Why the One Earth Revolution? (A bonus post)

We have to remember that in all the talk about the economy and bottom lines, the environment is the bottom line that trumps them all. Without healthy ecosystems to sustain us, the human race faces a pretty bleak future. It's not enough to just buy energy efficient appliances and recycle our bottles and cans. We need a complete revolution in the way we think and live. This revolution needs to infiltrate every aspect of our lives: our society, culture, faith, jobs, homes, families, food, pets, clothes.....EVERYTHING! 

And we don't have a lot of time. We need to change NOW. So, a revolution in one year (one revolution of the earth) is the goal. Can we make it happen? I believe we can, if we are all sharing the message and living the life.

It's a cold blustery Sunday in January. A perfect day for staying inside, turning the heat (down), wrapping up in a warm comforter or afghan and watching an inspirational video. (You thought I was going to say binging on Netflix didn't you?) If you do nothing else today, please watch "David Suzuki: An elder's vision for our sustainable future." You will come away understanding  more than you ever imagined and you will understand why this revolution is SO important. Please watch and please, please share widely. Be the Light! Thank you! 

It's Time for a New Economy

So I have been thinking for some time now about doing a post on alternative exchange methods and a "New Economy." I  started to write something up about the need to return to more traditional methods of exchange. I'd even purchased a URL and taken other steps in order to start setting up Hour Exchange of the Berwicks.  In light of the recent data breaches at Target and Neiman Marcus, the constant fear of identity theft and concerns over financial insecurity, the time for this article seemed more than ripe. And then I saw this graphic! It bares a startling resemblance to my own list. Which got me thinking the time must be even more ripe than I thought. So.... here it is....

Source - https://www.facebook.com/foodisfree

Let's take it from the top:

Grow your own food or support a local CSA. Growing your own food is a great way to reduce food cost and increase the healthiness of  your diet. It is also one more way of bringing the production of our needs closer to home and increasing our security and sustainability in an uncertain world.

Make it yourself. If we make it ourselves, be it clothing or food or whatever, we have taken a big step toward local sourcing. Local sourcing helps to balance costs, prices and wages and reduces the impacts of production and distribution on the environment. Making things ourselves from local materials and ingredients also helps to build the LOCAL economy.  There are those who will use the argument that you shouldn't stop buying clothes from Bangladesh or coffee from Africa (etc and so on), because after all the countries that export those goods depend on selling to you for their economy. This is a justification on the part of the corporations who make their money on importing these goods at cut rate prices and selling them at huge mark ups. One of the first ways that we can help improve income equality and fair distribution of wealth is to advocate for higher wages for people who work in these factories. And one way to do that is to refuse to buy the products until the workers are paid a fare wage. 

Swap it! Borrowing and sharing really go together. How many of us have tools and other things that we use only very rarely? How many of us buy something because we need it today and we might only need it once or twice a year and perhaps not even that often. If we will share those things, we could reduce the demand for them. (Now watch how this dominoes.)  Neighbors begin sharing shovels and snow blowers and other tools. Fewer shovels and snow blowers and other tools are needed, fewer are produced. Environmental impact decreases. More people are sharing. They purchase fewer things. They need less space. They move to smaller homes. They need less money.  They work fewer hours or work from home. They commute less, the environmental impact decreases and decreases again.... and so on.  

Exchanging time for time (hour for hour) is one way of reducing income inequality and working toward a new economy.  Isn't it true that all of us are equally valuable and that all of our labor is equally valuable? But the monetary system that we have established leads people to feel that their worth is based on their income. Hogwash! Exchanging time for time allows us all to be on a level playing field, builds confidence and self worth, and eliminates roadblocks to success and improvement.

Reduce, Reuse, Repair, and Recycle I've already covered these here and here, and I will reiterate here that one of the primary and most important of these is reduce. Reduce, Simplify, Right-Size, work toward sustainability. 

What it all boils down to though is that we all need to learn a little something from the folks who have learned to do with less and not just 'make do' but live abundantly and be truly happy, happier perhaps than many of those who think they can only be happy if they have wealth, possessions and power.

