Environmental Ethanol

Nothing says sustainability like college parties and the red Solo® cups which line the roads of Emory as though a giant game of flip cup has just been played on the curb. It seems difficult to think about the long-term effects of your actions while your friends hoist a beer bong into the air as you relax your throat and allow gravity to work its magic. A recent survey found that four in every five college students drink, yet even in our somewhat more lucid states the choice of alcohol is given little thought. If there is any consideration at all, it usually does not go beyond economics and taste. As students ascend to the legal drinking age and begin purchasing their own alcohol, their curiosities will hopefully lead them beyond simply indulging in cheap beer and the subtle bouquet of Yellow Tail®.

Even though standards may differ depending on the place and evaluative institution, the term “organic” signifies that the ingredients in these alcohols were grown with substantially less fertilizers and pesticides than conventional growing methods. Pesticides are known to harm wildlife and pollute ground water, and the manufacturing of fertilizers produces significant amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. A recent study compared the Ecological Footprint of a conventional Tuscan wine and an organic one to determine which type of wine production places a greater demand on ecosystem goods and services. The conventional production system was found to have a Footprint value almost double that of the organic production. These results agree with a different study, which found that greenhouse gas emissions were significantly lower in organic than in conventional vineyards. Similar trends are found in the agricultural production of organic beer. Trader Joes, Decatur Package, and Toco Hills Package all carry a variety of organic alcohols.

The health effects of organic alcohols are going to differ depending on the brand and type of alcohol. Organic alcohols appear to be at least as good for you as conventional alcohol and in many cases are actually superior.

The pesticide runoff from the production of conventional alcohols might harm human health, but pesticides in the products probably have little effect. One research project chemically analyzed different beers and found that there is a very low probability of harmful amount of pesticides persisting till the final product3. The organic beer was found to have higher quantities of cancer inhibiting chemicals than the conventional beers. A similar study on wine found that organic wine had different levels of beneficial chemicals than conventional wine, but the authors drew the conclusion that the conventional wine was better in this instance.

Organic alcohol seems an excellent choice in terms of its environmental impact. However, it is not the only factor that needs to be considered. Another important consideration is where the alcohol was produced since shipping contributes to greenhouse gases. Beertown.org and Winerybound.com are useful websites for finding local alcohol providers. Despite certain stigmas, box wine is better for the environment than bottled wine since it uses less packaging and produces less greenhouse gas emissions in transportation. Who knew that your exploits with Franzia® were actually better for the earth than some classy wine party? Next time you throw a party think about having everybody bring his or her own cup. Since you won’t have to buy cups you will save money, and you’ll avoid the inevitable riot and drunken drive to Publix® when you run out. Plus, this will cut down on the “Which cup is mine?” problem that can lead to the spread of awkwardness--and oral herpes. Your guests can stand out by getting creative with decorating their cups or with what they use as cups. I personally enjoy drinking out of a flower vase.

You might also want to look into brewing your own alcohol since this will eliminate many of the negative outputs of mass production processes and will eliminate the negative effects of transportation and packaging. It’s so easy it can be done in a college dorm room (not that I would know…). Here’s a sitewhich can help you get started with brewing a wide variety of different alcoholic drinks right in your cozy little domicile.

Refilling beer kegs as opposed to buying bottles or cans is also better for the environment. Unfortunately, Emory has placed a ban on kegs for Fraternity parties. Rachel Gluck, president of Greeks Go Green, commented that “there isn't even a recycling bin in a majority of the fraternity houses, and in those houses where there are bins, the custodial staff simply combines its contents with the trash.” Besides producing more pollution, this just means that Frats trying to save money will just purchase more liquor for shots and mixed drinks. One study found that intoxication levels actually increased at Fraternity parties after a university banned kegs. If Emory wants to stand by their commitment to sustainability and student safety they must adopt a broader approach to policy formation based in reality. Students are going to drink. The question is whether they are going to be standing in line for beer with low alcohol content or taking shots of hard liquor and chugging Kool-aid® mixed with grain alcohol.

Photos courtesy of Gabrielle Phan

Corporate Greenwashing

By now many of us are familiar with the practice of “green washing.” The term was coined in the 1980’s by American environmentalist Jay Westerveld to criticize hotels which endorsed the reuse of towels but lacked concrete recycling strategies. The term has come to describe disingenuous environmental claims in general. Green washing as a phenomenon has been observed in a variety of industries and sectors over the past several decades. A report in 1991 found that 58 percent of environmental advertisements within their sample made at least one misleading claim. Green washing frequently manifests itself in the form of vague or non-substantive claims about particular products, however, the motivation to appear “green” can also affect public relations for the corporation as a whole.

