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EarthTalk®

by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss

EarthTalk®

E - The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: I like the feel of carpeting, but I’m concerned about all the chemicals. What are some good non-chemical (but still soft!) options? -- Jennifer Jones, Madison, WI

Modern day carpets, in all their plush and stain-resistant glory, are wonders of technology and help make our homes and workplaces more comfortable. But the typical carpet, made from petroleum-based synthetic fibers, contains dozens of chemicals and gases, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other potential toxins—and they can compromise indoor air quality for years on end and cause dangerous reactions in the sensitive among us, including little ones and the elderly.

Fortunately today there are many green options when it comes to carpeting and alternative floor coverings. Green Depot—the nation’s leading supplier of environmentally friendly building products, services and home solutions with 13 retail stores nationwide—sells a lot of wool carpeting, which is typically all-natural, renewable and is the most logical option for those who want the look and feel of real carpet without the chemical impact. Wool carpeting is pricier than synthetic, but those seeking peace-of-mind might not mind paying a premium. Some leading makers of all-natural wool carpeting include Bloomsburg, Earth Weave, Helios, Natural Home and Woolshire. Wool is also a great material for rug pads, as it dampens sound, inhibits mold and provides insulation. Green Depot’s favorite is Whisper Wool Underlayment.

Some other choices in all-natural carpet include sisal, coir and seagrass—though these all-natural materials tend to be harder than traditional carpeting and as such might take some getting used to underfoot. Contempo Floor Coverings is one of the leaders in this up-and-coming segment of the flooring industry.

Another green option is carpet tiles, because small sections rather than entire carpets can be replaced when stains or other problems occur. One particularly green carpet tile manufacturer is FLOR, whose products are made with renewable, recycled and recyclable content. The company also takes back its old carpet tiles for recycling and reconstitution into new recycled fibers and backing materials. FLOR’s products use some synthetic materials, but most styles meet or exceed the Carpet and Rug Institute’s “Green Label Plus” standards for low VOCs. Greenfloors.com offers yet another option for synthetic carpeting made from recycled and recyclable materials, while Mohawk’s Aladdin carpet is made from recycled PET soda bottles.

While carpeting in one form or another is no doubt the softest option, cork flooring is also warm and somewhat cushy. Cork is inherently green because it’s made from the bark of the cork oak tree which grows back every three years with little to no fertilizer or pesticides needed. It’s also resistant to mildews, molds and other unwelcome microbes. Cork flooring is also a nice choice to “warm up” kitchen and bathroom floors. U.S. Floors offers a wide variety of cork and other sustainable flooring options.

Of course, keeping tidy is also key to a healthy indoor environment: Frequent vacuuming of rugs and cleaning of flooring can help reduce exposure to toxins like lead and pesticides that can be tracked in from outside. Using doormats and removing shoes when coming inside can also help mitigate such risks.

CONTACTS: Green Depot, www.greendepot.com; FLOR, www.flor.com; The Carpet and Rug Institute, www.carpet-rug.org; Greenfloors.com, www.greenfloors.com; U.S. Floors, www.usfloorsllc.com.

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E - The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe. Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

EarthTalk®
E - The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: I heard that my food choices can affect the use and therefore availability of fresh water around the world. How so? -- Denise Beck, Washington, DC

Our food choices and the availability of fresh water are inextricably linked. The crux of the problem is that human population numbers keep growing—we recently topped seven billion people worldwide—yet the amount of fresh water available remains finite. And growing food and raising livestock to feed increasing numbers of humans takes a great deal of water. Worldwide, some 70 percent of fresh water is used for agriculture. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that, by 2050, two-thirds of the people on the planet will lack clean water to meet even basic needs.

According to the Vegetarian Resource Group, the livestock industry is the largest user of fresh water in the U.S. and in many other countries. The billions of livestock animals raised for food around the world each year consume substantial amounts of water directly. The industry also negatively impacts the replenishment of fresh water through the compaction of soil, the degradation of banks along watercourses, the clearing of forests to expand grazing, and other factors.

An even larger issue is the water needed to grow the feed that livestock eat. Researchers for the 2006 FAO report “Livestock’s Long Shadow” report that 2,400 liters of water go into the production of one hamburger, while only 25 liters are needed to produce a potato. Likewise, a cheese pizza requires 1,200 liters of water—given the drinking, cleaning and feed needs of dairy cows—while a tomato pizza only needs 300.

