intellectual properties

AB 68: The Bag vs. The Bay

my favorite environmental pet peeve, plastic, is soon to be up for vote in the CA Assembly.

i’ve written before about the plastic island floating out the pacific, because plastic never degrades and the ocean currents sort of wrangle it all into one place.  it’s horrific.  while i know that not everyone is in the habit of carrying a resusable bag with them (YET), i also find it horrifying that people in stores use plastic bags to carry out items that could easily be carried out by hand – like a single bottle of soda. i see it all the time.  or that baggers automatically DOUBLE plastic bags and so you wind up with 8 of them, not 4. public service announcements about plastic being bad for the environment haven’t changed consumer or corporate behavior because there hasn’t been any 1st-person impact to most consumers that they are aware of.

not long ago a bill was passed that set up all kinds of rules about plastic bags (see “Existing Law” summary below), mostly that stores have to provide a way to recycle them, but that really hasn’t done enough.  every time i go into a store, the bag recycling bin is completely overflowing. so most consumers take the bag, they use it, they throw it away. there really was no consumer impact, only impact on companies who now have to deal with overflowing bins of plastic in their stores.

so the next step is to create that 1st person impact by instituting a fee.  you want a plastic bag for your pack of gum?  ok.  that’ll be $.25. it’s unfortunately true that sometimes the only way to change human behavior is to make them pay for it.  Assembly Bill 68 establishes a $.25 fee for all plastic bags.

this isn’t that groundbreaking, and not some crazy scheme that California has come up with because of the budget crisis – although the revenue will help keep some agencies, like the Integrated Waste Management Board – afloat. Washington, DC placed a fee on them last month, and LA’s ban will go into effect next year if this bill fails.  China and Bangladesh have already banned them (saving China an estimated 37 million barrels of oil per year!), and Ireland’s fee reduced use by 90%.  For California – one of the most populated states in the US – to establish such a fee would only be logical.

Fellow Californians: Please send a message to our State Representatives asking them to support this legislation!

AB 68, the Single-Use Bag Reduction Act, is an important step to reduce plastic bag pollution in California and the Bay. It will help people make the switch to reusable bags and dramatically decrease consumption of plastic and paper single-use bags by charging a statewide fee for them, beginning in 2010. Revenue generated from the fee will be used for other trash reduction and litter prevention programs. Please support AB 68, a bill critical to achieving California’s goal of eliminating plastic marine debris.

introductory text of the bill below. note that people on public assistance are excused from paying the bag fee, so for those who fight this kind of use-tax because it “punishes the poor” have no ground. also, this bill sunsets in 2013, so it’s a trial.  i’d prefer just an all out BAN on the damn things, like China has, but this is a step in the right direction.

(YES I AM A TOTAL ECO-WORRIER. this isn’t about “holier than thou”. this is about “holy shit, we’re screwed.”)

see The Bag vs. The Bay for lots of info on how plastic bags directly affect SF Bay.

btw: the 2nd most abundant ocean pollutant?  cigarette butts. those aren’t biodegradable either, and fish and other sea animals eat them and die. :/

AB 68:
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my story with stuff

a friend just sent this SFGate article about a small urban farmer in oakland, which is interesting if you’re into this little subculture movement. how is it different than being a small rural farmer? not much, it turns out.

but the one sentence that really caught my eye was this:

I never learned how to take care of things because I’m used to them disappearing. The material world escapes me.

i’m going to ramble here for a minute.

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we add up

my (new awesome) friend marty was wearing this supercool t-shirt last night from weaddup.com that reflects the quote i’ve had as the tag to this blog for a while: “a movement is only people moving”. the idea is that not everyone can do everything possible to save the planet/humanity, so pick one thing, and represent!  each shirt is individually numbered when you order it, so you’re uniquely identified as person #00012148 who has made a lifestyle change to help save the planet.

The climate crisis is real and happening right now. It’s easy to feel helpless and overwhelmed. People are asking, “What difference will changing my light bulbs really make? The problem is so huge, and I’m just one person.”

