February 2022

 Leman Family Sustainability Journal

Peter and I headed to a Utah Lake rally tonight at the Utah Capitol 📣  It had great attendance (500+). Hopefully the publicity will help get HB 240 through, which will help protect the lake against iffy projects. (Please let your reps know to vote yes!)

Check out this podcast for some really interesting history and context about our awesome muddy lake.

Did you know public transit across the Wasatch Front is free in February? I couldn't ride to SLC today because of work schedules. But you should! 

Settled on a DO for my BO. All-natural and plastic-free packaging, and has been doing its job great. 

Finally got through my last box of dryer sheets (did you know they're made of polyester, read: plastic?) and got some of these cute wool balls to bounce around with my laundry instead.

 

Also finally got around to trying out the shampoo bars my mom's neighbor made that I gave out for Christmas. I decided I like them better as soap, haha, but aren't they pretty? 

Update

 

12/3:

THE GOOD: we've owned our plug-in hybrid for about a month and a half now. We drove it every day, including to Salt Lake and Payson, and went like 25 days on a single tank of gas. And our electricity bill only went up like $7 🥳🥳🥳

THE SAD: The old Camry got sold for parts. It was a faithful object, and will be missed. That'll do, car, that'll do.

THE UGLY: Someone sideswiped the new car while it was parked, so now is going to be in the shop until like Christmas 😑

This has been a #FamilySustainabilityJournal
update. As you were.

 

Acqua Alta Alert!

One crazy thing that happened while we were in Venice was an acqua alta event. This is when the tide gets so high it floods the city, which is built right on sea level (those famous canals are seawater, not fresh).

These tides used to happen (for a bunch of reasons) about ten times a year in the fall/winter. Now, thanks to sea level rise and more severe weather due to global warming (among other things) they can happen up to 60 times a year, any season. (Florida has something similar called "sunny day flooding"). 

We thought we'd be swimming for our scheduled "ghost walk" that night! But the forecast was so dire the government decided to deploy the MOSE ("Moses"), a newly-competed series of sea gates that literally parts the water around Venice and prevents severe flooding. So we got rain-wet, but didn't have to wade! 

A few days later, they apparently decided NOT to deploy the MOSE, because here's what happened: https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.yahoo.com/amphtml/see-tourists-wade-venices-flooded-161510835.html

The locals we talked to were concerned about climate change and sea level rise. Business owners have removable "dams" installed in their doors. Residents are rebelling against the city's ban on window air conditioning. Homeowners are raising the levels of their canal ports. Our gondolier pointed at the green algae line on the side of the canal, noting it used to be a lot lower. "We're out here every day. We know what's going on."

Our awesome Airbnb host Sara Tirelli turned out to be an artist and filmmaker who made a movie about climate change and the acqua alta in Venice. Check it out here: https://www.saratirelli.com/HYDRA-MONO

It took 5.5 billion Euros and 18 years, but the MOSE seems to be helping Venice for now, at least sometimes. The bad news is that when sea levels rise as much as scientists say they could, even the MOSE won't be able to save this 1600-year-old city. 

It's just a matter of how long it takes to get there...the less we use fossil fuels, the more time we can buy to adapt to our earth's changes.

With the recent COP26 summit happening, warming is on our polititions' minds (or should be). Tell them it's on yours too:

https://myreps.datamade.us/

Pictured: buildings almost floating on the surface of the sea; climate graffiti; canal doors under reconstruction; walkways set up for tourists to walk on during floods; a huge line of yellow gates stretching between ocean islands. 

https://earth.org/data_visualization/sea-level-rise-by-the-end-of-the-century-venice/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOSE

https://news.wjct.org/first-coast/2021-07-15/noaa-sunny-day-flooding-becoming-more-common-across-fla-as-sea-levels-rise

New family member!

Leman Family Sustainability Journal (a big entry!) 

This afternoon we went down to the ol' car vending machine, dropped the coin in the slot, and got a new-to-us '18 Ford Fusion Enegi plug-in hybrid instead! 

Our '01 Camry was going to cost us more to fix so that it could pass emissions than the car was worth. We wanted something electric for around town, but fuel-efficient to get Grandma's house (not too many quick- chargers yet on that stretch of road... hopefully soon!). 

This hybrid should be able to get us to Boise on less than half the gas it used to take. Taking fuel savings into account, it costs about as much as the last used car we bought. And we have solar panels, so the electricity we use to charge it won't create as much pollution as it would otherwise. We'll see in a month or two how much more we still need to draw from the power grid. Your guess is a good as mine! I'm just glad it isn't as bad for the air. 

(But anyway, coal has to account for more than like 2/3rds of electricity production in any given area for an electric car to be harder on the climate than a gas car. We're below that in Utah, and in my house in particular. And Utah's reliance on coal is decreasing all the time, so electric cars only get cleaner.) 

We were looking into the Hyundai Ioniq, wanting to take advantage of tax credits for EVs. But supply chains aren't great right now (as for lots of things). So this Ford on Carvana seemed like the best option we could find that fit our needs. If we get lucky and Congress passes a bill aimed at helping people buy used EVs, maybe we'll get a little kickback. 

The Energi plugs right into a regular wall socket and should charge easily there in about six hours. In our level 2 socket (which we had installed with our panels) it should only take two. 

One criticism of EVs I hear is that the mining required for batteries is so wasteful and bad for land and the people who have to do it. But we mine oil and gas (also not great humanitarian records) and burn it in our cars every day, putting that waste into our air and bodies. Once an EV battery is recycled (it can be done, it just hasn't been much yet), an EV accounts for 300% less mineral waste than a gas car. 

