The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide

Top 10 Earth Day top 10 lists

For Earth Day, I thought I’d review Earth Day top 10 lists and see which ones I thought were tops.

1. “Top 10 Earth Day Campaigns You Can’t Miss” – Takepart.com.

I liked this list best because it describes actions and activities from a wide variety of organizations – from Greenpeace to National Geographic to the U.S. Environmental Agency.

2. “Top 10 Cities to Celebrate Earth Day” – NBC.com.

This list is fun. Seattle is described as “Where the folks are green and the plastic bags are taxed.” Among the other cities included are Austin, Texas; Boston; Ashville, N.C.; Portland, Ore.; and San Francisco.

3. “Top 10 Earth Day Songs” – Y! Music.

Robert the Radish picked these songs, but many of those leaving comment thought “Earth Song” by Michael Jackson should have been included.

4. “Top 10 Things You Can Do to Reduce Global Warming” – Earth Day Network.

This is a standard to do list for Earth Day. I selected it because it includes “Plant a tree.”

5. “Top 10 KBB Green Stories of 2009 – Early Edition” – Kelley Blue Book.

It was encouraging to see this list of green stories about cars.

6. “World’s Top 10 Eco-hostels” – Travelbite.co.uk.

This list made me dream – Ireland, Hawaii, Singapore, England, Iceland. I’d love to spend Earth Day at any of these hostels.

7. “Earth Day 2009: Top 10 TV Shows on Planet Green” – Examiner.com.

These TV shows looked interesting and may be worth a look after Turnoff Week is over.

8. “Happy Earth Day – 10 Environmental Films You Can Watch Online for Free” – Urlesque.com.

The films highlight the impact people have on the environment, and the responsibilities they share for the planet's future.

9. “Top 10 Greenest Celebs” – Metromix/Detroit.

Here’s what 10 stars are doing for the Green Movement.

10. “10 Environmental Disasters to Remember on Earth Day” – AlterNet.com.

I put this one last because it’s discouraging to think about events such as species extinction, mountaintop removal, Love Canal, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Hurricane Katrina, and the Great Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

But that’s what Earth Day is about – to recognize all the environmental destruction that has occurred and to develop policies and projects to develop a greener world.

Copyright 2009, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Organic Transitions offers way to survive and thrive in turbulent times

The Organic Consumers Association is offering a new grassroots campaign called Organic Transitions. It’s designed to mobilize consumers and local communities to begin planning and carrying out transition strategies to help people survive and thrive in the turbulent times ahead.
 
Using this new model, organic food and farming will provide a healthy cornerstone for a new, more localized, and sustainable green economy, according Ronnie Cummins, national director of the association.

“We don’t have to wait for Washington bureaucrats or corporate marketers to tell us what to do,” said Cummins in his article “Organic Transitions: Beyond the Gloom and Doom of Economic Depression, Climate Change, and Peak Oil” on Organic Consumers Association.com.

The effort will begin with citizens organizing Organic Transitions committees and campaigns in local areas, he said. Local organic food buying clubs will be contacted and house parties and study and action circles offered.

Cummins said the timing is vital:

We still have a strategic window of opportunity to take back control over our political, cultural, and economic institutions; to create millions of urban and rural green jobs; to transform our educational systems; and to make a smooth transition from fossil fuels, climate chaos, and resource wars to a renewable, peaceful, solar-based agriculture and economy.

I agree with Cummins that we need to green and relocalize our economy and our politics.

Recently I blogged about “What Consumers Need to Do to Help Themselves During the Great Recession.”

I wrote:

What’s needed, I think, is for consumers to join together and help each other in these recessionary times. Consumers, as a player in the economy along with businesses and the government, can have power in the marketplace. However, they seldom organize and act on their own behalf. Consumers more often identify with the interests of the company or group they work for rather than their consumer interests.

Organic Transitions is a great way for citizens to come together to help formulate a new economic model so that we can survive and thrive in tough economic times.

For more information about Organic Transitions, see the Organic Consumers Association Web site.

Copyright 2009, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Baby boomers and global warming

How will global warming affect baby boomers?

I thought about it a lot in the last 24 hours as I watched the snow pile up as I blogged in the library, scraped three to four inches off my car, and slogged my way to the food co-op.