WE ADD UP is a global campaign using organic cotton t-shirts that literally “counts you in” in the fight against global warming. Every shirt is printed by hand with a unique number. YOUR number represents your place in the sequential global count of all the people who are taking steps to help stop climate change. As the count grows, we demonstrate to the world that “WE ADD UP.” On the back of each shirt is a word or phrase that describes an action almost anyone can take to reduce their carbon footprint – the contribution their lifestyle makes to greenhouse gases – such as, Unplug, Lights Off, Carpool, Hybrid, Bike, Buy Local, and 18 others. You choose which action you are committed to doing and get counted in. No one can do everything. Everyone can do something. And, WE ADD UP.

100% organic cotton, USA made, sweatshop-free, and printed with YOUR number.

i do more than one of these things (recycle, vegan, unplug, organic, buy local, drink tap water, shower together), but i’m choosing BIKE because as of the end of this month, i will no longer have a car and will become a full time bike/mass transit commuter. jay is losing his company car privileges, and he needs a car to commute. for the last couple of months i have been biking to work half the time anyway, so he’s just going to use our car. i just can’t imagine buying another car for so many reasons, when i can reasonably bike and/or take the bus. it will make some aspects of my life more difficult (no more stopping at the grocery or running errands on the way home from work, and getting to the gym from the office in time for the classes i like to take will be a challenge), but at the same time, i really enjoy riding my bike around the city, especially to work in the morning, so i’m sort of looking forward to the shift. at least until it starts getting dark and cold and rainy.

i might also get a ‘DRINK TAP‘ shirt because of how completely wasteful buying bottled water is, and i’d certainly like to promote more drinking of tap water.

URGENT: california state parks

you may have heard that due to the state of california budget crisis, the state has said it will close 220 of the state parks. that’s 80% of them.
this will not solve the problem.
in fact, for every $1 invested in a state park, the state gets $2.35 back in tourist dollars.
it will only make the problem worse.
not to mention all the other issues with this preposterous idea. quality of life, jobs, protecting special places.

the savings derived from cutting the parks out of the budget would amount to 0.26 percent of the $24.3 billion budget gap.

“It’s a very, very tiny portion of the financial need, but the impacts would be draconian to say the least,” Goldstein said. “Not only is this bad for people who are relying on state parks more than they ever have for recreation and vacation, but it is also bad for the communities surrounding these parks.”

Stearns said 79.6 million people visited state parks last year. A huge number of reservations for campgrounds have already been made throughout the summer and into November, he said. Analysts estimate park visitors spend roughly $2.6 billion a year in and around the parks.

Goldstein said for every dollar spent, the state parks generate $2.35 in tax revenue from economic activity in the local communities surrounding the parks. That means the state could potentially see a reduction in revenue by closing the parks.

That’s not even counting the loss of day-use fees and the cost of patrolling the closed parks to make sure arsonists, vandals, transients, hunters and marijuana growers don’t move in, she said.
–SF Gate

this option should not be on the table.

please send a msg to the capital telling them so here or here. you can also donate to the California State Parks Foundation to help them fight the fight.

motivation

motivation, originally uploaded by amyleblancdotcom.

Celebrate EARTH day this Wed 4/22 (or all week, like i am!) AND get your ass in gear: WALK somewhere.

excessive behaviors

i have known and spent a lot of time with someone for almost 9 years now who drinks at least 2 cups of coffee every day, and never, ever, brings a reusable cup. i have been using a resuable cup every day for the same amount of time. so: 9 years x 365 days x 2 cups = ~6,570 paper cups, with plastic lids, that he has disposed of, while i have used ~1.

this kind of thing drives me nuts. i mean, on a rare occasion, i will get a to-go cup, if i forgot mine, or i am wanting a beverage at unusual place and time and without container. but why does someone who HABITUALLY drinks coffee at the same time, from the same place, refuse to bring a cup? i even bought him one once. he never used it. i, on the otherhand, will often forgo getting a drink when i am thirsty because i don’t have a cup, or getting food to go when i am hungry because i don’t want to get the plastic forks/spoons/containers. it can wait.

