Pick Ups and Palm Fronds

I spent three years living in Georgia (hence the name) and I must say, it changed me. Going in, I was young, naïve, fresh out of high school, and convinced that better emissions standards and universal recycling were the solution to the world’s environmental problems.

Boy was I wrong.

Savannah, where I lived, is occasionally called the “Little Easy”, the smaller, quainter version of New Orleans. Take everything you know about New Orleans and distill it (and take away most of the jazz and the Girls Gone Wild and insert Paula Dean) and you’ll end up with Savannah. There are still arguable differences (not much French spoken in Savannah) but the underlying concept remains. Centralized, historic downtown, built on a filled in swamp that doesn’t like to stay down. Sprawling, more or less modern suburbs that back up against an often disturbing industrial presence- in this case, dominated by the paper mills. And widespread, in your face poverty, typically divided on racial lines.

If you drive into Savannah the back way- not on 95- you will witness a startling introduction to what is otherwise a charming, slow, beautifully restored historic town. Row after row of government built housing, most of it in shambles, crumbling schools, abandoned vehicles, empty storefronts and lots everywhere you look- it still maintains a certain beauty, as does all of Georgia, but there’s no denying something is deeply wrong.

A few facts: “In the 2000 census, the rate [of poverty] was 22 percent for the city overall and significantly higher in five census tracts… Nearly 35 percent of the city’s households earn less than $20,000 per year.” (http://www.stepupsavannah.org/) The current federal poverty line, in other words the amount the federal government deems sufficient for a family to survive, “out of poverty,” is $21,200 per year for a family of four.

Imagine, for a moment, a place where over a third of the population lives in poverty. Possibly you have had this experience in your life, and possibly it changed you the way it changed me. It took a little while to sink in, and my constant volunteering exposed me to it more directly than the majority of the students who lived ensconced in the historic district.

There was one moment, early on, that set the wheels turning. I was with some friends, and was complaining that Georgia does not have emissions testing. In Maryland, where I am from, you must have your car tested every few years to determine if your emissions exceed the quantity set by the state government. If you fail to comply, you must have your car repaired to meet the standards, or you can’t drive. None of this exists in Georgia. After watching a particularly run down pick up drive down the road, spewing fumes, I asked how this could be- especially with so many trucks on the road clearly in need of repair. One of my friends, herself from Georgia, replied: “They can’t afford it.”

This didn’t make immediate sense. But then I thought about it- of course, if you fail an emissions test in Maryland, you are required to take your vehicle to be repaired. But the majority of people in Georgia who were likely to fail an emissions test wouldn’t be able to afford repairs. The poverty level is astronomical. The state, obviously, wasn’t willing to mandate a law that would take at least a quarter of their drivers off the road.

It was then I realized there are more immediate issues in the world than better emissions standards.

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The Anti-Gift List

I think this person and I would really get along. Here it is, the Anti-Gift list. The one thing I disagree on, is that he mentions gift cards, and how they are made of plastic that ends up in the landfill. This is mostly true. Especially when they are for useless, overpriced places I would never set foot in otherwise. Unless you get one for amazon.com or something, which is virtual! And sends wonderful books to your doorstep. I also look forward to two of my favorite gift cards every year: one to my massage therapist and one to my favorite restaurant- two things I would do anyway, but love even better when someone else pays.

The Anti-Gift List: 15 Things Everyone Gets and No One Needs

Also, I'd personally like to receive any of the items on this page for Christmas.

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Deep Green Thoughts, Pt II

Months ago I wrote a blog about environmental ethics… and I’m finally picking up where I left off. We ended by noting that we are not in fact saving the planet, but saving the planet in a state where we can still live on it. It’s important to have your goals defined when you start in on questions like, how should we live?

