Chasing Sustainable Lifestyle Changes

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Jane Lindley

glacier Last night I watched Chasing Ice* with my good friend Jen. We’ve been talking about environmental issues since we met, more than ten years ago. One of our concerns has been reaching a tipping point when the earth won’t be able to right itself again, no matter what changes the human race makes.

After watching the movie we wondered, have we reached that point?

The best points the movie made (although, very softly) were:

1.    Our atmosphere has changed and that will affect everything. Thinking about the air we breath is more visceral than constantly referring to climate change. For centuries our CO2 mix has been about 280 ppm. Now we’re at 396.80 ppm and showing no signs of slowing.
2.    Glaciers have receded 10 times faster in the past 10 years than they have in the past 100 years.  And, once you see the raging rivers of water tunneling through the ice and causing calving, it’s clear something larger-than-life has been put into motion. Is it possible for cultural values to change so that people will think of our life-support system (earth) before their immediate needs?
3.    Anthropogenic soot from fossil fuels pockmarks glaciers and causes melting.

One point that I didn’t hear mentioned was that when glaciers melt they release the CO2 trapped within them – adding to the already high level of CO2 in the air – creating a cyclical effect.

Here are some highlights of the types of lifestyle changes Chasing Ice recommends (easy to hard):

•    Use less paper and use recycled paper.
•    Use reusable bags for grocery shopping.
•    Don’t buy water in plastic bottles.
•    Bring your own mug for your coffee.
•    Recycle.
•    Cut back on plastics.
•    Lower your thermostat in winter, reduce air conditioning use in summer
•    Lower the temperature in your hot water heater
•    Plug electronics into power strips and turn off the power strips when not in use.
•    Insulate your hot water heater and pipes.
•    Use push mowers or electric lawn mowers.
•    Collect rainwater to water your garden and car washing.
•    Combine trips, drive less; use public transportation when possible.
•    Buy a hybrid or electric car when purchasing a new car.

Their list is pretty tame. I was surprise that reducing airline travel wasn’t mentioned. A UK site notes: Just one return flight from London to New York produces a greater carbon footprint than a whole year’s personal allowance needed to keep the climate safe.

All this made me reflective, naturally. How many changes had I made to safeguard our environment since I started this blog? Isn’t that what it comes down to anyway — the changes each of us make? Even though I care about the environment, I have been glacially slow to change my habits. It’s not easy to reassess – everything.

Jen is my low-carbon footprint role model. She has always been extremely aware of her impact on the earth. I’ve learned a lot from her over the years including how to bike commute in the wet NW weather and arrive without looking too disheveled; as well as how to build a compost bin.

I guess that’s all any of us can do…lead by example, right?

* Chasing Ice is playing for free as part of Bainbridge Island’s Earth Day celebration on April 20th. If you’re local, reserve your spot.

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Vegan Curious?

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Jane Lindley

Vegan curiousOr, should I say, plant-based diet curious?

In December of last year I decided to try eating vegan meals after watching Forks Over Knives.  I knew it would be hard for a number of reasons:

  1. My husband has done all the cooking for the past twenty years so my cooking skills are a little lackluster at best.
  2. I grew up in the country eating grass-fed beef from the farmer next door, so I have a well-developed meat-eating habit.
  3. My husband is a hunter and fisherman and we have freezers (yes, that’s plural) of elk, venison, and salmon just waiting to be eaten.

On the other hand, I had already given up dairy, wheat and eggs due to allergies, what was one more thing?

“Why would you turn down all that protein-rich food?” a friend of my husband’s asked the other day. “You’re in shape, it’s not like you need to lose weight,” he continued.  True, but I wanted to see if I could squeak a little more speed out of my swimming if I changed my diet, and it’s good for the environment.*  Really, the bottom line is I feel great.

My two-week experiment has expanded more than three months and counting. At the beginning it was hard. It felt like I was shopping and chopping constantly. But, now that I have a number of good online resources for vegan recipes (below) and my cooking has improved enough that my husband enjoys whatever I make as a side dish to go along with his meal.

