Go Green

By John Sutter

I’m a fan of an analogy in the New York Times’ recent story about how wind power’s “dirty little secret” is the fact that there’s no energy transmission infrastructure to get wind power from the Great Plains (ie here) out to the coasts. An official tells the paper we need a “superhighway” system to truck all this power around the United States:

The grid today, according to experts, is a system conceived 100 years ago to let utilities prop each other up, reducing blackouts and sharing power in small regions. It resembles a network of streets, avenues and country roads.

“We need an interstate transmission superhighway system,” said Suedeen G. Kelly, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

While the United States today gets barely 1 percent of its electricity from wind turbines, many experts are starting to think that figure could hit 20 percent.

Achieving that would require moving large amounts of power over long distances, from the windy, lightly populated plains in the middle of the country to the coasts where many people live. Builders are also contemplating immense solar-power stations in the nation’s deserts that would pose the same transmission problems.

By John Sutter

Scientists can say the earth is warming with great certainty, but when it comes to climate change in Oklahoma, or Oklahoma City, they’re essentially making guesses.

As my guest on this week’s Environment Podcast says, that could change, if the government would make an investment in super computers and monitoring sites that would be needed to make local-level climate predictions.

Such predictions are important for Oklahoma farmers, who need to know when to plant their crops, he said. It’s important for state leaders who are trying to come up with a water plan. It’s important for all of us, in a sense, because warmer temperatures could mean more diseases, including those only seen now in the tropics.

Listen to my conversation with Dr. John Snow, dean of the OU college of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences, to learn more about how climate change could affect you here in Oklahoma — and what he says would be needed to properly advance the field of climatology.

Here are details of the proposal for increased funding of climate science. It was submitted to Congress by eight weather groups, and calls for nearly a doubling of investment in such research — a $9 billion increase over the next five years.

Also read the Oklahoma Climatological Survey’s statement on climate change in Oklahoma. They expect more frequent and severe droughts, longer summer seasons and possibly more severe weather. Those predictions would get much more specific and certain with further study, Snow says.

The New York Times has a story about the natural gas boom and how some are saying it’s good for the environment. Others question whether or not the boom will last. The story quotes Aubrey McClendon, chairman and CEO of Oklahoma City’s Chesapeake Energy Corp.:

“It’s almost divine intervention,” said Aubrey K. McClendon, chairman and chief executive of the Chesapeake Energy Corporation, one of the nation’s largest natural gas producers. “Right at the time oil prices are skyrocketing, we’re struggling with the economy, we’re concerned about global warming, and national security threats remain intense, we wake up and we’ve got this abundance of natural gas around us.”

Senior Democrats in Congress are getting behind natural gas, portraying it as an alternative fuel for transportation that can serve as a stopgap until renewable sources of energy, like solar and wind power, become economical on a broad scale.

“You can have a transition with natural gas that is cheap, abundant and clean,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, said Sunday on “Meet the Press” on NBC.

–John Sutter

[Bob Waldrop, above, one of the founding members of the Oklahoma Sustainability Network, is among a feisty group of Oklahoma bloggers writing about environmental issues. One of Waldrop’s newest creations, The Bulgar Bugle, is all about getting local wheat into your diet.]

By John Sutter

So you’ve got all this excess bulgur wheat sitting around … what’s a green guy to do? Well, turn to the Bulgar Bugle for starters. It’s one of a number of green blogs that are sprouting up in Oklahoma, as I wrote in The Oklahoman today.

On the bulgur blog, you’ll find an assortment of reciepes from local environment guru Bob Waldrop. The commentary behind the recipes is what makes the blog such a charming read, though. Here are some examples:

(June 7th) This morning I was making whole wheat pancakes for breakfast, and decided, what the heck, I have all this bulgar laying around, let’s throw some in the pancake batter.

Good choice, Bob. I used the bulgar that I had cooked overnight in the crockpot (see previous post today). My recipe for whole wheat pancakes with bulgar is as follows …

(June 11th) How American is this? We had frozen home-made “TV dinners” tonight, which included bulgar pilaf. There was a bottle of ketchup sitting on the counter, and I thought, “Why not?” So I dashed a good portion of ketchup onto the pilaf, mixed it in, and it was very good.

