Bayview residents say that the development of luxury condos on the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard is literally making them sick.

POWER (People Organized to Win Employment Rights), a multi-racial organization of low-income families and workers, is fighting a campaign to expose the corporation responsible for the project: Lennar BVHP LLC. POWER has joined forces with a coalition of community organizations and faith-based institutions to stop the environmental racism and predatory development perpetrated by Lennar.

POWER has carried out community action campaigns for racial, economic, and gender justice in San Francisco for ten years, and this campaign is not our first in Bayview Hunters Point. A year ago, POWER organized more than 200 public housing residents to testify in front of the Board of Supervisors about the deplorable living conditions in San Francisco Housing Authority properties. We forced the Housing Authority to begin resolving problems of mold, mildew, sewage leaks and other plumbing concerns, by establishing a public housing enforcement task force through the City's Attorney's office.

Located in the southeastern part of San Francisco, Bayview Hunters Point is comprised predominantly of African Americans, with a growing population of Latino, Samoan, Chinese and Laotian working class communities. As one of the poorest neighborhoods in San Francisco, Bayview is more vulnerable to external factors that degrade health, such as poor housing conditions and environmental contamination and pollution.

Bayview Hunters Point has suffered a long history of environmental injustice. The neighborhood has been plagued with multiple brown fields and other hazards including the PG&E power plant, a sewage treatment facility, and diesel truck routes. After World War II, the U.S. Navy and other industries improperly disposed of chemicals and hazardous waste at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Until 1969, the area was the site of the military's largest facility for applied nuclear research: the top secret Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory. Even after years of decontamination, most of the Shipyard remains a federal Superfund site.

Now that the Bayview is targeted for massive redevelopment, this land is considered prime real estate. In 1999, Lennar Corporation-the biggest homebuilder in California-won a contract from the Redevelopment Agency to develop more than 500 acres of waterfront property that comprises the Hunters Point Shipyard. Lennar has already begun preparations to build luxury condos on seventy-five acres of that property known as Parcel A.

Lennar began construction more than a year ago, moving dirt that contains toxics such as lead, chromium, arsenic, and naturally occurring asbestos. Many Bayview residents contend that these activities are producing dust clouds that carry toxins into the community Asbestos, when inhaled, hardens the lungs and can lead to different types of cancer and even death. Exposure to lead and chromium are shown to produce symptoms such as headaches, nosebleeds, cancer, and asthmatic reactions1.

POWER conducted surveys with residents in the surrounding community and found that scores of low-income people are experiencing an onset of nosebleeds, headaches, rashes, difficulty breathing and other symptoms. Concerned that Lennar's construction work was provoking this community health crisis, we investigated further. Our coalition discovered that the Department of Public Health and the Bay Area Air Quality Management Distict (BAAQMD) issued more than six citations to Lennar for failing to adequately monitor levels of airborne toxins to prevent negative health effects.

Additionally, three employees of Lennar Corporation filed a whistle blower lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court on March 16, 2007, alleging that they suffered retaliation after reporting asbestos dust exposure and racial discrimination. When Plaintiffs complained to their managers about the asbestos exposure, they were told to maintain a "code of silence" and ordered not to inform the community that the asbestos monitoring equipment was faulty. Said Plaintiffs attorney, Angela Alioto, "this is environmental racism. Lennar is making a profit while polluting a minority community."

By refusing to take necessary precautions or heed residents' concerns, Lennar is violating their contract and jeopardizing the lives of hundreds of low-income families. The Department of Public Health claims that the level of airborne toxins presents no real risk. However, the worsening physical symptoms of people living in proximity to Lennar's construction site have convinced many that their health is being forfeited for corporate profit.

But families and youth in Bayview Hunters Point are getting involved to safeguard their health and the future of their community! We're connecting our fight with other organizations to win these demands and shut down developers who risk our health and safety for increased profits. Affected Bayview residents have overflowed community Town Hall meetings for months to discuss the problem and map out solutions.

The Bayview community put forward two demands:

• The City of San Francisco should test residents for exposure to dangerous toxics due to irresponsible construction practices of the Lennar BVHP LLC and it's subcontractors.

