Time to End the 1500 Mile Ceasar Salad

"Food Miles" refer to the distance that your food has been transported between its source farm and where you buy it. Food miles are one measure of the amount of energy used to transport your food and the consequent pollutants released by that transport. Estimates vary but transport may account for 20% or more of the total energy use associated with the provision of a given food item. As such, Food Miles are a relatively simple statistic that can be used to demonstrate the ecological importance of local foods.

Seventeen percent of this nation’s petroleum consumption is dedicated to on-the-farm food production. Add on processing, packaging, refrigeration and transport of edibles and food takes a big bite out of affordable oil supplies and contributes to pollution. Domestic food as basic as lettuce we could grow in front yards most of the year, and green houses in winter, travels up to 3,000 miles from field to table.

http://www.lifecyclesproject.ca/initiatives/food_miles/calculating_food_miles.php explains how this takes into effect greenhouse emissions.

Sustainable Table: Buy Local: http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/buylocal/

Do food miles matter? | ES&T Online News: http://www.nrdc.org/health/foodmiles/

Interview with Amory Lovins - Winning the Oil End Game

What Can Save Us?

With all the focus these days on the crumbling economy, it makes me think what can we do about all of this?

Well the answer seems to staring us in the face. If we were to decide it was OK to spend say $100,000,000,000 (100 billion dollars) to better our society what can we do? You guessed it - save the economy by a massive new New Deal Program - building environmentally sustainable cities and upgrading the ones we have to be more sustainable. We would use this money to add the renewable energy systems, mass transit and bicycle paths, and support the inclusion of urban agriculture. If we spend the money now on these items it will help us dramatically in the longer term and not just focus on the "bailout of the week."

Some Basic Reasons We Need a New Energy Policy

Thank you to Keith Schneider, the Communications Director for the Apollo Alliance for this.

1. America can’t drill its way out of addiction to oil.
2. Efficiency and conservation are consequential pieces of a comprehensive energy strategy.
3. Scaling up wind, solar, geothermal, clean fuel made from grass, and other renewables reduces the triple-barreled risk to our security, economy, and environment.
4. New technology – especially in the development of clean next-generation vehicles, and in dramatically reducing CO2 pollution from burning coal for electricity – is essential.
5. These steps will produce a blossoming economy and millions of good jobs that people can count on, reduce the risk of climate change, curb the $700 billion a year bill for foreign oil, and dramatically improve national security.

The choice is clear and the sooner we all act on it the better our chances of making a smoother transition for all of us.

Lets do it......

Zev Paiss

Part 2 About Etopia Eco-Village

The Etopia Environental Eco-Village

And now for something complately innovative.



Come visit!

Welcome to my Blog!

Greetings Everyone!

It seems that everywhere one turns these days, global environmental issues are being discussed. One wonders if the discussion will lead us to solve these challenges to all of us living here on spaceship Earth.

Over the past 30 years I have been involved in various aspects of sustainable development - even before the topic was coined. This includes environmental planing, solar home design and construction, solar hot water design and installation, biological wastewater treatment, alternative transportation education, and for the past 15 years sustainable neighborhood development using the cohousing model.

I have started this blog to provide a forum for discussion about what we can do to help re-direct our society to a more sustainable path so that our children's children will be assured of a high quality of life.

I look forward to hearing your comments and working together toward this end.