yup honey, and you're still alive to tell the tale. His co-workers think I'm insane - they never seem to accept our dinner invitations, I wonder why?

Here are some weeds you may want to consider adding to your culinary creations. Many of these weeds can now be purchased from garden centers (either as plants or seeds) so you can grown them in your own yard if you can't find them growing in the wild.

Burdock (Arctium lappa) - cultivated as a vegetable in Japan where it is known as gobo. The stalks are scraped and cooked like celery. The roots can be eaten raw in salads or added to stir fries.

Cattail (Typha latifolia) - the pollen can be used to enrich flour. The unripe flower spikes can be cooked as a vegetable and the young shoots and inner stems are eaten raw or cooked.

Century plant (Agave americana) - the flower stems and leaf bases can be roasted and eaten. Certain species can be made into alcoholic drinks such as tequila.

Chickweed (Stellaria media) - can be added raw to salads or cooked as a vegetable.

Chicory (Cichorium intybus) - the roots of this plant are used as a coffee additive. The sky blue flowers are also edible and make a terrific addition to salads.

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) - the flowers can be made into wine or jelly. The roots are sometimes used as a coffee substitute. The young leaves make a nice addition to salads.

Epazote (Chenopodium ambrosioides) - a tropical American weed commonly used in Mexican cooking to flavor corn, beans, mushrooms, seafood, fish, soups, and sauces.

Garlic mustard (Alliaria officinalis) - the young leaves add a mild garlic flavor to salads, sandwiches, and soups.

Goldenrod (Solidago spp.) - the leaves and flowers can be used for herbal tea.

Horseweed (Conyza canadensis) - the young leaves can be cooked as a vegetable.

Kudzu (Pueraria lobata) - AKA Japanese arrowroot. It is a prolific weed in south Florida. A starch can be made from its roots. This starch can be used to thicken sauces and gravies as you would use cornstarch. The leaves can be battered and fried.

Lamb's quarter (Chenopodium album) - the young leaves can be added to salads.

Milk thistle (Silybum marianum) - the young leaves with the spines removed are eaten raw or cooked as a spinach-like vegetable. The flower buds can be eaten, they are like miniature artichokes.

Plantain (Plantago spp.) - the young leaves are edible if the fibrous midribs and veins are removed. The seeds are also edible.

Prickly lettuce (Lactuca serriola) - the young leaves can be eaten raw in salads or cooked as a vegetable.

Purslane (Portulaca oleracea) - tastes similar to spinach and the leaves and stems can be eaten raw in salads or cooked or pickled in vinegar. Cooked purslane has a mucilaginous texture similar to okra.

Sheep's sorrel (Rumex acetosella) - the young leaves can be added to salads, sauces, soups, and egg dishes.

Shepherd's purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris) - has been used as a food for thousands of years. The seed pods have a peppery flavor and can be used as a seasoning.

Stinging nettle (Urtica diocia) - the cooked young leaves can be eaten like spinach, added to soups and egg and vegetable dishes. Do not consume raw leaves, they are covered with highly irritating hairs thus the name STINGING nettle.

Edible Weed Salad

3 cups mixed greens such as lettuce, spinach, kale, Swiss chard.
1 cup mixed weeds such as:
-dandelion leaves
-chicory leaves and flowers
-chickweed leaves and flowers
-lamb's quarters leaves
-purslane stems and leaves
-shepherd's purse leaves

Toss all the ingredients together in a large bowl along with olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper and a few to many crushed garlic cloves depending upon your personal preference. Make sure you use the young, tender leaves of any weeds you will be adding to your salads and other culinary creations. Older leaves tend to turn bitter, tough, and stringy.

Caffeine Free Coffee Substitutes

The roots of both chicory and dandelion can also be used as a caffeine free coffee substitute or coffee additive. Harvest the roots, wash well to remove dirt then cut them into small, thin slices. Place these slices on a cookie sheet on the lowest setting in your oven until they are dry or use a food dehydrator if you own one. If you are using the roots for medicinal purposes once the roots have been dried and have cooled down to room temperature they can be placed in dark glass containers and stored away from direct sunlight.

If you are using the roots as a coffee substitute the dried roots must be oven roasted at approximately 250 degrees for 30-40 minutes so that they obtain a coffee-like appearance and taste. The oven roasted root pieces can then be ground up in a blender or coffee grinder then made into coffee using your favorite method of brewing (i.e. drip coffee maker, French press, etc...) You may also make a coffee blend by mixing around 50% coffee beans with either 50% roasted chicory or roasted dandelion roots.

Medicinal Uses of Weeds

All of the weeds mentioned in this article serve double duty by also exhibiting many medicinal properties. Here are a few medicinal weeds you may want to consider using for their healing properties:

Dandelion is a bitter-sweet, cooling herb with diuretic and laxative effects. It also stimulates liver function and improves digestion.

Horseweed is a slightly aromatic bitter tonic that acts as a diuretic and checks bleeding.

Kudzu is a sweet, cooling, tonic herb that increases perspiration, relieves pain, relaxes spasms, lowers blood pressure, and soothes the digestive system.

Milk thistle is a bitter, diuretic, tonic herb that regenerates liver cells, stimulates bile flow and relaxes spasms.

Plantain (P. psyllium) contains up to 30% mucilage, which swells in the gut, acting as a bulk laxative which also soothes irritated membranes.

Purslane is rich in Omega-3 fatty acids that can help to reduce one's cholesterol levels.

Sheep's sorrel is best known as an ingredient of Essiac, a native American anti-cancer remedy.

Safety Precautions

When using any type of plant material moderation is key. Ingesting too much of even the most benign substance can cause you to become ill.

Never harvest weeds from the side of the road. These plants may be contaminated from vehicle exhaust fumes.

Never harvest weeds in the wild unless you are absolutely certain of their identification and you have the permission of the land owner and you know that the field hasn't been sprayed with any harmful chemicals.

The safest way to harvest weeds is to look in your own yard. I have purslane growing allover my yard but I had to purchase seeds to establish my patches of chicory and dandelion which I planted in my garden next to my other herbs and vegetables.

Always practice organic gardening techniques in your garden especially when it's food you intend to eat.

Be an Expert on Anything

2006-07-26T08:45:00.000-07:00

[Source: Wired Magazine]

CHOOSE A SUBJECT THAT'S ACTUALLY SECRET. Dan Brown invented a secret subject for The Da Vinci Code, so now he is forever an expert on this secret subject that no one can challenge. Anybody who attacks the secret subject is, by definition, part of the cabal.

GET YOUR OWN ENTRY IN AN ENCYCLOPEDIA. In the media age, everybody was famous for 15 minutes. In the Wikipedia age, everybody can be an expert in five minutes. Special bonus: You can edit your own entry to make yourself seem even smarter.

USE THE WORD ZEITGEIST AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE. Ideally, you want to find words that sound familiar but people don’t really know their definitions: zeitgeist, bildungsroman, doppelganger – better yet, anything Latin. But avoid paradigm. It's so 1994. If you say the word paradigm, everybody knows you're a poser.

BE SURE TO USE LOTS OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS. Someone who says the words operations security may be educated, but the person who uses the military abbreviation Opsec is clearly an expert. If I use the term Gitmo, that means I've actually been there. If you say, "We're going to Defcon 1," it means you probably have the launch codes. Real experts don’t have time for extra syllables.

