Excuse Me While I Bang My Head Against the Wall

Sigh.

SIGH.

On days like today, I'm not even sure if "WTF!?" truly captures my reaction to the news. I need a new expression to reflect my complex emotional state after hearing that Canada has officially pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol. NDP Environment critic Megan Leslie put it best when she said, "it's like we're the kid who's failing the class, so we have to drop it before that happens", which as we know from our school days makes everything better.

I don't actually want to rant about this, since I don't want to make myself more miserable than I already am, so instead I'd like to draw your attention to the problem of air pollution in Beijing. Why? Because it gives us present-day proof of how screwed we are if we don't do something about the state of the environment. Last week, the smog in China's capital city was so bad that highways were closed and flights were cancelled because visibility was limited to a few hundred metres. The U.S. Embassy's smog index actually exceeded its upper limit. What's worse than a "hazardous" reading? Critical? Life-threatening? Deadly?

It saddens me that so many people have gotten caught up in debating the merits of measuring one particle vs. another (the Americans like the PM 2.5 standard, the Chinese like PM 10), not because it doesn't matter (it does), but because it detracts from the real problem: the air in northeastern China is a chronic and very dangerous issue. It's possible that breathing in that bad air will reduce life expectancy by five years. What are we going to do about it?

We can start by thinking about the main contributors to air pollution in the Beijing area: vehicles, coal-fired power plants, and industry. While China is on the other side of the planet, I actually feel quite capable of helping to bring about change in these areas by remembering the link between my actions and their consequences:

• cars: I admit to owning one. However, it's very fuel-efficient, and I only drive it once or twice a week. If I had to give it up, I'd probably adjust pretty quickly, never look back, and roll around in all the money I'd be saving. The best part? I would be an excellent role model, showing how great my quality of life can be without having to own a car.


• coal: I am a huge supporter of clean and renewable energy and its ability to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, thereby mitigating climate change. The more we invest in mixing alternatives into the conventional electricity grid, the sooner we'll develop more efficient green power generation technologies, which will hopefully lead to the whole world turning to renewables.


• stuff: I avoid buying useless crap, especially useless crap made in China. As for those items that are practical and necessary, I try to find the ones that are made domestically, and made without plastic (since so much of it comes from China). Our consumer culture is partially responsible for the dirty clouds billowing out of Chinese factories, and I want no part of it.

My lifestyle impacts my home and work; my city, region, province, and country; and in many ways, the whole planet. The Conservative government believes it is justified in shirking responsibility; I could not disagree more and refuse to allow this country's rapidly declining international reputation to smear my own.


Photo of F grade used under Creative Commons from amboo who? (flickr).
Photo of Beijing traffic used under Creative Commons from poeloq (flickr).

In the News Today

Hold on to your hats, folks, I've got a great WTF!? post for you today. This week Coca-Cola announced a redesign of their cans to advertise their newest environmental campaign: $2 million will be donated to a project that seeks to protect polar bear habitat in arctic regions. So it comes as no surprise that the new cans will feature the iconic bear on a white background:

It saddens me that Coca-Cola has partnered with the World Wildlife Fund on this project; poor WWF must be pretty cash-strapped to choose to team up with a soft drink company for money. But that's not what's shocking about this story. Rather, it's the motivation behind the campaign, and how incongruous it is with Coke's modus operandi. Let me explain.

The polar bear is the focus of this project in part because the animal has been featured in Coke ads since 1922 and also because its population has been declining due primarily to warming arctic waters, i.e. climate change. Briefly, rising temperatures in the north cause sea ice to melt earlier in the summer. Without this ice, polar bears have a really hard time hunting seals, and they end up on dry land with less food and not enough fat to see them through the season. Many lose even more energy just trying to make it to the coast, now that there are greater distances to swim between ice floes. Tragically, pregnant female bears can't always build effective dens in thawing permafrost. There are many more threats to polar bears' survival that are related to climate change, and you can read about them here.

Red areas show the projected loss of optimal polar bear habitat over the next 40 years.

I have no issue at all with the efforts being made to protect these majestic bears. My beef is with Coca-Cola. How can they expect us to see this as anything besides greenwashing? They want to save the bears that are harmed by climate change... while contributing to climate change by making soft drinks... WTF!? I may not be a climate scientist, but if the company is responsible for over 1.6 billion servings of its various beverages every day, then I'm willing to bet that the carbon footprint of this worldwide production is not exactly negligible.

The syrup/concentrate alone accounts for much of this, since Coke is made with high fructose corn syrup. HFCS is really complicated to produce, starting with the monoculture farming of a variety of corn that is rich in starch and utterly devoid of nutrients. Vast amounts of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides (which, in and of themselves, require plenty of energy to produce) are applied to the corn, which must subsequently be milled into corn starch, processed into corn syrup, mixed with enzymes, purified, enriched, and evaporated to yield HFCS. Imagine just how much energy is required to make this happen... and how many greenhouse gases are emitted by the coal-fired power plants that feed the processing plants! All in the name of profit...

There are other issues related to the production of soft drinks, not the least of which is the depletion of groundwater in the areas surrounding Coca-Cola's bottling plants, notably in India. I don't need to tell you that messing with the water cycle has a serious impact on global climate. Another big factor is packaging: the production of single-use plastic bottles and aluminum cans only adds to the already enormous carbon footprint associated with making Coke. I don't need to go on. It's clear that making this beverage is as bad for the planet as consuming it is hazardous for human health. Spending $2 million on protecting polar bear habitat just doesn't make up for the damage that has already been done. Where is the accountability?


