For other health and environment impacts of cotton, please search for “cotton” near the upper right of this blog and also check out Fashion Sustainability 2007, by Forum for the Future (0.4 MB). [Envirostats author]

After the cotton is harvested, more than 8,000 chemicals – many classified by the WHO as “hazardous” – may be used in the various processes it must then go through, including washing, bleaching, dyeing and printing.

But organically-grown cotton is different. Many of the 25,000 farmers who now produce it in 22 countries report that by using non-chemical alternatives to pesticides they are able to avoid getting into debt and enjoy farm land on which they can grow food safely for their families. “Crop rotation is a major principle of organic farming,” explains Damien Sanfilippo from the Pesticide Action Network-UK (PAN-UK). “When you allow farmers to grow organic cotton, you know you are also helping them grow a large supply of organic food for themselves and their community.”

- The World Health Organization (WHO) via The Independent, Dec 1 2007

Just a local story to me regarding some statistics that had not been kept since 2002 in PEI for pesticides purchases.

Please check Stat 0231 and accompanying resource for comparisons to other Provinces and national averages regarding patterns of pesticide use, Household and the Environment Survey 2006 by Statistics Canada (2.8 MB) Text Table 3.10, Annex Table 23. This was not the same as amounts used. [Envirostats author]

- Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Oct 23 2007

I am watching a PBS Nature documentary on Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD, involving bees in what may be the most puzzling, or at least the most interesting, environmental impact story of 2007. This isn’t about a bunch of bees, biodiversity, insects or what have you. Think about this. Some 3/4 of the world’s plants rely on pollination to reproduce, and almost half the pollinating insects (not just bees) of the world have disappeared in the past 50(?) years or so. I didn’t quite catch that number amidst a bunch of other numbers, but that’s devastating. About 1/3 of the food we eat need bees to pollinate. The US has had to import bees for the first time in 80 years because of CCD, for example. It’s true what they said on the show. Without the pollinators, we’ll have far more to worry about much sooner than global warming will ever be of concern to us because this won’t take long to happen at a critical level.

Oh, honey never spoils. Just mentioned on the show. Thought you’d like to know cause I didn’t. They also have bees on the top of the Paris Opera House.

Turns out, like any true story of nature, the complexity of it all is far more than we had ever imagined. Forget cell phones or Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV, suspected from Australian bees, by the way, not Israel, to which African bees seem to be resistant) or termites or pesticides or parasites, we’re talking a whole bunch of conditions, including those mentioned and something like a condition with the results (not cause) like AIDS for bees that weakens their immune system to make them prone to all these conditions. Or it might be a “perfect storm” of conditions all hitting a tipping point cause they’ve all helped each other’s causes to make the bees a bit weak in every way, of sorts. Whatever, it’s a fascinating story! Following is the PBS Nature website’s summary of the show. Check for a rebroadcast time, which is the main reason I am blogging this as a heads-up for you to watch it the next time it comes around if you didn’t catch it. I will because I didn’t catch the first 15 minutes or so of it.

Bees are big business in China. Honey, wax, venom, 90% of protein royal jelly (most in skin creams and products), etc. China is the king of bee products. Really? I had NO idea! Bees are disappearing there, too, including “Pear Valley” where the pears are individually wrapped before harvest. Wow! You’ve got to see the pictures to believe that amount of detailed care! I wonder how much paper that uses! Anyway, farmers there hand pollinate now cause the bees had died off due to pesticides, among other reasons, but it seems CCD finalized that outcome, though the farmers seemed to have managed some scarce success pollinating for the bees. Interesting! Cost to do this in the US? $90 billion estimated! Keep the bees! Nothing works like a bee.

We won’t know till winter this year the true impact of CCD this year since last winter so it will be a very critical time in this ordeal.

In the winter of 2006/2007, more than a quarter of the country’s 2.4 million bee colonies — accounting for tens of billions of bees — were lost to CCD, Colony Collapse Disorder. This loss is projected have an $8 billion to $12 billion effect on America’s agricultural economy, but the consequences of CCD could be far more disastrous.

The role honeybees play in our diet goes beyond honey production. These seemingly tireless creatures pollinate about one-third of crop species in the U.S. Honeybees pollinate about 100 flowering food crops including apples, nuts, broccoli, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, celery, squash and cucumbers, citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe, melons, as well as animal-feed crops, such as the clover that’s fed to dairy cows. Essentially all flowering plants need bees to survive.

