On Communication, Science, and Vaccines

Andrew Revkin has a fascinating post on scientific communication where he admits to being a "recovering denialist."

No, not of climate change. Instead, Revkin was in denial about the influence of scientific communication. He writes:

"My denial, I said, lay in my longstanding presumption, like that of many scientists and journalists, that better communication of information will tend to change people’s perceptions, priorities and behavior. This attitude, in my view, crested for climate scientists in the wake of the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."

Eating Right With Ruchi

In the comments to my last post, Alex asked me if I could write a diet and nutrition book and called it "Eating Right With Ruchi." Initially I demurred. How could I wade into such contested territory? But then I realized that I'm arduous ... how could I not wade into contested territory? So I give you Ruchi's manifesto in ... however many words this blog post ends up being.

Food as Religion

My article on veganism definitely got a few people riled up. My fiance for one, who I have decided that I am going to call Seamus for the purposes of this blog (no, he is not Irish, but I don't have a better name and I'm sick of not calling him anything.) Seamus has always said that veganism was too much of a life-style change for him and that it was a deal breaker. So there was some eye-rolling at my house over that post.

In addition, I had several friends tell me that if I became vegan they could never hang out with me.

Now before anyone rushes to condemn my friends/fiance who are all fine people for their supposed close-mindedness, I'd like to say that food has a way of getting all of us, even those of us who are most open-minded, riled up.

Food, it seems, is like politics or religion. Everyone thinks their worldview is the best one. And, I'm guilty of this too, no doubt about it. Hell, just look at the post on veganism.

The Happiest Day of Your Life

Today, I was talking to a very good friend of mine who is about to give birth any day now. She told me that she had gotten a super cute hair cut today and she joked that she was now well prepared for the baby to arrive. The baby should try and be born tonight because her hair would look hot.

"That's important," I remarked. "Got to look good for the post-birth pics."

We continued in this vein until I suggested that she might want to get a Brazilian bikini wax for the big day.

Shockingly, she did not think that was a good idea.

"Come on!" I insisted. "Where's your commitment to looking good on THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY OF YOUR LIFE?"

And that's when I realized why the day your first child is born isn't the most important day of your life. It can't be. Because come on. There's a whole industry around looking good for this MOST IMPORTANT DAY, and even as masochistic as we women can be, most of us aren't going to agree to some waxing at 39 weeks.

My Fiance Is Going to Kill Me For Writing This

... but more and more, I'm starting to feel like veganism is the healthiest, most ethical option.

No, I'm not becoming a vegan. I don't think.

But about a year ago, I dramatically changed my diet to reduce my cholesterol. I've almost completely cut out cheese and butter from my diet. I only consume fat-free milk. I started eating fish twice a week, poultry a little less than that, and red meat on rare occasion.

As a result, I dropped my cholesterol by 100 points.

My diet now is fairly healthy. I think I could probably drop my cholesterol further if I cut out meat products completely, but for now I'm okay with the results. Health-wise I'm doing okay, but....

There's that small little nagging problem with the fish. You know, no big deal, we're just severely depleting the world's fisheries and driving some fish to extinction.

So, you know, while I think eating fish is a HEALTHY option, I'm not sure it's super ethical.

The truth is, aside from the fat-free milk and yogurt which I eat with my cereal, my diet leans towards veganism anyway. Most of my cooking is vegan, most of my lunches are vegan. My meat consumption is pretty much limited to eating out. I eat limited amounts of dairy and meat. And while it's not the healthiest choice nor what I would argue is the MOST ethical choice, for now, I'm okay with the choice.

My fiance feels (probably correctly) that my going vegan would seriously impact both of our lifestyles. I think it's a fair point, and given that he is perfectly happy eating mostly vegetarian food at home, I'm loathe to press him on this. Plus, there's that little niggling truth: I don't want to become a vegan either. As little as I eat meat, I'd miss it if I didn't get to eat it at all.

But for now, I'm redoubling my efforts to eat sustainably caught fish and organic meats. I'm not a vegan, or even a vegetarian. But for me, being a mostly-vegetarian is the sustainable path. For now.

Want People to Stop Driving? Cut Down on Parking Spaces.

A new study confirms something I've believed for quite a while: the more difficult parking becomes, the less people will drive.

