Urban Agriculture

By Anne Consroe

Rising prices for food and produce coupled with the growing local-food movement, are prompting consumers to grow their own fruits and vegetables in back-yard gardens. But what if your backyard is a small-slab of concrete? A rooftop or a balcony? Or simply a windowsill? Although more of a challenge, even city-dwellers can find ways to grow their own produce.

Potted plants provide an opportunity to grow small quantities of produce, given sufficient light. Herbs grow very well in pots, and supply fresh herbs year-round if kept from inclement weather. Many vegetables can also thrive in pots. With a generously sized container (small containers can stunt plants with large root systems, and can dry out faster than larger pots), good potting soil, and 6 hours of sunshine a day, tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers will flourish.

Community gardens offer another opportunity for city-dwellers to grow their own vegetables. There are an estimated 10,000 community gardens in the United States, offering cities fresh produce while giving gardeners a greater appreciation for the environment and their food.

Although not directly growing produce for your consumption, another way to sustainably acquire fresh and local produce in the city is to purchase a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share from a nearby farm. CSA shares can be purchased at the beginning of the growing season, and provide boxes of fresh produce delivered to the supporter on a regular basis. They are growing in popularity, especially in cities. And of course, farmers markets also offer fresh local produce to city-dwellers.

Wherever you live, opportunities exist to grow your own produce and reap the benefits. You will get personal satisfaction from growing your own food and enjoying tastier, fresher produce. You will receive health benefits associated with fresh produce, and environmental benefits from choosing not to buy your tomatoes from across the country.

For more information on community gardens, please visit
http://www.communitygarden.org/

Photos From:
http://www.nccaregina.ca/
http://www.themomentstudio.com/

The nitty gritty green job search

By Kate Levinson

Let's get back to the basics this week: You don't have a job. You want need one. You've sent out 4,927 résumés (but who's counting) and had everyone you know pass your info on to their stepbrother's wife's uncle's coworker's fourth cousin once removed. Nothing.

Or maybe you took a well-deserved break after graduation and are just now getting into The Great Job Hunt.

Either way, there are some pillars in the world of green job-hunting that are good to know, use and monitor:

• Idealist is a mecca for people looking for nonprofit careers—and a lot of environmental jobs pop up in that category. With 8,537 jobs and counting, you can search by location (including national and international), job category, education level and more. Ca''t find your dream job (or any job) just yet? Idealist also has loads of volunteer and internship listings, too.

• GreenBiz has a cool careers section where you can search postings and upload your résumé for recruiters looking to fill positions to discover.

• And, of course, Experience Green: You can create your own portfolio and connect with all kinds of employers. Check out the job listings to get started.

And if that doesn't work?

Don't dismiss the think-outside-the-box advice I’m sure you’ve gotten. As living and working green becomes more important and more popular, totally new jobs and careers are popping up every day. And maybe you can even create one yourself.

Check out these five entrepreneurial new jobs that take advantage of the growth in the green section of the economy—including an eco-focused tour guide, home garden expert/consultant/teacher and iPod doctor. You don't necessarily have to save iPod parts from landfills for the rest of your life, but anything that can keep you busy, help you break into the industry and prevent a big ol' gap on the résumé is worth thinking about.

Green Movement Backlash

By Amber Fagan<

With every movement, there is always resistance, whether intentional or not. Not surprisingly, signs of a green backlash are evident at the consumer level. This mainly stems from the deluge of green options into the marketplace. What does “green” really mean? It is natural or organic or both? What about the companies who make green products? If they exploit their workers, are they considered green? Are fair trade products the only way to go? Consumers become confused and tend to stick to their familiar non-green brands.

Plus, there is the cost factor. Green products are traditionally more expensive than their non-green counterparts. In an economy that has rising fuel costs and a plummeting housing market, people are pinching pennies and every last dollar is budgeted out of necessity. When I shop, I tend to become confused by all the different options even among the same brand name. Perhaps what annoys consumers the most is the way companies smell a way to make some quick cash with the rising awareness of this green phenomenon, even if their trends – such as t-shirts and jewelry - are truly green or not. Are green products worth buying to help the earth or is it just a marketing scheme?

