Green Options

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If the revolution isn’t fun, you’re doing it wrong.

I often wonder what people imagine when they hear I’m trying to live environmentally sustainably for three months.  Do they picture me living in a tree, hunting rabbits and eating grass?  Do they think “oh, I could never do that for myself,” or do they think I’m lying?

Sure, establishing and maintaining a sustainable lifestyle goes against the grain.  It can be draining, and it may not be possible to implement the chosen lifestyle modifications in your expected timeframe, which can be discouraging.

But to innovate a way of living that is in keeping with your ideals can be the most empowering thing you ever do.  Sustainable living is creative–it will always require imagination and a good dose of gumption.  It gets you “out there,” doing new and radical things that you may have never thought you would do.  That, my friends, is living!

My friend Nick listens thoughtfully as I tell my sob story.

“The film is too stressful,” I say. “I am always running around. I am never able to be where I want to be.”

He shakes his head. “That’s not very sustainable, Caroline.”

I look at him, puzzled. “What do you mean?” I say.

“I mean, for you.”

I gazed at him. How irrelevant!, I thought, but the thought quickly passed. He’s right. How can I expect others to join me in an environmentally-sustainable revolution… if even I’m not having any fun doing it?

This is the story I want to pass along. This is what I want people to learn from my three-month sustainable living experiment. I’m more at peace now, knowing that teaching others exactly how to live more sustainably themselves is a secondary goal. Rather, I’m interested in conveying even more valuable knowledge than that: what I went through while trying to maintain this lifestyle.

I learned that I need to be gentle to myself. I learned that in order to love Mother Nature, you must love the most intimate manifestation of her you will ever know: yourself.

The jury is in: the most sustainable way to feed yourself is to grow your own food.

There are many factors considered when evaluating food sustainability.  The primary concern is: what is the ratio between how much land is used, and how many calories are produced?  

In asking this question, we can immediately eliminate meat from our sustainable diets.  Pigs and cows are extraordinarily “inefficient converters of grain energy to calories,” as put by the executive director of Steel City Biofuels, speaking generally about fuel efficiency.  In her presentation about Organic Farming during Pittsburgh’s Farm to Table Conference 2008, Dr. Patricia DeMarco, executive director of the Rachel Carson Homestead, noted that raising meat in the U.S. comprises 79% of all agricultural resource usage.  While the health benefits of going vegan will be endlessly debated, at least doing so will be much more healthful for our environment.

The next question naturally becomes: how can we grow food in a way that nourishes the soil, produces a vast yield in a little space, and is maintained by nature?

Surprisingly, all of the above is easy to do, if you’re using the right methods.  John Jeavon’s book “How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible” describes the biointensive method: growing food tightly together in ways that foster symbiotic relationships between plants, like those that would organically occur in nature.  For instance, marigolds ward off common insect pests for their companion plants, tomatoes.  But biointensive gardening is more than just knowing companion plant lists and spacing maps.

Birth control methods. There are many, but the two most common forms are the condom and the hormonal pill. Can these products be manufactured sustainably?

If not… who cares?

There is something I would like to add to list of “things I would never give up, even if sustainable solutions are never found.”

The first thing I mentioned in my second post with Sustainablog.  In “An Evil Kind of Green,” I concede the importance of Western medicine after the immediate relief it gives me from a severe poison ivy rash.

The second is along the same lines…

Based on my grasp of the environmental situation we face right now, it matters little if birth control pills cannot be manufactured in a sustainable way, or if some excess estrogens may be leaked into waterways as a result. The number one factor that needs to be brought under control as soon as possible is… just how many of us there are around.

This past weekend signified the very middle of my venture to live 100% environmentally sustainably.  To mark the occasion, I unwittingly placed myself in a situation where every one of my interactions and experiences emphasized my unique new mindset.

I spent the weekend on a camping trip with three of my buddies from college.  

Camping?  Yes, it’s a bit redundant: I live in a tent.  What is appealing about a weekend doing the same?  Well, I envisioned a change of pace, a change of scenery, and some good times with old friends.  What I got instead transcended that simplistic vision, but it was a powerfully emotional experience.

Their comfort levels--with bugs, rain, and physical discomfort–differed vastly from mine.  

