What's The Appropriate Amount of Food Packaging?

Most of us in the eco-world probably agree that in an ideal world we'd all eat a mostly local, organic diet of food we bought at a farmers' market and cooked ourselves. We'd thriftily manage our food waste through careful meal planning, and would use leftover almost-bad veggies in a nice no-waste stew once a week. The little waste that was unusable or unavoidable would go in our compost piles or be fed to our pet chickens.

Unfortunately, the reality for many of us eco-bloggers and the majority of Americans is quite different. As someone who has struggled through Crunchy Chicken's No Waste Challenge (sign up now!) several times, I can attest that it is HARD not to waste food.

Which is what makes this article today in the Freakonomics blog so interesting. In it, James McWilliams points out that though many of us disparage food packaging, it does have the effect of increasing shelf life of food. As a result, food packaging might decrease food waste.

I know it's not super popular to be pro-food packaging in the eco-blogosphere, but I couldn't help nodding along when reading McWilliams' post. Last year, I subscribed to a CSA for a few months and I found that I wasted a LOT of food. It wasn't just that it was too much food for one person (which it was) or that I was too lazy to cook much (I was.) Sometimes, the food would arrive at my door almost spoiled. I also found that oftentimes, unless I processed the food right away, it would go bad.

I've come to realize that I personally need to take short cuts in order to cook more, eat more fruits and veggies, and waste less. For instance, I will often put off washing and peeling my farmers' market bought carrots. The carrots will go bad, and I'll have to dump them in the trash. On the other hand, if I buy organic baby carrots, I'll probably eat the whole bag in a few days. Similarly, the resealable bags of baby spinach are my friends.

Now, there still is an inordinate amount of food packaging waste out there. I still fail to see why bananas require plastic wrap. And though I have occasionally bought the Trader Joe's packaged cut apples, I recognize that the inability to cut your own apples is an extraordinary form of laziness.

But I think we all need to assess (as always) what the right balance is in our lives. If food packaging keeps us from wasting food, it might not be the evil bogeyman that many environmentalists believe it to be. I suspect Beth is going to kill me for suggesting this, but if the waste trade-off is either the plastic bag for a bag of pre-washed lettuce, or an entire head of lettuce that rotted before you got to eating it, I would probably say to go with the bag of lettuce. (To be clear, the obvious best solution is to buy a head of lettuce and then not waste it. I'm not denying that. I'm just arguing that that's not always what actually HAPPENS despite our best intentions.)

My point, aside from antagonizing everybody, is that the reality is that Americans waste a lot of food. Thus, rather than trying to achieve an idealized unpackaged world that may be unrealistic for the average consumer, we need to take a hard look and differentiate between frivolous packaging and packaging that might actually lead to less overall waste.

On Being Neighborly

I've been pondering this post for over a week now. I almost decided not to write it, but in the end, the oh-so-arduous part of me won out. So here goes.

About a week ago, there was a really thought-provoking and incredibly interesting guest post at the Green Phone Booth. The writer's family owns a local restaurant, which happens to be a franchise. She argues that though their restaurant may be seen as a "chain," they still support the local economy by buying local food and supporting local vendors. She implores us all to open our minds and to not simply assume chain=bad.

I was happy to read this post, because I happen to agree with the woman. In fact, I've written about this issue before. While yes, there are some evil chains out there, there are also chains out there that are using their clout to improve environmental, health and labor conditions out there for many, many people. Just as there are small businesses out there that are exploitative. Hell, I've worked for a couple exploitative small businesses in the past!

My feeling is that it's silly to label small as good and big as bad. Most big chains started out small, and grew because they were successful. Why should we penalize success? Sometimes, buying a franchise instead of striking it out on your own is just more business savvy. Considering the rate at which new restaurants close, what new business owner wouldn't want some help with marketing?

So, like I said. I really appreciated the post and the perspective. And most of the comments were fairly sympathetic to this woman. But one comment, fairly cut me to the core.

