8 weeks of clean living

Way back when I was first thinking about starting a blog (called On Efficiency, with some similar themes but a less environmental bent) I wanted to tackle the subject of optimal (male facial) shaving. At the time, I was convinced the answer would be a straight razor, given that one never throws away blades, but now I realize the calculation is a bit more complex.

My grandfather gave me an electric razor for Christmas noting that he felt it was a good fit with my environmental goals. At first this seems unintuitive—shouldn’t something that uses electricity be worse for the environment than something you power yourself? After thinking about it for a while, however, I think one can make a pretty strong argument for an electric razor. Here’s how I see it breaking down.

Electricity: The electric razor obviously has a disadvantage here, but the amount of power it draws is quite small. Charging the razor after taking it out of the box only drew 4 watts from the outlet. After completely charging, the total power draw didn’t even show up on my Kill-A-Watt’s meter (it still read 0.00 kWh). The razor may have come partially charged though, so I’ll update if the subsequent charge produces different results. My grandfather says he gets about a month’s regular use out of a charge.

Water: Here both straight and safety razors have a substantial disadvantage—they require quite a bit of water (normally hot) to get the job done. Besides just the use of water (which in San Diego we’re always trying to conserve), heating and pumping the water probably takes more energy in one shaving session than the electric razor takes for a month’s worth of charge.

Shaving Cream: Electric razors don’t use shaving cream, a product that takes materials and energy to produce and ship.

Waste: Electric razor blades are supposed to be replaced every year (though my grandfather says he’s never replaced his, but I’ve also heard he had a cavity filled without anesthetic…). This replacement rate is much less than safety razors, but the item replaced is slightly larger. Straight razors just need to be sharpened and maintained. Both straight and safety razors create waste through discarded shaving cream canisters, a problem electric razors avoid. The real stinger for electric razors though is the replacement of the whole unit. Obviously there’s quite a bit to electric razors, including a toxic battery, which is a knock for them in this category (though highly dependent on how often you replace them). Due to the battery they should probably be disposed of as household hazardous waste and not just thrown in the trash.

Cost: This isn’t an environmental factor, but one to consider. Up front a high quality straight razor and a nice electric razor can both be around $100, with the electric razor having greater recurring costs for occasional blade replacement (vs just buying shaving cream for a straight razor). Safety razors are normally very inexpensive or free up front, but as we all know, the blades can be pretty expensive. Lifetime I’d guess the straight razor has the advantage.

I looked in to getting a straight razor during my first eight weeks and ran in to lots of horror stories about people cutting strips off of their faces due to nicked or bent razors. That and the high cost for a quality kit dissuaded me from taking the plunge. I still haven’t fully adjusted to the electric razor, but I think when you take into account water, shaving cream, shaving cream canisters and blades, electric razors actually make more environmental sense than safety razors.

Along the lines of what I mentioned in the previous post is this Greenpeace video, which I find particularly annoying and unproductive.

In an earlier post, I discussed how global warming is almost certainly occurring, yet the effects are not likely to substantially impact the lives of affluent people living today. Due to this fact, I think the truly scary component of the global warming debate (for most people) is the notion that somehow their lives and habits will have to fundamentally change in order to solve the problem.

Employing a dialogue based around fear for political means tends to be somewhat frowned upon. Of course, it is generally politically expedient to do so, especially concerning topics that lend themselves to just such a dialogue. Terrorism, for example, is an issue that is perfectly suited to fear based politics.

Despite the stigma, many environmentalists have attempted to create a culture of fear surrounding global warming. The Day After Tomorrow attempted to paint an unrealistically gloomy picture of a near future where the world is more or less demolished by meteorological events. More subtly, in An Inconvenient Truth Al Gore attempts to draw a very tenuous connection between Hurricane Katrina and global warming, in order to make the threat seem more immediate and real. If one wants to get people to change, the reasoning goes, one needs to scare them into doing so.

