Chandra Clarke

Award-winning entrepreneur. Author. Professional Optimist.

The Grass is Finally Greener

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You’ll have to excuse us newly minted hybrid car drivers. We’re both slightly distracted and a bit smug.

Earlier this year, my husband and decided to get a Prius. We’ve only had it a few months, but already the changes it’s produced in us are remarkable.

First, you must understand that never in a million years did I see myself driving a sedan. The word “sedan” is entirely too close to the word “sedate” for my liking. Second, in spite of a brief, but meaningful relationship with a red Tiburon back in the (pre-motherhood) day, I’ve never really liked driving much. Driving is incredibly boring, but it requires your full attention — or at least, that’s what the officer who caught me trying to catch up on the latest issue of New Scientist told me.

Meanwhile, my husband, who’s never met a train he didn’t like, has an innate suspicion of anything that doesn’t blow steam or require a third rail.

So it comes as a great surprise to find that we really enjoy piloting our hybrid. I say “piloting” because it feels like you’re on board a starship. The regenerative braking sounds like you’re dropping out of warp, and it’s completely silent at stop lights and stealthy in parking lots. As it comes with push button controls and digital readouts, plus a way to pipe your cell phone calls through the dash hands-free (“Scotty! Are you there?”), my husband is seriously debating getting new plates that read NCC-1701.

Thus far, we’ve only discovered two drawbacks to our new car. One is that the feedback system encourages you to play a ‘video game’ of sorts with yourself while driving, by scoring you on your consumption. You find yourself constantly watching the fuel use meter, trying to drive with a feather-light foot, and thinking of more efficient routes to work. Do not be alarmed if you see me doing a little victory dance in the driver’s seat when I rate an “Excellent!”

That’s the distracted part I mentioned earlier. The smug part is when you silently glide up beside the big, noisy, fuel sucking SUV driver who impatiently pulled out and around you two blocks ago. You see him jump in surprise, and then watch him realize he’s no further ahead than you in traffic but about $20 poorer to boot. I think I may have to develop a special dance for those occasions too.

The second drawback is that now entirely too easy to rationalize a trip into a Tim Horton’s drive through because you don’t have the carbon footprint induce- guilt associated with idling as you wait. If we’re not careful, our doughnut weight gain will more than offset our fuel efficiency.

Chocolate glazed overdoses aside, what really strikes me about the hybrid and other more environmentally friendly products is that the market is finally getting it. It used to be that the only way to be kinder to the Earth was to be a Certified Hippie. You know, the people who actually wore those coats made out of recycled plastic bottle pieces, could find time to make all their own cleaning products and who lived in reclaimed transport containers.

These days there are all kinds of choices out there. Want to reduce electricity use? Store shelves are full of low energy, long life bulbs. (Bonus: Fewer trips up the ladder.) Worm composting to reduce your kitchen waste not your thing? (And let’s face it, worms should not be present in any kitchen that also has toddlers). Get a low wattage electric composter. (Bonus: In two weeks you’ll have enough soil to re-pot the petunias your toddlers discovered).

Tired of the energy drain that is the ironing pile? Behold and hallelujah, we’ve invented no-iron shirts and pants. (Oh c’mon, tell me you don’t think that ironing is toxic to *your* environment.) And I don’t know about you, but I’ve already picked out my mid-life crisis car: the all-electric Tesla.

Not easy being green? That was so twentieth century. There are all kinds of easy to implement changes that can make a difference right now.

Let’s hop to it.

Photo Credit: Chandra Clarke

Feel the Wind (Power) in My Hair

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Zwei_WKA_auf_der_Neutscher_Höhe

It’s tough trying to be an environmentally conscious consumer. Hybrid cars? They are still pretty pricey; get on the waiting list. Biodegradeable disposable diapers? Not at your local grocery store. Phosphate-free soaps? Only at expensive, hard-to-get-to health boutiques.

Promising solutions seem to drop out of sight. For years, I’ve heard of alternative fuel sources — everything from vegetable oil to hydrogen. These things seem to be in perpetual development; none of them ever make it to the market.

