Actually looking into where my food comes from... novel concept, right? (2nd post in food series)

I adapted an essay from my Local/Global Food and Farm Systems class, where we had to write a Food Diary:

I am a vegetarian, so I let some of my food habits slide because of the many ways that vegetarianism avoids environmental problems associated with factory farming. I have not yet admitted to myself that processed vegetarian foods also have negative environmental impacts and can also be part of the industrial animal-abusive food chain. I eat many unprocessed foods, like salads and vegetables, but they are rarely local, and often eaten with other processed foods like salad dressings.
Most of my food is organic or otherwise labelled as eco-friendly and targeted to concerned consumers like me. I have to look beyond the images of trees and the claims of "natural" and "green." For example, instead of butter, I use Smart Balance because it is labelled as healthier, yet its ingredient list is filled with names I cannot decipher, and one I wish I couldn't: “TBHQ for freshness,” a form of butane described by Pollan as  “the most alarming ingredient in a Chicken McNugget.”[i]

My Opinion Piece in the Hoya: "Earth Day: Consider Impacts of Daily Action"

I recently wrote an opinion piece for The Hoya in honor of Earth Day. You can find it here, or you can scroll down, where it has been reproduced for this blog.

Last week, Eco-Action co-sponsored an event with Campus Ministry on Catholicism and the environment, which included a speech by the executive director of the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change. In its newest wave of ads, the Catholic Coalition poses the question: “Who’s under your carbon footprint?”

This inquiry is jarring because it forces one to reflect more deeply on the effects that daily actions have in our interconnected world. As Earth Day is turning 40 this Thursday, and as the old adage says that wisdom comes with age, the best message I could give this Earth Day is simple but profound: think.

It’s not a complicated edict, nor is it very specific; however, it is by all means an important one. When we take more time to think — to truly reflect — on our daily actions and choices, it is much easier to see how they fit into the greater scheme of our own lives and those all around us.

Take, for example, the food in your lunch. All of the items on your plate did not just magically appear — they came out of the complex forces of nature (the seeds, the water, the sunlight) and the forces of transportation (the plane, the train or the automobile) that helped get them from their source to your plate. That brief moment of reflection — thinking about all of those people and entities that enable us to have what we do — can make us appreciate what we have and also to be more conscientious about what we do and what we buy.

Moreover, that brief pause — which allows us to see greater value in what we have — makes it more difficult to throw something away as easily as we do. If we do have to dispose of our goods, where do they end up? It is a sign of an educated person to be always asking questions.

It is only through the processes of self-reflection that we are able to engage in dialogue with others. This critical analysis and discussion are the reasons why we came to Georgetown: We came to challenge our minds to think about forces greater than ourselves, to enable ourselves to comprehend things that before may have seemed outside of our limits and to understand ourselves in the context of the environment in which we live.

These forces of reflection are essential to improving our roles as both consumers and citizens. Thinking about what we buy, why we buy it, from where it came and where it will go allows us to make choices that are both environmentally and socially responsible. Good citizenship is even more connected to the process of reflection. We must see our individual selves as integral parts of society and nature. We should understand that we have the knowledge and power to affect positive and lasting change.

We have to grapple with large concepts in order to come up with new ideas, breaking from the past or rediscovering what was lost. Engaging in discussions about these issues forces us to both challenge our beliefs and hone them. Out of the disparity or clash of beliefs will come new convictions better developed than before.

In both our roles as citizens and as consumers, however, we should never stop at thinking, but ultimately we must act. Never forget that an action is nothing more than an idea made into reality.

Jonathan Cohn is a senior in the College and a former board member of EcoAction.

Story Time with Annie Leonard

If you have to have a neuroses, Annie Leonard, the brain behind "The Story of Stuff" who held a book reading at Politics & Prose here in DC yesterday, would recommend hers.

When she sees an item--be it a chair, an iPod, or a bottle of shampoo--she immediately thinks of all of the stages of its life, from the factories to the landfills--all of which she has visited over the past 20 years. These materials, what she calls "stuff," exist in a specific context for her, a context of which most of us have lost focus.


If you have not already seen Annie's video, "The Story of Stuff," click this link and watch it now---it is a valuable, informative, engaging 20-minutes summary and tutorial on the relationship between your life and the lives of the stuff you buy, including the laptop from which you are probably reading this.

