What's up with the "Dirty Dozen"?

The Question

Recently a friend asked for my opinion of an article out of Life Hacker (see link below). The author recommends that people not buy organic produce based on the "Dirty Dozen" list produced by the Environmental Working Group (EWG). The article has 3 main points.

1. Organic produce still has pesticides on it.

2. The methodology is inherently flawed because the dirty dozen is based on ranking rather than absolute amounts of pesticides. As an example, the author states, "if farmers increased their pesticide use by a million times overnight, or if they abandoned pesticides in droves, next year's list wouldn't reflect the change in your actual risk."

3. The current amount of pesticides on most foods is already below the level that the USDA considers to be safe. 

http://vitals.lifehacker.com/why-you-shouldnt-buy-organic-based-on-the-dirty-dozen-1689190822

The Answer

1. True, organic produce can have pesticides. Organic farmers are legally allowed to use certain pesticides. However, I am not concerned by that. Here's why.

USDA certified organic is like the lowest common denominator -- it is merely a standard that people could agree to. Many think it is too lax and some think it is too strict. But I would be willing to bet money that the certified-organic farmer at the local farmers' market in California is using much less pesticide than the limit allowed under the certification standards. (If you are buying your organic produce from a huge corporate giant, then I might worry.)

2. True, but that's the point. If consumers drive down the total amount of pesticides being used, that would be fantastic!

The dirty dozen just gives people something to focus on if the goal of going totally organic seems overwhelming.

3. Not true. 

I have read too many cases where the USDA or some similar agency declares that something is safe, only to be proven wrong later. And I'm not talking about edge cases, complex interactions, or other "gotchas". The process by which the federal government determines whether a new chemical is safe for public consumption is inherently flawed.

But here's the real problem....

The EWG provides a wonderful service to people. The database that they have put together is a truly amazing resource. But it is just that, a resource. It is not a definitive guide. It can not tell you what you should and should not do. Only you can determine that for yourself.

At the end of the day, the EWG needs to drive people to their website to justify their continued existence. Sometimes they use fear mongering to generate views. That's what bothers me most about EWG. Their messages should be about empowerment, not fear. There is no such thing as zero risk, so let's stop pretending we can get there. We need to view things holistically and figure out where we can reduce the most amount of risk.

Do this, not that! The water dilemma

Question # 1

A friend recently asked if it's better to waste a cup or use the water to clean a reusable thermos every day. We are in California, which is experiencing an extreme drought, so conserving water is top of mind for all of us.

Answer

Technically, yes, using a disposable paper cup uses less water than washing a thermos, but only at an extremely local level. If you look at the larger picture, it takes a half gallon of water to make the cup (plus more water to make the sleeve and the lid). Let's just round off the numbers and say it takes about 1 gallon of water for your average starbucks cup.

By comparison, washing the thermos by hand should use less than 2 cups of water (let's estimate it at 1 cup of hot water for soaping and 1 cup for rinsing) or about 1/8th of a gallon.

What if you use a dishwasher? Modern dishwashers use about 4 gallons per load (older models use about 6 gallons) and can fit anywhere from 30 to 50 items (not including utensils). Even using the more conservative numbers, if you only run the dishwasher when you have a full load (and I know you do!) that's about 1/5th of a gallon per item (30 items per 6 gallons is 5 items per gallon, so 1/5th gallon per item).

Still way less than the paper cup!!

Of course, there are many, many more reasons not to use a paper cup. They use huge amounts of petroleum to make, they are covered in plastic to make them waterproof, they can't be recycled and there are potential issues with composting them. But here is one new reason I came across when researching this article.

Every time you use a paper cup you are supporting the Koch brothers.

Holy crap! That's a shocker, right?! The Koch brothers, the billionares that fund the extreme wing of the Republican Party, aren't just in the oil business. They have an entire empire of evil including oil, chemicals, synthetic fertilizers, mining, and, yes that's right, paper products. Their subsidary, Georgia-Pacific, makes cups, plates, napkins, towerls, and toilet paper. Support democracy and forgo the paper cup!

Question # 2

This spawned a related question: How many gallons of water does it take to make a paper diaper versus wash a cloth diaper?

Answer

Okay, so this is a trickier question. In the first analysis, we basically ignored the amount of water used to create the reusable thermos because the average person only needs one thermos over the course of his or her lifetime. This means that the environmental costs of the mug are amortized out to nearly nothing.

Things are a little different with diapers. For cloth diapers you might need 5 in a day (so maybe 40 total diapers to get you through the week till you have enough for a load of laundry) and will only use them for 2 or 3 years. In this case, it might make sense to include the water used to make the cloth as part of the analysis. If you threw away the diapers after your toddler is potty trained, then cloth diapers actually use more water.

But let's assume that you plan to use the same cloth diapers on the next child and then after that as rags for cleaning around the house. This allows us to disregard the amount of water used in growing and manufacturing cotton (which is actually a darn lot of water!). Now we are left only with the amount of water used to clean the diaper. The average washing machine uses 40 gallons per load (15 gallons if you use a high efficiency, front loading washer). Let's also assume that you fit all 40 diapers in to that one load -- that's about 1 gallon per diaper.

