YES, WE CAN!

Al Gore is back – not that he went anywhere – in the news with yet another environmental initiative that picks up where "An Inconvenient Truth" left off.

Whereas "Truth" presented a rather bleak picture of the future with little in the way of a blueprint for change, the "We Campaign" is an action-oriented plan backed by $300 million raised in large part by The Alliance for Climate Protection -- a nonprofit, nonpartisan effort founded by Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore.

"We" is a three-year advocacy campaign calling for the U.S. to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. It will combine advertising, online organizing and partnerships with grass-roots groups to educate the public about global warming and urge solutions from elected officials.

Reaching across political lines, Gore has enlisted the help of people like Pat Robertson and Newt Gingrich in fighting global warming.

To join the We movement log on to http://www.wecansolveit.org/ and register your email. Then explore the site for tons of ways in ic you can get involved in taking stewardship of your planet.

EARTH HOUR TONIGHT!

What started as a nationwide initiative throughout Australia last year is now a worldwide phenomenon, and it's happening tonight.

Dubbed "Earth Hour," the goal is to make a significant impact on CO2 output, if just for one hour. Already, Europe has seen significant dips in power usage and greenhouse gas production (2% in London!) as a result of the Earth Hour initiative.

In 5 minutes (or as soon as you're done reading this), the East Coast of the U.S. should starting shutting down their power-hungry equipment and keep it off until 9pm. We here on the West Coast have three hours to go.

Okay, that's it for this post. To everyone in my home state of New York: Shut down and unplug... now!

Just Recycle...

2...6...4...7... No, this isn't a quarterback's call before the snap. It's a few of the seven different classifications assigned to plastics to describe their composition.

The numbers, bordered a chasing arrow symbol, can be found on an inconspicuous spot on most every piece of plastic packaging and some merchandise you find. Numbered 1 through 7, they represent the wide variety of plastic formulations that comprise consumer packaging and indicate to recyclers the process to be used for melting them back down into plastic soup.

The numbers reveal something else too – the toxicity of the packaging that will invariably come into contact with your skin, as well as with things you will touch, apply and even ingest.

Following is a list of the seven categories of plastic, along with their relative danger to you. No matter the number, however, be sure to put your plastics in recycling bins. Even if your local recycler doesn't currently take a specific number, if they receive enough of it, they're apt to change their ways.

Poly(ethylene terephthalate): Soda bottles, water bottles, vinegar bottles, medicine containers, backing for photography film. About a billion pounds of phthlates per year are produced worldwide. That new car smell that's especially pungent after the car has been sitting in the sun for a few hours, is partly the pungent odor of phthalates volatilizing from a hot plastic dashboard. In the evening's cool they then condense out of the inside air of the car to form an oily coating on the inside of the windshield. Phthalates have been linked to the in utero demasculinizing of male embyos. However, in the grand scheme, Poly's are on the safer side of plastics.

High-density Polyethylene: Containers for: laundry/dish detergent, fabric softeners, bleach, milk, shampoo, conditioner, motor oil. Newer bullet proof vests, various toys. Polyethylene has recently been discovered in milk sold in plastic containers. Get yours (organic, of course) in cardboard. Again, not quite as toxic as some of its cousins.

Poly(vinyl cloride): Pipes, shower curtains, meat wraps, cooking oil bottles, baby bottle nipples, shrink wrap, clear medical tubing, vinyl dashboards and seat covers, coffee containers. PVC becomes chemically active when heated. We strongly recommend not heating food in any kind of plastic container, but especially those made with PVC. PVC incineration leads to the emission of dioxins, a known carcinogen.

Low-density Polyethylene: Wrapping films, grocery bags, sandwich bags. As with PVC, Low-density Polyethylene degrades when heated, especially over about 120º. However, at room temperature it's relatively safe.

Polypropylene: Tupperware®, syrup bottles, yogurt tubs, diapers, outdoor carpet. This is one of the safer numbers on the scale, acceptable for use in baby bottles.

Polystyrene: Coffee cups, disposable cutlery and cups (clear and colored), bakery shells, meat trays, "cheap" hubcaps, packing peanuts, styrofoam insulation. According to the EPA, short-term styrene exposure at levels above the Maximum Contaminant Level (used to set drinking-water standards) can cause nervous-system effects such as loss of concentration, weakness, and nausea. Long-term exposure can cause liver and nerve damage and cancer.

