Tesla Motors, along with AES Corp., and Altagas, may have just brought an end to fossil fuels—at least, in southern California.

The three companies each recently took substantial battery storage plants online.

“Any one of these projects would have been the largest battery storage facility ever built,” Bloomberg Tech reported. “Combined, they amount to 15 percent of the battery storage installed planet-wide last year.”

So, just what is a battery storage plant?

As opposed to other more common types of energy storage plants, many of which burn natural gas, battery storage plants store excess energy in, you guessed it, batteries. Very massive batteries.

The three new battery storage projects were created to help mitigate future crises like the Aliso Canyon leak in Los Angeles’s Porter Ranch neighborhood, which leaked thousands of tons of methane into the air for four months between late 2015 and early 2016 before it was eventually sealed. The ongoing leak caused numerous families to have to temporarily abandon their homes. Many suffered health issues, loss of wages, and other issues directly related to the leak.

“Tesla moved particularly nimbly, completing in just three months a project that in the past would have taken years,” notes Bloomberg.

All three battery storage projects were completed in less than six months.

“There were teams working out there 24 hours a day, living in construction trailers and doing the commissioning work at two in the morning,” Tesla Chief Technology Officer J.B. Straubel told Bloomberg. “It feels like the kind of pace that we need to change the world.”

Like other nascent alternative energy industries—namely solar and wind—battery storage comprises a significantly small percentage of the grid, having been more expensive than gas-based plants like Aliso Canyon.

“But prices for lithium-ion batteries have fallen fast—by almost half just since 2014,” notes Bloomberg. Electric cars, like the ones Tesla Motors have made so desirable, “are largely responsible,” reports Bloomberg, “increasing demand and requiring a new scale of manufacturing for the same battery cells used in grid storage.”

And California, where the three new battery storage plants are now online, could see more dependence on batteries in the near future. Tesla aims to provide 15 gigawatt hours solely out of its battery storage by the 2020s.

“California is mandating that its utilities begin testing batteries by adding more than 1.32 gigawatts by 2020,” explains Bloomberg. “For context, consider this: In 2016, the global market for storage was less than a gigawatt.”

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Valerie Rockefeller Wayne says her family embraces the irony that her great great grandfather John D. Rockefeller made his money in oil. But the chair of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund also says that Rockefeller was an innovator who moved into fossil fuels to get away from whale oil. And now the Rockefeller family fund will move away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy.

“We are quite convinced that if he were alive today, as an astute businessman looking out to the future, he would be moving out of fossil fuels and investing in clean, renewable energy,” Mr Heintz said in a statement.

In all, 10 percent of the $860 million endowment will go into sustainable investments. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund also eliminated funds in coal and tar sands. In recent years, 180 institutional funds totaling $50 billion have pledged to divest of fossil fuels.

Steve Rockefeller, son of Nelson A. Rockefeller and trustee of the fund sees financial problems ahead for companies that have stockpiled more reserves than they can burn. “We see this as having both a moral and economic dimension,” he said to The New York Times.

Fossil fuels are an increasingly risky investment, according to the Rockefeller family. The announcement was timed to precede the opening of the United Nations Climate Summit. Activist investors like those of the apartheid divestment of the 1980’s seek to bring the conversation about climate change front and center.

“This is a threshold moment,” Ellen Dorsey, executive director of the Wallace Global Fund, which has coordinated the effort to recruit foundations to the cause said to The New York Times. “This movement has gone from a small activist band quickly into the mainstream.”

Activist investors admit that divesting from fossil fuels is unlikely to have an immediate impact on a company’s bottom line but they still hope to “align their assets with their environmental principles”. Others contend that forthcoming regulations on planet warming companies could disrupt profits.

Related on EcoSalon

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Image: Patrick Hawks

The post Rockefeller Family Divests Charity Fund of Fossil Fuels appeared first on EcoSalon.

The last year saw a whirlwind of environmental news stories. Here are the ones that ended in victory (or at least not defeat).

