Unsustainable Diet

Our eating habits have huge impacts on the environment.  According to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), agriculture contributes about 1/8th of all anthropogenic (man-made) greenhouse gases.  Also, it takes a lot of land to grow our food.  The IPCC estimates that:

Agricultural lands (lands used for agricultural production, 

consisting of cropland, managed grassland and permanent crops 

including agro-forestry and bio-energy crops) occupy about 40- 

50% of the Earth’s land surface. 

Isn't that crazy?  Despite all of our efforts - genetically engineering faster-growing crops and mass-producing artificial fertilizers - we still need half of the Earth's surface to feed ourselves.  Land that is untouched by humans is now generally confined to mountains, deserts, and dense forest.  And that dense forest (eg. the Amazon) is being cut down to make way for still more crops (predominantly soy).  

Check out this 100-mile by 300-mile piece of the American Midwest from Google Maps.

Looks pretty green, right?  But when you zoom in, what do you see?  

It's all a farmland checkerboard, for 500 miles in every direction.  The American prairie is gone.  It's all now made up of huge lots of one single crop, rather than a rich variety of grasses, fungi, shrubs, worms, birds, rodents, antelope, buffalo, etc.  This is not nature, but somehow turning our entire country into this is acceptable.  

We all need to eat.  So how do we feed ourselves while using fewer resources and lessening the impact on the environment?  The short answer is to eat lower on the food chain.  Each time an animal eats food, most of the energy and nutrients stored in that food are not directly converted into more meat on that animal (ie. new food).  In a sense it is wasted.  So if we want to feed nearly 7 billion people, the most efficient method is for all of us to eat from the lowest rung in the food chain.  That is, we should all be vegetarians.  

Unfortunately, the world is moving in the opposite direction.  As wealth increases, the diet shifts toward more meats and fewer vegetables.  We're now mowing down the rain forests to grow corn and soy to feed to cattle to feed to us.  We'd need far less land, water, energy, etc. if we just ate the soy and corn ourselves.

If the rest of the world were to eat like Americans, we'd be in a world of trouble.  And yet they are trying.  We're constantly industrializing our production of fruits and vegetables, dairy, poultry, pork, and beef in order to keep up with increasing demand.  And the results - for the environment, our health, and the well-being of the animals - is frightening.  

Below is footage from our modern farming industry.  It is the logical end, when trying to feed billions with limited resources, on the cheap.  It's truly awful to watch, but important to be aware of.

Growing Food at Home (and in Season)

One aspect of my new home that I'm very excited about is the ability to grow some of my own food.  I eat mostly vegetarian so this is a real possibility for me.  Here is the census of fruit trees in my yard.


3 Avocado (1 Hass, 2 maybe Pinkerton, they're HUGE!)
1 Orange (don't know what kind, eg. Valencia or Navel)
1 Blood Orange
1 Lemon
1 Lime


Pretty sweet.  I actually eat far more vegetables than fruits, however, so I'm really looking forward to having a small vegetable garden.  And the first to be planted? Tomatoes.  I love 'em.  I probably eat more tomatoes than any other food.  And the best part is I don't have to eat the awful tomatoes that are so commonly found in grocery stores.  NPR had a nice article today explaining why most tomatoes are so bad.  Basically, we insist on eating them year round, which requires growing them in Florida, in nutrient-poor sand, requiring huge amounts of pesticides/fungicides, and then transporting them thousands of miles.  As one farmer attested, "I don't get paid a single cent for flavor.  I get paid for weight."   mmm... tasty, tasty weight.  


So, yes, a big part of eating sustainably is eating seasonally.  That way we we're not fighting nature and transporting food thousands of miles.  Until about five years ago, I had no idea in which seasons different crops were harvested.  This changed when I was supposed to make a vegetable dish for Thanksgiving dinner a few years ago and I bought ... wait for it ... asparagus.  FAIL!  I remember it was the last bunch in the store and they were huge, fibrous, and had little taste.  Asparagus is a spring vegetable, and I had bought it in precisely the wrong time of year (I believe it was shipped in from South America, as is much of our out-of-season produce).    

Fortunately, if you weren't raised on a farm and don't know when fruits and vegetables are in season, you can easily find out.  A quick Google search can get you seasonal harvest charts for your area.  Here are some harvest season tables for fruits and vegetables in Southern California.  Give them a glance.  It might just change a few of your eating habits. 

Measuring Your Appliances' Energy Use

The NY Times had an article today about the huge amount of energy used by cable boxes and digital video recorders (DVRs).  American set-top boxes use more energy than the entire state of Maryland!  Yikes!  As the article points out, it doesn't have to be this way, set-top boxes in Europe use far less power.  The problem is, of course, that energy in the States is far cheaper than in Europe and the $3-5 dollars addition to the monthly electricity bill is probably not even noticed.  And companies aren't going to go out of their way to fix something that isn't noticed by their customers.  I imagine that many customers would demand more efficient electronics if they were aware of the costs.

In order to understand the costs, you have to know how much power each appliance uses.  Fortunately, there are lots of cheap devices that measure just that.  You just plug the appliance into the meter, and then plug the meter into the outlet.  I've been using the Kill A Watt in my apartment and found a few surprises.  For example, my desk speakers (and sub-woofer) which I use maybe once a month, use 10 Watts even when the speakers are completely powered off!  Because of this, I now only plug in the speakers when I want to use them.

The Kill A Watt can measure the instantaneous power used, so you can immediately see how different settings affect an appliance's efficiency (does that "Energy Saver" mode on my AC wall unit actually save energy?)  Also, you can monitor how much total energy is used since you plugged in the appliance.  Your refrigerator may not be running when you first plug it in, but you can use this mode to see how much total energy it uses over an entire day.

So go pick up a power meter!  It's less than $20 and could pay for itself very quickly.

First Post - Motivation

I'm an environmentalist - a self-proclaimed tree hugger. Until this summer I've made a relatively modest income. I've lived a bachelor's life in a small, cheap studio where I could walk to work, shops, restaurants, etc. Until now, it's been easy to point fingers at those with large homes, expansive lawns, big families, and long commutes to work. "How can they live like this? Don't they see that their lifestyles are costing them their money, time, health and, most importantly, destroying the environment?"

Well now I have a real job, I make real money, and I'm old enough that I need to start investing in my future. So I bought a house - a house that is currently bigger than I need, but might suit me nicely in a few years. It's got a pretty big yard with lots of fruit trees, and I like that. So here I am, joining the masses in suburbia, becoming what I've long abhorred.

To be sure, I've done the best I can in purchasing a house that is eco-friendly. Most notably, it's a mile from my office so I won't need to use my car to get to work. However, owning a home in the middle of the desert, with a lot of square footage (at least relative to my former studio) and with a large yard requires a lot of energy and water. I feel guilty about this. Fortunately, I think there are cost-effective ways to own a home in suburbia and still live relatively sustainably.

Thus, the motivation for this blog. My mind is full of ideas for dramatically reducing the amount of energy and water consumed and the amount of waste produced by my house. Seriously, I've got 10 different ideas in my head already. This will take time, but I hope to do at least one small project per month. As I upgrade my home I will post about my experiences, hoping to motivate others to take similar actions. Hopefully, people can learn from my research... and my mistakes.

I'm really excited about this. I haven't even closed on the house! So stay tuned!