Just How Green is the Apple iPad, Anyway?

Well, folks, after all the waiting and media hoopla, the Apple iPad has finally been unveiled. But just how "green" is this new gadget?

Matthew Wheeland at Grist has expressed skepticism on this. While the iPad has been touted as being made without a lot of the nastier chemicals, such as arsenic, mercury, BFRs (brominated flame retardants) and PVCs (polyvinyl chlorides), it is still an electronic gizmo.

And even if it is "highly recyclable" (whatever that means), you still have to consider the sketchy quality of electronics recycling. I've blogged previously on that problem.

Plus, when you come right down to it, will the iPad really be useful in itself? Does it replace what we already have or merely add to it?

Wheeland believes the latter to be the case. If that's true, I don't care how recyclable the iPad is. You can make it out of dirt and straw, if you like, but if it's just a gadget without a lot of new or independent value, doesn't that make it a less than sustainable product?

I mean, really . . . just what we needed. More stuff.

Does the President Need a Green Reality Check?

Apparently, last night's State of the Union address went over quite well with many Americans. According to Grist, even the pundits loved Obama.

This love fest left a bit of a sour taste in one environmental journalist's mouth, because among other things, Obama failed to include renewable energy among the options for clean energy sources. Now how did he overlook those?

He mentioned a bunch of other things--nukes, offshore oil and gas drilling, biofuels and so-called "clean coal." But renewable energy? Never even alluded to it.

Oh, yeah--he mentioned something about "building clean energy facilities" (whatever those are).

In addition, this article calls out Obama for being long on rhetoric, but short on specifics.

To quote the article:

"I love the rhetoric of leadership, of seizing history, of tackling big problems and accomplishing big things. I love the idea of it. It has kept me going through a grinding year in energy politics, in which greens have had to eat one sh*t sandwich after another. The idea still gives me the stomach butterflies when I let it.

"But man can not live on ideas alone, and Obama can not lead on vague uplift alone. Sooner or later the abstract ambition has to translate to serious, sustained commitment to bold and specific policies. He's got to put some cards on the table, get in the mix, risk losing a little bit of his cool and composure. Otherwise he runs the danger of having his legacy be little more than vast and unrealized hopes."

Ouch.

Hey, Recyclers! Quit Sucking So Much!

You know, it's really easy to blame big faceless corporations and corrupt politicians for all our environmental problems. Unfortunately, the problem can actually lie a lot closer to home than we're willing to admit.

For instance, blogger Elizah Leigh has been doing her best to recycle, despite the fact that she lives somewhere that doesn't have curbside recycling. She's been collecting her recyclables and taking them periodically to a community recycling bin provided by a local market.

This tidy solution got royally fraked up by the thoughtless actions of other people. People who simply left unrecyclable trash along with their bottles, plastics and paper.

Now, because of these lazy, stupid assclowns, Leigh no longer has the option of dropping her recycling off at this place. The market got tired of cleaning up people's trash and shut the whole thing down. (Can you blame them?)

She's still collecting her recyclables until she finds "a greener solution" (whatever that may be). And in a final bitter observation, she writes: "Multiply this type of behavior by hundreds upon thousands of people who prefer to point the finger rather than take charge of their own eco-actions and . . . well, it's no wonder why our planet is in deep s#*t."

All I can say is, if you're going to pretend to give a damn about the planet, pretend a little better.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About BPA

My article scans have turned up this rather comprehensive article about the history and current concerns about BPA (that stands for the chemical Bisphenol A, in case you didn't know). The article talks about everything from the fact that scientists considered using BPA in estrogen therapy as early as the 1930s to the latest scientific studies and whether lobbyists have exerted undue and inappropriate influence on the question of BPA's safety behind the scenes on FDA staff.

In one surprising note, to quote the article: "Remarkably, market and regulatory changes in North America have moved faster than in Europe. This is a noteworthy exception to the customary pattern in recent years of the European Union phasing out chemicals and then major U.S. companies, California and other states, and occasionally the U.S. government, following Europe's lead."

Now, that is astonishing. I'm actually impressed.

Take a look at the article. It's well worth the reading.

Sustainability is Overrated? WTF??

Okay, the headline was a grabber. As it was with this particular blog post from Chloregy.

What the author is actually doing is parsing out what the term "sustainability" means. Kevin Moss (the blogger) is actually trying to define the word. (Something I've noted that even so-called sustainability experts have admitted their failure to do.)

So, give his post a read and feel free to join the discussion. What do you think sustainability is?

Chinese Remove Lead From Kids' Products, But...

There's a, um, small catch. Well, a big catch, really.

Chinese products for children (such as toys and jewelry) have come under fire for containing lead, so they've gotten the lead out (figuratively and literally). However, they've replaced the lead with something worse--cadmium.

According to the article, "the Associated Press tested 103 pieces of kids' jewelry and found that 14 of them, mainly from Chinese manufacturers, contained cadmium, 12 of which contained at least 10 percent cadmium and one of which was 91 percent cadmium by weight."

Although cadmium is highly hazardous, regulations under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act don't restrict cadmium content, as they do lead and phthalates.

Although the Consumer Product Safety Commission has received numerous reports related to cadmium recently, it's taken no action on it yet. This seems to be changing, as now the commission says it will start reviewing research and literature on cadmium.

Even though it's listed seventh on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's list of most hazardous substances? How much research and literature do you need to review in light of that?

Whoops. Sorry. Forgot we were talking about the federal government here. And they're here to help, right? Sure . . . eventually.

