Lower Impact Woman

I discovered it was very difficult being green in Vegas. I think if I worked harder at it I might have had better luck, but by my second week there I just wasn’t too inspired after experiencing lights, noise, more lights and booze galore.

One thing I did do is order the “carbon offset credit” from the car rental company (and my employer even paid for it). It’s only $1.25 a rental and the idea is that the money is invested in companies that help offset our carbon footprint. I haven’t done any personal research on the corporations they feed the money to, but they sound promising. There are a lot of landfill projects and one dairy project in Outlook, Washington - George DeRuyter and Sons Dairy is an anaerobic digester project in the state of Washington. The project benefits climate change strategies by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases produced in dairy operations, and by reducing the greenhouse gases from the public electricity grid. The farm substitutes fossil fuel-based electricity with clean renewable electricity and substitutes fossil fuel based heating with waste heat from the electricity generators.

Pearl Jam is also trying to offset their impact for their recent tour. They are planting 33 acres of trees in Washington state hoping to soak up the 7000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions left by them and their fans.

Is this possible to reverse? I mean I guess it’s better than nothing, but it seems odd to go out and create a huge amount of carbon dioxide emissions and then just plant some trees to try and take care of it. I think the bigger impact would be to reduce the emissions in the first place, wouldn’t it? I’m obviously not an environmental scientist so I really don’t know the details of this, but if I’m vandalizing someone’s property on the west side of town every day and go to the east side of town once a week to help them clean up, it’s not equal or making everything better, it’s just better for one side but worse for the other.

No Impact Man seems to have a learned a lot of strategies for, well, lowering carbon impact. A great documentary about a New York City family that attempts to go one year without creating any environmental impact. They stop using electricity except for a single solar panel; don’t use any transportation that use fossil fuels; reduced garbage to zero; eat only food grown/made within 150 miles; don’t use toilet paper; and many other things. I recommend it and may screen it for Earth Day, so be on the lookout for a possible invite.

And I thought my project was ambitious and even part crazy at times, but he makes me look like I’m not doing anything! I mean when I start looking at toilet paper and tampon alternatives I feel like I’m going overboard, but I really haven’t even scratched the surface.

If I do an quick inventory I know I’ve made some significant personal changes that I think are in the right direction – different make-up, shampoo, mostly organic food and products, mostly vegan, have large garden in and partially planted, built chicken coop and got babies 2 days ago (so cute!), composting more – that’s a partial list, but I know I have so much more to do. It still takes research, one of my goals is the dog food, I buy a pretty expensive brand because of dog’s allergies, but I understand pet food production is horrific, so I better look into that.

I gave myself a year though too, so I have some time to look into everything. It’s good to be inspired now and then by those that have done it first – it makes it more possible and reasonable to try and be more animal, man and earth friendly.

But, kind of like Pearl Jam - If I'm doing what I can, does it offset the actions of other people in my house?

Two of the new baby chicks!

Text Dolphin to 44144?

Somehow I happened in front of the TV during the Oscars this year just in time for Best Documentary Feature. I’m not a big fan of the Oscars but if someone in the house is watching it I’ll stop what I’m doing for a few minutes to see what’s going on, and this time I was drawn in by scenes of Buddhists (movie Burma VJ) first, then the beautiful blue ocean with a haunting background music and dozens of swimming dolphins amidst a chaos of fisherman, one holding a sign “don’t take photos”. then scenes of my new favorite movie “Food Inc”, so of course I sat down to watch.
As they announced the winner “The Cove” I watched with mixed feelings. I thought for sure Food inc would take it, but what I saw of The Cove looked promising as well, it was animal-centered so I automatically approved. I got up to leave during the Thank You speech and glimpsed a sign go up behind the speaker as I walked out the door. Wait, what did that say? Thank god for DVR, I reversed the show to see the sign again.
“Text Dolphin to 44144”. What? So I had to investigate, and I’ll just say now, it’s not pretty.
The movie itself looks very good, but I’m not sure I could handle watching it as it seems I’ve become much more sensitive about watching any living creature forced to endure mistreatment by human hands.
The Cove exposes a cove in Japan, out of site and off limits to the public, where they lure dolphins in to slaughter and to catch for sale to the entertainment industry. The meat, which is not edible due of toxic mercury levels, is then sold to restaurants, usually as whale meat, and to the schools for school lunches. Pure greed is making these barbarians kill and these beautiful animals and then poison their own countrymen and, worst of all, their children.
I know it is legal to kill dolphins in Japan, and whales too, but it doesn’t make it right. It’s illegal to kill whales in all but 3 countries (Japan, Iceland and Norway), every other country agrees we shouldn’t kill them. By the way, you may have unknowingly had whale meat recently if you’ve eaten at “The Hump” in Santa Monica, they were charged with selling the endangered Sei Whale in their sushi this week.
Which brings me to another great animal issue of late – Tillicum at Sea World Orlando. Tilly grabbed on to his trainers ponytail and dragged her underwater to her death. This is not the first time Tilly has killed, but Sea World insists this was human error. Bullshit. Sea World, and all other industries that exploit animals, will tell lies so the public thinks the animals are happy confined to their tiny pens their entire life. By placing the blame on the trainer, they instill a false sense of security in the public mind that “oh, it’s okay, the whale is not unhappy, he was just confused”. If we thought it was Tilly’s fault we then might think he was acting out, and then we’d wonder why he’d do that, which would lead to all kinds of horrible thoughts that might keep us away from Sea World.
While these animals do not think and reason the same way humans do, they do have an evolved intelligence and they do know there is more out there and their nature is to move freely and swim long distances, not to be confined in pens barely twice their size, even if they were born there. A former Tilly trainer said Tilly has a mean streak, and shouldn’t he? Wouldn’t you?
If you had been born and raised and lived in a closet your entire life, you would know something more existed, your gut, your soul, your sense would tell you, It’s the same for the whales, the dolphins, the sea lions and the bears in the zoo. They all deserve more, but again it’s money driving the exploitation and suffering of these animals.
It’s great to be able to experience wildlife, but we should do it in their environment. If we want to experience them, shouldn’t we be the ones to take the risk? How selfish are we to think that animals are here to only serve our purpose?
I know it’s hard go against these things, I had a difficult time deciding whether or not to view the Lion habitat at the MGM this week. The path from my room to car took me past it daily, but always before or after they were “open”. It was heartbreaking just to see the small, glass enclosed area of fake rock and trees that was supposed to be their home.
But this is what people think we need, so now we need to think for ourselves.
“The Cove” trailer is below, you decide.