Remember life is not in things but in experiences. So experience it and live light. 

Coffee, Tea or the Environment?

Just brewing up a cup of  "Not Coffee" as I sit down to write this blog

I've finally done it. After almost 2 years of trying and failing I have finally given up coffee. I've been coffee free for 2 whole days! And to be honest I don't really feel tired. I think that after a few more days I will be sleeping better and I will feel better than ever. 

I have often thought that giving up coffee would be a good idea for health reasons, but then after reading Radical Simplicity by Jim Merkel and learning just how many acres it takes to produce the coffee I drink, I was determined that I needed to give it up for environmental reasons. It was still  hard though. I would wake up in the morning exhausted after a long night of tossing and turning and say to myself  "I'm just so tired, I've got to have just one cup", then 3PM rolled around and I HAD to have a cup to get my through until 5PM and keep me alert on the long drive home. It was a vicious circle! 

This week, after a couple more sleepless nights staring at the ceiling and yet another article on the impact of coffee production and distribution on the environment I knew the time had finally come. I got up in the morning and brewed a cup of herbal tea. I'm not looking back. When I'm really in a pinch I can brew up a cup on my friend Dawnie's famous "not coffee" tea. If you'd like to get your hands on some, you can reach Dawn via her Facebook page Sun Moon Stars Herbals.

For those of you who say, "well that's all well and good for you, but I just can't give up my coffee and/or tea." Fret not! There is  a way that you can have your coffee and tea and reduce your impact on the environment. This article has some information about the impact and the options. And this one from the National Resource Defense Council has a more in depth discussion of the topic. And remember, every step you take, even the little ones, make an impact. If everyone who reads this reduces their coffee consumption by even 10% that will be positive impact for the planet. And the more you reduce the more positive the impact. 

I hope that you will find these resources informative and helpful. And until next time.... Travel Light!

Time for Tiny Houses

The Bodega from Tumbleweed Tiny Houses

My whole adventure in sustainability began with an article on tiny houses. Pictured first was one of the earliest and smallest of the tiny houses built by Tumbleweed Tiny House Company. Given that I might not have been here today writing this blog, if it had not been for that article, it seems appropriate that I should touch on the subject of tiny houses. In fact, it seems like I should have touched on it a lot sooner. 

For those of you who are curious, that article lead me to do a search on tiny houses and then I found "We the Tiny House People" a documentary about tiny homes and sustainable living. From there it just snowballed. About the same time I read "Midnights with the Mystic" by Cheryl Simone and Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev. Somehow the synergy of these two experiences close together launched me into my research on sustainability and permaculture.  But I digress. On to the tiny houses!

As we face a world that has less and less to offer in the way of resources to more and more people, we are all going to have to reevaluate the line between wants and needs. One of the major areas of discrepancy between want and need is in our choices of shelter. Here in the US, most of us live in homes that are far larger than what we need. And these homes contain far more stuff than can strictly (or perhaps even loosely) be described as needs. When we begin to really look at the energy that we put into purchasing and maintaining our homes we start to see that many of us have become wage slaves in order to maintain a standard of living that is far above what is necessary or sustainable. In so doing we have also shackled ourselves to a way of living that is neither ecologically friendly nor truly fulfilling for we have traded a life rich in experience for one that is full of crap (you thought I was going to say rich in stuff didn't you? Well, I'm just calling it like it is folks). 

I have personally embarked on a path toward what I call right-sizing. For many folks, particularly here in the US this will likely involve some down-sizing. While it is not just about the size of the home, (there is also: the amount and type of clothing we wear, the amount and type of food we eat, the number of hours we work and the distance we commute, just for starters) the size of the home is greatly impacted and does greatly impact many of the other aspects of our lives. With this in mind I thought it appropriate to share with you several links to resources on tiny houses and tiny living. I hope you will find them as inspirational and motivational as I have. 

