Green Holiday Gift Guide

The holidays are hard on the environment. In the US, people generate 25 percent more trash between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day -- including uneaten food, giftwrap, packaging, decorations, and last year's phones and computers. Then there are the unwanted gifts that people don't know what to do with, many of which also end up in the trash.

It's time to rethink gift-giving. Regifting can be a positive thing. An older family member who was downsizing gave me a lovely wooden salad bowl one year. It became a treasure. If you're just passing on something that the recipient won't want and can't use, it's not going to be appreciated, but regifting can be done thoughtfully and tactfully.

It's time to rethink giftwrap. My family has a long history of wrapping gifts in paper tied with ribbon, no tape used, that can then easily be saved for another year. We also cut taped paper and re-use that. One year, my mother sewed a bunch of cloth gift bags. I usually use gift bags with tissue paper -- with a little care, endlessly reusable.

But with those caveats, we want to give gifts to our loved ones. So, a few thoughts.

Don't go overboard. I'll admit, I like to have a little gift for my son for every day of Hanukah. One day it might be the skateboard or commuter bag he's had his eye on. Another day it might be a shirt or a hoodie I think he'll like. Other days, it will be a snack or treat of some sort. But I try to keep most of it low-key, and a combination of food he'll enjoy, clothes he can wear, and stuff he's been wanting. 

I know some folks appreciate it more than others, but I often make a charitable donation in lieu of a physical gift. Planned Parenthood, Heifer International, and the Sierra Club are some of the organizations I've supported in this way, but that's something that has to be personalized to both giver and recipient.

Another alternative is to give green products, and this is also a way to communicate with friends and family members about why you're doing this. You might give shade grown coffee, responsibly sourced tea, or ethically grown chocolate, with an explanation of what fair trade and environmentally responsible farming practices mean. 

If you're going to buy someone clothing, save up for a quality piece that will last, both in terms of construction and fashion, and look for a company with policies friendly to both labor and environment. 

Beware of green-washing. Overconsumption is a major driver of climate crisis, and even "green" products have production and transportation related emissions.

And don't forget folks who can't afford to give their families gifts. Consider making a donation to an organization that helps poor people at the holidays. And then vote in politicians who will raise the minimum wage and enact single-payer health insurance and make other inroads into the American scourge of poverty.

Just keep thinking. The holidays are stressful for all kinds of reasons. But try to keep environmental issues in sight as well. Other ideas? Please post in the comments, and I'll update.

Mitigation, or Retreat?

Climate crisis is driven by the drive for constantly expanding profits and markets and the assumption that the earth’s resources are limitless. This letter is being sent to California homeowners in areas at risk of fire:

This is ugly, and represents the market- and profit-driven expectations of capitalism taken to their extremes. The insurance industry is refusing to insure those who need it most. The fires are caused in the immediate sense by greedy power-company executives who chose profits over equipment maintenance, but the droughts promoted by human activities over recent decades created the conditions that enable them.

But we are not going to be able to stop drought and flooding and other effects of climate change, and in some cases we are going to need to retreat from areas that we have destroyed or placed at high risk of fire and flood. If the insurance companies drive this because they are accurately assessing risk when no one else is, it’s tragic in the short term but may help us find a way forward in the medium and long terms. Which is, literally, cruel irony.

Action at Different Scales

Yesterday, I sat in a faculty meeting concerning the fate of our first year seminar (it lost) while fighting the urge to jump up and point out that it was 94 degrees outside, demolishing the previous record for October 2 in our coastal town, which will surely be threatened in coming decades by rising seas.

I went home and sat outside my house in the remnants of the day’s heat. I read the day’s news out of Washington, pondering what looks like the collapse of the American experiment in democracy, and scrolled social media posts about the explosion in medieval studies, with senior scholars (white and privileged) ignoring or outright denying the need for changes in how we teach and talk about our discipline given its roots in British imperial expansionism and its current appeal to white supremacists.

I heard squealing. Two squirrels were fighting, and when I got up to investigate, the larger squirrel fled, leaving the smaller one nearly unconscious.

My partner wrapped the little guy in a piece of old towel and deposited her / him in the crotch of a tree to recover. When we investigated an hour or so later, she looked brighter of eye, but frightened by flashlight-wielding humans. By morning she was gone. The scrap of towel was undisturbed, and we hoped she had scurried away under her own power, rather than being taken by a hunter seeking weakened prey, or a scavenger.

In the face of what looks like impending global catastrophe on both climatological and political grounds, it seems ridiculous to worry about squirrels or professors fighting for territory. It seems pointless to plant a few flowers to support the local monarch butterfly population when global systems appear to be on the verge of collapse.

But I think it’s precisely because catastrophe seems so imminent that it’s important to keep attending to the small things. Being able to hold in mind and heart the fate of the smallest beings keeps me from getting lost in the whirlwind of terrifying global events. Helps keep me from losing faith in the possibilities for positive change. Maybe, too, it keeps me human.

I didn’t get a photo of the little squirrel. But here’s a chipmunk that visited my back yard a few weeks ago. Stay grounded, y’all.

