Photo by Tony Cenicola/New York Times

The “fabled deliciousness” of New York’s water, which the city isn’t required to filter, is under siege, according to the New York Times.

Increasingly stormy weather that comes with climate change, for one, is muddying the city water beyond what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency deems safe for direct consumption. Between September 2004 and last June, for instance, four major storms have dumped highly turbid (or cloudy) water into upstate reservoirs. The tiny particles suspended in the water can interfere with chlorine disinfection, while serving as food for disease-causing organisms.

Another culprit being fingered is industrial pollution. Much of Westchester has been paved over in the last five decades, diverting fertilizer, sewage, and road salt into reservoirs so that from 1989 to 1999, the city has had to increase the amount of chlorine it added by 35 percent.

If the federal agency does conclude that city water is too sullied to be consumed directly, New York will have to spend huge sums on filtering, close the book on 165 years of filter-free taps—and absorb a major blow to its hometown pride.

I’ve just updated my post on low- or zero-VOC paints to include Green Planet Paints and YOLO Colorhouse’s new baby line. Because the times, I like to keep up with.

Poster by Natural Resources Canada

Another one of my (admittedly myriad) pet peeves: Idling cars, which spew just about as many pollutants as an ad-hoc convention of genitalia-impaired smokers does. I’d stick these flyers (provided by Natural Resources Canada) under people’s windshields if I could get reassurance that it wouldn’t just be a waste of paper. Or that I wouldn’t get shot. Right now, I’m the Queen of Dirty Looks.

NRCAN on why you should turn off your engine when parked, even if it’s only “for a little while.”

Conserve energy: You’ll help reduce needless greenhouse gas emissions.

Breathe easier: You’ll breathe more easily by combating problems like poor air quality and smog.

Save money: You’ll save over 80 litres of gasoline per year if you reduce your idling by only 10 minutes a day.

Idling for over 10 seconds uses more fuel than restarting your engine.

Besides poster and flyers, you can also print stickers for your car, bicycle, or commuter cup.

[via Treehugger]

Dear Chekhov,

An admirer of your incomparable wisdom,
Anne

Click here for more »

Air pollution boost risk of heart disease in older women

Photo by Alan Thornton/Getty Images

Global warming is giving Britons (and presumably the rest of the world, as well) a never-ending case of the sniffles because milder temperatures mean that the common cold is hanging around longer and longer, according to Professor Ron Eccles, director of the Common Cold Centre at Cardiff University. (My inner fangirl is squeeing, “Cardiff! Where there is a rift through space and time!”)

From an article in The Daily Mail:

Warmer winter temperatures are causing people to catch milder infections, he argues. But far from being the good news this might sound, it means the body doesn’t produce enough antibodies to fight off the virus completely and prevent it coming back.

So you’ll get the same cold over and over again, and in some case, never actually be rid of it. Deja-voodoo.

If you do catch a cold, counterintuitive as it may sound, you actually want it to be severe because serious infections kickstart your body’s antibody-defense system, which gives you longer-lasting immunity.

If temperatures continue to rise, a “longer but less severe cold season” could “merge into autumn and spring. We could end up like the tropics, where they have colds all year round.” Good times.

(If you’re nursing a cold, check out Ideal Bite’s all-natural recommendations.)

Related articles:
1. The Warming of Greenland
2. Manhattan in January
3. CO₂’s Double Identity
4. Your Carbon Diet
5. Global Warming Will Alter Character of the Northeast
6. Lick Global Warming
7. The Canary Project
8. Kids Starting to Feel the Heat
9. It’s Getting Hot In Here: Act Now

Online resources:
1. Undo It
2. StopGlobalWarming.org
3. An Inconvenient Truth

Photo by Nick Dolding/Getty Images

No, say it ain’t so! Are indoor-smoking bans actually making things worse for the environment? That’s precisely what Florence Depondt says in E Magazine. After getting “pushed to the great outdoors,” she says, most smokers don’t bother taking the time to properly dispose of them in the trash. (As the witness of countless ciggie flickings onto the street, I can certainly attest to that.) And while the paper and tobacco components of cigarette butts are biodegradable, most cigarette filters are made of cellulose acetate, otherwise known as good ol’ nonbiodegradble plastic. Composed of 12,000 cellulose-acetate fibers, these filters can take between 18 months and 10 years to decompose.

But first, before we get ahead of ourselves, a little history of litter butts:

Cigarette litter has been a problem for as long as people have smoked, and especially since filtered cigarettes became popular in the mid-20th century following the discovery of a cause-effect relationship between smoking and cancer. Estimates from the World Health Organization suggest that close to 1.1 billion people—or one third of all people above the age of 15—smoke. When each of these smokers consumes an average of several cigarettes a day, one can only begin to picture the number of cigarette butts disposed of in streets, parks and other public places every single day. Discarded cigarettes have been reported—prior to any indoor smoking ban—to be as high as 4.5 trillion each year, according to Yahoo News in 1999, and it is estimated that cigarette butts account for 50 percent of all litter in the world.

