Kiera Butler

Senior Editor

Kiera answers your green questions every week in her Econundrums column. She was a hypochondriac even before she started researching germ warfare.

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Kiera has written about the environment, arts and culture, and more for Columbia Journalism Review, Orion, Audubon, OnEarth, Plenty, and the Utne Reader. She lives in Berkeley and recently planted 30 onions in her backyard.

Jennifer Egan's Novel Approach

The novelist/journalist talks about her new book, teens and the Internet, and writing a short story in PowerPoint.

—By Kiera Butler

| Wed May. 26, 2010 5:50 PM PDT

Toward the end of Jennifer Egan's new novel A Visit From the Goon Squad, a 12-year-old girl succinctly explains the differences between her mom's and dad's parenting approaches in a PowerPoint slide. In fact, the entire chapter is in the form of a PowerPoint presentation. And unlike many PowerPoint presentations I've sat through, it's riveting. But that's not the only reason to pick up Goon Squad: The novel is a gripping series of interconnected short stories circling around an aging music industry exec and his young assistant, but it's also a smart meditation on time, and especially the nature of human memory. Egan, the author of two previous novels and two collections of short stories, is also journalist: Topics she has written about for the New York Times Magazine include bipolar children, sperm banks putting donors' profiles online, and gay teens connecting on the Internet. I talked with Egan about Goon Squad, the San Francisco punk scene, and why Facebook creeps her out.

Mother Jones: What gave you the idea to do a chapter of Goon Squad as a PowerPoint?

Jennifer Egan: I think what first made me so interested in it was reading something about the Obama campaign two summers ago, when things really turned around for him. I had read that one critical element of the turnaround had been this PowerPoint presentation that laid out clearly where things were not falling into place and what needed to be done to change them. And at that point I thought this has really become an absolutely sort of archetypal form of communication now. And as soon as I realized that somehow it became very clear to me that I needed to write a story in PowerPoint. And I had never used PowerPoint. I did not have PowerPoint and wasn't particularly interested in acquiring PowerPoint. I looked at a lot of PowerPoints, and I first tried writing it out by hand as I always do, and it was just a disaster. I finally did spring for Microsoft Office. And then, all of sudden I had a different idea of how to do this in a way that felt really rich, and that was that it would be this journal of a 12-year-old girl. And then it really possessed me for about two months and was pretty much all I did.

MJ: One theme that I really liked reading about in Goon Squad was music. You have a nice bit at the beginning that is kind of a portrait of the punk scene in the '70s and early '80s in San Francisco. Were you a San Francisco punk?

JE: I was, as I am in all realms of life, just an observer, but I was there. I was not a punk rocker, absolutely not, but I certainly knew quite a lot of them and I definitely went to the Mab—it was raw, interesting intense scene, so I was very drawn to it, but I was a total outsider. I wore some makeup but that's as far as it went. I haven't really been part of any music scene in my life. I don't have a very strong relationship to the music industry. As a journalist, I have wanted very much to find a way to write about the music industry, and it's been frustrating to me that that's never worked out. Now I feel sort of happy, because this ended up being my way to be able to do that.

MJ: Did you talk to music industry folks for the book?

JE: Yes—though not a lot. I did do a little research into the technology of it, and any things that happen there musically I think are pretty sound in terms of having been researched, but in fact there isn't really that much. I think what interested me is more looking back. I was most immediately moved by reading Proust all the way to the end for the first time, and there's tons of music in Proust, I think partially because music and time have such an interesting relationship. Music makes time fall away like almost nothing else. You hear a song from another moment of your life and it really is like you're still there. That's why the music of our youth ends up being particularly powerful. It's why my mom still mists up over the music of the '50s. The coming of age music that you grab a hold of as the symbol or the expression of your independence and hopes for the future and anger and rebellion or whatever it is you're feeling is so powerful for the rest of your life when you hear it.

MJ: You're really good at writing about teenagers—you've written about them in your fiction and your journalism, too. So is that a particular interest of yours?

JE: You know, honestly, I feel like I'm still practically there. I feel like I remember that stuff so vividly that I can't even believe I could easily have children who are long out of that period. It feels very immediate to me. I think that's one reason I've ended up writing about it as a journalist: It just comes very naturally. It just feels one step removed from me now. I don't know why on Earth that is. I guess it's just that period of discovering the world and trying to negotiate one's relationship to it...there's nothing else like it for the rest of life, the feeling of having your entire adult life out in front of you.