Their concept of “camping“–purchasing huge amounts of camping junk, like metal pokers and lawn chairs, then tossing many useful things out at the end of the weekend–clashed with my own.  

Their idea of how to start a campfire–lighter fluid and plastic packaging–baffled and bewildered me. 

Whenever I tried to offer an insight, which had been gleaned directly from my six weeks so far of using many of the same techniques, I was ignored.  It soon dawned on me that they didn’t want to know efficient or respectful techniques for fire-starting or cooking or understanding the plants around them.  

They were “playing camp.”  

–

My attitude and understanding of sustainable living have shifted drastically since I began this project, in a way that could only be provided by a direct experience.  Ideology clashes with reality, and in the heat of that conflict, a new identity may be forged.

The experts are continually skeptical whether what I am doing indeed constitutes 100% environmental sustainability.  Alex, executive editor at WorldChanging.com, noted that I was not taking into consideration “ecological impacts living in the U.S. creates but over which [I] have no control,” such as road pavings and the war in Iraq.  Without some kind of “offsetting measure,” I am thereby failing to meet 100% sustainability.

I am not so much concerned with the question, “Am I living 100% sustainably?” anymore, as I am with “Are my efforts making a difference?”   I have no reliable way to measure the former.  On the other hand, the latter proposition can have definitive results.

Picture this.  It’s the first day of trying to live 100% environmentally sustainably.  You are in a constant hyper-alert state about what you choose to do.  You bike to work… doing good.  You eat only from sustainable venues… doing great!  And then… catastrophe.

The porcelain gods are angry with you.

This is the story of my hard lesson about living sustainably in America in 2008, which has since transformed my approach to the sustainable living project.  It came in the form of a toilet.  

The World Health Organization recommended in its 2000 report on global water that “at least 20 liters per person per day from a source within one kilometer of the user’s home” be considered the basic measure of rightful access to fresh water[1].  Of course, fresh water natural resources vary from region to region.  

There is one thing Pittsburghers can agree upon, besides the greatness of the Penguins or Steelers. That is: “there’s way more bikes on the road this year, aren’t there?”

Indeed there are. Whether it’s for economic reasons, or the result of a growing green consciousness, I am one of hundreds of Pittsburgh bicyclists taking to the streets this year.

When I was transitioning into living sustainably, I thought I’d hate bicycling for transportation. But in just a few days, I realized what many other bicyclists in my community have realized, too: that I would honestly never want to travel any other way.

There’s so many benefits to bicycling! In a previous post, I mentioned that biking earned me the healthiest body I have ever had. There’s more than that, however.

In addition to conserving money, what about conserving time? Especially if you work a 9 to 5 job, you can get to work and home again at even half the rate of the cars stuck in traffic. Nothing feels quite so good as whizzing past long strings of cars, idling at red lights, in the downtown district.

There’s several mulberry trees growing nearby my tent, where I am camping for three months in an effort to approach 100% environmental sustainability for myself. I was wonderfully relieved to discover that the trees near me are in fact Red Mulberry trees, a native species! This is in contrast to Paper Mulberry trees, which are an invasive species in many places, including Western Pennsylvania. I can hardly wait for them to ripen.

Since embarking on this three-month challenge, I have been thrilled to realize that I now know so much more about the plants in my locality. At a glance, I am becoming able to identify which plants are Virginia Creeper, Garlic Mustard and Poison Ivy, whereas I once would have glanced at the forest floor and called it “green.”

I will author a life that causes as little harm as possible, and provides as much usefulness to humanity as I can. This involves using my skills (as a filmmaker), but it also involves using my unskilled self: I must be willing to learn how to implement many practices from different sources, and be willing to take risks with my body and emotions.

I am a 21-year old white female film student who just graduated from college in Pittsburgh, PA. This is my sustainability.

Sustainability is trying to figure out whether the ecosystem that brought me into existence can sustain my existence indefinitely. This statement is entirely reflective of how I live my life. The issue relates principally to how much unsupported waste I generate by being alive. Therefore, the biggest elements of sustainability today are: reusing materials, limiting consumption and growing a knowledge base.

Sustainability is open-ended. It is creative. And when it is happening right now, it is called radical.