The situation was actually a bit funny because Home Depot had gotten me in this mess to begin with. They’ve coupled with a local RainSoft dealer and hidden their DIY water softeners way in a back corner somewhere. Long story short, I made the horrible mistake of having RainSoft/Home Depot install a whole house water filtration system. It has been a total nightmare with such highlights as soldering flux firing out of my kitchen faucet, several bathfuls of black water, a tub which required lengthy cleaning sessions to partially remove black/brown residue, ongoing cleanup of wherever the incompetent RainSoft installer worked. I have much much more to say on this topic, but will have to write about it another time. Oh RainSoft, you have had not heard the last of me.

But I digress…. So there I was in Home Depot trying to buy five aerators. Their selection was pretty sparse (perhaps because of the upcoming law), but I managed to find a Neoperl product which seemed to fit the bill. And there it was in big capital letters: “LEAD FREE*”. This perplexed me a great deal given that a few millimeters above this claim stood: “Ultra low lead”.

I tried to wrap my head around “LEAD FREE*” vs. “Ultra low lead”. How could something lead free have ultra low lead? On the back they described the asterisk in flowery, blooming English: “*AB 1953 compliant less than 0.2% lead.” Wouldn’t you love if everything was described this way? “Traffic ticket you drive too fast.” “Delicious food ate at fancy restaurant.” And so on…

Now having looked into the Assembly Bill a bit, it appears the powers that be are redefining the meaning of lead free. In other words, they are lowering the value considered lead free. After doing a little research, I found that the legal limit for lead in related products used to be 8%. To me, .2% doesn’t seem that low, and 8% seems incredibly high. Given all the really scary stuff written about lead (and I have a two-year-old, people!), I would kind of prefer lead free to mean 0% lead. Is it that hard to make a metal product that contains no lead?

To further my confusion, another, simpler model of aerator, also made by Neoperl, states “LEAD FREE*”, but not “Ultra low lead”. So, does this mean this one is pushing the 0.2% lead content?

Now, I know what you’re saying: “Dude, why didn’t you just buy an aerator from another company claiming 0% lead?” There were none. Home Depot (or “The Home Depot” as I think they like being called now) only had these in stock.

If anyone has a suggestion for eco-friendly aerators without any lead (no asterisk), feel free to comment. Even though they say “there is no safe level of lead”, I guess AB 1953 is a step in the right direction. If it were me, and I know this would probably cause minor economic mayhem or piss off the lead lobby, I would just take a hatchet to it and make lead free actually lead free. 0%. Done.

P.S. Please also comment if you have more RainSoft horror stories.

“In our every deliberation we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.”

This is a certainly a clever way of explaining their strange name, but every time I’ve read that, there has been something that bothered me.

I think I finally figured it out. Isn’t “every deliberation” a “decision”? Why not just write, “We must consider the impact of our every decision on the next seven generations.”? I suppose it doesn’t quite sound as prophetic, but I think it makes more sense and skips the verbiage. It might even reduce packaging thus lowering their environmental footprint. Am I wrong here?

Perhaps one will soon be available on store shelves. The November issue of “Photonics Spectra” introduces what might be a knight in luminescent armor. (Sorry, I tried. They call it, “…a new bulb on the block.”) A company based in Seattle known as Vu1 Corporation has created a new technology they call Electron Stimulated Luminescence (ESL). ESL is a phosphor coating which glows upon being stimulated by accelerated electrons. The bulbs are made of standard glass, look similar to old-fashioned incandescents, and don’t contain mercury. At a price point of around $12 a bulb, they cost less then LED-based lighting. In addition, the bulbs have the same lifetime rating as compact fluorescents and their color can be adjusted.

Vu1 Corp. will be officially launching this bulb on April 22, 2009. More information on this new technology is available on their website. Oh, and if Vu1 wants to hook me up with some free bulbs, they can contact me here.

But hey, you’re thinking, you’re in Europe, you’ve got to train it. We’ve all seen Before Sunrise, Europe is all about plowing through the countryside in a hall of steel, maybe meeting Julie Delpy on the way. In fact, I really enjoy riding trains. Aside from cycling, it’s probably the most environmentally sound way of traveling. You can try to get some work done or read a book. You can also just stare out the window as the outside whizzes by. Oh, and there’s also the fun fact that from within a train you have no way of scientifically proving in which direction you’re moving.

It’s a pity that riding a train in Germany almost always involves the Deutsche Bahn. Much like the Deutsche Telekom they have a massive Goliath complex and are stuck in an old-fashioned starched straightjacket. Regardless, I summoned up the necessary courage and headed over to their website. After Firefox blocked two popup windows, I started looking around. They claim to offer tickets for 29 euros, but they’re never available. As if to rub it in your face, they display the cheapest price, with an X next to it, saying not available. Way to go. They have a plethora of deals and discounts — Fan BahnCard 25, BahnCard 25, BahnCard 50, BahnCard 100, Mobility BahnCard 100, Sparpreis 25, Sparpreis 50 — but these seem to only apply to train junkies. I was also assailed by a monsoon of acronyms — ICE, CNL, EN, RE. A former colleague of mine who had worked for the Deutsche Bahn told me that sometimes the cheapest tickets are only available through a phone number which costs 1.80 euro per minute. Basically, If you want to give yourself a headache go to the Deutsche Bahn website and wade through their self-made sea of confusion.

After popping a few Bayer® Aspirin, I found a round trip ticket with an ICE (Intercontinental Express) for 138 euros, with seat reservations (?!) 144 euros. A bit over 4 hours each way. All in all, acceptable.

It’s obvious that a train ride is going to take longer than flying, but what kind of incentive is that when flying costs 30% less? And what about the environmental ramifications? The Guardian newspaper reported that flying from London to Edinburgh and back produces 8 times more CO₂ emmissions (per person) than taking the train. The distance from London to Edinburgh is a bit more than from Berlin to Frankfurt, but the point holds true: These prices are obviously sending very wrong signals. With lots of attention being given to climate change and global warming, perhaps people have a self-inflicted guilt tax, which makes those cheap flights a bit more expensive. Or maybe we should start smacking warning signs on flight tickets, much like the “You will die” signs we see on cigarettes. “This cheap flight is destroying our environment.”

Now I just need to see about finding that ship to take me from Europe to California.

The initial idea was to minimize this exposure. So the apples were packed in airtight storage halls. The apples then sucked up the remaining oxygen and converted it into carbon dioxide. A lack of oxygen and a bit of carbon did a pretty decent job of preserving apples.

And yet, in our increasingly competitive world where a price differing in the amount of a few cents can make all the difference, pretty good was not good enough. So, nowadays, instead of letting the apples go to work on their own, the storage halls are filled with nitrogen to initally reduce the amount of oxygen. They call it “Controlled Atmosphere” storage.

Fun fact: Say you were to stumble upon one such storage facility and were like, “Hmmm, what’s in here?” Apparently, you’d be able to take about two steps before collapsing and well, instantly dying. This is no joke, and though this is unlikely to happen since such locations are well-secured, several people do die this unfortunate death. That’s right, suicide. What would you think about showing up at your local supermarket and seeing a little sign next to the apples saying, “A man committed suicide in the facility in which these apples were stored. Enjoy.”