2013 was a big year for the environment, although most of the stories were downright dismal. We went over the atmospheric carbon tipping point, escalated natural gas fracking instead of banning it, and the fate of the Keystone XL is still up in the air.

Despite many disappointing milestones, the year’s top environmental stories show that 2013 wasn’t a complete loss. There were more than a couple of small, albeit significant, victories that should inspire you to keep up the good fight in 2014.

Top 5 Environmental News Stories That Ended Well In 2013

1. The Fossil Fuel Divestment Movement – Tired of trying to convince federal leaders that America needs to move away from fossil fuels, local governments, organizations and, perhaps most significantly, educational institutions began to take a stand. Fueled by grassroots leadership and fearless college students, dozens of city governments, universities, religious groups and even financial organizations have joined the divestment movement, pledging to take their money out of investment funds that support coal, oil and gas companies.

2. Coloradans Reject Dirty Energy  – Xcel Energy is a major regional power company that while better than some, has used underhanded tactics to block and slow clean energy adoption. In one of the biggest environmental news stories of the year, grassroots groups led by student-run organization New Era Colorado were successful in crowdfunding a public information campaign that allowed the City of Boulder to buy out Xcel and establish their own electric power system.

3. California Launches a Cap-and-Trade System – Although the federal plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with a cap and trade system failed in 2010, California pursued the idea–successfully–at the state level. In 2013, the country’s first carbon trading system went into effect. At the end of the year, officials were thrilled to report that carbon credits issued and bought generated almost $1.1 billion in revenue.

4. The War On Coal – As one of the world’s dirtiest and most dangerous fossil fuels, eliminating coal fired power plants would go a long way toward reducing global carbon emissions. In 2013, “the World Bank, the U.S., the U.K., and several Scandinavian countries have all pledged to no longer fund traditional coal plants abroad, representing a sea change in energy financing,” reports Mongabay. And instead of backing down from industry threats, President Obama and new EPA chief Gina McCarthy proposed new Clean Air Act standards that will cut carbon pollution from new power plants in order to combat climate change and improve public health.

5. National Climate Action Plan – Just a few months before the International Panel on Climate Change declared (with 95 percent confidence) that humans are making climate change worse, President Obama said the words that few environmental advocates thought we would ever hear: that climate change is no longer a distant threat — it’s here and we’re already experiencing the negative impacts. That day in June, the President introduced a National Climate Action Plan that would cut carbon pollution and better prepare our nation–and the world–for life on a changing planet, though it remains to be seen how many of the recommendations made that day will come to pass, or whether they’ll be implemented in time.

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The post Top 5 Environmental News Stories That Ended Well In 2013 appeared first on EcoSalon.

The Federal Government just sunk a ton of cash into research on geoengineering climate change. They say it’s to save the planet, but few environmentalists are convinced.

Many will remember 2013 as the year freedom ended in America. Wemfinally had to come to terms with the fact that our lives are being tracked and recorded by the NSA, Google, and pretty much everyone else. In light of new laws that allow anyone to be “detained” for undisclosed reasons, the fact that we’ve lost all rights to privacy is pretty terrifying. Given the level of interest in Miley Cyrus dance moves, however, no one seems to be too bothered that their constitutional rights have been flushed down the toilet. But now it’s going way beyond phone calls.

Over the summer, the feds quietly announced a project that hopes to discover new methods for mitigating climate change. The 21-month, $630,000 project will be run by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) with funding coming from the CIA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA. According to Mother Jones the NAS funded two previous workshops on geoengineering, but this is the first time the CIA has participated.

Don’t get too excited, however.  It’s not an initiative to speed the shift from fossil fuels or build disaster-proof cities. It’s a scientific study  that will investigate whether humans could use geoengineering to alter Earth’s environment and stop climate change.

For those not familiar, geoengineering is “the deliberate large-scale manipulation of an environmental process that affects the earth’s climate.” If you think about it, the idea of geoengineering climate is nothing new: we’ve been altering the planet’s ecosystems to suit our desires for centuries. What’s new are the technologies and the goals.

