Battleground Earth—I couldn’t make this up

I mentioned a couple of days ago in my post about organic wine that I’ve discovered a channel called Planet Green. The channel is part of the Discovery Channel family of networks, and is dedicated to sustainable living programming. I was watching again the other day when a advertisement for a new show came on, featuring Tommy Lee and Ludacris.

Seriously, I couldn’t make this up. Tommy Lee (that Tommy Lee) and Ludacris (yes, the rapper) are competing in a show called Battleground Earth. How awesome is that? Check out the description of the show:

BATTLEGROUND EARTH: LUDACRIS vs. TOMMY LEE challenges hip hop superstar Chris Ludacris Bridges and rock god Tommy Lee to battle against the toxic forces destroying Mother Earth as they travel across the country on a 10-episode tour.

Amazing! Who knew that these two guys would sign up to spread awareness with their ecorages in an effort to ‘save Mutha Earth’?

You can say what you want about Tommy Lee and Ludacris and their music. I think this is fantastic. Yes, it is cheesy and ridiculous—but everything with Tommy Lee and Ludacris is ridiculous. A combined effort? That’s off the charts! But at the same time, if someone is a fan of one of those artists watches the show and rethinks how they are living, that more than outweighs the cheese. While I don’t know any of them personally, it appears that Tommy Lee and Ludacris have lots of fans. Maybe some of them tune in and get inspired because of the star power. We can always hope!

Nicely done guys!

What’s for Dinner—Part I

It’s time for a touchy subject. Yes, it is time to talk about food. The relationship between our sources of our food and the meals that end up on our tables has never been as unclear as it is today. It has become all too easy to go to the supermarket and buy pre-packaged groceries—you never know where your food comes from, how it is produced, or the steps that went into how your food ends up in your shopping cart. And you never get to consider the effect that this has on the environment.

I’d like to talk a lot about diet and the effects of your choice of food. First, however, a quick disclaimer: moral superiority has nothing to do with this discussion. My diet was the same for 30 years, and not until the very end did I even consider the possibility of changing. I didn’t want to change my diet—I liked it just the way it was, thank you very much. Eventually, however, I started to see how empowering it was to really examine and take control of my food choices. For me, it was not a way to feel better than others. By forcing myself to make some drastic changes, I was able to think a lot about the deep connection people feel with their food.

If you want to get a reaction from someone, tell them that you don’t like what they’re eating for lunch. “How can you eat that? That looks terrible!” Nothing brings out an independent streak faster than criticism of someone’s meal. I don’t want to tell anyone else what to eat—the choice can only be made by individuals. However, I do think it’s important to know the ramifications of your choices. I hope that the reasoning behind my choices is solid enough to convince others, but my goal here is even less ambitious. I hope that people try to be more aware of their food, where it comes from, and what that means for all of us.

I have recently stopped eating meat. (I personally choose not to use the word vegetarian, opting for the somewhat passive construction of I don’t eat meat. The exact definition of vegetarianism changes depending on who you talk to, and what their particular biases are.) Not eating meat was not an easy transition for me. Not at all! I have eaten meat at most every meal since I began with solid foods. Meat is convenient, easy, and extremely satisfying. Why would I want to stop?!?

There are a lot of reasons to reduce or eliminate consumption of meat. Today I am going to concentrate on global warming. In future posts, I’ll get into some of the other reasons, and how they affect the environment directly and indirectly. But for right now, I will stick with the issue of global warming.

For me, there are few issues that could ever be considered more important than climate change. It is a massive problem without easy solution. Global warming feels like an abstract concept, because the average person can’t observe the connection between the cause and the effect. When you eat a cheeseburger, you don’t notice the temperature rise in your backyard. It doesn’t feel like a direct connection, and so it’s easy to ignore, especially when the cheeseburgers are sizzling on the grill.

Unfortunately, eating meat is a major contributor to global warming. The evidence is clear. I am going to list a number of reports that you can easily reference at the bottom that prove clearly the impact of eating meat. Methane is produced by livestock, both through their digestive process and through the storage of animal waste. Methane is far more powerful a greenhouse gas than the much talked about CO2. By some estimates, methane is responsible for as much global warming as all other greenhouse gases combined

Also, the amount of meat consumed by the human population continues to rise. As more people eat meat, we need to find more room to raise the animals. Hmm, where should we put all these beef cattle? I have an idea—how about that rainforest over there? We can cut it down and stick a beef cattle farm there. Hopefully I don’t have to tell you why it’s a bad idea to cut down all the rainforests.

