You didn't think this would be easy, did you?

Been thinking long and hard after being asked "what can we do about the fact that the EPA seems destined for dissolution"... Here's what I am thinking: This election (at it's core) is about one thing: MONEY. It's about the haves, grabbing everything they can and not caring at all about the have-nots. The dismantling of the EPA at it's core is about the fossil fuel and chemical industries wanting to keep the billions of dollars they currently spend fighting against regulation (and buying votes) in their own pockets. So the answer isn't going to be easy, but it's the only way to have a real impact. Hit them in their wallets. It will mean changing the way you transport yourself: driving less or not at all. It will mean reevaluating what type of energy you consume. It will mean not patronizing companies that are complicit in this. It will mean if you have investments, divesting from all fossil fuel ties (or if you have a pension, lobbying to get them to divest--a great resource is: https://gofossilfree.org/). It will mean taking a long hard look at how you consume products and food because it all connects back to the consumption of oil. Will it be easy? Absolutely not, but you really don't want them to win this easily, do you?

What's your footprint?

Every so often I like to visit one of those online carbon footprint calculators to check in to see how good I’m doing. There’s a lot of calculators online but I like this one the best (it allows you to fine tune your answers and paint a better picture of your true usages). So even with my recycling, my minimal meat consumption, my 45+ mpg car and my limiting my air travel to bare minimum, I’m still at 10.48 metric tons of CO₂ created by my lifestyle; 50% less than the US average, but still way above where we all need to be. My biggest culprits? The 2.29 metric tons created by my use of heating oil (necessary to keep my house/pipes from freezing in winter) and my car, my sweet little car at 3.20 metric tons for 15,000 miles of driving. Another great thing about this calculator is that you can instantly see how small changes affect your CO₂ footprint: like switching from eating only white meat to becoming a vegetarian saves a half ton of CO₂ or driving 5,000 miles less a year saves a full ton of CO₂.

www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx

Why I Didn't Buy A New Car Yesterday

(also known as "Why I Paid $4000 for a New Battery Instead".)

I’ve had my hybrid for almost 8 years now, driven it almost 150,000 miles and most of that was long range cross country driving (at least 10-15 trips). But when the good ole check engine light went on accompanied by the IMA battery light, I knew I was in for the day every hybrid owner dreads from the day you are first handed your keys. For those of you who don’t know there are 2 batteries in a hybrid, 1 is the usual car battery that all cars have, (that turns the car on, powers your radio, and can be easily restarted by flagging down a neighbor with a pair of jumper cables). The IMA (or Integrated Motor Assist) battery is what helps make a hybrid a hybrid. It’s what transfers the energy caused by braking to recharge the battery and adds additional power from the electric motor to increase fuel efficiency. But when the IMA battery is set to crap out, that’s when the tree-huggin’, reusable bag totin’, organic market-shoppin’ hybrid owner threatens a fatwa on Honda Motor Corp.

I previously had one of my IMA batteries replaced, but a dealer thought I could still be eligible for the 10 year/150,000 warranty that California had extended. No dice. After some fine begging by Gail of Lundgren Honda of Auburn, MA, we were told even though the car was bought and operated in California for most of ownership, since it was now registered in Maine, warranty: null. I could however pay to have the car shipped back to California, have it re-registered there and then they’d honor it… but doing the math, it seemed this would just end up costing me just as much (and the ecological impact of that seemed ludicrous).

So out came the credit card (actually several, since I had to pay for the battery and shipping in full before it was ordered) and now we wait for it to arrive from somewhere far off magical land (most likely Japan).

Some might think it’s crazy to shell out $4000 for a car that’s already 8 years old, but there is method to my madness. New car manufacturing is an unbelievable resource hog. And I have made a promise that my next car will get better gas mileage than the one I have now. When my 8 year old car still regularly gets 45-50 mpg, I think it’s safe to say, I’m not going to find a used car with that kind of mileage for around $4K. And the battery replacement fits into my ethos of “use it up, make it do, or do without”. Another teaching lesson here, is discovering a forum of fellow 2003 HCH owners, (http://www.amid.com/werd/hybrid-woe-ima-battery) which may or may not turn me into one of those “My Car is Better Than Your Car” aficionados. This community shows me that HCH owners are getting upwards of 200K miles and still going… my goal drive my little ‘brid till they take it out of my cold dead hands!

Only nine easy ways to fit in more fitness??

9 Easy Ways to Fit in More Fitness

Caught this aol article about 9 ways to 'fit in more fitness'...

but ... how about taking the stairs instead of elevator/escalator, parking at the first available spot (instead of driving around for 15 min trying to find the closest to the store), better yet just walking there instead and carrying your purchases home in a backpack), raking your leaves instead of using a leaf blower, shoveling instead of a snow blower, push mower instead of a gas-powered mower... All of which are much better for the environment too!