This commenter argued, "I will also point out that, here in [redacted], most franchises are owned by foreign interests. I do not want to send my money overseas or support foreign business any more than I can help. I mean, would you want to support Indian businesses by choice, when US-owned businesses are doing it hard? Or Chinese? Most people would support their own first."

I can't really express the range of emotions I felt after reading this. Sadness, a lot of sadness. Frustration, anger, more sadness.

I've always been sort of reluctant about the locavore movement. On the one hand, I completely agree that local food usually tastes better and is often better for the environment. I love shopping at farmer's markets, I love supporting local farmers, I love finding the abundant variety of English apples.

But I've always been nagged by the idea of what happens when you take the local movement to its logical extreme ... protectionism, nativism, xenophobia.

It seems odd to me, that in this digital age, we still insist on placing such importance on geographical closeness. I mean, why? I recently went to a lecture given by Amartya Sen. And he was talking about this issue of neighborliness. He said that some people say that you should only help your neighbor. But what does that mean, really? Let's say you were in a car accident and some stranger from far away helped you? Well, he argued, that person would BECOME your neighbor.

For what are our neighbors but those willing to lend a helping hand when we are in need? In that case, I have neighbors in California, in New York, in Illinois, in Turkey, India, all across the world. I also have neighbors right next door to me. But just because some are geographically closer to me doesn't make them BETTER.

Yes, by all means, support local food. Buy from the farmers' market. Strike up conversations with the local farmer. Patronize restaurants that use local produce and local vendors. But if that restaurant is owned by someone in China, well, so much the better I say! Because then, you'll not only be supporting your local community, but your global community.

In this era of increased globalization, migration, and inter-ethnic, faith, and race marriage, it's meaningless to talk as if there are some people who are our own, and some people who are other. At the end of the day, we are all humans. And if we are to build a better world, well, we can't just focus on our local communities. We need to make the world better for all people, everywhere.

As some of you may know, my dissertation spends a lot of time examining the conflicts between Northern (i.e. industrialized) and Southern (i.e. third world) countries as it pertains to climate change negotiations. Anyone who has followed the coverage of the pre-Copenhagen summits knows that this is a thorny issue. The sad thing is, these issues have existed in much the same form for over 15 years.

I believe that we will never, ever solve our current climate crisis as long as we maintain an attitude that places greater importance on our geographically local community. We are right now caught in a cycle of selfishness and blaming others. The global North bemoans China and India for their large populations and their new coal plants. The global South demands reparations from the North for the North's past carbon emissions. Each side refuses to bend, insisting on protecting "their own."

Meanwhile carbon emissions continue to ratchet up.

Consequently, when applied to global warming, the slogan "Think Global, Act Local," has gone from stupid to downright dangerous. As we all try to deal with a global phenomenon by focusing on our own geographical back yard, we have produced stalemate after stalemate after stalemate.

What we need is more dialogue. More willingness to help others. Even those far away. Especially those far away. More empathy and less blame. We need to be just as furious about a starving child in Africa as we would be about a starving child in our back yard.

Because, as Van Jones pointed out, climate change is going to affect those already vulnerable countries most. Land locked African countries, small island nations, those are the ones that will feel the greatest suffering. We need to be charging to their aid, not dragging our heels.

I still remember after Hurricane Katrina, how countries around the world big and small offered to help the United States. Even Sri Lanka, which was still recovering from the great tsunami, offered aid. Sure, the US didn't really need Sri Lanka's aid, but the point is, they were happy to give it to us. They were willing to come to America's side when disaster befell us.

In other words, they were our neighbors.

Manifesto Part Deux

Last time on Manifestos By Ruchi, I talked about some factors in building a successful social movement, and why some of the past environmental social movements, were, indeed successful. Social movements helped to play a part in the Clean Air and Water Acts and the Montreal Protocol.

But the current social movement focused on climate change has been less successful.

Why?

Recall the factors that characterized some past successful social movements: focus, coordination, and empowerment that does not threaten others' power. All these three are lacking in the current green social movement.