“Geoengineering falls into two categories: solar radiation management and carbon dioxide removal,” explains David Suzuki in a guest post for DeSmog Blog. “The former involves reflecting solar radiation back into space. The latter is aimed at removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it.”

Ideas for geoengineering climate change solutions range from cloud-seeding to fertilizing the ocean with iron, but all are controversial because we have no idea what the unintended consequences might be.

According to the CIA project’s official description, a committee of experts will “conduct a technical evaluation of a limited number of proposed geoengineering techniques, including examples of both solar radiation management and carbon dioxide removal techniques, and comment generally on the potential impacts of deploying these technologies, including possible environmental, economic, and national security concerns.”

There it is at the end–“national security concerns.” In a world where governments are positioning themselves to control as much of what we do and say as possible, the idea of the CIA using the weather like a weapon sends shivers down my spine. But maybe that’s just me.

A close second concern would be the fact that geoengineering climate change fails to address the root cause of the problem. It’s like taking an aspirin to alleviate the pain of a nail sticking through the bottom of your foot. You might get a few hours of relief, but ultimately, nothing will change until you yank that sucker out.

The negative effects of climate change are a direct result of our unchecked consumption of fossil fuels. Period. The consequences will continue until we stop belching filth into the atmosphere, and even then, it will take generations to reverse the damage.

Let’s leave the poor planet alone, haven’t we done enough already? Instead of pouring $630,000 into madcap ideas that will probably break more than they fix, why not invest in renewable energy technologies that will actually begin to fix the problem?

Maybe it’s because doing so would force us to admit that fossil fuels (and the politicians who love them) have to go. Maybe it’s because a safe affordable power plant on your roof makes you harder to control. Just sayin’.

Related on Ecosalon:

Geoengineering: Giving The Earth A Push

Attention Skeptics: Climate Change Is Already Killing Fish & Polar Bears

Image: saschapohflepp

The post CIA Spends $630K On Geoengineering Climate Change, But Why? appeared first on EcoSalon.

Facebook is a financial juggernaut that claims to be committed to a clean energy future, but the discovery of a Zuckerberg-funded SuperPac promoting the world’s filthiest fossil fuels has the Internet crying foul.

We don’t feel it or see it as we’re surfing the web or clicking “Like” on cat memes, but the internet generates a lot of pollution. See, the internet lives on giant electricity-sucking servers housed in climate-controlled data centers all over the world. The bigger the website, the more servers it takes to keep it up and running.

Facebook is one of the world’s most heavily trafficked sites, so naturally, it’s got more servers than just about anyone else. In 2011, in response to Greenpeace’s popular “Unfriend Coal” campaign, the social media giant agreed to promote renewable energy, encourage major utilities to develop renewable energy generation, and develop programs that will enable users to save energy and engage their communities in clean energy decisions.

Soon, news of Facebook’s new LEED-certified, uber efficient data centers were splashed across the headlines. “Hooray,” we thought. “Facebook is doing the right thing, leading the way for the green internet of the future.”

That’s why millions of Facebook users were stunned to learn that CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us SuperPAC is funding ads that promote the Keystone Pipeline, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and attacks on Obamacare.

Now, there’s nothing shocking about a billionaire supporting pro-oil, pro-Conservative rhetoric. What makes this development shocking is 1) how hard Facebook has tried to position itself as environmentally-concerned and 2) the fact that the SuperPAC  (supposedly) exists to support comprehensive immigration reform.

Apparently, the SuperPAC thought that by supporting some Republican senators’ positions on fossil fuels, they would convince those politicians to vote in favor of immigration reform—a move that could anger their right-leaning constituents. In short, FWD.us is employing the same underhanded bribery that has allowed special interests to completely corrupt our political system. Thankfully, this dark side didn’t sit well with Facebook users, the Progressive community or FWD.us’ own donor list.

