Recently in Sustainability Category

Live in a city. That's what Adam Stein argues, and he's pretty persuasive. A couple of weeks ago he gave Green Metropolis, a new book by David Owen, a favorable review. As the subtitle to Owen's book puts it, the key to living sustainably is living smaller, living closer, and driving less are the keys to sustainability. Put that way it's hard to argue with.

Living smaller? Sure. Living smaller means consuming less and making fewer demands on the planet's resources. My partner and I live reasonably simply. We're mostly vegetarian, for health reasons as much as environmental ones. We recycle as much as we can, we keep the thermostats turned down, and we turn lights off whenever we leave a room.

Driving less? Sure. Part of living smaller, isn't it. Who wouldn't take public transport if they live in a place where its comfortable and convenient. Public transit is non-existent in rural northeastern Connecticut, so I drive less by combining trips to school with stops at the grocery store and by combining several shopping trips into one whenever I can.

Living closer? This is where it gets interesting. I'll quote just a little of Stein's response to comments on his favorable review:

I recently read that a freight train can move a ton of goods 460 miles on a single gallon of diesel. Your car can move a bag of groceries about 20 miles on a single gallon of gasoline. Sustainability is best measured by proximity to a supermarket, not a farm. (emphasis in the original)

That's right. It matters more how close you live to where you buy your food than where it's produced. And it matters even more how it's produced. Over 80% of the carbon footprint associated with food is associated with producing it, not with transporting it (source).

Bottom line. Your friend with a small apartment in Manhattan probably has a smaller carbon footprint than you do. She almost certainly has a smaller carbon footprint than I do, since I live in a comfortable house on a little over an acre of land, and I have to drive back and forth to work, to the grocery, to the pharmacy, to anywhere I want to go other than for a walk around my neighborhood.¹

So if you really want to be green, move to Manhattan (or DC or San Francisco or Chicago or Seattle or Boston), take the subway or bus to work, and grow your vegetables in a community garden.

Update 5:00pm: I just noticed that ScienceInsider has a nice post on the Economics Nobels. Here's a very brief summary of how Ostrom found communities could get around the tragedy of the commons:

Ostrom found that individuals will cooperate if, among other things, they are able to participate in governance, monitor the compliance of others, and punish cheaters. "When people have trust that others are going to reciprocate, then there can be cooperation," she says. "When there is no trust, there is no cooperation unless people are facing the gun."

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More than 40 years ago, Garrett Hardin described the tragedy of the commons.

The tragedy of the commons develops in this way. Picture a pasture open to all. It is to be expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on the commons. Such an arrangement may work reasonably satisfactorily for centuries because tribal wars, poaching, and disease keep the numbers of both man and beast well below the carrying capacity of the land. Finally, however, comes the day of reckoning, that is, the day when the long-desired goal of social stability becomes a reality. At this point, the inherent logic of the commons remorselessly generates tragedy.

As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain. Explicitly or implicitly, more or less consciously, he asks, "What is the utility to me of adding one more animal to my herd?" This utility has one negative and one positive component.

1) The positive component is a function of the increment of one animal. Since the herdsman receives all the proceeds from the sale of the additional animal, the positive utility is nearly +1.

2) The negative component is a function of the additional overgrazing created by one more animal. Since, however, the effects of overgrazing are shared by all the herdsmen, the negative utility for any particular decision-making herdsman is only a fraction of -1.

Adding together the component partial utilities, the rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another; and another. . . . But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a commons. Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit--in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all. (emphasis added)

The conclusion seems inescapable. If each of us pursues our "own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons" our common heritage will be despoiled. I say "seems inescapable", because a lot of people have been trying to find a way out of the tragedy of the commons for a long time.¹

Well, the the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics was shared by Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University "for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons."

From the New York Times

As Nicholas Godley, a fashion designer living in Madagascar put it, "If we were doing all of this to make money, I could think of much, much easier ways to do it." The fabric illustrated above is 11 feet long, and it's made from the silk of golden orb spiders from Madagascar. Collecting the silk to weave the fabric was an enormous challenge. Godley and Simon Peers, a British art historian who also lives in Madagascar, hired local people to collect spiders (about 3000 a day) and set up a system where workers drew the silk from the spinnerets.

And what became of the spiders, without whose very personal contributions the textile would not have been possible? While some died in its production, Mr. Godley and Mr. Peers said they set up a system in which the spiders being used were released daily, and detailed spreadsheets were kept to chart the number of spiders used, their yield and the casualty rate.

"We have become sort of the defenders of these spiders, something we never thought we'd be," said Mr. Godley, who calls himself a committed arachnophobe, but added, "They really are very regal-looking creatures." (source)

Peers and Godley estimate that the piece of cloth pictured above cost about half a million dollars to produce. Clearly, it's not likely that making cloth from these spiders will build a big industry in Madagascar, but it is a reminder of the incredible beauty to be found in nature -- and the incredible strength. Its tensile strength is five to six times greater than that of steel by weight.

I just read about a new restaurant¹ I'll have to try the next time I'm in Washington, DC. Here's how Hook describes itself on its website:

Hook Restaurant is committed to providing an exceptional dining experience, but also to educating the community about our mission. The menu changes daily to reflect whatever sustainable fish are in season and available. We also use locally grown produce, and humane meat and dairy products. The essential characteristic of sustainability is flexibility, so as we learn more we change our behavior. Our eco-friendly practices are merely a reflection of a deeper ideology: the two things than link every human on the planet are food and environment and we cannot live with out either.

Hook works with the Blue Ocean Insitute, the Seafood Choices Alliance, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium to ensure that the fish it serves are harvested sustainably. And to the extent possible, the fish is also obtained from local sources. Here are a few paragraphs from Kate Frazer describing a recent meal:

Lucky for me, my search for the full picture starts with a plate lined with oysters: a small, crisp California Kumamoto; a soft, briny New York Blue Point; and a sweet, deep-cupped Rappahannock from here in Virginia.

Perhaps more than any other food, oysters reflect their habitats. Each one has a flavor defined by geography, ocean currents and the water's characteristics.

They're all delicious, but the Rappahannock is my favorite -- buttery with a clean finish tasting of the sea. These oysters are grown in one of the region's most pristine tidal freshwater systems, downstream from where [The Nature] Conservancy has worked with local, state and federal partners to protect thousands of acres.

The next dish, Manos de Leon, features unspeakably tender scallops from Baja named "lion's paw" for their size and golden color. Chef serves them with coconut foam, blood oranges and subtle citrus oil that let the sweetness of the tiny pillows shine. They're hand-picked from turquoise lagoons by divers who leave the undersea flora intact, and I imagine them propelling through strands of eelgrass, waving their shells like butterfly wings.