Viva Las Vegas

I’m finally doing the first overnight business trip to Las Vegas, hopefully a little more eco-friendly than if I had done it a year ago. Not sure what I’ll find, but I am hopeful about many of the restaurants and stores I’ve found on happycow.net. I will coming here for the next 3 weeks (anyone want to join me?), so I hope by the end of the trip I’ve found good solutions. But then, who has the luxury of time in most situations? Not me.

My hotel is certainly not at the top of the list of environmentally friendly lodgings, but it is on the list. It’s the MGM Grand and as I looked at the criteria for it being awarded 2 green trees (out of 5) I noticed it was only slightly better than most business class hotels I’m used to – different only in that they educate staff to being green and having fresh air available. I can’t really say what they are training their staff to do, but they do have a flyer that tells guests what they’re up to- washing sheets and towels every 3 days, using organics in their restaurants, recycling, conserving energy with motion sensors. I’ve also noticed excessive use of mirrors near the lights which does lighten the room a lot for the few lights in it. However, walk downstairs into the casino or the clubs and you see money and energy being pumped into the atmosphere with amazing speed!
From a business perspective, the room sucks. I’m moving after a day just because I can’t work in this room, it’s uncomfortable and dark. Maybe it’d be ok if I were playing all night and sleeping all day, but I have work to do it’s just not conducive to that.
I’m not moving to another hotel on the list, not this week anyway. Although some of the new casinos and resorts have done a great job at green construction they are priced way out of my business budget, so I’ll need to investigate these a little more for the next two weeks. And for what it’s worth, I don’t have access to fresh air in my room, what are they talking about?

I’m relatively happy with my airline as well. I know that there is no good air travel, so I have to settle for the lesser of the evils. My research for domestic travel shows Southwest Airlines, Virgin America and Alaska Air at the top of the green-friendly list.
Southwest has slowed down planes by 1-3 minutes a route- which is more fuel efficient, and are also working on lowering the per-person weight of on-board supplies by 5 pounds, which will result in less fuel per trip. They also unveiled a “green plane” lately that has recycled carpet that can then be recycled again once it’s worn out. My biggest issue with Southwest is that I can’t take direct flights many places, which is a priority with me. That and assigned seats, I like to know I’m not sitting bitch all the way to my destination.
Virgin America with its newer fleet makes it more fuel efficient to start with, but they also employ more fuel saving techniques such as single-engine taxing and regulating cruise speed. Rumors are they are also looking into biofuels.
Alaska has recycle programs in place and uses soy-based ink in its magazines. As a corporation they do a lot of philanthropic work and encourage employees to do the same. I love Alaska, even if they’re never on-time. But then, I fly them enough that they treat me really well so I may be a little baised.

Worst on the list? United and US Air. That doesn’t surprise me, at least not United, I’ve written before about how bad they’ve been to employees. I think they also have the least amount of legroom in coach class. Legroom is bad that if the person in front of you puts their seat back, you better hope you didn’t have your computer open and on the tray because it just got smashed. There is no working on United Air, there just is no room to do anything.

So I have a silly question, maybe someone out there can answer it? While reading about Southwest’s efforts to lower per person weight I began to wonder about food and drink. So here is my question. If there is 10,000 pounds of people weight when the plane takes off, and there is 2000 pounds of food and drink. If the people eat all the food and drink, what will the collective weight then be? Does it all stay the same? Obviously you have a fixed environment when the plane takes off and when it lands, I would assume no weight would be lost or gained, but I may be wrong? Anyone out there want to tackle this?

So next week I try to find a hybrid car. I had to take an Impala this week, I figured it was the most fuel efficient than the SUV or minvan.

Seriously though, anyone want to join me in Vegas?