FWD.us “doesn’t understand the tech industry,” said a longtime tech lobbyist who remained anonymous to Politico. “Jumping into unrelated energy issues like Keystone pipeline has tarnished the tech community’s reputation. Not only does it involve them in an issue in which they have no position, it also unnecessarily aligns them with Republicans over President Obama and the core of the Democratic Party.”

When news of FWD.us’s pro-Keystone ads first hit the internet, progressive groups lost no time in using Facebook’s own viral sharing functions to spread the word. That’s when Zuckerberg made his second big mistake.

Miffed by the backlash, Facebook decided to pull an ad by activist mobile phone company Credo that criticized FWD.us. “Facebook took the extraordinary step of rejecting our ad featuring Mark Zuckerberg’s photo along with a headline asking him to stop pushing pro-Keystone XL propaganda,” Becky Bond, Political Director of Credo told Mashable. “But the ads that truly need to be pulled are the cynical and ineffective anti-environmental political commercials that Zuckerberg and FWD.us are airing in South Carolina and Alaska.”

The move, which some viewed as self-serving censorship, prompted Credo and other groups to pull their Facebook ad campaigns, and caused some of the super PAC’s top donors to withdraw their support.

Want to help? Check out Credo’s petition asking FWD.us to stop running ads supporting dirty energy.

Image: Tar Sands Solution Network

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The best of EcoSalon’s stories this week.

For Nina Katchadourian, a lavatory isn’t just a practical necessity – it’s an artistic portal to the 15th Century. Check out (but perhaps don’t emulate) her Lavatory Portraits in the Flemish Style.

You’d think recent history, and the revelations emerging from climate science, would have wised us up to the danger of our fossil fuel abuse. But alas – it seems to be the one habit we can’t kick. Stephanie Rogers offers up suggestions for curbing this cheap fuel dependency.

Victory gardens helped win a world war – and now they’re helping fight a new battle, on behalf of a beleaguered biosphere. To cheer them on, activist designer Joe Wirtheim has crafted a series of posters that evokes a wartime aesthetic for a more modern cause.

Every wondered where nail polish came from? The history of nail art dates back a whopping 5,000 years.

Finally, it’s incredible to think that Star Trek is nearly 50 years old – and that 1966 was an era with a very different view on racial relations. All rise for the lady behind the first interracial kiss on television, Nichelle Nichols!

The post The Friday 5: History Lessons Edition appeared first on EcoSalon.

Urbanization and a change in attitude regarding fuel prices could help wean us off this unpredictable resource.

In the summer of 2008, gas prices in the United States hit a record high of $4.11 per gallon. Gas had never broken the $4 barrier before, and it seemed like they could just go right on climbing. In response, we grumbled. We moaned. We made bad jokes about paying with our limbs and our first-born children. Then, we started ditching gas-guzzling vehicles like Hummers and oversized SUVs. We carpooled, combined our errands and found other ways to drive less. A large number of Americans across the political spectrum began supporting renewable energy initiatives and new technologies that could reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

Then prices crept back down again, and we got complacent. While we’re still not driving quite as much as we used to – a factor that probably has more to do with the economy than learning any kind of lesson – most people aren’t exactly lining up to buy the Chevy Volt.

Now, as gas prices threaten to reach new heights, our response is not to push harder than ever for greener solutions. Aside from a drive to use rising fuel prices as political fodder to damage President Obama’s chances of re-election, the nation’s reaction has been a collective shrug of the shoulders. A recent study found that Americans are less reactive to gas prices today than we were four years ago, and that it may take breaking the psychological barrier of $5 per gallon to prompt us into any kind of action.

And once that happens, the rallying cries will probably be more along the lines of “Drill Here, Drill Now” rather than “Go Hybrid.” Because the fact of the matter is, the vast majority of us perceive cheap fuel as a basic right.

