Sunday, November 29, 2009

Giving Back (Day 7)

The challenge on Day 7 of No Impact Week was to “pay it forward” by giving time or money to an organization that promotes sustainability. A United States-based website, www.volunteermatch.org, helps connect volunteers to activities in their vicinity.

The connection was an easy one for me. For weeks I had been cycling past “Friends of Trees” signs in my neighborhood. I searched online for the name of the organization to find out more, and learned that Friends of Trees hosts a volunteer tree planting in Portland almost every Saturday. See them online at http://www.friendsoftrees.org/.

Being new to town, I reasoned that volunteering for Friends of Trees might result in a few new Friends of Carmen. It worked. About 20 volunteers showed up on a rainy morning at a city park near Portland.



We drank hot chocolate, munched on doughnuts, and got muddy while planting native trees, shrubs and ferns.



Our effort contributed to what Friends of Trees (and of Carmen) call Green Space Initiatives, reclaimed natural spaces in the city. According to the organization’s fall 2009 newspaper, Tree Connections, these planting expansions produce a visible greening of the city that is visible from space.



Once the ball was in motion, it was hard to stop volunteering. Word came from my family that my niece and nephew’s school needed a volunteer at the school’s butterfly garden. On a gorgeous sunny day in Portland, I joined a team of parents and students who weeded, shoveled and raked. Our goal was to help revive a garden of native plants that attract butterflies, including salal, milkweed and strawberry bushes. Students regularly visit the garden to learn about the life cycle of butterflies and the plants that support them.

No Impact Week has momentum. For me the week has stretched into a sort of No Impact Existence, where I am lined up for more volunteer activities than I bargained for and I have a heightened awareness that seems to color just about everything I do. I’m happy to say it might just result in a few more butterflies, as well.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Conserving Water (Day 6)

According to the No Impact Project, “The average American uses 1,189 gallons [4 518 liters] of water per day. By changing the way you brush your teeth, water your lawn, or wash your dishes, in addition to using efficient plumbing fixtures and appliances, you can reduce your water footprint by 25%.” No Impact Experiment Manual, http://noimpactproject.org/experiment/your-how-to-guide/, p. 13.

My challenge on Day Six of No Impact Week was to reduce the amount of water I use. A Peace Corps memory came to mind. In 1995, I lived in an extremely arid region of the Dominican Republic. Water was scarce, and the municipal government sometimes shut down the city water pump for as long as a week at a time. All of the townspeople were forced to be creative about how we used and stored water. Keeping that memory in mind on Day Six of my experiment, I wanted to see how far I could stretch my water conservancy.

The hippest change I made was using my housemates’ rain catchment system (also referred to as “rainwater harvesting”). The concept is the same as the catchment systems I saw in the Dominican Republic, but my housemates' system had a unique twist.



Their twist was that the system relies on two wine barrels from a local Oregon vineyard. One barrel is stationed under the gutters in the front of the house, and another is stationed in the back. The rain in the gutter is routed so that it drips right into each barrel, instead of into the city’s over-burdened drainage system.

Installing a rain catchment system is a fantastic idea for a number of reasons. It helps reduce stormwater runoff pollution that threatens salmon and other habitat. Some cities offer incentives to homeowners who install a rain catchment system. http://www.portlandonline.com/bps/index.cfm?c=ecbbd&a=bbehfa (describing Portland, Oregon's rainwater harvesting program). It also gives my housemates and me a source of water. This week I used water from the barrel to wash mud off my clothes and bike after rainy rides through town. Starting in the spring, my housemates will connect a hose to the barrel for watering the flowers and garden.



