It’s amazing how the absence of something can have such a profound impact.  The absence of noise.  Not ALL noise is gone (this IS New York City after all), but one particular type of noise is missing.  That earth rattling, ground shaking, sky filling, all encompassing sound of jet engines accelerating during take-off.  With three major airports in our area, it is a sound that greets New Yorkers every morning and late into the evening hours (that 10:00 pm red-eye to Europe is often delayed).  But for only the second time that I can remember in the 30 years I have lived in Manhattan, that sound has been absent for days.  There are no flights leaving (or arriving into) the New York metropolitan area.  The first time this occurred was in the days following 9/11.  And now here we are again.  This time the silence is due to Hurricane Sandy.  Unfortunately my husband is away on business in Florida so every day that the airports stay shut is another day we are apart.  As nice as it is to not be awaken by that awful noise, I really am bumming here and I would love to find someone to blame other than Mother Nature.  But how can I?

Well, maybe I can!  Was Sandy purely an unavoidable act of nature?  Is there any connection to climate change? No doubt hurricanes have been around for a very long time, and this is certainly not the first time that several weather factors have come together to create “the perfect storm.”  But was the damage from this storm worse than it would have been if sea levels had not been rising due to melting arctic sea ice, and if sea surface temperatures were not at a record breaking high? Absolutely!  I’m no climate scientist, but the folks at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are, and here’s what they had to say in a 2011 climate science report:

New York City is America’s largest coastal
community at risk from the effects of a
changing climate. Temperature increases and
sea level rise are already occurring and, along
with other climate changes, are likely to
accelerate. As a city of more than 8 million
people situated along 520 miles of coastline,
with an extensive underground infrastructure
prone to flooding, and lack of easy evacuation
routes, it is particularly vulnerable to coastal
storms and sea level rise. Recognizing the
seriousness of climate change, city planners
and decision-makers have started to take
action.

Even the mayor and the governor mentioned climate change in their storm related press conferences. “There has been a series of extreme weather incidents,” Cuomo said on Tuesday. “That is not a political statement, that is a factual statement … Anyone who says there’s not a dramatic change in weather patterns, I think is denying reality.”

So when my son says he is so saddened by the devastation in Staten Island and around our area, and when my daughter is missing her daddy so much she can’t sleep, I can’t help but direct my anger at the greedy, despicable, myopic, narcissistic Big Oil a-holes who hold so much power – including the power to mess with Mother Nature.  If we all want to take back some sense of control in our future, the most important thing we can do in the next week is get out there and vote in the presidential election on Tuesday.  Not that our current president’s environmental record is so stellar, but he is certainly the better choice when it comes to not getting deeper into bed with the fossil fuel industry.

My heart goes out to the families who lost loved ones in this tragedy, as well as all those who lost their homes, belongings, cars, and jobs.  I thank each and every one of the heroic first responders who put their lives at risk to save others as well as the staff and volunteers who evacuated NYU hospital without loss of life (and even brought some patients to the nursing home where my mother is recovering from her hospitalization just last week).   I hope for a speedy return of the subway system, the life blood of our city.  I hope the millions of people without power can get back to their lives soon, and of course I look forward to my kids going back to school next week.  But most of all, I can’t wait until the silence in the skies is broken, and those planes start taking off, and landing, again.

Here are some photos of storm related damage in my neighborhood, which was luckily spared from the real devastation we have seen in other parts on the city.   Please send us your photos at SandyStorm@ecoplum.com.

OK, I don’t usually use my blog just to post a video, put I just love this and had to post it:

Have a wonderful weekend!!

It’s Blog Action Day and this year’s topic is WATER. To get the conversation started, I will share some facts about water (many of which, I must admit, I was unaware of prior to this post) and they are shocking:

* Every 20 seconds a child dies from a water-related disease.
* 890 million people lack access to safe water.
* 2.5 billion people don’t have a toilet.
* $25 brings one person clean water for life.
* More people on earth have cell phones than toilets.
* The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns.
* On average, women in developing coutnries walk 3.7 miles a day to collect water.
* In just one day, women around the world spend more than 200 MILLION HOURS collecting water. This lost productivity is greater than the combined number of hours worked in a week by employees at Wal*Mart, United Parcel Service, McDonald’s, IBM, Target, and Kroger.

Water.org Co-Founders Matt Damon and Gary White

What other actions can you take?

Get involved with organizations such as Damon’s water.org.

Donate just $25 to provide water for life for one person!

Help educate the our children about this crises – check out these lesson plans for elementary, middle school, and high school students.

Start a fundraiser through mycharity: water.

