Karen’s Earth Day September 4, 2007

Hello everyone! I’m back from my mountain escape, and I apologize my long summer silence. For my first post back, I’m going to use someone else’s words. One year ago this August my dear sister Karen watched An Inconvenient Truth for the first time, and it truly changed her life. Over the last year I’ve seen how her internal, even spiritual, shift in her relationship to the planet has manifested as a real commitment to greener living – under circumstances much more stressful than my own. Karen recently posted on her blog a tribute to the changes and challenges brought by seeing the film. Below, a few excerpts for your enjoyment; or pop over to needsnewbatteries.blogspot.com.

“My daily grind, my environmental discipline these days, reminds me of a spiritual commitment, to tithe, to pray, to meditate, to fast, to forgo, to sacrifice. One does these things solely for a benefit that can’t be held in one’ s hand. Learning to clean with vinegar and baking soda proved to be both easy and incredibly money saving. Giving up paper towels, very much harder to do, and let us not discuss diapers here. I. just. can’t. But, I might in the future…I just might.

This is a not abnormal scene in my life: baby needs Motrin for teeth. Oh, we need a new bottle, nothing in this one. Okay, rinse it out in bathroom sink. Check the bottom of the bottle: it’s a 2, 2s go downstairs. Put bottle on bathroom counter. Okay, open new bottle. It’s in a small cardboard box. Thin filmy plastic surrounds it. Deep breath. I cannot recycle this plastic here, yet. Deep breath. It goes in the trashcan in the bathroom. Small cardboard box – small ray of light, I can recycle this. It has to go downstairs to recycling. Open Motrin. Dose fussy baby who then requires nap. Return to bathroom, retrieve recycling from sink and take downstairs…

…The chores have become for me an exercise in mindfulness, of doing the steps, each in its turn, aware the result is bigger than the steps. I bring to this process a history of silent prayer, a little yoga practice and the mindfulness training that one teaches oneself for natural childbirth. Becoming part of the process, knowing the result is bigger than me and my tiny actions: a Motrin bottle chucked on a pile of beer bottles, the tending of green things, the delicate balance of shopping bags, paper recycling, vinegar rinse in the sink, three boys squashed together in a tub, in a car, laughing, loving, bickering, squawking, looking hopefully ahead to a planet with glaciers, mountains, rain forests, desserts, birds, fish, and trees.”

Save Our Forests! July 9, 2007

A couple of posts back I made reference to ‘the Sheryl Crow effect’ by which I meant the media buzz surrounding her denouncement of toilet paper. In a subtle and insidious way, these news stories implied that an attack on toilet paper was at best over-zealous and at worst just plain nutty. At the time I agreed with the idea that toilet paper was not a major player in the current environmental crisis. After all, we really do need it. Alternatives are either uncomfortable or unsanitary. And how much harm can a few squares cause? Answer: A great deal. I just read an article on the NRDC website about big company’s paper product production and the facts are really sad. Destruction of millions of acres of forests, the replacement of diverse forest land with single species plantations, as well as a complete lack of recycled materials in grocery store brand paper products. I urge you to read the article: http://www.nrdc.org/land/forests/tissue.asp It was actually the first article about the environment that has hit me on a purely emotional level. I just imagined all those forest animals with no place to live as well as the unnecessary death of thousands of beautiful trees. It has inspired me to buy toilet paper that’s been made from recycled material, that’s for sure. I think 7th Generation is a pretty good company on that front, but if anybody has any other recommendations, I’m open.

Trains July 1, 2007

I’ve been entertaining an out of town guest for the week and it got me thinking about…trains!
I just read that trains are the most environmentally responsible of the gas burning modes of transportation. As someone who recently moved from a city that relies almost entirely on trains (NYC); to a city that is almost entirely devoid of ANY public transportation (L.A.), I have no trouble believing this. Trains are fast and convenient; they reduce traffic gridlock, carbon emissions, and noise pollution, and, they are cool looking. So why has this country’s train system gone to the dogs!!!??!! Training it almost anywhere in the US is so much more expensive than flying; and most of the trains in use are not of the super fast variety that would encourage train use. My biggest beef of the day however is not about periodic long distance travel, but everyday commuting. Specifically, my problem concerns the still fairly new L.A. metro system. I got on one for the first time this week. Nice, new, quiet, fast and yet—nobody rides them! There just aren’t enough lines and stops for people to use it as anything other than a novelty. But commuter trains save fuel! Tons and tons of fuel! Not to mention the pollution that gets trapped in the valleys of L.A. is down right gross. So here’s my question: how can we get some of those Al Gore Environmental Concert dollars to build a fully viable underground train system, thus dramatically reducing automobile use and fuel emissions among Los Angelians? Ok, I know this isn’t very realistic, but L.A. needs a complete transportation overhaul!
Here’s a link to an interesting and relatively short article about the benefits of trains and why it seems this country has dropped the ball.
https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/dspace/bitstream/1794/3753/2/ushsgt.pdf