A common form of illusion occurs when content is seen without context. Take, for example, how we perceive the size of an object. When we see an image of, say, an apple, on its own, without another object to compare it to, we mentally assign a certain size to the fruit based on our past experience with apples. If it looks really ripe and juicy and colorful, then we see a nice, big apple. But place it next to an extra-large orange and we see a different truth: our apple may in fact be very small. Compare the apple and the orange and the illusion is shattered.

I remember the first time I visited Cairo. I was still in my teens, and coming from the Midwestern United States I was immediately stunned by, among so many things, the masses of people and the poverty relative to the States. I had the sudden realization that most of the world lived more like this and not the way I lived back home. Illusion shattered.

Think about how you live and then visit ifitweremyhome.com. We introduced this site to you last last year to give you some idea about the size of the BP oil spill (“The Oil Spill Next Door: Size Matters”). We told how, with a click of your mouse, you could place a template of the map of the spill over your hometown – voilà, context. (From where I sit, near San Francisco, the damage engulfs Lake Tahoe and reaches all the way to Reno. That was one big apple.)

The site, developed by Andy Lintner and designed by Annette Calabrese, now has more to look at with a robust system that allows for the comparison of where and how you live to the farthest reaches of our planet. (The “disasters” function now also includes last summer’s devastating Pakistan flood.) In just a few minutes you’ll be able to do some serious work on the get-some-perspective front by doing things like this: Click U.S. Click Egypt. Learn many things, like if you were born in Egypt instead of the United States, you would use an average of 89.64 percent less electricity.

Here are 10 more U.S.-to-the-other-guys comparisons (based on averages) that’ll take the shine off of some of your illusions:

1. In South Korea, you would have a 55.91 better percent chance at being employed.
2. In Russia, you would die 12.08 years sooner.
3. In Morocco, you would make 90.09 percent less money.
4. In Germany, you would have 40.64 percent less babies.
5. In Romania, you would be 83.33 percent less likely to have HIV/AIDS.
6. In Canada, you would spend 45.33 percent less money on health care.
7. In Norway, you would experience 44.44 percent less of a class divide.
8. In Australia, you would have a 23.94 percent less chance of dying in infancy.
9. In China, you would consume 90. 43 percent less oil.
10. In France, you would have 17.92 percent more free time.

“The lottery of birth is responsible for much of who we are,” says the site’s homepage. It then asks the questions: “If you were not born in the country you were, what would your life be like? Would you be the same person?” Good questions, to be sure. How about this one: If you are who you are, but become better informed about the experiences of others with whom you share the planet, would you do anything differently?

Image: Dano

The post U.S. vs. Them: 10 Comparisons for a Better Perspective appeared first on EcoSalon.

It’s the end of June already, and the earth’s half-spin around the sun has brought us ladies plenty to wring our delicate little hands about. From Iranian clerics blaming earthquakes on our breasts to oil spills wreaking havoc on our pregnancies, 2010 has made us reach for the smelling salts on numerous occasions. Here at EcoSalon, we’ve covered women and the environment with vim, bringing you celebratory communiques alongside melancholic missives. Below, you’ll find a roundup of the news in 2010 thus far. If the past six months are any indication, the rest of the year will be a doozy. Feeling faint yet?

• Is GINK the new DINK? It used to be that childfree couples were called DINKs – Double Income, No Kids. But the great American greenwash has influenced reproductive choices as well, with an increasing number of couples citing the environment as a reason to go kidless. A recent study by Oregon State University added fuel to the fire, revealing that not having kids is 20 times more environmentally friendly than any other day to day green task, like recycling. Lisa Hymas of Grist coined the term GINK – Green Inclinations, No Kids – to describe childfree tree huggers like herself.

• Condoms came under attack earlier this year, with women’s health writers and scientists bemoaning the prophylactic’s sorry environmental record of sullying our beaches and clogging up our landfills. While greensters wondered whether condoms are biodegradable (likely not – their decomposable latex is mixed with human-made chemicals), we asked another question: why have this conversation in the first place? Condoms, as a blogger at EcoGeek noted, are “the single most important environmental innovation” ever, curbing environmentally-catastrophic population growth.

