Great Lakes Green Pages

Why I will never buy gas from Chevron…

2010-03-03T17:10:09Z

Big corporations are supposed to make a profit. Got it. That is their mandate and their responsibility to their shareholders. No problem. But any profit that is squeezed out at the expense of a less educated and resourceful populace is shameful and wrong. That is why I am boycotting Chevron in perpetuity. If you want to really know what is going on and what has been going on in Ecuador, then you must get your hands on a copy of CRUDE: THE REAL PRICE OF OIL.

Let me lay it out for you in a nutshell-at least my interpretation of it. In the 1970’s we had an oil crisis. I have to remind people about this, because when I say it to many folks, they are too young to remember that it happened. Carter was in office and we could not get enough oil. There simply wasn’t any. We had rationing. Most states had a program where you could only buy gasoline on certain days based on your licence plate numbers (i.e. if your plate number ended in an odd number, you might only be able to fill up on M, W, F). Some places limited the amount of gasoline you could buy at a time. Prices started to skyrocket. Gas supplies ran out at stations and so on your day, you might spend half the day waiting in line to get a fill up for your big American made car. Oh, and we were in a recession. This was a crisis that the American people had no control over and nothing could be done. We were at the mercy of the oil companies. Truth is, there was no crisis. It is clear now, in retrospect, that there was never any risk of running out of oil. We had plenty of gas, and rationing was a construct to create panic and make us pay more for our gasoline. Similar to the tactics used every time there is a natural disaster and the price of gas seems to spike. Those of you who are under 40 are not likely to remember this era and many may not even know that it happened. I tell this as the backdrop to make you understand the lengths that big corporations will go to to make a buck.

While we in America are rationing our gas consumption, corporate giant Texaco is drilling and pumping away in the Amazon rainforest of Ecuador. Technology is not what it is today, but even by standards of that time, they are doing a shoddy job of protecting the environment. Who cares, when a poor underdeveloped country like Ecuador is taking the money we are giving them happily, like the Native Americans who sold Manhattan for a stash of glass beads. The government of Ecuador at the time knew little of oil and technology and had no idea that Texaco was polluting the streams, rivers, water tables, even the ground surrounding the wells they drilled. The locals were indigenous peoples who knew little of technology or oil and had no idea what was happening. Some 15 or so years later, and a consortium owned by the government of Ecuador takes over the oil fields as Texaco’s contracts expire. More spills, more problems.

But that was years ago, and things have been cleaned up by now, right? Sorry. Texaco was sold to Chevron years ago, and they have been doing everything in their power to distance themselves from the problems created by Texaco in Ecuador. A giant class action lawsuit was filed to make Chevron pony up for the problems they inherited from Texaco. And now things get downright sleazy…

First, let me tell you that this case has been going on for YEARS. In an effort to make things easier, Chevron first petitioned and was granted the right to move the trial from the US to Ecuador. While I agree that the problem exists in Ecuador and there is some standing that an Ecuadorian court to rule on this subject, it is a US company that is being sued and thus there is standing for the case to move forward in America. Let’s face it, this petition was made, because Chevron felt it would be easier to win in Ecuador, by means legal or not. Then take hot shot corporate lawyers working for big oil and pit them against the legal system of a country like Ecuador and you obviously have an upper hand. Then they took every track they could to delay the process. Chevron has deep pockets, they know the longer the suit drags out the better their chances of bankrupting the opposition. When the team, on behalf of the Ecuadorian people, start getting help from Amazon Watch and eventually legal bankroll from NY based law firms, they cry foul. Sure the NY legal backers want a profit on their investment, but Chevron is the one that took it down this road, so how they can claim that this is all for the benefit of hotshot NY lawyers?

Then there are the experts. Chevron hires consulting scientists to claim there is no real issue with the region. It always disturbs me when anyone can come forward like scientist, Sara McMillen and say that the data does not support that there is any problem with contamination. In the movie, you can see these pits of tar and petroleum sludge that were built as toxic dams to hold pollution. When there are rains, overflows of tainted water run into the local watershed of streams and rivers. This watershed is the water supply for all the villages and towns of the region. McMillen has the nerve to blame the disproportionate amount of illness, disease and death on poor sanitation, when the only thing that has really changed in the last 40 years is the pollution of the oil drilling operations. When there is a risk that this tactic may not work, they shift to not being able to pinpoint the actual cause of the pollution. Rather than take responsibility, they try to shift blame to the consortium that took over after Texaco, even though they simply continued the operations that were set up by Texaco itself.