SPEAK FROM THE BALLS, NOT FROM THE DIAPHRAGM. In the expert game, you've got to have sack. That means speaking with confidence. In America, you’ve got to steer clear of nuance and ambivalence – and don't even contemplate doubt.

DON'T BE AFRAID TO MAKE THINGS UP. Never fear being exposed as a fraud. Experts make things up all the time. They're qualified to.

DON'T LIMIT YOURSELF TO CURRENT KNOWLEDGE. If you worry too much about being up-to-date, you miss out on vast territories of obsolete knowledge just waiting to be reclaimed. Think of leech-craft and all the lonely experts in the use of the little creatures, which are now experiencing a renaissance in health care.

GET AN HONORARY PHD. They work wonders. I have a doctorate in fine arts from Knox College in Illinois. All I did was give a speech, and now everybody has to call me Dr. Colbert.

MAKE A HABIT OF NAME-DROPPING. Say things like "I was talking to John Hockenberry yesterday for my story in Wired. Have you seen my cover?" I plan to use this issue of Wired to assert that I now know everything about wires.

BE FAMOUS. IT HELPS.

- Stephen Colbert

The Pleasure of Doing Nothing Useful

2006-07-14T06:38:00.000-07:00

By Roger Housde

You might think there could be nothing more simple than doing nothing for no reason; doing something merely for the pleasure of it, without any thought of future profit or gain, without adding any skill or knowledge to your store, without any usefulness at all. Yet even doing nothing has now become something to do. Relaxation, the quintessential doing nothing, is something you have to "practice," and seriously, in a class for which the time slot is logged in your diary. A party is an occasion to "work the room." A weekend at the shore is an opportunity to get to know those well-connected neighbors.

A friend of mine, a magazine editor, told me recently how difficult she found it to leave her job behind. We were sitting in a restaurant in downtown Manhattan, and she was aware that she was constantly noticing the clientele, the decor, seeing if there was any angle that might work for a piece in her magazine. She longed to be able to sit down at a table without her work, to have a conversation with a friend that promised no more than the pleasure of their company. Yet her mind wouldn't let her agenda go.

We each in our own ways have an agenda. We are all lobbyists for our own cause, our own opinions, aspirations, status, or career. While there's nothing wrong with getting ahead, whatever that may mean, it can also be an enormous relief now and then to lay down our own cause and enjoy wherever we find ourselves on its own terms.

You might think that all you need do to have no agenda and do nothing in particular is to allow yourself to sit down one morning in a spontaneous sort of way in the local cafe without looking at your watch. And, perhaps, to ask for a china cup.

It's true that the cup matters. It not only affects the coffee, it confers stability on your person. It means you are here to stay, at least in the short term. It means you are likely to be around for as much as the next half hour; that you are willing to be part of the quiet bustle and spectacle of the cafe you are an observer and a participant at the same time, and you don't have to do anything for the privilege except to sit there. A cafe offers one of life's rare opportunities to happily do nothing in the company of others who are also doing nothing more useful than sipping coffee. American civic life could derive only benefit from switching to china, though I don’t expect it to happen anytime soon.

Cafe life, without question, is one of the more enjoyable benefits of civilization. You can sit at your table for half an hour or more and watch the world go by, all for the price of a cup of coffee—or tea, if that is your preference. I know there's an irony in speaking of coffee and doing nothing in the same sentence; but the cafe isn’t really about the coffee or tea at all. It’s about the sitting there, hearing snatches of conversation, having your own thoughts, being aware of the other customers around you, watching the passerby, eavesdropping on the waiter's repartee.

Yet we are so good at being busy, we can even turn a cup of coffee into something to do. You may seem to be sitting there innocently sipping, but all the time you may be preoccupied with waiting: not just being there, but waiting for a certain amount of time to pass; waiting for your date, or for the train. Or you're busy sizing up the opposite sex. That may not seem far from doing nothing, but even so, it's not quite the same.

When you sit there and do nothing in particular at all--no waiting, no Palm Pilot, no cell phone, no agenda, nothing that will get you anywhere anytime soon--then a space can open up in your mind. Thoughts can float by without the habitual impulse to jump on their back and ride them for all they are worth. It may even happen that the taste of coffee gives way to the taste of yourself--the delicious relief of being-in-yourself.

As for waiting, there are some pleasures for which even the pleasure of the cafe can wait. I once spent more than the first hour of a morning in the bath of my hotel room in Paris, keeping the water hot with an occasional turn of the tap with my toe. Nothing seemed more pleasurable and fulfilling than that tubful of hot water--a tub that must have been made in the twenties, large enough for two, with claw feet and taps that stood almost six inches tall, easy for toes to play with, in a capacious bathroom of old white tiles and a large steamed up mirror, an art deco one.
Outside there was the Louvre to visit, the Opera House to gaze at, that delicious sense of forgiveness that invades the mind in any great city away from home. I am typically full of curiosity and enthusiasm for the new, but that day I felt no movement in me to get dressed and open my door. I could hear the city of cities outside my window, the drone of traffic, the tolling of a distant bell, the sporadic shouts and cries of human voices. I knew I could accuse myself of wasting time.

I knew there was the beautiful Place des Vosges to visit just around the corner, the Seine to stroll along, the wonderful district of St. Germain to meander through. But none of it seemed worth getting out of the bath for. Not that day. I must have daydreamed of this and that, the way one might also do in a comfortable armchair in front of a warm log fire; but I don't remember a single thought of any significance that passed over me during that hour or so. No, mostly I was vacant. Not in a way that was unconscious, of half-asleep, but in a way that transferred the locus of my unconsciousness from my mind to my body. I became a floating, wrinkly breathing white body, with arms languishing along the roll top of the tub, toes flat against the end under the old chrome taps. It is a marvel, the human body, how it can lie there happily undisturbed for as long as you care to let it, soaking in the pleasure of hot water and an empty mind, empty and alive.

An hour in a bath may not be your idea of a good time, but the point is not the bath but the rested mind that, in my case, it gave rise to. We all have our own ways. It's not what you don't do, it's the way you don't do it.

A $55.000 Yoga Class?

2006-07-09T06:52:00.000-07:00

GWYNETH PALTROW is struggling to plan the perfect yoga lesson - as a fan has paid $55,000 (GBP30,000) for a stretching session with the actress. The lesson was snapped up by the star-struck health fanatic at a charity auction in aid of British charity The Prince's Trust's 30th anniversary. Paltrow is now desperately thinking of ways to create a masterclass which will be worth the staggering amount of money. She says, "Someone's spent a great deal of money on it so I'm going to have to really come up with an excellent plan. "Unfortunately I can't do it in the nude or anything to make it really exceptional but I will try and come up with a good plan.

Pursuing Happiness

2006-07-05T13:24:00.000-07:00

[Source: The Economist]

It's the pursuit, rather than the end-product, that makes Americans so American

ONE of the most striking things about the document that Americans celebrate with such gusto on July 4th is that so much of it is dull-hardly worthy of the tons of fireworks and barbecue that are sacrificed in its honour. There are lists of complaints about the administration of the courts and the quartering of British troops. There is an angry passage about King George's habit of summoning legislators “at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records”. But all this tedium is more than made up for by a single sentence-the one about “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.

