Although much of the statistics are specific to Japan, many of the messages in this Japanese PSA should probably be heeded all across the developed world. It was produced by the Minisitry of Agriculture, Forests, and Fisheries. It takes on many of the problems inherent in the western diet from health effects, to wastefulness, to security. There is an honesty to it that would be impossible from the USDA given the huge influence lobbyists seem to have in that organization.
The dancing people at the end are a nice touch, and I particularly like the food packer and the gas station attendant fighting over the ear of corn.
(Via infosthetics)
Showing posts with label public_health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label public_health. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Go open a window
It seems to be scary contaminant day. Another old podcast, this one from Scientific American, alerts us to the under-regulated horrors of scented products.
Basically, manufacturers are not required to disclose what they put in most products that aren't directly consumed, so they only list the nice things, like honeysuckle extract, and fail to mention the known carcinogens.
Basically, manufacturers are not required to disclose what they put in most products that aren't directly consumed, so they only list the nice things, like honeysuckle extract, and fail to mention the known carcinogens.
BPA, C-8, and phtalates, oh my
Bisphenol A (BPA) has been in the news again recently. There are also pthalates in PVC and many soft plastics and ammonium perfluorooctanoate from teflon. In our house, we stopped buying polycarbonate bottles years ago (before we moved to California) and use BPA free bottles for our kids. With the latest news cycle, though we realized that most canned foods are also lined with BPA containing materials.
It's a scary world out there right now. The biggest thing we can see to do is to limit the amount of prepared food we eat and remove the obvious toxins from our immediate environment. We've already dropped the hard plastic Nalgene and Avent bottles. Although both are starting to make non-BPA versions, I still feel more comfortable going back to the old polypropylene ones. They're not as pretty but pretty well tested. Most research labs store at least some things in polypro bottles. Someone would have noticed something by now. That's how BPA was recognized as a problem.
We are also going to try to limit canned food until we figure out how to tell which don't use BPA. Apparently it's banned in Canada. Maybe we'll make a monthly trip to Montreal to stock up. That gets at one of the problems we're facing. Last winter we decided to make do with canned veggies instead of fresh imported ones in an attempt to reduce our food-miles. Maybe we'll have to start canning our own stuff in glass jars with what's left of our free time.
It's a scary world out there right now. The biggest thing we can see to do is to limit the amount of prepared food we eat and remove the obvious toxins from our immediate environment. We've already dropped the hard plastic Nalgene and Avent bottles. Although both are starting to make non-BPA versions, I still feel more comfortable going back to the old polypropylene ones. They're not as pretty but pretty well tested. Most research labs store at least some things in polypro bottles. Someone would have noticed something by now. That's how BPA was recognized as a problem.
We are also going to try to limit canned food until we figure out how to tell which don't use BPA. Apparently it's banned in Canada. Maybe we'll make a monthly trip to Montreal to stock up. That gets at one of the problems we're facing. Last winter we decided to make do with canned veggies instead of fresh imported ones in an attempt to reduce our food-miles. Maybe we'll have to start canning our own stuff in glass jars with what's left of our free time.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Irrationality
I was flipping through AM radio on the way back from work on Wednesday (because my walkman/phone is broken) and, out of curiosity, listened to a few minutes of a right-wing rant against everything climate change. There were a few nuggets of truth mixed in with a whole barge-load of rubbish.
My first thought was remembering how I wish that the issue weren't so narrowly focused on climate-change. Sustainability is about everything on this planet. Climate change is about a single nutrient cycle (carbon) and one hell of a bad outcome if we mess with it too much.
Next, the host went on about how China and India refuse to accept caps until they match the per capita carbon output of the west. This was used to argue that caps will needlessly hamper our economy. However, the alternative is continue to increase our output so that we stay ahead of the developing world. Otherwise I don't see how letting the indians catch up to us is any better than meeting them in the middle. At some point in the future we'll all be on equal terms, it may as well be on a livable planet.
Finally, I noticed how emotional the arguments are. The scientific community is worried about climate change because it has constructed a bunch models, crunched endless numbers, and performed numerous experiments that say we are doing our best to bump the climate out of the stable state it's been in for a few millenia into a completely unknown region that will likely be warmer.
The thing is, the earth is so complex that it just might get cooler instead. However, if you shift the chemistry as much as we are doing, something will change. Our food production system will be challenged severely and if we can't respond sufficiently, billions could die or be displaced. The problem is, since our current state is so stable, once things start changing, it'll be too late to stop. So all this arguing over whether Katrina and the floods and fires can be linked to climate change is pointless. The details don't matter because (look up chaos theory) we can't predict the exact outcome even if we had them all right (which we don't).
The details don't matter for another reason, though. Models, predictions, and robust scientific theories aren't going to spur the kind of change we need. People are not rational. Science is the application of rational thinking to the natural world. It turns out this is useful. It is also very hard because people are not rational. To change behavior and future outcomes, sustainability needs to be sold with broad, sweeping, emotionally-charged arguments.
There is this idea among those who wish to keep the status-quo that capping emissions will hurt the bottom line. This idea is not limited to greenhouse gasses. Chemical plants that produce waste products fight regulation worrying that it will cost more to clean up than they can afford.
