‘The Quest’ questioned

World-famous energy historian and analyst Daniel Yergin has a new book out, a sequel to his Pulitzer-winning book The Prize. His new book -- The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World -- is another tome, and has been hailed as "masterly."

But as I read through it, I found many holes in his arguments, use of questionable data, and errors in describing what others have said -- most of this centered around his discussion of ideas of peak oil. And then he repeated these problems in the Wall Street Journal, kicking off promotion of his book with an article titled "There Will Be Oil," in which he tries to deflate fears about peak oil.

So I've written a series of posts -- five so far -- detailing the problems with Yergin's arguments.

Below I sum up my series of posts, and they're available in full on my site. But first I'll give a brief background on the idea of peak oil.

The idea of peak oil is that oil production can't keep going up and up forever. The most basic reason is that our planet is finite. Even if it were a giant oil-filled bon-bon, if consumption kept growing and growing at the kinds of rates we've seen in the 20th century, then we'd use up all that oil in less than a millennium. If we drilled as many wells and pumped as much oil as we could, still the production would tend to reach a maximum output, and then would gradually decline from there.

It's kind of like Usain Bolt's ability to run over the course of his life. At first, he couldn't even crawl. Then he learned to run across a room. Now, at age 25, he's the fastest man alive -- but he won't be able to keep running that fast forever. He'll get old, have some injuries, and gradually slow down. Right now, though, he's still at his peak, and is amazing.

Most conceptions of peak oil describe it as something that is forced on us, that happens despite our wishes. It is possible that we would choose to not burn a lot of oil and leave it in the ground -- and that could also result in a peak and decline of oil as well. But there seems to be little sign that we're going to do that.

So for those who argue against peak oil -- and there are many -- it seems they only have two other options: that we'll choose to give up on oil before it gives up on us, or that we'll colonize other planets and use their oil. But as long as we're stuck on Earth and addicted to oil, then it seems that we'll have to deal with peak oil. (Energy Bulletin has a more detailed but still understandable primer on peak oil.)

So if peak oil is basically unescapable, the big question is: When will we reach this turning point?

The most famous peak oil forecaster was M. King Hubbert, a geologist who worked for Shell Oil and the U.S. Geological Survey, and who predicted that U.S. oil production would reach its peak around 1965 or 1970. When production did peak in 1970, and start a long decline, then, as Yergin writes in The Quest, "Hubbert appeared more than vindicated."

Why only "appeared"? Because, Yergin argues, Hubbert's forecast for U.S. oil production over the longer term was off, and the country now produces about four times as much as Hubbert had forecast for 2010.

But Yergin is splitting hairs, as a graph from Yergin's own company, IHS CERA, makes clear. It shows Hubbert's forecast compared with actual production. Although neither Yergin's book nor CERA's report want to give Hubbert much credit, it seems to me Hubbert got the overall shape of things remarkably right. I cover this in more detail in my first part of the series, "Peak Oil Projection Was Far Off?"

To try to explain why Hubbert's forecast -- and those of his successors -- was (supposedly) far off the mark, Yergin attacks their forecasting methods. The problem is, he completely misrepresents what they were doing.

In The Quest, Yergin writes: "Hubbert used a statistical approach to project the decline curve that one might encounter in some -- but not all -- oil fields, and then assume that the United States is one giant oil field."

If this is what he actually did, it would be worthy of ridicule -- but it's not the approach Hubbert actually took. Yergin's explanation is so far off the mark it suggests he never read the paper he cites -- or if he did, perhaps it was a long time ago and he only remembers a caricature of it.

In his 1956 talk, Hubbert never discussed the peak and decline of individual oil fields. His idea, instead, was that the production from a large area -- such as the U.S. -- was the sum of a whole bunch of oil fields, and their ups and downs would tend to average out, giving you a smooth curve. The simplest kind of curve for trying to represent this, he thought, was a bell-shaped curve.

More on all this at my second post, "One Giant Oil Field?"

Then Yergin marshals evidence to argue that there is plenty of oil, saying that we are finding oil faster than we've been using it in recent years.

It appears that Yergin is drawing data from the widely used Statistical Review of World Energy, assembled every year by oil giant BP. But the figures they have for "proved reserves" -- the oil fields that are already producing or are "on deck," ready to come online soon -- are questionable for many of the world's biggest producers.

In particular, the numbers for OPEC countries in the Middle East -- like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, and others -- appear, to put it nicely, magical. Despite collectively producing a couple dozen billion barrels of oil each year, Middle East countries' reserves, as listed in the BP report, barely budge most years. And when they do change, they always go up, never down. It's as if a huge corporation got audited and claimed that their bank account was always exactly $572 million dollars, and never changed. It's not realistic.

What's more, during the time period Yergin chooses to emphasize -- 2007 to 2009 -- Canada and Venezuela put huge tar sands and heavy oil deposits on their books. By adding these low-quality sources, they more than doubled their proved reserves in a very short time. But it seems they won't be able to keep adding more oil to their books at this kind of rate in the future, continuing to double and double their reserves. From 2009 to 2010, their reserves stayed exactly the same.

Why doesn't Yergin include 2010? Or the decades before 2007? For a historian, his outlook is surprisingly short-term.

To see what more realistic figures would be -- from IHS, the company Yergin works for -- see my full post, "We're Finding Oil Faster Than We're Using It?" Spoiler: We're using oil faster than we're finding it, and it's been that way for a while.

One of Yergin's favorite arguments, it seems, is that experts have predicted peak oil many times before, and they've always been wrong. As Yergin writes, "This is actually the fifth time in modern history that we've seen widespread fear that the world was running out of oil."

Of course, it's a logical fallacy to say that because something didn't happen before, it won't happen in the future. But Yergin has repeated this argument so many times that it seems he thinks he has a real winner.

The problem is, because oil production unfolds over decades, the biggest pessimists have to be proved wrong first. It's just simple logic. The biggest optimists, on the other hand, get to enjoy not being proved wrong for a long time -- until after we pass peak oil. But just because the optimists haven't been proved wrong yet, it doesn't follow that they're correct.

Also, Yergin mentions only the pessimists who turned out to be wrong, and neglects to point out there were others who were wrong because they were too optimistic. For U.S. oil, there were plenty of those optimists in the 1960s and '70s, and I'm sure Yergin is aware of them. In the 1970s, one of the biggest sources of oil optimism was the National Petroleum Council -- which Yergin is a member of today.

More on all this at my fourth post, "Only the Pessimists Have Been Wrong?"

Finally, Yergin repeatedly equates "peak oil" with "running out of oil" -- as if the idea is that the wells will run dry in the next decade or something equally apocalyptic.

But the idea is actually that production will gradually peter out over many decades. In the simplest picture of peak oil, the decline phase lasts as long as the growth phase -- so, the forecast says, the decline of world oil would be stretched out over more than a century.

I cover that in more detail in the fifth post, "Peak Oil = Running Out of Oil?"

What's funny about this -- or sad, depending on your mood -- is that Yergin actually foresees a peak and decline in oil production, too. It's just that he sees the peak coming decades away, around mid-century, and thinks that there will be a long plateau before the decline begins. But he gives little data to back up his peak oil forecast, or to argue that it is better than the others. It seems he just wants us to take his word for it. And, so far, it seems the world has been.

