NEW! Sustainable Practices Course Offerings at Mother Lode River Center

In keeping with the Mother Lode River Center’s commitment to environmental stewardship, we are proud to announce the most recent addition to our Outdoor Education curriculum: Sustainable Practices; Experiential Education for a Changing Planet.

Beginning in 2007 the Mother Lode River Center enacted a Greenhouse Gas Action Plan (GAP) as a means of reducing our carbon footprint. Since then we have “walked the talk” and reduced our overall carbon emissions by 30%. This puts us ahead of our 2012 goal of a 20% reduction, and well on our way to achieving our 2020 goal of a 40% reduction.

In the process folks have been noticing our rapidly multiplying fleet of 100% waste vegetable oil powered vehicles which began with Eco-Bus, but this year will add Eco-MiniBus, Eco-Truck and Eco-Passat. Solar hot water heaters of various design types, and photovoltaic panels applied in a variety of ways, have been installed to illustrate the full spectrum of solar power technology. This year our on-site organic garden adds a new solar powered root zone heating system and a high-tech greenhouse augmented by thermal mass. Our current goal is to achieve a 50% overall reduction of our carbon footprint by the end of the 2009 season and to ultimately create an “Eco-Village”. (Check out the ECOS blog for details.)

When many of our guests expressed interest in these different projects, the decision was made to share our experiences with you. Guided by our solar guru, Allen Carrozza, who is a true solar expert with over thirty years of experience in the field, we comparative rookies are acquiring lots of practical knowledge. We are enthusiastic about passing it on to others. The more we learn though, the more we realize that most of these ideas aren’t new. The ancient Greeks used solar hot water heating, organic gardening is how the ancients used to do it, and the first diesel engine was designed by Rudolf Diesel in 1897 to run on peanut oil.

The real challenge is to learn to live in ways that adapt to the needs of a changing planet. Our Manager, Greg Hawkins, put it well: “A revolution does not begin with the formation of a new idea, but with its implementation.”

How Sustainable Practices Works:
As with all our programs, Sustainable Practices is designed to be hands-on and can be tailored to meet the needs of youth and/or adults. You can combine it with one or more of our other programs to create fun and informative multi-day adventures. Or, spend the day at our camp on the American River and learn how a little creativity and initiative can result in dramatic changes in your use of energy, and the various ways we can all reduce our impact on the ecosystems that support us all.

Come Join Us at Mother Lode and Help Build Tomorrow, Today!
Sustainable Practices home page

The Garden: Weeding Out Greenwash

Shoveling:

It's been pouring rain here for the last few weeks, and during the small breaks in the storm, we've managed to put some of the finishing touches on our garden expansion. We've also started seeds in the greenhouse--carrots, broccoli, lettuce, peas, tomatoes, corn, and herbs of all sorts are all getting off to a good start. But I have to admit, a few days ago, after lifting what felt like the 10,000th heavy shovel full of wet soil, I couldn't help thinking, "Why exactly are we doing this again?" Sure, it's nice to eat garden fresh vegetables on your river trip, and most of us have heard that eating locally grown, organic food is "green", but in a world awash in "green" rhetoric, it'd be nice to know how this project actually helps us achieve our goals.

Promoting Healthy People:
So is a tomato or ear of corn grown in a small scale organic garden like ours more healthy than their store-bought counterparts? To put it bluntly, yes. Big time. There are several reasons for this, one of them being the harvesting and shipping factors involved in large scale operations. Store bought produce, even certified organic varieties, must be shipped to stores an average of 1,500 miles, which can mean weeks in a box. Time is the biggest thief of nutrients, with some vegetable varieties losing up to 50% within three days of being picked. Another factor is ripeness; farmers can't harvest at the peak of a crop's ripeness, leading to comparatively tasteless, less nutritious produce. According to Robert Shewfelt, professor of food science at the University of Georgia, "When you pick something at peak flavor, it is about the same as picking it at peak nutritional value." Studies have also shown that produce loses significant nutrition from bruising during mechanized harvesting and shipping processes that damage cell walls, allowing nutrients to escape and oxidation to occur.

