By:Ken Fisher, Sierra Club Outing Leader

How many of you leave your faucet running all day and all night? I would imagine the answer is no one! Yet just about all of us are doing the electrical version of leaving the faucet on and it's known as MEL: Miscellaneous Electrical Load. MEL refers to all the power use from miscellaneous electronics and other objects in your home that are not major appliances, lighting, heating or cooling.

A typical American home has 40 products constantly drawing power. Examples range from a modem, cable box, microwave oven clocks, and LED lights you can control from you phone-which always have to be able to receive communication from you.

According to a recent paper in the journal Energy Research and Social Science, devices in stand-by mode consume up to 12% of total power used by a home. The average cost is more than $10 a month or almost $150 annually. Sure, that's not a ton of energy or money, but once you multiply the average household-possibly yours-by all the households in the country-oh my!

So what can we do about MEL? Some simple solutions are to only charge your phone, laptop, etc. until they're charged and then unplug the charger, as they draw a constant stream of power, even when you're getting nothing out of them. As far as your TV, home theater system, video game console, cable box, etc. plug them into a power strip and then turn it off while sleeping and when you're out for the day, weekend, or on vacation; those items impact MEL big-time!

A neat way to keep an eye on your energy use is to log on to your JEA (or your local utility) account where you can track your daily usage of electricity and water. It is a great way to see how your habits impact resource usage and your budget! As you make adjustments, keep checking your account to track your progress. This is similar to how we keep track of saving money or losing weight!

While we can't say goodbye to MEL forever, as that's unrealistic, my challenge to you is to cut out MEL where you can and spread the word to your family, friends and coworkers: Your time...to say goodbye to MEL...is now!

Source: Washington Post, February 8, 2015

David Jaffee is a professor of Sociology and faculty research fellow at the University of North Florida. His economic  analysis "Jaxport As An Urban Growth Strategy: Community Implications and Prospects." Special Report, September, 2012 ,challenges the Martin & Associates assertions on the numbers of jobs the Jaxport expansion will bring to NE Florida. The report is important information for citizens of Jacksonville and elected officials to consider before spending taxpayer money on the project. 

David is also the faculty sponsor to a student organization, Divest UNF, that seeks to convince its Office of Endowment to divest its endowment investments of fossil fuel companies. This initiative is gaining momentum throughout the country to promote non fossil fuel investments as an economic and symbolic gesture to encourage power generation that does not contribute to global warming. We are hoping UNF joins with other forward-thinking universities and agrees to change its investment policy toward  a more environmentally sustainable direction.

Thanks to all of you who helped to organize the March for Ocean Justice and press conference to show our opposition to seismic air gun blasting and offshore drilling for oil that was held in St. Augustine on Saturday.

These events were led by St. Augustine Mayor Nancy Shaver,  Bill Hamilton with Friends of Matanzas and Hunter Miller with the Environmental Youth Council. Hundreds of people marched across the historic Bridge of Lions to the St. Augustine city hall for the press conference. Elected officials from 5 northeast Florida towns that have passed resolutions opposing these threats to our coasts spoke and urged other towns across the state to do the same.

I have copied many of our coalition partners and volunteers across the state on this email. I think you will be excited by the participation and attention this event received. Some of you have expressed interest in working on similar events in your area and this is a great example of how effective they can be.  Thanks to Jorge Rivera with FirstCoast.TV for the terrific video he produced.

Film from FirstCoast.TV

On March 7 several hundred concerned citizens, including many Sierra Club members, protested seismic blasting and offshore oil drilling by marching over the Bridge of Lions to the square in front of St. Augustine City Hall where a press conference and rally were held. At the press conference several civic representatives of communities along the northeast coast, including Mayor Nancy Shaver of St. Augustine spoke out against seismic blasting and offshore oil drilling. 

Looking west down Christopher Creek

By: Rachel Wolf, 15 years old, Duval Charter HS

The beautiful Saint Johns River is an extremely important natural resource. It is used for recreational activities such as boating, swimming, skiing, fishing, and tubing. All of this is being threatened by a runoff of pollution (petroleum products, fertilizers, cow waste, etc.).