Mason Inman is a journalist who specializes in reporting on science and the environment. He writes regularly for National Geographic News, Science, and New Scientist, and has reported from Bangladesh and Pakistan. He also writes a weekly roundup of climate and energy news for Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions called The Climate Post.

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Talking to the Tea Party about climate?

Green tea: Is there a little Tea Partier in all of us?Photo: Czajnik ZielonyCross-posted from Sightline Daily.

Striking up a conversation about climate change with somebody who denies the science? Usually I'd say, "Don't bother." But if I'm right and there's actually a little Tea Partier in all of us, maybe there's a thing or two hard-core science deniers can teach us about climate communications more generally.

First things first. Where is the so-called Tea Party on climate change? Recent polling shows that it's not a voting bloc that we're likely to persuade. Indeed, research by Yale and George Mason University [PDF] found that among conservatives, it is mainly members of the Tea Party who do not believe climate change is occurring. While the majority of Democrats (78 percent), Independents (71 percent), and Republicans (53 percent) believe in global warming, only 34 percent of the Tea Party agrees with them -- and 53 percent are pretty adamant it is not happening. When you ask about human-made climate change, "belief" drops even further for the Tea Party: While 62 percent of Democrats say that global warming is caused mostly by human activities, most Tea Party members say it is either naturally caused (50 percent) or isn't happening at all (21 percent).

That's no big surprise.

And here's further evidence from the Yale/George Mason research that piling on more facts and data with this group doesn't get us very far:

Tea Party members are much more likely to say that they are "very well informed" about global warming than the other groups. Likewise, they are also much more likely to say they "do not need any more information" about global warming to make up their mind.

But what could move the needle with these folks? And why do I care?

Like I said, I honestly think that when it comes to climate change, there's a little Tea Party in all of us. Denial (or call it compartmentalization, coping, prioritizing, ignoring, fearing change in how we live, or freaking out on such a massive scale that the only way to deal is to completely push it out of your mind ... you know who you are!) is pretty pervasive even among the most progressive, pro-science folks I know. If it weren't, we'd probably be a lot closer to having public and political will for mitigation policies.

My point is, effectively talking to Tea Partiers about climate might not be that different from talking to my own eco-friendly, politically savvy Seattle friends and neighbors who "get" climate on an intellectual level but haven't necessarily felt the urgency of the situation nor invested in it on an emotional level.

So, here are some tips that apply to just about everybody -- thanks to FrameWorks Institute.

Go for the gut, not the brain. "To build support among climate change deniers," FrameWorks researchers write, "it is important to start the conversation by invoking the values that these groups embody. By starting the conversation with a commonly held value (rather than unframed information), advocates can gain more communicative traction on this issue."

Here are the top-level values FrameWorks identifies:

Prosperity:

Tea Party members value economic prosperity. A recent Nature article about organizations that promote climate skepticism, such as the Heartland Institute, shows that skeptics are most often concerned about the economic costs of implementing climate change solutions.

In other words, like many Americans, Tea Party folks aren't crazy about any kind of change. Maybe fear of the impacts of climate policy solutions trumps our fear of more abstract and unimaginable climate impacts. FrameWorks suggests that "by talking about clean technology solutions to climate change in a way that illustrates the benefits to our domestic economy, advocates can more effectively engage these groups in a constructive assessment of the situation."

David Roberts has been saying this for years, too. While climate communicators take the bait and keep bickering about the science, the other side is winning on values, identity, and raw emotion. He writes, "we need to be out there arguing that beating global warming will make us more prosperous, more healthy, more just, and happier. We need to make this fight appealing. Science is not going to do the work for us."

Stewardship: According to Frameworks, "framing global warming in terms of stewardship" or as "creation care" can also be an effective reframing approach. They point out that "the Yale report mentions that Tea Party members are more likely to be evangelical Christian, and thus, integrating values of Christian stewardship for the planet can be a stronger starting point that can lead to productive conversations on climate change solutions." (Note: FrameWorks uses the term "future generations" in their language recommendation -- a common refrain that I'm hoping we can entirely eliminate from our messages and our thinking -- because the fact is that climate change is happening now -- to our generation and to our kids. "Future generations," in my opinion, reinforces the counterproductive idea that climate change is distant in place and time.)

Solutions: FrameWorks says: Focus on pragmatic solutions. We transcend petty political divides and eschew the science debate frame altogether when we talk solutions -- and the myriad co-benefits of steering our economy off the dirty fuel roller coaster.

All kinds of people get behind solutions -- even the ones who deny the science and arch against liberals, government, and the like. I've noted this before -- many times, in fact. But, FrameWorks points to the Yale study to reinforce this idea, noting that "the majority of all four parties expressed support for specific climate solutions, such as research funding for renewable energy and providing tax rebates for purchases of solar panels and energy efficient vehicles."

In other words, talking about no-brainer solutions works with Tea Partiers and all kinds of other audiences too.

I agree on all those points. I'd also add that we should have an accurate, direct, and balanced conversation about impacts that are already happening right now, including extreme weather, as a way of talking about climate change in concrete, local, and visual ways.

Now, you may be thinking that the average Tea Partier has long since walked away, unmoved -- and probably annoyed. That may be true. But, let's keep thinking about that Seattle (or Portland, or Boise, or Vancouver) neighbor who prides herself on meticulous recycling and who brings reusable bags to the grocery store, but who gets kind of irked when you incessantly bring up climate change at her cocktail parties. (What a downer!) What about the tiny slice of Tea Party in her?

Here are more tips that work for anybody with strong opinions:

Start by making people feel confident about their personal strengths (a.k.a. butter them up). And show pictures!

Why? As Chris Mooney explains over at DeSmogBlog, there's a funny thing political science researchers call "motivated reasoning" -- where "people's subconscious emotional impulses lead them to respond, in a biased way, to information that challenges their deeply held beliefs and worldviews." Studies have shown that when confronted with politically inconvenient or world-view-clashing information, it can actually have a "backfire effect" where subjects actually cling even more tightly to existing beliefs in the face of contrary evidence.

But, new research on "the power of political misinformation" by Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler, shows that when contradictory information was presented in the form of a convincing graph, showing a clear trend, the subjects were more likely to accept the new information -- or less likely to get defensive and refute it than when they read about the same data without a visual. (You can see the wonky text that failed to convince with the graph that worked, here.)

And, as Mooney explains, when subjects went through a "self-affirmation" exercise, "in which they were asked to describe a positive character attribute or value that they possessed, and talk about a situation in which showing that attribute or trait made them feel good about themselves," they were far less likely to reject the information that discredited previously held beliefs. As Mooney explains, "what this shows is that people are clearly resisting facts because these threaten their identities -- which means that arguing back at them factually will only make them more defensive and engender a backfire effect. By contrast, approaching them in an emotionally sensitive and aware manner, and making them feel less threatened, will open them up. (Sometimes, at least)."

Mooney is quick to point out that the findings aren't without some problems -- especially when it comes to climate change. The study wasn't conducted "in a really partisan context that would have gotten people's political emotions firing," for one thing. Talking about climate change or Obama or -- heaven forbid -- Al Gore, might throw the "backfire effect" back into high gear for many whose identity is defined in large part by their political views (and against others' views). These are likely the same folks who will also go to great lengths to trash perfectly legitimate graphical representations of climate information.