Eliminating meat consumption would be a surefire way to save vast amounts of fresh water, and switching to a vegetarian or vegan diet is one way an individual can make a big impact on water consumption. “On average, a vegan, a person who eats no meat or dairy, indirectly consumes nearly 600 gallons of water per day less than a person who eats the average American diet,” reports Sandra Postel, director of the Global Water Policy Project and the lead water expert on the National Geographic Society’s Freshwater Initiative.

But those loathe to giving up meat entirely should consider switching to only grass-fed beef. According to Postel, it takes some 5,300 liters of fresh water for every dollar’s worth of grain fed to a typical beef cow, while the water required to feed grass-fed cattle falls on the pasture from the sky, meaning it is free and does not deplete groundwater reserves at all. “Not all burgers are created equal,” she says.

Postel adds that another way to cut down on one’s water footprint would be to give up or cut back on coffee: One cup takes some 55 gallons of water to make, with most of used to grow the coffee beans.

Choosing organic food can also help keep an individual’s indirect water consumption in check. Organic farming techniques conserve water both by using less, increasing the water-holding capacity of soils and reducing erosion as well as by not polluting nearby water bodies with run-off from synthetic chemical inputs.

CONTACTS: Livestock’s Long Shadow, www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.htm; Global Water Policy Project, www.globalwaterpolicy.org; National Geographic’s Freshwater Initiative, http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/about-freshwater-initiative.

EarthTalk®
E - The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: What are the main drivers of food scarcity that lead to so much starvation around the world, and how can they be addressed? -- Marjorie Millerton, Provo, UT

Food scarcity is a bigger problem than ever as human population numbers continue to swell, putting additional stress on already fragile food production and distribution systems. And it’s not just happening in far away places: A recent report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that the number of U.S. homes “lacking food security” rose from 4.7 million to 6.7 million in just the last five years.

Meanwhile, the United Nations’ World Food Program reports that a billion people around the world—one in seven of us—don’t have enough to eat. And projections of food prices doubling by 2080 turned out to be gross understatements: Some key crops have doubled in price in just the last decade. Food scarcity leading to hunger kills more people today than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

“World population growth is outpacing food production, particularly with the four crops that provide the bulk of the world’s nutrition: wheat, rice, corn and soybeans,” reported Robert Roy Britt in a June 2011 article on the LiveScience website. “As studies have shown previously, there’s little land left to convert to farming, water supplies are drying up, and global warming is wreaking havoc on the growing seasons and contributing to weather extremes that destroy crops.”

There are many drivers of food scarcity around the world, but drought exacerbated by climate change is perhaps the biggest today. “Scientists have been predicting for years that a warmer planet coupled with increasing water demands could cause food shortages,” says Britt. Meanwhile, increasing demand for fresh water is drying out aquifers faster than nature can replenish them, making water scarcer for farmers.

“With food scarcity driven by falling water tables, eroding soils and rising temperatures, control of arable land and water resources is moving to center stage in the global struggle for food security,” reports Lester Brown of the U.S.-based Earth Policy Institute. “In this era of tightening world food supplies, the ability to grow food is fast becoming a new form of geopolitical leverage. Food is the new oil.” Another big contributor is waste: A 2011 United Nations study found that 1.3 billion tons of food, about one-third of global food production, is lost during production or wasted after being partially consumed.

According to Oxfam, the world’s poor spend three-quarters of their income on food. A survey by Save the Children found that 24 percent of families in India, 27 percent in Nigeria and 14 percent in Peru now have foodless days. “By 2050, there will be 9 billion people on the planet and demand for food will have increased by 70 percent," says Robert Bailey, Oxfam’s senior climate advisor.

Food scarcity is a tough nut to crack. Greenhouse gas emissions need to be substantially cut back, as does meat consumption, which exploits land better used directly to grow crops for human consumption. Family planning can play a key role in curbing population growth. And policies such as in the U.S., where in 2011 30 percent of the grain harvest was used to distill ethanol to fuel cars, only make matters worse.

CONTACTS: United Nations World Food Program, www.wfp.org; LiveScience, www.livescience.com; Earth Policy Institute, www.earth-policy.org; Oxfam, www.oxfam.org.

EarthTalk®
E - The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: I’d like to have a garden that encourages bees and butterflies. What’s the best approach? --Robert Miller, Bakersfield, CA

Attracting bees and butterflies to a garden is a noble pursuit indeed, given that we all depend on these species and others (beetles, wasps, flies, hummingbirds, etc.) to pollinate the plants that provide us with so much of our food, shelter and other necessities of life. In fact, increased awareness of the essential role pollinators play in ecosystem maintenance—along with news about rapid declines in bee populations—have led to a proliferation of backyard “pollinator gardens” across the U.S. and beyond.

