What's in that gulp of ocean water you just swallowed? This, unfortunately.

One of the things I am most proud of is our household ban on plastic. We don’t use plastic if we can help it. I take reusable bags on shopping trips to the supermarket and the mall, and we recycle any plastic that does come into our home. Every bread bag, every piece of packaging, every toilet paper or paper towel wrapping, every piece of bubblewrap, every dry cleaning bag, shrink wrap — it all goes into a big bag that is then recycled at our local Lowe’s. (You can read more about it here.) It really adds up. I started this family campaign after reading about The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. (Again, you can read more about that here.) To date, I’ve probably kept thousands of pieces of plastic out of landfills.

People think I am crazy. As they point out, this way of life does take some work and commitment. Still, it’s worth it to me. It really hurts when I think about how — by using plastic — we are polluting our oceans and inadvertently polluting our food supply.

I started this family ban a few years ago, but haven’t really heard a lot about the topic lately. Am I making a difference, I always wonder? Are we, as a society, making a dent in the problem? This week, I got answers to these questions when I garnered some time with an executive from Surfrider Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of oceans, beaches, and the surf. Below, Bill Hickman, Surfrider Foundation’s Rise Above Plastics Coordinator, explains how why our oceans are still at risk, and why one person’s efforts really do matter.

KB: Have we seen a decline in the amount of plastic being found in our waterways?

Hickman: Some places yes and some places no. Cities that have passed plastic reduction ordinances such as plastic bag or expanded polystyrene foam bans are starting to see litter reductions. Some cities have done a good job with increased street sweeping, [adding] catch basins for storm drains, and other efforts but overall we are not seeing a decline in plastic pollution reaching the ocean.

KB: What’s are some of the biggest risks of plastic waterway pollution?

Hickman: Plastic does not biodegrade in our lifetimes, it typically photodegrades [meaning it breaks up into tiny pieces but never decomposes into organic matter] into smaller pieces that can easily be confused for food by marine life. Those plastic pieces are good at adsorbing persistent organic pollutants that may be in the water such as PCBs [which act as hormone disruptors and carcinogens] and DDT [a dangerous pesticide], which over time could travel up the food chain and possibly pose a threat to people who eat fish.

KB: Where is the plastic originating from?

Hickman: Not all plastic is bad, but disposable plastics can be devastating. After World War II the United States changed from a society that reused everything possible to one that promoted the convenience of throwaway living and benefits of “no more dishes” without realizing the consequences of these decisions as population soared. Now plastic encases everything from electronics to razors to fruit and veggies that already have nature’s packaging — its skin! Plastic is typically derived from petroleum or natural gas and starts out as pellets or ‘nurdles’ at production facilities that are shipped to plastics manufactures via rail and truck. Those pellets are typically heated then expanded or extruded into products such as plastic bags, bottles, toys, foam foodware, and more.

KB: What can we do to reduce the amount of plastic going into the water?

Hickman: The best way to help prevent plastic pollution is through source reductions such as plastic bag and expanded foam bans along with more states adopting ‘bottle bills’ [requiring a bottle deposit] which help to increase recycling rates.

KB: Can one person really make a difference?

Hickman: Absolutely. Every action helps to make a difference, and on a personal level it’s great to follow the four R’s: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle plastic! Get involved with your local Surfrider Chapter and participate in their beach cleanups and their Rise Above Plastics efforts.

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The samples that they look at are saturated with tiny plastic particles. The conditions are actually worse that they expected, they said. I sat there watching and felt terrible. And helpless. And angry. At the end of my work day I went downstairs. It seemed like everything I touched was made of plastic. I cooked dinner. There was plastic wrap on my air-chilled chicken. The frozen broccoli I made came in a plastic bag. The sweet potatoes came in a plastic mesh bag. I put my kids to sleep. Their toothpaste was in a plastic tube. The toilet paper was wrapped in plastic. The light switch on the wall was plastic, too. I went downstairs and got ready to leave to meet friends for coffee. My ATM card is plastic. Most of the components in my car are, too. At the diner even the little chocolate mints by the front door were wrapped in, you guessed it, plastic.

