By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

It comes up every summer, that pesty green quandry: Should you use strong chemicals like DEET to fend off the mosquitoes and ticks that can transmit the insidious Lyme Disease and the potentially deadly West Nile Virus?

We want to use less toxic protection, formulas that are based on natural ingredients or at least those that haven’t been shown to cause neurological damage (albeit in rare cases). Ironically, using DEET (N,N-diethyl-m-toluamide) to protect against West Nile forces you to choose between potential rare neurological side effects. Will you overreact to DEET or be the unlucky one whose case of West Nile mushrooms beyond a flu-like illness into one with neurological manifestations? Which raises the question — what are the odds? That’s nearly unanswerable. Too many people who are bitten by mosquitoes infected with West Nile are asymptomatic, and too many reactions to DEET may have been attributed to something else, or were the cause of improper use (i.e., obsessive-compulsive application).

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Talk about a hot and windy debate as Washington grapples with the first big bill to try to power up a new clean energy economy. Studies and accusations are whipping around like wind propellers as the contituencies of fossil fuels and new energy square off.

While this seems like a flurry of much ado — is it possible that the American Clean Energy and Security Act wouldn’t pass? That the fossils would win?

Still, there’s much at stake. As we know from last year’s blockbuster stimulus bill, no one really reads all the copy, so there could be a lot of caveats, crumbs and sneaky insertions embedded into the 1,000-plus page act, also known as the Waxman-Markey bill.

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We’ve been told that the switch to green energy will cost us a lot or a little, depending on who’s putting out the information.

Now, the Natural Resources Defense Council is telling us that switching to clean energy, as supported in the pending American Clean Energy and Security Act in Congress, would save us money on our electricity bills — at least by 2020.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Congress has approved what will be a big bonanza for car buyers — not to mention car dealers — with the “Cash for Clunkers” bill that cleared the Senate on Thursday.

Once signed by President Obama, who pushed for the law, car buyers will be able to get up to $4,500 toward more efficient new vehicles when they trade in their aging gas guzzlers (or even just their aging cars that get so-so mileage). Cars must pre-date 2002 but not be older than 1984 models.

Ironically, this generous program would not be available had it not been for the short-sighted American car manufacturers who made so many gas gulpers, their heedless American customers and also the torpid economy. None of those players gets chastened or overhauled or even pinched in this deal.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

This Global Change Research report released this week is a compendium of the expected fallout from climate change in the U.S.

It’s not something you’ll want to curl up with in place of your bedtime novel; it won’t make you hazy, happy and sleepy (picture yourself bolt upright, watching crime news to calm down). Still, for those of us deliberately trying to keep our heads above the sand (or our real estate above the tide) it’s a must read.

I recommend skipping a lot of the governmentish intros and conclusions. Cut to the heartland synopses; these assessments of each region are a great reality check. This section of the report is stout and specific and will wrest away any fuzzy notion you have that climate change will just make things a tad warmer and we’ll all wear fewer sweaters.

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By Tim Sanders
Saving the World at Work
This post originally appeared january 9, 2009

I am a huge fan of Adam Werbach (former President of the Sierra Club). Back in 2004 he declared that “environmentalism is dead” and in 2006 he went to work for Wal-Mart. Crazy guy? Not loyal? Hardly. He’s a rock star in my book (literally).

In April of 2008, Webach gave a very important talk at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. The content of the talk is aligned with my thinking. He believes (as I do) that we have to go beyond saving the planet to focusing on humans (as the planet will likely go on without us).

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

The movie FOOD, INC. opened this past weekend in New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

It’s not the first film to tackle the problems of our industrial food complex. Indies like Chris Taylor’s Food Fight (2008) and King Corn (2007) a handful of few bigger releases, like Fast Food Nation (2006) have been chipping away at this story for a few years now.

But FOOD INC. arrives at a time when the American public seems primed for the message in ways it wasn’t before: We better recognize today that our mass-produced food is threatening our vitality and tearing up the arable land we need; that food that’s been processed beyond recognition has also been stripped of nutrients; that packaging can’t substitute for flavor and that local food often tastes better it has a lower environmental cost (OK, not everyone gets that last point, yet).

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

It might not have been possible a few years ago, but a new paradigm is emerging in the cleaning aisles of our groceries and markets.

Once the top products were those that promised glistening surfaces cleaned with the strongest disinfectants and most potent, marketable-sounding concoctions of “brighteners” and “germ zappers” — devil and the environment be damned.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Given the enormity of climate change, it’s not always easy to calculate how we individuals can make a contribution that matters. In honor of World Oceans Day (June 8), the Nature Conservancy has assembled a list of a few concrete ways we can help heal, or at least minimize the damage to, our marine world.

The list is a testament to our connectedness here on planet Earth — did you realize that the nitrogen fertilizer you dump on the yard could be part of the pollution overpowering streams and rivers; winding up in the ocean where it creates algal “blooms” that starve marine life of oxygen? Ah, right. That’s not what you were thinking of when you cracked open the bag of weed-and-feed. Heavy stuff, yes, but the sort of thing we humans need to think on. That lovely green turf comes with an environmental price tag — unless and until you find other ways to feed the lawn, like using lower nitrogen-content organic food.

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By Tim Sanders
Saving the World at Work
This post originally appeared May 24, 2008

Whether you are a company, or just an individual, you must continually innovate to maximize your green-ness. The best way to do this is by focusing on a single weekly innovation. Think about everything you do as you do your workaday, and isolate areas where you can reduce your impact on the planet.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

We chat a lot about farmer’s markets here on the website, but it’s a pet topic for some good reasons. Who can argue with buying local food, which carries a lower carbon footprint, is more nutrient-rich (according to recent studies) than less fresh options and also supports the local economy?

Here’s a new twist on the concept that we stumbled upon - a farmer’s market that comes to your workplace. They started one in Chester County, Penn., last year and are bringing it back this summer.

The impromptu, lunchtime markets provide both gastronomic and economic benefits. Farmers get a new outlet for their goods and the county employees are treated to fresh produce, allowing them to skip the daily chore of stopping at the grocery on the way home.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Who is Christopher Swain and why is he swimming through 1,000 miles of Atlantic Ocean muck?

Freestyling around the net looking for answers, we found the YouTube video, “Dirty for Swain” about how Swain supporters are bathing in sewage…moisturizing with crude oil…and drinking curdled milk (not makin’ it up) to support this eco-activist’s latest aquatic statement, which is taking him from Marblehead, Mass., to Washington D.C.

It might seem like a lot of toxic exposure just to make a point…except that Swain is leading a new wave of interest in cleaner water. With the oceans acidifying under global warming and fisheries collapsing due to excessive commercial fishing, there’s no time to waste, excuse the pun.

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