How much is $700,000,000,000?
September 29, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 6 comments
Yup, lots of zeros. Research shows that the human mind isn’t very well equipped to make sense of a figure like $700 billion. Since we usually don’t deal with numbers that large in our daily lives, a million, a billion or a trillion is just an indistinguishably big number to us.
As the wall street bailout of $700 billion is coming to all our neighborhood soon, I start to think about what this means for us.
According to New York Times, $100 billion is sufficient to provide universal health care to all people in the U.S. without it.
$6 billion is our annual cancer research. With the bailout money there is a good chance we can significantly expedite the cure for cancers.
Last Friday we learned the bad news on the greenhouse gas emissions. “Carbon dioxide output rose 3% from 2006 to 2007″, exceeding the most dire outlook for emissions from burning coal and oil and related activities as projected by a Nobel Prize-winning group of international scientists in 2007.
Worse - “Meanwhile, forests and oceans, which suck up carbon dioxide, are doing so at lower rates, scientists said. If those trends continue, the world will be on track for the highest predicted rises in temperature and sea level.”
In 2007, the U.S. spent a putrid $28 million on basic solar research. Imagine if we can spend 25,000 times of that on alternative energy research and development.
$700 billion can also put solar roof systems on 1/3 of the households in the U.S. Imagine 1/3 of the homes stop contributing to the unforgivable practice of mountaintop removal.
And no one can tell me what exactly the $700 billion will do.
I am an optimistic and hopeful person in general. But today I have a nagging feeling that we are merely rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, because so many of us on the Titanic refuses to believe that the ship is going down. You have to excuse my dark mood today. Recent events have piled on all of us.
Tomorrow, hopefully, will be a better day.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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EPA: Rocket fuel is totally drinkable
September 23, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 3 comments
I wasn’t going to write anything today until I came across this:
“The Environmental Protection Agency has decided there’s no need to rid drinking water of a toxic rocket fuel ingredient that has fouled public water supplies around the country.”
“The ingredient, perchlorate, has been found in at least 395 sites in 35 states at levels high enough to interfere with thyroid function and pose developmental health risks, particularly for babies and fetuses, according to some scientists.”
Ask me to foot the $700 billion bill for the result of greed and lack of oversight by the government. Now ask me to drink the rocket fuel. It’s all good right because we citizens don’t care about politics. Then why am I fuming recently?
Note to self: We deserve the government we vote in.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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The courage not to progress
September 15, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 12 comments
A good friend in my neighborhood is moving away. She declared that her son was almost three years old and they needed much more room than when he was a baby. I am not sure if that is the only reason that they are moving to a five-bedroom home. But it has definitely started my internal dialogue about the need to “progress” and the courage not to.
As we advance through our careers, we enjoy higher salaries and better career options, assuming the latest recession does not throw us off our trajectory. In a corporate world, we climb from an “individual contributor” to managers to directors to vice presidents. Along the way, our salaries and bonuses grow.
With higher compensation, we have greater work responsibilities and spend more time and energy at work. At the same time we’ve earned ourselves the right to buy newer cars and bigger houses.
Is that we mean by progress? Is that we think the American dream is all about?
This is what 90% of the people around me do. When we first purchased our house six years ago, our mortgage broker predicted that we would only live in the house for five years. He implied that if our careers tracked the average silicon valley pace, we’d be able to buyer a bigger house perhaps in a more desirable area.
Six year later I still love our home and have no desire to move to a larger house.
But as I said good-bye to my friend, why do I feel like such a loser for not wanting to progress along the “normal” trajectory? Do I lack the ambition to progress? What’s wrong with me?
Wait, wait, wait! Have I been brainwashed into giving too much credence to the conventional view that material possession is the only way to progress? I am far more mature in everyway behaviorally, emotionally, and spiritually. Does that not count as progress?
I look at Chile, who’s provided us with so many sage advices on how to live greener. She certainly isn’t following the conventional flow. There is Heather at SGF. She knew leaving her job was the right thing to do and turned in her notice so courageously.
In the past couple of years, I’ve come to the realization that thoughtless material possession does not add much to my happiness. Our simplified life has certainly confirmed that everyday. Yet, I can still be rattled by other people’s actions resulted from a different perspective.
Perhaps countering conventional belief that more material possession equates happiness isn’t supposed to be a cake walk. You get rattled, you feel discouraged, and sometimes you even feel like a loser.
It takes courage to not going with the flow. I am still working on that.
But at least I have come far enough to know that I am able to shake it all off after some self-doubts (sometimes extensive) and conclude once again: focusing on living rather than “progressing” is perhaps the ultimate progress.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Your vote counts
September 8, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 6 comments
Be warned. Instead of talking about green living, I am going to tread into a controversial political discussion this week. I’ve never talked about politics openly because I don’t believe one’s political view necessarily impacts her/his daily actions. However collectively political views lead to electing certain political parties and their leaders into the offices, which in turn bring about different government policies, including environmental policies.