Another reason for nutritional disparity is the difference in soil quality and quantity. For over 70 years, soil scientists from the USDA have been warning farmers about the rapid depletion of soil and soil nutrients due to unsustainable farming practices. And the fact is that today, the average depth of topsoil on North American cropland has diminished from around 21 inches down to 6 inches. At the Earth Summit Statistics Meeting in 1992, research showed that farmland in the US is 85% micro-nutrient depleted. By continually building up our own soil with compost generated by our guests and rotating crops properly we can keep growing nutritionally superior crops here at camp.

The produce grown in the US contains as little as 62% of the nutritional value of that produced in 1950. This is partly because on large farms, modern crops that grow larger and faster are not necessarily able to acquire nutrients from the soil at the same, faster rate. A good analogy is a body builder all pumped up on steroids; while it may look impressive and fit, many of the muscles have absolutely no utility and the bodybuilder isn't necessarily healthy. It's the same for mass produced crops. They've been selected for their yield, size, and speed of ripening traits, not for healthy root systems, which absorb more nutrients. Information about this "dilution effect" has been available for almost 30 years, but there have been no reforms in government to encourage farmers to grow healthier crops, only incentives for them to grow more and more crops. Factor that in with less, nutrient depleted soil, and you have a crop containing as little as 62% of the nutritional value as that produced in 1950.

A more hidden aspect of the nutritional deficiency in standard crops is lack of diversity. Different varieties (cultivars) of the same vegetable vary widely in the amount of nutrients they contain. A researcher named Eitenmiller studied the nutrient composition of different types of apples, peaches and other fruit, for example, they found variation in Vitamin A levels as high as 20 times. Another food scientist, Robert Shewfeld reports that carotene levels in any given vegetable often vary by a factor of 10. It is easier to grow a larger variety of crops in a small scale operation because you can monitor each type and adjust watering and feeding for their specific needs. Last year at Mother Lode for instance we grew 8 different types of tomatoes and plan to grow even more varieties this year.

Living in Equitable Communities:

Our garden program addresses that goal by educating our guests about the process of growing food in a sustainable way and empowering them to go and do it themselves. There have been several studies on the benefits of garden programs in schools, almost all of which show positive behavioral changes towards eating healthier, even in the absence of positive attitudinal changes. Twenty of these studies can be viewed here.

Our garden curricullum focuses on methods that anyone can use, whether they live in urban or rural environments, even in areas with poor or depleted soils. One example is our simple raised planter boxes that anyone can build. in which we will be replicating a method of gardening developed by gardening guru Jacob Mittleider. Previously unusable soil is built without chemicals by adding nutients and organic materials. Mittleider's method's have utilized vast amounts of what was once considered unusable land, especially in 3rd world countries. Another example we teach about is hay bale gardening, possibly the easiest way to start a growing crops on your own.

Living in Balance with the Natural World

Henry Brockman, a small-scale organic farmer and author from Illinois rightly asserts in his book Organic Matters that we must produce food "in a way that enhances life," and "instead of a vicious cycle, create a virtuous cycle."

One strategy we use to accomplish this is by designing a permaculture garden. Permaculture, in short, is the harmonious integration of design with ecology. The use of long-living food crops like fruit and nut trees is an important part, as well as fostering the ecosystem in which you live. Sometimes this is counter-intuitive. Hornworms are a common problem for most people who grow tomatoes, including here at Mother Lode, but what we learned is that they aren't just a pest designed to spoil crops, they actually were here long before we decided to plant crops. Hornworms are the pupa form of the Sphinx moth, which pollinates the evening primrose flowers growing in the riparian habitat. So instead of killing them as I was taught to do as a kid to protect our tomatoes, it makes more sense ecologically to transport them to the stands of primroses near the river, where they can continue playing their role in the ecosystem.