Wildlife-Friendly Flowers and Shrubs

This post is written as part 2 of a series to help students in my First Year Seminar course at Monmouth University, Humans and the Environment, to understand and participate in our ecological restoration project at Ross Lake Park in Long Branch, NJ.

In the first part of the project, students removed aggressive invasive species, focusing on Japanese knotweed, porcelain berry, multiflora rose, and oriental bittersweet, and in the process revealing oak  and pinchberry seedlings as well as native flowers that were being choked out by the faster-growing vines and other invasives.

In part 2, they planted several varieties of native flowers and shrubs that support pollinator species of bees and butterflies, and also provide haven for the numerous insects needed by native and migratory birds. Many native plants are quick to establish themselves, growing back from roots year after year as well as reseeding themselves, and are ideal as the base of a food chain that supports the growth of numerous varieties of insects that in turn feed cardinals, wrens, and woodpeckers, among many other species of birds either local to New Jersey or that migrate along the New Jersey coast.

 boneset

 brown-eyed susan

 coneflower (echinacea)

 goldenrod (foreground) and boneset

 jewelweed

 milkweed

 mountain mint

 New England aster

phlox

For more information, visit the Native Plant Finder website, where you can enter a zip code for anywhere in the US and get information based on the research of Dr. Doug Tallamy, who is an expert on the science of interactions between insects and plants (and Professor and Chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware).

All photos courtesy of Catherine N. Duckett, Associate Dean, School of Science at Monmouth University, whose research is on evolutionary entomology.

Identifying and Removing Aggressive Invasive Species

This is written for students in Humans and the Environment, a first-year seminar at Monmouth University in central New Jersey, but may be helpful for others working to shift their lawns toward species that support local and migrating pollinators and birds.

Students in class undertake a two-day "ecological restoration project." Part one is removal of invasive species and part two is planting native flowers and shrubs. On day one, we will focus on four different invasive species that have colonized the park.

Japanese Knotweed (native to Japan)

Note the large leaves that alternate along the stem, red bamboo-like stems, and small white flowers. Japanese knotweed flowers in late summer to early fall. In spring and early summer, the leaves are red.

Porcelain berry (native to Siberia)

Porcelain berry has five-sided leaves of various forms, long, branching vines, and tough stems. Whitish berries appear in midsummer and ripen to purple and blue. Porcelain berry has long branching taproots that are quite difficult to pull up, especially once established.

Multiflora Rose (native to China, Japan, and Korea)

This is a thin-stemmed bramble with small but tough thorns requiring leather gloves to remove. It has small flowers in mid-summer and small fruits later in the season.

Oriental Bittersweet (native to China)

Oriental bittersweet has medium sized, medium green leaves with a pronounced point.

Long, tough vines climb the trunks and branches of trees, blocking sun and choking them out.

Tools and Information

Tools include gloves, pitchforks, shovels, and clippers. For more information about these and other aggressive invasive species, see the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Fact Sheet.

All photos courtesy of Catherine N. Duckett, Associate Dean, School of Science, Monmouth University, whose research specialization is evolutionary entomology.

Media Fail to Explain Climate Crisis Role in Weather Events

From Public Citizen, via email. Key information: 7.2 percent of television coverage and 2.5 percent of news coverage in the top television stations and newspapers mentioned climate change in coverage of Hurricane Dorian.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Although Hurricane Dorian exemplifies what climate scientists have warned about, major U.S. media outlets are failing to connect the climate crisis to the strongest Atlantic storm ever to hit land, a Public Citizen analysis shows.

Scientists say that global warming makes hurricanes intensify faster, dump more rain and move more slowly. All these things have happened with Dorian; it has moved over water that is warmer than usual, intensified at an unprecedented rate, dumped 24 inches of rain on parts of the Bahamas and slowed to a crawl, moving at as little as 1 mile per hour.

But between Friday and Monday, climate or global warming was mentioned in just 7.2% of the 167 pieces on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC and Fox. The top 49 newspapers by circulation didn’t do much better. Of them, 32 covered Dorian in their print editions, but only eight papers connected Dorian to climate. Of 363 articles about Dorian in those papers’ print editions, just nine (2.5%) mentioned climate change.

“It is mind-boggling that major media outlets can report about a storm of epic proportions that is exactly what climate scientists have warned about yet fail to mention two key words: ‘climate change,” said Allison Fisher, outreach director for Public Citizen’s Energy Program. “We can’t address the looming climate catastrophe if we aren’t talking about it.”

Meanwhile, Dorian is still lingering over the Bahamas, and damage reports are still coming in. The storm is growing and will head next to the East Coast of the U.S. As reporters cover this story, Public Citizen is urging them to include climate change.

Public Citizen’s analysis was a snapshot; it didn’t include online stories, and because of a limitation of the database, it didn’t include the Wall Street Journal. Because Public Citizen looked at top papers by circulation, many significant local dailies were not included, such as The Palm Beach Post and The Post and Courier in South Carolina. The same is true of papers that cover Capitol Hill, like The Hill, Politico and Roll Call. This analysis also does not include radio, local television or online news articles.

