April 22, 2009 at 11:37 am (Changing habits, green living)
I’m sure many of you out there act every single day to lessen your impact on the Earth, and so Earth Day might seem superfluous at best; commercialized and wasteful at worst.
I invite you to join my own Earth Day celebration:
Go outside, wherever you are, whatever the weather. Be still. Give your attention to your immediate environment. See if it gives any attention back. Accept that this is where things stand right now. And decide where you want to be standing next year.
March 8, 2009 at 7:32 pm (Changing habits, Energy, You must try this, carbon budget, green living)
If you read this blog, you’re probably familiar with the idea of global warming, and you know that it is going to have serious effects in the coming decades (see this image only if you want to be depressed). You may also know that scientists are suggesting there is a “point of no return” where we won’t be able to stop or reverse global warming. This point is usually described as a ratio of how much carbon (or more accurately, carbon equivalent[1]) is in the atmosphere. There’s some debate about the exact number, but somewhere between 300 ppm and 450 ppm is considered the “safer” level that will prevent the worst of the effects.
Individual people can have a lot of impact on the total CO2 emissions dumped into the atmosphere. The average American household dumps 18 tonnes of carbon equivalents into the air every year. The sustainable level of carbon emissions – that is, the level that every person in the world could emit and keep the greenhouse effect from worsening beyond the point of no return – is one tonne per person per year [source].
If that sounds like a pretty big drop, well…it is. There’s a group of folks who are committing to make that reduction within a year. They’re calling it the Riot4Austerity, and I take my hat off to them for their bold undertaking, and I hope to reduce my carbon to at least 75% below American average in the next 2 years.
But for me, right now, it’s just too much to change all at once. Anyone else out there feel the same way?
I wanted to come up with a more manageable “chunk” to whittle away at, and I wanted to know the relative merits of various actions. Take the bus for 45 minutes or drive 5 miles? Eat 100% local or go vegetarian? Give up the hair dryer or turn off the A/C? Give up my car, or airplane flights? If I can do one thing to reduce my footprint today, which thing should it be? If I can’t give up my car, how else can I make up the difference?
And so, I bring you the One Stone Carbon Challenge. The basic premise is simple: I’ve created a list of activities which produce, on average, one stone (14 lb) of carbon emissions. You choose activities that prevent 14 pounds of carbon equivalent from entering the atmosphere, and you mark one stone off this chart (200Kb PNG). When you’ve crossed off the 157 stones on the chart, you’ve prevented one tonne of carbon pollution.
I’m putting the detailed calculations on a static page, here, to prevent any further clogging of people’s feed readers.
So, let’s make this a formal Challenge, in best blogging fashion. The One Stone Carbon Challenge runs from now until May 1, 2009. Comment below and tell us:
Feel free to snag the icon above to post on your blog, for thems what like badges.
I’ll check back in on May 1!
March 3, 2009 at 8:11 pm (Changing habits, Energy, green living)
Did you see this article in New Scientist magazine? And the map that goes with it? They give a prediction of what the world may look like in the next 50-100 years. We’re talking in my lifetime, the Lower 48 could be so arid they’d only be able to support wind farms, and the entire remaining population of the world would have to move to the Arctic or Antarctic.
It’s a given that the average world temp will rise 2*C before it can possibly start heading back down. The big question is, how much will it rise? Four degrees (the rise this model is predicated upon) is a pretty conservative estimate. I’m not sure how conservative or drastic the interpretation of “what would happen if the temp rises 4*” is; I’ll admit, this looks pretty severe. But just because it’s severe doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
I spent a lot of time thinking about this yesterday. I went around in circles from despair to denial to hopelessness to furious determination and back. And where I’ve landed at the moment is this:
Every single one of us needs to take the strongest actions possible to reduce our personal carbon emissions impacts, starting right now. I’ve been writing this blog for over a year and have consciously taken the editorial stance of Cheerleader. But I’m afraid my inner Drill Sergeant is going to come out now. We do not have ten years to get started. We do not have time for happy, hand-held baby steps.
Yes, we should have started years ago. Yes, we need government regulation. Yes, China and India need to make changes, too. But dammit, we are the richest, most wasteful country in the world and we need to clean up our own personal acts right now.
Here’s your homework for tonight: go figure out your carbon footprint. Try one or more of the following:
February 17, 2009 at 2:29 pm (Changing habits, Cooking, recipes)
Something I read quite often these days is “We really just eat meat as a condiment.” I know, in theory, that this means meat is not the center of every meal, but what I want to know is, what does that look like? If you perceive yourself as “not eating a lot of meat,” how many ounces are we talking about? Four ounces per serving? Two ounces in a six-serving casserole? Six ounces instead of ten, and lots of vegetables on the side? A shaving of prosciutto sprinkled on like parsley?
Tell me – or better yet, show me – what you consider to be “not very much meat.” Actual weights and number of servings would be much appreciated. What kinds of meat work best for this manner of omnivory?
