What's Your Point Exactly?

This post is supposed to be about how Amazon sold a whole sh*tload of Kindles over the holidays, but questions how green the devices are.

Here's the thing. I'm an ebook author, who also supports indie bookstores and sells print editions of my books, even if the stores won't carry them, because of their weird policies I'm self-published. If you read the article, you'll see the following (and I quote):

One of those things that still bring a twinge of sadness is the slow death of independent book-stores. As an avid reader and one that loves to browse around second-hand bookshops, on the lookout for a bargain or a rare read, I will miss the romance of it all as the world is rapidly shifting toward e-books. E-books, of course, have functionality and convenience but not the fresh-paper smell or other associations that we have with real books.

I'm also a big fan of independent bookstores. In fact, I've blogged about how I'd like to throw them my support. This has led to a series of posts on that blog about indie bookstores, that I hope have been helpful and fun.

You'll notice I suggested that indie bookstores start blogs, because you can sell anything online. Not just ebooks, of course.

As for second-hand used bookstores, that's all well and good when you're looking for collectibles and out-of-print books. But surely you want to read more than that, right?

Besides, authors don't see dime one from the sale of used books. So, we don't sustain a living from those sales at all.

And, furthermore, a story is just as real in ebook format as in print. No one says that audiobooks aren't real, do they? Why do they say that about ebooks? What's the deal? Seriously?


One of the biggest selling e-readers, Amazon’s Kindle has had a whopper year. The company recently announced that 2011 was the best holiday ever for the Kindle family as customers purchased millions of Kindle Fires and millions of Kindle e-readers. The company also notes that sales of e-books were up 175 percent over last year, between Black Friday and Christmas Day.

Just so you know, Kindle isn't the only widely-used ereader in existence, okay? There's Nook, there's Kobo, there's iPad, Sony and all sorts of other devices. You'd think Amazon sold practically the only device on the planet from reading this. And that's not good.




The reigning debate that still remains is: which one is greener? The Cleantech Group reckons that the Kindle is the greener way to read.  A study by the Cleantech Group found that the Kindle is able to fully offset its carbon emissions in the first year of use, as long as the owner downloads more than 22 books in a year, and additional years of use result in net carbon savings equivalent to an average of 168 kilograms of carbon dioxide.

Good lord! I suspect most Kindle owners download that many books in a month or less, easily. The amazingly low price of ebooks and the ease of purchase are factors that explain this.

Throughout the month of December, according to Amazon, well over 1 million Kindle devices were purchased per week. All this will eventually add up to a huge amounts of e-waste, which is an environmental problem. Amazon’s refusal to be transparent about its production as well as carbon emissions are also causes for concern. Consumer pressure or a large scale campaign can change this but so far, the figures that are available are only guesstimates.

Yeah, well. God knows what Amazon isn't telling us. And if you're really concerned about indie bookstores, I suggest you read this post, post-haste.

My fellow blogger at Triple Pundit, Raz Godelnik, CEO of Eco-Libris, a company working towards a sustainable book industry reckons that an e-book can be a greener option if you are a voracious reader and do not upgrade too soon. A New York Times analysis seems to support Raz’s conclusion and it says that an e-reader can offset around 40 books. Therefore, if you replace five books a year, it will take around eight years before you’ve offset your carbon footprint.

As I said before, no problemo!

Considering that, in a few years down the line, paper books may well be obsolete, it is essential for e-reader manufacturers to become more transparent about their sustainability. Amazon, as the market leader, should lead the way. I did really want to buy a Kindle but I think I will put it off until Amazon comes up with some verified numbers. In the meantime, I’ll continue to mosey around secondhand bookshops and libraries.

I love libraries, of course. I'm a librarian. It would be sacrilege to say otherwise. Besides, did you know that libraries carry ebooks now? Well, they do and have been for some time.

And speaking of sustainability, did you forget to mention the indie bookstores?

Because if you're going to mosey around used bookstores, the indies are not going to last very long. And neither will authors.

Let's Focus on the Positive, Shall We?

A blog post with a headline like Sustainability: Why Bother? would lead one to suspect that the sustainability movement may be suffering a bit from inertia.

Which is why you should read the post. Because it tells about how being sustainable can actually help companies cut costs, reduce risks and increase revenue, with numbers to support those contentions.

And while it cites only a few specifics, that's way better than none, isn't it?



PS: Here's another really cool idea. A zero-emissions delivery vehicle. I'm having a hard time picturing this thing surviving a day on negotiating the streets of DC. But, hey, who knows, right?

Photograph by: Lyle Stafford, timescolonist.com

Plastic Bags: Does it Have to Be So Hard?

Okay, so I'm innocently scanning environmental news headlines and run across this dilly! In Defense of the Plastic Bag.

Well, that'll get your attention, won't it?