Still, there's no reason not to try these approaches -- even if you never talk to a real live Tea Partier. Try it on your best friend!

So, once again, here's the checklist (in no particular order):

Take your climate change conversations from the intellectual to the emotional level and talk in terms of core values;Use faith language when appropriate and when it's authentic;Talk solutions (and their benefits for health, economic stability, and quality of life);Talk about impacts happening here and now;Tell your audience how smart they are (or have them tell you why they are smart);Show them some charts and graphs.

And ... if all that doesn't work, ask your friend to watch the Republican primary debates with you! Why? According to Jon Krosnick, a political science professor at Stanford University, Americans are forced to think about their stance on global warming when watching conservatives debate climate change. He credits a rise in overall belief in global warming -- from 75 percent last year to 83 percent [PDF] in a September 2011 Reuters/Stanford/Ipsos [PDF] poll -- to a backlash against all the highly publicized climate science denialism going on in the political arena.

Remind your groovy friends that, as Reuters reports, "Republican presidential candidates, aside from Jon Huntsman, have mostly blasted the idea that emissions from burning fossil fuels and other human actions are warming the planet. The current front-runner, Texas Governor Rick Perry, has accused scientists of manipulating climate data while Michele Bachmann has said climate change is a hoax."

No wonder Bill Clinton recently said "We look like a joke!"-- talking about American climate science denial. The point is that it's not only the deniers who look bad here; we all look like a joke when the rest of us are complacent about what's going on.

Anna Fahey is a communications strategist at Sightline Institute, a Seattle-based research and communications center working on sustainable solutions for the Pacific NW.

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Germany’s phaseout reveals the true costs of nuclear power

This is bad news for nuclear advocates: Nuclear power turns out even more expensive than we thought. According to a study by Arthur D. Little, the four German nuclear utilities (E.ON, RWE, EnBW, Vattenfall) face costs of at least $25 billion for decommissioning their reactors. After the Fukushima disaster, Germany decided to say goodbye to nuclear by switching off eight reactors immediately while the remaining nine are scheduled for a gradual phaseout by 2022.

Of the many myths about nuclear power, we kinda knew that the myth "nuclear power is cheap" is not true. The stunner is how expensive it turns out to be when you start factoring in its real costs, according to this analyst from a public bank in Germany:

"The quantification of dismantling costs is in line with our estimate amounting to 1 billion euros per block," but "such estimates comprise several uncertainties", said Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg (LBBW) analyst Bernhard Jeggle.

There you have it: It costs at least $1.4 billion to dismantle one reactor unit. The utilities are required by law to build up a cash pile to finance the decommissioning. Still, one can expect them to raise rates for their customers. In a regulated market without competition, this would hit ratepayers. In a deregulated electricity market -- like Germany -- this makes nuclear power less competitive. Customers can choose their power provider and switch to one without nuclear -- such as city municipalities or green power brokers (which is very easy). By factoring in the true costs of nuclear power, we are getting closer to a level playing field among different energy sources. This is Environmental Economics 101: The market sends only true price signals if external costs (such as pollution) are being internalized. If we had the perfect market and all external costs of fossil fuels (climate change, air pollution) and nuclear (decommission, contamination, full insurance against an accident, final waste deposit) were truly factored in, renewable energy would today already be cost competitive.

In many countries, the nuclear industry has been pampered with billions of dollars in subsidies while emerging technologies received comparably little support (e.g. the United States). Green Budget Europe, a German think tank, calculated nuclear subsidies over the last half century to $230 billion for Germany alone. It's one thing to support the deployment of renewable energy and efficiency technologies. It's another to internalize those costs that the fossil fuel and the nuclear industry burden our societies with. Eventually, we need to do both to transition to a low-carbon economy that is powered completely by renewable energy.

Arne Jungjohann is the program director for Environment and Global Dialogue with the Heinrich Boll Foundation in Washington, D.C.

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U.S. government gives food speculators the thumbs up

Wall Street wants you to believe that the recent persistent spike in food prices is nothing more than demand outstripping supply. And there's no question that worldwide demand for food, especially grains, is up thanks to rising global meat consumption and increased biofuel production.

But the evidence is piling up that it's actually financial speculators who are most to blame for rising prices. Futures markets were established originally to reduce price volatility, but, thanks to the involvment of speculators, the opposite scenario has taken place.

As Tom Philpott recently explained, speculators have managed to establish a selfishly beneficial cycle where their "speculative bets ... push prices into the stratosphere, drawing in yet more speculative money and new price hikes." This keeps going until poor countries are priced out of the market for food.

Meanwhile, a new study has come out directly implicating the 2008 financial crisis as the cause of this new era of commodities speculation [PDF]. It's a simple story that requires complex analysis to prove -- and is itself an offshoot of the Giant Pool of Money theory so ably explained by NPR's This American Life. Shorter version: As the financial system collapsed, investors cast about for a new place to find decent returns. They discovered food and fuel -- and Wall Street happily provided "innovative" financial products for them to play with -- and the rest is history.

The good news is that Congress actually did something about it. The Dodd-Frank financial reform law instructed the Obama administration to come up with new rules to curb "excessive" speculation.

And now the agency charged with writing these rules, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has just released its draft version. As Gretchen Morgenstern reports in The New York Times, the result is -- wait for it -- a giveaway to speculators. 

One economist she spoke to called the proposed rule "horrifically weak" while others observed that it "might actually encourage speculation in the commodities markets, rather than reduce it."

Why am I not surprised?

Granted, it's not clear how effective government curbs on speculation would be, as there has yet to be a rule that Wall Street can't figure out how to game. But Philpott suggests that a possible answer to this problem may lie in, of all things, grain reserves. As he put it, they "could be used to effectively chase speculators out of food markets." Here's how:

When prices rise to levels out of whack with fundamental supply and demand, governments could simply release stored grain, driving down prices and making food affordable again to poor people.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy! And if grain reserves ring a bell, it's because the National Farmers Union recently suggested including farmer-controlled reserves as part of the upcoming Farm Bill -- once again demonstrating the power of simple ideas. And it also proves that working these kind of obscure -- but achievable -- policy levers rather than going for the sexier, highly improbable ones may be the only way forward for food reform.

A 17-year veteran of both traditional and online media, Tom is a Contributing Writer at Grist covering food and agricultural policy. Tom's long and winding road to food politics writing passed through New York, Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, Florence, Italy and Philadelphia (which has a vibrant progressive food politics and sustainable agriculture scene, thank you very much). In addition to Grist, his writing has appeared online in the American Prospect, Slate, the New York Times and The New Republic. He is on record as believing that wrecking the planet is a bad idea. Follow him on Twitter.

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Can smartphones serve as birth control? [VIDEO]

This amusing Indian ad suggests that a newfangled smartphone is just the ticket to bring down birthrates. If everyone's having lots of 3G fun, who can be bothered with old-fashioned amorous pursuits?

Writes Christopher Mims:

It's nothing short of remarkable that India is a country that can joke about both its population problem and birth control, but all kidding aside, there is one level on which this message could be true. Empowering women is the shortest route to bending the curve of future population growth, and wireless access to the internet could be one way to make education more accessible in the developing world.