Last year, when it snowed in late March, unusual for the Pacific Northwest, I wrote “Late Spring Snow Storms a Surprise.”

I wondered in the post if global warming could be causing the strange weather. It’s possible, I learned.

I found a report from the Washington State Department of Ecology that indicated recent climate modeling results indicate that “extreme” weather events may become more common. Rising average temperatures produce a more variable climate system, the report said.

For boomers, what does global warming mean?

Say, for the sake of simplicity, that boomers will live to be age 90. That means they’ll be exiting the planet between 2036 and 2054.

What changes will boomers see in that time frame?

Baby Boomer Magazine.com makes this prediction in the article “Baby Boomers Concerned About Global Warming”:

If the warming continues, we can expect catastrophic consequences. Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating coastal areas worldwide. Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense, droughts and wildfires will occur more often, and the Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer by 2050. More than a million species worldwide could be driven to extinction by 2050.

Here are some ideas on how boomers could be impacted by global warming: Boomers:

• Will need to change their consumption habits, such as buying fewer things, using less energy in their homes, driving greener cars, using public transportation, and living in walkable and other types of eco-friendly neighborhoods and communities.

• Will need to get used to erratic weather patterns and possible storm damage to their homes or in their neighborhoods or cities.

• Will become eco-activists in greater numbers.

• Face the possible collapses of living systems in their lifetimes, such as food, energy, and materials, as the world scrambles to respond to climate change and the water crises.

• Will need to use their personal, social, economic, and spiritual assets as they get older to craft ways to use their resources to respond to a changing world.

That’s a hefty list, but something to think about as the innovative Boomer Nation, who've changed every decade they've lived in, approaches the future.

Copyright 2009, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Meatless Monday helps your health, budget and the planet

Meatless Monday, a group that encourages people to skip meat one day a week, encourages people to mark the end of Mardi Gras on Feb. 24 with less meat consumption.

Mardi Gras – also known as Carnival or Fat Tuesday – has been a time to consume the last bits of fat and meat in the home in preparation for Lent. Carnival comes from the Latin words carne vale or “farewell to the flesh.”

Meatless Monday, a project of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for a Livable Future, believes many good reasons exist to reduce the meat in American diets – to improve health, help the environment, and improve economic conditions.

Robert Lawrence, M.D., center director, suggests that people can reap big benefits by forgoing meat just one day a week:

It's easier than you think, but the payoff can be huge. Eating less meat not only helps lower cholesterol and decrease cancer risks, it reduces your carbon footprint and helps conserve fresh water. And plant-based meals cost less money, an added bonus during these economically tough times.

Diets high in meat are tied to increased rates of heart disease, cancer, stroke, and other common chronic preventable ailments, according to Meatless Monday. With American children contracting  what used to be considered adult-only diseases like diabetes and millions of overweight kids at risk for high cholesterol and heart disease, reducing meat consumption is preventative medicine.
 
At the United Nations Summit on Global Warming in December, meat production was cited as a primary source of greenhouse gas. Meat farming also depletes and pollutes our water supplies. A single pound of beef can take up to 5,000 gallons of fresh water to produce, and waste from factory farms poisons ground water and surface water.

Meatless Monday's goal – consistent with the recommendations of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and American Heart Association – is to help Americans reduce consumption of saturated fat 15 percent by 2010. That means people would need to eliminate saturated fat one day a week.
 
Meatless Monday’s online database of recipes can help people who don’t eat meat during Lent and want to continue to eat less meat. Among the group’s receipts are:

• Louisiana Style Meatless Jambalaya

• Locked Room Ragout

• Mexican Jerk Tofu

• Sweet Potato Shepherds Pie

• Hopi Vegetable Stew

For more recipes and ideas about reducing meat in your diet all year long, see Meatless Monday’s Web site.

The group has a weekly newsletter called Eater’s Digest Monday.

Copyright 2009, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Bush seeks to slash energy, environmental regulations before he rides into the sunset

While the eight-year Bush administration has been devastating for consumers and the environment, it's extremely discouraging that Bush and his agency heads are working furiously to further weaken federal laws before they leave office.

