—

“It’s only irrelevant in the context of one who still feels entitled to the comforts and privileges that being white in Western civilization has afforded her.”

Overall, I think the most crucial component of changing the world is not privilege: it is responsibility. As someone who was born into a world with social systems favoring her, it is my responsibility to address and counteract these effects. As someone who enjoys the benefits (but not the costs) of systems that hurt the environment for future generations, I have the responsibility to try to undo the harm done in my name or the name of the dollar I spend.

You disparage psychology, but I believe that our shared psychological needs-take Maslow’s pyramid, for example-absolutely influences the immediate decision-making process of every human being. For Americans, it means that we often don’t opt to do the most responsible thing, if it is not also the most convenient and most personally-positive thing as well. Once again, this all goes back to perspective-if a hot shower feels good to me immediately, and I will never feel the worldwide damage that such an action causes, then I can hide from such knowledge and forgive myself for a single shower. With millions of people making such inner decisions-in situations with varying stakes-well, most of us can see the problem we are facing now.

I think psychology will be key, too, in fixing this little biological oversight-we can create social systems which enforce a global responsibility in personal situations (where our limited perspectives are failing us). If we can unite on truly valuing the Earth’s biosphere, then we as people, as lawmakers, can create systems of justice-environmental justice-that as validly as possible account for additions and subtractions of valuable assets within the Earth’s limited resources. This idea may sound radical-but it is amazingly simple. Often, the average person forgets that he or she is a lawmaker-that laws are not sacred nor eternal. People make them and break them according to their needs.

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…Inhabiting it uses no energy–neither heating nor cooling is an issue.  While it might seem like it at first, a tent is not just a summer option…  Look like cramped quarters?

Well, it’s big enough to sleep in and to store my clothes in.  And that’s all I need.  It means I will be spending more time outside, in nature…

Plus, unlike in an apartment, I have the ability to develop my home in unlimited ways!  Stay tuned for later episodes that show how I modify and enhance my living space to be more and more manageable, including temperature control, comfort and additional amenties.”

Dear Readers,

Sust Enable was my dearest fantasy.  Sust Enable meant that I would solve the entire world’s problem of environmental sustainability all by myself.  In an urban setting and with no money.  What’s more, I’d do so while producing a film about it!  Take that, thousands of years of environmental degradation!

For those of you who have followed my tumultuous three-month sustainable living experiment through my blog posts here at Sustainablog, you may think the quoted text above is a strange thing to say, or even bizarrely humorous.  Indeed it is.  Above is the exact wording of my original script to the Sust Enable episode on Shelter, last updated sometime in May.  As I sit in the video editing suite listening over my previously recorded voiceover, I cannot help but laugh out loud at the absurd, unsubstantiated statements I am making.  But these are sour laughs.

Because once, I believed these statements were true.

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Thank you for welcoming me back after an extended hiatus travelling our great American countryside.  Burned out from the stresses of the Sust Enable project, my partner Scott and I took off for the great wilds of U.S. National Parks in early August.  I haven’t written a blog since, as my adventures swept me far from the reaches of the Internet, for the most part.  Now I am back in Pittsburgh, not living sustainably, yet still reeling from the life lessons reaped from the past four months.

I anticipated having a slew of breathtaking photographs to offer you, alongside commentary from the trip in which I reflected on our often-severed connection with nature, and the deep wisdom such a connection provides.  Instead, one night while we camped in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, our video and digital camera were stolen from the glovebox of Scott’s car.  In the middle of a peaceful campsite, in which the sense of goodwill invoked a dozen campers to leave their car doors unlocked that night, a band of thiefs took advantage, slipped in after dark, and robbed a handful of people… not only of material possessions, but of their precious trip memories.

I wept inconsolably when I learned that the camera which held our trip photographs had been taken from us.  I cared little for the money-cost of these items, but I couldn’t stop hurting from the void that the thief left in me–having robbed me of the potential for life-long memories.

Memories surely live on in one’s mind… but as an avid student of the sciences, psychology easily reminds me that minds distort experiences.  I was hoping to use the photographs from our trip as a guideline for revisiting the feelings and sights that this wonderful trip stirred in me.  That hope is gone now, exchanged for a fleeting handful of cash to another.

And so, in the middle of my meditations on how the entire human race might be unified if we each and all had the opportunity to pause in the arms of nature’s bounty… I was sharply reminded with a single malicious act… that we have much further to go before then.

