Today, I’m going to take a break from writing about the really good things going on here in the garden at camp to take a quick and grim reality check. The wound in the Gulf of Mexico continues to bleed oil at an astonishing rate. If you scroll down on my blog on the lower right side, you can see the live camera of the underground oil gusher. A grim reminder of the fact that its time to face our serious addiction to fossil fuels.

I saw Steve Forbert perform his new version of the Oil Song at the Clearwater Festival before I left for camp. The song was originally written back in the days of the Exxon Valdez. So far the gusher in the gulf has put 82 million gallons of oil into the ocean, the equivalent of more than 8 Exxon Valezes.

Please take a few minutes to watch this little music video and think about how much we depend on fossil fuels. Consider what YOU can do to change that. Drive less. Walk more. Eat less packaged processed food from far away, grow more food in your own backyard.

Friday night I took my youngest daughter to a screening of Tapped at the nearby Greenwich Audubon Society.  It was an interesting feature length film about the many reasons why we should be re-thinking our bottled water habit.

Admittedly, I am already familiar with the main reasons why we should not be guzzling bottled water. Tapped touched on all of them.

#1 Its really stupid! Bottled water is exponentially more expensive than tap water and no better in quality.  Penn and Teller did some funny stunts around this a few years back.

#2 It’s a waste of fossil fuel. Trucking water around burns gas. And guess what those plastic bottles are made of? Petroleum. In a world where peak oil and climate change are deeply impacting our way of life, there is no room for wasting oil and gas on something stupid like bottled water.

#3 Plastic bottles pollute! We’ve got giant garbage patches in both Pacific and Atlantic oceans now. Less than 30% of all plastic bottles ever get recycled.

#4 Plastic bottles leach questionable chemicals into our bodies. Why drink water from a bottle that could be leaching BPA and phthalates? Both are potent hormone disruptors that are increasingly linked to health effects like brain and behavior changes, cancer, and reproductive system damages.

Something happened at the screening of this movie that has made me more determined than ever to not buy bottled water for myself or my family. Kim Jeffery, the President and  CEO of Nestle Waters, North America and a Greenwhich resident, showed up after the screening to screen an 8 minute film of his own. Despite the fact he refused to be interviewed for the movie, he wanted equal time here in his own backyard.  Afterwards, he took the stage to answer questions, refusing to have a dialog with the film’s producer and director. Talk about rude, this dude takes the cake.

My daughter stood up to ask a question about bottled water in schools. Like a slick politician, he did not answer her question. My daughter didn’t stand a chance getting her point across.  Mr. Jeffery went on to blame lack of  recycling as the reason why plastic bottles are clogging our landfills and oceans.  Meanwhile his corporation along with the American Beverage Association routinely fight bottle bills and recycling legislation.

I’d love to see Mr Jeffery, his wife and four kids to take a nice cruise out to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and see some of the impact his plastic bottles have made on our planet.  Better yet, I hope at least one of  his kids studies environmental science in school and comes home to ask his/her dad some tough questions.

Thanks to the wealthy CEO of Nestle Waters, my daughter is inspired to convince her friends that bottled water is not the way to go. His behavior at this screening did more than me or  the movie to turn my kid into an activist!

Meanwhile, I’ll do my part and drink water from my new Klean Kanteen. See Tapped when you get a chance. Take the pledge to stop drinking bottled water.

When Bush & company started blabbing about ethanol a while back, I knew it had to be a stupid idea. After reading posts on the Organic Consumers Association website, I knew that ethanol was a big hoax that would not reduce global warming gases or reduce our dependance on foreign oil. After all, it takes lots of petrochemical fertilizer to raise all that corn, not to mention all that gas guzzling farm gear.

The backlash against biofuels is coming. Now that the demand for corn and soybeans are creating high food prices to go along with our high gas prices, somethings got to give. Legislators in DC who are still working on the farm bill are considering cutting back on the huge incentives given to big agribusiness who are responsible for the majority of corn and soy grown in our country.

The good news is that sustainably raised food is starting to look better and better each day. Starting your own garden is not such a far fetched idea anymore. The idea of Food Not Lawns will continue to catch on as oil prices climb and climate change continues to roll forward. As our yards are transformed into gardens our food supply will become more sustainable and our dependance on foreign oil will decrease.

Alice Waters once said that eating is a political act.
Gardening can be a political act too. If you love your country, gardening can be a patriotic act too. Free yourself from dependancy on foreign oil and start your own revolution! Get your hands in the dirt and grow some food.