Much of this is because of the nature of the environmental threat. As Shellenberger and Nordhaus noted, climate change is perceived differently by different communities in different parts of the world. The risks we face will be different, and the threats that will emerge will be varied.

This makes climate change difficult to comprehend. Do you know what change climate change is going to cause to your city in the next fifty years? You might be able to hazard a guess, but most of us probably don't have much of an idea. Whereas acid rain, water pollution, and even to a certain extent, the hole in the ozone layer were somewhat easier to conceptualize, climate change is extremely tricky.

As a result, the current environmental movement is fragmented, not focused. Dozens of environmental concerns are lumped together. Climate change, environmental health, peak oil, resource depletion, food security, over-consumption, smog, water pollution, chemical toxins, environmental degradation, poverty ... the list goes on and on. And because climate change is so difficult to visualize, links, sometimes spurious, are made between climate change and a more clearly visible environmental issue.

Consequently we are told to alleviate global warming by eating local food. Or by using paper bags instead of plastic. Or a ceramic mug instead of a styrofoam cup. And then of course, someone will come along and prove that certain local food is less carbon efficient for whatever reason than this other food from New Zealand, and that the paper bags are just as bad as the plastic, and that actually even the ceramic mug might not be immune to criticism.

And all of this causes well-meaning people to alternatively throw their hands in the air and say, "I give up," or to turn on us greenies and accuse us of pursuing our own agenda.

Because the thing is, we kind of are.

Here is the honest truth. I'm not a supporter of buying a lot of "stuff." I'm not a huge fan of materialism in general, and frankly, I'm a pretty big fan of the welfare state. I think we should all give up some of our crap so that we can have universal health care, top notch schools, and subsidized day care. I would be okay with less money and more vacation time, increased ability for flex time, and, while I'm at it, I think we should have four months paid maternity leave and four months paid paternity leave.

I think our material culture causes us as a society to overlook what really makes us happy. I also think that all this "stuff" is resulting in resource degradation and depletion and that a lot of this stuff is made by cheap labor in poor conditions. I think people should be willing to pay more for fewer things so that we can compensate the people who made this stuff fairly.

Notice that none of this mentioned climate change. Because really, I cannot pretend to know how buying a new DVD player affects climate change. I just can't. Sure, we could approximate the carbon footprint of the DVD player, but frankly, there are many variables involved in that calculation. But even if I were able to figure it out ... what would that tell me, really? What does a carbon footprint actually mean? When you take a quiz and at the end you get a little cartoon Al Gore angrily yelling at you that if everyone lived like you, we would need 2,531 planets ... what exactly does that MEAN?! I sure as hell don't know. I mean, maybe it means that human beings should populate Mars.

The reality is, we're trying to simplify something that is incredibly complex. Climate change is going to be experienced in vastly different ways in various parts of the world, and some countries will suffer more than others. Moreover, there is little consensus as to what the "tipping point" is ... hell, there isn't consensus on if there ARE tipping points.

This innate lack of consensus as to what climate change is and how we will experience it also makes it potentially more difficult to coordinate a social movement.

So there are inherent difficulties in producing a focused and coordinated social movement around climate change. And as I mentioned in my last post, the current green social movement is also one that demands a literal sacrifice of power. Because many greens operate under an assumption of fixed (or relatively fixed) power, those in affluent countries must sacrifice some power in order for those in poorer countries to have more. This concept of static power represents another burden for the current green social movement.

Which is why Shellenberger and Nordhaus' argument for a paradigm change is actually very useful for the current green social movement. If we can move from a paradigm of fixed power to one of variable power, the movement may have a better shot at succeeding. Thus, research and development in new technology IS a critical component of the climate change solution.

BUT, research and development isn't the ONLY critical component of the climate change solution, and this is where Beavan and the green social movement are needed.

Tomorrow (or whenever I get around to it) the third part of my manifesto in which I explain what's been left out of the debate, and why we need a green social movement.

