Is Doing Nothing OK?

Hey Mr. Green,

In your book, you seem to agree with Kermit that "it's hard to be green.” What's so hard about doing nothing? And what could be greener? Aside from exhaling carbon dioxide (more than offset by my trees), I do as little as possible. Some call it laziness but I call it living green.

–Steve in San Rafael, California

Ah yes, my book: A fabulous guide to all aspects of green living, except for its painfully outdated positive rating of BP. To obtain a copy, click on “special sale price” to the right.

As a true genius at doing nothing, I concur with your basic premise. But Steve, please, the culture, economy, and politics in which we are imprisoned does make it hard for many folks to be green in a world that is by its very design miserably, profligately, sinfully un-green.

Consider just one of the many environmental insults—fossil fuels. Our lives today literally depend on fossil fuels, from cradle to grave, from the power in the hospital where you were born to the hearse that will haul you to your final resting place. For this very reason, you’d think we’d do everything possible to conserve such precious resources and to use them as sparingly as possible. But no. The mantra is “Drill baby drill” because, instead of seeing fossil fuels as means to valuable services, the energy industry regards them as mere commodities to be sold in ever greater volumes to ensure greater profits. Hence, even if the threat of climate change didn’t exist, there would be ample reasons to reduce fuel consumption. But politicians bought off by the energy business resist proposals to reduce consumption and to cut the risks that fossil fuels pose. Even after the historic disaster caused by BP in the Gulf of Mexico, they ignore the problems. For more on this unconscionable political torpor, and what you can do about it, click here.

PG&E Wields Its Power, Over 11 Trees and All of California

Hey Mr. Green,

Have you ever had to go up against the big guy to save the environment? We are a very small coastal community trying to save 11 beautiful, healthy palm trees from being cut down by our power company, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E). The palms have now grown up into the wires. Trimming them will kill them. The power company does not want to spend the money, of course, to move the poles, bury the wires, or implement a myriad of other solutions we have suggested. PG&E claims it will take almost $50,000 to save three trees, by moving two poles, but they are unwilling to subsidize it.

--Jody in Pacifica, California

Well, you’ve not only got a classic David vs. Goliath situation, but a classic case of “act locally, think globally.” This company’s attitude toward your trees is a symptom of a colossal power grab it’s attempting—in both the political and the electrical realms, as you’ll see in a moment.

But first, I assume that you guys have already looked into the legality of cutting the trees, and that you have no recourse. If that’s the case, you obviously need to keep rallying your treehuggers to get as much publicity and media attention as possible. It might help to call attention to the scandalous fact that PG&E officials have stated that they are willing to spend up to $35 million to put a proposition—Prop 16—on a state ballot to stop any city or county in California from forming its own power company unless there’s approval from two-thirds of the local residents. You could hold your public hats out and ask if they might spare a few dollars from this prodigious political war chest, or from the $1.22 billion they reaped in profits last year , to rescue your trees.

This company has obviously learned what a magnificent tool supermajorities can be in preventing anything from getting done, what with California already in gridlock because it’s stuck with a two-thirds majority requirement merely to pass a state budget. Though Prop 16 would prevent communities from developing their own alternative power sources in their own way, its Orwellian name, “The Taxpayers Right to Vote Act,” sounds more like civil-rights legislation than a cynical coup by corporate plutocrats. The saddest thing about all this conniving is that this company has actually made laudable efforts in energy conservation, including supporting the emissions regulations called for in California’s tough new law, AB32.

I wouldn’t be quite so quite so lathered up about this if it weren’t for the fact that, like it or not, California sets trends for the rest of the country, some great (like AB32) and some dastardly. If this latest development wins in the Golden State, a bunch of others might follow suit, and wind up as vulnerable to corporate ambush as your trees are to PG&E’s chainsaws.

When a Kitchen Counter Top is More Than Just That

Hey Mr. Green,

What's the most environmentally friendly counter top for the kitchen?

–Pat in Redrock, Oklahoma

This is an extraordinarily difficult question because the materials used are so different and have such different impacts on the environment. The length of time a counter will survive before it has to be replaced is also an important factor. So, while ceramic tile might require more energy to produce than, say, recycled wood, its extreme longevity gives it some environmental advantage over wood. My favorite authority on green home topics, the U.S. Green Building Council, notes that traditional ceramic tile and natural linoleum can be green options,  while plastics have some serious drawbacks. 

To help in your choice, you can consult the USGBC's list of countertops that are made with at least 20 percent recyclable materials such as glass, wood, and even paper, or from wood harvested from certified forests, natural linoleum, and bamboo at this link. You might also take a look at the GBS's "Buyer’s Guide to Green Countertop Materials" and "Choosing a Green Countertop that Works with Your Style and Your Life."