(Emphasis is mine.)

Although new smoking bans have led to cleaner air, concerned citizens and business owners have noticed a “dramatic increase in cigarette litter,” especially outside bars and restaurants where smokers light up.

The problem with carelessly discarded butts is that they contain 4,000 chemicals, such as hydrogen, cyanide, and arsenic, which persist in the environment long after even the filters have decomposed. And because many cigarette butts are flushed down storm drains (by rain and other water runoff) long before a street cleaner gets to them, these butts soon find themselves winding their merry way into rivers and oceans, where they foul up the water and endanger aquatic life.

Toxological data has shown that chemicals from discarded cigarette butts are capable of leaching into surrounding waterways. One particular problem is that these leached chemicals are deadly to the water flea Daphnia magna, a small crustacean at the lower end of, but crucial to, the aquatic food chain.

The saddest environmental impact of cigarette butts is their role in the deaths of thousands of marine mammals and birds every year. These wild creatures mistake the butts for food. Once ingested, the butts can lead to starvation or malnutrition if they block the intestinal track, and can also prevent breathing by blocking vital air passages. In 2003, the United Nations International Maritime Organization reported that cigarette litter adversely affected 177 species of marine animals and 111 species of seabirds through ingestion.

(Emphases are mine.)

Obviously, smokers need to be educated, but how efficacious will this be when images of bald cancer patients breathing through a hole in their trachea haven’t deterred them? Depondt also refers to a piece in the 1999 issue of the Tobacco Control Journal, in which researchers called for additional taxes on tobacco products to go towards environmental campaigns and clean-up efforts. Personally, I’m a huge fan of the cigarette-litter fine. which Depondt says should be “visibly enforced and implemented as part of a comprehensive anti-cigarette litter campaign.” Heck, need enforcers? Sign me up! I’m Singaporean; I know how to work a fine.

As part of my own anti-smoking crusade out on the streets, I’ve taken to turning to the hub and saying, in a loud voice, “Hey, I heard that smoking makes your penis shrink.”

The hub took this a little bit further the other day, as two women puffed their lives away in front of us: “I heard that smoking MAKES YOUR BOOBS FALL OFF.”

And I fell in love with the man all over again.

Related articles:
1. Smoking Ban Without Borders
2. Read the Pre-nup Again
3. Dana Reeve, 1961-2006

Photo by Ryan McVay/Getty Images

(Part of my Green This House program.)

Because I abhor bright light in any setting, I’ve been known to flip the switch and satisfy my latent pyromaniac urges (and send my husband’s fragile masculinity screaming into the distance) by lighting a few scented candles, instead. So woe (GREAT WOE) was the day I discovered that there wasn’t a pillar, tea light, or votive in my apartment that was up to snuff, so to speak.

Most candles are made from paraffin wax, which is, in turn, manufactured from petroleum, and generates carcinogens and soot when burned. According to Greenspace Candles, paraffin candles contain up to 11 carcinogenic compounds considered “toxic air contaminants” by the State of California. It goes on to state:

An air quality researcher, David Krause, has documented evidence that candle soot particles contain many of the same compounds given off from burning diesel fuel.

These health hazards are compounded by synthetic fragrances not meant for combustion, chemical fixatives, synthetic glosses, and dioxin-bleached cotton wicks that contain small amounts of lead. (Chronic low-level exposure to lead has been shown to produce permanent neuropsychological defects and behavior disorders in kids, such as low IQ, short attention spans, hyperactivity, and problems with motor function.)

This doesn’t mean I have to give up my candle-burning extracurricular activity, however. A popular alternative to paraffin is soy wax, which is made from American-grown soybeans (a renewable resource), is biodegradable, and, according to more than one soy-candle maker, supports U.S. farmers instead of “creating further U.S. dependence on foreign oil.”

100 percent soy candles are also said to produce a great deal less soot than their paraffin counterparts (95 percent less by some counts), while burning up to 50 percent longer without any toxic offgassing. Their lower melting point also means a slower and more even scent dispersal.

Beeswax is another option that doesn’t produce soot or toxins when burned. They’re generally more expensive than paraffin candles, but tend to burn longer. You also get the sweet aroma of honey as the candle burns. Awww.

Tip: Be careful when you’re picking up a candle that touts itself as being made from soy or beeswax. Unless it explicitly states that it’s 100 percent composed of that ingredient, your candle could still contain paraffin. (In fact, I’ve seen candles for sale made with soywax and paraffin blends, which I find somewhat perplexing.)

A few soywax brands to check out:
1. Anna Sova Luxury Organics (Candles are poured into 100 percent post-consumer-waste recycled glass)
2. Bluewick (With organic cotton-paper wicks)
3. Greenspace Candles (Wicks made from naturally grown hemp fibers)
4. Kobo Candles
5. Lotion Glow (Doubles as a massage oil)
5. Maddison Avenue
6. Pacifica Candles

Or make your own, yo.