So this is just a tiny glimpse into the issue. Let’s face it, I cannot tell a story that it took a 2 hour movie (CRUDE), a spread in Vanity Fair, grassroots organizations, and countless lawyers and trial hours to tell in just a single blog post. Please check out some of the above links and if you can, watch the movie CRUDE. We already know that we need to fix the damages of the past 50 years, but this is a crises that is 30 times the damage of the Exxon Valdez spill. You can sign a petition to the Chevron CEO asking him to clean up this mess. If you have ever bought a gallon of gas from a Chevron or Texaco station in you rlife, then you owe it to the people of Ecuador to sign this petition.

My problem is that this company has spent millions of dollars, if not a billion over the course of many years fighting this lawsuit. While they do so, people are dying and suffering. If this time, energy, and money were spent trying to fix the problem instead, it would be well on its way to being cleaned up by now. THAT is why I will never buy gas from Chevron. After watching this movie, I understand why the president of Venezuela hates America.

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The Three R’s of greener living…

2010-03-02T04:51:20Z

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle-Tips for a Greener 2010

Global warming, climate change, carbon footprint, sustainability… we all know the buzzwords and if you are reading this post it means you want to live a greener life. But the question for most people is where do I begin? Saving the planet is not an easy task, but the road begins with small steps. Therefore, I present to you a list of some small steps that you can take to make your life a little greener in 2010.

Reduce your energy consumption. It seems pretty simple because it is. Turn off the lights when you leave the room. Wash your slothes in cold water. Turn down your thermostat in the winter by a couple of degrees and put on a sweater. Get a programmable thermostat. The easiest thing you can do is change out your traditional light bulbs for CFL (Compact Flourescent) bulbs. For every incandescent bulb that you replace, you will save about $30 a year in energy costs. If everyone in a city the size of Chicago replaced just one main light bulb with a CFL bulb, we would save the greenhouse gas emissions of about 200,000 cars on the road. If everyone in the country did it, we would save enough energy to light 2.5 million homes for a year and it equates to the emissions of over 3/4 of a million cars. Replacing just 16 bulbs is like not driving your car for a year. Trade out one in four bulbs in your house and the amount you spend on lighting will be cut in half. Only 10% of electricity used in an incandescent bulb is given off as light, the rest is heat: a big waste on a hot summer night!

Reduce your packaging consuption. Packaging amounts to a huge portion of a products carbon footprint. If you think about all the things that you buy, they come in packages. The more the packaging, the more the waste that mostly goes to landfill. Ideally, we would all be able to buy in bulk and have relatively little impact. Unfortunately, most of us do not have that option. But with some simple planning and thought, all of us can reduce our packaging consumption. Buy in the biggest package available that works for you. Avoid small individually packaged items. Things like snack packs have a ton of packaging. But buying in a large package and breaking down into small tupperware that is reusable can have realatively small amounts of packaging. Buy products that are concentrated. A concentrated detergent has less packaging than the same washing amount of less concentrated liquid. Look at your purchases for packaging that ahs recycled content. Who cares if the cereal that you buy comes in a box made from recycled paper or virgin materials-only Mother Earth.

Reuse everything that you can. Can that jar be used for something else? They make a fine vase. Save those margarine containers for use as a food container. Wash out your ziplock bags and use them again. Instead of buying individual hand soap containers, buy a bulk package and refill the small one. Paper sacks with handles are an instant gift bag. Newspapers make fine gift wrap. Write on the back of scrap paper, or print on the back side of all the things you print. Try sewing a small hole in clothing or invest in a good stain fighter to reuse clothes that you thought were not salvagable. Still can’t save them? Try making a wuilt or cut into smaller pieces for dust cloths. By using everything at least twice, you can cut your consumption of virgin materials significantly.

Recycle. If you are reducing and reusing, then your need to recycle is dramatically lessened. Still, recycling can have the biggest impact on the environment in that everyone can do it while having the least impact on their everyday life. If you do not have a curbside recycling program available, make the extra effort to take your old goods to a drop off location. Recycle all your jars. Glass is one of the easiest things to recycle and making recycled glass uses 40% less energy than making glass from virgin materials. Remove your lids and rinse your jars. When it comes to plastics, all containers have a universal recycling number on the bottom. While there are not uses for all the numbers so far, emerging technologies are finding ways to make new polymers and diesel fuels from assorted plastics. In the meantime, Amricans use 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour and most (estimates are about 65-70%) end up in the landfill. Remove your lids when recycling bottles as they are generally a different type of plastic than the bottle and in some cash strapped communities, it is cheaper to toss bottles with a lid still on than to pay someone to sort and remove lids. Paper accounts for half of the waste we send to landfill. If Americans reycled half of that, we would save 125 million trees every year. Over 48 % of the Earth’s surface was once covered with forests. Half of those forests are gone and only 1/5 of native forests are left. Making a ton of paper from recycled stock saves 50% of water used and 17 trees. For every 38,000 bills paid online, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved. Stop your junk mail! 17.8 tons of junk mail is delivered every year by the postal service. 44% of that goes unopened and less than 25% is recycled. Recycle all your metals. All steel has some recycled content. It is generally at least 25% recycled content minimum, so the systems are all in place already. Aluminum is easily recycled, and aluminum cans will make it back to the shelf in as little as 90 days. But it isn’t just cans; foil counts too-even the foil on the 20 million Hershey’s kisses that are produced every year.

