Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 22, 1990 TAG: 9004220282
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By WILLIAM BOOTH and D'VERA COHN THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
Yet the Deweys are the first to say they are far from the model eco-troopers that environmental activists would like them to be. Because their neighborhood has no sidewalks, they drive themselves and their children everywhere, even to the shopping center a few blocks away. Because their neighbors encouraged it, the Deweys hired a lawn-care service to bomb their yard with chemical fertilizers and herbicides, which leach into the same waterways as the forsaken six-pack rings, where the chemicals do their own damage.
As a wide coalition of groups, Hollywood celebrities and newly sympathetic politicians prepare to mark the 20th anniversary of Earth Day with a second mass ecological happening today, environmental activists have begun to shift some of the burden away from polluting industries to individual citizens.
Environmental groups are asking people to personally commit themselves to more ecologically sensitive lives: "to reduce, reuse and recycle," to say no to disposable diapers, plastic bags, hot baths and long drives, and to say yes to cloth diapers, paper sacks, short showers and public transportation.
The potential impact of some changes is indisputable. If every American turned off a 100-watt bulb for 1 1/2 hours a day, for example, it would have the same impact in reducing the carbon dioxide responsible for global warming as planting one billion new trees, a goal recently stated by the Bush administration.
But if the lives of the Deweys are any indication, the greening of American life will be filled with contradiction and confusion. Like the Deweys, many citizens are trying to do the right thing while listening to a din of claims and counterclaims in a society that does not make it easy to be environmentally conscious.
Most Americans believe that the natural world is in worse shape now than two decades ago. Scientists have offered a series of increasingly dire scenarios about the effects of overpopulation, global warming and ozone depletion. Surveys and interviews show that Americans are infused with worry about the health of the planet.
Against this backdrop of dread, many Americans confess that they're not sure exactly what to do or what should be done about the environment. Many feel guilty about their own lifestyles, for no longer is the enemy limited to a dirty factory or a nuclear power plant.
"Through government action, we seem to have reduced the worst sins of industry, but we've replaced these with the sins of the consumer," said John Dewey, a physician.
In anticipation of Earth Day, environmentalists have issued a wave of books to guide personal environmental choices in the grocery and at home. Filled with thousands of do's and don'ts, they leave little to imagination: From the profound to the trivial, it's all there. "Study and work by daylight whenever possible," cautions the pamphlet "Save It!" produced by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Diane MacEachern's book "Save Our Planet" advises: "Don't peek into the oven when something is cooking." "Avoid impulse buying," warns "The Green Lifestyle Handbook."
Indeed, a main thrust of Earth Day 1990, according to organizer Denis Hayes, "is to give people the feeling of empowerment, to make them believe that their individual actions will produce results." When people become personally involved, environmental activists believe, the marketplace and the government will bend to their collective will.
Yet many citizens say they are dazed by all this and unsure of the true impact of their good deeds. Is it more important to recycle or give up disposable diapers? Choose paper or plastic at the grocery? Not peek into the oven or work by daylight? Few environmentalists appear willing to sort it out for consumers.
Many people say they feel more suspicious than empowered.
"I don't know who to believe anymore," said Kathy Dewey, a mother and part-time nurse. "We bag our grass. But somebody told me that's wrong, that bagging the grass destroys the environment."
With no agreed-upon priorities, individuals are on their own to pick and choose from among the 1,001 ways to save the planet. But the picking and choosing leads to inconsistencies. In many cases, one action may cancel another.
Take Malcolm and Dorothy Clough, a retired couple in Annandale, Va. They are experimenting with high-efficiency fluorescent bulbs to reduce their energy use but drive almost every weekend to their vacation home in the Blue Ridge Mountains, using gasoline that negates their electricity savings and polluting the air as well.
Or take Ethyl Treatman, who shares a house with four other people in Chevy Chase, Md. She and and her housemates have converted their laundry room and pantry into a recycling center crammed with boxes of beer bottles and soup cans, stacks of yellowing newspapers, chunks of cardboard and leaning towers of plastic margarine tubs and yogurt containers.
But as heroic as they are about recycling, the group may undo many of their environmental gains by one act each day - driving five cars to five different jobs.
Indeed, for those who want to be environmentally conscious, society does not make it easy. Transportation is the primary example: Brenda Richardson of Washington lowers her family's thermostat to 65 degrees in the winter to save energy, but drives to work because she does not like being harassed on the bus.
Roger and Tamara Webb of Alexandria, Va., don't recycle because their apartment is too small for the clutter of bottles and cans that accumulate. In Virginia, like D.C. and Maryland, people must take it upon themselves to haul their own recyclables to neighborhood centers. There is almost no curbside pickup except for newspapers.