Yes, this last "life" concern is important, and because aesthetics are involved, I would hesitate to prescribe a counter on strictly environmental grounds even if somebody did come up with an infallibly green rating system. It's important to like the way things look. So one wonders: Can ugliness cause collateral damage to the environment? Do people rendered restless, irritable, and discontent by their immediate environment go out and buy Hummers to fill an aesthetic and spiritual void? Would the world be a better place if the Cathedral of Notre Dame or the Taj Mahal or other famous edifices had been built like utilitarian, efficiently constructed warehouses? Are soulless shopping malls really crypto marketing devices, the sheer banality of which drives us to drive more and more to buy more and more stuff? How has our sense of architectural beauty affected our relation to nature? What if John Muir hadn't compared mountains to marvelous temples, or Bob Dylan hadn't sung of the wild cathedral evening?

In sum, is a counter top merely a functional culinary workbench, or a path to philosophical inquiry?

Overpopulation: A Religious Problem?

Hey Mr. Green,

How come you are intimidated by the religion business? Why won’t you talk about the root of all our environmental problems: Overpopulation?

I see a list of environmental criminals in the latest issue of Sierra. But the most notorious environmental criminals, the Duggars, actually have their own TV show: 18 children and counting. The Duggars are thieves, stealing from the rest of us what little is left. We should launch a boycott of that show, write to the sponsors and tell them we won’t buy their product.

Sarah Palin isn't far behind, with five kids already and the next generation beginning at age 16—which will double the number of Palins living at one time. That means that we will have 500 percent more Palins on every creek and river, devouring and murdering every living thing in the name of sport . . . but thanking God for putting them there. Good thing she didn’t win.

–Cliff in San Rafael, California

That some people are actually inspired by the Duggars and their litter might qualify as America's biggest Unsolved Mystery. If you propose to initiate a boycott of their reproductive propaganda machine, I won't stand in your way. But aren't you being a bit rough on the Palin clan? Unless they brew up some in vitro octuplets, they simply can’t outbreed the Duggars.

As far as religion and population are concerned, as I've noted before, it's an oversimplification to single out religion as the cause of high birth rates. The demographics don't show a clear connection between religion and fertility. For example, relatively pious Poland has a fertility rate of 1.28 children per woman, while more secular France is at almost 2 per woman. And Iran, a strongly Muslim country, has a lower rate than France. But poverty-stricken Rwanda's rate is 5.25 per woman.

In general, poverty and lack of education are far more significant factors in high fertility rates than religion. So the real root of environmental problems is not population, but poverty and injustice. Remember, too, that people’s impact on the environment can be more serious than numbers would show. Even if a nation’s fertility rate is low, its toxic waste, sprawl, water and energy consumption, and sheer excess can create problems way out of proportion to the population numbers.

None of this lets religion off the hook. When any religious group attempts to obstruct family planning through legislation or lawsuits, it deserves to be challenged head on. But it's also important to avoid being oppositional because religion can be a strong ally for environmentalists, as you can see from the many ways in which spirituality is being integrated with environmental thought and action. For insight into this, check out the multi-faith National Religious Partnership for the Environment. Though these environmentalists aren't singing “Kumbaya” with the Duggars, they do represent a broad group of religions with a common goal of stewardship of Creation that is grounded in their faith.

To Breed or Not to Breed

We received some strong reactions to my comments about population control in the March/April issue of Sierra. Here are a few, with my responses:

Hey Mr. Green,
I found the question from Jeff in Denver about population control very interesting. Has the Sierra Club ever thought about advocating for adoption?  There are millions of children all over the world that need a family, and as my cousin most succinctly put it, “That's the most ecological way to have kids.” –Lucia in Mercer Island, Washington

The Club has adopted many policies, but not one on adoption. Your proposal seems quite reasonable, though most people, I suspect, still favor keeping their own DNA in circulation. Not that you can ever be a whole lot more sure of the result than if you adopt. Consider the fate of William Shockley, who won a Nobel prize for inventing the transistor but later slid swiftly on a downhill path of loopy ideas about eugenics, including a proposal to pay people with genetic defects or low IQs for sterilization—castration for dummies, as it were. His own kids fell so far below his own standards that he claimed they represented "regression." After that, he hived his genes in a sperm bank of geniuses, affording his DNA opportunities for more fortuitious combinations.