Maybe the biggest confusion stems from the fact that there is no universal agreement among scientists and policy makers that we are in the midst of a climate change. “Al Gore is facing a huge amount of criticism after releasing his film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ with his right wing opponents saying he’s scare-mongering to make money and gain publicity for when he runs for presidency and so on and so on.” At TruthAboutToyota.com, a group of concerned citizens believe that Toyota is anything but environmentally friendly in its intentions, spawning the new slogan for the car company: “Toyota: Moving Backwards.” It is difficult for most people to decipher fact from fiction and picking apart the scientific mumbo-jumbo. Even Wired Magazine challenged some cherished beliefs about environmentalism.

As a liberal arts student, my eyes tend to glaze over when too much technical detail gets involved. I tend to be more attracted to the altruistic concepts behind the green movement. And critics state this is exactly what the environmentalists want. These critics feel that the green movement is based off of emotions and angst. They believe that people buy and practice being “green” to soothe their conscious and give them a sense of purpose in achieving a better life for themselves and their families.

With all the conflicting viewpoints and products, not to mention increased concern over cash flow, going green can be harder than you would first expect. Despite where we stand on the climate change topic, we can all agree that adding to landfills is kind of gross and needs to be stymied. Who wants to walk on a bunch of trash? And I think we can all agree that cutting down the forests without replenishment, displacing animals and killing off valuable plant species, is bad no matter which way you slice it. Keep in mind that most of the world’s medicine comes from plants in the Amazon Rain Forrest. And these plants are quickly disappearing. No matter where you stand, looking ahead is always smart.

Wired Magazine image; Courtesy of TreeHugger.com

Local Food

By Anne Consroe

Do you ever wonder about the food on your plate? Where was it grown? When was it harvested? It's pretty safe to say that most have never really thought about it. The truth is, a typical U.S. meal is comprised of items that have traveled an average of 1,500 miles—farther than most families go on their annual vacation. The local food movement aims to educate consumers on such issues, while cutting back on carbon emissions, supporting small farmers, and providing healthier food.

Local food benefits the environment as it bypasses transportation and refrigeration otherwise needed to transport food. It also helps support time-tested environmentally friendly farming techniques practiced by small farmers who value the environmental quality and sustainability of the land on which they live.

Buying local supports small diverse farming communities who have struggled over the past few decades. While large-scale factory farms bypass small rural economies by buying and selling largely outside of the community, buying locally-produced foods generates about three times as much money for local economies.

Organics have been shown to be mutually beneficial for the environment and consumers. There is no way to wash 100% of the pesticides off your fruits and vegetables. Pesticides are finding their way to streams and larger bodies of water, harming aquatic ecosystems.

So what can YOU do? Visit your local farmers’ market, or join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program. Get involved and educated about your food. The environment, your local farmers, and your body, will thank you.

Photo from http://www.goinglocal-info.com.

Be a back-to-school green machine

By Kate Levinson

Walking past the chaotic school supplies section at Target the other day, I thought, “Thank god I’m done with that!” And then I remembered: I’m starting grad school in exactly two weeks. And I have a feeling I’m going to want to write some stuff down.

OK, so you’re not quite ready to sign your kids (or yourself) up for EcoSchool. That’s fine. But you would like a little eco-sanity in the back-to-school supply-buying frenzy.

Join the club.

From safety scissors for little hands to big-kid writing utensils and professional office gear, earth-friendly school and office supplies are more common and easier to find than ever before.

If you want to go the all-green-all-the-time route, there are tons of specialty “stores” dedicated to selling green office products (check out The Green Office for a great selection).

But if you’re like me – with a tight schedule and an even tighter wallet – don’t assume the only things you’ll find at the big box stores are 50-cent Bic packs and bundled one-subject Meads. It might take a little more digging, but the biggies are going green, slowly but surely.

Target carries a whole slew of recycled paper products, as well some other green goodies, including the Smencil.

Office Depot has a whole online storefront dedicated to its green office products, including recycled papers, binders and writing utensils.

Staples is trying to jump on the green bandwagon, too, incorporating “environmentally preferable products” into their company pillars. Nearly 3,000 of their products are produced with at least some post-consumer waste.

OfficeMax partnered with zero-waste leader TerraCycle to create an ultra-green line of supplies and cleaners -- try three-ring binders made out of 100 percent recycled stuff; the metal rings are 90 percent recycled. And OfficeMax will even take them back when you’re done with them and throw them back into the pot.

Not a big shopper? Or trying to save some green (the other kind)? Dig through your drawers and boxes and bookshelves for leftovers from years gone by, September clearance sales, the remnants of that one class you quit taking notes in after the first week. You might already have more than you think.

Photo by cgines

Gold, Silver, Bronze, and… Green?

