by Sarah Lane

So the City Council of Asheville, North Carolina, wants to keep a man elected to the council, Cecil Bothwell, from being sworn in because he is a nontheist, and the North Carolina Constitution, in direct conflict with the U.S. Constitution, disqualifies for office “First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God.” At the same time the Rotary Club of Leesburg, Virginia, has been blocked from doing what it has done for 50 years: set up a Christmas tree on the grounds of the Loudon County Courthouse.

These two seemingly opposite responses to the mixing of religion and government (or the separation of church and state) are actually alike in that they both espouse a policy of exclusion. What we teach our children through such exclusion is that there is only one way to think: Either God is the One Way or god cannot have a thing to do with public funds. But universal exclusion is an unusual case of less being in fact less.

Why do we fear the ability of our Constitution to protect the beliefs of all peoples, as long as those beliefs don’t actively promote assault on the beliefs of others? The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion and freedom of expression. How is a Christmas tree threatening? What do people have to fear from a councilmember who doesn’t believe in  a god?

I want the schools our children go to to teach about Madalyn Murray O’Hair, Bahaullah, Asa Phillip Randolph, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Henry Cadbury, Ernestine Louise Rose, George S. Schuyler, and all the other courageous people across the ages who whether you agree with them or not you will agree have stood up and declared their beliefs without urging assault on those who opposed them.

I want the schools our children attend to introduce them to Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Atheism, Druidism, and Hindusim among many other beliefs in an open way that teaches them the beliefs without giving them the message that one is better than the others or, just as bad, that having none is better than having any of them. I want schools to put up Christmas trees, Hanukkah menoras, Kwanzaa kinaras, and Winter Solstice Yule logs or candles and promote the celebration of light and hope regardless of the form it takes, whether the hope comes from a winged angel or a government employee with a school lunch program.

Rav Kook, the Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (who died in 1935 and was the first Chief Rabbi of Israel before it became a state), eloquently explains why in this case more is in fact more:

True peace . . . comes precisely through the proliferation of divergent views. When all of the various angles and sides of an issue are exposed, and we are able to clarify how each one has its place—that is true peace. The Hebrew word shalom means both “peace”‘ and “completeness.” We will only attain complete knowledge when we are able to accommodate all views—even those that appear contradictory—as partial perceptions of the whole truth. Like an interlocking puzzle, together they present a complete picture. (Psalm 122: The Peace of Torah Scholars)

Certainly our trust in our democracy can support inclusiveness of belief with no fear that our freedoms will be hurt in the process. In fact, it is exclusion that is the danger: Closing the door on all ideologies in the interest of “fairness” leaves our democracy weakened through being unchallenged and untested. And it leaves our nation and its institutions colorless, uninspiring, and uninteresting. Finally, it erodes our loyalty to that democracy: When there’s nothing there, there’s nothing worth defending.

It would be better, like our very own Statue of Liberty, to open our arms to all and give all a chance to be heard, modeling for our children the ideas that (1) our own beliefs are not threatened by divergence of opinion and that (2) the experience of all is enriched by a range of celebrations, customs, and ideologies. For my own kid I would want nothing less.

©2009 ProgressiveKid

Image by Chris Phan, 2005, Creative Commons license.

by Sarah Lane

During these two weeks of the Climate Conference in Copenhagen, I think it is time to reach across the great divide between those who believe in climate change and those who don’t and link arms. So whether or not you think climate change is happening, whether you believe it is human made or caused by an angry God, little elves, or bad luck, whether you work for a coal plant or a bicycle messenger service, shed your need to be right and join in the broad movement to change the way we humans do things. All climate change hoax adherents, hemp and green tea advocates, everyone incensed or merely annoyed by scientists at the University of East Anglia, all Bill McKibben fans and, on the other side, cheerleaders for Joseph Olson, Sarah Palin, Jack Kelly, and Rush Limbaugh, listen up and sign on to making changes for the myriad sensible and excellent reasons that abound:

1. Carbon dioxide is bad for human health. Even if you think it’s not hurting our planet irreversibly, you can agree that breathing in carbon, whether dioxide or monoxide, is unhealthy. Even the EPA thinks so!

2. A culture of rampant consumerism is undesirable and unsustainable. Maybe you think more consumerism will get us out of the current economic crisis, but you have to agree that that mindset also contributed to the current economic crisis. People wanting more and more things and upgrading their things frequently and discarding mountains of their old things is not something that we can sustain, literally. At some point the space needed for things will exceed the space occupied by humans.