Mortgage Free Tiny House
Honey I Shrunk the House
The Tiny House Blog
Review of Tiny Homes Simple Shelter by Lloyd Kahn
An article on tiny house bathrooms
Two articles from "The Tiny Life" one on tiny houses and sustainability here and another on the tiny house movement.
And finally one on "The Tiny House Film" in which you get to meet the characters that are featured in the film.

There are so many more great links that I could share with you, but I just have to leave it with these for now. 

Enjoy my friends and live small. Because living small is Living Large!

CSA #3 and the Wonders of Refrigeration and Heating

Our latest CSA arrived on Friday and wonder of wonders there were blueberries! Thanks to the wonders of modern refrigeration, I was able to make these fabulous blueberry scones with real local Maine blueberries in the dead of winter. Do I wish that these blueberries were refrigerated using renewable energy? Yes I do. Does this make me want to advocate for my utility company to divest from fossil fuels? Yes it does. It also encourages me to research and advocate for more solar and other alternative energy sources that we and other local food producers can use on our own properties to make our farms more sustainable.  

This same feeling applies to the fresh local tomatoes which I purchased today from the local market to go on my veggie burger. I know that the tomatoes are local and were grown in a greenhouse not more than 50 miles from my home, but I don't know where the energy came from that heated the greenhouse. I don't think I'm going to stop buying my fresh locally greenhouse grown tomatoes in February (unless I find that they are very far from sustainable). But I do think it makes sense for us all to keep in mind the total inputs of energy that go into producing, transporting, marketing and storing our food. Armed with this information we can begin to make informed food choices. Making those informed choices is how we are going to make the changes that we need to make in order to heal this planet and keep it going for the next generation and the next.... and the next. 

It's getting late and I want to post this so....stay tuned for the scone recipe (special bonus post tomorrow).

Man Power

There are plenty of people in the world, but only so much oil. For the past 125 years or so we have been replacing man power with oil power. Look where that has gotten us. We are currently residents of a planet whose ecosystems teeter on the brink of collapse. 

It is about time we started to realize that real wealth comes through the earth vicariously from the sun  and the way to sustainably harness that wealth is with MAN power. Man can and has sustained himself (fed, clothed, and housed himself) for thousands of years, without the benefit of fossil fuels. During that time he enjoyed much in the way of comfort, luxury, culture and joy. We are often lead to believe that life before fossil fuels was cold, dark and miserable. This is a gross exaggeration. The Romans had indoor plumbing, hot baths and mosaic tiles. And modern central heating predates the use of oil furnaces. 

I won't deny that it is nice to be able to come home and simply flip a switch and have light and heat. But there is much to be said for heating with wood, for the process of getting the wood warms you more than once and provides you with exercise unlike any that you can ever get in a gym. The fresh air and connection to nature can't be matched by half an hour on a tread mill.   

Sure if we feed ourselves and cloth our selves and warm ourselves with the labor of our backs and arms we will spend more time engaged in the process of taking care of ourselves. But we will also love ourselves more, be closer to nature, and more considerate of her needs and the needs of our own bodies and the needs of our families. And I'll bet you we'll be happier. We'll find more time for making music than for just listening to it. We'll find more time for telling stories than just being entertained by whatever crap is being broadcast over the airwaves. 

It is time to remember that we are men and women and that when we turn over the processes of making our food and clothing, shelter and warmth to machines we take something away from what it means to be human.
And when we treat other people like they are machines, and exploit them and don't give the fair exchange for their labor we take even more away from our humanity. It is time to regain our humanity by recovering our connection with the earth and with one another, by treating both mother nature and one another with respect and honor.  

It's time to remember that the power of man lies in manpower and that that power comes from the earth, therefore it is in our best interest to travel lightly.

