I often think about how ‘feel good’ a one-stop shop online would be if it could really answer my call for Style. Just imagine, eco-friendly cosmetics, jewellery, clothing, all the things every girl looks for, under a single cyber roof. Folks, I have good news: Eco Zen Boutique, a socially conscious, Arizona based green fashion boutique owned and operated by eco-preneur Tandy Stepp, has recently opened a new online store at ecozenboutique.com.
To wrap up my ode to John Henry (and a more sustainable lifestyle) I am going to cover a few more everyday household plug-ins by giving the current ON the grid offering, it’s OFF the grid alternative, and weigh in on whether a switch is warranted.
ON
The Fridge: We all know what it does and why we use it–so what are the OFF the grid alternatives?
OFF
The Fridge: William “The Refrigerator” Perry, former defensive lineman for my beloved 1985 Super Bowl Champion Chicago Bears. You could try contacting him to see if he’ll deliver fresh food to your door on a daily basis. I understand he’s not very busy these days.
OFF
Jarring and canning fruits and vegetables to preserve for the winter months may save some space in the fridge, but cannot replace the fridge altogether.
SWITCH?
Realistically, it’s not likely. However, the size of refrigerators in this country is insane. My parents have an enormous fridge and regularly come across 3 year old cheeses and meats that get lost under piles of their newer/fresher replacements. In lieu of a switch to William Perry (we can’t all use him–it’s simply unrealistic) we can buy a smaller, energy efficient fridge, fill it with less food (eat fresher food), and keep the door open for very short intervals (know what you’re getting before you open it). A few generations back, families typically had more members yet much smaller fridges, so it can be done–and you’ll benefit from fresher fare.
Note: My inspiration for posting this is attributable to the many radically creative and excellent ideas in Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden and Your Neighborhood into a Community by H.C. Flores.
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?
Having discussed one way to be compassionate in your home by safely catching a fly, I feel compelled to be of even more assistance in helping you to be a kind, friendly presence outside of your own abode as well. So now that you are well practiced in the fine art of catching and caring for critters of all makes and models, I hope you are ready, willing, able, and eager to go out and practice some more random acts of kindness.
And as someone who loves gardening, from the toil of clearing a plot and weeding the rows to the belly-filling delight come harvest time, I thought I would share some tips on how you can be a compassionate, caring, careful gardener.
This is particularly important, too, since even small family gardens can become places of profound natural tragedy, places of mass murder and intensive pollution, places of blood, sweat, and tears. Ironically, gardens can often be the least “green” when the plants in them are shining with the deepest, richest shades of green.
And the main reason for these instances of terror and destruction and death? One word: VARMINTS.
Yessir, critters, pests, thieves…call them what you will. They come in many forms, and they seem to come at every moment, nibbling and draining and infesting and infecting and basically ruining everything that you plan to enjoy. Yes’m, the varmints launch a perpetual (seemingly organized and strategic) assault on your goodly little garden…and so appropriate countermeasures surely seem justified.
But, alas, most of these countermeasures employed on any scale are far from careful, far from compassionate, and extremely far from sustainable or natural or eco-friendly. Just go into any garden center or hardware store and look at the panoply of pesticides, sitting there as an ingredient in a witches’ brew with other chemical fertilizers and enhancers. You may start to feel dizzy even before opening one and inhaling the fumes!
So, then, how can you make your garden green in the healthiest, most sustainable and ecologically friendly ways? How can you be a careful gardener and a small-scale steward on your own little plot? How can you save lives even as you nourish your and your family’s (and maybe even your whole neighborhood’s!) lives? Here are just a few ways you can garden green to get a green garden.
Take it easy. Go slow. Take your time.
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:
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?
Enjoying a favorite beer shouldn’t get anyone panicky about his ecological footprint, and serious beer manufacturers who are also eco-savvy are taking stock of the impact your beer may be making on the environment.
And for those whose throats never run dry too often, that should give you the more reason to enjoy a drink at dinner or drop by your local joint and order a round or two, to celebrate a triumph for the environment - seeing more and more corporates even in the beer manufacturing industry adopt an agenda to reduce their carbon footprint.
So when East African Breweries or EABL, manufacturers of the world famous Tusker beer, and recently, Senator beer, announced the formation of a fully fledged Green Team to score eco-points for their newly launched Green Goals project, it marked a significant milestone.