Products labeled as "other" are made of any combination of 1-6 or another, less commonly used plastic, including polycarbonates. The effects of low-dose Bisphenol-A (BPA) exposure on laboratory animals found significant effects, including alterations to brain chemistry and structure, behavior, the immune system, and male and female reproductive systems.

Green Eggs and Bunnies

So we find ourselves giving in to the consumer tradition of buying the kids egg-shaped, foil-wrapped confections and cocoa bunnies for Easter. Try explaining to a 5-year-old that you're abiding by a principle that will benefit his and future generations when he's looking quizzically at the organic grapes in his basket where jellybeans should be.

However, we did decide that we could impart a smidgen of sponsibility to our Easter celebration by looking not to the treats, but the filler, specifically that most hallowed of all holiday padding – Easter grass.

Rather than opt for a bag of that shredded neon green plastic foil we decided to get creative while keeping our commitment to finding unique ways to honor our planet. A stack of magazines reserved for recycling did the trick.

Rifling through the pubs we pulled out colorful pages (advertising for the most part) and ran them through the paper shredder. In about five minutes we had enough colorful confetti to fill three baskets. All told we shredded only around 30 pages. Of course they'll still make their way to recycling, only in the form of a bunch of slivery strips.

BTW- the baskets themselves, while purchased, were chosen with multifunctionality in mind. After Easter they'll become repositories for toiletries in the kids' bathroom. Of the three R's we managed to reuse and recycle and, by not going overboard with the sweets this year, reduce as well.

Happy Easter everyone! Don't forget to compost your egg shells...

Troubled Water

This past Thursday night we had the chance to be a part of an amazing educational experience courtesy of LA Green Drinks. Thanks to the efforts of LA Green Drinks organizer Barent Roth and the good folks at Living Green, host of Culver City's monthly event, members of the research vessel Alguita were on hand to discuss their recent voyage and its amazing findings.

Anna Cummins and Marcus Eriksen, along with four colleagues, spent four weeks this past January and February sailing the Pacific Ocean, and more specifically, the northeast portion of a giant gyre that inhabits it. A gyre is a huge, swirling area of ocean created by clashing currents. There are nine gyres around the world with the one they researched called the North Pacific Gyre.

While gyres are an important ecological phenomena that circulate water, and with it food, between coasts and throughout oceans, they also form vast traps for human debris, specifically plastic.

Collecting plastic samples from the North Pacific Gyre, the crew was dismayed to find that the polluted area has grown to twice the area of the United States and is expanding at a mind-boggling rate. Currently it's estimated that the gyre contains 3.5 million tons of plastic, half of it floating on the surface and half sitting on the ocean floor.

The couple (who actually became engaged on the deck of the Alguita while at sea) presented samples of their findings, ranging from soda bottles to fishing line to an action figure arm, all coming from a variety of Pacific coastal regions including California, Alaska and Japan.

Unfortunately, Eriksen noted, there's nothing that can be done to remove the expansive plastic soup. Instead our focus must be on enacting legislation to stop more plastic from going into the sea. China is already banning the use of plastic bags and similar bans are beginning to take effect here in the U.S.

Eriksen is working to raise awareness of our collective need to limit our plastic consumption by sailing a raft made from used plastic bottles from Long Beach, California to Hilo, Hawaii this May. We'll be sure to keep you updated on his remarkable voyage and help spread the message of the crew of the Alguita.

Where the buffalo roam... for now.

We felt that the following message from our friends at Earthjustice was so important that we decided to bring it to you here on sponsible. Please take a moment to read on, and then click the link to sign the petition:

There are few animals that evoke the majesty and heritage of the American wilderness more than the Bison (commonly known as the Buffalo). Yet some of our country's last remaining wild bison are being trapped and killed as they migrate from the safety of Yellowstone in search of food during the harsh winter months. What's worse is that this brutal treatment is based on an outdated justification. The government spends hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars each year to capture and slaughter Yellowstone bison in the Horse Butte peninsula (just outside the western boundaries of the park). This slaughter is motivated by a perceived need to protect cattle from bison-borne disease.

The problem is that there aren't any cattle grazing in the peninsula; in 2002 cattle grazing on public lands was stopped by a court order and the remaining private land in the area has been purchased by new owners who have declared the property open to bison. Earthjustice, the Buffalo Field Campaign, and local landowners are calling for a halt to the buffalo slaughter and the initiation of a new environmental impact study that takes into account the current circumstances in the area and removes the justification for the killings. We need your help to encourage the U.S. Park and Forest services stop the senseless killing of the bison.

Please take action to let the government know that you want this tragedy to end.

-Earthjustice Because the earth needs a good lawyer