Letterbox

Dear Watchers:

I wanted to make a comment about the cover article (“Local versus Organic”) I read this morning in the March edition of the Whatcom Watch.

In the sixth paragraph the quote is: “Purchasing local produce reduces the distance food travels, cutting down on CO2 emissions ...” and on page eight in the last paragraph of the article the quote is “Locally grown foods reduce transportation costs both economically and environmentally ...”

I am currently creating a radio program that analyzes the economic arguments of Sustainable Connections “Buy Local” campaign, and from my research the above quotes are misleading because they oversimplify the subject of transportation costs. The cost of transportation (monetarily and to the environment) does not just involve the miles traveled by the product. The cost of transportation is an equation involving: fuel type, vehicle fuel efficiency, miles traveled and the size of the shipment.

Buying local usually reduces the miles traveled and reduces the size of the shipment. By reducing the size of the shipment you are decreasing your returns from the concept of “economies of scale.”

Economies of scale says that the larger the operation is the more efficient it is, but only up to a certain point because the law of diminishing returns also applies. Depending on the nonlocal product that is being replaced by a local product and the way in which the local product was transported you can actually increase the cost of transportation and the cost to the environment (only in regards to effects from transportation) by buying local.

Dear Watchers:

Thanks you, Bob Keller, for your excellent March book review of “Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do” by Tom Vanderbilt. 

One of the paradoxes listed was: “Children walking to school are safer than those riding in cars!” And yet many parents insist on driving their kids to school with “safety” as the primary reason. 

We all witness the traffic and dangerous roadways around schools in the morning as so many parents in our community choose to drive their children.

A recent New York Times article stated:

• The number of children who are driven to school over all is rising in the U.S. and Europe making up a sizable chunk of transportation’s contribution to greenhouse-gas emissions.

• Worse still, said Professor Mackett at the Center for Transport Studies at University College in London, there is growing evidence that children whose parents drive a lot will become car-dependent adults.

• Kids walking/biking and taking the bus to school is a way to fight obesity, traffic and global warming all at once!

Parents make choices. I commend those who encourage their children to be independent travelers. Children learn from the choices we make. Teach your child to value community, physical activity and the environment by choosing to walk/bike or take the bus to school.

Dear Watchers:

The following is a letter, which was presented to Bellingham’s Mayor and City Council on March 23, 2009.

Dear Bellingham Mayor, Councilmembers and citizens,

Swiftly approaching as we are gathered here tonight, in about six hours at 0004 Alaska Daylight Time or 0104 Bellingham time, will be the 20th anniversary of the tragic grounding of the crude oil tanker, M/V Exxon Valdez which spewed immense amounts of death and destruction along with at least 11 million gallons of North Slope crude oil into the waters of Alaska. My personal prayer at that coming moment early tomorrow morning will be for healing for the living and Godspeed for the dead.

That spill happened during the very same time frame as my, then, young family was moving into Bellingham from Whatcom County. We moved into the Lake Whatcom area of Bellingham where we’ve remained as winter residents ever since. During all these years Lake Whatcom water quality has been declining steadily.

The Bellingham City Council has made the reversal of that decline their (your) Number One Goal, pledging to bring the lake back to the level of (degraded) health it enjoyed in 1992 by 2018 with an emphasis on decreasing the amount of phosphorous entering the lake.

Witness, as I have on many occasions over the 20 years I’ve lived in Silver Beach with increasing frequency the past three winters, Bloedel Donovan Park. Bloedel Donovan Park is, as you know, a large city swimming and recreation park on the north end of Lake Whatcom. Thousands of swimmers, boaters, picnickers, dogs and assorted other users, including young children using the playground equipment, frequent that park on a year-round basis.

It’s been my pronounced suspicion that herbicides were being used at Bloedel due to the unhealed mud, the monoculture of the sparse lawn area and other indicative signs of herbicide use. Sadly, I was correct.

I’m hoping the following will not be a revelatory statement. Nature loves to heal things whether those things are hearts or drinking water sources … but that healing can be blocked by chemicals.

Bloedel is currently an “herbicided” mess. It’s an open sore releasing phosphorous and who knows what else directly into our drinking water source due to an entirely misguided policy and practice of employing herbicides to achieve an antiquated weed-free ambience. Going to Bloedel has been, for me, much like being invited into a room or home where people are smoking inside with children in the home. Shocking and dismaying, though that really hasn’t happened to me in years.

My hope is that 1) You will personally visit Bloedel Donovan Park and 2) Bellingham would not use herbicides ever again at Bloedel in addition to allowing the grass to grow longer. Lake friendly turf, which holds up under traffic and seals the ground, cannot and need not be golf-green height. Let’s help nature heal Bloedel and our drinking water source instead of hindering, with chemicals, the healing process of the same.

Dear Watchers:

Read your cover story about Earth Day by grandma Robyn du Pré and since I attended a ceremony in Keene, N.H., on the first Earth Day ‘bout 40 years ago, thought I’d write especially having just attended a David Suzuki lecture at the packed Mt. Baker Theater a few days ago.

I liked Robyn’s suggestions, particularly her insight into our culture built up around the automobile and how driving Hybrids isn’t the answer. Her constant reference to choice reminded me of David speaking often of opportunity; both show how we do not have to play the victim/oppressor game anymore.

What some call license is very much what I most like about living in this country. Although I sold my TV/ VCRs years ago, I fondly recall watching “The Walton’s” and Little House on the Prairie,” not “Dallas” and “Baywatch” — no wonder so many think us crass with shows like this playing ‘round the world.

I also liked Robyn’s focus on lawns and wonder if parks a good place for both lawn and demonstration gardens (hopefully, “Green Burial” sites, too). Her suggestions go a long way to us being an example of frugality that the world so desperately needs; I think it wonderful to show how happiness does not depend upon using up far more than our fair share of resources.