Michelle Obama poses for a photo at the White House garden harvest. (via Huffington Post)

Here are some new developments in stories you may have read about previously here at Earth to Philly - each one not worth a standalone post of its own, perhaps, but certainly worth keeping track of.

You'll recall that when the idea of a White House garden was proposed, at first jokingly it seemed, Earth to Philly was one of the biggest cheerleaders. Well, the garden was planted and worked throughout the summer and now has been harvested with the help of local students. As the Huffington Post reported, Michelle Obama "asked the students how much they thought it cost to plant the garden. They guessed $300, $800, $1000 and $6000 as Michelle acted as auctioneer. She then revealed the answer: 'Over 740 pounds of food have come out of this little piece of land..... It [cost] about $180.'" Wow, that's some math we can all get behind!

More recently, we told you about a conference on cohousing, a system where neighbors plan their own neighborhoods around ideals of sustainability and walkability. That latter quality is now being quantified in an interactive tool from Philly's own Avencia. Their Walkshed scores neighborhoods based on your priorities for how close different amenities are - and closeness is in terms of actual walking distance, rather than "as the crow flies." Your walkability score is "based on the actual walking distance to each amenity, accounting for street connectivity and barriers such as highways and rivers."

The site explains how the score is weighted by personal preference:

Walkability means different things to different people. The empty nesters in Center City may enjoy a wide variety of restaurants. Families in Mount Airy might prefer easy access to Fairmount Park. Young professionals in Manayunk may like the nightlife of Main Street. All of these people love and value walkability, but they all have different preferences that shape it.

Using Avencia’s DecisionTree calculation engine, Walkshed is able to dynamically account for each person’s preferences by giving relative weights to each factor before combining the data.

And even more recently, we tipped you to a new report from the Worldwatch Institute stating that the greenhouse-gas contribution of livestock had been dramatically undercounted. A separate study a couple days ago by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studieshas lent credence to that claim in its finding that methane, famously produced by one end of a cow, has been underestimated in the proportion of global warming it causes.

In the journal Science, a team led by Drew Shindell of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York finds that chemical interactions between greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide cause more global warming than previously estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other efforts.

"The total amount of warming doesn't change, just the balance of gasses behind it," Shindell says.
Methane played a bigger role than expected, suggesting that climate treaties such as the 1997 Kyoto Protocol need to consider it more carefully, the study says.

Animal agriculture is, of course, not the only anthropogenic source of methane, but it's a big one, and given its many other envioronmental and social liabilities (including yet another mysteriously late beef recall for E.Coli that's now killing people) it's something we might "consider more carefully" in general.

Image from the Worldwatch report "Livestock and Climate Change."

When the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization released its blockbuster report Livestock's Long Shadow in November of 2006, the authors cautioned that in some cases they were using more conservative figures than probably necessary to calculate animal agriculture's contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. Even so they generated the notable stat, which we've quoted here, that animals raised for food generate more greenhouse gases than all of human transportation, i.e. 18% of total emissions versus 14% for trains, planes and automobiles.

Yesterday the Worldwatch Institute released the findings of Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang, who scoured the 2006 FAO report to identify and quantify the undercounted factors and areas, and whose report puts it bluntly: Livestock now accounts for at least 51% of greenhouse gas emissions. The raising of animals for food is a bigger threat to the planet than every other factor put together. This is huge.

At the opening of their article (from the November/December issue of World Watch), the authors explain that

[T]he life cycle and supply chain of domesticated animals raised for food have been vastly underestimated as a source of GHGs, and in fact account for at least half of all human-caused GHGs. If this argument is right, it implies that replacing livestock products with better alternatives would be the best strategy for reversing climate change. In fact, this approach would have far more rapid effects on GHG emissions and their atmospheric concentrations—and thus on the rate the climate is warming—than actions to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.

Later, they go into more detail on why the animal-agriculture sector is not just a bigger player, but an easier one to change quickly:

[R]enewable-energy infrastructure has both long and complex product-development cycles and capital-intensive requirements. Converting vehicle fleets and power plants is forecast to cost trillions of dollars, and to require political will and consensus that do not appear close at hand. Even if money and politics were up to the task, such solutions are expected to take more than a decade to implement fully, by which time the tipping point may long since have been passed for irreversible climate disruption.

Goodland and Anhang all but declare that there should be a shift of focus at the upcoming Copenhagen talks

Action to replace livestock products not only can achieve quick reductions in atmospheric GHGs, but can also reverse the ongoing world food and water crises. Were the recommendations described below followed, at least a 25-percent reduction in livestock products worldwide could be achieved between now and 2017, the end of the commitment period to be discussed at the United Nations’ climate conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. This would yield at minimum a 12.5-percent reduction in global anthropogenic GHGs emissions,which by itself would be almost asmuch reduction as is generally expected to be negotiated in Copenhagen

And in a supplemental FAQ they address the wishful thinking that maybe we can all just eliminate beef and everything will be fine...