In the short term these fears are probably real, but in the broader view, there is no reason why emitting no waste products would cost more than emitting lots. Look at the word waste. Why do we want to waste stuff. Let's use all the resources we have as fully as possible, not just as little as we need to to make a quick buck.
I have lots of thoughts on how an unchecked market leads to these self-destructive short-term solutions (ask John Nash) and how governing bodies need tilt the balance so companies take the long view. I am not an economist though, so they are just my thoughts. Anyway, no-one cares about the details.
Sustainability means to many that resources are limited, therefore we should conserve them. People need to see the positive side of sustainability. Dumping gasses into the air, chemicals into the waters, and trash into the land is waste. That's not a judgment, that's the definition of the word. These are waste products. Waste is bad. Companies should be made to feel the cost of the waste they produce. This won't cost anything overall, we are just shifting the cost from society back to the producers of the waste.
My first thought was remembering how I wish that the issue weren't so narrowly focused on climate-change. Sustainability is about everything on this planet. Climate change is about a single nutrient cycle (carbon) and one hell of a bad outcome if we mess with it too much.
Next, the host went on about how China and India refuse to accept caps until they match the per capita carbon output of the west. This was used to argue that caps will needlessly hamper our economy. However, the alternative is continue to increase our output so that we stay ahead of the developing world. Otherwise I don't see how letting the indians catch up to us is any better than meeting them in the middle. At some point in the future we'll all be on equal terms, it may as well be on a livable planet.
Finally, I noticed how emotional the arguments are. The scientific community is worried about climate change because it has constructed a bunch models, crunched endless numbers, and performed numerous experiments that say we are doing our best to bump the climate out of the stable state it's been in for a few millenia into a completely unknown region that will likely be warmer.
The thing is, the earth is so complex that it just might get cooler instead. However, if you shift the chemistry as much as we are doing, something will change. Our food production system will be challenged severely and if we can't respond sufficiently, billions could die or be displaced. The problem is, since our current state is so stable, once things start changing, it'll be too late to stop. So all this arguing over whether Katrina and the floods and fires can be linked to climate change is pointless. The details don't matter because (look up chaos theory) we can't predict the exact outcome even if we had them all right (which we don't).
The details don't matter for another reason, though. Models, predictions, and robust scientific theories aren't going to spur the kind of change we need. People are not rational. Science is the application of rational thinking to the natural world. It turns out this is useful. It is also very hard because people are not rational. To change behavior and future outcomes, sustainability needs to be sold with broad, sweeping, emotionally-charged arguments.
There is this idea among those who wish to keep the status-quo that capping emissions will hurt the bottom line. This idea is not limited to greenhouse gasses. Chemical plants that produce waste products fight regulation worrying that it will cost more to clean up than they can afford.
In the short term these fears are probably real, but in the broader view, there is no reason why emitting no waste products would cost more than emitting lots. Look at the word waste. Why do we want to waste stuff. Let's use all the resources we have as fully as possible, not just as little as we need to to make a quick buck.
I have lots of thoughts on how an unchecked market leads to these self-destructive short-term solutions (ask John Nash) and how governing bodies need tilt the balance so companies take the long view. I am not an economist though, so they are just my thoughts. Anyway, no-one cares about the details.
Sustainability means to many that resources are limited, therefore we should conserve them. People need to see the positive side of sustainability. Dumping gasses into the air, chemicals into the waters, and trash into the land is waste. That's not a judgment, that's the definition of the word. These are waste products. Waste is bad. Companies should be made to feel the cost of the waste they produce. This won't cost anything overall, we are just shifting the cost from society back to the producers of the waste.
Monday, April 30, 2007
In the balance
In the current hype about global warming. Many issues are getting rolled into one and some are getting overlooked. Global warming is one side-effect of non-sustainable resource use. Of course it is a huge issue and needs to be dealt with, but there are many issues that are all interconnected and I think it's important to keep in mind all of the challenges, not just the popular ones.
Environmental public health is another huge concern. This was bigger back in the 70's when Earth Day started, and is still important despite fading from the headlines. Biodiversity loss is another concern, but unlike the first two issues, is harder to make an economic case for. Although, I believe biodiversity is important, there is not a straight line from biodiversity to our continued survival. Resource usage and waste are issues that go well beyond global warming and energy use. Water is going to be a big issue in the future. The American dream includes a big lawn, even in places where the water has to travel hundreds of miles to get there. Food is also going to be a problem as more farmland gets turned residential (or even into energy crops).
These issues are all inter-related and good solutions will help alleviate many of these problems at once. However, we have to be mindful of solutions to one problem that make others worse. Currently, there is concern that diverting corn to auto fuel is a waste of good food. This is probably true since corn is a relatively poor source of ethanol. The reason it's popular is that the technology is ready to go. Cellulosic ethanol should be much more efficiently produced once we figure it out. But do we use corn in the meantime to get the infrastructure up and running or do we use the funds currently going to corn to fund research in to better technologies. And in either case, how do we make sure that food doesn't get diverted from those who can't pay as much? This will also lead to more monoculture agriculture, which impacts biodiversity.
There is a lot to think about when trying to save the planet, but in the end any action is good. We just need to make the extra effort to find good solutions.
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