Hybrids Galore! Who Knew?

"There's a Volt in my future!" shouted my friend John S. Martinson from his facebook wall.  Not once but repeatedly he staccato'd my wall with this message, reminding me of nothing so much as Paul Revere (without horse, of course) scooting excitedly through the narrow lanes of Boston and on to Lexington with his important message.

With that much clamor, what's a girl to do but prepare for arrival?  I googled "Volt" to find out what preparations might be needed.  It turns out, he's referring to the new Chevy Volt, due to come out at the end of 2010, an electric car with a novel feature.  The Volt "uses gas to create its own electricity. Plug it in, let it charge overnight, and it's ready to run on a pure electric charge for up to 40 miles — gas and emissions free.  After that, Volt keeps going, even if you can't plug it in. Volt uses a range-extending gas generator that produces enough energy to power it for hundreds of miles on a single tank of gas," to quote their website.

Personally, I've been holding out for the new green Acura TSX Hybrid that's also supposed to come to market for 2011.  But I just cruised on over to the Acura site, and could find absolutely no mention of a hybrid.  Even their "Future Vehicles" tab made no mention.  So I googled it.  Last article I saw was last March.  Guess an Acura TSX Hybrid is not in my immediate future.

Obviously there's the Ford Fusion (just above), which Car & Driver called the best green car on the road (but see below for a different opinion).  I admit to hesitancy about Ford, period, because a mechanic once told me that a Ford after 60 - thousand miles, that is - is how he makes his living.  That was a long time ago, but you don't just throw off that kind of advice.  I kinda like the Nissan Altima (white above right), but it's not for sale in all 50 states. I'd have to fly into California and drive one home.  I did find the Nissan Leaf (red model at right).  It really doesn't look like something I should be seen in, at my age, but why do I say such things?   Then I headed on over to Honda, where believe it or not three cars in their line-up are green, the Insight (rear-facing blue sedan), the Civic Hybrid (front-facing blue sedan), and a Civic GX   (silver side shot) - maybe G stands for green - the only dedicated natural gas passenger car.  Here's something I didn't know:

"For the seventh straight year, Civic GX NGV was named 'Greenest Vehicle' by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE). Not only did the Civic GX beat out the Toyota Prius for the top spot, but three other Honda vehicles also made the list, making 2010 the ninth consecutive year Honda has had more than three cars named to ACEEE's 'Greenest Vehicles.'"   Click here to see the ACEEE's ratings.  What's interesting is that the Civic GX gets the greenest mark, but by no means the highest miles per gallon (24 city), an honor that goes to the Toyota Prius (51 city).

So, speaking of Toyota, I found three more vehicles there, the Prius (red above), the Camry Hybrid (gold), and the Hylander (pearl blue), a high profile vehicle.  Ok friends, I'm pretty shopped out.  There are more cars.  There are bigger cars, and makers like Lincoln I haven't even googled yet, but I know there's something on the market.  There are some juicy luxury hybrids (Lexus has four lush beauties), but my purse would gag and ask to be rushed to the ladies' room if I even look at those.  To be honest, I was stuck on the idea of another Acura TSX, and I'm going to have to rethink all this, and look carefully at all the available vehicles.  And I hear Volvo has a hybrid coming 2012.   Good thing I love my TSX, because it could take me a year or two to sort through all these cars.

One of the most amazing things I learned today prepping this blogpost (all because John S. Martinson wants to be Paul Revere) is that hybrid has definitely gone mainstream!   Before I sign off, let me share the ACEEE chart in its full glory, in case you didn't look.  It's worth a glance. You can click on this link if you want to head over to the website to see how they ranked these vehicles.

Just for fun, if you're interested in seeing more hybrids of the future, both the marketable and the whimsical, check out Future Cars, just for fun! Here's a couple of samples of the fare there, including the human-powered XR3 (left), the Ford Start (red), and the three-wheeler TWIKE (right).

Where there's fire, there's smoke...

Least Tern eggs barely missed by clean-up equipment tires running across a gulf beach.




It's too late to say, "where there's smoke, there's fire."   It's been a raging inferno for about 57 days now.  But excellent reporting by both professional news organizations and unofficial citizen reporters is unearthing a whole lotta smoke.  Maybe we should put journalists in charge of the regulatory agencies.  If you're not caught up on the BP oil spill news, here are a few headlines:

Documents Show Risky Decisions Before BP Blowout
By HENRY FOUNTAIN
Published: June 14, 2010
New York Times

Internal BP documents, including an e-mail message calling the well drilled by the Deepwater Horizon a “nightmare,” show a pattern of risky choices made to save time and money in the weeks before the disastrous April 20 blowout, according to a letter sent to the oil company by the leaders of a House committee on Monday....more