• Lennar's construction project should be halted temporarily until testing is complete and the effects of this exposure are assessed.

We organized hundreds of community members to give testimony and present our demands to the San Francisco Health Commission, the Redevelopment Commission, the Bayview Project Area Committee, and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

"One year ago, I was a 4.0 student. Last year, my grades dropped to 1.87 because I had so many absences due to asthma, headaches, and nose bleeds," said Octavio Salizar, a student at John O'Connell High School and a POWER member. "I'm an athlete and a basketball player, but lately I can hardly breathe from all the dust they are kicking up right outside my house."

POWER and our allies recently organized both the San Francisco Board of Education and the Youth Commission to unanimously pass resolutions supporting our demands. These resolutions call for the City to immediately stop construction on the Shipyard and test Hunters Point students to assess the harm caused by Lennar's toxic dust exposure. The resolutions come in response to an outcry from parents, students, and educators in the area who have been experiencing respiratory problems and other illnesses as a result of the dust exposure.

Our success demonstrates that we have the power to put the issues of low-income communities of color at the forefront of San Francisco's political agenda.

We are now increasing pressure on Mayor Gavin Newsom, the Health Commission and the Redevelopment Agency, insisting that the long-term needs of youth and families in Bayview Hunters Point-or any neighborhood in our City-come before the interests of corporate developers.

POWER is moving forward a campaign over the next year to promotesustainable economic development policies that will protect and improvethe well-being of low-income families in Bayview Hunters Point andbuild thriving neighborhoods in San Francisco.

UAS Allies: Alicia Schwartz and Aspen Branch-MooreSign up for updates on POWER's work at our website: http://www.peopleorganized.org or contact POWER's office at 415-864-8372

UAS is proud to feature this article written by POWER's Alicia Shwartz and Aspen Branch-Moore.

A feature article from Ella Baker Center for Human Rights:

Our world is getting hotter - and poor communities are the most vulnerable to its impacts. Can we heal the planet AND fight poverty at the same time? We can, and we must.

Since the Kyoto Protocol was first introduced in 1997, consciousness has exploded around the urgent need to tackle the global climate crisis. New clean energy solutions and carbon reduction policies are being implemented - and popular movements are emerging to move students, citizens, and public officials from concern to action.

However, carbon emissions continue to skyrocket. Between 1990 and 2004, the United States - arguably one of the greatest historical contributors to global warming - saw its emissions rise by at least 16%. In the same period, the World Bank notes that global carbon dioxide emissions overall have risen 19%, more than 25% behind Kyoto's goals.

Meanwhile, the polar ice caps are melting, glaciers are in retreat, droughts and wildfires are more frequent, and storms are becoming more intense, not to mention deadly. Here in the United States, the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina also revealed that the poor and people of color will be hit first and worst by the impacts of global warming - unless we take positive action to empower those in harm's way to become central to the solution.

At the Ella Baker Center, we've forged partnerships with groups serving low-income communities and green businesses that are moving away from the pollution-based economy of the past and toward a clean energy economy. In collaboration with the City of Oakland and the Apollo Alliance, we initiated the Oakland Green Jobs Corps to train low-income residents to weatherize our buildings, switch out inefficient technologies, and install the solar panels and wind farms that we'll need to power our future.

Inspired by this local success story, Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA) and Rep. John Tierney (D-CA) introduced the groundbreaking Green Jobs Act of 2007 this year, authorizing $125 million annually for "green-collar" job training. These funds would prepare more than 30,000 people a year for jobs in renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors. The Act awaits final approval as part of the broader "Energy Package" now being debated in Congress.

We can and must fight both poverty and pollution at the same time by preparing those who have been left out of previous economic booms for promising careers in the emerging green economy. The task at hand is enormous and urgent - the twin threats of climate change and oil dependence demand that we must take bold action now to move our communities away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy solutions.

We know that this will require millions of people rolling up their sleeves to literally transform the way we work, live, and play - this means that billions of dollars of new investment in our cities will be needed. This is an historic opportunity to both protect our climate AND uplift our communities, providing dignified, green opportunities for all.