A daunting question is: If honeybee colonies were so severely affected by CCD that pollination stopped, could we lose these crops from our markets and our diets forever?

We’re not there yet,” says Jeff Pettis of the USDA. Pettis says there are steps researchers and beekeepers can take to ensure that the bee population doesn’t plummet to catastrophic levels. “One measure beekeepers have been taking is to keep bees as healthy as possible — improve nutrition and reduce stress,” says Pettis. Consumers have become more demanding and expect to have fruits and vegetables available to us all year round. In order to achieve this, commercial beekeepers haul colonies of honeybees across the country so their pollination services can serve all growing seasons. The season may start with almonds in California, then move on to apples in the Northwest, cranberries in New Jersey and Maine blueberries. The constant moving about places stress on the bees. In addition, certain crops that may be in the pollination circuit, like cranberries and cucumbers, are not very nutritious for bees. To keep the bee’s health, beekeepers may need to ease up on their schedules. It may be necessary for them to retire bees for a particular season or skip some less nutritious crops entirely.

Of course, nature has its own safeguards to keep crops pollinated. Honeybees aren’t our only pollinators. Other insects and birds pollinate fruits and vegetables as well. The problem with other natural pollinators picking up the bees’ slack is that today’s agricultural industry has simply grown too large for them to keep up. The leviathan that is U.S. agriculture creates a huge demand for pollination. Because honeybees are relatively mobile and can pollinate a generous number of crops, they have been the ideal recruits to meet our crop needs. But honeybees don’t perform such feats naturally without help — lots of it. Commercial beekeepers keep colonies nourished and healthy and move their hives from state to state in semis, selling their pollination services to farmers at a premium.

With the threat of CCD looming, researchers are starting to study how other pollinators like the larger bumble bees could step in for honeybees. “The Dutch have figured out how to use bumblebees,” says Pettis. Bumblebees share many similarities with honeybees. Both are social nesters, although the bumblebees’ society is not as highly ordered as that of honeybees. Also, bumblebees make a new nest each spring by solitary queens, who hibernate through the winter. Honeybees remain in the old nest.

Perhaps the biggest consideration is a financial one. Bumblebees last just 2 months and cost $200 per colony, whereas honeybees can last several months in the summer with colony rentals running only $100 to $140. As a result, the use of bumblebee pollination is usually confined to high-value crops like tomatoes. Clearly, the use of bumblebees is a step in the right direction, but not a final solution.

“There’s nothing waiting in the wings that can replace honeybees at this time,” says Pettis, “but we can solve the problem in honeybee health.” Pettis says that by focusing on reducing stress and improving nutrition, beekeepers can limit some of the factors that potentially lead to disastrous conditions like CCD, thereby keeping bees — and our diets — healthy.

- PBS Nature Show: Silence of the Bees (sample clip of show on site, as well as broadcast times, or check pbs.org)

So much for the small and clean was basically the premise of the source article in the Globe & Mail, although I went to look for the actual website itself. The 5-fold statistic was from the Globe, though, as it was not specifically stated on the source website, probably buried in the 14 MB report I won’t post on my site. Despite the report having only 2004 data at the latest, it was just recently released because as you can imagine, it took at least all of 2005 for the data to come in, and 2006 to analyze, plug-up holes and such and probably 2007 to write. These things take time where proper registries are set up and counted, or forms must be gone through and added up, rather than estimates made on sampling or whatever. [Envirostats author]

Adrian Vazquez-Galvez, the CEC’s executive director, in an interview, said he didn’t know why corporate size had such a dramatic influence, although he said businesses that devote resources to develop pollution abatement plans generally have the best records.

Some environmentalists say the findings indicate the public and government need to be more alert to pollution from smaller companies.

“The mental image of pollution that most people carry around in their heads [is] a large spewing smokestack,” said Rick Smith, director of Environmental Defence, a conservation group. “Increasingly, dangerous pollution comes from smaller, more unobtrusive sources.”

For carbon dioxide emissions from the electric utility sector, the United States accounted for over 90%, while Mexico and Canada had less than 5% each for 2004. Be careful how you read this that it’s only CO2 for the electric utility sector, not the national CO2 output.