Here are some online food blogs worth reading:

http://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/
http://www.straightupfood.com/blog/
http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/
http://www.foodgawker.com
http://www.punchfork.com
www.feastofjoy.blogspot.com
www.whatscookinggoodlooking.com

Blow Your Friends’ Minds
Eating a plant-based diet is easy once you get going. I think the biggest challenge is changing how we think about breakfast/lunch/dinner. Breakfast doesn’t have to be cereal or eggs, lunch doesn’t have to be a sandwich or salad and dinner doesn’t have to be meat/veggie/starch.

Last weekend, I served beet soup in acorn squash cups and a spinach salad with pears, pecans and quinoa to a friend of mine for dinner. She was shocked – just vegetables for dinner. “That was really good,” she said, still in a state of disbelief at the end of the meal. Vegetables – go figure!

* “According to a 2006 University of Chicago study, the average American diet derives 47% of its calories from animal products. This amounts to a carbon footprint of 2.52 tons of CO2 emissions per person per year.”  — Forks of Knives: The Plant-Based Way to Health

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Gamification – Game On?!?

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Jane Lindley

Chess GameGamification of climate change is the latest effort by Al Gore  to help those of us who are myopically focused on the daily-ness of life to look up and realize that our life support system (the Earth) needs our help.

Gamification is what it sounds like. It is the use of game thinking and game mechanics in a non-game context in order to engage users and solve problems.

I was so excited when I heard that Al Gore had come up with a way to make learning about climate change fun. I mean, games are fun, right? I had spent a few years in Second Life teaching 3D shoe building and had been suckered into writing reviews on Yelp to gain points and badges, I’m a target audience for winning the climate change battle.

And, this is where my idea of gaming and Al Gore’s nonprofit, Climate Reality Project’s  game, Reality Drop, diverge. There is no epic battle. There are points but for cutting and pasting facts into posts online. More like writing a research paper than having fun. Ok, maybe writing a research paper IS fun for some people, but I have to say, not the majority.

What’s interesting is that game developer Jane McGonigal believes gamification can help the world too and has been tied to Al Gore’s gamification efforts even though she doesn’t think much of Reality Drop. She tweeted “I have to say this is pretty much the most uninspiring example of gamification I’ve seen and from Al Gore no less https://realitydrop.org “ on Feb 28th. Ouch. 

Jane’s TED talk (worth watching) looks at the positive aspects of gaming and how we should try to bring those into everyday life. She notes the positive aspects of gaming include:

  1. Urgent optimism – anything is possible
  2. Tight social fabric – like playing with people you can trust
  3. Blissful Productivity – happier working hard than hanging out
  4. Epic Meaning – awe-inspiring missions.

That’s what we need an awe-inspiring mission and collaborative problem solving. The challenge seems to be that we need to make learning and changing our habits fun. Jane McGonigal tried to accomplish that with her World Without Oil pilot game, with the tagline “Play it – before you live it.” It was live for 33 days.

While there are some game-like options out there such as CarbonRally, Practically Green and Recycle Bank, none of them  you’d want to spend hours playing. Will a game emerge that will change our habits enough to counter climate change? We’ll see. There are some good minds working on it.

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Bright Green Wins by a Nose!

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Jane Lindley

Facial TissueOk, so I know cold season is pretty much behind us, BUT, I just had to report on my recycled facial tissue findings.

I tried three 100% recycled facial tissues over the winter: Seventh Generation, Forest Green and Bright Green. All are whitened without using chlorine.

Bright Green was the softest and most durable. And, surprisingly, it’s a Safeway product. It’s made from 100% recycled fiber and whitened without elemental chlorine, 80% post-consumer content.

Seventh Generation tissues are made from 100% recycled paper, with a minimum of 50% post-consumer content.

Forest Green facial tissues are also made from 100% recycled paper with the highest post-consumer content out of the three, at 90%.

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Win a Solar Power System

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Jane Lindley

solar panelsI don’t know about you, but when I get my electric bill, or any bill for that matter, if it is in paper form, I dump all the inserts into recycle and just focus on the bill itself. And, even if I pay online, I’ve trained myself to ignore all ads or links other than those that say: pay bill.