Unfortunately global warming is actually uniquely unsuited to fear based politics. It is very difficult to get people to do something scary (changing) by motivating them with something far less scary (some abstract future event caused by global climate change). In this regard, I think most of the loud voices in the current movement to stop global warming have done their position a disservice. (In particular, I think that the shrillest voices invite a kind of fatalistic despair amongst their audience that tends to prevent small positive steps from being taken. I’ve spoken with people seemingly gripped by such despair.)

One thing that I have learned from writing this blog is that many environmentally sound actions also have economic advantages. In other words, change can be in one’s own self interest as well as in service to the environment. In fact, in a perfect economy (one that reflected the true future costs and returns of every action, as well as those in the present) one would imagine that all increases in efficiency would be economically advantageous. I think it is a government’s job to ensure that the economy operates in a manner as close to this ideal as possible.

Given these considerations, I think the tone of the global warming debate needs to shift towards the pragmatic and away from the cataclysmic. I would like to see studies on the true cost of, let’s say, eating a McDonald’s hamburger, where the likelihood of future healthcare expenditures (perhaps subsidized by the government) and emissions produced by raising cattle are calculated, among other factors. Studies like this could create a pragmatic, economical argument for changing behavior (or perhaps taxing burgers in the same way that cigarettes are taxed) right alongside an environmental one. Until the environmentalist movement moves away from useless fearmongering, it will not succeed in swaying the majority of public opinion towards its cause.

I’m certainly not a scientific expert on global climate change, but I’ve been thinking, reading and talking about the issue for quite some time now. During the course of this experiment, especially, I’ve had the chance to read many thoughtful essays and engage in many serious discussions on the topic. Here are the conclusions I’ve come up with.

I’m going to break this topic down into five sections (over time), each of which I think represents an important part of the global warming debate. I will go through the sections in the following order: Is Global Warming Real?, The Rhetorical Landscape, Personal Responsibility, Governmental Responsibility, Conclusions.

Is Global Warming Real?

This portion of the debate is slowly getting less and less contentious. Organizations that have traditionally denied the existence of global warming caused by human activity have now moved on to claiming that the impact of global warming will be negligible. Nevertheless, in personal conversation I still run into those who believe that global warming hasn’t been “proven” and that there is still significant debate amongst scientists on the issue. These opinions represent leftover successes from the old flat-out denial PR campaigns undertaken over the last couple decades.

As any honest scientist will tell you, global warming is not provable in some airtight abstract a priori mathematical sense. Of course, neither is the existence of the sun. Empirical science relies on a series of theories about the nature of the world, which are then either supported or insubstantiated by observable evidence. A theory that is supported by a tremendous amount of evidence is a good theory, and we can operate under the assumption of its truth (when we’re not researching the subject). Global warming is such a theory, as has been made clear by the most recent IPCC report along with basically every other bit of science on the topic, and we can therefore operate under the assumption of its truth.

Of course, if one is willing to ignore science in general then one might as well ignore global warming too. Certainly this post is not targeted at an audience that denies or selectively denies the efficacy of the scientific method.

What all this amounts to is that there is really no intellectually honest reason to deny the existence of global warming. Of course there are personal, religious, economical and political reasons to deny its existence, and thus people still do. Most of these reasons are obvious, but the most salient to me is a simple personal one. If one is leading a happy, affluent existence within this particular configuration of the world, then the notion of global warming, and the insinuation of drastic change, is fundamentally scary and a bummer. Basically everyone I know fits this description, and thus it is very tempting for all of us to look for a way out, which is the grist for any denial propaganda machine.

Another tempting thought, and one that I think is basically true, is that most of us won’t personally be affected in any substantial way by global warming. For older folks, this is almost certainly true. All they have to worry about is listening to all of the bitching and moaning. For us young folks in America, we (and the country) will presumably be wealthy enough to comfortably make whatever adjustments are required over the next 50 or so years. The brunt of the impact will probably be borne by the world’s poor, as is traditionally the case with environmental damage (wealthy people don’t tend to live next door to coal power plants or depend on some single fishery in Southeast Asia for their livelihoods). Given a hard-nosed appraisal of one’s situation (and it’s the rare one that’s not), then, global warming is on par with starvation, malaria and tainted water, which is to say that pragmatically it’s not that scary (again from the perspective of happy, affluent people).