I should probably state my assumption that our current state of living is a mess. I don’t just mean the energy crisis, I mean anything and everything which contributes to the destruction of the environment, and I include in that the destruction of communities, families, and personal well-being. I will save how those tie in for another blog. But let’s take a moment and see how we got here. Long, long ago, everyone lived differently. People lived in tribal societies, and each one had their own way of living. Some were nomadic and relied completely on hunting and gathering. Some farmed. Some did both. All of them had to live in a relative state of equilibrium with their environment (by which I mean their surroundings). Otherwise, they would have died back, the same way any animal species will die back if it uses up all the resources in a particular area.

And then some groups of humans figured out that if you put in hours upon hours of extra effort, you could grow more food from the ground than you actually needed to feed your tribe. This, in effect, meant members of your tribe could travel at will, without having to stop and hunt, because they could take food with them. This was a revolutionary concept, because it led to, you guessed it, the ability to form armies. Which led to the necessity to build fortifications, which led to the creation of cities, which led- well, you get the point. We called this the agricultural revolution.

Fast forward several thousands years. We have expanded our population to such quantities, and concentrated them in such small areas, that there is in fact no alternative except intensive, industrial (or, to be PC, conventional) agriculture. We could not survive with this many people without mass production. Only, we have a problem in that there are more people on the planet than there are resources, especially since in our system of mass production we forgot to include the key concepts of any functioning ecosystem: not using resources faster than they can be replenished, giving back as much as you take, and not killing off all the other species competing with you (because an area filled with one species alone is far more susceptible to disease and pests).

Now, does this make us bad people? No, I don’t think so. We’re doing the same thing any species would do given the ability to adapt as quickly as we do. And we are subject to the same laws of nature that govern every other species, ie we can use as many resources as we can get, but eventually we will run out and suffer massive die back.

But there’s a key difference between us and say, phragmites. We can make choices. We can look around and think, uh-oh, we are heading for disaster, maybe we should do something about it. And we can. But we need to realize we are not saving the planet, at large. We are saving the planet so that we can continue to survive on it.

Why does this make a difference? In many ways, it doesn’t. When you come down to it, we’re still trying to keep whales alive. But there’s a difference between trying to save the whales, and realizing that the same things that threaten whales (pollution, overfishing, global warming) are also killing us, but more slowly. It’s also a difference between some abstract, noble quest- “saving the environment”- and trying to save our own asses from certain destruction. And that makes a big, big difference when it comes to helping others to see just why we’re fighting pollution and global warming.

Does that make us selfish? No. We’re doing what any species would do- try to survive. Only somewhere, somehow, we seem to have forgotten the key piece of the puzzle that allows us to do that: living in balance with our surroundings, not just because it’s “right”, but because it would be stupid to do otherwise.

… to be continued, again.

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Ecofont

Well, isn't this intriguing. Apparently, if you use this font it saves 20% of the ink you'd normally use in printing. That's because the letters actually have tiny holes cut in them, which your eye, in one of the magic tricks of optics, fills in because they're so small.

Mostly, I think its a beautiful website.

Ecofont

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Survival Crafters

No, we’re completely serious.

You take survival skills- and by survival skills I mean actual, if civilization collapsed tomorrow I’d be able to get by survival skills, not how to get a job survival skills, because if civilization collapsed tomorrow that would get you nowhere- and you combine them with the quilting bee or knitting circle concept. Throw in some snacks, and you’ve got our group.

We (students and staff at the college) have started an informal group of people who are interested in learning more about primitive techniques for making stuff- from tools to rope to nets to dishes to food to clothes- whatever catches our interest. Relying on the knowledge of our members and whatever we can scrounge together- we are embarking on an adventure in learning how to survive the way others have for centuries (and more environmentally friendly, to boot). We'll probably spend half the time on campus and half out in the field, learning to collect and test out the things we make. A group for people who like the outdoors, extreme camping, and crafting.

And why, you say? Well, the reasons I’m sure vary- some people are just really interested in recreating Native American techniques (that would be the anthropologists of the bunch). Some people are hardcore campers and want to know how to get by if they’re stranded in the wilderness. Some people have watched too many episodes of Survivor Man.