The road to a greener life is a long one. But the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. What is your next step?

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TEDxCLE…Cooking makes us human

2010-03-02T05:42:55Z

I have to preface these post with a shout out: the images are from Kyle Roth, a local photographer who does beautiful work and who is a big champion of Cleveland, be sure to read his blog at North Coast Lifestyle and Epstein Design Partners.

Michael Ruhlman is an author and culinary grad. As he stood on the stage and talked, I found myself nodding. He spoke about food and cooking. I can tell you from personally experience that most people do not know what most veggies are, or how they are raised. We are becoming farther detached from our food. He gave us a great talk about food and how cooking are what makes us human.. He quoted from Richard Wrangham’s book, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. Taking us from our food preparation has made us more separate and more unhealthy. He spoke about how we feed our livestock foods that they were never meant to eat. Furthermore, social problems and illness are on the rise as more of our food is processed and provided to us. Cooking makes us think about what we are eating. It takes effort, which brings families together. When you cook, you look for better ingredients and you learn more about what you are eating and how to make your life better.

Michael Ruhlman is so passionate that he helped to start North Union Farmer’s Market, which has grown to one of the top farmers markets in the region, with multiple locations around the city. He showed us slides of some local producers. Local farms that are doing good things by raising humanely produced pigs that are well treated and humanely slaughtered. Local food is making a comeback because we are starting to learn that cooking makes us better, and not cooking takes stuff away from our lives. We can change things now, simply by taking the time and effort to cook for ourselves and our family. One of the things he mentioned was voting with our dollars. When we buy raw ingredients and cook, we spend our money in support of those who are promoting this industry. On the other hand, those who do spent money on crap are voting for more crap. So what do you want to vote for? And take the time to pick up a pan, rather than McDonald’s for dinner.

image courtesy of Susie Sharp

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TEDxCLE Cleveland has a future in fashion!

2010-03-02T05:38:23Z

Did you know that up until about the 1950’s Cleveland had one of the largest garment districts outside NYC? Well. we did. Thankfully, we have cool designers like those from Wrath Arcane putting us back on the fashion map. From the TEDxCLE website:

WRATH ARCANE was started on January 3rd, 2006 when Cleveland boutique owner Brian O’neill called Cleveland designer and long-time friend Sean Bilovecky. The next day the two began tossing around ideas and making patterns. By the end of April ‘06 WRATH ARCANE had developed a small production run (Spring ‘06) and was in Brian’s store www.clothingbrigade.com for WRATH’s first official release party. Within two weeks, the line had 100% sell-through.

Since then, WRATH ARCANE has grown into an international menswear label. Although being based in Cleveland has presented WRATH ARCANE with challenges that an average clothing line would not have to face, their location, both geographic and economic, has been crucial in enabling the label to define who it is and what it wants to say.

The talk was filled with humor and fun. We got to see a history of the clothing line in pictures. Clothing Brigade needed private label lines and Wrath Arcane was the team. Their approach is respectable and admireable. All the clothes they are making are made int he USA. They keep their clothing money in the US, from pattern to pieces. They added hats and shoes and are sourcing them from America as well. They are really about the clothes and the looks, not about the models & bull that comes from most of the fashion industry. They make careful choices when it comes to their fabric choices, things like wax cotton that is durable, repels water and lasts forever. they managed to get noticed by staying true to themselves and to their vision. They build collections that are based on clothes that are for everyone. I have to say that nearly every piece of clothing that I saw on the screen was something I would wear. I love these designs. And I love that they are involved in DPA: Domestically Produced Activism. By choosing rightly what you put into the things you make, you can influence the world around you.

Look for Wrath Arcane at a store near you. Made in USA, made in Cleveland!