The sentence was remarkable at the time—a perfect summary, in a few pithy words, of exactly what was new about the new republic. Previous countries had been based on common traditions and a collective identity. Previous statesmen had been exercised by things like the common good and public virtue (which usually meant making sure that people played their allotted roles in the divinely established order). The Founding Fathers were the first politicians to produce the explosive combination of individual rights and the pursuit of happiness. It remains equally remarkable today, still the best statement, 230 years after it was written, of what makes America American. The Book of Job gives warning that “man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” Americans, for all their overt religiosity, have dedicated their civilisation to proving Job wrong.

Everywhere you look in contemporary America you see a people engaged in that pursuit. You can see it in work habits. Americans not only work harder than most Europeans (they work an average of 1,731 hours a year compared with an average of 1,440 for Germans). They also endure lengthy commutes (who cares about a couple of hours a day in a car when you have a McMansion to come home to?). You can see it in geographical mobility. About 40m of them move house every year. They are remarkably willing to travel huge distances in pursuit of everything from bowling conventions to factory outlets. You can see it in religion: Americans relentlessly shop around for the church that most suits their spiritual needs. And you can see it in the country's general hopefulness: two-thirds of Americans are optimistic about the future.

Since Americans are energetic even in deconstructing their own founding principles, there is no shortage of people who have taken exception to the happiness pursuit. They range from conservatives such as Robert Bork, who think the phrase encapsulates the “emptiness at the heart of American ideology”, to liberals who think that it is a justification for an acquisitive society.

One criticism is that the pursuit is self-defeating. The more you pursue the illusion of happiness the more you sacrifice the real thing. The flip side of relentless mobility is turmoil and angst, broken marriages and unhappy children. Americans have less job security than ever before. They even report having fewer close friends than a couple of decades ago. And international studies of happiness suggest that people in certain poor countries, for instance Nigeria and Mexico, are apparently happier than people in America.

Another criticism is that Americans have confused happiness with material possessions (it is notable that Thomas Jefferson's call echoes Adam Smith's phrase about “life, liberty and the pursuit of property”). Do all those pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes really make you happy? Or are they just a compensation for empty lives à la “Sex in the City”?

If opinion polls on such matters mean anything—and that is dubious—they suggest that both these criticisms are flawed. A 2006 Pew Research Centre study, “Are we happy yet?” claims that 84% of Americans are either “very happy” (34%) or “pretty happy” (50%). The Harris Poll's 2004 “feel good index” found that 95% are pleased with their homes and 91% are pleased with their social lives. The Pew polls show that money does indeed go some way towards buying happiness: nearly half (49%) of Americans with annual incomes of more than $100,000 say they are very happy compared with just 24% of people with incomes of $30,000 or less. They also suggest that Americans' religiosity makes them happier still: 43% of Americans who attend religious services once a week or more report being very happy compared with 31% who attend once a month or less and 26% of people who attend seldom or never.

Weep, and you weep alone

The pursuit of happiness explains all sorts of peculiarities of American life: from the $700m that is spent on self-help books every year to the irritating dinner guests who will not stop looking at their BlackBerries. It also holds a clue to understanding American politics. Perhaps the biggest reason why the Republicans have proved so successful in recent years is that they have established a huge “happiness gap”. Some 45% of Republicans report being “very happy” compared with just 30% of Democrats. The Democrats may be right to give warning of global warming and other disasters. But are they right to give the impression that they relish all the misery? The people's party will never regain its momentum unless it learns to relate to the guy on the super-sized patio, happily grilling his hamburgers and displaying his American flag.

The pursuit of happiness may even help to explain the surge of anti-Americanism. Many people dislike America because of its failure to live up to its stated ideals. But others dislike it precisely because it is doing exactly what Jefferson intended. For some Europeans, the pursuit of happiness in the form of monster cars and mansions is objectionable on every possible ground, from aesthetic to ecological. You cannot pursue happiness with such conspicuous enthusiasm without making quite a lot of people around the world rather unhappy.

We leave others in the dust

2006-06-29T18:32:00.000-07:00

By SHOLNN FREEMAN, Washington Post
First published: Thursday, June 29, 2006

When it comes to greenhouse gases, U.S. drivers are getting more of the blame, a study finds.

Americans represent 5 percent of the world's population but contribute 45 percent of the world's emission of carbon dioxide, the main pollutant that causes global warming, according to a report by the nonprofit group Environmental Defense.

Americans own 30 percent of the world's vehicles, drive farther each year than the international average and burn more fuel per mile, the report says. Additionally, the sport-utility boom of the past decade put vehicles on the road that could be spewing carbon dioxide for years to come.

General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. have long been the targets of environmentalists and other groups concerned with global warming. Vehicles made by GM, the No. 1 U.S. automaker, produced as much carbon dioxide in 2004 as American Electric Power Co., the nation's largest operator of coal-fired power plants, the report says.

Auto industry representatives declined to comment on the report. Most auto companies have been working to reduce emissions by designing more efficient engines and vehicles capable of running on alternative fuels.

Automakers, though, have generally resisted government restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions, saying such limits would force extensive design changes and drive up prices for consumers.

Environmental Defense attempted to quantify how much carbon dioxide is produced by vehicles sold by various automakers. But the group said auto companies should not be singled out for blame, because consumer choices also play a role.

"What we are trying to do is make the connections for people," said John DeCicco, a senior fellow at Environmental Defense and an author of the report.

He said consumers could buy gas-electric hybrids or cars with smaller engines that burn less fuel and they could be more aware of how much they are driving, no matter the gas mileage of their cars. The report points out, for example, that although SUVs may be known as gas guzzlers, smaller cars cause more pollution because there are more of them on the road. The authors also suggest that communities reconsider land use policies because Americans are taking more and longer trips, often to shop.

With the report, the group is trying to build support for government policies aimed at curbing greenhouse gases, including a system that would cap carbon dioxide emissions but allow companies and utilities to trade credits, mirroring Clean Air Act rules that govern sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain. Under such a system, a company would get an allowance for carbon dioxide emissions each year, and if it did not reach that limit, it could sell off the remaining allotment to others.

Carbon dioxide is a byproduct of burning gasoline in vehicles. Scientists say the atmosphere can absorb a great deal of it, but many worry that people are adding more than nature can handle. They say the gases are building up around the Earth, trapping heat and raising the planet's temperature.

The report considered national statistics on how long vehicles are used and how far they are driven as they age. New and used vehicles were examined.Carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles are disproportionately high in the United States for two primary reasons, the report says: U.S. drivers average 11,000 miles per year, 29 percent above the global average, and U.S. autos consume more fuel, emitting 15 percent more carbon dioxide per mile than the average vehicle in the rest of the world.

Iraq's disastrous 'black oil' swamps

2006-06-26T08:03:00.000-07:00

By James Glanz The New York Times

BAGHDAD -An environmental disaster is brewing in the heartland of Iraq's northern Sunni-led insurgency, where Iraqi officials say that in a desperate move to dispose of millions of barrels of an oil refinery byproduct called "black oil," the government pumped it into open mountain valleys and leaky reservoirs next to the Tigris River and set it on fire.

The resulting huge black bogs are threatening the river and the precious groundwater in the area. The suffocating plumes of smoke are carried as far as 65 kilometers, or 40 miles, downwind to Tikrit, the provincial capital that formed Saddam Hussein's base of power.