3. We need trees. Trees make oxygen. If we have no trees then we will either need to create some sort of synthetic oxygen for all of us to breathe (not yet possible, but keep your fingers crossed!) or we will suffocate.

4. We need water and food. Drought is increasing around the world. Drought reduces human access to water and food. Maybe you don’t believe that increased drought has anything to do with climate change. Fine. But there are things we humans can do to hold it in check.

5. Healthy oceans are nice to have. Maybe you don’t accept that climate change is damaging the oceans, but you might enjoy a tuna fish sandwich every now and then. And you’re not going to have too many more of them in your life if we don’t do something to improve the conditions of our oceans by reducing overfishing, reducing pollution, and reducing carbon dioxide’s impact on oxygen levels in bodies of water.

6. It is better to live in a world with other species. You might be someone who hates squirrels and pigeons or shoots raccoons from your back deck or wolves from your helicopter. But picture a world with no bees, no birds, no bears, nothing else but dogs, cats, and chickens and cows in pens. Is that some place you’d want your children to live?

7. Cows contaminate groundwater. So what if thousands of people could expire in a giant burp of methane gas? Maybe you don’t care or you don’t believe it could happen. Well, okay. But you certainly will agree that the contamination of groundwater that happens around massive feedlots is undesirable, especially if you’re one of the feedlot neighbors.

8. We can have too many cars. Maybe you don’t think we do have too many yet, but if population increases and large countries such as India and China continue to adopt the car lifestyle, then the number of cars in the world will rise. And at some point none of us will be able to get anywhere because of the gridlock. Not just a massive carbon dioxide source but a colossal waste of time too!

9. Changes in climate can generate droves of refugees. So you don’t think that increased flooding has anything to do with humans. You need to think that it’s just part of our planet’s natural cycles (hey, Noah had to deal with it, right?). But, regardless, flooding (and other catastrophic changes resulting from warmer temperatures) creates refugees. And refugees have an annoying habit of looking for somewhere to live. Eventually they will come looking in your backyard as well. The refugee problem will soon become everyone’s problem. And refugees need food, water, and shelter, but with some measurable climate changes currently happening we will have less of those things, and the problem will increase exponentially.

10. There are things humans can do to make the world better to live in. This is perhaps the best reason of all. If there were something you could do to ameliorate some of the effects of warmer temperatures or, better yet, to reduce or at least hold temperatures steady, wouldn’t you want to? If there are things we can do to enhance our health, to make the planet healthier and better to live in, to increase our enjoyment and appreciation of life, and to reduce human sickness and suffering, why wouldn’t we do them? Can’t we all agree to these obvious steps?

• Reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide: A world with cleaner air and water is better to live in.
• Protect forests: Trees help clean the air and water. They provide shelter and habitat.
• Reduce our reliance on cars: A world with fewer cars would create smaller, closer communities, which would feed small businesses, create stronger ties among people, and build a stronger sense of personal responsibility.
• Protect other species and their habitats: A world with other species is less lonely and more spiritually satisfying.
• Develop new sustainable energy sources: A planet that uses less energy and whose energy comes from nonpolluting sources (like solar and wind) is healthier and better to live in. And communities that engage in developing healthier, more efficient technologies will thrive economically and create jobs.
• Work to protect food and water sources across the globe: A world where most people have enough to eat, have water, and have shelter is more stable and secure. Also, healthy oceans provide jobs and food and habitat.
• Change the way we think and act: People who are motivated more by their role in a community, by art, by healthy lifestyles, and spiritual pursuits, for example, are happier and healthier than people who are driven by the desire to acquire things.

© 2009 ProgressiveKid

Image by Michael Pinsky, 2006, Creative Commons license.

by Sarah Lane

The Natural Defenses Resource Council, in its article “Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype,” reports that more than half of all Americans drink bottled water and about one-third of the population drinks it regularly. So Americans are thirsty. Why is this a problem?

1. What’s in the Bottles

One problem has to do with what’s in the bottles themselves. The Earth Policy Institute reports that 1.5 million barrels of oil per year, which is enough to fuel 100,000 cars for that same year, are required to satisfy Americans’ demand for bottled water. That’s because PET, or polyethylene terephthalate, the plastic used in water bottles, is derived from crude oil. And, according to the Earth Policy Institute article “Bottled Water: Pouring Resources Down the Drain,” by Emily Arnold and Janet Larsen, this oil is being used to make some 2.7 million tons of plastic each year for bottling water around the globe.