Annie's video and her book, which provides more in-depth information, demonstrate how so many of the issues that we face are interconnected, and in order to make positive, lasting social change, we must understand this. Rather than trying to get someone else to work for your issue, show them why their issue and your issue are intrinsically the same, and then work together for the solution. The environment, workers' rights, the treatment of women and minorities, global poverty, and more are all caught up in this web of "shop-watch-buy" and its effects. Moreover, if you really cared about "family values," you should value quality time with your family over the endless cycle of material consumption. Just saying.

The value of Annie's message, moreover, is that it speaks to the heart--to that deep, vibrant core in all of us that wants to see a difference and make it happen.

One of the most commendable traits that Ms. Leonard embodies is persistence. She has been working for over 20 years on the issue of waste, one that has not gotten a lot of attention in comparison to more aesthetically pleasing of topics. However, one of the best lessons to learn is what her good friend and notable environmental advocate Van Jones told her: "It's good to be marginalized for 20 years. By the time people start listening to you, you've gotten really good at saying it."

Returning to the crux of the topic, however, two fundamental paradigm shifts lie at the heart of the solution:
1) Waste is not an essence: it's a location. If a can is sitting on the table, it is a can, but as soon as it gets thrown away, it becomes "trash" or "waste." Break the paradigm that says that all things must end up in the trash can; buy the products that have the least amount of packaging, and find creative ways to reuse what you end up with.

2) The revitalization of the "citizen" part of our identity to match and surpass the "consumer" part of identity. As members of any collective body, we engage with others as both consumers and citizens. From an early age, we are taught to consume, to participate in the rituals of shopping. However, the lessons of citizenship often get lost, and an engaged civil society , one imbued with the ability to think critically (perhaps the most valuable asset of all), is essential to any attempt at lasting change for the public interest.

"The Story of Stuff" will soon be followed by more videos because of its unexpected, but decidedly well-deserved, success of the first. Premiering on March 22nd (World Water Day) will be "The Story of Bottled Water," a tale of manufactured demand. Soon to come, as well, will be "The Story of Electronics" (planned obsolescence), "The Story of Cosmetics" (toxics), and "The Story of Corporations" (on the recent Supreme Court decision).

A quick, amusing after-note: During the Q&A session, one guy came up to the mike holding a disposable cup and asked her if she would sign it for him. She replied, "Only if you promise never to throw it away."

Farming Extraordinaire Joel Salatin

This past week, I had the true pleasure of speaking to Joel Salatin, the author, farmer, and most important, owner of Polyface Farms, a holistic “beyond organic” farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Salatin describes himself as a “Christian-Libertarian-environmentalist-capitalist farmer,” and after hearing his lecture I can tell you, none of those is an exaggeration.



To me, Salatin represents everything that could be right in agriculture, and if extrapolated, in business. Polyface Farms is a for-profit entity whose goal is simple: create value through their core competency of producing great meat. However, this value-generating purpose is couched in an understanding that most industries ignore: the fact that every successful long-term business venture must internalize the costs of its actions. Right now, the American food system relies on petroleum-based fertilizers and federal government subsidies. These create several external costs that go unrecognized by the market, including soil erosion, dead zones in our seas, and aquifer depletion (the list can go on and on, but I’ll spare you, dear reader). What does it mean to externalize these costs? Well, basically, our food system is causing long-term costs for which we will have to eventually pay, but fails to include these costs in their prices. This is why Americans spend less on food (as a percentage of income) than any other society in the history of the world, why McDonalds French fries might be cheaper than the potatoes at your farmers market, why our food system is obsessed with cramming extra calories into any processed food it can find.

Joel Salatin defies this system at Polyface Farms. Polyface Farms, in its current operation, could still be around 500 years from now. Think you can say that about Monsanto, or any other food giant?

The lessons Salatin is teaching to the agriculture industry are valuable for all business ventures. The baseline responsibility for all businesses should and must be to internalize the costs of all tangible externalities their operations create, whether environmental, social, or health-related. This is easily accomplishable if done voluntarily, rather than by government regulation. Salatin understands farming, his farm, and his land. For these reasons, he is in the best position to make his operations sustainable, and it shows in his product. It also shows in his costs and, subsequently, his prices.

