Greensleeves

For years I’ve been interviewing speakers for the annual flower and garden show at the QCCA Expo Center in Rock Island.

Few have been as thought provoking as this year’s headliner, Paul Tukey founder of an organiza-tion called SafeLawns.org.

He has really taken on the lawn care industry. “I hate them and they hate me,” he says. It isn’t that he wants to drive the industry out of business, he just wants them to change their ways, getting away from synthetic chemicals.

He’ll be talking at the Expo Center on Saturday and Sunday (March 28-29, 2009).

And at 1:30 p.m. Sunday he’ll offer a sneak preview of a feature-length documentary movie titled “Hudson: A Chemical Reaction.”

Centered on the anti-pesticide movement that has swept across Canada in the past 20 years, the movie features numerous scientists, doctors and lawn care professionals who debate the risks associated with common lawn and garden products.

 In 1991, Hudson had become the first town in North America to ban lawn chemicals used to kill weeds and insects and the town was subsequently sued by the world’s largest lawn care company known as ChemLawn.

To many people’s surprise, the little town of 5,088 won all court challenges all the way to the Ca-nadian Supreme Court in 2001. As a result of the case, lawn chemicals are now banned in more than half of Canada and not sold in Home Depot and other major retail chains in that country. The lawn chemicals are still sold in the U.S., however.

“Initially I wanted to make this film simply because it’s a great story of a modern-day David vs. Goliath,” director Brett Plymale says.

“But as I delved deeper into the intricacies of how the movement gained momentum and the im-pact that it had on the entire continent of North America, my motivation has become more driven to find out what forces are at work to shape public opinion, and why we collectively, willingly do things that are potentially harmful to ourselves.”

… Why we collectively, willingly, do things that are potentially harmful to ourselves.

Now there’s a question!

We talked last week about “Earth Hour,” an observance to support ACTION on climate change.
To participate, you simply turn out your lights from 8:30-9:30 p.m. Saturday.

It turns out that — way to go! — the cities of Rock Island and Bettendorf are supporting this initia-tive by turning off non-essential lights at public buildings for an hour, joining hundreds of other cities worldwide.

Some people might say this is “just” symbolic, but I say symbols mean a lot! Given enough sym-bols, we might move to affect real change.

And some real energy is saved in this action.

Illinois’ ComEd says electricity demand fell by 5 percent in Chicago and northern Illinois during last year’s Earth Hour. That reduced about 840,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions.
The observance is sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund. There is more information at this web site.

There are lots of things you can do while in the dark – some need little explanation – but I’d like to encourage you to spend at least a portion of that hour outdoors.

Sit on your step – I have a bench – and breathe in the fresh spring air. OK, it may be snowing by Saturday night, but the snow won’t last forever. Enjoy the moment.

Don’t forget the Environmental Film Festival Saturday at Augustana College. It looks like a great line-up.

The fest will be 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., featuring five major movies and nine shorter ones, all dealing with water as the common theme.

What’s more, it’s free!

One of the most talked-about movies is “FLOW: For the love of water,” a 2008 documentary di-rected by Irena Salina that shares how water is fast becoming an unregulated and monopolized resource world-wide.

Water has become a $400 billion dollar global industry; the third largest behind electricity and oil. It was hard to imagine a day when Americans would pay $5 for a gallon of gas – imagine paying $9 for a gallon of water! We can find alternatives for oil dependence; we simply cannot survive without safe, clean water.

Other major films are “Addicted to Plastic” — need I say more on this? — “The Return of the Cuya-hoga” (a river in Ohio that once was so polluted that it literally burned) and “Grand Canyon Adven-ture: River at Risk.”

For more information about the fest, including locations and times, go to this web site and scroll down to “upcoming events.”

 The World Wildlife Federation is inviting you to vote for action on climate change by turning out your lights for one hour on Saturday, March 28, at 8:30 p.m.

The idea of the world-wide initiative called Earth Hour is to send a message to leaders that you want action now.

There’s no doubt we need to move immediately on climate change – to put the brakes on human contributions to the change and to find ways to reverse some of the degradation that has already occurred.

So whatever we can do to get this point across to our leaders is good, and turning out lights for an hour is something.

We also can make changes in our lives every day, reducing energy use and encouraging others to do the same.

It seems I’m constantly turning out the lights in the conference room at work. People enter the room, have a meeting, then leave, with the lights still on.

I jump up, turn the lights off, go back to my desk and the next thing I know, the lights are on again. Maybe there are people in the room, maybe there aren’t. It’s just a habit to leave the lights on. We need different habits.

Pantelis Korovilas, a 21-year-old liberal studies student originally from Davenport/Clinton re-cently blogged about a youth climate summit he attended Feb. 27-March 2 in Washington, D.C.