So it’s time for me to explain why I am going to spend more time volunteering in this year’s election than on this blog.
My sister-in-law is a one-issue voter. I take it back; she is a two-issue voter: abortion and gay marriage. We spoke about the election this weekend and her position had not changed from four years ago or eight years ago. She will vote for anyone who is more likely to enable the overturn of Roe v Wade and less likely to grant gay marriage right. I love her because she is kind and generous. But for the life of me I do not understand why these two issues are above and beyond anything else that are far more urgent and critical, at least in my mind.
I finally saw her perspective during our conversation this weekend. First of all, she feels that the political stuff, economic stuff and foreign affairs stuff are too complex for her to take a clear stand on, but she knows exactly what she stands with abortion and gay marriage. Secondly she believes in an absolute morality, which prevents her from voting anyone who differs on those two issues even if they agree on everything else.
I still did not understand. But…
I thought about own political leaning. I will never be able to bring myself to vote for any one or any party that denies global warming and does not take environmental issues seriously. The crazed chant “drill baby drill” all the way from Wisconsin immediately sent chills down my spine and lost my vote.
I guess to a large degree I am a one-issue voter too – a green hurdle a candidate must clear to win my vote.
Truth be told, it is a luxury for both my sister-in-law and I to be one-issue voters. We have comfortable homes that have not been lost in the mortgage meltdown, financial security even though the unemployment just hit 6.2%, and adequate health care that is denied to millions of Americans.
I, as one of the APLS, can afford to vote on my environmental issue.
Luckily, I have found a presidential candidate with whom I agree with on most issues, including the economic strategies, foreign policies, health care reform, and energy solutions. Yes, I am still a one-issue voter, but by coincidence, I get to vote for a number of other important issues.
I’ve always maintained that to enable the path to sustainability, we need to work on three fronts simultaneously: voluntary actions by us, technological innovations and government policies that encourage the former two.
So, for the next 8 weeks, my focus will not be on the blog, but on doing my share to help my candidate. I don’t have the illusion that voting the right candidate into the office will change everything. But what the last eight years have taught me is that Office of the President can steer the direction of the country, in a big way.
Anyhow, I will still blog about my own day to day green actions, albeit spottily. Most of my spare time will be devoted to volunteering for the campaign.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Local food reconsidered
September 2, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 5 comments
As a self-professed more-than-occasional geek, I am susceptible to splitting-hair optimizing theories about just everything. Here is my confession: though I am enthusiastic about both organic and local food, I have never been able to convince myself, let alone anyone else that organic and local food are ABSOLUTELY the way to go.
It’s been observed that organic standards are under the threat of dilution to pave way for corporate profits. Horizon organic milk, for instance, has been criticized by many as barely hanging on to the text of the organic label by the skin of its teeth and wholly lacking the spirit of the organic concept.
We’ve all seen organic labeled frozen vegetables imported from countries with dubious food health standards.
What about local food? Is the concept bullet proof?
A couple of years ago, I happened upon an interview of Peter Singer, a professional ethicist (who knew there was such as profession?) who was best known for his 1975 book “Animal Liberation” – a canonical text of the animal rights movement.
In his book The Way We Eat, aside from discussing ethical issues with animal husbandry, he provided a curious example against the local food movement. Singer argued that the “socially responsible folks in San Francisco would do better to buy their rice from Bangladesh than from local growers in California.”
(image courtesy of www.greenpeace.org)
Why? California rice is produced using artificial irrigation and fertilizers that involve intensive energy use. Rice grown in Bangladesh takes advantage of the natural flooding of the rivers and does not require any artificial irrigation. It also doesn’t require as much synthetic fertilizers since the river washes down nutrients. The energy used for the Bangladesh rice to get to our table is quite efficient compared to the artificial irrigation and local trucking. Shipping, it seems, is ten times more energy efficient than trucking.
Interesting food for thought.
Then another article this year pointed out that local fruits and veggies might have more food-miles than produce at the supermarket. Wandering about San Francisco’s famous Ferry Plaza farmers’ market, the author observed that most farmers there drove their “Ford, Isuzu or Chevrolet trucks, packing anywhere between 200 and 2,000 pounds of goods”. They trucked their produce an average of 117 miles.
In comparison, the produce from a conventional distributor who buys from California, Arizona, Washington, Texas and Mexico averages 942 miles.
But they mostly use semi-trailer trucks that can pack 40,000 pounds of food. After a bunch of detailed carbon calculations later, the author concluded that the wholesaler won for the most part as far as CO2 emission was concerned.