There’s a good reason for that. America is the land of personal automobiles. This sprawling nation, with its vast network of highways, is nearly impossible to navigate without a car unless you live in a big city with plentiful public transit options. Just try to get through daily life in a suburb, exurb or rural area without owning a vehicle. Some people manage, riding bicycles, catching rides with others and dealing with inefficient and unreliable bus services. But for most people, it’s just not a viable option. Therefore, we have a certain expectation: if we’re to be productive members of society, we have to be able to get around without taking out a second mortgage just for gas.

It’s easy to find ourselves glaring at the digits displayed on the gas pump. None of us enjoys feeling like we’re being gouged. We place the blame on oil speculators who artificially raise prices by as much as 75 cents per gallon, and angrily decry the record profits that oil companies have been enjoying thanks to their tax breaks and lobbyists. Justly so. But don’t we deserve the blame just as much as they do? In our defensiveness over the need to drive personal vehicles, we too often refuse to make concessions that can help us all move forward into an era of green transportation.

Fossil fuels are a finite resource, a major source of pollution and the cause of numerous international conflicts and wars. We can’t grow oil like we can grow algae or biofuel crops. At this point, we should be thinking of our fossil fuel consumption in terms of transitioning to more sustainable options.

But what is it that we can do, as individuals? Instead of just complaining, we can make even more drastic cuts to our driving than ever before. Those of us who are privileged to live in cities with public transit systems should make use of them as often as possible, and the rest of us should push for the same rights in our own communities. Learn the various ways to use less fuel. Take romantic train rides instead of driving cross-country. Ride your bicycle to the store for that carton of milk. Support political efforts to fund renewable energy innovation. Demand high-speed rail. Spread the word about clean energy, which creates three times more jobs than fossil fuels. Consider moving to the city.

The latter option may, in fact, be the single most effective thing we can do. Urbanization is by far the most efficient way to share resources, and with conscious oversight, cities can be green. Population density frees up rural land for food production, preserves wilderness and increases available green space. The 2010 census shows that many Americans are reversing the suburbanization trend, moving back into urban areas in droves. Although this raises valid concerns about potential suburban blight, and may strain city budgets in the short-term, it’s a crucial step toward a more sustainable future.

Thankfully, despite the prevailing attitudes about gas prices, there’s a dot of light at the end of the tunnel. Hybrid sales are increasing, and many people purchasing new vehicles are paying closer attention to fuel efficiency. General Motors, once again the world’s number one automobile manufacturer, reports that sales of vehicles that get at least 30 miles to the gallon make up 40 percent of its sales, versus 16 percent in 2009.

Like any addiction, cheap fossil fuels will be a hard habit to break. But when it comes down to it, do we really have a choice?

Photo: David Drexler

The post Curbing Our Addiction to Cheap Fossil Fuels appeared first on EcoSalon.

The rich guys fighting clean energy spend a staggering amount of cash making the world a dirtier place.

Like many other big oil companies, ExxonMobil loves to boast about how much money it spends on renewable energy research, but what they don’t tell you is that they’re spending millions fighting clean energy legislation at the same time. A nearly untraceable amount of cash goes into lobbying against renewable energy each year, and fossil fuel giants are hardly alone in doling it out. The list of deep-pocketed companies and organizations actively smearing clean energy is disturbingly long. But what if we could take those millions and put them toward good causes instead?

The organizations that send lobbyists to Washington to campaign for fossil fuels and against clean energy projects are so tangled, it’s hard to figure out who’s who. Many of them are backed by the same powerful businessmen, like the Koch brothers, and many are fronts for the dirty energy industry. A project called Fight Clean Energy Smears, which is run by the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), gathers them up and gives us a broad look at who they are and what they’re doing.

