States are wrestling with how best to dispose of e-waste, or consumer electronic products that aren’t useful anymore and can be toxic.
Some states prohibit landfills from accepting the waste, which contains several toxic parts including lead in computer monitors and television screens. The electronics are more difficult to recycle and more expensive to recycle than some other materials, particularly because toxic chemicals can be released during the recycling process if they’re not handled properly. Because it’s so expensive and dangerous, some of America and Europe’s e-waste winds up at landfills and recycling plants in developing countries, like those in West Africa, where workers can be exposed to the hazardous wastes.
The Oklahoma Legislature made a move to address the issue by passing a law last session will require computer companies in Oklahoma to take back and recycle worn-out computers. The law, which goes into effect Jan.1, will encourage the development of companies that can recycle e-waste in Oklahoma, said Fenton Rood, of the state Department of Environmental Quality (see video above). The law only applies to household computers, not those in office buildings, and it doesn’t cover other e-waste, like cell phones and televisions.
Before the law goes into effect, people in Oklahoma City can take their old computers and electronics to the city’s hazardous waste center. There’s only one other permanent hazardous waste collection center in the state, in Midwest City. Towns and cities in rural Oklahoma hold recycling events from time to time. Rood said the law is designed so that it hopefully will be more convenient for people to recycle their computers in the future.
The state Department of Environmental Quality is already discussing ways to implement the new law. Rood, who works in the department’s land protection division, said the new law lets the DEQ pay for its efforts by charging fees to computer companies, but that the department is not allowed to hire a person to run that program. Unless that piece of the law is changed, it will be impossible to make the required changes, he said.
By John SutterNew York Times columnist Thomas Friedman joked that he felt somewhat out of place giving a lecture on the coming “green revolution” in an oil and gas state like Oklahoma.
In a speech in downtown Oklahoma City today, the Pulitzer Prize winner said that America won’t know that the environmental revolution has come until “you see bodies by the side of the road.” Those will be the bodies of oil and gas companies, which may not be able to adapt to the clean energy era, he said.
Friedman’s overall message, though, was one of optimism. He laid out a number of crises facing the world — climate change, biodiversity loss, overpopulation — and said that the United States and Oklahoma are amply equipped to tackle the problems with the right support from the state and federal governments. The country and state’s success in doing so will decide who controls global politics and succeeds in the world economy this century, he said.
“You can see these as problems or you can see them as the bird of the demand for a whole new industry,” he said. “Our country, the United States of America, has to lead this industry.”
The goal of this new world order? “Who can invent a source of abundant, cheap, clean, reliable electrons.”
Friedman, who is promoting his new book, “Hot, Flat and Crowded,” said all sectors of the economy, including energy companies, can be part of the change. But he said current efforts to green the economy are more of a self-aggrandizing party than a genuine revolution. He referenced a litany of “green” self-help books with tips on saving the planet and products as obscure as “vegan condoms and solar-powered vibrators,” which are supposed to denote a new era of environmental thinking.
Forces of environmental change are bubbling up from the bottom of America, he said, but “brain-dead” politicians in Washington D.C. have not acted in a proportional manner.
He advocated for a tax on carbon, which he said would put a true cost on the pollution, health risks, climate change, biodiversity loss, loss of national security and lessened respect in the world that fossil fuels create for the United States and around the world.
Friedman likened this energy and environment revolution to the Internet and technology movement of the 1990s. The difference, he said, is that clean energy offers no functional benefit over dirty energy — your lights work the same whether coal or wind powered them. Computer groups offered new products with entirely new functions. As such, energy deserves a push from the government to get started, he said, adding that he has more faith in the power of American innovation and capitalism than government forces to make the changes necessary. Both revolutions will have to operate by a “change or die” philosophy, he said.
He railed against politicians, including John McCain, who are preaching drilling for more oil as the solution to the energy crisis. That is analogous to companies at the dawn of the computer revolution calling for more typewriters and better carbon-copy paper, he said. (See video at top of post for more on that)
The foreign affairs columnist referenced the fact that Oklahoma biofuels and agriculture can play a part in the “green revolution.” He also mentioned U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Tulsa, by name on several occasions. Inhofe has become known nationally for saying global warming is a “hoax.” Friedman said Inhofe is wrong on that point, but, whatever you believe about global warming, America needs to become more efficient to tackle environmental problems and to ensure it has a top spot in the global economy.
He listed several major problems facing the world. All can be dealt with through innocation and market forces, with a government push, he said.
