Act Locally

For Earth Day 2009, President Obama went to an Iowa factory that manufactures wind power turbines to continue his economic argument for ecological sanity: "The choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy—it’s a choice between prosperity and decline,” said Obama. “The nation that leads the world in creating new sources of clean energy will be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy.”

He spoke in support of the EPA finding that greenhouse gases are harmful pollution and should be regulated. He also announced that the federal government is beginning the process of leasing offshore areas for electricity generation projects using wind and ocean currents.

That's good news for us here on the North Coast, where interest in using wave power has already generated some encouraging studies and discussion. Apparently our offshore area is prime for this kind of power.

Federal leadership and seed money are crucial, but local and state efforts are where things happen. California continues to lead in the attempts to control carbon emissions. The San Francisco Chronicle reports today that "The California Air Resources Board is expected to approve on Thursday a far-reaching rule called the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, the biggest step yet in the state's campaign to slash greenhouse gas emissions."

The Bay Area is also participating if not leading in innovation to foster a green economy. Another Chronicle story reports: Several Bay Area companies, including Cisco Systems Inc., Intel Corp. and Google Inc., were recognized Tuesday for pioneering environmental-saving innovations that cut costs and create new business. Smaller businesses are also recognized.

But there are other kinds of efforts that are just as crucial in safeguarding our planetary resources. Back when Earth Day started, so did recycling efforts (which so many experts said people would never do. They were wrong.) The full and too often forgotten mantra was "Reuse, Reduce, Recycle." One of the worst things we're doing that's poisoning our shared resources and causing geometrically increasing damage is dumping huge amounts of stuff, a lot of it toxic. No one seems to want to talk about it, but we're rapidly busy filling up and poisoning the earth with millions of cell phones a year.

But even with ordinary, non-toxic stuff, we've lost the ethic of repair and reuse. The Great Recession however is starting to reverse those practices. Yet another Chronicle piece reports on a suddenly thriving business: SCRAP, or Scroungers' Center for Reusable Art Parts. It's more than art parts now--it's become a place where companies with surplus stuff (because they're downsizing or going out of business or just changing inventory) unload without discarding, and where people with various needs can buy the stuff cheap.

The stuff includes clothing from Banana Republic, a textile company and an architecture firm, for instance. There are other companies besides SCRAP doing similar work in the Bay Area, most of which have been around for years (SCRAP for 30 years or so.) The difference is interest--and more stuff, being reused in more ways. "We used to have people come for things to accessorize. Now we have more people making their own clothing."

Looking around, Kraft said, "This was all going to be garbage. Companies probably would have just thrown it away. It's such great stuff."