Earth Life

At this point in my life,

Earth Day feels like

pretty much any other day:

biking and recycling,

turning off the lights,

keeping showers short--

I’m no more celebrating

than merely living on

the planet where I was born.

Forced Celebration

Like an inspired prank, or a purposeful
lesson, my car--not mine, the one I use
to buy organic groceries and chauffeur privileged children,
would not start today. Not a sound
came from her engine as I turned the ignition.
A dome light, left on the entire weekend (thanks to
privileged, forgetful children), sucked all life from the battery.
And so it was, on this Earth Day, I
walked to buy organic groceries and escorted privileged,
forgetful, and bummed out children on the train.

finishing up

Alright, rounded off Earth Week by (unintentionally, but whatever) going off the grid: no computer or phone for me. Friday was for saving water (shorter shower with cooler water, no water bottles, laundry in energy efficient machine) and Saturday/Sunday were a kind of Pay It Forward/Sabbath Day (pick up trash outside, take a nap).

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I checked out The Italian from the library the other day without even reading the back of the box. It really has nothing to do with Italy or Italians, and it's actually in Russian, but I liked it.

I also got The Darjeeling Limited (again didn't read the summary on the back), but Adrian Brody has a way with me.

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Only three weeks left here. Dear Lord, please help me not go crazy.

Earth Week: Power Down

Happy Earth Day!

New challenge of the day: Reduce energy use. Simply put, turn off lights when you leave the room, unplug appliances you aren't using, keep the AC and heat off, etc. If you want a challenge, you can also give up TV, computers, cooking...basically shut off your electricity.

Since the power cord for my laptop is broken, I have no choice but to limit my computer usage to when I am at work. Also, I'm not feeling so hot, meaning I'd much rather turn the lights out and go to bed than stay up and use electricity. Hmmm...sounds like the universe is conspiring to make me save energy.

Earth Week: Eat Food

I've realized that the way I'm setting these days up, my use of No sounds a little negative...so, in the name of sociology, I'm putting a positive spin on them:

Sunday: Conserve
Monday: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Tuesday: Walk, Bike, Jog
Wednesday: Eat Local, Seasonal, or otherwise Eco-friendly Food

Since I've been living off leftovers from Easter, a wedding shower, and a poetry reading I haven't gone grocery shopping for some time and I don't plan on going for a while yet. I'd say leftovers are pretty environmental--Reuse and Recycle, right? We're growing a garden at home this summer, so I'll get my fill of seasonal and local food then, and I cut down my meat consumption a lot (I went meatless for about three months before breaking down and binging but I made it to a healthy balance and try to stick to local meat).

I also started reading Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally, which discusses the Western SUV diet--meaning even if you don't own a car, your food has probably traveled between 1,500 and 2,500 miles to get to your table. Authors Smith and Mackinnon decided to stick to a 100-mile diet for a year; since they live in Vancouver, this meant tropical fruits out and cabbage in.

Why give up the luxury of food from literally all over the world? For one, if you buy your food locally, you know you aren't supporting slavery. You know who made the food you will be putting into your body and that there aren't 15 unidentified chemicals, preservatives, additives, dyes, extra sugar...you get the idea. Interested in the food industry? Check out PBS tonight at 9 or Friday at 10 to watch Food, Inc., a documentary showing why eating locally, seasonally and sustainably is important for more than just the planet.

Earth Week: Burn Calories, Not Fossil Fuel

Day Three: No Mechanized Travel (car, train, plane, elevator...) plus No Trash & No Consumption

An easy one for me seeing as I have no car, no $ to buy a car/plane ticket/train ticket/etc, and live on the first floor of my building, negating the temptation for an elevator. I guess since I've already read No Impact Man, I've already consciously thought about my environmental impact so a lot of these changes aren't surprises.

Still, if I want to go to the library across the bridge (and I do, since I get more work done there), I walk or take my bike even if Andrea could give me a ride. I use the stairs to get to work, on the third floor of the library (mostly because it dings loudly when you arrive at your floor, signaling to the rest of the semi-quiet library, "Attention! Lazy slob arriving!").

More friendly travel ideas:

-Bike to work (even if you only do it a couple times each week), especially if you work less than two miles away from your house.
-Carpool...self-explanatory.
-Use public transportation, if it's available. The sad thing about America is public transportation has a negative stigma. Another reason I miss Europe, even with all the complaints (see: stinky Romans, lack of personal space, donne vecchie).
-Run errands all at once, instead of making several small trips.

I should confess: I will be cheating in majors ways later this week when Mom comes to pick me up to go home in a motorized vehicle, then takes me to Best Buy so I can buy a new power cord for my laptop. Hopefully I can at least recycle the dead one, otherwise that means I'll have traveled, consumed and made trash within the span of several hours. Sorry, planet.

In non-Earth Week news, my latest author binge is David Sedaris. I'm thoroughly convinced my attention span is depleting as short stories seem to be the only thing I can read lately. Sedaris holds my attention, though, judging by the way I powered through Me Talk Pretty One Day and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim this weekend.

Earth Week: Waste Not, Want Not

Today, along with No Consumption from yesterday, is No Trash day. The idea is to see if wasting less improves life. So far I've thrown away a used tissue, a cotton ball, a granola bar wrapper and an empty tube of toothpaste. I'm getting the hang of it, though, with my recycled water jar (used to be a spaghetti jar) and recycled tote bag (used to be two t-shirts).