Here are just a handful of examples:

• ExxonMobil recently put $600 million aside for algae biofuel research, but the company’s total expenditures on clean energy are less than 1% of its total earnings, and it also spends millions on lobbying for fossil fuels. Exxon is also among the financial supporters of the American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF), an organization that produces inaccurate analyses of climate change legislation that have affected US Chamber of Commerce ‘forums’ on climate. This allows Exxon and other companies to engage in dirty tactics to protect their billions in government subsidies without stamping their name right on them.
• The Chamber of Commerce has also joined conservative, climate-change-denying groups like American Crossroads in spending $70 million on anti-clean energy ads. These groups also spent a collective $242 million on lobbying on behalf of polluters.
• The organizations behind the Clean Coal marketing campaign have spent at least $35 million on ‘educational’ and lobbying efforts trying to convince the government and the public that coal power can be an environmentally friendly enterprise.
• Peabody Energy Company, the world’s largest private-sector coal producer, spent $14.2 million in direct federal lobbying in 2008 and 2009, and Arch Coal, America’s second-largest coal company, spent $3 million.
• The organizations funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, who also fund the bulk of many Republican political campaigns, outspends ExxonMobil on clean energy disinformation. Greenpeace has learned that Koch Industries has spent $48.5 million since 1997 on climate change denial and anti-clean energy efforts.

What a mess, right? From this, we can assume that these companies and organizations have spent at least $412 million on anti-clean energy efforts in the last few years, and that’s undoubtedly an incredibly low estimate, even assuming that some of these figures may overlap a bit. The real number likely reaches into the billions.

Just for fun, let’s take a look at some of the hugely important humanitarian and environmental issues that could be tackled with that amount of money:

1. Clean water for over 4.12 million people in developing countries like Kenya and India. According to The Water Project, a single well serving 3,000 people costs about $30,000.
2. Switch 27,466 U.S. households from grid power to solar power. The average cost for a single household to set up a solar energy system, after government tax breaks, is $15,000.
3. Plant 8.24 million trees. Oxfam America Unwrapped will plant a forest of 1,000 trees for $500.
4. Stock cereal banks in 1.648 million villages. $250 will fill a storehouse with corn, millet and other grains to feed the hungry and ensure food stocks in case of emergency.
5. Plant 10.3 million fields of organic cotton. It costs just $40 to start a single field. Switching from conventional to organic cotton farming could eliminate a large quantity of toxic pesticides like cyanide from the environment.
6. Start 824 mobile health clinics and fund each of them for an entire year. Mobile health clinics can respond to disasters like the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan, and serve thousands of migrant farm workers and their families in the United States.
7. Feed 22.89 million African AIDS orphans lunch each day for one year, which costs just $18 each.
8. Build 686,666 houses in Haiti, where living conditions that were already poor before the 2010 earthquake have deteriorated rapidly. With four people per house, this amount of new construction could shelter nearly a third of the nation’s population.

Of course, none of this is to say that these companies and organizations can – or should – spend that money on these particular things. But it does provoke thought on how money is thrown around by the few who hold the most of it – and why.

Photo: VictoriaPeckham

The post 8 Things We Could Buy with Anti-Clean Energy Funding appeared first on EcoSalon.

There is an unspeakable tragedy going on in Japan right now. It will continue to unfold before our eyes in the days, weeks, months, years, and even decades ahead. It will reach the coast of America. This may sound alarmist, but it isn’t. As the New York Times reported this morning:

“The fast-moving developments at the Fukushima No. 1 (Daiichi) plant, 150 miles north of Tokyo, catapulted the 4-day-old nuclear crisis to an entirely new level, threatening to overshadow even the massive damage and loss of life spawned by a devastating earthquake and tsunami.”

Now nor ever is the right time for panic. The multiple stricken reactors might not melt down. But that doesn’t mean that they won’t continue to emit health-threatening levels of radiation. If the wind shifts, and that radiation heads inland, people will be migrating from their homes, villages, maybe even cities. To where?

What are we to do? What can we do?

First, of course, we have to do whatever we can to help Japan. It’s the third richest economy in the world, but every dollar, every package, every plane or ship that lands with relief supplies will be welcome, not just for the physical support, but for the moral support. If they want to send over exchange students, we should take them. If Japanese businesses need help, their competitors here in the United States should help. If you’re a person of faith, pray.