So ... I took a quick look. Here's some of what it said:

Pity the much-maligned plastic bag.

Plastic bags are being banned or taxed in cities and counties across America–just this week in Seattle, before that in San Francisco, Portland and Washington, D.C. Beginning in January, Montgomery County, MD, where I live, will impose a five-cent charge for carryout bags at all retail stores. Like most of my neighbors (median household income in the county tops $92,000) I can afford the extra nickel.

But I’m not persuaded that plastic bag bans or taxes makes sense. Here’s why.

They’re not based on science. Independent studies show that plastic bags are environmentally preferable to paper. Other suggest that, when they are reused, they are preferable to the reusable plastic or cloth sacks that many of us tote around.

Some of the arguments put forth for the bans don’t hold up. That plastic waste waste in the oceans you’ve probably read about? No, it’s not the size of Texas. Nor is it made of plastic bags.

Getting rid carryout bags won’t lead to a long-term solution to the problem of plastic waste. Maybe instead of banning or taxing bags, we should be recycling them. That’s the argument being put forth by a company called Hilex Poly, which will recycle tens of millions of pounds of plastic bags, sacks and wraps this year, and would like to do more.

You may disagree but after digging into this subject for a while, I’m certain about only one thing: It’s complicated.

Oh, goodie. Complicated, huh? Just what I needed. More complications in my life.

So ... if you want to read the whole blow-by-blow explanation, just click the link. It even alludes to the old "sh*t crap in the bag" argument against using reusable bags. Dear God!

But wait ... there's more. A rebuttal. In Defense of Plastic Bag Bans. Really!

Happy Sustainable Holidays!

In reading through the environmental news headlines, I couldn't help but notice this one. The words Sustainability and Christmas Trees: Lets Get Real jumped right out at me.

Clearly, it's a bit late in the day month to blog about whether you should choose a natural or artificial Christmas tree. However, that's not what my post is about. My post is intended to examine just how well the headline delivers on its promise.


Now the post I've embedded makes some excellent points and gets very real about the Christmas tree part of things. To wit: 

Christmas is, by all standards, a not very sustainable holiday. People shop, travel and eat much more than they should, and their carbon footprint goes through their snow-covered roofs. Of course there are ways of mitigating the Christmas carbon extravaganza by traveling using the least dirty means of transport (rail, if possible), sharing eco presents and making a meal with organic, local produce that excludes meat.

But there’s that elephant in the room called ‘the Christmas tree’. It’s big and it invites the question: how green is it? For a while some people tried to plug it to the world that plastic Christmas trees were greener because they could be re-used. However, a thorough comparison between the two options illustrates that real trees are more sustainable for several reasons including the fact that in most cases the plastic ones are only used a couple of times. Besides, who wants to increase demand for yet more toxic plastic in the world?


You'll get no argument from me there! 

So, yes, getting a real Christmas tree is more sustainable than getting a fake one. But even better than that is renting a Christmas tree, an idea that has taken root in England where it was championed during the famous Ideal Home Show At Christmas that took place mid-November.

When people rent a Christmas tree they get a pruned and potted plant for the season celebration. Then it is collected in the new year and replanted to be rented out the following Christmas. Of course the tree will keep growing and once it is too big for a home they will be planted out in schools, nursing homes etc., and absorb quite a bit of carbon, according to the Little Tree Company, which supports the Christmas tree rental scheme.

Renting a tree? Seriously? Ooo-kay. Hmm ...

Why not just decorate a Norfolk Island pine? Or a ficus? That's what we used to do. Before ours croaked died expired. 

If such a scheme is not available in your neck of the wood, there are a few details to look out for when it comes to choosing a sustainable Christmas tree. First, the hard facts: they do not come from fairytale crops where every tree is harvested by a rosy-cheeked Norwegian. They come from monocrops that are often sprayed with fertilizers and herbicides.

Yuck!

So, when sourcing a real Christmas tree, look out for providers of organic Christmas trees (Greenpromise has a list). Another tip: try to find a tree that has been grown as close to home as possible. If you get a felled tree instead of a potted tree, inquire from your local authority whether it offers a collection service. This kind of planning is essential if you don’t want to end up with a massive tree in the house and not knowing what to do with it.

Finally, you can stay away completely from the fake versus real and go for the arty approach to sustainable Christmas trees. This reusable eco Christmas tree looks nothing short of fabulous and would add an imaginative touch to the decor (besides busting the kitschy potential of a traditional Christmas tree!). Or you can turn popcorn into a Christmas tree, which should be fun a lot of fun to make.

Hey, all we ever do is string lights around the house and put candles in the window. Who needs a tree, anyhow?

