6 Things You Can Do Now
By Mary Heglar and Jessica LeeFrom the June 8, 2007 issue | Posted in International | Email this article
By Mary Heglar and Jessica Lee
1 Stop Eating Beef
By one estimate, beef represents 79 percent of the United States’ food ecological footprint. Because it takes so much land and food to raise one cow, producing one calorie of beef takes 33 percent more fossil fuel energy than producing one calorie of potatoes. It takes 6.3 to 6.8 pounds of carbon emissions to produce one quarter-pound cheeseburger. On average, a beef cow produces 243 pounds of methane before visiting the slaughterhouse, which is 23 times more potent in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Even if Americans consumed 50 burgers each per year, the low-end estimate, this would still contribute 65,250,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the air. That’s the equivalent of 6.5 million SUVs on the road!
Makes you want to think about leather too?
openthefuture.com/cheeseburger_CF.html
2 Switch To Wind Power
Consumption of electricity contributes to 40 percent of locally cleaner-generated air pollution. ConEdison Solutions gives New Yorkers the option to switch to 100 percent wind-generated electricity, a renewable energy powered by Northeast wind farms. Don’t opt for the GREEN option. It uses power from Canadian hydroelectric power giant Hydro-Québec, whose mega-projects are harming Cree and Inuit indigenous communities in northwestern Québec.
While wind power is a little more expensive, the funds go towards investment in more wind projects. And remember — reduce, reduce, reduce. The greenest power is that which isn’t used.
Contact ConEdison to switch to wind power today. ConEdsolutions.com 1-888-320-8991
3 Put Your Carbon Footprint In Your Mouth
Food choices could be perhaps the most important step in combating global warming. Most food crosses 1,200 to 2,500 miles before it is consumed. By eating locally produced organic food one day a week, you could reduce your carbon footprint by 6,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. By supporting locally grown or produced organic food, you will reduce the usage of pesticides, chemical fertilizers and packaging. Here’s how:
Join a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) collective.
Members buy a share in a local farm in exchange for a guaranteed weekly ration of the produce in harvest season. The share ensures the farmer a living wage, while producing the year’s crop. Connect to the 50 CSAs in New York and build a direct relationship to your food. (justfood.org/csa/locations)
Join a Food Cooperative.
Become a member and support local and organic food while building community. Park Slope Food Coop (782 Union St, Bklyn, foodcoop. com), 4th Street Food Coop (58 E. 4th St., East Village, myspace.com/4thstreetfoodco_op), Flatbush Food Coop (1318 Cortelyou Road, flatbushfoodcoop.com)
Support Local Urban Gardens
in Red Hook (added-value.org) and East New York (eastnewyorkfarms. vox.com). Defend the gardens we’ve got and let’s grow our own food with more community and rooftop gardens. (Moregardens.org, greenthumbnyc.org)
Forget Grocery Stores — Shop at Greenmarkets!
Buy direct from local farmers and producers. For locations: greenapplemap.org, cenyc.org/site
Go Freegan!
Freegans are locals who intercept perfectly good food on its way to the landfill — a.k.a. dumpster diving! And it’s free! freegan.info
4 Stop NYC Rainforest Wood Imports
Saving the equatorial rainforests is more than protecting the most diverse region on earth. Tropical deforestation releases 1.5 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year. New York is the largest consumer of tropical hardwoods in North America, according to the organization Rainforest Relief. Since the 1960s, the city is estimated to have consumed nearly 10 million board feet of tropical wood — more than 50,000 acres of Amazon rainforests — to construct boardwalks, park benches, playground sets, subway tunnels, ferry terminals, pedestrian desks on bridges. Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC 2030 does not call for a moratorium on rainforest wood imports, so it’s up to us. Call 212-788-7210 to tell your city council member to support a bill to replace tropical wood needs with sustainable and recycled-material alternatives.
rainforestrelief.org, globalcarbonproject.org
5 Stop New Coal Power Plants
Coal-burning power plants are the leading culprit of global warming. In the United States, they account for 40 percent of the total amount of carbon dioxide produced — more than 2.5 billion tons. In the United States alone, more than 150 new coal-powered power plants are slated for construction in the coming years. Top climate scientists are calling for a moratorium on new plants. To help these campaigns, volunteer with, or donate to: Rainforest Action Network’s “Dirty Money — No New Coal,” Sierra Club’s “Stop the Coal Rush,” and Rising Tide’s no-compromise approach to stopping new fossil fuel infrastructure.
ran.org, sierraclub.org, risingtidenorthamerica.org
6 Stop the Iraq War
To fuel its aircrafts, ships, ground vehicles and other facilities, the U.S. military is the single largest energy consumer in the world. The 2007 CIA World Fact Book reports that there are only 35 countries in the world that consume more energy than the U.S. military. According to its own 2006 Fact Book, the U.S. Defense Energy Support Center reported selling the U.S. military 131 million barrels of oil or 358,000 barrels per day.