• Congress attacked killer chemicals this spring when members of the House and Senate introduced versions of the Safe Chemicals Act, a bill meant to fortify a toothless, decades-old law against allowing dangerous chemicals in household products (we all know how well that one worked…hello bisphenol-a). Uteruses in America rejoiced at the news: the Safe Chemicals Act is a boon to women, whose reproductive systems have been under siege by infertility-causing chemicals in water bottles and other plastics.

• In April, an Iranian cleric asserted that women who don’t cover up cause earthquakes. His declaration–meant to dissuade Iranian women from unveiling–ignited a response in the U.S., when blogger Jennifer McCreight organized a Boobquake, a day in which women wore low-cut tops without tectonic incident to prove the cleric wrong. But what could have been a bold political stunt turned into a ho-hum protest, with men egging on their breast-baring peers while feminists complained that the plight of Iranian women became fodder for a Girls Gone Wild spectacle.

• As if the earthquake itself didn’t cause enough damage, sexual violence rates spiked in Haiti in the months after the disaster. According to an article in Women’s eNews, aid workers in a major Port-au-Prince refugee camp fielded daily reports of rape, prompting the United Nations to send a special unit of 130 female Bangladeshi soldiers to address the violence. Lamentably, the post-disaster rape crisis was not unique to Haiti alone; many Hurricane Katrina survivors were similarly re-victimized.

• On the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill, we noted that the pill’s invention by women’s rights crusader Margaret Sanger initiated the era of modern family planning, allowing women to choose the number and spacing of their children – a boon for their health and the health of their babies alike. But while the pill has done its part to keep our skyrocketing population in check (if you think things are bad, just imagine the world without it) its environmental record isn’t spotless – the hormones in the pill, excreted into waste water through urine, cause fatal mutations in fish populations.

• When a Houston tanning salon called upon the spirit of Coco Chanel to promote its new earth-friendly false tanning beet spray, we called foul. As legend has it, Chanel sparked the tanning craze in America when she stepped off a boat in Cannes with perfectly bronzed skin. Though Coco was a pioneering designer, breaching the boundary between menswear and womenswear, the tanning trendsetter didn’t galvanize women to leave the drudgery of housework in order to bask in the sunshine. Rather, Coco inadvertently created another unrealistic beauty standard.

• While much of the initial news surrounding the BP oil spill focused on the disaster’s effect on wildlife, we asked about its impact on human livelihoods. Coastal Women for Change, a community organization that sprung out of the post-Katrina haze to bring attention to the need for improved childcare in Biloxi, Mississippi, has stepped up after the spill by serving as a conduit for information from the Environmental Protection Agency to the local fishers. The biggest challenge? Getting fishers of different ethnic and economic backgrounds to rally together for their interests.

• Last year, journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn published their book Half the Sky, a groundbreaking tome arguing that international aid is more effective when directed toward women. While Kristof and WuDunn described women as the gatekeepers of health and well-being in their communities, they left out one green detail: the fact that women also hold the keys to conservation. In Indonesia, the Environmental Ministry has begun offering classes on water conservation to women in rural areas who are responsible for fetching and distributing water to their families.

• Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, but we all care equally about the earth, right? Wrong. According to several articles this year, men and women display their green pride differently, with men working for big picture sustainability while women, ever the quibblers, take on recycling and composting projects. We pointed out the ludicrousy in this theory, noting that a handful of anecdotes don’t constitute a trend. With all this talk about men, women, and their green differences, we lose sight of the why we should go green at all.

• As if the oil spill wasn’t dangerous enough, the chemical dispersants used to clean it up could spell health risks for pregnant mothers and their unborn children. According to information recently released by the Environmental Protection Agency, chemicals that caused health problems in the cleanup workers on the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill are being used again today. Pregnant women have been advised to stay as far away from the contaminants as possible – a tall order for those women who actually live in the Gulf.