Another similarly related view that we've gleaned from is biodynamic agriculture, a creation of Rudolph Steiner which looks upon the soil and the farm as living organisms. Biodynamics puts heavy emphasis on composting and soil preparation and maintenance that supports abundant microbial life. These microorganisms are responsible for a wide variety of beneficial processes, from breaking down complex compounds into simpler ones that plants can use, to fixing nitrogen from the air in a form available to plants, to devouring harmful nematodes. This living, pulsation in the soil preserves its vitality for the plants in another way too; they tie up essential nutients in their bodies and then release them slowly as they die and decompose. Using the methods of biodynamics will help us revitalize our soil instead of continuing to exhaust it.

Back to Shoveling:
The shovel feels a bit lighter after considering all the reasons why we've undertaken this project. Growing our own, healthier crops for us and our guests to enjoy, and growing them in a way that preserves and even benefits the surrounding ecosystems is definitely worth all the work and research. We hope to see you here on the river (or in the garden on the river) soon.

Bottled Water to Disappear at MaLode

Last season, when we made the decision to eliminate the use of bottled water at Mother Lode and use coolers and cups instead, we had our reasons. Now those reasons, and a lot more, were included in this article on bottled water Emily recently wrote for The High Country News. If you are interested in her other posts, check out the "Goat Blog" at HCN.org or look for her articles which appear in the Sunday editon of the San Francisco Chronicle. Scott the RiverDoc

Tell Me Sweet Little Lies...
by Emily Underwood

Bottled water has never made sense. The fact is it has always been an elaborate PR scam, both an invented necessity and a bizarre symbol of luxury. Nevertheless, I buy bottled water sometimes, especially on long car trips. When I do, I often buy "Fiji" water. I don't know why. I just like its square shape, snazzy palm frond label, and the frosty coolness as I pull it out of the service station refrigerator.

I have always known, vaguely, that I am being seduced by the phrase "natural artesian water," and by the company's more shameless greenwashing: "Every drop is green." I know better than to believe such nonsense, but I enjoy forgetting what I know as I listen to the gurgle of gasoline filling up my tank and eat a frozen Snickers bar. Most of us know that feeling.

Every bottled water company has a special spin: Evian has tried for years now to convince us that drinking its bottled water will make us thin and sophisticated, possibly even French. Dasani, by Coca Cola, goes for mystery with its shapely blue bottle and "mouthwatering" mineral formula. Nestle's brand name, Pure Life, shares its name with a prominent Christian group whose mission is to deliver believers from sexual sin.

Something all the bottled water companies have in common these days, however, is aggressive greenwashing. It turns out Fiji runs one of the most surreal and manipulative of the campaigns.
"We are proud to offer a fine artesian water that is good for people and good for the environment," they say. Nonsense. A recent study by the Pacific Institute, Energy Implications of Bottled Water has forever ruined Fiji water for me.

The study, published in the February 2009 peer-reviewed Environmental Research Letters, finds that bottled water takes *up to 2000 times more energy* to produce than drinking water from the tap. The two biggest energy sucks are production of the bottles (it takes the energetic equivalent of 50 million barrels of oil per year to produce the bottles) and transportation of the bottles to their final destination.

"Artesian" means that Fiji water is from an authentic spring-- and the spring is indeed on the island of Fiji. The company has promised to reduce its emissions and packaging, use more renewable energy, and use carbon offsets, as well as protect their source's watershed, the Sovi Basin Rainforest. They have even set the goal of becoming carbon negative...someday.

However, none of those intentions can diminish the fact that Fiji bottled water travels over 5000 miles by air or boat to get to San Francisco. Fiji can't realistically claim to be any more environmentally responsible than companies who transport water a shorter distance. And they don't come close to being as green as municipal water, which skips the carbon-heavy bottles altogether.

To say Fiji water is "good" for the environment is quite a stretch. There is also the question of resource allocation--the island of Fiji is historically vulnerable to catastrophic drought. In past decades Fijian farmers have starved because there wasn't enough water for irrigation, which calls into question the wisdom of shipping Fijian water overseas to be sold as a luxury item. (For a thoughtful discussion of the impact of the bottled water industry on communities in the U.S., see Christina Ammons' 2007 HCN story, "Watershed Moment" about the controversy surrounding Nestle's bottling enterprise in McCloud, California.)

