I wrote on this blog back in March about the success of plastic and paper bag elimination in Ireland. The government there made it a priority to reduce the use of these bags and worked with business to make it happen. Here’s my blog post on the subject.

The campaign was incredibly successful even though it meant adding a tax penalty to both shoppers and grocery store owners to make it work. It has now become as socially unacceptable to be seen using plastic grocery bags in Ireland as it would be to be caught smoking in a maternity ward. It is not hard to switch peoples social behaviour when it is seen to be for a social good. It was made clear to the Irish that the amount of energy that went into manufacturing plastic bags, that were all destined to end up in landfills anyway, was not sustainable. Paper bags were not the answer either as they are just as wasteful of natural resources as their plastic counterpart. reusable shopping bags were the answer and the Irish bought that argument.

The Irish now pack reusable bags in their cars and offices and carry them with them on buses when they go shopping. It’s simple and effective and it is a small step toward energy independence. Portland can do it.

The debate over global warming may well continue for many years. Whatever the consequences of our spewing pollutants into the atmosphere day by day one thing seems certain - sources of fresh, potable water are becoming scarce. In the western states of the USA rivers are running dry, reservoir levels are shrinking and wildfires, sparked by heat-burdened, tinder-dry woodlands are burning by the dozen and it’s only June.

The states of the USA will have to learn to share; asking people to use less water will not work - look at the oil situation and American’s unwillingness to cut back on driving. Beyond our borders, countries that do not have a plentiful and easily accessible source of water will soon look to their neighbors or nearby countries that have a plentiful supply of what is becoming known as ‘blue gold.’ There will be envy.

T. Boone Pickens

When an oil man becomes a water baron we should all take note. In an article in Business Week Susan Berfield tells us - “If water is the new oil, T. Boone Pickens is a modern-day John D. Rockefeller. Pickens owns more water than any other individual in the U.S. and is looking to control even more. He hopes to sell the water he already has, some 65 billion gallons a year, to Dallas, transporting it over 250 miles, 11 counties, and about 650 tracts of private property.” He makes no bones about his ambition to sell water - “There are people who will buy the water when they need it. And the people who have the water want to sell it. That’s the blood, guts, and feathers of the thing,” Pickens says.

Meanwhile Americans spent nearly $11 billion on bottled water in 2006, when we could have guzzled tap water at up to about one ten-thousandth the cost. That fact comes from a book by Elizabeth Royte called Bottlemania - How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It. She also tells the tale of how the residents of Fryeburg, Me, are trying to stop Nestlé’s Poland Spring from sucking 168 million gallons of water a year from its pristine aquifer. All of which goes into plastic bottles.

Something has to change as, just like oil, there soon will not be enough to water to go around. And those eight glasses a day that some “experts” say we should drink? Not true. As more clearheaded experts point out, drink when you’re thirsty. Soon you may not have that choice.

Related Post: Fiji Water: A green product?

Let’s give Radiohead credit for trying. As they point out on their blog, for a modern rock band touring is highly inefficient - 125,000lb / 55,000kg of Sound, Lighting, Video, Band Gear, Office and Catering equipment needs to be moved between every show. They have looked into alternative methods of transportation such as rail but that didn’t work out. They have managed to find a way for their truck drivers to cool their cabs while they sleep without running their diesel engines all night which helps. What they seem to have overlooked is the geographical position of where their shows are taking place.

An article in Billboard points this out - Adding fuel to the fire is Radiohead’s self-stated intention of making its summer tour as environmentally friendly as possible. According to one fan post, “One-third of the concert-goers that night were driving around in circles, burning fossil fuels all the while. This is your save the Earth tour … and yet you play in the middle of nowhere with no public transportation leading there. You owe us!”

And from another, “If you gave even one tiny llama turd about environmental impact, you would never have scheduled a show at a venue 40 miles away from downtown D.C., nowhere near public transportation of any kind.”

Here in the Northwest the band is skipping Portland and Seattle to play the White River Amphitheatre which is located in Auburn, Washington, on the Muckleshoot Indian Reservation 15 miles northeast of Tacoma and 35 miles southeast of Seattle. So for Portlanders or folks from say Idaho, Montana and even Washington, it means jumping in the car and driving for hours not to mention that gas is now $4 a gallon….time for a rethink I reckon.