Frankly Green

San Francisco Ocean Film Festival - Feb 1-3, 2008

For readers in the Bay Area, this coming weekend, Feb 1-3, is the San Francisco Ocean Film Festival. For those outside the Bay Area, check out the trailers below. Looks like some really great stuff!! Here is a sampling of a few of the films to be screened this weekend. For a complete schedule, see this link.

Surfing Thru
(USA) Chloe Webb, 25 mins »watch trailer
Three women with late-stage cancer live and surf in the immediacy of the moment. Their attitude, courage, and sharp, dark humor combine with the restorative surge of the ocean beneath them to help them face that one last wave.

Restoring Balance: Removing the Black Rat from Anacapa Island
(USA) Kevin White, 28 mins »watch trailer
Rats were eating just-laid eggs of endangered birds on Anacapa Island, part of the Channel Islands National Park off Southern California. After years of planning and court battles, the rats were poisoned. Populations of native species—from lizards to mice to birds—encouragingly recovered. Since we’ve helped hitchhiking rats occupy 80 percent of the world’s islands, who or what will stop their devastation of native plants and animals if we don’t?

Around Tasmania: Sea Kayaking Australia
(USA) Jon Bowermaster, 26 mins »watch trailer
Off remote Tasmania’s wind-lashed, wave-carved coast, explorer Jon Bowermaster and team tackle kayak the biggest seas of their lives. When not braving 40-mph winds and sliding down 20-foot waves, they venture inland to visit with aboriginals and a few million muttonbirds amid magnificent scenery.

Dungeness
(UK) Janette Scott, 21 mins »watch trailer
World Premiere
If you’re thinking crab, you’re in for a surprise, and a different kind of delectable treat. This Dungeness is a small coastal community perched on the southeastern tip of England with a way of life that is teetering on the edge of survival. Its flat, almost rainless terrain is as unique as its fishing families, artists, and purveyors of smoked fish. And then there’s the wind.

Ordinary Won’t Change the World
(UK) Chris Lotz and Lewis Gordon Pugh, 8 mins »watch trailer
West Coast Premiere
Lewis Pugh needs no steamy jungle for his heart of darkness—just a couple of swim caps, goggles, and some lovely open water at the North Pole, where the real polar bears log their miles. — SH

Global Focus: Iceland – Orri Vigfüsson
(USA) Will Parrinello, 5 mins
For years, the numbers of spawning salmon returning to the streams and rivers of Europe’s North Atlantic were steadily dropping. In the early 1990s, Orri Vigfüsson, Icelandic businessman and angler, decided to do something unheard of—negotiate directly with the driftnet fishermen to see if they would shift to another occupation or seek other fish. His success has been remarkable. However, some driftnet fishers were not happy, believing that sport anglers and factory fishing bore equal responsibility. Time will tell.

Saving Luna
(Canada) Suzanne Chisholm & Michael Parfitt, 93 mins »watch trailer
The subtleties of relationships between humans and wild animals are explored in this moving feature documentary, which follows the life of Luna, an orphaned baby orca. Luna appears surprisingly far into Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island, where he befriends and charms the local residents. Seen by some as a treasure and others as a nuisance, Luna’s presence stirs deep conflict within the local community.

Innovate of Die Pedal-Powered Machine Contest

A story from my friend Zem at ecofabulous - The Innovate or Die Pedal-Powered Machine Contest, sponsored by Specailized Bikes and Google, was designed to inspire innovation and environmental change, one pedal stroke at a time. The contest highlights the efficient and environmental benefits of cycling in a unique way. The challenge was to invent and build machines that transform pedaling energy into new and useful purposes.

Why pedal power? Global warming, exacerbated by the burning of fossil fuels, has reached its tipping point. The need to find alternative energy sources and modes of transportation has never been greater. We must innovate. This project will provide tangible solutions people can use to help make a difference.

The contest produced some really creative and innovative results. Check out the Innovate or Die website to view the grand prize winner as well as all the entries!

