Coming to a Field Near You: Methyl Iodide
Apparently, the EPA has recently approved a replacement for methyl bromide, a powerful pesticide that is known to eat ozone in the upper atmosphere. This may seem like a great move, but the replacement looks to be even worse. Methyl iodide - branded by Arvesta Corporation as Midas - would seem to have some pretty dire health risks. It's so dangerous that only professionals trained in its application can be near the field during and for days after a spraying. Beyond that, the compound is suspected to cause lung cancer and birth defects. And we're going to put it on our food crops. Considering that many farmers over-apply fertilizer and pesticides "just to be sure", since the risks of a low crop yield often include bankruptcy, this raises two questions in my mind: Will all of this stuff somehow magically wash off or disappear before said food hits my table? Do we have any peer-reviewed scientific evidence that it will, or is it just marketing literature from Arvesta that we have to go on? ...
Posted on October 23, 2007 12:04:53 PM EDT
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Thinking about Green Education Kits
Speaking of all the people I know who (a) don't believe in global climate change, (b) think somebody bright and probably funded by the government will figure out how to fix it for us all, (c) are in total denial and living relatively plush lifestyles at the expense of others (whom these people don't know about, don't care to know about, or both)... What sorts of materials could a person put together to help open their eyes? This is a tricky question, especially when some of the people in that group watch Fox News. For instance, do you include An Inconvenient Truth? Or, is Al Gore too much of a celebrity tree-hugger? How do you slip past that highly-developed Fox New reality guard, and keep them from tuning out during such an education? Certainly, books like Field Notes from a Catastrophe, Natural Capitalism, Cradle to Cradle, and The Omnivore's Dilemma contain jarring messages. These books - and Al Gore's presentation, which I caught on DVD - have been enough to keep me in a state of mild terror for ...
Posted on October 15, 2007 4:06:44 PM EDT
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Interesting Product: FLOR
Recently, Emily and I decided to remove the carpeting in our living room, kitchen, and entry way, and stain the concrete underneath. At the same time we started this project (it got derailed temporarily by the scorching summer heat and high humidity...not nice times to have the windows open), I was reading about this carpet company called Interface in the book Natural Capitalism (see my sidebar for a link). Interface started out as a relatively conventional carpet company, catering to business customers with its modular carpet-square design. After reading The Ecology of Commerce, Interface's founder determined to remake the business into a green leader. Perhaps most importantly, Interface dedicated itself to the goal of reducing its petrochemical inputs to zero - not an easy thing when a large portion of your product is made from oil derivatives. This goes beyond normal recycling, where the life of an input is extended through reincorporation into lower and lower quality products. Instead, Interface's goal ...
Posted on October 15, 2007 12:08:59 PM EDT
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Reinventing This Blog
If you're reading this, you may also have noticed that the name of my blog has changed. I've been struggling with a few things over the past two years or so. First, I'm reading a lot more about the science of climate change, and about how incredibly nonsensical some parts of our non-natural world have become. This fills me with an urge to take some action to help counterbalance this insanity, which brings me to issue number two: Emily and I are only here in Gainesville for a couple more years, while she finishes up graduate school. Then, we're hitting the road again for some unknown destination...hopefu...
Posted on October 7, 2007 1:58:35 PM EDT
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