Called Power Shift 09, the summit’s goal was to bring at least 10,000 young people to the capital to push for bold climate and clean energy policy.
Pantelis (pronounced PAHNT-a-lees), now attending Iowa State in Ames, said the gathering was a time to share, connect, learn, grow, inspire and be inspired.
I particularly liked that last part about inspiration. It is way too easy for me to get discouraged about the environment.
His blog includes a quote from Ted Glick, a long-time climate activist who now is with the Chesa-peake Climate Action Network (CCAN). It goes like this:
 “Throughout this jubilant day, there was a palpable sense of a psychological line being crossed which has had a parallel in all great movements for nonviolent social change. It is the moment when a movement becomes aware that it is tapping into the immensely strong and unstoppable power of truth.
“It is a time of spiritual awakening, when seekers of change suddenly realize they have unleashed an infinite force far beyond the strength of any individuals what Gandhi referred to as ‘satyagraha.’
“It is comparable to those moments in time when the peasants of India understood that an entire British empire could be defied and bus riders in Montgomery, Alabama realized that racism was not in reality an immovable fact of life.”
Wow. I need to laminate that and pull it out of my pocket now and then.
Power Shift 09 was organized by Campus Climate Challenge. In addition to pushing for climate and clean energy policy, it seeks to infuse our nation’s young leaders with new ideas, skills and connections with each other.
If you have time, go to the Web links because there’s lots more inspiring stuff to be found about activities I had never heard of before.
At Pantelis’ blog you’ll find photos from the summit (as well as – farther down — of his grand-mother making New Year’s bread) and at Ted Glick’s you’ll learn more about this activist and his work for change including fasting.

What’s with the No. 2 plastic bags?

Whenever I grocery-shop, I’m wary of packaging. I bring my own cloth bags for carry-out, and I by-pass putting every single fresh fruit or vegetable in a plastic bag. That is, if I’m buying a couple of oranges, I’ll just put them loose in my cart rather than bagging them up.

If there are apples in a paper bag versus a plastic bag, I’ll go for paper because I think it recycles better.

So I frowned when the apples I usually find in paper suddenly appeared in plastic. Grrr.
But I needed the apples, so bought the bag. Later I noticed a No. 2 inside a re-cycle triangle at the bottom.

Does that mean I can put it in my Scott County recycling bin?

Alas, no, says Kathy Morris, director of the Waste Commission of Scott County. Despite the No. 2, this bag should go in the recycle bins at the front of the store, she says.
When I stop to think about it, I can get creeped out about plastic.

I mean, it is EVERYWHERE.

It is a great invention, but it is difficult to get rid of. It doesn’t biodegrade like paper and much of the plastic that has ever been made – except that which has been incinerated – still exists somewhere, buried in a landfill or in some other form.

That is what’s creepy.

Stand in the grocery store and consider all the plastic — the detergent bottles, yogurt tubs, meat trays, etc. etc. – then imagine it all accumulating in a great big pile.

Even plastic that is recycled doesn’t become – like glass – the same product over again, it becomes another product that isn’t so easy to recycle. Milk jugs to carpet or park benches, for example.

Did you know that some plastic collects in a big debris pool in the Pacific Ocean?

That is one of the facets of plastic that is discussed in the film “Addicted to Plastic” that will be shown Saturday, March 28, at the Q-C Environmental Film Festival at Augustana College, Rock Island.

As I mentioned earlier this week, mark this event on your calendar.

There are five major and several short films (the theme is water) and they’re all free! For more information on the festival and “Addicted to Plastic,” go to this Web site and scroll down to “upcoming events.”

 Kathryn Allen of Moline is one of three women on the planning committee for this year’s Environmental Film Fest to be held Saturday, March 28, at Augustana College, Rock Island.

The theme is water, which is expected to grow as a major environmental issue worldwide as demand increases and supplies dry up in some areas.

Allen is one of those people working to make a difference in the Quad-Cities.

A long-time member of the Sierra Club, she says she was particularly inspired to action in 2005 when she and other members of the Quad-City chapter traveled to San Francisco for the club’s first national summit.

“For me, it was a life-turning event, a transformational experience,” Allen says.

As she and her fellow Quad-Citians listened to the speakers laying out the urgency and magnitude of the earth’s environmental challenges, they tried to think of what they could do back home to make a difference.

Talking at night over drinks, they decided to organize a film fest because “so many people love movies,” Allen says. And a festival would allow people to see three or four movies in one day, in one place, something that would be difficult to do on one’s own.

Another motivator for Allen were the tragic deaths of her brother and sister-in-law in a biking accident in 2003 in Canada.

They had been devoted environmental people, Allen says, and she feels a sense of responsibility to carry on work that was cut short for them.

“I want those two people to live on. I want to turn their beliefs into action,” she says.

The Quad-Cities’ first three festivals were held at the Unitarian Church, Davenport, but the site was moved this year to Augustana, which has more facilities for showing movies and more parking.

 “Every movie, while it deals with a stark reality, ends with ‘What can I do as an individual and as a community,” Allen says.

For a complete film fest schedule, go to this Web site. The site comes up as the Fryxell Geology Museum, but just scroll down and you’ll see the film festival information under “upcoming events,” and there are links to all the films.

