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Chico, California 95926
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Cow burps and flatulence are big news.
Or at least they should be. It turns out that livestock produce more greenhouse-gas emissions than all transportation combined! Ride a bike but love your cheeseburgers? You’re on par with a vegan driving a Hummer.
The environmental impact of our food choices has too often been treated as taboo by all parties, environmentalists among them. Politicians, too, dodge the issue, knowing that careers have been destroyed when the vested interests of various agricultural lobbies, and particularly the beef industry, have been threatened. The problem is real, however. A 2006 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report titled Livestock’s Long Shadow illustrates this. While livestock give off only 9 percent of human-caused carbon dioxide, they give off 37 percent of human-caused methane and 65 percent of nitrous oxide. Methane has 23 times the global-warming potential of carbon dioxide, while nitrous oxide (a.k.a. laughing gas) has a whopping 296 times the warming potential! That’s no laughing matter. The methane is mostly a product of the aforementioned burps and farts (“enteric fermentation” and “flatulence,” if you prefer), while nitrous oxide is mostly emitted from manure sitting in storage.
A 2006 study out of the University of Chicago found that the average American diet produces an extra 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide per person per year over a vegetarian diet, which includes eggs and dairy. The researchers also found that not all meats are created equal. It was shocking to see that a fish-centered diet tied a red-meat diet as being the worst for the planet because of the energy expended during capture and transport of fish. Of course, as we live in California, our transport distance is much less than in many other areas, so the impact may well be smaller than calculated. Nonetheless, the finding that a diet with poultry rather than other meats was the second-best choice is worth serious consideration. Researcher Gidon Eshel summarizes the findings: “We say that however close you can be to a vegan diet and further from the mean American diet, the better you are for the planet. It doesn’t have to be all the way to the extreme end of vegan. If you simply cut down from two burgers a week to one, you’ve already made a substantial difference.”
Just so you know where I’m coming from, I should tell you that I eat meat, eggs, and butter and drink milk, so nothing is entirely off the table for me just yet. But I eat beef or pork only very rarely. I do not consume dairy milk or butter very often. I am working to reduce my consumption of cheese and eggs. When I eat meat, it tends to be chicken or turkey. This is a great change from what I used to consume: lots of beef and milk, and more butter, pork, and eggs than I do now. So I’m moving, if very gradually, in a direction that’s good for our environment and my health. If I can do it, you probably can, too.
To conclude, the best thing for the planet is to go vegan. Such a diet minimizes your contribution to climate change and has other benefits as well. You won’t have antibiotics or hormones in your food. Much less water will go into the production of your food. Fewer forests will be cut down to make room to grow your food. Less nitrogen and phosphorous will get dumped into your fresh water. Your food won’t overgraze and erode valuable soils. And on and on. The next-best option: Eat meat and animal products only infrequently (one to three meals per week), choosing poultry over red meat whenever possible. And finally, the easy-way-to-make-a-major-change option: Start by eating a little less of those products than you do now, and continue to cut back gradually on a week-to-week basis. Keep track (as in, write it down) or else you won’t really do it. In the end, your heart and the planet will be grateful.
Supporting Local Farmers
By Scott Wolf
Welcome to Eco-Logical, a column created to look at how we might live “greener,” more satisfying lives and walk a little more lightly on the planet in the process. This is not a “gloom-and-doom” column about how bad things are and how much worse they’re going to get. Having said that, let’s get it out in the open: Global warming is happening. It’s happening because of what we humans do in the course of our day-to-day living. An excess of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide and methane, trap heat in our atmosphere, with potentially catastrophic effects for us and our fellow inhabitants of Earth. In this column, we will talk about measures both big and small that we can tackle to turn the tide. This will be positive and focused on what we, as individuals and as a community, can do to make a difference.
Let’s start small and easy; let’s get local! With food, for starters. Produce in most supermarkets typically travels 1,500 miles before making it into your grocery cart. That’s 1,500 miles of fossil fuels burned for transport and refrigeration, 1,500 miles of freshness you’re not getting, 1,500 miles of nutrients lost, and 1,500 miles away that your dollars go. Plus, you may get some things you didn’t count on, such as preservatives, colorings, increased levels of pesticides, fungicides, other chemicals, and so on.
“Well, what am I supposed to do? Go without my veggies?” you ask. Absolutely not! A good first step would be to learn about the farms and farmers’ markets in your area. Great resources for this are www.localharvest.org and www.cafarmersmarkets.org. You will learn that Saturday is a very popular day for farmers’ markets! Chico has a farmers’ market 7:30am-1pm at Second and Wall streets year-round. Grass Valley has one 8am-12pm at the fairgrounds, gate 4, from May to October. Oroville has a farmers’ market 7:30am-12pm at Montgomery and Meyers streets from May to September. Just about every locale has at least one farmers’ market.