The results are in line with media coverage of Hurricanes Florence and Michael last year. A Public Citizen survey found that of the 24,968 total pieces mentioning Hurricanes Florence and Michael in 2018, climate change was mentioned in only 10% of online news pieces, 8% of television news transcripts and 5% of print news articles. This was, however, an improvement from 2017, when the rates were 6% for online media and television and 3% for newspapers.

Medieval Ecocriticisms: CFP

Medieval Ecocriticsms at ICMS: CFP

Medieval Ecocriticisms seeks submissions on the theme of “ecological embodiment” for a roundtable session at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, May 7-10, 2020. 

How do human differences impact how individuals and communities interact with the environment? We seek position statements on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual identity and orientation, and/or dis/ability.

Please note that individuals can present at both a roundtable and a traditional paper session at Kalamazoo.

Expanded papers will be considered for submission in Medieval Ecocriticisms, the journal published by Amsterdam University Press.

Contact: Heide Estes, hestes@monmouth.edu, or medievalecocriticism@gmail.com

Deadline: August 30

Environmental Commitment Project

Dr. Heide Estes, Professor, Department of English, and Dr. Catherine Duckett, Associate Dean, School of Education, Monmouth University

This project is assigned in our team taught First Year Seminar, Humans and the Environment, which combines literary study with climate science to help students to understand climate science -- and how they can be part of the solution.

_____________________________________________________________________

Rationale: Your development as a citizen is one of the many goals of a liberal education. Taking responsibility for one’s contributions, both positive and negative, is part of being a citizen and an adult. In this course, we want to encourage civic engagement by asking you to think about how you can make a contribution to improving the environment. Habits require practice; your project involves making a semester-long commitment to changing some aspect of your daily or weekly activity in a way that is environmentally constructive. Because feedback and support from others is helpful, we have structured this assignment as an ecampus discussion and hope you will use this as an opportunity to get to know one other.

Instructions: For this project, you will choose a project involving making an environmentally informed commitment to change your habits. You will document this project during the semester by posting updates on eCampus in September, at the beginning of the project, and in October, approximately at the midpoint. At the end of the semester you will use your updates as data to write a reflective paper. In your initial post, your midterm update, and your final reflective paper, explain how your project helps the environment.

For the first ecampus post you will describe, in 400-500 words, the commitment you have chosen, explain how you anticipate it will improve the environment, discuss what changes you need to make in daily or weekly routines in order to succeed, and think ahead to possible challenges in maintaining your commitment. NO FLUFF! Provide a one-sentence introduction, at most two sentences of conclusion, and make every word count.

After you have submitted your ecampus post, read what your classmates have posted. React to three different posts from classmates: have you learned something from their posts? Do you have advice for them? Are you intrigued by their choice of commitment? Don’t just say “hi” or “that’s a good project” -- for credit for a response, you need to add to the conversation.

Grading
Your eCampus post will be graded on thorough attention to the instructions, careful explanation of your project, thoughtful analysis of potential pitfalls, and good use of detail to support your ideas, as well as on organization, conciseness, and mechanical accuracy.

 Some possible projects:

● Reduce your meat consumption. Limit the amount you eat at every meal, or pick a meal or a day every week to eat vegan or vegetarian
● Write a letter to an elected official twice a month demanding environmentally responsible policies
● Limit food waste: buy what you will eat, and eat what you buy
● If you live at home, turn down the thermostat in the winter or up in the summer
● Buy clothes only from thrift shops for the semester—or, don’t buy any clothing atall
● Purchase a reusable water bottle and coffee cup and skip disposables
● If you live within walking distance of campus or work, pick a day a week to walk orbike instead of driving
● Avoid food packaging, for instance from take-out food, and by choosing lowestpackaging options at the supermarket
● Reduce electric consumption by turning off lights, switching to LED bulbs,unplugging unused appliances, and similar activities. Bonus: Get a solar or hand-crank generator to power your smartphone, or organize a competition between MU dormitories to see which one can reduce electrical consumption the most.
● Reduce your waste stream. Reuse, recycle, repurpose, rethink how much garbage you’re contributing to the local landfills every day and how you can cut back.

If you choose a different project, please consult with one of the instructors for the course.

Humans and the Environment: Syllabus

Dr. Catherine Duckett, Associate Dean, School of Science

Dr. Heide Estes, Professor, Department of English

Monmouth University

This course integrates perspectives from literature and biology in investigating contemporary climate issues. Students are challenged to understand the impacts of rising atmospheric and oceanic carbon concentrations in long-term ecological perspectives, to learn about the recent history of climate science debates, and to understand how literature can help to understand the development of current attitudes about environmental issues. Course assignments include a personal environmental project and letters to public officials or news media to encourage students to engage with civic engagement and the ethics of climate decisions.

Readings and Web Sites

Gaines, Susan M. Carbon Dreams. Creative Arts Press, 2001.

Hawken, Paul. Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global

Warming. Penguin Books, 2017.