I think that most people in the developed world, whether or not we would like to admit it, have either consciously or unconsciously internalized the lack of impact that global warming will likely have on our lives. Therefore, what’s really scary about global warming is the insinuation that our lifestyles have to drastically change somehow in order to combat it. In my opinion, the primary rhetorical failure of the environmentalist movement regarding global warming is its apparent inability to recognize this fact. I will discuss this topic in detail in my next post.

Everyone knows that the iPhone is the only reason to put up with AT&T as a wireless carrier. (Though to be fair to AT&T, basically every US wireless character is pathetic and stagnant.) AT&T’s latest misstep, however, hits very close to home. Apparently, bills being sent to iPhone customers are running over 50 sheets of paper in length (thankfully printed double-sided) due to the inane itemization of every single data transmission made during the billing period. I visit web sites and check my email on my iPhone all the time, and each individual data transfer results in a line item on the resulting bill. The iPhone comes with an unlimited data plan, so each of these line items is billed at $0.00. I can’t imagine a more useless waste of paper. I signed up for paperless billing as soon as I set up my online account, so hopefully I won’t have to find one of these monstrosities in my mailbox. I would imagine that I am in the minority in this regard, though, amongst the hundreds of thousands of iPhone users, and thus we can add millions of wasted sheets of paper to AT&T’s long list of screw ups.

Yesterday I referenced a page put together by Chris Goodall, author of How to Live a Low Carbon Life. Goodall was also recently associated with an article that I find to be extremely disingenuous and misleading. You can find it here. The gist of the article is that driving may be better for the environment than walking, in certain circumstances. Basically the author assumes a beef diet, ignores the environmental cost of extracting and refining oil, along with that of manufacturing automobiles, and bungles in a variety of other ways (see excellent responses here and here) in order to come to a counterintuitive conclusion that reinforces an apathetic response to the environmental challenges of our day. A more thoughtful article would have pointed out how terribly inefficient our agricultural system/dietary choices must be to make walking even nearly as high impact as driving a car, since accelerating and decelerating a human body clearly requires less energy than accelerating and decelerating a car, which is a several thousand pound hunk of metal with a human body in it! (To be fair, the article does get to some of these points in a roundabout way later on.)

As an example of non-ridiculous journalism, this San Francisco Chronicle article (regarding charcoal versus gas for grilling) does a great job of admitting and embracing the complexity inherent in most emissions calculations without striving for the sensationalist headline. Would that all environmental journalism were like this.

In order to join my family for a weekend in Lake Tahoe, I hopped on a Southwest flight from San Diego to Reno. Despite the fact that air travel is a form of mass transit, it is extremely energy intensive, due to the large distances covered and the necessity of putting a huge steel pipe up in the air. For a quick overview of air travel’s impact on greenhouse gas emissions, check out the last couple paragraphs of this page.

Flying therefore represents a conundrum for environmentalists. Unlike driving, which often can be avoided through the use of alternatives such as walking, biking and mass transit, air travel has no reasonable substitute (unless you are John Madden). Thus the decision is ultimately between air travel and no travel. A couple air carriers have attempted to solve this issue by offering carbon offsets alongside plane tickets at the time of purchase, and Boeing is about to introduce its 787, which it touts as one of the most efficient passenger aircraft ever produced. These are positive changes, but it would still be better, environmentally speaking, to avoid a flight rather than take a flight in a 787 with carbon offsets.

Ultimately, then, I think air travel is one of the hardest activities to cut down at the source. On the other hand, certain attitude changes could make an impact. A friend of mine, who shall remain anonymous, recently flew from Hong Kong to Toronto for acupuncture. Presumably he could have saved some money and the environment by finding a suitable (if not quite equal, apparently some of the best acupuncturists in the world are in Toronto) acupuncturist in Hong Kong. Further, I often find that short trips to Europe are often met with a bizarre form of moral approbation. When someone announces, “I’m going over to France to spend a couple weeks in the countryside,” one often hears in response, “Oh good for you!” I could be wrong on this, but I feel like travel for entertainment is morally equivalent to sitting on the couch and watching sports for two weeks (if not morally worse due to the substantial environmental impact). Both activities are simply entertainment.