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Special thanks to Jeff Strasburg for helping us indulge our imaginations in this series!  I’d also like to extend my gratitude to Justin for engaging me in this form.  It has been edifying to explore concepts about sustainability.  I hope that the readers of this “debate” have enjoyed the process as well, and I know I speak for Justin when I say: we welcome all comments!  This a dialog, a free exchange of ideas, so tell us yours and help to fuel the mutual inspiration.

(Author’s Note: I include the image above not only because, figuratively speaking, the “sun is setting” on our Sustainability dialog, but also because I will be travelling westward-ho! throughout the United States until the beginning of September.  My objective is to get some relief from my high-technology-based lifestyle right now, so the vacation will heavily consist of camping in national parks.  Therefore, I will blog if I am able to during this time, but if not… be prepared for both the Sust Enable episode debuts AND a bona fide blogging bonanza upon my return in early September.)

Without further ado,

Here are my final thoughts, in conclusion.

1) If you can learn to modify your life to be as close to environmental sustainability as possible, it is necessary that you proceed to do so. The human will is one of the most powerful–and dangerous–elements on the planet.  At first glance, it might feel like “too much” to give up using a flush toilet (just for an example).  But is it really?  Think about the idea.  Get familiar with it.  Picture what it would look like to use a composting toilet in your home.  Maybe start with a little one, to be used only sometimes.  Soon, the consequences may not seem all that daunting. There is always a choice. 

Don’t let your true identity and dreams for what the world could be become casualties of conforming.  You only have one life, so use it, in the most effective ways visible.  If many individuals decided that, deep in their hearts, ecocide felt wrong to them, that many persons when taken together comprise a mutiny against old, obsolete customs and beliefs.  Your little action today plays a role in a social revolution, of the “green” kind.

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You make some very effective arguments! You are right to use my own posts in illustrating your thoughts.  Granted, those posts, written toward the end of the Sust Enable project, demonstrate that my original concept of Sust Enable did not pan out because its original assumptions were flawed.  Indeed, for other people to have success with living sustainably, they must be gentle, have fun, and go slow… three things that I failed to consider for myself when undertaking the “radical” experiment.

I think the strongest point you make with your last post is the importance of living in a way that honors your own health and wellbeing, not just the Earth’s.   This is something that I’ve learned to consider the hard way, through the tribulations of the Sust Enable project (during which I ran up against my own physical limits of hunger, sleeplessness, and stress).  I completely agree with that: respect for yourself, as a living being with needs, comes first in making a healthy approach toward respecting the Earth and other living systems.

However, I recognize that our level of comfort is learned–it is borrowed from the culture that surrounds us.  It is by no means an “absolute” measure of comfort or happiness.  Even our very venues for acquiring what you and I need to survive are hugely affected by the culture we were born into.  People in Third World and sometimes Second World countries live sustainably every day–and in my experience when visiting Mexico, are considerably happier than the average American.  Is this because they have struck a good balance between respecting the natural world and their own personal patterns, in ways that over-worked, over-stressed and over-consumptive Americans can only dream of?  It’s a theory.

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I deeply appreciate your thoughts and your comments from “Towards a (Re)Definition of Sustainability - #1″.  I can tell that this is something you’ve been chewing on!  Me too.

I believe that changing a million lightbulbs to CFLs is absolutely NOT sustainable, because CFLs are currently (and probably will never be) manufactured sustainably, and so that option is simply unacceptable in terms of one-Earth sustainability.  It may be more “green,” but it’s only an excuse to continue exploiting the Earth and its priceless natural arrangement.  Besides, what are the benefits of using more electricity versus not putting more and more mercury into our landfills and environments due to CFLs?  I’d like to see those numbers, too.

I think I seem radical (and truly, some of what I’ve tried has been too intense for me to even handle) because I demand sustainability NOW, and reinforce that sustainability can be possible NOW.  You are correct in saying that, in terms of basic “impact,” 10 people living off the grid makes less of a global difference than 1,000 people changing lightbulbs.  But will using “green” lightbulbs–or any kind of lightbulbs at all!–ever be one-Earth sustainable?

For more on this same kind of lens/perspective, check out Derrick Jensen.  He argues that, for instance, using less gasoline doesn’t mean all the gasoline won’t get used up.  We are simply attempting feel-good tactics to remove ourselves from the guilt that comes with this awareness: that we are utterly dooming ourselves and all of life on Earth by our worldwide actions.