(June 9th) Cook some sausage and scramble some eggs (however much you need for those you’re feeding). After the eggs are scrambled, add cooked bulgar pilaf (about 1/4 cup per person). Combine all ingredients in skillet. Voila, quick and nutritious “stick to your ribs” breakfast.

My newspaper story talks briefly about how much the environmental (or sustainability) movement has grown in Oklahoma in recent years. Waldrop was among a handful of people who started the Oklahoma Sustainability Network over coffee meetings in 2002 or 2003. That group has spawned several sub-chapters, and members of the movement pride themselves on being a loose alliance of interested people rather than organizationally strong. The Sierra Club and others have been active in Oklahoma for some time, but currently none of the groups are said to employ any staffers (although Sierra Club is looking to hire one now). The groups have found a home online, through listserves and blogs. Here’s a list of some I found interesting:

Fresh Greens: Tips and anecdotes from 13 bloggers in Oklahoma City who write on topics from local foods to energy efficiency. Excerpt from their inaugural post:

Why a local blog on sustainability? Plenty of blogs and other websites are dealing with sustainability issues at a national or international level, as well as plenty of bloggers here in OKC who write on trying to live sustainably. I suppose the real impetus behind this collaborative blogging effort, is a desire to employ the Web 2.0 phenomenon in creating a center of discussion specific to the Oklahoma City sustainable community and its geographical neighbors. In the spirit of Wendell Berry we recognize the essential value of grounding our efforts in the community instead of attempting to swim against the current of our culture alone.

Here’s a video with two of the bloggers:

Oklavore: Local foods, cooking and environment blog.

New Okie Pioneers: Yahoo! listserve devoted to environmentalism and independence in rural Oklahoma. Site has 711 members. This morning, they were posting about donkeys.

Ag Law OKC Blog: A local attorney blogs on agriculture and the environment.

The San Francisco Chronicle had a blip this morning on cloth vs. paper napkins — which uses less water, emits less carbon and is better for the environment? Like many such comparisons, the answer isn’t easy, the paper writes:

Alas, a simple answer was elusive. A visit to AskPablo, a blog belonging to a sustainability engineer, Pablo Paster, who endeavors to analyze carbon footprints, uncovered a many-paragraph essay that concluded that a cloth napkin used 50 times as much water as and emitted more carbon dioxide (including its manufacture) than 50 paper napkins.

However, there are antique napkins that have been used many hundreds, even thousands of times …
If you are throwing a party, however, and want to use paper, look for recycled napkins - and be sure to put them in your green (composting) bin with the food scraps instead of with the landfill-bound trash or uncontaminated recycling.

The question reminds me of Sheryl Crow’s reported war on toilet paper. The singer says we can save resources and fight climate change one square at a time. Sounds tricky …

–John

By John Sutter

The New York Times takes the evolution in education story down to the classroom level with an article about a teacher in Florida who’s trying to convince his students that evolution is the fundamental principle of biology. It’s a really interesting read. Here’s the setup:

He scanned the faces of the sophomores in his Biology I class. Many of them, he knew from years of teaching high school in this Jacksonville suburb, had been raised to take the biblical creation story as fact. His gaze rested for a moment on Bryce Haas, a football player who attended the 6 a.m. prayer meetings of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in the school gymnasium.

“If I do this wrong,” Mr. Campbell remembers thinking on that humid spring morning, “I’ll lose him.”

As a graphic that accompanies the story notes, Oklahoma is one of eight states where biological evolution is “mentioned briefly, unclearly” in state education curriculum. The teaching of human evolution is not mentioned in state standards, according to the chart.

National Geographic has a wonderful cover story this week on soil conservation. My favorite part is a photo (the last one in this gallery) that shows Kansas prairie grasses with roots that stretch a whopping 10 feet into the ground. It’s kind of that whole iceberg theory — much of nature is unseen on the surface.

PS: I’ve noticed that National Geographic has taken to referring to itself as “Nat Geo” on television … I mean, I’m all for abbreviations, but really? — J. Sut

By John Sutter

Whenever I write about air pollution here, I can’t help but think back to a year ago when I was living in Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo. The city is this winding, hilly mess of cobble stone roads and tunnels that go through the hills. To walk into the city center from where I lived, I had to go through one of the main tunnels: it dripped this black goo, and when I walked through it, I would put my sleeve over my mouth to avoid lapping in all of the soot. At night, I’d come up to blow my nose to find tar-colored snot. It was gross, to say the least, and it wasn’t even on the radar of the environmental and health problems faced in Madagascar.