With Fourth of July just a few days away, I bet that many of you are getting all geared up and stocked up for a celebration of some sort. Be it a barbeque, a trip, a fireworks display, or some other means of declaring your independence from work, the long weekend ahead will likely require gathering adequate provisions to keep the festivities lively and the revelers happy.
With this certain demand, our faithful suppliers are getting geared up and stocked up as well. So as you head down the aisle of your local grocery store or supercenter or what have you, you are sure to encounter lots of possible choices for what to spend your money on. And I can guarantee that most of them will be disposable. Plastic or paper plates, plastic cups, plastic utensils (including the beloved spork), paper napkins and tissues, plastic garbage and grocery bags, styrofoam or plastic coolers, etc., etc., etc. The list is endless…and this is only for party favors!
I do as much as I can to conserve resources and live sustainably. I remember at one family holiday smorgasbord, I believe it was Thanksgiving, I cunningly hid all of the plastic plates, cups, and utensils in a trunk in the closet in order to force my family to use the real, washable ones instead. No one was very happy with me, though I did convince one aunt to play along and stand up in my defense, but by using the normal stuff we reduced the amount of trash that day significantly compared to usual holidays. (And yes, for you cynics out there, I did indeed help out doing the dishes!)
Despite my ecological consciousness and consumer conscience, and despite my stratagems to thwart the forces of disposability, I cringe at the many disposable items that I still use in my own home. For example, disposable razors. These oh-so-convenient, many-to-a-pack, everything’s-a-dollar mainstays of male grooming seem rather benign at first glance (unless you nick yourself shaving, of course). Yet each one consists mostly of plastic, which is made from petroleum, and after a few shaves that plastic and the metal goes into the trash…and so on then to a landfill where it sits amidst all the other non-biodegradable garbage into perpetuity.
We have heard about China’s air quality and pollution woes recently in the media , especially as the start of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games approaches. A new report released last week adds yet another dimension to China’s environmental concerns.
According to a report entitled Beijing’s Water Crisis: 1949—2008 Olympics, published by Probe International, China’s policy of transferring water from draught-ridden neighborhoods to the nation’s capital in order to meet water needs for the upcoming Olympics is harming China’s environment and local farming economies.
Moreover, the abuse of water supplies contradicts the games’ “green” theme and supposed commitment to sustainability.
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!
The idea of a sabbath, a period of rest from work or whatever, is something no longer exclusive to Jews and Christians. However, in its original biblical context, the ancient Hebrews also extended this idea of a period of rest to their farming practices by letting their fields “go wild” every seventh year. The precedent for this, a direct command from their God to Moses on Mount Sinai, is recorded in Leviticus 25:2-7:
Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the LORD. Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land. And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee, And for thy cattle, and for the beast that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meat.1
Like the people and even their God, then, the farmlands were given time to rest from their productive toil, to rebuild their strength in order to be fruitful again after the period of rest so that they might yield bountiful harvests for years to come. As the ancient Hebrews restrained from working their fields, they honored their God and the land itself.
I mention this practice of a “sabbath of the land,” almost entirely forgotten in modern farming (and especially in agribusiness), because it provides a potentially useful paradigm for more than just agriculture. It also provides a good model for us today, for how we might live sensibly and sustainably in a time when natural resources are threatened and the Earth is endangered, at least to some degree, by human actions.
There are many sustainable options when it comes to putting food on the table, from eating organic to choosing locally grown foods to avoiding animal products. But there’s nothing quite as truly sustainable, satisfying, and tasty as growing your own organic food. What follows is my homegrown experience in community gardening.
After traveling around in a veggie oil and biodiesel powered “volksvegan” for most of last year, I was eager to have a garden again (not to mention an actual kitchen). It didn’t take long in our small town to find a wonderful non-profit organization teaching organic food production classes and get involved. Before long we were starting seeds in a greenhouse, not quite sure where we’d be planting them when they were sprouted. Luckily, the organization, Noyo Food Forest, was just breaking ground on a new community garden, and we jumped at the chance to get our hands dirty and grow some organic food.
Our gardening experience in coastal Northern California has been quite an experiment. After growing up in the hotter and dryer climate of Idaho, gardening on the coast took some getting used to. But we discovered that with some fertile soil, organic seeds, a few helpful people, and the labors of love, we could grow a bounty of fresh organic produce and community at the same time.
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