Hey Mr. Green,
The theory that population growth will ruin our planet is completely and dangerously false. The world now produces more food on less land than ever before. The fact is that Europe is dying, with most countries fluctuating around the 60 percent replacement level. Each person is unique and has a dignity and worth that is unconditional. –Jeanne in Closter, New Jersey

True, the world produces more food on less land, but that doesn't mean we can feed an infinite number of people, or that runaway population growth doesn't cause considerable misery.

The situation in Europe is nowhere near as simple as the enemies of family planning and women's choice make it sound. The drop in births has by no means been uniform. In France, for example, it has been rising, and 50 years from now is projected be at 72 million, up from today's 64 million. Britain is also projected to rise. By contrast, Spain, Italy, and some other countries have a rate well below replacement.

One convincing explanation of this disparity has to do with differences in social policy and, yes, gentlemen, in the degree of sexism. Among the European countries, the birth rate is generally lower where 1) there are less generous public benefits, and 2) where men remain more sexist and help out much less in the home. A survey of women done by the European Union revealed that in fact women want an average of 2.36 children, which is above the replacement rate. But the governments—and their lazy male chauvinist mates—make it too difficult for women to fulfill this wish.

Therefore, I wouldn't worry about Europeans going extinct; before they allow themselves to vanish, they could jolly well change policies and attitudes to favor a higher birthrate.

Finally, in some countries, immigration will continue to increase the number of Europeans, if not the net amount of European DNA, a development that would doubtlessly perturb the aforementioned Shockley.

Hey Mr. Green,
Why does the Sierra Club refuse to take a stand on illegal migration and historically high legal immigration? The sheer number of immigrants is having a negative effect on the environment and the amount of resources consumed, not to mention the social costs. Why is the Club being politically correct when there is a clear relationship between population and environmental balance? –Michael in Ashburn, Virginia

While some of my environmentally minded readers dread any reduction in procreation, which would also reduce the number of immigrants, others, like you, want to shut the immigrants out. I just hope you’re not in favor of that environmentally destructive boondoggle of a fence they're building on our border with Mexico.

The simplest answer to your question about the Sierra Club’s immigration policy is that the Club's members voted overwhelmingly some time ago to remain neutral on this issue. Many are convinced that it is more helpful in the long run to work to help change the sinister circumstances that drive so many people to immigrate, including poverty, lack of education, lack of women's rights, and lack of family-planning options.

A less-known driver of immigration is environmental devastation, which has produced millions of refugees; they now number more than 10 million per year. By the year 2000, there were 25 million such refugees, actually higher than the number of people who had fled for political reasons. Among the environmentally related causes of displacement are floods, landslides, water shortages, and desertification caused by deforestation and overcultivation, not to mention climate change and the more intense devastation caused by the more intense storms brought on by global warming.

Hey Mr. Green,
Why is there air? —Anonymous

Mr Green answers:
Ooo-wee, I just love these big questions. They remind me of those probed in Time magazine cover stories, like "Who Was Moses?" "Is Government Dead?" "Is God Dead?" "Is God Coming Back to Life?" (Verily, folks, thus hath Time spoken.) In the beginning, there was air, but not the marvelous kind in which we now exist. Go back 4 billion years, and the air was made up of assorted combinations of suffocating gases like carbon dioxide, methane, hydrogen sulfide, and nitrogen. Then, around 2 to 3 billion years ago, cyanobacteria (a.k.a. blue-green algae) figured out how to release oxygen by extracting it photosynthetically from carbon dioxide and water.

This was followed by the appearance of plants that produce oxygen, accelerating the 2-billion-year process in which the oxygen content in the atmosphere increased from close to nothing to the 20 percent level of today. Of course, there were all sorts of other complicated geological, chemical, and biological changes that cooperated in this development. Kinda makes you wonder about the arrogant polluters trying to undo this amazing atmospheric accomplishment--and the loopy zealots who deny that evolution ever happened. It's hard to say which group is more annoying: the former, who play God, or the latter, who claim to know exactly what He's been doing since the beginning of time.
Environmentally,
Mr. Green

Let There Be Light

Not all readers of my last mailbag wrote to defend Fox's honor. Some had interesting points to raise and embarrassing errors to point out.

Hey Mr. Green,
Your CFL article makes many excellent points. Here are a few more items that you might share with the public: The EPA's Office of Solid Waste has slightly updated the cleanup guidelines you're linking to, so in case anyone asks about the minor differences, keep pointing them to the linked FAQ as the latest from the EPA.

The Office of Solid Waste has also introduced a new resource for finding local bulb-recycling programs that will continue to be updated, epa.gov/bulbrecycling. Hope this helps!