By Amber Fagan

China launched an impressive plan to get the summer Olympics to Beijing this year. Reducing the overcrowding in the city, pollution, and environmental damage was a main concern for China. “One stadium was built to attract nesting birds and the aquatics center uses mostly recycled water.” However, if the smog masks worn by the US cycling team are any indication along with the omnipresent cloud of smog, a green Olympics this year may not be possible.

The improvements are short term and mostly cosmetic in nature. Sort of a “smog and mirrors” like one blogger put it. Construction around the city has been halted and cars have been ordered off the road to alleviate the air toxins. Trees have been planted and chemical and steel plants have been relocated outside the city.

Many experts are torn about the benefits of these improvements. Additional trees place a strain on Beijing’s water shortage and workers were laid off when the factories and plants were relocated. But as the website Wired commented, “Neighboring cities cheerfully rolled out the welcome mat for the capital’s filthiest factories, then spewed record amounts of coal smoke into the region’s skies to keep them humming.”

Over half of Beijing’s pollution comes from the surrounding rural areas. “Extensive use of coal, the city’s geographical location and a growing number of motor vehicles means the pace of improvement in Beijing’s air quality is slow,” concluded a report from the United Nations Environment Program.

Health concerns led Haile Gebrselassie, the men’s marathon world record-holder, who is asthmatic, to pull out of that event, although he still intended to compete in the 10,000 meters in Beijing. “The pollution in China is a threat to my health and it would be difficult for me to run 42 km in my current condition,” he announced. The US Olympic team announced it would bring 1,000 specially designed air pollution masks to Beijing. In their new attire the team looked like “a gathering of Darth Vaders”, according to one US athlete.

The sad part is that the Chinese have to breathe in those toxins every day. Research by Peking University environmental science professors calculated that particulate pollution caused 25,000 deaths in Beijing in 2002 alone. Breathing in this air is basically the equivalent of smoking about 30 cigarettes a day. And if we consider the green movement to include human rights, China again falls short of that very important goal.

Environmental changes have to run deep, and they have to be for more than show. Every country needs to understand its own contribution to pollution and environmental degradation. Sharing information and technology on renewable energy development may be a good starting point. With China’s supply and use of coal, this will help reduce pollution affecting the country. The biggest change will have to come in the form of a cultural shift that recognizes the need to make changes. As of now, we all fall a little short of getting that green medal.

Photo by Lodewijk van Doorn

Ecological Decorating

By Anne Consroe

It is possible to lead a “green” lifestyle right down to the furniture in your house. While shopping for ecological furniture, two important factors to consider are materials used and manufacturing techniques.

Choosing furniture made of ecological materials is probably the most obvious way to buy ecological furniture. Recycled or reused wood, steel, leather, or other fibers uses existing materials, and water-based glues and stains reduces added chemicals that can be harmful to both you and the environment.

Bamboo has been recognized and praised for being the fastest growing woody plant in the world, while proving to be very durable yet lightweight. Cork is also regarded as a sustainable and environmentally friendly building material. Cork is the bark of a species of oak tree that can be harvested without damaging the tree. The bark grows back over time, and can be harvested several times throughout the tree’s life. Cork is also easy to recycle and is very fire resistant.

Choosing furniture based on manufacturing techniques is also a method of choosing ecological furniture. Some furniture companies minimize waste by only producing custom-made products on an individual basis, thereby eliminating the need for a warehouse and eliminating the possibility for un-sold furniture. It is important to think about every step in the manufacturing process.

To minimize your ecological impact, think about where the wood, leather, or other fibers in your piece of furniture were grown or processed, and how long and under what circumstances they made their way to your living room. Did they travel across the country? Across the world? Choosing local materials from local craftsmen can reduce your carbon footprint.

Thinking of a few simple factors in your next furniture purchase can make an impact on your quality of life and the health of the environment. What will you buy next?

photo from: http://www.luxuryhousingtrends.com

Keeping in the know

By Kate Levinson

You’re sweating your way through a job interview, a hallway run-in with the big boss, some good old fashioned networking, and all of a sudden the topic goes in a dreaded direction: current events. Important people like to know what’s going on in their fields—and they like other people to know that they know. Naturally, then, conversation often flows to the news (“I saw in today’s Times…” or “I heard on NPR…”) as it relates directly or not-so-directly to your common line of work.

And knowing what’s up isn’t just for show. It’s a good way to keep yourself connected to your own field, related fields and in tune with the bigger picture.