Reader Question: Biodegradable Bottles

Question from Rip in San Francisco: I’ve heard there is bottled water for sale that comes in biodegradable bottles.  Is this true or a marketing ploy?  Is it something I should consider if I absolutely have to purchase bottled water for kid’s sporting events and emergencies for the trunk of the car?

Response: While biodegradable bottles are certainly better than non biodegradable bottles, they are bottles nonetheless. Under the right conditions (high heat, moisture, and micro organisms) the bottles will break down into water, carbon dioxide and organic material. So, if you "absolutely have to purchase bottled water", biodegradable bottles are a better choice. But the best choice is always to use a reusable bottle and fill it with good 'ol tap water!

Thanks for your question!

Coal Producer Settles Pollution Case

This is infuriating! A $30 million penalty is way too little in my opinion. And the EVP of the company has there nerve to say this - "We believe this agreement will benefit the environment as well as our shareholders." The environment would benefit a lot more if they obeyed the law and didn't "routinely pollute hundreds of streams and waterways." The fine could have been as high as $2.4 billion. And to make matters worse, the President and CEO was photographed socializing with the chief justice of the WV supreme court. "Four months before the court in a 3-2 decision with Maynard in the majority reversed a $76.3 million judgment against Massey in a dispute brought by a bankrupt coal company." I'm sure it was all above board and there were no conflicts of interest. Not!

So I guess the message is go ahead and pollute and just pay the fines later. Sad!

EPA had alleged Massey violated law 4,500 times over 7 years
The Associated Press

Link to Article

WASHINGTON - A major coal producer has agreed to a $30 million settlement over allegations that it routinely polluted hundreds of streams and waterways in West Virginia and Kentucky. The settlement includes a $20 million civil penalty, the largest ever for violations of the Clean Water Act.

Under the agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency, Massey Energy, the country's fourth-largest coal producer, will also invest $10 million in pollution control improvements at its 44 mines and coal facilities in the two states and in Virginia, the EPA and Justice Department announced Thursday.

The agreement settled a complaint filed by the EPA in May 2007 alleging that the company violated the federal Clean Water Act on at least 4,500 occasions between January 2000 and the end of 2006 by discharging mining waste and sediment — including hazardous metals — into hundreds of streams and waterways and failing to control spills of coal slurry during its mining operation.

Some of the waste water discharges were more than 10 times the amounts allowed by state permits, the EPA said.

Zebra Mussels Attack Great Lakes

New attack on Great Lakes' alien species
Tighter ballast rules for ships likely, activists say they don't go far enough
The Associated Press

Link to Article

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. - Proposed rules meant to keep foreign species out of the Great Lakes would require oceangoing ships to flush their ballast tanks with salt water before entering the St. Lawrence Seaway.

The rules also call for increased inspections of salt-water freighters, believed to be a leading source of invasive species such as zebra and quagga mussels that scientists say are causing massive environmental and economic damage to the lakes.

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At least 185 exotic species have been found in the lakes. Many were scooped into ship ballast tanks in foreign ports, hauled across the Atlantic and dumped into the Great Lakes when the ships emptied their tanks to take on cargo.

Ballast tanks help stabilize ships in rough ocean waters.

The Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition, representing a number of environmental groups, described the proposed rules as "a helpful interim measure" that doesn't go far enough.

China: Smog in Industrial Hubs Worsens

Guangdong, Pearl River delta cited with dozens of hazy days in 2007
The Associated Press

Link to Article

BEIJING - Air pollution is worsening in the southern Chinese industrial powerhouse of Guangdong province, with the number of smog-filled days last year hitting its highest level since the founding of the communist state in 1949, the provincial weather office said Wednesday.

The capital of the province, also called Guangdong, recorded 75.7 hazy days in 2007, the Guangdong Meteorological Bureau said in a report posted on its Web site.

"The serious situation of hazy days shows the atmospheric pollution in Guangdong, especially in urban areas, is worsening," it said, adding industrial pollution and automobile exhaust were the main causes.