Image: xjyxjy

The post A Look Back at Women and the Environment in 2010 appeared first on EcoSalon.

While BP struggles with its own suction issues, the company that brought you that goofy (and annoying?) magic little Frisbee, the Roomba vacuum robot, is lending its expertise to the Gulf Spill disaster effort with its Seaglider unmanned underwater vehicle. (No, it’s not sucking up the oil, but just couldn’t resist giving you the opportunity to say “suction” in a wicked bad British accent. Go ahead. Say it again. Sookshen.)

The iRobot 1KA Seaglider is “deep-diving,” designed for long-term missions and can cover thousands of miles on a single battery charge. The vehicle measures temperature, salinity and other quantities in the ocean, sending back data using global satellite telemetry, according to its specs on the iRobot website.

Currently, iRobot has three of these vehicles in Gulf, working in conjunction with the U.S. Navy and a “handful” of universities to help determine what’s happening beneath the surface of the water. These Seagliders are specially equipped with sensors that report a wide variety of relevant data, including the presence of oil all the way down to 1,000 meters. And lest we forget you geeks: According to University of Southern Mississippi Professor or Marine Sciences Dr. Verson Asper, these souped-up Seagliders are recording colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) fluorescence, oxygen, optical backscatter, and chlorophyll fluorescence values that will help scientists better understand the spill.

“When you see the devastation in the Gulf every night on the news and every morning in the paper, you want to reach out and help,” says iRobot Chairman and CEO Colin Angle. Providing unmanned underwater exploration technology is, he says, “going to become even more important as the hurricane season approaches, increasing the dangers facing researchers on open waters.”

Hurricane season approaching? Can this get any worse?

The post From Roomba to Research: A Clean Look at the Gulf Spill appeared first on EcoSalon.

According to Lucinda Marshall at Truthout, young children and babies in utero are at a major risk of chemical poisoning after oil spills because their immune systems are not fully developed, leaving them incapacitated to fight off dangerous compounds. While the National Institutes of Health have provided information on the way endocrine disrupters – common in both the oil and the substances used to clean it up – scientists aren’t clear on the effects of the chemicals, in part because until very recently, they had no idea which chemicals were being disseminated.

Now, without first telling Nalco Holding Co., the manufacturer of the dispersants that BP is using, the Environmental Protection Agency has released a list of ingredients used to break down the oil. And – shocker – the news isn’t pretty. One of the ingredients, 2-butoxyethanol, caused major health problems among cleanup workers on the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. That, plus the oil itself, could spell major risks to pregnant women and their fetuses.

According to Dr. Gina Solomon, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, “Some of the volatile chemicals in oil have been linked to miscarriage, preterm birth, and low birth weight, so it is a good idea for pregnant women to avoid the areas where there are elevated levels of VOCs [Volatile Organic Compounds] in the air. These are areas that include noticeable smells of oil or visible oil and also any areas where the EPA monitoring system detects elevated levels. The EPA air monitoring results are being updated regularly at www.epa.gov/bpspill. To be cautious, pregnant women may choose to avoid any areas directly along the waterfront and beachfront, even when oil is not visible.”

That’s easy enough advice to follow for would-be Gulf Coast vacationers (as if there are any this season). But for pregnant women living near the spill zone – where oil and dispersants reenter the atmosphere after being burned off the water – avoiding chemical exposure is akin to turning a blind eye to the disaster itself.

Image: Hello Turkey Toe

The post BP Oil Spill Imperils Pregnant Gulf Coasters appeared first on EcoSalon.

There are a lot of ways you can measure the scope of the BP Gulf spill crisis. Size is one of them. To help you get some personal perspective on just how vast the footprint of the eco-carnage is, or if you just want to upgrade your present FUD-factor, take a visit to If It Was My Home – Visualizing the BP Oil Spill Disaster.