And here in America? The current nuclear disaster is in Japan, but we have our own problems. Would you light a lump of coal and put it on your kitchen table while your family was in the house? Why is there more air pollution in the Powder River Basin of Idaho than there is in Los Angeles? What are we going to do if hydraulic fracking many hundreds of feet underground releases gas and toxic chemicals that contaminate one of our rivers?

Coal and natural gas are no healthier than nuclear power. At the end of the day, across the planet and across what will be the couple centuries of world history of burning massive amounts of fossil fuels for power, fossil fuels will end up impacting far more people than nuclear power.

America needs to do what it has always, until recently, done best – lead. We need to get out of the dirty, dangerous, unhealthy fuels of the past and lead the way into a clean, healthy and prosperous new energy future. We need to support the people, the politicians, the companies and the organizations that are trying to get us there.

Image: Hogeasdf

The post Don’t Worry, It’s Safe appeared first on EcoSalon.

I wouldn’t describe myself as a world traveler, but still – I have visited the Louvre, the White House and the Tower of London. I have driven to the top of a volcano on Maui and walked with my children down the Champs Elysee. And yet, one of my favorite tourist destinations of all time is the Publix Supermarket in Tamarac, Florida.

For years, whenever we would visit my in-laws in Florida, I would look forward to wandering the clean, wide aisles of this market, gape mouthed and in awe of the gleaming rows of produce, packaged goods, and wholesome prepared foods. This store was a direct and glaring contrast to my neighborhood market in New York, which was on its very last legs and had been allowed to devolve into the Bates Motel of food emporiums. It was cramped and gloomy and badly lit, with a low ceiling and an inch of dust on its tired boxes of cereal. The store was redolent with that unmistakable old-supermarket aroma of sour milk and perspiration. The entire market was clearly past its sell-by date.

As befits a retail hell-hole, this supermarket was populated with the shadiest of employees, surly crones who sneered at my cold cut choices, sullen teenage bag boys, and one especially skeevy young man who made a point of licking his fingers before counting out my change. It was so unlike Publix with its aggressively helpful sales staff – good natured retirees who would not only insist on wheeling my cart to the parking lot, they would call me “Miss” in the bargain (by Florida standards, I am dewy and youthful).

The market, finally, was torn down, and its place sprang a structure that rivaled Publix in its size and cleanliness – a model of well-lit, high-ceilinged commercial space. I was thrilled at first, but it wasn’t long before I found fault with my spiffy new market. The size began to feel oppressive, especially if I was running in for just one thing; I began to dread having to drag myself across a space the size of a football field just to buy a pint of fat free half and half. The new store is more expensive than the one it replaced, although I qualify for discounts if I use my member card. Apparently, it is no longer enough to patronize a supermarket – now you are expected to join the supermarket. My member card allows the market to keep track of points I’ve accrued from previous shopping trips. Call me paranoid, but I’m not crazy about having some faceless corporate bureaucracy know every detail of my Chips Ahoy purchasing history.

But mostly I find myself wishing the store was not such an extreme waste of space and resources. Is it really necessary to have a supermarket the size of an airplane hangar? Are slightly cramped aisles such a big price to pay for a store that is less costly to heat and light and air condition? In addition to the reckless waste of fossil fuels, there is something overly sunny and glitzy and un-New York about the new market – buying groceries now makes me feel like one of the Real Housewives of Boca Raton.

I think I preferred this type of happy, shiny shopping experience when it was a break from the norm, a thing to do on vacation before an early dinner in a Florida strip mall. As part of my everyday life it has lost some of its allure. With supermarkets, as with all things, be careful what you wish for.

Editor’s Note: Susan Goldberg is a slightly lapsed treehugger. Although known to overuse paper products, she has the best of intentions – and a really small SUV. Catch her column, The Goldberg Variations, each week here at EcoSalon.

Image: Marcin Wichary

The post The Goldberg Variations: Market Fluctuations appeared first on EcoSalon.