This is the latest in a series of Saturday GINK videos about population and reproduction (or a lack thereof).

Lisa Hymas is senior editor at Grist, which she cofounded back in the day. You can follow her on Twitter. She writes on politics, population, and other green issues. She coined the acronym GINK (green inclinations, no kids) and won a 2010 Population Institute Global Media Award for her writing on the childfree choice. If you're like-minded, become a fan of GINK on Facebook. If you're not, no hard feelings. We've just upgraded our comments section! Read more about this change here.

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The Greenie Pig’s got worms

Greenie Pig opens a Can O' Worms.Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan has turned her apartment and daily existence into a not-especially grand experiment in green living. And she wants you to come along. Read the whole Greenie Pig series here.

First off: I think composting is the bee's knees. What's not to love about transforming organic waste into garden steroids, and diverting trash from the landfill stream to boot? So in theory, I'm way into composting. But in reality, well, I've been lazy at best. I'm full of excuses: I don't have a garden, or time/space for a bin, or the mechanical skills to build anything more complicated than a paper airplane.

All that changed when I moved to the green-lifestyle candyland of Boulder, Colo., where I had home compost pickup. How lucky was that? With only the barest effort on my part, my old avocado peels and carrot tops were magically whisked away to provide sustenance for someone else's garden. I didn't have to tend a bin, and because I stored food waste in the freezer until compost day, I didn't have to smell it, either. No fuss, no muss. Even when I moved to comparatively less progressive Denver, I had my boyfriend smuggle our compost back to B-Town during his carpool to work. Perfect.

Then we moved to a Seattle apartment without this perk. (Seattle does have home compost pickup -- just not for our building. But that's fodder for another post.) I became wracked with guilt every time I tossed coffee grounds in the trash. Having tasted the wonder of composting, I couldn't go back. But as apartment-dwellers without a garden, what could we do?

We got worms.

One thousand Eisenia fetida (redworms to you and me) to be exact. I also got one plastic worm bin -- a two-tiered, cylindrical high rise  -- for my new tenants. The whole shebang is known as vermicomposting: You bury your organic kitchen waste in the worm bin, the worms have a feeding frenzy, and you're left with all-natural Miracle-Gro in the form of worm castings (a rather sanitized term for what the stuff really is: poop). Not only do I get all the benefits of composting, but my inner 8-year-old is delighted by all the worm wrangling to be done. Of course, there's still the question of what to do with the castings, being gardenless and all, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

I went with a popular commercial worm bin called the Can O' Worms for several reasons. It's about two feet tall and compact (perfect for my small kitchen), very simple to use (it's got several vertical tiers for trays, making the vermicompost harvest easy), and much quicker to get going. For worms, I used a mail-order outfit called Uncle Jim's Worm Farm (though I now know I could have found local wrigglers here in Seattle -- lesson learned). I could hardly tame my excitement on the day my worm bin arrived.

To my great amusement, the Can O' Worms is marketed not to eco-conscious greenies, but to their offspring. The bin's cardboard box proudly announced that it contained "a can of fun for kids!" And while environmental friendliness was noted in passing, the bin boasted several other selling points: educational ("learn about worm farms"), economical ("make free fertilizer for mum and dad's garden"), and slightly bizarre ("say ‘worm wee' out loud without getting in trouble").

In short order, I assembled the bin and pressed the box into the bottom of the working tray to serve as initial bedding. On top of that went the bulk of the bedding, made from a brick of coconut fiber that I rehydrated in a small plastic trash can. Smooth sailing so far. Now it was time to add the worms.

The little guys came in a surprisingly small bag of peat moss, severely dried out to survive their adventure through the U.S. mail. Uncle Jim enclosed a note warning me that the worms would look kinda dead on arrival, but not to worry: A cup of water would get them moving, and they should be back to their old selves in a day or so.

I opened the bag gingerly, and saw Uncle Jim was right: These wrigglers were languishing in their peat, too listless to move. But when I poured some water over the bedding, they instantly sprang to life, writhing like a snake pit in Indiana Jones. I scooped the worms into their new home, where they slowly uncoiled and burrowed into the coconut fibers.

I bid them goodnight and left the kitchen light on. My literature warned of a phenomenon called "worm run": It seems that worms sometimes freak out when placed in new environment and squirm for it, slithering across the floor in a doomed flight that ends badly for everyone.

While I will tolerate a lot, I will not have mass worm suicides in my kitchen.

I'm happy to report that the worm bin is now fully operational. Stay tuned for reports on how the feeding and compost harvesting goes. I'm keen to prevent over- and under-feeding, stanky odors, and maggot invasions -- plus any other common vermicompost mishaps. Tips are welcomed.

Next: Worms get busy (and prove to be excellent weather forecasters)

Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan is a freelance writer and former editor at Backpacker magazine. Her writing has also appeared in 5280 (Denver's city magazine), Women's Adventure, and Spry.

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Will my baby be the 7 billionth?

Will she save the world, or at least help make it a better place?Photo: Andrew Albertson

This post is written by Laura Wright Treadway, a contributing editor at OnEarth. 

Elon Musk is something of an eco-superhero: He founded and invested his personal fortune in the electric car company Tesla Motors, intent on changing the way we consume natural resources by remaking the way we get around. He also has five sons, which seems rather at odds with his planet-saving personal and professional mission. And in 2009, the South African-born multi-millionaire told The New Yorker's Tad Friend that he isn't finished spreading his seed. In fact, he said that he intended to have more children with his second wife as part of his duty to see that "we don't devolve into a not very literate, theocratic, and unenlightened future."

It's hard not to cringe or write off Musk as an elitist. But maybe some of you are cringing for another reason, too. In some dark recess of your mind, have you had a shade of that thought, just once? (Be honest.) Sure, you think, maybe my kid contributes to global burdens -- resource depletion, global warming, biodiversity loss -- but one day his sheer genius will make up for all that in spades. My kid is going to solve problems. He's going be president of the United States, or at least a senator (one of the few good ones). And solve world hunger at the same time.

Most people I know bring children into this world with high hopes for their futures, but of course not everyone thinks this way. As an editor at OnEarth for seven years, I often read letters from readers who had chosen not to have children, they said, for fear of ushering additional consumers onto an already overburdened planet. Others worried about bringing children into a world rife with more problems than we seem able to manage today, let alone tomorrow, when global population is expected to outstrip the planet's carrying capacity, if there in fact is such a thing.

Next month, the world's 7 billionth person is due to be born. I expect to be delivering my first child around the same time. The thought that my kid could plausibly be the world's 7 billionth living person is a staggering thought.

Just by virtue of her birthplace here in the United States, my child will be one of the most voracious consumers on the planet. It doesn't matter that my family will make well-meaning efforts to limit our resource consumption and overall environmental footprint. As an American, she will wear regularly washed clothes, bathe frequently, eat fresh produce (bought in a store and shipped from someplace near or far), and probably scarf down the occasional hamburger. All of these things require more water and energy on a daily basis than people living in some parts of the world -- say, places where a ruptured pipeline draws hundreds desperate to siphon a bucket of gasoline -- could even fathom.