These new anti-consumer and anti-environment regulations could be difficult to undo, R. Jeffry Smith reports in the article, "Bush Administration Seeks Last-Minute Regulations."

About 90 new regulations are being developed. Among them are rules that would:

• Ease or lift existing restrictions on private industry, including power plants, mines, and farms.

• Allow increased emissions from oil refineries, chemical factories, and other plants with complex manufacturing operations.

• Change rules governing employees who take family- and medical-related leaves.

• Weaken standards for preventing or containing oil spills.

• Remove consumer safeguards in the process for settling real estate transactions.

• Allow natural gas pipelines to operate at higher pressures.

• Lift a requirement that environmental impact statements be prepared for certain fisheries-management decisions and give review authority to regional councils dominated by commercial and recreational fishing interests.

Many Americans are suffering economically from the financial deregulation successes that Republicans have thrust upon us. Now Bush and his cronies are dashing to gut as many regulations as possible to benefit business and industry before Bush leaves office.

It's discouraging that Bush and his advisers are unable and unwilling to act even now in the public interest after the terrible financial havoc they're created.

Copyright 2008, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

How you can help green America

Co-op America is celebrating its 25th anniversary.

In the Fall 2008 issue of Quarterly magazine, Co-op America offers an article on "25 Ways to Green the World."

"We've assembled, all in one place, our top, time-tested 25 ways you can use your economic power to advance the green economy," Co-op America tells its readers.

Check out the list below and select ideas that you haven't tried, and add them to your life.

1. Live simply and use less.
2. Get what you need without money.
3. Connect with neighbors.
4. Reduce, reuse, recycle.
5. Buy green and local.
6. Buy fair trade.
7. Green your food choices.
8. Put energy efficiency first.
9. Advance green power.
10. Stop dirty energy.
11. Rethink your transportation.
12. Protect the world's poor from climate change.
13. Know what your purchases are funding.
14. Stop sweatshops and child labor.
15. Advance environmental justice.
16. Support green jobs.
17. Be wood wise.
18. Choose least-toxic products; use precaution.
19. Screen your investments.
20. Invest in communities.
21. Join shareholder actions.
22. Give generously.
23. Foster peace.
24. Use your vote.
25. Educate others.

Co-op America, an organization dedicated to creating a just and sustainable society by harnessing economic power for positive change, is changing its name to Green America. The change takes place Jan. 1, 2009.

Copyright 2008, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Why food prices are rising

Opinions abound on what's causing the cost of food to go up.

Oil is not only driving up production and transportation costs, but also adding to demand for corn and soybeans, used to make alternative fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel, a recent article in The Boston Globe reported. As a result, corn prices have more than doubled in commodity markets over two years, and soybeans nearly tripled, according to DTN, a commodities analysis firm in Omaha interviewed for the article.

Meanwhile, with poor harvests in major wheat-producing regions, wheat prices have more than tripled, The Globe article stated. These crops have a profound impact on food prices because they form foundations for many products, including oils, sweeteners, and flour, the article went on to say. Corn, for example, is a key ingredient in livestock feed. When the price of corn rises, so does the price of feed, and ultimately, so do the prices of meat, poultry, and eggs.

However, the American Farm Bureau states that petroleum-based energy is the primary factor driving domestic food prices. Forty-four percent of rising food costs is due to energy costs.

Bureau President Bob Stallman said at a recent news conference that ethanol is “not the culprit that American consumers are being led to believe,” and he stressed that renewable fuel and affordable food can coexist.

In addition, Stallman said world food prices are escalating because of other complex issues such as growing world demand, particularly in nations such as China and India, as well as lower supplies due to droughts elsewhere in the world.

But suspicions are being raised that big agriculture is taking advantage of the rising cost of oil to make big profits for corporations and their leaders.

The rise in food prices has been linked to several factors, including bad weather, the higher price of oil, and the diversion of crops to produce biofuels for cars, a recent report on Democracy Now stated. The growing unrest over food security comes as major agricultural companies are posting record profits.

The grain-processing giant Archer Daniels Midland recently announced a 42 percent rise in third-quarter profits, according to the Democracy Now article. Revenues from the distribution of grains including wheat and corn were up 700 percent. Other major firms, including Monsanto, Deere, and Mosaic, have all reported similar windfalls.

