Virescent

My parents celebrated their 25th anniversary with us this weekend. It’s a good time to point out that a big chunk of my inspiration for all this sustainability stuff was their doing. I was raised composting, hanging washing on the line to dry, and freezing all winter since the thermostat was set so low. One of the big taboos at home was leaving the bathroom light on.

This was all very annoying when I was a child. Sweaters indoors seemed like a way lame plan- why did we invent indoor heating anyway?- and I got pretty sick of hearing about how much electricity the drying machine used. I just wanted fluffy towels like in the commercials.

Tonight I’ve got my washing on a rack in the spare room, and seeds soaking downstairs to be planted tomorrow, and the heat’s been off for weeks- I’ve been wearing a sweater all day. I shut off the lights in the kitchen and bathroom compulsively. This is all my parent’s fault.

Mom and Dad taught me to live frugally, to distinguish between my wants and needs, and to budget. They taught me how small things can add up- especially in electric bills. They taught me to keep myself busy without a tv. They taught me to make things with my own hands. They taught me to go outside and play. They taught me not to waste anything. They apparently taught me better than I realized.

So thanks, guys, for living together so wisely and well for the last 25 years. You’ve been the best role models we could want, and we’re working on living up to your example.

Actually they’re not flip-flops, really, they’re nuno-zories. At her blog, Ecosamurai has translated the instructions and posted some in-process pictures of her new-no zories. (Har har! Forgive me.) They’re adorable and so practical! Having just spent way longer than I meant to in a shoe store, I do feel the need to sit down and contemplate life and consumer choices while weaving my own from all those free teeshirts that I no longer have space for. Plus, making a pair of these will isolate you from dirty floors- you’ll never sweep again, or suffer while waiting for someone else to do it first.

Thanks for the post, ecosamurai!

I’m adding it to my list of handmade things to do. And in a couple of days, I promise pictures of what I’ve done so far.

At the Salvation Army, yes. I found this sweater there this afternoon while I was dropping off a load of unnecessary apartment stuff, and had to share. So classy and soft, and if the price and quality won’t convince you to browse your local second hand shop, nothing will. Finding something at a thrift store is way more exciting than finding something at a normal retailer- the element of surprise, the thrill of the chase, etc. Less chance of getting a winner, true- I saw plenty of ugly sweaters made with gorgeous yarn, so maybe next time I’ll try out this advice on recycling sweaters I found through another blog (which I’ll link soon, they’re nifty).

After that ecofriendly success, I balanced my day by getting caught in a rainstorm on my walk home from work, while carrying my bag of groceries. Fortunately it was the perfect warm evening and light rain, and I only stepped in the big puddle and soaked my socks a few hundred yards from my door. But it was a good reminder that practical hippies should carry umbrellas.

From recently inside my head, two quick follow-ups, then a review of external bits:

First, still on the fence about buying into Valentine’s day? Reuter’s has a dampening article on the child labor and human trafficking that go into producing much of the world’s cocoa, harsh chemicals dumped on roses and inhaled by farm workers, and those crazy war diamonds. Get off the fence and try something else! If the dear heart’s heart is set on chocolate, check out fair trade chocolate options. (My head? It is now salivating.)

Second, Mike Bloomberg is chastising the US government for promoting corn ethanol as a viable fuel. Sure, it’s interesting because I talked about it yesterday (sensing a pattern in this post?), but Bloomberg has also been flirting with running for president this year. Fred Thompson has already shown us the pitfalls of merely flirting with the idea, though, and the rash (yes, rash) of interesting primary action will probably make late entries into the race less interesting by comparison. But the loud green mayor of NY seems to want to make his voice heard on the national stage, and if he’s got a message like this, let’s hear some more.

Finally, let us turn our heads to my shampoo (masculine types are dismissed, unless they’re looking for tips on how to smell not so, well, dude-like).

I’ve been trying out a few ecofriendly shampoos, and it’s been a rough process. Literally. Whole Foods brand grapefruit shampoo and conditioner left my hair feeling unwashed and unconditioned. Plus, they smell sickly-sweet. Avalon Organics has a Lavender shampoo and conditioner that smell good- like real lavender, not the fake lavender scent. Their shampoo takes a lot of work to lather (it’s not my water’s fault) and their conditioner, while promising to nourish, leaves my hair brittle even when I let it sit a while. If you like the smell, the lack of animal testing, and the “100% vegetarian ingredients”, give the shampoo a try and avoid the conditioner- though the latter might work better for you if your hair is short or oily.