And still others of us have taken a look around at our society and figured, hm, something’s not quite working here. You can spend a lot of time arguing the what and the why, but we’re choosing to spend our time studying how societies have worked in the past- and worked so well they’ve lasted for thousands of years, without completely destroying the environment on which they depend. They had to be doing something right. And we intend to recreate it, to the best of our modern, unskilled abilities.

If that’s not enough incentive, hanging out with a bunch of cool people, relaxing, keeping your hands busy, and eating cookies should do it for you.

We hope to see you in the new year. If you’re at the college and would like to be kept apprised of our activities, join our facebook group, Survival Crafters.

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Go Grinch Green This Holiday

I have to admit that I used to dread the holiday season with the same amount of trepidation I typically reserve for getting fillings, or visiting the MVA. I worked retail through high school and most of college, and the holiday season from behind the counter was one never-ending nightmare. The amount of things purchased- the quantity of paper used to wrap purchases, and the bags to cart them home, and the wrapping paper and the bows and ribbons and all the multitude of trappings that seemed to accompany the holiday turned my eco-sensitive stomach on an annual basis.

Now I flat out refuse to set foot in a store from November onward- and I’ve found this to be a much better approach to the holidays. What shopping I do I manage during the year- either from local vendors, where I find unique hand crafted items for the people on my list, or, for the more difficult giftees (my dad), I use the internet to find ecofriendly stores who ship with a minimum of packaging and donate proceeds to minimizing their carbon footprint.

But really, by and large, I don’t buy gifts at all.

I’ll let that sink in for a minute. No, I’m not a Grinch- I just know that most of my friends share my sentiment for gifts that have no particular purpose- bottles of lotion and the umpteenth scarf and who knows what else. I have more than enough STUFF, thanks. When I give gifts, I aim for things I know will be appreciated. This is why most of my friends receive cupcakes, often accompanied by a bottle of wine.

We prefer to take a more traditional approach to the Christmas season, making it more about visiting and spending time together, celebrating the season over a good bottle of wine and delicious baked goods, preferring to exchange cookies and clementines rather than objects we know none of us will use. If you think about it, this is how Christmas used to be- a celebration of the season, where people exchanged special treats of cakes and candied fruits and spirits, and all the children got a new toy to last them until the next year. Possibly immediate family members would make something special for one another, or include a small gift carefully selected for the recipient. But gift giving was not an obligation in the sense that you had to go out and buy something for every person you crossed paths with on a regular basis (and especially not for people you saw maybe once a year).

This method is not only less stressful (and in my opinion, far more enjoyable than endless hours spent stressing over what to buy the people in my life), but is much more ecofriendly. Most websites will offer holiday green tips such as reusing wrapping paper and packaging materials, but I find I don’t use them at all. There’s nothing to throw away (we recycle the wine bottles) and nothing leftover to clutter our lives except the warm memories of evenings spent laughing and eating.

It may take some doing to convince your family to go more traditional, but I find most of the people I talk to are more than willing to adopt a less materialistic attitude toward the holiday- only they are afraid their own families won’t go along with the plan. I suspect we are all wishing for a way out of the hectic, stressful, topped with a bow holiday lifestyle we seem to be stuck in- and if this holiday, we turned and reached out to one another with our hands instead of our wallets, we’d find others just as willing to accept our gifts of good cheer. There’s a lesson to be learned from How the Grinch Stole Christmas: “He hadn’t stopped Christmas from coming- it came! It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes or bags! Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before- maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store- maybe Christmas perhaps, means a little bit more.”

Remember the Grinch, after all, is green.

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How to Have a Green Holiday.

It is getting close to the holidays, and that time of year that is filled with good cheer, giving and snow, but it also the time where people have additional opportunities to recycle and may not be aware of them. Check out Earth 911's website that has lots of tips on how to make your holiday as green as possible.

Also, those of you that are still confused about whether to get a real or artificial Christmas tree, will want to read the National Christmas Tree Association's annual report on the pros and cons of both types of trees. So, although getting the snow needed to have a white holiday is no guarantee, we can all do our part to have a green one. However, I must admit that some snow would still be nice.

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