Go Green

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.

By John Sutter

A new green blogging community called Fresh Greens sprouted up last week. The site features 13 bloggers and is devoted to sustainability and environmental issues in the Oklahoma City area. Shauna Struby, president of Sustainable OKC, posted a blog this week on the challenges of finding local foods when you’re out on the road. (Burger King is ubiquitous, but local options are worth searching out, she writes.) You can find other blogs by Struby at Think Lady.

Twelve other bloggers will join her on the site, and it sounds like they come from a diverse and interesting backgrounds. One is a vice-president at Sonic who is new to the green movement. One is a new mom who will write about the challenges of going green with a newborn. Another is Jennifer Gooden (see video above), who was a co-founder of Sustainable OKC and works for the Homeless Alliance. Gooden said over lunch on Monday that she plans to write about social justice issues and how they intersect with environmentalism and energy efficiency. The blog hopes to have two new posts per week.

Struby said the goal of the Fresh Greens blog is to connect people in Oklahoma City who are interested in environmental issues. She sees the blog as a conversation — a forum for public debate. Too often, she said, people who are interested in environmental issues in Oklahoma operate in tight circles, not realizing that a bigger movement is afoot. For example, when Struby set up a Sustainable OKC booth at the recent Dave Matthews concert downtown, people kept stopping by and expressing great surprise that any environmental groups existed here, she said. She wants those people to get connected online.

What are your favorite blogs? Know of any other green blogs in Oklahoma? I’d like to know … considering a story for the paper about the topic. The most random I’ve seen, the Bulgar Bugle, is devoted entirely to getting more bulgar wheat into your diet … Hey, it is a local food, and who doesn’t like tabbouleh.

And if you haven’t seen the Blog Oklahoma network, it’s a cool place to find local bloggers on topics that interest you.

By John Sutter

If you’re lonely and live in Oklahoma, don’t join a dating service, buy a Smart Car.

There’s no better way to get noticed or make a friend than to drive one of these cutesy micro-cars through the herd of mammoth SUV’s in Oklahoma City, according to employees at Crafton Tull Sparks, an architecture and engineering firm that in November will give one of the cars away to an employee.

Some of the firm’s architects at a northwest Oklahoma City office have been trading turns driving the fuel-efficient car. One said he was followed home by a family in a Lexus who wanted to inquire about the car’s gas mileage. Another was approached in a store parking lot by a person who almost demanded to be given a chance to sit in the Smart Car.

“You pull up to a stoplight and you notice people are looking at you,” said Nate Baker, a vice president at the company.

Omar Khoury, another VP, said the car is so small “you could almost pick it up and put it in the trunk” of a sport utility vehicle.

“Your rear is almost on the back wall and your feet are almost on the front wheel,” Baker said.

Underlying all the attention is a sense that fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly cars seem out of place or awkward in Oklahoma, which is a state that’s thrived on an oil and gas economy. But the employees who’ve been given a chance to test out the Smart Car say things are changing. People are gawking, sure, but only because they’re interested, they say.

I took a quick ride in the car (to shoot the video above), and the only difference you notice between the tiny Smart Car and any other compact car is the fact that, if you look behind you, the road is right there. Such close quarters leads some people to consider the Smart Car unsafe, Baker said, but that opinion’s not based on testing. Crash tests indicate that the car’s cage-like design stands up well to impact, earing the car top crash scores, according to the National Safety Commission.

The Crafton Tull Sparks give-away is intended to promote the company’s focus on sustainability. The firm is working on more building projects that use “green” methods, Baker said, and will offer the car raffle only to employees who have passed a certification exam on green building techniques.

[Do you drive a Smart Car? Know someone who does? Have an opinion on them? Feel free to e-mail me at jsutter [at] oklahoman.com or post comments below.]

[Picher is a former mining town in northeast Oklahoma. It was the site of the May 10 EF-4 tornado that killed six people and leveled half the town. It’s also one of the oldest and biggest toxic waste sites in the country, with the contamination due to waste from the abandoned lead and zinc mines. Photo by Gary Crow]

By John Sutter

As I reported in today’s paper, Picher-Cardin schools opened again today, despite a spring tornado that almost leveled the town, and a government buyout that is sapping Picher of its remaining residents because of environmental and safety risks.

This is a nostalgic moment for many of the people who live in the area, or have moved away from the dangers of sink-holes and lead poisoning associated with Picher’s abandoned underground mines.

Sitting in Oklahoma City or Tulsa, that may be hard to understand. Whenever I talk to people here about Picher–which is the heart of the Tar Creek Superfund site–they invariably think it’s bizarre that residents would cling to a town that’s had so many problems. According to the school’s elementary principal, there are students who have been saving up all summer so that they can afford to drive back into town from their new homes outside the waste site. Other residents insist that they’re not leaving town, despite evidence they’re putting themselves in danger.

When asked why they cling to this place, time and again Picher residents give me one answer: it’s home.

Picher and its tough times and make-it-work attitude will live on in their minds. Some people are starting to accept that. Others simply don’t want to let go. There’s too much history, too many memories, too much emotion.

I must admit that I too get a bit nostalgic on days like today, when so much is uncertain about the future of the town. I know that Kim Pace, the elementary school principal, typically prays over each classroom in her school on the night before the first day of classes. She wants school to be normal for her students, but in a year in which all but one of the students in Kindergarten through 3rd grade have moved away because there houses were destroyed by a tornado, that’s hard to imagine, even for an eternal optimist like Pace.

This year is particularly hard because of the agonizing limbo the teachers and students have been in for three years–or decades, really, since environmental problems date back to the 80s. In 2006, Pace readied her classrooms for the first day of school thinking she’d never be doing it again, because the school and the town were expected to close. She was teary eyed on that day as she talked about anticipating the school’s final moments, and the day she would close down a campus where she was the high school homecoming queen, where she developed a passion for Picher and its residents.

Those feelings came back again in 2007, and they’re back again today.

In 2006, I attended the first day of Picher-Cardin classes with a senior student named Tracy Carder. As I wrote in a story for The Oklahoman, Carder sat in a science classroom alone. She tapped her old basketball coach’s door, knowing enrollment at the school was too low then to support the Gorilla team, on which she was a star 3-point shooter.  She cried over the fact that few of her friends were there. She stayed because she wanted to graduate from her hometown high school. She was sure she would be part of the last class.

This year, 47 students are expected to enroll at Picher-Cardin, and again, people are speculating this will be the school’s last year — maybe the last year for the town.

By John Sutter

I’d never read the term ‘upcycling’ before today, when I stumbled upon this news release about an upcoming art exhibition in Bartlesville that will explore consumer waste and our society’s impact on the environment.

Apparently the term refers to reusing something (which has its own buzzwords like “repurposing” and “recycling”) in a way to upgrades its value or usefulness. So, in this case, it’s taking a bunch of trashed cell phones and turning them into art.

The show is part of a “3-logy,” the news release says, so maybe this place is just way too into strange phrases. You be the judge about bringing “upcycle” into your vocab. There seems to be a whole new vocabulary coming into existence with the green/eco/e-generation movement. I wrote the word “sustainably” in a story yesterday and my editor said, “Is that a word. Spellcheck doesn’t pick it up.” Yet, you see that term tossed around all over the place in green media — so much so that it’s almost become trite, and lost its meaning, just like “green.”

Anyway, sorry for getting sidetracked. The exhibit, titled “Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things,” starts Aug. 22 at the Price Tower, which is a great Frank Lloyd Wright building in Bartlesville … that just happens to look really similar to the Classen Tower in Oklahoma City.