MJ: What kind of journalistic topics interest you right now?

[Read the full article]

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"Green" Hand Sanitizer?

—By Kiera Butler

| Tue May. 25, 2010 11:23 AM PDT

Triple Pundit reports that Purell is now offering an eco-certified hand sanitizer:

...the watery gel everyone from Dick Cheney to Barack Obama uses to keep their hands “99.9%” germ-free now is now available in a biodegradable formula made from 100 percent renewable plant-based ethanol in a completely recyclable PET plastic container. Whew!

The whole package has been certified by Ecologo, which confirms that the product meets its recently released “Instant Hand Antiseptic Products standard.” Accord to Joe Kanfer, CEO of GOJO, maker of Purell, it is the world’s first hand sanitizer to received certification from an independent eco-labeling program.

The new product’s light-weight packaging uses 30 percent less material, saving 250 tons of plastic a year.

Purell certainly deserves props for producing a biodegradable product and greening its packaging. But as Mother Jones reported in "Germ Warfare," our national obsession with cleanliness has reached a fever pitch, and some scientists think being too clean has actually made us sicker. Proponents of the "hygiene hypothesis" blame allergies and other autoimmune diseases on a lack of certain germs: In the developing world, where gut parasites are much more common, autoimmune disorders are much less common.

As the Boston Globe reports, some doctors are even experimenting with infecting allergic people with hook worms in hopes of giving their immune systems something to do besides give them allergy attacks. Infecting yourself with a parasite might seem creepier than popping a Benadryl, but the process actually sounds fairly painless. If it works? Imagine the possibilities: Less sneezing=fewer allergy drugs=fewer antihistamines in our waterways, etc.

As Triple Pundit's BC Upham points out, Purell isn't to blame for antibiotic-resistant superbugs—it's not made with antimicrobial agents, just alcohol. But it's still an awfully effective germ killer. So what do you think, Blue Marble readers? Should Purell be allowed to call a hand sanitizer green?

Michael Pollan's Nonfiction Picks

—By Kiera Butler

| Mon May. 24, 2010 4:00 AM PDT

For a special section in our May/June issue, we asked some of our favorite writers about their favorite nonfiction books. Here are In Defense of Food and The Omnivore's Dilemma author Michael Pollan's answers:

Mother Jones: Are there any under-the-radar books about nutrition and food politics you'd recommend to fans of your work?

Michael Pollan: There have been a handful of books on food politics that I consider landmarks: Food Politics by Marion Nestle; Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation (though hardly under the radar); Joan Gussow's This Organic Life, the first and best book on eating locally; Raj Patel's Stuffed and Starved takes the conversation to the global level; as does The End of Food by Paul Roberts. There's a strong shelf that will get anybody up to speed. On nutrition, besides Nestle's What to Eat, be sure to read Gary Taube's Good Calories, Bad Calories, which effectively demolishes the lipid hypothesis that has ruled the whole food conversation for 40 years.

MJ: Which nonfiction book do you foist upon all of your friends and relatives? Why?

MP: Lately I'm pushing them to read Cornered by Barry C. Lynn, a really original book on how monopolization is eroding our political culture.

MJ: Which nonfiction book have you reread the most times? What's so good about it?

MP: I find I return to Wendell Berry's essays over and over, which can be read on so many levels. Thoreau's Walden continues to nourish and aggravate; The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White, and the essays of George Orwell all get an annual workout.

MJ: Is there a nonfiction book that someone recommended to you when were a kid that has left a lasting impression? Who recommended it, and why was it so special?

MP: My parents gave me George Plimpton's Paper Lion when I was 13 or 14, and I think in retrospect it's shaped my journalism in many ways—but especially the humor he squeezes out of participation.

Could a Common Sunscreen Ingredient Speed Cancer Development?