Conditions were even worse in the Pearl River delta, ground zero for China's export manufacturing industry which lies just across the border from Hong Kong, the report said. That area saw more than 100 hazy days, while the city of Xinhui recorded 238 days of smog.

Among the greatest threats to human health were the presence of fine particles in the air that can damage the respiratory system and other organs, the report said.

Is the Bottled-Water Craze Drying Up?

I am very pleased to see this trend and hope it continues at an accelerating pace. I have made many posts on Bottled Water Waste about the absolute absurdity that we consume as much bottled water as we do. The facts are staggering! So do yourself, and our environment, a favor and get a reusable water bottle and fill it from the tap!

Green concerns slow sales growth
Mary Jane Credeur and Thomas Mulier, Bloomberg News

Link to Article

ATLANTA - Tap water is fine for Alice Waters, who stopped selling bottled stuff last year at her environmentally conscious Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, Calif.

That could be bad news for Nestle SA.

Per-capita sales of the product in the U.S. will rise 6.3 percent this year and 3.6 percent in 2010, slowing from 8.9 percent last year, according to Euromonitor International Ltd.

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The competition comes as environmentalists say that bottling wastes energy and overtaxes landfills.

"All this energy to bottle water, carbonate it, put it in the glass, ship it and truck it to our restaurant - it was such a waste," said Mike Kossa-Rienzi, 43, general manager of Chez Panisse.

The restaurant used to sell about 25,000 bottles a year. Now, it filters and serves tap, flat or carbonated, in a glass carafe for free.

Whole Foods Stops Using Plastic Bags

Whole Foods sacks plastic bags
By Bruce Horovitz, USA TODAY

Link to Article

There's a familiar question that Whole Foods will stop asking shoppers: Paper or plastic?

Tuesday, Whole Foods (WFMI) will announce plans to stop offering disposable, plastic grocery bags in all 270 stores in the USA, Canada and United Kingdom by Earth Day — April 22. That means roughly 100 million plastic bags will be kept out of the environment between that date and the end of 2008, the company says.

"This is something our customers want us to do," says A.C. Gallo, Whole Foods co-president. "It's central to our core values of caring for communities and the environment."

In place of the fly-away plastic bags scorned by many environmentalists, Whole Foods will offer several options: free paper bags in four sizes made from 100% recycled paper, reusable bags 80% made from recycled plastic bottles for 99 cents and canvas bags selling for $6.99 to $35. It encourages consumers to bring their own bags by taking 5 cents to 10 cents off the bill for each.

The move comes as cities, states and even countries are trying to eliminate non-biodegradable plastic bags from cityscapes, waterways and landfills. San Francisco banned them. Oakland is considering a ban. New York and New Jersey require retailers to recycle them. China announced a ban this month.

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While Whole Foods is tiny compared with the rest of the retail grocery industry, its role as a trendsetter is huge. Whole Foods' success played a major role in nudging top supermarket chains to sell organic foods.

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Americans throw away about 100 billion plastic bags annually, says Worldwatch, an environmental research group. It takes more than 1,000 years for a non-recyclable plastic bag to break down in a landfill, it says.

Video: Hybrid Hacks

Here is an interesting CNN video on a group of drivers know as "Mileage Maniacs" that hack their hybrids to try to maximize the fuel economy!

Link to Video

Video: New York City's Ban on Plastic Bags

One billion plastic bags used annually in NYC alone! Wow!!

One billion is hard to conceptualize. Let me try to help put it in perspective. One million seconds is equivalent to about 11 days. One billion seconds is equivalent to 31.7 years!!

Not to get too far off the subject, but think about this:

A billion seconds ago it was 1975. War in Vietnam, Watergate scandal, VHS and Betamax video, Margaret Thatcher becomes the British Prime Minister, Queen releases 'Bohemian Rhapsody', and the world's population breaks the four billion mark

A billion minutes ago was not long after Jesus was crucified
A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age
A billion dollars ago was 17 hours, at the rate Washington spends taxpayers' money

Link to Video

Photo: Chris Jordan Photography