Really, though, you can skip the other two brands altogether and check out Trader Joe’s store brand. Their conditioner actually conditions- and I’ve got long, curly, slightly dry hair, so that’s a tough proposition. It’s $2 a bottle, smells fantastic, wasn’t tested on animals, and it’s got mostly organic ingredients. It does contain a couple parabens, which haven’t been proven to cause breast cancer in anything. Natural health people add an ominous “yet” to that statement. Avalon Organics consciously avoids them, but hey: Avalon Organics hasn’t produced a working conditioner yet, so. I’ll keep testing. (If you can’t wait for me to come up with another suggestion, try the comments at Green as a Thistle’s similar post.)

I can already feel the swell of righteous anger- I know, I know. Valentine’s Day is a dreadful prospect for everyone involved. You’re either under pressure to come up with something really special- flowers! roses! diamonds! dinner reservations! all of the above!- for your snuggly-pumpkin, or scared and wondering if your snookie-poo is coming to come through with something really special for you, or if you haven’t got a cuddle-woogums then, well, you’re cranky. About this time of year, I start hearing the anti-establishment rants from males of my aquaintance- Valentine’s Day is created by advertisers to convince women that we have to buy them things and then they get mad at us when we don’t and everything’s pink and those candy hearts are gross and I hate it and etc.

They’re right, except for the candy hearts thing. Apparently the greeting card industry has an award named for the lady who invented the Valentine’s day card. And now they’re capitalizing on haters by selling Anti-Valentine’s day cards! Genius!

Plus, all this shiny red waste. Big packages for little waxy chocolates, plastic wrap, cheaply-made toys, forests of obnoxious cards, tons and tons of dying flowers shipped all over at exorbitant prices…and all the hippies crying green ecotears. Why are we making love so unsustainable?

Some go so far as to declare their non-participation in this non-event: I will not bow to the follies of popular culture, I above the red and pink pressures. Works perfectly if you’re single, but you try explaining to your wimbly-bipple that you’re not going to be extra-sweet to him/her/it for one little day just because somebody had the gall to suggest that you do so. (Here’s a helpful tip: this will always go poorly for you. If it doesn’t go poorly for you, dump him/her/it and look for someone with a backbone.)

Me, I like Valentine’s Day. I’m looking forward to it. I think you’d like Valentine’s Day, too, if we made a few rules for it. Here’s my proposal:

1 ) No gross, over-processed red and pink-wrapped chocolates/candies. “Gift Food” is not a gift, nor is it food. Try making something actually tasty.

2 ) No stuffed animals (ok, unless it’s your best friend from forever and you compete to see who can come up with the most ridiculous one even though she always wins, even the year you found the purple snake with heart spots, because of that one vibrating pink lion…).

3 ) No store-bought cards. “I Love You” doesn’t count if it was written by a committee, mass produced, and purchased. (Try making a pop-up card. Fun, and demonstrative, and just think of all the things you can…never mind.)

4 ) Both halves of the couple must plan nice things for their hunnie-muffins.

5 ) If you do buy jewelry, don’t symbolize your love with a product of bloodshed, underpaid sweat, and intestinal delivery. Go vintage, or fair-trade, or lab-grown, or recycled, or at least certified. And similarly with flowers- why are you killing so many pretty things to tell her she’s pretty? Get her a live plant if you can (let her kill it). But really,

6 ) You don’t need to spend money at all. This is about love, and celebrating strong relationships, and taking the time to appreciate having your puddle-widgkins. So do that in a way that’s just for the two of you, and not for Hallmark/Godiva/DeBeer’s, also. Two’s company, three’s just wrong.

7 ) Call your parents and grandparents.

8 ) If you haven’t found your ookle-dumpling yet, see 7). Then don’t take it so personally (statistically you’ll find your mumbly-cupcake someday, and it’s not like angst makes you more attractive, unless you’re one of those people), take a deep breath, and go hang out with cool people and do fun things.

What do you think? A dash of anti-consumerism, a pinch of anti-advertisements, and a shot of self-confidence makes Valentine’s more sustainable, and maybe even bearable.

Two articles in two very different publications popped up in my feed yesterday, but they both called a new “trend”: People are buying less stuff. The New York Times pegs this novel plan to budget for purchases as the result of the whole subprime crisis and massive credit card debts. BusinessWeek ties it to customers shopping “greener”, then to subprime fallout, then finally to how this new thriftiness could tank the economy just when the President and Congress want to urge consumer spending to get us through the recession we may or may not be in.