It has been said that the slave of destructive business practices is the consumer who makes purchasing decisions based on price. It doesn’t need to be that way. If the food industry internalized costs the way Salatin does, Polyface Farms would be the cheapest meat you could find.

Gearing up for the Holidays with GoodGuide

Yesterday, during my usual moseying around political and environmental blogs, I came across the Good Guide. I feel that I may have written about or mentioned this before, especially in my piece about Daniel Goleman's Ecological Intelligence. Nevertheless, as the holiday season approaches and purchases go up, I think it is a good time to start thinking more wisely about our consumer choices.

GoodGuide provides a comprehensive assessment of the environmental, health, and social impacts of the products you buy, whether they be food, health & beauty items, toys, cleaners, or anything else. It is designed to be used as a phone application--any item with a bar code can be scanned and the ratings will immediately register. However, you can use it as a go-to website as well for when you create your holiday shopping list.


The site has a wealth of valuable information; however, as it is still growing, it faces some notable limitations. Many of the entries seem to be missing information, which will lead to a lower rating. Moreover, being a personal opponent of chemically derived sugar substitutes (e.g. sucralose, aspartame, etc.), I have issues with their nutrition grading.

Nevertheless, I think the site is definitely worth a browse or a more frequent visit. You can look at their methodology if you are curious about what factors go into the ratings; Good Guide does not shy away from important issues, from labor issues (how much a company pays its employees/the benefits they offer, child labor history, working conditions), history of ethical violations, philanthropic activities, quality and safety controls, energy use, pollution (water, land, air), and just about anything you would be curious to find out.

If you like it a lot, you can even apply (they are hiring), and they are looking for a User and Community Ninja. Pretty cool, huh?

The logo above was taken from GoodGuide's website, linked above.

Welcome Class of 2013! Part Two (for those moving in today)

As I noted, my welcome to the class of 2013 was note quite over yesterday

We ended our list of easy steps to sustainability by talking about fueling your trip home, and now (after all of that arduous work packing) what better to discuss then how you fuel yourself?

6. Care for the WHOLE Person!
Organic farming uses less energy than conventional farming (and is better for the land), and local food requires less transportation and less pollution from produce-carrying trucks. Georgetown is in an ideal location to take advantage of the organic and local offerings of the city. And don't forget that a low-meat diet (rich in plant-based protein) is both good for you and for the planet.

Whole Foods Georgetown: 2323 Wisconsin Avenue NW (0.9 miles from the Hospital)
Trader Joe's West End: 1101 25th Street NW (1.2 miles from the Gates)

Farmer's Markets:
Dupont Circle: Sundays 9 am to 1 pm
Foggy Bottom: Wednesdays 2:30 to 7 pm
Glover Park/Burleith: Saturdays 9 am to 1 pm
Rose Park: Wednesdays 4 to 7 pm

And while we talk about shopping, don't forget to....

7. Think outside the bag!
Instead of getting plastic bags from Leo's, the Corp, CVS, or the grocery store, bring your own bag. The Corp and EcoAction sell reusable bags for shopping and Grab & Go. Plus, you'll get a discount at Vittles!

Think before taking a bag: if you can carry it or stick it in your pocket, then you probably don't need a bag! However, if you forget your bag or have too much to carry, make sure to reuse the bags when you get back to extend their lifespan.

While we talk about shopping...

8. Transparency in purchases doesn't mean window shopping!
You are conscious about the work you hand in for class, so be conscious about the products others try to give you! Whether it's organic cotton T-shirts, eco-friendly cosmetics, organic household cleaners, or recycled paper towels, there are hundreds of consumer choices than can help clean up the Earth.

After you finish up with your goods, don't forget too...


9. REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE!
There is a reason why this slogan has three parts.

REDUCE
Water bottles, made from fossil fuel-rich plastic, are rarely recycled--only 12% of bottles are recycled, leaving 40 million a day in the trash. Try investing in a Brita water filter/pitcher and a reusable water bottle. Why spend over $1 a day for a new bottle when you can carry your own and refill it at the nearby water fountain?

When you are printing out notes, syllabi, or papers for class, print them double-sided. Double-sided printing is less of a burden for you to carry and less of a burden on the environment.