Robert Frost, "A Brook in the City" (1923)

Earth System Science Partnership, Global Carbon Atlas. Global Carbon Project, 2001-2018.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute, EarthViewer app. HHMI Biointeractive, 2012-2017.

Schmittner, Andreas. Introduction to Climate Change. Open Oregon State, no date.

Tallamy, Doug. Bringing Nature Home, 2007. “Why Insects Can’t Eat Alien Plants” and “Blending in

with the Neighbors.”

United Nations report No 2013/3: "Demographic Components of Future Population Growth," K. Andreev, V. Kontorova, J. Bongaarts.

“The Day the Mesozoic Died: The Asteroid that Killed the Dinosaurs.” Howard Hughes Medical

Institute. 

“How do greenhouse gases actually work?” @minuteearth, YouTube

“The Wolves of Yellowstone” BBC Natural World

“Some Animals Are More Equal than Others: Keystone Species and Trophic Cascades” HHMI

Interactive.

Assignments 

Environmental Commitment Project 

Ecological Restoration Project 

Carbon Atlas Project 

Final Project: What Should We Do?

Prince Edward Island By Bike

I just found notes on my phone from a bike trip on Prince Edward Island several years ago. I had thought to put individual posts with photos on the blog, but never got to it. Here you go, as dictated into my phone in the tent along the way. The notes end the day before we finished the trip. The pedal broke again, on an uphill, and the boy wiped out, but was uninjured, and we made it back to our car without further incident.

PEI TRIP

Day One. Monday August 15 North Cape Coastal Drive, 50 miles. Jacques Cartier Provincial Park to Mill River

We left NYC on  Saturday  morning. Google thought it was a 13 hour drive to Charlottetown, where we'd meet George, who would drive us to the northwest end of the island. But between traffic, gas stops, and an apparent time warp, after nearly 13 hour we were in Nova Scotia with six hours left to drive. And as we were setting up our (new) tent for the first time (in the dark), it started to rain. 

By morning, it was still raining, with no sign of letting up, so we decided there was no point in rushing the drive just so we could bike in the rain. So George dropped us off at Jacques Cartier provincial park in the evening and we fixed some supper and went to sleep. 

In the morning we rode north and west 28 km along the coast to North Cape where we had lunch and walked to the lighthouse and helped gather stones so the offspring could build a tower. We turned with to ride the road on the west side of the cape making good time until I heard the snap of a broken spoke. I duct-taped it into place and took the downhills slow, and we rode to St. Edward, where Paul Dalton keeps a shop in his basement. 

Paul, it turns out, doesn't just repair bikes but rides them, long distances. He's not sure, but he thinks he might be the only person who's ever ridden two Ultraman triathlons in one summer -- with an Ironman in between. An Ironman is a 2 mile swim, a 120 mile bike ride, and a marathon -- 26.2 mile run. An Ultraman is twice that. He also bicycled from Vancouver to Newfoundland  couple of years back, 4200 miles in 57 days. 

Paul replaced the spoke, trued the wheel, and gave us water for the dog. It was late in the afternoon so Paul suggested we take route 2, the main route through the the center of the island, to save time. He assured us it had a paved break down lane and would be safe. Trucks indeed slowed down before passing us, as did many cars, most of whom also gave us a very wide berth. We arrived at Mill River Campground long enough  before dark to cook our meal. 

Day two, August 16. Confederation Trail, Mill river to Linkletter. 40 miles. 

When I heard about the confederation Trail, a rails to trails path that runs from one end of PEI to the other, I assumed it would be packed--kids, dogs, parents with strollers, hikers, bikers out for an hour or two. But it turns out to be empty. We see half a dozen other people all day and we ride in silence away from the road, the only sounds our own conversation, the breeze in the trees, and birdsong. Goldenrod and Queen Anne's lace and purple flowers I don't know line the path, and the air smells divine: fir trees, camomile, clover, freshly cut wood, and hay. Also the occasional skunk and dairy farm. 

We make an early stop in O'Leary and finally find gas for our stove, for which we've  been searching since we arrived in Canada. (For reasons I don't understand, you can't buy the stuff in NYC. The Mate, who does the camp cooking, has been valiantly producing meals over a can of Sterno, so this is a happy moment. 

The Offspring calls, Stop! and The Mate and I stop. Are you okay?  He points: "raspberries!" We stop and forage; it turns out there are also blackberries. Off the vine in the sun is, as far as I'm concerned, the only way to eat blackberries, and these are divine. 

Riding on the packed gravel surface of the trail is more comfortable, but slower, than road riding, and it takes us seven hours to rise the 40 miles to Linkletter, our next stop. We arrive hungry and tired. 

Day 3 August 17 Linkletter to Cabot Point. Rain.  25 miles

We wake to rain, persistent and soaking. After two fairly long days a rest day might be nice. We bring breakfast into a little shack with a picnic table and study our maps and contemplate our options. A younger couple turns up, suited up in full rain gear and ready to go. They're also towing a dog trailer and Jojo says hi to their puppy. 