For more about our work, please visit our website at www.ellabakercenter.org

UAS Ally: Aaron LehmerAaron Lehmer is the program manager for Ella Baker Center's Green-Collar Jobs Campaign, working to deliver social justice to the sustainability movement. Aaron and associate, AlliChagi-Starr will be presenting at the UAS Green Movie Night on December20.

UAS Ally, Hillary Strobel reports on good and bad energy happenings from post Katrina New Orleans.

It has been a strange winter in New Orleans thus far: much, much hotter than usual, enough to inspire the casual passer-by to become embroiled with a front-porch denizen in a fascinating time warp thinking of the last time it was this hot (as it turns out, that was "almost 30 years ago"). Suddenly, it became frigid, during the course of one day. All of these rapid mood swings cause a drain on the city's air conditioners and heaters, not to mention its citizens, who wear tee-shirts on Wednesday and scarves on Thursday (purple, gold, and green ones, ya heard)

What's a weather-wary writer to do? Think about energy, of course. It suddenly comes into focus as both a tool for the powerful and a powerful tool.

For there is a tale to be told about energy in New Orleans. It's not easily come by or at least not easily paid for. The Entergy corporation charges all of New Orleans an arm and a leg for electricity, and has come up with an ingenious solution for its money woes following Hurricane Katrina.

Entergy, filed for bankruptcy following the storm in 2005. This is not because it really was going bankrupt, but because it was attempting to pass on the costs of energy infrastructure rebuilding- to the government, to the ratepayers, to the alligators, to anyone but itself.

Entergy continued to charge people for electricity in houses that were under 10 feet of water and clearly not being lived in, and continue to charge people who do not live here anymore, and why they have raised rates to a point where something like 20% of each paycheck is going to keeping the lights on (and this is on top of the painfully high rents these days, which eats half, if not more, of a paycheck).

And now! Entergy has attached a "fuel adjustment" to their bills, right underneath a suspiciously named item: "storm reserve rider." The fuel adjustment almost tripled the cost of this writer's energy bill for the month of November, during which I was out town for three weeks. For my one week's usage in a tiny apartment with every energy saving trick I know in employment, the charge was a staggering $40, and the Fuel Adjustment and Storm Reserve Rider, which were certainly a shock, came to over $60. Imagine if I had been in town the whole month. I know where every single angry person in New Orleans is right now: at the Entergy Customer Service Center.

Make it Right: One of the 13 sustainable home designs from Brad Pitt's Make it Right project. This design by Kieran Timberlake Associates. On the other hand, our friend Brad Pitt is almost single-handedly saving the city. He's got a pretty incredible project brewing in the Lower Ninth Ward, in a neighborhood that was quite literally, completely erased by the gush of water through a levee break. Mr. Pitt has put up a considerable chunk of his own money,$5 million, and is tracking down matching funds to sponsor Make it Right (MIR), an entirely solar powered, affordable neighborhood and redevelopment project designed to get 150 families back home two and a half years after Hurricane Katrina pushed them out. To garner sponsors for MIR, he launched Project Pink, an interactive art installation fundraiser that covers 14 lower Ninth Ward city blocks in volumes of pink tent houses replete with PV panels that light thousands of solar powered candles inside and out of the tent homes, creating stunning visual symbolism.

Once the money is raised, Make it right will install a series of sustainably designed and built, solar powered homes and adjoining solar farms on properties where houses were washed away. The process: Displaced property owners fill out an application, pick the house design they like best of the 13 selections, get counseled on financial and environmental sustainability, and then get a personal hand with the process of moving back to New Orleans, into their new sustainable home, on Brad Pitt and company's dime. The cost of each house, $150,000, is absorbed by sponsors, donating the funds to get all of this happiness happening. Of the target 150 homes, 65 have been sponsored- that's 65 families, that is $9,750,000 toward more chances for the growth of this vital place, so far. Blessings. To top it all off, Brad Pitt is certainly a hottie, and everyone loves a hottie. He's done more to rebuild the Lower Ninth Ward by flashing his smile than two year's worth of FEMA bureaucrats did by shuffling paper.