Sure, my daughter will live a relatively car-free life here in New York City, and one day she'll walk to her elementary school carrying her lunch in reusable sandwich tins. But I'm not kidding myself -- no matter what I do, short of leaving Brooklyn behind and heading off to a commune, she'll still stomp far more heavily on this planet than the average little girl in sub-Saharan Africa.

And so I wonder: Do I in some way need to apologize to the world for this? Do I need to find a way to make up for it?

Part of me thinks I should stop with this silliness and reassure myself that I'll raise my daughter to be a global citizen who thinks beyond the tip of her own nose, who finds a passion in life for making her world a better place. That's the Elon Musk in me, the little voice that tells me she'll grow up to be a wise citizen of this earth; she'll recognize her good fortune in life and feel compelled to give back.

But surely I'm wise enough myself to know that I can't determine what she'll actually set out to do. So at the end of the day, there's still a chance that she'll just eat, drink, and be merry, gobbling resources at the expense of her booming global brethren.

Read more on population. Check out our series 7 billion: What to expect when you're expanding.By 2100, the population of the developed world -- all of Europe and the United States, for starters -- will be in decline, demographers tell us. At the same time, the population throughout most of Africa will continue to rise. To most Americans, these concerns seem far removed from daily life. But certainly within my daughter's lifetime, and probably within mine, the burdens that come with these changing demographics will undoubtedly intrude on our daily realities.

As the relative proportion of young, wage-earning workers in the First World shrinks, they'll be forced to deal with the ever-rising cost of supporting their retired elders, who will be sticking around longer than ever before due to health-care improvements. So where does that leave the billions of people in developing nations who still need and deserve a leg up? Will we have the resources to improve access to freshwater or to fund technology-transfer programs that deliver clean energy to developing nations? Or will our ability to help those who are desperately in need simply grind to a halt? Worldwide conflicts have sprung from far lesser problems.

It's hard for me to imagine how we'll solve this dilemma -- having to support an increasing number of dependents at home as well as abroad -- but to continue fretting over the prospect of bringing another little consumer into the world seems to miss the point. Will I have five children in the belief that my DNA will make the world a more enlightened place? Decidedly not. But to make apologies for delivering what may be the world's 7 billionth person seems to signal a loss of hope for our collective future. Depleted of natural resources or not, a world also depleted of hope is not one that I want to see my daughter live in.

Featuring great stories and great solutions, OnEarth is a survival guide for the planet. Published by the Natural Resources Defense Council since 1979, we explore the challenges that confront our world, the solutions that promise to heal it, and the way we can use those solutions to improve our homes, our health, our communities, and our future. Follow OnEarth on Facebook or Twitter.

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Two good (and overlooked) ideas in Obama’s jobs plan

Photo: Peter SheikI agree with Paul Krugman and Joe Romm that Obama's speech was better than expected, both rhetorically and substantively. The American Jobs Act involves too much tax cutting and too little new spending for what it needs to do. All the talk of infrastructure focused on cars and planes, except for the bit on high-speed rail, when what we really need is just better options for non-drivers at all levels of travel. And would it really have been too much for the president to mention how helpful looser monetary policy might be in creating jobs? (F'ing Bernanke, grumble grumble.)

But there was plenty to like, too, especially the straightforward defense of the ethic of mutual care that lies at the heart of liberalism.

The speech will not, of itself, make any difference. Presidential rhetoric has far less effect on public opinion and congressional outcomes than most people think, as political scientists are always drearily reminding us, but if this is the beginning of a coordinated push by the president, congressional Democrats, and (one hopes!) the ground forces of liberalism to advance the bill, I suppose there's a chance something might pass. Crazier things have happened. If it does, though, the best ideas are likely to fall out.

Nonetheless! So as not to indulge too thoroughly in cynicism, I want to highlight two worthwhile Obama proposals that might be overlooked in all the reaction to the speech.

The first is to "repair and modernize at least 35,000 schools." The White House proposes $25 billion for K-12 schools ($10 billion to the 100 largest high-need districts; $15 billion to states to direct as they choose) and another $5 billion for community colleges. The funds could be used for "a range of emergency repair and renovation projects, greening and energy efficiency upgrades, asbestos abatement and removal, and modernization efforts to build new science and computer labs and to upgrade technology in our schools."

The plan is based on the FAST! (Fix America's Schools Today) proposal outlined by Mary Filardo of the 21st Century School Fund, Jared Bernstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and Ross Eisenbrey of the Economic Policy Institute. Their version, at least, is mostly about greening schools -- improving ventilation and indoor air quality, replacing windows, installing energy-efficient boilers or solar panels, etc. The president's version seems a bit more broad.

I've always thought green schools are an incredibly potent and underappreciated tool, killer on both political and substantive grounds. (For more on this, check out my interview with green schools pioneer Rachel Gutter.) FAST! would put to work all sorts of construction and maintenance trades that are suffering from particularly high unemployment. And there's no end to the jobs potential: "Construction and building repair generally create 9,000-10,000 jobs per billion dollars spent." By that measure, Obama's $30 billion would create between 270,000 and 300,000 jobs. And that would only scratch the surface of the backlog of needed improvements.

A push to green schools would also have other, very tangible benefits:

It would also improve teacher and student morale, boost student achievement, and improve the health and safety of school communities. There is consistent evidence that providing a quality physical environment for teaching and learning improves student performance. Quality teachers are attracted to and remain longer in better facilities, attendance for students and teachers is improved, and students are healthier and can concentrate and learn better. Investing in school maintenance and repair can support efforts to dramatically improve the results of our nation's public education system.

Jobs benefits, educational benefits, health benefits, green benefits -- what's not to like?

The other good idea is buried in the section of the American Jobs Act on helping the unemployed. Obama will "expand 'work-sharing' to encourage arrangements using [unemployment insurance] that keep employees on the job at reduced hours, rather than laying them off." This is another excellent and perpetually overlooked idea, inspired by the German practice of Kurzarbeit, or "short-work."

Dean Baker over at the Center for Economic and Policy Research has been beating this drum for a while. See also this report [PDF] from Neil Ridley at the Center for Law and Social Policy and this nice summary from Dan Froomkin.

The idea is that allowing people to cut back on hours or share jobs rather than get laid off helps avoid the devastating economic and psychological impacts of unemployment. It particularly helps young and low-level workers, who are the first to go. It also allows workers to retain their skills. Says Baker:

If a work share program reduced involuntary job loss by 20 percent, or 400,000 per month, it would have the same effect as adding 400,000 new jobs. Over a full year, this would generate nearly 5 million new jobs. This would be a quick and effective way to reduce unemployment.

Juliet Schor hones in on the ecological benefits:

Research shows that longer work hours are associated with more ecological degradation. Working less typically leads to reduced spending and also a shift to lower-impact forms of consumption: taking the bike instead of the car; cooking at home instead of buying fast food. For the ecologically aware, the preference for SWT [shorter work time] over standard job creation measures such as stimulus spending or tax cuts should be clear.

And last but not least, Schor notes that American overwork is bad for mental health:

Reducing work hours improves work-life balance for many overworked, overstressed employees. Americans frequently report that what they most sense to be missing from their lives is the time necessary to enjoy them; research on well-being also indicates that adequate time is at the core of a healthy, happy life. Overworked employees report more family tension, less happiness, and more stress. This is a particular problem for Americans, who work between 100 and 350 more hours each year than workers in comparably wealthy countries.