Foreign Flagging of Offshore Rigs Skirts U.S. Safety Rules
The Marshall Islands, not the U.S., had the main responsibility for safety inspections on the Deepwater Horizon.
June 14, 2010
By Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger, Tribune Washington Bureau
L.A. Times

Reporting from Washington — The Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico was built in South Korea. It was operated by a Swiss company under contract to a British oil firm. Primary responsibility for safety and other inspections rested not with the U.S. government but with the Republic of the Marshall Islands — a tiny, impoverished nation in the Pacific Ocean....more

Gov. Bobby Jindal Orders National Guard to Build Barrier Wall Off Louisiana Shore
Louisiana Gov. Takes Matters Into Own Hands, But Will BP Foot the Bill?
By DAVID MUIR
June 14, 2010
ABC News

Eight weeks into the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of the Mexico, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has told the National Guard that there's no time left to wait for BP, so they're taking matters into their own hands...more

More Dispersant? Asking Hard Questions
By LESLIE KAUFMAN
June 2, 2010, 12:47 pm
New York Times

In announcing on Saturday that BP would end efforts to plug the gulf oil leak through a “top kill” and focus instead on capturing oil until a relief well is in place, Rear Adm. Mary Landry of the Coast Guard said that the use of dispersants would inevitably continue...more

This heartbreaking American Birding video had me in tears...




Tern chicks somehow survive tire overrun.



Grand Isle Gulf Spill Clean Up Sweeps Up Least Tern Colony From: AmericanBirding
June 14, 2010

Drew Wheelan from the American Birding association demonstrates the lack of environmental oversight associated with the Deepwater Horizon clean up response. Sensitive Least Tern nests are literally driven over by clean up crews, and failed nests discovered. Please call your senator and demand better...more

Sending Neda Viral

Today I make my blog available for a very important documentary, created at great peril for all involved.  The subject, if you haven't guessed from the visual, is Neda Aghad-Soltan, the young woman martyred in Iran during post-election protests just about a year ago.  I especially want to single out the courageous 24 year old journalist in Iran, Saeed Kamali Dehghan, who knowingly risks his life to interview Neda's family when many others understandably refused.  Below is an hour-long video, worth every moment I spent watching it for its intimate look inside today's Iranian culture, and inside Neda's life before a bullet took it from her in one tragic moment.  For its ability to carry Neda's message on into the future.

As an aside, it was difficult for me to choose a picture of Neda.  Do we prefer to remember her as her family and friends will, in life?  Beautiful smile on a lovely face?  Or in death, the powerful picture of her dying, eyes open to her own fate?  I finally found this montage. I do not know whom to credit, as it appeared on many webpages.  What visual would you have chosen?

The second picture, by the way, I created by taking a screen shot from the video.  The woman is not Neda, but she could have been.  I captured this moment because she was so obviously afraid, and yet, determined - not hiding in the car below, not running, arm raised in defiant gesture.  What you cannot see from a still shot:  she was in the process of scanning from right to left, fearfully looking and looking around, afraid of what might come.  Fear, courage, determination.  The makings of change.

I will also make this observation:   the face of this revolution is as female as it is male.  Women in Iran are so oppressed, and have so much to gain by a regime change.  I am so proud of these women. 

Please help send Neda's story viral by reposting this blog or reposting the video itself on whatever social networks you use.

Debunking the Debunked - Food Myths

I recently read an article on Yahoo! Green by Lori Bongiorno, titled "Seven Myths about Veggies."  The article has enough good information to be worth the read; hence I offer it here. 

However, a couple of things in the article trouble me - not because anything Bongiorno wrote is off-base - rather because her story is incomplete.  It's a good start, and I'm sure very educational for many readers.  But for my tastes, I'd like to add the complexity and nuance.  Here are a few caveats to consider as you read:

1.  Nutrient loss in harvested produce is dependent upon a lot of factors, and unfortunately, there is not a rule of thumb that applies to all vegetable types.  Some produce ripens beautifully off the vine, while other produce should not be picked until ripe.  Some produce will maintain its nutrient value for quite awhile after picking, while other produce will lose it quickly upon harvest.  Some produce maintains its nutrients better if it is refrigerated, while refrigeration damages nutritional values in other produce.  How can you keep track of all this?  You have a couple of choices.  You could research each vegetable and make a table for yourself.  Or, like me, you could take the simpler path, and as often as possible, limit yourself to buying just what is in season locally.  That saves a lot of research, but it does pretty much dictate my menu planning.  Here is an article on the nutrition benefits of seasonal eating from George Mateljan's Worlds Healthiest Foods website: http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=faq&dbid=28. 


