Wasteful in its water consumption and often laden with chemicals (for that “natural” green look), the suburban front lawn is a verdant emblem of upwardly mobile America. Los Angeles-based architect Fritz Haeg’s project, the Edible Estates Initiative, aims to replace resource-sapping front lawns with productive fruit and vegetable gardens. “The project isn’t really about vegetable gardens and it’s not really about lawns,” says Haeg. “It’s about having a relationship with the environment and with other people.” Fritz has planned nine Edible installments around the country, and two are already in place. One now flourishes in Lakewood, Calif., 20 miles south of downtown LA. Michael and Jennifer Foti sacrificed their front lawn for beans, patty pan squash and Hungarian cucumbers. Besides achieving near self-sufficiency produce-wise, the Foti’s new front yard has made him somewhat of a celebrity, allowing him the chance to chat with many of his fellow Lakewood citizens on a daily basis. “You don’t really know what’s going on in the neighborhood unless you spend some time out there,” says Foti. “I didn’t always want to look inward all the time. I want to look outward.” That LA has beaten us to the punch for this instance of green-style noncomformity is mildly unacceptable. For more information on the Edible Estates Initiative, to volunteer your own front lawn, or for guidelines on how you can get started yourself, click here. —Jessica Ridenour
Record Number of Spare the Air Days in Bay Area Whets Appetite for Mass Transportation Free-dom
Remember when a San Francisco summer was the coldest winter you could ever spend? Well, one of the hottest summers on record in The City has officials talking about making Bay Area mass transit a fare-free affair. It started in earnest after commuters enjoyed a record six free mass transit days over June and July, when searing temps, low winds and relatively high humidity forced the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to proclaim Spare The Air days. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission then spent $12.8 million for the free rides. For many—especially those who had not already paid for monthly passes—striding straight past the tolls and onto the MUNI buses, ferries and BART trains felt like stepping into some futuristic utopia. Officials estimate that an extra 155,000 “new” rides were taken on each of the free transit days. Critics say the $2.1 million daily subsidy was cost-ineffective ($13/extra rider) and that more pollution could be reduced by spending money on more mass trans instead of making gratis what already exists. But the MTC is looking into the idea and SF Supervisor Tom Ammiano and Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty are leading voices. The hurdle: cost. Bay Area mass trans providers annually take in $516.7 million in fares. —Todd Spencer
Governor Schwarzenegger: “California…will [or might not] take strong action on global warming.”
Unlike President Bush and other fellow Republicans, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger talks the right talk about global warming, but is he really willing to stand up to his big business friends on the issue? Nonprofit Environment California speaks fluent election-year photo-op, and Bernadette Del Chiaro, their global warming advocate, translates what Schwarzenegger said at his high-profile summit with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and nine California CEOs in late July. “What the governor really said, overall, was ‘Someday, maybe, we might trade with the UK. It’s a symbolic gesture.” The UK has caps on greenhouse gases already, but California does not. For “trading” [monetizing greenhouse gas tonnage limits, creating financial incentives and penalties for polluters] to happen, California would need caps of its own. Those caps might be in place as soon as January 1, 2007 if the state legislature passed the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32) in August and Schwarzenegger signs it this month. Co-authored by San Francisco Assemblymen Mark Leno and Leland Yee, Berkeley’s Loni Hancock and Marin’s Joe Nation, the bill was written to bring California into compliance with the international standards that the US has ignored—to slash overall emissions by 25% by 2020, and enforcing it legally. At presstime, Schwarzenegger was seeking pro-business changes to the bill that environmentalists say would render it toothless. Corporations and the governor saying they’re concerned is great PR for them, but if the summit was really just a play for wimpy corporate self-regulation, then that’s so much more hot air to deal with, and so much more time being wasted. The legislative session ended August 31. To find out the bill’s fate—and the governor’s true face—go to environmentcalifornia.org. —Todd Spencer
Happy is the New Sad, Corn is the New Grass
When the “Happy Cows” ad campaign hit televisions, PETA smelled something stinky. Sure enough, fact is, despite the image makeover on TV, dairy cows from California are more likely to have been raised in feedlots, ankle-deep in feces than frolicking in green pastures lazily grazing the grasses. Now, due to a proposed rule by the Department of Agriculture, similar concerns are wafting up regarding animals labeled as “grass-fed.” The rule would relax the requirements of the “grass-fed” label, allowing inclusion of animals raised in confinement and injected with antibiotics and hormones—just as long as they’re munching on “harvested forage” (a term currently defined vaguely enough to include grains like corn, thus negating the side-benefit of increased omega-3 fatty acids in beef from cows grazed on actual natural grasses).