Blame Big Oil, you say? Well, maybe. Certainly there’s a lot of money to be made in oil, and the players aren’t going to leave the field without a fight. But it has to be said that sometimes, environmentalists aren’t doing us any favours either. Consider:

PRODUCT DEVELOPER: Right, so we want to talk about this amazing new technology that can convert discarded chicken parts – straight from the poultry-processing plant – into clean fuel.
ENVIRONMENTALIST: Did the chickens lead happy lives?
PD: Er, they were free-range, I think…
EN: But did they get a chance to self-actualize? Realize their full potential?
PD: Right, perhaps you’d like to see our proposal for these wind generators…
EN: Too noisy.
PD: Oh, but these are located along coastlines and more remote areas, and they’re practically silent-running.
EN: Underground, I mean. Vibration, etc. Disturbs the woodchucks.
PD: Disturbs… the… woodchucks. Okay, so, how about we talk about solar panels?
EN: Nope. Bad for bugs.
PD: How?!
EN: They get hot. Bugs land on them, and …ffft!
PD: Ffft? Ffft?!!
EN: You okay? You seem to be getting a bit hot under the collar.
PD: Must be that global warming thing.

Of course, economists are no better. Many an enthusiastic proposal has been squashed by an economist with a calculator and too much time on his hands. Inevitably they forecast that the new energy system will cost billions, even trillions, and that its benefits are doubtful. One wonders what would have been said if our current situation had been put forward as a proposal, back in the late 1800s.

FUTURIST1: Gentlemen! We must do something to replace the horse. They eat too much. They leave horse… stuff all over the place. They kick. People fall off them and break their necks. Suggestions?
FUTURIST2: I know! First, let’s drill large holes in random places until we find pockets of the liquid, rotten remains of long-dead animals and plants. Then we’ll set up expensive, smelly refineries to convert this goo into a wide variety of toxic chemicals. Meanwhile, we’ll begin paving over millions of acres of green landscape with a hard, but nevertheless non-durable, substance that will be prone to crack, break up, or develop something called “potholes” on a weekly basis and require repair. Finally we will have to find a way to transport the refined goo to distribution stations; this will occasionally result in an accident — you know, dropping several million litres in the ocean, or having something blow up now and then. All this will be to fuel the horseless carriage.

[Short pause]

FUTURIST1: Sounds good! Where do I invest?

The point is, of course, that things are in a bit of a mess, and so, yes, it’s going to cost money to fix or replace it. The solutions are not going to be perfect either — short of us leaving the planet, there is never going to be a time when we’re not disturbing something, consuming a resource, or both. So let’s just get on with whatever system will cause less damage than the one we’ve got, and we’ll figure it out from there.

I’m sure the woodchucks would agree — even the ones that are somewhat disturbed.*

* And to prove my commitment to the environment, let me just say this: No woodchucks were actually disturbed in the process of writing this column.

Photo credit: Alexander Blecher via Wikimedia Commons

 

Hot but not bothered

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Smoke Stack from Sugar Factory in Belle Glade ...
Still legal.  (Photo credit: Captain Kimo)

People tell me things.

Sometimes I think it’s because I must have been born with a “you can trust me” aura. Maybe I look empathetic. Whatever the reason, the upshot is that strangers have always felt comfortable talking to me, sharing opinions or intimate details about their lives. Usually within about a minute of meeting me. This means that 1) I never had the “embarrassed” phase as a teenager. I’d heard it all by age nine. 2) Every time I travel it’s an exercise in sociological research.

Take the gruff fellow I met at the gas station yesterday. He was filling up his quad cab pickup, and very incensed over the cost. Bent my ear for fifteen minutes, on all things related to gas prices. “Global warming is a crock,” he huffed, “it’s effing freezing out here!”

That, for me, neatly summed up how scientists and environmentalists have blown the climate change debate.

The message for the past 20 odd years, you see, has been that we need to reduce pollution because it’s one of the chief causes of climate change. This message has failed for the following reasons:

The Scientific Method – Scientists fight amongst themselves, in public, over details. This would be fine if we had a scientifically literate public. This problem isn’t helped by the fact that this week’s science reporter was last week’s lifestyles editor. Consider the following scientific discovery headline cycle:

* Researchers suggest guar gum may possibly improve blood circulation if ingested on Sundays
* Studies link guar gum to improved blood circulation
* Better blood with guar?
* Chewing gum: Does it make you live longer?
* Major chewing gum manufacturers investigating guar, debating new product lines
* Cola bottlers announce plans for guar supplements in your favourite fizzy
* Nation gone guar crazy!
* Scientist at another institute says original guar study flawed; author forgot to carry the one
* Guar.com launched
* Original guar study author claims critic’s mother wore army boots. Did not forget to carry one
* Guar industry analysts worried
* Guar critic says did too, did too forget to carry the one
* Another new study: Guar linked to heart disease?
* Guar.com folds, 3500 IT employees now seeking work in India
* Year in review  — Remember guar?

Vested Interests — The people concerned about climate change are researchers, volunteers, and environmentalists — you know, people who are happy to have enough spare change to be able to afford a fair-trade coffee sometimes. Critics of climate change research tend to be car makers, oil companies, and manufacturers – you know, people who are happy to have enough spare change to be able to afford a coffee producing country now and then.