January 28, 2009 at 11:45 am (Changing habits, Energy, carbon budget, green living)
Hey, folks-
I’m hatching my next project – sort of a carbon-reduction challenge for those of us not yet ready to go for the 90% reduction levels of the Riot 4 Austerity. I could use a few more pairs of eyes to check my math and help me figure out a few calculations.
If you’re interested in helping out with a couple hours of research and middle-complexity math calculations, drop me a comment. The final product will be available here for free, and your contribution will of course be cited. :
Emily
January 3, 2009 at 11:17 am (Energy, carbon budget)
Last year and this year, we got propane fill-ups in early November and right around New Years. Yesterday’s fill up was 330 gallons; last year’s was 327. This year was colder, though; 2448 heating degree days* as opposed to 2173. So we have, overall, used a bit less propane per heating degree day: 0.13 gallons vs. 0.15 gallons. That means that on Jan. 1, which had 45 heating degree days, we saved 0.9 gallons of propane over last year. That’s almost $2 saved. At this rate, we’d probably save 135 gallons of propane and $300 (minus the price of wood – about $50 so far this year) over the course of the winter.
We’ll see if fixing the leak has a noticeable difference. We’d normally get another fill-up the last week of February, so I’ll update at that point how we’re doing.
* Heating degree days (definition) can be found if you go to the Weather Underground forecast page for your town, scroll down to “Yesterday’s Official Weather and Almanac” and look for “Since July 1 heating degree days.” There’s also a column for normal and last year.
December 29, 2008 at 10:46 pm (Energy)
Well, despite all the efforts we’ve made this fall and winter, it looks like we’re going through propane at the same rate as in previous years. Maybe…maybe even faster? This makes no sense. We’ve:
I went out to check the level of propane in the tank yesterday. I know we got fill-ups at roughly the same time this November and last November, and we got a fill-up Dec. 31 of last year when the tank was around 20% full. AND the number of heating degree days has been about the same (do not mess with me, for I am the spreadsheet goddess…), so I expected the tank would be at around 30% full, or possibly even 35%.
It was at 22%. And I smelled propane.
*sigh*
The propane guy was out literally fifteen minutes later, and yes, the valve on the top was loose. He tightened it down and will be back with some more sophisticated testing equipment to be sure there isn’t more of a leak. I’m really hoping this will take care of it; it feels like we’ve done a lot to reduce our propane usage and I’ll be really disappointed if everything we’ve done truly has so little effect.
December 28, 2008 at 8:18 pm (green living)
I love Christmas trees, but we’re often not around to enjoy a tree. So between that, and the expense, and the whole tree-killing thing (which I don’t actually feel that bad about, honestly), we usually end up decorating the hibiscus tree in the living room. This year, she bloomed several times while decorated, adding her own ornaments! The packages underneath are wrapped mainly in pillow cases.
December 15, 2008 at 1:16 pm (Cooking, Food preservation, Food security, Preserving Traditions, green living, local food)
So I’ve been wanting to “do something with local food” for a good long while now. This blog started as part of that desire. I’ve probably spent a couple years thinking about what I might do and trying to join in various existing efforts. None of it felt like “enough,” and none of it felt like what I really wanted to do.
I’ve thought a lot about self-sufficiency in the last year, and the most important thing I’ve learned is that self-sufficiency is not a worthwhile goal. It’s fricken’ hard, for one thing; it’s not an efficient use of human energy; and, if my household is flush and my neighbors are starving, I’m not going to be self-sufficient for long, anyway. What I’d rather strive for is community sufficiency, where we’re less dependent on produce from China but we don’t each have to have our own wheat field.
That idea and some inspiration from a whole lot of folks (for example) have gotten me thinking about starting some kind of community kitchen where we could get together, share equipment and knowledge, and build a community around good food. And I’ve decided it’s time to move forward and try to bring this around.
I’m starting small, and I’m trying to keep my expectations reasonable and flexible. Here’s what I’ve got so far, and a call for your creative brainpower, after the break: Read the rest of this entry »
December 9, 2008 at 4:21 pm (Changing habits, Musings, You must try this, green living)
I’m sure many of you know about Heifer International, which provides livestock and training to folks around the world (including the US). You can “give a gift of a flock of chickens” to a friend; your friend receives a card, and a family somewhere in the world gets the chickens.
Oxfam has a similar type of system, though their gifts include a wider range of items: not just livestock, but mosquito nets, school books, water pumps, and the like.
With both of these programs, you’re actually giving a cash donation to the organization to be distributed as need dictates. So, you’re not actually giving a hive of bees; you’re giving a cash donation roughly equivalent to the price of setting someone up with a hive of bees. In fact, your money might be used to buy five flocks of ducklings instead of a hive of bees.
I’m fine with this arrangement. The “gift” pretense makes it much more fun to personalize the gift to the recipient, and also gives the organization the latitude it needs to do its work. I trust that they will do good things with my donation; Charity Navigator gives Heifer 3 stars and Oxfam 4 stars.
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