We don't have proper rain gear on this trip, but by midday we're getting restless so we pack up and ride to town for lunch. Three miles with a headwind driving rain into our faces and we're wondering if we should just turn back. But after a big meal and lots of hot tea we are feeling rejuvenated and the sky is a little brighter so we press on. 

The first half of today's ride is on the Confederation Trail again. There's a town at our halfway point and we stop for groceries. Briefly, the sun comes out. 

I discover that my overloaded rear wheel has been churning up gravel and my rear brake, both derailleurs, chain, and cog set are covered in gravel. I rinse it off as best I can with plain water, but I really need WD-40 followed by White Lightning dry lube.  My chain makes crunching noises for the rest of the day. 

Then it's back to drizzle. Today is a short day, though, and we make it to Cabot Point Provincial Park in the late afternoon, with enough time to do laundry and get organized.

Like all of the provincial parks, this one has an area for bikers, with campsites separated from the cars and RVs. Our tent is surrounded by thick fir trees. The rain has finally stopped and the moon is near full and I can hear the wind in the trees and the surf in the distance. 

Day 4, August 18, Central Coastal Drive. Cabot Point to Cavendish. 20 miles. 

I'm happy to be back on roads after a day and a half on gravel, which makes for slower travel, plus my gears are still grinding away. After yesterday's ride in the chilly rain, I'm famished. Bananas, orange juice, half a package of cookies, nuts, dried fruit--we're all burning calories like crazy. I'm getting tired of eating. 

Today's roads prove hilly. We have some glorious downhills and some labored hauls back up. Since The Mate is towing Jojo in his trailer, I've got the stove, two cook sets,  camping gas, and all our food. We're both loaded more heavily than usual and we're feeling it. 

Traffic is also heavier here as we approach the birthplace of Lucy Maud Montgomery and the places she described inAnne of Green Gables. A car peels by us going way too fast around a blind curve, the driver leaning on the horn. The license plate tells us the car is from off island. Later we're passed by twelve members of Quebec's Hell's Angels, all in need of mufflers. When the next car is a pickup towing a camper, it's an unusual relief.

We stop at a campground in PEI national park, pitch our tent by the beach, and go for a swim. The water is much warmer than what we're used to on the Maine coast--heavenly. The rain comes in and there's thunder in the distance, and the beach clears.

The Mate and The Offspring decide to ride two miles into town after dinner. While they're out, thunder rolls in again , this time closer and louder and clouds rolling in across the ocean. In a hear the rain on the water and I run to the toilets. While I'm there, the clouds break and I get soaked running back to the tent. A gust of wind flattens the tent as Jojo cowers and I worry about the guys. The rain blows over and I take some photos of the sunset. Right about dark, the guys show up. They'd been sheltered at the ice cream place during the downpour and then biked back from town. 

Day 5, August 19. Cavendish to Stanhope. Bike paths in PEI National Park, plus Route 6 between. 20 miles. 

The guys bought a can of WD-40 on their trip into town and I empty the whole thing onto my chain and derailleurs, getting them reasonably clean. I'm able to ride without constant grinding and crunching sounds. 

The down side: every night in a campsite is a crapshoot. If our tent is downwind of someone's campfire, I end up breathing a lot of smoke. Last night, I lost. The campground was dense and full and lots of people were keeping fires burning through the rain and there's a huge amount of smoke everywhere and it gives me an asthma attack.  I wake repeatedly in the night dreaming I'm drowning and keep taking more medicine.  By morning my lungs are clear but I'm exhausted and it's a tough day's ride. 

We ride along the coast on a paved bike bath in PEI National Park, our nicest ride so far on the trip. But to get to the next section of the path, we have to ride along Route 6, one of the most heavily traveled roads we've been on. As usual, most of the drivers slow down and give us plenty of room, but the occasional truck or RV passes hair-raisingly close. We return to the bike path but the eastern segment isn't as beautiful as the earlier part and we're exhausted from riding in traffic on choppy up and down hills and we cut the day short. 

Day 6 Aug 20 Confederation Trail, Stanhope to St. Peter, 35 miles

Our neighbor last night made a completely smokeless fire, using the trick of raising the fire ring -- like many in OEI's campgrounds, consisting of a truck wheel-- with a small log, allowing the fire to draw. 

We finished out the bike trail in the national park and then went back onto route 6. Traffic was lighter, maybe because of where we were, maybe because it was Saturday morning. But we turned off onto a road with a three digit number and it was seriously quiet and moved back to the Confederation Trail.

The section we rode today is supposed to be the most beautiful section, and it was lovely, but in my opinion not more so than the other sections we've ridden. More birches, less spruce. Lots of wild roses, but all gone by; maybe in season they make that section particularly nice. Raspberries in profusion. Wide open fields of blueberries with signs warning against trespassing. We see more cyclists today, including some other families, but the trail is still very quiet. 

Travelers Inn in Mt. Stewart was playing Supertramp, made us salads with hummus and some of the best home fries ever, and was adorned with huge paintings of women that looked like mug shots. It turns out they are, sort of: they're painted after mugshots of Australian convicts from the 1930s. Creepy and compelling. 