The author of the article proceeded to provide a few other examples of local food losing out when it came to overall energy usage. “Raising lambs on New Zealand’s grassy slopes required four times less energy than U.K. lamb, which relied more heavily on fertilizer”.
More good food for thought.
I got a splitting headache when imaging tremendously controversial and detailed carbon calculation for each food. To be complete, shouldn’t we also throw in factors such as local fair land use, environmental standards, impact on endangered species, and fair labor regulations into the gigantic ethical food formula?
I gave up on splitting the hair of ethical food.
A friend came to visit with her young children this weekend. She and her husband have been expats in Malaysia for the past three years. Like on most Sundays, we went to our local farmers’ market.
My daughters’ went straight to berries and peaches. My friends’ 5 year old boy suspiciously eyed the strawberries my girls were devouring. He stuck out his tongue, “bleh.” After some inaudible exchange among the kids, apparently he was convinced to try one. A couple of seconds later, he asked in his perfectly polite English accent, “Can I have another one?”
Before long, two baskets of strawberries were gone. The only trace left was the stains on their shirts. I asked my friend what changed her son’s mind about these berries.
She laughed, “believe it or not, in our local market, we get strawberries from Watsonville.”
“Watsonville? You mean the town 30 miles south of here? All the way to Malaysia?” I was amazed.
“Yep. But the strawberries we get are always so horrible. Rubbery and bleh, like he said,” my friend pointed to her son.
“I am sure the ones we get are picked not quite ripe and sprayed with bloody anti-rot juice,” she semi-joked.
“Wow!” I was still thinking about how these strawberries got shipped all the way to Malaysia.
“Obviously he loves real strawberries,” my friend quipped as she watched her son’s stained mouth and fingers.
It was then I threw the big hair ball of food calculation out of the window. Though legitimate issues have been raised about local food, as of now, it is still a far better option for many foods in many parts of the world.
The satisfied look on the face of my friends’ son also told me that what got lost in all the calculation was the enjoyment of “real” food. Can you put an index on that?
Unless a clean, complete and convincing theory is formed, I am sticking with eating and enjoying local food.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Once a geek always a geek
August 7, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 5 comments
Yesterday I had some time to read an incredible article by Nathan S. Lowis, a chemistry professor at the California Institute of Technology. Though the paper is one year old, it includes so much astounding information that makes my head spin. I love numbers because they speak facts to me.
I’d like to share some of his thoughts in the conclusion section first:
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In the United States, we spend more money buying gas at the pump in ONE hour than we spend funding basic solar research in our country over an ENTIRE year.
In that ONE hour, more energy from the sun hits the earth than all of the energy consumed on our planet in an ENTIRE year.
We don’t yet know how to capture the solar energy cost-effectively.
We spend $200 Billion annually to fund the Iraqi war (I added this from NYT), $28 Billion on health, and $0.028 Billion on basic solar research.
I translate it to myself: We can avert the climate crisis IF (big if here) we have the will power and the vision further than what’s on TV tonight.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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It worked! sort of
August 5, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 1 comment so far
Vacuum cleaners are not that complex technically. However it is still frustrating to trouble shoot and to fix if you are like me, a hopelessly non-handy person. But after lamenting about the lost art of fix-it, I had to try and try to fix (or break) our vacuum cleaner.
But sometimes, with enough perseverance even I can fix a simple household appliance. Well, sort of.
After two hours of laying out all the unrecognizable parts, reading the trouble shooting section of the manual, pulling my hair out and cursing up a storm, I managed to make the vacuum run.
I can’t say it is fixed because I still have two small plastic pieces that don’t fit anywhere. The power cord no longer retracts. Yeah, I fixed something while breaking others. Don’t know how long it will last, but the vacuum cleaner is doing its job so far.
Considering other options - tossing it into the garbage or paying half of the price of the vacuum for repair, I am happy with the outcome. Honestly, I even felt an inflated sense of accomplishment. “It’s not like it’s a car or anything, or even a bike,” you say. I know, but someone has to pat me on the back.
But if it breaks again, I am taking it to a repair shop. While playing around me, my kids asked, “what are you saying?” as I muttered too many curse words. THAT is worth avoiding.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Luxury or Frugality
July 28, 2008
Posted by CindyC in : Opinions & Thoughts , 10 comments
During a weekend get together, some friends and I got into an interesting discussion. It started out simple enough with us talking about summer movies. Amazingly, I had actually seen a few before they came out on DVD. In any case, we were talking about Sex and the City (SATC) when one friend said, “You must be totally excited about these rent-a-designer-handbag websites.” It took me a second to realize she was referring to “Louise”, the wanna be fashionista in the movie, and her economical entry into high fashion that involved renting Louis Vitton handbags online.
Huh? I admit, once upon a time, I had the same obsession as those glamorous ladies in SATC (except I wasn’t so glamorous). But that was long ago, before a mortgage, family and a clearer shopping conscience. So I was a bit confused by her comment.
