Scotchy, scotch scotch

Thanks to my mom's almost relentless activity on Ancestry.com, we know that her family is almost all from the Isles, and mostly Scotland at that.  (This may explain the freckles and allergy to the sun).  Scotch, or whisky, has been produced in Scotland for hundreds of years. The Gaelic "usquebaugh", meaning "Water of Life", phonetically became "usky" and then "whisky" in English. 

My dad, the actual Scotch addict in the family, is all question-mark, so who knows where he gets his penchant for this delicious amber drink.  He prefers the Glen-'s, while I am a Jack fan myself.  We think he could be Black Irish, with the black hair and sapphire eyes, so that would fit, no?

In addition to its primary use as a drunk-maker, researchers in Scotland have discovered a possible use for the waste created in the distilling process: biofuel!  This is amazing to me.  One article I read said that Scotch-distilling is the most energy (carbon) intensive in all of beveragedom.  If they can nearly or completely offset that activity by burning and selling biofuel, well then Scotch really is a miracle liquid.

Also?  They normally just dump the waste in the sea (!), so now they will be less polluting as well.  Cheers!

So help the environment and have a Jack and water on the rocks on me!  Or with me. Wait, why haven't you bought me a drink yet??

Down to the Last Sushi

At the top of the Atlantic Ocean food chain is the bluefin tuna, a half-ton hunting machine that can accelerate faster than a Porsche.  Yet it is powerless against the appetites for wealthy Japanese diners: Industrial fishing has reduced bluefin numbers by two-thirds in the Mediterranean and 80 percent in the Atlantic.  A fishing ban could restore healthy numbers within a decade, but at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species this March in Qatar, Japan marshaled 68 nations to vote against a ban on international trade in the vanishing fish - after treating them to a bluefin sushi buffet.

What's motivating Japan and the other tuna-fishing nations is more than a taste for raw fish.  Prized bluefin sell at auction in Tokyo for as much as $175,000 apiece.  Presumable the very last bluefin will fetch an even higher price.

Source: Sierra Club magazine, July/August 2010

The Original Recyclers

The Shakopee Mdewankanton Dakota community tries very hard to be self-sufficient.  Having that giant casino helps, no doubt.  They have their own water-treatment plant, DNR department, police and fire, and an energy cooperative.  And I have to say, this energy plant is genius.  All of the materials burned in this plant would just be waste otherwise.  Barley dust from beer production?  Oat hulls from Cheerios?  Genius.

Trees

Let's face it, trees rock.  We all had a favorite tree we climbed as kids.  Mine was a pine tree in the front yard of our house in Golden Valley.  It was sticky, but easy to climb and, more importantly, sit in.  There's a tree outside Kiawah Island that is rumored to be the oldest tree east of the Mississippi.  It's called the Angel Oak.  Here's my grandma standing in front of it:

One of my green cohorts at work, Ann Olson, passed along this cool story about NASA using images of the earth to try and figure out how much carbon is stored in trees and whether these trees can continue to sequester carbon as we continue to emit it..

Green here, green there, green everywhere

I don't think anyone I know is in the construction business, but here are some cool articles about green building and facilities practices.  The office building across the driveway from mine was built to be LEED-certified.  Our landlord is thinking about looking into maybe trying to retro-fit our building as LEED.  We will see.

There are only a few green roofs in Minneapolis.  I think the Minneapolis library is one and I think the Hennepin County Government Center has a little one too.  They seem to be such a smart way to have a little oasis in the city.  NYC has tons, from what I read.

CNN has an article about pollution-eating concrete.  I've previously shared in my Green Team newsletter a carbon-sequestering mineral (all the way to the bottom of the page) that was discovered in Oman, but this seems to have much more of a practical application.  If this is true and isn't astronomically expensive, it could be a miracle.

Finally, the 8200 Normandale Lake Blvd building right down the street from us was recently completed and is another LEED-certified building.  (It also has Parma 8200 which is FAB).   Lindsay Buck passed this article on to me about their ramp offering preferred parking to Eco-vehicles, hybrids, electric and the like.  What I would like to see also or instead is carpool parking.  You can drive the greenest car out there, but if it's still just you in the car...

A Little Un-Green

I wish I was brave enough to bike to work.  I only live about seven miles away, but every street is a major street including the big downhill/uphill of Normandale Blvd.  I'm a chicken.  And lazy.  Also?  I love my car.  I LOVE HER.  And I love driving, even though most people who ride with me think I will stroke out from screaming at other drivers.

Luckily, there appear to be tons of other - better - people than me in the Cities.  Minneapolis was recently named the bikingest city in the nation (YAY!) by Bicycling Magazine.    The awesome people who bike to work instead of driving their car are reducing carbon emissions, reducing traffic, and keeping fit.  Again, jealous.

People also ride some pretty wierd bikes.  But, hey, they're riding.  If you bike to work, or bike to the store, you are awesome.  But stay out of the road and stop running lights and stop signs.  Kisses!!