We stopped at a pizza place for gluten free pizzas and subs. While Fhe Mate and The Offspring ordered I sat outside nibbling almonds and keeping The Animal company. A guy roared in on his lawnmower, rode up to the pump, filled it up, and roared back off. Meanwhile an eagle circled overhead. We've also seen great blue herons, blue jays, rabbits, ducks and geese, gulls, and various birds I can't identify. 

We're stronger than we were when we started riding, making better time and riding more comfortably. I'm sleeping soundly and I've almost completely forgotten about the US presidential election. I had the opportunity tonight to get on wifi, but decided I don't have any interest in looking at email or Facebook and I definitely don't want to know what The Donald has been up to. 

Day 7. Confederation Trail to the terminus at Elmira and then local roads to East Point, then back west to Campbell's Cove Campgound. 40 miles. 

The trail from St. Peter to Elmira runs along the shore at first and then cuts into the woods again. A long section is lined with maples whose branches meet overhead to make a long green tunnel, and it's completely magical. A slightly bittersweet day of endings, as we reach first the trail's end, at a railway museum we decide not to enter, and then the end of the island, where there's a lighthouse only I opt to climb. Here, as on North Cape, there's little traffic, and drivers give us plenty of room. 

We finish the day with a ride back west to the campground at Campbell's Cove. The view is over open ocean and we pitch our tent on the beach. A neighbor in an RV sets up a palm tree and plugs it in. Here, as on North Cape, there's little traffic, and drivers give us plenty of room. 

After sundown it's a clear night and the moon hasn't risen yet and The Offspring gets his first view of stars without light pollution. He's appropriately awed. 

Day 8 Monday Rest day

We opt for a second night in the same campground, taking our first rest day of the trip. This is one of the nicest campgrounds The Kate and I came Ed remember staying in, a combination of the facilities and the nicest people.  We move to a tiny cabin because rain is in the forecast and it sounds like a nice opportunity to stay dry. We eat ravenously and do laundry. The offspring and I get in a swim before the rain comes while The Mate bikes a few miles down the road to a farm. 

The rain comes, on and off.  We could have ridden through it, but we needed a rest day. The guys have found some other kids to play games with, and I take a nap.

We settle in for the night and I don't hear the wind I've become accustomed to, and I find I miss it. I seem to toss and turn rather than falling soundly to sleep as in the past several nights, maybe because I'm not dead tired from riding, maybe because we're sleeping in bunks, in separate beds, not like pa k animals in the burrow of our small tent. But eventually I sleep and later I wake to the sound of pouring, driving rain, and I'm glad not to be I n our tent above the shore. I wAke again later after the rain has stopped and walk across the grass to the toilets and step in puddles up to my ankles. 

Day 9, Campbell's cove to Brudenell provincial park, 45 miles. 

We awake to discover that the wind has shifted and is blowing due east, and hard. We set off along the East Point coastal road, and the  views are  beautiful and traffick light, but the wind gusty and progress difficult and slow. So we return to the Confederation Trail, away from the coast and protected by trees from the worst of the gusts. But the headwinds still mean slow progress and it takes us s ver hour to ride the 25 miles to St Peter's. We stop for a long lunch and decide to stop our ride and stay in the campground a km away. But then The Offspring decides he'd rather ride anothe 15 miles today so tomorrow's ride will be 10 miles shorter. And so we set off on one of the roads across the center of the island to cross to the south coast. The wind is now a cross wind rather thanked on, but the road is very hilly. We leave St. Peter's at 5 pm and we have to make good progress to make Brudenell by dark, and we push through

On the way up a long hill, The offspring calls to me. I stop. He pulls up beside me and tells me his pedal has cracked. I put a couple of zip ties around it for stability and wrap it in a couple of yards of duct tape and hope we can make it to Brudenell. I twist the tape the last few wraps around so it won't be too slippery. We ride a few hundred yards and I ask him how it feels. "Sticky."

Flying as an Environmentalist

The amount I’m flying this year is getting me down, because it’s hands-down the most carbon-intensive thing I do, and it negates all the carbon reductions I achieve by eating vegan, biking to work, and trying to reject consumer habits.

I’m flying this year to four conferences to give papers on ecocriticism — the study of how literature and other cultural artifacts like art, movies, and historical documents describe or depict how humans interact with the environment. My scholarly work deals with how the literature of early medieval England represents humans and the environments they occupy and imagine — from wilderness and forests through farms and their homes.

My engagement with medieval ecocriticisms is explicitly activist. I believe that thinking about the ways that humans of the past engaged with their environments can help us understand our present. I also believe that we’re in a time of climate crisis, and ecocritical humanities has to recognize that, and our scholarly endeavors have to advance understanding of the need to act, NOW. So that means I also need to act, myself — and all the flying is a real problem.

The last time I flew, I googled “carbon offsets” for flights, and rapidly went down a rabbit hole of conflicting information. One article claimed individuals don’t need to buy carbon offsets, because airlines are taking care of it. For example, they claimed Delta was providing carbon offsets for all travelers through certain airports, including the one I flew through. Turned out they were only doing that for flights taken on Earth Day.

