So apparently the Bush administration has figured out a new way of getting around those tricky executive agency reports and recommendations - they simply ignore them! On June 25, the New York Times reported that the Bush administration decided they didn’t need to read the EPA’s report on carbon emissions, so they simply ignored the email containing the document.

Written in response to the 2007 Supreme Court ruling re: Massachusetts Et Al. v. Environmental Protection Agency Et Al., the EPA report concluded that greenhouse gases produced are harmful pollutants, a danger to people and to the environment, and must be controlled. Before the court handed down its April 2007 decision on the matter, the EPA had refused to determine whether greenhouse gases were pollutants and subject to regulations laid out under the Clean Air Act. Because of this (in)decision, the EPA promulgated a lack of regulatory authority over matters pertaining to the environmental impact of greenhouse gases.

In an effort to force the federal agency to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as pollutants, Massachusetts Et Al. (consisting of 12 states, 3 cities, 13 organizations and America Samoa) sued the EPA, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, National Automobile Dealers Association, Engine Manufacturers Association, Truck Manufacturers Association, CO2 Litigation Group, Utility Air Regulatory Group, and 10 carbon emitting states in federal court. Arguing that greenhouse gases are pollutants and must be regulated, as mandated under the Clean Air Act, Massachusetts Et Al. brought suit in an effort to force the EPA to begin regulating the pollutants.

In the 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court determined that the EPA must in fact make a determination as to whether greenhouse gases pose a danger to people and the environment:

In short, EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change. Its action was therefore arbitrary, capricious, . . . or otherwise not in accordance with law. We need not and do not reach the question whether on remand EPA must make an endangerment finding, or whether policy concerns can inform EPA’s actions in the event that it makes such a finding. We hold only that EPA must ground its reasons for action or inaction in the statute.

In response to the court’s findings, the EPA drafted a report which conclusively determined that greenhouse gases are pollutants according to the Clean Air Act, and must be regulated and controlled to avoid further harming people and environment. Once submitted to the White House for review however, the report ended up in a kind of email-purgatory, where it sat unread and lacking official status. I guess it would have been hard for the President to claim that Barney ate his email, so instead he just pretended that he never got the message.

So instead of being forced to read the report and accept the fact that it really is the EPA’s job to regulate carbon emissions, the administration, by stonewalling, prompted the EPA to go back and revise their original report. Since receiving the original report (but not reading it), the White House put pressure on the EPA to scale back their findings, and draft a new, less conclusive version. The new report reviews the legal and economic issues presented by declaring greenhouse gases a pollutant, but offers no recommendations and does not conclusively classify greenhouse gases as pollutants.

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Even though I have been recycling since I was a little girl, I am sometimes still amazed by the amount of time and energy that goes into processing my own household waste. When I was little, recycling was a family activity - we would sort glass and aluminum, crush cans and bundle newspapers on Saturday mornings, than load everything into our Datsun 510 and deliver it to the University of Maryland’s recycling center. Taking care of the recycling was just a part of life - something I didn’t think much about, but instead simply did.

Today, recycling seems much more complicated than back in the early 80’s. I live in a small apartment that has a living room/dining room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. There are trash recepticals in each room, and when I actually take the time to empty them and sort through my trash, I’m always shocked by how long it takes me to finish the task. Now, I will admit that I could process my waste more frequently, (thereby cutting down on the sheer volume of garbage I ever need to process at once), but that’s just not how I do things. Instead of taking out the trash once a week, I wait until the stack of paper behind my desk is overflowing, and the plastic bottles are overflowing their bins in my living room.

When I do finally process my trash, it takes time to sort through my desk garbage and separate the sensitive documents that need to be shred from the used envelopes, offers for gym memberships and well-read magazines. Once everything is sorted, I typically have a large paper shopping bag (today’s bag probably weighs 10 pounds) full of newspapers, magazines, advertisements and other recyclables. My shredder gets a small stack of sensitive documents, and there’s usually a plastic shopping bag worth of pure garbage left over.

Once that’s done, I pull out the paper recycling from the bathroom and bedroom trash containers, find any shampoo bottles that have made their way into the garbage can, and than set to work on sorting the other recyclables. My city recycles paper, cardboard, several types of plastic, glass and aluminum. I take this kind of recycling out every few weeks (as compared to the paper which I sort through every few months), and will normally dispose of 30-40 plastic bottles, 5 or 6 glass containers, and a milk crate full of cardboard.