One of the more interesting points I found in regards to the production of methane was in the Earth Save Report. Methane will cycle out of the atmosphere in around eight years (compared to CO2 which lasts for over a century). A reduction in methane would help reduce greenhouse gases almost immediately! By switching to some variation of a vegetarian diet, or simply by reducing the amount of meat that you consume, you can drastically and immediately help to reverse the effects of global warming. For me, this is a strong motivating factor.

Ok, well that is it for today on this topic. I don’t know that I have changed anyone’s mind just yet, but maybe I have given you one thing to think about. Eventually, I will discuss what it’s like to cut meat out, how I got through those harrowing first few days, and what to say to people who wonder where you might be getting your protein. I even have some good advice for when people try get you to admit that you are only vegetarian because your girlfriend/wife/significant other must be making you.

Some background material:
Earth Save Report
Diet, Energy and Global Warming
Can you reduce your carbon footprint with a vegan diet?
Livestock a Major Threat to Environment

The search for organic wine

If you’re like me, you like wine. A lot. I enjoy a glass of wine with dinner, or after dinner, or any other time for that matter.

A few nights ago I poured myself a glass of my favorite Noir, put my feet up, and started flipping through the electronic guide on my television. I settled on a program on the Planet Green channel called The G Word. Yes, there is a Planet Green channel, and it is exactly what it sounds like: a channel devoted entirely to programming about sustainable living and green issues. This particular episode had a fascinating segment on organic winemaking. I looked down at my glass. Why wasn’t drinking organic wine? So I’ve decided to investigate.

What is organic wine? Where can I get it? And the most frightening question: is it any good?

My first discovery was the Organic Wine Journal, a great source for the basics on organic wine. Organic wine is made using (take a guess) organic grapes. In other words, no fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, etc. are used in the production of an organic wine. To qualify as an organic wine, the winemaking techniques also have to be organic. There are winemakers that use organic grapes, but also add sulfites to their wine. Sulfites are a preservative and are common in many wines. As a result, some wine bottles will have a label that says, “Made from Organic Grapes,” which technically is not the same thing.

According to this recent article posted on the environmental news site Grist, the best wines already avoid the use of too many chemicals out of fear that the chemicals may damage the taste of the wine. So that’s good news! Although I doubt that the demand for organic wines is overwhelming right now, I’d like to think that there are good organic wines out there.

Now that I know what an organic wine is and what to look for, where do I find a bottle? Well it isn’t quite that easy. I have found a couple of promising websites, including the Organic Wine Company and Yorkville Cellars. Both sites sell wines by the bottle online, and both have wine clubs that you can join. The wine clubs sound great, but I’d like to sample a few of these wines before I make the plunge on a monthly commitment.

What about local establishments: are there any that sell organic wine by the bottle? Unfortunately, I haven’t found a lot of options so far. Trader Joe’s carries organic wine on the cheap, so I may have to check that one out. There is also a fantastic restaurant called the OtherSide. In addition to offering a wide variety of vegan and vegetarian food choices, they also carry a completely organic wine list.

So I still have some work to do—ordering a few bottles of wine online, stopping in at Trader Joe’s, eating at the OtherSide Café. I am also going to do a search of local stores to try to find if any of them carry organic wines, or if they would be willing to stock some for me. There must be good organic wine out there, I am determined to find it!

It’s just a shopping bag!

Everyone knows you are supposed to bring your own cloth bags when you go grocery shopping. When I go into Whole Foods, everyone has brought their own bags, and cloth bags for sale are displayed prominently throughout the store. I think you might actually be subject to a citizen’s arrest if you asked for plastic bags at Whole Foods! And of course this is a good thing—the more people get into the habit of bringing their own cloth bags to the supermarket, the better for all of us.