So what’s the trade-off there: a life that’s slightly more inconvenient (but possibly more satisfying) that allows for life on Earth and a thriving ecosystem… or one single lifetime that is convenient, comfy and luxurious, at the expense of hundreds of lifetimes to come?  

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In Robin Shreeve’s provocative article, “Whose Responsibility is Sustainable Consumerism?”, she champions the youngest generation’s recognition that the responsibility for our actions lies with us individually, not mainly with corporations.  Three months ago, I would have toasted to her conclusion.  (Of course, I then believed we don’t need corporations whatsoever and we could live without them and be sustainable.)  Today, however, my reaction to Robin’s article is different.  I’m inclined to deeply disagree.

During the sustainable living experiment called the Sust Enable Film Project (which concludes by midnight today), I would argue that I succeeded in living sustainably less than a dozen days of the 3-month project.  Does this fact disappoint me?  At first, it did.  But I will tell you why my experiment failed.

There are systems in the United States–for getting food, for getting rid of our trash, for flushing away our body wastes–that collectively (and historically), we have all agreed to adopt and abide by.  They seem(ed) like the best solutions for problems we all face, and as a society (through the government) wereinforce these systems.  This was clear to me every time I flushed a public toilet, and another huge chunk was subtracted from my sustainable water use for the day.  This became even clearer when I learned that many sustainable living methods–such as dumpster diving, squatting, and building a composting toilet–are outright illegal in many towns.

Doing something illegal (like dumpster diving) if it seems right to you… that’s one thing.  Civil disobedience: often harmless, functional, and a true expression of freedom.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  But going hungry because the society-subverting alternatives are more difficult, demanding or have greater consequences than the unsustainable, mainstream options?

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“Businesses and politicians have no part whatsoever to play in the solution: it is all about individual ‘non-civilians’.”

-Keith Farnish

The Sust Enable webcast series was spawned in a climax of understanding… years of myriad input and countless bits of information collected over time at once coalesced into one artistic, complex and beautiful vision.  I’ve never experienced anything else quite like it.  This is why I sometimes refer to the project as my “opus”–it artistically expresses and defines who I was before this period.  Who I will be after, too, is forever altered by the work’s creation.  Like giving birth to a living being, the act of creation transcends your own capacity to control it.

I can only imagine that Keith Farnish’s comprehensive A Matter of Scale was a similar labor of love.  One can sense the author’s own expressive burst in the feverish love with which he forms his ideas.

A Matter of Scale is an e-Book only; not yet a typical “print” book.  This could be for a number of reasons.  It could be the author’s environmental concerns of tree-felling for books.  Then, it could be the crux of his whole philosophy of taking personal responsibility for the actions affecting our global ecosystem.  But one thing is certain–A Matter of Scale is unpublished certainly NOT due to its lack of quality insight and urgent information.  For its own modest scale and scope, it packs a wallop.

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Well, possibly.  No one yet knows what role quality sleep plays in one’s life, or whether one could die from sleep deprivation.

But if it weren’t for the Couchsurfing.com network, I would be–more or less–homeless.

Since I gleefully waved goodbye to my soggy, moldy tent in mid-July, I’ve been faced with the dilemma of… well, now where do I sleep?  For a week or so, I was wearing out my welcome at my friend’s houses and at my boyfriend’s place (whose sleep schedule is around 5 hours off of mine).  Realizing that this was causing inordinate stress, both on me and on the parties involved, I knew I had to find a semi-permanent solution.

With no cash and no lease, where would I stay?  Enter: Couchsurfing.

When I first heard about CouchSurfing, I had the same instant, emotional reaction I had when I heard about Free Ride: the oh, this is way too cool to be true! feeling.  Of course, as with the other projects that I have blissfully filled my life with, it was true… and so cool I felt compelled to participate.

CouchSurfing is a website that connects travellers who need shelter for a brief stay, with hosts who wish to welcome them.  It is rare that someone will CouchSurf within their own city–yet that was exactly my situation after my grimy tent became more like a prison sentence than a home.  

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A couple days ago, I recounted my story about how I was forced to abandon my abode (a small tent) due to a blight of mold.  The old children’s song of the first lyric is what Pittsburgh’s been singin’ all summer.  The second is a little ditty I’ve been singin’, ever since I kissed that tent goodbye.