An Iraqi environmental engineer who has visited the area described it as a kind of black swampland consisting of oil-saturated terrain and large standing pools of oil stretching across several mountain valleys. The clouds of smoke, said the engineer, Ayad Younis, "were so heavy that they obstructed breathing and visibility in the area and represent a serious environmental danger."

At Iraq's damaged and outdated refineries, as much as 40 percent of what is produced pours forth as this heavy, viscous substance, which used to be extensively exported to more efficient foreign operations for further refining. But the insurgency has stalled government- controlled exports from the area containing Iraq's major northern refinery complex at Bayji, the officials say.

So the backed-up black oil - known to the rest of the world as the lower grades of fuel oil - was sent along a short pipeline from Bayji and dumped in a mountainous area, called Makhool.

A series of complaints handed up the Iraqi government chain were conveyed to oil industry officials, and as of last weekend the fires had at least temporarily stopped, but black oil was still being poured into the valleys, according to Younis, who works in the province's Department of Environment and Health Safety.

With few options for disposing of Bayji's current production of black oil and so much at stake for the Iraqi economy, it is unclear whether the government will be able to hold the line on the burning at Makhool. A U.S. official in Baghdad said last week that Bayji was still turning out about 90,000 barrels a day of refined products, which would yield about 36,000 barrels a day of black oil.

Iraq's refineries will grind to a halt if the black oil does not go somewhere.

"Unless we find a way of dealing with the fuel oil, our factories will not work," said Shamkhi Faraj, director of economics and marketing affairs at the Oil Ministry.

The dumping and burning has embarrassed officials in the Oil Ministry and exposed major gaps in the American-designed reconstruction program.

Mussab al-Dujayli, a technical expert at the State Oil Marketing Organization, which he directed until March, said that the disposal defied sound engineering practice.

"The consequences of it are dreadful," Dujayli said. "God forbid."

Still, the complaints that halted the burning, however temporarily, represent something virtually unheard of in a country that has long had few if any checks on pollution by government industries: a backlash by local political and environmental officials.

Last month, motivated by citizen complaints and whistle-blowing employees at Bayji, the elected governor of the province that contains Bayji and Tikrit formed a technical committee that investigated and wrote a report warning of severe environmental consequences if the practice was not stopped.

The governor, Hamad Hmoud al- Qaisi, said in an interview that he was outraged by what his committee had found was happening in the mountains at Makhool. "I call upon the United Nations and the United States administration to make haste in saving the people of Bayji and Tikrit from an environmental catastrophe," Qaisi said.

"The wastes there are untreatable because the terrain is rocky and contains many caves that allow these wastes to slip through and eventually reach the groundwater where nearby towns depend on wells," Qaisi said.

The concerns quickly reached Narmin Othman Hasan, the minister of the environment, who said in an interview that she had written to oil officials complaining of the practice. After that, the fires went out.

Adel al-Qazzaz, manager of state- owned North Oil, which has immediate responsibility for operations in the north, repeatedly declined to respond to questions on the fuel oil after he was reached by phone and e-mail in Kirkuk.

The American official who discussed Bayji's level of oil production said the black oil could be taken out by truck and that one of the state-owned marketing companies had undertaken to do so.

But Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, who served two stints as oil minister between September 2003 and January 2006, said that plan probably had not been fully worked through. The roads in the Sunni badlands of the north are dangerous and sometimes impassable. And about 150 large tankers would have to leave Bayji fully loaded every day to remove the current production of black oil. Simply finding that number of working vehicles and loading them in a timely fashion would be challenging under the best of circumstances, Uloum said.

Weird Stuff -- In vitro cultured meat: no cows needed

2006-06-14T13:44:00.000-07:00

by Dick Peterson
Source: The Catalyst

He can do it. The technology exists. He can assemble the team of scientists who can make it happen, probably within the next five years. But nobody wants it badly enough to put up the millions of dollars in venture capital Vladimir Mironov, M.D., says it will take to produce in vitro cultured meat. That's meat that never did moo, baa, oink, cluck or quack. It never chewed a cud or pecked the ground, and it certainly never experienced the horrors of a slaughterhouse. It’s edible, nutritious meat grown in a laboratory with the potential to feed the world’s hungry, to open long distance space travel by making in-flight food production a reality, and to ensure a national food supply safe from bioterrorism.

"I have everything in place, but I have no demand," Mironov said. "Unless you have demand, and that means money, you cannot do research."

Dr. Vladimir Mironov, Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, displays a vial of turkey myoblast cells which, under the right conditions, can assemble themselves into skeletal muscle tissue, an important item at Thanksgiving dinner.

It's not that Mironov would have it any other way. It's simply the reality of biomedical research. It's been a few months now since national news media descended on MUSC to hear Mironov explain how skeletal muscle cells cloned from livestock can be grown. If they can be grown in the laboratory, they can be grown on an industrial scale to produce hamburger-like meats with precisely controlled fat and protein content.

Mironov said that the media attention-CBS ran a spot on its Evening News Nov. 25- was not something he sought, and he now knows he could have done well without the publicity it generated.

It began with a grant offering totaling $2 million that Mironov was told included food production. "So I built a team,” he said. “One was Dr. Douglas McFarland from North Dakota, who has already defined cell lines from domestic edible animals. The second was John Vournakis from Marine Polymer Technologies who has purified chitosan from algae, which is edible. Some people use it to reduce fat. Number three was Anna Gutowska, who can produce expandable polymers from collagen and chitosan, which is also edible. The polymers create a kind of fitness center to exercise the cells." He explained that skeletal cells attached to a structure will fuse and form and require the mechanical conditioning provided by an expandable chitosan scaffold.

"My job was to pull the team together and create a bioreactor," Mironov said.

The grant never materialized. Other attempts to obtain funding from both commercial and federal sources failed to rouse any interest in Mironov’s proposals, "So I tried to forget about it," he said.

But while disinterested funding sources encouraged him to forget, emerging media attention seemed to be taking on a life of its own with an apparent obsession to keep the memory alive. Especially intriguing to one reporter was the notion that in vitro cultured meat just might lure vegetarian taste buds to their forbidden fruit. If not hamburger, why not take a biopsy of her muscle tissue and grow it, she offered.

"I’m not a U.S.-licensed M.D., I told her, and I don’t want to participate in high-tech cannibalism," Mironov said. "And I think it is a very bad marketing tool."

One foundation which does not like animal killing contributed a relative pittance to the idea and demanded results.

"So they want me to publish a paper, but I could not publish a paper that I create hamburger. I have no data," Mironov said. What he could do, he said, was publish a conceptual paper about how it could be done.

Despite refusals from legitimate funding sources and Mironov’s reluctance to deal with fringe groups whose money offers were meager at best, word of his proposal to produce lab-grown meat captured one imagination after another, including that of Jason Matthew. Matthew, a student in Maryland, built a Web site promoting the same idea that Mironov repeatedly portrayed as dated technology put to a new use, meat production instead of growing organs for transplant.

The president of the tissue engineering society Mironov belongs to refused to call his concept tissue engineering, but a member of the society’s board, who advocates expanding the field and is editor of the society’s journal, gave it the push it needed to be published.

"And what’s happened. Unbelievable," Mironov said. "The media hype. BBC. CBS Evening News. They make a movie, and it's all show, because I haven't done a thing. All this from four years ago.”

