Kate Wing's Blog: Living Sustainably

SunChips, now with Real Sun

2008-04-19T02:21:15Z

I was intrigued by this piece in the NYT this week where pollsters use their knowledge of "microtrends" to associate certain products with the three Presidential candidates. Clinton = butter & fig newtons, Obama = olive oil & soft chocolate chip cookies, McCain = bourbon & Sun Chips.

The lists are heavily weighted towards identifiable brands rather than ingredients, so I don't know who gets the votes of, say, people who like their apples peeled and cut up vs. those who will just eat them whole. But perhaps the Sun Chips fans of any political persuasion will be encouraged that PepsiCo/Frito-Lay is now making them with real sun at their Modesto plant. Kudos to the company for working to get off the grid and reduce energy. No word if Funyuns will now contain actual fun.

Celebrity Trash

2008-02-23T01:24:08Z

There's something about Jon Stewart that reminds me of Kermit the Frog. The dark eyes, the pensive, self-deprecating humor. Or maybe just the greenness, which in Jon's case is coming less from a cozy felt skin than from the Oscars. Oscars can be recycled, you know. Apparently the Academy does get some back, to be re-polished and sent on their way to delight another celebrity. These are the things I learn from our professional event greener, Darby Hoover.

Darby was headed out to her secret underground bunker where she'll be fielding calls and emails up until the last minute about greening the Oscars. It's her second time working with Oscar to put some green behind the glitz, so I asked her for her favorite item this year. She said, "Garbage."

Yep, this year there will be compost bins available throughout the Kodak theater, including at the Governor's Ball. What silverware Wolfgang Puck and his crew can't provide as real flatware will be biodegradeable. This celebrity compost will not be directly for sale, so those of you hoping to fertilize your azaleas with Keira Knightley's crudite are out of luck. And the power LADWP's providing for the telecast? 100% renewable. Paparazzi, you'ld best be recycling those flash batteries.

The Oscars are a bit modest about this greening. Apparently you will not be seeing the tiny compost bins on the red carpet. After the year of Inconvenient Truth, where green politics were front and center, it's nice to see the Oscars continuing their commitment to being green even out of the spotlight. Much like we'd hope for all kinds of environmental policies, that they become part of our daily lives, efficiently working behind the scenes. Like Darby is right now.

Oh, and American Idol? Darby's waiting for your call.

I'd like to thank the Academy...

2008-02-12T00:17:41Z

[I'm posting this on behalf of Darby Hoover, NRDC's "greening big events" specialist, who couldn't be with us tonight due to her problems getting a visa -- Kate]

I'd like to thank the Academy, and my colleagues at NRDC, and everyone else who participated in this historic endeavor, the inaugural greening initiative of the 50th Annual GRAMMY Awards. For an event so large and influential, even small steps along the greener path make a huge difference in reducing environmental impacts - and some of the steps the GRAMMYs took this year were even bigger than we had anticipated. We couldn't have done this without Megan and David and Neil and everyone else at the Recording Academy who worked tirelessly on this initiative, as did Thea and her colleagues at Cossette Productions, and Jennifer and Sam and the other great people at the STAPLES Center.

A very special thanks goes to Thomas and the other folks at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power for making sure the telecast and afterparty were powered by renewable energy. Thanks to Jessica for heading the team of volunteers who posted recycling bins all over the STAPLES Center, and Allen for his incredible vision and passion, and Petra and Lisa and everyone else at NRDC who helped pull this together. Thanks to - wait, don't start the music yet - all the staff and vendors and everyone involved in this production who worked to make their piece of the event a little greener, from the flex-fuel and hybrid cars to the organic food to the recycled content toilet paper.

I know it's time for me to stop, but I don't want to leave anyone out because this kind of giant undertaking is really a sum of all the small steps taken by a lot of different people working individually - and laying groundwork to build on in the future. So please read more about the first-ever Green the GRAMMYs initiative and thank you for listening.

Presents of mind

2007-12-20T17:47:37Z

Rumor has it that upon hearing that NRDC was preparing our annual "Green Gifts" guide one staffer replied "Well, I hope we're telling people not to buy anything!" Um, no. No, we're not. If you want to go present free, be our guest and of course there are some fine reasons to do so. But the more Grinchy we are, the more people don't want to have us at their Who-ville parties. Come on enviros, if you don't have some punch and enjoy yourselves then Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shallenberger will have won and we'll have to suffer through another one of their books.