“Pollinators require two essential components in their habitat: somewhere to nest and flowers from which to gather nectar and pollen,” reports the Xerces Society, a Massachusetts-based non-profit that protects wildlife through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitat. “Native plants are undoubtedly the best source of food for pollinators, because plants and their pollinators have coevolved.” But, Xerces adds, many varieties of garden plants can also attract pollinators. Plant lists customized for different regions of the U.S. can be found on the group’s website.

Any garden, whether a window box on a balcony or a multi-acre backyard, can be made friendlier to pollinators. Xerces recommends providing a range of native flowering plants that bloom throughout the growing season to provide food and nesting for bees, butterflies and other pollinators. Xerces also says that clustering flowering plants together in patches is preferable to spacing individual plants apart. “Creating foraging habitat not only helps the bees, butterflies and flies that pollinate these plants, but also results in beautiful, appealing landscapes.”

Along these lines, gardeners should plant a variety of colors in a pollinator garden, as color is one of the plant kingdom’s chief clues that pollen or nectar is available. Master gardener Marie Iannotti, an About.com gardening guide, reports that blue, purple, violet, white and yellow flowers are particularly attractive to bees. She adds that different shapes also attract different types of pollinators, and that getting as much floral diversity of any kind going is a sure way to maximize pollination.

Another way to attract pollinators is to provide nest sites for bees—see how on the xerces.org website. The group also suggests cutting out pesticides, as these harsh chemicals reduce the available nectar and pollen sources in gardens while poisoning the very insects that make growing plants possible. Those looking to go whole hog into pollinator gardening might consider investing $30 in Xerces Society’s recently published book, Attracting Native Pollinators: Protecting North America’s Bees and Butterflies, which provides a good deal of detailed information about pollinators and the plants they love.

Gardeners who have already encouraged pollinators can join upwards of 1,000 others who have signed onto Xerces’ Pollinator Protection Pledge. And the icing on the cake is a “Pollinator Habitat” sign from Xerces stuck firmly in the ground between two flowering native plants so passersby can learn about the importance of pollinators and making them feel welcome.

CONTACTS: Xerces Society, www.xerces.org, About.com “Bee Plants,” gardening.about.com/od/attractingwildlife/a/Bee_Plants.htm.

EarthTalk®
E - The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: I was wondering how toxic chlorine is, because my well water was just chlorinated yesterday and today the smell is still strong. I have a 4-year-old daughter and I’m concerned.

-- Rose Smith, via e-mail

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), chlorine levels of four parts per million or below in drinking water—whether from a private well or municipal reservoir—are acceptable from a human health standpoint. Inexpensive home drinking water test kits (from $5 on up) that can detect levels of chlorine and other elements in water are widely available from online vendors. Administering the tests is easy and can provide parents with a way to involve kids in science for a practical purpose right at home.

Chlorine was first used in drinking water to reduce waterborne infectious diseases in Jersey City, New Jersey more than a century ago. It was so effective at destroying potentially harmful bacteria and viruses that the practice soon spread far and wide. Today some 98 percent of water treatment facilities in the U.S. use some form of chlorine to clean drinking water supplies. The American Water Works Association (AWWA), a trade group representing water utilities across the country, credits the presence of chlorine in drinking water with a 50 percent increase in life expectancy for Americans over the last century. Indeed, some consider the chlorination of drinking water to be one of history’s greatest public health achievements.

But others aren’t so sure that any chlorine in drinking water should be considered safe. Opponents of chlorination point to studies linking repeated exposure to trace amounts of chlorine in water with higher incidences of bladder, rectal and breast cancers. The problem lies in chlorine’s ability to interact with organic compounds in fresh water to create trihalomethanes (THMs), which when ingested can encourage the growth of free radicals that can destroy or damage vital cells in the body. Besides cancer, exposure to THMs has been linked to other health issues including asthma, eczema, heart disease and higher miscarriage and birth defect rates.

Those with their own private wells who are skittish about chlorine have other options for disinfecting their water. One baby step would be to replace chlorine with chloramine, an ammonia derivative that doesn’t dissipate into the environment as rapidly as chlorine and has a much lower tendency to interact in bad ways with organic compounds in the water. However, traces of chloramine in the water may not be to everyone’s liking either, because it causes rashes after showering in a small percentage of people and can apparently increase lead exposure in older homes as it leaches the heavy metal off old pipes.