I mean, I remember reading something about green power when I first signed up for Puget Sound Electric (PSE) about 17 years ago but I wasn’t clear what was so good about it and didn’t want to pay one more cent for anything. That was before climate change and the earth warming and super storms and…all sorts of mean, nasty stuff. So, I signed up.

You may be wondering, why now? My decision to act was thanks to a presentation (and challenge) PSE gave to the Sustainable Bainbridge board on Tuesday.  The City of Bainbridge Island is challenging up to four other cities to increase their enrollment in green power through PSE.

Help Bainbridge Island Win $20,000-$40,00 Solar System

We only need 125 homes and/or businesses to sign up for green power in 2013, for as little as $4/month and Bainbridge Island will win $20,000 from PSE for a new solar array for the community. Sounds too good to be true, right?

Wait, there’s more.  If more than 125 Bainbridge Islanders sign up for green power and Bainbridge has the highest percentage of new participants by the end of 2013 then PSE will give us an additional $20,000 for solar arrays. Wow! $40,000 for solar power. Nice.

Here’s the official word:

The program is voluntary, requires no contracts, and you can cancel at anytime. Signing up is easy. It costs as little as $4 more per month above standard utility rates to offset a portion of your electricity, $10-12 to offset 100 percent of the average homes’ usage.

PSE does not make a profit from the Green Power Program. All revenue goes back to further support independent resource projects and grow voluntary demand for cleaner energy options.

Supply and demand, that’s what it’s all about anyway. If we, as customers, don’t demand renewable energy then it won’t become a viable industry.

PSE Customers – Win Solar Power for Your Home

If that’s not enough, you can win solar power for your home too. Here’s how:

From February 21 through September 30, when you participate in PSE’s Green Power Program there are three ways to be automatically entered to win a solar panel system valued at $10,000:

1.    Enroll as a new Green Power Program participant
2.    If you are part of the Green Power Program upgrade to 100 percent participation
3.    Already a 100 percent participant? Do nothing – you are automatically entered!

PSE’s voluntary Green Power Program makes it easy for you to buy renewable energy equal to the amount of electricity you use. For as little as 33 cents per day, in addition to your monthly electric bill, the electricity you use will be matched with renewable energy produced right here in our region. That’s good for the environment and the economy.

OK, now I feel like a PSE spokesperson, but it’s a win-win-win. More people signing up for green power creates demand for more renewable energy development, and we can win a solar system for our community — maybe even ourselves!

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Would you like deforestation with that?

Posted on March 2, 2013 by Jane Lindley

Fast Food Ahhh! Fast food. So, salty, so sweet, so bad for the environment (not to mention our waistlines).

Does the thought of crispy, salty, warm fries have you craving a little fast food?

It may be too late for your children, but save yourselves! Just kidding, you should save your children too. TV advertising is so persuasive that children like food in fast-food wrappers (especially McDonalds) better than food in a plain wrappers, or *shutter* no wrappers. Talk about a hard habit to break. Never mind that the food processing industry tries to produce food that is addictive – yup, you read that right. And, why not? It’s their business to sell more.

It’s a Win-Win
If your car tends to drift toward the drive-thru window, here are a few reasons to kick the fast-food habit:

Kick the fast-food habit to lose weight and help the environment. It’s a win-win.

NOTE: The Deck IS Stacked Against You
It’s a wonder we’re all not fast food junkies. No, seriously.

Michael Moss just wrote an article for the NY Times Magazine The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food (adapted from his book, Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us)  explains how process food companies have made food into a form of crack. And, some food will make you feel hungrier, so you eat more. Wake up! The food business is just that. A business. Yes, they provide a service, but nothing says they have your best interests at heart. Money first, customer second.

In another article, Michael Moss rounds out the picture by saying as a culture we’ve gotten a little too used to convenience and “lost not just the will but also the knowledge to make [home cooked food]. One reason that we eat processed foods is the decline of home economics.”

So, there you have it. As a culture we’re addicted to salt, sugar, fat, convenience and we’ve forgotten how to cook. Great.

Well, thankfully, learning how to cook isn’t that hard (OK, a little hard, but far from impossible).