I have decided to take this idea a step further. Food is not the only thing I buy, and most items are handed over to you by a cashier in a plastic bag. What’s the difference between bringing home food in a plastic bag, and, say, the new pair of jeans I just bought? There isn’t a difference, as far as I can see.

So I am now taking my little cloth bags with my whenever I go shopping. Fortunately, I have these great bags that you can fold up, and when you zip them together, they will actually fit in my pocket (thanks Exhale Spa!). I can easily carry these bags with me when I got shopping.

Earlier this week, I hit CVS, and instead of taking the plastic bag, I put all my items in my cloth bag. Easy! Of course, most people still think this is weird. Cloth bags at the supermarket are one thing, but in a pharmacy? Maybe it’s not manly enough or something.

Yesterday I stopped by Home Deport to pick up some new light bulbs. The following exchange occurred at the cash register:

“Oh, no thanks. I don’t need a plastic bag. I brought my own bag.”

“What do you mean?”

“Uh, well… I brought my own bag, so I don’t have to use a plastic one.”

The cashier then actually tossed the light bulbs at me, which is cool because light bulbs aren’t fragile or anything. I’m not sure why she was annoyed—maybe she owns stock in a plastic company! Or maybe she was just a surly cashier. And obviously she isn’t used to people bringing their own bags to Home Depot.

Well that isn’t going to stop me. I think it makes sense, whenever possible, to avoid plastic bags. So that is what I am doing. I just hope my light bulbs still work!

Not a green thumb—but a little bit of red

As you may remember, there is now a modest little garden growing on the rusted metal of my fire escape. It is just a few plants, but it’s an experiment to see if these plants could survive out there.

Well I am happy to report the first signs of success. Little red peppers have grown on the pepper plant. They are small, but they are read and they’re growing! I am going to let them grow for a while longer, but soon I may actually be able to eat them.

I don’t know that I quite ready to become a professional gardener. Apparently there is a company in San Francisco that will come over to your house and plant a garden for you. This puts new meaning to locally grown food! This company plants, maintains, and harvests your garden for you, leaving a box of fresh, organic vegetables for you when they’re finished.

No, my fire escape garden doesn’t qualify me for that job. I don’t think, based on the evidence of a few small peppers, that anyone will be paying me to the caretaker of their garden, which is unfortunate because I’m sure they are charging a hefty fee for this service.

And while I am being honest here, I must admit that the pepper plant seems to be thriving in spite of, and not because of, my care. Take the tomato plants, growing inches from the peppers. No tomatoes have appeared on the plants, and frankly it doesn’t look like any are on their way. Despite careful watering and enough direct sunlight to make any sunbather jealous, the tomatoes haven’t sprouted.

So maybe I still don’t have a green thumb yet. But I’m happy that a couple of red peppers are growing, and at least I planted them myself, right?

The Ecobill

I logged on this morning to the Comcast website to check out my latest cable bill. I’ve been getting bills sent to me electronically for a while now, and when the new bill is due, I receive an email notification. It’s not exactly rocket science, is it? All my bills now arrive electronically, and they are all paid electronically as well. I can’t remember the last time I wrote a check—I think I have a checkbook somewhere, but I’m not exactly sure. Not only is this convenient, but it saves a lot of paper and reduces the cost to transport all that mail around the country.

I don’t know how long it has been up there, but today I noticed that Comcast now refers to their electronic bill as their “Ecobill.” Actually, they make it green, so on the website it says, “Ecobill.”

How corny is that? Calling the electronic bill an Ecobill is perhaps a bit too clever for your own good. This kind of green marketing is what annoys a lot of people. It’s the reason for ‘green fatigue.’ When someone is bombarded with so much information about going green and being green and recycling that they just give up and drift into apathy, they are suffering from green fatigue. And in America, there is nothing we do better than bombard people with too much information.

My first reaction, then, was to be slightly more annoyed with my cable company than I usually am. But you know what? I’ve changed my mind. I’m glad they are calling it an Ecobill, lime-green lettering and all. Why? Because it shows that being eco-conscious and reducing your paper waste is not incompatible with good business.