So when my friends called on Sunday and asked if I would be willing to help wrap Christmas presents while they distracted their two young kids, I said "Absolutely." I haven't really wrapped presents in ages, since my family uses fabric to cover our gifts. Towels and sheets in a pinch, but mainly holiday fabric my mom buys on sale after Christmas each year. While it has an enviro benefit, I think it was originally prompted by expenses and my mom's frustration at the hassle of storing rolls of paper. After twenty or so years, it's a tradition.

My paper wrapping skills were sorely tested on Sunday. One box required multiple taping strategies. But we covered most of the gifts for the under 5 set while enjoying the festive sounds of the Grosse Point Blank soundtrack. I told my friend of my mom's fabric wrapping strategy, which has also been adopted by my mother-in-law, and who knows, perhaps my friend will give it a shot one day. Or not. I'm not using wrapping paper as a litmus test for my friendships. I got time with good friends as a holiday gift, and that's something to savor.

This time of year there are more than the usual number of 'green gift' lists online, some more trite than others. It's a sure sign that I'm in my thirties that what I want most is more time, and frankly, that's what a good present means to me. It could actually be time, like a coffee date or a hike, or it could mean that you recognize how much I hate to shop and you took the time to go to the store and get that vacuum cleaner I really need so I didn't have to do it. Extra bonus points for getting it on Craigslist. I'd rather have thoughtful gifts at random, throughout the year, than obligatory gifts at Christmas.

So that's one of my New Year's resolutions: to use presents as a way to stay connected to friends and family, not indebted. It's one of the things I learned from Leslie Harpold, thanks to 43 Folders. I'm still working on the Thank You notes.

What we think about when we think about food

2007-11-26T18:07:36Z

The unity of Thanksgiving makes it one of my favorite holidays. It's the one day when everyone in the U.S., regardless of religion or background, does essentially the same thing. More people celebrate Thanksgiving than vote, after all, and I like having a whole day where we all take time to think about food.

We had 23 people gathered in an SF apartment, with food from near and far. The turkeys were free range, but flown in from a turkey farm owned by the brother of a guest. B. & K. brought the far-flung sounding Thai welcome snacks, but they'd grown the peppers and sauce ingredients in their Palo Alto backyard. The squash in the butternut squash soup were local, while the chocolate in the cake certainly was not. The turkey cooked in the empty apartment next door had jazz music playing and regular visits, lest it feel unappreciated. We'd meticulously worked out who was bringing what beforehand on the official Thanksgiving spreadsheet and some of the tastiest surprises were dishes prepared not by our known culinary genius friends (see the aforementioned sauce) but from folks who we thought used their ovens just for storage.

We savored that meal for hours, until the host/DJ coaxed us from our chairs. Later that weekend, I listened to Jonathan Gold, the LA food writer, talk about eating a live prawn on an old episode of This American Life. How being aware of what you eat matters, not just to what you are eating, plant or animal, but to your appreciation of a flavor, the composition of a meal, the fact that you are able to eat at all. Billy Collins was thinking about eating a fish, how his meal:

was graced not only with chilled wine
and lemon slices but with compassion and sorrow

Giving food is such a primal gift, an offer to share a basic need out of generosity or kindness or a sense of plenty. There's no lack of research on the connection between food and emotions, and having a grandmother who was a home economics professor I am bound by that chain as well. When I moved to California and lost my ability to make her pie crusts, I felt adrift in this strange country of oddly shaped butter (east coast butter = long sticks, California butter = short, fat sticks). Note to other transplants: don't be afraid to use a little more water. Pie crusts know when you're afraid.

So, when we talk about eating local, or organic, or fair trade, we're not just talking about apples and coffee. We're talking about your relationships with your family, how you spend your free time, and a world of feelings beyond any USDA certification process. Changing those habits is a lot to chew on, so you can start small. Pick one dish and make it with care. Get organic marshmallows for the sweet potatoes (those square ones are really tasty). Have someone over to eat it with you. Maybe your neighbor, in case you need his oven for next year's Thanksgiving.