A subtext in each article also pointed to fewer people trying to consume conspicuously- sales of the mid-tier luxury goods are falling,  and people say they care less about the labels on their clothes. (On a side note, I found this article on why people consume things loudly in the first place pretty fascinating.)

So that’s a thing.  Are people really buying less?  Are we buying less because we’re more concerned about the effect of our consumption on the planet?  Or are we buying less because we’re more concerned about the effect of our consumption on our pockets?  Is our economy’s burp going to propel consumers down the path to more thoughtful spending on resources?  Will any of these “trends” last past the recession?

*In solemn news anchor tone* One thing is for sure: only time will tell.

Step 1: Empty the contents of my closets onto the floor.

Fortunately, I don’t have much storage space, so that didn’t go as badly as it sounds. I also cleaned out and repacked the containers under my bed, and stowed 95% of the Christmas stuff (last year it took until March, so this is pretty good for me). Left to do: dig out the corners where I’ve been storing more stuff, since as I said, I don’t have much storage space. It is projected that, in these corners, I will find over 30 yards of various fabrics and my college diploma.

I have a gigantic pile of stuff to donate in my hallway, precisely where I can stumble over it then remember to put other things in it. Contents: ping pong equipment (but no balls), 4 very similar rugs, clothing, 2 pillows I’ve never liked, a metal basket, sunglasses I’ve never worn (or seen before), cleats, and a night light. Among other bits. It’s all in good enough condition to be used, and I’m not going to use any of it.

Step 2: Banish the pile. There are a lot of ways for me to get rid of this: Craigslist (free or sale), Freecycle (like Craigslist, only everything’s free), the Salvation Army, and yard sales come to mind. I tend to take all my things to the Salvation Army- since they’re close by, and I know they’ll take it all at once and use as much as they can. Plus, I don’t have anything worth enough time or money to make reselling or listing it free online make sense.

I still have a lot of stuff left, but now it’s all stuff that I can and want to use. A very persuasive school of decluttering rids one of all unessentials- but that’s not for me. I’m not anti-materialistic at all- I’m not getting rid of things just to not have things. I found a surprising number of items that I don’t want and don’t need floating around in my apartment. There is plenty of stuff- my glass penguin, my shelves of books- that I don’t actually need, but I appreciate having in my space, so long as I have space (not like I take them camping with me or anything- just a few of the books). Plus, keeping random stuff around means I can save money by buying in advance and in bulk, and have all that I need for architectural and personal projects. So, the bits of foam board and cotton scraps stay. Though I do need a new place to store them. Ack! Acquisition! But only of the useful kind.

Fake Plastic Fish, a blog about consumption, waste, and plastic, wrote an interesting post last week on a similar idea of purposeful consumption. Her point was, people tend to over-consume items because they don’t respect, or like, or care anything about, the items that they use or have. Similarly, by clearing my place of the things I don’t want and putting them to good reuse, I have more time and space to respect my other things- and maybe even use them- I’ve been meaning to make a quilt from some of those scraps for years.

Happy New Year! Now’s apparently the time to look back on 2007 and reflect on how far I have, sustainably, come. Seeing as I do that about once a month anyway, and I’ve only had this deal going since September, I’ll spare you the complete recap for now. I hear tell that others also use this time to make resolutions. That’s not how I roll, but I’ll go ahead and at least make another monthly goal.

After a 3-state Christmas tour, this eco-tryer was done. Mostly. Done enough to write about it, but not done enough to stop playing that Christmas music yet. I’m hoping my loved ones will stage an intervention soon, because I’m getting sick of it.

There were some pretty sustainable aspects of my season. I purchased no wrapping paper or boxes, but I did use wrapping paper left from last year (it’s not metallic, so it can be recycled). Once all that stuff is gone, I’ll reconsider how I wrap gifts. I padded all my shipped gifts with my shredded papers. Bows and gift bags were saved for reuse. Most of my decorations were left over from last year- I only purchased two strands of LEDs. Since they were a funny color, I didn’t use them on my tree, but I did use them. I did use strands of inefficient lights, but I plugged them in infrequently (It helped to not be home very much for the holidays).