I decided to create my own carbon sink by planting a tree for every flight I take this year. Here’s number one:

It’s a tiny, baby swamp white oak, maybe a foot tall. I planted it in a gully by Long Branch’s elementary school, with the help of a colleague and friend who has a contact there. In the photo, I’m building a cage made out of hardware cloth that will help protect the little tree from predators, mostly deer, and from accidentally being mowed. I’ll need to check on it periodically, and if we have a dry spell in the next four years I’ll have to water it.

My flights to Detroit, San Francisco, Albuquerque, and Charlottesville will add up to carbon emissions of about 3.4 tons.

A tree can sequester one ton of carbon in 40 years.

I plan to plant four trees this summer to offset the four flights I’m taking. And the labor of doing that is making me think harder about conference planning for next year, because I plan to continue planting trees to offset my own flights. But we’re in climate crisis now — we don’t have 40 years for the trees to grow.

Avoiding Plastic, Week One

A week into my commitment to avoid single-use plastics, an update.

The knife and fork set that my dad gave me, with 1960s-era vintage plastic handles, is traveling in my bag. I’ve been packing lunch and even dinner to avoid take-out. I ate out once, and put the leftovers in a plastic container I had with me, rather than taking a new one that I would then end up throwing away.

For the most part, I feel pretty good about it.

Sunday, though, was a fairly epic failure. I drove my son to Jenkinson’s to apply for a job and went to a coffee shop to wait for him. I ordered a latte — in a paper cup, because for once I didn’t have my reusable mug with me — and didn’t think to ask them not to put on a lid.

He got hired on the spot. I didn’t even have time to drink the coffee before we headed back to join some people at a restaurant for lunch.

One fender-bender later, we got hung up for so long my friend ended up getting my meal wrapped up to take home. I ended up with a salad in a styrofoam clamshell, rice in more styrofoam, and tofu and broccoli in an aluminum container with a plastic lid.

Plastic 2, Heide 0.

Still, it’s been easier than I anticipated. It’s also making me take a hard look at my grocery cart. 

A bottle of ketchup or hot sauce that will last for a few months seems less problematic than the box of tofu that will make one meal, or the tub of vegan yogurt that I’ll finish in three or four breakfasts. I’m paying more attention to whether I can get a comparable item packaged in glass, which is fully and indefinitely recylable, unlike plastic*. I’m avoiding the containers of delicious but environmentally disastrous tomatoes. 

I said last week I thought it would be almost impossible. On Sunday, I was foiled by one mistake and one bad driver. But I’ve definitely reduced the amount of plastic I would otherwise have used during the week, and I’m feeling good about going into week two

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* You can sterilize a glass bottle and refill it with beer, or whatever, or you can break it up and make a new bottle. You can’t make a plastic water bottle into another water bottle. Contamination problems mean that food-grade plastic can only be recycled for non-food uses, like fleece sweaters (that then shed microfleece particles every time they go through the washer) or plastic park benches. Either way, it’s not going away.

Six Weeks without Single-Use Plastic?

Lent isn’t my holiday, but I hope those of you who observe it won’t mind if I borrow it to re-commit myself to a couple of environment-friendly habits that have been hard for me to get behind.

It’s true, global warming isn’t going to go away because of the individual actions of a few tree-huggers. (I will admit to being a tree-hugger.) We need corporate and government action. 

But we also need personal change. We need to find ways to say “no” to the endless cycles of consumption encouraged by capitalism and the marketing that supports it.

Lent begins tomorrow, March 6, and runs through April 18. Six weeks is a good time span to establish new habits. My goals: Buy nothing new, and give up single use plastics.

I don’t anticipate not buying new things is going to be difficult, not for six weeks. Once Lent is over, I’ll see how much longer I can keep it up.

Giving up single-use plastics is going to be a much bigger challenge. I’ve developed the habit of carrying a mug with me. I start my day with coffee and when that’s gone I switch over to water. So I don’t use water bottles or coffee cups.

But I’ve come to rely on take-out meals to get me through busy weeks, and it’s going to be hard to go six weeks without a take-out meal. It’s going to be hard to remember next time I’m at a reception not to grab a plastic plate and fork to have some cut up fruit or vegetables and hummus.

I might make it through six weeks without any single-use plastic items, but I’m certainly not going to be able to make it through six weeks without any plastic at all, because of the ubiquity of plastic packaging that comes with groceries. Most of those containers are bigger than single servings, so it’s not technically single-use, but it’s close.

I just went to the grocery store. I bought a couple of bars of soap in cardboard boxes, but inside the boxes — plastic wrap. Yogurt, in a plastic container, dishwasher detergent pods in a plastic bag. Garlic and onions, each in a plastic mesh bag. Almonds and walnuts, each in a plastic bag. Biodegradable plastic garbage bags — in a plastic bag. Calcium tablets in a little plastic jar, and two toothbrushes, both made of plastic and packaged in more plastic.

So at the same time that I’m trying to quit single-use plastic, I’m also going to try to limit the plastic packaging that comes with my food.

Wish me luck. It’s going to be hard.