Yes, Comcast doesn’t want to send you a bill. It costs them money to print, and those stamps aren’t free either. It’s in their best interests for you to sign up for electronic payments, and if they can take advantage of people who want to go green by renaming their service the Ecobill, they’re going to do it. That is what they should be doing—they are a business. But it is also in my best interests to not write out those checks and pay $0.42 just to send in my bill.

In the end, we live in a capitalist society and we are going to need business to be a major part of creating a more sustainable world. While the Ecobill may be hokey and even a little bit annoying, it more than makes up for it in reduced paper waste. That is a trade-off I can live with.

As for green fatigue, I don’t really have any good advice for you. I mean, I am writing to you on a blog called The Going Green Project, so clearly I have not contracted green fatigue just yet. I do think it needs to be addressed, however, because green fatigue is a dangerous trend. I promise to delve into that one in more depth in the future. Until then, stay (lime-) green!

*Update -- The Paperless Office

Today I'd like to make a quick update to my promise of July 7 to reduce the amount of paper I use in the office. First, I'd like to thank Microsoft Word for the Track Changes feature. It has made my transition to on-the-computer editing a lot easier. To be honest, I have used this feature before on and off (especially when editing other people's work). But it wasn't until I made the conscious decision to reduce paper waste that I truly committed to editing on my computer.

Obviously, using Track Changes for a little over a week is hardly worth an entire update in and of itself. Careful readers of the blog, however, will remember my doubts about the office recycling. I was tipped off by an honest co-worker to the possibility that the contents of our recycle bins and our trash bins actually end up in the same place. Typically the bins are emptied around 5:45pm, so I played the role of the crazy eco-stalker.

I sat at my desk, finishing up my work for the day while reading my favorite green websites, and waited patiently for 5:45pm. As reliable as a Moscow subway train, the woman from the building staff came by at just past quarter to six. She came by with a large trash can on wheels, and I watched, rather inconspicuously, as she dumped both the recycle bins and the trash bins into her rolling catchall.

My office doesn't recycle! Or at the very least, we didn't today. So what I should I do?

1) I could talk to the buidling staff
2) I could email the building management
3) I could tell my boss, or even the president of my company

First, I plan to wait until 5:45pm again tomorrow, and see if it happens again. And then I need to figure out what to do next. Clearly, I can't allow my office to throw away all the paper we go through! How crazy is that?!?

So what should I do? If anyone has any suggestions, please comment and let me know. As always, I will keep you updated on my progress with this one. Until then, stay green!

We're All In This Together

I believe that one of the simplest, most important, and most significant ways that an individual can go green is through a reevaluation of the food they eat and where that food comes from. The subject of food is can be a highly charged emotional issue, but it is far too important to ignore. I will be venturing into the risky waters of a discussion of vegetarianism in the future, but for today I’m going to keep things a bit simpler. Today I would like to discuss Community Supported Agriculture (CSA).

What is CSA? Basically, CSA is a way for just about anyone to buy locally grown fruits and vegetables from a local farm. You purchase a share in the farm, and every week throughout the summer you can pick-up or have delivered to your home a box of fresh farm products. Not only do you get to reduce your carbon footprint and support a local farm, but you get the absolute freshest, tastiest, and best food. Yes, it’s even better than Whole Foods!

I signed up for a CSA program this spring, and began receiving shipments several weeks ago from this farm in Dartmouth, MA. I will continue to get a box delivered to my front door every Monday by the New Amsterdam Project’s tricycle trucks (check out the video on their website!).

I paid $500 for 20 weeks of deliveries. If you compare how much money you spend every week on produce, you’ll see is not too bad, considering the amount of food and the cost of delivery. If you live close enough to the farm that you can pick up your share on your own, you’ll save about $150.

Now we get to the most important part: what do you get in a weekly shipment? I’m glad you asked! I just received an email from the farm this morning, and this week my shipment includes:

• Arugula
• Onions (2 kinds)
• Zucchini
• Summer Squash
• Green Beans
• Loaf of bread
  

In the past, I’ve had fresh bread, homemade jam, farm fresh eggs, lots of greens and assorted vegetables, and some of the juiciest and best strawberries I’ve ever eaten. From week to week, you always get what’s in season. Sometimes that isn’t always easy—you may not know what you’re getting or even what it is that you have in your hand. One week I was so confused I had to scurry off to Google to find out what I was eating (they were pea tendrils that I ended up mixing in with my other salad greens).

