Maeko Loves News #1

Ain’t no big thing, being Green!

I’m a self-professed Eco-Nazi… obsessive and addicted, but without that whole oppression/genocide thing. Like that soup Nazi from Seinfeld, but with eco-activism.

Maybe it’s no secret. If you work with me, you’ve seen me rooting through the trash, picking out Styrofoam computer packaging, cardboard lunch containers, plastic bottles and soda cans, etc, and packing it in her car to take to the recycling center on the way home… all with the occasional freak out if an errant drip of food or old syrupy beverage makes its way onto her work clothes or beloved shoes. Yes, I will admit it, I am that girl. But I can’t help it!

It’s a sickness to try to change everything I can around me for the greater ecological good of the planet. I try to be my best. (**Extra points for anyone who knows where that quote is from!) I try to reduce packaging when I have to buy new, and I try to buy products with as much post-consumer recycled content, I reuse as much as I can. I’ve banned almost all the paper towel usage in our house, I mix my own cleaning supplies (if you need a recipe or six, just ask me… I have tons!), eat organic and local as much as possible, reduce my daily trash output, recycle about 90% of what I throw away, even though our condo complex has no curbside recycling program, I try to cook meals at home and take lunch to reduce carbon emissions by driving to and from restaurants for take out. We even recycle our old small appliances instead of throwing them out (e-waste!). If I do something wasteful, I am wracked with eco-guilt nightmares for a few days… it’s a sickness.

But admittedly, I wouldn’t change myself at all. If anyone else adopted this sickness, imagine how much greater our local environments would be!

Anyway, that said, there is recent local and global GREENish news that tickles and prickles me:

#1.) Tickled. Michigan Clears the Air.

Come May 1st, Michigan will be the 38th state to go Smoke Free in public. Finally, after a more than decade long fight to clear the air, the bill passed through the stalemated Michigan legislature, with a promise from Governor Jennifer Granholm (D) to sign the bill into law last Thursday.

The ban affects restaurants, hotels, bars and clubs, but exempts smoking/cigar bars and non-American Indian owned casino game floors. First time offenders will be fined $100, and then $500 for subsequent violations.

Img. Susan Tusa via Detroit Free Press

Though this makes a lot of people (like me!) elated, there are a number of opponents who have helped block this legislation for years, and are extremely unhappy the resolution passed. Small business owners believe this will kill their business. And sports fans and smokers balk at the ban. Others oppose the ban because they think of it as government meddling in people’s personal lifestyles.

While business owners may see a downturn in their revenue, we have to keep in mind that 1.) The majority of Michiganians oppose smoking in public places, 2.) they will begin to come out to support businesses they did not frequent due to indoor smoke, 3.) other cities like Chicago, New York and Columbus did initially lose a percentage of their revenue after a smoking ban, yet bounced back much stronger after a small amount of time.

My own personal reaction to this is: GET OVER IT.

Smokers always feel entitled to a sense of freedom, while they do not consider the entitlement of non-smokers who have their own right to breathe clean air! “I have an American right to do whatever I want, smoke where I want, so fuck off,” is the attitude I often come across. I guess I could rebuttle that I have a right to breathe oxygen untainted from nicotine, tar and other carcinogens. “I have a lung condition” I should say! My lungs are currently in perfect condition, and I want to keep them that way!

In addition, people who have auto-immune diseases and other health problems like cancer have a compromised immune system, and second hand smoke further weakens their immune systems making them prone to infection, sickness and in some cases, serious illness which could lead to death. In my case, second hand smoke in clubs has often caused me to lose the ability to walk, or searing pain in all my joints for days at a time.

While I believe in your right to smoke almost anywhere, I do not believe in that right when it compromises essential functions for many people to live a normal, healthy life–

You love your smoking, right? Like devotion and love for anything else, you will do whatever you need to do in order to carry on the habit/addiction/love. Businesses that want you around have and will invest in things that will allow you to frequent their establishment while still accomodating your… devotion. Like that club in Dearborn that cleared part of their parking lot, installed insulated tents with couches, heaters and an outdoor hooka lounge/bar. If you love smoking, you will make it work. You smoke outside your office despite snow and freezing weather, and you smoke out of a cracked window in your car during a rain storm, why should restaurants or bars be any different? Isn’t it only fair that while you get to take 15 minute breaks every hour and hog up all the great restaurants, that people like me who love food but literally can’t take smoke finally get our time to breathe while we eat and dance?

And on the Beauty Note: cigarette smoke, being a pollutant, actually contains free radicals in the tar, and also in the the smoke in the form of gas. These free radicals are those pesky atoms that lose an electron, and frantically search around for a free floating electron to become a stable molecule… Free radicals form when external factors disrupt the stability of a molecule. Free radical production is what causes aging.

Here is the basic summary: pollutants = free radicals = aging. No smoke in public places = less free radicals = less aging.

This is good news for Michiganians who care about their skin. This also means we can save money on those expensive anti-aging tonics and serums. Seriously, how is this not good news?

I believe this spring will be a happy spring in Michgan indeed!

The Reality:

Twins: Non-Smoker vs Sun-loving, pack & a half a day Smoker

Why does the fashion industry glamourize smoking? It sure makes for great photography, but there is nothing glamourous at all in getting older faster, vomit-breath, and dirty, stained teeth! Fashion + smoking sends a message that smoking gives you an instant chicness, while omitting the disgusting, truthful deets: there are dire health and beauty consequences for sustaining a smoker’s lifestyle. /end rant.

Original Article here:Freep.com

Img Cred: ~tale-like-me @ DeviantArt, Style by Me, Dan Martensen via Refinery29,Shizuka NY, Susan Tusa via Detroit Free Press.

#2.) Prickly, Tenuous Tickle: Hopin’ in Copenhagen.

Deforestation aids drought & Global Climate Change, study finds (via All Voices.com)

NY Times reports that negotiators at the World Climate Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark are close to completing an agreement that compensates contries for preserving natural landscapes, like forest, swamps and fields, which help to curb climate change.

…forests are efficient absorbers of carbon dioxide, the primary heat-trapping gas linked to global warming. Rain forest destruction, which releases the carbon dioxide stored in trees, is estimated to account for 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally.

The agreement for the program [called REDD, or "Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degredation"], if signed as expected, may turn out to be the most significant achievement to come out of the Copenhagen climate talks, providing a system through which countries can be paid for conserving disappearing natural assets based on their contribution to reducing emissions.

The final draft of Redd was to be given yesterday to the Climate ministers of almost 200 countries. However, final agreement could be compromised in part because little progress has been made on many other issues at the summit… and recently, the UN Climate Summit President Connie Hedegaard resigned, amid rumours of a negotiating text drafted by the richer nations to be pushed through talks under Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen…

While this potential program would be a huge leap forward in the fight against climate change… it seems shaky at best. Going to have to keep watching to see if this REDD program gets through all the beaurocracy!

Original Articles Here: NY Times.com, & UK Guardian.

Img. cred: All Voices.com.

**Line from Dollhouse, uttered by Dolls, in their Doll-state, when the memory and brain map of engagements have been wiped clean, in response to reason for living.