I worked hard to make the gifts I gave as low-impact and useful as possible, and it paid off. Talking with folks kept my list guess-free, and for far-flung relatives my mother was an invaluable source. Since the number of places selling eco-friendly/fair-trade things is still limited, the shopping was pretty simple for me, and I was done much more quickly than last year: that added sustainability of a non-environmental kind. I am especially proud of giving my very conservative grandfather Gingrich’s “Contract with the Earth” for his Dec 26th birthday- excellent compromise. As for my haul, well: my indoor composter will arrive any day now! Soon, I’ll be reducing “up to 120 lbs” of food scraps a month to useful garden crud! I also received a wonderful movie, The Day After Tomorrow (tagline: This year, a sweater won’t do), which is sort of a documentary of climate change occurring, only it’s entirely made up. I also got The Core (We killed the planet), which might not be about climate change, but certainly involves ridiculous weather. Everything else was pretty, useful, and appreciated, especially the abundance of soups.

At the same time, I did a lot of driving (three states worth!), and I threw away much more than usual (wrappings for new things, fast food containers, staying in a home without recycling access). The LED light experiment was disappointing, and I need to work on that more wisely next year. Also, my Christmas tree started to smell funny a few days ago, sort of like inappropriately aged cheese, but I dumped in some lemon juice in the tree water and then an large amount of vinegar, and either I’ve gotten used to it or the vinegar did the trick.

So, new goal for the month: I was going to do something with my composter and food waste, but since that’s not together yet, I’ll wait on it. I have a bunch of stuff, and I just got more stuff. I’m going to spend the new few weeks reducing the stuff I own- clean out my closets. Appropriate for the new year, and necessary if I’m going to be able to put any of my new stuff away.

International aid charities have set up donation campaigns around Christmas, encouraging people to buy each other livestock or aid for the developing world, instead of say, socks or fruitcakes. At the Oxfam America Unwrapped site, you can donate boats, water trucks, mosquito nets, crocodiles (yes, really), money to start a business, and all sorts of other tools and services for people in developing countries, and save your relatives and the environment from unwanted and wasteful consumption. UK-based education and film-making charity WORLDwrite blames all that for Africa’s disappointing, “demeaning” Christmas haul. Reuters AlertNet and the BBC both reported on WORLDwrite head Ceri Dingle’s objections:

“Nobody’s offering washing machines. I’ve traveled all over the developing world, and people not only know what we have, they want what we have. Helping to make that possible is what development is all about.”

Yes, Ww and Ms. Dingle are upset that we’re not shipping washing machines to Africa. Don’t bother getting worked up at her, Oxfam’s stated the obvious for you:

“To insist on offering washing machines and other white goods luxury items to communities that have neither a plug socket nor a water supply shows complete lack of understanding of the communities we work with…Fifteen litres of water is required for one half-load of washing - the same basic amount that we are trying to achieve for one person per day to survive.”

The Ww slogan is “Ferraris for everyone”, meaning that they think we should help people develop by giving them all the things that rich, developed nations have, now. Put the reliable electric lines, power plants, plumbing, stable monetary system, available jobs, and big box stores on a boat, ship them across the ocean, plop them all down next to rural villages, and everyone will be happy! Before I get carried away into ranting, I’m going to cite a few decent points Ww makes, or at least links to their site (I had to dig for them, but at least I found a tiny basis to all this washing machine nonsense).

In one insightful section of a poorly-reasoned article on Oxfam’s program, one author points out that red tape mandated by the charity conflicts with actual use of the gifts- the need for accountability to the donors and general public causes Oxfam to implement burdensome monitoring procedures. Also, the procedures they use for determining what each community wants (chickens? hoes?) might not be as transparent to the community as they think. Reuters, the BBC, and this article all detail different opinions on this topic, with Oxfam always saying they work with people in the community directly to determine need. Me, I’m glad Oxfam knows what they’re giving and what it’s doing for people, but maybe they could ease up a bit too.

Another decent bit emerges from a completely anecdotal piece on how the Western world idealizes subsistence farming. The author points out that there may be organizations who, for the sake of low environmental impact, emphasize traditional, low yield farming techniques that keep everybody hungry and well, subsisting. Ok, sure, there are a few crazy environmental-type people who might make this mistake, but those people are a) crazy, and b) easily convinced with photographs of starving children that they’re wrong. Besides, not all low-impact farming is low-yield, and there’s no reason these groups can’t advocate good, long-term farming practices based on developed nations’ experience- so let’s champion that. Oxfam is blamed for perpetuating subsistence, since it offers hand tools for farmers, but not tractors. The author doesn’t acknowledge that tractors require fuel and skilled maintenance, neither of which are common in subsistence communities.