How about the disposable diaper? I found a UK study that calculated the total amount of water used to manufacture all the diapers a child needs (4,200 diapers assuming 2.5 years and 4.6 changes per day). Its about 34,000 kilograms, so that works out to about 2 gallons per disposable diaper.

Based on these assumptions, the cloth diaper wins!

Of course, there are a number of other reasons to use cloth diapers. Disposable diapers are made with tons of nasty chemicals, use non-renewable resources (we're looking at you, petroleum!), and so on.

Beyond just the absolute amounts of water or energy or chemicals, I'd like to make a pitch for reusable products. Forgoing disposables makes us think more about the consumer products we buy: how long they'll last and what we'll do with them when they're no longer of use to us. It's a fundamentally different frame of mind that I think is better for our health and for the environment. 

Changing how we talk about the Earth

Lately I've been thinking about mental frames. Frames are powerful tools for persuasion that work at a nearly subconscious level. We use frames every day, often without thinking about it.

What is framing?

To briefly illustrate how framing works, I'll summarize a clever study done by two researchers from Stanford (see endote for citation). 

Two groups of students each read a fictitious news article about crime. In one version, the article refers to crime as an infection; in the other, crime is a wild animal. In all other ways, the two articles are otherwise identical. After reading the article, the students are asked what they think should be done to prevent crime. 

Students who had read about crime as a "beast preying on the city" thought that there should be more enforcement. Students who read about crime as a "virus infecting the city" thought more should be done about social reform. When asked to identify what in the article had influenced their thinking, most students pointed to the stats in the article, not the metaphor. 

 

So what do frames have to do with environmentalism?

Lately, I've wondered if we are framing our relationship to Earth in the wrong way. We always say "Mother Earth". But, at least in the United States, you do not take care of your mother. You respect your mother, but your mother is not your responsibility in the same way your child is your responsibility. 

The connotation of mother brings along other images besides one of respect. For example, I associate my mother with caring for me and for punishing me when I've been naughty. Let's explore those two frames a little more. 

The "caring mother" frame is pretty obvious to identify in mainstream media-- take, for example, movies like Avatar. Interestingly enough, the "punishing mother" frame is ALSO frequently reflected in the general media. For example, apocalytpic movies like The Day After Tomorrow show Mother Earth as finally reaching the breaking point and giving us a really bad spanking. Alternatively, Mother Earth can ground us (sending us to bed without dinner, not letting us watch TV, etc) by turning into a post-apocalytpic world wherein our old standards of living can not be met. We see examples of this type of "punishing mother" frame in movies like Water World or Wall-E. 

What I am wondering is if maybe there is a better frame for Earth. What if we thought about the Earth as our BABY? If the Earth was our child, it would be our responsibility to care for it. It would also bring up feelings and images of parental love. These sorts of feelings, I believe, are often associated with campaigns protecting charistmatic mega-fauna. That these campaigns have worked well would suggest that we should capitalize on this framing. 

Seems like an idea at least worthy of a little more exploration. Your thoughts?

Thibodeau & Boroditsky (2011). Metaphors We Think With: The Role of Metaphor in Reasoning. PLoS One 6(2).

 

Make this one small change to your cosmetics (for a safer you and a greener world)

Okay, again, I admit, this is a steal from this month's beauty guide section in Real Simple. Again, apologies for not posting a link, but I think it is too recent to be on the online version.

Real Simple interviewed Jody Villecco, the coordinator for Whole Foods Market on global quality standards (pretty cool job!) about which small change to your cosmetic line up would have the biggest bang for the buck.

"If you would like to keep as many of your conventionally formulated favorites in your routine as possible but still minimize your exposure to synthetics, body lotion is the best switch to make." This is because it covers the largest percentage of your skin.

The article doesn't mention this, but I would imagine, you use more lotion in total than other products, so using a biodegradable/non-synthetic lotion is better for the world too. 

How can I dispose of nail polish safely? Three solutions

The Question

You buy a huge pot of nail polish, only to wear it a couple times. Why does the polish container have to be so big? Does anyone actually ever use all of it?!? Then it just sits there, making you feel guilty for buying it in the first place. How can you get rid of it safely?

The Answer

Alternative 1: I recently read the solution in Real Simple. This month's edition has a section on environmentally friendly cosmetics (Sorry! I can't find the article on their online edition, otherwise I would put the link here). Real Simple found someone from EPA to ask! Enesta Jones, the US EPA spokesperson, said that you should take your old polishes to a household hazardous waste facility (see my blog article about that here and even more about it here). You should also drop off your unused hair dye there too.

Alternative 2:  Here was another good tip the article gave, "If there isn't a HHW facility in your area, let the polishes dry out by loosening the caps and leaving them outside... for 48 hours, then throw them away. This process allows the solvents in the polish to break down and evaporate, which means that they won't seep into the groundwater surrounding a landfill, says Doug Schoon, the president of Schoon Scientific, a company that provides regulatory technical consultation tot he beauty industry."