REUSE
Keep old sheets of paper (like all of your NSO documents!) to use for scrap: to-do lists, notes, and doodling.

Be creative with your old water bottles. Why not put a plant in one of them to liven up your room?

Just as you should keep a reusable water bottle, take a reusable mug with you when you go to get coffee or tea, and expect a discount!

RECYCLE

Go here for information about recycling on campus.

And here for off campus.

And ask us any questions you have!

And on the topic of waste.....


10. A Good Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste: You got into Georgetown, right? Do you know what that means? It means that you definitely have the smarts, so make sure they are put to good use! Stay informed on the issues, and make sure to think about the impacts that your actions can have on yourself, your community, and your country. And get involved!

Book Review: Cheap by Ellen Ruppel Shell

Ellen Ruppel Shell's book Cheap: the High Cost of Discount Culture is an expose on the inner workings of the world of consumerism: the designs, the psychology, the travels, the boardroom ideas that make us buy what we buy and expect to buy it for dirt cheap. Cheap is, I would say, the Fast Food Nation-equivalent for Walmart and the rest of our bargain-based economy.

The prices that we pay are kept low by an unsustainable system of cheap labor and environmental exploitation, of cutting corners around regulation every chance available. They are a prime example of our failure to contextualize our actions (and especially our purchases) in an increasingly globalized world.

When you buy a snack or a T-shirt, how much do you really know about it? How far did it travel to get there? Where, in fact, was it really made? Who made it? How much were the laborers paid--if they were even paid? These types of questions will foment in your mind while reading this book, and you will get a better understanding of the system of subsidies (which make our food dirt cheap and destroy agrarian economies abroad) and marketing (why prices are what they are--both economically and psychologically).

The one shortcoming of this book, in my opinion, is its failure to provide a semblance of a solution at the end. For those of you that saw Food, Inc., even though you probably felt powerless at the end, the producers attempted to give you a glimmer of hope. Ruppel Shell discusses Wegman's as an example of good quality goods, ethical practices, and low prices---for real. (Just ask anyone who shops at Wegman's about this: you will listen to them extol the praises of Wegman's for hours on end. Just make sure you have enough time.) However, one does not feel as though one really has the power to effect change in the system. Sadly, it comes down to the idea that, as you have heard since elementary school, knowledge is power. You can't solve a problem unless you know what the problem is.

How Green are Consumers Really Willing to Be?

On Friday, I attended the event "iPods vs. the Environment: the Real Story Behind How Green American Consumers are Willing to Be" at the Alliance to Save Energy. Suzanne Shelton, of the Shelton Group, was presenting, discussing the results of the recent EcoPulse survey, the premier survey for green consumerism in the US. The Shelton Group also runs UtilityPulse, EnergyPulse, and GreenLiving Pulse.

As Suzanne (the self-described "fastest talking Southern woman you'll ever meet") said herself, there was a lot of information packed into that one hour seminar (full of graphs and focus groups), so I am going to highlight here what I found most shocking or interesting.

1) American consumers say one thing an do another. The best way to put this one is the fact that Americans are fantastic at being "armchair environmentalists." We like the government and corporate America to take action (and think that they should be the ones to make the changes), but when it comes to taking actions ourselves, we fall short.

Concerning this point, consumers were asked whether or not a company's environmental practices affect their purchases.

47% of respondents said it did.

Now the question got more specific. Consumers were asked if they have actually made such a choice based on environmental practices.

14% actually did.

Then, they were asked to name the product.

7.5% could.

Basically, consumers are, as Suzanne put it, "terrified of getting screwed." With all of the greenwashing going on in the media, consumers don't know what to do, and the default ends up being to do nothing.

Another highlight from this first section of the presentation was the question about motivation, i.e. what is the best motivation for energy efficiency. Saving money was, not shockingly, the top motivation this year; however, what I found interesting was that back in 2005, "promoting energy independence and protecting the domestic economy" was number one. This motivator went from 35.7% to 4% over the past few years. Interesting how much economics and geopolitics shape our motivators, huh?

2) Consumers know less about green than you think.

Just as we had our armchair environmentalists before, we now have our "cocktail green" here; in other words, most consumers only know enough about sustainability issues to get by a cocktail party conversation.