A big challenge today is few items are made with environmentally-conscious packaging--so if I want a granola bar, I have to make trash. Making homemade granola would sidestep this. Or--and if you are a business person, a light bulb just went on above your head--we find a way to make our packaging eco-friendly. The ice cream cone is a perfect example--all parts are used, there is no container to throw away. So do we wrap all our snack foods in waffle cones? Not quite. The best course of action is to stop buying these snack foods, the disposable, one-time use, on-the-go type. Not only do they waste a lot (in both the production and consumption phase), they are generally unhealthy (even the health foods--check out all the preservatives, additives, and non-food in those!). BUT, I do have to give a nod to Sun Chips. True to their word, they have created a chip bag that decomposes within 14 or so weeks. We're not going to stop businesses from creating their product, but we can influence them to create friendlier products.

More ideas until all packaging is decomposable:

-Bring reusable bags to the grocery store so you don't have to use plastic bags (in some stores bags cost extra money so it's in everyone's best interest to bring their own).
-Steer clear of products in plastic, cardboard, Styrofoam, etc...buy fresh fruit and vegetables instead! Even better, buy them from a farmer's market instead of the grocery store.
-Cut up old t-shirts for rags and napkins instead of using paper towels.
-Bring a reusable mug/thermos to get your morning coffee.
-Use both sides of the paper (print double-sided and write on the back of scrap paper).
-Give people experiences (massages, concerts, sporting events) as gifts instead of things needing lots of wrapping paper.

What are we coming to?

What are we coming to?

Here, No Impact Man shares why Earth Week is about more than saving the planet--it's about questioning if our current lifestyle really makes us any happier.

Earth Week: Less is More

Today marks the start of Earth Week, the extended version of Earth Day (which falls on Thursday). Because I have no legitimate reason not to (and okay, I'm actually an environmentally-conscious person), I've decided to join others across the nation (globe? Is Earth Week celebrated worldwide?) for a No Impact Earth Week, ala Colin Beavan/No Impact Man.

Each day will feature a new step towards No Impact, building on from the day before. Today, Day One, focuses on consumption. My goal: Live a fuller and happier life by buying less stuff. Done. Didn't buy anything new today. The challenge will be extending that for the rest of the week, but I'm not a regular buyer of things, so I'm not too worried.

If I were to need something, my alternate choices are to borrow, buy secondhand, make whatever it is I need myself, and in absolute need to buy cases, buy something green (meaning it's made from recycled materials or using renewable energy, etc).

I did recently sew a tote bag using some hand-me-down shirts (thanks, brother!), so I'm feeling pretty well-equipped for the challenge of not buying things.

The grass is finally growing and it shows in my Earth-friendly reading list.

What happens when people are confronted by world issues? They typically enter one of the following cycles:

Cycle of Cynicism:

1. Finding out about a problem
2. Wanting to do something to help
3. Not seeing how you can help
4. Not doing anything about it
5. Feeling sad, powerless, angry
6. Deciding that nothing can be done
7. Beginning to shut down
8. Wanting to know less about problems
(repeat to apathy)

Cycle of Hope:

1. Taking personal responsibility for being a good person
2. Creating a vision of a better world based on your values
3. Seeking out quality information about the world's problems
4. Discovering practical options for actions
5. Acting in line with your values
6. Recognizing you can't do everything
(repeat to better world)

[From The Better World Handbook: Small Changes That Make a Big Difference, quoted in Sleeping Naked is Green.]

Clearly I tend towards cynicism and need to make a conscious effort to break into the cycle of hope. I recently picked up Sleeping Naked is Green at the Kress Family Library during one of my weekend bike rides (I'll be okay if winter never comes again) and I like it because:
a) The author, Vanessa Farquharson, pays homage to No Impact Man .
b) She admits and expects failure at some levels during her year-long green experiment.
c) She starts off highly skeptical of this whole green movement, the flakish/cultish characteristics of its members and the reality of its impact.

Each day she takes one more environmentally friendly step, which makes it manageable. I appreciate that fact that I've already incorporated some of her steps into my life, like turning down the thermostat and pulling out more socks and blankets, switching to electronic bills/bank statements, unplugging electronics when not in use, recycling, cutting down on meat consumption, picking up litter...all little things that require no real sacrifice yet are a step in the right direction.

Happy Earth Day!

Yesterday was Earth Day and in Rome that meant a free Earth Day Concert featuring Ben Harper and Relentless7 plus Subsonica, Nnekka, and Bibi Tanga and the Selenites.

The concert was held in Piazza del Popolo--which is huge, but barely held all of us. And since Italians don't believe in personal space we were CRAMMED in. A guy in front of me had dreadlocks and would not stop swaying to the music so I kept getting hit in the face by them.

The concert was sponsored by National Geographic Music and they even planted trees in Rome to offset the carbon footprint the concert would make.

Here are some links to each group so you can get a sample of what they sound like:

Bibi Tanga and the Selenites

Nnekka


Subsonica

Ben Harper & Relentless7

The best part was when Ben Harper came back on stage for his encore and sang Under Pressure...finally a song that both Americans and Italians knew!!