So here is a mighty tool being used against people who already feel as if they are down one against the energy system: passing on the cost. To whom, you may ask? It's not being passed on to "someone else," NIMBY-style, believe me. And here is a powerful tool that is in the hands of private citizens who have resources and, thankfully, good will. Aldo Leopold talked many years ago about people using their sense of ethics in land use decisions in equal balance to financial and functional considerations. What if the whole city of New Orleans was solar powered? What if the whole thing was financed by micro-loans and people paid them back by collectively selling their solar harvest? What if energy was in the hands of the people? It's not impossible- it's already underway.

George W. Bush was quoted a few weeks after the storm, saying that the rebuilding of New Orleans would surely be at the hands of private enterprise. (Anybody living here could tell you about government non-attention to the rebuild and the pinch of a "free" market.) So which private enterprise pays for the soul of this city and the right to charge for a free resource? It can be the most positive scenario in the world; Visit http://makeitrightnola.org/ to fill your heads with a great idea and gaze upon a neighborhood full of pink-tented brighter futures. Take your energy back.

Have you ever taken a close look at your PG&E bill and wondered about the charges listed as "Public Purpose Programs" or PPP? Exactly what public purpose is the utility charging us for and how are these funds being spent?

Under the direction of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), PG&E (and all other investor-owned utilities in California) must use these funds for programs that benefit all ratepayers by reducing California's overall consumption of energy. The most cost-effective way to make this happen is through energy efficiency. The cheapest and cleanest units of energy are those never used when fuel-guzzling equipment is replaced with more efficient models, causing power plants to operate less often. PPP activities are designed to make that happen on an increasingly broader scale, with the budget for the current three-year program cycle--2006 through 2008--approaching $2 billion statewide.

An example of PPP spending that you might recognize is the rebate program offered through PG&E for the purchase of high efficiency appliances such as washing machines, air conditioners, furnaces, etc. Another example is the sudden abundance of inexpensive compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) on sale in stores throughout California. Here PPP funds were used to subsidize the cost of manufacturing and distributing CFLs, thereby enabling them to compete with inefficient incandescent bulbs in the marketplace. PPP dollars also support incentive programs designed for the energy-intensive commercial and industrial sectors, where rebates encourage investment in large projects that can have a measurable impact on reducing the electricity (and emissions) produced by power plants.

In recent years, the CPUC has directed the utilities to allocate a portion of the PPP contributions to "local government partnerships." Interested local governments can help direct PPP funds back into their communities by developing and implementing programs specifically suited for the type of utility customers prevalent in their jurisdictions.

San Francisco Energy Watch

San Francisco's Department of the Environment represents the city in a local government partnership with PG&E called "San Francisco Energy Watch." Through this program small businesses and owners of multifamily buildings in San Francisco can obtain special financial and technical assistance from PPP funds to make energy-efficient improvements to their properties. In the past, PPP funds seldom served to benefit small businesses and multifamily housing, as these sectors were harder to reach than large commercial enterprises, chain stores, and single-family track housing in California's interior. SF Energy Watch aims to change this scenario with incentives and services tailored for these San Francisco-based ratepayers.

Alena Gilchrist Performs and Energy Audit Here's how the program works. Specialists from the Department's Energy Division (or consultants working with the department) conduct free, on-site energy assessments of facilities (see photos) and then provide a detailed report with recommendations for equipment and building upgrades. The report contains an analysis on the return on investment for the owner, showing the projected cost of the installation, the deep discounts offered by the program, and the monthly savings on utility bills after completing the upgrades. If the owner decides to go ahead with the project, staff will then either arrange for a pre-approved qualified contractor to do the installation or work with the owner's preferred installer to ensure the project meets all program specifications.

SF Energy Watch incentives help cover the cost of new, efficient lighting, heating and cooling systems, computer power management tools, and refrigeration equipment. But the expert technical assistance and turnkey installation services are equally valuable to small business owners who have little time to examine all the options available on the market today. This personalized attention from a department that is committed to reducing energy use in the city helps to underscore the importance the city places on taking action. When San Francisco's ratepayers respond to SF Energy Watch they accomplish a number of positive outcomes: they help the CPUC achieve its statewide energy and carbon reduction goals, they make San Francisco a more sustainable city; and by using dollars they have contributed to the PPP fund they get to enjoy lower monthy utility bills as a direct benefit of the fund..