“Well, doesn’t it warm your heart that fashionistas are embracing the idea of community and recycling?” I must have had a doubtful scowl on my face since my friend defensively responded, “Does it really matter that these people are renting and reusing bags to satisfy their own vanity as long as they are reusing and not buying another handbag? How is that any different or worse than buying at consignment stores? Aren’t you a pragmatist?”
I suppose she has a point. I often tell my friends that the motivation doesn’t concern me too much as long as people are cleaning up their act. I also believe that you don’t have to make significant changes in your lifestyle to start making a difference, as long as you make changes and stick to them. But does renting (rather than buying) expensive handbags actually counts as a change? After all, does anyone (other than Carrie Bradshaw and company) really need a Hermes Birkin bag, especially considering the cost can probably feed some impoverish village for a year?
Maybe I’ve become less pragmatic and more skeptical but I don’t buy this idea as a change for the better.
CindyC at Organicpicks
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Seasonal food with shark fin soup
July 24, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 9 comments
Without unique local food, traveling would not be nearly as intriguing. Every bite takes me closer to a culture. Elizabeth Gilbert devoted a third of Eat Pray Love to her eating her heart out in Italy.
It’s fascinating to observe what people eat and how people procure their food in various countries, the closer to the food source, the better. A number of years ago, I visited the Tokyo Tsukiji fish market, the sheer scale of which completely shocked the “romantic” inference of The Old Man and the Sea out of my system.
I love visiting fresh produce market in different regions and countries. This one is fairly typical in China. In smaller cities or rural areas, markets are often outdoors. Notice there is no refrigeration, no spraying of fine mist to keep the produce “fresh”. When asked, the vendors told me exactly where the food came from - all within 25 miles of the market.
One of our bus rides took us to hilly farm fields in the south east of China. Farmers plowed their fields with water buffaloes and planted with hands. I was also told that most fields were mix-planted, i.e., many different produce and grains planted in close vicinity. This picture has beans, peanuts, orange trees and some other green veggies. The endless plantable Midwest plains simply don’t exist in China. Mass production of a single crop is probably not feasible.
In the northwest of China where deserts reign, amazing fruit and nuts are harvested in occasional oases - grapes, melons, apricots, dates, plums, walnuts, and almond. Sorta like the central valley of California.
Spices were one of the precious trading items along the Silk Road two thousand years ago. You can still find crates of spices lining the streets.
Along with the good, we also found the absurd - gimmick food like these nectarines that had patterned paper pasted on them as they were ripening. The end result? nectarines with characters on them.
And of course there is the ugly, very ugly! Shark fin soup is often served at Chinese banquets as a symbol of wealth and prestige. While the practice of finning of sharks has always been brutal, the problem was not noticeable until the economic booming in China. With the rise of the middle class, the demand for shark fin soup has been increasing. The demand is likely a primary contributing factor in the global decline of many shark species.
This restaurant proudly displays its shark fin. I am there to demonstrate the size.
Every time we are in the Monterey Bay Aquarium, I read about the horrifying practice of finning of sharks. But I think they are preaching to the wrong audience. Spend money and run smart ads in China. Educate the young. Hire celebrities if it works there. Traditions with hundreds of years of history are not easy to over throw. Then again, women there no longer have bound feet.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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My welcome home committee
July 21, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 4 comments
I am finally back from our month-long journey to the far east. It was both exhilarating and exhausting. Even though we are footloose in our bones (even our kids are getting to that state of mind), it is still nice to be home.
The first thing we visited was our nascent vegetable garden. Our hard dug and freshly planted palm-sized garden was on our minds, even when we wandered about the ancient Silk Road in the deep desert. I’d imagine the luxurious silk, satins, rubies, diamonds, pearls, rhubarb, pilgrims, monks and nomads that journeyed through this route and shaped many civilizations. Then I’d wonder how my vegetables were doing with an experimental sprinkle system.
In the cool morning air, our welcome committee glistened in the sun. My gosh, they surely grew while we were gone!
Have you ever seen one and half foot tall red-leaf lettuces? Here is one of my monster lettuces with its open arms.
Our corn is not bearing any sweet kernels yet. Still the plants are tall and graceful.
Bush beans are ready to be picked.
So are the carrots.
Apparently some uninvited visitors have been feasting on our strawberries and have taken the liberty of lifting our peppers altogether. But seeing our other healthy plants put me in a good mood. So I won’t hunt them down or even hold any grudge. But critters, we are back. Don’t mess with my garden again!
I laughed at my strange attachment to our silly little vegetable garden. I’ve come home from far away places many times before. But this time, it is different. This time I have a welcome committee.
p.s., I will post pictures of our journey later this week.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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