Created by Andy Linter of Royal Oak, MI, ifitwasmyhome combines Google map software and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration maps to give you an idea of how the disaster might look had the center of the action been in, say, your basement. Simply type in your hometown and take a look at the view from Gulf Zero translated into “in your face” – or go nuts, type in London (as in BP p.l.c., St James’s Square, London SW1Y 4PD; Tel +44 (0) 20 7496 4000).

Now scroll down – yes, past the “About the Spill” fun facts paragraph – and Andy gets to the good stuff: a short and sweet “What Can You Do?” section that provides some excellent links to help you consider taking some action instead of just saying “wow.” Right?

The post The Oil Spill Next Door: Size Matters appeared first on EcoSalon.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster has leaked more than one million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The magnitude is so large that many people are struggling to put the numbers into tangible context. Cutler J. Cleveland, a Boston University professor of Geography and Environment, and the editor of the Encyclopedia of Earth, has calculated the energy equivalents for EcoSalon readers to better grasp the enormity of this disaster. Dr. Cleveland is also a Senior Fellow at the National Council for Science and the Environment.

The energy content of one million barrels is about 5.8 trillion Btu (British Thermal Units), which is equivalent to:

1. Years of energy used in a single average America home: 61,117

2. Number of miles that could be driven by a Prius: 2,320,000,000

3. Number of airplane round trips between London and Louisiana that could be taken by BP CEO Tony Hayward: 198,352

4. Hours of motor gasoline consumption for the entire United States: 3

5. Minutes of world energy use: 6

6. Minutes of energy that could power the entire country of Ghana: 22,252 (about 15 days)

7. Members of the Chinese population whose energy consumption could be met for year: 98,472

8. Number of Americans whose energy consumption could be met for year: 17,211

9. Dollars of GDP produced in China: $210,893,753

10. Dollars of GDP produced in the United States: $743,971,267

11. Amount of energy harnessed from 3,385,540,566 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

12. Number of acres of corn needed to produce the equivalent amount of ethanol: 159,928

13. Number of Tour de France races that Lance Armstrong could complete burning an equivalent amount of food energy: 81,408,631

14. Years of energy use in Boston’s John Hancock Tower: 30.3

15. Equivalent amount of energy in tons of firewood: 494,459

16. Tons of steel that could be produced: 354,393

Images: Steve Punter, (A3R) angelrravelor (A3R), goldberg, Kossy@FINEDAYS, futureatlas.com, RaSeLaSeD – Il Pinguino, nova3web, cathyse97, lauren keith, docsdl, scalleja, spcbrass, Lars Plougmann, malias, Adam Pieniazek, smith, on1stsite.

The post Gulf Oil Spill by the Numbers: 16 Different Ways to Understand the Disaster appeared first on EcoSalon.

The energy content of one million barrels is about 5.8 trillion Btu (British Thermal Units), which is equivalent to…

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1. Years of energy used in a single average America home: 61,117

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2. Number of miles that could be driven by a Prius: 2,320,000,000

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3. Number of airplane round trips between London and Louisiana that could be taken by BP CEO Tony Hayward: 198,352

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4. Hours of motor gasoline consumption for the entire United States: 3

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5. Minutes of world energy use: 6

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6. Minutes of energy that could power the entire country of Ghana: 22,252 (about 15 days)

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7. Members of the Chinese population whose energy consumption could be met for year: 98,472

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8. Number of Americans whose energy consumption could be met for year: 17,211

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9. Dollars of GDP produced in China: $210,893,753

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10. Dollars of GDP produced in the United States: $743,971,267

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11. Amount of energy harnessed from 3,385,540,566 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

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12. Number of acres of corn needed to produce the equivalent amount of ethanol: 159,928

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13. Number of Tour de France races that Lance Armstrong could complete burning an equivalent amount of food energy: 81,408,631

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14. Years of energy use in Boston’s John Hancock Tower: 30.3

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15. Equivalent amount of energy in tons of firewood: 494,459

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16. Tons of steel that could be produced: 354,393

Images: Steve Punter, (A3R) angelrravelor (A3R), goldberg, Kossy@FINEDAYS, futureatlas.com, RaSeLaSeD – Il Pinguino, nova3web, cathyse97, lauren keith, docsdl, scalleja, spcbrass, Lars Plougmann, malias, Adam Pieniazek, smith, on1stsite.