Here’s a blog I posted almost a year ago to the day about that situation. It’s a recap of a postcard I wrote to a friend here in Oklahoma City. (He jokes around that I have a big nose, so that’s what’s up with the drawing.) By one news report, Antananarivo has the second worst air quality of any city in the world. I’m not trying to downplay what officials here in Oklahoma say are significant health problems associated with ozone and soot in the air, but I think it never can hurt to get a little perspective, also.

By John Sutter

I sat down last week with Eddie Terrill of the state Department of Environmental Quality to talk about the air here in Oklahoma — and how that compares to some of the trouble the world has seen with air pollution at the Beijing Olympics. By one measure, the air in Beijing is more than 5 1/2 times worse than the air in OKC. As I wrote in a story for The Oklahoman:

Oklahoma City has averaged about 16 micrograms of coarse soot per cubic meter of air so far in 2008, according to federal data. That’s less than the U.S. national average. Beijing averages 89 micrograms of soot per cubic meter in 2004, according to the World Bank.

According to readings taken by the BBC, Beijing’s air hit an abnormal 275 micrograms per cubic meter on Aug. 10, two days after the start of the Olympics.

“Most of (the pollutants) cause asthma-like symptoms: shortness of breath, tightness in the chest, coughing, just general irritation in the breathing passages in the lungs … they’re lung irritants is what they are,” Terrill said.

You can find much more about the air in Oklahoma — including a list of major polluters and a breakdown of air pollution sources — on the paper’s clean air page. The state DEQ says air pollution, particularly from ozone, is a statewide public health issue.

By John Sutter

Yesterday, I saw an interesting presentation on the past legislative session and its impact on environmental issues in Oklahoma. Jimmy Givens, the state Department of Environmental Quality’s general counsel, gave the talk at a board meeting in Duncan.

According to Givens, the main environmental issues taken up last session by the legislature were water rights, recycling and greenhouse gases.

Here’s his breakdown of some of the bills that passed:

Senate Bill 1631. E-waste: Requires computer companies that sell more than 50 computers per year to take back their products once consumers are finished using them. Recycling of computers and other “e-waste” is a concern partly because electronics contain mercury, lead and other toxins. Much of the e-waste ends up on the shores of other continents, where people pick though it looking for parts to sell. The Oklahoma program applies only to personal computers. It is mandatory effective in January. Givens said it will be “very difficult” to implement the program.

Senate Bill 1410. Aquifers: Funds a study of aquifers in the state, to determine if too much water is being taken out. Environmental officials and advocates have said Oklahoma knows far too little about its groundwater resources — both in terms of how much is there, and what the water quality problems might be.

Senate Bill 498. Recycling: Sets a state goal for recycling: 10 percent of all solids, by the end of 2011. It doesn’t provide programs or a mechanism for that to happen, but rather indicates that recycling is a state priority. (Note that some states, like California, require up to half of all trash to be reused. Oklahoma has so much landfill space, that statewide recycling programs haven’t been much of a priority.)

Senate Bill 1451. Air Emissions: Gives grants for state vehicles to be retrofitted so that they use alternative fuels. Helps some industry maintain compliance with tightening air quality regulations. And, as sort of a tack-on, it requires gas stations to label pumps where ethanol-gas fuel blends are sold (usually they’re little yellow stickers, right on the pump.)

Senate Bill 1856: Copper wire: Bans metal dealers from purchasing burned copper wire. On one hand, that addresses theft issues, but it also prevents copper wire burning, Givens said, which prevents toxins from being released into the air.

Senate Bill 1765: Carbon dioxide storage: Gives a green light for CO2 to be stored underground in Oklahoma. The federal government recently passed a rule on this, which is designed to protect groundwater supplies from contamination because of carbon injections. Its unclear how those regulations will play out in Oklahoma, and which state agency or agencies will oversee the process.

Keep in mind that this is just one person’s take on these bills. Givens said he expects the next legislative session to focus on water — both in advance of the state’s comprehensive water plan, which seeks to evaluate Oklahoma’s water resources and create 50-year rules, and water disputes with Texas and southeast Oklahoma communities that want to sell water.