Today’s post comes in response to an excellent comment on an earlier post by Lauren titled “Environmentalism’s Socially Awkward Side.” Please read the comment here before reading this response.

Many of the changes that I have been highlighting in this blog have a win/win structure. That is, they tend to both benefit my health or finances along with the environment. For example, buying music online is normally cheaper than driving somewhere and purchasing it at retail, and also eliminates all of the energy waste involved in producing and transporting (essentially obsolete) physical media. It still took a switch in expectations and perspective, however, to change my pattern from buying CDs to buying digital files. Thus I think it is a great topic to write about because I believe that by pointing out the efficiencies involved I might encourage others to undergo a similar shift in perspective.

Not all environmentally friendly actions have this structure. Oftentimes purchasing an environmentally sound product results in a higher bill, not a lower one. For example, buying FSC-certified lumber will set one back a few more bucks than buying lumber harvested without regard to sustainability. (Note that in some grand sense the FSC lumber is probably less expensive to the future global economy when all of the externalities are factored in, despite one’s increased share of the burden.) In these cases it is necessary to draw a line past which one will not make the financial sacrifice for environmental gain. Other environmentally friendly actions come at the expense of quality of life or convenience. For example, taking cold showers or forgoing the use of a car are decisions that negatively impact one’s comfort and perhaps even happiness. Again, it is necessary to draw a line past which one will not make the quality of life sacrifice for environmental gain. Obviously, since I am engaging in this project, I should draw the line very close to the environmental gain side of the equation. In general, however, it seems unreasonable to expect even “concerned citizens” to make some of the financial and quality of life sacrifices strident environmentalism would dictate.

I have certainly compromised on cost over the course of this project. The most salient example of this occurred when I was purchasing some towels and bedding. Clearly the environmentally conscious behavior would involve buying organic cotton towels and bedding, as cotton is one of the nastier crops in terms of pesticide use, etc. Unfortunately, the substantial price difference moved me to purchase conventionally grown product. On the other hand, I have spent more in some cases in order to purchase a more environmentally sound product. All of the toilet paper, facial tissues and paper towels that I buy are made from 100% recycled material, whitened without chlorine bleach, and so on. The price difference in this case is much less significant, and therefore I feel better able to make the green choice.

Quality of life sacrifices are somewhat harder to analyze. Avoiding driving, hot showers and crab cakes can be frustrating at times, and the environmental benefits are intangible. I could go much further in my asceticism, though, and forgo things like refrigeration, movies and paper products in general, so clearly I am drawing a line. A good example of an approach without compromise is No Impact Man. His is an extreme example of environmental asceticism that I find fascinating if not broadly applicable (it’s difficult to bike to work from the suburbs).

In general, then, I think it makes sense for this blog to pay ample attention to the “no-brainers” like drinking tap water, driving more efficiently and turning off standby electronics. Hopefully, given the win/win structure of these activities, the barriers to changing one’s habits will be relatively low, and the changes will actually get made. The impact of these “easy” changes can still be substantial: if every household in America replaced just one lightbulb with a CFL, it would save enough energy to light over 3 million homes for a year and prevent greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to taking 800,000 cars off the road (according to ENERGY STAR).

I certainly wouldn’t expect the general public to make many of the changes that I am making, but if they made a few, and saved some money and the environment in the process, that would be progress.

One of the changes that I am making over these eight weeks involves practicing strict vegetarianism. In general, I’m a fairly enthusiastic meat eater, whether it be burgers at In n’ Out, sushi at Tadashi down in La Jolla (try the Honey Roll) or crab cakes up at my parents’ place. By and large, people become vegetarian for either moral or health reasons. I’m not particularly disturbed by the moral quandary that eating meat represents, and I don’t believe being vegetarian is some sort of healthful panacea either (though I’m sure those feelings are disputable). Instead, I think the environmental consequences of eating meat are so substantial and so obvious that any blogging self-proclaimed environmentalist like myself would be quite hypocritical to continue the practice.