Although I may sometimes be perplexed, I always think of the variety as a positive. You can really take advantage of the freshest ingredients. And you get to experiment with new foods and find new recipes. Being aware of what you are eating and where it comes from is essential to being an engaged person, and the CSA box can get out thinking in a number of different ways.

There are several reasons that concepts Community Supported Agriculture are becoming more popular. You always know exactly where your food is coming from, and how often can you really say that? If you aren’t sure how important that is, think about that salmonella scare we just had that made tomatoes disappear from plates across the country. Plus you’re supporting local farms and local business. And finally, you reduce your carbon footprint. Instead of travelling from Mexico or California, my produce comes from about 60 miles away.

There are of course many ways to think about your food and where it comes from. Famers’ markets are a great example. I can tell you, though, that it’s a great feeling to live in an urban area, but still be able to have farm fresh veggies on my table that were picked literally hours before. I can speak to the success that I have had with my CSA experience.

Community Supported Agriculture has started to catch on across the country, as this New York Times article on the subject proves. If you are curious about how more details on how this works, check out the Silverbrook Farms site, this Times article, or just send me an email.

Random recycling thoughts

How many things can you actually recycle? We all know to recycle our bottles, our newspapers, our plastic containers. But of course there are many other ways to be a recycler (I'm not sure that recylcer is a word, but I declare that it is a word from now on, even if Firefox insists on underlining it in red).

I found this list of 10 Things to Recycle That You Never Thought You Could. Generally I am trying to get into the habit of not simply throwing everything in the trash. Before I throw something out, I think about what other possible uses it might have. Can I donate to it charity? Could I make a buck selling it on eBay? One man's trash is another man's treasure, right?

This article is along those same lines. Some of the ideas seem more practical than others, but I like the thought process behind the article. Two of the items in particular jumped out at me: #4 (running shoes) and #6 (wine corks).

I run a lot, and as logically follows, I go through lots of running sneakers. Runners who put in a lot of miles should buy new shoes as often as every three months! I currently have 3 pairs of sneakers, all Nike Air Zoom size 13s, hanging out in the closet. They aren't bad shoes, and they are definitely still usable. So I can either donate them to Nike's Reuse a Shoe program, or send them to the Shoe4Africa program. Both look like great programs, and I won't have a growing collection of used running sneakers loitering in my closet.

I actually enjoy wine even more than I like to run. That is why I was excited to see this company that converts corks into wall and floor tiles. Of course there are many other ways to put old corks to use. May I suggest wine cork crafts?

Whether it is shoes, corks, or anything, I am working on getting into the habit of thinking about what I throw away. There are many ways to think of recycling, so be a recycler! And if this doesn't interest, I still suggest you check out page three of the above article simply for the picture of the babies sleeping in the foam packaging material!

Electricity Intelligence—hey, it may even save you some $$$

Going green is often criticized as elitist. Green behavior is accused of being a way for liberal elites and Hollywood actresses to assuage their guilt over being successful. This argument suggests that going green is a marketing scam directed towards people with too much time and money, and that it is wholly unreasonable for the regular person.

The argument that going green is elitist is without a doubt one of the worst arguments I’ve ever heard in a long time. Sure, there are lots of ‘green’ products on the shelves that cost more than regular products (not including the cost to your health of course). I also don’t doubt that some Hollywood actresses feel guilty about all sorts of things. And still, this argument against going green so fantastically misses the point, it is almost laughable.

First of all, who cares why Hollywood does anything? I generally try not to make any life decisions based on the actions of people who are stuck in some sort of eternal high school time warp that makes them do whatever it takes to be popular. Secondly, and much more importantly, going green can save you lots of money!

Reduce, reuse, recycle—even the EPA tells us to practice the 3 R’s of conservation. But which of these three is most often ignored? Reduce, of course. Reducing the amount of anything we do is tough. It just isn’t the American way. We like bigger, better, more.

However, by reducing electricity, not only are you helping to save the environment, but you are potentially saving yourself a lot of money. I recently spent some time researching different way to save electricity, and the more I read, the more obvious it becomes.