Population Growth - Bit of a Rant

I have spent a good deal of time over the last couple of years ranting to my family, and the few friends who will listen to me rant, about the issue of population growth and the unsustainable rate at which it continues. This one may get me in trouble with a few folks, and I do beg your indulgence, if it comes off a bit harsh. It is not my intention to second guess the decisions that families have made in the past with regards to their personal choice on family size. It is my intention to suggest that folks who are currently starting families or considering starting families should do just that... consider. Take the time to really think about the impact that bringing another life into the world will have on your future, the future of the child, the future of your community and the future of the planet. And now stop and consider what impact that same decision has when multiplied by all the women of childbearing age and their partners. You can find information on world population trends and projections here: http://www.jsk.gov.in/world_population.asp 

I'm frustrated when I see our media showcasing large families with shows like Jon and Kate Plus 8 and The Duggars. We've even got reality TV about teenage moms. There is way too much attention being paid to the drama of the American family and way too little attention being paid to the impact of the resource hungry American family upon the planet. And it's not just American families either. It's the whole world. The developing world is booming when it comes to population. They are also developing a taste for all those material possessions we in the developed world have become so fond of. Who can blame them? And what can be done?

We need to get active and get involved. We need to support organizations that bring the word about the need for population control and the tools to affect it to the world. And we need to realize that we can do more in this country as well. More of us can make the decision to have small families, or not to have families.  More of us can make the decision to curtail the rampant consumption of precious resources that we have taken for granted for most of our lives, but which we are now beginning to realize simply can't continue indefinitely. And more of us can start making these decisions NOW. We can't leave it for our children or our children's children. The impact of the decisions made by today's mothers (or women who choose not to be mothers) will be felt for generations to come. 

One last little rant. We need to stop listening to slanted government studies that predict gloom and doom for our economies if growth rates drop while the percentage of the population that is deemed 'old' continues to increase. We are going to pay for the population boom one way or the other. We'll either pay it in higher costs of elder care and perhaps higher taxes to pay for that care, or we'll pay it in attempts to repair damaged ecosystems. Attempts which may or may not succeed. In the end the ultimate price may be paid in a planet which can no longer support human life as we know it. 

Please give this some thought, check out the resources and do some further research on the subject on your own. And then, please, please get involved in solving the problem in any way that you can.

Resources:
https://www.unfpa.org/worldwide/family-planning-arab-countries-2.pdf
ttp://www.jsk.gov.in/world_population.asp 
http://www.billmckibben.com/maybe-one.html 
http://www.billmckibben.com/index.html
http://www.radicalsimplicity.org/

Until next time, Live Light

New Year's Cleaning and Reflection

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you are ready for a year filled with adventure, personal growth and achievement. I know I am. 

As I look to the new year I often spend the day cleaning up the house and getting things in order for what the year will bring. Today as I tidied up my kitchen I was pondering on sustainable decorating and cleaning. While a nice tidy house always brings a sense of satisfaction, I'm sure that none of us is deeply in love with the cleaning process that it takes to get it there. A few thoughts crossed my mind, so I thought I would share them with you today. I give you fare warning that this may ramble a bit. 

Avoid dust collectors. I've decided that it is much nicer to add warmth and character to my home with things that are also useful rather than just things that collect dust. Warm colorful afghans draped over the back of the couch and chair add a little flare and they're handy one those cool Maine evenings. Teapots and vintage pitchers on the shelves are attractive and get used often enough to keep them free of dust. A basket full of knitting adds a homey touch and provides entertainment, amusement and useful items. Keeping library books in a basket is another homey touch that also keeps them organized and helps to be sure they get back to the library on time. 

Re-gift and give mathoms. You'd be surprised at how many folks would be just as happy with something of yours that they have often admired as with something you went out and bought. Anyone can spend money, but giving of your personal items takes a bit more sacrifice sometimes. Today isn't the first day that I've given thought to this. As I was getting the house ready for the holidays I noticed some decorative plates that were hanging on the wall. My mother has often admired these plates so, while they were quite attractive,  I took the plates down from the wall and gave them to my mother for Christmas. She was very happy to receive them and I was able to 'reuse' them. So it was a win for both of us and for the environment. In addition I have saved myself the chore of dusting them. Since Mom has a glass fronted hutch for her dishes she won't need to dust them either!

These musings lead me to thinking about other ways that we can make our decorating and house work more sustainable. For me this means; friendly to the environment and to the people who live in the home as well as the ones responsible for keeping the place clean. I'll  have more on this in a later post. Stay tuned and in the meantime live lightly.