The post Gulf Oil Spill by the Numbers: 16 Different Ways to Understand the Disaster appeared first on EcoSalon.

This week Green TV showed us two kinds of eco-disasters. An HBO drama tackled the environmental devastation in New Orleans and Planet Green exposed crimes against tigers.

“Treme” Shows Perseverance in the Face of Nature’s Fury

HBO’s New Orleans drama Treme may not seem like a straightforward choice for “I Want My Green TV.” But with everything that’s been going on in the Gulf with the BP Oil Spill, it’s hard not to think about the hardships the fine citizens of the Big Easy have endured over the last few years.

After all, the spill is not the first man made disaster to happen in New Orleans in 2005. Yes, Mother Nature sent Katrina but she didn’t build the insufficient levees. And there certainly are government agencies that could have chipped in then (and now) to help rebuild faster, more efficiently, and much more in tune with ongoing local environmental concerns – Brad Pitt and his Make it Right housing development aside.

Treme takes place in the aftermath of Katrina, and this week’s episode, “All on a Mardi Gras Day,” celebrated Fat Tuesday – almost six months to the day of the devastating hurricane. The show rode a lot of emotional ups and downs as characters embraced the spirit of the day while reconciling the recent devastation of their homes and families.

Every week, the series shows the delicate balance between the ugly truth of a city ravaged by environmental fury and the beauty of the healing power of human perseverance. As John Goodman’s character pointed out to his daughter, “It’s good to get out and see the destruction. It’s good. Get off the isle of denial every once in a while and be reminded how much of this city is still wrecked.”

Planet Green Doc Exposes Illegal Tiger Trade

This past weekend, Planet Green premiered the award-winning documentary, Dangerous Trade. In the hour-long film, a team of eco-crime investigators from the Environmental Investigation Agency (a sort modern day Green “Mod Squad”) investigate the seedy underworld of illegal tiger trades in China.

What they find is infuriating, horribly sad, and highly profitable. And there lies the reason why it doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. According to the doc, China is the largest consumer of tiger products for skins, taxidermy, and medicine. And apparently the military turns a blind eye to the issue for their own profit and political reasons.

Ironically, this is the Chinese Year of the Tiger and with three subspecies already extinct and only an estimated 3,100 of the glorious animals left in the world – yes, we said the world – ending the illegal tiger trade is more important than ever. This fall there will even be a Global Tiger Summit in Russia (who knew?!) to commit to taking action toward saving the tiger.

We’re guessing somewhere that Tony is screaming, “that’s grrrrrrreat!”

Tune in next time to see what’s cropping up on green TV.

Image: Tryburn

The post I Want My Green TV: From Louisiana Disasters to the Tiger Trade appeared first on EcoSalon.

It’s been more than a month since BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig keeled over and started introducing massive underground oil reserves to the Gulf of Mexico. Since then, we’ve been treated to a dizzying round of blame displacement and increasingly desperate (not to mention ineffective) attempts to stop the gushers. And it’s been fun, really it has. Especially when this guy was helping to run things.

But it’s getting to a point where BP’s approaches to plugging the leak have begun to resemble the product of a bunch of sleep-deprived, coke-fueled execs locked in a conference room with a bunch of Mad Libs. Today’s attempt is called a “top kill,” but it’s not nearly as awesome as it sounds; the general plan is to pour massive amounts of sludge over the leak like so much fondant over a spoiled cake. Of course, this method has never been tried before at such depths and there’s no guarantee it will work. Seriously, did every BP exec graduate from the Death Star School of Engineering? Nothing is too big to fail. Maybe you should have some backup plans in place before things start exploding.