The kitchen garbage tends to be straightforward, mostly because I don’t throw recyclables into that bin, and I don’t compost my food waste. I thought about composting, but I live in the city, have no yard, cook little, and don’t know what I would do with the waste in a full kitchen compost crock. The kitchen garbage goes out every two weeks or so, and is most difficult to deal with when I’ve cleaned out the fridge and had to toss out rotten food.

It would be easier to simply stick all of my solid waste into large black plastic bags and dump it in the garbage, but sorting through my garbage is helpful. By being forced to look through the remnants of my consumption, I am forced to acknowledge how much I use, and to think about the impact my purchases have on my community, my country and my planet. In her book, Garbage Land, Elizabeth Royte writes about sorting through her trash for a year, and recording all she threw away as part of an experiment she took on to track her consumption. While I don’t go nearly as far as Royte, I do try to look at what I throw away and ask myself if I could be doing a better job at reducing my own consumption.

Like almost everyone out there, I certainly could do better - and I’m trying. There are fewer plastic water bottles in my recycling bin than there have been in the past, I am making an effort to eat all of the groceries I purchase before they rot, and I’m taking steps to cut down on the number of bills that arrive in my mailbox. Changing your lifestyle to reduce what you purchase, reuse what you can, and recycle everything possible is a process that takes time and energy, and isn’t always fun. There are certainly things I might have enjoyed doing more today, but the paper behind my desk overwhelmed all else, so today became the day I had to take out the trash. It’s still just a part of life, but now I understand much more clearly how my actions (or inactions) impact the world around me.

One last note - if you’re interested in what happens to your garbage after you leave it on the curb, check out Garbage Land. It’s an interesting read and Royte does a great job picking apart the complex after life of our garbage.

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For years I have been resisting paperless credit card, bill and bank statements, but the time has come for me to drop my stubborn hold on receiving paper in the mail and start getting all of my bills sent via email. The reasons I’ve held off on asking for email-only notification are selfish and stupid: I am more apt to ignore my email than I am to ignore my snail mail, I like having paper records of my bills, I am loathe to change a system that’s been working for me for the past 15+ years…

All bad reasons considering how many trees I’ve most likely been responsible for chopping down since I was issued my first credit card - the Discover Card - as a freshman at the University of Delaware.

I was, in part, motivated to sign up for paperless billing this month when I received my AT&T Universal Card statement in the mail. For the past 2 years I’ve not made a single purchase with this card - I simply pay the bill every month in a desperate attempt to reduce my personal debt-load. I shut the card down a few years back when they tried to raise my interest rate - 22% was a little rich for my blood!

This means that there is no detailed statement to check each month - I simply look at what’s due, check the interest payment and pay the bill electronically. The statement gets filed away in my heavy-duty metal filing cabinet full of folders that are full of similar statements. When I got the bill this month however, something on the envelope caught my eye.

By signing up for paperless billing, AT&T (owned by Citi) will plant a tree on my behalf! OK, so just this moment I went ahead and enrolled in paperless billing - and for whatever reason, it was emotionally difficult, yet very easy to do so. I’m still not sure why it is so hard for me to make the transition from receiving a piece of paper in the mail that I look at once and file away forever, but it is. And, if it’s difficult for ME to do this, I can’t imagine how hard it will be to get EVERYONE to do the same thing.

So I want to use this post to really encourage people to drop their old ways and start taking baby steps toward a more environmentally-friendly existence. If you can change all of your bills into paperless statements, not only will you save paper and all that it takes to make, transport and recycle that paper, you may also have the change to get a tree planted on your behalf or save money on your next credit card balance (some companies give you a $5 or $10 credit for going paperless).

Since every little bit helps in our efforts at conservation, recycling and general environmental activism, I hope you’ll take this chance to make a difference in the world and stop the influx of paper into your life.

The HD and flat-panel television buying trend has frequently been coupled with environmental blurbs. Consumers looking for a reason to upgrade their television sets are told that flat televisions use less electricity than their big-tube counterparts. In other words, “Be green! Go buy an HDTV!”