There is little variability between types of livestock when it comes to livestock respiration, land used to grow feed, and most of the other factors discussed in this article, which are responsible for most of the GHGs attributable to livestock products generally.  The main factors involving significant variability are enteric fermentation, grazing, and amount of feed required to produce beef and dairy products.  However, the difference that these factors make in total GHGs attributable to beef and dairy products vs. other livestock products is relatively insignificant.  Therefore, eating chicken instead of beef (for example) would not result in any appreciable slowing of climate change.

With this newly-crunched data, the authors point out that it's now clear that

the dramatic expansion of the livestock sector in recent decades may imperil humanity, and that there may be no way to manage the climate risk of either the food industry or the world at large other than by replacing livestock products with better alternatives. 

»  More Worldwatch bombshell: #1 threat to planet: Meat

Do you have to be eco-friendly even on Halloween?

I was reading author Jodi Helmer's ideas for having a green Halloween (in her book The Green Year: 365 Small Things You Can Do to Make a Big Difference) and was a bit put off by some of her suggestions.

For instance, Helmer's suggestion about giving organic apple to trick-or-treaters seems plain wrong. Didn't giving apples fall out of favor after all the scares about razor blades and other sharp objects? Even if these turned out to be urban legends, come on - you don't want yours to be known as the "neighborhood apple house," do you?

I much prefer her suggestion about buying treats in bulk to minimize the waste you get from packaging. But even so, you've still got to make sure the candy's individually wrapped.

Heimer, whose Web site is www.green-year.com, also suggests skipping the costumes at the mall and making your own, which is a good idea - provided you have the time, energy and creativity to come up with one.

She suggests pulling out your wedding dress and going as the Bride of Frankenstein. Right. That's not happening. But I can think of some other homemade costumes I might try.

What are your ideas about having a green Halloween?

A Veggie Lean sandwich (pita not pictured) from the Vegedelphia Web site.

If you've ever idly considered paying a visit to the first restaurant in Philadelphia to earn a Green certification from the Green Restaurant Association - and really, who hasn't? - today might be a good day to go ahead and do it. That's because the eatery in question, the Pita Pit at 1601 Sansom Street, will be giving away free pita sandwiches from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m.

Yeah, that's right, free. While you're mulling that over, the Green Restaurant Association is a national non-profit that "provides a convenient and cost-effective way for restaurants, manufacturers, distributors and consumers to become more environmentally responsible." You can read about their standards for assessing a restaurant's "green" quotient here.

Philly Pita Pit owner Adam Green recounts that he and his business partner were already looking into LEED certification when they learned about the GRA. "They do a full analysis of the store," he explained. "They gave us three pro-active steps to take." 

Among the changes Pita Pit made was switching to high-efficiency lighting, replacing standard plasticware with  biodegradable greenware and using recycleable napkins. But the GRA requires certificate-holders to continue their green efforts year after year, rather than sitting back on their laurels. "So this year we're looking into starting composting, we're adding high-efficiency hand-driers and greening all our paper products."

Well, sure, that's laudable, and likely reason enough to check the place out sometime... but what was this about the free pita sandwiches? 

"Yeah, they're doing a promotion to get people to taste the chicken veggie steak," Green says, referring to Vegedelphia Foods, a local (ya think?) company that produces Veggie Lean, a wheat-based meat substitute that you may have encountered - along with their crab-free crabcakes - down at CB Park. "They're gonna be here live from two to six, getting testimonials" from people who try the product, in a bid "to see if they can franchise it, you know, get it in all the [Pita Pit] stores nationally."

This would be a coup for the wheat-meat company, as Green said there are around 200 Pita Pits nationwide, "about 195 open already" and a handful more in the process of starting up. On a related note, Green mentioned that the Pita Pit in State College, which he also runs, will be doing a similar promotion on Thursday, "in case anybody happens to be out there at Penn State."

To get your free pita sandwich you will need to register and fill out a brief questionnaire, which you can do at the door or at this online link in advance. "We're trying to get a sense of how many vegetarians are out there," Green said. "We've already had 400 people register."

Even if you're not veg but want to support the option of a meatless steak sandwich now and then - or if you want to learn more about that Green Restaurant certification - it could be worth a trip to 16th and Sansom today.

Here it is World Vegetarian Day, and the Daily News is celebrating in typically contrarian fashion, singing the praises of a sausage factory and explaining how to get your kids to eat things like pork, octopus, bear meat and lasagna - you know, the things kids really need to be eating and don't get enough of.