Here is a fantastic website: Saving Electricity, run by someone who appropriately calls himself Mr. Electricity. Yeah, it’s a quirky website, but the information you find here is incredibly useful (and I have done enough research to feel confident that this guy knows what he’s talking about). He does an excellent job of explaining how these electricity saving tips work, not just giving you a list of things to do and expecting you to blindly follow.

Of particular interest to me was the section on Air Conditioning. I have ceiling fans, and they are excellent. I will admit that it’s tough when the summer is at its peak to just rely on a ceiling fan, so I have a couple of window AC units. But check out the watt usage for AC units—you use almost three times the energy with a window AC as you would if you left your refrigerator door open for the same amount of time! Ouch. I also enjoyed his debunking of the myth that it is better to run your AC all day long. It is far more effective to turn your AC on at night when you get home than to leave it chugging away all day.

To start, I am going to experiment with using my ceiling fans as much as possible. If I can reduce my energy costs for the rest of the summer, perhaps I can save a good chunk of money. I’m pretty sure that a little extra money isn’t going to make me a guilty liberal, or a Hollywood actress for that matter.

If you are interested in more energy saving tips, the Saving Electricity site has tons, and not just about Air Conditioning. You might also check out this guide at treehugger.com on how to green your electricity.

What color is my thumb?

When I used to live in the suburbs, I had my own yard. Is that redundant? Does every house in the suburbs have a yard? Well my house had a yard, and it was covered with grass, and I dutifully mowed the lawn every one to five weeks. I had some flowers, but I never bothered to plant anything more adventurous. The ground was hard and dry under the grass, and the neighbors’ trees selfishly stole a lot of the sunlight. I probably could have broken a sweat and got some tomatoes into the ground, but it never quite happened.

I have always wanted to have my own garden in some misty far-off fantasy kind of way. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a garden?” In fact, I once had a cactus plant in my dorm room at prep school, and it died from lack of water. If you can kill a cactus with lack of water, you are probably not cut out for a life of farming and living off the land.

I recently read the book In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan (as a quick side note, I am a big fan of that book and will write a post about it at some point, so think of this as a coming attraction of sorts). The book touches on my issues, but near the end Pollan suggests that everyone should try to have their own garden. Whether it is a full-on garden in your backyard, or a plot in the city, or just some plants on the back porch of your apartment, a garden connects you with the earth. It almost literally grounds you.

Is this important? I think so. It fosters respect for the planet, for the fragility of all the life on the planet, and for the source of our food.

That is why I know have several tomato plants, pepper plants, and basil plants growing on the fire escape of my apartment. So far the experiment hasn’t been a smashing success. The plants are all still alive, but I’m not sure if they are the healthiest crop on the East Coast. I was hoping that the CO2 from the nearby highway might give them extra nutrients. Perhaps it doesn’t work that way, exactly.

So maybe I don’t exactly have a green thumb—not yet anyway. Right now I am just going for survival with the plants out back. But I do know that I smile every time that I look out at them on the fire escape. It’s a much nicer sight than a rusty ladder, and I always find myself rooting for them to grow and to flourish.

So come on, baby plants, don’t be like my old dorm room cactus. I promise to water you!

Recycle Your Shopping Bags, Conan

Paper or plastic?

Remember when you were confronted with this question on every trip to the grocery store? Well now there is no excuse to use either paper or plastic. Nothing could be more fashionable than reusable shopping bags. You can buy them at just about any grocery store nowadays, and you don’t have to worry about what to do with all those plastic or paper bags anymore. And unless you believe in a literal interpretation of the movie American Beauty, you won’t miss the sight all those plastic bags floating around your hometown.

We have several different cloth shopping bags, but my favorite is the Whole Foods cloth bag. I basically fit half my week’s groceries in this one, and it has a handy over the shoulder strap.

Not only do I use these cloth bags for groceries, but I have started bringing them to work every day. I used to get plastic bags at the store, and then reuse those to bring my lunch to work. Since I use my cloth bag to get the food home, it makes perfect sense to use the bag to bring the food to work.

The added bonus is that I can out-green other people on the train in the morning. With my cloth bag strapped over my shoulder, I am clearly the coolest/most environmentally conscious person on the T—at least in my own mind anyway.