Biking in the Cold

I'm teaching in two places this semester. My home institution, Monmouth University, has graciously given me permission to teach at New York University, where I have the absolutely amazing privilege to run a graduate seminar on Medieval Ecocriticisms. What that means, though, is a lot more travel, and I'm trying not to drive if possible.

So  yesterday I biked 2.5 miles from my place on the Lower East Side to the NYU English Department, and then a few hours later, biked home again. It was probably at or close to the day's high of 17 degrees when I left, and down to 15 or so for my trip home. This morning, when I walked from my Long Branch rental to campus at Monmouth, it was five degrees.

I am not a hero, I am not an amazon, and I am not a monster. I'm just well prepared. For my bike ride yesterday, I wore a dress with warm leggings and a wool sweater -- and over that, snowboarding pants, a down vest, a warm winter jacket, down-lined gloves, a hat, and a gore-tex helmet cover. Plus Dermatone, a Swedish ointment that's kind of like lip gloss for the face (and, importantly, does not make me break out), to keep exposed skin from frostbite.

In the United States, our lives are organized, economically and culturally, in ways based on a historic sense of natural resources being endless. And on this large continent, for many decades we could reasonably believe that they were.

Twenty years ago I'd have said biking in single-digit temperatures was impossible. But I learned how to do it, and biking at 15 degrees yesterday was brisk, but not uncomfortable. I got cold hands and feet, but there are degrees of cold, ranging from tolerable to dangerous, and I was nowhere near danger.

Even as it's becoming clear that we not longer can operate on the assumption of limitless resources, we have built lives that are structured on that idea. Which means changing our lives means changing our ideas about how housing and communities and commutes are organized, among many other things. That's complicated, but it's not impossible. We can change our behavior, individually, and we can lobby our elected officials and hold corporations accountable. It's hard, but we can do it.

Also: Choosing to commute in the cold without the warm cocoon of a car is a good reminder that there are many people who don't have a choice: their jobs require them to be outdoors in all kinds of weather.

What Will You Do? A Birthday Request

I’m turning 55 this month. Facebook has been encouraging me to set up a donation link and ask all my friends to contribute to my favorite cause. Instead, I’m asking my friends to do something about the environment.

Climate change has become a huge problem, and we are all going to be affected in our lifetimes. You don’t need me to tell you all the ways we’re doomed.

I’m not going to tell you what to do — we need action in so many different spheres and at so many different levels. If you’re going to keep up a commitment, it has to be to something that you feel is meaningful and that you are comfortable doing. 

We need government action, we need corporate action, and we need individual action. We need carbon taxes, we need businesses to adopt environmentally responsible processes, we need better public transit, we need better pedestrian and bike routes, and we need to stop consuming and wasting so much stuff at the individual level.

Maybe you’d be comfortable making a weekly phone call to an elected official — local, state, or federal — urging them to take positive action on some issue concerning the environment. Maybe you hold stocks, and you can try to persuade the corporations you invest in to take more environmentally responsible actions. Or you are vested in a retirement account and you can persuade its managers to disinvest from fossil fuels.

Maybe you want to try giving up fast fashion, spending more money on fewer items of clothing that will last longer. 

Maybe you want to try eating lower on the food chain, or cutting back on beef and dairy, which are worse for the environment than vegetable sources of protein but also worse than chicken and eggs.

Maybe you think it would be an interesting challenge to give up single-use plastics, whether water bottles, take-out containers, or soap and shampoo bottles. Maybe you can persuade your favorite take-out place to switch to paper containers. Maybe you’ll get a reusable coffee cup and get your coffee shop to put your morning brew in it instead of into paper or styrofoam.

Maybe you want to turn down the heat and put on a sweater, or in the summer turn up the heat and put on a fan. Maybe you can buy your electricity from a company that uses renewable sources, or even put solar panels on your roof.

Maybe you’re willing to give up your lawn, and the chemical fertilizers and pest control chemicals you’re using to maintain it, and instead create a yard full of native flowers and shrubs that will attract bees and butterflies and birds, and native trees that will do those things plus sequester carbon and provide summer-time shade that will reduce your need for air conditioning.

Maybe you believe environmental justice should be our biggest priority, and you want to volunteer for a few hours a month with an organization that helps both people and the environment.

Maybe you’re contemplating a move, and you want to choose a new home based in part on environmental criteria: well insulated? In a multi-unit building, so it can share heating and cooling via walls adjacent to other units? Close to public transit so you can take a bus or train to work or to school? Close enough to work so that you can walk or ride a bike?

My own commitments for the year are to recommit to a number of environmentally responsible habits, including use of public transit, avoiding take-out, and keeping my shopping for anything other than necessities to a bare minimum, and to get back to blogging about environmental issues. My goal will be to post weekly. Once a month, I’ll tell you what I am doing myself to help the environment. In other posts, I’ll provide more information about the things I’ve mentioned above, along with links to sources, as well as other ideas about things we can do to make the world a better place, big as well as small.

Do I have 55 friends who are with me? Please post in the comments section, or if you’d rather be anonymous, message me. Thank you.