—By Kiera Butler

| Mon May. 24, 2010 3:00 AM PDT

I could really use some better sunscreen. Red-headed, freckled, and ridiculously pale (think: a few shades lighter than your average slice of Wonder Bread), I burn at the slightest suggestion of a sunny day, even though I religiously slather on the SPF one-bazillion goop. Last year, I wrote a piece for Mother Jones about how sunscreen manufacturers' claims (All day protection! Sweat proof! SPF through the roof!) rarely measure up to the products' performance. So when I heard that the Environmental Working Group was releasing its 2010 list of best and worst sunscreens, I had hope: Would this be the year sunscreen manufacturers finally figured out how to save me from turning into a Twizzler after 10 minutes of yard work?

You'd think so, since according to the new report, 1 in 6 sunscreens is now labeled with an SPF of above 50, compared to 1 in 8 last year. Sounds like good news, since higher SPF means more protection, right? Not really, says EWG senior analyst Sean Gray. The difference between an SPF 50 product and and SPF 110 product is minuscule. Gray believes the sky-high SPF labels can actually be dangerous. "We have studies that show that people who use the higher SPF products don't reapply it," says Gray. "So they end up with more UV exposure overall." (Mother Jones reported on this phenomenon back in the day.)

Another scary new finding: There is preliminary evidence from a recent FDA animal study that a form of vitamin A called retinyl palmitate, present in about 40 percent of sunscreens, may accelerate the development of skin cancer. Researchers applied sunscreens containing retinyl palmitate to one group of hairless mice and sunscreens without the additive to another group. When exposed to UV radiation, the retinyl palmitate group developed lesions and tumors significantly faster than than the non-retinyl palmitate group. What's frightening is that people see "vitamin" and "think it's good for them," says Gray.

So which sunscreens are best? EWG says so-called "mineral blockers," which generally use nanoparticles of zinc or titanium oxide to block UV light, are safer than "chemical blockers," since they protect against both UVA and UVB rays (UVB cause burns, but UVA rays have been linked to skin cancer) and don't become unstable in sunlight. Are nanoparticles completely safe? "All the research we’ve looked at suggests they don't penetrate the skin, but there is still debate about that," says Gray. If you do choose a chemical blocker, choose one with avobenzone, which protects against both UVA and UVB rays. Stay away from oxybenzone, which only filters out UVB light, and could also disrupt hormonal function.

The bright side: The FDA expects to debut its long-awaited new sunscreen labeling system—which will require manufacturers to include information about both UVA and UVB protection and ban claims of SPFs higher than 50—this coming October.

Here's a list of EWG's best and worst sunscreens of 2010:

[Read more in the Blue Marble blog]

Do We Really Need 2.5 Parking Spaces for Every Car?

—By Kiera Butler

| Thu May. 20, 2010 5:51 PM PDT

Four states around the Great Lakes have an average of 2.5 parking-lot spaces per car, and that doesn't even include parking structures or spots on the street, a new study finds. Purdue University researchers who surveyed Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin found that parking lots take up an incredible 5 percent of urban land in those states.

To people who regularly waste entire weekend mornings looking for parking (like many of us in the Bay Area do), this doesn't sound so bad. But parking lots take a toll on the environment: By contributing to the urban heat island effect, parking lots can make cities hotter. They can conduct toxic runoff into streams and lakes, leading to poor water quality. They can also raise the temperature of waterways, which is bad news for plants and animals whose survival depends on cool enough water.

Discovery News interviewed UCLA parking expert Donald Shoup about how to solve this problem:

"Parking is so heavily regulated in terms of minimum spaces," said Shoup. Typically city or county regulations require a certain minimum number of spaces per square feet of floor space of business. The type of business matters too.

Restaurants, for instance, require more space than an accountant's office. But it's a minimum, not a maximum number of spaces, and there is a tendency for businesses to lean towards more spaces, since no one wants to lose a customer because of lack of parking.

As a result, cities have no way of knowing how many parking spaces there are, Shoup said.

Several things can be done, however, to keep parking lots from taking over, he said. One is to set maximums for parking spaces. Another is to allow businesses and residential areas to share parking areas, so that a bank, for instance, uses the parking during the day and a bar uses it at night.

Street parking obviously makes use of already-existing paved areas, but there's not enough of it in most cities, and endless driving around searching for a spot wastes gas and creates carbon emissions. One solution: this phone app, which shows you the nearest available parking spaces. Any other parking-lot proliferation solutions you can think of, readers?