And mark the event – which is free! – on your calendar.

Confused about your ‘carbon footprint’?

Need help deciphering what it means?

Members of the Quad-City Audubon Society invite you to their meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday (March 12) at the Butterworth Center, 1105 8th St., Moline, for help in sorting it out.

Keith and Mary Blackmore of Forreston, Ill., will give a presentation on “Our role in global climate change.” They’ll begin with an overview, then delve into the personal using the book “Low Carbon Diet” by David Gershon.

To get the most from the program, you’re asked to bring:

* A calculator

* The number of gallons of trash that you generate per week (not recycled materials)

* The number of kilowatt hours of electricity you use per year

* The quantity of fuel you use for heating and/or cooking per year (therms, gallons, cords, etc.)

* The number of miles you drive per year and the miles-per-gallon of all your vehicles, recorded separately

* The number of miles you travel by air per year

If you don’t have all those numbers, that’s OK, but you’ll get more from the presentation if you do.

The “Low Carbon Diet” is subtitled “a 30-day program to lose 5,000 pounds” and is billed as a practical, accessible, effective way to affect change.

It’s available on amazon.com for $10.36.

 “Getting people to take on global warming at a personal level is critical to tackling the issue,” says Denis Hayes, who identifies himself as a co-founder of Earth Day. “The low carbon diet can make a huge difference.”

For more on the low carbon diet, including a household calculator, go to this Web site.

For more information about the Audubon Society and its meeting, call Jason Monson at (309) 372-8947.

This sounds like a great opportunity to sort through a complex issue and to make changes.

    Little did I know when I wrote my first story about Habitat ReStore in 2002 that in just six short years our son Matt would become such a devoted shopper there.

     ReStore is a nonprofit Davenport business that sells new and gently used building products and supplies at a discount. In so doing, it keeps useable material out of the landfill, provides a service to people who want to buy – and get rid of – stuff, and it raises money for Habitat for Humanity Quad-Cities, an ecumenical housing group.

    Matt discovered the store last summer and spent countless hours roaming the aisles, imagining projects that could be made with the various supplies. Some of his projects remain just that — imagined – with the supplies cluttering up our basement.

     He did complete a piece that’s a beauty, though. It’s a coffee table with a glass top with lights underneath. Hence it also serves as a light table that he can use for drawing and tracing.

     He should send ReStore a photo.

     The business publishes a monthly electronic newsletter that invites customers to send in photos and stories of projects they have made using ReStore materials.

     The photos/stories are inspiring. This month there is a basement spa that started with a corner shower unit, then developed “mission creep” with the purchase of mirrors, lighting, a whirlpool tub and tile.

      Check it out; there’s a place on the Web site where you can subscribe to the newsletter, keeping up to date on happenings, specials and new donations.

       Just recently, for example, ReStore got a donation of 10,000 square feet of carpet, and to make it manageable, Abby Carpet Gallery, 4811 Brady St., Davenport, volunteered to unroll it, cut it and re-roll it. Good for them.

     And on March 14 volunteers are teaching a class on faux stained glass painting. Students will be given an old window and instructions for turning it into a piece of art. The cost is $40, including lunch. I’m thinking of signing up myself, buoyed by my recent success painting a Ukranian egg.

     ReStore is one of the great success stories of the Quad-Cities. I’m often tempted to say an “amazing” success story, but as director Cindy Kuhn points out, why should I be so amazed?

     Recycling is the right thing to do, and lots of people really do want to do the right thing.

Bottled water, part II (plus trees)

Thanks to everyone who responded to the discussion about bottled water.

It was really a two-parter — one part about water and the safety of our drinking supplies, and one part about plastic bottles and whether they can be safely reused.

1. As for the safety of reusing the containers, you can find information to support either position – yes they are safe, OR no they are not – on the Web.

Apparently there is no overall agreement.

But even those who say the containers are safe caution that you need to wash them with soapy water and allow them to dry thoroughly between uses.

 2. Mayor Melissa mentioned carrying a container around with her. I’m hoping this will become a habit with more and more people.

The other night, for example, there was an event at Black Hawk State Historic Site in Rock Island at which hot chocolate and cider were to be served. My husband and I took our own mugs from home so that we wouldn’t have to use a single-use cup.

 3. Then there’s the question of plastic recycling, which is another mind-boggling issue for which you get conflicting answers.

One point is clear: Plastic is not as recyclable as glass or metal. The latter can be melted down and become the same thing all over again; that is, the glass bottle can become another glass bottle.

 The plastic container does not become the same kind of plastic container, but some other plastic item such as a park bench which then will not be recyclable.

 4. On a totally different subject: Living Lands & Waters, the environmental organization founded by Chad Pregracke, needs volunteers to help sort, bag and tag oak seedlings as part of its Million Trees Project.

Volunteers are needed from 3-8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday (March 3-4) at the QCCA Expo Center, Rock Island.

Sign up at livinglandsandwaters.org.