Trends from 1998 to 2004, for Canada and the United States (in releases and transfers of)

• 153 chemicals; and
• Manufacturing sectors, as well as electric utilities, hazardous waste management/solvent recovery facilities, wholesale chemical distributors, and coal mining.

This data set is based on fewer chemicals than the 2004 Canada-US data set. It does not include chemicals that were added to NPRI for the 1999 reporting year, as well as several chemicals, such as lead and mercury, whose reporting definitions changed in the period since 1998.

This section also has an analysis of changes from 2002 to 2004 that includes reporting on pollution prevention activities. The 2002-2004 data set includes 203 chemicals (carbonyl sulfide is not included, since it was added to NPRI for 2003) and all matched Canada/US industry sectors.

Key Findings:

From 1998 to 2004, total releases and transfers from facilities in Canada and the United States declined by 9% from 1998 to 2004:

• Total releases decreased by 15%, transfers to recycling increased by 6% and other transfers for further management decreased by 15%.
• On-site air releases decreased by 22%, and surface water releases by 6%.
• Off-site releases (transfers to disposal, mainly landfills), however, increased by 26% while on-site land releases decreased by 37%.

Sectors reporting the largest amounts:

• The primary metals sector had the largest total releases and transfers in both 1998 and 2004, although it saw a 10% decrease over the period.
• The chemical manufacturing sector had the second largest amounts in both years, with an 11% decrease.
• Electric utilities (coal- and oil-fired power plants) had the third -largest amounts, with a 12% decrease.

States & provinces reporting the largest amounts:

Ontario, Texas and Ohio ranked among the jurisdictions with the largest total releases and transfers in both 1998 and 2004.

Facilities reporting the largest amounts:
The number of facilities reporting to NPRI increased by 48% from 1998 to 2004. In general, the NPRI newly-reporting facilities changed the magnitude, but did not change the direction of the change from 1998 to 2004.

For TRI, 12% fewer facilities in total reported in 2004 than in 1998, but the decrease in the number of facilities did not change the overall trend.

Pollution Prevention:
Facilities reporting pollution prevention activities generally showed greater progress in reducing their releases and transfers than those not having undertaken pollution prevention.

- Most of headline statistic except “5-fold” statistic from the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, Taking Stock 2004

- 5-fold statistic and interview with CEC Executive Director from Globe & Mail, Oct 18 2007

- Full Taking Stock 2004 Report (13.4 MB off-site)

- CO2 output comparison from Report highlights

A statistic is like a picture in that it tells a story. However, unlike a picture, it rarely ever tells the whole story simply by not having all the information is present. There is a reason the phrase lies, damned lies and statistics¹ has remained timelessly popular, you know!

Does that make this blog a collection of lies, then? Well, that depends on how you see it, like the way you can look at a statistic.

Each statistic on its own may be a little lie by virtue of giving a biased focus instead of a complete one. However, the way I see it, each statistic is a piece of a bigger truth — a bigger truth I am only starting to see myself, which you have seen yourself, but one which none of us could ever see completely.

You see, just about everything we do has an impact on the environment. Unfortunately, most statistics only show an impact, not total impact. Aggregate impact statistics are available, like ecological footprint and life cycle analysis, but they can be hard to comprehend and give too little or too much detail, respectively, to identify some answers for environmental problems. Only by looking at environmental statistics as a collection, relative to each other for context, involving breadth of scope far larger any environmental government department or non-governmental organization could be expected to include, could we really properly assess our environmental impact and determine how to solve them. The latter reason is also an argument for how far more than just environmental agencies and organizations have to work together to help the world’s environmental problems.

But is looking at all the statistics necessary? Well, that depends on how you see it, like the way you can look at a statistic.

I don’t have a statistic for it, but I would argue most of us don’t need a statistic to change something in our lives that would benefit the environment if we thought about it. What we need to see the statistics for is to determine what to change that might have the most impact, whether absolute impact or efficient impact from a small effort, or what to change because it has impacts about which we either did not know or of which did not realize the full extent. The environment works like a web, whether the kind for spiders or for life, in that an impact anywhere has repercussions to other parts, often to extents nobody fully knows. For those trying to create change, seeing statistics in a collection relative to each other allows them to prioritize where to focus their resources, as well as assess their efforts — a  most important part of creating environmental change because without feedback from good indicators, we might as well just rely on conventional wisdom, which, if you haven’t noticed, is not about change.