The question many are asking now, including Florida Senator Bill Nelson, is whether the government can do any better. Sen. Nelson appeared on CNN Wednesday morning and called for the Obama administration to “completely take over” relief work if the problem wasn’t resolved that day. The federal government has already released tens of thousands of workers and over one thousand ships to assist BP in its efforts, but it hasn’t yet gotten involved in planning and directing any cleanup. Democratic politico/30 Rock guest star James Carville called the government’s approach to the spill “hands off” and echoed Nelson’s request to “get down here and take control of this.”

Even the Audobon Society is getting in on it, signing a petition asking President Obama to “protect the affected communities” on the Gulf Coast and “mobilize the resources of the federal government to address and contain the spill.” Earlier this week Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced he didn’t believe that BP officials “know exactly what they’re doing” and threatened to “push them out of the way” if they continue to miss deadlines.

Whether this was an actual promise or a scare tactic to encourage BP to work a little harder remains to be seen. There’s no question that BP has botched cleanup efforts at almost every turn, consistently under-reporting the rate of oil leakage and promising dramatic results with increasingly harebrained and ineffective solutions. The question isn’t “Has BP done a terrible job responding to the oil spill?” (because, um, yes) but “How can the government do better?”

The Clean Water Act makes it the president’s responsibility to “ensure effective and immediate removal of a discharge… of oil or a hazardous substance.” But does the Coast Guard have more resources than BP? So far, there’s no clear answer. Meanwhile, the Gulf continues changing color.

Of course, if the “sludge attack” attempt at containment fails too, the Coast Guard might start looking pretty good.

Image: mikebaird

The post This Week in Trying Your Very Best with Oil Spill Cleanups appeared first on EcoSalon.

A movie star has a solution to the BP Oil Spill crisis and “The Biggest Loser” helps reduce more than pounds. This is what’s making us say “I Want My Green TV!”

Kevin Costner Makes Penance for “Waterworld”

Anyone who was watching the news in New Orleans last week might have been shocked to see an unlikely celeb throw his hat in the ring to help clean up the BP oil spill mess.

Especially since said movie star, Kevin Costner, was responsible for one of the last greatest atrocities committed against the oceans – “Waterworld.” Perhaps as penance for the mega-flop, Costner stepped forward on WGNO news with a possible solution to the environment’s greatest problem.

Costner is a partner in a company called Ocean Therapy Solutions. They have a technology that separates water and oil through centrifugal force – sounds like the stuff of sci-fi movies, no?

This seems like a better plan than using golf balls. But if the brain trust at BP does decide to go that way, let’s not forget that Costner has some experience in that field, too. His character in Tin Cup was known for shanking balls into water traps.

Stay tuned to your local news and you might just see another impromptu Costner press conference in the next few days. BP is going to be running tests with the OTS system sometime this week.

“The Biggest Loser” Reduces More than Weight

On this week’s “Biggest Loser” Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels took a moment to tell the viewers about another way they help reduce on the ranch. In an interstitial sponsored by Brita, the two uber-trainers explain that for the past four seasons “The Biggest Loser” has partnered with the water company to save more than just lives.

They are helping to save the environment, too. Their FilterForGood program encourages the cast, crew, and viewers to stop using bottled water, a major source of pollution in our landfills – and even worse, our lakes and oceans.

They stated that the campaign has saved over 128,000 bottles on the ranch alone. And the website estimates saving over 194 million bottles through the viewers at home who have taken the FilterForGood Pledge.

Okay, here’s the commercial part. Just buy a Brita water pitcher and a FilterForGood water bottle. Then you can filter your own water and drink out of your own washable bottle. Voila. No more plastic in the landfills.

And if you log on to the website now, you can also enter to win a week on “The Biggest Loser” Resort at Fitness Ridge courtesy of Brita.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, “Biggest Loser” trainers Bob and Jillian also always remind viewers that drinking water does help you lose weight because it fills you up when you feel hungry and keeps you hydrated which helps you burn fat. Double win.

Tune in next time to see what’s cropping up on green TV.

Image: Courtesy of NBC.com

The post I Want My Green TV: The Biggest Loser Bans Bottled Water appeared first on EcoSalon.