Articles by David Roberts

Turning air into water

If I posted about every cool widget that popped up on Treehugger I'd end up doing nothing else, but this particular widget for some reason caught my fancy.

It makes clean water! Out of air!

In five years this thing will be the size of a coffee mug. The Future: Live It!

African life spans, II

A couple days back I posted on an amazing graph of the drop-off of life spans in Africa. Bona fide Africa expert Ethan Zuckerman has a long post up, clarifying and expanding on the graph. It turns out that the graph is perhaps a tad misleading, as it chooses precisely those countries where AIDS has hit the hardest. Of course Ethan doesn't mean to minimize what is an epic tragedy, but he does provide a more balanced picture of what's happening on the continent. Give it a read.

Small farmers and organic

Via WC, a study by the International Fund for Agricultural Development concludes that organic farming offers farmers in developing countries higher earnings and a better standard of living. The higher earnings come from organic product being worth more (duh), and the better standard of living comes from the higher earnings and the not being poisoned with herbicides and pesticides.

I was looking around in there for some reason why the conclusions wouldn't transfer straightforwardly to small farmers in developed countries. The answer seems to lie mainly in transition costs -- since developing world farmers don't really use expensive technologies and chemicals anyway, it's a pretty easy jump to organic (the main impediment being certification and other paperwork).

But still. I'd like to see some sort of similar study done in the U.S. How long would it take for a small U.S. farmer (we still have a few right?) to make back the money he/she spends transitioning to organic? Presumably the data's out there somewhere, but as a rushed, overworked blogger, I think I'll just conclude by asking readers if they know where to find it. (It's called a bleg.)

If you mainstream it, they will come

I took two tidbits away from this interesting Clint Wilder piece on framing clean energy (via Sustainablog). Here's the first:

In opinion research conducted last year in Rhode Island, the Clean Energy States Alliance and marketing consultancy SmartPower found that the label of "clean" energy had a much more positive public reception than "green" (too political), "renewable" (too niche), or "alternative" (too much of an implication that its users must adopt a new lifestyle).

These kinds of things are small but important to know for everybody who writes or talks about environmental issues. Little bits of repetitive framing add up. For my part, I'm going to make a habit of using "clean energy" instead of the alternatives.

Here's the second:

But even when viewing clean energy as positive for the environment, the public was skeptical of its ability to replace fossil fuels.

...SmartPower ran a public information campaign, including TV ads narrated by actor Peter Gallagher spotlighting renewable-powered houses, hospitals, and factories with the tagline, "Clean energy: It's real. It's here. And it's working." The result? A thousand new customers switched to the local utility's green power option in 100 days, and the number of people who agreed that clean energy is as reliable as fossil fuels jumped from 40% to 51% in the same period.

That's a pretty extraordinary shift in opinion in response to one ad campaign.

I draw the same lesson from this that I drew from the news that 75% of people consider themselves "green shoppers" -- there's broad interest in green issues out there. Mainstream America is sniffing around at organic food and clean energy. Folks don't know if the stuff is ready for prime-time, and they're not yet willing to go out of their way (or pay lots more) to support it, but once they're convinced it's legitimate they are willing to take the leap. (See: Prius, Toyota)

There's a huge market waiting.