Tired of big oil raking in all this profit while they also benefit from massive government subsidies thanks to the Bush administration? Is your children’s college fund going out of your pocket and into your local gas pump? Maybe you are a tree hugging hippie with a hybrid that used to cost $15 to fill up and now you spend $45. Or maybe you’re a hummer-driving logger who would run over a spotted owl if you saw one lying on the road. Either way, unless you are heavily invested in big oil, you’re probably not too happy with what’s happening at the gas pumps. There is no denying that big oil companies are taking advantage of us. But I for one am VERY HAPPY ABOUT IT!!!

I’m not invested in oil. I’m not a wealthy man by any stretch. It hurts me as much as it hurts you to fill up at the gas station. I feel the pain of the people on eBay who are selling their wedding rings to pay for gas. But I also know this: we as Americans drive and drive and drive, and until recently we had no concern over whether or not we were damaging the environment. Oh sure, we’ve all heard of people who carpooled, but we’ve probably never met one unless we live in California. We drive SUVs while people in Europe are cramming themselves into tiny cars like the ones a dozen clowns try to squeeze into at a circus.

A few years ago someone asked me, “What’s it gonna take to curb our oil usage?” I told them it would take more than global warming, more than war, more than the availability of alternative fuels. I said it would take very high gas prices. How high? Well, a lot higher than they are now.

We’re bitching, but how many of us have bought a hybrid? How many of us have written our local congressman or senator to ask why we don’t have electric cars? How many of us have done enough research to discover that this whole hydrogen fuel cell campaign was put together by the same people who bought up the battery patents for electric cars and then chose to sit on the technology so it can’t be used for another 12 years? How many people really understand that biofuel from corn is a worse idea than what we are doing now?

Until we are paying the true cost of gasoline, including the environmental cleanup and the health care costs associated with pollution, we will continue to drive like there is no tomorrow.

I was at the gas station in South Georgia when I overheard a guy talking about how he was thinking of trading in his pickup truck for a hybrid. I couldn’t help but smile. When a guy who wears a cap that says, “I’d rather push a Ford than drive a Chevy,” —a guy who drives a new Ford F 150 pickup with a gun rack, a confederate flag on the rear window, and a McCain bumper sticker—talks about trading in his truck for a hybrid, there’s hope for us all.

Trade in your car for a moped; and take public transportation whenever possible. Better yet, get a bicycle! Car pool to work and walk everywhere else. When you do need to drive, following ten tips can save you gas, and money.

• Americans throw away about 100 billion plastic bags annually, and only 0.6 percent of them are recycled.¹
• Plastic bags not only endanger wildlife by polluting land and water but also pose an environmental threat, as some plastic bags can take more than 1,000 years to break down in a landfill.²
• Countries that have introduced bans or taxes on non-biodegradable, petroleum-based plastic bags include China, Ireland, Italy, Thailand, Australia, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and South Africa and others such as Santa Monica, CA, New Haven, CT, Annapolis, MD, and Portland, OR are considering it. In New York City, a bill recently overwhelmingly passed requiring large stores and retail chains to collect and recycle plastic bags they give to shoppers.³

1. Worldwatch Institute
2. The Environmental Protection Agency
3. Whole Foods

Sometimes it doesn’t say organic, but it is. Sometimes it says organic, but it’s not. At least not by the definition you’d expect. When it says Certified Naturally Grown, wildcrafted, or organic, what do the labels really mean?

USDA Organic Certification

Unfortunately, some short-lived botanical sprays and a few herbicides and insecticides are sometimes allowed during organic cultivation.

Single-Ingredient Foods

Single ingredient foods are foods that are uncombined with other foods. Think fruits, vegetables, milk, meat, eggs, cheese etc. When these foods are labeled organic, we know the farmer met the USDA standards to achieve certification.

Multi-Ingredient Foods—Organic

Here’s where things get tricky. You’d think if your sausage was labeled organic it would be organic. But there are three USDA organic labels for multi-ingredient or processed foods. Their differences are not obvious at first glance.

100% Organic

This one is self explanatory. All of the ingredients are organic.

Organic or Certified Organic

95-99% of its ingredients by weight are organic. The sausage may be 100% organic, but if the processor could not find organic sausage casings, the casings aren’t. This label allows food processors to use a number of ingredients that are not readily available in organic form.

Made with Organic Ingredients

70-94% of the ingredients must be organic. The organic seal cannot be used on these food items.

Just a bit misleading, isn’t it? I don’t know about you, but if I saw something that said it was made with organic ingredients, I’d think it was made with organic ingredients!

