A Deeper Green

So I know that there have been many posts done on this, so I’m going to try to keep this brief. I don’t flatter myself in thinking that I have a lot of original thought on this one!

I celebrated Earth Hour last night by accidentally falling asleep. I was planning to spend the nice, dark time in thought about my life and the life of those around me. To think about what I do each day that leaves a damaging mark on this planet. Instead I got about a 45 minute nap. That being said, I didn’t get a lot of uninterrupted thought in, but I did enough to realize how futile something like Earth Hour is without the much needed follow up.

I’m sure there were plenty of parents around the world using that hour yesterday as a teaching moment for their children and plenty of people using that hour as a cleansing moment to launch their new greener lifestyle. But I also know that there were plenty of people doing it for the feel good factor. Members of my family are definitely on that list. They turned off the lights and enjoyed an unplugged hour. They did it because they felt it was something they should do, something global they should participate in, but then they turned the lights back on and went back to their lives. They were not changed in any way by those beautiful low-tech moments.

I also noticed a decal up at a McDonald’s I walked past on friday. It was them talking about how they will be celebrating earth hour by shutting down for that hour. I mean, I guess this is a nice gesture, but how does that even fit at McDonald’s? It gives them good publicity I imagine, but in the grand scheme of things what does it mean? As far as a I can discern, nothing.

With all of these negative thoughts in my head, I hope all the supporters of earth hour can see why my feelings are pretty lukewarm on the subject. Clearly its a great global moment, but at 9:31 last night, when the lights turned back on, what had changed? And how do those of us who are trying to make a difference on this front use that hour as a springboard for change? I certainly don’t know.

While its amazing that we, as a global community, were able to have yesterday, I’m not sure that it was worth the trouble and the hype. How many people participating in earth hour making a pledge to have earth hour once a month, or once a week, or once a day for the rest of this year? Would that have made a difference? I don’t know, but I think that we can all do better than earth hour once a year and I think we are going to have to.

I am glad for those parents who used it as a teaching moment and for those people who used it as a springboard for being more green, but I can’t help but ask what next?

I am sorry for the dark tone of this entry. I know I’m usually a bit more light-hearted when it comes to this stuff, but last night just kinda brought home the state of the world we live in to me. I was wanting to be inspired, but I just couldn’t muster those feelings.

So, my worm are all settled in, and I have been feeding them little bits of appropriate food waste and today when I added an old toilet paper role as bedding I saw that IT IS WORKING. There is totally brand new worm castings in there looking like they will be fantastic herb food for my garden when it gets a little warmer. I could hardly be happier!

The one downside to my small bin of worms is that I grossly underestimated the amount of food waste the boyfriend and I can create in one week. Before we weren’t here as much, and weren’t cooking as much, but now that we are both working from home several days a week there is a lot more food waste to compost, and not enough worms (or enough bin!) to handle it all.

To solve this problem I am planning on making myself a second worm bin soon. Probably with the exact same materials so they will nicely stack. Hoping to find someone to send me worms this time as I really can’t steal anymore from my good friends at the aquarium!

Anyone have any idea of a good place to order red wigglers from?

So we are all aware that the pesticides used to grow the food we eat can make it on to our table when its time for dinner. This, of course, is mostly bypassed when we buy organic produce, but sometimes its just not possible to buy the organic foods we want. Additionally, some foods don’t have as many pesticides involved in production or in preparation the pesticides are mostly removed. For these foods buying organic may not make as much sense.

Unfortunately, knowing all of the facts about every food you come across at the store is very difficult. That’s why the Environmental Working Group created their nifty Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides. If you sign up for their periodic newsletter you can get access to the guide. Highly recommended.

Buy smarter and avoid more pesticides. Sounds like a great plan to me

So I have been very excited to start my own little gardening project this summer. At the flower and garden show last week I bought some delicious looking herbs to plant when the weather gets warm. Living primarily in an apartment with no yard I don’t have a lot of space, but there is a small porch area which has two left over planters from old tenants sitting on it just waiting to be planted with fantastic things.

When it gets warmer I will let you know how my planting goes. So far the herbs are just soaking up sun and water inside, waiting for some real spring weather so they can be planted.

Also, as I’m sure many of you have heard, the Obamas are putting a garden in at the White House. This is all sorts of cool, and if you want to read more about it visit Amy Gates at Cruncy Domestic Goddess. She does a fantastic job talking about the new garden and being excited!

I fully support everyone, from presidents to lower environmental educators, trying their hand at growing some of their own food, even if its just herbs. Herbs can actually be grown year-round inside, and add so much to your cooking attempts, so you don’t even need outdoor space to make that happen. I know my six year old brother is always excited to go get something from his garden to cook with. There is a real sense of accomplishment when you are eating food that you’ve grown as opposed to food that you bought.

So look into some fresh foods that you can grow at home and add that extra freshness and fun to your life. Yay gardening!

There is a special place in my heart for the farmers of this world. They work long and hard hours for a pretty unpredictable income and they put delicious food on my table. For that they all get a tip of the hat from me.

