More Deliberate Every Day

Wendell Berry Speech

Being a big Wendell Berry fan, and it being so rare that he is captured on film, I thought it would be a great way to start your day today if I shared this brief video from youtube, where Berry speaks to a gathering in Frankfort, Kentucky, the state's capital, on behalf of the I Love Mountains Day effort.

As a good friend would say, 'nuff said.

He's At It Again

I've written here quite a bit about the importance of personal action in the effort to build a sustainable future.  Al Gore, who is much more knowledgeable than I on many of the threats that we face, believes that while personal action is important (as evidenced by his own), it's not enough.  He says we need a greater deal of urgency for legislated change, as discussed in this very recent video published by TED.  As we enter this spring season, it's time to make a commitment to change, global change.  Take the time to watch this presentation and hear what Gore has to say.

Parlimentary Challenge

London's The Guardian has typically been on the forefront of good journalism both in terms of ensuring that the entirety of culture is under review but also challenging its readers regarding public concerns and how it impacts their lives.  This week they have published an op ed piece written by Member of Parliment John Gummer who asks England to step it up and take responsibility for the impact its people is having on the environment.  We could all stand to listen to his challenge:

. . . we propose a significant agenda for localism. Communities and parishes, individuals and groups will be able to play a more important part in making decisions that matter to them.

Local authorities should encourage the market for energy-efficient offices by offering reduced business rates for space meeting efficiency standards above the minimum required by the building regulations.

Localism is also about local food and local provision, it's about post offices and farm shops, it's about food miles and local amenities. Climate change puts a new cost on carbon and therefore changes the economic balance that, for too long, has driven us away from localism towards central control.

We need the one-nation philosophy extended to one world. Mrs Thatcher reminded us that 'we do not have this world freehold, but on a full repairing lease'. If the poor are expected to bear more than their fair share of the cost of that repair, they rightly will refuse. So, at home, we propose policies from water tariff reform to public transport improvement that ensure a fair deal for the least well off. Abroad, we advocate a programme to enable poor nations to benefit directly from the switch to the low-carbon economy.

We haven't shirked the difficult issues. Unlike Michael O'Leary, we haven't suggested that aviation should be excluded, nor pretended that we can continue to be mastered by the car. We relish the fullness, excitement and opportunity of modern life, but we all want to share it at a cost that the planet can bear.

One of his clear points is that the developing world will not stop their march toward the same type of environmental culpability as we have embraced without the developed world setting a clear example first -- so it's time to change now, and there's no time to waste.

Nitrogen Poisoning?

Suzanne Bohan has an interesting artice at Inside Bay Area about the insidious consequences of flushing the land with fertilizer in order to consume copious amounts of fossil fuel energy and maximize agricultural "yield":  nitrogen overload.  According to the article managing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere isn't the only thing we need to be doing to manage long-term climate change:

. . . copious amounts of fertilizer are now used in agriculture, with the excess draining into rivers, lakes and the ocean.

Combustion of gasoline, natural gas and coal also releases enormous quantities of nitrogen-based compounds into the atmosphere, much of which settles on land and water. Animal waste is another major source of nitrogen.

With fertilizer literally falling from the sky, plants — many of them invasive weeds — get turbocharged from nitrogen, altering natural habitats by driving out native plants and the animals that rely on them.

It would be one thing if the discussion were new, but it's not.  In fact, the Ecological Society of America published a comprehensive report on the problem in 1997. 

It's not surprising that there are discussions about the levels of nitrogen in our environment and the likely long-term consequences of that intervention:  like so many other problems we're dealing with, growth for growth's sake, without the moderation of sustainability, is ruinous.  What we need now are more farmers willing to learn and adapt organic techniques for increasing output on the land in order to reverse our addiction to manufactured nitrogen fertilizers and grow food that is clean on the land as well as clean on the plate.  And, of course, we need to reduce energy consumption across the board, before we run out.

[Thanks to Energy Bulletin for the links]

Less Refrigerator Every Day?