Labels that say "biodegradable" may mean that only under perfect conditions, rarely found in landfills, a product would degrade. Products say "recyclable," but that doesn't mean they are recycled.
"Both sides of the debate are withholding information," John Dewey said.
Roger Webb, a Fairfax County, Va., school administrator, recently bought plastic trash bags labeled as biodegradable, only to learn later that the product was unlikely to disintegrate for eons in a packed landfill. "They lied," he said.
His wife Tamara, a dance teacher, said she would like to buy organically grown produce, but does not trust the labels to tell her what is raised without pesticides.
"People don't know when they see a product whether the claim is accurate or not," said Howard Levenson of the congressional Office of Technology Assessment. "People are right to be confused about which products to choose."
While West Germany and Canada have programs that identify whether products are environmentally friendly, there is no such program in the United States. In the absence of any government action, Hayes said that after Earth Day he and his colleagues will begin organizing a private group to provide environmental labeling for products, whereby consumers would be able to see if a box of detergent or quart of motor oil displays a "Green Seal" of approval.
Yet researchers do not know the true environmental costs of many of the most common daily habits. In fact, the few studies that have been done show that at least a few of the most cherished suggestions for saving the Earth might be based on misinformation - or worse, might be wrong.
Even for such everyday problems as choosing the environmentally correct diaper or bag, there is now growing evidence that many choices are not as straightforward as they onced seemed, according to John Schall of the Tellus Institute in Boston.
Fifteen years ago, as a young married couple, the Deweys lived in a farmhouse outside Charlottesville, Va. Back then, they grew all their own vegetables in an organic garden. Kathy Dewey used cloth diapers on their first-born son, washed the diapers herself and hung them on a line to dry in the sun. For the next two children, however, the parents used disposable diapers, which were provided by the hospital where John worked. "We were co-opted by free diapers," said Kathy.
The ecological advantage of cloth diapers has become an accepted part of environmental gospel. But like many choices, it's not so simple.
Carl Lehrburger of Energy Answers Corporation in Albany, author of the report "Diapers in the Waste Stream," said that if one is only concerned about trash, cloth diapers are clearly better since they don't clog up landfills (even though disposable diapers, of which there were 18 billion sold in 1988, comprise about only about 2 percent of total municipal solid waste).
But, said Lehrburger, "If you look at the larger picture the conclusions won't be so clear."
Allen Hershkowitz, a scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council who examined the environmental costs of disposable versus cloth diapers, said it is difficult to say which is ecologically preferable. While disposables do account for more garbage, one study found that laundering cloth diapers produces nine times as much air pollution, 10 times as much water pollution, consumes six times more water, three times more energy and produces half as much again in sludge.
"If we're going to be making demands of consumers we better make damn sure we're not giving out ambiguous information," said Hershkowitz.
Like the Dewey family, many people suspect that living in harmony with nature might require tougher choices than opting for paper or plastic bags at the grocery store check-out line.
If the worst fears of global warming are realized, debates over plastic sacks and disposable diapers will probably fade into the background. Reducing future warming would require drastic reductions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases produced by the burning of fossil fuels. And even then, with dramatic restrictions on the use of automobiles and the virtual elimination of coal as an energy source, the world may already be committed to unprecedented warming.
"In the short run, we can do some things," said Jeremy Rifkin, editor of "The Green Lifestyle Handbook," which lists "1001 ways you can heal the Earth." "But if we think we can just do these tips, we're kidding ourselves."
Most Americans say they are willing to make pay more and make some sacrifices for the environment - up to a point. Those polled by the Washington Post said they would pay more for automobiles that polluted less. They also voiced support for prohibiting aerosol sprays and banning throwaway products such as disposable razors and diapers, even though another recent survey found that among parents, almost 90 percent prefer disposable diapers.
The same poll also showed that the public can be vociferous in opposing bans on emblems of the American lifestyle, such as power lawn mowers and outdoor barbecues.
Americans seem dead-set against restrictions that would limit their freedom of movement and their ability to drive. Most would go only so far in cutting their driving - a majority in the Post poll say they would reduce their auto use by 10 percent but not cut it in half.
In the face of such resistance, some argue that the time for persuasion is already past. "As far as solving the problem, I don't think it will be solved by voluntary acts," said Malcolm Clough of Annandale. "We'll have to have regulations that say 'You can't use this, you can't use that,' until we make changes."
But if there are to be mandatory regulations, it is unclear who will make them. And if many citizens want to be led, it is unclear who will lead them.
by CNB