Another option, though somewhat costly, would be to purchase a machine to purify the water. Ozonation units, which disinfect by adding ozone molecules to water and leave no residues, start at around $9,000. Another choice would be a UV light treatment machine—at $6,000 or more—which cancels out viruses and bacteria by passing the water through UV light rays. The Clean Water Store is a reputable vendor and good online source for such water treatment equipment.

Perhaps the most sensible and affordable approach is to filter the water at the faucets and taps. Carbon-based tap- or pitcher-mounted filters can work wonders in removing impurities from drinking water. They can even be installed on shower heads for those with sensitive skin.

CONTACTS: AWWA, www.awwa.org; The Clean Water Store, www.cleanwaterstore.com.

EarthTalk®
E - The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: What is the “de-extinction” movement all about? -- Bill Mitchell, New York, NY

De-extinction—bringing back extinct animal and plant species—is a term that conservation biologists and environmentalists have been bandying about for a decade or so. But only recently have advances in genetic sequencing and molecular biology transformed de-extinction from theory into something that we are all likely to see in our own lifetimes.

Or so Revive & Restore, a project of the Stewart Brand’s California-based non-profit Long Now Foundation, likes to think. The group is creating a movement around de-extinction, and is taking the lead on efforts to bring back the passenger pigeon while helping out on other ongoing efforts to restore other extinct species including European aurochs, Pyrenean ibexes, American chestnut trees, Tasmanian tigers, California condors, even wooly mammoths.

The main rationale behind bringing back these long gone species and others is to preserve biodiversity and genetic diversity, undo harm that humans have caused in the past, restore diminished ecosystems and advance the science of preventing extinctions.

While de-extinction may seem only theoretical at this point, biologists are already knocking on its door. In 2003, Spanish researchers used frozen tissue from the last Pyrenean ibex, which had died three years earlier, to clone a new living twin (birthed by a goat). While the baby ibex died of respiratory failure within 10 minutes of its birth—a common problem in early cloning efforts—the de-extinction movement was officially born.

Revive & Restore expects to see much more progress in the coming decade given the recent focus on the topic by geneticists, conservation biologists and environmentalists. The group is working with researchers around the world to put together a list of “potentially revivable” species. Some of the criteria for whether a given species is a good candidate for revival include how desirable it would be to have it around, how practical it would be to bring it back, and whether or not “re-wilding” (returning it to a natural environment) would be possible.

First up for Revive & Restore is the passenger pigeon, which was hunted from a population of billions in the 19th century to extinction by 1914. The group has enlisted the help of bird experts around the world to contribute to the project, and in February 2012 convened a meeting at Harvard University to coordinate the next steps. Currently Revive and Restore is busy sequencing the DNA of the passenger pigeon’s nearest living relative, the band-tailed pigeon, and is simultaneously gathering DNA from some 1,500 preserved passenger pigeon specimens. The group hopes to combine this biological and genetic material to reintroduce the once abundant species.

In response to critics who question the logic of bringing back extinct species in a world potentially unprepared to host them, Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, counters that it’s our job to try to fix “the hole in nature” we created. “It’s our fault that some of these crucial species have been completely wiped out, so we should dedicate our energy to bringing them back,” he says. “It may take generations but we will get the wooly mammoth back.”

CONTACT: Revive & Restore, www.longnow.org/revive.

EarthTalk®
E - The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: What does the budget sequester that recently took hold mean for the environment? -- Jane Burgos, Los Angeles, CA

The sequester that went into effect March 1 is a budget measure that cuts federal spending across the board to the tune of $85 billion, meaning every federal agency is affected and must reduce discretionary spending. Indeed, the cuts are already having a negative impact on everything from air quality monitoring to extreme weather response capability to staffing at national parks.

Some of the harshest cuts are starting to kick in at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). On the chopping block there are some critical air monitoring sites that check for dangerous pollutants like ozone and particulate matter, as well as funding the agency has traditionally given states to monitor their own air quality. The agency is also reducing the number of staffers tasked with monitoring compliance with environmental laws, and will do around 1,000 fewer inspections accordingly in 2013.