A snake in the leaves.

The river's approximate length is 310 miles.  It starts in Indian River County as a huge series of marshes; it becomes a north flowing river near Sanford. Jacksonville, formerly Cowford, is one the narrowest spots of the river. Along the way to the Atlantic ocean, local creeks like Christopher Creek flow into the river. The St. Johns River enters the Atlantic after flowing through the heart of the city of Jacksonville. As it enters the Atlantic there is a critical area of estuaries. In these fish nurseries, at least 27 different species use the marsh and the inlet. Clean water is imperative for this habitat to survive. The vegetation is the base of the food pyramid. The Atlantic ocean is a global resource; wildlife, birds, fish, and natural habitats would disappear without protection. 

Christopher Creek flowing into the St Johns River

Organizations like the St. John's River Water Management District (SJRWMD) and the Sierra Club help the river by buying development rights of undeveloped lands along the river to gain the financial benefit without developing the land. They also partner with the city of Jacksonville to identify areas where ponds are needed. SJRWMD either acquires the land or shares funds with the city to buy the land where the ponds are needed. Ponds are very beneficial because they capture pollutants within the runoff. The water percolates through the soil and the pond's still environment allows sediment and petroleum products to settle out. Within 30 days, biological activity will work on the pollutants to lessen their impact. Vegetation around the pond can absorb nitrogen into its roots to produce growth.

Looking east down Christopher Creek

Pollution by fertilizer runoff causes algae blooms, which affect fish, wildlife, and vegetation by clouding the water. This can affect the entire food chain, from osprey's prey, manatees and  baby fish.

Looking West down Christopher Cree

What humans do adjacent to the river can end up in it. Trash, yard waste and fertilizers flow into the river. As the river flows into the ocean, everything people do (good or ill) can affect the river, and in turn the oceans and the world.

 

Individuals can help by limiting the use of fertilizer and planting native plants!  Select a fertilizer with the highest percentage of slow-release or water-insoluble nitrogen  available (50% or more is recommended).
 

Christopher Creek flowing into the St. John

 

Ingredients in many common cleaning products can be toxic. When buying cleaners, read the labels,  products labeled "Poison" or "Danger" are extremely toxic, flammable, or corrosive.  Don't allow these products to runoff into the gutters, ever. When washing cars use biodegradable, phosphate-free, non-toxic cleaners. Park on your lawn, this avoids the runoff into the storm drain and into the river.  Plant-based, non-petroleum ingredients are most desirable. 

I was recently the recipient of a letter from my homeowners association. It informed me that, according to an inspection by the management company (more likely the complaint of a fellow neighbor), I had an excessive number of brown spots on my lawn. I was required to submit, post haste, a "plan of action" on how I intended to address the problem. I cannot tell you how great the temptation to respond in a sarcasm-drenched fashion, which I have done in the past. But in this case, I simply wrote that the brown spots had been identified as frost damage and the grass would grow back naturally over time. If there was any part of my response they would find objectionable, I was sure it would be the reference to "naturally". After all, that did not sound like a plan of action. But my personal run-in with the lawn police is really less important than the larger madness that this incident represents.

The crime for which I was charged - let's call it "lawn neglect" - may be one of the most serious lodged against a suburban denizen. I would even argue that for the homeowners association it is more significant than other forms of neglect that may occur inside the home because yard neglect can have a direct impact on property values. (Let's just ignore the role played by overzealous real estate developers, unscrupulous mortgage bankers, and greedy speculators in sending our home values plunging.)  For the typical suburban homeowner, the negative stigma associated with having anything less than a pristine, perfectly manicured, lawn is colossal.  It does not require one to receive a formal notice from your association. The expressions and comments of the passing "neighbors" - the informal sanctions -- are enough to enforce a normative order of faithful turfgrass maintenance. No one wants to be known as "the guy with the bad grass" (this phrase had a different meaning in the seventies).