In fact, dietary changes are probably the lowest hanging fruit for reducing one’s carbon footprint. There have been several good articles recently investigating the environmental impact of a portion of beef. Here’s some coverage from The New Scientist and Telegraph concerning a recent study showing that a kilogram of beef produces more greenhouse gas emissions than driving around for three hours with all the lights on back at home. A more general page from the Vegetarian Society (check out the PDF for references, etc.) claims that global meat production is responsible for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions, as opposed to 13.5% for all human transportation emissions. Considered purely from an efficiency standpoint, producing beef requires around 40 kcal of energy input in order to retrieve just 1 kcal of output in the form of animal protein, which isn’t very efficient at all when compared to plant production (click on return to article at the bottom of the linked page to check out the full article and more details).

Despite the substantial contribution of meat production to several environmental problems, one does not often hear about vegetarianism as a quick and easy way of reducing one’s carbon footprint and being more environmentally friendly in general. I can only speculate that this is due to the quasi-religious status that many people seem to assign to their dietary choices—it’s a touchy subject and no one wants to rock the boat. From an outside perspective, it seems like the pragmatic thing for one to do would be to simply eat as cheaply and healthfully as possible while being environmentally sound, which would probably involving eating very little meat. Nevertheless, there are many myths, such as the myth that a vegetarian diet does not give one all the nutrients one needs, as well as a substantial amount of enculturation around the world that conspire to prevent this from being a more salient option than reducing one’s driving, for example.

After my eight weeks are up, I suppose that I am likely to go back to eating a certain amount of meat in one form or another. In order to mitigate the environmental impact of my diet, I’ll try to seek out organic, grass-fed beef and MSC certified fish, and I’ll try to reduce my meat consumption in general. Unlike in the moral case, environmental vegetarianism can be a question of degree, not absolutes. One can avoid eating meat a couple of days a week and still make a difference, without swearing off the practice entirely.

Here’s another great guest article from my friend Lauren. I think it’s very appropriate given that I worried, with my last post, whether the tone was too preachy or normative. Enjoy!

I recently watched an interesting, if simplistic, video of a man outlining his view of global warming and what should be done about it. At the end, the man urges his viewers to do their part by sharing his video with others and spreading the word about what individuals can do to help slow global warming. His message started me thinking, yet again, about how to balance my desire to spread the word and my desire not to perpetuate the unfortunate stereotype of the self-righteous, superior environmentalist.

These days, I spend a very large proportion of my time thinking about the environmentally-friendliness of my actions. I feel good about some of the things I make an effort to do, like drying clothes on a rack and eating CSA food, and guilty about things I have a hard time stopping, like using hot water and producing garbage. Many of my closest friends feel as concerned about environmental issues as I do, so around them I don’t have to bite my tongue. But I have many times watched friends and roommates and co-workers throw paper and glass bottles in the trash, or leave the water running for ages, and I don’t know what I should do.

I feel very strongly that the man in the video is right. I can make various eco-friendly changes in my life and feel good about it, but if I am one of very few who do so, relative to the population, what effect can it possibly have? Without major changes in public policy (which I strongly believe can and must happen, but that will undoubtedly take years), it is going to require many individuals choosing to make personal changes to produce any positive effect on various environmental issues. Therefore, isn’t it my responsibility, if I feel strongly about these issues, to try to increase that population?

Somehow, despite my conscious knowledge of this responsibility, it still feels just wrong to reprimand someone in their home or office for doing something eco-unfriendly. Or even to suggest that they do it another way. The meager solution I’ve found so far is that I can only try to suggest changes when I judge that the person will likely respond positively, or at least neutrally. I of course end up leaving some situations feeling sad that I can’t comfortably do more to help others understand the consequences of their actions, but if I hope to prevent resentment and loss of friends I don’t really see another solution. Any ideas?