Let’s do some off-settin’!

‘Tis the season to think back on how much impact I’ve had on the planet this year.

It’s not a secret that I love to drive long distances (and conversely hate to fly, but sometimes it’s unavoidable for work) so I figured I’d add up all my miles on the road this year and head over to Terrapass and offset the carbon I’ve created.

Car Travel
2 round trip cross country trips (and a good 6 months of Los Angeles driving) in the ’03 Civic Hybrid totaling 20,216 miles, which equals 9,316 lbs of CO2.

Air Travel
7 plane trips totaling 12,049 miles of air travel equaling 4,148 lbs of CO2 emitted.
All told, 1,000 lb offsets at Terrapass are $5.95 each, so for under $84 I’ve offset my yearly travel with donations to renewable energy sources such as wind farms and livestock methane capturing. A very small price to pay for my contribution to global warming.

Doc Review: Fuel (2008)

In addition to my errands by bike this weekend, Josh Tickell’s documentary Fuel came up on my Netflix rotation and it was the perfect complement to a weekend where everyone wanted answers to what they could do about the Gulf oil spill. Made in 2008, there are some eerie statistics and images of Louisiana (did you know that an amount of crude oil the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill was released during Hurricane Katrina in the New Orleans area? No, that’s because no one reported it.) that seem quaint now compared to our current crisis. Tickell’s main sell is bio-diesel fuel, rather than ethanol or even gasoline-based hybrids. I got on board thinking ‘great let’s trade in the ‘brid and buy an old VW and get off oil dependency!’ but not so fast, Tickell puts the brakes on the positive side of biodiesel halway through the film by telling the audience that all the advances made to the biodiesel industry (the announcement that every single diesel engine in the country: buses, trucks, trains, could run on biodiesel today WITHOUT ANY MODIFICATION dropped my jaw) had all been shut down due to scientific studies and reports that biodiesel was not as clean and safe as everyone was led to believe. Definitely an interesting way to prove a point. In the final act, the documentary begins the uphill slog after these setbacks by giving updates on the biodiesel industry: companies that harvest used cooking oil, the planting of mega trees that have shorter growing spans and can be harvested for biomass fuel production, and the most intriguing: algae-based biodiesel farms which use waste water from other industries to grow algae quickly, cleanly and in a very small space. The film easily proves its tag line: change your fuel, change the world.

1,000 Mile Summer

So in lieu of attending the big cross country rally “Hands Across the Sand” yesterday to protest offshore oil drilling (to attend I would have had to drive approximately 60 miles round trip to stand at the beach for an hour), I decided to continue with my trying not to use my car and did all my errands by bike again. Still on that same tank of gas from May 17^th, though the ‘low fuel’ light is starting to pop on and off. (Great thing about a hybrid is that light can go on and off for 20-30 miles depending on your current gas mileage). But a new realization came to me while I was riding yesterday, that I am now officially addicted to not driving my car. The more I ride my bike, the more I want to ride my bike. I had one of the best rides yesterday and I am realizing that I can do pretty much all my errands using my bike or my feet. I can go to the library (I remember once carrying 10 books home in my CamelBack). I’ve carried a 6 pack of beer and a bag of chips home in that bag too (separate occasion, of course). And this week I rode my bike to work 4 days out of 5 with my brand new computer strapped to my back. It can be done! So during yesterday’s errands (pharmacy, bank, grocery store, 2 libraries) I devised a little challenge for myself: I am naming this the “1,000 mile Summer” to see if I can ride my bike at least 1,000 miles this summer. Including what I’ve ridden this month so far, I’m up to 96, but there are at least 10 weeks to go. The big challenge is that while I would ride my bike to work every day if I could, I have a job with hours that wildly fluctuate (sometimes I’m in as early as 7am, and out as late as midnight, sometimes 6 and 7 days a week), and the summer temps in LA get up over 90º. But that’s why they call it a challenge.