We all know that the image corporations project can significantly impact people’s behavior and views. This is why companies spend incredible sums of money on public relations and advertising every year. American consumers have recently shown a preference for buying “environmentally friendly” products. In response, corporations have begun to use the rising environmental concern as a tool within their marketing strategies. The release of products labeled "green" skyrocketed from sixty per year in 1986 to more than eight hundred in 1991, and we have all witnessed the rapid growth of this phenomenon in the past twenty years. The profit incentives behind riding this wave of green enthusiasm are transparent. If a corporation’s image is a reflection of actual practices, then this marketing technique could provide a mechanism for consumers to force corporations to adopt more environmentally sound policies. However, the methodology of corporations for presenting themselves as environmentally friendly is largely unregulated, and studies have shown that without the enforcement of outside sanctions corporate self-regulation is frequently ineffective.

Campaigning and the altering of buying behaviors have been shown in the past to be effective methods for changing corporate behavior. The practice of green washing undermines these two paths towards amelioration. If consumers are not able to distinguish between real and unauthentic claims, then we cannot act in ways that will force corporations to do the right thing. In this respect, determining the validity of environmental claims and identifying instances of green washing holds significant import.

In 2007, Norway outlawed the use of green advertising for car companies. Their rationale was that all cars pollute, so to advertise them as environmentally friendly is simply lying to the public. This made me wonder about whether there were elements of green washing in the way car companies present themselves on their websites. I looked at the number of pages devoted to environmental claims, the total number of words in these pages, and the number of clicks it takes to get to the main environmental section on these sites.

	# of pages	# of words	# of clicks
Ford	17	8755	1
Mazda	16	8617	1
Volvo	4	805	1
Daimler	11	5653	0
BMW	11	4265	1
Hyundai	6	1463	1
Toyota	11	2161	2

The websites were largely similar in number of pages of environmental content, the clicks it took to get there from the main page, and the number of natural images employed. The low values for the click count provides evidence for a similar desire amongst the corporations to present their environmental image prominently on their websites. There was significant variation in the word counts between the sites, but overall the companies seemed to present themselves in comparable ways. The homogeneity of these corporate images suggests that green washing may be occurring. There is no competitive drive to become more environmental if all companies look equally green.

But! Perhaps all these corporations really are all equally green. Not very likely. I examined the Environmental Protection Agency metrics of Toxic Releases (TRI) and Hazardous Waste Violations and Permits (RCRIS) for each of these companies and found that there was significant variation in the environmental harm done by these corporations (std dev: ~10,476; ~8647).

What can we do? Well one way to combat green washing is to become better at spotting it. I looked at how often the websites used the terms "sustainable," "green," and "recycling."

There is a definite tendency towards use of the word “sustainable” despite its ambiguous nature. Variations on the word “sustainability” were used twelve times on one of the web pages for Ford Motors. The ubiquitous nature of this word category and the lack of a universally accepted definition dilutes its rhetorical force. “Sustainability” appears to be a word that one should be wary of when confronted with evaluating environmental claims.

Some people argue that the consumption based approach for changing corporate behavior is fundamentally flawed. Critics question whether the achievements of this approach provide any substantial environmental benefits. Many view the culture of consumerism itself to be responsible for most environmental problems and argue that the entire economic system needs to be changed. From a pragmatic perspective, any means that can move society towards a better future should be exploited to its fullest extent. Environmentally minded marketing draws attention to real environmental problems and holds the possibility for contributing to substantive changes in policy.

There is something about green washing that just seems wrong. There is a little voice in my head telling me that corporations should not be allowed to lie to the public. Should the government regulate environmental claims or do better methods need to be developed by the market so that consumers can distinguish the fakers? Either way, if green washing is not challenged then it will lead to the end of all environmental marketing since all environmental claims will come to be viewed with equal suspicion.

Fog of War? A Necessary Evil?

WikiLeaks has released a video of the US Military shooting at and killing Iraqi civilians and two Reuters journalists. The video is gruesome and extremely difficult to watch. Here it is in edited form:



The killing is barbaric, but for me what was most unsettling was the exchange between the apache helicopter which opened fire and its superiors. The soldiers banter back and forth and even laugh while discussing killing these Iraqis. Investigations have apparently revealed that all actors involved followed military protocol, but that does not take away from the fact that these killings were conducted in a seemingly careless and brazen fashion.