I haven’t tossed the tent in the garbage (that wouldn’t be very sustainable!)  I do plan on redeeming it: even if it ends up stained by the mold, its function shouldn’t be reduced by the event.  Since my close encounter of the fungal kind, I’ve been doing research about methods for removing mold.  Read on for sustainable solutions for dealing with moldy clothing.

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“F*** sustainability. I just want a bed.”

—

Dear Readers,

The Mili-Tent is a bust.

On May 1, 2008, I moved into a tent in the woods within Pittsburgh, PA. It was in my mind an easy solution to a complicated problem: that of how to dwell sustainably.

Without the time nor interest in building a more permanent shelter, I figured a reused item (like a good old tent) would do the trick. A tent fulfills several principles of sustainable living:

• Reduce the size you take up. A 6′ x 7′ tent is the perfect example of how humans can downsize, leaving more space for other living creatures and ecosystems.
• Get outside more. Living in such a small space, that can truly only accommodate sleeping, requires that I step outside more, and consider the outside world and my community interactions more like “home” than my own four walls.
• Use sustainable materials. Naturally, a synthetic, petroleum based tent is NOT sustainably produced… but working with what you have on hand, and bringing no new materials into the world is a good option.

In retrospect, my ideal dwelling would be a small den, similar in size to a tent, constructed out of cob or another type of sustainable building material. This would have prevented the issues that proved fatal to the tent as a home alternative… but it would have meant a greater time and financial commitment.

In my early drafts of scripts for Sust Enable episodes, I was all set to trumpet the virtues and benefits of living in a tent. It’s not so hard!, my scripts said. I’m living an optimal, comfortable life! …The words ended up being far too ironic to even be funny. I suppose that’s what happens when you translate vision into reality sometimes. My lesson, however unflattering to me, is an important one to share.

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The clock is ticking. On Wednesday, I am to shoot a segment for the Sust Enable film project in which I construct a draft box (alternative to a refrigerator), solar cooker (alternative to a stove/oven), and hot water solar shower, in order to illustrate how easy and cheap it is to build such items for the average person. Once applied, these technologies can divert significant amounts of energy that would normally come from the plugs in your home, to free energy provided by the sun and wind. (Of course, the issue of winter and weather conditions arises, but I believe that every little applied creative technology helps in the approach toward sustainable living.)

But there is one obstacle looming… can I overcome it in the hours before the shoot begins?

How do I sustainably acquire the necessary materials?

If I am claiming to live a 100% sustainable lifestyle, then certainly I cannot acquire anything new–all supplies must be redeemed from the waste stream of others. Or must they? I began to realize that the likelihood of me garbage-picking a 55-gallon drum, spigots, fixtures, tools, aluminum foil and black hose was rather slim in the time frame given, and with the transportation resources I have (i.e., a bike).

Hence, I must consider the tradeoff of my actions as thoroughly as I can. What are the consequences of the manufacturing of a metal spigot, bought new from Home Depot? What’s the tradeoff if I were to continue to use conventional hot water heaters for all of my showers for the next few years of my life?

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Lately, I’ve been writing about lessons learned during my three-month sustainable living experiment.  Most of them are not concrete facts, but rather emotional insights which came to the forefront when the stresses of my new lifestyle began taking their toll.

Welcome to my most significant understanding: that developing an environmentally sustainable lifestyle MUST be personal, too.  It must reflect the individual.  It is not a one-size-fits-all game plan for green living.  There’s an unfortunate popular “Wonder Diet” mindset pervading American media, which says:

1. There IS one solution.
2. It’s painless and requires no real effort or commitment.
3. It’s quick and tidy–no mess!

I realize I made a mistake in planning for my Sust Enable project by embodying some of these cultural concepts of media in MY media.  For the sake of being easily recognizable and gimmicky, I assigned a strict deadline to my sustainable living project, thus making it sound more like a game show than the life-changing experience it has been.

Three months exactly.  From Day One to Day 92.  A riveting progression from novice to expert, from struggle to smooth sailing.  

Don’t do what I did.

If you are to be successful in your sustainable living venture, your actions need to come organically out of your motivations.  Your goals will shift over time.  You will realize what is feasible for you and what is not; what you need help with and what you can push yourself to do.  

Am I expected to stop living as close to 100% environmentally sustainable as possible once August 1st clocks over?  And when did I really begin?

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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!

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“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.

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The jury is in

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.

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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.

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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.”  

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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.

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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.  

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