Reading List: "Greasy Rider: Two dudes, one fry-oil-powered car, and a cross country search for a greener future." (Greg Melville, 2008)

When Greg Melville needed a new car, he and his wife decided to try a greener route: why not buy an old diesel powered automobile and convert it to use 100% vegetable oil as fuel. Once they secured a 1985 Mercedes wagon and retrofitted it with a Grease Car system, Greg grabbed a friend (Iggy) and set out on a cross country road trip (Vermont to California with a few detours) to be (what he thinks) the first person ever to cross the nation in a vehicle solely powered by used vegetable oil. (Seems weird that it’s taken someone this long to come up with this challenge, and even the author prefaces every mention of it with “we think”). Converted Grease Cars are an intriguing idea, as they do keep (usually) older vehicles out of the waste stream and prevent a least one new car from being purchased. But more important is to realize is that they use 100% used cooking oil, (a waste product that most fast food restaurants actually pay to have taken away) to power a car and that is pretty darn cool.
The whole book feels a little thin—it feels that he had to fill it up with a lot of side trips that had nothing to do with the challenge (who cares if a college friend they visit turns out to be gay?) The “errands” that Iggy challenges Greg with are interesting enough (a trip to Google headquarters would make any eco-nerd salivate) but we’re still left wondering what happened to the bio-wagon after the cross country trip. It’s a nice story that does prove it can be done, you just have to WANT to do it; to quote Iggy “…if two goobers like us can actually get in a car and drive across the country without fossil fuels or putting a lot of carbon into the air, the answers for sustainability are easier than people think.”

An announcement today from the EPA, that starting September 1, 2008, car dealers will be required to list the fuel economy AND the average yearly fuel cost for new vehicles on the dealership stickers. Also taking effect are more realistic miles per gallon calculations, which use real world travel to gauge more accurately fuel efficiency. These new practices are designed to help remove "sticker shock" so you know what you're getting yourself into when you're shopping for a new ride.

Move over SmartCar, Here comes Air Car!

I'm always indebted to the braniacs over at mental_floss for culling the best of the web into bite-sized pieces for me. One of this week's tasty tidbits is info on "The Air Car", a super small vehicle that runs on ...air, compressed air to be exact. US production of the MDI Air Car is a ways off, they'll begin manufacturing and distributing in Spain and more importantly India, where a mass-produced pollution-free vehicle could make drastic changes to the air quality. Click here for the overview at mental_floss.

I ♥ The Metro!

Well it's time for the big tally: My goal for Memorial Day to Labor Day was to ride 1,000 miles on my bike—I gave myself a few extra days on the back end since this weekend was hotter than Hades (108º in my neck of the woods). Though I knew I was going to fall short of my goal, the grand total of 668.46 miles was still pretty impressive, oui? Best of all this goal has opened my eyes to all the possibilities for getting myself from point A to point B here in Los Angeles. I'm a public transit addict now!

Back on the Bus Y'all

So Labor Day is fast approaching, and truth be told, I will fall short of my 1,000 miles by bike between Memorial Day & Labor Day... final numbers are still out—I do have 6 days left to try and catch up. I knew it was an ambitious goal to set, and though there were a few weeks I could have ridden more, I am most excited about the fact that I've mapped out a bike/subway/bus route to my latest day job. I am most excited about how easy it is, and the fact that at peak hours, it really is fast than driving!

Gasoline Guilt Week: Day 4, TERRAPASS

Just learned that the Environmental Defense's Tailpipe Tally site has been "retired" (no explanation given, but seems weird because it would seem now more than ever people would want to be able to calculate their car's total emissions). Bummer because I'm adverse to doing any math myself. Terrapass.com has a quick calculator on their site and gives you the direct link to purchase carbon offsets based on how much you drive. (I know what everyone's getting for Christmas this year!) So it basically comes down to this: in my happy little hybrid, I exude approximately .4 lbs of carbon per mile. Not horrible, but not great either (in contrast, a 2007 Hummer puts out 1.1 lbs per mile) Terrapass is my new favorite site because not only can you offset your auto carbon emissions, but airline travel, as well "dorm living". And best of all, it's not even that expensive. For about $40, I can offset all the carbon my car puts into the air in a year. They take the money invested and in turn reinvest it into clean energy projects such as wind farms, biomass energy and selected carbon reduction projects. Genius.

Gasoline Guilt Week: Day 3, Book Review "How To Live Well Without Owning A Car"

A quick review of this great little guide to how to get around in our crazy overbooked lives without owning an automobile. This one's not just for those who want to go cold turkey without wheels, but for anyone who wants to drive less. It doesn't hurt that author Chris Balish is a cutie-pie news reporter from St. Louis who shares his own stories about giving up his own gas-guzzling SUV in favor of taking mass transit and riding a bike. If only everyone on the LA metro system looked like that. :)

Gasoline Guilt Week: Day 2

So if you go on the LA MTA website and plan your bus route for your trip, you'll notice at the bottom:

I had to wonder, how logical is the 56.2(!) cents per mile average from the AAA, especially when one drives a hybrid? I used this link to figure out that it supposedly only costs me 20 cents per mile. But then again I didn't factor in the $370 I just spent on tires today, so maybe that adds a penny or two. But it is pretty impressive that there's a AAA link on a public transportation site, as they are notoriously pro-car. Hmmm. I'm not sure I'm ready to give up the 'brid even if it saved me $12 a 20 mile trip.