Meanwhile, sequester-based cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) mean reduced response efforts following weather disasters, which are on the rise due to climate change. Likewise, cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration mean less funding for maintenance and operations of some weather-monitoring systems, including the national radar network used for tornado warnings, and a delay in launching two new satellites designed to help track severe weather events like hurricanes. Also, sequester-based cuts to funding for the repair or replacement of decaying water and wastewater infrastructure are putting local drinking water at risk in communities from coast to coast.

One way we’ll feel the pain this summer is via staff cuts and closures at national parks and historic sites. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says the sequester is responsible for an indefinite delay in reopening the Statue of Liberty after Hurricane Sandy (though as of this writing Liberty Island will re-open July 4 while Ellis Island will remain closed) and for undermining his ability to fight fires and clean up after storms.

The sequester also means less natural resource management. Fewer funds for fishery stock assessments means Alaskan fisheries may remain closed for longer than needed given lack of data on fish runs. And sequester cuts reduce efforts to combat illegal overfishing. Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture will treat 200,000 fewer acres this summer for “hazardous fuel,” meaning a higher risk of wildfires.

On the energy front, outgoing Energy Secretary Steven Chu reports that the sequester jeopardizes ongoing research into increasing automobile fuel efficiency and reducing gasoline consumption, in turn slowing down the country’s quest for energy independence. Also, less funding means less oversight of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for natural gas and research into the environmental impacts of the practice.

Green group leaders are especially annoyed that under the sequester oil companies get to keep billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies while drastic budget cuts limit the EPA’s ability to monitor, limit and clean up the pollution they cause. Perhaps the one silver lining is a slowdown in the issuance of new off-shore oil and gas development permits given cuts at the Department of Energy.

CONTACTS: NRDC Sequester Fact Sheet, http://docs.nrdc.org/globalwarming/files/glo_12110801a.pdf.

EarthTalk®
E - The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: I’m getting my roof redone and have heard about solar shingles. Are they available—and are they practical for the Northeast? -- John Denson, Glastonbury, CT

Solar shingles are photovoltaic cells designed to look like and integrate with conventional asphalt roof shingles. First commercially available in 2005, solar shingles were much more costly than traditional “bolt-on” photovoltaic panels, and thus were used mainly by those wanting to go solar but maintain a traditional roofline. But more recently solar shingles have become price-competitive with bolt-on panels, and are getting much more popular accordingly. Eco-conscious home and building owners might find solar shingles especially attractive when they are re-shingling anyway since the solar shingles also double as functional, protective and weatherproof roof shingles in their own right.

The biggest name in solar shingles is Dow’s Powerhouse line, which uses cutting edge Copper Indium Gallium Selenide solar cells (aka “thin-film” solar) to turn sunlight into electricity via a supplied inverter box. The Powerhouse shingles generate 12 watts per square foot and are “grid-tied,” meaning they’re designed for structures already connected to the power grid and can send excess power back to the grid. They are wireless, snap together and can be installed by regular roofing contractors just like (or alongside) conventional asphalt shingles (an electrician needs to set up the inverter box).

Dow reports that a typical residential cluster of 350 solar singles on a roof could slash one’s household electric bill by 40-60 percent. Such an installation can cost a homeowner over $20,000, but federal, state and local incentives can bring the cost to half that in some areas. Powerhouse shingles are currently available (from Dow-authorized contractors) in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Texas and Washington, D.C.

Another leader in solar shingles is building products manufacturer CertainTeed. The company’s Apollo line of grid-tied monocrystalline solar shingles and roofing tiles offers efficiency similar to larger “bolt-on” photovoltaic arrays at around the same price (and incentives similar to those for Dow may also apply) but with less bulk: Each Apollo tile is less than an inch thick and will integrate with, replace, or lay on top of existing asphalt roof shingles or tiles and generate 12 watts of power per square foot.

CertainTeed says a typical installation will save homeowners 40-70 percent on their electric bills. Their Apollo products are available across the U.S. but the company recommends using one of their authorized roofing contractors to make sure they are installed properly.

Now is an especially good time to go solar—shingles or otherwise—because costs have started to come down and the federal government is still offering 30 percent tax credits with no cap on the purchase of solar electricity equipment. Twenty-seven states and several cities offer additional incentives that can get pricing on solar gear and installations down even lower. For more information check out the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE), a free online resource provided by the North Carolina Solar Center and IREC with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy.

CONTACTS: Dow Powerhouse, www.dowpowerhouse.com; CertainTeed Solar, www.certainteed.com/products/roofing/solar; DSIRE, www.dsireusa.org.

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