Tools to Kick the Fast-Food Habit

See you in the vegetable aisle of the grocery store – or better yet, the farmers’ market. Spring is right around the corner!

 

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Pets = Big Carbon Footprint

Posted on February 23, 2013 by Jane Lindley

pets, dogs“You take small plastic bag to scoop up the poop…tie the bag with a little knot and, THEN WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THE POOP??” My friend Teri asked as she searched for better ways of disposing of pet refuse.

Great question, because other than running around a bit, pets do their fair share of eating and relieving themselves. Lucky they’re so cute.

There are basically three parts to a pet’s large carbon footprint, which in 2009 was compared to that of an SUV:  what they eat, how waste is bagged, and finally how its disposed.

What’s a Pet Lover to Do?

  • Consider a vegan diet. This is probably more feasible for dogs (they do tend to eat everything whether its good for them or not). There is a lot of controversy about whether it’s wise to take pets off of a meat-based diet, but Happy Herbivore recommends it for dogs.  

How to Live a Low-Carbon Life attributes a pet’s meat and cereal diet to their large carbon footprint. It estimates that creating food for one dog generates about three metric tons of greenhouse gases a year.
  • Use compostable bags. There is a big difference between a plastic bag that will decompose and a biodegradable/compostable bag. Compostable bags are made from renewable resources, usually corn, and decompose naturally like other organic materials. Regular plastic bags take over 100 years to break down leaving microscopic flakes of plastic behind. Compostable bags begin decomposing in as little as three months and leave no harmful residue behind. Here are some compostable bag resources: BioBag and PoopBags.
  • Consider a Pet Waste Composter. If you have the property to build a composter, separate from the one you use for your garden, away from water and food sources, it will reduce your pet’s impact on the environment and keep their poop out of landfills.We tried a composting dog waste years ago but couldn’t seem to manage the poo-eating bacteria properly so just ended up with a stinky poo-slurry buried in the ground. You can build your own,  or try a commercial composter. Hopefully, you’ll have better luck than we did. We might give that a try again as currently we take more of a rain and sun approach to our dog waste disposal and toss it over the fence into the woods. Even though it’s not near any water sources or other homes, probably not a good idea disease-wise.

Pre-owned Pets
One of the tenets of being low-carbon is to buy used, be it clothing, furniture, houses, or even pets! The reason is that (a) there are plenty of things out there already and (b) buying new creates demand to produce more; and production of anything, it seems, emits carbon dioxide or other harmful greenhouse gases. The Humane Society is a great place to find cats and dogs, or if you like a particular breed of cat or dog, try purebred rescue. My dog, Lolita, is a purebred rescue weimaraner.  Locally, you can search online for pets at Kitsap Human Society.

 

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Kicking the Catalog Habit

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Jane Lindley
Catalogs

One week’s worth of catalogs.

You know what’s weird? I don’t even order from catalogs anymore – who does?  I might page through a catalog every now and then; but, one online order seems to spawn 100 catalogs.

What’s the carbon impact of catalogs you may be asking? Well, according to Mike Berners-Lee who wrote How Bad Are Bananas? Even one small catalog sent to the landfill emits about 3.5lbs of CO2 equivalent gases (CO2 and other greenhouse gases like methane). Most of the emissions come from: paper production, printing, mailing, and decomposition in landfills.

The scariest thing is that I spent six months a few years ago mailing a postcard to each and every company requesting that they stop sending them. That gave me catalog relief for about a year. Then, like fruit flies, they’re BACK!

Now, I’m using CarbonRally’s Catalog Choice.  Catalog Choice is sponsored by the California-based Ecology Center and endorsed by the National Wildlife Federation and the Natural Resources Defense Council, Catalog Choice offers you a simple way to opt out of catalogs.

Bonus! It lets you opt out of credit card offers and phone books. WooHoo!

Catalog Choice

Catalog Choice shows the benefits of your phone book and catalog reduction as you go.

Using Catalog Choice is 10,000 times easier than sending postcards. It’s totally addictive, like eating potato chips. Plus, Catalog Choice keeps your spirits up by listing the Environmental Benefits as you go. Nice. You’ll still need to collect the catalogs you’d like to stop so you can enter the customer number or source code.