Many political analysts expect more resource wars to break out if climate change worsens. It’s a nasty cycle. We burn oil to engage in a war for oil; the pollution caused by fighting this war intensifies global warming and climate change, which then increases the chance for future wars over resources. Join the movement to stop the Iraq War and all wars. energybulletin.net
3 Responses to “6 Things You Can Do Now”
June 11th, 2007 at 11:24 am
Folks should obviously stop eating meat and turn to organic vegetarianism or veganism. The Indypendent is a breathe of fresh air when it comes to the source and the solution to global climate change. There could be a million follow ups from the multiple articles in this issue, including a special issue on organic vegetarianism/veganism. I know there is a story about big business taking over organics, just so you know I’m reading.
September 5th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
I find “Stop Eating Beef” a poor choice for the #1 thing you can do to now to address climate change. While I understand the beef industry is cruel and dirty, and should not be supported (indeed should be stopped), there are other choices for those who like to eat beef that are as good (and sometimes better) than a lot of vegetarian dishes in regards to carbon footprints, pollution, and ecosystem integrity.
It all depends on the farmer/farm you support, more than the product you buy, when addressing climate change and energy flows.
For instance, methane escapes from factory farms because their manure piles are insanely mismanaged. Since industrialization separated animal farming and crop farming into specialized factory farms, manure went from being a vital source of fertility and resource flow to a toxic problem. Meanwhile, however, on smaller scale operations, manure lands in the fields where the cows graze and live, and on good organic farms, the methane and urea from their waste gets digested by microbes to become more grass, and a closed, sustainable, carbon-holding cycle is maintained. Even on smaller scale dairies where the manure gets piled up when the cows are milked, it can immediately be mucked onto proper compost piles where its methane and urea can be returned to fields, adding fertility (lessening the need for inputs like industrial blood and bone which a majority of organic farms depend on). Additionally, methane is now being used as alternative heat source, heating homes and barns, potentially offsetting the use of coal. Some methane may escape into the air, but I’d argue that on the smaller farm scale, its not enough to matter much. (And by small I mean as much as a few hundred cows. That might seem big, but the industiral ones are tens of thousands of animals, and its not uncommon that nicely managed farms have a few hundred cows on them.) So, I’d offer this as an alternative to your advice to stop eating beef: eat as you wish, from local farms that responsibly manage a low-input, closed system of sustainable agriculture.
I share a short story of when I “broke vegan”: I was living in Maine, working on an organic vegetable farm. I took my weekly stipend to the local coop grocery to get some food. I reached for the organic soy milk when I noticed my hand passing by a plain glass jug of milk. I stopped to notice the differences. Here was soy, grown, most likely, by a giant organic agri-business that shares little of my “organic ideals”, processed heavily and packaged in a non-recyclable container, fertilized by, most likely, blood and bones from animal industries, and shipped across the country by fossil fuel. There was milk from cows grazing less than a mile from where I lived, in a returnable glass bottle. I went to the farm and found the farmer sitting with his cows, about to milk them, petting them. He pets his cows for minutes before they milk! They come in voluntarily to the milk pin when he goes out there. Anyway, you can see my point, I’m sure.
I don’t mean to sound holier than thou by sharing such a stark story, and I completely respect and support the choice to be vegetarian or vegan for many reasons, but I want to stress that we can’t have such a formula for our diets when thinking about addressing climate change.
And I know you all in the city have a hard time with food and knowing where the heck it comes from, but you also must have some of the best farmers markets in the world, so go and not just shop, but get to know the real deal about the systems your calories come from. That’s my 8 cents.
June 7th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
for those of you wanting to switch to wind power and do so supporting a grassroots group, please visit www.nywind.com to sign up. going through the con ed solutions website is fine, but going through nywind will credit those of us spreading the word about wind power. it it the same option.
if you are interested in helping promote wind power yourself, please visit our metup website at http://alternativeenergy.meetup.com/194/. there are files posted there that have all the info you would need. please email m at mike@nywind.com with questions. support ny wind power!
thanks indy for spreading the word.