Greening the Pentagon (guest post)

If we want to build up a green manufacturing economy, we should directly invest in it, not plow more money into military spending.

The U.S. military is going green. Don't take it from me. "[T]he Department of Defense…the world's largest consumer of energy, will make one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history," President Barack Obama declared in this year's State of the Union address.

This is welcome news. Oil powers everything from carrier-based aircraft to remote bases in Afghanistan. Since our military is the world's biggest fossil fuel guzzler, anything that curbs its insatiable appetite for oil will slow the deadly warming of our planet and save lives in more ways than one.

(US Army Africa / Flickr)

It's also good news for the green tech industry. Aside from Tang, the Internet, and a handful of other examples, military research rarely spins off new civilian technologies. But renewable energy is likely to prove a big exception. The Pentagon wants to make its remote Afghan outposts energy-independent so it can stop trucking oil through hundreds of miles of hostile territory. The Defense Department's research dollars and bulk purchases of photovoltaic panels and lightweight solar-storage batteries could cheapen the building blocks of a civilian clean energy economy.

Still, you can't help wondering what would happen if the White House and the Pentagon followed their green initiative to its logical conclusions.

Take research. If we want to want to develop green tech products, directly funding civilian research would give us a bigger bang for our buck than funding military research and hoping some of it spins off to us. It would create better products, too. Engineers in the civilian economy have to develop cost-efficient products that can compete in the market. But when you're engineering new products for the military, cost is way down your priority list. Military products may have to be completely redesigned for civilian use, and their basic technology may just be too expensive.

The moral: If we want to build up a green manufacturing economy, we should directly invest in it, not plow more money into military spending.

The same common sense applies if we want to cut fossil fuel use. The Pentagon operates 95 percent of the world's foreign military bases, the world's biggest air force, and its largest navy by far. Its fuel supply line is enormous. The Pentagon burns a lot of its fuel just getting fuel to its far-flung forces. We're paying up to $400 a gallon to haul diesel fuel to remote bases in Afghanistan.

We can try to take those bases off the power grid. But there's a better solution: Let's stop stationing so many troops abroad in the first place. We don't need to deploy 11 carrier battle groups in oceans around the world. We don't have to maintain military bases on every continent but Antarctica. We can refrain from building new bases in South Korea and Guam. Let's stop trying to encircle China and police the world. How about we cut forward deployments and close hundreds of our foreign military bases? We'd see some serious energy savings and make a major dent in the budget deficit at the same time.

This won't happen till the U.S. military's mission changes. Part of that mission is to control the world's oil supplies and routes. Being the world's oil cop costs the nation $100 billion a year, not counting the cost of wars like the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it burns through a lot of oil.

Greening the Pentagon is a band-aid. Investing in a green civilian economy would do far more.

By Mike Prokosch

Mike Prokosch is the national coordinator of the New Priorities Network. newprioritiesnetwork.org  Distributed via OtherWords (OtherWords.org)

This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative 3.0 License.

Food Revolution Day Opportunity

Application: Food Revolution Day Ambassador

from the application page:

We are looking for enthusiastic volunteers in cities and regions around the world to support Food Revolution Day. Ambassadors will play a leadership role in connecting individuals, schools, businesses and organizations at a local level to ensure their collective voice is heard. If this sounds like a role you'd enjoy, please complete this short form and we will send more details.

Food Revolution Day is happening on May 19th with global dinner parties and local food events organized by chefs, gardeners, food educators, farmers markets and people who genuinely want to share their skills and knowledge around food with their community.

If you are interested in simply participating or attending events, enter your email on foodrevolutionday.com and we'll let you know when things officially kick-off on April 3rd. Thank you.

Non-toxic garden pest control (guest post)

Our Daily Green is proud to feature master gardening expert and author, Claudia F. Brownlie. As the gardening season approaches, her website and books are filled with tips to help anyone get started with gardening. From a novice to expert, her advice is useful for anyone interested in growing their own food.

Claudia is an advocate of eco-friendly gardening methods. She recently released her newest book "The Shoestring Gardener" - A Compendium of Hundreds of Eco-Friendly, Creatively Frugal Gardening How-Tos, Remedies, and Tips. You can learn about making hypertufa objects in her book "The Hypertufa How-To Manual."  She's also the chief gardener and DIY garden art project expert at her popular website "The-Artistic-Garden.com." You can follow Claudia on Twitter at @ecogardengirl.