2. What the Bottles Are in

Unfortunately, most of these bottles, four of every five, end up in landfills, according to Pat Franklin, executive director of the Container Recycling Institute, a Washington group that promotes recycling. Jared Blumenfeld and Susan Leal in their essay “The real cost of bottled water” published in the San Francisco Chronicle report that more than 1 billion plastic water bottles end up in California’s trash alone each year.

The National Association for PET Container Resources in Sonoma, California, puts the national figure at 3.62 billion plastic bottles for 2004. According to the Container Recycling Institute, 86 percent of plastic water bottles used in the United States become garbage or litter.

Why is the presence of so many bottles in landfills a problem?

• Incinerating used bottles produces toxic byproducts such as chlorine gas and ash containing heavy metals.
• Water bottles buried in landfills can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade.
• The bottles leak toxic additives, such as phthalates, into the groundwater.

3. Where the Bottles Are

Arnold and Larsen also point out two major problems with the location of water bottling plants. First, bottled water must be transported long distances, which involves burning massive quantities of fossil fuels. They explain that almost one-fourth of all bottled water must cross national borders to reach consumers.

Second, the communities where water is extracted suffer a disproportionate loss to their own water supplies. The writers point to water shortages in Texas and the Great Lakes region near bottling plants.

4. What’s in the Water

The Natural Resources Defense Council conducted a four-year study of the bottled water industry, including its bacterial and chemical contamination problems. They reviewed available information on bottled water and its sources, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations of bottled water, and government and academic bottled water testing results. The NRDC also commissioned independent lab testing of more than 1,000 bottles of 103 types of bottled water from many parts of the country.

In its report, the NRDC reveals that the FDA’s rules exempt 60 to 70 percent of the bottled water sold in the United States from the agency’s bottled water standards “because FDA says its rules do not apply to water packaged and sold within the same state.” Because almost 40 states say they do regulate such waters even though they have few resources or policies to do so, this is a significant omission. And “Even when bottled waters are covered by FDA’s specific bottled water standards, those rules are weaker in many ways than EPA rules that apply to big city tap water.”

The NRDC study generated alarming results: “approximately one third of the tested waters (34 of 103 waters, or 33 percent) violated an enforceable state standard or exceeded microbiological-purity guidelines, or both, in at least one sample.”

5. What the Bottled Water Costs

Arnold and Larsen report that “The global consumption of bottled water reached 154 billion liters (41 billion gallons) in 2004, up 57 percent from the 98 billion liters consumed five years earlier.” But increased demand is only driving up the price. According to the NRDC, consumers spend from 240 to over 10,000 times more per gallon for bottled water than they typically do for tap water.

And, clearly, the price of bottled water is much greater than what can be reflected in dollars and cents.

©2009 ProgressiveKid

Image by Shea Hazarian, 2008, Creative Commons license.

by Sarah Lane

Giving a seasonal gift, whether for Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, might appropriately be intended for various reasons:

• to express love,
• to spread joy, and
• to share abundance with those in need.

It is often, however, done for the following reasons:

• to fulfill an obligation,
• to meet an expectation, and
• to fill a void.

In a world teeming with excess and yet, at the same time, bursting with want and need, in a world choking on plastic and suffocating from carbon emissions, we need to work toward eliminating those last three reasons and grope our way back to love, joy, and sharing. And that kind of gift giving is accomplished through

• less quantity,
• less monetary and more personal investment, and
• greater reflection.

One way to get there is through homemade gifts that require an investment of time and effort but that are also useful or beneficial in some way, that are not simply additional contributions to clutter and waste. Another way is through some sort of service, an investment of personal time. And another is to spend some money in ways that are significant, either through their personal relevance to the recipient or through their positive effect. Giving an aspiring writer a nice pen, giving a good friend a meaningful photograph, or giving someone who loves animals and works in a shelter a contribution to the shelter are examples of these kinds of gifts. The Nature Conservancy shared with us their Top 5 Green Gifts which also fall into this category:

Adopt an Acre – in the US or aboard:
http://adopt.nature.org/

Plant Trees in the Atlantic Forest, each tree is just $1
http://adopt.nature.org/plantabillion/brazil/gift.html

Adopt a Coral Reef
http://adopt.nature.org/coralreef/

Help Save the Northern Jaguar (NEW THIS YEAR)
http://my.nature.org/gifts/jaguar.html

Give the Gift of Clean Water
http://my.nature.org/gifts/water.html

With any gift giving, at any time of the year, the most important element is thought; if you think deeply about the recipient and who they are and what they truly want or need, you’ll discover they need far less stuff. What they need and want most of all is to be seen by you, which is exactly what our planet needs too.