It is easy to castigate the individual soldiers for what appears to be heartless murder, but this incident is surely representative of the type of war that America is waging in the Middle East, and part of the reason so little progress has been made in the region. One could certainly argue that for soldiers, adopting dark humor and a remorseless attitude towards killing is simply a coping method, a crucial shield used to block combat-induced trauma. I wholeheartedly buy such an argument. I can only imagine what I would have to do to be able to cope with killing indiscriminately. What I worry about more is that the United States continues to engage in activities that force young, healthy and mentally alert individuals in peak condition to reach the brink of insanity. What does it say about our society that we engage in such brutal activities?

It is far too easy to forget what we are doing in the Middle East. The US Military, as it exists currently, requires the construction of a culture so detached from the human-rights based society we live in that wholesale slaughter is glorified. Read these disturbing quotes, and consider the effects of a culture that makes people obsessed with killing.

From the New York Times:

"We had a great day," Sergeant Schrumpf said. "We killed a lot of people." ...

But more than once, Sergeant Schrumpf said, he faced a different choice: one Iraqi soldier standing among two or three civilians. He recalled one such incident, in which he and other men in his unit opened fire. He recalled watching one of the women standing near the Iraqi soldier go down.

"I'm sorry," the sergeant said. "But the chick was in the way."

From Reuters:

Two soldiers picked out two figures on a rooftop and quickly lined up their shot. Thankfully, First Sgt. Eric Engram saw them and also saw their target. “No man, that's a kid and a woman. It's a KID and a WOMAN,” he bellowed, and his soldiers lowered their rifles.

"These guys are young and most just want to get their first confirmed kill, so they're too anxious to get off shots. I hate to say ‘bragging rights’ but they want that kill,” Engram said an hour later.

From the London Times:
US marine, Corporal Ryan Dupre, surveying the scene by the bridge at An Nasiriyah, said: "The Iraqis are sick people and we are the chemotherapy. I am starting to hate this country. Wait till I get hold of a friggin’ Iraqi. No I won’t get hold of one - I’ll kill him."

From Reuters:

A tracked armored vehicle has crushed two men up the road.

"Killed one, ripped the legs off another," Monty said briskly, a cigarette dangling from his lip.

From the Los Angeles Times:
"I enjoy killing Iraqis," says Staff Sgt. William Deaton, 30, who killed a hostile fighter the night before. Deaton has lost a good friend in Iraq. "I just feel rage, hate when I'm out there. I feel like I carry it all the time. We talk about it. We all feel the same way."

From the Seattle Times:

The vehicle goes silent as the driver, Spc. Joshua Dubois, swerves around asphalt previously uprooted by a blast.

"I'm confused about how I should feel about killing," says Dubois, who has a toddler back home. "The first time I shot someone, it was the most exhilarating thing I'd ever felt."

Dubois turns back to the road. "We talk about killing all the time," he says. "I never used to talk this way. I'm not proud of it, but it's like I can't stop. I'm worried what I will be like when I get home."

And finally, from the East Bay Express:

Six men in beige fatigues, identified as US Marines, laugh and smile for the camera while pointing at a burned, charcoal-black corpse lying at their feet.

The captions that accompany these images, which were apparently written by soldiers who posted them, laugh and gloat over the bodies. The person who posted a picture of a corpse lying in a pool of his own brains and entrails wrote, “What every Iraqi should look like.” The photograph of a corpse whose jaw has apparently rotted away, leaving a gaping set of upper teeth, bears the caption “bad day for this dude.” One person posted three photographs of corpses lying in the street and titled his collection “DIE HAJI DIE.”

Soldiers in the US Military have been conditioned to view Iraqi and Afghani lives as negligible. When negligible lives are destroyed, there is no sense that a heinous act has occurred. Do you view your best friend as negligible? Of course not. Imagine seeing your best friend killed, his spewed entrails spelling out a hateful message. Your reaction is surely different from your reaction to hearing about such an act conducted on an Iraqi. We have set up a distinction between American lives and the lives of others that allows us to ignore brutal slaughter. Of course, it's not just our reactions that matter. It would probably destroy you to see your friend mutilated - imagine what friends, brothers, mothers, sons, fathers see every day in Iraq and Afghanistan. They do not hate us for our freedoms. They hate us for regarding them as so worthless that we have no qualms over murdering them.