Finally, I hope that in the future you'll tell people to look for the government's Energy Star label on lighting. This indicates the longest-lasting CFLs out there, and in training people to look for the label on lightbulbs (the most commonly purchased energy-using item in the home), we also help them look for it on the more than 50 other types of products that can now earn the label, and set the stage for the next advances in energy-efficient lighting: light-emitting diodes, or LEDs. --Wendy Reed, Energy Star campaign manager, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Through a Bulb Dimly

My disparaging remarks about a Fox News report on compact fluorescent lightbulbs in the July/August mailbag brought a flood of comments, many of them defending Fox against my purportedly mean-spirited, angry, and divisive attitude. Here is a sampling of those responses:

Hey Mr. Green,
Before you rant that anyone with a different point of view from yours is demented, you should check out not only the condition of your own brain but also the depth of your knowledge and the sources of your information. ---Marilyn in New York

Hey Mr. Green,
If you had been less snide and less concerned with attacking Fox, you might have been more convincing in defending the environmental benefits of compact fluorescent lightbulbs. I am legitimately concerned about the existence of mercury in CFLs, which you downplay and the Sierra Club appears to be trying to minimize. --Jonathan in Endicott, New York

Hey Mr. Green,
Your recent response to the inquiry about the safety of compact fluorescent lightbulbs reminds me why I let my membership in the Sierra Club lapse. I suggest that if this involved something other than CO₂ buildup, you would have difficulty seeing the positive in adding to the already increasing environmental load of mercury. It is hard for me to see how this discussion makes the case for CFLs. --Brice in Berkeley, California

Hey Mr. Green,
Wow. There are people who care about the environment and aren't brain-damaged right-wingers, but aren't off-the-edge lefties either! I am a [Sierra Club] member and listen to Fox News. Stick to the facts and don't try to run off those of us who aren't so near the edge. --Clare

Hey Mr. Green,
It was quite disappointing to see Mr. Green exhibit his ignorant, narrow-minded bigotry by his discourteous name-calling and unfair bashing of Fox News. Although they could have presented their article a little differently, it was factual. As you may already know, Fox News is probably the most accurate news source on television, and they do make an honest attempt to present opposing views, which is refreshing, since most networks peddle their own.

But people like Mr. Green obviously do not want to hear the truth unless it is consistent with their own biased views and distorted beliefs. It is disappointing to see that the Sierra Club allows such inaccurate propaganda and stupid insults to appear in its publication. --Michael in Coldspring, Texas

Hey everybody,
Well, now, I never dreamed of being in the same predicament as Fox's poor old Bill O'Reilly, who is so often accused of being a narrow-minded, bigoted, and discourteous name-caller.

But I'm not sure that challenging Fox News makes anybody an "off-the-edge leftie." The network has been criticized by plenty of people who are miles away from the leftist fringe, as can be seen in interviews with mainstream journalists who rip Fox in Robert Greenwald's documentary Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism.

Moreover, since Fox's headline reads "Junk Science: Light Bulb Lunacy," meaning it thinks fluorescent bulb advocates are bad scientists and nutcases, tweaking Fox for brain damage from mercury poisoning seems fair enough. I certainly didn't mean to offend anybody but Fox News, though the network's many dedicated viewers seemed to take my jabs personally. But come on, folks. Listing the EPA's detailed instructions on how to clean up a broken fluorescent bulb isn't "downplaying" the toxic problem of mercury in said bulbs. (In fact, I've harped incessantly on the need to recycle them).

This didn't satisfy some readers, who argued that the "difficult" cleanup procedures only go to show that fluorescents are too dangerous.

My advocacy of fluorescents is not motivated solely by concern about carbon dioxide emissions. It seems to me that what's getting lost in the debate about global warming is the basic fact that we ought to be (and easily could be) using a lot less fossil fuels anyway. Fossil fuels pollute the water and air and do tremendous environmental damage in many ways. (To name a few: the destruction of entire mountaintops in West Virginia, the polluting of streams with coal slurry, wrecks and leaks from oil tankers, gas and oil residues in streams, forests harmed by acid rain from power-plant emissions, drilling threats to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and oil-driven urban sprawl.)

On top of this, the very fact that the fossil-fuel supply is finite ought to make us consume it more prudently-something we recognized more than 30 years ago during the energy crisis, when we doubled fuel efficiency in cars, but soon forgot, thanks to the malignant efforts of the energy and auto czars.

Finally, profligate use of fossil fuels shifts capital away from more essential and practical investments. In a sense, wasteful burning of fossil fuel is like burning money. Some would argue that if we didn't waste so much money igniting gasoline in the SUVs we drive across bridges, there might be more capital left to fix those structures.
Environmentally,
Mr. Green