© 2009 ProgressiveKid

Image by Kasia 2007, Creative Commons license.

What follows are resources to help you provide a healthier (toxin-free), zero-waste lunch for your child. If you’re just beginning this process, don’t get discouraged. Even by changing a few things you do, you are taking worthwhile steps. As Voltaire says, don’t allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good!

Specifically, you want to avoid the following:

1. Toxins

For the health of your family

• Lead. Lead affects the brain and behavior and is especially dangerous to young children still in early developmental stages. Read about lead in children’s lunch containers (http://www.ceh.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=39&Itemid=54).
• BPA. Bisphenol A can affect brain development and contribute to cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and liver-enzyme abnormalities. BPA is found in plastics coded 7, in 3- and 5-gallon water bottles, and in the lining of most tin cans. Read more (http://progressivekid.com/shop/BisphenolA.aspx).
• Phthalates. Phthalates may cause neurological and reproductive damage. They are often referred to by these abbreviations in product lists: DBP, DEP, DEHP, BzBP, and DMP. They are common in plastics with codes 3and 7. Read more (http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/phthalates-47020418).
• PVC. Polyvinyl chloride, or vinyl, releases dioxins when produced and/or burned. Dioxins can cause cancer and harm the immune and reproductive systems. It often includes phthalates. It cannot be effectively recycled. It is coded 3. Read more (http://www.besafenet.com/pvc/about.htm).

2. Waste

For the health of the planet

• Landfill and ocean waste. Try to avoid waste that can’t be composted or that is nonbiodegradable (i.e., plastic yogurt and soup containers, plastic bags, plastic spoons and forks, food wrapped in individual plastic wrap).
• Depleted natural resources. The production and disposal of plastic and paper packaging/products deplete natural resources such as forests, fossil fuels, water, undeveloped land, animal habitat, and farmland.
• Pollutants. Manufacturing processes and products containing toxins pollute our land, air, water, and home and school environments.

Reducing the toxins and waste in your children’s lunches does not have to be expensive. In fact, it can be less expensive over the long-term. Small investments in reusable sandwich wraps, food containers, and water bottles will reduce your long-term expenditures on things like baggies, paper napkins and paper bags, disposable bottles, and high-priced, overly packaged food. Look for opportunities to convert to reusable utensils, cloth napkins, glass jars with screw tops, and so on. When you purchase reusable lunch and beverage containers, make sure the products state that they are free of lead, BPA, Phthalates, and PVC. Have enough of them on hand.

This guide does not address the issue of organic vs. nonorganic food, but obviously food farmed with pesticides and insecticides and using unsustainable methods adds toxins to your child’s lunch and our global environment. So eat organic whenever you can and avoid highly processed food, which is heavily manufactured and tends to contain more contaminants, such as preservatives.

Reusable Water Bottles

There are now many eco-friendly and healthy beverage container options, many of them affordable. You can find these bottles all over, including at local stores. Here are the three most popular brands:

SIGG

• Aluminum with resin coating
• Leach-free
• Now BPA-free (was not always, but tests showed the bottles did not leach)
• Heavy

Kleen Kanteen

• Stainless Steel
• BPA-free
• May leach nickel (some people are allergic)
• Lighter than aluminum

CamelBak Better Bottles

• Plastic
• BPA-free
• Lightweight
• Nonbiodegradable (to find out why buying disposable plastic bottles of water is inadvisable, read this article)

Reusable Lunch Boxes/Bags and Food Containers

Here are some attractive, popular, customizable, reusable, lead-safe, phthalate-free, and BPA-free lunch totes with components for kids:

Laptop Lunches

• Soft box or bag style
• Bento-style food containers
• Plastic
• Customizable with napkins and beverage containers
• Lead-free
• Phthalate-free
• BPA-free