Green Shopping

When I shop for groceries, I really try to look at the packaging the product comes in.  Cardboard and plastic make up WAY too much of our landfill waste.  Most waste in Hennepin County is incinerated, so think about all the plastic being burned and that smell and the toxins being released in the air over Minneapolis.

Recycling is so easy, but so is thinking ahead.  Yes, I know those cute little applesauce cups fit really well in Junior's lunchbox, but so do reusable Ziploc containers filled from the big glass jar of applesauce.  The website http://www.reusablebags.com/ has so many options it's silly to keep using sandwich bags, plastic water bottles and Saran wrap to store your lunch.  Many stores, including Whole Foods, Rainbow and some Targets, offer plastics recycling.  They will take the plastics that your home recycling company will not, mostly numbers 3 through 7, as well as plastic and paper bags.

Here are some stats I've complied over the years for my newsletter at work.  I call them Little Green Bits.

*Packaging amounts to 32% of Minnesota’s garbage.
*Americans toss out enough aluminum every 3 months to rebuild the entire commercial air fleet.
*Recycling 35% of US trash saves enough energy to fuel six million homes annually, generates $5.2 billion in raw materials each year and reduces vehicle emissions equivalent to taking 36 million cars off the road.
*In one week, the average Minnesotan throws away more than 40 pounds of garbage.
*The garbage generated in Minnesota in one year would fill four lanes of trucks, bumper-to-bumper, stretching from Albert Lea to International Falls.
*Paper and paperboard account for 40% of the garbage in the US.
*If 10,000 people pack their sandwiches in reusable bags every day for a month, we'll keep the weight of one giant panda in sandwich bags from reaching landfills.
*US volunteers collected 3,661,445 pounds of trash during the 2008 International Coastal Cleanup. They found 99 birds tangled in marine debris.
*Compared against a single-use water bottle that is tossed in the garbage, drinking from a reusable water bottle filled with tap water will reduce energy consumption by 85% and greenhouse gasses by 79%.
*Next time you feel thirsty, forgo the bottle and turn on the tap. The EPA’s standards for tap water are more stringent than the FDA’s standards for bottled water.
*Americans throw away 470,000 tons of milk cartons every year.

iPhone Apps

I hate everyone who has an iPhone. I am so jealous of you it makes me ill. I cannot wait until Verizon gets the iPhone, sometime in '11 is the word on the street. Until that glorious day, I am a giant nerd and I save all the cool apps I see. Here are a few that you might be interested in too.

Green apps: I don't know who this Grist is, but he/she/it has complied a list of neato green apps for you here.

CauseWorld helps you donate to your favorite causes just by doing your daily routine, like grocery shopping.

Also for dog and cat lovers, this app helps you donate kibble to shelters just by answering a daily trivia question.

Go outside, because you kids are driving me CRAZY

Even though it is hott as hell outside this week, I still try to go for a walk every day. I love being in nature. We have a great little green area at work, with paths that meander around the ponds and Nine Mile Creek. There are geese and butterflies and songbirds and huge gross carp in the water. It seems like people don't spend any time out side anymore. I encourage you to do it. God, it sure calms me down and you know I need help with that.

If you do decide to go to a park or a nature center, here are some common myths that people still believe. Have fun out in nature. She won't bite. Probably.


6 Common Nature Myths -- Debunked
Advice to ignore while you’re enjoying the outdoors
http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Outdoors/Archives/2010/Nature-Myths.aspx

Come on, just do a little bit more...

As some of you may know, I am passionate about trying to save/clean-up the environment. I do as much as I can in my own life to be “green”. I recycle all plastics, cans, bottles, bottle caps, paper and cardboard at home (even the TP tube), and I bring a lot home from work to recycle, too. I consider the amount of packaging in a product before I buy it. I donate clothes and household items to the ARC and Bridging rather than throwing them away. At work, I helped start a recycling program, and I am also on the Green Team, where I create and edit a monthly newsletter. I love to bird-watch. In fact, I am almost militantly pro-wildlife. I am anti-hunting; that is why we have grocery stores. This may offend a lot of people, but I almost always side with the animal over the stupid person who got in trouble interacting with said wildlife.

Lately, however, I have been frustrated with the lack of meaningful activities we can do at work and the general apathy of my co-workers. I am beyond frustrated actually. I spend a lot of time on the newsletter and I really enjoy doing it, but I don’t think all the GT members even read it, much less the rest of the employees. People just don’t seem to care. Practically everyone leaves their monitors and desk lights on overnight; one guy even colored in the button on his monitor so no one could tell that he leaves it on. That was kind of the last straw.

So I decided that I am going to go outside the company and do my own thing by starting a blog. I will post interesting news stories, tips, slideshows and ideas about the environment and wildlife. It will make me feel good to share good news along with the work that still needs to be done.

I am not perfect; I fricken LOVE to drive Heidi’s big turbo engine and there isn’t much better than a McDonald’s hamburger. But I am trying and the stuff I do is EASY. I hope this will inspire you to try a little bit too. Thanks. bp