Why Beavan, Shellenberger and Nordhaus are Right ... and Why They Are Wrong

A few days ago, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus published an interesting article in The New Republic entitled, "The Green Bubble." In it, Shellenberger and Nordhaus attack the current green social movement, for which, rightly or wrongly, No Impact Man's Colin Beavan is their poster child. Two days ago, Beavan published his own response in which he points to past successful social movements, and underlines the value of individual action.

So who's right and who's wrong in this little war of words? Well ... they're all right. AND they're both wrong. Sufficiently wrong, that I'm taking time out of my VERY HECTIC EXAM SCHEDULE to explain why they're wrong. Are you happy, Colin and Michael? If I fail my land reform question, I'm blaming you.

First, let's start with No Impact Man aka Colin Beavan. Beavan is right to point out that social movements can affect change: both societal change and policy change. But he fails to critically examine why it is that prior social movements have succeeded. A closer inspection of his example, the civil rights movement, reveals a few key factors. One, the civil rights movement was a coordinated effort focused on specific rights such as voting and access. Two, this empowerment that civil rights activists sought did not take away from other people's power. Instead, one can view power as variable, producing an outcome with many winners and no real losers. Sure, some could argue that white supremacists lost, but even they lost nothing really tangible.

By contrast, Beavan, and the social movement he represents, are disappated rather than coordinated. The attention on individual action and individual carbon footprints papers over the role of institutions in shaping those individual decisions. Beavan uses the metaphor of a single butterfly flapping its wings to prove the value of individual action, but what is the effect of thousands of butterflies flapping their wings at varied intervals and in various directions? For, the current green social movement is far from focused. Rather than trying to attain specific rights, the current movement aims to combat climate change by nothing much more concrete than hope, prayer, and line-dried laundry. As a member of this movement, I can attest to the dissatisfaction and helplessness that this strategy can produce.

But what Beavan really ignores, to his detriment, is the different power dynamic at work here. Whereas in the civil rights movement, power was variable, producing a result with winners and no losers, the green social movement operates under a Weberian assumption of invariable power. Power is literally fixed; consequently those of us with more of it have to give up some so those of us with less of it can have some. While personally, I absolutely commend Beavan for giving up some of his power, this is a scenario with winners and losers. Beavan may claim that living with less impact is not a loss, but frankly, a lot of people would disagree. And as someone who has tried and continues to try to live a less impactful life, I will say that in my experience, living lighter IS a sacrifice. I have spent an LA heatwave with no a/c and no fan because I couldn't find a used fan and couldn't buy a new fan. It's not an experience I relished.

So what about Shellenberger and Nordhaus? They're right too, that not all people have the same interests concerning global warming, or even the environment. I also personally believe they are correct in arguing that most people in the global North do not want to sacrifice some of their conveniences and liberty in the name of the environment. But they're also too dismissive of social movements, especially the prior environmental "bubbles" as they term them.

Nordhaus and Shellenberger paint a picture where in green bubbles grow and pop about once every decade, and the current bubble is no exception. But they provide no real explanation for why these bubbles burst:

This isn't the first time an eco-bubble has inflated and then burst. In fact,the modern environmental movement was born in a bubble. In 1969, an industrial pollution fire on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio, generated national publicity and outrage. The first photographs of Earth in its entirety transmitted from outer space were received as signs of a new ecological consciousness. The first Earth Day was held in 1970, and, over the next three years, Congress passed and (a Republican) President Nixon signed into law sweeping environmental statutes.
But, in 1973, soaring oil prices pushed the country into recession. By the time Jimmy Carter suggested, a few years later,that profligate American lifestyles were partly to blame, the public reacted with resentment and ridicule.

There are two problems here with Nordhaus and Shellenberger's claim surrounding an eco-bubble burst. One, they fail to acknowledge a key reason for a potential eco-bubble burst: the green social movement attained their primary objective. Recall that one of the key elements of successful social movements are focused objectives. In this case, one could argue that given the fire on the Cuyahoga River, the primary objective of the environmental movement at the time was to get the Clean Water Act passed. When this was successfully accomplished, the energy of the environmental movement disappated as a natural consequence of achieving its primary objective.