For more information on SF Energy Watch and to schedule an energy assessment, contact the following staff for:

--Business: Kathleen Hannon: 415-355-3717; kathleen.hannon@sfgov.org

--Multifamily: Seth Epstein: 415-355-3738; seth.Epstein@sfgov.org

Billions of gallons of clean Pacific rainwater fall on San Francisco. Most of it lands on city streets where it mixes with road waste or on rooftops before flowing into a vast 900 mile network of pipes, pumps, and treatment plants which then discharge it to the Bay and Ocean. It is now waste and its treatment is concentrated in San Francisco's most polluted neighborhood. Meanwhile we pull more water out of the already stressed Tuolumne River. With clean water ever more at a premium, a Sewer System Master plan for this virtually invisible 900-mile network pipes and pumps is central to putting San Francisco and its residents on an environmentally just and sustainable water use path.

For years, San Francisco's approach to managing sewage and stormwater has been to treat them as waste that is quickly collected, treated, then dumped. The Southeast Treatment Plant in
Bayview-Hunters Point treats 80% of the City's wastewater. Approximately ten times per year, the system is overwhelmed by too much stormwater entering the system too fast, dumping a total of more than a billion gallons of stormwater mixed with sewage into the Bay and Ocean, or flooding neighborhoods.

The city's $3.5 billion Sewage System Master Plan, now being written, plays a key part in the city's efforts to control its environmental impacts. The master-planning process began in 2002 after SWAle members and other concerned San Franciscans persuaded the city's Public Utilities Commission (PUC) that it would need real community involvement to win public support for the extensive investment needed to rebuild San Francisco's wastewater infrastructure. The current draft plan is still far from perfect, but the city is at least poised to bring its infrastructure into the 21st century.

The Sewer Master Plan currently under development by PUC staff is taking the first steps to recognize wastewater as valuable and cost effective resources for water conservation; neighborhood
beautification; and Bay and Ocean enhancement. Their proposals include:

• Rebuilding portions of the Southeast Treatment Plant

• Reducing combined sewer discharges (into San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean) by nearly half through plumbing changes and investment in "green infrastructure" projects such as vegetated swales, permeable pavement, stormwater harvesting, and green roofs

• A stormwater treatment and retention program based on watersheds that aims to retain and reuse the rain in the watershed where it falls

• Doubling the pace of the PUC's pipe repair and replacement program

• Minimizing its carbon footprint by using food digestion and improving its recovery of methane to help power the treatment system

This ambitious program is the long overdue result of years of community effort and more needs to be done. San Francisco's sustainability advocates can help fix the plan's shortcomings. These fixes include:

• An inclusive community process to find alternative sites and approaches to rebuild Bayview's southeast Treatment Plan

• Measurable goals for the green-infrastructure program

• Environmental enhancements like stream daylighting streams, wetlands restoration, and habitat creation

• A stronger commitment to water recycling

Over the next year the PUC will be holding hearings and outreach meetings to refine the plan. You can keep informed about what the PUC is doing by visiting www.sfsewers.org and getting on their announcement list. And you can also help keep it moving in the right direction by signing up for the SF SWAle (San Francisco Sustainable Water Alliance) action alert list at alex@sfswale.org.

In the process of UAS' Mapping the Ecology of the Sustainability Movement (MEM) Project, we have come across some ways groups are organizing and networking to share resources. Youth leaders and programs that are part of the Bay Area Youth Environmental Coalition (YEC) have created an on-line presence. UAS is helping the collaboration process occur.

The YEC is a group of environmentally focused organizations that was formed to better serve youth in the Bay Area by providing a place to share resources, events, and ideas, and also to provide them with information from diverse groups.

The meetings for YEC began last summer, and it soon became clear that this community needed an online presence for greater impact. This online site would provide a place to trade information, calendars, funding resources, and practices. Late fall, a YEC group established a profile on WISERearth.org as the first step to create more networking opportunities.

If you are interested, have information to share, are looking for resources that would strengthen your program, are in need of funding, or part of a youth organization, please consider signing up to be a member of the Wiser Earth YEC Group to help gather virtual traction and test the success of this site.

Below are the steps for how to join, along with the link, and examples of what you will find on the site, including a collaboration grant.