Certified Naturally Grown

Certified Naturally Grown is a non-profit, alternative, organic certification program. Nearly 500 farmers from 47 states are members. This group strives to preserve high standards for organic farmers while removing the financial and logistical barriers small

Wildcrafted

Wildcrafted plants are uncultivated plants gathered from their natural habitat. Care is taken to ensure sustainability, to take no more than the plant can give, the scatter a plant’s seeds, etc. Wildcrafted is superior to organic if picked where there is no runoff from polluted water or contamination from exhaust. Unlike organic produce, wildcrafted produce is never sprayed—with anything. Wildcrafted foods are pure—as nature intended.

Between California and Hawaii lies a gyre (jir), one of the five areas in the world’s oceans where the currents maintain a circular pattern. The North Pacific Central Gyre is nicknamed the Eastern Garbage Patch due to multiple “islands” of garbage, one of which is twice the size of Texas. Captain Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foudnation describes the gyre’s currents as “a kind of a toilet bowl effect” where swirling water pulls in debris and captures it. Unfortunately, the toilet bowl can’t flush.

Eighty percent of the 3.5 million tons of refuse caught in this waterworld garbage heap originates from land. Twenty percent originates from boats at sea.

Back in March, I was in the checkout line at my local farmers market when the checker asked, “Paper or plastic?”

“Damn it!” I yelled, loud enough for everyone to hear. “I forgot my canvas bags again!”

I don’t usually make a scene and I’m normally a very considerate guy. But on that day, I decided the environment took precedence over good manners, and I was willing to embarrass myself. I didn’t care that my car was in a huge parking lot nowhere near the entrance or that several people would have to wait or change lines. It was time to take a stand—to make a change.

I apologized to everyone behind me in line. Then, once again talking loudly enough for all to hear, I declared my intentions.

“I have no choice,” I said, “but to teach myself a lesson. I’m going to go out there in the freezing cold and retrieve my environmentally friendly eco conscious canvas bags! It’s the only way I’ll learn to remember!”

Three steps out, I turned around and walked back in.

Everyone was staring at me.

“The hell with that,” I said. “It’s freakin’ snowing out there!”

Everyone laughed, I think, except the people waiting in my checkout line.

The next time I went grocery shopping I forgot my canvas bags again. To be honest, I still only remember them 10% of the time.

There’s no doubt about it. I’m going to hell.

Not in a handbag, or in a canvas bag, but in a plastic bag that never decomposed.

Here we go again. Just when I thought I had picked the right plastic, I discover I’m drinking toxic water. I stopped microwaving with plastics after reading about dioxins leaching into foods. Soon after, I threw out my microwave. What was I thinking, zapping my food and spinning its molecules? I stopped using soft plastic food containers and soft plastic water bottles. Instead I bought a box of Mason jars and two cool sets of glass food containers. My leftovers and salad fixins were happy, and so was I. bought two new hard plastic water bottles. Safe, right? Wrong!

The National Toxicology Program (NTP) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports the toxic chemical, bisphenol-a or BPA is now leaching into our food from clear, hard plastic bottles and containers and from the inner lining of canned foods. Animal studies raised multiple health concerns including a risk of cancer and hormonal disruptions that may cause early puberty in females.

The CDC reports 93% of Americans have BPA in their bodies. It certainly is found everywhere in our environment! Quoting the Tufts University School of Medicine report to the National Toxicology Program, theses scientists state there are many routes to exposure other than the oral route. “In a survey of 118 homes, BPA was found to be present in 86% of dust samples… cited in a report examining preschoolers found BPA present in detectable levels in indoor and outdoor air samples, floor dust, and play area soil.” They go on to say BPA is found in the air and dust of homes and offices, in sewage treatment works effluents, rivers, creeks, and drinking water, making exposure through drinking water and bathing likely.

It actually makes sense that it is found everywhere, because it is an element in so many things: CDs, telephone parts, glasses, even composite dental fillings! Just think, we can trade in mercury poisoning for chemical poisoning!

The 69 page preliminary report from the NTP was an interesting read. As one might expect, they determined the risk to infants and children is greater than the risk to adults. Glass baby bottles have regained their popularity. Even-flo is sold out online with a 2-3 week back order as moms scramble to replace plastic baby bottles.

I look in my kitchen to find my food steamer, my favorite means for cooking rice as well as well as vegetables, is made of #7 plastic. My ice tea maker—plastic. My sprouter—plastic. My toaster—plastic. I read about BPAs, dioxins, and PVCs and I wonder if any plastic is a good plastic.

Jan Lundberg from culturechange.org, a nonprofit network of anti-petroleum activists and visionaries for sustainability, would say no. “Plastics’ long-term effects were not considered when first made and put into the environment,” she says. “Now we are starting to see the harm and implications for the health of the oceans and our species.”

I’m getting my name on the backorder list for glass baby bottles. I’m buying a timer so I can cook my rice in a stainless steel pan. I’m storing my food in glass jars and glass containers. I’m drinking my water from a glass made of glass. Now, if I can just find a water distiller with no plastic parts…