Greening Up

I've had a lot of time away from work-- more than 2 months now without a job, if anyone's counting. It's given me a lot of time to think, to reflect, to see where I am and decide where I'd like to be.

Of course, I've spent a lot of that think time playing video games.

But I have done a little thinking. A bit of reading. Some internet research and googlefied virtual meandering. I almost meditated once.

Some of you (assuming more than just my wife reads this) may have noticed that I've become a bit obsessed with environmental causes; the so-called 'going green'. It's been growing on my mind, you might say. And it is with this cause in mind (because really, it's all just one cause) I've noticed that where I am is not where I want to be, but I believe that I can get there.

Yes, yes, I'm looking for work. I'm not about to run to the hills, build a bamboo hut and live off of home grown taro while hiding from the Man. But finding work is of small importance next to learning to live in a way that isn't centered on raping natural resources.

There, I said it. Yeah, maybe it sounds a little extreme. But if it does sound extreme, it may be that you are unfamiliar with the science. There were a lot of things I wasn't aware of too, when I started to get interested in all this 'green' stuff. I use the word 'aware'. You see, there's a lot of stuff that I think we already know is wrong, but it's become so commonplace that we don't actually see it; not in a way that matters.

For instance: Plastic by its very nature, it's design, is made to last for hundreds, perhaps even a thousand or more, years. Why then is it used for so many products that are only handled at the consumer end for maybe an hour before being thrown into the trash? Plastic cutlery, straws, shopping bags, packaging and wrappers for nearly everything. I'm not even talking about the adverse affects plastics have on people's health. I'm not talking about animals getting trapped in, or killed by, plastic. What I'm talking about is our linear system of taking resources out of the earth, processing them into a permanent substance that will not break down or be reused by anything or anyone, and then burying those resources in that useless form after mere minutes of use. Does such wanton abuse of natural resources make any sense?

How about this one: Toilet paper. How much land is deforeseted every year because we don't want to suffer the inconvenience of washing our own asses?

A linear system is not sustainable without infinite supply. We do not have infinite supply.

And how about this: Scientists say that to hope to reverse, or at least stabilize the trends we are seeing in climate change, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere must be kept at or below 350 parts per million. However, the atmosphere is already at 387 ppm. They say there is still time to bring that number down, and that we have the means to do it, but that we must act soon before warming becomes a self-sustaining chain reaction. Rather than get technical, I'll let you decide if you want to do your own research into these claims. I recommend you do; it's interesting.

But I was talking about me. That's what blogs are for, yeah?

When we moved here, we (I) decided we would eat crap food to save money until I could find a job. By crap food I mean processed, packaged stuff: ramen, canned meat, that sort of thing. I believed that eating these things to save money was a worthy exchange. Now I'm not so sure. All this fake food is cheap, for sure. It is also unhealthy. It also comes in packaging that will be here longer than me, you, our kids, their kids... And what will that packaging be doing? It won't be feeding anything. It won't be protecting anything. It won't provide energy for anything. It might choke an animal or two to death. It might photodegrade and break up into small enough pieces to be ingested at the bottom of the food chain and then make its way up the food chain until it is a toxin in the bloodstream of a larger mammal, like a human. But it will probably just sit in a big hole in the earth, slowly leaching toxins into the soil for generations to come.

Is that worth saving a few extra pennies?

So that's where I am. I buy garbage, then I eat it (which makes me feel crappy physically), then I feel guilty about throwing the packaging away (which makes me feel crappy spiritually), then I rationalize my wasteful, irresponsible behavior (which gets me through the day).

No, this is not a good place to be.

But by seeing where I am, I can decide to go somewhere else, and how many tools there are to help me get there. I thought eating garbage would save me money, but how about this: I'm overweight, which indicates that I eat more food than I need. If I ate less, I would have more money. If I then decided to eat less, but keep the same food budget, I could afford food that is natural and actually good for my body. I already know from experience that if I eat a diet that is 95% natural food I feel better physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Foolish of me to have derailed myself in the name of saving money that I ended up not actually saving.

And how about the waste? Well, it is possible to feed yourself with almost no packaging. It is CERTAINLY possible to feed yourself without plastic packaging. Farmer's markets sell produce without packaging. All you need to do is bring your own bag. We've started doing that here. Grocery stores offer unpackaged produce too, of course. Some folks don't eat meat and save on packaging there. It is possible to get whatever it is a vegan substitutes for meat from a bulk bin (again, bring your own bag/jar/whatever). For those of us that eat meat (like myself), buying it from a butcher means you get it wrapped in paper instead of a shrink-wrapped styrofoam tray. Yeah, paper is trees, I know. But that paper will biodegrade and rejoin the *circular* system of life on earth (though not if you put it in a landfill). The styrofoam and plastic wrap will not.