I’ll list some below:
1. Climate change: The weather is becoming “weirder,” not necessarily hotter, he said. Places that are hot are getting hotter, places that are dry are getting drier, places that are wet are getting wetter, and hurricanes are getting stronger, he said. He also said climate models are becoming more and more troublesome over time. For instance, it recently was thought that ice in the Arctic Circle would disappear by 2050. Current projections say that’s more likely to happen in 2012, he said.
2. Biodiversity: According to Conservation International, a new species goes extinct every 20 minutes. “We are the first generation that is going to have to think like Noah, and save the last two pairs” of animals of each species, he said.
3. Petropolitics: The U.S. spends $700 billion supporting some of the worst regimes on earth, he said. That’s because we have to buy their oil. “We’re in a war on terrorism and we’re funding both sides,” he said.
4. Energy and Natural Resources: Friedman said there are “too many American carbon copies” in the world, meaning that more people in developing countries want to live like Americans — they want to have big houses, drives cars over long distances and use lots of electricity. There aren’t enough resources around for that to happen, he said, and new America-like places are sprouting up all the time.
“If we don’t redefine what it means to be an American in resource terms, you’re going to see resource demand go through the roof,” he said.
5. Population Growth: There will be a billion more people on earth by 2020, and not enough resources to go around.
Some basics: Friedman’s speech was sponsored by the business school at Oklahoma State University as part of a lecture series. Tickets were $75, and the talk mostly was attended by older people who were wearing suits. A number of students also came.
Friedman is not the final word on these subjects, of course, although he is a well-known authority on globalization and global politics. Student groups have protested his talks in the past, saying that his support for military intervention in the Middle East and his usually hands-off global economic policies, which some say hurt the world’s poor. Students from Brown University reportedly threw a pie in his face recently (the clip is on youtube).
I’d love to hear what you all think about his talk. People in the audience seemed to give a mixed response, with most standing to applaud at the end, but no crazy cheers or anything like that. Nearly 900 people registered for the event.
For those of you who may go see Thomas Friedman in OKC today (see previous post), here’s his opus of an article on “The power of green,” from the New York Times Magazine. Thought it might be of interest. –John
I trust that most of you have heard of carbon offsets by now — those payments you can make to ease your eco-conscience and mitigate global climate change when you or your business pollutes. One problem plaguing that system has been transparency. It’s been difficult to find out exactly where you money is going, and even more difficult to see if the projects you’re funding work. For instance, you could pay a carbon credit offset on a cross-country plane flight. That money might pay for a rain forest restoration project in Myanmar, but unless you plan on taking a connecting flight to Myanmar, how do you know if it works?
Environmental Defense made an incremental step toward greater carbon credit transparency today when it launched CarbonOffsetList.org, which lets you read about the carbon-sinking programs that you could choose to invest in.
There are other resources out there to help the carbon credit consumer: here’s a blog that lists carbon offsetting projects, and a story by Reuters about a voluntary set of standards for companies that help people reduce their carbon footprints.
Downtown OKC and Urban Neighbors today are announcing the addition of 35 new bike racks in the east part of downtown Oklahoma City (which, conveniently, is right where Downtown OKC is located). The racks are funded with a $20K grant sponsored by the city. If you hurry, you can make it downtown to the NW corner of Sheridan and Mickey Mantle, where Mayor Mick Cornett “will declare the racks officially in service,” according to a news release. Not sure what that means. Is there such thing as an “out of service” bike rack?
Sorry for the last-minute notice on this, but I thought you all might like to know that Thomas Friedman — the New York Times columnist and globalization writer — is speaking this afternoon in Oklahoma City. Friedman is on a tour to promote his new book, “Hot Flat and Crowded: Why we need a green revolution — and how it can renew America.”
The details: Today (Wednesday) 4 to 5:30 p.m. at the Cox Convention Center, downtown. He’ll be in Tulsa tomorrow at 9:30 p.m. at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center.
I’ll be attending the Oklahoma City meeting. I heard Friedman on NPR’s “Fresh Air” a couple of days ago. He spoke with a lot of passion, so hopefully the lectures here will prove to be good food for thought. If you haven’t read his earlier books, Friedman is known for his ability to create really simple metaphors for complex global issues. He’s a proponent of the idea that global connectedness and innovation will better humanity. Some scholars oppose his views, saying globalization takes advantage of the world’s poor, who can’t complete in the global economy the way it’s set up now.
He goes after a green twist on those topics with this book, which calls on America to lead a “green revolution.” [so far, this country has taken a backseat to those in Europe.]
Let me know if you’ll be going, and feel free to post comments here after the talk.
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.
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.
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’sstatement 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.
[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.