For a few days the media requests came in, demanding that Mironov accommodate them and Mironov half expecting the publicity just may spark interest and better yet shake loose some capital to get him started on this new end product for tissue engineering.

But before the dust could settle, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. As quickly as they arrived, the media left, leaving a measure of destruction in their wake.

"It was all show, because I am not doing anything, actually. They get all this information and then nothing.”"He said the experience has left him embarrassed and has made him look like all he wanted was publicity. The CBS Evening News spot featuring Mironov aired on Thanksgiving Day in the Western time zones but was preempted in the East by televised football games.

Despite the huge commercial potential for tissue engineering, a potential apart from organ transplantation, Mironov realizes that without a demand that spawns venture capital he cannot proceed. "I decided that if I received just one call from a venture capitalist, then we have demand. But not one call. And that for me was most disappointing, because I have put my reputation on the line and I am suffering from all this media hype.

"At least I can create an awareness about this technology.” Mironov said that food is but one spin-off from tissue engineering. Leather is another. And clothing. And what is fur, but skin with hair, he asked. All it takes is demand, money and someone to do it.
Meanwhile Mironov will focus all his energy on his first passion, bio-printing. That’s using printing processes to build human organs for transplant. It’s research in its infancy, but like the vision he has for cultured meat, Mironov has a vision creating organs for transplant.

He said he takes heart from Harvard researcher and specialist in anticancer antiangiogenic therapy Judah Folkman who told his audience at a lecture at MUSC, "If you live long enough and stick to your original message again and again, then people start to listen and finally understand you."

"Folkman introduced his concept of antiangiogenic anticancer therapy in 1971 and was originally treated as a charlatan," Mironov said. “In 2004, the first FDA-approved antiangiogenic drug for the treatment of cancer generated a billion dollars for Genentech, the company that developed it."

Mironov strongly believes that tissue engineered meat, "charlem," as he calls it, is inescapably part of humanity’s future. As he put it, “It is a matter of social demand and not so much a matter of technology. Incubation time for commercial exploitation of a new technological idea is difficult to predict. The only way to predict the future is to build it.

"What makes me very excited," Mironov said, "is I am Russian, but I am now in the process of inventing new English words. I invented (the words) organ printing, bio-printing, bio-ink. And now a name for tissue engineered hamburger—“charlem.” I name it for Charleston, because I love it here and em for engineered meat. What do you think?"

To name a girl

2006-06-10T07:15:00.000-07:00

The match has started. And there she is, supporting the Brazilian soccer team. Our girl is very active, enjoys music, practices yoga, exercises at the beach.
However, she does not have a name yet. We need suggestions. Let us know what you think, send a name suggestion.

A Quick Fix for the Gas Addicts

2006-06-02T11:19:00.000-07:00

by Thomas Friedman [source: Radical Left Blog]

Is there a company more dangerous to America's future than General Motors? Surely, the sooner this company gets taken over by Toyota, the better off our country will be.

Why? Like a crack dealer looking to keep his addicts on a tight leash, G.M. announced its "fuel price protection program" on May 23.

If you live in Florida or California and buy certain G.M. vehicles by July 5, the company will guarantee you gasoline at a cap price of $1.99 a gallon for one year — with no limit on mileage. Guzzle away.

As The Associated Press explained the program, each month for one year, G.M. will give customers who buy these cars "a credit on a prepaid card based on their estimated fuel usage.

Fuel usage will be calculated by the miles they drive, as recorded by OnStar, and the vehicle’s fuel economy rating. G.M. will credit drivers the difference between the average price per gallon in their state and the $1.99 cap." Consumers won’t get any credits if gas prices fall below $1.99.

"This program gives consumers an opportunity to experience the highly fuel-efficient vehicles G.M. has to offer in the mid-size segment,” Dave Borchelt, G.M.'s Southeast general manager, said in the company's official statement. Oh, really?

Eligible vehicles in California include the 2006 and 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban (half-ton models only), Impala and Monte Carlo sedans, G.M.C. Yukon and Yukon XL S.U.V.'s (half-ton models only), Hummer H2 and H3 S.U.V.'s, the Cadillac SRX S.U.V., and the Pontiac Grand Prix and Buick Lucerne sedans.

Eligible vehicles in Florida include the 2006 and 2007 Chevrolet Impala and Monte Carlo, Pontiac Grand Prix and Buick LaCrosse.

Let's see, the 6,400-pound Hummer H2 averages around nine miles per gallon. It really is great that G.M. is giving more Americans the opportunity to experience nine-miles-per-gallon driving.

And the hulking Chevy Suburban gets around 15 miles per gallon. It will be wonderful if more Americans can experience that too — with G.M.-subsidized gas.

Our military is in a war on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan with an enemy who is fueled by our gasoline purchases. So we are financing both sides in the war on terror. And what are we doing about that?

Not only is GM subsidizing its gas-guzzlers, but not a single member of Congress, liberal or conservative, will stand up and demand what most of them know: that we must have some kind of gasoline tax to compel Americans to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles and to compel Detroit to make them.

Where are the presidential aspirants on this issue? I have yet to hear John McCain, Mitt Romney, George Allen, Al Gore or Hillary Clinton support at least a $3.50 floor price for gasoline, so that it will never fall below that level and the alternatives can really flower and spread.

But if you go to G.M.’s Web site, here’s what you will see: an ad with a young African-American boy saluting an American flag, above the following offer for U.S. military personnel:

"In appreciation of your commitment to our country, G.M. extends a $500 exclusive offer to active duty military and reserves when you purchase or lease select 2005, 2006 or 2007 G.M. cars, trucks and S.U.V.'s — just show your military ID!"

That's really touching. First G.M. offers a gasoline subsidy so more Americans can get hooked on nine-mile-per-gallon Hummers, and then it offers a discount to the soldiers who have to protect the oil lines to keep G.M.’s gas guzzlers guzzling.

Here's a rule of thumb: The more Hummers we have on the road in America, the more military Humvees we will need in the Middle East.

You want to do something patriotic, G.M., Ford and Daimler-Chrysler? Why don't you stop using your diminishing pools of cash to buy votes so Congress will never impose improved mileage standards?

That kind of strategy is why Toyota today is worth $198.9 billion and G.M. $15.8 billion. G.M. is worth just slightly more than Harley-Davidson, the motorcycle company ($13.6 billion).

President Bush remarked the other day how agonizingly tough it is for a president to send young Americans to war.

Yet, he's ready to do that, but he’s not ready to look Detroit or Congress in the eye and demand that we put in place the fuel-efficiency legislation that will weaken the forces of theocracy and autocracy that are killing our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan — because it might cost Republicans votes or campaign contributions.

This whole thing is a travesty. We can't keep asking young Americans to make the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan if we as a society are not ready to make even the most minimal sacrifice to help them.

Thomas Friedman @ NYT

"Blessed the Wicked Word"

2006-05-28T09:32:00.000-07:00

This is why I love the internet. While browsing this morning I found this beautiful poem from a young Brazilian poet, Maria Resende. Here is the poem in Portuguese, and a free translation into English.