1. Join Wiser Earth and check to see if your org already exists because most do. 2. Update your profile. 3. Go to the YEC group site 4. Request to join the group and get confirmation from the YEC administrator. 5. Sign in and check it out! 6. Give feed back on what you like/dislike, and what is still needed.

Collaboration Fund: Developing Field-wide Initiatives and Partnerships

One example of what you will find on the YEC Wiser Earth group is the The Collaboration Fund, designed to support field-wide iniatives through partnerships among youth-serving organizations. They give grants for projects that result in new or expanded programs that could not be accomplished by a single organization; are innovative and creative in their approach; result in significant local or regional impact; bring together multiple sectors within the broader youth development field for a more cohesive and well-rounded approach to outdoor education; and advance the development of parks and outdoor education. These grants are not intended to be large program grants but rather they are designed to help create an opportunity for many organizations to work together on issues of common concern.

Both new and existing partnerships may apply for funding. Partner organizations with a history of collaborating must demonstrate how this project will expand their partnerships to offer a new level or type of service for young people.

Download the RFP

If you are interested in becoming involved in the process of creating an online presence for outdoor educators and related peers, contact Steve Hyagler at shyagler@stewardshipcouncil.org, or Katchina Katrina at katrina@uas.coop.

What better way to connect with your water supply than to marry it (to your garden)? Reflecting on a recent look at a water catchment barrel, it became quite clear to me that we don't need all the water pipes that pump water to our homes, but rather could quite easily take advantage of the natural cycle of water and our local watershed.

As rain drops from the sky we could harvest it on our rooftops and let if flow downward to run our showers. The flow from our showers could flush our toilets and that flow could water our plants when the rain is no longer dropping from the sky.

The image at the left, from my Grandmother's backyard in peri-urban Ukraine shows a smart and time tested example of rain water catchment. Water drops into a roof top storage tank- painted black to harness the sun's energy and to warm the stored water- which flows to a summer shower inside the shed. Ingenious and thrifty, this is just one example of how simple systems can make water work for us.

In San Francisco we might not have the luxury of rooftop rain catchment, backyard showers, or grey water systems, but there is still plenty of opportunity to become one with our water. We could start diverting gutters to catch rain water, or simply collect in outdoor barrels and direct that water into a simple drip irrigation system.

Think outside the pipes that flow water to your home and devise a rain water catchment system that boasts your own ingenuity and cleverness. Share your water catchment ideas in the comments below!

Hair Mat and Mushroom Remediation- Image: Matter of TrustWhile news has slowed about the November oil spill of 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel from the Cosco Busan into the San Francisco Bay, Lisa Gautier, head of a San Francisco non-profit called Matter of Trust, and a team in the Presidio are busy working to change the way we clean up oil spills in the future. They are doing this by making a lasagna of sorts.

While it’s definitely not any lasagna you would want to eat-- made of oil soaked hair mats and straw-- oyster mushrooms love it and turn the toxic sludge into rich compost. As the mushrooms feast, spread, and grow large, they bear no traces of the original dangerous substance, toxic bunker oil, because they are capable of breaking the hydrocarbon bonds into sugars, rendering the oil inert.

Lisa’s organization collects hair from salons and individuals to make mats, because hair is something we already have available (that we would normally throw into a landfill), that has a good natural capacity to soak up oil—just think about what your head looks like if you haven’t showered in a while! Made into mats it is used like a sponge to soak up oil, and then the mushrooms devour it all, hair and oil!

The oyster mushroom technology is being tested for its effectiveness in reducing the mess and toxicity of oil in San Francisco Presidio. Until the beginning of January, they were using used motor oil for their research. But in mid January were given 20 gallons of used bunker fuel, and Lisa described it to me on the phone as “greasy nutella”- much heavier and gunkier than the motor oil.

It sank straight to the bottom when they put some in water, which leaves you with a good picture of what the bottom of the bay might look like these days, and makes one consider the late Herring and Crab blooms this year.

Research is being conducted on a variety of substances to layer with the hair mats and mushrooms in an effort to find the cheapest most effective solution that can be shared worldwide for remediating toxic spills. Straw, grain, woodchips and organic fertilizer are among some of the tested materials being layered among the hair mats and mushrooms to create an ideal environment for the mushrooms to grow.