Citizenpip

• Soft box style
• Insulated
• Customizable with all the components you need for lunch including napkins, cutlery, beverage containers, and food containers
• Some plastic components
• Lead-free
• BPA-free
• PVC-free
• Phthalate-free

Kids Konserve

• Bag style
• Insulated
• Customizable with most of the components you need for lunch including napkins, beverage containers, and food containers.
• Stainless steel and cloth components
• Lead-free
• BPA-free
• PVC-free
• Phthalate-free

Lunchopolis

• Soft box style
• Nylon, aluminum, and cotton
• Come with plastic food and beverage containers
• BPA-free
• Lead safe
• Phthalate-free

by Katy Leakey

Color and beauty are the thoughts that strike me when I see a Maasai woman. Each morning, as I walk out to greet the women who work with us, I am impressed by their dramatic allure. With their long slender necks, ear and wrists adorned in layers of beaded jewelry, and fit bodies draped in colorful patterned shukas, they are both stately and voluptuous—a blend few cultures have achieved.

My husband and I live among the Maasai in Kenya and employ the women to handcraft jewelry. The business started eight years ago as a way to help them through difficult times and has expanded beyond that early goal. As we began to build the business, we were sensitive to preserving the Maasai culture and not bringing change; instead, we wanted to create opportunity for them. In considering this, I found myself examining values, theirs and mine. Here are some of my first observations.

Maasai children are raised to look after the community first, then to be self-sustaining individuals—just the opposite of American children. While most American women handle the responsibilities of their lives without help, Maasai women pitch in together, cooking, caring for babies, mending the home, gathering wood and cleaning. Not a chore goes unshared.

An American woman, accustomed to doing things on her own, might feel trapped and stifled by such proximity. A Maasai woman, dropped into our world, would feel isolated and lonely, cut off from her traditional system of friends and family. She would view it as a world without joy.

In the Maasai society, where the group comes first, change involves the entire group and is a slow and cumbersome evolution that may take generations. Because individuals in this society tend to feel secure and less stressed, not many seek change. Americans can alter course without having to change the ideologies of their country and with utmost speed; hence our rapid evolution in just 227 years. Yet in our culture of individuals, without loving and trusted people close by, one often feels what the Maasai woman would feel if placed here: insecure, lonely, and isolated, feelings often identified as contributing factors to social violence.

Many people ask me what it is that makes the Maasai so happy, when, as perceived by westerners, they have nothing. My answer is that it’s something that our ancestors knew. Make family and friends the center of your universe. Reach out, for it is in the sharing that joy dwells. This is what the Maasai women practice and it’s what they have taught one individual American woman who lives among them.

Katy Leakey and her husband Philip founded The Leakey Collection in 2001 as a way to help their neighbors, the pastoral Maasai, during times of drought. To learn more about life in Kenya and the Maasai culture, visit Katy’s blog.

Images provided by Katy Leakey.

by Jennifer Calkins

Sand colored egg cases litter the Puget Sound Beaches dotting the city of Seattle at low tide.  These cases are produced by Lewis’ moon snails (Polinices lewisii). The mucus emitted to form the egg cases is shaped by the snail’s large foot. If you see the egg cases, you will also see empty shells of other animals with neat little holes drilled in them.  A hungry moon snail grabs a clam or mussel or some other shellfish, drills a hole with its radula (a drill-like structure found in mollusks), and sucks out the inside of its prey.

Moon snails live subtidally and spend much of their time partially buried in the sand. Often, it is only the signs of the snails that one sees when visiting a beach at low tide. But to me these concrete signs–the egg cases and shells with holes and the partially destroyed moon snail shells, their strong central helix still intact—stand for the hidden interdependence among the species living in the intertidal zone.

In many ways, the attraction of a beach at low tide is the revelation of interdependence: the crows and gulls picking their way through for food, the distribution of various sessile creatures determined by competition with one another, the hermit crabs housed within the discarded shells of small snails, the human collecting other species to consume around a bonfire. At low tide, these interconnections are obvious—exposed for a short moment in time and then covered up.