Unfortunately for Floridians, matters are made worse by the curse of St. Augustine grass. It is hard to imagine a variety that is more demanding of constant and costly attention (my neighbor describes it as a "wimpy" grass). It requires enormous quantities of water, is susceptible to every possible weed and pest, grows too fast, and spreads beyond its borders. This means that in order to conform with the neighborhood turfgrass consensus, one must use water irresponsibly; subject the environment to toxic fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides; run gas-powered lawn tools that contribute to air and noise pollution; and edge, trim, and whack any stray vine. One can either spend their increasingly scarce time on weekends tending to these endless tasks or, better yet, they can hire some lawn service or pest control company to cut the grass and administer the chemical treatments. In either case, the costs -- in time, money, and environmental degradation, multiplied over millions of public and private swaths of lawn -- are staggering. Why do we landscape with a turfgrass that can only be maintained in a socially acceptable condition through the use of scarce resources (water) and environmentally damaging (fertilizers, chemicals) interventions?

I was curious to know if someone had taken the time to study and analyze such an obviously and utterly unnatural and irrational system. As it turns out, there are quite a few. The best of the bunch is a wonderful book (which I strongly recommend) titled "Lawn People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are" by Paul Robbins. Among the many gems within this work, there is one research finding that really stands out. While we often assume that an educated public can yield positive social behavior, Robbins reports that those who use chemicals on their lawn are more likely to believe chemicals have a negative impact on the environment than those who do not.  As Robbins notes, this refutes the argument that knowledge and attitudes predict behavior or, for that matter, that people exercise free choice. Social psychologists would describe such a tension between knowledge and behavior as "cognitive dissonance" and argue that individuals would seek to reduce or resolve the tension by either dismissing the evidence of serious environmental damage or stop using fertilizers and chemicals. But it appears that many people are able to accept (or deny) this inconsistency over long periods of time with little or no adjustment to knowledge or behavior. This is compelling testimony to the power of the social external pressures that enforce an ethos of turfgrass maintenance, and turn even the most environmentally conscientious citizens into "lawn people".

One might think that in this time of green consciousness there would be new opportunities to break out of the turfgrass prison, but there remain enormous constraints working against the obvious alternatives. I have heard many homeowners claim that they would love to rip out all the grass and replace it with something else (like dwarf mondo grass or artfificial turf). However, if they study their neighborhood covenants they may discover that turfgrass is the only acceptable ground cover. Xeriscaping is another option that is often discussed but this requires significant planning, labor, and expense (assuming it is acceptable to the neighborhood association) and there are the whole array of social (stigma) and economic (resale value) pressures working against such risky behaviors.

Then there is what I will call the "turfgrass industrial complex". Just consider the political economic interests that benefit directly from a nation of lawn people and have a stake in retaining the current system. They include: lawn care businesses; pest control services; irrigation system companies; garden tool manufacturers; fertilizer, pesticide, and herbicide manufacturers; real estate agents; and home builders who cover dirt with sod. Consider the number of businesses in Jacksonville alone that are directly or indirectly related to lawn maintenance. The economic dislocation that would result from abandoning St Augustine grass would require a National Turfgrass Re-adjustment Act.

There is a perverse irony in the desire to individually buck the trend and refuse to play the turfgrass game. While one may think that protecting the environment from the ravages of chemically-dependent green space is an act of community responsibility, it is this very same communal principle that exacts the lockstep conformity of lawn people. That is, most of us believe that we actually have a community obligation to keep our lawns green, weedless, and trimmed since our lawn is part of the larger neighborhood aesthetic. This is a case where the sum of individual decisions to be a responsible member of the neighborhood translates into collective insanity.

Until the time comes when replacing St Augustine grass with something truly natural is socially acceptable, and agreed to and tolerated by one's neighborhood community and beyond, there is little hope that we will escape from the tyranny of the majority. Until then, most of us have no choice but to join the ranks of the lawn people.

David Jaffee is a Professor of Sociology at the University of North Florida.