Matter of Trust is saving up donated funds to buy their own needle puncher—the machine used to make hair mats-- so perhaps they can team up with other organizations in the bay and create green jobs for at-risk youth. The goal is to create a system for collecting hair and making mats that would generate enough of the mats to donate them to other places in the world and get the word out about this innovative, cheap solution that uses our scraps, and the ingenuity of nature to protect us from the toxic messes we make.

“Imagine if it were a fire-drill like response,” Lisa tells me. “Imagine if the hair mats were stockpiled, the community was aware of what to do with them, and in the hours after an oil spill they were rushed to the scene of the accident so the oil could be absorbed right away, before it sank to the bottom of the bay, or drifted to the beaches, or got stuck onto birds and other creatures and washed up on the sand.”

Currently about 706 million gallons of oil end up in the oceans each year, and about half of that is from used motor oil that is improperly disposed of. Oil that is "cleaned up" from the ocean is generally dealt with by being incinerated, or basically, being burned to create more pollution, in the atmosphere instead of the oceans.

It is an encouraging thought that a viable way exists to clean up the huge messes we make, and the by-product is compost and mushrooms that are benign enough to be sautéed in butter and garlic and eaten for dinner. Find out more, see pictures and updates, and make donations at www.matteroftrust.org

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCP) is the name given to a group of products most Americans use on a daily basis, grouped together because they all contain a host of chemicals and are ubiquitous pollutants. Hair products, cosmetics, deodorants and legal drugs are just a few of the categories in this classification of hazardous substances that we use to groom ourselves and allegedly maintain health. As we ingest medicines they travel through our bodies and are excreted in the wastewater which is treated, but not for chemical compounds and synthetic hormones found in the PPCP we use. Further, medications are often not consumed and for disposal they are either landfilled, incinerated, or flushed. None of these methods is strictly environmentally sound. The chart below shows some ways PPCP pollute and the articles that follow offer some education and alternatives.

EPA's Origins and Fates of PPCPs in the Environment: Click image to download PDF

On an individual level, an immediate solution is to try not to need or use those types of products and many of us are doing so, creating our own recipes for chemical free lives and formulas for wellness. On a a larger level we are developing and seeking professionals that heal without pharmaceuticals and by finding balance and treating the root causes of problems, ultimately eliminating them. On level larger still, societally, the message is just beginning to spread that PPCP are to be used sparingly and dealt with cautiously. Until we teach mainstream modern culture how to stop using the chemicals they cherish and see as essential to their lives, we must deal with the eco-realities of their existence. Safe disposal and outreach are the beginning.

The Teleosis Institute's current edition of their journal Symbiosis gives depth to this topic and covers a full spectrum of solutions to PPCP pollution, including behavior change. Read up and spread the word.

Green Pharmacy: Pharmaceutical Pollution Prevention Vol 4, No 2

Full PDF Version 3.7MB

Letter from the Director Health in the News: Pharmaceutical Pollution Green Pharmacy: Preventing Pharmaceutical Pollution Pharmaceutical Pollution: Ecology and Toxicology Considerations Christian Daughton and the Ecology of PPCPs: An Integral Vision Water Quality: Key to Many Doors in the 21st Century, by Christian Daughton, PhD The 4 T’s: Assessing Exposure to Multiple Chemicals Green Pharmacy: Preventing Pollution with Sustainable Medicine Facts on Pharmaceuticals and the Environment Ecological Economics and the Drug Life Cycle: The True Cost of Drugs Pollution Prevention Partner: PharmEcology, LLC Unused and Expired Medicines: A National Pandemic Pollution Prevention Partner: Physicians for Social Responsibility Spotlight on Green Pharmacy: Stockholm County Council Website Review: Environmental Protection Agency: Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCPs) as Environmental Pollutants Book Review: Macroshift: Navigating the Transformation to a Sustainable World Support Green Pharmacy!!