Bendita a Palavra Maldita

Bendita e a palavra
Que atravessa o meu deserto
E ultrapassa o meu silencio

Bendita cada letra escrita
Cada som soprado ou dito
- seja susurro, seja grito -

Bendito o fruto desse alfabeto
O eco novo que meus dedos trazem
Espelho torto de me revelar

Eu velo e pela forca dela
E sao pra ela todas as minhas rezas
Pro seu feitico e pra sua ferida

Bendita tambem a palavra maldita
Que bota fogo nesse apartamento
A portadora de toda a agonia

Toda palavra carrega um incendio
Cada palavra tem no fundo um mar
Bendita e a palavra que se deixa respirar

...and here is my free translation:

Blessed the Wicked Word

Blessed is the word
That crosses my desert
And goes beyond my silence

Blessed each written letter
Each sound murmured or said
- be it a whisper, be it a howl -

Blessed is the fruit of this alphabet
The new echo that my fingers bring
Crooked mirror that reveals me

I watch its strength
And my prayers are all for it
For its incantation and its wounds

Blessed also the wicked word
That burns this apartment
The carrier of all the agony

Every word conveys a fire
Every word has in its bottom a sea
Blessed is the word that allows me to breathe

Maria Resende

The Bug Enjoys a Mary Oliver Poem

2006-05-25T10:35:00.000-07:00

Wild Geese
[by Mary Oliver - New and Selected Poems (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992)]

World Cup 2006

2006-05-17T10:47:00.000-07:00

The bug plays beautiful!
Joga Bonito!

X-Treme Karma

2006-05-14T15:21:00.000-07:00

(Reprint of article featured in the Metro-active)

Yoga, once defined by asceticism, has become big, cushy business in America. Can it survive what some fear is the selling of its soul?

By Russell Wild

A bottle of vodka stands on its head. The caption reads "absolut Yoga." Ads for a Kellogg's breakfast cereal, Oil of Olay face cream and the Oxford Health Plan use yoga themes. Even Jeep SUV ads--once the stuff of rugged individuals grinding across open terrain--now feature silhouettes of eight yoga positions, along with a ninth, in the center, that shows a man reclining as if behind the wheel of a car. The caption reads: Any journey of self-discovery starts by finding a quiet place.

Yoga's gone mainstream. According to a May article in U.S. News & World Report, about 18 million Americans now practice some variety of the mystic and ascetic Hindu discipline of meditation, prescribed postures and breathing. The average yoga practitioner's yearly expenditure on all things yoga--instruction, mats, props, clothing, weekend workshops, books, CDs--comes to a ballpark $1,500, conservatively speaking. That amount times 18 million equals $27 billion. To put that into perspective, if the yoga business were consolidated, the resulting corporation (Yoga-Mart?) would be slightly larger than Dow Chemical, slightly smaller than Microsoft.

That's big.

And it's getting bigger. Mainstream retailers like J. Crew and Puma have been selling their own lines of yoga gear for some time now, and Nike is just introducing its first yoga shoe (the Kyoto, $55 retail).

Some people (granted, not many) are getting rich off yoga. Lynn Powers, president of Gaiam Inc., one of the largest sellers of yoga paraphernalia, took home a paycheck of $251,154 last year. That's in addition to the manager's stock options, which sweetened the pot by $982,300. When asked to comment on such good fortune, this executive responded testily, "To take this [discussion] into my salary is to trivialize what we do here. I feel compromised by your asking me that question. People are expected to make a living. And besides, you have no clue what I do with my worldly goods--what, for instance, I give to charity. I'm very upset with you."

A touch of soul-scraping ambivalence? Perhaps. If so, our executive is far from alone. Throughout the yoga community, people are wondering whether the bustling business of yoga is good karma. Is it OK to make big money off a practice that has its roots in renunciation and asceticism? Is the commercialization of yoga messing with its very essence? And what's next for the yoga biz, now that we've already seen the marketing of yogatards, yoga shoes, yogi pillows (stuffed with buckwheat hulls), the $1,200 "tantric bedroom set" (for adults only) and a battery-operated, inflatable "Chi machine"?

Where Dollars Meet Divinity

Yoga isn't the only spiritual practice to become commercialized. Far from it. Just name a church. Any church. There's a store that goes with it. Christianity is huge business, from the selling of Christmas spirit and the ($1.8 billion) Bible and book trade, to the thriving market for Christian pop music and weight-loss classes. Apparel is the latest wrinkle in New Testament merchandising, with the recent advent of companies such as God's Gear Gospel Wear, Living Epistles and Exodus. In a 2001 survey done by the Christian Booksellers Association, 34 percent of adults say they have shopped in a store that specializes in Christian products in the past six months.

You can be sure that other religions have their own shops. Just cruise the web. Go to www.jewjew.com, and you can buy a gentleman's 14-karat Star of David ring for $1,100. Or go to www.judaica-online.com to buy a stuffed Torah for the kids. Looking for a Koran baseball cap, jersey, coffee mug or perhaps a nice tote bag? Check out www.my-muslim.com. If you are into Transcendental Meditation, buy TM-approved beverages, nutritional supplements, books and CDs at www.maharishi.co.uk. Even eBay has opened itself to the spiritual marketplace. One man from Des Moines, Iowa, recently offered his soul for sale. The bidding rose from $1 up to $400 before eBay pulled the item down.

The marketing of spirituality began long, long before there was a World Wide Web, says Chava Weissler, Ph.D., professor of religion studies at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. She remarks that during the Middle Ages, it was not uncommon for ragged vendors along dirt roads to hawk souvenirs such as pieces of earth from the Holy Land, chunks of the Holy Cross and shreds of bone or garment from the body of some popular saint.

Protestantism was in good part born in reaction to what was seen as overcommercialization in the Catholic Church, specifically the selling of indulgences--"get-out-of-hell-free cards"--by the Vatican. Pope Leo X began selling them to pay back the money borrowed to build St. Peter's Basilica, and Martin Luther was outraged. "I grieve over the wholly false impressions which the people have conceived. ... They are sure of their salvation; again, that so soon as they cast their contributions into the money-box, should fly out of purgatory," wrote Luther in 1517.

Later, with the founding of the New World, despite Luther's earlier protestations, religious marketing was still growing and suddenly got a boost. "America was founded largely by people who sought religious and economic freedoms. Here came the opening of the world's first free market for spirituality," says Laurence R. Iannaccone, Ph.D., professor of economics at Santa Clara University. Here people could practice whatever religion they wished, and they were also free to capitalize on it. One of the earliest Americans to do so was Benjamin Franklin, who, while no Sunday churchgoer himself, made good money selling religious pamphlets.

Fast-forward to the 21st century, and consumerism itself has arguably become a religion, fueled by a retail industry that's open 24/7, easy credit cards and product promotions that bombard us day and night. It's hard to get from home to yoga class, or anywhere for that matter, without being sold something by someone. The Dalai Lama's image looms over a freeway interchange sharing a billboard with the Apple Computer logo. From the Canadian firm that pioneered the placement of advertising posters above men's urinals in restaurants come audio ads projected from tiny speakers hidden in the urinals' aluminum walls. And in a recent ecology journal, a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo expresses confidence that butterflies can be genetically tooled to allow company logos on their wings.

Within such a context, is it at all surprising to find yogi pillows, tantric bedroom sets and chi machines bought and sold, not to mention yoga weekends in the rainforest and yoga cruises to exotic ports? Not at all, says professor Weissler. "Nothing in our society escapes commodification."