Finally, there is little evidence to support the idea that bottled water is any better for you than tap water. Food and Water Watch in their aggressive anti-bottled water and anti-water privatization campaign, point out that quality testing standards are far less stringent for bottled water than for municipal supplies. For example, whereas municipal water must be tested for fecal coliform bacteria 100 times per month, a little over 3 times a day, bottled water plants only have to check once a week. A study by the Natural Resources Defense Council found more than the allowed amount of bacteria in more than one fifth of 103 tested brands. And bottled water, unlike constantly moving municipal water, is stagnant, and therefore more conducive to bacterial replication.

I'm not one to get paranoid about bacteria in bottled water, although the leaching phthalates, which are also unregulated, are a bit creepy. But considering the environmental costs of producing bottled water, the fact that there is no proven health benefit to drinking it makes it even crazier to choose bottled water over tap.

Americans spent $11 billion on bottled water in 2006, and drank over 33 billion liters in 2007, which works out to about 30 gallons per person. The rising rate of consumption speaks to the success of bottled water company PR campaigns.

More seriously, however, it reflects Americans' fundamental distrust of public water systems. Concerns about deteriorating public water infrastructure, and trace contaminants that the EPA doesn't regulate are harder to dispel than misleading advertisements. $6 billion of the stimulus package was set aside for local clean and drinking water infrastructure improvements, which have been neglected for far too long. But it will take more than infrastructure improvements to regain America's trust in the tap.

For one thing, we need better risk assessment. Reverse osmosis, which forces water through a selectively-permeable membrane, is theoretically the best technology for purification, and companies like Aquafina and Dasani use it in their plants. However, it is also the most energy-intensive form of purification, and is no real guarantee of quality since the membranes themselves are susceptible to bacterial colonization.

In the long run, we can't afford the bottled water solution socially, environmentally, or economically. We need better information about how much purification is actually necessary for health, and then we need to find ways to make that technology efficient and affordable to use in our public systems. Otherwise, we will be increasingly forced to drink water that isn't significantly safer, but still costs us more than gasoline. And those of us who can't afford bottled water will be stuck with a broken system-- a situation reminiscent of Marie Antoinette's disastrous pronouncement, "Let them eat cake." Except this time it will be, "Let them drink Perrier."

Cheers from Colorado,
Emily

MaLode Urges Eco-Approach to Health

Toward an Ecological Approach to Health
Scott Underwood, M.D.

In the United States human health has traditionally been viewed in isolation from its ecological context. During my medical training and subsequent career in Emergency Medicine, issues such as climate change, habitat destruction, species extinction, pollution and the depletion of fresh water supplies were treated as primarily environmental issues lying outside the realm of the medical industry. Equity has been seen as a primarily political, economic and social issue. Sustainability was rarely considered.

I believe this view must be changed and that not only physicians, but all Americans, have a responsibility to effect this change. Achieving health requires that we address all these elements in an integrated, ecological approach. Our goal should to be “healthy people, living in equitable and sustainable societies, in balance with the natural world”. Ignoring any of these elements has profound and unacceptable consequences.

Few people have anticipated these consequences better than my biology professor at Stanford University, Dr. Paul Ehrlich, considered by many to be the father of American ecology. Winner of the Crafoord Prize, the equivalent to the Nobel Prize for his pioneering work in the field of ecology, Dr. Ehrlich delivered an extraordinary speech that was, in effect, an urgent call for an ecological approach to health. I encourage you to click here to listen to this speech delivered in 1970. I think you will be amazed at how contemporary and compelling it is today, nearly forty years later.