I’m still so upset about what I saw on the video and what I see in my own environment, I don’t know what to write. Which is why this blog is late today. I feel like I should do something to change what’s going on. I’ll be exploring this in future blogs. For now, I’m logging out to make dinner. I’ve got a late conference call with an exec on the West Coast, and I hate the feeling of being at my desk from 9 to 9. Taking my fingers away from my plastic mouse and keyboard, removing my plastic headset, and turning off my plastic monitor. And realizing, after looking around my office, that it’s no wonder that we’re in such dire straights.

Have you seen the Vice video? How did you feel after watching it? Will you be making any changes in your life? I’d like to know I’m not alone…

Serious work, to be sure, but the world leaders meeting in Copenhagen need to come to an agreement.

You may have missed it with all the Tiger Woods news, but this month, leaders of more than 115 countries are meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark to discuss climate change. If you didn’t miss it, you may be wondering why you should care. If you’re like most people, the details of the meeting are a little hazy. For example: Why are some of the top climate change proponents calling for the efforts to fail? What are the main sticking points? What will an agreement mean for you? I don’t have all the answers, but since you asked, I’ll try and explain what I know.

Q: People keep talking about how this agreement will be based, in part, on the Kyoto protocol. What the heck is the Kyoto protocol?

A: It’s an international agreement adopted in Japan 12 years ago, which went live in 2005. It set specific targets for 37 of the largest industrial countries for reducing greenhouse gas emissions — and global warming — over a five year period between 2008 and 2012. Today, the United States is one of the only large countries that has not signed onto the agreement, which you can read here.

Q: What’s going on in Copenhagen?

A: Officially, it’s called the United Nations Climate Change Conference. It’s a two-week conference taking place from December 7 to the 18th. Attendees are going to try and hammer out a plan to reduce emissions and hopefully stop global warming in its tracks. There is a Web site where you can check out the conference program, the different speeches, and even sit in on some of the actual proceedings via webcast.

Q: Why is this such a big deal now?

A: I’ll let wording from an official fact sheet explain: “According to the IEA, global energy demand will grow 55% by 2030. In the period up to 2030, the energy supply infrastructure worldwide will require a total investment of USD 26 trillion, with about half of that in developing countries. If the world does not manage to green these investments by directing them into climate-friendly technologies, emissions will go up by 50% by 2050, instead of down by 50%, as science requires. Copenhagen needs to put in place the framework that will enable the world to make the transition to climate-resilient, green global growth. To achieve this, governments in Copenhagen need to sign up to a new level of cooperation, followed by immediate actions in 2010.” Bottom line: Life as we know it may be screwed unless we can come to some sort of agreement and start making meaningful changes in the way we live and work.

Q: What are the goals for this meeting?

A: There are four main goals: Putting ambitious emission reduction targets in place — especially for developed countries, helping developing countries mitigate their emissions without hurting them financially, increasing financial and technological support for adaption and mitigation of climate change fixes, and creating a strong institutional framework — with governance — to help with fund and resource allocation.

Q: So how’s it going?

A: In a word: Eh. Carbon reduction is expensive and difficult. Smaller, undeveloped countries argue that they need to pollute so they can improve the way their people live. Large countries, who make the most pollution, have the most to lose financially by adhering to a new, stricter agreement. The U.S. and China in particular are butting heads. China wants a plan that would exclude trade sanctions. From Bloomberg.com: “A proposed U.S. law would impose tariffs by 2020 on imports of certain goods from nations such as China seen as not doing enough to cut emissions.” Meanwhile, seven African nations recently called a press conference to say that they thought the “rich” countries were trying to kill the Kyoto protocol. And India came out against Australia calling it “the ayatollah” of Copenhagen because of its “one-track” approach, which would bind all countries by the same treaty. (Sounds a bit like a grade school playground, no?)

Q: Is this meeting going to do anything or is it just a waste of time?