I once volunteered a couple Saturdays of my time at an organic farm and was blown away by the amount of work required of these men and women. I also happen to have a 150-acre family farm (or at least my mom and my great uncle co-own the farm so its kinda mine-ish?). We don’t farm it, we rent it to some people who farm it for us.  There is a little creek with small trees growing on it that runs through the center of the property. It’s a beautiful place.

All of that being said, I will get to the point of this entry. I’ve heard and read many stories about ranchers in the more southern and west states adding windmills to their ranches. I mean if we are talking about land that feeds cows and doesn’t do a whole lot else why not add a windmill or two right? But, I have always wondered why the use of alternative fuels isn’t more widespread among farmers. They have all that land. I always assumed, rightly, that it had to do with the prohibitive costs of making the switch on a personal level. But as alternative energies march into cheaper territory it looks like some farmers may be jumping on board, in a big way.

Read an article about farmers in New York looking at energy alternatives here.

I can’t help but wonder if this can’t be made into something more fantastic. I mean why not pay farmers to use extra land or roof space to provide energy needs for surrounding areas? Farm subsidies, as far as I can tell, end up paying farmers to not farm pieces of land, why can’t they also help farmers produce their own energy, and why can’t they stabalize a rate for those farmers to sell extra energy? These are all things I hope get addressed as parts of the answer to our energy issues in the near future.

And in case you were wondering, my favorite type of alternative energy is solar (all types, but especially passive, just cause its nifty how things work). I also like kinetic energy, but its a bit more unwieldy and requires people to be moving to create power and therefore is less useful. I know, you totally wanted that bit of personal information on me

So I very much enjoyed “Almost Green.” The book uses some self-deprecating humor and some extremely witty moments to show the saga of a man (with his family along for the ride) trying to build a small building in his yard called the “eco-shed.” James Glave shows the many ins and outs of green building, how the conscious consumer has many options all with their ups and downs and how difficult it can be to navigate the waters on a limited budget.

The tone of the book was light-hearted, and as I said I did enjoy it. The one problem I have with the book is that I think it may be slightly off-putting for those out there who are not sold on making environmentally friendly changes in their life. The book highlights the difficulties of building green and being green while only adding in some of the bright spots. When the book ends James Glave is in serious debt and unable to finish his project because of the money it would take to complete the building. He does put a bright perspective on it, basically saying that the intent is a good thing and that he is raising his children to think about the choices they make, which are all good. But I feel as though the book would have been more powerful if we saw the author emerging from his challenge instead of just wallowing in it at the end of the book.

That being said let me talk about the parts I did enjoy. The reality of the book was refreshing. Often you see the green books are like, change your light bulbs, change the world! All of us know that that mentality trivializes the ecological problems we are facing, even if it does give some people a reason to make small changes. I have no problem with books and information that do that, sometimes I even do it myself. But I think those books are begging for deeper conversations. “Almost Green” has that conversation. I don’t want to sound contradictory here. I know I said the tone of the book might be slightly off-putting, but I think it is also much needed. What would have helped me with this book would have been more bright spots and less frustration. 

I also really enjoyed the few times we saw the author’s conversations with his children. It’s for those children, and countless other children in this world that many people make the changes they do, and I think seeing them adds an impact to the book that wouldn’t be there otherwise.

I also really appreciated the ending. James Glave talks about patience and shades of green, something that really hits home with me. I often find myself frustrated with how my life and the society around me make it difficult for me to realize my full ecologically sound potential, the ending of this book helps bring it back into perspective. Intent isn’t everything, but it’s certainly something.

Final recommendation on this book; read it. But don’t read it as a cautionary tale, or a how to build green tale. Read it as a tiny piece of the living green pie. This is one man’s experience, how can you use his experience as a jumping off point to improve your own experience?

Probably you should be watching this.

I am hoping to get my viewing in, although I might have to DVR it for later.

The program is based on a book  about how “solving” global warming can help improve the world. Of course, these are all very well-known things and have been pretty well gone over, but the fact that this particular book is now a Discovery Channel 1-hour special makes me excited. Looks like it will be heavy in how alternative energies mean more jobs and better average quality of life as well as a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. So yay! Be sure to tune in tonight if you are able.

Ok, so I caved and signed up for a twitter. That means every time I update I will post that I did it there!

Please add me on Twitter and it will be fanstastic. I promise!

So on wednesday, there was fresh, delicious food delivered to my doorstep. It came in a returnable plastic bag and looks delicious. See the picture for all the goodies.

So far, I am pretty excited about Fresh Picks and my choice to try out some local food delivery. There is one small downside to starting the delivery now though: I don’t live in a place where lots of good stuff grows in the winter. Sadly, this means that some of my food did come from California. I have nothing against California, and I have no problem with the great people at Fresh Picks making sure they have enough food to deliver to each of their subscribing households, but still, I am a little dissapointed.  I do give them props for saying where all of the food comes from, and it looks like about half of it was from around here, which is better than you get on most trips to the store. So, I can be excited about that.

So today I discovered one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever seen. Tap’d NY. Yes, that is a company selling NY tap water as bottled water to New Yorkers.

Um… what?

I mean I guess if you are too lazy to find a water fountain and want to pay $1.50 for 20 ounces of water its cool that the water is local, but, um… seriously?!?

I’m not sure I have anything more to say about that.

Have a good night.