Jersey pride

2007-10-24T18:34:01Z

For some reason, we have a large number of people from New Jersey at NRDC. And not just in our east coast offices. One could speculate about how living in a state where the roadside signs say "warning: trees treated with noxious spray" drives you to clean up the environment, but you would want to speculate carefully if there were any Jerseyites in the room with you. Well, my Jersey colleagues, now you have a reason to be proud as Forbes magazine declared Jersey to be the 7th greenest state in the U.S. I mean, another reason to be proud. Please don't make me sing "Thunder Road" again.

Since I get my news from the Natural Patriot, I know that NRDC actually contributed some of the data for the survey and that Forbes looked at six categories: carbon footprint, air quality, water quality, hazardous waste management, policy initiatives, and energy consumption. While Forbes gives some detail about what the exact measures were, such as number of LEED certified buildings, they've missed a good opportunity to be more transparent about their analysis on the web. For example, looking at water quality are they using stormwater violations or just the standard "fishable/swimmable" categories for lakes and rivers? And what policies are they talking about? Only ones narrowly related to their six categories?

Of course, I have a bit of a bias here in that I'd like to see coastal and ocean resource protection figure somewhere in these rankings. After all, there are 35 coastal states (if you include the Great Lakes states, which Congress usually does) and the majority of the U.S. population lives in coastal counties. States like New York (#9) and California (#14) have umbrella Ocean Acts, laying out progressive policies for ocean management. You can also see the effects of better land use policies along the Mississippi down in the Gulf, so looking at coastal indicators can be a way to measure inland state performance, too.

Ultimately, Forbes had to make some choices and narrow things down to make their rankings workable. Rankings can be a great thing, driving states to try and improve their scores. I hope Forbes will consider airing out its methods and adding a few factors next time. They could look at the work Redefining Progress has done on environmental justice and ecological footprints. Or they could just look at their own magazine and ask why is it that only Washington State makes it into the top five as both a Green State (#3) and a Best State for Business (#5)?

What kind of Green am I?

2007-09-27T00:16:17Z

You've got to be at least a little curious about people to work in policy. Otherwise, you could just be a field scientist and spend all your time with penguins or microscopes. But people, well, they're kind of fascinating. What do they want? What drives them to make the choices they do? And why don't they use their turn signals? Luckily, the world of market research has spent billions of dollars finding out what makes us tick. Normally, accessing that info might cost you a few grand but this month you can get a glimpse for free in Southwest Airlines Spirit magazine.

Spirit Magazine frames this as a story about neighborhoods: what kind of people live in which cities, and where should you move to be near like-minded folks. You can also look up your zipcode to see who they think lives near you now. They've summarized 66 categories of American households as determined by Claritas, a "target marketing " firm. Key descriptors for each group are their cars, reading material, and, in some cases, beer brands. Here are two examples from the "Town & Rural" group:

God’s Country
These urban refugees have fled to the country seeking a more laid-back lifestyle. Though they travel frequently for business, leisure is a top priority. They read Skiing magazine, drive Toyota Land Cruisers, and tune into the Outdoor Life Network.
Median household income: $83,827
Hangout: Teton County, Wyoming (Jackson)
Heartlanders
These middle-aged parents pay the bills with jobs in manufacturing and agriculture, spend their free time boating and hunting, and vacation by means of motor home. Popular eating spot: Cracker Barrel. On the tube: CBS’s Early Show.
Median household income: $43,087
Hangout: Sully County, South Dakota (Onida)

When I look through these categories, I try to think like a campaign director and figure out how to pitch an environmental issue to each person. As you may know from my posts, I agree with the folks who think the debate to define who is a 'real' environmentalist is a waste of energy. Real conservation involves so many different ideas and values, like innovation, efficiency, solitude, family, leisure, and adventure, among many others. You may choose a compact fluorescent bulb because it saves energy, while your sister does it because she hates changing light bulbs, and your friend from high school does it because it's the law in his state. I don't personally know people who fit each one of these 66 categories (or at least, I don't think I do) but I like thinking about how I could have a conversation with them. Maybe even a conversation about squid.