Yoga: More Than 18,000,000 Served

McDonald's had a problem. The corporation wanted to expand its hamburger empire onto the Indian subcontinent, but most Indians consider cows sacred. So McDonald's, adapting to the culture, introduced the Maharajah Mac, which is sort of the American Big Mac, and sort of not. It's big. It's got a bun. But the patty in the middle is made from ground chicken and local spices. The Maharajah Mac was a success, and McDonald's of India is soon to open its 100th outlet.

At the same time, a certain Indian import continues to expand throughout the U.S. market. Americans, like Indians, have their own consumer tastes and ideas about sanctity. And yoga, like the Big Mac, must bend. It has therefore been adapted to fit into a culture that promotes, perhaps above all, the pursuit of body beautiful and the generation of profit. So it seems apt--even inevitable--that Yoga USA emphasizes the sexy yoga butt along with the serene yoga mind. And it seems equally apt that the practice of asanas, once done barefoot on dry earth, is now performed on glossy mats by people wearing designer fashions.

That's just the way it was meant to be, say some devotees, and there's nothing wrong with it. "We are not Indian. We're not living 3,000 years ago. We are here, and our practice reflects and serves and supports us here," says Nixa De Bellis, a Vinyasa Yoga instructor. "The great masters who sent their disciples to the West to bring the tradition here must have known it would change in a radically different culture." Yeah, but change to incorporate yogalates in yogatards? And hip-hop yoga?

"I don't know anything about yoga hip-hop, but it sounds like fun!" says yoga teacher Leslie Harris, who has many certificates from Integral Yoga. "If that's where people choose to enter the practice, that's fine. A good number of those people, once they've started the process, will surely discover that yoga has much more to offer."

And what of the well-stocked gift shops beside the hip-hop and yogalates studios?

David Newman, founder and director of his own studio, trained in the Viniyoga tradition, isn't into anything too crazy where it comes to the practice, but he does have a gift shop, and he isn't at all apologetic for it.

"I had the center for nine years and suddenly felt the urge to expand. I decided to open a temple disguised as a store," he says. "Some people are hungry for God realization. Some are hungry for a cool T-shirt with an Om sign on it. We are here to feed people and to meet them on their level. The wonderful thing is that somebody may come in to buy a T-shirt and end up developing a regular practice in yoga."

Asked if he feels any ambivalence making money off trinkets, Newman displays no defensiveness. "I'm sure there are people out there merely looking to suck money out of yoga's popularity. But there are others generating income in a sweet and spiritual way. I'm totally in celebration of what we're doing."

Alan Finger, who co-owns six yoga studios in the New York area, is a true yoga entrepreneur. He says he doesn't know what his revenues are but suggests that he is not hurting for money. And he sees nothing wrong with that whatsoever. "Money itself is not a problem, although it can be," he says. "The question to ask is whether it is helping you to deepen your evolution, or is it dragging you down."

As for whether yoga itself is being dragged down, dumbed down, or otherwise corrupted by American yogis' commercial ways, Finger thinks not. Way not. He says that commercialism is inextricably tied to growth, and growth is good.

"Indians, the founders of yoga, were letting it drop so much. Besides Iyengar and a few other phenomenal yoga places here and there, the amount of yoga in India was rather pathetic," says Finger. "American yoga, for all its commercialism, is actually stimulating the Indians to wake up and recognize what they've got. I think it's fantastic!"

Commodification: The Dark Side

Not all practitioners find the Americanization of yoga--and especially its commodification--to be so fantastic. "The downside to it is that people get the impression that they need props and paraphernalia and a color-coordinated yoga outfit with shoes to practice yoga. In truth, you don't need anything," says Sharon Staubach, co-founder of the Yoga Alliance and a longtime instructor . "Shoes, if anything, interfere with the practice of asana."

Another downside, says Staubach, are the advertisements used to sell yoga products. "Like most ads, they feature beautiful people, Cindy Crawford types who are then airbrushed into somebody's version of perfection. Studies show that when women look at women's magazines [rife with such ads] their self-esteem plummets," she says. "For yoga ads to do this is so against what yoga's all about. Yoga is about cultivating self-love."

Professor Weissman sees another problem in the commodification of yoga, as with other spiritual practices. "People come to believe that they can buy enlightenment. And a kind of spiritual laziness sets in. People say to themselves, 'Oh, I bought the meditation cushion. I bought the yoga outfit. Now I'm a yogi.' Of course it doesn't work that way," she says. "Enlightenment is only achieved through hard work and daily spiritual practice. It's not easy to achieve. It's not meant to be easy."

As to the bounty being made selling yoga and yoga products, it is wrong, says Deborah Rogers, who bases her practice on Iyengar and Anusara principles. "At a time when the economy has taken a toll on many Americans, there are studios raising their prices. It saddens me. I have heard many people comment that they love yoga but can't afford the classes," she says. "Another thing is the price of the clothing. I can remember a couple of years ago paying $40 for a top and bottom. Now they're charging $60 for just a pair of cotton pants. I consider this robbery."

Steven Thompson, a student of Raja Yoga in Ontario, and a teacher of philosophy at the University of Toronto, sees a lot of robbery going on. "I don't like to see acquisitiveness and greed anywhere, but they are especially noisome when the products being hawked are related to yoga. Yoga is about turning inward and finding peace there, not in material excess."

Thompson adds that he is averse to anyone making oodles of money off yoga, whether by selling products or teaching. Granted, few teachers are swimming in cash, but there are some--studio owners, mostly--who are.

In fact, a recent issue of Entrepreneur, a magazine that ballyhoos great money-making schemes, called the yoga studio a "million-dollar idea." The publication profiled one California couple who opened a Bikram yoga studio in 1995 with $25,000 and by 2001 were earning $250,000 a year.

Thompson finds that kind of money somewhat excessive. "The person who introduced me to yoga was an Indian man who refused to take money, because he saw his knowledge as a gift freely given from our ancestors. I realize that people need to eat. But still, to serve as examples for the practice, a yoga teacher should not earn more than is necessary to live in modest comfort."

The Saturation Point

Whether you fall into the nay-commodification or the yea-commodification group, you probably have an interest in what the experts say about the future of yoga and the yoga business. One thing can be said for certain: "It is always a big mistake to look at a current trend and project it into the future," says Santa Clara economist Iannaccone. "Because yoga has been growing in leaps and bounds, that does not mean that by the year 2050, we'll all be yogis. No. Some people will never be interested in anything having to do with health or Eastern spirituality."

Iannaccone points to an example of the foolishness of projecting trends. "When the Promisekeepers [followers of the men's evangelical movement] descended on Washington for their 'Million Man March' in October of 1997, some pundits said it would in time surely become a 'Two-million Man March,' and then a 'Three-million Man March.' Some were thrilled and saw it as the dawn of a new Christian America. Others were less than enthusiastic and saw America turning into a Nazi state. But neither side's vision came to pass," says Iannaconne. "The truth was that the Promisekeepers movement had reached it peak right at that point. They had reached their limit."

So when might yoga do likewise? Barry Minkin, author of Future in Sight: 100 of the Most Important Trends, Implications and Predictions for the New Millennium (Diane Publishing, 1999), and a global management consultant to companies such as PepsiCo, Pillsbury and Ford Motors, says that the rapid growth of yoga and the yoga business is closely tied to other trends in America. He cites the recent growth of interest in fitness, in Eastern culture and in the mind/body connection, as well as the aging of the population and the emphasis that groups such as the American Academy of Sports Medicine have put on maintaining flexibility. Because of this interconnectedness, it is difficult to say when the trend might reverse, says Minkin. But he estimates that a peak might come within 10 years, with the number of yoga practitioners having risen to 20 or 30 percent greater than the current number.