Here are some reasons to ignore the hype:

1. Reusing is Always Greener: It is rarely better for the environment to throw away something you are using and buy a new one. Chances are, your new HDTV must be transported half-way around the world. It consumed massive resources being produced, marketed, and delivered to your living room. Every year that you “make do” with your existing television is another year of solid green karma, no matter how wonderful and energy efficient your new television might be.
2. The Energy Argument Isn’t Clear: Does your new flat television really use less energy than your old tube? If you’re looking at a lower-cost plasma screen, you may not see any improvement in energy consumption. LCDs are better, but not by much. We may need to wait for new LED technology before we really start to benefit from the reduced energy needs of modern televisions. As with anything, your results may vary; you should consider the wattage consumption on your future television before purchasing. One 65-inch Sharp LCD uses 583 watts during operation and 76 watts while turned off! (link)
3. Recent Gas News: A gas used in making flat televisions may be contributing to global warming (link). Nitrogen Trifluoride has been in the news a lot lately. The gas is used in the manfacturing of LCD televisions. It is apparently 17,000 times as harmful to the environment as carbon dioxide, and it is not regulated by the Kyoto protocols. This is breaking news and details may shift in the coming months, but you should keep an eye on the issue if a television purchase is in your near future.
4. Flat Television Lifespan Still Uncertain: Finally, remember the old saw: they don’t make them like they used to. When we first got married, my wife and I inherited an ancient television from her uncle. It was already at least fifteen years old, perhaps older, and it worked fine. We used it for the first four years of our marriage before deciding we wanted an upgrade. It still worked wonderfully. Will flat panel televisions still be chugging along twenty years after they were manufactured? No one knows, obviously. Plasma and LCD screens have an awesome theoretical lifespan, but the supporting technology and the television itself may be less robust than your old tube. Remember that products with a longer lifespan, if manufactured sensibly, are always greener than products that require replacement every few years.

Even with all the above reasons, you may choose to purchase a new television set. Awareness doesn’t mean we should agonize over every life decision or purchase. If you are going to purchase a television, however, keep the above tips in mind. And take your time: Law and Order is just as gritty and moody on your old tube, and the American Idol singers won’t be any more in-tune in High Definition.

When it comes to using my consumer dollars to make purchases, I actually don’t buy all that much stuff. For years I’ve been too poor to buy much more than I really need, so most of what I own is limited to the essentials - books (yes, books are essentials), plants, clothes & shoes, and household goods like dishes, and towels. I inherited most of my furniture from family and friends, and I go without things (like wine glasses) that most people just wouldn’t live without.

Part of why I live so minimally is poverty - I was in school and unemployed for years, and just couldn’t afford to buy anything. And since I started making real money, I’ve had to apply most of it to paying off bills accrued while in school and unemployed. Another part of why I don’t buy much stuff however, is the environmental impact of personal consumption. By living low on the consumer chain, I feel that I’m taking part in the 1st “R” of conservation - Reduce. When I don’t upgrade my hand-me-down couches or replace my overwhelmed bookcases with sturdier models, I don’t contribute to the manufacture of these goods and I keep my own carbon footprint low.

It’s not as if limiting my purchases is difficult - I am fiscally frugal, I don’t like clutter, and my apartment is small and lacking in storage space. At the same time, there are items I would really like to own and just can’t bring myself to buy - because they’re expensive, impractical or just not enough of a priority to justify the purchase. Topping the list of stuff I wish I owned are all kinds of green furniture that would work well in my home and replace the well-worn items I already own.

For my living room…

I really like the looks of the Babylon Sofa by RC Green. Founded by designer Robert Craymer, RC Green designs, manufactures and retails eco-furniture, bedding, clothing, shoes and accessories. With an eye toward minimalist design and a sense of responsibility towards the environment, Craymer is working toward an all green, all natural, sustainable and organic way of living. Furniture crafted by RC Green is made with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) wood, recycled steel (for springs and screws), non-toxic and formaldehyde free glues, and a range of eco-fabrics including cotton, linen, bamboo, and hemp. Additionally, all RC Green products are made in the US and built out of local resources.

I also like the clean lines of the Hect Chair by Greener Lifestyles, a Seattle-based design and manufacturing company that specializes in creating sustainable furniture . Constructed out of FSC wood, the Hect Chair is finished with organic hemp, cotton and wool fabrics, and held together with eco-friendly adhesives.

To show off my new couch and chair, I could always light my living room up with a few of these Bleu Nature Tropique Lamps. Offered by environmental retailer Eco-Terric, these lamps are hand crafted in Northern France,? and made from all natural products.