2.  To cook or not to cook:  Bongiorno makes the point that some foods are more nutritious when cooked - or at least the nutrients become more available - while others are more beneficial raw.  This is absolutely true, and kind of debunks the "God's Diet" myth that everything is better for you in its raw form.  But knowing how to prep each food to preserve its particular nutrients -  again - requires a huge learning curve.  Did you know that letting some foods sit before cooking enhances nutrition value?  Did you know that some foods should be smashed rather than cut?   Again, I would turn to the World's Healthiest Foods website, where a wealth of information is presented about food preparation to preserve and optimize nutrients.  http://whfoods.org/.  No, they don't pay me.  It's just that they present both the "why" and the "how" in plain English.  And although they do hawk their expensive cookbooks endlessly, they've made all the information available to everyone, for free, even the recipes.  They want us reform our eating habits, and they aren't trying to limit it to those who can pay. 

3.  No iceberg.  Period:  Ok, so iceberg lettuce has some nutrients.  Big whoop.  Avoid iceberg lettuce like the plague, because it's wasted calories in my book compared to romaine, spinach, kale, chard, arugula, bok choy, even spring mix and the dark designer green lettuces that - unlike iceberg - are actually loaded with nutrients.  These green leafy veggies are more nutrient dense than meat!  

What you say?  You just love a quarter head of iceberg with thousand island dressing?  Ok, fine.  I love sweet potato fries.  So sue me.  But I don't eat them daily.  Daily, you should be eating dark, leafy greens if you care about your insides and want the healthiest shot at old-age possible. 

Wait, I hear some of you saying, "But I don't LIKE dark green leaves."  Well, teach your tastebuds something new.  Did you know it supposedly takes eight "tastes" of something for your tastebuds to acclimate and begin to like something?   To get the benefit of green, consider mixing a handful of darker greens into your lighter greens.  When you're used to it, add a second handful to the salad, eventually converting yourself to a dark leaf eater.  By the way, this works for those of you who haven't gravitated to the much healthier dark chocolate from the milk variety too.  Even though this is a veggie post, chocolate-lovers can read more on dark chocolate here: http://www.livestrong.com/article/134296-healthy-chocolate/.  Oh, and here's more on the health benefits of adding dark green leaves to your diet:  http://www.brighthub.com/health/diet-nutrition/articles/42831.aspx

4.  Potatoes...sigh.  I love potatoes, and I used to think they were a great diet food as long as you didn't load them with sour cream and cheese.  But then I learned - fortunately before I hit that magic age when simply stating that you like a food will put weight on you - that many types of potatoes are high on the glycemic index.  The glycemic index is a measure of a food's capacity to spike your blood sugar levels, imitate insulin, and create havoc with your ability to keep your weight down.   I don't have the time today to educate you about how to take glycemic index (and glycemic "load") into account in your meal and diet planning, but here is an article, http://breastcancer.about.com/od/cancerfightingfoods/a/potatoes.htm, on the glycemic ramifications of potatoes, with chart on the relative glycemic values of different types of potatoes.   And, if this is the first you're hearing about glycemic index, or you've been meaning to learn about it:  http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=faq&dbid=32#what.  The best option, however, is to switch to sweet potatoes, which, lucky for those of us who love sweet potato fries (preferably baked but hey - occasionally fried), are low on the glycemic index and high on nutrition. 

Ok, I've said my piece.  Now for the article:  http://shine.yahoo.com/event/green/seven-myths-about-veggies-1609212/

IT'S GOING TO COME OUT ANYWAY

What bothers me most about a recent New York Times story (link below):

EPA's public naming of the chemical make-up of a product released into the Gulf in an effort to deal with the BP oil spill was so quiet and so slow.

The EPA says their snail's pace had something to do with protecting trade secrets for the manufacturer;  but the Times suggests that the EPA had the authority to name the chemicals all along.  So why not do it in a way that garners public trust?  I'm thinking it's more likely that the chemicals are, in their own way, as toxic as the oil itself, and apparently not that effective. 

Still, EPA allowed the product's use.

Think about it.  It's going to come out anyway.   It's got to come out anyway.  If the agency would have been up-front about its decision-process, people might intelligently differ about whether it was the right move, but we all could at least have had some respect for their transparency. Now EPA will have to waste resources on damage control. And trust has a very slow rebuild rate.  About the same pace, I'd imagine, as the rate it will take to achieve the Gulf restoration.

Here's the opening paragraph of the Times article:

"U.S. EPA has quietly released a full list of ingredients in the two controversial dispersants BP PLC is using to combat the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, following weeks of complaints from members of Congress and public health advocates that the dispersant manufacturer had kept its complete formula a secret from the public..."

Link here:  http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/06/09/09greenwire-ingredients-of-controversial-dispersants-used-42891.html.