Because of the dynamic nature of the intertidal zone, we see a density of interdependence not obvious in other habitats.  But of course, the entire world is a tangled net of interconnections—organisms do not exist except through their relationship to other organisms.  The most dynamic forces in evolutionary biology—driving the diversity of life on earth—arise out of the relationships among organisms. An example:  Earth houses the richness of the living world because of the wealth of oxygen gas (O2) available in the atmosphere as well as the protective ozone layer (O3).  This oxygen was not present during the early days of the planet; rather, it was produced by early living creatures, the cyanobacteria, which appear to have emerged at least 2.7 billion years ago. By photosynthesizing, these bacteria produced oxygen gas that, by 2.4 billion years ago, had accumulated at appreciative levels in the atmosphere.  It was only after this buildup that life on earth diversified: First the eukaryotes emerged and then multicellular organisms—the plants and animals we see around us, including ourselves. This relationship among photosynthesizing species that release oxygen and most everything that lives, including humans, continues as a necessary foundation for life on earth.

Jennifer Calkins is a writer and biologist. She is the author of A Story of Witchery, Devil Card, and From a Letter on the Encouragement of Virgins.

by Sarah Townsend

I’m scheduled to pick grape leaves tomorrow for a meal that will celebrate locally grown wine and produce. I have been instructed to pick the leaves that are both large enough to stuff and not tough. I know to feel the veins and note the curvature of the leaves. I also know not to strip all the leaves from any one branch which may cause it to wither—a reminder that no one individual can carry the weight of community. These leaves will be rolled into dolmas for our dinner.

Proceeds from this meal will help launch a center that serves families of children birth to six years in Kitsap County, Washington: Peacock Family Center. Our goal is to provide an interconnected community of care under one roof with access to ongoing and flexible day care, child enrichment programming (including a progressive kid early childhood environmental curriculum), open play, and family support. The health and well-being of children are directly linked to the health and well-being of the children’s caregivers, so our center will offer programming to nurture both children and the adults who care for them. To that end, we are launching a “seed” campaign that appropriately moves from farm to table.

The making of this meal closely parallels the development of our program. It is relational and organic. We have approached each farm to ask for donations of individual ingredients. The resulting meal will include  hearth breads with wheat grown West of the Cascades in Sequim, home-made chevre, ricotta and feta made with local milk, thinly sliced tomato, sweet onion, carrots, basil, dill, cucumbers, beets, arugula, chard, cauliflower, lettuce, local lamb, and chicken. It is the human interaction required in a season of abundance—going and finding the farmer in the midst of the potato field—that nurtures a community as well as a deeper appreciation for all of our connections to each other and the Earth.

Sarah Townsend is a founder of Peacock Family Center, a nonprofit support and advocacy group for parents and children based in Bainbridge Island, Washington.

Image by Jennifer Dickert, 2006. Creative Commons license.

by Sarah Lane

Both President Obama and his former opponent John McCain endorsed “clean coal” as an important element of their energy plans. But “clean coal” is a fairy tale with a very bad ending, as in the Big Bad Wolf eats and digests Little Red Riding Hood and belches out a black cloud afterward.

The Fairy Tale

Once upon a time (February 2002) George W. Bush promised the people all over the land that he would invest $2 billion dollars over ten years to advance “clean coal” technology. The people said, “What is this wondrous thing, this clean coal of which you speak?” George W. Bush said, and I’m paraphrasing rather liberally, “Well, it doesn’t yet exist but in time, you’ll see, this magical technology will emerge.”

So companies from all over the land gathered their best people to see if they could meet the challenge. Of the first eight, two projects had to withdraw early on. Of the remaining six, two were discontinued during project development, two advanced to later stages, and one was completed. In the second round of competition, only four companies had their projects selected, and one had to withdraw eventually. One is in the operational phase and two are under development. Those two will purportedly demonstrate advanced “IGCC technology.”

IGCC. Whatever does that mean? IGCC technology (integrated gasification combined cycle) is technology that mixes crushed coal with oxygen and water to create a combustible liquid fuel known as “syngas.” The process makes coal a little cleaner, emitting a little less sulphur. One major problem with IGCC is that the cost to produce electricity with syngas is 15 to 20 percent higher than the process used by conventional coal plants (Marilyn Berlin Snell, “Can Coal Be Clean?” Sierra Club, Jan/Feb 2007). Another problem is that syngas emits more carbon dioxide than gasoline when it is burned in an engine.