We have to understand how interconnected we are with others around the world. Globally, we are intrinsically interdependent on each other in relation to the environment, food supply and distribution, commercial exchange of all kinds, culture, and war. Besides being willfully against our supposed ethics and values, it is explicitly against our interests to not acknowledge the plight of others. We are worse off when an Iraqi hates us for what we've done. We are worse off when an Iraqi dies.

That's just war, military sympathizers declare. Yes, it quite clearly is. The question is, why do we continue to glorify it? The media, being a profit-seeking industry, produces what its audience desires. Why does the mainstream media ignore and cover up military brutality? Because the mainstream in America has no interest in hearing about it. While the countless video games that have the player murder hundreds if not thousands of individuals do not necessarily lead to real world violence, they may aid in this process of devaluing life. It is interesting that there are more people playing Modern Warfare 2, a video game based on the war in Afghanistan, than soldiers actually fighting in Afghanistan. We, like US Soldiers, have been effectively conditioned to consider those outside of our clan as Other. We adopt a dichotomy of ethics (one set for our clan, another for the Other) that desensitizes us from emotional reaction when we hear of the Other's suffering. It allows us to abandon compassion and not suffer any attacks from our pesky little "conscience." No wonder, for instance, a survey of Americans found that 71% of us support cutting government spending on foreign aid (less than 1% of our spending), while only 22% of us support cutting military spending (23% of our spending).

It is crucial for us to learn how to grieve life. Not just for those in our immediate circle, our clan, but for everyone on the planet. If we have the capacity to grieve life regardless of cultural or geographic difference, we will find it far harder to kill. This will make us better off. American foreign policy is directed by a philosophy of power, masculinity, impermeability and domination. This philosophy is fueled by a myopic and jingoistic worldview. These philosophies and worldviews are perpetuated by our government, our media, and our society. We must realize that we are not beholden to these constructions. Indeed, it is our obligation to form new worldviews, and evince ourselves of the philosophies that have allowed wars such as the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. The world faces problems that can only be solved with global co-operation. Increasingly, the categories of "us" and "them" have become not only useless, but harmful.

WTF? Afrikaaner rappers....but they're good! I like this.

Upon hearing Die Antwoord, I was inspired to write a little bit about what the band represents...

Die Antwoord is fake, but a South African will quickly point out that what they represent is very real. In their video "Zef Side," the question is posed: What does "Die Antwoord" mean? "The Answer," replies band front man Waddy Jones. "The answer to what?" the query continues. "Whatever, man. Fuck." In South Africa, zef is a word meaning something resembling the American redneck. However, in a nation still grappling with the transition from apartheid to African leadership, zef means more. Zef culture represents the ignorance that allowed an apartheid regime to govern South Africa for sixty years. Yet, the Afrikaaners value culture, tradition and heritage above all else. Zef culture is very important to Afrikaaners - it is a homage to their pastoral roots, a reminder of the simpler life and still today an accurate representation of the way many Afrikaaners live.

Die Antwoord's tackling of zef culture in the form of rap is beautifully ironic. An explicitly African medium is used to communicate explicitly white culture. Die Antwoord thus highlights the contradictions of the modern Afrikaaner. Any attempt to harken back to Afrikaans roots invariably involves invoking racial overtones. The Afrikaaners have yet to arrive at an appropriate answer to their cultural legacy. When Jones is asked "answer to what?" he very appropriately does not have an answer. His response, "Whatever, man. Fuck," is a familiar one for Afrikaaners. After all, perhaps the most common phrase in the Afrikaans language is "Ja, Nee," meaning "Yes, no." Ja, Nee is an interjection that is entirely based on the context. It could mean "of course," "I don't know," or "Oh well." Above all, however, it represents confusion. Confusion about the Afrikaaner's place in modern South African. Confusion about where the zef will go, and whether an attempt should be made to save him. Die Antwoord does not provide an answer to these important questions for Afrikaaners. But it does a masterful job of illustrating the questions Afrikaaners must answer for themselves.

This line is a good illustration of what I mean

"I represent, South African culture. This place, you get a lot of different things.
Blacks, Whites, Coloreds, English, Afrikaans, Zulu.
I'm like, all these different things... fucked into one person."

Also one of their songs "Dagga Puff," meaning Weed Puff is ridiculous if you have a basic understanding of Afrikaans slang.

Dagga Puff

Language's AIM

[2:24] Person 1: im in a funny mood

[2:25] Person 2: funny how?

[2:27] Person 1: just been thinking alot.

very strange.