Gasoline Guilt Week: Day 1, Get on the bus, y'all!

So I've been experiencing some major Gasoline Guilt lately to the extent that I grew fed up with my own inability to avoid "walking the talk". This weekend in an attempt to assuage some of that guilt and get myself back on the bus. No one can deny that LA is a car-centric culture but thousands of people do use the mass transit system here, successfully and as a necessity. I figured I could at least give it a try. Now I've read all the books about how taking the bus is great cuz you can use that time for more productive things like reading or being social, but the bad part about the LA bus system is the inconvenience of the schedules: case in point, the 23 mile trip by car should take 27 minutes (per Mapquest), by bus 28 miles and 1 HOUR 43 minutes. Oy. But I did it, I sat at the bus stop, I put my coins in the slot and rode 2 buses all the way down to Culver City to see a movie with a friend (Knocked Up: meh, don't believe the hype.) And while, don't tell my mother I stood on a slightly sketchy street corner downtown for 45 minutes waiting for my connection (only safety factor was that only about 4 vehicles passed in my entire wait). So the overall verdict? While an hour round trip by car ended up taking 4 hours and 45 minutes, I'm still not dissuaded by the bus. I surprised myself by being able to read and relax during the whole trip and while it won't be every day when I can devote that much time to transit, every once in a while, it can't hurt to be a little more conscious of how we travel. Coming tomorrow: AAA's cost per mile: how accurate? And is taking the bus cost effective when you have a hybrid?

Whoops...

Okay, so my goal of last week to try and make it to the end of August without buying gas backfired miserably when I only made it 75 miles in 6 days before the empty light stayed on for 48 hours and I was running on fumes. It's always disheartening when I fail at a goal like this. So I headed over to the nearby Arco (my gas station of choice, if I have to buy, I go BP for their commitment to alternative energy solutions) and fed in a $20 bill. This got me about 6.5 gallons of gas, a pretty good rate lately in LA, remarkably lower than the $3.79 a gallon we were paying back in the spring. So how far will this 6.5 gallons of gas take me? Or better yet, how long will it last me? Back on the bike today, so that's a start, but I'm trying to be a little more conservative with my estimates on how much I can realistically ride my bike to work. I would like to be better about using the transit system here. Afternoon project: get to know your bus routes!

Keep rollin', rollin', rollin'...

Thought I'd do a mid-summer holiday check in on my biking goal of riding 1,000 miles between Memorial Day and Labor Day... and a big drum roll please...

Okay, granted I kinda hoped that I was further along than that, but I can't complain too much because I have been pretty good about riding to work a few days a week. And I'm aware that I can't really get away with riding to work every day of the week (well I can, but I would rather not have to ride home at midnight after a 14 hour day). The better goal is that I haven't bought gas in over a month (and it would have been longer had I not taken a trip to Tucson). If I can get to August without buying gas, that'll be the real ticket. Got about 100 miles left in the tank. Can she do it folks? Can she go 25 days with only 100 miles of gas?

Air Quality pt. 47

Trying to muddle through Paper or Plastic: Searching for Solutions to an Overpackaged World by Daniel Imhoff (c. 2005, Watershed Media) but having trouble concentrating on all the tiny words when it's just too nice outside. One passage stopped me cold though (and I must quote directly in order to give the same impact) p. 22 "A physicist at Boeing once described the pollution from the takeoff of a SINGLE 747 like 'setting the local gas station on fire and flying it over your neighborhood.'" Woah. Seriously? As someone who lives within a half mile of a major airport, this claim is especially troubling. Why does everyone seem to ignore the airplane pollution? Why is it such a dirty little secret? SUV's bad, but DC-10 okay?

New Power from Old Energy

I recently blogged about the energy that we all produce just moving around and the possibility that one day sneakers might be equipped to harness that energy and store it in battery packs, but then I came across this posting on my new favorite website: Mental Floss about a flexible ramp that Hughes Research has created that can be placed in roadways to harness energy to power traffic signals. Called the "RP190 Power Ramp" (the video can be seen here, enjoy it's wonderful cheesy industrial video-ness and rocking soundtrack). I think it sounds like a great idea, considering it seems like a win-win situation: it calms traffic down while providing free energy. Dissenters however think that maybe wind turbines that are built into freeway jersey barriers (like the photo) might be a better use of funding. I'm kinda jazzed about these new ideas and wondering why they aren't in place already...what's the hold up people!