Carbon Sequestration. The third round of projects will give up altogether on making coal cleaner and instead will figure out what to do with the pollutants once they’re emitted. The DOE calls this utilizing “carbon sequestration technologies and/or beneficial reuse of carbon dioxide.” The primary way of sequestering coal involves injecting the emissions into geologic formations for permanent storage. No one knows what happens when you inject carbon dioxide into geologic formations for long periods of time. But we do know that the sites will need to be monitored carefully because, if there were a leak, thousands of people could be killed instantly. In 1986, for example, in Cameroon, a volcanic crater-lake belched bubbles of CO2 into the air. The gas settled around the lake’s shore, killing 1,800 people and thousands of animals (Michael Graham Richard, “Important! Why Carbon Sequestration Won’t Save Us,” Treehugger, 7/31/06).

In addition, the storage process is very expensive and itself generates large amounts of carbon dioxide. Finally, the sequestration process only captures 85 to 95 percent of a plant’s emissions and does not capture toxic emissions such as mercury and other heavy metals (Co-op America).

In fairy tale language, carbon sequestration is like trying to put some of the evils back into Pandora’s jar once it’s been opened.

The Evils

So just what are the evils of coal? Hide under the covers while I tell you.

Evil 1: Pollution and Toxins. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, coal-fired power plants are responsible for generating more than 83 percent of carbon dioxide pollution since 1990. According to the EPA, they are the single largest source of mercury pollution in the country. In addition they have the highest ratio of CO2 output per unit of electricity of all the fossil fuels. Coal plant emissions include neurotoxins, sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxides, arsenic, hydrogen chloride, and mercury and other heavy metals.

Mercury causes brain damage, mental retardation, and blindness. It can be transmitted through breastmilk. According to the U.S. Center for Clean Air Policy, 50 percent of the mercury emitted from coal-fired power plants can travel up to 600 miles (Center for Clean Air Policy, “Power Plant Emissions and Water Quality,” October 1997, Part 1, p. 13). And what happens if that traveling mercury reaches a lake, for example? According to the National Wildlife Fund, even as little as 0.002 pounds of mercury a year can contaminate a 25-acre lake, making the fish unsafe to eat (National Wildlife Federation, “Clean the Rain, Clean the Lakes: Mercury in Rain is Polluting the Great Lakes,” p. 4, September 1999).

Compared to other sources of energy, coal looks bad. It emits 29 percent more carbon per unit of energy than oil. It emits 80 percent more than natural gas (Worldwatch Institute, “Phasing out Coal: Environmental Concerns, Subsidy Cuts Fuel Decline,” Press Release).

Evil 2: The False Promise of Liquid Coal. “Clean coal” often refers to liquid coal. The idea is that coal converted into liquid form can be used to power vehicles, thereby eliminating our dependence on foreign oil. But the problem with liquid coal is that when you burn it in your engine it isn’t any more clean than if you burned coal rock in a coal plant. Burning liquid coal produces a little under two times the amount of carbon dioxide emissions of regular gasoline (27 pounds of CO2 per gallon of oil and gas versus 50 pounds of CO2 for liquid coal).

Evil 3: Mining. Whether you are producing liquid coal or regular coal, “clean coal” or regular old dirty coal, the coal has to be mined. With new attention and money given to “clean coal,” mining will certainly increase. Mining is a highly destructive activity that generates hazardous and acidic waste, contaminates groundwater, and requires the clearcutting of native hardwood forests so that mountaintops can be removed, opening access to coal.

The mining process generates liquid waste called slurry, a mix of carcinogenic compounds and heavy metals. The slurry is stored in open lagoons that, of course, sometimes break and flood. This is even more likely during periods of heavy rainfall and flooding (such as during global warming). Eighty percent of the coal waste surface impoundments do not have liners. Less than half the landfills and only 1 percent of impoundments have groundwater monitors (“Fast Facts on Air,” A Sourcebook for the Clean Air Advocate, Clean Air Network, 2000), making accidents even more likely.

Mining destroys landscapes. In Appalachia nearly 1 million acres of hardwood forests, a thousand miles of waterways, and more than 470 mountains and their surrounding communities have been obliterated in the last twenty years in the process of mining. (Jeff Biggers, “‘Clean’ Coal? Don’t Try to Shovel That,” Washington Post, March 2 2008). When a mountaintop is dynamited off and then its contents are cleared, the contents are piled up in the depressions between mountains. The result is a flattened landscape.