Do you want to catch the rain falling on your roof? Check out the Simple Steps website on installing roof gutters and rain barrels: http://bit.ly/3arrKR. The following website gives a good overview of a larger rain catchment system, similar to the one my neighbors used in the Dominican Republic. http://www.thefarm.org/charities/i4at/surv/raincat.htm

The second change I made was increasing my awareness. For example, when doing laundry, I resisted the urge to wash anything less than a full load in the washing machine. (Check out Simple Steps’ greenhouse gas calculator for washing machines: http://bit.ly/25pbGa.) Smaller loads I washed by hand. When brushing my teeth, rather than relying on the tap—which I tend to let run—I kept a cup of water next to the sink to rinse. When washing my hands or in the shower, I turned off the tap and soaped up while singing the now famous hand-washing song, “Happy birthday to me.” This song, when sung intelligibly, gives you just enough time to eradicate most germs.

A host of other great tips can be found in the No Impact Experiment Manual, available online at http://noimpactproject.org/experiment/your-how-to-guide/.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Sustainable C Recap and Tips: No Impact Week (Day 5 of 7)

No Impact Week (www.noimpactproject.org) has been a week of awareness, an awareness that in some ways can be rightly called “painful awareness.” An overview of the week and each day’s challenge is a useful starting point for sharing lessons learned.

Sunday – stop consuming new goods
Monday – stop making trash
Tuesday – travel by sustainable transportation
Wednesday – eat locally
Thursday – use less energy

On the course so far, I have hit three major hurdles: (1) it seems everything I eat is packaged in a plastic baggie (or two, or three) such that filling my stomach coincides with heaping more trash on landfills; (2) eating locally, I have been buying vegetables with names that sound like different skin conditions (ruling out olericulture* as a future career move) and that are as foreign to me in the kitchen as they were in the store; and (3) I only reluctantly let go of luxuries when it comes to electricity. But I have forged on! Here are some tips that have helped me tackle each personal challenge.

[*I know, I know. Olericulture…I had to look this word up. It means vegetable cultivation. It makes me feel better to use a big word to avoid the topic of my ignorance when it comes to the names of plants and, er, vegetables.]

Sustainable C’s Tips for Using Less Energy

- Hang dry your clothes on any combination of hangers, foldable racks and clothesline. At room temperature, it takes 24 hours or less for most clothes to dry, and it will help prolong the life of the fabric.
- In your house, turn down the heat a bit each week, and add a layer of clothes to adjust. Reptilian sun-lover that I am, I used to love to keep a room at 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 Celsius) or higher. But now I keep it at 60 (15 Celsius) and wear a few extra layers.
- When you leave the house, turn the temperature a little lower.
- When you tire of staying at home alone with all your layers, go to a café and enjoy the warmth of a crowd. Enjoying public spaces is a great way to reduce your home energy use and meet other people.
- Keep major guzzlers (computers, plasma tvs, etc) on a power strip and turn off the power strip when the guzzlers are not in use. For example, I keep my computer, speakers and lights on a power strip that I turn off when I leave the room.


Gratuitous photograph of Jo the Hen, local egg supplier

Sustainable C’s Tips for Eating Locally (and Reducing Trash)

- The West Coast of the United States is a veritable bread basket. As far as I can tell, it is possible to maintain a varied diet with more than 50% of locally grown food from April to November each year. (I can’t comment on the other months yet, because I haven’t been this conscientious about buying locally before).
- Shopping locally is easy. There are so many options, including Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms, farmers markets, farm stands, buying clubs and food cooperatives. For more information, see the Food Routes Network at http://www.foodroutes.org/doclib/faqs/faq13.htm.
- It’s a lot of fun to acquaint yourself with new veggies (even if they have names that sound like skin conditions), and the Internet will be as helpful as any expert olericulturist! In the Pacific Northwest, googling recipes for locally grown kale, beets, and lentils will help you find delicious recipes like “sautéed kale in a red wine vinegar,” “beet salad with goat cheese,” and “spicy lentil soup.”
- Buying your veggies with cloth produce bags and buying your grains and spices with bulk bins will help you cut down on trash. Note to gift givers—cloth produce bags and reusable bins are a great way to say “I care!”