Hope you had a very happy holiday and wishing you all good things for the new year! BTW, I don't believe in New Year's resolutions, but I believe in setting goals. May your goals be achieved and be sustainable. :)

10 Ways to Go Green for Christmas Dinner

If you're interested in trying to make your holiday dinner a more eco-friendly experience, here's a post that may be helpful.

As the headline indicates, it has a list of 10 ways to "go green for Christmas dinner."

Looks like a really good list, too. There's even a link to healthy gluten free vegetarian recipes at the bottom of the post. Now, how about that?

You can also follow these people on Twitter: @theblendergirl and @tessmasters.

There's also a Facebook page.

And I'm sure these suggestions work, no matter what holiday you celebrate at this time of year. Even Festivus. Right? ;)

Force of Nature: A Film That Looks Intriguing

The headline Dear Humans: The Planet Needs Your Help caught my attention. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a movie review.

The film is called Force of Nature. Here's the full text of the review:

Sturla Gunnarsson’s “Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie” is constructed around a speech that its Japanese-Canadian subject — an engaging, erudite scientist, educator, broadcaster and eco-activist — calls his “legacy lecture.” The talk, given in Vancouver last December, is a dire warning delivered in a reasonable, friendly voice about the imminent destruction of the biosphere that sustains humankind. Dr. Suzuki’s upbeat tone is the spoonful of sugar that makes the bitter medicine go down.

WTF? Is this a review of Force of Nature or Mary Poppins?



Interwoven with the lecture is a fragmentary autobiography, which includes some painful early chapters about Dr. Suzuki’s relocation as a child to an internment camp during World War II. “Pearl Harbor and its repercussions are the defining events in my life,” he says. Later he participated in the civil rights movement and became the host of “The Nature of Things,” a CBC show in which he showed his talent for translating scientific jargon into layman’s language.

Believe it or not, translating scientific jargon into layman's language is an actual skill. Give the guy a bit of credit, okay?

At heart Dr. Suzuki, 75, is a wise old hippie who truly cares about the planet and the future of the species and seems to believe, despite his words, that we still have time to save ourselves if we act immediately. But how, he doesn’t say.

Well, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who could say, wouldn't you? Who has the answer? Who even agrees that there's a problem that we've created? I think that's the point. That we are part of the problem. And we need to find solutions based upon that assumption, okay?

The Haida, an indigenous people on the Pacific Northwest coast who have stood up against the logging industry and with whom Dr. Suzuki is shown interacting, represent his ideal of how to live in harmony with nature. “We fail to ask the important questions: How much is enough? Are there no limits?” he declares. “One species — us — is single-handedly altering the planet. We have become a force of nature.”


Making a mystical leap but using scientific language, he declares that we are the environment. He says that we are the air we breathe and the water we drink, and that we are ultimately one another, as we recycle the same elements. He doesn’t really analyze the dark side of human nature.

Hold on! Now we're talking about a whole different movie.



What he sees in the future is alarming. The world population has grown exponentially and now threatens to exhaust the finite resources that we take for granted and carelessly contaminate. We all carry several pounds of plastic and dozens of toxic molecules dissolved in our bodies, he says. And, he estimates, 50,000 species a year become extinct. In less than a century 80 percent of our forests have been cut down, he says.

Damn! I'm pretty freaking alarmed. Aren't you? And I'd say we have ourselves to blame for much of the problem, which I believe was his point.

Contemplating human evolution, he credits the brain as having made humans the dominant species. It gave us curiosity and creativity and the gift of foresight, he observes. So why hasn’t that gift prompted a collective response to the crisis? He offers no practical solutions.

Fine, smart ass. You come up with them.

Is 'Green' Cement Actually Sustainable?

You know, when you come down to it, there are some things we've come to depend upon as a society without thinking about it much. I'd say cement is one of those things.

Think of all the roads, the buildings, the bridges, drainage ditches, and so on and so forth.

In point of fact, we rely upon cement for our infrastructure and other needs.

Therefore, this article about an engineer who's trying to develop a more eco-friendly form of cement was most interesting.

I highly recommend you read it, because I had no idea there was so much to know about cement.

Here's the thing, I guess.


Check the bottom lines (and I quote): 

The major obstacle that the company still has to overcome is history. Portland cement works. Always has, since that afternoon in 1824 in Joseph Aspdin’s kitchen. "Cement has been around a very long time," [Dheeraj] Bhardwaj said. "People trust that. They can look around at all the buildings that have survived hundreds of years. So for Novacem, the proof of durability will take time. They will have to go slow. If I have to build a bridge or a building using Novacem cement, how do I convince people that that is OK? That's the challenge. Nobody wants a bridge to fall down."

Asked whether he would cross a bridge built with Novacem cement, Bhardwaj said, "I would have no problem with that." But that bridge hasn't been built yet.

Yeah. You might want to make real sure before you build that bridge, too.