I would argue, however, that one of the best examples of the implementation of some of the elements of an ecological approach to health actually anticipated Dr. Ehrlich’s speech by several decades. As a U.S. Army dependent, I traveled to Japan in 1946 with my family to spend three years as my father participated in the effort led by General Douglass MacArthur to implement the Marshall Plan in Japan after World War II. Although most Americans have understood the Marshall Plan as a program of financial assistance, it is less well known that its approach was systems based, comprehensive and consisted of three distinct components: Democratization, Decentralization and Demilitarization. In order to implement the “three Ds”, MacArthur took sweeping actions that affected every aspect of Japanese society. For example, his approach to Decentralization reflected an understanding that the concentration of wealth and power in the giant family run industrial monopolies, the Zaibatsu, had played a crucial role in the genesis of Japanese fascism. These monopolies controlled the Japanese economy and had, among other things, eliminated labor unions. MacArthur dissolved these monopolies and addressed their extreme concentration of wealth by imposing a minimum wage, a maximum wage and by redistributing the Zaibatsu’s wealth. He also brought about universal access to healthcare. The eventual result of these measures was the transformation of Japan from a nation with one of the largest gaps between rich and poor and the worst health indices (longevity, infant mortality, etc.) in the world, into the Japan of today. Japan is now the nation with the best health indices, and the smallest gap between rich and poor in the industrialized world.

Given the present challenges we face as Americans, let us consider what has happened in the United States during this same period. While our nation was 5th in the world in 1950 in terms of health indices, and had a relatively small gap between rich and poor and a growing middle class, these trends have since been reversed. Today our comparative health indices are no better than 21st, below all other developed nations, Costa Rica and Cuba. The gap between rich and poor in our country is now the largest in any industrialized nation. During the same period our expenditures on healthcare have exploded. The United States now spends over half of all the money spent on healthcare in the world, the highest per capita of any nation, while representing only 4% of the world’s population. By contrast, Japan spends the lowest amount per capita on healthcare among the industrialized nations of the world, while achieving the best health indices.

Another very different society that employs important aspects of an ecologically sound approach to health is the nation of Bhutan, located in the Himalayan Mountains near Nepal. Although Bhutan admits very few visitors in an effort to preserve its cultural traditions, over the past two winters Mary and Phil of DeReimer Adventure Kayaking were granted permission to lead groups of kayakers to explore the rivers of Bhutan. I encourage you to visit their website at www.adventurekayaking.com for details of their travels.

The importance of their experience from the perspective of an ecological approach to health is that the Bhutanese people, who are materially poor by American standards, are comparatively physically and spiritually healthy. To paraphrase Mary and Phil, “the definition of happiness in Bhutan is not “having and getting”, rather in their culture wealth has little to do with being happy. On the contrary, they believe that desiring and wanting often cause suffering. This principle is an underlying motivator of behavior with the result that their culture is open, loving, curious and accepting. Their government pursues the “gross national happiness” and to promote happiness the government engages in implementing model educational, social and environmental programs that take into account the desire to protect the country’s environment and cultural traditions.”


The far off Kingdom of Bhutan and the concept of the “Gross National Happiness” may seem esoteric to many Americans. Nevertheless, over 400 respected U.S. economists including Nobel Laureate Professor Herbert Simon contend that it would actually be more realistic and useful to substitute for our use of the Gross Domestic Product (the total of all goods and services produced) the measurement of the Genuine Progress Index, which attempts to measure the quality of our lives. Comparing these measures during the period since the 1970s is revealing. While the conventional GDProduct more than doubled, the Genuine Progress Index declined 45% during this period. Measuring the GPI would have warned us that, contrary to the many assurances to the contrary, the U.S. economy was actually undermining our health during this period. Not only was our prosperity unevenly distributed and unsustainable, it was not performing its most important function. That function is to support improvements in the health of our population.

Clearly, an ecological, scientific approach to health demands that we define what health is, how best to measure it, and then promote the conditions that achieve it. If we do not do these things, it stands to reason we will be unsuccessful in attaining health. We must recognize that health is more than just the absence of disease. On the contrary, it requires doing things that actively promote it. It is not enough to attempt to correct the effects of doing things that destroy it.

At Mother Lode it is our continuing commitment to contribute toward this effort, one river based experience, one letter, one environmentally and socially responsible act at a time.  We hope you will bring your ideas and suggestions, and help explore the possibilities. Remember, recreation is just that: “re-creation”, a process by which meaningful, constructive change occurs and a vital part of an integrated and ecological approach to health.

See you on the river!

Scott the RiverDoc, Charlie the RiverDog and the MaLode Ecowarrior Clan