It is easy to find wellness in the work of Berkeley's own buddhist scholar and environmental activist, Joanna Macy. Her writing and lectures teach us to cope with the realities of our time and inspire us to work toward a livable future. The following exercise is from her Practices for Activists :

Image: Portrait by Robert Shetterly from his series "Americans Who Tell the Truth"

BREATHING THROUGH
by Joanna Macy

Basic to most spiritual traditions, as well as to the systems view of the world, is the recognition that we are not separate, isolated entities, but integral and organic parts of the vast web of life. As such, we are like neurons in a neural net, through which flow currents of awareness of what is happening to us, as a species and as a planet. In that context, the pain we feel for our world is a living testimony to our interconnectedness with it. If we deny this pain, we become like blocked and atrophied neurons, deprived of life's flow and weakening the larger body in which we take being. But if we let it move through us, we affirm our belonging; our collective awareness increases. We can open to the pain of the world in confidence that it can neither shatter nor isolate us, for we are not objects that can break. We are resilient patterns within a vaster web of knowing.

Because we have been conditioned to view ourselves as separate, competitive and thus fragile entities, it takes practice to relearn this kind of resilience. A good way to begin is by practicing simple openness, as in the exercise of "breathing through," adapted from an ancient Buddhist meditation for the development of compassion.

Closing your eyes, focus attention on your breathing. Don't try to breathe any special way, slow or long. Just watch the breathing as it happens in and out. Note the accompanying sensations at the nostrils or upper lip, in the chest or abdomen. Stay passive and alert, like a cat by a mouse hole......

As you watch the breath, you note that it happens by itself; without your will, without your deciding each time to inhale or exhale...It's as though you're being breathed--being breathed by life...Just as everyone in this room, in this city, in this planet now, is being breathed, sustained in a vast, breathing web of life......

Now visualize your breath as a stream or ribbon of air passing through you. See it flow up through your nose, down through your windpipe and into your lungs. Now from your lungs take it through your heart. Picture it flowing through your heart and out through an opening there to recon-nect with the larger web of life. Let the breath-stream, as it passes through you, appear as one loop within that vast web, connecting you with it......

Now open your awareness to the suffering that is present in the world. Drop for now all defenses and open to your knowledge of that suffering. Let it come as concretely as you can...concrete images of your fellow beings in pain and need, in fear and isolation, in prisons, hospitals, tenements, hunger camps...no need to strain for these images, they are present to you by virtue of our interexistence. Relax and just let them surface...the vast and countless hardships of our fellow humans, and of our animal brothers and sisters as well, as they swim the seas and fly the air of this ailing planet...Now breathe in the pain like dark granules on the stream of air; up through your nose, down through your trachea, lungs and heart, and out again into the world net...You are asked to do nothing for now, but let it pass through your heart......Be sure that stream flows through and out again; don't hang on to the pain...surrender it for now to the healing resources of life's vast web......

With Shantideva, the Buddhist saint, we can say, "Let all sorrows ripen in me." We help them ripen by passing them through our hearts...making good rich compost out of all that grief...so we can learn from it, enhancing our larger, collective knowing......

If no images or feelings arise and there is only blankness, grey and numb, breathe that through. The numbness itself is a very real part of our world...

And if what surfaces for you is not the pain of other beings so much as your own personal suffering, breathe that through, too. Your own anguish is an integral part of the grief of our world, and arises with it......

Should you feel an ache in the chest, a pressure in the rib cage, as if the heart would break, that is all right. Your heart is not an object that can break...But if it were, they say the heart that breaks open can hold the whole universe. Your heart is that large. Trust it. Keep breathing......

This guided meditation serves to introduce the process of breathing through, which, once familiar, becomes useful in daily life in the many situations that confront us with painful information. By breathing through the bad news, rather than bracing ourselves against it, we can let it strengthen our sense of belonging in the larger web of being. It helps us remain alert and open, whether reading the newspaper, receiving criticism, or simply being present to a person who suffers.

For activists working for peace and justice, and those dealing most directly with the griefs of our time, the practice helps prevent burnout. Reminding us of the collective nature of both our prob-lems and our power, it offers a healing measure of humility. It can save us from self-righteousness. For when we can take in our world's pain, accepting it as the price of our caring, we let it inform our acts without needing to inflict it as a punishment on others who are, at the present moment, less involved.