And so it goes.

Celebrating the planet with gusto

Every year, people in Olympia, Wash., gather to celebrate the goodness of the earth and bring attention to the plight of species at risk.

The city hosts a glorious parade called the Procession of the Species.

A group of citizens in Olympia was looking for a way to recognize Earth Day’s 25th Anniversary and to mark action in Congress to renew the Endangered Species Act in 1995. They created a community celebration now attended by thousands of people every year.

More than 100 volunteers take on the various jobs needed to make the procession happen.

A studio opens before the parade where people can make huge puppets, floats, masks, headdresses, and banners. Recycled materials and arts and crafts supplies are available. Workshops are offered.

In addition to costumes representing species, musical and dance groups join the fun. Participants and spectators are encouraged to bring two cans of food for the local food bank.

The Procession of the Species has grown from 800 people participating in the parade to more than 2,500.

For today’s parade, we had good weather. Thank goodness. Lately in Olympia it’s been rain, rain, rain.

See The Olympian article, "Species Take to the Street for Procession," for a report on the parade. A video clip is included.

For details, see Process of the Species — Celebration.

If you’d like to start a procession in your community, see Start a New Procession.

Happy Earth Day!

It’s amazing since Earth Day was created 38 years ago that we’ve continued to do so much destruction to the environmental. But with global climate change upon us, many people are now paying attention to environmental issues.

I enjoyed the Green Festival in Seattle recently. It gave me hope that we can get started on a more environmentally friendly and people-affirming path.

My favorite speaker was David Korten, author of the book “The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community.”

“We’ve been told the world we long for isn’t possible,” Korten said at the festival.

He doesn’t agree. Korten said we’re undertaking an enormous societal shift, a great turning. He calls it earth community, where partnerships, community, and justice prevail.

Korten is cofounder and board chair of the Positive Futures Network, which publishes “Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures.”

See my post, "Moving from empires to life-centered, egalitarian, sustainable societies," for details.

Frances Moore Lappe, author of “Diet for a Small Planet” and 15 other books, spoke at the festival about shedding ideas such as waste is the norm.

Lappe believes we need a living democracy and working for a healthy environment and sustainable living is part of it.

Lappe and her daughter Anna Lappe lead the Small Planet Institute, a network for research and education on democracy.

See my post, "Lappe fears for the future; urges a living democracy," for further information.

Amy Goodman, host of the independent news media program Democracy Now!, told stories at the festival about grassroots activists who have challenged the government and succeeded.

Amy and her brother David have written a book, “Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times,” which describes these success stories.

My post, "Goodman blasts Bush; praises those who stand up," offers more information on her comments.

Videos of these presentations will be on the Coop America Web site about May 1.

See my post, "Green Web sites to help you green your life," for a list of green Web sites to help you.

If you need ideas on Earth Day activities, see earthdaynetwork.

Boomer consumer blogger meets with writers, despite another late spring, Pacific Northwest snow storm

I couldn’t believe it when I looked out my window this morning. Snow, again. And again, I was headed north.

This time it wasn’t as bad as our trip three weeks ago to Bellingham.

By the time I got dressed and went outside to take photos, the snow was melting rapidly.

So I thought, I’ll take a chance and go to the luncheon for the Washington Press Association at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

It was a great event. The purpose of the luncheon was to present awards for the association’s 2007 Communications Contest.

I received a first place award for the newsletter About Growth that I edited for the Washington State Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development. The column I wrote for people 50-plus for The News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash., garnered a second place award.

What fun. I enjoyed getting together with other writers and learning about their work in the last year. It was great for the boomer consumer blogger to get out of the house and away from the computer screen for a while.

I also enjoyed taking photos of the airplanes in the Museum of Flight. It was a good chance to practice photographing backlighted subjects.

 

The roads were good. As I returned to Olympia about 5 p.m., we had rain mixed with snow. I didn’t have any problems, but one unfortunate driver spun out of control, hurtled across the median strip, and came to rest just beyond the edge of the fast lane on the other side of the freeway. It didn’t look like a big smashup occurred, but the traffic was stopped for miles.

I certainly hope this is it for my snow photos. We had to take off our snow tires in Washington on April 5, so I don’t want to do any driving in snow conditions.