One group of people I cannot claim to out-green is the band Radiohead (and, yes, I realize that segue was a stretch, but trust me it’s worth it). Radiohead performed on Conan O’Brien back in April, but instead of traveling to New York, they chose to tape the performance in London. According to Thom Yorke, traveling in a trans-Atlantic jet is the CO2 equivalent of driving your car for an entire year!

I think the song, House of Cards, is one of the best off their new album, but it’s worth checking out this video if only for the sound advice on shopping bags they give to Conan at the beginning. You should be able to find the video of the performance here on the NBC website, and it is under Most Watched. Enjoy!

The Paperless Office

I returned from my enjoyable indulgent 4th of July weekend yesterday, and today it was back to work. As I sat I my desk, chewing on my bagel, I wondered what the next steps in the Going Green Project should be. I've started the blog, written an introduction, and spun out a few stories. Ok, so have I been doing anything "green" lately? I suppose that is an appropriate question to ask at this point.

I thought about this briefly, before putting it to the back of my mind and getting to work. My job involves a lot of editing and writing, so I often print my work, mark it up with your standard issue red pen, and then make the changes on my computer. Printing everything out is just how I work, and like all of us, I am a creature of habit.

After a morning at my desk, red ink on my hands, I tossed all the morning's printouts into the recycle bin. Then quite simply I realized what I was doing. I was printing out page after page every day. Why? Did I really need to be printing so much?

Yes, I was recycling all the paper I was printing out, and that's important. That didn't change the fact that I didn't need to be printing that much. There will be times when I have to print something out, and I will be sure to recycle when I am done. However, from now on, I will stop all the needless printing from my desk. I'll adjust my habits, and do my editing on the computer, which is where it needs to get done anyway.

I do not know the quantifiable effects of this action. I am not really sure if it accomplishes a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. But it's an easy thing I can do to be more conscious of the waste I create. It will force me to change a small habit in my daily life, and start focusing on what I need instead of what I am used to doing.

I realize this may not strike anyone as a monumental step, but that's probably because you've never seen how much I print out. (And just between us, I am not entirely sure that the recycle bins and the trash bins in my office don't end up in the same place, but that is an investigative piece for a future post.) So I am going to try. No more printing.

The paperless office here I come!

A 4th of July Story

A quick 4th of July story that made me smile:

On the afternoon of July 4, I was walking down the streets of Falmouth, wandering through the red, white, and blue that decorated the windows, storefronts, and people. I had rummaged through my drawer in the morning looking for a t-shirt with an American flag or an eagle or something patriotic, but I had nothing of the sort. I decided to go with my green t-shirt with the simple and universal recycle symbol. No, I was not making a particularly controversial statement, but I was probably not going to look like the most overtly patriotic person in Falmouth, either.

As I strolled through the quaint and typically American town center, I crossed the path of a mother out for a stroll with her twin sons. Both blonde and seemingly adopted directly from a Norman Rockwell painting, the twins were about seven or eight years old. Their mother was pushing them in a sleek stroller—one that was apparently designed with a jogging mother of twins in mind.

I noticed as I passed the stroller that one of the boys was staring intently at my t-shirt. Just as I got a step beyond them, I could hear the boy ask his mother, “Mom, what is that guy doing with the recycling sign on his shirt?”

If I was impressed with the boy’s ability to recognize the symbol on my shirt, it was his mother’s response that really made me smile. “Well, dear, some people think that recycling is important. In fact, I believe we should all think that recycling is important.”

As I passed out of earshot, the conversation had already turned to Uncle Sam and why some people had chosen to wear fake white beards and tall stars-and-stripes hats. The mother’s response, though, stuck in my mind for a while longer, as I tried to convince myself that, just maybe, a symbol of respect for the world and the environment might be considered patriotic, too.

A Change in Thinking

We have a long way to go before we start living in harmony with our planet, but not every step along the way has to change the world. I came across this fascinating article in the New Yorker called The Island in the Wind. Here is a story about a small Danish community that was able to shift their paradigm of energy consumption. In just a decade, this island community in the North Sea changed their perceptions and eventually their actions. Through conservation, ingenuity, and a somewhat strange contest put on by the Danish Ministry of Environment and Energy, the community now produces ten percent more energy than it consumes.