But was there a burst of the bubble at all? Nordhaus and Shellenberger argue that there was, pointing to the oil crisis of the 1970s, and the angry American response. But here Shellenberger and Nordhaus conflate several separate environmental issues to make their point. The environmental movement of the time was primarily focused on POLLUTION, not energy. Neither peak oil nor global warming were mainstream concerns of that movement.

In their second example, Nordhauss and Shellenberger repeat these mistakes, again failing to note that environmental movement of the late 1980s was primarily focused on acid rain and the ozone layer. Once again, the movement peaked once significant achievements were made in these primary focus areas: the Montreal Protocol governing ozone emissions and The Clean Air Act could both be chalked up as victories for this environmental movement.

Shellenberger and Nordhaus' bubble argument thus takes a wrong-headed view of social movements that skates over the arguable achivements of these movements. By conflating several environmental issues into one, Shellenberger and Nordhaus ignore how and why social movements are successful. Essentially, their argument is that the environmental social movements have failed because they all failed to achieve total success in all areas concerning the environment ever known to man. By setting the bar so high, they ignore the true value that social movements can produce. Worse, they ignore the current implications.

Tomorrow (or whenever I get around to it): Why the current situation is different from either of Shellenbergerg and Nordhaus's prior 'eco-bubbles' and what Nordhaus, Shellenberger and Beavan get right in assessing the current situation, and what they get very wrong.

ZOMG, Earth Hour!!

Yesterday I logged into Twitter (to manage my account, not to tweet; sorry followers!!) and was promptly assaulted with Earth Hour related tweets on the main page.

And I had been doing such a good job of forgetting all about Earth Hour.

Yes, that's right, Virginia, I am not in any way, shape or form celebrating Earth Hour.

Why?

Well, because, I think, personally, that Earth Hour might be, the stupidest hour ever invented.

Let's think.

Witching
Rush
Darkest
Midnight
After
25th

No, I still think Earth Hour still beats them all.

Earth Hour, for those of you that don't know, is an hour, which for whatever inexplicable reason generally falls on a Saturday night, wherein everyone is supposed to turn off their lights ... in support of the Earth or something.

We're all supposed to just sit there, in the dark, right? So, you know, most people then use a couple candles to light their homes, so they can, like, see, and stuff.

Except, that apparently paraffin candles (the kind most people light) are almost 10 times as bad as light bulbs. (Read this post for the math, and for a kinder, less rantier rant than the one I'm about to embark upon.)

Basically, by asking people to turn off their lights, we're promoting an inefficient means of lighting over a highly efficient one. It's like having a National No Smoking Day and getting people to take up chewing tobacco instead.

Now some will claim that it's not about the actual emissions that are lost or gained during Earth Hour. It's the symbolism!

Okay ... but what kind of message does it send that environmentalists, who are basing climate change predictions on rigorous science, don't even care about the science behind our freaking symbolism?

And we wonder why people claim that global warming isn't happening because it's snowing. We're out here getting people to symbolically burn damn candles when the science tells us that light-bulbs are the emissions-friendly option!!

Oh, but CFL, you are not sufficiently Walden-esque, I'm sorry.

This is the thing. Earth Day is bad symbolism. It's bad symbolism because it's unscientific and unthinking. It's bad symbolism because it ignores the real issues. It's bad symbolism because it doesn't represent any form of meaningful, long term change. I mean, my God, it's an HOUR. ONE HOUR. Like Earth Hour is some sort of hot movie star, and you are lucky to get an hour with him dammit, don't expect him to sleep over and cuddle you the next morning.

Look. I know some of you are going to tell me, "Anything is better than nothing! Maybe if we spend an hour sitting in the half-dark and bumping into furniture some people will get how important this is!"

No.

You are TOO GOOD for Earth Hour. Do you hear me?