Surveys done before the crash indicate that between 30 and 50 percent of Americans say they would prefer to work fewer hours, even for less pay.

In other words: work-sharing is a huge step toward the medium chill.

Like I said, I doubt these ideas will go anywhere, given, well, Congress. But they are good ideas nonetheless, and deserve discussion and consideration.

David Roberts is a staff writer for Grist. You can follow his Twitter feed at twitter.com/drgrist. We've just upgraded our comments section! Read more about this change here.

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The military’s historic embrace of smart energy

The U.S. military's embrace of energy efficiency and renewable energy is going to be one of the great stories of the coming decade. It will be a story about technology, the changing face of warfare, geopolitics in the 21st century, and the struggle to change one of the world's largest bureaucracies. But it will also be a great political story. For decades, the lines of warfare on climate change and clean energy have been drearily familiar and amazingly resistant to change. If it follows through on its promises, the Department of Defense -- the largest consumer of oil and electricity in America -- has the potential to change all that.

There have been a ton of media stories and reports on this lately, but for a comprehensive account of what the Pentagon is up to, the place to go is this new report from the Pew Project on National Security, Energy & Climate: "From Barracks to the Battlefield: Clean Energy Innovation and America's Armed Forces." It's an overview of what each branch of the service is doing, what kind of technologies they are using, where they're using them, and what kind of effect all this might have on energy innovation.

For a more technical breakdown of what it will take for DOD to fully exploit these opportunities, see Amory Lovins' fantastic recent piece in Joint Forces Quarterly: "DOD's Energy Challenge as Strategic Opportunity" [PDF].

This is an incredibly fertile topic. Just a few quick notes to begin with.

First, in his introduction to the Pew report, retired Republican Sen. John Warner writes:

At Marine Corps Base Quantico, we witnessed a presentation of the Experimental Forward Operating Base program, which is testing and deploying renewable energy and energy efficiency initiatives in theatre in order to reduce energy consumption at forward operating locations.

Indeed! As it happens, I'm just finishing up a story on this for a magazine that shall remain nameless until I have a link to share. It'll be in the December issue. (Ah, print speed.) What the Marines are doing is, for my money, the most interesting subplot in all this. Recall, the Marine Corps is an expeditionary force. Its overwhelming focus is on combat effectiveness in the field. In the last 10 years, the Marines have gotten more effective, but it's come at a cost: They've also gotten heavier and slower. Getting fuel to the front lines is becoming extraordinarily expensive in terms of lives, tactical capability, and treasure. So the energy and efficiency stuff Marines are testing and deploying is saving lives, in a very concrete, visible, measurable way. It's a powerful demonstration of the advantages of smart energy and it's got nothing to do with polar bears.

Anyway, I'll have much more to say about that when my piece comes out.

Second, the military has advantages that no other institution can match. It can focus on long-term strategy and take on the large upfront costs of renewable energy. It can single-handedly create a market and drive innovation, as it's doing with advanced biofuels. And as virtually the only institution left that Americans trust, it can serve as an unmatched champion of the virtues of smart energy. There is nothing happening in the U.S. right now that has anything near the potential impact of this.

Third, on a more crassly political note, this could start to drive a fissure into the conservative coalition. Conservatives love the troops. And they love fossil fuels. But it may be that before too long, they're going to have to choose. The military's interests are going to start coming into tension with the interests of fossil-fuel companies and the politicians they sponsor.

We got a hint of things to come this summer in a battle over an obscure provision of the 2007 energy bill called Section 526. (I wrote about it here.) In short, the law said the military couldn't consider fuels more carbon-intensive than petroleum -- i.e., oil shale from Wyoming and coal-to-liquids from West Virginia. Conservative lawmakers, including conservative Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, made a bid to overturn Section 526. The military sent representatives to argue against them and the effort went nowhere.

It wasn't that big a deal on its own, but it might be a glimpse of more explicit tensions to come. Unconventional fossil fuels need big markets to get investment capital. Coal-to-liquids isn't going to work without the Air Force. It will be interesting to watch the military brass continue to diverge from flag-waving red-state lawmakers on this.

Fourth, DOD is developing technologies that will allow military units to be self-sufficient when it comes to energy and water, and therefore to operate autonomously in austere circumstances. As it turns out, lots of people in the world find themselves in austere circumstances! People in poverty, in remote, rural villages, in refugee camps, in post-disaster areas -- they could direly stand to be more self-sufficient. It's possible that the military will be driving the development of technologies that could help prevent military conflict. But I think I'll write a separate post on that.

Anyway, read Pew's report. This stuff is a big deal.

David Roberts is a staff writer for Grist. You can follow his Twitter feed at twitter.com/drgrist.

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Solyndra was collateral damage in a trade war with China

Connect the dots and you see China.Step back from the details of the Solyndra bankruptcy and connect the dots. The big picture is an ongoing solar trade war between the United States and China.

Every war has winners, losers, casualties, and traitors. So far, the winners are Chinese manufacturers, American consumers, and the future of the planet. The big loser may be the American solar manufacturing industry; Solyndra was simply the highest-profile example. Wondering who's giving aid and comfort to the enemy?

Beginning in early 2009, the Obama administration's use of stimulus money under the Department of Energy's loan guarantee program went not just to help out a handful of businesses, but to jump-start a market. Funds doled out under the stimulus have gone, or are going to, a portfolio of renewables. The complete list of 32 "section 1705" (stimulus-funded) loan guarantees, available on the DOE website, is more than half solar -- it includes four solar manufacturing companies (including Solyndra) and 15 solar generation plants, along with assorted wind, geothermal, and biofuel businesses.

Demand for solar panels rose, partially as a result of this and other government policies. United States solar firms achieved a positive trade flow of $1.9 billion in 2010, mostly on photovoltaic components. Of that, the United States imported $1.4 billion from China, and exported between $1.7 and $2 billion, says a solar industry report [PDF, p. 18].

China's reaction to that trade surplus? Since January 2011, the Chinese government has dumped $30 billion into support for its solar industry. China now dominates solar manufacturing, with 70 percent of the global solar-panel market, and, as Agence France-Presse reports, it is "almost solely focused on exports, with as much as 95 percent of production sold overseas, according to some estimates,"

The U.S. market responded to the flood of cheap solar panels: Solar is booming. The U.S. solar market doubled last year, and it’s expected to double again this year, even though many states are reducing their subsidies. How many other industries are growing that fast in this economy? Clean Technica sums up the good news for both market and jobs:

The average cost of installing residential and commercial solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in the US dropped a record 17 percent in 2010 and it continues to drop in 2011, an additional 11 percent through June ...

The U.S. solar power market continued to grow at a record-breaking 66 percent pace in 2011's first half. ...

more than half of the country’s solar companies are planning to expand hiring in 2011 ...

Two keys to the industry's tremendous growth are cheap materials and government support -- the kind of support offered by the DOE's section 1705 program, among others.

The Solar Foundation [PDF] updates job numbers even further: Solar grew 6.8 percent between August 2010 and August 2011, as total jobs grew by 0.7 percent, and jobs in the fossil-fuel industry shrank.