The study mostly focused on European cities because ... well, here in America not having parking is considered heretical.

I've written before about how when I lived in LA, I used to consistently drive places an easy walking distance from my apartment simply because I could. There was always ample parking. It was faster to drive and more convenient, so why walk to the sandwich shop a couple blocks away or the pizza place or the laundromat? Why walk to the grocery store, even if I am only picking up a couple things? I have a car and it has a huge parking lot.

On the other hand if parking had been scarce or expensive? You bet I would have walked.

Cheap and easy parking changes the calculus we make when we are deciding whether to drive or to walk or to take public transportation. For example, right now I take public transit to work every day. Public transit is almost as fast and it's relaxing. I'd much prefer to read a book on the subway than fight traffic.

Public transit is also cheaper. But it's ONLY cheaper when I factor in the cost of parking all day in a garage. Without that cost, even with the sky-high price of gas, it would probably be cheaper for me to drive. (Factoring in the cost of wear and tear on my car might change the calculation, but let's face it: most people don't factor wear and tear in when they're making these back-of-the-envelope calculations.)

When you make parking scarce and expensive, you start to then build your city for walkers and bikers and public transit. Without massive parking lots everywhere, your city may have more room for parks and gardens and playgrounds.

We don't have to make parking cheap and easy. No one really wants to pave paradise to put up a parking lot.

So let's not.

Mattresses and More

via XKCD

You know, I totally meant to spend some time on this blog writing about my search for a new eco-mattress, a search that I undertook in ... September. But then I got engaged in October, and then the holidays came up not long thereafter, and then I went to India, and pretty soon, it's January and I haven't started that set of posts.

But in a way it's a good thing because we've had ample time to break in our mattress so I can give a really full review on that. First things first, though, so I'm going to tell you a little bit more about our search. I'm not going to go into the specifics in terms of comfort (because that's so personal) but mostly focus on the eco-aspects of the different mattresses.

We are lucky living in the Bay Area, so we had a LOT of options for eco-mattress stores. No need to wander Mattress Discounters in search of their ONE eco-mattress. If you don't live in the Bay Area, finding a mattress might be slightly harder, but luckily, almost all of the places we looked at deliver, and they usually have a fairly decent return policy.

So.

One of the first places we ended up looking was Keetsa. Keetsa came at the recommendation of a friend and their store is located not too far away in San Francisco itself. Though they have one full latex mattress, they are mostly known for their wide range of memory foam mattresses. (You may know memory foam by the brand name Tempur-pedic. Tempur-pedic mattresses are probably the most well known memory foam mattresses, but they aren't the only kind out there.)

Here is the good about Keetsa: their mattresses are reasonably affordable as far as eco-mattresses go. And while most memory foam mattresses often off-gas toxic levels of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), Keetsa ran a test that shows that their mattresses do not emit VOCs, and they put that test up on their website.

Most memory foam mattresses are made with 100% petroleum, but Keetsa substitute 20% of the petroleum in their mattresses with castor bean oil. And -this is kind of fun- they stick their mattresses in a box so that you can fit your mattress in the back of your car saving time, energy, money, etc.

BUT, their memory foam mattresses are still 80% petroleum. And while they say they don't emit VOCs (and put up a test to prove it) I wasn't entirely convinced. Ideally, I'd like to see a third party independently conduct a test and see what they say.

The other thing that was slightly hilarious was how all the other green mattress stores really, really dislike Keetsa. When we went to one store, the proprietor told us that he had a mattress that came in a box and I immediately exclaimed, "Oh! Like Keetsa!" and he went really quiet and it was really clear that he did NOT LIKE the comparison at all because his eco-mattress was NOTHING like Keetsa even if it did come in a box. In another instance, a saleswoman basically cautioned us against green-washing and then said, "I mean they're affordable, but they only substitute 20% of the petroleum in their mattresses."

Which is fair enough. Keetsa is not a perfect option, but we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. They produce reasonably affordable mattresses, I do believe they strive to be as Earth-friendly as possible, and their mattresses appear not to emit VOCs. And according to Yelp, a lot of people find their mattresses really comfortable. Plus, you do always have the option of buying their natural latex mattress which is 100% latex and thus has no petroleum nor VOCs.

Ultimately, though, we decided to keep looking. More mattresses coming up later this week....