Environmental news sites and blogs are obviously a good place to start: TreeHugger is my personal favorite; also check out Grist and Yahoo! Green.

And I recently stumbled across something even cooler—The Environment UChannel from iTunes U, a section of iTunes that pulls together super-interesting educational content from colleges, universities and organizations and provides it to the public (for free!) in little take-me-with-you packages. (Trust me, no one on the bus needs to know you’re listening to a Princeton prof talk about ice sheets and sea levels instead of rocking out.)

You could spend a week perusing or years taking “classes” on a thousand different topics—or you could poke around for a few minutes and find some good stuff to keep in your environmental news arsenal, just in case you suddenly find yourself in a situation that calls for discussion of current events. It’s free, interesting and fits on an iPod (I just downloaded The Ethics of Eating for a plane ride tomorrow). What’s not to love?

Rechargeable Betteries

By Anne Consroe

Most of us buy them, use them, and toss them in the trash, without a second thought. Disposable alkaline batteries. What are they made of? Is there an alternative to simply buying and disposing batteries?

According to the EPA, Americans buy almost 3 billion dry-cell disposable batteries each year. Many disposable batteries contain a small amount of mercury and other toxic chemicals, which can leach into our environment through landfills.

Rechargeable alkaline batteries are made of the same chemicals and materials as disposable alkaline batteries, but are able to recharge due to their slightly different blend in composition. When correctly charged, they last for years and will ultimately save you money in the long run. Making the switch to rechargeable batteries is a significant step in reducing the buildup of batteries in landfills.

With the “green” movement going strong and gaining popularity each year, the demand for renewable energy sources will continue to rise in our future. We will continue to need more research and innovation for stronger and more durable rechargeable batteries. Only time will tell where this new technology will lead us.

Photo by freefotouk

Water

By Amber Fagan

Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink.
Water, water everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834),
"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" 1798

To many Americans, water seems like an unlimited resource. We shower, do laundry, wash our car, and fill our swimming pools to the tune of 280 gallons per US household each day. And most of this water can be reused for other purposes to help the environment and protect our waterways.

Water reclamation is a process by which “water used in houses and businesses goes down the drain and becomes wastewater, which is then cleaned using biological and chemical processes so the water can be returned to the environment safely to augment the natural systems from which they came.” The used water passes through a series of tanks, filters, and treatment systems to clean the water for reuse. The treated water is either purified for release back into the environment or is sent to users around the cities, which may include golf courses, agricultural uses, cooling towers, and land fills.

It is important to note that most water plants do treat the reclaimed water to meet drinking standards, so do not drink, bathe, or swim in reclaimed water. However, a process called reverse osmosis is may be a step toward making reclaimed water drinkable for humans.

iStockphoto.com/Ruta Saulyte-Laurinaviciene

Rainwater reclamation is a growing process by which rainwater is harvested for use in commercial and residential buildings. Even though concerns for acid rain and pollution in rain exist in most urban areas, many systems exist now to use untreated rainwater for nonpotable uses or treated rainwater for direct potable use. But there are concerns that harvesting rainwater will reduce the runoff amount that enters natural bodies of water.

“The water use in most homes has long been thought of in terms of clean white water coming in and sewage, or black water, going out. Gray water, as the name implies, is something in between.” Gray water is water that is used for dish washing, washing machines, and bathing. It i not sanitary, but it is also “not toxic and generally disease free”.

Employing gray water techniques helps alleviate the strain on overburdened sewage systems and can have a positive effect on your wallet, since this process will lower your water and sewage bills. “However, concerns over potential health and environmental risks mean that many jurisdictions demand such intensive treatment systems for legal reuse of grey water that the commercial cost is higher than for fresh water.” It is generally considered safer to use the gray water process in single family households than in multiple family dwelling areas since members of one family contain an existing reservoir of micro-organisms. Gray water must be collected separate from black –or sewage –water and may be used within the home (such as bath water used for flushing toilets) or garden.

Gray water that has passed through a number of filtration and processing methods can be stored for later use. “Additionally, reusing gray water's otherwise wasted nutrients from soap and food can sustain plant life and recharge topsoil. However, recycling gray water requires more effort, brings the risk of contamination and pollution if mismanaged, and adds installation and upkeep costs for more involved systems. Also, gray water should not be used where children or pets may come into contact with it.”

As the world population continues to grow, finding new and innovative sources of water will be paramount. Water reclamation is a major step toward helping the environment and ensuring there is enough water to meet the world’s needs.