In the meantime, Solyndra used a novel technology not dependent on silicon, which made sense when the price of silicon was high. But when the Chinese-subsidized price of silicon fell, Solyndra became an outlier, and ultimately collateral damage in a trade war.

The governments of China and the United States take different approaches to foster industrial growth. The United States has a complicated system: a tax subsidy here, a loan guarantee there, a presidential visit here, a burst of publicity there, but nothing worthy of the name "industrial policy." China seems to simply shovel cash to certain sectors and command them to perform.

Republican fury over Solyndra may pull the plug on the DOE's solar portfolio. Some of Solyndra's loudest critics are also its most hypocritical -- for example, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) repeatedly sought section 1705 loans for various natural gas, "clean coal," and other vaguely innovative projects. If Vitter and his friends have their way, they'll strangle an American success story and hand China a major victory in the solar trade war.

RL Miller is an attorney, climate/enviro blogger, runner, quilter, keeper of chickens. If you hate the terms climate zombies and oilpocalypse, blame RL Miller. We've just upgraded our comments section! Read more about this change here.

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Soil envy [VIDEO]

It seems that most farmers these days are also philosophers. David Cleverdon of Illinois-based Kinnikinnick farm is no exception. We had the pleasure of celebrating David's birthday with him and his family and friends on the farm, and then made a dinner in Chicago with Kinnikinnick produce. It was just another day on our Real Food road trip, but add Chef Paul Kahan -- and some controversial Monsanto tomatoes -- into the mix, and you've got yourself an unusual meal.

Daniel Klein is a chef, activist, and filmmaker living in Minneapolis. He's cooked in the restaurants of Thomas Keller, Fergus Henderson, and Tom Colicchio and has directed, filmed, edited and produced projects on various issues including oil politics and the development industry in Africa (What are we doing here? which has aired on TV, in theaters, and at festivals worldwide). Since March, Daniel has been documenting his culinary, agricultural and hunting adventures on film in a series called The Perennial Plate, featuring long winters, urban gardens, ice fishing, slaughterhouses, foraging for wild edibles, and more. Follow him on twitter @perennialplate.

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Food Studies: Join the feast

Photo: Erin Ross

We're a week into our fly-on-the-wall Food Studies experiment, so it seemed like a good time for a quick round-up. Although we're just starting to get to know our 11 volunteer bloggers (seven have introduced themselves thus far, with four more to come next week), there are already some emerging themes, interesting overlaps, and contrasting points of view -- not to mention lots of fascinating new snippets of information.

One thing that seems to run across food disciplines is the importance of place: Josh is studying Protected Designation of Origin in terms of how a local product functions in a global economy meanwhile, Peiwen's field trip to Northern California has revealed how Singapore's reliance on imports has shaped her own relationship to food up till now.

Another recurring theme -- one that many of you can probably empathize with, given the fragile state of the global economy -- is a pervasive anxiety about how to turn a love of food into a paying job. Do you have to grow or make food to stay involved with it professionally, or are there other options? Megan at NYU is studying business food writing and using a food desert data project in order to brush up on statistics and add transferable skills to her post-Food Studies resume. At Boston University, Erin has a hard enough time explaining what a masters in Gastronomy is, let alone what she's going to do with it.

On the bright side, it's hard not to be inspired by the little details in each post that hint at the invisible everyday miracle of our foodscape, from an appreciation of bee physiology born of hours spent hand-pollinating tomato plants to the incredible efforts of food processors to make sure that their cans of tomato sauce taste exactly the same, every single time you buy one. All of our Food Studies bloggers seem convinced that food can change the world, whether it be through the impact of an edible schoolyard on "at-risk" youth or the geopolitics of "virtual water" in the drought-prone Middle East -- and, after reading their posts, it's hard not to believe them.

Perhaps the best part so far is the way the Grist community has already joined in the conversation, with supportive comments, questions, and suggestions. How else would we find out that Jack London was a proponent of sustainable agriculture, or that Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album is the perfect accompaniment to Sour Cream Pecan Crumb Coffee Cake?

Meanwhile, there's lots to look forward to over the coming weeks, with four more bloggers joining the team and reports back from a Rene Redzepi lecture and the Rutgers Sensory Lab. You can keep up with the entire series here, and if you haven't added your voice yet, please do!

Nicola Twilley is author of the blog Edible Geography, founder of the Foodprint Project, and director of Studio-X NYC, part of the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Preservation, and Planning urban futures network.

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I am the population problem

Take a look in the mirror.Population growth tends to get blamed on other people: Africans and Asians who have "more kids than they can feed," immigrants in our own country with their "large families," even single mothers in the "inner city."

But actually the population problem is all about me: white, middle-class, American me. Steer the blame right over here.

Well-meaning people have told me that I'm "just the sort of person who should have kids." Au contraire. I'm just the sort of person who should not have kids.

Population isn't just about counting heads. The impact of humanity on the environment is not determined solely by how many of us are around, but by how much stuff we use and how much room we take up. And as a financially comfortable American, I use a lot of stuff and take up a lot of room.

My carbon footprint is more than 200 times bigger than an average Ethiopian's, and more than 12 times bigger than an average Indian's, and twice as big as an average Brit's.

When a poor woman in Uganda has another child -- too often because she lacks access to family-planning services, economic opportunity, or self-determination -- she might dampen her family's prospects for climbing out of poverty or add to her community's challenges in providing everyone with clean water and safe food, but she certainly isn't placing a big burden on the global environment.

When someone like me has a child -- watch out, world! Gear, gadgets, gewgaws, bigger house, bigger car, oil from the Mideast, coal from Colombia, coltan from the Congo, rare earths from China, pesticide-laden cotton from Egypt, genetically modified soy from Brazil. And then when that child has children, wash, rinse, and repeat (in hot water, of course). Without even trying, we Americans slurp up resources from every corner of the globe and then spit 99 percent of them back out again as pollution.

Conscientious people try to limit that consumption, of course. I'm one of them. I get around largely by bus and on foot, eat low on the food chain, buy used rather than new, keep the heat low, rein in my gadget lust. But even putting aside my remaining carbon sins (see: flying), the fact is that just by virtue of living in America, enjoying some small portion of its massive material infrastructure, my carbon footprint is at unsustainable levels.

Far and away the biggest contribution I can make to a cleaner environment is to not bring any mini-me's into the world. A 2009 study by statisticians at Oregon State University found that the climate impact of having one fewer child in America is almost 20 times greater than the impact of adopting a series of eco-friendly practices for your entire lifetime, things like driving a high-mileage car, recycling, and using efficient appliances and CFLs.

And so, for environmental as well as personal reasons, I've decided not to have children. I call myself a GINK: green inclinations, no kids.

Most people won't make the same decision, of course, and I don't fault them for that. Everyone has different circumstances and values, and environmental issues are not the only ones worth considering. I believe in choice, and that means supporting choices different from mine.

But it needs to become easier for people to make the same decision I have, if they are so inclined.

Here in the U.S., the Pill has been available for more than 50 years. It's now almost universally accepted that women will use birth control to delay, space out, or limit childbearing. But there's not so much acceptance for using birth control to completely skip childbearing. At some point, you're expected to grow up, pair up, put the Pill off to the side, and produce a couple of kids. Deviate from this scenario and you'll get weird looks and face awkward conversations with family members, friends, coworkers, and complete strangers.