Finally, just sign the petition below to support the UN’s efforts to bring clean, safe water to millions:

It’s pretty amazing to think how wrapped up we are in our lives and how clueless we can be about how fortunate we really are. I mean, here I am, pretty dedicated to the environment, and yet did I know these facts? NO. Was I thinking about what I could do to help a child get safe drinking water? Uh Uh! But now I am! Thanks to the folks at Blog Action Day for bringing this issue front and center!

I hope this touches you as well. I hope we are all inspired to do what we can do to help Damon and White achieve their vision: the day when everyone in the world can take a safe drink of water.

So I have this dear friend who just won’t give up the bottled water habit. I have told her about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, about the fact that it takes 700 years for a plastic bottle to begin to decompose, and yet, when I was visiting with her recently, she and her family went through bottle after plastic bottle of water. Since I was a guest in her house, I felt it was not my place to question her or lecture her for the millionth time. Also, I really hope she does not feel singled out or upset by this post (if she figures out it’s her), but I am really disheartened that I have not been able to get her to change her dirty habit. I know she cares deeply about the planet’s future, so why the disconnect?

How can this type of behavior be explained? There are surely many elements of the “MIGG” mentality coming into play here – a topic I’ve written about extensively. A MIGG is term I made up to describe a person who is not changing their wasteful habits because of a combination of feelings of insignificance, helplessness, laziness, and mistrust. Be assured, I am not pointing fingers, because I count my younger self (when I was under 40) in the ranks of the MIGGs. But in this case I think here is another factor contributing to the resistance: the Green vs. Clean mentality.

We were sitting outside in the hot sun, and my friend mentioned she was thirsty. I asked her if she wanted some water and she said she did. I pulled out my reusable stainless steel water bottle filled with ice cold tap water and she looked at it and politely declined. Another friend pulled out a store bought bottled water and she immediately accepted that offer and rushed to quench her thirst. I’m pretty sure she thought my water bottle was not clean – not to mention what she thought of the tap water inside.

I’m wondering how many people have not given up some of their most wasteful habits not because of the small inconveniences involved (like carrying around a reusable bottle), but because they like things nice and new and clean. I know I had to suppress many of my obsessive compulsive tendencies when I began my journey to go green. So I’ve put together a Green vs. Clean list with some myth busters and some recommendations. Please add your own!

1) Bottled Water vs. Tap Water. Myth: Bottled water is better for you. Fact: Bottled water is less regulated than tap water, and in a 2008 study by the Environmental Working Group, 38 contaminants were found in 10 of the top brands of bottled water. Also, plastic bottles leach harmful chemicals into the water. Finally, if you like things clean, then why add to the huge amount of plastic that exists in our oceans and landfills? That stuff is not going anywhere, and eventually it will show up on your beach and in your backyard. That’s pretty gross.

2) The Disinfection Obsession. Myth: Green cleaning products aren’t as effective as antibacterials. Fact: Unless you are a surgeon requiring a sterile environment, good old soap and water or even home made concoctions like vinegar and baking soda are just as effective cleaning agents as antibacterials – sans the side effects of toxic chemicals, indoor air pollution, and water pollution. These don’t sound so very clean to me.

3) Use and Toss. Myth: Single use products are more hygienic than reusable ones. Actually, you can get a better clean from cloth towel than a paper towel, without the paper waste and mess. Cloth towels are more absorbent and stronger and therefore are more effective at getting the grime out of your kitchen. Use and wash is still better than use and toss, and if your mess is not a wet one, you can even reuse your cloth towel a few times before washing it, making it even more environmentally preferable to paper.

4) Kleenex vs. Handkerchief – I got nothin’ here – sorry, you won’t catch me blowing my nose over and over in the same hanky. Even I have my limits….but I am open to suggestions!

5) The Hippie Stigma. Myth: People who are passionate about the environment are tree-hugging hippies who don’t shave, wear deodorant, or shower regularly. Fact: while I may be known to let my razor stubble get a little visible on my legs in between shavings, I am a far cry from crunchy. Actually, prior to becoming informed about environmental issues, I was your typical over-consuming (Italian/Jewish) American Princess. Still pretty concerned about my looks and my style, but I have changed my waste producing habits to do my part in helping to preserve our earth’s natural beauty. (Disclaimer – some of my best friends are crunchy granola tree-hugging hippies – and I love them).

Do you have examples of Green vs. Clean myths that can help us eliminate the “yuck” factor as an excuse for not going green?

It’s World Water Day – a day sanctioned by the United Nations to bring awareness to the fact that by 2030 two-thirds of the world will lack access to clean drinking water.   While this sounds alarming, it may not appear to have any immediate effect on those of us who do enjoy clean drinking water in developed countries.  The first step to changing this statistic is for us to kick the bottled water habit.  But since many of us only really pay attention and change our behavior when maintaining the status quo starts to have immediate, dangerous and life altering consequences, then let me put it in plain dollars and cents: Spending $2 on a bottle of water is equivalent to spending $10,000 on your sandwich today at lunchtime.  That’s right – so why are we doing it? 