HAHA

[2:28] Person 2: I liked what you were saying last night about perception. How perception clouds any sort of universal understanding through language.

but Kindler's always like "the red that I see isn't the red you see"

but actually the red I see probably is the red he sees

[2:30] Person 1: unless you're colorblind

[2:31] Person 2: the variation in people's bodies is actually pretty small

thats why colorblindness is a big deal

cause almost nobody is.

it makes me think about structuralism

words in a language given meaning by their relationships to other words in the language

when you wanna know what a word means you go to dictionary.com or type "define:" into google

and then you get other words telling you what that word means

[2:32] Person 1: it reminds me of a piece that david carson did



[2:34] Person 2: that's really cool

the structuralists think that languages form their own meaning

so normally you think of the word red as a representation of some spectrum of light

but they say that the meaning of the word red is only in its relationship to other words in english

thats why its sometimes hard to translate things between languages

like esprit de l'escalier

or schadenfreude

[2:37] Person 2: some people say that everything we can think is determined by our language

[2:36] Person 1: as confusing as this will sound

i feel like it is impossible to characterize some things, such as emotions and sensations by words

but unfortunately that's the main form of communication

[2:37] Person 2: not confusing at all.

Cowgate, Conservative Lies, and What We're All About

On March 23, the Washington Times published an article entitled, “Meat, Dairy Not Tied to Global Warming.” The title is unequivocal – according to this daily broadsheet started by Sung Myung Moon in 1982, the meat and dairy industries do not contribute to global warming. At all. While such a claim is, on its face, ridiculous, it is worth examining this article. Why? Because conservative reporting, exemplified in this Times article, has deliberately misled too many Americans about too many issues, and America’s inability to take political action to address these issues is a manifestation of this effort to mislead.

First, a word about Sung Myung Moon. He believes that he is the second coming of Christ, and has stated, “The Washington Times will become the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world." Moon, and the Washington Times, are darlings of the conservative establishment, which should make every reader skeptical when reading Times articles addressing a subject as politically charged as climate change. Ad hominem aside, however, the article itself is a blatant work of shitty reporting and deliberate mis-truths.

The article begins by simultaneously backing off its declaratory title and pushing false information. The first sentence describes talking about vegetarianism and cow flatulence as “indecorous,” the second sentence makes an allusion to Climategate (which was completely debunked as a valid conspiracy theory), and the third sentence says that “lower consumption of meat and dairy will not have a major impact in combating global warming.” Decidedly false, but note the equivocation between the dramatic title to the markedly less vitriolic “not have a major impact.” Someone just glancing at the title is impressed with a lie even greater than the mis-truths presented in the text.

The substance of the article, as well as the comments from associate professor of animal science at UC Davis Frank Mitloehner, are not credible refutations of the meat and dairy industries' contribution to climate change. Mitloehner does not even contest that the meat and dairy industries contribute as much to global warming as the United Nations report he demonizes claims. He simply claims that meat and dairy’s relative contribution to greenhouse gas emissions is lower than previously thought because the other sectors of the economy have been undercounted. So according to Frank Mitloehner and the Washington Times, and this Telegraph editorialist, and this Fox News report, meat and dairy production still contribute the same as previously thought to global warming. Which is a lot. A lot! A lot a lot!

Alone, the article is merely a product of substandard reporting, but it is the political message that is transparent in this shitty reporting that is most troubling. Conservatives have a frightening habit of using straight up lies as a political tool. Unfortunately, it all too often works. Their lies about health care reform, about Barack Obama’s citizenship (including from a Congressman, and Sarah Palin), about the “Climategate” controversy, the Bush Administration’s use of torture, and on and on, have been readily gobbled up by both conservative activists and, more worryingly, the mainstream media. Americans believe this nonsense because Authoritative People tell them it’s true, and unfortunately those Authoritative People often tend to be blithering idiots peddling their anti-anything-remotely-liberal-on-principle bullshit.

Because they have been so successful in convincing their listeners and readers, these liars have been incredibly damaging to this country, and to the world. Congress has not addressed climate change for one simple reason: the public will is just not there. It certainly would be if the public understood just how serious climate change is, the pain it is causing, and all the things we are doing to make it worse. More outlets are needed that value truth, not lies, and promote active pursuit of intellectuality and depth of reasoning. That is the arena this blog strives to enter: we are a counterweight to the anti-intellectual movement that has recently claimed so many followers. We will provide analyses with depth, clarity, and a focus to academic and scholarly pursuits. We hope you enjoy!