One 30-something woman I know who works for a reproductive-health NGO says that her colleagues pester her about her decision not to have children, telling her she needs to get started on that family or she'll regret it. And these are people whose careers are dedicated to making birth control and reproductive health care available to all women! Pro-natal bias runs deep.

Many women in the U.S. have found that it's difficult if not impossible to find a doctor who will perform a tubal ligation if the woman has not already had children (and sometimes even if she has). Doctors warn that sterilization is an irreversible, life-altering decision. But having a child is an irreversible, life-altering decision and you don't find doctors warning women away from that. The broadly held prejudice, in the medical profession and much of the rest of society, is that becoming a parent is the right and inevitable choice.

Over recent years and decades, it's become more acceptable for mixed-race couples to have children, and single women, and gay couples, and women over the age of 40, and that's all good. Acceptance has been slower to come for the decision not to have children. There's now a fledgling childfree movement, but some who are part of it say they still feel like they're violating a taboo.

Read more on population. Check out our series 7 billion: What to expect when you're expanding.Real reproductive freedom has to include social acceptance of the decision not to reproduce. When we achieve that, it will mean less pressure on women and men who don't feel called to become parents. It will mean less of a stigma on people who may have wanted to become parents but didn't get the chance. It will mean a wider array of options for people who haven't decided yet. It will mean fewer children born to ambivalent or unhappy parents, getting us closer to the goal of "every child a wanted child."

Finally, it will mean fewer Americans making a mess of the planet, and a little more breathing room for those of us who are already here or on the way.

I recognize that I am the population problem. I'm trying to be part of the solution. Let's make it easier for others to join me.

A version of this post was originally published at RH Reality Check.

Lisa Hymas is senior editor at Grist, which she cofounded back in the day. You can follow her on Twitter. She writes on politics, population, and other green issues. She coined the acronym GINK (green inclinations, no kids) and won a 2010 Population Institute Global Media Award for her writing on the childfree choice. If you're like-minded, become a fan of GINK on Facebook. If you're not, no hard feelings.

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Good news for Guerrero’s garden

Photo: Vicki MooreAdam Guerrero, the Memphis teacher who last week became the latest victim of outdated city codes that classify urban agriculture as a nuisance, will get to keep his garden, ruled county judge Larry Potter in a hearing today. Guerrero agreed to spruce things up a little -- he'll keep his plants trimmed, remove a few worm bins, and install mesh covers on his rain barrels to keep the mosquitoes out.

The Memphis Flyer reports that Potter appeared concerned about the huge amount of negative attention the case attracted across the internet, saying, "I never said you could not have a garden. That's inaccurate. I've always encouraged environmental activism, sustainability, going green, and blight reduction."

Levi Dowdy, the neighbor who originally brought the complaint against Guerrero, attended the hearing and voiced his concerns that the cleanup measures Potter ordered won't be enough to staunch the smell or supposed rat problem created by the garden. But he didn't appear to sway the judge.

Guerrero's brush with the law could turn out to benefit the garden's educational mission. Potter touted the idea of finding a piece of vacant land that Guerrero could use as an outdoor classroom, a devoted space for the hands-on training he's been giving local youth in everything from beekeeping to biodiesel production. The City of Memphis will scope out potential spaces.

So it's a happy ending for this gardener. Now that cities like Chicago are reworking their laws to embrace agriculture, and cases like Guerrero's have received such a groundswell of social media response, it looks like things are looking up for gardeners and their supporters. Here's to a future of more forgiving and flexible urgan ag regulations -- and more city-grown veggies!

Claire Thompson is an editorial intern at Grist. She just graduated from Northwestern University and is happy to be back in her hometown of Seattle, proving that her journalism degree is not worthless.

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Is my apple farmer shining me on? Ask Umbra on pesticides

Q. Dear Umbra,

I was recently at my local farmers market and spied some beautiful apples. I asked the farmer how they were grown, and he kindly explained that they were not organic, but that he does try to minimize pesticide use and only uses water-soluble pesticides and sprays a minimum of a month before harvest. He said that the rain washes it all away by the time they are picked. I used to be totally happy to support local farmers even if they weren't organic, but now I've got two little kiddos, and I'm getting pickier about what we eat, not just where it was grown. So what do you think? Is he right, that these apples are safe? I'm having a hard time finding other sources of local, organic apples. Thanks!

Monte
Hudson, OH

Photo: Sean DreilingerA. Dearest Monte,

Until you mentioned your sweet, apple-cheeked children, I was going to let your farmer's fuzzy claims slide, because I am a firm believer in supporting local agriculture. However, scientists are finding more and more reasons to avoid feeding pesticides to children. And apples, as it happens, have won the dubious distinction of being the pesticide-iest produce on EWG's Dirty Dozen list, as well as being flagged by Consumer Reports.

The small people in our lives are particularly sensitive to pesticides, because their wee bodies are not as well equipped to process toxic substances, and because they eat more, pound for pound, than we do. Pesticides have been linked to lower IQ, ADHD, birth defects, and other ills, and "the evidence just keeps getting stronger," says Kristin Schafer, a senior policy analyst at the Pesticide Action Network. The EPA, which regulates pesticide use, acknowledges that children and pesticides are a concern; let us take a moment to savor the work of the agency's Creative Use of Punctuation Department, which tells us, "Also, there are 'critical periods' in human development when exposure to a toxin can permanently alter the way an individual's biological system operates."

Critical periods indeed. I should point out, however, that that self-same EPA has established regulations for pesticide use that are considered conservative by many in the apple industry. If you were to speak, for instance, with Bruce Grim, a cheery fellow who is head of the Washington State Horticultural Association and a former Apple Person of the Year, he would assure you that his family has been growing (and eating) apples for 81 years with no ill effects, that children's health is taken into account when regulations are made, and that washing your fruit helps minimize risks. He would also assure you that, as we have discussed before, many growers are moving away from a full reliance on pesticides and into the more creative methods of Integrated Pest Management, which involves doing salacious things like flooding orchards with pheromones to keep codling moths from mating.

It may well be that your local farmer is doing something along those lines. It certainly sounds like he's aware of the issues around pesticides -- or at least aware that consumers are concerned. I applaud you for asking him about his practices, and encourage you to follow up for more details if you're comfortable. We should all try to find out more about where our food comes from. For those of you who are shy or unsure what to say, Sustainable Table has a lovely guide. And if you're looking for sources of local and organic food, Local Harvest is a good starting point.

Monte, ultimately you'll have to make the decision that feels right for your family. But I will leave you with this sentiment from Sandra Steingraber's Organic Manifesto [PDF]: "Whatever we do or don't know about threshold levels for harm, my intuition tells me that food with no poison is better for my children's developing minds and bodies than food with some."

Pericarpily,
Umbra

Yours is to wonder why, hers is to answer (or try). Send your green-living questions to Umbra.For even more green goodness, you can follow Umbra on Twitter (@AskUmbra) or become a fan on Facebook.Umbra Fisk is Grist Research Associate II, Hardcover and Periodicals Unit, floors 2B-4B.

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