A: It remains to be seen, but at the very least it’s got many of us (you’re reading this, right?) thinking about global warming. As the incoming COP15 president, Connie Hedegaard says: “If the whole world comes to Copenhagen and leaves without making the needed political agreement, then I think it’s a failure that is not just about climate. Then it’s the whole global democratic system not being able to deliver results in one of the defining challenges of our century. And that is and should not be a possibility. It’s not an option.”

Have you been following the Copenhagen coverage? What’s your take-away of all this? Are you personally changing the way you shop, live, or work because of the threat of global warming? I’d love to hear about your efforts.

We're all on thin ice. Some of us want to forget it.

On Monday my friend, Joel sent me a message filled with links to The Big Story — the leaked e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit that imply numbers have been crunched and data has been omitted in a way that may mean global warming is a farce. He struck again yesterday sending me yet another list of stories that, for the most part, took the “man-made climate change is bunk” slant. I wonder if I’ll get another e-mail now that the dust has settled, and people are actually analyzing what those messages contained.

All of the people involved have come out publicly and stated there is no cover-up; there’s no smoking gun. And the e-mail that seems to have the skeptics most upset? The one about skewing the data by changing it?  The New York Times today has an interview with one of the scientists quoted in the emails. Here’s what he said, ‘Trenberth said it’s telling that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found evidence of climate change to be “unequivocal” in its 2007 report. “The IPCC is actually a fairly conservative process,” he said. “It involves people from over 100 countries and different parts of the political spectrum to see what the best statements we can make about global climate change are. They are consensus statements, so by definition that means they are somewhat conservative.”‘

Of course, news organizations such as FOXNews have come out swinging, saying that of course global warming is a fake. Some of the more moderates are willing to concede it’s real, but simply a natural occurrence. However, both camps say the scientists are costing us, the citizens of the world, billions of dollars. An opinion piece by John Lott is especially scathing. Another FOXNews story is a little more balanced. This quote in particular — “…much of the scientific language in the e-mails is esoteric and hard to interpret.” — may explain what’s going on.

Is there something fishy going on in the emails? Yes, I do believe the scientists, heady with power, did threaten to stop providing papers to journals. But were they serious? Who knows? I know that I’ve written many a threat in my own e-mail trails, none of which I ever intended to following through on. Remember, these are scientists who know each other well. We all act tough when talking to friends.

Personally, I go back to the most damning evidence of climate change: Before and after photos of Antarctica, glaciers, the Arctic. Say what you will, but I really doubt the scientists dealing with climate change are doing a whole lot of Photoshopping just to keep up the facade.

And to those who want so badly to believe it’s all a hoax? I say this: I get it. Climate change is scary. No one wants to believe it. Who wants to have to change the way they live? It would be great to be able to forget about carbon footprints, pollution, greenhouse gases. But even if the scientists lied about even half of what’s going on, the fact still remains: We’re depleting our natural resources. We’re filling our air with chemicals. We’re harming our bodies with all the garbage in our environment. You can’t deny that there’s a giant pile of chemicals and plastic swirling around in the Pacific. You can’t hide the fact that deforestation is occurring. You can’t create new oil and coal from nothing. The status quo doesn’t work anymore. Get over it. Even if global warming can’t be completely attributed to humans, you can’t say we’re not to blame in the mess we’ve made environmentally in our country and our world. Sorry, skeptics.

Do you believe climate change is a hoax? What effect, if any, do humans have on the environment? Will this report change the way you’re living your life? Will you stop conserving? I’d like to hear about it.

I'm more than a little ashamed that my consumption helped create messes like this.

This past Saturday I got to the gym and my Spin class was canceled. I’m sort of glad it was. I decided to make the best of it and do 45 minutes on the cardio machines. Without headphones, I was stuck reading magazines. I grabbed the issue of Rolling Stone with Madonna on the cover and started reading. While I was flipping through to find the Material Girl I stumbled on an article called The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The writer, Kitt Doucette, has it posted on his Web site. Great read. Upsetting read. Depressing read.