Taking a lead from Greenpa, Vanessa at Green As A Thistle has gone refrigerator-free.  This is a dramatic step, and one that we, while being more deliberate every day, have not yet embraced.  From Vanessa's post:

I made sure to finish all my vegetables and dairy products first, then gradually started moving stuff to the pantry. Finally, I switched it off for good, leaving nothing other than my stale box of baking soda in there. On the one hand, it’s been interesting learning about all the things that didn’t really need to be refrigerated — at least for very long — in the first place (margarine, jams, potatoes, ketchup, mustard and most other condiments, apples, almond butter, blueberries, etc). But on the other hand, it’s been sad opening my cupboards to find yellow, wilted kale that was only a day old or some carrots that had gone bendy after less than 12 hours.

I asked Vanessa in a comment to keep us updated on her progress.  Greenpa, by the by, had this to say about vacating the box:

The folks pushing refrigeration of course make a big deal out of the "increased safety" associated with a good fridge. But they DON'T print a lot of headlines about the food poisoning that results from a good fridge - slowly going bad. So that, unnoticed by any, until the doctor asks how you got so sick, the average temperature inside the fridge slowly edges up, as it ages in various ways, until it's not really effectively slowing bacterial growth any more. That happens. And particularly when you are blindly relying on technology to solve your problems and do your thinking- you are unlikely to notice.

And, since this is intended as a short post due to my bbq on the membrane, I leave you this morning with a photo of our own fridge.  On the freezer side you will probably quickly notice the Tyson Chicken Nuggets, which, unfortunately, the children became accustomed to prior to our local food focus.  Otherwise it is mostly M4-D Ranch beef.  On the refrigeration side there is much more that is local today than what you would have seen six months ago, and what is not local is definitely biased by foods with a lower level of processing.

See that tall skinny bottle on the top shelf?  That's a bottle of kirsch that was given to me as a gift many years ago.  My faithful wife decided to drench some fresh, farmers market strawberries in it two weeks ago and we discovered a wonderful desert that we will return to again and again until the bottle is dry.

And yes, the pecan pie is still in consumption-mode.  And our cheese is most definitely not from around here, but the drawer is overflowing nonetheless.

In fact, looking at it through a critical lense, there's quite a bit of stuff in there that we haven't used in a long time.  Which bedgs the question about why they're in there and how we intend to use them.  Hmmm. . .

Frontline Investigation

Eating local and making more environmentally sound decisions is a step in the right direction, but a big question is why we haven't confronted the challenges sooner.  Carbon Neutral Journal points this week to a great Frontline documentary on the history of environmental policy in the U.S. and what those involved with that policy have to say.  And best of all, you can watch it all here.   

"The way it happened was the equivalent to flipping the bird, frankly, to the rest of the world ... on an issue about which they felt so deeply." That is how former New Jersey governor and the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Christine Todd Whitman describes the U.S. withdrawal from the Kyoto agreements in Hot Politics, a new film from FRONTLINE and the Center for Investigative Reporting.

This is great journalism, and whether you agree with it all or not it deserves your consideration.

The Triple Bottom Line

We were excited this past weekend to get our barrel composter up and going, but as we also put out our raised garden we wondered how long it would be before we would be able to layer in nice, rich compost with our soil?  In the meantime, we may need to feed our plants beyond the compost + manure that was blended with the topsoil.  Should we use more store-bought compost?  Should we throw our hands up in despair and revert to Miracle Grow?  Maybe there's another option. . .

Along comes Terracyle, a company you may have already heard of through Whole Foods or Home Depot.  From their website:

TerraCycle produces a potent, all-natural, eco-friendly plant food that is the first mass-produced product in the world to be packaged in used plastic soda bottles. To go even further, the entire product is made out of garbage - from the contents to the packaging. As a result, TerraCycle Plant Food is the first mass-produced consumer product to have a negative environmental footprint.

TerraCycle processes organic garbage destined for landfills through a revolutionary process developed by the company's founders while students at Princeton University. TerraCycle is able to convert all this into liquid plant food in only three weeks.