 

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Look at What My Husband Bought Me!

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Jane Lindley
compostable container

Compostable outer container on this laundry detergent.

A compostable bottle of detergent! Yippee Skippy! He said its way too expensive to ever buy again (he kind of exaggerates, so we’ll see on that one). What an innovative idea. The outer container is recyclable or COMPOSTABLE (my new favorite thing). There is an inner plastic bag, but the marketing boasts 66% less plastic than a typical laundry detergent bottle.

I wonder why they need the outer cardboard container. Is it so the plastic won’t be punctured or is it for grocery store display purposes? Or both? Hmmm.

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Time for Product Reviews!

Posted on February 9, 2013 by Jane Lindley

recycleOn Monday Green Steve posted a link on FaceBook of his radio interview about how the UK (where he lives) could save half a million tonnes of C02 if everyone switched to recycled toilet paper.

I chafe more at the whole idea of using potable water in our toilets, but Green Steve got me thinking, as he usually does. And, I thought – why haven’t I made that EASY change already?? It doesn’t involve much of a habit change (like composting) and while it may cost a little more, I’m already saving money from washing my clothes and cold water and producing less landfill garbage.

As my week progressed, and the thought of recycled toilet paper stewed in my brain, I remembered reading in Chris Goodall’s How to Live a Low-Carbon Life that making pulp and paper create huge amounts of green house gases.

“…making a tonne of virgin paper uses about 7000 kWh of energy. The production process also employees prodigious amounts of water, and the chemical effluents from paper plants are a major pollution problem. Making recycled paper uses much less energy and involves less water.”

And, I remembered my Canadian cousin Nance’s remark on how Americans (myself included) loved our paper products: towels, Kleenexes, and napkins. I don’t think creating more laundry is completely carbon neutral, but I get it, we throw a lot of virgin paper into landfills. Plus, I can’t let Nance lord this over me any longer!

So, today I purchased Seventh Generation’s 100% recycled, unbleached paper products. (Oh, and wouldn’t you know it? Seventh Generation products are made in Canada – Nance still has one up on me!) Let’s take a look at these products:

  • Kleenex. Seventh Generation Facial Tissue – 2 Ply. On the plus side they are made of 100% recycled paper, hypo-allergenic and whitened without chlorine bleach. I don’t really care about the white part. On the negative side, they’re a little scratchy, but not too bad, however using them is like blowing snot directly into your hands. Maybe just perfecting the Snot Rocket is the way to go – a little messy around the house or in the office, but clearly, the greenest way to go. That said, I’m still going to use them because if every household in the US replaced just ONE box of 85-sheet virgin fiber tissue with a 100% recycled one, we would save:
      • 283,000 trees
      • 730,000 cubic feet of landfill space, equal to 1,000 garbage trucks
      • 102 million gallons of water – a years supply for 800 families of four.
      • Avoid 17,000 pounds of chlorinated pollution.
  • Paper Towels. Seventh Generation Paper Towels, Natural, 2-Ply Sheets The memories. These brown paper towels take me right back to grade school. The towels found in bathrooms and cafeterias. They are a one-use kinda deal and not especially strong, but completely guilt-free. And, if every US household replaced just ONE roll of 120-sheet virgin paper towels with 100% recycled, chlorine-free towels, we would save a million trees.
  • Toilet Paper. Seventh Generation Bathroom Tissue, 2-ply I know paper companies have gotten a lot of mileage out of selling us all sorts of fancy quilted toilet paper. The Seventh Generation and Natural Value toilet papers that we’re testing out in our house aren’t bad at all. That quilted stuff is just a lot of marketing fluff – you know it, I know it. Let’s save some trees and switch to 100% recycled toilet paper. If every US household replaced just ONE roll of toilet paper 295,000 trees would be saved.

Are you joining me in 100% recycled paper land? Or, are you already there and just waiting for me to finally clue in? As my friend Mercer says, “Why recycle if you don’t buy recycled products?” Good point. I guess that’s what they mean about “closing the loop.”

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