If you are reading this and have a few conservancy tricks of your own, or if you are an olericulturist and want to help me shop, please let me know.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Facts and Tips (from Simple Steps)

It’s Day Four of No Impact Week. Rather than sharing anecdotes on my new impact experiment, I am writing to share some inspiring facts and tips recycled directly from the Simple Steps website, http://www.simplesteps.org. These tips specifically address two of my biggest challenges in the first half of the week: buy local food and reduce trash.

Facts and tips on food


I am learning that the best local produce is grown and raised in the backyard, like the eggs laid by our very own hens, pictured here.

Fact: In North America, fruits and vegetables travel an average of 1,500 miles before reaching your dinner table.
Tip: Choose local produce, which cuts back on energy used in transportation and usually guarantees a fresher product.

Fact: If the average American replaced the beef and pork in their diet with poultry, he would save 1,555 pounds of heat-trapping pollutants from being emitted into the atmosphere each year.
Tip: Calculate your food footprint. (You can calculate your overall carbon footprint at The Nature Conservancy's website, http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/calculator/.)

Facts and tips on trash

Fact: Packaging makes up a third of all garbage tossed in the U.S.
Tip: Whenever possible, look for packaging made from recycled materials, and always check the plastic code to make sure the package is recyclable.

Fact: The average American uses 50 pounds of tissue paper per year.
Tip: Save trees by choosing products with the highest content of "post-consumer waste," or PCW.

Fact: Each year an estimated 14 billion pounds of trash are dumped into the world's oceans.
Tip: Visit oceanconservancy.org to get educated and get involved.

Fact: Roughly 40% of heavy metals, including lead, mercury and cadmium, in landfills comes from electronic equipment discards.
Tip: Look for electronic companies, like Dell, have take-back programs for used products.

Here are a couple of additional tips I received in an email from the No Impact Project. The website for the project is http://noimpactproject.org.

Paper phone books opt-out - http://bit.ly/2p5USA
Stop junk mail - http://bit.ly/4A9v5q

Monday, November 16, 2009

Talking Trash

Being a consumer-mug carrying kind of gal, I really didn’t see the challenge in today, the "reduce trash" day…until I started counting the empty wrappers I leave behind in the wake of every meal.

Breakfast—simple corn flakes and milk—was served up in three different disposable packages. Of the cereal box, cereal bag, and milk carton, I would reuse or recycle most everything. But a better approach would be to avoid the extra packaging altogether by buying cereal in bulk with my own reusable plastic container.

Lunch—carrot and hummus starter, soup and salad—was shamefully worse. All in all, the meal came in a total of five plastic bags, two plastic containers and one glass jar, with a breakdown like this:

5 plastic bags, including:
1 bag of carrots
3 bags package the soup ingredients (noodles, spices, and oils)
1 bag of spinach

2 plastic containers, including:
1 round container of hummus
1 box of grape tomatoes

1 glass jar of olives

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Shameless Defense of the Family Name



Having tarnished my family name with these trashy confessions, I can offer one thing in my family’s defense. Friends, I offer...my sister. Every birthday and Christmas, my sister is the reason we don’t have more balled up gift paper strewn about the house. Check out her family-name-redeeming (and re-usable, environmental) gift-wrapping goods at www.ecoshikis.com

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

By dinnertime, I repented and ate leftover carrot soup (pureed veggies from the garden in a recycled Mason jar) and toast (…+1 plastic bag of bread).

Sigh. The lessons here are evident. I will use the rest of the week to see if I absorb them into practice.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Quieting the Tiger

Already on day one of No Impact Week, when the mantra of the day was “buy no new goods,” all I could think about were shopping malls, online promotions and retail therapy. But when I finally quieted that tiger shopper in me, I learned a couple of things I think are worth sharing.

First lesson learned: When trying to consume less, my first reaction is to think of all the things I can’t live without. My second reaction is to get creative.

The mental list I made when the day started included a number of items I thought I needed: blank CDs, new notebooks, and house slippers with motion stabilizers in the heels, to name a few. The house slippers with motion stabilizers made the list after a health-focused website suggested that I have “activity-appropriate” shoes for all occasions.