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Local food is now more local

2010-03-07T23:40:34Z

Today, March 7, was the soft opening of the new Central Community Co-op. Started as a class research project by Tri-C (Cuyahoga Community College) students, the new Co-op will provide local residents with fresh fruits and vegetables from Tri-C’s recreation Center. They will also provide access to free nutritional education classes.

This all started because Tri-C decided to offer a “Special Topics” class focused on nutrition. The class research assignment got the students thinking about ‘food deserts’ and the lack of good nutritional options in the area.

The project is starting out small, but they plan to expand over the coming months. I am sure as word spreads, this program will become more and more popular!

Cleveland is so cool.

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TEDxCLE…Fuel Cells and the future

2010-03-04T22:28:59Z

Benson Lee of Technology Management Inc, took the stage for his talk, Solving Global Social Problems with Fuel Cell Technology. He started by talking about how fuel cells work. A 2 inch ceramic disc creates electricity through a chemical reaction. He held up a unit the size of a cell phone or pop can, that was a personal generating unit. Then he unveiled a home unit. The home unit fuel cell is less than the sizw of an AC condenser unit and will provide enough power for the average home. Being a clean energy source, they can be located inside a home. They generate heat as well as electricity and thus can serve two purposes at once.

Recently 60 MINUTES did a story on fuel cells. Technology Management, Inc is one of the top 12 manufacturers featured in this story. This is not really new technology, it has been around since the early 1800s. We have the problem in the US of not really understanding fuel cells, and thus we do not ask for them. Thus, they have not been really improved upon, as we had access to plenty of dirty combustion technology. THis lack of improvement has led to costs remaining relatively high, despite being 90% efficient.

Fuel cells still need fuel to make them work. What is great about them is that they provide clean, reliable energy production despite atmospheric conditions. And they will operate on a variety of fuels. Of course they will work with hydrogen, gasoline, oils, etc, but they will also work on the gas from an anaerobic digestor that can use organic waste (including human waste) as its basic fuel. There are also cheap reliable plants that are high in oil content that can be easily grown as a fuel source. The advantage of fuel cell technology is that you are able to generate power where it is needed. You ca provide lectricity in remote villages, without a huge power plant or miles of high tension power lines. This could allow use of electricity for health care in regions where some 228 infants die every hour from diarrhea. Reliable electricity could mean power pumps to make water safer. It could mean simple antibiotics in regions that lack refrigeration.

Technology Management is pricing them for the NGO market. Their aim is to make a living and make the world better. Partnerships with others makes for good finaincial returns. Through economies of scale, they can find ways to make fuel cells cheaper. If they sell to NGOs who can help the poor, then use their profits to train more NGOs to use them, they will only drive more need for them. Like crack for a better world. The best part is that nothing new needs to be invented. Fuel cells can make the world a better place by providing clean electrical energy in parts of the world where other forms of electricity simply cannot work.

Visit their site to find out more! And watch the video below to get a simple overview of how fuel cells work.

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Nature does it best: Biomimicry

2010-03-07T04:37:07Z

Webster’s online dictionary defines biomimicry as “the conscious copying of examples and mechanisms from natural organisms and ecologies. It is a form of applied case-based reasoning, treating nature itself as a database of solutions that already work.” That means that nature has already provided us with the best ways to do things. But looking to nature we can find answers to some of today’s most challenging problems. That is why I was so excited to hear that Chris Allen of the Ask Nature project at the Biomimicry Institute was going to be in Cleveland. Brought to us by E4S , this evening at the Cleveland Institute of Art is going to be a blast!

From the event listing at E4S:

Join E4S and the BiomimiryNEO Network on March 16th to learn more about how biomimicry inspires innovation from Chris Allen. Doug Paige, the Associate Professor of Industrial Design at CIA and several CIA industrial design students will share how they are putting biomimicry to work to solve challenges in the Cuyahoga Valley. Lisa Schmidtke, a recent graduate from the Biomimicry Professional Certification Program and Victoria Avi, E4S Network Entrepreneur for BiomimicryNEO, will be on hand after the main program to answer your questions about how you can learn more about the biomimicry design models and tools.

First off, let me say that any event put together by E4S is a blast. These guys truly know what they are doing. They find speakers who have a wealth of knowledge to share. I know that Chris Allen will be no exception. If you do not really know what biomimicry is, it basically is the concept of looking to nature to inspire us in design and creation. The hottest tickets at Greenbuild the last few years have been the biomimicry seminars. At greenbuild, you might spend over a $100 to hear a talk like this. Not only do you not have to travel, but the cost is exceptional at only $30. If you are an E4S member, then you can get in for a mere $25 and students are only $10! This is your chance to hear a world class speaker who will be a leading force in this new area of study and design.