Think bottled water is safer, cleaner, more convenient?  I thought so maybe as recently as 6 or 7 years ago. I was actually pleased with myself when I bought water instead of soda. I used to love it when I walked into a salon, store or went to an event that offered FREE bottled water – what a treat! How incredibly healthy – fresh pure spring water – yum. Over time, I slowly learned about the devastating environmental and societal effect of these water bottles. I learned that not only is bottled water not safer, but it is less regulated and often contains more contaminants than tap water. Now that I know the facts I find it upsetting and downright offensive when I see people all around me buying and consuming bottled water. But lecturing them is not going to change their behavior. What I can do is lay out the information so that people can make their own responsible choices. Here are a few “must see” tidbits for World Water Day. Pass it on:

The Cycle of Insanity: The Real Story of Water from Surfrider Foundation on Vimeo.

Don’t have time to watch these videos? Here are some of the facts in black and white:

• Roughly 38 billion plastic water bottles end up in U.S. landfills each year – 100 million every day! That’s enough, laid end to end, to reach China and back each day.

• In 2006, Americans drank an average 167 bottles of water each for a total of 50 billion bottles (total spent $15 billion). Of that total, only 23% was recycled.

• We are shipping 1 billion water bottles a week around the U.S. in ships, trains, and trucks.

• We are paying 2 to 4 times the cost of gasoline for a product that is virtually free.

• It takes over 700 years for plastic to decompose.

• Plastic pollution is a world-wide problem. There is a growing “garbage patch” of plastic estimated to be more than twice the size of Texas floating in the North Pacific Ocean.

• Picture a disposable water bottle full of petroleum. That is how much petroleum it takes to make and distribute a single plastic bottle of water.

• Currently, the amount of oil we use to produce water bottles each year (17 million barrels) could fuel over 1,000,000 cars for an entire year.

• It takes THREE bottles of water to make and distribute ONE disposable plastic bottle of water.

Please pass this on to anyone you know who still buys or uses bottled water. Thank you!

My hope, in writing this blog, is that I will be able to reach all the MIGGs out there. What is a MIGG? It’s me, 5 years ago, it’s most of my friends, it’s a lot of the parents in my kids’ schools, it’s the guy next door, it’s your average everyday person to whom the environment is just not a priority. Let’s say MIGG stands for these sentiments:

M – My actions are just a drop in the bucket!
I – I’ve got bigger issues to deal with right now!
G – Global Warming? – Not in my Lifetime!
G – Greenwashing is everywhere – who can I trust?

At EcoPlum, we try to address these issues. Not surprisingly, many of our fans and followers are true greenies, and I am honored that they find our site interesting. But they already get it – they have been trying to help save the planet for years. Not I.

Don’t get me wrong, I always tried to recycle and I thought I cared about the environment. Maybe some of you remember the television commercial where the Native American sheds a tear over some careless litter (I’m showing my age, aren’t I)? Well that really touched me – as a child I just couldn’t understand why people would choose to litter or pollute. But as I grew older and lived my life – I got used to the conveniences around me. I bought water bottles without even thinking about the consequences, I used detergents full of phosphates, I ate vegetables ridden with pesticides and I took really long car rides alone in my SUV.

Here I am (with my mother in law) just last summer in Cape Cod before I kicked the disposable coffee cup habit.

About 15 years ago, while visiting a friend in Eugene, Oregon, I noticed a sign in their bathroom: “If it’s yellow, let it mellow….” You know the rest. How gross, I thought – why would I do that? Now, years later, I have read a lot about the dire state of our planet and educated myself about the true scarcity of our natural resources, and I see things in a very different way.

I now realize that every thing I consume and every bit of waste I produce will end up somewhere on our planet – in a landfill, in the ocean, on a beach, in the atmosphere. There is nowhere else for it to go. Seems simple, but again, I didn’t get it. I’m not sure exactly when my “aha” moment was – it could have been when I read a blog by Nigel Savage of Hazon – in which he commented on how incredibly irresponsible it was to buy a bottle of water, use it once, and then throw the bottle away only for it to sit in a landfill for 700 years before it began to decompose. It could have been when I watched “the Story of Stuff.” Or maybe it was just when my son came home from school feeling scared about the effects of global warming in his lifetime.

Now I won't be caught dead using a paper cup - check out Starbucks' "for here" cups.

My point is, I have evolved, and so can others. I don’t mean to sound all evangelical or self righteous. I just know more now than I did then, and have made a choice to change my lifestyle. It’s not easy being green (but that’s the subject of my next post) – but it’s my responsibility. I hope all the MIGGs out there will follow.