Some (sad) surprises here:

a) Only about 53 percent of consumers could provide a feature of a green home. (The vast majority named solar panels as a characteristic.)

b) When asked what label was the best to read (100% natural, natural, organic, bio-engineered, etc.), 100% natural (which has no regulation at all to it) beat organic.

c) 61.3 percent of consumers did not think that they used more electricity than they did five years ago.

d) 40 percent can't name an example of renewable energy.

3) Skepticism

In this section, Suzanne outlined The Shelton Group's market segmentation. They break the market down into four groups although other firms may break it down anywhere from 12 to 66.

8.9 % Skeptics: Those that react adversely to any mention of green, environment, sustainability, etc and that tend to deny climate change has any correlation to man's behavior.

Most common demographic: White, CEO-level, Republican males (for whom it is easier to deny the issues than to make any changes)

24.5% Activists: Obviously, this section has its fair share of tree huggers, but it also has more mainstream consumers--often well-educated people who know the issues and act upon them.

Most common demographic: Baby boomers, who with the kids now grown and gone have time to revisit old values or spend some more time and money on their personal health and well-being

33.1% Distracteds: These are the people who tend to see themselves as too busy to focus on the issue; they may be confused or apathetic.

33.6 % Wannabes: These are the people who like the idea of green behavior and may have the thoughts, but when it comes to the actions, they aren't there.

Most common demographic: Generation Y (Our generation), who are sometimes the first to speak up about the issues but, when it comes time to make the purchase, refuse to sacrifice money (because they may not have it yet)

The photo was taken from yugatech.com through Google Images.

Book Review: Ecological Intelligence

I just finished reading Daniel Goleman's Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything . Goleman is also the author of the books Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence. You have probably heard about the former, considering how prevalent "EQ (or Emotional IQ/Quotient) tests" appear online.

Ecological intelligence, considered by Time Magazine to be one of the ten ideas changing the world right now, is a very new and very powerful concept. Ecological intelligence refers to the knowledge and understanding of the histories of the products we buy and the decisions we buy. When you go to the supermarket, for instance, you only see products on shelves; you do not know about how much water, how much energy, and how many miles went into their creation. When you choose paper or plastic, how do you know which bag has a less effect on the environment? And how do you know how much of an offset that reusable tote is? Goleman explores these questions and the role of INFORMATION and RADICAL TRANSPARENCY in this discourse...


One would hope that, given full information on two equivalent products, the consumer would opt for the one that has a better social and environmental history; however, greenwashing (common in marketing campaigns today--just think of some ads in the metro stations) is far from a carbon footprint label.

The Good Guide is one of many innovations Goleman discusses. One of my friends recently told me about the Good Guide when he had been thinking about such an idea himself. Founded by students in Berkeley, it is a cell phone- and Internet-based service that rates consumer goods on their health, environmental, and social impacts, letting you know the product's and company's history with just a snapshot (for the cell phone) or a click (for the Internet). Essentially, it compiles and condenses all of this data for you in the moment in takes to make that shopping decision. The Guide is only in its beta version now but could have a lot of potential.

Likewise, Goleman speaks a lot about the idea of RADICAL TRANSPARENCY. With new technological advances, consumers are able to find out more about companies, and more info can come out through the press as well. Radical transparency, then, can be the best of defenses: businesses should make all of their information available to consumers and position themselves for innovation and openness.

The ideas in this book are akin to those in the online web video The Story of Stuff by former Greenpeace activist Annie Leonard. Leonard's video has come into the news recently under accusations that it is an attack on capitalism. However, in my firm opinion, it is not an attack on capitalism itself, but rather a misguided manifestation of it. In the economic model of PERFECT COMPETITION, both consumers and producers have full knowledge of the product. With the lack of information that exists today for so many of the goods we buy, this "perfect knowledge" is noticeably missing. Such a lack of shared knowledge also prohibits the innovation provided by a competitive market; if consumers had all of the information about their purchases right in front of them at the store, then companies would probably be much more likely to innovate, a lesson that needs to be learned from the current problems in the automobile industry.

I think that the last lines of Goleman's book are perhaps the most powerful and most telling. He quotes Ian McCallum, a South African physician and naturalist who writes about ecological intelligence, saying, "We have to stop speaking about the Earth being in need of healing..the Earth doesn't need healing. We do" (247).

Photo courtesy of amazon.com.