I admit I don't know who this Schoon guy is, but the advice makes sense. Oxidation -- either through air, sunlight, or fire -- is a good way to break down bad chemicals. This is why so many of the toxic chemicals taken to HHW facilities are incinerated. (FYI, the other way to break down nasty chemicals is by having bacteria eat them up and digest them. I've heard about this being used to break down used plastic baby diapers! Yucky!) Anyway, if you take them to the HHW facility, then poor people can use the nail polishes that you don't want anymore but aren't so old as to be crusty and gross.

Alternative 3: Then, searching on the internet, I found this other cool thing. There is a nail polish company called Zoya that holds an Earth week nail polish exchange, so you can bring in your old polish and exchange it for new ones. They take care of properly disposing the old stuff. Sounds pretty cool, assuming they are sincere (here is the link). I guess the Zoya prides itself on making nail polish that is less hazardous than normal polishes. I've never tried them, so I can't vouch for their products, but it seems like a nice thing to do.

Speaking of which, have you seen some of the Earth Day nails out there? Woah. Some people really get into it. (See youtube tutorial here for the nails pictured below. Holy crap, I could never do that in a hundred years.)

One easy thing you can do to combat climate change

The Question

What is one easy thing I can do to combat climate change?

The Short Answer

This one thing is so easy, you'll want to start doing it today. In fact, it is so easy, you'll think it doesn't really count. But if you read the long answer, you'll see why it does count and why you should pat yourself on the back every time you do it. Ready for it?

Tell someone you know that you believe in climate change and so do your friends and neighbors. Tell them that you support taking action against climate change -- and so do 80% of your fellow Americans.

The Long Answer

I recently read a great book that had absolutely nothing to do with climate change. It is called, "Smarter than you think: How technology is changing our minds for the better", written by Clive Thompson. It is a great book that I highly recommend. But why am I talking about it here? 

Well, one of the topics Clive discusses is "ambient awareness". In other words, social media allows people to be more aware of what the other people in their lives are doing or thinking. Ambient awareness can work at a very small or a very big scale. For example, Chinese protesters stopped a copper smelting plant from being built. A small group of citizens used social media to bring the problem to the attention of their community. When everyone in the community found out and realized that everyone else was against it too, the crowd reached a tipping point and took action.

Clive talks about racial segregation in the US in the '60s. At that point, there were laws against it, but people were still engaging in racist behavior. Sociologist Hubert O'Gorman researched the issue, polling Americans across the country. He found that most people did not support segregation, but many people thought that their neighbors did support segregation. In other words, most moderate Whites thought they were surrounded by a bunch of racists and were afraid of upsetting the status quo.

This made me think of the recent sea change on gay rights. Suddenly, a whole bunch of Americans (and their legislators) realized that not only did they support gay rights, but so did their neighbors (and employers and fellow church goers, and so on). The president came out for gay rights (May 2012), DOMA fell (June 2013), and all the while states across the country are repealing anti-gay laws or putting in place laws protecting gay marriage.

Wouldn't it be amazing if something like that happened for climate change?

The amazing thing is that it could. Everything about communication research tells us that this is right. George Lakoff, celebrated cognitive linguist, said that the most important thing we can do is keep climate change top of mind (he also says we should frame it as a climate crisis, not as global warming, but more on that here).

Or take for example the cognitive scientists studying risk perception at Yale Law School. One of their studies showed that conservatives who are the most educated are the most polarized on climate change. Science literate conservatives have a strong personal interest in having beliefs in line with their friends and family, but because they are science literate, they have to work extra hard to find faults with climate science (Read more about it here).

The team behind Yale's Project on Climate Change Communication does a lot of public polling on America's attitudes about the climate crisis. As a professional survey methodologist, I have great respect for their methods and reporting. Their reports show that not only do the vast majority of Americans believe climate change is real, but they want to take action against it. (Read their reports here). In November 2013, that figure was above 80%. That's awesome!

Now all we need to do is spread the word. You don't have to evangelize, you don't have to confront a climate denier. Just quietly and consistently mention it. Put a post on your Facebook about it. Discuss a related news item with a coworker.

See, isn't that easy?

In the news: Uplifting stories III

In the last few months, I've read a number of inspiring stories in the news. Here is a quick recap (with links) of what I've learned.

The BBC does a great job of reporting environmental news that is truly newsworthy -- personal, prompt, and prominent. Here are some recent articles that caught my attention.

Apple to use ethically sourced materials -- yeah! Read it here.

The city's impact on wildlife is not as bad as we thought. Endemic species still manage to survive. Find the article here.

Logging laws can be hard to enforce. A new application allows tree loss to be detected in near real time. The system uses both satellite imagery as well as citizen reports to update a map showing tree cover. Indigenous peoples of the Brazilian rainforest are already using smartphones to flag illegal logging. This is the next step in citizen reporting! Again, from the BBC.

Chicago to eat the Asian carp into extinction. Finally, an invasive species gets what is coming to it. Read more over here.

Why is the weather so horrible all of a sudden? This great article from the BBC explains it in lay terms.

Poorly designed cities are bad for your health. Read it here, then go support local green space initiatives near you!

Distant planet terrified it may one day be infested by humans. Okay, this one is just for laughs. From the Onion.