Making the local farmers’ market a regular part of your life is among the simplest and most enjoyable changes one can make to go green. Waking at a leisurely hour on Saturday and perusing the freshest fruits and greens while munching on homemade goodies and interacting with friends and farmers who love what they do—it rapidly becomes a deliciously addictive ritual. You’ll feel good about eating better, and you can also feel good knowing that you’ve just reduced your contribution to global warming through fewer “food miles” traveled, less packaging involved, and fewer chemicals used. If that isn’t enough, you can appreciate how the farmers get to keep 80-90 cents of every dollar, as opposed to about 5 cents of every dollar for farmers with a supermarket between you and them. And you usually benefit from lower prices without a middleman!
If you’d like to explore local food and relationships with farmers a little more deeply, consider starting or joining a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture group). Here’s how it works: A group of food buyers invests in a farm (or farms) by buying “shares” of the harvest, usually on a quarterly or annual basis. Each household receives a box of produce every week. If the farm has a great year, the buyers share in the abundance. When it’s a rough year, the farmer has the support to stay in business. As a result of this stability, farmers can plant new and different crops that might otherwise be difficult to sell on the open market, adding to the enjoyment of the buyers. Grass Valley is home to a CSA called The Vegetable Club with Dan and Jennifer Crebbin as contacts; you can reach them at 21708 Dogbar Rd.,95949, 530-346-6562.
In Chico, contact Lee Callender with GRUB (Growing Resourcefully, Uniting Bellies) at 530-680-4543 or
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. Or start your own!
“Think Globally, Eat Locally.”
What’s Does It Mean, Being Green? By Scott Wolf
“I'm interested in green homes.” “Well, you can paint them any color you like.”
So went a conversation between my mother and a real-estate agent in her Tennessee neighborhood several years back. Much has happened in the interim to put green homes on the map. We've had an energy crisis, another oil war in the Middle East, a hurricane that tore into the belly of our fossil-fuel infrastructure, and ever more evidence of human-caused global warming.
Many are coming to see green homes as essential in weaning us from our unhealthy energy addictions. Although discussion about green homes centers largely on their energy-efficient qualities, “green homes” can mean even more than that. I'll suggest the following description: Homes that are healthier for those who live in them, more resource-efficient, and/or better for the environment than their conventional counterparts are “green homes.” Let's look at these components one at a time.
With much press about “sick building syndrome” in the last decade, there has been increasing emphasis within wellness and green-building circles on minimizing or eliminating unhealthy chemicals from building materials. People are questioning the wisdom of using toxic materials that “offgas,” or release, these toxins into a house through time. Chemically sensitive people have long known that the materials causing them headaches, watery eyes, and runny noses couldn't be good for anyone. In fact, many of the gases, such as some volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and formaldehyde, are carcinogenic. Toxic substances may be found in insulation, adhesives, caulking, paints, plywood, and a variety of other materials, but increasingly, nontoxic alternatives are becoming more widespread and competitive in price.
The “resource-efficient” part of green homes consists of a) getting energy renewably and/or b) using resources efficiently. Some homes possess “active” renewable energy systems—such as solar panels, solar hot-water heaters, or wind systems—while others use “passive” solar design, which means the homes are oriented to allow winter sun to warm them through lots of south-facing windows. When the sun is higher in the summer, roof eaves and trees shield the house, keeping the home from baking in July. Green homes are best known for being stingy with energy.
These houses are generally well insulated, have high-efficiency windows, and are well sealed, so there aren’t drafts though the house. They may have high-efficiency furnaces and air conditioners, and alternatives to air conditioning, such as a whole-house fan and ceiling fans. Water heaters may be on-demand (also known as “tankless”) or superinsulated. Saving water might be accomplished with drip irrigation in the garden and low-flow toilets, faucets, and showerheads.
Some green homes further reduce their impact on the environment by using local, natural, reclaimed (reused), or recycled materials. It has been estimated that the amount of straw burned in California annually is enough to build 1 million straw-bale homes per year (local, natural). Reclaimed materials can be found in Chico at Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore at 2288 Park Avenue. In addition to diverting materials from the landfill, you can leave knowing you’ve helped in the building of low-income housing for Chico’s neediest citizens. Recycled materials, which also divert more stuff from landfills, can be found in everything from carpet to Trex decking to insulated concrete forms (ICFs) for building the walls of houses.
Being green just takes a little research and a bit of extra effort. To investigate green building materials, check out www.builditgreen.org and click on the “Materials Database” link. The store locations are very Bay Area–heavy, but if you are gathering information about the broad range of products out there, it’s a good place to start, and the “References & Links” page is a fantastic resource. If you’ve got questions or need help finding something, feel free to contact me—even if what you need is green paint.
Are you looking for a Green Home that's in harmony with your values? Contact me to find out more about sustainable housing and property. 530-345-6111 or email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