Which brings me to something that I discovered relatively recently: It's not that we should stop using natural resources, it's that we should use them responsibly. The technology is there. We can produce energy without carbon emmissions. We can responsibly harvest timber in a way that does not deplete the forest. If we used what we really needed instead of what the mass marketing machine's idea of convenience told us we needed, or what we keep telling ourselves we need (paper napkins, really?) we could sustain a lot more people on a lot less resources.

Ahh... the big money making corporate machinery. It's a favorite scapegoat. The corporations own the politicians, so the politicians do nothing. The corporations make the products, so those are the products we have to use. The corporations have all the money, so they have all the power, and they're all so corrupt. You know what? Bullshit. I mean, yeah, they have all the power, the money, and the politicians, but they don't have you. They don't have me. The corporations are not the real enemy. Yeah, they're a problem, but there's a bigger fish: Complacency. We keep doing what we're doing because we're in our comfort zone, or because we think, "This is how it's done", or because we simply don't think. That, my friends, is quite probably the biggest part of this whole damn problem of humans contributing to climate change.

There is a bit of wisdom in the old "Act locally, think globally" slogan. See, a lot of us (myself included, at times) think that environmental problems are too big for us to have an impact on. There is just too much to be done, and it feels overwhelming. Or maybe we feel like we just don't have time to deal with it. But it's not too big, and we do have time. You might not have the time to organize a rally to get your congressional leader's attention, but I bet you have a couple hours in a coming weekend to set yourself up a compost pile. We might not have the power to make our neighbor stop drinking bottled water, but that doesn't mean we can't stop ourselves from drinking it.

And it adds up! Consider this: On average, for every 5,000 families that compost their food waste instead of putting it in the trash, 520 TONS of waste per year (10 tons per week!) gets returned to that circular cycle of life instead of being sterilized and toxified in a landfill.

Suzi and I went down to Waikiki Worm Company today and bought ourselves a little vermicompost starter kit. It came with about 1/4 pound of worms that will eat almost all of our non-meat/dairy food waste. They'll eat a lot of cardboard/paper as well. When the worms have finished with our food scraps we'll be able to put their castings (funny how many words we made up because we don't want to say 'poop') on plants to help them grow. Reportedly, worm castings are amazing for plants, not only helping them grow and produce, but fortifying them against disease as well. We don't own any plants, but the poo won't be ready to harvest for about 4-6 months, so maybe we will when it's ready. If not, we might take them to a local community garden, or just put them in the bushes near our building. So long as it gets back into something that grows, it's all good.

I have that feeling now that I get during any long blog session. The feeling that I stopped making sense a long time ago. The feeling that my blog, which had a straight path, a focus, at the beginning, got way off track and I don't know where it's going, or indeed, where it has been.

Getting 'greener'. I don't much like the way 'green' is tossed around today, but I don't want to type 'eco-friendly' or 'environmentally responsible' every time either. By the way, if you are interested in being greener, THINK when you see a 'green' label on a product. They don't always mean the product is best for the earth. I recently saw some luggage made by Jeep, and each piece had a big sticker that read "BETTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT!" Nowhere on the product was there any explanation of exactly how their luggage was better or even a comparison to anything that the luggage might be better than. Those sneaky corporations. Many products are now packaged in packaging that is colored green or decorated with leaf designs so that consumers will assume it's somehow better for the planet. Read a little, think a lot.

Again with the derailing. Getting greener, that's where I'm going. Buying better food that comes in less packaging. Using less of anything that is made out of or comes in plastic. Composting as much as we can. Using cleaners that will quickly and easily biodegrade (and don't come in plastic-- think baking soda and white vinegar). Flushing less (I mean really; clean, drinkable water is being used in toilets. insanity!). These are some of the tools that will get me to where I want to be.

If you are concerned about climate change and your impact on it, but are not sure where to start or what to do, I highly recommend reading the book No Impact Man, by Colin Beavan. You could also visit www.1sky.org to get a heads up on what our politicians are doing about the climate crisis, and what you can do to help in that arena.

But most importantly, just start. You might not singlehandedly save the world, but you know at least one thing you could do to help. Just start doing it.