Proven at the Rutgers University EcoComplex to outperform a leading synthetic plant food in many aspects of plant growth, TerraCycle Plant Food is more than simply eco-friendly — TerraCycle's products are environmentally beneficial, from production to application.

Yes, you guessed it:  the product is predominantly worm castings, or to be more clear worm poop.  And the company has developed their production process in such a way as to be zero footprint compliant.  Which means worm castings go into recycled 20oz soda bottles topped with trigger-sprayers that are sourced as end-runs or excess capacity from other manufacturers and finally wrapped in post-consumer recycled plastic labels.  Not only no footprint but a negative footprint, since the process actually relies on what otherwise would have likely ended up in a landfill.

I'm feeling better about what I might purchase to support my garden, in the event my own compost is not ready in time to feed my growing vegetables.  But there's more.

The company is evangelizing something they call Eco Capitalism, a way to build business, please customers, and drive benefits in the environmental, social, and economic spheres at the same time.  From their site:

If scalable, this new model of manufacturing could quickly out compete all of the models and become the new dominant form of capitalistic manufacturing. It would combine the benefits of the classic for profit corporations and the classic not-for-profit corporations without any of the negatives. Is this utopian view bogus? Or can this become a reality?

The simple answer is that it can! And it's already happening. Over the past few years, a number of companies have emerged that have taken advantage of this approach. And all of these companies have something in common: they have all embraced the idea of waste.

One of the key principles they expound is that waste is a by-product of our world that can feed production processes without a normal cost of raw materials.  That by utilizing waste, whether used soda bottles or worm castings, products can be made at a relatively low cost allowing economic value creation without the need to "cut" social or environmental responsibilities in order to generate a profit.  The ideas are profound and, I believe, clear a potentially new path for a more sustainable future.

Now if we can just figure out how to ship the stuff all over the country without burning carbon fuels, we might have something.

(Thanks Sustainable is Good and X.O)

 

Making the Switch

On this Earth Day, we're making the switch.  I had heard a brief message on NPR recently announcing that green energy was now available as an option for MLGW customers in our fair city of Memphis, and felt compelled this morning, as I listen to the birds waking outside, to investigate.  The Tennessee Valley Authority is now offering green energy "blocks" to electric utility customers throughout the Midsouth for an additional $4 per month.  Each block represents approximately 12% of average household consumption and is derived from the sun, wind, or methane gas.  Since we generally use more electricity than average, we're signing up for 10 blocks and paying $40 per month more for our electricity in order to reduce our negative impact to the environment.  You can read the whole skinny here.

Hard to believe that so many are still having the discussion about whether "Al Gore was right about this global warming thing."  Wal-Mart, British Petroleum, and General Electric don't seem to have any qualms with the science behind it.  The ongoing question is how to offset more and more of the carbon footprints we create.  Another way to look at offsetting, beyond paying more for green power, is offsetting our carbon impact with an appropriate Terrapass.  By purchasing a Terrapass we ensure that a good level of incremental investment goes toward similar sustainable energy investments.  You might argue that we're choosing to pay more for what we use for no good reason.  My perspective is that we're choosing to pay more for what we use so my children don't have to pay more for what I used in the past.   From the Terrapass website:

Of course, global warming is too big a problem for a handful of people to solve on their own.  It's a global problem that requires action on a global scale.

But entrepreneurial groups are leading the way.  City and state governments, forward-looking businesses, and enthusiastic citizens are banding together to show that a sustainable future is possible today.

Every TerraPass member has taken a simple positive step to fight global warming. Every TerraPass purchase is a vote for innovation, efficiency, and clean energy. Together, we have eliminated over 250 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions.

On this Earth Day I invite you to consider how you are "paying" for what you "use".  Conserve, offset, and live more deliberately every day.

Earth Day Weekend

As noted in my post yesterday, we (being Momma, Dadda, Big Boy and Little Boy) are celebrating Earth Day this weekend.  We tell the kids it's like the earth's birthday, and we should be happy because the earth is like a mommy to all of us.  We're celebrating both today and tomorrow with some special activities that we can enjoy as a family.