So, that’s a couple of things to consider when you buy that passel of baby chicks for your little cousin. Don’t worry about it too hard, but try to pick something entertaining and that won’t cause Ww to whine more. The Reuter’s article I cited above has a great list of non-Oxfam charities with gifts for all seasons- land mine defusing, teeshirts (shirt’s for you, donation’s for Africa), and other stuff (check out the crocodile).

Ww might have some good points, but they’re hidden in all their terrible, useless ideas. Next year, let’s test them: let them buy the farmers a Ferrari, and I’ll send some goats, and we’ll see which gift is more useful after three months. No matter how long you leave two Ferraris in a garage alone, they’ll never create a third Ferrari. And you can dismantle a broken car and sell it for parts, but you can sell a goat for parts (milk! cheese!) without dismantling it at all.

For our latest installment of “Green Issues only Rich People Have”, we examine how to eco-up a Museum/Opera/Awards/Disease Gala for hundreds of the Well-Connected. These events typically involve elaborate catered meals of unpronounceable foods and literally tons of tailor-made decorations and fresh-cut flowers. Sure it looks pretty, but was Mother Nature invited this year?

After the party, most of the stuff gets thrown out. Things like tables and tableware are normally rented, and attendees and workers can generally snag the lighter decor and flower arrangements to take home for one last gasp, but that’s only a small part of the overall set up. The NYT describes the halting efforts of expensive event planners across the US to fancify their incredibly wasteful to-dos with more environmentally friendly decorations. Some have used recycled objects in their designs- one guy glued soda cans and bottles caps to the windows of the Barneys New York store for their Christmas display (hey, NYCityfolk, can you go visit the storefront and take some pictures for me?).  Another guy shredded 3 tons of paper, soaked it in organic flame retardant, and rolled it into balls to hang from the event space’s ceiling. Let’s just say that I never get to do anything like that at work. There’s no word on how the food is being done better yet, though (more organic? Who gets the leftovers?).

What can we learn from this for our own holidays? The Barneys guys offers a suggestion:

“You can do this stuff at home…You can go gold with decaffeinated Diet Coke, and there’s lots of blue and silver in drinks like Pepsi and Red Bull. You can make wreathes out of old silver pot scrubbers. We’ve done a green version of the 12 Days of Christmas, which I will happily sing to you and which ends with ‘a Prius in a pear tree.’”

A professor from the University of Florida makes an apt observation on this juxtaposition of Ultimate Consumption and Going Green:

“It’s all about symbols and sensation,” said Professor Twitchell, whose many books deal with how marketing shapes a society. “That’s what I find so fascinating about our Prius culture. We know things are wrong. We don’t know what we can do. We can’t know. And so we do what marketers encourage us to do to get those feelings we want to have. We buy the Prius, we recycle at the party, pretty much overlooking the fact that what we know about these objects and these actions comes from their marketing.”

Good call, Twitchell. Making actions sustainable requires reflection and research, especially for an event that is rooted in excess. The very nature of huge parties becomes the display of wealth- “We can afford to drop the GDP of a small nation on one night to impress you and make you give us money/thank you for all the money you gave us so we could throw this party! This is a normal impulse!” So maybe let’s rethink the whole concept of spending-money-to-awe for these things.  I feel like Rich People would be cool if maybe for one event, say, a cancer fundraiser, the organizers just donated 95% of the budget to actual cancer and had them all over to the MOMA for Brunswick Stew and beer. Everyone loves Brunswick Stew and beer. Do they have cancer fundraisers at the MOMA? I would know if I were rich. Anyway, they could decorate with some big collection boxes and give some markers to kids with cancer so they could make signs labeling the boxes, and boom, funds raised. That’s not exactly a “green” plan yet, but there’s a base you can easily work from: organicise the stew, get the beer from a local brewery (organic brewery?), compost or donate the leftovers to the needy, and recycle/auction off the kid’s posters, and there goes your impact.

Now that I have illustrated why I will never be a good expensive party planner, I wish to leave you with the description of the decorations for the alleged “greenest party of the year”:

The décor was supplied by Gelitin, four male Viennese conceptual artists who wore high heels and buckets on their heads but no pants, and who spent the evening building a plywood structure over the bewildered guests’ heads. Anthony Roth Costanzo, a countertenor, sang a 16th-century melody called “Flow My Tears.” And then the Gelitin members, along with three Icelandic artists, also men, from a collective called Moms, took the buckets off their heads and urinated — with dead-eye accuracy, said Dodie Kazanjian, a Vogue editor and one of the events’ hosts — into one another’s pails.

Gives me an idea for my holiday party…