Naturally, purveyors of actual grass-fed beef are up in arms. Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association—a nonprofit dedicated to maintaining food safety standards—encourages concerned consumers to write letters and stay up on the issue at sites like eco-labels.org. It’s also another compelling argument in the long list of reasons to buy directly from a local farmer you know and trust. —Jenny Rough
This Ice Cap’s for You
If global warming has got you looking to drown your sorrows, then we’ve got the brew for you. Greenland Brewhouse, the world’s first Inuit microbrewery, has launched the world’s first beer distilled with water from melted polar ice caps.
The brewers claim the 2,000-year-old water is free of toxic minerals and pollutants, giving the ales a smooth, clean flavor. “Today, with all the pollution… you cannot get cleaner water than melted ice cap water,” boasts Salik Hard, a native Greenlander and co-owner of the brewery 390 miles south of the Arctic Circle. —Eliza Thomas
Eat Your Plate
Biodegradable forks and spoons. Compostable plates and cups. It’s an eco-conscious picnicker’s dream! Well, sort of.
Earthshell is a Maryland-based vendor of cups, plates and plastic packaging made from…(ta-da!) potatoes, wheat and even (yum?) tapioca. Or UK-based Vegware, which makes stuff out of corn; and Minnesota-based Biograde doing wonders with limestone and cellulose.
The idea, of course, is that unlike regular plastics—which will live out their next several hundred years in a landfill—biodegradables break down, creating rich, fertile compost that will (conveniently!) nourish your garden, which will then (how practical!) produce food, which you can (aha!) chow down on with another corn-based fork. You get it: natural cycle of life, closing the loop, etc.
But there’s a slight kink in the works. If you’re lucky enough to live in a progressive town—Berkeley, say—then you’ve got access to municipal industrial composting services. (Even some slightly less enlightened cities offer such services—find out if your town is one of them at ciwmb.ca.gov). Oh, but wait—even enlightened waste facilities are unaccustomed to seeing forks and spoons amidst the grass clippings. Mistaking them for misplaced trash, many workers pluck them out and banish them to the landfill with the rest of the refuse. According to Ferris Kawar, with the Community Greening Program at Venice enviro organization, Sustainable Works, “There’s still a lot of education that has to happen on many different levels (before biodegradable utensils will be fully effective).”
Of course, that’s not the last of the obstacles facing biodegradable “plastics.” Home composters will find that these plates, cups and forks might take anywhere from three weeks to several months to break down. But don’t be tempted to just banish them to the trash where they’ll be carted off to a landfill, sealed off from the elements needed for decomposition.
So is it environmentally smarter to buy biodegradable cups or just recycle (or re-use) plastic ones? Now that’s something to chew on (along with your cup) while sipping your morning coffee. For a look at what these products look like, check out earthshell.com, vegware.co.uk (their utensils are available through Palo Alto-based worldcentric.org), and biocorpaavc.com (Biograde). —Andi Mcdaniel
Meet the New Swift Boaters: Vets for Freedom
Now that the notorious “Swift Boat Veterans for Trashing John Kerry” have been solidly exposed as a bunch of Republican Party hacks, George W. has a fresh group of shills trying to give him some political cover.
Calling themselves “Vets for Freedom,” this bunch has been posing as an independent, objective, non-partisan voice, and writing articles and blogs that support Bush’s war in Iraq.
An example of their objectivity is a glowing piece one of the VFF leaders posted in June: “Baghdad is beautiful,” he gushed. “I mean shockingly majestic. I was amazed to see this level of cleanliness.” He didn’t mention that, only the day before, explosions around “beautiful” Baghdad had killed another 23 people.
Withholding of negative details seems to be a trademark of this outfit. For example, a guy named Taylor Gross went to The Buffalo News and at least three other newspapers in April to urge them to carry the “balanced and credible” stories written by VFF leaders. Gross failed to mention, however, that until last year he had been a Bush flack in the White House press office and now heads a Republican PR group.
Nor did Gross tell the newspaper editors that the “non-partisan” Vets for Freedom has deep Republican ties, that its slick website is hosted by a firm that worked for the Bush-Cheney campaign and that VFF had been trashing decorated war hero Rep. John Murtha and other Democratic critics of George’s Iraqi misadventures.
None of those papers took up Gross’s offer, though both the The New York Times and The Washington Post carried op-ed pieces by VFF leaders—none mentioning the authors’ partisan connections and bias.
To keep up with VFF and other political front groups, connect with a watchdog organization called Source Watch. —Jim Hightower