We will miss our old Camry, which is going to the junkyard. But we're excited for this new friend. And isn't the vending machine cool? 

Sources: 

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4817?s=1&r=40 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/01/fossil-fuel-cars-make-hundreds-of-times-more-waste-than-electric-cars 

https://gimletmedia.com/shows/howtosaveaplanet/94hblz9

Beach memories

 

This week, 126,000 gallons of oil spilled from a broken pipe, creating a 13-square-mile oil slick off the coast of my favorite beaches-- places we loved to go when my kids were small.

Renewable energies like solar, wind and geothermal? They don't do this.

Over. And over, and over.

Of course there is an ecological cost to making any kind of energy, but renewables demand a smaller cost--mostly mining (which of course needs to be done responsibly) and waste, much of which can be recycled, and which enjoys years of use before it needs to be.

You can't recycle oil and gas. Once we mine that, fossil fuel waste ends up spilled into our water or burned into our air, where it hurts our bodies and warms the planet. And we're all using up gallons and gallons of it every single day.

I'll take clean beaches. I just hope they're still around for my grandkids.

So choose renewable whenever possible. And talk to your federal, state, and local representatives about your choices: https://myreps.datamade.us/

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/major-oil-spill-washes-ashore-california-killing-wildlife-2021-10-03/

https://www.britannica.com/list/9-of-the-biggest-oil-spills-in-history 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_spills

https://www.ocregister.com/2021/10/07/oc-oil-spill-laguna-beach-homeowners-sue-amplify-energy-corp/

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/oil-reaches-laguna-beach-cleanup-154233893.html

https://southocbeaches.com/2021/10/06/laguna-beach-oil-spill-clean-up-wednesday-october-6-2021/

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/electric-vehicles-take-off-recycling-ev-batteries

https://phys.org/news/2019-12-lithium-recycled.html

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/01/fossil-fuel-cars-make-hundreds-of-times-more-waste-than-electric-cars

All Creatures of our God and King

So twenty-three species were taken off the Endangered Species list this week, because they're extinct. 

These 23 include only US species that actually on list. How many species worldwide are extinct or near extinction is hard to pin down....Researchers estimate that the current rate of species loss varies between 100 and 10,000 times the historical "background" extinction rate. (Which is 1-5 species/year.)

If we could do something about this, wouldn't we want to? 

I think living things are generally worth keeping for their own sake. But they benefit humans, too. One way is medicine.one of the chemotherapy drugs I was given comes from a random yew tree. Could one of these extinct 23 species also have saved millions of lives?

I'm often told by my representatives that they believe in "good stewardship of the earth." I would think that being a steward for God's earth might include facilitating a place where all His creations can flourish. Right now, because of habitat destruction, pollution, and climate change, that's not what we have. And stewardship seems preeeeetty far down on some of their lists of priorities. Sometimes it doesn't even make the cut...economic concerns are usually at the top. 

But a world that can't support its plants and animals will increasingly not support our economy, either. Or us, obviously. 

Call them, email them, tweet at them, text them...tell them *you* support good stewardship, clean air, clean water, wise development, whatever:

https://myreps.datamade.us/

(Pictured: the ivory-billed woodpecker, picture taken in Louisiana, 1935. A big black-and-white bird with a long beak and a shocking red crest. Sort of like the pleated woodpecker, which is what moatly comes up when you do an image search of ivory-billed.)

Sources (there are lots, here are just a few): 

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-declare-23-species-including-ivory-billed-woodpecker-extinct-ap-2021-09-29/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ivory-billed-woodpecker-23-species-declared-extinct-us/#app

https://www.britannica.com/science/biodiversity-loss#ref1266690

https://dtp.cancer.gov/timeline/flash/success_stories/S2_taxol.htm

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Ivory-billed_Woodpecker/species-compare/60408671

Air, Smoke, and Hearts

 

In the last couple of weeks, in my personal circles, I've  been told of four Utahans who have suffered cardiac events in the past 6 weeks. These events either put them in the hospital or ended their lives.

The young brother of a good friend.
A man in my mom's neighborhood.
A ward member of a work colleague.
A fellow member in an environmental organization.

These events occurred during a time period when we have had heightened--even extreme--air pollution in the Salt Lake Valley.

The 2020 study and report commissioned by the Utah legislature known as the Utah Road Map to Clean Air links heart disease (among many other ailments) to the kind of pollution we've been experiencing (see screen shots below).

While I don't have any way of knowing whether these particular people's cardiac problems were caused by the recent air quality, exascerbated by it, or unrelated to it, the number of people in my acquaintance experiencing this stuff lately makes me wonder if health agencies have also seen an uptick in these kinds of problems.

The World Health Organization reports 4.2 million yearly deaths worldwide due to air pollution-caused stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and other respiratory diseases. This is way more than other causes that get more attention, like war and natural disasters. We're no exception to those deaths here.

The smoke we've had lately from fires is due, in large part, to a warming planet. Air quality affects our health and our families. Climate change too.

If you want to call your reps and tell them how it affects you, this website has an easy way to do it and even gives you tips on what to say:

https://www.call4climatenow.com/

Sources:

https://gardner.utah.edu/utahroadmap/

https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution#tab=tab_1

https://climate.nasa.gov/blog/3066/the-climate-connections-of-a-record-fire-year-in-the-us-west/