Why then? Because Minkin already sees signs that the trend is maturing. One sign is what he calls fragmentation. It happens almost inevitably when any trend starts to mature: "The providers of the good or service feel a need to differentiate themselves, to market in different ways."

He points out that when martial arts first came to the United States, it was basically judo. Then we got karate. Today, there is practically a different form of martial art taught in every strip mall. Similarly, when Elvis first started plucking and strutting, there were only a few passionate followers, and one kind of rock & roll. Later, when practically everyone in the country under 30 called himself a rock fan, came fragmentation: hard rock, soft rock, heavy metal, bubblegum, country rock, reggae ...

When the yoga trend started to take off in America, back in the '60s and '70s, most of the growth was in hatha yoga, a la Iyengar. Today, the number of yoga offshoots seems infinite. "I teach at the Yoga Centre in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Across the street is a fitness center where they have recently started to offer Boga classes. Boga? A combination of yoga and boxing. No kidding," says George McFaul, himself trained in the Iyengar tradition. "We often hear the exhortations to 'push it, harder' coming out of the windows over their extremely loud sound system."

Boga, yogalates, hip-hop yoga and other yoga offshoots all promise to become trends within themselves, says Minkin. (Well, maybe not Boga.) Like the queen bee threatened by her female offspring, more traditional yoga almost surely will lose customers to some of the upcoming yoga hybrids. And one or two of them may eventually spin off into something that hardly resembles yoga at all. (Remember how Taebo spun off from karate and dance aerobics to become a hot trend all by itself, at least for a while.)

The same kind of "fragmentation" is easy to see with the ever-increasing lines of yoga apparel, props, literature, recordings and Om necklaces. Sara Chambers, founder and co-owner of Salt Lake City-based Hugger Mugger, says that the number of manufacturers and wholesalers trying to tap into the yoga market is forever increasing. "I've been approached to stock everything from cookware to candles, but we try to carry only things that will benefit the yoga practice," she says.

As to Minkin's forecast of the yoga trend eventually peaking, Chambers acknowledges that it undoubtedly will. But she has her doubts that that time will come any time soon. "The trend has been carrying us along swiftly. We haven't spent any energy in trying to forecast the yoga market. Right now, we're just trying to keep up with it."

As part of a larger report for a major food company on consumer dining trends, Minkin once did a study of New England pizza shops. "Pizza was so popular that there got to be a shop on every street corner. It became obvious that they couldn't all survive. And sure enough, many disappear-ed," he says. "Looking around me today, I see many, many yoga studios, and a lot of outfits selling yoga products. When the trend reverses, not all will survive. But I don't think we need to worry about yoga disappearing, as many other things have," he assures. "After all, how many trends have been around for 5,000 years?"

Send a letter to the editor about this story to letters@metronews.com.

Can We Afford NOT To Change Our Diet?

2006-05-09T09:50:00.000-07:00

The harmful effects of a meat-based diet are felt everywhere:

ON THE WATER:

-more than half of all water used in the US goes into livestock production, reducing the water table as well as the amount available for other human uses.

-the water to produce livestock comes mainly from irrigation projects and government subsidies which are paid for by the taxpayers. If the meat industry had to absorb these costs, meat would cost as much as $30 a pound.

-2,500 gallons of water are needed to produce one pound of meat, compared to only 25 gallons to produce a pound of wheat.

-it takes less water to feed a pure vegetarian for a year than it takes to feed a meat-eater for less than a month.

ON THE LAND:

-260 million acres of US forest land have been cleared to create cropland to produce a meat-based culture.

-200 million of those acres could be returned to forest if we stopped using them for animal feed and grazing.

-one acre of trees per year are saved every time one individual switches to a vegetarian diet.

ON ENERGY USE:

-33% of all raw materials consumed in the US are used in the production of meat/dairy-based diet. Fossil fuels and electric energy are used to clear and fertilize the land; grow the crops; transport feed, animals and waste; maintain temperature controlled housing; process the food; ship and refrigerate the meat and so on.

-78 calories of fossil fuels are expended to get one calorie of protein from beef compared to only 2 calories of fossil fuel to get the same protein from soybeans.

-growing grains, vegetables and fruit for food uses less than 5% the raw material consumption used in the production of meat.

ON HUMAN HEALTH:

-20 million people die from malnutrition in the world every year. Over 90% of all protein, carbohydrates and fiber is wasted by cycling grain through livestock.

-as many a 60 million people could be adequately fed by the grain saved if American reduced their intake of meat by 10%.

-switching to a vegan diet reduces your risk of heart attack by 90%.

-eating meat, eggs and dairy products less than once a week, significantly reduces the incidence of breast, ovarian, colon and prostate cancers, hypertension, kidney disease and strokes.

-55% of total antibiotics used in the US are fed to livestock. Hormones, pesticides, insecticides, toxic dyes and compounds are routinely used on meat animals. Less than one out of every quarter million slaughtered animals is tested for residues.

-feedlot waste usually ends as run-off on our water supply. Methane gas, a by-product of livestock production, contributes to global warming.

ON THE ANIMAL WORLD:

-wildlife is systematically destroyed in predator control programs. Habitat for wildlife is preempted for livestock feeding.

-five billion animals live short, unhealthy and unnatural lives of confinement and suffering and are then slaughtered for meat every year in the US.

-most farm animals are not protected by the law, from inhumane conditions or treatment and routinely undergo all sorts of painful procedures, such as; branding; castration; debeaking; suffocation; light deprivation; overcrowding; and transport.

-more animal suffering is caused by the meat and dairy industry than all other causes of animal suffering combined.

Taken from Ecological Cooking by Joanne Stepaniak and Kathy Hecker.

IPod Yoga & Zen Talk

2006-05-03T11:00:00.000-07:00

So you want to practice yoga but cannot find the time?
Well, if you own an ipod, or any kind of mp3 player, you can download a yoga class (whatever style you prefer), and head to a park to do your asana.

In my web search, I saw a handful of sites offering these downloads, such as Yoga Learning. There, the files cost about $5, and, of course, you can use it as much as you want.

Now if you need some free inspiration in your ipod, you can download zen talks (dharma talks) from the IronBell website. Lots of names such as Ed Brown, Darlene Cohen, Tenshin Reb Anderson, etc. Take a look. Maybe the next time you go for a walk, you will have some words of wisdom delivered straight to your ears.

Namaste!

Spring time for the bug!

2006-04-28T13:42:00.000-07:00

Feel Good Investment Opportunity

2006-04-24T09:58:00.000-07:00

Kiva, an organization in Palo Alto, California, lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world.

By choosing a business on their website and then lending money online to that enterprise, you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive monthly email updates that let you know about the progress being made by the small business you've sponsored. These updates include reports on loan repayment progress, photos of new capital equipment, narratives on business growth and standard of living improvements, and more. As loans are repaid, you will get your original loan money back.

All lended funds go directly to the applicants, and most loans are repaid in full. Most people who provide funding lend the payback funds again to other business.

Ready to help? $25 get you started. Visit www.kiva.org to learn more about this program.