According to Annie Leonard, who wrote The Story of Stuff (movie and book to follow), “we see more advertisements in one day than…people 50 years ago saw during a lifetime.” http://www.storyofstuff.com/pdfs/annie_leonard_facts.pdf. The trick is to get past their bait and hook unscathed, and this requires imagination. For example, why buy new notebooks when I can use scrap paper from the recycling box I keep near my desk? And why buy new house slippers when I can double up on socks to create the same warm and cozy effect? After careful contemplation, I crossed these two things off my list.

Second lesson learned: Time spent away from consumption allows more time to enjoy what is.

Before I could do any shopping damage, my housemates saved me by suggesting we go for a hike outside of town. Our destination was a woodsy stream known as Eagle Creek. Every year about this time, thousands of Coho salmon, red as raspberries, journey back to their origins to lay eggs and die. In the Pacific Northwest, these fish’s journey is a right of passage and a hallmark of autumn’s end.

Here are some photographs from our day, which I found I could enjoy more, having succeeded in my first day of No Impact.

Four Coho salmon make their way upstream. We could sometimes see them thrash about, knocking into one another like erratic underwater bumper cars. Apparently, they fought to protect their eggs, already buried in the river’s pebbly bottom. Learn more about Coho salmon from NOAA Fisheries Office of Protected Resources, http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/fish/cohosalmon.htm.



An ancient Douglas fir reaches up into the fog. I wonder if it absorbs sips of water directly from the clouds.



There's a certain soothing mystique to a foggy hillside.



Mirna (my dog) and I take a trailside break.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Interview with No Impact Man

Gearing up for my one week with no impact, I wondered, what's it like to make no impact for a whole year...in New York City? Here's my answer, in part. Check out the interview with No Impact Man on The Colbert Report. (Kindly ignore Stephen Colbert's comment regarding burning tires.)

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/252016/october-08-2009/colin-beavan

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

No Impact Week

Have you ever felt resistance course through your body when the topic of conversation turns to personal responsibility for climate change? I feel it. My shoulders wind all the way up to my ears in tension. The tension is driven in part by an imaginary conversation. The year is 2050—the year so frequently cited in climate reports as a milestone year by which we humans must have significantly changed our consumption habits—and I am sitting with my grown children. What will I tell them I did to help?

When I am in denial, my knee-jerk response is to rest on my laurels. After all, I bicycle most places and use only re-usable grocery bags. Isn’t that enough?

For me, the honest answer is I can do more.

But where to begin? A recent story on NPR gave me a constructive starting point. The story featured Colin Beaven, also known as the “No Impact Man.” http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112447407. A New Yorker, Colin eliminated all of his carbon dependencies for a year, together with his wife and daughter. Based on his experiment, he launched the “No Impact Project,” a web-driven project that challenges folks just like me to reduce emissions and waste while gaining health and time.

Ordinarily, I might be scared off from taking such a “change your habits” challenge. But this one is different. It is laid out in a neat “No Impact Week” with specific suggested steps. Over the course of the week, I’ll take a new step each day. By the end of the week, I will consume no new goods, stop making trash, switch to non-carbon transport, buy only local food, use less energy and waste less water. Taking a day at a time, this is an inviting way for me to ease into making a few changes for the better.

If your curiosity is piqued, here’s what you can do. First, you can, of course, test the experiment yourself by signing up at www.noimpactproject.org. Feel free to submit comments on Sustainable C about how it’s going. If that’s too much too soon, just follow along each day as I report through Sustainable C my reflections, particular challenges, and tips that make own habits easier to change.

Personal responsibility for the climate is a touchy topic because it involves so many of our creature comforts. I see no reason why we can’t experiment with how we interpret the idea of “comfort” to change patterns for the better. That’s the experiment that will give a jump start to Sustainable C. I hope you’ll join me.