people sometimes think i’m being really ridiculous about this. but i do, honestly, i do, think that every. single. thing. matters. but i find i am often alone in this, especially about the cups.

and so i was SO EXCITED when i recently watched this TED video, in which Chris Jordan uses statistics about disposable cups to try to visually show the impact of people not recognizing their individual actions as collectively consequential.

i really like this talk because he gets into exactly why i get so unnerved about things like disposable cups in a way i could never before articulate, and then makes a really beautiful point in the end about our culture and mindfulness.

watch it.. it’s only 11 minutes.

the thing about cups haunts me.
40 million paper cups. every. single. day. mostly for coffee.
410,000 every 15 minutes.

think about it. please. (also embedded below)

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consumer ripple effects

i wanted to write that i would be less ranty in my blog this year, but i’m not sure i can keep that commitment.

everything you buy has a consequence: i’ve ranted about diamonds and roses before, but what about your iPod?

post-consumer dreams

please don’t get me wrong: i feel for the people who have lost their homes and jobs. except for those on top who caused the problem in the first place – i don’t feel bad that they’re out of a job.

i am not a nihilist. or an anarchist. or a communist. or a defeatist. but i agree with the assessment and sentiment that this economic downturn might be just what the doctor ordered to change the negative consumer behavior patterns in this country. like other addictions, sometimes you need to hit rock bottom and be forced to sweat it out with some DTs to get it out of your system. a fast. a cleanse. an intervention. a forced change.

oh, suddenly you can’t buy your kids a bunch of crap for christmas? i’m sorry, i don’t really feel too bad. if you’re having trouble paying the bills and eating, yes, i have sympathy. but that you didn’t get the huge flat screen TV you wanted isn’t keeping me awake at night.

the american economy has been riding on a wave of bubbles: the dot.com bubble, the housing bubble, natural resource bubbles, financial market bubbles….and now they’ve all burst.

some people have some terrific big ideas about what needs to happen, and much of them revolve around recognizing limits: natural and economic. take this interesting analogy:

The closer the economy approaches the scale of the whole Earth, the more it will have to conform to the physical behavior mode of the Earth. That behavior mode is a steady state – a system that permits qualitative development but not aggregate quantitative growth. Growth is more of the same stuff; development is the same amount of better stuff (or at least different stuff). The remaining natural world is no longer able to provide the sources and sinks for the metabolic throughput necessary to sustain the existing oversized economy – much less a growing one. Economists have focused too much on the economy’s circulatory system and have neglected to study its digestive tract. Throughput growth means pushing more of the same food through an ever larger digestive tract; development means eating better food and digesting it more thoroughly. Clearly the economy must conform to the rules of a steady state – seek qualitative development, but stop aggregate quantitative growth.

for example:

Ninety-nine percent of the things we buy end up in the landfill within six months of their purchase. — alternet

does that sound healthy? it seems a holistic diet is good for the economy as well as the body, and all the processed junk needs to go. are we post-consumerist yet?

(please watch The Story of Stuff if you haven’t already.)

related: recycling used to be a lucrative biz, now no one wants your trash

do the math

watch this for a minute:

hippies and hipsters suffer the same fate

Traditionally, environmentalists have not been in very high demand as friends. This is in part because they have developed a reputation for being long-winded and angry about the state of things, because they want you to replace all of your belongings with green ones, and because until now, they have been largely inaccessible, living in communal farms in Vermont and in the world’s biggest hippie compound—commonly re­ferred to as the Pacific Northwest. They can seem like a very difficult group to infiltrate and eventually exploit.

–intro to stuff environmentalists like

“environmentalism” (quotes denoting a specific trend which many say has, as a social movement, failed, and has IMO now been greenwashed to death) is now popcultural enough to be a massive joke.