Greening the Internet

"Twenty milligrams; that's the average amount of carbon emissions generated from the time it took you to read the first two words of this article."

Got your attention, didn't it? It's the first line of this article about how much carbon dioxide is produced by using computers. The article goes on to say:

"Now, depending on how quickly you read, around 80, perhaps even 100 milligrams of C02 have been released. And in the several minutes it will take you to get to the end of this story, the number of milligrams of greenhouse gas emitted could be several thousand, if not more.

"This may not seem like a lot: 'But in aggregate, if you consider all the people visiting a web site and then all the seconds that each of them spends on it, it turns out to be a large number,' says Dr. Alexander Wissner-Gross, an Environmental Fellow at Harvard University who studies the environmental impact of computing."

Scientists are saying that, with millions of people coming online every day, we need to be working on making the Internet and computing in general greener.

The article cites the growing energy demands of computers, anti-virus software, downloading videos, sending emails, powering network infrastructures, powering broadband connections, using laptops--not to mention the manufacturing, use and disposal of information and communications technology, which generates about two percent of the world's greenhouse gases (around the same level produced by the whole aviation industry).

All I can say is--my brain hurts!

Remember when we thought computers would solve our environmental problems by saving the trees? The paperless office? Wasn't that a quaint notion?

Green Building: Asking All the Right Questions

As I was scanning the various sources of environmental news headlines I keep up with, I ran across this rather impressive post about green building and how some basic changes in approach to the concept are needed.

Jed Peterson pointed out that it's almost impossible right now to separate the green from the greenwashing in the construction industry. His post includes a long list of rhetorical questions. According to Peterson, "My intention is to illustrate the disconnect that seems to be prevalent among industry professionals, design clients, the media, and the general public regarding sustainable building."

I gotta tell you, it's an impressive list. And finding the right answers will involve a lot of thinking and cooperation.

But what I really love about it is that Peterson is opening the floor for discussion of these issues in a major way.

To quote him:

"My hope is that this posting will be successful in opening a dialog among industry experts and everyone interested in green building that will highlight publications, case studies, training opportunities, and other reference materials that are currently available. Optimistically, this may also raise awareness of the need for more comprehensive materials that convey the necessary interrelationship of green building, architectural design, historic preservation, urban design, marketing, construction, and sustainability, in general, that may help everyone understand how all of these individual entities may collectively transform the way that we all think about our homes."

Wow, talk about ambitious. Good luck, Jed Peterson! (And God speed.)

How to Bury Your Head in the Sand

You gotta hand it to Elizah Leigh at Greenwala. She's got John Q. Public, a recycling holdout, pegged in the rationalizations department. Check out her post on all the reasons Mr. Public can come up with NOT to recycle.

But John Q. doesn't stop there. He goes on to argue that global warming's not his problem. In fact, it could be a good thing (ah, warmer winters--who'll argue with that?). And all that stuff about melting glaciers and dying crops and such. Propaganda, of course, perpetrated by mad scientists who photoshop doomsday scenarios to fit their liberal agendas.

Hey, I could go on and on about it, or you could just read the post she wrote (where she said it much better than I could and with a really cool graphic image).

My only question to you is, are you John Q. Public?

The Dark Side of Solar Power

Solar power. Those two words get trotted out now and presented like the answer to everything, energy-wise.

However, solar power has a not-so-"green" aspect to it. We're talking about the manufacturing and disposal of the solar modules.

Turns out solar modules are made of some pretty awful stuff--things like arsenic, cadmium telluride, hexafluoroethane, lead and polyvinyl fluoride, to name a few. This creates an obvious risk to workers who make solar modules, as well as the problem of what to do with them at the end of their useful life.

Just like the electronics industry, the solar power industry may run into difficulties when it comes to disposal and recycling. (My that sounds familiar.)

There is hope, however. Currently, some companies are trying to avoid these issues by creating solar modules with non-toxic ingredients, like bioplastics.

The article goes into more detail about all this and cautions that these new, non-toxic solar cells are still very much in the R&D phase. So far, "green" solar modules are far from ready for prime time. And one of the start-ups behind them isn't exactly rolling in dough.

Damn! How come everything has to have a catch?

Are Economists Turning the Tables on Us About Global Warming?

You know, so much has been written about our need to alter our behaviors to stop climate change, that I was brought up short when I saw this article, "Economists Ponder Human Adaptation to Climate Change" from the Wall Street Journal. (And it would be the WSJ that ran this, wouldn't it?)

The article discusses how a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association looked at "how wheat production fared between the mid-1800s and the late 1900s, as production moved into parts of North America with harsher climates. The conclusion: Production adapted successfully as farmers introduced new strains that grew well in the new climates."

Whoa! So we're supposed to adapt to climate change, instead of trying to stop it? No, it's not that simple. For as the article points out:

"To be sure, the results don't demonstrate that humans as a whole can be better off in a warmer world, and don't suggest that measures to combat global warming are unnecessary. For one, the data are limited to wheat production and to North America, where the impact of climate change on agriculture is likely to be less severe than in developing nations such as India. Beyond that, the changes in wheat production happened over a very long period. Farmers and seed breeders could have a much harder time adjusting to more rapid changes in climate."

Even so, the paper's presenter claims the research suggests adaptability is a factor "that should not be discounted."

Hmm. To a point, he's probably right. Still, let's not use this as an excuse for complacency. I mean, tell it to the polar bears and people with oceanfront property.