Mining is also dangerous to miners. More than 104,000 miners have died in coal mines in the United States since 1900. Twice as many have died from associated black lung disease. The Bush administration has called for reducing mine-safety funds by 6.5 percent (Biggers).

The Moral of the Story

The mercury contamination generated by the coal industry should be enough to persuade human civilization to shut it down once and for all. The talk about “clean coal” does not address toxins like mercury. It does not address the pollution and hazards of mining. It only addresses (a) a fraction of the carbon emissions generated by coal plants and (b) the development of liquid coal as an alternative fuel source. But carbon sequestration is a highly expensive and unproven, possibly risky venture that fails to capture all carbon dioxide emitted. And the burning of liquid coal emits more carbon dioxide than gasoline does. So what exactly is the clean part of “clean coal”?

The fact is that it is politically expedient to talk about “clean coal.” The states that are the big prizes in this election will stand to earn lots of cash in the decades ahead from their coal industries. But the cost in lives and quality of life cannot easily be measured. Once a politician has made a promise, there is the expectation of follow through. None of us can afford this particular promise. It includes no happily ever after.

Image by TheWritingZone, 2008, Creative Commons license.

©2008 ProgressiveKid

by Sarah Lane and Julie Hall

Our July issue features the dueling and yet associated themes of Independence and Interdependence. As living organisms, we are all more or less independent, able to perform certain functions—swallowing, moving, gripping, looking—on our own, and yet each one of is connected to all others on this planet. Whether tree, primate, amphibian, parasite, flowering plant, reptile, insect, aquatic mammal, or crustacean, we are all inextricably linked by virtue of place. Here’s an example (look here for the source):

• The drop by one or two degrees Fahrenheit that comes with global warming (caused to great extent by human activity) has lead to an outbreak of mountain pine beetle infestation in western pine forests.
• That means that many of our pine forests are in jeopardy.
• That means that they will release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
• That means that instead of the forests serving as a carbon sink, they are becoming a net carbon source.
• That means that global warming will increase.

But the relationship between idependence and interdependence is evident in the political, social, and economic realms too. Our political goals are now being framed in terms of independence: We want to be independent of foreign oil. Our states seek energy independence and the independence to make their own decisions about voting rights and marriage. We wish to be independent of the pressures of  big business lobbies, of fear of rogue states and their nuclear capabilities, of the demands of our allies. But at the same time, we come to see that there is no such thing as independence. A hurricane or a guerrilla war can affect gas prices. A flu outbreak across the world can reach us in a day. The activities of a few unscrupulous individuals in a particular economic climate can damage economies all over the globe.

Perhaps one of the best examples of our independent/interdependent relationships on Planet Earth is water: water as moat, as boundary, versus water that flows from one shore to another, that we all drink, from which we fish, that we all depend on. In this issue, Blue Planet Run, an organization dedicated to providing safe drinking water to people all over the planet, shares 24 interesting and surprising facts about water. And we want you to share your specific reactions to a photo in Blue Planet Run’s new book, The Race to Provide Safe Drinking Water to the World. You could win a free copy of this beautiful full-color book. At Kids’ Rock, kids can read about young Katie Spotz’s planned incredible solo-row across the Atlantic to raise awareness of and money for Blue Planet Run’s mission.

Birds live largely independent existences from their human neighbors, and yet humans and birds, especially urban birds, have a large impact on each others’ lives. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Celebrate Urban Birds Project provides an interesting look at pigeons and other common urban birds. At Kids’ Rock, Celebrate Urban Birds introduces kids to some interesting urban birds and presents eleven fun bird-related activities.

Kirsten Coraro, founder of Nexyoo.com—a company dedicated to empowering eco-friendly businesses, conscious consumers, and the planet—takes a hard look at our economic independence and interdependence, advocating for a new green, conscious consumerism. And at Kids’ Rock, we bring back two P3 features on our planetary interdependence in the realm of garbage, one examining the ways garbage unites us and the other showing kids what they can do to declare their independence from garbage. Look for more upcoming features on helping your kids learn to assert their independence while exploring their dependence on and relationships with the rest of the globe.

We’re all in this together, each of us in our own ways. We encourage you to join us here at PK Reader by becoming a member and by contributing your opinions and ideas. PK Reader is a community of diverse, strong voices, and we want you to be a part of it.

©2009 ProgressiveKid

Image by Matt Mangum, 2007, Creative Commons license