The story told in this article is important not because it provides a blueprint for all communities, or because of the overall reduction of CO2 emissions in Denmark. Instead, it shows how a self-professed ‘conservative farming community’ can re-think something as basic as energy consumption. Once the framework is readjusted, change not only follows—it flourishes.

Reading about the pride that a farmer in Denmark feels when he climbs the ladders of his own turbine makes me optimistic. Small steps, to be sure, but steps nonetheless.

My First Step... and I didn't even know it

What was my first step in going green?

It happened about a year ago, and I was not thinking about going green. To be honest, my first step was made out of necessity more than anything else. What did I do?

I sold my car.

For most Americans, getting rid of your car is next to impossible. How do you live in the suburbs without a vehicle? Try to make sense of the suburban sprawl, as Donald Fagen might say.

In 2008, though, the world will quietly reach a significant milestone: For the first time in history, more than half its human population, 3.3 billion people, will be living in urban areas. Urban living has become a reality for more and more people. Sure, urbanization may not sound like a move towards green living. City life is often associated with pollution and poor air quality. That may be true to a certain extent, but don’t be deceived. Think about transportation. Public transportation, car sharing, even a bicycle—these are all ways to be green.

No, I didn’t sell my car because I was trying to be green. Not at all. I sold my car for less noble reasons. I was going through a divorce, and I needed the money. Those of you who know me might be laughing right now. The car I sold was a ten year old Geo Prism—hardly the type of vehicle that brings a large financial windfall! At the time, though, every little bit counted, and the money I got for the car, plus the money I saved in gas and insurance all added up. And this was before $4 a gallon gas.

I sold my car when I moved to the city, and of course that made it a lot easier. I signed up for Zipcar, and if I need a vehicle, I can rent one on an hourly basis. I commute to work on the subway, and I now have a bike that I hope to start using (it has a flat tire at the moment, so we must get that fixed first!). I don’t have to pay car insurance, and I never worry about my car being towed, or moving it for street sweeping, or snow emergencies. I never have to worry about a car breaking down, and I never worry about it failing to start in the winter.

I thought I would miss my car a lot more than I have. Since I was sixteen years old, I have relied on my car. Come to think of it, I was obsessed with getting my license and the promise that came with it from the age of thirteen. Letting go of my car was tough, but it’s funny how quick you adapt. And while I didn’t realize it at the time, I was drastically reducing my carbon footprint. There are a lot of sites that will help you calculate yours, and you can see the impact of driving your car.

My first step towards being green was done entirely in my own self-interest, but looking back it was in many ways one of the hardest steps to take. Let’s just call it a happy accident.

How is this going to work?

A Method to the Madness?
Enough with the rambling introduction and the quasi-philosophical mumbo-jumbo—how is this going to work? You say you are going green, but how do you plan to do it? Do you even have a plan?

Those are some excellent questions with a simple answer: I don’t know. I do not know how this is going to work, I am not sure where I will get my information, and I do not have a timeframe. I will not be creating an arbitrary system to follow.

I want to leave the process open-ended because discovering how to go green is what this project is all about. I could set up some rules, follow some guidelines, and have a happy conclusion in __ months, but I am going to resist the urge to do so. I want to discover the best way to go green, and I expect that much of the value and fun of this experience will be uncovering those secrets.

Six months ago I was not living a green life. I wasn’t wasteful, and I always considered “the environment” at the top of the issues I cared about. But what actions did I take? None, unless you want to count “not littering in my local parks and playgrounds” as an action. Sure, I didn’t own a factory or knowingly dump any industrial chemicals into the ground. Beyond that, I was fairly comfortable in my typically convenient American lifestyle.

This record is essentially about my discoveries as a novice who is attempting to go green. I have no experience or basis for creating my own unique going green plan, and I don’t want to simply copy someone’s plans and recommendations. As a result, I will probably come up with some stupid ideas and some impractical tasks. I welcome suggestions and feedback, so if you see something on here that is incomplete, backwards, or just plan wrong, let me know! I am not an authority on the subject, just someone who is anxious to learn more.