More seriously, all health authorities agree that what American kids, and adults as well, need to be eating more of is fresh fruits and vegetables. A new CDC report found our national average is under 10% of teens getting the recommended servings daily (we are meeting our daily recommendation for lasagna, however).According to this list, Pennsylvania is on the high end of the curve, topping 15% of teens adequately nourished.

This isn't all that surprising, as a report a few years back by the General Accounting Office found that the USDA spent less than 5 percent of its food-promotion budget on fruits and vegetables, despite these foods comprising 33 percent of the Food Guide Pyramid - which the GAO also suggested be updated "to better communicate the need for a variety of produce, especially deeply colored fruits and vegetables, to fight chronic diseases." Funding of meat and dairy promotion, meanwhile, was plentiful.

Today, though, saw a small step in a very positive direction for government nutrition programs, as the WIC (Women, Infants and Children) program, which provides food vouchers to those who need extra help getting good food, has been significantly revised for the first time since its inception in the 1970s. For too long a dumping ground for commodity foods the government's trying to get rid of (in order to keep prices stable), the WIC program will now for the first time fund fresh fruits and vegetables.

This is a welcome move, even if it doesn't encourage anyone to go vegetarian, because it means millions of women and children will have a much better chance at meeting real nutrition needs. But given this auspicious occasion, it's worth pointing out (as some bloggers have) that there are clear, unassailable reasons to reduce or eliminate meat (and dairy) - especially if you're trying to live sustainably.

The reasons are clear enough that the Baltimore School District just announced it will go meatless once a week as part of the "Meatless Mondays" program, which "aims to get Americans to cut out steaks and pork chops on one day a week as a way of trimming the greenhouse gas emissions produced by the livestock industry and as a way of supporting locally grown foods."

According to this report from 6abc.com in Baltimore, the schools' staff "have been working with local farmers to provide fresh produce, and with its distributors to find local suppliers. the City Schools also introduced a teaching farm, Great Kids Farm, and is developing the resources to establish a garden at each of its more than 200 schools."

In addition to giving kids a better shot at good health from nurtitious food choices, this citywide move seems like a pretty significant step on the way to, dare I say it, "Greenest City in America." Too bad Philadelphia hasn't taken it... yet.

Here are a couple quick updates on two recent Earth to Philly posts: 

1) If you remember last Tuesday's note from Taiwan by blogger Nikka Landau about initiatives there to fight climate change by encouraging vegetarianism, you can get a more in-depth look at that scene via her latest post on the topic, Vegetarian Buffets, which may be a little short on analysis but makes up for it with a load of great photos of the food and the venues involved in two of these buffets. Landau notes that the restaurant at the first has a place for you to clean up and dispose of your waste in appropriate containers. "Can you think of one restaurant in the US that asks you to clean up after yourself and allows you to dispose of your waste responsibly?" she asks. Anyone? Anyone?

2) And as you'll recall from our post last Thursday, Friday, Sept. 18 was Park(ing) Day in Philadelphia. Our own Jon Snyder covered the event by hanging out at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society's space and jawing with local coordinator Pamela Zimmerman to get the lowdown as well as some cool visuals that highlight the odd juxtaposition inherent in the Park(ing) Day concept...

Still from a video on Taiwan's efforts to fight climate change with vegetarianism.

Earth to Philly received this email from Nikka Landau, who is chronicling her year teaching in Taiwan in a lively blog that discusses music snakes and food, among other topics. Turns out the Taiwanese government is prodding the citizenry to go vegetarian as a way to fight climate change. Who knew? In her email Nikka says:

I'm a Philly native who has always leaned towards vegetarianism in thought, and cheesesteaks in action. Vegetarian spots like Govinda's (on Broad and South), which has relatively cheap, very delicious, and to-go vegetarian food made having my split interests much easier. I moved to Taiwan at the end of the summer and thought I would share what life as a vegetarian here is like....

Here's the specific blog post: Vegetarian Movement in Taiwan: Helping the Environment

And the main blog link: Turning Taiwanese

Thanks, Nikka. Hope you will keep us informed on these trends as a special Earth to Philly Taiwan correspondent!

How much do you love the Earth? If you talk the talk, then put your mouth where your mouth is and head out to an "art" event where you can eat the artwork.

This weekend sees the opening of Down to Earth: Artists Create Edible Landscapes, an exhibit at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education consisting of "socially engaging interventions in the landscape related to food and agriculture, creating an aesthetic and cultural link between art and farming."

These artistic extrapolations on the concept of the garden will be around throughout the fall, but duing tomorrow's event you can meet the artists and join in the overall festivities that should entertain children and grown-ups alike. The Schuylkill Center's publicity promises "an artists’ talk and tour, activities for all ages led by the artists, as well as hay rides, a composting station, a guided edible plants trail walk, and much more!"

If you don't make it out there tomorrow you have until November 23rd to check out the exhibit. You can find out more about the individual works and the Center's other exhibits at the Schuylkill Center site.