Chris is director of the AskNature project at the Biomimicry Institute and serves on the management team for the expanded operations of the Biomimicry Guild and Institute. He is among the fifteen graduates of the first cohort of the Biomimicry Institute`s two-year professional program. Trained in International Business at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas (1985), Chris has over twenty years experience providing strategy and management consulting services related to sustainable development for a variety of private sector clients as well as the US Department of Energy, the National Center for Appropriate Technology, the Northwest Area Foundation, and the United Nations Man and Biosphere Program.

You can register for this event here. I am sure that space will be limited, so do not hesitate! Register now for your seat to this incredible evening.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010 5:30 pm – 8:30 pm

The Cleveland Institute of Art

Ticket Prices: $30.00 for non-members, $25.00 E4S members, $10.00 for students w/ a valid student ID.

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This is a cool idea!

2010-03-06T16:27:01Z

I don’t know about you, but I think this sounds like fun!

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TEDxCLE Get your Room Service

2010-02-28T21:27:57Z

<I have to preface these post with a shout out: the images are from Kyle Roth, a local photographer who does beautiful work and who is a big champion of Cleveland, be sure to read his blog at North Coast Lifestyle and Epstein Design Partners.

If you have ever thought about opening your own business then you know what Danielle DeBoe went through before she opened her fantastic shop in Gordon Square that is known as Room Service. I won’t go into here how much I like her shop. I have already waxed poetic on a number of occasions about the great shops on Detroit near W. 65th and why I love them. Instead I want to comment on Danielle’s talk, Living A Passionate Life.

Following what you are passionate and committed to what you really believe in, led her to this spot in her life. She did everthing that she did to the best of her ability and made it happen, whether it was working in the film industry in LA, to set design, to interior design, to merchandising and buying for stores both large and small. All this led her to buying and opening her own store. Little did she know that when she started to look back on her life, she realized that all she did was follow the path laid in front of her, and she was daring enough to follow it.

She spoke about her trip to Paris and enjoying a dinner party of strangers at the home of Jim Haines. She talked about how she was on a buying trip to NYC and while the streets were so crowded, she could easily have been alone as no one seemed connected to one another. That is what she loves about her current spot in Gordon Square. This is a real neighborhood. She knows her clients and she knows the guys who make her coffee by name. She knows her neighbors and considers them friends. Knowing all these people around her makes the world a little bit smaller. A world that is just a little bit smaller is a great thing, s it makes us better and the world a brighter place.

The gist of her entire talk was to follow your passion. Do what you love and are good at, and do it to the best of your ability. Be passionate and enjoy life. next time you have an idea, don’t think “That’s a cool idea, somebody should totally do that.” Instead change just a couple of words and say, “That is a cool idea. I am totally going to do that!”

Danielle’s shop, Room Service can be found on Detroit Ave just west of W.65th. She is a strong supporter of local business and artists. She followed her passion to open her store and with a desire to promote local products, and stared the great event Made in 216. This is an event that features the best arts, artisans, and producers in Cleveland. The first event was such a huge success that she had to expand to a larger space and hold it across the street. Now venodrs and shoppers alike flock to Gordon Square for this event.

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TEDxCLE-Personal Kinetic Energy

2010-03-02T04:50:26Z

I have written before about Aaron LeMieux of Tremont Electric. I love this guy and his fantastic idea. Basically, he created a small portable device that will charge any personal device. It works on the principal that kinetic energy, created from the simple everyday motion of walking or hiking, can be converted into electricity. He came up with the idea while backpacking through the Appalachian mountains. Now, he and his company, Tremont Electric, are working to harness the kinetic energy of waves to create electricity that can be introduced into the grid.

The story of Aaron LeMieux is a fascinating one. Aaron is a guy who followed his passion. He loved being outdoors, but loved using his brain to solve the complex problem of energy generation. So while he hiked through the mountains, he decided that there must be a way to create electricity rather than buying more batteries. The spark of an idea was born. With the love of a wife who allowed him to turn their basement into a lab, and a determined will Aaron started to crack this problem. A less dedicated person would have given up, but not Aaron. He continued on this journey for ten years. Now the first units are due to ship this spring. Imagine being able to recharge your ipod or cell phone just by walking around.

Aaron LeMieux mentioned that Edison continued to work on the phone, even though his contemporaries said that no one really wanted to talk to each other. When you have a great idea and are determined to work on it, you can really change the world.

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