Two Non-Toxic Garden Pesticide Recipes - Better Alternatives for Us and for Mother Earth

We currently live in a world riddled with toxic substances just about everywhere we turn, such as fumes from factories spewing into the air and chemicals leaching into our drinking water sources. But the #1 biggest toxic "situation" that affects our overall health is the use of chemical pesticides and herbicides that are sprayed on the fruits, vegetables, and other crops destined for grocery store shelves.

In addition, we cannot overlook another huge sad fact pertaining to the use of these toxic agricultural chemicals - that being the threat to our bee population. Without these wonderful little buzzing marvels of nature, we're in BIG trouble! Did you know that pesticides are a major threat to bees? Chemical pesticides aren't selective when they're sprayed onto a plant, thus the flowers are also poisoned. Bees trying to pollinate the flowers come into contact with the pesticide, which increases a bee's odds of dying sooner rather than later as intended in a "healthy" environment. It is now a well know scientific fact that we're causing a rapid decline in their numbers. But it's not just bees - butterflies and other pollinators must be protected too! They are all responsible for perpetuating plant cycles and evolution.

In the winter of 2006/07 more than 25% of the bee colonies died due to pesticide poisoning. This loss translated to a loss of tens of billions of bees. (It's hard for me to wrap my head around that staggering number.) In addition, it was estimated that this loss negatively impacted the agricultural economy to the tune of $8 to $12 billion!

In 2009 almost 29% of the bee colonies in the United States collapsed. That's slightly less than the 36% loss counted in 2008 and the 32% loss counted in 2007. Unfortunately, scientists studying this problem affirm that the die-off continues.

SuperWeeds - It's Not Just the Beneficial Pollinators We Need to Be Concerned About

Scientists and farmers are also finding another cause for alarm in regard to the heavy-handed use of chemical herbicides for weed management - superweeds. (This sounds like the script for a cheap black and white horror movie where giant weeds are inching their way through a town, smothering and overtaking everything in their path!)

It's estimated that more than 130 types of weeds spanning 40 U.S. states are now herbicide-resistant. In an effort to keep on top of the growing weed problem, farmers are applying ever increasing amounts of toxic herbicides to their crops, which of course dramatically increases the amount of pesticides you ingest from consuming such foods. How can this be a good thing for any one of us or any other living organism? Well, it's not.

But there is something we can do, besides jumping on the bandwagon and getting involved in a legislative, political sense. It's simply to try to do our utmost to not contribute additional toxins into our environment. As far as pesticide and herbicide management in our own gardens is concerned, it's really not hard at all to be eco-friendly. Plus it's safer and healthier for us and all the wonderful pollinators and other creatures that visit our gardens. Pesticides and herbicides made from non-toxic ingredients are effective. Fortunately, there are non-toxic alternatives that can be purchased in the gardening section of many stores. But you needn't spend more money than necessary when it's so easy and economical to make your own.

Horticultural Oil Spray Recipes

Simply stated, horticultural oils are non-poisonous and safe insecticides that can be useful against many bugs including aphids, scales, thrips, spider mites, whiteflies, and mealybugs. The oil kills slow moving sucking insects by suffocating them with a thin layer of oily film. Here's just one of the many types of recipes I'd like to share with you from my newest book "The Shoestring Gardener".

These two spray-on recipes can be used safely while plants are growing.

Variation #1

• 1 tablespoon vegetable cooking oil - corn, canola, soybean, peanut, sunflower, or safflower
• 1 gallon of water
• 1 teaspoon non-degreasing liquid dishwashing detergent

Mix ingredients well.

Variation #2

• 3 ounces of garlic cloves - minced
• 1 tablespoon mineral oil
• 1 pint of water
• 1/4 teaspoon non-degreasing liquid dishwashing detergent

Steep the garlic in the oil for 24 hours. Strain. Add the oil to the water and mix in the soap.

These concoctions can be poured into a (recycled) spray bottle and used as needed. Try to avoid spraying during the hottest time of the day - early morning or late afternoon are better times. Store unused portions in a labeled, sealed container.