Today we'll celebrate earth's day by spending our time mostly in our backyard.  We procrastinated in putting out our small garden this year, but given what happened with the late freeze that may not have been the worst plan.  So today we build our raised garden beds and teach the boys how to grow vegetables.  Also, we received our rotating composter this week which I need to assemble and prep with some good wormy soil.  Finally, I'm looking forward to the maiden voyage of the new manual lawn mower which will, most likely, cause my neighbors to conclude me a nut-job.  For dinner we'll cook a couple of grass-finished steaks all the way from Fayette County on the grill and enjoy an al fresco dinner, complete with soil still under our fingernails.  It may not be a total carbon-neutral day, but it will be significantly better than last year.

Tomorrow we'll celebrate earth's day at the Hip to be Green event at Shelby Farms Park.  The activities include everything from an ecumenical praise service, live music, exhibitions and everything else fun to be found at an outdoor, spring festival.  If you're a slow foodie like we are, you'll also be excited to hear about the "official" launch of Edible Memphis Magazine that takes place tomorrow.  From an email sent earlier this week by Kjeld Petersen, one of the founding members of the newly established Memphis convivium  of Slow Food USA:

Please try to make it to the Shelby Farms Earth Day event on Sunday.

Edible Memphis Magazine will be there along with the great folks from Wild Oats and they will be handing out free copies of the first issue of the magazine.

If you are not familiar with EMM you can get an idea what it is all about on the website www.ediblememphis.com. Melissa Petersen, the publisher (and a founder of Slow Food Memphis) will be there too to answer questions.

Take it Slow and go to Earth Day on Sunday! Tell or take a friend!

We're looking forward to enjoying beautiful weather for our Earth Day weekend.  We hope you take this weekend to plant some deeper roots as well.

Earth Day - Origins

In a conversation yesterday, it dawned on me that while I have always been aware of Earth Day, at least since my high school days, I was completely unaware with how it came about.  So this morning, leading up to observances and festivals across the world this weekend, a short diversion regarding the history of the event.

In 1962 U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, formerly Governor of Wisconsin, went to Washington and convinced first Attorney General Robert Kennedy and then President John F. Kennedy to join him on a "Conservation Tour" aimed at raising the visibility of environment issues in the larger political sphere.  In 1963 Nelson and JFK went through with the tour, travelling eight states in five days with an agenda filled only with public environmental debate.  While they were able to raise the visibility of environmental issues, it did not succeed to Nelson's original aspirations.

But it planted a seed.  Nelson continued to travel the country and speak about damages that were being done to our natural resources to little avail.  It was a full six years after the Conservation Tour that Nelson was struck with an interesting idea.  From his own recollection at Envirolink.org:

At the time, anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, called "teach-ins," had spread to college campuses all across the nation. Suddenly, the idea occurred to me - why not organize a huge grassroots protest over what was happening to our environment?

I was satisfied that if we could tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the student anti-war energy into the environmental cause, we could generate a demonstration that would force this issue onto the political agenda. It was a big gamble, but worth a try.

At a conference in Seattle in September 1969, I announced that in the spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment and invited everyone to participate. The wire services carried the story from coast to coast. The response was electric. It took off like gangbusters. Telegrams, letters, and telephone inquiries poured in from all across the country. The American people finally had a forum to express its concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and air - and they did so with spectacular exuberance.

The same year that this first Earth Day was celebrated the politicians in Washington, those very people Nelson was eager to involve in the discussion, created the Environmental Protection Agency.  Since then the EPA, while arguably not having accomplished nearly enough to protect the environment, has made significant progress.  Up to and including the Clean Air Act.

So here we are, 37 years later, with another Earth Day ahead of us.  Each year we set aside a day to reflect on the bounty of our environment and recognize that this planet is the lifeline that ensures our continued existence as a people.  And while more recent events may not have the same fervor as that first Earth Day in 1970, it still carries with it the scent of political activism and a belief that individual people can change the world.

What does it mean to you now?  Will you create your own celebration or join others?  Will your recognition of this day be one of reverence or protest?  More importantly, will you make this an opportunity to become a force for change or simply follow the status quo?

It's up to you.