For my ever-growing expanding book collection, I like this Tetrad Shelving unit from Brave Space Designs. Consisting of 4 interlocking squares, this modular shelving unit is constructed from either ash or wood and built using paints, stains, adhesives, and sealants with low or zero VOCs (volatile organic compounds). Brave Space Designs also finishes all of their products with either hand-applied organic-herbal oil or water-based spray finishes.

To finish off my room, I would add this hand-knotted Jardin rug offered by Cotswold Furniture Makers. Headquartered in Stowe, Vermont, Cotswold is committed to producing environmentally sustainable furniture, and ensures that their products are never constructed by children or with abusive labor practices. Hand-tied in Tibet, the Jardin rug is crafted from 100% wool.

If you are in the market for eco-friendly, sustainable furniture, check out some of the companies listed above. These designers and manufacturers have all committed to producing products that use local resources, non-toxic chemicals and organic fabrics. Change happens one person at a time, so next time you’re in the market for new furniture, consider buying green.

If you’re looking for a way to give back to your community, consider contributing by offering your time and energy to the environment. Acting locally is a great way to participate in the environmental movement that is sweeping this country, and positively impacts your neighbors and neighborhood. I’ve compiled a list of earth-friendly projects that you can do in your community with groups of various sizes. These projects can be done by school groups, Boy Scouts/Girl Scouts, clubs/organizations, or friends and neighbors who want to work together for change in their communities.

• Pick up after the drunks. When people drink outside, they tend to leave their beer bottles, cans, cigarette butts and other garbage behind. Figure out where the kids in your city like to go to party, and pick up the trash they leave behind. Since people tend to party in secluded spots (in the woods, underneath bridges, by remote beaches), you may have to do a little legwork to track down the trash. Once you do though, you’ll most likely find plenty of garbage and recyclables. After you pick up all of the junk, let your city government know how much garbage you removed from the spot, and see if they might consider installing a garbage can so it doesn’t happen again.

• Clean up your beach and waterways. If you live near the coast, you probably know how much garbage gets washed up on the beach - ditto for rivers, creeks and streams. After the winter ice has retreated and before the spring foliage has grown back up, it’s easy to find all kinds of garbage washed up on beaches and alongside other waterways. Grab your boots and garbage bags and head toward the shoreline to pick up all of the garbage tangled alongside the shore. By cleaning up your waterways, you help prevent the garbage from damaging fragile ecosystems and also from getting washed back out to sea.

• Turn an empty lot into a garden. All cities have strange empty spaces tucked between buildings that could use a little beautification. If your neighborhood has an empty lot that’s filling up with broken glass, garbage and weeds, think about cleaning it up. You may need the permission of the lot owner, so make sure you contact them or talk to your city government before getting started. Once you’ve found a lot, you can do simple things that will make a tremendous difference in your community. Simple things that make all of the difference include: removing all of the garbage, planting flowers, building a small path from flat stones, creating art to go in the garden, putting up a bird feeder or wind chimes, and installing a small, portable bench so people can sit and enjoy the space.

• Work in someone else’s garden. Non-profit organizations, such as museums or historical centers often have gardens, and often need help maintaining them. Since most non-profits work on tight budgets, garden maintenance can sometimes get squeezed when times are tough. Because of this, some non-profits have volunteer gardening events where community members are asked to come in and help clean out beds, trim back bushes, and prepare the grounds for spring and summer visitors. Greening a community organization’s grounds is a great way to make your city a greener place for residents and visitors alike.

• Convince your city or town government to change their ways. While getting city hall to replace incandescent light bulbs with energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs may not be as easy as picking up garbage on the beach, things like this still need to be done! If you live in a small town or city, it’s generally easy to get your voice heard by attending meetings, making phone calls and writing letters to your city council members. Pick an issue - recycling efforts, alternative fuel for city vehicles, light bulbs - and do the research on how making your suggested changes will positively impact the city. Make sure you include financial projections if your suggestion will cost the city more than it already spends, and outline how the benefits of your suggestion will outweigh the costs. Be persistent and consistent - show up, shake hands and get your ideas out to the members of your community. The beauty of living in a democracy is that you do have a voice and you can make a difference if you use it.

Do you have other ideas for green projects that can be done in communities? I’d love to hear what other people are doing to make their neighborhoods greener places to live, and I invite your comments and suggestions!