Whither the weather? – The average non-scientific Joe on the street has difficulty believing long term predictions about climate, when we still can’t reliably predict if it will rain in Philadelphia next Thursday.

So what *should* the message have been? Air quality.

It’s personal: We all breathe. It’s scientific: We’ve got instruments that can tell us exactly what we’re breathing in. It’s immediate and health related: What was that about asthma rates again? It’s tangible: Even guys in pickup trucks know when they can see, smell, and practically chew the smog.

Plus it’s really, really tough to spin the benefits of smog: “Just look at that brown sky! Doesn’t it just make you want to… to… oh, never mind.”

One last ponderable: In most of North America, it’s now socially unacceptable to light up a cigarette. But it’s still okay to fire up a smoke stack.

I suppose I should be careful. Without these kinds of strange contrasts, I wouldn’t have any material for a column. And then I’d have to… ARGH!

Work for a living. Forget everything I just said! No, really…

Nature of the beast

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English: Blue-footed Booby (Sula nebouxii) wit...
 Very hard to take seriously. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The next time I complain in this space about cold Canadian winters, remind me that I could be living in someplace really horrible, like, say, California.

When they aren’t being beaten by the police, California residents must deal with mud slides, wildfires, earthquakes and a major plastic surgeon infestation. As if that wasn’t bad enough, La Jolla beach homeowners once woke up to find that thousands of giant squid had washed up on shore and died in the hot sun.

“[Gag],” said one resident, as municipal workers removed more than 12 tons of dead squid. “[Retch, wheeze, gasp],” he added.

Aside from watching Californians turn green and start a desperate search for designer gas masks, the most interesting thing about this story was what didn’t happen. When dolphins beach themselves, entire seaside towns drop everything to whisk them back into the water. As far as I can tell, no one tried to send the squid back home. I have a few theories as to why:

1) Those weren’t municipal workers doing the cleanup, but representatives of the upcoming Calamari Festival.

2) It’s hard to rescue something that can grab and hold all four of your limbs, slap you around and still have at least three tentacles tied behind it’s back.

3) Squid aren’t cute.

This last point bears thinking about because ugly animals are just as important to the environment as the cute ones. For example, how would mother goldfish keep their fry in line if they weren’t able to point at carp and say, “If you keep making faces like that, you’ll end up looking like him.”

No, seriously, all animals are important in a balanced ecosystem. So it seems to me that we need a special wildlife protection group dedicated to protecting Earth’s unlovables.

The first hurdle in setting up something would be picking a suitable name. For instance, which is better from a marketing perspective: The Poisonous Creature Defense League (Motto: Bring A Pair Of Thick Gloves), or the Squishy, Slimy Protection Fund (Motto: Fish May Be Icthy But They’re Still Our Friends!)

Fundraising will also be an issue. Traditional wildlife groups raise money by selling things like mugs or t-shirts with photos of cute animals on them. However, you’d need to prepare your supporters carefully. For instance, if January’s feature creature is a big, hairy tarantula, I can see thousands of innocent desk calendars suffering sudden death by baseball bat.

Celebrity endorsement in the form of TV commercials is also out of the question. For one thing, us viewers would never get to learn what animal it is we’re supposed to support:

SALLY STRUTHERS: The plight of these poor creatures just breaks my heart. Every year thousands of them die needlessly. Save the-ARGH!! GET IT OFF! [whap!] GET IT OFF ME! [whap! whap!]

Even animal rights celebrities would have trouble:

JEAN-MICHEL COSTEAU: And here ve have zee beeyootiful stinging jellyfish, vich every year dies by dee tousands, becau- Tabarnac! Sacre-bleu! Oh, zee pain! Zee pain!

Perhaps a direct adopt-an-animal plan would work better. Adoptive ‘parents’ would have to have strong stomachs for the letters home though:

Dear Foster Parent:

Thanks to your generous donation, local aid workers have been able to build a special protected habitat and life skills training area. Today I learned how to stalk and disembowel chickens. In a few months, they say I’ll be well enough to produce venom strong enough to drop an elephant. I’ve enclosed pictures so you can see my fang development.

Love,
Nagaina

Of course, some animals aren’t ugly so much as they suffer from branding issues. Nobody ever thinks to Save the Pogonophore! because no one can spell pogonophore. And no one ever talks about saving the blue-footed booby, because, well, you’re laughing, aren’t you?

So the next time you worry about the media and our image conscious society, remember, endangered species have it worse. For them, image isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.