Photo of new Coca Cola can used under Creative Commons from José Roitberg (flickr).
Image of changes in polar bear habitat sourced from Wikimedia Commons.
Image of Coca Cola's impact in India sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

In the News Today

You may want to sit down for this one, because this story is clearly of the WTF!? variety (thanks again to Amy of Eco-Steps for suggesting I create a category for ridiculous news like this).

AlterNet is reporting that Del Monte, the people that bring tropical fruit in fresh and canned versions to Canada and the US, has sued the FDA for daring to recall their cantaloupes this past March when it seemed that the melons were contaminated with salmonella. Apparently the fruit corporation thinks this is an open-and-shut case because there is no hard evidence, despite the fact that the epidemiological investigation yielded some pretty clear results:

"Twelve of sixteen ill people reported eating cantaloupe in the week before illness. Eleven of these twelve ill people ate cantaloupes purchased at eight different locations of a national warehouse club. Information gathered with patient permission from membership card records helped determine that ill persons purchased cantaloupes sourced from a single farm. Product traceback information indicated these cantaloupes were harvested from single farm in Guatemala", says the CDC.

The likely reason that subsequent tests performed on cantaloupe samples from that farm came out negative for salmonella is that none of the original melons could be found. In the time it took for people to become sick, for someone to realize these 20 cases of illness were related, and for the probable source of the outbreak to be traced back to Del Monte... well, the cantaloupes were gone. They matured, were harvested, and were shipped up here. A month had passed, after all. Lacking confirmatory evidence from test results proves nothing, especially when the tests are performed too late. The same would happen if two friends were to get food poisoning from the same restaurant one night and only tell each other that they had both gotten sick one or two days later, once they had recovered; at that point, the original contaminated food in the restaurant would be gone, and tests would come back negative. Does that change the fact that the restaurant is clearly the source of the illness? No!

Am I the only person who thinks this lawsuit is ridiculous? A horrendous waste of time and money? An insult to public health agencies whose job it is to protect us from harm, not fight private corporations in court? WTF!?


Photos of cantaloupes used under Creative Commons from Kabsik Park (Royalty-free image collection/flickr) and mary (marymactavish/flickr).

In the News Today

Remember the eco-fee? I wrote about it back in July, when it first came into effect (you may want to read that post if you have no idea what I'm talking about). We collectively didn't notice the new fee because we were distracted by the new harmonized sales tax. Then there was uproar, Canadian Tire scrapped the fee, and the government finally suspended the program to begin a 90-day review. Well, those three months are up, and the verdict is out: no more eco-fee, new consumer advocates on the Stewardship Ontario board, and municipalities get cash (a.k.a. our taxes) to properly dispose of hazardous household products. Read the full article here.

Without the eco-fee, we can now spend our Canadian Tire money more frivolously!

And now for some good news: BPA is now officially on the Canadian Toxic Substances List, thanks to intervention by the federal government. This hormone-mimicking, cancer-causing, immune system-damaging, miscarriage-inducing substance is used to make plastic food and beverage containers, line tin cans, and coat receipts. What's next? In addition to banning it in baby bottles, let's ban it altogether! Read Environmental Defence's news release here.

Passing the savings on to the consumer... or not...

Are you as confused as I am about this whole eco-fee drama? Have you, like me, heard snippets of your colleagues' conversations, read the occasional newspaper headline over your fellow transit riders' shoulders, and found yourself a bit muddled? Well sit back and relax while I do some research and figure this out.


Okay, here's the low-down: on July 1, new eco-fees came into effect in my (current) home province of Ontario, essentially taxing household products that contain toxic ingredients in order to offset the cost of safely discarding said products and their packaging. This happened very quietly because media coverage was much more partial to the implementation of the new Harmonized Sales Tax in Ontario and British Columbia, which took effect on the same day. Then on Monday, we heard that Canadian Tire will no longer be charging the fees because they've had a tough time determining how much to charge (due to inconsistencies between products) and feel the program isn't being well-handled.


One day after the news broke, the Environment Minister scrapped the fee, announcing the program would be reviewed over the next 90 days, and in the meantime, taxes will cover the bill. A lot of fingers are being pointed at Stewardship Ontario, who came up with the plan. The issue is that it's not necessarily a good idea to let a group of big corporation reps find a solution to a problem they're creating by putting toxic products out there in the first place. It's not like they're keen on absorbing the disposal costs, right?


Let's consider some options. On the one hand, when consumers pay a fee, one could argue that they are being encouraged to think about the environmental impact of common household products and make responsible decisions around such purchases. Besides, only those who buy these items are penalized, while others who choose safer alternatives don't lose out. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like anyone was taking charge of the "educating the public" part of the equation, hence the confusion and uproar when people took a closer look at their receipts.

On the other hand, if manufacturers were held accountable for the safe disposal of the toxic products they create, they might feel more inclined to do the research necessary for developing healthier alternatives. And what goes around comes around: consumers looking to avoid toxins would be happy to buy these new, safer products, so the companies would profit from their efforts. The challenge is convincing the government to step in and force producers to carry the cost instead of passing them on to consumers, because an organization like Stewardship Ontario has no authority to do so.

I guess we'll have to see what happens in October. In the meantime, vote with your wallet! Stop in at your local natural food store - these days, in addition to organic produce, you'll also find environmentally safe products on their shelves. From shampoo to toilet cleaner to laundry detergent, we owe it to ourselves to choose healthier alternatives while we wait for the government to figure out what to do!