I must have been too busy in August to read the other coverage about the Pacific Garbage Patch — ten million tons of waste floating in the ocean west of California. “Scientists estimate it’s twice the size of Texas.” And what is in that floating pile of crap? Plastic. Lots of plastic, which, since it is not biodegradable, simply breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic. Eventually, as in the Pacific, it becomes small enough for animals and fish to ingest it. The article explains that the birds in the area have, on average, about 44 pieces of plastic in their stomachs. It’s more than frightening.

Various scientists have taken experimental journeys out to the junk heap since August. They’ve discovered that the mess is mostly plastic bags like you get at the grocery store, bottle caps, plastic water bottles, and expanded styrene — Styrofoam to you and me. Good has an amazing graphic that shows what it might look like, and how the plastic is distributed.

Scientists have come to the conclusion that cleaning it up is going to be nearly impossible. However, as that moving cesspool of plastic continues to grow, it’s going to start affecting us. It’s absorbing all the chemicals that are sitting out there in the water. Things like DDT, aldrin, chlordane, and PCBs. The fact that there is six times more plastic than zoo plankton floating on the surface of the water means that it’s slowly choking that life form out, too. A life form that the smallest ocean animals need to live. It also affects the rest of the food chain. When either plastic or smaller ocean life is eaten by larger fish, some of the chemicals get into their cells. Then we catch some of these tainted fish, and we become tainted, too.

Reading about such a huge pile of garbage, such an insurmountable problem might make you feel helpless. It made me feel helpless. But then I realized the only way we can stop this is to stop the inflow of more garbage. And yes, every person can help. Here’s how you can keep more trash from going into the ocean:

1. Use recyclable grocery bags. Today, there’s no reason not to bring your own bags to the supermarket. And to Target, CVS, Toys R Us — anywhere you go. I have about ten reusable bags in my car. I bring them wherever I go. If you need a little motivation, frequent places like Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and CVS, which give you an incentive to bring your own bags. TJ’s enters you into a drawing for a gift card (at least in my area). Whole Foods takes $.05 to $.10 per bag off your order depending on where you live. CVS has a new Green Bag Tag. It’s $.99. You attach it to your reusable bag. Every fourth time you scan it, you get an Extra Bucks coupon for $1.
2. Stop buying soda in bottles. OK, I’d like to say don’t buy soda anymore, but I know that’s a hard one for a lot of people. So I’ll ask you to please stop buying plastic bottles. Buy aluminum cans instead. Plastic can’t be broken down; it’s not biodegradable. The caps aren’t usually recycled, either. Cans, however, are 100% recyclable. In fact, within one month of being tossed into a recycling bin, your old can is probably sitting back on a shelf waiting to be sold. Unlike plastic, which is mostly recycled into non-recyclable items such as flooring, for example.
3. Get a reusable water bottle. It drives me nuts how many people are still buying bottled water. Especially since most bottled water is probably no better than tap water, a fact that the Environmental Protection Agency confirms. Get an aluminum bottle. Use it today. Use it tomorrow. Your body and earth will love you for it. So will your car. According to the Greeniacs: “Manufacturing [water] bottles requires an estimated 47 million gallons of oil each year. In fact, in the United States alone, 1.5 million barrels of oil are used annually in the production of plastic bottles. That’s enough to fuel 100,000 cars for one year!”
4. Buy locally, and fix instead of buy — if you can. The last component of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is Styrofoam, the stuff that packing material is made of. You can reduce how much you put into the environment by fixing appliances instead of buying new ones to cut down on related packing materials, shopping locally to cut down on the number packages coming to your house, asking online retailers to use bio-friendly packing materials, and avoiding foam take-out containers. Several California cities, in their wisdom, actually outlawed Styrofoam back in May. That’s the last thing you can do: Ask your local and state representatives to help make laws to increase recycling and decrease the amount of plastic being used and spit into landfills and our oceans.

What else are you doing to help limit the amount of plastic in the trash stream? Can we ever get our seas back to their pristine condition? Are you, like me, anxious about what we’re doing to the earth? Tell me about it below.