So have I seen anything challenging conventional wisdom by having seen all the environmental statistics in keeping this blog? Well, no.

I don’t know if I’d say the environmental movement has been around long enough to have conventional wisdoms, but there are definitely some deeply entrenched and popular beliefs, most of which I have subscribed to for a long time. After seeing some of the statistics as a collective, though, I have found my faith in some of these beliefs shaken or destroyed. I’ll save the arguments for other articles to stay focused on my topic, but I’ll list a few:

• I no longer believe most biofuels is a good option for the world, and definitely none for America;
• I’m starting to believe nuclear may be the way for America to go for energy in the medium-term²;
• I also believe far more resources should be devoted to homes, from home building to appliances to lifestyles at home, instead of transportation for reducing global warming.

I’ll stop there because there is nothing to be gained for opposing popular opinion. However, seeing all these statistics as a collective have also affirmed some deep rooted beliefs I have had more than ever. For one, I believe the answer to all our environmental problems could be summed up in a word.

Consumption. Reducing consumption if you really need the clarification.

If you’ve ever looked at any life cycle analysis study, you’d realize how much unseen resources it takes to produce just about everything we consume, from that farmed fish that takes three wild fish to make the food raise it, not to mention other farm environment resource requirements, to how much energy required and emissions emitted to get a pound of beef or that cotton T-shirt. There are also often post-consumption damange to the environment, like methane from discarded food if put in a landfill. Consumption involves so many things in so many ways that by reducing consumption, we could reduce environmental damage in so many areas, from energy to waste to greenhouse gases to toxic materials to natural environments required and biodiversity affected, and on and on.

We have to consume to survive, and consume more to live, but there is so much consumption people do unnecessarily that if we just thought about what we don’t need to consume or consume as much, and act on it, we could prevent so much environmental damage. Material things are particularly bad, from big homes to Hummers to high turnover of electronics, etc. because they involve both energy and material resources to produce and dispose. I’m not saying we’d have to give up all this and go back to cave dwelling. I’m just saying we need to be smarter about our consumption choices. The future is about experiences³, not material wealth as in the past, but it might end up being experiences from material wealth, like how a new iPhone gives you the experience of being popular among your friends just for having one. Put that money to experience a tai chi class or something you have never tried, and which require less consumption. You may or may not be more popular among your friends for your novel venture, but at least you’ll give them something interesting to talk to you about!

Yes, reducing consumption. That’s all it really comes down to. At least that’s what all the numbers tell me. Education comes a close second to know more about consumption reduction, but I don’t think people need to be educated just on that first step of reducing consumption. That is an attitudinal change, not an intellectual one.

Now, how accurate is that message? Well, I don’t know, but I suggest to look at it this way. You know those “standard” polls constantly come out with about 1,000 respondents, being accurate to ±3% 19 times out of 20? I currently have 485 statistics blogged, selected for quality but otherwise randomly fed to me via a wide array of newsfeeds. I’m far from about 1,000 statistics, but how many respondents do you think those polls had to ask before they started seeing the trends and just need to keep on polling to be more certain of them and reduce the margin of error?

That is what I mean by consuming statistics and environment, or consuming, statistics and environment. But either way you look at it, I would highly recommend you look at it in the same way, at the statistics as a collective, with consumption in mind, and the environmental impact associated with each of them. Most of the answers to our environmental problems can be found in each of us, or more accurately, every one of us. We are each like a statistic, in some ways, and that includes being more meaningful and impacting as a collective. Or if we each thought of ourselves as being a statistic of environmental impact found on this blog, since we all could be one, if we all took care of our impacts, then there’d be nothing to write about.

Minh Tan
Envirostats author

Today, October 15 2007, is Blog Action Day as declared by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). Bloggers all around the world are encouraged blog something on the environment today to create synergy and draw attention to the issue. This was my contribution.

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Notes:

¹ Attributed to 19th century British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, and popularized by Mark Twain.

² As a post-scriptum informed to me by a colleague, Bob MacDonald, aka CBC Science Guy of Quirks & Quarks CBC Radio Show fame among others, seems to agree with me on nukes and biofuels. He has different reasons and options, but drew the same conclusions about what is not viable… and he’s far more scientifically informed than me.

³ The Experience Economy, a book on an advanced service economy which has begun to sell “mass customization” services that are similar to theatre, using underlying goods and services as props (Wikipedia description).