You deserve more from the world than a stupid, meaningless, didn't pass 10th grade science Earth Hour.

You are busy flying around in capes, peeing on your lawn, tallying up your plastic every damn week, and the world rewards all your hard work with one damn inconsequential hour and expects you to get all excited?

I am not buying it.

So, I will be spending my 8pm Saturday at a pub with friends. When Earth Hour wants to talk seriously about ACTUAL emissions reductions (as opposed to symbolic reductions), I'll come talk, but until then, go away, Earth Hour.

Another Perspective On Clean Coal

The subject of clean coal has come up quite a bit recently, on a couple blogs that I love and respect.

I considered shutting up, because what I am about to say is certainly not going to make me popular, but keeping quiet is really not my style.

Ok, ready? Primed to send me hate mail? Okay, here it is:

I support clean coal.

I know, I know, HOW COULD I!! But let me explain.

Coal is cheaper, and more abundant in many parts of the world, than oil. And as oil supplies continue to be depleted, I believe, pragmatically, that there is no way in heck that you are going to get people to take coal entirely off the table. And that is why any president of the United States HAS to support clean coal. Can you imagine what would happen at a climate change summit, if our president announced he didn't support clean coal? I'll tell you what. India (10% of the world's coal reserves) and China (12% of the world's coal reserves) would walk out. They'd call us eco-imperialists, and could you blame them? Here we go, use up a huge amount of oil reserves, WAY WAY WAY MORE than our fair share, and when oil becomes super expensive, we turn to India and China, and say, "Oh, that vast natural resource of yours? Yeah, don't use that."

You could argue that you can win an election without West Virginia, but there ain't no way you're winning climate change without India and China. And since India and China aren't giving up coal, we have to deal with coal as a pragmatic reality.

So let me explain what I mean by clean coal. When I say I support clean coal, I mean, I support carbon capture and storage. Read the Wikipedia article for more detail, but basically CCS aims to sequester and store carbon, rather than release the carbon in the atmosphere. Now CCS isn't an immediately viable solution. But just because it isn't immediately viable, does not mean that the government shouldn't invest in CCS in the hopes of making it viable within the next 25-40 years. Put it this way: If we know that India and China are going to continue to use coal indefinitely, would you rather have a government that sticks its head under the sand all, "Lalala, I can't HEAR you!" or would you rather have a government that tries to find a pragmatic solution, and thus invests in the R&D that India and China can't afford?

Now is clean coal the only solution? Or even the primary solution? Of course not. Our primary solutions need to be wind, solar, hydro, and simple energy reduction. But given that leading climate scientists believe that the carbon concentration in the atmosphere has to be brought down to 350 ppm, we simply cannot take ANYTHING off the table. Joe Romm says it more eloquently than me:

That’s why I believe it is utterly immoral not to aggressively pursue the development of any plausible low-carbon or zero-carbon technology that has the potential for large scale (several hundred gigawatt) deployment. And serious analysis, like McKinsey’s, says that coal with CCS could be economical by 2030. Moreover, a CCS power plant that runs on coal blended with cellulosic biomass is one of the most plausible carbon-negative forms of electricity you can imagine. So we must pursue the development of coal with CCS, which is what Obama and Biden and virtually every other energy/climate policymaker and analyst mean when they use the term.

And that's why I support CCS or clean coal. Now, look, I am not denying that coal extraction is a terrible, awful business and Crunchy and Erin are right to call attention to it. I'm not super thrilled to be supporting coal, I have to admit. But to me, this isn't about what I like and don't like. This is about what is pragmatic, what is politically feasible, and what is perhaps physically necessary. Enviros are never going to get anywhere by bullying people (or two billion people, as the case may be) around, and imposing our moral code upon others. Moreover, if CCS ever does allow us to produce carbon-negative electricity-and I admit, that we're not close to there right now- but if CCS DOES produce carbon-negative electricity? Then perhaps the process of coal extraction would be justified.

For more information on CCS, read Joe Romm's excellent articles here and here.